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News Updates Please visit our new extensive Survey Poll Youth minister charged with child porn A youth minister in Los Alamos has been arrested for child pornography found on his church computer. Recently unsealed federal documents show late last year federal agents raided the Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran Church and seized the computers, disks and hard drives used by 58 year old Matthew Nichols. The federal indictment indicates that at least three pornographic pictures of minors had been found in Nichols files. "Even in the background investigation and the interviews with him and the references none of that information came up," he said. Ethridge tells Eyewitness News 4, the church's Pastor is currently returning from oversees to meet with other congregation leaders. They will decide whether to keep Nichols on paid leave while the federal case proceeds against him, or to fire him immediately. Continue: http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S1623978.shtml?cat=504 Belgian Catholic offices raided in sex abuse probe A spokesman for the Brussels prosecutors' office confirmed that the palace of the archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels had been sealed off. Police also raided the home of retired Archbishop Godfried Danneels. Brussels prosecutors were looking for material relating to allegations of sex abuse, a spokesman for the prosecutors' office said. "This is a case that the Brussels prosecutors' office received recently, containing a statement of facts in relation to alleged sexual abuse of minors by a number of people within the Church," said Jean-Marc Meilleur. "The object of the searches is to verify the declaration and eventually gather evidence about these declarations." At the home of Archbishop Danneels in Mechelen, just north of Brussels, police did not question the cleric but took away his computer, according to his spokesman, Hans Geybels. Mr Geybels said police had also asked the archbishop to accompany
them to the cathedral in Mechelen because they had heard that there
might be files there. Donagh brothers 'abused up to 50 victims' Between them, the McDermott brothers, from Moorlough Road in Donagh, faced 60 charges of abuse spanning five decades. One was sent to prison last week, while another killed himself during his trial. But there is anger that two of the brothers are living in the community. John McDermott was jailed for nine years last Friday for the abuse which was described as frequent, regular and persistent. He raped and abused generations of young boys and girls in the village
of Donagh. Cardinal's deposition sheds new light on how church handled abuse In a newly released videotaped deposition, Los Angeles Roman Catholic Cardinal Roger Mahony defends how he handled—and admittedly mishandled—allegations that one of his priests was molesting children. The allegations discussed in the deposition aren’t new, but the tape gives additional insight into what Mahony was thinking when he decided to forego reporting Baker to police or mentioning Baker’s history to his parish after the priest told the cardinal he molested two boys in 1986. The priest told Mahony that the boys were illegal aliens and that they had gone back to Mexico. Mahony said he didn’t investigate because he didn’t know the boys’ last names. Read or watch video: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2010/06/19/cardinals-deposition-sheds-new-light-on-how-church-handled-abuse/ Holy Father, what shall we do? It has been a bad year for the priesthood. Hardly a week has gone by in recent months without some new scandal involving a paedophile Catholic priest - or even the odd bishop - emerging somewhere in the world. The Vatican has done what it can to limit the damage to the image and the credibility of an organisation that demands unlimited trust on the part of believers. Some of them are now asking themselves whether they should in future entrust their children of tender age to Catholic institutions run by priests. Protests Also in St Peter's Square this week, I saw a small group of Catholic women campaigning to be ordained as priests, … Nearby another small group of angry Catholics were also holding a press briefing. They were from the main American clerical-abuse victims group, the Survival Network for those Abused by Priests, or Snap for short. Joelle Casteix, a victim of abuse - not by a priest but by a lay teacher in her Catholic school in California - carried a picture of how she looked as a cute 16-year-old when she became pregnant and had an abortion. continue: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8734850.stm Pope Begs Forgiveness Over Sex Abuse, Promises Action While symbolic, Benedict's pledge failed to satisfy victims groups who said promises were useless without a clear-cut action plan to root out pedophile priests, expose the bishops who protected them and change the Vatican policies and culture that allowed abuse to continue. read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/11/pope-begs-forgiveness-ove_n_608645.html Forgiving has never healed any trauma-wounds. The Lived Experience of Violation: How Abused Children Become
Unhealthy Adults This powerful book documents in compelling detail, and with great compassion, the long-term consequences of early life abuse and neglect as they affect health throughout life. The book highlights the importance of eliciting each person’s story as a means of achieving relief from the emotional and physiological consequences of early life adversity. In so doing, the book also provides a provocative reflection upon the relationship between brain and mind. Furthermore, it argues that modern biomedical science needs to elaborate a more sophisticated appraisal of an individual’s reflections upon salient lifetime experiences, since they are key for understanding how these experiences affect health through biological pathways that, on the one hand, promote adaptation and, on the other hand, can be dysregulated and cause damage. (Bruce McEwen, Ph.D., Alfred E. Mirsky Professor, Rockefeller University, New York) Dr. Kirkengen has produced a remarkable and revolutionary work. She
has validated the personal experiences of abused persons in a totally
new way. She has drawn upon a philosophy of phenomenology to establish
the truth of the “lived experience”. She brings the “phenomena”
of lived experience closer to the “noumena” that might
have been observed by uninvolved witnesses had such persons been secretly
watching the abusive events that affected the people she describes.
This book discards conventional clinical processes and conventional
medical research processes for the assessment of sick persons and
their conditions. Conventional epidemiology, also takes its lumps.
Conventional medical thinkers may have some difficulty with digestion
of Kirkengen’s conceptualizations. This book should be read
by all medical doctors, who have an interest in violence and abuse.
Most of them will find it very useful in framing the problems that
their patients bring to them. It will also be useful in producing
precise definitions of the specific acts that our society must learn
to prevent if we are to get healthy. (David L. Chadwick, MD, Director
emeritus, founder of the Chadwick Center for Children and Families,
Rady Children’s Hospital and Health Center, San Diego, USA) Charges filed against Germany's top bishop Prosecutors in the southwestern city of Freiburg said charges of aiding and abetting sexual abuse had been filed against Robert Zollitsch, head of the German Bishops' Conference and archbishop of Freiburg. Bishop Zollitsch( 71) was head of church personnel in Freiburg when a Cistercian priest was given a parish job in Birnau despite charges of child abuse against the cleric being known to church authorities, prosecutors said. The archdiocese denied in a statement that Bishop Zollitsch was responsible for the appointment, saying the decision was taken independently by the monk's religious order. The archdiocese accused the prosecutors and news media of raking up "sensationalism" by describing the charges against Bishop Zollitsch as aiding and abetting sexual abuse. Reuters/ irishtimes.com http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0602/breaking58.html |
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