"But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in
me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that
he were drowned in the depth of the sea."
Matthew 18:6
Church paid off Chicago priest
June 18, 2002
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-priest18.html
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago agreed to pay a priest dogged by allegations of sexually abusing boys a $200,000-plus settlement as he left the church, according to court records and interviews.
The contract came to light
during a search last week of the Chicago condominium of former priest Vincent
McCaffrey as investigators looked for child pornography in his home. They found
thousands of images of kiddie porn, and McCaffrey, 49, was ordered held without
bond on Monday, authorities said. (The police seized letters of the payoff
with the child pornography)
[...]
News reports at the time of his removal from Our Lady of Good Counsel said that
the pastor of the church at the time knew of McCaffrey's problem when he arrived
in 1989 but was assured by a therapist that McCaffrey could serve.
[...]
His most recent problems started when police in New Zealand shut down a
child-porn Web site in Auckland in December. Police examined the financial
records of the man running the Web site and found McCaffrey's name, date of
birth and e-mail address on the paid subscriber's list, documents show.
N.Y. Grand Jury Accuses Diocese Of Covering Up Abuse by Clergy
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, June 20, 2002
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14045-2002Jun19.html
NEW YORK, June 19 -- A Westchester County grand jury has issued a report
accusing officials of the New York Archdiocese of recklessly covering up child
sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests and humiliating and smearing the victims and
their families.
[...]
In one instance, a priest admitted that a 14-year-old had masturbated him, but
he insisted the teenager was the "aggressor." Church officials, the report
stated, adopted this priest's claim as a "true fact."
In two other cases, church officials simply had sexually abusive priests injected with the female hormone Depo-Provera and "sent back to work in the community as if cured."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020508/ap_on_re_us/church_abuse_boston_35
Retired Priest Held in Boston
Tue May 7,10:05 PM ET
By JENNIFER PETER, Associated Press Writer
DANVERS, Mass. (AP) - A retired priest who once acknowledged in a newspaper
interview that he had molested boys was arrested and charged Tuesday with rape
of a child under 16, prosecutors said.
Essex County District Attorney Kevin Burke said the charge involved more than 50
incidents with a 12-year-old boy between 1990 and 1992 in or near an automobile
or a cemetery in Massachusetts. Burke also said the priest abused the boy while
in New Hampshire, Maine and Canada, but didn't give details.
[...]
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/kpix/20020607/lo/3518_1.html
Friday June 07
KPIX/KCBS
[...]
Meanwhile, the focus of the investigation has changed. At least two dozen people
have now come forward to police in Pinole, Fremont, and Truckee to claim they
were molested by Kiesle.
Kiesle is already charged with three counts of child molestation involving young
girls at a Fremont church where he use to work.
Investigators didn't find any human remains at Kiesle's Truckee home. Initially,
cadaver dogs picked up on a scent leading investigators to search his property.
Authorities were also looking for a link between the disappearance of Amber
Swartz and Kiesle.
Stephen Kiesle lived two blocks from Swartz (on the same street) in Pinole when
she disappeared 14 years ago.
also:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020607/ap_on_re_us/ex_priest_girl_6
Kelley faces new rape charge
Tuesday, May 7, 2002
Telegram & Gazette Staff
WORCESTER-- The Rev. Robert E. Kelley, a former priest in the Catholic Diocese
of Worcester who went to jail in 1990 after pleading guilty to raping a young
girl, was charged yesterday with raping another girl when he was assigned to St.
Cecilia Parish in Leominster.
[MORE]
Thursday May 16 06:39
Priest Charged With Raping Young Girl
A Leominster priest was released on personal recognizance Thursday after
pleading not guilty to charges that he raped a young girl over a three-year
period in the 1980s.
NewsCenter 5's Jack Harper said that the Rev. Robert Kelley is accused of
repeatedly raping a 7-year-old girl more than 20 years ago. But other women have
also accused Kelley of assault.
Kelley was arraigned on two charges of rape involving Heather Mackey. She said
that the sexual abuse started when she was 4 years old.
[...]
Kelley allegedly told the victims that he was "closer to God then they were."
"She made her first confession to Father Kelley, and he used the information that he obtained in her first confession to violate her. It's just unspeakable," Mackey's attorney, Daniel Shea, said.
I wanted to run'
www.bostonglobe.com
Bella English 5/15/2002
When he was an altar boy in Salem, Bernie McDaid tried to hide from his priest's
sexual advances. But he couldn't escape.
[...]
''At first, the car trips were fun,'' recalls McDaid. ''But then a pattern
developed. The last boy out of the car would get fondled and rubbed and
assaulted, and Father B. would ask, `Does that feel good? Don't you think you
might like boys?' And you'd say, `No, Father. I like girls, Father.'''
[...]
(McDaid) could often run from the gold car. But there was no avoiding the
cloakroom at St. James School.
''He was running out of ways to get at us,'' says McDaid. So Birmingham would
come into the seventh- and eighth-grade classrooms and ask the nun to please
release McDaid - or whoever - for a while. Then he'd take the boy into the
cloakroom, a long, narrow space sandwiched between the classrooms. There were
hooks on the walls for coats, and a table and chairs for ''guidance meetings.''
The doors would be locked and a ''Private'' sign would be posted.
Birmingham began paying so many visits to the classrooms - always calling out
boys, never girls - that the other boys would snicker in embarrassment, knowing
what the deal was.
[...]
Five more suits filed against Louisville church
All accuse the Rev. Louis Miller of sexual abuse
By Bruce Schreiner
Associated Press
LOUISVILLE - The Roman Catholic archdiocese of Louisville was sued Wednesday by
five more men who claimed the church concealed sexual abuse they suffered from a
priest when they were children.
All accused Louis E. Miller of sexually abusing them in the 1960s. Three were
altar boys at the time. Another
claimed Father Miller masturbated in the confessional as the plaintiff described
being attacked by a stranger.
"When I went to Mass with my parents I would have the urge to scream out, but I
wouldn't," Martin Robertson, one of the plaintiffs, said in an interview. "I
would want to scream, "It's a fraud," But I never did that."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020423/ap_on_re_us/church_abuse_nevada_2
Vegas-Area Priest Faces Sex Charge
Mon Apr 22,10:11 PM ET
By KEN RITTER, Associated Press Writer
LAS VEGAS (AP) - A Roman Catholic priest was charged Monday with lewdly touching
and photographing teen-age boys he was counseling at his parish in suburban
Henderson.
As penance for minor transgressions, the Rev. Mark Roberts also had each of the
five boys partially or fully disrobe and stretch out his arms as if he were on a
cross, prosecutor Ronald Bloxham said.
[...]
A criminal complaint said Roberts also allegedly hit three boys and struck one
with a metal coat hanger; ordered four boys to whip themselves with cords;
embraced one boy; and verbally abused some of the boys.
[...]
Roberts was charged with using two boys in the production of pornography,
felonies punishable by five years to life in prison and a $100,000 fine.
Cardinal Law Ordered to Be Deposed
Tue May 7,10:10 AM ET
BOSTON (AP)
On Tuesday, another former Boston priest, the Rev. Paul Shanley, pleaded
innocent to charges of repeatedly raping a young boy, sometimes in the church
confessional. He was ordered held on $750,000 cash bail.
Lost truth: Records show Church hid four decades of abuse
www.bostonherald.com
Tom Mashberg and Jack Sullivan
Wednesday, June 5, 2002
[...]
According to a letter to church lawyers from Robert A. Sherman, the victim's
attorney and MacLeish's partner, the then-14-year-old boy was the victim of
``violent sexual abuse'' by the Rev. Richard Buntel from 1979 to 1985. Both
Buntel and Matte were assigned to St. Joseph's Church in Malden.
The victim claimed Buntel befriended him and introduced him to alcohol and
marijuana, later feeding him cocaine and exposing him to ``violent
pornography.''
``On one occasion, two drug dealers associated with Fr. Buntel urged Fr. Buntel
to make a pornographic film of him sexually assaulting (the victim,'' Sherman
wrote. ``(The victim) does not know if this film was ever made.''
Priest Sex Abuse Scandal Escalates in L.A.
May 16, 2002 08:29 PM ET
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony, head of the largest
U.S. Roman Catholic archdiocese, has admitted keeping secret a case of child
sexual abuse by a local priest, who then continued to molest children for
another 14 years.
In signs of an escalating crisis in the Los Angeles area over the priestly
sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the U.S. Church on the east coast, Mahony
said in a letter to local priests that Father Michael Baker had confessed to him
personally in 1986 about "problems in the past of acting out sexually with
minors."
[...]
As the letter was made public on Thursday, the Los Angeles District Attorney
ordered Mahony to hand over written documents about reports or allegations of
child molestation by priests and threatened to convene a grand jury if they were
not provided.
And in a new scandal, a 49-year-old male Catholic high school teacher in
suburban Santa Margarita was arrested on charges of having oral sex with a girl
under the age of 14. The girl was not a pupil at the high school but
investigators said they thought there could be more victims.
Expressing frustration with the archdiocese, District Attorney Steve Cooley said
in a statement that only verbal information had been provided by the Church to
authorities who are investigating more than 30 cases of alleged abuse by
priests.
Wood Gives Way to Glass in Confessionals to prevent sex abuse for Catholic
Church:
LONDON (Reuters) - The musty confines of the traditional wooden confessional
will give way to glass boxes in an effort by the Catholic Church in England and
Wales to prevent child sex abuse.
Confessor and priest will be visible during the act of contrition but the booths
will be soundproofed, a church spokeswoman told Reuters on Tuesday.
The move comes after a series of sex scandals involving Catholic priests and all
83 recommendations made after a year-long probe will be implemented by bishops
in England and Wales.
The Nolan inquiry was set up after 21 out of 5,600 Catholic priests in England
and Wales were convicted of child abuse between 1995 and 1999.
[...]
Mexico wrestles with its own priest sex abuse allegations
By Kevin G. Hall, Knight Ridder, 4/18/2002
MEXICO CITY - The scandal over church protection of Roman Catholic priests
accused of sexually abusing minors has crossed the border to Mexico, where a
powerful cardinal may yield and end the church's tradition of keeping such cases
out of civil courts.
[...]
Mexico has been in an uproar since last week when the country's conference of
bishops declared that accusations of sexual crimes by priests should be handled
within Mexico's Catholic church.
[...]
According to El Universal, a major daily, the Mexican church maintains two
treatment centers for problem priests and has treated more than 500.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miami/news/world/3468585.htm
Posted on Fri, Jun. 14, 2002
More Australian Church Abuse Victims Come Forward
BY MICHAEL PERRY
SYDNEY - (Reuters) - More than 150 victims of sexual abuse by clergy in
Australia have come forward in the past two weeks after reports the Catholic
Church had paid other victims "hush money," a support group said on Friday.
"I am quite shocked at what we are hearing and the volume of complaints. You
can't do more than two hours on the phone, it's too distressing," said Chris
MacIsaac, spokeswoman for the victims' group, Broken Rites.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/05/28/1022243318662.html
Rory Carroll in Rome
Monday May 27, 2002
The Guardian
Mutilating a corpse and discreetly packing a piece in your luggage before
boarding a plane is the sort of thing that gets people arrested. But not if you
are the Pope.
Lopping off a bit of John XXIII and donating it to Sofia's new cathedral was
considered an honour to Bulgaria's Roman Catholics, and to a predecessor who
died in 1963. Which part was cut off is not clear, because the gift was not part
of the official programme of John Paul's four-day visit to Bulgaria, which ended
yesterday.
According to the Rome daily La Repubblica the relic, wrapped in a medieval
cloth, will be kept in the cathedral as an object of veneration.
[...]
John's body was embalmed hours after his death in June 1963. When it was exhumed
last year it was found to be in almost perfect condition, a feat of preservation
hailed by some as a miracle. It has now emerged that John Paul seized the
opportunity to take a relic.
It could have been any part of the body.
The basilica in Padua displays St Anthony's tongue, jawbone and vocal chords.
Other churches and cathedrals boast hanks of hair, bits of bone, heads, fingers
and toes.
[...]
(In Cincinnati, a man is currently in jail 2.5 years for photographing corpses)
Posted on Sun, Jun. 02, 2002
Associated Press
SYDNEY, Australia
[...]
The Nine television network's "60 Minutes" program said the offer by Sydney
Archbishop George Pell, the church's most senior clergyman in Australia, was
made to a family who claimed their two girls were sexually abused for six years
by a local priest beginning in 1987.
The youngest girl was 5 at the time the abuse began, the family said.
[...]
"I offered them nothing," he said.
But after being shown the letter, Pell corrected himself.
"I offered them 50 grand(Australian dollars) in compensation according to the
publicly acknowledged procedure," Pell said. "They chose not to accept that."
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/wews/20020409/lo/1157192_1.html
Tuesday April 09 06:22 PM EDT
Lawyer Says Bishop's Words Point To Cover-Up
Advice given by an area bishop to his colleagues of the Catholic Church more
than 10 years ago is now part of a lawsuit against the Vatican (news - web
sites) and three dioceses.
[...]
Bishop Anthony Pilla appointed Bishop James Quinn (pictured, right) in 1983, and
he's been working out of the western region office in Lorain.
His words to the Midwest Canon Society in 1990 have attorney Jeffrey Anderson of
Minnesota claiming evidence of a church cover-up.
[...]
He suggested to "Comb through your files" and "if there's something there you
really don't want people to see, you might send it off to the apostolic
delegate," because "they have immunity to protect something that is potentially
dangerous."
"This is, in our view, an obstruction of justice and another piece of evidence
that shows they have been maintaining secret records, trying to evade the law
and avoid the law," Anderson said.
Anderson said that it's evidence of federal racketeering.
[...]
(Note: Diplomatic immunity is something only given to a state. America doesn't
give religions state rights. Amendment one of the United States Constitution.
In the past hundred years, the Roman Catholic church has grown from being almost
non-existent in America to being the largest denomination represented in
Congress, which gave the pope a congressional medal of honor 2-3 years ago.
Reading these articles, what Christian could possible approve of such an award?
And what happened to amendment one of the Constitution?
The idea of having "state immunity" was brought back by the Roman Catholic
church when it signed a treaty with Mussolini, the Italian fascist, in 1929
making it an independent state, the only state church in Italy, and a crime to
say bad things about the pope. That treaty, the Lateran treaty, is still in
effect, although modified in the eighties. It is the basis for the Vatican
claiming to be a country, all couple of blocks of it or so. And
its only been since 1984 that the United States has started sending diplomats to
the Vatican. The Vatican is also the only religion to sit on the UN with a
special 'permanent observer status.')
(link dead)
Saturday May 11 07:20
Missouri regulators sue Vatican
By MARK MORRIS, The Kansas City Star
Missouri regulators have sued the Vatican (news - web sites), alleging that
Roman Catholic Church officials conspired to launder millions of dollars looted
in one of the largest scandals to rock the U.S. insurance industry.
Joining officials from four other states, the Missouri Department of Insurance
filed the federal lawsuit late Thursday in Jackson, Miss., seeking to recover
more than $200 million from the Vatican.
`Loans' to priests aided the cover-up
A Boston Herald editorial
Tuesday, May 14, 2002
The response of officials of the Boston archdiocese to the scandal of priestly
sexual abuse continues to turn common sense on its head.
While dozens of victims have been put on hold to await any possible
compensation, we now know that hundreds of thousands of dollars have been
channeled to accused priests for their own legal expenses. A case has been made
that lawyers representing the victims will be making a killing off any possible
settlements or jury awards in the cases - and like it or not that's very true.
[...]
www.abcnews.com
Ron Claiborne
P R O V I D E N C E, R.I., May 17 — When the Diocese of Providence said it did
not have the money to settle claims by 38 men and women who were suing it for
having allegedly been molested by priests, one of the plaintiffs decided to
investigate.
Checking tax records around the state, Phyllis Hutnak said she discovered that
the Church owned more than $44 million worth of property in the diocese's name.
The real estate included a number of sprawling oceanfront mansions in Watch Hill
and Narrangansett, R.I. "I believe they have plenty of wealth and the tax
records show that," said Hutnak, who says she was abused by a priest when 1967
when he was 17 years old.
But the diocese says it's not true. That property, Church officials said,
belongs to the Roman Catholic Bishop of Providence corporation, which they
insist is not quite the same thing as belonging to the diocese. The diocese is a
co-defendant along with a number of bishops and priests.
[...]
Records: Vatican knew of scandal coverup in 1973
www.bostonherald.com
by Jack Sullivan
Thursday, May 16, 2002
Previously sealed records in the case of defrocked pedophile priest James A.
Porter show Catholic church officials - including Pope Paul VI, Humberto
Cardinal Medeiros and top aides to Richard Cardinal Cushing - knew of and took
part in the coverup of cleric sexual abuse as far back as 1964.
It is believed to be the first time records show Vatican officials were aware as
long as 30 years ago that priests were molesting children and bishops were
shuffling the pedophiles around the country and covering up their acts. It also
is the first time involvement by the Boston archdiocese under Cushing has been
documented.
``It's not shocking to me in the slightest,'' said the Rev. Thomas Doyle, who
worked at the Vatican on priest sexual misconduct issues 20 years ago. ``There
was even more coverup in days past than there has been in the past 15 to 17
years . . . What we're seeing now with Bernard (Cardinal) Law, (New York's
Edward Cardinal) Egan and others is not isolated and not uncommon. It is
something that has been going on for decades.''
The file, obtained by the Herald through a court order, also reveals that
diocesan officials are required by canon law to maintain ``secret archives''
that have over the years become a hidden repository for sexual abuse allegations
[...]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2000%2F08%2F12%2Fwart12.xml
Vatican priests linked to fake works of art
By Bruce Johnston in Rome
(Filed: 12/08/2000)
THE Vatican is at the centre of a suspected art fraud running into millions of
pounds, it emerged yesterday.
Rome's Il Messaggero reported that magistrates suspected that works of art were
being sold with the help of mock Vatican certificates of authenticity. Several
works had been found in the study of Michele Basso, a high ranking monsignor who
formerly headed the Vatican archives and a welfare fund for prelates known as
the Capitolo di San Pietro.
Mgr Basso and another prelate were now under investigation, the paper said, and
several works of art found in the former's study, including paintings said to be
by Michelangelo, Guercino and Giambologna, had been seized.
According to the report, they were suspected of being part of an elaborate
operation to launder money. It allegedly involved the smuggling of suspected
fake art works into Vatican territory where they were authenticated, before
emerging with a clean bill of health.
[...]
While investigating, magistrates were said to have stumbled across a stockpile
of blank Vatican certificates of authenticity in a Naples lawyers' office. In
Italy, works of art, even those of doubtful artistic importance, commonly bear
important-sounding "certificates" which are often relied on by prospective
purchasers.
Archbishop Weakland's $450,000 payoff
Wed Jun 12, 2002
New York Times
The scandal has also ended the careers of several bishops. Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland of Milwaukee stepped down last month after he acknowledged paying a man $450,000 to settle an accusation of sexual misconduct. In March, Bishop Anthony J. O'Connell of Palm Beach, Fla., resigned after admitting that he sexually abused a teenage seminarian in the 1970's.
Roman Catholic blasphemy and witchcraft:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020616/wl_nm/pope_saint_dc_2
Sun Jun 16, 5:36 AM ET
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Before one of the largest crowds ever to fill the
Vatican ( news - web sites) area, Pope John Paul ( news - web sites) Sunday made
a saint of Padre Pio, a 20th century
mystic monk who is said to have borne the bleeding wounds of Christ for
50 years.
[...]
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020614/ap_wo_en_po/italy_padre_pio_1
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20020616/ap_wo_en_po/vatican_pope_padre_pio_5
Another, non-newspaper, source from a poster, with more like details:
Pio claimed that more spirits of the dead than living persons visited him in
his monastery cell. The spirits came to thank him for paying for their sins with
his sufferings so they could be released from purgatory and go to heaven. ^Other
monks testified that they heard multitudes of voices talking with Padre Pio at
night. ^ Newsletter, The Padre Pio Foundation of America and the Mass
Association (Holy Apostles Seminary, Cromwell, CT 06416), August/September 1988.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020616/wl_nm/pope_saint_pio_dc_1
Padre Pio Wrestled with Devil, Predicted Future
Sun Jun 16
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Padre Pio, the 20th century Italian mystic monk and
miracle worker who for 50 years is said to have had the stigmata -- the bleeding
wounds of Christ -- had for many people always been a saint.
Padre Pio's fame centers on the stigmata, which he had for 50 years from 1918
until his death in 1968 at the age of 81.
Padre Pio had wounds in the hands, feet and side that corresponded with the
wounds Christ suffered in the crucifixion. He used brown fingerless gloves to
absorb the blood and cover the wounds except when he said mass.
Doctors were at a loss to explain the wounds, which never produced gangrene or
infection.
When they examined him they were able to feel their fingers pressing in from
either side. When he held up the host at mass, the faithful were able to see
light coming through the wounds.
[....]
His biographers say he wrestled with the devil, literally, and one of the many
books written about him is called "The Devil in the Life of Padre Pio."
According to monks who lived with him, the last big demonic tussle was in July,
1964, when, at 10 o'clock at night the friars heard him calling out from his
cell.
They found him on the floor, his forehead slit open. He told a priest later "the
devil tried to scratch out my eyes." [...]
Many people said Padre Pio was able to predict events in their lives or knew
what they were about to confess.
He was also said to be seen in two places at the same time -- a mystic ability
the Church calls "bi-location"
Archives
Boston Globe, Abuse in the Catholic Church
http://www.boston.com/globe/spotlight/abuse/
Boston Herald, Trail of Abuse:
http://toa.hiasys.com/
British Broadcasting Corporation
http://www.bbc.co.uk/?ok
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_236000/236064.stm
A search on priest abuse and vatican money laundering turns up a lot of
stories from the last few years.