why pretend the catholic church is anything but an international child-molesting cartel?

The detention of an 83-year-old priest in Brazil for allegedly abusing boys as young as 12 has added to the scandals hitting the Roman Catholic Church in Latin America, even as Chile’s bishops asked pardon on Tuesday for past sexual abuse cases.

The allegations against Monsignor Luiz Marques Barbosa — and two other Brazilian priests — have made headlines throughout the world’s most populous Catholic nation and come amid accusations of sexual abuse by priests across the world.

The scandal erupted when Brazilian television network SBT last month broadcast a tape purportedly showing Barbosa in bed with a 19-year-old that was widely distributed on the Internet.

The station said the video was secretly filmed in January 2009 and sent anonymously to the network. It was not clear if the 19-year-old, identified as a former altar boy who had worked with Barbosa for four years, had previous sexual relations with the priest.

Catholic bishop sees no harm in raping children

In a preview to the upcoming trial of Bishop Robert Finn of the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, a lawyer for Finn asked Jackson County Circuit Judge John Torrence to dismiss the charge against him because he said there was another Diocese official who should have reported the priest to police.

“Bishop Finn had no statutory duty to report. We believe that this is clear,” said attorney J.R. Hobbs in arguing for Judge Torrence to dismiss the case against Finn.

Judge Torrence said he would take the matter under advisement and likely rule on the matter next week.

Bishop Finn is the highest-ranking Catholic leader to face criminal charges in the United States related to alleged abuse by a priest.

His case marks what some observers see as a key turning point in assigning accountability to an organization that has a long history of protecting priests who abuse children.

The priest in this case, Father Shawn Ratigan, has been charged with 13 counts of child pornography, some of which he kept on a church computer, and is jailed awaiting trial.

via Catholic bishop had no duty to report child abuse: lawyer | Reuters.

see more:

• New Catholic child abuse allegations surface (germany)

• Africa Also Suffers Sex Abuse by Priests

• Irish Catholic Church concealed child abuse even after new prevention rules in 1990s

• Thousands of Dutch children have suffered sexual abuse in Catholic institutions

• Catholic monks faced child abuse investigation, school admits (england)

• Roman Catholic sex abuse cases by country

letter by child molesting freak priest revealed in pa. trial of international child abuse racketeers

The long, typed letter fantasizes about a seventh-grader’s body, and asks if the boy wants to try various sex acts.

“You are soooo cute. I have been thinking about you for a long time. … You’re the cutest in our grade,” the author wrote in a rare G-rated line.

But the anonymous author was not a classmate at the boy’s Catholic school in northeast Philadelphia. It was a parish priest. One with a cache of gay pornography and sadomasochistic videos in the rectory.

Files show the letter-writing priest was sent to a church-run treatment center for priests, where staff concluded he did not have “a pathological interest in children or adults.” Doctors racked the letter up to a single fantasy. And they believed him when he said he hadn’t sent it — or acted out with children.

“Cardinal Bevilacqua is granting him a health leave, and that should be the announcement to the (St. Anselm’s) parish,” reads a December 1995 memo, found in secret personnel files at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

The memo, along with the priest’s letter, aired in court this week in a landmark criminal trial in Philadelphia. Accused is Monsignor William Lynn, the first U.S. church official charged with child endangerment for allegedly leaving predator-priests in ministry, and conspiring with others to cover up the festering problem.

Prosecutors call the archdiocese of 1.5 million Catholics “an unindicted co-conspirator.”

Defense lawyers counter that Lynn took orders from the archbishop during his 12-year run as secretary for clergy, when he supervised about 900 priests. Lynn, 61, faces years in prison if convicted.

By August 1996, the priest had been released, and reassigned to a far suburb. Lynn recommended that he return to full ministry, with no limits on his work with children. Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, who died this year, approved the plan, initializing Lynn’s memo with his ornate “AB.”

The priest’s therapy notes — describing the “release of guilt” he felt after childhood whippings by his father and his “compulsive” interest in pornography and masturbation — were shipped to “File 3,” archdiocesan code for the locked, secret archives room.

“That kind of information coming out through these trials, regardless of the verdict, is of enormous significance, for the church and also for our understanding of how sexual abuse was handled in institutions outside the church. … That includes schools and prisons and youth groups and sports teams,” said Timothy Lytton, an Albany Law School professor who wrote a book on the priest-abuse crisis.

The Catholic church is far from alone in protecting predators, he said, but its hierarchical nature gives authorities a long paper trail.

Philadelphia prosecutors have been investigating the archdiocese for 10 years, since the priest-abuse scandal exploded in Boston. Around the country, about 500 Roman Catholic priests have been convicted of child sex abuse, and dioceses have paid out more than $1 billion to victims.

via Pa. Trial Shows Church Abuse Allegations Strategy – ABC News.

transocean, chevron in deep shit over brazillian oil spill

A Brazilian prosecutor requested an injunction this week barring U.S. oil company Chevron and drill-rig operator Transocean from operating in Brazil as part of a record $10.9 billion environmental lawsuit over a November oil spill.

The prosecutor wants a Federal court in Rio de Janeiro to ban Chevron and Transocean from extracting or transporting petroleum, to take immediate action to clean up a November oil spill, and to fully kill the well that led to the spill.

The injunction request asks for fines of 500 million reais ($275 million) for every day in violation of the ban and another 500 million reais a day for violation of the order to clean up environmental damage and kill the well.

The request is the same as one denied by another Federal judge in Rio de Janeiro on Feb. 24. The lawsuit is the biggest environmental lawsuit in Brazilian history.

Chevron says it stopped the flow of oil in Frade in four days and have cleaned up the spill. Earlier this month they asked for and received permission to stop operations at the field.

Earlier this week, Brazil’s largest oil workers union also asked a federal court in Rio de Janeiro to block the companies from operating in Brazil and sought unspecified damages.

via RPT-Prosecutor seeks Chevron, Transocean Brazil ban | Reuters.

more nukes for the south

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Friday approved a license for Scana Corp to build two reactors at the Virgil Summer nuclear station in South Carolina, the agency’s second approval of additional nuclear units to be built in the United States in two months after a 30-year construction hiatus.

Scana and its partner, state-owned electric agency Santee Cooper, want to build two AP1000 reactors at the Summer site near Jenkinsville, at a projected cost of $9 billion. The 1,100-megawatt units are expected to begin operating in 2017 and 2018.

In February, the NRC approved Southern Co’s proposed Vogtle reactors in a 4-1 vote.

No nuclear power plants have been licensed in the United States since 1979 when the partial meltdown of the reactor core of the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania led to design changes that caused construction costs for nuclear plants to skyrocket and others to be canceled.

An expected revival of nuclear construction in the United States has now been tempered by falling natural gas prices and slowing growth in power demand.

Friday’s NRC action “is a significant event for our company and marks the culmination of an intense review by the NRC,” said Kevin Marsh, Scana’s chief executive, in a statement.

Marsh said the country will be watching Scana and Southern as they move ahead with full construction activity.

“It’s important that we deliver these plants as designed on schedule and on budget,” Marsh told Reuters. “That’s what people will be watching.”

As he did last month, NRC chairman Gregory Jaczko cast a lone dissenting vote against the new Summer units, citing a need for the agency to make sure all safety issues raised by Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster are incorporated into new reactors before they are allowed to operate.

Congressman Edward Markey of Massachusetts, a critic of the industry, called the 4-1 vote “another victory for the nuclear industry’s effort to avoid implementation of the safety upgrades” in the wake of the Fukushima disaster.

via U.S. agency okays Scana nuclear units in South Carolina – chicagotribune.com.

Fears of Explosion Increase at North Sea Gas Leak

As the gas leak entered its fifth day, experts have become concerned that a change in the weather could result in an explosion. A flame has continued to burn since all 238 employees were evacuated when the leak was found on Sunday. Yesterday Total officials said they were not concerned about the flame causing an explosion because winds were carrying gas away from the flame, which the company describes as “very faint.” But Jacques-Emmanuel Saulnier, head of communications at Total, has admitted that any gas cloud could still pose a fire hazard.

Total has not found a way to stop the gas leak and acknowledged that any options to stop it could take as long as six months. That admission is a reversal from the company’s earlier statement that the leak would dissipate from natural causes. Engineers’ work to stop the leak is hampered by the fact that the platform is completely off limits because of the toxic and dangerous plumes emitting from the site. One option is to drill a relief well through 2.5 miles of rock, but the process would have to constantly alter course in order to reach the exact location of the gas pocket.

Total said the leak is costing the company $1.5 million a day, but the Wall Street Journal said if the situation worsens the cost to the company could rise to billions of dollars. Meanwhile memories of the Piper Alpha explosion in 1988, which killed 168 workers, are on the minds on those who work in the North Sea oil and gas fields once again. And activist groups like Greenpeace are criticizing both the changes in UK tax policy that have encouraged increased drilling in the region, resulting in both increased dangers to workers and harm done to the North Sea’s environment.

via Fears of Explosion Increase at North Sea Gas Leak | Inhabitat – Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building.