Tag: Priest Abusers

Posted on

Vatican newspaper praises Spotlight for confronting ‘horrendous realities’

Holy See-owned L’Osservatore Romano hails Tom McCarthy’s best picture Oscar winner, which shows systemic abuse and cover-ups by Catholic church

S_09836.CR2
S_09836.CR2

By 

The Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, has praised the 2016 best picture Oscar winner Spotlight for its convincing attempt to show abuse and cover-ups in the Catholic church.

The newspaper published a front-page editorial on Monday hailing Tom McCarthy’s film and calling it “not anti-Catholic”. The editorial said Spotlight, which centres on the work of a group of Boston Globe reporters to uncover abuse by Roman Catholic priests, faithfully presented the church’s attempts to defend itself in the face of “horrendous realities”.

“Not all monsters wear cassocks. Paedophilia does not necessarily arise from the vow of chastity,” wrote the editorial’s author, Lucetta Scaraffia. “However, it has become clear that in the Church some are more preoccupied with the image of the institution than of the seriousness of the act.”

Spotlight paints a picture of widespread abuse by members of the Catholic church in Boston and elsewhere, with officials turning a blind eye to the molestation of hundreds of children by priests over a period of decades. The reporters responsible won the 2003 Pulitzer prize for public service.

Accepting the best picture prize on Sunday night, producer Michael Sugar said he hoped the film had given a voice to the survivors of the abuse that would “become a choir that would resonate all the way to the Vatican”. He continued with a direct call to the pontiff: “Pope Francis, it’s time to protect the children and restore the faith.”

L’Osservatoire Romano’s editorial insisted such pleas “should be seen as a positive sign,” adding: “There is still trust in the institution, there is trust in a Pope who is continuing the cleaning begun by his predecessor.”

In February, the film was screened privately for staff working for a new commission set up by Pope Francis to fight sex abuse within the Catholic church.

L’Osservatore Romano has been owned by the Holy See since 1861 but is no longer as conservative as it once was. In 1960, it launched a full-scale attack on La Dolce Vita, labelling Federico Fellini’s classic of Roman indolence and debauchery an “incitement to evil crime and vice”, deploring its effect on “unsafe minds” and rebuking Fellini for trying to “moralise through immorality”.

More recently, the newspaper has taken a more liberal approach to cinema, complaining last year that the villains in Star Wars: The Force Awakens were not evil enough and even praising 2012’s Skyfall for its “extremely beautiful Bond girls”.

Complete Article HERE!

Posted on

Top Vatican cardinal says pope backs him on stance over abuse issue

By Philip Pullella and Jane Wardell

 

Senior Counsel Assisting Gail Furness stands in front of a screen displaying Australian Cardinal George Pell as he holds a bible while appearing via video link from a hotel in Rome, Italy to testify at the Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney, Australia, February 29, 2016.
Senior Counsel Assisting Gail Furness stands in front of a screen displaying Australian Cardinal George Pell as he holds a bible while appearing via video link from a hotel in Rome, Italy to testify at the Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney, Australia, February 29, 2016.

Australian Cardinal George Pell, the highest-ranking Vatican official to testify on systemic sexual abuse of children by clergy in the Roman Catholic Church, said on Monday that he has the full backing of Pope Francis.

Pell on Sunday told Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse that the church made “enormous mistakes” and “catastrophic” choices by attempting to cover up abuses in the 1970s.

Pell’s testimony has received global coverage. Because of his high position in the Vatican, the Australian inquiry into sexual abuse cases that occurred decades ago has taken on wider implications about the accountability of church leaders.

Pell, 74, has become the focal point for victims’ frustration over what they say has been an inadequate response from church leaders. Pell himself is not accused of sexual abuse and has twice apologized for the Church’s slow response.

“I have the full backing of the pope,” Pell told reporters as he arrived at Rome’s Hotel Quirinale to give evidence in front of former abuse victims who traveled to Italy for the late night sessions.

In his position as Vatican treasurer, Pell met with Pope Francis for a routine meeting earlier on Monday, after telling the inquiry he was “not here to defend the indefensible.”

He said was aware of rumors and complaints against pedophile clergy when he was a young priest in the 1970s, but that Church superiors tended to give priests the benefit of the doubt, something he acknowledged was wrong.

Pell said children were often not believed, abusive priests were shuffled from parish to parish and the Church was over-reliant on the use of counseling of priests to prevent further abuses.

The strong language was welcomed by former victims, but Pell’s failing memory on specifics angered witnesses in Rome and Sydney. He repeatedly said he could not recall specific incidents when he was asked about them.

Special prosecutor Gail Furness quizzed Pell via video link from Sydney on Monday. There were audible gasps as the Cardinal said he was deceived by Church leaders who did not inform him about claims against Father Gerald Ridsdale among others.

Ridsdale, who was repeatedly moved from parish to parish, was later convicted of 138 offences against 53 victims.

Ridsdale’s nephew, David Ridsdale, was among 15 abuse victims and supporters who traveled to Rome on the back of a crowd-funding campaign to see Pell give evidence after he said he was unable to travel to his native Australia because of heart problems.

SPOTLIGHT WIN

Last year, Pell denied accusations made at Commission hearings that he had tried to bribe a victim to remain quiet, that he ignored another complaint and that he was complicit in the transfer of a pedophile priest.

Church sexual abuse broke into the open in 2002, when it was discovered that U.S. bishops in the Boston area moved abusers from parish to parish instead of defrocking them. Similar scandals have since been discovered around the world and tens of millions of dollars have been paid in compensation.

The hearing started on the same night that Spotlight, a film about newspaper reporters who uncovered systemic paedophilia in the Church in Boston, won the Academy Award for best picture.

The Vatican newspaper dedicated two articles to the win, saying Spotlight was not an anti-Catholic film as some have claimed.

“The ogres were not exclusively men in cassocks. Paedophilia does not necessarily derive from a vow of chastity,” the newspaper said. “But it is by now clear that there were too many people in the Church who were more worried about the image of the institution than the gravity of the act.”

Complete Article HERE!

Posted on

Pell denies abuse accusations and criticises suspicious timing

This coming 29 February, the cardinal is to give evidence before an Australian commission, via video link from Rome. The cardinal, who has been accused of covering up child sex abuse cases, said the false news report printed by the Herald Sun is outrageous

Cardinal Pell
Cardinal Pell denies outright the sex abuse allegations made against him and corroborated by Australian newspaper Herald Sun.

By IACOPO SCARAMUZZI

Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop Emeritus of Sydney and Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, has denied outright the sex abuse allegations made against him and corroborated by Australian newspaper Herald Sun. One week before he is due to give evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, via video link from Rome, the cardinal also criticised the suspicious timing of the news leak. Some victims are accusing him not of actually carrying out acts of sexual abuse but of covering up cases that were reported to him in recent decades. He was responsible for the priests who are said to have committed the offences.

“Cardinal Pell is due to give evidence to the Royal Commission in just over one week. The timing of these leaks is clearly designed to do maximum damage to the Cardinal and the Catholic Church and undermines the work of the Royal Commission,” says a statement leaked by Pell’s offices. “The allegations are without foundation and utterly false.”

The Herald Sun wrote that Cardinal Pell is being investigated by Victoria Police’s Sano Taskforce, over alleged abuse against minors both consistently and occasionally when he was still only a priest in Ballarat and when archbishop of Melbourne.

“It is outrageous that these allegations have been brought to the Cardinal’s attention through a media leak,” the statement reads. “The Cardinal has called for a public inquiry into the leaking of these spurious claims by elements in the Victorian Police in a manner clearly designed to embarrass the Cardinal, in a case study where the historical failures of the Victorian Police have been the subject of substantial evidence.”

In his statement, Cardinal Pell refers to the Southwell Report, an independent Church inquiry into the accusations of abuse the cardinal allegedly committed against an altar boy at a summer camp on Phillip Island in 1962. The investigation, which was conducted by retired Supreme Court judge, Alec Southwell, ended with the cardinal’s absolution. The Phillip Island allegations have been on the public record for nearly 15 years. The Southwell Report which exonerated Cardinal Pell has been in the public domain since 2002,” today’s statement reads. “The Victorian police have taken no steps in all of that time to pursue the false allegations made, however the Cardinal certainly has no objection to them reviewing the materials that led Justice Southwell to exonerate him. The Cardinal is certain that the police will quickly reach the conclusion that the allegations are false.” “The Victorian Police have never sought to interview him in relation to any allegations of child sexual abuse and apart from the false allegations investigated by Justice Southwell, the Cardinal knows of no claims or incidents which relate to him.”

Cardinal Pell, the statement says, “strongly denies any wrongdoing. If the police wish to question him he will co-operate, as he has with each and every public inquiry. In the meantime, the Cardinal understands that several media outlets have received confidential information leaked by someone within the Victorian Police.” Thus, “the Cardinal calls on the Premier and the Police Minister to immediately investigate the leaking of these baseless allegations”.

Cardinal Pell will give evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse via video link on 29 February. 15 victims are travelling to Rome to attend the cardinal’s hearing, with money raised through a crowdfunding initiative. “As an archbishop for almost 20 years he has led from the front to put an end to cover-ups, to protect vulnerable people and to try to bring justice to victims,” says a separate statement released by the office of 74-year-old cardinal Pell, who was granted permission not to travel to Australia for the hearing, due to the serious health risks involved. “As Cardinal Pell has done after earlier hearings, he is prepared to meet with and listen to victims and express his ongoing support.”

Complete Article HERE!

Posted on

Cardinal O’Malley: We have a moral and ethical responsibility to report abuse

By 

Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley of Boston, head of the Pontifical Commission for Child Protection, speaks at a news conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome on Feb. 16, 2015. Photo by Paul Haring, courtesy of Catholic News Service
Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston, head of the Pontifical Commission for Child Protection, speaks at a news conference at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome on Feb. 16, 2015.

Catholic clergy have a “moral and ethical responsibility” to report sexual abuse, the cardinal tasked with reforming the Vatican’s approach to sexual crimes said after criticism of the Holy See.

Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley sought to reaffirm the church’s position on reporting abuse in his role as head of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which Pope Francis set up in 2014.

“Our obligations under civil law must certainly be followed, but even beyond these civil requirements, we all have a moral and ethical responsibility to report suspected abuse to the civil authorities who are charged with protecting our society,” O’Malley said in a statement Monday (Feb. 15).

O’Malley’s comments followed a report that a French priest told new bishops they were under no duty to report abuse allegations to the police.

Monsignor Tony Anatrella, who serves as an adviser to the Pontifical Council for the Family and the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, made the statement during a presentation, it was reported last week.

O’Malley denied that churchmen were effectively told to ignore abuse.

“Every year at our November meeting, at a training session for new bishops, this obligation is reaffirmed,” he said, adding: “And every other February the conference runs a second training program for new bishops, which also clearly and explicitly includes this obligation.”

The pontifical commission has come under renewed scrutiny recently after one of the two victims on the panel was sidelined. Peter Saunders, who was abused as a child in Britain, is taking a “leave of absence,” the commission announced.

Saunders disputed the nature of his leave and said only Pope Francis could permanently remove him from the commission.

“A number of members of the commission expressed their concern that I don’t toe the line when it comes to keeping my mouth shut,” Saunders said on Feb. 6, describing the advisory body as “a public relations exercise.”

The second abuse victim on the commission, Marie Collins from Ireland, said she remained committed to the commission’s reform goals.

Collins did, however, raise concerns about the reaction of some within the Vatican administration to the pope’s commission.

“I feel strongly that anyone criticizing the commission is choosing the wrong target. There are many of good will in the Curia but unfortunately there are still those, at this top level, who worry more about their own fiefdoms and the threat of change than they do about the work the Commission is trying to do to protect children,” she told National Catholic Reporter on Feb. 9.

Complete Article HERE!

Posted on

Ex-priest John Feit arrested in former beauty queen Irene Garza’s 1960 murder case

A former Catholic priest faces a first-degree murder charge for allegedly killing a onetime beauty queen who was last seen alive the night he heard her confession.

001John Feit, 83, had long been the main suspect in the 1960 death of schoolteacher Irene Garza, but he wasn’t arrested until Tuesday in Scottsdale, Arizona.

According to an indictment unsealed Wednesday, a grand jury in Hidalgo County, Texas, decided there was enough evidence to charge that Feit, “with malice aforethought, (caused) the death of Irene Garza by asphyxiation in a manner and means unknown to the grand jury.”

Garza was last seen alive the night before Easter 1960, when Feit heard her confession at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen, Texas. Five days later, searchers found the body of the 25-year-old former Miss South Texas facedown in a canal.

In 2004, a grand jury heard the case but decided not to indict Feit. Authorities haven’t released details about what’s changed since then.

“At this point I am being very careful about what information I’m giving out there,” Hidalgo County District Attorney Ricardo Rodriguez told CNN about his decision to present the case to the grand jury again, and the outcome.

“All I can say at this point is that we’ve had about a year and two months to start and look through this case,” he said. “We had the facts and evidence to proceed.”004

In a sworn statement to authorities and during an interview with CNN in 2013, Feit denied he killed Garza.

Feit told police Garza left the rectory after he heard her confession and the last time he saw her, she was standing outside the church.

‘This whole thing makes no sense’

Feit said Wednesday that he would fight extradition to Texas. He’s behind bars in Maricopa County, Arizona, where a judge set his bond at $750,000.

Feit used a walker to steady himself as he approached the podium during his first court appearance Wednesday. He told the judge he was puzzled.

“This whole thing makes no sense to me, because the crime in question took place in 1960,” he said.

Investigators came to Arizona and questioned him extensively in 2003, he said.

003“That was 13 years ago,” he said. “I’m totally puzzled by something coming up now, after the fact.”

Rodriguez said authorities will keep pushing for Feit’s extradition.

“We are working to make sure he comes back to Hidalgo County to stand trial so justice can be served and Ms. Garza’s family can have closure,” the prosecutor said in a written statement released Wednesday evening. “We will elaborate further with additional details once we have completed the extradition process.”

The case that shook a city

An autopsy determined Garza had been raped while in a coma and then died from suffocation. Near Garza’s body investigators found items that belonged to the church, including a candelabra.

One item, a metallic Kodak slide photo viewer, belonged to Feit, at the time a 27-year-old priest who was assigned to the church.

Questioned by police, Feit failed polygraph tests.

What also made police suspicious was that 24 days before the killing, Feit had been arrested for attacking another young woman at a church in a town about 10 miles from McAllen.

Feit pleaded no contest to misdemeanor aggravated assault. A judge found him guilty and fined him $500 with no prison time.

Sacrilegious

The crime shocked the people of McAllen. It was unthinkable that a Catholic priest would commit such a crime. That’s the way Garza’s cousins remember it.

“We were accusing a priest that — in those days priests were infallible, ” said Lynda De La Vina, who was 9 years old at the time.002

Another cousin, Noemi Sigler, was only 10 when Garza was killed. “It was impossible for a priest to do such a deed. I mean, if you thought of it, that would be sacrilegious.”

But Feit was the likely suspect, said former Texas Ranger Lt. Rudy Jaramillo, who started investigating the murder in 2002 when he served with a Rangers cold case unit. The evidence, he said, “suggests and indicates that that’s who it’s pointing to.”

Garza cousin: It was ‘a cover-up’

Authorities at the time protected Feit, said Sigler. “I don’t know whether it was out of respect for the church or anger or fear, I have no idea,” she said. Shortly after the killing, the church transferred Feit far away to a monastery. He would be moved to other locations over time, and about three years after the killing, the church transferred Feit to Our Lady of Assumption monastery in Ava, Missouri.

Sheltering Feit “was about protecting the church and somehow believing that the church takes care of their own,” said De La Vina. “It was the best that could have happened at that point. Because nothing else was being done.”

Sigler describes her view in more succinct terms: It was “a cover-up.”

During the next four decades, the case grew colder and eventually faded from the headlines. But the cousins kept pushing until 2002, when the Rangers and Jaramillo reinvigorated the investigation.

Hopes for solving the case were never higher when two surprise witnesses independently come forward, each separately claiming that they heard Feit confess.

But then-District Attorney Rene Guerra delayed bringing the case before a grand jury for years, saying their testimony wasn’t credible.

Complete Article HERE!