News Articles to June 29th. 

(This is not all the stories - There are too many in too many cities.)

New Zealand priest moved between countries raped boys for 20 years.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=2049379&thesection=news&thesubsection=general
New Zealand Herald
29.06.2002

During his 20 years as a Marist priest, Woodcock molested at least eight boys or young men. At least three times, senior figures in his order, the Society of Mary, were made aware of the allegations.

Each time, he was sent for treatment, but also moved on
[...]
Police are considering extraditing him from England to face charges.
[...]
Woodcock was ordained a Marist priest in 1972. Between then and 1979, he worked at a variety of places, including Christchurch and a school in Hawkes Bay.

In 1979, Woodcock was convicted of a sex offence involving a man in Christchurch and received a suspended sentence.

Jesuit priest sent to prison for two years for raping retarded men
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/kpix/20020628/lo/3733_1.html

The Bay Area Jesuit priest convicted of molesting a mentally-retarded man learned his sentence Friday.

A Superior Court judge gave Father Edward Burke two years in prison. [...]
(one of several priests who raped mentally retarded men in this house)

Roman Catholic priest pleads innocent while facing 42 counts of abuse & 59 lawsuits
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020628/ap_on_re_us/church_abuse_10

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - A retired Roman Catholic priest pleaded innocent to felony sexual misconduct involving 15 alleged victims.

The Rev. Louis E. Miller could face up to 10 years in prison for each of 36 counts of indecent and immoral practice and up to five years for each count of sexual abuse.
[...]
Miller, who worked at seven different parishes since 1956, is accused of abuse in 59 of the 146 lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Louisville. Thirteen of the suits were filed Wednesday afternoon, just after Miller was indicted. The plaintiffs allege the church was aware of Miller's conduct but did not take appropriate disciplinary action.

see also:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020627/ap_wo_en_po/us_church_abuse_4

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020628/ap_on_re_us/church_abuse_10

_ A priest accused of sexual misconduct involving teen-age girls has been removed from his parish in suburban Detroit, officials said. The Rev. Robert Wyzgoski, pastor of Our Lady Queen of Martyrs in Beverly Hills, was fired this week because of recently discovered allegations about sexual misconduct in the 1960s.

_ The Scranton, Pa., diocese said Thursday it has removed five more priests found guilty of sexual misconduct. Bishop James Timlin declined to identify the priests removed in accordance with church abuse guidelines adopted by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on June 14.

Two priests suspended in Indianapolis
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/krindianapolis/20020628/lo/church_investigating_indiana_priests_1.html

The Rev. Jack Okon, 58, has been accused of fondling a teen-age boy nearly 30 years ago. The archdiocese has placed Okon on administrative leave. Last week, Cathedral High School officials suspended him from his maintenance job and banned him from the campus of the Northside school.

The Rev. John B. Schoettelkotte, 68, of Bristow in southern Indiana was placed on administrative leave June 18 after church officials said they substantiated an allegation that he had inappropriately touched a teen-age girl more than 30 years ago.

Priest in Florida charged with assault of nine year old boy
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/krtampa/20020627/lo/sex_charges_mount_against_ex-pinellas_priest_1.html

PINELLAS PARK - Police have charged the Rev. Robert Schaeufele with sexually assaulting another child while he served as a priest at a church here.

Schaeufele assaulted the boy three times between June 1 and Oct. 31, 1984, when the child was 9 and 10, Pinellas Park Detective Ken Blessing said. The attacks occurred in Schaeufele's rectory bedroom at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Blessing said.
[...]

Chicago removes 8 more priests

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/cdh/20020626/lo/removal_of_priests_shocks_parishioners_1.html
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/cdh/20020624/lo/st_mary_priest_removed_by_archdiocese_1.html

Nevada priest waves preliminary hearing
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020626/ap_on_re_us/church_abuse_1

HENDERSON, Nev. (AP) - A Catholic priest accused of fondling and photographing teen-age boys in his parish waived his right to a preliminary hearing Tuesday, prompting a judge to move the case to state court for trial.

He faces two felony charges of using boys to produce pornographic photos, plus misdemeanor charges of child abuse and open and gross lewdness. The felonies carry a possible sentence of five years each.
[...]

Lawsuits in Minnesota and Missouri
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/4000/20020625/lo/1237776_1.html

A former student at St. Anthony's Church in St. Cloud sued his former priest Monday, accusing him of sexually assaulting him more than 35 years ago, the St. Cloud Times reported. Wayne Eller was nine or 10 when he says the Rev. James Thoennes molested him in the Sauk Centre house where Thoennes' parents lived, the newspaper said.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/kmbc/20020625/lo/1238307_1.html

A businessman said a retired Missouri priest sexually abused him, and church leaders covered it up, KMBC 9 News reported Tuesday.

Two priests in San Jose 'suspended'
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/kpix/20020622/lo/3673_1.html
Saturday June 22,  KCBS/AP

Noia was convicted of molesting a 12-year-old boy on a camping trip in 1976; Gray was convicted of sexually abusing a teen-age boy during karate lessons in 1993. Both men went to jail and received psychiatric treatment before returning to the ministry.

Seattle Catholic AIDS minister also molested children
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/krseattle/20020622/lo/seattle_priest_faces_removal_i_m_so_clearly_not_a_danger__1.html

The Very Rev. David Jaeger, 58, who also is a former director of seminarians for the archdiocese,  recently headed the Archdiocese of Seattle's AIDS ministry and a former director of its Catholic Youth Organization (CYO)..] admitted several years ago that he had inappropriately touched children at a CYO camp in the 1970s.

The Seattle Archdiocese settled in 1988 with one of those victims, a man who was 13 when Jaeger molested him at Camp Don Bosco in 1978.

Detroit removes two more priests
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/krdetroit/20020622/lo/maida_dismisses_2_priests_1.html
Detroit Free Press
June 22, 2002
[...]
Both priests -- the Rev. Robert Haener, 70, and the Rev. Michael Daly, 53 -- already had been working in restricted ministries for the Felician Sisters in Livonia, because of past charges of abusing  children.

Priest arrested for raping woman seeking advice to annul marriage

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020622/ap_wo_en_po/us_church_abuse_nigerian_2
NEW YORK - A Roman Catholic priest was arrested in Texas on charges of raping a woman two years ago while working in the Brooklyn Diocese.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200206250229.html
An account of the incident reported in the U.S. media at the weekend alleged that Rev. Father Cyricus Udegbulem, a priest of Orlu Diocese who went to serve in Brooklyn Diocese, New York in 1998 raped a woman on New Year's Day in 2000 when she went to seek advice on how to annul her marriage.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/22/nyregion/22PRIE.html
A Roman Catholic priest was arrested yesterday in Texas on charges that two years ago he raped a woman on a couch in a Brooklyn rectory, where she had gone for advice about annulling her marriage, the authorities said.

Pedophile scandal continues to rock Irish Catholic church
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020627/ap_on_re_eu/ireland_church_abuse_2
Thu Jun 27 AP
[...]
Revelations of widespread sexual abuse by priests, and its frequent cover-up by church leaders, has been battering the reputation of the church in this predominantly Catholic country for nearly a decade.
[...]
Seeking to control their liabilities, the church's teaching orders in Ireland in January made a landmark deal with the government to provide $125 million to a state-run fund for victims.
[...]
A new wave of allegations in April forced one of church's most popular figures, Bishop Brendan Comiskey, to resign over his supervision of several pedophile priests in his diocese. The church's remaining bishops staged an emergency conference and decided they must establish a fact-finding commission to assuage public anger.

Priest arrested for molesting 12 year old during Father's Day trip
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/26/nyregion/26CND-ABUSE.html
New York Times
June 26, 2002

A priest who had been visiting a Roman Catholic parish in Queens was arraigned today on charges that he sexually abused a 12-year-boy during a Father's Day excursion to Rockaway Beach.

The priest, Rev. Peter Kiare, 41, a native of Kenya, was charged with five counts of second degree sexual abuse, five counts of forcible touching and one count of endangering the welfare of a child. Bail was set at $50,000 cash and he was ordered to surrender his passport.
[...]
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020626/ap_wo_en_po/us_church_abuse_2

NEW YORK - A Catholic priest has been arrested for sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy, the Queens district attorney's office said.

Peter Kiare, 41, was arrested for sexual abuse, forcible touching and endangering the welfare of a child, office spokesman Patrick Clark said Tuesday. Kiare could face up to a year in prison if convicted.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_2067000/2067964.stm
Father Kiare is the third Roman Catholic priest arrested in a month in the diocese of Brooklyn - which includes the borough of Queens.

Father Kiare is accused of sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child during a Father's Day excursion to a New York beach on 16 June.

He is a member of a religious order of missionary priests based in Ireland called the Holy Ghost Fathers.

On 23 May, a priest from India was arrested in Harlem and charged with molesting a 12-year-old girl at her home in Brooklyn three years earlier.

And last Friday, a visiting priest from Nigeria was arrested in Texas and charged with raping a woman in Brooklyn.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/newsday/20020627/lo/visiting_priest_faces_charges_1.html
The Rev. Peter Kiarie, 41, was ordered held on $50,000 bail after his arraignment in Queens Criminal Court in Kew Gardens on five counts of sexual abuse, five counts of forcible touching and one count of endangering the welfare of a child.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020626/ts_nm/crime_priest_dc_1
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Roman Catholic priest visiting from Kenya pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to charges he molested a 12-year-old boy on a visit to the beach earlier this month, just five days after his arrival in the country. [...]

38 more abuse cases revealed in New Zealand
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020622/ap_wo_en_po/new_zealand_catholic_church_2
[...]
In an open apology, Father Tim Duckworth of the Society of Mary, New Zealand's largest order of priests, said the church's former policy of moving known offenders to other parishes or schools, rather than removing them from their duties, was a mistake. (Not to mention a crime)

Florida bishop accused in embezzlement scandal
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/wpbf/20020626/lo/1239694_1.html
WPBF TheWPBFChannel.com
June 26, 2002

Schattie, 39, has been accused by Ed Ricci, a Catholic Church fund-raiser, of embezzling $400,000 six years ago when Schattie was the finance director of the diocese. Schatti has never been prosecuted.
[...]
"His comment to me was that he knew he would not be prosecuted due to the fact that Bishop Symons had also been taking money too for a nephew in Miami who had a drug problem there," she told Eyewitness News 25.
[...]
Instead of seeking criminal charges against Schattie, church records reveal that Bishop Keith Symons approved a deal that required Schattie to repay the church $200 a month, Eyewitness News 25 reported.

Symons resigned as bishop in 1998 after admitting he sexually molested altar boys earlier in his career.
 

New York paid 1 million dollars to keep an abuse case case secret
http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml;jsessionid=WQKKAHIUQ5IEWCRBAE0CFEYKEEATGIWD?type=topnews&StoryID=1142059
June 27 Reuters

ALBANY, New York (Reuters) - A New York Catholic diocese settled a sex abuse case in 1997 for nearly $1 million involving a priest who had already been transferred over sexual abuse of a minor, the church confirmed on Thursday.

The confidential $997,500 settlement, the latest revelation in the sex-abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church, fell just short of the $1 million ceiling above which the Albany diocese would have been required to get consent of its finance council, the New York Times reported on Thursday.
[...]
Rev. Kenneth Doyle, chancellor of the Diocese of Albany, said the diocese had already announced in May that it would no longer seek confidential settlements.

13 more lawsuits filed in Louisville
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/3556106.htm
Jun. 27, 2002
Mercury News

Thirteen new lawsuits filed against Louisville archdiocese

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - Ten men and three women filed lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Louisville on Wednesday, claiming they were sexually abused when they were children by clergy members, including one who went on to become a priest in Reno, Nev.

The suits bring the number of lawsuits pending against the archdiocese to 146, according to Debbie Linnig Michals, spokeswoman for Jefferson Circuit Court, where the lawsuits were filed.

Pedophile Catholic parishioner arrested in Atlanta
http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/metro/0602/27molest.html
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
6/27/02

A 75-year-old parishioner at a Blue Ridge Catholic church remained in jail Wednesday, charged with molesting a 13-year-old boy, authorities said.
[...]
Boymer was a treasurer with the Blue Ridge Council of Knights of Columbus, a Catholic men's service organization. He moved to the area more than five years ago but spent part of the year in Miami.
[...]
The boy's mother told church officials about the allegations at a meeting Saturday. Boymer was arrested later that night after investigators said they found "a lot of evidence," including pornographic materials, at his home, Ensley said.

"I can't get into what we recovered," the sheriff said, "but if you were to ask me if they were enough to convince us he was a child molestor and a predator, the answer is yes."

Priest jailed in Savannah
http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/metro/0602/27priest.html
The Associated Press
6/27/02

LANHAM, Md. -- A Roman Catholic priest once assigned in Maryland was arrested in Savannah on Wednesday on charges that he abused a 12-year-old boy in the early 1970s while a seminary student in Washington.

The Rev. Wayland Y. Brown, 58, was taken into custody by police in Savannah on child abuse and other charges filed in Montgomery County, Md. He is accused of abusing the boy from January 1973 to December 1975.

Priest wants more time
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/3541349.htm
Mercury News
June 25, 2002

FREMONT, Calif. (AP) - Robert Freitas, a former priest who has pleaded innocent to charges he molested a teen-ager, appeared in Alameda County Court but his preliminary evidence hearing did not take place as scheduled.
[...]
Freitas was arrested in April and has pleaded innocent to committing a lewd act on a minor and oral copulation on a child. The alleged victim, now 38, claims Freitas molested him in 1979 at the Santa Paula's Catholic Church in Fremont.