Lawsuit claims Vatican withheld papers in abuse case

Lawsuit claims Vatican withheld papers in abuse case
Attorney asserts Church acted as priest’s employer
August 23, 2011 By Steve Karnowski, Associated Press
ST. PAUL

An attorney for a man who claims he was sexually abused by an Oregon priest in the 1960s said yesterday that the Vatican failed to produce all court-ordered documents in the case, and that papers it did turn over show how the Vatican exercises firm control over the placement and removal of offending priests.

Both claims were quickly disputed by a church lawyer who said the Vatican gave Minnesota-based attorney Jeffrey Anderson all its documents pertaining to the late Rev. Andrew Ronan. Anderson has sued on behalf of a man who alleges Ronan abused him during the time the priest was assigned to Portland, Ore.

The Vatican gave Anderson more than 1,800 pages of documents last Friday, marking the first time the Vatican provided documents in response to a sex abuse lawsuit. But Anderson contends that relevant documents written by Vatican officials were left out because local dioceses have produced their own copies of such paperwork in this and other cases.

Anderson, who has filed numerous lawsuits nationwide on behalf of alleged victims of priest abuse, is trying to hold the Vatican responsible under US and Oregon law for the abuse alleged by a Washington state man identified only as John V. Doe. He argues that the Vatican was effectively Ronan’s employer when the alleged abuse occurred in the mid-1960s. Ronan died in 1992.

An employment relationship could trigger an exception to a federal law that usually bars lawsuits against foreign sovereign entities such as the Vatican.

http://articles.boston.com/2011-08-23/news/29919301_1_jeffrey-lena-vatican-abuse-lawsuit

Settlement reached in priest abuse case – Chicago Jesuit priest John Powell

Settlement reached in priest abuse case
Monday, November 21, 2005
By Theresa Gutierrez

November 17, 2005 (WLS) — A settlement has been reached in connection with a Roman Catholic priest accused of sexual abuse. At least six adults claimed father John Powell abused them in the late 60′s and 70′s. No criminal charges were filed against Powell but the priest has admitted to the abuse.

Two of the former Chicago Jesuit priest John Powell’s victims spoke out Thursday. Patrice Regnier says Father Powell — a former Loyola University professor — started abusing her when she was 12 years old. She just received a settlement.

“The idea people found from me speaking the truth that they could come out themselves and speak the truth is a good thing,” said Patrice Regnier, victim of sexual abuse.

Diane Ruhl says she was abused at 17 years old by Father Powell on the Loyola campus when she was a student. She confronted him 30 years later by writing him. He responded and admitted to the abuse in his letters.
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=3643364

Munich Abuse Case – Archbishop Ratzinger Failed to Deal with Suspected Pedophile Priest

Munich Abuse Case – Archbishop Ratzinger Failed to Deal with Suspected Pedophile Priest By Conny Neumann and Peter Wensierski 11/29/2010

New documents show how the former Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger — now Pope Benedict XVI — and his successor Reinhard Marx failed to properly deal with a suspected pedophile. Despite massive allegations of abuse, the archdiocese allowed the priest to continue working with children…..

According to the allegations, during his tenure in Munich, Ratzinger did not give sufficient attention to the type of duties that were assigned to the alleged pedophile H. Despite massive allegations of abuse levied against the priest, the archdiocese led by Ratzinger allowed H. to continue to be involved in church work with children and young people.

For months now, very little progress has been made in clearing up this case. This is partly because the current archbishop of Munich, Reinhard Marx, who the pope recently promoted to cardinal, swiftly decided that the matter was settled.
H. was transferred to Munich in January 1980 after he had apparently sexually abused a number of boys in his home diocese of Essen. Under Ratzinger’s leadership, the Munich archdiocese expressly approved H.’s transfer on January 15, 1980. It was decided that the cleric was to undergo therapy.

No Doubt
Recently discovered documents now show that there could have been no doubt in Munich about the priest’s previous history. The head of personnel in Essen had informed Ratzinger’s head of personnel by phone and in writing that, in regard to H., “there is a risk which has prompted us to immediately remove him from the parish.” Furthermore, he said that “an official complaint has been lodged by members of the parish.”
But his victims are still waiting in vain for a genuine clarification of the matter. Wilfried Fesselmann, for instance, who says that he was abused by H. in 1979, wrote to Pope Benedict XVI last May. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith replied: “Your request is being processed.” Since then, he has heard nothing from them. The archdiocese of Munich is also reticent to comment on the case, despite the fact that Marx has pledged: “We want to do everything to clear this up — we will not look away, play it down or point the finger at others.”….

In spring 2010, the Munich affair caused an enormous stir. It initially looked as if the abuse scandal would engulf Ratzinger personally. After all, the pedophile who was accepted by him into the archdiocese in Munich was able to continue working there as a pastor for three decades and find new victims — despite the fact that he was charged a fine and given a suspended sentence in 1986 for abusing schoolchildren.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,731683,00.html

Predator priests shuffled around globe, $1.4 million in Boy Scout abuse case

AP IMPACT: Predator priests shuffled around globe By BRADLEY BROOKS and ALESSANDRA RIZZO (AP) 4/14/10 RIO DE JANEIRO

There he was, five decades later, the priest who had raped Joe Callander in Massachusetts. The photo in the Roman Catholic newsletter showed him with a smile across his wrinkled face, near-naked Amazon Indian children in his arms and at his feet.
The Rev. Mario Pezzotti was working with children and supervising other priests in Brazil.

It’s not an isolated example. In an investigation spanning 21 countries across six continents, The Associated Press found 30 cases of priests accused of abuse who were transferred or moved abroad. Some escaped police investigations. Many had access to children in another country, and some abused again. A priest who admitted to abuse in Los Angeles went to the Philippines, where U.S. church officials mailed him checks and advised him not to reveal their source. A priest in Canada was convicted of sexual abuse and then moved to France, where he was convicted of abuse again in 2005. Another priest was moved back and forth between Ireland and England, despite being diagnosed as a pederast, a man who commits sodomy with boys.

“The pattern is if a priest gets into trouble and it’s close to becoming a scandal or if the law might get involved, they send them to the missions abroad,” said Richard Sipe, a former Benedictine monk and critic of what he says is a practice of international transfers of accused and admitted priest child abusers. “Anything to avoid a scandal.” Church officials say that in some cases, the priests themselves moved to another country and the new parish might not have been aware of past allegations. In other cases, church officials said they did not believe the allegations, or that the priest had served his time and reformed.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jF3SgJdO8u1pi0PkautQAtzuJKaAD9F33EE03

$1.4 million awarded in Boy Scout abuse case William McCall, Associated Press April 14, 2010
Portland, Ore. – A jury delivered an embarrassing rebuke to the Boy Scouts of America on Tuesday when it found that the organization failed to protect a man who was molested by an assistant scoutmaster in the early 1980s. Jurors awarded $1.4 million to the former Portland man and decided that the Irving, Texas-based organization was liable for up to $25 million in punitive damages to be decided in a separate phase of the trial. Over the first three weeks of testimony, secret Scout “perversion files” – records of known sex offenders – were used as evidence, though it’s unclear if jurors consulted the documents while deliberating over two days.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/14/MNGR1CU7K1.DTL