‘Several’ individuals have apparently been in contact with the Catholic abuse committee, which advertised for information, witnesses and complaints a week ago.

“Yes there are several who have been in touch and we are preparing to star the first interviews and I predict we will be able to start them before December. After that we will talk with everyone who makes contact with us,” committee chair Hjordis Hakonardottir told RUV.

The committee is intended to investigate the action and conduct of the Catholic Church in Iceland following complaints of abuse carried out by ordained servants and other church employees and to gauge whether mistakes, omissions, deliberate cover-ups or attempts to silence people were made in the aftermath of abuse complaints. The investigation will extend to the Landakotsskoli Catholic school and abuses alleged there until 2005. Hakonardottir says that the committee has already been going over documentary evidence.

“Now we are in the position that we are ready to start discussing with people,” she says; admitting that more evidence could still come to light which will need to be factored in.

Anybody with evidence, experience or testimony they believe the committee would find useful can send a letter to P.O. Box 5, 121 Reykjavík, Iceland or email [ rannsoknkk @ gmail . com ] before 1st December.

The sexual abuse at Landakotsskoli seems to have gone on for around 10 years.

In related news, around 20 windows were last night smashed at the Catholic bishop’s residence and police say it is extremely likely the vandalism is related to the Catholic abuse scandal. Nobody has been arrested so far.

The Frettatiminn newspaper, which originally broke the story which was also reported on IceNews, continued its exposé today. Reverend George was the head of Landakotsskoli for 30 years and the newspaper contains interviews with two women who claim to have been abused by George while students.

One of them says she was subject to the abuse for three years between 1959 and 1963. She also says that her father met with the then-Catholic Bishop of Iceland and told him that the headmaster had been abusing his daughter; but nothing was apparently done about it.

The other woman attended the school from 1982 to 1989 and says she was once sexually abused by Reverend George. The reverend died in 2008.

Last week Frettatiminn held interviews with two men who accused former clergy of sexual abuse — including Reverend George.

Both men and one of the women say they have told priests, nuns and bishops about the abuse over the years without any action being taken. The case is now with the police and the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

“The bishop is taking the accusations made over sexual abuse within the church very seriously. The church absolutely wants to support those individuals affected and to provide all the services the church has to offer them.”

So says an open letter from Petur Burcher, the Catholic bishop to Icelenad, to Ogmundur Jonasson, the country’s Mininster for the Interior. The letter was written in response to a feature in the Frettatiminn newspaper about sexual abuse within the Icelandic Catholic church, as well as wider media coverage of a recent meeting at the interior ministry between the bishop, the ministry’s permanent secretary, the deputy interior minister, a child protection agency representative and a police representative.

Bishop Burcher says in his open letter that one thing he made clear at the meeting is that the Catholic church is working, in partnership with the Nordic diocese, to create a united set of rules and procedures for how to deal with cases of sexual abuse when they come to light, Visir reports.

“On behalf of the Catholic church it is requested that any sexual abuse committee or experts seek information directly from the bishop in the form of a letter instead of accusing the bishop in the media of inaction and keeping silent. Indeed it was discussed at the aforementioned meeting with the minister that the Catholic church’s lawyer should be sent all information which has yet to be released,” the bishop writes in his letter.

He continued by describing how such cases should be dealt with, when serious sexual crimes are alleged: “It is neither the role of the authorities or the church, but rather the judiciary following a police investigation, to decide on the guilt or innocence of those accused. Media coverage of sexual abuse in the Catholic church should emphasise this and also question what the rights should be of implicated persons who are now deceased,” Burcher writes.

President Grimsson will present the pope with a statue of Gudridur Thorbjarnardottir, and will then have a private audience with the leader of the Roman Catholic church.

The official reason for the visit is so that the president can present the statue. Gudridur Thorbjarnardottir lived around the year 1000 and was considered one of the best travelled women anywhere in her day. She was born in Iceland before sailing to Greenland and on to Vinland (North America) before travelling widely in Europe. She eventually settled at Glaumbaer in Skagafjordur, Iceland. But when she became a widow, she set off once more — this time to Rome, where she presented the pope with memoirs of her travels.

Leif the Lucky is said to have saved a group of people, including Gudridur and her first husband, from a reef and brought them to shore at Brattahlid, where the husband, Thor, got ill and died. Gudridur then married Thorsteinn Eiriksson, the brother of Leif the Lucky. He too became ill and died and Gudridur eventually ended up marrying Thorfinnur Karlsefni Thordarsson from Glaumbaer in Skagafjordur.

The statue President Grimsson will present is by Asmundur Sveinsson and is an addition to the three already in existence. One of them is at Glaumbaer, another at Laugarbrekka on Snaefellsnes and the third is in Ottawa, Canada.

The Pope will grant the President a private audience, which is considered a great honour reserved solely for bishops, heads of state and others with particularly pressing and relevant reasons to talk to the pontiff, Visir reported.

Officers are looking to speak with Brenninkmeijer about an elderly nun with dementia, who in 1993 after reportedly being left in a courtyard. Police Spokesman Frits Kjeldsen told Politiken, “We have tried to get into contact with her [Brenninkmeijer], but have not been able to do so yet. But there is the time difference to think about.”

According to Kristeligt Dagblad, Denmark’s Bishop Czeslav Kozon first became aware of the alleged problems at the convent in 2000 and had previously suggested to the Danish Broadcasting Corporation that the Vatican should investigate. “I felt it was enough to say that the convent had been severely criticised,” Kozon reportedly said.

A further six people have also made independent complaints about the convent since 2001. Both Kozon and authorities in Rome, however, found no reason to remove Mother Theresa Brenninkmeijer.

The Cistercian sect was first founded in 1098 and came to Denmark in 1144, reforming in 1920 after disappearing during the reformation. The Order of Cistercians, known as the Trappists, is the most severe of the group’s religious divisions, following the Rule of St Benedict to the letter.

59-year-old German Bishop, Georg Muller, was reported by the present Trondheim bishop, Bernt Eidsvig, as having admitted to the abuse of an altar boy several years ago after being presented with the claims in June last year. Muller at the time asked to be released from his position.

According to Politiken, the former altar boy reported the incident to another Catholic priest, who then went to the ecclesiastical authorities with the information. This information was passed on to the Vatican which immediately dismissed Muller.

The disgraced former priest has been undergoing spiritual guidance and psychological treatment since the event, according to the church.

“The case has not previously been publicised because the victim has not wanted it to be. The person is now well over the age of majority. The Church has looked into the matter and found that the case comes under the Norwegian Statute of Limitations,” said Bishop Eidsvig, adding that no other transgressions had been made by Muller.

In recent weeks, a number of cardinals and bishops across Europe have been forced into apologising for the failure to act upon information pertaining to sexual abuse. However, the Danish Catholic Kozon argued that his church has no responsibility to neither -either investigate past abuse cases nor -or advise police of any new cases.

Bishop Czeslaw Kozon is Denmark’s highest ranking Catholic official. He made the claims in a written response to the media, which was reported published in the The Copenhagen Post. In his statement he argued that legal advisors had informed him that he was not obligated to notify authorities of any instances of sexual abuse. He did, however, reason that a specialist ethics committee comprising of a social worker, a lawyer and a priest were in charge of handling such circumstances.

“Therefore my conduct in those kinds of cases would be dependent on what the ethical committee recommends. Before you’re presented with that kind of case, it’s impossible to say how you’d react and what measures must be taken,” said Kozon.

Kozon’s statement has been denounced by theological and legal experts, who argue that the Catholic Church is legally responsible for identifying and preventing any instances of sexual abuse.

“If the Catholic Church does nothing, the cases will take on a snowball effect, getting bigger and bigger and destroying the Church’s backing and trustworthiness in Denmark,” said Peter Lodberg, an associate professor of theology with Aarhus University.

Last weekend, the head of the German Catholic association, Alois Gluck, said that the time had come to put an end to celibacy vows for Catholic priests. His demands stemmed from continued sex scandals that have plagued the Catholic Church.

“The media have exaggerated the issue,” said the Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church in Finland, Teemo Sippo, adding that Finland’s Catholic priest community had not discussed the latest European scandals. Sippo also claimed that no case of sexual child abuse towards children had ever been reported inside the Finnish Catholic church and that recent paedophilia discussions were cathartic. “The problem has been that people have tried to hide it. The whole atmosphere will improve now that it’s taken seriously,” said Sippo.

YLE reports that despite undisputed evidence that early Catholic priests were often married, the modern practice of the church pledges perennial celibacy. While some countries, Ukraine for example, allow priests to wed, Finland has no such intentions. “A priest should give all his strength to the church. The congregation is the priest’s wife,” claimed Sippo.

Sippo has expressed his concern over recent events in Sweden where the Lutheran Church is set to extend the performance of religious ceremonies to same sex couples. “The Catholic Church cannot bless same-sex couples. It doesn’t view it as morally acceptable,” Sippo stated. “Everything that happens in Sweden usually reaches Finland sooner or later.”

Sippo’s Catholic Church is well known for its conservative views and claims that marriage is a sacrament, according to Finnish broadcaster YLE.

In addition to the condemnation of gay marriage Sippo also denounced the practice of the city of Helsinki and liberal groups of distributing free condoms claiming the move incites sex rather than protects the individual. “Handing out condoms is like telling people to use them. I believe youths should instead be encouraged to practice abstinence,” the Bishop said.

The 62-year-old Teemu Sippo is the first Catholic Bishop of Finnish birth since the Reformation. The last Finnish-born Bishop was Arvid Kurki who died in 1522. Sippo was appointed to the post by Pope Benedict XVI in June, before being ordained last month.

In Finland, the entire country is a single diocese consisting of some 10,000 Catholics.