Traditional Christian Family Values

BURLINGTON, Vt. — Many Roman Catholics believe that the worst of the clergy sex-abuse scandal is over. But in the Diocese of Burlington, it’s deepening.

The case of one cleric, assigned to Vermont parishes in the 1970s despite warnings from an Indiana bishop that the priest was suspected of molesting boys, is battering the local church.

Last month, a former altar boy who said the Rev. Edward Paquette molested him repeatedly three decades ago won an $8.7 million jury verdict in a negligence lawsuit against the diocese.

Attorneys for the diocese said they have insurance that could cover part of the $8.7 million payout, but they couldn’t find their copy of the policy and had sued the insurer to get it.

To make certain that the settlement is paid, a judge put a $10.2 million lien on the diocese’s central offices. An appeal is pending. But even if the verdict is overturned, 16 more people who said Paquette molested them in Vermont have filed their own claims.

It’s an expense the Vermont church will have to scramble to avoid.

Paquette is not known to have faced criminal charges, but he acknowledged in a 2006 deposition that he was “sexually involved” with boys while in parishes in Massachusetts, Indiana and Vermont. That deposition was for a negligence claim brought by a former Vermont altar boy who reached a near $1 million settlement with the Burlington Diocese.

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MANILA, Philippines—A Catholic priest from Dipolog City has been sanctioned and restricted to the convent for alleged sexual misconduct while serving in a United States parish.

Bishop Jose Manguiran of the Diocese of Dipolog has revoked the priestly offices and functions of Fr. Reynaldo M. Pardillada, 37, who is accused of having an illicit affair with a married Filipina while serving at the Epiphany Church in Cliffside Park, New Jersey.

Pardillada was last week expelled by the Archbishop of Newark after the New Jersey-based 32-year-old Filipino woman, who also happened to be from Dipolog, reported the affair to church authorities.

The woman complained of suffering emotional and physical abuse at the hands of Pardillada whom she first met as a visiting balikbayan in Dipolog in November 2005.

She said she finally summoned the courage to complain against Pardillada when he got her pregnant twice and forced her to abort the babies.

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FORT WORTH — It began in February when the father overheard his 17-year-old daughter talking inappropriately over the phone.

On the other end of the line, the father said he later learned, was James “Jay” Virtue Robinson IV, pastor of Southwood Baptist Church, which the family had been attending for more than a decade.

The girl acknowledged that she had had a sexual relationship with the 31-year-old pastor.

The outraged father told the church council and several church members. But Robinson, pastor of the church since October 2006, repeatedly denied his accusations.

Eventually, saying he had learned that a relationship had started when his daughter was 16, the father went to police.

Wednesday evening, more than three months after the father overheard the phone call, Robinson surrendered at the Tarrant County Jail in response to an arrest warrant accusing him of sexual assault of a child. He was released after posting $20,000 bail.

The case has divided the church at 2633 Altamesa Blvd. Some back the pastor; other long-term members believe that the evidence supports Robinson’s removal.

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Mary Benz will go on trial for allegedly assaulting a 10-month-old girl left in her care at a church day care center in Random Lake.

Judge Terence Bourke bound over Benz for trial following a two-day preliminary hearing that concluded today after a pediatrician testified the child suffered vaginal injuries that required force and intent.

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PUEBLO - A Pueblo man in his 40’s is suing the Diocese of Pueblo, claiming he was sexually abused by a former priest in the late 1970s and that the Diocese knew of other abuses and did nothing to stop it.

In his six-page lawsuit, a man known only as “John Doe” alleges abuse by then-Father Michael Kurz. Kurz is now a Vicar in Rockford, Illinois.

According to Adam Horowitz, one of John Doe’s attorney’s, the lawsuit can’t be against Kurz because the statute of limitations has run out, but it can be against the Diocese because of something called “fraudulent concealment”. In the lawsuit, John Doe claims, “The diocese actively took steps to conceal the abuse of minors and make affirmative misrepresentations to protect FATHER KURZ”.

John Doe alleges Kurz sexually abused him starting in 1976, when John Doe was 13 or 14 years old. It also states the abuse continued for an extended period of time during John Doe’s freshman and sophomore years in high school.

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FAIRBANKS, Alaska — The Catholic Diocese of Fairbanks is launching a multistate search for possible sexual assault victims as it moves forward with the settlement of abuse claims against it.

The Diocese filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this year. It is working with attorneys representing clients who claim sexual abuse by clergy between the 1950s and 1980s.

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Australian Anglican leader Archbishop Philip Aspinall has backed a cut in the budget of the body charged with handling sexual abuse matters in his own diocese.

The Brisbane diocese’s annual parliament, or synod, will meet this weekend to approve the church’s budget for 2009.

Budget papers show the diocese’s professional standards unit will take a 30 per cent cut, from $195,000 to $135,000, in 2009 despite ongoing public concern over the church’s handling of sexual abuse.

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A High Court jury has heard evidence about the “pastoral gesture” process carried out by the Order of St John of God, in which boys alleging sexual abuse at Marylands School were interviewed and received payments from the church.

The process itself has been raised during the three-week trial of the former prior of the order at Marylands, Rodger William Moloney, 71, who denies 28 charges of sexual abuse of boys at the school near Christchurch in the 1970s.

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Circuit Judge Nick Geeker sentenced Pastor Leon Rankins III today to five years in state prison and 10 years probation.

Rankins, 36, of the Restoration Full Gospel Baptist Church in the 900 block of West Cervantes Street, is also required to register as a sexual predator.

Rankins pleaded no contest in April to two counts of lewd and lascivious battery on a victim over the age of 12.

If Rankins had been convicted at trial, he would have faced at least 12 years in prison.

Rankins, who had been free on bond, was handcuffed and led out of the courtroom by his attorney and the court security officer.

More than 20 family members and supporters of Rankins filed quietly out of the courtroom after Geeker announced the sentence. None wished to comment as they exited the courtroom.

The allegations against Rankins came to light last April when the victim told his parents that the minister had been molesting him for two years, according to police reports.

Prior to his arrest, Rankins pleaded with the victim’s family not to press charges. Unbeknownst to Rankins, the family had contacted authorities who recorded a telephone conversation in which Rankins told the victim’s mother he was dealing with personal issues and was willing to leave the church.

It was the second time Rankins, a registered sex offender, was accused of having sex with a boy.

Rankins was 17 years old at the time of another sex abuse allegation in 1989; the victim was an 11-year-old boy.

In 1994, Rankins pleaded no contest to two counts of sexual battery and was sentenced to two years of house arrest followed by two years of probation.

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PROVIDENCE — A Massachusetts man yesterday filed suit against the Catholic Diocese of Providence, alleging he was molested as a second grader in the late 1960s by an Irish priest who served as pastor at Our Lady of Mercy in East Greenwich.

The accused priest, the Rev. Brendan Smyth, became a notorious figure in the annals of clergy abuse before his death in prison in 1997. His admissions to assaulting numerous children in Ireland are said to have figured prominently in the collapse of the coalition government there in the 1990s.

Smyth’s cases in Ireland also included an extraordinary written acknowledgment on the part of one of his supervisors that he and others had known for decades about Father Smyth’s “problem” with children.

Yesterday, Jeff Thomas, a 47-year-old contractor, said Smyth molested and sodomized him in 1967 or 1968. The assaults, said Thomas’ lawyer, Jeffrey R. Anderson, came either before Smyth left or soon after he returned to Rhode Island from Ireland, where he had received “treatment” for his pedophilia.

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