ABUSE TRACKER

CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

By David Jackson and Gary Marx, Chicago Tribune reporters
October 20, 2013

One after another, teenage girls or their mothers approached their prominent West Side minister and accused the music director at his rapidly growing church of rape and molestation.

Instead of alerting police, Apostle John Abercrombie in three instances confronted the frightened girls in his church office with the music director present, according to interviews with the alleged victims and their families, as well as police reports and other government documents obtained by the Tribune.

In 2009, a church member brought Abercrombie a recorded cellphone conversation in which the 40-year-old music director, David Gardner, allegedly invited her 15-year-old daughter on a shopping trip to New York and told the girl not to tell her family.

Only then — a decade after the first girl came forward — did Abercrombie call police, records and interviews show.

Abercrombie acknowledged to detectives that “numerous allegations of sexual misconduct on the part of Gardner against numerous female minors had been reported to him,” a 2009 Chicago police report obtained by the Tribune states. “Abercrombie provided the reporting detective with information needed to initiate investigations into each allegation.”

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 10/18/2013

The Twin Cities archdiocese was aware of allegations in 2006 that the Rev. Michael Keating had at best emotionally intense and at worst sexually abusive relationships with as many as four young women or girls, yet kept him in ministry during the course of its two-year internal investigation, according to memos from a high-ranking official.

A series of five memos obtained by Minnesota Public Radio details steps taken by the Rev. Kevin McDonough, then-vicar general of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, in response to allegations about Keating.

The investigation appeared to begin when a young woman from Chisago County reported to McDonough and other officials that Keating had molested her when she was 13. McDonough said in a Feb. 2, 2006, memo to the archbishop that archdiocese officials had either turned the case over to law enforcement or were about to do so.

The Chisago County attorney’s office declined to file charges after a 2006 investigation.

The young woman filed suit Monday in Ramsey County District Court against Keating, alleging sexual battery. Keating, 57, took a leave as a religion professor at the University of St. Thomas. He has denied the allegations.

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

By: Cassie Hart
Father Michael Keating’s attorney has issued a response following a recent sexual abuse lawsuit filed against him.

In a release, Keating’s attorney, Fred Bruno of Bruno Law said, “The allegations in this lawsuit are false and highly defamatory. The plaintiff’s attorney is merely recycling claims that were thoroughly discredited over six years ago and are being originally lofted. The plaintiff’s accusations were independently investigated by the Chisago County Sheriff, the Chisago County Attorney, the Archdiocese and two independent forensic psychologists.”

A woman known as “Jane Doe 20” filed the lawsuit, accusing Keating of sexually abusing her more than a decade ago.

No charges were ever filed.

Click here to read the full statement.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: TONY KENNEDY , Star Tribune Updated: October 18, 2013

Friday’s resignation is second involving high-ranking church official this month.

The Rev. Kevin McDonough, a Catholic official who was involved in the handling of three controversial sexual misconduct investigations of fellow priests, has stepped down from the University of St. Thomas board of directors, a university source confirmed Friday.

The news followed a week of allegations that one of the school’s Catholic studies professors sexually abused a teenage girl. McDonough was involved in the archdiocese’s investigation of claims against the Rev. Michael Keating in 2006. On Thursday, e-mails that Keating sent to the girl from Rome in 1999 and 2000 were made public by her attorney, Jeff Anderson.

McDonough, a former vicar general in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, is the second high-ranking church official to step aside since allegations began surfacing that the archdiocese did not take action against priests accused of sexual improprieties. He reportedly resigned Oct. 4.

The Rev. Peter Laird resigned as vicar general Oct. 3, the same day that lawyers for the archdiocese presented a police report in court that described allegations that a Hugo priest had kept pornographic images on his computer. He now is on a leave of absence.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Catholic Insider

BCI has quite a backlog to catch-up on. We are going to go in reverse order on some of the more recent news.

The local media reported last week, “Cardinal O’Malley moves to raise Beacon Hill profile.”

BOSTON (AP) – Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley is moving to raise his profile on Beacon Hill by inviting more than 100 state lawmakers to breakfast.

The Boston Globe reports that the invitation said legislators would be given an overview of the church’s political, educational and social programs. The invitation to the continental breakfast at the Union Club on Park Street in Boston was sent to lawmakers who represent the 144 cities and towns in the archdiocese.

“We want them to get to know us better so they understand the broader value of the church in the community,” said Terry Donilon, spokesman for the archdiocese. “If the Catholic Church went away tomorrow, there would be millions upon millions of dollars put on the backs of cities and towns in Massachusetts.”

If we are to understand Terry Donilon correctly, the reason the Catholic Church and our ministries are important to the state is because if not for the Catholic Church, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts would be spending millions upon millions more dollars to support cities and towns? Really?! Could someone at 66 Brooks Drive please enroll Terry in a faith formation class so he can learn Catholicism 101?

The Globe gives more details on the actual meeting that took place, with more commentary from Terry Donilon:

Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley hosted some 60 state lawmakers at a breakfast meeting this morning that was meant to help rebuild his church’s rapport with the Legislature.

The meeting…was the first in which the cardinal has met with a large group of legislators since he became the Roman Catholic archbishop of Boston in 2003.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

By Matt Rivers

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — The prosecution of a Catholic priest accused of molesting a former altar boy is on shaky ground, after the accuser was found dead, the victim of an apparent drug overdose (see related story).

Father Robert Brennan was arrested last month after a month long investigation by the Philadelphia District Attorney (see related story). A former altar boy who was supervised by Brennan at Resurrection of Our Lord Church said he was abused for three years from 1998 until 2001.

Brennan had also been accused of abuse on at least twenty separate occasions, all of them laid out in a grand jury report released in 2005. He was never charged, however, because at that time, none of the accusations fell within the crime’s statute of limitations.

Last month’s accuser was the first person to allege crimes that fell within the statute’s timeframe.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Oct. 18, 2013

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com)

At first, there were no signs of Fr. Keating committing misconduct with adults.

Now, there are several.

And at first, there were recommendations that restrictions be put on Fr. Keating.

Now there is proof that those recommendations were ignored, says Minnesota Public Radio.

[Minnesota Public Radio]

And now there’s evidence that archdiocesan officials take reports of suspected child sex crimes from their own priests just as casually as they do reports by victims themselves.

Many Catholic officials refuse to follow secular law. Many refuse to follow their own church abuse policies. So it should surprise no one that they also refuse to follow recommendations by Archbishop John Nienstedt’s hand-picked abuse panel.

What now?

For starters, the lay Catholics whose recommendations were apparently ignored should speak up. They should identify themselves and publicly criticize Archbishop Nienstedt, Fr. Kevin McDonough and every other Catholic official who knew about but ignored their recommendations.

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OHIO
Chronicle-Telegram

The Most Rev. A. James Quinn, auxiliary bishop emeritus of Cleveland, died Friday morning at his home in Westlake, according to the Diocese of Cleveland.

The Diocese said the cause of death was apparent natural causes. Quinn was 81.

Quinn was born April 8, 1932, and ordained a priest of the Diocese on May 24, 1958, according to the Diocese. He was appointed as an auxiliary bishop on Oct. 14, 1983, and he was ordained bishop on Dec. 5, 1983. He retired June 14, 2008.

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OHIO
Cleveland Leader

The Diocese of Cleveland is mourning the loss of Rev. A. James Quinn, Auxilliary Bishop Emeritus of Cleveland, who passed away at his Westlake home on Friday, October 18. He was 81.

Quinn became an ordained priest on May 24, 1958, and was appointed as an Auxilliary Bishop of the Diocese of Cleveland in Octoer 1983. He retired in 2008, and resided at St. Ladislas Parish in Westlake.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

by Madeleine Baran, Minnesota Public Radio
October 18, 2013

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Internal archdiocesan documents obtained by MPR News raise questions about what the University of St. Thomas knew about sexual abuse allegations against a professor in 2006.

The documents show top church deputy Kevin McDonough investigated several allegations in 2006 that the Rev. Michael Keating sexually abused women and he planned to communicate his findings to an administrator at the University of St. Thomas.

Keating, 57, is an associate professor of Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas and a priest in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. He went on temporary leave Oct. 11. Three days later, a woman filed a lawsuit in Ramsey County accusing Keating of sexually abusing her in the late 1990s when she was 13 to 15 years old.

Keating did not respond to requests for comment. On Thursday, his attorney, Fred Bruno, called the allegations in the lawsuit “false and highly defamatory.”

The woman’s family first reported the allegations to the archdiocese in 2006. The archdiocese’s clergy review board investigated and concluded in November 2007 that there was insufficient evidence of child sexual abuse. Nonetheless, it recommended to Archbishop Harry Flynn that Keating not be allowed to mentor teenagers and young adults.

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ARKANSAS
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Oct. 18, 2013

Two sexual abuse victims groups crashed a party planned for a former Arkansas high school athletic director convicted of failing to report the sexual abuse of a minor.

The National Survivor Advocates Coalition and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests alerted Little Rock, Ark., Bishop Anthony Taylor in a letter Wednesday about a going-away party for Kathy Griffin, who in September was found guilty of not reporting a sexual relationship between a fellow teacher and a high school student at the all-girls Mount St. Mary Academy.

Griffin, who also worked as a guidance counselor and dean of discipline, was sentenced to a year of probation and fined $2,500. She is appealing the decision.

The event for Griffin, promoted on Facebook and through an online invitation website, asked friends to gather at a Little Rock restaurant Saturday “as we say a heart felt good-bye as she moves on to the next phase in her life.” It asked people to share memories and create a money tree “to show her what she has meant to all of us.”

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Oct. 18, 2013

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com)

A prominent Baptist official is telling church members “don’t take matters to the press.”

[Associated Baptist Press]

We hope every Baptist rejects this self-serving, unhealthy and often dangerous advice, especially when it comes to sexual and financial crimes, whether known or suspected.

There may be some “unbelievers” who can better fix the church roof or who give a lower bid to replace the church boiler. And there are definitely some “unbelievers” who can better protect kids, investigate suspicions, prosecute predators and prevent abuse. They are the experienced and unbiased professionals in law enforcement. They should be called promptly – and anonymously, if need be – every time a Baptist church member or staffer suspects that a child has been or is being hurt.

And especially when police or prosecutors are reluctant or unable to help, victims, witnesses, and whistleblowers in churches should call journalists.

We suspect that Rev. Patterson will claim to have “misspoken” or been “misinterpreted” or been “imprecise.” But his words are pretty clear. He apparently doesn’t mention any exceptions to his “no whistleblowing” advice, not even for child sex crimes and cover-ups.

Though our focus is on child sex crimes and cover ups, we also advise church-goers to call police about possible financial misconduct in churches for two reasons. First, it’s our duty as citizens to call law enforcement about ANY suspected crimes. Second, it’s our experience that often clergy steal money to buy expensive gifts for victims or pay “hush money” to them.

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UNITED STATES
Associated Baptist Press

Southwestern Seminary President Paige Patterson says churches should settle disputes internally and not talk about them to the media.

By Bob Allen

There’s no room in the church for whistleblowers, a Southern Baptist seminary president said in a chapel sermon Oct. 15.

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary President Paige Patterson said the prohibition in First Corinthians 6 on church members suing one another in secular court means “we don’t take matters before unbelievers.”

“This also means that you don’t take matters to the press,” Patterson said. “What goes on in the church of God doesn’t go to the press.”

“If I had fifty dollars for every time that I have told somebody from the press: ‘I’m not going to comment on that because, frankly, it’s none of your business; it’s the church of God’ — if I had fifty dollars for every time I’ve done that, this would be a wealthy institution and you wouldn’t have to pay any tuition at all,” he said.

Patterson said that response is never popular. “‘Well, don’t you believe in a free press?’ Yes. ‘Don’t you believe in a free ministry?’”

“I’m not going to talk to the press about things that are matters internal to the church of the Living God,” Patterson said. “It is none of their business. And they can’t possibly get it right, and they don’t get it right, so why do you take it to the world of unbelief? Whether that be the court, whether that be the press? ‘Well there’s just no other way to handle it.’ Yes there is. Commit it to the Lord God Almighty.”

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

We join in solidarity with the St. Paul Police Department, and all civil authorities, in continuing to encourage anyone who suspects abuse of a minor or vulnerable adult within Church ministry—or any setting including the home or school—to first contact law enforcement. Any act of abuse against a minor or vulnerable adult is reprehensible and morally repugnant and we will not tolerate it.

Since 2002 we have implemented a long list of policy and procedural reforms to clarify guidelines and strengthen enforcement. Some of the actions we have taken include completing more than 3,000 adult safe environment training sessions for approximately 70,000 adults; conducting 105,000 background checks on clergy, staff and volunteers; and providing over 100,000 children with age-appropriate lessons to help keep them safe.

As a further demonstration of our commitment to handling these matters aggressively and consistently, an independent, lay task force has been formed and they will conduct a full review of our policies and practices. Their findings will be made public when final.

We are deeply sorry for any harm that has come from clergy misconduct. Eliminating any form of abuse is the highest priority for the Archdiocese. Our record is not perfect, but we have made great progress, and we are determined to do whatever is necessary to eliminate this problem.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

[the emails]

Article by: TONY KENNEDY and DAVID CHANEN , Star Tribune Updated: October 18, 2013

In e-mails sent from Rome, he expressed his love and affection for teen girl he is accused of sexually abusing. His lawyer said claims were “discredited.”

The University of St. Thomas priest accused of sexual contact with a young girl expressed love and affection for her in e-mails he sent her from Rome when she was 14 and 15 years old.

“Be really sure that I love you lots and lots and never think of you without a smile coming to my mind,” the Rev. Michael J. Keating wrote in one of at least 19 e-mails made public Thursday on the website of her attorney, Jeff Anderson of St. Paul. Anderson said the writings were presented to the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis seven years ago in a church review of his client’s sexual abuse claims, but officials disregarded them.

The e-mails, which the girl’s mother has described as “quite seductive,” were part of the case the girl’s family brought to church authorities in 2006. The church sided with Keating, and the woman maintained a public silence until she sued Keating last week, alleging three years of harmful sexual contact that caused her deep psychological trauma.

The archdiocese responded Thursday with a statement supporting the St. Paul police’s call for victims to first report clergy sexual abuse to law enforcement.

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NEW YORK
Long Island Press

By Rashed Mian on October 18, 2013

A 56-year-old rabbi has been accused of sexually abusing a student at a Hebrew Academy of Nassau County school where he was a religious teacher before his termination three years ago, Nassau County police said.

Gary Lieberman of Far Rockaway will be arraigned Friday at First District Court in Hempstead on two counts of first-degree sexual abuse from incidents stemming from Nov. 4, 2009 through May 2010, police said.

Detectives said Lieberman allegedly sexually abused a 10-year-old student student twice at the Hempstead Avenue school, first in a learning resource room on the second floor of the building and a second time inside a school restroom. A police spokesman said the department was not identifying the school by name to protect the victim.

“Lieberman told the victim that if he tells anyone about this they would not believe him because he is a rabbi,” police said in a news release.

The chairman of the Board of the Education of the Hebrew Academy notified police about the alleged sexual abuse, police said.

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NEW YORK
LongIsland.com

By Joe Randazzo Published: October 18 2013

Gary Lieberman was accused of abusing a young child as a teacher in 2009.

A Queens rabbi has been accused of sexually abusing a young boy at a religious school four years ago. The abuse took place between November 2009 and May 2010 at the Hebrew Academy of Nassau County in West Hempstead. At the time Gary Lieberman, 56, of Rockaway, was a teacher at the school.

School officials learned of the abuse earlier this year and Lieberman was arrested Thursday.

“There was an allegation regarding an incident which allegedly occurred years ago which was recently brought to our attention regarding a teacher that has not worked at the school for several years,” the Academy said in a statement.“The school was proactive in reporting the allegation to the police and we are continuing to cooperate with their investigation.”

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NEW YORK
CBS New York

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – A rabbi has been accused of sexually abusing a student at a religious school on Long Island four years ago.

Gary Lieberman, 56, of Far Rockaway pleaded not guilty on two counts of first-degree sexual abuse in First District Court in Hempstead on Friday. He was expected to post $100,000 bail.

Lieberman repeatedly abused a student between November 2009 and May 2010 at the Hebrew Academy of Nassau County in West Hempstead, where he was a teacher, police said.

The student was 10 years old when the alleged abuse began, investigators said.

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NEW YORK
Patch

Posted by Heather Doyle (Editor) , October 18, 2013

A rabbi was arrested Thursday after cops say he sexually abused a student, according to Nassau County Police.

Rabbi Gary Lieberman, 56, of Far Rockaway, abused a then 10-year-old boy between Nov. 4, 2009 and May 2010 while he was a teacher at Hebrew Academy of Nassau County in West Hempstead, police said.

Lieberman victimized the boy in a second floor learning center, where the two would be alone, as well as a bathroom in the school, police said. Lieberman allegedly told the victim that if he reported the abuse to anyone, “they would not believe him because he is a Rabbi,” police said.

A Special Victims Squad investigation led to Lieberman’s arrest Thursday after the academy’s chairman of the board of education reported the incident, police said. How the abuse was discovered was not reported.

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NEW YORK
News 12

WEST HEMPSTEAD – Police say sex abuse charges have been filed against a rabbi from the Hebrew Academy of Nassau County.

Police say Gary Lieberman, of Far Rockaway, sexually abused a 10-year-old over a period of six months.

According to police, the abuse allegedly happened at the HANC West Hempstead location between November 2009 and May of 2010.

News 12 Long Island has been told Lieberman was fired from the academy in August of 2010, but it’s not clear why.

Lieberman may have worked in other schools.

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NEW YORK
The Jewish Week

10/18/13
Staff Report

Rabbi Gary Lieberman sexually abused a 10-year-old student at Hebrew Academy of Nassau County when he was a teacher there, police said Friday.

The abuse allegedly took place at the yeshiva’s lower school campus in West Hempstead between between November, 2009 and May 2010. The rabbi, who lives in Far Rockaway, was fired from the yeshiva for unspecified reasons in the summer of 2010.

“There was an allegation regarding an incident which allegedly occurred years ago which was recently brought to our attention regarding a teacher that has not worked at the school for several years,” said its executive director, Bob Shelley, in a statement emailed to The Jewish Week Friday.

“The school was proactive in reporting the allegation to the police and we are continuing to cooperate with their investigation. We have been asked not to comment any further.”

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

John L. Allen Jr. | Oct. 18, 2013

Over the centuries, the first tremors of earthquakes in Catholicism often have been felt in Germany. That nation gave birth to the Protestant Reformation, and it was also where the theological energies that erupted in the Second Vatican Council began to swirl.

Ralph Wiltgen captured the second point in the title of his famous 1967 history of Vatican II, The Rhine Flows into the Tiber.

Given that history, it’s worth casting an eye on Germany these days to track the fallout of the “Francis effect.” Two recent storylines are intriguing in that regard.

First, the Freiburg archdiocese recently issued a 14-page pastoral manual outlining circumstances under which divorced and civilly remarried Catholics might be readmitted to the sacraments, including Communion. That move compelled the Vatican to issue an Oct. 8 statement urging church leaders to wait for reforms to be adopted in Rome before implementing them on the ground.

Second, Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst of Limburg is currently basking in global celebrity as the “bling bishop” because of widely circulated accounts of how much he’s spent on remodeling his residence — $42 million in all, including almost $22,000 for a bathtub. Francis dispatched an investigator to Limburg in September, and this week, Tebartz-van Elst was in Rome for meetings while calls for his resignation mount.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

David Gibson Religion News Service | Oct. 18, 2013

Could a woman vote for the next pope?

Pope Francis has said repeatedly he wants to see greater roles for women in the Catholic church, and some argue he could take a giant step in that direction by appointing women to the College of Cardinals — the select and (so far) all-male club of “princes of the church” that casts secret ballots in a conclave to elect a new pope.

Whether it’s even possible is a matter of debate. But that hasn’t stopped the feverish speculation, which was sparked last month by an article in a Spanish newspaper in which Juan Arias, a former priest who writes from Brazil, wrote that the idea “is not a joke. It’s something that Pope Francis has thought about before: naming a woman cardinal.”

Arias quoted an unnamed priest — a Jesuit, like Francis — who said: “Knowing this pope, he wouldn’t hesitate before appointing a woman cardinal. … And he would indeed enjoy being the first pope to allow women to participate in the selection of a new pontiff.”

That was enough to start the ball rolling. The report was quickly picked up by Catholic media in Italy and then raced around a church that, in the months since Francis’ election, has been primed to expect the unexpected from this pope.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Oct. 18, 2013

Statement by Bob Schwiderski of St. Wayzata, Minnesota Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 952 471 3422, skibrs@q.com )

Weeks ago we learned that several top Twin Cities Catholic officials concealed for years the “borderline illegal” pornography on Fr. Jon Shelley.

Today, we learn that they also concealed for years “inappropriate (email) correspondence with a minor” sent by Fr. Shelley.

[Minnesota Public Radio]

In both cases, concerned Catholic lay people warned high-ranking archdiocesan staff. In both cases, police were not called and little, if any, effective steps were taken to protect others.

Nearly every day we learn more about known and suspected clergy sex crimes, misdeeds and cover ups in the Twin Cities archdiocese. And without exception, what we learn portrays Archbishop John Nienstedt or his staff in a worse light.

The Bible says “The truth will set you free.” It doesn’t say anything about 25% of the truth or 50% of the truth. Only the full truth about heinous crimes and inexcusable cover ups will enable Nienstedt – and his increasingly distraught flock and staff – “turn the corner” on this dreadful scandal.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
The Washington Times

By Andrea Noble-The Washington Times Thursday, October 17, 2013

Sosefina Amoa came to the United States this month and joined a convent in the District with an eye toward studying to become a nun.

She didn’t know she was pregnant.

So when she delivered a baby boy alone on the floor of her room with the Little Sisters of the Poor last week, police said the 26-year-old Samoan woman panicked and put a cloth over the infant’s mouth and nose, suffocating the boy minutes after he was born.

The disturbing details were laid out in an affidavit filed by D.C. police in support of a warrant charging her with first-degree murder in the child’s death.

The court papers said that on Oct. 10, leaning on her bed for support, Ms. Amoa birthed the child onto the floor. She named him Joseph, and she laid with him for a time.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Daily Mail (UK)

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER

A 26-year-old woman studying to becoming a Catholic nun smothered her newborn son to death because she didn’t want anyone to find out she had sex, police said today.

DC Police say Sosefina Amoa gave birth to the boy on October 10 in her room at the Little Sisters of the Poor elderly care facility.

Afraid the nuns would hear the newborn’s cries and discover she lied about sexual activity, police say Amoa told investigators she smothered him. The hospital called police.

A day later she and a nun took his body to a hospital in a small, black luggage bag.

She allegedly told detectives she ‘heard the child cry for two to three minutes’ and then, worried that someone would hear, she covered the baby’s mouth with a wool garment.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Huffington Post

WASHINGTON (AP) — D.C. police have charged a 26-year-old woman studying to becoming a Catholic nun in the death of her newborn son.

Police say Sosefina Amoa gave birth to the boy Oct. 10 in her room at the Little Sisters of the Poor elderly care facility. Afraid the nuns would hear the newborn’s cries and discover she lied about sexual activity, police say Amoa told investigators she smothered him. A day later she and a nun took his body to a hospital.

Amoa was charged Wednesday with first-degree murder after the death was ruled a homicide by asphyxiation.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
The Raw Story

By David Edwards
Friday, October 18, 2013

A woman who was studying to be a Catholic nun in Washington, D.C. was arrested on Wednesday after police said that she smothered her own newborn baby so that others would not hear the crying and know that she had been sexually active.

Washington D.C. police said that Sosefina Amoa arrived at Little Sisters of the Poor on Oct. 5 and the 6-pound 2-ounce infant was born in her bedroom on Oct. 10.

According to The Associated Press, police concluded that Amoa was afraid that the nuns would discover that she had lied about being sexually active and smothered the child to prevent it from crying.

She later smuggled the child out of the facility in “a small black luggage bag” to Providence Hospital, which immediately contacted police.

“She said that she placed a black wool garment over the child’s nose and mouth and applied pressure with her hand for two to three minutes,” a court document said. “The mother said that prior to placing the wool garment over the child’s nose and mouth, the child was breathing and had cried. The mother said that after she removed the garment from the child’s nose and mouth, the child was not breathing and she knew the child was dead.”

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POLAND
Telegraph (UK)

By Matthew Day, Warsaw1:26PM BST 18 Oct 2013

The head of Poland’s Catholic Church has been attacked for suggesting that child abuse resulted from pornography.

It is the second time in as many weeks that the opinions of Archbishop Jozef Michalik have sparked outrage. Last week he was forced to apologise for saying sexual abuse by priests occurred because children from broken homes “were looking for love”.

In his latest controversial comments the archbishop said abuse stemmed from homes broken on pornography, “selfish” love and “the ideology of gender that raises legitimate concerns, because it goes against the laws of nature, promotes marriage between persons of the same sex and fights for the right to legalize adoption of children by these couples.”

A series of recent child sex abuse scandals involving priests has sent the Polish Catholic Church reeling and scrambling to regain its position but the archbishop’s comments appearing to try to deflect the blame from the perpetrators onto modern society or even the victims themselves provoked a furious backlash.

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ARKANSAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Group cancels controversial fundraiser
Victims & advocates called event “callous”
It was intended to help a convicted teacher
She refused to report suspected child sex crimes
Organizations wanted bishop to denounce the event
Advocates: “Public displays of support for proven molesters is wrong”
It deters other victims of other child sex crimes from speaking up, groups say

For immediate release: Friday, October 18, 2013

For more information: Barbara Dorris ( 314-862-7688 home, 314-503-0003 cell, SNAPdorris@gmail.com ), David Clohessy ( 314-566-9790 cell, SNAPclohessy@aol.com )

A group of Little Rock Catholics has cancelled a fundraising event for a teacher convicted of refusing to report suspected child sex crimes.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests was notified of the cancellation by a call and email from Stuart Hiserodt (512-482-0040), a Texas lawyer representing one of the event’s organizers. (A copy of the email, received late yesterday, is below.)

SNAP and NSAC, the National Survivors Action Coalition, had harshly criticized the event as “hurting at least one child sex abuse victim and deters other child sex abuse victims from speaking up.” They had written Little Rock’s Catholic bishop urging him to “rein in” his flock and discourage attendance and future such events.

The fundraiser was to happen tomorrow and benefit Kathy Gene Griffin, a former Mount St. Mary (MSM) teacher who was found guilty last month of failing to report known or suspected child sex crimes by a fellow teacher, Kelly O’Rourke, to authorities.

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CANADA
Sun News

NEIL BOWEN | QMI AGENCY

SARNIA, ON — A former priest charged with sexual assault officiated at the wedding of one of his alleged victims, court heard Thursday.

Gabriele DelBianco, 57, is on trial for 16 sexual offences involving four women during the 1980s.

He has pleaded not guilty.

The woman, now in her 40s, testified she would move away when DelBianco tried to kiss her but did submit to his request to remove ingrown hairs from his genital area. She was 14 at the time.

Another time she stayed overnight at a cottage with DelBianco, with her parents’ permission. They drank alcohol and, she said, she became tired and then paralyzed as DelBianco got on top of her while they were watching television. At that point, her vision was blurry, but she realized he was having intercourse with her.

“I felt myself trying to push him away, but I couldn’t,” she said.

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ISRAEL
The Jerusalem Post

By BEN HARTMAN
10/17/2013

Modi’in Illit Police have arrested a 20-year-old resident of Bnei Brak suspected of involvement in attacks on several victims, including a sexual assault on a nine-year-old boy.

Police noted that the victim’s father went to his rabbi and asked whether or not he should notify authorities of the alleged abuse. The rabbi told the man to go to police immediately, and he filed the complaint on Tuesday.

The child told police that he was on his way back home from school when he asked a young man to help him cross the street. The boy said the man then asked him to come with him to a nearby building, underneath a synagogue, where he sexually assaulted him.

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CANADA
The News Watch

By Jamie Smith, tbnewswatch.com

Stan Beardy says Canada’s historical treatment of First Nations people was genocide.

The Ontario Regional Chief for the Assembly of First Nations agrees with a recent op-ed in the Globe and Mail by Phil Fontaine and Bernie Farber that states residential schools and the Sixties scoop are evidence that meets the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide’s definition.

“It definitely meets the criteria. What happened to First Nation people is in fact genocide,” Beardy said. “What happened to First Nation people is not just an Indian problem, it’s our collective history and a dark history of Canada and I think it’s important that we deal with it as what it is.”

No one knows how many children died as the result of Canada’s residential schools, which was enforced and maintained through a national policy. With the Sixties Scoop, children were taken from their families at birth. Beardy said the government sometimes went as far as issuing death certificates so that those families couldn’t trace their children after being given up for adoption.

“There again we lost many of our children,” he said.”When you talk about loss of life, it it’s forced upon you it can constitute genocide.”

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NEW JERSEY
Asbury Park Press

Written by
Kathleen Hopkins
@Khopkinsapp

TOMS RIVER — After watching his former camp counselor try to avoid responsibility for molesting him during a nine-hour hearing on Thursday, a 16-year-old boy faced his abuser in court as a judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison.

Superior Court Judge Francis R. Hodgson imposed the prison term shortly before 11:30 p.m. on Yosef Kolko, 38, a former counselor at an Orthodox Jewish camp in Lakewood.

Before the sentence was handed down, the victim, who was 11 and 12 years old when he was molested by Kolko in 2008 and 2009, confronted his former camp counselor.

“Molesting may seem harmless to you, but the reality is, it kills people,” the victim said. “How can you ignore the tears and open wounds when you know how much you hurt me? You ganged up on me and hurt me again.”

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NEW JERSEY
The Jewish Press

Published: October 18th, 2013

Yosef Kolko, 39, was sentenced late Thursday in Toms River, N.J. to close to 13 years, after the judge refused to let him take back a guilty plea to aggravated sexual assault which he had made in May, the AP reports.

Kolko’s victim, a 16-year-old boy who was 12 at the time the crime was committed, told the court about the hostile treatment he and his family had received from the Orthodox community where they live. Nevertheless, he urged other young people in a similar situation to his to come forward and speak out.

“I strongly urge you to go to the authorities and share your story. I can’t say it will be easy,” but “victims are getting stronger every day,” he said.

Prosecutors told the AP that the boy’s family was ostracized by the local Orthodox community for turning Kolko in and for pursuing the case in state court instead of letting religious leaders deal with it. The boy’s father, a prominent rabbi, lost his job and the family was forced to move to Michigan.

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NEW JERSEY
Boston.com

By WAYNE PARRY / Associated Press / October 17, 2013

TOMS RIVER, N.J. (AP) — A former New Jersey yeshiva teacher who claimed he was pressured by his Orthodox Jewish community into admitting to sexually assaulting a boy was sentenced Thursday night to nearly 13 years in prison after a judge refused to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea.

Yosef Kolko, 39, had said in court papers that members of the Lakewood community carried out an unrelenting campaign to get him to plead guilty and to spare the community negative publicity. He claims they showed him YouTube videos ‘‘of how inmates kill people in jail for being molesters in order to pressure me into taking a plea and avoiding trial.’’

‘‘If not for the extreme pressure by members of my community, I would not have pled guilty as charged,’’ he said. ‘‘I reject plea bargains offered by the state because I am innocent of the crimes alleged.’’

But Superior Court Judge Francis Hodgson Jr. said Kolko ‘‘set out before he even pleaded guilty to game the system,’’ seeing an opportunity ‘‘to get a do-over’’ of a trial that was not going well for him.’’

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NEW JERSEY
Failed Messiah

Kolko sexually abused an boy beginning in 2008 and continuing into 2009. He wanted to withdraw his guilty plea because, he claimed, Lakewood haredi rabbis and haredi community activists had coerced him to plead guilty to save the community further embarrassment and scrutiny. But testimony today showed that Kolko pleaded guilty in the middle of his trial after finding out more victims had come forward and his attorney told him that he was within minutes of being convicted.

Originally published at 8:37 pm CDT 10-17-2013. Last update at 11:15 pm CDT 10-17-2013.

ABC News reports:

…The judge sentenced Kolko to 12 years and nine months in prison after a hearing that lasted hours and included testimony from the victim, now 16.

When he pleaded guilty, Kolko admitted performing oral sex on the boy and attempting to have anal intercourse with him.

In court, the boy addressed Kolko directly: “How can you ignore the tears and open wounds when you knew how much you hurt me?”

Kolko declined to speak.…

Kolko is a nephew of the notorious haredi child molester Rabbi Yehuda Kolko.

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NEW JERSEY
ABC News

By WAYNE PARRY Associated Press

A New Jersey boy whose family was shunned by their Orthodox Jewish community after he went to authorities to report being sexually abused by a teacher urged other victims of sex abuse to speak out and get help from prosecutors.

Testimony from the 16-year-old boy, who was 12 when the abuse occurred, helped put his abuser in prison. Yosef Kolko, 39, was sentenced late Thursday to nearly 13 years after a judge refused to let him take back a guilty plea to aggravated sexual assault he had made in May.

The Associated Press generally does not identify the victims of sexual abuse. Speaking just before Kolko was sentenced, the boy urged others who are being sexually abused to come forward and speak out.

“I strongly urge you to go to the authorities and share your story,” he said. “I can’t say it will be easy.”

But, he added, “Victims are getting stronger every day.”

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NORTHBORO (MA)
GoLocalWorcester

Friday, October 18, 2013
Paige Pihl Buckley, GoLocalWorcester Contributor

St. Bernadette Parish priest Reverend Stephen A. Gemme resigned his post amidst allegations that he embezzled $230,000 from the parish in the last four years.

In a letter published on St. Bernadette’s website, Bishop Robert J. McManus of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Worcester said Father Gemme had admitted to a gambling problem when confronted about the missing funds. He has been placed on medical leave and is being evaluated and treated at a residential addiction facility.

The casino effect

“This happens everywhere that convenience casinos are established,” said John Ribeiro, chairperson of Repeal the Casino Deal, a statewide organization fighting to include a casino repeal option on November 2014’s statewide ballot.

“The casino industry leverages some of the most sophisticated technology to understand and target people based on their financial status. The casinos this priest frequented likely knew that he was spending beyond his means,” he said. “There is no recourse for the parish to recover those funds from the casino. Any other business that had received stolen money would have to return it. The casinos enjoy a protected status above other businesses.”

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WORCESTER (MA)
Boston Herald

Friday, October 18, 2013
By: Associated Press

WORCESTER, Mass. — A Holden woman who said she was sexually abused by the pastor of a Greek Orthodox church in Worcester has filed a lawsuit against the priest and several other church officials.

The Holden woman’s suit filed in Worcester Superior Court seeking a minimum of $40,000 in damages from the ex-pastor of St. George Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral, the Rev. Charles Abdelahad, as well as some of his superiors.

The Telegram & Gazette (http://bit.ly/1cBeThU ) reports that the suit said that the defendants should have known about the abuse and should have reported it to authorities.

Abdelahad was sentenced to serve 90 days of a two-year jail term after being convicted in May 2012 of abusing the woman during counseling sessions at the church.

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ILLINOIS
WPSD

Web Editor – Mason Stevenson
Story Created: Thu Oct 17, 2013

He was ordered to register as a sex offender and submit a DNA sample. Now, a court will decide whether to commit a former southern Illinois pastor accused of sexually abusing a child.

Police charged Bill Vandergraph in July 2010 with criminal sexual abuse of a 4-year-old girl.

The court found there was enough evidence to convict, but ruled Vandergraph’s dementia kept him from assisting in his defense.

A judge will decide in December if Vandergraph should be committed to the Department of Hhuman Services for treatment.

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MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times

Written by
Vicki Ikeogu
Times Writers Group

From an early age we are taught the merits of being responsible. We are taught the difference between right and wrong, and the means and importance of being accountable for those actions. These lifelong lessons come from our parents, our teachers, our mentors and even our religious affiliations.

That’s why I’m so frustrated with the latest scandal involving another Catholic priest. Based on news reports this week, it seems the Catholic Church in general, and a specific dioceses in particular, are not practicing what they preach.

According to Twin Cities news reports, a Twin Cities woman, now in her late 20s, claims she was sexually abused by the Rev. Michael Jerome Keating, who was serving as an associate professor of Catholic studies at the University of St. Thomas. A lawsuit filed Monday stated the woman, who has not released her identity, was exposed to abuse as early as age 13.

A criminal complaint was filed in Ramsey County about the suspected abuse in 2006. However, there was not enough evidence to formally charge Keating. An internal investigation conducted by the archdiocese also concluded evidence was insufficient. With the revelation of the lawsuit, Keating voluntarily stepped down from his position.

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MINNESOTA
KAAL

[the emails]

By: Stephen Tellier

The storm swirling around the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis continues to gather strength.

There were two big developments on Thursday. Affectionate emails surfaced that a young girl said she got from an older man studying to be a priest. She’s now suing him for sexual abuse. Also, police went public in their search for any potential victims of abuse by clergy.

The St. Paul Police Department’s plea to come forward was not prompted by the emails. They’re working an unrelated case. But both do involve priests, and some fear there may soon be more disturbing cases of misconduct to investigate.

Just days ago, Rev. Michael Keating was hit with a lawsuit, accused of sexually abusing a teenage girl more than a decade ago. On Thursday, the attorney who filed that lawsuit released more than 50 pages of emails he said were all sent from Keating to his client.

“The emails reflect the perverse kind of nature of the romantic relationship this adult, then a priest seminarian, had with her as a child,” said Jeff Anderson, the attorney who filed the lawsuit.

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MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times

Written by
Karen Cyson
Times Writers Group

Earlier this week I took a quiz on Facebook: enter your age, education level, and on a long list of words, if you truly know the meaning of the word, check the box. Hit submit and an algorithm somewhere calculates how many words are in your vocabulary.

I was surprised that mine came in at 39,000, as in my daily routine I probably use fewer than 200: “Keep your hands to yourself.” “Yes, you do need a nap.” “Let’s go inside and wash our hands and have a snack.”

However, as I follow the local, national and international news on the sexual and financial scandals within the Roman Catholic Church, I notice there’s been a little vocabulary expansion in their excuses.

This week officials of the St. Paul/Minneapolis Archdiocese called a woman “imprudent and unsophisticated” for being a whistle-blower to law enforcement agencies after diocese officials failed to report a priest for possession of child pornography (online photos of adults and children having sex with children). The church’s moves — taking no action against the priest, hiding and possibly destroying the evidence — are apparently prudent and sophisticated.

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MINNESOTA
Daily Mail (UK)

By HELEN POW

A Minneapolis priest sent at least 19 ‘seductive’ emails confessing his love to a teenage girl who he was allegedly sexually abusing for a period of three years a decade-and-a-half ago.

The victim, who was 13 when the alleged abuse started and is in her late 20s now, filed a lawsuit against Reverend Michael Jerome Keating Monday claiming ‘dealing with what he did to me is an hourly battle.’

She alleges he fondled her breasts, made her lie on top of him while he was aroused, woke her in the middle of the night to ask for a back rub and french kissed her.

In the deeply personal emails, made public today by the girl’s lawyer, Keating expressed love and affection for the girl, regularly signing off ‘love you lots and lots’ and warning her that she will be popular with the boys because she was ‘pretty and charming.’

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

JOSEPH A. SLOBODZIAN, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
LAST UPDATED: Friday, October 18, 2013

PHILADELPHIA Two Philadelphia grand juries have described the Rev. Robert L. Brennan as a serial sexual predator who molested more than a score of boys over 15 years as he was transferred from one Catholic parish to another.

But until last month, after a 26-year-old former Northeast Philadelphia altar boy agreed to press charges, all the allegations against the 75-year-old Brennan were too old to prosecute.

Now, the complaining witness has died of an accidental drug overdose, putting the first criminal case against Brennan in jeopardy.

Lawyer Marci A. Hamilton, who said she represents the man’s family, confirmed that the man died Sunday, adding that the family had requested privacy. …

Sources said the family was “devastated” and that the young man had long struggled with drug problems.

That is not unusual for victims of sexual abuse, said David Clohessy, director of the St. Louis-based SNAP (Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests).

“I would go so far as to say, 90 percent of the victims we have helped over the decades have responded to trauma through some sort of self-destructive behavior. . . . Something, anything, to try to numb the pain,” Clohessy said.

Clohessy said SNAP staffers tell all who call to seek professional help “no matter how long ago the abuse happened, who the person was, or how well you think you are coping.”

Clohessy praised the man for contacting authorities and said, “It is now more important than ever for people who have knowledge or suspicions about Brennan’s crimes to take a deep breath, pick up the phone, and call the police.”

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UNITED STATES
World Magazine

Posted Oct. 18, 2013
by Jamie Dean

SEXUAL ABUSE | When pastors, churches, and other caregivers fail to report sexual abuse, they may aid and abet crime–and it some states are subject to prosecution themselves–along with subjecting abuse victims to lifelong trauma

BRADENTON, Fla.—From the floor-to-ceiling windows on the sixth floor of the Manatee County Courthouse, a sweeping view extends across the Manatee River as it spills into Tampa Bay. The skies darkened as heavy rains poured down here in Bradenton, Fla., on a September day. In courtroom 6-A, another storm brewed: Jeremy Bicha, 29, seated behind a wide defense table, heard testimony from two women he’d already admitted to sexually abusing when they were young girls.

The women gave shocking details about the abuse. When the district attorney asked the women to describe their relationship to the defendant, each gave equally shocking answers: “He is my brother.”

The tragedy of sexual abuse in a family once involved in local churches and stationed on a foreign mission field only deepens: Adults also connected to their community knew about the abuse while the girls were minors but didn’t report it to authorities. Those adults include a Christian schoolteacher, a longtime pastor—and the parents of Bicha and his sisters.

As adults, two of Bicha’s sisters he abused reported the abuse to police in 2010. Bicha pleaded no contest to charges of sexual battery. When Circuit Court Judge Thomas Krug sentenced him on Sept. 27 for crimes committed as a youth, he also castigated the adults who failed to report those crimes: “Frankly, they deserve to be in prison.”

Krug’s statement carries legal weight. Florida state law mandates any adult who suspects or knows about a case of child sexual abuse to report it to authorities. Failure to report carries a maximum penalty of $5,000 or five years in prison.

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NORTH CAROLINA
WSOC

[with video]

CONCORD, N.C. — Channel 9 obtained a court complaint against former Concord Pastor Robert Price in the suspected sexual abuse between him and a boy at his church.

He was arrested Monday at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport after a two-year mission trip in Nicaragua.

The alleged victim joined Price’s Kings Way Church when he was almost 12 years old, according to court records. The pastor immediately formed a relationship as the two worked out together.

After workouts, Price would massage the alleged victim and that escalated to sexual abuse that continued for three years, according to the complaint.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

By Riley Yates, Of The Morning Call
7:56 p.m. EDT, October 17, 2013

A South Korean teenager who was repeatedly sexually assaulted in a Pen Argyl dormitory for Pius X High School exchange students is suing the Diocese of Allentown, saying she told a priest about the abuse during confession, but it wasn’t reported.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in Northampton County Court, comes more than a year after ACE Academy’s Richard Kim received five to 10 years in state prison for repeatedly abusing the then 14-year-old girl.

The suit charges the Catholic diocese and Pius X with failing to adequately protect the teen while she resided at ACE, which was run by Kim’s family and housed and mentored Korean students attending the high school.

During the time she was being sexually assaulted, the girl was attending confession at Pius X, and on four occasions disclosed the abuse to a priest, asking for advice on whom to tell and how to stop it, according to the suit.

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WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette

By Bronislaus B. Kush, TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
bkush@telegram.com

WORCESTER — A Holden woman who charged in 2012 that she was sexually abused over a three-year period by the former pastor of St. George Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral has sued the clergyman, who was convicted, and several Antiochian church organizations.

Susan Manter recently filed a civil suit in Worcester Superior Court seeking a minimum of $40,000 in damages against the pastor, the Rev. Charles M. Abdelahad; the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America; the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Diocese of New England; the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Diocese of Worcester, and St. George’s.

Several individuals in leadership or staff positions at the cathedral or within the church network were also named as defendants in the suit.

They are: Fawaz Elk Khoury, Maureen Butler, Jeff Solof, Philip Saliba, John Abdalah, Robert Laham, Steve Husson, Mary Ann Kourey, Victor Kourey, Diane Kourey, Ed Hughes, Brian Hurley and Gregory Abdalah.

Bishop Saliba is the archbishop of the Diocese of New York and the Antiochian metropolitan of North America. Bishop Abdalah is the auxiliary bishop of Worcester.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

SOLOMON LEACH, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
LEACHS@PHILLYNEWS.COM, 215-854-5903
POSTED: Friday, October 18, 2013

THE CASE against a former Philadelphia priest accused of sexually abusing an altar boy at a Northeast Philadelphia parish is now uncertain after the alleged victim died over the weekend.

Rev. Robert L. Brennan, 75, was arrested last month and charged with rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, and aggravated sexual assault, for abuse that allegedly took place at Resurrection of Our Lord Parish between 1998 and 2001, starting when the boy was 11 years old.

District Attorney Seth Williams announced the victim’s death in a statement yesterday.

“The decadeslong demons and scars the victim in this case endured ended this weekend when he was found dead by Philadelphia Police Detectives,” Williams said. “I cannot say enough about the bravery this young man displayed in coming forward to bring these crimes to light. This young man’s courage should serve as an inspiration to us all.”

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

by Madeleine Baran, Minnesota Public Radio,
Tom Scheck, Minnesota Public Radio
October 18, 2013

ST. PAUL, Minn. — A parishioner in Mahtomedi, Minn., warned a top deputy at the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in 2004 that a priest’s computer may have included inappropriate correspondence with a minor.

In a letter to then-vicar general Kevin McDonough, parishioner Kate Ternus described her concerns about the contents of the Rev. Jonathan Shelley’s computer. Her family received Shelley’s used computer in 2004, and the archdiocese later determined it contained “borderline illegal” pornography.

The letter dated Sept. 17, 2004 mentions a local Catholic high school and could indicate for the first time that Shelley’s behavior may have gone beyond pornography. It includes the first name of the person with whom Shelley corresponded and raised concerns that that person might be Shelley’s “boyfriend.”

“What if [the individual] is a freshman soccer player? What if he’s a recent graduate of St. Jude School?” Ternus wrote in the letter. “What if this actually is more than a matter of questionable taste? It feels like peeling an onion as layer after layer comes away.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Express-Times

By Tom Shortell | The Express-Times
on October 17, 2013 at 6:28 PM

A South Korean student who was sexually abused at a Pen Argyl academy is suing Pius X High School and the Diocese of Allentown.

In a lawsuit filed today in Northampton County, the student said she alerted a priest at Pius X of the sexual abuse four times during confession. The priest never alerted authorities, according to the lawsuit.

Matt Kerr, a spokesman for the diocese, declined comment. The diocese does not publicly comment on ongoing litigation, he said.

The student was one of dozens who lived at Ace Academy USA in order to attend class at Pius X. Getting into a South Korean college or university is extremely competitive, so the students attended American schools to better their chances of getting into an American college, ACE Academy Director Richard Kim said in 2007.

Three years later, Kim began sexually assaulting the 14-year-old girl left in his care, according to police. The abuse lasted from November 2010 to February 2011 before police were notified, the lawsuit stated.

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CANADA
Chatham Daily News

By Neil Bowen, Sarnia Observer
Thursday, October 17, 2013

Three women testifying at the Sarnia Superior Court trial of a former priest on sexual charges said they routinely spent time alone with the charismatic priest.

Gabriele DelBianco, 57, is on trial for 16 sexual offences involving four women during the 1980s in southwestern Ontario. He has pleaded not guilty.

During the trial’s first day a woman in her 40s said DelBianco had made her feel special as a teenager and they had a sexual encounter.

On Thursday, two women in their 40s testified DelBianco told them they were mature for their years and sought to kiss them. One said DelBianco told her the Virgin Mary was 13 when she gave birth to Jesus.

For one, the kisses turned to fondling her in a parked car but the other woman testified she would move away when DelBianco tried to kiss her.

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ST. PAUL (MN)
CBS Minnesota

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — St. Paul police are not saying how many priests they might be looking at, but as they made a highly unusual appeal for victims of abuse to come forward, Commander Mary Nash said their could be one victim, and there could also be 100 victims.

St. Paul police are asking anyone who has been molested by a priest in the city of St. Paul to please contact them.

“I would like to say to those victims, whether you have come forward with your abuse, or whether you are working to cross that threshold of disclosure, you are stronger than you know,” she said.

She repeatedly declined to comment on what has sparked the obvious broadening of the investigation.

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ST. PAUL (MN)
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 10/17/2013

A St. Paul police commander appealed Thursday to victims of sexual abuse by priests, urging them to come forward and “share your story.”

Commander Mary A. Nash of the family and sexual violence unit told reporters at a news conference that the investigation into “the priest conduct case” continues.

That appeared to be a reference to the case involving Rev. Jonathan Shelley, formerly of St. John the Baptist Church of Hugo. Police reopened an investigation Oct. 4 into whether Shelley had child pornography on a desktop computer he owned in 2004. He has denied that allegation.

“Based on this investigation and previous investigations, the St. Paul police department is seeking victims of sexual abuse perpetrated by members of the Catholic Church,” Nash said.

“We believe this abuse has not yet been reported to law enforcement,” she said. “We could have one victim — which is one too many; we could have 100. We don’t know.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MINNESOTA
Daily Mail (UK)

By HELEN POW

A Minneapolis priest is being sued for allegedly fondling the breasts of a teenage girl and forcing her to lay on top of him while he was aroused during three years of abuse that occured a decade and a half ago.

The victim, who was 13 when the alleged abuse started and is in her late 20s now, filed a lawsuit against Reverend Michael Jerome Keating Monday claiming ‘dealing with what he did to me is an hourly battle.’

She alleges he fondled her breasts, made her lie on top of him while he was aroused, woke her in the middle of the night to ask for a back rub and french kissed her.

Keating, then-44 and 30 years the girl’s senior, was attending St Paul Seminary at the time, studying to be a priest. He is now an associate professor in Catholic studies at the University of St. Thomas.
According to her suit, Keating ‘engaged in multiple instances of unpermitted, harmful and offensive sexual contact with the girl from 1997 to 2000.

She said Keating repeatedly told her he loved her and she believed she loved him.

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CALIFORNIA
U.S. Catholic

By Scott Alessi

The Catholic Church in California breathed a sigh of relief last weekend when Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a bill that would have extended the statute of limitations on lawsuits in sexual abuse cases and opened up a one-year window for any and all past abuse victims to file suit against private institutions. The bill, SB 131, was strongly opposed by church officials, who of course realized it could have meant big financial losses for the church. But their jubilation over its demise seems rather unnecessary–if not downright offensive to the many past victims of sexual abuse on the church’s watch.

On the surface, Gov. Brown has sound reasons for his veto: The bill applied only to private entities and exempted public institutions from facing lawsuits. Brown argued, as did Catholic leaders, that this was unfair discrimination of victims in that it gave preference to those who suffered abuse from private institutions like the Catholic Church and left no recourse for victims who were abused in institutions like public schools. That makes sense–all victims should have been given an equal opportunity for justice, regardless of where their abuse took place.

Where Brown loses me is his comment that, “There comes a time when an individual or organization should be secure in the reasonable expectation that past acts are indeed in the past and not subject to further lawsuits.” Though I can’t personally speak of the horrors of enduring sexual abuse as a child, I can only imagine that for many victims, those “past acts” still have a profound influence on the present, no matter how long ago they may have happened.

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ST. PAUL (MN)
Minnesota Public Radio

by Madeleine Baran, Minnesota Public Radio,
Tom Scheck, Minnesota Public Radio
October 17, 2013

ST. PAUL, Minn. — St. Paul police are putting out a general call to the public asking for any victims of clergy sexual abuse to contact investigators.

The call was prompted by an ongoing criminal investigation, said Police Commander Mary Nash of the department’s family and sexual violence unit. She declined to provide any details.

The announcement comes as St. Paul police investigate Father Jon Shelley and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Nash said victims can come forward and have their identities kept confidential. She also offered a message directly to victims: “You rise each day with courage to survive knowing your faith has been tested beyond all belief.”

She declined to say whether any new victims have come forward so far but said she believes there are victims who have not reported the abuse.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

ST. PAUL (MN)
KAAL

By: Leslie Dyste

St. Paul Police are appealing to the public as their investigation into the conduct of a local priest continues.

Police announced Thursday that based on their current and previous investigations, they’re asking anyone who may have been a victim of sexual abuse perpetrated by members of the Catholic Church to come forward and report what happened.

Investigators would not comment on what sparked their plea to the public. But earlier this month the department reopened an investigation into allegations that a priest once had child porn on his computer.

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ST. PAUL (MN)
KARE

ST. PAUL, Minn. – St. Paul police are asking any victims of sexual abuse by priests to come forward and share their stories with law enforcement.

Police Cmdr. Mary Nash made an open plea to victims Thursday. “We want to hear from you. We want to hear your story,” said Nash.

She asked any victims to call St. Paul Police at 651-291-1111 and promised their identities would be kept confidential.

Nash said investigators are continuing to look into allegations of sexual misconduct by a priest in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

[the emails – Jeff Anderson & Associates]
[video transcript]
[Jane Doe 20 statement]

For immediate release: Thursday, Oct. 17, 2013

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314 862 7688 home, 314 503 0003 cell, SNAPdorris@gmail.com )

It’s sickening to read multiple seductive and manipulative emails from a then 44-year-old priest to a then 15-year-old girl.

[Star Tribune]

Here’s the real question raised by these disturbing emails: What’s wrong with the six or seven Catholics on Archbishop John Nienstedt’s anonymous abuse board? They claimed the abuse allegations against Fr. Keating were “unsubstantiated” even after reading these emails and peppering this brave girl with repeated questions?

These adults, presumably some of them parents, apparently find little wrong with an allegedly celibate “man of God” repeatedly writing sexually suggestive comments to a teenager.

These adults, presumably some of them parents, apparently are somehow unmoved by the very credible abuse report – in person and via video – of a brave, wounded girl and her family.

Nienstedt has obviously done a great job of packing his panel with die-hard church loyalists who will ignore a victim’s compelling evidence and testimony and side with an accused priest no matter what.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: NICOLE NORFLEET , Star Tribune Updated: October 17, 2013

St. Paul police are asking for possible victims of clergy abuse to come forward and share their stories.

St. Paul police on Thursday asked any victims of clergy abuse to come forward while it continues to pursue its investigation into whether a Catholic priest downloaded child pornography.

Last week, the department announced that it had reopened the 2004 case in light of new information including an additional copy of the images that the Hugo parishioner who originally discovered the porn on the priest’s computer turned in as well as leaked internal church documents that described the images as “borderline illegal’’ and indicated that church officials were concerned about possible prosecution.

The renewed investigation follows allegations by former canonical chancellor, Jennifer Haselberger, who resigned in April, that the church hierarchy failed to report child endangerment and child pornography to law enforcement.

As of Wednesday, police hadn’t arrested anyone or forwarded the case to the county attorney’s office for possible charges.

The case had been idle since police reviewed three discs containing images from the priest’s hard drive and found no child porn. But the investigating officer noted in a report that the priest’s computer had been destroyed long before so that it couldn’t be certain that the discs reviewed by police contained the same content that was originally reviewed by a forensics expert hired by the archdiocese.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: DAVID CHANEN , Star Tribune Updated: October 17, 2013

Lawyer for priest accused of sexual contact with a young teen calls allegations false and “thoroughly discredited.”

A lawyer for the Rev. Michael Keating spoke publicly for the first time Thursday about allegations that he had sexual contact with a young teenage girl when he was studying for the priesthood.

In a statement released to the Star Tribune, Keating’s attorney Fred Bruno said, “The allegations in this lawsuit are false and highly defamatory. The plaintiff’s attorney is merely recycling claims that were thoroughly discredited over six years ago after being originally lofted. The plaintiff’s accusations at that time were independently investigated by multiple government agencies, professionals, and organizations, including the Chisago County Sheriff, the Chisago County Attorney, the Archdiocese, and two independent forensic psychologists.

“These comprehensive efforts concluded that the allegations were unsubstantiated. Additionally, Father Keating passed a polygraph administered by Minnesota’s most experienced and highly regarded law enforcement polygrapher.

“Father Keating has been deeply pained by these untrue accusations. The unfortunate grandstanding and publicity generated by the recent announcement of this lawsuit add nothing to the credibility of the claims. Such self-serving tactics do not promote genuine justice, and are needlessly hurtful to an esteemed member of the Catholic community and to the Church as a whole. It is hoped that the remainder of the legal process in this case will proceed in the orderly and civil manner observed by the Minnesota courts.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Beaumont Enterprise

By MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press
Updated 3:12 pm, Thursday, October 17, 2013

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A 26-year-old accuser in the latest Philadelphia priest-abuse case has died of what his lawyer calls a suspected drug overdose.

The man’s death Sunday came days before Thursday’s scheduled preliminary hearing for the Rev. Robert Brennan of Perryville, Md.

Prosecutors must now decide whether the rape case can go forward. Brennan is free on bail.

The 75-year-old Brennan had been named in numerous complaints described in a 2005 grand jury report, but they were too old to bring to court.

The new accuser, a college graduate, came forward this year under new time limits.

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MINNESOTA
San Antonio Express-News

OCTOBER 17, 2013

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — St. Paul police are asking any victims of sexual abuse by priests to come forward and share their stories with law enforcement.

Police Cmdr. Mary Nash made an open plea to victims Thursday, saying, “We want to hear from you. We want to hear your story.”

Nash says investigators are continuing to look into allegations of sexual misconduct by a priest in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

She declined to elaborate on the investigation, saying it is ongoing.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

By John R. Ellement and Lisa Wangsness | GLOBE STAFF OCTOBER 17, 2013

Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley hosted some 60 state lawmakers at a breakfast meeting this morning that was meant to help rebuild his church’s rapport with the Legislature.

The meeting, which was held at the private Union Club on Beacon Hill and closed to the press, was the first in which the cardinal has met with a large group of legislators since he became the Roman Catholic archbishop of Boston in 2003.

O’Malley and his staff offered a broad overview of the archdiocese and its work, according to those who attended, highlighting the church’s youth programs, assistance to immigrants, parochial schools, and care for the poor in 144 cities and towns in Eastern Massachusetts.

Hotbutton social issues such as contraception, abortion, and gay marriage did not come up, according to several legislators who attended, nor did pending legislation on extending the statute of

“There was no ask in this” meeting, said Rep. Byron Rushing, a Democrat who represents the South End. “My takeaway is they are going to try to get back to being as active as they used to be.”

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UNITED STATES
TheMediaReport

Convicted bank robber Shamont Sapp has admitted in U.S. federal court that he falsely accused four different priests of sexually abusing him back in the 1970s.

Even though his crimes carry up to 25 years in prison, Sapp has negotiated a plea deal with prosecutors, and he will likely serve only 41 months, according to The Oregonian, one of only three media outlets to report this story.

Quite a character

We originally reported on the case of Sapp back in early February. While serving time in prison for ten bank robberies, Sapp not only drummed up four bogus abuse claims against Catholic priests, but he also filed a bizarre lawsuit alleging that Hollywood stars Jamie Foxx and Tyler Perry had stolen his idea for the lowbrow comedy film project Skank Robbers. (Thankfully, the movie never actually made it into production.)

Yet with regards to his attempted scam against the Catholic Church, Sapp found three of his targets by scouring old newspapers in search of priests who had already been publicly accused of abuse. He then filed lawsuits claiming that he too had been abused by those same priests.

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OHIO
The Columbus Dispatch

By Mary Beth Lane
The Columbus Dispatch Tuesday October 15, 2013

LANCASTER, Ohio — A Fisher Catholic High School choir teacher has been placed on paid leave while Lancaster police investigate a report that she sent nude photos of herself to a student’s cellphone, an act commonly known as “sexting.”

Principal Sean Kenney, who reported the allegation to police on Sunday, confirmed yesterday that he had placed a teacher on leave.

According to a police report, the 17-year-old student identified the teacher as Kathleen Thomas, 26. Kenney declined to confirm the teacher’s identity but said she had been at the high school for five years.

The student said he sent a couple of photos of his genitals to Thomas at her request, after she sent nude photos of herself to his cellphone. She sent more nude photos of herself after he sent his photos to her, the report said.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release Thursday, October 17, 2013

Statement by Karen Polesir of Philadelphia SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 267-992-9463, karenpolesir@yahoo.com )

Our hearts ache for this family.

This brave man courageously exposed a child molesting cleric and protected others. He fought hard to get his day in court. Now that day will never come. We are deeply grateful for his bravery and deeply saddened for his friends and family

Now more than ever, it’s crucial that every victim, witness and whistleblower come forward and work with law enforcement. Children are safe when predators are behind bars.

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IRELAND
Build

Three former teachers of a missionary order boarding school have been charged with the indecent assault of a number of pupils over a 20 year period.

The charges come at the end of a two year investigation carried out by gardaí, following allegations of abuse at Coláiste Chroí Naofa in Carrignavar, Co Cork from the late 1960s on.

80-year-old Donnacha MacCarthaigh, 69-year-old Tadhg Ó Dalaigh and 66-year-old Liam O’Brien were member of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart and teachers at the school when it run as a boarding school.

Former principal Donnacha MacCarthaigh,with an address c/o Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, Western Road, Cork, was charged with a total of 42 counts of indecent assault on 14 boys at Coláiste Chroí Naofa in Carrignavar on various dates between 1969 and 1989.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Three former teachers at a Cork boarding school have appeared in court charged with indecently assaulting a number of pupils at the school over a 20-year period.

The three men were all members of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart at the time of the alleged abuse.

These charges come after a two year long investigation by gardaí into allegations of abuse at Colaiste Chroi Naofa in Carrignavar, Co. Cork

80-year-old Donnacha MacCarthaigh with an address care of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, Western Road, Cork was charged with a total of 42 counts of indecent assault on 14 boys at Colaiste Chroi Naofa in Carrignavar on various dates between 1969 and 1989.

69-year-old Tadhg O’Dalaigh, with an address at Woodview, Mount Merrion Avenue, Blackrock, Dublin was charged with two counts of indecent assault on two boys at the school on various dates between 1979 and 1985.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Barry Roche

Thu, Oct 17, 2013

Three former teachers at a boarding school run by a missionary order in Co Cork have appeared in court charged with indecently assaulting a number of pupils at the school over a 20-year period from the late 1960s.

The three men, who were all members of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart at the time of the alleged abuse, were charged yesterday following a two-year investigation by gardaí into allegations of abuse at Coláiste Chroí Naofa in Carrignavar, Co Cork, when it operated as a boarding school.

The three, Donnacha MacCarthaigh (80), Tadhg Ó Dalaigh (69) and Liam O’Brien (66), were each charged separately when they appeared yesterday morning at Cork District Court before Judge Conal Gibbons.

Mr MacCarthaigh, a former principal at the school, now with an address c/o Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, Western Road, Cork, was charged with a total of 42 counts of indecent assault on 14 boys at Coláiste Chroí Naofa in Carrignavar on various dates between 1969 and 1989.

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IRELAND
RTE News

Three priests have been before Cork District Court charged with indecently assaulting boys at a school where they were teaching.

All three were arrested following a two-year garda investigation into allegations of abuse spanning three decades.

The Sacred Heart College in Carrignavar became the focus of a major investigation by gardaí in 2011 following allegations of abuse by former pupils.

The Catholic secondary school, which is 12km north of Cork city, was a boarding school for boys from the 1960s to 1990s.

Donnacha Mac Cárthaigh, 80, of The Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, Western Road, Cork, is facing 42 charges of indecently assaulting 14 boys on dates over 20 years between 1969 and 1989.
When charged he said: “I am totally innocent of those charges.”

Tadhg Ó Dalaigh, of Woodview House, Mount Merrion Avenue, Blackrock, Co Dublin, was charged with ten counts of indecently assaulting two boys on dates between 1979 and 1985.

He made no reply to the charges.

Liam O’Brien, 66, also of Mount Merrion Avenue in Dublin, was charged with a single count of indecent assault.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

Updated: Thursday, October 17 2013
By: WJAC Web Staff

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — Another person has come forward claiming he was sexually abused by the late Franciscan friar Brother Stephen Baker. Thursday’s Tribune-Democrat reports that a Johnstown attorney has filed a notice of intent to sue on behalf a person he calls John Doe No. 1.

The Altoona-Johnstown Diocese and Bishop McCort High School – where Baker was once an athletic trainer — are named in the filing, but Baker is not mentioned.

The filing comes as the diocese has been working to negotiate settlements with other alleged victims of Baker. Baker committed suicide in January at St. Bernadine Monastery in Blair County. He is the subject of child abuse investigations in Ohio, Minnesota and Pennsylvania.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
6 ABC

PHILADELPHIA – October 17, 2013 (WPVI) — The Philadelphia District Attorney has announced that the alleged victim of Rev. Robert Brennan, whose allegations of abuse led to criminal charges, was found dead over the weekend.

The victim was not identified in the statement from District Attorney Seth Williams on Thursday afternoon.

Williams said the victim died ‘unexpectedly.”

The statement read:

“It is with great sadness that I have to announce that the victim in the rape and assault case against Robert Brennan passed away unexpectedly,” Williams said.

“The decades long demons and scars the victim in this case endured ended this weekend when he was found dead by Philadelphia Police Detectives,” Williams continued.

“I cannot say enough about the bravery this young man displayed in coming forward to bring these crimes to light. This young man’s courage should serve as an inspiration to us all.”

Williams went on to say that his office is reviewing this case and will have a decision on ‘the status of this prosecution’ next week.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
My Fox Philly

Posted: Oct 17, 2013

The victim of an alleged priest sex abuse case has died, according to a new statement released by the District Attorney’s Office.

“It is with great sadness that I have to announce that the victim in the rape and assault case against Robert Brennan passed away unexpectedly,” stated District Attorney Seth Williams.

“The decades long demons and scars the victim in this case endured ended this weekend when he was found dead by Philadelphia Police Detectives. I can not say enough about the bravery this young man displayed in coming forward to bring these crimes to light. This young man’s courage should serve as an inspiration to us all.”

The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office is currently reviewing the case, and will likely have a decision on the status of this prosecution sometime next week.

Brennan is accused of abusing more than twenty children.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – District Attorney Seth Williams announced that the victim in the rape and assault case against Robert Brennan has died. (See Related Story)

“It is with great sadness that I have to announce that the victim in the rape and assault case against Robert Brennan passed away unexpectedly.”

Williams said, “The decades long demons and scars the victim in this case endured ended this weekend when he was found dead by Philadelphia Police Detectives. I cannot say enough about the bravery this young man displayed in coming forward to bring these crimes to light. This young man’s courage should serve as an inspiration to us all.”

Robert Brennan is accused of sexually assaulting an altar boy over a period of four years.

Robert Brennan, 75, is currently facing charges of rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and aggravated indecent assault.

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PHILADLEPHIA (PA)
NBC 10

By Kelly Bayliss, Dan Stamm and David Chang | Thursday, Oct 17, 2013

The victim in the sexual assault case against a Philadelphia Catholic priest is dead, according to District Attorney Seth Williams.

“It is with great sadness that I have to announce that the victim in the rape and assault case against Father Robert Brennan passed away unexpectedly,” Williams announced in a press release Thursday.

The victim, who was allegedly raped by Robert Brennan while serving as an altar boy from 1998 to 2001, was found dead by Philadelphia Police Detectives over the weekend.

Brennan, now 75, was arrested on Sept. 25 in Perryville, Md. and was returned to Philadelphia on Sept. 26 after waiving extradition. He is charged with rape, involuntary deviant sexual intercourse and aggravated sexual assault. Previous allegations of abuse by Brennan, detailed in a grand jury report, did not result in charges because the alleged assaults fell outside the state’s statute of limitations.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadlephia Inquirer

JOSEPH A. SLOBODZIAN, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
LAST UPDATED: Thursday, October 17, 2013

The future of the sex abuse case against the Rev. Robert L. Brennan – the former Philadelphia priest arrested Sept. 26 and charged with raping a Northeast Philadelphia altar boy from 1998 to 2001 – is now uncertain after the death of the 26-year-old complaining witness.

Marci A. Hamilton, a lawyer who has sued the Catholic church on behalf of several alleged victims of priests, confirmed that the 26-year-old man died Sunday of an apparent accidental drug overdose.

Hamilton, who said she is representing the man’s family, said the family is requesting privacy and anonymity.

The Inquirer has a policy of not identifying victims in sex crimes.

“He was a wonderful young man doing everything he possibly could to pull himself out of this darkness,” Hamilton said. “It’s a tremendous tragedy that he is gone.”

Word of the alleged victim’s death began to spread late Wednesday after the District Attorney’s Office announced the cancellation of Brennan’s preliminary hearing.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY BARBARA DORRIS ON OCTOBER 17, 2013

Both are smart female Catholic lawyers who became part of Archbishop John Nienstedt’s inner circle and enjoyed his ear and his trust.

One of them, Jennifer Haselberger, became part of the solution.

The other, Greta Sawyer, remains part of the problem.

Haselberger’s story is widely known. She’s a courageous whistleblower. Here’s a recent profile of her:

[Star Tribune]

Sawyer is the archdiocesan victims’ assistance director.

Last month, we said that Sawyer may have broken the law, because she “recorded an interview with the (alleged victim of Fr. Wehmeyer) before anyone who worked for the police had talked to him.”

[Minnesota Public Radio]

Now, however, Sawyer’s accused again of questionable actions in another clergy sex case, this one involving Fr. Michael Keating.

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BOSTON (MA)
WCVB

NEWSCENTER 5. NEW THIS MIDDAY, IT’S CALLED AN UNPRECEDENTED EVENT. THE BOSTON CARDINAL O’MALLY MEETING FOR LAWMAKERS FOR AN INFORMAL BREAKFAST. LET’S GO TO TODD KAZAKIEWICH IN BOSTON TO SEE WHAT THEY WERE DISCUSSING. IT WAS HELD AT UNION PARK STREET, ACROSS THE STREET AND DOWN THE HILL FROM THE STATE HOUSE. THERE WERE A NUMBER OF LAWMAKERS IN ATTENDANCE, ACCORDING TO THEM AS WELL AS THE ARCHDIOCESE,

THIS WAS A PRESENTATION ABOUT SOME POSITIVE THINGS BEING DONE LOCALLY, BUT THERE WERE DEMONSTRATORS OUTSIDE AND THEY FEAR THERE WAS A HIDDEN AGENDA. CARDINAL SEAN O’MALLY DECLINED TO SPEAK WOULD PROTESTERS OR REPORTERS. THE PROTESTERS ARE FOR SEXUAL ABUSE VICTIMS CONCERNED, THEY’LL KILL THE BILLS TO EXTEND STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS. T

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NEW JERSEY
USA Today

TRENTON, N.J. — A rabbi who is charged in a kidnap-torture scheme that used cattle prods to force Orthodox Jewish husbands to grant their wives divorces has been responsible for 20 or so kidnappings, a prosecutor alleged Wednesday.

The remarks of Assistant U.S. Attorney R. Joseph Gribko were made in federal court in Trenton, N.J., during a bail hearing for six of the 10 defendants who were charged in the plot.

“He’s conducted ongoing criminal activity for 20 years,” Gribko said of Rabbi Mendel Epstein. “Kidnappings, beatings.”

Epstein — who will remain under home confinement at his house in Lakewood, N.J., once released — denies any wrongdoing, his Manhattan-based attorney, Susan Necheles, said in court.

“It’s a matter for trial,” she said.

But the case is growing, Gribko said during his appeal to U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Douglas E. Arpert to keep Epstein locked up.

“My phone has not stopped ringing with calls from potential victims,” he said, mentioning the hotline for those calls, 800-CALL-FBI. “The threat to the public is ongoing as we speak.”

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

By John R. Ellement, Globe Staff

In an effort to build rapport with the state Legislature, Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley joined some some 60 state lawmakers today for a meeting in which speakers highlighted the Boston archdiocese’s involvement in youth programs, assistance to immigrants, parochial schools, and assistance to the needy in 144 cities and towns in Eastern Massachusetts.

Though O’Malley has met with legislative leaders previously, today’s meeting was his first with rank and file lawmakers since he was named to his post in 2003.

The Cardinal said it was good first step to improve communication with lawmakers on Beacon Hill.

“This morning I had the opportunity to visit with members of the Massachusetts Legislature, to share information about how the work of the Church can be helpful for the legislators and their constituents,” Cardinal O’Malley said in a statement. “Leaders of our Catholic schools and Catholic Charities discussed their programs and services in these areas which are essential ministries of the Church…It is my hope that today’s dialogue will strengthen the Church’s collaborative relationship with the citizens of the Commonwealth.”

The closed-door meeting at the Union Club, a private social club on Beacon Hill, lasted for more than an hour, said archdiocese spokesman Terry Donilon. He said the cardinal did not discuss, or talk about, legislation in any form.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

[the emails – Jeff Anderson & Associates]
[video transcript]
[Jane Doe 20 statement]

Article by: TONY KENNEDY , Star Tribune Updated: October 17, 2013

The University of St. Thomas priest accused of sexual contact with a young girl expressed love and affection for her in deeply personal e-mails he sent her from Rome when she was 14 and 15 years old.

“Be really sure that I love you lots and lots and never think of you without a smile coming to my mind,” the Rev. Michael J. Keating wrote in one of at least 19 e-mails he sent in 1999 and 2000.

He addressed her in three separate e-mails as “Dear Sweetheart” and teased her about boys her age.

“I’m afraid you are going to have to get used to being hounded by boys,” wrote Keating, who was then 44 and studying to be a priest. “You’re too pretty and too charming not to be and you’ll only get prettier and charmier as the years go by.”

The e-mails, which the girl’s mother has described as “quite seductive,” were made public Thursday on the website of her attorney, Jeff Anderson of St. Paul. He said the writings were presented as evidence seven years ago in a church review of his client’s sexual abuse claims, but high-ranking officials in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis disregarded them. The church sided with Keating, and the woman maintained a public silence about her case until she sued Keating last week, alleging three years of harmful sexual contact that caused her deep psychological trauma.

Asked for comment, the archdiocese did not respond immediately.

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AUSTRIA
National Catholic Reporter

Christine Schenk | Oct. 17, 2013

VIEWPOINT
BREGENZ, AUSTRIA I spent Oct. 10-12 here for the first international meeting of leaders of reformist priest organizations from six countries. The event provided rich opportunities for international networking, exploration of common problems and sharing of creative strategies for addressing an array of critical renewal issues facing the church. That included the international priest shortage, defending the integrity of parishes, the need for genuine dialogue, lay empowerment, strategies to address abuses of authority, and women’s leadership in the church.

Convened by the charismatic Fr. Helmut Schüller of the Austrian Priests’ Initiative and Deacon Markus Heil, spokesman for Parish Initiative: Switzerland, the high-energy, professionally facilitated gathering drew about 30 people. Among them were leaders of lay movements and priest associations from the United States, Germany, Ireland, Australia, Switzerland and Austria.

I attended as a representative of the 10 U.S. reform organizations that sponsored Schüller’s highly successful 15-city “Catholic Tipping Point” tour over the summer. This coalition has committed itself to developing an international network of priests and people working for fundamental rights in the church. Martha Heizer of the International Movement We Are Church; Deborah Rose-Milavec, executive director of FutureChurch; and Hans Peter Hurka of the We Are Church movement in Austria brought important perspectives from lay reform movements at the international, national and local levels.

An important underlying commonality for participants was the shared struggle of ministering in the midst of a steadily worsening priest shortage.

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UNITED KINGDOM
National Catholic Reporter

Catholic News Service | Oct. 16, 2013

SACRAMENTO, CALIF. The president of the California Catholic Conference hailed Gov. Jerry Brown’s veto of a bill that would have reopened the statute of limitations against private employers for child sex abuse cases for a one-year period — but also would have banned lawsuits against public schools and other government agencies, as well as against those found guilty of perpetrating the abuse.

“It was unfair to the vast majority of victims and unfair to all private and nonprofit organizations,” said an Oct. 11 statement by Auxiliary Bishop Gerald Wilkerson of Los Angeles.

California lawmakers in 2002 — when the U.S. clergy sex abuse scandal reached its peak –passed a similar law removing the statute of limitations for one year and added as a new subcategory of defendant employers who either knew, or should have known, of the abuse yet failed to take action. But in 2007, the California Supreme Court ruled that public employers were not subject to its provisions.

A 2008 law enacted in California subjected public employers to some, but not all, of the provisions of the 2002 law.

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NEW JERSEY
Failed Messiah

Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

Admitted haredi child molester Rabbi Yosef Kolko reportedly says Lakewood haredi rabbis and haredi community leaders forced him to plead guilty to a crime he did not commit in order to save the Lakewood haredi community – and prominent haredi rabbis – from scrutiny of the haredi community’s actions continuing his trial would have brought.

The 39-year-old Kolko, the nephew of notorious haredi child molester Rabbi Yehuda Kolko, made that claim in a motion filed with the court to withdraw his guilty plea, the Asbury Park Press reported.

He says one man called him to several meetings – some of which were held in the presence of haredi leader Rabbi Yisroel Belsky, the rosh yeshiva (dean) of Yeshiva Torah Vodaas in Brooklyn – to convince him to accept a plea bargain. That same haredi man also ordered Kolko to the home of a Lakewood rabbi, where he showed him YouTube videos of “how inmates kill people in jail for being molesters in order to pressure me into taking a plea and avoid trial,” Kolko’s court filing claims.

That filing also says that another haredi rabbi spoke to one of Kolko’s defense witnesses and told him that Kolko should take a plea bargain, and that another similar call was made.

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NEW JERSEY
USA Today

Wayne Parry, Associated Press 11:34 a.m. EDT October 17, 2013

TOMS RIVER, N.J. (AP) — A former New Jersey yeshiva teacher who admitted sexually assaulting a young boy wants to withdraw his guilty plea, saying he was pressured by members of his Orthodox Jewish community to take responsibility for something he didn’t do.

Yosef Kolko said in court papers that members of the Lakewood community carried out an unrelenting campaign to get him to plead guilty and to spare the community negative publicity. He claims they showed him YouTube videos “of how inmates kill people in jail for being molesters in order to pressure me into taking a plea and avoiding trial.”

“If not for the extreme pressure by members of my community, I would not have pled guilty as charged,” he said. “I reject plea bargains offered by the state because I am innocent of the crimes alleged.”

Prosecutors said the boy’s family was ostracized by the community for pursuing the case in state court instead of letting religious leaders deal with it. The boy’s father, a prominent rabbi, lost his job and the family moved to Michigan.

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NEW JERSEY
Asbury Park Press

Written by
Kathleen Hopkins
@Khopkinsapp

TOMS RIVER — Middle-of-the-night visits and YouTube videos of child molesters in prison were among methods employed by Lakewood’s Orthodox Jewish community to pressure a former Orthodox Jewish camp counselor to admit to sexually abusing a child, the former camp counselor’s attorneys said in court papers.

The members of Lakewood’s Orthodox community made the concerted effort to persuade Yosef Kolko to plead guilty to child molestation against his will to spare the community the unwanted publicity of a trial, defense attorneys Stephanie Forbes and Alan L. Zegas said in a brief filed in state Superior Court.

The pressure included a meeting at the home of a rabbi during which Kolko was shown YouTube videos of how child molesters are treated in prison, according to the court papers.

It also included a 2 a.m. visit by five people to Kolko’s home on the day his trial was to resume, in an effort to convince him to stop the proceeding by pleading guilty, the papers said.

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PERU
RPP

[Summary: The Peruvian Episcopal Conference has called on former Bishops Guillermo Abanto Guzman and Gabino Miranda to take responsibility for the scandal they have caused to the faithful and to be subject to any civil laws that apply. In a statement, the bishops expressed solidarity with the aggrieved persons in both cases. Abanto Guzman allegedly fathered a child with a young woman and Miranda was censured by the Vatican for allegedly abusing a minor.]

La Conferencia Episcopal Peruana (CEP) pidió a los obispos Guillermo Abanto y Gabino Miranda asumir sus responsabilidades por el escándalo ocasionado a los fieles “y se sometan a la ley civil en lo que corresponda”.

A través de un comunicado, la institución se solidarizó con las personas agraviadas en ambos casos, “a quienes expresamos nuestra cercanía y oración”.

“Nos duele y reprobamos la conducta de quien fuera obispo auxiliar de Ayacucho, Gabino Miranda Melgarejo, que ha motivado la sanción de la Santa Sede con la pena máxima, que es la pérdida del estado clerical”, reza el documento.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A woman who claimed she was abused by a Jersey churchwarden has made a formal complaint about an ongoing inquiry into how the Deanery dealt with the matter.

Jersey’s Dean, The Very Reverend Bob Key, was suspended for two months earlier this year over his alleged mishandling of the claims.

The woman, who can not be named, said the judge reviewing the allegations was biased and conflicted.

Dame Heather Steele, conducting the inquiry, declined to comment.

She told BBC News: “I have no comment to make in respect of any formal complaint against me. My report will be published in due course.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Yorkshire Post

by Simon Bristow
Updated on the 17 October 2013

A FORMER Leeds policeman who anonymously told journalists that he caught Jimmy Savile trying to seduce an underage girl in 1965 has been urged to come forward and speak to investigators.

The ex-Leeds Pc spoke to the Daily Mirror and the BBC under the pseudonym Paul Leonard, claiming that Savile was found parked in a lay-by with a young girl in his Rolls Royce.

He told the newspaper that the disgraced DJ said he was waiting for midnight when the girl turned 16, and threatened: “If you want to keep your job I suggest you get on your bike and f-off.”

Today West Yorkshire Police appealed for the man to speak to them about the incident.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

Dominic Casciani

Prosecutors have published detailed guidance on how to handle sex abuse allegations in the same week as Surrey police released transcripts of an interview with Jimmy Savile.

The new guidance comes down to a simple shift in thinking that can make a profound difference: trust, rather than doubt, what the victim is saying.

But would it have made a difference in the Savile scandal? Between 2007 and 2009 Surrey Police investigated allegations of sexual abuse by Savile at the Duncroft Approved School in Surrey.

Police eventually interviewed him at his office at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in which they put the allegations to him.

His first reaction was to deny anything and to blame the victims.

Savile: “That makes me 83 and proud that in 83 years I’ve never ever done anything wrong.”

Police: “OK.”

Savile: “That doesn’t mean to say that in my business you don’t get accused of just about everything because people are looking for a bit of blackmail or the papers are looking for a story…”

The evidence against Savile had come to the police slowly and, despite the misgivings of prosecutors, the detectives had pursued early leads and found other possible victims or witnesses.

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MINNESOTA
Post-Bulletin

Editorial

Some wounds, if closed too quickly, can appear to heal on the surface while festering deep below the skin. When that happens, it can be necessary to reopen the wound, to expose and remove the infection.

Minnesota’s Catholic church is at such a point. The infection, in this case, is a list of alleged sex offenders among the clergy in each diocese in Minnesota.

Such lists were compiled across the nation in 2004 in response to a 2002 Boston Globe investigation of sexual abuse and coverup within the Catholic church. Five Boston-area priests were convicted and sentenced to prison, but this was merely the tip of an ugly iceberg. Since 2002, the church nationwide has paid more than $2.5 billion in settlements with more than 5,000 victims of sexual abuse.

But many victims have not yet had their day in court.

There are 178 dioceses in the United States, and about 150 of them have yet to reveal their list of accused clergy. That’s the case for every diocese in Minnesota, including the Diocese of Winona, where in 2004, 13 names appeared on the list. …

Your Turn

Every diocese of the Catholic Church in Minnesota is facing a lawsuit seeking the disclosure of lists of alleged sex abusers with the clergy, lists that the church has kept secret since 2004. Under a new law passed by the Minnesota Legislature in May, adults victims of long-ago sex abuse now have a three-year window in which to file civil claims against their alleged abusers and/or the abusers’ employer.

Should the church be required to release the names of the accused clergy, or should the church — which nationally has paid billions to settle lawsuits filed by abuse victims — be allowed to move past this ugly chapter in its history?

Send your comments to letters@postbulletin.com. Limit your remarks to 200 words or less, and please provide your name and city of residence. Anonymous comments will not be published. We’ll publish these comments on Saturday. Questions? Call Opinions Page Editor Eric Atherton at 507-285-7709.

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AUSTRALIA
3AW

Posted by: Lauren Hilbert | 17 October, 2013

A former Catholic priest who preyed upon and sexually abused young boys in his care has been jailed for 13 years.

Judge Elizabeth Gaynor described the crimes committed by David Edwin Rapson as sadistic, violent and “utterly cruel”.

A jury found Rapson, 60, guilty of indecent assault and rape against eight victims.

The offences occurred between 1973 and 1990. All but one on the victims were students at the Catholic boys’ school where he taught.

The court was told shocking details of the offences, hearing one attack left the student unable to walk and requiring surgery.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

A woman who was allegedly sexually assaulted by a Sydney priest says there was no point telling anyone because they wouldn’t have believed her.

The woman, who says she was indecently assaulted by Finian Egan in the late 1980s, gave evidence in his trial on Thursday.

She told the court that Egan would usually touch or rub her breasts when he hugged her.
On one occasion when he saw her hug her boyfriend he became angry.

She said he told her into a room, sat her on his lap and rubbed and touched her legs and thighs and told her the boy wasn’t good enough for her.

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CANADA
Canoe

CHRIS DOUCETTE, QMI AGENCY
Oct 17, 2013

TORONTO – A Toronto priest, already accused of inappropriate behaviour with numerous parishioners, now faces more charges after another five women came forward with complaints.

And the latest accusations involve incidents that allegedly occurred in a funeral home.

Toronto Police say Rev. Ioan Pop, of the All Saints Romanian Orthodox Church, was slapped with an additional five counts of sexual assault on Tuesday.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) The Holy Father has implemented the following changes in the organisation of the Roman Curia.

– He has accepted the resignation from the role of Major Penitentiary of Cardinal Manuel Monteiro de Castro, who has reached the age of retirement. He has confirmed as successor in the same role Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, who until now was Prefect for the Congregation of the Clergy.

– In the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he has confirmed as Prefect Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller, and as Secretary Archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer. He has appointed as Adjunct Secretary Archbishop Joseph Augustine Di Noia, who until now was Vice President of the Pontifical Council “Ecclesia Dei”. He has furthermore confirmed the Members and Consultants, and has appointed as Consultant Bishop Giuseppe Sciacca, Adjunct Secretary of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura.

– In the Congregation for the Evangelisation of the People, he has confirmed as Prefect Cardinal Fernando Filoni, as Secretary Archbishop Savio Hon Tai-Fai, and as Adjunct Secretary Archbishop Protase Rugambwa. He has furthermore confirmed the Members and Consultants.

– In the Congregation for the Clergy, he has appointed as Prefect Archbishop Beniamino Stella, who until now was President of the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy. He has confirmed as Secretary Archbishop Celso Morga Iruzubieta. He has appointed as Secretary for the Seminaries Jorge Carlos Patrón Wong, who until now was Bishop of Paplanta, elevating him at the same time to the dignity of Archbishop.

– In the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, he has appointed as Delegate of the Ordinary Section Msgr. Mauro Rivella, of the Clergy of the Archdiocese of Turin.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Dennis Coday | Sep. 21, 2013

A report on the Vatican Radio website this morning announces changes in the Roman Curia:
(Vatican Radio) The Holy Father has implemented the following changes in the organisation of the Roman Curia.

– He has accepted the resignation from the role of Major Penitentiary of Cardinal Manuel Monteiro de Castro, who has reached the age of retirement. He has confirmed as successor in the same role Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, who until now was Prefect for the Congregation of the Clergy.

– In the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, he has confirmed as Prefect Archbishop Gerhard Ludwig Müller, and as Secretary Archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer. He has appointed as Adjunct Secretary Archbishop Joseph Augustine Di Noia, who until now was Vice President of the Pontifical Council “Ecclesia Dei”. He has furthermore confirmed the Members and Consultants, and has appointed as Consultant Bishop Giuseppe Sciacca, Adjunct Secretary of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura.

– In the Congregation for the Evangelisation of the People, he has confirmed as Prefect Cardinal Fernando Filoni, as Secretary Archbishop Savio Hon Tai-Fai, and as Adjunct Secretary Archbishop Protase Rugambwa. He has furthermore confirmed the Members and Consultants.

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