Witness: Priest plied me with booze, molested me

From the link: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/147586455.html

By Joseph A. Slobodzian

INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

The Philadelphia Catholic clergy sex-abuse trial began its fourth week this morning with testimony by a former Philadelphia man who told of being plied with liquor and sexually molested by his parish priest in a King of Prussia hotel room.

The 50-year-old man, who grew up in Immaculate Heart of Mary parish in Andorra, told the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court jury about an incident when he was in the seventh grade.

The Rev. Thomas J. Smith had offered to take him and another boy on a trip to Hershey Park, driving a recreational vehicle borrowed from the second boy’s parents.

But the RV got no farther than King of Prussia, the man testified, when Smith said the vehicle had mechanical problems and they would have to stay overnight in a nearby Holiday Inn.

There the two boys spent the afternoon playing cards with their pastor, drinking Southern Comfort liquor and sodas.

Later that day, the man testified, Smith began chasing them around the room putting ice cubes down their underwear. When it came time for bed, the man continued, Smith told them to sleep naked because their clothes were wet.

While his friend slept on the floor, the man testified, he slept in bed with Smith and quickly fell asleep because of the alcohol he drank.

The man said he awoke on top of Smith – who was also naked – and realized they both had erections. When Smith saw that he was awake, the man continued, the priest pushed him to the other side of the bed.

The man said he went back to sleep and told no one until the incident became part of the 2005 report of the Philadelphia County grand jury report about the cover-up of sexual abuse of minors by priests in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” asked Assistant District Attorney Patrick Blessington.

“I asked myself that question for years,” the man replied. “I think I was more afraid of getting in trouble. I was brought up to respect my elders and figures of authority.”

Though Smith continued to visit his parents and five brothers, the man testified, he withdrew from contact with the priest, whom he said enjoyed wrestling with his brothers in the basement of their house.

In questioning the man, defense attorney Jeffrey Lindy elicited the fact that the man did not come forward to authorities until 2004 – two years after Msgr. William J. Lynn, one of the two clerics on trial, left his job as the Archdiocese’s chief investigator of wayward priests.

Though not criminally charged in the 2005 grand jury report, Smith was left in his parish two years after Archdiocesan officials learned of the abuse in 2002. Two years later, after additional allegations of abuse arose, Smith was removed from active ministry.

Like most prior victims of clergy sexual abuse mentioned during the trial, Smith was not directly involved with the two clerics on trial. Rather, prosecutors have been permitted to bring in other cases to try to prove to the jury their theory of a long practice in the Archdiocese of ignoring or covering up after priests accused of sexually molesting children.

Lynn, as secretary for clergy, was responsible for investigating allegations of sexual abuse of minors made against priests. He is the first church official criminally charged with enabling or covering up such allegations against Catholic clergy.

Lynn’s codefendant, the Rev. James J. Brennan, is charged with attempting to rape a 14-year-old boy in 1996.

Both have denied the allegations.

Fellow priests support Galway Redemptorist silenced over stance on sex abuse scandal

From the link: http://www.galwaynews.ie/25254-fellow-priests-support-galway-redemptorist-silenced-over-stance-sex-abuse-scandal

April 12, 2012 – 7:00am

by Bernie Ní Fhlatharta

Fellow members of the Association of Catholic Priests have voiced their solidarity with the Galway priest who has been silenced by the Vatican over his backing for the Taoiseach’s condemnation of the Church’s response to clerical sex abuse in Ireland.

Fr Tony Flannery, who is based in the Redemptorist Monastery in Esker, was silenced following his public support of Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s attack on the Vatican’s handling child sex abuse allegations. An Taoiseach, speaking in the Dáil earlier this year, called on the Catholic Church to apologise.

Fr Flannery who was also one of the founders of the Association of Catholic Priests, visited Rome two months ago to argue his case after he was censured by the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, which ordered that he stop writing in the Redemptorist Order’s own magazine, Reality or on the Association’s website.

The Association has issued a statement saying how disturbed they are at their member being silenced.

“We believe that such an approach, in its individual focus on Fr Flannery and inevitably by implication on the members of the Association, is an extremely ill-advised intervention in the present pastoral context in Ireland. We affirm in the strongest possible terms our confidence in and solidarity with Fr Flannery and we wish to make clear our profound view that this intervention is unfair, unwarranted and unwise.

The Roman Catholic Catechism on Rape

The Catechism offers a clear moral teaching: “Rape is the forcible violation of the sexual intimacy of another person. It does injury to justice and charity. Rape deeply wounds the respect, freedom, and physical and moral integrity to which every person has a right. It causes grave damage that can mark the victim for life. It is always an intrinsically evil act. Graver still is the rape of children committed by parents (incest) or those responsible for the education of the children entrusted to them.” (no. 2356)

 

Pope Benedict XVI: Leader of the RCC and closet Pedophile?

The current Pope on Child Rape and Child Porno,21 December 2010 :

In his traditional Christmas address yesterday to cardinals and officials working in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI also claimed that child pornography was increasingly considered “normal” by society.

“In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorised as something fully in conformity with man and even with children,” the Pope said.

“It was maintained — even within the realm of Catholic theology — that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. There is only a ‘better than’ and a ‘worse than’. Nothing is good or bad in itself.”

I DON’T THINK THE POPE HAS EVER READ HIS CATECHISM.

Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/popersquos-child-porn-normal-claim-sparks-outrage-among-victims-15035449.html#ixzz1rda2mKvK

Catholic high school baseball coach opts for trial on sex crimes charges

From the newsworks link: http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/the-feed/item/36681-catholic-high-school-baseball-coach-opts-for-trial-on-sex-crimes-charges

April 9, 2012

By Shannon McDonald

The South Philadelphia high school baseball coach accused of sexual and moral corruption is seeking a trial.

Louis Spadaccini was charged last Fall with with corrupting the morals of a minor, simple assault, furnishing alcohol to a minor and rape. He’s being accused of serving alcohol to and engaging in sex acts with boys he coached at Ss. John Neumann and Maria Goretti High School.

The Daily News reports Spadaccini has opted not to plead guilty, despite being expected to do so today. A Chester County judge will preside over the trial because Spadaccini was a Philadelphia court employee up until his arrest.

Fr Kevin Hegarty: Time to free church from clammy grip of clericalism

from the link: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2012/0410/1224314568128.html

Time to free church from clammy grip of clericalism

KEVIN HEGARTY

RITE AND REASON: Liberal Catholics have arrived at their views of church teaching on contraception, married and women priests, and homosexuality as a result of honest and honourable reflection

THE PAINTER Tony O’Malley had a custom of creating an artwork every Good Friday. When news broke during Holy Week of the Vatican censure of Fr Tony Flannery and the Redemptorist magazine Reality, I wished I could paint a picture to express my sadness.

Pope Benedict’s address at a Holy Thursday Mass in Rome copperfastened my gloom. Responding to a call to disobedience by Austrian priests and laity on celibacy and women priests he asserted that they had challenged “definite decisions of the church’s magisterium”.

Church leaders often talk of the right of free speech, most recently the Pope himself on his visit to Cuba. The recent Vatican moves are designed to create a climate of fear among liberal clerics. To echo a comment some years ago of the English writer AN Wilson, the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith has “ways of making you not talk”.

I know Tony Flannery quite well. He has given 40 years of sincere service as a priest, mainly as a preacher of missions throughout Ireland. He is an engaging and empathetic speaker and an innovative liturgist. His columns in Reality, based on his commitment to the ideals of the Second Vatican Council and his vast knowledge of the Irish church, were often thought-provoking.

He is one of the founders of the Association of Catholic Priests, set up in September 2010, and one of its leadership team. The association has provided a forum for debate and an independent voice for Irish priests.

Among its achievements was its intervention in the case of Fr Kevin Reynolds, who was grievously libelled in the Prime Time Investigates programme last May.

I expect that Fr Reynolds would agree that without this help he would still be languishing in a limbo from which he might never have emerged.

Perhaps it is not surprising that the Vatican has moved to censure Fr Flannery. The Second Vatican Council promised an open and dialogical church, willing to engage with the secular world. Since the 1980s there has been in Rome a retreat from its reforms.

Pope Benedict has a jaundiced view of the council’s spirit. Last year he sent a team of apostolic visitors to examine the Irish church in the wake of the sexual abuse scandals. In the summary of their report issued recently, the visitors have a cut at liberal Catholics. They noted that a significant number of Irish Catholics held views at variance with “the teaching of the magisterium”.

They should be accorded full marks for their powers of observation. The many liberal Catholics in Ireland hope for a church that is open to married and women priests, a rethink on the issue of contraception as exhorted by Humanae Vitae, and a reversal of the harsh insensitivity of the teaching on homosexuality.

We have come to these positions as a result of honest and honourable reflection. We are not seeking change for the sake of change. We believe that such reforms would aid the emergence of a church that is more humane, relevant and inspiring, a church released from the clammy grip of clericalism.

Nor are these sincerely held views at variance with the fundamental doctrines of the church as the visitors claimed in their report. These doctrines relate, for example, to the humanity and divinity of Christ, the resurrection and the sacraments.

I am not aware of any priest in Ireland who publicly dissents from these beliefs.

There is a tendency of conservative church commentators to argue that liberal clerics are an ageing, disgruntled minority who have turned their misinterpretations of the Second Vatican Council into a kind of holy writ.

To them we are castaways on a remote island, brazenly holding aloft the tattered banners of the 1960s. They won’t like this but I have to disillusion them.

Anecdotal evidence, coupled with the results of a number of professional surveys, indicate that the majority of Irish Catholics support radical change in the church’s ministry and moral teaching.

To paraphrase Gerry Adams in a different context, we are not going away. The Vatican has been a “cold house” for liberal Catholics in recent years. The least we expect is respect for our freedom of speech and conscience.

A reform of the church which excludes these rights is a form of repression. It seems that Pope Benedict thinks “a creative minority” of Catholic conservatives will transform the church in Europe. To me that sounds like a polite euphemism for an assembly of Rick Santorum lookalikes.

Fr Kevin Hegarty is a priest in the parish of Kilmore-Erris in Co Mayo, and a columnist with the Mayo News.

 

Los Gatos Priest Beating Case Trial Date Now Changed to June

from the link: http://losgatos.patch.com/articles/los-gatos-priest-beating-case-trial-date-now-changed-to-june

Pretrial motion Friday postponed until May 3, with jury selection taking place May 14 and presentation of evidence June 19.

By Sheila Sanchez April 7, 2012

William Lynch

 

Friday’s scheduled pretrial motions in the case against a San Francisco man accused of beating a priest at the Los Gatos Sacred Heart Jesuit Center in May of 2010 have been postponed until 9 a.m., May 3.

William Lynch, 44, has been arraigned on one count of felony assault with intent to cause great bodily injury and one count of elder abuse under circumstances likely to produce great bodily harm or death. He has pleaded not guilty to both charges.

The scheduled hearing was changed since presiding Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge David Cena is tied up with a homicide trial that is running longer than expected.

The pretrial motions hearing, a time for any legal issue that will arise during the high-profile trial to be addressed by the prosecution and the defense, will be followed by jury selection May 14

The presentation of the evidence is expected to start on or around June 19, instead of the earlier reported date of May 29, said Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Gemetti.

Jury selection will be performed using jury questionnaires with potential jurors being called in to court and given the document to fill out and then reviewed by the attorneys.

Counsel will then meet and discuss which jurors need to be questioned for so-called “cause,” necessary in every trial to weed down the full veneer of potential jurors to the 12 jurors and alternates who will sit on the case, explained Gemetti.

Attorneys will question the jurors for any biases or any impediments to sit for “cause,” such as someone having been convicted of a similar crime or who may have a family member working in the DA’s office or law enforcement and their objectivity is compromised.

After the panel has been passed for cause, meaning there are no legal reasons why the jurors can’t sit on the case, each attorney will have 10 pre-emptory challenges that can be exercised and they’ll go back and forth to determine which jurors will be sworn in, Gemetti added.

The proceedings are taking place in Judge Cena’s courtroom, department 34 of the Santa Clara County Hall of Justice in San Jose.

“Once we’ve sworn the jury in … we’re going to stick to that schedule to the best of our abilities,” Gemetti said about the delays in the trial start date. “Obviously trials are fluid and things may change and emergencies do happen, but … once we have those 12 people and they’re told the dates, things won’t change too much.”

The questionnaire presented to the jurors will probably be several pages long containing a list of questions and topics, some inquiries from the court and some submitted by the defense and the prosecution.

Lynch is being represented by Pat Harris and Mark Geragos, with the Los Angeles-based law firm of Geragos & Geragos.

Authorities say he walked into the center’s reception area the afternoon of May 10, 2010 and asked to speak to Father Jerold Lindner. He said he had a death notification about a member of the priest’s family and then allegedly assaulted him.

The case is being closely watched by critics of the Roman Catholic Church who allege Lindner raped and sodomized Lynch and his brother when they were small boys in the ’70s while on camping trips.

If a jury convicts Lynch, he’s could serve a maximum of four years in state prison. The court, however, could grant him probation and give him up to one year in county jail, Gemetti said.

“We have been ready for trial for quite some time,” Gemetti said. “I’m quite anxious to get the matter proceeding.”

Victim Advocates Question Security Around Defrocked Jesuit Brethren

from the link: http://losgatos.patch.com/articles/victims-advocates-question-security-around-defrocked-jesuit-brethren-at-local-center

Head of Jesuit order says men are under strict supervision at center in Los Gatos.

By Sheila Sanchez January 10, 2011

The main building of the Los Gatos' Sacred Heart Jesuit Center. Credit: Sheila Sanchez

 

The Sacred Heart Jesuit Center in Los Gatos has been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons. One of its defrocked priests was beaten in May 2010. The alleged attacker appeared in court in December and will face a judge on Feb. 7 for a preliminary hearing in a case that will probably go to trial.

Santa Clara County prosecutors are accusing 44-year-old William Lynch of mauling Jesuit priest Jerold Lindner with his fists, said Lynch’s attorney Pat Harris. Lynch has said Lindner sodomized and raped him and his brother as young boys.

Lynch’s supporters, who include members of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), plan a news conference after the hearing at the Santa Clara County Superior Court building on Hedding Street in San Jose and a march in Los Gatos, according to Harris.

The supporters are taking this opportunity to complain about the security measures at the center, which houses Lindner, 65, and five other retired priests or brethren who have faced charges of sexual abuse. They claim the men can leave the compound at any time and that the supervision plans aren’t strict enough.

One of them, Charles Leonard Connor, 89,who was never an ordained priest, pleaded no contest in 2001 to a lewd act on a man who suffered from mental retardation who worked at the center.

The two, along with three other men, whom the order will not identify, live in the large Jesuit compound at 300 College Ave. The center includes a retirement home, an assisted-living facility and a skilled nursing infirmary. Here, 75 elderly priests live out the rest of their lives after serving in the elite order of priesthood in the Roman Catholic Church.

The Rev. John P. McGarry, the provincial of the California Province of the Society of Jesus, said the concerns about the five men who live at the center are exaggerated.

McGarry is head supervisor at the center and leader of the 375 Jesuit priests who work in California.

He said none of the men is under investigation right now.

Connor is housed in the center’s skilled nursing facility, is confined to a wheelchair and has severe dementia, McGarry said. “He’s totally incapacitated,” he said. “Better that we take care of them there than having them be out on their own in the community.”

Lindner, said McGarry, is under a strict security plan that prevents him from leaving the center unsupervised.

“He didn’t drive himself to the hospital,” he said, referring to newspaper reports that said he had done so, which triggered victims’ protests.

He explained that nursing staff at the center attended to him, and that either one of the Jesuits in the community or one of the nurses on duty drove him to the hospital. “He wouldn’t have been able to drive … He was badly beaten up. His head was bleeding,” McGarry said.

Dan McNevin, a San Francisco SNAP volunteer, is skeptical and upset the Catholic Church hasn’t found another location to house clergy charged, accused or investigated of abuse. “Why are they living there and not in a more secure location?” said McNevin.

The deep distrust against the order, McNevin said, is caused by numerous incidents that indicate that the Jesuit hierarchy has covered up incidents to protect the order’s reputation.

“A priest who has abused should be behind bars and not living in a retreat center,” said McNevin.

McGarry has an answer to that. “If I had any concern that the men living here, who have allegations against them and who are on safety plans, were a risk to the larger community or a risk for reoffending, I would not have them living here,” he said.

The Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office handled the Lynch incident in May because of jurisdiction issues regarding where the center is located. If something were to happen in the center’s parking lot, however, the Los Gatos Monte Sereno police department would step in, said police spokesman Sgt. Kerry Harris. But he said the center has never given the town any problems.

“We’ve never had any issues with them,” Harris said.

For those looking for assurances, McGarry points to the fact that the center has been accredited by the Austin-based Praesidium risk management group, which has established criteria regarding the prevention of and response to sexual abuse of minors by Jesuit authorities. He added that Praesidium had renewed the center’s certification in July 2010.

The five men who live at the center have served at one time or another in Jesuit schools such as Bellarmine College Preparatory, Sacred Heart Nativity School and Most Holy Trinity Parish in San Jose and Santa Clara University in Santa Clara.

McGarry said the order’s policy continues to be to turn over to criminal and civil authorities allegations of priestly misconduct with minors. The province provides pastoral care and counseling to any person that comes forward and makes an allegation of sexual abuse, he said. He said he’s met often with people who have made allegations.

Joey Piscitelli, Northern California director for the Survivors Network for Those Abused by Priests, isn’t buying it. “They have aided, abetted, shuffled, protected and promoted known child rapists for decades, and that’s criminal behavior,” he said.

Piscitelli, who says he was molested by a Salesian priest, won a $5 million settlement award against the order after a jury trial in 2006.

Piscitelli has protested outside the center several times, along with John Chevedden, whose brother, Jesuit priest James Chevedden, killed himself when he jumped from the sixth floor of the Santa Clara County Courthouse’s parking garage in 2005.

Chevedden accused the Jesuits of negligence in his brother’s death and in 2007 and settled with the order for $1.6 million.

He said the Lynch case is another example of how victims of abuse suffer for a long time. “It’s disturbing to see how long-lasting and traumatic the abuse is to the victims … that after 35 years it still has a strong impact,” Chevedden said.

What I also found interesting was one of the comments posted under this article:

Fr. Thomas Smolich, promoted to be the # 1 Jesuit in the USA, said a Jesuit priest and resident at the Los Gatos Center, Fr. James Chevedden committed suicide. The Jesuit Order even issued a news release claiming Fr. Chevedden’s suspicious death was a suicide. Fr. Smolich also told Fr. Chevedden’s family that the Jesuit Order would keep Fr. Chevedden’s body.

Fr. Chevedden had earlier reported to Fr. Smolich that he was the victim of Jesuit sex abuse at Los Gatos by a Jesuit Religious Brother, Br. Charles Connor. Br. Connor and Fr. Jerold Lindner were friends. Lindner helped Br. Connor with computers and both sat at the same small meal table.

Ironically or worse, the last Jesuit to see Fr. Chevedden alive was Fr. Lindner, with $2 million paid out in sex abuse settlements. The Jesuit Order did not tell the police that Fr. Lindner was the last Jesuit to see Fr. Chevedden alive. Fr. Lindner was scheduled to testify about his being the last Jesuit to see Fr. Chevedden alive in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Fr. Chevedden’s Dad. The Jesuit Order paid $1.6 million to settle the lawsuit. Thus Fr. Lindner avoided explaining his being last Jesuit to see Fr. Chevedden alive.

NY Catholic quits board over cardinal’s gay stance

from the link: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2012/04/07/nyc_catholic_quits_board_over_gay_rights_stance/?rss_id=Boston.com+–+Latest+news

By Verena Dobnik Associated Press / April 7, 2012

NEW YORK—The head of New York City’s Roman Catholic archdiocese faces a challenge to his stance on gay rights: the resignation of a church official who says he’s “had enough” of the cardinal’s attitude.

Joseph Amodeo told The Associated Press on Saturday that he quit the junior board of Catholic Charities after the cardinal, Timothy Dolan, failed to respond to a “call for help” for homeless young people who are not heterosexual.

The conflict began when the head of an organization that helps homeless gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender homeless young people wrote to ask Dolan to help the cause.

Dolan responded by saying he was adhering to church teachings. That prompted Amodeo to quit.

Dolan leads one of the largest dioceses in the country. He also is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

A day before Easter, the head of New York’s Roman Catholic archdiocese faced a challenge to his stance on gay rights: the resignation of a church charity board member who says he’s “had enough” of the cardinal’s attitude.

Joseph Amodeo told The Associated Press on Saturday that he quit the junior board of the city’s Catholic Charities after Cardinal Timothy Dolan failed to respond to a “call for help” for homeless youths who are not heterosexual.

“As someone who believes in the message of love enshrined in the teachings of Christ, I find it disheartening that a man of God would refuse to extend a pastoral arm” to such youths, Amodeo said in his letter to the charitable organization last Tuesday.

Phone and email requests from the AP for comment from the archdiocese were not immediately answered on Saturday.

The conflict started with a letter to Dolan from Carl Siciliano, founder of the nonprofit Ali Forney Center that offers emergency services to homeless gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender young people. He said the cardinal’s “loud and strident voice against the acceptance of LGBT people” creates “a climate where parents turn on their own children.”

“As youths find the courage and integrity to be honest about who they are at younger ages, hundreds of thousands are being turned out of their homes and forced to survive alone on the streets by parents who cannot accept having a gay child,” Siciliano wrote in his letter, sent last week.

Siciliano, who is Catholic, said parents who are strongly religious are much more likely to reject children who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. Of the nation’s homeless youths, as many as 40 percent are LGBT, studies show.

Siciliano received a response from the cardinal in a letter dated March 28.

“For you to make the allegations and insinuations you do in your letter based on my adherence to the clear teachings of the Church is not only unfair and unjust, but inflammatory,” Dolan wrote. “Neither I nor anyone in the Church would ever tolerate hatred of or prejudice towards any of the Lord’s children.”

The response prompted Amodeo to quit the board, said the 24-year-old gay Catholic who still teaches religious education to elementary school children as part of a New York archdiocese program. He’ll be doing that on Easter in a parish near Manhattan’s Union Square.

Amodeo was a member of the executive committee of the junior board of the New York branch of Catholic Charities, one of the largest global networks of charities, started in New Orleans in 1727 as an orphanage.

“Every Sunday, I teach second-graders to `love thy neighbor,’ but then, when we as a church have a teachable moment, we fail,” Amodeo told the AP in a telephone interview.

He said the cardinal “failed to respond to a call for pastoral assistance, to answer the question, `What can we do together as a church and as a people for youths who are homeless?”

Dolan leads the nation’s largest archdiocese — which has 2.6 million Catholics — and is president of the Washington-based U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Last summer during New York’s same-sex marriage debate, the prelate warned that the proposed legislation — which later passed — was an “ominous threat” to society.

Priest’s accuser returns to the stand, spars with defense attorney in Pa. clergy abuse trial

from the link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/priests-accuser-to-return-to-the-stand-in-clergy-abuse-trial-under-way-in-philadelphia/2012/04/05/gIQAHQfFxS_story.html

By Associated Press, Published: April 5

PHILADELPHIA — A second day of cross-examination of a key witness in a landmark priest abuse trial was marked by more hostile exchanges Thursday between a man who claims he was molested as a teen and the attorney representing the man’s accuser.

The accuser, who is now 30, testified that he was 14 years old when the Rev. James Brennan sexually abused him at the priest’s apartment in West Chester, outside Philadelphia. An attorney for Brennan continued grilling the man on inconsistencies from his earlier accounts of the 1996 incident and ticked off a list of reasons why he would lie about being abused, from financial gain to jealousy of the priest for spending too much time with the man’s mother.

“You’re going to sit here and tell me that … I put myself through this to get this man out of my life?” the man responded. “You are reaching, my man, you are way off.”

When the defense attorney stated that the accuser’s parents remained friends with the priest for years after the alleged abuse, then suggested that was because the accuser never told his parents because the abuse never happened, the former Marine exploded on the witness stand.

“Are you kidding me right now? You should be ashamed of yourself!” he yelled. “You should be ashamed, and I’m going to pray for you.”

Brennan is on trial with Monsignor William Lynn, the first Roman Catholic official in the U.S. charged with endangering children for allegedly shifting priests suspected of molestation from parish to parish without warning anyone of previous sex-abuse complaints. Both have pleaded not guilty.

Many people have testified about being abused by priests since the trial began March 26, but the 30-year-old man is the first whose case falls within the statute of limitations.

He testified Wednesday that in the summer of 1996, Brennan took him to his apartment with a plan to watch movies in the evening and get up the next morning for a day of golfing. At the apartment, the family friend and man he treated like an uncle showed him online pornography, fondled himself, then got into bed with him and molested him, his accuser testified.

He said the abuse turned him from a good student with a positive outlook to a life of alcoholism, drug abuse, crime, three suicide attempts and a stint in the Marine Corps cut short by mental illness. Although the man’s name has been stated in court, The Associated Press generally does not identify people alleging sexual abuse.

Defense attorney Bill Brennan, who is not related to the priest, pressed the accuser on inconsistencies in his recollections about the type of computer the priest owned and other details of that night and the following day, which the man dismissed as “trivial.”

“He molested me, that man right there, and he knows what he did,” the accuser said as he pointed at the priest, who did not show a visible reaction.

The man also has a pending civil suit against Brennan, Lynn and other church officials, and the archdiocese has paid for his therapy and some of his bills.

“What does that have to do with him molesting me?” the man asked after the defense attorney described the financial assistance and the pending lawsuit. “It’s not about money, it’s about justice and so he can be off the street and not hurt another child like he hurt me.”

Also testifying Thursday was a 42-year-old man who said he was molested twice in 1981 by a Norristown priest.

The man, his voice cracking as he tried to retain his composure, said he was 12 when the priest assaulted him in a seminary shower and on a trip to the Poconos. He said he never told anyone because he was ashamed — even denying that anything had happened when confronted by his father, who had suspicions about the priest — until he spoke to an archdiocesan investigator in 2003.

“I took it as I had done something wrong and I needed to defend myself,” he said of the encounter.

The former Norristown priest is not a defendant but prosecutors are using the testimony about him to build a case against Lynn, who was secretary of clergy from 1992 to 2004 and entrusted within investigating complaints against priests.

A 2005 grand jury report revealed that the archdiocese knew about the boy’s complaint and others against the priest, who has since been defrocked, but he was moved to six different parishes.

Although the accuser’s names were stated in court, The Associated Press generally does not identify people alleging sexual abuse.

The trial resumes Monday.

 

Vatican approach to child abuse in Ireland absolutely disgraceful, says PM

from the link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/14/vatican-child-abuse-ireland?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

Enda Kenny says laws being drawn up making it impossible for anyone to avoid obligation to report abuse allegations

Henry McDonald in Dublin

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 14 July 2011 13.52 EDT

Enda Kenny has called on the Vatican to repeat its commitment to always following civil law in matters relating to child abuse. Photograph: Isopix/Rex Features

 

Ireland’s prime minister has denounced the Vatican‘s approach to allegations of child abuse in the republic as absolutely disgraceful.

Enda Kenny said new laws are being drawn up that will make it impossible for anyone – even those high up in the Roman Catholic church – to avoid their obligations regarding reports of child abuse.

“The law of the land should not be stopped by crosier, or by collar,” Kenny said.

He added that he hopes the response from the Irish government to the Cloyne report will clarify to everyone that the law of the land applies in situations where appalling actions took place.

Kenny called on the Vatican to repeat its commitment that civil law should always be followed. The Irish Catholic church and the Vatican have faced severe criticism over repeated attempts to deal with incidents of abuse behind closed doors rather than by handing over suspects to the Garda Síochána.

The Irish deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Eamon Gilmore, met with the Vatican’s ambassador to Ireland to discuss the report’s findings.

“There’s one law in this country. Everybody is going to have to learn to comply with it. The Vatican will have to comply with the laws of this country,” Gilmore said after the meeting.

Gilmore said the report would be debated in the House next Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on the availability of ministers and spokespersons.

He said the failure of the church to co-operate with the law was one of the greatest problems and that the coalition government was determined that there would be consequences for any institution which failed to work with the legal authorities of the state when it came to child abuse.

The Socialist party’s Joe Higgins said people were “throwing their hands in the air” at the revelations in the Cloyne report.