Showing posts with label Archbishop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Archbishop. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
Top private schools Scottish child abuse inquiry, Archbishop admits Church ‘failed terribly’ over abuse revelations
Top private schools included as part of Scottish child abuse inquiry
Inquiry chair Lady Smith has said more than 100 locations so far have been identified for investigation, including current and former boarding schools
Tuesday 31 January 2017
More than 60 residential care establishments including several top private schools are being investigated by Scotland’s national child abuse inquiry.
They are among more than 100 locations where the abuse of children is said to have taken place, chair Anne Smith confirmed.
Six boarding schools or former boarding schools, including Fettes college and Gordonstoun, are being investigated. Several faith-based organisations, other major care providers and local authority institutions are also being looked at by inquiry staff.
Lady Smith, a senior judge who was appointed to the role in July, named a list of places being investigated as she provided an update on the inquiry’s progress at a preliminary hearing.
The inquiry is examining historical allegations of the abuse of children in care and has been taking statements from witnesses since last spring....
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jan/31/top-private-schools-included-as-part-of-scottish-child-abuse-inquiry
Archbishop admits Church ‘failed terribly’ over abuse revelations
Cathy Newman Presenter 1 Feb 2017 UK
The Church of England has tonight apologised unreservedly after a Channel 4 News investigation revealed that a prominent Anglican evangelical and former colleague of the Archbishop of Canterbury is alleged to have severely assaulted boys and young men for decades.
The alleged abuse was carried out by prominent QC and part time judge called John Smyth, who was chairman of the Iwerne Trust, a charity closely linked to the church which ran Christian holiday camps for public school students.
The Church admitted that it had “failed terribly”, after this programme learned that the Trust had discovered the alleged abuse in 1982, but failed to report it to the police.
Winchester College, where some of the young men met Smyth, was made aware of the alleged abuse, but also failed to report it to the police at the time. There is no suggestion that any abuse took place at the College or with the knowledge of its staff.
The Archbishop’s apology comes after a six month investigation by Channel 4 News, in which we tracked down and spoke with many of Smyth’s alleged victims. One man told us that he and other boys were beaten so violently by Smyth that they had to wear nappies to staunch the bleeding....
It described what it called the “beatings” of 22 young men.
“The scale and severity of the practice was horrific…8 received about 14 thousand strokes: 2 of them having some 8000 strokes over three years,” the document, written in 1982, noted.
Despite the findings of the report, the Iwerne Trust did not inform the police. Instead, a senior figure in the Iwerne Trust wrote to John Smyth, telling him to leave the country. He went on to live in Zimbabwe, and then South Africa....
https://www.channel4.com/news/archbishop-admits-church-failed-terribly-over-abuse-revelations
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
Cardinal George Pell to give evidence at child sex abuse inquiry, Child sexual abuse royal commission: O'Callaghan advised abuse victims on strength of cases
"But victims were told if they chose to go to police, they were no longer eligible for compensation"
Cardinal George Pell to give evidence at child sex abuse inquiry
Pell was archbishop of Melbourne when the church set up the Melbourne Response compensation scheme
Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Wednesday 20 August 2014
Cardinal George Pell’s role in setting up a Catholic Church compensation scheme for victims of pedophile priests will be scrutinised on Thursday at the child abuse royal commission.
Pell was archbishop of Melbourne in 1996 when the Melbourne archdiocese decided to respond to growing allegations of child sex abuse by its clergy. The church considered creating a legal entity that could be sued by victims, but designed the Melbourne Response compensation scheme instead.
Cardinal Pell told the royal commission earlier this year he believed the church should now create an entity that could be sued.
A Victorian parliamentary inquiry last year recommended the Catholic Church be incorporated so it could be sued....
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/21/cardinal-george-pell-to-give-evidence-at-child-sex-abuse-inquiry
Child sexual abuse royal commission: O'Callaghan advised abuse victims on strength of cases
By court reporter Peta Carlyon 20 August 2014
The man in charge of the Catholic Church's so-called Melbourne Response to allegations of child abuse has rejected suggestions he failed to encourage victims to go to police.
Peter O'Callaghan QC has been dealing with complainants and deciding whether they are eligible for compensation since the scheme began in 1996.
He was repeatedly questioned about the legal integrity of his decision-making at today's hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
Mr O'Callaghan has been a Queen's Counsel for 40 years and said the Melbourne Response was based in canon law and "natural justice".
He said when there was a dispute with a claim he would take on a role similar to a magistrate in a criminal case.
He was again asked repeatedly why he did not report cases of abuse to Victoria Police and why he took it upon himself to advise victims on the potential strength of their cases....
Yesterday he told the commission he had made more than 330 adverse findings against priests within the Melbourne archdiocese since the complaint's procedure began.
The church has paid out more than $17 million to abuse victims through the scheme.
But victims were told if they chose to go to police, they were no longer eligible for compensation....
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-20/abuse-victims-advised-on-strength-of-their-cases-by-church/5684036
Cardinal George Pell to give evidence at child sex abuse inquiry
Pell was archbishop of Melbourne when the church set up the Melbourne Response compensation scheme
Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Wednesday 20 August 2014
Cardinal George Pell’s role in setting up a Catholic Church compensation scheme for victims of pedophile priests will be scrutinised on Thursday at the child abuse royal commission.
Pell was archbishop of Melbourne in 1996 when the Melbourne archdiocese decided to respond to growing allegations of child sex abuse by its clergy. The church considered creating a legal entity that could be sued by victims, but designed the Melbourne Response compensation scheme instead.
Cardinal Pell told the royal commission earlier this year he believed the church should now create an entity that could be sued.
A Victorian parliamentary inquiry last year recommended the Catholic Church be incorporated so it could be sued....
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/21/cardinal-george-pell-to-give-evidence-at-child-sex-abuse-inquiry
Child sexual abuse royal commission: O'Callaghan advised abuse victims on strength of cases
By court reporter Peta Carlyon 20 August 2014
The man in charge of the Catholic Church's so-called Melbourne Response to allegations of child abuse has rejected suggestions he failed to encourage victims to go to police.
Peter O'Callaghan QC has been dealing with complainants and deciding whether they are eligible for compensation since the scheme began in 1996.
He was repeatedly questioned about the legal integrity of his decision-making at today's hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
Mr O'Callaghan has been a Queen's Counsel for 40 years and said the Melbourne Response was based in canon law and "natural justice".
He said when there was a dispute with a claim he would take on a role similar to a magistrate in a criminal case.
He was again asked repeatedly why he did not report cases of abuse to Victoria Police and why he took it upon himself to advise victims on the potential strength of their cases....
Yesterday he told the commission he had made more than 330 adverse findings against priests within the Melbourne archdiocese since the complaint's procedure began.
The church has paid out more than $17 million to abuse victims through the scheme.
But victims were told if they chose to go to police, they were no longer eligible for compensation....
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-20/abuse-victims-advised-on-strength-of-their-cases-by-church/5684036
Monday, February 25, 2013
Keith O'Brien Resigns: Top UK Cardinal Will Skip Papal Conclave Over Allegations Of Misconduct
Keith O'Brien Resigns: Top UK Cardinal Will Skip Papal Conclave Over Allegations Of Misconduct By GREGORY KATZ and NICOLE WINFIELD 02/25/13
LONDON -- Cardinal Keith O'Brien, Britain's highest-ranking Catholic leader, says he is resigning as archbishop in the wake of misconduct allegations and will be skipping the conclave to elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI.
The cardinal said in a statement Monday that he will not attend because he doesn't want media attention focused on him during the important session in Rome.
Experts said the decision not to attend the papal conclave is unprecedented; never before has a cardinal stayed away from a conclave because of personal scandal, according to Vatican historian Ambrogio Piazzoni, the vice prefect of the Vatican library.
The Vatican confirmed that O'Brien had resigned as archbishop of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh. It was accepted under the code of canon law due to O'Brien's age; he turns 75 – the normal retirement age for bishops – on March 17.
He said in a statement that he is in "indifferent health" and that he had offered his resignation last November. A church statement says the pope accepted O'Brien's resignation on Feb. 18....
O'Brien has said through his spokesman that he is contesting allegations made Sunday in a British newspaper that three priests and a former priest have filed complaints to the Vatican alleging that the cardinal acted inappropriately with them.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/25/uk-cardinal-resigns_n_2758151.html
LONDON -- Cardinal Keith O'Brien, Britain's highest-ranking Catholic leader, says he is resigning as archbishop in the wake of misconduct allegations and will be skipping the conclave to elect a successor to Pope Benedict XVI.
The cardinal said in a statement Monday that he will not attend because he doesn't want media attention focused on him during the important session in Rome.
Experts said the decision not to attend the papal conclave is unprecedented; never before has a cardinal stayed away from a conclave because of personal scandal, according to Vatican historian Ambrogio Piazzoni, the vice prefect of the Vatican library.
The Vatican confirmed that O'Brien had resigned as archbishop of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh. It was accepted under the code of canon law due to O'Brien's age; he turns 75 – the normal retirement age for bishops – on March 17.
He said in a statement that he is in "indifferent health" and that he had offered his resignation last November. A church statement says the pope accepted O'Brien's resignation on Feb. 18....
O'Brien has said through his spokesman that he is contesting allegations made Sunday in a British newspaper that three priests and a former priest have filed complaints to the Vatican alleging that the cardinal acted inappropriately with them.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/25/uk-cardinal-resigns_n_2758151.html
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Child Sex Abuse Bill Dies, Archbishop Caught in Catholic Abuse Scandal
Shanley clergy abuse recovered memory case
For 5th Year, Child Sex Abuse Bill Dies in Legislature By PAUL VITELLO June 2, 2010
For four years, advocates for sexually abused children had fought a battle in the New York Legislature to open a legal window that would allow victims to file lawsuits against predators long after the statute of limitations had expired.
Though the bill died each year, it passed in the Assembly three timesand earned the support of two governors. And the renewed attention to sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church augured well for the cause this year....Dennis Poust, the communications director of the New York State Catholic Conference, said the vote represented an emerging consensus that time limits on legal liability were an important civil rights protection.
The conference is the policy arm of the state’s Catholic bishops, the bill’s most formidable opponents....Since it was first introduced in the 2006-7 session, the Child Victims Act has been fervently opposed by the Catholic Church and several Orthodox Jewish groups, which saw potentially devastating financial implications in opening an opportunity for victims, regardless of age, to bring lawsuits for sexual abuse suffered in
childhood. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/nyregion/03abuse.html
German Archbishop Caught up in Catholic Abuse Scandal By Tristana Moore / Berlin Jun. 03, 2010 Already reeling from a series of sexual abuse accusations, Germany's Catholic Church has taken another hit, and this time the scandal has reached into the upper echelons of the organization. On Monday, German prosecutors confirmed that they've launched a preliminary criminal investigation into allegations that the head of Germany's Catholic Church, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, was an accessory to the sexual assault of children.
The case threatens to further deepen a crisis that has already tainted the image of the Catholic Church in Germany, not least because, as head of the German Bishops' Conference, Zollitsch is tasked with dealing with the sex abuse scandal. Prosecutors say that in 1987, Zollitsch re-appointed a priest who was facing abuse allegations to work in a monastery in Birnau, in southern Germany by Lake Constance. "According to the complaint filed by a man at the end of May, Archbishop Zollitsch assigned further work to a priest ... despite knowing that this priest had sexually abused children in the past," Wolfgang Maier, the senior public prosecutor in the south German city of Freiburg, tells TIME.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1993737,00.html?artId=1993737
For 5th Year, Child Sex Abuse Bill Dies in Legislature By PAUL VITELLO June 2, 2010
For four years, advocates for sexually abused children had fought a battle in the New York Legislature to open a legal window that would allow victims to file lawsuits against predators long after the statute of limitations had expired.
Though the bill died each year, it passed in the Assembly three timesand earned the support of two governors. And the renewed attention to sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church augured well for the cause this year....Dennis Poust, the communications director of the New York State Catholic Conference, said the vote represented an emerging consensus that time limits on legal liability were an important civil rights protection.
The conference is the policy arm of the state’s Catholic bishops, the bill’s most formidable opponents....Since it was first introduced in the 2006-7 session, the Child Victims Act has been fervently opposed by the Catholic Church and several Orthodox Jewish groups, which saw potentially devastating financial implications in opening an opportunity for victims, regardless of age, to bring lawsuits for sexual abuse suffered in
childhood. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/nyregion/03abuse.html
German Archbishop Caught up in Catholic Abuse Scandal By Tristana Moore / Berlin Jun. 03, 2010 Already reeling from a series of sexual abuse accusations, Germany's Catholic Church has taken another hit, and this time the scandal has reached into the upper echelons of the organization. On Monday, German prosecutors confirmed that they've launched a preliminary criminal investigation into allegations that the head of Germany's Catholic Church, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, was an accessory to the sexual assault of children.
The case threatens to further deepen a crisis that has already tainted the image of the Catholic Church in Germany, not least because, as head of the German Bishops' Conference, Zollitsch is tasked with dealing with the sex abuse scandal. Prosecutors say that in 1987, Zollitsch re-appointed a priest who was facing abuse allegations to work in a monastery in Birnau, in southern Germany by Lake Constance. "According to the complaint filed by a man at the end of May, Archbishop Zollitsch assigned further work to a priest ... despite knowing that this priest had sexually abused children in the past," Wolfgang Maier, the senior public prosecutor in the south German city of Freiburg, tells TIME.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1993737,00.html?artId=1993737
Saturday, April 10, 2010
Clergy abuse cover ups, Pope, Vatican, Archbishop, US Swim Coaches
AP: Future pope stalled pedophile case By GILLIAN FLACCUS 4/10/10 LOS ANGELES - The future Pope Benedict XVI resisted pleas to defrock a California priest with a record of sexually molesting children, citing concerns including "the good of the universal church," according to a 1985 letter bearing his signature. The correspondence, obtained by The Associated Press, is the strongest challenge yet to the Vatican's insistence that Benedict played no role in blocking the removal of pedophile priests during his years as head of the Catholic Church's doctrinal watchdog office....
The letter, signed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was typed in Latin and is part of years of correspondence between the diocese of Oakland and the Vatican about the proposed defrocking of the Rev. Stephen Kiesle, who pleaded no contest to misdemeanors involving child molestation in 1978.
The Vatican confirmed Friday that it was Ratzinger's signature and said it was a typical form letter used in laicization cases. Attorney Jeffrey Lena said the matter proceeded "expeditiously, not by modern standards, but by those standards at the time," and that the bishop was to guard against further abuse. Another spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, said the letter showed no attempt at a cover-up. "The then-Cardinal Ratzinger didn't cover up the case, but as the letter clearly shows, made clear the need to study the case with more attention, taking into account the good of all involved."
The diocese recommended removing Kiesle (KEEZ'-lee) from the priesthood in 1981, the year Ratzinger was appointed to head the Vatican office that shared responsibility for disciplining abusive priests.
The case then languished for four years at the Vatican before Ratzinger finally wrote to Oakland Bishop John Cummins. It was two more years before Kiesle was removed; during that time he continued to do volunteer work with children through the church....Kiesle had been sentenced in 1978 to three years' probation after pleading no contest to misdemeanor charges of lewd conduct for tying up and molesting two young boys in a San Francisco Bay area church rectory. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100409/ap_on_re_us/us_pope_church_abuse
ABC News Investigation: USA Swimming Coaches Molested, Secretly Taped Dozens of Teen Swimmers
Olympic Governing Body Under Fire; 36 Swim Coaches Banned for Life Because of Sexual Misconduct with Teens By MEGAN CHUCHMACH and AVNI PATEL Apr. 9, 2010 In a sex abuse scandal that some victims compare to what happened in the Catholic Church, at least 36 swimming coaches have been banned for life by the USA Swimming organization over the last 10 years because of sexual misconduct with teenagers they coached. The coaches have molested, fondled and abused dozens of swimmers, according to court records and interviews conducted by ABC News for reports Friday on "World News with Diane Sawyer" and "20/20."....Hindson was sentenced in 2008 to 33 years in federal prison. His attorney Gregg Stark did not return repeated requests for comment....
A San Jose swimming coach, Andy King, 62, was sentenced to 40 years in prison last year after authorities discovered a pattern of sexual abuse that stretched over three decades up and down the West Coast and involved more than a dozen teen female victims. "He was a monster," said Santa Clara County prosecutor Ray Mendoza. "He had almost every conceivable sex act," he said. Mendoza said King would move out of town once parents or police began asking questions and was stopped only after a 14-year old girl in San Jose complained to her youth pastor....In 2008, USA Swimming gave King a clean bill of health, saying his background screening had been approved. "Congratulations," read the letter. "Your background screening has been thoroughly reviewed and meets the qualification standards set by USA Swimming." According to USA Swimming, the organization only checks for criminal convictions and does not include background interviews or investigations with local police. "It was willfully incomplete," said Bob Allard, a lawyer for families now suing USA Swimming. "A simple phone call to Oak Harbor, his prior stop, or to the East Bay would have revealed much about this man's propensity to abuse and molest kids."
Police later documented at least 15 victims among the teenage girl swimmers he coached over the years, including a woman who said she had an abortion after King got her pregnant at the age of 14.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/abc-news-investigation-usa-swimming-coaches-raped-molested/story?id=10322469
The Troubled Church - Vatican, Canadian church officials tried to keep sex scandal secret
A 1993 letter focuses on protecting the church's image by preventing public knowledge of Bernard Prince's abuse of altar boys. Tu Thanh Ha Globe and Mail Apr. 09, 2010 More than a decade before police got wind that a priest had molested several altar boys in small towns in the Ottawa Valley, Vatican and Canadian church officials knew about the matter and discussed in a letter how to keep it secret. The letter, written in 1993, focused on protecting the church's image by preventing the scandal from becoming public – the very essence of an international wave of allegations now battering the Roman Catholic clergy and the Vatican.
"It is a situation which we wish to avoid at all costs," the late Bishop Joseph Windle of Pembroke, Ont., wrote in Feb. 10, 1993, to the Pope's envoy to Canada, Carlo Curis. The man Bishop Windle was writing about was then-monsignor Bernard Prince, now 75, a friend of the late Pope John Paul II who had just been posted to the Vatican as a high-ranking official working with missionary societies. The year before Mr. Prince was sent to Rome, a man had complained to the diocese that the priest had molested him when he was a child.
At least one Vatican archbishop, Jose Sanchez, now a cardinal, had been warned about Mr. Prince's problem before he was sent to Rome, Bishop Windle said in the letter....It would only be in May, 2005, that a victim contacted the Ontario Provincial Police. Mr. Prince is now defrocked and serving a four-year sentence after being convicted in 2008 of sexually molesting 13 boys between 1964 and 1984....The four-page letter – an exhibit filed this week in a civil suit – is the first court document to buttress the long-held belief by victims of Mr. Prince that the clergy had known of the problem for years but tried to hush it up. It shows that the church hierarchy was aware that the allegations were serious since they involved up to five victims, were of "considerable duration" and triggered "traumatic memories" in one or two victims who needed counselling.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/vatican-canadian-church-officials-tried-to-keep-sex-scandal-secret/article1528471/?cmpid=nl-news1
Another pedophilia scandal rocks Vatican 10 April 2010 Following a series of pedophilia scandals, a new document has come to light showing that Pope Benedict XVI resisted defrocking a US pedophile priest in 1985. Former Cardinal Joseph Radzinger had signed a letter which defied calls to defrock California priest Stephen Kiesle over children abuse charges, letters released by the victims' attorney Jeff Anderson showed Friday. While Radzinger admitted the gravity of Kiesle's case, he stated he was reluctant to take immediate action on the grounds that the case needed careful consideration, which would take a longer period of time than usual. Kiesle was finally defrocked in 1987. He later worked as a youth coordinator at a parish in Pinole, north California for eight months, a statement released by Anderson said. Ratzinger went on to become Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=122905§ionid=351020606
Britain's top Catholic ‘protected' paedophile From The Times April 10, 2010 David Brown, Sean O'Neill, Julia Bradshaw The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales presided over a child protection system that allowed a paedophile priest to continue abusing schoolboys despite repeated complaints from victims, an investigation by The Times has discovered.
The Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, chaired the church's child safety watchdog in 2001-08 while Father David Pearce was repeatedly investigated by church officials and police. Despite a High Court ruling in 2006 awarding damages to one of his victims, Pearce remained a priest at Ealing Abbey, West London, where he groomed and assaulted one final victim before his arrest in 2008. Pearce, 68, a Benedictine monk and former headteacher at the prestigious St Benedict's School, was jailed for eight years in October after admitting a catalogue of sex offences against teenage pupils during 35 years at the abbey. Archbishop Nichols last night denied any knowledge of the Pearce case while he was chairman of the Catholic Office for the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults (Copca). Church officials said that Archbishop Nichols was not told the full details of Pearce's child abuse offences until he replaced Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor at Westminster last year.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7093935.ece
AP Writer: Vatican 'In the Loop' on Calif Priest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAdDnBVVxjQ
Number of church abuse cases rises Friday, 09 April 2010
Latest victim tells media that his offender is still a serving priest in the Danish Catholic Church
The number of cases of child abuse reported to the Danish Catholic Church has risen to 17 and an 18th man has told media that he was abused by a priest who is still an active member of the church in Zealand.
http://www.cphpost.dk/news/national/48706-number-of-church-abuse-cases-rises.html
Church swamped by priest abuse claims April 9, 2010 AFP Norway's Roman Catholic Church received so many email tip-offs about possible paedophile priests following revelations of abuse by a bishop that its computer crashed, a senior cleric said. "I received so many email tip-offs about possible aggressions and other sexual abuse that the computer server crashed," Bishop of Oslo and Trondheim Bernt Eidsvig was quoted as saying by the tabloid paper Verdens Gang. Bernt disclosed on Wednesday at the request of the Vatican that one of Norway's former bishops, German Georg Mueller, had abused a choirboy in the early 1990s. The newspaper said that its own research had in recent days uncovered nine sex abuse cases in the church.
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/church-swamped-by-priest-abuse-claims-20100409-rykc.html
UK police arrest 17 over alleged child smuggling ring 9 April 2010 Seventeen people suspected of helping to smuggle children into Britain for crime have been arrested in Romania. About 300 police officers, including 20 from the Metropolitan Police, carried out searches at homes in the south-east Romanian town of Tandarei. Thirty people were questioned on suspicion of taking 168 Roma (Gypsy) children to Britain for "criminal activities", Romanian police said. Pistols, hunting rifles and money were seized, and 17 people were arrested.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8610412.stm
The letter, signed by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was typed in Latin and is part of years of correspondence between the diocese of Oakland and the Vatican about the proposed defrocking of the Rev. Stephen Kiesle, who pleaded no contest to misdemeanors involving child molestation in 1978.
The Vatican confirmed Friday that it was Ratzinger's signature and said it was a typical form letter used in laicization cases. Attorney Jeffrey Lena said the matter proceeded "expeditiously, not by modern standards, but by those standards at the time," and that the bishop was to guard against further abuse. Another spokesman, the Rev. Ciro Benedettini, said the letter showed no attempt at a cover-up. "The then-Cardinal Ratzinger didn't cover up the case, but as the letter clearly shows, made clear the need to study the case with more attention, taking into account the good of all involved."
The diocese recommended removing Kiesle (KEEZ'-lee) from the priesthood in 1981, the year Ratzinger was appointed to head the Vatican office that shared responsibility for disciplining abusive priests.
The case then languished for four years at the Vatican before Ratzinger finally wrote to Oakland Bishop John Cummins. It was two more years before Kiesle was removed; during that time he continued to do volunteer work with children through the church....Kiesle had been sentenced in 1978 to three years' probation after pleading no contest to misdemeanor charges of lewd conduct for tying up and molesting two young boys in a San Francisco Bay area church rectory. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100409/ap_on_re_us/us_pope_church_abuse
ABC News Investigation: USA Swimming Coaches Molested, Secretly Taped Dozens of Teen Swimmers
Olympic Governing Body Under Fire; 36 Swim Coaches Banned for Life Because of Sexual Misconduct with Teens By MEGAN CHUCHMACH and AVNI PATEL Apr. 9, 2010 In a sex abuse scandal that some victims compare to what happened in the Catholic Church, at least 36 swimming coaches have been banned for life by the USA Swimming organization over the last 10 years because of sexual misconduct with teenagers they coached. The coaches have molested, fondled and abused dozens of swimmers, according to court records and interviews conducted by ABC News for reports Friday on "World News with Diane Sawyer" and "20/20."....Hindson was sentenced in 2008 to 33 years in federal prison. His attorney Gregg Stark did not return repeated requests for comment....
A San Jose swimming coach, Andy King, 62, was sentenced to 40 years in prison last year after authorities discovered a pattern of sexual abuse that stretched over three decades up and down the West Coast and involved more than a dozen teen female victims. "He was a monster," said Santa Clara County prosecutor Ray Mendoza. "He had almost every conceivable sex act," he said. Mendoza said King would move out of town once parents or police began asking questions and was stopped only after a 14-year old girl in San Jose complained to her youth pastor....In 2008, USA Swimming gave King a clean bill of health, saying his background screening had been approved. "Congratulations," read the letter. "Your background screening has been thoroughly reviewed and meets the qualification standards set by USA Swimming." According to USA Swimming, the organization only checks for criminal convictions and does not include background interviews or investigations with local police. "It was willfully incomplete," said Bob Allard, a lawyer for families now suing USA Swimming. "A simple phone call to Oak Harbor, his prior stop, or to the East Bay would have revealed much about this man's propensity to abuse and molest kids."
Police later documented at least 15 victims among the teenage girl swimmers he coached over the years, including a woman who said she had an abortion after King got her pregnant at the age of 14.
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/abc-news-investigation-usa-swimming-coaches-raped-molested/story?id=10322469
The Troubled Church - Vatican, Canadian church officials tried to keep sex scandal secret
A 1993 letter focuses on protecting the church's image by preventing public knowledge of Bernard Prince's abuse of altar boys. Tu Thanh Ha Globe and Mail Apr. 09, 2010 More than a decade before police got wind that a priest had molested several altar boys in small towns in the Ottawa Valley, Vatican and Canadian church officials knew about the matter and discussed in a letter how to keep it secret. The letter, written in 1993, focused on protecting the church's image by preventing the scandal from becoming public – the very essence of an international wave of allegations now battering the Roman Catholic clergy and the Vatican.
"It is a situation which we wish to avoid at all costs," the late Bishop Joseph Windle of Pembroke, Ont., wrote in Feb. 10, 1993, to the Pope's envoy to Canada, Carlo Curis. The man Bishop Windle was writing about was then-monsignor Bernard Prince, now 75, a friend of the late Pope John Paul II who had just been posted to the Vatican as a high-ranking official working with missionary societies. The year before Mr. Prince was sent to Rome, a man had complained to the diocese that the priest had molested him when he was a child.
At least one Vatican archbishop, Jose Sanchez, now a cardinal, had been warned about Mr. Prince's problem before he was sent to Rome, Bishop Windle said in the letter....It would only be in May, 2005, that a victim contacted the Ontario Provincial Police. Mr. Prince is now defrocked and serving a four-year sentence after being convicted in 2008 of sexually molesting 13 boys between 1964 and 1984....The four-page letter – an exhibit filed this week in a civil suit – is the first court document to buttress the long-held belief by victims of Mr. Prince that the clergy had known of the problem for years but tried to hush it up. It shows that the church hierarchy was aware that the allegations were serious since they involved up to five victims, were of "considerable duration" and triggered "traumatic memories" in one or two victims who needed counselling.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/vatican-canadian-church-officials-tried-to-keep-sex-scandal-secret/article1528471/?cmpid=nl-news1
Another pedophilia scandal rocks Vatican 10 April 2010 Following a series of pedophilia scandals, a new document has come to light showing that Pope Benedict XVI resisted defrocking a US pedophile priest in 1985. Former Cardinal Joseph Radzinger had signed a letter which defied calls to defrock California priest Stephen Kiesle over children abuse charges, letters released by the victims' attorney Jeff Anderson showed Friday. While Radzinger admitted the gravity of Kiesle's case, he stated he was reluctant to take immediate action on the grounds that the case needed careful consideration, which would take a longer period of time than usual. Kiesle was finally defrocked in 1987. He later worked as a youth coordinator at a parish in Pinole, north California for eight months, a statement released by Anderson said. Ratzinger went on to become Pope Benedict XVI in 2005. http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=122905§ionid=351020606
Britain's top Catholic ‘protected' paedophile From The Times April 10, 2010 David Brown, Sean O'Neill, Julia Bradshaw The head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales presided over a child protection system that allowed a paedophile priest to continue abusing schoolboys despite repeated complaints from victims, an investigation by The Times has discovered.
The Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, chaired the church's child safety watchdog in 2001-08 while Father David Pearce was repeatedly investigated by church officials and police. Despite a High Court ruling in 2006 awarding damages to one of his victims, Pearce remained a priest at Ealing Abbey, West London, where he groomed and assaulted one final victim before his arrest in 2008. Pearce, 68, a Benedictine monk and former headteacher at the prestigious St Benedict's School, was jailed for eight years in October after admitting a catalogue of sex offences against teenage pupils during 35 years at the abbey. Archbishop Nichols last night denied any knowledge of the Pearce case while he was chairman of the Catholic Office for the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults (Copca). Church officials said that Archbishop Nichols was not told the full details of Pearce's child abuse offences until he replaced Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor at Westminster last year.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7093935.ece
AP Writer: Vatican 'In the Loop' on Calif Priest
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAdDnBVVxjQ
Number of church abuse cases rises Friday, 09 April 2010
Latest victim tells media that his offender is still a serving priest in the Danish Catholic Church
The number of cases of child abuse reported to the Danish Catholic Church has risen to 17 and an 18th man has told media that he was abused by a priest who is still an active member of the church in Zealand.
http://www.cphpost.dk/news/national/48706-number-of-church-abuse-cases-rises.html
Church swamped by priest abuse claims April 9, 2010 AFP Norway's Roman Catholic Church received so many email tip-offs about possible paedophile priests following revelations of abuse by a bishop that its computer crashed, a senior cleric said. "I received so many email tip-offs about possible aggressions and other sexual abuse that the computer server crashed," Bishop of Oslo and Trondheim Bernt Eidsvig was quoted as saying by the tabloid paper Verdens Gang. Bernt disclosed on Wednesday at the request of the Vatican that one of Norway's former bishops, German Georg Mueller, had abused a choirboy in the early 1990s. The newspaper said that its own research had in recent days uncovered nine sex abuse cases in the church.
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/church-swamped-by-priest-abuse-claims-20100409-rykc.html
UK police arrest 17 over alleged child smuggling ring 9 April 2010 Seventeen people suspected of helping to smuggle children into Britain for crime have been arrested in Romania. About 300 police officers, including 20 from the Metropolitan Police, carried out searches at homes in the south-east Romanian town of Tandarei. Thirty people were questioned on suspicion of taking 168 Roma (Gypsy) children to Britain for "criminal activities", Romanian police said. Pistols, hunting rifles and money were seized, and 17 people were arrested.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8610412.stm
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