How paedophile priest was allowed to evade justice

Former priest Bill Carney was named as one of the worst cases in Dublin's Catholic diocese in the Murphy report into clerical abuse there. However, for the last 10 years he has been free to live quietly in Britain.

Newsnight's Olenka Frenkiel has investigated his case and tracked him down in the Canary Islands.

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Carney used to invite children to his house in Ayrfield to watch videos

All the children in Ayrfield, Dublin, knew fun-loving Father Bill Carney - not just the altar boys and those who met him through school, but members of the Scout troop he ran and the groups of local children he took swimming.

His door was always open, there was a ready supply of Coke in the fridge and in the 1980s he had the very latest thing to lure youngsters in - a video player.

Adults disapproved of his swearing and crazy driving, but the Catholic Church was still so trusted, no-one suspected the truth about him.

Bridie Dwyer still lives in Ayrfield. Above the fireplace, with other family photographs is a picture of her youngest child, Paul, on his first Communion day.

At the age of 13 Paul went with other boys to watch videos at Father Carney's house and to have a sleepover, Mrs Dwyer told me. But at 2am Paul unexpectedly returned home.

"Thought you were going for a sleepover?" she recalled asking him as he pushed past her. "Didn't want to stay," he replied and shut his door.

Carney is accused of raping Paul Dwyer when Paul was 13

"That's when he'd been raped," Mrs Dwyer told me, "but I didn't know".

What no-one, except Carney's bishop and the local police, knew was that the priest was a paedophile.

The Murphy report into the cover up by the Catholic Church and Irish state of clerical sex abuse was published in November 2009.

It described Carney as "a serial sexual abuser of children, male and female", saying that there had been complaints and suspicions "in respect of 32 named individuals" about him, adding that "there is evidence he abused many more children".

'Child in his bed'

Michael Wheeler, who as a boy was one of Carney's altar servers, said that following the report a strange but vivid memory from when he was young suddenly made sense.

He told me that when he was nine years old Carney was late for Mass one day, so, fearful that he might not turn up, he ran into the priest's house and called his name.

He wanted Carney in court so he could ask him why, why had Carney raped him? That never happened and the way things are going, the way the police and the clergy are handling it now I can't see it ever happening Bridie Dwyer, mother of Paul

"I heard a groan," he said, "and I saw in the bedroom, a boy, a little older than me, naked between the sheets.

"This boy sat up, stared groggily at me, and fell back into the bed. I was terrified and ran out. As a child I couldn't understand why he was there. Now I know."

We now know that complaints about Carney were diverted away from the Irish criminal justice system to Bishop James Kavanagh, a man described by the Murphy Report as someone with "a soft spot for Carney".

Kavanagh did what he could to protect Carney from the law to avoid scandal for the Church.

One conscientious policeman, praised in the Murphy Report, did investigate complaints and they came to court. But the press were kept away as Carney pleaded guilty to two counts of indecent assault and got probation.

Six families were paid compensation and Carney was soon back working, with access to children.

Paid to leave parish

In its 40 pages on Carney, the Murphy report said that his was one of the worst cases the commission investigated and that the Church's handling of his case was "nothing short of catastrophic".

"It was inept, self-serving and for the best part of 10 years displayed no obvious concern for the welfare of children," the report said.

Bishop James Kavanagh protected Carney from the law

In 1992, the Church convicted Carney internally, under Canon law, of child sexual abuse.

But this compulsive paedophile refused to leave the parish house. So the Church paid him £30,000 to go away.

He moved to Cheltenham and then to Scotland, where he has lived for the last 10 years running a family-friendly guest house in St Andrews.

Back in Dublin, it took Bridie's son Paul Dwyer 21 years to come forward, but in 2004 he told the police about his rape.

The police said they had received two other complaints like his and sent the file to the Irish director of public prosecutions (DPP), but the DPP said there was not enough evidence to prosecute.

"So the case stopped," his mother told me, "and, a couple of weeks later Paul committed suicide. He couldn't handle it any more.

"He wanted Carney in court so he could ask him why, why had Carney raped him? That never happened and the way things are going, the way the police and the clergy are handling it now I can't see it ever happening," she added.

No warnings given

That same year, in Scotland, Carney got married.

Newsnight has established that the Irish authorities knew his address but no-one, either from the Church or the Irish state, thought to warn his new wife about his past, or protect any children who might be at risk.

His refusal to acknowledge his paedophilia means the prognosis for a cure is bleak Psychiatric assessment of Carney in Murphy report The Murphy report

Nothing was done to prevent him leaving, as usual, for his winter holiday in the Canary Islands, a popular destination for families with children, and no-one warned the local police.

The Murphy report quotes a psychiatric assessment which says he suffers from a "psychopathic personality disorder".

"His refusal to acknowledge his paedophilia," it said, "means the prognosis for a cure is bleak".

Confronted over abuse

I tracked Carney down in the Canary Islands, first at a restaurant on the sea front and then to the flat where he was staying, to ask about the abuse.

He refused to comment on the Murphy report, saying he had not read it.

He claimed that when he pleaded guilty to child sex abuse in 1983 it was not because he was guilty, but because: "I was told if I plead guilty the press would be kept away."

When I asked "Why did you rape Paul Dwyer?" his response was: "Rape. I'd like to explain that. Put it into context."

Carney got married in Scotland in 2004

What kind of context, I asked, could excuse the rape of a child? But he did not answer.

And when I asked "Are you still abusing children?" his answer begged more questions.

"I haven't done that in 26 years and I have had no inclination," he said. But he refused to be drawn on whether that was admission that he had abused before.

Assistant Garda Commissioner John O'Mahoney has been assigned the task of investigating whether anyone should be prosecuted as a result of the revelations in the Murphy report.

These investigations, his office has said, are ongoing.

In Britain, the Home Office said that because Carney's two convictions for indecent assault pre-date the 2003 Sex Offender's Act and took place in Ireland he would not be on the Sex Offenders Register and would pass unseen through the new stricter vetting procedures for child protection.

Carney meanwhile remains free to disappear beneath the radar.

Watch Olenka Frenkiel's full report on Newsnight at 10.30pm on Tuesday, 9 March 2010 on BBC Two, then afterwards on the BBC iPlayer and Newsnight website.

Vatican hit by gay sex scandal

Vatican chorister sacked for allegedly procuring male prostitutes for papal gentleman-in-waiting

• John Hooper in Rome
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 4 March 2010 19.59 GMT
• Article history

Pope Benedict XVI greets cardinals in the Clementine Hall at the Vatican. Photograph: Max Rossi/AFP/Getty Images

The Vatican was today rocked by a sex scandal reaching into Pope Benedict's household after a chorister was sacked for allegedly procuring male prostitutes for a papal gentleman-in-waiting.

Angelo Balducci, a Gentleman of His Holiness, was caught by police on a wiretap allegedly negotiating with Thomas Chinedu Ehiem, a 29-year-old Vatican chorister, over the specific physical details of men he wanted brought to him. Transcripts in the possession of the Guardian suggest that numerous men may have been procured for Balducci, at least one of whom was studying for the priesthood.

The explosive claims about Balducci's private life have caused grave embarrassment to the Vatican, which has yet to publicly comment on the affair.

While Catholicism does not condemn homosexuality outright, its teaching is that homosexual acts "are intrinsically disordered". The Catechism of the Catholic church states unequivocally: "Under no circumstances can they be approved."

Balducci was arrested on 10 February, suspected of involvement in widespread corruption. A senior Italian government official, he is alleged to have to steered public works contracts towards favoured bidders. He has not been charged.

It was during this investigation into corruption that wiretaps revealed his alleged sexual activity. In one conversation, Ehiem tells Balducci: "I saw your call when I was in the Vatican, because I was doing rehearsals … in the choir … in St Peter's." He then suggests Balducci meet a man who he describes is "two metres tall … 97 kilos … aged 33, completely active."

Balducci is also a senior adviser to the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, the department that oversees the Roman Catholic church's worldwide missionary activities.

Since 1995, he has been a member of one of the world's most exclusive fraternities – the Gentlemen of His Holiness, or Papal Gentlemen, the ceremonial ushers of the papal household. In the words of a 1968 ordinance, they are expected to "distinguish themselves for the good of souls and the glory of the name of the Lord".

According to a report by the Carabinieri for prosecutors in Florence investigating the corruption scandal, there was a hidden side to Balducci's life. "In order to organise casual encounters of a sexual nature, he availed himself of the intercession of two individuals who, it is maintained, may form part of an organised network, especially active in [Rome], of exploiters or at least facilitators of male prostitution."

It named one as Ehiem, a professional chorister born in Nigeria. According to Italian press reports, Ehiem, a member of the choir that sings in St Peters when the pope is not officiating, lost his job on Wednesday after details of the Florence investigation became known to the Vatican.

In an interview to be published tomorrow by the news magazine Panorama, Ehiem said he had been introduced to Balducci more than 10 years ago. He claims: "He asked me if I could procure other men for him. He told me he was married and that I had to do it in great secrecy."

There were conflicting accounts of how the Vatican might respond. According to one source, there was no provision for the dismissal of a Gentleman of His Holiness. Another said: "We shall wait for the judiciary's definitive verdict."

The transcripts imply that over a period of around five months in 2008, Ehiem procured for Balducci at least 10 contacts with, among others, "two black Cuban lads", a former male model from Naples, and a rugby player from Rome.

Balducci's lawyer, Franco Coppi, said tonight: "I have no comment. First, because we have more serious questions to tackle. Second, if these claims are correct, they regard his private life. It is disgraceful that these transcripts, which have nothing to do with the case, should have been spread about."

In January this year, the Carabinieri recorded an exchange in which Balducci and Ehiem discuss a seminarian, or student for the priesthood. Balducci is said to have asked: "Listen, have you spoken with the seminarian by any chance?" Ehiem says he is "probably at mass or something". On 11 January, Ehiem calls again to recommend "a colleague, a friend" of the seminarian because the latter is unavailable. He says the colleague is "better, taller, a bit taller than you". Later, Ehiem asks: "Can I send [him] around straight away?"

He asks where Balducci is. The adviser says: "Up at the seminary … where the cardinal lives." Ehiem replies: "He could get there within half an hour … the time it takes to catch a taxi and get there."

Actor Sam Elliott has accused the Catholic Church of pressurising Hollywood producers to scrap a classic fantasy trilogy.

Studio bosses have shelved plans to film the final two instalments of His Dark Materials, despite the success of the first movie, The Golden Compass, two years ago. [...]

Asked what happened to the series, Elliot said: “The Catholic Church happened to The Golden Compass, as far as I’m concerned. It did ‘incredible’ at the box office, taking $380million. Incredible. It took $85million in the States. [...]

A spokesman for New Line Cinema declined to comment.

This London: Catholics ‘forced film chiefs to scrap Dark Materials trilogy’

(Thanks Cat Vincent)

The Government has reneged on its commitment to ensuring all children will receive broad, balanced and objective sex and relationship education (SRE).

Ed Balls MP, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, this week tabled an amendment to the Government’s Children, Schools and Families Bill which in effect will provide an opt-out for religious schools when Personal, Social, Health and Economic (PSHE) education, which includes SRE, becomes compulsory in schools from September 2011. The Government originally intended all governing bodies and head teachers to have regard to a set of "principles" which include statements about how PSHE should be taught. Such principles stated that PSHE should be taught in a way that endeavours to promote equality and encourages acceptance of diversity. However, the Government has now laid an amendment to this Bill which many fear would curtail the implementation of SRE and PSHE in religious schools. The new amendment states that the principles “are not to be read as preventing the governing body or head teacher of a school within subsection (7B) from causing or allowing PSHE to be taught in a way that reflects the school’s religious character.”

The Catholic Education Service (CES) was quick to claim the credit for the Government’s apparent U-turn. A statement on its website claimed the amendment was tabled following a period of extensive lobbying by the Catholic Education Service for England and Wales.

National Secular Society spokesperson Stephen Evans said, “It is disgraceful that the Government is seen to be willing to sacrifice the health and well being of children in order to satisfy the demands of a minority religious lobby. The Government has already agreed that the issues that Personal, Social, Health and Economic education covers are central to all children and young people’s well-being and to their healthy development as they grow up. It is therefore a betrayal of children’s rights for the Government to now say that children in religious schools can be denied the same entitlement to objective teaching on issues such as contraception, safe sex, sexuality and abortion as children in community schools.

“Only this week the Joint Committee on Human Rights welcomed the Bill saying it welcomed the Government's explicit acceptance that the teaching of sex and relationships in faith schools must present material that is accurate and balanced, must not present that faith's views as the only valid views, and must promote equality and diversity. However, the new amendment casts serious doubt on the Government’s willingness to ensure the rights of children in religious schools are protected from opt-outs demanded by self-interested religious groups.”

The Government’s amendment was also criticised by the Children's Rights Alliance for England. Carolyne Willow, national coordinator of the Alliance said, “This amendment was completely unnecessary as there is already provision in the Bill for PSHE to take into account different perspectives, including religious beliefs. It is absolutely vital that sex and relationships education funded by the State occurs within the context of commitment to equality and respect for diversity; anything less is discriminatory.”

In the Guardian, a spokesman from the Department for Children, Schools and Families dismissed the complaints. Faith schools would not be able to opt out of statutory SRE lessons when they came into effect in September 2011, he stressed.

"All maintained schools will be required to teach full programmes of study in line with the principles outlined in the bill, including promoting equality and encouraging acceptance of diversity.

"Schools with a religious character will be free to express their faith and reflect the ethos of their school, but what they cannot do is suggest that their views are the only ones."

This meant a Catholic school would be required to teach the facts about contraception, but would also be able to reflect the church's views on its use.

Read the JCHR report on the Children, Schools and Families Bill

BBC to give Pope Thought for the Day slot. Pope’s views on gays echo the BNP. Nick Griffin would not get this slot. Why should the Pope?

about 4 hours ago from web

PeterTatchell

By Katie Scott | 26 November 2009

There are Catholic churches in Second Life, the first Vatican-approved iPhone app appeared last year and now a software developer has created the Digital Rosary.

This is an application for smartphones including the iPhone, some Nokia models and BlackBerrys, which allows you to connect to a "social network of prayer".

Vincenzo Coccoli is the CEO of More Technologies – the company behind the launch. The app itself guides users through the rosary by speaking the words, which they can say at the same time.

Coccoli says that the more important aspect of the Digital Rosary is access to the Prex Communion website, where users can contact other believers, enter discussion groups and get information on prayer and the Shrine of the Holy House of Loreto, where the application was launched. "It’s a religious Facebook", he says.

This is the company’s second rosary-related release. Last year, More launched the Electronic Rosary, which is a small device that recites the rosary and other prayers for believers to respond to or repeat. Coccoli says that the company has sold 50,000 of these devices worldwide to date. He says he's hopeful that the Digital Rosary will have a similar impact, especially as it has the approval of the Vatican.

Father Paolo Padrini, who launched the iBreviary iPhone app, says the Catholic Church is working hard to master new media. "I believe that these instruments provide places for encounters between peoples, places for dialogue and friendship," he says.

"The Church has always wanted to offer the gospel to people, and has always invested in bringing the word to all men," he adds. "The internet is a great opportunity from this point of view."

He does, however, suggest that religious apps need to be priced sensitively. However, he warns that the Church monitor how much companies charge for devices and applications. "I think it's also fair to charge for selling a quality product because this allows future developments, but there must be some caution," he says.

Proceeds from the iBreviary go towards a voluntary project, he says.

Inquiry into child abuse at Irish Catholic institutions condemns systemic 'perversion of power and trust'

• Associated Press
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 26 November 2009 15.24 GMT
• Article history

The Roman Catholic church in Ireland hid decades of child abuse by its leaders to protect the church's reputation, an inquiry found. Photograph: Danilo Krstanovic/Reuters

The Roman Catholic church in Dublin covered up decades of child abuse committed by priests because bishops wanted to protect the church's reputation at the expense of victims, an expert commission reported today after a three-year inquiry into previously secret church records.

Abuse victims said they welcomed publication of the investigation into the mishandling of child abuse cases from 1975 to 2004 in the Dublin archdiocese, home to a quarter of Ireland's 4 million Catholics. But they said government and church leaders had not compensated for past wrongs.

The government said the investigation "shows clearly that a systemic, calculated perversion of power and trust was visited on helpless and innocent children in the archdiocese".

"The perpetrators must continue to be brought to justice, and the people of Ireland must know that this can never happen again," said the government, which apologised for the state's failure to hold church authorities accountable to the law.

This is the second major government-ordered report this year exploring how and why Irish authorities permitted widespread abuse of boys and girls at the hands of the Catholic church throughout most of the 20th century, the gravest scandal in the history of independent Ireland.

The 720-page report, delivered to the government in July, analyses the cases of 46 priests against whom 320 complaints were filed. The men were selected from more than 150 Dublin priests implicated in molesting or raping boys and girls since 1940.

The report named 11 priests because they all were convicted of child abuse. But 33 others were referred to only by one-name aliases, and two others had their names blanked out after the Dublin high court ruled that publication would prejudice their chances of receiving a fair criminal trial.

Investigators spent three years poring over 60,000 previously secret Dublin church files. They were handed over by the Dublin archbishop, Diarmuid Martin, a veteran Vatican diplomat appointed to the Irish capital in 2004 with a brief to confront the scandal. Among the files were more than 5,500 Martin's predecessor, the retired cardinal Desmond Connell, tried to keep locked in the archbishop's private vault.

The investigators, led by a judge and two lawyers, said they had no doubt that the 46 priests were responsible for abusing many more than 320 children.

"One priest admitted to sexually abusing over 100 children, while another accepted that he had abused on a fortnightly basis during the currency of his ministry which lasted for over 25 years," they wrote. They said it was not their job to confirm the scale of abuse cases, but "it is abundantly clear … child sexual abuse by clerics was widespread throughout the period."

The commission found that three archbishops of Dublin – John Charles McQuaid (1940-72), Dermot Ryan (1972-84) and Kevin McNamara (1985-87) – did not tell police about clerical abuse cases, instead opting to avoid public scandals by shuttling offenders from parish to parish.

It was not until 1995, seven years into his reign, that then-archbishop Connell allowed police to see church files on 17 clerical abuse cases. The documents were kept in a secret, locked vault in the archbishop's Dublin residence. Records show Connell had records of complaints against at least 29 priests at the time.

The report rejected the bishops' key claim that they were ignorant of the scale and criminality of priests' abuse of children. It dug up a documentary trail showing that the Dublin archdiocese negotiated a 1987 insurance policy for future legal costs of defending lawsuits and compensation claims.

The investigators said McNamara, Ryan and McQuaid knew about at least 17 priests linked to child abuse in their archdiocese when that policy went into effect.

"The taking out of insurance was an act proving knowledge of child sexual abuse as a potential major cost to the archdiocese and is inconsistent with the view that archdiocesan officials were still 'on a learning curve' at a much later date, or were lacking in appreciation of the phenomenon of clerical child sex abuse," the report said.

In May the government published an investigation into decades of child abuse in Catholic-run schools, workhouses and orphanages. That investigation also found that thousands of boys and girls suffered rape, beatings and mental abuse by members of Catholic religious orders. More than 12,000 of those victims have received compensation payments from a government panel exceeding €800m (£730m).

Vatican conference on ETs

We've posted before about the Pope's chief astronomer Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes and his statements on possible extraterrestrial life. (ETs "don't contradict our faith," he has said.) The Vatican recently hosted a conference on the topic of astrobiology -- the study of life in the universe -- where a group of international scientists from a variety of fields discussed the possibility of alien life. From the Associated Press:

Funes said the possibility of alien life raises "many philosophical and theological implications" but added that the gathering was mainly focused on the scientific perspective and how different disciplines can be used to explore the issue.

Chris Impey, an astronomy professor at the University of Arizona, said it was appropriate that the Vatican would host such a meeting.

"Both science and religion posit life as a special outcome of a vast and mostly inhospitable universe," he told a news conference Tuesday. "There is a rich middle ground for dialogue between the practitioners of astrobiology and those who seek to understand the meaning of our existence in a biological universe..."

The Church of Rome's views have shifted radically through the centuries since Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake as a heretic in 1600 for speculating, among other ideas, that other worlds could be inhabited.

"Vatican looks to heavens for signs of alien life"