ABUSE TRACKER

OHIO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, March 20, 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 )

Cincinnati archdiocesan officials are ramping up the restriction on what Catholic teachers may say and do.

[Cincinnati Enquirer]

Top Catholic officials can keep tightening the screws on their flocks about legal speech and behavior. But their tough discipline is likely to ring hollow and be ineffective because they refuse to take similar action against their colleagues who ignore or conceal clergy sex crimes.

It’s ironic that Catholic teachers who say and do things that are legal face punishments while Catholic officials who say hurtful things about abuse victims and do illegal things about predator priests virtually never face punishments.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

March 21, 2014

Catherine Armitage
Senior Writer

An email sent by the Catholic Church’s solicitor to its barristers suggested sex abuse victim John Ellis, as a boy of 14 or 15, used to “force himself” on the ageing priest who was sexually abusing him.

The email was sent during the court case in which Mr Ellis sought damages for abuse, which began when he was a 13-year-old altar boy at the hands of Father Aidan Duggan at the Sydney Archdiocese’s Bass Hill parish.

Tendered in evidence at the royal commission on child sex abuse, the email promises the barristers they will be “greeted with open arms at the Pearly Gates”.

Solicitor John Dalzell is now a partner at Gadens Lawyers but was then a senior associate at Corrs Chambers Westgarth, which was being instructed by Cardinal George Pell, who was a defendant.

The commission has been trying to establish who was responsible for the church’s conduct in the case, which not only left Mr Ellis a broken man, but also insulated the church against claims from other future victims.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, March 20, 2014

For more info David Clohessy 314 566 9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com, Barbara Dorris 314 503 0003, SNAPdorris@gmail.com

Victims blast controversial speakers
SNAP objects to three prelates being honored
Each one, group says, concealed clergy sex crimes
In one case, three Catholic organizations also objected
And in that case, retired NYC Cardinal won’t attend event
Two top church officials should discourage such invitations, SNAP says

Three times last week, a victims’ group raised concerns about Catholic prelates who allegedly concealed child sex crimes speaking at church events, and one of those appearances was cancelled. Now the group is asking the head of the US bishops’ conference to urge his colleagues to avoid similar controversies.

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, are writing Louisville Archbishop Joseph Kurtz and Joliet Bishop Daniel Conlon about public appearances by bishops who “protected predators and endangered kids.” Kurtz is the president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. Conlon heads the conference’s sex abuse committee.

SNAP recently objected to these prelates:

–Retired New York Cardinal Edward Egan was to preside over a children’s choir mass at St. Ignatius Loyola parish in Manhattan this month.

[New Haven Register]

[New Haven Register]

The parish had announced the event on its website. But last Friday, the parish announced that Egan would not be coming. http://www.stignatiusloyola.org/

–Retired Philadelphia Archbishop Cardinal Rigali, who is to be a featured speaker at the Catholic Men Servant Leaders annual conference at Lexington Catholic High School in Lexington, Kentucky on March 22.

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MISSISSIPPI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, March 20, 2014

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

Priest with child sex abuse allegations is promoted
He is accused of molesting at least four boys & was sued
But he went overseas and is second-in-command of a diocese
And at least one child sex lawsuit against him has been settled
Group wants Jackson bishop to reach out to victims & get priest defrocked

A Catholic priest who allegedly molested several boys is now second-in-command at a diocese in Paraguay. And a victims’ group wants Jackson Bishop Joseph R. Kopacz, who was once the cleric’s supervisor, to reach out to others he has hurt and urge the Pope to intervene and defrock him.

[Pocono Record]

Fr. Carlos Urrutigoity was accused of sexually abusing at least four boys in the Scranton Pennsylvania diocese, where Kopacz was in leadership positions, between 2002-2004. At least two civil suits were filed and one of them was settled for $454,550.

But last week, a Boston-based research group called BishopAccountability.org disclosed that Fr. Urrutigoity is now in the Diocese of Ciudad del Este, Paraguay and is its Vicar General.

Bishop Kopacz was in charge of investigating child abuse allegations in the diocese of Scranton while Fr. Urrutigoity worked there. Kopacz allegedly ignored a warning about Urrutigoity’s inappropriate behavior without even talking to the victim. In 1999, Kopacz and his Scranton church colleagues were warned by Minnesota church officials about allegations that Father Urrutigoity had abused a seminarian, according to a federal lawsuit.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX THE AUSTRALIAN MARCH 21, 2014

THE Catholic Church was wrong to deny in court that a Sydney priest had sexually abused a child, despite a previous church inquiry finding the abuse took place, Cardinal George Pell’s private secretary has said.

The former archbishop of Sydney has also moved to distance himself from the handling of the controversial case, saying it was “disproportionate to the objective and to the psychological state” of the abuse victim.

Giving evidence yesterday to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Michael Casey said he was “a conduit” between the church’s lawyers and Cardinal Pell, who rarely uses a computer or mobile phone.

The cardinal’s instructions had been to “vigorously defend” the claim, brought by former altar boy John Ellis, who was sexually assaulted by a Sydney priest over several years during the 1970s, Dr Casey said.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Main Post

Es melden sich immer weniger: Professor Klaus Laubenthal, Ansprechpartner in der Diözese Würzburg für Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs, wurden ab März 2013 vier Vorwürfe übermittelt, drei davon gegen bereits verstorbene Kleriker (darunter ein Ordensmann). Der vierte Vorwurf gegen einen ehrenamtlichen Mitarbeiter in der kirchlichen Jugendarbeit betrifft nach Angaben des Bischöflichen Ordinariats eine Grenzverletzung unterhalb der Schwelle der Strafbarkeit.

Im Zeitraum 2012/13 erreichten Klaus Laubenthal noch neun Vorwürfe, 2011/2012 wandten sich 14 Missbrauchsopfer an ihn. Die meisten Opfer waren ab Ende Januar 2010 bereit, über ihren Missbrauch zu reden, nachdem die Fälle am Canisius-Kolleg in Berlin bekanntgeworden waren. Damals hatte der Lehrstuhlinhaber für Strafrecht und Kriminologie an der Universität Würzburg 62 Vorwürfe überprüft.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Wirral News

Church disciplinary procedures launched against Reverend Ian Hughes after he was handed a 12-month jail sentence in January

A disgraced Merseyside vicar is facing expulsion from his Church of England post after being jailed for making and possessing indecent images of children.

Church disciplinary procedures have now been launched against Reverend Ian Hughes after he was handed a 12-month sentence in January.

Under the guidelines issued to church leaders, Rev Hughes could be removed and banned from office for life.

The 46-year-old pleaded guilty to making and possessing thousands of child porn images at a crown court hearing earlier this year.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

by JOANNE McCARTHY March 20, 2014

IN a nursing home bed, a former Hunter nun, who was a priest’s sexual partner from the age of 15, spends her days in the silences of advanced dementia while her brother demands the truth from the Catholic Church.

The priest, Father Noel Geraghty of the Catholic order Oblates of Mary Immaculate, died in 2005 without the long-term relationship being acknowledged in public by the Church, although it has confirmed it in writing to the nun’s family.

There is evidence the former nun, 70, who has been in care from the age of 63, was not the priest’s only female sexual partner.

The former nun’s brother, a retired teacher who lives in the Hunter, is speaking about it for the first time as the Church faces a new crisis – exposure of its male clergy’s forbidden, secret and abusive relationships with adult women.

“There are so many women out there in this position,” said the former nun’s brother, David, who asked that the family’s identity not be disclosed.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By Nicola Ross March 19, 2014

IN recent days reports have emerged about organised sexual abuse of teenagers in residential care in Victoria. We have also witnessed the devastating stories of adult survivors of child sexual and other abuse by the authorities into whose care they were entrusted when they were vulnerable children.

We hope that the royal commission’s investigations will lead to some outcomes to prevent similar stories being told in 20 years’ time. But is this likely?

At the very same time that the royal commission is in progress, we are hearing stories that must cast doubt on the question of whether we are really ready for change. The most recent story to emerge is related to paedophile gangs targeting children in residential state care in Victoria for sexual favours.

Most people would agree that where it is possible, children are better off in family settings and, thankfully, there are relatively few children and younger people in residential care. Yet there are now approximately 40,000 children in out-of-home care in Australia – with foster carers or in kinship placements (with grandparents or other family members) – and this number is growing. But this does not resolve the issue either, as abuse can or does occur in these settings.

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AUSTRALIA
Perth Now

South Australian magistrate threw out paedophile charges, Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse told

SALLY BROOKS THE ADVERTISER MARCH 20, 2014

POLICE had difficulty successfully prosecuting paedophiles almost two decades ago, with one case thrown out by a magistrate who was himself later charged with child sex offences, an inquiry has heard.

Detective Senior Sergeant Walter Conte has told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse charges were laid against a paedophile following a raid in 1993 but the matter was dropped.

“The charges for some reason were brought before the Adelaide Magistrates Court whereas they were originally set down for a committal hearing at the Holden Hill Magistrates Court,” he said.

“I recall bringing along my witnesses, and essentially everything was thrown out by Magistrate (Richard) Brown, or perhaps there was no evidence tendered, or something like that.”

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AUSTRALIA
Courier Mail

BY MARGARET SCHEIKOWSKI AAP MARCH 20, 2014

A SENIOR Catholic education officer has apologised to the victims of “shocking and appalling” sexual abuse carried out by a bus driver who worked at an Adelaide special school.

Allan Dooley also said the school principal’s handling of the initial complaints in 1991 was “unacceptable”.

Mr Dooley, former director of Catholic Education in the Archdiocese of Adelaide, was giving evidence on Thursday at the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse.

It is investigating Adelaide’s St Ann’s Special School and its bus driver and volunteer, Brian Perkins, who sexually abused intellectually disabled boys between 1986 and 1991.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Thursday 20 March 2014

A lawyer accused of evading his “ethical obligation” not to mislead during a priest abuse case has told a royal commission he was working on the instructions of the Catholic church.

In a cross-examination at the child sex abuse hearing in Sydney on Thursday, commission chair Justice Peter McClellan questioned the ethical approach taken by solicitor John Dalzell.

The lawyer instructed the legal team, which disputed whether John Ellis had been abused by a priest.

The commission is looking at how the archdiocese of Sydney, led by then-archbishop George Pell, handled Ellis’s complaint that he had been abused while an altar boy by Father Aidan Duggan at Bass Hill from 1974 to 1975.

Dalzell was a senior associate with law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth when they were employed by the archdiocese to defend the Ellis case.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Kittanning Paper

A former Kittanning priest has been charged with theft after a series of investigations that began more than three years ago.

Father Emil S. Payer , pastor of Seven Dolors Parish, Yukon, in the Diocese of Greensburg, was arraigned March 11 before District Magistrate Charles D. Moore in Scottdale and charged with theft by deception, theft by unlawful taking, theft by receiving stolen property and theft by misappropriation of entrusted property.

Father Payer, who has been on administrative leave from the parish since Aug. 11, 2011, was released on a non-monetary bond.

The charges stem from an investigation that began when parishioners of Seven Dolors Parish approached officials of the Diocese of Greensburg in early 2011 with concerns about parish finances. As a result of that meeting, the diocese immediately began a review of parish finances with an independent auditing firm. Subsequently, diocesan officials held a meeting on April 6, 2011, with the Parish Pastoral Council and Parish Finance Council of Seven Dolors Parish and informed council members of the review.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

ABC

BY COURT REPORTER CANDICE MARCUS
March 20, 2014

Police officers investigating a paedophile ring in South Australia were angered at the decision to prematurely shut down the inquiry, a royal commission has heard.

The inquiry into sexual abuse of children who went to St Ann’s Special School in Adelaide has heard the police investigation was closed in 1993.

Detective Senior Sergeant Walter Conte said no reason was given for closing the inquiry, but he had assumed it was due to a lack of resources.

“I know there was a lot of anger in the room about the decision because there was still a lot of exhibits that needed to be rationalised,” he said.

“Certainly there was room for a continued task force at that time. I think hence people were justifiably angry at the management decision to stop at that stage.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Register

JOAN FRAWLEY DESMOND

Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston has had a cardinal’s-eye view — shared by only a very select few — of the key events of the first year of Pope Francis’ papacy.

Cardinal O’Malley has devoted much of his vocation to ministering to Hispanic immigrants and working with the Church in Latin America, and he participated in the March 2013 conclave that elected Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio. Appointed subsequently to the eight-member Council of Cardinals formed to advise the Holy Father, the Boston archbishop has now taken on a more visible role in the global Church, working closely with Pope Francis on Church reforms, and announcing the formation of a new Vatican commission to address pastoral issues related to clergy sexual abuse and the protection of children.

On March 18, Cardinal O’Malley headlined “The Francis Factor,” an event sponsored by the Archdiocese of Baltimore that allowed the cardinal to share the rich and compelling insights about Pope Francis he has garnered during the past year. Before an audience of 3,000 people, Cardinal O’Malley spoke about Pope Francis as a “quintessential Ignatian Jesuit,” who is now sharing the fruits of his long practice of spiritual discernment, anchored in the discipline of the daily examan. …

You have labored to strengthen the Church’s response to the scourge of clergy sexual abuse, and you sent one of your own priests, Father Robert Oliver, to take over as the promoter of justice for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, prosecuting cases that are brought to the Vatican. Are you confident that the Holy See is fully engaged in the effort to implement reforms in churches across the world that will help protect children?

We have tried to help the Holy Father understand [the need for a strong response to clergy sexual abuse]. I know he understands its importance. That is why a commission on child protection is being formed.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Thursday 20 March 2014

Cardinal George Pell has believed child sex abuse victims should be able to sue the Catholic church for some time, his private secretary has told a royal commission.

Dr Michael Casey, who has been the Sydney archbishop’s private secretary for more than a decade, said that while he had not heard Cardinal Pell express it in the terms quoted at the royal commission last week, he understood it was his view.

“I think it was certainly his view that people had the right to take civil action against the church or church entities for sexual abuse.”

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is looking at how the archdiocese of Sydney handled a complaint by John Ellis that he had been abused while an altar boy by Father Aidan Duggan at Bass Hill in Sydney’s southwest from 1974 to 1979.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

By Phil Lawler March 19, 2014

Stop me if you’ve heard this one. A judge has ordered a Catholic archdiocese to release documents pertaining to the handling of sex-abuse cases.

You already know that story, right? But wait; I’m talking about today’s headline story, not the story that appeared last month or the month before that or… virtually every month since early 2002. It’s all become a blur, hasn’t it? In case after case the archdiocese fights against public disclosure, loses the legal battle, and is forced to release the documents.

Frankly, I’m tired of writing up these news stories. By now I could do it in my sleep, working from a template, filling in the proper nouns for each new case. “Judge X ruled that the Diocese of Y had not made a convincing case that the release of personnel records would violate the religious-freedom protections of the First Amendment.” In today’s case, the Minnesota judge pointedly observed that archdiocesan lawyers had asserted a need for religious-freedom protection, but never made a plausible argument for that protection. Maybe the lawyers are getting tired of it all, too.

Time and again the same old story is played out, with results that are now painfully predictable. The archdiocese resists, and critics say that Church leaders have something to hide. The resistance eventually crumbles, the documents are released, and the critics have another opportunity to cite the misdeeds of the Catholic hierarchy. Whereupon the diocesan PR spokesman issue an improbable claim that the diocese was always anxious to cooperate with the court and ensure that all the facts were available.

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WASHINGTON
Yakima Herald-Republic

By Donald W. Meyers / Yakima Herald-Republic
dmeyers@yakimaherald.com

YAKIMA, Wash. — Lawyers for a man suing the Diocese of Yakima rested their sex-abuse case in federal court Wednesday.

Lawyers for John Doe, as he is identified in court papers, concluded with testimony from Bishop Emeritus Carlos Sevilla, who presided over the diocese in 1999, when Doe says he was raped by Deacon Aaron Ramirez at a Zillah parish office.

The diocese opened its defense Wednesday in U.S. District Court with a psychiatrist who said that the emotional problems Doe’s attorneys say he suffers from were more likely caused by abuse endured when he was 5 rather than the incident with Ramirez.

Doe is suing the diocese, alleging it failed to properly screen Ramirez before accepting him as a priesthood candidate, and that church officials did not supervise Ramirez when he worked at Resurrection Catholic Church in Zillah.

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NEW YORK
Saratogian

By Kyle Hughes, NYSNYS News
POSTED: 03/18/14

ALBANY >> Edward Scharfenberger, the Brooklyn priest picked to become the 10th bishop of the Albany Catholic Diocese next month, made his debut as an Albany lobbyist Tuesday, making the rounds and meeting with Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

“At this point, I’m doing a lot of listening,” he told reporters after a press conference with Cardinal Timothy Dolan about a bill to create a new school donation tax credit that would help both public and parochial schools. “I want to hear from people.”

“Needless to say I see myself as a person who wants to be a peacemaker, to bring people together, to give people a sense of respect: self-respect, respect for their traditions, respect for their beliefs,” he added.

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CANADA
CBC News

Justice Robert Kilpatrick has denied Crown prosecutor Doug Curliss’ application from Tuesday to revisit the testimony of one of the complainants in the trial of former Oblate priest Eric Dejaeger.

The 66-year-old is on trial at the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit.

He’s facing dozens of charges alleging sexual abuse against children in Igloolik, Nunavut.

After a short break Wednesday morning, Crown prosecutor Barry Nordin made another application to the court, this time to consider the evidence of each complainant to support the evidence of the other complainants.

In total more than 40 people have testified, mostly about alleged sexual acts involving young girls, boys and even dogs.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY GLENN BLAIN

Victims of clergy sex abuse are criticizing Timothy Cardinal Dolan’s efforts to boost charitable donations to schools.

Mary Caplan, co-director of the New York City chapter of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, issued a statement Wednesday blasting Dolan for lobbying Albany lawmakers this week to approve tax credits for those who donate to schools or other education-related groups.

“When they want money for their institutions, Catholic officials lobby hard and say they care deeply about kids,” Caplan said. “But when kids who were abused want a chance for justice, Catholic officials lobby hard to deny those kids their day in court. All across the US, Dolan and his brother bishops use all their political will and power and resources to block moves to reform archaic, predator-friendly statute of limitations laws that endanger kids and protect those who commit and conceal heinous child sex crimes.”

Dolan spent the day at the Capitol Tuesday urging Gov. Cuomo and legislative leaders to support legislation that would grant up to $300 million in tax credits to people who donate to schools and other educational organizations. He argued it would encourage more donations to both public and private schools while also boosting funds for scholarships to parochial schools.

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VATICAN CITY
Gazzetta del Sud

Vatican City, March 19 – The new head of the Vatican Council for the Economy said Wednesday that soon the scandal-plagued Vatican bank will no longer pose a threat to the Catholic Church’s image, while another institution will become the “true bank of the Vatican”. In statements published by Spanish news agency Europa Press, Munich Cardinal Reinhard Marx said “there won’t be future occasions for (the Vatican bank) to hurt the Holy See’s reputation”. Officially called the Institute of Religious Works (IOR), the Vatican bank has come under scrutiny for alleged money laundering and is now working with the Council of Europe’s Moneyval agency to bring it in line with international standards.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

By Telegraph reporter 19 Mar 2014

An Islamic teacher who molested a girl as he taught her the Koran has avoided prison after claiming his family was dependent on him because his wife speaks “very little English”.

Suleman Maknojioa, 40, repeatedly rubbed the 11-year-old’s leg and reached underneath her headscarf to touch her chest while giving her and her two brothers private tuition in Arabic.

Maknojioa was said to have “favoured” the girl and believed the touching was “appropriate” to reassure her.

The girl was said to have become frightened of what the tutor would do to her. He was reported to police after the children’s mother overheard her sons, aged 13 and seven, talking about the incidents in the kitchen.

On the day he was arrested, Maknojioa, a father of six, was due to teach 30 children at a mosque near his home in Blackburn, Lancashire.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Express

IN A terrible betrayal of trust Suleman Maknojioa sexually abused a little girl of 11 as he taught her the Koran.

He had been brought into the family home by the parents to give lessons in the Islamic faith. The justice system has also betrayed this child and affronted public opinion by failing to hand down a tough sentence. Why?

Though Maknojioa was given a 40-week custodial sentence it was suspended for two years because Judge Michael Byrne decided that this man’s family was entirely dependent on him as his wife speaks very little English.

His wife’s inability to speak English is a separate issue but it is nonetheless a direct result of the doctrine of multiculturalism which indulges those who refuse to engage with British culture. It has a pernicious effect on many Islamic women who are thereby isolated and as this case shows totally dependent on their husbands.

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UNITED KINGDOM
This is Lancashire

By Jessica Cree, Crime reporter

AN ISLAMIC tutor who inappropriately touched a pupil during lessons has been handed a suspended prison sentence.

Suleman Maknojioa, of Audley Range, Blackburn, was found guilty of five counts of sexual activity with a child after a week-long trial.

Preston Crown Court heard how the defendant, 40, rubbed the girl’s lower leg, and touched her upper leg on top of her clothing.

He also touched the youngster on her chest area underneath her headscarf which she wore for prayers.

Maknojioa had denied the allegations, saying he only ever touched the girl to show encouragement.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Mirror

An Islamic teacher who molested a young girl was spared jail today after claiming his six children were dependent on him because his wife spoke “very little English”.

Suleman Maknojioa, 40, rubbed the 11-year-old’s leg and reached under her prayer headscarf to squeeze her chest while giving her and her two brothers private tuition in religion at their home.

The girl was left fearing the lessons, held over a period of nine months, and said of the touching: “I did not want it, but I was too afraid to say something.”

Maknojioa was arrested after the children’s mum overheard her sons, aged 13 and seven, talking.

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MINNESOTA
TheMediaReport

Back in December, police began a surreal criminal investigation into whether St. Paul and Minneapolis Archbishop John C. Nienstedt somehow “inappropriately touched” a boy four years ago in broad daylight in front of crowds of people outside a church following a public Confirmation ceremony.

If anyone needed another example of the wildly disparate treatment of Catholic clergy by the media and by law enforcement, one needs to look no further than this batty episode.

Common Sense on Vacation

Police finally concluded just last week what any clear-thinking individual would have known from the beginning: that nothing even remotely inappropriate ever took place.

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MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

By Susan Weich sweich@post-dispatch.com 636-493-96741

ST. CHARLES COUNTY • A Lutheran pastor is in jail after detectives with the county’s cyber crimes unit raided his home Tuesday and discovered child pornography on his computer, police say.

Matthew D. Luetke, 35, of the 5000 block of Danielle Drive, was charged today with promoting child pornography. He had been under investigation since December, when undercover detectives began trading child pornography with him, police said.

Luetke has been a pastor at Good Shepherd Evangelical Lutheran Church, 8425 Mexico Road, for about a year, police say. Before that he worked at churches in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Police say he had no previous criminal record.

A day care at the church is attended by about 50 children, police said, but they do not suspect Luetke had any improper contact with any of the children. The church is sending out a letter to parents about the arrest as a precaution, police said.

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MISSOURI
KPIR

March 19, 2014, by Chris Smith, updated on: 02:31pm, March 19, 2014

ST. CHARLES COUNTY, MO (KTVI) – The St. Charles County Cyber Crime Task Force has arrested 35-year-old Matthew D. Luetke in reference to a child pornography investigation. Luetke is the pastor at the Good Shepard Evangelical Luther Church located on Mexico Road in St. Peters.

Luetke was arrested after a search warrant was executed at his home in St. Charles. He’s charged with one count of promoting child pornography and his bond has been set at $100,000.

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MISSOURI
KY3

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Matthew Luetke, 36, was charged Wednesday with promoting child pornography as part of an undercover investigation that began in December. His cash-only bail was set at $100,000.

Luetke is a pastor at Good Shepherd Evangelical Lutheran Church in O’Fallon and previously worked at churches in Wisconsin and Minnesota. The evangelical church has its own daycare center, but police say they don’t suspect Luetke had any improper contact with children there. Church officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

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MISSOURI
KSDK

ST. CHARLES, Mo. (KSDK) – The St. Charles County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office charged a 35-year-old area pastor in reference to a child pornography investigation.

According to court documents, the St. Charles County Cyber Crime Task Force searched a home in the 5000 block of Danielle Drive for evidence of child pornography. Authorities found on a computer nine images of young girls between the ages of 9 and 13 in various poses and exposing themselves.

Prosecutors said the homeowner, identified as Matthew Luetke, confessed to being the sole operator of said computer, adding he’d developed a habit of viewing child pornography. Luetke further admitted to touching himself while viewing said images.

Luetke, a pastor at the Good Shepherd Evangelical Lutheran Church in O’Fallon, told police he had exposed himself and allowed his genitals to be touched by female relatives when they were pre-school age when the family was living in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Those incidents are said to have occurred between 2004 and 2008.

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, March 19

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 )

We are very sad to learn that an O’Fallon MO minister admits child sex abuse and child porn. And we’re surprised and disappointed that police are already suggesting there are no local victims.

[KSDK]

Often, authorities want to quickly put worried parents at ease. But we believe that premature complacency is dangerous. We believe everyone should keep open minds here and not rule out that Rev. Matthew Luetke may have hurt kids here in Missouri as he did in Minnesota and Wisconsin.

We hope that every single person who attends or works at Good Shepherd Evangelical Lutheran Church

– or went or worked there in the past – will find the courage to call police right away if they saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes or cover ups there.

(SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. We’ve been around for 25 years and have more than 15,000 members. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org)

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CONNECTICUT
CT Post

Daniel Tepfer
Published 7:03 pm, Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Bishop Frank Caggiano has agreed to meet with representatives of national and local victim support groups who Wednesday called for him to hire an outside firm to investigate two priests who have been accused in the past of sex abuse — including a former prominent Greenwich pastor has who admitted he hid more than 40 years of abuse complaints.

But Barbara Blaine, president of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said although she is willing to meet with Caggiano, she would prefer to do so after he agrees to the investigation.

“History has shown that meetings don’t always bear fruit, but actions speak louder than words,” Blaine said.

It would be the first time that a bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport agreed to meet with SNAP.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Berger’s Beat

March 19, 2014 3:21 pm | Author: berger

Brother Bernard Joseph Hartman of the St. Louis-based Marianists (the group that runs Chaminade and Vianney High Schools), goes on trial this week in Australia on charges of molesting four girls. In recent years, he lived in our town and also worked in Pittsburgh and Dayton. Hartman is accused of sexually abusing at least four children at St. Paul’s College between 1976 and 1982.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on March 19, 2014

Book Review: The Vatican Diaries: A Behind the Scenes Look at the Power, Personalities, and Politics at the Heart of the Catholic Church; by John Thavis. Penguin Books

A year after the hardcover publication of The Vatican Diaries (a book whose hardcover release date coincided with the resignation of Pope Benedict XXIII XVI and the election of Pope Francis—a marketing and sales extravaganza if ever there were one), John Thavis‘ chronicle of Vatican shenanigans is now out in paperback.

A new afterward by the author is the icing on this cupcake of a book—a sweet, delectable, slightly naughty look inside the Vatican: a patchwork of quirky and outdated personalities tied together by allegiance, clericalism, protocol, and theater. While none of these things are very good for Catholics, clergy sex abuse victims or the Vatican state, Thavis expertly shows how the Vatican’s incompetency, callousness and failures reside in its humanity and its all-too-human worship of the most seductive power of all: information.

Thavis spent more than 25 years as a member of the Vaticanista, the group of journalists charged with covering the Vatican, the pope and other news surrounding the Holy See. As a writer for the Catholic News Service, Thavis was forced to balance the very delicate line between journalistic integrity and his own Catholicism.

He didn’t have an easy job. Without decent access to information or (the sometimes-kept) promises of transparency in many western governments, journalists covering the Vatican are forced to follow a path reminiscent of the childhood game of telephone. It’s about knowing the right person to call, capitalizing on people’s hot buttons, and most importantly, knowing whom to believe. Imagine The National Enquirer with all of the couture, but none of the good looks.

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GEORGIA
Dawson News

By Jennifer Sami, regional staff
editor@dawsonnews.com
UPDATED: March 19, 2014

CUMMING – A church youth ministry intern remained in the Forsyth County Detention Center on Wednesday following his arrest on felony counts of child molestation and enticing a child for indecent purposes.

According to the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office, 28-year-old Sean E. Paul of Dawsonville turned himself in Friday. No bond has been set.

In addition to the two felony counts, he also faces one misdemeanor charge of electronically furnishing obscene material to a minor.

Paul was an intern for the youth minister at First Christian Church on Sawnee Drive in Cumming.

Stan Percival, the lead pastor of the church, said Paul “immediately resigned” from the position, which he had held for less than a year, when confronted with the allegations.

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UNITED STATES
Al Jazeera America

The Pope is not only the shepherd of a billion faithful. He is also the head of a business empire of global dimensions that employs millions of people. The Holy Roman Church owns hospitals and universities, gold stocks and works of art of inestimable value. It attracts donations from all over the world, owns huge swathes of very expensive real estate both in the USA, in Italy and in some very surprising places. Today, the Catholic Church is the richest religious institution in the world but it also has an extremely high rate of financial crimes. The “affairs” have shaken the confidence of Catholics around the world, and have involved the highest levels of the Vatican as well as small local parishes.

In fact, the money scandals were at the heart of the most anti establishment conclave in nearly 100 years. A cabal of cardinals demanded change. They got Pope Francis and his mission is to clean up the finances of the church, get rid of the rotten apples and prune the trees that bore them. Today, heads are rolling on St. Peter’s square. But the stumbling blocks on the road to Pope Francis’s newly announced reform are considerable and the stakes are sky high for all the parties involved in the Church’s finances.

Led by University College London Historian John Dickie, this documentary goes into the pockets of the Holy Father to reveal the money issues facing the Catholic Church. Through the stories of the most recent scandals, his investigation exposes the Church’s tortuous relationship with money: from the USA where a cardinal has allegedly concealed assets to reduce the compensation of victims of child abuse to a religious congregation that traded real estate for political favour; from a monsignor arrested for money laundering to the embezzling of Sunday donations.

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CANADA
Nunatsiaq Online

DAVID MURPHY

The trial of ex-Nunavut priest Eric Dejaeger will likely adjourn for a third time as lawyers continue to wrangle over the admission of certain pieces of evidence.

The court was supposed to hear final arguments and conclude the trial by March 21, but that doesn’t look possible now.

That’s because Crown prosecutors presented Justice Robert Kilpatrick with a third application March 19 to have the court consider certain evidence.

In this one, Crown prosecutor Barry Nordin seeks permission to have what’s called similar fact evidence admitted in the case.

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NEW YORK
Saratogian

By Michael Hill, The Associated Press
POSTED: 03/19/14

ALBANY >> New York City Cardinal Timothy Dolan and bishops from around the state made a lobbying push at the Capitol on Tuesday for a long-sought tax credit that could save Catholic schools from shuttering.

Dolan and the bishops met with Gov. Andrew Cuomo and legislative leaders to advocate for a tax credit for charitable donations made for educational purposes. The legislation would eventually be worth up to $300 million a year, with half going to public school programs and half going to scholarships for students who attend private schools.

Supporters believe the fresh infusion of scholarship money could save some struggling Catholic schools and help students in all types of schools.

“We’re not talking about different schools — charters, public, Catholic, Jewish, private. No. we’re talking about our kids. Our kids are going to benefit from this,” Dolan said, surrounded by lawmakers and bishops at a news conference.

Though a version of the measure has been approved in the state Senate, it has met resistance in the Democrat-led state Assembly. Supporters, which also include some labor unions, believe they can improve their chances of passage by folding the measure into the state budget due April 1.

Opponents claim the measure would not add money to education, but instead siphon it away from a finite pool of state money. Richard Iannuzzi, president of the New York State United Teachers union, likened it to a voucher system.

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NEW YORK
Survivor Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Statement by Mary Caplan of New York City, SNAP Leader, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 917 439 4187, mcaplan682@aol.com )

New York’s Catholic bishops – including Cardinal Tim Dolan – are trying to get more tax breaks through a proposed bill about schools. Lawmakers should think long and hard before agreeing to this.

[Saratogian]

When they want money for their institutions, Catholic officials lobby hard and say they care deeply about kids. But when kids who were abused want a chance for justice, Catholic officials lobby hard to deny those kids their day in court. All across the US, Dolan and his brother bishops use all their political will and power and resources to block moves to reform archaic, predator-friendly statute of limitation laws that endanger kids and protect those who commit and conceal heinous child sex crimes.

[New York Times]

For at least three reasons, public schools are inherently safer than private schools. There is more openness and more accountability in public schools than private schools. And there’s less incentive to ignore or conceal child sex crimes in public schools than private schools.

First, law enforcement and fiscal authorities can more readily and easily audit and investigate public schools than private schools.

Second, citizens and journalists can better gain access to records in public schools than private schools.

Third, public school parents can attend and speak at regular, public school board meetings. They can oust board members, back other candidates, and run for those positions themselves.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POSTED BY DAVID CLOHESSY ON MARCH 19, 2014

Fr. John Geoghan may be America’s most prolific predator priest, with at least 150 victims over a 36 year clerical career. (He’s not, however, the most efficient. That distinction goes to Mexico’s Fr. Nicholas Aguilar Rivera who, in just 10 months in Los Angeles, reportedly assaulted 26 kids.)

This year is the 60 year anniversary of perhaps the first “red flag” Catholic officials had about Geoghan. In 1954, the rector of Geoghan’s seminary expressed doubts about his suitability for the priesthood, in part because the seminarian was “decidedly immature.”

It’s also the 25 year anniversary of Cardinal Bernard Law sending Geoghan to St. Luke’s Institute (one of at least three treatment centers where Geoghan spent time), where he was diagnosed as “high risk.” Of course, he was still put back on the job in an unsuspecting parish.

And it’s the 15 year anniversary of a 1994 Boston archdiocesan memo, labeled “confidential,” that said that Geoghan would stay in a parishioner’s home who had eight kids “even when he was on a three day retreat because he missed the kids so much.” He “would touch them while they were sleeping and waken them by playing with their penises.”

(Incidentally, last year was the 50th anniversary of Paraclete founder Fr. Gerald’s Fitzgerald’s letter to the pope advocating “Laicization for any priest, upon objective evidence, for tampering with the virtue of the young” noting that “real conversions will be found to be extremely rare” and “leaving them on duty or wandering from diocese to diocese is contributing to scandal.” His advice was obviously ignored.)

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Court of Criminal Appeal reserves judgement on appeal by ‘Singing priest’ and serial child abuser Tony Walsh

PUBLISHED 19 MARCH 2014

The Court of Criminal Appeal has reserved judgment in the case of former priest and serial child abuser Tony Walsh, who is appealing against separate sentences of 16 years and 15 months imposed on him for the rape and sexual abuse of young boys in the nineteen seventies and eighties.

Walsh, who was known as the “Singing Priest” for his role in a travelling all-priest vocal group before he was defrocked, is serving a 16-year sentence imposed on him in 2010 for the rape and abuse of three school boys.

The 59-year-old had pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to two counts of indecently assaulting a male in a west Dublin church between November 1978 and April 1979.

He pleaded guilty to a further charge of indecently assaulting a male in a west Dublin school between January 1984 and December 1985.

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OHIO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, March 19, 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 “civil registry” of child molesters set up eight years ago by Ohio lawmakers has never been used, the Columbus Dispatch reports today.

[Columbus Dispatch]

The “civil registry” isn’t working because it’s an obscure, untested, and likely unconstitutional process that would require suffering child sex abuse victims to pay thousands of dollars to a lawyer, with no chance to even recover their costs, little chance of exposing their predator and no chance to expose the colleagues and supervisors who concealed their predator’s crimes.

It was a desperate move designed to give lawmakers ‘political cover’ and enable them to pretend they were doing something to stop child molesters.

On the contrary, the “civil window” that we’ve long advocated has since been adopted – and successfully used – in Delaware, Hawaii and Minnesota to protect kids by exposing those who commit and conceal heinous sex crimes against kids and deterring such wrongdoing in the future.

Now that it’s clear Ohio’s half-baked “civil registry” hasn’t helped expose a single predator, we hope lawmakers will reconsider reforming the state’s archaic, predator-friendly child sex laws and make it less difficult for those who were raped and sodomized as kids to take legal action against their perpetrators.

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PHILIPPINES
Sun.Star

By Noemi C. Fetalvero
Two empty bottles

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

RELIGION and faith are two intertwined subjects that may be considered very personal to an individual. Although I am taking a personal stance on the matter, I am sure hundreds of parishioners are affected by a certain issue.

Since the Archdiocese of Cebu decided to give clergymen under its pastoral care a second chance (meaning those priests found to have broken their vows, given a different parish assignment instead of being suspended). The consideration, I believe, has been abused by some priests.

In Jan. 16, I went to see Archbishop of Cebu Jose Palma to report a priest assigned in the southern part of Cebu who, I believe, was living a double life. In some days of the week, the clergyman functions as a parish priest. However, from Mondays through Wednesdays he is a regular visitor of a residential house where he is being introduced to neighbors as a husband and a father of two children. The children are both adults now.

Palma said he will look into it, saying that the church follows a certain protocol with regards to matters like these.

Months have passed and Bishop Palma has not met with the Board of Consultors who will create the investigating body to make the inquiry vis-à-vis the report.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

MARK SCHLIEBS AND LOUIS MAYFIELD THE AUSTRALIAN MARCH 20, 2014

POLICE acted at the behest of Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide Philip Wilson in extraditing pedophile bus driver Brian Perkins in 2002 after earlier refusing attempts to bring him to justice in South Australia, the royal commission into child abuse heard yesterday.

South Australian child abuse investigator Detective Sergeant Gregory Ramm also told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that child pornography involving people linked to St Ann’s Special School in Adelaide was seized in Britain but never properly investigated.

Local detectives weren’t granted time to investigate “thousands” of photographs and videos received by police in 1993, he said, because of an order from the late assistant commissioner Colin Watkins that was later subject of an internal corruption investigation. The inquiry heard anti-corruption branch investigators did not criticise Watkins for shutting down Operation Deny – an investigation into an Adelaide-based international pedophilia ring – in their final report.

Perkins – who abused and produced pornography of several intellectually disabled children from St Ann’s between 1986-91 – was extradited from Queensland in 2002, 11 years after police seized photographs of students at his home. Sergeant Ramm said senior police and the Director of Public Prosecutions knocked back his recommendation to have Perkins extradited in 1998 because it was deemed too expensive.

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CANADA
CBC News

A popular Ottawa priest who stole $130,000 from his church will spend one year in jail for his crimes.

Father Joe LeClair, a diagnosed pathological gambler, pleaded guilty to defrauding Ottawa’s Blessed Sacrament Church of the money over the course of five years.

He was sentenced to one year in jail and one year probation in an Ottawa courtroom on Wednesday morning, with Ontario Court Justice Jack Nadelle saying that breach of trust and the amount of money played into his decision.

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CANADA
Ottawa Sun

BY MEGAN GILLIS OTTAWA SUN

Father Joseph LeClair going to jail for one year for what a judge Wednesday called a serious breach of trust by a pathological gambler.

Blessed Sacrament Church’s popular former priest pleaded guilty in January to fraud and theft charges related to a five-year, $130,000 fraud on his church.

A psychiatrist diagnosed LeClair, 56, as a pathological gambler, but not all of his thieving had to do with gambling.

For instance, cut himself a $5,700 cheque to cover the cost of a vacation. He also directed that fees for the church’s marriage preparation courses be paid in cash. Over the five-year fraud only $13,000 of what should have been $157,000 in revenue made it into church bank accounts; LeClair later admitted some of the money went to gambling debts.

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BOSTON (MA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, March 19, 2014

For more information: Barbara Blaine, SNAP Founder and President (312)399-4747, SNAPblaine@gmail.com and David Clohessy, SNAP Executive Director (314) 566-9790 cell, SNAPclohessy@aol.com

Fundraiser set for victims’ group
In honor of SNAP 25th anniversary
Group’s founder & president will speak

Massachusetts Citizens for Children is hosting a lecture and fundraiser this Sunday (March 23) to mark and honor the 25th anniversary of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

The event will be held at New England Law (classroom 301), 154 Stuart Street in Boston MA from 3:00 to 5:00 pm. Admission is a donation to SNAP (suggested amount is $25).

Barbara Blaine of Chicago, who founded SNAP, will speak. Other speakers include Vince Warren, Executive Director of Center for Constitutional Rights and retired Detroit Bishop Tom Gumbleton. Warren’s group helped SNAP submit testimony to the International Criminal Court and the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child about the Catholic Church’s child sex abuse and cover up scandal.

Gumbleton is the only Catholic prelate in the US to acknowledge having been molested as a child himself. He has helped SNAP lobby for legislative reforms that make it easier for child sex abuse victims to file lawsuits.

“We are deeply grateful to our friends at Massachusetts Citizens for Children for supporting us and for their outstanding work to protect kids too,” said David Clohessy of St. Louis, SNAP’s director.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

A paedophile school bus driver was extradited to Adelaide in 2002 only after pressure was put on police by the city’s Catholic Archbishop Philip Wilson, a royal commission has heard.

The Adelaide Archdiocese even offered to fund the extradition, after a top police officer, because of budgetary constraints, rejected a 1998 application to extradite Brian Perkins from Queensland.

Perkins sexually abused intellectually disabled boys between 1986 and 1991.

In 2002 Detective Sergeant Leonid Mosheev was told there was a direction from the Police Commissioner to bring Perkins back, he testified to the commission on Wednesday.

This came about because of pressure from the Archbishop Wilson who had visited the police commissioner, he said.

Beliefs about problems associated with evidence from an intellectually disabled boy were also part of the reason for the decision not to pursue the extradition, Det Sgt Mosheev said.

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UNITED KINGDOM
National Secular Society

Posted: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 by Richard Scorer

In England, Catholic leaders have fostered the impression that the English church has been relatively scandal-free, and that such problems as did exist were eliminated by the Nolan reforms. A new book by Richard Scorer, head of the abuse unit at Slater & Gordon lawyers, interrogates that claim.

The excellent campaigning work by the NSS on the Catholic abuse crisis has focussed on the Vatican, and with good reason: the Vatican stands at the apex of the worldwide Catholic Church, a uniquely centralised institution, and the Vatican must bear primary responsibility for the culture of denial and cover up which has now been exposed in Catholic institutions around the world. But in challenging the Vatican, we should not overlook events nearer home. In England, Catholic leaders have fostered the impression that the English church has been relatively scandal-free, and that such problems as did exist were eliminated by the Nolan reforms, a raft of changes to child protection introduced in 2001. In my book Betrayed: The English Catholic Church and the Sex Abuse Crisis, published on 27 March, I interrogate that claim. By examining the detail of cases over a 50 year period, I show that the patterns of institutional denial and cover-up that have characterised the Catholic abuse scandal in other parts of the world have been pervasive here too.

I also examine whether the Catholic Church in England has dealt successfully with past problems, as it claims. Underlying this issue is a tension between the secular approach to child protection and the approach mandated by canon law, the internal law of the Catholic Church.

At the heart of modern child protection is the ‘paramountcy principle’. This is the legal principle that the interests of children have primacy and so (for example) if a person is suspected on credible evidence of abusing children he/she may be suspended from contact with children whilst a full investigation takes place. Canon law operates very differently: a priest cannot be suspended without a full canonical trial and a verdict meeting the standard of ‘moral certainty’. That canonical trial, of course, would be presided over, in secret, by the suspect’s fellow priests, so as a mechanism for dealing with abuse allegations canon law is inherently unsuitable.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Domradio

[Summary: Jesuit priest Klaus Mertes has received an award from the Herbert-Haag Foundation. He revealed the biggest case of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.]

Klaus Mertes hat den Preis der Herbert-Haag-Stiftung erhalten. Der Jesuitenpater machte einen der größten Missbrauchsfälle in der katholischen Kirche publik. Im Interview spricht der Rektor des Kollegs St. Blasien darüber, wie ihn das Thema verändert hat.

KNA: Pater Mertes, was bedeutet Ihnen die soeben erhaltene Auszeichnung?

Mertes: Der Preis bedeutet für mich eine Stärkung auf einem langen Weg. Es ist eine Stärkung aus dem Raum der Kirche, sozusagen von den “eigenen Leuten”. Das tut gut. Ein bisschen beschämt bin ich auch, weil ich weiß, dass nicht ich es war, der mit der Aufdeckungsarbeit begonnen hat, sondern die Opfer. Und weil ich auch weiß, dass ich ohne die Unterstützung vieler Mitbrüder und der Kolleginnen und Kollegen an unseren Schulen die Anstrengungen der letzten Jahre nicht durchgehalten hätte.

KNA: Die Herbert-Haag-Stiftung zeichnet Personen aus, die sich durch mutiges Handeln exponiert haben. 2010 thematisierten Sie in einem Brief an ehemalige Berliner Jesuitenschüler sexuellen Missbrauch durch zwei Patres, die als Lehrer und Seelsorger tätig waren. Brauchte es dafür Mut?

Mertes: Dazu brauchte ich keinen Mut. Das war ganz klar, dass ich auf das Gehörte antworten musste. Und ich wollte es auch. Ich ahnte jedoch nicht, was für Folgen das über meinen kleinen Gesichtskreis hinaus haben würde.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Teacher Magazine

MELBOURNE, March 19 – A man allegedly abused by a Catholic Brother says he is still suffering more than 30 years after his innocence was stolen by a man of God.

American Brother Bernard Joseph Hartman, 74, allegedly abused two boys and two girls at Altona where he was a teacher at St Paul’s College between 1976 and 1982.

One of the victims told the Melbourne Magistrates Court the scars are still with him.

“In Year 11 in 1982 I wanted to kill him,” the man said in his victim statement to the court.

“I have lived a hard life because of my upbringing, all because of Brother Hartman.

“After more than 30 years I am still suffering.

“My innocence has been taken by a man of God.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By court reporter Sarah Farnsworth

American Marianist Brother Bernard Hartman will stand trial over allegations he abused four children while a teacher at St Paul’s College in Melbourne more than 30 years ago.

Hartman is facing 18 charges, including indecent assault, act of gross indecency and assault dating back to the 1970s and 1980s

It is alleged Brother Hartman sexually assaulted two girls in their homes after he befriended their families.

He is also alleged to have molested two students at the all boys college.

One of his former students told a committal hearing in the Melbourne Magistrates Court, the biology teacher was a “Jekyll and Hyde type of person.”

The court heard he would regularly molest him and then beat him up.

“He was a bit of a sadist,” the man told the court.

“Mostly every time he abused me sexually, he would finish up physically belting me.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (updated 18 March 2014)

This Broken Rites article is the most comprehensive account available about how the Catholic Church harboured this child-abuser – Father Gerald Francis Ridsdale – for 30 years while his superiors and fellow-priests remained silent to protect the church’s public image. Gradually some of his victims, encouraged by Broken Rites, have spoken to detectives in the Victoria Police child-protection squad. Ridsdale, who is serving a 20-year sentence, is in court again in 2014 because some more of his victims have recently come forward. He is pleading guilty to these 30 new charges involving offences against 11 boys and three girls between 1961 and 1980. He will be sentenced later in 2014.

This photo helped to expose the cover-up

Broken Rites believes that this photo (below) raises two questions:

1. WHY did Bishop George Pell accompany Father Gerald Ridsdale to court on 27 May 1993 when Ridsdale received his first conviction for child-sex crimes?

2. WHY did no bishop, or even a priest, accompany the victims?

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Ballarat abuse survivors say the State Government has not moved quickly enough to implement recommendations from a Victorian parliamentary inquiry into responses to child sex abuse.

Last November, the inquiry suggested a range of reforms on child safety, including changes to the criminal law and improvements to child protection standards.

Ballarat abuse survivor Andrew Collins says some victims are becoming impatient waiting for the recommendations to be implemented, saying they want a clearer time line from the Government.

“We need action, people are suffering, people are hurting, we want to make sure action is taken,” he said.

Premier Denis Napthine says the Government is acting on the report.

“We’ve already implemented a number of the other recommendations of the report but a full response will be made in a timely manner,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

ABC

BY COURT REPORTER CANDICE MARCUS
March 19, 2014

Budgetary pressures prevented police from extraditing a paedophile school bus driver from Queensland to face court in Adelaide, an inquiry has heard.

Bus driver Brian Perkins sexually abused up to 30 intellectually disabled students in the late 1980s and early 1990s while working at St Ann’s special school.

He was finally extradited to South Australia from Queensland in 2002, more than a decade after his offending was discovered. He died in prison in 2009.

The royal commission into the case heard the police investigation was shut down, and when police later found out Perkins was living in Queensland, it was deemed too expensive to extradite him.

It also heard that the only reason Perkins was eventually extradited in 2002 was because the Archbishop of the Catholic Church in Adelaide met with the police commissioner about the matter.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

March 19, 2014

Adam Cooper
Reporter for The Age

An American Catholic brother has been committed to stand trial on charges of sexually assaulting two boys and two girls more than 30 years ago.

Bernard Joseph Hartman, 74, who voluntarily returned to Australia from the United States last year after Victorian authorities initiated moves to have him extradited, will stand trial on 14 charges of indecent assault, two counts of gross indecency with a girl under 16 and two of assault.

After hearing more than two days of evidence in a committal hearing, magistrate Jo Metcalf on Wednesday found there was sufficient evidence for Brother Hartman to be found guilty.

Brother Hartman pleaded not guilty to the charges.

He is accused of sexually abusing two teenage boys in 1981 and 1982 while he was a teacher at St Paul’s College in Altona.

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WASHINGTON
Yakima Herald-Republic

By Donald W. Meyers / Yakima Herald-Republic
dmeyers@yakimaherald.com

YAKIMA, Wash. — A man suing the Diocese of Yakima for alleged rape by a deacon had made significant progress overcoming abuse as a child but was dealt a serious setback by a subsequent incident involving the deacon when he was a teen, an expert witness testified Tuesday in federal court.

Randall L. Green, who was retained by the plaintiff’s attorneys, said the man had received “fortuitous” counseling at age 12.

But Green told U.S. District Judge Edward Shea that the plaintiff, identified in court records as John Doe, lost all that progress after the July 1999 incident in Zillah.

“The shock waves (from the incident) were thermonuclear, psychologically and physiologically, for Mr. Doe,” Green testified on the first day of the second week of the trial.

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CANADA
CBC News

A popular Ottawa priest who stole $130,000 from his church is expected to find out Wednesday morning whether or not he will be sent to jail for his crimes.

Father Joe LeClair, a diagnosed pathological gambler, pleaded guilty to defrauding Blessed Sacrament of the money over the course of five years.

LeClair was the kind of leader that drew people in but his criminal confession has pulled parishioners apart, said Thea Boyd. She used to travel from Blossom Park in south Ottawa to the Glebe for church — specifically for LeClair.

“He just drew you in and right away your faith was restored. He just had that charisma about him,” she said. “We still feel that. We could still repeat some of his homilies that he did. He would make you cry and then he would make you laugh.”

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SCOTLAND/AUSTRALIA
BBC News

A man molested by Benedictine monk Father Aiden Duggan has been recounting his story to a judicial inquiry into child abuse in Australia.

John Ellis has said he was abused as a boy by the monk who had left Scotland to return to his home in Sydney.

Father Duggan has been accused of sexually assaulting boys at Fort Augustus Abbey School in the Highlands.

His activities in Scotland were exposed by a BBC investigation.

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NEWJERSEY
NJTV News

[with video]
…

Recently, the Vatican expelled Michael Fugee from priesthood. He had been accused of inappropriate sexual contact with a minor. The decision from the Vatican came months after the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office dropped criminal charges against Fugee.

Molinelli said that the decision was a key part of the agreement that the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office had reached with Fugee and that the decision to remove Fugee as a priest came directly from Rome.

As for his relationship with the Archdiocese, Molinelli says that he did what he felt was necessary for the office to take over monitoring Fugee.

“There are a lot of conditions that Fugee has to comply with for the rest of his life,” Molinelli said. “We will make sure that he does continue to comply with them. We’re simply dealing with him now as a human being, as a one-on-one person and we no longer need to go through the Archdiocese to ensure compliance. Now we will do it directly with Fugee.”

Molinelli said that Fugee will not be required to register as a Megan’s Law offender, but he will continue to be monitored.

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, N.M., March 8, 2014

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Independent correspondent
religion@gallupindependent.com

ALBUQUERQUE — Less than three weeks after filing a complaint in the Diocese of Gallup’s bankruptcy case, St. Bonaventure Indian School and Mission has voluntarily dismissed its adversary proceeding against the diocese.

The dismissal is without prejudice, meaning it could be filed again.

On Jan. 30, St. Bonaventure’s attorney Charles R. Hughson filed a Complaint to Quiet Title against the Gallup Diocese in a dispute over real estate property. In financial documents filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for its Chapter 11 petition, the diocese had claimed it owned a number of parcels of land in Thoreau, where St. Bonaventure is located. In the complaint, Hughson argued that the property had been given to St. Bonaventure by the diocese, and that a former chief executive of the diocesan mission school had transferred property back to the diocese without authorization.

When contacted, Hughson declined to comment on the litigation.

Two weeks later, Hughson filed an amended complaint that added a legalese claim, “The Diocese Deed contains language that may limit the title conveyed to a fee simple subject to a condition subsequent.”

The warranty deed in question, signed by the late Bishop Donald E. Pelotte in September 1992, states that in the event the “property is no longer used as a Catholic Mission and School, said property shall revert to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Gallup.” According to court documents, St. Bonaventure sold at least one of the parcels of land two years later to private individuals in Thoreau.

Before bankruptcy attorneys for the Diocese of Gallup could respond to St. Bonaventure’s adversary proceeding, Hughson submitted the notice of dismissal on Feb. 17. Hughson cited federal rules regarding such action but did not provide any reasons for the decision to dismiss.

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, March 10, 2014

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Independent correspondent
religion@gallupindependent.com

GALLUP – While the Diocese of Gallup has garnered headlines because of its bankruptcy proceedings, Sister Rene Backe has given a lot of thought to a group of people who live in the shadow of those headlines.

After praying about what she could do to support victims of clergy sex abuse, Backe, the director of Gallup’s Sacred Heart Retreat Center, decided to invite others to pray the Stations of the Cross during Lent and pray for victims of abuse. Everyone is welcome to participate in the prayer services, held at 6 p.m. Wednesdays in the retreat center’s chapel.

“In my own mind it just didn’t seem enough to offer people money for the pain they endured,” she said in an interview at the chapel Friday. “It’s a sin against the whole body of Christ. Sin hurts us all.”

Backe, a member of the Congregation of St. Agnes, said she wanted to get a group of people to pray in atonement for the sin of abuse and to pray for the victims’ healing. Since Lent was approaching and praying the Stations of the Cross is a favorite Lenten devotion for many Christians, Backe thought it would be an appropriate way to pray for abuse victims.

Backe said she talked with Bishop James S. Wall and that he was supportive of the idea. He wrote a special prayer for abuse victims, she said, and he celebrated Mass during the first Stations of the Cross service on Ash Wednesday. Except for this week, Backe said, the bishop plans to attend each Wednesday gathering and give a short talk.

“I think too he feels this needs to be done in addition to the money part,” she said.

About 30 people attended the Ash Wednesday service, Backe said. “I’m hoping they will continue to come Wednesdays and pray for the victims,” she said.

“Many people make the Way of the Cross by themselves privately as a Lenten devotion,” Backe said, explaining it is a “walking prayer” that commemorates Jesus’ suffering and death.

As she prays for victims of abuse, Backe said, some of the Stations of the Cross have special significance for her. The fourth station, where Jesus encounters his mother, reminds her to pray for the mothers of abuse victims. The fifth station, where Simon of Cyrene is forced to help carry Jesus’ cross, reminds her of the need to help carry the burdens of abuse victims.

On Friday morning, Backe said, she was particularly reminded of abuse victims in the church’s daily scripture reading.

“Is it not sharing your food with the hungry, and sheltering the homeless poor; if you see someone lacking clothes, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own kin?” Backe read in Isaiah 58:7.

It was a “powerful prayer moment,” she said, a reminder that abuse victims are her kin in the family of God and in the mystical body of Christ.

Although Backe said she has never met a survivor of clergy sex abuse, she has offered spiritual direction to a number of women who were sexually abused as children by uncles, grandfathers or brothers.

Abuse strips away a person’s dignity, Backe said, and it is her prayer that each victim of abuse can be “clothed with healing and grace and a sense of dignity” and know “they are God’s beloved child.”
“I guess I would just like them to know that their fellow Catholics and Christians are praying for them,” she said.

The Sacred Heart Retreat Center is located about 2 miles south of Gallup. Everyone is welcome to participate in the prayers each Wednesday at 6 p.m.

Information: Sister Rene Backe at (505) 722-6755

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, March 17, 2014

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Independent correspondent
religion@gallupindependent.com

GALLUP — The number of Catholic clergy who have served in the Diocese of Gallup and have been credibly accused of the sexual abuse of minors increased once again.

With the advent of Lent, the Crosier Province in Phoenix released a comprehensive list of 19 current, former and deceased members of the Crosier Fathers and Brothers who have credible allegations against them.

The Rev. Justin Weger, O.S.C., who worked part-time for the Gallup Diocese in the mid-1970s, was included on the list.

Weger had been one of eight Crosiers to be publicly identified as sexually abusive clergy by the province in 2002. However, information about Weger’s ministry assignments, including his work in the Gallup Diocese and Native American communities, had not been released previously.

According to the Crosiers, Weger was born in 1925, ordained in 1952 and moved to the Southwest in 1974. He worked for the Diocese of Gallup in 1974-1975, providing weekend assistance in the diocese’s parishes in Arizona and New Mexico. Weger then moved to the Diocese of Tucson, where he served as parochial vicar at St. Mary Church in Sells, Ariz., located on the Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation.

He was removed from ministry in 1976, and his priestly faculties were withdrawn. Weger then became director of Tribal Lodge, Inc., believed to be a mental health treatment facility in Phoenix, from 1977 to 2002. He died in 2005.

In January, the Crosier Province and Gallup Bishop James S. Wall removed a current Gallup priest, the Rev. Timothy Conlon, O.S.C, from ministry because of an old abuse allegation. With these recent public announcements, Conlon and 10 other Crosiers have been newly identified as having credible allegations against them. The other 10 include former members Gerald Funcheon, Ron Melancon, Wendell Mohs, Michael Paquet and Roger Vaughn, and deceased members Cornelius DeVenster, Eugene Hambrock, Joseph Lendacky, Anton Schik and Urban Schmitt.

Province officials said they are currently investigating allegations against two more deceased Crosiers.

“It is our hope that this will bring healing, peace and comfort to the victims and their families,” Crosier Prior Provincial Thomas Enneking said.

According to the news release, the Crosier Province reports all abuse allegations to the appropriate authorities. However, supporters of abuse victims advocate that all reports of suspected abuse, current or past, be reported directly to law enforcement.

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WORCESTER (MA)
Catholic Sentinel

Catholic News Service

WORCESTER, Mass. — Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley March 13 filed a brief in support of a married gay couple who have sued the Diocese of Worcester and its realtor for allegedly refusing to sell a commercial property to them.

Coakley argues that religious organizations can be subject to the requirements of Massachusetts’ anti-discrimination laws.

James Gavin Reardon Jr., attorney for the diocese, said that the diocese does not view this as a case of discrimination because the plaintiffs, James Fairbanks and Alain Beret, could not get financing for their original offer to buy the property.

“This is a contractual case where the buyer could not come up with the money,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Kate Stowell

The first regional Victorian hearings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse are being held in Ballarat this week.

Reports of abuse in Ballarat’s schools, churches and orphanages date back to the 1950s.

Last year’s Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry which produced the Betrayal of Trust report described criminal child abuse in the Ballarat Diocese in the 1970s as “systemic” and “undeniable”.

It is believed at least 40 suicides in the Ballarat area are linked to child abuse-related illnesses, including post traumatic stress disorder and depression.

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CANADA/UNITED STATES
Vancouver Sun

Canadian fundamentalist Mormon leader Winston Blackmore admitted under oath late last month in Utah that at least 10 of his 26 wives were under the age of 18 when he ‘married’ them in religious ceremonies.

Three of those child ‘brides’ were 15, another was 16.

Blackmore had voluntarily gone to Salt Lake City to give a deposition in a civil case that involves property held by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in a fund called the United Effort Plan Trust. Blackmore didn’t have a lawyer at his side when he testified.

On Monday, a spokeswoman for the Utah Attorney General’s Office told reporter Ben Winslow from Fox News that it would look into what Blackmore said under oath.

“We are currently investigating the allegations,” Utah attorney general’s spokeswoman Missy Larsen said. “Attorney General [Sean] Reyes does not view illegal activities that target children and other vulnerable populations lightly and will prosecute criminal activity when appropriate.”

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

[commission members]

David Leask
Chief Reporter

Wednesday 19 March 2014

SCOTLAND’S Catholic Church must change its culture and theology to protect children in its care, according to the Kirk minister asked to review its safeguards.

Dr Andrew McLellan yesterday announced the remit and membership of a new commission to investigate how the church, hit by a succession of scandals at home and abroad, handles abuse.

The former Moderator of the Church of Scotland made it clear he believes his own faith can offer some spiritual and practical solutions on the issue.

Mr McLellan, who is also a former inspector of prisons, admitted he had been surprised to be asked to lead the commission and insisted he had not accepted the job as an “ecumenical adventure”.

Speaking at a launch event in Edinburgh, he said: “I am not here representing the Church of Scotland but my own church has learned a lot about helping parishes to ‘own’ and to love safeguarding.

“That is part of the culture change, which the Catholic Church needs to learn as well.”

The Kirk stalwart also suggested there were new teachings in the Presbyterian faith that could be applied to the Catholic Church which, under Pope Francis, is grappling like never before with historical issues of physical and sexual abuse.

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CALIFORNIA
Signal SCV

The sex abuse case against a 26-year-old former Valencia man who worked part-time at a Santa Clarita Valley church goes before a grand jury in Missouri Wednesday, The Signal has learned.

Brandon Milburn is charged with six felony counts of first-degree statutory sodomy for allegedly molesting multiple victims between 2007 and 2009 in Missouri. He was in custody Wednesday in St. Louis.

On Wednesday, a grand jury in St. Louis will “be assigned” to review his case, said Det. Edward Magee, of the St. Louis County Police Department.

Milburn had initially been scheduled to appear in court for a preliminary hearing. However, depending on what the grand jury decides, that scheduled hearing may change, Magee explained.

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SCOTLAND
MSN News

An independent review into the Catholic Church’s safeguarding and handling of abuse is to speak to victims in an attempt to create a policy of “no abuse and no cover up”.

The Very Rev Andrew McLellan, a former moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and one-time chief inspector of prisons, is leading a commission of 11 other members, including senior police and social work officers, to review current policies and practices within the Catholic Church in Scotland.

The commission will speak to victims of abuse to find out their experiences but will not investigate or rule on specific cases. Any allegations of criminal activity will be passed to police, the commission said.

It was set up by the Catholic Church last year in the wake of the scandal surrounding Cardinal Keith O’Brien.

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CANADA
Cape Breton Post

LITTLE BRAS D’OR — Although the signs are not yet posted, Villa Madonna Renewal House, owned by the Diocese of Antigonish, is for sale.

© Cape Breton Post photo Villa Madonna Renewal Centre in Little Bras d’Or.

The diocese had to take out a loan to fulfill its obligations under a class-action settlement with survivors of sexual abuse by priests.

All of the payments have been made in the class-action lawsuit. But in order to cover the payment of the loan, sales of property go toward covering the diocesan debt.

The diocese had to raise $15 million for the settlement of a class-action lawsuit with the alleged victims of sexual abuse from the 1950s to 2009. Another $3 million was raised to cover potential lawsuit costs of individual actions against the church.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Wednesday 19 March 2014

l Andrew McLellan:
Commission chairman. A former moderator of the Church of Scotland who served as HM Chief Inspector if Prisons for Scotland for seven years.

l Ranald Mair: Deputy chairman. Chief executive of Scottish Care, the lobby for the care home sector.

l Bishop John Arnold: The Auxiliary Bishop of the Diocese of Westminster is a veteran of England’s Cumberlege Commission on preventing child sex abuse in the church.

l Malcolm Graham: Assistant Chief Constable of Police Scotland and one of the country’s most senior detectives.

l Nancy Loucks: Chief executive of charity Families Outside and a member of the Scottish Government’s Early Years Task Force.

l Donald Mackay: Lord Mackay of Drumadoon is a retired judge and former Lord Advocate who was involved in the Orkney abuse inquiry in 1991.

l Kathleen Marshall: Scotland’s former Commissioner for Children and Young People in Scotland has previously led inquiries in to child abuse at council homes in Edinburgh and is currently leading the child sexual exploitation inquiry in Northern Ireland.

l Sheena McDonald: One of Scotland’s best known journalists and broadcasters and a trustee of the Disasters Emergency Committee.

l Roisin McGoldrick: Teaching Fellow at Glasgow School of Social Work and chairwoman of the board of managers at the Catholic Church-run Good Shepherd residential unit in Renfrewshire.

l Bishop Stephen Robson: The Bishop of Dunkeld is one of Scotland’s most senior Roman Catholic clerics, an experienced educator and was auxiliary bishop to Cardinal Keith O’Brien.

l Lindsay Roy: A headteacher for nearly 20 years before being elected as a Labour MP in the 2008 Glenrothes by-election.

l Danny Sullivan: The Chairman of the National Catholic Safeguarding Commission is a retired civil servant.

l Dr David McAllister: The only paid official on the Commission, Dr McAllister is a former assistant chief inspector of prisons for Scotland. He will act as secretary.

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AUSTRALIA
International Business Times

Australian Serial Paedophile Priest Described Abuse as ‘God’s Work,’ Told Victims They Were ‘God’s Little Angel,’ Victims Had Lost Faith in the Catholic Church

By Esther Tanquintic-Misa | March 19, 2014

Gerald Francis Ridsdale, a former Australian Catholic priest, described his paedophile tendencies as “God’s work.” In raping a four-year-old girl, he told her she was “God’s little angel.”

Mr Ridsdale has admitted his guilt in sexually abusing 45 children that spanned 20 years from 1961 up to 1980.

One of his victims, who was under the care of the Catholic diocese, said she indecently assaulted during holiday drives when she was between 10 and 13 years old.

“I trusted you, Gerald Ridsdale, you represented God and all that is good,” she said as she read her victim statement on Tuesday to the Victorian County Court. “You exploited, manipulated and humiliated me while you hid behind the veil of the church.”

Several of his victims said they had lost faith in the Catholic Church because despite knowing about the paedophile priest ungodly acts, the institution still refused and failed to act on complaints.

“I’m unable to have any faith in them as an organisation,” one said in his victim statement.

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OHIO
The Columbus Dispatch

By Jim Siegel
The Columbus Dispatch • Wednesday March 19, 2014

Eight years ago, Bob Spada stood on the Senate floor to discuss his church sex-abuse bill and told his colleagues: “To be honest with you, I’m just a little bit sick.”

After hearing from numerous victims of sex abuse by priests and seeing about 150 cases involving accusations against leaders in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cleveland, the North Royalton Republican struggled to tell his colleagues they should support the bill.

A year earlier, the Senate had unanimously approved a version of Spada’s bill containing a key provision: a one-year window for victims to file a lawsuit alleging child sex abuse that had occurred as long as 35 years earlier.

But the House, under then-Speaker Jon Husted and facing heavy pressure from Catholic leaders, stripped out the one-year window to file a lawsuit and replaced it with a civil registry.

Different from Ohio’s Sex Offender Notification Registry, which requires a criminal conviction, this listing gives victims the ability to place child-sex offenders on an online registry if a judge finds the offender liable in a civil judgment.

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NEW JERSEY
Patch

Posted by Jessica Mazzola (Editor) , March 18, 2014

Former Wyckoff Priest Michael Fugee, who admitted to sexually abusing a township teenage boy in 2001, has been defrocked, NorthJersey.com reported. According to the report, an archdiocese spokesperson said Monday that the Vatican has returned Fugee to a lay state. He had been a priest for 20 years, it said.

After admitting to the sexual abuse over a decade ago, Fugee was back in court last year after authorities found out he had been attending youth retreats and hearing children’s confessions, reports said. He was charged with violating a court-ordered ban on ministering to minors last May, reports said.

Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli and other law enforcement officials criticized the Archdiocese of Newark at the time, saying it did not properly monitor Fugee when the agreement was in place.

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SCOTLAND
Edinburgh Evening News

THE churchman leading an independent inquiry into the Catholic Church’s handling of sex abuse cases has defended the inclusion of a friend of disgraced cardinal Keith O’Brien on the commission.

Former Church of Scotland Moderator Andrew McLellan denied the appointment of Bishop Stephen Robson – who was Cardinal O’Brien’s number two in the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh – created any conflict of interest.

Bishop Robson was named yesterday as one of 11 people to join Dr McLellan in reviewing the “safeguarding” policy of the Catholic Church in Scotland to help protect youngsters and vulnerable adults.

The commission, which also includes senior police officers and social workers, will speak to victims in an attempt to create a policy of “no abuse and no cover up” but will not investigate or rule on specific cases.

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IRELAND
Newstalk

Francesca Comyn
10:29 Wednesday 19 March 2014

He is challenging the severity of a 16-year sentence

The so-called ‘singing priest’ Tony Walsh is due in court to appeal against sentences imposed on him for the rape and sexual abuse of young boys in the 1970s and 1980s.

Mr. Walsh was an Elvis impersonator in the well known ‘All Priests Show’ that used to travel around Ireland.

The serial sexual abuser was later defrocked.

In 2010 he was handed down a 16-year sentence for the rape and indecent assault of young boys in the 70s and 80s.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 03/18/2014

A Ramsey County judge ruled Tuesday that the Twin Cities archdiocese must turn over by March 31 documents related to its priests “credibly accused” of child sexual abuse.

Names and biographical information on those 34 priests were disclosed in December, but attorneys for a plaintiff known as Doe 1 sought church documents that the archdiocese so far has refused to release.

Judge John Van de North wrote in a memorandum that Minnesota has a “long tradition of liberal discovery and a generous definition of relevance for purposes of gathering facts prior to trial.”

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis had argued that the discovery sought by the plaintiff concerned “internal policies of the Roman Catholic Church” that are protected by the U.S. and state constitutions.

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MINNESOTA
City Pages

By Jesse Marx Wednesday, Mar 19 2014

Patrick Wall flips through a six-inch-thick binder in a law office that once housed a confessional booth. He’s got whole boxes yet to comb through, each containing several decades’ worth of internal church memos, affidavits, and police reports.

Every whiff of possible corruption gets filed somewhere inside his graying, bushy dome, which seems mounted on his barrel chest sans neck. He has a face like a bulldog and the cadence of a detective; in another life he might have made it to the NFL.

But today he has a more sundry task: researching clerical sexual abuse cases and relaying the findings to the St. Paul attorneys who employ him.

Wall won’t be present when Archbishop John Nienstedt and former Vicar General Kevin McDonough are deposed in a few weeks, but his stamp will be all over the inquisition. It’s for the best, because Wall’s presence may rub the holy men the wrong way. He’s no longer welcome at the archdiocese, and for good reason.

“I am the enemy,” Wall says, smiling. “I am the ultimate defector.”

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MINNESOTA
KARE

ST. PAUL, Minn. – The St. Paul-Minneapolis Archdiocese will have to make credible child sex abuse cases public, according to a judge’s ruling in Ramsey County District Court on Tuesday.

“The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis looks forward to working with the Court, the opposing parties and the special master in complying with (Monday’s) ruling,” the archdiocese said in a statement.

District Court Judge John Van de North denied a request from the archdiocese to seal all files on priests who sexually abused children. The ruling paves the way for the release of thousands of pages of documents dating back to 1970 to 1985.

The decision is connected to the filing of a lawsuit by an alleged victim former priest Tom Adamson.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Updated: March 18, 2014

Archdiocese had asked to seal the abuse documents, but judge denies motion.

By Jean Hopfensperger  hopfen@startribune.com

A judge reaffirmed Tuesday that the St. Paul-Minneapolis Archdiocese must make its files related to child sex abuse cases public.

The archdiocese had requested that its files on priests who sexually abused children should be sealed.

But Ramsey County District Court Judge John Van de North denied the motion Tuesday, paving the way for the release of thousands of pages of documents on priests who were credibly charged with abusing children from 1970 to 1985.

The move comes in response to a lawsuit filed by an alleged victim of former priest Tom Adamson.

“The files will reveal who knew what, when, and what they did about it,” said Jeff Anderson, the victim’s attorney.

In a statement released Tuesday afternoon, the archdiocese said it looks forward to working with the court and the opposing parties to comply with the ruling, adding that the decision is consistent with the rulings made from the bench at a Feb. 11 court hearing.

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UNITED STATES
Pope Francis the CON Christ.

Updated March 19, 2014

Paris Arrow

According to the book – The Vatican Billions by Avro Manhattan – subtitle “Two Thousand Years of Wealth Accumulation from Caesar to the Space Age” : “The Vatican has large investments with the Rothschilds of Britain, France and America, with the Hambros Bank, with the Credit Suisse in London and Zurich. In the United States it has large investments with the Morgan Bank, the Chase-Manhattan Bank, the First National Bank of New York, the Bankers Trust Company, and others. The Vatican has billions of shares in the most powerful international corporations such as Gulf Oil, Shell, General Motors, Bethlehem Steel, General Electric, International Business Machines, T.W.A., etc. At a conservative estimate, these amount to more than 500 million dollars in the U.S.A. alone” (NB. this book was written in 1983).

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

A COMMISSION will speak to victims of abuse to find out their experiences but will not investigate or rule on specific cases. Any allegations of criminal activity will be passed to police, the commission said.

AN independent review into the Catholic Church’s safeguarding and handling of abuse is to speak to victims in an attempt to create a policy of “no abuse and no cover up”.

The Very Rev Andrew McLellan, a former moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and one-time chief inspector of prisons, is leading a commission of 11 other members, including senior police and social work officers, to review current policies and practices within the Catholic Church in Scotland.

The commission will speak to victims of abuse to find out their experiences but will not investigate or rule on specific cases. Any allegations of criminal activity will be passed to police, the commission said.

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NEW JERSEY
New Jersey 101.5

By Ray Rossi March 18, 2014

Yesterday it was announced that Fr. Michael Fugee, who, at one time, had been elevated by Newark Archbishop John Myers to the position of co-director of the Office of Continuing Education and Ongoing Formation of Priests – despite having been tried in a child molestation case – had finally been removed as a priest.

It took long enough for that to happen – this after he flouted an agreement he’d made with prosecutors not to have any contact with children.

Now comes word that the Newark Archdiocese will now allow priests who’d been removed from churches following credible sexual abuse charges may be buried in their priestly vestments.

It may seem a small thing.

After all, they’re dead and their corpses are rotting in a box. What should it matter what they’re wearing?

However, it’s all in the symbolism.

They’re still being buried as priests, and that has some of us questioning the wisdom of the Archbishop who made that decision.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph

South Australia’s top detective shut down investigation into paedophile bus driver Brian Perkins after his arrest in 1993, inquiry told

NIGEL HUNT THE ADVERTISER MARCH 18, 2014

THE state’s most senior detective shut down an investigation into paedophile bus driver Brian Perkins after his arrest in 1993 that prevented further victims being identified, an inquiry has heard.

The order, given by Assistant Commissioner Colin Watkins, angered the detectives involved in the operation who believed Perkins may have sexually abused more students at St Ann’s Special School than the one he had been charged in connection with.

Detective Sergeant Len Mosheev told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that he had been in a meeting with the officers involved in Operation Deny when Mr Watkins telephoned the forward commander Detective Chief Inspector Peter Simons and gave the order.

A visibly agitated Det Mosheev said Det Chief Insp Simons was “told to inform us to cease.’’ He said the detectives were not allowed to examine any material seized from Perkins when they arrested him, which included a large number of photographs of naked men and boys, or continue further inquiries to identify any other potential victims.

Presiding member Jennifer Coate asked Det Mosheev if he was given any reasons and he replied “no, they would not give us reasons — none at all — and we were really angry and that’s documented in the ACB report’’.

“We didn’t know what was going on behind the scenes, but we didn’t think it was appropriate,’’ he replied. He said there was “so much more to look at’’ but he could not continue because disobeying a commissioned officer would mean “disciplinary action, possible sacking’’.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

David Marr
theguardian.com, Tuesday 18 March 2014

Claims by Cardinal George Pell that he had little to do with the conduct of the notorious Ellis case have been flatly contradicted by the church’s own lawyer in dramatic testimony on Tuesday to the royal commission into the institutional response to child abuse.

“I didn’t have any doubt the cardinal was being kept up to date on developments in the case,” Paul McCann of church lawyers Corrs, Chambers, Westgarth told the commission. “He was giving instructions on various steps.”

John Ellis sued Pell and the trustees of the Catholic church in 2005 after being refused compensation for his abuse at the hands of Father Aidan Duggan. After a hard-fought contest, Ellis lost. The decision made legal history, confirming the Catholic church in Australia is unsueable. For years the church demanded Ellis pay its legal costs of $750,000.

When a frail Ellis met Pell for the first time in 2009, he came away immensely relieved to think the cardinal had not been “in the loop” when decisions were made on fighting his case. After the meeting, the cardinal’s secretary, Dr Michael Casey, wrote to Ellis apologising for the rough time he had had during the litigation.

“Cardinal Pell wants you to know that although he believed that your claim was for many millions of dollars, he now knows that the truth of the matter was … an “offer of compromise” submitted to the Archdiocese in December 2004 of only $750,000.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

A South Australia police officer has admitted to the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse that if he had checked for previous convictions or outstanding warrants for paedophile Brian Perkins he would have been arrested early in the investigation of the abuse of as many as 30 boys at the St Ann’s Special School in the early 1990s. Detective Sargeant Leonid Mosheev also told the Commission it was absurd to suggest police had told the school not to tell parents of the abuse allegations.

Transcript

MARK COLVIN: A South Australian police detective has admitted to the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse that mistakes in an investigation helped a paedophile bus driver named Brian Perkins avoid justice for several years.

The commission is investigating how Perkins was able to flee South Australia in 1993 after abusing as many as 30 intellectually disabled boys at the Adelaide Catholic Special School, St Ann’s.

Most of the families didn’t find out for more than a decade that their sons were most likely among Perkins’ victims.

But officer Leonid Mosheev is adamant that police never told the Catholic school not to tell other parents of the abuse allegations.

Samantha Donovan reports.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: South Australian Police were first alerted to the possibility Brian Perkins may have been abusing at least one student at St Ann’s Special School in August 1991.

The Royal Commission heard today that the mother of a 19-year-old female former student of the school had reported that Perkins had been paying the girl to take topless photos of her and had asked her to appear naked in photos with the witness known as LH, then an intellectually disabled teenager at the school.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

ABC

BY COURT REPORTER CANDICE MARCUS
March 18, 2014

A detective was “furious” and “horrified” that an investigation into a paedophile ring was prematurely shut down, a royal commission in Adelaide has heard.

The inquiry, which is examining the sexual abuse of intellectually disabled students from St Ann’s Special School more than two decades ago, today heard Assistant Police Commissioner Colin Watkins ordered the investigation cease in 1993.

Detective Sergeant Leonid Mosheev was under intense questioning from Sophie David, who is counsel assisting the inquiry, throughout day two of the hearing into the case.

Detective Sergeant Mosheev said two years after school bus driver Brian Perkins was initially identified as having molested the intellectually disabled students, he was tasked with investigating Perkins, who was one of four paedophiles targeted under Operation Deny.

He said in 1993 he received an order, which he believed was from Assistant Commissioner Watkins, to shut down the operation and not investigate the St Ann’s case any further.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

An assistant police commissioner ordered detectives to stop investigating four pedophiles, the royal commission into sexual abuse has heard.

Detective Sergeant Leonid Mosheev said that in September 1993 he had seized a large volume of material, including pornographic photos, from Adelaide school bus driver Brian Perkins.

But not long after he was directed not to look at the exhibits or continue inquiries, which meant he could only rely on material obtained in August 1991.

He said the direction came from then-assistant commissioner Colin Watkins after Operation Deny was set up in September 1993 to investigate four pedophiles, including Perkins.

‘It was categoric. We were not to investigate to find any more victims,’ Det Sgt Mosheev said on Tuesday at the commission’s Adelaide hearing into Perkins’ sexual abuse of boys at the Catholic St Ann’s Special School for children.

‘We were to finalise our current brief of evidence and we were just to finish that off.’

Officers became angry at the instruction but were ‘scared absolutely out of our wits’ of high-ranking officers and he could not disobey a senior officer, he said.

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MASSACHUSETTS
PR Web

Boston Massachusetts (PRWEB) March 18, 2014

BASTA, a film documenting the emotional journey taken by simple men detailing their attempts to reach into the Vatican walls in search of help, hope and aid in healing a nation reeling from the effects of the clergy abuse crisis, will premiere at the Boston International Film Festival on Sunday, April 20th.
Attempting to battle the cover-up, shame and silence of clergy sexual abuse, three survivors from Boston Massachusetts, travel to Rome reaching behind the secret walls of The Vatican. Their weeklong effort becomes a decade long mission that exposes mind blowing statistics and unexpected worldwide results.

“There are times when a societal issue is so incomprehensible that it seems nearly impossible for people to grasp, much less digest,” shared filmmaker Gary Bergeron. “The worldwide epidemic of child sexual abuse by clergy is such an issue. As the producer and subject matter expert for this film, I wanted to show the audience the facts in a way that allows viewers to draw their own conclusions. The goal is to provide the audience an opportunity to travel on the decade-long journey through the eyes of someone who has moved from being a childhood victim to an adult survivor. Our hopes are that this film will engage society in a conversation that is long overdue. Being selected by the Boston International Film Festival is a step in that direction. The Boston International Film Festival’s decision to premiere the film on Easter Sunday, is perhaps divine intervention.”

According to Bergeron, “This is a global epidemic which needs, and deserves, global awareness. There are 60 million adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse living in the United States alone. Survivors need to know that they are not alone and above all, there is always hope.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Standard

By JOEL CRESSWELL March 19, 2014

One of Australia’s worst paedophile priests told victims they were “God’s little angel” and that his abuse was “the Lord’s work”.

Former Catholic priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale has pleaded guilty to 30 charges, including 28 counts of indecent assault on children in Victoria’s Western District, between 1961 and 1980.

Ridsdale, 79, abused children as young as four, and assaulted 11 boys and three girls after befriending them and their families.

One of his victims said Ridsdale hid behind the Catholic Church as he abused.

“I trusted you Gerald Ridsdale, you represented God and all that is good,” she said, reading her victim impact statement to the Victorian County Court yesterday.

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NEW JERSEY
Catholic Culture

By Dr. Jeff Mirus March 18, 2014

Newark priest Michael Fugee has been laicized after violating an agreement with prosecutors to stay out of any ministry involving children. Contrary to the agreement, Fugee slipped into the neighboring Diocese of Trenton, without seeking permission, and participated in youth programs at two parishes. We provide a brief report on Fugee’s laicization, with links to more detailed background from the Newark Star Ledger.

Our story is accurate, but what is wrong with the picture it presents?

I suppose you could pick out several things. One is certainly Fugee’s assignment by Archbishop John Myers as co-director of the Office of Continuing Education and Ongoing Formation of Priests. Admittedly, there are only a limited number of positions for priests who are not allowed to work with youth, but the Ongoing Formation of Priests? Really?

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CANADA
CBC News

A Nunavut court judge has dismissed an application by Crown counsel Doug Curliss that sought special permission to cross-examine Eric Dejaeger on the facts underlying his previous convictions.

The former Oblate priest, now 66-years-old, is now on trial in Iqaluit facing dozens of charges alleging sexual abuse against children in Igloolik three decades ago.

Curliss made an application to revisit Dejaeger’s convictions in court Monday. Dejaeger was convicted on charges of sexual assault in Baker Lake in 1989 and again in 1991.

In a written judgment issued this morning, Justice Robert Kilpatrick denied the application.

He pointed out that Canadian common law prevents Crown prosecutors from presenting evidence of bad character, “unless or until the defendant puts his or her character at issue.”

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CANADA
Nunatsiaq Online

DAVID MURPHY

Justice Robert Kilpatrick as ruled that Eric Dejaeger’s previous criminal record cannot be entered into evidence, or used against him, at his trial now underway in Iqaluit.

In a written decision released March 18, Kilpatrick said several of the Crown’s questions during Dejaeger’s cross-examination were a “trap” set in order to bring the Belgian priest’s character into question.

“An accused does not put his or her character into issue in circumstances where he or she is tricked into doing so by inappropriate questions raised by the Crown in cross-examination,” Kilpatrick said in the statement.

Kilpatrick released his decision the morning after both Crown and defence lawyers wrestled in the Nunavut Court of Justice over whether to admit his previous criminal record as evidence March 17.

Because such evidence can be highly prejudicial to an accused person, Crown lawyers can’t introduce it unless they persuade a judge that the value of such evidence in establishing facts outweighs its prejudicial effects.

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FRANCE
Sud Ouest

Le père Patrick Braud a été condamné ce mardi après-midi par le tribunal correctionnel d’Angoulême à deux ans de prison avec sursis pour agressions sexuelles sur deux adolescentes de la communauté catholique, entre 1994 et 1998.

Absent à l’énoncé du jugement, il est en revanche relaxé pour des attouchements sur une troisième jeune fille au retour d’une excursion paroissiale, en 2006.

Lors de l’audience, le 18 février dernier, l’ex-curé de la cathédrale Saint-Pierre d’Angoulême avait “formellement contesté ces accusations d’agressions sexuelles”, reconnaissant toutefois des gestes ambigus, baisers dans le cou et autres doigts mordillés, à l’endroit des victimes, deux jeunes sœurs.

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FRANCE
Poitou-Charentes

Le tribunal d’Angoulême a rendu ce mardi après midi son délibéré dans l’affaire du père Patrick Braud.

L’ancien curé et vicaire de la cathédrale d’Angoulême a été condamné à une peine de deux années de prison avec sursis, assortie d’une obligation de soins, pour des agressions sexuelles commises sur deux adolescentes de la communauté catholique locale entre 1994 et 1998. Il s’est également vu interdire de contact avec les victimes, deux jeunes femmes âgées à présent de 22 et 32 ans.

Il a été en outre condamné à verser 3.000 euros au titre du préjudice moral à l’une, tandis que le montant des dommages et intérêts reste pendant pour l’autre, lié à une expertise complémentaire à la demande de la défense.

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FRANCE
ABC News (US)

AP

A court in southwestern France has convicted a former Roman Catholic priest for sexual abuse against two sisters while they were minors between 1994 and 1998, one of the first cases of its kind in years in France.

Officials said the court in Angouleme on Tuesday sentenced 56-year-old Patrick Braud to a two-year suspended prison sentence, ordered him to undergo treatment, and pay fines and other fees to the sisters over last month’s trial.

The court rejected part of the case brought by another woman, and rejected a prosecutor’s request for Braud to be locked up. Defense lawyers said Braud was deciding whether to appeal. He remains a priest if not serving actively.

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SCHWEIZ
Berner Zeitung

Von Michael Meier

Der ehemalige St. Galler Bischof Ivo Fürer über den sexuellen Missbrauch durch Priester, die Freistellung des Zölibats und seine eigene Jugend.

Herr Bischof Fürer, sind Sie froh, jetzt, wo die Missbrauchsskandale für Schlagzeilen sorgen, nicht mehr im Amt zu sein?

Wir hatten schon früher einen Fall im Bistum St. Gallen: Alois F. von Walenstadt, der verurteilt worden ist. Damals war ich Bischof. Die ganze Karwoche 2002 war ich unter Beschuss der Medien. Ich habe dann die Arbeitsgruppe «Sexuelle Übergriffe in der Pastoral» eingesetzt, die ein Merkblatt herausgab. In allen Dekanaten wurden Tagungen zum Thema Distanz und Nähe in der Seelsorge durchgeführt.

Überrascht Sie heute die Häufung von Missbrauchsfällen?
Ja. Als Jugendlicher war ich in Appenzell im Kollegi und später in Innsbruck im Priesterseminar. Das Thema Missbrauch von Jugendlichen lag gänzlich jenseits dieser Welt.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Frankfurter Rundschau

[Summary: Controversial Limburg Bishop Franz-Peter van Elst Tebartz can still count on the backing of the Vatican. The local prefect of the CDF, Mainz Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Muller, called criticism of the bishop a “smear campaign.” The cardinal said it’s like a manhunt and someone is slaughtered and harks back to a dark era in Germany’s history.]

MAINZ/LIMBURG. –
Der umstrittene Limburger Bischof Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst kann immer noch auf Rückendeckung aus dem Vatikan zählen. Der dortige Präfekt der Glaubenskongregation, der aus Mainz stammende Kardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, hat die Kritik an dem Bischof als “Rufmordkampagne” bezeichnet. “Da gibt es offenbar Lust auf Menschenjagd”, sagte Müller der Mainzer “Allgemeinen Zeitung”. Dass jemand “derart niedergemacht” werde, sei menschenunwürdig. “So etwas hatten wir in Deutschland früher schon mal in einer ganz dunklen Epoche”, sagte der Kardinal.

Müller mag weiterhin keine kirchenrechtlichen Gründe erkennen, Tebartz-van Elst als Bischof abzusetzen. Man müsse fragen, ob “gezielt Widerwillen gegen Tebartz gezüchtet wurde. Es ist ja heutzutage leicht, Stimmungen in der Öffentlichkeit aufzubauen”, sagte Müller. Die Entscheidung des Papstes im Fall Tebartz-van Elst, dem Prunksucht und intransparentes Finanzgebaren vorgeworfen wird, wird in Kürze erwartet.

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DEUTSCHLAND
PNN

[Summary: Stefan Luttke of Potsdam was victim of sexual abuse by a chaplain and has been silent for years. As an adult, he experienced how the church handled what happened to him as a humiliation. Cardinal Woelke regrets and case and the Vatican has heard about it. Luttke said he could not believe his eyes when he read the message from the Berlin archdiocese in April 2013. The allegation was seen to be inconclusive and the priest’s return as pastor to his congregation would be possible. He regards the message from Berlin as being re-victimization.]

Der Potsdamer Stefan Lüttke wurde Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs durch einen Kaplan und hat jahrelang geschwiegen. Als Erwachsener erlebte er den Umgang der Kirche mit seinem Schicksal als Demütigung. Kardinal Woelki bedauert den Fall. Auch der Vatikan ist eingeschaltet

Stefan Lüttke traute seinen Augen nicht, als er im April 2013 die Mitteilung des Berliner Erzbistums las. Da stand tatsächlich, dass die „staatlichen und kirchlichen Untersuchungen“ gegen seinen früheren Kaplan aus Potsdam und heutigen Pfarrer der Gemeinde Herz Jesu Stefan M. in Berlin-Tegel „ergebnislos eingestellt“ wurden. „Der Wiederaufnahme seines priesterlichen Dienstes steht nichts mehr entgegen. Damit wäre auch seine Rückkehr in die Aufgaben des Pfarrers dieser Gemeinde möglich.“

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