Disgraced Cardinal O'Brien (Scotland) blocked independent inquiry into historic sexual abuse

The Telegraph
August 22, 2013

The retired Archbishop of Glasgow, Mario Conti, revealed that the Catholic Church in Scotland had planned to invite an independent academic to compile a report on each diocese's "secret archives" and each bishop's handling of allegations, which would then be made public.

However, Cardinal O'Brien, then the president of the Bishops' Conference, refused to co-operate and the planned inquiry was shelved, Archbishop Conti wrote in a letter to be published in the Catholic newspaper the Tablet today.

Cardinal O'Brien was forced to resign in March after admitting "inappropriate behaviour" with priests and a seminarian, and is currently in an unknown monastery for a period of "prayer and penance" ordered by Pope Francis.

In a letter defending the Catholic Church in Scotland's handling of allegations of sexual abuse, Archbishop Conti wrote: "It was the intention of all but one member of the Bishops' Conference to commission an independent examination of the historical cases we had on file in all of our respective dioceses and publish the results, but this was delayed by the objection of the then president of the conference; without full participation of all the dioceses the exercise would have been faulty."

A spokesman for the Church said: "This refers to a decision taken in 2011 by the Bishops' Conference of Scotland to commission an independent academic analysis of statistics relating to abuse and allegations of abuse over a 60-year period from 1952 to 2012.

"This project, with the cooperation of each of the eight dioceses in Scotland, started and ran until 2012, at which time, the then president of the conference, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, withdrew from the project. Without the participation of all the dioceses a 'national audit' was not possible so the analysis was stopped."

Cardinal O'Brien was president of the Bishops' Conference from 2001 to 2012.

A source close to the Church said that Cardinal O'Brien could have feared that his own clandestine behaviour may have been revealed during the inquiry or that he was anxious to cover for individuals who were aware of his secret life.

The source said: "We just don't know why he blocked the inquiry. Perhaps there was also a spike in allegations during his years in charge or he would have been seen to have mishandled them."

read full article at The Telegraph

Santa Rosa diocese sued over alleged abuse

Ellen Huet
San Francisco Chronicle
August 21, 2013

A Lake County family is suing a Roman Catholic parish and the Diocese of Santa Rosa, claiming they knew a priest had a history of sexual abuse and didn't protect an altar boy from being molested.

The suit, filed Tuesday in Sonoma County Superior Court, claims that the late Rev. Ted Oswald of St. Mary Immaculate in Lakeport had already been accused several times of abusing young parishioners, but was still promoted to pastor and allowed unsupervised access to young boys at and outside the church.

The suit claims that unfettered access allowed Oswald to abuse an altar boy, now 16 years old, whose mother is also a plaintiff in the suit.

Oswald targeted the boy when he was about 10 years old, said the plaintiffs' lawyer, Skye Daley. The priest invited the boy to wash his recreational vehicle at his house, which is where the alleged abuse began, Daley said.

Oswald was named in 2008 in another molestation case, which the diocese settled for $1.3 million in 2009. He was placed on leave after the settlement and died in 2010 at age 65.

In the decade before the first lawsuit against Oswald, the Santa Rosa Diocese paid nearly $20 million to settle sex-abuse claims.

"Father Ted is kind of the tip of the iceberg," Daley said. "The Diocese of Santa Rosa has a shockingly long history of employing priests who have sexually abused children."

The latest suit asks for unspecified damages. Dan Galvin, the attorney for the diocese, declined to comment because church officials had not yet been served with the suit.

The Santa Rosa Diocese includes a Catholic population of 150,000 and encompasses more than 11,700 square miles in the counties of Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino, Lake, Humboldt and Del Norte.

Ex-Pope Benedict says God told him to resign during 'mystical experience'

Tom Klington
The Guardian (UK)
August 21, 2013

The former pope Benedict has claimed that his resignation in February was prompted by God, who told him to do it during a "mystical experience".

Breaking his silence for the first time since he became the first pope to step down in 600 years, the 86-year-old reportedly said: "God told me to" when asked what had pushed him to retire to a secluded residence in the Vatican gardens.

Benedict denied he had been visited by an apparition or had heard God's voice, but said he had undergone a "mystical experience" during which God had inspired in him an "absolute desire" to dedicate his life to prayer rather than push on as pope.

The German ex-pontiff's comments, which are said to have been made a few weeks ago, were reported by the Catholic news agency Zenit, which did not name the person Benedict had spoken to.

A senior Vatican source said the report was reliable. "The report seems credible. It accurately explains the spiritual process that brought Benedict to resign," he said.

Benedict said his mystical experience had lasted months, building his desire to create a direct and exclusive relationship with God. Now, after witnessing the "charisma" of his successor, Pope Francis, Benedict said he understood to a greater extent how his stepping aside was the "will of God".

Benedict's reported remarks contrast with the explanation he gave to cardinals when he announced his resignation on 11 February. "My strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry," he said then.

At the time, a German journalist who had recently met Benedict reported he was going deaf, appeared to be blind in one eye, and was emaciated and "exhausted-looking".

Speculation also grew that he was depressed after his trusted butler, Paolo Gabriele, was caught leaking his personal correspondence. Italian press reports have recently claimed he was frustrated by a network of influence built up at the Vatican by a pro-gay lobby of prelates.

Zenit reported that Benedict has stuck to his plan to live a life of secluded prayer, receiving very few visitors at his house in the Vatican's gardens, which enjoys views across Rome to the Apennine mountains beyond.

"During these meetings, the ex-pontiff does not comment, does not reveal secrets, does not make statements that could be understood as 'the words of the other pope', but is as reserved as he has always been," wrote Zenit.

After concerns were raised that Benedict would exert undue influence at the Vatican as his successor struggled to find his feet, Francis's popular approach and his shakeup of Vatican protocols have relegated Benedict to the sidelines.

Francis has even joked about the situation, saying in July: "The last time there were two or three popes, they didn't talk among themselves and they fought over who was the true pope!"

Having Benedict living in the Vatican, he added, "is like having a grandfather – a wise grandfather – living at home".

Francis's first encyclical, issued in July, was started by Benedict while he was in office and finished by his successor.

Benedict took his first day trip out of the Vatican on 18 August, walking in the gardens at the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, outside Rome, where he stayed after his retirement while his new house was being refurbished. Benedict did not risk running into Francis, who has preferred to stay at his desk at the Vatican during the summer.

Archbishop's letter offers abundance of falsehoods, no apologies - editorial

(Newark) Star-Ledger Editorial Board
August 21, 2013

Last weekend’s letter from Newark Archbishop John J. Myers regarding his handling of sexual abuse cases is so crowded with falsehoods and insults that it’s difficult to know where to begin.

What’s most revealing is what is missing: There’s not a single word of sympathy for the victims and their families. Myers instead insults them by suggesting they are blaming the church for problems in their own families. “One can understand when family difficulties lead parents, even by conjecture, to blame someone outside the family,” he wrote. “But conjecture is no reason to undermine the Ministry of individual Priests (or Bishops for that matter.)”

It boggles the mind that in 2013 an archbishop would dare speak of families like this. But it is vintage Myers. While many bishops are working hard to rehabilitate the church, he offers only haughty disdain for those who question his judgment.

This time, he calls his critics “evil, wrong, and immoral” and suggests that they may burn in hell: “God will surely address them in due time.”

The latest damning information comes from a lawsuit the church recently settled for $1.35 million. It accuses Myers of ignoring a credible accusation against a priest on his watch. The lawsuit claimed that the Rev. Thomas Maloney went on to repeatedly abuse an 8-year-old boy.

In his deposition, Myers says he never saw written warnings that went to the diocese, perhaps because of his “slipshod” filing system. If that were true, if it was an innocent mistake, you would expect Myers to offer a heartfelt apology to the victim and his family for his failure to red-flag these cases. Instead, he has refused for years to meet with them.

It boggles the mind that in 2013 an archbishop would dare speak of families like this.

In his letter to the diocese last weekend, Myers concedes that Maloney gave him gifts, but mentions only one: “I recall that he once gave me a coin of minimal value, of which he had several examples.”

The court records tell a different story. Thank-you notes from Myers describe a steady stream of valuable gifts, including gold coins, silver, a “much-loved” camera and undisclosed amounts of cash, which Myers said he would use to gamble at the racetrack.

Put aside these small falsehoods and insults. Because they mean nothing when measured against Myers’ failure to safeguard children.

Maloney is just one case. While in Newark, Myers allowed the Rev. Michael Fugee access to children even after Fugee confessed to repeatedly groping a boy’s genitals and signed a legal agreement to stay away from children. Last year, he placed an accused priest in a parish in Oradell without telling parishioners.

In 2004, Myers wrote a letter of recommendation for a priest one week after learning the priest had been accused of breaking into a woman’s house and assaulting her. The same year, he banned another priest from public ministry after investigating an abuse allegation, but did not notify lay people or other priests. In 2007, he did not tell lay people about a credible finding of molestation against a priest working in Elizabeth and Jersey City.

Myers just doesn’t get it. His complete lack of repentance underscores the need for him to resign for the sake of children’s safety.

Archbishop Chaput's right-wing funk

Charles J. Reid, Jr.
National Catholic Reporter
Aug. 17, 2013

Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia put into words the anxiety many right-wing Catholics must be feeling at the extraordinary popularity Pope Francis has been enjoying. In an interview with John L. Allen Jr., Chaput, speaking on behalf of his conservative followers, said that members of the right wing of the Catholic church "generally have not been really happy about his election." The pope, Chaput stated, will "have to care for them, too."

What worries Chaput in particular is the sudden interest in the new pope from unfamiliar quarters. Practicing Catholics love the pope, of course, "but they're not actually the ones who really talk to me about the new pope. The ones who do are nonpracticing Catholics or people who aren't Catholic or not even Christian." And why should this be so? Chaput has his suspicions: Yes, these outsiders are thrilled by the new pope's friendliness and his warmth, but "I think they would prefer a church that wouldn't have strict norms and ideas about the moral life and about doctrine."

Wow. Where do we start? We could talk about the parable of the prodigal son, since Chaput truly sounds a great deal like the adventuresome young man's older brother, the one who stayed home and toiled with his father and grew resentful when the old man slew the fatted calf upon his brother's return. Or we could talk about the shepherd who rejoiced over finding his lost sheep.

But let's focus instead on what it means to be an evangelical church. For some time now, decades really, the church has been turning in upon itself. This is most especially noticeable in conservative circles. The culture is seen as hostile. The ambient culture is "pagan," to use Chaput's description. Indeed, he has even called some Catholics pagan in their approach to the faith.

But shouting "pagan, pagan" is no way to win souls. And this is evidenced by even the briefest consideration of Catholic membership statistics. Catholic membership has grown in Africa, but it has lost members in Latin America to more enthusiastic forms of evangelical Protestantism. And in the United States, Catholic membership would be in decline were it not buoyed by immigration.

The right wing's favored response to these dismal trends is to blame the left. But the right wing needs to know that it has controlled the church hierarchy for some three decades now. It is the right wing that must look in the mirror. A stricter form of boundary police will not attract outsiders; it will repel them. Indeed, it has.

Francis has gotten the message and the tone just right. Jesus, after all, came not for the saved but for the sinners. He dined with tax collectors. He routinely and frequently forgave prostitutes. He was followed in his evangelizing by women who did not come from respectable homes. He promised the water of eternal life to a woman who was even then living out of wedlock.

The new evangelization about which so many on the Catholic right speak is not about new and better forms of border security. It is about the imitatio Christi -- the imitation of Christ. Like Christ, Francis means to be evangelical, and that means finding people where Christ found them -- in desperate shape, in need of forgiveness and love -- and offering them hope.

[Charles J. Reid Jr. has degrees in canon law and civil law from The Catholic University of America and a doctorate in medieval history from Cornell University. He was raised in a union household in Milwaukee. He teaches at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, Minneapolis. This commentary is reprinted with permission from www.religiousleftlaw.com, a blog where progressives from various faith traditions discuss religion, law, politics and culture.]

Uriel Ojeda to join few Catholic clergy in California prisons for child sex abuse

Cynthia Hubert
Merced Sun-Star
August 17, 2013

Some time during the next week or so, the Rev. Uriel Ojeda will leave Sacramento County's Main Jail and join other inmates for a long bus ride to state prison.

Once a rising star in the Sacramento Roman Catholic Diocese, lauded by parishioners for his compassion and faith, the young priest likely will spend at least seven years in the harsh confines of an institution where security cameras and uniformed guards will monitor his every movement.

He will be treated "no differently than any other inmate," said California Department of Corrections spokesman Bill Sessa.

But Ojeda, 33, is no ordinary convict.

Only a few Catholic priests are currently imprisoned in California for child sexual abuse, said Patrick Wall, a former priest and canon lawyer who advocates for victims of clergy abuse from his office in St. Paul, Minn.

"I am aware of only five," said Wall. He documents such cases along with the nonprofit BishopAccountability.org.

But their numbers are sure to grow in the coming years, he said, in California and across the country.

Nationally, dioceses have found "credible accusations" of sexual abuse against more than 6,000 priests between 1950 and 2011, Wall said. The number is climbing, he said, following years of scrutiny of the Catholic church for its handling of abusive clergy members and a flood of lawsuits by victims.

"Investigators are doing a better job, and more people are cooperating with law enforcement," Wall said. "There is an understanding now that Catholic priests can and do abuse children."

Some, like Ojeda, are cutting plea deals in which they admit to felony crimes rather than face trial.

Ojeda's dramatic downfall, from a beloved parish priest to an admitted child molester, has shaken the Sacramento diocese and many of its parishioners.

"There are those who naively wish we could get beyond the child sexual abuse crisis," Bishop Jaime Soto said in a recent interview. "But Father Ojeda's case reminds us that sexual abuse is a real and ongoing problem in the church. We have got to be vigilant."

Ojeda was charged with sexually abusing a girl beginning when she was 13 years old. The abuse began, according to the girl's family, when he was a guest at their home and a parish priest in Woodland. It continued over a period of years.

The diocese acted quickly to remove Ojeda from his ministry during an investigation into the accusations, which came to light in November 2011. He pleaded no contest earlier this month, and was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Wall said the diocese "reacted with precision and authority," and should serve as a model for others facing such crises.

............

Prisons can be especially difficult places for people like Ojeda, corrections officials said. Inmates have a caste system that places people who do harm to children "very low on the scale," said Sessa.

"He is probably far more vulnerable because of his background as a child molester than because of his background as a priest," Sessa said.

.............

He has declined to speak to the media since his arrest in November 2011. His attorney, Jesse Ortiz, did not return messages requesting comment for this article.

State corrections officials described Ojeda's lifestyle once he leaves Sacramento County jail, where he has been incarcerated since his sentencing on Aug 2.

Within a week or so, he likely will be bused from Sacramento to the Deuel Vocational Institution in Tracy, said Deborah Hoffman, assistant secretary for communications for the state Corrections Department. There, Ojeda will undergo a body search, be photographed and fingerprinted, and submit to a swabbing of the inside of his cheek to collect DNA material, she said.

The Corrections Department will spend the next two to three months assessing Ojeda's physical health, state of mind and criminal acts before deciding where and how to house him for the remainder of his sentence.

..........

Sessa said other inmates likely will know Ojeda's name and background within minutes of his incarceration.

"There are no secrets in prison," he said. "You walk through the gate, and the guy in the back 40 knows about it before you get through security. There is almost no way he would come in unnoticed."

............

The Sacramento diocese, meanwhile, has begun the process through the Vatican to remove Ojeda from the priesthood forever.

Read full article at Merced Sun-Star

Suspended vatican accountant linked to suspect spiritual group

Andrea Gagliarducci
Catholic News Agency
August 15, 2013

Vatican City, Aug 15, 2013 (CNA).- The Vatican accountant who was recently suspended for allegedly trying to smuggle $26 million had been part of a group known as “The Flock,” which has supposed Mafia connections.

Monsignor Nunzio Scarano is currently under arrest in Italy for an alleged plan to transfer 20 million Euro from Switzerland to Italy aboard an Italian government airplane.

Italian newspaper “Il Mattino” reports that Msgr. Scarano was entrusted with the management of a network of real estate activities for the spiritual family “L'opera del gregge del Bamin Gesù,” or “The works of the flock of the infant Jesus.”

“The Flock,” as it is known, was a sort of spiritual family formed in Salerno by a group of priests aged 40-50 who gathered around a visionary known by his first name, Caterina.

Msgr. Scarano is known to have been a member of The Flock, which was officially an association of prayer yet acted primarily as a private limited company managing a series of economic activities.

The companions of The Flock, including Msgr. Scarano, bought these properties with the aim of founding a true gathering of people who could live together in community.

According to sources who spoke to CNA Aug. 12 and asked for anonymity, a portion of the real estate properties were sold to The Flock by Benito Imposimato, an builder whose properties and activities were involved in a Mafia investigation.

The Flock also controlled a co-op called Maris Stella, which sought mortgages to build houses and wished to buy a chapel in the town of Pagliarone, about 12 miles from Salerno, which they could add on to, to make a sort of convent.

The economic activity of the small community did not pass unobserved.

Archbishop Gerardo Pierro, then the Archbishop of Salerno-Campagna-Acerno wrote a letter to both the Vatican Secretariat of State and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2007, reporting about The Flock's activities.

In the letter, Archbishop Pierro, who is now 78 and retired, accused the community of “proselytism” and described it as “a sect conflicting with the life and spiritual and pastoral needs of the diocesan priesthood.”

Archbishop Pierro then asked that all The Flock's members sign a declaration of obedience to their diocesan curia. Msgr. Scarano agreed to sign this declaration, and left The Flock.

At that time, he was already working in the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, and was proposed as a mediator between The Flock and the Diocese of Salerno-Campagna-Acerno, according to a source in the diocese who spoke with CNA Aug. 13.

Italian investigators suppose that Msgr. Scarano’s business in Salerno has its roots in his past experience in The Flock. It has been found that the monsignor invested most of his funds in his hometown of Salerno.

He is also being investigated by the public prosecutor in Salerno for supposedly laundering 560,000 Euros ($742,500) he took from his account in the Institute for Religious Works – the so-called Vatican bank – to pay off the mortgage of a house.

Salerno's prosecutor has already submitted an international request to the Vatican for information about Msgr. Scarano's involvement with the Institute for Religious Works.

Investigators believe Msgr. Scarano opened other accounts under his own name and put them at the disposal of his friends in Salerno. They would then use the accounts to launder their own money before transferring it to a foreign country.