Tag: Priest Abusers

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Canadian bishop in child porn case apologizes

A Canadian Roman Catholic bishop charged with importing child pornography apologized in court Tuesday to the church and to victims of child pornography.

Speaking for the first time since he was charged in 2009 with possessing and importing child pornography, Bishop Raymond Lahey told the court that his addiction to Internet porn went against his moral principles.

“I am truly sorry for what I have done,” said a frail and gaunt Lahey on the second day of his sentencing hearing. “I know that I’ve done wrong.”

In a rare case of a high-ranking Canadian Catholic Church official charged with sexual misconduct, Lahey was arrested in 2009 after border agents examined his laptop computer at an Ontario airport on his return home from London.

Police found close to 600 photos on Lahey’s laptop and hand-held device depicting mostly young teen boys.

The court has heard that Lahey’s collection included photos of young boys wearing crucifixes and rosary beads, as well as images of bondage and torture.
“They are graphic (images) in the extreme,” said prosecution lawyer David Elhadad.
Lahey sat with his arms crossed as the judge and the lawyers looked at photos from his collection.

Later, he offered some insight into his actions.
“Deep down, I desired to be found out,” Lahey told the court. “Being discovered coming through customs was a blessing in disguise.”

He pleaded guilty to the charges in May and voluntarily went to jail to begin serving time before his formal sentencing.

The former Nova Scotia bishop will be sentenced Jan. 4 on one count of importing child pornography, with a second charge of simple possession expected to be dropped as part of a plea deal.

After he pleaded guilty, the Vatican said the church would impose its own disciplinary measures against him but did not elaborate.

Prelates who sexually abuse minors can be defrocked; lesser punishments include being forbidden from celebrating Mass publicly.

Lahey resigned as head of the Catholic diocese of Antigonish in Nova Scotia just before the charges became public.

The case was especially shocking to Canadians because Lahey had overseen a multimillion dollar settlement for clerical sexual abuse victims in his diocese before he was charged.

Last year, in the midst of the clerical abuse scandal, the Vatican made acquiring, possessing or distributing child pornography one of the most serious canonical crimes that are handled by the powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Complete Article HERE!

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Institutional Dutch Catholic abuse ‘affected thousands’

Tens of thousands of children have suffered sexual abuse in Dutch Catholic institutions since 1945, a report says.

The report by an independent commission said Catholic officials had failed to tackle the widespread abuse at schools, seminaries and orphanages.

But the report also found that one in five children who attended an institution suffered abuse – regardless of whether it was Catholic.

“This episode fills us with shame and sorrow,” said a bishops’ statement.

The commission, which began work in August 2010, sought to uncover what had gone on and how it had happened, and examined what kind of justice should be offered to victims.

It was triggered by allegations of abuse at a Catholic school in the east Netherlands, which prompted other alleged victims to come forward.

It studied 1,800 complaints of abuse at Catholic institutions, identifying 800 alleged perpetrators, just over 100 of whom are still alive.

It also conducted a broader survey of more than 34,000 people, to gain a more comprehensive picture of the scale and nature of abuse suffered by Dutch minors.
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The problem of sexual abuse was known… but the appropriate actions were not undertaken”
— Commission report

The report estimates that 10,000-20,000 minors were abused in the care of Catholic institutions between 1945 and 1981, when the number of Church-run homes dropped. In the years between 1981 and 2011, several more thousands suffered at the hands of priests and others working for the Church.

Most of the cases involved mild to moderate abuse, such as touching, but the report estimated there were “several thousand” instances of rape.
‘Widespread in Dutch society’

“The problem of sexual abuse was known in the orders and dioceses of the Dutch Catholic Church,” the commission says, according to news agency AFP, “but the appropriate actions were not undertaken.”

A taboo on discussing sexuality in society until the 1960s and the Catholic Church’s “closed” administrative structure were some of the reasons for the official failure to respond effectively to the problem, the commission said.

“Then again, people simply could not believe that a religious person could do that,” commission chief Wim Deetman told a news conference.
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What was happening was sexual abuse, violence, spiritual terror, and that should have been investigated”
— Bert Smeets Abuse victim

The report also estimates that one in 10 Dutch children have suffered some form of abuse, rising to one in five among those who had attended an institution – regardless of whether it was Catholic.

“Sexual abuse of minors is widespread in Dutch society,” the commission reportedly said.

Bert Smeets, an abuse victim who attended the presentation of the report, said it did not go far enough in detailing precisely exactly what happened.

“What was happening was sexual abuse, violence, spiritual terror, and that should have been investigated,” Mr Smeets told the Associated Press news agency. “It remains vague. All sorts of things happened but nobody knows exactly what or by whom. This way, they avoid responsibility.”

According to AP, prosecutors say the inquiry referred 11 cases to them – without naming the alleged perpetrators. They opened only one investigation based on those reports, saying the other 10 did not contain enough detailed information and appeared to have happened too long ago to prosecute.

Last month the Dutch branch of the Catholic Church set up a sliding compensation system based on the severity of abuse suffered, offering compensation of between 5,000 and 100,000 euros (£4,200-84,000; $6,500-130,000).

Mr Deetman, a former government minister, headed the commission, which also includes a former judge, university professors and a psychologist.

Its findings have been keenly awaited by the Dutch population, 29% of whom are identified as Catholic, the BBC’s Anna Holligan reports from The Hague.

Complete Article HERE!

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A Renewed Push to Allow Later Reports of Sexual Abuse

With reports of child sexual abuse rocking two college sports programs, New York State lawmakers plan to revisit lifting time limits on lawsuits by victims, an issue that has pitted the Roman Catholic Church and other institutions against advocates for children.
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Fearing millions in payouts, the church, as well as schools, municipalities, synagogues and others with potential liability, has helped block similar measures in New York. The Assembly has passed legislation three times, with the bills dying in the Senate.

Assemblywoman Margaret M. Markey, a Queens Democrat, is the chief sponsor of the current bill, which includes a one-year window for victims to file previously barred claims. The current statute of limitations in New York for civil claims is five years after the episode has been reported to the police or five years after the victim turns 18. (State lawmakers in 2008 lifted the time limits altogether for first-degree rape, aggravated sexual abuse and multiple acts of sexual conduct against a child.)

Ms. Markey said that abuse was an issue across society and that recent cases at Penn State University, Syracuse University and other institutions had undercut the claim that her bill was anti-Catholic.

“It is something we have to deal with as a society and protect our children,” Ms. Markey said. She said research shows that 20 percent of children are affected by sexual abuse, that the trauma is lifelong and that, for many victims, the one-year window might be the only way to get justice. She has sought support for her measure from the administration of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.

On Wednesday, Mr. Cuomo said he would introduce legislation to require college and high school coaches to report possible child sexual abuse to the police. “Parents need to be sure that their children are safe in programs and activities that are organized by and at colleges,” he said.

College employees are currently not required to report suspected child sexual abuse to the authorities, according to the governor’s office, though for public school teachers, reporting is mandatory. Mr. Cuomo said his proposal would close that gap.

Assemblymen James N. Tedisco and George Amedore made a similar proposal in November.

Complete Article HERE!

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Pennsylvania priest arrested, accused of possessing child porn

A Roman Catholic priest was arrested on charges he viewed child pornography in the rectory of his Pittsburgh-area church, the diocese said on Sunday.

The Rev. Bartley Sorensen, 62, pastor of St. John Fisher Church in Churchill, Pennsylvania, was arraigned on charges of possession of child pornography, a third-degree felony, according to the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

He was being held on Sunday in the Allegheny County Jail in lieu of a $100,000 bond, jail officials said.

Sorensen was arrested after a church employee walked into the rectory on Friday and saw Sorensen viewing a computer image of a young boy naked from the waist down, with the words “Hottie Boys” on the screen, police said. She alerted diocesan officials, who immediately contacted police.

Allegheny County detectives found pornographic images of young boys on his computer, police said. During an interview, Sorensen admitted to possessing at least 100 pornographic pictures of children, police said. He has not been charged with abusing children.

Accusations of child abuse and sexual impropriety against Catholic clergy in the United States have rocked the Catholic Church since 2002, and the church has paid out some $2 billion in settlements to abuse victims.

The pornography arrest also comes amid a series of separate scandals that have seen a steady march of men make abuse accusations in recent weeks against coaches at Penn State University, Syracuse University and most recently against a top official at the Amateur Athletic Union.

The Pittsburgh diocese said in a statement that Sorensen had been placed on administrative leave.

“The viewing of pornographic images involving children is a disturbing and criminal act,” the statement said. “The Diocese of Pittsburgh is cooperating to the fullest extent in the investigation of this incident.”

A priest for 35 years, Sorensen had been a pastor at St. John Fisher only for several weeks, having been previously assigned for nine months to St. Anne Church in Castle Shannon, Pennsylvania. His past includes an assignment as chaplain at West Penn Hospital in Pittsburgh.

The Rev. Ronald Lengwin, diocese spokesman, said the diocese had provided Sorensen with the names of several possible attorneys after his arrest but it was unclear who he had retained for the criminal case.

Complete Article HERE!

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Irish Archbishop Who Died in ’73 Is Linked to Abuse

The former archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid, widely regarded as the most powerful Catholic prelate in modern Irish history, stands accused of serial child sexual abuse, The Irish Times newspaper said Thursday.

Two specific complaints and a separate unspecified “concern” against an unidentified cleric were reported to the Murphy Commission, a state-sponsored investigation into the handling of clerical sexual abuse of children in the Dublin archdiocese. The newspaper reported that Archbishop McQuaid, who retired in 1972 and died a year later, was the unidentified cleric.

The commission published its main report in 2009, but it said that “due to human error” the latest allegations emerged only in a supplementary report published in July. This does not name Archbishop McQuaid, but the newspaper is adamant that the allegations of abuse contained within it refer to the archbishop. One allegation is regarding abuse of a 12-year-old boy in 1961.

“The supplementary report records that in June/July 2009, as the commission was completing its main report, it received information which would have ‘brought another cleric’ within its remit,” Patsy McGarry, the newspaper’s religious affairs correspondent, said in an interview. The archdiocese “found a letter ‘which showed that there was an awareness among a number of people in the archdiocese that there had been a concern expressed about this cleric in 1999,’ the report states. The ‘cleric’ is Archbishop McQuaid.”

The main body of the Murphy report was highly critical of Archbishop McQuaid’s attitude toward abuse, accusing him of showing “no concern for the welfare of children.” However, this is the first suggestion that the official body had received specific complaints against Archbishop McQuaid, who was at the very apex of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland for three decades.

In a statement, a victims’ group, One in Four, called for a statutory inquiry into the accusations, saying that “if Archbishop McQuaid was, as is alleged, a sex offender himself, then it is no wonder that the secrecy and cover-ups which have characterized the church’s handling of sexual abuse was so entrenched.”

The archdiocese told the newspaper that the police were investigating the matters dealt with in the supplementary report. There is also a separate civil action being taken against the archdiocese by one complainant.

Complete Article HERE!