Priest again charged with abuse

LOUISVILLE (KY)
 
The Courier-Journal
By Deborah Yetter and Jason Riley
The Courier-Journal
The Rev. Daniel C. Clark pleaded guilty to molesting children in 1988; new charges allege recent abuse.
A retired Roman Catholic priest who pleaded guilty to sexually abusing children in 1988 was arrested yesterday on new charges that he repeatedly sexually abused two Bullitt County brothers, ages 11 and 12.
The Rev. Daniel C. Clark, 54, was arrested by Shepherdsville police about 11 a.m. yesterday at the Passionist Monastery on Newburg Road in Louisville. Clark has lived there since the late 1980s, following his conviction.
Clark is charged with two counts of oral sodomy and two counts of sexual abuse, according to the arrest warrant. He was placed in the Bullitt County Jail under a $2 million cash bond and is to be arraigned in Bullitt District Court this morning.




posted by Kathy Shaw on 8/8/2002 06:33:47 AM

SPRINGFIELD (Mass.)
Boy’s Death Follows Priest
Alleged Abuse Victims Questioned About A 30-Year-Old Homicide
Hartford Courant
By ROSELYN TANTRAPHOL, Courant Staff Writer
SPRINGFIELD — Suspicion has shadowed the Rev. Richard R. Lavigne since a 13-year-old Springfield altar boy was found bludgeoned to death on the banks of the Chicopee River 30 years ago. Now, with seven new sexual abuse lawsuits filed against Lavigne, his name has surfaced once again in connection with the unsolved killing.
Sandra Tessier, whose 43-year-old son, Andre Tessier, is a plaintiff in one of the suits against Lavigne, said she recently got the visit she thought would have come three decades ago, when her family spent a considerable amount of time with the young priest.
“They aren’t interested in the molestation at all,” she said of her interview with Massachusetts state police. “They’re interested in the murder.”
Danielle J. Barshak, an attorney whose firm is representing Andre Tessier and six other plaintiffs who have all filed suit since April of this year, said that at least half of the clients have already spoken to police concerning the death of Daniel Croteau.



posted by Kathy Shaw on 8/8/2002 06:15:55 AM

RICHMOND (VA)
Abusive priest forcibly retired
Richmond Times-Dispatch
BY MARK BOWES AND ALBERTA LINDSEY
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITERS Aug 08, 2002
A Charlottesville priest was removed from the ministry after a man he sexually abused as a teen in the 1970s demanded that the Catholic Diocese of Richmond publicly disclose what he first reported in 1994.
The Rev. Julian Goodman, 56, pastor of Holy Comforter Church, was retired from his priestly duties “effective immediately” after he met Tuesday with the Most Rev. Walter F. Sullivan, bishop of the Diocese of Richmond.
The diocese said Sullivan asked the priest to retire for sexually abusing James Kronzer, 40, who now lives in Washington. The abuse occurred over a three-year period beginning in 1976 when Goodman was a priest and Kronzer was a student at St. John Vianney Seminary in Goochland County.
The abuse continued for a year after the seminary closed in 1978 and Goodman was assigned to St. Ann Church in Colonial Heights.
Sullivan’s action came five months after he wrote in the March issue of the Catholic Virginian that priests who abuse children will “never be tolerated, passed over or excused.” Sullivan did not attend yesterday’s news conference on the removal, and at- tempts to reach him last night at his home were unsuccessful.




posted by Kathy Shaw on 8/8/2002 06:05:47 AM Catholic Orders to Talk Sex Abuse
Yahoo! News
Aug 7
By RACHEL ZOLL, AP Religion Writer
PHILADELPHIA (AP) – Two months after American bishops vowed to get tough on molester priests, another group of U.S. Roman Catholic leaders responsible for thousands of clergy will address sex abuse, aiming to keep errant men away from children but in the priesthood.
The Conference of Major Superiors of Men, an association of the heads of religious orders including the Jesuits and Franciscans, will dedicate part of its annual meeting in Philadelphia this week to the abuse crisis.
Their approach is expected to differ from that of the bishops, who agreed in June to remove abusers from all church work — anything from teaching in parochial schools to serving in a Catholic soup kitchen. The prelates also said they would likely seek to oust some offenders from the priesthood.
posted by Bill Mitchell on 8/8/2002 06:05:39 AM
LAFAYETTE (LA)
Devotion and Deceit
Over the last decade, more than 100 nuns have been accused of molesting children. Most victims remain silent, but The Times tracked down two, and the mother of a third, willing to talk about their journey of recovery.
By Lou Rom
The Times of Acadiana
August 7, 2002
Myra Hidalgo was 14 when her older sister Mona shot herself in the head. During her second year in college, her 52-year-old mother died of heart problems weeks after undergoing what was supposed to be a routine angioplasty. Little more than a year later, her father, heartbroken, shot himself in the heart.
Within the next year, Hidalgo tried to take her own life – three times. First, she cut her wrists and swallowed a bottle of aspirin. Six months later, she tried to hang herself. A few months after that, she drank a bottle of pesticides labeled “fatal if swallowed.” That time, she nearly succeeded.


posted by Bill Mitchell on 8/8/2002 06:05:09 AM

RICHMOND (VA)
Va. priest defrocked over abuse
The Virginian-Pilot
By STEVEN G. VEGH, The Virginian-Pilot
The Rev. Julian B. Goodman, a Roman Catholic priest who pastored a Norfolk parish throughout the 1990s, has been permanently barred from the ministry for sexually abusing a student at a boys high school in Goochland in the 1970s, the diocese said Wednesday.
Bishop Walter F. Sullivan demanded Goodman’s resignation after the victim, James Kronzer of Washington, D.C., asked the diocese on Monday to make the case public. Goodman has been the pastor of Holy Comforter Catholic Church in Charlottesville since 1999.
Sullivan has known about the abuse since 1994, when Kronzer first informed the Diocese of Richmond of the misconduct that occurred at St. John Vianney Seminary, where he was a student from 1976 to 1978. The seminary, where Goodman directed the music program, closed in 1978.




posted by Kathy Shaw on 8/8/2002 06:01:37 AM
Cardinal Law’s $10 million mistake
Boston Globe
Opinion By James E. Post
CARDINAL Bernard Law’s decision to refuse contributions from a charitable fund called the ”Voice of Compassion” is an unwise and costly mistake. Although he may not intend it, his refusal seems to pour salt into the wounds of a shocked and embittered Catholic laity.

Judge weighs church lawsuit
Boston Globe
(By Kathleen Burge, Globe Staff)
It was either a long-awaited end to years of legal wrangling for 86 alleged sexual abuse victims of former priest John J. Geoghan or the first flicker of a deal, snuffed out when enough money could not be found.

Closings argued in church settlement suit
Boston Herald
by Tom Mashberg
Closing arguments yesterday in the lawsuit over a disputed settlement in the John J. Geoghan clergy abuse case boiled down to whether lawyers for the church misled the judge herself as to whether the accord was final or preliminary.


posted by Bill Mitchell on 8/8/2002 06:00:52 AM
Too Close for Comfort
Church panels as abuse cops
The National Law Journal
By David Hechler
The National Law Journal
08-06-2002
This was supposed to be the summer of healing for a Catholic church besieged by a child sexual abuse crisis. And perhaps it will yet prove to be.
But only six weeks after the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops met in Dallas, questions are already being raised about the investigative “review boards” that the bishops promoted as a centerpiece of their solution.
posted by Bill Mitchell on 8/8/2002 05:57:56 AM

WORCESTER (Mass.)
Coonan gets more support
Worcester Telegram & Gazette
By Richard Nangle
Telegram & Gazette Staff
WORCESTER– Two local political leaders, John R. Sharry and Brian O’Connell, have spearheaded the effort by St. John Church parishioners to reinstate Rev. Joseph A. Coonan, who was placed on administrative leave last week by Bishop Daniel P. Reilly because of allegations of sexual misconduct.
Meanwhile, Todd Hammond of Oxford, one of Rev. Coonan’s alleged victims, spoke out yesterday, saying that while he was a student at Oxford High School in the 1970s, Rev. Coonan, then a teacher there, grabbed the youth’s genitals during a ride through Worcester in search of prostitutes.
Mr. Hammond, a landscaper, said he and four others were interviewed by state police investigating Rev. Coonan several months ago. Mr. Hammond said he and the other alleged victims are not after money, but simply want Rev. Coonan to acknowledge being a sexual abuser.




posted by Kathy Shaw on 8/8/2002 05:35:32 AM

DALLAS (TX)
Orders have let abusers remain
But leader predicts ban on public ministry for offenders
The Dallas Morning News
By REESE DUNKLIN and BROOKS EGERTON / The Dallas Morning News
Nearly a decade ago, after sexual-abuse allegations first surfaced at a Franciscan boarding school in California, leaders of that religious order bowed to demands for an outside investigation. Its conclusion: One-fourth of the priests and brothers who worked there over a 23-year period had molested students.
Such clusters of clergy offenders have appeared repeatedly at schools, seminaries, orphanages and other Catholic institutions run by religious orders – dwarfing, in some cases, anything seen in the country’s more scrutinized dioceses.
And some of the nation’s largest religious orders have let members suspected of abuse continue to work in ministry even today.
Despite U.S. bishops’ recent adoption of a one-strike-and-you’re-out policy, many of these priests and brothers may keep their collars – because their bosses, who are meeting this week in Philadelphia, have not supported removing them from the priesthood.


posted by Kathy Shaw on 8/8/2002 05:28:20 AM

ST. PETERSBURG (FL)
Lawsuit against diocese temporarily dismissed
St. Petersburg TImes
A Pinellas lawsuit filed in April against the Vatican and a former brother at a Hillsborough school has been temporarily dismissed to allow a party to the suit time to hire an attorney. The suit was voluntarily dismissed by the plainiff, Rick Gomez, last week to allow a defendant, Brother William Burke, time to hire an attorney for an upcoming motion to dismiss by defendants, said lawyer Tom McGowan, who represents Gomez.
Gomez accuses Burke of molesting him when he was a student at Mary Help of Christians School in Hillsborough County in 1987, when he was 14.
posted by Jayson Landeza on 8/8/2002 03:39:09 AM

INDIANAPOLIS (IN)
Catholics shaken by clergy scandal confer on reform group
Indianapolis Star
By Judith Cebula
Catholics representing 25 central Indiana parishes gathered at a Northside church Wednesday to learn more about Voice of the Faithful, a reform movement.
About 130 people met at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church to discuss whether the Boston-based group could be viable here. Concerned about the clergy sexual abuse scandal, they wanted to know more about the group’s pledge to change church structures to give lay people a greater voice.
Most participants, including Mary Ann Lally Hebel of St. Simon the Apostle Church in Lawrence Township, were supportive. “I want to hold our bishops and archbishops accountable for the promises they made in Dallas,” she said of the policy against abuse that bishops adopted in June.
posted by Jayson Landeza on 8/8/2002 03:28:51 AM

BOSTON (MA)
Closings argued in church settlement suit
Boston Herald
by Tom Mashberg
Closing arguments yesterday in the lawsuit over a disputed settlement in the John J. Geoghan clergy abuse case boiled down to whether lawyers for the church misled the judge herself as to whether the accord was final or preliminary.
“There was no intent to mislead the court” on April 12, church lawyers said. They were referring to a court date at which archdiocesan attorney Wilson D. Rogers III told Suffolk Superior Court Judge Constance M. Sweeney that his co-counsel and father, Wilson D. Rogers Jr., was “traveling” to collect the needed signatures for the $20 million-plus deal. Rogers said he was, in fact, on personal business.
posted by Jayson Landeza on 8/8/2002 03:15:04 AM

WINDHAM (NH)
N.H. priest calls for Cardinal Law’s resignation
Boston Globe
By Associated Press
A priest member of a panel reviewing sexual misconduct charges against New Hampshire’s Roman Catholic clergy says Cardinal Bernard Law should step down.
“At this point he cannot restore people’s trust in him,” said Monsignor Donald Gilbert, pastor of St. Matthew Church.
Gilbert, a priest for 34 years, Tuesday also told The Eagle-Tribune accused Massachusetts pedophile priests John Geoghan and Paul Shanley are “very blatant criminals,” who should have been relieved of their pastoral duties.
posted by Jayson Landeza on 8/8/2002 03:09:22 AM

WASHINGTON, D.C.
‘Repressed memory’ opponent joins bishops panel
The Washington Times
By Larry Witham
The sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church has raised the specter of a new round of emotional debates on repressed memories, which some people claimed to have “recovered” when making abuse charges.
One of the members of the U.S. bishops panel to police the abuse problem is a well-known critic of therapists who claim to have evoked recovered memories, suggesting the bishops are preparing for this debate.
posted by Jayson Landeza on 8/8/2002 03:01:35 AM