ABUSE TRACKER

IRELAND
Irish Independent

DAVID QUINN – 13 DECEMBER 2013

It is a remarkable thing that in the various interviews he has granted to date, Pope Francis hasn’t been asked to reflect in any substantial way at all on the clerical child abuse scandals.

On his flight back from World Youth Day in Brazil a few months ago, he spent 80 minutes answering questions from journalists and the matter did not come up.

When he granted a lengthy and widely reported interview to various Jesuit publications more recently, again, he was not asked about it.

And when the atheist founder of one of Italy’s leading newspapers, ‘La Repubblica’, interviewed him shortly after that, it did not occur to the interviewer to bring it up.

Here in Ireland, the Catholic Church’s child protection office has published its latest audits of the child protection procedures of a selection of the country’s dioceses and religious orders.

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ARGENTINA
Info News

El obispado de San Isidro anunció a través de un comunicado que pedirá perdón por los delitos de abuso sexual cometidos por un sacerdote de un Hogar de El Talar.

Se trata del cura José Mercau, que trabajaba en el Hogar San Juan Diego de El Talar y fue denunciado por cinco menores de once y 14 años que vivían en el lugar y condenado a 14 años de prisión.

Con el título de “Asumir, pedir perdón y deseo de reparar”, y con la firma del monseñor Oscar Ojea, la esquela comienza planteando que “las secuelas que deja el abuso sexual en el futuro de los niños y de los jóvenes no se pueden medir. Su vida vincular y afectiva queda lastimada en lo más hondo por la violación de su intimidad.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Friday 13 December 2013

A little girl who ran and told a nun after she had been touched by a priest “got a belting” for casting aspersions on the man, an inquiry has heard.

Internal Catholic church records show the man, Father Paul Rex Brown, would later be dumped from his priestly duties following a litany of complaints.

They included claims he was a drunk and that he sexually abused two boys in the 1980s.

Evidence before the Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse shows he has been implicated in the alleged abuse of at least six children.

But his only criminal conviction before his death in 2005 related to possession of child porn.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Thomas Oriti

The director of a pastoral and redress scheme for victims of child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church has conceded she lacked influence when dealing with the case of a woman who was abused by a priest for four years.

When she was 17 and in her final year of school, Jennifer Ingham was suffering from bulimia.

It was 1978. She was admitted to hospital, underwent psychological treatment and missed her exams.

Mrs Ingham also required surgery to her face for the condition, and asked to pause in her testimony at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse because she was in severe pain.

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ICELAND
Iceland Review

Minister of Culture and Education Illugi Gunnarsson said in response to a question from MP for the Left-Greens Ögmundur Jónasson at Alþingi, Iceland’s parliament, yesterday, that the compensation paid by the Catholic Church of Iceland to the victims of sexual and mental abuse which occurred under the church’s veil was “shamefully low,” dv.is reports.

The Catholic Church of Iceland established an investigative commission after accusations of brutal sexual abuse, bullying and neglect were reported in the media in 2011.

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WEST VIRGINIA
Bluefield Daily Telegraph

By Samantha Perry
Bluefield Daily Telegraph

BLUEFIELD — A former church youth volunteer was arrested Thursday afternoon on 38 counts of child sexual abuse related charges.

Timothy Probert, 55, of Bluefield, was taken into custody by Sgt. M.D. Clemons, with the Crimes Against Children Unit of the West Virginia State Police. The alleged crimes stem from incidents that occurred when Probert was a youth volunteer at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Bluefield.

Probert is charged with 22 counts of sexual abuse by a custodian; six counts of first-degree sexual abuse; seven counts of third-degree sexual assault; one count of distribution and display of obscene matter to a minor; one count of use of obscene matter with intent to seduce a minor; and one count of use of a minor to produce obscene matter or to assist in doing sexually explicit conduct.

Clemons said the abuse charges stem from incidents that date back to 1986. The last incident occurred between July 2008 and 2010.

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WEST VIRGINIA
WSET

BLUEFIELD, W.Va. (AP) – A former volunteer in a Bluefield church’s youth program has been arrested on numerous child sex abuse charges.

Media outlets report 55-year-old Timothy Probert was arraigned Thursday in Mercer County Magistrate Court on 38 counts, including 22 counts of sexual abuse by a parent, guardian or custodian.

State Police Sgt. M.D. Clemons says the alleged incidents involved boys ages 12 to 17 and go as far back as 1986. Clemons says some charges involved mission trips and alleged incidents at Probert’s home and that none occurred on Westminster Presbyterian Church property.

Senior Pastor Jonathan Rockness says the church is deeply saddened by the allegations. He says the church has fully cooperated with police.

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WEST VIRGINIA
WVNS

[with video]

By Douglas Fritz
By Jessie Gavin, Digital Journalist

BLUEFIELD, W.Va. –
Tim Probert was arrested and charged Thursday with 38 counts of Felony Child Abuse.

He formerly served as a youth mentor at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Mercer County. 59News was in court on Thursday during Probert’s arraignment.

So far, about a dozen victims have come forward accusing the former church youth volunteer and mentor, Tim Probert, of sexual abuse.

The first documented case dates all the way back to 1986.

On Thursday, Probert was charged with 22 counts of Sex abuse by a parent, guardian or custodian, 6 counts of First Degree Sex Abuse, 7 counts of Third Degree Sex Assault, 2 counts of Use of a minor in sexually explicit content and 1 count of Distribution and display of obscene matter to a minor.

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WEST VIRGINIA
WOAY

BLUEFIELD – A Mercer County church official is charged with several counts of sexual misconduct.
Sergeant Melissa Clemons of the west Virginia state police tells Newswatch Tim Probert, 55, of Bluefield was arrested Thursday on 38 felony counts of sexual abuse against children.

Probert is a longtime member of Westminster Presbyterian church where he served as an elder.

Clemons adds some of his charges also stem from his association with the “We Can” volunteer program in Mercer County dating as far as the 1990’s.

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

By: Cassie Hart

A Maplewood man claiming he was a pastor has been charged for sexually abusing two young girls for roughly 8 years.

According to the criminal complaint, the alleged abuse started when the girls were around the age of 6.

The abuse by 61-year-old Jacoby Kindred was reported by the mother to police in July, when the girls, who are now ages 14 and 16, told their mother about it, according to a criminal complaint.

According to the criminal complaint, the girls told police Kindred would touch them inappropriately and would force sexual acts on them.

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MINNESOTA
Mankato Free Press

By Dan Nienaber
dnienaber@mankatofreepress.com

MANKATO — A priest who died in Ireland while awaiting trial for raping a 15-year-old boy in 1968 has been named in a new lawsuit against the Diocese of New Ulm claiming he sexually assaulted a Granite Falls boy while in the United States to be treated for pedophilia.

The attorneys announcing the lawsuit — Michael Finnegan of Jeff Anderson and Associates and Michael Bryant of Bradshaw and Bryant — also repeated their request to have the diocese release a list of 12 priests who have been accused of sexually molesting children.

The request was made in a similar lawsuit against the diocese, but the diocese will argue against the list being released in a hearing before District Court Judge Robert Docherty during a Jan. 6 hearing. The priest named in that lawsuit is David Roney. The two victims reported they were molested by Roney while attending a Catholic school in Benson.

Last week Archbishop John Nienstedt released a list of 32 priests accused of sexual abuse while working at churches within the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. That list wasn’t released until a court order was issued.

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MINNESOTA
In-Forum

NEW ULM, Minn. – Attorneys from the Jeff Anderson law firm have filed a sexual abuse lawsuit on behalf of a man who says he was abused in 1982 by the Rev. Francis Markey at St. Andrew Parish in Granite Falls.

The attorneys are also requesting release of the names of priests accused of abusing children in the New Ulm Diocese of the Catholic Church.

The suit names the diocese and Servants of the Paraclete as defendants. It alleges that both were negligent in failing to supervise Markey and allowing him to work in communities and parishes with access to children.

The allegations also state that Markey was placed in St. Andrew Parish without families being informed that he had molested children and had gone through alleged sex offender treatment several times.

The suit was filed Wednesday in Brown County District Court in New Ulm.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

BY SOPHIE TARR
December 13, 2013

Towards Healing was supposed to be a means for the Catholic Church to offer pastoral care and financial redress to people who had suffered years of anguish caused by pedophile priests.

Instead the process pitted lawyer against lawyer, an inquiry has heard, “horse-trading” over compensation sums.

Jennifer Ingham was subjected to four years of sexual abuse from the age of 16, at the hands of northern NSW parish priest Father Paul Rex Brown, and this year received a $265,000 settlement, most of which was paid by Catholic Church Insurance (CCI).

But Emma Fenby, a former CCI executive who dealt with child molestation claims, says she was advised to make an initial offer closer to $30,000.

She told the royal commission she ignored that advice.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Friday 13 December 2013

The Catholic church had known about child sex abuse allegations against a northern NSW priest since the 1980s, an inquiry has heard.

Jennifer Ingham has told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that she was abused from the age of 16 in 1978 until 1982 by a parish priest in the diocese of Lismore, Father Paul Rex Brown, who died in 2005.

She claims she confronted church figures in 1990 but only received an apology this year.

On Friday, the commission heard evidence that the church was aware of sex abuse claims about Brown from as early as 1985.

Emma Fenby, a former claims manager for Catholic Church Insurance (CCI), also gave evidence on Friday.

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MINNESOTA
KEYC

By Tyler Utzka, Reporter

A press conference was held this morning in Mankato announcing the filing of a sexual abuse lawsuit. It was on behalf of a now, adult man who says he was abused when he was 8 years old.

The lawsuit alleges the Diocese of New Ulm and Servants of the Paraclete were negligent and requests the names of 12 accused child molestors.

Attorneys of the adult man who says he was sexually abused by Father Francis Markey back in 1982. They want the Diocese of New Ulm and Servants of the Paraclete to release the names of 12 accused and admitted child molestors in their clergy.

Attorney Michael Finnegan says, “Tragically, this young man never should have been abused repeatedly. That abuse was told to his supervisors and they continued to move him around until one day he ended up in Granite Falls at St. Andrews where he was abused as a young kid.”

The attorneys say the lawsuit is two–fold. Accusing the Diocese of negligence and nuisance.

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CANADA
The Globe and Mail

VANCOUVER — The Canadian Press
Published Thursday, Dec. 12 2013

Former Vancouver Olympic CEO John Furlong says the RCMP have completed an investigation into allegations of sexual assault levelled against him by a former student and found no evidence to support criminal charges.

Furlong has faced allegations stemming from his time teaching in northern B.C. in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which first surfaced in a newspaper article last year and then escalated into a series of lawsuits.

Furlong has released a letter he received from an RCMP investigator last week, which says the force’s investigation did not support Abraham’s allegations and that the case is now closed.

He has issued a statement that says the RCMP letter exonerates him, and because of that, he is requesting a trial date in Abraham’s lawsuit.

Furlong released an earlier letter in October that also said there would be no charges, but at the time the RCMP insisted the investigation was still open, while the more recent letter makes it clear the file is closed.

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CANADA
CBC News

Former Vancouver Olympic CEO John Furlong says the RCMP have closed an investigation into allegations of sexual assault against him by a former student and found no evidence to support criminal charges, prompting him to declare he’s been “fully cleared” in one of a series of allegations and lawsuits facing him.

The allegations stem from Furlong’s time teaching in northern B.C. in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which first surfaced in a newspaper article last year.

The article quoted several people who said they were former students and claimed to have been verbally and physically abused by Furlong. It’s now the subject of a libel lawsuit by Furlong targeting the author, Laura Robinson.

Furlong publicly released a letter Thursday written by an RCMP investigator in Prince George, under the heading: “John Furlong — allegation of sexual assault.”

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CANADA
CTV

James Keller, The Canadian Press
Published Thursday, December 12, 2013

VANCOUVER — Former Vancouver Olympic CEO John Furlong says the RCMP have closed an investigation into allegations of sexual assault against him by a former student and found no evidence to support criminal charges, prompting him to declare he’s been “fully cleared” in one of a series of allegations and lawsuits facing him.

The allegations stem from Furlong’s time teaching in northern B.C. in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which first surfaced in a newspaper article last year. The article quoted several people who said they were former students and claimed to have been verbally and physically abused by Fulong. It’s now the subject of a libel lawsuit by Furlong targeting the author.

Three people, including Beverly Abraham, have filed lawsuits against Furlong alleging sexual abuse, and the RCMP launched its own investigation into Abraham’s claims.

Furlong publicly released a letter Thursday written by an RCMP investigator in Prince George, under the heading: “John Furlong — allegation of sexual assault.”

“Based on the facts uncovered, the allegations made by Beverly Abraham are not supported,” wrote Cpl. Quinton Mackie in a letter sent to Furlong’s lawyer, dated Dec. 5.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 12/12/2013

A Maplewood pastor has been charged with raping two young girls for years, beginning when they were about 6.

The girls’ mother reported alleged abuse by Jacoby Kindred to police in July, when the girls, now 14 and 16, disclosed it, according to a criminal complaint filed Wednesday in Ramsey County District Court.

Kindred, 61, denied any inappropriate behavior and told police that the girls’ mother must have put them up to it. He made a reference to Minnesota being a “ladies’ state,” and said, “You weren’t there, nobody was there!” the complaint said.

He was charged with two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. As of midday Thursday, there was a warrant out for his arrest.

Kindred told police he was a pastor with One Accord Ministries. He refers to himself on his Facebook page as “Jacoby Preacherman.” He declined to describe the church for a reporter but told police it does not have a building.

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MINNESOTA
The Raw Story

By David Edwards
Thursday, December 12, 2013

A 61-year-old Minnesota pastor was charged this week with raping two girls for nearly a decade.

The St. Paul Pioneer Press reported that a complaint filed in Ramsey County District Court on Wednesday said that Jacoby Kindred began sexually abusing the girls when they were only about 6 years old.

After a letter was found referencing sex acts with Kindred, the girls, now ages 14 and 16, disclosed the relationship to their mother. Police were notified in July.

The younger of the two girls told a nurse at Midwest Children’s Resource Center that Kindred began digitally penetrating her at the age of 6. He later forced her to perform oral sex on him and then progressed to intercourse, the girl said.

“He told her the devil was inside her and he could take the demons out of her,” according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press.

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MINNESOTA
WCCO

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – A self-proclaimed pastor is charged with raping two girls for many years, from the time when one was 6 years old and continuing into her early teens, court documents show.

Sixty-one-year-old Jacoby Kindred, of Maplewood, faces two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. If convicted of both charges, he could face a sentence of 60 years in prison and/or an $80,000 fine.

A criminal complaint states that Kindred knew the girls – the oldest of which is now 16; the younger, 14 — since they were very young.

Police became aware of the abuse over the summer after the younger girl’s mother found a letter the girl had written describing sex acts with Kindred. When talking with authorities in August, the 14-year-old cried, saying the abuse started about eight years earlier and continued until she was 13.

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MINNESOTA
KARE

ST. PAUL, Minn. – A 61-year-old Maplewood man is charged with first degree criminal sexual assault for allegedly raping two sisters for nearly a decade.

Prosecutors say the defendant, Jacoby Kindred, was a grandfather of sorts to the victims and allegedly began molesting when they were six and seven years old. Police were alerted to the case when a relative found a note that one of the girls had written describing the abuse at the hands of Kindred.

The victims, now ages 16 and 14, told investigators that the sexual molestation took place during sleepovers at Kindred’s house, and involved fondling, oral stimulation and penetration. They said the defendant told them that the “devil was inside them” and that the sexual activity would remove the demons. The girls told detectives that the abuse occurred repeatedly for approximately nine years.

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MINNESOTA
Daily Mail (UK)

By ASHLEY COLLMAN

A 61-year-old Minnesota pastor has been accused of raping two girls for nearly a decade, starting when they were just 6 and 7 years old.

Jacoby Kindred, pastor of One Accord Ministries, was reported by the girls’ mother in July when she found a note one of her daughters wrote describing the abuse.

He has been charged with two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct.

Kindred became a grandfather-figure to the girls, now 16 and 17, when their mother started dating his son and they would have sleepovers at his house.

That’s when the molestation started, they say. Kindred told the victims that the ‘devil was inside them’ and that the sexual activity was the only cure.

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CANADA
CBC News

The trial of Oblate priest Eric Dejaeger in Iqaluit has been adjourned until January.

Dejaeger, 66, faces dozens of charges related to sexual abuse against children.

The incidents are alleged to have occurred between 1978 and 1982 in Igloolik.

After four weeks, the court has heard from 41 people, mostly complainants.

They gave disturbing testimony about alleged sexual acts involving young girls, boys and even dogs.

Dejaeger has pleaded guilty to eight charges.

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NEW YORK
eNews Park Forest

New York–(ENEWSPF)–December 12, 2013. Yesterday, as Pope Francis was named Time’s ‘Person of the Year’, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) formally responded to the Vatican’s submission to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child on the handling of widespread sexual violence against children in the church. Today’s document addressed recent cover-ups in the Church and the Holy See’s claims to the committee that it is only responsible for what happens within the walls of Vatican City.

Read the submission here. The Holy See is due to appear before the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in January to answer questions in person.

Read the list of questions from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child here.

Read the Vatican’s response here.

For more information, visit CCR’s case page.

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CANADA
The Record

IQALUIT, Nunavut – The Crown’s case against a former northern priest facing 80 charges of sex abuse against Inuit children has ended after weeks of wrenching testimony from Eric Dejaeger’s alleged victims.

A total of 42 witnesses were called, many from the tiny Nunavut community of Igloolik, where Dejaeger was posted as an Oblate missionary between 1978 and 1982. Dejaeger’s accusers sobbed their way through much of the testimony.

BORDERLINE: GRAPHIC CONTENT MAY DISTURB SOME READERS

One woman described how, as a girl of 12, she was taped to a bed and sodomized. Other witnesses told how Dejaeger forced them to watch him commit acts of bestiality.

Another said that Dejaeger raped her and, after she tried unsuccessfully to clean off the blood from her injuries, set her down on a couch over which he had draped garbage bags to prevent staining.

Many in the witness box pushed their bodies as far as possible from Dejaeger, who sat only a few metres from them. It was common for testimony to be given over the sound of loud sobs and wailing from outside court from those who had just told their story.

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MINNESOTA
Houston Chronicle

MANKATO, Minn. (AP) — A man who claims he was molested by a priest in Granite Falls sued the Diocese of New Ulm and the Servants of the Paraclete on Thursday to force them to release their lists of clerics accused of abusing children.

The lawsuit filed in Brown County alleges the diocese and religious order were negligent in allowing the Rev. Francis Markey access to children. The plaintiff, identified as Doe 10, claims Markey abused him when he served for three months at St. Andrew’s Church in 1982, when he was about 8 years old.

Doe 10 now lives in Nevada. It’s the second time he has sued the diocese over Markey, attorney Mike Finnegan said. The first was dismissed for procedural reasons. This lawsuit takes advantage of a new Minnesota law extending the statute of limitations for abuse lawsuits, he said.

The lawsuit seeks a list of 12 priests who worked the diocese and an unspecified number treated by the order who’ve been accused of abusing children. It also requests other documents on them and damages over $50,000.

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CANADA
660 News

IQALUIT, Nunavut – Crown prosecutors have wrapped up their case against a former northern priest facing dozens of charges of sex abuse against Inuit children.

Eric Dejaeger (deh-YAY’-guhr) faces 80 sex-related charges dating from his time in Igloolik, Nunavut, between 1978 and 1982.

That’s an increase of 11 charges since the trial started in November.

Court has heard testimony from witnesses that has included stories of a child being taped to a bed and sodomized and other children being forced to watch acts of bestiality.

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MINNESOTA
West Central Tribune

By Gretchen Schlosser

WILLMAR — Attorneys from the Jeff Anderson law firm will announce today the filing of a sexual abuse lawsuit, on behalf of a man abused in 1982 by the Rev. Francis Markey at St. Andrew Parish in Granite Falls.

The lawsuit names the Diocese of New Ulm and Servants of the Paraclete as defendants and alleges both defendants were negligent in failing to supervise Markey and allowing him to work in communities and parishes with access to children.

The event, in Mankato, will also include a request of the release of the 12 names of accused and admitted child molesters from the Diocese of New Ulm and discussion of the release of 34 names released in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis of priests with credible allegations of sexual abuse of minors and St. John’s Abbey release of 18 former monks who likely offended against minors.

According to the lawsuit and other information from Anderson’s firm, Markey was ordained as a priest in 1952 and accused of sexual abuse of at least three children in the 1960s and 1970s while he was serving in Ireland. He was sent to the Servants of the Paraclete in New Mexico in 1981 and came to Minnesota in 1981 to participate in a clinical pastoral education program at the Willmar State Hospital.

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

By: Scott Theisen
A man who claims he was sexually abused by a priest in Granite Falls is suing the Diocese of New Ulm and the Servants of the Paraclete to force the release of their lists of clerics accused of molesting children.

The lawsuit filed Thursday alleges the diocese and religious order were negligent in supervising the Rev. Francis Markey. The plaintiff claims Markey abused him when he was a boy at St. Andrew’s Church in 1982.

The lawsuit seeks their lists of accused priests and other documents on them, plus more than $50,000.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and St. John’s Abbey have released similar lists.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Catholic Insider

The more we see and hear of the implementation of the Boston pastoral plan, Disciples in Mission, the more we conclude the acronym for the plan, DIM, is a good way to describe the outlook for the plan. One example of the problems are expressed in a guest column in a local paper, “Catholic church ‘collaborative’ plan shrouded in hypocrisy” written by a parish volunteer at St. Mary’s of the Assumption in East Walpole. Here are excerpts:

Guest column: Catholic church ‘collaborative’ plan shrouded in hypocrisy
WALPOLE —Christ’s message of love, respect and service to others seems to be missing from the Boston Archdiocese’s pastoral plan called “Disciples in Mission.” The ouster of the parish priests from their current assignments as part of this plan is the latest in a string of deceptive acts created by the hierarchy and imposed on the parish priests and their congregations. The plan is designed to keep churches “open” so that the money continues to flow in, but fails to address the priest shortage in any meaningful way, while inflicting pain on the parish priests and parishioners.

In gratitude for years of service, parish priests were asked to tender their “resignations” earlier this month. In the work world, requesting a resignation means the termination of employment. Requesting the resignation of priests who have taken a vow of obedience and know they can be reassigned at any time shows a complete lack of respect for these men.

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AUSTRALIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY BARBARA DORRIS ON DECEMBER 12, 2013

Don’t believe it for a second.

Brisbane’s Catholic bishop claims he and his colleagues were “caught like rabbits in a headlight” regarding clergy sex crimes.

He also claims one case is a “dramatic failure of oversight” that showed a “spectacular bungling.”

[ABC News]

Don’t believe it for a second. Remember, bishops are smart, well-educated men.

They have smart, well-educated staffs.

They hire smart, well-educated lawyers.

They can – if they like – hire other smart, well-educated consultants and experts.

And they – and their colleagues and predecessors and supervisors – have been dealing with (and hiding and enabling) clergy sex crimes for decades.

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TEXAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Dec. 12, 2013

Statement by Barbara Dorris, SNAP Outreach Director, 314-503-0003, SNAPdorris@gmail.com

Six clergy sex abuse victims have settled their civil cases against the Beaumont Catholic diocese.

[Beaumont Enterprise]

We hope this settlement comforts at least some of the many families who have suffered and are suffering because Catholic officials kept Fr. Ronald Bollich on the job knowing he had molested young boys.

At the same time, however, no single event can magically erase decades of pain. So we strongly urge these victims to continue in therapy, twelve step programs and support groups. Long after the checks are cut and the public forgets about these cases, these deeply wounded victims will likely still need help coping with the often life-altering impact of horrific childhood betrayal.

We also hope this settlement will encourage others who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes to come forward, expose predators, protect kids and start healing. It’s always tempting to keep quiet about child sex crimes – whether known or suspected. However, it’s also always irresponsible. Kids are only safe when adults are brave and caring enough to speak up.

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

TEXAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, December 12, 2013

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

The Vatican has named Msgr. Michael J. Sis, 53, vicar general of the Diocese of Austin, Texas, as bishop of San Angelo, Texas.

We wish Bishop Sis well. But we are not optimistic about his promotion. As Austin’s vicar general, we strongly suspect he helped conceal clergy sex crimes, as most Catholic vicar generals do.

We hope that Bishop Sis will immediately post on the San Angelo diocesan website the names, photos, whereabouts and work histories of every proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting cleric who lives or worst (or has lived or worked ) in the diocese. Roughly 30 US bishops have done this. It’s the quickest way to protect kids.

We also hope he visits every parish where Fr. Miguel Esquivel worked, begging those with information or suspicions about this crimes to call law enforcement. We believe Fr. Esquivel belongs behind bars and might get there if Bishop Sis uses his bully pulpit and diocesan resources to aggressively seek out others who were hurt by him.

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

CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly

By Gustavo Arellano
Thu., Dec. 12 2013

Rumors are a’running through the hardwood floor of Mater Dei High School’s gym, where sources tell the Weekly what the Los Angeles Times first reported last week: its boys’ basketball team is losing senior forward Mario Soto, a team captain and member of a group of players that has won three state championships in a row.

No one is talking at this point, so all we can revel in is the fact that the school’s legendary pedophile-protecting coach, Gary McKnight, is even more annoyed than his corpulent self usually is.

Quick refresher: McKnight’s former assistant coach, Jeff Andrade, was pushed out by school administrators in the 1990s after molesting one teen too many. When the Weekly reported on McKnight’s antics during the investigation, the coach threatened to sue us–so we reported on him more. It eventually emerged that McKnight allowed Andrade back on campus even after school administrators forbade him to–yet they let him keep his job, because winning means more to Mater Dei than protecting students from perverts and their enablers.

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

TEXAS
Beaumont Enterprise

By Tim Monzingo
Published 8:37 am, Thursday, December 12, 2013

A civil suit against the Catholic Diocese of Beaumont alleging abuse by a priest against six boys in at least three parishes over three decades was settled Wednesday.

The suit, originally filed April 12, 2012, charged the diocese and Bishop Curtis J. Guillory, in his official capacity, with “negligent and grossly negligent” actions for keeping the Rev. Ronald Bollich on staff when it “knew or should have known he had a propensity to molest boys.”

Tahira Merritt, a Dallas-based attorney who represented the victims, said the settlement amount was not disclosed at the plaintiffs’ request.

“The last victim was abused 20 years after the first victims were abused,” she said by phone Wednesday. “The diocese knew (Father Bollich) was a sexual predator.”

Bollich was a priest for more than 30 years – from 1964 up until his death in April 1996. He worked parishes in Jefferson County, Orange County and Nacogdoches County, according to the final petition in the case, filed Nov. 15, 2013. His duties took him to churches in Beaumont, Bridge City, Port Arthur, Groves, Silsbee, Buna, Moral, Nacogdoches and Chireno, the petition reads.

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

MISSISSIPPI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Dec. 12, 2013

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

We are not encouraged by the appointment of Jackson’s new Catholic bishop. We know little about Joseph R. Kopacz. But he has been named as a defendant in clergy sex abuse suits or been accused of concealing those crimes (see case involving Father Albert M. Liberatore Jr., Father Carlos Urrutigoity, and Father Eric Ensey at BishopAccpoiuntaibllity.org)

Pennsylvania’s Catholic bishops have won two key battles in courts and the legislature that make it very hard for clergy sex abuse victims to seek justice. So it’s hard to find out what roles men like Kopacz have played in clergy sex cases. We hope he hasn’t protected predators and endangered kids. But we’re not optimistic.

The minute he takes over in Jackson, we urge Bishop-elect Kopacz to immediately confirm the whereabouts of two Jackson child molesting clerics and warn Catholics and citizens in two places about them:

–Brother William Leimbach, a credibly accused child molester whose last known home was in Burrillville, R.I, and

[BishopAccountability.org]

–Fr. Paul Madden, an admitted molester whose last known home was in Peru where he may still be working as a priest.

[BishopAccountability.org]

These predators belong behind bars or in remote treatment centers so they’ll be kept away from kids. We suspect that few who live or work near them know that they have molested kids.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

[MONEYVAL report]

John L. Allen Jr. | Dec. 12, 2013

Europe’s top financial transparency experts say that “much work has been done in a short time” under Pope Francis to promote reform, but new rules to bring the Vatican in line with international standards still have to be tested in practice.

Until the new systems are implemented and seen to be working, those experts say, the Vatican still risks being used for money laundering.

In particular, evaluators say it’s “surprising” that a new financial watchdog unit created in 2010 under Benedict XVI and strengthened by Francis still has not carried out formal inspections of either the Vatican bank or the other main financial department in the Vatican, the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA), though it notes internal reviews of accounts in those two entities are ongoing.

According to evaluators, the watchdog unit, the Financial Information Authority, needs “more trained and experienced staff” to handle its responsibilities of flagging suspect transactions and approving outfits that want to do business in the Vatican.

That office, the report said, needs to recruit “appropriately skilled professionals quickly” in order to be able to exercise real oversight.

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VATICAN CITY
4-Traders

[MONEYVAL report]

MONEYVAL – Committee of Experts on the Evaluation : Council of Europe issues report assessing progress by the Holy See on measures to combat money laundering

Press release – DC160(2013)

Council of Europe issues report assessing progress by the Holy See on measures to combat money laundering

Strasbourg, 12.12.2013 – The Council of Europe’s Committee of experts on the Evaluation of Anti-Money Laundering Measures and the Financing of Terrorism ( MONEYVAL) today published a report presented by the Holy See (including the Vatican City State) concerning the progress it has made to remedy the deficiencies identified by MONEYVAL in its first mutual evaluation report in 2012.

The report was published together with a detailed assessment of this progress by MONEYVAL with regard to the 16 core and key Financial Action Task Force (FATF) Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing (AML/CTF) Recommendations 2003. Both documents were adopted this week at MONEYVAL´S 43rd plenary meeting, and take into account developments up to 30 November 2013.

MONEYVAL concludes that a very wide range of legislative and other measures have been taken in a short time by the Holy See to remedy deficiencies identified by the 2012 MONEYVAL report in all areas of the AML/CFT framework, though certain issues still need to be addressed. The following are its main findings:

– The legal structure for criminalising money laundering and terrorist financing, and related confiscation, is in place and much improved but still needs to be tested in practice.

– A new and more comprehensive system for freezing terrorist assets pursuant to United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1267 and 1373 is now operational.

– There are review processes in place to ensure that the financial institutions within the Holy See/Vatican City State know who their account holders are and that full customer identification and verification measures are applied to them, in line with international standards. The process is being conducted under the supervision of the Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA). It is planned to be completed by the first quarter of 2014. It has resulted in accounts being closed and a significant number of suspicious transaction reports in 2013. These are being analysed by the FIA and, where appropriate, referred to the Promoter of Justice.

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VATICAN CITY
Economia

12 December 2013

Today the Council of Europe has released its second evaluation of the Holy See and its private bank, the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR). Conducted by Moneyval, the Council of Europe’s monitoring arm in anti-money laundering and countering of financial terrorism, it analyses whether anything has changed since last year’s report, which concluded: “Further important measures still need addressing in order to demonstrate that a fully-effective regime has been instituted, particularly in respect of supervision of the financial institutions”

On the day of its publication, Laura Powell interviews Nigel Baker OBE, British Ambassador to the Holy See since 2011, about what the IOR is doing to address issues of transparency. And whether the IOR needs to become more transparent still – and far more rigorously scrutinised.

How has the reputation and public perception of the Vatican Bank changed since you were appointed as Ambassador to the Holy See in 2011?

“It was a standing joke that whenever a journalist wrote an article about the IOR, it had to include a mention of Banca Ambrosiana and Roberto Calvi under Blackfriars Bridge*. Yet that scandal happened over 30 years ago. There was a sense amongst commentators and others that the Holy See had in the past only paid lip service to the need to change its financial structures. Now, articles about the IOR tend to focus on the process of reform, increasing transparency, and efforts to modernise. Such a process will inevitably cast light into some dark corners. However, even basic steps like publishing better accounts and opening the IOR to outside scrutiny is, in my opinion, gradually changing the organisation’s image for the better.”

*Roberto Calvi, former chairman of Banca Ambrosiana, was found hanged under Blackfriars Bridge, shortly after the bank’s collapse, in a Mafia-associated murder thinly-veiled as suicide. Calvi was nicknamed God’s Banker for his close ties with the Vatican.

The IOR was nicknamed the world’s most secretive bank, by Forbes magazine in 2012. How has it addressed concerns about secrecy and transparency?

“Holy See authorities have made steady progress in opening Vatican financial management up to greater outside scrutiny, in particular through the Moneyval process, focusing on compliance with international money laundering and terrorism financing rules. Its official regulator, the Financial Information Authority has been strengthened through a series of modifications to its working practices and regulations; outside experts have been brought in to scrutinise the IOR and APSA; and staff have been changed. There is a clear direction of travel towards greater openness and professionalism, instituted under Benedict XVI and driven forward by Pope Francis. This is unprecedented.”

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Press Release from the U.S. bishops’ conference:

Pope Names Bishops for Mississippi, Texas Dioceses

December 12, 2013

WASHINGTON—Pope Francis has named Father Joseph R. Kopacz, 63, a priest of the Diocese of Scranton and pastor of Holy Trinity Parish, Mt. Pocono, Pennsylvania, as bishop of Jackson, Mississippi, and accepted the resignation of Bishop Joseph Latino,76, from the pastoral governance of the Jackson diocese. The pope also named Msgr. Michael J. Sis, 53, vicar general of the Diocese of Austin, Texas, as bishop of San Angelo, Texas, and accepted the resignation of Bishop Michael Pfeifer, 76, from the pastoral governance of the San Angelo diocese.

The appointments were publicized in Washington, December 12, by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pocono News

SCRANTON – Pope Francis appointed the Reverend Joseph R. Kopacz, Ph.D., pastor of Most Holy Trinity Parish, Mount Pocono, as the eleventh bishop of the Diocese of Jackson, Mississippi. Bishop-elect Kopacz succeeds Bishop Joseph Nunzio Latino, whose resignation was accepted, having completed his seventy-fifth year of age. Bishop-Elect Kopacz’s episcopal ordination and installation as Bishop of Jackson are scheduled for February 6, 2014 in the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter the Apostle, Jackson, Mississippi.

The son of the late Stanley and Carmella Calormino Kopacz, Bishop Elect-Kopacz is a native of Dunmore, PA and is a graduate of Dunmore Central Catholic High School. He is the second of three children with a brother, Robert, and a sister, Mary Ellen Negri. He attended St. Pius X. Seminary, Dalton and received his Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Scranton and his Master’s Degree in Theology from Christ the King Seminary, East Aurora, New York. He also earned a Master’s Degree in Counseling and Psychology and a Doctorate in Human Development from Marywood University.

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AUSTRALIA
Telegraph

JANET FIFE-YEOMANS THE DAILY TELEGRAPH DECEMBER 13, 2013

A PRIEST alleged to have cried when told by a victim that she had been sexually abused as a child by a member of the clergy said he had not shed a tear since he was a boy.

“Not even when my mother and father died,” Father Francis Mulcahy told the royal commission into child sex abuse yesterday.

An emotional Jennifer Ingham, who was sexually abused for four years by a Catholic colleague of Father Mulcahy, has told the commission he was one of the first people she told.

But yesterday he was called as a witness and denied knowing her or having been at such a meeting.

Ms Ingham, 51, said Father Mulcahy, who was in her dad’s class at a Catholic boarding school, was at a meeting of senior clergy in 1990 at Lismore when she got up the courage to confront the church and tell of her years of abuse by the late Father Rex Brown.

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MISSISSIPPI
Clarion-Ledger

The Rev. Joseph Kopacz has been appointed bishop of Diocese of Jackson to succeed Bishop Joseph Latino who reached the age of retirement.

The appointment by Pope Francis was announced Wednesday and was released by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, Apostolic Nuncio to the United States.

Kopacz, 63, will be ordained and installed on Feb. 6 at noon in the Cathedral of Saint Peter the Apostle in Jackson.

Kopacz is a priest of the Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and was ordained in 1977. He has served the Scranton diocese in many capacities, including as a pastor, formation director, vicar for priests, vicar general and coordinator for Hispanic Ministry.

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UNITED STATES
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

EDITORIAL

MEN and WOMEN of the YEAR

TIME magazine named Pope Francis its Person of the Year for 2013.

We believe it’s important for the advocates who receive NSAC News to write to TIME magazine.

It’s impossible not to see the groundswell of good feeling for this pope – from believer and non-believer alike — and the attraction to simplicity and the projecting of the human desire that the Pope and the Church actually be as good as what Popes and Churchmen say in public pronouncements.

What worries us is the effect on the survivors and their families.

If it worries you, and if you are a subscriber to NSAC News we believe it ought to, we think you should write to Time magazine.

We thought about saying we urge you to write to Time magazine but we don’t think the people who subscribe to NSAC News need urging – you get it – children and minors shouldn’t be raped and sodomized by priests and nuns under a tent of cover-up by bishops, cardinals, popes, chancery and Curia officials – what you need is reminding.

It’s a busy time of year. Consider this your reminder.

When the talk at holiday parties, around Christmas cookie swaps, at church, in the concert ticket line, and the checkout line, and with the folks riding in a car with you, turns to how wonderful Pope Francis is and how all the Church’s troubles have been forgotten, God’s in His heaven and all is right with world – please consider this a reminder to say it is not.

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ROME
Religion News Service

Eric J. Lyman | Dec 11, 2013

ROME (RNS) Pope Francis was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year on Wednesday (Dec. 11), adding yet another high-profile accolade to what has been an unprecedented nine-month reign for the shepherd of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics.

Time called Francis “The People’s Pope” and said it honored him for “pulling the papacy out of the palace and into the streets, for committing the world’s largest church to confronting its deepest needs, and for balancing judgment with mercy.”

Francis has been celebrated worldwide since becoming pope in March. Even before the Time honor, he was the top trending topic on Facebook. He is credited with increasing church attendance across Italy, making “Francesco” Italy’s most popular baby name for boys and helping to recast the tarnished image of the church.

A new poll released Wednesday showed the pope is more popular than ever: The St. Leo University Polling Institute released the results of a survey that showed more than three in five Americans approve of the pope — a number that jumps to 82 percent among U.S. Catholics. …

But not everyone was pleased with the choice. Barbara Blaine, president of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, complained that Francis has done too little to address victims of clergy sexual abuse within the church.

“The pope has made many feel hopeful with his personal humility, down-to-earth gestures, and obvious deep compassion for the poor,” Blaine said in a statement. “But he has not made a single child safer. He hasn’t exposed one predator priest or disciplined one corrupt bishop.”

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TEXAS
Whispers in the Loggia
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2013

Gig ‘Em, Bishop Mike – Austin’s Beloved Sis Off to San Angelo

Aggies, you’ve been waiting on this one for a long time… and finally – amid what’s already American Catholicism’s biggest night – está aquí.

At Roman Noon, the Pope named Msgr Mike Sis, 53, heretofore vicar-general of Austin – a beloved, legendary figure who built St Mary’s Catholic Center at Texas A&M into the Stateside church’s premier campus ministry outpost – as bishop of San Angelo.

In the West Texas post, the Jersey-born Sis succeeds another revered Bishop Michael who knows the “smell of the sheep”: Mike Pfeifer, who’s led the sprawling, mostly rural diocese encompassing Midland, Abilene, Odessa and 29 counties in all since 1985, having reached the retirement age of 75 in May 2012. An Oblate of Mary Immaculate, the Rio Grande-born missionary – named to succeed the future Archbishop Joseph Fiorenza on the native son’s return to Houston – is said to have felt cheated out of his religious vocation on his appointment as bishop, and has already started making plans to begin his retirement in the assignment his superiors were sending him before the hat came: namely, Africa.

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CANADA
Chatham Daily News

By Ellwood Shreve, Chatham Daily News
Tuesday, December 10, 2013

A valuable project that helps survivors of male sexual abuse will have to try to survive without its major source of funding.

Tom Wilken said the Diocese of London has committed another $80,000 to the Silence to Hope (STH) project for 2014, which will be the eighth and final year it will provide the funding.

“We’ve had a good run, we’ve had some really good sponsorship from the Diocese,” he said. “We’ve been able to do a lot of good.

“We wish it could continue, but at least we got what we’ve got,” he added.

The Diocese began providing the funding to help male sexual assault survivors who had been victimized by a representative of the Catholic church. Wilken said the funding is not limited to male victims abused by clergy, but for any man who has been sexually abused.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

December 12, 2013

Catherine Armitage
Senior Writer

Jennifer Ingham says she should not be alive. She was abused by predatory priest Father Paul Brown of the Catholic church’s Lismore diocese from age 16. Within a year she could not complete her HSC because she was hospitalised for bulimia.

For the next few years, while her peers were finding their way in the world with new-found freedom, she was in and out of psychiatric hospitals and attempted suicide several times. The abuse continued as Father Brown arranged to meet her regularly at the Sydney University Motel in Glebe or flew her to where he was living at St Joseph’s Parish Church, Tweed Heads.

He arranged for her psychiatric treatment. Her family was never billed. She thinks he paid.

“I shouldn’t be medically alive,” Mrs Ingham, 51, told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse. All the $256,000 compensation she got from the church earlier this year had already been spent on medical bills for her survival, she said. Operations she needed because of the bulimia have left her with such severe mouth pain that she had to break and rest when telling her story to the Commission.

She said the first time she told her story to the church was at a meeting of senior clerics in Lismore in 1990. One of them was Father Frank Mulcahy, who had been to school with and remained friends with her father.

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MINNESOTA
CT Post

MANKATO, Minn. (AP) — A man who claims he was sexually abused by a priest in Granite Falls is suing the Diocese of New Ulm and the Servants of the Paraclete.

The lawsuit expected to be filed Thursday alleges the diocese and the religious order were negligent in supervising the Rev. Francis Markey, who was in the diocese in 1984. The plaintiff claims Markey abused him when he was a boy at St. Andrew Parish.

The lawsuit also asks the diocese to release the names of 12 clerics accused of molesting children.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and St. John’s Abbey have released similar lists.

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UNITED STATES
Daily Kos

Frederick Clarkson

A few months ago I wrote about how the child sex abuse crisis in evangelical Christianity, although less reported, is at least as bad as it is in the Catholic Church. Taken together, this suggests that there is a crisis of a different kind looming for the leaders of the Religious Right, whose concern for the victims of abuse has been too muted, and too often belated when it is evident at all. There is also too often an obvious and alarming tendency to sympathize and side with the abuser over the victims. The proud defenders of what they call “family values” become bizarre self-parodies, at best, under such circumstances.

There are signs that accountability is coming.

This week as the the world considers the life of Nelson Mandela, a leading advocate for victims of sex abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention offered a remarkable idea. Christa Brown of Stop Baptist Predators suggested a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, modeled on the one that helped South Africans put the horrors of apartheid behind them, might also help the Southern Baptist Convention come to grips with it’s child sex abuse scandal. She thinks that Baptist leaders have been long on reconciliation and short on truth, and that maybe a comprehensive effort at both might help.

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MINNESOTA
CBS Minnesota

December 7, 2013

Esme Murphy

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — The Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St. Paul announced a list of 34 priests credibly accused of sexual abuse earlier this week.

Critics said more names should have been on that list, that the Archdiocese was forced to release the names and that without a court order they would not have done so. The skepticism is understandable. Just looking at the list, the number of times accused priests were transferred in an apparent effort to conceal or ignore the problem is chilling.

Archbishop John Nienstedt also announced new policies, including putting names of all those credibly accused in the future on the Archdiocese web site. Nienstedt promised there would also be a press release to help alert the broader community.

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MISSOURI
Courthouse News Service

By JOE HARRIS

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. (CN) – The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights defamed a man who says he is a victim of priestly sex abuse as a drug-abusing murderer and a Catholic-hating bigot, the man claims in court.

Jon David Couzens Jr. sued The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, its President William Donohue, the KC Catholic League, KC Catholic League President Joe McLiney and KC Catholic League Capacity Secretary James O’Laughlin, in Jackson County Circuit Court.

Couzens claims Donohue defamed him in statements responding to the Kansas City Star’s three-part series on priestly abuse, written by Judy Thomas in December 2011.

The series centered around Couzens’ claims – and subsequent lawsuit against the KC Diocese, Msgr. Thomas O’Brien and Fr. Isaac True – that he and three other altar boys, one of whom committed suicide, were sexually abused in the early 1980s.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

By Manya Brachear Pashman, Chicago Tribune reporter
December 12, 2013

A 27-year-old Chicago man on Wednesday became the first person to identify himself in a sex abuse allegation against former Roman Catholic priest and convicted sex offender Daniel McCormack.

Darryl McArthur, who like all of McCormack’s accusers is African-American, filed a lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court and said he wanted to combat “the culture of secrecy” involving sexual abuse.

“I respect the privacy of any individual who wants to put their name (as John Doe) … because it’s a lot to deal with,” McArthur said. “I feel as though me being a young African-American male I can raise awareness not only … of childhood sexual abuse but especially my culture. Where I come from there’s a sworn secrecy of ‘Don’t tell.'”

The lawsuit alleges that the abuse started in 1994 at St. Ailbe Parish, in the Calumet Heights neighborhood, shortly after McCormack was ordained and began his first assignment.

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UNITED STATES
Seattle PI

Posted on December 11, 2013 | By Joel Connelly

A whopping 57 percent of Americans take a favorable view toward Pope Francis, nearly twice as many as viewed positively predecessor Pope Benedict XVI at his retirement, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Wednesday.

Only 5 percent have a negative view of the Argentine Jesuit who sits on the throne of Peter. Others have no opinion or do not know the man chosen Tuesday as Time’s “Person of the Year.”

Just nine months into his job, Francis has connected strongly with America’s Catholics, millions of who have become disaffected with their church over its removed, authoritarian hierarchy and bishops’ mishandling of clerical sex abuse scandals.

Pope Francis gets a thumbs-up from 76 percent of U.S. Catholics and 74 percent of the faithful aged 18-49. Just 45 percent of young Catholics had a positive view of Benedict XVI when he resigned last spring.

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OREGON
The Oregonian

By Helen Jung | hjung@oregonian.com
on December 11, 2013

Michelle Lee Freeman’s instincts led her to kick her husband out of their Salem house after he confessed he had sexually abused a young relative of theirs.

But her fundamentalist church pastor lectured her that she had done wrong by her husband and needed to let him come back home, said her lawyer, Nell Brown. And Freeman, a sexual-abuse victim herself whose ability to stand up to her husband had been worn down by nearly 20 years of emotional and verbal abuse, reunited with him, Brown said. Freeman kept her husband’s abuse of the girl to herself.

The decision would eventually lead to “the gradual erosion of Michelle Freeman’s inner moral compass,” Brown said. The wife soon not only photographed and videotaped her husband’s sexual exploitation of the girl, then about 8 or 9, and the girl’s younger sister, but also began sexually abusing the older girl herself for her husband’s enjoyment.

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KENTUCKY
WHAS

by Maggie Ruper
WHAS11.com
Posted on December 11, 2013

RADCLIFF, Ky. (WHAS11) — Edwin Bonet-Ruiz, a Central Hardin Spanish teacher, is accused of kissing and hugging a 14-year-old student his classroom last Thursday.

The district fired him after the allegations surfaced. Bonet-Ruiz also had his ministry credentials revoked at Abundant Life Church in Radcliff after charges were filed.

Associate Pastor Terry Linscott said Bonet-Ruiz’s wife of 33 years called and informed them on Monday night after her husband was arrested and allegedly confessed to police.

“She was just distraught. You can only imagine the emotions going through her mind of anger, hurt and disappointment,” Linscott said.

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KENTUCKY
WAVE

By Katie Bauer

RADCLIFF, KY (WAVE) – A Hardin County church is in shock after one of its ministers stands accused of hugging and kissing a teenage student at the school where he taught.

For nearly a decade the Central Hardin teacher was also a special deputy volunteer with the Hardin County Sheriff’s Office helping as an interpreter and with traffic during special events. Now all of Edwin Bonet-Ruiz’s titles have been revoked and a community is left stunned.

“When you think of Edwin, you don’t think of someone doing something like this,” said Terry Linscott, associate minister at Abundant Life Church in Radcliff.

For 18 years Bonet-Ruiz was in a leadership role at the Abundant Life Church. The high school teacher ministered in Spanish as part of the church’s Hispanic outreach program.

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

VATICAN CITY
Europe Online Magazine

Vatican City (dpa) – The Vatican has done “much” to improve clean up its track record on the fight against money laundering and terrorist financing, the Council of Europe said Thursday.

In recent years, the Vatican has been trying to turn a page over the financial scandals that have dogged its bank, the Institute for Religious Work (IOR), which has been linked to the Sicilian mafia and other criminal groups.

“It is clear from this review that much work has been done in a short time,” the council‘s Moneyval committee said in a report, which was approved Monday but published only three days later.

It checked progress against a more comprehensive July 2012 report, where Moneyval experts concluded that the Vatican was meeting only nine out of 16 international core financial transparency standards.

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

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) European evaluators have highlighted the progress made in the past year by the financial institutions of the Holy See in a progress report published Thursday. The Council of Europe’s Moneyval published the report as a follow-up to its original 2012 report, which named several areas that needed updating to meet international standards. Since that time, several new laws have been passed by the Holy See and Vatican City State to better implement the suggestions.

The Director of the Vatican’s Financial Information Authority, René Brülhart, spoke to the head of Vatican Radio’s German section, Father Bernd Hagenkord about this latest report…

You have just returned from Strasburg [from meetings with Moneyval]. Are you happy with these discussions and this report.

The report has been fully adopted, so yes I think it is a very positive sign and the resolve you see is a very good one.

Is Moneval also happy?

I can’t talk for Moneyval, so I think the question should be addressed to them, but the discussions we had were very much focused…done in a very constructive manner. When you look at the report, it is a very comprehensive report, describing very much in detail about the steps the Holy See has taken over the last months, and obviously it seems we have satisfied Moneyval, otherwise the report would not have been adopted.

Last time we heard from Moneyval there was a kind of rating system, 16 important points, 9 of which fulfilled by the Vatican. Is there some ratings system this time as well?

What has been presented this morning is a so-called progress report, which is a follow-up report to the report which has been presented in July 2012, and based on the rules of procedures of Moneyval these progress reports never have any kind of re-rating. In other words, this report focusses on the implementation of the recommendations which have been made by Moneyval in its report of July 2012.

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

VATICAN CITY
Bloomberg Businessweek

By Chiara Vasarri and Alessandra Migliaccio December 12, 2013

The Vatican has made progress in improving financial transparency, though it still needs to carry out more internal controls, according to a European report on the city-state’s efforts to prevent money-laundering.

Moneyval, the Council of Europe’s body that monitors money laundering and terrorism financing, approved a progress report on the Vatican following an initial evaluation in July 2012. The watchdog praised financial transparency agreements signed by the city-state with other countries as well as its efforts to bring to light suspicious transactions.

“It is clear from this review that much work has been done in a short time,” according to the report published today. “The legal structure for criminalization of money laundering and terrorism financing and related confiscation is much improved, but still needs to be tested in practice.”

The watchdog recommended more checks be carried out by the Vatican’s Financial Information Authority, or FIA, and said staff should be more experienced and better trained. The fact that the Vatican bank, also known as the Institute for Works of Religion, and the Holy See’s administrative body, APSA, weren’t subject to formal inspections is “surprising,” Moneyval said in the report.

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

VATICAN CITY
Boston.com

By NICOLE WINFIELD / Associated Press / December 12, 2013

VATICAN CITY (AP) — European evaluators have given the Vatican a mixed report card in its efforts to comply with international norms to fight money laundering and terror financing, praising progress over the past year while highlighting delays and shortcomings at the Holy See’s financial watchdog agency. Chief among them: its failure to inspect the embattled Vatican bank.

In the progress report released Thursday, the Council of Europe’s Moneyval committee revealed that 105 suspicious transactions had been flagged to the financial watchdog agency in 2013 as potential cases of money-laundering — a significant increase over 2012 when only a half-dozen were reported. The increase stemmed from the bank’s ongoing process to review all accounts at the Institute for Religious Works to make sure its customers and assets are clean.

Three of those cases were forwarded to Vatican prosecutors for investigation, including one that made headlines earlier this year: the case of the Vatican accountant, Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, who was arrested by Italian authorities in June after he allegedly tried to smuggle 20 million euros ($26 million) from Switzerland into Italy without declaring it at customs.

The Scarano affair prompted the bank’s top two managers to resign and laid bare the lax controls that for years fueled the bank’s reputation as an off-shore tax haven where money could be laundered. Scarano is also under investigation for alleged money-laundering in a separate case involving his Vatican bank accounts; Vatican prosecutors seized 1.98 million euros from his accounts as part of its own investigation, the report showed.

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

VATICAN CITY
Reuters

BY PHILIP PULLELLA

(Reuters) – The Vatican has made significant progress in financial reforms but still risks being used for money laundering unless it strengthens controls, a European watchdog said on Thursday.

The 30-page report by Moneyval, a monitoring committee of the Council of Europe, is expected to add impetus to Pope Francis’s efforts to clean up the Vatican’s finances after decades of scandal.

It advocates stronger controls on the Vatican’s bank – whose main purpose is to provide financial services for Vatican employees and religious groups – and another financial office.

Moneyval’s first report, in 2012, found the Holy See failing in seven of 16 “key and core” areas and made recommendations for changes to its financial legislation and practices.

“It is clear from this review that much work has been done in a short time to meet most of the Moneyval technical recommendations. There are many welcome clarifications and improvements …,” Moneyval said.

It said the Vatican’s new legal structure for combating money laundering and other financial crimes was “much improved” but still needed to be tested in practice. It applauded “wide-ranging” measures to “rectify deficiencies in all areas …”

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UNITED STATES
Bustle

By Katie Zavadski @katiezavadski

For those who thought Edward Snowden had it in the bag, you were wrong: TIME magazine named Pope Francis 2013’s Person of the Year Wednesday. Egypt’s not-really-democratic leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, won the reader poll with 26.2 percent of the vote, followed by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with just over 20 percent. Miley Cyrus pulled in third, with 16.3 percent, but let’s be honest: we’d hoped TIME wouldn’t pick her even if she came in first amongst readers. But the two reader frontrunners, while surely influential men, don’t come close to Pope Francis. …

4. HE’S DEALING WITH SEX ABUSE IN THE CHURCH
Done are the days of the church covering up sex abuse! Or so we hope. The new pope acknowledged that such horrors had occurred, offering a prayer in the Netherlands that said, “I wish to express my compassion and to ensure my closeness in prayer to every victim of sexual abuse, and to their families.” He also moved to include sex abuse as a “crime against minors” and launched a committee in the Vatican to investigate such claims. Meanwhile, he also really loves children, in a non-creepy way:

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

CALIFORNIA
The Press-Enterprise

DECEMBER 11, 2013 BY JOHN ASBURY

A Menifee Mormon bishop was sentenced Wednesday, Dec. 11, to three years in prison for molesting two teenage girls who attended his church.

Todd Michael Edwards, 49, received two concurrent sentences of three years in prison for two felony counts of sexual battery and sexual penetration with a foreign object. A witness intimidation felony was dismissed as part of a deal with prosecutors when he pleaded guilty Nov. 13.

Edwards, who was the bishop of the Menifee Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, sat in court with his hands folded, carrying a plastic bag of diabetes medication.

He remained free until his sentencing hearing Wednesday, when he stood before Judge Becky Dugan in a Riverside courtroom. He was led away by deputies and handcuffed before being booked into Riverside County jail, where he will await being taken to state prison.

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

KENTUCKY
WDRB

[with video]

By Bennett Haeberle

ELIZABETHTOWN, Ky. (WDRB) – Fired from his job as a Hardin County teacher a day after his arrest on a sex abuse charge, WDRB News has learned Edwin Bonet-Ruiz has been let go from two other posts: his role as a Spanish pastor at a Radcliff church and as a special deputy working for the Hardin County Sheriff’s Department.

Hardin County Sheriff Charlie Williams told WDRB News that Bonet-Ruiz has worked for the sheriff’s department for nine years as a special deputy – working traffic duties at places like the county fairgrounds and acting as a Spanish translator for the sheriff’s department and other area police departments.

Williams says Bonet-Ruiz, 54, did not have arrest power, but was working in an unpaid position. Williams added that those duties were revoked after Bonet-Ruiz’s arrest on Monday.

Edwin Bonet-Ruiz is accused of hugging and kissing a 14-year old student in his classroom last week at Central Hardin High School. After the girl told a school resource officer of the incident, investigations were launched by both the school district and the Elizabethtown Police Department.

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

CHICAGO (IL)
WLS

[with video]

December 11, 2013 (CHICAGO) — A 27-year-old Chicago man on Wednesday filed a sexual abuse lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Chicago, alleging he was a victim of convicted priest Daniel McCormack.

Darryl McArthur also came forward to speak of the alleged abuse, choosing not to file his suit as a “John Doe,” because he said he wanted “to put a face to the abuse and a voice to victims.”

The abuse allegedly occurred while he was a student, altar boy and an athlete at St. Ailbe, where McCormack, convicted in several similar cases, was an associate pastor in the 1990s, McArthur said. It began in fourth grade, continuing through sixth grade, McArthur said.

“He gained my family’s trust, as a priest and a coach, and he used those opportunities to sodomize me,” McArthur said.

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

AUSTRALIA
Sky News

Jennifer Ingham says she first understood the abuse inflicted on her was not her fault the moment her family priest cried and told her she was not the only victim of a Catholic Church sex predator.

But as far as Father Frank Mulcahy is concerned, that meeting 23 years ago never happened.

He has denied attending any meeting with senior church figures, Mrs Ingham and her then-husband in early 1990, at which she allegedly disclosed abuse she had suffered as a teenager and young woman at the hands of Father Paul Rex Brown.

And although Fr Mulcahy knew her father from their boarding school days and gave him communion on his deathbed in Lismore, the retired clergyman says he didn’t know who Mrs Ingham was.

Both gave evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney on Thursday.

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Mankato Press Conference Thursday

Diocese of New Ulm, Servants of the Paraclete
Named in Sexual Abuse Lawsuit

The identities of 12 priests with accusations of sexual abuse of a minor remain protected

What: At a news conference on Thursday in Mankato, sexual abuse attorney Mike Finnegan of Jeff Anderson & Associates along with attorney Mike Bryant of St. Cloud will:

• Announce the filing of a sexual abuse lawsuit on behalf of a man, Doe 10, who was sexually abused as a young boy by Fr. Francis Markey at St. Andrew Parish in Granite Falls, MN. The lawsuit names the Diocese of New Ulm and Servants of the Paraclete as Defendants and alleges both Defendants were negligent in failing to supervise Markey and allowing him to work in communities and parishes with access to children.
• Request the release of 12 names of accused and admitted child molesters from the Diocese of New Ulm.
• Discuss the release of 34 names released in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis on December 5, 2013 of priests with credible allegations of sexual abuse of minors and St. John’s Abbey release of 18 former monks who likely offended against minors.

WHEN: Thursday, December 12, 2013 at 11:00 AM CST

WHERE: Hilton Garden Inn – Room 301
20 Civic Center Plaza
Mankato, MN 56001

WHO: Attorney Mike Finnegan, a St. Paul, Minnesota-based, sexual abuse lawyer has represented thousands of survivors of sexual abuse by authority figures and clergy. Attorney Michael Bryant has over 20 years of experience as a personal injury attorney and has teamed up with Jeff Anderson to help sexual abuse survivors in Minnesota.

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

AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

live stream

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is continuing its hearings, into the discredited “Towards Healing” process – the Catholic Church’s mechanism for dealing with claims of abuse throughout Australia (except for Melbourne, which has its own process, “The Melbourne Response” set up by Cardinal George Pell).

It has heard of the abuse of Mrs. Joan Isaacs by priest, Frank Derriman, and the problems she encountered with the “Towards Healing” process (see last two days’ postings). There had been a heavy involvement from the church’s lawyers and insurers in the process, Evidence has pointed to the clear impression that the church was concerned with protecting its wealth, rather than helping victims, as the “Towards Healing” documentation had claimed.

The enquiry has heard from some of the people who operated the “Towards Healing” process. Evidence of incompetence and outright deception were revealed.

Kenneth Robertson, the former convenor of the Queensland professional standards office was the Towards Healing representative that Mrs. Isaacs first reached out to. Robertson said he did not think Mrs. Isaacs had received a just and compassionate outcome. “First of all [because of] the delay of two years which was absolutely nonsense. I don’t think that the negotiation with regards to the monetary outcome was handled well at all,” Robertson told the enquiry.

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

MICHIGAN
The Detroit News

Mike Martindale

Troy —A popular priest removed at St. Thomas More Parish during an embezzlement investigation is seeking access to his personal bank accounts frozen nine months ago by authorities.

Rev. Edward Belczak, 67, has not been criminally charged but was “temporarily excluded” as head of the parish in January by the Archdiocese of Detroit after an internal audit revealed $429,000 in “questionable transactions and practices.” Belczak, pastor at the church for nearly 30 years, was also ordered out of his church-provided lodgings.

Troy police obtained a search warrant and had Belczak’s bank accounts frozen as part of an investigation that now involves the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office. A request to unfreeze the accounts scheduled Wednesday before Oakland Circuit Judge Denise Langford Morris was adjourned until Dec. 18.

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

UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY BARBARA DORRIS ON DECEMBER 11, 2013

Two US media outlets today mentioned scandals over crimes against children. One involves 6,000 potential crimes in one jurisdiction. The other involves potentially 16 times that many likely predators.

Let’s compare them.

The New York Times reports that more than 6,000 possible crimes against children have not been investigated by state officials in Arizona.

TIME Magazine names Pope Francis its “Person of the Year” and mentions, barely, the vastly more possible – and likely – crimes against children by Catholic clerics. (In the US alone, with just 6% of the world’s Catholics, some 6,000 US priests are proven, admitted or credibly accused child molesters. If you extrapolate, the likely number of predator priests across the globe is astounding.)

So on one hand you have 6,000 possible crimes against kids in one jurisdiction with .092% of the world’s population.

On the other hand, you have 6,000 likely crimes against kids in another jurisdiction – the US Catholic church with roughly 6% of the world’s population.

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

CHICAGO (IL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Statement by Statement by Barbara Dorris, Outreach Director, 314-862-7688 SNAPdorris@gmail.com)

We applaud Darryl McArthur for seeking justice against the Chicago archdiocese for its reckless and callous misdeeds with Fr. Daniel McCormack, a credibly accused predator priest who was promoted and kept on the job despite repeated “warning signs.”

We hope Darryl’s courage will inspire others who were hurt by clerics to step forward. Adults who were molested as kids have nothing to be ashamed about. We understand their fear. We understand why they often want to protect their privacy.

Still, it sends a powerful signal when victims voluntarily choose to reveal their names when they take action against those who commit and conceal hideous crimes against children. We wish more of them would do so.

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

CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

BY MAUDLYNE IHEJIRKA Staff Reporter December 11, 2013

A 27-year-old Chicago man on Wednesday filed a sexual abuse lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Chicago, alleging he was a victim of imprisoned pedophile priest Daniel McCormack.

Darryl McArthur also came forward to speak of the alleged abuse, choosing not to file his suit as a “John Doe,” because he said he wanted “to put a face to the abuse and a voice to victims.”

The abuse allegedly occurred while he was a student, altar boy and an athlete at St. Ailbe, where McCormack, convicted in several similar cases, was an associate pastor in the 1990s, McArthur said.

It began in fourth grade, continuing through sixth grade, McArthur said.

“He gained my family’s trust, as a priest and a coach, and he used those opportunities to sodomize me,” McArthur said.

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

NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

By Tara Mills
BBC News

The assembly’s health committee is hearing evidence from those leading inquiries into the abuse of young people in Northern Ireland.

The inquiries were launched in September after it was revealed that police had identified a group of 22 young people – aged between 13 and 18 – that may have been abused.

Of the 22 cases under examination, 18 involved children in the care system.

They had been recorded as missing a total of 437 times.

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

NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC news

MLAs have questioned how effective two child sexual exploitation inquiries can be without statutory powers.

The assembly’s health committee has heard evidence from those leading inquiries into the abuse of young people in Northern Ireland.

Two inquiries were launched in September after it was revealed that police had identified a group of 22 young people who may have been abused.

The alleged victims were aged between 13 and 18.

The health committee was told the profile of victims in Northern Ireland was always changing.

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

CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

By Manya Brachear Pashman
Tribune reporter
11:51 a.m. CST, December 11, 2013

A 27-year-old Chicago man came forward today, accusing former Roman Catholic priest and convicted sex offender Daniel McCormack of sexually abusing him when he attended baptism classes at St. Ailbe parish on the South Side.

Darryl McArthur, the owner of an auto wholesale company, is the first victim to file a lawsuit under his name without using a John Doe alias.

“I want to show a sense of courage today,” said McArthur. “I feel it is time to put a stop to the culture of secrecy.”

McArthur said McCormack abused him between 1994 and 1996 while taking baptism classes at St. Ailbe. McCormack also served as McArthur’s basketball and football coach.

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

CHICAGO (IL)
CBS Chicago

CHICAGO (CBS) – The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago has been hit with another lawsuit involving convicted ex-priest Daniel McCormack – one of the most notorious alleged child molesters in archdiocese history.

Unlike many other lawsuits filed against the Chicago archdiocese by men who said they’ve been abused by priests, there is a name attached to this suit.

“I respect and appreciate the privacy of being a John Doe, but my name is Darryl McArthur, and I feel it is time to put a stop to this culture of secrecy within the Catholic Church,” McArthur said

He is 27 years old said McCormack sexually abused him in the mid-’90s at St. Ailbe Parish on the South Side.

“I want a family, and I felt as though this needs to be put at closure in my life for me to make that next level in my life,” McArthur said. “Because when I do start a family, I want to be able to share with my kids what has happened to me without breaking down.”

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

UNITED STATES
Center for Constitutional Rights

Supplemental Submission To the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child In Advance of its Review of the Holy See During Its 65th Session

December 2013

I. Introduction

The Center for Constitutional Rights and Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests submit this supplemental information for the Committee’s consideration in advance of its review of the Holy See during its 65th Session. This information supplements that contained in an alternative report submitted to the committee on 28 February 2013, entitled “Fighting for the Future: Adult Survivors Work to Protect Children & End the Culture of Clergy Sexual Abuse” (hereinafter “Alternative Report”).1

This submission addresses the Holy See’s response of 25 November 2013 to the Committee’s List of Issues (CRC/C/VAT/Q/2) (“LOI”) and further provides additional information on developments since 1 March 2013, particularly in relation to Question 11 of the LOI.

II. The Vatican’s Response to the List of Issues

We note that the Holy See’s response goes to great length to confine its obligations and liabilities under the Convention to the territory of Vatican City State, where it acknowledges citizenship
and/or residence of 31 children. The Holy See seeks to redirect responsibility for widespread and systemic violations of the Convention and OPSC occurring in other sovereign territories that were committed, abetted, facilitated or covered up by Catholic officials acting under its authority to other States.

In doing so the Holy See overlooks a critical feature of international law and the extraterritorial obligations of States to respect, protect and fulfill human rights. This Committee has recognized that “the Convention does not limit a State’s jurisdiction to ‘territory’” and further that “[i]n accordance with international law, the Committee has previously urged states to protect the rights of children who may be beyond their territorial borders.”2

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2013

Statement by SNAP leader Mary Caplan of New York (mcaplan682@aol.com)

Despite having taken virtually no steps whatsoever – as head of a diocese, a religious order or now, the worldwide church – to protect children or expose predators or punish enablers or reform laws relating to abuse, Pope Francis continues to enjoy considerable personal popularity. Carrying his own luggage, paying his own hotel bill, living in smaller quarters, and talking more about the poor are admirable moves. They do not, however, address the most devastating crisis the church faces – and has faced for decades – heinous crimes against kids.

[Center for Constitutional Rights]

That’s why we in SNAP – with the valuable help and support of the Center for Constitutional Rights – continue to prod secular authorities, especially at the international level – to do what the pontiff and his top aides refuse to do: prevent the raping and sodomizing of children by publicly exposing those who commit and conceal this awful violence.

Today SNAP and CCR are submitting another report to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. In it, we document more recent clergy child sex crimes and cover ups across the world and the refusal of Catholic officials to stop them. And in it, we harshly criticize Pope Francis’ dreadfully disappointing and disingenuous response to a legitimate request for information about this crisis by this UN panel.

Days ago, the pontiff filed a formal response to the UN panel’s questions. He claims that the Vatican can provide information only about known and alleged child sex crimes that have happened on Vatican property. This is a dodge, and not an artful one. We suspect that virtually no one on the planet believes it. Nor should they.

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

MINNESOTA
The Post Review

By Derrick Knutson
December 11, 2013

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis last week released a list of former priests with credible claims against them of sexual abuse of a minor. Among those on the list is Clarence Vavra, 74, who served at Church of the Sacred Heart in Rush City and St. Gregory Catholic Church in North Branch in 1977-1978.

Vavra started his tenure with Catholic Church as an associate priest at St. Rose of Lima in Roseville in 1965, and retired from the Shieldsville parish in 2003, where he also served as an associate priest.

During his years as an associate priest, pastor and administrator, the Catholic Church moved him 16 times in Minnesota. Many of those assignments were one or two-year stints.

Vavra currently lives in New Prague.

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

VATICAN CITY
Reuters

BY ELIZABETH DILTS
Wed Dec 11, 2013

(Reuters) – Time magazine named Pope Francis its Person of the Year on Wednesday, crediting him with shifting the message of the Catholic Church while capturing the imagination of millions of people who had become disillusioned with the Vatican.

This is the third time the magazine has chosen a pope as its Person of the Year. Time gave that honor to Pope John Paul II in 1994 and to Pope John XXIII in 1963.

The Argentine pontiff – who, as archbishop of Buenos Aires was known as the slum cardinal for his visits to the poor and penchant for subway travel – beat former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden and gay rights activist Edith Windsor for the award. …

With the Catholic Church marred in recent years by sex abuse scandals, Francis formed a team of experts Thursday to consider ways to improve the screening of priests, to protect minors to help victims.

Still, Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), a victim advocacy group, said in a statement Wednesday that more action was needed.

“After nine months of essentially ignoring the church’s most severe crisis, (Pope Francis) hastily announced last week that he’ll appoint an abuse study panel,” Blaine said. “He has not, however, made a single child safer.”

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UNITED STATES
Stop Baptist Predators

In the wake of Nelson Mandela’s death, journalist Peter Beinart posed this piercing question: “Why, in recent days, has the American media focused so much more on Mandela’s capacity for reconciliation than his demand for truth?”

Beinart, who is also an associate professor at City University of New York, presented a possible answer: “Perhaps,” he said, “it’s because, all too often, America wants reconciliation without truth itself.”

I think Beinart may be on to something.

“Truth itself” can be terribly hard. It’s way easier to skip straight to the reconciliation part.

Certainly, we have seen this pattern in Baptistland, where religious leaders are fast to preach on forgiveness but disinterested in the truth about clergy sex abuse and cover-ups.

Indeed, in America’s largest Protestant faith group – the Southern Baptist Convention – religious leaders are so disinterested in – or afraid of – the truth about the extent of clergy sex abuse and cover-ups that there doesn’t even exist the possibility of a denominational process for assessing clergy abuse reports. Nor does there exist any denominational process for keeping records on how many abuse reports a minister may have, for informing congregations about multi-accused ministers, or for disciplining those clergy who cover-up for the unspeakable crimes of their colleagues.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Off My Knees, A Blog by Michael Baumann

FACSA – Foundation to Abolish Child Sex Abuse

Contact Your PA House Rep ASAP

Please contact your local PA House legislator and ask him/her to support Rep. Mark Rozzi’s proposed amendments to Senate Bill 681 which the full PA House will be voting on very soon possibly in the next day or so.

A. How to find your legislator: http://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/findyourlegislator/

B. Bullet points we suggest you use in your communication with him/her:

Please support SB 681
Additionally, please support the all the Rozzi amendments that will help give justice to victims of child sex abuse which increase the statute of limitations from 12 years to 32 years for civil actions arising from the sexual abuse of a minor and create a two year “window” to allow past child sexual abuse victims the opportunity to seek civil recourse from their perpetrators.
Include a short sentence or two of why you support this legislation.
Thank them for their consideration of this matter.
Include your name and address.
—————————————-
FYI: Letter we sent to all legislators today. It has a bit more detail about the proposed legislation.

December 9, 2013

Dear Legislator:

The House will soon consider SB 681 which would allow victims of sex crimes to protect themselves from predators. While we support this legislation, we ask that you also support the Rozzi amendments to give victims access to justice. Currently, Pennsylvania’s archaic statute of limitations laws mean that thousands of victims cannot have access to the courts for civil proceedings – just because their legal “clock” has expired.

The first Rozzi amendment would remove the statute of limitations for civil actions arising from the sexual abuse of a minor and provide a “window” up until age 50 for abuse victims to file civil action if the statute of limitations has expired. It would also remove “sovereign immunity” defenses for public officials who commit sexual abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (updated 10 December 2013)

Broken Rites is researching a senior Catholic priest, Father Rex Brown, who was protected by the church while he committed sexual crimes on children – including numerous boys but also some girls. The church has been forced to admit that Brown was an abuser and it has been forced to make settlements with some of his victims.

The settlements were made through the church’s “Towards Healing” process, and these victims have found the Towards Healing process to be an unsatisfactory experience.

In 2007 the Lismore diocese accepted a complaint from one of Rex Brown’s victims (let’s call him “Edgar” — not his real name) and the diocese agreed to sign a deed of settlement with Edgar. Broken Rites knows about Edgar’s case because he had previously sought advice from Broken Rites about how to obtain justice.

In 2013 the diocese made a settlement with a female victim of Brown. This victim feels now feels that she has been victimised AGAIN by the way the church treated her during the Towards Healing process.

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CANADA
Sylvia’s Site

The sex abuse trial of twice convicted Oblate priest Father Eric Dejager continues today in Iqaluit in Nunavut. Unfortunately this Canadian horror story is now receiving little media coverage. Hopefully there will be coverage of yesterdays’ testimony. There was nothing from Monday.

Today I will blog the testimony from Wednesday past when I had the good fortune to be in the Iqaluit courtroom to see and hear with my own eyes and ears. Some of those children were such brave little souls, doing what they could as a children to protect other children from “Eric.”

Please keep the victims/complainants in your thoughts and prayers. This trial is very difficult for them.

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NEW YORK
The Jewish Week

12/11/13

Hella Winston
Special Correspondent

The Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office possessed compelling evidence that the allegations lodged by a key witness against chasidic abuse whistleblower Sam Kellner were false, but used that testimony to indict Kellner anyway, The Jewish Week has learned.

This evidence, known to the district attorney over a year before Kellner’s arrest, was given to his lawyers only last week. These new revelations bolster existing evidence that in the Kellner case, the district attorney may have allowed one division of the office (Rackets) to use highly questionable evidence to undermine the work of another (Sex Crimes), apparently in the service of a convicted child molester whose lawyers have close ties to Hynes.

Prosecutors were set to dismiss Kellner’s case last month, but were overruled by DA Charles Hynes’ controversial Rackets chief, Michael Vecchione. The case is now scheduled for trial on Jan. 21. Vecchione is resigning this week.

In 2008, Kellner’s son was allegedly molested by Baruch Lebovits. Kellner reported the incident to law enforcement and, with the encouragement of a sex crimes detective, found and brought two additional alleged Lebovits victims forward. One of them, “MT” (previously referred to by The Jewish Week as “Yoel”), abruptly stopped cooperating with the prosecution. Another alleged Lebovits victim, “YR” (previously referred to as “Zev”), did testify against Lebovits.

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VATICAN CITY
Los Angeles Times

By Tom Kington
December 11, 2013

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican’s bank has unearthed more than 100 suspicious payments this year after starting full-scale checks on its customers for the first time to crack down on money laundering, up from six last year, said an official knowledgeable about the cleanup effort.

The official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the inquiry publicly, spoke after the Vatican said Monday that it had been given a positive progress report by Moneyval, the Council of Europe money-laundering monitor, after a middling grade in a full evaluation last year. The new report, which was signed off Monday and will be formally released by Moneyval on Thursday, gives an assessment but no grades.

Rene Bruelhart, the Swiss banking expert serving as director of the bank’s new oversight body, acknowledged last week that “there has been a very significant jump in suspicious transaction reports in 2013.” Bruelhart was appointed last year as part of a drive by former Pope Benedict XVI and his successor, Pope Francis, to reform the scandal-dogged institution.

Sporting well-groomed stubble and slick suits and dubbed the “James Bond” of the Vatican by the Italian media — much to his embarrassment — Bruelhart appears a fish out of water at the Holy See, where he keeps a room at the residence that also houses Francis.

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SCOTLAND
BBC News

Bishop Stephen Robson has been appointed as the new Bishop of Dunkeld by Pope Francis.

He will replace Bishop Vincent Logan, who stood down after almost 30 years in 2010 on health grounds.

Bishop Robson, who is 62 and was ordained in 1979, previously served as assistant to Cardinal Keith O’Brien for almost 30 years.

His installation is due to take place at St Andrew’s Cathedral in Dundee in the new year.

Reacting to the announcement, Bishop Robson said a big priority for him in his new role would be to encourage vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

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UNITED STATES
ABC News

By DAVID BAUDER Associated Press

Time magazine selected Pope Francis as its Person of the Year on Wednesday, saying the Catholic Church’s new leader has changed the perception of the 2,000-year-old institution in an extraordinary way in a short time.

The pope beat out NSA leaker Edward Snowden for the distinction, which the newsmagazine has been giving each year since 1927.

The former Argentine Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected in March as the first pope from Latin America and the first Jesuit. Since taking over at the Vatican, he has urged the Catholic Church not to be obsessed with “small-minded rules” and to emphasize compassion over condemnation in dealing with touchy topics like abortion, gays and contraception.

He has denounced the world’s “idolatry of money” and the “global scandal” that nearly 1 billion people today go hungry, and has charmed the masses with his simple style and wry sense of humor. His appearances draw tens of thousands of people at a clip and his @Pontifex Twitter account recently topped 10 million followers.

“He really stood out to us as someone who has changed the tone and the perception and the focus of one of the world’s largest institutions in an extraordinary way,” said Nancy Gibbs, the magazine’s managing editor.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2013

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

The pope has made many feel hopeful, with his personal humility, down-to-earth gestures, and obvious deep compassion for the poor. He has not, however, made a single child safer. He hasn’t exposed one predator priest or disciplined one corrupt bishop.

After nine months of essentially ignoring the church’s most severe crisis, he hastily announced last week that he’ll appoint an abuse study panel. That’s it. Meanwhile, kids are being raped, predators are being helped, police are being ignored, prosecutors are being stonewalled and secrets are being hidden.

Unlike many religious figures, the Pope has enormous power. With great power comes great responsibility, the responsibility to do more than just pick a panel to study a crisis that has been percolating for centuries and that hurts children every single day.

Pope Francis presides over the world’s only global monarchy. And it’s a wealthy, rigid, hierarchical one with a long and sordid history of enabling and hiding child sex crimes. That hierarchy is still enabling horrific child sex crimes, by their actions (refusing to give information to the United Nations) and inaction (not revealing the names of known child molesting clerics, not punishing those who conceal their crimes, not lobbying for better child safety laws).

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NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Catholic Officials in Violation of Treaty on Rights of the Child

December 10, 2013, New York – Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims and their attorneys will announce a formal new filing in their challenge of the Vatican before the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child tomorrow. The submission will address recent cover-ups in the Church and the Holy See’s claims to the committee that it is only responsible for what happens within the walls of Vatican City.

WHAT: Press conference to demand Vatican answer questions posed by UN Committee and outline plans for January Geneva panel

WHEN: Wednesday, Dec. 11 at 1:00 pm

WHERE: Outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral (5th Avenue entrance) in New York City

WHO: Leaders of two non-profit groups – the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP)

WHY: In advance of an unprecedented meeting next month in Geneva, CCR and SNAP are submitting a new filing to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The document presents evidence of recent wrongdoing in a number of clergy sex abuse and cover-up cases and addresses the Vatican’s failure last week to respond substantively to the CRC’s request for information about the church’s global scandal.

The controversy centers on the question of whether or not the Vatican is abiding by a treaty it signed in 1990, the Convention on the Rights of the Child. CCR and SNAP outline the ways in which the Church is violation of that treaty.

Next month, for perhaps the first time ever, high ranking Vatican officials will travel to Geneva for an open meeting with the UN panel. They are expected to face tough questions from panel members and to defend the church hierarchy’s track record in these cases. Representatives from SNAP and the Center for Constitutional Rights will be in attendance.

In a separate case, in Sept. 2011, CCR and SNAP filed a 71 page formal complaint – backed by thousands of pages of documentation – asked the International Criminal Court at The Hague to investigate four top Vatican officials for “enabling or concealing widespread rape and sexual abuse of children around the world.”[PS2]

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX THE AUSTRALIAN DECEMBER 12, 2013

A NSW detective claimed a Catholic priest had a possible pedophile connection to a convicted cleric in an internal police report despite having no evidence the first priest was involved in any criminal activity, an inquiry has heard.

Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox yesterday told the NSW special commission of inquiry he sent the intelligence report to the state Sex Crimes Squad in 2006, based largely on a conversation he had with the priest three years earlier.

In the report, Inspector Fox described the priest having a “possible pedophile activity link” to NSW cleric James Fletcher, who was convicted of abusing an altar boy in 2004.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX THE AUSTRALIAN DECEMBER 12, 2013

THE Catholic Church’s response to allegations of child abuse by priests has “been done on the run”, is inconsistent in its treatment of victims and is undermined by appallingly inaccurate record keeping, says the Archbishop of Brisbane.

Giving evidence yesterday to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Mark Coleridge called for an independent, national scheme to replace the church’s authority to decide what financial compensation victims should receive.

The responsibility of the Catholic Church to decide these payouts was “a fatal confusion” within the current Towards Healing process, established to respond to the victims of child sexual abuse by priests, he said.

“In one sense, Towards Healing was something done very carefully, but in another sense it’s a process that’s been done on the run and by people who were learning as they went,” Archbishop Coleridge said.

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AUSTRALIA
Telegraph

JANET FIFE-YEOMANS THE DAILY TELEGRAPH DECEMBER 12, 2013

JENNIFER Ingham was a vulnerable 16-year-old schoolgirl suffering bulimia when her parish priest, Father Paul Rex Brown, sexually assaulted her – but that was only the start.

When she left school, the Lismore priest got her a job as a waitress in Sydney and arranged for them to meet at the Sydney University Motel in Glebe for sex.

He even paid for her to fly up to stay at his home at St Joseph’s Parish Church at Tweed Heads where the sex continued, Ms Ingham told the royal commission into child sex abuse yesterday.

Father Brown was removed from his office in 1986 because he drank too much and has since died – but the priest who Ms Ingham claims to have told about her sexual abuse, and who cried over it, is still very much alive and denying he even knew her, the commission was told.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Ordained a Jesuit of the Oregon Province in 1943, Duffy’s ministry took him from California to Washington state, Montana and Oregon. He died in 1992. In the early 2000s, accusations began to surface against Duffy. He has been accused of sexually abusing at least five girls, ages 6 to 12, in the 1960s and ’70s, and a “vulnerable adult” woman in the late 1980s. The abuses are said to have occurred while Duffy worked in Oregon and Washington state. He has been the subject of multiple lawsuits.

Ordained: 1943

Died: Dec. 1, 1992

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IOWA
KLJB

[with video]

Once sexually abused when they were minors, now they are taking a stand and trying to change the law.

State officials are no longer able to prosecute their abusers because of the statute of limitation but now these women along with the local organization abbreviated S.A.A.M. is working to change that.

Right now in Iowa, once a juvenile victim turns 18, he or she has 10 years to report it to authorities. After that, the statue of limitation expires.

These survivors say it takes time to get the courage to say something and they need the law on their side when they do so.

“Somebody has changed who I am, for my entire life, and they have ten years to worry about whether they have to pay for what they’ve done,” said Natalie Long. “I don’t think that’s justice at all.”

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IOWA
KWQC

n the State of Iowa, the statute of limitations on the sexual abuse of a child is a maximum of ten years. It goes into effect once a victim of sexual abuse turns 18; that person has up to ten years to try and prosecute their abuser.

But there is a relatively new, local organization that is advocating for a change in the statute of limitations when it comes to sex abuse against minors.

Abuse victims with the S.A.A.M. Foundation — a nonprofit dedicated to changing the statute of limitations for Sexual Abuse Against Minors — tell KWQC’s Morgan Ottier that it oftentimes takes longer to cope with the years of sexual abuse and to make the decision to come forward and prosecute.

“I am a victim of sexual abuse myself,” said S.A.A.M. co-founder, Natalie Long. She said it started in the early 1980s, when she was just seven, and it went on for four years.

“Back in that time I think it was more of a hidden, let’s shove it under the rug type of thing,” she said.
“I had to seek help on my own in my later twenties.”

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IRELAND
Irish Times

What the audits by the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church of Ireland say about six dioceses

Cashel and Emly

The audit found that all allegations were now promptly referred to the civil authorities, usually within three days of receipt by the diocese.

It said there was considerable communication between the diocese, the Garda and the HSE on all matters, including new allegations and management of men out of ministry.

It found there had been 19 allegations or concerns reported against 13 priests since 1975: “This is a relatively small number in comparison to other dioceses.”

Of the living priests following civil authority notification and church inquiries, five were currently in ministry and two out of ministry .

“Having read all files, the reviewers support the position of the five living priests who are in ministry and agree that the allegations were not substantiated or based on evidence that there was or is current risk to children, consultation in all cases took place with HSE and An Garda Síochána.”

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