ABUSE TRACKER

NORTHERN IRELAND
Tyrone Times

A former Dungannon woman who was sent to Australia from a care home when she was a child has told the North’s Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry that she suffered feelings of “abandonment and isolation”.

The 63-year-old woman was transported to Australia in 1955 when she was aged four from Nazareth House home, Belfast, which was run by the Sisters of Nazareth.

The woman, who asked to maintain her anonymity, was one of approximately 130 children who were sent to Australia as part of a child migration programme between 1922 and 1995.

She said that soon after arrival she was fostered to a family who wanted to adopt her but that wasn’t allowed, the nuns told her, because her mother had not given permission. She took the name of the foster family and had a happy childhood. In the family she was “nurtured as a daughter and a sister”.

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
Religion News Service – Rhymes with Religion

Boz Tchividjian | Sep 12, 2014

Many have been understandably astonished and disturbed this week by the video of NFL player, Ray Rice, punching his fiancé in an elevator. As I was still processing this repulsive offense, I was came across dozens of heartbreaking tweets from abuse victims around the world using the #WhyIStayed, expressing why they had remained with the person who abused them. As I read these tweets, I began to realize how often I have heard abuse victims share that the Church was the reason #WhyIStayed. I began remembering how often I have heard of women who wearily return to those who hurt them time and time again because that is what their church told them to do. Here are three common dynamics I have witnessed in churches that contribute to #WhyIStayed:

#WhyIStayed. Abuse is not abuse. Many churches have created a distorted understanding of physical abuse that occurs within homes. It is defined as relationship matter that should be addressed within the “church family” instead of a criminal matter that should be handled by the authorities. I recently listened to a well-known pastor answer a question about what to do if a wife is being physically abused by her husband. Not once during the pastor’s lengthy and seemingly empathetic response did he ever direct or even encourage the victim to contact the police. What this pastor probably doesn’t realize is that his silence about reporting this crime communicates that in fact this is not a criminal offense. Victims within these types of environments are often convinced by their abuser or sometimes even by other church members that being physically beaten is acceptable and sometimes even deserved. The police are seldom called.

Instead of helping vulnerable individuals understand the importance of reporting this criminal behavior, too many within churches prefer to push victims back into the arms of abusers as they congratulate themselves and praise God on another successful “reconciliation”. These victimized spouses stay with those who hurt them resigned to the hopeless belief that is what God wants them to do.

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

IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Lynne Kelleher

Irish children adopted by rich American families in the 50s and 60s have spoken of their harrowing Stateside childhoods in a new BBC documentary.

In the wake of Philomena, Martin Sixsmith — the journalist who wrote the book on which the Oscar-nominated film was based — decided to probe further into the Church’s role in an adoption trade which saw an estimated 2,000 illegitimate children taken from their mothers and sent abroad.

The BBC Two documentary, Ireland’s Lost Babies, sees Mr Sixsmith criss-crossing the US discovering evidence that prospective parents were not properly vetted by the Church.

“The more you talk to the children who were sent out to America — and there were hundreds of them — the more you realise what a lottery the whole system was,” says Mr Sixsmith.

“Some of the children had happy lives with the families they were sent to but many of them didn’t. Some of them were physically and sexually abused.”

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

CANADA
Brandon Sun

By: Staff Writer
Friday, Sep. 12, 2014

By Ian Hitchen

An Old Order Mennonite woman who pleaded guilty to shocking two girls with a cattle prod, and to strapping one of them, has been sentenced to probation for the abuse.

The Crown says her crimes were just a small part of a much larger investigation that revealed allegations of widespread child abuse at the community and led to charges against more than a dozen adults.

The investigation led Child and Family Services to apprehend all of the community’s children in February and June of last year.

“What these children experienced from (the woman) is a tiny fraction of what, overall, went on in this community,” Crown attorney Nicole Roch told Judge Donovan Dvorak in Brandon provincial court on Friday.

The woman and her southern Manitoba horse-and-buggy community can’t be identified, as other accused still face charges and publication bans protect the identity of victims and witnesses.

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

CANADA
Brandon Sun

By: Ian Hitchen
Saturday, Sep. 13, 2014

A southern Manitoba Old Order Mennonite community at the centre of accusations of widespread and horrific child abuse was being run “similar to a cult” by a man said to be able to read sin on a person’s face.

Those are the allegations detailed by RCMP in a court document, details of which couldn’t previously be released due to a publication ban that has now expired.

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

WISCONSIN
Pierce County Herald

CRIME AND COURT ROUNDUP: Neenah pastor in jail for allegedly having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl

A minister in eastern Wisconsin is in jail, awaiting up to three-dozen felony charges for allegedly having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl. A bond hearing was held in Brown County yesterday for 33-year-old Jerry Fletcher of Neenah, pastor of Crossover Ministries in Black Creek. A court commissioner sent Fletcher to jail under a 150-thousand-dollar cash bond. Prosecutors expect formal charges to be filed next week, with an initial appearance set for a week from Monday. An assistant district attorney said in court that Fletcher has admitted having sexual contact several times with the girl, dating back to last December when he lived in Green Bay. The minister’s attorney said his client turned himself in, and has been cooperative with investigators. District Attorney David Lasee tells the Green Bay Press-Gazette that Fletcher has been wanted in Arizona for 12 years for a similar case.

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

CALIFORNIA
The Fresno Bee

BY LEWIS GRISWOLD
The Fresno Bee
September 12, 2014

A church volunteer is under arrest on suspicion of molesting a 9-year-girl at the church, Visalia police said Friday.

Dan Sisk, 34, of Visalia, was arrested Thursday after police investigated a complaint by the girl’s parents stemming from an Aug. 20 incident at The Road church in the 1000 block of South Burke Street.

Operations pastor Brandon Hall said Sisk passed a criminal background check that included a fingerprint scan. He was a baby sitter for a Bible study group when the incident occurred, he said.

Sisk is being held at the Tulare County Jail on $100,000 bail.

He also worked as a volunteer at Central Valley Christian Preschool and Growing in Grace Preschool, but was never alone with children, police said.

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

CALIFORNIA
CBS Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — A former youth pastor pleaded no contest Friday to molesting two girls at the church where he worked, officials from the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said.

Jonathan Michael Macy, 31, entered his plea to one count of lewd acts upon a child under the age of 14 and admitted the special allegation of more than one victim, Deputy District Attorney Jon Hatami said.

An initial investigation began after there was a report of child molestation involving a girl and an employee at the Desert Christian School. A second victim was identified during the investigation.
Officials say Macy molested two girls, ages 11 and 12, during Sunday church services at Grace Chapel.

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BOSTON (MA)
WGBH

By DAN KENNEDY

For those of us with long memories, the scene at Boston College on Thursday created enough cognitive dissonance to induce vertigo.

Some two decades ago Cardinal Bernard Law invoked the wrath of God in denouncing the Boston Globe for its coverage of the pedophile-priest scandal. “We call down God’s power on the media, particularly the Globe,” Law told a crowd. Ten years later the Globe had Law himself on the run with a series of reports revealing the cardinal’s role in covering up the scandal.

And now? Cardinal Seán O’Malley was the star panelist Thursday night at an event sponsored by the Globe to mark the debut of Crux, its website devoted to covering the Catholic Church. O’Malley thanked Globe owner John Henry and his wife, Linda Pizzuti Henry, for launching the site. He praised John Allen, recruited from the National Catholic Reporter to write for both Crux and the Globe. And he expressed the hope that Crux would help foster “a better understanding of Catholicism.” …

If you were looking for some critical analysis of Francis’ pontificate thus far, you didn’t find much on Thursday. O’Malley called Francis “one of the most extraordinary leaders of our day,” and there was no disagreement from panelists Allen; Mary Ann Glendon, a professor at Harvard Law School and a former ambassador to the Vatican; BC theology professor Hosffman Ospino; and Robert Christian, the editor of Millennial, a website aimed at younger Catholics.

On a range of hot-button social issues such as LGBT rights, divorce and the role of women in the church, panelists talked about Francis’ compassion and outreach but played down the possibility of significant shifts in doctrine. As O’Malley said of the pope, “He hasn’t changed the lyrics, but he’s changed the melody.”

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.

INDIA
Business Standard

Press Trust of India | New Delhi September 12, 2014

The Delhi High Court today refused to stay the order of a trial court recommending extradition of Indian Catholic priest Rev Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in the US, during his stay there in 2004.

Justice Pratibha Rani said “where was the hurry that you came before this court, no such action has been taken yet”.

“You were in a hurry yesterday. Where was the hurry?,” the judge said.

Meanwhile, the counsel for the Centre told the court that “no order of extradition has been passed yet. It is under process.”

To which the judge said “the magistrate report (order) has not been accepted by the Centre. So let them (Centre) first file their status report by Tuesday, then we will hear it”.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Register

by EDWARD PENTIN 09/11/2014

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has appointed U.S. Msgr. Robert Oliver as the new secretary of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, an advisory body set up by the Holy Father earlier this year.

Msgr. Oliver, who spent 10 years dealing with clerical sex-abuse cases in the Archdiocese of Boston, will take up the position after serving two years as the Vatican’s promoter of justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. As “chief prosecutor,” he was charged with investigating clerical sex-abuse cases as well as other grave offenses, including crimes against the sanctity of the Eucharist and violations of the seal of confession. He will be replaced by another U.S. priest, Jesuit Father Robert Geisinger.

In this Sept. 11 interview with Edward Pentin, the Register’s Rome correspondent, Msgr. Oliver discusses his new role, the advances that have been made in the Church’s handling of clerical sex abuse, and how its experience could help other institutions deal with an egregious crime that affects all segments of society.

What will be your new duties as secretary to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors?

My duties will be many and varied. The purpose of the commission is to help the local Churches to share best practices and undertake new initiatives and policies. So we’re really hoping to have an impact on the whole world, but there has been so much that has been done so well in different parts of Europe and North America, and really around the world, that can be shared now with folks in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

We can learn from one another, particularly from the different cultural experiences, and the commission will have a real opportunity to share some of these things.

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UNITED STATES
Crux

By Archbishop Charles J. Chaput
Special to Crux September 12, 2014

“Calvary” is the kind of film that leaves a theater silent at the final credits. It’s not the silence of boredom or a morgue, but the silence of people collecting their emotions in order to breathe again.

Friends who’ve seen the film, some of them already two or three times, have noticed the same effect. From the first frame to the last, “Calvary” has an understated power – a blend of everyday pain, faith, despair, humor, candor, bitterness, and forgiveness – that brands itself onto the heart with spare simplicity. It’s also the best portrayal of a good priest in impossible circumstances I’ve seen in several decades.

Plenty of good reviews of Calvary already exist. I can’t improve on them here. It’s enough to say that the cast – led by Brendan Gleeson in an extraordinary performance – gives us a menagerie of human foibles, and the County Sligo setting has a raw Irish beauty that few viewers will ever forget.

But it’s the story that makes the film.

Gleeson plays an innocent man, a good priest, in the aftermath of Ireland’s devastating sex abuse scandal. A late vocation, a widower with a troubled adult daughter, he’s surrounded by people he knows better than they know themselves, characters ripe with indifference, resentment and cynicism, sprinkled with just enough courtesy to mask their contempt.

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BOSTON (MA)
Crux

By Christina Reinwald

Web producer September 11, 2014

The staff of Crux held a panel discussion on the papacy of Francis. Our video of the event will be available here soon. Cardinal Sean O’Malley provided opening remarks. Margery Eagan, spirituality columnist for Crux, moderated the discussion.

The panelists included:

* John L. Allen Jr., associate editor, Crux
* Mary Ann Glendon, Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard University, and former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See
* Robert Christian, editor and blogger, Millennial | Young Catholics, An Ancient Faith, A New Century
*Hosffman Ospino, Boston College assistant professor of Hispanic ministry and religious education

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LOUISIANA
WDSU

BELLE CHASSE, La. —A 30-year-old man was extradited from Utah and brought to Plaquemines Parish to face child sex abuse charges in which authorities said the suspect’s family destroyed evidence in the case and a bishop “absolved him of his sins.”

According to a news release from the Plaquemines Parish Sheriff’s Office, 30-year-old Matthew Todd Wallis is accused of aggravated incest and oral sexual battery. The alleged crimes happened in 1999-2000 and involved at least one young girl when he lived in Belle Chasse, according to investigators.

The Plaquemines Parish Sheriff’s Office believes more victims are possible and are urging them to come forward.

The investigation began in May 2014 when a victim came forward, telling investigators that Wallis abused her at his home in the 100 block of Brentwood Drive when she was between 4 and 5 years old. …

Investigators learned that about the same time of the tape’s destruction, a second victim allegedly came forward and spoke with the bishop of Wallis’ church about the matter.

The church was identified by the Sheriff’s Office as The Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints based in Harvey.

“It is believed that Wallis subsequently met and spoke with the bishop of the church about the alleged crimes and possibly ‘confessed his sins’ to the religious leader at the time,” the news release said.

Witnesses told investigators that Wallis allegedly went through a “repentance program” with the church.

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BELGIE/CANADA
De Standaard

De voormalige Belgische priester Eric Dejaeger (67) is schuldig bevonden aan 24 aanklachten van seksueel misbruik van kinderen in het Canadese gehucht Igloolik. De feiten speelden zich meer dan dertig jaar geleden af.

Het proces tegen Dejaeger nam ruim tien maanden in beslag. Na de slotpleidooien van het openbaar ministerie en de verdediging, in mei, hield de Canadese rechter Robert Kilpatrick zijn beslissing in beraad.

Tijdens het proces kwamen meer dan 40 mensen getuigen, goed voor 76 aanklachten. Verschillende aanklachten betreffen het seksueel aanraken van de slachtoffers. Daarvoor geldt een minimumstraf van één jaar cel. In de loop van het proces werden vijf aanklachten toegevoegd en werden er ook vijf afgewezen. Bij de start van het proces pleitte Dejaeger schuldig aan acht aanklachten.

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CANADA
John McKiggan’s Sexual Abuse Blog

Dejaeger finally convicted

There is good news for sexual abuse victims of former oblate priest Eric Dejaeger. He was found guilty today on 24 of the 68 charges he was facing in Iqaluit.

The priest pleaded guilty to eight sexual abuse charges last November. So Dejaeger will face sentencing on 32 convictions sometime early next year.

Some charges dismissed

Unfortunately, some of the children who claimed that he assualted them did not receive justice. Dejaeger was not convicted of all of the churches due to concerns the presiding judge had about the evidence presented by some of his alleged victims.

Justice Robert Kilpatrick said:

“The quantity and quality of the evidence available to the court in this case has been substantially weakened by the passage of time. The reliability of the Crowns evidence on many counts is suspect. This is reflected by the results of this trial.”

Delay caused by abuser

The unfortunate fact is that one of the reasons for the extended delay in this case was due, in great part, to the fact that Dejaeger fled Canada and hid in Europe for more than two decades.
You can read more of the details in my article: Nowhere to hide: Internet helps bring sexual abuser to justice.

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CANADA
Canoe

QMI AGENCY
Sep 12, 2014

Nunavut priest Eric Dejaeger was found guilty Friday of 31 counts of sexually abusing Inuit children between 1976 and 1982.

The convictions include unlawful confinement, indecent assault, unlawful sexual intercourse, and one count of bestiality.

He had previously pleaded guilty to eight charges of indecent assault against boys.

Dejaeger, 67, was acquitted on 48 counts.

Allegations ranged from sexual touching to rape.

One defendant, identified as CP, told court about catching Dejaeger having sex with a dog, then being locked in a room where Dejaeger proceeded to rape him and a friend, identified as JU.

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

DEUTSCHLAND
Stadt Zeitung

[Summary: The canonical profess against the former pastor at Unterthurheimer is still not completed. The Vatican is currently dealing with the case.]

Das kirchenrechtliche Verfahren gegen den früheren Unterthürheimer Pfarrer ist noch immer nicht abgeschlossen. Die Dienstausübung ist ihm aber dauerhaft untersagt. Derzeit beschäftigt sich der Vatikan mit dem Fall.

Die Kirche hat noch immer keine Entscheidung zum sexuellen Missbrauchsvorwurf gegen den früheren Unterthürheimer Pfarrer getroffen. Das kirchenrechtliche Verfahren sei noch nicht abgeschlossen, teilte der stellvertretende Leiter der Pressestelle im Augsburger Bischöflichen Ordinariat, Nicolas Schnall, auf Nachfrage unserer Zeitung mit. Das Verfahren liege derzeit im Vatikan, so Schnall weiter. Dort wird es von der Glaubenskongregation bearbeitet. Der Bistumssprecher machte deutlich, dass sich die Sache zeitlich noch hinziehen könne. Das Verfahren könne in solchen Fällen erfahrungsgemäß länger dauern, erklärte Schnall.

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CANADA
Digitial Journal

IQALUIT, NUNAVUT–(Marketwired – Sept. 12, 2014) – Eric Dejaeger, 67, a former Roman Catholic priest, was found guilty today in the Nunavut Court of Justice of 31 counts of sexual offences against children and one count of bestiality. Most of the crimes were committed in the Hamlet of Igloolik in what was then the Northwest Territories, where he was one of the local priests, between 1978 and 1982. He was found not guilty of 48 other charges. Sentencing will occur at a later date.

He was arrested on January 20, 2011, when he was returned to Canada after spending 15 years in Belgium. He has been in custody since.

Both parties have 30 days to decide whether to appeal this decision.

The Public Prosecution Service of Canada is responsible for prosecuting offences under federal jurisdiction in a manner that is free of any improper influence and that respects the public interest. The PPSC is also responsible for providing prosecution-related advice to law enforcement agencies across Canada.

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CANADA
Nunatsiaq Online

JIM BELL

The man the Belgian press called “Pater Pedo,” ex-priest Eric Dejaeger, 67, is guilty on 24 of the 68 charges he stood trial on at the Nunavut Court of Justice in Iqaluit, Justice Robert Kilpatrick ruled Sept. 12 in a massive 212-page judgment.

Combined with the eight indecent assault charges he pleaded guilty to this past November at the start of his trial, this means Dejaeger is guilty on 32 counts, most involving the sexual molestation of Inuit children in Igloolik between 1976 and 1982.

Kilpatrick convicted him on many counts of indecent assault on boys and girls, and one count of bestiality with a dog, one count of forcible confinement, and one count of sexual assault.

Dejaeger, who originally faced 80 charges, will likely be sentenced early next year, following a sentencing hearing in Iqaluit scheduled to start Jan. 19, 2015.

Prosecutor Doug Curliss said the Crown will likely need about three days of court time to present its sentencing submission, which will include time to read victim impact statements from complainants involved in the charges that Dejaeger is convicted on.

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

CANADA
CBC News

A Nunavut judge has found Eric Dejaeger guilty of 24 of 68 charges relating to sex crimes dating back to his time as a Catholic priest in Igloolik, Nunavut, before he fled Canada in the mid-1990s.

Dejaeger, 67, had already pleaded guilty to eight counts of indecent assault.

Dejaeger had pleaded not guilty to the 68 charges relating to allegations of sex crimes against children in Igloolik three decades ago. His trial that started in November 2013 ended in May.

He will be back in court for sentencing Jan. 19.

In his written decision, Justice Robert Kilpatrick noted that the quantity of evidence in the case had been substantially weakened by the passage of time.

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INDIA
Daiji World

New Delhi, Sep 12 (IANS): The central government Friday told the Delhi High Court that it has not taken any decision yet on the extradition of Catholic priest Rev Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, accused of molesting a child in the US when he was there in 2004.

Jeyapaul, 59, challenged the order of a trial court here recommending his extradition to the US to stand trial there.

Hearing his plea, Justice Pratibha Rani asked the central government counsel to take further instructions on the issue.

The trial court recently said that a “prima facie” case was made out for his extradition.

If extradited, Jeyapaul will stand trial on the charge of “first degree criminal sexual conduct” in Minnesota, USA.

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CANADA
Global News

By Staff The Canadian Press

IQALUIT, Nunavut – A Nunavut judge has found a former Roman Catholic priest guilty of 24 of the more than 70 sex-related charges he faced involving Inuit children more than 30 years ago.

Defrocked Oblate priest Eric Dejaeger had already pleaded guilt to eight counts of sexual assault when his trial began in December.

In his written decision, Justice Robert Kilpatrick noted that the quantity of evidence in the case had been substantially weakened by the passage of time.

The trial was marked by high emotion and lurid tales.

Witness after witness told court that Dejaeger used his position as Igloolik’s missionary to lure and trap them into sex, threatening them with hellfire or separation from their families if they told.

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FRANCE
Le Parisien

Un prêtre de 40 ans a été condamné mardi par le tribunal correctionnel d’Amiens à trois ans de prison dont 18 mois ferme pour des agressions sexuelles sur mineurs, commises pendant dix ans. Stéphane Gotoghian a été reconnu coupable au regard «de la gravité des faits commis au préjudice de cinq victimes (ndlr : quatre étaient parties civiles) alors qu’il avait autorité sur elles, sur dix ans (entre 2002 et 2012), et que toute dangerosité ne peut être écartée».

«On aurait pu arrêter ça bien avant», a regretté la procureure Françoise Dale dans son réquisitoire. L’affaire «porte une atteinte majeure aux valeurs défendues par cette Eglise», a-t-elle ajouté, requérant quatre ans d’emprisonnement, dont la moitié ferme.

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FRANCE
France 3

Le procureur avait requis contre Stéphane Gotoghian, ancien prêtre de Fressenneville (80), 4 ans de prison. Mardi soir, il a été condamné à 3 ans de prison dont 18 mois ferme pour agressions sexuelles sur 5 mineurs. Des faits qui se sont déroulés entre 2002 et 2012.

Par Jennifer AlbertsPublié le 10/09/2014

Stéphane Gotoghia est par ailleurs soumis à une obligation de soins. Il lui est interdit de se rendre dans la Somme et d’exercer une profession en relation avec des jeunes.

4 des 5 jeunes victimes étaient présentes lundi au procès de l’ancien prêtre du Vimeu ainsi que l’archevêque de Besançon, Evêque d’Amiens à l’époque.

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FRANKREICH
Radio Vatikan

[Summary: A 40-year-old priest has been sentenced to three years in prison in Northern France after being convicted of sexual abuse of minors. The court heard that Stephane Gotoghian sexually abused four boys over the years through 2012.]

Wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs Minderjähriger ist in Nordfrankreich ein 40jähriger katholischer Priester zu drei Jahren Haft verurteilt worden. Das Gericht in Amiens kam zu dem Schluss, Stéphane Gotoghian habe über Jahre hindurch bis 2012 vier Jungen sexuell missbraucht. Der Priester war teilweise geständig. Als Zeuge in dem Prozess wurde auch der damalige Bischof von Amiens geladen, der heutige Erzbischof von Besançon Jean-Luc Bouilleret. Er sagte aus, er habe Hinweise auf den Priester 2006 zur bistumsinternen Ermittlung weitergegeben. Stéphane Gotoghian wirkte unter anderem als Kaplan bei der katholischen Pfadfinderschaft Europas.

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CONNECTICUT
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, September 12, 2014

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

It’s bad enough that Hartford’s Catholic archbishop wants to overturn a jury verdict in a clergy sex abuse and cover up case. What’s dramatically worse, however, is that he wants to deny hundreds of child sex abuse victims in Connecticut.

Connecticut has one of the nation’s best statutes of limitations in the nation. The archbishop is trying to get it nullified. He’s protecting predators and hurting children.

This is a stunningly selfish move. To protect Hartford priests who committed and concealed heinous crimes against children, Archbishop Leonard Blair is willing to endanger kids and hurt kids across the state, whether they are being or may be assaulted by parents, teachers, coaches or anyone.

He’s not only putting Catholic kids at risk. He’s putting all Connecticut kids at risk by trying to make it much, much tougher to expose child molesters in court.

Kids are safest when predators are jailed. But most child molesters are never prosecuted. The next best approach is to use the courts to warn parents and the public about them, and get them exposed, suspended, or fired so they will have less access to kids. That’s what civil litigation does. That’s what Archbishop Blair wants to prevent, by restoring an archaic, rigid, predator-friendly statute of limitations.

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CANADA
Sylvia’s Site

The verdict in the sex abuse trial of previously-convicted Oblate ex-priest Eric Dejaeger will be rendered tomorrow (Friday 12 September) in the Iqaluit courthouse, Nunavut. Please keep Dejaeger’s many many victims in your prayers as they await the decision, and after. Let’s hope and pray that justice is done.

Dejaeger also has a courtdate set for Edmonton, Alberta tomorrow “to set a date,” I have a feeling those Edmonton charges may surface in the Nunavut courtroom tomorrow and be lumped in with the others. I truly do hope I am mistaken.

Please post links to any media coverage re: the verdict.

*****

Earlier today I posted a letter from the Headmaster at St. Mary’s International School (SMIS) to alumni regarding child molester Brother Lawrence: here it is:

11 September 2014: Kagei letter Alumni Letter acknowledging he knew of Brother Lawrence apology January 2014 and victim came forward May 2013

Wonder why it has taken so long to get Brother Lawrence away from the schools and out of Japan? And, the big question: Where is this molester now? In Canada? Nestled away with Brother John in Quebec?

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BOSTON (MA)
Crux

By Michael O’Loughlin
National reporter September 12, 2014

Because Pope Francis “walks his own talk,” as Crux associate editor John L. Allen Jr. put it Thursday night during a panel at Boston College, he’s won over the hearts of millions of Catholics. But there are many challenges left to confront – challenges with the potential to shape the church in Francis’ vision.

“Pope Francis has brought hope to people’s lives and has compelled many people to take a look at the church again,” according to Cardinal Sean O’Malley, archbishop of Boston and a personal advisor to the pope.

The panel, “A Pope for the 21st Century,” focused on the pope’s popularity and his vision for the Church. The event marked the launch of Crux, a new website covering the Vatican and the Catholic Church, a project of the Boston Globe.

O’Malley, revealing that he communicates with the pope by fax — “It goes right to his room, he responds right away, and you don’t have to worry about differences in time” — called Francis “certainly one of the most extraordinary leaders of our day” and “thoroughly Argentinian. He loves tango, soccer, and matte.”

Did Cardinals know what they were getting when they elected Francis? “Obviously, he is the man of surprises, and he’s done so many things that no one could have forecasted,” O’Malley said.

Several panelists said the pope’s emphasis on joy and mercy provides an opportunity to heal divisions in the Church, but they were asked about several hot-button issues, including immigration, the firing of openly gay employees from Catholic institutions, the role of women and the laity in the church, and political discourse.

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ISRAEL
Arutz Sheva

By Haim Lev and Ari Soffer
First Publish: 9/11/2014

After two years on the run from Israeli authorities suspected sex-offender Rabbi Eliezer Berland has reportedly been arrested in Amsterdam’s international airport, and will soon be extradited back to Israel.

Berland, who founded and leads the Shuvu Banim hassidic sect, was accused of sexually molesting several female followers in Israel but fled the country to escape investigation.

Some will be asking how the runaway rabbi managed to escape facing justice until now, but his network of loyal followers proved key both in hiding him and helping him give police the slip on numerous occasions.

Just last week Berland dodged police in Johannesburg, South Africa, by the skin of his teeth as he traveled to officiate at the wedding of one of his followers.

Police attempted to ambush the car he was traveling in, but the fugitive rabbi managed a dramatic escape.

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UNITED STATES
Failed Messiah

Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

He ran for almost two years but in the end he could hide from the law no longer.

Breslov Shuvu Banim hasidic leader Rabbi Eliezer Berland has finally been arrested.

After hopping from country to country, seeking refuge from law in places like Morocco, Zimbabwe and South Africa, Berland was arrested early today in Amsterdam’s international airport, Arutz Sheva reported.

The now 77-year-old Berland allegedly sexually abused several of his female followers, at least one of whom was a minor at the time of the alleged abuse. He fled Israel almost two years ago after learning police were about to detain him.

Berland went first to places like the US, Italy and Switzerland but then moved on to more exotic locations without extradition treaties with Israel.

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CANADA
Haaretz

Police in the Canadian province of Quebec believe that members of the radical, ultra-Orthodox Lev Tahor sect were involved in human trafficking and forgery, according to court documents released on Wednesday. The case has been widely reported in the Canadian media.

The sect of some 250 people, also known as the “Jewish Taliban” because female members wear a black gown resembling a burqa, lived in the Quebec town of Ste-Agathe-des-Monts for about a decade before authorities were alerted in 2012 by reports of widespread abuse and neglect of children.

The community fled en masse to a town in the Canadian province of Ontario, before going on to the Central American country of Guatemala. According to recent reports, they have since fallen out with their neighbors in a small Guatemalan village and are moving on.

Search warrants released by a Quebec judge on Wednesday allege members of the community falsified government documents, and engaged in human trafficking.

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ISRAEL
Haaretz

By Revital Hovel and Haaretz | Sep. 11, 2014

Fugitive ultra-Orthodox rabbi Eliezer Berland was arrested in Amsterdam on Thursday, almost two years after he fled Israel to avoid arrest for sex crimes.

Berland, a leading member of the Breslov Hassidic movement and founder of the Shuvu Banim yeshiva, was detained at Amsterdam airport on an international arrest warrant, according to various news sources. He had arrived on a flight from South Africa, where he had been living since April.

Berland also spent lengthy periods in Italy, Morocco and Zimbabwe during his 23 months on the run. He was accused of sexual abuse by a number of his female followers, including a 15-year-old girl, in 2012.

Shortly after he fled Israel, his son, grandson and several other followers were arrested on suspicion of fraud and money laundering involving the sect’s finances.

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NETHERLANDS
i24 News

Rabbi fled Israel after several female followers accuse him of sexual abuse

Rabbi Eliezer Berland, a rabbi who fled Israel two years ago to escape charges of sex crimes, was arrested on Thursday in Amsterdam.

Berland, 77, is a prominent rabbi in the Breslov sect and founder of the Shuvu Banim yeshiva in Jerusalem’s Old City who was instrumental in bringing many Jews closer to ultra-Orthodox faith.

Berland had arrived in Amsterdam from South Africa, and was arrested at the airport on an international arrest warrant.

In 2012, Berland was accused of sexual abuse by a number of his female followers, including a 15-year-old girl.

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BOSTON (MA)
Standing on My Head

September 12, 2014 by Fr. Dwight Longenecker

cruxLast evening I attended the official launch of Crux–the Boston Globe’s new website dedicated to “all things Catholic.”

The venue was the splendid campus of Boston College. In the afternoon I had the chance to tour the campus with fellow Patheos blogger Tim Muldoon, and had the better part of an hour with theologian Fr Robert Daly SJ–we reminisced about our mutual friend, Dom Sebastian Moore OSB, who was a monk at Downside, an irascible intellectual and former professor at BC. I picked Fr Daly’s brain about the thought of Rene Girard for one of the books I am working on.

Veteran Vatican reporter John Allen is the Boston Globe’s catch from many years of reporting at the National Catholic Reporter. Allen’s objective reporting on Catholic affairs has won admiration from Catholics from both sides of the “right-left” divide as well as respect from journalists in the non-Catholic world.

I also met MaryAnn Glendon again–former ambassador to the Holy See and now serving the church in a new role helping to reform the Vatican Bank. The panel included Globe writer Margery Egan, a theology professor and Robert Christian–the editor of Millennial–a website for young Catholics. Hosffman Ospino, a Boston College assistant professor of Hispanic ministry and religious education was also on the panel.

Cardinal O’Malley gave an excellent speech on Pope Francis–highlighting Francis teaching that while the church is in the business of compassion and social justice she is not just an NGO. The reason for the church is to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. Cardinal Sean also criticized Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (has he been reading my blog?) MTD is that particularly American version of the Christian faith which reduces the gospel to a miss mash of self help religion, good works and the idea that God is perhaps “out there” and is to be used as a kind of fire extinguisher or someone one might just call on for help when nothing else seems to work.

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CANADA
CBC News

A Nunavut judge is expected to hand down his decision in the case of Eric Dejaeger, a former Catholic priest charged with sex crimes, on Friday.

Former Catholic priest Eric Dejaeger leaves an Iqaluit courtroom in January 2011 after his first appearance for child sexual abuse charges in Igloolik dating back to the 1970s. A Nunavut judge is expected to hand down his decision in the case on Friday. (Chris Windeyer/Canadian Press)

Dejaeger’s trial began last November. Since then there have been two lengthy adjournments and the number of charges has gone up and down as new counts were added and others dismissed.

Dejaeger, 67, has pleaded guilty to eight counts of indecent assault. He pleaded not guilty to 68 other charges relating to allegations of sex crimes against children in Igloolik three decades ago. More than 40 complainants testified during the trial.

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CONNECTICUT
CT News

Posted on September 11, 2014 | By Daniel Tepfer

HARTFORD – The Archdiocese of Hartford is asking the state Supreme Court to overturn a $1 million verdict for a man who claimed he was abused by a Roman Catholic priest at a Derby school in the early 1980s.

Among other claims, the archdiocese contends the law that extended the statute of limitations for such lawsuits is unconstitutional.

A hearing on the case has been scheduled for Sept. 22.

“I don’t think any of the issues they have raised have any merit but this is no surprise,” said New Haven lawyer Thomas McNamara, who represented the complainant in the case.

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CONNECTICUT
Norwich Bulletin

By The Associated Press
Posted Sep. 12, 2014

HARTFORD — The Archdiocese of Hartford is asking the state Supreme Court to overturn a $1 million verdict for a man who claimed abuse by a priest in the early 1980s.

The Hearst Connecticut Media Group reports (http://bit.ly/1qqIDI1 ) that the archdiocese says the law extending the statute of limitations for such lawsuits is unconstitutional.

Thomas McNamara, the lawyer for the former altar boy who filed the complaint, said issues raised by the archdiocese do not have merit.

The man who claimed abuse at age 13 by the Rev. Ivan Ferguson in Derby between 1981 and 1983 won the verdict in Superior Court in 2012.

Ferguson died in 2002.

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UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

Attention! Judge Román Berroa and Justice minister Francisco Domínguez – traitors of the Dominican Republic and – slaves of Opus Dei Beast a.k.a. Vatican Mammon Beast, Estás traidores de la República Dominicana y estás juntos esclavos del Opus Dei Bestia alias Vaticano Mammon Bestia!

Idiot Catholics Judge Román Berroa and Justice minister Francisco Domínguez – FYI For Your Information, read below a compilation of articles about Pope Francis and the Vatican who have “punished” Józef Wesolowski because he was a bestial papal pimping nuncio and they defrocked him as a priest and archbishop, and revoked his status as papal nuncio and therefore he is NOT a diplomat any longer.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

By Derek J. Anderson | GLOBE CORRESPONDENT SEPTEMBER 12, 2014

Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley joined a panel of journalists and academics Thursday night in a discussion of the new pope that was part of an event marking the launch of The Boston Globe’s new website Crux, which will cover the Roman Catholic Church across the world.

O’Malley kicked off the night’s discussion by talking about the pontiff’s goals, actions, and thoughts.

“Pope Francis challenges us to overcome our indifference in our own lives,” he said, adding that the church is about caring and compassion.

Panelists dove into the specifics of the pope’s allure to those who have disconnected from Catholicism, as well as issues including immigration and sacraments for divorced and remarried couples. …

Crux editor Teresa M. Hanafin introduced the panel. The cardinal was joined on stage by Globe associate editor John L. Allen Jr., of Crux; Mary Ann Glendon, Learned Hand professor of law at Harvard University and the former US ambassador to the Holy See; Robert Christian, editor and blogger; and Hosffman Ospino, a Boston College assistant professor of Hispanic ministry and religious education.

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CANADA
680 News

The Canadian Press Sep 12, 2014

IQALUIT, Nunavut – A Nunavut judge is expected to deliver a verdict today in a trial of a former Roman Catholic priest on 68 counts of sex abuse against Inuit children more than 30 years ago.

Justice Robert Kilpatrick’s decision could be the final step in a legal saga that spanned two continents and tore apart a remote Arctic community.

The trial of defrocked Oblate priest Eric Dejaeger, which began last December in an Iqaluit courtroom, was marked by high emotion and lurid tales.

Witness after witness told court that Dejaeger used his position as Igloolik’s missionary to lure and trap them into sex, threatening them with hellfire or separation from their families if they told.

Several told of bestiality involving Dejaeger’s dog.

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CANADA
Leader-Post

THE STARPHOENIX SEPTEMBER 12, 2014

An 83-yearold Catholic priest has been charged with indecent assault dating back to the 1970s in a small community north of Saskatoon.

Omer Desjardins is alleged to have committed the offence against a female in 1978. The StarPhoenix is not naming the community where the charge originates to protect the identity of the complainant.

The charge of indecent assault was subsequently replaced in the Criminal Code of Canada with sexual assault.

Desjardins currently lives in Manitoba, where he continues to practise as a priest and works in spiritual care at the Saint Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg.

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SOUTH DAKOTA
Aberdeen News

Posted: Thursday, September 11, 2014

By Scott Waltman swaltman@aberdeennews.com | 0 comments

A former Mobridge pastor has been charged in Walworth County with a felony count of sexual contact with a minor.

The charge against Timothy Thompson, 38, who now lives in Colorado, stems from incidents in 2008, according to court paperwork.

Thompson was the pastor at Cornerstone Community Church in Mobridge from March 2008 through February 2013, when he moved to Denver, according to the Mobridge Tribune. The Tribune reports that the victim is now an adult and that Thompson was arrested in Denver late last month and extradited to Walworth County for a Sept. 2 court hearing at which he was granted a court-appointed attorney but did not enter a plea.

He’s scheduled to be arraigned Sept. 22.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Biggleswade Today

by Luke Gardener
luke.gardener@jpress.co.uk
Published on the
12 September 2014

Ex-residents of a Shefford boys orphanage will be re-interviewed by police after a new review into claims of physical and sexual abuse was announced.

The investigation into historic allegations of physical, sexual and emotional abuse in the 1940s, 50s and 60s at St Francis Boys Home is to be overseen by Senior Investigator, Mark Ross.

A team of detectives will ensure all previous allegations are investigated and they will review all of the information provided by the victims and witnesses.

Mark Ross said: “The investigation has evolved due to the large number of victims and witnesses.

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MINNESOTA
Northlands News Center

September 11, 2014

Duluth, MN (NNCNOW.com) — A case involving the documents of priests who have been accused of child sex abuse was heard in St. Louis County Court on Thursday.

Attorneys representing two sexual abuse survivors want the Diocese to release what they call “secret documents” of diocese practices.

The diocese is asking for a protective order over the documents, which would contain the names of priests along with dates, times and places where they worked and who they allegedly abused.
Attorneys representing those who were abused say it’s a matter of public safety.

“Today is actually a very narrow situation of a legal matter of historical cases [of priests who] have been dead for over 15 years. It’s very sad what has happened in the past,” said Father Eric Hastings, Chancellor and Judicial Vicar of Duluth Diocese.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Tom Olsen
Forum News Service
POSTED: 09/11/2014

DULUTH, Minn. — With a trial just months away, the Diocese of Duluth went to court Thursday in an attempt to prevent the potential public release of decades’ worth of documents and depositions of top church officials related to priest sex abuse cases.

Two alleged abuse victims are suing the diocese, and their attorneys have made it clear that they intend to release documents and depositions that are obtained during the pre-trial discovery process — a plan that has drawn sharp criticism from attorneys for the diocese.

St. Louis County District Judge David Johnson heard about 20 minutes of oral arguments from attorneys before taking the matter under advisement. He did not ask any specific questions of the attorneys and gave no indication of how he would rule. The judge said a written decision would be issued “soon.”

The files on the accused priests have not yet been obtained by the plaintiffs’ attorneys, and no depositions have been taken at this time, but the pretrial discovery process is expected to ramp up soon as the first case heads to trial in February.

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POLSKA/POLAND
Ocaleni

ocaleni.polska@gmail.com

Kościół w Polsce “zbroi się”, jak donoszą media. Już jutro odbędzie się w Polsce kolejna rozprawa o odszkodowanie od Kościoła katolickiego z powództwa Marcina K. Następne rozprawy tego typu już się szykują – całym sercem jesteśmy z naszym przyjacielem Markiem, który również będzie domagał się od Kościoła zadośćuczynienia finansowego.

Media spekulują, że Kościół boi się, iż podzieli los Kościoła amerykańskiego, tzn. że z powodu odszkodowań wypłacanych ofiarom księży pedofilów bankrutować będą kolejne diecezje. W USA zbankrutowało już 11.

Sam Kościół w Polsce nie chce poczuwać się do instytucjonalnej odpowiedzialności za domniemane ukrywanie pedofilii, nie chce płacić odszkodowań, a sprawę Marcina K. traktuje jak… atak na swoją instytucję. Zatrudnia cenionych adwokatów i z uporem maniaka powtarza, że nie odpowiada za czyny swoich podwładnych.

Pisaliśmy już o tej sprawie: Po raz pierwszy w Polsce. Hierarchowie Kościoła boją się.

Więcej w TVN

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According to media reports, the Church in Poland is “arming” itself. The compensation case filed by Marcin K. against the Catholic Church, the first such case in Poland, will take place as soon as tomorrow. There are also other upcoming cases of this kind – we heartily support our friend Marek, who is also going to claim financial compensation from the Church.

There are speculations in the media that the Church fears that it will end up just as the American Church, namely that more and more dioceses will fail due to the compensations paid to the victims of pedophile priests.

The Polish Church itself refuses to feel the responsibility for the acts of pedophilia that it has been allegedly hiding and considers the case of Marcin K. to be an attack on its organization. The church employs respected lawyers and obstinately reiterates that it cannot answer for its subordinates’ deeds.

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CONNECTICUT
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Sep. 11, 2014

As part of a series of diocesan changes, the bishop of Bridgeport, Conn., announced Tuesday plans to repurpose his nearly 9,000-square-foot home and possibly relocate his diocesan offices but said he will leave solutions to larger pastoral questions to Fairfield County’s first synod in 33 years.

In a “state of the diocese” address at All Saints Catholic School in Norwalk, Bishop Frank Caggiano discussed current administrative challenges ($32 million in diocesan debt), progresses (the 2014 fiscal year is expected become the first in many years ending without a deficit) and future plans (diocesan reorganization).

“I need you to know all of the facts because we are family and we are all in this together,” he told the audience of more than 500 lay leaders and clergy, 350 of whom are synod delegates.

As for pastoral challenges — such as declines in sacraments and Mass attendance (about 80,000 of 470,000 Fairfield County Catholics attend Mass weekly) and fortifying Catholic schools and enrollment — Caggiano mainly deferred to the diocese’s fourth synod to find solutions.

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INDIA
Odisha Sun Times

New Delhi, Sep 11 :

The Delhi High Court Thursday sought response from the central government on the plea of Catholic priest Rev Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, accused of molesting a child in the US when he was there during 2004, against his extradition order.

Justice Pratibha Rani issued notice to government and asked it to respond on the plea of Jeyapaul, 59, challenging the order of trial court here recommending his extradition to the US to stand trial there.

The trial court recently said that “prima facie” case was made out for his extradition. If extradited, Jeyapaul will stand trial on charge of a “first degree criminal sexual conduct” in Minnesota, USA.

The priest, a fugitive from US law, has been charged with molesting a 14-year-old girl in the US in 2004 when he was at a pastoral ministry at Roseau county of Crookston Diocese in Minnesota. The priest had allegedly met the girl at a youth conference in 2004, and abused her for nearly a year till he left for India on Aug 28, 2005, after which he maintained a low profile.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Pope Francis indisputably showed this week that the welfare of families, especially of children, is less important to him than protecting Vatican cardinals and worldwide bishops from prosecution. Francis’ latest actions irrevocably raised publicists’ carefully crafted curtain on the latest Papal Wizard’s “Happy Pope” illusion. The Vatican spin machine has finally run out of mystical smokescreens to Tweet.

Pope Francis has now shown beyond any objective doubt that he is “one of the boys” at the Vatican. It is now too clear that Francis was elected a year and a half ago by frightened cardinals, primarily, to save themselves from outside government prosecutors investigating numerous child abuse and corruption scandals.

Neither Francis’ billionaire “allies”, Francis’ “heavy hitter” investment banker supporters, nor even Francis’ seemingly captive new “cheerleaders” at the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) and the Boston Globe’s new Crux websites, will likely be able “to put lipstick” on Francis’ latest shameful actions. But surely they will try! Money still talks loudest.

Argentina’s team lost the World Cup recently and its most famous fan is about to lose the world’s media. For some additional background see below and my recent remarks at :

[Christian Catholicism]

Francis signaled strongly this week that:

(1) on “contraception’, Catholic couples must keep “mass producing Catholic babies”, especially in light of the “escalating Islamist threat”, no matter what is best for couples’ other children. This dangerous farce is clearly directed at salvaging the “papal power myth” of infallibility tied to recent popes’ “infallible banning” of birth control, and at buttressing, pre-the US November elections, Francis’ right wing US political allies’ contrived fear of a growing radical Islamicist “threat” to the Vatican; and

(2) on curtailing priest child rape, Francis’ new “child abuse commission” will continue to try to protect clerics before children. Just to make sure, Francis appointed two hardliner priests as the key staffers on Vatican child abuse handling.

Jesus ordered all of us to protect children first, last and always. Francis, following his recent predecessors now says, in effect, we must protect children, unless it puts cardinals and bishops at risk of criminal prosecution.

Even Francis’ usually loyal Jesuit apologist and Vatican expert at NCR, Tom Reese, and as well as some perceptive and honest bloggers at NCR, appear to be throwing in the towel on Francis.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Berger’s Beat

In a recent interview, Cardinal Timothy Dolan expressed frustration at how long it takes to defrock a pedophile priest. “Although we bishops have sympathy for the workload of the Holy See, we still cringe at the slow pace of even clean-cut cases that need to be dealt with decisively,” he told Crux, a new on-line Catholic news source. . .Two local men – Kirkwood native Bryan Bacon and St. Charles resident Chris Wimmer – are featured in an investigative report by a Pittsburgh newspaper that says 157 adults have accused 31 members of the U.S.-based Marianists of child sexual abuse. Eight of the alleged offenders worked in our town. Bacon was allegedly abused by Brother William Mueller of Vianney and Wimmer was allegedly abused by Brother Louis Meinhardt and Brother John Woulfe at Chaminade. . .

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Times

Gerry Moriarty

Thu, Sep 11, 2014

The Sisters of Nazareth have accepted that there was a “grave injustice” done to some 130 children who were sent to Australia from care homes in Northern Ireland as part of a child migration programme that mainly ran from the late 1920s to the mid 1950s.

Sister Brenda McCall, representing the Sisters of Nazareth, acknowledged the suffering caused to the children who were sent to Australia as part of a scheme by the Australian government to bring “white” children of “good stock” into the country.

Sister Brenda told the North’s Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry in Banbridge, Co Down today that the Sisters of Nazareth were involved in sending about 111 children to Australia in the scheme which seems to have petered out in the mid to late 1950s.

The former St Joseph’s Home, Termonbacca, Derry, where Des McDaid (70) was admitted as a child in 1946. He was then sent to Australia in 1953. Photograph: Trevor McBrideMan (70) tells inquiry he was abused in NI institution and in Australia as child

Although the witness had a happy childhood in Australia, she said feelings of “abandonment and isolation came to the surface” when she got engaged.Witness suffered feelings of ‘abandonment and isolation’

“In hindsight looking back there was a grave injustice done to these children in sending them out. And not just to the children but to their families as well,” she said.

“I think no matter the most eloquent apology or the most beautiful monument or no matter how much money they receive it will never make up for what we took from them,” she added.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Fox 43

BY HOWARD SHEPPARD

LEBANON, Pa (WPMT)-Former Methodist pastor Arthur “A.B” Schirmer, 66, is sentenced to 20 to 40 years for killing his first wife Jewel Schirmer in April 1999. The couple had been married for 31 years.

The prosecution contended that Jewel Schirmer was beaten in the head multiple times with a crowbar or something similiar. Schirmer claimed his wife died from injuries as the result of her falling down the basement stairs of their North Lebanon Township home. The cause of her death was at first declared Undetermined.

In 2011, the Lebanon County District Attorney’s Office, using an outside biomedical engineering firm, came up with tests results that proved Jewel Schirmer’s injuries were not the result of a fall down a flight of stairs.

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CANADA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, September 11, 2014

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

A Canadian search warrant was recently made public, which shows troubling allegations of repeated child abuse in the ultra-Orthodox sect Lev Tahor.

We are glad that officials in Israel, Canada and Interpol have worked together to establish a criminal case against this sect and are hopefully able to bring the perpetrators to justice. The investigation began when Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans’ son left the group and reported to officials about widespread abuses within the group.

We are grateful to the brave victims who found the courage to speak up. We hope more victims, witnesses and whistleblowers find the courage to come forward, speak up, help protect children and start healing.

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MICHIGAN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, September 11, 2014

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

Recently unsealed documents show than a Michigan Christian radio host’s secret life involved child sexual crimes and plans to ask a friend to destroy evidence. We applaud the whistleblower who called police instead of helping a criminal thwart prosecution.

John Balyo who is awaiting sentencing for taking pornographic images of a 12 year old boy and sex acts with a child. We urge the judge in his case to sentence him to the maximum term, which is 50 years in jail. This is a dangerous predator and he should be kept away from children for as long as possible.

We also urge parents and officials in Kalamazoo County who may have had contact with Balyo to share any suspicions they have and talk to their children. Every church or school group where Balyo spoke or spent time with should also do aggressive outreach to find others who may have seen, suspected or suffered his crimes.

Finally, we applaud Balyo’s former boss Chris Lemke for doing the right thing and calling police instead of making a phone call for Balyo. His actions quite possibly helped preserve evidence and will keep a dangerous predator away from kids.

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CANADA
CTV

A police affidavit obtained by a media consortium that includes CTV has revealed a lengthy collection of unproven allegations against the Lev Tahor sect, an ultra-Orthodox group of about 45 families once based in Ste. Anne des Monts.

The police affidavit presents a list of reasons explaining why they should be given a search warrant to investigate the sect.

SQ police detective Normand Dion said in the report that there was reason to suspect that leaders forged passports and other identification documents in aims of throwing police off the scent of misdeeds inside the community.

The 14-pages of partially-redacted testimony offers a timeline of events, based on allegations made by former adherents.

In April 2012 police opened an investigation into the unproven allegations after receiving a letter alleging that the sect:

* Employed physical violence as a teaching tool.
* Sometimes kept disobedient children in a basement.
* Had girls as young as 14 marry adult men.
* Had children placed into other families if their parents were judged to be inadequate teachers.
* Medicated sect members in order to psychologically manipulate them.
* Took government cheques from members.

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CANADA
Toronto Star

By: Allan Woods Quebec Bureau, Published on Wed Sep 10 2014

MONTREAL—Police believed leading members of the radical Jewish sect Lev Tahor were involved in human trafficking and forgery when officers raided their Ontario homes last January, court documents reveal.

Released to the Toronto Star and other media Wednesday, the set of documents, called an Information to Obtain, were used by the Sûreté du Québec to seek a search warrant, following allegations that people in the 200-member cloistered community were being held and moved against their will.

Police were seeking credit cards, financial documents, travel documents, power-of-attorney forms, marriage certificates, coupons to obtain food and medical prescriptions.
The allegations in the document have not been tested in court.

The raid, carried only out after Lev Tahor members had fled their homes in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, north of Montreal, was prompted by interviews with several community members, notably Adam Brudzewsky.

Brudzewsky fled in 2012 with the help of a local Orthodox rabbi, along with his pregnant wife, after he questioned edicts of the group’s leader, Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, who reportedly runs Lev Tahor with iron discipline.

Documents say Brudzewsky told police he was instructed to hit children to enforce discipline in the community-run school and that children were married off before the legal age of 16.

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CANADA
Montreal Gazette

BY JASON MAGDER, THE GAZETTE SEPTEMBER 10, 2014

MONTREAL — Sûreté du Québec investigators got help from Interpol and authorities in Israel to establish a criminal case against the ultra-Orthodox sect Lev Tahor.

These are among several new revelations from search warrants unsealed by a judge on Wednesday. The warrants were issued by a Quebec judge to SQ investigators to search the homes of Lev Tahor members in Chatham-Kent, Ont., last Jan. 28.

The warrants allege members of the community falsified government documents, and engaged in human trafficking.

The community of about 250 lived in Ste-Agathe-des-Monts for about a decade before youth protection authorities were alerted to allegations of widespread abuse and neglect. The Department of Youth Protection in the Laurentians ordered the parents of 14 children to appear in court last November, but the community fled en masse to Chatham-Kent, Ont. Last March, the community relocated again to Guatemala, though two of its members remain in foster families in Toronto.

The case against Lev Tahor began in April of 2012, after the SQ received a letter from the lawyer of Nathan Helbrans, the adult son of the group’s leader, Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans. Nathan had left the sect earlier that year, telling Israeli media his resistance to orders brought him in conflict with the community’s leaders. Several members twisted his legs until they broke, he said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

September 11, 2014

Jane Lee and Richard Baker

Senior rabbinical leaders will be called to give evidence to a royal commission about alleged cover-ups of historic sexual abuse against children.

The royal commission into child sexual abuse began inviting Jewish victim-survivors to tell their stories in recent weeks, publishing advertisements in the Australian Jewish News.

“Anyone who experienced child sexual abuse while in the care of a Jewish institution, such as a school, youth program or sporting club, and wishes to share their story, can make contact with the royal commission,” the advertisement says.

Fairfax Media has been told that senior rabbis will also be called to give evidence in Australia’s first national investigation into child sexual abuse in Jewish schools and other organisations.

This comes as the NSW Ombudsman, NSW Police and Victoria Police continue to investigate senior rabbis’ failure to report allegations of child sexual abuse at the Yeshivah centres in Melbourne and Sydney to authorities.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

The Congregation of the Sisters of Nazareth has told an inquiry it has to “put its hands up” over its involvement in a child migrant scheme to Australia.

The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) is examining child abuse in religious and state-run institutions in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 1995.

The current phase is examining what happened to children sent to institutions in Australia.

One hundred and eleven children were sent there by the Sisters of Nazareth.

On Wednesday, Sister Brenda McCall said: “The most eloquent apology, the most beautiful monument, no matter what money they receive, will never make up for what we took from them in sending them there.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Big Trial

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

Father Charles Engelhardt spends his days in prison reciting prayers, psalms and hymns from the Liturgy of the Hours.

“That’s his anchor,” Father Jerry Dunne says about Engelhardt’s daily devotion to the official prayer book for the Catholic clergy.

Dunne visits Engelhardt every month at the State Correctional Institution in Coal Township, Northumberland County, some 2 1/2 hours northwest of Philadelphia. That’s where Engelhardt, 67, is serving a six to 12 year sentence after he was convicted on Jan. 30, 2013 of endangering the welfare of a child, corruption of a minor and indecent assault. The “victim” in the case is the credibility-challenged former altar boy known as “Billy Doe.”

Dunne has known “Charlie” Engelhardt for more than 40 years. The two priests are fellow oblates of St. Francis DeSales. They went to the seminary and college together, and worked along side each other at a couple of archdiocesan high schools, as well as in the same parish.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

[with audio]

Madeleine Baran St. Paul, Minn. Sep 10, 2014

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi on Wednesday rejected criticism he’s done little to investigate clergy sex abuse, but acknowledged he does not expect to file charges in 10 abuse cases investigated by St. Paul police.

County prosecutors have expanded their probe of sex abuse claims against Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis priests in recent months, but the nature of the work has made it difficult to “appease the public” in its demand for information, Choi said in an interview.

“Everything is on the table with respect to looking at what happened and what type of responsibility is out there in terms of how all of this happened,” he said. However, search warrants are not “necessary right now,” he said, adding that the investigation “should not be about a witch hunt.”

Betrayed By Silence: An MPR News investigation
Explore the full investigation Clergy abuse, cover-up and crisis in the Twin Cities Catholic church

Choi, who is seeking re-election in November, said he plans to announce charging decisions for the St. Paul cases within 30 days. But he acknowledged the statute of limitations will make it difficult or impossible to file charges.

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MICHIGAN
WOOD

Court documents in the John Balyo case have been unsealed. It’s been revealed the Christian Radio DJ was leading a secret gay lifestyle with another man who had no idea who Balyo really was, and had no idea Balyo was raping children. Balyo had given this man a computer to hide for him. After he was arrested he called his radio station boss and asked him to break into his car and get his friends phone number out of the glove box. It was meant to be code to the friend for get rid of the computer. Balyo’s boss did no such thing, and he called the police instead. Balyo’s wife recently filed for divorce in Kent County.

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MICHIGAN
MLive

By Angie Jackson | ajackso3@mlive.com
on September 10, 2014

GRAND RAPIDS, MI — John Balyo, the former Christian radio host who has admitted to molesting young boys and creating child porn, spoke “cryptically” to a male companion after asking to store a computer at the friend’s house, court records show.

Balyo, before the allegations against him came to light in June, requested the man hold the computer and told him “if it all goes south, you’ll know what to do,” according to search warrant records filed by investigators in Kent County District Court.

The documents, which shed more light on Balyo’s secret lifestyle, were recently unsealed after being suppressed for 56 days under state law. The records do not show what was contained on the computer, which was turned over to authorities by the man who identified himself to police as having a sexual relationship with Balyo. The man said he never took the computer out of the box Balyo left it in.

Balyo first met the friend two years ago in a gay online chat room, documents state. The friend told investigators they had a continued relationship until Balyo got married earlier this year. The man said his interactions with Balyo did not involve children.

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UNITED STATES
Room with a Pew

“It is difficult to imagine that individuals and societies governed by the seeking
of pleasure–as much as or more than by the avoidance of pain–can survive at all.”
–Antonio Damasio, from his book Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain

Back in 2004, the mother of a boy who had been abused while a student at Saint Anthony’s Seminary in Santa Barbara in the eighties, contacted me through SafeNet out of concern for her son’s mental health. His condition worsened after he began menacing a local parish priest (unrelated to his abuse) with veiled threats. Upon meeting with the family at their home in Northern California, immediate care for the son was obtained with the help of county health officials and professional evaluations. At the mother’s insistence, the Franciscans were never formally notified of the abuse. But it was the emotional state of another family member, an older cousin who had also attended Saint Anthony’s at the same time, that helped me realize how deeply the wounds of clergy sexual abuse had affected other former students who were secondary survivors.

The son first revealed the details of his abuse through family interventions and later in sessions with his therapist. It was during his freshman year at the seminary that his family learned how a Franciscan friar, who would later be implicated in a number of alleged assaults of minors, had sexually molested him on several occasions in a music room on campus and in the friar’s bedroom. The survivor’s mother, a devout Catholic, immediately began offering up her son’s pain (and her own) with daily intentions for the promise of deliverance.

The older cousin, Raymond (not his real name) had long since rejected the Catholic faith and dismissed any belief in the church’s teaching on suffering and redemption. He no longer felt any connection to the man on the cross who suffered and died for the sins of others. For years he wrestled with guilt and remorse as he watched his younger cousin slip slowly into mental illness. He had been a couple of classes ahead of him at Saint Anthony’s and, while he himself had not been molested during his time at the school, had come to blame himself for what had happened to his cousin.

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ALABAMA
WAAY

MUSCLE SHOALS, Ala. (WAAY) – A former Muscle Shoals Youth Minister is back in Colbert County, after being extradited from Texas. He faces sexual abuse charges.

Charles Kyle Adcock, 31, was arrested in Texas earlier this month on charges stemming in Muscle Shoals back in 2012.

The Muscle Shoals Police Department confirms Adcock was a Youth Minister at Woodward Avenue Baptist Church when the accusations occurred. The alleged incidents took place at his Muscle Shoals home.

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ALABAMA
Fox 54

Posted: Sep 10, 2014

A former Muscle Shoals Youth Minister is back in Colbert County, after being extradited from Texas. He faces sexual abuse charges.

Charles Kyle Adcock, 31, was arrested in Texas earlier this month on charges stemming in Muscle Shoals back in 2012.

The Muscle Shoals Police Department confirms Adcock was a Youth Minister at Woodward Avenue Baptist Church when the accusations occurred. The alleged incidents took place at his Muscle Shoals home.

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MINNESOTA
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Sep. 10, 2014 NCR Today

A lawsuit filed Wednesday seeks to compel the bishop of New Ulm, Minn., to become the latest and final diocese in the state to disclose its list of known priests credibly accused of sexually abusing children.

The lawsuit is brought by two plaintiff, Doe 37 and Doe 38, who claim they were sexually abused by Fr. Michael Skoblik between 1967 and 1971 when they were altar servers at St. Joseph Parish in Silver Lake, Minn.

Attorney Jeff Anderson said at a press conference that Skoblik, who died in 1989, is believed one of at least 12 priests the New Ulm diocese listed for the 2004 John Jay College of Criminal Justice study on clergy sex abuse. In August his firm released eight names of priests, including Skoblik, accused of sexual misconduct that emerged from a January deposition of Fr. Francis Garvey, director of priest personnel in the early 2000s.

Anderson characterized the lawsuit as a public invitation to Bishop John LeVoir of the rural southwestern Minnesota diocese to follow the lead of fellow bishops in the state in disclosing the names of credibly accused priests.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

September 11, 2014

Mark Russell
Court Reporter for The Age

Former Catholic priest David Rapson’s use of his office to allegedly abuse young boys was “a very significant common feature” in the case against him, according to the Court of Appeal.

“What is distinctive about his use of the office, apart from anything else, is that it was a location which embodied, and reinforced, his authority over the boys at the school,” said Court of Appeal president Justice Chris Maxwell and Justices Geoffrey Nettle and David Beach on Thursday.

The appeal judges said evidence from two victims allegedly abused by Rapson in his office would be admissible at his new trial in the coming months.

The judges last month ordered Rapson’s release after he had been jailed for a minimum 10 years.

A County Court jury had found Rapson, 61, guilty last year of abusing eight boys between the mid-1970s and 1990 but he appealed his conviction.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

Thursday, September 11, 2014, 00:01 by Ramona Depares

Malta has recently been hit by a spate of court cases involving abuse of minors. I am not going to write about the merits of the individual cases.

Since I was not there to witness any alleged incidents, it would be presumptuous to attempt an opinion about what did, or did not, happen. Not that this is stopping the world and his wife from doing precisely that. Few people realise that spouting uninformed opinions on social media pending judgment can only damage both sides of any case.

Apart from the public’s seeming omniscience, two other issues immediately – and worryingly – leap to the eye.

The first is the apparent inconsistency on the part of the courts when it comes to publishing the names of defendants. The identity of a defendant is made public as a matter of course.

The duty of the press to keep the people aware of court proceedings is actually a corollary to articles six and 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights: the right to a fair and public hearing and the right to receive and impart information respectively.

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UNITED KINGDOM
EDP 24

David Bale
Thursday, September 11, 2014

A former Norfolk catholic priest accused of sexually abusing boys more than 30 years ago appeared in court yesterday charged with similar offences.

Father Tony McSweeney, 67, and former children’s home manager, wheelchair-bound John Stingemore, 72, allegedly molested the youths at Grafton Close Children’s Home in Hounslow, west London.

McSweeney – who officiated at the 1990 wedding of boxing legend Frank Bruno and his ex-wife, Laura – was a trainee priest at the time of the alleged attacks.

The once part-time chaplain at Norwich City FC was leading the congregation at St George’s Church in north Norwich when the claims against him emerged.

Both pensioners are accused of targeting children while Stingemore was in charge of the council-run home between February 1980 and July 1981.

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CALIFORNIA
Pasadena Star-News

By Lauren Gold, Pasadena Star-News
POSTED: 09/10/14

SAN GABRIEL >> Representatives from Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) clashed with parishioners Wednesday after raising questions about a former San Gabriel Mission Parish pastor.

SNAP spokeswoman Joelle Casteix said the organization sought answers as to why Father Bruce Wellems was removed from the church in June and more information about an alleged incident of sexual abuse that occurred when Wellems was a teenager. SNAP held simultaneous press conferences in San Gabriel and Chicago, where Wellems now lives.

Casteix said SNAP found out about the incident recently via two letters sent by officials from the Claretian Missionary Fathers order in Chicago to the parish notifying parishioners of Wellems’ departure. Casteix called the letters a “smoking gun.”

“Now that the letters are out there we want answers. All we want is truth and all we want is transparency,” Casteix said. “Everyone gets hurt when the truth is not told. We don’t know what the truth is, but from what’s here it doesn’t look very good. We want the truth about why they yanked the guy from this parish.”

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 09/10/2014

David Swinarski was 12 when his parish priest in Red Wing, Minn., invited him to dinner and a performance of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” in Minneapolis.

The Rev. Larry R. Johnson had met the Swinarski family shortly after arriving at St. Joseph parish in July 1992, and David’s parents were suspicious almost immediately about the attention Johnson showed him.

Dee Swinarski “felt this request carried inappropriate sexual overtones,” according to a lawsuit.

She reported her concerns to church deacon and custodian Jerry Elsen. Elsen passed that information to William Fallon, then chancellor for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

A spokesman for the archdiocese said officials there had never received a report of sexual abuse of a child by Johnson and never investigated. The spokesman would not say whether Johnson had been investigated for misconduct or boundary violations, saying the archdiocese did not have Johnson’s permission to disclose that information.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: CHAO XIONG , Star Tribune Updated: September 10, 2014

The trial involving a priest, the Winona Diocese and St. Paul and Minneapolis Archdiocese is to start Nov. 3.

A high-profile lawsuit alleging clergy sexual abuse of minors and a coverup by the Catholic Church will be tried in Ramsey County, the Minnesota Court of Appeals has ruled.

The appeals court rejected the Diocese of Winona’s request for a change of venue in the case of Doe 1 vs. Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Diocese of Winona and Thomas Adamson.

“We were definitely glad to get the news that this trial will move forward,” Mike Finnegan, an attorney for Doe 1, said Wednesday.

The trial is scheduled to start Nov. 3.

The diocese filed a motion in Ramsey County District Court in July to move the trial to Olmsted County, St. Louis County or Clay County. In doing so, the diocese said that “intense prejudicial” pretrial publicity and the “media frenzy” surrounding the case would make it impossible to have a fair trial in Ramsey County.

Ramsey County District Judge John Van de North had ruled Aug. 4 that the trial should stay in Ramsey County.

The suit, filed last year, alleges that former priest Thomas Adamson sexually abused Doe 1 in the 1970s.

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KENTUCKY
WHAS

by Whitney Harding
WHAS11.com

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) — Coming from a large Catholic family in Louisville, faith was a big part of Michael Norris’s childhood.

“You know you’re raised to believe that the church is good and the church is there to help people and you know to take care of you; know the people in need,” he said. “That’s not what I’ve seen from the church.”

As a boy in the 1970s, Norris went to Camp Tall Trees which was a Catholic church camp that used to be located inside Otter Creek Park in Meade County. What happened there would shape rest of his life.

“I was sexually abused 40 years ago when I was a child and it took me a long time to come to terms with the abuse,” he shared.

Norris alleges that his abuser was Father Joseph Hemmerle, a priest who worked at the camp for about 30 years.

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VATICAN CITY
DFW Catholic

Vatican City, Sep 10, 2014 / 04:28 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The protection of minors from sexual abuse is a number one priority for Pope Francis, says the new secretary of a papal commission to protect minors, who believes that the global Church can play a leading role against abuse.

“Protecting children, protecting those who are defenseless against those who would harm them, especially because they are in difficult situations, because they are poor, because no one is looking after them – this is a gospel priority,” Monsignor Robert Oliver told CNA Sept. 10.

“The Lord had quite strong words about caring for his children. I think the Holy Father really sees this as an important priority.”

On Sept. 10, it was announced that Msgr. Oliver was appointed secretary of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which is headed by Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston.

Prior to the appointment, Msgr. Oliver has spent years helping the U.S. Church implement reforms to prevent and respond to abuse of minors.

“I deeply think this is a very important area for the Church,” the priest said. “We have a responsibility to our children. Everyone around the world knows the pain and suffering that our children have gone through, that our Church has gone through.”

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INDIA
The American Bazaar

By The American Bazaar Staff

WASHINGTON, DC: Roman Catholic priest Rev. Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, who has been incarcerated at the Tihar Jail in New Delhi for two years, is likely to be extradited soon by the Indian government to face trial in Minnesota, over allegations of sexual assault of a teenage girl during his time of service there nearly 10 years ago.

It’s now up to the federal government to decide whether Jeyapaul should be sent to the U.S. to stand trial, said Naveen Kumar Matta, a public prosecutor for India’s Ministry of External Affairs, reported the Associated Press. The United States had requested in 2011 that Jeyapaul be extradited.

Jeyapaul had evaded arrest on criminal charges in Minnesota, and returned to India, in 2005, and was appointed as the director of community education at Ooty diocese, but was placed under suspension in 2010 when the charges surfaced, reported the Deccan Chronicle.

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Media Advisory

September 10, 2014

(Duluth, MN) – Tomorrow at 1:00 PM in St. Louis County District Court, the Diocese of Duluth will ask the Court to issue a protective order to keep confidential the files and documents pertaining to clergy accused of sexual misconduct in the Diocese.

The Duluth Diocese released a list of 17 names of priests with credible allegations of child sexual abuse in December 2013 and its request for a protective order demonstrates a step in the wrong direction. Keeping clergy abuse documents and testimony secret puts kids at risk.

*Jeff Anderson and Mike Finnegan, attorneys representing two sexual abuse survivors of Father John Nicholson and Father Robert Klein will be available to answer questions tomorrow afternoon immediately following the hearing.

St. Louis County Courthouse
Judge David Johnson’s Courtroom
1:00PM Hearing
Thursday, September 11, 2014
100 North 5th Ave. W.
Duluth, MN 55802

Contact: Jeff Anderson: Office/651.227.9990 Cell/612.817.8665
Mike Finnegan: Office/651.227.9990 Cell/612.205.5531

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CHICAGO (IL)
WGN

[with video]

BY JULIAN CREWS

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests is calling Francis Cardinal George to address concerns about a priest who used to serve in the Back of the Yards neighborhood.

Father Bruce Wellems is a widely admired Claretian missionary priest.

SNAP obtained documents detailing his abrupt resignation from a California mission.

In a written press release, Claretian spokespeople acknowledge the decision pointing to inappropriate conduct with a fellow minor when Bellems himself was a youth.

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OHIO
Sidney Daily News

Greg Sowinski gsowinski@civitasmedia.com

WAPAKONETA — The former director of education at St. Augustine Catholic Church in Minster pleaded guilty Tuesday to two felony theft charges.

Jane Boeke, 54, will face up to three years in prison when she is sentenced on the two counts that each are fourth-degree felonies. A sentencing date has not been set but Judge Frederick Pepple said it likely will be in the next two months.

Boeke agreed to pay $190,000 restitution to the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. The amount only covers the thefts, not any cost of the investigation by the Archdiocese or police agencies. The parish in Minster and the archdiocese agreed to the amount, Auglaize County Prosecutor Ed Pierce said.

Boeke stole the money by using two separate credit cards, a VISA and a Sam’s Club card, to make purchases from 2001 to 2013. She was issued the cards but only was allowed to make purchases for the parish, Pierce said.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pottstown Mercury

By Kelly Lyons, klyons@21st-centurymedia.com
POSTED: 09/10/14,

MALVERN — When Justice4PAKids co-founder Bob Riley wanted to organize a fundraiser for his new organization with a distinct mission, he wanted to raise money in a unique way. So the motorcycle enthusiast started the event Motorcycle Ride4PAKids.

“Everybody has a golf tournament,” Riley said. “We wanted something new and different.”

Now in its second year, participants will meet for the Ride4PAKids between 9:30 and 11 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 20, at The Office Bar & Grille in Charlestown. The ride will start at 11 a.m. and finish at about 1 p.m. The 3-year-old nonprofit Justice4PAKids focuses on raising awareness of sexual abuse of children through seminars for adults and body-safety coloring books for children.

Riley said he became more interested in the issue when a grand jury report released in February 2011 alleged that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia allowed priests to continue working after they were accused of pedophilia.

“Frankly as a dedicated Catholic, I said I really don’t want to bring the Catholic Church down, but I really want to do something to remedy the situation,” Riley said. “I have to become more educated about the situation.”

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VATICAN CITY
Latin Post

By Olivia Demarinis (staff@latinpost.com)

With orders from the Vatican, two priests from the United States have been placed in key roles in the Catholic Church’s anti-abuse commission. The appointments of the priests, Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley and Rev. Robert Oliver, came from Pope Francis himself.

O’Malley, a veteran of the Boston archdiocese, was named the president of the new commission, which is formally called the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors and was created in December 2013 following numerous child sexual abuse scandals. Before this announcement, the Vatican had referred to O’Malley’s role only as a member of the commission, but sources at the Crux said he was instrumental in organizing the group’s activities.

Oliver has ties to the Chicago area but worked as an advisor to O’Malley in Boston on abuse-crisis related issues until 2012.Since then he has been doing work in the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He has now been named the Secretary of the anti-abuse commission.

During a phone interview, Oliver said he was proud of the church’s steps to fighting against abuse.

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2014

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

A judge on Monday declined to order a Catholic archbishop to be extradited from the Vatican to the Caribbean to face child sex charges.

We’re deeply disappointed. And we’re worried that the cleric may disappear before prosecutors and police in Italy, Poland and the Dominican Republic can apprehend him.

He’s Archbishop Józef Wesolowski (though he was recently defrocked). In September 2013, he was exposed as credibly accused child molester, but only after Vatican officials had quietly whisked him to Rome.

We don’t understand this ruling, nor the delays by law enforcement officials in three nations to pursue this dangerous cleric. We hope this ruling will be quickly overturned or that secular authorities in other countries will arrest him.

We hope Vatican officials do all they can to help police and prosecutors pursue Wesolowski and we hope that every single person who saw, suspected or suffered his crimes will find the courage to come forward, report to police, and start healing.

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VATICAN CITY
U.S. Catholic

By Josephine McKenna
2014 Religion News Service

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Francis’ decision to appoint two U.S. priests to key positions aimed at tackling the Vatican’s sex abuse crisis drew an angry response from abuse victims.

In the shake-up the Rev. Robert Geisinger, a canon lawyer previously based in Chicago, was named chief prosecutor responsible for abuse cases. He replaces his U.S. colleague, the Rev. Robert Oliver, who was named to the Vatican’s anti-abuse commission, created by Francis last year.

Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, who organized the pope’s first meeting with victims of abuse from England, Ireland and Germany at the Vatican in July, has now been confirmed as president of that commission.

Oliver, a Boston priest and canon lawyer, worked on the explosive abuse crisis in his own archdiocese before being appointed as the Vatican’s promoter of justice last year. He is expected to work with O’Malley as he seeks to add new members to the commission from Asia and Africa.

The appointment of both Geisinger and Oliver was slammed by SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, which claimed both had failed to do enough to stop abuse while they were in the U.S.

Oliver’s appointment to O’Malley’s commission provoked an angry response from abuse victims who said the pope needed to adopt far “bolder measures.”

“The pope has just promoted a priest from Boston with a disappointing track record,” said Barbara Dorris, SNAP’s outreach director, in a statement.

“For a pontiff who shows boldness in other areas, when it comes to abuse, he moves very slowly and timidly. Bolder measures are needed.”

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MINNESOTA
Winona Daily News

The Diocese of Winona’s request to move the civil suit over a former priest accused of abuse has been denied.

The diocese had argued that the lawsuit couldn’t be fairly tried in Ramsey County District Court, and had requested that it be moved. A three-judge state court of appeals panel disagreed in a ruling released Wednesday, concluding that the district court’s earlier dismissal of the change of venue claim was justified.

The case is scheduled to go to trial Nov 3. The plaintiff, a Twin Cities man identified only as John Doe 1, is seeking unspecified financial damages on negligence claims and the disclosure of more documents on a public nuisance claim. He has claimed to have been sexually abused by Thomas Adamson, a former Winona diocese and Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis priest, nearly 40 years ago.

That public nuisance claim was also disputed by the diocese, which sought to dismiss it. Earlier this month, the Ramsey County judge presiding over the case, John Van de North, declined to dismiss the suit, clearing the way for it to reach trial. It will be the first clerical sexual abuse case nationwide to use the public nuisance theory at trial, attorneys for the plaintiff have said. The public nuisance claim has already led to the unprecedented disclosure of tens of thousands of church documents and the names of dozens of accused priests.

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MINNESOTA
KEYC

By Maytal Levi, News Reporter

The New Ulm Diocese is named in a sexual abuse lawsuit filed today in Brown County.

This isn’t the first time the New Ulm Diocese has been in the media in connection with the states sexual abuse scandal.

Today a lawsuit was filed on behalf of two former altar boys who say they were sexually abused by Father Michael Skoblik at St. Joseph’s Parish in Silver Lake.

Skoblik served in the New Ulm Diocese from 1965 to 1988.

He died in 1989.

This is the 8th claim, Jeff Anderson and associates have filed against the New Ulm Diocese.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2014

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

There’s a simple reason, we believe, why New Ulm’s bishop refuses to disclose the names of all predator priests in his diocese. He’s protecting his predecessor who is now Minnesota’s top Catholic official: Archbishop John Nienstedt of the Twin Cities.

Nienstedt is now under tremendous heat – and rightfully so – for ignoring and concealing clergy sex crimes and cover ups in St. Paul-Minneapolis. For years, he has clearly kept dangerous clerics on the job, despite multiple reports of child sexual crimes, sexual misdeeds, and inappropriate, hurtful and troubling wrongdoing.

(See many stories at Minnesota Public Radio’s website.)

Nienstedt headed the New Ulm diocese from 2001 to 2008. We’re certain that he acted as irresponsibly in New Ulm as he has acted in the Twin Cities. And some of the church officials in New Ulm who committed or concealed child sex crimes might face prosecution (because their crimes were relatively recent). So from the Catholic hierarchy’s point of view, it’s crucial that these secrets remain secret for as long as possible.

We are convinced that New Ulm Bishop John LeVoir is just doing now what his colleagues and predecessors across the globe in the catholic hierarchy have done for centuries – putting the reputation and power of a colleague ahead of the safety of kids and the healing of victims.

We hope that Bishop LeVoir will change course, show courage, and expose those who committed abuse and concealed predators in his diocese – whether they are archbishops or custodians. We aren’t confident that he will, unless forced to do so by a judge or by public pressure.

Roughly 30 US bishops have posted predator’s name on their websites. LeVoir should do this pronto. It’s the quickest and cheapest and easiest way he can safeguard the vulnerable.

Finally, we are glad Winona Bishop John Quinn lost his bid to have a clergy sex abuse and cover up trial moved elsewhere.

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Dominican Today

Santo Domingo.- A judge in the Dominican Republic on Monday refused to issue a warrant to arrest former Vatican envoy Józef Wesolowski, charged with sexually abusing minors.

National District instruction judge Román Berroa ruled that since the country forms part of the Vienna Convention, a diplomat cannot be prosecuted outside the State which he represents.

The judge also notified the decision to National District prosecutor Yeni Berenice Reynoso, who heads the effort to extradite the former bishop, the highest ranking official of the Catholic Church to face such indictment.

In her request, Reynoso said the Vatican’s former representative should face charges in the country of allegedly paying boys to perform sexual acts

In that regard Justice minister Francisco Domínguez has stated that the Vienna Convention precludes Wesolowski’s extradition to the Dominican Republic.

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REPUBLICA DOMINICANA
Listin Diario

[Summary: A judge has refused to issue an international arrest warrant against former Apostolic Nuncio Jozef Wesolowski, who is accused for forcing children to perform sex for pay. Judge Roman Berroa Hiciano said the warrant is unnecessary because the country is a signator of the Vienna Convention which ruled that a diplomat cannot be prosecuted outside of the state he represents. The judge also notified National District Prosecutor Yeni Berenice Reynoses of his decision.]

Ramón Cruz Benzán
Santo Domingo

La orden de captura internacional y arresto en contra del exnuncio apostólico Józef Wesolowski, quien está acusado de obligar a menores a ejercer favores sexuales por paga, fue rechazada por el juez coordinador de los Juzgados de la Instrucción del Distrito Nacional.

El magistrado Román Berroa Hiciano adoptó la decisión por considerar que no procede, porque el país es signatario de la Convención de Viena, la cual descarta que un diplomático pueda ser enjuiciado fuera del Estado que representa.

Asimismo, el juez notificó sobre la decisión a la fiscal del Distrito Nacional, Yeni Berenice Reynoso, quien con su pedimento buscaba allanar el camino para solicitar la extradición del exdecano del cuerpo diplomático acreditado en el país.

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SOUTH AFRICA
IOL

September 10 2014

By Botho Molosankwe

Johannesburg – A fugitive Israeli rabbi wanted for sexual crimes in his country has once again evaded police.

The elderly Rabbi Eliezer Berland fled from the police on Monday night, ramping pavements in a car and knocking over plants as he fled.

Hawks spokesman Paul Ramoloko confirmed on Wednesday morning that their investigators received information that Berland was in Sandringham, Joburg.

On Monday night they waited for him and saw him drive up the road. Ramoloko said Berland was travelling with a group of men and they do not know their affiliation to the rabbi.

“Our team tried to nab him. We had a mini roadblock and as soon as he saw that, he jumped out of the car he was travelling in and into a BMW that was nearby. The BMW climbed on the pavements and drove on them, hitting people’s trees and pot plants as they fled. We could not shoot at him because it is not how we wanted to operate this. We know that we will get him,” he said.

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Court document

News Release

September 10, 2014

Decision in Doe 1 case to be discussed at today’s 1:00PM press conference

(St. Paul, MN) – Today the Minnesota Court of Appeals denied a motion for a writ of mandamus by the Diocese of Winona in the Doe 1 v. Archdiocese of St. Paul & Minneapolis, Diocese of Winona and Thomas Adamson civil lawsuit.

The Diocese was seeking to compel Ramsey County District Court Judge John Van de North to change venue in the Doe 1 case. The Minnesota Court of Appeals determined the District Court did not abuse its discretion in denying the Diocese of Winona’s motion to change venue.

· Today’s Order and additional information can be found on our website at www.andersonadvocates.com.

Contact Jeff Anderson: Office/651.227.9990 Cell/612.817.8665
Contact Mike Finnegan: Office/651.227.9990 Cell/612.205.5531

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LOUISIANA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, September 10, 2014

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

A Louisiana newspaper has revealed that a Lafayette area predator priest was quietly sent to Alexandria where he worked for the church.

He is Fr. Joseph Pelletieri, who was a priest and school principal in Crowley, but also worked in Wisconsin, Alexandria, and Baton Rouge. It’s unclear whether he’s still alive or if so, where he may be now.

Secretly and repeatedly moving a credibly accused child molester like this demonstrates the callousness of Catholic officials’ when it comes to children’s safety.

We fear that Fr. Pelletieri may have abused other children in each of the dioceses he was quietly sent to. As far as we can tell there was no warning given to parents, parishioners, or the public about this dangerous predator being sent to work in these dioceses among unsuspecting congregants, colleagues and neighbors.

And we strongly suspect that Alexandria Catholic officials knew about the child sex abuse allegations against Fr. Pettetieri before he arrived there.

Regardless of when Alexandria’s Bishop Ronald Herzog knew about Fr. Pettetieri, within hours of The Lafayette Advocate’s Sunday story about these allegations, the bishop should have told parishioners, police, prosecutors and the public about them. That’s the absolute bare minimum that a caring shepherd would do.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Times

Gerry Moriarty

Wed, Sep 10, 2014

A woman who was sent to Australia from a Belfast care home when she was a child has told the North’s Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry that she suffered feelings of “abandonment and isolation” when as an adult she became engaged to be married.

The 63-year-old native of Co Tyrone who was giving evidence by video link from Australia to the inquiry in Banbridge, Co Down, today said she was transported to Australia in 1955 when she was aged four.

Prior to that she had been in care at the Nazareth House home run by the Sisters of Nazareth in Belfast. The woman, who asked to maintain her anonymity, was one of approximately 130 children who were sent to Australia as part of a child migration programme between 1922 and 1995.

Some 50 men and women have made statements to the inquiry with 11 of them providing oral evidence from Australia over the past two weeks.

While some witnesses in this module of the inquiry gave evidence of suffering sexual and physical abuse in Australia the Dungannon woman, who is the last to provide oral evidence from Australia, said she had a fortunate experience as a child in the Melbourne area.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Emes Ve-Emunah

Clarity. That is the beauty of the fine mind of Rav Gedalia Dov Schwartz, the Zaken Ha’ir – Chicago’s rabbinic elder. Not only is his mind perfectly clear, he has the character to match. He is fearless in his determination to protect our daughters and see justice done. Smear campaigns by people with agendas other than the justice at hand – do not faze him. He does what is right. He stands up and tells it like it is.

This is what he has done in a letter he wrote and signed (on behalf of the Special Chicago Beis Din) to Aaron Twersky, the attorney for the four seminaries trying to get their name back; reinstate the accreditation so necessary to attract American – tuition paying – students; and restore the approval needed to receive various types of federal funding which requires compliance to its rules regarding sexual abuse. That letter has been made available to the public. Information contained therein sheds new light on this case and will be incorporated in the words below. My thanks to Yerachmiel Lopin for disseminating it on his blog.

As most people who read this blog know by now, Rabbi Schwartz is the Av Beis Din of the RCA and the Rosh Beis Din of the CRC. He is part of the Special Beis Din here in Chicago (CBD) set up for the exclusive purpose of dealing with cases of sexual abuse. There are four prominent and highly respected Rabbonim available to serve on this Beis Din: Rav Schwartz; Agudah Moetzes and Telshe Rosh HaYeshiva, R’ Avrohom Chaim Levin, Agudah of Illinois Dayan and Talmid Muvhak of R’ Moshe Feinsten, Rav Shmuel Fuerst, and Rabbi Zev Cohen, Rav of Congregation Adas Yeshurun and Rosh Kollel of the Choshen Mishpat Kollel that grants its graduates the special Semicha given to Dayanim called Yadin Yadin.

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UNITED STATES
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor

From the eruption of the sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church almost a decade and a half ago, one classic mode of denial in the Vatican and around the Catholic world has been to dismiss the crisis as an “American problem.”

Famously, when a senior Vatican official first faced the press in 2002 with regard to abuse cases, most questions came in English. Colombian Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos testily called that an “x-ray” of the problem – meaning, it was basically an American issue.

Both out loud and in private, some churchmen in Rome and other parts of the world often have said that while abuse of minors by priests is reprehensible, the idea of a “crisis,” and the perceived need for aggressive measures to combat it, has been driven by the sensationalistic media culture and litigious judicial system of the United States and nations most in its sphere of influence.

In a recent Crux interview, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York confirmed that this prejudice is still alive.

“We find it very demoralizing to hear bishops in other parts of the world, even some leaders in Rome, who still feel this is an Anglo-Saxon problem,” Dolan said, adding that some of his fellow bishops see the abuse issue as restricted to “the United States, England, Ireland, and Australia.”

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Sept. 10

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

A Chicago priest who was promoted today by Pope Francis has some links to the case of a notorious, serial convicted predator priest who has ties to Mother Teresa.

Fr. Robert Geisinger will move to Rome to deal with child sex abuse and cover up cases. We’re anxious to hear from him about his dealings with Fr. Donald McGuire, a once high profile but now-imprisoned Jesuit in Fr. Geisinger’s own province who – despite multiple reports of abuse – was allowed to keep ministering until law enforcement officials finally arrested him.

In 2002, Fr. Geisinger was sent a detailed, three page, single spaced letter from a colleague (Fr. Rick McGurn) about Fr. McGuire:

[BishopAccountability.org]

Notice the phrase: “long list” of Fr. McGuire’s “inappropriate behaviors.”

Not until 2005 were criminal charges brought against Fr. McGuire. We see no evidence that Fr. Geisinger ever helped police or prosecutors investigate Fr. McGuire, or any child molesting cleric. We challenge him to produce such evidence if he has any.

The letter show s that Fr. McGuire is repeatedly warned about his contact with children. But Fr. McGuire does exactly what he wants. More and more abuse reports and complaints against Fr. McGuire surface over time, yet neither Fr. Geisinger nor his colleagues take any effective action whatsoever. (At this time, Fr. Geisinger was in charge of “all matters of canon law” for the Jesuits. In other words, he was a high ranking cleric with the power to make a difference.)

The letter shows that Jesuit officials – including Fr. Geisinger – go on and on worrying about following canonical rules and whether or not Fr. McGuire will cause problems for them. There’s no mention or concern evidently about the kids that he has assaulted or is assaulting kids. It is clear from the letter that Fr. Geisinger knew – or at a least strongly suspected – that Fr. McGuire was a criminal. Yet Fr. Geisinger went along with the plan to keep Fr. McGuire under wraps and away from law enforcement.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JOANNE McCARTHY Sept. 10, 2014

A CATHOLIC priest who admitted having regular secret sex with a woman, despite his vow of celibacy, has been stripped of his right to minister as a priest.

Father Tom Knowles had his faculties removed after the Church acknowledged Central Coast woman Jennifer Herrick had ‘‘endured a great deal of emotional and psychological pain and suffering’’ because of the secret relationship.

‘‘This is permanent and he cannot minister publicly as a priest again, either in Melbourne or anywhere else in the Catholic Church,’’ Father Graeme Duro, the head of Father Knowles’s order, the Congregation of the Blessed Sacrament Fathers, said.

The priest’s right to minister in public was withdrawn last year but only confirmed to the Newcastle Herald by the Church this week.

The action was taken by Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart after Ms Herrick complained about the devastating impact of the secret relationship on her life.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

By Dr. Jeff Mirus
Sep 10, 2014

The decision of Pope Francis to appoint an American Jesuit to spearhead the Church’s prosecution of clerical sex abuse cases is very likely also a shot across the bows of the Society of Jesus itself. It is an excellent way to buttress forces of renewal within the Jesuits by utilizing one of their number in what we may describe, with extreme understatement, as an internally sensitive role.

The Society of Jesus is, unfortunately, known for defending homosexuality, including the admission of gay men to the priesthood, despite the Church’s 2005 ban on this practice (see the instruction from the Congregation for Catholic Education, On Priesthood and Those with Homosexual Tendencies). The anecdotal evidence is overwhelming for a lavender mafia in Jesuit seminaries, and a search of our news archives will bring up numerous reports of Jesuit universities working very hard to make their campuses gay-friendly.

The Jesuit magazine America has led the fight against barring seminarians with marked homosexual tendencies from ordination. In 2002, America attempted to forestall any such restrictions by, among other things, making the absurd claim that the sexual abuse crisis was unrelated to homosexuality. Five years after the ban, America published a protracted argument by a Jesuit priest that for a Church which relies heavily on gay priests, it shows “cognitive dissonance” to attempt to keep more such men from being ordained.

This problem is so obvious that every Catholic observer knows that both active homosexuality and the not-so-subtle defense of active homosexuality are significant characteristics of the Society of Jesus in our time.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2014

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

The Pope has just promoted a priest From Boston with a disappointing track record, ties to Cardinal Bernard Law and a narrow and legalistic view of the abuse and cover up scandal. For a pontiff who shows boldness in other areas, when it comes to abuse, he moves very slowly and timidly.

Here, in 900+ words, are a half dozen specific reasons we oppose the appointment of Fr. Robert Oliver.

In March of 2013 and again in March of this year, we called on the pope to demote Fr. Oliver because he has led Boston church officials in quietly “backsliding” on abuse measures over most of the past decade.

In May, we criticized Fr. Oliver for claiming that “procedures” must be “developed” to deal with bishops who enable or hide clergy sex crimes. That’s patently ridiculous.

Catholic officials quickly bring the hammer down on Catholic writers who write something they consider wrong or Catholic teachers who say something they consider wrong. Like most monarchs, Catholic officials don’t quibble over ‘procedures,’ they just exercise their nearly limitless power.

Often, when Vatican wrongdoing is exposed – like the UN’s Committee Against Torture did on the day Oliver’s claim was publicized – church officials immediately ratchet up their promises to give the impression that they’re taking action. Fr. Oliver’s remarks were another example of this old public relations ploy.

To pretend that now somehow there’s some suddenly uncovered and unspecified “procedure” deficit that prevents popes and bishops from quickly demoting or disciplining the proven wrongdoers (like Cardinal Bernard Law or Bishop Robert Finn or Monsignor William Lynn) or credibly accused wrongdoers (like Archbishop Josef Wesolowski who’s accused of molesting several kids in Poland and the Caribbean or Fr. Carlos Urrutigoity, who is accused of repeated sexual misconduct but was second-in-command of a diocese in Paraguay) is absurd at best or deceitful at worst.

This crisis won’t end as long as Catholic officials keep promoting other Catholic officials who’ve shown little or no real courage in addressing it. Bolder measures are needed.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Fox 6

MILWAUKEE (AP) — No deal has been reached after two days of mediation in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee’s bankruptcy case.

Attorneys for the archdiocese, victims of clergy sexual abuse and others involved in the case met Monday and Tuesday in Minneapolis to try to come up with a settlement.

Archdiocese spokesman Jerry Topczewski said Wednesday no deal was reached but two more days of mediation are scheduled for Sept. 22 and 23.

Topczewski says mediation is confidential and he can’t discuss details but archdiocese officials remain optimistic.

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