Ex-monk admits sexual misconduct while under Abp. Hamus at Conception Abbey

A former Benedictine monk who directed a boys choir at a northwest Missouri abbey in the 1980s admitted on Thursday that he had inappropriate sexual relations with several members of the group.

Bede Parry, who led the Abbey Boy Choir of Conception Abbey from 1982 to 1987, told The Kansas City Star that he had sexual contact with five or six of the choir members as well as a student at a Minnesota university.

One of the former choir members filed a lawsuit on Thursday, contending that Parry molested him in 1987 during a summer camp at the abbey.

The lawsuit, filed against Conception Abbey by a Missouri man under the name John Doe 181, alleges that the abbey knew that Parry had sexually abused other students prior to abusing him but covered it up.

"Frankly, those allegations, most of them are true," Parry said in a phone interview with The Star from Las Vegas. "As far as I’m concerned, great harm was done to those people. To lie and not recognize that would be a gross injustice to those folks.

"The whole thing is terrible. I feel so terrible. I’m just praying for everybody, and I ask for prayers."

Most of the inappropriate sexual contact was with males over 18, Parry said. Two of the encounters, he said, involved males ages 16 to 18. He said he has not had inappropriate sexual relations since the 1987 incident.

Jeff Anderson, a Minnesota lawyer who represents the plaintiff, called the situation "a grave institutional failure."

"Bede Parry wasn’t able to control himself, but it was the (Conception Abbey) abbot and the top officials who knew that and made the choice to protect themselves at the peril of many kids and young adults," he said.

Conception Abbey is a Benedictine monastery with a 30-acre campus. It is home to one of the largest Roman Catholic college seminaries in the nation and the largest priest-training center in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph. The seminary, which the monks run, draws students from about two dozen dioceses in the United States.

Between 1973 and 1979, the lawsuit says, Parry told the Conception Abbey abbot that he had inappropriate sexual contact with three people at the abbey. And in 1981, the lawsuit says, Parry had sexual contact with a student at St. John’s in Minnesota. Parry admitted that misconduct to several people, including abbots at Conception and St. John’s, according to the lawsuit.

Parry confirmed to The Star his three relationships between 1973 and 1979 at Conception Abbey and one in 1981 in Minnesota. He said he reported those incidents to then-abbot Jerome Hanus at Conception Abbey and to the abbot at St. John’s Abbey in Minnesota.

Hanus is now head of the Archdiocese of Dubuque, Iowa. His office did not return phone calls for comment on Thursday.

Parry said he first opened up about his sexual misconduct last fall, when a Seattle area man named Pat Marker showed up at his doorstep. Marker, a sex abuse victim who had attended St. John’s Preparatory School in Minnesota, had learned about Parry while researching other cases from St. John’s.

"I confronted Bede with the allegations ... that took place at St. John’s, and he admitted to the misconduct and expressed remorse but did not disclose any information about the (Conception Abbey) boys choir at that time," Marker said. "After learning he directed the choir, I confronted him again. At first he denied anything but later admitted to misconduct."

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/08/3255149/ex-monk-admits-sexual-misconduct.html#ixzz1dmsmE4Ex

Allegations against former Green Bay bishop, Bp. David Zubik

Former Green Bay Bishop David Zubik took the unusual step of calling a news conference Wednesday to announce that he has been accused of forcibly kissing a student decades ago, and to deny the charges.

Zubik, currently the bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, said the former student made the accusation in August after the man's request to volunteer in the diocese was rejected. Soon after the rejection, the man alleged that the incident happened when he was a student at Quigley Catholic High School in the 1980s.

"The accusation is false, offensive and outrageous," Zubik said, adding that no such behavior occurred when he was at the school from 1980 to 1987.

Zubik served as bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay from December 2003 to September 2007, when he was installed as the 12th bishop of the diocese of Pittsburgh.

The diocese did not return calls for comment Wednesday night.

Late Wednesday afternoon, Beaver County District Attorney Anthony Berosh said the accusations had no basis.

"There was no factual basis for the allegation. No basis in law or in fact," Berosh said.

Berosh said his office reviewed documents in the case and made numerous attempts to meet with the man who claimed Zubik forcibly kissed him.The man declined offers to meet, and then visited the District Attorney's Office unannounced last week and made a new claim that a nun had touched him on an airplane, in full view of the passengers, Berosh said.

 the rest at GBPressGaz

Sounds like a nut.

SNAP files charges against Vatican, public rolls their eyes

$t. $NAP's condominiums

An international coalition of sex-abuse victims has lodged charges with the International Criminal Court at the Hague, charging Pope Benedict XVI and other leading Vatican officials with crimes against humanity.

Leaders of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), assisted by the Center for Constitutional Rights, filed an 80-page complaint, accompanied by over 20,000 pages of supporting evidence, claiming that the Holy See bears "direct and superior responsibility for the crimes against humanity of rape and other sexual violence committed around the world." The charges were directed against Pope Benedict and three Vatican officials: Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Secretary of State; his predecessor, Cardinal Angelo Sodano; and Cardinal William Levada, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Experts in international law said that it is extremely unlikely the Hague court will take up the case. The court does not have jurisdiction over the Holy See, and the charges raised in the complaint fall well short of the standards required for an international trial. Similar charges against the Vatican had been lodged in the past, and no prosecution ensued.

However, legal experts said that the SNAP case could serve the group's purposes by "raising awareness" of their cause. In other words, the case will generate publicity.

Catholic Culture

Weakland, Sklba to take the stand!

Retired Milwaukee bishops Rembert Weakland and Richard Sklba will answer questions under oath in October about the extent and alleged coverup of child sex abuse in the archdiocese, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley ruled on Friday.

However, that testimony won't be available to the public, at least initially.

Kelley granted a request by survivor-creditors to question the two, along with defrocked priest Daniel A. Budzynski, who is believed to have molested several children, as part of the church's bankruptcy proceedings.

The judge scheduled the questionings for the weeks of Oct. 17 and 24. But she imposed strict limits on their duration and ordered them sealed from public view.

"I don't want this on anybody's website," said Kelley, a reference to victims' attorney Jeff Anderson's distribution of Weakland's 2008 questioning, in which the retired archbishop referred to Sklba as his "go-to guy" in the handling of sex abuse cases.

"This isn't about embarrassing these people. This is about giving the parties relief," Kelley said.

MJS

Bankruptcy judge rejects request for depositions of Weakland, Sklba

The judge in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee bankruptcy case on Friday rejected a move by lawyers for clergy sex abuse victims and other creditors to depose key witnesses, including retired Archbishop Rembert Weakland and Bishop Richard Sklba, in state court.

But Bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley left the door open for those witnesses and others to be questioned under comparable federal bankruptcy rules.

"No disrespect to the state courts, but we're in bankruptcy court now," said Kelley, who initially challenged the creditors committee's standing to file the motion to lift the stay that has blocked depositions in the underlying fraud cases against the archdiocese.

Lawyers for the archdiocese and victims and creditors will return to Kelley's courtroom Aug. 12 to argue their positions under the federal rules.

Creditors' attorneys argued Friday that depositions of elderly or infirm witnesses, including anyone over age 75, are needed to preserve evidence in the underlying cases. That evidence would be used as part of the bankruptcy to determine the credibility of claims and size of the bankruptcy estate and settlement with creditors, said creditor committee attorney Gillian Brown.

Attorneys for the archdiocese argued that there's no evidence to suggest any of the witnesses are at risk of dying or that memories are fading, and that depositions at this early juncture would prejudice yet unidentified victims.

continue at MJS