A Circuit Court judge yesterday struck down an attempt by the Catholic Diocese of Hawaii to place partial blame on a man who said he was sexually assaulted by a priest more than 40 years ago. Alexander Winchester filed a lawsuit in July and accused the late Rev. Alphonsus Boumeister of sexually assaulting him when Winchester attended catechism classes in 1961 at Blessed Sacrament Church in Pauoa. Winchester was 11 years old at the time. Boumeister, who came to Hawaii in 1915, died in 1972 at the age of 84.
A national review panel waded into a church conflict over disciplining sexually abusive priests Monday, urging religious orders to comply with the discipline policy adopted by America’s Roman Catholic bishops.
(Oklahoma City, Oklahoma)
A bill approved by the Senate would provide $335 million to state and local laboratories to analyze DNA evidence in unsolved rape cases. This would potentially identify or clear suspects in hundreds of thousands of sexual assault cases. The bill is aimed at reducing a national backlog of up to 500,000 untested rape kits, where DNA and other evidence from a victim or crime scene is collected and labeled. Up to $275 million would be spent over five years to allow labs to analyze DNA evidence. Another $50 million would
A day after the Diocese of Rockville Centre stripped former Catholic church official Msgr. Alan Placa of the right to serve as a priest, his friends spoke out to defend him against allegations that he abused teenage boys. Placa, who has denied any sexual misconduct, was a key official in the diocese’s handling of complaints of sexual abuse. Richard Tollner, 43, who is now a mortgage broker in Albany, went public in a Newsday story with the charge that Placa abused him 25 years ago at St. Pius X. Preparatory
The new, independent review panel charged with implementing the zero-tolerance policy against priests accused of sexual misconduct in the Diocese of Rockville Centre is getting ready to decide its first case. However, the public may never know the outcome. Bishop William Murphy said he is uncertain whether the panel’s recommendations or his final decision on a case should be made public and added that he is waiting for the board’s opinion on the issue.
Pope John Paul II said yesterday the Roman Catholic Church has to be much more careful not to let men with deviant desires enter the priesthood, in order to avoid more of the sex scandals that have rocked the church.
(Vatican City)
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