ABUSE TRACKER

CANADA
La Presse

Mathieu Simard
La Presse Canadienne
Montréal

Les avocats de la Congrégation de Sainte-Croix devront retourner en cour le 5 mars pour faire état de l’avancement du processus d’indemnisation des victimes d’actes sexuels répréhensibles commis par des membres du clergé ou des laïcs.

C’est ce qu’a décidé le juge à la Cour supérieure du Québec, Claude Auclair, après que les représentants de la Congrégation eurent présenté une requête pour l’obtention d’une prorogation de six mois additionnels afin de traiter avec «rigueur et équité» toute les réclamations.

Dans un communiqué publié jeudi, la Congrégation affirme qu’elle déplore que ce délai soit requis mais explique vouloir s’assurer que toutes les victimes soient compensées adéquatement.

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

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

January 4, 2013 by Susan Matthews

The Philadelphia rape trial of a Rev. Charles Engelhardt and Bernard Shero, a former Catholic school teacher, is finally set to begin next week. According the Philadelphia District Attorney’s site, it opens Monday, Jan. 7 – most likely with jury selection.

Last year, their case was severed from that of Msgr. Lynn, who is now appealing his child-endangerment conviction. He begins a three- to six-year prison term.

Engelhardt, who was a priest at St. Jerome Parish in northeast Philadelphia, and Shero, a teacher at the parish school, were charged with rape, indecent sexual assault and other criminal charges. They have both pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting a former altar boy in the 1990s.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia Inquirer

[Audit Records: Diocese of Manchester and New Hampshire Attorney General – summary audit records on LeDoux – BishopAccountability.org]

[case file – BishopAccountability.org]

[Audit Records: Diocese of Manchester and New Hampshire Attorney General – entire Manchester audit archive – BishopAccountability.org]

Susan Snyder and John P. Martin, Inquirer Staff Writers

Posted: Friday, January 4, 2013

A Widener University dean who is also a Franciscan priest resigned in July after school officials learned he had been accused of sexually abusing a teenage boy in the 1980s.

Michael Ledoux, 55, had worked at Widener for nine years, and in recent years supervised student teachers at the Widener Partnership Charter School, which has students from kindergarten through the seventh grade.

The accusation was reported in 2003 to church officials in New Hampshire, where Ledoux served more than two decades ago. Widener officials learned about it this past summer through a tip.

University president James T. Harris III told Ledoux he was placing him on administrative leave pending an investigation but Ledoux chose to resign, Widener spokesman Dan Hanson said. The university has found no evidence of complaints or improper behavior during Ledoux’s tenure there, Hanson said.

The accuser never pressed charges or pursued a lawsuit, but there was a settlement. Reached by e-mail, Ledoux, who now lives at a Franciscan facility in New York, declined to discuss the matter but maintained his innocence.

His case illustrates a thorny issue for schools, communities, and religious orders around Philadelphia and the country in the decade since the clergy sex-abuse scandal exploded. Credible allegations emerged against hundreds of priests or former priests, but more often than not, the accusations were too old to be prosecuted or litigated.

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
The Australian

Rick Morton
From:The Australian
January 05, 2013

A RETIRED Catholic priest has become only the second man in Australia’s history charged with covering up the child sexual abuse of another clergyman.

The 81-year-old man was arrested after he took himself to Charlestown police station, near Newcastle, at about 9.20am and was charged with accessory before the fact of indecent assault of a child and concealing the offence of another man.

Police will allege the cover-up relates to the sexual abuse of a nine-year-old boy between 1982 and 1984 at a residence in Nelson Bay and on a beach at Newcastle.

The first man in Australia charged with concealing similar offences, former priest Tom Brennan, died of cancer in October last year before his case reached court.

The latest man to be charged was granted conditional bail yesterday and will appear in Newcastle Local Court on January 29.

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
ABC News

By Giselle Wakatama and staff

A retired New South Wales Hunter Valley Catholic priest has become the second Australian person to be charged with covering up child sex offences committed by another man.

The 81-year-old was charged by a dedicated clergy abuse police taskforce at Charlestown Police Station in Newcastle this morning.

He is charged with concealing a serious crime relating to child sex offences allegedly committed by another Hunter Valley man between 1982 and 1984.

Police say a nine-year-old victim was abused at a premise in Nelson Bay, Port Stephens, and at a beach at Newcastle.

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
Newcastle Herald

By JOANNE McCARTHY
Jan. 4, 2013

A HUNTER priest who retired more than 15 years ago has become the second Catholic priest in Australia charged with concealing child sex crimes.

Father Lewis Fenton, 81, of Eleebana, was charged at Charlestown police station on Friday morning in relation to offences committed by a Hunter man against children in the mid-1980s.

Father Fenton was charged only four months after retired Hunter priest Tom Brennan made international news as the first Australian Catholic priest to face charges of concealing another priest’s sex crimes against children in the 1970s.

Father Brennan died of cancer six weeks later, and before the matter was heard in court.

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

CANADA
Montreal Gazette

By Sue Montgomery, GAZETTE JUSTICE REPORTER
January 3, 2013

MONTREAL — There were tears, comforting hugs, and exasperated sighs Thursday from men who were sexually abused by members of Congrégation de Ste. Croix as the powerful order once again tried to delay paying out $18 million in compensation more than a year after a settlement was reached.

At least 50 victims, who attended prestigious Collège Notre Dame and two other schools run by the Catholic order, spent most of the day in Quebec Superior Court waiting for lawyers from both sides to agree on how to speed up the process.

“They are filibustering, plain and simple,” said Sébastien Richard, spokesman for the victims.

The victims filed a motion Thursday to speed up the settlement awarding process, after the brothers had sought to delay settling the claims until June. Instead, discussions took place in private outside court and a second adjudicator was named to help move things forward. The case will be back in court March 5.

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
The Daily Telegraph

Neil Keene
The Daily Telegraph
January 05, 2013

A RETIRED Catholic priest allegedly concealed his knowledge about the repeated sexual assault of a nine-year-old boy for more than 20 years.

Police from Strike Force Georgiana charged the 81-year-old yesterday morning after a seven-month investigation. They allege he failed to disclose serious child sex offences by another man on a nine-year-old boy between 1982 and 1984 at Port Stephens and a beach in Newcastle.

The priest, who worked in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese from the 1970s to the 1990s, was charged with being an accessory before the fact to the indecent assault of a child and failing to inform police about a crime.

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.

MARYLAND/PENNSYLVANIA
WFMZ

OCEAN CITY, Md. –
The investigation of a reported child sexual assault in Maryland has led to the arrest of a former priest in the Allentown Diocese.

Bruno Michael Tucci took a child in Aug. 1981 to a motel room in Ocean City, where the sexual acts occurred, said police, who declined to release specifics of the case.

Tucci, now 70, of Salisbury, Md., served as a priest in the Allentown Diocese, specifically at Roman Catholic schools and churches in Berks, Carbon and Schuylkill counties, between 1971 and 2002, said officials, adding that he was defrocked by the diocese in 2007.

Tucci’s arrest, police said, didn’t come about until now because they only learned of the alleged assault after the Jerry Sandusky case in Pennsylvania was made public.

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
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Wehmeyer was arrested in June 2012 on charges of criminal sexual conduct after a woman reported to police that the priest molested her 12 year-old son in the summer of 2010. Wehmeyer was removed from his St. Paul, MN parish June 21, 2012. Investigators learned that the boy’s 14 year-old brother was present during the abuse, and that he, too, was targeted. The incidents occurred in the priest’s camper in the church parking lot and on an overnight camping trip. The boys said Wehmeyer gave them alcohol and marijuana and showed them pornography. Police found child pornography on Wehmeyer’s laptop computer, which resulted in further charges. Wehmeyer pleaded guilty on all counts. He had been arrested previously, in 2009, on charges of Driving While Intoxicated. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 90 days in jail and 2 years of supervised probation. Sentencing for the criminal sexual conduct and possession of child pornography was scheduled for Feb. 2013.

Ordained: 2001
Incardinated: St. Paul-Minneapolis

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

UNITED STATES
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

Sunday, January 6, brings us to the 11th anniversary of the breaking of the sexual abuse scandal in the United States in its Boston incarnation.

It’s the day the first news story ran in the series that would ultimately net the Boston Globe a Pulitzer Prize.

It is, as we have sadly learned and re-learned through this decade plus one, not the beginning of the sexual abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church. Those roots go very, very depth and strength very, very long into the Church’s history.

The movement of response to this crisis which ballooned considerably with the Boston explosion of news that rippled throughout the country and now throughout the world, has produced heroes and villains.

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
New South Wales Police Force

Friday, 04 January 2013

Police have charged a retired priest in relation to the alleged historical sexual assault of a child on the state’s north coast.

In June 2012 investigators from Strike Force Georgiana received information about alleged child sex assault matters and commenced inquiries.

Investigators spoke with an 81-year-old retired priest about the alleged offences against a then 9-year-old boy at a premise in Nelson Bay and a beach at Newcastle.

Police will allege the offences occurred between 1982 and 1984.

Detectives have been following several lines of inquiry and today progressed their investigation.

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
Adelaide Now

A RETIRED priest has been charged with concealing the child sex offences of another man in NSW dating back to the early 1980s.

The 81-year-old is also accused of being an accessory before the fact to the indecent assault of a nine-year-old boy.

Police allege the victim was molested at a premises in Nelson Bay, on the NSW north coast, and at a beach at Newcastle.

The offences allegedly occurred between 1982 and 1984.

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.

NEW YORK
The Jewish Daily Forward

By Paul Berger

Published January 03, 2013.

An attorney who just won a landmark sex abuse lawsuit against an elite private school has been retained to represent a former student with similar claims against Yeshiva University.

Kevin Mulhearn has been hired by Mordechai Twersky, the first of almost two dozen students to come forward claiming they were abused decades ago while studying at Y.U.’s High School for Boys, in Manhattan.

Legal Eagle: Kevin Mulhearn has been retained by Mordechai Twersky, who claims he was abused as a student at Yeshiva U. High School for Boys

Mulhearn said that he hoped more victims would join in any potential lawsuit against Y.U. “I think there is a substantial benefit in consolidating these claims as much as possible,” Mulhearn said.

Twersky says that not only was he abused by Rabbi George Finkelstein, who went on to become principal of the Y.U.-run high school, but Y.U. also knew of Finkelstein’s and other staff members’ abusive behavior and covered it up for decades.

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 Lorenzo Totaro and Sonia Sirletti on January 04, 2013

The Bank of Italy suspended electronic payments in the Vatican City because the papal state doesn’t comply with international money laundering rules.

The central bank found in an inspection in 2010 that Deutsche Bank AG (DBK)’s Italian unit, which had been operating the papal state’s point-of-service payment services since 1997, didn’t have the authorization to operate in the Vatican City, a Bank of Italy official said. The central bank on Dec. 6 refused a permit request to Deutsche Bank SpA because the Vatican lacks required banking and financial legislation, the official said. A Deutsche Bank spokeswoman for Italy declined to comment.

Payments through credit and debit cards through one electronic-payment provider in the Vatican City were suspended on Jan. 1 as authorities are trying to find another bank provider, the Vatican press office said in a statement yesterday. The interruption to electronic payment services will be “brief,” the Vatican said. Cash withdrawals from machines operated by the Vatican bank IOR are not affected, a Vatican spokesman, who declined to be named, said.

The interruption affects Vatican museums, which had sales of 91.3 million euros ($118.9 million) in 2011 and more than 5 million visitors, according to a spokeswoman for the museums.

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
RT

If a trip to Vatican is on your to do list, you’ll need plenty of cash for all the tickets, souvenirs and food. The world’s tiniest state has suspended all bank cards payments and emptied ATMs after it failed to comply with EU money laundering legislation

­Even the Vatican’s most visited landmarks and sights, like the world’s famous Vatican museum, are obliged to accept cash only. The measure also places restrictions on the pharmacy, the post office and a few shops.

It would not be such a problem for scores of tourists, if only they could take cash from ATMs. However, ‘hole in the wall’ machines have been emptied.

“A lot of tourists don’t have cash on them, so they have to get euros and don’t know where to get them,” an American tourist Fluger William Hunter, who was standing in line for the Vatican Museum, was quoted by media.

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.

BOSTON (MA)
National Catholic Register

CHRISTINE M. WILLIAMS
01/03/2013

BRAINTREE, Mass. — Pope Benedict XVI has appointed a widely respected canon lawyer from the Archdiocese of Boston to the key Vatican post of promoter of justice for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).

In that capacity, Father Robert Oliver will be charged with ensuring that Church law is followed carefully and with equity — most notably with respect to the high-profile area of clergy sexual abuse of minors.

Currently assistant for canonical affairs to Boston’s vicar general, Father Oliver enjoys a stellar reputation among his fellow American canon-law specialists.

J.D. Flynn, canon lawyer and chancellor for the Archdiocese of Denver, called Father Oliver an “expert” who is often consulted by other canonists.

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

CANADA
CTV

The Canadian Press
Published Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013

MONCTON, N.B. — A Roman Catholic diocese in New Brunswick should have notified police immediately when it heard last year that two priests were alleged to have sexually abused children, say two lawyers who have represented victims of abuse by clergymen.

Robert Talach and John McKiggan say the Archdiocese of Moncton had a responsibility to refer the matter to the RCMP once it became aware of the accusations.

“You name me any other institution, school board, a daycare, or a boys’ home that would not immediately react with disgust and outrage and drag the information down to the police station before the end of that same day,” Talach said Thursday from his London, Ont., office.

But a spokesman for the archdiocese said it is up to the alleged sex abuse victims to report their allegations to the police.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Reading Eagle

Mike Urban
Reading Eagle

A former priest who served and taught in Berks County in the 1970s and ’80s has been charged with sexually abusing a boy in a Maryland shore town in 1981.

Bruno M. Tucci, 70, of Salisbury, Md., was charged with sexual assault and child abuse by a custodian.

He was served with an arrest summons Dec. 11, and remains free awaiting further court action.

In August 1981, Tucci took the boy to an Ocean City motel room, where he sexually assaulted the boy, police 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.

MISSOURI
Southeast Missourian

Friday, January 4, 2013

By Scott Moyers ~ Southeast Missourian

A Catholic priest who’s been dead for decades has been accused of sexually abusing a child at a Southeast Missouri parish he served in the mid-1960s, the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau has disclosed.

The complaint against the Rev. Walter G. Craig is “credible,” said spokeswoman Leslie Anne Eidson. But church leaders aren’t willing, she said, to provide specifics out of respect for the victim’s request for privacy.

“It is a matter of grave concern for the diocese,” Eidson said in a telephone interview from Springfield, Mo. “We felt we had a responsibility to make this information available to the public. But, of course, we want to honor his wish for complete anonymity.”

The diocese did acknowledge the incident is alleged to have taken place in the mid-1960s at Immaculate Conception Parish in New Madrid, Mo., where Craig was pastor from 1954 to 1966, Eidson said. Craig, who was born in 1899 and ordained in 1923, was pastor in other Southeast Missouri churches, including St. Ambrose in Chaffee, Immaculate Conception in Jackson and St. Lawrence in New Hamburg. Craig died in 1971 while at the New Hamburg parish. He was at St. Louis parishes twice during his nearly five decades in the priesthood, according to biographical information provided by the diocese.

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

CANADA
CBC News

The Archdiocese of Moncton has not contacted police about “serious” sexual abuse allegations against two recently suspended priests, church officials have confirmed.

But RCMP are aware of the accusations about Father Yvon Arsenault and Father Irois Després and could still investigate, said Cpl. Chantal Farrah.

“If we are made aware of someone being the victim of a crime then we can proceed in opening an investigation to see if we can further that,” she said.

Farrah declined to say whether the RCMP plans to investigate in this case, citing confidentiality.

Even if an investigation were ongoing, police could not comment until a charge is laid, she 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.

CANADA
CTV

The Canadian Press
Published Friday, Jan. 4, 2013

MONCTON, N.B. — A former Supreme Court justice says the Catholic church had no obligation notify police of sex abuse allegations against two more priests.

Michel Bastarache informed the Archdiocese of Moncton of the allegations.

They surfaced during a reconciliation and compensation process that Bastarache was conducting for alleged victims of sexual abuse involving another priest.

Two lawyers who have represented victims of abuse by clergyman say the diocese should have gone to the RCMP.

One of the lawyers, Robert Talach, says any other institution would have done so.

But the archdiocese countered that it’s up to the alleged sex abuse victims to come forward.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
WFMZ

Newly-sworn-in Pa. Representative, child abuse victim, wants to end child abuse statue of limitation

Author: Pam Cunningham, Reporter

READING, Pa. –
A former Berks County priest is being charged for child sexual abuse. Police officers in Maryland said they have brought charges for an incident that happened more than 30 years ago. Unlike Pennsylvania, Maryland has no statute of limitations in sexual abuse crimes. That’s something a new state lawmaker wants to change.

Ocean City, Maryland police said at this point Bruno Tucci is facing charges related to one incident of child sexual abuse at a Ocean City motel. But they said if anyone else here believes they are also a victim and it happened in their area, they’ll investigate it. …

Newly-sworn-in Pennsylvania Representative for Berks County Mark Rozzi wants to change our laws.

“Then it turns to the victim. And I couldn’t be more proud of him and how courageous he is to come out cause it is not easy,” said Rozzi.

Rozzi said he was also a child sexual abuse victim at the hands of another priest in 1983 in Muhlenberg Township when he was 13 years old.

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

CANADA
Metro

MONCTON, N.B. – A Roman Catholic diocese in New Brunswick should have notified police immediately when it heard last year that two priests were alleged to have sexually abused children, say two lawyers who have represented victims of abuse by clergymen.

Robert Talach and John McKiggan say the Archdiocese of Moncton had a responsibility to refer the matter to the RCMP once it became aware of the accusations.

“You name me any other institution, school board, a daycare, or a boys’ home that would not immediately react with disgust and outrage and drag the information down to the police station before the end of that same day,” Talach said Thursday from his London, Ont., office.

But a spokesman for the archdiocese said it is up to the alleged sex abuse victims to report their allegations to the police.

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 January 03, 2013

“Once the sale is made, shut up.” That’s a fundamental rule of sales that is taught to virtually every aspiring sales person.

A similar rule should be taught to public officials in sexual misconduct cases: “Once the apology is made, shut up.”

Today’s New York Times contains two stories about politicians who can’t seem to leave well enough alone and who apparently want to mess with apologies for sexual misdeeds made months or years ago.

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.

GEORGIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on January 03, 2013

We’re encouraged that Msgr. David P. Talley has been promoted to be Atlanta’s auxiliary Catholic bishop. We don’t know much about him but it can only help that he has worked as a caseworker for abused and neglected children.

At the same time, knowledge doesn’t guarantee courage. And a lack of courage has prevented, and still prevents, many Catholic officials from acting responsibly in clergy sex abuse and cover up cases. So while we are mildly optimistic about Talley’s new role, we are also cautious. Hundreds of Catholic staffers understand child sexual abuse. Only a handful of them, unfortunately, have been brave enough to buck an unhealthy, self-protective and secretive clerical culture.

Regardless, every single current and former Catholic Church employee and member who has seen, suspected or suffered clergy sexual misconduct should play it safe and report to secular, not church officials.

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
Rome Reports

[with video]

January 3, 2013 (Romereports.com) In a bid by Italian financial authorities against money laundering, starting January 1 the Vatican will no longer accept credit card payments for many of its services.

The new measure will take its greatest toll on the Vatican Museums, where up until now visitors could pay using their credit cards, thanks to a service offered by Deutsche Bank Italia. However, other Vatican subsidiaries affected include its pharmacy, the supermarket and its post office, all of which must now depend on cash payments.

The Bank of Italy, which supervises the Italian financial sector, considers Vatican City as an extracommunitarian country, and, since it is not part of the European Union, it is therefore not integrated into the community’s common standards on vigilance. As a result, it will not allow Italian banks to operate within the tiny, sovereign city-state.

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
BBC News

The Italian central bank has suspended all bank card payments in the Vatican, citing its failure to implement fully anti-money laundering legislation, Italian media report.

The Holy See was required to meet in full European Union safeguards on finances by the start of 2013.

Its failure means tourists will have to pay cash at its museums and shops.

A Vatican spokesman said contacts were under way and the suspension of bank card payments should be “short-lived”.

Pope Benedict has promised greater transparency in Vatican finances and the operations of its bank, the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR), which has in the past been implicated in major money-laundering scandals.

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 Elisa Anzolin

VATICAN CITY | Thu Jan 3, 2013

(Reuters) – Italy has blocked the use of debit and credit cards in the Vatican because of concerns over lack of transparency, in a major obstacle to one of the tiny city state’s biggest sources of income, financial sources said on Thursday.

A source close to the Bank of Italy said the central bank in December denied a permit for Deutsche Bank Italy, the Vatican’s previous provider of electronic payment services, because the Holy See was seen as lacking anti-money laundering controls and oversight.

“The Bank of Italy could not give the authorisation because the Vatican, apart from not respecting money laundering regulation, did not have the legal prerequisites. That is, it lacked banking and financial legislation and proper supervision,” the source said.

Deutsche Bank’s Italian operation needs approval from the Bank of Italy to provide the credit card service under Italian banking regulations.

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 KINGDOM
The Telegraph

Italian authorities have stopped all electronic payments inside the Vatican City after the Bank of Italy complained that it had failed to bring in new procedures to prevent money laundering.

By Harry Wilson, Banking Correspondent
6:21PM GMT 03 Jan 2013

The Bank of Italy suspended all bank card payments on Vatican territory from the start of the year and ordered Deutsche Bank Italia, which manages electronic payments for the world’s smallest country, to turn off its systems.

Italian newspapers reported that the action was taken after officials at the Italian central bank became worried that the Vatican was not prepared to implement new anti-money laundering rules.

The suspension of card services means that the Vatican museum, along with the territory’s pharmacy and post office, have all been unable to transfer money and accept payments.

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.

NIGERIA
The Guardian

THE Lagos State Police Command has released a clergy of a ‘white garment’ church who allegedly raped a 12-year- old virgin at Epe, in the outskirts of Lagos.

The Guardian learnt that the said ‘pastor,’ one Alasco Sobowale of No. 10, Togodo Temu village in Epe, had sent Chinasa Ndadi on errand when he took advantage of the situation and raped her.

Men of Epe Police Station arrested the suspect at the weekend after the victim’s family reported the matter. The girl was taken to the hospital where the doctor confirmed that she was actually defiled.

To the amazement of the girls’ parents, the suspect was released on the order of the Divisional Police Officer in Epe yesterday, who allegedly disregarded the doctor’s 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.

NIGERIA
Daily Post

[Click here for the story.]

A pastor, Alasco Sobowale, in Togodo Street, Temu Town Epe, Lagos State, has been arrested for raping his 12-year-old neighbour on the 15th of December.

Dailypost gathered that the 12-year-old victim who recently arrived Lagos from Imo state, only speaks Igbo Language.

The victim’s aunt, Mrs. Ngozi Anjorin, disclosed that Pastor Sobowale carnally abused her after having lured her to the toilet.

“On that particular night, my children were in the room watching television but I couldn’t find my niece. I kept on shouting her name but I got no answer. I then proceeded to the toilet which is detached from the building. I knocked on the door of the toilet and the pastor immediately ran out and I saw her inside the toilet. When I inquired of her what she was doing inside the toilet with the pastor, she said he lured her into the toilet and covered her mouth with his palm so she wouldn’t scream. She said the pastor brought out his penis and forced it into her anus. She said he also put his penis in her vagina and when she discharged a particular fluid, he used a handkerchief to scoop it.”

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

PENNSYLVANIA
The Neuberger Firm

Posted by Tom Neuberger
at January 3, 2013

Like the Grinch who stole Christmas, Pennsylvania Governor Thomas Corbett has stolen the joy survivors world-wide experienced when Penn State University as an institution accepted responsibility for childhood sexual abuse within its football program and agree to pay stiff financial penalties as penance for its crimes of omission.

Earlier this year Penn State accepted $60 million in fines imposed by the NCAA on its football program because of its alleged complicity in the sexual crimes committed on children by one of its football coaches and the failure of other coaches and University staff to protect children. The extent of Penn State’s responsibility was set out in great detail in the Freeh Report prepared by the former director of the F.B.I., Louis J. Freeh, who is also a retired federal judge.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Reading Eagle

A former priest who served and taught in Berks County has been charged with sexually assaulting a boy in Maryland in 1981, police reported this morning.

Bruno M. Tucci, 70, of Salisbury Md., was charged with sexual assault and child abuse by a custodian. He remains free pending further court action.

Police said Tucci assaulted the child in an Ocean City motel room in August 1981.

Tucci had been a priest in the Allentown Diocese, and in the 1970s taught at Holy Name and Central Catholic high schools, and served at St. Columbkill Church in Boyertown and at St. Margaret’s Church, among other Berks locations.

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.

CONNECTICUT
The Hartford Courant

January 02, 2013|BY HILDA MUÑOZ, hmunoz@courant.com, The Hartford Courant

KILLINGLY — A 41-year-old man entered St. James Catholic Church naked on Wednesday afternoon and was arrested, police said.

A person who called police at 1:45 p.m. said the man, identified as Gary Pohronezny of Brooklyn, disrobed and then entered the church, at 120 Water St., in the Danielson section of town. He caused a disturbance in front of parishioners and students from the St. James. School next door, state police said.

Troopers confronted Pohronezny, who failed to comply with their orders. He was eventually taken into custody. He was taken to Day Kimble Hospital in Putnam for a medical evaluation.

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.

CONNECTICUT
Huffington Post

KILLINGLY, Conn. — A Brooklyn man who police say stripped naked in a church in the presence of congregants and school children is being evaluated at an eastern Connecticut hospital.

Gary Pohronezny has been charged with disorderly conduct, risk of injury to minors and interfering with police related to the alleged incident at St. James Catholic Church in Killingly on Wednesday.

Police say the 41-year-old Pohronezny was taken to Day Kimball Hospital in Putnam for evaluation.

It was not known Thursday morning if he is represented by a lawyer.

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.

CONNECTICUT
NBC News

By Ilana Gold, NBCConnecticut.com

A Connecticut man was facing several charges after police said he barged into a church naked and exposed himself to parishioners and a third-grade class Wednesday afternoon.

The incident happened around 2 p.m. at St. James Catholic Church in Killingly, Conn.

The Rev. John O’Neill told NBC Connecticut that the man got in through a front door that was supposed to be locked.

Police arrested Gary Pohronezny, 41, of Brooklyn, Conn., at the church. O’Neill said Pohronezny was known to police.

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
San Bernardino Sun

By FRANCES D’EMILIO Associated PressAssociated Press
Posted: 01/03/2013

VATICAN CITY—It’s “cash only” now for tourists at the Vatican wanting to pay for museum tickets, souvenirs and other services after Italy’s central bank decided to block electronic payments, including credit cards, at the tiny city state.

The Italian daily Corriere della Sera reported Thursday that Bank of Italy took the action because the Holy See has not yet fully complied with European Union safeguards against money laundering. That means Italian banks are not authorized to operate within the Vatican, which is in the process of improving its mechanisms to combat laundering.

The Vatican says it’s scrambling to find a non-Italian bank to provide the electronic payment services ”quite soon” but declined to discuss Bank of Italy’s concerns.

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
France 24

AFP – The Bank of Italy has suspended all bank card payments in the Vatican including for tickets to its famous museum until further notice because of a failure to fully implement anti money laundering legislation, Italian media reported on Thursday.

The payments have been suspended since January 1 after the Bank of Italy ordered Deutsche Bank Italia, which handles bank card payments on Vatican territory, to deactivate its terminals because of a lack of authorisation for the transactions.

The Vatican museum, which was visited by five million tourists last year who paid a total of 91.3 million euros ($120 million), will now be asking for payments in cash, La Repubblica daily reported.

The reports quoted Italian central bank sources saying the Vatican does not respect international anti money laundering norms and an Italian-registered bank such as Deutsche Bank Italia can therefore not operate on its territory.

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 Information Service

Vatican City, (VIS) – The Holy Father appointed:

– Msgr. David P. Talley of the clergy of Atlanta, U.S.A, as auxiliary bishop of the same archdiocese (area 55,521, population 6,998,399, Catholics 857,000, priests 228, permanent deacons 242, religious 125), U.S.A. The bishop-elect was born in Columbus, U.S.A. in 1950 and ordained a priest in 1989. He has a licentiate and doctorate in canon law from the Gregorian Pontifical University in Rome, and has served in a number of pastoral roles. He was named prelate of honour by his Holiness in 2000.

– Appointed Msgr. Stephen Jensen, vicar general of Vancouver, Canada, as bishop of Prince George (area 345,600, population 249,000, Catholics 54,600, priests 18, religious 23), Canada. The bishop-elect was born in North Vancouver, Canada in 1954 and ordained a priest in 1980. He was named prelate of honour in 1996 and since 2009 has been vicar general, dean of the Presbyteral Council and diocesan consultor for the archdiocese. He succeeds Bishop Gerald Wiesner, O.M.I., whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese the Holy Father accepted, upon having reached the age limit.

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.

SCOTLAND
Daily Record

A PAEDOPHILE priest who abused dozens of children has written to the Record whining about his own “pain” and “hardship”.

Pervert Bill Carney wants us to apologise for writing about him, but his self-serving letter contains no hint of an apology to any of his victims.

Instead, he claims he is no threat to kids – and blames his crimes on alcohol.

We exposed Carney in 2009 after he fled his native Ireland and opened a family-friendly guest house in St Andrews.

And last November, we revealed he had mingled with families with children on a luxury Mediterranean cruise.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Philly.com

Joe Mandak, Associated Press

Posted: Thursday, January 3, 2013

PITTSBURGH – A suspended Catholic priest expressed remorse to everyone but the young boys depicted in pornography Wednesday before he was sentenced to more than eight years in prison for collecting more than 5,000 images of child porn on his computer, in books and on compact discs.

The sentence that the Rev. Bartley Sorensen, 63, received was more than the five-year mandatory minimum sentence he sought but less than the 10-year maximum he faced.

“I served the diocese for 35 years. Along the way I betrayed that priesthood, I betrayed the bishop and the other priests in the diocese,” Sorensen told the judge who sentenced him before also apologizing for shaming his friends, family members, and former parishioners.

But Senior U.S. District Judge Alan Bloch addressed those who did not get an apology when he rejected the priest’s request for leniency and said, “Viewing child pornography is not a victimless crime.”

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

CANADA
La Presse

Deux prêtres catholiques du Nouveau-Brunswick n’ont désormais plus le droit d’oeuvrer dans quelque paroisse que ce soit, à la suite d’allégations d’agressions sexuelles impliquant des enfants.

Le diocèse de Moncton a annoncé avoir pris sa décision après avoir été mis au fait des allégations lors d’un processus de réconciliation et de compensations financières pour les victimes alléguées d’agressions sexuelles au Nouveau-Brunswick.

Le diocèse mentionne sur son site Internet que le curé Yvon Arsenault a perdu son ministère le 4 juillet dernier – il y a six mois -, tout comme le père Irois Després, qui avait pris sa retraite en 1992.

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

CANADA
The StarPhoenix

MONCTON, N.B. – Two Roman Catholic priests in New Brunswick have been removed from working for any ministry following allegations of sexual abuse involving children.

The Archdiocese of Moncton says it made the decision after it became aware of the accusations during a reconciliation and compensation process for alleged victims of sexual abuse.

The archdiocese says on its website that Rev. Yvon Arsenault was removed from the ministry on July 4, 2012, as was Rev. Irois Despres, who has been retired since 1992.

The archdiocese, which made the announcement on the weekend, did not say why it took six months to inform the public of its decision nor whether it has referred the matter to police.

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.

NEW YORK
New York Daily News

Queens lawmaker Margaret Markey says Poly Prep sex abuse scandal should lead to elimination of statute of limitations for victims

By Michael O’Keeffe / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, January 2, 2013

New York state assemblywoman Margaret Markey has introduced legislation since 2006 that would permit victims of childhood sexual abuse to seek criminal charges and file civil lawsuits until their 28th birthday.

But the Queens Democrat said the Poly Prep Country Day School lawsuit and other sex abuse scandals have pushed her to call for a complete end to the criminal and civil statute of limitations when she introduces the Child Victims Act later this month.

“As this case demonstrates, adding a few extra years to current law is not enough,” Markey said of the Poly Prep scandal.

As the Daily News first reported last week, the attorney who represented the 12 men who last week settled the explosive lawsuit which accused Poly Prep administrators of covering up decades of sexual abuse by longtime football coach Phil Foglietta said he welcomes the change in the legislation.

“I think the statute of limitations for sexual abuse victims is one of the most absurd and asinine statutes on the books in New York state,” Orangeburg lawyer Kevin Mulhearn said. “It does not reflect the reality that for many survivors of sexual abuse, it takes decades to realize the extent of the damage they have suffered.”

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.

OREGON
KVAL

EUGENE, Ore. — A Portland man filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the United Methodist Church, claiming that he was raped by a Eugene pastor in the 1980s.

A Portland firm filed the case against the First United Methodist Church of Eugene on Wednesday, issuing a press release on behalf of the man.

The firm alleges that nearly 28 years ago the now-deceased Pastor William Walker sexually abused the plaintiff, who was 11 years old at the time.

Walker passed away in 1992 from complications related to AIDS. At the time of his death several other men in their late teens and 20s came forward saying that they had sex with the pastor.

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.

OCEAN CITY (MD)
WBOC

By Kye Parsons

OCEAN CITY, Md.- Ocean City police have filed charges against a former Roman Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing a child in the resort town more than 30 years ago.

Bruno Michael Tucci, 70, of Salisbury, was arrested in December and charged with fourth-degree sex offense and child abuse: custodian.

According to police, Tucci’s arrest stemmed from an incident that occurred in August of 1981. Investigators said Tucci brought a child to an Ocean City motel room where the alleged illegal sexual acts occurred.

Police ask that anyone with information about Tucci, a former priest in Allentown, Pa., from 1971 until 2007, to contact Detective Brett L. Case at (410) 723-6632.

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.

MISSOURI
St. Louis Review

The Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau has announced a credible complaint of sexual abuse of a minor involving the late Father Walter G. Craig.Born in 1899, Father Craig was ordained for the Archdiocese of St. Louis in 1923 and served here until the 1950s. In 1956, the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau was established, and he continued to serve there.

The allegation of abuse occurred in the mid-1960s.

Father Craig served at Our Lady of Lourdes in St. Louis (1923), St. Ambrose in Chaffee, Mo. (1936), St. Matthew Parish in St. Louis (1948), Immaculate Conception Parish in New Madrid, Mo. (1954), Immaculate Conception in Jackson, Mo. (1967) and St. Lawrence in New Hamburg, Mo. (1969). He died in 1971.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

By Manuel Gamiz Jr., Of The Morning Call
10:20 p.m. EST, January 2, 2013

A former priest with the Allentown Catholic Diocese removed from active ministry in 2002 amid sex-abuse allegations has been charged in Maryland with sexually assaulting a boy at the shore in 1981, authorities said.

Bruno M. Tucci, former pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church in Nesquehoning, faces two counts in Ocean City, one for committing a sexual assault and the other for child abuse by a custodial person, police said.

Tucci, 70, faces a preliminary hearing Jan. 16 in Worcester County district court.

He was among numerous priests investigated in 2002 by prosecutors in the five counties that make up the Allentown Diocese, diocese spokesman Matt Kerr said. The district attorneys concluded none of the priests could be prosecuted because the statute of limitations had run out.

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

CANADA
CBC News

The Archdiocese of Moncton is facing criticism by an Ontario lawyer for its recent announcement of two priests being removed from ministry based on allegations of sexual abuse of children.

The archdiocese informed parishioners during mass last weekend that Father Yvon Arsenault, who was removed in July, and Father Irois Després, who retired in 1992, have been removed “from any ministry whatsoever following allegations of serious sexual abuse on minors.”

Retired Supreme Court of Canada justice Michel Bastarache — who was hired by the archdiocese in June to handle a conciliation process for the victims of another priest in Cap-Pelé — brought the latest allegations to the archdiocese’s attention, according to a Dec. 30 statement posted on its website.

None of the allegations have been proven in court.

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
The Courier

By THOMAS MCILROY
Jan. 3, 2013

FAMILIES impacted by sexual abuse in the Ballarat region have begun a moving project to remember loved ones who have died.

A new photo series featuring relatives with images or mementos of their loved ones will be presented to the Victorian inquiry into institutional sexual abuse when it returns for public hearings in Ballarat next month.

Organiser and abuse victim Peter Blenkiron recruited Ballarat photographer Craig Holloway to take the photos at locations around the Ballarat region.

Participant Helen Watson said the project would help support family members, including those involved in a group submission to the inquiry, and help remember those who had taken their own lives or died prematurely.

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.

OREGON
The Register-Guard

By Greg Bolt
The Register-Guard

Published: Wednesday, Jan 2, 2013

A one-time Eugene man is suing the Methodist Church for $4.5 million over allegations that he was sexually abused as a youth by a Eugene pastor who later died from AIDS.

The suit, filed today in Multnomah County Circuit Court, alleges that former Pastor William Walker of First United Methodist Church sexually assaulted the unnamed victim when he was about 11 years old and his family attended the Eugene church. It claims the abuse caused extreme physical and psychological damage, the effects of which continue to haunt the man, who is now in his late 30s.

A spokesman for the Oregon-Idaho Conference of the United Methodist Church, which is based in Portland and is named as the defendant in the suit, said today that the church has not yet been served with a copy of the suit and cannot yet comment on it.

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

OREGON
KLCC

January 2, 2013
By Rachael McDonald

EUGENE, Ore.– A Portland man is suing the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church for sexual abuse he claims he suffered at the hands of a now-deceased Eugene pastor.

William Walker was pastor at First United Methodist Church in the 1980s. He died in 1992 from complications related to AIDS. A Register Guard newspaper article from the time says he was diagnosed with AIDS in 1989 but kept it a secret. The plaintiff, Jack Doe, claims Walker raped and sexually abused him 28 years ago when he was 11. Gilion Dumas is Doe’s attorney. She says she believes there are others who were sexually abused by Walker.

Dumas: “We want them to know that if they do come forward with either information about Pastor Walker or information about their own experiences with Pastor Walker that they will be listened to and treated with respect because its very important that the whole story comes out.”

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.

PORTLAND (OR)
KEZI

by KEZI Staff

Published January 2, 2013.

PORTLAND, Ore. — A Portland man is suing a church group for sexual abuse he says he repeatedly suffered as a child by a now-deceased Eugene pastor.

Jack Doe filed a lawsuit against the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, the group that operates the First United Methodist Church in Eugene.

Doe says Pastor William Walker abused him when he was 11 years old at the church and Camp Magruder, a Methodist church camp.

According to the O’Donnell Clark & Crew LLP law firm, which filed the case Wednesday, it is likely that there are witnesses that have more information regarding this case.

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
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Krautkremer was accused in 1983 of sexually abusing a 10 year-old altar boy in 1977 at a Wisconsin lake cabin. The boy and his parents said they were told by St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocesan officials that Krautkremer would never again work around children. He was subsequently transferred to a parish that had an elementary school. Bishop Carlson stated in 1983 that Krautkremer admitted to “a sexual relationship” with two boys twelve years previously. Krautkremer was a hospital chaplain from 1989 until he was removed from active ministry in April 2002. He is last known to be living in north Minneapolis.

Ordained: 1966
Incardinated: St. Paul-Minneapolis

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

PITTSBURGH (PA)
Federal Bureau of Investigation

U.S. Attorney’s Office
January 02, 2013 Western District of Pennsylvania
(412) 644-3500

PITTSBURGH—A suspended Catholic priest was sentenced in federal court for violating federal child sexual exploitation laws, United States Attorney David J. Hickton announced today.

Bartley Sorensen, 63, was sentenced by United States District Judge Alan N. Bloch to serve 97 months in prison, followed by five years of supervised release, for receiving and possessing thousands of visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Sorensen was also ordered to pay a $25,000 fine.

On December 9, 2011, Sorensen was a Catholic priest assigned to Saint John Fisher Parish in Churchill, Pennsylvania. On that day, a parish employee observed Sorensen viewing an image on the screen of his computer of a young boy wearing nothing but a shirt. The employee promptly reported what she observed to the Catholic Child Abuse Hotline. Search warrants were thereafter served at the rectory that resulted in the seizure of, among other things, over 100 CDs, most of which were loaded with thousands of images of children being sexually abused, including one that depicted a nude male child with a rope around his genitals and what appeared to be blood on his genitals.

Assistant United States Attorney Craig W. Haller prosecuted this case on behalf of the United States.

U.S. Attorney Hickton commended the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office, the Allegheny County Police Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Churchill Police Department for the successful investigation leading to the conviction and sentence in this case.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on January 02, 2013

Pennsylvania politicians who want the entire Penn State fine to be spent in Pennsylvania are being greedy. And anyone who wants to overturn the fine entirely is being short-sighted.

We suspect that Gov. Corbett is posturing to curry favor with Penn State staff and alums. At best, his lawsuit is frivolous. At worst, it threatens to delay or derail millions of dollars that would otherwise be devoted to protecting children.

At one level, Corbett sounds like a parochial member of Congress who just wants to “bring home the bacon” to his constituents. At another level, Corbett sounds like a misguided Penn State booster who can’t recognized that Jerry Sandusky essentially had the help of university staff in keeping his heinous child sex crimes secret.

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.

WISCONSIN
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

[map – alleged incidents in Wisconsin]

By Raquel Rutledge of the Journal Sentinel

Twenty more names have been added to the list of Boy Scout leaders and volunteers accused of sexually assaulting children in Wisconsin over the last several decades. The newest additions, published by the Los Angeles Times last week, involve mostly cases from the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Included in the group: a 6-foot 5-inch, 300-plus-pound man known as “Bigfoot,” accused of molesting boys at St. John’s School for the Deaf in St. Francis in the early 1970s.

Thomas “Bigfoot” Tannehill, who himself was deaf, was never criminally charged in Wisconsin in the 1970s when he was a dorm supervisor at the school or in the 1980s when he was an assistant scoutmaster with three units in the Milwaukee County Council.

He was banned from Boy Scouts of America in 1990 after he was convicted of molesting two boys in Indiana at the Indiana State School for the Deaf, where he was also a Scoutmaster, according to records ordered to be released in October by an Oregon court

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

By Brian Bowling

Published: Wednesday, January 2, 2013

The Rev. Bart Sorensen, formerly of St. John Fisher Church in Churchill, will serve up to eight years and one month in prison for receiving and possessing thousands of pornographic images of young boys.

U.S. District Judge Alan Bloch sentenced Sorensen, 63, on Wednesday. He also must pay a $25,000 fine, spend five years on probation and register as a sex offender.

The Diocese of Pittsburgh removed Sorensen from active ministry and placed him on administrative leave in December 2011.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Haller said that Sorensen admitted to investigators he viewed child pornography for about 10 years. He initially claimed he was only looking at a child porn website because a parishioner was concerned that his daughter was spending a lot of time on the site, but he later admitted no parishioner made such a request, Haller said.

A detective from the Allegheny County District Attorney‘s office arrested Sorensen on state charges in December 2011 after a parish worker spotted the priest looking at an image of a partially clad boy on his computer.

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.

PITTSBURGH (PA)
CBS Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – A suspended Pittsburgh priest who was caught with child porn on his computer was sentenced in federal court Wednesday to 97 months in prison.

Fr. Bartley Sorensen pleaded guilty in May.

An employee at Saint John Parish in Churchill noticed him looking at an image of a young boy on his computer.

That prompted the police search that turned up thousands of graphic images.

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.

PITTSBURGH (PA)
WTAE

PITTSBURGH —A suspended Pittsburgh-area priest will serve more than eight years in prison for possessing and receiving thousands of images of child pornography on his church computer.

A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced the Rev. Bartley Sorensen to 97 months behind bars.

The 63-year-old Roman Catholic priest was arrested by Allegheny County authorities in December 2011 after an employee at St. John Fisher Parish in Churchill noticed him looking at a photo of a young boy on his computer.

Federal officials took over the investigation after a computer search turned up thousands of child pornography images, some of them sadomasochistic.

Sorensen pleaded guilty in May.

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.

PITTSBURGH (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

January 2, 2013

The Rev. Bartley Sorensen claimed at sentencing today that he meant to be caught with child pornography, and didn’t realize then that collecting such images was a crime.

U.S. District Judge Alan N. Bloch showed him just how big of an oversight that was, sentencing him to eight years and one month in prison.

Sorensen, 63, who was assigned to St. John Fisher Parish in Churchill several weeks before a parish secretary walked in and saw images on his computer screen, said he “decided not to get rid of what was on the computer” as the employee climbed the stairs to his office. “I knew that my sin had to be known. What I did not know is that it was also a crime.”

Judge Bloch said the priest had “been viewing images of sexually abused children for the last 10 years of his life,” and had a collection of some 5,000 files on 100 computer disks. He said that although Sorensen never touched a child inappropriately, collecting such images is “just as harmful and dangerous to children as if he had been abusing them himself.

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.

PITTSBURGH (PA)
WPXI

PITTSBURGH —

A suspended Churchill priest will serve more than eight years in prison for possessing and receiving thousands of images of child pornography on his church computer.

A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced the Rev. Bartley Sorensen to 97 months behind bars.

The judge also sentenced Sorensen to five years supervised release. He was also ordered to pay a $25,000 fine.

Sorensen’s attorney, Patrick Thomassey, had contended that Sorensen obtained the images for himself and never molested a child. Thomassey argued in court filings that the mandatory five-year sentence he faces is sufficient.

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.

MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by Barbara Dorris on January 02, 2013

A St. Louis priest, Fr. Walter Craig, was ordained 90 years ago. He died more than 40 years ago. Now, he’s been credibly accused of child sex crimes.

Fr. Craig wasn’t recruited, ordained, supervised, trained, transferred or shielded by Archbishop Robert Carlson. In fact, Carlson probably never met him (since Carlson was ordained a priest in 1970 in another state).

Since so much time has passed, anyone else who may have been hurt by Fr. Craig surely has no chance to file a lawsuit.

So it should be easy for Carlson to do the right thing here: reach out to others who may be struggling because they were assaulted in childhood by Fr. Craig.

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.

ESPANA
El Mundo

Iker Rioja Andueza | Bilbao

Actualizado domingo 30/12/2012

Un antiguo alumno del colegio Gaztelueta de Leioa (Bizkaia), el que más años lleva abierto de los alrededor de 90 que la institución católica Opus Dei tiene por toda España, ha declarado haber sido víctima de abusos sexuales por parte de un profesor del centro. Los hechos se produjeron, según este relato, durante los cursos 2008-2009 y 2009-2010, cuando el adolescente cursaba primero y segundo de Educación Secundaria Obligatoria (ESO).

Así consta también en la documentación médica y del Departamento de Educación a la que ha tenido acceso EL MUNDO del País Vasco. El presunto responsable de estos abusos sexuales fue un profesor numerario del centro, con voto de celibato, que responde a las iniciales J.M.M.S. Esos informes añaden que, según el niño, este docente se “mofaba” igualmente del estudiante en clase, lo que propició un entorno favorable a que la víctima lo fuera también de acoso escolar por parte de algunos de sus compañeros, que llegaron a amenazarlo de muerte.

El maestro J.M.M.S, que impartía Religión y Lengua y que ejercía de monitor de tiempo libre en un club del Opus Dei en Bilbao, al que ocasionalmente acudía el joven, era también su preceptor. Ésta es una figura existente en los centros del Opus Dei que ejerce no sólo como tutor sino, además, como enlace entre el alumno y su familia, hasta el punto de que llegó a comer en su casa. El docente, además, presionó al adolescente en tres ocasiones para que se incorporara al Opus Dei, según atestiguan los padres.

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
Atheist Revolution

Catholics are not the only Christian denomination with problems related to the sexual abuse of children by clergy. Southern Baptists have been on the radar quite a bit too.

While the hierarchy of the Catholic Church has worked tirelessly to conceal sexual abuse by priests, sometimes transferring them, paying off victims’ families, and the the like, the Baptists appear to have a different sort of problem. In addition to their tendency to deny that abuse is occurring, it appears that the manner in which the Southern Baptist church is structured may prevent accountability.

According to Tim Townsend (The Post-Dispatch, St. Louis and available through CNN), Rev. Travis Smith only has to face his own congregation after his arrest for sexual abuse and statutory rape.

Unlike members of many denominations — such as Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, Episcopalian and Presbyterians — Southern Baptists don’t conform to a centralized, hierarchical structure.

Instead, authority resides at the local church level. And that’s true even amid allegations of clergy misconduct.

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/VATICAN CITY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Posted by David Clohessy on January 02, 2013

An international support group for clergy sex abuse victims wants Pope Benedict to reverse his decision and pick a different individual to head the Vatican’s abuse office.

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, plan to write the pontiff, urging him to rescind his selection of a Boston priest to the post and choose a parent instead.

One week ago, Benedict announced Fr. Robert Oliver’s promotion, despite concerns by victims and advocates about his ties to controversial Cardinal Bernard Law and his role in the handling of pedophile priest cases in Boston.

[Read here – New York Times]

“Oliver is an awful pick,” said Barbara Blaine of Chicago, SNAP’s president.

Oliver has shaped the Boston archdiocese’s handling of abuse cases for the last decade. Four basic charges are being leveled against him:

1. He eliminated a provision requiring the immediate removal of accused priests.

2. He limited victims’ access to the archdiocese’s files on their cases.

3. Under his leadership, the archdiocese ‘cleared’ a very high percentage of accused priests.

4. Under his leadership, the church tribunal has failed to rule on the cases of 15 accused priests.

–According to the Boston Herald, in 2003, Oliver “said the church went too far in immediately removing priests from their public ministries once they were accused of abuse. He implemented a new policy stripping them of duties only after claims are investigated.”

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.

NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand Herald

By Anne-Marie Emerson of the Wanganui Chronicle

6:08 PM Wednesday Jan 2, 2013

Poverty and lack of support are two factors that must dealt with if New Zealand is to successfully tackle the problem of child abuse, according to Wanganui paediatrician David Montgomery.

Dr Montgomery is the clinical head of the paediatric ward at Wanganui Hospital and is also the clinical leader of the children’s emergency department at Auckland’s Middlemore Hospital, so he is no stranger to dealing with cases of child abuse.

He said while child abuse and neglect can happen in any sector of society, it’s more likely to happen when a family’s resources are stretched.

“There are clear linkages between the socio-economic situation that families find themselves in and child abuse,” Dr Montgomery 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
The Australian

AAP
January 03, 2013

THE scope of the royal commission into child sex abuse should be extended to include physical assault and neglect, child welfare advocates say.

The National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect says the scope of the royal commission needs to be broadened because it is inequitable.

According to The Australian newspaper, the group wants Prime Minister Julia Gillard to expand the terms of reference of the commission to include all forms of abuse against children by churches, institutions and government.

The newspaper reports the call has split child welfare advocates, with some arguing it would mean the commission would go on for years, making it harder to get “concrete recommendations”.

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.

NEW YORK
The Jewish Daily Forard

Published January 02, 2013, issue of January 04, 2013.

On December 13, the Forward published an explosive story by our Paul Berger detailing how Yeshiva University for years ignored students who claimed that they were sexually abused by two former staff members at Y.U.’s high school for boys in Manhattan. For that story, Berger spoke to four students who voluntarily offered their accounts. Since then, about 20 former students have called or written, and the number keeps growing.

Most of the allegations occurred in the 1970s and 1980s, and the statute of limitations prevents these men from suing the school, so they aren’t looking for money or other compensation. They are seeking answers, though. And so, independently, is the Forward.

Y.U.’s press office has issued several statements, including a sort-of apology and an offer of counseling to any former student who thinks he needs it. But Y.U. President Richard Joel has declined repeated requests for comment. Not so its chancellor and former president, Norman Lamm, but he left us even more confused, by acknowledging in an interview with the Forward that he knew of some of the allegations and let at least one of the alleged abusers leave quietly.

Why? Why was Rabbi George Finkelstein, a long-time teacher who rose to become principal, allowed to leave Y.U. in 1995 and become dean of a Jewish day school in Florida? Here was a man who has been accused by numerous students of inappropriate wrestling, kissing and simulated sex. And when the Jerusalem Great Synagogue said it hired Finkelstein in 2001 after being assured by Y.U. officials that the rumors of sexual abuse were false, who was responsible? Just because Finkelstein resigned his synagogue post after the initial Forward story was published does not erase the pressing need for answers.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
San Francisco Chronicle

By JOE MANDAK, Associated Press

Updated 5:28 am, Wednesday, January 2, 2013

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A suspended Pittsburgh-area priest is set for sentencing on charges he possessed and received thousands of child pornography images — some of them sadomasochistic — on his church computer.

Court records show federal prosecutors want the Rev. Bartley Sorensen to serve eight to 10 years in prison. But the defense attorney for the 63-year-old Roman Catholic priest says the mandatory five-year sentence he faces is sufficient.

Sorensen was arrested by Allegheny County district attorney’s detectives in December 2011 after an employee at Saint John Fisher Parish in Churchill noticed him looking at a photo of a young boy on his computer. Federal authorities took over the investigation after a computer search turned up thousands of images.

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
Christian Today

Dawkins refers to own experience of sexual abuse by priest, still insists teaching hell to children is worse

Atheist professor Richard Dawkins has clarified remarks he made when he stated that being taught to believe in an eternal hell as a child is worse than being sexually abused, reminding critics that he himself was abused by a priest at a young age.

By: Stoyan Zaimov
Christian Post

Wednesday, 2 January 2013

“It was a very unpleasant and embarrassing experience, but the mental trauma was soon exorcised by comparing notes with my contemporaries who had suffered it previously at the hands of the same master,” Dawkins writes on his official website. “Thank goodness, I have never personally experienced what it is like to believe – really and truly and deeply believe ­– in hell. But I think it can be plausibly argued that such a deeply held belief might cause a child more long-lasting mental trauma than the temporary embarrassment of mild physical abuse.”

The evolutionary biologist’s remarks come in light of a recent article by the Daily Mail that referenced an interview on Al Jazeera in which Dawkins said: “Horrible as sexual abuse no doubt was, the damage was arguably less than the long-term psychological damage inflicted by bringing the child up Catholic in the first place.” The scientist wrote similar claims in his 2006 bestseller The God Delusion.

In his recent blog post, Dawkins reveals that he received a flood of Twitter messages from “horrified” people asking him to explain those remarks – which he does by admitting that “violent, painful, repeated sexual abuse, especially by a family member such as a father or grandfather, probably has a more damaging effect on a child’s mental well-being than sincerely believing in hell.”

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.

MISSOURI
The Kansas City Star

The Associated Press

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau says it has received a credible complaint of sexual abuse against a minor that allegedly occurred in the early to mid-1960s.

The diocese says the accused priest, the Rev. Walter C. Craig, died in 1971.

The Springfield News-Leader reports that the diocese has notified civil authorities of the allegation. Further details were not released.

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
Catholics4Change

January 1, 2013 by Susan Matthews

Here’s a look back at last year on Catholics4Change.

Visitors came from 131 countries. Thank you for stopping by and referring our site to others.

Most viewed post:

The List Cardinal Bevilacqua Didn’t Want You to See

Post that received the most comments:

Hold a Child Sex Abuse Forum

Kathy and I would like to extend special thanks to Bishop-Accountability.org and the National Catholic Reporter for all the readers they referred to this site in 2012.

We’d also like to thank Joan for the most comments this past year. Her contributions were as informative as they were passionate. Beth, Had It Catholic and Survivor’s Wife you were also in our top five. The comments section is what makes C4C so special. We are very grateful for everyone’s input. …

Moving Forward:

Msgr. Lynn’s trial changed me at my very core. For me, evil is no longer abstract. I will never forget the victims on the witness stand and in the courtroom. Because of them, I still have faith in human strength and goodness. I know we can prevent others from facing this pain.

If you are a victim who does not wish to pursue legal action but would like to prevent harm to other children, please consider giving an anonymous tip to the District Attorney’s office. Please help remove predator priests from ministry. Information is available on our Resources page.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Daily Local News

By SARA MOSQUEDA-FERNANDEZ
sferandez@dailylocal.com

Monsignor William Lynn became the first U.S. church official criminally convicted for covering up abuse claims related to predator-priests.

Lynn, 61, was convicted of child endangerment, but acquitted of conspiracy in June. Lynn previously served as secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004, mostly under the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua.

After 13 days of deliberating, jurors decided that Lynn endangered the victim of Edward Avery, a now defrocked priest, who pleaded guilty before trial to a sexual assault from 1999.

Avery is serving a 2½- to 5-year prison term. As secretary, Lynn sent Avery for sexual-offender treatment, but knew he was later sent to live in a parish.

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
NJSpotlight

By Deborah Jacobs, December 31, 2012

A recent Sports Illustrated cover story focusing on young athletes subjected to child sexual abuse reminds us once again that the pernicious scourge of child sexual abuse continues to haunt the playing fields, playgrounds, and backrooms of our nation.

Among the social ills facing our nation, child sexual abuse stands alone in its epidemic proportions, and the devastation it sets upon its young victims cannot be overstated. Despite high-profile and well-publicized instances within institutions like the Catholic Church, Boy Scouts of America, and Penn State, among others, child sexual abuse remains among the least discussed and most impactful problems our nation faces, while it tarnishes the lives of large swaths of each new generation.

Whether you measure the harm of the individual victims, or the costs to society as a whole, there is ample reason to prioritize child sexual abuse in our national dialogue and adopt policies and practices that help protect children.

The most compelling way to understand the power and enormity of child sexual abuse is through the experience of individual victims. Because child sexual abuse primarily leaves emotional scars instead of physical, its full impact on victims remains under-appreciated. Child sexual abuse occurs at a tragically high rate and can rob young people of self-determination, self-esteem, and potential, sometimes setting in motion a lifelong chain of events and decisions. Many victims don’t readily speak of the trauma they suffer as a result of child sexual abuse. This reluctance has a variety of roots: manipulation by the abuser, fear of not being believed, misplaced shame, fear of stigma, and just plain discomfort with a painful topic.

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.

DEUTSCHLAND
domradio

Es war eine Reaktion auf das Bekanntwerden des Missbrauchsskandals: die Telefonhotline der katholischen Kirche für Opfer und deren Angehörige. Nun endet das Angebot zum Jahresende. Doch die Kirche bietet weiter Beratung und Hilfen an.

Ansprechpartner und Adressen finden sich unter www.hilfe-missbrauch.de. Zur Begründung für die Einstellung der Hotline sagte der Pressesprecher der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz, Matthias Kopp, in Bonn, es gebe kaum noch Anfragen. Das Angebot habe seinen Dienst erfüllt.

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.

DEUTCHLAND
Deutche Welle

Die katholische Kirche schaltet ihre Hotline für Opfer von sexuellem Missbrauch ab. Sie bietet aber weiterhin Beratung an. Nach Ansicht von Kritikern gibt es nicht genügend Hilfe für Opfer sexualisierter Gewalt.

Wenn es nach Matthias Kopp, dem Sprecher der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz geht, dann hat die Telefon-Hotline der katholischen Kirche ihren Dienst erfüllt. Zweieinhalb Jahre lang gab es dieses Beratungsangebot, um Missbrauchsopfern und ihren Angehörigen als erste Anlaufstelle zu dienen. Mittlerweile werde die Nummer aber kaum mehr gewählt, sagte Kopp im Gespräch mit der Deutschen Welle. Deshalb wird die Hotline Ende des Jahres abgeschaltet.

Kritik an der katholischen Kirche

Der Missbrauchsbeauftragte der Bundesregierung, Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig

Eine Entscheidung, die Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig kritisch sieht. Er ist der Unabhängige Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Fragen des sexuellen Kindesmissbrauchs. Telefon-Hotlines seien “wichtig für den ersten Schritt, um Hilfe zu suchen”, sagte er der ARD.

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.

GERMANY
Deutsche Welle

The Catholic Church in Germany has closed its hotline for victims of sexual abuse due to lack of use. Critics say the church is not doing enough to counter this ongoing problem.

For two and a half years, the counseling service run by the Catholic Church was set up as a first point of contact for victims of abuse and their relatives.

Today, few people call the number, Matthias Kopp, spokesman for the German Bishops’ Conference, told Deutsche Welle. He said the telephone helpline had fulfilled its purpose and would be turned off at the end of 2012.

Incidents of abuse

Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig: An ‘important first step’ against abuse is being taken away

Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig doesn’t approve of this decision. He is the independent special representative for sexual abuse of minors, appointed by the German government. Telephone helplines are “important for the first step towards finding help,” he said in an interview with German public television.

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
Courthouse News Service

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (CN) – New Wine Ministries pastor Matthias Anderson sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl and continued molesting her for three years, the girl claims in court.

Jane Doe sued Anderson, New Wine Ministries, the Life Project Community & Family Transformation Center, and three other people: Marc Anderson, Matthias’ brother and also a pastor at New Wine; Matthias Anderson’s wife, and New Wine administrator Debra Flores.

Matthias Flores was sentenced to nine years in state prison for sexually assaulting her, the girl says in the complaint.

Doe says she met Matthias Flores in 2008, when she was 12. He became her pastor, and her mother “came to be employed by New Wine” while Matthias Flores was sexually molesting her, Doe claims in her Superior Court complaint.

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.

MISSOURI
News-Leader

The Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau has announced a credible complaint of sexual abuse of a minor involving the Rev. Walter G. Craig, who died in 1971.

The allegation involves a complaint stemming from an act or acts in the mid-1960s. The diocese has notified civil authorities of the allegation.

Craig was born in 1899 and ordained in 1923 for the Archdiocese of St. Louis. His appointments included serving as pastor in Immaculate Conception Parish in Jackson and St. Lawrence Parish in New Hamburg.

People who want to document an allegation may contact Rev. Thomas Reidy at (417) 866-0841 or diocesan victim assistance coordinators John Kreymer at 417-597-3755 or: pyjk12@gmail.com and Judy St. John at 573-587-3139 or jastjohn44@gmail.com.

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.