Two of Bill Cosby's accusers join push to have entire deposition unsealed, Vatican delays trial of pope's ex-diplomat accused of child porn, pedophilia, Only Half of Abused Children Evaluated for Occult Fracture

Two of Bill Cosby's accusers join push to have entire deposition unsealed

Beth Ferrier and Rebecca Lynn Neal, ‘Jane Does’ in the 2005 case, join motion as Neal also spoke out against National Enquirer for pulling an interview with her

Nicky Woolf

Monday 13 July 2015

Two more of Bill Cosby’s accusers have joined a motion to have the whole of a deposition unsealed from a 2005 case in which the former comedian testified to having given a woman the sedative quaaludes before having sex with her.

Bill Cosby's defenders split after revelation comedian drugged women

One of them has also attacked the National Enquirer for allegedly suppressing a 2005 interview with her in exchange for an exclusive from Cosby about his daughter’s drug use.

Beth Ferrier and Rebecca Lynn Neal were unidentified witnesses – known as “Jane Does” – in a 2005 case in which Cosby was sued by Andrea Constand, the first of more than two dozen women to come forward with allegations of sexual abuse against the comedian.

Last week a judge granted a motion by the Associated Press to unseal part of Cosby’s deposition. Constand has now been joined by Ferrier and Neal in a motion to have the rest of the deposition, which has so far been barred from public view, unsealed.

In a statement Gloria Allred, the lawyer representing both Ferrier and Neal, said she was concerned the partial testimony, “if believed”, would cause reputational damage to her clients.

....“The National Enquirer, more than any other publication, was unflinching in our aggressive coverage of allegations against Mr Cosby beginning in 2000 when everyone else avoided the story,” a spokesman told the Wrap. “We continue to remain aggressive in our reporting today and stand by the integrity of our coverage of this story which we have taken the lead on for more than a decade.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/13/bill-cosby-deposition-quaaludes-motion-unseal


Only Half of Abused Children Evaluated for Occult Fracture
Jenni Laidman   July 13, 2015

Despite some 20 years of recommendations to perform a skeletal survey on infants and toddlers with injuries associated with abuse, hospital personnel failed to conduct such surveys in roughly half of suspected abuse cases, according to results from a study published online July 13 in Pediatrics.

Joanne N. Wood, MD, MSHP, from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and colleagues examined data from 4486 children younger than 2 years with a diagnosis of abuse or injuries often associated with abuse at 366 hospitals from 2009 to 2013.

The study indicated that 48% of children with an abuse diagnosis and 51% of infants with traumatic
brain injury were evaluated with a skeletal survey for occult fracture. Only 53% of infants with femur fractures were examined for further fractures, the researchers found.

Previous studies suggest that skeletal surveys would have revealed occult fractures in approximately 25% to 30% of the children in the study, which means about 1 in every 7 or 8 children might have had an undiagnosed occult fracture, the authors report....

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/847835
 

Vatican delays trial of pope's ex-diplomat accused of child porn, pedophilia
By Faith Karimi, Delia Gallagher and Hada Messia, CNN
Sat July 11, 2015
CNN)A former papal ambassador accused of sexually abusing minors has been hospitalized in an intensive care unit -- pushing back his trial once set to start Saturday in Vatican City.

Jozef Wesolowski, 66, was under house arrest in Vatican City when he fell ill Friday night and was rushed to a public hospital.

A judge held a short hearing and adjourned Wesolowski's trial to a yet undetermined date, the Vatican Press Office said. It did not provide any details on his condition.

Wesolowski, 66, is the highest-ranking Catholic official arrested for alleged sexual abuse of minors.

In addition to sexual abuse allegations, he is accused of possession of child pornography during his time as papal nuncio -- or ambassador -- to the Dominican Republic. The maximum punishment for these crimes could be 9 years in prison, although sentencing is entirely at the discretion of the judges.

The Vatican, which operates as a city-state, has its own judicial system. This is the first trial on charges of sex abuse to be heard by the Vatican tribunal, which is composed of 3 lay Italian judges....

Before arriving in the Dominican Republic seven years ago, Wesolowski was nuncio to Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

He began his career as a priest in Poland in 1972, and became a bishop in 2000....
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/11/europe/vatican-sex-abuse-trial/

Pope Accepts Resignation of Bishop Who Failed to Report Priest's Suspected Child Abuse, True Detective season two: the secret occult history of the United States transportation system

Pope Accepts Resignation of Bishop Who Failed to Report Priest's Suspected Child Abuse
By Taylor Wofford 4/21/15

Pope Francis on Tuesday accepted the resignation of Bishop Robert Finn of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri, who in 2012 pleaded guilty in Clay County circuit court to a misdemeanor charge of failure to report suspected child abuse by one of the priests in his diocese. The announcement was given a single sentence in the Vatican Information Service's emailed morning news bulletin, listed under "Other Pontifical Acts."....

In December 2010, Finn failed to contact police when a computer technician informed him that he had discovered hundreds of lewd photographs of young girls on the laptop of Shawn Ratigan, a priest in Finn's diocese, some of which were believed to have been taken by Ratigan. According to The New York Times,

Bishop Finn sent Father Ratigan to live in a convent and told him to avoid contact with minors. But until [the following] May the priest attended children’s parties, spent weekends in the homes of parish families, hosted an Easter egg hunt and presided, with the bishop’s permission, at a girl’s First Communion, according to interviews with parishioners and a civil lawsuit filed by a victim’s family.

Ratigan was arrested after the second-ranking officer in the diocese, Monsignor Robert Murphy, contacted the police about the material on Ratigan’s laptop in mid-May 2011.

Ratigan later pleaded guilty to five child pornography charges in 2012 and was sentenced to 50 years in prison. Two weeks after Ratigan's arrest, Finn removed another priest, Michael Tierney, from his parish after finding "recent reports of Father Tierney’s sexual abuse of minors in the early 1970s were credible," according to a law firm asked by Finn to conduct an independent investigation into the diocese's handling of the incident....

While Finn has resigned from his post in the diocese, he will remain a Catholic bishop with all attendant rights, including being allowed to practice Mass. "He's still a bishop in good standing," Smith said.... http://www.newsweek.com/pope-francis-accepts-resignation-kansas-city-bishop-who-failed-report-sexual-323941
 
True Detective season two: first trailer
Watch Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughn, Rachel McAdams and Taylor Kitsch in the new True Detective trailer
09 Apr 2015   The first teaser trailer for the hotly anticipated second season of HBO's True Detective has been released.

Starring Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughn, Taylor Kitsch and McAdams, the new season is set in Seventies California, and will tell the story of a mob boss (Vaughn) who joins with law enforcement officials to investigate a strange murder case....

The first season of the show, which was set in the Nineties, starred Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey as partners investigating a Louisiana murder case: it's storyline dealt with the disturbing topic of satanic child abuse.

Writer Nic Pizzolatto has said the new season will continue these dark themes, exploring "the secret occult history of the United States transportation system".

Season two of True Detective premieres on June 21.... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/11526242/True-Detective-Season-Two-first-trailer.html 

US priest sentenced to 50 years for child porn, Man in kid-cannibalism case to be sentenced

US priest sentenced to 50 years for child porn 
Friday Sep 13, 2013
A priest whose case led to a criminal conviction against his bishop will likely spend the rest of his life in a federal prison after being sentenced to 50 years on Thursday for producing or trying to produce child pornography.

The Rev. Shawn Ratigan pleaded guilty in August of last year to five counts one for each of his five young victims. He was charged in May 2011 after police received a flash drive from his computer containing hundreds of images of children, most of them clothed, with the focus on their crotch areas....

A computer technician working on Ratigan's laptop in December 2010 found hundreds of troubling images of young girls and reported it to officials with the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph. Instead of turning the photos over to police or reporting suspicions about Ratigan, Bishop Robert Finn sent him away for psychiatric evaluation and later ordered him to stay at a convent where he could say Mass for the sisters and stay away from children.

The photos were given to police in May 2011 after Ratigan violated Finn's orders.

Jackson County prosecutors charged Finn and the diocese in October 2011 with one misdemeanor charge each of failing to report suspected child abuse, because of the five-month delay between when the photos were found on Ratigan's computer and when the diocese reported him to police.

Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said Finn and the diocese were required under state law to report the discovery to police because the images gave them reason to believe a child had been abused.

Finn was convicted of one count last September and sentenced to two years of supervised probation. The charge against the diocese was dropped....

Complaints against Ratigan, who was ordained in 2004 at the age of 38, began piling up in 2009 as parents became concerned he was spending too much time with children and taking too many photos of the youths while they played and participated in church events.

A May 19, 2010, letter from St. Patrick School Principal Julie Hess mentioned how several people had complained that Ratigan was taking compromising photos of children and allowed them to sit on his lap and reach into his pocket for candy.

Vicar General Robert Murphy, who received the letter, spoke with Ratigan about setting boundaries with children, then gave a summary to the bishop. Finn later acknowledged that Murphy had briefed him on the memo, but he didn't read it until a year later.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11124012

Man in kid-cannibalism case to be sentenced
Geoffrey Portway pleaded guilty last May
By Laura Ly CNN Sep 16, 2013

(CNN) —The Boston-area man who planned to kidnap children, rape and eat them is awaiting sentencing Tuesday and is seeking a prison term of 18 years followed by lifetime supervised release, according to court documents.

Geoffrey Portway, 40, who pleaded guilty in May to distribution and possession of child pornography and solicitation to commit a crime of violence, submitted a document through his attorney to Massachusetts District Court on Friday, providing information to be used in imposing a sentence "sufficient but not greater than necessary," the court document says.

The document includes background on the case, cites similar cases, and reasons for why Portway agrees to a term of 18 years, with a maximum of 21 years and 10 months. Such reasons included the contention that he "never engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct with a minor," that Portway will be required to register as a sex offender upon his release, limiting his future employment options, and there was "no evidence that (Portway) ever acted out any of his fantasies."

Portway, a former computer operator, also agreed to pay $10,000 in restitution fees.

Federal authorities are recommending that he go to prison for at least 27 years, according to other court documents filed last week.

"Portway has pled guilty to some of the most vile and heinous crimes known to our society," federal prosecutors wrote in a sentencing recommendation....
http://www.kcra.com/news/national/Man-in-kid-cannibalism-case-to-be-sentenced/-/11797450/21969264/-/epp26j/-/index.html

A Rape a Minute, a Thousand Corpses a Year, The Price of a Stolen Childhood, Bishop, McGeehan announce reintroduction of child sex abuse bills

A Rape a Minute, a Thousand Corpses a Year 01/24/2013
Rebecca Solnit Author, 'A Paradise Built in Hell'
Hate Crimes in America (and Elsewhere)

Here in the United States, where there is a reported rape every 6.2 minutes, and one in five women will be raped in her lifetime, the rape and gruesome murder of a young woman on a bus in New Delhi on December 16th was treated as an exceptional incident. The story of the alleged rape of an unconscious teenager by members of the Steubenville High School football team was still unfolding, and gang rapes aren’t that unusual here either. Take your pick: some of the 20 men who gang-raped an 11-year-old in Cleveland, Texas, were sentenced in November, while the instigator of the gang rape of a 16-year-old in Richmond, California, was sentenced in October, and four men who gang-raped a 15-year-old near New Orleans were sentenced in April, though the six men who gang-raped a 14-year-old in Chicago last fall are still at large.  Not that I actually went out looking for incidents: they’re everywhere in the news, though no one adds them up and indicates that there might actually be a pattern....

A woman is beaten every nine seconds in this country. Just to be clear: not nine minutes, but nine seconds. It’s the number-one cause of injury to American women; of the two million injured annually, more than half a million of those injuries require medical attention while about 145,000 require overnight hospitalizations, according to the Center for Disease Control, and you don’t want to know about the dentistry needed afterwards. Spouses are also the leading cause of death for pregnant women in the U.S.

“Women worldwide ages 15 through 44 are more likely to die or be maimed because of male violence than because of cancer, malaria, war and traffic accidents combined,” writes Nicholas D. Kristof, one of the few prominent figures to address the issue regularly.....

Increasingly men are becoming good allies -- and there always have been some.  Kindness and gentleness never had a gender, and neither did empathy. Domestic violence statistics are down significantly from earlier decades (even though they’re still shockingly high), and a lot of men are at work crafting new ideas and ideals about masculinity and power. 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-solnit/violence-against-women_b_2541940.html


The Price of a Stolen Childhood
By EMILY BAZELON  January 24, 2013
The detective spread out the photographs on the kitchen table, in front of Nicole, on a December morning in 2006. She was 17, but in the pictures, she saw the face of her 10-year-old self, a half-grown girl wearing make-up. The bodies in the images were broken up by pixelation, but Nicole could see the outline of her father, forcing himself on her. Her mother, sitting next to her, burst into sobs.

The detective spoke gently, but he had brutal news: the pictures had been downloaded onto thousands of computers via file-sharing services around the world. They were among the most widely circulated child pornography on the Internet. Also online were video clips, similarly notorious, in which Nicole spoke words her father had scripted for her, sometimes at the behest of other men. For years, investigators in the United States, Canada and Europe had been trying to identify the girl in the images....

When she was 16, Nicole told her mother, in a burst of tears, what had been going on at her father’s house. Her father was arrested for child rape. The police asked Nicole whether he took pictures. She said yes, but that she didn’t think he showed them to anyone. A few months later, while her father was out on bail, Nicole was using a computer he gave her to work on a presentation for Spanish class when she came across a file with a vulgar name that she couldn’t open. She showed it to her mother and stepfather, and they brought the computer to the police.

A search detected five deleted video files of child pornography, two of them showing Nicole and her father. In the spring of 2006, he was charged with a new crime — producing the videos — and he fled the country. At this point, the police didn’t realize that Nicole’s father had also distributed the images.

Months later, the police said they had no leads on her father, so Nicole went on television to ask the public for any tips that might help them find him. A police officer in Toronto involved in tracking child pornography around the world saw the broadcast and recognized Nicole as an older version of the girl in the notorious videos. The Toronto officer set off an alert that reached the police in Nicole’s hometown, informing them that she was the victim in a major pornography-distribution case....

Precise numbers of child-pornography viewers are hard to come by. Unicef estimates that there are at least hundreds of thousands of Web sites with child pornography worldwide. Child-pornography consumers are even more likely to swap with one another via hidden networks. Using a tool developed at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 2009, police have logged close to 22 million public I.P. addresses offering child-pornography pictures or videos via peer-to-peer file sharing, which allows users to download content from one computer to another; almost 10 million of the I.P. addresses were located in the United States. Many of the users shared only a single illegal image, perhaps downloaded inadvertently, but others offered collections of hundreds or thousands of pictures.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/magazine/how-much-can-restitution-help-victims-of-child-pornography.html


Bishop, McGeehan announce reintroduction of child sex abuse bills
Rep. Michael P. McGeehan
173rd Legislative District
Philadelphia County

HARRISBURG, Jan. 23 – Saying the move is long overdue andflanked by high-profile reform advocates, state Reps. Louise Williams Bishop and Michael P. McGeehan, both D-Phila.,today announced a renewed push to update archaic statute-of-limitations laws in child sexual abuse cases at a Capitol Rotunda news conference.

Bishop and McGeehan said their respective bills are patterned after ones they introduced in the last two-year legislative session but died after being inexplicably bottled up in the committee process.

Bishop has reintroduced her legislation, now known as H.B. 237, which would abolish the statute of limitations on criminal charges and civil lawsuits in cases of child sexual abuse.

“Child sexual abuse victims are slowly beginning to break the barriers of silence; however, they still face a daunting procedural obstacle -- the statute of limitations,” said Bishop, who came out last year as a victim of child sexual abuse. “Instead of suppressing legislation that would lift the statute of limitations, we should be voting these game-changing bills out of committee and the House, so more victims can seek justice.”

McGeehan has introduced H.B. 238 that would suspend any expired statute of limitations for two years in child sex abuse cases, providing a window of opportunity for those victims to file a civil lawsuit. His bill also would seek to make child sexual abuse an exception to the sovereign immunity defense that shields public officials from being sued.

“The effects of child sex abuse are felt everywhere,” McGeehan said. “We are all victims. The scandals which have rocked school districts and dioceses across the country, Penn State, the Boy Scouts -- the problem clearly is not going away.

http://www.pahouse.com/McGeehan/PAHouseNews.asp?doc=28629

Priest charged with hiding sex crimes - Australia

Priest charged with hiding sex crimes
August 31, 2012  Joanne McCarthy

HE was the ''right-hand man'' of a bishop, and a one-time acting bishop himself, but priest Tom Brennan has become the first Australian Catholic priest charged with concealing the alleged child sex crimes of another.

Father Brennan, 74, was arrested and charged yesterday with two counts of misprision of a felony - failing to disclose a serious crime - relating to alleged child sex offences by defrocked priest John Denham against two boys in the late 1970s.

The offences allegedly occurred at St Pius X, in the Newcastle suburb of Adamstown, where Father Denham was a teacher and Father Brennan was school principal.

Strike Force Georgiana's Detective Sergeant Kristi Faber also charged Father Brennan with eight counts of sexually assaulting a boy, 8, at a Waratah church in 1984 and 1985, and two counts of assault.

In addition Father Brennan, of Toronto, south of Newcastle, was charged with assaulting the two boys by caning them after they allegedly reported being sexually assaulted by Father Denham, 70....

One of the men from the Hunter Valley, who alleged Father Brennan caned him in 1978 after he alleged Father Denham had repeatedly sexually assaulted him at the school, thanked police for a determined investigation.

''If this makes one person stand up and say, 'This is what happened to me', then I'll feel better,'' he said....

Father Denham has not entered pleas to 47 charges including indecent assault and buggery involving 14 boys in the 1970s. He will return to court next month.
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/priest-charged-with-hiding-sex-crimes-20120830-253bn.html 

Green Bay diocese liable for molestation cover-up

Jury awards brothers $700K in Wis. diocese lawsuit
 Monday, May 21, 2012

APPLETON, Wis. (AP) — An Outagamie County jury on Monday awarded two brothers $700,000 in a fraud trial against the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay.

The civil jury found the diocese responsible Monday for concealing a former priest's history of child molestation.

Brothers Todd and Troy Merryfield sued the diocese in 2008, alleging the diocese was aware the Rev. John Feeney sexually assaulted others before 1978, when it assigned him to Freedom's St. Nicholas Church. Feeney was convicted in 2004 for the sexual assaults of the Merryfields and has already served his prison sentence.

The jury awarded Troy Merryfield $475,000 and Todd $225,000 in damages, The Post-Crescent reported....

Over the past week, Jeffrey Anderson and John Peterson, the Merryfields' attorneys, called several priests as witnesses. The priests testified there were allegations of inappropriate behavior by Feeney — that he swam naked with boys and showered with them after basketball games — long before he assaulted the Merryfields in 1978.

But the bishop, who died in 2005, said in a previous deposition testimony that if there was merit to complaints of sexual abuse by Feeney, he would have immediately suspended the priest.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/article/Jury-awards-brothers-700K-in-Wis-diocese-lawsuit-3575027.php



Green Bay diocese liable for molestation cover-up                                     
May. 21, 2012

APPLETON — When an Outagamie County jury decided the Roman Catholic Diocese of Green Bay covered up a priest’s history of child molestation, it sent a message to the rest of Wisconsin, an advocate for sexual abuse victims said....

Rev. John Feeney molested the Merryfields in 1978, when they were 12 and 14 years old. In 2004, Feeney was convicted of sexual assault of the brothers. After the criminal trial, the brothers said they learned the priest had a history of similar assaults in the 1960s and 1970s that the diocese knew about and hid from parishioners at St. Nicholas Church in Freedom, which the Merryfields attended.

So in 2008, they sued the diocese and now-deceased Bishop Aloysius Wycislo, who was in charge of ensuring priests were fit to serve, for fraudulent misrepresentation and sought unspecified damages....

Feeney was attending mental health counseling in 1974 after he touched girls inappropriately at a church retreat, Rev. Lawrence Canavera testified. Anderson and Peterson presented a letter forwarded from psychologist Thomas Kelley to the bishop stating under stress Feeney’s “usual controls over sexual impulses may fail and cause some indiscretions.”
http://www.postcrescent.com/article/20120521/APC0101/305210146/Green-Bay-diocese-held-liable-molestation-cover-up-story-photo-video-?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

Vatican ‘has blood on hands’ over Smyth affair, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin calls for establishment of independent Fr Brendan Smyth inquiry

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin calls for establishment of independent Fr Brendan Smyth inquiry

Sunday, 6 May 2012

The Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin, has called for an independent international commission of inquiry into the crimes of Fr Brendan Smyth, the late paedophile priest.


Dr Martin said such an inquiry was owed to victims and that it would be in the public interest that the full story, and not bits and pieces, should come out....
http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0506/archbishop-martin-calls-for-smyth-inquiry.html



Vatican ‘has blood on hands’ over Smyth affair
By Claire O’Sullivan
Saturday, May 05, 2012

An American lawyer who was abused by Fr Brendan Smyth has said that the Vatican has "blood on its hands" for its failure to inform Irish Church authorities that it had censured Smyth for abuse in the United States years before the 1975 secret inquiry.

Helen McGonigle has learnt that the Vatican’s Congregation for the Religious issued a decree that Smyth wasn’t allowed to take Confession and was to be supervised following abuse complaints made in the late 60s.

Yet, in 1975 the Bishop of Kilmore and the Abbot of Killnacrott agreed a similar censure of Smyth — seemingly oblivious that a similar reprimand had already been handed down.

"Why didn’t the bishop or the abbot inform the Papal Nuncio of this second censure? Why weren’t they informed by the Vatican of the original censure? It is very clear that the 1968 censure was not enforced. What does all of this say about the organisation that is the Catholic Church," Ms McGonigle asked.

Ms McGonigle has pleaded with police on both sides of the border to investigate Cardinal Brady for his possible role in perverting the course of justice and endangering children.

She pointed to current cases being taken against Catholic priests in the US for failing to report abuse allegations to the civil authorities.

"They are enablers, Cardinal Brady and all these priests. That is what they were asked to do and that’s what they have done," she said.
http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/vatican-has-blood-on-hands-over-smyth-affair-192867.html

U.S. bishop charged for not taking porn to police

U.S. bishop charged for not taking porn to police
October 14, 2011 (CBS/AP)

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Kansas City's Catholic bishop was charged Friday with not telling police about child pornography found on a priest's computer, making him the highest-ranking U.S. Catholic official indicted on a charge of failing to protect children.

Kansas City-St. Joseph Catholic Diocese Bishop Robert Finn, the first U.S. bishop criminally charged with sheltering an abusive clergyman, pleaded not guilty to one misdemeanor count of failing to report suspected child abuse.

Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said Finn and his diocese, which also was charged with one count, had "reasonable cause" to suspect a child had been abused after learning of the images.

"Now that the grand jury investigation has resulted in this indictment, my office will pursue this case vigorously because it is about protecting children," Baker said. "I want to ensure there are no future failures to report resulting in other unsuspecting victims."

Finn has acknowledged that he and other diocese officials knew for months about hundreds of "disturbing" images of children that were discovered on a priest's computer but did not report the matter to authorities or turn over the computer.

....The New York Times reports that Bishop Finn was appointed in 2005 and his vision to return the diocese to more traditional practices has drawn strong opinions. The paper reports he is one of only a few bishops affiliated with Opus Dei, a conservative movement....
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/10/14/national/main20120751.shtml


Biship Finn Indictment
http://media.kansascity.com/smedia/2011/10/14/14/36/1jHnmQ.So.81.pdf

100,000 people (est) sterilized in the US, Bishop Waited Months to Report Priest

North Carolina Eugenics Board Victims Fight For Justice (VIDEO) By ALLEN G. BREED 08/15/11 WINFALL, N.C....

This most recent appearance in late June was before the Governor's Task Force to Determine the Method of Compensation for Victims of North Carolina's Eugenics Board....

Between 1929 and 1974, North Carolina sterilized more than 7,600 individuals in the name of "improving" the state's human stock. By the time the program was halted, the majority of those neutered were young, black, poor women....

The word "eugenics" comes from the Greek for "well-born."

By the early 20th century, most U.S. states had eugenics programs, and more than 30 enacted laws mandating surgical sterilization for certain individuals. It is estimated that as many as 100,000 people were sterilized in the country before the practice was discredited....
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/15/eugenics-victims-north-carolina_n_927065.html

Bishop in Missouri Waited Months to Report Priest, Stirring Parishioners’ Rage By LAURIE GOODSTEIN August 14, 2011

In the annals of the sexual abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church, most of the cases that have come to light happened years before to children and teenagers who have long since grown into adults.

But a painfully fresh case is devastating Catholics in Kansas City, Mo., where a priest, who was arrested in May, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of taking indecent photographs of young girls, most recently during an Easter egg hunt just four months ago.

Bishop Robert Finn of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph has acknowledged that he knew of the existence of photographs last December but did not turn them over to the police until May....

Stoking much of the anger is the fact that only three years ago, Bishop Finn settled lawsuits with 47 plaintiffs in sexual abuse cases for $10 million and agreed to a long list of preventive measures, among them to immediately report anyone suspected of being a pedophile to law enforcement authorities....

A civil lawsuit filed last week claims that during those five months, the priest, the Rev. Shawn Ratigan, attended children’s birthday parties, spent weekends in the homes of parish families, hosted the Easter egg hunt and presided, with the bishop’s permission, at a girl’s First Communion....

The diocese was first warned about Father Ratigan’s inappropriate interest in young girls as far back as 2006, according to accusations in the civil lawsuit filed Thursday. But there were also more recent warnings.

In May 2010, the principal of a Catholic elementary school where Father Ratigan worked hand-delivered a letter to the vicar general reporting specific episodes that had raised alarms: the priest put a girl on his lap during a bus ride and allowed children to reach into his pants pockets for candy. When a Brownie troop visited Father Ratigan’s house, a parent reported finding a pair of girl’s panties in a planter, the letter said....

A federal grand jury last Tuesday charged Father Ratigan with 13 counts of possessing, producing and attempting to produce child pornography. It accused him of taking lewd pictures of the genitalia of five girls ages 2 to 12, sometimes while they slept. If convicted, he would face a minimum of 15 years in prison.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/us/15bishop.html


Bishops Won’t Focus on Abuse Policies
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
June 14, 2011....

In the diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Bishop Robert W. Finn admitted last month that he allowed a priest who had taken pornographic pictures of parish girls to continue celebrating Mass and having access to children.

Bishop Finn also acknowledged he did not read a letter sent to his office a year earlier by a Catholic school principal warning that parents, teachers and staff members suspected that the priest, the Rev. Shawn Ratigan, was a child molester. Father Ratigan was arrested on May 19 on child pornography charges.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/us/15bishops.html

'Caylee's Law' Petition Goes Viral, Bishop who knew but did not tell

also: Jailed teacher's abuse of primary pupils prompts serious case review
Probe ordered into how crimes went undiscovered after teacher Nigel Leat jailed indefinitely for years of sexual abuse

Jake Ormerod sentenced to 10 years in jail for sexually abusing girls -
Gang member used Facebook as part of a campaign to sexually abuse more than 100 schoolgirls in the Torbay area


'Caylee's Law' Petition Goes Viral, Aims To Make Not Reporting A Missing Child A Crime The Huffington Post Dean Praetorius 7/7/11

"Caylee's Law" has already gained over 330,000 signatures on Change.org.
The petition, which was created by Michelle Crowder of Oklahoma, aims to make not notifying police of a missing child a crime. According to USA Today, it also calls for strict penalties when parents do not quickly report the death of a child.

The call for the law comes in the wake of Tuesday's verdict in the Casey Anthony trial, in which the young mother did not report her child missing for some time.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/07/caylees-law-petition-casey-anthony_n_892317.html


In the dock: bishop who knew but did not tell - French abuse case stirs controversy over secrecy in Catholic Church
Special report: religion in the UK
Jon Henley in Paris
The Guardian, Thursday 14 June 2001 01.27 BST
A Roman Catholic bishop will appear in the dock today for the first time in modern French history, accused of knowingly covering up the crimes of a paedophile priest who had been telling his Church superiors of his sexual relations with young boys for more than 25 years.

Monsignor Pierre Pican, the bishop of Bayeux in Normandy, faces up to three years in jail in a landmark case that pits one of the essential tenets of Catholicism, the secrecy of the confessional, against the moral requirements of a secular justice system.

Mgr Pican will be asked to explain why he failed to report to the police the activities of Father René Bissey, sentenced to 18 years in jail last year for repeatedly raping one boy and sexually abusing 10 others between 1989 and 1996. A long list of similar offences dating back to 1970 had exceeded the statute of limitations.

Despite issuing an official condemnation of paedophilia, the Catholic church remains bitterly divided over the case, with some senior figures continuing to defend the vital importance of secrecy to their profession and the "curative role" of the confessional in their faith.

Mgr Pican was formally notified of Bissey's activities in 1996 by the vicar general of Normandy, Michel Marcel, who had received a letter from the mother of a young victim. He is alleged to have known of the priest's behaviour for far longer.

During his trial last October, Bissey - described by a police psychiatrist as an "authentic paedophile" who "felt no guilt whatsoever towards his victims" - said he had repeatedly admitted his activities with young boys to his confessors within the Church.
He had carried on, he told the court, because he was always pardoned....

The case eventually came to court only after one of the principal victims, Yann, then 25, filed a complaint against Bissey in mid-1999. Mgr Pican, 66, now faces charges of "failing to disclose the sexual abuse and maltreatment of minors below the age of 15 by a figure in authority".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/jun/14/religion.uk



Jailed teacher's abuse of primary pupils prompts serious case review
Probe ordered into how crimes went undiscovered after teacher Nigel Leat jailed indefinitely for years of sexual abuse
Steven Morris
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 14 June 2011
A review has been launched to establish if authorities could have acted sooner to prevent a primary school teacher sexually assaulting pupils as young as six, allegedly for more than a decade.

Nigel Leat was jailed indefinitely for abusing children he taught, often when other pupils were present, and secretly filming his attacks.
He groomed at least one girl a year at Hillside first school in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset and showered her with gifts, afforded her privileges and organised one-on-one teaching sessions.
Leat, 51, would swear his victims to secrecy and even write letters to them in which he would describe what he wanted to do to them and ask them to reply.

After the sentencing, North Somerset council revealed that the headteacher of Hillside, Chris Hood, had been suspended and an independent serious case review was being held....
Married father of two Leat, from Bristol, admitted 36 offences involving five pupils aged between six and eight over five years. The offences included sexual assault, attempted rape, voyeurism and possessing extreme pornography.

But police say they could have charged him with as many as 500 offences and believe he had been abusing children for 12 years.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jun/14/teacher-jailed-indefinitely-sexual-abuse


Jake Ormerod sentenced to 10 years in jail for sexually abusing girls -
Gang member used Facebook as part of a campaign to sexually abuse more than 100 schoolgirls in the Torbay area Steven Morris and Sandra Laville

guardian.co.uk, Friday 8 July 2011 A member of a gang believed to have sexually abused more than 100 schoolgirls in a seaside resort has been sentenced to 10 years in custody.

Jake Ormerod, 20, used Facebook as part of his "campaign to groom naive and immature girls" and then "mercilessly corrupted" them to satisfy his "insatiable need for sex". He admitted 13 charges of sexual activity with eight girls.
He plied victims with drink and drugs in the Devon resort of Torquay, before having unprotected sex.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jul/08/jake-ormerod-10-years-jail-torbay

Belgian cardinal offered to hush up sex case, Belgian sex abuse tapes

Shanley clergy abuse recovered memory case
http://ritualabuse.us/research/memory-fms/shanley-recovered-memory-case/


Belgian cardinal offered to hush up sex case (AP) – 8/28/10
BRUSSELS — Roman Catholic Cardinal Godfried Danneels of Belgium offered to keep a sexual molestation case against a bishop secret until the bishop retired, an official said Saturday. Toon Osaer, Danneels' spokesman, confirmed a report in Saturday's De Standaard newspaper about a secretly taped meeting that Danneels held on April 8 with Belgian Bishop Roger Vangheluwe and the bishop's sexual abuse victim.

Osaer told the VRT television and radio network that Danneels told the victim the case against Vangheluwe could be kept quiet until the bishop retired as scheduled a year later. In the end, Vangheluwe resigned two weeks after the meeting, expressing sorrow for having abused the victim as a youngster for years, both while serving as a priest and a bishop. Danneels retired as head of the Belgian Catholic church in January. But police later questioned him as a potential witness in the case and raided his home and office, confiscating documents and a personal computer. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jELcVrb_-jrRarOc1Ps2E7AmKY8wD9HSJ4FG0


Belgian sex abuse tapes amplify Catholic scandals Sun Aug 29, 2010
PARIS (Reuters) - Leaked tapes of Belgium's Cardinal Godfried Danneels urging a victim not to reveal he was sexually abused by a bishop are some of the most damaging documents to emerge in the scandal rocking the Roman Catholic Church.
The tapes, made secretly by the victim and published in two Belgian newspapers on Saturday, show the former primate of Belgium exhorting him to accept a private apology or wait one year until the bishop retired before making his case public.

Their meeting took place on April 8, at a time when the Vatican was under fire for allegedly covering up similar abuse cases by priests in other countries and shocking abuse claims dominated the news in several European states.

A spokesman for Danneels denied the once popular archbishop of Brussels wanted to cover up the case, which led to the sudden resignation of Bruges Bishop Roger Vangheluwe, 73, later that month, but the tapes show him arguing firmly for silence.
Belgian Church spokesman Jurgen Mettepenningen confirmed to Reuters that the transcripts in the Flemish dailies De Standaard and Het Nieuwsblad were genuine.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE67S11920100829

Bishop admits ignoring abuse cases, The Pope’s Duty

Bishop admits ignoring abuse cases 09 Jul 2010 Germany's senior Roman Catholic bishop Robert Zollitsch has admitted his mistakes in dealing with allegations of sexual abuse against an alleged pedophile priest. The Archbishop of Freiburg and head of the German Bishops Conference said on Friday that he should have probed more intensely the sexual abuse accusations laid against a priest, who is believed to have molested boys when he worked in the town of Oberharmersbach from 1968 to 1991, AP reported. "I was shocked about the unfathomable extent of the abuse in Oberharmersbach, which has become apparent only in recent months," said Zollitsch, who was diocese staff manager at the time and responsible for priest placements. According to a statement issued by the diocese, Zollitsch also met with victims and their families, delivering apologies to those whose lives have been shattered by sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church over the past months. The statement has pointed to accusations against 44 other priests in the first six months of 2010. http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=134100&sectionid=351020604




Editorial: The Pope’s Duty 7/8/10
When rolling scandal forced the American Catholic bishops conference to take action against pedophile priests, the prelates issued a tough policy requiring accused child molesters be reported immediately to secular authorities. This mandate finally acknowledged that crimes against children should take priority over bureaucratic church policies that served to cloak rogue priests and bishops in a fog of ecclesiastical evasion.
Eight years after the American church’s overdue order, it is shocking that Pope Benedict XVI and the Vatican have not yet applied it to the worldwide Roman Catholic Church. The pedophilia scandal has erupted in other nations, leaving parents concerned about a repetition of the harrowing experience in America, where more than 700 priests had to be dismissed across a three-year period. Yet the Vatican is reportedly working on new “guidelines” — not mandates. They are likely to fall short of zero-tolerance and other requirements in the American church that parishes and communities be alerted to abusers. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/09/opinion/09fri3.html

Stern: Terrorism Expert No Longer in 'Denial' About Her Rape, clergy abuse

clergy abuse articles : Italy, Ireland, Belgium

Books of The Times - Violence Expert Visits Her Dark Past By DWIGHT GARNER
June 24, 2010 Jessica Stern is among the world’s experts on violence and evil, a woman who spends her time thinking about bad men and bad deeds. She has lectured at Harvard about terrorism and is the author of a respected book, “Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill” (2003). During the Clinton administration she was on the staff of the National Security Council....

“Denial” is Ms. Stern’s plainspoken and very raw account of why, long before 9/11, she was driven to study terrorism and to put herself repeatedly into danger as she flew around the world, like some scholarly twin of the former CNN war correspondent Christiane Amanpour, interviewing committed terrorists. Central among the reasons, it turns out, was her own experience of terror. On Oct. 1, 1973, when Ms. Stern was 15 and her sister 14, the two of them, alone in a suburban house in leafy Concord, Mass., were raped by a man who cut the house’s telephone lines before walking inside and leading them upstairs.

Ms. Stern describes that evening in brutal detail. It was a night that changed her and taught her a dire lesson: “Shame can be sexually transmitted.” The crime wasn’t properly investigated. The police didn’t believe her when she said the rapist was a stranger. Because her story and those of others were not publicized or taken seriously enough by the police, the same man was able to rape some 44 girls — an incredible, heart-collapsing number — from 1971 to 1973. “The entire community,” she writes, “was in denial.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/25/books/25book.html

Terrorism Expert No Longer in 'Denial' About Her Rape Andrea Stone Senior Washington Correspondent 6/25/10 WASHINGTON (June 22) -- Jessica Stern, one of the world's foremost authorities on terrorism, never made the connection between her chosen profession and the terror she suffered as a teenager. Stern was 15 and her sister Sara 14 when a blue-eyed stranger carrying a small handgun entered their home in Concord, Mass., on the evening of Oct. 1, 1973. The man threatened to kill them. Then he raped them. There was no one for the girls to turn to -- their mother was dead, their father on a business trip in Europe, the baby sitter had left them alone. The police refused to believe the girls didn't know the man. They were in denial. Worse, their father refused to cut short his trip to rush home.

A few months later -- his daughters' rapist still at large -- he told police they had gotten over it. He was in denial. But it took more than 30 years for Stern to discover that she, too, was in denial....Stern knew from therapy that she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a diagnosis she had denied for years....Stern was not content to confine herself to the personal. She talked to a fellow victim and met a veteran who was injured in Iraq and suffers from PTSD. While she doesn't equate rape with being maimed by a roadside bomb -- "I was not a victim of terrorism. That is much more serious and has a political element" -- she was struck by how many symptoms she shared with the soldier....

Connecting her trauma to a wider circle, she wrote: Denial helps the bystander. We don't want to know what the boys we send to Iraq have done to others out of terror, or what others have done to them. We would rather not know about terror or be confronted with evil. This is as true about Abu Ghraib as it is about personal assaults and more private crimes, the crimes that occur inside families. But the victim, too, cannot bear to believe. She may bury or disassociate from or disown her pain.
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/terrorism-expert-jessica-stern-no-longer-in-denial-about-her-rape/19524354


Abuse Loosens Church’s Culture of Silence in Italy
By RACHEL DONADIO June 26, 2010 ROME — One afternoon last month, a rare thing happened in Rome’s main courthouse: for perhaps the first time ever, an Italian bishop took the witness stand in the case of a priest accused of the sexual abuse of children.
Soon after, another rare thing happened. The leader of the Italian bishops’ conference acknowledged at a news conference that it was “possible” that bishops in Italy had covered up abuse, while his deputy said that in the past decade, 100 Italian priests had faced church trials in connection with the sexual abuse of minors.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=132214&sectionid=351021820


Irish priest resigns over abuse case 27 Jun 2010 A priest in charge of protecting children in a rural diocese in Northern Ireland has been forced to resign over a case of child sex abuse filed against another priest under his authority. Earlier, an Irish Examiner report said Fr Bermingham in charge of the Diocese of Cloyne, in County Cork had received a note from a woman claiming abuse by a priest under his ministration. Bermingham had hushed up the matter and let his colleague know of the note before referring him to the police.

Bermingham said he had turned in the abuse statement which he received in May 2009 to the police and the Health Service Executive in the Irish Republic right away....This spring, a group of deaf men in Verona were granted a rare hearing on national television to denounce the priests they said serially molested them as children in a school for the deaf. “We just want justice,” said one of the men, Gianni Bisoli.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=132214&sectionid=351021820

Pope denounces 'deplorable' raid on Belgian church - Raids come amid fresh claims of sex abuse in Catholic Church Agence France-Presse June 27, 2010
VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI on Sunday accused Belgian police of "deplorable methods" for raiding a bishops' meeting as part of a pedophilia probe, as Brussels said the Vatican was overreacting....Thursday's raids came amid new claims of child abuse by members of the Catholic Church in Belgium, one of the countries rocked by recent revelations of pedophilia by priests in Europe and North America. http://www.montrealgazette.com/life/Pope+denounces+deplorable+raid+Belgian+church/3208676/story.html

Lawsuit: Former Orlando priests gave boys alcohol

Lawsuit: Former Orlando priests gave boys alcohol May 14, 2010 By Walter Pacheco, Orlando Sentinel

Accounts of plying boys with alcohol, showing them pornography and then molesting them are among the allegations detailed in the lawsuits against two former priests and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orlando....In the past five years, officials at the Diocese of Orlando have been served with 14 lawsuits alleging sexual abuse of altar boys and other children at the hands of its clergymen. The Diocese settled several of those suits, paying victims more than $5 million. The victim in the suit against Vernon F. Uhran is asking for more than $25 million in damages. The suit against Richard A. Emerson seeks more than $15,000 from the Diocese. Both lawsuits were filed in Orange County during the past two weeks. Uhran, a former priest at St. Mary Magdalen Catholic Church in Altamonte Springs, is accused of giving the victim alcohol on a "spiritual retreat" to a beach in 1970 and then molesting him, according to the suit. The victim was 14 at the time. Diocese records show Uhran had preached in at least six Central Florida parishes and Catholic schools since 1969. Multiple allegations of sexual abuse of minors forced former Bishop Norbert Dorsey to remove him from the ministry in 1992. http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2010-05-14/news/os-orlando-catholic-priest-lawsuit-20100514_1_lawsuits-alleging-sexual-abuse-survivors-network-diocese-spokeswoman-carol-brinati

polygamy cult movie, Cardinal Hailed Bishop for Hiding Predator Priest

Cardinal Hailed Bishop for Hiding Predator Priest: Report By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor
April 15, 2010 VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - A Vatican cardinal in charge of clergy around the world congratulated a French bishop in a 2001 letter for not denouncing a sexually abusive priest to the police, according to a French website on Thursday. The letter posted by Golias, a critical lay Roman Catholic magazine based in Lyon, is the most explicit of a wave of recently published internal church documents in showing past Vatican encouragement to cover up sexual abuse by priests. In the letter dated Sept 8, 2001, Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos backed French Bishop Pierre Pican's decision not to denounce a priest who was later sentenced to 18 years in jail for repeated rape of a boy and sexual assaults on 10 others.


Under fire in recent weeks for its secretive handling of abuse cases, the Vatican has insisted the fact that other published documents did not explicitly instruct bishops to inform police of abuse did not prove it told them to hide it....Pican, who received a suspended three-month jail sentence for not denouncing sexual abuse of minors, admitted in court he had kept Rev. Rene Bissey in parish work despite the fact the priest had privately admitted committing pedophile acts.

The case shocked France and prompted its bishops to declare that all abuse cases must be reported to civil authorities. "I congratulate you for not denouncing a priest to the civil administration," Castrillon Hoyos said. "You have acted well and I am pleased to have a colleague in the episcopate who, in the eyes of history and of all other bishops in the world, preferred prison to denouncing his son and priest." http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=10388243



Follow the Prophet - A controversial thriller about a young girl's escape from a polygamy cult http://www.followtheprophetmovie.com/

Conspiracy and Bribery in the Vatican, Vatican was told 50 years ago

Conspiracy and Bribery in the Vatican An abusive priest allegedly bought protection with payoffs to Vatican officials. 4/1/10 video abcnews Maciel
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/conspiracy-bribery-vatican-10264509

Church admits abuse victims came second 2 Apr 10 The head of Germany's Catholics has admitted in a Good Friday message that victims of child abuse had been inadequately cared for because of the Church's effort to protect its reputation. In one of the frankest admissions yet to come out of the scandal-battered Catholic Church, the head of the German Bishops' Conference, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, said help given to the victims of abuse "had not been enough."
http://www.thelocal.de/national/20100402-26281.html

Ratzinger And The Cases Of Father Teta And Father Trupia 02 Apr 2010 It was well-known in Arizona two decades ago that Father Michael Teta was a rapist of teen boys. Teta was first suspended from his duties in 1990 because he was credibly accused of such crimes. But it took seven more years to successfully convict him in a canonical court of sexual molestation, in part because of the arcane legal expertise necessary to conduct such a trial. During that time, the rapist was paid living expenses, legal fees and health insurance by the church....And yet despite Moreno's personal appeal, it took Ratzinger's CDF another seven years to defrock this priest. He was still being paid the equivalent of administrative leave until 2004 - fourteen years after his "insidious rapes" were first reported. During those fourteen years, parishioners paid the priest about $1,400 a month. The diocese also paid for Teta's canon lawyer....In a second case, that of Father Trupia, another sex abuser, it was Moreno who had to fight tooth and nail to prevent Ratzinger's CDF from allowing him to resign in good standing, once the CDF took over the case in 2001
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/04/ratzinger-and-the-cases-of-father-teta-and-father-trupia.html

Bishop Moreno's letter on the Trupia case
http://azstarnet.com/news/local/pdf_b9ac4966-3d26-11df-b092-001cc4c002e0.html

Was seen as poor advocate for victims; files refute that Moreno struggled to defrock 2 priests 4/1/10 Patty Machelor The late Tucson Bishop Manuel D. Moreno, often characterized as a poor advocate for sexual abuse victims, struggled with both canon law and Vatican mandates in his efforts to defrock two local priests, documents obtained by the Arizona Daily Star show....Teta and Trupia were defrocked in 2004. The diocese suspended Trupia in 1992 after a Tucson mother told the diocese her young son had been sexually abused by Trupia....The church's canonical court in 1997 found "there is almost a satanic quality in (Teta's) mode of acting toward young men and boys." The court found that Teta's "insidious 'rape' of so many young men in his capacity as a priest" warranted his immediate removal from the priesthood. "What is wrong with this system in which it takes another seven years to defrock a priest that has been found guilty of 'satanic abuse?' " Tucson lawyer Lynne Cadigan said.
http://azstarnet.com/news/local/article_6fd9e4bd-fcfc-50d6-ab3f-2d14c95219fd.html

New Sex Scandal Rocks Vatican 3/6/10 Vatican City, Italy (CBS) The Vatican is facing allegations that one of Pope Benedict's ceremonial ushers, as well as a member of the Vatican choir, were involved in a gay prostitution ring.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/03/06/earlyshow/saturday/main6272743.shtml

Vatican was told 50 years ago to act against paedophile priests Expert's warning proves Catholic church should have known about failings in dealing with abuse cases, says lawyer - Owen Bowcott and agencies 1 April 2010 A former pope was warned that paedophile priests should be removed from active ministry and repeat offenders expelled from the church, according to a clerical communique that has emerged following a US lawsuit. The letter, written in August 1963 by the head of an order that specialised in the treatment of priests accused of abusing children, suggests that the Vatican and Pope Paul VI should have known about failings in procedures for dealing with such cases, according to the lawyer who produced it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/apr/01/catholic-priests-abuse-warning

Vatican denies abuse liability, Pope implicated, bishop accused beating orphans

Law firm implicates Vatican, Pope in abuse case By CHRISTINE ARMARIO AP March 31, 2010 MIAMI - A South Florida law firm is implicating the Vatican and Pope Benedict XVI in its handling of a priest accused of sexually abusing children. Jessica Arbour, an attorney representing one of the alleged victims, says documents show the Vatican was aware of Rev. Ernesto Garcia-Rubio's misconduct as early as 1968. Thirteen years later, Benedict became head of the Vatican office that received a petition from Garcia-Rubio seeking to leave the priesthood. Arbour says the paperwork was lost. Arbour says they do not have any evidence indicating children were abused during that time. A lawsuit has been filed against the Archdiocese of Miami, claiming it was negligent in its supervision and assignment of the reverend. Arbour says it may be amended to include the Vatican.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/31/AR2010033100931.html

Vatican offers 3 reasons it's not liable for abuse By NICOLE WINFIELD, AP Mar 30, 2010 VATICAN CITY – Dragged deeper than ever into the clerical sex abuse scandal, the Vatican is launching a legal defense that it hopes will shield the pope from a lawsuit in Kentucky seeking to have him answer attorneys' questions under oath. Court documents obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press show that Vatican lawyers plan to argue that the pope has immunity as head of state, that American bishops who oversaw abusive priests weren't employees of the Vatican, and that a 1962 document is not the "smoking gun" that provides proof of a cover-up.

The Holy See is trying to fend off the first U.S. case to reach the stage of determining whether victims actually have a claim against the Vatican itself for negligence for allegedly failing to alert police or the public about Roman Catholic priests who molested children.

The case was filed in 2004 in Kentucky by three men who claim they were abused by priests and claim negligence by the Vatican. Their attorney, William McMurry, is seeking class-action status for the case, saying there are thousands of victims across the country.

"This case is the only case that has been ever been filed against the Vatican which has as its sole objective to hold the Vatican accountable for all the priest sex abuse ever committed in this country," he said in a phone interview. "There is no other defendant. There's no bishop, no priest." The Vatican is seeking to dismiss the suit before Benedict XVI can be questioned or documents subpoenaed. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100331/ap_on_re_eu/eu_the_vatican_s_defense_16



describes abuse



German bishop accused of beating orphaned girls April 1, 2010 One of the Pope's closest conservative allies in Germany, Bishop Walter Mixa, has been accused of brutally beating and flogging children in his care. The Bishop of Augsburg, 68, denies the claims by five former pupils at a Catholic-run orphanage and care facility. But they will be a source of deep embarrassment and concern in the Vatican: Bishop Mixa is part of a conservative axis in Pope Benedict XVI's native Bavaria that has always backed the pontiff in his most controversial decisions, from criticising the violence of Islam in Regensburg cathedral, to rehabilitating the Holocaust-sceptic Bishop Richard Williamson....The beatings were regular and always brutal.

"At least 50 times Mr Mixa pulled down my trousers and beat me on the bottom with a stick, five or six whacks each time," Mr Tagwerk added....The blows were always administered in places where the bruising could be hidden - high up on the arm or on the bottom. One of the victims, a man who is now 44, reports being flogged with a carpet beater, 35 strokes each time. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7082705.ece