Vatican waited years to defrock Arizona priest

The abuse cases of two priests in Arizona have cast further doubt on the Catholic church's insistence that Pope Benedict XVI played no role in shielding pedophiles before he became pope.
Documents reviewed by The Associated Press show that as a Vatican cardinal, the future pope took over the abuse case of the Rev. Michael Teta of Tucson, Ariz., then let it languish at the Vatican for years despite repeated pleas from the bishop for the man to be removed from the priesthood.
In another Tucson case, that of Msgr. Robert Trupia, the bishop wrote to then-Cardinal Ratzinger, who would become pope in 2005. Bishop Manuel Moreno called Trupia "a major risk factor to the children, adolescents and adults that he many have contact with." There is no indication in the case files that Ratzinger responded.
The details of the two cases come as other allegations emerge that Benedict — as a Vatican cardinal — was part of a culture of cover-up and confidentiality.
"There's no doubt that Ratzinger delayed the defrocking process of dangerous priests who were deemed 'satanic' by their own bishop," Lynne Cadigan, an attorney who represented two of Teta's victims, said Friday.
The Rev. Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, called the accusations "absolutely groundless" and said the facts were being misrepresented.
He said the delay in defrocking Teta was caused by a hold on appeals while the Vatican changed regulations over its handling of sex abuse cases. In the meantime, he said, cautionary measures were in place; Teta had been suspended since 1990.
"The documents show clearly and positively that those in charge at the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith ... have repeatedly intervened actively over the course of the 90s so that the canonic trial under way in the Tucson diocese could dutifully reach its conclusion," Lombardi said in a statement.
In the 1990s, a church tribunal found that Teta had molested children as far back as the 1970s, and the panel determined "there is almost a satanic quality in his mode of acting toward young men and boys."
The tribunal referred Teta's case, which included allegations that he abused boys in a confessional, to Ratzinger. The church considers cases of abuse in confessionals more serious than other molestations because they also defile the sacrament of penance.
It took 12 years from the time Ratzinger assumed control of the case in a signed letter until Teta was formally removed from ministry, a step only the Vatican can take.
Teta was accused of engaging in abuse not long after his arrival to the Diocese of Tucson in 1978. Among the eventual allegations: that he molested two boys, ages 7 and 9, in the confessional as they prepared for their First Communion.
Teta was removed from ministry by the bishop, but because the church's most severe punishment — laicization — can only be handed down from Rome, he remained on the church payroll and was working with young people outside the church.
In a signed letter dated June 8, 1992, Ratzinger advised Moreno he was taking control of the case, according to a copy provided to the AP from Cadigan, the victims' attorney. Five years later, no action had been taken.
"This case has already gone on for seven years," Moreno wrote Ratzinger on April 28, 1997, adding, "I make this plea to you to assist me in every way you can to expedite this case."
It would be another seven years before Teta was laicized.
Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, said Teta was ordered defrocked in 1997. But Teta appealed, and the appeal remained on hold until the new regulations took effect in 2001.
"Starting in 2001, all the appeals that were pending were promptly taken up, and Teta's case was one of the first to be discussed," Lombardi said.
But this still took time, he said, because the documentation that had been presented was "especially voluminous." The sentence was upheld and in 2004 Teta was laicized.
The case of Trupia shows the fragmented nature of how Rome handled such allegations before 2001, when Ratzinger dictated that all abuse cases must go through his Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith.
Before then, files were sent to varied Vatican departments, as they were in the case of Trupia. Moreno suspended Trupia in 1992, but again faced delays from the Vatican in having him formally removed from the church.
Documents show at least two Vatican offices — the Congregation for the Clergy and the Apostolic Signatura, the highest judicial authority of the Catholic Church — were involved in the case at least as early as 1995.
Moreno pleaded with the Congregation for the Clergy to do something, writing, "We have proofs of civil crimes against people who were under his priestly care" and warning Trupia could "be the source of greater scandal in the future."
Ultimately, the case landed in Ratzinger's office.
On Feb. 10, 2003, a day after the Arizona Daily Star reported that Trupia was living in a condo near Baltimore, driving a leather-seated Mercedes-Benz with a rosary hanging from the rearview mirror, Moreno wrote to Ratzinger again.
Sick with prostate cancer and the beginning stages of Parkinson's disease, Moreno was approved for early retirement by Pope John Paul II.
Before he was replaced, the bishop wrote Ratzinger yet again. Moreno's replacement, Bishop Gerald Kicanas, sent similar requests to Ratzinger and his subordinates.
"My experience — and as I've looked at the records in our serious cases — the Vatican actually was prodding, through the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith and Cardinal Ratzinger, to try to get this case going," Kicanas said.
Finally, in August 2004, Trupia was laicized.
"The tragedy is that the bishops have only two choices: Follow the Vatican's code of secrecy and delay, or leave the church," Cadigan, the victims' lawyer, said Friday. "It's unfortunate that their faith demands that they sacrifice children to follow the Vatican's directions."
Trupia's former attorney, Stephen A. Shechtel of Rockville, Md., said Friday that he never dealt with the church on his client's behalf and that Trupia was aware he would be defrocked and didn't fight it.
Bishop Gerald Kicanas, Moreno's replacement, defended the Vatican's handling of the Arizona cases, citing the prolonged process of internal church trials that he acknowledged could be "frustratingly slow because of the seriousness of the concerns."
Kicanas said suggestions that Ratzinger resisted addressing the issues of sexual abuse in the church were "grossly unfair."
"Cardinal Ratzinger, as the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was always receptive, ready to listen, to hear people's concerns," Kicanas said. "Pope Benedict is the same man."

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
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Residents of NJ city say cops worse than criminals

Josephine Skinner's grandson Dequan was 11 or 12 years old a few summers ago when she says he had a run-in with a Camden police officer who neighbors claim terrorized them for years.
As the youth crossed the street to buy a soda at a store, she said Officer Jason Stetser — known on the streets as "Fat Face" — sprang from his cruiser.
"He grabbed my grandson and said he had $100 of stuff on him," Skinner said. "They tried to lock him up."
For years, residents say some police officers have bullied them in this impoverished city, making cases by planting drugs on suspects, falsifying police reports, and conducting searches without warrants. Now four officers, including Stetser, are being investigated by a federal grand jury.
And prosecutors say they've had to drop charges or vacate convictions in 185 criminal cases because of possibly corrupt police work — meaning scores of criminals could end up returning to drug-infested streets.
Another of Skinner's grandchildren, 15-year-old Artice Skinner, said he witnessed the episode between Stetser and Dequan and saw Stetser hold out his hand, overflowing with crack cocaine that the police officer said came from Dequan's pocket.
Skinner said Dequan was released after an aunt explained that he wasn't the neighborhood child police were looking for.
"The cops were more of a problem than the crime was," said Josephine Skinner.
Their Waterfront South neighborhood has breathed a little easier since November, when Stetser and at least three other officers were taken off the streets as authorities began their investigation.
Stetser's lawyer, Richard Madden, declined to comment.
Among those suspended was 29-year-old patrolman Kevin Parry. On March 19, he admitted in court that he stole drugs from some suspects, planted them on others, bribed prostitutes with drugs for information, conducted searches without warrants, lied on police reports and in testimony, and roughed up suspects. He acknowledged 50-70 acts of police misconduct from May 2007 to October 2009.
Residents say it was not uncommon for some officers to greet locals by punching them, using force to intimidate. The threat of criminal charges was the main police currency.
In Waterfront South, lovingly tended row homes sit uneasily alongside crumbling empty ones and monstrous warehouses loom beyond back yards. The stench from a nearby sewage plant hangs in the air. Daffodils have begun to bloom in a trash-strewn vacant lot.
A church group has painted poetry on sheets of plywood nailed over windows of vacant buildings — like Pablo Neruda's lines, "I want to do with you what the spring does with cherry trees."
The same day Parry pleaded guilty last month, authorities spoke publicly about the investigation for the first time. Camden County Prosecutor Warren Faulk said several officers were being investigated by the federal grand jury. Only Parry has been criminally charged.
Faulk also revealed that 185 cases had been compromised because of possibly corrupt police work. It's not that all the suspects weren't guilty, he said, but that without using the reports of the officers, there was no more credible evidence.
Lawyers have now begun filing claims notifying the city of their intention to sue based on the actions of Parry and the other officers.
The investigation has cast doubt — at least in Josephine Skinner's neighborhood — over even more drug cases.
Bodega owner Manuel Torres says that he thinks his sons, Jonathan and Sterling, were set up by police for their drug arrests a few years ago. Neither has had his conviction vacated.
The scandal is the latest blow to crimefighting in a city that can ill afford it.
In report after report, Camden ranks as one of the nation's most dangerous cities. Known as the drug marketplace for locals and suburbanites, the city has a constant presence of U.S. Marshals and state police, along with city police.
But, there have been some promising signs. The murder rate began falling in the summer of 2008 when police reworked their schedules and strategies. They started using more sophisticated data to figure out when and where crime was highest. They used that information to make sure they had more officers on the streets at those times.
Residents of Waterfront South said their problems with the police predated those changes.
Among those whose drug convictions were vacated in December was Josephine Skinner's 46-year-old son, Mark. He said he had been arrested in November 2005, just weeks after he was released from jail on a previous drug-dealing conviction.
Mark Skinner said that 2005 arrest came as he sat on the stoop in front of his mother's home, and that police — including Stetser — slammed him against the wall. Police failed to find drugs on him or in the house, then showed up with a trash bag full of small orange bags of crack worth about $4,000.
He said he pleaded guilty to get a three-year sentence, rather than risk up to 20 years with no chance of parole for a decade if he'd been found guilty at trial.
"I did three years for nothing," he said as he stood on the corner of Broadway and Viola Streets, near a new maritime museum — and a well-known drug spot.
The neighborhood has plenty of stories about problems caused by the police in recent years.
Jamar Dorsey, then a 20-year-old student at Camden County College, said Stetser planted marijuana on him in 2007 and threatened him with drug charges if he didn't lead Stetser to more drugs or weapons.
When Dorsey said he didn't know where drugs could be found, he was charged.
He pleaded guilty to drug possession, taking three years of probation instead of risking a stiffer penalty at trial — even though it meant losing his college financial aid and dropping out of college.
"Who were they going to believe?" Dorsey said. "Me or him?"
Another neighbor, Michelle Kellum, said her disabled son, Gregory, was 15 when he went to a corner store with money from his disability check. Stetser threw him in the back of a police car and took the money, she said, a little more than $100.
Kellum said the officer let her son go after she showed a receipt to prove where the money came from.
"Fat Face had everybody terrified," she said. "You wouldn't see anybody walking out here" when he was around.
And in the end, she said, the questionable police work failed its main objective — taking drugs off the streets.

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
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SKorea stops underwater search for missing sailors

South Korea's military ended its underwater search for dozens of sailors missing from a navy ship that sank following a mysterious blast eight days ago, an official said Saturday.
Families of the sailors asked the military to suspend the operation for fear of additional casualties among divers after one died and as chances of finding survivors grew increasingly unlikely after the discovery of the body of one of the sailors.
The decision came hours after divers discovered the body of a senior chief petty officer in the ship's rear area, the first of the 46 missing sailors to be found.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff said it stopped the underwater search out of respect for the families' request and will work to recover the 1,200-ton Cheonan.
Officials have said the salvage effort could last a month.
The vessel sank following an explosion March 26 during a routine patrol. Fifty-eight crew members, including the captain, were rescued soon after.
The ship broke into two pieces after the explosion. No cause has been determined for the blast and, despite some speculation, there has been no confirmation of North Korean involvement in the sinking, which occurred near the countries' disputed sea border in the Yellow Sea off the west coast of the Korean peninsula.
Defense Minister Kim Tae-young has said that a floating mine dispatched from North Korea was one possible explanation for the blast. A mine left over from the 1950-53 Korean War may also have struck the ship, he said.
Other officials say the cause of the explosion can only be determined after the sunken ship is recovered.
The sinking was one of South Korea's worst naval disasters. In 1974, a ship sank off the southeast coast in stormy weather, killing 159 sailors and coast guard personnel. In 1967, 39 sailors were killed by North Korean artillery.
Since the ordeal began, the families of the missing Cheonan sailors have expressed anger at the navy over what they saw as the slow pace of the rescue operation.
Separately, South Korea's coast guard found the bodies of two of nine fishermen whose boat disappeared as it sailed toward fishing grounds after helping to search for debris and possible survivors from the Cheonan.
The bodies of one South Korean and one Indonesian fishermen were discovered Saturday after contact was lost with the boat late Friday, said coast guard official Lee Kyo-min. The search was continuing for another Indonesian and six other South Korean crew members of the fishing boat.
Also, a funeral ceremony was held Saturday for a military diver who died during an attempt earlier in the week to reach the missing Cheonan sailors possibly trapped in the ship.

David Mikael Taclino
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Afghan upper house backs Karzai election decree

The upper house of Afghanistan's parliament backed a decree by President Hamid Karzai on Saturday that limits foreigners' role in elections, giving him a victory in a dispute that has led to a quarrel with the White House.
A complicated procedural row over how to run a September parliamentary election has emerged as a major bone of contention in the country, prompting an anti-Western tirade by Karzai on Thursday that drew a sharp rebuke from Washington.
Karzai issued his decree in February stripping the United Nations of the authority to appoint the majority of members of an election fraud watchdog, claiming that power for himself.
The elected lower house of parliament voted unanimously on Wednesday to overrule Karzai's decree. But the upper house's leadership excluded the lower house's proposal from its own agenda on Saturday, meaning the veto will not come up for a vote there, and apparently ensuring that Karzai's decree still stands.
Fazl Hadi Muslimyar, first deputy head of the upper house, told Reuters the body's leaders had concluded that parliament lacked the power to rule on electoral laws within a year of an election, and therefore could not place the veto on the agenda.
Ahmed Behzad, a member of the lower house and a critic of Karzai, accused the president of pressuring the upper house to back his decree. Karzai appoints a third of upper house members.
"I think there was pressure from the palace, from Mr Karzai, on the senate on this," Behzad told Reuters.
QUARREL WITH WHITE HOUSE
The dispute over foreigners' role in elections led this week to a war of words between Karzai and Washington, exposing the troubled relationship between the veteran Afghan leader and the Western countries with 120,000 troops protecting him.
The morning after the lower house rejected his decree this week, Karzai delivered a strongly-worded speech accusing Western officials of bribing and threatening election staff, perpetrating vote fraud and trying to weaken him and parliament.
In an unprecedented display of indignation, the U.S. State Department called Karzai's accusations "preposterous" and the White House demanded an explanation. Karzai phoned Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Friday to defuse the dispute.
Before Karzai's decree, the United Nations had appointed foreigners to serve as the three-member majority of the five-seat election fraud watchdog.
The body became the center of attention during last year's disputed presidential election, when its foreign members overturned Karzai's victory in the first round, throwing out a third of his votes because of fraud.
Karzai was declared the victor anyway in November when his opponent backed out of a second-round run-off, but the three-month stand-off battered his reputation in the West.
After claiming the power to appoint the entire five-member watchdog in February's decree, Karzai partially relented last month, offering to let the United Nations appoint two members -- a minority -- rather than the three-member majority as before. Diplomats say they are not sure if that compromise now stands.
Concern remains that procedural wrangling could delay September's vote. The United Nations mission in Kabul said it was important to settle the rules soon.
"We must avoid a vacuum where Afghan election management authorities do not have clarity as to the law they are supposed to implement," said Dan McNorton, spokesman for the United Nations mission in Kabul.

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
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Suicide Bomber Hometown, rattled

When a 16-year-old girl married a militant Islamist separatist entangled in a long-running and bloody struggle against Russian government forces, her relatives in this dusty North Caucasus village say they disowned her immediately.
They knew they could face torture from Russian security forces or even death for associating with the militants, and they knew their Dzhanet Abdurakhmanova, still just a schoolgirl, could easily be killed.
But they never expected her to be dispatched to Moscow as a suicide bomber to blow herself up on a subway train.
Abdurakhmanova, whose husband was killed by government forces in December, and another young widow have been accused of carrying out Monday's twin suicide bombings, which killed 40 people and injured 90. They were the first suicide attacks in the capital since 2004.
Both women were from the North Caucasus, a patchwork of predominantly Muslim provinces and home to a fierce Islamic insurgency that has been fueled by frequent killings, kidnappings and torture of residents by government forces.
Chechen rebel leader Doku Umarov claimed responsibility for the subway attacks, saying they were retaliation for the deaths of four garlic-picking villagers who were slain on Feb. 11.
In Kostek, a poor rural village in the province of Dagestan where Abdurakhmanova grew up, a piercing silence hangs in the air. Men on the main square stare transfixed at newcomers, then turn away whispering. The village feels dangerous even for those who live in the provincial capital, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) away.
Abdurakhmanova's suicide attack has brought unwanted attention.
"We turned our back on her when she married that one about two years ago," said a 20-year-old man, Abdurakhmanova's cousin, who refused to give his name for fear of reprisals.
"We didn't have anything to do with Dzhanet and we never wanted to" after her marriage, he said before disappearing into their grandmother's single-story brick home, one of the nicest in the village.
On Friday, a leading Russian newspaper published a photo of the doe-eyed teenager, partly veiled, in the embrace of a bearded man — both grasping handguns.
The report said Abdurakhmanova met her husband, Umalat Magomedov, in an Internet chat and that he then set up a meeting and drove her away by force when she was still 16.
After her husband's death, Abdurakhmanova may have fallen under the influence of Islamists, who try to persuade widows and other relatives to sacrifice their lives to avenge their slain husbands, sons and brothers.
The daily Moskovsky Komsomolets said a burned shred of a letter in Arabic found on Abdurakhmanova's body promised a "meeting in heaven." It was unclear who wrote the letter.
Her fellow suicide bomber was believed to be 20-year-old Markha Ustarkhanova from Chechnya, the newspaper said.
The militants, who once fought for Chechnya's independence, are now seeking to create an Islamic state across the North Caucasus. In Dagestan, they carry out attacks almost daily.
On Saturday, three militants opened fire on police in a drive-by shooting, killing one and injuring another. Two other suicide bombers struck Wednesday near Dagestan's border with Chechnya, killing 12 people. Another explosion there Thursday killed two suspected militants.
Umarov, the rebel leader, said the Moscow bombings were retribution for the deaths of four villagers, "some of the poorest people" in the impoverished region.
"These people were mercilessly destroyed," he said in a video message posted Wednesday.
The four garlic pickers died along with 18 suspected Islamic militants in a three-day shootout in the mountainous forests that straddle the North Caucasus provinces of Ingushetia and Chechnya.
The Memorial rights group on Saturday said the four villagers were caught in the crossfire and then dragged away and executed while gathering the wild garlic shoots to sell at local markets. Memorial said pictures taken on a mobile phone camera showed one of the victims, Shamil Katayev, lying dead in the snow, a trail of dried blood running from his nose to the back of his head.
"That shooting was just lunacy," said Alexander Cherkasov, a Memorial spokesman. "And that lunacy was used to justify terrorism."
President Dmitry Medvedev urged even harsher measures Friday to crack down on terrorism, including targeting people who even help the militants by feeding them or doing simple chores, such as washing their clothes.
However, Russian police and security forces have long been accused of seizing people suspected of aiding militants. Some people have been tortured and many have disappeared. Rights activists trying to document the abuses also have been killed, kidnapped or threatened.

David Mikael Taclino
Inyu Web Development and Design
Creative Writer

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