The Oregonian

Sunday, October 28, 2007

The Portland Archdiocese has lost its mind.

As if determined to prove it has learned nothing from past sins, and those of its priests, the archdiocese is demanding that a new group claiming to be victims of clergy abuse should be compelled to abandon their pseudonyms and go public with their identities.

Only last June, Catholic Archbishop John Vlazny apologized for the burdens carried by "the victims of sexual abuse" and conceded, "By our reluctance to bring light to this great darkness, we as a people have sinned."

The time for penance and reconciliation, apparently, has ended. This legal maneuver is an exasperating move to bully these plaintiffs and intimidate future ones.

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By WILLIAM McCALL
The Associated Press
10/25/2007, 4:20 p.m. PDT

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Six months after a historic bankruptcy settlement between the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland and plaintiffs who said priests abused them, the legal battle has taken a new twist — whether a new plaintiff should be publicly identified.

The archdiocese has challenged a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court by a man identified as "John Doe 120," arguing the release of copies of the complaint to journalists in advance of the filing undermines his argument for privacy.

"This calculated, public disclosure, timed to maximize its effectiveness in generating a news story before the Archdiocese could respond to a lawsuit filing, deprives plaintiff of any valid claim about a need for privacy," the archdiocese argued.

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Wednesday, October 24, 2007

ASHBEL S. GREEN

Lawsuit - The Portland archdiocese wants new accusers to reveal their names after alerting the media

A historic bankruptcy settlement reached six months ago did not end the bitterness between the Archdiocese of Portland and those who say they were the victims of clergy sexual abuse.

Federal court documents filed by the archdiocese say that a new group of priest accusers have no right to file lawsuits under pseudonyms after providing the media with advance copies of their claims to try to seek wide exposure of their accusations.

"This calculated, public disclosure, timed to maximize its effectiveness in generating a news story before the archdiocese could respond to a lawsuit filing, deprives plaintiff of any valid claim about a need for privacy," the papers say.

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By Christopher Landau
BBC News
Tuesday, 2 October 2007

The crisis over child sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church has cost the organisation both in terms of levels of public trust and compensation payouts.

When American bishops decided in 2002 to conduct an audit of the scale of the problem, their initiative was given a cautious welcome by survivors of sexual abuse.

But one part of the church was not part of the audit.

Nuns, officially known as "women religious", do not always fall under the authority of their local bishop.

This meant they stood outside the remit of the study, even though there are documented cases where Catholic nuns have committed child sexual abuse.

‘Resistance’

In Portland, Oregon, there are six new lawsuits against the Catholic Church. Two are in relation to accusations made against nuns.

Kelly Clark is a lawyer who specialises in sexual abuse cases in the state.

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