ABUSE TRACKER

IRELAND
Sunday Independent

Maeve Sheehan
Published 15/06/2014

THEY are the babies that society has tried to forget. Many were born in “shameful” circumstances to unmarried or impoverished mothers at a home in Tuam.

Those who weren’t given up for adoption were sent to industrial schools or Magdalene Laundries.

Seven-hundred and ninety-six babies died, their resting place unmarked.

The local historian who discovered the scale of baby deaths in St Mary’s can find no burial records. They are thought to have been buried in unmarked graves on the site of an old septic tank. There is no plot with their names on it that says they lived – for however short a period – or that they died.

Today we publish for the first time official public records documenting the harsh, short lives of the 796 babies and children who died in Tuam.

The records, compiled by the General Register Office and released on Friday to this newspaper, do not say where the babies are from to protect their privacy. The records give the babies the dignity of being called by their name, while the notes and causes of death entered after their names tell their own story.

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

IRELAND
Journal

CONVULSIONS. MALNUTRITION. DELICACY.

Babies died at the Bethany Home in Dublin’s Rathgar for a raft of reasons. Some, like Victory (1924) and Addison (1925), were stillborn.

Others, like Patricia Bass and Eleanor Allen, who died within a day of each other in February 1925, aged four months and five weeks respectively, died of ‘general debility’.

Evelyn Dixon was six weeks old when she died on 3 October 1926. The cause of death was marked as ‘syphilis’.

Charles Heffernon was 18 months old when he died of German measles on 17 May 1924 at the home. In 1935, both Margaret McKnight (three months) and Helen Parker (two-and-a-half months) died of ‘stomach trouble’ on the same day: 15 November.

June Spence lived for just six weeks before she died of marasmus (malnutrition) in the Bethany Home.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

PATRICK COUNIHAN @irishcentral June 15,2014

Details are emerging of the horrific stories behind some of the 796 deaths at the Tuam mother and baby home – where 18 children died of hunger.

12 of the 18 who starved were girls and there is a suspicion that some were mentally retarded.

One child wasn’t even given a name by the Bons Secours nuns who ran the Tuam home.

The youngest child to die was recorded as just ‘10 minutes old’ while the oldest was eight, a girl who had lived all her life in the home until measles killed her.

Bridget Agatha Kenny was two months old when she died as a result of marasmus, child malnutrition, on August 23, 1947. She is described as having been ‘mentally defective.’

She was one of 18 children whose cause of death was listed as child malnutrition or the official term “marasmus.”

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

Marie Kierans

The decision by the Government to hold an investigation into mother and baby-homes will not take away the heartbreak caused by the atrocities in these places of terror.

But hopefully the probe will at least finally expose the unforgivable practices that went on, hold those responsible accountable and give proper recognition to the thousands of children who died through neglect and cruelty.

That so-called religious people could inflict such brutal suffering
on any human being – never mind innocent babies and their poor young mothers whose only “crime” was to get pregnant outside of marriage – is truly incomprehensible.

It is only right the inquiry is not confined to the revelations concerning the former Bon Secours home in Tuam.

All similar facilities must come under scrutiny so we face up to and address this shameful time in our history once and for all.

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IRELAND
Journal

A FIANNA FÁIL senator who herself was adopted from a mother-and-baby home has called on the government to give all adoptees the right to access their birth certs.

Senator Averil Power has noted that adopted people in the United Kingdom have had access to their original birth cert, which includes their mother’s name and their own original name, since 1975.

“Forty years later, Irish adoptees still don’t have that right,” she said in a statement this afternoon.

Power was adopted from the Temple Hill mother-and-baby home in Dublin
She said the conditions within these homes tell “just half the story”.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Fox 2

BY ELLIOT WEILER

ST. LOUIS, MO (KTVI) – This week, FOX 2′s Elliot Weiler, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s national and political editor Christopher Ave and reporter Stephen Giegerich look at the St. Louis County Executive race, Republican Eric Cantor’s primary election defeat, and Archbishop Carlson’s video testimony in a sexual abuse case.

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UNITED STATES
Friendly Atheist

I applaud the editorial team’s response, particularly this portion:

There is no way to remove the piece altogether from the Internet, and we do not want to make it seem that we are trying to make it disappear. That is not journalistically honest. The fact that we published it; its deficiencies; and the way its deficiencies illuminate our own lack of insight and foresight, is a matter of record at The Internet Archive

[Christianity Today]

Any advertising revenues derived from hits to this post will be donated to Christian organizations that work with survivors of sexual abuse. We will be working to regain our readers’ trust and to give greater voice to victims of abuse.

It’s unusual for a Christian organization to even consider journalistic integrity in their actions, and to try to make amends with those they’ve hurt by allocating revenue to appropriate charity groups — see, for example, the World Vision gay employee policy reversal fiasco earlier this year, which left approximately 2,000 kids without sponsors. So I’m excited that they’re not completely trying to whitewash this.

But it’s not good enough. This is not restitution, this is a bare-minimum sort of response. (And as an aside: what charities are they giving to? Can we see numbers on this?)

I think they should have left the post up, because while the Internet is forever, the post is representative of their bad decision, and it is only right that you should own your words and your mistakes on the Internet. Taking it down was, I know, something a lot of my peers in the blogging world begged for, but that’s not a real solution.

A better solution would be this: run a full issue dedicated to telling the stories of victims of pastoral abuse, in their own words. Include articles from Elizabeth Esther, G.R.A.C.E. staff members, Recovering Grace representatives, Kathryn Joyce, and lawyers involved in representing victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests. You want a cautionary tale for pastors? Don’t go to a man who ended up in jail for raping a minor in his youth group. The way to go about it is to talk to those involved in seeking justice for the victims of sexually predatory spiritual leaders.

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

UNITED STATES
Dianna E. Anderson

13 June 2014

Today, Leadership Journal offered a small mea culpa in the form of some brief language changes and a note at the beginning. I’ve reproduced the note here:

Editorial Note: Since publishing the following piece on Monday, there has been a tremendous backlash from readers. Many voiced concerns that the author mischaracterized the nature of the relationship he had with his student and failed to acknowledge the gravity of his crime. We’ve heard your criticisms and would like to add the following clarifications.

First, the intent of this article was to serve as a cautionary story for church leaders and to prevent future abuse. According to Richard Hammar, a leading expert specializing in legal and tax issues for churchesand clergy, sexual abuse is the number one reason churches end up in court. Cases involving youth leaders abusing students are particularly common and this piece was meant to draw attention to this tragic problem. We simply can’t deny the pervasiveness of this problem or the deep and lasting wounds instances of abuse leave on the lives of victims.

Second, we in no way meant to downplay the severity of the author’s crimes. He is currently serving time in prison and has taken 100 percent of the responsibility for what transpired. Some of the language in the article did appear to portray the “relationship” he had with his student as consensual. We regret any implication of that kind and strongly underscore that an adult cannot have a consensual sexual relationship with a minor. This was not an “affair.” It was statutory rape. To make sure the article does not communicate otherwise, we have changed the language to reflect the true nature of the author’s crimes.

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

AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 15 June 2014)

Catholic Church authorities ignored the crimes of a paedophile religious Brother – Gregory Joseph Sutton – and transferred him to other schools (giving him more victims), according to evidence given to Australia’s national child-abuse Royal Commission.

Brother Greg Sutton (born 19 March 1951) was a member of the Marist Brothers Order, which sent him to teach, from the early 1970s until the late 1980s, in Catholic schools in Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory.

According to evidence at the Royal Commission, the Marist headquarters in Sydney (not the local school) made each of these appointments. Whenever a new child-abuse complaint surfaced about Brother Greg, the local principal was not allowed to deal with it (“because Greg is a Brother, not merely a lay teacher”). Each principal was forced to hand the matter to the Marist headquarters in Sydney, which would then send Brother Greg to another school, without warning the next principal (or the parents) about Brother Greg being danger to children.

According to evidence at the Royal Commission, the Marist leadership avoided reporting these crimes to the police. Finally, after twenty years, one family considered contacting the child-protection police. But, meanwhile the Marist headquarters gave Brother Greg a plane ticket to North America where (perhaps) he would be beyond the reach of the Australian police.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

COLLEEN EGAN The West Australian
June 15, 2014

Giving emotional testimony at royal commission hearings in April, former child migrant witnesses believed their alleged abusers were probably all dead.

The once-powerful Christian Brothers who ran institutions – young boys’ guardians and, as several tearful men testified, their sadistic tormentors – were thought to be in the grave.

But _The Weekend West _ has discovered there is at least one surviving Brother who was never called to the witness box.

Brian Morgan, 82, was twice named in evidence by Maltese child migrants who were sent to Tardun farm school and orphanage. He was not accused of committing or being aware of sexual abuse.

Witness VG told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that then-Brother Morgan, with other Brothers, was involved in the bashing of a boy “until he could no longer stand”.

Raphael Ellul testified about a beating of himself and his older brother and another incident when he had run away from Tardun and attempted to report sexual abuse by Brother Patrick Synan to the police at Mullewa.

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MINNESOTA
Winona Daily News

Leslie Hittner

“I looked at it more as a sin than a crime.” — Thomas Adamson

In reality it was both. But thanks to Bishop Fitzgerald, Bishop Watters, Bishop Harrington, Archbishop Roach, and other members of our Catholic Church hierarchy – members of the Diocese of Winona and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis – it became much more.

When confronted by a man who claimed his three brothers and others had been abused by Father Adamson, Bishop Watters is reported to have responded that “little boys heal.”

When informed by another priest that Adamson had had sex with a little boy, Archbishop Roach simply told the priest to “handle it” and then the archdiocese began to “posture itself in such a way that any publicity will be minimized.”

Reports from relatives were trivialized and the behavior was covered up and Father Adamson was pushed to and fro throughout the diocese.

Reports from priests led to decisions to coverup the conduct and Father Adamson was pushed to and fro throughout the archdiocese, with a cautionary measure to ensure that his assignments were not in parishes that were close to the Diocese of Winona.

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SOUTH AFRICA
Sunday Times

BOBBY JORDAN | 26 May, 2014

One of South Africa’s oldest schools has been engulfed in a sex scandal – prompting allegations of a cover-up spanning two decades.

Cape Town’s prestigious private boys-only Diocesan College, better known as Bishops, this week confirmed two alleged incidents of sexual abuse.

The first incident involves a former pupil who alleged he was sexually abused by a fellow pupil. The claims of the former pupil, now living in the US, were published this week in Noseweek magazine.

The Sunday Times has since established that a second incident involving a teacher and a Grade 11 pupil has been kept under wraps since 1990, when the boy’s parents lodged a complaint.

Incredibly, the teacher, Leonard Kap-lan, was allowed to remain at the school for more than 20 years despite the matter being widely known among the school community. He retired four years ago.

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SOUTH AFRICA
News 24

Cape Town – Business tycoon Raymond Ackerman has been approached to help resolve a sex abuse crisis at Cape Town’s prestigious Diocesan College – more commonly known as Bishop’s.

According to the Sunday Times, Ackerman, a former pupil and president of the Old Diocesan Union, was asked to step in to sort out allegations of boy-on-boy sexual abuse and that of inappropriate behaviour by a senior teacher.

However, despite his best efforts, the newspaper reports that allegations continue to mount amid calls for a private investigation. A group of former pupils also claim Ackerman’s efforts are being derailed by Mike Bosman, the chairperson of the school council.

The group claims that Bosman sent a letter to a former teacher, Tim Hamilton-Smith, pressuring him to resign as secretary of the old boys’ union.

This move is believed to have been an attempt to placate a former student who went to Hamilton-Smith for help after being sexually abused by an older pupil more than 30 years ago. Hamilton-Smith is accused of allegedly ignoring the plea for help.

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

UNITED STATES
The Tribune-Review

Published: Saturday, June 14, 2014

Martin Sixsmith

The discovery of a grave containing the remains of as many as 800 babies at a former home for unmarried mothers in Ireland is yet another problem for the Irish Catholic Church.

The mother and baby home at Tuam in County Galway was run by the nuns of the Sisters of Bon Secours and operated between 1925 and 1961. It took in thousands of women who had committed the “mortal sin” of unwed pregnancy, delivered their babies and was charged with caring for them.
But unsanitary conditions, poor food and a lack of medical care led to shockingly high rates of infant mortality. Babies’ bodies were deposited in a former sewage tank.

Sadly, the mass grave at Tuam is probably not unique. I visited the site — the home was demolished in the 1970s — and spoke with locals who remember babies’ skulls emerging from the soil around their houses. When boys broke open the cover of the sewage pit, they found it “full to the brim” of skeletons.

Tuam was only one of a dozen mother and baby homes in Ireland in the years after World War II, all of which treated their inmates in a similar fashion.

During 10 years of research into the Catholic Church’s treatment of “fallen women” — I wrote about one of them in my book, “Philomena,” later turned into a feature film starring Dame Judi Dench — I discovered that the girls were refused medical attention, including painkillers, during even the most difficult births; the nuns told them the pain was the penance they must pay for their sin.

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UNITED STATES
Slactivist

June 14, 2014 By Fred Clark

This is a pleasant surprise. They took down that post.

By “that post” I mean the horrible rape apologia published earlier this week by Leadership Journal, Christianity Today’s magazine for white evangelical pastors.

And by “they” I mean both Leadership Journal — which removed the post entirely, and “they” the dozens of Christians, mostly women, who wrote to the editors of LJ, commented, wrote blog posts and started the Twitter hashtag #TakeDownThatPost. The latter “they,” remarkably, were the ones who persuaded/forced the former “they” to begin to correct their ghastly mistake.

That’s tremendous, considering that Leadership Journal is decidedly and determinedly an institution at the heart of white evangelical institutionalism. That’s not an arena where the voices of women are usually able to make themselves heard. Especially not young women (and “young,” in Christianity Today terms, means anybody under 50). And not young women who don’t have a market or media platform or any formal, institutional support. And most especially not young women who ask too many questions, or who are too vocally critical of white evangelical purity culture, or who do not have the proper Official Stance opposing LGBT people and feminism.

And yet, astonishingly, dozens of just such women were able — eventually — to force the powers that be at Christianity Today to listen and to respond. That happened because they had the courage to speak up and to refuse to be silenced. And because they were right. They were obviously, powerfully right. And in the end, the men who run Christianity Today had to acknowledge the truth of what these women were saying.

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

UNITED STATES
Belleville News-Democrat

June 15, 2014

St. Louis Catholic Archbishop Robert Carlson drew the ire and derision of many people this week after testifying in a lawsuit deposition that he wasn’t sure he knew years ago that it was a crime for an adult to have sex with a child.

The archdiocese said his remarks were taken out of context, but it’s perfectly clear what he was doing. He was trying to justify why, when he was in the Archdiocese of Minneapolis-St. Paul, law enforcement wasn’t called in to investigate allegations that a priest had sexually abused a minor.

Leaders in the Belleville Catholic Diocese, Freeburg School District 70 and St. Clair County government would have similarly difficult times explaining why they never reported the sexual abuse or harassment that went on in their jurisdictions. Their failure to quickly respond to the problems, more so than the problems themselves, have cost people collectively millions of dollars.

A fifth former Freeburg student just filed a lawsuit alleging he was sexually abused by former Superintendent Robin Hawkins. The district has paid four other former students a combined $5.6 million to settle their claims. Another cost: Hawkins took his own life.

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

UNITED STATES
Questions from a Ewe

What a curious week. On one hand I read that the US bishops voted in their annual spring meeting to “stay the course.” My initial reaction? Oh goody! We can look forward to yet another year of bishops trying to expand their theocracy’s marginalization of women and homosexuals further into secular government. And, we’ll be treated to an encore performance hearing them intermittently and indignantly ejaculate “Religious liberty!” while they do it despite them trouncing on others’ religious liberties in the process. …Something about “self-awareness” keeps popping into my head.

Wait a minute…I’m also getting a reading from my psychic barometer. It predicts these ejaculations will increase in frequency and volume the closer we get to the US’s mid-term elections. Yippee! Can’t wait.

On the other hand, this week I also listened to one of my friends describe how his kids’ Catholic school enrollment has been cut almost in half after experiencing a raging alcoholic pastor followed by one who is a Protestant convert still enveloped in Protestant charismatic preaching styles. Now, this is a new trend it seems…the iconic mega-church fundamentalist Protestant preacher in Catholic priest’s clothing. Don’t say the old dogs can’t learn new tricks sometimes. But, since this trend began before the bishops decided to “stay the course,” I think that means this new tactic is part of the course they will keep. I can only guess that the objective is to cut Catholic school enrollments in half again.

On yet another hand, this week I also read the deposition of Robert Carlson, a man some people call “archbishop” but for whom I cannot choke out that word since “bishop” means “overseer” and when I read his deposition he exhibits no behaviors associated with tending his flock like a caretaker. His favorite three words in the deposition were “I don’t remember.” It is so prevalent that I wonder if the man can remember what color pants he wears, though presumably it is standard clerical black … every … single … day.

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IRELAND
Journal

THE CHILDREN’S MINISTER is eager for “as many groups as possible” to be included in the inquiry into all mother-and-baby homes in Ireland.

However, he has ruled out a complete investigation into county homes as part of this inquiry.

An alliance of four groups last night urged for the inclusion of county homes and the Magdalene Laundries as part of the investigation’s terms of reference.

Speaking today, Minister Charlie Flanagan said he expects the investigation will “incorporate different people and groups who have had unjustifiable grievance over a long number of years”.

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IIRELAND
Sunday Independent

Maeve Sheehan
Published 15/06/2014

Labour leadership candidate shares her story with Maeve Sheehan and tells of tracing her family and the journey |to find her birth mother

THERE are thousands of photographs of Joan Burton, but only one of when she was a baby. The sole pictorial record of her infancy is on a very old passport which is stamped with entry visas, one for Newfoundland and one for the United States. She was probably just months old when the Sisters of Charity applied for it, expecting to ship her across the Atlantic to be adopted by a Canadian or an American family.

She was a thin child and it was thought she wasn’t strong enough for the journey. The nuns arranged for her to be “boarded out” with three different families until, at the age of two, her adoptive mother, Bridie Burton, came to the convent in Blackrock, gathered her in her arms with joy and took her home to Rialto Cottages in Dublin 8.

From that one bedroom artisan dwelling, Joan Burton prospered. She won a scholarship to UCD; had a career in accountancy. After 25 years in politics she is Minister for Social Protection and is in a contest with her government colleague, Alex White, to be the next leader of the Labour Party.

Despite her political connections, her journey to find her birth mother was no different than thousands of others born to unmarried mothers or parents too poor to feed them. It was a road littered with bureaucracy, secrecy and long and frustrating delays. Now 65, she saw her passport for the first time more than a decade ago, around the time she also finally found out who her mother was.

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IRELAND
The Wellbeing Foundation

The trauma of childhood sexual abuse is almost incomprehensible. Here, Michael Corry and Aine Tubridy explain some of the consequences

I’ve come to realise that sexual assault is an imposed death experience for the victim. That is, the victim experiences her life as having been taken by someone else.
— Evangeline Kane

The emerging self, with its inherent potential, needs to be protected, and like a seedling, nurtured in fertile ground. Sexual abuse, like no other trauma, eclipses this natural unfolding with an impact of such magnitude that is rarely appreciated. Upwards of 150,000 adult women and men in Ireland have experienced statutory rape in childhood. Five times that figure experienced other forms of sexual abuse, ranging from inappropriate touching to the forced witnessing of exposure.

Picture an infant, whose window on the world is the rim of their cot, whose cry or smile elicits the unqualified unconditional attention of her mother and father, their watchful eyes holding her gaze completely, making her feel for those moments, the absolute centre of the world. In the infant’s tiny mind an inner knowing is forming ‘I am the reason this is happening’.

Now fast forward to a time when the same apparently loving father is gradually beginning to express his ‘love’ in a sexual manner, involving her in sex games which evolve over time into full sexual intimacy such as that shared by consenting adults. Her protestations are mollified, her cooperation validated and her secrecy rewarded. Variations of this premature sexualisation occur. Not for some fathers the process of seduction, but rather sadistic, brutal intercourse, instilling terror and pain, where every orifice is violated. She has no escape. Drunk or sober, day or night, he has access to her. Her reason for living has been reduced to being a sexual object, a sex slave. Once again, and in both examples of fathers, the belief holds ‘I am the reason this is happening’. The same interpretation will be formed if the attentions are those of a grandfather, uncle, sibling, neighbour or babysitter.

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

UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversry

Posted by Joelle Casteix on June 14, 2014

St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson has a lesson for all of us, and I don’t think it’s the lesson he intended.

The situation: When asked by victims’ attorney Jeff Anderson in a recent deposition if he knew in the 1984 that child sex abuse was a crime, Carlson responded, “I’m not sure if I did or I didn’t.” The result: he didn’t report. Countless children were put at risk and many others were abused because he couldn’t pick up the phone and call the police.

Which leads to the following question: Do YOU know how to report suspected or witnessed abuse?
I am going to go into much greater detail on this subject in my upcoming book, but I feel that it’s necessary to post and repost this information as much as possible.

First, some assumptions: I consider everyone a mandatory reporter. Child sex abuse is a crime with lasting consequences. There is a victim and an alleged criminal. If you see or suspect abuse, it’s an adult’s civic and moral obligation to report.

If you are a mandatory reporter in the eyes of the law, your employer should provide you specific training on your reporting procedures. If you have not had that training in the past year, demand that your employer provide it to all mandatory reporters at your work.

How to report child sexual abuse

If you are a victim or witness abuse:

1) If you are a victim of sexual assault, call 911. If it is not an emergency requiring immediate medical care, call your local police department and ask to speak to someone who can take a report of the sexual assault of a(n) child/adult. If you feel that it’s necessary to call 911, do it.

2) If you see sexual abuse taking place, call 911. Treat the crime like a robbery, car accident or shooting. It’s a crime that needs immediate attention.

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NEW YORK
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York

June 14, 2014

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 14, 2014

POPE FRANCIS APPOINTS THREE NEW BISHOPS FOR NEW YORK

Our Holy Father, Pope Francis, has appointed three priests of the Archdiocese of New York to serve as Auxiliary Bishops to Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York. The announcement was made today in Rome and in Washington.

Bishop-elect John Jenik, 70, currently the pastor of Our Lady of Refuge Parish in the Bronx, Bishop-elect John O’Hara, 68, currently directing the archdiocesan planning process Making All Things New and former pastor of Saint Teresa of the Infant Jesus Parish on Staten Island, and Bishop-elect Peter Byrne, 62, currently the pastor of Saint Elizabeth Parish in Manhattan, all bring many years of experience as pastors to their new roles as bishops. Cardinal Dolan praised the appointments, saying, “All three bishops-elect are seasoned pastors of the archdiocese, with years of acclaimed ministry in all areas of the archdiocese. “

The three new bishops will be ordained as bishops on August 4, 2014 in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. They join Bishop Gerald Walsh and Bishop Domenick Lagonegro as auxiliary bishops of New York. Cardinal Edward Egan, Archbishop-emeritus, is the retired Archbishop of New York, and Bishop Robert Brucato and Bishop Josu Iriondo are retired auxiliary bishops.

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NEW YORK
Staten Island Advance

By Vincent Barone | vbarone@siadvance.com
on June 14, 2014

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Pope Francis has named three priests to serve under Cardinal Timothy Dolan as auxiliary bishops to the Archdiocese of New York. Two of the bishop-elects are John O’Hara and Peter Byrne, 30-year priests who have been staples in the Catholic community on Staten Island.

Bishop-elect O’Hara, 68, is currently the director of strategic pastoral planning for the archdiocese. He was once the pastor of the Church of St. Teresa of the Infant Jesus on Staten Island and has served in the borough for a total of 24 years.

Byrne, 62, is the former longtime pastor of Immaculate Conception, where he served for 18 years, from 1995 to 2013.

The news was announced Saturday morning in Washington D.C. by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

JORDAN BAKER THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH JUNE 15, 2014

CATHOLICISM’S top job in Australia ­remains vacant almost four months after Cardinal George Pell said he was heading to Rome, despite the Vatican saying his replacement would be fast-tracked.

Some church watchers believe the delay is due to tension over the appointment, which comes as senior clergy are grilled over their response to child sexual abuse at the royal commission.

Many in the Catholic Church believe an announcement is imminent. But if a new Archbishop of Sydney is not announced in the next few weeks, the key position will likely remain empty until September because Rome shuts down during the hot months of July and August.

Former priest Paul Collins said the four-month wait might point to problems.

“It’s taking some time, which probably means there’s something of a tussle going on,” he said.

Cardinal Pell will be highly influential in the selection of his ­replacement. He is the only Australian member of the ­Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops, which will recommend a candidate for Sydney to the Pope. …

The contenders

Anthony Fisher, 54

Bishop of Parramatta, was the youngest ever bishop when ordained in 2003. Has Pell’s strong support, but seen by some as too young, and others as too academic.

From Dominican order, not a diocesan priest.

Mark Coleridge, 65

Archbishop of Brisbane, (right) previously auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne and Archbishop of Canberra. Well-respected, spent time in Rome but new to Brisbane and it’s been a long time since he was a hands-on priest.

Bill Wright, 61

Bishop of Maitland-Newcastle, ordained a bishop in 2011. Knows Sydney as he spent many years as a suburban priest. Considered to have handled sex abuse inquiry well, but may still be tainted by the issue.

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

NEW ORLEANS (LA)
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee Brian Roewe | Jun. 13, 2014

NEW ORLEANS
A key question for the nation’s Catholic bishops, says their president: How can they encourage one another in their ministry while respecting different leadership roles?

Louisville, Ky., Archbishop Joseph Kurtz said he is examining, “What does it mean for us to be instruments of encouragement to one another as bishops?”

“I think the conference is not meant to take the place of leadership of bishops, it’s meant to support that leadership,” said Kurtz, who was elected to lead the U.S. bishops’ conference last November and is serving a three year term.

“Just as a bishop’s leadership in a diocese is not meant to take the place of the leadership of the baptized faithful and the priests who are serving — but it’s meant to inspire and be a catalyst,” he continued.

Kurtz was speaking in an NCR interview Thursday at the end of the bishops’ spring plenary assembly, held in New Orleans this week. The assembly, which saw the bishops on Wednesday address 17 issues at breakneck pace before listening to a series of speakers on Thursday, wrapped up Friday morning with prayer.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: A California Province Jesuit ordained in 1946, Monaghan worked as a high school teacher and counselor, and as a parish priest. He was assigned to San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento and Santa Clara, CA, as well as to Phoenix, AZ. Monaghan was accused in the early 1990s of molesting a 7-year-old girl during a counseling session between 1988-1989 in Sacramento. He pleaded no contest to charges related to the accusation and was sentenced to 120 hours of community service and five years’ probation. Monaghan was sent to live at the Sacred Heart Jesuit Center in Los Gatos, CA in 1992, where he remained until his death on October 18, 2004.

Ordained: 1946
Died: Oct. 18, 2004

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UNITED STATES
Public Catholic

[with video]

June 14, 2014 By Rebecca Hamilton

Deacon Greg, as usual, has the story.

So, there’s this Archbishop in St Louis who is accused of the same old enabling of child sex abuse by a priest stuff we’ve gotten to know too well. Mr Archbishop the supposed priest gave a deposition about these accusations.

In that deposition, he did the lawyered-up, don’t-give-them-anything di-doh. It was a masterful performance of I don’t know nothin, sung to the tune of I Can’t Remember.

The all-time show-stopper was when the attorney asked Mr Archbishop if he knew that an adult having sex with a child was a crime back when all this was going on. “I’m not sure if I knew it was a crime or not. I understand today it was a crime,” Mr Archbishop answered. The look on his face while he said it was classic the-dog-ate-my-homework.

The attorney pursued it, and the Archbishop kept right on lying.

If you’ve got the stomach for it, have a look.

I didn’t write about this when I first saw it because, to be honest, it made me sick. I felt so sad. Bereft, almost. I had nothing to say. I just wanted to go away from this and not deal with it.

Then, just to make sure that nobody ever believes him again, the Archbishop started the second quadrille to his little dance. Deacon Greg covered it. Mr Archbishop had the St Louis Archdiocese release another the-dog-ate-my-homework statement.

This time, it was a totally idiotic accusation that inaccurate and misleading reporting “has impugned Archbishop Carlson’s good name and reputation.” This was so daft it made me question if they knew that there was a tape of the deposition out there on YouTube.

The letter goes on. But it doesn’t matter. We have the video.

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UNITED STATES
Irish Central

Niall O’Dowd @niallodowd June 14,2014

There are up to 2,000 Americans who were secretly adopted from Mother and Baby homes in Ireland according to the leading adoption rights campaigner Mari Steed.

Many of whom have never known who their now elderly or deceased Irish birth parents are says Steed.

Thousands of those secret and illegally adopted children ended up in America after essentially being sold to wealthy families.

Mari Steed of the Adoption Rights Alliance was one of them, born at the notorious Bessborough Home in Cork in 1960 and sent to America as a toddler where she now lives near Philadelphia.

She says the latest news of the Irish government inquiry must be the moment that Ireland finally is forced to open its adoption and medical records.

“The government can no longer afford to look away,” Steed says, believing that Tuam has opened a floodgate that cannot be shut.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

John Fay @irishcentral June 10,2014

Father Edward Flanagan, founder of “Boys Town” made famous by the Spencer Tracy movie, was a lone voice in condemning Ireland’s industrial schools back in the 1940s – and he was viciously castigated by church and government for doing so.

Fr. Flanagan, from Co. Roscommon, left Ireland in 1904 and was ordained a priest eight years later. In 1917 he was living and working in Omaha, Nebraska, when he hit upon the idea of a “boys town,” which offered education and a home for the poor and wayward boys of Omaha.

However, demand for the service was so great that he soon had to find bigger premises. Boys Town, built on a farm 10 miles from Omaha, was the result. …

The success of the film “Boys Town,” meant Fr. Flanagan was treated like a celebrity on his arrival.

His visit was noted by the The Irish Independent, which said that Fr. Flanagan had succeeded “against overwhelming odds,” spurred on by the “simple slogan that ‘There is no such thing as a bad boy.’”

But Fr. Flanagan was unhappy with what he found in Ireland. He was dismayed at the state of Ireland’s reform schools and blasted them as “a scandal, un-Christlike, and wrong.” And he said the Christian Brothers, founded by Edmund Rice, had lost its way.

Speaking to a large audience at a public lecture in Cork’s Savoy Cinema he said, “You are the people who permit your children and the children of your communities to go into these institutions of punishment. You can do something about it.” He called Ireland’s penal institutions “a disgrace to the nation,” and later said “I do not believe that a child can be reformed by lock and key and bars, or that fear can ever develop a child’s character.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Mainline Media News

Published: Friday, June 13, 2014

By Cheryl Allison
callison@mainlinemedianews.com

The second of what will be at least three zoning hearings on St. Charles Borromeo Seminary’s plan to consolidate operations on a portion of its upper campus in Wynnewood drew a standing-room-only crowd to a meeting room at the Merion Fire Co. of Ardmore’s station house June 10, spilling over into a hallway for much of the 5 ½-hour session.

There was a noticeable change from the first session last month before the Lower Merion Zoning Hearing Board. Balancing the turnout of Wynnewood and Merion neighbors concerned about potential development on the lower campus was a large contingent of clergy and other seminary supporters from area parishes.

That led to tense moments when an individual neighbor, Anthony Gowa of Indian Creek, cross-examining a seminary witness, asked if any retired clergy or a priest associated with a pedophile case would reside on campus. The question triggered an objection by the seminary’s attorney and outcries from the audience.

“You’ve shown your true colors,” one person called out.

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AUSTRALIA
Courier-Mail

Former mayor calls for all churches to pay taxes, and donate it to victims of child abuse

DES HOUGHTON THE COURIER-MAIL JUNE 15, 2014

FORMER Brisbane Lord Mayor Jim Soorley yesterday called for all churches in Australia to pay rates and taxes with some money going to the victims of child abuse by the clergy.

Mr Soorley, a former Catholic priest, sparked uproar by accusing some churches of profiteering and abusing their rate-exempt status by banking large tracts of land.

“Why should they be exempt?” Soorley said.

“Rates are collected to pay for vital infrastructure in our cities. The churches and their followers use public infrastructure and they should pay their share.’’

He said the churches had squandered much goodwill with shameful criminal behaviour.

He singled out the Salvation Army, the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church for special criticism for harbouring pedophiles.

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IRELAND
Journal

THIS IS THE LETTER from the Minister for Health’s office in 1957 that approved the Bon Secours mother and baby home in Tuam, County Galway.

The letter (which can be viewed here) states that the minister of the day, Fine Gael’s Tom O’Higgins, approved a number of maternity homes under the provision of section 25 of the Health Act 1953.
Many of these homes were already registered prior to the 1953 provision in the Act, as stated in the letter.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Conall Ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner Reporter

Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s claim that a referendum may be needed to give adopted people basic rights has been dismissed as one which “does not survive scrutiny”.

Mr Kenny made the claim, which has been previously asserted by former children’s minister Frances Fitzgerald, in the wake of the mother-and-baby homes scandal.

The Government has promised tracing legislation for adopted people since 2011 but has so far failed to publish a heads of bill.

However, senior lecturer in Constitutional Law at UCC, Conor O’Mahony, said on his blog that such a claim was without foundation.

“This is a familiar claim when calls for reform are being resisted; governments are fond of attributing their inaction to constitutional restrictions. In this case (as in many others) the claim does not survive scrutiny,” wrote Dr O’Mahony.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Dan Griffin

Fri, Jun 13, 2014

Victims who have suffered at the hands of those motivated by “religious ethos” need improved mechanisms for redress, according to a new report.

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has called on the UN Human Rights Committee to recommend that Ireland introduce “more effective, comprehensive and independent mechanisms” for “truth finding and redress” concerning victims of Magdalene laundries, symphysiotomy, mother and baby homes, and status-based employment discrimination.

The recommendation is the “overarching theme” in the ICCL’s fourth periodic examination of Ireland under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, according to the organisation’s director Mark Kelly.

The report also calls on the UN to urge Ireland to make provision for effective mechanisms to implement and enforce international human rights standards in Ireland, including the setting up of an independent National Human Rights Institution.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

Niall O’Dowd @niallodowd June 14,2014

There are some undeniable facts about the unmarried mother’s homes in Ireland from the time they were established in the 1920s until they were closed sometime in the 1960s.

Children died needlessly by the thousands in them. Many, possibly 800 in Galway, were buried without coffins, thrown in the earth, some in a septic tank.

Some deniers have claimed there were high rates of deaths anyway due to the times. But 100 out of 162 babies in Bessborough in Cork?

Here is what happened there. A conscientious health official, Dr .James Deeny, visited, and here are his exact words written in 1951:

“Shortly afterwards, when in Cork, I went to Bessborough. It was a beautiful institution, built on to a lovely old house just before the war, and seemed to be well-run and spotlessly clean. I marched up and down and around about and could not make out what was wrong; at last I took a notion and stripped all the babies and, unusually for a Chief Medical Adviser, examined them.

“Every baby had some purulent infection of the skin and all had green diarrhea, carefully covered up. There was obviously a staphylococcus infection about.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Missourinet

June 14, 2014 By Mike Lear

St. Louis Catholic Archbishop Robert Carlson has released a statement and a video saying he has understood for his entire adult life that sexual abuse is a “grave evil and a criminal offense.”

The statement is an attempt to respond to the release of video of a deposition Carlson gave last month as part of a sexual abuse lawsuit in Minnesota. Carlson and the St. Louis archdiocese say his comments in that deposition have been “misconstrued” to suggest that Carlson was not aware it was a criminal offense for an adult to molest a child. The archdiocese has said in a statement that the exchange in question was about Minnesota’s child abuse reporting law, not whether it was illegal to molest a child.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Claire O’Sullivan
Irish Examiner Reporter

THE Ryan and Cloyne reports into child abuse in the Catholic Church could be seen in simple black and white terms: It was easy to loathe the abusers and the parish priests and bishops who colluded to protect them, to shudder at how bereft and powerless the child victims were, and at the torment of parents when they learned what had gone on around them.

But, following Martin McAleese’s Magdalene report last year, the lines began to blur. We saw that 25% of women sent to the laundries had been referred by an arm of the State, 8.8% by priests, and a notable 10.5% by families. We saw how Church, State, and families were complicit in subjugating, degrading, and dehumanising young girls who had fallen foul of Catholic and therefore societal, norms.

The uproar about conditions in mother-and- baby homes over the past number of weeks has underscored this theme — with the finger increasingly pointed at the families and communities that wanted these pregnant women and their babies out of view; who shoved crying girls through the front door of these homes in the dead of night, expected them to feed, care for, and love a child for a year and then to hand their child to a stranger without question.

Nowhere is this blinkered, ignorant, craven supplication and groupthink better illustrated than in the Twitter feed of @limerick1914, where Limerick librarian and historian Liam Hogan posts excerpts from regional newspapers, local authority, and public health archives.

A Tuam Herald report revealed how, in 1907, the Carlow Board of Guardians wholeheartedly approved the Viceregal Commission’s recommendation that all unmarried mothers who had two or more children should be detained at the workhouse. These women were seen as beyond redemption.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Fox Boston

WEST ROXBURY, Mass. (MyFoxBoston.com) — The assistant athletic director at Catholic Memorial School has been fired amid allegations of inappropriate text messaging.

A school spokesperson confirmed James Cerbo’s employment has been terminated due to an investigation into inappropriate texts.

“It has been determined that the text messages were unacceptable, and clearly violate the school’s policies pertaining to harassment, electronic communications and boundaries,” read a statement from the school.

The statement went on to say the school takes its moral and legal obligation to protect its students seriously and that officials have notified the Department of Children and Families of the allegations.
A parent who declined to go on camera told FOX 25 that two students complained to school officials about texts they say they got from Cerbo.

Cerbo was not at his Walpole home but his father was. He did not want to speak on camera but said that working with kids has always been his son’s passion.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Norwich Evening News

Saturday, June 14, 2014

A Norwich man has written a book about his life-long struggle to overcome sexual and physical abuse he says he suffered at a Catholic-approved boarding school.

David Armstrong, 67, wrote the book ‘Out of the Shadows’ as closure for his own ordeal and to help other victims of abuse to speak out and reclaim their lives.

In the book he describes the beatings and sexual abuse he claims he suffered as a 13-year-old boy at the hands of Irish-born Catholic ‘Presentation Brothers’ at St Vincent’s school in Dartford, Kent – one of six such Irish-run institutions then in existence in the UK.

After he left the school, he ended up in borstal and eventually served a term in Broadmoor, where he met disgraced TV presenter Jimmy Savile.

Following release from Broadmoor, he began the long process of rehabilitation. And apart from a well-publicised blip when, as a gambling addict, he banned himself from every betting shop in East Anglia, he has triumphed over adversity and forgiven his abusers.

He said: “It took me 10 years to begin talking about my experiences at St Vincent’s. Writing this book has taken me over two years and is a final part of the long rehabilitation process.

“Edmund Burke said that, if good men stay silent, evil will prevail, which encapsulates the primary reason I am sharing my story publicly for the first time. In these pages I bare my soul.”

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
The Times-Picayune

By Theodore P. Mahne, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on June 13, 2014

There was a telling moment this week during the New Orleans gathering of the Roman Catholic bishops from across the United States, which hinted at the shift in tone among the leadership of the church.

The 250 bishops, archbishops and cardinals assembled at the Cabildo and on the slate walkway of Jackson Square leading to the St. Louis Cathedral on Wednesday afternoon. They were preparing to celebrate the official opening Mass for the annual spring meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Also on the plaza was a group of demonstrators, a not-uncommon sight whenever leaders of a faith, government or industry convene, usually amid chants shouted from behind police barricades.

This demonstration, however, was different. There was no police phalanx and no shouting. Consisting of about a dozen members, mostly middle-aged and older (like many of the bishops), the demonstrators quietly held up banners calling for the church to ordain women to the Catholic priesthood, a point of doctrine that popes have repeatedly said is unchangeable.

As the bishops prepared for the grand procession into the historic cathedral, several walked over to the crowd with smiles on their faces and hands outstretched. The discussions were necessarily brief, but friendly and dignified on both sides.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
KMOV

(KMOV.com) – St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson is responding to the controversy about his statements he gave in a deposition as part of a sexual abuse lawsuit.

In a letter released Friday night, Carlson said he “misunderstood” a series of questions when he said he was unsure if he was legally obligated to report sexual abuse to police. Carlson had been deposed for a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, where he was previously a bishop. Carlson had a role in handling claims against priests who were accused of sexually abusing children from 1979-1994.

Carlson also said he supports mandatory child abuse laws.

Below is the letter in full:

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I wish to respond to certain misconceptions stemming from a deposition that I gave in a case regarding alleged sexual abuse by a priest in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis nearly thirty years ago. I wish to set the record straight.

I understand this situation has caused concern and frustration for many people, and for that I apologize. Abuse of any kind is a serious moral offense and a crime. As always, I encourage anyone who has suffered abuse to bring it to the attention of law enforcement first and foremost and additionally to the Archdiocese’s Office of Child and Youth Protection so that justice and assistance can be rendered.

Sexual abuse of children is deplorable and is never to be tolerated. Actions speak louder than words and my record on this issue speaks for itself. I am committed to the safety of children and have shown compassion for victims. I have promoted and enacted codes of ethical conduct, extensive safe environment programs and ongoing training for clergy to heighten their awareness of this issue.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Review

Joseph Kenny | jkenny@archstl.org | twitter: @josephkenny2

New! Watch the video statement regarding the controversy from Archbishop Robert J. Carlson and click here to read his letter to Catholics in the Archdiocese of St. Louis.

A videotaped deposition of Archbishop Robert J. Carlson in a lawsuit involving an alleged abuse some 35 years ago was covered extensively this week when a video clip of it was highlighted to news media outlets at a press conference June 9 by the plaintiff’s lawyer.

The attorney “strategically took Archbishop Carlson’s response to a question out of context and suggested that the archbishop did not know that it was a criminal offense for an adult to molest a child. Nothing could be further from the truth,” a statement from the Archdiocese of St. Louis pointed out. Read the deposition here.

In another part of the deposition, Archbishop Carlson is asked by the plaintiff’s attorney whether he knows a specific sexual act by a priest on a child is a crime, and the archbishop answers, “Yes.”

The deposition was related to a lawsuit seeking damages in a Minnesota state court against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the Diocese of Winona and a former priest of Winona, Thomas Adamson. Archbishop Carlson is a former priest and auxiliary bishop of the St. Paul and Minneapolis archdiocese, where he served on the Personnel Board and as vice chancellor and chancellor. Neither Archbishop Carlson nor the Archdiocese of St. Louis are parties of the lawsuit.

The lawsuit concerns allegations of abuse by Adamson of a minor in 1976-77.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

[with video]

By Valerie Schremp Hahn vhahn@post-dispatch.com 314-340-82461

ST. LOUIS • St. Louis Archbishop Robert J. Carlson issued a statement and video Friday about comments he made in a deposition last month about whether sexual abuse of children by priests was a crime.

“In the deposition last month, I misunderstood a series of questions that were presented to me,” he said. “I wish to clarify that situation now. I fully understand, and have understood for my entire adult life, as I stated in other sections of this same deposition, sexual abuse is a grave evil and a criminal offense.”

The reports of his comments during the deposition sparked outrage among some in the community and prompted a small protest outside the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis on Wednesday.

“I understand this situation has caused concern and frustration for many people, and for that I apologize,” Carlson said. He encouraged anyone who had suffered abuse to contact police and the archdiocese.

Friday marked the third time in a week the archdiocese has offered responses to the statements offered by Carlson in the deposition.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Fox 2

[with video]

(KTVI)– St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson is speaking out after criticism erupted over comments he made during a priest sex abuse case.

In a three minute statement and a letter to parishioners in the archdiocese, Archbishop Carlson apologized for the concern and frustration the deposition caused.

The diocese and Carlson’s attorney have said that his testimony for a sex abuse case while he was a church leader in Minnesota, were taken out of context.

Now, he said he misunderstood a series of questions presented to him.

Archbishop Carlson said his tenure has promoted and put in place conduct codes, safe environment programs and clergy training.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
KMOX

St. Louis (KMOX) St Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson is responding to the controversy surrounding his recent statements regarding child sexual abuse.

Carlson issued a video and a statement tonight (Friday) regarding the comments he made during a deposition last month as part of a sexual abuse lawsuit.

Carlson now says he misunderstood a series of questions when he stated he was unsure if he was legally obligated to report sexual abuse to police.

Carlson says he wants to clarify that he “fully understands-and has understood his entire adult life-that sexual abuse is a grave evil and a criminal offense.”

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis

[with video]

June 13, 2014
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more information contact:
Gabe Jones
Community Relations Specialist
Phone: 314.792.7557

ST. LOUIS – His Excellency, Most Reverend Robert J. Carlson, Archbishop of St. Louis, released the following letter regarding the recent deposition controversy:

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

I wish to respond to certain misconceptions stemming from a deposition that I gave in a case regarding alleged sexual abuse by a priest in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis nearly thirty years ago. I wish to set the record straight.

I understand this situation has caused concern and frustration for many people, and for that I apologize. Abuse of any kind is a serious moral offense and a crime. As always, I encourage anyone who has suffered abuse to bring it to the attention of law enforcement first and foremost and additionally to the Archdiocese’s Office of Child and Youth Protection so that justice and assistance can be rendered.

Sexual abuse of children is deplorable and is never to be tolerated. Actions speak louder than words and my record on this issue speaks for itself. I am committed to the safety of children and have shown compassion for victims. I have promoted and enacted codes of ethical conduct, extensive safe environment programs and ongoing training for clergy to heighten their awareness of this issue.

In the deposition last month, I misunderstood a series of questions that were presented to me. I wish to clarify that situation now. I fully understand, and have understood for my entire adult life, as I stated in other sections of this same deposition, sexual abuse is a grave evil and a criminal offense.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
KSDK

[with video and copy of the statement]

Brandie Piper, KSDK 8:16 p.m. CDT June 13, 2014

ST. LOUIS – St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson released a letter and video Friday evening responding to coverage of the deposition videos released earlier this week.

The videos show Carlson responding to questions about how he handled sexual abuse allegations against a Minnesota priest in the 1980s. At one point he says he is unsure if he knew back then that sex abuse was a crime.

The Archdiocese of St. Louis has been critical of media reports surrounding the deposition.

In the letter released Friday evening, Carlson apologizes for causing concern and frustration, stating “abuse of any kind is a serious moral offense and a crime.”

Carlson goes on to say he “misunderstood a series of questions that were presented,” and that he has understood his entire adult life that sexual abuse is a crime and he is committed to protecting children from abuse.

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CANADA
Castanet

The Law Society of Alberta has disbarred a lawyer accused of misconduct in his handling of settlements awarded to survivors of residential school abuse.

David Blott had asked to be allowed to resign before the society’s investigation was complete.

The chairman of a panel hearing the application Friday made it clear to Blott that his resignation is the same as disbarment.

“The member is coming before the law society and has effectively said, ‘I will agree to be disbarred. I will resign with the conditions that equate with disbarment,'” Rob Harvie said.

“Some might suggest this is too little consequence for the conduct of the member. To this I would again affirm that, according to the law society, this is the most serious consequence that we have the authority to impose.”

The panel heard that between 2006 and 2012, Blott’s Calgary law firm handled almost 4,600 residential school claims, many in southern Alberta. Information was taken from each victim who would sign a retainer agreement. If the settlement were $100,000, Blott would receive $15,000 from the federal government and up to an additional $15,000 from the settlement payout.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
SF Gate

C.W. Nevius
Friday, June 13, 2014

Good news San Francisco. We’re still the go-to place to make outrageous, attention-grabbing political statements.

In fact – see Texas Gov. Rick Perry – people are flying into town to grab a microphone and stir up controversy.

Even more cynical is Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, who was sent to the city by the Catholic Church despite (or because of) his stubborn, out-of-touch opposition to same-sex marriage. This in the city of Harvey Milk – a national symbol for LGBT rights and acceptance. And just in case you think we’re being too hard on Cordileone, he’s signed up to be a speaker at the hate-mongering National Organization for Marriage’s march in Washington, D.C., next week. …

Cordileone is a more disturbing case. As the head of the archdiocese, he’s the representation of Catholic faith. Appointing him to serve in San Francisco – when he’s been an implacable foe of same-sex marriage, was seen as a slap at the city.

“My sense was that when the Vatican assigned the archbishop to San Francisco it was a fairly provocative action,” says Supervisor Scott Wiener, who represents the Castro district. “We were hoping that once he came here he would work with the community and not take antagonistic steps. That has not been the case.”

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OREGON
KPTV

Updated: Jun 13, 2014
By FOX 12 Staff

ALBANY, OR (KPTV) –
A former Corvallis priest pleaded guilty to child pornography charges and was sentenced to nearly four years in prison.

Stanley Brittain, 39, who also went by the name Father Isidore, pleaded guilty this week to four counts of first-degree encouraging child sex abuse.

Police raided a property on the 2400 block of Southeast Eighth Avenue in Albany in April. According to court documents, investigators tracked the sharing of explicit movies showing the sexual abuse of children to Brittain’s phone and computer.

Court documents state Brittain was naked in his camper in front of his computer at the time of his arrest and said he had just injected methamphetamine.

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IRELAND
Liberation

By Jane Cutter
JUNE 12, 2014

If you want more proof that anti-abortion policies and politics have nothing to do with respect for the sanctity of life, look no further than Ireland and the recent discovery of the bodies of nearly 800 children in a septic tank at the site of a former home for unwed mothers.

Take a minute to think this over. Ireland, to this day, has some of the most restrictive policies on abortion in Europe. Since women are barred from having abortions, unwanted pregnancies are going result in many women carrying their pregnancies to term (obviously). For many years in Ireland, unwed mothers were sent to “homes” run by religious orders where they were forced to work and were separated from their babies. The so-called Magdalene Laundries were notorious for the abuse and virtual enslavement of thousands of women.

The children born to these women were kept in the homes as orphans and they too faced deplorable conditions, leading to a high mortality rate.

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

IRELAND
Herald

12 JUNE 2014

In the Dail this week, as an inquiry into mother and baby homes was announced, our Taoiseach Enda Kenny made another impassioned speech condemning the wrongs of Irish history.

After an emotional apology to the Magdalene women (many of whom have yet to receive compensation, some of whom have died waiting) and a heartfelt address about Church wrongdoing, you’d think he wouldn’t still have that fire in him.

But, it seems, we all have that fire in us when it comes to historical injustices and righting past wrongs.

Or, at least, talking about righting past wrongs.

I don’t doubt that he was sincere in doing so, but history shows that political and media outrage at the dehumanisation of a marginalised group rarely leads anywhere. Just look at direct provision.

As one Bessborough baby told me yesterday, people knew. And every so often, we all wring our hands and we spend days or weeks raking up internal grief, then forget about it again with vague promises that something will be done.

In her words, what we need now is “a cut off, and justice”.

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

IRELAND
Irish Times

Groups demand inclusion of other institutions in mother and baby home investigation

Patsy McGarry

Fri, Jun 13, 2014

Magdalene laundries and County Homes should be included in terms of reference for the Commission of Investigation into mother and baby homes , four advocacy groups have said.

In a joint statement tonight, the groups also called for the investigation, announced last week by Minister for Children Charlie Flanagan, to be carried out by an independent commission, including at least one international expert.

In a statement, Justice for Magdalenes Research (JFMR), Adoption Rights Alliance (ARA), Bethany Survivors Group and the National Women’s Council of Ireland (NWCI), called on on the Government “to meet international best practice requirements” in the proposed Commission of Investigation by including the Magdalene laundries and county homes.

Katherine O’Donnell of JFMR said the inclusion of the Magdalene laundries was “absolutely essential to ensuring that the truth of what happened in all of these institutions is brought to light”.

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

UNITED STATES
Leadership Journal

My spiral of sin destroyed my life and ministry.
Name Withheld

Editorial Note: Since publishing the following piece on Monday, there has been a tremendous backlash from readers. Many voiced concerns that the author mischaracterized the nature of the relationship he had with his student and failed to acknowledge the gravity of his crime. We’ve heard your criticisms and would like to add the following clarifications.

First, the intent of this article was to serve as a cautionary story for church leaders and to prevent future abuse. According to Richard Hammar, a leading expert specializing in legal and tax issues for churches and clergy, sexual abuse is the number one reason churches end up in court. Cases involving youth leaders abusing students are particularly common and this piece was meant to draw attention to this tragic problem. We simply can’t deny the pervasiveness of this problem or the deep and lasting wounds instances of abuse leave on the lives of victims.

Second, we in no way meant to downplay the severity of the author’s crimes. He is currently serving time in prison and has taken 100 percent of the responsibility for what transpired. Some of the language in the article did appear to portray the “relationship” he had with his student as consensual. We regret any implication of that kind and strongly underscore that an adult cannot have a consensual sexual relationship with a minor. This was not an “affair.” It was statutory rape. To make sure the article does not communicate otherwise, we have changed the language to reflect the true nature of the author’s crimes.

Thank you for reading and voicing your concerns. We are listening and incorporating your feedback. We appreciate your help as we strive to build up the church and equip its leaders.
Sincerely,

The Editors of Leadership Journal
—————————-

Seven years ago I was hired by my church to be the new youth minister. The youth group was on life support at the time, with only a few students involved. My wife and I, newly married, already had good relationships with the students and their parents and, with my college ministry experience, I seemed to be the perfect fit for the position.

The ministry grew steadily. Within a few years the group that once struggled to fill a minivan was taking over 40 students to camp every summer. Teens were involved in every area of our church. The students were participating in local, regional, and international missions, and were inviting their friends to our activities. The gospel was being taught, and students were accepting Christ, getting baptized, and serving.

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

UNITED STATES
Slacktivist

A preferential option for predators: Christianity Today hires the Rev. Humbert Humbert to serve as a spiritual adviser to its readers

June 13, 2014 By Fred Clark

“I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not,” Robert J. Carlson, the Roman Catholic archbishop of St. Louis, said in a deposition released earlier this week. Carlson was talking about the sexual abuse of a child by a priest who served under him when he was an auxiliary bishop in Minnesota.
But that, alas, is not the most appalling, foolish and inadvertently revealing statement this week about sanctimonious sexual predators who target children. That dishonor goes, instead, to Leadership Journal, the magazine for white evangelical clergy published by Christianity Today. Carlson can’t compete with CT’s horrifying decision to publish this: “My Easy Trip From Youth Minister to Felon.”

(Reader’s discretion advised: Those links and the remainder of this post discuss some really disturbing stuff.)

The anonymous former youth minister, writing from prison, is every bit as narcissistic and self-justifying as Humbert Humbert, if not as repulsively charming as the unreliable narrator of Nabokov’s novel. And his agenda throughout the piece is the same as Humbert’s, only with a sanctimonious sheen of religiosity and pious Bible-talk (including, of course, the obligatory self-comparison to poor King David, who in the writer’s telling was simply not spiritual strong enough to resist raping the tawdry temptress Bathsheba).

The writer’s methodical selection, isolation and grooming of his victim began when she was still in middle school — something readers will find only from reading between the lines of his apologia. But he (and the editors of Leadership Journal) presents the story as though it were a slowly developing romantic affair, a mutual sin entered into by two equals who were equally culpable.

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

CALIFORNIA
KCRA

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KCRA) —The pastor of a Carmichael church was one of 24 people arrested in a prostitution sting, officials said Thursday.

Watch report: Carmichael pastor among suspects in Sac County prostitution sting

The undercover operation was conducted by the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department along Watt Avenue.

Deputies said 50-year-old John Oselsky was arrested at the intersection of Watt and Myrtle avenues Wednesday.

Oselsky is the senior pastor at the Grace Family Church in Carmichael.

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

CALIFORNIA
KFBK

Sacramento Sheriff’s deputies have identified one of the more than 20 people arrested on Watt Avenue for soliciting prostitution as 50-year-old John Oselsky, and he is listed as the Senior Pastor for the Grace Family Church in Carmichael.

However, members of his church steadfastly refuse to believe he is guilty.

Some saying Pastor Oselsky’s arrest is a mistake and may be due to his inability to speak English well.

The pastor was released after being booked. He’s not made a public statement about the arrest. He reportedly has a wife and four children.

The son-in-law of the pastor insists it’s all a misunderstanding.

Mike Borisov writes on a Facebook that Pastor Oselsky does not speak English very well and did not realized he was being asked if he was interested in paying for sex.

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

CALIFORNIA
Sacramento Bee

By Bill Lindelof and Cathy Locke
blindelof@sacbee.com
Published: Friday, Jun. 13, 2014

Two dozen adults – including a Carmichael pastor – and one minor were arrested Wednesday, accused of prostitution-related offenses, during a Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department sting in North Highlands.

The undercover sting was conducted by the sheriff’s north-area problem oriented policing team at several locations along Watt Avenue. The arrests occurred at Margaret Way, Winona Way, Longview Drive, at Myrtle Avenue and Polk Street, and in the 4800 block of Watt Avenue.

Among those arrested was the Rev. John Oselsky, the pastor of Grace Family Church, 4837 Marconi Ave. A Slavic community leader said Oselsky told him that he should never have been arrested.

Florin Ciuriuc, a friend who has acted as a Russian-speaking liaison with the sheriff’s department, has known the pastor for 20 years and spoke with him Thursday night.

“The guy believes that he 100 percent innocent,” said Ciuriuc.

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

WASHINGTON
National Catholic Reporter

Dan Morris-Young | Jun. 13, 2014

“During the last two decades” the Catholic church has “been repeatedly sued because bishops and others in authority sent priests known to have molested children to new assignments where they molested other children. This is not such a case,” a federal judge wrote in the introduction to a June 12 ruling that the Diocese of Yakima, Wash., is not liable for the 1999 sexual abuse of a 17-year-old boy by a transitional deacon.

In a 34-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Edward Shea rejected arguments that the diocese failed to adequately vet Rev. Mr. Aaron Ramirez when it accepted him as a priesthood candidate from Mexico or that it did not adequately oversee him.

The plaintiff failed to prove the church knew or should have known that Ramirez posed a risk as a sexual predator, the judge declared.

The lawsuit sought $8 million. Calls to the plaintiff’s legal firm to ask about a potential appeal were not immediately returned.

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

MASSACHUSETTS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, June 13, 2014

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

A Catholic school official has been fired for sending inappropriate texts to students. We hope that school officials acted promptly and that anyone who saw, suspected or suffered his crimes will call police right away.

[Boston Globe]

James Cerbo was the assistant athletic director at Catholic Memorial in West Roxbury. According to news reports, school officials sent letters to parents and notified secular authorities. We hope this was done immediately when Cerbo’s inappropriate behavior was first known or suspected.

We beg anyone who saw, suspected or suffered crimes or inappropriate contact from Cerbo to call law enforcement – not church or school staff – so that other kids might be spared the horror of child sexual crimes and so that Cerbo might be successfully prosecuted and kept away from children.

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

MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

video only

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

UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, June 13, 2014

Statement by Joelle Casteix of Newport Beach, Western Regional Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (9 49.322.7434, jcasteix@gmail.com )

We call on Christians to boycott Christianity Today for giving a convicted child molesting clergyman 2,700 words to deceptively describe his crimes, essentially ignore his victim, dramatically minimize his wrongdoing and perpetuate dreadful myths about child sex crimes.

[Christianity Today]

Or, we urge Christianity Today to devote an equal number of words, in their next two issues, to victims of clergy sexual violence (one male, one female) to give accounts of the trauma they endured.

We don’t make this call lightly. We strongly believe in the First Amendment. But we believe even more strongly that kids must be protected and that those who hurt kids – directly or indirectly – must be punished, so they’re less likely to hurt kids again.

So we aren’t being punitive here. We’re being protective. Some will claim that a boycott would inflict unnecessary pain on this publication. We’re more interested in deterring unnecessary pain on innocent, vulnerable kids and wounded, suffering adults.

Others have done excellent work pointing out how misleading and hurtful this article is. We’d just stress that this minister cleverly and deceptively calls his crime ‘a relationship,’ which implies that the two were somehow equal partners. That, of course, is never true when kids and adults interact. It’s one of many falsehoods he perpetuates.

We fear that still struggling men, women and teenagers who were sexually assaulted will stay silent now – and not reach out for help or report predators – and feel even more depressed and hopeless because a Christian publication has run such a hurtful story.

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

MASSACHUSETTS
Boston.com

Catholic Memorial Fires Assistant Athletic Director Over ‘Inappropriate’ Texts

By Roberto Scalese
Boston.com Staff
JUNE 13, 2014

Catholic Memorial has fired Assistant Athletic Director James Cerbo for sending inappropriate text messages to students.

WHDH reports:

Earlier this week, a letter went home to Catholic Memorial High School parents warning them of a “serious situation that has developed involving one of our employees.”

The school has not given any details into the nature of the texts or identified who received the messages, but told WCVB that they violated the school’s policies.

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

MASSACHUSETTS
CBS Boston

[with video]

WEST ROXBURY (CBS) – Catholic Memorial School has fired its assistant athletic director for “inappropriate text messaging.”

In a letter to parents this week obtained by WBZ NewsRadio 1030, school president Paul Sheff said James Cerbo was fired after an investigation determined that the text messages were unacceptable and clearly violated the West Roxbury school’s policies on “harassment, electronic communications and boundaries. “

Sheff also noted that the Department of Children and Families has been notified.

No other details were released by the school, which said it “takes very seriously its moral and legal obligation to protect its students.”

“Our office has been notified of the matter and we are investigating,” a spokesperson for the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office told WBZ-TV Friday.

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

MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

By Catalina Gaitan | GLOBE CORRESPONDENT JUNE 13, 2014

The assistant athletic director at Catholic Memorial School in West Roxbury was fired this week after administrators discovered he was allegedly sending inappropriate text messages, school officials said.

James Cerbo was dismissed from his position at the school following allegations about the messages and an investigation, according to school spokeswoman Susan Griffin.

The Department of Children and Families was notified of the investigation, Griffin said.

The school sent letters this week to students’ families regarding the dismissal.

Officials did not say whether the recipient of the messages was a student at the school, which is an all-boys academy teaching grades 7 through 12.

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

MASSACHUSETTS
WCVB

WEST ROXBURY, Mass. —The assistant athletic director at Catholic Memorial School in West Roxbury was fired for sending inappropriate text messages, according to school officials.

Officials said they fired James Cerbo after an investigation into the allegations that Cerbo sent the text messages.

“It has been determined that the text messages were unacceptable and clearly violate the school’s policies pertaining to harassment, electronic communications and boundaries,” Susan Griffin, director of communications at Catholic Memorial School, said in a statement.

The school is not revealing who received the text messages, or what the messages contained.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Jamie Walker
Associate Editor, QLD
Brisbane

ANGLICAN Primate Phillip Aspinall is bowing out as titular head of the church in Australia after nine years bookended by bitter rows over child sexual abuse.

The 54-year-old will stay on as the Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane, his launch pad to the primacy. Having been appointed as archbishop when Peter Hollingworth was named governor-general in 2001, Dr Aspinall confronted allegations that the Brisbane diocese had failed to act against predatory priests and teachers employed by church schools.

He launched an inquiry that made devastating findings against his predecessor, contributing to Dr Hollingworth’s downfall in vice-regal office in 2003, two years before Dr Aspinall was elected spiritual leader of Australia’s 3.9 million Anglicans.

But last November, he admitted to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that he could not bring rogue or recalcitrant bishops to heel. “The powers of the primate are very limited … if people think that the primate of the Anglican Church of Australia is the CEO of Australia’s Anglicans, then nothing could be further from the truth,’’ Dr Aspinall said.

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

IRELAND
Herald

13 JUNE 2014

The Tuam babies story presents us with the usual depressing challenges, but some hope.

The challenges include distinguishing the facts from the hysterics and the blame-storming from the truth.

Rosita Boland in The Irish Times did us all a favour by interviewing Catherine Corless, who spent significant time and money researching the deaths at the home.

Boland reported Corless’ dismay that about headlines claiming that the remains of 796 bodies were dumped in a disused sewage tank.

DISTORTIONS

No such discovery took place. No one even knows if the vault was ever used as a septic tank. And they think about 20 bodies were in it anyway. Considering the facts are horrendous in themselves, the distortions are inexcusable.

Historian Sean Lucey has revealed the social context of the “committals” to these Mother and Baby homes. He recounted one case of a girl sent to Bessborough – not by a priest – but by a council official in Kerry on the recommendation of a local “respectable” woman.

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

IRELAND
The Age (Australia)

June 12, 2014

Martin Flanagan
Sports Writer for The Age

I’ve never been to Tuam on the west coast of Ireland, although I have climbed the mountain further west called Croagh Patrick.

Croagh Patrick was an ancient pagan site, people climbing it to celebrate the summer equinox. Then Saint Patrick came along and fasted for 40 days and nights on its summit and claimed the mountain for his God. Irish pagan spirituality has a strongly female side. The Roman Catholic church which arrived around the 5th century was, and is, solely male in its lumbering hierarchy.

In the 1840s, Ireland’s population was halved by a terrible famine; in its wake, the grip of the Roman Catholic church intensified. During the 20th century, Ireland’s long-time leader Eamon De Valera embodied the notion that the Roman Catholic church was central to the identity of the poor, deeply conservative nation.

Like many others, I shuddered upon hearing the story that 800 babies had allegedly been found in a septic tank beside a former ‘‘Mothers and Babies’’ home in Tuam. The deaths occurred between 1925 and 1961 in the home for unmarried women and their illegitimate offspring.

A furious battle is now being fought, in Ireland and elsewhere, over the detail of the Tuam story. Some extremely angry Irish voices want an international body such as the United Nations to investigate, because they trust neither church nor state. Others say the whole matter has been misleadingly reported. One of only two witnesses to have seen inside the septic tank (in 1975) has said he saw no more than 20 bodies.

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

IRELAND
The Guardian (UK)

Amelia Gentleman
The Guardian, Friday 13 June 2014

Catherine Corless spent eight months trying unsuccessfully to get people to pay attention to the research she was doing on an institution for unmarried mothers in Tuam, the Galway town where she grew up.

An amateur historian who had spent weeks scouring records in libraries, churches and council offices, she had uncovered the fact that, between 1925 and 1961, 796 children died in the St Mary’s Mother and Baby Home, run by nuns from the Bon Secours order, but she was unable to find records of where they were buried. Last September she suggested that many of the bodies may have been put in a disused septic tank in a corner of the home’s garden, a spot where boys had discovered a pile of children’s skeletons in the 1970s.

She was surprised that the local newspapers and radio stations did not share the horror that she and a few Tuam residents felt. She had hoped to get support for a fundraising campaign to install plaques with the names of the dead babies at the site of the home. A small article was printed, without prominence, in a local paper. “It seemed as if no one wanted to bring this up,” she said this week. She told the nuns, the local clergy and the police about her research, but there was no response.

“I couldn’t understand it. We were shocked. We expected an outrage. The only ones who were outraged seemed to be us,” she said. “The mentality seemed to be: ‘That’s a long time ago, forget about it, it doesn’t matter any more.'”

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

UNITED STATES
Friendly Atheist

June 12, 2014 By Hännah Ettinger

Christian church culture is notoriously careless about protecting victims of child abuse, and this week, I was appalled to discover that Christianity Today‘s imprint publication, Leadership Journal, ran a first-person piece where a child sex offender/former pastor narrated his internal thought process as he went from youth pastor to felon.

A few years into my marriage and ministry I began to believe a lie. The realities of parenthood and marriage were sinking in, and I felt unappreciated at home. From my perspective, I was excelling at work and at home — and this perceived lack of appreciation led me to believe I deserved more.

The first big problem (besides the part where he essentially says it was his wife who drove him to this, which is next door to saying he didn’t have a choice in the matter) is that he never really seems to get that what he did to this minor was rape. Instead, he swaddles the entire story in Christianese, using it to distance himself from his actions and make the whole situation sound… normal. As if it were, at worst, an affair. Just look at the very next paragraph:

Meanwhile, there was someone else in my life that appreciated me very much. Seeking approval and appreciation, I gravitated toward that person. She and I were always happy to see each other and looked forward to each other’s company. Before long, we were texting each other and interacting through social media. Nothing scandalous or questionable — a Facebook “like” or comment here, a friendly text there. Things friends do.

Rhetorical choices aside, everyone should take note that we’re unaware how old his “friend” is.

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

UNITED STATES
The Raw Story

Ex-youth pastor describes felony sex crimes as extramarital ‘friendship’ in Christian journal

By Travis Gettys
Friday, June 13, 2014

An online journal for Christian pastors published a lengthy account this week of one man’s “easy trip from youth minister to felon” that critics say makes apologies for rape.

Hundreds of Twitter users have urged Leadership Journal, which is published by Christianity Today, to #TakeDownThisPost.

Although the online journal has not removed the 2,540-word essay, it added a postscript that addresses the controversy.

“In response to readers’ concerns, the author of this piece has offered the following clarification: ‘I recognize that what I initially considered a consensual relationship was actually preying on a minor,’” the postscript added. “Youth pastors who do the same are not ‘in relationship’ but are indeed sexual predators. I take 100 percent of the responsibility for what happened.”

The piece is as noteworthy for what the writer does not say than for what he does say.

The writer, who pleaded guilty to two felony charges and is currently serving a prison term, does not use the word “rape” once in the piece.

He does not mention the words “crime,” “law,” “statutory,” or “illegal.”

“Leadership Journal allows a convicted child abuser a platform to manipulatively frame this as a story of personal selfishness and infidelity without one word about molestation, statutory rape, sexual grooming, or the abuse of power and children entrusted to the care of adults at a church,” writes blogger Susannah Paul, at The Smitten Word.

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

UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

By Phil Lawler Jun 13, 2014

With his customary bravado, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League claims that “Archbishop Carlson Has Been Framed” and says that criticism of the archbishop’s testimony (including mine, presumably) can be attributed to “malice, ignorance and laziness.” Strong words. Let’s see if they hold up.

Examining the transcript of the deposition, Donohue notes several times when the archbishop spoke of sexual molestation in terms that suggested it was a crime. Donohue concludes that in light of that recorded testimony, “it is simply impossible to believe that Carlson did not know it was against the law for an adult to have sex with a minor.”

But that’s exactly the point! No reasonable person thought that the archbishop was ignorant of the law. That’s why it was so shocking that the archbishop said he was ignorant. Let’s be clear here. The scandal did not arise because Archbishop Carlson didn’t know the law. The scandal arose because, under oath, he said he didn’t know the law.

Following the line of defense taken by the St. Louis archdiocese, Donohue says that the plaintiff’s lawyer, Jeffrey Anderson, skillfully edited a video of the archbishop’s presentation to make it appear that he was answering a different question. To be honest I wouldn’t put such shenanigans beyond Anderson. But also to be honest, I still haven’t seen the video. I based my opinion on the written record of the deposition. The transcript doesn’t lie.

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

UNITED STATES
The Garden of Roses: Stories of Abuse and Healing

Virginia Jones

Have you ever wondered what the difference is between a journal and a diary? In a diary you record the events of the day. In a journal you can write about events, but you also write about your thoughts and feelings. Diaries use words in the form of prose. Journals can include anything, even pictures and poems. Because journaling gives us the freedom to express our feelings many ways, journaling is a powerful tool we can use to help us heal the wounds of trauma.

I am presenting this blog about how to journal to heal from abuse in two parts. Part One is short and strictly about how journaling helps us heal and how to journal. Part Two includes the three examples of how journaling helped survivors heal. One example is Princess, a domestic violence survivor. Another example is Kay, a clergy abuse survivor. The third is me. I write about how journaling helped me cope with abuse and rape. Please note that people who are fragile may be triggered by my story and by Kay’s story, so read these parts of the blog only as you are able to handle stories of abuse.

Part One: How Journaling Helps Us Heal:

1. Retelling our story helps us heal as long as we are telling it to a supportive listener and not having to tell it over and over to different advocates and law enforcement officials. Sometimes it is difficult to talk about what happened to us, but when we are ready to share, every time we tell our story to a supportive person, the bad thing that happened to us becomes a little bit smaller and less threatening. The advantage of journals is that they can sit around and wait for us to be ready to share, and they never judge us or criticize us or offer us unsolicited advice.

2. Journaling can help us prepare ourselves for potential legal action. As we remember the story and write it down, we can tell it more coherently to judges, attorneys, therapists, or law enforcement officers.

3. Journaling helps us process what happened to us. While we did the best we could under difficult circumstances, journaling can help us sit back and look at what happened with some distance between us and a traumatic episode. With this distance we can work on positive actions we might take next time we are faced with a difficult situation.

4. Writing about friends, things, and events that help us (i.e. expressing gratitude) or writing affirmations can reframe what happened in a way that helps us feel better about ourselves. Affirmations are positive statements about one’s self such as, “I am strong and brave, and I keep putting one foot in front of the other. I am getting through this.”

5. After a traumatic incident or a conflict with a loved one or a conflict with someone who is trying to help us, writing in a journal helps us calm down from the heat of the moment. This is good for us as it heals us. This is also good for our relationships. It is much better for us to calm down before we interact with other people so we don’t take our anger and pain out on them in ways that may come back to haunt us. We don’t want to wound and drive away people who care for us or who are trying to help us. …

Kay the City of Angels Lady/ Clergy Abuse Survivor:

Kay was abused by a Catholic priest at age 5. For many years she lived her life not comprehending how self destructive many of the choices she made were and why she made such poor choices. She did not even remember what caused her problems until she was in her forties, and her daughter turned 5 — the age at which Kay was abused by a Catholic priest. Then Kay began struggling with extremely disturbing memories.

Despite her raw edges, Kay is a gifted writer. For many years she has used her skills as a writer to eke out a living. She hopes someday that sharing her story will earn her more than just barely enough money to live on. She currently is sharing her life story piece by piece in her blog, along with the stories of other survivors and news and opinion about what is happening in the world of Catholic clergy abuse. Please read her blog but be forewarned that it is not for the faint of heart. Please note anyone who wants a sanitized, easy to read version of clergy abuse, do not read Kay’s writings. Her writing is filled with raw details and raw anger and pain. However, Kay is excellent at putting words together and is quite funny when the opportunity to be funny arises, so if you can cope with this, read on.

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

MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, June 13, 2014

For more information: David Clohessy, 314 566 9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com

Predator priest trial is soon
He was convicted before in 1980s
Now, he’s accused of molesting 3 more
Cleric was in three mid-Missouri counties
After leaving his Catholic post, he was a counselor
SNAP: “He’s one of the most egregious child molesting clerics”

In two weeks, the child sexual abuse trail against a former Catholic priest who lived and worked in Cooper, Boone and Callaway counties is set to begin and a support group is making a “last ditch” effort to find other victims and witnesses.

The accused is Gerald (“Jerry”) Howard who worked at a St. Peter & Paul Catholic church in Boonville. In the 1980s, he was a priest in New Jersey and was convicted of molesting a boy in the Jersey City area.

His Catholic supervisors then let Howard legally change his name – from Carmine Sita to Jerry Howard – and sent him to the Jefferson City diocese, without warning parishioners or the public, where he sexually assaulted at least four boys – three in Cooper County and one in Boone County.

“Now is the time – right now – for every single person who saw, suspected or suffered Howard’s crimes to speak up,” said David Clohessy of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “If you have any knowledge of or suspicions about Howard – or other child molesting clerics – stop being a coward and call law enforcement immediately.”

After leaving Boonville, Howard worked as a counselor in Boone and in Callaway counties, including a stint at the now-shuttered Charter Hospital in Columbia.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

Mike Farragher @brainonshamrox June 15,2014

My father was a teenager when “The Quiet Man” was shot. He saw some of the filming at the Ballyglunin train station, which is on the outskirts of Tuam and just over the stone fence on the family farm.

One of the earliest and fondest memories he has centers around catching shillings on the train tracks that John Wayne threw out to himself and the other star-struck local kids on the set.

There is a cruel irony that “The Quiet Man,” the most beloved movie in Irish culture, would be filmed in and around Tuam, a town that kept quiet about burying babies in the backyard even while the movie was being made.

The horrific news reports out of the town that is home to my richest childhood memories are so hard to bear that I have no interest in rehashing them here in this space. But there are some key omissions in the narrative that are worth calling out.

In following this story, I haven’t really seen or heard anyone address the termites in the floorboard of Irish DNA that made the very existence of a home for unwed mothers and babies necessary in the first place.

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IRELAND
Limerick Leader

by Mike Dwane
Published on the 13 June 2014

MISSING burial records for almost 800 infants who died at St Mary’s mother and baby home in Tuam in the 36 years to 1961 have resulted in a storm of publicity around the world.

And many of the details in those media reports have been unearthed by Limerick historian Liam Hogan.

Tuam historian Catherine Corless, whose research on the Bon Secours home in the Galway town has ultimately resulted in a government inquiry, has distanced herself from more sensationalist reports of 800 babies “buried in a septic tank”.

And Mr Hogan, who works at Limerick City Library, said he had also taken the dispassionate historian’s approach to releasing information on the home he has found in newspaper archives in the last number of weeks.

“I had read about Catherine Corless and the revelations and wondered to myself how did we get to that point where we don’t know where nearly 800 children are buried. I just delved as far back as I could go on what was relevant and tweeted a contemporaneous account. People were really curious to see what the attitudes were at the time and what may have led to what we have learned in the last couple of weeks. I tried to create a narrative to help people understand it more,” said Mr Hogan.

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UNITED STATES
dotCommonweal

Grant Gallicho

Yesterday social media lit up with news accounts claiming Archbishop Robert Carlson of St. Louis had told victims attorney Jeff Anderson that when he was an auxiliary bishop in St. Paul and Minneapolis, he didn’t know that it was illegal for an adult to have sexual contact with a child. Here’s how one of those stories began:

Archbishop Robert J. Carlson claimed to be uncertain that he knew sexual abuse of a child by a priest constituted a crime when he was auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, according to a deposition released Monday (June 9).

During the deposition taken last month, attorney Jeff Anderson asked Carlson whether he knew it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a child.

“I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not,” Carlson replied. “I understand today it’s a crime.”

Today the Archdiocese of St. Louis defended Carlson with a long press release accusing Anderson, and by extension news accounts that cited him, of “strategically” taking Carlson’s testimony “out of context.” According to the archdiocese, “in the full transcript of Archbishop Carlson’s deposition, the actual exchange between Archbishop Carlson and Plaintiff’s counsel is quite different from what is being widely reported in the media.” The statement continues: “What Plaintiff’s counsel has failed to point out to the media is that Mr. Goldberg himself noted at this point in the deposition ‘you’re talking about mandatory reporting?’ When the Archbishop said ‘I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not,’ he was simply referring to the fact that he did not know the year that clergy became mandatory reporters of suspected child abuse (pgs. 108-109).” In other words, Carlson was talking about mandatory-reporting laws, not laws against adults having sex with minors. …

So how did so many members of the media get this wrong? How could they so badly misread the testimony of Archbishop Carlson, and in the process besmirch his good name? Probably because they can read. Let’s have a look at that “full transcript.”

The archdiocese says that the “actual exchange” started with Anderson asking Carlson about mandatory-reporting laws. And that’s not false. But what follows could not be clearer. Carlson is asked whether throughout his priesthood he knew that it was illegal for an adult to have sex with children, and he said he wasn’t sure–but that he understood that now. Roll tape:

Q. Well, mandatory reporting laws went into effect across the nation in 1973, Archbishop.

MR. GOLDBERG: I’m going to object to the form of that question.

MR. ANDERSON: Let me finish the question.

MR. GOLDBERG: Go ahead. I’m sorry.

Q. (By Mr. Anderson) And you knew at all times, while a priest, having been ordained in 1970, it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a kid. You knew that, right?

MR. GOLDBERG: I’m going to object to the form of that question now. You’re talking about mandatory reporting.

MR. ANDERSON: Okay. I’ll — if you don’t like the question, I’ll ask another question.

MR. GOLDBERG: Well, you’ve asked a conjunctive question. One doesn’t —

MR. ANDERSON: Objection heard. I’ll ask another question. Okay?

MR. GOLDBERG: Go ahead.

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VATICAN CITY
The New York Times

By PAUL VALLELY
JUNE 13, 2014

LONDON — It looked extremely dramatic when Pope Francis fired the entire board of the Vatican’s financial watchdog last week. But that was only the half of it. The seismic changes that are underway behind the scenes in Rome are even more radical than public appearances suggest. And they offer illuminating insights into the steely character of the man who likes to present himself to the world as a model of smiling humility.

The body known as Rome’s Financial Information Authority (F.I.A.) supervises everything from the Vatican Bank to the real estate of the Holy See, its staff salaries and even the Vatican pharmacy. Its five Italian members were due to serve until 2016 when Francis asked them to resign early — to be replaced by an international team of financial experts that includes Joseph Yuvaraj Pillay, the man who turned around the Singapore economy, and Juan Zarate, a former financial security adviser to President George W. Bush.

The drastic move came after months of infighting between the old guard and the F.I.A.’s director, René Brülhart, a Swiss anti-money-laundering expert, charged with cleaning up one of the world’s most secretive banks, which has assets worth more than $8 billion. A former head of Liechtenstein’s financial intelligence unit, he found his reforms continually frustrated by an old-boy network. He complained to the pope, who swept aside the obstacle in a single move.

But there was more to it than that, as anyone would have suspected who knew the modus operandi of Jorge Mario Bergoglio when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires before he became pope. There, too, he had faced a banking scandal in which his predecessor, Cardinal Antonio Quarracino, had become embroiled in underwriting a multimillion dollar insurance deal for a family of prominent bankers who turned out to be paying all his credit card bills. When the bank went insolvent, bankers were jailed, and the Catholic Church was asked to repay huge sums it did not have, Cardinal Bergoglio called in the international accountants Arthur Andersen, closed the church bank and transferred its assets to commercial banks.

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

Jun 13, 2014 06:00 By Alana Fearon

Woman who spent 8 hellish years at Mount Carmel Industrial School demands government find out what happened to babies in hidden room

A woman who spent eight hellish years in an industrial school run by nuns, last night demanded the Government finds out what happened to the “secret” babies kept hidden away there.

Ellen Murphy came forward yesterday after we revealed that babies were kept in a private room in Mount Carmel Industrial School in Moate, Co Westmeath.

The Wexford woman, who was in the Sisters of Mercy-run school between the ages of eight and 16, says she is haunted by the memories of the tots “who never grew up”.

Opening up about the horror of her childhood, Ellen, 51, also claimed that she:

– is so traumatised by the “torture” that she tried to take her own life twice and is on sleeping tablets and spent years on anti-depressants

– was “loaned out” to families where she was sexually abused – was drugged to stop her crying when she wanted to go home

– was beaten and kicked so badly that she suffers from chronic back pain and is on pain killers for life

– has unexplained burn marks on her legs

And urging the Government to launch an inquiry into Mount Carmel’s murky past, Ellen revealed she is haunted “every day” by the faces of the babies and the not knowing what became of them.

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

BY JANE GRAHAM – 13 JUNE 2014

As a longtime journalist I’ve heard some gruesome tales and feel I’ve developed a pretty thick skin. But I’ll admit, I just stood in the kitchen and cried when I read this week’s story about care home children in Ireland being ‘used’ in medical trials in the 1960s and ’70s.

There can’t be many people currently residing in the developed world who haven’t worked out that institutions, on the whole, don’t work very well. In the UK, numerous recent revelations regarding – deep breath – corrupt policemen, lying politicians, bent journalists, predatory celebrities, cruel nurses, greedy councillors, crooked bankers, cheating sportsmen, double-dealing lawyers and self-serving educationalists, have left us with little faith in that once revered and respected thing, The Establishment.

(Don’t get me wrong, the misty eyed Faragey notion that things were nicer in the olden days is risible; the only difference now is that we’re more likely to find out about monstrous acts. Ironically, though the work of journalists who expose and shame our villains sometimes ushers in waves of despair that leave us struggling to stay standing, it also offers hope that society might get better – even if it’s just because the bad guys are scared of ending up on the front pages.)

The case of almost 300 children in nun-run care homes being exploited in medical trials across two decades is a stinging reminder that the most dangerous institutions of all may be those in which the management believe their authority comes from a power higher than the democratic state; the ones, in short, who reckon they have God on their side. Of course the Magdalene laundries already persuaded many of us of that, and if allegations about dead babies from the mother and baby home in Tuam being dumped in unmarked graves turn out to be true, our hearts will yet again shrivel in horror.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

David Quinn

When the inquiry into the Magdalene homes was announced a couple of years ago I wrote a column challenging three myths about them. The first is that they were an Irish phenomenon only. They were not.

The second is that they were Catholic only. They were not. The third is that they were chiefly for unmarried mothers. They were not. The subsequent McAleese report backed all of this up.

With respect to our mother and baby homes similar myths are taking hold, chiefly that they were a particularly Irish and particularly Catholic phenomenon. They were not.

In particular what has taken root is the notion that Ireland, once the most Catholic country in Western Europe, was also a living nightmare, chiefly because of the church’s teachings on human sexuality – not a utopia, but its opposite, a dystopia.

It is true that Irish Catholicism was once in the grip of a spirituality that laid for too much emphasis on sin and punishment but it is not true to say that what we did to single mothers was uniquely Irish or uniquely Catholic.

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IRELAND
Derry Journal

by Claire Allan
claire.allan@derryjournal.com
Published on the 13 June 2014

Holocaust is a very strong word, isn’t it? And I’ll be honest I thought long and hard about whether or not it was appropriate to use in these circumstances.

I looked it up in the dictionary to get the exact meaning (beside the obvious historical meaning in relation to the mass murder of Jews and other ethnic minorities during World War II) and found it listed as ‘destruction or slaughter on a mass scale’.

I thought of the 793 bodies of children – from infants to the age of nine – uncovered in Tuam and the scandal which has followed. I thought of a friend of mine who stood at another mass, unmarked grave, in Belfast last week where she found the final resting place of her baby brother.

I thought of the reports I had read of unwed mothers being brutalised, having pain relief withheld during labour, denied the dignity of being stitched back together after childbirth ripped through their bodies. I thought of how they were denied antibiotics if they developed an infection.

I thought of the abuse – physical, sexual, mental – endured by a generation of Irish children whose only crime was to have been conceived. I thought of that pit in Tuam – of body on body. Tiny, fragile, beautiful faces. Locks of curly hair. Pudgy toddler legs. Grasping fingers. And I wondered how we as a nation can hold our heads high. Perhaps I am writing emotively – but this is our reality. When I think of these babies I think of my children, of my 10 year old, my five year old, of my one year old niece and her craving for affection and I feel sick to the pit of my stomach.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

June 12, 2014

Brendan Long

Those thousands of Canberrans who have journeyed with Marist College these past 40 years, as students, parents or teachers, might ask themselves whether they really want to know what is being said in a little room in the Magistrates Court in Civic these past few days. That’s because it is genuinely confronting.

People like myself, who have been “streaming in” to much of the proceedings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse are witnesses to an arcane legal process, but one that still allows for people to have their say, to speak of their pain, to say what happened. There are times when I find myself reaching for the speaker volume controls to mute the feed – one can easily get overloaded – at other times you want to pump up the volume to hear every word.

It is obviously beyond painful for these men to tell their stories. I don’t think I am alone in the wide Marist community when I say that we, who were not victims, stand with those who were. We feel for them and with them, and in a lesser way of course, share their pain. These are brave men who have fought demons without, and demons within, to bring themselves to the point where they have the extreme courage required to speak in their own voice, before the nation, of their painful story. I admire them.

Like them I journeyed with the Marist experience at the time the abuse occurred, but for me, on the whole, it was a good place to be, a place of learning and a place in which my Catholic faith was nurtured well. But in the same halls, the same corridors, their experience was so starkly different. I think of the immense sacrifice parents made to pay for their children’s education, trusting the Marist Brothers with their most precious of possessions: the care of their boys. For the parents of the victims the despair must be beyond words.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

A SERIAL paedophile had a labrador called Jason which was used as a possible “grooming device” against his students, the Royal Commission into child sex abuse has been told.

Former headmaster Brother Terence Heinrich has admitted it was “very peculiar” for brothers at Marist College Canberra to have dogs and pupils were “certainly” attracted to this one.

Brother Heinrich, 68, told a hearing in Canberra Brother John Chute, known as Brother Kostka, was not the only brother who ever had a dog.

“But certainly it was most unusual,” he conceded.

The Royal Commission is also looking into fellow Marist Brother Gregory Sutton, who abused children during his teaching years at several schools in the ACT, NSW and Queensland and was sentenced to 18 years jail for child sex offences.

Lawyer Peter O’Brien, representing former student Damian De Marco, put it to the headmaster that the labrador could have been used by Brother Kostka to “carry out his paedophilic behaviour”.

“I can’t agree with that notion, no,” Brother Heinrich replied.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Ewan Gilbert
Updated Thu 12 Jun 2014

Former Canberra Marist College headmaster Brother Terence Heinrich has denied he was involved in covering up allegations of child sexual abuse during the 1980s.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is examining the response of the Marist Brothers to allegations of child sexual abuse in schools across the ACT, New South Wales and Queensland.

Brother Heinrich today admitted under cross-examination that dealing with allegations secretly and internally was the way it was.

Brother Heinrich was the headmaster at Marist College from 1983 to 1989, while Brother Kostka Chute was sexually abusing boys at the school.

In 1996 Brother Kostka was convicted of abusing six boys and sentenced to two years in jail.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

Friday, 13 June 2014

A labrador named Jason was part of a Marist brother’s plan to groom young boys, a royal commission has been told.

Former brother John Chute, also known as Brother Kostka, worked at Canberra’s Marist College between 1976 and 1990 and had the dog for some of that time, 1980s principal Terence Heinrich said.

‘Brother Kostka wasn’t the only brother who ever had a dog but certainly it was most unusual,’ Br Heinrich told a royal commission investigating institutional responses to child sexual abuse.

Lawyer Peter O’Brien, representing an abuse victim from the college, suggested the dog was used by Chute as part of ‘his pedophilic behaviour’.

‘It seems from what you recall that children were attracted to the dog,’ Mr O’Brien said to Heinrich.

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

June 13, 2014

David Ellery
Reporter for The Canberra Times.

A former Marist College Canberra headmaster has denied he was subservient to his superiors, had deliberately obstructed sex abuse investigations and was protecting a former leader of the order.

Brother Christopher Wade, the headmaster when Brother Kostka Chute was removed from the college at the end of 1993, was testifying on Friday afternoon before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

He said he had been aware of “gossip” that Chute may have been a child molester as early as the mid-1960s but did not follow this up when appointed to a school where Chute was on the staff.

Brother Wade said he had not been told of Chute’s history of sexual offending when he took up the MCC appointment at the start of 1993. Chute’s history included numerous admissions of touching students and a canonical warning in July 1969. Brother Wade, 78, is now retired. He said his memory of his time at MCC was poor because of his age.

“The only intimation I ever had Kostka may have been abusing children was 20 or 30 years before the date (1993),” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Friday 13 June 2014

The former headmaster of Marist College Canberra told the child abuse royal commission he believed one of his teachers when he brushed aside an allegation of sexual assault because Marist brothers are meant to tell the truth.

Terence Heinrich said he approached John Chute, also known as Brother Kostka, after the father of a student complained Chute had “interfered” with his son.

When Chute said the allegation was just a misunderstanding, Heinrich said he believed him.

“That’s the way we should be, that’s the way we are – to be true and honest,” Heinrich told the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse on Friday.

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SPAIN
Journal (Ireland)

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH was within its rights not to renew the contract of a married Spanish priest, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled.

José Antonio Fernandez Martinez was ordained in 1961, but applied for a dispensation from celibacy 23 years later. Having not received a response, he was married a year later.

He and his wife had five children and he went on to teach Catholic religion at a school in the Murcia region from 1991.

In November 1996 the Murcia newspaper La Verdad published an article about the “Movement for Optional Celibacy” of priests (MOCEOP) of which Fernández Martínez was an active member.

The article included comments by a number of participants indicating their disagreement with the Church’s position on abortion, divorce, sexuality and contraception, illustrated by a picture of Fernandez Martinez with his family.

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

Jun 13, 2014 By Chris Clements

THE alleged victim claims he was drugged and abused at drunken orgy when he visited Coodham House as a boy.

AN OUTSPOKEN priest campaigning for justice for victims of sex abuse has revealed fresh claims of child rape at a Catholic retreat.

Father Gerry Magee has written to the church hierarchy quizzing them on allegations that a boy was given wine laced with drugs and then gang raped by priests at Coodham House in Ayrshire.

The alleged victim said it happened on a weekend visit to the house, near Symington, in 1960.

Father Magee, who has helped abuse victims for 18 years, said he was approached by the man after a BBC documentary about Catholic sex abuse was aired last year.

He has asked for answers from the Passionist Order, who ran Coodham House from 1948 to 1988, and the Diocese of Galloway but has had no response.

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MINNESOTA
Winona Daily News

By Jerome Christenson

A former Diocese of Winona priest who has admitted to having sex with more than 10 boys still draws a monthly check from the Diocese of Winona.

According to an agreement outlined in a letter signed Oct. 9, 2008 by Winona Bishop Bernard Harrington, Thomas Adamson will draw the annual pension agreed upon for senior priests under the Diocese Priests Pension Plan, along with medical and dental coverage for “the remainder of your life.”

Six months later, Pope Benedict XVI granted Adamson “dispensation from all the obligations connected to sacred ordination,” formally removing him from the Roman Catholic priesthood more than 45 years after he admitted sexually abusing boys to Bishop Edward Fitzgerald.

Adamson’s ongoing financial relationship with the diocese was revealed in a sworn May 16 deposition Adamson provided as part of a suit brought against the Diocese of Winona and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis by an anonymous plaintiff who claims he was sexually abused by Adamson in the 1970s. The lawsuit is the first filed after the Minnesota Legislature opened a three-year window in 2013 that set aside the statute of limitations in cases of abuse.

The Diocese of Winona failed to respond to requests for a statement or comment about Adamson’s deposition.

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IRLAND
WAZ

Tuam. In einem Massengrab im irischen Tuam wurden die Knochen von 796 Kindern gefunden. Sie kamen im katholischen Mütterheim zur Welt – und ums Leben. Weil nach katholischer Lehre unehelich geborene Kinder nicht in geweihter Erde und einem Grab beigesetzt werden durften, wurden die Leichen „entsorgt“.

Zwei spielende Kinder entdeckten das Massengrab. Sie schoben zerbrochene Betonplatten, die auf einem Rasenstück lagen, beiseite „und dann sahen wir sie“, berichtet Barry Sweeney gegenüber dem irischen Fernsehsender RTE: „Totenschädel, einer auf dem andern, zwei, drei Meter tief. Wir sind panisch geworden und weggerannt.“

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DEUTSCHLAND
Sexueller Missbrauch durch Angehorige der katholischen Kirche

[Parents and victims of priests are urged to reveal themselves to police. The Aachen diocese is one of the few dioceses in Germany whose share of priestly child abusers is not so case. The cases of priest Georg K. from Willich, however, has brought the barrel to overflow.]

Kinderschänder Pfarrer Georg K. (55) – Aktion Sühnezeichen – Heimkinderverband und die Kirchengemeinden St. Peter in Hinsbeck und St. Sebastian Lobberich setzen Mahnzeichen – Stahlnägel in den Kirchen als Mahnmahl

Eltern und Opfer aufgefordert, sich den Polizeibehörden zu offenbaren

Das Bistum Aachen hält sich zu Gute, dass es eines der wenigen Bistümer in Deutschland ist, deren Anteil an priesterlichen Kinderschänder nicht so hoch ist. Der Fall des Kinderschänders Pfarrer Georg K. aus Willich hat jedoch das Faß zum überlaufen gebracht. Der Heimkinderverband wird zusammen mit den Kirchengemeinden St. Peter in Hinsbeck und St. Sebastian in Lobberich ein einzigartiges Zeichen setzen. Stahlnägel werden dort in die Kirchenmauern eingeschlagen, als ewiges Mahnmahl, dass auch hier ein Priester in schlimmer Weise Kinder sexuell missbraucht hat. Der genaue Termin wird noch in einem Folgebeitrag bekannt gegeben. Der Heimkinderverband wird diesen Artikel an alle Kirchengemeinden des Bistums Aachen verteilen und um Stellungnahme und Teilnahme bitten. Ebenfalls wird Bischof Heinrich Mussinghoff gebeten, dass er die Aktion des Heimkinderverbandes unterstützt.

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SUEDAFRIKA
Express

In Brits bei Johannesburg wurde am Dienstag der 57-jährige Willicher Pfarrer Georg K. verhaftet.
Nachdem fünf Jahre gegen den Missionspriester wegen Verdacht des sexuellen Missbrauchs in einer südafrikanischen Gemeinde ermittelt worden war (EXPRESS berichtete), wird er jetzt ausgeliefert.

Der Haftbefehl stammt vom Amtsgericht Krefeld. Hier warten Ankläger mit dem Verdacht des sexuellen Missbrauchs von Jungen in 37 Fällen. Der Pastor soll sich in Kempen und Hinsbeck an Kinder seiner früheren Pfarreien vergriffen haben, ehe er nach Südafrika verschwand.

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WASHINGTON
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: John W. McDonald was an Oregon Province Jesuit priest, ordained in 1943. Most of his career was spent at Bellarmine Preparatory High School in Tacoma, WA. During the late 1940s through the 1950s he was assigned to St. Mary’s Indian Mission in Omak, WA, which was part of the Spokane diocese. McDonald’s name was included on that diocese’s 2007 list of priests and religious who were “admitted, proven or credibly accused perpetrators of sexual abuse.” He died in 1985.

Ordained: 1943
Died: Oct. 7, 1985

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CANADA
GlobalPost

WINNIPEG – A Manitoba judge says extra fees charged to residential school survivors by companies that fill out forms were in many cases illegal and in some cases unconscionable.

The ruling by Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Perry Schulman affects more than 30 lawyers and agencies across Canada and will result in some survivors reimbursed for fees they paid.

“Given my view of the correct legal characterization of agreements between form-fillers and … claimants, I have concluded that those agreements are presumptively void and unenforceable,” Schulman wrote in his decision released last week.

“Apart from considerations of illegality, agreements to pay form fillers in circumstances of unequal bargaining power and where an improvident deal was made, such as the two examples in the record before this court, are unconscionable.”

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Claire O’Sullivan
Irish Examiner Reporter

Survivors of Magdalene laundries will begin to receive enhanced pensions and weekly top-up payments from the Department of Social Protection in the coming week, as part of the redress package designed by Mr Justice John Quirke.

More than 400 women have already received €12.4m in lump sum payments in recognition of the years of unpaid labour they provided for the religious orders. Approximately 200 more are still awaiting offers of payment.

Their pensions will also be upgraded to the €230 contributory State pension if they are aged 66 or over. If they are aged under 66, they will receive payments of €100 per week until they reach 66. Payments, which will be introduced on a phased basis, will be backdated to August last year.

Legislation has not been put in place yet to give women enhanced medical cards similar to those available to women infected by Hepatitis C from infected blood products.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Footnotes: Women, Violence, and Marriage; Irish Homes for Unwed Mothers; Archbishop Carlson’s Testimony in Minnesota

Footnotes to previous discussions here this week:

At Slate, Amanda Marcotte responds to W. Bradford Wilcox and Robin Fretwell Wilson’s Washington Post op-ed piece that I discussed yesterday, which argues that women can spare themselves violence by marrying strong male protectors. Marcotte’s powerful concluding takedown of Wilcox and Wilson’s argument:

It’s hard to overstate the gross negligence of this piece (which, by the way, is pegged to Father’s Day). One of the most confounding issues when it comes to domestic violence is that many victims believe that if they just love a little harder and put a little more work into the relationship, they can turn an abusive partner into a loving one. Even though Wilcox and Wilson admit “married men can and do abuse or assault their wives,” they immediately return to arguing that “married fathers are much less likely to resort to violence,” as if the marriage itself was the reason. The last thing that women in abusive relationships need is to be told that they can turn a bad man good by marrying him. Women in abusive relationships need help getting out, not a prod to stay in.

At Salon, Mary Elizabeth Williams slams the “pathetic scramble” to spin the story of the Irish homes for unwed mothers as what happened “back then.” I’ve noted the growing controversy about the facts of the Tuam case here and here. Williams’s response to those now attempting to spin stories about Irish baby homes (she specifically addresses Eamon Fingleton in Forbes):

Let’s look at this “nonsense.” The abuses of women and children that went on in the Irish homes and institutions of its sort in the first part of the 20th century have been well established and documented. A 2009 Child Abuse Commission report cited multiple accounts of “physical, emotional, neglect and sexual” abuse throughout the Irish church- and state-run institutions at the time, and last year, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny issued a formal apology to the women who were forced into labor in the country’s infamous Catholic-run Magdalene Laundries, calling it “a national shame.” A 1944 report on the conditions in the Home notes overcrowded conditions and children who were “poor, emaciated and not thriving,” “pot-bellied” and “fragile.” And Corliss recalls that growing up, those managerially challenged nuns would make sure that the Home children “were always segregated to the side of regular classrooms…. They didn’t suggest we be nice to them. In fact if you acted up in class some nuns would threaten to seat you next to the Home Babies.” In some years, more than half of the children died.

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

UNITED STATES
Slate

By Amanda Marcotte

The routine conservative exhortations to single women to hurry up and get married already became downright irresponsible on Tuesday with W. Bradford Wilcox and Robin Fretwell Wilson’s piece in the Washington Post titled “One way to end violence against women? Stop taking lovers and get married.” It’s not a well-argued essay (clearly) but kudos to Wilcox and Wilson for managing both to blame women for male violence and guilt-trip them for not marrying the first man they meet with a pulse. If only they had worked in a dig about cats.

The headline is not misleading: The piece actually argues that marriage is the best prevention against violence for women. “The bottom line is this: Married women are notably safer than their unmarried peers, and girls raised in a home with their married father are markedly less likely to be abused or assaulted than children living without their own father,” they write. Of course, while playing the game of manipulating statistics, they pointedly ignore the fact that domestic violence rates have been falling at the same time marriage rates are falling. I guess correlation only equals causation if it serves the right cause.

While Wilcox and Wilson tacitly admit that the correlation between marriage and lower rates of violence might be because “women in healthy, safe relationships are more likely to select into marriage,” most of the piece is an attempt to convince women that it’s the presence of a wedding ring itself that reduces violence more than the likelier story, which is that abusive relationships often fall apart before the marriage begins.

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