Abuse Audit Finds Soaring Costs, Fewer Allegations

WASHINGTON – The costs to the Catholic Church for legal settlements in abuse cases, therapy for victims of sexual abuse, support for offenders and legal fees soared to more than $600 million in 2007, the fourth year of reporting on the handling of abuse cases by U.S. dioceses and religious orders.

The 2007 Survey of Allegations and Costs released by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops March 7 also reported a continued decrease in the number of new credible allegations of abuse: 599 new allegations were made in 2007, compared with 635 in 2006, 695 in 2005 and 898 in 2004, the first year of the survey.

According to the survey conducted by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, dioceses and religious institutes paid $615 million for legal settlements, therapy, support for offenders, attorneys’ fees and other costs.

In the four previous years of the survey, the highest amount paid out was $466 million in 2005.

Of the $615 million, dioceses spent $499 million and religious orders paid $116 million.

Teresa Kettelkamp, executive director of the U.S. bishops’ Office of Child and Youth Protection, said the annual costs may continue to be high in coming years, as dioceses pay off settlements to victims of abuse.

Jesuits Approve Decrees, Confirm Fidelity to Pope

ROME – The Jesuit General Congregation concluded two months of work by approving five decrees, including one on obedience, and a separate document reaffirming the Jesuits’ allegiance to the pope and fidelity to Church teaching.

The 225 Jesuits elected to represent their almost 20,000 confreres around the world marked the end of their meeting with a March 6 Mass of thanksgiving in Rome’s Church of the Gesu, site of the tomb of St. Ignatius of Loyola, the Jesuit founder.

Meeting reporters March 7, Father Adolfo Nicolas, who was elected superior general of the Jesuits in January, called the meeting an experience of “the union of hearts, the union of the society” and of its “union with its head, who is the Holy Father.”

The congregation approved formal decrees focused on the Jesuit mission in the modern world; Jesuit identity; collaboration with those outside the Jesuits; internal governance; and obedience, to one’s superior as well as to the pope.

The decrees will be translated and distributed to Jesuits before they are released publicly.

U.S. General Not Confident Mosul Archbishop Is Alive

BAGHDAD, Iraq – A day after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered Iraqi forces to maximize attempts at releasing Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho of Mosul, Iraq, a top U.S. general said he was not confident the archbishop would be found alive.

Maj. Gen. Mark P. Hertling said March 5 Archbishop Rahho “could easily be killed and that would be really unfortunate,” reported the British news agency Reuters.
Hertling, commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq, where Mosul is located, added that Iraqi special forces and U.S. forces were searching for the archbishop, who was kidnapped late Feb. 29 after he finished leading the Way of the Cross.

He had just left the Church of the Holy Spirit in Mosul and was in his car with his driver and two bodyguards when the kidnappers attacked.

The three people who were traveling with him were killed. The kidnappers have communicated their demands, which reportedly include a $1 million ransom, according to Aid to the Church in Need, a Catholic charity helping persecuted Christians.

Hertling told Reuters he did not discount al-Qaida as being responsible for the attack and said he believed Archbishop Rahho was being held for ransom.

Britain Repeals Blasphemy Against Christianity Act

LONDON – The criminal offense of blasphemy against Christianity has been abolished in England and Wales.

The House of Lords voted to support a government amendment to the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill to scrap the act, which dates back more than 300 years.

Baroness Andrews, communities minister, told Britain’s House of Lords, where the bill is in its final stages, that the 1697 Blasphemy Act was anachronistic and had “fallen into disuse.”

She said legal protections guaranteed to religious believers by the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 meant that the law could be “safely repealed.”

“As long as this law remains on the statute book, it hinders the U.K.’s ability to challenge oppressive blasphemy laws in other jurisdictions, including those used to persecute vulnerable Christian minorities,” she said during the March 5 debate. “It is not an attack on the sacred in our society.”

Bishop Forbids Group From Claiming It Is Divine

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – Stating that the authenticity of “messages, stories and devotions” being propagated by a local prayer group “has not been proven,” Springfield Bishop Timothy A. McDonnell has forbidden the group from disseminating material it contends is of divine origin.

An investigative team, charged last November with looking into the Springfield-based prayer group known as Seeds of Hope, recently completed its review.

The results of the review prompted Bishop McDonnell to send Neil Harrington Jr., leader of the group, a letter dated Feb. 21 stating: “The content of those messages, stories and devotions is not to be disseminated by word, writing or any other means to any person.”

Seeds of Hope has been distributing its literature via the Internet and distributing it in parishes in various parts of the country, including Louisiana.

According to diocesan spokesman Mark E. Dupont, the investigative team was formed late last fall in response to “questions and concerns of several area parishioners” that Seeds of Hope was operating in a manner that could be harmful to Catholics.