ABUSE TRACKER

LITTLE ROCK (AR)
KATV

[with video]

By Matt Mershon, Reporter
LITTLE ROCK (KATV) – A weekend benefit is set to honor a former Mount St. Mary’s Academy employee who was fired last year for failing to report sexual assault. The “going-away” party for Kathy Griffin, the all-girls school former athletic director is now coming under fire by two national sex abuse advocacy groups – one of which is asking the Arkansas Catholic Diocese to step in.

Griffin was convicted in September of failure to report a child sex crime in the case of an inappropriate relationship between a Mount St. Mary student and high school coach. The victim had been in a relationship with Coach Kelly O’Rourke since 2010, according to a Little Rock Police report.

It’s Griffin’s conviction that has both the Survivor’s Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) and the National Survivors Action Coalition (NSAC) upset that the supposed fundraiser is taking place claiming the event is, “in complete disregard for the feelings of at least one child who was hurt because of Griffin’s crimes.

The former athletic director clearly has a great deal of supporters. A group entitled, “Support Coach Kathy Griffin” is a public group on Facebook. The group has been raising money for Griffin via a PayPal account and US Bank account, citing her lack of income from firing and court fees as reason for raising the funds.

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.

UNITED STATES
Verdict

Gov. Jerry Brown’s Recent Veto of Child Abuse Legislation and What It Tells Us About the Civil Rights Movement for Children

Marci A. Hamilton

No civil rights movement worth pursuing happens overnight or easily, because it is always a fight against the entrenched powers that resist and detest change. The ups and downs are sometimes steep, with the oppressed facing devastating losses and heady triumphs along the way. In the civil rights movement for children, which is transforming children from property into persons in the United States, a critical element is giving child sex abuse (CSA) victims meaningful access to justice.

Until relatively recently, most child sex abuse victims in the vast majority of states did not have access to justice, because the statutes of limitations (“SOLs”) cut off their claims before they could make it to the courthouse. A confluence of ignorance meant that these victims were cut off from simple justice: Americans (1) had underestimated the amount of child sex abuse that actually occurs; (2) were unaware that child sex abusers typically tend to be the “nice guy” or gal that adults trust with their children and, therefore, had no idea that so many are hidden amongst us; and (3) did not know that most CSA victims need decades before they are capable of coming forward. The result has been that the legal system has unintentionally favored perpetrators, rather than victims. The perpetrator’s best friends have been short SOLs and public and private institutions that act to protect their image, wallets, and adults’ reputations rather than the welfare of children.

We now know, based on hundreds of scientific studies and experience in many states, that a CSA victim needs a great deal of time to enter the judicial system. In addition, the delay in filing charges or filing a lawsuit does not mean that the perpetrator has stopped harming children. Perpetrators will molest children into their elderly years. Letting a survivor have access to justice at any time dramatically increases the odds of identifying hidden perpetrators among us. Thus, survivors’ access to justice dovetails with the rights of children right now.

Opening the SOLs does not guarantee victims that their perpetrators will be convicted, or that they will win civil lawsuits for damages and other remedies. The SOLs only create access to justice, but access is what marks a rights-holder.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

SHANNON DEERY HERALD SUN OCTOBER 17, 2013

THE former vice-principal of a Catholic school who sexually preyed on young boys over two decades has been jailed.

David Edwin Rapson, 60, was today sentenced to 13 years’ imprisonment for seriously sexually assaulting eight young boys during the 1970s and 1980s.

Seven of the boys were boarders at an outer-suburban college that cannot be named for legal reasons.

The County Court heard today as early as 1977 Rapson was undertaking wholesale drugging of a group of boys in order to subdue them.

He would ply them with cigarettes and alcohol before either indecently assaulting or raping them.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

By David Barrett, Home Affairs Correspondent
17 Oct 2013

Victims came forward to report more than 4,500 extra sex crimes in England and Wales in the year to June – a total of 55,800 – compared with the previous 12 months, the Office for National Statistics said.
Experts have described the sudden leap as the “Yewtree effect”, named after the police investigation into Savile’s five decades as the country’s most prolific abuser.

There was a 100 per cent rise in “historic” sex abuse allegations that took place more than 20 years ago, the figures show, as victims are thought to be more confident their allegations will be taken seriously by police.

But the high-profile Savile investigation is also thought to have led to a rise in the number of recent attacks reported to police, which rose 5 per cent year-on-year.

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WORCESTER (MA)
NBC Sports

Raphielle Johnson Oct 16, 2013

With the number of days between now and the start of games in college basketball, coaches and players across the country are working in order to make sure they’re well-prepared for the 2013-14 campaign. Practices, film study, weights and other essential activities occupy much of their time, with many wanting to simply focus on the task at hand.

Dealing with a lawsuit is an entirely different matter for a head coach and his/her program.

That’s what current Holy Cross women’s basketball head coach Bill Gibbons has on his plate, as a former player has filed a lawsuit alleging that the coach verbally, physically and emotionally abused members of the program during her two seasons at the Patriot League school. 20-year old Ashley Cooper, who now attends New York University, filed the suit in Manhattan alleging not only the abuse, but that the school ignored the allegations according to ABC News.

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WORCESTER (MA)
NECN

[with video]

(NECN: Mike Cronin) – A lawsuit filed by a former student athlete alleges Holy Cross women’s basketball coach, Bill Gibbons, was verbally, emotionally and physically abusive to players. Twenty-year-old Ashley Cooper attended Holy Cross for two years on a full athletic scholarship.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday says “Gibbons repeatedly and violently yanked and pulled… Cooper by her shirt collar and strongly squeezed the back of her neck causing pain while barking instructions in her face at close range.”

“I’ve never seen anything to that effect,” said Lauren Maney George, who played for Gibbons.

Former players are shocked by the allegations. A support group was set up for Gibbons on Facebook, and some alumni gathered at Holy Cross Wednesday.

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WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette

[the lawsuit]

By Dianne Williamson
dwilliamson@telegram.com

Three years ago, Ashley Cooper told The Asbury Park Press that she was excited about her decision to play basketball at the College of the Holy Cross.

“After all the work, you end up where you’re supposed to be,” she said. “I believe I ended up where I belonged.”

As it turns out, Cooper didn’t belong at Holy Cross. After two seasons of unremarkable play, she abandoned an athletic scholarship and transferred to New York University, where she no longer competes in the sport she’s loved since childhood.

Then, Wednesday morning, she made headlines across the country by filing a lawsuit against veteran HC basketball coach Bill Gibbons, claiming he verbally and physically abused his players. The 20-year-old former high school star says Gibbons shook them by the shoulders, struck and berated them repeatedly during games and once slapped her so hard on the back that he left a hand print.

“Defendant Gibbons … would act in an outrageous manner in his yelling, ranting, screaming and hysterics directed towards the Holy Cross players as well as game referees, which prompted players on opposing teams to remark, ‘Your coach is crazy,’ among other comments,” claims the lawsuit, filed in Manhattan.

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WORCESTER (MA)
New York Daily News

BY DAREH GREGORIAN / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
PUBLISHED: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2013

The longtime head coach for women’s basketball at College of the Holy Cross was placed on administrative leave on Wednesday, one day after a New York woman filed suit against him for being “verbally, emotionally and physically” abusive.

In a statement, Holy Cross said veteran coach Bill Gibbons told his Division-1 team that “he has voluntarily offered to step back from his coaching duties” while the Worcester, Mass. school reviews former player Ashley Cooper’s allegations.

Cooper, 20, said she walked away from basketball and a full scholarship to escape Gibbons’ “bullying.”
Cooper, a standout high school player in New Jersey, played for Gibbons between 2011 and 2013, and said he would “act in an outrageous manner in his yelling, ranting, screaming and hysterics directed towards the Holy Cross players as well as game referees.”

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WORCESTER (MA)
Worcester Magazine

Written by Walter Bird Jr. · 10/16/2013

Longtime Holy Cross women’s basketball coach Bill Gibbons has been placed on paid administrative leave after a former player who quit after two years with the team filed a lawsuit accusing him of being verbally and physically abusive during practices and games. The school announced late Wednesday, Oct. 16 that Gibbons “voluntarily” offered to relinquish his coaching duties while the the claims are reviewed. His assistant coaches will assume control of the Lady Crusaders.

“Holy Cross women’s basketball head coach Bill Gibbons announced to his team this afternoon that he has voluntarily offered to step back from his coaching duties while the College reviews claims in the lawsuit filed by a former student and member of the basketball team,” the school stated in a press release. “His assistant coaches will now assume all coaching duties … Coach Gibbons will be on administrative leave with pay.”

The announcement followed a day that saw the media descend upon College Hill after learning Ashley Cooper filed a lawsuit earlier this week in New York. The suit names Gibbons, athletic director Richard Regan Jr. and associate athletic director Ann Zelesky as defendants. There was no word from the college on whether Regan and Zelesky will retain their positions.

According to the lawsuit, in which Cooper is seeking an unspecified amount in damages and attorney’s fees, Gibbons shook players and struck them during practices and games. In one instance, he allegedly slapped Cooper on the back hard enough to leave a red hand print. The suit alleges college officials knew of the abuse and did nothing to stop it. It also accuses Gibbons of “yelling, ranting, screaming and hysterics” to the point that opponents would tell the players their coach was “crazy.”

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WORCESTER (MA)
Daily Mail (UK)

Male Holy Cross women’s basketball coach accused of emotional, physical and verbal abuse by former player who gave up scholarship to flee school

By RYAN GORMAN

A women’s basketball player who left the College of the Holy Cross is suing the school over allegations of emotional, physical and verbal abuse from the team’s head coach.

Ashley Cooper, 20, played two seasons under long time head coach Bill Gibbons, 66, before giving up a full scholarship and leaving after complaints of him striking and shouting at players went unanswered by school administrators.

Filed in Manhattan because Ms Cooper now attends New York University, the lawsuit against the Worcester, MA., based school seeks compensation for tuition and expenses at NYU, as well as other unspecified damages, according to ABC News.

Ms Cooper told ABC News she no longer plays collegiate basketball after fleeing the 28-year, 533-win coach’s abuse.

‘I don’t want this to happen to anyone else ever again,’ Ms Cooper told ABC News. ‘I want to stop it. I’m doing this for other people. I’m taking a stand for others, for every freshman that walks through the door.’

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WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette

By Scott J. Croteau and Jennifer Toland TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF
scroteau@telegram.com
jtoland@telegram.com

WORCESTER — Holy Cross women’s basketball coach Bill Gibbons voluntarily stepped aside from his coaching duties, one day after he was accused in a lawsuit of verbally and physically abusing his players at games and practices.

The college said in a statement Wednesday he will be on administrative leave with pay and his assistant coaches will assume all coaching duties.

Gibbons declined to comment.

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday, a former student-athlete alleged that Mr. Gibbons physically and verbally abused his players and the college perpetuated a culture of denial and feigned ignorance over his actions.

In the 21-page lawsuit filed in New York, Ashley Cooper, who played two years on Mr. Gibbons’ team, claims the coach struck her on the back on more than one occasion, including during a January 2012 game against Brown University. That incident caused Ms. Cooper to experience pain and left a red handprint on her skin, according to the complaint.

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WORCESTER (MA)
MassLive

By John F. Hill, MassLive.com
on October 16, 2013

The suit, brought by former player Ashley Cooper, claims Gibbons bullied players, at times striking them. The coach often violently shook players by the shoulders while admonishing them, the suit says.

“Defendant Gibbons repeatedly and violently yanked and pulled plaintiff Cooper by her shirt collar and strongly squeezed the back of her neck causing pain while barking instructions in her face at close range,” the suit says.

Read a copy of the lawsuit

The suit claims that Gibbons hit Cooper during a January 2012 game against Brown University, leaving a red handprint on her back. The suit also claims Gibbons hit another, unnamed player during a game at Lehigh University in 2013.

Holy Cross has not turned over video from either game to Cooper’s attorney, Elizabeth Eilender, the suit claims.

(Read an interview with Eilender.)

A lawsuit filed Tuesday in Manhattan Supreme Court claims Holy Cross women’s basketball coach Bill Gibbons routinely abused his players verbally, emotionally and physically.

The suit names Holy Cross, Gibbons, athletic director Richard Regan Jr., and associate athletic director Ann Zelesky as defendants.

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WORCESTER (MA)
Daily Reporter

By JAY LINDSAY Associated Press
First Posted: October 16, 2013

BOSTON — Longtime Holy Cross women’s basketball coach Bill Gibbons stepped aside Wednesday while the college reviews claims by a former player that he was physically and emotionally abusive.

Gibbons made the announcement to the team Wednesday afternoon, the school said in a statement. His assistant coaches will now assume all coaching duties while Gibbons is on voluntary, paid administrative leave.

The announcement comes a day after former player Ashley Cooper, 20, sued Gibbons and the school. Cooper says that Gibbons grabbed her, shook her and hit her at different times and that the school covered up the behavior.

Cooper’s attorney, Elizabeth Eilender, said she’s pleased Gibbons isn’t running the team anymore because Cooper sued, in part, to force changes at Holy Cross. But she added the school deserves no credit for the move.

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NORTH CAROLINA
WCNC

by AMY COWMAN / NBC Charlotte
Bio | Email | Follow: @amywcnc
Posted on October 16, 2013

CONCORD, N.C. — “I’m pleased, very pleased; it’s all we’ve wanted,” said attorney Seth Langson.

Langson represents one of the alleged victims who claims Bobby Price, a former Kings Way Baptist church youth minister, molested him.

“He met Bobby Price as a pastor, youth minister and a friendship evolved into sexual abuse,” said Langson.

The complaint claims it started when the plaintiff was 12-years-old, and continued until he was 16. The victim came forth when he was 23, and a civil lawsuit was resolved, but before criminal charges were filed in 2011, Price left for Nicaragua.

“I’m very happy he’s back, I’d like him to have a trial by a jury of his peers, and let them decide guilty or not guilty,” said Langson.

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MINNESOTA
KAAL

[with video]

By: Beth McDonough

Students and faculty at the University of St. Thomas are working to overcome a scandal brought to light this week.

That scandal involves a priest who’s a high-profile professor at the University of St. Thomas.

At 3:30 p.m. Tuesday students made their way to the Anderson Center on Campus anxious to hear uplifting words in upsetting times. “It’s been really enlightening to see the church go on even with these problems,” says Jacob Goodwin, a sophomore at St. Thomas.

Goodwin wears his pride on his chest and in his heart. He’s a Catholic Studies student under Father Michael Keating, the professor and priest named in a sexual misconduct lawsuit. “This failure of his doesn’t change the love and respect we have for him,” he said.

The special closed-door meeting for students and staff follows a mass email from the new president. In it, Julie Sullivan says she learned about the suit from media reports, calling it “shocking and sad.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

PIA AKERMAN THE AUSTRALIAN OCTOBER 17, 2013

A FORMER Catholic priest who inflicted brutal and “heartless” sexual abuse upon students at a Melbourne school has been sentenced to at least 10 years in prison.

David Edwin Rapson, 60, showed no emotion as Victorian County Court judge Liz Gaynor today described the rape and assault he had inflicted on eight students at the Catholic school, which cannot be identified.

Judge Gaynor said Rapson had abused the power of his position as he rose to become a senior staff member while attacking the students between 1973 to 1990.

“It was brazen, it was manipulative and it was heartless,” she said. “These were dreadful crimes.

“You have shown not one shred of remorse.”

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

BY COURT REPORTER SARAH FARNSWORTH –
October 17, 2013

ABC News

A former priest has been sentenced to 13 years’ jail for the sexual abuse of eight boys at a Catholic college in Melbourne.

David Rapson, 60, will serve at least 10 years in jail after being convicted of nine counts of indecent assault and five counts of rape dating back to the 1970s.

Victorian County Court Judge Liz Gaynor described Rapson as a callous predator whose offending was brazen, manipulative and heartless.

The court heard Rapson would ply students with whisky and cigarettes, entice them with computer games and drug them with lemonade and Milo before he abused them.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

October 17, 2013

Adam Cooper
Reporter for The Age

Former priest David Rapson will spend at least a decade in prison for the predatory sexual abuse of eight boys at a Victorian Catholic boarding school between the mid 1970s and 1990.

Rapson, 60, was found guilty in August of five charges of rape and eight counts of indecent assault and on Thursday was sentenced to 13 years in jail by County Court judge Liz Gaynor, who said he had preyed on and sadistically abused boys as young as 12.

“These were dreadful crimes against powerless and vulnerable victims who were entirely in your power as residents of the school, and by virtue of the enormous authority and stature granted to Catholic priests by Catholic congregations and by the parents who had unwittingly placed their sons in your entirely predatory hands,” she said.

Judge Gaynor said Rapson’s abuse had ruined lives, and while a jail sentence might bring some victims comfort, it would not end some of their “torturous” suffering.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

BY PATRICK CARUANA –
October 17, 2013

Former Catholic priest David Edwin Rapson preyed on vulnerable Melbourne schoolchildren to inflict cruel, sadistic and violent sexual abuse.

He drugged some of his victims with spiked Milo, and on other occasions gave them alcohol and cigarettes, or lured them to him by letting them play computer games.

Rapson, 60, was on Thursday jailed for 13 years for the abuse of eight boys at two Catholic colleges between the 1970s and 1990.

Victorian County Court Judge Liz Gaynor said Rapson’s crimes of unrelenting sexual exploitation were an incalculable breach of trust.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Jimmy Savile police interview in 2009 – full transcript

Joan Smith
The Guardian, Wednesday 16 October 2013

When Jimmy Savile was questioned by Surrey police four years ago, he was 83 and had been sexually abusing children and teenagers for more than 50 years. The transcript of the interview, which has just been released, is the nearest we will ever get to hearing his version of events, almost as if Savile is speaking from beyond the grave.

Reading the transcript cannot be easy for the DJ’s many victims, who will no doubt recognise the bluff, domineering persona he used to deflect any suggestion of wrongdoing. What is supposed to be an interrogation quickly turns into a performance, in which Savile uses familiar devices – threats, bluster and name-dropping – to dominate the proceedings.

But the interview has a significance that goes way beyond the question of how the authorities failed to detect and apprehend one prolific sex offender. It exposes the ease with which a confident abuser was able to run rings around his interrogators, even as recently as 2009, when the failure of so many investigations into rape and other sexual offences was a matter of public concern. While popular culture is obsessed with serial killers, they are relatively rare outside crime fiction; serial sex offenders are much more common but poorly understood. So is the fact that some of them prepare in advance for the possibility of one or more victims going to the police – what Savile refers to quite blatantly in the interview as his “policy”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A former West Yorkshire policeman is being investigated by the police watchdog over claims he intervened on behalf of Jimmy Savile.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission is looking into whether the ex-inspector inappropriately contacted Surrey Police before the force interviewed Savile in 2009.

Savile has been accused of abusing hundreds of victims during his career.

Victims’ groups have reacted with fury to the transcript of the interview.

It was conducted by officers probing claims Savile abused girls at Duncroft Children’s home in Staines in the 1970s.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Yorkshire Post

THE police watchdog today launched an investigation into claims that a senior West Yorkshire officer acted on behalf of disgraced DJ Jimmy Savile before he was questioned over alleged sex crimes.

The allegations refer to the former inspector officer having inappropriately contacted Surrey Police ahead of a police interview with Savile in 2009 – the details of which were published for the first time last night.

Claims were referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission earlier this year that the officer, known as Inspector 5, had contacted Surrey Police before its detectives interviewed Savile in 2009, and today the watchdog announced its own investigation.

The announcement came after a transcript of the interview was published by Surrey, revealing how Savile bragged that he had “a collection” of police contacts in Leeds.

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NORTH CAROLINA
Times-News

By McClatchy News Service
Published: Wednesday, October 16, 2013

A former youth pastor accused of sexually assaulting a child at a Concord church is free on bond Wednesday after being charged with five counts of indecent liberties with a child.

Robert “Bobby” Price, 46, was released about 10 p.m. Tuesday from a Mecklenburg County jail after posting $50,000 bond.

The charges date back to Price’s work as a youth minister at his father’s church, King’s Way Baptist, in Concord.

Price’s brother, Rusty, is now the lead pastor at the church.

According to several reports, Robert Price was arrested Monday evening at Charlotte Douglas International Airport after returning from Nicaragua.

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ILLINOIS
Berger’s Beat

October 16, 2013 8:23 am | Author: berger

ALERT!
Touting “great overnight accommodations” and a “pet friendly” atmosphere, San Damiano Shrine in southern Illinois is now running ads in the St. Louis Review, the archdiocesan newspaper. The shrine is run by Robert Vonnahmen, a priest defrocked by the Vatican for sexually abusing several Belleville area children.

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NORTH CAROLINA
WBTV

[with video]

CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) –
A former pastor at a Concord Church facing several charges of sex crimes against children in Cabarrus and Mecklenburg Counties turned himself into investigators on Monday.

Robert “Bobby” Bradley Price, 46, is charged with five counts of indecent liberties with a child in Mecklenburg County and several other charges in Cabarrus County, according to records.

Price was reportedly living outside of the country in Central America and had to return to the United States. Price bonded out of jail Tuesday evening.

Price spent 12 years leading youth at Kings Way Baptist Church in Concord. His brother is now the lead pastor.

“I was glad to hear that he’s come back to face these allegations,” said his brother, Pastor Rusty Price.

Price can be heard on a YouTube video thanking the church for the opportunity to be with them every Sunday. The caption says it was a sermon from February 13, 2011.

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NORTH CAROLINA
Charlotte Observer

By Cleve R. Wootson Jr.
cwootson@charlotteobserver.com
Posted: Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2013

A former youth pastor accused of sexually assaulting a child at Kings Way Baptist Church in Concord has been arrested.

Robert “Bobby” Price was arrested Monday and released Tuesday after being charged with five counts of taking indecent liberties with a child. He was released on $50,000 bond.

Price was a youth minister at his father’s church, Kings Way Baptist, in Concord. In 2011 a 23-year-old man told Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police that Price molested him as a 12-year-old.

In a civil suit filed in 2011, the accuser claims the abuse happened multiple times at the King’s Way Baptist Church’s “Youth Shack,” on a mission trip, and even at the youth minister’s own house, according to NBC Charlotte, the Observer’s news partner.

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NORTH CAROLINA
WSOC

[with video]

By Trish Williford

CONCORD, N.C. — Robert Price was released from the Mecklenburg County jail Tuesday evening on $120,000 bond. This followed his arrest on five counts of child sex abuse charges.

Some of those charges date back to 2011 when a 23-year-old man told Charlotte Mecklenburg police that Price molested him when he was 12 years old. That was when Price was a youth minister at his father’s church, Kings Way Baptist Church in Concord.

Authorities said Price left the country and traveled to Nicaragua just before warrants were issued against him. He’s been gone ever since, until Monday.

Price traveled back to Charlotte Monday night and CMPD airport police were notified about the warrants against him. He was taken into custody immediately.

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MINNESOTA
MinnPost

Judy Jones, Marthasville, Mo.

A Minnesota Catholic university professor’s quote in a MinnPost article left me shaking my head in disbelief (“Could Archbishop Nienstedt face charges or lose his job?”).

Professor Charles Reid compared the plight of Boston’s disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law with that of embattled Twin Cities Archbishop John Nienstedt, and tried to excuse Law’s horrific, longstanding complicity in clergy sex crimes by claiming he was “not operating in a time when we had clear standards.”

Really? Professor Reid should do his homework.

Since the 1980s, most U.S. Catholic dioceses have had abuse policies. In 1985, three experts sent a 200-page report on clergy sexual abuse to every prelate in America. In the early 1990s, the U.S. bishops set up a national panel on abuse that wrote up guidelines.

So while Law was protecting predators and endangering kids, he had plenty of “standards” to follow, carefully crafted by his own colleagues and predecessors.

And secular law provided Law with some “standards,” too, like not hiding or destroying evidence of crimes.

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CANADA
Sun News

CHRIS DOUCETTE | QMI AGENCY

TORONTO — An east-end priest, already accused of sexual assaults involving several female parishioners, now faces more charges after another five women came forward with complaints, police said Wednesday.

Some of the latest assaults allegedly occurred in a funeral home.

Rev. Ioan Pop, 54, of the All Saints Romanian Orthodox Church was slapped with an additional five counts of sexual assault on Tuesday, police said.

Pop now faces a total of 13 sexual assault charges and one count of forcible confinement.

“It is alleged that he sexually assaulted women either in church or in a funeral home,” police said of the new charges.

Pop, who is considered an influential man within Scarborough’s Romanian Orthodox community, was initially arrested Sept. 11 and charged with one count of sexual assault after a woman alleged she had been sexually assaulted at All Saints a week earlier.

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WORCESTER (MA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013

Statement by Barbara Blaine of Chicago, president of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 312-399-4747, SNAPblaine@gmail.com )

A coach should never hit a player. Period. So we’re outraged by allegations that Holy Cross coach Bill Gibbons physically abused players.

[ABC News]

There may be some ambiguity over what exactly constitutes verbal abuse. But no one should doubt that an adult college employee hitting teenagers or young adults is wrong.

And it’s of course also upsetting that reportedly these concerns were raised to at least one higher-level university staff that evidently did nothing. Why do high-ranking school officials seem to cower before successful coaches and rebuff students who report misconduct by these coaches?

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CANADA
Sun News

NEIL BOWEN | QMI AGENCY

SARNIA, Ont. – Sex with a priest she “idolized” as a young teen was “rough and weird,” the first witness into Gabriele DelBianco’s sex trail told the court Wednesday.

Now in her 40s, the woman who cannot be identified told the Sarnia, Ont., courtroom that she was 15 years old when her sexual relationship started with DelBianco, now 57.

He’s been charged with 16 sexual offences involving four women during the 1980s.

The woman said DelBianco was like a rock star when she met him at her church when she was 12.

DelBianco drove a sports car, wore flashy clothes and gave entertaining sermons.

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.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
National Catholic Reporter

Tom Roberts | Oct. 16, 2013

Roy Bourgeois, a former Maryknoll priest, has been disinvited from a Philadelphia-area fundraising event for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) because some members of the organization feared he would use the event to advance the cause of women’s ordination.

“It was a Blaine screw-up,” said Barbara Blaine, SNAP’s Chicago-based president, in a phone interview with NCR. “I invited someone without checking with the local membership.”

Bourgeois, who received a letter in 2008 stating he had incurred his own excommunication for his advocacy of women’s ordination, including participation in a women’s ordination ceremony, was supposed to be part of a panel discussion with Blaine and Dominican Fr. Thomas Doyle, a longtime advocate for victims of clergy sexual abuse.

Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, a retired auxiliary of Detroit who openly supports SNAP and attends its annual gatherings, was also to take part in the panel.

The fundraiser, hosted by the Philadelphia-area Voice of the Faithful group and scheduled for the evening of Oct. 25 in Plymouth Meeting, Penn., is being held to celebrate the 25th anniversary of SNAP’s founding.

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.

CANADA
Chatham Daily News

By Neil Bowen, Sarnia Observer
Wednesday, October 16, 2013

A woman in her forties testified about a “rough and weird” sexual involvement with a former Catholic priest when she was 15 during a Superior Court trial today in Sarnia.

Gabriele DelBianco, 57, has been charged with 16 sexual offences involving four women during the 1980s.

The first witness in the trial that began today said DelBianco had been like a rock star when she met him at her church when she was 12.

DelBianco drove a sports car wore flashy clothes and gave entertaining sermons.

“I kind of idolized him'” said the woman.

During an overnight visit to a Lambton Shores cottage DelBianco gave her alcohol and they showered together. On the bathroom floor she performed oral sex on him and he digitally penetrated her vagina in what she called “rough and weird” sex.

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.

WORCESTER (MA)
San Francisco Chronicle

Erin Fuchs, provided by Business Insider

Published 7:49 am, Wednesday, October 16, 2013

A former student at the College of Holy Cross has filed a lawsuit claiming the school’s longtime basketball coach is so abusive his behavior “exceeds the misconduct” of Mike Rice, the New York Post reports.

New York City native Ashley Cooper filed a suit in Manhattan court against the Massachusetts college claiming it ignored women’s basketball coach Bill Gibbons’ loud and abusive antics.

The veteran coach’s “yelling, ranting, screaming and hysterics directed toward the Holy Cross players as well as game referees … prompted players on opposing teams to remark: ‘your coach is crazy,’” according to the suit obtained by the Post.

At one point, the suit says, Gibbons “violently yanked and pulled Cooper by her shirt collar and strongly squeezed the back of her neck causing pain while barking instructions in her face at close range.”

Cooper also claims that Gibbons hit another player on the back during a March 2013 game against Lehigh, ABC News reported. Her suit says the school’s athletic director was negligent by not taking any action against Gibbons, who has a 533-win record during his 28 years with Holy Cross, according to the Post. …

Here’s what the school said in a statement to ABC:

The physical, mental and emotional well-being of our students is our highest priority at Holy Cross. We just received the lawsuit and are in the process of reviewing it. Ms. Cooper had brought her concern to the college and we investigated at that time. The lawsuit we received today includes a series of new allegations and we will now bring in outside counsel to review them.”

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BOSTON (MA)
Road to Recovery

Road to Recovery, Inc.
(serving many sexual abuse victims in Massachusetts)
P.O. Box 279
Livingston, NJ 07039
roberthoatson@gmail.com

MEDIA RELEASE – OCTOBER 16, 2013

Lawmakers seem ready to extend statute of limitations on civil sexual abuse cases
Sexual abuse survivors and advocates call on the Cardinal to support House and Senate Bills

What: A demonstration and vigil (with photos of childhood victims of sexual abuse)
encouraging Massachusetts legislators attending Cardinal O’Malley’s “informal breakfast” to urge O’Malley and the Catholic Conference of Massachusetts to support House Bill 1455 and Senate Bill 633 during their meeting.

When: Thursday, October 17, 2013 from 8:00 A.M. until the conclusion of the meeting.

Where: On the sidewalk outside the Union Club, 8 Park Street, Boston, MA., 02108

Who: Sexual abuse survivors and their advocates, including many survivors who are assisted by Road to Recovery; STTOP (Speak Truth to Power); and NSAC (National Survivor Advocates Coalition); other supporters, and the general public.

Why: Legislators from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts once again have the
opportunity to give childhood victims of sexual abuse their day in court. House Bill 1455 and Senate Bill 633 level the “playing field” for those whose lives were shattered by adults taking advantage of children. Those “children” will be able to hold their abusers civilly accountable through courageous and bold legislation that has been debated for far too many years. It is now time to act.

Many state legislators will be attending the informal breakfast hosted by Cardinal
Sean O’Malley. Victims and advocates will call on Massachusetts legislators to appeal to Cardinal O’Malley to support House Bill 1455 and Senate Bill 633 so that childhood victims of sexual abuse throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will finally be able to bring their claims to court for fair and impartial hearings.

Contacts: Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D. – Road to Recovery, Inc. – 862-368-2800
Ruth Moore, STTOP (Speak Truth to Power) – Hull, MA– 781-264-6519
Paul Kellen, NSAC (National Survivor Advocates Coalition), Medford, MA – 781-526-5878
Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, Boston, MA – 617-523-6250

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CANADA
680 News

TORONTO – A Toronto priest, already accused of sexual assault, now faces additional charges, Toronto police say.

Ioan Pop, 54, now faces a total of 13 sexual assault charges.

Pop was accused of sexually assaulting a female parishioner inside the All Saints Romanian Orthodox church at Birchmount Avenue and Danforth Road on Sept. 3.

A couple walked in during the alleged assault, according to police.

He was arrested Sept. 11.

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WORCESTER (MA)
New York Daily News

BY DAREH GREGORIAN / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
PUBLISHED: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2013

A Manhattan student says she was “verbally, emotionally and physically” abused while playing for the women’s college basketball team in Massachusetts.

In papers filed Tuesday in Manhattan Supreme Court, Ashley Cooper says the abuse by revered College of the Holy Cross head coach Bill Gibbons was so severe that she walked away from a full scholarship to the school earlier this year just to get away from him.

“Cooper and other players suffered a loss of self-esteem and a loss of their love of the game of basketball” as a result of Gibbons’ tirades, her court filings say.

Cooper says she was recruited to play for Holy Cross after a standout career playing for the Rumson-Fairhaven team in high school in New Jersey.

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WORCESTER (MA)
Telegram & Gazette

STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

WORCESTER — A former player for the Holy Cross women’s basketball team says in a lawsuit against the school that her coach was ”verbally, emotionally and physically abusive.”

The suit filed Tuesday in New York by former student Ashley Cooper seeks damages and attorney’s fees.

Cooper’s suit names as defendants the Jesuit school in Worcester, head coach Bill Gibbons, athletic director Richard Regan Jr., and associate athletic director Ann Zelesky. Gibbons has coached at Holy Cross for nearly three decades.

Messages were left Wednesday for the defendants.

Cooper, who is no longer at Holy Cross, alleges her coach shook players by the shoulders and struck them during practices and games. Cooper alleges a slap on the back during a game left a red hand print.

The suit alleges college officials knew of the abuse but did not stop it.

Holy Cross said Wednesday morning that it had investigated earlier allegations, but the lawsuit contains new information, which it intends to review with lawyers.

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WORCESTER (MA)
New York Post

By Julia Marsh
October 15, 2013

A female athlete from Manhattan is suing the College of Holy Cross saying the Massachusetts school is harboring an abusive basketball coach whose court-side behavior makes the ousted Rutgers coach Mike Rice look like a softy by comparison.

Junior Ashley Cooper, of the Upper East Side, was recruited to play as a guard for the school on a full scholarship in 2011.

But she recently abandoned the full ride and transferred to another school after college brass allegedly ignored women’s basketball coach Bill Gibbons’ harsh treatment of his team, the Manhattan Supreme Court suit alleges.

The veteran coach, who brags about his 533-win record over a 28-year tenure, allegedly “violently yanked and pulled Cooper by her shirt collar and strongly squeezed the back of her neck causing pain while barking instructions in her face at close range,” the Manhattan civil suit claims.

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.

WORCESTER (MA)
MassLive

By John F. Hill, MassLive.com

The longtime coach of the College of Holy Cross women’s basketball team was well known for years as being verbally, emotionally and physically abusive with players, the lawyer for a former player said.

Coach Bill Gibbons routinely screamed at players, horse-collared them, and on several occasions struck so hard he left marks, attorney Elizabeth Eilender said in an interview with MassLive.com.

“This was done not in an encouraging way, but out of anger and frustration,” said Eilender “The man is clearly in need of some anger management therapy.”

In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Manhattan Supreme Court in New York City, former player Ashley Cooper claims Holy Cross was informed but did nothing to stop the alleged abuse. The suit names Holy Cross, Gibbons, athletic director Richard Regan Jr., and associate athletic director Ann Zelesky as defendants.

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.

WORCESTER (MA)
NJ.com

By The Associated Press
on October 16, 2013

WORCESTER, Mass. — A former Holy Cross basketball player from Monmouth County has sued the college and veteran coach Bill Gibbons, accusing the coach of emotionally and physically abusing her and the school of covering it up.

The lawsuit by 20-year-old Ashley Cooper says that at various times, Gibbons yanked and pulled her by the shirt collar, shook her by the shoulder and struck her on the back, leaving a red handprint. It paints Gibbons as so volatile that opposing players would remark, “Your coach is crazy,” and the players as so demoralized that alumni basketball games are impossible because players won’t return to the Jesuit school in Worcester to participate.

Cooper is a 2011 graduate of Rumson-Fair Haven High School.

The suit accuses Holy Cross of failing to turn over game tape that would show Gibbons striking Cooper and another player. It says the school has also refused to release results of an investigation into Gibbons’ behavior.

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WORCESTER (MA)
ABC News

By GERRY WAGSCHAL and JOSH MARGOLIN (@JoshMargolin) Oct 15, 2013

There’s an ugly secret lurking behind the legendary women’s basketball program at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts, according to a stunning lawsuit filed today that accuses the veteran head coach of physical, verbal and emotional abuse.

Ashley Cooper, a 20-year-old who spent two seasons as a scholarship player for the Crusaders, charges that longtime head coach Bill Gibbons struck and berated members of the team repeatedly and sometimes “in front of hundreds of witnesses” during games. She said complaints about the abuse were covered up and ignored.

In court papers filed in Manhattan, Cooper said that the college — based in Worcester, Mass. — turned a blind eye to abuse that was well known among team members. She accused the school’s athletic director of being negligent in refusing to take any action. The abuse Cooper suffered forced her to transfer out of Holy Cross after two years, she said, and left her unable to play the game she loved since childhood at the collegiate level.

“I don’t want this to happen to anyone else ever again,” Cooper said in an exclusive interview with ABC News. “I want to stop it. I’m doing this for other people. I’m taking a stand for others, for every freshman that walks through the door.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Express

The DJ, who was unmasked as a serial paedophile following his death in 2011, was quizzed by police in 2009 over claims he molested children in the 1970s, but he flatly denied any wrongdoing.

During the interview with cops, which has been made public this week (beg14Oct13) following a Freedom of Information request, he also bragged about his determination to take his accusers to court and made reference to a payout he received from newspaper bosses when they attempted to unmask him years earlier.

Savile, who was a national treasure in his lifetime for his TV shows and charity work, received a payment from The Sun after editors tried to expose his sordid past.

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MINNESOTA
The Citizen

By Deb Barnes & Debra Neutkens
HUGO — Area Catholics are waiting to hear whether child pornography charges will be filed against a priest who led parishioners at St. John the Baptist in Hugo and St. Jude of the Lake in Mahtomedi.

Earlier this month Rev. Jonathan Shelley denied any illegal activity and released a statement this weekend thanking former parishioners for their concern and asking for continued prayers on his behalf.

St. Paul Police were investigating a report that pornography possibly including child pornography, was found on a computer that once belonged to Shelley.

Washington County Attorney Pete Orput told The Citizen Monday the statute of limitations on possession of child pornography is three years. Because the computer hard drive hasn’t been in Washington County for the better part of a decade, he said, at this point his office only would be involved if other information led to “other avenues we could investigate.”

The computer was the property of Rev. Shelley at the time he was pastor at St. Jude of the Lake Church. It was turned over to the archdiocese by Hugo resident and St. Jude parishioner Joe Ternus in 2004. His father, a Mahtomedi resident, had acquired the computer after it was left in St. Jude’s empty rectory, scheduled for demolition. The house had formerly belonged to the Ternus family. After Shelley said he didn’t want it, Ternus accepted it.

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.

CANADA
Global News

By David Shum Global News

TORONTO – A Scarborough priest faces five additional sexual assault charges, bringing the total to 13, Toronto police announced Wednesday.

Ioan Pop, 54, was charged with seven additional counts of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement on Sept. 30.

It is alleged that the suspect sexually assaulted women either in a church or in a funeral home.

Police say the first reported incident happened on Sept. 3 when a woman entered All Saints, a Romanian Orthodox Church, in the Birchmount Road and Danforth Road area.

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AUSTRALIA
New Matilda

By Adam Brereton

The excommunication of Greg Reynolds, a dissident Australian cleric, shows the Vatican is prepared and able to swiftly remove priests. Adam Brereton’s report begins our Royal Commission coverage

In late September Greg Reynolds, a “rebel” Catholic priest operating outside the Church hierarchy in Melbourne, was laicised (defrocked, dismissed from the priesthood) and excommunicated.

Reynolds is not the only Australian priest to attract the ire of the Vatican in recent years — among others, the former Bishop of Toowoomba William Morris was forced into retirement in 2001 on doctrinal grounds, over his use of an alternative type of confession — but he is the first to be excommunicated by Pope Francis and the first to be defrocked during the operation of the Royal Commission.

He also appears to be the first Australian to be removed under special administrative powers to remove priests, set up by Rome in 2009. Reynolds’ case is a litmus test that demonstrates the priorities and applications of Roman power.

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.

CANADA
Newstalk 1010

Posted By: Newstalk 1010 · 10/16/2013

A Scarborough priest is facing new charges of sexual assault.

54 year old Ioan Pop is the priest at All Saints, a Romanian Orthodox church in the Birchmount and Danforth area.

He’d already been charged with one count of sexual assault after Toronto Police allege that an assault in progress was broken up by a couple who walked into the church.

On Wednesday, Police charged Pop with a further 5 counts of sexual assault and one count of forcible confinement.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013

Statement by Bob Schwiderski of Wayzata, Minnesota SNAP director ( 952 471 3422, skibrs@q.com )

A police report reveals that yet another Twin Cities priest who suspected child sex abuse refused to call the police and tried to handle it quietly and “in-house.”

[Pioneer Press]

He’s at St. Thomas University. He’s the uncle of accused predator Fr. Michael Keating. And when he suspected that his nephew, Fr. Keating, might be molesting a girl, he arranged a meeting between the suspected predator and his prey.

Shame on this priest.

This happened, according to the police report, in 2005, three years after America’s bishops adopted an allegedly binding national policy requiring clerics to promptly call police when child sex crimes were suspected.

This St. Thomas priest can’t “un-do” his unbelievably callous and hurtful deed. But he can – and should – speak up now.

Obviously, Fr. Keating is a popular, charming and charismatic cleric. And at this point, he formally faces only one accuser (thought the police report mentions an Italian girl who reportedly was also abused by Keating.)

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.

ARKANSAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

October 16, 2013

Dear Bishop Taylor:

Last month, Kathy Griffin was convicted and sentenced for refusing to promptly call authorities when she knew of or suspected child sex crimes at a Catholic school in your diocese.

And this Saturday, her backers – many of them Catholic – will hold a fundraising event for her.

We are worried about the child who was hurt longer because Griffin broke the law and stayed silence. We are also worried about other child sex abuse victims who will be discouraged and depressed – when they see adults publicly rallying around and raising money for a convicted criminal. And we are worried that ignoring this callous injustice will encourage others in the future to publicly back those who commit and conceal child sex crimes.

Imagine, Bishop, that you’re a 13 year old boy who’s being molested by his soccer coach or a 12 year old girl who’s being molested by her uncle. In each case, the predator tells the child “If you speak up, no one will listen or believe you. I’m a popular person around here. Everyone will think you’re lying or crazy.”

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.

ARKANSAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, October 16, 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 )

Two groups seek bishop’s help
A fundraiser is set for convicted teacher
She refused to report suspected child sex crimes
Organizations want prelate 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

Two groups for sex abuse victims are blasting organizers of a fundraiser for a teacher convicted of refusing to report suspected child sex crimes. And the groups are writing to Little Rock’s Catholic bishop urging him to “rein in” his flock and discourage attendance and future such events.

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, and NSAC, National Survivors Action Coalition, believe the event “hurts at least one child sex abuse victim and deters other child sex abuse victims from speaking up.”

The fundraiser, set for this Saturday, is a benefit for 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.

[Evite]

Called “We Believe in Kathy Griffin,” the gathering is hosted by Katie Smith Escovedo and Tammy Bass Quick (501-247-6831). Both are parents of current MSM students. ( http://www.arkansas-catholic.org/news/article/2935 ) Quick is the president of the MSM athletic booster club and Escovedo is the past president of the club.

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GERMANY
Vatican Insider

Never before has the German Church seen a media campaign on the same scale as the one launched against the Bishop of Limburg

GUIDO HORST
BERLIN

The list of bishops who should be packing their bags in light of the fierce media campaign launched against them in German-speaking lands, is by no means short: the Vatican moved Bishop Wolfgang Haas of Chur away from Switzerland and out of the press and ecclesiastical leadership’s firing line, to the safe haven of the Archdiocese of Valduz in Lichtenstein, established for him in 1997. In 1995 the press sullied Viennese cardinal Hans Hermann Groer’s name, accusing him of sexual molestation, but these accusations came to nothing thanks to the zealous intervention of former suffragan bishop, Christoph Schönborn. Similarly, in Austrian in 2004, Kurt Krenn of Sankt Pölten was forced to step back after years of attacks and accusations of sexual abuse scandals in his Seminary. Another scandal broke out in Germany, in 2010, involving the Bishop of Augusta Walter Mixa. He was not convincing enough in his defence against charges that he beat school children in his years as a religious studies teacher. He ended up handing in his resignation.

Now, it is the fate of the Bishop of Limburg, Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, that is hanging by a thread. The bishop apparently spent gigantic sums of money on a lavish new bishop’s residence and diocesan centre and gave false statements to the press regarding a first-class flight he took to India. All these cases, from Groer to Tebartz-van Elst, have something in common: all of these bishops had or have fully embraced the “Roman line” (this is not necessarily a given for prelates in the German-speaking world) and enjoyed the strong support of the Pope in office. There is a growing fear among Germany’s “conservative” bishops, that the media could from one moment to the next target another one of their unpopular confreres. They may do so if one of these bishops seems to them to be too faithful to Rome and too traditionalist.

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MINNESOTA
Press TV (Iran)

A Minnesota woman sued a priest, accusing the popular University of St. Thomas professor of sexually abusing her as a teen while he was studying to be a priest.

The complaint, filed Monday in Ramsey County, alleges the Rev. Michael Keating “engaged in multiple instances of unpermitted, harmful, and offensive sexual contact” from 1997 to 2000 while he was a seminary student, Minnesota Public Radio reported. Keating was in his 40s at the time of the alleged abuse.

The woman, who was in her teens when the alleged abuse occurred, told MPR her family reported the matter to the archbishop in 2006 but an internal review said there was insufficient evidence to remove Keating from the ministry. She said church officials repeatedly pressed her for details and determined it wasn’t abuse.

“It felt like a betrayal times two,” she said. “First time, I’m betrayed by Keating, and then I’m betrayed by the archdiocese.”

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly

By Gustavo Arellano Wed., Oct. 16 2013

Has Orange County Register owner Aaron Kushner’s push to be journalism’s Jesus gone to his head to the point where he now actually thinks he’s every newspaper’s Nazarene, the media Messiah, the copy Christ (okay: no more alliterations)? Apparently so: earlier this month, it was announced that the throwaway magazine arm of Freedom Communications, Churm Media, will publish the official newspaper of the Diocese of Orange, Orange County Catholic, starting next month.
Cool! So Kushner has no problem printing the paper of an organization that protected pedophile priests for decades, who’s still trying to screw over sex-abuse victims, and who still employs John Urell, a pedophile protector that should’ve been cast into Gehenna long ago. REAL positive journalism there!

The official blurbage claims Churm will only “oversee the newspaper’s design, printing, ad sales and distribution while the diocese and the Orange County Catholic editorial team will oversee development of the content,” which we all know is a crock since the report also sneaked in the nebulous line that “the Churm group also will oversee expansion of the newspaper from its current once-a-month publication to a weekly publication”–code for “We’re putting on kid gloves with the Diocese since they’re going to pay us mucho dinero to print their rag.”

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ARGENTINA
16 Noticias

[con video]

El periodista de Canal 26, Andrés Klipphan en una nueva entrega de “Cámara Klipphan” se metió en la siniestra historia de Justo José Ilarraz.

Aseguran que Justo José Ilarraz tomaba baños con los alumnos, es decir, baños desnudos con alumnos pupilos tocándose los genitales, no solo eso, había caricias, besos, apocamientos, franela y, en la última fase, porque Ilarraz iba por fase, desde el primer año hasta el quinto y, en la última fase tomaba el espíritu del joven que había venido corrompiendo y abusando desde el primer año y decía que tenia que estar adentro de esa persona y que se quedara tranquilo que no iba a haber derrame de liquido adentro porque, si había derrame adentro, era pecado y el mismo lo iba a confesar después”.

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NORTH CAROLINA
Indy Week

Pink Smoke Over the Vatican
Saturday, Oct. 19, 1:30–3:30 p.m.
Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, 1801 Hillsborough St., Raleigh
Free; donations accepted
Discussion with the Rev. Roy Bourgeois follows
Sponsored by SWIM of Raleigh

by Lisa Sorg

From my vantage point in the second pew during 10 o’clock Mass at St. Ambrose Church, altar boys had mission-critical duties to ensure the service unfolded properly: swing incense, carry candlesticks, open the prayer book, hand the priest vessels of water and wine and a towel to wipe his hands, and most important, hold the Communion plate to catch any falling Hosts.

My father and uncles had been altar boys, so at age 8, I asked my mother how I could become one. (My interest was not entirely pious; altar boys wore black cassocks and black slip-on Keds, which I thought would absolve me from wearing a dress and cramped patent-leather Mary Janes.)

“Girls can’t become altar boys,” my mother replied.

Thus began my disenchantment with, and eventual severance from, the Catholic Church.

While the Vatican now allows girls to be altar servers—although bishops can decide whether to allow it in their own diocese—women cannot become priests. In fact, in 2010, under the regime of Pope Benedict XVI, the Vatican classified the ordination of women as a “grave crime,” the same category that governs sexual abuse by priests.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 10/15/2013

University of St. Thomas professor Michael J. Keating told a fellow priest in 2006 that a teenage Italian girl had “seduced” him and he was worried that his colleague might get the wrong impression.

The statement by the fellow priest emerged during a 2006 Chisago County sheriff’s office investigation of Keating, following an allegation by a local woman that he had abused her beginning when she was 13.

The woman, now in her late 20s, filed a lawsuit against Keating on Monday in Ramsey County District Court, alleging sexual battery. The sheriff’s office released its investigative file Tuesday at the request of the Pioneer Press.

Keating, 57, was not criminally charged in the case.

The priest and tenured associate professor of Catholic studies at St. Thomas announced over the weekend that he was taking a leave of absence. A university spokesman said that another instructor has taken over his classes and that Keating is no longer living on campus.

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Dominican Today

Santo Domingo.- Justice minister Francisco Domínguez on Tuesday revealed that the Vatican will prosecute its former envoy Jozef Wesolowski on charges of the sexual abuse of boys, according to the provisions of the Vienna Convention.

The country was also denied prosecution of the priest Wojciech Gil (padre Alberto), who will face trial in courts in his native Poland, on pedophilia charges.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Paddy Agnew

Former attorney general Peter Sutherland will play a role in the ongoing process of curia reform instigated by Pope Francis.

As a “consultor” to the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (Apsa), often known as the Vatican’s treasury ministry, Mr Sutherland will be involved in the revision and overhaul of Holy See finances and economic organisation.

The Holy See announced yesterday that, in the interests of transparency, a process of “due diligence” had begun at Apsa.

The news came on the same day as the retirement of the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, underscoring the wind of change blowing through the Vatican.

Mr Sutherland, who has served on the “extraordinary section” of Apsa since 2006, will be involved in implementing any proposed reforms that emerge from the“due diligence” being carried out by US firm Promontory Financial Group.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

[with transcript]

Savile and the tapes that damn the police: Revealed, the kid-glove treatment that allowed paedophile DJ to escape justice

By STEPHEN WRIGHT and MILES GOSLETT

Jimmy Savile ran rings around detectives probing child sex claims against him, according to disturbing transcripts released yesterday.

In a 56-minute interview in 2009, two years before he died, he fobbed off police with lies, bluster and legal threats.

The 83-year-old said accusations from three of his teenage victims were the ‘complete fantasy’ of people ‘looking for a few quid’.

Savile even boasted he ‘owned’ the NHS hospital at Stoke Mandeville and said he brushed off girls ‘like midges’.

Repeatedly reminding the Surrey detectives of his charity work, he feigned incredulity at each allegation they put to him.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Survivor’s Voice

Tomorrow, October 17 2013, will be a notable day in the state of Massachusetts when half of our state legislators have agreed to sit down at a private invitation-only breakfast with the Archbishop of Boston, the leader of an institution which has affected so many lives.

Notable on many levels:

Notable that these same public officials who can positively impact this generation and future generations of children by passing bills to eliminate the criminal and civil Statues of Limitation for sex crimes against children, are privately meeting with the leader of a religious institution, a private religious institution, that has lobbied against these bills and other similar bills for over a decade.

Notable that these officials are meeting with the leader of an institution which the highest law authority in our state, The Attorney General, stated in a grand jury report, that the sexual abuse of children in this state, by officials of this institution “was so massive and so prolonged that it bordered on the unbelievable.” This grand jury report also stated that this institution produced “the greatest tragedy to befall children in this commonwealth in terms of sexual abuse.”

Most notable, indeed, is the fact that these meetings are taking place behind closed doors, out of the public eye, in similar manner to that of countless closed door meetings held by the officials of the same institution that abused their position and power in order to cast protection over, and shield thousands of sexual predators instead of our children. …

Contact your State Legislator

Not happy about this private get-together?
email your local state legislator.

Click here for the email address of your representative

Click here for the email address of your senator

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MASSACHUSETTS
Telegram & Gazette

Editorial

It is especially sad when a person answers a high calling, carves a strong niche in the community, but is brought down by human frailty.

In just such a scenario, the Rev. Stephen M. Gemme has been removed from his Northboro post by Bishop Robert M. McManus. And while a fuller picture of the priest as a problem gambler and possibly embezzler waits to emerge, there is enough information to mourn, abhor, and learn from.

According to a letter from the bishop posted on the parish website over the weekend, the pastor of St. Bernadette Parish is suspected of embezzling more than $230,000 in connection with gambling.

Suspect withdrawals noticed by an official with the parish school led to a meeting in July between the priest and the bishop. The 44-year-old priest acknowledged a problem with gambling, and was put on a medical leave of absence to get treatment.

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POLAND
The News

Prosecutors in the Dominican Republic have completed documentation for the trial of two Polish priests charged with the sexual abuse of minors

“We are in constant contact with the Polish authorities and are working closely with them,” Francisco Dominguez Brito, the Dominican Republic’s attorney general has told reporters.

Father Wojciech Gil and Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski face trials, possibly in Poland, following a wide ranging investigation into paedophilia in the Roman Catholic Church on the Caribbean island.

“The procedure is likely to take place in Poland and Vatican City. We are providing full assistance to the victims. The acts referred to here are absolutely unacceptable. The perpetrators must meet punishment,” the attorney general added.

Media in the Dominican Republic reported at the weekend that the alleged sexual abuse of boys by Father Gil and Jozef Wesolowski – who was the Vatican’s representative at the time – was alerted to police by Francisco Javier Occis Reyes, a deacon being held by police on charges of the sexual abuse of a minor.

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TEXAS
News-Journal

Posted: Wednesday, October 16, 2013

By Sarah Thomas sthomas@news-journal.com

A former Gilmer pastor found guilty on multiple child sex charges will not be eligible for parole for 180 years.

Judge Lauren Parish on Tuesday sentenced Hugo Fluellen, 54, to six consecutive life sentences.

Fluellen’s wife, Rosie Evans Fluellen, 44, remains in the Upshur County Jail on Tuesday under $150,000 bond on a charge of sexual assault of a child, said Upshur County District Attorney Billy Byrd said.

“She knew about it and was a party to the crime,” Byrd said.

The trial started Monday in the 115th Judicial District Court, during which the jury heard evidence that Hugo Fluellen sexually abused his victim for a decade.

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AUSTRALIA
Perth Now

PAUL ANDERSON NEWS LIMITED OCTOBER 16, 2013

AN experienced judge wiped away tears in court today as the victim of a sexually depraved Catholic priest explained how being sexually abused by a trusted church figure had devastated his life.

In an eloquent and moving victim statement read to the County Court, the victim, now a businessman aged in his early 50s, laid bare the full impact of sexual abuse.

His account moved Judge Felicity Hampel, who reached for a tissue and wiped away apparent tears.

The victim, who cannot be identified, read his statement to the court via video link from a separate room during the plea hearing of former southeast suburban parish priest Russell Robert Walker.

Walker, aged between 27 and 31 at the time of his repeated offending, abused two boys over a four-year period in the 1970s – despite an archbishop being warned about him.

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ILLINOIS
WSIL

By Sam Smith

UNION CO. — Bill Vandergraph, a former Alto Pass pastor, must now register as a sex offender. Vandergraph is accused of sexually assaulting his four-year-old foster child three years ago

Vandergraph is charged with Predatory Criminal Sexual Assault. The 75-year-old is also battling dementia. The state built a strong enough case to convict the former pastor, but the court says his mental disease makes him unfit for trial.

“In this particular case, the judge found that there was enough evidence and it’s a legal conclusion of ‘not not guilty’,” said Allen James, Vandergraph’s attorney.

Being “not not guilty,” means Vandergraph would have gone to trial and possibly sent to prison if he was fit. James says his client is at home and taking medication for his mental illness and that’s the best place for him going forward.

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ILLINOIS
KFVS

Amber Ruch

UNION COUNTY, IL (KFVS) –
Union County State’s Attorney Tyler Edmonds says a Union County pastor has been found not mentally fit to stand trial.

Pastor Bill Vandergraph was charged with criminal sexual abuse.

In a recent bench trial, or discharge hearing, the judge decided there was enough evidence to convict if Vandergraph had been fit to stand trial. As of now, he is not guilty.

At a status hearing on Tuesday, October 15, the court ruled that Vandergraph is required to register as a sex offender even though he wasn’t convicted. He will have to submit a DNA sample.

Vandergraph will be back in court in December to decide if he’ll be committed to something like a mental health facility if the judge decides he is a danger to society.

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MINNESOTA
WCCO

[with video]

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – A police report obtained by WCCO details a Chicago County woman’s claims against a prominent Twin Cities priest and University of St. Thomas professor.

The woman claims he abused her starting when she was just 13 years old.

That report also details an accusation that the Rev. Michael Keating was investigated for being sexually involved with a 14-year-old Italian girl. Keating is now on a voluntary leave from his job as a professor of Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas.

The police report includes the transcript of the woman’s interview with the Chisago County Sheriff’s Department where she details being molested. And it also details that officials at the highest level of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis were aware of the allegations involving a second teenager in Italy.

The 68-page report said Keating, then a seminary student and a friend of the Chisago County girl’s parents, was often an overnight guest at the family home.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Tue, Oct 15, 2013

All lump sum payments to women who had been in the Magdalene laundries will be tax exempt, Minister for Finance Michael Noonan announced today.

“The Government has decided to give effect to one of the main recommendations of Mr Justice Quirke, in relation to his report on the individuals who worked in Magdalene Laundries,” he said in his Budget speech. “ To this effect, I am announcing that all lump sum payments to claimants will be tax exempt.”

Under the scheme prepared by Mr Justice John Quirke in his recent report and announced last June, women who had been in the laundries are to receive lump sum payments of between €11,500 and €100,000 for time spent in the institutions. Payment of the money is not dependent on proof of any hardship, injury or abuse.

A woman who spent three months or less in a Magdalene laundry will receive a lump sum of €11,500. For one year it will be €20,500 and for five years €68,500. The maximum payment is €100,000, for women who were in a laundry for 10 years or more.

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REPUBLICA DOMINICANA
Panorama

[Summary: Polish priest Gil Wojciech and former Apostolic Nuncio Josef Wesolowski, both accused of sexual abuse of minors, will be tried in Poland and the Vatican respectively, according to Francisco Dominguez Brito, attorney general for the Dominican Republica. Dominican prosecutors are giving all necessary assistance to prosecutors in Poland and are supplying information and evidence. Records in the Dominican Republic will be sent to Poland.]

Santo Domingo.- El sacerdote Polaco Wojciech Gil y el ex nuncio apostólico, Jósef Wesolowski, acusados de abuso sexual a menores, “serán juzgados en Polonia y el Vaticano, respectivamente”, reveló este martes el procurador general de la Republica, Francisco Domínguez Brito.

“El Ministerio Público está dando toda la ayuda necesaria a la Procuraduría de Polonia para suministrarle informaciones y evidencia que comprometen la responsabilidad penal de los acusados de pederastia”, aseveró el funcionario judicial.

“Estamos haciendo los trámites para enviar los expedientes requeridos por ese país”, agregó.

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ITALIA
Leggo

[video]

[Summary: Erik Zattoni, 33, who said he was born as result of rape by a 54-year-old pedophile priest, is demanding justice for his mother. Don Pietro in 1980 is said to have raped his then 14-year-old mother. The priest then threatened the girl not to tell anyone and threatened to evict the family from their home which was owned by the parish.]

Martedì 15 Ottobre 2013

FERRARA – Erik Zattoni 33 anni, frutto dello stupro di un prede pedofilo di 54 anni chiede giustizia per sua madre. I fatti risalgono al 1980, quando Don Pietro ha attirato nel suo studio una ragazzina di 14 anni e le ha usato violenza. L’orco ha poi minacciato la ragazza di non svelare nulla a nessuno, con la minaccia di sfrattare tutta la sua numerosa famiglia dalla casa in cui risiedevano, di proprietà della parrocchia.

LA GRAVIDANZA La ragazza ha tenuto segreto il suo dramma per 5 mesi, fino a quando per un forte mal di pancia è stata portata in ospedale, dove si è scoperto che era incinta. I familiari di Erik raccontano come le loro proteste con la curia locale si sono scontrate contro un muro di gomma, e come il vescovo di Ferrara del tempo li invitò a tacere per non provocare un grave danno all’immagine della Chiesa. Persino un avvocato a cui si erano rivolti li sconsigliò di sporgere querela per non rischiare di incappare in una controquerela, dato che al tempo era più difficile dimostrare una paternità. Il Vaticano ha poi inviato uno dei suoi avvocati chiedendo ai familiari di firmare un documento in cui smentivano le loro richieste, in cambio della certezza di non venire sfrattati. Al rifiuto di apporre la firma, l’intera famiglia, composta da 18 membri, è stata cacciata via dalla casa, mentre Don Pietro è rimasto altri 25 anni nella sua parrocchia, a gestire la scuola materna.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

Jimmy Savile was interviewed by Surrey Police in October 2009. A copy of the transcript of the interview has now been released under the FOIA with a number of redactions.

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 165-13-198

Savile Interview Part 1

Savile Interview Part 2

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

Savile report: Key points
Q&A: Jimmy Savile abuse
Profile: Jimmy Savile
Mark Easton: Credibility and justice
Transcript

Surrey Police have released a transcript of an interview with Jimmy Savile, in which the entertainer repeatedly denied claims of abuse.

During the 2009 interview Savile said allegations against him had started in the 1950s by people “looking for a few quid, or story for the paper”.

The force said the Crown Prosecution Service decided there was insufficient evidence to prosecute Savile.

The late DJ is believed to have abused hundreds of victims during his career.

The interview was conducted at Savile’s office at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire on 1 October 2009.

‘Like midges’

Savile was asked about touching a young girl “sexually” over her clothes at Duncroft Children’s home in Staines in the 1970s, and forcing her to give him oral sex.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
newsnet5

Case against Cleveland priest, accused of trying to pay for sex, is bound over to county court

By: Ann Geyser, newsnet5.com
CLEVELAND – The case against a local priest, accused of trying to pay for sex, has been bound over from Cleveland Municipal Court to Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court.

The Reverend James McGonegal of St. Ignatius of Antioch Church, at 10205 Lorain Ave., was in municipal court on Tuesday, charged with one count of soliciting sex.

According to Metroparks rangers, McGonegal offered an undercover ranger $50 for sex at Edgewater Park on Oct. 11.

After being arrested, McGonegal told officials he was HIV positive. He is now free on bond, but is on leave from his parish.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
The Press-News

CLEVELAND (AP) — A charge against a priest accused of soliciting sex at a Cleveland park has been bound over to another court for possible grand jury consideration.

A court official says the Rev. James McGonegal ((Muh-GAHN’-ee-gul) is charged with soliciting after a positive HIV test. McGonegal did not enter a plea Tuesday in Cleveland Municipal Court. The charge was bound over to Cuyahoga (ky-uh-HOH’-guh) County Common Pleas Court.

Police reports say McGonegal told authorities he has tested positive for HIV.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
Cleveland Leader

Published by Julie Kent on October 15, 2013

Rev. James McGonegal, 68, pastor at St. Ignatius of Antioch Church on Lorain Avenue in Cleveland for the past several decades, arrested last Friday after an off-duty Metroparks ranger in plain clothes caught him attempting to solicit sex at Edgewater Park. The Catholic Diocese of Cleveland issued a statement on Monday evening, and McGonegal was arraigned on Tuesday.

McGonegal did not enter a plea during his arraignment today. Instead, he waived a preliminary hearing, and his charges will be bound over to a grand jury. McGonegal faces charges of soliciting, public indecency and drug abuse.

The Catholic Diocese of Cleveland has issued a second statement on Monday concerning McGonegal, confirming that he is, at least for now, taking a step back from his duties.

The Diocese stated:

“The status of Fr. James McGonegal is under review. Fr McGonegal has stepped away from his duties at St. Ignatius of Antioch Parish to attend to his personal matters. Fr. Gary Yanus, priest in residence at St. Ignatius of Antioch Parish will temporarily attend to the sacramental needs of the parish community.”

According to incident reports, McGonegal asked a park ranger to enter his vehicle, and offered him $50 to help him “get off”. He allegedly exposed himself and began to touch himself. McGonegal was arrested, and inside the vehicle three sexual devices were found as well as a bottle of intoxicant. McGonegal later revealed to police that he is HIV positive..

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

By Philip Pullella
VATICAN CITY | Tue Oct 15, 2013

(Reuters) – The cardinal widely blamed for failing to prevent a series of ethical and financial scandals during the reign of former Pope Benedict stepped down on Tuesday, ending an era fraught with embarrassments.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, 78, left his post as secretary of state, the number two in the Vatican hierarchy, and handed over the role of “deputy pope” to Archbishop Pietro Parolin, a 58-year-old career diplomat.

Bertone’s departure is the most visible break with the hierarchy left by Benedict and comes as Pope Francis prepares to overhaul the notoriously secretive Vatican administration and its scandal-hit bank.

Parolin, a former Vatican nuncio (ambassador) to Venezuela, is known for a frugal lifestyle in tune with the pope’s own preferences.

He was not present at Tuesday’s handover ceremony, after undergoing surgery while visiting his family in northern Italy.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) The presidency of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See (APSA) has announced a new supervisory board and a review to be conducted by an independent firm.The APSA is the office of the Roman Curia that handles the properties, real and personal, of the Holy See, in order to provide the funds necessary for the Holy See to function. Below, please find Vatican Radio’s translation of the statement from the APSA

In implementation of the presented this past July to the Council of Cardinals for the Study of Organizational and Economic Problems of the Holy See in the report of the Consultors of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA), it appeared appropriate to review the functions of Consultors themselves through the creation of a “Supervisory Board” of the APSA’s Extraordinary Section, for which the same Consultors have given their availability.

As is known, the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See – Extraordinary Section has the exclusive function of administering its own personal property and personal property entrusted to it by other agencies of the Holy See.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

By Philip Pullella
VATICAN CITY | Tue Oct 15, 2013

(Reuters) – The Vatican has called in an outside company to investigate a department that manages its real estate holdings and financial and stock portfolios following accusations of corruption.

A committee of cardinals took the decision to look into the books and activities of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA) as the Vatican tries to clean up the image of its bank, the focus of scandals for decades.

APSA, which has two divisions, manages the Vatican’s real estate holdings in Rome and elsewhere in Italy, pays the salaries of Vatican employees, and acts as a purchasing office and human resources department. It also manages the Vatican’s financial and stock portfolio.

A Vatican statement said the Promontory Financial Group would carry out a due diligence procedure of both sections, looking into its financial and economic activities and its management procedures.

The same company is helping the Vatican bank comb through its accounts in order to meet international financial standards and eliminate those which could be used for money laundering.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Francis X. Rocca Catholic News Service | Oct. 15, 2013

VATICAN CITY Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who as Vatican secretary of state drew rising criticism for failures of the Vatican bureaucracy he oversaw, stepped down Tuesday with a speech praising the pontificate of retired Pope Benedict XVI and stressing its continuity with that of Pope Francis.
The cardinal made his remarks at a ceremony in the Apostolic Palace marking the end of his seven years as the chief aide to two popes. Before his speech, Pope Francis thanked the cardinal for the “courage and patience with which you have lived the adversities you have had to face. They are so many.”

The ceremony had also been planned as a welcome to the incoming secretary of state, Archbishop Pietro Parolin, but to the surprise of most in the room, Pope Francis announced the archbishop had been unable to attend on account of a “small surgical intervention” that would keep him away from work for a “few weeks.”

The Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi, said the archbishop had traveled to his native Veneto region of northeastern Italy for the surgery, whose nature the spokesman declined to specify. The new secretary of state, who until the end of September served as papal nuncio to Venezuela, could be in Rome by the end of October, Lombardi said.

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CHILE
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday October 15, 2013

Statement by Juan Carlos Cruz ( +1 312 420 4301, jccruz1@aol.com )

The obvious question here is: what is Archbishop Ezzati hiding?

More than one priest is accused of committing abuses on the children at Catholic homes. Regardless of who is accused the Archbishop should honor his duties as a citizen and be questioned by secular officials.

For centuries, Catholic officials have acted as if they are above the law. They’re still doing this. And they’re doing it to protect themselves and their reputations and their predator priests.

The Archbishop is a member of the Catholic church, of course, but he’s also a member of Chilean society. He has an obligation to obey the rules of both institutions. It’s wrong for him to hide behind one set of rules to avoid being held responsible for violating another set of rules.

By thumbing his nose at Chilean officials, the Archbishop is being irresponsible and encouraging his colleagues, staff and flock to do likewise.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Huffington Post

Jon Brown

It’s now just over a year since the NSPCC began to take calls to its helpline from adults, about being sexually abused when they were children by Jimmy Savile and others.

Those who had been silenced by their experiences and by their abusers for so long because they felt they were in some way to blame, and that they were the only ones, began to realise that there were many others with a story to tell.

So why hasn’t there been an increase in arrests and charges for cases of child sexual abuse that may have been committed years ago?

A recent BBC 5 Live investigation into allegations of historic child sexual abuse before and after the Jimmy Savile case found a 70% increase between November 2011-April 2012 and the same period from 2012-2013. However, there was a 6% drop in arrests and the rate of charging only increased by 6 cases (from 352-358) despite the huge increase in allegations.

Police capacity is undoubtedly a factor in the lack of increase. Many forces have seen a huge increase in reports and have had to respond, often with the same resources. Some have resorted to bringing in extra capacity from other (non-sexual crime) units and this is problematic if these officers are not trained in dealing with sexual abuse cases, either current or historic.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

EXCLUSIVE: ‘I brush women away like midges and the police sort out my problems’: Breathtaking arrogance of Jimmy Savile in his last police interview revealed for the first time

By MARTIN ROBINSON

Jimmy Savile’s disdain for his abuse victims was laid bare today after secret documents revealed he boasted to police about ‘brushing off girls like midges’ if they accused him of sex attacks.

Just two years before his death the disgraced broadcaster told officers from Surrey Police the girls he attacked were ‘just looking for a few quid’.

Today a full transcript of his last police interview in 2009 has been published, where child protection detectives accused him of abusing three young girls in a children’s home.

The girls said he had touched them inappropriately, tried to kiss one and promised one a nurse’s job if she performed a sex act on him, which he called ‘rubbish’ and a ‘complete fantasy’.

Despite the seriousness of the allegations he was never arrested and died an innocent man in 2011, aged 84, despite having abused hundreds of children.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Yahoo! News

Surrey Police have released transcripts of interviews they did with Jimmy Savile in 2009 about child sexual abuse allegations.

One interview took place at his office at the National Spinal Injuries Centre at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Buckinghamshire.

He was questioned by officers about a claim that he had touched a girl “over her clothes sexually” during a visit to Duncroft children’s home in Staines, which was a Barnado’s home in the late 1970s.

Savile replied: “Oh! Out of the question.”

At the start of the interview, Savile was asked to confirm his date of birth and then told the police: “In 83 years I’ve never, ever done anything wrong.”

He added: “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.

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KENYA
allAfrica

BY BENSON NYAGESIBA, 15 OCTOBER 2013

A Catholic priest from Kisii County was yesterday arraigned IN court charged defiling a minor.

Thomas Gori appeared before Resident Magistrate Lucy Kaittany for defiling a 14 year-old school girl in Ikuruma sub-location in Marani district.

The court heard that on October 12, Gori who was arrested from St. Teresa Manga Parish, intentionally and unlawfully defiled the child.

He denied that he indecently touched the private parts of the underage girl contrary to the offenses Act 2006.

The prosecution, led by Chief Inspector, John Osukuku asked the court to have him remanded for two days to enable police from Rioma police station complete investigations into the incident.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 15 October 2013 (VIS) – Today, the Holy Father:

– elevated Fr. Fernando Vergez Alzaga, L.C., secretary general of the Governorate of Vatican City State, to the dignity of bishop. The bishop-elect was born in Salamanca, Spain in 1945 and was ordained a priest in 1969. He holds a licentiate in philosophy and theology from the Gregorian Pontifical University and the diploma of the School of Archivistry of the Vatican Secret Archives. He has served in the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life and the Congregation for the Laity, and in 2004 he was nominated bureau chief of the Holy See Internet Office. In 2008 he was nominated director of the Department of Telecommunications of Vatican City State. …

– appointed Rev. Mark Hagemoen, of the clergy of Vancouver, as bishop of MacKenzie-Fort Smith (area 1,523,400, population 49,150, Catholics 27,050, priests 8, permanent deacons 1, religious 11), Canada. The bishop-elect was born in Vancouver, Canada in 1961 and was ordained a priest in 1990. He obtained the title “Doctor in Ministry” from Trinity Western University, Vancouver and has served in a number of pastoral roles, including parish vicar of St. Stephen, Vancouver; parish vicar of “St. Mary”, Chilliwack; director of youth pastoral for the archdiocese; parish priest of “St. Nicholas”, at Langley; vicar general of the archdiocese; episcopal vicar for diocesan pastoral services; parish priest of “St. John the Apostle”, Vancouver, and director of the Catholic Colleges of “Corpus Christi” and “St. Mark’s”, in Vancouver. He is a member of the council of the Center for Ministry Development, of the College of Consultors and of the council of the Catholic Little Flower Academy High School for Girls, in Vancouver.

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CANADA
Vancouver Sun

A Vancouver priest who heads the Catholic colleges at the University of B.C. has been appointed by Pope Francis to be bishop of Canada’s largest diocese.

Monsignor Mark Hagemoen will become Bishop of the diocese of Mackenzie-Fort Smith, based in Yellowknife.

Mackenzie-Fort Smith includes most of the Northwest Territories and parts of Nunavut and Saskatchewan, covering 1.5 million square kilometres. It has a population of 49,150 and a Catholic population of about 27,000, according to Paul Schratz, communications director for the Archdiocese of Vancouver at the John Paul II Pastoral Centre.

Vancouver Archbishop J. Michael Miller called the appointment “valued recognition of a very gifted administrator who has taken in hand the stewardship of our two Catholic colleges at UBC in a very able way.”

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UNITED STATES
Leon J. Podles: Dialogue

If the Catholic Church were serious about preventing sexual abuse (which it is not), one simple method is available: audited accounting of all church financial records.

Almost invariably, sexual misconduct has been paid for by misuse or outright theft of church funds,

The case of Gary Mercure is only one of thousands:

The records reveal that Mercure systematically stole money from church coffers and used it to lavish young men and boys with cash, gifts and living expenses as he brazenly maintained a sexually active, homosexual lifestyle for decades.

The donations of the faithful funded Mercure’s lifestyle:

In 2008, when Bishop Howard J. Hubbard sought to confront Mercure about overwhelming evidence that he had sexually abused minors, the priest responded that he was on vacation and could not be reached by telephone.

But Hubbard, in an internal document, had his staff trace the phone number. They learned Mercure was secretly vacationing at a gay resort “where the choice to wear something or nothing is yours … (with) erotic video lounge showing adult male videos.”

Sexual activity is private and is sometimes hard to detect, but money can be traced with ease.

However, church officials are even less interested in ending theft than they are in ending sexual abuse.

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VATICAN CITY
GMA News

By JEAN-LOUIS DE LA VAISSIERE, AFP
October 15, 2013

VATICAN CITY – The Vatican began a new chapter on Tuesday with scandal-hit cardinal Tarcisio Bertone stepping down as right-hand man to Pope Francis and replaced by veteran diplomat Pietro Parolin.

The reform-minded new Secretary of State comes in as Francis mulls an overhaul of the way the Roman Catholic Church is run that could put an end to what the pope calls a “Vatican-centric” system.

The influential post is frequently referred to as the Vatican’s equivalent of a prime minister.

Its incumbent can represent the pontiff on some occasions, and three have gone on to be popes.

Parolin himself was not present at the handover ceremony in the Vatican because he is undergoing a “small operation” and will take up his post “in a few weeks”, the Vatican said in a statement.

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GERMANY
National Catholic Reporter

Cindy Wooden Catholic News Service | Oct. 15, 2013

VATICAN CITY The president of the German bishops’ conference said he is following with “great attention and great concern” the case of a bishop accused of making false statements in court and under fire for allegedly spending close to $40 million in renovations and new construction on his residence and diocesan offices.

Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, the bishops’ conference president and recently retired archbishop of Freiburg, told reporters Monday that the conference has formed a commission to investigate the project in the diocese of Limburg, and he expected the head of the diocese, Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, to do some serious “self-examination.”

Zollitsch arrived in Rome on Sunday for the plenary meeting of the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelization and for a regularly scheduled meeting of the officers of the bishops’ conference with Pope Francis.

“I take the situation in Limburg very seriously,” Zollitsch said. He said the situation in Limburg would be one of the topics of his meeting with the pope.

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IRELAND
Association of Catholic Priests

From October 10th to 12th Sean McDonagh and I attended a meeting of renewal and reform groups in Austria. There were people, lay and cleric, men and women, from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Australia, United States and Ireland, — about thirty people in all, at the meeting. It was a great experience, and I was glad to be there.

Among the issues discussed were:

1. How to respond to the new message coming out from the Vatican since Pope Francis was elected. We were generally impressed by what he was saying, though with some reservations. Does he really mean these things? And if he does, will he be able to bring about the necessary structural changes to make them happen? The women among us were disappointed by some of his statements about women, particularly his emphasis on women as mothers (which they saw as traditional stereotyping!) and his call for a ‘theology of women’ (why separate women as if they were a different species?). But, allowing for these reservations, there was a general feeling that Pope Francis was at the least creating a new atmosphere in the Church and deserved our support and encouragement.

2. The Synod on the Family. The meeting agreed that if this synod consisted only of cardinals, and other celibate clerics, it would be of little use. A lot of discussion concerned how to find ways of influencing the make-up of the synod, and ensuring that the voices of families and women would play a significant part. Specific actions are being planned in this area.

3. With declining numbers of priests, what happens to parishes without priests? This is a more urgent reality in some European countries, and in the United States, than it has become here as yet – though of course it is only around the corner for us also. Two points were strongly made: (i) That it was a shame that local communities were deprived of the Eucharist because of the rigidity of the Church in not being able even to discuss the limits placed on those who are eligible for priesthood. (ii) That parish communities should be much more assertive, and not allow themselves to be dispersed at the orders of a bishop. It was clear to me that some local communities on the continent and in the U.S. were much more organised and vocal than parishes here in Ireland. We need to hear the voices of the lay Catholics more strongly in this country.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
The Plain Dealer

By Cory Shaffer | Northeast Ohio Media Group
on October 15, 2013

CLEVELAND, Ohio — The priest of a West Side Cleveland Catholic church suspected of soliciting for sex made his initial appearance in court Tuesday morning.

The Rev. James McGonegal, 68, held his head high, but did not speak in Cleveland Municipal Court or to Judge Marilyn B. Cassidy during his roughly 45-second arraignment on felony solicitation after an HIV-positive charges.

Through his attorney, Henry Hilow, McGonegal waived his right to a hearing, and his personal bond was continued. He and Hilow exited the courtroom. They declined to give statements.

McGonegal did not enter a plea. His case was sent to Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, where it will likely be taken to a grand jury.

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UNITED STATES
Spiritual Politics

Mark Silk
Oct 15, 2013

A decade ago, I heard a Catholic lawyer who’d made a career of representing religious institutions in sex abuse cases describe the difference between reporting a wayward clergyman to a Methodist or Episcopal bishop versus “one of ours.” In the former case, he’d sit down in the Protestant leader’s living room, with the photos of children and grandchildren on the mantle, and the man’s sympathy would at once go to the abused. In the latter, the meeting would take place in a chancery conference room and the first words out of His Excellency’s mouth would be, “Poor Father.”

This memory comes to mind after reading Grant Gallicho’s fine account over at dotCommonweal of the current mess in the archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Thanks to brave whistleblowing by its former canon lawyer, it has become clear that over the past decade Archbishop John Nienstedt and his predecessor Harry Flynn both failed in their responsibility to report suspected abusers to the civil authorities.

In the usual episcopal two-step, Nienstedt had appointed a task force to review archdiocesan procedures. But as Gallicho points out, it is not procedures that are the problem.

No amount of “safe environment” training can fix this problem. It doesn’t matter how independent a diocesan review board is on paper. Or how many laypeople have been tasked to overhaul a diocese’s abuse policies. Or how sincerely a bishop promises to make room for a review board to do its work. We have seen it time and again… If a bishop decides to keep allegations to himself, he can. If he wants to sabotage strong sexual-abuse policies, he’s free to do so…And the only person who can act decisively to change this culture of denial lives in Rome.

The only emendation I’d propose is to the idea that the heart of the problem is a culture of denial. Rather, it’s the “poor father” syndrome — a condition in which a bishop’s allegiance to the members of his clerical family robs him of his better judgment.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran said he thinks the new Secretary of State is an excellent choice and will do “very, very well” in his new job as the Holy See’s second in command.

Archbishop Pietro Parolin was to take office as the new Secretary of State Tuesday. However, Pope Francis announced, he will begin his duties officially in a few weeks, following surgery.

Cardinal Tauran, currently president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, worked with Archbishop Parolin in the Secretariat of State several years ago. The archbishop was then the cardinal’s Undersecretary for Relations with States for about four years.

In an interview with Vatican Radio’s Hélène Destombes, the cardinal said: “He’s an excellent priest and I think he has great international experience. And he is young, so he could accompany the Pope in the reform of the Curia.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone officially stepped down on Tuesday as the Vatican Secretary of State to be succeeded by Archbishop Pietro Parolin. In a short ceremony, held in the library of the Secretariat of State, Pope Francis acknowledged Cardinal Bertone’s contribution to the running of the Holy See.

Archbishop Parolin was not present at the ceremony though he had been expected to take office today. The Pope said the archbishop will take up his new position in the next few weeks since he is currently recovering from surgery.

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VATICAN CITY
Huffington Post

By NICOLE WINFIELD 10/15/13 08:13

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The new Vatican No. 2 was a no-show at the ceremony to take over the reins of the Vatican administration, after being hospitalized for urgent surgery.

Pope Francis told the assembled guests at Tuesday’s handover ceremony that Archbishop Pietro Parolin had had to undergo minor but urgent surgery while he was visiting his family in Italy’s Veneto region. The Vatican says it would be several weeks before he actually starts working.

Parolin missed out on the ceremonial changing of the guard from the retiring Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who was blamed for many of the gaffes and problems of the papacy of Benedict XVI.

Francis nevertheless welcomed Parolin “in absentia” as he thanked Bertone for his service.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
Cleveland Scene

Posted by Eric Sandy on Tue, Oct 15, 2013

The Rev. James McGonegal of St. Ignatius will appear in court this morning after exposing himself and then some in the Cleveland Metroparks Oct. 11.

McGonegal pulled into the Edgewater Park parking lot, and a plain-clothes park ranger happened to be in the area. The ranger was leaving the parking lot and about to head down the trail head, but McGonegal had rolled down his window and begun tapping on the door frame. He was gesturing toward the ranger.

As the report goes on, the ranger continued walking out of sight, but then stopped and headed back to figure out what was going on. As he returned to the SUV, McGonegal was pulling out of his spot, but then quickly shifted back into it when he saw the ranger approaching.

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KENYA
Standard Digital

By Kenan Miruka

Kisii, Kenya: A Catholic Priest appeared before a Kisii court charged with defiling and indecently assaulting a 14-year-old girl.

The priest allegedly committed the offence on October 12, 2013 at Ikuruma sub location in Marani sub county.

He was arraigned before Kisii Resident Magistrate Lucy Kaittany where he denied defiling the minor, a daughter to a member of his flock. The priest allegedly went to minor’s home to administer prayers and on finding the mother absent, he sent the other children away before committing the offence.

The minor reported the matter to her mother when she returned in the evening prompting the arrest.

Prosecutor Chief Inspector John Osukuku sought to have the suspect held in custody for two more days to allow the investigating officer attached to Rioma Police Station to complete probe.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

October 15, 2013

Paul Bibby
Court Reporter

A woman who was allegedly abused by a Catholic priest in the 1960s says she decided to finally come forward last year after hearing that another girl had allegedly been assaulted by the same priest 20 years later.

The woman, who cannot be named, was giving evidence in the trial of Finian Egan, a 78-year-old former priest who worked at multiple dioceses across NSW during a long career.

Egan is facing eight counts of indecent assault and one of rape in relation to a series of alleged attacks on young girls in the 1960s, 1970s and 1990s.

He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

“What made me come forward was the fact that I discovered something had happened to somebody [at the hands of Egan] in the 1980s,” the woman said during a fraught stint in the witness box at the Downing Centre District Court on Tuesday.

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LEBANON
Al Arabiya

Octavia Nasr

His was the first Catholic sermon I could assimilate and the first communion I received. We learned his Christian hymns by heart as Jesuit nuns played them on portable turntables over and over in catechism class. I am one of thousands who grew up on the multifaceted teachings of a young man named Mansour Labaki.

Since those early times, from a distance I have observed many of his outreach programs, especially those to help and support orphaned children. For me, his achievements, at so many levels, have surpassed what the church itself has shown towards the less fortunate.

Whether he did or did not do what he is allegedly accused of, his name will forever be tarnished with this news.

This makes the Labaki “scandal” a matter of deep concern as we condemn pedophilia as an inexcusable crime but we also denounce framing someone as a pedophile without providing proof of such a heinous crime. For those of us whose brains process things logically rather than hysterically or emotionally, the jury is out.

To watch this man go through public humiliation and accusations of wrongdoing of the worst kind is heart-wrenching. Pedophilia is a crime that should be punished without mercy no matter who the perpetrator, Labaki himself would undoubtedly agree. At the same time, the Vatican should allow him the right to appeal and defend himself.

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KENYA
The Star

A Catholic priest from Kisii County was yesterday arraigned IN court charged defiling a minor.

Thomas Gori appeared before Resident Magistrate Lucy Kaittany for defiling a 14 year-old school girl in Ikuruma sub-location in Marani district.

The court heard that on October 12, Gori who was arrested from St. Teresa Manga Parish, intentionally and unlawfully defiled the child.

He denied that he indecently touched the private parts of the underage girl contrary to the offenses Act 2006.

The prosecution, led by Chief Inspector, John Osukuku asked the court to have him remanded for two days to enable police from Rioma police station complete investigations into the incident.

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