Monday, February 7, 2011

Hitler aide Bormann 'escaped to Latin America'

8:52 AM Ministerio Internacional Creciendo en Gracia

02/04/2011


www.g00gle.com


BRUSSELS — Top Nazi Martin Bormann, who German authorities say died in 1945, escaped Berlin and lived in Latin America disguised as a priest, a former Belgian collaborator said in an interview published Saturday.


Paul van Aerschodt, 88, who was sentenced to death in Belgium in 1946 but broke out of prison before his execution and now lives in Spain, told the Derniere Heure newspaper he had met Bormann four times in La Paz, Bolivia, around 1960.



"Bormann had come from Paraguay and was plotting with some 20 officers a coup to overthrow (dictator Juan) Peron in Argentina," van Aerschodt said.


He claimed Bormann, who called himself Augustin von Lembach, passed himself off as a priest and celebrated masses, weddings and funerals and administered the last rites to the dying.



"But he remained a fanatic," van Aerschodt said, adding that he had made the choice not to give Bormann away but did not know what became of him.


He said Bormann had found refuge in Bolivia in 1947 after another priest helped him to obtain a visa.



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Dutch bishops admit they did not warn diocese of pedophile priest, Cardinal denies knowledge of abuse and Vatican cover-up

8:48 AM Ministerio Internacional Creciendo en Gracia

02/04/2011


religiouschildabuse.blogspot.com

The former leader of Dutch Roman Catholics is to testify for the first time about his knowledge of child abuse in the church. Earlier controversial comments he made about the abuse caused an outcry in the Netherlands.


Cardinal Ad Simonis will appear in court in Middelburg on Tuesday. [see article below] It will be the first time such a senior Roman Catholic cleric is to give evidence on child abuse before a Dutch court.


The Middelburg case has been brought by a 34-year-old man who was abused by the now very elderly priest, Jan N. The abuse took place in the early 1990s in Terneuzen in the diocese of Breda. The victim hopes the evidence of Cardinal Simonis and other church officials will show that the diocese can be held liable for not taking measures to prevent sexual abuse.


Paedophile cover-up


Last week, Bishop Hans van den Hende of Breda and Herman Spronck, head of the Salesian teaching order in the Netherlands, gave their testimony in the case. Father Spronck admitted that the Salesians (Father Jan’s first employers) did not inform the Breda diocese of the priest’s paedophile offences.


While he was in a position of authority at the Don Bosco Youth Centre in Rijswijk, Fr Jan had sexually abused multiple boys. He was arrested in 1979 and confessed to the offences but after a week in prison was allowed sick leave. His case was dismissed in 1980 by the Public Prosecutor’s office in The Hague. The reason for that decision is unclear and the dossier has since been destroyed.


“Rather regrettable”


Only five years later, Fr Jan started work as a priest in a parish in Terneuzen, part of the Breda diocese, where his history was not known. In 1990, the priest was found guilty of the sexual abuse of a number of boys. He was given four months’ suspended sentence and ordered to do 160 hours of community service.


Fr Spronck’s evidence seems to absolve the Breda diocese of blame. He admitted that a warning would probably have prevented Fr Jan from committing more sexual abuse. The Salesians’ inaction “may have been rather regrettable,” he told the NOS Dutch public service broadcaster.


What did the cardinal know?


Now, it’s Cardinal Simonis’ turn to testify about what he knew of the earlier case in Rijswijk. At the time, he was bishop of Rotterdam, and Rijswijk is in the Rotterdam diocese. It is hoped his statements will show whether there is enough evidence to bring a civil case for damages against the diocese of Breda.

Adult Victims of Clergy Abuse

8:42 AM Ministerio Internacional Creciendo en Gracia

02/04/2011


www.dolanlegal.com

In a startling new estimate, the national director of SNAP claims that adults comprise up to 25% of all clergy abuse cases. However, adults victims encounter far more skepticism when they come forward with their stories because public opinion holds that adults are ultimately responsible for all of their decisions, and the media has conditioned the public to feel that sexual misconduct within the Church is an affair between an ordained priest and a child. In this respect, an article forReligion Dispatch by writer Kathryn Joyce sheds a tremendous light on the shifting demographics that makes adult abuse such a wide-scale problem.


A growing Hispanic population in the US church coupled with the shrinking priest population has created a vacuum within the Church that has been filled by lay ministers. Joyce’s article tells the story of one such organization, Christo y Yo, designed to fill the gaps between the Hispanic faithful and the lack of ordained ministers.



In 2008, Katia Birge joined Christo y Yo after moving back to her native Denver. Birge, then 25, had gone off to college and was working when her juvenile rheumatism debilitated her. She came back to Denver. Birge was in pain and distressed to find herself dependent on her parents after years of independence. Raised in a bilingual home, Birge sought solace in a Christo y Yo, a charismatic Hispanic church group for young adults. What she found was anything but.



According to Joyce’s article, Christo y Yo drew as many as 500 participants from around the Denver diocese, including 100 from Birge’s St. Catelan parish alone. It was run by a Mexican lay minister, Juan Carlos Hernandez, a dynamic and outwardly pious preacher in his mid-30’s. Hernandez and Birge formed a fast friendship primarily based around faith and theology. However, the relationship grew complicated after the two kissed at Hernandez’s home. Several weeks later, Birge asked Hernandez to come over for a talk about where they stood. According to Birge’s testimony, Hernandez ended up driving her to a dark and secluded part of town where he raped her.



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Denham case reopened

8:38 AM Ministerio Internacional Creciendo en Gracia

02/04/2011


www.theherald.com.au

Detectives attached to police Strikeforce Georgiana have re-opened an investigation into one of the Hunter region's most notorious paedophile priests, John Denham.


Police have taken statements from another eight former students who attended the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic diocese St Pius X High School at Adamstown in the late 1970s.



The alleged victims of Denham came forward after the former priest was jailed for 13 years and 10 months in July last year, after pleading guilty to multiple charges involving 39 boys aged 5 to 16, between 1968 and 1986.



A Strikeforce Georgiana detective said the eight alleged victims were all from the Hunter, and had all attended St Pius during the time Denham was a teacher at the school.



The matter was still under investigation and police would like to speak to anyone with information about alleged child sex abuse at the school. Calls to Strikeforce Georgiana can be made through Charlestown police station.



A Denham victim who was in court when Denham was sentenced said he was pleased that another eight alleged victims had come forward.



"We all knew they were there," he said. "It was just a matter of time before more of them came forward so it's no shock that they have. I would expect there'll be more and I'd encourage people to come forward."



The Newcastle man said he was happy that he made a statement to police and had his charges included in the case that eventually jailed the Catholic priest.


"I'm happy that I came forward because otherwise, who knows where he could have ended up?" he said.


UPDATE: Venice priest faces more sex abuse charges

7:46 AM Ministerio Internacional Creciendo en Gracia

02/03/2011




A Catholic friar accused of having a sexual relationship with a teenage boy is being held in jail on additional charges.

Detectives arrested William C. Wert, 53, this week on two counts of committing a sex offense on a victim between 12 and 15. On Wednesday afternoon, a judge refused to set bail on those two counts.


Authorities have also filed eight more charges against Wert: five more counts of sex offenses against a minor and three counts of lewd and lascivious behavior with a victim between 12 and 16. Bail for each of those eight counts is $10,000.


The jail booking staff said this morning that, even if Wert came up with $80,000 for bail for most of the counts, he cannot be released because of the two charges for which no bail was set.


Weir is a friar with the Order of Carmelites and has been living in a retirement home the religious order owns in Venice while on leave of absence. In 2007, he was convicted in Washington, D.C., of simple assault after being accused of inappropriately touching a 14-year-old and put on probation.

European theologians call for end to priestly celibacy

7:32 AM Ministerio Internacional Creciendo en Gracia

02/07/2011




EUROPE
Catholic Herald (United Kingdom)

More than 140 Catholic theologians from universities in Austria, Germany and Switzerland have called for the Church to end priestly celibacy, ordain women and allow lay people to help select bishops, among other changes.


The 143 professors said their appeal was made in response to the clergy sexual abuse scandals that surfaced in Europe last year and that they no longer could remain silent in the face of what they say is a lingering crisis within the Catholic Church.


The theologians, who also called for the Church to welcome same-sex couples and divorced and remarried couples, said their statement was issued to open a discussion about the future of the Church.


Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Dutch Catholic order to pay sex abuse damages

6:30 PM Ministerio Internacional Creciendo en Gracia

02/01/2011


www.expatica.com

A Catholic order in the Netherlands has undertaken to pay compensation to more than two dozen victims of sexual abuse committed by its priests, the order and victims said on Tuesday.


The Order of Salesians of Don Bosco reached a deal to make "generous" restitution to individuals who fell victim to sexual abuse by priests as pupils at its boarding schools between 1950 and 1971, a joint statement said.


"Victims of sexual abuse ... have reached a concrete agreement with the Salesians on the restitution demanded," it added.


"It concerns financial and emotional compensation, an apology," a spokesman for the victims group, who asked not to be named, told AFP, adding the agreement listed "at least 26 victims".


Sexual abuse by Salesian priests was mainly committed at a boarding school of the Don Rua monastery in the town of 's-Heerenberg in the east Netherlands, which hosted between 50 and 140 children aged 12 to 18 every school year between 1958 and 1971.


There were also claims at other Salesian boarding schools, dating back to 1950, including in the town of Assel.


Details on the exact mode of compensation will be finalised in the next three weeks.


"The aim is to get the perpetrators involved in the process," said the spokesman.


An independent commission tasked with probing allegations of sexual abuse in the Dutch Catholic church received 2,000 reports between March and December last year.


The order of Salesians was founded in 1859 by Italian priest John Bosco to help underprivileged young people. It has 16,000 priests and brothers world-wide, of which 55 in the Netherlands.

Church abuse victims secure compensation

6:27 PM Ministerio Internacional Creciendo en Gracia

01/31/2011


www.chroniclelive.co.uk

CATHOLIC church leaders have finally paid compensation to three brothers robbed of their childhoods by a paedophile priest.


The lads were sexually abused by Bernard Traynor, a trainee priest working in the Hexham and Newcastle Diocese in the 1970s.


They were in care at St Vincent’s childrens’ home in Newcastle when the abuse took place.


Traynor, now 56, formerly an assistant at St Robert’s in Morpeth, and a priest at St Anne’s in Low Fell, Gateshead, molested them for five years after befriending them in the home.


But his sordid past returned to haunt him 20 years on when the brothers finally found the courage to alert the authorities.



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