ABUSE TRACKER

MINNESOTA
Noaker Law Firm

[the lawsuit]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Lawsuit identifies Father William J. Marks

MINNETONKA – www.clergyabuseinminnesota.com-Minnetonka Attorney Patrick Noaker filed his third lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and his second lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of New Ulm this morning identifying a second alleged pedophile priest, William J. Marks within the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis as well as the Diocese of New Ulm. Noaker filed suits against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis early this year for alleged abuse by another priest in the Archdioceses, Fr. Thomas Stitts and against The Diocese of New Ulm for alleged abuse by a priest in the Diocese, Father Francis Markey.

In this Second Judicial District Court lawsuit John Doe 107 lleges the Archdiocese and Diocese “allowed Fr. Marks to have unsupervised and unlimited access to children, including teenagers, at St. Dionysus in Tyler, Minnesota, St. John’s Catholic Church in Hector, Minnesota, and St. Clotilde in Green Valley, Minnesota, all located for a period of time within the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis prior to the formation of The Diocese of New Ulm and under the responsibility of the Archbishop and Bishop.” He goes on to allege Marks was a priest that both the Archdiocese and The Diocese “knew or should have known posed a risk of pedophilic harm to children.”

“We don’t know how many other children Marks molested at these parishes,” Noaker said. “Pedophile priests do not stop at one. Trusting children in rural locations are particularly vulnerable to unsupervised priests like Marks. We are asking for those with any information to contacts us.”

Noaker, who has spent more than a decade uncovering the Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal in Minnesota and across the United States, has amassed an extensive library of information on Marks and other abusers. Noaker recently teamed-up with attorneys Leander James and Craig Vernon of James, Vernon & Weeks, P.A. who have been involved in similar cases uncovering scandals in Oregon, Montana, Washington State and Hawaii. Like those states, Minnesota recently passed a new law, called the Child Victims Act (“CVA”) that gives new rights to adults abused as children. The CVA revives sexual abuse claims previously barred by the statute of limitations. Abuse survivors now have a window of time to file their claims, until May, 2016.

“Thanks to our Legislature and Governor Dayton, my team and I now have the legal tools to represent survivors and demand full disclosure from institutions who harbored pedophiles and covered-up incidences of child molestation,” said Noaker.

“Through similar laws, we have uncovered pedophile clergy operating in other states. We’ve helped protect kids and held the offending institutions accountable,” said Vernon.

“Through subpoenas and document demands we can now force disclosure of the identity of pedophile priests and expose cover-up,” added James, who was a principal negotiator of a $166.1 million settlement with the Northwest Jesuits, a Roman Catholic order. That settlement included an unprecedented list of non-monetary terms including public disclosure of priests identified as perpetrators.

Noaker emphasized that “survivors like our client who find the courage to come forward empower us to bring them and society long-overdue justice.”

For information about the Child Victims Act, these lawsuits and related information please go to www.clergyabuseinminnesota.com.

FOR MEDIA ONLY: For digital images, a copy of the complaint, or an interview with Patrick Noaker, Leander James or Craig Vernon, please contact Patrick Noaker (612) 839-1080, patrick@noakerlaw.com or Craig Vernon (888) 667-0683/cvernon@jvwlaw.net. Copies of the Filed Complaint can be found at http://noakerlaw.com/crime-victim-support/

Patrick Noaker
Noaker Law Firm LLC
601 Carlson Parkway, Suite 1050
Minnetonka, MN 55305
(612) 839-1080
patrick@noakerlaw.com

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GlobalPost

Timothy McGrath
November 18, 2013

This week GlobalPost showed why so many people are digging on Pope Francis. He loves the sick and the poor. He lives a simple life that reflects his values. He has criticized the Catholic church for its alienating obsession with social issues. And he has called out global capitalism for the greed it has produced and the social devastation it has wrought.

Sounds good? Not so fast.

Here are some reasons we should think twice before hopping on the Pope Francis bandwagon. …

2) Poor handling of the Church’s child sex abuse crisis

Francis has made some headway on the child sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. He’s spoken out on the problem and instituted some new laws governing Vatican officials and employees.

That’s a start, but there is much more to be done when it comes to putting words into actions.

This is especially true in Latin America, where some have questioned Francis’ handling of molestation cases in Argentina, Chile, the Dominican Republic and Peru.

He has been largely silent on four shocking cases.

1. Dominican Republic: When the Vatican discovered that its envoy in the Dominican Republic was paying underage boys for sex, it responded by secretly firing him.

2. Peru: More secret and non-transparent handling of child sex abuse has taken place in Peru, where an auxiliary bishop went on the lam after child sex allegations against him surfaced. The Vatican’s only action was, again, to secretly dismiss him from his post. The Archbishop of Lima, Juan Luis Cipriani, even criticized journalists covering the story and said that the abuser deserved “mercy.”

3. Chile: When a congressional committee began investigating sexual abuse at Catholic children’s homes, the Archbishop of Santiago refused to appear before the committee. He bravely claimed separation of church and state, despite the fact that Chile’s agency for child welfare partly subsidizes the homes. Quite a show of strength from the Vatican’s top dog in Chile.

4. Argentina: In Francis’ home country, an imprisoned priest, Father Julio Cesar Grassi, is now appealing his 15-year sentence for sexually abusing boys. You’d think a convicted and imprisoned child rapist in the Pope’s home country would offer a low-risk opportunity for the Vatican to take a strong stand against child sex abuse in the church. Not so. One bishop in Argentina has openly claimed that Grassi is innocent, and the archdiocese released a statement pointing out that of 17 charges leveled against Grassi, he had been found not guilty of 15. Great.

So when we applaud Pope Francis for his vocal opposition to poverty, inequality, and global capitalism, we should remember the pernicious things he’s not opposing as vocally.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Ordained a priest of the Portland, ME diocese in 1985, Melville has been accused of the sexual abuse of at least three boys. One accuser told Portland bishop Gerry in a 1990 letter that Melville sexually abused him from 1980-1985, beginning when he was 14 years-old and Melville was a seminarian, in Maryland. Melville was sent briefly to treatment, then returned to active ministry. He was accused in a 2001 lawsuit of sexually abusing an Augusta ME boy from 1985-1992, beginning when the boy was 13 years-old. In a 2007 lawsuit an Augusta man accused Melville of sexually abusing him over a three year period, beginning when he was 12 years-old in 1986. Melville left the priesthood in 1997 and is last known to be living in Oklahoma.

Ordained: 1985

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – AM

TONY EASTLEY: Two months ago, the Anglican Diocese of Grafton in northern New South Wales publicly apologised to victims who suffered abuse over decades at the children’s home in Lismore.

The apology came several months after the Anglican Bishop of Grafton, Keith Slater, resigned, admitting he failed to properly manage the allegations and had turned victims away.

The diocese says it’s currently handling more cases from the orphanage and they’ve referred some matters to police.

David Hanger is chair of the Professional Standards Committee for the Diocese of Grafton.

He’s speaking here to AM’s Emily Bourke.

DAVID HANGER: What we discovered in terms of our failures was a real wake up call for us as a diocese. The outcome of that has been a deep sense of shame, a deep sense of repentance, a deep sense of wanting to ensure that we respond appropriately to what’s happened in the past and in the future. And that’s an attitudinal change for us.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY BARBARA DORRIS ON NOVEMBER 18, 2013

The St. Paul/Minneapolis archdiocesan abuse and cover up crisis is getting worse…and weirder.

Let’s start with the “weirder” part. An admitted predator priest there “met with Fr. Kevin McDonough, the vicar general, to talk about two topics — his relationship with a serial killer and his sexual interest in a convicted child rapist.”

[Minnesota Public Radio]

It’s not enough that Fr. Clarence Vavra molested kids. He also apparently was (or is) close to two men. One is a serial murderer and the other was imprisoned for raping his son.

“Weirder still: Fr. Vavra was (or is) sexually attracted to a convicted murderer and child rapist.”

A long-secret church memo says that “Fr. Vavra views Jim [the convicted child rapist] as his best friend.” When asked if he “intended to remain celibate once Jim was released from prison,” Fr. Vavra replied that “he was simply not sure that he could promise that.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

November 19, 2013

Paul Bibby
Court Reporter

The Anglican Church repeatedly denied responsibility for the physical and sexual abuse inflicted on scores of children at its home on the NSW north coast, the royal commission has heard, with one senior church figure allegedly declaring ”at least they had got a roof over their heads”.

The commission is examining the church’s response to allegations generations of vulnerable children at the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore were abused from as early as 1944 to 1985.

The first day of the hearing on Monday heard harrowing evidence from victims of the abuse who recalled being assaulted on a regular basis by members of the clergy, other employees and residents. This included being anally raped, forced to perform oral sex, and beaten with canes and ”pony” whips.

The commission heard that in 2007 one of the victims, Richard ”Tommy” Campion, helped launch a group claim against the church on behalf of 41 victims.

”I decided, after having dreams about children being beaten at the end of their beds, that I had to do something,” Mr Campion said. Mr Campion said the church vehemently denied responsibility for what had happened at the home, telling him ”we didn’t own the home, we didn’t run the home, the church had nothing to do with it”.

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NEW MEXICO
National Catholic Reporter

NCR Staff | Nov. 18, 2013

The diocese of Gallup, N.M., has formally started the process of bankruptcy, citing the costs incurred by a growing number of sex-abuse claims.

On Nov. 12, the diocese filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Albuquerque, N.M., Bishop James Wall said in a letter to parishioners that was posted on the diocesan website Nov. 11.

“In early September I told you that I had made the decision that the only way to equitably and mercifully deal with the mounting sex abuse claims, still meet our commitment to you and continue the outreach mission of the Church was to file a Chapter 11 reorganization in the United States Bankruptcy Court. Since that time, we have been preparing for the filing,” Wall said in the letter. “I wanted to tell you that the Chapter 11 filing will occur on Tuesday, November 12.”

Wall was referring to a letter he’d written over the Labor Day weekend spelling out the need for financial reorganization for the diocese, especially in light of sex-abuse claims related to cases the diocese says took place “40 or 50 years ago.”

“While some of the claims relate to times when the diocese had some insurance, many relate to times when the diocese does not appear to have had insurance or the insurance is limited and not likely to cover the damages for which the diocese might be found liable,” Wall wrote in September. “Given the financial circumstances of the diocese, I have come to the conclusion that the only fair, equitable and merciful way to balance these obligations is by filing a Chapter 11 reorganization.”

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NEW MEXICO
Houston Chronicle

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A federal judge has ruled that employees of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Gallup can continue to be paid and receive benefits during bankruptcy protection proceedings.

The Albuquerque Journal (http://bit.ly/1aMQqCl ) reports that a Bankruptcy Court judge issued the order Friday during a hearing on the diocese’s filing last week for Chapter 11 reorganization.

The diocese had announced in September that it planned to file in bankruptcy court because of mounting claims of clergy sex abuse.

The diocese includes parishes in six counties in New Mexico, three counties in Arizona and seven American Indian reservations.

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SCOTLAND
Pink News

A priest, the author of a book which alleged that the Catholic Church suffered from a “culture of homosexual bullying”, has been suspended.

Bishop Joseph Toal on Saturday removed Father Matthew Despard from his post at St John Oglivie Church in Blantyre, which is part of the Archdiocese of Motherwell.

The church has brought a case against Father Despard for breaking canon law by writing the book ‘Priesthood in Crisis’.

He wrote the book ‘Priesthood in Crisis’ in 2010, but he self-published it on Amazon’s Kindle store in March in the wake of the resignation of Cardinal Keith O’Brien.

The book claimed that a powerful ‘gay mafia’ covered up a culture of sexual bullying.

Parishioners on Sunday walked out of a service, voicing opposition to the removal of the priest, which was confirmed by a spokesman for Bishop Toal.

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UNITED STATES
Enlightened Catholicism

Fr Thomas Reese has written an article for NCR with his observations from the just concluded USCCB meeting in Baltimore. In the main I found this was a useless and boring meeting of corporate leaders who seem frighteningly out of touch with both their consumers and their own CEO. Although Fr Reese isn’t quite that blunt in his assessment he does say some things that are never the less quite blunt. The following is an extract that includes some of Reese’s blunt observations:

……But the bishops as a conference have been embarrassingly silent on economic justice during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Last year, the conference failed to pass a document on the economy despite growing inequality and high unemployment.

Many bishops fear that speaking loudly about economic issues would help Democrats and undermine their alliance with the Republican Party on issues like gay marriage, abortion, and religious liberty. Some even think that the conference’s earlier letters, “Economic Justice for All” and “The Challenge of Peace,” were mistakes because they hurt their friends. (Poverty, illness, justice for all, what are these boring things when compared to the titillation of sexual issues?)

Will the new leadership of the conference make a difference? (No. Especially since the Koch Bros just donated a cool million to the bishops very own university–Catholic University of America. How quickly came the reward for staying the pelvic course with their friends in the GOP.)

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Thomas Reese | Nov. 11, 2013 NCR Today
Fall bishops’ meeting 2013

Cardinal Timothy Dolan endorsed Pope Francis’ “Poor church for the poor,” but said that the U.S. bishops don’t have to do anything new.

The cardinal, who is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops until the end of their meeting this week in Baltimore, was responding to questions about why the bishops were not doing more about the poor. He said that as president most of the complaint letters he received were from people complaining that the bishops talked too much about social justice, government cut backs, and the poor.

The cardinal noted that “different popes put a spotlight on different issues in the church, and certainly Pope Francis, thanks be to God, has put a spotlight on injustice and needs of the poor, and a ringing call for the church to be poor and for the poor.”

What Cardinal Dolan disagreed with is “the interpretation that the (bishops’) conference has been less than concerned about the poor.” The cardinal argued that this has been a constant concern of the conference since its founding in 1917. But there is no doubt, he said, that the pope is “asking us to be even more vigorous in an area that we already have a pretty good track record on.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC Gippsland

By Celine Foenander

A man who survived years of abuse at a boys home near Sale in the early 1970s has called for compensation in the form of a pension.

Ray Shingles from Longford last week appeared before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

He told the Commission a pension scheme for survivors of abuse would ensure they continue to get the support they need.

“Our communities have a lot of alcohol and drug problems and I think by giving large amounts of money to somebody that’s got an alcohol or drug problem, you’re not really helping a situation,” Mr Shingles says.

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AUSTRALIA
International Business Times

By Hannah Puyat | November 18, 2013

Decades after the abuse, hearings for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will be opened in Sydney, Nov. 18. With startling allegations of maltreatment and cruelty between 1940 and 1980, it is estimated that close to 200 children were sexually or physically abused at the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore.

One of the children was Tommy Campion, 65, who started the whole class action lawsuit against the institution. Campion has told and retold heartbreaking stories of children who were brutally assaulted and shamed in a daily basis. He recalled that when a child would soil the bed, he would be made to wrap the dirty sheet on his head and be paraded up and down the floor to be ridiculed.

It was in 2006 that Campion thought to speak up as he was having disturbing nightmares about his experiences in the children’s home. Upon writing a letter to the church, he was given counseling and thousands of dollars in compensation.

He accepted the counseling but felt that the money involved was hush money and refused to receive any. In the same year, 40 people joined him in the class action lawsuit, 38 of them were paid in out-of-court settlements the next year.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JOANNE McCARTHY Nov. 18, 2013

IT was the Catholic Church in the witness box earlier this year at the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into child sexual abuse.

For the next two weeks at the federal royal commission in Sydney it is the Anglican Church’s turn.

The Diocese of Grafton has already apologised to children raised at its North Coast Children’s Home at Lismore, who were physically beaten, sexually abused and emotionally neglected.

But on the first day of evidence yesterday the callous treatment of the adult survivors of that abuse when they sought the diocese’s help from 2006 was laid bare.

Documents showed the diocese denied responsibility for the home, ignored the truth, bullied victims and offered shockingly low financial settlements to some, while refusing others.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Dan Box
From: The Australian
November 19, 2013

A “PEDOPHILE ring” among priests at a children’s home in northern NSW performed “cleansing” rituals that involved licking naked boys, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was told yesterday.

The Anglican Church spent years attempting to deny responsibility for the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore in which dozens of children were raped, beaten and sexually abused by priests, before finally apologising this year for what took place. The royal commission heard shocking evidence yesterday about the treatment of former residents, some of whom were aged two or three when they entered the home.

One of these men, who cannot be named, broke down describing “a pedophile ring” operating among priests at the home, which was established under licence by the church and whose managers included senior church officials.

“I remember going to the rectory and I would be made to lie naked on the floor and the minister would put this stuff on my chest like a cross and then he would lick it off, right down to my genitals,” the man told the commission.

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CANADA
VTM Nieuws

In Iqaluit, de hoofdstad van het uitgestrekte territorium Nunavut in het noorden van Canada, start vandaag het proces tegen pater Eric Dejaeger, die in België geboren werd. Hij moet zich verantwoorden voor tientallen klachten over kindermisbruik in de jaren zeventig en tachtig. Het proces, een van de grootste in de geschiedenis van Nunavut, kan tot tien weken duren.

Eric Jose Dejaeger (65) is afkomstig uit Roeselare en trok in de jaren zeventig naar Canada om er eskimo’s tot het christendom te bekeren. Tussen 1978 en 1982 woonde hij in Iglooik, een kleine eskimogemeenschap. Daarna woonde hij zeven jaar in een ander dorpje, Baker Lake. Daar zou hij zich aan jongens en meisjes hebben vergrepen. In 1990 wordt de pater veroordeeld voor negen aanklachten van seksueel misbruik.

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CANADA
Unatsiaq Online

DAVID MURPHY

The trial of a Belgian-born Oblate priest accused of molesting children in Igloolik and Baker Lake in the 1970s and 1980s is set to begin in Iqaluit Nov. 18.

And when it starts, international media, especially Belgian news agencies that are watching the case with keen interest, will shine a spotlight on Nunavut.

Belgian journalist Cedric Lagast from the Flemish-language Het Nieuwsblad flew from Brussels to Iqaluit to cover the story.

“Obviously there’s quite a big interest in Belgium. It has got much attention in newspapers since 2010 when we first heard of it,” Lagast told Nunatsiaq News..

“A Belgian man that abused 41 people — that is immense. It would be immense in any country. So the accusations are so big, the amount of victims that he supposed to have [abused] is so big, that would make it a big story in every country,” Lagast said.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is visiting Cairns for the first time this week to hear from people who experienced institutional child sexual abuse.

Commissioners will be holding a number of private sessions in both Brisbane and Cairns from today, Monday 18 November 2013.

Royal Commission CEO, Janette Dines, said the Royal Commission has been visiting both capital cities and regional centres due to the strong demand across Australia.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (updated 18 November 2013)

Why did Bishop George Pell accompany Father Gerald Francis Ridsdale to court on 27 May 1993 when Ridsdale was jailed for child-sex crimes? And why did no bishop, or even a priest, accompany the victims?

Father Ridsdale (with his features obscured by dark glasses and a cap) walked to the Melbourne Magistrates Court with his support person, Bishop Pell (wearing clerical garb).

That evening, Channel Nine’s news bulletin showed footage of Father Ridsdale and Bishop Pell arriving at the court. This bulletin was viewed throughout the state of Victoria, including by many church-abuse victims. Viewers noticed that a bishop was accompanying the criminal priest, rather than accompanying the victims.

This publicity alerted other Ridsdale victims, many of whom later rang the newly-established Broken Rites telephone hotline. Broken Rites told these callers the phone number of the Victoria Police child-abuse unit, where they could report Ridsdale’s crimes.

As police interviewed more of his victims, Ridsdale was brought back to court in 1994 and 2006 to be given additional time behind bars.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

By Cristina Odone

When I read about the new Judi Dench film Philomena, my heart sank. Here was another tear-jerker which, like the earlier The Magdalene Sisters, exposed the abuse that unwed mothers suffered at the hands of the Catholic nuns who took them in. The image of the Church as a misogynist institution would have such a firm hold on the public’s imagination, no one would point out that many selfless and inspiring nuns were risking their lives in Latin America or Africa; no one would pay tribute to the teaching orders that had schooled millions of girls from the poorest families, filling them with ambition and the self-confidence to achieve it.

As the film premiered, I donned a tin hat and prepared myself for an open season on “cruel” Catholics. Except that it didn’t come. In its place, I have witnessed a dizzying, breathless love-fest. Its object, miraculously, is the new head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis. Francis-mania has swept Catholic countries such as Italy, where churches are filling, and his native Argentina, where his name, Francisco, is now the most popular for newborn boys.

Part of the Pope’s extraordinary popularity is down to his charm. From the moment he stood on the balcony in St Peter’s Square, cracking a joke and inviting his audience around the world to go with him on a journey, Francis has appeared humble, warm-hearted, and inclusive: simpatico, as Italians would say. He has opted for a modest lifestyle – living in a hostel, driving a second-hand Peugeot, dispensing with bodyguards – which confirms that as far as he is concerned, “we are all in this together”.

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ARGENTINA
Imneuquen

[Summary: Bishop Ricardo Faifer confirmed that he paid 50,000 pesos for bail to free a priest accused of molesting a minor. After release, the young man who said he was abused sent a letter to Pope Francis. Priest Domingo Pacheco, 45, was a prisoner since 2011 but was released on bail pending public trial to begin Dec. 9.]

Corrientes.- El obispo de la ciudad correntina de Goya, Ricardo Faifer, confirmó hoy que pagó una fianza de 50 mil pesos para que la Justicia de Corrientes otorgue la libertad a un sacerdote acusado de abusar sexualmente un menor de edad, reabriendo la polémica por la participación de curas en casos de pedofilia.

Tras la liberación del sacerdote procesado, el joven que denunció haber sufrido el abuso sexual le envió una carta al Papa Francisco en la que afirmó: “En Corrientes cuidan a los pedófilos”.

Domingo Pacheco, un sacerdote de 45 años de edad, estaba preso desde 2011, pero el viernes pasado quedó en libertad bajo caución, a la espera del juicio oral y público que comenzará el 9 de diciembre en el Tribunal Oral en lo Penal provincial de Goya.

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NEW YORK
NBC News

By Hilary Lane
WKBW-TV

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) – The Buffalo Catholic Diocese says the confidential hotline number for anyone to report knowledge of child sexual abuse is back up and working.

Father Michael Kolodziej worked in the Buffalo area for about 15 years. Now that he is facing charges, the Buffalo Catholic Diocese is asking anyone who has knowledge of child sexual abuse to call a confidential hotline number.

That number is (716) 895-3010.

Father Kolodziej is accused of sexually abusing a student while he was a teacher at a Catholic school in Baltimore, Maryland. The alleged victim claims Father Kolodziej abused him several times while Kolodziej “wrestled him.” The alleged incidents occured from 1975 to 1979.

Now, the Buffalo diocese is asking anyone with knowledge of any type of sexual abuse to come forward and call a hotline number. One alleged victim called our newsroom and told us he tried to call, but couldn’t get through. We tried the hotline multiple times, but found only a busy signal. When we contacted the diocese about the problem, they said they would look into it. Shortly after 9 on Monday morning, the Buffalo Catholic Diocese has contact us saying the number is back up and working.

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

By Steve Butcher Nov. 18, 2013

One of Australia’s – and Ballarat’s – worst paedophile former priests has admitted to multiple new offences against 14 victims.

Gerald Ridsdale pleaded guilty in the Melbourne Magistrates Court today, to the crimes committed in the 1960s and 1970s.

He had been eligible for parole last June after serving a long prison sentence for offences against 40 children in the 1960s and 1970s, and in 1980.

Ridsdale, 79, pleaded guilty to 30 charges, mostly indecent assault, against 14 victims which included three offences against a female.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

PATRICK CARUANA –
November 18, 2013

For many Catholic families in western Victoria, Father Gerald Ridsdale was God’s representative in their community.

But in reality, he was one of the state’s worst ever pedophiles whose depraved crimes were later denounced by a County Court judge as reaching the “depths of evil hypocrisy”.

Ridsdale’s appalling history of child abuse began in 1961 – the year he was ordained as a priest.

He spent the next 26 years abusing dozens of children across regional Victoria, often using his privileged status as a priest to earn the trust of victims and their families before striking.

Broken Rites spokesman Wayne Chamley says Ridsdale’s heinous crimes have devastated entire communities.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

One of Australia’s most notorious paedophiles has pleaded guilty to a series of new child sex charges.

Former Catholic priest Gerald Ridsdale has spent most of the past 20 years in prison for abusing dozens of children in western Victoria during the 1960s, 70s and 80s.

He became eligible for parole this year, but police recently charged him with more offences after more victims came forward.

Ridsdale appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court to enter his guilty plea.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

One of Australia’s worst pedophile priests Gerald Ridsdale has admitted to fresh abuse charges against 14 children, including an altar boy he plied with wine before assaulting him.

The former Catholic priest has pleaded guilty to 30 new charges, with the bulk of those indecent assaults.

The charges date back to the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s and involve three girls and 11 boys.

Ridsdale, 79, pleaded guilty to the 30 charges in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday.

Magistrate Ian Alger struck out another 54 charges.

When Mr Alger asked Ridsdale if he intended to plead guilty to the charges he replied: ‘I really wasn’t prepared for this.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Emily Portelli
From: Herald Sun
November 18, 2013

A NOTORIOUS paedophile priest plied an altar boy with wine and made a 10-year-old girl perform sexual acts in a confession box at a church where he was the parish priest, court documents reveal.

Gerald Francis Ridsdale, 79, this morning admitted to sexually abusing 14 children, including three siblings, bringing the total number of his victims to 45.

Court orders have been lifted to reveal publicly that the former Victorian Catholic priest pleaded guilty to 29 charges of sex offences against boys and girls at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court via videolink from prison, where he is serving a sentence.

The most recent charges of child sex abuse, committed between 1961 and 1980 at various regional Victorian towns where Ridsdale then resided, were laid in June this year, weeks before he would have been eligible for parole.

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

A brave woman who was thrown into a padded cell, had her hair shaved off and was given a boy’s name by nuns in the Magdalene Laundries has taken her fight for justice to the United Nations.

Terrified Elizabeth Coppin was just 14 when she was taken out of the Co Kerry industrial school she had attended for 12 years and “locked up” in the Peacock Lane Laundry in Cork.

She was never told why she was hauled away from everything she knew and dumped in the hated institution with the chilling warning: “It will be a very long time before you get out.”

And it was the start of a hellish four years in three laundries for Elizabeth where she was:

* FORCED to work long days with no pay

* MADE to sleep in a cell with bars over the window and only a bucket for a toilet

* LOCKED in a bare padded cell for three days after being falsely accused of stealing another girl’s sweets, and

* PUNISHED by having her beautiful hair shaved off and her named changed to Enda after she ran away to escape the nightmare.

Now 64, Elizabeth has returned home from England to Listowel, Co Kerry, to fight for justice for herself and the thousands of women like her who were treated like slaves in the Laundries.

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CANADA
StarPhoenix

BY JASON WARICK, THE STARPHOENIX
NOVEMBER 17, 2013

The chief of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN) says he’s glad the commission investigating Canada’s Indian residential school system has been granted a one-year extension.

“I welcome the extension. It’s a positive thing,” FSIN Chief Perry Bellegarde said.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which has been conducting research and hearing testimony across the country for the past few years, was to have issued its final report in June 2014. Following calls for more time from various groups, federal Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Minister Bernard Valcourt announced the one-year extension to the commission.

“Our government remains committed to achieving a fair and lasting resolution to the legacy of Indian residential schools, which lies at the heart of reconciliation and the renewal of the relationship between aboriginal people and all Canadians,” Valcourt said in a statement.

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SCOTLAND
Evening Times

Angela McManus
Monday 18/11/2013

THE suspension of a priest who spoke out about alleged homosexual bullying in the Catholic church led to a furious congregation walking out of mass in protest.

Only a handful of parishioners remained to take mass at St John Ogilvie’s Church in High Blantyre yesterday with the Archdiocese of Motherwell’s acting Bishop Joseph Toal after Father Matthew Despard was removed from his ministry the night before.

Before they went into church, people signed a petition calling for the reinstatement of Father Despard, suspended for writing a controversial memoir that claimed there is a culture of homosexual bullying in the church.

When Bishop Toal, accompanied by Father William Nolan, tried to take mass, Geraldine Penches said she wanted to make a statement and received a roar of applause from the congregation in a packed church in which many stood at the back.

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

PARISHIONERS yesterday walked out of mass for a second time in support of a suspended priest.

Father Matthew Despard has been removed from duties after he wrote a book claiming there is a culture of homosexual bullying in the Catholic Church.

Members of the congregation at St John Ogilvie’s walked out after a statement about his suspension was read to them.

One parishioner said: “People were angry and in disbelief.”

A similar protest was held before Saturday’s vigil mass when Bishop Joseph Toal, Acting Bishop of Motherwell, read out the statement at the church.

Some parishioners were so livid they didn’t even take communion from the bishop and left in tears.

They consoled Father Despard, who stood sobbing outside the church in High Blantyre, Lanarkshire.

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SCOTLAND
BBC News

A priest who wrote a book alleging the Catholic Church in Scotland suffered from a “culture of homosexual bullying” has been suspended from his post.

Father Matthew Despard was removed from St John Ogilvie Church in Blantyre, part of the Archdiocese of Motherwell, by Bishop Joseph Toal on Saturday.

A case has been brought against him for breaking church or canon law.

Some parishioners voiced opposition to Father Despard’s removal and walked out during a service on Sunday.

In his book “Priesthood In Crisis”, Father Despard claimed that sexual misconduct was rife among the clergy and the church authorities did not take action when he alerted them to allegations.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Only a handful of parishioners remained yesterday to take mass at St John Ogilvie’s Church in High Blantyre with Archdiocese of Motherwell acting Bishop Joseph Toal after Father Matthew Despard was removed from his ministry the night before.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

The first woman to lead an Anglican diocese in Australia says the church has made the cultural changes needed to address the issue of child sexual abuse.

The incoming Anglican Bishop of Grafton, the Reverend Dr Sarah Macneil, says her new diocese has been up front about admitting failings in how it handled abuse allegations.

On the same day as her appointment was announced, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse began hearings into how the Grafton Diocese responded to abuse allegations at a Lismore children’s home.

Her appointment follows former bishop of Grafton Keith Slater’s resignation and apology for mishandling abuse claims at the North Coast Children’s Home.

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AUSTRALIA
Perth Now

CANDACE SUTTON
From: news.com.au
November 18, 2013

BEATEN till they bled.

Starved. Sexually abused. Locked in cupboards.

Their faces rubbed in their own faeces and urine.

And then the ministers came over from the neighbouring church and the sexual abuse began.

This was not some overseas house of horrors, but Australia; the lush green hills and subtropical rainforest of northern NSW, where the Anglican Church of Australia carried out the abuse of hundreds of children.

This is the story of how the Church of England North Coast Children’s Home held a dark secret for decades.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

The Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse is preparing to publicly examine the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore. The public hearings slated for the next two weeks will investigate how complaints of abuse were handled by the Anglican Diocese of Grafton, which ran the home, and the legal action that occurred in 2006 and 2007. In the face of dozens of claims, the Anglican Church resisted the legal action by denying it had a duty of care to the orphans who were abused in the home. Later, it offered a financial settlement and apologised to victims.

Transcript

TONY EASTLEY: When victims began to make claims of abuse at an Anglican run children’s home in Lismore in New South Wales in 2005, the Anglican Church argued it didn’t have a duty of care to the orphans who were abused at the home.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will begin its third public inquiry today, and the focus is on the North Coast Children’s Home.

The public hearing will investigate how complaints of abuse were handled, how the group claim was settled and what happened when other former residents of the orphanage came forward.

AM’s Emily Bourke reports.

EMILY BOURKE: The Anglican Church ran the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore from the 1940s to the 1980s.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Dan Box
From: The Australian
November 18, 2013

FOR the child abuse survivor known as CK, a recent cancer diagnosis was the best news he’d ever had. “The pain will stop,” he told an inquiry today.

In graphic evidence given this morning to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Assault, the former resident of a children’s home, placed there when he was just three years old, described a “pedophile ring” operating there.

Children living at the home in the Anglican Diocese of Grafton in northern NSW were beaten, raped and sexually abused by priests, only for the church to spend years fighting their subsequent attempts to seek compensation, the inquiry heard.

So great was the damage done to him and dozens of other children, that many, including his brother, had since committed suicide.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Children at Anglican children’s home in Lismore were physically and sexually abused by clergy and staff, Royal Commission is told

Jim O’Rourke
From: The Daily Telegraph
November 18, 2013

CHILDREN were beaten with pony whips and canes at an Anglican Church children’s home in Lismore, the Royal. Commission into child sexual abuse heard today.

Priests also performed sexual “cleansing” ceremonies on young boys, the opening day of the comission’s third public hearing in Sydney was told.

In his opening address, counsel assisting, Simeon Beckett, said children as young as five were forced to perform oral sex on older residents.

Mr Beckett said children were sexually abused by clergy, staff and fellow residents between 1944 and 1985.

The hearings will also hear evidence about how the Anglican Church handled allegations of abuse and violence and dealt with claims for compensation.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

November 18, 2013

Paul Bibby
Court Reporter

So devastating was the physical and sexual abuse suffered by a young boy at an Anglican Church-run children’s home in northern NSW that, years later, he welcomed a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer because it meant “the pain will stop”, the royal commission has heard.

And yet when this victim and scores of others launched a class action against the church in the early 2000s, the church allegedly did “everything in its power” to avoid taking responsibility for the abuse inflicted by its clergy, often acting in its name.

“The Anglican Church did everything in its power to be a hindrance in this case,” the man, referred to as “CK” said during a gut-wrenching 90 minutes of evidence before the commission on Monday.

“It deliberately dragged the case out, knowing that the impact on us was a beneficial outcome for the church.

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NEW MEXICO
ABQ Journal

By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writer

Attorneys who faced off for the first time in a bankruptcy case filed by the Diocese of Gallup warned an Albuquerque judge to expect a difficult and emotional case involving the sexual abuse of children by priests.

The Diocese of Gallup last week became the nation’s ninth Roman Catholic diocese to file for Chapter 11 reorganization bankruptcy in response to a growing number of lawsuits filed by alleged victims of clerical sex abuse.

“Money is an issue,” said James Stang, a Los Angeles attorney who specializes in representing claimants in bankruptcies filed by Roman Catholic dioceses. “But it’s also about fairness, justice, healing – things you don’t ordinarily have to contend with” in a bankruptcy case, he said.

Victims of sexual abuse by priests also expect “transparency and sunshine” from the Roman Catholic Church, Stang told U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge David Thuma in a hearing Friday.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

BY ANNETTE BLACKWELL –
November 18, 2013

Children were beaten until they were bloodied and forced into sex with older residents at a NSW orphanage run by the Anglican church, the royal commission has heard.

On an emotional day at the commission, one former resident of the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore described himself and other abuse victims as the “walking dead”, while those who took their own lives are the lucky ones.

Other children, some as young as five, were allegedly forced to have oral sex with older residents.

The national royal commission into institutional responses to child sex is hearing from people who were residents at the Lismore home in the Anglican diocese of Grafton between 1944 and 1985.

In a tearful voice, a witness called CK, who was placed in the home aged three with his six-year-old brother in 1949, told how his older sibling used to protect him until he was moved to another home when CK was eight.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – PM

MARK COLVIN: The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard horrific personal accounts from former residents of the New South Wales North Coast Children’s Home.

The national inquiry is delving into the stories of children who were abused at the Anglican-run children’s home between the 1940s and 1980s and how the Church responded to allegations over the past decade.

Witnesses at the hearings in Sydney today told harrowing tales from the Lismore orphanage of children living in appalling deprivation, accompanied by extreme brutality and ritualised sexual abuse.

Emily Bourke has this report, and a warning that some of the content in this report may distress some listeners.

EMILY BOURKE: The royal commission’s third public hearing has heard of childhoods ruined and adult lives cut short by suicide as result of abuse that occurred in the North Coast Children’s Home which was run by the Anglican Church.

CK: The pain that we have, we will take to the grave. The ones who have suicided, they’re possibly the lucky ones. We’re the living dead that remain.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Sunday 17 November 2013

The Anglican church denied it had control of a New South Wales orphanage where children were horribly abused when victims sought compensation, a witness has told a hearing in Sydney.

Tommy Campion gave evidence to the royal commission into child sex abuse on Monday saying that when a group of people pursued the church for compensation in 2005, the response was that it was not a church institution.

Campion, a former press photographer, has become the public face of those who survived the abuse. He was a resident at the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore, from 1947 when he was two years old until 1964.

He told the hearing he wrote a five-page letter to the Anglican Grafton diocese in 2005 outlining the “complete and utter hell” children went through at the home.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Anglican bishop of Grafton Sarah Macneil says timing of appointment is ‘messy’ as diocese appears before royal commission

November 18, 2013

Heath Gilmore
Reporter

The Anglican church’s first female bishop has described the announcement of her historical appointment as “messy” after it was brought forth at the same time a royal commission focused on her new diocese.

The Reverend Dr Sarah Macneil, 58, was elected unanimously as the 11th bishop of the Anglican diocese of Grafton.

Her appointment was announced at church services on Sunday, a day before the Anglican church and Grafton diocese appeared before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Her predecessor, Keith Slater, resigned in May this year for his failings in handling complaints about sexual abuse and brutal beatings at the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore, which operated under the Grafton diocese.

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AUSTRALIA
International Business Times

By Vittorio Hernandez | November 18, 2013

Defrocked Victorian Catholic paedophile priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale admitted on Monday morning to the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court through a videolink from his cell to 14 more sexual abuses of children.

With his new admission, the number of the young male and female victims of the 79-year-old former priest goes up to 45. He committed them between the 1961 and 1982.

His new admission would affect Mr Ridsdale’s eligibility for parole which is up in the coming weeks.

He has been in jail since 1994 for sexual offences against 21 victims – 20 boys and 1 girl. His victims rose to 31 when he was convicted of more charges in 2006 for sexual abuse of 10 more boys from 1970 to 1987.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

The Royal Commission into child sexual abuse will this week look at how the Anglican Dioceses of Newcastle and Grafton responded to allegations of abuse against a reverend of the church.

The third public hearing of the Royal Commission begins in Sydney today.

It will examine the response by the Anglican Diocese of Grafton to claims of child abuse at the North Coast Children’s home in Lismore.

The home was set up in the 1930s to look after orphans or abandoned children.

It is estimated that at least 200 children were sexually and physically abused there up until the 1980s.

One of the victims is Tommy Campion, who was sent to the home when he was just two years old.

His sister was four.

“My mother ran away, and so my father had us so he put us in the home,” he said.

The 65-year-old says the 14 years he spent at the home were hell, with children being sexually abused, humiliated and flogged by the matrons and clergymen in charge.

“Beaten with sticks, belts, electric cords. At times he would use a belt buckle until the kid was left there bleeding and crying.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

The Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse will be preparing to publicly examine the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore. David Hanger from the Professional Standards Committee says the people who handled the complaints at the time were concerned about the Church’s financial exposure. He says the diocese is currently handling several other cases from the orphanage and they’ve referred some matters to police.

Transcript

TONY EASTLEY: Two months ago, the Anglican Diocese of Grafton in northern New South Wales publicly apologised to victims who suffered abuse over decades at the children’s home in Lismore.

The apology came several months after the Anglican Bishop of Grafton, Keith Slater, resigned, admitting he failed to properly manage the allegations and had turned victims away.

The diocese says it’s currently handling more cases from the orphanage and they’ve referred some matters to police.

David Hanger is chair of the Professional Standards Committee for the Diocese of Grafton.

He’s speaking here to AM’s Emily Bourke.

DAVID HANGER: What we discovered in terms of our failures was a real wake up call for us as a diocese. The outcome of that has been a deep sense of shame, a deep sense of repentance, a deep sense of wanting to ensure that we respond appropriately to what’s happened in the past and in the future. And that’s an attitudinal change for us.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – AM

TONY EASTLEY: When victims began to make claims of abuse at an Anglican run children’s home in Lismore in New South Wales in 2005, the Anglican Church argued it didn’t have a duty of care to the orphans who were abused at the home.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will begin its third public inquiry today, and the focus is on the North Coast Children’s Home.

The public hearing will investigate how complaints of abuse were handled, how the group claim was settled and what happened when other former residents of the orphanage came forward.

AM’s Emily Bourke reports.

EMILY BOURKE: The Anglican Church ran the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore from the 1940s to the 1980s.

In 2005, former residents from the home started coming forward, alleging physical, psychological and sexual abuse, dating back decades.

How the Church responded to those complaints and what redress it offered will now be dissected by the Royal Commission.

TOMMY CAMPION: I was still fighting and fighting when Julia Gillard stood up an announced a Royal Commission, and I felt safe then.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

ABC

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard sexual and physical abuse was both severe and far reaching at a home run by the Anglican Church in northern New South Wales.

The commission this morning began its third round of public hearings, this time to examine the alleged sexual and physical abuse of up to 200 children at the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore.

Counsel assisting the commission Simeon Beckett told the opening in Sydney this morning that the hearing will consider what happened at the home and how the Anglican Diocese of Grafton responded to allegations of abuse.

“The conditions for the children in the home were harsh. In at least the 1950s and 60s food and clothing were limited,” he said.

“Former residents have provided accounts to the royal commission that the children were often hungry.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

A PRIEST who wrote a controversial book claiming there was a culture of homosexual bullying within the Catholic Church in Scotland has been suspended.

Parishioners at St John Ogilvie’s Church in High Blantyre, South Lanarkshire, reportedly reacted angrily and walked out after being told shortly before mass that their parish priest Father Matthew Despard had been removed from the ministry.

Father Despard alleged in his self-published memoir Crisis In The Priesthood that sexual misconduct had been rife for decades in seminaries where teenagers train for the priesthood.

Parishioners had been greeted by a weeping Father Despard outside the church as they arrived for the 4:30pm mass on Saturday. Bishop Joseph Toal, Acting Bishop of the Diocese of Motherwell, read out a statement informing them “a penal ­judicial process” had been instituted against Father Despard.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

November 18, 2013

Steve Butcher

One of Australia’s worst paedophile former priests has admitted to multiple new offences against 14 victims.

Gerald Ridsdale on Monday pleaded guilty in the Melbourne Magistrates Court to the crimes committed in the 1960s and 1970s.

He had been eligible for parole last June after serving a long prison sentence for offences against 40 children between 1961 and 1987.

Ridsdale, 79, pleaded guilty to 30 charges, mostly indecent assault, against 14 victims which included three offences against a female.

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CANADA
ABC News

IQALUIT, Nunavut November 17, 2013 (AP)

A former Roman Catholic priest goes on trial Monday on multiple sex-related charges involving Inuit children in a tiny arctic hamlet nearly 18 years after he fled to his homeland of Belgium to avoid prosecution.

Eric Dejaeger has pleaded not guilty to 76 sex-related charges and will be tried by a judge alone. The charges involve 41 complainants and 26 people from the hamlet of Igloolik on the Melville Peninsula are expected to testify.

Dejaeger was returned to Canada from Belgium in January 2011 for an immigration violation rather than on an extradition order. A Belgian journalist realized that Dejaeger had lost his Belgian citizenship in 1977 when he became a naturalized Canadian. He was kicked out because he had been living in Belgium since 1995 without a visa.

An Inuit woman who was among the alleged victims in Igloolik said she was relieved that the former priest is finally going to face trial..

“It’s almost a relief,” said the woman, who cannot be identified under a court order. “We were told that he was never going to be found. And when he came back to life and came to Canada, that was a shock to all of us.”

The charges against Dejaeger include allegations from February 1995 when he was originally charged with three counts of indecent assault and three counts of buggery, a charge no longer in the Criminal Code. They relate to his time as a priest in Igloolik between 1978 and 1982, where he was sent to serve the indigenous community by the Belgian Oblates, an order of Catholic priests.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will resume hearings tomorrow. It will be the third “case study”, and will focus on Allan Kitchingman (see previous posting) against the background of events at the North Coast Children’s Home (see previous posting).

The commission officials need to heed the comments of victims and their supporters, following the release of the Victorian Parliamentary enquiry, which was released last week (see previous posting). While the officials admit to a steep learning curve in their own interactions with victims, the process of understanding, and appropriate responses for their future investigations, will be enhanced if they take serious note of those victim comments made last week.

Space does not permit a full listing of comments, but more will be covered in other postings where possible. Here are some of the comments on the Victorian report.

Anthony and Chrissie Foster’s daughters, Emma and Katie, were repeatedly raped by their parish priest, Father Kevin O’Donnell, at their primary school in Melbourne’s south-east, from 1987 until 1992.The Catholic Church had received numerous complaints about O’Donnell’s crimes dating back to the 1940s, but no action was ever taken. Emma Foster suicided and her sister Katie was seriously disabled when she was hit by a car, and now requires 24-hour care.

Mr. Foster commented that “There’s mixed feelings, of course, it brings back some sadness with our children. But we feel that this report has the basis for everything that we want. We need to make sure that the Church and other organisations can’t just draw a line today and say ‘we’re forgetting about everything behind and we’re on with the future and yes we’ll toe the line now’. There are some big organisations out there that are going to be trying to protect their wealth, because this has always been about the wealth and reputation of organisations like the Salvation Army, the Catholic Church.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

The Anglican church has appointed its first female bishop in Australia, who will take charge of a NSW diocese at the centre of a Royal Commission into child sex abuse.

The Reverend Dr Sarah Macneil has been elected unanimously as the 11th Bishop of the Anglican diocese of Grafton.

The Sunday night announcement comes a day before the Anglican church and the Grafton diocese in particular is due to appear before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which will open in Sydney on Monday.

Dr Macneil replaces Keith Slater.

He resigned in May this year, apologising for his failings in handling complaints about sexual abuse and brutal beatings that took place at the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore, which was run by the Grafton diocese of the Anglican church.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Lancashire Evening Post

THE Bishop of Lancaster has spoken of his “profound sorrow” after a senior catholic priest was convicted of historic sexual offences.

The Right Reverend Michael Campbell, has spoken out after Canon Stephen Shield, 53, the Dean at Lancaster Cathedral, was found guilty of abuse over a seven year period.

Canon Shield is facing jail after being convicted of sexually assaulting a man in the presbytery of English Martyrs church in Preston.

He committed the offences more than two decades ago against a man who hoped to join the priesthood.

He was convicted at Preston Crown Court on Friday and is due to be sentenced on December 13.

Bishop Campbell said: “I want to express my profound sorrow and deepest regret to the victim for the abusive behaviour perpetrated by Canon Shield.

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

November 18, 2013

Peter Jean
Chief Assembly reporter for The Canberra Times.

With a real sense that she is answering God’s call, Sarah Macneil will next year be installed as the 11th bishop of Grafton and the first woman to head an Anglican diocese in Australia.

The announcement of the Canberra priest’s appointment comes as the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse begins public hearings into the Grafton Diocese’s response to claims of child sexual abuse at a Lismore children’s home.

Dr Macneil is married, a grandmother and a former Australian diplomat.

She is a former dean of Adelaide and archdeacon in the diocese of Canberra-Goulburn.

Dr Macneil will give up her role as senior associate priest at Holy Covenant Church in Jamison, to lead a diocese with 28 parishes, taking in major centres such as Lismore, Ballina, Coffs Harbour and Port Macquarie.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

The Anglican church has appointed its first female bishop in Australia, who will take charge of a NSW diocese at the centre of a Royal Commission into child sex abuse.

The Reverend Dr Sarah Macneil has been elected unanimously as the 11th Bishop of the Anglican diocese of Grafton.

The Sunday night announcement comes a day before the Anglican church and the Grafton diocese in particular is due to appear before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which will open in Sydney on Monday.

Dr Macneil replaces Keith Slater.

He resigned in May this year, apologising for his failings in handling complaints about sexual abuse and brutal beatings that took place at the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore, which was run by the Grafton diocese of the Anglican church.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

by Laura Yuen, Minnesota Public Radio
November 15, 2013

The Maplewood Police Department recently closed an investigation into the Rev. Rodger Bauman, an Oakdale priest who accepted a $120,000 check from a 99-year-old former parishioner. Bauman has maintained all along that the money was a gift. He eventually returned it.

No charges were ever filed. But the circumstances surrounding the money raised concerns among the man’s caregivers, the woman serving as his power of attorney and a police detective, who investigated Bauman on suspicion of swindling a vulnerable adult.

The man who wrote the check, Lou Dziengel, lived in an assisted living home in Maplewood. He got around with a walker, wore two hearing aids and, by at least one account, was rough around the edges.

“Very stubborn. He wanted things his way,” said the woman who served as his power of attorney. Her name has been redacted from police reports, and MPR News has agreed not to identify her. “There was a certain way to do things, and a certain way you didn’t do things.”

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RHODE ISLAND
Turn to 10

A special I-Team report regarding the Providence diocese airs at 6 p.m. Monday.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Dan Box
From: The Australian
November 18, 2013

EMILY was eight days short of her third birthday when she was taken from her parents by a magistrate in Bowral, in the NSW Southern Highlands, and “committed to the care” of the state government, court records show.

Despite her parents’ desperate attempts to get her back, and her own struggles to tell government workers what was happening, Emily (not her real name) was placed with a foster father who raped her repeatedly for years.

At the time, she feels, nobody listened. “The pain never really goes away,” says the 54-year-old, who now lives in Innisfail, in far north Queensland. ” Recently I have been told that I have a meeting with the royal commission. I felt relief, sheer relief someone is going to take notice.”

GRAPHIC: Scale of the task

Today, the federal Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse begins the first of two major public hearings, not into Emily’s case itself, but into the thing she says later saved her life – the church.

Many within the two denominations facing investigation, Anglican and Catholic, expect the evidence to be an ordeal. Indeed, they say, it needs to be if these institutions are to find redemption after what has taken place.

Explicitly, no one organisation will be the focus of the royal commission’s work. At the time it was established, last November, the then prime minister Julia Gillard said: “This is a royal commission that would be looking across religious organisations, as well as state-based care and into the not-for-profit sector.”

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AUSTRALIA
NEWS.com.au

NOVEMBER 18, 2013

BRUTAL bashings and the sexual abuse of children under the care of the Anglican church in NSW will be examined at the next round of public hearings in a national inquiry.

The third case study by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will open in Sydney on Monday.

It will look at the response of the Anglican Diocese of Grafton to claims of child sexual abuse at the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore.

The diocese’s handling of a group compensation claim will also be examined.

The Bishop of Grafton, Keith Slater, resigned in May this year and apologised for his failings in handling complaints about the orphanage.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX THE AUSTRALIAN NOVEMBER 18, 2013

THE royal commission into institutional child sexual abuse has referred dozens of cases to police forces across the country as it works through a mountain of evidence, including hundreds of thousands of documents generated in its first few months of operation.

Since it began sitting in April, the federal Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has referred 44 cases to police for further investigation and served close

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VATIKAN
Neue Zurcher Zeitung

Der Papst hat der Vatikanbank eine Weissgeldstrategie verordnet. Durchsetzen soll sie ein Schweizer, der den Finanzplatz Liechtenstein reformierte. René Brühlhart nimmt im Interview Stellung zum neuen Risikoprofil für Kunden der Vatikanbank, dem Fall Scarano und zur Aufarbeitung der Altlasten

Interview: Zoé Baches, Simon Gemperli

Herr Brülhart, der Vatikan-Prälat Nunzio Scarano ist im Sommer unter Geldwäscherei-Verdacht verhaftet worden. Die Chefs der Vatikanbank traten zurück. Ist das eine Zäsur in der Geschichte dieser Bank?

Es sind sicher Fakten, die zeigen, dass die eingeleiteten Massnahmen zu greifen beginnen. Gestützt auf Verdachtsmeldungen wurden zum ersten Mal in der Geschichte des Vatikans Vermögenssperren vorgenommen. Ebenfalls zum ersten Mal wurde aktiv ein Rechtshilfegesuch an Italien gestellt.

Ist der Fall Scarano die Spitze des Eisbergs?

Ich kann nicht ausschliessen, dass es der letzte Fall dieser Art war. Wir analysieren zurzeit weitere Fälle. Entscheidend ist, dass wir heute die entsprechenden Instrumente für diese Aufarbeitung in der Hand haben. Zudem sind wir auch präventiv tätig.

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CANADA
Montreal Gazette

BY THE CANADIAN PRESS
NOVEMBER 17, 2013

IQALUIT, Nunavut – What some people are saying as former priest Eric Dejaeger faces a trial on 76 historical sex charges in Nunavut:

“It came back all of a sudden. I felt numb. And then I saw his picture after 30 years. I wasn’t even crying, yet the tears were coming down really hard. Some of us are getting more drunk. I’m trying to drink more. Some of us are being more abusive towards our common-law husband or wife. Some of us are getting into troubles here and there.” — One of Dejaeger’s alleged victims speaking from Igloolik in 2011 after hearing news that Dejaeger had been arrested in Belgium and was coming back to Canada
—

“It’s not so hard any more. I am moving on and I need to find a way to forgive him, and I’m trying, and I want to. Maybe that way it will be easier for me. I’m doing good. I’m not a drunk any more. What he did is bound to come back to him.” — The same person in 2013, days before Dejaeger’s trial was to begin
—

“When he was here, he acted as though he was a really decent man. We thought he was someone who was a friend.” — Former Igloolik mayor Lucasie Ivalu
—

“We all make mistakes” — Text of a badge worn by Eric Dejaeger when he pleaded guilty to nine counts of abuse in 1991
—

“I heard that Eric was told — off the record — to leave Canada by several organizations including the courts, his lawyers and some Oblates.” — Georges Vervust, Oblate provincial for Belgium, suggesting how Dejaeger may have been able to escape Canada after a second batch of charges were laid in 1995.

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CANADA
Montreal Gazette

BY THE CANADIAN PRESS
NOVEMBER 17, 2013

IQALUIT, Nunavut – A timeline of events in the case against former priest Eric Dejaeger, who faces a trial on 76 historical sex charges in Nunavut:

June 28, 1973: Dejaeger, 26, leaves Belgium for Canada to study for the Catholic priesthood with the Oblate order. He visits several Arctic missions and stays briefly in Pelly Bay, N.W.T. (now Kugaaruk, Nunavut).

May 1974: Leaves Pelly Bay for Edmonton.

1977: Takes out Canadian citizenship and is consecrated as a deacon in Repulse Bay, Nunavut.

1978: Ordained as a priest after studies at Edmonton’s Newman Theological College. Posted to Igloolik, Nunavut.

1982: Posted to Baker Lake, Nunavut.

April 1989: Asked by Oblates to leave Baker Lake.

Aug. 21, 1989: Arrested in Langley, B.C., where he is studying Inuktitut.

Dec. 19, 1989: Pleads guilty to eight counts of sexual assault and one charge of indecent assault in Baker Lake. Sentenced to five years.

June 14, 1991: Pleads guilty to two additional counts of sexual assault in Baker Lake after being charged with five. Sentences to be served concurrently.

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CANADA
Calgary Herald

BY BOB WEBER, THE CANADIAN PRESS NOVEMBER 17, 2013

IQALUIT, Nunavut – The worst is already over, says one of the dozens of alleged victims of a disgraced priest whose trial on 76 sex-related charges involving Inuit children is to begin Monday.

“It’s almost a relief,” the woman said recently from her home in Igloolik, Nunavut, the community where most of the charges against Eric Dejaeger from 18 years ago are based.

Dejaeger was supposed to be tried in 1995 for his activities as an Oblate priest in the tiny Arctic hamlet on the Melville Peninsula. Instead, he fled to his homeland of Belgium — some say with the tacit consent of Canadian justice officials.

It was as if he’d returned from the dead when he was brought back in January 2011 after Belgium kicked him out for immigration violations, the woman said.

“We were told that he was never going to be found. And when he came back to life and came to Canada, that was a shock to all of us.”

That shock rocked Igloolik’s 1,500 residents.

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CANADA
Edmonton Journal

BY BOB WEBER, THE CANADIAN PRESS NOVEMBER 17, 2013

IQALUIT, Nunavut – A former priest who this week is to face 76 sex charges involving Inuit children may have been tried years ago but for a quiet nod from Canada that allowed him to leave the country, says a church leader.

Georges Vervust is the top official with the Belgian Oblates, an order of Catholic priests that sent Eric Dejaeger to several communities in what is now Nunavut.

Vervust sheds light on questions that have troubled Dejaeger’s alleged victims for nearly a decade: How was a man facing child abuse charges allowed to leave the country days before his trial? And why did it take so long for him to be returned?

“What I have heard is that he got advice from people from the Justice Department, off the record, that he should leave,” Vervust said in a Belgian documentary. He confirmed his comments to The Canadian Press.

Dejaeger’s trial beginning Monday includes allegations from Feb. 19, 1995, when he was originally charged with three counts of indecent assault and three counts of buggery, a charge no longer in the Criminal Code. They relate to his time as a priest in the community of Igloolik between 1978 and 1982.

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CANADA
Sylvia’s Site

Posted on November 17, 2013 by Sylvia

The long-awaited sex abuse trial of Father Eric Dejaeger omi starts tomorrow morning (Monday, 18 November 2013) at 09:30 am in Iqaluit, Nunavut.

The trial is scheduled to last five weeks. That of course can change, both ways. It could be over earlier if the Crown and defence manage to move through the witnesses faster than anticipated, and, on the other hand, it could last longer if there are glitches with witnesses, or, for example, – and Heaven forbid! – if Dejaegwer decides to claim that his Charter right to speedy trial has been violated. If Dejaeger has not waived his right to make that claim then it is a possibility. I hope and pray he doesn’t stoop that low to try to get off on a technicality like that. Trying to go that route would not necessarily mean victory, but it could tie things up for a good spell.

As always, we shall see

Keep the complainants in your prayers. Many will be preparing to fly in to Iqaluit from Igloolik and other areas to testify. It’s taken a long long time for all of them waiting for this day to come. I pray that each and everyone of them has his or her day in court, and that all stay strong, and keep their heads and cool under cross-examination.

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UNITED STATES
Whispers in the Loggia

For everything that was different about this week’s Baltimore Plenary, there was a bit of deja vu in the air… well, besides Archbishop Allen Vigneron being denied the Divine Worship chair for the fourth straight time – now an apparent custom of the bench, going all the way back to 2005.

In one of this week’s great surprises, for the second time running, Archbishop Charles Chaput was the runner-up for a seat in the USCCB’s topmost leadership. The result made for a rather striking contrast to this meeting’s run-up as, going into the sessions, many felt this was his protege’s hour, with the votes accordingly to swing – beyond being head of the largest diocese these shores have ever known, Archbishop José Gomez had become the first Hispanic in recent memory to make the USCCB’s presidential slate, and the choice of the Mexican-born Angeleno ecclesially bred in Texas was advanced by his champions as an evocative, providential amplification of both the Latino ascendancy into Stateside Catholicism’s largest ethnic group, as well as the source of the first-ever American pontificate, albeit south of the border.

Yet when Decision Time came, Don José’s mentor – a veteran of the last five 10-man slates (more than any other contender) – edged again into the runoff by all of one vote.

Of course, the demographic and Roman fronts aren’t the only ways the world has changed since the 2010 Fall Classic. Keeping with Rome’s long-standing habit for the almost-vice-president of the US bishops, eight months after last time’s near-miss, Chaput was sent to the country’s next open cardinalatial see… yet even if he’s the lone US prelate to occupy the chair once held by a saint, to describe the modern-day archdiocese of Philadelphia as any sort of “consolation prize” would simply be perverse. …

From the outset – indeed, even before a months-long forensic audit revealed the grotesque picture in its full light – this was already perceived to be the most difficult situation an American bishop has faced in the last half-century. Now, having watched the most determined, unflappable figure on the US bench look as if he’s aged 20 years over the last 26 months – at points doubled over in anguish and grabbing his head over what he was made to inherit – it seems safe to say that taking on this inferno would’ve killed anyone else. But to know Chaput – the guy who, once upon a time, famously played a younger priest into a heart attack on the racquetball court – is to know that, where it matters most, the Capuchin always comes to win.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

There are those who support and advocate for victims of child sexual abuse. There are also those who get them justice. Most of the Australian general public are familiar with the part played by Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox (see previous postings), revealed during the New South Wales State Government enquiry which finished recently.

The media has unearthed the role played by his counter-parts in the Victorian state system, and dubbed them the “paedophile catchers”.

[Most of the following comes from reports in the Warrnambool Standard newspaper and NewsCorp publications, and is provided for the record, in the light of the mixed assessment of Victorian Police, in the past, contained in the report.]

Detective Senior Sergeant, Chris O’Connor, recently retired after having been Victoria State Police’s child sex expert for decades. He has given his views on the report of the Victorian State Parliamentary enquiry into clerical child sexual abuse in that state, which was released this week (see previous postings).

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NETHERLANDS
NL Times

The Prosecutor’s Office may have dealt with a bias with cases between against Catholic priests who sexually abused children, prompting an apology from Safety and Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten (VVD).

“An excuse is in order,” Opstelten said on Thursday, during a Second Chamber debate that looked at how the Prosecutor’s Office handled these cases between 1945 and 1980.

“Let there be no misunderstanding; class justice is unacceptable now, but it was also unacceptable back then. I regret the way things were handled; it was different times then, but it is still unacceptable and apologies are in order,” said Opstelten. He said the individual victims would also be contacted directly.

Several members of the Second Chamber had called for an apology during the debate, placing blame on the Prosecutor’s Office and hinting that asking forgiveness would help in the healing process.

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MINNESOTA
Duluth News Tribune

By: Rev. Richard Partika, Duluth News Tribune

This is not intended to justify or excuse any of the scandal caused by some priests. My only purpose is to give some clarity and balance to the way these things are reported. I am not a scholar, and, unlike most of today’s priests, I do not have any academic degrees. I am just a bystander who cares about fairness and sanity.

Let us start with numbers. Considering all the priests, only a very few are abusers. And I readily agree that even one who’s abusive is far too many.

So let us try to learn how some get into the priesthood. Let us realize there are many seminaries in the country, some diocesan and others run by religious orders. Let us assume for lack of knowing the exact figures that the average class ordained each year is 30 men. On average, some of these men began their studies in the ninth grade and were in the minor and major seminaries for 12 or fewer years before ordination.

The role of a seminary is to help a candidate determine, under guidance, whether he has a vocation and, if so, to acquire the education needed to live that vocation along with the spiritual formation.

Each candidate has his own personality, background, motivation and degree of internal honesty in pursuing the priesthood. Some of this may show itself and often then the candidate may be advised either to leave or to shape up. Some may never seek out a spiritual director for help and advice along the way. What an individual keeps hidden within himself may be known only to God. And what the man hides may well be the source of future scandals he may cause.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Jewish Press

By: JTA Published: November 16th, 2013

A police investigation into sex abuse allegations against a prominent London rabbi has been dropped.

The Metropolitan Police said Friday that the Crown Prosecution Service would not bring charges against a 54-year-old man regarding allegations of sexual assault, The Jewish Chronicle of London reported on its website.

Several London rabbis have confirmed to JTA in the past that the 54-year-old man in question in Rabbi Chaim Halpern.

The report said that officers from the London borough of Barnet’s sexual offenses, exploitation and child abuse command, had fully investigated all the allegations.

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MEDERLAND
Dichtbij

ROERMOND – Bisschop Frans Wiertz draagt morgen in de Koepelkerk in Maastricht de heilige mis op. En dat is de organisatie van slachtoffers van misbruik binnen de kerk, Mea Culpa, in het verkeerde keelgat geschoten. Allereerst omdat de parochie het aanvankelijk deed voorkomen dat Wiertz kwam om de 75ste verjaardag van pastoor Schafraad te vieren. Een pastoor die door Mea Culpa bij herhaling beschuldigd is van het misbruik van kinderen in de tijd dat hij nog werkte bij jongensinternaat Bleijerheide in Kerkrade.

Schafraad heeft het misbruik altijd ontkend, maar anders dan de parochie suggereert is Schafraad nooit gerehabiliteerd door het bisdom Roermond of door bisschop Wiertz. Dat kan het bisdom alleen al daarom niet, omdat Schafraad onder het bisdom Haarlem valt.

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NEW YORK
Failed Messiah

There is a byzantine, serpentine world where black means white and white comes in all shades of gray, from charcoal to battleship, battered and torn, stained, dirty. A place where truth lies broken, torn, shattered, covered in mud, trampled on by hasidim who do not even recognize what it is their feet are stepping on.

It is a world with its own complete structure, its own terminology, its own dialect, its own unique morality. It is a place where conversations often start in the middle and end long before the participants stop talking. This is a place where outsiders are often lost without knowing it. Their eyes only see the surface, the shell, not the meat within. But the hasidim know the shell is only a husk, a covering, meant to be discarded. It’s the stuff inside that matters.

So when the Forward’s Paul Berger, an outsider who has no background with and no real knowledge of the hasidic community and little real knowledge or grasp of the Kellner case, writes what reads like an opinion piece (but is posted by the Forward as news) equating Sam Kellner with accused serial molester Rabbi Baruch Lebovits, one should take it with a large grain of salt – especially because both Berger and the Forward been unethical before this.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

A leading public health expert has called for a renewed debate on the age of consent, arguing it should be lowered from 16 to 15.

Professor John Ashton, president of the Faculty of Public Health, said our society sends “confused” signals about when sex is permitted.

He said it means 15-year-olds who are in sexual relationships “don’t have clear routes to getting some support”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

A lawyer representing 72 of the victims of Jimmy Savile has warned that lowering the age of consent would “send the wrong message to predatory adults.”

I have real concerns about the prospect of the age of consent being lowered.

Predatory adults would be given legitimacy to focus their attentions on even younger teenagers and there is a real risk that society would be sending out the message that sex between 14-15-year-olds is also acceptable.

My work with victims of abuse results in me talking to many who felt pressurised into having sex at a young age but have gone on to live a lifetime of regret.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Joe Soucheray
POSTED: 11/16/2013

If I were the archbishop, and the chances of that are certainly off the board, I would call a news conference. In fact, I would call one every day if I had to just to keep pace with attorney Jeff Anderson and the St. Paul police, who have reopened an investigation of a child pornography case involving a former Hugo priest.

I was made privy to a letter that Archbishop John Nienstedt apparently sent to Catholic school principals assuring them that the archdiocese is on the job and taking full responsibility for its failure to act more thoroughly on past charges of abusive priests. It was … wooden. It was too written by committee without heartfelt personality. It was boilerplate, is what it was.

This is not the time for boilerplate. The vibe emanating from the chancery offices is off key. The church authorities are not out in front of this mess; they are entangled in it, as though they are peeking from behind the drapes wondering what is going to hit them next.

A thought of admonition, which is not at all to excuse abusive priests, who should have been thrown out of the church and not moved around. That is the significant downfall that compels the current misery, that church authorities for too many years did not properly address low-functioning or even criminally bent employees.

Oh, the admonition. As depleted as modern newsgathering institutions are, they will find the energy to go after the Roman Catholic Church. That is just the way it is. The church is seen as white, powerful and wealthy. And we live in a time when the discipline and ritual of theology is seen as folly, at least through the eyes of post-modernism.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Sunday 17 November 2013

The behaviour of the Catholic hierarchy in Scotland over the sexual bullying allegations made in the book Crisis In The Priesthood by Father Matthew Despard stands in stark contrast to the words and deeds of the man who sits at the head of the church:

Pope Francis.

In Blantyre yesterday afternoon, the hierarchy descended on the parish of St John Ogilvie’s and suspended Fr Despard over claims he made in his book in the wake of the Cardinal Keith O’Brien scandal. The sacking took place before parishioners – many of whom wept and reacted with shock and anger.

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AUSTRALIA
Sunday Telegraph

CARDINAL GEORGE PELL
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

ON Wednesday the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into Child Abuse brought down its 700 page report. I welcome the publication of the report. It should help the victims.

While the Inquiry hearings were sometimes unconventional and emotional affairs, the report itself seems fair and reasonable. Naturally it covers the awful abuse which occurred in Catholic communities, mainly between 1960 and 1985.

The report details some of the serious failures in the way the church dealt with these crimes and responded to victims, especially before the procedural reforms of the mid 1990s. Irreparable damage has been caused.

By the standards of common decency and by today’s standards, church authorities were not only slow to deal with the abuse, but sometimes did not deal with it in any appropriate way at all. This is indefensible.

The Report offers valuable recommendations to ensure that crimes are reported, children and vulnerable people are better protected, and those who have been hurt can more easily seek justice.

I strongly support the recommendations to ensure crimes are reported to the police and to establish a statutory body to monitor and audit compliance on child protection requirements; something like what we have in NSW already. These recommendations should apply to all professions and all non-government and government organisations. All victims need compassion and support.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Sunday 17 November 2013

A PARISH priest has been suspended from his ­Scottish post for writing a ­controversial memoir that claimed there is a culture of homosexual bullying in the Catholic Church.

Parishioners at St John ­Ogilvie’s Church in High Blantyre, Lanarkshire, reacted with fury and disbelief when they were told just before Mass last night that Father Matthew Despard had been removed from his ministry.

They were greeted by a weeping Father Despard outside the church shortly before the 4.30pm Mass began, and were ushered inside to hear a statement from Bishop Joseph Toal, Acting Bishop of the Diocese of Motherwell.

Angry scenes broke out among the congregation when Bishop Toal informed them “a penal ­judicial process” had been instituted against Father Despard as a result of the publication of his book Crisis In The Priesthood, with parishioners demanding answers over the priest’s suspension.

Father Despard, 48, embarked on a collision course with Church authorities when he published his book on Amazon in the wake of the resignation of Cardinal Keith O’Brien, who admitted to gay relationships and sexual activity spanning decades.

However, it was later reported the priest would escape sanction after Joseph Devine, the previous Bishop of Motherwell, issued a notice ­stating that no action would be taken against him.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A bishop has spoken of “profound sorrow” after the Dean of Lancaster Cathedral was convicted of sex abuse.

The Bishop of Lancaster, The Right Reverend Michael Campbell, commented after Canon Stephen Shield was found guilty of abuse over seven years.

Shield, 54, was convicted at Preston Crown Court, of indecently assaulting man from the age of 18, between 1985 and 1992.

Bishop Campbell said he hoped the victim in the case can now “heal”.

Bishop Campbell said: “It is my sincere hope that, as a result of this conviction, and with the help of God, [the victim] will now be able to begin the process of healing and the rebuilding of his life.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

[Click here for the questionnaire]

By David Madden

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Philadelphia Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput wants to hear from clergy and lay people alike, as he prepares a meeting of Bishops at the Vatican next year.

The Synod Meeting will address what’s termed “The Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization.” This is the first time the leader of the local Roman Catholic Church has reached out in such a fashion.

Father Dennis Gill directs the Office for Divine Worship, and he insists this is not a survey:

“It’s not so much a questionnaire to challenge church teaching, but certainly a questionnaire that is going to have an impact on church practice.”

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LOUISVILLE (KY)
Courier-Journal

[with video]

Editorial

Congratulations to Louisville Roman Catholic Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz on his election as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Archbishop Kurtz takes over during a time of great change in the church, brought about mainly by the election earlier this year of Pope Francis, who has called for the church to turn away from what he has said are “small-minded rules” and to be “ministers of mercy.”

We hope Archbishop Kurtz will take that to heart.

Since arriving in Louisville in 2007, Archbishop Kurtz has pushed the type of doctrinal issues that Pope Francis’ two most recent predecessors — Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI — stood for.

Archbishop Kurtz supported state legislation that would remove civil rights protections from some people, all in the name of “religious freedom,” and has spoken out against federal health care mandates that would provide insurance coverage for millions of people, all because they included a requirement that insurance plans pay for artificial contraception.

He sided with those in the Vatican who sought to crack down on nuns who dared suggest that women should take a greater role in the church and were involved in other forms of “dissent.”

He has taken money that could have gone to help the needy in the Louisville and given it instead to a campaign in Maine to overturn legislative approval of gay marriage.

While all those positions fit well into the world views of the dogmatic popes before him, they seem to be anathema to Pope Francis, who has spent the first months of his tenure urging the church to be more pastoral than judgmental.

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LOUISVILLE (KY)
The Record

By Rachel Zoll

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The new leader of U.S. Roman Catholic bishops says he will draw on his years as a pastor to guide American bishops as they attempt to shift focus under Pope Francis, who wants more emphasis on compassion than on divisive social issues such as gay marriage.

Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Kentucky was elected Tuesday as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, a role that makes him the U.S church’s spokesperson on national issues and a representative of American bishops to the Vatican and the pope.

Kurtz, a 67-year-old Pennsylvania native and a former bishop of Knoxville, Tenn., pledged after his election Tuesday to focus the bishops’ work on reaching out to the poor and underserved, a mission emphasized by the new pope. …

Some of those victims who remain outspoken on clergy abuse issues said Kurtz hasn’t done enough to heal the lingering wounds from the scandal.

“To me there’s no real outreach to survivors,” said Jeff Koenig, a member of the Louisville chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “We had to approach him, he has never reached out to us.”

Koenig said archdiocese officials have offered the survivors group a brief meeting with Kurtz, but they have sought a longer interaction.

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ALABAMA
Daily Mountain Eagle

by Rachel Davis

Walker County Circuit Judge Doug Farris declared a mistrial Friday in the case of a Carbon Hill man accused of sexual abuse of a child under the age of 12.

The motion for mistrial was made by defense lawyer Herbie Brewer and granted by Farris after hearing arguments from both sides.

Ricky Robinson, a former Carbon Hill pastor, had been on trial all week facing four charges of sex abuse of a child under the age of 12.

Assistant District Attorney Brian Warren said his understanding was that the case would be slated for retrial on the next trial docket in February.

Brewer said he had every expectation that the state would attempt to schedule it again but he would oppose a retrial.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

Kathy Mellott
kmellott@tribdem.com

JOHNSTOWN — More than 80 people, mostly males who attended Bishop McCort High School, have stepped forward with allegations that they were sexually molested by Brother Stephen Baker, The Tribune-Democrat has learned.

The figure is nearly double the number of victims named in civil lawsuits filed in Cambria and Blair counties, but all are part of the settlement talks between the Altoona-Johnstown Roman Catholic Diocese and a number of attorneys.

“The numbers are skewed if you look at the cases filed,” said Altoona attorney Richard Serbin.

“Everything is not in the public, in terms of the numbers.”

Another attorney said that he believes the diocese is trying to settle the cases outside of the public eye.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

The devastating long-term effects of child sexual abuse and how the Anglican Church paid off victims from a NSW orphanage where children were brutally beaten will be highlighted at a national inquiry.

Hearings in the third case study by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse open in Sydney on Monday and will focus on the response of the Anglican Diocese of Grafton to claims of child sexual abuse at the North Coast Children’s Home in Lismore.

How the diocese handled a group claim for compensation will also be examined.

In 2007 the church offered a total of $825,000 to 41 former residents of the orphanage.

Some rejected the offer and described it as shamefully inadequate, and civil claims were launched.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Tablet

The Catholic Church is beginning a process to find out what Catholics think about matters surrounding the family – issues like divorce, cohabitation, same-sex relationships, ­contraception and the raising of children.

In September, The Tablet reported that a Synod of Bishops would be held to discuss matters regarding the family. There is now going to be another, Extraordinary Synod of Bishops “on pastoral challenges of the family in the context of evangelisation”. This extra­ordinary synod will take place in September 2014, to examine issues, then the main synod will be held in 2015 to produce guidelines.

The synod’s secretary general, Archbishop Lorenzo Baldisseri, has sent to episcopal conferences around the world a 38-item questionnaire on pastoral challenges for ­families and asked them to share it as widely as possible, in order to solicit responses that could be part of the working document for next year’s assembly.

By 20 December – in just a few weeks’ time – each diocese has to feed back to Rome responses to the complex questionnaire. The Bishops of England and Wales have taken the unusual step of posting the questionnaire on the conference’s website to gather responses from individual Catholics, while other countries’ bishops will use other ways to glean information.

Below are the questions. If you want to fill in the actual form, visit: www.surveymonkey.com/s/FamilySynod2014
The following series of questions allows the particular churches to participate actively in the preparation of the extraordinary synod, whose purpose is to proclaim the Gospel in the context of the pastoral challenges facing the family today.

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BELGIUM
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Nov. 8, 2013 NCR Today

Responding to a Vatican request asking the world’s bishops to distribute among Catholics a questionnaire on issues like contraception, same-sex marriage and divorce “as widely as possible,” Belgium’s bishops on Friday posted the document online and are asking Catholics to submit answers by mid-December.

The bishops, one news service is reporting, want “the widest possible consultation” on the survey and are accepting answers by email and postal mail.

The bishops have posted the questionnaire on the website of that service, KerkNet, have posted it at another online news service, and will publish it in two of the country’s weekly magazines. The answers, KerkNet is reporting, will be analyzed by the bishops with the help of experts in pastoral theology.

The European prelates are responding to an Oct. 18 request made by Archbishop Lorenzo Baldisseri, the secretary of the Vatican’s Synod of Bishops, in preparation for a global meeting of Catholic bishops next October.

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

By JIM YARDLEY

ROME — Often, when the Vatican speaks, it can be a fairly one-sided conversation, issuing encyclicals and other formal documents stating the Roman Catholic Church’s official position on doctrine or other matters.

But Pope Francis, who has already shaken up the Vatican, is asking the world’s one billion Catholics for their opinions on a questionnaire covering social issues like same-sex marriage, cohabitation by unwed couples, contraception, and the place of divorced and remarried people in the church.

“It’s something that is totally new,” said Msgr. Alberto Pala, a parish priest at the Cathedral of Cagliari in Sardinia, Italy. “And we are very pleased.”

The questionnaire is being distributed to bishops worldwide in advance of their synod next fall. Family is the theme of that meeting, with bishops expected to grapple with how the church should address issues like divorce and same-sex marriage. In the past, the Vatican has determined the agenda for synods and sought opinions from bishops’ conferences around the world.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Nov. 16, 2013

While U.S. bishops consider how best and how broad to collect information ahead of a 2014 global bishops’ meeting on family issues, several lay Catholic groups took the task into their own hands.

In mid-November, a coalition of 15 church reform groups — primarily members of Catholic Organizations for Renewal — created an online survey for U.S. Catholics to offer their thoughts on the preparatory document to the 2014 Synod of Bishops, which will focus on the theme of “pastoral challenges to the family in the context of evangelization.”

Before the coalition announced the survey, Marianne Duddy-Burke told NCR that the idea emerged from a concern that the U.S. episcopacy would not consult with lay Catholics as they compiled their responses.

“This is a chance for people to have their voice heard,” said Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA, one of the sponsoring organizations.

Other sponsors include the American Catholic Council, Call to Action, FutureChurch, Voice of the Faithful, the Women’s Ordination Conference and Fortunate Families.

The survey, hosted online at www.surveymonkey.com/s/SynodOnFamilyUS, will remain open for response through Dec. 15. At that point, the coalition will compile and send the responses to four prelates: Archbishop Lorenzo Baldisseri, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops; Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, papal nuncio to the U.S.; Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the American representative on Pope Francis’ Council of Cardinals; and Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., the newly elected president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. …

Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good on Nov. 1 launched its version (papalsurvey.com) in English and Spanish, sending it to its 30,000 members and posting it online. As of Nov. 12, more than 3,000 people had completed the survey, with more than half of the respondents coming from outside the nonprofit’s network.

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date:Friday, November 15, 2013

Source:Jim Accurso

A recent article in the StarTribune called into question the archdiocese’s cooperation in the summer of 2012 with St. Paul Police in the Curtis Wehmeyer case. These allegations are both unfortunate and unfounded, as we fully cooperated with the police investigation that ultimately resulted in Wehmeyer’s current prison sentence.

On September 21, 2012, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi was quoted on MPR saying that the archdiocese “…did the right thing. As soon as they got the complaint from the boys’ mother, they immediately called the police. Then they took immediate action and removed him from his position at the parish. That was the right thing, and we appreciate that in law enforcement.”

On September 24, 2013, Howie Padilla of the St. Paul Police was quoted in the Pioneer Press saying, “ … the archdiocese was helpful in the initial case against Wehmeyer.”

These quotes reaffirm that the archdiocese was cooperative in this case.

We continue to encourage anyone who suspects abuse of a minor or vulnerable adult within Church ministry—or any setting including the home or school—to first contact law enforcement. Any act of abuse against a minor or vulnerable adult is reprehensible and morally repugnant and we will not tolerate it.

Our first priority is to create and maintain safe environments where the Gospel of Jesus Christ can flourish. This means creating an environment for and implementing productive steps to promote a healthy clergy.

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PHILADLEPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

NOVEMBER 16, 2013

by Susan Matthews

Kathy Kane noticed that Father John Paul’s name was removed from the official clergy list at some point this past week. Father Paul resigned as pastor of Our Lady of Calvary Parish in Philadelphia on Sunday, Nov. 10 for “physical and spiritual” health reasons stemming from two separate allegations of child sex abuse. A name removal from the clergy list is significant and usually doesn’t result from a resignation. For instance, Father John Wackerman of St. Elizabeth’s in Downingtown resigned the same day. His name is still on the list. To be clear, unlike Father Paul, Father Wackerman did not resign under the cloud of sex abuse allegations. However, the archdiocese seemed to defend their decision allow Father Paul to remain in ministry, despite accusations. So why remove his name from the list now? We are waiting for a response from the Archdiocesan Office for Communications.

A carefully-worded article on CatholicPhilly.com, the official news source of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, covered the details Father Paul’s resignation.

Note that children are referred to as minors. I’m a mother of two children – not two minors. Are you a parent? How many minors are you raising? Please don’t dehumanize. I especially enjoyed this line – “after review the Philadelphia district attorney declined to press charges.” Declined? There’s some spin. The current statue of limitations on child sex abuse makes it impossible for the DA to press charges. The decision may have had absolutely nothing to do with evidence, guilt or innocence. It could have everything to do with our current crappy state laws. There’s no statute of limitations on murder. There shouldn’t be one for child sex abuse either.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Herald

[Ex-pastor posts bond after arrest]

By Joe Wiercinski
Herald Staff Writer

MERCER — On Friday, after vigorously proclaiming his innocence, [Lee A.] Moore was sentenced to 9 to 25 years in prison by Mercer County Common Pleas Court President Judge Thomas R. Dobson.

He was convicted of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, unlawful contact with a minor, statutory sexual assault, corruption of a minor and indecent assault.

Dobson ruled after a Megan’s Law hearing that the former pastor of Mercer United Methodist Church on East Butler Street met the legal definition of a predator based on the recommendation and testimony of a clinical social worker contracted by the Pennsylvania Sexual Offenders Assessment Board to review the case and interview Moore.

Molly M. Wagner, who has a decade of professional experience working with both victims and offenders, said her conclusions were based on an assessment board investigator’s report into Moore’s past, her own September interview with Moore in the presence of his attorney, a court presentencing investigation, prosecutor’s report, trial transcript and other documents.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Fox 2

November 15, 2013, by Chris Regnier

ST. LOUIS, MO (KTVI) – “There have been real wrongs of clergy at the highest levels.” Those words today from St. Louis Circuit Judge Robert Dierker as he upheld his own order in a sex abuse suit involving a now defrocked Archdiocese of St. Louis priest.

The civil suit surrounds allegations that Father Joseph Ross abused a then five year old girl from 1997 to 2001 at a south city parish.

SNAP, or the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, demonstrated outside the Carnahan Courthouse before the hearing. They held pictures of members who say they were abused in other cases.

Judge Dierker ruled in May that the Archdiocese must produce 20 years worth of records for any of its employees who had complaints of sexual abuse against them.

Attorneys for the Archdiocese argued that was too long. On Friday, Dierker stood by 20 years for clergy but reduced the timeframe for non-clergy employees to five years.

SNAP members spoke out against the archdiocese.

“I think what it shows is church officials are still very committed to secrecy in these cases and to disclosing virtually nothing unless they`re ordered to,” said ‘SNAP’ director David Clohessy.

The Archdiocese released a statement reading in part, “The breadth of this order appears to include allegations against lay employees and clergy that were not found to be credible. The archdiocese will consult with its attorneys in this lawsuit regarding next steps based on the court`s ruling.”

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Statement of Attorney Mike Finnegan

(St. Paul, Minnesota) – Today the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and Archbishop Nienstedt announced the hiring of Kinsale Management Consulting to conduct a review of clergy files. The firm’s founder, Kathleen McChesney, Ph.D., is the former head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Office for Child and Youth Protection.

We are concerned that Archbishop Nienstedt chose another church insider to review the files. McChesney will only be allowed to review information provided by the Archbishop and his attorneys and we suspect she will be required to keep any information she reviews, secret and confidential. This is another example of the Archdiocese and Archbishop’s continuing lack of transparency and accountability in the handling of clergy sexual abuse cases.

If Archbishop Nienstedt truly wants to protect children, and restore trust with the Catholic faithful and the community, then he should turn over all of the files to law enforcement and immediately alert the public about all known offenders.

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AUSTRALIA
Perth Now

Ben McClellan
From: The Daily Telegraph
November 15, 2013

TWO teachers and two priests from NSW are being prosecuted as part of a global operation targeting users of a Canadian child pornography website that has resulted in more than 340 people being charged – a fifth of them in Australia.

As Toronto police exposed the largest child exploitation ring in Canada, Australian Federal Police revealed 65 Australians were being prosecuted based on information from their Canadian counterparts for allegedly using the website.

International authorities have rescued 386 children, including five in Western Australia and one in the ACT, from harm and police said they could discover more Australian victims and expect to make more arrests.

More than half of the Australians charged are from Queensland (33) while nine people are before NSW courts – four are being prosecuted by the NSW Sex Crimes Squad’s child exploitation internet unit for possession of child pornography and using the internet to access child pornography, while the AFP is prosecuting the other five.

Retired Catholic priest Edward Sedevic, 72, of Lake Haven on the Central Coast, is one of the four men NSW Police have charged.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (updated 17 November 2013)

Father Edward Sedevic, a 72-year-old Sydney Catholic priest now living in retirement at Lake Haven (north of Sydney), is facing charges in court relating to child pornography.

Father Sedevic’s case was mentioned in court for a second time (in an administrative procedure) on 30 October 2013. The court re-scheduled the matter for a further mention later in 2013.

Father Sedevic, who has a family resource centre in Sydney named in his honour, originally appeared in Wyong Local Court (on the NSW central coast) on 4 September 2013. He faced three charges, including possessing child-abuse material and using a service to access child pornography.

This September 4 hearing was a preliminary procedure, in which documents were tabled in court for future attention. Detectives from the Child Exploitation Internet Unit (within the NSW Sex Crimes Squad) had gone to see Father Edward Sedevic at Lake Haven (near Wyong) on August 20. On August 27 the detectives charged him with having used a computer to access child pornography. This led to him appearing in court on September 4.

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AUSTRALIA
The Tablet

15 November 2013 by Mark Brolly

The Catholic Church’s institutions, schools and parishes gave perpetrators the opportunity to exploit vulnerable children in their care for decades and its early response to child abuse in its ranks “continued to conceal rather than expose criminal child abuse in the organisation”, a Victorian parliamentary report has found.

Betrayal of Trust, the report of the Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Non-Government Organisations by Parliament’s Family and Community Development Committee, said there had been “substantial criminal child abuse” in the Church over a long period of time, perpetrated by priests and other members of religious orders in Victoria.

“A culture existed in religious organisations that allowed for the occurrence of systemic criminal child abuse,” it said.

“The initial formal response to criminal child abuse that the Catholic Church in Victoria and in Australia more broadly adopted in the early 1990s was influenced by its previous approach. The response continued to conceal rather than expose criminal child abuse in the organisation.

“There has been a substantial body of credible evidence presented to the Inquiry and ultimately concessions made by senior representatives of religious bodies, including the Catholic Church, that they had taken steps with the direct objective of concealing wrongdoing.”

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