Satanic ritual murderers jailed for 17 years, Stuart Hall denies sexual abuse of three girls, In Roman Catholic Child Molestation Files, Judge Weighs How Many Priest Names Can Be Blacked Out

Satanic ritual murderers jailed for 17 years
The mother of a teen girl killed during a so-called satanic ritual hugged and kissed the mother of her daughter’s killer at the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court yesterday.
29 March 2012 PULENG MASHABANE

JOHANNESBURG – The mother of a teen girl killed during a so-called satanic ritual hugged and kissed the mother of her daughter’s killer at the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court yesterday.

Kirsty Theologo’s mother Sylvia and Myrtle Moody comforted each other after Lester Moody  and co-accused Jeremy King pleaded guilty to murdering Kirsty, 18.

They were sentenced to 17 years  imprisonment, with five years suspended.

“I’m glad they showed remorse, admitted and spoke out about it. But no sentence will bring her back,” Sylvia Theologo said….

In statements read to the court by their lawyer, Rod Montano, King and Moody admitted to planning to “sacrifice” Theologo three weeks ahead of the incident.

Two evening meetings were held, one at Wagner’s apartment and another at the minor’s home, to discuss the “sacrifice” which Wagner said he had seen in his dream….

http://www.citizen.co.za/citizen/content/en/citizen/local-news?oid=268878&sn=Detail&pid=146826&Satanic-ritual-murderers-jailed-for-17-years

Stuart Hall denies sexual abuse of three girls
Former It’s a Knockout presenter, 83, pleads not guilty to three charges of indecent assault in the 1970s and 80s

Helen Pidd and Tamsin Rutter
guardian.co.uk, Monday 7 January 2013
The veteran BBC broadcaster Stuart Hall has appeared in court charged with indecently assaulting a nine-year-old girl 30 years ago.

Hall, 83, who is best known for presenting It’s a Knockout, is accused of touching the girl in Cheshire in 1983. He is also accused of indecent assault involving a 16- or 17-year-old girl in the autumn of 1974 in Blackpool and a 13-year-old girl in 1984.

Standing in the dock at Preston magistrates court wearing a dark suit and striped tie, he said he was not guilty of all charges. He also confirmed his Cheshire address and his full name, James Stuart Hall….

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/jan/07/stuart-hall-denies-sexual-abuse

In Roman Catholic Child Molestation Files, Judge Weighs How Many Priest Names Can Be Blacked Out
By GREG RISLING 01/07/13 LOS ANGELES — The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles must release the names of church leaders and pedophile priests identified in thousands of pages of internal documents recounting sexual abuse allegations dating back decades, a judge ruled Monday.

The decision by Superior Court Judge Emilie Elias overturned much of a 2011 order by another judge that would have allowed the archdiocese to black out the names of church higher-ups. Victims, as well as The Associated Press and Los Angeles Times, argued for the names to be public.

Elias said she weighed the privacy rights of priests and others – including those who are mentioned in the documents but were not accused of any wrongdoing – versus the public’s interest in learning details of the child abuse that prompted the archdiocese to agree to a record $660 million settlement with victims in 2007.

“Don’t they have the right to know what happened in their local church?” Elias said before ruling from the bench.

The documents include letters and memos between top church officials and their attorneys, medical and psychological records, complaints from parents and, in some cases, correspondence with the Vatican about abusive priests. There are approximately 30,000 pages and it wasn’t immediately clear how soon they would be released….

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/07/roman-catholic-child-molestation-files_n_2425444.html

Cardinal Timothy Dolan Allegedly Paid Suspected Pedophile Priests To Leave Ministry While Head Of Archdiocese Of Milwaukee

Cardinal Timothy Dolan Allegedly Paid Suspected Pedophile Priests To Leave Ministry While Head Of Archdiocese Of Milwaukee AP   05/31/2012

MILWAUKEE (AP) — The Archdiocese of Milwaukee confirmed Wednesday that it had a policy to pay suspected pedophile priests to leave the ministry.

The acknowledgement was prompted by a document made public by abuse victims’ advocates from the archdiocese’s bankruptcy that references a 2003 proposal to pay $20,000 to “unassignable priests” who accepted a return to the laity. The policy was crafted under then-Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who is now a cardinal and head of the archdiocese in New York.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/31/cardinal-timothy-dolan-archdiocese-milwaukee-payoff-abusive-priests_n_1559298.html

Suspected pedophile priests given ‘bonuses’ to leave church http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp=47635422&#47640029

Etan Patz Case – Pedro Hernandez Charged With Second Degree Murder, Philadelphia Priest Trial: Monsignor William Lynn Takes Stand In Own Defense

Pedro Hernandez Charged With Second Degree Murder In Etan Patz Case

By COLLEEN LONG and LARRY NEUMEISTER 05/25/12 AP

NEW YORK — Thirty-three years to the day after 6-year-old Etan Patz vanished without a trace while walking to catch a school bus, a man accused of strangling him and dumping his body with the trash was arraigned on a murder charge on Friday in a locked hospital ward where he was being held as a suicide risk.

A lawyer for Pedro Hernandez, who was a teenage convenience store stock clerk at the time of the boy’s disappearance, told the judge that his client is mentally ill and has a history of hallucinations….

Hernandez, a churchgoing father now living in Maple Shade, N.J., was arrested Thursday after making a surprise confession in a case that has bedeviled investigators and inspired dread in generations of New York City parents for three decades.

Etan disappeared on May 25, 1979, on his two-block walk to his bus stop in Manhattan. It was the first time his parents had let him walk the route by himself.

Next to the bus stop was a convenience store, where Hernandez, then 18, worked as a clerk. When police, acting on a tip, interviewed him this week, he said he lured Etan into the basement with a promise of a soda, choked him to death, then stuffed his body in a bag and left it with trash on the street a block away, police said….

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Hernandez gave a detailed confession that led police to believe they had the right man. He also said Hernandez told a relative and others as far back as 1981 that he had “done something bad” and killed a child in New York.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/25/pedro-hernandez-charged-etan-patz_n_1546858.html

Philadelphia Priest Trial: Monsignor William Lynn Takes Stand In Own Defense
By MARYCLAIRE DALE 05/24/12

PHILADELPHIA — A Roman Catholic church official testified Thursday that he typed a list of suspected pedophile priests on his computer, but couldn’t find it 10 years later to show a grand jury.

Monsignor William Lynn endured a second day of searing cross-examination as he fights charges he endangered children by protecting priests. He’s due back on the stand Tuesday.

Lynn denies locking the 1994 list in an archdiocese safe, where church employees say it was found in 2006 and then buried in a lawyer’s files until this year.

The list was turned over to city prosecutors in February, days after Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua died. They’ve made it something of a smoking gun since the trial started in March.

Prosecutors believe it shows the Philadelphia archdiocese knew it had diagnosed pedophiles and other predators on duty, but left them in jobs with access to children….

Lynn is charged with endangering two children by leaving the Rev. James Brennan, a co-defendant charged with attempted rape, and former priest Edward Avery, who pleaded guilty to sexual assault, in ministry despite earlier red flags….

On Bevilacqua’s orders, Molloy shredded Lynn’s list of predators in February 1994, an act witnessed by Cistone, according to the “shred memo,” which was shown in court….

the case of a priest accused of having sex with a 17-year-old girl in Venezuela years earlier. “The cardinal did not consider that pedophilia, because it was a different culture and a different atmosphere,” Lynn recalled. The priest remained in ministry until March, when he was removed from the South Philadelphia parish he led.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/24/philadelphia-priest-trial-parishioners-told-accused-priests-had-health-problems-monsignor-william-lynn-testifies_n_1542218.html

Church’s Legal Pressure on Abuse Victims’ Group, SNAP petition, Bradley Manning’s treatment was cruel and inhuman

articles
- Church Puts Legal Pressure on Abuse Victims’ Group
- Cardinal Dolan – “Stop the legal bullying!” – SNAP Petition
- Bradley Manning’s treatment was cruel and inhuman, UN torture chief rules

Church Puts Legal Pressure on Abuse Victims’ Group
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
March 12, 2012

Turning the tables on an advocacy group that has long supported victims of pedophile priests, lawyers for the Roman Catholic Church and priests accused of sexual abuse in two Missouri cases have gone to court to compel the group to disclose more than two decades of e-mails that could include correspondence with victims, lawyers, whistle-blowers, witnesses, the police, prosecutors and journalists.

The group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, is neither a plaintiff nor a defendant in the litigation. But the group has been subpoenaed five times in recent months in Kansas City and St. Louis, and its national director, David Clohessy, was questioned by a battery of lawyers for more than six hours this year. A judge in Kansas City ruled that the network must comply because it “almost certainly” had information relevant to the case.

The network and its allies say the legal action is part of a campaign by the church to cripple an organization that has been the most visible defender of victims, and a relentless adversary, for more than two decades. “If there is one group that the higher-ups, the bishops, would like to see silenced,” said Marci A. Hamilton, a law professor at Yeshiva University and an advocate for victims of clergy sex crimes, “it definitely would be SNAP. And that’s what they’re going after. They’re trying to find a way to silence SNAP.”

Lawyers for the church and priests say they cannot comment because of a judge’s order. But William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, a church advocacy group in New York, said targeting the network was justified because “SNAP is a menace to the Catholic Church.”

Mr. Donohue said leading bishops he knew had resolved to fight back more aggressively against the group: “The bishops have come together collectively. I can’t give you the names, but there’s a growing consensus on the part of the bishops that they had better toughen up and go out and buy some good lawyers to get tough. We don’t need altar boys.”

He said bishops were also rethinking their approach of paying large settlements to groups of victims. “The church has been too quick to write a check, and I think they’ve realized it would be a lot less expensive in the long run if we fought them one by one,” Mr. Donohue said.

However, a spokeswoman for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Sister Mary Ann Walsh, said Mr. Donohue was incorrect.

“There is no national strategy,” she said, and there was no meeting where legal counsel for the bishops decided to get more aggressive….

Mr. Clohessy was deposed in January by lawyers for five accused priests and the diocese. In the 215-page transcript, made public on March 2, most of the questions were not about the case but about the network — its budget, board of directors, staff members, donors and operating procedures.

Mr. Clohessy testified that he had never had contact with John Doe.

“It was not a fishing expedition,” Mr. Clohessy said. “It was a fishing, crabbing, shrimping, trash-collecting, draining the pond expedition. The real motive is to harass and discredit and bankrupt SNAP, while discouraging victims, witnesses, whistle-blowers, police, prosecutors and journalists from seeking our help.” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/13/us/catholic-church-pressures-victims-network-with-subpoenas.html

Cardinal Dolan – “Stop the legal bullying!”
As the head of America’ bishops, we urge you to publicly denounce, and stop, the bullying tactics used by bishops and church defense lawyers against those seeking help from the support group SNAP, including victims of abuse by clerics, witnesses, whistleblowers, police, prosecutors and journalists. http://www.snapnetwork.org/snap_petition

Bradley Manning’s treatment was cruel and inhuman, UN torture chief rules

UN special rapporteur on torture’s findings likely to reignite criticism of US government’s treatment of WikiLeaks suspect

Ed Pilkington in New York
guardian.co.uk, Monday 12 March 2012 09.41 EDT

The UN special rapporteur on torture has formally accused the US government of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment towards Bradley Manning, the US soldier who was held in solitary confinement for almost a year on suspicion of being the WikiLeaks source.

Juan Mendez has completed a 14-month investigation into the treatment of Manning since the soldier’s arrest at a US military base in May 2010. He concludes that the US military was at least culpable of cruel and inhumane treatment in keeping Manning locked up alone for 23 hours a day over an 11-month period in conditions that he also found might have constituted torture.

“The special rapporteur concludes that imposing seriously punitive conditions of detention on someone who has not been found guilty of any crime is a violation of his right to physical and psychological integrity as well as of his presumption of innocence,” Mendez writes.

The findings of cruel and inhuman treatment are published as an addendum to the special rapporteur’s report to the UN general assembly on the promotion and protection of human rights. They are likely to reignite criticism of the US government’s harsh treatment of Manning ahead of his court martial later this year…..

The Pentagon has refused to allow Mendez to see Manning in private, insisting that all conversations must be monitored. “You should have no expectation of privacy in your communications with Private Manning,” the Pentagon wrote.

The lack of privacy is a violation of human rights procedures, the UN says, and considered unacceptable by the UN special rapporteur. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/12/bradley-manning-cruel-inhuman-treatment-un

Pope German Visit: Religious Leader Talks With Sex Abuse Victims

Pope German Visit: Religious Leader Talks With Sex Abuse Victims

ERFURT, Germany — Pope Benedict XVI met with German victims of sexual abuse by priests and expressed “deep compassion and regret” at the suffering of those abused by members of the clergy, the Vatican said Friday….

Germany’s Catholic church has seen the numbers of faithful leaving the congregation jump, after hundreds of people came forward last year with stories of having been physically or sexually abused by members of the clergy. Church leaders had expressed hope that Benedict’s visit could help heal wounds left by the scandal.

Benedict has been accused by victims groups and their lawyers of being part of systematic practice of cover-up by church hierarchy for pedophile priests, in his earlier roles as an archbishop in Germany and later at the helm of the Vatican morals office….

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/23/pope-german-visit-sex-abuse_n_978265.html

Priest Sex-Abuse Case Hits Church of Pope’s Adviser

Priest Sex-Abuse Case Hits Church of Pope’s Adviser
By Alessandra Pieracci and Giacomo Galeazzi / La Stampa / Worldcrunch Thursday, May 19, 2011 (GENOA)

The latest sex-abuse case to rock the Catholic Church is unfolding in the archdiocese of an influential Italian Cardinal who has been working with Pope Benedict XVI on reforms to respond to prior scandals of pedophile priests.
Father Riccardo Seppia, a 51-year-old parish priest in the village of Sastri Ponente, near Genoa, was arrested last Friday, May 13, on pedophilia and drug charges.

Investigators say that in tapped mobile-phone conversations, Seppia asked a Moroccan drug dealer to arrange sexual encounters with young and vulnerable boys. “I do not want 16-year-old boys but younger. Fourteen-year-olds are O.K. Look for needy boys who have family issues,” he allegedly said. Genoa Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco, who is the head of the Italian Bishops Conference, had been working with Benedict to establish a tough new worldwide policy, released this week, on how bishops should handle accusations of priestly sex abuse….

According to investigators, Seppia told a friend — a former seminarian and barman who is currently under investigation — that the town’s malls were the best places to entice minors. In tapped phone conversations the two cursed and swore against God. The priest is charged with having attempted to kiss and touch an underage altar boy and of having exchanged cocaine for sexual intercourse with boys over 18.

Seppia’s defense lawyers are expected to argue that those conversations — monitored since Oct. 20, 2010 — were just words, sex games that were played by adults. It was just a game even when he claimed to have “kissed on the mouth” a 15-year-old altar boy, according to the defense.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2072613,00.html

Archdiocese removes Monsignor Lynn

Archdiocese removes Monsignor Lynn By JULIE SHAW Philadelphia Daily News Feb. 20. 2011

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced today that Monsignor William Lynn – who was recently charged with child-endangerment offenses on allegations he covered up sexual abuse by other priests – was placed on administrative leave effective Friday.

Temporarily taking his place at St. Joseph Parish in Downingtown, Chester County, will be Monsignor Joseph McLoone, the pastor of St. Katharine Drexel Parish in Chester, Delaware County….

The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office on Feb. 10 released a scathing grand-jury report accusing Lynn of endangering children by shielding pedophile priests from detection and shuffling them into unsuspecting parishes. Prosecutors charged Lynn, 60, with two counts of child endangerment.

The grand jury, in its blistering report, also accused two priests, one former priest and a lay teacher of rape and related charges in connection with sexual offenses on two boys between 1996 and 2000. Charles Engelhardt, 64, and Edward Avery, 68, both priests; former priest James Brennan, 47; teacher Bernard Shero, 48; and Lynn were arrested the day the grand-jury report was released.

The arrests are believed to be the first time nationally that a high-ranking church official – Lynn – has been charged on allegations that he concealed priest sex-abuse.
The five accused men, who have posted bail, are scheduled for a preliminary hearing March 3 in Family Court. http://www.philly.com/philly/news/116568633.html

Vatican warned Irish bishops not to report abuse

Vatican warned Irish bishops not to report abuse
(AP) 1/18/11 A 1997 letter from the Vatican warned Ireland’s Catholic bishops not to report all suspected child-abuse cases to police — a disclosure that victims’ groups described as “the smoking gun” needed to show that the church enforced a worldwide culture of covering up crimes by pedophile priests.

The newly revealed letter, obtained by Irish broadcasters RTE and provided to The Associated Press, documents the Vatican’s rejection of a 1996 Irish church initiative to begin helping police identify pedophile priests following Ireland’s first wave of publicly disclosed lawsuits.

The letter undermines persistent Vatican claims, particularly when seeking to defend itself in U.S. lawsuits, that Rome never instructed local bishops to withhold evidence or suspicion of crimes from police. It instead emphasizes the church’s right to handle all child-abuse allegations and determine punishments in house rather than give that power to civil authorities.

Signed by the late Archbishop Luciano Storero, Pope John Paul II’s diplomat to Ireland, the letter instructs Irish bishops that their new policy of making the reporting of suspected crimes mandatory “gives rise to serious reservations of both a moral and canonical nature.”

Storero wrote that canon law, which required abuse allegations and punishments to be handled within the church, “must be meticulously followed.” Any bishops who tried to impose punishments outside the confines of canon law would face the “highly embarrassing” position of having their actions overturned on appeal in Rome, he wrote….

To this day, the Vatican has not endorsed any of the Irish church’s three major policy documents since 1996 on safeguarding children from clerical abuse. Irish taxpayers, rather than the church, have paid most of the euro1.5 billion ($2 billion) to more than 14,000 abuse claimants dating back to the 1940s….

Storero warned that bishops who followed the Irish child-protection policy and reported a priest’s suspected crimes to police risked having their in-house punishments of the priest overturned by the Congregation for the Clergy.
The 2009 Dublin Archdiocese report found that this actually happened in the case of Tony Walsh, one of Dublin’s most notorious pedophiles, who used his role as an Elvis impersonator in a popular “All Priests Show” to get closer to kids.

Walsh was kicked out of the priesthood by a secret Dublin church court in 1993 but successfully appealed the punishment to a Vatican court, which reinstated him to the priesthood in 1994. He raped a boy in a pub restroom at his grandfather’s wake that year. Walsh since has received a series of prison sentences, most recently a 12-year term imposed last month. Investigators estimate he raped or molested more than 100 children. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iQmg5wDhFHeRAzpFnG-UvSvb-oZA?docId=b6d56708925949a8a674a8a69d1e30a9

Vatican Warned Bishops Not to Report Child Abuse
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN January 18, 2011 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/19/world/europe/19vatican.htm