31/03 Vietnam Persecutes Christian Minority, Report Says

Vietnam Persecutes Christian Minority, Report Says

By SETH MYDANS

Published: March 31, 2011

BANGKOK — Vietnam has increased repression of indigenous minority Christians in the country’s Central Highlands, closing small informal churches, compelling public renunciations of faith and arresting worshipers, Human Rights Watch said in a report on Thursday.

The hill tribe minorities, known as Montagnards, are traditionally animist but have been converted to Christianity in large numbers over the past half-century. Culturally and ethnically distinct from the majority lowland Vietnamese, the believers worship clandestinely in informal settings known as house churches, which are illegal under Vietnamese law.

16/03 OP-ED COLUMNIST; Avenging Altar Boy

March 16, 2011
By MAUREEN DOWD
PHILADELPHIA

The district attorney is burning a eucalyptus-spearmint candle on his desk.

''I think the press looks down upon the D.A. drinking Jack Daniels during the day,'' R. Seth Williams says with a broad smile, ''so I light my little stress-relief candle.''

It's understandable if the former altar boy at St. Carthage in West Philly needs to light a votive. The 44-year-old Catholic, who still attends Mass with his family at the same church, now called St. Cyprian, is the first U.S. prosecutor to charge a church official for a sickeningly commonplace sin: Endangering children whom the Roman Catholic Church was supposed to protect by shuffling pedophile priests to different parishes where they could find fresh prey.

Williams, the first African-American elected district attorney in Pennsylvania, was an orphan given up by his unwed mother. He was put into two foster homes before he was adopted at 20 months old by a Catholic family.

''I grew up treating the hierarchy of the church kind of like rock stars,'' he said in his 18th floor aerie, where he keeps a small iron crucifix and a cross fashioned from Palm Sunday fronds. ''If you're going to meet the cardinal, you're supposed to kiss the guy's ring, all this stuff. But it is what it is. I wish I knew the Latin translation for that.

''There's no get-out-of-jail-free card for raping, sodomizing, groping, doing anything wrong to kids.''

Msgr. William J. Lynn, who served from 1992 to 2004 as the secretary of clergy reviewing sexual abuse cases for then-Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, appeared in court Monday. He is charged with felonies for allegedly helping the cardinal cover up molesters and transferring them to other parishes.

''It was a conspiracy of silence to ensure the church's reputation and to avoid scandal,'' said Assistant District Attorney Evangelia Manos.

Monsignor Lynn, a round, ruddy man in black priest's garb, sat silently in court behind his two lawyers -- paid by the archdiocese -- as a cheering squad of priests and parishioners watched.

Lynn's co-defendants sat beside him: a rabbity-looking Rev. James Brennan, 47, charged with raping a 14-year-old boy named Mark in 1996 in his apartment; and the unholy alliance of a priest, the sepulchral Charles Engelhardt, 64, a defrocked priest, Edward Avery, 68, and a former Catholic schoolteacher, Bernard Shero, 48 -- all charged with raping or sodomizing the same 10-year-old altar boy 12 years ago.

Lynn's lawyer, Thomas Bergstrom, told reporters that the charges against his client were ''a stretch'' and that he was pleading not guilty.

And Richard DeSipio, one of Brennan's lawyers, went on the attack against his client's accuser, now 29. ''Their witness is in prison in Bucks County for stealing his sister's credit card and using it,'' DeSipio told Mensah Dean of The Philadelphia Daily News. ''He's a convicted liar.''

On a local radio show on Tuesday, Brennan -- a priest suspended by the church in 2006 -- said he was uninterested in a plea deal, and his lawyer continued to paint the accuser as troubled.

Even with a global scandal that never seems to stop disgorging disgusting stories, the Philadelphia grand jury report is especially sordid.

It tells the story of a fifth-grade altar boy at St. Jerome School given the pseudonym Billy. Father Engelhardt plied him with sacramental wine and pulled pornographic magazines out of a bag in the sacristy and told the child it was time ''to become a man,'' the report says.

A week later, after Billy served an early Mass, the report states that Engelhardt instructed him to take off his clothes and perform oral sex on him. Then the priest told the boy he was ''dismissed.''

''After that, Billy was in effect passed around to Engelhardt's colleagues,'' the report says. ''Father Edward Avery undressed with the boy, told him that God loved him,'' and then had him perform sex. ''Next was the turn of Bernard Shero, a teacher in the school. Shero offered Billy a ride home but instead stopped at a park, told Billy they were 'going to have some fun,' took off the boy's clothes, orally and anally raped him and then made him walk the rest of the way home.''

Billy fell apart and turned to heroin.

The report says Brennan knew Mark from the time he was 9. When he was 14, the priest arranged with Mark's mother for a sleepover. ''Brennan showed him pornographic pictures on his computer, bragged about his penis size and insisted that Mark sleep together with him in his bed.'' Then the priest raped him as he cried, according to the report.

Mark also fell apart and attempted suicide.

Out of the church's many unpleasant confrontations with modernity, this is the starkest. It's tragically past time to send the message that priests can't do anything they want and hide their sins behind special privilege.

In Seth Williams's city, the law sees no collars, except the ones put on criminals.

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04/03 In Philadelphia, New Cases Loom in Priest Scandal

March 4, 2011

Jessica Kourkounis for The New York Times
Gina Maisto Smith, an ex-prosecutor, has been hired by the archdiocese to examine procedures.

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

PHILADELPHIA — Three weeks after a scathing grand jury report said the Archdiocese of Philadelphia had provided safe haven to as many as 37 priests who were credibly accused of sexual abuse or inappropriate behavior toward minors, most of those priests remain active in the ministry.

The possibility that even one predatory priest, not to mention three dozen, might still be serving in parishes — “on duty in the archdiocese today, with open access to new young prey,” as the grand jury put it — has unnerved many Roman Catholics here and sent the church reeling in the latest and one of the most damning episodes in the American church since it became engulfed in the sexual abuse scandal nearly a decade ago.

The situation in Philadelphia is “Boston reborn,” said David J. O’Brien, who teaches Catholic history at the University of Dayton. The Boston Archdiocese was engulfed in a scandal starting in 2002 involving widespread sexual abuse by priests and an extensive cover-up that reached as high as the cardinal.

Some parishioners say they feel discouraged and are caught in a wave of anxiety, even as they continue to attend Mass.

“It’s a tough day to be a faith-filled Catholic,” Maria Shultz, 43, a secretary at Immaculata University, said after Mass last weekend at St. Joseph’s Church in suburban Downingtown.

But Mrs. Shultz, who has four daughters, expressed no doubt about how the church should deal with the 37 priests. “They should be removed immediately,” she said.

The church has not explained directly why these priests, most of whom were not publicly identified, are still active, though it is under intense pressure to do so. Cardinal Justin Rigali initially said there were no active priests with substantiated allegations against them, but six days later, he placed three of the priests, whose activities had been described in detail by the grand jury, on administrative leave.

He also hired an outside lawyer, Gina Maisto Smith, a former assistant district attorney who prosecuted child sexual assault cases for 15 years, to re-examine all cases involving priests in active ministry and review the procedures employed by the archdiocese.

“There is a tremendous sense of urgency here,” Mrs. Smith said in an interview this week at the archdiocese, where she said she and a team had been working around the clock, without interference from the church hierarchy. “They’ve given me the freedom and the independence to conduct a thorough review,” she said, with “unfettered access to files.”

She added that announcements about her initial review would be coming “sooner rather than later.”

“The urgency is to respond to that concern over the 37, what that means, how that number was derived and what to do in response to it,” she said.

Philadelphia is unusual in that the archdiocese has been the subject of not one but two grand jury reports. The first, in 2005, found credible accusations of abuse by 63 priests, whose activities had been covered up by the church. But there were no indictments, mainly because the statute of limitations had expired.

This time, the climate is different.

When the grand jury issued its report on Feb. 10, the district attorney immediately indicted two priests, Charles Engelhardt and James Brennan; a parochial school teacher, Bernard Shero; and a man who had left the priesthood, Edward Avery, on charges of rape or assault. All four are due in court on March 14. He also indicted Msgr. William Lynn on charges of endangering the welfare of children — the first time a senior church official has been charged with covering up abuse in the sex scandal in the United States.

When the archdiocese learns of reports of sexual abuse, it is now supposed to report them to the district attorney, which is what led to the most recent grand jury investigation. Extensions on the statute of limitations also made prosecutions possible this time.

But even with these changes, some were surprised to see the grand jury paint a picture of a church where serious problems still festered.

“The thing that is significant about Philadelphia is the assumption that the authorities had made changes and the system had been fixed,” said Terence McKiernan, the president of BishopAccountability.org, which archives documents from the abuse scandal in dioceses across the country. “But the headline is that in Philadelphia, the system is still broke.”

The grand jury said 20 of the active priests were accused of sexual abuse and 17 others were accused of “inappropriate behavior with minors.”

In response, Cardinal Rigali issued a statement the day of the report, saying, “I assure all the faithful that there are no archdiocesan priests in ministry today who have an admitted or established allegation of sexual abuse of a minor against them.”

The phrasing spoke directly to the church’s policy of “zero tolerance” of priests who sexually abuse minors. If any active priests have such allegations against them, the policy calls for their suspension until the charges are resolved.

Still, six days later, he placed three priests on administrative leave — a tacit acknowledgment that perhaps there were priests facing such accusations.

The uncertain fate of the 37 active priests, whose names the archdiocese turned over to the district attorney, all but guarantees a continuing spectacle here. So do the indictments, a flurry of civil suits against church officials, victims who continue to step forward and the potential for courtroom drama.

Three weeks into the scandal, the archdiocese said it was not clear how much the revelations had hurt attendance at Mass and donations. Daniel E. Thomas, an auxiliary bishop of Philadelphia, said he had heard both sides: some parishioners were attending church more to pray for the victims and “the good priests, the faithful priests,” and some have told him, “We’re angry, we’re confused and we’re distressed.”

He also said that some priests had told him that donations were not down but that he was aware of “at least a few people who have said, ‘I’m not going to be giving to the church’ ” and that some were not fulfilling their pledges to give to the church’s capital campaign. He said money for the capital campaign goes specifically to help the church fulfill its charitable mission; it cannot go toward the defense of priests or legal fees, he said, and so only the poor, the sick and the needy would suffer if those donations dried up.

Jon Hurdle contributed reporting.



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28/02 Acts of Contrition

February 28, 2011

One can scarcely imagine the pain borne into St. Mary’s Pro-Cathedral in Dublin last month at a prayer service — “A Liturgy of Lament and Repentance” — offered for the victims of sexually abusive priests.

It was a reminder that the scandal, a global catastrophe for the Roman Catholic Church and a national tragedy in Ireland, is also a universe of individual tragedies. But there was also hope that some church leaders, at least, are facing up to that pain and that catastrophe. The archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, and Cardinal Séan O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston, presided over the prayer service, which went to unusual lengths to involve victims and to gaze unflinchingly at their suffering.

With 400 people in attendance, lectors read long passages from official reports on decades of abuse in Irish parishes and schools — horrific reading for a sacred space. A few victims interrupted the proceedings with their own stories of shame and terror.

Just as unusual, even startling, was the way the archbishop and cardinal made personal the church’s act of contrition. They lay prostrate in silence before a bare altar. They washed and dried the feet of eight abuse victims — just as the Catholic clergy do at Mass on Holy Thursday to recall how Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, a gesture of humility and service.

Archbishop Martin offered what may be the most specific apology yet, showing an understanding — rare among his peers — of the difference between lip service and true repentance. “When I say ‘sorry,’ ” the archbishop said, “I am in charge. When I ask forgiveness, however, I am no longer in charge. I am in the hands of the others. Only you can forgive me; only God can forgive me.”

Not all survivors of abuse will likely accept the apology. They are right that the church has a long way to go to cleaning house and repairing trust with its flock. Reforms are lagging, many victims are still waiting for compensation and a full accounting of crimes. Some predator priests are still in ministry. Bishops have largely avoided punishment or credible repentance.

Still, gestures and ritual can be meaningful, and forgiveness has to begin somewhere, which is why the Dublin prayer service seemed to be a true step forward. “We want to be part of a church that puts survivors, the victims of abuse, first,” Cardinal O’Malley said, getting it right.

And for that Sunday, anyway, the victims took precedence. “What the hell did I do wrong as a child?” asked a man, Robert Dempsey, who told of being abused in a mental institution. “What the hell did any of us do?”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: March 3, 2011


An editorial on Tuesday about a service in Ireland for victims of sexually abusive priests described the rite incorrectly. It was a prayer service, not a Mass.

18/02 Chilean Priest Found Guilty of Abusing Minors

February 18, 2011

The Rev. Fernando Karadima shown celebrating Mass in 2006.

By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO and PASCALE BONNEFOY

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — After an internal investigation, the Vatican found the Rev. Fernando Karadima guilty of sexually abusing minors in Chile and ordered him to retire to a “life of prayer and penitence,” the archbishop of Santiago said Friday.

The ruling, announced by the archbishop, Ricardo Ezzati, said that Father Karadima, 80, would be relocated to a place where he would have no contact with his former parishioners or “persons that have been spiritually guided by him.”

The accusations by former parishioners against Father Karadima last year stunned Chile, a conservative and predominantly Roman Catholic nation unaccustomed to questioning its priests, especially one as revered as Father Karadima. He had trained five bishops and dozens of priests, acting as a spiritual leader and father figure for young men who later accused him of molesting them.

The decision is a rare case of a powerful church figure being called to account for the charges of sexual abuse that have swept the Catholic world the past few years.

The Vatican decision “is going to mark a before and after in the way the Chilean Catholic Church proceeds in cases like these, or at least it should,” said Antonio Delfau, a Jesuit priest in Santiago, the capital. “From now on, every case of sexual abuse must be treated with meticulous care and not be based on the gut feeling of a given church official.”

For the accusers, including at least four men who said Father Karadima abused them when they were young parishioners, the decision was a long-awaited vindication. One original accuser said the abuse began when he was 14.

“At last the truth was revealed and acknowledged,” said an emotional Juan Carlos Cruz, 47. “This was like having a father who abused you and a mother who slapped you in the face,” he said of the Catholic Church. “Now I feel like this mother has taken me in.”

President Sebastián Piñera reacted to the decision by vowing that his government would “defend children and minors from sexual abuse with all the strength in the world and force of the law.”

Father Karadima has not been prosecuted criminally. A judge investigating the accusations against him closed the case late last year, ruling that there was not enough evidence to charge him.

An appeals court in Santiago is still deciding whether to reopen the criminal investigation. It remains unclear whether the Vatican’s decision will prod the Chilean authorities to do so.

The Vatican ruling announced Friday said that Father Karadima was subject to “lifelong prohibition from the public exercise of any ministerial act, particularly confession and the spiritual guidance of any category of persons.”

In consideration of his age, the Vatican deemed it appropriate “to impose on the accused his retirement to a life of prayer and penitence, also in reparation to the victims of his abuses,” said the ruling, read by Archbishop Ezzati.

If he violates the conditions of the ruling, Father Karadima could face stricter sanctions, including removal from the priesthood, the archbishop said.

Juan Pablo Bulnes, Father Karadima’s lawyer, said the priest maintained his innocence and would appeal the Vatican’s decision. He said the priest, respecting the ruling, had already retired to a religious convent in Santiago, away from anyone in his El Bosque parish.

The Chilean Catholic Church referred the case to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith last June, sending a 700-page investigative report to the Vatican.

Last month, the Vatican quietly issued its ruling and informed the Chilean church on Jan. 16. Archbishop Ezzati said he notified Father Karadima the next day and immediately identified a new residence for him.

Alexei Barrionuevo reported from São Paulo, and Pascale Bonnefoy from Santiago, Chile.

16/02 Pennsylvania: Priests Suspended on Abuse Allegations

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: February 16, 2011

The Philadelphia archdiocese has suspended three priests accused in a grand jury report of molesting children and has pledged to reopen complaints against 34 others. Fathers Joseph Gallagher, Stephen Perzan and Joseph DiGregorio were removed from ministry while their cases were reviewed. Cardinal Justin Rigali said a former child abuse prosecutor would examine complaints made against the others.

14/02 More Shame

February 14, 2011

The Roman Catholic hierarchy in this country has promised accountability and justice for children sexually abused by priests. We fear it has a long way to go. A new inquiry has found that nearly a decade after the scandal engulfed the American church, children are still in peril and some leaders are still stonewalling investigations.

A grand-jury report released Feb. 10 accused three priests and a teacher in the Philadelphia Archdiocese of raping two young boys in the 1990s. It also accused a senior church official of knowingly endangering thousands of children by shielding accused priests for years.

The Philadelphia district attorney brought sexual-assault charges against the priests and teacher, and charged Msgr. William Lynn, with two counts of child endangerment, apparently the first time a church leader has been criminally charged with covering up abuse.

Monsignor Lynn was secretary of the clergy under retired Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, responsible for investigating abuse allegations from 1992 to 2004. Instead, according to the grand jury, he shuffled credibly accused priests among unsuspecting parishes, putting “literally thousands of children at risk of sexual abuse.”

The report said at least three dozen accused priests remain in active ministry in the archdiocese, nearly all unidentified. The grand jury asked the archdiocese for its records on the accusations against those priests; months later, the archdiocese has not fully complied.

These are not the first accusations against the Philadelphia Archdiocese. A blistering grand-jury report in 2005 exposed the abuse of hundreds of children by more than 60 archdiocesan priests, lamenting that the church’s cover-up had succeeded since the statute of limitations made it impossible to prosecute the predators.

The recent grand jury said it had no doubt that the scale of the crimes and the extent of the official cover-up went far beyond the cases of sodomy and rape it documented in horrifying detail. It cited continued institutional weaknesses that allowed such crimes to go undetected or unpunished — an obsession with secrecy, a concern for abusers over victims, the inherent conflict in having “victim assistance coordinators” who are supposed to help stricken families but who are church employees with divided loyalties.

The grand jury has implored the current leader of the archdiocese, Cardinal Justin Rigali, to fully cooperate with its investigation and institute reforms, beginning with opening its files on abuse accusations, swiftly removing credibly accused priests from ministry and financing truly independent investigations.

It also urged Pennsylvania to suspend for two years the civil statute of limitations on sexual abuse claims.

States across the country should do the same. There will be no justice or healing until all victims’ voices are heard and the church finally shows true accountability.



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11/02 A Priest, His Victim and the Los Angeles Archdiocese

Published: February 11, 2011

A Priest, His Victim and the Los Angeles Archdiocese
The Rev. Martin P. O’Loghlen was once a leader in his religious order and was also appointed to the Archdiocesan Sexual Abuse Advisory Board, although officials knew at the time about his admission of sexual abuse and addiction.

12/02 Los Angeles Archdiocese to Dismiss Priest Over Admission of Molesting Girl

February 12, 2011

Fr. Martin O'Loughlin
Rev. Martin P. O’Loghlen

By JENNIFER MEDINA

LOS ANGELES — A priest accused of having a long-term sexual relationship with a teenage girl, writing her decades later to ask for forgiveness and declare that he was a sex addict, is being removed from ministry in a parish, and the diocese’s vicar of clergy has also resigned, officials of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles said Friday.

The priest, the Rev. Martin P. O’Loghlen, was once a leader in his religious order and was appointed to an archdiocesan sexual abuse advisory board, although officials at both the order and the archdiocese knew at the time about his admission of sexual abuse and addiction. He served on the board, which was meant to review accusations of abuse by priests, for at least two years in the late 1990s, according to church and legal documents.

Tod Tamberg, a spokesman for the archdiocese, said church officials planned to announce the removal of Father O’Loghlen from his current parish in San Dimas on Sunday. Church officials decided to act after being contacted by a reporter about the priest’s history of sexual abuse.

Mr. Tamberg said in a statement that officials of the priest’s religious order assured the archdiocese in 2009 that Father O’Loghlen was fit for the ministry. He said that the archdiocese’s vicar for clergy, Msgr. Michael Meyers, resigned on Friday. Monsignor Meyers had been in the position since July 2009 and it was his job to grant clergymen what are known as faculties to serve as priests.

The Los Angeles Archdiocese, led by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, has been rocked by sexual abuse accusations for years. In 2007, it agreed to a $660 million settlement with 508 people who said that priests had sexually abused them as children.

“The failure to fully check records before granting priestly faculties is a violation of archdiocesan policy,” Cardinal Mahony said in a statement. “We owe it to victims and to all our faithful to make absolutely certain that all of our child protection policies and procedures are scrupulously followed.”

Father O’Loghlen had sex on several occasions with Julie Malcolm in the 1960s while she was a student at Bishop Amat High School in nearby La Puente, Ms. Malcolm said. Nearly three decades after the abuse ended, Father O’Loghlen tried to reach Ms. Malcolm, who was then living in Phoenix.

After receiving several phone messages from Father O’Loghlen, Ms. Malcolm filed a complaint with the Diocese of Phoenix and later filed a lawsuit against the priest and his religious order, the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. In 1999, she settled the lawsuit for $100,000, Ms. Malcolm said.

“I am deeply sorry for our becoming involved and readily accept the fact that I was the responsible one in our relationship,” Father O’Loghlen said in a five-page handwritten letter dated June 23, 1996. “Clearly, I was the one in power position. If I had not made a move nothing would have happened between us. I sincerely hope that there were some moments of joy for you in our relationship, but ultimately it caused you much significant pain.”

Father O’Loghlen goes on to say that since Ms. Malcolm filed her complaint, he has undergone psychological evaluations, which determined that he is “not a pedophile” or a “sexual predator.” But, he adds, “I do have a sexual addiction.”

Copies of the letter and other documents were provided to The New York Times by Joelle Casteix, the southwest director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, who had received them from Ms. Malcolm.

Father O’Loghlen, 74, was ordained in Ireland in 1961. He began teaching at Bishop Amat later that year and remained there for six years. In 1967, around the same time of his involvement with Ms. Malcolm, he moved to Damien High School, a boys’ school nearby, where he was vice principal and principal for more than 10 years.

In 1995, Father O’Loghlen became the provincial leader in the western region for the religious order of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. After he contacted Ms. Malcolm in 1996, leaders in the Los Angeles Archdiocese and officials with the religious order based in Rome exchanged several letters.

According to copies of those letters, Father O’Loghlen admitted to molesting Ms. Malcolm and told his superiors that he was undergoing counseling. Msgr. Richard Loomis, then the vicar for clergy in Los Angeles, told officials in Rome that he would not remove Father O’Loghlen from the archdiocese but that his service should be limited.

Several months later, Monsignor Loomis removed all restrictions on Father O’Loghlen and, in a letter, thanked him for agreeing to serve on the sexual abuse advisory board. He writes that both he and Cardinal Mahony “feel that you will bring valuable insights to the work of the board.”

In a deposition in 1999, Father O’Loghlen said he had attended some of the review board’s meetings. Mr. Tamberg said it was not clear why Father O’Loghlen was appointed to the board. Father O’Loghlen remained the provincial for the religious order until 2001, according to the church records. Then, for five years beginning in 2003, he was a pastor in the Philippines.

Mr. Tamberg said the provincial, the Rev. Donal McCarthy, who now oversees the religious order in California, wrote to the archdiocese in March 2009, asking that Father O’Loghlen serve as a priest in Los Angeles. The letter included assurances that Father O’Loghlen “manifested no behavioral problems in the past that would indicate that he might deal with minors in an inappropriate manner” and had “never been involved in an incident or exhibited behavior which called into question his fitness or suitability for priestly ministry due to alcohol, substance abuse, sexual misconduct, financial irregularities, or other causes.”

He was appointed as an associate pastor in the San Dimas church four months later. Father O’Loghlen also worked at the parish’s elementary school.

The archdiocese’s Vicar for Clergy’s Office “did not fully consult” other records of the priest’s “previous assignments in the archdiocese, which would have indicated that he admitted to having had a sexual relationship with a female minor,” Mr. Tamberg said.

American bishops adopted a “zero tolerance” policy in 2002 that bars from the ministry any priest who has abused minors. Mr. Tamberg said that the archdiocese had not received any complaints about Father O’Loghlen in his time at the San Dimas church. He said officials would review records to verify that there had been no other errors.

Father McCarthy said he could not comment. “I can’t say anything about the placement of a priest, that’s our policy,” he said.

John C. Manly, a lawyer for victims in dozens of sexual abuse cases, said Father O’Loghlen’s case was egregious because of his time on the sexual review board. “He was personally selected for a board that is meant to protect people from priests like him,” Mr. Manly said.

Ms. Malcolm, now 61, said in an interview that Father O’Loghlen had been her debate coach at Bishop Amat High School and that he was particularly encouraging. Sometime around the time she was 16 years old, she said, Father O’Loghlen, who was around 29 at the time, met her at a home where she was baby-sitting. After a few minutes of sitting on the couch talking, Ms. Malcolm said, Father O’Loghlen kissed her. They began having sex more than a year later, Ms. Malcolm said.

“I was so naïve, I thought this was some kind of special treatment,” Ms. Malcolm said. “We would meet somewhere like it was this clandestine romance. We would periodically break up, but he would call and apologize and ask to see me again and I always agreed.”

She said she never considered filing a complaint until Father O’Loghlen tried to contact her.



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10/02 Kardinaal Simonis gaf pedopriester bescherming

Kardinaal Ad Simonis vorig jaar in Lisse, waar hij opgroeide, bij de opening van een expositie over hem. Foto NRC Handelsblad / Rien Zilvold

door Joep DohmenBINNENLAND

Kardinaal Simonis heeft in de periode dat hij aartsbisschop van Utrecht was een veroordeelde pedofiele priester beschermd. Hij hielp hem in 1991 aan een nieuwe baan als pastoor in Amersfoort. Daar misbruikte de priester opnieuw kinderen. Dat blijkt uit onderzoek van NRC Handelsblad, de Wereldomroep en het tv-programma Nieuwsuur.
Aartsbisschop Wim Eijk, de opvolger van Simonis, heeft de priester vorig jaar alsnog disciplinair gestraft voor het seksueel misbruik. Hij mag geen pastorale taken meer uitoefenen. Simonis, van 1983 tot 2007 aartsbisschop, had deze sanctie eerder geweigerd.

Het Openbaar Ministerie meldt dat tussen 1987 en 2008 zes slachtoffers van de priester aangifte hebben gedaan. In totaal zouden tientallen kinderen misbruikt zijn.
Simonis was door toenmalig bisschop Philippe Bär van Rotterdam geïnformeerd dat de priester in zijn oude standplaats Zoetermeer minderjarige jongens misbruikt had. Volgens het aartsbisdom wilde Bär van de priester af.

Het verleden van de pastoor werd door Simonis verzwegen voor de parochianen in Amersfoort. Simonis voorkwam ook niet dat de man in 2005 pastor werd in Eindhoven, in het bisdom Den Bosch.

Ouders die bij Simonis klaagden over de priester vonden geen gehoor. Hanneke Brunt, moeder van een misbruikte misdienaar van twaalf jaar: „Simonis zei tegen mij: ‘Dit bestaat niet in de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk. Daar doen wij niet aan’.”

Volgens slachtoffer Erwin Meester heeft Simonis „willens en wetens een pedoseksuele priester in bescherming genomen, terwijl hij eigenlijk zijn gelovige gemeenschap had moeten beschermen.”

Het beschermen van pedofiele priesters door bisschoppen wordt sinds 2009 door het Vaticaan gezien als een ernstig vergrijp. Het leidde onder meer tot ontslag en berisping van Ierse bisschoppen.

Simonis, inmiddels met pensioen, verklaarde vorig jaar in het tv-programma Pauw & Witteman misbruikzaken altijd „zeer zorgvuldig” te hebben afgehandeld. Nu weerspreekt Simonis in een reactie dat hij de veroordeelde priester heeft beschermd. Wel zegt hij de gang van zaken te betreuren.

Opvolger Eijk wil, naar aanleiding van deze kwestie, nieuwe priesters voortaan beter screenen.

Lees vanmiddag in NRC Handelsblad het achtergrondverhaal ‘Jongens misbruikt? Onmogelijk zei de kardinaal’. Of lees het artikel via het webabonnement in de digitale editie.

LEES MEER OVER: KARDINAAL SIMONISPEDOFILIESEKSUEEL MISBRUIK

10/02 News Reports Say Cardinal Protected an Abuser

February 10, 2011
By STEPHEN CASTLE

BRUSSELS — The sexual abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church in the Netherlands deepened Thursday when one of its senior figures was said to have shielded a pedophile priest.

Reports in three news media outlets increased the pressure on the cardinal, Adrianus Simonis, the retired archbishop of Utrecht, who last month testified as a witness in a legal action taken by one of almost 2,000 people who have said they were victims of abuse.

The crisis in the Netherlands is another setback for the Roman Catholic Church, which has been roiled by sexual abuse allegations from Ireland and Belgium to the United States.

Cardinal Simonis caused some distress in the Netherlands last March, when he was asked on television about the hundreds of complaints surfacing against the church and replied in German rather than Dutch, saying “Wir haben es nicht gewusst” — or, “We knew nothing.”

The phrase, which is associated with Nazi excuses after World War II, drew uncomfortable parallels for the church, which has been accused of covering up the issue of sexual abuse.

The reports on Thursday, by Radio Netherlands Worldwide, the NRC Handelsblad newspaper and the Dutch television program Nieuwsuur, said the cardinal was told by the then-bishop of Rotterdam, Philippe Bär, that a priest had sexually abused boys in his parish in Zoetermeer. Archbishop Simonis later arranged for the man to be moved to a parish in Amersfoort.

The name of the suspected abuser was not given in the news reports.

In a statement issued Thursday, Cardinal Simonis said the priest in question had been allowed to stay in the church but only after undergoing lengthy therapy and on the basis of a psychological report.

If new evidence about the case emerged it would have to be reassessed, he said, and that would be regrettable.

On Thursday Martin de Witte, a lawyer acting for several alleged victims, said the article proved that pedophiles were systematically protected.

“He didn’t do anything, he said of the cardinal, adding, “He was not protecting the children, he was protecting the people who did the abuse.”

Figures released in December showed that almost 2,000 people had made complaints of sexual or physical abuse against the church, in a country with four million Catholics.

10/02 Philadelphia Priests Accused by Grand Jury of Sexual Abuse and Cover-Up

February 10, 2011
By JON HURDLE

PHILADELPHIA — A grand jury on Thursday accused the Archdiocese of Philadelphia of failing to stop the sexual abuse of children more than five years after a grand jury report documented abuse by more than 50 priests.

The new report said a senior church official charged with investigating allegations of sexual abuse by priests had in fact allowed some of those accused to remain in posts that gave them continued access to children. It charged him with endangering the welfare of minors and accused three priests and a teacher of raping two boys between 1996 and 1999.

“By no means do we believe that these were the only two parishioners who were abused during this period,” the report said.

At least 37 priests who are subject to “substantial evidence of abuse” are still in roles that bring them into contact with children, the new report said, and 10 of those have been in place since before 2005, when the last grand jury made its allegations.

The Rev. Edward Avery, 68, and the Rev. Charles Engelhardt, 64, were charged with the rape and indecent assault of a 10-year-old boy in St. Jerome Parish in Northeast Philadelphia in 1998 and 1999. The teacher, Bernard Shero, 48, was accused of assaulting the same boy in 2000.

The Rev. James Brennan, 47, was accused of assaulting a 14-year-old boy in 1996. All three priests were under arrest on Thursday.

The report also charged Msgr. William Lynn, secretary of clergy in the archdiocese under former Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, with endangering the welfare of children by allowing “dangerous” priests to remain in place. Monsignor Lynn was responsible for investigating abuse allegations from 1992 to 2004.

“The rapist priests we accuse were well known to the Secretary of Clergy, but he cloaked their conduct and put them in place to do it again,” the grand jury said.

Monsignor Lynn faces a maximum of 14 years in prison if convicted on all charges.

In a statement issued late on Thursday, Cardinal Justin Rigali, the archbishop of Philadelphia, rejected the report’s assertion that there were active priests who had been credibly accused of abuse.

“I assure all the faithful that there are no archdiocesan priests in ministry today who have an admitted or established allegation of sexual abuse of a minor against them,” he said.

The report accused the archdiocese of lacking urgency in its efforts to eradicate sexual abuse by its priests.

It said a panel looking into the allegations dismissed charges against a priest by two independent victims, saying their evidence lacked credibility.

“These are simply not the actions of an institution that is serious about ending sexual abuse of children,” the report said.

The 124-page report, which contains graphic descriptions of abuse of the 9- and 10-year-old boys, said the grand jury decided “reluctantly” not to press charges against Cardinal Bevilacqua, who stepped down in 2003 after 15 years as archbishop, even though he worked closely with Monsignor Lynn, because it did not have enough evidence.

In 2005, a grand jury report accused the church of an “immoral cover-up” that had exposed hundreds of children to sexual assault. That report recommended no criminal charges.

If convicted on all charges, the priests and the teacher each face a maximum sentence of 67 years in prison, the Philadelphia district attorney’s office said.

Burton A. Rose, a lawyer for the teacher, Mr. Shero, declined to comment on the case. Lawyers for the other defendants did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment.

25/03 Suspensions Force Bishops to Reassess Rule Changes

March 25, 2011

Associated Press
Msgr. William Lynn, center, was indicted by a Philadelphia grand jury on charges of endangering the welfare of children.

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN

Nine years after a scandal in Boston prompted America’s Roman Catholic bishops to announce sweeping policy changes to protect children from sexual abuse by priests, the bishops are scrambling to contain the damage from a growing crisis in Philadelphia that has challenged the credibility of their own safeguards.

When a grand jury in Philadelphia reported last month that the archdiocese there allowed 37 priests accused of abuse or inappropriate behavior to remain in ministry, it came as a complete surprise to the local and national “review boards” that the bishops have put in place to help keep them accountable, members of those boards said.

Church officials are also deeply troubled by how it is possible that in the bishops’ most recent annual “audit” — conducted by an outside agency to monitor each diocese’s compliance with the policy changes — Philadelphia passed with flying colors, said Teresa M. Kettelkamp, executive director of the bishops’ Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection, which issues the annual audit reports.

“To have that level of compromise of our programs and our process, I was totally shocked,” said Ms. Kettelkamp, who spent 30 years in law enforcement and corruption investigations before she was hired by the bishops.

The revelations in Philadelphia have called into question the efficacy of the bishops’ reform plan, unveiled in 2002 under the intense spotlight cast by the Boston scandal and called the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.”

The church says it has spent tens of millions of dollars to fingerprint volunteers, organize “safe environment” prevention programs in parishes and schools, reach out to victims and deal with accusations. At least 1,000 workers nationwide are employed in carrying out the charter’s mandates, church officials say. Now the bishops are hearing parishioners, abuse victims and the church’s own child protection workers voicing a sense of betrayal.

“This is confusing and demoralizing to many people,” said Bishop Blase J. Cupich of Spokane, Wash., chairman of the bishops’ Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People, who said he recently met with a large group of these workers at a convention in Los Angeles. “Everybody is very saddened by this because people are working very hard, each and every day, to implement the charter. And to have this happen is really just painful for all of us.”

The main governing committee of bishops took up the issue this week at a regularly scheduled meeting in Washington, and late on Thursday issued a statement that sought to convey reassurances that the bishops were still committed to their policies.

The core of the charter was a “zero tolerance” pledge to remove from the ministry any priests credibly accused of abuse. So the grand jury’s charge that the Philadelphia Archdiocese allowed as many as 37 priests to continue serving, despite an array of charges against them, provoked the most searing questions.

Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia at first rebutted the grand jury’s findings, then changed course, suspended three priests and ultimately suspended 21 more — the largest mass suspension by a diocese in the three-decade history of the abuse scandal.

A Philadelphia grand jury also indicted the former head of the archdiocesan office for clergy, Msgr. William Lynn, on charges of endangering the welfare of children — the first indictment ever of a senior church official in covering up an abuse case.

The statement from the bishops’ committee, signed by the bishops’ president, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York, said, “We remain especially firm in our commitment to remove permanently from public ministry any priest who committed such an intolerable offense.”

The bishops’ statement says they have “confidence” that the charter is effective, but will consider whether it needs to be revised or strengthened. A long-planned review of the charter is scheduled for the bishops’ meeting in June.

“We want to learn from our mistakes and we welcome constructive criticism,” the statement says.

In recent interviews with local reporters, Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond of New Orleans, the former chairman of the bishops committee on child protection, and Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston, expressed anguished anger about the developments in Philadelphia. “There’s no excuse for cover-up,” said Archbishop Aymond.

However, the bishops’ committee avoided any direct criticism of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia — even though some had pressed for something more hard-hitting, said some church officials who did not want to be named because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.

Cardinal Rigali worked for many years in the Vatican and still has powerful allies there. A kingmaker among American bishops, he serves on the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops, the body charged with recommending bishops’ assignments to the pope. (Also serving on that Vatican congregation: Cardinal Bernard F. Law, who resigned as archbishop of Boston in 2002 during the abuse scandal there.)

Bishop Cupich and other church officials said that the bishops were withholding any judgment about what exactly went awry in Philadelphia and who was responsible because they did not yet have enough information. Bishop Cupich praised Cardinal Rigali for hiring an investigator — after the news of the grand jury report came out — to go through the files and determine which priests should be suspended from ministry.

But those involved in oversight in the church are asking themselves why the local review board in Philadelphia and the auditors did not know about so many accused priests still in ministry. Did the church staff in Philadelphia fail to show them the files? Were the files scrubbed?

Church officials and those involved in oversight say they do not know. And they said that they were looking to the investigators and prosecutors in Philadelphia to come up with the answers.

The episode identifies a key weakness in the bishops’ charter: neither the bishops’ auditors nor the review boards have the same power as a grand jury or a prosecutor to subpoena witnesses or compel the church to turn over files.

“They can only review the information they’re given,” said Diane Knight, chairwoman of the National Review Board, the advisory and accountability committee appointed by the bishops. “It is startling and discouraging that after nine years of the charter and all of the work that has gone into it, to have this kind of a grand jury report come out is troubling at best.”



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25/03 Catholic Order Reaches $166 Million Settlement With Sexual Abuse Victims

March 25, 2011
By WILLIAM YARDLEY

SEATTLE — A Roman Catholic religious order in the Northwest has agreed to pay $166 million to more than 500 victims of sexual abuse, many of whom are American Indians and Alaska Natives who were abused decades ago at Indian boarding schools and in remote villages, lawyers for the plaintiffs said Friday.

The settlement, with the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus, known as the Northwest Jesuits, is the largest abuse settlement by far from a Catholic religious order, as opposed to a diocese, and it is one of the largest abuse settlements of any kind by the Catholic Church. The Jesuits are the church’s largest religious order, and their focus is education. The Oregon Province includes Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska.

“There is a huge number of victims, in part because these Native American communities were remote and vulnerable, and in part because of a policy by the Jesuits, even though they deny it, of sending problem priests to these far-off regions,” said Terry McKiernan of Bishopaccountability.org, a victims’ advocacy group that tracks abuse cases.

The province released a statement saying it would not comment on the settlement announced by the plaintiffs’ lawyers because it was involved in bankruptcy litigation. The bankruptcy stems from previous abuse settlements, totaling about $55 million, reached several years ago. A small group of victims and their lawyers have been negotiating the current settlement for more than a year as part of the province’s bankruptcy-ordered restructuring.

An insurer for the province is paying the bulk of the settlement, which still is subject to approval by hundreds of other victims and by a federal judge.

John Allison, a lawyer based in Spokane, Wash., represented many clients who were abused in the late 1960s and early 1970s while they were students at St. Mary’s Mission in Omak, Wash., near the reservation of the Colville Confederated Tribes, one of the largest reservations in the country. The Jesuits ran the St. Mary’s school until the 1970s, when federal policies began to encourage more Indian control. St. Mary’s is now closed, though its building stands beside a new school.

Mr. Allison noted that English was not the native language for some of the students at the time of the abuse. Some were 6 and 7 years old and came from difficult family situations. Some were orphans. At the same time, many Jesuit priests were not happy to have been assigned to such remote places.

“They let down a very vulnerable population,” Mr. Allison said.

Lawyers representing some of the victims initially suggested they would go after assets of some of the region’s large Jesuit institutions, including Gonzaga University and Seattle University. But the settlement does not involve them, and their future vulnerability is unclear. Mr. Allison said some of the accused priests, now in their 80s, live at Gonzaga under strict supervision.

Mr. Allison and another lawyer, Leander James, of Idaho, said the settlement required the province to eventually apologize to the victims.

One of the plaintiffs, Dorothea Skalicky, was living on the Nez Perce Indian Reservation in northern Idaho in the 1970s when she said she was abused by a Jesuit priest who ran Sacred Heart Church, in Lapwai. Ms. Skalicky, now 42, said that her family lived across from the church for several years, and that she was abused from age 6 to 8.

“My family looked up to him,” Ms. Skalicky said of the priest, who is deceased. “He was somebody high up that was respected by the community and my parents.” The church, she said, “was supposed to be a safe place.”

Laurie Goodstein contributed reporting from New York.

25/03 Prosecution Requests Granted in Priests’ Abuse Case

March 25, 2011

Associated Press
Msgr. William Lynn leaving court last week in Philadelphia. He is suspected of covering up rape by the priests and is charged with child endangerment.

By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE

PHILADELPHIA — In a blistering courtroom session on Friday, the judge overseeing the case involving priests accused in the sexual abuse scandal in the Philadelphia Archdiocese granted the prosecution’s request to bypass a preliminary hearing and scheduled arraignment for April 15.

At that time, the accused — two Roman Catholic priests, one former priest, a former parochial school teacher and a monsignor — are expected to plead not guilty. Given the city’s backlog of cases, any trial would probably not begin for at least a year.

The judge, Renee Cardwell Hughes, also agreed to the district attorney’s belated request to charge all five with conspiracy. The priests and the schoolteacher are already accused of rape; the monsignor, William Lynn, the highest-ranking official to be accused of a crime in the three-decade-long abuse scandal in the United States, is suspected of covering up rape by the priests and is charged with child endangerment.

At one point Friday, Judge Hughes, of the Court of Common Pleas, ordered Monsignor Lynn, 60, to stand and take an oath to tell the truth. She wanted to make sure he understood the consequences of having the archdiocese pay for his lawyers. In a riveting 20 minutes of questioning, she told him that this could jeopardize his ability to act in his own best interest, especially if he is implicating other church officials to help his defense, and would prevent him from claiming during any appeal that he was not properly represented. She even offered to get him a public defender, at taxpayer expense. He could face a maximum of 28 years in prison.

The monsignor, wearing a black suit and white priestly collar, said repeatedly that he understood the consequences and still wanted to keep the arrangement.

Judge Hughes is not likely to be the trial judge, to the relief of some of the defense lawyers, who have said she favors the prosecution and who engaged in shouting matches with her during Friday’s two-hour session. The judge erupted in fury several times, accusing some of the defense lawyers of attacking her integrity and telling them to “shut up.”

“Well, snapdoodle!” she said at one point to a defense lawyer who challenged her. At another point, Richard DeSipio, one of the defense lawyers, yelled out that the district attorney’s office was “anti-Catholic” and had attacked him. “Attacked you?” Judge Hughes said. “You attacked me.”

Judge Hughes imposed an order of silence on everyone involved in the case, including District Attorney Seth Williams, who was not present.

“I don’t want tweets, I don’t want Facebook, I don’t want I.M.’s, I don’t want any communication,” she said through clenched teeth.

27/10 Handling of Abuse in Chilean Church Questioned

By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO and PASCALE BONNEFOY
Published: October 27, 2010

SANTIAGO, Chile — In April of last year, the Rev. Juan Esteban Morales, the head of a Roman Catholic parish here, visited Dr. James Hamilton at his clinic to make an unusual request: that he stop pursuing an annulment to his marriage.

Mercurio de Chile
The Rev. Fernando Karadima celebrating Mass in 2006. A Chilean judge has ordered that he be interrogated about charges of sexual abuse


It was not simply a matter of giving the marriage another try. Instead, Dr. Hamilton said he was warned that the annulment could “seriously affect the image” and health of one of Chile’s most influential and respected priests.

The reason: Dr. Hamilton wrote in his annulment request that the priest, the Rev. Fernando Karadima, started abusing him when he was 17, irreparably harming his relationship with his wife.

“No one has shown any compassion for me,” Dr. Hamilton said he told Father Morales, who is also a doctor. “My life has been destroyed, and I am surprised that someone like you, a colleague and a priest who has to protect Christian souls, would ask me to do something like that.”

The sheltering appears to be ending. On Wednesday, a judge ordered that Father Karadima, 80, once an unmatched spiritual leader with several bishops and dozens of priests as disciples, be interrogated in relation to charges of sexually abusing at least four young parishioners.

Many in Chile expect the Vatican, now investigating the charges, to rule on Father Karadima’s case any day, possibly imposing sanctions from expulsion from the priesthood to a prohibition against contact with young people.

As the scandal widens over Father Karadima’s actions, it has raised damaging questions about why the Chilean church hid the allegations for so long. This conservative nation has been shaken since the matter became public this year, staining respected church figures who protected Father Karadima.

For years, church officials, including Cardinal Francisco Javier Errázuriz, archbishop of Santiago, tried to shame accusers into dropping claims, refused to meet with them or failed to carry out formal investigations, according to interviews and court testimony.

The Catholic Church’s handling of abuse claims here offers a revealing look into how it has approached accusations against priests around the world. From Europe to the United States to South America, sexual abuse claims have caused a rippling crisis for the church, which for years tried to play down the concerns but more recently has shown a willingness to investigate and punish offending priests.

The first reports of abuse by Father Karadima reached Cardinal Errázuriz in mid-2003, months after the Chilean Bishops Conference issued procedures for handling cases of sexual abuse involving priests. In a letter to the cardinal, a young parishioner, José Murillo, told of the abuses he suffered, assuming an investigation would be opened.

The cardinal sent back a note, saying he was praying for Mr. Murillo, but failed to open a preliminary investigation. He chose not to do so, the cardinal said in an e-mailed response, because “unfortunately, I judged that the accusations were not credible at the time.”

But the Rev. Marcelo Gidi, a canon law expert, said that according to the Chilean church guidelines, a simple report of alleged abuses should have been enough. “Even if a church official hears of abuses through the news, there must be an investigation,” he said. “What should be judged as ‘credible’ enough to open an investigation is the good faith of the accuser, not the accusation itself.”

The concerns about Father Karadima stretched back even further. A publicist who grew close to Father Karadima stated in court that in 1984 he and a group of parishioners sent a letter to Archbishop Juan Francisco Fresno, who later became a cardinal, complaining about Father Karadima’s “improper conduct.” The publicist later found out through someone who worked with the cardinal that the letter had been “torn up and thrown away,” he said in a court statement.

Eleven years later, the approach appeared similar.

In 1995, after enduring Father Karadima’s sexual advances, Mr. Murillo, then 19, confronted the priest. Shortly afterward, Mr. Murillo said, an angry Father Karadima and one of his disciples, the Rev. Andrés Arteaga, who is now a bishop, cornered him in a meeting room.

“They humiliated me, and Arteaga treated me really badly, questioning my intelligence and telling me I should stop studying philosophy and take up theater, and that I should listen more closely to Karadima,” Mr. Murillo said.


Father Karadima had asked Mr. Murillo to accompany him to his bedroom in the parish to confess, Mr. Murillo said. A bishop was there when they arrived. Mr. Murillo said Father Karadima pulled out a bottle of whiskey and gave him a glass “to relax me.”


The bishop, looking nervous, left. While Mr. Murillo told him about his life, the priest touched the young man’s leg and genitals, then opened the zipper of his pants and tried to masturbate him, he said.

“I stopped him and left crying,” Mr. Murillo said.

Bishop Arteaga did not respond to requests for comment made through a church spokesman. Multiple attempts to reach Father Karadima were also unsuccessful.

Around that time, a crisis was brewing in the marriage of Dr. Hamilton and his wife, Verónica. Dr. Hamilton, who once considered Father Karadima a father figure and a saint, broke down and told his wife that the priest began abusing him when he was 17. Father Karadima had such influence over him, he said, that the sexual contact continued for more than 15 years.

Without her husband’s knowledge, Mrs. Hamilton told the Rev. Adolfo García, a relative, of the abuses in 2004. Father García spoke with Cardinal Errázuriz about the matter, according to Mrs. Hamilton’s testimony, and in June of that year the cardinal appointed the Rev. Eliseo Escudero to conduct the first investigation into Father Karadima.

In 2006, Father Escudero made his report to the cardinal, stating that he believed “the accusers to be credible and suggesting certain courses of action.”

Yet Cardinal Errázuriz suspended the investigation for more than three years, to wait for new evidence and because he thought the allegations were beyond the statute of limitations, he said in a public letter last April.

In the meantime, the cardinal removed Father Karadima as head of the parish, naming Father Morales in his place, and consulted with the Vatican and two canon law experts. The church investigation finally resumed late last year, and in June the cardinal referred a 700-page file on the matter to the Vatican.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith “took it upon itself to review the case” and sent it to a special committee, often set up in complex cases, to “be examined and judged.” He declined to say whether the Vatican knew of the case before 2009, but argued that Cardinal Errázuriz “is extremely cooperative in his relations with the congregation and promptly took the precautionary measures that are normally taken for the accused in such cases.”

Cardinal Errázuriz, 77, who is to retire shortly, said he made mistakes. “We are very clear now that if we were presented with a new case today we would do things much better,” he said in e-mailed responses to questions.

The fallout from the Karadima case has already begun. The Rev. Hans Kast, a priest who left Father Karadima’s parish in 2005 and is now chancellor of the Chilean Catholic Church, testified this year that he had witnessed sexual abuses by Father Karadima.

Beyond that, the Rev. Francisco Walker, president of the Ecclesiastical Tribunal, a Chilean church court, admitted this year that he had made a mistake by leaking Dr. Hamilton’s confidential annulment request to Bishop Arteaga and Father Morales; he resigned from the court in July.

Dr. Hamilton said that during his visit to the clinic, Father Morales had asked for “mercy,” and for him to drop the accusations because Father Karadima could not withstand such a shock. “I was so surprised that I asked him whether he believed me about the abuses,” Dr. Hamilton said. “He said that he did, and that’s why he was asking for mercy.”

Father Morales acknowledged the visit in court testimony, but said he had asked Dr. Hamilton to withdraw the accusations simply because they were not true.

Cardinal Errázuriz also said he had “powerful reasons” for rejecting various requests from Dr. Hamilton for a meeting on the issue in 2005, 2006 and 2009, adding that it “doesn’t mean his testimony had not been received through other official channels.”

In addition to the abuse victims, half a dozen men have testified in court proceedings that Father Karadima’s kisses and sexual advances to his closest followers were widespread and public. One of them, the Rev. Andrés Ferrada, stated that he witnessed these abuses as early as the mid-1990s, “but no one ever did anything about it.”


Alexei Barrionuevo reported from Santiago, Chile, and São Paulo, Brazil. Pascale Bonnefoy reported from Santiago. Rachel Donadio contributed reporting from Rome.


A version of this article appeared in print on October 28, 2010, on page A4 of the New York edition..