ABUSE TRACKER

FLORIDA
Stop Baptist Predators

Christa Brown

Last Saturday in Florida, a unanimous jury awarded $12.5 million to a man who, as a child, was sexually abused by a Southern Baptist minister. Significantly, this verdict was assessed, not only against the local church, but against the Florida Baptist Convention.

To my best knowledge, this is the first time in history that a verdict has been handed down against a Baptist statewide denominational entity in a clergy sex abuse case. Attorney Ron Weil of Miami is the person who brought this “game-changer” of a lawsuit to fruition.

I’d like to imagine that Baptists will view this as a wake-up call to begin implementing the sorts of systematic safeguards that other major faith groups have. But Southern Baptists have shown themselves to be recalcitrant in this arena, and so I expect it will likely take still more lawsuits – and still more needlessly wounded kids – before that happens. For now, the Florida Baptist Convention is simply saying that it plans to appeal.

For twenty-five years, I practiced law as an appellate attorney in Texas. So I know a thing or two about what can happen in the appellate process and what the possibilities are. But whatever may happen next, this case has already brought a seismic shift in the terrain of Baptist clergy abuse litigation.

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FLORIDA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release Thursday January 23, 2014

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

A Florida jury has awarded $12.5 million to a man who, as a child, was sexually abused by a Baptist minister. Earlier, another Florida jury found the Florida Baptist Convention liable for the crimes because it refused to take minimal prevention steps.

[Orlando Sentinel]

Despite widespread child sex crimes by Baptist ministers, relatively few civil lawsuit have been filed against Baptist churches. Ever-so-slowly, that’s beginning to change, thanks in part to brave individuals like this victim who found the strength to step forward and seek justice. We applaud him for his courage.

Just like Catholic bishops, Baptist officials have erected strong walls of secrecy, deceit, denial and legal defense to protect their jobs and reputations in clergy sex abuse cases. And just like Catholic bishops, Baptist officials are slowly but surely seeing those walls being demolished by brave victims, smart lawyers, determined prosecutors and compassionate juries. The self-serving claim by Baptists that every church is independent so no one can be held responsible for ignoring or concealing child sex crimes is on its way out.

We believe others who have been sexually assaulted as children by Baptist ministers and rebuffed as adults by Baptist officials will be inspired by this victim’s courage and this jury’s compassion to come forward, get help, expose wrongdoers, protect kids and start healing.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

John L. Allen Jr. | Jan. 22, 2014 NCR Today

ROME As the Legionaries of Christ ponder new leadership and a new constitution amid what is arguably among the deepest crises any Catholic religious order has ever faced, priests taking part in a keenly anticipated general chapter meeting in Rome have a two-pronged message for those skeptical that change is possible.

First, they say, there are no guarantees; and second, give us a chance.

As if one were needed, participants in the general chapter got a reminder Wednesday of just how hard it may be to regain trust after more than a decade of denying charges of sexual abuse and misconduct against their founder, the late Mexican Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, only to have to acknowledge them in 2009.

In a piece published Wednesday by the National Catholic Reporter, Juan Vaca, one of Maciel’s original accusers who says his abuse began at age 12, dismissed the general chapter as “a damage control operation.”

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PORTUGAL
DN

[Summary: The defense of the priest and former vice rector of the Fundao seminary has appealed the priest’s sentence saying that defendant should be acquitted based on unconstitutionality and nullity. The priest was convicted of sexually abusing minors.]

A defesa do padre e ex-vice-reitor do Seminário do Fundão, que foi condenado por crimes de abuso sexual de menores, pede, no recurso interposto para a Relação de Coimbra, que o arguido seja absolvido, com base em nulidades e inconstitucionalidades.

“(…) Deverão as nulidades e inconstitucionalidades suscitadas serem julgadas procedentes com as consequências legais e ser absolvido o arguido ou anulado o julgamento”, lê-se no final do documento, consultado pela Lusa.

O pedido também solicita que, em caso de manutenção da condenação, se proceda à redução da pena (10 de cadeia, na primeira instância) e à suspensão da mesma.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Dorset Echo

By Rene Gerryts

AT a time when the spotlight is focused on historical abuse, west Dorset students have been highlighting the old scandal of the Magdalen laundries.

Fresh from a triumph of staging their drama teacher’s play the Magdalen Whitewash in Buxton last yea,r students at Beaminster School put on a performance at the Lyric Theatre in Bridport and helped raise more than £100 for the charity Women’s Aid.

Year 12 student Daisy Curtiss, editor of Sixth Sense, said: “Not only was the play successful in terms of being highly emotive and shining light on harrowing events at a time when they are in the news with the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA), but also for raising more than £100 for the charity Women’s Aid.

“The Magdalen Whitewash is an emotive ensemble piece and it is difficult to single out individuals when the whole cast produced such thought provoking performances by conveying events and desolation felt by those who were institutionalised.

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FLORIDA
Associated Baptist Press

By Bob Allen

The attorney for a man awarded $12.5 million by a Florida jury for childhood sexual abuse suffered at the hands of a Baptist minister says the verdict could be a game-changer for how Southern Baptists handle credible accusations of clergy misconduct.

“I think it’s a good thing for the Florida Baptist Convention to clean up their act,” attorney Ronald Weil of the Miami-based law firm Weil, Quaranta, McGovern said Jan. 22 of last week’s judgment by a Lake County, Fla., jury against the 3,000-church statewide affiliate of the Southern Baptist Convention. “Hopefully, this is a wake-up call for them to do that.”

The jury handed down a unanimous verdict on Saturday, Jan. 18, awarding damages to a victim now in his 20s who claimed he was molested as a child by a church planter trained and supposedly vetted by the Baptist state convention. A previous jury found the convention responsible for the minister’s actions in 2012.

Weil, a 30-year civil trial lawyer who specializes in sexual abuse and victims’ rights litigation, said to his knowledge it is the first time for a state Southern Baptist convention to suffer a verdict in a case involving child sexual abuse.

A 2008 article in the Nashville Scene quoted Southern Baptist Convention General Counsel Jim Guenther saying the convention has never lost a lawsuit of any kind in the 50 years he has represented the denomination.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Herald

By JONATHAN LUXMOORE on Thursday, 23 January 2014

The cardinal who heads Pope Francis’ Council of Cardinals said the Catholic Church is entering a “new era” and accused critics of the Pope’s statements on economic injustice of failing to “understand reality.”

Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa in an interview with Germany’s Cologne-based Kolner Stadt-Anzeiger said:”I’m firmly convinced we are at the dawn of a new era in the church, just as when Pope John XXIII opened its windows 50 years and made it let in fresh air.

“Francis wants to lead the church in the same direction that he himself is moved by the Holy Spirit. This means closer to the people, not enthroned above them, but alive in them,” said the cardinal, who leads the council appointed by Pope Francis to work on reform in the Roman Curia and advise him on church governance.

In addition, Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga said, the Pope favored “above all, a simpler life and leadership” from priests and bishops in line with the “sometimes forgotten message of Jesus,” and believed they should go out to people, rather than “sitting in our administrative offices and waiting for people to come.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
Psychologie-Aktuell

Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs in der Kirche bleiben ihren Glaubensvorstellungen verhaftet und ihren realen Empfindungen fremd

Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs in der Kirche sind oft religiös geprägt. Glaubensvorstellungen und Rituale formen das Erleben, Deuten und alltagspraktische Handeln. Auch wenn sich Betroffene nach der sexuellen Traumatisierung von der Kirche distanzieren, bleiben sie in der Verarbeitung der Geschehnisse religiösen Deutungsmustern verhaftet. Sandra Fernau stellt in einer qualitativen Studie beispielhafte Opfer vor. Die Arbeit erschien in “Psychoanalyse – Texte zur Sozialforschung”.

Ein Mann, als 14jähriger in einem Internat missbraucht, hält seine Geschichte ein halbes Jahrhundert geheim und sucht erst dann das Gespräch mit der Wissenschaftlerin. Er fürchtet, durch die Aufdeckung stigmatisiert und in der dörflich-katholischen Gemeinschaft isoliert zu werden. “Die Angst vor negativen Fremdzuschreibungen wird durch Selbstvorwürfe mitbedingt und zugleich verschärft.” Der Mann spricht von einem “Kainsmal” und leidet unter der Vorstellung, “durch den erlebten sexuellen Missbrauch eine Schuld vor Gott auf sich geladen zu haben.” Hier zeigt sich, “dass der Betroffene noch Jahrzehnte nach den Übergriffen der Suggestion von Freiwilligkeit und Komplizenschaft unterliegt. Das Opfer weist sich im Rahmen einer katholischen Semantik selbst die Schuld für sexuelle Gewalterfahrungen zu.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
Tageblatt

[Summary: The Trier diocese paidout 350,000 to victims of sexual abuse through the end of 2013.]

Das Bistum Trier hat bislang 350 000 Euro an Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs gezahlt. Bis Ende 2013 seien 68 Anträge auf finanzielle Entschädigung bewilligt worden, sagte eine Sprecherin am Donnerstag und bestätigte einen Bericht der Zeitung “Trierischer Volksfreund”. Insgesamt gingen 72 Anträge ein, vier seien noch in Bearbeitung. Bislang seien noch keine Anträge “endgültig ablehnend beschieden worden”, hieß es.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Volksfreund

[Summary: The diocese of Trier up until the end of 2013 had received 72 compensation applications from men and women who said they were abused and 68 of those claimed have been paid.]

Bistum entschädigt 68 Missbrauchsopfer – Ein Antragsteller wartet seit eineinhalb Jahren

Erstmalig seit Februar 2013 legt das Bistum Trier aktuelle Zahlen vor, wie viele Anträge von Opfern sexueller Übergriffe gestellt und bewilligt wurden: Bis zum 31. Dezember 2013 hatten 72 Männer und Frauen beim Bistum Trier einen Antrag auf Entschädigung gestellt. Das gab Bistumssprecher André Uzulis auf TV-Anfrage bekannt. Insgesamt seien bis zum 2. Januar dieses Jahres 68 Anträge im Bistum des Missbrauchsbeauftragten der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz bewilligt worden, sagte Uzulis. Demnach werden vier der 72 gestellten Anträge noch bearbeitet. Darunter ist der Antrag eines 44-jährigen Saarländers, der seit eineinhalb Jahren auf eine Entscheidung wartet.

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ARIZONA
KVOA

[with video]

Russell Romano

Robert Becker

TUCSON- Newly released documents allege the Bishop of Tucson may be connected to a massive cover up related to priest sex abuse cases in Chicago.

Bishop Gerald Kicanas was born in Chicago and lived there until he became Bishop of Tucson in 2003. For more than 25 years he served as Rector, Principal, and Dean of Formation at the former Quigley Seminary South and Rector of Mundelein Seminary at the University of St. Mary of the Lake.

On Tuesday in Chicago, lawyers from Jeff Anderson & Associates released 6,000 pages of investigative reports that they say prove how the Archdiocese of Chicago for years failed to protect children from abusive priests. The lawyers represent the victims who say they were abused by a total of 30 Chicago priests.

Bishop Kicanas’ name is mentioned in the reports of two of those priests, both who served at the Quigley Seminary South.

In the first case, the lawyers say Bishop Kicanas learned of the abuse when the dean of the seminary contacted him, after he left Quigley. “What Father Klein reported to him was that Father Romano was taking boys to his rectory room, supplying them with alcohol, kissing them, hugging them,” says Patrick Wall of Jeff Anderson & Associates.

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AUSTRALIA
Western Advocate

A FORMER Catholic priest who worked at a Bathurst high school has been arrested and charged with the alleged historical sexual assault of a student.

The 71-year-old man was arrested by Strike Force Belle investigators at a residence in Newington and taken to Auburn Police Station today, where he was charged with ten counts of aggravated indecent assault on male.

The charges relate to the alleged sexual assault of a student between 1974 and 1977, when the man was a Catholic priest.

He was conditionally bailed to appear at the Burwood Local Court in on Tuesday 18 March 2014.

Detectives are continuing their inquiries and urge anyone with information relating to other incidents to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

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AUSTRALIA
Telegraph

JANET FIFE-YEOMANS NEWS LIMITED JANUARY 23, 2014

POLICE investigating a paedophile ring at two boarding schools in Bathurst have today arrested and charged a former Catholic priest.

At least 11 men, most of them Catholic priests, have already been charged with child sex offences against students at St Stanislaus’ College and All Saints College dating back to the 1960s as part of investigations by Strike Force Belle.

The 71-year-old man was arrested by strike force investigators today at a residence in Newington and taken to Auburn Police Station. He was charged with ten counts of aggravated indecent assault on males which relate to the alleged sexual assault of a student between 1974 and 1977.

He was conditionally bailed to appear at the Burwood Local Court in on Tuesday 18 March 2014.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

A former catholic priest who sexually abused at least two boys for three years while they attended a Bathurst high school has been charged.

The 71-year-old was on Thursday arrested at a western Sydney home and charged with ten counts of aggravated indecent assault on a male for allegedly sexually abusing two boys, both under 16, from 1974 to 1977, police said.

The abuse took place at a Bathurst high school.

Conditional bail was granted to the former priest, who’s due before Burwood Local Court on March 18.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Crosby Herald

Jan 23 2014 by Jamie Bowman, Crosby Herald

A DAMNING report has revealed a “culture of bullying” at a Crosby church after a priest was forced out of his job.

A six-month episcopal visitation carried out by Bishop Stephen Lowe, in the wake of reports of difficulties at St Faith’s Church, on Crosby Road North, found “serious failings” among some churchgoers whose behaviour towards Father Simon Tibbs was described by Bishop Stephen as “not befitting of a Christian community”.

Bishop Stephen’s report, which was presented to the Parochial Church Council (PCC) on Monday, highlighted a number of issues at the church, which is described on its website as an “outward-looking inclusive community formed in the liberal Catholic tradition of the Church of England”.

Most serious of these is the revelation of “a culture among a very small number of members of St Faith’s that bullying and the undermining of Simon Tibbs are acceptable as a means to an end – his removal.”

The report describes how problems appeared at St Faith’s soon after Rev Tibbs’ arrival in January last year.

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

[with video]

By: Nick Winkler

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis is scheduled to release another list of accused priests in early February.

Attorney Marshall Tanick says he has been contacted by clergy interested in remaining anonymous.

Tanick says if a lawsuit is started people who have an interest in the case can bring what’s known as an intervention action before the court. In other words, a person may anonymously ask the court that their identity be excluded from the record.

Critics say priests interested in doing this may be creating a negative perception among some.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Catholic Online

[with video]

CHICAGO, IL (Catholic Online) – Lawyers for the sex abuse victims of 30 Chicago-area priests have released a cache of documents detailing the abuses of children and the efforts of diocesan officials to cover up the scandals. Documents in the cache include letters from Cardinals Joseph Bernardin and Francis George.

There are 6,000 documents in the dump, and would-be readers are advised to think before reading them because of some of the graphic details within them.

May St. Michael destroy the evil within our communities, let us daily pray!

It is clear today that the American Catholic Church has erred in how some diocese handled allegations of abuse by priests in decades past. An untold number of children likely faced abuse and some clergy may have gone unpunished.

Both Pope Benedict and Pope Francis have cracked down very hard on the issue and made clear to Church officials that local law, and not just Church law, applies to all allegations. Church officials are now required, on the basis of any credible accusation, to notify local law enforcement officials and to refer cases directly to the Vatican. Those accused are not to be allowed contact with children and may be immediately suspended from duties while investigations proceed.

Thorough background checks and greater transparency are also required.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Southtown Star

By Phil Kadner pkadner@southtownstar.com January 21, 2014

I may be one of the few who was never surprised that the Chicago Archdiocese tried to bury allegations of sexual abuse by priests.

The archdiocese is a bureaucracy. Such organizations always try to avoid scandals.

There’s a belief that clergymen ought to be better than the rest of us. I can appreciate why people are disappointed, even angry, when that faith is destroyed.

But the clergy are subject to normal human frailties. That includes committing sex crimes and covering up such crimes.

At this point, there should be very little shock at revelations that sex crimes against children are often hidden, frequently mishandled and repeatedly result in cover-ups.

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RHODE ISLAND
Inquisitr

A Legion of Christ lawsuit will move forward, with a judge ruling that the family of a late Yale University professor may sue the religious order for $1 million.

The family of the late mechanical engineering professor, James Boa-Teh Chu, claims that the Legion of Christ coerced and defrauded the man into leaving his assets to the Legion. This week a federal magistrate judge in Rhode Island gave the go-ahead for the lawsuit to proceed.

The family claims that members of the order convinced their devout father that the founder of the Legion of Christ, the late Rev. Marcial Maciel, was a saint. In reality, the church was investigating allegations of sexual abuse against Maciel and within a few years the Vatican would seize control of the order.

“After Dr. Chu’s death, Paul found documents evidencing that the Legion was fostering this image of Father Maciel in Dr. Chu’s mind at the same time that it was aware of the facts being uncovered by the Vatican’s investigation,” wrote U.S. Magistrate Judge Patricia Sullivan in her decision.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

The former principal of a Marist boarding school has denied he lied to an abuse victim by telling him he did not know a brother was abusing boys.

Br Gerald Burns is in the witness stand for the second day of a royal commission hearing into the Catholic Church’s internal process for dealing with abuse complaints.

He was principal at St Augustine’s College, Cairns, in the 1980s when a man named DK was abused by three brothers, one of whom, Ross Murrin, was later jailed for molesting children in Sydney.

Br Burns has denied to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that he said at a Towards Healing mediation hearing with DK in 2010 that he knew nothing of Murrin’s abuse of other boys in 1981.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

January 23, 2014

Annette Blackwell

The Catholic Church has paid compensation to abuse victims even when they would have had difficulty proving legal liability in court, a lawyer has told an inquiry.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which is examining how the church’s Towards Healing process worked for abuse complainants, has heard that payments of up to $900,000 were made by the Archdiocese of Sydney.

Patrick Monahan, a solicitor who has represented Catholic Church Insurances Ltd (CCI) at Towards Healing settlements, told the inquiry on Thursday that the company took more than just financial liability into account when agreeing to payments.

“It is not a matter of doing the cheapest deal they can,” Mr Monahan said.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

BY THOMAS ORITI
January 23, 2014

A Marist Brother has denied accusations that he failed to act when a boy at the Queensland Catholic school he ran was sexually abused.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse last month examined the experiences of four victims who have participated in the Towards Healing program established by the Catholic Church.

After a two-week public hearing in December, senior figures of the Marist Brothers Catholic order are now giving evidence in Sydney.

Brother Gerald Burns was the principal of St Augustine’s College in Cairns between 1976 and 1981.

During the same period a man known only as DK has told the inquiry he was abused by three other Marist Brothers at the college.

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MARYLAND
Capital Gazette

By TIM PRATT tpratt@capgaznews.com

A former Severna Park resident, convicted of child sex abuse in Anne Arundel County in 1988, is facing new charges in Pennsylvania.

Ray Scott Teets, 66, a pastor at Fallen Timbers Community Church in Fayette County, Pa., is being held on $250,000 bond on allegations he fondled and tried to have sex with an 11-year-old girl, according to online records and media reports.

Teets had a court appearance last week on 24 charges, ranging from unlawful restraint, corruption of minors and unlawful contact with a minor to stalking, criminal attempt of indecent assault and luring a child into a motor vehicle.

He is scheduled to be arraigned on Feb. 20, according to court records.

Teets denied the accusations, made by a former parishioner, during his hearing last week, according to media reports. But he did tell the court about his previous conviction for child sex abuse in Anne Arundel County.

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Register

BY ALYSSA DURANTY / STAFF WRITER

Published: Jan. 22, 2014

FULLERTON – A former Fullerton pastor was found guilty Tuesday of sexually abusing an 18-year-old woman who was a member of his church.

Joseph Angel Olvera, 55, of Fullerton was found guilty of two misdemeanor counts of touching an intimate part of another person.

Olvera formerly worked as a pastor at Lifeline Ministries, 552 E. Patterson Way, officials said.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

John Kass

January 23, 2014

When stories surface of children being sexually abused, most parents have two responses: horror and avoidance.

The interest is obvious. What you learn may protect those you love, and protect others you don’t know.

But such stories come with a cost, as if the facts themselves are poisoned, so others avoid them because they carry too much pain.

And maybe that’s what the bishops of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago were counting on in decades past.

By now you know the story. Church documents released this week provide details about sexual abuse by priests. And many of those pedophile priests were transferred without warning parents of new churches.

“That’s what bothers me,” said a Roman Catholic woman I know, a mother who is a parishioner of a Southwest Side church where one of the abusive priests had been sent after initial complaints.

“You’d think they’d tell us? The parents?” she asked. “With our children running in and out of the school and the church?”

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CHICAGO (IL)
Canton Daily Ledger

CHICAGO (AP) — Top leaders at the Archdiocese of Chicago helped hide the sexual abuse of children as they struggled to contain a growing crisis, according to thousands of pages of internal documents that raise new questions about how Cardinal Francis George handled the allegations even after the church adopted reforms.

The documents, released through settlements between attorneys for the archdiocese and victims, describe how priests for decades were moved from parish to parish while the archdiocese hid the clerics’ histories from the public, often with the approval of the late Cardinals John Cody and Joseph Bernardin.

Although the abuse documented in the files occurred before George became archbishop in 1997, many victims did not come forward until after he was appointed and after U.S. bishops pledged in 2002 to keep all accused priests out of ministry.

George delayed removing the Rev. Joseph R. Bennett, despite learning that the priest had been accused of sexually abusing girls and boys decades earlier. Even the board the cardinal appointed to help him evaluate abuse claims advised George that Bennett should be removed.

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MINNESOTA
Duluth News Tribune

By: Tom Olsen , Duluth News Tribune

Attorneys representing the Diocese of Duluth and plaintiffs seeking the release of thousands of documents detailing priest sexual abuse cases made their arguments Wednesday before a Duluth judge, who will determine whether the request will be allowed.

The case before 6th Judicial District Judge David Johnson at the St. Louis County Courthouse was over a motion filed last month by the diocese seeking dismissal of the suits’ most substantial claims.

Susan Gaertner, a Minneapolis attorney representing the diocese, told Johnson that the suits’ private and public nuisance claims are not valid and said the statute of limitations has passed anyway. She said the plaintiffs cannot bring public nuisance claims because they are not prosecutors and cannot bring private nuisance claims because they have not suffered harm that is different than that suffered by the general public.

“The action for a private nuisance goes against any precedent or logic,” she said. “A public nuisance is the purview of a prosecuting attorney to bring on behalf of the public.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
The Depaulia

By Tom Fowkes

Published: Wednesday, January 22, 2014

After weeks of anticipation that followed a public announcement by Cardinal Francis George in Dec. 2013, over 6,000 pages of internal Chicago Archdiocese documents concerning cases of sexual abuse by priests were released publicly on Tuesday. The extensive records, which the Associated Press called “the broadest look yet into how one of (the) largest and most prominent American dioceses responded to the scandal,” offer an unvarnished and disquieting glimpse of years of abuse and systematic concealment.

The documents feature correspondence between church officials, lurid details of individual acts and personal information on the accused in 30 of the at least 65 cases where the Archdiocese states it has credible claims of child abuse. Their release came through a settlement between the organization’s attorneys and law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates, which represents numerous victims and has made the documents available on their website. The names of these victims and other details were censored from the records.

“This has been one of the most painful chapters in the history of the Catholic Church, which is a history of 2000 years, with very beautiful moments and very painful moments as any human history,” Fr. Guillermo Campuzano of University Ministry said.

The release of the documents is one of the most proximal and therefore powerful episodes in the global crisis of clergy sexual abuse for Chicago and DePaul Catholics. Campuzano further said that such incidents are a “terrible contradiction of who we are and who we are supposed to be…this is both a sickness and a crime. Both dimensions are very difficult to manage and to explain and to understand.”

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MICHIGAN
Detroit Free Press

By Patricia Montemurri
Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron said Wednesday that he will ask the Vatican to laicize the Rev. Timothy Murray, a Catholic priest suspended from working as a priest because of long-ago child sexual abuse. Murray is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday on child pornography charges.

“I can tell you that I have already determined that I am going to ask that he be dismissed from the clerical state,” said Vigneron, who leads the six-county Detroit archdiocese.

In laicization, the Catholic Church cuts all ties with an individual, who is returned to layperson status.

Murray pleaded guilty to possession and distribution of child pornography in July, after a 2012 investigation found large volumes of pornographic movies and images stored on his Novi home computers. Federal prosecutors asked that U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts sentence him to 22 years; Murray’s defense lawyer proposes five.

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UNITED STATES
TheMediaReport

When an unknown and powerless group of bureaucrats from the United Nations somehow managed to question officials from the Vatican about the issue of sex abuse in the Catholic Church for several hours, the mainstream media was naturally more than willing to herald the event, which took place in Geneva, Switzerland.

But as is so often the case, the media missed the forest for the trees, reporting the subject with notable inaccuracy and a glaring lack of perspective.

A solution in search of a problem

The most egregious problem with the media’s coverage of the UN-Vatican face off was that the issue was presented as if sex abuse is still a significant problem in the Catholic Church today. As we have relayed countless times before, it simply isn’t, as much as haters of the Church may wish it to be otherwise.

In truth, in the United States, contemporaneous accusations against priests are extremely rare, and on average, only 8 allegations are even deemed merely “credible” by review boards each year.

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
Northlands News Center

January 22, 2014

Duluth, MN (NNCNOW.com) — The Diocese of Duluth is requesting a public nuisance complaint in a sexual abuse case involving Father John Nicholson be dropped.

Attorney Mike Finnegan represents two sexual abuse survivors who have filled law suits against the Diocese.

The suits ask the Diocese to release the names of 17 priests they say are credibly accused of sexual assault.

On December 31, the diocese released the names of the 17 priests with credible allegations of sexual abuse.

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WISCONSIN/MASSACHUSETTS
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel Jan. 22, 2014

Peter Isely of Shorewood, who has traveled the world as an advocate for victims of clergy sexual abuse, will be honored by Harvard Divinity School in April as a distinguished alumni.

Isely is a recipient of the 2014 Peter J. Gomes Memorial Honors, established last year to honor alumni whose “excellence in life, work and service pays homage to the mission and values of Harvard Divinity School,” according to its website. Nominations were sought in several categories including service and advocacy, ministry, law and education. Last year’s recipients included Muslim scholar and author Reza Aslan and The Venerable Tenzin Priyadarshi, a Buddist monk who leads the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Isely, a psychotherapist, is Midwest director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, an advocacy group for sexual abuse victims. Isely was sexually abused as a student at St. Lawrence Seminary, a Capuchin-run prep school in Mt. Calvary, in the 1970s. He graduated from Harvard University with a master’s of divinity degree in 1988.

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CANADA
Zee News

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Toronto: Paedophilia, which has been viewed as a psychological disorder triggered by early childhood trauma, is actually a sexual orientation rooted deeply in our biological clock.

In what promises to be a controversial discovery, James Cantor at the Toronto-based Centre for Addiction and Mental Health has found that about 1 to 5 percent of men are paedophiles, meaning they are primarily attracted to children.

Cantor’s team reached the conclusion after years of tests using phallometry, an old method where a device measures blood flow to the penis when convicted sex offenders are shown nude images of children and adults of both sexes.

“We found that paedophiles share many physical characteristics. They are shorter, on average, than other men. They are three times more likely to be left-handed. Their IQs are about 10 to 15 points lower. They are also more prone to childhood head injuries,” said the report published in Toronto Star, quoting Cantor.

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
Daily Mail (UK)

[with video]

‘Paedophilia IS an illness’: An abnormally-wired brain causes the predatory behaviour, claims expert

* Clinical psychologist Dr James Cantor, studied MRI scans to look at the brains of paedophiles
*He believes that there is a literal ‘cross-wiring’ of paedophiles’ sexual response system and parental, nurturing system in their brains
*The University of Toronto expert, also found that paedophiles are more likely to be left-handed, less intelligent and shorter, than the average man

By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
PUBLISHED: 08:56 EST, 22 January 2014

Paedophilia is an illness and is linked to abnormalities in the brain’s white matter, according to one leading expert.

Clinical psychologist James Cantor, studied MRI scans to look at the brains of paedophiles and believes that there is a literal ‘cross-wiring’ of the sexual response system and parental, nurturing system, in paedophiles’ brains.

He also noticed that people who are sexually drawn to children are more likely to be left-handed, less intelligent and shorter than average men.

Dr Cantor, of the University of Toronto, Canada, was surprised to find ‘huge differences’ in the white matter of paedophiles’ brains when compared to those of typical men.

Talking on The Agenda with Steve Paikin, he explained he had expected to find differences in the brain’s grey matter, where major variations are often found.

He said ‘nothing’s ever in the white matter,’ which he describes as ‘cabling tissue’ that links different parts of the brain together.

Dr Cantor said that when men find women sexually attractive, they unconsciously lower their voices and widen their stance, whereas when they talk to children their voices become higher.

He explained that instead of evoking the typical responses that men exhibit when seeing a child, ‘it’s as if [paedophiles’] responses are cross-wired’ so that when they see a child, their brain ‘triggers the sex response system instead of the parental, nurturing system’.

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CHICAGO (IL)
WGN

[with video]

by Robert H. Jordan Jr
Anchor/Reporter

A day after the release of documents offering new details on Chicago priests accused of sexual abuse, one of the attorneys who represents dozens of abuse victims is calling on Pope Francis to discipline Francis Cardinal George.

Six thousand documents were released Tuesday as part of a court settlement involving 30 accused priests in the Archdiocese of Chicago.

They include cases in which accused priests were moved to different parishes even if they were facing multiple accusations.

“These documents reveal clearly that all the top officials, both current and past, are involved in the concealment of the truth and crimes — and that includes Cardinal George,” victims’ attorney Jeff Anderson said during an interview on the WGN Morning News today.

“I don’t think Cardinal George or any of the other persons mentioned at yesterday’s conference have any intent to harm children at all,” Jan Slattery, Director of the Archdiocese of Chicago Office for the Protection of Children and Youth, told WGN.

“I believe in consequences,” she continued. “I believe in accountability. I think the way this has all occurred and over the period of time it’s occurred has been difficult. We receive an allegation by a victim on average 27 years after it occurred.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
Legal Examiner

Posted by David Mittleman
January 22, 2014

Chicago Archdiocese Hid Decades of Child Sexual Abuse

According to recently released internal documents from the Archdiocese of Chicago, top leaders helped to cover up decades of child sexual abuse at the hands of priests. The documents were released as part of a settlement between attorneys for the archdiocese and the sexual abuse victims, and depict that priests were purposefully moved from parish to parish to hide the clerics’ histories from the public. Two Cardinals, John Cody and Joseph Bernadin, approved these clandestine moves to protect Chicago priests engaging in sexual abuse.

Victims Look for Accountability from Catholic Church

While Chicago is not alone in horrific tales of child sexual abuse at the hands of priests, the newly released documents detail the broadest look yet into the scandal of how a large and influential archdiocese responded to the problem. The documents were posted online yesterday by victims’ attorneys, but for only 30 of the at least 65 clergy for whom the archdiocese says it has substantiated claims of sexual abuse. An attorney for the archdiocese said that 95% of the sexual abuse incidents occurred before 1988 and none after 1996; he also noted that 14 out of the 30 priests implicated have died, two are no longer priests, and none are active in ministry. However, for the victims that endured the sexual abuse, this is not a comforting statement, as they pushed for 9 years for church to provide the public with the truth and are haunted by painful memories. The news out of Chicago echoes the revelation earlier this month by the Duluth Diocese, which released the names of 17 clergy members who were accused of abusing children in Minnesota.

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CHICAGO (IL)
CBS Chicago

[with video]

Jay Levine

(CBS) – The common link among all the Roman Catholic priests, whose records of alleged sexual abuse were released yesterday, is that they all reported to the Archbishop of Chicago.

Four Archbishops, who’ve led the Archdiocese from the late 1950′s until now had the final say and unquestioned authority over all personnel decisions.

CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports time after time, the secret files show them agonizing over whether or not a charge was credible, giving even those who admitted wrongdoing, a second chance.

One of the earliest reports goes all the way back to 1958 when Albert Cardinal Meyer was told about Father Marion Snieg sexually abusing two young boys.

30 years later, in a letter to Cardinal Bernardin, retired bishop Raymond Goedert, then serving as Vicar for priests, said “I suspect we all just lost track of it.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
NBC Chicago

[with video]

Robert Mayer

Former Chicago mayor Richard Daley says he’s “absolutely shocked” his name appeared in the 6,000 pages of internal documents released by the Archdiocese of Chicago Tuesday regarding sexual abuse by priests.

Daley’s name appears in regards to Father Robert Mayer, who served prison time for sexual abuse.

Underage drinking parties in Mayer’s room at St. Stephens rectory were brought to the attention of the Des Plaines Police Department, and the documents show that then Cook County State’s Attorney Rich Daley called the Archdiocese to say the “police captain is not held in high esteem.” No charges were filed in the case.

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CHICAGO (IL)
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

COMMENTARY

Kristine Ward

First and foremost, we believe it is important to profoundly thank the survivors who had the mettle and the courage and determination to push for the document release that the Archdiocese of Chicago was court ordered to turn over.

Cardinal Francis George did not voluntarily give up one sheet of paper on the 30 priests whose files were released.

No letter writing campaign or website statement or any mushing of the facts changes that: this was a court ordered release.

The truth is in the documents.

That is why they are so vital.

That’s also why Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops fight so hard through highly paid and high-powered attorneys to keep them from going public.

What is in the documents – those released on the 30 priests in Chicago and in the few other document releases that have occurred — was known to the Cardinals, Archbishop, Bishops – any hierarch with access to his own diocese’s files – at any time of the day, week, month, or year that this crisis has existed.

And make no mistake about it — this crisis existed before newspaper stories were written about it and television and radio broadcasts aired about it, and columnists wrote about it, or lawyers litigated it.

Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops and Popes knew about it. It’s as simple as that.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

The leader of the world’s largest economy, President Obama, and the leader of the world’s largest religion, Pope Francis, both strong advocates for the poor, are set for an historic first meeting on March 27 to discuss their shared commitment to fighting poverty and growing inequality. One is a son of a Muslim raised African, born in the USA and educated at an Indonesian Catholic school and at Harvard Law, and the other a son of European Italians, born in Latin America and a Jesuit. They bring diverse and complimentary backgrounds and broad experience.

Both leaders earlier worked closely with “poor sheep” in Catholic parishes–one on Chicago’s South Side; the other in Buenos Aires’ barrios. One’s positions on some economic and military policies and the other’s positions on some sexual morality and gender equality matters have both burdened the poor needlessly, especially many children and women. The President will not be running again and the Pope has a lifetime position. The potential for breakthroughs at the meeting that could help the poor is nearly unlimited.

President Obama and Pope Francis, of course, must first establish mutual trust, which has apparently been adversely impacted, among other reasons, by Vatican political support for US conservatives’ policies and by US bishops’ continuing unaccountablity for mismanaging predatory priests, as well as Obama’s disagreements with US bishops on contraception, gay marriage and other matters.

As suggested by the implications of the important recent analysis by Betty Clermont, author of ”The Neo-Catholics”, Francis’ omissions and/or inaction on holding Catholic bishops accountable will be a major obstacle for Obama to address. Of course, as President, he has almost unlimited resources legally to address this in the USA, which should get Francis’ attention. For Betty Clermont’s thorough analysis, see:

[Open Tabernacle]

The world’s richest 85 people control the same amount of wealth as half the world’s population, as recently reported by the anti-poverty charity Oxfam. That means the world’s poorest 3.55 billion people must live on what the richest 85 possess. Within the United States, just 400 families have wealth and assets approximately equivalent to 50 percent of the citizens in the United States.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Jan. 22

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

A Pennsylvania priest has pled guity to felony corruption of minors.

[Pocono Record]

[Citizens Voice]

When it’s time to sentence this predator priest, it’s important that the judge have a full picture of his wrongdoing. So we strongly urge Scranton’s bishop to use his vast resources to reach ot ot others who have seen suspected or suffered Fr. Paulish’s crimes.

We also urge anyone with suspicions or knowledge about his misdeeds to step forward now, help protect kids, and start healing.

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CANADA
GlobalPost

The Canadian Press

IQALUIT, Nunavut – A Crown prosecutor is trying to discredit the testimony of a former priest who denies sexually abusing dozens of Inuit children while posted in a remote Arctic community.

Eric Dejaeger took the witness stand for a second day Wednesday in a courtroom in Iqaluit, Nunavut.

He has pleaded guilty to eight counts, but denies the remaining 68 sex assaults he’s accused of committing between 1978 and 1982 when he was an Oblate missionary in Igloolik.

The Crown repeatedly questioned Dejaeger’s testimony that he never once listened to confessions in the remote hamlet because he didn’t speak the Inuktitut language well enough.

Some of the alleged victims have testified the abuse took place during confession.

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CHICAGO (IL)
WLS

[with video]

January 22, 2014 (CHICAGO) (WLS) — A group that represents victims of child sex abuse by priests is demanding that those responsible be prosecuted.

On Tuesday, documents were released detailing specific cases of sex abuse in the Chicago Archdiocese involving 30 priests.

Should church leaders, including Cardinal Francis George be criminally prosecuted for the way they handled sexual abuse cases? SNAP, a victims’ group, is calling on prosecutors to scour the 6,000 pages of recently released documents for any evidence of criminal wrongdoing.

“We are here to call on every Chicagoland law enforcement agency within boundaries of Archdiocese of Chicago to try harder to pursue child sex crimes,” Kate Bochte, SNAP, said.

While victims and their attorneys says the documents are proof of a decades-long cover-up by Cardinals George, Bernardin and Cody, the archdiocese continues to maintain that church leaders never intended to hurt children. Even though documents show evidence of failing to call police and quietly moving accused priests from parish to parish..

“Domestic battery, child abuse rape were viewed differently. They were not reported immediately. Parents took them more casually, that is no longer the case,” Jan Slattery, Chicago Archdiocese, said.

The Archdiocese Director of Protection and Youth Jan Slattery said the way the church viewed those crimes was just reflective of the way society handled years ago. But critics said church leaders have always known that child sexual abuse was a crime. Former priest Patrick Wall says church leaders from cardinals on down made conscious choices to protect the institution from scandal and the keep clerics in the ministry.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

As a footnote to my earlier posting today noting that the spotlight that recently shone on the Vatican at the UN hearing is now on Pope Francis himself, a reader has pointed me to Betty Clermont’s recent posting at Open Tabernacle about Francis’s handling of the sex abuse crisis. As with everything Betty writes, it’s exhaustively researched and insightful.

Betty’s conclusion about what we can now expect from Francis:

Pope Francis is washing his hands of any responsibility for whatever happens outside his city state or those on his immediate payroll. “On the level of the Holy See, as the Sovereign of Vatican City State, the response to sexual abuse has been in accord with its direct responsibility over the territory of Vatican City State,” stated Tomasi. “Priests are not functionaries of the Vatican….They are citizens of their own state and fall under the jurisdiction of that state.” Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi said in a statement on Jan. 16. Questions posed by the U.N. committee and others “seem to presuppose that bishops and religious superiors act as representatives or delegates of the pope, something which is without foundation.”

Betty ends by citing Richard Sipe’s observations last fall regarding the culture of narcissistic corruption and colossal abuse of power inside the clerical system from which the abuse of children emanates:

Only willful blindness and pathological denial can allow one to overlook the reality that the symptom of clerical abuse reveals a Roman Catholic Church as dysfunctional and corrupt sexually and financially as during the time of the Protestant Reformation.” A. W. Richard Sipe, Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselor, former Benedictine monk and priest, and recognized authority on celibacy and priest sex abuse. August 30, 2013.

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WASHINGTON
Yakima Herald Republic

TAMMY WEBBER
The Associated Press

CHICAGO — Top leaders at the Archdiocese of Chicago helped hide the sexual abuse of children as they struggled to contain a growing crisis, according to thousands of pages of internal documents that raise new questions about how Cardinal Francis George handled the allegations even after the church adopted reforms.

The documents, released through settlements between attorneys for the archdiocese and victims, describe how priests for decades were moved from parish to parish while the archdiocese hid the clerics’ histories from the public, often with the approval of the late Cardinals John Cody and Joseph Bernardin.

Although the abuse documented in the files occurred before George became archbishop in 1997, many victims did not come forward until after he was appointed and after U.S. bishops pledged in 2002 to keep all accused priests out of ministry.

George, a former bishop for the Diocese of Yakima, delayed removing the Rev. Joseph R. Bennett, despite learning that the priest had been accused of sexually abusing girls and boys decades earlier. Even the board the cardinal appointed to help him evaluate abuse claims advised George that Bennett should be removed.

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PROVIDENCE (RI)
Miami Herald

BY MICHELLE R. SMITH
ASSOCIATED PRESS

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A late Yale University professor’s family should be allowed to sue the disgraced Roman Catholic order the Legion of Christ over a more than $1 million bequest, a federal magistrate judge in Rhode Island recommended.

The retired mechanical engineering professor, James Boa-Teh Chu, was living in East Providence, R.I., before he died in 2009. His son, Paul Chu, sued in U.S. District Court in Providence in 2012, saying his father was coerced, defrauded and deceived into signing over many of his assets to the Legion.

Among the allegations made in the lawsuit, Chu says members of the order convinced his devout father that the Legion’s founder, the late Rev. Marcial Maciel, was a saint, even as the church was investigating allegations against him including sex abuse. The Vatican took over the order in 2010 and Pope Benedict XVI ordered a wholesale reform.

The Legion has denied the lawsuit’s allegations, saying everything was handled appropriately and that it doesn’t pressure anyone to make a contribution. It asked to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing Paul Chu, executor of his father’s estate and his only child, does not have standing to sue.

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NEW YORK
The Jewish Voice

Brooklyn DA Thompson Appoints New Prosecutor in Sex Abuse Extortion Case

Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson appointed a new prosecutor to examine the extortion case against Samuel Kellner, the New York Daily News announced on Sunday, January 19. Thompson named Kevin O’Donnell, formerly of the sex crimes division under former Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes, as the face who will take the helm of the ongoing Kellner case as it moves forward.

Over the course of the past three years, Kellner has transitioned from the role of whistleblower on sexual abuse from within Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community to a defendant, according to Vosizneias, which reported that Kellner is currently facing extortion and bribery charges.

The Daily News explained that Thompson had “rallied behind” Kellner, 52, during his own election campaign last year.

Kellner had spoken out against sex abuse within the Orthodox community, the Daily News reported, but “then found himself charged with extorting an alleged abuser and bribing witnesses in the man’s case.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Citizens Voice

BY REBEKAH BROWN (STAFF WRITER)
Published: January 22, 2014

A suspended priest, accused of performing sex acts on a 15-year-old boy, pleaded guilty Wednesday to felony corruption of minors.

The Rev. William Jeffrey Paulish, 57, 450 3rd St., Blakely, entered the plea before Lackawanna County Judge Michael Barrasse. He was arrested in September after he was caught in his car with a 15-year-old boy in the parking lot at Penn State Worthington Scranton campus.

The felony charge carries a maximum sentence of seven years, according to Paulish’s attorney, Bernard Brown, who said his client is remorseful for his actions.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pocono Record

January 22, 2014

SCRANTON (AP) — A northeastern Pennsylvania priest who police said was caught having sex with a 15-year-old boy in a parked car has pleaded guilty.

WNEP-TV said Wednesday that the Rev. W. Jeffery Paulish pleaded guilty to one count of felony corruption of minors.

The Lackawanna County district attorney’s office said he will be sentenced in about three months.

Paulish was an assistant pastor at Prince of Peace Parish in Old Forge.

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CANADA
Nunatsiaq Online

DAVID MURPHY

In Nunavut court Jan. 22, Crown prosecutor Doug Curliss grilled Eric Dejaeger on his work at St. Stephen’s Catholic Church in Igloolik between 1978 and 1982, questioning what he did as a priest during his time there.

Dejaeger returned to the witness box on the morning of Jan. 22 so Crown prosecutors could begin their cross-examination of the former Oblate missionary, who gave evidence in his own defence Jan. 21.

The trial began in November 2013. Since then, Dejaeger has pleaded guilty to eight counts on the 80-count indictment. Another four charges have since been dismissed by Justice Robert Kilpatrick, who is handling the trial on his own, without a jury.

Curliss asked several times if Dejaeger ever heard confessions as part of his job with the church — Dejaeger replied that he never did.

That could be because he could not speak Inuktitut — even though he spoke English, as well as most people his age and younger at the church, he 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.

KENYA
Standard

By ISAIAH LUCHELI NAIROBI, KENYA: A Catholic priest sued by a woman in Mombasa for allegedly siring a child with her 14 years ago has written to the Chief Justice protesting over delayed justice.

Father Josephat Mweu Mwanzia of Consolata Missionary, who had sought to have a suit filed by Syovinya Cecilia Mbiki, dismissed after DNA tests conducted in South Africa and Kenya exonerated him has accused the magistrate of dragging the matter.

In the letter to Chief Justice Willy Mutunga dated January 22, he accused the Tononoka children’s court magistrate Beatrice Koech of failing to conclude the case despite many anomalies and breaching of court orders and summons on the part of the applicant.

Mwanzia explained this was the second year since the suit was filed under certificate of urgency for the best interest of the child but the matter was yet to be concluded.

LACKS BASIS

“Since this suit was filed in September 2012, as a Catholic priest, I have been unable to perform my priestly duties and the delay in the delivery of the ruling continues to give me mental and psychological torture and affecting my career and reputation,” the letter read in part.

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CANADA
CBC News

Former Catholic priest Eric Dejaeger was back on the stand this morning facing cross examination in Iqaluit.

The 66-year-old is facing dozens of charges related to alleged sexual abuse of children in Igloolik, Nunavut three decades ago.

Some of the complainants have told the court they were abused by Dejaeger while he heard their confession.

Today, Dejaeger denied having listened to confessions while working in Igloolik at the mission for four years. He says that was the job of the main priest, Father Robert Lechat.

Dejaeger was the priest in training. He says he conducted mass, performed baptisms, marriages and provided counselling.

Crown prosecutor Doug Curliss asked if he heard confessions over religious holidays like Easter and Christmas. There was one period when Lechat was gone eight months straight.

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CHICAGO (IL)
WBEZ

[with audio]

January 22, 2014
By: Lynette Kalsnes

Newly released documents offer the most sweeping look yet at how the Archdiocese of Chicago has handled cases of sexual abuse by priests. Attorneys and victims contend they provide clear evidence of a cover-up that started in the 1950s and continues today.

Victims’ attorneys put 6,000 pages online Tuesday. They detail alleged abuse by 30 priests against about 50 victims.

Kathy Laarveld’s son was one of those molested by a priest. For years, she was a staunch supporter of her parish. She was the secretary, the cook, even did the laundry for the priests, who were regular dinner guests.

She had no idea that Vincent McCaffrey, one of these priests she trusted, was abusing her son.

“McCaffrey actually took advantage of my son on his First Communion in my home, in front of my family,” Laarveld said.

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SEATTLE (WA)
Seattle Times

By Lornet Turnbull
Seattle Times staff reporter

The president and CEO of Eastside Catholic School has resigned amid unrelenting protests over her decision to dismiss the school’s vice principal for marrying his gay partner.

In December, Sister Mary Tracy fired Vice Principal Mark Zmuda, who also served as the school’s swim coach, saying his marriage to a man violated the Roman Catholic teachings he’d agreed to uphold when he began working at the school.

Her resignation, submitted to the Eastside board of trustees Monday and made public Tuesday, was effective immediately.

It comes just days before a planned schoolwide meeting Thursday, during which board members — who have been the target of persistent lobbying by students, alumni and parents — are expected to field parents’ questions.

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UNITED STATES
Voice of the Faithful

Voice of the Faithful® works diligently to help prevent financial malfeasance in our Church. When we drop dollars into the collection basket, we expect them to support our parish community, care for the poor and needy, foster charitable activities … We do NOT expect our dollars to pay for clerical extravagances, a pastor’s gambling habit, an usher’s new car, a collection counter’s vacation, or similar misappropriations.

One simple safeguard — available in any parish — can help secure collection dollars gathered each Sunday, says Michael W. Ryan, a retired federal law enforcement official experienced in conducting financial audits and security investigations.

Parishes that apply his guidelines might well find their collections increasing just by closing the loopholes that allow dollars to disappear before they can be deposited in the parish account.

Now YOU can make a difference by following Michael’s guidelines:

Download his brochure Protecting the Parish Purse: Vital Information for Parish Staff and Volunteers Involved in Handling Sunday Collections. You may copy and distribute the printout or, even easier, order glossy brochures from VOTF for $1 each.

Also, download a Currency Counting Form you can print out and use to document your parish’s Sunday parish collections better and more accurately.

Need more help finding the sequential seals or self-sealing bags highlighted in the brochure? Order self-sealing, tamper-evident polyethylene bags through Amazon.com, Staples, and other office supply companies, where you also can purchase numbered plastic security seals to secure collection bags.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priestsv

Victims want more prosecution efforts

For immediate release Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Statement by Kate Botche, SNAP member from Joliet, IL (630-768-1860, keight@sbcglobal.net)

We are here to call on every Chicagoland law enforcement agency within the boundaries of the Chicago archdiocese to simply try harder to pursue Catholic staff who commit and conceal child sex crimes.

Why?

Because Catholic officials can’t police themselves.

Because few of the 121 publicly accused Chicago predator priests are behind bars.

Because none of the hundreds of complicit church supervisors have ever even been charged.

Because many of the predators now live and work among unsuspecting families and co-workers.

Because some of them have moved or been sent out of Chicago to prey on other children.

And because until complicit church supervisors and co-workers are punished for covering up child sex crimes and held accountable in the future, they will continue to cover up child sex crimes.

Law enforcement officials must take these steps.

First, scour these 6,000 pages of newly-released records looking for opportunities to file charges against anyone.

Second, help victims pressure the archdiocese to turn over records, right now, of the other proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting clerics (whether living or dead, archdiocesan or religious order).

Third, where possible, launch grand jury investigations into this scandal.

Fourth, use their bully pulpits to beg victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to step forward, especially current and former church employees.

Fifth, be more creative about pursuing ANY charges against the hierarchy, whether it’s perjury, endangering kids, committing fraud, obstructing justice, destroying evidence, tampering with witnesses, or failing to report known or suspected child sex crimes to secular authorities.

Sixth, use their clout to reform Illlinois’ archaic, predator-friendly statutes of limitations and other laws that make prosecution of complicit employers difficult (like RICO).

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
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Detroit priest to be sentenced for child porn; SNAP responds

For immediate release Wednesday, January 22

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

A Detroit priest will be sentenced tomorrow for child porn. We hope he gets the maximum sentence.

[Detroit Free Press]

Father Timothy Murray escaped prosecution for sexually assaulting a child – even though he admitted the crimes – due to archaic statute of limitations on these crimes. He has now been convicted of possessing and distributing child pornography and is awaiting sentencing.

This priest, and the church officials responsible for him, have been given multiple chances to put the safety of the innocent and the vulnerable first but have refused at every turn to do so. Church officials could have chosen to put Murray in a secured independently run treatment center where Murray could have received help and children would have been safe. Instead, they chose to allow him to live in an unsuspecting community, allowing Murray contact with children.

We beg the judge to put Murray behind bars as long as possible. To ignore the pleas of church officials, both Lutheran and Catholic, for leniency. Both groups have been reckless and needlessly endangered children. They claim there have been no new accusations of sexual assault of children ignoring the fact that dozens and dozens of children were harmed in the making of the child pornography in Murray’s possession.

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)
PBS Newshour

[with video]

Transcript

GWEN IFILL: The Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, the country’s third largest, shielded and protected priests who were accused of sexual abuse for decades. Newly released papers document the actions of 30 priests, nearly half of them deceased, the rest now out of ministry. Victims who had long pressed for more information talked about it at a press conference in Chicago today.

JOE IACONO, abuse victim: The priest that abused me moved seven times and abused others. If they would have stopped him, like they would have stopped the other at the time of abuse, there would be many — there would be significantly less victims.

Part of the release of these files, I am hopeful that there will be less victims in the future and people will stop putting the reputation of the institution above the welfare of the children. That is my hope.

GWEN IFILL: The documents released as part of a settlement with those victims describe how the late Cardinals John Cody and Cardinal Joseph Bernardin approved the reassignments of priests.

In a letter sent to parishes this past weekend, Cardinal Francis George, who took over the Archdiocese in 1997, apologized for the past actions of the church, writing, “In the late ’80s, the archdiocese began to put its house in some order,” and he said he hoped transparency would be helpful. But he also said that almost all of the incidents were perpetrated by priests he never met.

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
It’s Relevant

By: Kwegyirba Croffie
Norwalk, CT | Added on January 15, 2014

Brien McMahon High School’s Center for Youth Leadership honored organizations in Fairfield County who promote peace and stand against injustice during their 2014 Awards Ceremony on Tuesday evening.

The Peace Project’s 10th Annual Dove Award was given to the Lower Fairfield County Regional Action Council & Post 53 Darien Emergency Medical Services.

Kaela Teele, a member of the Center for Youth Leadership said, “The Dove Award is presented to the person or organization that has done the most in the past year to promote peace, understanding and social justice and/or provide teens with leadership and activism opportunities.” …

Beth McCabe, Co-Director of the Connecticut Chapter of the Survivors’ Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) said, “For us, it’s nice to be acknowledged but I think that they need to understand the impact they’re having and getting the word out on child sexual abuse, specifically in human trafficking and all the other issues they are dealing with; but to learn to be socially active, to make changes, legislative changes that really impact people’s lives.”

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)
One News Now

The Chicago archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church has released records on priest sex abuse, prompting a call by some people for more reform.

The files reach back several decades with reports within the church of priests abusing children and teens, and transferring certain priests to other jobs but leaving them in ministry.

OneNewsNow turned to S.N.A.P., or Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, and President Barbara Blaine who says the release of the records has been a long time coming.

“What’s being recovered really shows that what we have been saying all along is true, that church officials have known about our perpetrators,” says Blaine. “They have had the ability to protect kids and to remove perpetrators but they refused to 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.

UNITED STATES
The Open Tabernacle: Here Comes Everybody

Posted on January 21, 2014 by Betty Clermont

A Vatican delegation received what was widely reported as a “grilling” at a hearing conducted by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on Jan. 16. They feigned concern for victims of sexual abuse, evaded questions, hyped the Church’s continuous too-little-too-late response and gave assurances that Pope Francis will do better from now on. Like claims that the pope is “cleaning up” Vatican finances, examining his actions reveals attitudes 180 degrees different than his rhetoric.

Here’s what the corporate media reported:

AP and TIME:
The Vatican has acknowledged there can be “no excuse” for child abuse….Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Vatican’s representative in Geneva, says “such crimes can never be justified” whether committed at home, school, sports activities or in religious organizations and structures….Tomasi told a U.N. committee Thursday the Holy See welcomes any suggestions that could help it in promoting and encouraging the respect of the rights of the child.

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 Catholic Reporter

Jason Berry | Jan. 22, 2014

Under the dictatorial personality of Legion of Christ founder Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, and during the decades of allegations that he abused his own seminarians, four Irish priests, now in their 60s and 70s, were among his closest confidantes. The four priests wooed wealthy donors, carried out Maciel’s orders and put out fires when troubles flared.

Irish Frs. Anthony Bannon, Owen Kearns, Raymond Cosgrave and John Devlin became powerful men in the order Maciel founded in Mexico.

Bannon was the chief fundraiser in America.

Kearns led the media attack against Maciel’s pedophilia victims.

Devlin was Maciel’s secretary for decades, a keeper of the secrets for whom no detail was too small, according to former Legion insiders.

Cosgrave was Maciel’s point man in establishing the Legion in Chile during the 1973-90 dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

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.

RHODE ISLAND
National Catholic Reporter

Jason Berry | Jan. 22, 2014

A Rhode Island federal magistrate judge has given a green light for a man’s lawsuit against the Legion of Christ seeking more than $1 million for the alleged defrauding of his father’s estate.

The case moves forward at the same moment the Legion is gathered in Rome in an effort to reconstitute itself in the aftermath of the scandals of its discredited founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado. For some longtime critics, who originally brought to light widespread corruption within the Legion, the ruling is the latest indication that serious questions remain about the Legion and the Vatican process employed to revive the order.

The suit accuses the Legion of preying on James Boa-Teh Chu and defrauding his son, Paul, of an estate with annuities valued between $1 million and $2 million. The suit seeks $10 million in punitive damages.

Paul Chu, an only child, was studying in the Hartford, Conn., diocesan seminary when his father, a Yale professor of mechanical engineering who retired in 2003, went into a mental and physical decline, according to court documents.

Born 1924 in mainland China, Boa-Teh Chu immigrated to America as a young man, and as a professor of mechanical engineering taught at Brown University and State University of New York before taking a faculty position at Yale. A deeply devout Catholic, he lost his wife in 1993 and died in 2009 at age 85. His final years were marked by “difficulty assimilating new data, mental tics, fixations and obsessions, some of which exhibited through bizarre hoarding and collecting,” according to a summary by U.S. Magistrate Judge Patricia Sullivan, released Jan. 13.

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
Newschannel 3

Michael Weston

(NEWSCHANNEL 3) – Documents show a priest linked to sexual abuse in Illinois also served here in West Michigan.

Former priest Michael Weston was at one time the Chaplain for Western Michigan University and Kalamazoo Valley College.

He was transferred to West Michigan after serious allegations were made against him in Illinois.

In documents released Tuesday by victims’ attorneys, one claimed Weston sexually assaulted him, saying Weston massaged him and touched him while the two were naked.

According to the documents church leaders did nothing when the allegations were brought 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.

SCOTLAND
STV

Appeal court judges have quashed the conviction of a monk for sexually assaulting a woman at a university chaplaincy.

Mark Paterson, 55, was placed on the sex offenders register after being found guilty at the end of a five-day trial at Aberdeen Sheriff Court eight years ago.

But on Thursday the Justiciary Appeal Court overturned the decision after fresh evidence emerged that challenged the testimony of a female witness.

The judges also said the trial was unfair because reports from a doctor had not been disclosed.

Mr Paterson said he was “delighted” following the judgment by Lady Smith, who heard the appeal with Lady Dorrian and Lord Philip.

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
BBC News

A monk put on the sex offenders register after being found guilty of indecently assaulting a woman at the University of Aberdeen has had his conviction overturned.

Mark Paterson, now 55, was ordered to carry out 200 hours of community service in 2006.

He had been found guilty after a five-day trial at Aberdeen Sheriff Court.

The conviction has now been quashed at the Justiciary Appeal Court in Edinburgh.

‘Miscarriage of justice’

Mr Paterson said: “I am delighted. I am over the moon.”

The university’s Catholic Society had claimed he was the victim of a miscarriage of justice.

The case was referred to appeal judges in 2012 by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission.

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)
The Tablet (UK)

[the documents via BishopAccountability.org]

[the documents via Jeff Anderson & Associates]

22 January 2014 by Carlisle Baker-Jackson

The Archdiocese of Chicago issued a “sincere apology” as it released 6,000 documents yesterday relating to its handling of sexual misconduct by 30 of its priests between 1950 and 1996.

The documents were released as part of a 2008 settlement with victims. They reveal how allegations were kept secret and church leaders, including the late cardinals John Cody and Joseph Bernardin, would approve the moving of accused priests from one parish to another. They also call into question the actions of the archbishop – Cardinal Francis George.

A statement on the archdiocesan website said: “The archdiocese acknowledges that its leaders made some decisions decades ago that are now difficult to justify.

“In the past 40 years, society has evolved in dealing with matters related to abuse … and so has the Archdiocese of Chicago.”

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)
Sueddeutsche (Deutschland)

Die meisten der Geistlichen, um die es geht, sind offenbar nie bestraft worden. Im Gegenteil: Würdenträger der katholischen Kirche schützten die Täter über Jahrzehnte hinweg. Doch jetzt unternimmt das Erzbistum Chicago einen Schritt zur Aufarbeitung des Missbrauchsskandals.

Es geht um 30 Priester, die sich über Jahrzehnte hinweg des sexuellen Missbrauchs schuldig gemacht haben. Die meisten der Geistlichen, um die es geht, seien nie bestraft worden, schreibt die Chicago Tribune. Im Gegenteil: Würdenträger der katholischen Kirche hätten die Täter gedeckt, “geblendet von dem Glauben an eine zweite Chance und an Vergebung”. Außerdem habe die Führung der Kirche einen Imageschaden befürchtet.

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)
Der Standard (Osterreich)

Mit neuen Erkenntnisse über sexuellen Missbrauch sehen sich etliche Priester der katholischen Kirche in den USA konfrontiert. Tausende im Internet veröffentlichte Unterlagen dokumentieren die Fälle von 30 Priestern der Erzdiözese Chicago. Die Kirche soll demnach versucht haben, die Skandale zu verschleiern, was weitere Kinder gefährdet habe.

Die Fälle reichten teilweise Jahrzehnte zurück und hätten die Erzdiözese in den vergangenen Jahren mehr als 100 Millionen Dollar gekostet, berichtete die “Chicago Tribune” am Dienstag. Der Kirche seien die Kinder unter ihrem Dach “nicht so wichtig wie die Geistlichen” gewesen, kritisierte der Opferanwalt Jeff Anderson. Stattdessen hätte die Kirche an dem Missbrauch teilgenommen, indem sie die Täter in ihren Ämtern belassen habe.

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)
Spirtual Politics

Norbert Maday

Mark Silk | Jan 22, 2014

And so it’s Chicago’s turn to have its documents on sexual abuse put on public display. “We realize the information included in these documents is upsetting,” said the country’s third largest archdiocese in a statement. “It is painful to read. It is not the Church we know or the Church we want to be.”

But of course it is the Church we know — an institution where some adults in positions of authority sexually abused minors in their charge and the higher-ups for years did what they could to shield the abusers. To be sure, abusers can be found in all institutions that work with minors, and it is not uncommon for the superiors to behave similarly, to protect against lawsuits and disrepute.

But the Catholic Church is a special case, even among religious bodies. Consider the following letter that the current archbishop of Chicago, Cardinal Francis George, wrote in 2002 to the Rev. Norbert Maday, then serving a lengthy prison sentence in Wisconsin for molesting two altar boys.

Dear Norbert,

I thank you for your kind greetings on my birthday. Your thoughtfulness took me by surprise, but I am glad to get a personal note from you. I try to keep up with you through the Vicars for Priests.

We have tried, as you know, a number of avenues to see if your sentenced [sic] can be reduced or might be reduced or parole be given early. So far, we have not had any success, but I personally hope that you will not lose hope.

We’re approaching Lent, and you’ll have a very special place in my prayers as we approach that season of penance. Again, I’m very grateful that you wrote.

Fraternally yours in Christ,

It would it be very strange if the principal of a public high school wrote such a letter to a teacher who had been sent to prison for abusing a student. High school principals have — or should have — nothing like the relationship a bishop has with his priests.

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.

IRELAND
Newstalk

Francesca Comyn
Wednesday 22 January 2014

A number of high-profile criminal appeals may have to be re-heard because High Court judge Mr. Justice Michael Hanna is seriously ill.

Cases affected include convicted killer Brian Rattigan, sex attacker Anthony Lyons and the ‘singing priest’ child sex abuser Tony Walsh.

Chief Justice Susan Denham announced Mr. Justice Hanna’s illness at the Court of Criminal Appeal this morning.

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/CHICAGO (IL)
KGW

by Associated Press
Posted on January 22, 2014

CHICAGO (AP) — Top leaders at the Archdiocese of Chicago helped hide the sexual abuse of children as they struggled to contain a growing crisis, according to thousands of pages of internal documents that also raise new questions about how Cardinal Francis George handled the allegations even after the church adopted reforms.

The documents, released through settlements between attorneys for the archdiocese and victims, describe how priests for decades were moved from parish to parish while the archdiocese hid the clerics’ histories from the public, often with the approval of the late Cardinals John Cody and Joseph Bernardin.

George had a relatively short tenure in Portland, appointed archbishop in 1996. He was noted for taking on Lane County prosecutors who wanted to use a jail confession as evidence, winning in federal court at the appellate level.

Although the abuse documented in the files occurred before George became archbishop in 1997, many victims did not come forward until after he was appointed and after U.S. bishops pledged in 2002 to keep all accused priests out of ministry.

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 Guardian

Ruth Stark
Guardian Professional, Wednesday 22 January 2014

What do adult survivors of childhood abuse really need when they open up about their experiences and expose themselves to public scrutiny? Justice or acknowledgement of the trauma they have suffered?

Northern Ireland and Scotland have set up initiatives that aim to provide a place for abuse survivors to talk about their experiences. The Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Inquiry has begun in Northern Ireland, and new legislation in Scotland will establish a National Confidential Forum that will work in partnership with the Mental Welfare Commission.

In England, social workers at a recent workshop on the subject suggested that people who have been abused need to feel believed. But victims of abuse, who have been through public inquiries, say it is justice they seek.

Human rights and social justice are inextricably linked. This is written into the 2004 international definition of social work and is central to the British Association of Social Workers’ code of ethics.

Social work professionals often refer to people achieving validation, increased self-esteem or having their case substantiated when defining positive outcomes.

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

Victims want law enforcement to “step up”
Group urges more action by police & prosecutors
“Use bully pulpit to beg others to come forward,” SNAP says
And victims want a bishop ousted from board of a boys’ home
“Others who concealed abuse must be disciplined too,” they say
That’s never happens & that’s why cover ups continue, SNAP contends

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will urge Chicago law enforcement officials to
–aggressively and publicly beg those with knowledge or suspicions of clergy sex crimes to step forward,
–launch grand jury investigations into the ongoing church abuse & cover up scandal, and
–be more resourceful about bringing ANY kind of charge against complicit officials.
The group will also urge the Chicago Catholic hierarchy to
–remove a “complicit” bishop from the board of a local boys home, and
–prevent future cover ups by punishing other “enablers” – the church staffers who ignored or hid evidence or warnings of clergy sex crimes, especially those clerics whose names appear in the just-released, long-secret church abuse records.

WHEN
TODAY, Wednesday, Jan. 22 at 1:45 p.m.

WHERE
On the sidewalk outside the Holy Name Cathedral, North State Street at Superior Street, Chicago IL

WHO
Five-six adults who belong to a self-help group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org). Some were molested as kids; others are concerned Catholics.

WHY
Yesterday, long-secret Chicago archdiocesan records about clerics who committed and concealed child sex crimes were disclosed, Now, using that information, SNAP is urging local law enforcement officials to redouble their efforts to vpursue the wrongdoers. Specifically, the group wants secular authorities to launch formal investigations and use their “bully pulpits” to “aggressively beg victims, witnesses, and whistleblowers to come forward, especially current and former Catholic employees.”

According to BishopAccountability.org, there are 121 publicly accused Chicago archdiocesan predator priests. Six thousand pages have just been released about 30 of them. Of those 30, 14 are still alive. And only a handful of Chicago child molesting clerics have been criminally prosecuted, while no one who “ignored or hid” their crimes ever have.

SNAP believes that can, and should, change.

“Archaic laws are don’t help, but we suspect the real reason is a lack of political will by prosecutors,” said SNAP’s David Clohessy. “Often, ‘where there’s a will, there’s a 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.

VATICAN CITY
The Raw Story

By Agence France-Presse
Tuesday, January 21, 2014

A former Vatican accountant already under house arrest and on trial for alleged corruption and attempted money laundering has been notified of fresh charges against him, Italy’s financial police said on Tuesday.

The police said in a statement that they had seized Monsignor Nunzio Scarano’s luxury 17-room apartment and blocked nearly 9.0 million euros ($12 million) on current accounts linked to the senior Italian cleric.

The Vatican in July last year said it had already frozen assets belonging to Scarano and the police on Tuesday said these funds amounted to 2.2 million euros.

“This is very significant,” the police said in a statement, a reference to unprecedented levels of cooperation between Vatican and Italian judicial authorities on a high-profile financial crime case.

Vatican bank spokesman Max Hohenberg told AFP: “All activity on his accounts over the past 10 years has been extracted, analysed and submitted to authorities.

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
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 22 January 2014)

This Broken Rites article is the most comprehensive account available about how the Marist Brothers allowed the sex-abuse criminal Brother Ross Francis Murrin to remain in their Order, thus giving him access to more child victims. In 2014, Australia’s national Royal Commission on Child Sexual Abuse is investigating this pattern of cover-up. See our 2014 update under the final sub-heading: “How the church treated this victim, Mr DK”.

Brother Ross Murrin was jailed in 2008 and 2010 for child-sex crimes, committed during his teaching career in Australian Catholic schools. There is evidence that his Marist superiors were aware many years ago about his criminal behaviour but they negligently allowed him to continue teaching, until some of Murrin’s victims finally spoke to the police in 2007. In 2014,

Murrin worked in eleven Catholic schools in New South Wales and Queensland. Here are three examples:

* Murrin’s first school was the Marist Brothers boys’ primary school in DACEYVILLE (in Sydney’s east) in 1974. On 10 March 2008, Murrin was jailed after pleading guilty to 17 charges of indecently assaulting eight boys in Year 5 and Year 6 at this school.

* Murrin’s third school was St Augustine’s College in CAIRNS, Queensland, in 1979-81. Queensland police have taken sworn statements from former Cairns pupils, alleged that they were molested by Murrin. There is evidence that the school administration knew what Murrin was doing. Yet he was kept in the Marist order and was transferred to more schools.

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
lewisblayse.net

The chief commissioner of the Australian royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse, Peter McClellan, and his counsel assisting, Gail “Snow White” Furness, have been very kind to the Catholic Church. They have given it another chance to distort the story about its “Towards Healing” protocol for dealing with its victims.

In a special hearing today, which will continue tomorrow, the person who has been described as the “media relations man” for the Catholic Church’s PR unit, Truth Justice and Healing Council, established to deal with the fall-out from the royal commission (see previous posting), has been given the floor to reject claims made during the main, official, hearings last year.

The YMCA has already been given this opportunity yesterday, with the difference that their submission is not being released for public scrutiny.

Michael Salmon is the New South Wales and ACT Director of the Professional Standards Office within the Catholic Church. He was given free reign, without cross-examination by victims’ lawyers, to claim that one victim gave false evidence. The victim, known as DK, (see previous posting) had claimed that he had not been informed of Mr. Salmon’s position within the church during “pastoral” consultations with the Catholic Church.

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.

FLORIDA
Associated Baptist Press

By Bob Allen

The Florida Baptist Convention plans to appeal a jury’s decision to award $12.5 million in damages in a lawsuit claiming Baptist officials didn’t check far enough into the background of a church planter convicted in 2007 of sexually abusing a 13-year-old boy.

A Lake County, Fla., jury agreed unanimously Jan. 18 to grant what is described as one of the largest monetary awards in Florida to a 21-year-old man who was victimized as a child by Douglas Myers, a convicted serial child molester, currently in prison in Maryland after serving a seven-year prison term in Florida.

The judgment, reported by the Orlando Sentinel, followed a six-day trial over the matter of damages. Another jury in May 2012 found the Florida Baptist Convention liable for running criminal, credit and background checks but neglecting to check references before helping Myers plant two now-defunct churches with training, financial aid and what the lawsuit termed implied endorsement by reporting news of his endeavor in the Baptist state newspaper.

At the time a lawyer representing Florida Baptists challenged the ruling, saying it was inconsistent for the jury to agree with the convention’s main argument that Myers was not an employee of the state affiliate of the Southern Baptist Convention and yet still hold convention officials accountable for actions of someone they did not hire or supervise, but an appeal could not be filed until after the penalty phase.

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TOLEDO (OH)
The Blade

Editorial

A United Nations investigation of the Roman Catholic Church’s clergy sex-abuse scandal should prompt the Vatican to be more transparent and Pope Francis to crack down harder on the abusers’ enablers.

Barbara Blaine, a founder of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), was abused by a priest in Toledo when she was a little girl. Last week in Geneva, she watched an international human rights panel grill Vatican representatives about the church’s lukewarm response to the child sex-abuse scandal.

Ms. Blaine and other SNAP members argue that the Vatican is not honoring its agreement to abide by the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. The U.N. committee demanded that the Vatican open its files on sex-abuse cases — which it has not done — and improve the transparency of how it handles such cases.

The U.N. panel and other independent, secular bodies must investigate, publicize, and prosecute not only the abusers, but also those who shielded them. The Ohio General Assembly needs to revisit a law it passed in 2006 that failed to extend a statute of limitations for abuse cases, so that cases that came to light years after the fact can still be prosecuted.

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CANADA
The Globe and Mail

GLORIA GALLOWAY
OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail
Published Tuesday, Jan. 21 2014

The federal Conservative government is taking legal action to force dozens of Catholic organizations that ran aboriginal residential schools to pay their full share of a compensation package promised seven years ago to the schools’ former students.

Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt said in a letter this month that the Catholic groups have not fulfilled their part of the Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.

“Although the Catholic Entities have already paid a lot of what they owe under the settlement agreement, it is the government of Canada’s position that they continue to have outstanding obligations,” Mr. Valcourt wrote in a letter dated Jan. 15 to Ronald Kidd, a Vancouver man who had expressed concerns. “Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada is pursuing the Catholics in a legal setting to have the balance paid,” Mr. Valcourt wrote.

The settlement was meant to be a resolution to the tragic legacy of the church-run schools, in which tens of thousands of aboriginal children were taken from their families, often to live in situations of deprivation. At least 3,000 died and many more were subjected to emotional and physical abuse.

While the government paid the lion’s share of the compensation, the churches were also required to make reparations.

The Anglican, Presbyterian and United Churches have met their obligations.

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)
Philadelphia Daily News

MENSAH M. DEAN, DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER DEANM@PHILLYNEWS.COM, 215-568-8278
POSTED: Wednesday, January 22, 2014

CHAD, A JUNIOR at West Catholic Preparatory High School, is in a predicament similar to that of Monsignor William Lynn, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia official released from prison last month.

Chad was ordered by a Juvenile Court judge to wear an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet as part of his sentence for a December arrest. Lynn, whose child-endangerment conviction was overturned on appeal last month, also was ordered to wear an ankle bracelet as a term of his release from prison.

But the Archdiocese’s responses to both court orders have been as different as night and day.

Lynn, 63, was literally taken in by the church, which paid his bail and is allowing him to live at St. William Parish in the Northeast while the District Attorney’s Office appeals to get his conviction reinstated.

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VATICAN CITY
Chicago Tribune

Philip Pullella
Reuters
3:45 a.m. CST, January 22, 2014

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The Vatican bank asked Italy on Wednesday to resume financial relations effectively frozen since 2010, saying it had made great progress with new anti-money laundering measures Rome had demanded.

The request was made in a status report on the “compliance and transparency program”, of the bank, whose official title is the Institute for Works of Religion (IOR).

“The IOR looks forward to a resumption of full interaction with Italian financial institutions pending review by Italian regulatory authorities of the Holy See and Vatican City State’s anti-money laundering provisions,” the report said.

Italian banks stopped dealing with the Vatican bank in 2010 after the Bank of Italy told them they had to enforce strict anti-money laundering criteria.

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VATICAN CITY
Gazzetta del Sud

Rome, January 22 – The Vatican bank said Wednesday that it was ready to resume normal relations with Italy after making progress in measures to prevent money laundering and other financial crimes. The image of the bank, officially called the the Institute for Religious Works (IOR), has been hit by a series of scandals over the years. Italian banks effectively stopped dealing with the IOR in 2010 after the Bank of Italy ordered them to enforce strict anti-money laundering criteria to continue working with it. The Vatican has made several reforms to introduce greater financial transparency and fight money laundering since Francis was elected pope last year.

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VATICAN CITY
RTE News

The Vatican bank asked Italy today to resume normal banking relations, which have been effectively frozen since 2010.

It said it had made great progress with new anti-money laundering provisions.

“The bank looks forward to a resumption of full interaction with Italian financial institutions pending review by Italian regulatory authorities of the Holy See and Vatican City State’s anti-money laundering provisions,” a report said.

Italian banks stopped dealing with the Vatican bank in 2010 after the central bank told them they had to enforce strict anti-money laundering criteria if they wanted to continue transacting with it.

A status report on the bank’s reform efforts also said the head of the bank ordered several special investigations in 2013 into suspicious accounts as part of its programme to improve transparency and thwart more attempts to launder money.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Wednesday 22 January 2014

Gerry Braiden
Senior reporter

AN OUTSPOKEN priest suspended for alleging a culture of homosexual bullying within the Catholic Church in Scotland is facing legal action to remove him from the parish house.

Father Matthew Despard, who has been suspended since last November, is alleged to be refusing to leave at the presbytery house of St John Ogilvie, High Blantyre, Lanarkshire, having changed the locks.

He continues to live in the property against the will of the interim Bishop Of Motherwell Joseph Toal, leading to the start of court action against him.

Father Despard, who has also faced threats of civil action by fellow priests who believe they have been defamed in his book, Priesthood In Crisis, was due to appear at Hamilton Sheriff Court last week as part of the action but the matter did not progress.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic World Report

By Catherine Harmon

Yesterday Reuters reported on an interview given to a German newspaper by Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, Honduras in which the influential cardinal criticized the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal-Designate Gerhard Ludwig Müller.

Magadiaga, who is coordinator of the council of cardinals selected by Pope Francis to advise him on curial reform and Church governance, was responding to a question about Müller’s statements on Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics. Last fall, the CDF head published a lengthy defense of Church teaching on the subject; he recently reiterated his position in an interview with the Italian Corriere della Sera, stating, “We must try a combination of general principles and particular, personal situations. Finding solutions to individual problems, though always on the foundation of Catholic doctrine…. [M]any think the Pope or a synod can say: of course, receive Communion. But this is not possible.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
WGN

[with video]

Mark Holihan

by Robert H. Jordan Jr
Anchor/Reporter

Page after page of documents, released by the Archdiocese of Chicago – some of them heavily redacted – show a pervasive climate of sexual abuse by many priests, many of whom never received a slap on the wrist for egregious behavior involving untold numbers of minors, mostly boys.

Going back at least 40 years and mostly covering the tenures of Cardinals Joseph Bernardin and current head, Francis Cardinal George, the papers indicate an almost inescapable conclusion that both leaders knew abuses were widespread and prevalent.

This 1986 handwritten letter from a concerned parishioner to Cardinal Bernardin warns of instances when altar boys reported to their parents discovering Fr. Mark Holihan fondling other boys. Another document from a retired priest, Leo Kinsella refers to Fr. Holihan by the nickname of, “Happy Hands Holihan.”

Additionally, Fr. Kinsella tells the story of the 77-year old female cook working in the rectory: “Evidently BLANK does the laundry, and thinking that Mark was gone for the, day, went to his room to put the laundry away, and when she opened up the bedroom door, she discovered Mark in bed with a young boy.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

The director of the Catholic Church’s professional standards office has told a national abuse inquiry that church-appointed facilitators in abuse cases act in the interests of the victim.

Michael Salmon, who heads the office in NSW and the ACT, has come under intense questioning at a Sydney hearing about the application of the church’s Towards Healing protocol – an internal process that abuse complainants can opt to engage in.

Mr Salmon was the facilitator in two cases that have been considered by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

In a hearing that opened in December, the commission heard that the application of Towards Healing varied widely and some abuse victims found it legalistic and intimidating.

It has also emerged that compensation payouts varied widely and were heavily influenced by Catholic Church insurers.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Thomas Oriti

An inquiry into child sexual abuse has been told it is appropriate for authorities within the Catholic Church to play a central role in the healing process for victims.

In December, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse examined the cases of four people who had participated in the Towards Healing process.

Towards Healing was established by the Catholic Church in the mid-1990s to respond to complaints of abuse involving Church personnel.

His long-awaited appearance comes after a victim accused the Catholic Church of deceiving him in the lead-up to his Towards Healing facilitation session.

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AUSTRALIA
WA Today

January 22, 2014

Annette Blackwell

A cup of tea and a lie-down was once the Catholic Church’s attitude towards rehabilitation of victims of abuse.

But times and the church have changed, the director of the church’s Professional Standards Office for NSW/ACT told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Wednesday.

Michael Salmon defended Towards Healing, the church’s internal process for dealing with abuse complainants.

He has facilitated hundreds of sessions with victims and at Wednesday’s hearing denied he kept the fact he was employed by the church from a victim identified as DK – a now 49-year-old man abused by three different members of the clergy while a student at St Augustine’s College in Cairns in 1976.

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MICHIGAN
WOOD

[with video]

Michael Howard Weston

By Rachel Zoll and Tammy Webber, Associated Press
Updated: Wednesday, January 22, 2014

CHICAGO (AP) — Top leaders at the Archdiocese of Chicago helped hide the sexual abuse of children as they struggled to contain a growing crisis, according to thousands of pages of internal documents that raise new questions about how Cardinal Francis George handled the allegations even after the church adopted reforms.

The documents, released through settlements between attorneys for the archdiocese and victims, describe how priests for decades were moved from parish to parish while the archdiocese hid the clerics’ histories from the public, often with the approval of the late Cardinals John Cody and Joseph Bernardin.

Although the abuse documented in the files occurred before George became archbishop in 1997, many victims did not come forward until after he was appointed and after U.S. bishops pledged in 2002 to keep all accused priests out of ministry.

Priest Michael Howard Weston, who was among the alleged abusers, was at one time the chaplain for Western Michigan University and Kalamazoo Valley College.

What brought him to West Michigan is one of the major complaints in the Chicago abuse coverup: Even after serious allegations came forward, accused priests were allowed to move away and preach elsewhere.

Weston was a priest in the Chicago area in the 1970s when the allegations were made. At least one victim claimed Weston had sexually assaulted him, saying Weston massaged him and touched him while the two were nude.

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ILLINOIS
Daily Herald

Thomas Job

By Russell Lissau

Among the former priests named in the church documents made public Tuesday is Thomas Job, who was assigned to St. Joseph Catholic Church in Libertyville and then St. Bede Catholic Church in Ingleside, both in the 1980s.

Job was named in a 2005 settlement of a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Chicago by 24 adults who claimed they were molested by priests.

According to documents available for public review at abusedinchicago.com, archdiocese officials in 1983 were aware of accusations Job “had engaged in sexual activities” with a teenage boy while a pastor in LaGrange.

According to the memo from the Archdiocese, Job agreed to monthly supervisory sessions with a vicar. Additionally, the pastor of the Libertyville parish was to serve as an on-site supervisor, according to the document.

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ILLINOIS
Daily Herald

Raymond Skriba

By Charles Keeshan

It was in 1970 that Archdiocese of Chicago officials first learned that a pair of teenage girls had accused the Rev. Raymond Skriba of touching them inappropriately in the rectory of a Southwest side church.

It wasn’t until more than three decades later — by which time Skriba was the pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Round Lake — that the Archdiocese took action against him.

Archdiocese documents released Tuesday stretching more than three decades detail how Skriba, despite his denials of wrongdoing, was moved away from the parish where the girls had accused him because, as one church official put it, “this is not a good situation,” and how he ultimately ended up in Round Lake where another allegation of abuse arose in 2003. In between, allegations of abuse stemming from his time at a Franklin Park parish in the 1960s surfaced.

In the Round Lake case, documents show that a man told Archdiocese investigators that in 1995, when he was in eighth grader, Skriba fondled him in the church sacristy. Another St. Joseph parishioner complained that in 1992 Skriba asked her 7-year-old daughter inappropriate sexual questions during confession.

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ILLINOIS
Daily Herald

Robert Mayer

By Charles Keeshan

Despite numerous complaints of inappropriate conduct toward children by a former priest at an Arlington Heights parish, officials in the Archdiocese of Chicago chose to move him to other suburban parishes — where other abuse claims arose — and keep secret the reasons for his transfer, according to church documents made public today.

Details regarding the allegations against former priest Robert Mayer, the former associate pastor at St. Edna Catholic Church in the 1980s, were among the hundreds of pages of archdiocese documents released Tuesday detailing the investigations into child molestation accusations against more than 30 priests and church officials’ reactions to them.

Cardinal Francis George said in a letter sent to parishes last week that the archdiocese agreed to turn over the records in an attempt to help the victims heal. “I apologize to all those who have been harmed by these crimes and this scandal,” George wrote.

The archdiocese said all of the files released today occurred before 1996, most were in the 1980s and that eventually all 30 of the cases were reported to authorities.

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ILLINOIS
Daily Herald

Vince McCaffrey

By Jamie Sotonoff

Father Vince McCaffrey had a history of predatory abuse when he arrived at St. Joseph the Worker Church in Wheeling in the 1980s. Catholic church leaders knew it; parishioners did not.

He was assigned to four parishes in the Chicago area over the years, abusing as many as 100 children before being jailed for child pornography possession. While McCaffrey was in Wheeling, the 10-year-old son of Jim and Kathy Laarveld became one of his victims.

“It even happened on his first communion, in my own house, while we were taking family photos and he was sitting on (McCaffrey’s) lap. He was a professional,” Kathy Laarveld said of the priest.

The Laarvelds were among the victims and family members who spoke, sometimes tearfully, during a news conference Tuesday in Chicago, where, as part of a court settlement, the Archdiocese of Chicago released more than 6,000 pages of internal communications about 30 of its 65 priests accused of sexually abusing children.

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ILLINOIS
Daily Herald

James Steele

By Charles Keeshan

When a 13-year-old boy went to his associate pastor at St. Joseph the Worker Church in Wheeling 30 years ago, confused over the sexual abuse he said he was suffering at the hands of the parish school’s principal, James Steel didn’t offer the young parishioner comfort.

Instead, according to the findings of a 2006 report made for the Archdiocese of Chicago, there is credible evidence Steel sexually assaulted the teen.

The investigation looked into claims made against Steel, a now former priest who served the Wheeling parish from 1979 to 1984.

“In the (investigator’s) opinion there is reason to believe the accused engaged in inappropriate sexual abuse of (the victim),” the private investigations firm Jack Burke & Associates states in the report. “The detail of (the victim’s) statement, the corroboration of time and place by former school principal Donald Ryniecki and the opinions of law enforcement officers from Wheeling, IL and from Washburn County, WI support this finding.”

A subsequent letter to Cardinal Francis George from Leah McCluskey, the Archdiocese’s professional responsibility administrator, states that “in light of the information presented, there is reasonable cause to suspect that the alleged misconduct occurred.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
Plain Dealer

[the documents via BishopAccountability.org]

[the documents via Jeff Anderson & Associates]

By Associated Press
on January 21, 2014

CHICAGO — Top leaders at the Archdiocese of Chicago helped hide the sexual abuse of children as they struggled to contain a growing crisis, according to thousands of pages of internal documents that raise new questions about how Cardinal Francis George handled the allegations even after the church adopted reforms.

The documents, released through settlements between attorneys for the archdiocese and victims, describe how priests for decades were moved from parish to parish while the archdiocese hid the clerics’ histories from the public, often with the approval of the late Cardinals John Cody and Joseph Bernardin.

Although the abuse documented in the files occurred before George became archbishop in 1997, many victims did not come forward until after he was appointed and after U.S. bishops pledged in 2002 to keep all accused priests out of ministry.

George delayed removing the Rev. Joseph R. Bennett, despite learning that the priest had been accused of sexually abusing girls and boys decades earlier. Even the board the cardinal appointed to help him evaluate abuse claims advised George that Bennett should be removed.

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AUSTRALIA
Telegraph

Senior Catholic official admits church’s compensation system for sex-abuse victims is ‘problematic’

PETER BODKIN THE DAILY TELEGRAPH JANUARY 22, 2014

A SENIOR Catholic official has admitted the church’s compensation system for sexual-abuse victims under the controversial “Towards Healing” process had been “problematic”.

While one victim received up to $850,000 from the church for the exploitation they suffered at the hands of a priest, another man who was routinely sexually and physically abused over a six-year period from when he was 12 years old was offered just $80,000.

The victim, known as DK, reported being repeatedly abused by three Marist brothers, including one named Ross Francis Murrin, while boarding at St Augustine’s College in Cairns between 1976 and 1981.

In 2010 he attended a Towards Healing session in Brisbane led by Michael Salmon, who DK claimed had been introduced to him as “an independent mediator and lawyer” – only to later discover the man was really the director of the church’s NSW Professional Standards Office.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

By Christy Gutowski and Manya Brachear Pashman
Tribune reporters
10:17 p.m. CST, January 21, 2014

Joe Iacono wants to read the letters by himself so he can deal with the pain in private.

Jim Laarveld wants to be by his son’s side when Keith Laarveld sees the files for the first time.

But Diana Houston laments that her son John took his life years before Tuesday’s release of records that show how the Archdiocese of Chicago failed to protect him and other children from pedophile priests.

Those records — thousands of documents chronicling the archdiocese’s response to sexual abuse allegations against 30 priests over the past half-century — stirred many emotions, especially for the victims of clergy sexual abuse who waged a nine-year battle to see this day come. For the first time, they could see what the church did and didn’t do when they cried for help.

“It’s just really hard,” said Houston, of southwest suburban Hometown, who puts some blame on the church for her son’s suicide in 2002 when he was 33. “I was brought up Catholic, and priests are supposed to do no wrong. I just think it’s horrible that they kept all this a secret for so long.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

Joseph Bennett
Norbert Maday
Daniel McCormack

BY JON SEIDEL Staff Reporter January 21, 2014

The Archdiocese of Chicago swiftly pointed out Tuesday that the vast majority of sexual abuse allegations leveled in newly released records occurred years, even decades ago.

But those records show Cardinal Francis George testified in 2008 about the archdiocese’s handling under his leadership of sexual abuse allegations against the the Reverends Joseph Bennett, Norbert Maday and Daniel McCormack.

“What upsets me is the record of abuse,” George said in a 2008 deposition. “No matter when it happened.”

The records were released by a pair of attorneys whose clients have sued the archdiocese over abuse allegations and won settlements.

The archdiocese said in a written statement that 95 percent of the cases mentioned in the documents occurred before 1988. It said not one priest with a substantiated allegation of sexual abuse of a minor is serving in its ministry today.

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