Cardinal Cupich says the Vatican abuse summit will not focus on vulnerable adults or seminarians

Vatican City, Feb 18, 2019 / 10:15 am (CNA).- Cardinal Blase Cupich said Monday that this week’s Vatican sex abuse summit needs to be focused on the protection of minors, underscoring that homosexuality is not a cause of sexual abuse.

While it is important to recognize the fact that a high percentage of sex abuse involves “male on male sex abuse,” Cupich said, “homosexuality itself is not a cause.” It is a matter of “opportunity and also a matter of poor training on the part of people.”

“The pope is asking us to make sure that we focus on the the task at hand, if in fact we begin to inflate expectations by including other topics, then we are not going to achieve the goals,” Cardinal Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago, said at a Vatican press conference Feb. 18.

continue at CNA

US Bishops retreat at Mundelein Seminary will not discuss abuse; "strictly be a time for prayer, fasting and spiritual lectures."

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago says when bishops from around the United States gather in a suburban seminary next month, they won't talk about a state investigation that found Illinois dioceses failed to disclose the names of at least 500 clergy accused of sexually abusing children.

Archdiocese spokeswoman Anne Maselli tells the Chicago Tribune that the retreat hosted by Cardinal Blase Cupich at Mundelein Seminary will "strictly be a time for prayer, fasting and spiritual lectures."

continue at NBC Chicago

What?  This can't be right, I can only presume both spiritual works and discussions are happening. 

Also: Cardinal Cupich visits Cook County Jail on Christmas, addresses church sex abuse scandal in Midnight Mass

déja vu: Father Mankoski on 'What Went Wrong?'

From Fr. Paul Mankowski, July 15, 2003, at Catholic Culture.

"the single important difference in the Church’s failure regarding abusive clergy and the failures regarding liturgy, catechesis, pro-life politics, doctrinal dissent and biblical translation is this: that in the case of the sex abuse scandal we’ve been allowed a look over the bishops’ shoulders at their own memos. ...

"What we read in those files was shocking, true, but to most of us it was shocking in its sense of déja vu. In the years following the Second Vatican Council, the housewife who complained that Father skipped the Creed at mass and the housewife who complained that Father groped her son had remarkably similar experiences of being made to feel that they themselves were somehow in the wrong; that they had impugned the honor of virtuous men; that their complaints were an unwelcome interruption of more important business; that the true situation was fully known to the chancery and completely under control; that the wider and more complete knowledge of higher ecclesiastics justified their apparent inaction; that to criticize the curate was to criticize the pastor was to criticize the regional vicar was to criticize the bishop; that to publicize one’s dissatisfaction was to give scandal and would positively harm discreet efforts at remedying the ills; that one’s duty was to maintain silence and trust that those officially charged with the pertinent responsibilities would execute them in their own time; that delayed correction of problems was sometimes necessary for the universal good of the Church.
...
"In thousands and thousands of pages of records one scarcely, if ever, is edified by a pleasant surprise, by discovering that a bishop’s or superior’s concern for the victim or for the Faith was greater than that known to the public, that the engines of justice were geared up and running at full throttle, but in a manner invisible to those outside the circle of discretion. Didn’t happen."

Fifteen years, yet it seems like ...

...only yesterday, Catholic faithful demand change after sex abuse scandals, by Amy Forliti, Associated Press, at Crux, September 9, 2018.

The Murder of Fr. Alfred Kunz and the sexual corruption in the priesthood

Joe Hanneman is writing a multipart series at Catholic World Report on the murder of Fr. Alfred Kunz.  It's actually quite timely because now with these new revelations from the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report that priest had been "raping boys and girls" and the appalling extent that the bishops and dioceses went to cover up and continue to enable abusers.  Could it be that Fr. Alfred Kunz's investigation into these abuses cost him his life?  Let's pray that God would grant justice and purify the Church in these darkest of days. 

From Part 1 of the new report

In 1996, Kunz became a canon law adviser to the Roman Catholic Faithful (RCF), an Illinois-based group investigating the sexual abuse of boys by Catholic priests and bishops. Kunz was recommended to RCF by the Rev. John A. Hardon, SJ, a widely respected theologian and author who worked for several popes and had deep connections at the Vatican. The group was gathering information on Bishop Daniel L. Ryan of the Diocese of Springfield, Ill. Ryan was accused of sexually assaulting a mentally disabled man, soliciting sex from a 15-year-old boy, trolling area parks for teenage male prostitutes, and having sex with priests in his diocese. In sworn testimony to RCF investigators, one of the teen prostitutes said Ryan once heard his confession and blessed him, then told him, “go and sin no more.” Then the bishop winked at the teen and said, “See you later.”

With help from Kunz and Father Fiore, RCF developed a dossier on the situation in the Springfield diocese. Father Hardon carried the report to Rome and presented it to Pope St. John Paul II, vouching for RCF and the accuracy of the document. Nothing was done with the explosive information. Hardon told RCF officials that at least a dozen American bishops supported Ryan in his quest to hold onto his bishopric in Springfield, according to RCF president and founder Stephen G. Brady. One of them was the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, then archbishop of Chicago, Brady said. When the group approached Bernardin for help in removing Ryan, he refused, Brady said. Ryan abruptly retired in October 1999, shortly before a lawsuit was filed accusing him of covering up the sexual abuse of a child by another Illinois priest. Sheriff Mahoney said Dane County investigators interviewed Ryan, but have no indication he is linked to the Kunz homicide. Ryan died in December 2015.

“Father Hardon told me to go to Kunz if I needed any contacts anywhere or needed direction in my investigations,” Brady told Catholic World Report. “Father Kunz never discussed any other investigations with me except my own. He was tight lipped and you could trust him 100 percent. He had my files and answered any questions I had. He did work behind the scenes for me but kept it private.”

Brady said during the 14 years that RCF conducted its investigations, he received three death threats. One was serious enough to involve the FBI. An email circulated claiming a contract was out for Brady’s assassination. After Kunz was murdered, Brady bought a bulletproof vest.

from Part 2

Father Malachi Martin was an exorcist, bestselling author, former aide to Pope St. John XXIII, and onetime professor at the Vatican’s Pontifical Biblical Institute. He was also a friend of Father Alfred J. Kunz, and he believed the Wisconsin priest’s 1998 murder bore the marks of satanic evil.

“He was found at 7 o’clock in the morning with his throat cut from ear to ear,” Martin said on a national radio program in May 1998. “In his own blood, face down into it and with various acts of desecration of his body which are normally associated with satanist-inflicted death.”

Only one priest would need to be silenced, the rest would live in enough fear after a gruesome murder to keep quiet about what they know. 

Minnesota priest, 96, gave sharp, unemotional answers on Guam child abuses

Former Guam priest Louis Brouillard did not show much emotion and remained fairly sharp mentally when he provided, over a four-day period, information about the "tragic circumstances that allowed him to have access to Guam's children for many years," according to one of the attorneys involved in more than 140 lawsuits accusing Brouillard of child sex abuse.

Brouillard's Oct. 31 to Nov. 3 deposition in Pine City, Minnesota, where he lives, brought together attorneys for most plaintiffs and defendants from different parts of the nation.

...

The Diocese of Duluth had confirmed that Brouillard was sent from Guam to Minnesota for "help with his personal problems" in 1981 and later barred from serving as a priest after questions arose about a young house guest from the island.

Three recent lawsuits accused Brouillard of separately bringing Guam boys to Minnesota in the '80s and continuing to sexually abuse them there.

continue at USA Today

With Sacred Heart lawsuit, questions over whether parishes are liable in SNAP trials

A Twin Cities attorney and Diocese of Crookston monsignor say they want the same thing: healing and justice for survivors of clergy sexual abuse.

But where attorney Mike Finnegan and Monsignor Mike Foltz differ is who should be sued in the latest wave of lawsuits related to the recent May 25 deadline of the Minnesota Child Victims Act.

...
"If the priest is dead, for example, you could say, 'Well shucks, what's the reason to file the lawsuit if he can't hurt somebody else?' And the first response from virtually every victim I've ever spoke to is ... to deter coverups in the future," said David Clohessy, director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, a nonprofit that helps survivors of clergy sexual abuse.
...
"What's been happening more recently is the diocese, when we haven't sued (the parish), they've gone into court and said, 'He's not our guy. He's the parish's guy. The parish is the one who pays him. The parish is the one where he lives. And so, we don't have anything to do with him. We're not responsible,' " Finnegan said. [I'd like to see the case he references.  If so, the diocesan claim is absolutely reprehensible.  Or is this a straw man argument?  Religious order priests is a different question, but a diocesan priest was said to not fall under the jurisdiction of a diocese?]

...

The Catholic Church isn't the only institution dealing with child sexual abuse cases across the country. The Minneapolis Children's Theatre is facing lawsuits alleging abuse dating back to the 1970s, and the Boy Scouts of America has allegations from decades ago against it, too.

full article at Grand Forks Herald

 

Oscar Hangover Special: Why “Spotlight” Is a Terrible Film

From a couple months ago, but a must read.

I don’t “believe the victims”.

I was in Boston in the Spring of 2002 reporting on the priest scandal, and because I know some of what is untrue, I don’t believe the personal injury lawyers or the Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” team or the Catholic “faithful” who became harpies outside Boston churches, carrying signs with images of Satan, hurling invective at congregants who’d just attended Mass, and at least once – this in my presence – spitting in the face of a person who dared dispute them.

I don’t believe the prosecutors who pursued tainted cases or the therapists who revived junk science or the juries that sided with them or the judges who failed to act justly or the people who made money off any of this.

And I am astonished (though I suppose I shouldn’t be) that, across the past few months, ever since Spotlight hit theaters, otherwise serious left-of-center people have peppered their party conversation with effusions that the film reflects a heroic journalism, the kind we all need more of.

I don’t believe the claims of all who say they are victims – or who prefer the more tough-minded label ‘survivor’ – because ready belief is not part of a journalist’s mental kit, but also because what happened in 2002 makes it difficult to distinguish real claims from fraudulent or opportunistic ones without independent research. What editor Marty Baron and the Globe sparked with their 600 stories and their confidential tip line for grievances was not laudatory journalism but a moral panic, and unfortunately for those who are telling the truth, truth was its casualty.

continue at Counterpunch

It's long, but really a must read.

Anti-Weakland, abuse coverup exibit at UW Milwaukee

Katherine M. Prange — a Sheboygan native who attended Holy Name Grade School and Sheboygan North High School — is currently a master of fine arts intermedia/digital media and design candidate in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Peck School Of The Arts and is opening an exhibition at the UWM Arts Center Gallery on April 8.

In her exhibit titled “iudicate,” meaning “you be the judge” in Latin, Prange highlights the weight of moral justice concerning widespread and systemic child sex abuse in the Milwaukee area by presenting an obstacle course of ethical discernment, creating the ambiance of a children’s playground against a backdrop of juxtaposing viewpoints currently concerning the Catholic Church.

Prange presents video documentation of Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland’s deposition regarding his involvement with years of covering up information pertaining to priests and sexual abuse juxtaposed against a video compilation accounting for the media and public outcry of support concerning the newly appointed Pope of the Catholic Church — Pope Francis.

continue at Sheboygan Press