Church Accountability

Charge against Kansas City bishop the temper of the times

While Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City, Mo., may be the first American bishop to be criminally indicted for alleged failure to report child abuse, he’s hardly the first Catholic bishop in recent years to run afoul of the criminal justice system.
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Irish Catholicism, from the street and the pew

DUBLIN, IRELAND -- Catholic Ireland is bleeding. The Vatican has rubbed in the salt. The initial pain is from the catalog of clerical abuse, shortly to add yet another shocking report, this time from the Raphoe diocese, which covers most of Donegal. The gaping wound was caused by Rome’s and the Irish bishops’ systematic cover-up of abuse.
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Lawyers ask court for 'continuing supervision' of diocese

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Alleging that the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese broke a series of legal obligations in its mishandling of sexual misconduct by clergy, a law firm representing abuse victims today filed a formal complaint that could force the diocese to accept third-party supervision of its reporting procedures.
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Sex abuse flap riles Irish

Vatican denies subverting bishops' efforts to address abuse
By Arthur Jones and John L Allen Jr
DUBLIN, Ireland -- The self-described conservative Catholic mother of four said simply, “The Vatican is up on its hind legs.” That was one reaction -- and a not uncommon one -- to a Vatican report issued Sept. 3 countering Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny’s sharp accusations in July that top church officials had tried to keep the lid on the Irish bishops from forthrightly reporting sexual offenders to the civil authorities.
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Nuncio to Irish Catholics: Pope knows abuse scandals made lives tough

Feb. 20, 2012
By Michael Kelly, Catholic News Service

DUBLIN -- Pope Benedict XVI is acutely aware that recent years have been tough for Irish Catholics as a result of the clerical sex abuse scandals, said the new apostolic nuncio to Ireland.

Speaking during a Mass to mark his formal welcome as Pope Benedict's representative in Dublin on Sunday, U.S. Archbishop Charles Brown said the pontiff understands "that these recent years have been difficult for Catholic believers in Ireland."

Brown said the pope was "scandalized and dismayed as he learned about the tragedy of abuse perpetrated by some members of the clergy and of religious congregations. He felt deeply the wounds of those who had been harmed and who so often had not been listened to."

Brown, a former official in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said, "I can tell you from my personal experience that he [Pope Benedict] has always had -- and he continues to have -- a great love for the people of Ireland and a high regard for the Catholic Church in Ireland, with its history of missionary richness and tenacious faith."

Clerical power thwarts victims in Poland

Priest abusers receive light sentences, most still serve in parishes

Feb. 08, 2012
By Jonathan Luxmoore
Archbishop Jozef Michalik of Przemysl, Poland, gives the final blessing during Mass at Holy Trinity Polish Mission in Chicago in April 2011. (CNS/Karen Callaway)

This is the second of two-part series looking at clergy sex abuse in Poland. Read part one here.

WARSAW, POLAND -- When Ewa Orlowska, a mother of nine, decided to confront her local priest for sexually abusing her as a child, she had little idea what was to follow. The priest, Msgr. Michal Moskwa, had been the parish pastor for three decades in the southern town of Tylawa, and Ewa had been just one of his victims. But when she’d told her mother about the abuse, her mother beat her and ordered her to apologize.

When the case came to light in 2001, Orlowska reluctantly agreed to give a statement to prosecutors. “I thought: When I stand before God and he asks me what I did for those other defenseless children, still threatened by the priest’s pedophile tendencies, what would I say?” she remembers. “Would I say I lacked courage, hadn’t the strength, was afraid of my own shadow?”

Vatican summit speaker says abuse caused 'death of respect' for church leaders

Feb. 07, 2012
By John L Allen Jr
Irish abuse victim Marie Collins talks during a press conference in downtown Rome on Tuesday. Collins is attending a four-day symposium, "Toward Healing and Renewal," at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. (CNS photo/Tony Gentile, Reuters)

An Irish victim of sexual abuse bluntly told a Vatican summit this morning that her experience of being ignored, and her suffering minimized, by church leaders caused “the final death of any respect” she once felt for ecclesial authority.

Marie Collins said there must be “acknowledgement and accountability for the harm and destruction that has been done to the life of victims and their families” before she and other victims can regain trust in the leadership of the Catholic church.

Collins made the remarks at a four-day summit on the sexual abuse crisis titled “Towards Healing and Renewal” being held at the Jesuit-run Gregorian University.

Read the full story on NCR Today.

Victims caught up in Milwaukee's 'shell game'

Archdiocese's move to shield cemetery assets pits the living against the dead

Jan. 31, 2012
By Jason Berry
Peter Isely of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests points to a picture of former Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland during a news conference April 6, 2010, in Milwaukee. (AP/Dinesh Ramde)

Dead Catholics have a vested interest in reducing settlements to clergy abuse survivors in Milwaukee, thanks to a shift of $55.6 million on the church balance sheets by then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan in 2008.

Dolan’s move in the twilight of his seven-year tenure in Milwaukee has emerged as a major issue in the archdiocese’s bankruptcy, which his successor, Archbishop Jerome Listecki, filed last February. One expert who has done extensive research on diocesan financial statements has described the move as “a shell game.”

Activist's challenge to archdiocese began with Weakland

Jan. 31, 2012
By Jason Berry
Peter Isely (Newscom/SIPA/Mistrulli Luigi)

Steeped in the writings of Camus, Kierkegaard, Simone Weil and Emerson, Peter Isely put his career as a therapist on the line in 1993 when he identified himself as a victim of clerical sex abuse and criticized Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland, who at the time was lionized by NCR, Commonweal and The New Yorker as a progressive leader of a post-Vatican II church. Weakland had a victim assistance program, Project Benjamin, of which Isely was deeply suspicious.

September trial date set for KC bishop, diocese

Jan. 26, 2012
By Joshua J. McElwee
Bishop Robert W. Finn (CNS photo/The Catholic Key)

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The trial of Bishop Robert W. Finn and the diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Mo., the first bishop and diocese to face criminal charges in the decades-long clergy sex abuse crisis, has been set for September.

Finn and the diocese were charged in October by a grand jury in Jackson County, Mo., with separate counts of failing to report suspected child abuse in the case of Fr. Shawn Ratigan, a diocesan priest who was arrested last May for child pornography.

Lawyers for Finn and the diocese met with Jackson County Judge John Torrence on Thursday to set a Sept. 24 trial date in the case. Finn and the diocese have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Speaking to NCR after the meeting, which was held in the judge's chambers, Jackson County prosecutor Jean Peters-Baker said Torrence also set the next pretrial hearing for March 27, when the court would deal with motions from the defense.

Court documents reveal motives for deposing SNAP

Jan. 23, 2012
By Joshua J. McElwee

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Attorneys seeking the deposition of the director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) argued the group had colluded with an attorney representing an abuse victim in violation of a court gag order, and also worried that the advocacy group could be “routinely advising” victims to evade statutes of limitations, according to court filings.

California Supreme Court to decide on statute of limitations in abuse cases

Jan. 17, 2012
By Monica Clark

SAN FRANCISCO -- A major case that could reopen the statute of limitations window for sex abuse victims to file third-party claims is now before the California Supreme Court.

Should the court rule in favor of six brothers who say they were sexually abused by a priest of the Oakland diocese decades ago but only recently linked the abuse to their psychological difficulties, the church in California could see a wave of new clergy abuse lawsuits.

Polish church faces demands to confront sex abuse

Jan. 13, 2012
By Jonathan Luxmoore
The Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. John the Baptist is seen in a view of Przemysl, Poland. The Przemysl archdiocese includes the village of Hludno, the site of a high-profile case of clerical sex abuse. (Wikimedia Commons/Ferdziu)

WARSAW, POLAND -- When Bartek Obloj, a 13-year-old altar boy, hanged himself in his home village of Hludno just before Christmas 2007, he left a letter to his mother complaining of being molested by his parish rector. Police were called and his shocked parents blamed the priest for their son’s death.

SNAP subpoenas harm key ally for victims

Jan. 13, 2012
By An NCR Editorial
David Clohessy (AP Photo/Derik Holtmann)

Bartek Obloj's story defies description.

Before reaching his 14th birthday, Obloj hanged himself in 2007, leaving a note that his parish priest had molested him. (See: Polish church faces demands to confront sex abuse.)

The accused priest, Fr. Stanislaw Kaszowski, was moved to a new parish -- but not before personally celebrating Obloj's funeral Mass. Kaszowski continues in ministry and refuses to testify in court.