ABUSE TRACKER

April 29, 2013

Barney Zwartz
Religion editor, The Age

Comments by the Catholic Church spokesman on child sexual abuse were inappropriate, disingenuous and possibly in contempt of Parliament, MP Frank McGuire said on Monday.

Mr McGuire, deputy chairman of the Victorian inquiry into how the churches handled child sexual abuse, said: “Before you’ve even come before the inquiry it looks as though the church is trying to minimise” the abuse problem.

Mr McGuire criticised the church for taking an umbrella approach to the inquiry but not when it came to compensation or remedies.

Criticising remarks by Father Shane McKinlay that clergy sexual abuse coincided with the social and moral collapse of the 1960s and ’70s, including an attempt to lower the age of consent to 12, Mr McGuire said: “Is the church going to try to blame society?”

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph

By Daniel Fogarty
AAP
April 29, 2013

THE former bishop of Ballarat made a “tragic mistake” by not removing one of Australia’s worst pedophiles when he first became aware of sexual abuse allegations against the priest, the current bishop of the diocese admits.

Bishop Ronald Mulkearns knew about child abuse complaints against Father Gerald Ridsdale as early as 1975 but let him remain as a priest and moved him to other parishes, a Victorian parliamentary inquiry has heard.

Church records reveal 67 abuse complaints have been made against Risdale, who is currently in jail for sex offences.

The church admitted on Monday that it effectively facilitated abuse by allowing a known abuser to continue to have access to children.

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UNITED KINGDOM/IRELAND
The Irish Sun

EXCLUSIVE by MICHAEL DOYLE

Last Updated: 29th April 2013

A DEFROCKED priest accused of abusing at least 32 children has been arrested, the Irish Sun can reveal.

Vile Bill Carney, 63, was described by the Murphy Report into clerical abuse as one of the worst offenders.

He has been living in the UK for over 20 years after the Catholic Church booted him out in 1992 and was arrested by British cops in London in the past few days on foot of a European Arrest Warrant.

He is due to appear in court this week where he will fight to avoid being returned here.

A source said: “He will appear in court in the coming days. He still denies any wrongdoing and is fighting his extradition.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

A Catholic order that provided services for children with intellectual disabilities has denied it was infiltrated by predatory paedophiles.

The St John of God Brothers are the first of the Catholic orders to give evidence at the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into Child abuse.

The inquiry first heard this morning that 15 of 60 St John of God Brothers had complaints made against them in Victoria since the 1940s.

Brother Tim Graham says he has been horrified by the allegations and acknowledges there has been a systemic failure of scrutiny and accountability.

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MENDHAM (NJ)
CBS New York

MENDHAM, N.J. (CBSNewYork/AP) — Advocates for victims of child sexual abuse rededicated a monument in Morris County, N.J., Sunday that has twice been the target of vandalism.

The rededication ceremony for the monument outside St. Joseph Church in Mendham took place on Sunday afternoon.

Part of the millstone monument near St. Joseph Church in Mendham was destroyed last month for the second time in less than two years.

As WCBS 880’s Jim Smith reported, the destroyed statue representing girl victims remained missing, and the boy figure remained heavily damaged, as of Sunday. But despite the second occurrence of vandalism, victims and families rededicated their efforts to crack down on child sex abuse.

“It takes all of us as a community to stand up,” said Mark Crawford, of the New Jersey Chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

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MENDHAM (NJ)
Patch

By Russ Crespolini

The damage physical damage to the monument may not be repaired, but to those assembled outside of St. Joseph’s Church in Mendham Borough on Sunday, it hardly mattered.

The crowd was there for the third time to rededicate the memorial to child victims of clergy sex abuse that was destroyed twice in as many years. Fittingly, the ceremony was scheduled just before the close of April, which is sexual assault awareness month.

The third dedication of the monument focused on female victims of clergy sex abuse. Angela Rose of Promoting Awareness, Victim Empowerment (PAVE), an organization dedicated to “shattering the silence of sexual violence,” traveled from Washington, DC to speak at the event. Rose was tweeting before the event started about the number of people assembled and described the day as “incredible.” New York City sex crimes prosecutor Jill Starishevsky, author of “My Body Belongs to Me,” also spoke.

The monument was designed and built as a memorial to the victims of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and was dedicated in 2004 at St. Joseph’s where James T. Hanley, a pastor who has been defrocked, admitted to molesting children decades ago.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

The Pope Emeritus will be leaving Castel Gandolfo in a few days and returning to the Vatican

Andrea Tornielli
Vatican City

Benedict XVI returns to the Vatican. He left the Holy See on 28 February, the last day of his pontificate, which ended officially on the evening of that same day, following his resignation. Unless there is last minute change of plan, the Pope Emeritus is expected to return to the Vatican on 1 May. The former cloistered monastery where the former Pope will be living, is now ready for him to move in. The monastery is a four story building, with communal areas and twelve monastic cells, a new wing measuring approximately 450 metres squared, a chapel, the cloistered nuns’ choir, a library, a gallery, an evergreen hedge, a heavy gate that separates the cloistered area from the other parts of the monastery and a large garden where peppers, tomatoes, courgettes, cabbages, lemons and oranges are grown.

Benedict XVI will be living with the four members of the “Memores Domini” association and his personal secretary, Georg Gänswein, Prefect of the Papal Household. Others who are allowed to stay in the monastery are the Pope Emeritus’ brother and the German deacon who joined the small former “papal family” and assists Ratzinger when Fr. Georg is busy in the Apostolic Palace. The move will make Mgr. Gänswein’s life much easier as, up until now, he has had to go back and forth from Castel Gandolfo to the Vatican every day. It will also make it easier for Francis to visit his predecessor.

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SCOTLAND
The Times

Tom Farmery

Cardinal Keith O’Brien will face no further action from the Vatican after his admission of having sexual relations with four priests and a seminarian.

It emerged yesterday that there is no longer an active investigation into his behaviour and that Rome views the matter as closed.

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NEW JERSEY
dotCommonweal

April 28, 2013, 6:04 pm

Posted by Lisa Fullam

This time in Newark, NJ. The bishop is Archbishop John Myers, and the offending priest is Michael Fugee, who admitted groping a 14 year-old boy 12 years ago. (He later recanted his confession, saying that he’d only confessed so he could go home sooner.) He was tried and convicted, but the conviction overturned on appeal based on inappropriate instructions to the jury. The appellate ruling did not question the validity of the confession. According to the NJ Star-Ledger, rather than re-try the case,

the prosecutor’s office allowed him to enter pre-trial intervention, a rehabilitation program for first offenders. At the same time, the prosecutor’s office secured an agreement that Fugee undergo counseling for sex offenders and have no unsupervised contact with children as long as he is a priest.

I infer that Fugee’s agreeing to this condition means that he, in effect, recants his recantation. Otherwise, it would be a serious infringement on his ministry. A later effort to have his record expunged was denied on grounds of public safety. Subsequently, Fugee has been assigned to significant posts in the Archdiocese. His latest post is co-director of the Office of Continuing Education and Ongoing Formation of Priests.

On the face of it, this is a good resolution. After all, this job would not seem to bring him into contact with children, which is the terms of his deal with legal authorities.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Mirror

The Baptist Church in Britain has been hit by a string of child sex abuse claims.

Seven men allege that they were raped as teenagers by a paedophile minister.

Their High Court writ is the first action against the UK church and legal sources say it could cost it millions of pounds.

The men claim they were abused by Reverend Robert Dando, 48, who was jailed for eight years in Virginia, US, in 2011 for molesting two boys between 1995 and 1999.

Dando had been in the US on overseas ­missions. After his arrest in 2011 he resigned as senior minister at Worcester Park Baptist church in south-west London.

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NEW JERSEY
CBS New York

NEWARK, N.J. (CBSNewYork/AP) — Investigators have been questioning whether New Jersey priest once accused of child sexual abuse may have violated an order never again to work with children.

The Rev. Michael Fugee has had an unofficial association with a Monmouth County church for several years, the Star-Ledger of Newark reported. Parishioners said he has attended youth retreats and heard confessions from minors behind closed doors.

Newark Archdiocese spokesman Jim Goodness said Fugee was unavailable for comment.

But Goodness said the archdiocese believes Fugee, 52, can work with minors if he is supervised by priests or lay ministers aware of his past and the agreement’s conditions.

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UNITED STATES
CNN

By John Blake, CNN

(CNN) – An angry outburst at a mosque. The posting of a suspicious YouTube video. A friendship with a shadowy imam.

Those were just some of the signs that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, accused of masterminding the Boston Marathon bombings, had adopted a virulent strain of Islam that led to the deaths of four people and injury of more than 260.

But how else can you tell that someone’s religious beliefs have crossed the line? The answer may not be as simple you think, according to scholars who study all brands of religious extremism. The line between good and evil religion is thin, they say, and it’s easy to make self-righteous assumptions.

“When it’s something we like, we say it’s commitment to an idea; when it’s something we don’t like, we say it’s blind obedience,” said Douglas Jacobsen, a theology professor at Messiah College in Pennsylvania. …

4. The end justifies the means.

It was one of the biggest scandals the Roman Catholic Church ever faced, and the repercussions are still being felt today.

In January 2002, the Boston Globe published a story about Father John Geoghan, a priest who had been moved around various parishes after Catholic leaders learned that he had abused children. It was later revealed that Catholic officials had quietly paid at least $10 million to settle lawsuits against Geoghan.

Kimball says the Catholic scandal revealed another sign that a faith has turned toxic: Religious figures start justifying doing something wrong for a higher good.

“The common theme was trying to protect the integrity of the church,” Kimball said of some Catholic leaders who covered up the crimes. “You get all of these rationalizations that we can’t let this scandal bring the whole church down, so we have to pay off this family and send the priests off to rehab.”

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NEW JERSEY
National Catholic Reporter

by Tom Gallagher | Apr. 28, 2013

It’s generally not a positive development when an editorial board of a major newspaper takes the position that an archbishop should resign. Well that’s what happened today on this fourth Sunday of Easter in an editorial by The Star-Ledger, the largest newspaper in New Jersey.

The basis for the call for resignation is found in a related story in The Star-Ledger today with the headline: “Newark archbishop allows priest who admitted groping boy to continue working with children.”

Writer Mark Mueller reports:

“Six years ago, to avoid retrial on charges that he groped a teenage boy, the Rev. Michael Fugee entered a rehabilitation program, underwent counseling for sex offenders and signed a binding agreement that would dictate the remainder of his life as a Roman Catholic priest.

Fugee would not work in any position involving children, the agreement with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office states. He would have no affiliation with youth groups. He would not attend youth retreats. He would not hear the confessions of minors.

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ILLINOIS
Seattle PI

ANTIOCH, Ill. (AP) — Authorities say a Benedictine monk from Wisconsin has been charged with trying to abduct an Illinois teenager.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports (http://bit.ly/1864id6) 57-year-old Thomas Chmura (shah-MOO’-rah) was arrested last week. He was charged with attempted child abduction and disorderly conduct and ordered held in lieu of $50,000 bail Saturday.

Police allege the 14-year-old was walking in the northern Illinois community of Antioch when a man in a station wagon asked if she needed a ride. The girl ran and he drove off.

The teen recounted the description of the man and car to police. Chmura was arrested Friday.

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WISCONSIN/ILLINOIS
Fox 6

April 28, 2013, by Katie DeLong

MILWAUKEE/ANTIOCH (WITI) — A judge has set bail at $50,000 for a Benedictine monk from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee accused of trying to abduct a 14-year-old girl in Antioch, Illinois.

Police arrested Thomas Chmura on Friday, April 26th after seeing him stop his car in the middle of traffic to talk to three women on the sidewalk.

Police say Chmura was driving next to the girl on Thursday night when he asked her to get into his car. After his arrest, officers say Chmura admitted he approached the girl for purposes of sexual gratification.

SNAP, the Survivor’s Network of Those Abused by Priests is reacting to charges filed against Chmura.

In a statement, SNAP’s Director, John Pilmaier says: “Thomas Chmura, a Benedictine monk assigned in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee was arrested on Thursday for attempting to abduct a 14-year-old girl in Antioch, Illinois. Chmura informed police that he approached the child because he wanted sexual gratification. He further admitted to law enforcement officials that he had attempted similar child abductions up to 10 times in the past six weeks.”

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CANADA
Lankaweb

Posted on April 28th, 2013

Herold Leelawardena

A Canadian Indian Michael Cachagee did spent 12 years in three different schools from 1944, Associated Press said as he said: “I was beaten. I was put in tubs of hot water. I suffered great pains of hunger. I was force-fed rotten food.” Michael Cachagee added: “The intent was to destroy the Indian.” It is also a known fact that some of the students in residential schools were sexually abused. Such was the cruelty and ill-treatment inflicted on The First Nation of Canada in the so-called ‘residential schools’.

Lifting children from native Indian families and planting them in residential schools began in the 19th century and continued until the 1970s. At those schools, children were forbidden to use their own languages and they were discouraged from learning about their own cultures. It is obvious that the aim was to “kill the Indian in the child” until “there is not a single American Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed”. Today, the native population makes up about 4% of the population of Canada though it remains among the poorest. In the then Ceylon, Christian missionaries have done the same in their boarding schools except induction may have been deception and bribe, but the purpose remained the same.

In 1998, the Canadian government issued a general apology for hundred and fifty thousand students that were forcibly taken from their homes for enforced assimilation and destroying their culture. But mentality of the descendants remains the same as that of their ancestors. So, when the Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper’s made a formal apology on June 11th in 2008 to former students of Indian Residential Schools and sought forgiveness for the students’ suffering and for the damaging impact the schools had on Aboriginal culture, heritage and language is indeed a surprise. He did not do so out of love for Indians but because the Australian prime minister at the time, Kevin Rudd, had issued a similar apology to his country’s aborigines taken from their families as part of a similar assimilation programme there.

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WISCONSIN
WTMJ

[with video]

By Keller Russell

WAUWATOSA, Wis. — Milwaukee’s archbishop opens-up about the handling of allegations against a Wauwatosa priest suggesting an error in judgment.

Archbishop Jerome Listecki shared his thoughts through his blog on the arch-diocese website. And now parents and the community are responding to his words.

In his blog, Listecki openly addressed allegations of improper conduct involving Wauwatosa priest, Fr. Bob Marsicek.

Referring to Marsicek’s pastoral history, Listecki writes:

” We see a priest who was repeatedly warned about boundary issues. None of these behaviors were sexual abuse, but collectively they call into question allowing this priest to remain serving as pastor of two parishes, each with schools or daycare programs.”

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NEW JERSEY
NorthJersey.com

Sunday April 28, 2013

Associated Press

NEWARK — Investigators are questioning whether a New Jersey priest once accused of child molestation as a former assistant pastor in Wyckoff violated an agreement that called for him to never again work with children.

The Star-Ledger of Newark reports the Rev. Michael Fugee has had an unofficial association with a Monmouth County church for several years. Parishioners say he has attended youth retreats and heard confessions from minors behind closed doors.

Newark Archdiocese spokesman Jim Goodness said Fugee was unavailable for comment.

But Goodness says the archdiocese believes Fugee can work with minors if he’s supervised by priests or lay ministers aware of his past and the agreement’s conditions.

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TEXAS
Go San Angelo

Robin Y. Richardson, ryrichardson@marshallnewsmessenger.com
Published Monday, April 15, 2013

MARSHALL, TEXAS — A trial date has been set for a former sheriff’s deputy who was arrested and indicted along with his wife last year for alleged child sex crimes.

Harrison County Criminal District Attorney Coke Solomon, whose office is prosecuting the case, said Eddie Nichols is set to stand trial for the crimes, starting in July.

“We’ll be ready,” Solomon said of the trial.

The DA noted that 71st District Judge Brad Morin has recused himself from the case; thus, visiting judge David Brabham, the 188th district court judge in Gregg County, will be presiding.

Defense attorney Vernard Solomon has been appointed to represent Nichols. Nichols initially retained attorney John J. Eastland, of Tyler, to represent both him and his wife. However, Eastland filed a motion in October 2012 to withdraw from the case; likewise, Nichols and his wife wrote a letter to Eastland, discharging him as their counsel, accusing him of not having a trial strategy and not diligently working on their case.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Channel Online

[with video]

The Very Reverend Bob Key has apologised for mistakes in the handling of a complaint which lead to his suspension, and added his own apology to the Bishop of Winchester, Archbishop of Canterbury and to the vulnerable parishioner involved.

The Bishop has acknowledges that, although mistakes were made, the Dean believed he was acting in good faith and reinstated The Very Reverend Bob Key with immediate effect.

Today, the Dean took the St Helier service and expressed his thanks for the support shown from people in the island.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Jersey Evening Post

THE Dean of Jersey has been officially reinstated after apologising for mistakes made in the handling of a complaint from a parishioner about sexual misconduct.

Almost two months after being effectively suspended by the Bishop of Winchester after an independent review found that he did not follow proper practice or take the complaint seriously, the Dean, Very Rev Bob Key, returned to normal duties at 9 am this morning. The decision from the Bishop, the Right Rev Tim Dakin, followed meetings between the two men last week.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

The Anglican Dean of Jersey has been reinstated after apologising for the way he handled an abuse complaint.

The Very Reverend Bob Key was suspended in March by the Bishop of Winchester, who oversees Jersey.

His suspension came after an independent report found he did not follow policy over a complaint about a church warden’s behaviour in 2008.

Earlier the dean conducted a service in St Helier Parish Church, also known as Town Church.

Dean Key said: “I regret mistakes that I made in the safeguarding processes and I understand that, upon reflection, it would have been more helpful if I had co-operated more fully with the Korris [safeguarding} Review.

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AUSTRALIA
The Standard

By MARY ALEXANDER
April 29, 2013

REPRESENTATIVES from the Catholic diocese of Ballarat will front the state parliamentary inquiry into child sex abuse today.

They will appear at a public hearing in Melbourne, where inquiry committee members will also hear from other Catholic groups including St John of God brothers and the Salesians. Representatives from the Christian Brothers and the Catholic Education Office are due to appear on Friday.

The Ballarat diocese has been slammed by victims and their families for covering up claims of abuse by priests and brothers in the past.

The worst offender was Gerald Ridsdale, a former priest who served in more than 10 parishes including Warrnambool and Mortlake.

Ridsdale was jailed in 1994 after pleading guilty to 46 charges of sexually abusing 21 victims over two decades.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Stuart Rintoul
From:The Australian
April 29, 2013

CATHOLIC church officials intend to deny the church knew of and shielded pedophiles over a period of decades when they give evidence at Victoria’s sex abuse inquiry today.

Two Catholic orders and a diocese at the centre of the church’s sex abuse scandal will give evidence: St John of God, the Salesian Order and the Ballarat diocese.

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MALTA
The Malta Independent

28 April 2013

An editorial on the National Catholic reporter sings praises for Bishop Charles Scicluna’s handling of sex abuse cases in the church.

The editorial lauded Bishop Scicluna for “breaking the ecclesial logjam and beginning to move effectively against clergy who have abused children.”

Bishop Scicluna acted as the prosecutor handling sex abuse cases for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith for 10 years until he was made a bishop last year.

Bishop Scicluna is quoted as saying that the “sore spots” in the church today are violations of the sixth and seventh commandments, sins against purity and theft.

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ILLINOIS
CBS Chicago

ANTIOCH, Ill. (STMW) – A Benedictine monk has been charged with trying to abduct a teen girl in north suburban Antioch this week.

The 14-year-old girl was walking on Skidmore Drive in Antioch Thursday when a man pulled up beside her in a station wagon and asked if she needed a ride, according to a release from Antioch police.

When the girl declined, the man said, “Come on, you’re so beautiful, let me drive you home,” and she declined again. The man said, “Get in the car,” and the girl ran away and he drove off, the release said.

The girl told her mother and a faculty member at Antioch High School what happened Friday morning. Antioch police interviewed her and she gave a detailed description of the man and the station wagon.

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ILLINOIS
WLS

April 27, 2013 (ANTIOCH, Ill.) (WLS) — A monk from Wisconsin has been charged with attempted child abduction and disorderly conduct.

Thomas Chmura is being held in Lake County jail in Illinois after police arrested him Friday after he allegedly tried to lure a 14-year-old Antioch girl into his car Thursday night.

The girl ran home.

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WISCONSIN/ILLINOIS
SNAP Wisconsin

Benedictine monk from Archdiocese of Milwaukee charged with attempted child abduction of 14 year old girl

Statement by John Pilmaier, SNAP Wisconsin Director
CONTACT: 414.336.8575

Thomas Chmura, a Benedictine monk assigned in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee was arrested on Thursday for attempting to abduct a 14 year old girl in Antioch, Illinois. Chmura informed police that he approached the child because he wanted sexual gratification. He further admitted to law enforcement officials that he had attempted similar child abductions up to ten times in the past six weeks.

Chmura, a member of the Benedictine religious order, resides at St. Benedict’s Abbey in Benet Lake, Wisconsin. The abbey, located within the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, runs a retreat center that also offers its services to Catholics in the Archdiocese of Chicago due to its proximity to the state of Illinois. The order states that the retreat house has “been the site for many individuals and groups to find a path closer to God”.

The arrest of Chmura for the attempted abduction of a child raises many deeply disturbing questions. How many children and vulnerable adults did Chmura have access to at the retreat center in Benet Lake? Did the Benedictine order have previous reports concerning Chmura’s interactions with children and youth that may have been criminal and reportable to law enforcement? Are there reports concerning other Benedictine monks at Benet Lake who may have sexually assaulted children?

Chmura’s arrest follows the suspension from ministry of Fr. Robert Marsicek, a member of the Society of the Divine Savior religious order. Marsicek, pastor of two Milwaukee area parishes and grade schools, Pius X and Mother of Good Counsel, was suspended in March after it was learned he was under a current child sex abuse investigation in Wauwatosa. Marsicek was already under investigation for child sexual assault in California since last May for sexual assaults that took place in the late 1980’s and 1990’s.

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WORCESTER (MA)
The Crusader

By Elizabeth O’Brien
Co-News Editor

Updated: Saturday, April 27, 2013

On April 3, Kate, a woman who was allegedly sexually abused while on a study abroad trip as a Holy Cross student, began a Hunger Strike. In the past she has done a Vigil for Justice outside the College campus in February of this year, and other forms of protest in the past. She claims she is doing the hunger strike until the administration addresses her concerns, in the way the she wants, regarding her sexual abuse case.

She has been receiving hate speech in the form of derogatory comments, and on March 29 talked to Public Safety about it. Kate has received hate speech in the past, but she felt it has severely escalated in the past few weeks.

“I encountered some last year, but much more kindness,” said Kate. “The same was true for most of the past eight weeks at the Vigil, but the hate speech really spiked recently, so I reported it.”

While Kate believes that students are sending her hate speech, the administration cautions the Holy Cross community about assuming where the derogatory comments are coming from. Dean Jacqueline Peterson, Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students, states that the college is following standard procedures for a filed complaint.

“She can give any information to Public Safety and the administration will investigate the situation with integrity and a standard response,” said Dean Peterson.

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NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger

[Documents from The Star-Ledger
• Read the Rev. Michael Fugee’s agreement with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office

• Read the Rev. Michael Fugee’s confession to police

• Read Archbishop John J. Myers’ February letter to priests about the Rev. Michael Fugee]

By Star-Ledger Editorial Board
on April 28, 2013

After all the Catholic Church has been through, it is beyond infuriating that Newark Archbishop John J. Myers can be so neglectful of his duty to protect children from sexual predators.

He should resign immediately and apologize to the families whose children he left exposed, barring some stunning new disclosure that could exonerate him in the face of the damning facts presented by The Star-Ledger’s Mark Mueller in today’s edition.

The case concerns Michael Fugee, a priest who was convicted in a sexual abuse case in 2003 after he confessed to fondling a 14-year-old boy, and being a compulsive masturbator obsessed with penis size.

The conviction was overturned when a higher court found the judge had given improper instructions to jurors. Instead of trying Fugee again, as they should have, prosecutors allowed him to avoid jail by joining a program for first-offenders.

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ILLINOIS
WGN

Bail was set at $50,000 today for a Benedictine monk accused of trying to abduct a 14-year old girl in north suburban Antioch on Thursday.

57-year old Thomas Chmura of Benet Lake, Wisconsin appeared in Lake County court.

A judge ordered him not to have contact with anyone under age 17.

Antioch Police say the 14 year old told them he pulled-up in a van and approached the victim while she was walking on Skidmore Drive.

The girl ran away.

A police report was made and an off-duty officer spotted the van he was in, registered to Saint Benedicts Abbey in Benet Lake.

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ILLINOIS
Chicago Sun-Times

BY JORDAN OWEN Staff Reporter/jowen@suntimes.com

Updated: April 27, 2013

A Benedictine monk from Wisconsin has been charged with trying to abduct a 14-year-old girl in Antioch last week.

Police in the far north suburb said Saturday that Thomas M. Chmura, 57, a monk who has been living at St. Benedict’s Abbey in Benet Lake, Wis., for 32 years, was arrested Friday night and admitted he’d been offering rides to teenage girls the past six weeks.

Chmura was ordered held Saturday in lieu of $50,000 bail, charged with attempted child abduction and disorderly conduct.

Police said the 14-year-old girl was walking along Skidmore Drive in the Lake County suburb Thursday when a man pulled up in a Ford station wagon and asked if she needed a ride, telling her, “Come on, you’re so beautiful, let me drive you home.” When she refused, they said he told her, “Get in the car,” but she ran, and he drove off.

The girl told her mother and someone at Antioch High School and provided the police with a detailed description of the man and his car.

Friday afternoon, an off-duty officer saw a station wagon matching the girl’s description stop abruptly on North Avenue alongside three girls walking on the sidewalk, saw that the driver matched the description given by the 14-year-old and tried to follow the car. The officer lost the car, but got the license plate number.

Friday night, officers spotted the vehicle driving on Route 83 and arrested Chmuras.

“I shudder to think what we would be looking at had she got in that car,” Antioch police Chief Craig Somerville said.

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ILLINOIS
Chicago Tribune

By Rosemary Sobol, Chicago Tribune reporter
April 28, 2013

A judge set bail Saturday at $50,000 for a longtime Benedictine monk accused of trying to abduct a 14-year-old girl in far north suburban Antioch, authorities said.

Thomas M. Chmura, 57, of the 12600 block of 224th Avenue in Benet Lake, Wis., allegedly tried to lure the girl into his station wagon last week — first by asking her if she needed a ride, then demanding that she get in, according to a statement from Antioch police.

The girl ran and later gave authorities a description of Chmura, who was stopped in his vehicle and arrested Friday.

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ILLINOIS
Chicago Tribune

By Rosemary Regina Sobol
Tribune reporter
3:00 p.m. CDT, April 27, 2013

A judge set bail today at $50,000 for a long-time Benedictine monk accused of trying to abduct a 14-year-old girl in far north suburban Antioch this week.

Thomas M. Chmura, 57, of the 12600 block of 224th Avenue in Benet Lake, Wis., appeared in Lake County court today in Waukegan where a judge set the $50,000 bail and ordered him to have no contact with anyone under the age of 17, according to a statement from Antioch police.

Chmura was charged with one count of felony attempted child abduction and one count of disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor, according to the statement.

Chmura said he is a monk and has been living at the Benedictine Monks, St. Benedict’s Abbey, in Benet Lake for the past 32 years, the statement said.

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NEBRASKA
1011 Now

Apr 29, 2013
St. Mary’s Cathedral, 112 S Cedar, Grand Island, NE
Bishop William Dendinger will be celbrating a Mass for the Prevention of Child Abuse April 29 at 5:00 pm at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Grand Island. Following the Mass, the diocesan Office of Child Protection will be hosting family-focused activities at the Cathedral Square. Activities will include refreshments, children’s games, and resource for parents on topics such as bullying, internet safety, right relationships, and the prevention of abuse. Exhibits will feature abuse prevention efforts of Catholic schools and parishes from across the diocese.

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NEW JERSEY
Digital Journal

By Brett Wilkins
Apr 27, 2013

Mendham – A New Jersey memorial dedicated to child victims of clergy sex abuse that was destroyed twice in as many years will be re-dedicated on Sunday.

NJ.com reports that the memorial, located outside St. Joseph Church in Mendham, Morris County, was smashed with a sledgehammer in 2011 and vandalized again last month.

The memorial, which is composed of a statue of a young girl and another of a young boy alongside a millstone, was placed outside St. Joseph, where former Rev. James Hanley once sexually abused at least 15 boys. In 2003, the Diocese of Paterson defrocked Hanley and agreed to pay nearly $5 million to 21 of his victims the following year. Hanley, one of dozens of clergy from the Diocese of Paterson to be accused of sexually abusing children, never served any prison time for his crimes.

One of the boys sexually abused by Hanley, James Kelley, killed himself at the age of 37. Kelley’s suicide inspired Bill Crane, another of Hanley’s victims, to lead efforts to place the monument outside St. Joseph.

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NEW JERSEY
The Star-Ledger

[Newark Archbishop John Myers must go: Editorial]

[Documents from The Star-Ledger
• Read the Rev. Michael Fugee’s agreement with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office

• Read the Rev. Michael Fugee’s confession to police

• Read Archbishop John J. Myers’ February letter to priests about the Rev. Michael Fugee]

By Mark Mueller/The Star-Ledger

on April 28, 2013

Six years ago, to avoid retrial on charges that he groped a teenage boy, the Rev. Michael Fugee entered a rehabilitation program, underwent counseling for sex offenders and signed a binding agreement that would dictate the remainder of his life as a Roman Catholic priest.

Fugee would not work in any position involving children, the agreement with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office states. He would have no affiliation with youth groups. He would not attend youth retreats. He would not hear the confessions of minors.

But Fugee has openly done all of those things for the past several years through an unofficial association with a Monmouth County church, St. Mary’s Parish in Colts Neck, The Star-Ledger found.

He has attended weekend youth retreats in Marlboro and on the shores of Lake Hopatcong in Mount Arlington, parishioners say. Fugee also has traveled with members of the St. Mary’s youth group on an annual pilgrimage to Canada. At all three locations, he has heard confessions from minors behind closed doors.

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MINNESOTA
Winona Daily News

By JIM FITZPATRICK Mahtomedi, Minn.

Throughout scripture God asks each of us to protect our children as they are to inherit God’s kingdom. In Psalm 127:3 we pray, “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord.” As a priest, I was responsible not only for sharing God’s word, but living it.

I was a priest at the Cathedral in Winona when parents from Caledonia, near my home town, came to tell me that Father Tom Adamson had abused their sons and as many as 17 boys within the two Caledonia parishes. I reported Father Adamson to the Bishop of Winona. Father Adamson was eventually moved from Caledonia, but I was shocked to learn he was assigned to a Catholic high school in Rochester. Eventually he was moved to the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis where he served in several parishes and, in every instance, he continued his molestation.

This is just one example of many that illustrates the lengths some church, school and other youth serving organizations will go to hide or cover up abuse. Some institutions have shuffled child predators to other sites, even to other states to shield known abusers from legal action in order to protect the institutions’ reputations. Worse yet, some church leaders have used a pretense of providing for a victim while time passes and the statute of limitations for legal action will expire. This ensures they can never be held accountable for their employee’s actions. The latter is a tactic known to have been used within the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and made public by the recent $10 million settlement with two survivors of clergy sex abuse.

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KENTUCKY
The Virginia Gazette

Mary WisniewskiReuters
9:00 p.m. EDT, April 27, 2013

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (Reuters) – In an emotional ceremony filled with tears and applause, a 70-year-old Kentucky woman was ordained a priest on Saturday as part of a dissident group operating outside of official Roman Catholic Church authority.

Rosemarie Smead is one of about 150 women around the world who have decided not to wait for the Roman Catholic Church to lift its ban on women priests, but to be ordained and start their own congregations.

In an interview before the ceremony, Smead said she is not worried about being excommunicated from the Church – the fate of other women ordained outside of Vatican law.

“It has no sting for me,” said Smead, a petite, gray-haired former Carmelite nun with a ready hug for strangers. “It is a Medieval bullying stick the bishops used to keep control over people and to keep the voices of women silent. I am way beyond letting octogenarian men tell us how to live our lives.”

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COSTA RICA
La Nacion

Carlos Arguedas C.carguedasc@nacion.com 12:00 a.m.27/04/2013

El Tribunal de Juicio de Pavas absolvió ayer a un sacerdote de los delitos de violación y abuso sexual cometidos en perjuicio de un monaguillo de 13 años, porque, cuando se dieron los hechos (1999), la ley no castigaba la conducta acusada.

El caso ocurrió en Barbacoas de Puriscal, en el cual figuró como imputado el cura Jaime Cerdas Alvarado, de 54 años.

Cerdas, poco antes de terminar el juicio, dijo: “ Siempre había esperado este momento para desahogarme (…) porque me señalaron de algo tan vergonzoso y penoso”.

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COSTA RICA
Coastrican Times

Posted by Dan Stevens on Saturday, April 27, 2013

Costa Rica News – We all know that these things happen all around the world, where a person will get off on a legal technicality, but this one seems ridiculous. The Pavas Trial Court acquitted a priest of the crimes of rape and sexual abuse committed against an altar boy that was 13 years old, because when the events occurred (1999), the law did not see the 13 year old as a minor.

During the hearing, the district attorney had asked to impose 22 years in prison on two counts of rape and four of sexual abuse of a minor.

The case occurred in Puriscal and was held against the priest Jaime Cerdas Alvarado, 54.

Cerdas, just before the end of the trial, said: “I had always waited for this moment to speak about this because it was something so embarrassing and painful.”

However, after hearing the acquittal and explanation of the judges, said: “I better refrain right now.” So he was going to talk about the crime and confess to everyone about it but then he was set free and decided not to say anything. The hypocrisy of the church is absolutely amazing.

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CANADA
CBC News

Montreal’s Catholic Archbishop Christian Lépine says he is still struggling to come to terms with how Canada’s residential school system and its abuses were allowed to happen.

Lépine sat in the audience of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission dury its four-day stop in Montreal.

Saturday was the commission’s last day in Quebec.

In an interview with CBC’s Homerun, Lépine said he was struck by the humility and the courage of the witnesses, and their stories of abuse.

“What saddens me more is that … as Christians we allowed that to happen. As Catholics, we allowed that to happen,” Lépine said.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

By STEPHEN McGINTY
Published on 28/04/2013

THE Vatican is expected to take no further action against Cardinal Keith O’Brien after he admitted having sexual relations with four priests and a seminarian.

The Archbishop of St Andr­ews and Edinburgh was forced by Pope Benedict XVI to step down in February after admitting that “my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, an archbishop and a cardinal”.

However, Scotland on Sunday has learned that there is no active investigation into his behaviour and that the Vatican is only keeping a loose “watching brief” on his case. O’Brien is also unlikely to be asked to give up his rank as a cardinal unless the new Pope decides to confer the traditional red hat on another senior Scottish catholic.

It is understood that senior figures in the church do not believe a formal investigation is now warranted as he has already admitted and apologised for his behaviour. He has not been seen in public since stepping down as archbishop on February 25.

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MINNESOTA
The Awareness Center

Since 1992, Bob Schwiderski has been an relentless and outspoken powerhouse when it comes advocating for the civil rights of adult survivors of sexual abuse.

Besides being a Veteran of the Vietnam war, Bob is also a survivor of clergy sexual abuse by a priest.

Back in 1994, Bob was one of three former altar boys, who came forward and filed a civil suit against St. John’s Catholic Church in Hector, MN along with the Dioceses of New Ulm, after accusing Rev. Wm. J. Marks of sexually abusing them.

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ILLINOIS
The Awareness Center

Back in 1992, at the age of 55, Rick Springer joined forces with LinkUp, (which was originally called VOCAL – an acronym for Victims of Clergy Abuse Linkup) started speaking out as a Catholic survivors of clergy sexual abuse.

According to the Chicago Tribune article “Silence is Broken”, Rick Springer was quoted as stating: “I knew that what he (his offender) was doing was wrong”. . . “But I couldn’t tell my family, which was alcoholic dysfunctional. I told leaders of my church, who said the archbishop of Chicago would be informed. At the time Springer was studying to become a priest. “But nothing happened. I was told to leave the seminary because I was not a good candidate for priesthood. That’s the way it stayed for 31 years.”

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IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests

Pádraig McCarthy presents an 82-year-old document which contains suggestions for curial reform which are still being made. Read the full document here

“Most of the bishops, instead of being the strong characters presently needed, dynamic and active personalities, even if indeed pious and religious men, are in effect at the same time mediocre, or even below mediocrity. Some are apathetic, timid, indolent or vain; others are conformists, bureaucrats or introverts; many are ignorant and clumsy administrators. […]. Sometimes the whole episcopate of a country looks like a bunch of cripples”.
How does that sound today? But this was written in 1931!

Nothing is held back in a comment in Latin:
“Aliquando autem totus episcopatus alicuius nationis ita est compositus, veluti si coecorum, claudorum et infirmorum omne genus esset refugium.”

“The problem is aggravated by the Holy See’s tendency to appoint only obedient and complacent prelates.”

“As for the cardinals, the senate of the Church and the electors of the pope, here the situation is even worse, particularly in the case of those attached to the Roman curia. The sacred college contains too many non-entities who have reached their rank by never asking awkward questions. The merit of many eminences is not their excellent pastoral experience or learning, but that of having staffed a Vatican desk for a very long time. Without any real knowledge of the world or the life of the universal Church, they are nevertheless automatically promoted and placed in executive jobs far above their modest talents.”

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ILLINOIS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on April 26, 2013

Shame on Joliet’s Catholic bishop for letting a suspended predator priest live and work freely among unsuspecting families in Kentucky.

Today’s Chicago Tribune, using church records disclosed thanks to civil child sex abuse lawsuits, reports on the awful situation of Fr. Carroll Howlin in Kentucky. In theory, Catholic officials have ordered Fr. Howlin to stay away from kids. In reality, they’re doing nothing to make sure this happens. And he has clearly molested in both the Chicago area and in Kentucky.

Bishop Conlon is basically – and callously – washing his hands of a dangerous man and pretending to be powerless to stop a predator.

Bishop Conlon should order Fr. Howlin to get into a sex offender facility. He should go to every parish where Fr. Howlin worked, begging victims to come forward. He should give every shred of paper he has about Fr. Howlin to law enforcement, in Illinois and Kentucky.

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UNITED STATES
Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils…

Paris Arrow

Cardinal O’Brien should be excommunicated like King Henry VIII was excommunicated by the Pope. For more than 50 years as an “evil gay” adulterer, Cardinal O’Brien had multiple gay sexes with many priests and gay men, therefore, he is worse than King Henry who slept with 8 wives. At least, King Henry had the decency to marry his wife in public but Cardinal O’Brien hid all his “evil gay” adultery trysts inside his holy Cardinal Palace paid for by the holy Vatican Billions, read here the wealth of the Vatican in England

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CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles Times

By Rick Rojas
April 26, 2013

An Orange County man was sentenced Friday to 61 years in state prison for sexually assaulting a female relative over a nine-year period, including impregnating her when she was 11, prosecutors said.

Mariano Antonio Castro, 58, was found guilty in February of two felony counts of lewd acts on a child under 14, three felony counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child under 14 and one felony count of continuous sexual abuse of a child under 14, according to a statement for the Orange County district attorney’s office.

Prosecutors said Castro, a Santa Ana resident , sexually assaulted the girl on a regular basis from 2000 to 2008, starting when the girl was 8….

But, in 2011, when she began attending a new church, prosecutors said she told her pastor about the abuse. The pastor encouraged her to report the allegations to the police, which she did.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

POSTED: Saturday, April 27, 2013, 2:19 PM

If the court filings are any indication, Msgr. William J. Lynn’s appeal of conviction on a child endangerment count will be as hard-fought as last year’s 11-week-long trial where a Philadelphia jury found him guilty for his supervisory role in the child sex-abuse scandal involving the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

On Friday, just days after Philadelphia media reported on Common Pleas Court Judge M. Teresa Sarmina’s 235-page opinion affirming Lynn’s conviction and her handling of the landmark trial, lawyers for Lynn filed their response in Pennsylvania’s Superior Court, faulting the judge for virtually every key ruling she made.

The 21-page response by Thomas A. Bergstrom and Allison Khaskelis, Lynn’s appellate lawyers, asks the Superior Court to overturn the conviction of the 62-year-old cleric and argues that Sarmina wrongly allowed city prosecutors to charge Lynn under the broader 2007 amended child endangerment statute.

Lynn was the Archdiocesan Secretary for Clergy from 1992 to 2004, the job in which he investigated allegations against priests and recommended action to the archbishop. Lynn’s attorneys argued that he should not have been charged under the 2007 law and could not have been charged under the pre-2007 statute because it required direct contact of children, not merely supervisory power over priests accused of molesting them.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Eastbourne Herald

Published on 27/04/2013

A former choirboy from Eastbourne who was abused as child by an Anglican priest has received a letter of apology from the Bishop of Chichester who also admitted there was a cover up.

Gary Johnson and his older brother were abused by disgraced priest Roy Cotton, who worked for the Diocese of Chichester, in the 1970s and 1980s.

Cotton was ordained in 1966, despite having a conviction for sexually abusing a choirboy in the 1950s, and went on to abuse at least 10 boys from Eastbourne. He died in 2006 as investigations were under way.

This week Gary, who now lives in America, received a private letter from Dr Martin Warner who wrote, “There has been deception and cover-up here.”

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SCOTLAND
Chronicle Live

A Newcastle nun physically abused teenage girls at a Scottish school, a court has heard.

Agnes Reville, 77, is accused of five counts of assault at Dalbeath Approved School in Bishopton, Renfrewshire, where she taught in the 1960s and 1970s and was known as Mother Martin.

Fellow nun Anne Kenny, 79, known as Mother Rosari, faces four charges of assault alongside her at Paisley Sheriff Court this week. The offences are said to involve eight girls.

The trial has heard from Catherine Logan, a teenager at the school who is now 57, who told the court she was tortured and tied to a pipe for two days.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

Randy Griffith rgriffith@tribdem.com

JOHNSTOWN — Attorneys for alleged victims of the late Brother Stephen Baker want the Franciscan Friar’s supervisors held accountable for what they believe was years of sexual abuse of children.

In addition to dozens of former Bishop McCort High School students, attorneys say they have been contacted by others who say Baker made contact with them through his volunteer activities.

Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian said he is working with more than 30 men who say Baker molested them while they were students at Bishop McCort in Johnstown.

“I am currently investigating the liability of the school and Brother Stephen Baker’s supervisors,” Garabedian said.

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CANADA
CBC News

Residential schools engaged in “cultural genocide,” former prime minister Paul Martin said Friday at the hearings of the federal Truth And Reconciliation Commission, adding that aboriginal Canadians must now be offered the best educational system.

“Let us understand that what happened at the residential schools was the use of education for cultural genocide, and that the fact of the matter is — yes it was. Call a spade a spade,” Martin said to cheers from the audience at the Montreal hearings.

“And what that really means is that we’ve got to offer aboriginal Canadians, without any shadow of a doubt, the best education system that is possible to have.”

The residential school system existed from the 1870s until the 1990s and saw about 150,000 native youth taken from their families and sent to church-run schools under a deliberate policy of “civilizing” First Nations.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

By
Published on 27/04/2013 09:55

The Catholic Church of Scotland is facing fresh scrutiny after the Vatican ordered a halt to the appointment of new Scottish bishops until an investigation into Cardinal Keith O’Brien is complete.

• No new Scottish bishops are to be appointed until an investigation into Cardinal Keith O’Brien has been completed

• The Vatican order comes as Catholic Church comes to terms with Cardinal O’Brien’s resignation earlier this year amid allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour

Cardinal O’Brien resigned as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh after admitting that his sexual conduct had “fallen below the standards expected”.

Three priests and a former priest had accused Cardinal O’Brien of inappropriate behaviour stretching back 30 years.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

April 27, 2013

Thirty-two men are suing the group that operates three area Catholic schools for allegedly covering up years of sexual abuse by the priests and brothers who staffed the schools in the ’60s and ’70s, and as recently as 1996.

The three separate suits, all filed Friday in Circuit Court, allege that throughout the 1960s and 1970s the Congregation of Christian Brothers worked to conceal sexual abuse at Brother Rice High School, St. Laurence High School and Leo High School.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Louis C. Hochman/NJ.com
on April 26, 2013

MENDHAM — A ceremony to rededicate the memorial to child victims of clergy sex abuse that was destroyed twice in two years will be held Sunday at 2 p.m.

The ceremony comes near the end of April, recognized as Child Sex Abuse Awareness month. It will be held outside at St. Joseph Church in Mendham, where former Rev. James Hanley once abused several children.

Authorities are still working to determine who vandalized the memorial to child sex abuse victims in early March, when a statue of a girl alongside a millstone was destroyed, and a statue of a boy was damaged. Morris County Crimestoppers is offering $2,000 to anyone who can provide information that leads to the arrest or indictment of the responsible person or people; anyone with any information can call CrimeStoppers at 973-Cop-Call or 1-800-Sheriff.

Organizer Bill Crane, one of Hanley’s victims, led the drive to create the monument in honor of James Kelly, another victim of Hanley’s who committed suicide at age 37. Crane then led the effort to replace it, after borough resident Gordon Ellis allegedly took a sledgehammer to the monument in 2011. Ellis is pursuing a mental health defense in relation to the 2011 vandalism.

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WYOMING
Billings Gazette

By JOSHUA WOLFSON Casper Star-Tribune

CASPER, Wyo. — A former janitor at a Casper church pleaded not guilty Friday to molesting three girls while apparently posing as a youth leader there.

James David Jaure is charged with five counts of sexual abuse of a minor. The girls — ages 11, 12 and 15 — have accused him of abusing them during separate incidents last year. At the time, he was employed by Highland Park Community Church.

Jaure spoke only to answer procedural questions during a brief appearance in Natrona County District Court. He was dressed in a red jail uniform and flanked by his defense attorney.

Combined, his charges carry a maximum prison sentence of 25 to 115 years.

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CHILE
La Tercera

Denunciante de Karadima en cumbre por abusos de sacerdotes: “Acá todos saben el encubrimiento de Errázuriz”

por Angélica Baeza Palavecino – 26/04/2013

A las 10.00 horas de mañana, el denunciante de Fernando Karadima, Juan Carlos Cruz, expondrá por cerca de una hora sobre el caso de abuso sexual del ex párroco de El Bosque y el actuar de la iglesia chilena ante las denuncias de las víctimas, en la primera Conferencia Mundial sobre abusos sexuales y violencia cometidos por religiosos.

“Me tiene emocionado”, dice Cruz, al relatar el itinerario que tendrá como único exponente latinoamericano.

“Me recibió gente del consejo de Dublín y la conferencia empezó hoy día y mañana hablo entre 45 minutos y una hora. El domingo estoy en un panel internacional y el lunes me junto con miembros del Parlamento europeo, organismos de derechos humanos y con la Corte Internacional de Justicia de La Haya”, indicó Cruz a La Tercera.

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MISSOURI
St. Joe Channel

By: William Seay

Updated: April 26, 2013

(ST. JOSEPH, Mo.) It’s a special breakfast, a special gathering of support for crime victims and their families and those law enforcement officers who aid in solving these crimes.

It begins with a prayer:

“Help us to replace the darkness of evil with your light. Give us the fortitude to stand up for justice,” said Jimalee O’Connor.

The Crime Victims’ Rights Week Annual Breakfast is a big “thank you” to all the volunteers who help with crime victims.

There’s also a guest speaker: Tom Lewis.

Lewis alleges Kansas City priest Father Michael Tierney of sexual assault when Lewis was still a teenager.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

WHO
Three St. Louisans who have never spoken publicly before and are all connected to the same predator priest. One is Christopher Bertke, whose friend was molested by the priest. Another is John Doe, a victim who sued that priest. The third is a relative of a victim of that same priest. (The latter two will talk in silhouette without revealing their names.) With them will be two leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

WHY

Police report available HERE

In 2009, Fr. Kevin F. Hederman – a St. Louis priest – was suspended from his ministry in Belize when he was sued for allegedly abusing a St. Louis teenager who he met at Christian Brothers high school (CBC) in Clayton.

But local Catholic officials have not disclosed that in the mid-1990s, another man filed a similar abuse suit against Fr. Hederman. (Both suits settled.) Nor did they admit that Fr. Hederman made some damning admissions when he was questioned by police about the abuse allegations.

Now, it looks like Fr. Hederman may soon be returned to ministry.

Last week, in an email to SNAP, Fr. Hederman’s sister-in-law said that he was recently “cleared” by a letter from the Vatican. She is Terry M. Hederman, an art specialist at Moline Elementary in the Riverview Gardens school district (869-7436 ex. 4977, thederman@rgsd.k12.mo.us). SNAP believes she’s telling the truth, given how similar cases have been handled by Catholic officials in recent years.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on April 25, 2013

Dear Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga

Happy anniversary. It was a decade ago next month when you essentially accused Jews of being behind media reports of clergy sex crimes and cover ups.

You said “We all know that Ted Turner is openly anti-Catholic, and he is the owner not just of CNN but also Time-Warner,” Rodriguez said. “This is to say nothing of dailies such as the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Boston Globe, protagonists of what I do not hesitate to call a persecution against the church. . .that reminds me of the times of Stalin and Hitler.”

[National Catholic Reporter]

[Huffington Post]

You’ve had more than 3,600 days now to correct or apologize or explain your irresponsible remarks. As best we can tell, you haven’t.

In most other institutions, you would likely be criticized or demoted or disciplined for such hurtful behavior. Sadly, in the Catholic church, you are rewarded. Last month, you were one of only eight men tapped by the new pope to advise him on church governance.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Elbe Wochenblatt

Missbrauchsfall in der Thomaskirche Hausbruch wird nach 20 Jahren bekannt
Schock in der Thomaskirche: Vor zwanzig Jahren soll der ehrenamtliche Posaunenchorleiter R. D. einen damals etwa zwölfjährigen Jungen sexuell missbraucht haben. Bekannt wurde der Fall, weil sich der Vater des Betroffenen per E-Mail beim Kirchenkreis Ost meldete. Daraufhin setzte sich der Präventionsbeauftrage der Nordelbischen Landeskirche mit ihm in Verbindung.

Diese Stelle wurde eingerichtet, nachdem 2010 Missbrauchsfälle in der evangelischen Kirche bekannt wurden – damals in einer Gemeinde in Ahrensburg. Es habe zwischenzeitlich auch Gespräche mit dem Betroffnen gegeben, so Remmer Koch, Sprecher des Kirchenkreises Hamburg-Ost.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Spiegel

Ein Sozialpädagoge war enttäuscht über die vielen Missbrauchsfälle und trat aus der katholischen Kirche aus. Daraufhin verlor er seinen Arbeitsplatz in einer Einrichtung der Caritas. Eine Klage gegen die Kündigung hat das Bundesarbeitsgericht nun abgewiesen.

Erfurt – Mitarbeiter in katholischen Einrichtungen müssen auch künftig bei einem Kirchenaustritt mit Kündigung rechnen. Der Austritt sei ein schwerwiegender Loyalitätsverstoß, der die Entlassung aus dem kirchlichen Dienst rechtfertigen könne, entschied das Bundesarbeitsgericht in Erfurt (2 AZR 579/12).

Damit blieb ein Sozialpädagoge aus Mannheim auch in der letzten Instanz mit der Klage gegen seinen Rauswurf erfolglos. Der 60-Jährige war 2011 wegen der zahlreichen Missbrauchsfälle in katholischen Einrichtungen aus der Kirche ausgetreten. Er könne aus Glaubens- und Gewissensgründen nicht mehr der katholischen Kirche angehören, begründete er den Schritt vor seinem Vorgesetzten. Daraufhin verlor er seinen Job in einem von der Caritas getragenen Kinderbetreuungszentrum. Ihm wurde fristlos gekündigt.

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OSTERREICH
der Standard

Leserkommentar | Markus Wachter, 26. April 2013, 15:51

Welche Faktoren in Klöstern Vergewaltigungen und Unterdrückung geradezu fördern

Zwei Schadensersatzprozesse gegen das Kloster Mehrerau in Bregenz haben Strukturen zutage gefördert, die geradezu ideal sind für einen Menschen, der Kindern prügeln, missbrauchen und vergewaltigen will.

Ein geschlossenes System bindet die Opfer von allen Seiten und weist ihnen selbst Schuld zu. Die beiden Männer wurden in den 1970er- und 1980er-Jahren vom selben Mönch, Pater J. B., schwer vergewaltigt. Es handelt sich um den ersten Zivilprozess dieser Art, der in Österreich gegen einen Orden geführt wird.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Rye & Battle Observer

Published on 26/04/2013

THE Bishop of Chichester has said the church was wrong in not taking action over paedophile priest Father Roy Cotton.

Cotton was a vicar at St St George’s Church Brede and and St Mary’s at Udimore in the 1990’s and had access to local primary schools.

Gary Johnson and his older brother, from Eastbourne, were abused by Cotton when they were choirboys.

In a private letter of apology to Mr Johnson, Dr Martin Warner wrote: “There has been deception and cover-up here.”

Reacting to the letter, Mr Johnson said: Mr Johnson said: “I’ve been taken seriously at last.”

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ILLINOIS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on April 26, 2013

In a huge victory for innocent kids and a huge defeat for child molesters, the Illinois Senate today passed a bill permanently lifting the civil statute of limitations on child sex crimes. (SB 1399, sponsored by Sen. Link and others)

This measure will stop more sex offenders. It enables child sex abuse victims to expose dangerous predators in court. It enables employers and neighbors and even relatives to learn about and protect themselves from child molesters who otherwise would have stayed “under the radar.”

Illinois kids are safer now because more child molesters will face justice.

Kids are safest when predators are jailed. But that can’t always happen. So the next best option is to expose predators. Our civil justice system should do a better job of this. When this bill becomes law, that will happen.

We hope the Illinois House will promptly pass this bill. We urge Illinois citizens to call their representatives and urge them to put the safety of kids first.

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AUSTRALIA
Times of Malta

The Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, has reacted to the resignation of Maltese priest Victor Buhagiar, who claimed the archdiocese was covering up child abuse.

Mgr Hart said he accepted Fr Buhagiar’s resignation with regret and he expressed genuine concern for his welfare.

“I thanked him for his service and said ‘my door is always open to you’.

“Having submitted his resignation, Fr Buhagiar left the parish without informing his parishioners of his resignation,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
Pro Bono

The Legal Advisory Service is a free service for members of the public engaging or considering engaging with the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Location: Sydney (Sydney based, travel required)
Organisation: National Association of Community Legal Centres
Work Type: Full-time

Legal Advisory Service for people considering engaging with the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

• Greenfields role – design & implement operational procedures
• National phone and face to face Legal Advisory Service
• Sydney based, travel required

The Legal Advisory Service is a free service for members of the public engaging or considering engaging with the Royal Commission into Institutional

Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It is being established by the National Association of Community Legal Centres with funding from the Australian

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

A TEENAGER was tortured and tied to a pipe for two days at a nun-run school, a court has heard.

Catherine Logan, now 57, claimed that nuns from Dalbeath Approved School in Bishopton, Renfrewshire, abused her during her time there between 1969 and 1971.

Mrs Logan told Paisley Sheriff Court that she was hit about 12 or 13 times – including with a riding crop – and alleged she was drugged.

She was giving evidence at the trial of Anne Kenny, 79, and Agnes Reville, 77.

Kenny faces four charges of assault, while Reville is accused of five charges of assault. The accusations involve a total of eight girls.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

AAP

The former head of the Salesian Catholic order in Australia has faced court on charges of sexually abusing Victorian children more than 30 years ago.

Priest Julian Benedict Fox, 67, returned from Rome to face three charges of buggery, five charges of indecent assault and two charges of assault in Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday.

Police allege Fox abused four boys between 1976 and 1985 in Ferntree Gully, in Melbourne’s outer east, and in Sunbury, about 40km northwest of the city.

Police on Monday described the priest’s return to Victoria as a breakthrough in co-operation between Victoria Police and the Catholic Church.

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NEW YORK
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin

The Russo Family Lecture CATHOLIC IRELAND: PAST PRESENT AND FUTURE Speaking Notes of Most Rev. Diarmuid Martin

Archbishop of Dublin

Fordham Centre of Religion and Culture, New York, 24th April 2013

“Ireland has changed and Ireland is changing. The other evening I was at a lecture in the Italian Embassy in Dublin about Ireland in renaissance times. I was struck by two quotes chosen by the lecturer. The first was from Pope Pius II, Piccolomini, written in 1458 looking at the situation of Europe at the time. He concluded his three sentences on Ireland writing: “since nothing worth remembering took place there during the period we write about, we hurry on to matters Spanish”. I can tell you, much worth remembering and much that we would prefer not to remember has taken place in the Ireland of recent times.

The second quote was from Petrarch who, in the latter part of the 12th century, noted about Ireland: “in one year you will hardly hear it thunder once. No thunderbolts cause terror here, no lightening ever strikes”. That quote should make anyone who still had lingering doubts recognise that climate change is a reality!

I entered the seminary in Dublin in October 1962 just one week before the opening of Vatican II. The winter of 1962/63 was one of the bleakest winters for decades and our seminary was a very cold place in more ways than one. My memory of the seminary is of a building and a routine, a discipline and a way of life which seemed to have been like that for decades. Even to someone who was not a revolutionary, it all seemed so out of touch with the world from which I had just come, and in which my friends were thriving. But you were not supposed to think that way. Things were to be done as they had always been done. The Catholic Church was unchanging, but that was about to change.

For years now people looked to Ireland as a vibrant and sustainable model for strong economic growth. Countries were told to follow the Irish example. Today the economic situation of Ireland is full of uncertainties, precisely at a moment when confidence and trust are urgently needed. On the other hand, for decades Ireland was looked on as one of the world’s most deeply and stably Catholic countries and today Ireland finds itself along with other parts of Europe being classified as “post-Catholic”.

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NEW YORK
Georgia Bulletin

Published: April 25, 2013

NEW YORK (CNS) — Renewal of the Catholic Church in a “post-Catholic” Ireland depends on a homegrown effort by the laity to overcome clericalism and witness the Christian message in a secular society, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin told a New York audience. Once considered “one of the world’s most deeply and stably Catholic countries,” Ireland, like other parts of Europe, can now be classified as post-Catholic because of sociological changes and lingering fallout from the child sexual abuse scandals that swept the country in recent years, Archbishop Martin said April 24 in a speech at Fordham University. “You can only define post-Catholic in terms of the Catholicism that has been displaced,” he said. The prelate described the Catholic Church in Ireland as being trapped in an illusory self-image when he became the archbishop of Dublin in 2004, but that the demographic majority the church enjoyed hid “many structural weaknesses” and that the church had become insensitive to them

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IRELAND
Galway City Tribune

April 26, 2013

Lessons must be learned from past if trust of people is to be regained

BY DARA BRADLEY

The credibility and very future of the Catholic Church hinges on its handling of the series of child sex abuse scandals, the Bishop of Galway, Martin Drennan, has said.

Unless the Church deals effectively with the child abuse crisis, and learns from the mistakes of the past, then it won’t regain the trust of people, and won’t have credibility, Bishop Drennan told current affairs broadcaster Keith Finnegan.

The exclusive interview, broadcast on Galway Bay FM’s Galway Talks programme, coincided with the publication of the audit of safeguarding practices in the Diocese of Galway, Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora.

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GERMANY
euronews

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor

PARIS (Reuters) – Germany’s top labour court ruled on Thursday the country’s Catholic charity network had the right to fire an employee who quit the Church in protest against the sexual abuse crisis and disputed decisions by ex-Pope Benedict.

The 60-year-old teacher, challenging his 2011 dismissal, had claimed his constitutional right to freedom of opinion trumped the Church’s right to employ only Catholics who agreed with the religious mission of their jobs.

He said that his work at Caritas Germany tutoring grade-school children did not deal with religion and that pupils of all faiths were welcome there.

The decision was a victory for the mainline Protestant and Catholic churches, which together are Germany’s largest employer after the public sector, against some lay employees and unions challenging the churches’ special status in German labour law.

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TEXAS
Valley Central

[with video]

by Daisy Barrera

Authorities are searching for a San Benito minister who is now considered a fugitive amid an ongoing sexual abuse investigation.

San Benito police are asking for the public’s help in finding sexual abuse suspect Edwin Talavera.

Investigators told Action 4 News that Talavera was a minister at a storefront church that recently closed off East Stenger Street.

Talavera is facing six sexual abuse charges after being accused of sexually abusing two girls under the age 14 years old.

San Benito police already arrested 34-year-old Norma Alicia Rodriguez in connection to the case.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

A Church counsellor has praised an information centre set-up to allow people to come forward in the lead-up to a probe into sexual abuse by Hunter Valley priests.

The Special Commission of Inquiry was triggered by allegations made by Chief Inspector Peter Fox that police were pressured to close investigations into abuse by two Maitland-Newcastle Catholic Diocese priests.

The information centre opens for the last time on May 5, and aims to give people the opportunity to speak confidentially to members of the Inquiry team.

The Church’s co-ordinator of healing and support Maureen O’Hearn says she has helped around a dozen people through that process.

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NORTH CAROLINA
WSOC

[with video]

By Kathryn Burcham

MONROE, N.C. —

A Monroe church volunteer has been arrested on charges he sexually abused a 3-year-old girl during a church function.

Union County deputies arrested Christopher Broach Tuesday at his Monroe home on charges of indecent liberties and sex offense with a child.

Investigators said Broach was volunteering at the day care at a church function at Southbrook Church in Wesley Chapel in February when the alleged sexual abuse occurred.

Detectives said the victim later told her mother about the incident, sparking an investigation.

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BUFFALO (WY)
Sheridan Media

By Aaron Palmer on Thu 04/25/2013

April is Sexual Assault and Child Abuse Prevention Month, and Buffalo’s ASAP, or Ambassadors for Sexual Assault Prevention, have been offering training and workshops on the subject during the month.

Saturday they will present “Safeguarding God’s Children,” a training program geared to preventing and then responding to child sexual abuse. The program is designed for church leaders, clergy, parents, educators, daycare providers or anyone who works with children, although because of content, they recommend those age 16 and older to attend.

The program will be at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church at 178 S. Main Street and will run from 9:30am to 12:30pm.

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COLORADO
Gazette

LANCE BENZEL
THE GAZETTE

A former teacher who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 15-year-old student at a now-shuttered Baptist school in Colorado Springs will serve 90 days in jail and up to the rest of her life on intensive probation.

Terah Rawlings, 33, clutched a box of tissues and wept as 4th Judicial District Judge Timothy J. Schutz told her that despite the victim’s wishes to the contrary, she deserved to serve time for the sexual abuse.

“It is shameful that we can’t have our children go off to church or school without fearing they’re going to be assaulted by the people to whom they are entrusted,” Schutz told a courtroom packed with members of Hilltop Baptist Church, which operated the Hilltop Baptist School until its closure in 2010.

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ILLINOIS/KENTUCKY
Chicago Tribune

By David Heinzmann, Christy Gutowski and Stacy St. Clair, Chicago Tribune reporters
April 26, 2013

WHITLEY CITY, Ky. — Five years after church officials ordered the Rev. Carroll Howlin to stop functioning as a missionary priest in this isolated mountain community, Joliet diocesan leaders received a letter from a suburban pastor that illuminated just how little the diocese had done to enforce its own protective measures amid a crippling sexual abuse scandal.

Howlin, an avuncular-looking priest who moved here more than 30 years ago, had been suspended in 2002 after he was accused of molesting a teenage boy — the second of four such allegations he would face in his career. The Joliet Diocese later substantiated claims involving two other victims, including one who committed suicide at 17.

Church officials removed Howlin from public ministry, but otherwise left him alone in Kentucky with a $1,100-a-month pension. He was allowed to continue living in this remote community where he once helped run the Good Shepherd Catholic Chapel, providing food, clothing and other social services.

It appears officials even left Howlin alone in 2007 when the Rev. Gregory Rothfuchs of St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in Joliet wrote to the diocese that he had discovered the monthly collection his parish had taken up for Good Shepherd for three decades was going directly into Howlin’s personal bank account and the nuns running the mission had not seen a penny.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

ABC
April 26, 2013

A Catholic priest has appeared in a Melbourne court to face 10 child sexual abuse charges.

Julian Fox, 67, returned to Australia from Rome to appear in the Melbourne Magistrates Court.

The charges include counts of buggery and indecent assault.

It is alleged the offences took place at Sunbury and Ferntree Gully between 1976 and 1985.

Fox was not required to enter a plea.

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AUSTRALIA
Courier Mail

Shannon Deery
From:Herald Sun
April 26, 2013

THE former Australian head of the second largest Catholic order in the world has appeared in court charged with child sex crimes.

Fr Julian Fox appeared at the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court this morning for a brief administrative hearing where 10 charges were filed with the court.

He was been charged with offences, including buggery, indecent assault and common law assault, after returning from Rome last Friday.

Police allege the 67-year-old former principal assaulted students at Salesian College, Rupertswood, between 1976 and 1985.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

PIA AKERMAN
From:The Australian
April 26, 2013

A CATHOLIC priest charged with child sex offences has been accused of assaulting one of his victims with a pool cue.

Salesian priest and former school principal Julian Fox, 67, today faced court for the first time since the Catholic church negotiated with Victoria Police to see him returned from Rome.

He has been charged with 10 offences, including committing three counts of buggery against a boy under the age of 14 in 1980.

It is alleged he indecently assaulted another victim with a shortened pool cue in 1981, and indecently assaulted another three times between 1976 and 1978.

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AUSTRALIA
TVNZ

A Catholic priest charged with sexually abusing four Victorian children more than 30 years ago has appeared briefly in court.

Julian Benedict Fox, 67, returned from Rome to face ten charges in the Melbourne Magistrates Court.

Police allege Fox abused the four victims between 1976 and 1985 in Ferntree Gully, in Melbourne’s outer east, and in Sunbury, about 40 kilometres northwest of the city.

During a brief filing hearing, he was granted bail on the condition he reports weekly to a Melbourne police station.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

April 26, 2013

Barney Zwartz
Religion editor, The Age

A Greek Orthodox bishop misled the Victorian inquiry into how the churches handled child sexual abuse when he denied any cases in his church, another member of the community has said in a letter to the inquiry.

Bishop Iakovos told the inquiry that he was not aware of any case or anecdotal evidence of child sexual abuse ”in living memory”, and that he had consulted much older members of the church.

But the letter writer, who asked not to be named, told the inquiry there was a well-known case in 2002 when the parish priest of the Church of St Catherine in East Malvern, Father Andreas Papadimitropoulos, was found guilty of indecently assaulting a teenage girl.

”This case is well known among the hierarchy of the Greek Orthodox Church in Australia, and information about it is even available online,” the letter says.

It also cites harassment and abuse in Sydney, but this does not fall under the inquiry’s terms of reference.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Boudreaux was ordained a priest of the Society of Jesus in 1955. His early career was spent in India and Sri Lanka, after which he worked as a teacher in Jesuit high schools in Louisiana and Texas. For two years in the mid-1970s Boudreaux served as regional secretary of the General Curia for the Jesuits in Rome. For the bulk of the following three decades Boudreaux was a teacher at Jesuit High School in New Orleans. In December 2004 an accusation surfaced that Boudreaux had sexually abused a minor thirty years previously. The Jesuits removed Boudreaux from active ministry after determining that the accusation was credible, and sent him for extensive treatment. Boudreaux was then to be assigned to live in a community without access to minors.

Ordained: 1955
Retired: 2005

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

By Phil Lawler April 25, 2013

“Just as the banishment of lepers was fueled by medieval myths, the hysteria surrounding child sexual abusers is exacerbated by myths about those who suffer from sexual deviancies. Child molesters incarnate our deepest childhood fears… Our myths about child molesters come more from the projections of what lies within our own inner psyches than from the truth about who these men are.”

Does that quotation suggest that the author is motivated primarily by a desire to protect children from sexual abuse? Would it surprise you to learn that the author was–and to this day remains–one of the most influential voices advising Catholic Church leaders on the handling of sex-abuse cases?

The quotation comes from a 1995 article by Msgr. Stephen Rossetti in America magazine, with the revealing title: “The Mark of Cain: Reintegrating Pedophiles.”

”Reintegrating Pedophiles” was, in a sense, Msgr. Rossetti’s job from 1996 through 2006, when he served as director of the St. Luke Institute, the most prominent of the facilities treating American priests accused of abusing children. When the sex-abuse scandal erupted in the US, we learned that dozens of priests were released from such facilities and returned to ministry, only to molest children once again. Today, looking back regretfully on their decisions, many bishops explain that when they returned abusive priests to active ministry, they were following the best advice given by experts—experts like Msgr. Rossetti.

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UNITED STATES
TheMediaReport

Sometimes you can judge a book by its cover, and sometimes you can judge a book by the author’s radio interviews.

Appearing on a St. Louis radio program hawking a new book about the Catholic abuse scandals, writer Michael D’Antonio, author of Mortal Sins: Sex, Crime, and the Era of Catholic Scandal, claimed that to this day “not a lot of effort to protect kids” has been exerted by the Catholic Church.

In truth, because of the aggressive, groundbreaking measures enacted by United States bishops years ago, the Catholic Church is likely the safest environment for children today. Contemporaneous accusations of abuse against Catholic priests are extremely rare, recently averaging only 8.5 allegations per year for the entire United States.

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SERBIA
In Serbia

BELGRADE – Bishop of Zvornik and Tuzla, Vasilije Kacavenda, who has been retired by Serbian Orthodox Church, will leave his lavish palace in Bijeljina and move into a cell of the male monastery Vasilije Ostroski in the center of Bijeljina or monastery Sisatovac on Fruska Gora, reports news magazine “Kurir”.

Recently, after the affair of sexual abuse of minors in which the bishop was allegedly involved and after news magazine “Kurir” has published part of the video on which, allegedly, bishop is kissing and enjoying a passionate moment with a boy, on Tuesday Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church has stepped in and silently punished the bishop by retiring him and sending him to monastery.

How will Kacavenda, after being used to hedonism and luxury feel to live in a modest monastery, without friends, going outs, modern technology and luxury – many wonder.

The bishop has, in his palace in Bijeljina, enjoyed the most modern equipment for home, fireplace, hot tub, gold, antiques, servants and luxuries, of which an ordinary person can only dream of. The furniture in his home is made mostly of ivory, the salon is full of sculptures and artifacts, and his guests were served food in silver plates.

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on April 25, 2013

In 2011, when he was suspended, Archbishop Robert Carlson’s public relations team said Fr. William Vatterott was accused of “inappropriate electronic communications.” Now, Fr. Vatterrott has been charged with child porn.

According to BishopAccountability.org, at least eight other current or former local clerics have been accused of possessing child porn or showing porn to kids (Fr. James Beine, Fr. Bruce Forman, Fr. William Christensen, Fr. James Funke, Fr. James Patrick Grady, Fr. John Hess, Fr. Gerhardt Lehmkuhl and seminarian Nicholas Pinkston).

Yet a quick search of the archdiocesan website shows just three mentions of “child pornography” (and one was just added yesterday when charges against Fr. Vatterott were disclosed).

We hope that someday Catholic officials will stop using euphemisms like “inappropriate conduct” and “boundary violations” and start being more honest.

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CONNECTICUT
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on April 25, 2013

It’s outrageous that a Connecticut priest, who is accused possessing child pornography is delaying justice and exploiting technicalities. Is it any wonder that few victims of sexual violence and exploitation feel good about our justice system?

Despite these inexcusable delays we hope that anyone who saw, suspected or suffered abuse will come forward, report to law enforcement and start healing.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on April 25, 2013

Some will do anything – no matter how hurtful – to make money. Shame on this video company. Heinous child sex crimes and cover ups, by Catholic officials or anyone, is no joking matter.

Why rub salt into the already deep and often still fresh wounds of hundreds of thousands of victims of pedophile priests across the world?

We call on these callous corporate decision-makers to withdraw this game, apologize, and donate any money they may have made to organizations that prevent abuse and help victims.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph

Janet Fife-Yeomans
The Daily Telegraph
April 26, 2013

CHILDREN will remain at risk unless the royal commission into institutionalised child sex abuse includes the Family Court in its investigations, Bravehearts founder Hetty Johnston has warned.

Ms Johnston said it would be a missed opportunity if the court was not included.

“Thousands of children and their families are depending on it,” she said yesterday.

In a submission sent by Bravehearts to the royal commission, the organisation said improvements to practices, policies and procedures within the court would have a positive impact on a “large number of Australian abuse survivors”.

Ms Johnston said it was a “no-brainer” that the court came under the commission’s terms of reference.

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SCOTLAND
STV

A former pupil at a school run by nuns claimed she was attacked by them after being sent there for stealing two bras from Woolworths.

Catherine Logan told a jury that she was kept in a cupboard when she was at the school 41 years ago.

The 57-year-old was giving evidence in the trial of Anne Kenny, 79, who faces four charges of assault and Agnes Reville, 77, who is accused of five charges of assault at Dalbeath Approved School in Bishopton, Renfrewshire.

She told Paisley Sheriff Court that she was taken back to the school three years ago, which was the first time she had gone back since leaving it.

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SCOTLAND
Daily Mail

Two nuns ‘tied woman to a pipe for two days and tortured her when she was at convent school in the seventies’

By Steve Robson

A teenager was tied to a pipe and tortured for two days by nuns who ran the convent school she attended, a court has heard.

Anne Kenny, 79, and Agnes Reville, 77, are accused of assaulting eight girls at Dalbeath Approved School in Renfrewshire, near Glasgow, in the 1970s.

Catherine Logan, 57, claims in one incident Kenny, known as Mother Rosari, hit her so hard with a carpet beater she ruptured her spleen.

She told Paisley Sheriff Court that she was ‘hit’ about twelve or thirteen times – including with a riding crop – and also alleged she was drugged.

Kenny faces four charges of assault while Reville is accused of five charges of assault.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Riverfront Times

By Sam Levin
Thu., Apr. 25 2013

William Vatterott, a Roman Catholic priest from St. Louis, was indicted yesterday on a federal child pornography charge — and could ultimately face ten years in prison and fines of up to $25,000.

Vatterott, 36, will appear in federal court later this week or early next week to respond to the indictment, the U.S. attorney’s office says in a statement.

He was placed on administrative leave in 2011 after a complaint was filed with the Ballwin police. He had allegedly been involved in an underage drinking incident — and was accused of “inappropriate conduct.”

The indictment says that he possessed “at least two images of an unidentified nude boy on his computer” between June 2010 and June 2011.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

April 26, 2013

Barney Zwartz, Noel Towell

The head of the Catholic Church watchdog on clerical abuse in Ireland is to advise the Australian church about how well its abuse protocol is working.

Ian Elliott will visit Australia later this year to talk about lessons from the Irish experience and to help the church review its Towards Healing system, a spokesman said.

The National Committee for Professional Standards executive officer, Father Tim Brennan, said there was no external monitoring of how Towards Healing dealt with victims, and no way for the church to prove its systems were working.

”How does it get a clean bill of health?” Father Brennan asked. ”At the moment, there’s no mechanism to establish who does things well. The Irish experience is a way to go that step further.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Jacquelin Magnay and Ean Higgins
From:The Australian
April 26, 2013

THE Catholic Church in Australia has hired an experienced Irish investigator of clerical abuse — who has called for a complete cleanout of people who ignored child sexual activities — as the church undergoes further scrutiny in the royal commission.

Ian Elliott, the chief executive of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland, will head to Melbourne in the next few months after spending the past six years scrutinising child sexual abuses within the Irish Catholic Church.

Mr Elliot said Australia had to be prepared to be accountable and transparent — and have evidence that they are being accountable and transparent — before children can be kept safe and protected.

He said his Irish experience, which included a review of the Diocese of Cloyne and formulating a rigorous review and standards process for child protection that has been adopted by the church, showed Australia could only eradicate child abuse within the church if there was full conviction to do so from the bishop down.

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AUSTRALIA/IRELAND
Brisbane Times

April 26, 2013

Noel Towell
Reporter for The Canberra Times

The man chosen to advise the Australian Catholic Church on child sex abuse says he is ”not a fan” of statutory inquiries into paedophilia in the church.

Ian Elliott, who has led the Irish church’s internal response to the child sex scandals that shook that nation, has been hired by the Australian church to advise on its response to widespread abuse allegations.

Announcing his new job this week, Mr Elliott told an Irish newspaper that state-based inquiries into institutional abuse were long, costly and often failed to establish anything new.

During six years leading the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland – a church-run group – Mr Elliott and his staff completed audits of procedures and safeguards in 16 Irish dioceses and four religious orders, with reports due on another 10 dioceses and 100 orders by 2015.

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