|
Archives > Volume 8 Issue 29 - April 23, 2010 Catholic Church faces more resignations, suits...Pope Benedict has accepted the resignation of Bishop James Moriarty, the Vatican said Thursday, bringing to three the number of Irish bishops who have stepped down due to the sexual abuse crisis. MSNBC story here 
Moriarty tendered his resignation in December, after an official report named him among Church leaders in the Dublin archdiocese who had covered up cases of child sex abuse by priests for 30 years.
He was auxiliary bishop of Dublin from 1991 until his appointment as bishop of Kildare and Leighlin in 2002. Hundreds of cases of sexual and physical abuse of youths in recent decades by priests have come to light in Europe and the United States in the last month as disclosures encourage long-silent victims to finally go public with their complaints. Pope Benedict, under criticism from victims for not taking more energetic steps to counter the sex abuse scandal, pledged Wednesday that the Roman Catholic Church would take action. ABC News story here Two other bishops named in the report have also offered to resign, but the Vatican has not yet announced any decision in their cases. (More from MSNBC story here.) Cardinal Sean Brady, the primate of Ireland, has come under heavy pressure to resign because he was involved in having abuse victims sign secrecy agreements decades ago. He has said he would not step down. In Germany, Augsburg Bishop Walter Mixa offered his resignation Wednesday evening after admitting he physically abused children while a parish priest decades ago. Roman Catholic leaders in Britain also issued an apology Thursday for child abuse by clergy, saying the scandal has brought shame on the church. Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols, the head of the church in England and Wales, said the crimes of some priests were a "profound scandal" that "bring deep shame to the whole church." He expressed the church's "heartfelt apology and deep sorrow to those who have suffered abuse, those who have felt ignored, disbelieved or betrayed." Also, in Mexico, the country's top clergyman was accused in a new lawsuit of ignoring two decades of sexual abuse by a Roman Catholic priest and of conspiring to shuttle him between the United States and Mexico to avoid arrest. The case, filed on Tuesday in a California court, is being brought by an anonymous man who says he was raped in 1997 as a 12-year-old in Mexico by a priest accused of numerous abuse charges in both countries. The lawsuit claims Cardinal Norberto Rivera knew about the priest's history of abuse and protected him from prosecution, allowing him to continue as a practicing priest until he was defrocked last year. 
Meanwhile, another lawsuit from the U.S. aims to place blame for priest sexual abuse at the highest levels of the Roman Catholic Church by claiming the Vatican controls leadership, fundraising and doctrine down to the lowest levels. AP story here
The lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. federal court claims top leaders at the Vatican knew about allegations of sexual abuse at St. John's School for the Deaf outside Milwaukee and called off internal punishment of the accused priest, the Reverend Lawrence Murphy. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of an Illinois man by St. Paul, Minnesota-based attorney Jeff Anderson, who also has a pending lawsuit against the Vatican in Oregon for a man who claims he was abused at his Catholic school in the 1960s. Among the pieces of evidence in the Wisconsin suit is a 1995 letter from one of Murphy's alleged victims detailing the problems at St. John's. It was addressed to the No. 2 person in the Vatican, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who was then secretary of state. It was written a year before it was first believed the case was brought to the attention of the Vatican. Lastly, the pedophile priest scandal currently enveloping the Vatican has spread to one of the most Catholic areas of the world following a string of new abuse revelations throughout Latin America. The Independent story here Reports of priests raping or abusing minors have now emerged in Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay, Mexico and Chile causing growing anger in a continent that is home to nearly half the world's Catholics. 
In Brazil an 83-year-old priest has been arrested after he was secretly filmed in bed with a 19-year-old altar boy. The footage was broadcast on national television networks prompting a police investigation which led to the arrest of Monsignor Luiz Marques Barbosa and two other priests in the north eastern state of Alagoas. They have since been accused of abusing boys as young as 12 and have been suspended by their diocesan bishop.
The Catholic Church in Chile confirmed this week that there have been 20 alleged or confirmed cases of child abuse by priests. At a press conference yesterday, Monsignor Alejandro Goic, the head of Chile's bishops' conference, apologized and vowed to crack down on any priests who had abused children. "There is no place in the priesthood for those who abuse minors, and there is nothing that can justify this crime," he said. Reporters in Uruguay have also discovered that a priest who had been charged with raping three children in Bolivia had returned to his homeland and was living openly with full knowledge of local church officials. And Belgium's longest serving bishop resigned, saying he was "enormously sorry" for having sexually abused a young boy about 25 years ago. CBS News story here The resignation of Roger Vangheluwe, 73, the Bishop of Bruges since 1984, was the first from Belgium since a child abuse scandal began testing the Catholic Church several months ago in Europe and the United States. Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard of Belgium read a statement in which Vangheluwe announced his resignation and admitted to sexual abuse. "When I was not yet a bishop, and some time later, I abused a boy," Vangheluwe said in the statement. He did not attend the news conference, but said Pope Benedict XVI had accepted his resignation. In other news... 
A Boy Scouts of America executive on Wednesday told a jury considering whether to award $25 million in punitive damages in a sex abuse lawsuit that a prevention program was developed in the 1980s, although it still is not mandatory for Scout leaders. AP story here The Scouts called James Terry as a witness in the punitive damages phase of the trial after the jury awarded $1.4 million in compensatory damages last week to an Oregon man abused by a former assistant Scoutmaster in the early 1980s. Terry, the chief financial officer for the Scouts at its headquarters in Irving, Texas, also chairs its committee on "youth protection training." He went over the details of the training program, adding that the Scouts had consulted experts in the field of child sex abuse to help develop the guidelines, including a policy of "two-deep leadership" to avoid leaving adult volunteers alone with Scouts. But under cross-examination by a lawyer for victim Kerry Lewis, Terry said the Scouts have yet to make it mandatory nationally even though it is strongly recommended to local Scout councils. The effectiveness of the program the Scouts developed after Lewis was abused in 1983 is expected to be a key factor in how much punitive damages the jury may award. See vol8_iss21, vol8_iss22, vol8_iss25, and vol8_iss27 for more on this story.
The USA Swimming coach accused of sexual misconduct with a female swimmer this week has been suspended from his Virginia swimming club and removed from the team's website. ABC News story here A recent ABC News "20/20" investigation revealed that some 36 coaches have been banned for life by USA Swimming over the last decade because of alleged sexual misconduct. On Wednesday, USA Swimming announced that it is immediately implementing a "7-Point Action Plan" to protect its hundreds of thousands of youth swimmers across the country. In an open letter, USA Swimming President Jim Wood and USA Swimming Executive Director Chuck Wielgus said the organization will develop new guidelines for acceptable behavior by coaches, enhance the reporting system for sexual abuse to both the organization and law enforcement, review its Code of Conduct, examine its background screening program, talk to member clubs about pre-employment screening, evaluate sharing coaching history records with swimming clubs and other youth organizations, and educate swimmers, parents, coaches and swimming club leaders. For more on this story, see vol8_iss26 and vol8_iss27.
A school technology official at the center of a webcam spying scandal says a Pennsylvania student suing her employer had no expectation of privacy because he took a laptop home without authorization. AP story here In a court filing Tuesday, Lower Merion School District technology coordinator Carol Cafiero says officials activated tracking software that photographed Blake Robbins because he failed to pay a required insurance fee. Cafiero claims that Robbins had no legitimate expectation of privacy because he broke the rules. She also denies claims by Robbins' attorney that she may be a "voyeur." Robbins and his family sued the district in February, claiming the district invaded his privacy. A school district attorney declined comment on Cafiero's filing. See vol8_iss14 and vol8_iss28 for more on this story.
Daily text-messaging by teens has "shot up" dramatically in the past 18 months, according to a new study, "Teens and Mobile Phones," from the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project. MSNBC story here In February 2008, Pew estimated 38 percent of teens were "daily texters," compared to 54 percent in September 2009, when the study was conducted. Pew said half of teens send 50 or more text messages a day; one in three send more than 100 messages a day; and 15 percent send more than 200 text messages daily, or more than 6,000 texts a month. "Texting is the form of communication that has grown the most for teens during the last four years," the Pew report said. Between 2006 and 2009, "the percent of teens who use texting to contact friends outside of school on a daily basis has gone from 27 to 54 percent. Face-to-face contact, instant messaging, mobile voice and social network messaging have remained flat during the same period, while use of e-mail and the landline phone have decreased slightly." For more information on teens and cell phones, see eGuide/cell phones.
A massive child pornography bust in Polk County, Florida led to 29 arrests. WFTV news story here Thursday morning, 28 people were arrested and the 29th suspect, Tim Lakin, turned himself in Thursday afternoon. The group is facing charges for possession and distribution of child pornography. WFTV found out some of the children they were looking at live in Central Florida. At least two of the people arrested in the massive child porn sweep were actually generating the images using local children. Investigators told WFTV they have identified at least a half-dozen local victims. Sheriff Grady Judd said computer crimes detectives made it a priority to try to identify the young victims in the images. Detectives were also watching to see if any of the suspects had access to young children and, as a result, the sheriff said eight children were rescued from a life of abuse.
*for access to member only sites like the New York Times, use the ID "JohnDoeID" and the password "whatever". On sites asking for an email address, feel free to use "info@childprotectionprogram.org" |
Survivors And Victims Empowered
1725 Oregon Pike, Suite 106
Lancaster, PA 17601
(717) 569-0550 voice
(717) 569-3039 fax
http://www.childprotectionprogram.org