articles:
Damaging Letters Released in Casey Anthony Case
Irish Report Finds Abuse Persisting in Catholic Church
Commission of Investigation – Report into the Catholic Diocese of Cloyne – Cloyne Report
Damaging Letters Released in Casey Anthony Case
Apr 7, 2010 Michelle Ruiz
(April 7) — Newly released letters exchanged between Casey Anthony and a jailhouse companion could provide valuable new evidence for prosecutors in their case against the woman accused of murdering her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, in 2008.
Florida prosecutors on Tuesday released more than 250 pages of handwritten correspondence between Anthony and fellow inmate Robyn Adams, in which Anthony writes that the baby sitter she said abducted Caylee, Zenaida Gonzalez, did not exist. They also reveal details about Caylee’s remains that investigators say only the killer would know….
“The letters released today reflect the natural desire for companionship when isolated for 23 hours a day,” the statement said. “Casey Anthony maintains her innocence and looks forward to her day in court.”
Writing in schoolgirl-style penmanship, Anthony also levels sexual abuse allegations against her brother, Lee, saying he fondled her in her bedroom between the ages of 12 and 15. Anthony wrote that her mother, Cindy, dismissed her when she approached her about the alleged abuse.
“I was to blame for my own brother coming into my room at night and feeling my breasts while I slept,” Anthony wrote. “When I told my mom about it two years ago, she made excuses, saying that he was sleepwalking.”
Anthony also told Adams she “thinks” her father, George, may have touched her inappropriately when she was a child, writing: “I think my dad used to do the same thing to me, but when I was much younger.”
George and Cindy Anthony denied any abuse occurred in their family. Their attorney, Brad Conway, said in a statement that there was never “a time when Casey told them of inappropriate conduct by her brother or father,” according to Orlando’s WESH-TV.
Investigators said Anthony and Adams exchanged their letters through books in the prison library, agreeing to flush them after reading. But Adams mailed Anthony’s letters to a friend, Tracey Nealley. http://www.aolnews.com/2010/04/07/damaging-jailhouse-letters-released-in-casey-anthony-case/
Irish Report Finds Abuse Persisting in Catholic Church
By DOUGLAS DALBY and RACHEL DONADIO July 13, 2011
DUBLIN — The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland was covering up the sexual abuse of children by priests as recently as 2009, long after it issued guidelines meant to protect children, and the Vatican tacitly encouraged the cover-up by ignoring the guidelines, according to a scathing report issued Wednesday by the Irish government….
In Germany on Wednesday, the country’s Roman Catholic bishops took new steps to bring previously unreported abuse to light. The German bishops said they would allow outside investigators to look for abuse cases in diocesan personnel records dating back at least 10 years, and in some cases all the way to 1945, though there were indications that some crucial records may have already been destroyed.
In both Germany and Ireland, the abuse scandal has touched the highest echelons of the church. The new developments showed the tensions between civil and ecclesiastical justice in a crisis that has shaken the church’s moral authority worldwide. The Irish report in particular revealed a complex tug of war between the Irish church and the Vatican over how to handle abuse, with a fine line between confusion and obstruction.
The Cloyne Report, as it is known, drafted by an independent investigative committee headed by Judge Yvonne Murphy, found that the clergy in the Diocese of Cloyne, a rural area of County Cork, did not act on complaints against 19 priests from 1996 to 2009. The report also found that two allegations against one priest were reported to the police, but that there was no evidence of any subsequent inquiry.
John Magee, the bishop of Cloyne since 1987, who had previously served as private secretary to three popes, resigned last year. In a statement on Wednesday, Bishop Magee offered a “sincere apology,” but he did not accept direct responsibility for covering up the abuse.
“While I was fully supportive of the procedures, I now realize that I should have taken a much firmer role in ensuring their implementation,” Bishop Magee said. “I accept in its entirety the commission’s view that the primary responsibility for the failure to fully implement the church procedures in the diocese lay with me.”
The Cloyne Report is the Irish government’s fourth in recent years on aspects of the scandal. It shows that abuses were still occurring and being covered up 13 years after the church in Ireland issued child protection guidelines in 1996, and that civil officials were failing to investigate allegations. The report warned that other dioceses might have similar failings….
Cardinal Brady issued an apology on Wednesday and called for more openness and cooperation with civil authorities. He has been fighting calls for his resignation since last year, when he acknowledged helping to conceal the crimes of one serial-rapist priest from Irish authorities in the mid-1970s….
After a 2009 report found that thousands of children were abused in state-run Catholic boarding schools from the 1930s to the 1990s, the Irish government paid hundreds of millions of euros in compensation to the victims.
One in Four, an organization of Irish abuse victims, said that the new report “documents a familiar saga of priests sexually abusing children with impunity, protected by senior churchmen conspiring to cover up the abuse with an astounding indifference to the safety of children.” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/14/world/europe/14church.html
The Cloyne Report
Published: July 13, 2011
Report by Commission of Investigation into the handling by Church and State authorities of allegations and suspicions of child sexual abuse against clerics of the Catholic Diocese of Cloyne. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/07/14/world/europe/14church-report.html
Commission of Investigation – Report into the Catholic Diocese of Cloyne
December 2010 http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/216118/cloyne-report.pdf
