Pope Francis accepts the resignation of Cardinal Wuerl as Archbishop of Washington amid unfolding sex-abuse scandals
Shireen Khalilnews.com.au
POPE Francis has accepted the resignation of Cardinal Donald Wuerl as archbishop of Washington amid unfolding sex-abuse scandals.
Cardinal Wuerl, 77, who has been blamed for not doing enough to deal with paedophile priests, becomes one of the highest-ranking Catholic leaders to step aside over global accusations that the church harboured sex abusers.
Wuerl, who is a loyal ally of Pope Francis, offered to resign on September 21 after facing strong criticism over a report detailing mass sexual abuse cases when he was a bishop in Pennsylvania, AP reported.
But on Friday, Francis finally accepted Wuerl’s resignation, however made it clear he did so reluctantly.
In a glowing letter of support Francis praised Wuerl’s “nobility” and said the cardinal would stay on until his successor is appointed — instead of making an example of Wuerl, Francis held him up as a model for the future unity of the Roman Catholic Church.
“You have sufficient elements to ‘justify’ your actions and distinguish between what it means to cover up crimes or not to deal with problems, and to commit some mistakes,” the Pope wrote.
“However, your nobility has led you not to choose this way of defence. Of this, I am proud and thank you.”
Wuerl took to Twitter overnight to thank the Pope for his “beautiful letter”, saying: “Earlier today, our Holy Father, Pope Francis, accepted my resignation as Archbishop of Washington that I first offered almost three years ago. Read his beautiful letter and my statement here.”
In his statement (published yesterday) he explained that he was “deeply touched” by the Pope’s letter and that his replacement would “allow all of the faithful of this Church” to “begin to focus on healing and the future”.
Well...I don't think you are there yet. You can't put you myriad sins behind you until you have faced them all and reconciled yourself to those whom you abused and destroyed. There is much suffering to occur yet.
He also apologised for “any past errors in judgment” and “begged for forgiveness on behalf of Church leadership from the victims who were again wounded when they saw these priests and bishops both moved and promoted.
“My resignation is one way to express my great and abiding love for you the people of the Church of Washington.”
Many took to his post to welcome his resignation, with one user saying: “Donny, Shame on you for your lack of concern and compassion for those who have been victimized under your watch. Your lack of leadership has hurt many people and you are as much to blame as the abusers themselves.”
While another tweeted, “Best news of the week”.
Retired priest who admitted to molesting children
dies at 97
ASSOCIATED PRESS, USA TODAY NETWORK 
More than 120 lawsuits accuse retired priest Louis Brouillard, 96, of sexually abusing children Pacific Daily News
HAGATNA, Guam – A retired priest accused in more than 130 sexual abuse lawsuits and who admitted to molesting children on Guam has died.
The Pacific Daily News reports the Archdiocese of Agana says Louis Brouillard, who was ordained on Guam in 1948, died Wednesday in his native Minnesota.
He was 97.
The archdiocese, in a statement released Friday, said Brouillard’s health had been declining in recent months.
Brouillard served on Guam until 1981 as a parish priest in Mangilao, Chalan Pago, Barrigada, Malojloj and Tumon, and as a teacher at Father Duenas Memorial School.
Brouillard, in a 2016 interview with a Pacific Daily News reporter, stated “it’s possible” he sexually abused boys while serving on Guam. He later signed an affidavit admitting to abusing 20 or more boys on the island.
Louis Brouillard grew up not too far away from where he lived out his final years, in the working-class Minneapolis suburb of Columbia Heights.
“I thought that was a good idea,” Brouillard said in September 2017. He spoke only of his past and his passion for the church, but not of the accusations that followed him home from Guam, where he served for nearly 33 years as a teacher, pastor and scoutmaster.
In 1981, Brouillard was sent to Minnesota for "help with his personal problems," said Kyle Eller, communications director for the Diocese of Duluth, in a 2017 statement.
Brouillard served in three churches in remote parts of Minnesota — Beroun, Keewatin and Kelly Lake, according to the diocese.
Brouillard eventually confessed his transgressions in a 2016 affidavit obtained by an investigator and filed with many of the lawsuits. That affidavit, however, contained a startling revelation — Brouillard said in the affidavit that he had been found out decades before and had confessed to a superior.
In March, Brouillard told a reporter he was full of regret. He admitted touching the boys, but said he didn't know at the time it would be harmful to both the boys and the church.
Alleged child sex-abuse ‘substantiated’ against
2nd Staten Island pastor
2nd Staten Island pastor
By Maura Grunlund grunlund@siadvance.com
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- “Credible” child sex-abuse allegations have been made against a second monsignor who was a pastor and Irish musician on Staten Island, according to the Archdiocese of New York.
Monsignor Charles Coen performs at an Irish cultural celebration at St. Joseph-St. Thomas Parish in 2010. (Staten Island Advance)
Monsignor Charles Coen is one of four monsignors and a priest “who had an allegation of sexual abuse of minors brought against them in the Archdiocese’s Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program [IRCP]," according to Catholic New York.
A native of Dublin, Ireland, Coen was assigned to St. Joseph-St. Thomas R.C. Parish in Pleasant Plains for about 10 years beginning in 1975. Previously, he served at St. Paul’s R.C. Church in New Brighton, according to Advance records.
Monsignor Coen taught and conducted Irish music for children during his time on the Island, according to Advance records.
The Advance previously reported the substantiated allegation against Monsignor Francis Boyle, who headed Blessed Sacrament R.C. Church in West Brighton for about 13 years.
Allegations against all five retired clergymen have been "found credible and substantiated,” according to Catholic New York, the official newspaper for the Archdiocese of New York.
In addition to Monsignors Coen and Boyle, Catholic New York named other clergy with credible allegations as: Monsignor William Williams, a former regional vicar of Ulster County and pastor of St. John the Evangelist Parish in Saugerties; Monsignor John Meehan, a previous pastor of St. Mary’s R.C. Church in Mount Vernon, and Rev. Robert Jeffers, a former chaplain of Bronx Lebanon Hospital and pastor of St. Augustine’s R.C. Church in the Bronx.
Pope Francis defrocks two more bishops caught in Chile's widening Catholic church sex abuse crisis
The Vatican announced the defrocking of Francisco Jose Cox Huneeus, 84 and Marco Antonio Ordenes Fernandez, 53, on Saturday
By MIRANDA ALDERSLEY FOR MAILONLINE
Pope Francis has defrocked two Chilean bishops who are implicated in the South American country's ever-worsening sexual abuse crisis, the Vatican said on Saturday.
The second was Marco Antonio Ordenes Fernandez, 53, who was archbishop emeritus of Iquique - capital of both the Iquique Province and Tarapacá Region.
A Vatican statement in Spanish said the pope's decision was definitive and not open to appeal. It referred to a part of Canon law related to the crime of sexual abuse of minors.
Defrocking, officially called 'reduced to the lay state', means they have been expelled from the priesthood. It is the harshest punishment the Church can inflict on a member of the clergy and such action has rarely been taken against bishops.
Francis then defrocked Father Fernando Karadima, an 88-year-old Chilean priest who was accused of sexually abusing teenage boys over a period of many years.
Chile has been hit by one of the worst sexual abuse crises in the Catholic Church, a scandal that prompted all of the country's 34 bishops to offer their resignation to the pope last May. He has so far accepted seven.
Cox and Ordenes were not among the 34 because, although they still had the clerical rank of bishop before Saturday, they were no longer running dioceses.
According to Chilean media, Ordenes, who resigned as bishop of Iquique in 2012 while under Vatican investigation, was accused of molesting an underage altar boy years ago.
He is believed to be living somewhere in Chile. It was not immediately possible to reach him for comment.
Chilean civil justice has investigated 119 allegations of sexual abuse or cover-ups involving 167 church workers including Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati, the archbishop of Santiago.
At the beginning of October a Chilean archdiocese issued a new set of behavioral guidelines for priests which was immediately slammed for its matter-of-fact tone and disturbing level of detail.
The 'Guidelines Promoting Good Treatment and Healthy Pastoral Coexistence,' was published in Spanish on the archdiocese website and received widespread condemnation, with many people calling the language used around sexual abuse as tone-deaf.
According to the document, local priests must not 'give hugs that are too tight, slap the buttocks, touch the area of the genitals or the breast, or recline or sleep with children or adolescents.'
They must also refrain from 'taking pictures while children, adolescents or vulnerable people are naked, getting dressed or in the shower'.
Anne Barrett Doyle of the online abuse database BishopAccountability.org said: 'This is a bizarre and frightening document.
'It reveals the dangerous mindset of the Chilean bishops.'
'Even in this era of supposed penitence and reform, they remain weirdly removed from healthy social norms of child protection,' she added.
Victims of child sexual abuse assaulted and beaten with crucifixes in Catholic orphanage and care home in Scotland, launch legal action
By Blair Meikle, The SunVICTIMS of sexual, physical and emotional abuse at two homes run by a Catholic religious order have launched legal action.
Thompson Solicitors have revealed that they have begun action against the Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent De Paul on behalf of sufferers.
Victims abused at Smyllum Park (pictured) and Bellevue House are taking legal action
Nuns from the charity ran both houses of horror. They beat children with crucifixes and using rosary beads to inflict pain on their tiny victims, often because the terrified youngsters had wet their beds.
Those kids were also emotionally abused, the probe found, by being beaten, put in cold baths and humiliated in ways that included having to “wear” their wet sheets.
And Thompson’s specialist team are now pursuing the action rigorously to make sure that victims can be given justice.
Partner Laura Connor said: “Many of those who gave evidence to the inquiry about Smyllum and Bellevue are our clients and the evidence they have provided means that we are now able to proceed immediately with this legal action.
“It’s important to survivors that the charity now formally acknowledge the inquiry’s finding, issue an apology to those who have been affected and admit liability in civil claims against them. This will allow the survivors from these institutions to gain some form of justice for the life changing abuse they have suffered.
“What we and the survivors expect is for the Sisters of Charity to meet with us now and for these legal matters to be sorted as quickly as possible. We expect The Sisters Of Charity to show compassion and understanding in this matter and not to put people who have already suffered so much at their hands through further anguish and delay.”
From November last year, the inquiry heard evidence over 20 days from 54 witnesses about their experiences at Smyllum and Bellevue from 1957 until 1981, and 21 written statements were also submitted.
Allegations of historical abuse made by former residents included claims of beatings for wetting the bed, humiliations, cold showers and children being force-fed inedible food.
In a statement issued as she published her report, inquiry chair Lady Smith said: “For many children who were in Smyllum and Bellevue, the homes were places of fear, coercive control, threat, excessive discipline and emotional, physical and sexual abuse, where they found no love, no compassion, no dignity and no comfort.”
In her findings, Lady Smith noted that, for some children, being hit was “a normal aspect of daily life”.
Pretty sad indictment for another Catholic Order.
Ambleforth Abbot wants his job back
after being cleared of CSA charges
By STEPHEN WRIGHT, THE DAILY MAILThe exiled abbot of Ampleforth Abbey has begun a High Court bid to be reinstated after being cleared of hotly disputed child sex abuse allegations at Britain’s top Roman Catholic school.
As abbot of Ampleforth Abbey, he was chairman of the governors at £35,000-a-year Ampleforth College, which has shared the same site as the abbey since 1803.
In August 2016 he voluntarily ‘stepped aside from his responsibilities’ as abbot pending inquiries into allegations that he indecently assaulted four boys. He denied the claims, which dated back to the early 1990s when he was a schoolmaster at Ampleforth College and included an accusation that he stroked a pupil’s thigh.
Within three months, police closed the inquiry after concluding there was ‘no evidence’ of criminal behaviour by the abbot, who was interviewed by detectives. Yet nearly two years after being exonerated, he has not been allowed to recommence his duties.
Father Madden, 63, is currently banned from wearing his collar and is living in a nunnery as he fights to return to his job at Ampleforth in North Yorkshire.
Now senior figures in the Catholic Church face being hauled before the High Court to explain why the abbot has been prevented from getting his old job back.
He is arguing in his High Court claim that a review panel has recommended his reinstatement but he remains wrongly excluded from his office. His lawyers claim his rights to a fair trial under the Human Rights Act have been breached.
Father Madden, who was elected abbot in 2005, is seeking up to £10,000 in damages, proceeds of which will go to charity. The four defendants include abbot president Christopher Jamison, leader of the English Benedictine Congregation, and the Catholic Trust for England and Wales (CATEW).
Ampleforth College is attended by children from some of the country’s wealthiest Catholic families and former pupils include Downton Abbey creator Lord Julian Fellowes, actor Rupert Everett and ex-England rugby star Lawrence Dallaglio. It has previously been linked with alleged widespread sexual abuse by priests.
In August the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) found Ampleforth was one of two Catholic schools that allowed a culture of ‘appalling sexual abuse’ to flourish for decades. It said safeguarding the church’s reputation was put before the protection of children.
As abbot of Ampleforth Abbey, he was chairman of the governors at £35,000-a-year Ampleforth College, which has shared the same site as the abbey since 1803 [File photo].
A spokesman for CATEW said: ‘The Catholic Church has robust safeguarding procedures for the protection of children and the vulnerable and to ensure a fair process for those against whom allegations are made. We are unable to comment on cases which are the subject of legal proceedings.’
A spokesman for Father Jamison, the abbot president, said safeguarding was ‘an absolute priority’ for the Benedictines, but declined to comment further.
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