{"id":295831,"date":"2019-02-15T14:14:38","date_gmt":"2019-02-15T19:14:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/?p=295831"},"modified":"2019-02-15T14:18:28","modified_gmt":"2019-02-15T19:18:28","slug":"senior-canon-lawyer-at-vatican-credibly-accused-of-sex-abuse-removed-from-ministry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2019\/02\/senior-canon-lawyer-at-vatican-credibly-accused-of-sex-abuse-removed-from-ministry\/","title":{"rendered":"Senior Canon Lawyer at Vatican ‘Credibly Accused’ of Sex Abuse, Removed from Ministry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Details:\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Pope Francis has got a real mess on his hands.<\/p>\n

In just a few days he will gather the presidents of the all the world\u2019s episcopal conferences in Rome to make them understand there must be \u201czero tolerance\u201d for priests who sexually abuse minors. But on the eve of this important meeting, yet another long-serving Vatican official has been revealed as a perpetrator.<\/p>\n

Msgr. Joseph Punderson, who has worked at the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura since 1993 and its Defender of the Bond (DOB) since 1995, is expected to end three decades of service in Rome after his New Jersey diocese listed him among those \u201ccredibly accused of the sexual abuse of a minor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Punderson, 70, was one of 30 people on a preliminary list of offenders published on Feb. 13 by the\u00a0Diocese of Trenton<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The news comes only two weeks after\u00a0Father Hermann Geissler<\/a>, an Austrian priest accused of making sexual advances on a nun, resigned his post as section manager at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).<\/p>\n

CDF officials had known about the accusations against Geissler since 2014. But it is not clear who in the Vatican knew what about the accusations against Punderson or when they knew it.<\/p>\n

The Diocese of Trenton listed his status as \u201cRemoved From Ministry\u201d but it did not indicate when that action was taken or when the accusations were made.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read more.\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Details:\u00a0 Pope Francis has got a real mess on his hands. In just a few days he will gather the presidents of the all the world\u2019s episcopal conferences in Rome to make them understand there must be \u201czero tolerance\u201d for priests who sexually abuse minors. But on the eve of this important meeting, yet another […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":43042,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[12367],"class_list":["post-295831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sex-abuse-crisis","tag-diocese-of-trenton"],"yoast_head":"\nSenior Canon Lawyer at Vatican 'Credibly Accused' of Sex Abuse, Removed from Ministry<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Details:\u00a0 Pope Francis has got a real mess on his hands. 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