ABUSE TRACKER

DEUTSCHLAND
Deutsche Bischofskonferenz

18.07.2014: Flyer „Eckdaten des Kirchlichen Lebens in den Bistümern Deutschlands 2013“

Die aktuelle Kirchenstatistik der katholischen Kirche 2013 ist ab sofort online abrufbar. Mit den „Eckdaten des Kirchlichen Lebens in den Bistümern Deutschlands“ sowie der Militärseelsorge sind heute die statistischen Daten des vergangenen Jahres veröffentlicht worden.

Mit 24.170.754 Kirchenmitgliedern machen die Katholiken 29,9 Prozent der Bevölkerung in Deutschland aus (2012: 30,3 Prozent). Aufgrund struktureller Veränderungen in den Bistümern hat sich die Zahl der Pfarreien von 11.222 auf 11.085 verringert. Insgesamt haben die Sakramentenspendungen der katholischen Kirche wie auch in den vergangenen Jahren leicht abgenommen. 2013 gab es 164.664 Taufen (2012: 167.505) und 43.728 Trauungen (2012: 47.161). Die Zahl der Eintritte in die katholische Kirche liegt bei 3.062, die Zahl der Wiederaufnahmen bei 6.980 Personen.

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GERMANY
Daily American

Associated Press

BERLIN (AP) — The German Bishops’ Conference says the number of Germans leaving the Roman Catholic church jumped sharply last year, an apparent result of an uproar over a bishop’s lavish new residence.

The conference said Friday that 178,805 people formally left the church in 2013, compared with 118,335 the previous year. The figure was just short of the 181,000 people who quit the church in 2010 amid a scandal over sexual abuse by clergy.

Pope Francis permanently removed Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst as Limburg bishop in March, months after an outcry erupted over his residence’s 31 million-euro ($42-million) price tag.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

A man’s action seeking damages against the Redemptorist Order over sexual abuse allegedly suffered more than 40 years ago as an altar boy has been halted by the president of the High Court.

Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns said allowing the case to proceed would involve “patent unfairness”, as the Order had been substantially prejudiced as a result of delay in bringing the case.

The man claimed that when aged between seven and 11 years he suffered regular and continuous abuse by a deceased Redemptorist Brother while an altar boy in Limerick between 1965 and 1970.

As a result, his personal development suffered, he attempted suicide when aged 21, developed an alcohol problem and his relationships with women were damaged, including his marriage, which broke up in 1999, he claimed.

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WISCONSIN/ILLINOIS
Chicago Tribune

By Alexandra Chachkevitch
Tribune reporter
12:00 p.m. CDT, July 18, 2014

A Glenview Greek Orthodox priest who faces a felony theft charge appeared in the Milwaukee County courthouse this afternoon after missing two previous hearings. The hearing is still ongoing.

The Rev. James Dokos, 62, is accused of improperly spending more than $100,000 from a trust fund that was intended primarily to benefit Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Milwaukee, where Dokos long served as pastor before he was moved to Glenview in 2012.

Dokos, who is pastor at Saints Peter and Paul Greek Orthodox Church in Glenview, had been scheduled to make his first appearance in court initially on July 10, but couldn’t make it because of car trouble, his attorney Patrick Knight said. Dokos missed the rescheduled court hearing on July 14 because he was admitted into a hospital due to an emergency, Knight said.

Authorities allege that Dokos used money from the trust fund to cover items including personal credit card bills and gifts to other Greek Orthodox church officials.

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UNITED STATES
Billboard

By Joe Lynch | July 18, 2014

In the latest Billboard cover story, Tom Petty discusses the passion, outrage and drive — he’s not wasting any energy on partying these days — that birthed the latest entry in his classic catalog. Check out five things we learned about the legendary rocker. …

PETTY WROTE A DAMNING SONG ABOUT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH SEX SCANDAL. Although it didn’t fit into the album, he wrote a song about the victims of the Catholic clergy called “Playing Dumb,” which is included as a bonus cut on the vinyl release of “Hypnotic Eye.” Petty tells Billboard he doesn’t mean to attack Catholics – “I’m fine with whatever religion you want to have” – but explains his reaction to the scandal. “If I was in a club, and I found out that there had been generations of people abusing children, and then that club was covering that up, I would quit the club. And I wouldn’t give them any more money.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Church Times

by Madeleine Davies

Posted: 18 Jul 2014

A MAN who was abused as a choirboy, Phil Johnson, has added his voice to the criticism of Baroness Butler-Sloss, who resigned on Monday from chairing the Government’s inquiry into historical allegations of child-abuse in institutions.

Mr Johnson met Lady Butler-Sloss at the House of Lords in 2011, after she had been appointed by the diocese of Chichester to review its handling of abuse allegations. That review centred on abuse perpetrated by two priests: Roy Cotton and Colin Pritchard. Mr Cotton died in 2006, and Mr Pritchard was jailed for five years in 2008 (News, 1 August 2008).

On Friday, Mr Johnson told the BBC that he had also made allegations about a former Bishop of Lewes, the Rt Revd Peter Ball. He alleged that Lady Butler-Sloss had told him that, if she included the Bishop’s name in her report, it would distract from the more serious abuse by the two priests. But he also stated that she “didn’t want to generate any excessive negative publicity for the Church. . . She expressed that by saying that ‘the press would love a bishop’, and she didn’t want to give the press that trophy.”

He said: “She told me that she cared very much about the Church, and seemed to be wanting to protect the Church’s image.”

He accepts that she did pass on his allegations about Bishop Ball.

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FLORIDA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, July 18, 2014

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

A Florida pastor has been charged in relation to child sexual abuse. We are extremely disappointed in the two adults in this case who knew about a child sexual assault and did not alert law enforcement.

Caesar Chin was told about the horrific sexual abuse of a child by a witness and even counseled the victim for a year. At no point during this time did he or the witness follow the law or common sense and report what they knew to law enforcement. Instead they did nothing and let an innocent child suffer needlessly. Shame on them.

We applaud law enforcement for investigating not just the man responsible for the abuse, but the 2 other adults that did nothing to stop it. Those who do nothing about known child sex crimes play just as much of a roll in hurting innocent children. We also beg anyone who saw, suspects or suffered cover ups by Normail Perez to call police right away and help protect other potential victims.

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MINNESOTA
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on the latest attacks against Archbishop John Nienstedt of St. Paul and Minneapolis:

Not until a Minneapolis law firm finishes its investigation of Archbishop Nienstedt will we be able to know the answers to important questions, but it is not too early to condemn the rush to judgment that is being orchestrated by familiar foes of the archbishop. Here are some fast facts.

The war against Nienstedt began before he assumed his current post in 2008. Leading the charge were gay activists, dissident Catholics, and ex-Catholics. Last December, out of the blue, emerged an unidentified man who claimed Nienstedt touched his behind in 2009 while the archbishop was posing for a group picture. Nienstedt denied the charge and did something no leader would ever do: he stepped down. Not surprisingly, after the police investigated, the case was dismissed.

After a former archdiocesan employee, who had been suspended for failing to deal expeditiously with a complaint, made accusations that the archdiocese had failed to act expeditiously with molesting priests, Nienstedt convened a task force. It found “shortcomings.”

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FLORIDA
News 13

By Amanda McKenzie, Seminole County Reporter
Last Updated: Friday, July 18, 2014

SEMINOLE COUNTY —
A disturbing story out of Seminole County where three people have been arrested on charges related to the sexual abuse of three young girls.

One of those charged is a pastor.

It’s a sad story involving three girls under the age of 12 that officials say were sexually abused by a man they knew and trusted.

What’s worse is that the girls’ family pastor knew about the alleged abuse and did not report it to law enforcement.

Normail Perez is the man accused of sexually assaulting three young girls over the past seven years. According to investigators he was even caught in the act by Irma Torres, who has also been arrested.

Torres told investigators the girls went to her multiple times saying that Perez was touching them inappropriately, but never reported it to law enforcement, instead, Torres went to the family’s pastor, Cesar Chin.

When Chin was questioned he told investigators that he knew something was going on but he did not have any proof at that time.

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CANADA
Inside Halton

Oakville Beaver
By David Lea

A 28-year-old former Oakville youth pastor has been charged in an alleged sexual assault of a teen.

The Halton police Child Abuse and Sexual Assault Unit received a complaint from the Meeting House, a 2700 Bristol Circle church, in early July that prompted an investigation into a male employee.

An arrest was made on July 11.

Halton police Sgt. Chantal Corner said the alleged victim is a 17-year-old girl.

Corner would not comment on the details of when or where the alleged assault took place.

Sandra Neufeld, communications director with The Meeting House, confirmed this morning the accused is no longer working at the church.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
RTE News

An inquiry into institutional child abuse in Northern Ireland could be suspended due to a lack of funds.

Splits within the power sharing government at Stormont over spending have been blamed by First Minister Peter Robinson for the threat, which he branded an “outrage”.

The inquiry was to focus on the treatment of young people, orphaned or taken away from their unmarried mothers.

It also was to investigate houses run by nuns, brothers or the state.

The child abuse inquiry is being chaired by a retired High Court judge in Banbridge, Co Down, and was ordered by ministers.

The panel is considering cases between 1922, the foundation of Northern Ireland, and 1995.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Todd Robert Murphy July 18, 2014

The brick pavers surrounding the Eiffel Tower were made in the small town of Patton, Pa. The city of Patton was at one time the largest manufacturer of bricks in the world. A young novitiate from Patton would walk on his hometown pavers many times throughout his life. He would make his solemn profession as a Benedictine monk a little more than an hour away from post-war Paris in 1949 at the Solesmes Benedictine Abbey. He would take the name Rembert.

That was the beginning of a long and circuitous road for this future prelate of the Roman Catholic Church, Rembert Weakland. His passage would be flecked with accomplishment, controversy, disappointment and self-doubt. There would be times of great exhilaration, deep despair and loneliness. But one thing was indisputable from the very beginning: Weakland was a very gifted and holy man with a shining future in the Roman Catholic Church.

In 1977, Pope Paul VI elevated Weakland to archbishop of Milwaukee. At the time, many of the Catholic faithful were confused by the choice of Weakland, given his reputation as a church intellectual. Most thought it would be a only few years before he was given a red cap signifying him a cardinal of the church and moved on. That might have been in the back of his mind, too.

He was a cultural misfit in Milwaukee, and in his early tenure he was seen as a bit aloof by some. The Milwaukee Archdiocese, for lack of a better description, is a blue-collar, conservative Catholic community, and he was a progressive in the church. In his 2009 biography, he acknowledged his lack of comfort and feeling of isolation when he relocated to a town best known for beer, bowling and the TV show “Laverne & Shirley.”

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ROME
National Catholic Register

by EDWARD PENTIN
07/18/2014

Legionary Father Eduardo Robles Gil, a native of Mexico, was elected general director of the Legion of Christ in February this year. At that time, the religious congregation, founded in 1941, had just concluded its first Extraordinary General Chapter meeting to draft and revise its constitutions, bringing to a close the Vatican-supervised reform and returning the Legion to self-governance. .

In this wide-ranging interview with the Register in early July, he discusses the health of the religious congregation after its general chapter and the implementation of a program of reform.

The Legion and its lay movement, Regnum Christi, were thrown into turmoil in the late 2000s, after revelations came to light of grave misconduct by the congregation’s founder, Father Marcial Maciel (1920-2008), which the Legionary leadership acknowledged, denounced and apologized for in 2010.
Earlier this month, the Vatican appointed Jesuit Father Gianfranco Ghirlanda as pontifical adviser to advance the renewal and reform of the religious congregation.

In this July 4 interview, Father Robles Gil also explains the congregation’s precise charism, provides details on the new pontifical assistant’s role as a consulter and shares the methodology behind the congregation’s recruitment techniques. He also sheds light on the revised constitutions.

What are your overall hopes and plans for the Legion of Christ?

Right now, our plans are to make the corrections requested to obtain the approval of our constitutions. We need to write our secondary rules and other regulations and updated formation plans. That’s one of our main jobs right now. Then we have to work on the unity and cooperation in the mission with all the other realities in Regnum Christi.

We have consecrated lay women, consecrated lay men and lay members, both married and single, as well as some diocesan priests. We have to figure out a canonical structure, so that, also juridically, we can reflect the communion we strive to live every day. So that’s one of our main tasks for this year. We are still working on that. I also want to visit all the Legionaries in the places where they serve. I have started visiting some places.

In the next months, I will be traveling a lot, so I can understand the reality of the Regnum Christi movement and of the Legion of Christ in each place. That’s very important for good government.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Thomas Reese | Jul. 18, 2014 Faith and Justice

Ever since Jesus appointed Judas to take care of the purse, the church has had problems with finances. The church may have been founded by Jesus, but it is run by men. Will the recent reforms of the Vatican bank end these problems? Probably not, but that does not mean the Vatican will be operating with business as usual.

As with many problems in the church, the problems with Vatican bank find their roots in clericalism and secrecy.

No one enters the seminary with the desire to someday be in charge of church finances. Rather, seminarians want to become pastors. Seminaries also do not do a good job training their students to handle church finances. Priests who do develop expertise in church finances do so on the job. It would be extremely rare to find a priest who took an accounting course, let alone one who has an MBA.

As a result, most priests do not understand basic financial practices. They don’t know the right questions, let alone the right answers. At the same time, clericalism means that they have to be in charge of everything. Even if they want to delegate these financial responsibilities to laypeople, they do not know enough to appoint competent people. The temptation is to appoint someone who is deferential or appears pious and trustworthy.

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DEUTSCHLAND
HR Online

[Summary: After the scandal regarding the expensive bishopric, the Limburg diocese disclosed its assets today. It has 909 million euros on the books, much of it in securities. Gordon Sobbeck, diocesan finance head, told journalists that the diocese has many resources.]

Nach dem Skandal um den teuren Bischofssitz hat das Bistum Limburg am Freitag sein Vermögen offengelegt. Demnach stehen 909 Millionen Euro in den Büchern, vor allem Wertpapiere. Der Dom macht die Bilanz dagegen nicht fett.

“Das Bistum verfügt sicherlich über viele Mittel”, sagte der Finanzdezernent des Bistums, Gordon Sobbeck, vor Journalisten. Die Bilanz des Bistums Limburg weist demnach eine Summe von 909 Millionen Euro aus. Mit 811 Millionen Euro ist der größte Teil im Anlagevermögen gebunden, davon 703 Millionen Euro in Wertpapieren. “Diese Anlagen erfolgen risikobewusst, sind über mehrere Anlageklassen hinweg gestreut und berücksichtigen Nachhaltigkeitskriterien”, sagte Sobbeck.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Erzbistum Freiburg

18.07.2014 – Erzbistum Freiburg: Dokumentation für Forschungsprojekt

Freiburg / Mannheim / Heidelberg. Das Erzbistum Freiburg ist entschlossen, alle Fälle von sexuellem Missbrauch aufzuklären und weitere Taten zu verhindern. Deshalb hatte das Erzbistum entschieden, sämtliche Missbrauchs-Vorwürfe aus der Zeit von 1942 bis 2013 aufzuarbeiten. Jetzt liegt die Auswertung vor: Sie erfolgte in der Kanzlei der externen unabhängigen Beauftragten der Erzdiözese zur Prüfung des Vorwurfs von sexuellem Missbrauch Minderjähriger (Dr. Angelika Musella / Freiburg) – in Zusammenarbeit mit einem ehemaligen Mitarbeiter des Max-Planck-Instituts für ausländisches und internationales Strafrecht in Freiburg.

Akten unter der Lupe externer Strafrechtsexperten

Wie das Erzbischöfliche Ordinariat dazu am Freitag (18. Juli) in Freiburg weiter mitteilte, wird diese Auswertung nun einem interdisziplinären Forschungsprojekt zur Verfügung gestellt, das den sexuellen Missbrauch an Minderjährigen durch katholische Priester, Diakone und Ordensangehörige im Auftrag der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz genauer untersucht. Das Forschungskonsortium wird von Prof. Dr. Harald Dreßing vom Zentralinstitut für Seelische Gesundheit in Mannheim als Verbundkoordinator geleitet. Neben dem Zentralinstitut für Seelische Gesundheit Mannheim sind das Kriminologische Institut der Universität Heidelberg (Prof. Dr. Dieter Dölling, Prof. Dr. Dieter Hermann), das Institut für Gerontologie der Universität Heidelberg (Prof. Dr. Dr. Andreas Kruse, Prof. Dr. Eric Schmitt) und der Lehrstuhl für Kriminologie der Universität Gießen (Prof. Dr. Britta Bannenberg) Mitglieder des Forschungskonsortiums.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Katholisch

[Summary: The Freiburg archdiocese issued a report today regarding a thorough investigation of cases of sexual abuse within the church between 1942 and 2013. They found 119 abuse offenders and 185 victims. A total of 102 cases involved harassment or humiliation but no direct sexual attack. Freiburg lawyer Angelika Musella, who represented the diocese, said they suspect the actual number of unreported cases in much higher.]

Das Erzbistum Freiburg hat am Freitag einen Bericht über die Aufarbeitung von Missbrauchsfällen im kirchlichen Raum vorgelegt. Die Statistik führt alle Taten auf, die von der unabhängigen Missbrauchsbeauftragten, der Freiburger Rechtsanwältin Angelika Musella, im Auftrag der Diözese untersucht wurden. Zwischen 1942 und 2013 missbrauchten demnach 119 Täter 185 Opfer.

In 102 Fällen handelte es sich um Übergriffe ohne sexuellen Bezug, etwa Schikanen oder Demütigungen. Eine besondere Gruppe stellen die sogenannten Heimkinder da: Hier verzeichnet der Bericht vor allem für die 60er und 70er Jahre Übergriffe gegen 72 Kinder, die in kirchlich geführten Heimen lebten.

“Wir sind nach ausführlichem Aktenstudium allen Hinweisen nachgegangen. Schwerpunkt meiner Arbeit war die Sorge um die Opfer. Die meisten Opfer meldeten sich bei uns im Zuge der Diskussion um sexuellen Missbrauch im kirchlichen Raum ab dem Jahr 2010”, sagte Musella in Freiburg: “Zugleich bin ich leider sicher, dass die Dunkelziffer erheblich höher liegt. In alten Personalakten gibt es nur selten Hinweise auf Missbrauchstaten durch Priester, ein Umdenken zu Transparenz und klarer Sanktionierung setzte erst 2002 ein, als die katholische Kirche einheitliche Leitlinien zum Umgang mit Missbrauch beschloss.”

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FLORIDA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, July 18, 2014

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

A Florida man who has been charged with producing and distributing child porn has links to the Boy Scouts, a church and an elementary school. We are deeply concerned about the possible number of victims suffering in silence and self-blame.

Matthew Graziotti was a volunteer scout leader, a volunteer working with children at Edgewater Church and a 5th grade teacher at Warner Christian Academy. We urge officials at all three of these organizations to immediately reach out to all current and former members/students and beg anyone who saw, suspects, or suffered child sex crimes to come forward and report to police. They should also review their child protection policies and make any necessary changes to ensure children are kept safe.

We hope anyone who was hurt by Graziotti will find the courage to come forward, call police and start healing.

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CALIFORNIA/GUAM
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, July 18, 2014

Statement by Joelle Casteix of Newport Beach, CA, 949-322-7434 cell, jcasteix@gmail.com

We are shocked to learn that a Los Angeles priest from Los Angeles – accused twice of molesting children – now works as a priest on Guam. We strongly urge Guam Catholic officials to oust him.

Fr. John Wadeson, has been named in LA archdiocese records and in news reports as a twice accused predator priest. Because those allegations were deemed “credible” by church officials, he is not allowed to present himself as a priest anywhere in the Archdiocese of LA.

Despite this, Guam Archbishop Anthony Sablan Apuron is letting Fr. Wadesono work and act as a priest. Apuron also lets Fr. Wadeson travel to other dioceses, including Honolulu.

Although Fr. Wadeson has not been convicted of abuse, the fact that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has banned him from ministry is just cause for Apuron to remove the cleric immediately. We fear that Apuron is putting Guam’s children at direct risk and protecting a credibly accused predator instead of protecting his flock.

We urge Apuron to immediate remove Fr. Wadeson from ministry and make public announcements about Fr. Wadeson at every parish where he has worked or celebrated Mass, begging anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes or misdeeds by Fr. Wadeson to step forward, get help, call police, protect others and start healing.

We also want Apuron to explain to parishioners that Fr. Wadeson has been accused of abuse by two children and is banned from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

We also beg Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez to immediately tell Apuron about the risks that Fr. Wadeson poses. As a powerful Archbishop, Gomez can easily use his power and influence to ensure that Fr. Wadeson can never work as a priest again.

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AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net

Hi there,

In my last post, I talked about a couple of things that I’m yet to follow through on by writing on this blog. One was the quest for the Salvation Army’s new restorative justice principles, and the other was the matter of my meeting with the Salvation Army’s handling of the Blayse family in a meeting I had in Sydney a little while back with several people from the Salvation Army. Work continues on both fronts, and I’ll provide updates on this site as soon as I can. For those curious to know what’s happening now, though, the short answers are:

(a) Restorative justice: the Salvation Army has provided quite a lot of information, but I am still trying to make sense of it in such a way as to be able to write intelligently about it.

(b) Justice for Lewis Blayse: In the air, but the Salvation Army are at least ‘at the table’. I can’t really say more than that at this stage, other than that I am now cautiously optimistic that there will be a better outcome than the disgusting way my Dad’s family has been treated to date.

For now though, there’s something slightly more important / pressing that I’d like to get out to readers. And this is an upcoming protest that commences today at 4 pm in Sydney and will run right through until the end of the month.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Juno McEnroe
Political Correspondent

Infant mortality rates, burial practices and the issue of forced labour in institutions need to be included in the forthcoming mother-and-baby home inquiry, the Government has been told.

Minister for Children James Reilly faces pressure to have an all-inclusive inquiry and yesterday accepted it would be counterproductive to exclude any group from the investigation. But any decision will depend on the possible costs and length of the probe, he told the Dáil.

Dr Reilly said the commission of investigation into mother-and-baby homes may examine the role the State and Church played and how homes were managed.

TDs debated the terms for the pending inquiry, which will now not be known until the autumn.

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TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
Newsday

By CAROL MATROO Friday, July 18 2014

A WOMAN is calling on the authorities to shut down the St Michael’s Home for Boys in the wake of allegations of rampant abuse, including sexual assault, being meted out to inmates of the Home.

The woman, who gave her name as Sherry Goddard said her 14-year-old son, who is not her biological child, was sent to St Michael’s on the order of a magistrate when she (Goddard) brought him up in court two years ago for unruly and uncontrollable behaviour.

“It was the worst thing the courts could have ordered…sending him to that ‘house of horrors’. I put him in court when he began to act out after I told him he was not my biological son. He is not from my belly, but I fed him, clothed him and sheltered him. For all intents and purposes, he is my son,” Goddard said.

After being released from St Michael’s, Goddard said her son who was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) returned to court for a status report on his behaviour and the magistrate ordered him to be sent back to the Home.

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UNITED STATES
WBUR

Fri, Jul 18, 2014
by Rich Barlow

Anyone who paid any attention in the last decade to the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal knows that one of the bishops’ biggest bungles was secrecy in dealing with predator priests. As recently as May, the United Nations condemned surreptitious transfers of molesters to new parishes. The moral? Cover-ups harm the cover-uppers, too  .

One might think that universities, those repositories of PhDs, might grasp this lesson of recent history. Yet recent headlines about colleges grappling with sexual assaults on campus suggest that the culture of secrecy that permitted abuse in the rectory may have its counterpart in the Ivory Tower.

Circumstances differ, of course. Pedophile priests used positions of moral authority and their followers’ inherent trust in them to turn powerless children into prey, while the alleged perpetrators on college campuses have been fellow students of the alleged victims. In spite of these differences, what unites the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal and the current campus rape crisis is the flimsy claim of confidentiality upon which both institutions have based their feeble responses. (I work for Boston University, and the opinions in this column are solely mine.)

Catholic bishops’ claims of confidentiality ranged from due process for the accused, which is a reasonable claim, to the need to shield the reputation of God’s minions on earth, which is not one. Universities’ confidentiality claims are rooted in a Nixon-era law, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which was enacted to keep student grades confidential, not to provide a smokescreen to obscure the facts in cases of on-campus rape.

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FLORIDA
News-Journal

By Frank Fernandez
frank.fernandez@news-jrnl.com
Published: Thursday, July 17, 2014
.
The Cub Scouts are the latest organization connected to Matthew Graziotti, charged earlier this week with production and distribution of child pornography.

Bill Gosselin, director of operations and chief operating officer for the Boy Scouts of America Central Florida Council, said Thursday that Graziotti was an “adult volunteer leader” with a Scouting program. The group has provided records to the FBI about Graziotti and “immediately revoked” his membership.

Also, an Edgewater church confirmed Thursday that Graziotti volunteered with children there. Graziotti helped to supervise children in ministries at the Edgewater Alliance Church, lead Pastor David Lane said. He was not employed by the church and his church membership was suspended Tuesday, Lane said.

Graziotti’s employer, Warner Christian Academy in South Daytona, where he taught fifth grade, announced it would host a community forum on Monday to discuss ways to protect 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.

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
Guardian

Published:
Friday, July 18, 2014

Director of Public Prosecutions Roger Gaspard is reviewing the file on allegations of negligence, gross misconduct and sexual impropriety at the St Michael’s School for Boys, Diego Martin, where teenager Brandon Hargreaves died. Hargreaves, 14, died on April 8 after hitting his head on the concrete floor of his dormitory, reportedly while trying to dropkick another child. He had been sent to the school by the court. The findings of the report were disclosed in the Senate on Tuesday by Attorney General Anand Ramlogan who said details of the claims were discovered during a probe into the death of Hargreaves.

During the inquiry into the operations of the school, several issues were discovered, including money laundering, racketeering, illicit sexual liaisons between staff members and the boys, theft, negligence and abuse. It was ordered by the Ministry of Gender Affairs, Youth and Child Development. Ramlogan promised the report would be forwarded to the DPP and acting Police Commissioner Stephen Williams. In a telephone interview yesterday, Gaspard said it was “still receiving my active consideration and it might very well be that it warrants a police investigation.”
Williams could not be reached yesterday to find out if a police investigation had been launched, as calls to his cellphone went unanswered.

Calls to the chairman of the Children’s Authority, Stephanie Daly, and chairman of the Child Protection Task Force, Diana Mahabir-Wyatt, also went unanswered. The Anglican Diocese shares responsibility for St Michael’s with the Ministry of Gender, Youth and Child Development. In an interview on Wednesday, Anglican Bishop Clyde Berkley said he would seek a meeting with the school board to address the matter. Calls to Berkley’s cellphone went unanswered yesterday.

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
JULY 17, 2014

When Pope Francis met earlier this month with victims of rape and sexual abuse by priests, he vowed to hold bishops accountable for covering up the scandal instead of confronting it.

A good place to start is with the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese, where calls are mounting for the resignation of Archbishop John Nienstedt, a warrior against same-sex marriage who, it turns out, is facing accusations that he indulged in improper sexual conduct in the past with priests, seminarians and other men.

The archbishop has denied the accusations as “entirely false,” saying they date back over 10 years and do not involve minors or criminal conduct. But he felt obliged to hire a law firm to investigate them.

Meanwhile, his handling of the pedophilia scandal is under fire from all sides. This week, an affidavit from Jennifer Haselberger, the former canon law chancellor for the archdiocese, accused the archbishop and his ranking prelates of systematically ignoring warnings about abusers in a five-year period, while failing to inform civil authorities of possible criminal acts.

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 Week

By Damon Linker

Have you heard the news about Archbishop John C. Nienstedt of St. Paul and Minneapolis? It seems he’s been accused of conducting numerous sexual affairs with men while also leading his archdiocese’s fight against same-sex marriage and regularly denouncing homosexuality in the most uncompromising terms possible. Nienstedt and his predecessor, Archbishop Harry Flynn, have also been credibly accused of covering up and showing indifference toward the sexual abuse of children by priests in the archdiocese.

I heard about both charges from blog posts by Rod Dreher, a conservative Christian friend, who learned of the first scandal from an article on the website of Commonweal, the liberal Catholic magazine, and was tipped off about the second one by a loyal reader who sent Dreher (in PDF form) the text of a sworn affidavit by Jennifer Haselberger, the former chief canon lawyer for the archdiocese, who gave her damning testimony in a civil lawsuit. The day after Dreher’s post on the testimony appeared, The New York Times ran a substantial story about both scandals and the rising calls for Nienstedt’s resignation.

So let’s just say that if you hadn’t heard the news before you started reading this column, you would have heard about it elsewhere before long.

And that is a big problem for the churches, especially the conservative churches that seek to uphold and promulgate traditionalist views of morality and doctrine. Indeed, it’s a far bigger and potentially more ruinous problem than the one posed by dogmatic liberals using government regulations to impinge on the freedom of certain believers to practice and live their faith.

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UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

The one-year swift Vatican Bank’s “peaceful transition” (by closing despots’ accounts and transferring them to secret Vatican Swiss Banks) is like a man who murders someone, then swiftly rolls his victim in a carpet, go dig a grave and bury him in a faraway field so that (relatives and) the police will never find his victim and never trace his crime. He also cleans up the murder scene and now he acts normally – as if nothing ever happened. He then goes to Confession and feels-good that the priest will keep his crime secret with the Seal of Confession and he feels relieved that his crime/sin is absolved with his 3 Hail Mary penance and he is guaranteed forgiveness and salvation to Heaven and can eat as much flesh-and-blood of Christ in the Eucharist Satanic Mass.

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WISCONSIN
Green Bay Press-Gazette

Scott Cooper Williams and Patti Zarling 5:27 p.m. CDT July 17, 2014

ALLOUEZ – A former Catholic priest and convicted sex offender has been relocated from an apartment he rented one block away from his victim’s grandmother.

State corrections officials said they were unaware for several months that Donald Buzanowski was living so close to his victim’s family.

The situation has prompted Allouez village leaders to consider new local restrictions and neighborhood alert procedures whenever a sex offender seeks to move into the community.

Joy Staab, spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections, said Buzanowski was relocated effective Thursday to a state-run facility for criminal offenders on Green Bay’s west side.

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.

KANSAS CITY (MO)
Pitch

Posted By Steve Vockrodt on Thu, Jul 17, 2014

A former pastoral associate at St. Francis Xavier Church sued the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph and its bishop, Robert Finn, on Thursday, alleging that she was fired after The Kansas City Star published an article that referenced her same-sex marriage.

Colleen Simon says priests at St. Francis Xavier knew about her 2012 marriage in Iowa to the Rev. Donna Simon, of St. Mark Hope and Peace Lutheran Church, when she was hired there, only to then use the relationship later as a justification for firing her.

A lawsuit filed in Jackson County Circuit Court asks to get her job back and receive back pay and other damages. Simon ran the church’s food pantry located near Rockhurst University, a role that seemed to fit a larger Catholic scripture that calls on members to assist the needy.

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.

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Wall Street Journal

By PEG BRICKLEY

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee has been running a tab when it comes to professionals working on its Chapter 11 bankruptcy case, and lawyers for unsecured creditors—chiefly survivors of sexual abuse—say it’s time to pay the bills.

Court records show the archdiocese has stacked up more cash than it projected back in January 2013, when it petitioned the bankruptcy court to suspend monthly professional fee payments on the grounds money was tight, according to papers filed by creditor lawyers led by James Stang. Mr. Stang represents the official committee of unsecured creditors in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee case. With a few exceptions, bankruptcy professionals have not been paid in 17 months, court papers say.

As of the end of June, the archdiocese reported it had run up $5.8 million worth of fees, court records show. Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek S.C., the lead lawyer for the archdiocese, is owed the most, $2.9 million. Lead creditor firm Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones is owed $1.9 million, court records show. Lawyers for survivors contend that the archdiocese has the money, and it should pay.

“The Debtor can and should be required to play by the rules and pay for its operating expenses, including professional fees during the bankruptcy process. After all, through that process and by its plan, it is seeking to obtain extraordinary relief,” such as getting out from under litigation over alleged clergy sexual abuse, creditors’ attorneys wrote.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Nick McLaren

The Catholic Bishop of Wollongong, Peter Ingham, is celebrating 50 years as a priest with a letter from the Pope.

The letter from Pope Francis, in Latin, conveyed his good wishes and blessing upon Bishop Ingham, the clergy and the people of the Diocese of Wollongong.

Bishop Ingham was ordained into the priesthood in 1964 at St Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney and installed as the fourth Bishop of Wollongong in 2001.

He says becoming a priest was simply a matter of determining priorities. …

Meanwhile Bishop Ingham has spoken again of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

He says the response to the Gerard Nestor case in Wollongong shows that he and Bishop Philip Wilson were able to hold the line and keep children safe.

Bishop Ingham says this was achieved by keeping Nestor out of the ministry while the case was dealt with by Roman and Australian authorities.

“On the local level our procedures are very good and we worked at that in recent years really to ensure that people are respected and listened to and believed so that people can move forward,” he said.

It took nearly 20 years for the Vatican to dismiss Father John Nestor.

He was convicted then acquitted of indecently assaulting a Wollongong alter boy in 1996.

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CALIFORNIA
Mercury News

By Matthias Gafni
Contra Costa Times
POSTED: 07/17/2014

Anyone abused by a priest or other Stockton Catholic diocese employee, and who wants to sue has less than a month to file a claim as part of a bankruptcy deadline established for the religious organization that claims abuse settlements and judgments have emptied church coffers.

A priest abuse survivor’s group held a news conference Wednesday outside the Stockton diocese headquarters to draw attention to the Aug. 15 deadline and push the diocese to increase public outreach of the upcoming date.

The Stockton diocese, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January, is the 10th Catholic diocese across the country to file for such protections. The Stockton diocese has already paid out $14 million over the past two decades to settle abuse cases, and the diocese in May established a phone hotline for additional abuse victims to call for information on claims.

Attorney James Stang, whose law firm has been hired to man the hotline, said he’s received about 10 calls, meaning the organization could be hit with additional claims.

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LOUISIANA
St. Louis Review

SUBMITTED ON JULY 16, 2014

Last week Catholic news organizations, including the St. Louis Review, published a troubling story about the Louisiana Supreme Court attempting to compel a priest to break the seal of confession.

At issue was a lawsuit filed by the parents of a girl who claimed that, in 2008 at the age of 14, she told a priest that she had been abused by a now-deceased parishioner. The parents claim that the priest was negligent in not reporting the abuse. The girl claimed she told the priest of this in the confessional.

Louisiana’s mandatory reporter law provides an exception for members of clergy who receive reports in confidential communication, such as confession. And under canon law, a priest may not, under any circumstances, reveal anything about a confession to anyone. Not what was confessed. Not who confessed. Not ever. To violate the seal of confession would be to incur automatic excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See.

In this case, the Louisiana Court of Appeals for the First Circuit had ruled that the seal of confession pre-empted the court from ordering the priest to testify as to the nature of a confession. The Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that case be returned to district court to determine whether or not there was a confession, which, by canon law, the priest is not permitted to reveal.

So now the priest, Father Jeff Bayhi of the Diocese of Baton Rouge, finds himself in a difficult position. If he follows the court directive and testifies as to whether there was a confession, he excommunicates himself from the Church. If he follows Church law — as he should — he could find himself in jail for contempt of court.

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ALABAMA
The North Jefferson News

By Robert Carter
North Jefferson News

BIRMINGHAM — A hearing in the case of Jay Strickland, the former associate pastor charged with three sex crimes, has been rescheduled for August.

After a brief hearing Thursday morning in the court of Jefferson County Circuit Judge Shelly Watkins, prosecutors and defense agreed to continue the case because of a procedural matter until August 21.

Strickland, a Morris resident who was an associate pastor at Sharon Heights Baptist Church in Brookside and also a member of the Warrior Fire Department, is charged with two counts of sexual abuse and one count of sodomy in two incidents which are alleged to have occurred several years ago. The alleged victims, one male and one female, were minors at the time; they have since become adults and moved out of state, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.

Richard Jaffe, the attorney representing Strickland, told reporters after the hearing that additional time is needed to review the details of the allegations.

“We are exploring every aspect of this case, and we just don’t have enough information now to make good legal decisions that make sense, so we need more time. Both sides need more time,” Jaffe said. “We are intensely exploring and investigating the matter… It’s very difficult to investigate allegations of this nature that are historical.”

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 07/17/2014

A Maplewood preacher was convicted Thursday afternoon of two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct involving girls he had raped and molested for years.

Ramsey County jurors returned their verdicts on Jacoby Kindred Sr. after more than six hours of deliberation over two days.

Kindred, 61, removed his watch, wallet and money clip and set them on the courtroom table upon hearing the verdicts, county attorney’s spokesman Dennis Gerhardstein said. Sheriff’s deputies took him into custody immediately. He had been out of jail during the trial.

Kindred’s family, including his wife, declined comment after the sentencing.

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ALABAMA
Alabama’s 13

By Sarah Killian

BIRMINGHAM, AL –
A former pastor charged with sex crimes appeared in a Jefferson County courtroom Thursday morning.

Jay Strickland is charged with sex abuse and sodomy after two adults told police he molested them as children.

According to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, investigators began looking into Strickland in April after a man came forward and said the pastor molested him as a child. A woman also said she was abused by Strickland when she was a child.

Strickland served as Administrative Pastor at Sharon Heights Baptist Church in Jefferson County. After his arrest last month, the church severed all ties with him.

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ITALY
The Times (UK)

Philip Willan Rome

Pope Francis has urged Catholic priests to reach out to sinners living on the margins of society, but one cleric appears to have taken it too far after he was arrested at a rowdy cocaine party.

Father Stefano Maria Cavalletti was detained in Milan last week when a drug-fuelled party he was attending got out of hand. Police were called by a neighbour after one of the revellers flew into a rage.

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UNITED STATES
POPE FRANCIS the CON-Christ.

July 14, 2014

Paris Arrow

The Opus Dei Beast PR Stunt of the Day is Pope Francis saying there are (only) “2% of pedophile priests and cardinals and bishops and they are like leprosy in the church” in an interview with famous journalist Eugenio Scalfari published in La Repubblica. But soon after, Vatican (Jesuit) spokesman, Mr. Federico Lombardi refuted that “it is important to notice that the words Mr. Scalfari attributes to the Pope, ‘in quotations’ come from the expert journalist Scalfari’s own memory of what the Pope said and is not an exact transcription of a recording nor a review of such a transcript by the Pope himself to whom the words are attributed”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Freethinker

BARRY DUKE, EDITOR

MANY thought that O’Brien, former head of the Catholic Church in Scotland, had crept off to some monastery, there to repent for his predatory sexual behaviour. But it’s just been revealed that the man who won a “Bigot of the Year” award for his vicious homophobia is living in a £208,750 bungalow – bought by Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh Leo Cushley – in a Northumberland village.

O’Brien, 76, refused this week to explain his situation, saying only:

I’m not speaking to anyone at the moment.

The disgraced churchman has been staying in the former pit village of Ellington, Northumberland, since January.

The house was purchased in the same month by Cushley – who succeeded O’Brien as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh – and two other leading churchmen in their capacity as trustees of the archdiocese.

O’Brien would not answer questions yesterday about why he was living on the other side of England from Cumbria, where he was understood to be undertaking a religious retreat.

When pressed on the house ownership, he replied:

You’ll need to check that with the diocese. I’m not talking about it, I’m not allowed to talk about it.

O’Brien was brought down after being accused of hypocrisy over his continual condemnation of homosexuality. He called it a “moral degradation” and described gay marriage as “harmful”.

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UNITED STATES
Waiting for Godot to Leave

Kevin O’Brien

Anonymous comments on my post The Nature of the Problem …

Now it was a grave sin what those priests and Bishops did decades ago, but it is time to stop acting like what happened then is still happening now. The Church has taken many steps to prevent sexual abuse from happening.

But these are steps that are not being followed, at least in St. Paul, Kansas City and St. Louis. The enabling of sexual abuse by bishops is still going on. The sexual abuse is still happening.

Read the recent affidavit by Jennifer Haselberger. You can tell yourself that she’s a flaming liberal in it for the money – but at one point she says she had high hopes for Archbishop Nienstedt because he was “doctrinally pure”. So that won’t wash.

And most of what she describes is backed up by documentary evidence, and it rings very true.

A friend of mine says the bishops have been behaving with “knavish imbecility”. It’s a great phrase, and it comes from Hilaire Belloc, who speaks of the Church as …

… an institute run with such knavish imbecility that if it were not the work of God it would not last a fortnight.

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CANADA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, July 17, 2014

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

A Canadian Orthodox archbishop, who was convicted of child sexual abuse and sentenced to 8 months in jail last week, has been released on bail. We are disappointed the judge granted this request.

Archbishop Seraphim Storheim was found criminally guilty of sexually abusing a child. Child abuse victims rarely report their abuse lightly and Storheim has two victims speaking publically. Child molesters rarely abuse only once or change their ways. We hope no other children will be hurt while he walks free.

It is not too late to report what you know to police. If you were abused or you know someone who was abused by Storheim please contact law enforcement and get help. We also urge the Orthodox Church of America to alert parishioners that Storheim has been released and is still a convicted child molester.

NOTE – in an earlier statement, we wrote “The OCA opposes his release.” We meant to say “The OCA should oppose his release.” We regret the error.

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CANADA
Global News

By Chinta Puxley The Canadian Press

WINNIPEG – A former Orthodox priest convicted of sexually assaulting an altar boy spent just over a week behind bars before being freed on bail until his appeal is heard.

Seraphim Storheim was convicted of sexual assault early this year and sentenced last week to eight months in jail for an assault dating back almost 30 years. His lawyer Jeff Gindin immediately appealed the conviction and sentence, arguing the judge came to the wrong conclusion when he didn’t find Storheim’s account credible.

Gindin argued Thursday his client should be released on bail until the appeal is heard because he poses no threat to society. If Storheim had not been granted bail, Gindin said it’s possible he would have served the bulk of his sentence before his appeal was heard.

Justice Diana Cameron of Manitoba’s Court of Appeal agreed that was likely — even if the appeal moves quickly.

“It’s entirely conceivable he would have served out his sentence before a decision was rendered by this court,” she said.

Storheim, now 68, showed no emotion as he was granted bail and told he could not be alone with a child under the age of 18 as a condition of his release.

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MINNESOTA
Friendly Atheist

July 17, 2014 By Hemant Mehta

Twin Cities (Minnesota) Archbishop John Nienstedt (below) spent years arguing against LGBT rights. In 2007, he wrote that “those who actively encourage or promote homosexual acts… formally cooperate in a grave evil and, if they do so knowingly and willingly, are guilty of mortal sin.” He condemned Brokeback Mountain when it came out. And he spent $650,000 of the Church’s money trying to convince Minnesota voters to pass an amendment banning same-sex marriage — an amendment that ultimately failed.

It’s hardly surprisingly, then, to learn that Nienstedt was under investigation for having sex with other priests. More importantly, he retaliated against anyone who didn’t respond in kind or questioned what he was doing. He denies all of these allegations, of course.

But it gets worse. One of the men promoted by Nienstedt to become a pastor, Curtis Wehmeyer, ended up molesting kids while in that role. It was discovered that Nienstedt knew about Wehmeyer’s criminal history when he promoted him to that position.

It’s just astonishing how any of this could have happened. And we haven’t scraped the bottom of the barrel yet, since Nienstedt’s “archivist and top adviser on Roman Catholic church law” Jennifer Haselberger is finally speaking out against the cover-ups that took place while she was there:

Haselberger said that when she started examining records in 2008 of clergy under restrictions over sex misconduct with adults and children she found “nearly 20″ of the 48 men still in ministry. She said she repeatedly warned Nienstedt and his aides about the risk of these placements, but they took action only in one case. As a result of raising alarms, she said she was eventually shut out of meetings about priest misconduct. She resigned last year.
…
Auxiliary Bishop Andrew Cozzens said in a statement that Haselberger’s “recollections are not always shared by others within the archdiocese.” He said the archdiocese was taking steps toward “greater transparency and accountability.”

Well, that’s convenient. The recollections may not be shared, but the Church is known for just dismissing things that make it look bad. They love sweeping naughty/molest-y clergy members under the rug.

You can read Haselberger’s full affidavit here. It’s more than 100 pages of information the Church doesn’t want you to hear. Haselberger deserves a lot of credit for shining a light on this information. It’s an incredibly courageous move, given the size and influence of the institution she’s up against.

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MINNESOTA
Catholic News Agency

Minneapolis, Minn., Jul 17, 2014 / 01:10 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- An auxiliary bishop of the Saint Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese says the affidavit of a former chancellor on the handling of sex abuse allegations is not necessarily consistent the view of others involved.

“Her recollections are not always shared by others within the archdiocese,” Bishop Andrew Cozzens said July 15 of the affidavit filed by Jennifer Haselberger – who was chancellor of the archdiocese from 2008-2013.

Her sworn statement in a lawsuit concerning sexual abuse by a former priest was filed July 7, and charged that while she was employed there, the Saint Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese had a pattern of failing to deal appropriately with allegations made against clergy of sex abuse.

The lawsuit is filed by a man, known as Doe 1, who claims to have been abused as a minor by Thomas Adamson, then a priest, in 1976 and 1977. The suit had been filed against Adamson, as well as the Saint Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese and the Diocese of Winona.

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UNITED STATES
Deseret News

Compiled by Kelsey Dallas
For the Deseret News
Published: Thursday, July 17 2014

Pope Francis spoke openly about clergy sexual abuse in a recent interview with an Italian newspaper. But instead of celebrating his willingness to address the issue, some Catholics, including officials at the Vatican, worry that his comments may do more harm than good.

On Sunday, La Repubblica published its account of a conversation between the paper’s founder, Eugenio Scalfari, and Pope Francis. In it, the pope addresses clergy sexual abuse, calling pedophilia a “leprosy in our house.”

“Many of my collaborators who fight with me (against pedophilia) reassure me with reliable statistics that … the level of pedophilia in the church is at about 2 percent. … This data should hearten me but I have to tell you that it does not hearten me at all. In fact, I think that it is very grave,” Francis said to Scalfari. Reuters published the translated excerpt.

Reaction to the interview ranged from difficulty proving the accuracy of the pope’s 2 percent figure to disputes over how far up in the Catholic Church’s hierarchy abusers can be found. …

“The question of the percentage of pedophiles in the priesthood is not easily answered, even in the United States, where bishops release some data on surveys and survivors have collected significant information over the years through litigation,” Michelle Boorstein wrote for the Post. “Figures vary among church leaders and outside analysts. The question in most other parts of the world, particularly in developing countries, seems completely unanswered. However, survivor advocates said two percent sounds low.”

SNAP, the survivors network of those abused by priests, issued a statement about the pope’s comments, expressing frustration with Francis’ affinity for speaking about clergy sexual abuse rather than acting to end it.

“No one benefits when the world’s top Catholic official mischaracterizes the crisis, by talking often about abuse and rarely about cover up. No one benefits when he minimizes the crisis by low-balling estimates of child-molesting clerics,” the statement explained.

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CANADA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, July 17, 2014

Statement by Melanie Jula Sakoda of Moraga, California, Orthodox Director of SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 925-708-6175, melanie.sakoda@gmail.com )

A Canadian archbishop, who was convicted of child sexual abuse and sentenced to 8 months in jail last week, has appealed his conviction and requested to be released on bail. We hope the judge denies this request.

Archbishop Seraphim Storheim was found criminally guilty of sexually abusing a child. While locked up, he cannot hurt any more children. We disagree with Storheim’s attorney, who claims the archbishop poses no threat to society. Child molesters rarely abuse only once or change their ways.

The Orthodox Church in America (OCA) opposes his release and now more than ever should reach out to anyone else who was hurt by the archbishop and might be suffering in silence and self-blame.

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NIGERIA
Y Naija

by S’ola Filani

A middle‑aged pastor of one of the Pentecostal churches in Ile‑Oluji area of Ondo State, Peter Etim, has been arrested for child abuse – inflicting serious body injuries on two of his male children.

He was arrested by the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Ondo State Command, on Wednesday.

For stealing his N180, and selling some wares in his shop on credit without his permission, the pastor inflicted the injuries on his boys – Elijah (10) and Hope (8), by using electric wire to beat them.

Briefing journalists, the command image maker, Mr. Kayode Balogun, advised parents and guardians to be careful about the way they treat their children.

Balogun said children have some rights which needed to be protected under the Child Rights Act of Ondo State and the federation.

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NEBRASKA
National Catholic Reporter

Robert McClory | Jun. 18, 2014

CRISIS OF CATHOLIC AUTHORITY: FAITH AND POWER IN THE DIOCESE OF LINCOLN, NEBRASKA
By Rachel Pokora
Published by Paragon House, $19.95

Crisis of Catholic Authority is a kind of ecclesiastical horror story. It relates what can happen when an autocratic hierarch chooses to exercise his supreme, punitive power over some of his subjects. No one on this earth will restrain him, neither the priests of his diocese, nor his fellow bishops in the U.S., nor the high authorities in Rome, not even the pope himself. And like some ancient gothic curse, this awesome penalty has acquired a life of its own, continuing in full force for 18 years, outliving the resignation of the bishop who pronounced it, still in effect to this day and into the foreseeable future.

The bishop is Fabian Bruskewitz, who ruled the diocese of Lincoln, Neb., from 1992 to 2012. Those immediately affected by excommunication in 1996 were some 45 members of the Nebraska chapter of the Call to Action organization who happened to live in the Lincoln diocese. They were given one month to resign from the accursed group, at which time the penalty would automatically go into effect. Also presumably affected were any other Call to Action members who would move to Lincoln in the future without renouncing their membership.

It should be noted that no other U.S. bishop has followed Bruskewitz’s lead in all these years, though the bishop himself has become a kind of folk hero to supporters of Mother Angelica’s EWTN television station and other far-right conservative Catholic organizations.

Author Rachel Pokora narrates the story clearly, without rancor or bitterness. She is a professor of communications at Nebraska Wesleyan University who moved to Lincoln after Bruskewitz struck. She chose to join CTA’s Nebraska chapter after experiencing the rigidity and extreme conservatism that marked parish life in the diocese, and she later served for several years as the chapter’s president.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

There’s tons of truth in the axiom “Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior.”

Yet when a pope is picked, many predict – based solely on hope and ignoring considerable evidence – that he’ll “be better” on abuse than his predecessor.

That’s why we are so grateful to the amazing researchers at BA.org [BishopAccountability.org] who dug deep into how Pope Francis dealt with clergy sex abuse and cover up cases in Argentina. What they found is very disturbing.

And their work, though seemingly ignored at first, is finally gaining traction.

In the past few weeks, more and more news outlets and bloggers are citing this important research.

The Guardian

The Washington Post

The Telegraph

The American Conservative

The New York Times

The Global Post

Let this be a reminder to all of us: when our efforts don’t seem to bear fruit, it’s best to be patient and fight pessimism. It may take weeks or months or sometimes years. But usually, our hard work is noticed and effective.

Congrats & thanks to BA.org

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LOUISIANA
WWNO

By JIM ENGSTER

David Clohessy, the Executive Director of the Snap Network (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) joins Jim for the first part of today’s show to discuss the Louisiana Supreme Court’s 6-1 ruling against seal of confessional in a recent case against a Baton Rouge Priest. Also, Attorney Michael Wolf joins the conversation in studio to discuss the recent court decision and explain the legal action taken.

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CANADA
Metro

By Staff
The Canadian Press

WINNIPEG – A former Orthodox priest convicted of sexually assaulting an altar boy will hear today if he will be granted bail pending an appeal.

Seraphim Storheim was convicted last week and sentenced to eight months in jail for an incident dating back almost 30 years.

Jeff Gindin, his lawyer, immediately appealed the conviction and the sentence.

Gindin says his client should be released on bail until the appeal is heard because he poses no threat to society.

He told a judge Thursday that if Storheim is not granted bail, it’s possible he will have to serve out the bulk of his sentence before his appeal is heard.

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VATICAN CITY
Christian Post

BY NICOLA MENZIE , CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER
June 7, 2014

Joel Osteen, bestselling motivational author and evangelical pastor of America’s fastest-growing megachurch, was among a small group that included Mormon Sen. Mike Lee, to meet privately with Pope Francis at the Vatican in Rome, this week.

Osteen said he was honored to meet with Pope Francis, who leads the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics.

“I like the fact that this pope is trying to make the church larger, not smaller. He’s not pushing people out but making the church more inclusive. That resonated with me,” Osteen told the Houston Chronicle.

The megachurch pastor, who ministers to 52,000 worshippers weekly and reaches millions through his books and television broadcasts, added that the group’s meeting with Francis was cut short due to the death of a cardinal, Simon Lourdusamy. Osteen added, however, that the pope asked the group to pray for peace in the Middle East as well as for him.

According to Deseret News, the meeting with Pope Francis on Thursday was “part of a multiday, unofficial visit to Italy to promote ecumenical prayer and interfaith understanding.”

In addition to Sen. Lee’s and Osteen’s presence, the publication reports that others in attendance included Tim Timmons, a pastor and author based in Newport Beach, Calif., and Gayle D. Beebe, president of Westmont College in Santa Barbara, Calif.

The Fellowship, or The International Foundation, reportedly organized the trip. The Fellowship is led by evangelical Christian minister Douglas Coe, who was noted by the Vatican Information Services as one of many guests received by Pope Francis on Thursday, cited simply as: “Doug Coe of the National Prayer Breakfast, U.S.A., and entourage.” The Fellowship is the main organizer behind the annual National Prayer Breakfast held in Washington, D.C.

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ROME
Christian News

July 3, 2014

ROME – Two controversial TV preachers recently met Pope Francis in an effort to work toward tearing down the ‘walls of division’ between Catholics and Protestants.

Kenneth Copeland and James Robison are two religious leaders in northeast Texas known for drawing huge crowds to their services and events, and who were a part of leading the group identifying as a “delegation of Evangelical Christian leaders” in its meeting with the Roman Catholic pontiff late last month.

Copeland heads Kenneth Copeland Ministries and Eagle Mountain International Church, while Robison is an “apostolic elder” at Gateway Church and co-hosts the Life Today TV program.

In 2008, CBS News released a detailed report on Kenneth Copeland Ministries, saying an investigation “raises serious questions about the Copeland’s religious empire.” For example, according to the report, the “ministry” operates private jets which are often used for vacation trips.

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VATICAN CITY
Worthy News

Monday, June 30, 2014

VATICAN CITY (Worthy News)– A delegation of evangelicals led by televangelists Kenneth Copeland and James Robison met with Pope Francis for three hours last week at the Vatican.

The meeting was set up by Bishop Tony Palmer, a bishop of the Anglican Episcopal Church in the United Kingdom. Last January, Palmer addressed a Kenneth Copeland pastor’s conference calling for unity between Catholics and Protestants.

“This meeting was a miracle,” Robison told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “This is something God has done. God wants his arms around the world. And he wants Christians to put his arms around the world by working together.”

Over the past few years, Robison has led several conferences with evangelicals and Catholics working toward an ecumenical understanding. Robison along with Catholic philosopher Jay W. Richards wrote a book entitled, “Indivisible.”

Earlier this month, mega-church speaker Joel Osteen, also met with the Pope saying, “I love the fact that’s he’s made the Church more inclusive, not trying to make it smaller, but to try to make it larger — to take everybody in. So, that just resonates with me.”

However, critics have expressed concerns about the recent ecumenical gatherings, stating that ecumenicism is far from biblical and point to the understanding that the last religious ruler termed the “False Prophet” by many will gather the world into a false “one world religion.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Lancashire Telegraph

By Peter Magill, Chief reporter

A SCHOOLGIRL who confided that she was being sexually abused by a Jehovah’s Witness was then repeatedly molested by the man she had turned to for help, a court heard.

The 12-year-old was ‘infatuated’ with Eugene Nugent, who was in his early 20s, and ‘followed him around like a puppy’, jurors at Burnley Crown Court were told.

But after the girl, a member of a Jehovah’s Witness family in Haslingden, told Nugent that a senior member of the congregation had been sexually assaulting her, he also began abusing her, the court heard.

Nugent, now 53, is accused of inciting her to commit sex acts at his home, the garage where he worked, near Grane Reservoir and in a shed.

Prosecutor Sara Dodd said that on one occasion, while his wife was out of the house, he also had full sex with the girl, despite her telling him to stop halfway through. She later told one of her sisters about what had happened.

Nugent, of Cobden Street, Hapton, has denied having sexual intercourse with a girl aged under 13 and seven charges of indecency with a child between July 1983 and July 1984.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, July 17, 2014

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

A victim abused by a Jehovah’s Witness elder was later abused by the man she confided in. Our hearts ache for this victim and we applaud her courage in speaking out.

[Lancashire Telegraph]

We hope that the perpetrators in this case are held accountable for their horrendous crimes and that law enforcement investigates anyone who may have helped cover-up this abuse.

We urge anyone who saw, suspects or suffered child sexual abuse to gain courage from this brave woman and report to police and start healing.

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UNITED STATES
The Open Tabernacle: Here Comes Everybody

Pope Francis Met With the Head of the Family – the Secretive, Powerful Politicians Based in a Wash. DC Townhouse

Posted on July 17, 2014 by Betty Clermont

On June 5, Pope Francis met in private with Doug Coe, one of the most influential evangelicals in the US and head of the Family, tea-party ally Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and former U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne who served under Bush 43 amid unprecedented scandal.

“Their goal is a worldwide invisible organization….The core issue is capitalism and power.” The Family has connections with businessmen in the oil and aerospace industries, the CIA, Pentagon and Department of Defense according to Jeff Sharlet, investigative journalist and author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. Their “friends” include:

• Salvadoran general Carlos Eugenios Vides Casanova, convicted by a Florida jury for the torture of thousands.
• Honduran general Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, a minister also linked to the CIA and death squads
• Omar al-Bashir, the president of oil-rich Sudan, who has been indicted for genocide in the International Criminal Court
• Yoweri Museveni, president of Uganda, which recently enacted the Anti-Homosexuality Bill mandating the death penalty for some homosexual acts.
• General Sani Abacha, dictator of Nigeria, the US’s fourth-largest supplier of petroleum. “Abacha was known for two qualities: the greed that led him to steal $3 billion from his country, and the ruthlessness that made that theft possible. His execution of dissident writer Ken Saro-Wiwa in 1995 made international headlines.”

“Sen. Mike Lee was Sen. Ted Cruz’s right-hand man throughout the 16-day government shutdown.”

In February, Lee and Cruz introduced S. 2024, the State Marriage Defense Act “which respects the definition of marriage held by the people of each state and protects states from the federal government’s efforts to force any other definition upon them.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

By Tom Bateman
Today programme reporter

An alleged victim of child sexual abuse has warned the inquiry into historical cases faces failure without fast-tracked psychological victim support.

The overarching inquiry commissioned by the Home Office will consider cases going back several decades.

“David” told the BBC his experience suggested victims who came forward could “go through hell”.

The Home Office said it was working across government to ensure victims had the support and help they needed.

Home Secretary Theresa May announced the inquiry last week to examine how public institutions had handled their duty of care to protect children from paedophiles.

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UNITED KINGDOM
London Evening Standard

JOE MURPHY, POLITICAL EDITOR

Published: 17 July 2014

A majority of Britons lack confidence that the new inquiries into child abuse will ever get to the truth, an exclusive poll reveals today.

Research by Ipsos MORI found that 56 per cent doubt they will learn what happened from a new overarching inquiry and a separate probe into missing files.

A huge majority — 87 per cent — think child abuse was covered up in the Seventies and Eighties. Some 62 per cent “strongly” believe this.

Half the public think establishment figures would attempt a cover-up if such scandals were to happen again today.

Two probes were announced last week, including an overarching inquiry into the failure to properly investigate alleged paedophile rings in politics, the BBC and health services. The Prime Minister vowed to leave “no stone unturned” in the hunt for facts.

Today’s poll reveals many people distrust the “establishment”, past and present, to let the truth come out.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Rowena Mason, political correspondent
theguardian.com, Thursday 17 July 2014

Labour has called for a review of child protection amid concerns that the police, law enforcement agencies and the criminal record checking authority do not have enough resources to deal with “serious, hidden” sexual crimes on the internet.

The shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, urged the government to draw up an urgent action plan to tackle the problem after there was a 65% increase in reported child abuse images but a 9% drop in prosecutions for child sex offences.

She also questioned whether police forces had enough resources to deal with online paedophile activity after the Times claimed the National Crime Agency had identified more than 10,000 suspects that it does not have the capacity to investigate. It comes after almost 660 suspected paedophiles were arrested in connection with child abuse images on the internet in a new operation, with the majority having no previous contact with police.

In an urgent question in the Commons, Cooper also raised worries about “chaos” at the new Disclosure and Barring Service, where the number of criminals banned from working with children has dropped by about 75% since new policy changes brought in by the Home Office.

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ARGENTINA
BishopAccountability.org

[Translated into English by BishopAccountability.org. To see the original letter in Spanish, click here. To see videos, photos, and background information on Argentine survivors, click here.]

Buenos Aires, July 5, 2014

Pope Francis:

We are writing to you because, on the occasion of your upcoming meeting with survivors of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, no Argentine survivor was invited to attend.

This fact pains us, considering that you must know about the cases here that have given rise to many years of struggle by victims, and about the new cases that have surfaced.

On a number of occasions you’ve pledged zero tolerance when confronting these cases; and so, this letter appeals to your sense of Truth and Justice.

As survivors of child sex abuse by clergy, we urge you to:

-Issue a decree that establishes as a criminal offense the commission and cover-up of child sex abuse by clergy. To that end, there must be an investigation of the bishops, archbishops, cardinals, monsignors and religious who have transferred pedophile priests.

-We also demand the nullification of the statute of limitations for filing a criminal complaint to the archdiocese, since, in Argentina, [the time within which to bring legal proceedings] is restricted to 20 years, dating to when the abuse was committed.

-In many instances the victims suffer from an emotional block and are unable to speak. When, finally, they do break the silence, no one believes them and the statutes of limitations in their cases have elapsed. We demand that they be believed: part of their emotional healing is being able to publicly denounce their assailant and his accomplices.

-You must correct the dangerous weakness in church law that allows bishops to keep [priests] in ministry. Two such cases involve Monseñor Ricardo Faifer, who covered up for Reverend Domingo Pacheco, and Monseñor Héctor Agüer, who covered up Reverend Ricardo Giménez. Not only these priests, but all other priests around the globe who have abused children. Case after case has seen repeated, systematic cover-up by both local church officials and the Vatican.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
WCSC

By Harve Jacobsnd

MT. PLEASANT, SC (WCSC) –
A chaplain at MUSC went before a bond judge Wednesday after his arrest for several alleged sexual encounters with a 17-year-old boy.

Mt. Pleasant Police arrested 40 year old Gerig Huggins Tuesday and charged him with unlawful conduct toward a child.

According to court papers, Chaplain Huggins exposed himself to and touched his accuser’s private parts on several occasions at a home in Mt. Pleasant.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, July 17, 2014

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

A South Carolina pastor has been arrested after allegations of child sexual abuse were reported. We are grateful to the brave victim who came forward and is working to help protect other children.

Gerig Michael Huggins is a full time chaplain at the Medical University and an Assemblies of God pastor. Huggins allegedly abused a 14 year old boy in Georgia and South Carolina. According to Medical University’s website Huggins has been a pastor in Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina.

We are concerned that Huggins has many more victims in these states and urge officials at Assemblies of God to reach out to anyone who might be suffering in silence and self-blame.

We urgently urge law enforcement to investigate any other possible victims. We also beg anyone who saw, suspects or suffered abuse by Huggins to call police right away and help protect children.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, July 17, 2014

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

Ramsey County D.A. John Choi has spoken several times about how Minnesota laws prevent him from doing more about clergy sex crimes and cover ups in the Twin Cities Catholic archdiocese.

We find his claims hard to swallow. But here’s something he CAN do: He can – and should – investigate three high-ranking current or former Twin Cities Catholic officials for perjury.

Under oath these four have many, and often radically, different recollections of how clergy sex abuse and cover up cases have been handled in recent years.

By far the most credible, of course, is former chancellor Jennifer Haselberger who, in a compelling new 107 page affidavit, disagrees strongly with the sworn testimony of a church lawyer Andrew Eisenzimmer and Archbishop John Nienstedt and former second-in-command Fr. Kevin McDonough.

One or more of them is lying.

And these were recent sworn statements or depositions, so there should be no statute of limitations barriers. All of these individuals are healthy, so there should be no claims of dementia or Alzheimer’s.

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IRELAND
Journal

Mark Vincent Healy is a campaigning abuse survivor. Read his full report and response to the NSBCCCI audit into the Holy Ghost Fathers here.

THE FIRST MALE survivor of Irish clerical child sexual abuse to meet with Pope Francis was myself, Mark Vincent Healy. I followed Marie Kane, also from Ireland, as the fourth survivor to meet with Pope Francis. There were six of us presented to Pope Francis from the United Kingdom, Ireland and Germany.

It was such an important and historic moment for Irish survivors where the Pope was left in no doubt about the human and spiritual cost that clerical child sexual abuse causes. Those costs over decades were in the form of self-harming to suicide to spiritual isolation and what is called ‘soul murder’.
In my letter I personally presented to Pope Francis I wrote:

The world will indeed be curious about our meeting and wondering what will come of it. There are opposing opinions about such a meeting ranging from high hope on the one hand, to scepticism, if not derision, that nothing positive can possible come of such a meeting. For my part I can only hold out hope.I contacted other survivors and their families to let them know I had been accorded this opportunity. Many do not trust the Catholic Church and for good reason considering the enormous betrayal of trust which was later followed by the enormous distress in seeking remedy and redress.However, I feel any opportunity to dialogue and lay out the realities of Clerical Child Sexual Abuse is not to be squandered. I am not sure I have what it takes to give the sort of presentation this subject requires but I will be happy to have made the effort than to have lost the opportunity in not even trying.

A copy of my prepared letter had been sent to Archbishop Diarmuid Martin two days before meeting Pope Francis.

There had been and still is huge speculation about the survivors who met with Pope Francis. Indeed some of the comments have been very hurtful, portraying none of the difficulties and braveries exhibited in taking such a momentous step in agreeing to meet with the Patriarch of a Church of one billion followers, a church which has contributed to so much pain and suffering on children, its own children, the children of the living God, the very survivors who met with Pope Francis for the first time.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

Some say pope’s reported claim that 2 percent of priests are pedophiles is too low

By Michelle Boorstein July 14

Another news-making Pope Francis interview, another round of unanswered questions. This time, the topic is clergy sex abuse.

In an interview published Sunday in the Italian daily La Repubblica, the pope talks with the newspaper’s founder, atheist Eugenio Scalfari, about the “leprosy” of pedophilia. The article quotes the pope as saying about 2 percent of Catholic priests are pedophiles, but it doesn’t have Francis citing a source and the figure appears to come up in a conversational way. This is the third interview between the two men since Francis took office last year.

“Many of my collaborators who fight with me (against pedophilia) reassure me with reliable statistics that say that the level of pedophilia in the Church is at about 2 percent,” Francis was quoted as saying, according to a translation by Reuters. …

In a 2004, a report released by John Jay College of Criminal Justice, which worked with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said 4 percent of priests and deacons between 1950 and 2002 were accused of sexually abusing a minor.

Bishop-accountability.org, a Web site that publishes public information about accused priests and their cases, notes that some U.S. dioceses don’t submit regular reports to bishops on such cases. The group alleges that in dioceses where greater information was made available, either by choice or because of litigation, “the percentage of accused priests is approaching 10 percent.”

Anne Barrett Doyle of bishop-accountability.org, said the figure — however it was said — is “extremely low, it’s wrong.” She noted that Francis met last week with several European victims — his first such meeting — survivors from the developing world, including Latin America, were excluded.

“I think what this reflects is this pope’s lingering containment strategy. . . . I think he’s continuing to minimize the problem.”

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IRELAND
Journal

A NUMBER OF groups representing the women and children that were in mother and baby homes have raised concerns about the interdepartmental report published today.

The new Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, James Reilly published the report examining what the government know about the homes. Judge Yvonne Murphy was also announced as the chairperson of the Commission of Investigation into mother and baby homes.

Omissions

While Paul Redmond, spokesperson for the Coalition of Mother and Baby Homes Survivors (CMABS) said that report published today was “reasonably comprehensive” he said there were some “glaring omissions”.

The citing of some holding centres, but the exclusion of the Temple Hill holding centre was concerning, they said.

He said that only including registered births to calculate figures in the nine mother and baby homes instead of the numbers of expectant mothers “also seriously misrepresents and downplays the numbers involved” he claimed.

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IRELAND
Department of Children and Youth Affairs

I. Introduction

The Inter Departmental Group was set up in response to revelations and public controversy regarding conditions in Mother and Baby Homes. This controversy originally centred on the high rate of deaths at the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home in Tuam, Co. Galway. A local historian, Ms Catherine Corless, sourced details from public records of 796 child deaths, very many of them infants, in this home in the period from 1925 to 1961. There was also considerable anxiety and questions as to the burial arrangements for these infants.

Notwithstanding that Tuam was the original focus of this controversy, related issues of death rates, burial arrangements and general conditions have also been raised with regard to Mother and Baby Homes in other locations.

Shortly after the Inter-Departmental Group was established, Dáil Eireann passed a motion, following a Government sponsored amendment, on 11th June 2014 as follows:

“That Dáil Éireann:

acknowledges the need to establish the facts regarding the deaths of almost 800 children at the Bon Secours Sisters institution in Tuam, County Galway between 1925 and 1961, including arrangements for the burial of these children;

acknowledges that there is also a need to examine other “mother and baby homes” operational in the State in that era;

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IRELAND
Journal

ALMOST 500 unclaimed infant bodies were sent to anatomy departments around the country for medical examination between 1940 and 1965.

A government report published today shows that medical schools including UCD, Trinity College and, the Royal College of Surgeons and NUI Galway received infant remains.

Read the report in full here.

Remains

Mother-and-baby homes were amongst the institutions that transferred infant remains to anatomy departments, with the report stating that “it is not possible to establish all the facts on this issue in the time available…”.

The handing over of infant remains was legal under the Anatomy Act 1832 so as to provide “legal cadavers” for medical research. The law remains in force, says the report, but “since that time unclaimed bodies are no longer accepted by anatomy departments.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Eilish O’Regan
Published 17/07/2014

BABIES who were born illegitimate were nearly four times more likely to die than those whose mothers were married up until 1950, a new report on the background to the mother and baby homes controversy has revealed.

The report was drawn up to provide a background to the promised Commission of Investigation into treatment of mothers and babies at the homes.

But Children’s Minister James Reilly, who announced Judge Yvonne Murphy will chair the commission, said yesterday he will not be ready with terms of reference for the statutory inquiry until the autumn – and insisted it is too early to say how far it will extend.

Asked if all the Protestant-run homes and Magdalene Laundries will be included, he said: “It would be too premature for me to say they will at this stage. I am not by any means saying that they will not be.”

The report drew criticism from Derek Leinster, chair of the Bethany survivors group, who feared not all Protestant-run homes will be included. He pointed to the report’s caution about not reinvestigating institutions covered by the Ryan Commission.

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IRELAND
Evening Echo

SHALLOW graves could be present in the grounds of the Bessborough mother and baby home, according to a leading archeologist.

A site examination was carried out yesterday by archeologist Toni Maguire. He found a number of shallow indentations on the avenue between Bessborough grotto and the former Little Angels plot.

A study by the General Registration Office and Department of Health records indicates that up to 1,000 mothers and children may have died at the home.

Meanwhile, survivors of the Mother and Baby homes have appealed to the Minister for Children, James Reilly, to ensure the inquiry into the homes will be far-reaching.

Judge Yvonne Murphy was appointed yesterday to oversee the inquiry by Minister Reilly.

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IRELAND
IrishCentral

Kate Hickey @KateHickey_ July 17,2014

The Irish government has confirmed that the remains of almost 500 “unclaimed” infants were used for medical examinations and nearly 2,000 were put up for adoption in the United States.

A document released by the government also shows that the remains of 474 babies were sent to medical schools between 1940 and 1965, without the consent of their families.

The report also shows that of the nearly 2,000 children sent to the United States for adoption there are few or no records of parental consent. Many were apparently sold to wealthy Catholic families.

It was also announced that Judge Yvonne Murphy, the author of a report into the practice of symphysiotomy (medically breaking the pelvis during birth), will chair the official commission of inquiry into the mother and baby homes in Ireland.

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IRELAND
Galway Advertiser

By Martina Nee Galway Advertiser, Thu, Jul 17, 2014

The Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Dr James Reilly, has announced the appointment of Judge Yvonne Murphy as chair of the Commission of Investigation into mother and baby homes.

Making the announcement yesterday afternoon, Minister Reilly said: “I am delighted that a widely respected person of the calibre of Judge Yvonne Murphy has agreed to head up this investigation. Judge Murphy has a very strong track record in effectively establishing the truth in relation to important and sensitive matters. She is ideally suited to this challenging role. The Government may give consideration to the appointment of further members to the commission, but I believe Judge Murphy’s agreement to undertake the role of chair of the commission is a very positive development in the process to establish an effective and independent investigation.”

The announcement was made alongside the release of the report of the Inter-Departmental Group on Mother and Baby Homes. The report is the product of work undertaken by the group established in early June.

The report confirmed that the General Register’s Office has identified the deaths of 796 children at the Tuam mother and baby home while it was run by the Bon Secours Sisters from 1925 to 1961, averaging 22.2 deaths a year but ranging from one in 1958 to 53 in 1947. The number of births identified came to 1,101 during the 36 years that the Tuam home operated.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

July 17, 2014

David Ellery
Reporter for The Canberra Times.

Archbishop Christopher Prowse does not know how the Catholic Church may move forward in the wake of its recent sex abuse scandals but he is convinced the victims will be a part of any solution.

“We are going through an unprecedented crisis in the Catholic church,” he said this week. “There is so much shame, there is so much humiliation with the criminal acts of some of us [that] for us to stand alongside victims, to encourage them to come forward and to listen to their story, is absolutely imperative.”

Appointed to lead the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn last September, Archbishop Prowse said he had been humbled and inspired by “the raw courage of so many victims of clerical sex abuse as children”.

“They have been very heroic in trying to refocus on their life and to instruct us as a church [on] where we have failed and what we can do to ameliorate a very difficult stage of our history.”

He said the victims “who are able to be courageous enough to share with us their stories” are “the new missionaries”.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
The Post and Courier

Dave Munday Email @dmunday
Jul 16 2014

A local pastor and MUSC chaplain was arrested Tuesday after a man accused him of sexually abusing him when he was a teenager.

Gerig Michael Huggins, 50, of Lantern’s Rest in Mount Pleasant, was charged with ill treatment of a child, according to Mount Pleasant Police Inspector Chip Googe.

The victim told police he was assaulted when he was 14 years old and living in Woodstock, Ga., and the assaults continued when he was 16 and 17 and living in Mount Pleasant.

Police released no other details of the allegation.

Huggins became a full-time chaplain at the Medical University in 2009, according to the Medical University of South Carolina’s web page that lists the chaplain staff.

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MINNESOTA
Bilgrimage

Haselberger Affidavit: Attempt to Have Father Tegeder Declared Disabled for Opposing Archbishop’s Campaign Against Marriage Equality, While Known Threat to Minors, Father Wehmeyer, Remained in Ministry

William D. Lindsey

There’s a significant detail tucked away in Jennifer Haselberger’s lengthy affidavit (significant to me, if to no one else) that I’d like to bring to readers’ attention: a section of the affidavit (§ 72) directly counters a claim made by Archbishop Nienstedt’s attorney in Nienstedt’s deposition that the archbishop does not have the power to declare a priest disabled. Haselberger notes that, after his attorney made this claim, Nienstedt himself added that he didn’t understand questions directed to him about his prerogative as archbishop to declare a priest disabled.

Haselberger states flatly that “the Archbishop was in error” about this matter of fact, and that he had every reason to understand full well that declaring a priest disabled is “the exclusive prerogative of the Archbishop.” He would have known this, she asserts, because she herself had made this point in two memos to him between 2010 and 2011.

The subject of those memos? The discussion was not about, as one might imagine, having a pedophile priest known to be abusing minors declared disabled, so that he could be removed from ministry.

Haselberger states that she wrote Nienstedt at the prompting of the former vicar general and moderator of the curia of the archdiocese, Father Peter Laird, who resigned that position last October when it was reported by Minnesota NPR that Laird had information about the abuse of minors by fellow priest Curtis Wehmeyer, and did not turn this information over to criminal authorities. Haselberger’s affidavit says that Laird prompted her to write Nienstedt because he

wanted the Archbishop to declare Father Michael Tegeder disabled as a means of silencing his opposition to the Archbishop’s efforts to promote a constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage.

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

BY IAN ELLIOTT – 17 JULY 2014

Pope Francis has recently been quoted as saying that “2%” – that is, one in 50 – of the Catholic Church’s clergy is a paedophile involved in child-abuse cases.

This information has often been requested previously, but has never been provided by the Catholic Church.

For this reason I was shocked to see a figure being quoted by Pope Francis and the question immediately arose in my mind as to how he calculated it?

Previous experiences for me have taught me to be very wary of opinion stated as fact. This frequently happens when leading churchmen express their views about clerical abuse, but present them as if they were facts.

I recall the public statement made by Cardinal Pell in Australia, when the Government there announced the setting up of a Royal Commission to examine institutional abuse in that country.

His confidence in the way allegations had been handled in the Australian Church has been shown to be badly misplaced.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph

Paedophile accused: Sydney man, 55, posed as welfare worker in Vanuatu and gave toys to children before molesting them, say police

BEN PIKE THE DAILY TELEGRAPH JULY 17, 2014

ACCUSED paeodphile Gregory Druery used his position of trust with he church and families to abuse children, police say.

The 50-year-old, technician who was arrested at a Chipping Norton apartment this morning, brought underprivileged children from Vanuatu to Australia by offering them paid holidays.

He also gave toys to kids with toys while in the tiny Pacific nation.

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FLORIDA
News-Journal

By Richard Conn & Annie Martin
richard.conn@news-jrnl.com annie.martin@news-jrnl.com
Published: Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Edgewater police are reopening a decade-old case involving a Warner Christian Academy teacher who was arrested Monday by the FBI and charged with producing and distributing child pornography.

Agents found thousands of pornographic images of children on the computer of Matthew Graziotti, who turned 43 on Tuesday, when they executed a search warrant Monday at his Mango Tree Drive home in Edgewater. Graziotti is a fifth-grade teacher at the South Daytona private school and also served as director of the school’s summer day camp.

The school’s superintendent, Mark Tress, said Graziotti was placed on unpaid administrative suspension pending results of the case. Graziotti is being held at Seminole County Jail.

Following Graziotti’s arrest, Edgewater police are going to look into a 2004 complaint lodged against him, Capt. Joe Mahoney said.

“In 2004, there was an allegation made against Mr. Graziotti that he had misconduct with minor children,” Mahoney said. “We investigated it; we weren’t able to produce obviously any incriminating results at that time, and knowing what we know now, we’ve reactivated it.”

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Sarah Horner
shorner@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 07/15/2014 1

A Maplewood pastor accused of sexually assaulting two girls emphatically denied the allegations in court Tuesday and described his relationship with the girls, now teens, as “beautiful.”

Jacoby Kindred Sr., 61, took the stand in Ramsey County District Court as the sole witness to testify in his defense in the case pending against him.

The husband and father is charged with two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. Prosecutors say he assaulted a 14-year-old girl and her 16-year-old sister over several years, starting when the girls were about 6.

The alleged misconduct included fondling, oral sex and penetration and reportedly took place at Kindred’s homes, a Target parking lot and during stops Kindred made while taking the girls to school.

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TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
Newsday

By CAROL MATROO Thursday, July 17 2014

ANGLICAN Bishop Clyde Berkely wants a meeting with the Board of the St Michael’s Home for Boys, “in short order”, to address a damning report on the establishment which was made public by Attorney General Ramlogan on Tuesday.

St Michael’s is an institution that works with troubled boys who have been recommended by the courts for various delinquent behaviours. Ramlogan’s charges, from a report of an investigation done on the operation of that Home, include allegations of sexual abuse, theft of inmates’ property by staff and general neglect including ignoring fights among the boys.

One such fight led to the death of inmate Brandon Hargreaves, 14, in April last year which triggered the probe that led to the damning report which made stinging allegations against the Home. This led the AG to call on the Acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams and Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Roger Gasperd to commence criminal investigations.

“I will be looking at the matter more in depth because these are very serious allegations that have been made and of course I am very concerned about it,” said Berkely, the head of the local Anglican Church. His diocese shares responsibility for the operation of St Michael’s with the Ministry of Gender, Youth and Child Development.

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CALIFORNIA
KSRO

Michelle Marques
7/16/2014

In one of the largest settlements nationwide, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa is paying three-point-five million dollars to a teenager who was molested by a Lakeport priest. The settlement was announced late yesterday, and is the final one in a series of sexual abuse cases in the diocese that spanned over twenty years. According to the “Press-Democrat,” the diocese, which serves about 160-thousand Catholics from Petaluma to the Oregon border, has paid about 25-million-dollars to sex abuse victims since 1990.

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WEST VIRGINIA
Charleston Gazette

By Erin Beck
Staff writer

A Minnesota priest resigned after a Catholic clergy review board investigated allegations from a mission trip to West Virginia.

Joseph Gallatin rubbed the chest and stomach under the shirt of a 17-year-old Minnesota boy in 1998, according to a statement from the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.

In a more than 100-page affidavit submitted Tuesday, Jennifer M. Haselberger, the former chancellor of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, said she repeatedly raised concerns that Gallatin admitted he found the act sexually pleasurable and had admitted sexual attraction to boys as young as 12.

Her sworn statement, which alleges the archdiocese covered up warnings about approximately 40 priests over a five-year period, was submitted as part of a sexual abuse lawsuit.

In a statement from the archdiocese, spokesman Jim Accurso said, “Her recollections are not always shared by others within the archdiocese. However, Ms. Haselberger’s experience highlights the importance of ongoing constructive dialogue and reform aimed at ensuring the safety of children.” He also said the archdiocese had conducted a review of its response to sexual abuse allegations and has begun implementing some of the recommendations.

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CALIFORNIA
Catholic World Report

By Carl E. Olson

The Diocese of Santa Rosa announced yesterday that it has paid “a significant settlement” to a victim of the deceased Fr. Ted Oswald, who died in 2010. A statement released by the Communications Office of the Diocese states, “With this settlement, there are no known abuse cases pending against the diocese.” It continues:

Bishop Robert F. Vasa, who has led the diocese since 2011, expressed great sadness for the victim and for all victims.

“The settlement involves a lot of money. It does not, however, restore peace and tranquility to this child of God. I pray this can come in time.

“I humbly apologize to this young person on behalf of the Church that failed to protect them. I also take this occasion to apologize to all victims for the harm done to them. This perversity, though prevalent in all parts of society, was allowed to persist in the Church for too long. Thus while continuing to be vigilant we must also seek forgiveness. Those who have left the Church because of this scandal must be invited again to believe the Church brings goodness, truth, and the light of Christ’s healing presence and mercy.

“This requires the Church to root out every hint of this type of perversity. This is a task beyond human power. So while we need to maintain attentive vigilance, we especially need to redouble our attentiveness to prayer and works of penance.

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

Jul 16, 2014 20:21 By Sarah Bardon

Inter-departmental inquiry reveals the shocking extent of the scandal ahead of full investigation later this year

The bodies of 474 children were used for medical experiments, an initial probe into the mother and baby homes has revealed.

The inter-departmental inquiry attempted to lift the lid on the depth of the problem ahead of the Commission on Investigation, which will be launched later this year.

It said that inquiry should focus on nine ‘core homes’ including Tuam where the mass grave was discovered and the Bethany Homes.

The report also detailed how:

– There were 23,707 babies born across the nine homes;

– There were 976 Illegitimate Infant Deaths in Institutions including the 796 in Tuam;

– 2,000 children from homes were put up for adoption in the United States;

But the inquiry admitted there is considerable difficulty in establishing if the women were forced to do this.

The chief medical officer was unable to find documents to confirm if consent was given for medical trials.

New Children’s Minister James Reilly announced the chair of the new Commission of Investigation and said the terms of reference would be drawn up by September.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Mark Hilliard

Thu, Jul 17, 2014

Judge Yvonne Murphy’s appointment as chairwoman of the commission of investigation into matters related to mother and baby homes is her latest such role in high-profile State inquiries.

The retired Circuit Court judge previously led the Government’s commission of investigation into the handling of clerical child sex abuse allegations in the Dublin archdiocese between 1975 and 2004, which led to the publication of what became known as the Murphy report.

Last November she was appointed by then minister for health James Reilly to an advisory position in helping “find closure” for women who had suffered the effects of symphysiotomy.

At the time, the minister noted the “appointment of an independent person of Judge Yvonne Murphy’s calibre will hopefully bring closure for these women for the years of suffering they have endured”.

A former news journalist with RTÉ, Judge Murphy entered the Law Library in the 1980s and was subsequently appointed to the Circuit Court bench in the late 1990s, where she presided mainly over criminal cases and also dealt with family law cases.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Lorna Siggins

Thu, Jul 17, 2014

The Co Galway historian who researched the deaths of almost 800 infants and children in the Bon Secours home in Tuam from the 1920s to 1961 has welcomed the appointment of Judge Yvonne Murphy to head the Government’s commission of investigation into mother and baby homes.

Catherine Corless said the selection of Judge Murphy was a positive step, and her group would await with interest the publication by Minister for Children James Reilly of the commission’s terms of reference.

Ms Corless, who emphasised that she was not a campaigner, but was keen to establish the truth, said that she had made a submission in a personal capacity to the Department of Children and Youth Affairs after the statutory commission was first announced by former minister for children Charlie Flanagan last month.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Fiach Kelly

Thu, Jul 17, 2014

Minister for Children James Reilly has said the Government is “determined” exchequer money should be prioritised towards services for people, rather than towards commissions of investigations.

However, Dr Reilly said Judge Yvonne Murphy, who has been appointed to chair the commission of investigation into mother and baby homes, would be provided with funds to carry out her work.

Dr Reilly said Judge Murphy had “considerable experience in this area”, but added: “When it comes to cost, the Government is determined that the money available should be put into services, not into running commissions.

“The Government is determined that this commission should be broad enough and inclusive enough to get us a thorough understanding of the issues but precise enough to allow it to complete its work in a timely and cost-effective way.”

Dr Reilly said “the funds will be made available” with Judge Murphy due to give the Government an estimated cost for the inquiry in the coming months.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Dr. Niamh Hourigan

MAYA ANGELOU, the American writer who died recently wrote ‘History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived but if faced with courage need not be lived again’.

Yesterday, Judge Yvonne Murphy, who has previously chaired inquiries on clerical sexual abuse was given with the task of facing one of the darkest episodes of Irish history, infant mortality rates in Irish mother and baby homes.

Criticisms from the UN Committee on Torture about the outcomes of previous investigations, specifically those into the Magdalene Laundries and victims of symphysiotomy suggest that these investigations have not faced these controversies with courage. They criticise the lack of statutory powers to compel witnesses and retrieve information by investigating committees.

They highlight the absence of adequate reparation and most importantly, the lack of accountability from either Church and State in assuming responsibility for what happened. In terms of the McAleese report on the Magdalene Laundries, they are critical of the weight given to the views of religious order representatives compared to the marginal treatment of the experiences of survivors.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Claire O’Sullivan
Irish Examiner Reporter

The overwhelming reaction to the Department of Justice’s intergovernmental report on mother-and-baby homes was that it was too limited and would undermine the thoroughness of any subsequent inquiry.

Many of the groups also expressed disappointment that Judge Yvonne Murphy was chosen rather than an international expert.

Adoption Rights Alliance described the report as “coming from the point of view of protecting the State rather than getting at the underlying truth of what happened”.

“This is more basic fact finding rather than truth finding mission. Including a limited number of institutions and leaving out a whole raft of other institutions and adoption issues that are all linked to the mother and baby homes shows a failure to grasp the bigger picture here. We believe no effort is being made to establish accountability,” said Claire Mc Gettrick.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Juno McEnroe
Political Correspondent

The Government has been advised that at least nine institutions should be included in the mother-and-baby home investigation and that death rates there were “undesirably high”.

But the terms, timeframe, and areas for investigation will not be known until the autumn at the earliest.

A report for Government has recommended a full historical survey of unmarried mothers and their children be carried out, including where and how they were treated and housed.

Children’s Minister James Reilly yesterday published the interdepartmental report which will inform the terms of reference for the commission of investigation.

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IRELAND
BBC News

Judge Yvonne Murphy will chair an inquiry into church-run “mother and baby homes” in the Republic of Ireland, the government has announced.

The Commission of Investigation was set up after the remains of almost 800 children were found in Tuam, County Galway, earlier this year.

It was one of 10 institutions in which about 35,000 unmarried mothers – so-called fallen women – are thought to have been sent.

Fergal Keane reports from Cork.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Fiach Kelly

Wed, Jul 16, 2014

The Government has appointed Judge Yvonne Murphy to chair the Commission of Investigation into mother-and-baby homes.

However, speaking this afternoon, Minister for Children James Reilly said the exact terms of reference for the inquiry had yet to be decided.

Dr Reilly said the Government would not finalise the terms of reference until the autumn but said everything is “on the table”. There have been calls to include other institutions, such as Magdalene Laundries, in any inquiry.

Judge Murphy previously headed up a commission of investigation into clerical sex abuse, which led to the Murphy Report in 2009.

The latest investigation was prompted by reports that 796 babies and children had died at the Tuam mother and baby home between 1925 and 1961.

“On the return of the Dáil after the summer recess I intend tabling a draft order to establish the commission under the Commission of Investigation Act, 2004 together with a statement providing an estimate of the costs to be incurred by the commission in conducting the investigation and a time frame for its work,” the Minister said. “This is a complex task and it is very important it is completed to the highest standard.

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IRELAND
Journal

THE SHEER NUMBER of registered maternity homes presents a “difficulty” for the Commission of Inquiry tasked with investigating mother and baby homes.

Core group

In an inter-departmental report published today into what the government knows about these institutions, it lists the “core group” of Mother and Baby Homes as:

[chart]

Source: Report of the Inter-Departmental Group on Mother and Baby Homes via Department of Children and Youth Affairs

However, the Commission have been asked to include a wide range of institutions within their scope of their inquiry.

The institutions come under the what were known as registered maternity homes (Registration of Maternity Homes Act, 1934). However, while many of the homes catered for unmarried mothers, their function was not solely confined to that function.

Under the Maternity Homes Act 1934 every local authority in Ireland had to register the maternity homes in the county with the Department of Health.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Scotsman

by STEPHEN McGINTY
Published on the 16 July 2014

THE disgraced Cardinal Keith O’Brien is now living in a £200,000 house in England bought for him by the current Archbishop of Edinburgh and St Andrews.

Archbishop Leo Cushley purchased the home in Northumberland in January and Cardinal O’Brien moved in shortly afterwards. It had been thought that O’Brien had been living in a monastery in Northumberland, after completing a period of ‘penance’ ordered by the Pope.

The Cardinal, who is currently the subject of an ongoing investigation by the Vatican, was forced to resign in February 2013 after three serving priests and one former priest come forward with allegations of ‘inappropriate behaviour’.

Shortly afterwards Cardinal O’Brien released a statement in which he said: “There have been times that my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest, archbishop and cardinal.”

He was quoted as saying: “I’m not speaking to anyone at the moment.” When asked about his new home he said: “You’ll need to check that with the diocese. I’m not talking about it, I’m not allowed to talk about it.”

Neighbours in the small village said they were unaware of the cardinal’s background but said he was regularly visited by people from Scotland.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Pink News

A Scottish cardinal who preached against gay relationships but then admitted to “inappropriate behaviour” with male priests is living out retirement in a bungalow paid for by the Catholic Church.

It had previously been thought Cardinal Keith O’Brien was living in a monastery in England for “spiritual renewal and penance” after admitting he had “fallen beneath the standards” expected of him.

But the Daily Record reports he’s actually staying in a £208,750 bungalow – bought by Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh Leo Cushley – in the village of Ellington, Northumberland.

Cardinal O’Brien, 76, was tracked down by reporters on Tuesday, but refused to answer questions about his living arrangements

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 07/16/2014

It all goes back to a 14-year-old girl’s letter to herself, a prosecutor said. The girl wrote that a family member was making her perform sexual acts.

That wasn’t true, Jacoby Kindred Sr. insisted in Ramsey County District Court. Kindred, 61, of Maplewood, testified in his own defense at his trial, where he faces two charges of criminal sexual conduct.

He’s accused of raping and molesting two underage female relatives over several years, beginning when they were about 6. A preacher who said he was ordained by Sarah Family Ministries of St. Paul, Kindred also told the girls that he had a “sex demon” in him and that if he did not relieve an excessive buildup of sperm in his body, he would die, they testified.

When the older girl was 15, and Kindred had vaginal intercourse with her, he complained that she lay there “like a bump on a log,” she said.

He told the girls that no one would believe them if they reported his actions, they said.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

Mike Wade

The disgraced Cardinal Keith O’Brien has been gifted a retirement home in a quiet Northumberland village by the Catholic Church.

Cardinal O’Brien stepped down from his post at the head of the Church in Scotland with immediate effect in February last year, following allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour with five seminarians. It was later reported that he was doing penance in a Cumbrian monastry after he confessed to behaviour “below the standards expected of a priest”.

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