The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors sat for 3 years before its term expired two months ago.

In freshening the commission Pope Francis added nine new people to its ranks, and re-appointed only eight of the previous members to the commission.

Pope Francis did not reappoint 6 existing members including New Zealand Church official Bill Kilgallon.

Kilgallon recently retired as director of the New Zealand National Office of Professional Standards (NOPS) for the Catholic Church.

His retirement was signaled a year ago to the New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference (NZCBC).

Spokesperson for NZCBC, Amanda Gregan, had no comment on Kilgallon's non-appointment but points out that he has retired.

NOPS sets guidelines for the Catholic Church's policy for children, young people and adults at risk.

Kilgallon worked as its director for 5 years before his retirement.

Pope Francis' commission renewal comes amid criticism of his handling of accusations against a Chilean bishop.

The bishop stands accused of covering up abuse while he was a priest in the 1980s and 90s.

The Pope's revamped commission will meet with victims of sexual abuse in April.

Criticism of Commission

The abuse commission has faced increasing public scrutiny since it began in 2014.

A former commissioner complained of overwork and understaffing.

Another, Marie Collins, was an Irish abuse survivor who resigned from the commission in frustration last March.

She says some of those not reappointed were among the group's most active members.

Collins says she resigned in frustration at Vatican officials' refusal to cooperate with the commission's work.

She cited one Vatican office's refusal to send a response to all abuse victims who wrote to the office.

The Pope had approved sending the response after the commission asked him to.

Sources:

• • National Catholic Reporter
  • Washington Post
  • Image: Reuters

Father David Lancini's lawyer, Justin Greggery, told the court that claims Lancini abused a boy in the 1970s were either fabricated or mistaken.

Lying collusion

Detectives and witnesses colluded in Lancini's arrest last December.

Greggery told the court witnesses colluded on "demonstrably" fabricated statements before Lancini was charged with eight counts of indecent treatment of a boy under 14 years of age.

He alleged one of the witnesses, who was not the complainant, had a vendetta against the priest.

Lancini was in the seminary in Brisbane late in 1971 when some of the offences were alleged to have occurred, Greggery stated.

He therefore could not physically have committed the offences.

Furthermore, even though detectives knew in September about the impossibility of the claims against Lancini, they arrested him anyway, in December.

"Father Lancini's arrests were on the basis of demonstrably false statements by critical prosecution witnesses" Greggery told the court.

He also said a witness had provided other witnesses with Lancini's name and photographs. The witness later denied that to police.

"The only reasonable inference was that [the] omission was deliberate" Greggery said.

"Lancini is a priest with an unblemished history."

Charges dismissed

The Police said there was no evidence to present.

Magistrate Viviana Keegan said as the prosecution had offered no evidence, she was dismissing all eight child sex abuse charges.

Cheers outside courthouse

Amid supporters' cheers, Lancini thanked his family and supporters.

"I thank them for their kindness, their generosity and their goodness. Also for the many emails, letters and cards, and words of encouragement from the Bishop, religious brothers and sisters."

Lancini said he and Greggery would make further statements about any legal matters arising.

Concern for victims and survivors

Townsville Bishop Tim Harris is pleased the charges had been dismissed.

However he is concerned about the effect false allegations can have on abuse victims and survivors.

"Situations like this may cause more harm to those people and make it even more difficult for victims to come forward and tell their story" he said.

There has been a recent independent audit of the diocese's safeguarding procedures.

The auditor's final report will be made available to the public, Bishop Harris says.

A Police spokesperson was unable to provide any further comment in relation to the matter.

Source

• ABC

The BBC reports he has been charged with rape and a string of historical sexual offences, some against children.

Saunders pleaded not guilty to all charges.

He was granted bail.

Saunders will appear again in the Broome Magistrates Court on 17 June 2024.

The allegations, from 2008, involve incidents in Broome and the remote towns of Kununurra and Kalumburu. The Broome diocese covers 773,000 sq km and serves a population of over 50,000.

Approximately the size of Turkey and equivalently the size of the 37th largest country in the world, the diocese has only 9 parishes, 13 Catholic schools and 1 university.

Saunders resigned as Bishop of Broome in 2021 amidst a failed police investigation and a media storm over the allegations.

The BBC reports that Saunders is well known for socialising, advocacy work and escorting young men on camping and fishing trips.

He is a long-time powerful figure within the local community. There is also a beer named after him.

Church co-operates with civil authorities

A subsequent Vatican investigation into the allegations against Saunders was initiated in 2022, further intensifying scrutiny.

At one point, the West Australian politicians accused the Church of refusing to hand the results of its investigation over to the Police.

However, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC) responded firmly, denying these allegations.

It said that a copy of the Vatican report was already in the possession of Western Australia Police Deputy Commissioner Allan Adams.

"The Church and Western Australia Police remain in ongoing and collaborative contact in relation to this matter" ....... "the Church will continue to offer full transparency and cooperation with the WA Police" says a statement from the ACBC.

The results of the Vatican investigation gave West Australian Police grounds to mount a second investigation and ultimately press charges and arrest the former Broome bishop.

The ACBC, through Archbishop Timothy Costelloe, expressed its commitment to a thorough investigation.

Costelloe emphasised the church's full cooperation with police efforts and underscored the gravity of the allegations.

"Allegations against the former Bishop of Broome, Christopher Saunders, are very serious and deeply distressing, especially for those making those allegations" said Archbishop Costelloe.

"It is right and proper, and indeed necessary that all such allegations be thoroughly investigated."

The charges against Saunders come in the wake of high-profile cases within the Australian Catholic Church, including Cardinal George Pell's conviction and subsequent acquittal of child sexual abuse charges, and former Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson's overturned conviction for covering up abuse.

Sources

• BBC
• Catholic Weekly
• CathNews (Published September 25, 2023)
• RNS

It was a time when some feared for the Church's survival.

But back then, the Vatican enjoyed religious, moral, cultural and political legitimacy on the global and domestic political stage.

It was just a few years after the 1929 Lateran Treaty that Pius XI signed with the Fascist regime of Benito Mussolini.

That pact cemented, for the remaining years of the regime, the consensus of most Italians around Fascism - until the disaster of World War II opened the eyes of those who had been blind to the real nature of Mussolini's authoritarian order.

For the papacy and the Vatican, the 1929 treaty had an effect that lasted much longer because it solved the "Roman question" and gave the papacy an institutional, legal, and diplomatic status that the Holy See still enjoys to this day.

This status protects the papacy symbolically, juridically, and politically in ways that we often take for granted.

It's one of the reasons why the Bishop of Rome has a different global profile than the (Anglican) Archbishop of Canterbury or the (Orthodox) Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.

No more deference

But in the last twenty years or so, the Vatican has become more and more identified with scandal, especially related to the clergy sex abuse crisis and grave financial irregularities.

This coincided with the loss of deference that secular authorities (press, police, justice system) once showed to Church authorities when the Catholic press was still under the control of the hierarchy.

It was a time when, despite the fact that Church and State related to each other differently in the various countries of the West, there was a certain convergence between the two. It's enough to think about anti-Communism and the role of (traditional) marriage in society.

That relationship no longer exists. The end of the Cold War, secularisation and the emergence of a multi-cultural and multi-religious society have deprived the Church of the protection it needed when this new age of scandal came about.

It is true that the Church and nation-states are all suffering a crisis of legitimacy. And there is clearly a parallelism here. For the nation-states, it's the pervasive influence that transnational and global corporations and networks have gained in this stage of worldwide capitalism.

Then there are the world powers that have become increasingly unafraid of interfering in new ways (thanks to new technologies) with the internal order of other states.

These factors have impacted negatively on the Church, too. But there is also a new kind of pressure from within — it's from Catholics who, in different but similar ways, react against this new age of corruption as they await a reform (or a Reformation).

The difference is that the nation-states are reacting (case in point: the COVID pandemic) in ways that the Catholic Church is not able to replicate. The Church made consists of "believers without borders", a reality that makes the very idea of ecclesiastical power and jurisdiction in a territorial way largely a fiction.

Moreover, the abuse crisis has made clear to many Catholics that when it is about the abuse crisis, there is no legal recourse other than the secular justice system.

Credibility in question

Jonathan Laurence, a political scientist at Boston College, recently published a book that argues that one of the ways the Catholic Church has tried to cope historically with defeat has been to institutionalise and professionalise its elites.

It happened after the Protestant Reformation in the 16th and 17th centuries and after the impact of the liberal nation-state in the 19th century and in the age of mass migration.

But the impression one has today is that the Church is unable to follow that path.

On the contrary, it is on its way towards deinstitutionalisation, especially in the West.

This is one of the side effects of the emphasis on the necessary need to decentralise and relativize the role of the legal and institutional system in Catholicism.

Does this mean that the authority of the papacy will be over soon, in the sense of a disestablishment of the Vatican City State? No, but its legitimacy is in crisis. And this has and will continue to have consequences on its ability to operate.

It would be naïve to think that the pope's generous humanitarian and peace-making efforts for war-torn countries and areas of tension will solve this crisis of legitimacy.

Part of the reason is that, in order to deal with dictators and authoritarian leaders in today's world, the papacy needs a credibility that is stronger, not weaker, than that which Paul VI enjoyed when he addressed the United Nations in New York in 1965 and exclaimed: "No more war! War never again!"

The recent calls by Pope Francis and his Secretary of State (Cardinal Pietro Parolin) for a "new spirit of Helsinki" refer to a very different age when the Holy See had such prestige that it was invited to participate in the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe in the Finish capital in 1975 and allowed to sign its final declaration.

The threat from inside

Multiple crises have emerged and have come to light during the current pontificate. Also, thanks to Francis' lack of fear, they are putting in danger the legitimacy of the Vatican and its high moral sovereignty.

This might mean a Church that cannot resist the pressure, for example, to open its archives for investigations on high-profile cases of abuse. This could finally deprive some Church leaders of the illusion that this is a temporary crisis.

On the contrary, this is an epochal crisis that could seriously damage the Church's global efforts for good.

Its work for peace and inter-religious dialogue risks not being taken seriously anymore - not to talk about the Church's credibility in announcing the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

This is particularly true for this pontificate because Francis has chosen the risky but necessary path to dialogue and witness the Gospel with all world political leaders, no matter how inconsistent or embarrassing their record on democracy and human rights. It's more important than ever that the papacy keeps a certain level of credibility, especially internally.

This is one of the reasons that makes the abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, in our globalised world, a new global and ecumenical version of the articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae — the issue on which the Church stands or falls.

The problem is no longer whether the Cossacks might invade the Vatican and water their horses in the fountains of St Peter's Square.

And the contemptuous question that Joseph Stalin allegedly asked — "How many divisions has the pope?" — is no longer menacing. The Roman Church, after all, survived Communism.

No, the Church must now take a careful look at a more subtle yet no less insidious threat. And this time, it's coming from inside.

• Massimo Faggioli is a Church historian, Professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University (Philadelphia) and a much-published author and commentator. He is a visiting professor in Europe and Australia.

In France, the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE) released a shocking report last year that highlighted the systemic nature and extent of sexual abuse committed in the Church since 1950.

This has been a blow to the Church's credibility, admitted Andrea Riccardi, founder of the Rome-based Sant'Egidio Community and one of Europe's keenest observers of contemporary Catholicism.

The 72-year-old history professor analyzed the crisis and what comes next in this exclusive interview with La Croix's Bruno Bouvet and Céline Hoyeau.

La Croix: One year ago, the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE) revealed the extent of sexual abuse committed in the Church in France since 1950. How can the Church still be credible in society?

Andrea Riccardi: The credibility of the Church has been questioned several times in contemporary history.

It has been reproached for being on the side of the rich and the employers, far from the poor and the workers; close to Vichy in France and not to the Resistance, silent on the deportation of the Jews... I could go on and on.

But there is a deeper crisis of which the sexual abuse crisis is a sad aspect, a global phenomenon that I really felt the night of the Notre Dame fire.

It wasn't just the monument that was burning, but the entire Church. And it was significant that this happened in Paris and in France, which have been the historical laboratory for an encounter between the Catholic Church and modernity.

Vatican II owes an enormous debt to French Catholicism... and yet it was in France that the Church was burning.

What are the causes of this crisis?

The answer is not simple. But the Church's illness is not only a Catholic affair. This is a crisis of Christianity, of secular society. It's a European phenomenon, marked by different symptoms from one country to another.

In Italy, it's the disappearance of Christian Democracy; in Spain, the brutal passage from a Catholicism linked to Franco's authoritarian regime to secularization; in Germany, the sexual abuse scandals, but also the synodal path, which calls into question certain Vatican positions.

I also wonder about the rupture in the transmission of memory. You will tell me that the traditionalists have responded to this, but it is the minority, sectarian response of a small Church nostalgic for a recreated past.

In your recent book, La Chiesa brucia (The Church is burning) you warn against the insignificance of the Church's thinking. At what point did it lose touch with history?

Father Marie-Dominique Chenu (one of the theological experts of Vatican II, editor's note) said that there were 86 quotes of the word "history" in the Council, an absolute novelty for ecumenical councils.

There was talk of the signs of the times, of politics, of the Third World, of revolution, of conservation. History was everywhere.

Our time, on the contrary, has lost the sense of history. But looking at history gives us the strength to face the future through the complexity of situations.

The lesson of Vatican II, reactivated by Pope Francis, is that we must live in history. This means being able to read it before developing a prophecy, that is, an alternative imagination that our society, so poor in visions, needs.

This vision will come from Scripture and from the action of Christians, in service to the poor, in volunteer work.

John Paul II said that faith that does not become culture is a half-faith. Not an academic culture, but a popular culture, a faith that is thoughtful and free, but also emotional and with imagery.

The notion of crisis runs through your entire book and yet you refuse the rhetoric of decline. Why?

In European culture, people have been talking about the decline of the West for years, and it has become a manner of living or surviving.

I think there is a link between the European decline and the crisis of the Church.

Look at the election of Jorge Bergoglio: his witness as a Latin American Catholic was a shock. Ratzinger symbolized the European crisis and the crisis of the Church together, while Bergoglio embodies the energy of a Catholicism that was not tied to Europe.

I do not neglect the years of John Paul II. It is said that his pontificate was a marathon of a quarter of a century and that with his personality he covered up, basically, the weaknesses of the Church.

Wojtyla was not an illusion. He exercised a charismatic government. To be pope, one must be charismatic.

Ratzinger was not, and he resigned, apparently with good reason.

Francis, on the other hand, was the miracle, the way out of the crisis. In fact, his message is very important, with the centrality of the poor, the end of non-negotiable values, the ecological message, the encyclical Fratelli tutti...

But he doesn't have a magic wand, either. The problems have remained, starting with the drop in vocations and the problem of the priest, which the abuses have brought to light.

Where will the Church find its salvation?

I am not a prophet, but in my opinion, hope is in the prayer of the Church. We must return to Scripture, have the capacity to speak to the men and women of our time, integrate strangers, not be afraid.

The Church of St. Gregory the Great, pope and bishop of Rome, integrated the barbarians by creating a Romano-Barbaric civilization, and today in Italy we are afraid of ten boats carrying desperate people...

My conviction for the future is that Christianity has only just begun. History is not over if we discover the deep energies of Christianity.

Concerning the crisis of priests, for example. Can we leave communities without the Eucharist? Shouldn't we think of another clergy?

We talk about married clergy, but I insist on an adult clergy, married or not: not young people coming out of the seminary, but mature men, with a solid experience of life.

Christianity still has resources for us and our Europe.

• Bruno Bouvet and Céline Hoyeau write for La Croix
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

"I'm going to scandalise you," Father Hans Zollner SJ warned his audience as he started his talk about the clergy sex abuse crisis.

"The Church' does not exist. It is not a monolithic block.

"On the contrary, in the same room, same parish and same diocese you have victims and abusers - responsible people and irresponsible people."

His was the final lecture in a series of conferences themed "CIASE, thinking together about the Church".

Last October, CIASE - the Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church - issued a devastating report on decades of clergy sex abuse in France.

Zollner, who besides being a priest is a psychologist, made sure his audience understood how badly Church officials handled cases of abuse in the past.

His aim - to inform so that the same mistakes are never again repeated.

The first cases of sexual abuse emerged 40 years ago, Zollner explained. After a while, complainants appeared from across the globe.

"Now the whole world has heard about the horror of abuse and the failures of the hierarchy in the management of the problem," he said.

"And now questions are being asked about why those in charge reacted the way they did, including the 'untouchables' - bishops, cardinals and the pope himself.

"The same mistake was made, that of not listening to the victims. And the experience of this or that episcopal conference has not been transferred to the others."

Having a single strategy for the Church would be difficult, he acknowledged.

There are 1.4 billion catholics, 24 Churches, 5,300 bishops, 2,900 dioceses and an unknown number of religious congregations.

There are also cultural differences.

"In Africa, in families, villages and tribes, sexuality is taboo. Even moreso when it concerns authority figures such as priests.

"In Asia, saving face is vital for living together. And criticising an authority figure was impossible until recently."

Zollner says there are many paradoxes in the Church.

One is a system of government marked by a "strange tension between authoritarianism and a lack of clear rules, a lack of personal accountability".

The current synodal process must help "us to get out of this back-and-forth between high-and-low.

"The question is above all how we control power. The greater the power one has, the more that person should be held accountable."

"What is the focus of our attention - our institutions and our reputation or the victim, the vulnerable, the other and the Wholly-Other?" he asked.

Another paradox is that the Church seems to invest more in the intellectual formation of its clerics than in their human formation.

Changing norms isn't enough - we need a true conversion that engages spirituality and theology, he said.

"I await the moment when we understand that caring for victims is at the heart of our ministry."

Source

• La Croix

"If the church did more to help confessors be empathetic listeners as well as skilled interpreters of the church's moral teaching, it would make it clearer that the sacrament of reconciliation can be an instrument in the fight against abuse."

It must explain why it does not protect abusers or other serious criminals from justice and why the confessional seal can help safeguard children and vulnerable adults. If not, legislators may target the confessional seal's inviolability, he said.

Zollner's article followed an independent commission's report that estimated over 330,000 children in France were abused by church personnel since the 1950s.

The report provoked the question that had been raised after the publication of similar reports elsewhere: "Should it be mandatory for a priest who hears about sexual abuse committed against a minor in confession to report it to the secular authorities?"

There is no "compelling evidence showing that abuse would be prevented by removing the seal" of the confessional," Zollner wrote.

The Code of Canon Law forbids a priest from revealing anything he has learned in the confessional for any reason.

While the church's poor record of preventing abuse and handling allegations has created suspicion about its protection of the secrecy of the confessional, Zollner said that secrecy makes "people feel free to say things in confession they wouldn't say anywhere else."

That "safe space" is used much more often by survivors and victims than by abusers.

"With the exception of prison chaplains, priests are highly unlikely to ever hear a confession from a perpetrator of sexual abuse of children."

Zollner said he's only ever heard of one priest hearing a confession from an abuser - "and that was on just one occasion,".

But many victims feel guilty and find it extremely difficult to speak for the first time about the unspeakable, he acknowledged.

If you cannot be absolutely sure that what you say in confession will remain confidential, one of the few safe places where starting to talk about an experience of abuse is possible may be lost, he said.

To assist victims, protect the sacramental seal and promote justice, the Church should issue better guidelines for priests who hear confessions, so they know what to do in abuse or suspected abuse.

It would reiterate obligations to respect the laws for reporting abuse outside of the confessional and reaffirm the seal.

It would also emphasize the confessor's responsibilities, including "the requirement to call on a perpetrator to stop the abuse, to report themselves to the statutory authorities, and to seek therapeutic help."

The instruction would make clear that "absolution for the sin of abuse cannot be given unless not only has sincere contrition been shown but the willingness to make up for the harm done has been demonstrated."

It would also clarify that in the case of a victim speaking about being abused, the confessor must listen with empathy and respect."

Source

• America Magazine
• Image: America Magazine

The confessional legislation removes civil law protections to the confidentiality of the seal of confession.

The confessional experience is a personal encounter between that person and Christ, Costelloe wrote in a pastoral letter published last week.

He said the state parliament's decision not only potentially criminalises a priest's faithfulness to his role, there's no guarantee any child will be better protected because of the new legislation.

"It is particularly concerning and troubling that the majority opinion of the legislative committee established by the government to look into this matter was not accepted by the parliament," Costelloe wrote.

"In a 3-2 majority decision this committee recommended that disclosures made in the context of a religious confession should not be subject to the new mandatory reporting laws."

Queensland and Victoria have also implemented similar legislation.

Costelloe said some people mistakenly think if a person discloses abuse during confession that the priest can and will do nothing.

"A priest will do everything he can to provide advice, support and accompaniment if the person making the disclosure is open to this."

Priests are allowed to act if the person discloses information outside the context of confession, but anything they are told during confession is completely private.

This is because in Catholic teaching the priest acts in the person of Christ in this encounter.

"In a very real sense the disclosure is made to Christ who, in the person of the priest, listens, advises, encourages and assists that person in every way possible. He does not betray that person's confidence."

Silliness reaches it peak

If an abuser comes to confession, the priest will do everything in his power to convince them to hand themselves into the police.

However, it is not Catholic teaching that people need to show some form of ID before confessing the sins; the nature of confession is it is generally anonymous and the priest does not necessarily know the person confessing their sins.

Costelloe said the passage of the new law means it's almost inconceivable that a perpetrator would put themselves at risk of discovery by making a confession.

"And of course, if a perpetrator did take the "risk" of going to confession, he or she would certainly go to a priest who could not identify them, and who conducted confession in a setting which guaranteed anonymity."

Costelloe acknowledged many people will unfairly criticise him and the Church for its opposition to this legislative change.

"The Catholic Church right across the country ... has taken many constructive steps to address this terrible reality ...," he said.

He noted the Perth archdiocese was the first in the world to launch a Safeguarding Office in 2015. It has over 250 trained Safeguarding Officers across more than 105 parishes.

Costelloe concluded his Pastoral Letter emphasising three points.

Firstly, his commitment to the safety and well-being of our children and young people is unwavering.

"Secondly, that we will continue to respond with openness, compassion and generosity to those who have been victims and are now survivors of the terrible crime and sin of sexual abuse by people associated with the Catholic Church.

"And thirdly that our priests will continue to put themselves at your service seeking as best they can to be living and effective signs and bearers of the presence of the Good Shepherd among you."

Source

• The Record
• Image: FSSPX News

The Vatican's embassy in Poland says the subject of the investigation is retired Cardinal Stanislaw Dziwisz (now aged 82). Prior to his retirement he was the archbishop of Krakow from 2005 to 2016 and earlier, was Pope St. John Paul II's personal secretary.

During the visit the envoy, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, held a number of meetings and reviewed documents.

Bagnasco will be presenting his findings at the Vatican.

A priest in Poland, Fr. Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski, says in 2012 he personally gave Dziwisz a letter containing evidence of sex abuse by a priest of a 12-year-old altar boy.

Dziwisz at first denied receiving the letter and suggested the abuse allegations should be investigated. Then he changed his statement saying the letter had been found.

The victim, Janusz Szymik, says Dziwisz did not respond to the letter.

Isakowicz-Zaleski says he has been questioned about a "certain Polish bishop" recently by an investigator from the Vatican, employed especially to investigate the alleged negligence.

In his opinion, the investigation means "Pope Francis is probably losing his patience with the leaders of the Polish episcopate."

The Vatican has been investigating other Polish media reports of an alleged lack of some of the country's senior Catholic clergy's lack of response to reports of abuse of minors. The Vatican subsequently punished a few bishops and archbishops, who have been barred from religious and lay ceremonies.

The prompt for the Polish and Vatican investigations has come from two TV documentaries in 2019 and 2020. These documentaries created by independent journalists, told stories of victims of abuse by priests.

A state commission investigating around 330 reports and cases of sex abuse of people under age 15 has just released a comment about them this week. The commission says in around 30 percent of the cases, clergymen are cited as the perpetrators.

The State Commission for Pedophilia said it has written to the Vatican asking to be allowed to see its documents related to Poland. It says it had to do this because Poland's church wasn't cooperating with the Commission.

Source

• National Catholic Reporter
• Image: Wikipedia

The Diocese of Camden, New Jersey released a statement last week saying it "is fast approaching a point where it will not be able to continue to borrow the funds necessary to pay the amounts awarded by the Program."

New Jersey's five dioceses created the Independent Victim Compensation Program (IVCP) for victims of sexual abuse as minors by clerics in the state.

Although awards to victims already made by the program's administrators will be paid, another reason the diocese cited for suspending victims' payments was the need to provide for the communities it serves which, now more than ever, are so essential."

After agreeing on and receiving a settlement through the IVCP, an abuse victim cannot then pursue additional legal action against the diocese. All settlements are funded by the dioceses themselves.

"The program provides victims with an attractive alternative to litigation," a statement from the IVCP read when the fund was created last year.

It would give abuse survivors a "speedy and transparent process to resolve their claims with a significantly lower level of proof and corroboration than required in a court of law."

The Camden diocese has not provided further details about its financial situation.

Victims' compensation experts Kenneth Feinberg and Camille Biros administer New Jersey's IVCP program and have helped create compensation programs for abuse survivors in New York and Pennsylvania.

The IVCP is unique among these as a statewide program that involves every diocese agreeing to follow the same compensation protocol.

The program does not handle claims of sexual abuse involving adults, including seminarians.

In its statement last Friday, the Camden diocese said it has paid financial settlements of more than $10 million to abuse victims since 1990.

Elsewhere, the Diocese of Erie, Pennsylvania suspended payments to its independent compensation program in April, citing the financial impact of the coronavirus.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Downbeach

The group - known as Into Account Inc. allege David Haas (63) engaged in "a repeated, unethical abuse of the professional and spiritual power he has had in church music circles".

He targeted "multiple women using techniques that abuse prevention experts identify as grooming," coercing women into sexual favors, and exploiting women who had previously experienced abuse.

Saying the allegations are "false, reckless and offensive," Haas criticised the means Into Account chose to broadcast their allegations.

They should not have used social media before allowing him a fair and legitimate venue to face his accusers, he says. Instead launched a marketing effort with the mission to destroy his reputation and livelihood.

Haas is the composer of several songs included in the "Gather" hymnal, which is one of the most used hymnals in American Catholic parishes. He is a central figure in the "contemporary liturgical music" movement that began in the 1970s.

Despite Hass's denials, Into Account - which says it "provides advocacy and the most up-to-date resources to survivors seeking accountability," - says it has heard from "nearly a dozen women".

Into Account says some women accused Haas of "sudden, overwhelming sexual aggression," and "incidents that we would interpret as outright sexual battery, involving groping, forcible kissing, and aggressive, lewd propositions. The youngest victim was 19 years at the time, while Haas was over 50."

"These individuals are in positions of professional and/or personal vulnerability that make it difficult for them to identify themselves publicly. They are almost all fearful of Haas's retaliation, and based on what they have reported, we believe those fears to be well-founded".

"The pattern that emerges from the reports we've received on Haas's behavior constitutes a repeated, unethical abuse of the professional and spiritual power he has had in church music circles".

This is not the first time the Catholic composer has been accused of sexual misconduct.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis says it received allegations of misconduct against Haas in both 2018 and 1987.

While Haas denied those allegations, after the 2018 complaints the Archdiocese told him "the Archdiocese would not provide him with a letter of recommendation that he had requested."

Furthermore, "he was not allowed to provide services at Catholic institutions in the Archdiocese without disclosure of the complaints made against him".

Haas says he is "an advocate for survivors of clergy sexual abuse and discrimination of all kinds," and "stands in solidarity and prayerful support of sexual abuse victims and encourages survivors to seek legitimate and appropriate professional services and/or to report any allegations to law enforcement."

Haas went on to accuse Into Account of attempting to "market and solicit for potential clients," through its letter.

"If Mr. Haas believes there are any inaccuracies in what we've shared, we invite him to specify what they are," the group replied.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Catholic World Report
• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Catholic News Agency
  

As first reported by the Kansas City Star on Tuesday, and confirmed by Crux on Wednesday, a Wyoming witness coordinator informed one of Hart's accusers that the prosecutor would not advance the case, citing insufficient evidence.

This comes nearly two years after the Diocese of Cheyenne deemed the allegations from the same individual to be credible in 2018. read more

This is quite alarming and depressing because the Church in North America has been dealing with issues regarding priests who abuse children and teenagers for at least thirty if not forty years.

Catholics in Great Britain, Ireland and Australia have been facing this "plague" for almost as long. And those in the countries of northern Europe began reckoning more openly with abuse among the clerical ranks shortly after the turn of the millennium.

In the last several years, Catholics in the rest of the world have also been forced to admit that there are recurrences of priest sex abuse in their countries, too.

This includes places in the former Catholic bastions of Latin America and southern Europe, the largely homophobic continent of Africa and the mostly non-Christian expanse of Asia.

It seems like wherever 2 or 3 (hundred thousand) people are gathered in the name of Catholicism, there is clergy sexual abuse in their midst.

Sex makes Catholics go blind

As Catholics, we don't like to hear that. And we don't want to admit it, either. But what is worse is that many of us do not want to see - or maybe we're too blinded by culture and history to see - what sexual abuse is really all about.

It is not about sex.

I repeat, and ask you to pause and think about it for a moment. It is not about sex.

For most Catholics, this is probably even harder to hear, because we don't deal with sexual things very well.

Our confused Church teachings on the subject tend to either make human sexuality an idol or (and, thankfully, this is less common today) something that's dirty.

Reactions to recent revelations that Jean Vanier sexually abused several women to prove the point.

The French-Canadian layman, who was seen as something of a living saint for his extraordinary work with mentally disabled people, was not guilty of committing sins against the Sixth Commandment.

At least not principally, so it seems clear to me.

'Encroaching intimacy' and the false spiritualization of sex.

The women say Vanier abused them sexually. But they also say he did this under the pretext of some sort of mystical spirituality.

As much as this was sexual abuse in the physical sense, it was, even more, a spiritual abuse of these women, in the way he used the things of God to manipulate or control them.

Jean Vanier used spirituality - what I have learned to call from my own painful experience "encroaching intimacy" - as a way to obtain what the other person would not or could not offer freely.

I've never heard any theologian or preacher speak of it this way, but I am convinced that this is what it means to violate the Second Commandment, "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain."

There are people in the Church, especially among the ordained ministers (deacons, priests and bishops) or even lay leaders with a certain charism (like Vanier), who do this in a variety of ways.

Using one's religious status

They use their position in the Church or their spiritual authority to satisfy their own self-centred needs or desires.

They do so - and often with little self-awareness, it seems to me - by convincing people in the name of God to give them money, sex, honours, private information about others and all sorts of things.

Tele-evangelists who get rich peddling the so-called "prosperity Gospel" are the most obnoxious and blatant example of this. Certain scandal-stained Catholic religious orders that bilk widows and other wealthy people are no better.

We tend to look disapprovingly on them and rightly so.

Yet we fail to see how our own good priests and bishops - and other charismatic spiritual leaders - can fall prey to the same temptation to use their religious status (and, often unconsciously!) to feed their own personal needs.

And when I say "we", I mean all of us Catholics. We tend to be blinded to this reality. We don't want to see it.

In the name of the father

It is probably no coincidence that in a Church (and a society) that is male-dominated, the vast majority of those who sexually or spiritually take advantage of others are men.

The desire of men to manipulate or even abuse those who are weaker or under their authority - women, other men, teens or children - is probably also reinforced, even unwittingly, by the simple fact that men have always been able to do so in a patriarchal system like that of the Church.

Patriarchy and its first-born son, clericalism, have allowed men of God to violate the true meaning of the Second Commandment, probably from the days when the giants of our faith walked the earth.

They will continue to do so until women truly become equal members of the Church, equal to men at every level of decision-making authority and at every level of ministerial service.

We will not get to the root of the Church's crisis of abuse until that happens.

• Robert Mickens is LCI Editor in Chief. He has lived, studied and worked in Rome for 30 years. Over that time he has studied at the Gregorian University, worked at Vatican Radio and been the Rome correspondent for the London Tablet.

The Jefferson County jury found William Nolan, 66, not guilty of five counts of sexual assault following a weeklong trial.

The 26-year-old accuser, who lives in California, alleged that Nolan had sexual contact with him as many as 100 times, starting in 2006 when he was a middle school student at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Fort Atkinson, which is about 45 miles (72 kilometers) west of Milwaukee.

Nolan was the parish priest there.

The accuser said the abuse continued into his high school years. Read more

The legislation - called Vos Estis Lux Mundi - enacted what is known as the Metropolitan Model, in which archbishops would play a prominent role in policing those bishops in their ecclesiastical province.

This week, the first investigation into misconduct being carried out under the procedures set out in the new law was announced: Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis (pictured) will look into allegations that Bishop Michael J. Hoeppner of Crookston "carried out acts or omissions intended to interfere with or avoid civil or canonical investigations of clerical sexual misconduct."

In a statement on Wednesday, the archdiocese said law enforcement had also been notified of the allegations.

Jeff Anderson, a St. Paul attorney who has represented hundreds of survivors of clerical sexual abuse, told The Associated Press that the allegations against Hoeppner likely stem from lawsuits against the Crookston diocese that have been settled, including one by Ron Vasek, who was aspiring to be a deacon when, he alleged, Hoeppner blackmailed him into signing a letter in 2015 that essentially retracted his allegation that a popular priest had abused him when he was 16-years-old.

The present case would probably be held up as an example of the new legislation working as it should, with Hebda being noted as the best person to put the new law to the test.

After all, before becoming a bishop, Hebda served for over 20 years at the Vatican's Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, rising to become the office's undersecretary.

When he arrived in St. Paul-Minneapolis as apostolic administrator in 2015, Hebda's first responsibility was to clean up the mess left behind by Archbishop John Nienstedt, who was not only accused of mishandling abuse cases, but was also accused of personal sexual misconduct.

In other words, Hebda would be near the top of anyone's list of bishops to take Vos Estis Lux Mundi for a test drive.

In fact, some cynical observers might also note that the Vatican would probably want the first few investigations to be conducted in a place like Minnesota, which is far from the intense media scrutiny likely in other parts of the United States. Like New York, for example.

However, events might make such a media intensive investigation inevitable.

Bishop Richard Malone of Buffalo has been under fire for over a year, after his former secretary became a whistleblower, and leaked hundreds of pages of diocesan records alleging that Malone had allowed accused priests to stay on the job and that he has actively engaged in abuse cover-up.

This summer, the scandal took an almost farcical turn.

Two seminarians for the diocese quit, calling on Malone to quit over his handling of clergy misconduct.

One of them, Matthew Bojanowski, alleged that he was sexually harassed by Father Jeffrey Nowak, and that Malone failed to take action when it was reported.

Later, Malone's priest secretary — Father Ryszard Biernat - leaked secret recordings in which Malone voiced concerns that the Nowak scandal could force him to resign.

Biernat later accused the bishop of silencing him when he lodged a complaint of sexual harassment against yet another priest.

Then, in a soap opera twist, an incriminating 2016 letter began circulating. It was written by Biernat to Bojanowski, and by all appearances was romantic in nature.

Public records show the two men co-own a house.

The letter had been photographed by Nowak when he was in Bojanowski's room. Continue reading

Related

• Mandatory reporting of clerical sexual abuse
• Analysis: 'Vos estis' and 'vulnerability'
• Analysis: Is Pope Francis' new abuse plan the answer Catholics are looking for?

We believe Protestant churches are safer. We are wrong.

I know this from personal experience.

Both my youth minister and pastor sexually abused me in my Southern Baptist church near Birmingham, Ala., in the mid 1980s, trapping me with spiritual threats and intimidation.

The lack of concern in Protestant churches rests on the faulty logic that, by virtue of not having a celibate priesthood, Protestants are more protected than our Catholic friends.

This helps pave the wide road by which predatory ministers, staff members, volunteers and members within Protestant churches groom and abuse children.

These abusers are like the Old Testament god Molech, lying in wait with a rapacious hunger for the sacrifice of both children's innocence and their trust in God.

Unchecked crimes of sexual abuse in the Protestant church include red flags and shrugged shoulders that kill the spirit of young believers and damage the cause of Christ.

My youth minister began sexually abusing me when I was 14, after telling me that God was "calling" me to help him in his ministry.

He groomed me, abused me and threatened me for over a year.

When I could not tolerate the abuse any longer, I went to the only other person at my church that I thought could help — my pastor.

My pastor blamed me, fired my youth minister and began abusing me.

The church fired him after discovering his affair with my Sunday School teacher.

These staggering crimes went unreported because of the chokehold of fear the two men held on my life. B

oth men, Molechs themselves, moved on to work in paid, full-time positions at other Southern Baptist churches for years.

With the #metoo and #churchtoo movements in the forefront, the Southern Baptist Convention has moved to try to prevent these crimes.

In June 2019, at its annual meeting in Birmingham, the nation's largest Protestant denomination voted to change its constitution to expel churches that do not report abuse.

It also unveiled the report of the SBC Sexual Abuse Advisory Group, in which I wrote an opening statement. I also told my story during a panel discussion with SBC leaders.

The SBC also rolled out a free curriculum, Caring Well, intended to equip its 47,000 churches to recognize abuse, report predators and care for those who have been abused.

These are first steps to slay the Molechs in our midst.

Yet the danger remains. Recent reports, such as by the SBC advisory group and the series on sexual abuse in the Houston Chronicle, found that sexual predators are drawn toward Protestant churches, especially smaller, less-resourced ones. Continue reading

• Image: Premier

In a series of emails from an undisclosed location, Vigano told the Washington Post that Francis and Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI must come clean about what they knew of McCarrick's alleged decades of abuse.

It is "immensely sad" that Francis was "blatantly lying to the whole world to cover up his wicked deeds" in allegedly protecting McCarrick, Vigano says.

He is firm in his claims that he warned Francis in 2013 about McCarrick.

"How could anybody, especially a pope, forget this?" he said in his emails.

Vigano, who upset the Vatican over years with accusations of corruption and abuse at the highest levels, disappeared last August after publishing an 11-page attack on Francis and Benedict over McCarrick.

In that open letter, he said he warned church leaders in 2006 about allegations that McCarrick engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct and abuse with male seminarians over a period of decades.

It was necessary for him to speak out, he says.

"My silence would make me complicit with the abusers, and lead to yet more victims.

"The results of an honest investigation would be disastrous for the current papacy."

He also said deeply embedded "homosexual networks" ... "are strangling the entire church."

Vigano wants Francis to resign over his alleged silence.

Francis - who has become more vocal in calling for the church to be honest and open about the priest sex scandals, has consistently rejected the criticism, denying he knew McCarrick's transgressions.

Source

• Raw Story
• Image: CBS News

Pell has been behind bars since February and is due to return to court next week to fight his conviction.

But he won't be adding an appeal against the six-year prison sentence handed down by County Court Chief Judge Peter Kidd in March. Read more

The new document requires bishops, priests and religious to report sexual abuse and cover-ups to church officials and sets up new procedures for investigating bishops.

It also tells bishops to follow local laws governing reporting of abuse to civil authorities.

This is a major step forward for the Vatican.

In dealing with not only abuse but also cover-ups, the pope has responded to demands that bishops be held accountable for not protecting children from abusive priests.

It also responds to those who complained that the February sex abuse summit in Rome, to which the pope called leading bishops from all over the world, was all talk and no action.

Now Francis has acted.

The new norms apply not only to abuse of minors (those under 18) but also to abuse of other vulnerable people, as well as anyone forced "by violence or threat or through abuse of authority, to perform or submit to sexual acts."

This includes adult seminarians, novices and women religious.

The May 9 document, "Vos estis lux mundi" ("You are the light of the world"), applies to all bishops, priests and religious throughout the world.

It also encourages lay people to report abuse or cover-up. Those reporting must be protected from any "prejudice, retaliation or discrimination."

Nor can accusers or victims be required to keep silent about their accusations. And if the victims request it, they must be informed of the results of the investigation.

Bishops are required to set up procedures for reporting and investigating accusations against priests by June 1, 2020. U.S. dioceses already have such procedures, but they are lacking in many dioceses in the Global South.

In the U.S. the procedures currently apply only to priests, not bishops.

Under the new norms, accusations of abuse or cover-up against a bishop are to be reported to his archbishop, also called a metropolitan, or to the Vatican.

The metropolitan reports the accusations to Rome, which then empowers him to investigate.

If an archbishop or cardinal is accused, it is reported to Rome, which will assign a prelate to investigate him.

Status reports on any investigation must be sent by the archbishop to Rome every 30 days, with the final report within 90 days, although extensions can be granted when needed.

The norms are not perfect, but they are a major step forward.

"The law is important because it gives a clear statement of an obligation," Archbishop Charles Scicluna told the National Catholic Reporter.

"I think the obligation has always been there, but experience shows us that either a closed-shop mentality or a misplaced interest in protecting the institution was hindering disclosure."

Some will complain that having archbishops investigate bishops is not credible, as the "closed-shop mentality" may again intrude.

True, but it is better than nothing, and smart archbishops will involve the laity in the investigations.

Critics will also complain that reporting accusations of abuse to civil authorities is not required, unless local laws mandate it. Many civil jurisdictions do not require reporting.

Reporting should be required in the United States and other countries with functioning and fair criminal justice systems where a person is presumed innocent until proved guilty.

But in many countries, police and courts are corrupt, incompetent or abusive.

In some countries, a priest would be presumed guilty if his bishop reported him.

The new norms dealing with cover-ups are a good first step, but in civil society as in the church, good laws are not enough.

Enforcement is also necessary if children are to be protected and survivors of abuse are to have justice.

We now must see how the Vatican executes and enforces the new rules — especially because the laws can be applied retroactively against past cover-ups. That could result in a tsunami of accusations, but only if the new norms are enforced well can the church's credibility be rebuilt.

• Thomas Reece SJ is is a senior analyst at Religion News Service, and a former columnist at National Catholic Reporter, and a former editor-in-chief of the weekly Catholic magazine America.
• Image: FRBF

The president elect of the Conference of Bishops of France says the need to shed light on the Church's sex abuse scandals "cannot be considered purely marginal.

"It's a systemic problem that needs to be treated as such. And we are determined to do so."

In his view, media coverage is a necessary aspect of opening up about cases of sex abuse.

"An important step is convincing everyone of the importance of the issue and, from that perspective, François Ozon's film Grâce à Dieu [By the Grace of God] has rendered a great service: it has enabled many people who did not want to face up to sexual violence to see what are its consequences."

De Moilins-Beaufort says he had his eyes opened to clerical sex abuse nine years ago.

"I had to deal with a case that had already been tried in 1999 for a priest who was already a member of the Diocese of Paris," he says.

"I met the families of the victims who needed it. This case completely opened my eyes."

That is when he realized that the Church's efforts to ensure the "accompaniment" of the victims were "insufficient".

He also insisted on the inadequacy, at the time, of the consideration given to the fate of the children and the long-term consequences of sex abuse.

These days more and more priests are suspended and asked to stop celebrating the sacraments in public.

"We are aware that the priest's spiritual power can create a type of situation in which, in certain cases, abuses are possible," he says.

"What has favoured these cases is a certain number of divides in the Church of France: part of the impunity [of an abusive priest] was he was considered a good priest, de Moulins-Beaufort says, referring to the case of a priest accused of many incidents of sex abuse against children.

He stresses that Catholic officials must collaborate with the Justice Department.

"We are quite clear on the fact that all cases need to be submitted to the country's justice authorities," the archbishop said. "We have fully understood that the prescribed action depends on the assessment of the judge and not of the ordinary citizen."

De Moulins-Beaufort defended confessional secrecy, while stating that "if someone comes and confesses that he has committed an act of that nature, you can only give him absolution if you are certain that he will denounce his act or that he agrees to speak about it outside of confession."

Source

• La Croix
• Image: Famille Chrétienne