Amplify’d from www.ocala.com

Masons get new tech for child IDs

By Carlos E. Medina Correspondent

The Masons have offered free child identification material to Florida parents for more than 20 years. On Saturday, the organization will roll out the latest version of the child ID program, which includes digital technology and is hoped will make the process more efficient and include more complete information.

The 15th Masonic District, which encompasses Marion County's seven Masonic lodges, has three new machines that can incorporate still pictures of the child, a video, digital fingerprints and other specific information on one CD.

"The difference is like night and day as far as I'm concerned," said Kenneth Shaw, chairman of the district's child identification program.

The free service will be available Saturday at the Wachovia Bank at 2001 SW 17th St. from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m.

When the program started, it included ink fingerprints and photos, but as technology advanced the program grew to include video on VHS format and later compact discs. The local program was using cameras with integrated smaller format compact discs to capture photos and video, but fingerprints and other information was not on the same format.

"We hope that it is never used, but if something were to happen, you could just hand this one CD to police officers and they could load it right on their laptops in their patrol cars," Shaw said. "The first 24 hours are the most important when a child goes missing. You don't want to spend hours looking for a photo and other information. Parents are so devastated when something like this happens they can forget birthmarks or even eye color."

Shaw hopes the new technology will spur more people to participate in the program. He is always looking for events where they can offer the identifications.

"I will go anywhere to offer this service. I'll even go to birthday parties," he said.

The program can also work for adults with dementia, Alzheimer's or other conditions that restrict communication.

"Having a loved one's information readily available can be a lifesaver. I've done whole families before," Shaw said.

None of the information given during the process is stored by the Masons.

"It's completely private. The only thing we retain is the permission slip that is filled out. Once the information is burned onto the CD, the system dumps the data and it is purged. The only copy goes with the parent," he said.

Shaw said anyone who would like to have the system brought to their event can schedule it with them free of charge.

"We are funded through contributions. We were able to get the new systems from a private contribution and matching funds from another organization," he said.

For information about the Masons' child identification program call Shaw at 732-7316. Read more at www.ocala.com

 

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Amplify’d from www.nwfdailynews.com

LETTER: Buy more ammo

Do you want freedom, or would you prefer to abdicate your liberty for the security and protection of the federal government? Shall we surrender to the forces of liberalism and allow our children to become subservient to tyranny and the United Nations? Why do we allow our Congress to use taxpayer money to refurbish mosques in foreign countries, yet we do not question why President Obama has never visited a synagogue? Do you want the government to take care of your health care needs and manage your dietary requirements? Will you let the government determine how much money you make and then accept high taxes that strip away your desire to create products, produce services and hire people? Do you want Obama to tell you what kind of automobile you can drive, what light bulbs you can use in your house and how much water you can flush in your commode? Are you willing to substitute your right to pray and lead a productive free life in exchange for total government control over your very existence from birth to death? If so, then register as a liberal Democrat. If you would prefer to remain a free American able to make your own decisions, then take a stand. If you want to eliminate the redistribution of your wealth under the guise of climate change, Obamacare and the 16th Amendment, then register as a conservative Republican and buy more ammunition. — ANDREA NEWCOMBE Shalimar Related letter: Buy ammo? Why? Read more at www.nwfdailynews.com

 

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Amplify’d from www.gastongazette.com

It's a long, cold winter for climate hysteria

Cheryl Pass

Are you questioning every kilowatt hour you use? Are you buying compact fluorescent mercury light bulbs, thinking you are a good global citizen? Are you wracking your brain to figure out how you can save the planet from yourself? Are you wondering why it’s so cold outside when they told us we are frying the planet with our cars and cow emissions?

Clever corporate moguls and sly politicians have manufactured a premise to make you think you are the problem. Madison Avenue, Wall Street and all levels of government have figured out a way to capitalize on the mass hysteria they created. The Obama campaign, for example, was backed by individuals, corporations and investment banks expecting to rake in billions from carbon offset trading and regulations.

Most of us in the developed world, who have heating and cooling systems in our homes and workplaces, try to keep our environments at a temperature that enhances our productivity. If it’s too cold, people tend to become uncomfortable and wrap up in bundles of clothing that impede their mobility. If it’s too hot, people are drenched in sweat and suffer from lethargy. Keeping these temperatures reliable for our living and work environments requires burning fossil fuels. Fossil fuel burning has created the most productive civilization in the history of the earth.

As yet, solar and wind energies take more energy to create than they produce. They are inefficient and cost much more than the market will bear.

For over a century, people have published dire warnings about global warming or the onset of another ice age. The difference this time around is that powerful and wealthy players have discovered a way to soak the public on their doomsday premise, using our tax dollars to indoctrinate our children in school.

The catastrophe we face is not climate-related, but from redistribution of wealth from our pockets to the pockets of the doomsday industry.

Meanwhile, it looks like we’re headed toward the coldest winter we’ve seen in 100 years.

Baby, it’s cold outside. You might want to do some more research (www.theartofweather.com) and reconsider your alleged sins against the planet. Heating your home, driving your car and using incandescent light bulbs are not among them.

Cheryl A. Pass is a Gastonia resident. Read more at www.gastongazette.com

 

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Amplify’d from www.tampabay.com

Catholic diocese forced to deal with more allegations

By Waveney Ann Moore

The Roman Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg is again being forced to respond to allegations of misconduct in its clerical ranks. Thursday, a representative of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, held a news conference in front of the diocese's headquarters to talk about a $75,000 settlement with an alleged victim of sexual abuse by a longtime priest. The group also spoke about alleged abuse by two other priests who are now dead. The three priests, the group said, all served at Christ the King Catholic Church in Tampa. SNAP, which claims membership of more than 10,000 in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Europe, also addressed the ongoing controversy at the Cathedral School of St. Jude in St. Petersburg. Parents are upset about the way they say a priest handled the sacrament of confession with their children in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Diocese spokesman Frank Murphy confirmed a $75,000 settlement in July to man who claimed he was abused by Monsignor Norman Balthazar, who was working at Christ the King at the time of the abuse in 1980. "We don't know that anything did occur," Murphy said. "But yet they paid $75,000," countered Martha Jean Lorenzo, the Tampa representative of SNAP, at the news conference. "Given the cost of investigation and legal fees and you're dealing with someone who wants to settle, it is easier to provide a settlement," Murphy said. Between 1996, when Bishop Robert N. Lynch took over the diocese, and 2006, the diocese paid out $2.8 million in settlements. Some of that was covered by insurance, Murphy said. SNAP accused Lynch of keeping silent about allegations against Balthazar and the settlement. Murphy said that since the alleged abuse happened to an adult, not a child, the diocese did not have to make it public. Lorenzo said the Tampa victim, who remains a devout Catholic, said the molestation happened when he was 17. "This man, who is now 47 years old, is still devastated," she said. Balthazar, 72, retired from managing Calvary Catholic Cemetery in Pinellas County in 2010. Beginning in 1965, he worked at several parishes in the diocese, including St. Laurence, Good Shepherd and Christ the King in Tampa and Our Lady of Fatima in Inverness. Active in the fight against a Hillsborough County gay rights ordinance, the priest made news in 1991, when he was arrested after a male officer said he had proposed a sex act. A judge threw out the misdemeanor charge, saying the conversation did not constitute a crime. According to the Tampa Police Department, a man in 2002 accused Balthazar and another priest of sexually assaulting him in 1971. The victim said he was 9 at the time and an altar boy at Christ the King. The state declined to press charges. The other priest had died by the time the victim came forward, according to police. Besides Balthazar, two other Christ the King priests were accused of molestation dating back to the 1980s SNAP said. Murphy said Christ the King's current pastor, Father David Toups, ran an announcement about the allegations against the Rev. Jan Sanders, a visiting Jesuit during the 1980s, in June's church bulletin, asking people to come forward with concerns. The other priest, the Rev. Robert Huneke, served at Christ the King for just under two years. The diocese has previously said that during that time, it received a copy of a complaint against Huneke involving a minor in New York. The diocese sent him back to New York in 1982. Now the diocese is dealing with parents at St. Jude who object to the way Father Joseph L. Waters, 49, handled their children's confessions. The process "compromised the safety" of their children, they said. A person speaking for the parents declined to give specifics, but David Clohessy, director of SNAP, offered a glimpse of what they might have said. "We have been contacted by some of those parents and are very much sympathetic with them and the tough situation they're in," Clohessy said from his home in St. Louis. "They're specifically concerned about some very inappropriate questions he asked their children about sex in the confession." "I didn't ask anything inappropriate in confession, and I can't really discuss what the children said," Waters said by phone Thursday. Parents have not approached him to discuss the matter, he said. "Everything that I know has come through the diocese or through e-mails that have been forwarded to me." In a letter to parents, Waters said it was tempting to want to defend himself against the "baseless and false denunciations." The diocese covers Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco, Hernando and Citrus counties. Times staff writer Jamal Thalji and researcher Natalie Watson contributed to this report. Waveney Ann Moore can be reached at wmoore@sptimes.com or (727) 892-2283. Read more at www.tampabay.com

 

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Malta priest accused of sex abuse dies after church announces tribunal, court case continues

Amplify’d from www.google.com

Malta priest accused of sex abuse dies after church announces tribunal, court case continues

By The Associated Press

VALLETTA, Malta — A Roman Catholic priest on trial for allegedly molesting children in his care has died just days after Maltese church officials announced a special church tribunal would consider canonical penalties against him as well.

Brother Joe Bonet had suffered from bone cancer. The 63-year-old Bonet died at a home for elderly priests, according to the Times of Malta.

He was one of three clerics on trial for seven years, accused of molesting children who lived at the St. Joseph's Home decades ago.

Victims had long complained that Maltese courts and the Vatican's own justice system had moved to slowly to hear their claims, and Bonet's death is likely to fuel their complaints. The victims were received by Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to Malta in April. Read more at www.google.com

 

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Amplify’d from www.independent.co.uk

Scourge of America's paedophile priests sets up shop in UK

By Jerome Taylor, Religious Affairs Correspondent

For much of the past 25 years, Jeff Anderson has been the American Catholic Church's bête noire. Working out of a small office in St Paul, Minnesota, the 63-year-old US attorney has spearheaded more than 1,500 lawsuits against the Church, winning millions of dollars for his clients and forcing open the doors of one of the world's most secretive institutions.

Now the tough-talking lawyer with a taste for Zen Buddhism has co-founded a London-based law firm to bring sex abuse cases against churches in Britain. The new firm, Jeff Anderson Ann Olivarius Law, is a first attempt to create a cross-Atlantic practice dedicated to launching legal actions on multiple continents using aggressive litigation tactics honed for more than two decades in the US.

British law firms have long pursued the Catholic Church after a series of historical sex abuse scandals predominantly revealed in the early 2000s. Numerous cases have been settled, and a few continue.

At Mr Anderson's new firm's launch in central London, he claimed there was still room for a British practice inspired by his US work; one diocese in Delaware recently declared bankruptcy due to the mountain of litigation it faced.

"Survivors have, and are, breaking their silence," he said. "It is our hope, it is our plan, to use the very fine legal system here to get help for the wounded, those who have been harmed, and together with them do what we can to protect others from further harm."

Ann Olivarius, an American-born British solicitor, came up with the idea to form a cross-Atlantic litigation firm with Mr Anderson. "If you followed the clergy abuse scandal as it grew in the United States it was clear that, if not for Jeff Anderson, the Catholic Church hierarchy and its clergy might have never been held responsible as they are today," she said. "It seemed to me we needed the same kind of pressure for justice and accountability on this side of the Atlantic."

The Catholic Church in England and Wales has brought in tough child protection policies after the sex-abuse allegations. The number of accusations has since fallen, and the Vatican has held up the UK as an example for how other churches should deal with clerical sex abuse.

But Mr Anderson questioned whether enough had yet been done to help the victims of the abusers and called on the Church to release any documents it has on abusive clergy. "The extent to which the bishops in the UK have taken some action, we applaud that," he said. "But the extent to which they say the problem has been dealt with, we challenge that.

"We don't know who the actual offenders are; only they know that. Until they come fully clean with that, children are at risk here... across the land and across the globe."

The new firm is paying particular attention to clerical abusers who moved between Britain, Ireland and the US during their careers. On Monday, the firm launched its first civil lawsuit on behalf of an alleged American victim of an Irish priest in his eighties who cannot be named for legal reasons.

The suit was filed in a court in Minneapolis. It names as co-defendants the Diocese of Clogher in Ireland, the Diocese of New Ulm in Minnesota and the Servants of the Paraclete, an international Catholic congregation which was involved in the rehabilitation of priests.

The Servants of the Paraclete used to run a rehabilitation centre in Brownshill, Gloucestershire, but it closed in 1998. According to the lawsuit, the Irish priest spent time there in 1975 after three separate sex-abuse allegations were made against him. He lived in Britain until 1981 but was returned to ministry and later moved to the US, where fresh allegations have surfaced.

The new firm is now looking for British abuse survivors to come forward. But Justin Levinson, a barrister who specialises in child abuse compensation claims, questioned whether there would be enough future cases to sustain a new practice. "There are still new abuse cases cropping up, not in their hundreds, but they are there," he said. "Whether there are enough to sustain a dedicated practice, however, I'd be doubtful."

Jeff Anderson's first case

In 1983, a man walked into Jeff Anderson's office saying he had been abused by a priest from Minneapolis. The case ended up moulding Anderson into the Vatican's chief pursuer.

Convinced that senior bishops had conspired to cover up the problem of paedophile priests, he sued the Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St Paul. The bishops came back with a reported $1m to settle the case out of court.

Anderson and his client refused the offer and took the case to court which of course drew the attention of the national media.

They eventually won the case and Anderson was soon swamped with a barrage of similar complaints as thousands of abuse victims came forward.

Anderson is something of an enigma. He flunked law school first time around and operates on a no-win no-fee basis, making his money by taking between 25 and 40 per cent of settlement winnings. In 2002 he estimated that his victories totalled $60m but has since refused to update this figure.

Read Emailed Commented Read 1 Scourge of America's paedophile priests sets up shop in UK 2 London fails to make top 50 'most live-able' cities 3 The Ten Best Fitness Gadgets 4 Women who travel for sex: Sun, sea and gigolos 5 The Islamification of Britain: record numbers embrace Muslim faith 6 'Hello mum, this is going to be hard for you to read ...' 7 Carpet fitter Rob Knighton swops floor laying for the catwalk 8 Scotland Yard fights to keep phone-hacking targets a secret 9 Newlywed drowned in pond after fit 10 'British Madoff' took £14m from his investors – and lost the lot 11 Chainsaw death was 'carefully thought through suicide' 12 National Grid pay talks break down 13 Blair recalled to Iraq Inquiry next week 14 Royal Family granted new right of secrecy 15 Honoured at last, the Indian heroine of Churchill's spy squad Emailed 1 'Hello mum, this is going to be hard for you to read ...' Commented Read more at www.independent.co.uk

 

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Caritas in Veritate: Vatican official: Church’s justice teachings need new 'vocabulary' for some US audiences

Amplify’d from www.catholicnewsagency.com

Vatican official: Church’s justice teachings need new 'vocabulary' for some US audiences

By Alan Holdren, Rome Correspondent

Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson

Vatican City, Jan 13, 2011 / 05:33 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- When he travels to the United States next month, Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson is aware that he may have to make some adjustments in the way he talks about the Church’s social teaching.

As president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, the Ghanaian cardinal, 62, is charged with making the Church’s social teaching more widely known and practiced around the world.

He will be in Washington to deliver the plenary address of the 2011 Catholic Social Ministry Gathering, Feb. 13-16. The gathering, on the theme of “Protecting Human Life and Dignity: Promoting a Just Economy,” is sponsored by 19 Catholic organizations, including the U.S. Catholic bishops.

In a recent interview with CNA, Cardinal Turkson said he has learned from past experience that the Church’s justice and peace terminology often needs clarification for an American Catholic audience. Key terms used by the Vatican — such as “social justice” and “gift” — are not always understood the way the Vatican intends, he said.

"We found out that some of the vocabulary which is just taken for granted and used freely may not always have the same sense or may have had some nuances which sometimes are missed because of the way the terms are used in the American political context,” Cardinal Turkson said in a Jan. 12 interview at the council’s offices in Rome.

Pope Benedict XVI appointed Cardinal Turkson to his post in Oct. 2009, just months after the Pope released his blueprint for the Church’s social teaching, “Caritas in Veritate” (Charity in Truth). The council has since made promotion of the Pope’s vision a top priority.

The encyclical outlines Pope Benedict’s plan for "integral human development" in economics, society and politics through the principles of charity and truth.

Cardinal Turkson said the Vatican is pleased by response to the document. But he said reaction from some sections of the audience in the United States was unexpected.

The council has been surprised to find that common terms were misunderstood or misinterpreted. He emphasized that the misunderstanding was not a general or widespread problem among American Catholics. But, he said, "in certain circles ... there is a difficulty."

For instance, the Pope's teaching on themes of "social justice" have been mistakenly connected to "socialism" and "communism." As a result, he indicated, the Pope is mistakenly seen as promoting socialist or big-government solutions to social problems.

The council has also learned that words like "social" and "solidarity" may have been dismissed by American readers for their perceived connection with communist regimes such as the Soviet Union, he said.

Cardinal Turkson explained that in the Church’s thinking, social justice involves citizens’ obligations and responsibilities to ensure fairness and opportunity in their communities and societies.

While this may include the adoption of specific government policies and programs, the emphasis in Catholic social teaching is on the obligations that flow from citizens' relationships in societies.

"Respecting, understanding and fulfilling those demands constitute our justice," he said. "It would be useful if we just observed our sense of justice as our ability to fulfill the demands of the relationships in which we stand."

This is in contrast to socialism, he explained, which is an ideology in which private property and private interests are totally placed in the service of government policies.

What the Pope proposes in “Caritas in Veritate,” said Cardinal Turkson, is "achieving the common good without sacrificing personal, private interests, aspirations and desires."

Cardinal Turkson said the Council was also surprised that the Pope’s concept of the “gift,” was perceived in some circles as encouraging government welfare handouts.

In "Caritas in Veritate," Pope Benedict described the concept of “gift” as a way to understand God’s love for men and women in his gift of life and his gift of Jesus.

"Truth is the light that gives meaning and value to charity," the Pope wrote. "That light is both the light of reason and the light of faith, through which the intellect attains to the natural and supernatural truth of charity: it grasps its meaning as gift, acceptance, and communion."

Gift, Cardinal Turkson explained, is "a very basic, deep theological expression of God's relation or the motivation for whatever God does in the world, and it's not quite the same as a handout."

"If we ever need to talk about this in a society where the sense of gift is that of a handout ... it doesn't quite express the sense of gift in this regard," he added.

While it is too late to add any explanations to the encyclical, the Council might tailor its language differently in future documents.

"We just realized that probably in the future, when ... this dicastery takes up the task of diffusing, presenting and talking about this it might be necessary to provide a footnote in which some of these expressions can be given an awareness of the different senses of expressions in different cultures and settings,” he said. We thought something like that would be useful and helpful to the readers."

Cardinal Turkson urged American Catholics and government and economic leaders to give a conscientious reading of "Caritas in Veritate."

The encyclical, he said, invites us "to go back or to remind about the centrality of the human person, his well being, his common good within everything that we do.”

Another important message, Cardinal Turkson said, is that “we must not sacrifice the good of the human person for anything that we aspire after or want to do with technology, business, economics or whatever."

The key to an authentically human vision of development is to consider the full ethical character of the individual in all decisions, he said.

"In details," he concluded, "it may be for food security and shelter for all persons, but at the end of the day we are looking at whether things that we are doing in the world as government, as a Church and all of that help advance the good of the individual person."

Related articles: Turkson, Peter Kodwo Appiah* Actions taken by the Bishops of the United States College of Cardinals - Members from the United States Legislative efforts in the United States to prohibit 'partial-birth abortion' Read more at www.catholicnewsagency.com

 

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Abuse inquiry panel moving to Armagh Northern Ireland on Thursday

Amplify’d from www.bbc.co.uk

Abuse inquiry panel moving to Armagh

The Apostolic Visitation set up by the Pope last year will cross the border into Northern Ireland on Thursday.

The inquiry panel includes Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor

Pope Benedict announced the Visitation in March last year in a pastoral letter to Catholics in Ireland.

It followed the publication of reports into abuse in Catholic institutions and in the Dublin archdiocese.

The event at the City Hotel in Armagh on Thursday night will be the first public meeting held in Northern Ireland by the inquiry panel.

It is being led by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the retired archbishop of Westminster,

Another meeting is scheduled for the Glenavon House Hotel in Cookstown on Friday night.

The Pope's letter expressed sorrow and regret at the abuse perpetrated by priests on the island.

He said he would send teams of inspectors to some Irish dioceses, seminaries and Irish religious orders to investigate how far they had strayed from the new rules laid down by the Vatican to try to curb clerical abuse.

Five senior prelates are taking part in the inquiry panel.

As well as Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor, the others are Cardinal O'Malley, Boston, Archbishop Timothy Dolan, New York, Archbishop Thomas Collins, Toronto, and Archbishop Terence Prendergast SJ, Ottawa.

Cardinal Murphy O'Connor is conducting the visitation of the Armagh archdiocese.

Among those accompanying him are Dr Sheila Hollins, professor of the UK Board of Psychiatry.

Meanwhile, a US lawyer who specialises in clerical abuse cases has said he is to sue the Catholic diocese of Clogher, which takes in parts of Fermanagh, Tyrone, Monaghan and Donegal.

Jeff Anderson has co-founded a London-based law firm - Jeff Anderson - Ann Olivarius Law - to bring sex abuse lawsuits against churches in Britain and Ireland.

Mr Anderson told the Irish Times newspaper the firm's first joint case would be taken in Minnesota against a retired priest from the Clogher diocese who was moved to the US in the 1980s. Read more at www.bbc.co.uk

 

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US sex abuse attorney extends practice against Catholic Church overseas

Amplify’d from www.catholicnewsagency.com

US sex abuse attorney extends practice against Catholic Church overseas

Attorney Jeff Anderson appears at one of his high-powered news conferences

St. Paul, Minn., Jan 12, 2011 / 02:17 am (CNA).- Attorney Jeff Anderson, who claims to have won more than $60 million from the U.S. Catholic Church in clerical sex-abuse lawsuits, has extended his practice to the U.K.

Anderson – a lawyer based in St. Paul Minnesota – has filed more than 1,000 sex-abuse cases against the Catholic Church in the U.S. and is starting a new firm in London in the hopes of continuing lawsuits aimed at the Church. The new practice will involve London-based solicitor Ann Olivarius.

The lawyer told the U.K newspaper The Guardian on Jan. 10 that he was "deeply concerned" and had "every reason to know" that the Church was "recycling offenders" – moving them from parish to parish –  and failing to turn in abusive priests to authorities.

Anderson, given his track record, may also try to implicate the Vatican in his U.K. lawsuits.

In recent months, Anderson's most high-profile cases have included suits against the Vatican filed in Oregon, Wisconsin and Kentucky, which have attempted to implicate the Holy See in obstructing justice for clerical perpetrators.

A recent setback for Anderson, however, involved plaintiffs in the Kentucky case – O'Bryan vs. the Holy See – who chose to withdraw their lawsuit in August. Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi reacted to the decision by saying the accusations against the Holy See were ultimately proven “unfounded.”

Earlier court rulings recognizing the sovereign immunity of the Holy See influenced the outcome, as well as the fact that most victims had already sought compensation from their dioceses.

U.S. Vatican lawyer Jeffrey Lena, who has been critical of Anderson's efforts, said at the time that the dropping of the Kentucky case shows there has never been a Vatican policy requiring concealment of child sexual abuse.

Lena added that although the case against the Holy See always lacked merit, it does not mean that the plaintiffs themselves did not suffer as a result of sexual abuse. The attempted lawsuit, he said, only served to distract from the important goal of protecting children from harm.

On the Milwaukee case, which is still currently underway, Lena described the lawsuit as "completely without merit," because it "rehashes old theories already rejected by U.S. courts."

As for the involvement of the Holy See in the case, the Vatican's lawyer told CNA in April 2010 that it had "no role whatsoever in causing plaintiff's injuries," having not known about the cases "until decades after the abuse occurred."

Related articles: What will we do with all the unwanted kids? (Poor babies, overpopulation, abuse, etc.) Catholic Church The Rites of the Catholic Church The Catholic Church and Abortion Read more at www.catholicnewsagency.com

 

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Former Chaminade priest defrocked — SNAP wants apology

Amplify’d from kmox.cbslocal.com

Former Chaminade priest defrocked — SNAP wants apology Greg Branson

Barbara Dorris and David Clohessy outside Marianist headquarters

ST. LOUIS–(KMOX)–A Marianist priest who once taught at Chaminade – Father William Christensen —  is accused of molesting boys connected to a charity where he worked in Bangladesh.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests today picketed outside the Central West End headquarters of the Marianists.   SNAP is upset that a Vatican decision to defrock Christensen was not announced locally.

“Not once have Catholic officials anywhere in this country told people that he’s accused of molesting thirty kids in Bangladesh, and that he’s been formally defrocked by the Vatican,” Clohessy said.

SNAP wants local Catholic officials to apologize for their silence on the scandal.

“And they need to aggressively reach out to former students at McBride and Chaminade, any place where Father Christensen was, and get those people to come forward, if they were hurt and get help,” Clohessy said.

The Marianist released a statement confirming Christensen was defrocked by the Vatican in October of 2010, following “several accusations of sexual abuse” from Bangladesh.

Responding to allegations that it failed to alert the public,  the Marianist statement says:

“When the accusations were deemed credible, the Papal Nuncio in Bangladesh informed all the dioceses in Bangladesh of this information.   Because Christensen’s appeal of the laicization is under appeal by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and he is living in Bangladesh, there is no final resolution to be reported.”

The statement goes on to say that “until the appeal is settled, he remains a priest and a member of the Society of Mary.”

In 2002, a former Chaminade student, Michael Powel, sued Christensen, alleging he molested him as a child.  In 2007, Powell died of a brain tumor before the suit could be resolved. Read more at kmox.cbslocal.com

 

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