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“Annoying and misleading” is what Sulpician ethicist Fr. Gerald Coleman has called a retired Australian bishop’s attempt to link celibacy with clergy sexual abuse of children. Writing in the July 11 San Francisco archdiocesan Catholic San Francisco, Coleman, the former rector of St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park and currently the vice president for ethics for the Daughters of Charity Health System, challenged Geoffrey Robinson, a former auxiliary bishop of Sydney, Australia. In May, Cardinal Roger Mahony forbade Robinson to speak in the Los Angeles archdiocese, as did Bishop Tod Brown in the Diocese of Orange and Robert Brom of...

A Catholic priest who previously worked in youth ministry and religious education at churches in Germantown and Bethesda turned himself in to police Tuesday evening in Montgomery County after being charged with abusing a former altar boy. The Rev. Aaron Joseph Cote, 56, worked part time in youth ministry at Mother Seton Parish in Germantown between 1999 and 2002 and part time in religious education at Bethesda’s St. Jane Frances de Chantal Parish between 1997 and 1999. Police allege Cote engaged in “inappropriate touching of” and “inappropriate personal sexual activity” in the presence of a then-14-year-old victim, who was seeing...

The Pope played a leading role in a systematic cover-up of child sex abuse by Roman Catholic priests, according to a shocking documentary to be screened by the BBC tonight. In 2001, while he was a cardinal, he issued a secret Vatican edict to Catholic bishops all over the world, instructing them to put the Church's interests ahead of child safety. The document recommended that rather than reporting sexual abuse to the relevant legal authorities, bishops should encourage the victim, witnesses and perpetrator not to talk about it. And, to keep victims quiet, it threatened that if they repeat the...

Shocking Past of Former Priest Who Was Killed In Palmer Fire YouNewsTV™Story Published: May 15, 2008 at 6:58 PM EDT Story Updated: May 16, 2008 at 3:13 PM EDT By Liz Tufts Watch The Story The shocking past of Andre Corbin is coming to light, just days after the former priest was killed in an apartment fire in Palmer. Andre Corbin was arrested in 1988 for molesting a boy at a church in North Carolina. According to a website that highlights the history of sexual abuse by priests, it says Corbin plead guilty to the accusations and was sentenced to...

I can understand why nearly three-quarters of U.S. Catholics say they approve of their new Pope, Benedict XVI. He is a deep thinking Pontiff who, like John Paul II before him, holds fast to refreshingly strong moral convictions. When he said he was ashamed of the existence of pedophile priests and their subsequent abuse of young boys, unlike the scoffers, I believe him. It’s true that many Catholic leaders, to their disgrace, ignored early reports and initiated a cover-up. If financial retribution can ever repay such betrayal, many archdioceses have been bankrupted by the scandal. The church, however slow, has...

Secular progressives, especially those in the Boston media, are having a field day dredging up the whole pedophile priest controversy here at its epicenter. While the mainstream media’s been giving us wall-to-wall all-Pope, all-the-time coverage, many here in the Boston area are well into their sixteenth minute of fame, and bashing the Pope for avoiding our city on his America tour. While he has publicly acknowledged the scandal, and now met with some of the victims, enough is not enough for these professional victims. "I acknowledge the pain of the Church in America is experiencing as a result of sexual...

For 25 remarkable minutes, the shepherd of the world's 1 billion Catholics met with a handful of victims in the worst scandal to ever tarnish the U.S. church. One man, abused as an altar boy, said he placed his hand over Pope Benedict XVI's heart as he pleaded with him to fix the problem of sexual abuse of minors. The pontiff apologized to his guests for not being perfectly fluent in English, and "for everything," according to another victim. Plans for the secret meeting were kept quiet. But two Boston-area victims of abuse shared details of the meeting in interviews...

WASHINGTON -- Pope Benedict XVI, in a dramatic move likely to alter forever the image of his pontificate, met this afternoon with five victims of clergy sexual abuse from Boston. The private meeting, which was first reported by the Globe this afternoon and has since been confirmed by the Vatican, was brokered by Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston.

Pope Benedict XVI chided Americans for a moral breakdown he said had fueled the church's child sex abuse scandal, ahead of an open-air mass before tens of thousands here Thursday. Gates opened at Washington's new sports stadium before dawn so that an expected 48,000 people could trickle through stringent security measures to attend the mass at 10:00 am (1400 GMT). Benedict received a rapturous White House welcome Wednesday and met privately with President George W. Bush in the Oval Office, before addressing the pedophile priest scandal that has rocked the US church in a speech to US Catholic bishops. Thousands...

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) - Catholic diocese officials say a priest accused of sexually abusing minors is HIV positive. After the Reverend Philip Magaldi recently told another priest that he has the disease that causes AIDS, the diocese alerted people who have lodged allegations against him. The diocese in Fort Worth said it also notified parishes where Magaldi served. Church officials say they believe Magaldi has been HIV positive since 2003. He was removed as a priest in 1999 after sexual misconduct allegations arose in Rhode Island and Fort Worth.

NEW YORK — When the Associated Press set out to investigate an apparent problem with sexual assault of children in public schools, the organization spared no expense. A congressionally mandated study by Hofstra University had already found school-based sexual abuse to be a big problem. “It was one of our priorities for the year,” said John Affleck, editor of the AP’s national reporting team.The result was a three-part series, available to editors throughout the country beginning Oct. 20, that revealed widespread and routine sexual assault of public school students throughout the country. The first story summarized: “Students in America’s schools...

TIES THAT BIND Against the advice of some of his campaign advisers, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani has kept a suspended Catholic priest and childhood friend on the payroll of Giuliani Partners as a consultant. The priest has been caught up in the continuing sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. Msgr. Alan Placa, who was suspended from his priestly duties back in 2002 and who has also served as a practicing attorney, has worked on a consulting basis with Giuliani Partners. In 2003 a grand jury in Suffolk County, New York, accused Placa of sexually abusing multiple victims....

A study presented to the [U.S. Catholic] bishops on Monday by Karen Terry and Margaret Smith of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice on the "causes and context" of the [sex abuse] crisis....said the sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy, which peaked numerically in the mid-1970s, for the most part reflected "overall changes in behavior, attitudes, and media representations in American society during this time period." "This is in conflict with the idea that there is something distinctive about the Catholic church that led to the sexual abuse of minors," Terry said. [snip] ...During a press briefing on...

A group distributed fliers Sunday morning at a Pleasanton Catholic Church because the priest selected to lead the parish was arrested several years ago in a case involving a lewdness allegation. Church leaders defended him. "He wouldn't be here if I weren't satisfied and the bishop," said the Rev. Dan Danielson, who is stepping down. The Rev. Padraig Greene takes over Jan. 1 at the Catholic Communities of Pleasanton, which includes St. Augustine Catholic Church and St. Elizabeth Seton Catholic Church. Greene was associate pastor there for five years before moving to St. Joseph Catholic Church at Mission San Jose....

In 2004, Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, proclaimed that after two years of relentless investigations into priests who sexually abused children and the bishops who protected them, "the scandal is history." For reporters weary of the scandal's emotionally draining subject matter, Gregory's sound bite invited a retreat. The bishops pointed to the "youth protection charter" they had developed, laying out guidelines for removing predator priests and for treating victims responsibly. They released data showing that they had identified about 4,400 abusive U.S. priests. They had a reform agenda, it seemed, and promised new vigilance...

Child abuse has gone unchecked in the Church of England for decades amid a cover up by bishops, secret papers have revealed. Information that could have prevented abuse has been "lost or damaged", concerns about individuals have been ignored and allegations have not been recorded. It means that the Church has no idea how many paedophiles are in its midst. Lawyers warned last night that the Church faces a crisis as catastrophic as the one that engulfed the Roman Catholic Church and cost it millions of pounds in damages. Richard Scorer, a solicitor who has specialised in child abuse cases,...

In order to raise the cash to make its pederasty payment, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles is selling a convent that currently provides a residence for three nuns. The anticipated selling price is a drop in the bucket of the roughly $250 million needed to keep the archbishop out of the witness box meet the Archdiocese's liabilities in the sex-abuse settlements, and the convent is one of about 50 non-parish properties to be sold. The sisters have been asked to vacate the house by the end of December. From the point of view of the archdiocesan business office it's not...

SAN DIEGO – The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego reached a $198.1 million agreement with 144 childhood sexual abuse victims Friday morning. The settlement was reached after marathon discussions between attorneys and victims. As part of the settlement, the diocese will also ask a federal bankruptcy judge to dismiss its Chapter 11 case. Another important part of the agreement was the diocese's promise to release church documents about priest abuse, said Irwin M. Zalkin, an attorney for 33 victims in the case. He said that without that concession, the victims would not have agreed to settle their claims. The...

SAN DIEGO -- The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego said Friday it has agreed to pay $198.1 million to settle 144 claims of sexual abuse by clergy, the second-largest payment by a diocese. The agreement caps more than four years of negotiations in state and federal courts. Earlier this year, the diocese abruptly filed for bankruptcy protection just hours before trial was scheduled to begin on 42 lawsuits alleging sexual abuse. Bankruptcy could shield the diocese's assets, but a judge recently threatened to throw out the bankruptcy case if church officials didn't reach an agreement with the plaintiffs. The...

Massive PR machine? Some say Cardinal Mahony’s willingness to meet with sexual abuse victims nothing more than a public relations stunt Over the past year, Cardinal Roger Mahony has met individually with 70 victims of clergy sexual abuse. Archdiocesan spokesman Tod Tamberg told the July 30 Los Angeles Times that Mahony has scheduled more meetings with sexual abuse victims and that “he has said he will meet with any victim who wants to meet with him.” But Lee Bashworth, 37, who claims abuse by former priest Michael Wempe, told the Times, that, though he would “relish an opportunity to tell...

Amy Berg's documentary "Deliver Us From Evil" has powerful and horrifying material to work with: a Catholic priest, the Irish-born Fr. Oliver O'Grady, who admits--right on film--that he molested at least 25 children during his 20-odd years in parishes during the 1970s and 1980s in the Stockton diocese in rural California. The bishops of Stockton, who included Roger Mahony, now archbishop of Los Angeles, instead of yanking "Father Ollie" from his pulpit and calling the police, either ignored complaints about him or ordered "counseling" and transferred him from parish to parish, always one step ahead of the outrage of his...

As the Roman Catholic Church struggles to repair itself and its image in the wake of the sex abuse scandals, one of the more confounding questions church leaders face is what to do with priests accused of abuse. Some priests whose crimes fell within statutes of limitation are in jail. Some have been defrocked. But others — because they are elderly, because of the nature of their offenses, or because they have had some success fighting the charges — cannot be defrocked under canon law. These priests occupy a sort of shadow world, stripped of most duties but still financially...

Few would dispute that the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin exercised great influence in the Catholic Church in the U.S. Sadly, however, that influence was not for the good of the Church. The following are pertinent excerpts from Randy Engel's new book The Rite of Sodomy. Chapter 15 The Special Case of Joseph Cardinal Bernardin Introduction This segment on Joseph Cardinal Bernardin was originally incorporated into the previous chapter on homosexual members of the American hierarchy. However, because of his extraordinary influence on AmChurch, I decided Cardinal Bernardin deserved a chapter all his own. To do real justice to Cardinal Bernardin...

SANTA ROSA A Roman Catholic church official apologized Saturday for waiting several days to notify authorities about sexual abuse allegations against a priest, a delay that may have allowed the priest to flee to Mexico. Bishop Daniel Walsh of the Santa Rosa diocese said in a one-page statement to parishioners he put "caution" before "doing the right thing" in handling the allegations against priest Xavier Ochoa. Church officials say Ochoa admitted April 28 to sexually abusing a 12-year-old altar boy, but the allegations were not reported to Child Protective Services until May 1, and Ochoa disappeared the next day. "I...

Pope Benedict took disciplinary action against the Mexican founder of the Legionaries of Christ yesterday, ordering him to renounce every public duty after a nine-year investigation into claims of sexual abuse.The 86-year-old Fr Marcial Maciel, a close friend of the late Pope John Paul II, is the most prominent figure in the Catholic Church ever to be disciplined by the Vatican on grounds of sexual abuse. He will not face a full Church trial on account of his age, but he is now forbidden to celebrate Mass, speak in public or to the press. In a statement, the Vatican invited...

(Gates, N.Y.) An 80-year-old priest has been charged with sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl. The Rev. John Steger is a priest at St. Jude the Apostle Church on Lyell Road. He's charged with two counts of sexual abuse and two counts of endangering the welfare of a child. Police said the alleged inappropriate touching happened at the church rectory, where the girl was doing chores. Police said the girl told her parents, who contacted police. The alleged abuse happened once at the end of April and once at the beginning of May. In a statement, the Roman Catholic Diocese of...

A new study has found that the scandal over sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church has not caused American Catholics to leave the church, or to stop attending Mass and donating to their parishes. The study shows that Catholic participation in church life and satisfaction with church leadership dropped noticeably at the height of the scandal in 2002, but has now largely rebounded to prescandal levels. The only significant decline is in the percentage of Catholics who contributed to diocesan financial appeals, annual campaigns that are usually run by bishops. While the percentage of Catholics who contributed to their...

Last summer, attorneys in Colorado filed the first sex-abuse lawsuits against the archdiocese of Denver since the national clergy abuse scandal began four years ago. All of the suits involved two men: one, a laicized former priest who left active ministry more than a decade ago, and the other, a priest dead for more than a decade. Several of the suits have since named individual parishes as targets along with the diocese. Every claimed incident of abuse occurred more than twenty-five years ago. Nearly all occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. Under Colorado law, plaintiffs’ attorneys have a problem. So...

Michael Edwin Wempe, the pedophile priest whom Cardinal Roger M. Mahony said he regretted returning to the ministry, was sentenced today to three years in prison for molesting a boy more than a decade ago. The 66-year-old retired priest was found guilty in February in the first significant criminal conviction of a Los Angeles cleric since the church's sexual abuse scandal erupted four years ago. Wempe received the maximum sentence, but has already served 600 days, so he will spend about another year in prison. He made no statement to the court. The case garnered close attention because it came...

Rev. Michael Knotek stands by his brother George, who says he was abused by a priest as a teen and has sued the Joliet Diocese On a recent Sunday, Rev. Michael Knotek asked parishioners in his Far South Side sanctuary to bow their heads and call to mind the greatest cross they had to bear. As they obeyed, Knotek also hung his head and meditated on the burden he has carried for 31 years: the knowledge that his older brother was molested by a priest and his belief that his church tried to cover it up. "If we're careful, by...

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony must turn over to L.A. prosecutors the personnel files of two priests accused of molestation after the U.S. Supreme Court today declined to hear his request to keep them private. Though the ruling only affects the files of two priests, it likely opens the door to the release of hundreds of confidential Catholic church files sought by more than 500 people who say they were molested by priests with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Mahony has fought more vigorously than any other prelate in the United States to block attempts by prosecutors and plaintiff attorneys to...

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The cumulative financial cost to the U.S. Catholic Church for clerical sexual abuse of minors is now more than $1.5 billion and still climbing. A new report released March 30 by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said U.S. dioceses, eparchies (Eastern-rite dioceses) and religious orders spent $467 million last year in settlements, therapy for victims and abusers, attorney fees and other costs related to sexual abuse of minors by priests or deacons. A similar national survey the previous year revealed costs of $158 million. An extensive national study of the U.S. church's sexual abuse costs from...

WASHINGTON, United States, March 31, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The U.S. bishops and the Vatican are discussing disciplinary action against bishops who moved priests accused of child abuse from parish to parish.The bishops have often been criticized for failing to include disciplinary action against bishops who move priests around in their child sex abuse prevention policies. Under church law, however, only the pope can discipline a bishop.The head of the U.S. bishops’ conference, Bishop William S. Skylstad of Spokane, Washington, told Catholic News Service church officials know more about dealing with child sexual abuse now than they did several decades ago. ...

Equipped with gummy bears, lubricant and gay porn, a defrocked Pennsylvania priest was ready for sex with a boy but instead got busted by an undercover cop, police said. Thomas Bender, 72, of Macungie, Pa., was arraigned yesterday in First District Court in Hempstead on five counts of first-degree disseminating indecent material to a minor and one count of attempting to commit a criminal sexual act. Since September 2004, cops said, he engaged in online conversations with a detective who was posing as a teenager. "During that year, he was grooming the boy - or who he thought was a...

A former vice chancellor of the Boston Archdiocese and six other priests accused of molesting children have been defrocked by the Vatican, church officials announced Friday.In a statement, Boston Archbishop Sean O'Malley expressed his "deepest sorrow for the grievous harm" done by Monsignor Frederick Ryan and the other Boston priests."The violations of childhood innocence, under the guise of priestly care, are a source of profound shame," O'Malley said.Ryan was one of the highest-ranking church officials to be accused of child molestation since the Boston sex scandal broke in 2002. He resigned that year after being accused of abusing two boys...

DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) -- The Roman Catholic archdiocese of Dublin published a report Wednesday that says 102 of its priests -- more than 3.5 percent of the total -- are suspected of sexually or physically abusing at least 350 children since 1940, the biggest such admission to date in Ireland. The office of Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said it was publishing its findings ahead of the expected formation later this month of a government-appointed commission to investigate the history and handling of such abuse throughout Ireland. This predominantly Catholic nation has been rocked by waves of church sex-abuse scandals since 1994....

CINCINNATI -- A man accused of sexually abusing several boys in the Cincinnati area has been removed from the priesthood by the Vatican.Lawrence Strittmatter's dismissal from the clergy was announced by the Archdiocese of Cincinnati on Wednesday. Strittmatter had requested the removal _ referred to as laicization by the Roman Catholic church _ and Pope Benedict XVI approved it January. Because Strittmatter made the request, the removal falls short of defrocking, which is imposed.The archdiocese hopes the move brings "peace, comfort or satisfaction" to the men who have accused Strittmatter, spokesman Dan Andriacco said.Church officials requested in 2002 that Strittmatter...

DUBLIN, Ireland - The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, rocked for a decade by sex scandals, yesterday made its biggest admission yet: 102 of its Dublin priests past and present, 3.6 percent of the total going back to 1940, are suspected of abusing children. The disclosure comes a week before the government convenes an inquiry into how church and state authorities conspired, by negligence and design, to cover up decades of child abuse within the Dublin priesthood."It's very frightening for me to see that in some of these cases, so many children were abused," said Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, a Vatican...

Who knows whether Cardinal Edward Egan is sleeping soundly these days. But as head of the New York archdiocese—as the top Roman Catholic prelate in the state—he'd have every reason to be restless after the recent advent of a little-noticed lawsuit. The suit, now pending in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, was filed on December 13 by Bob Hoatson—a 53-year-old New Jersey priest considered a stalwart ally among survivors of sexual abuse by clergy. Hoatson, the now-suspended chaplain for Catholic Charities in Newark, is suing Egan and nine other Catholic officials and institutions, claiming a pattern of "retaliation and harassment"...

February 10, 2006 - Chicago's Francis Cardinal George sent a letter containing an ultimatum to priests. Seemingly stunned by the ongoing issue of priest sex abuse, the cardinal has called for any priest living a double life to come forward for the good of the church. Francis Cardinal George is tending to his wounded flock, dispatching a letter to more than 400 churches across the Archdiocese. In his letter to priests the Cardinal writes: "All of us are sinners, but there are types of perversion that are completely incompatible with the calling toward ordained priesthood." The cardinal apologizes for not...

WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) - A jury rejected an insanity defense and found prison inmate Joseph Druce guilty Wednesday of first-degree murder in the strangulation of pedophile priest John Geoghan, a central figure in Boston's clergy sex abuse scandal. Druce admitted sneaking into Geoghan's prison cell in August 2003. He jammed the door shut with a book, then beat and strangled the 68-year-old before guards could stop him. The defense had argued that Druce was mentally ill and under the delusion that God had chosen him to kill Geoghan and send a message to pedophiles around the world. Prosecutor Lawrence Murphy...

WORCESTER, Mass. (AP) - The inmate who strangled child-molesting priest John Geoghan behind bars testified Monday that he resolved to kill the clergyman after Geoghan arrogantly brushed off criticism that he had "destroyed all kinds of lives." Joseph Druce took the stand for a second day at his trial for killing Geoghan, who was serving time for groping a 10-year-old boy and had been accused of molesting 150 other children. Druce, 40, said that in the weeks before the slaying, he twice confronted Geoghan about molesting children. Instead of denying the accusations, Geoghan was "arrogant" and said he was worth...

A Roman Catholic priest living at a home for pedophile priests in eastern Franklin County was arrested Thursday and accused of committing seven sexual assaults while he was assigned to a hospital in Wisconsin in the 1960s, officials said. The cases could still be prosecuted due to a legal quirk: The statute of limitations on the charges was frozen when the priest left the state decades ago. At the request of police in Beaver Dam, Wis., Franklin County sheriff's deputies arrested the Rev. Bruce D. MacArthur, 83, at Evergreen Hills Home, formerly known as Wounded Brothers Project. MacArthur was held...

(Some in Hudson congregation call leader irresponsible...) Hudson, WI - Superior Diocese Bishop Raphael Fliss apologized to parishioners Sunday who were served by a priest who later committed suicide after being questioned in the homicides of two funeral home workers. "I literally failed and fumbled the ball," Fliss told the audience of 700 that packed the church. "I did not respond appropriately and decisively," said Fliss, adding that he had been told of divisions in St. Patrick's Parish over Father Ryan Erickson. "I should have intervened sooner, if not immediately." Fliss said he first knew of credible accusations involving Erickson...

A 72-year-old former Episcopalian priest and foster parent who recently won a new trial on sexual assault charges was ordered Thursday to stand trial on new charges involving another boy. Donald Shissler is charged with eight counts of sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust and as a pattern of conduct. The alleged victim in the new case was a boy who visited Shissler's Denver home with many other children, prosecutor Kerri Lombardi said. Authorities say the assaults took place from 1997 to 2002, when Shissler was arrested on charges of sexually assaulting two...

Breaking ranks with his peers, a Roman Catholic bishop called yesterday for state legislatures to temporarily remove the time limits that have prevented many victims of sex abuse from suing the church.In making that extraordinary appeal, Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit also unburdened himself of a secret. As a teenager 60 years ago, he said, he was "inappropriately touched" by a priest.Gumbleton, 75, is the first U.S. bishop to disclose that he was a victim of clergy sexual abuse. He is also the first to endorse proposals in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and other states to follow California's example...

Worcester, Mass. -- Moments after guards first pried open the jammed door of John Geoghan's prison cell, Joseph Druce confessed that he killed the child-molesting former priest to protect other youngsters, a guard testified Wednesday as the prisoner's murder trial began. Four guards brought Druce to the prison hospital unit, where he sobbed while confessing to killing Geoghan, guard Travis Canty said. According to prosecutors, Druce had jammed the door of Geoghan's cell shut with a book, then strangled the defrocked priest with a pillowcase, socks and a sneaker. "He said that he did it for the children," Canty said,...

wo lawyers representing Oregon molestation victims have raised questions about the role San Francisco Archbishop William Levada played in a priestly sex abuse scandal that led to this week's unprecedented bankruptcy of the Archdiocese of Portland. Levada, who served as the archbishop of Portland from 1986 to 1995, oversaw church disciplinary proceedings against two Oregon priests accused of child molestation, including one who was put back in regular parish ministry in 1994, following a brief period of "rehabilitation," the attorneys say.

NEW YORK After nearly four years of fighting sex abuse charges, Monsignor Charles Kavanagh will have his day in a Church court. It's what the Vatican ordered. It's what Kavanagh wants. "This is what I prayed for," Kavanagh said. "I understand the need in this climate for significant review. All I want is a full and fair hearing and I'll be fine." In 2002 a former student accused Kavanagh of abusing him more than 20 years ago, when Kavanagh was head of Cathedral Prep Seminary in Manhattan. The claims were made beyond the statute of limitations. The Archdiocese of New...

As he prepares to be deposed in San Francisco next week, former S.F. Archbishop William Levada may have to come clean about a priestly child molester he protected in Portland. By Ron Russell In April 2004, when questioned under oath by lawyers for victims sexually abused by priests, San Francisco's former archbishop, William J. Levada, was asked about Father Joseph Baccellieri, a parish priest accused of child molestation whom Levada removed from ministry in 1992 while archbishop of Portland. Levada restored Baccellieri to his post two years later. "I believe there was some allegation that occurred while I was there,"...