As the Vatican continues to work on policies to combat clergy sex abuse, a leading pontifical university in Rome hosted a conference this week on how the Catholic Church can better address the current crisis and released details of a new diploma program on protecting children.
A series of measures pushed through in recent months by Pope Francis has given Vatican officials new tools for dealing with child molesters within the church, but critics argue that the Holy See has been too slow to act on scandals globally.
In the latest such move, the Vatican set a July trial date for Jozef Wesolowski, a Polish ex-archbishop who stands accused of abusing children while ambassador to the Dominican Republic. He will be tried in a Vatican criminal court, an unusual step.
That announcement came just days after the pope approved the Vatican’s first system for judging bishops who fail in their duty to protect children from abusive clerics, a plan proposed by the papal commission that Francis set up to tackle sexual abuse.
As new policies are implemented at the Vatican, similar discussions are underway in Rome and around the world.
The four-day conference at Pontifical Gregorian University — a top Jesuit-run school sometimes known as “the pope’s Harvard” — brought the debate to the heart of Rome.
Speaking on Wednesday at the end of the conference, Bishop Edward J. Burns of the Diocese of Juneau, Alaska, who is chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ committee on child protection, said participants had “acknowledged that the sacred has been twisted by evil.”
“That is to say, the sacred lives of innocent children have been abused,” he went on. “We used these days to strategize on how we can improve our work, in creating a safe environment in our church for our children, our youth and those who are vulnerable.”
Some 70 participants from countries around the world also looked back into church history for lessons, with Sister Sara Butler, president of the U.S.-based Academy of Catholic Theology, telling journalists that efforts had been made to tackle the scourge of clerical abuse a thousand years ago.
For example, Butler called the 11th-century Italian Benedictine and cardinal St. Peter Damian a “doctor of reform” for establishing lay-led advisory boards to combat “rampant” abuse by clergymen.
“This was a successful reform movement in the 11th century which is a kind of model for what we are doing today,” she said.
Reflecting on present-day progress, the Rev. Hans Zollner, a Jesuit priest and president of the university’s Centre for Child Protection, said that despite some resistance the Catholic Church has “grown more proactive” in recent years.
“Worldwide, especially in those countries where the scandals hit most — many of the Anglophone countries — the church has done a lot,” he said. “But in all this, the very first response was often defensive, and in some cases, is still now defensive.”
Zollner is trying to establish best practices for child protection officers working with Catholic institutions by establishing a diploma course in the safeguarding of minors.
“We are happy that from February 2016 we will open this possibility for a number of people. We hope to address this course especially to people who come from countries where there are no or very little such initiatives, especially in Asia, in Africa and in Latin America,” he said.
The one-semester residential course will focus on areas such as recognizing signs of abuse, helping survivors and developing prevention programs.
The state Supreme Court Friday rebuffed the Roman Catholic Church’s attempt to curb the number of lawsuits brought by those who claim they were abused as children by priests, upholding the law that allows abuse victims to file lawsuit until they are 48.
Upholding a $1.3 judgment for a man who claimed he was abused by a priest at a Derby school in the early 1980s, the state’s highest court ruled the 13-year-old law extending the statute of limitations for abuse lawsuits is constitutional.
“Given the unique psychological and social factors that often result in delayed reporting of child-hood sexual abuse, which frustrated the ability of victims to bring an action under earlier revisions of the statute of limitations, we cannot say that the legislature acted unreasonably or irrationally,” the court ruled.
New Haven lawyer Thomas McNamara, who represented the plaintiff in the Derby case, said sex abuse victims often don’t come to terms with the abuse until much later in life and the state legislature recognized that when in 2002 it voted to extend the statute of limitation on sex abuse cases to 30 years from when a complainant reaches 18. The law was made retroactive.
“Former Hartford Archbishop Henry Mansell and current Archbishop Leonard Blair could have told their lawyers not to try to overturn this statute,” said McNamara. “However, in juxposition to the charitable and kind front the catholic church puts on they attempted essentially to keep these people as victims forever with no recourse, shame on them.”
The ruling was also hailed by the national Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.
“This ruling is part of an encouraging pattern by judges in the US to make it easier for victims to use the courts to protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded by exposing and punishing wrongdoers whose misdeeds hurt kids or enable others to hurt kids,” said SNAP director David Clohessy. “It’s tragic that Hartford Catholic officials want to make it much harder for victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to protect children, inside and outside of the church.”
The archdiocese released a statement Friday defending its appeal.
“The court’s decision will make it extremely difficult for a person or entity to defend itself against very old claims after people familiar with the claims are dead and pertinent records have been destroyed under a facility’s file retention program,” the statement said. “A non-negligent defendant in that situation is at a great disadvantage and is vulnerable to an adverse jury verdict.”
A Superior Court jury returned the verdict in February 2012 for the local man who claimed he was 13 when he was abused by the Rev. Ivan Ferguson at St. Mary’s grammar school in Derby between 1981 and 1983.
Ferguson died in 2002.
According to testimony and evidence during the trial, in 1979 a mother complained to then-Archbishop John F. Whealon that Ferguson had abused her two young sons in Simsbury. Whealon confronted Ferguson, who admitted the abuse but blamed his behavior on alcohol abuse.
Whealon ordered Ferguson to undergo four months of treatment at the St. Luke Institute, a church clinic in Massachusetts that treated alcoholic clergy.
In 1981, Ferguson was assigned principal of St. Mary’s grammar school in Derby, were the lawsuit claimed he abused the complainant, then an altar boy.
Full article: http://blog.ctnews.com/connecticutpostings/2015/06/26/state-supreme-court-upholds-priest-abuse-law/
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2015-06-26 23:58:512015-06-26 23:58:51Daniel Tepfer, State Supreme Court upholds priest abuse law, CT News Blog
The state Supreme Court Friday upheld a $1 million verdict in a priest sexual abuse case while at the same time rejecting an argument by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford that a state law that extended the statute of limitations for potential victims to file a lawsuit was unconstitutional.
In February 2012, a jury in Waterbury awarded a former altar boy $1 million after a trial in which the victim, identified in court papers as Jacob Doe, testified that he and a friend were repeatedly molested and sexually assaulted by the Rev. Ivan Ferguson and a friend of the priest.
During oral arguments before the Supreme Court last year, the archdiocese argued to overturn the verdict based on a variety of claims — including that the trial judge erred by not allowing an expert witness to testify for the church and by allowing the jury to hear testimony from a deposition of Ferguson, who died years ago.
But the most controversial argument was that the state legislature’s decision in 2002 to extend the statute of limitations for civil cases on sexual assault claims to 30 years from when a complainant reaches 18 was unconstitutional.
The statute of limitations had previously been 17 years. The change was retroactive.
The diocese’s attorneys argued that under the original law, Jacob Doe would have had until 1988 to file a lawsuit, and that even after the measure was initially amended in 1991 to the 17-year statute, the plaintiff’s right to file a lawsuit would have expired in 2003.
It was only after it was changed once again in 2002 that the plaintiff was able to file the lawsuit, which was not only “unconstitutional but unfair to the church or any other institution,” the lawyers argued.
But in a 57-page decision, the court rejected all of the churches’ argument and upheld the verdict.
“Given the unique psychological and social factors that often result in delayed reporting of childhood sexual abuse, which frustrated the ability of victims to bring an action under earlier revisions of the statute of limitations, we cannot say that the legislature acted unreasonably or irrationally in determining that the revival of child sexual abuse victims’ previously time-barred claims serves a legitimate public interest and accomplishes that purpose in a reasonable way,” the ruling said.
The archdiocese was first made aware of Ferguson’s abuse by a phone call in 1979. At the time, Ferguson was a teacher at Northwest Catholic High School in West Hartford.
At the trial, testimony showed that when former Archbishop John F. Whealon confronted him about the 1979 allegation, Ferguson admitted to the abuse. Ferguson was sent to a treatment facility in Massachusetts. Two years later, Whealon appointed Ferguson priest director of a Derby parochial school.
Ferguson and his friend were accused of abusing Doe and his childhood friend at, among other places, the rectory to which Ferguson had been reassigned in Derby. Ferguson died in 2002. He had been deposed for a different lawsuit in 1997 and had testified he was treated for only alcohol addiction.
The Supreme Court rejected all of the diocese legal arguments, concluding the jury’s verdict was proper.
“The present case presented the jury with the far simpler question of whether it was reasonable for the defendant to put Ferguson — who was known to the defendant as a child molester whose pedophilic tendencies were exacerbated by alcohol — back in a position where he was in contact with minors and, thus, roll the proverbial dice about whether Ferguson would ever drink alcohol and revert to his dangerous sexual proclivities,” the court ruled.
Full article: http://www.ctnow.com/news/hc-supreme-court-priest-sexual-abuse-20150626,0,5784547.story
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2015-06-26 23:55:142015-06-26 23:55:14DAVE ALTIMARI, State Supreme Court Upholds $1 Million Verdict In Priest Sex Abuse Case, CT Now
Lawyers for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis are warning that criminal charges against the corporation could jeopardize insurance coverage that’s being counted on to pay some claims of victims of clergy abuse.
The archdiocese faces multiple counts for allegedly failing to protect victims from a former St. Paul priest.
Archdiocese insurers were already questioning whether they were liable to cover abuse claims.
Now the insurers’ case is stronger because the charges allege the archdiocese knew about problems and didn’t protect kids, University of Minnesota law professor Christopher Soper told Minnesota Public Radio News (http://bit.ly/1J7vOJb ). Most insurance policies don’t cover intentional or criminal acts, he said.
Insurers often fight coverage on such cases because the financial stakes are high.
From 2004 to 2014, the Catholic diocese in the U.S. and other entities reported that more than $2.7 billion was incurred in sex abuse costs, including settlements, victim therapy, offender support and attorney fees, according to surveys conducted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. About 32 percent of those costs were covered by insurance.
Abuse victims of the Twin Cities archdiocese have until Aug. 3 to file claims in bankruptcy court. So far, roughly 100 claims have been filed.
The archdiocese filed for bankruptcy in January due to concerns that it wouldn’t be able to compensate the victims, and a judge ordered all parties into mediation. The archdiocese is banking on the insurance coverage to compensate abuse victims, after reporting about $27 million in net assets as of May 31.
Last November, the archdiocese sued insurance companies covering it from the 1940s through the 1980s in an effort to resolve the carriers’ obligations to cover clergy sexual abuse claims.
Although the Twin Cities archdiocese wants insurers to contribute to a settlement of claims filed by alleged victims, many have denied claims of have reserved the right to reject claims. The coverage dispute is now part of the archdiocese’s bankruptcy proceedings.
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2015-06-26 03:13:542015-06-26 03:13:54Associated Press, Charges Against Archdiocese May Jeopardize Insurance Payouts, NY Times
See video of testimony here: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2vc2d0_marci-hamilton-testimony-at-markey-hearing_news
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2015-06-26 03:08:382015-06-26 03:08:38Marci Hamilton Testimony at Markey Hearing
The Pope has announced on Wednesday the creation of a new church tribunal to judge bishops who do not expose priests guilty of sexual abuse on children, a move considered revolutionary in the Vatican history.
The new office will be set up within the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which will be mandated to judge all such cases connected to the abuse of children and vulnerable adults.
Details must still be worked out, including the statute of limitations to determine whether old cases of negligence by bishops dating back 20 or 30 years ago can now be heard. “Time will tell the effectiveness of the new measure, but I am hopeful”. Their aim was to prevent scandal.
Initially the complaints would be investigated by one of three Vatican departments, depending on whose jurisdiction the bishops were under.
The US-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) said the Pope should have gone much further. The Vatican said it could be possible for Pope Francis to visit Argentina in the spring of 2016.
The idea to create the tribunal came from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, an advisory panel created in 2014 and headed by O’Malley.
Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the head of Pope Francis’ sex abuse advisory commission, presented the proposals to the Pontiff’s cardinal advisers, who have been meeting this week. “He has, however, sacked no one”.
For too long, bishops have feared neither the arm of the law nor the wrath of the Vatican.
“The Holy Father approved the proposals and authorized that sufficient resources will be provided for this objective”, Vatican radio said.
“I don’t have a lot of background information on it”, said Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Pope Francis took a massive step towards the eradication of allegations and cases of child rape and molestation involving priests and bishops.
On the church’s role in solemnising marriages for the State, Dr Martin said the bishops didn’t yet feel ready to take a decision, as the legislation had yet to be published.
Last week, prosecutors in Minnesota charged the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis with six counts related to a sexually abusive ex-priest. “We welcome it and will cooperate”, Kurtz said.
“But the other thing is that this tribunal doesn’t make any mention of other office holders within Catholic Church institutions, such as principals of Catholic schools, people within the Catholic education service who apparently had a lot to say about how these crimes were covered up, and, also, heads of religious orders”. “Priests abuse children and so do bishops – bishops who offend are inevitably enablers, and the commission’s plan must confront that sad fact”.
“If he (a bishop) doesn’t have the right attitude to abuse, or if he doesn’t deal with a case properly and it means a child is not kept safe, then he will have to answer to his own higher authority as well as to civil authority”, said Ms Collins.
Canon law already does provide sanctions for bishops who are negligent in their duties, but the Vatican was never known to have meted out punishment for a bishop who covered up for an abuser.
Full article: http://rapidnewsnetwork.com/pope-francis-backs-new-vatican-sex-abuse-court/34084/
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2015-06-25 03:03:112015-06-25 03:03:11Pope Francis Backs New Vatican Sex Abuse Court, Rapid News Network
Rosie Scammell, Rome summit looks to improve church’s handling of child sexual abuse, Religion News Services
/in International /by SOL ReformAs the Vatican continues to work on policies to combat clergy sex abuse, a leading pontifical university in Rome hosted a conference this week on how the Catholic Church can better address the current crisis and released details of a new diploma program on protecting children.
A series of measures pushed through in recent months by Pope Francis has given Vatican officials new tools for dealing with child molesters within the church, but critics argue that the Holy See has been too slow to act on scandals globally.
In the latest such move, the Vatican set a July trial date for Jozef Wesolowski, a Polish ex-archbishop who stands accused of abusing children while ambassador to the Dominican Republic. He will be tried in a Vatican criminal court, an unusual step.
That announcement came just days after the pope approved the Vatican’s first system for judging bishops who fail in their duty to protect children from abusive clerics, a plan proposed by the papal commission that Francis set up to tackle sexual abuse.
As new policies are implemented at the Vatican, similar discussions are underway in Rome and around the world.
The four-day conference at Pontifical Gregorian University — a top Jesuit-run school sometimes known as “the pope’s Harvard” — brought the debate to the heart of Rome.
Speaking on Wednesday at the end of the conference, Bishop Edward J. Burns of the Diocese of Juneau, Alaska, who is chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ committee on child protection, said participants had “acknowledged that the sacred has been twisted by evil.”
“That is to say, the sacred lives of innocent children have been abused,” he went on. “We used these days to strategize on how we can improve our work, in creating a safe environment in our church for our children, our youth and those who are vulnerable.”
Some 70 participants from countries around the world also looked back into church history for lessons, with Sister Sara Butler, president of the U.S.-based Academy of Catholic Theology, telling journalists that efforts had been made to tackle the scourge of clerical abuse a thousand years ago.
For example, Butler called the 11th-century Italian Benedictine and cardinal St. Peter Damian a “doctor of reform” for establishing lay-led advisory boards to combat “rampant” abuse by clergymen.
“This was a successful reform movement in the 11th century which is a kind of model for what we are doing today,” she said.
Reflecting on present-day progress, the Rev. Hans Zollner, a Jesuit priest and president of the university’s Centre for Child Protection, said that despite some resistance the Catholic Church has “grown more proactive” in recent years.
“Worldwide, especially in those countries where the scandals hit most — many of the Anglophone countries — the church has done a lot,” he said. “But in all this, the very first response was often defensive, and in some cases, is still now defensive.”
Zollner is trying to establish best practices for child protection officers working with Catholic institutions by establishing a diploma course in the safeguarding of minors.
“We are happy that from February 2016 we will open this possibility for a number of people. We hope to address this course especially to people who come from countries where there are no or very little such initiatives, especially in Asia, in Africa and in Latin America,” he said.
The one-semester residential course will focus on areas such as recognizing signs of abuse, helping survivors and developing prevention programs.
Rome summit looks to improve church’s handling of child sexual abuse _ Deseret News National
Daniel Tepfer, State Supreme Court upholds priest abuse law, CT News Blog
/in Connecticut /by SOL ReformThe state Supreme Court Friday rebuffed the Roman Catholic Church’s attempt to curb the number of lawsuits brought by those who claim they were abused as children by priests, upholding the law that allows abuse victims to file lawsuit until they are 48.
Upholding a $1.3 judgment for a man who claimed he was abused by a priest at a Derby school in the early 1980s, the state’s highest court ruled the 13-year-old law extending the statute of limitations for abuse lawsuits is constitutional.
“Given the unique psychological and social factors that often result in delayed reporting of child-hood sexual abuse, which frustrated the ability of victims to bring an action under earlier revisions of the statute of limitations, we cannot say that the legislature acted unreasonably or irrationally,” the court ruled.
New Haven lawyer Thomas McNamara, who represented the plaintiff in the Derby case, said sex abuse victims often don’t come to terms with the abuse until much later in life and the state legislature recognized that when in 2002 it voted to extend the statute of limitation on sex abuse cases to 30 years from when a complainant reaches 18. The law was made retroactive.
“Former Hartford Archbishop Henry Mansell and current Archbishop Leonard Blair could have told their lawyers not to try to overturn this statute,” said McNamara. “However, in juxposition to the charitable and kind front the catholic church puts on they attempted essentially to keep these people as victims forever with no recourse, shame on them.”
The ruling was also hailed by the national Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.
“This ruling is part of an encouraging pattern by judges in the US to make it easier for victims to use the courts to protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded by exposing and punishing wrongdoers whose misdeeds hurt kids or enable others to hurt kids,” said SNAP director David Clohessy. “It’s tragic that Hartford Catholic officials want to make it much harder for victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to protect children, inside and outside of the church.”
The archdiocese released a statement Friday defending its appeal.
“The court’s decision will make it extremely difficult for a person or entity to defend itself against very old claims after people familiar with the claims are dead and pertinent records have been destroyed under a facility’s file retention program,” the statement said. “A non-negligent defendant in that situation is at a great disadvantage and is vulnerable to an adverse jury verdict.”
A Superior Court jury returned the verdict in February 2012 for the local man who claimed he was 13 when he was abused by the Rev. Ivan Ferguson at St. Mary’s grammar school in Derby between 1981 and 1983.
Ferguson died in 2002.
According to testimony and evidence during the trial, in 1979 a mother complained to then-Archbishop John F. Whealon that Ferguson had abused her two young sons in Simsbury. Whealon confronted Ferguson, who admitted the abuse but blamed his behavior on alcohol abuse.
Whealon ordered Ferguson to undergo four months of treatment at the St. Luke Institute, a church clinic in Massachusetts that treated alcoholic clergy.
In 1981, Ferguson was assigned principal of St. Mary’s grammar school in Derby, were the lawsuit claimed he abused the complainant, then an altar boy.
Full article: http://blog.ctnews.com/connecticutpostings/2015/06/26/state-supreme-court-upholds-priest-abuse-law/
DAVE ALTIMARI, State Supreme Court Upholds $1 Million Verdict In Priest Sex Abuse Case, CT Now
/in Connecticut /by SOL ReformThe state Supreme Court Friday upheld a $1 million verdict in a priest sexual abuse case while at the same time rejecting an argument by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford that a state law that extended the statute of limitations for potential victims to file a lawsuit was unconstitutional.
In February 2012, a jury in Waterbury awarded a former altar boy $1 million after a trial in which the victim, identified in court papers as Jacob Doe, testified that he and a friend were repeatedly molested and sexually assaulted by the Rev. Ivan Ferguson and a friend of the priest.
During oral arguments before the Supreme Court last year, the archdiocese argued to overturn the verdict based on a variety of claims — including that the trial judge erred by not allowing an expert witness to testify for the church and by allowing the jury to hear testimony from a deposition of Ferguson, who died years ago.
But the most controversial argument was that the state legislature’s decision in 2002 to extend the statute of limitations for civil cases on sexual assault claims to 30 years from when a complainant reaches 18 was unconstitutional.
The statute of limitations had previously been 17 years. The change was retroactive.
The diocese’s attorneys argued that under the original law, Jacob Doe would have had until 1988 to file a lawsuit, and that even after the measure was initially amended in 1991 to the 17-year statute, the plaintiff’s right to file a lawsuit would have expired in 2003.
It was only after it was changed once again in 2002 that the plaintiff was able to file the lawsuit, which was not only “unconstitutional but unfair to the church or any other institution,” the lawyers argued.
But in a 57-page decision, the court rejected all of the churches’ argument and upheld the verdict.
“Given the unique psychological and social factors that often result in delayed reporting of childhood sexual abuse, which frustrated the ability of victims to bring an action under earlier revisions of the statute of limitations, we cannot say that the legislature acted unreasonably or irrationally in determining that the revival of child sexual abuse victims’ previously time-barred claims serves a legitimate public interest and accomplishes that purpose in a reasonable way,” the ruling said.
The archdiocese was first made aware of Ferguson’s abuse by a phone call in 1979. At the time, Ferguson was a teacher at Northwest Catholic High School in West Hartford.
At the trial, testimony showed that when former Archbishop John F. Whealon confronted him about the 1979 allegation, Ferguson admitted to the abuse. Ferguson was sent to a treatment facility in Massachusetts. Two years later, Whealon appointed Ferguson priest director of a Derby parochial school.
Ferguson and his friend were accused of abusing Doe and his childhood friend at, among other places, the rectory to which Ferguson had been reassigned in Derby. Ferguson died in 2002. He had been deposed for a different lawsuit in 1997 and had testified he was treated for only alcohol addiction.
The Supreme Court rejected all of the diocese legal arguments, concluding the jury’s verdict was proper.
“The present case presented the jury with the far simpler question of whether it was reasonable for the defendant to put Ferguson — who was known to the defendant as a child molester whose pedophilic tendencies were exacerbated by alcohol — back in a position where he was in contact with minors and, thus, roll the proverbial dice about whether Ferguson would ever drink alcohol and revert to his dangerous sexual proclivities,” the court ruled.
Full article: http://www.ctnow.com/news/hc-supreme-court-priest-sexual-abuse-20150626,0,5784547.story
Associated Press, Charges Against Archdiocese May Jeopardize Insurance Payouts, NY Times
/in Uncategorized /by SOL ReformLawyers for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis are warning that criminal charges against the corporation could jeopardize insurance coverage that’s being counted on to pay some claims of victims of clergy abuse.
The archdiocese faces multiple counts for allegedly failing to protect victims from a former St. Paul priest.
Archdiocese insurers were already questioning whether they were liable to cover abuse claims.
Now the insurers’ case is stronger because the charges allege the archdiocese knew about problems and didn’t protect kids, University of Minnesota law professor Christopher Soper told Minnesota Public Radio News (http://bit.ly/1J7vOJb ). Most insurance policies don’t cover intentional or criminal acts, he said.
Insurers often fight coverage on such cases because the financial stakes are high.
From 2004 to 2014, the Catholic diocese in the U.S. and other entities reported that more than $2.7 billion was incurred in sex abuse costs, including settlements, victim therapy, offender support and attorney fees, according to surveys conducted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. About 32 percent of those costs were covered by insurance.
Abuse victims of the Twin Cities archdiocese have until Aug. 3 to file claims in bankruptcy court. So far, roughly 100 claims have been filed.
The archdiocese filed for bankruptcy in January due to concerns that it wouldn’t be able to compensate the victims, and a judge ordered all parties into mediation. The archdiocese is banking on the insurance coverage to compensate abuse victims, after reporting about $27 million in net assets as of May 31.
Last November, the archdiocese sued insurance companies covering it from the 1940s through the 1980s in an effort to resolve the carriers’ obligations to cover clergy sexual abuse claims.
Although the Twin Cities archdiocese wants insurers to contribute to a settlement of claims filed by alleged victims, many have denied claims of have reserved the right to reject claims. The coverage dispute is now part of the archdiocese’s bankruptcy proceedings.
Charges Against Archdiocese May Jeopardize Insurance Payouts – The New York Times
Marci Hamilton Testimony at Markey Hearing
/in New York /by SOL ReformSee video of testimony here: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2vc2d0_marci-hamilton-testimony-at-markey-hearing_news
Pope Francis Backs New Vatican Sex Abuse Court, Rapid News Network
/in Uncategorized /by SOL ReformThe Pope has announced on Wednesday the creation of a new church tribunal to judge bishops who do not expose priests guilty of sexual abuse on children, a move considered revolutionary in the Vatican history.
The new office will be set up within the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which will be mandated to judge all such cases connected to the abuse of children and vulnerable adults.
Details must still be worked out, including the statute of limitations to determine whether old cases of negligence by bishops dating back 20 or 30 years ago can now be heard. “Time will tell the effectiveness of the new measure, but I am hopeful”. Their aim was to prevent scandal.
Initially the complaints would be investigated by one of three Vatican departments, depending on whose jurisdiction the bishops were under.
The US-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) said the Pope should have gone much further. The Vatican said it could be possible for Pope Francis to visit Argentina in the spring of 2016.
The idea to create the tribunal came from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, an advisory panel created in 2014 and headed by O’Malley.
Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the head of Pope Francis’ sex abuse advisory commission, presented the proposals to the Pontiff’s cardinal advisers, who have been meeting this week. “He has, however, sacked no one”.
For too long, bishops have feared neither the arm of the law nor the wrath of the Vatican.
“The Holy Father approved the proposals and authorized that sufficient resources will be provided for this objective”, Vatican radio said.
“I don’t have a lot of background information on it”, said Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Pope Francis took a massive step towards the eradication of allegations and cases of child rape and molestation involving priests and bishops.
On the church’s role in solemnising marriages for the State, Dr Martin said the bishops didn’t yet feel ready to take a decision, as the legislation had yet to be published.
Last week, prosecutors in Minnesota charged the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis with six counts related to a sexually abusive ex-priest. “We welcome it and will cooperate”, Kurtz said.
“But the other thing is that this tribunal doesn’t make any mention of other office holders within Catholic Church institutions, such as principals of Catholic schools, people within the Catholic education service who apparently had a lot to say about how these crimes were covered up, and, also, heads of religious orders”. “Priests abuse children and so do bishops – bishops who offend are inevitably enablers, and the commission’s plan must confront that sad fact”.
“If he (a bishop) doesn’t have the right attitude to abuse, or if he doesn’t deal with a case properly and it means a child is not kept safe, then he will have to answer to his own higher authority as well as to civil authority”, said Ms Collins.
Canon law already does provide sanctions for bishops who are negligent in their duties, but the Vatican was never known to have meted out punishment for a bishop who covered up for an abuser.
Full article: http://rapidnewsnetwork.com/pope-francis-backs-new-vatican-sex-abuse-court/34084/