Month: Dec 2018

 

Tony Walsh possibly ‘most notorious clerical child sexual abuser’ in Dublin

Murphy report said it was ‘likely that he has abused hundreds of children’

Tony Walsh’s abuse of one boy in Ballyfermot from 1978 to 1983 was so extreme that he was sentenced in December 2010 to a total of 123 years.

Patsy McGarry The Irish Times

Updated: Wed, Dec 19, 2018, 16:38

Former priest Tony Walsh, who was jailed on Wednesday for indecently assaulting a boy 35 year ago, was described by the Murphy Commission as “the most notorious child sexual abuser” to have come to its attention.

“It is likely that he has abused hundreds of children,” its 2009 report said.

It also found that Dublin’s Catholic archdiocese did not report child sexual abuse allegations against Walsh to the Garda for 17 years after it first received such a complaint about him.

The report also revealed that in 1989 it had been suggested in the archdiocese that Walsh, then an admitted (to the archdiocese) child sex abuser, be appointed to the regional marriage tribunal, which dealt mainly with annulments.

This was not done but, as the Murphy report put it, there were then “two known abusers . . . in the regional marriage tribunal . . .”

Those were Fr Ivan Payne and a priest referred to as ‘Fr Cicero’ in the report.

The commission investigated how clerical child sexual abuse allegations were handled in Dublin’s Catholic archdiocese between 1975 and 2004.

Walsh’s abuse of one boy in Ballyfermot from 1978 to 1983 was so extreme that he was sentenced in December 2010 to a total of 123 years.

Five of the 13 counts, for buggery, attracted sentences of 10, 12, 14, 16, and 16 years each. The remaining counts, for indecent assault, brought sentences ranging from four to nine years. As Walsh was to serve his sentences concurrently, 16 years was the maximum time he would spend in jail for those crimes.

Four years were suspended as a psychologists report said it was unlikely he would offend again. It was the most severe sentence ever imposed on a clerical child sex abuser in the State.

According to that boy’s victim impact statement, prepared by psychiatrist Prof Ivor Browne, Walsh raped him with his wrists tied to his ankles as he lay over a coffee table at the presbytery in Ballyfermot, which the then priest shared with Fr Michael Cleary and his housekeeper Phyllis Hamilton.

The boy was “crying loudly” and “hysterical”.

Walsh, who had turned up the music to drown out the boy’s cries, took “about an hour to calm me down. I then went home,” the boy said. This assault led to one of the 16-year sentences.

Another incident took place at Enniscrone, Co Sligo. About 50 children from the Ballyfermot were taken there by Walsh and three other priests, including Fr Cleary. Walsh took the boy to the sand dunes where he raped him. Sand caused the boy to bleed, so Walsh brought him to the sea where he washed the blood off and saltwater stung the child’s wounds.

The boy was also raped by Walsh in Dublin’s Phoenix Park. Afterwards Walsh wiped him with “a purple sash (stole) he had with him”. When Walsh picked up his jacket “a small receptacle for holding Holy Communionwafers fell out of his pocket”.

He brought the boy back to the presbytery in Ballyfermot, “put on Elvis records . . . and gave him a glass of Coke”.

He then showed him “a Bible with pictures of Hell and said if he told anyone he would burn in hell and never go to heaven. Then he let him go home.”

One evening the boy told his mother an edited version of what had been happening. She went to the presbytery and knocked, accompanied by the boy’s aunt. Phyllis Hamilton answered and denied Walsh was inside.

The mother insisted he must be in as his car was there. They thought they had seen him at a window. Hamilton went inside, and Walsh came to the door.

He denied everything.

As Prof Browne puts it, in the victim impact report, “then knowing the game was up, Walsh stopped abusing D altogether and terminated their relationship”.

Walsh spent eight years trying to stop his trial, exhausting the judicial review process. He failed. He had failed similarly in another case in 1997. Then, after another round-the-houses judicial review process, also under free legal aid, he pleaded guilty and served time.

Denied all charges

However, he forced the December 2010 trial, denying all charges. The jury found him guilty, unanimously, after just 94 minutes and on the 13 counts.

Tony Walsh was born in 1954 and ordained in 1978. Even as a seminarian in Dublin’s Clonliffe College, as emerged years later, he abused children and at the home of another abuser, Fr Noel Reynolds, to whose house he had a key.

In July 1978, two days after Walsh took up his first appointment as a curate in Ballyfermot, a complaint was received in Archbishop’s House that he had sexually abused an eight-year-old boy. That was alleged to have taken place in June 1978 at Fr Reynolds’s house.

The next complaint was in 1979 when a mother went to the parish priest of Ballyfermot, the late Canon Val Rogers. Fr Cleary was despatched to educate the woman’s son on male sexuality. In 1985, Canon Rogers admitted this case had been “hushed up”.

Sometime between 1980 and 1982, there were complaints to Archbishop’s House about Walsh’s abuse of young girls at a summer camp.

In June 1985, Walsh began attending a psychiatrist. In October 1985 of that year, he denied indecently assaulting a young girl earlier that month.

Even after he was moved to the Westland Row parish in the south inner city in February 1986, complaints kept coming from Ballyfermot. A housekeeper at his house in Ballyfermot said there were always children there and on one occasion, she saw two boys coming from his bedroom.

In January 1987, the housekeeper at Westland Row claimed to have found underwear of hers in Walsh’s room. She also found condoms and syringes and said “a number of boys had slept overnight in his bed and a boy from Ballyfermot had been visiting”.

Walsh denied all of this and protested he did not know what condoms looked like. In April 1988, a woman alleged her son was in Westland Row with Walsh. The following month, parents claimed Walsh had interfered with their daughter.

Once a fortnight

In May 1988, Walsh admitted to then chancellor of the Dublin Archdiocese Mgr Alex Stenson that over the eight years he had been in Ballyfermot, “he was involved with boys about once a fortnight”.

It was then 10 years after the first complaint about him was made to the archdiocese. Walsh was sent to the Stroud treatment centre in England. He returned to Dublin in November 1988 and was appointed chaplain at a hospital for older people.

He signed a contract of good behaviour with the archdiocese and nominated Fr Cleary as his spiritual director. He continued to receive counselling.

In August 1989, there were complaints about his dealings with a boy at Dublin’s All Hallows College. Walsh was returned to Stroud.

Management there notified the archdiocese that Walsh intended accompanying the All Priests’ Show (with whom he had a spot doing an Elvis impersonation) on a UK tour.

He was refused permission.

In April 1990, then Archbishop of Dublin Desmond Connell and Msgr Stenson gave Walsh until May 1st to decide on either dismissal from the priesthood or voluntary laicisation. Archbishop Connell also formally ended Walsh’s public ministry.

In March 1991, there were further reports of Walsh’s contacts with children. The Dublin bishops decided to begin canon law proceedings against him. In August 1991, and for the first time, a parent complained to gardaí about Walsh’s attempt to pick up her son.

Psychiatric hospital

The following month, Walsh was ordered by Archbishop Connell to go to the St John of God psychiatric hospital in Stillorgan. The night before he did so, he attempted to pick up another boy and gardaí were alerted.

Walsh returned to Stroud in January 1992 where he posed in nearby streets as a priest counsellor at the clinic and agreed to babysit for a family. By chance, the father of that family found out who he was.

Back in Dublin, in July of that year, he befriended a 15-year-old boy. One of the boy’s parents contacted gardaí, who contacted the archdiocese. More parents complained about Walsh’s activities in December 1992 and again in May 1993.

In August 1993, a Church tribunal in Dublin decided Walsh should be defrocked. The following October, he appealed this to Rome.

While that appeal was in train, he abused a boy at the child’s grandfather’s funeral in west Dublin. The boy’s mother contacted gardaí, alleging Walsh had also abused her son a year earlier.

In late 1994, there were media reports about this.

Early in 1995, Walsh admitted to gardaí that he abused two boys in the 1980s. He was charged in connection with his abuse of the boy at the funeral in 1994 and sentenced later to 12 months. It was the first of many such sentences.

Laicisation

In May 1995, the archdiocese provided gardaí with other complaints about Walsh.

Meanwhile, Rome decided on Walsh’s appeal. It rejected his laicisation, decided he should remain a priest but also spend 10 years in a monastery.

That November, Archbishop Connell petitioned Pope John Paul to dismiss Walsh from the priesthood.

In January 1996, Pope Benedict XVI, then cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, issued a decree confirming Walsh’s dismissal.

Acknowledging the role of the archbishop, subsequently cardinal, in this, the Murphy report said it was he who decided to have Walsh laicised “and he pursued this course in spite of the advice and, indeed, interference of his judicial vicar (Msgr Gerard Sheehy) and in spite of the Roman Rota (Appeal Court).”

In December 1997, Walsh was sentenced to consecutive terms of six years and four years for assaults on six boys. On appeal, this became six years. He was in prison until 2001 on that occasion.

He was sentenced to 16 years in that December 2010 case. In 2013 he pleaded guilty to two more cases and in 2015 was convicted by a jury in relation to the sexual abuse of a girl.

In July 2016 he was jailed for seven and half years for raping a boy three times, once with a crucifix.

PAT SAYS:

I was in Clonliffe Seminary, Dublin for one year – 1972 – 1973.

As a very young man he was unremarkable. I am shocked at his depravity as he abused over 200 children.

To rape a child is unspeakably evil. To rape a child with a crucifix is not only depraved – its satanic.

There is no punishment short of the death penalty that  would be severe enough for the crimes Walsh committed. But we do not have the death penalty. 

By the looks of it he will be out of prison in 2022?

He will then be 68.

I don’t know how any doctor can say he will not reoffend. 

There has to be an argument for keeping people like Walsh locked away from children?

Oh! And it is a shame that it took the Archdiocese of Dublin 17 years to report Walsh to the proper authorities.

LOS ANGELES BISHOP

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Los Angeles auxiliary bishop Alexander Salazar over his “misconduct” with a minor, the Vatican said on Wednesday.
The case is the latest in a litany of child-sexual abuse scandals to have rocked the Roman Catholic Church of 1.3-billion followers around the world.
The Vatican said an investigation by the archbishop of Los Angeles had found suspicions about Salazar’s behaviour to be “credible”.
A letter from the archbishop, Jose H Gomez, read that in 2005 he had been “made aware of an allegation against Bishop Salazar of misconduct with a minor” during the 1990s when he was serving as a parish priest. The allegations were investigated by the police but not prosecuted, Gomez said.
He said that since Salazar was a bishop when the allegations were made, he had passed the issue to the Vatican “which conducted an investigation and imposed certain precautionary measures”.
Salazar “consistently denied any wrongdoing”, Gomez said, and after obtaining permission from Rome, he had put the matter in the hands of the archdiocese’s “independent clergy misconduct oversight board”.
“The board found the allegation to be credible and I submitted its findings and recommendations along with my own votum to the Holy See to make its final determination as to Bishop Salazar’s status,” he said.
“These decisions have been made out of deep concern for the healing and reconciliation of abuse victims and for the good of the church’s mission. Let us continue to stay close to the victim-survivors of abuse, through our prayer and our actions.”

NEW YORK BISHOP

A longtime Bronx bishop has resigned after accusations of sexual abuse.
Bishop John Jenik, of Our Lady of Refuge in Bedford Park, reportedly engaged in inappropriate behavior with a teenage boy in the 1980s.
Jenik says he never abused anyone, but Cardinal Timothy Dolan says the allegation is both credible and substantiated.
“This is sad, this is sad for all of us, it’s sad for the victim and I sure appreciate that victim coming forward and accepting my invitation for all victims to come forward,” Dolan said. “It’s certainly a sad day for Bishop Jenik, it’s a very sad day for the people of Our Lady of Refuge parish who love him and cherish him.”

The bishop’s resignation comes as the New York’s Attorney General’s Office continues its investigation into clergy sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church.
In a letter addressed to parishioners last month, Jenik wrote that he is asking the Vatican to review the matter and ultimately prove his innocence.

500 PRIESTS IN ILLINOIS

By DON BABWIN and JOHN O’CONNOR 20.12.2018
un-Times via AP, File)

CHICAGO (AP) — Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan on Wednesday issued a blistering report about clergy sexual abuse, saying that Catholic dioceses in Illinois has not released the names of at least 500 clergy accused of sexually abusing children.
The preliminary report found that the church’s six archdioceses have done a woefully inadequate job of investigating allegations and in some cases did not investigate them at all or notify the state’s child welfare agency. Madigan’s office said that while the dioceses have disclosed 45 more names of those credibly accused, the total number of names disclosed is only 185 and raises questions about the church’s response to the crisis.
“By choosing not to thoroughly investigate allegations, the Catholic Church has failed in its moral obligation to provide survivors, parishioners and the public a complete and accurate accounting of all sexually inappropriate behavior involving priests in Illinois,” Madigan said in a statement. “The failure to investigate also means that the Catholic Church has never made an effort to determine whether the conduct of the accused priests was ignored or covered up by superiors.”
The report does not include some key details such as when the allegations were made. It also does not accuse the dioceses of withholding the names of ’credibly” accused clergy, only that the list of names of accused clergy is far longer than has been made public.
A Madigan spokeswoman said that the allegations date back decades and include some priests who are now deceased.
The Illinois disclosures are a new blow to the credibility of the church, which has struggled to contain the scandal amid mounting accusations of negligence. In August, a Pennsylvania grand jury report alleged that hundreds of priests abused at least 1,000 children over seven decades in that state. The report prompted Pope Francis to call U.S. bishops for a retreat at a suburban Chicago seminary next month to debate how to respond.
Larry Antonsen, a Chicago leader of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said Madigan is doing the right thing and needs to continue. He said Illinois should convene a grand jury with subpoena power, as in Pennsylvania.
“There’s more that needs to be done. The Catholic Church does not do a good job of policing itself, and you can’t expect them to do that,” Antonsen said. “It’s hard to know what to believe because so much of what they’re doing is in secret and not out in the open, but this is a step in the right direction.”
A leading attorney who has represented survivors of abuse called for the additional names of priests to be made public.
“The Illinois Bishops must release these names immediately so that survivors can heal and no other kids are harmed,” said Minneapolis-based Jeff Anderson.
Madigan’s office said the problems went beyond a lack of effort. In some cases, the report found, efforts were made to work against the accusers.
“When the Illinois Dioceses investigated an allegation, they frequently found reasons not to deem an allegation ‘credible’ or ‘substantiated,‘” according to the report. Not only did Madigan’s office find a “pattern” of dioceses failing to substantiate allegations that came from one person, “The dioceses also often found reasons to discredit survivors’ stories of abuse by focusing on the survivors’ personal lives.”
Illinois church leaders expressed regret about the abuse, but pointed to steps they have taken to address what has become an international crisis.
Chicago’s archbishop, Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, in a statement said that although he regretted “our failures to address the scourge of clerical sexual abuse,” the archdiocese has been a leader in dealing with the issue, including a policy since 2002 of reporting “all allegations of child sexual abuse to civil authorities.”
The Springfield diocese said that it reviewed paper files of clergy dating to its 1923 founding and provided Madigan’s office with documentation of each instance of abuse, regardless of whether it was deemed credible, according to a statement.
The Diocese of Joliet said in a statement that it took steps such as establishing in 1993 a review committee made up of people from law enforcement, social service agencies and others to investigate allegations of sexual abuse.
Madigan said her office’s findings make it clear that notifying authorities is critical, and pointing to instances when dioceses used personal information about people to discredit them and help them conclude accusations weren’t credible. “The preliminary stages of this investigation have already demonstrated that the Catholic Church cannot police itself,” she said.

PAT SAYS:

It is now emerging that more and more bishops have abused minors and others before they became bishops and after they became bishops.

It is also becoming clear THAT EVEN TODAY the RC institution is not willingly admitting the size of the problem – and not fully co-operating with the civil authorities. 

IRELAND

We can be quite sure that Irish bishops have abused minors, seminarians and young priests.

The only Irish bishop publicly accused of abuse to date was Archbishop John Charles McQuaid of Dublin.

McQuaid was accused in John Cooney’s book – of abusing a teenager in Dublin.

There were also two other reports of young men reporting McQuaid to the Gardaí over sexual abuse and the Gardaí “LOST” the files. 

*****AT THIS STAGE CIVIL AUTHORITIES GLOBALLY SHOULD REGARD THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AS A DANGER TO CHILDREN AND VULNERABLE ADULTS.

Catholic Churches Are Releasing Names of Accused Priests, But It’s Not Enough
Rick Snedeker/Godzooks blog

There’s good news and bad regarding the Catholic Church’s continuing clergy sex-abuse scandal.
The good news is that American bishops are beginning, independent of papal direction, to publicly release lists of priests “credibly accused” of sexual abuse crimes, particularly against children.

The bad news is that it’s not as simple as it sounds.

As the Catholic Church faces a wave of federal and state attorney general investigations into its handling of sex abuse, bishops around the country have struggled with how to react. Some have locked down defensively. Others are waiting on guidance from the Vatican, which instructed American bishops last month to wait on taking any collective action until the new year.
But dozens of bishops have decided to take action by releasing lists of the priests in their dioceses who were credibly accused of abuse. And they are being released at an unprecedented pace.
Terry McKiernan, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, which tracks sex abuse cases, counted “at least 35” dioceses releasing such lists. That’s nearly double the number released in one year since 2002, when the first one was independently publicized by the Diocese of Tucson, Arizona.
“We’ve never seen this kind of outpouring before,” said [McKiernan]
The lists are coming out on the heels of a stunning grand jury report released in August by Pennsylvania’s attorney general, which laid out in wrenching detail sex assaults against more than 1,000 victims by more than 300 priests. Similar investigations sprouted in more than a dozen other states. A nationwide federal probe also appears likely, as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in November notified every diocese in the country not to destroy documents regarding their handling of child sexual abuse cases.
The disclosures have trickled out week by week — 10 names in Gaylord, Mich.; 28 in Las Cruces, N.M.; 28 in Ogdensburg, N.Y.; 15 in Atlanta; 34 in San Bernardino, Calif., among many others. All 15 dioceses in Texas have agreed to release lists. Last week, the leaders of two major Jesuit provinces, covering nearly half of the states, released the names of more than 150 members of the order “with credible allegations of sexual abuse of a minor.”
This is all welcome news for victims. Yet, as always, the devil is in the details, one of which is accused priests’ strong argument that they are not receiving due process to submit evidence and fairly argue in their own defense. The names of such protesting priests were redacted in the recent Pennsylvania filing.
Another key reason that bishops have been so wary in the past to release such lists is the tedious, inexact difficulty in deciding which allegations of abuse are really “credible,” and good-faith worry about ruining priests’ reputations and lives mistakenly. Also, to be frank, far too many bishops and other church leaders have simply covered up accusations and quietly moved abusive priests from parish to parish to avoid official notice.
For example, in a small Arizona town where I worked as a news reporter in the 1970s, a local Boy Scout leader and a local priest were accused of pedophilia. The priest allegedly abused a boy who had been sent to him for counseling by his parents after the youth revealed he had been abused by the scoutmaster. The scoutmaster was ultimately convicted of victimizing seven boys. I could not find conviction and sentencing reports in a Google search, but I recall from the time that the scoutmaster received a lengthy prison sentence and the priest was reportedly reassigned to a seniors parish in Florida.
But the new diocese lists reveal alleged abusers who have long been under the public radar, most but not all of them already deceased by now. And the lists, however expansive, do not necessarily include everyone victims were assaulted by. A former bishop’s assistant in Buffalo, New York, recently claimed that the list put out by his diocese held only 42 accused priests’ names, when its internal list contained more than 100. So, while encouraging to many people, the lists are not being received with unanimous praise. However, diocese officials say names can still be added to the lists.
Still, many appalled by the relentlessly unfolding church scandal believe the only way true justice will be served is if investigations are fully implemented by secular law enforcement agencies with the power to subpoena Church records and officials, not self-policing, which has been a human and public relations disaster for the faith.
If there’s anything positive from these lists coming out, it’s that all priests should know they’re being watched and that they will be exposed. Whatever cover-ups used to be in place are slowly being eradicated. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s so much better than it used to be.

FROM: http://www.bishopaccountability.org

“Thank you to readers who have sent us additions and corrections. We are preparing improvements based on your advice. This database was last revised on September 11, 2018 at 1:10 p.m. Dublin time. So far, we have twice revised the entry for Gerard Cleere and added entries for:
• Br. Edward Bryan CFC
• Fr. Arthur Carragher CSSp
• Fr. Camillus Donovan OCSO
• Br. Vincent Downey SG
• Fr. Gerry Kearns
• Br. Thomas McCarry CFC
• Br. Diarmuid Ó Luanaigh CFC
• Fr. Terence Rafferty
• Br. James Treacy CFC
• Fr. Andrew Allen OP
• Br. Stephen Allen CFC
• Fr. Ronald Bennett OFM
• Fr. Dominic Savio Boland OFM Cap
• Fr. John Brosnan
• REDACTED
• Br. Edward Bryan CFC
• REDACTED
• Fr. John Calnan
• Fr. Michael Carney
• Fr. William Carney
• Fr. Arthur Carragher CSSp
• Canon Martin Clancy
• Mr. Gerard Cleere
• REDACTED
• Fr. Donal Collins
• REDACTED
• Br. Christopher Cosgrove FMS
• Fr. Patrick Crowley
• Fr. Daniel Curran
• REDACTED
• Fr. Tadhg Daly OMSH
• Fr. Con Desmond FSC
• Fr. Daniel Doherty
• Fr. James Donaghy
• Fr. Camillus Donovan OCSO
• REDACTED
• Br. Vincent Downey SG
• Fr. James Doyle
• Br. Seán John Drummond CFC
• REDACTED
• Canon Peter Duffy
• Fr. Michael Dunn
• Br. Donal Dunne CFC
• Br. Paul Farrell CFC
• Fr. Malachy Finnegan
• Fr. Seán Fortune
• Fr. Bernard Gallagher
• Fr. Donal Gallagher CM
• Fr. Martin Greaney
• Fr. Eugene Greene
• Fr. Jim Grennan
• Fr. Gus Griffin CSSp
• Br. Brendan John Halpin CFC
• Br. John Hannon OFM
• Fr. Patrick Hughes
• Fr. Gerry Kearns
• Br. Joseph Keegan OFM
• Br. James Kelly CFC
• Br. Patrick John Kelly CFC
• Fr. Peter Kennedy
• Br. Robert Keoghan OFM
• Fr. Christopher Kilkelly
• Fr. John Kinsella of Dublin
• REDACTED
• REDACTED
• Fr. Eugene Lewis WF
• Br. Vincent Lewis OCSO
• Fr. Donncha Mac Cárthaigh MSC
• Fr. Patrick Maguire SSC
• Br. Francis Patrick Mallon OSM
• Fr. Henry Maloney
• Fr. Francis Markey
• Fr. Patrick McCabe
• Fr. John McCallum
• Fr. Gerard John McCallion OCSO
• Br. Thomas McCarry CFC
• Fr. Francis (Frank) McCarthy
• REDACTED
• REDACTED
• Fr. Paul McDaid
• Fr. Patrick McDonagh SDS
• Fr. Paul McGennis
• Br. John McKenna CFC
• Fr. Tom McNamara
• Fr. James McNamee
• Fr. Michael Gerard McQuillan
• Fr. Vincent Mercer OP
• Fr. John Molloy
• Fr. Michael Molloy
• Fr. Henry Moloney CSSp
• Fr. Harry Moore
• Fr. Michael Mullins
• Fr. James Murphy of Ossory
• Fr. James Murphy of Cork and Ross
• Fr. Thomas Murphy
• Mr. David Murray
• Fr. Thomas Naughton SPS
• Fr. Denis Nolan
• Fr. Oliver O’Grady
• REDACTED
• Br. Diarmuid Ó Luanaigh CFC
• Fr. James J. O’Malley
• Fr. Ivan Payne
• Fr. James Prunty
• Br. Dennis Quirke FC
• Fr. Terence Rafferty
• Br. James Redmond FC
• Fr. Noel Reynolds
• Fr. Andrew M. Ronan OSM
• REDACTED
• Fr. Brendan Smyth O Praem
• Fr. Joseph M. Steele CSSp
• Fr. Joseph Summerville
• REDACTED
• Br. Maurice Tobin CFC
• Br. James Treacy CFC
• REDACTED
• Fr. Tony Walsh
• Fr. Brendan Wrixon”

Courage – A Roman Catholic Apostolate

Courage is an international apostolate of the Catholic Church, which ministers to persons with same-sex attractions.

Move beyond the confines of the homosexual label to a more complete identity in Christ
With the endorsement of the Holy See, Courage now has more than 100 Chapters and contact people worldwide, over 1500 persons participating in its ListServs, and hundreds of persons per week receiving assistance from the main office and website. It has become a mainstream Catholic Apostolate helping thousands of men and women find peace through fellowship, prayer, and the Sacraments.

In helping individuals gain a greater understanding and appreciation of the Church’s teachings, especially in the area of chastity, Courage extends the Church’s invitation to a life of peace and grace. In chaste living, one finds the peace and grace to grow in Christian maturity.

Resources to help you grow in Understanding

THE FIVE GOALS OF COURAGE

The Five Goals were created by the members themselves when Courage was founded. The goals are read at the start of each meeting and each member is called to practice them in daily life. Here are the Goals in their entirety.
To live chaste lives in accordance with the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching on homosexuality. ( Chastity )

To dedicate our entire lives to Christ through service to others, spiritual reading, prayer, meditation, individual spiritual direction, frequent attendance at Mass, and the frequent reception of the sacraments of Reconciliation and Holy Eucharist. (Prayer and Dedication)

To foster a spirit of fellowship in which we may share with one another our thoughts and experiences, and so ensure that no one will have to face the problems of homosexuality alone. (Fellowship)

To be mindful of the truth that chaste friendships are not only possible but necessary in a chaste Christian life, and to encourage one another in forming and sustaining these friendships. (Support)

To live lives that may serve as good examples to others. (Good Example/Role Model) VIDEO FROM PAISLEY DIOCESE WEBSITE

 

PAT SAYS:

The notion that you can PRAY AWAY BEING GAY is a very distorted notion and can lead to people suffering great damage.

Our sexuality is an absolutely fundamental part of who we are and if we fail to acknowledge and integrate it is any way we are going to end up being mentally and emotionally skewed in some serious ways.

Homosexuality is neither a problem or a disorder.

It is a perfectly normal sexual orientation and is seen, not only in humans, but in very many species.

To deny one of our basic human drives and instincts generally leads to neurosis and sometimes to psychosis.

The Roman Catholic Church is screwed up on sex in general and on homosexuality in particular.

This is seen by cardinals, bishops and priests condemning homosexuality in public and practising all kinds of kinky homosexuality in private.

If you want some good examples of PRAY AWAY BEING GAY – just look at Cardinal McCarrick, Cardinal Pell, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Archbishop Neinstedt etc, etc.

In fact I think that all forms of therapy that pretends to convert gays into heterosexuals or even into celibates, should be made illegal – because they7 are abuse.

Chastity does not always mean abstaining from sex. It means always enjoying sex in the context of love, intimacy, respect, consent and life enhancement.

---

ARLENE FOSTER

By: Robert Hutchison

Archbishop Bernard Hebda of St Paul and Minneapolis has said that until “all open allegations are resolved,” his predecessor, Archbishop John Nienstedt, is not free to exercise public ministry in the archdiocese.
Archbishop Hebda released a letter to the faithful of the archdiocese to clarify the status of the prelate. The 11-member Archdiocesan Ministerial Review Board, which addresses allegations of clergy misconduct, was consulted and recommended that Archbishop Hebda publicly clarify that Archbishop Nienstedt, like any priest facing similar allegations, is not free to engage in public ministry in this archdiocese until pending allegations are resolved.
Archbishop Hebda said he agrees with the recommendation. The restriction took effect on December 13.
“While this may cause some pain, my hope is that this decision prompts further action by those with authority over Archbishop Nienstedt to resolve this question,” Archbishop Hebda said in the letter, which also announced new steps the archdiocese is taking to minister to clergy sexual abuse survivors.
The action “is not intended to convey an indication or presumption of guilt,” Archbishop Hebda said.
The clarification of Archbishop Nienstedt’s local public ministry restrictions refers to a 2014 investigation into allegations that he had engaged in sexual misconduct with adults as a priest in Detroit and Rome, and as a bishop of New Ulm. Archdiocesan leaders engaged two separate law firms in the investigation.
Archbishop Nienstedt, who resigned his position as leader of the Archdiocese St Paul and Minneapolis in June 2015, has maintained that he is innocent of the allegations.
The investigation was forwarded to the US nunciature but has not been made public.
“As far as I know, any effort by the Vatican to further address the allegations was suspended in June 2015 when Archbishop Nienstedt resigned his office,” Archbishop Hebda said in the letter. “Thus, the matter remains unresolved for the accusers, for Archbishop Nienstedt and for the public. I share the frustration that is felt by them, and believe this situation highlights the need for a better-defined process and independent mechanism to resolve allegations against bishops.”
While the 2014 investigation involved allegations of sexual misconduct with adult males, the letter pointed out an allegation against Archbishop Nienstedt involving minors surfaced only after his resignation.
The allegation was made not to the archdiocese but to the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office. It became public in 2016 when the relevant documentation was released by Ramsey County.
At that time, Archbishop Hebda, who has led the archdiocese since Archbishop Nienstedt’s resignation, shared the released materials with the nunciature.

According to the allegation, Archbishop Nienstedt, as bishop of New Ulm, undressed in front of two teenage boys at a hotel during World Youth Day in Cologne, Germany, in 2005. The three had been caught in a rainstorm, and, according to the allegation, Archbishop Nienstedt invited the boys to his room, where Archbishop Nienstedt undressed and then the boys undressed in front of him before putting on hotel robes as they waited for their clothes to dry.
The individual said that at the time he felt uncomfortable with the situation, and that he told his mother about it when he returned home because he thought it was inappropriate.
According to Archbishop Hebda’s letter, Archbishop Nienstedt denies the situation occurred.
The restrictions on Archbishop Nienstedt’s local ministry reflect the approach archdiocesan leaders would take with any priest facing similar allegations, Archbishop Hebda said. “My opinion is that this allegation needs to be fully addressed before a definitive resolution of Archbishop Nienstedt’s suitability for ministry can be made,” he said.
After serving as bishop of New Ulm from 2001-2007, Archbishop Nienstedt was appointed coadjutor archbishop of St Paul and Minneapolis in 2007 and became its archbishop in 2008.
He resigned in June 2015 after the Ramsey County attorney charged the archdiocese for failing to protect children in the case of former priest Curtis Wehmeyer, who has been convicted of abusing three boys in 2010-11.
When the charges against the archdiocese were dismissed in 2016, the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office publicly released documents related to their investigation of the archdiocese. Among them was a summary of a December 29, 2015, interview with an individual who described the World Youth Day situation.
In the letter, Archbishop Hebda, who has led the archdiocese since Archbishop Nienstedt’s resignation, said he has been repeatedly asked whether there are restrictions on Archbishop Nienstedt’s ministry.
“My answer has always been that although I do not know of any, I am the wrong person to ask: bishops report to the Holy Father, not to each other. I have no general juridical authority over Archbishop Nienstedt or any other bishop outside the archdiocese,” he said. “I can, however, exercise some control over the types of public ministry permitted in this archdiocese,” which led him to restrict Archbishop Nienstedt’s local ministry.
Archbishop Nienstedt has continued to exercise ministry outside of the archdiocese, most recently concelebrating the December 4 funeral of Bishop Robert Morlino of Madison, Wisconsin.
From 2016 to 2018, he was a contractor with the California-based Napa Institute. The institute announced on August 15 that the archbishop would no longer be serving it.
The local restrictions put in place by Archbishop Hebda have no effect on Archbishop Nienstedt’s ministry outside of the archdiocese.
In the Archdiocese of Detroit, where he resides, Archbishop Nienstedt, at the request of Archbishop Allen Vigneron, has already agreed “to abstain from public ministry in the Archdiocese of Detroit.”
That agreement was made public by the Detroit Archdiocese on October 24.
In a December 14 statement, Archbishop Nienstedt called Archbishop Hebda’s decision to remove him from ministry “appropriate,” given the archdiocese’s protocols, “even though I am not currently practicing public ministry in the Archdiocese of St Paul and Minneapolis.”
“I welcome an investigation into this allegation, as I have welcomed all impartial investigations into allegations made against me,” he said. “At the same time, I do deny the veracity of this allegation. That being said, I don’t want to speak poorly of the men making these accusations.”
He continued: “It’s also difficult to defend myself because these allegations are of the ‘he said, he said’ nature. It is my word against the accusers and, as much as they seem to want to discredit me, I don’t want to harm them. I am relieved, however, that Archbishop Hebda will be sharing the 2014 archdiocesan investigation to an independent review board. I welcome an impartial look at the facts and the opportunity to defend myself.”
In his letter, Archbishop Hebda emphasised his strong support for an independent, national lay-led review board to address misconduct allegations against bishops. The structure was one of the items the US bishops discussed but – at the request of the Holy See – did not move to vote on during their fall meeting in Baltimore.
“In order to fully address bishop accountability, the Church needs a national board empowered to act, much as our well-respected Ministerial Review Board has been empowered to address allegations involving our priests and deacons,” he said. “The Church cannot fulfil its mission without public trust.”
Archbishop Hebda hopes such a structure could definitively address the allegations against Archbishop Nienstedt. He said he would share the entire 2014 archdiocesan investigation of Archbishop Nienstedt with such a review board, and that until it is created, he will continue to advocate for it.
“In this way, my hope is that resolution of the allegations against bishops and any additional investigation can be handled in a way that is fair to all and worthy of public trust,” he said.
“I share the disappointment of many that more progress has not been made at the national and international levels to address bishop accountability,” he continued. “It is my prayer and hope that the February meeting Pope Francis is convening with bishops from around the world produces tangible results.
“We need a review board at the national or regional level … with the authority and credibility to investigate allegations of misconduct against bishops and make fitness-for-ministry recommendations to the Holy Father.”
Archbishop Hebda released the letter as the archdiocese nears the end of a nearly four-year process of reorganisation under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code. In January 2015, the archdiocese filed for bankruptcy protection in the wake of mounting claims of clergy sexual abuse dating back as far as the 1940s.
In the end, 453 claims were filed against the archdiocese during the claim-filing period, most of which were related to suits brought against the archdiocese during a three-year-lifting of the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse claims in Minnesota.
In May 2018, the archdiocese announced it had reached a $210 million settlement, and the reorganisation process is expected to be completed by Christmas.
In the letter, Archbishop Hebda outlined several additional efforts the archdiocese is taking “to change the culture that fostered the clergy abuse crisis,” including a new position in the archdiocese’s Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment that aims to “ensure that the voice of survivors of clergy sexual abuse will be regularly heard within archdiocesan leadership,” he said.
He also reiterated that any survivor who at any time entered into a confidentiality provision with the archdiocese is released from that provision. He also restated his willingness to meet with any survivor who would like to do so.
Archbishop Hebda also said that plans are underway in the archdiocese for “spiritual outreach” in 2019 that will “include opportunities, both at the parish and archdiocesan levels, for reparation, spiritual renewal and prayers for healing.”
Maria Wiering is editor of The Catholic Spirit, newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

PAT SAYS:

I think that it is fairly clear that poor Archbishop Nienstedt finds it difficult to keep his honourable member in his trousers when it comes to men and boys.

It is not satisfactory that Rome and Pope Francis have not made a decision about Nienstedt’s future. He cannot minister in his own diocese but he can minister in every other diocese in the world if the local bishop does not object. The problem is that there are men and boys everywhere and Nienstedt seems to have an addiction.

WORLD YOUTH DAY:

The RC’s World Youth Day celebrations seem to have deteriorated into a Sex Fest that allows gay bishops and priests access to young men and boys.

We know that Irish priests have been involved – one with an Armagh farmer’s son – and priests from many Irish dioceses are having gay sex at these events – especially priests from Armagh and Meath – not to mention the gay seminarians.

I doubt if the new bishop of Meath will be minded to rein in his actively gay priests.

Add to that the massive clean up of condoms from public spaces after the event.

It is also quite obvious at this stage that sex – especially gay sex – is the biggest issue facing the RC institution.

Almost every day now we hear of a new cardinal, archbishop, bishop, priest or seminarian being caught with their trousers down.

 

About two weeks into his pontificate in March 2013, Pope Francis uttered a phrase that would quickly become one of his greatest hits in his canon of quotes: “This I ask you: be shepherds, with the ‘odor of the sheep.’ “
Francis spoke those words to thousands of clerics who had gathered at the Vatican for the annual chrism Mass, a liturgy traditionally held on the morning of Holy Thursday that celebrates the holiness of the priesthood.
The phrase became a common refrain for any progressive Catholic testifying to the promise of Francis’ pontificate.
But the metaphor never sat well with me. Sure, Francis was suggesting that members of the clergy not stay aloof and removed from the people they serve. But what did it say about the laity? Are we a lost, unwashed and simple herd who were utterly dependent on our priests and bishops for guidance?

The metaphor of the Good Shepherd works great for Jesus. He is, Christians believe, fully divine, the Light of the World, the Alpha and the Omega. But the analogy strains to the breaking point under the weight of our all too human, fallible, and sometimes even criminal priests and bishops.

Francis, who has had many choice words for the culture of clericalism, betrayed his own clericalism in this metaphor. He suggested that there was something superior, something set apart, about priests and bishops.
Never has Francis’ clerical disposition been on clearer display than in the way he has dealt with Australian Cardinal George Pell, who was found guilty on Wednesday, Dec. 12, on five charges of “historical child sexual offenses.”
Within the first month of his pontificate, Francis had tapped Pell to serve on a new Council of Cardinals, nine advisers known informally as the “C9” or the pope’s “kitchen cabinet.” In 2014, Francis appointed Pell to a five-year term as prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, a dicastery of the Roman Curia that has authority over all of the economic affairs of the Holy See and the Vatican City State.
But by early 2016, reports swirled that Pell was being investigated for sexually abusing children as a priest and later as an archbishop. In October 2016, three Australian police flew to Italy to interview Pell, who refused to return to Australia for questioning due to “ill health.”
In June 2017, Francis granted Pell’s request for a leave of absence from his responsibilities to the Secretariat for the Economy so that he could return to Australia to defend himself against the charges.
After a pretrial in May 2018, an Australian court ordered Pell to stand for two trials for multiple charges of the sexual abuse of minors: one for events in Melbourne in the 1990s and one for events in Ballarat in the 1970s. This week’s conviction was for Pell’s abuses in Melbourne. His second trial will take place in March 2019.
Amid these years of questioning, charges and trials, Francis has chosen to remain silent and keep Pell in his positions on the C9 and in the Curia.
According to Gerard O’Connell, Vatican correspondent for America magazine, “Francis applied the principle of law known as ‘in dubio pro reo’ (‘doubt favors the accused’), insisting that a person is to be considered innocent until proven guilty. The pope did not remove Cardinal Pell from his Vatican posts then because he believed to do so would be equivalent to an admission of guilt.”

Pope Francis leads a meeting of the Council of Cardinals at the Vatican in February 2017. At right is Cardinal George Pell and Cardinal Francisco Javier Errázuriz Ossa is second from right. (CNS/L’Osservatore Romano, handout)

Unlike in the U.S. church, where a credible accusation is enough to get a priest removed from ministry, in Francis’ view even a shred of doubt about the guilt of a prelate is enough to keep him in power.
This isn’t the first time that Francis has favored an accused member of his kitchen cabinet. Francis also kept Chilean Cardinal Francisco Errázuriz Ossa on the C9. He was accused of covering up for abusive priests while archbishop of Santiago, including the notorious predator Fernando Karadima, who was sentenced to a life of prayer and penance in 2011 and finally defrocked in September 2018.
Errázuriz was Karadima’s “most powerful defender,” according to a 2015 NCR article by Soli Salgado.
The article goes on to state, “The accusations against Errázuriz asserted that the cardinal was fully aware yet chose to ignore the abuse as early as 2003.”
“I am the first to try and punish someone with these types of accusations,” Francis said about Errázuriz at the time. “But in this case there is no proof — on the contrary. I say this from the heart. Do not be fooled by those who only look for fuss, who look for scandal.”
The Karadima case would come back to haunt Francis in January 2018 when he vigorously defended Bishop Juan Barros, who Karadima’s victims say witnessed the abuse. Francis made Barros a bishop in 2015.
“The day they bring me proof against Bishop Barros, I will speak,” Francis said at the time. “There is not one piece of evidence against him. It is calumny. Is that clear?”
Though Francis would later apologize to Karadima’s victims for essentially calling them liars, this was another clear case of the pope privileging abusive clerics over the abused laity.
Even amid all of this rot in his kitchen cabinet, Francis kept Errázuriz and Pell in their privileged places, waiting for civil authorities to decide their guilt or innocence before he saw fit to remove these men from their privileged positions.

It was only after Pell was found guilty on Wednesday that the Vatican decided to announce that both Errázuriz and Pell would no longer be serving on the C9. But even the announcement made it sound as if the pope was simply reorganizing his council, rather than suggesting that they had been removed due to any criminal or nefarious or sexually violent activities.
In fact, Greg Burke, director of the Holy See Press Office, said that Francis had written to the men in October thanking them for their service.
Will Pell keep his post in the Curia?
“That’s a good question,” said Burke, when asked at a briefing on Wednesday, just hours after Pell’s conviction.
“The Holy See has the utmost respect for the Australian judicial authorities. We are aware there is a suppression order in place and we respect that order,” he added.
Burke was referring to an Australian court orderforbidding the media from publishing news about Pell’s trial as a way to maintain impartiality.
But isn’t being convicted of sexual abuse in one trial while awaiting a second trial on the same charges — two details that have been made public — enough to get one kicked out of the Curia? Apparently not in the Vatican’s world of radical clerical privilege.
The bigger question is, why wasn’t Pell removed the moment he was asked to stand trial, if not even earlier? It should never have taken this long, and it did because of Francis’ approach to privileging the abuser.
In one of his many diatribes again clericalism, Francis said in a homily in December 2016:

There is that spirit of clericalism in the church, that we feel: Clerics feel superior; clerics distance themselves from the people. … [It happens] when the cleric doesn’t have time to listen to those who are suffering. … The evil of clericalism is a really awful thing; it is a new edition of this ancient evil.

Francis’ strategy of favoring the accused reeks of clericalism. It gives the clergy an odor of superiority and brazenly ignores the cries of those who have suffered horrific abuses. The next time Francis points a finger at the evils of clericalism, one hopes he’ll notice the evils of Barros, Pell and Errázuriz, among many other prelates, pointing right back at him.

PAT SAYS:

St this stage Pope Francis seems to be more part of the problem than pary of the solution.

On Mccarrick, he not only lifted Benadicts sanctions on him, but allowed him to prosper.

McCarrick should have been laicised and thrown out. Instead Francis is allowing him to live in comfort.

Pell is another case. If his conviction stands he too should be sent packing from the clerical state.

Francis proved himself a clerical supporter in Chile, doubting the victims.

Francis is obviously part of the clerical caca.

He is not to be trusted or listened to.

Catholic Archbishop: If Your Religion Contradicts the Law, Ignore the Law
BY SARAHBETH CAPLIN – Friendly Atheist

DECEMBER 14, 2018 The Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin is telling Catholics that they are not obligated to follow laws that contradict their faith.
Far from separation of church and state, Martin wants Church to simply ignore the State.

Concerning the Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy Bill, which goes before the Seanad this week, Archbishop Martin said, “There’s a clear Catholic teaching that if legislation is against the basic principles of faith of people that they can’t be forced to carry it out.
…
Asked whether this right of Catholics not to obey laws in certain circumstances also included legislation on divorce, same-sex marriage and family planning, Archbishop said: “There’s a hierarchy of truths in Catholic teaching and the centrality of some aspects. If people have conscientious objection it’s a very important thing to remember it. For me, very often social change comes from people who stand up for their commitments.”
Social change is also delayed for the very same reason: because people are unable to separate their sacred principles from the rights of others to live their lives as they see fit. No one is asking Catholics to change their beliefs — just not to force them on the public. That, apparently, is a separation Martin doesn’t accept.
Last week, in a strongly-worded statement, the Catholic bishops said they were “dismayed that, for the most part, the voices of those who voted against abortion in May’s referendum have been ignored. Even what many people would have deemed to have been very reasonable legislative amendments seeking to provide women with information and to prohibit abortion on the grounds of sex, race or disability, have been rejected.”

“Every one of us has a right to life. It is not given to us by the Constitution of Ireland or by any law. We have it ‘as of right’, whether we are wealthy or poor, healthy or sick. All human beings have it. The direct and intentional taking of human life at any stage is gravely wrong and can never be justified.
If the preservation of life is the ultimate goal, Catholics will have to realize that they have no choice but to accept the lesser, “venial” sins of contraception and sex education in public schools. Those are just two of many methods that are most effective when it comes to preventing unwanted pregnancies. A “pro-life” ethic that is not influenced by the realities of poverty and socioeconomic privilege is useless and destructive.
Martin’s assessment might make former Kentucky clerk Kim Davis proud, but if everyone chose to follow only the laws they wanted to, while claiming a religious defense for ignoring the rest, society wouldn’t function. Martin’s fine with faith trumping civil laws… but I have a hunch he would be saying something very different if we were talking about Muslims and other non-Christians instead of fellow Catholics.

PAT SAYS:

I think that Diarmuid Martin was having a Bishop Kevin Doran (being gay is like being Downs Syndrome) moment when he said the above.

As Irish citizens we are all bound to obey Irish law – or suffer the consequences.

Some might even go as far as saying that Diarmuid is guilty of inciting law breaking or of conspiracy to break the law?

He is obviously talking about the new abortion legislation that has been introduced by the Irish government.

I am general speaking, anti abortion, except in rare cases where an abortion could be seen as the lesser of two evils.

But I must accept that a clear majority of the Irish people voted for this legislation – and even though it goes against my religious beliefs I must accept it as a social and political reality.

Of course I can speak out about it = but that does not mean that I can break the law by harassing women at the entrances of clinics and hospitals or by threatening the life of medical professionals.

I’m sure that in the future the government, when advertising certain medical vacancies will include the willingness to perform certain procedures into the job descriptions of those jobs.

RC doctors etc, who have a problem with certain procedures. then will simply apply for the job. Problem solved. 

People like Diarmuid Martin and his pal Amy, will have to realise that Ireland is no longer a Confessional Catholic state.

In fact, Ireland, because of the disgraceful behaviours and activities of junior and senior RC clerics is fast becoming an anti-Catholic state – a development that is completely justified by our experience of the RC’s in the past and at present.

There is one important abortion I would truly like to see – the TERMINATION of any RC influence in Ireland.

VINCENT NICHOLS TRIED TO LOOK KOOL WHEN HE APPEARED BEFORE THE INDEPENDENT INQUIRY CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE – BUT HE WAS EXPOSED AS A CYNICAL OPERATOR.

On a number of occasions I actually verbally express my exasperation and shock at what he said.

One of those occasions was when he said that “A MORAL CONVICTION CANNOT OVERRIDE LEGAL PROCEDURES”!

One would have thought that for a Christian moral convictions should be the most important of one’s convictions.

But not for Vinny. Like so many of his colleagues they must the so called “good name” of the RC Church before anything else – including the justice, truth and the suffering of victims.

He failed miserably to answer the Inquiry’s legal representatives who put it to him that while he was speaking fine words on child protection his actions contradicted those words.

It became clear, for instance, that when to appointing a new Child Protection Officer Nichols and Birmingham archdiocese did not, as they should have, advertised the post, but gave a favoured member of staff, who was not fully trained, a tap on the shoulder appointment. This is of course what RC bishops and dioceses do all over the place.

The Inquiry also played to Vinny a recording of a Birmingham victim criticising Vinny himself and calling his a “so called cardinal”. During this time Vinny looked flushed and decidedly uncomfortable. He was fidgeting and nervous.

It also emerged that Nichols, like archbishops before him, had kept a 1968 sexual accusation against a priest hidden from victims and their legal representatives.

The barristers for the victims spoke at the end of Nichol’s evidence and they were scathing about him.

They said he was like the Three Monkeys – see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

One of the vicar generals of Birmingham had warned a priest that the police were coming for him and gave him money to escape to the USA.

They said that Nichols had misled the parishioners of a Father Jones.

Birmingham was giving a paedophile priest – Father Robinson – £800 a month or £9,600 a year for his upkeep and were giving one of his victims £100 a year for counselling!

They said that the RC Church cannot be trusted with child protection and that a new civil body should be set up to inspect the RC Church,

As people on this blog have said, Nichols is suave and thinks he is clever.

However Thursday’s televised interrogation proved that Nichols is like the rest of them. He is an RC Church hack – who will do what is necessary to protect the Church and help his career prospects.

What Vinny needs to realise is that the interrogation he got on Thursday is child’s play to the interrogation he will receive on the day he dies and appears before the infinitely just God.

“What would it profit a man if he gained the whole world (including Westminster and a red hat) and suffered the loss of his own soul”.

Vinny has long ago sold his soul to his Roman Mistress.

Let him enjoy his short lived rewards.

Christopher White Crux
Dec 13, 2018

NEW YORK – In a decision that will undoubtedly create shockwaves around the globe, Cardinal George Pell, the most senior Church official to stand trial for sexual abuse, was found guilty on Tuesday by a Melbourne Court.
In one of the most closely watched trials in modern Catholic Church history, after nearly four full days of deliberations, a jury rendered unanimous guilty verdicts on five charges related to the abuse of two choirboys in 1996.
The trial, which began on November 7, has been subject to a media blackout at the request of the prosecution, and follows a first trial in September ended after a jury failed to reach consensus.
Pell, who is 77 years old, is currently on a leave of absence from his post as the Vatican’s Secretary for the Economy.
In June 2017, Pell was charged by Australian police with “historical sexual assault offences,” forcing him to leave Rome and return home vowing to “clear his name.”
This past May, after a four-week committal hearing, an Australian magistrate struck down some of the more serious charges against Pell but ruled he stand trial on five charges related to sexual abuse of minors. The allegations, however, are from two separate periods, the 1970s and the 1990s, hence Judge Sue Pullen’s decision in May to mandate two different trials.
The focus of the first trial centered on the alleged sexual assault of two choirboys at Melbourne’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral during the late 1990s.
During the four weeks of testimony, the jury of twelve heard from the former Master of Ceremonies of the cathedral, its former organist, and other choirboys during the same period of the alleged incident.
Much of the testimony centered on whether or not it would have been possible for Pell to have been alone with the members of the choir and whether it would have been physically possible for Pell to engage in such actions while wearing his mass vestments.
Jury deliberations for the case began late last week, and continued through Tuesday.
Pell has been a key point of reference in English-speaking Catholicism for at least the last two decades, and he was appointed by Pope Francis to his “C9” council of cardinal advisers from around the world in 2013. On Wednesday, the Vatican announced that at the end of October, Pope Francis had removed Pell, along with two other cardinals, from his council of advisers.
He served as the Archbishop of Melbourne from 1996 to 2001, then as the Archbishop of Sydney from 2001 until his appointment to his Vatican position in 2014.
Following the May ruling, Vatican spokesman Greg Burke released a statement saying that “The Holy See has taken note of the decision issued by judicial authorities in Australia” regarding Pell.
“Last year, the Holy Father granted Cardinal Pell a leave of absence so he could defend himself from the accusations. The leave of absence is still in place,” Burke said.
Despite the Vatican’s position in May, Pell’s term of office ends in August and it’s unclear what happens next.
Vatican spokesman Greg Burke told reporters on Wednesday that “The Holy See has the utmost respect for the Australian courts.”
“We are aware there is a suppression order in place and we respect that order,” he said.
Earlier this year, the Australian Catholic Church unveiled its official response to Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the nation’s highest form of inquiry.
The Royal Commission revealed last year that 7 percent of Catholic priests were accused of sexually abusing children in Australia over the past several decades, and in response, the Church accepted 98 percent of its 80 recommendations, deciding only against the recommendation that the Church eliminate the seal of the confessional.
The Pell verdict and the Church’s response to the Royal Commission comes at a time in which the global Catholic Church is struggling to combat the issue of clerical sexual abuse.
In August, Francis penned a letter to the “People of God” in which he apologized for widespread cover-up and failures, and in February, he has called the presidents of every bishops’ conference around the world for a global summit on the issue.
During the release of the Australian Church’s response to the Royal Commission, president of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Mark Coleridge, vowed systematic reform throughout the country.
“Our response in Australia gives local shape to the action required to address such failure and the need for cultural change,” he wrote.
A sentencing date for Pell has been set for February 2019. Judge Peter Kidd said Pell will be taken into custody on that date, however an appeal by his defense team is likely.

PAT SAYS:

From the very first moment that I watched the televised interviews of Pell’s male victims I was convinced that they were telling the truth and Pell was guilty.

They described the then Father Pell hanging around the town swimming pool all day, fondling their privates under the water and standing naked in front of them in the male changing room.

As they spoke their voices and bodies trembled and they wept. I knew that they were not lying.

One of them is now dead – and never lived to see justice being done.

Not only did George Pell sexually abused them – but for decades he called them liars and therefore submitted them to decades of personal, mental, social and sexual suffering.

He must now be punished by a long jail sentence.

pope Francis must also now immediately dismiss him from the college of cardinals – and dismiss him from the clerical state.

He must now spend the rest of his life as Mr Pell and Prisoner Number 8764.

_______________________

LEITRIM WANTS A HARD BORDER

FIVE sisters were sexually abused by the same US Catholic priest when one of them was just 18-months-old
The Fortney sisters were abused by Father Augustine Giella during the 1980s
He was a trusted family friend who would come round for meals and say grace
Patty, Lara, Teresa and Carolyn said he would bring them candy and clothes
Caroloyn just 18 months when abuse happened while fifth sister didn’t speak out
Father Giella charged with child sex crimes but died before he could face trial

One of hundreds of paedophile priests who’ve been unmasked across the USA

Five sisters from Pennsylvania were all abused by the same Catholic priest in the early 1980s when one of them was just 18-months-old, in the latest shocking example of child sex crimes in the US branch of the church.
The Fortney sisters, Patty, Lara, Teresa and Carolyn, said Father Augustine Giella would regularly give them gifts before attacks, one of which took place on 13-year-old Patty while her other three sisters looked on.
‘He was constantly hugging me in front of them, kissing me in front of them, trying to put his tongue in your mouth,’ Patty Fortney-Julius told CBS News. Lara was then 10, Teresa in first grade, and Carolyn one. Another sister chose not to speak out.
The Fortney sisters suffered horrific sexual abuse at the hands of their local Pennsylvania priest in the 1980s. Pictured from left to right: Carolyn Fortney, Teresa Fortney-Miller, Laura Fortney McKeever, Patty Fortney-Julius
Giella, their local pastor in Enhaut, was a trusted family friend who was often invited round for family meals, where he would say grace.
‘Even at our kitchen table things happened in front of my parents’ face that they couldn’t see,’ said Lara Fortney McKeever.
‘I would continually remind myself, ‘He’s my priest. He’s the mediator between God and man. This is okay,’ Patty Fortney-Julius said.

The abuse happened, Caroloyn said she only realized what going on when she turned 12. ‘I was watching a movie of a priest molesting altar boys and that’s kind of the day that I put it together,’ she said.
Giella retired from the church in 1989 but the Fortneys still saw him. Three years later, a relative found a box containing child pornography, including naked photos of Caroloyn.
The children’s parents, Ed and Patty, reported the photos to the Harrisburg diocese, while one sister called child services, which informed the police. Giella was charged with sexual assault and possessing child pornography, but died awaiting trial.
Although deprived of real justice, the sisters settled two civil lawsuits with the Harrisburg diocese.
The sisters said avoided talking about the abuse as adults, but decided to speak out three years ago to prevent the same happening to other children.
‘I believe that there’s going to be change,’ said Fortney-Miller. ‘I pray that there’s going to be change because nobody should live like this with this pain. Nobody should. It’s every day. But I have hope now. I do.’
Some 1,000 children are thought to have been abused by 300 predator priests in six Pennsylvania dioceses, according to a recent report. Forty-five of the priests named in a grand jury report served in the Harrisburg diocese.
Through his deception, and the great esteem he was held in as a priest of the Catholic Church,

The diocese said it sent its ‘deepest apologies and prayers’ for failing to stop the abuse.

Harrisburg Bishop Ronald Gainer was named in the report for failing to advocate the defrocking of an abusive priest. The diocese defended Gainer, saying he took swift action against that priest and another abusive priest after becoming bishop in 2014.
While acknowledging the church is faced with a ‘spiritual crisis,’ Gainer said most of the abuse happened long ago.
The diocese has taken ‘significant and effective measures to protect our children and remove any person who intends to do harm to them,’ he said.
The sheer number of children who were abused by Catholic priests in America has only recently started coming to light.
On Thursday, officials in New York, New Jersey and New Mexico announced investigations into how the church had handled abuse allegations. Missouri recently announced a similar investigation.
PAT SAYS:

These cases always have the capacity to deeply shock. How any man or priest can abuse a child is nearly impossible to understand.

But imagine how horrific the sexual abuse of an 18 month old baby is?

This is real sickness and it is more shocking that the perp was a priest.

“If anyone hurts any of these my little ones it would be better for you to have a large millstone tied around your neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea”

---

READER SENT US THIS JOKE

Arlene Foster – DUP

–