ABUSE TRACKER

CANADA
The Globe and Mail

TIMOTHY APPLEBY
SAINT-MATHIEU-D’HARRICANA, Que. — The Globe and Mail
Published Monday, May. 27 2013

He likens his powerful fingers to “the scalpels of Jesus,” and some believe him.

Others, however, view self-proclaimed faith healer Claude Provencher as a charlatan and sex predator.

And as he tugs on yet another cigarette, Mr. Provencher, 56, concedes he’s nervous about what will transpire Monday morning when he is to be sentenced, once again, for sexually assaulting a patient, after being convicted in January.

But that’s the price of doing the Lord’s work, he says. And after battling the legal system every inch of the way, he knows that after his latest Superior Court appearance in Haileybury in northeastern Ontario, close to the Quebec border, he’ll be heading back to jail for the second time, entirely unrepentant.

“I am gifted. God showed me how the body works, and I’m able to heal almost anything,” he insists, adding that he’s done a few exorcisms too. “I can cure all of it – heart, lungs, thyroid, kidneys, infections, anything, although sometimes not all at once.”

He’ll be going to jail for the sexual assault of Trina Breault, 43, a woman who was his patient, and whom he assaulted over the course of several visits under the pretense of being her healer.

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
GlobalPost

AFP

The Dominican Republic on Monday announced it cannot prosecute a former papal envoy suspected of child sex crimes because treaty obligations give the Vatican full jurisdiction.

“Under the Vienna Convention, the prosecution of diplomats lies within the jurisdiction of the country that issued their accreditation,” the Caribbean island nation’s attorney-general Francisco Dominguez Brito told reporters in Warsaw.

It would therefore be up to the Vatican to prosecute former Polish archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, who is in custody after being defrocked in June for abusing chidren.

The Vatican is preparing for a landmark trial against the 66-year-old, who was stripped of his job in June after a Church tribunal found he had abused minors during his 2008-13 stint as the Holy See’s ambassador to the Dominican Republic.

Wesolowski, who is being held in custody at the Vatican, is charged with sexually abusing minors and possessing child pornography in what has become one of the Church’s most damaging paedophilia cases.

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TEXAS
WFAA

Carla Wade, WFAA November 30, 2014

Jacob Thibodeaux, now 25, said he wrestled with his conscience for a decade.

But when he learned Cowboy Way Church pastor Dan Haby had been arrested on molestation charges this summer, his conscience won out.

“Having children now really played a big part in why I came forward,” Thibodeaux said. “Because I wouldn’t want anyone to put my kids in that kind of situation.”

Thibodeaux sat down for an interview with News 8’s media partner the Star-Telegram. He explained how he met Haby as a junior in high school and began attending services at the Alvarado church. It was at Haby’s Fort Worth home that he said the pastor, who he saw as a father figure, molested him.

“He hugged me for a long amount of time and he kissed me on the mouth,” said Thibodeaux. “And then he acted like it never happened.”

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

By Danny Rose
December 1, 2014

The Salvos are hoping a donations dry spell is over and its annual Christmas appeal will raise $15 million to fund vital welfare services.

The tough federal budget and Salvation Army-related revelations before the child abuse Royal Commission triggered a shortfall in the Salvos’ Red Shield Appeal Doorknock earlier this year.

Dr Bruce Redman said the Salvos, like the broader community, was shocked by the revelations of abuse suffered by children at homes it ran in Queensland and NSW in the 1960s and 1970s.

He said it showed the Salvos were not immune from the “scourge of child abuse”.

“The revelations of the royal commission have been shocking to all of us,” Mr Redman, who is Salvation Army communications director, told AAP.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

By Pam Caulfield
Reporter, BBC Hereford and Worcester

Pupils who were beaten and raped at a school run by a religious order have for the first time revealed a 30-year campaign of sadistic and degrading abuse.

The former schoolboys, who were as young as 11 when they were convicted of petty misdemeanours and sent to St Gilbert’s in Worcestershire, are demanding answers from the De La Salle order, which ran the school under the governance of the Home Office.

They want to know why a teacher convicted of sex offences against boys continued to be employed? Why were parents who complained about severe beatings ignored? And why did police ignore the boys who asked for help?

Joe Riley, now 68, was the first to come forward. He currently lives in Northern Ireland where the order, also known as the Christian Brothers, is being investigated for alleged offences there.

Mr Riley, who kept his abuse a secret for 55 years, said that inquiry was the trigger for bringing his own case to public attention.

He was 12 in 1959 when he was sent to St Gilbert’s in Hartlebury after being convicted of housebreaking and vandalism.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

ANDREA KELLETT DECEMBER 01, 2014

MANNY Waks is preparing to take his fight for a Jewish community free of child sexual abuse global.

The Caulfield man has stepped down as CEO of the Australian advocacy group he founded two years ago, Tzedek, and revealed he is working on a “major global initiative to address the issue of child sexual abuse within the global Jewish community’’.

He will also relocate his family overseas this summer.

“While we have made significant progress, we still have a long way to go. Therefore I will proudly remain a victim advocate and dedicate myself to this cause for as long as I possibly can,’’ he said.

“Just as I felt compelled to speak out publicly in 2011, I feel compelled to continue this critical work.’’

Mr Waks’ campaign has taken a heavy toll on his family and he conceded that had influenced his decision to leave.

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VATICAN CITY
Scotsman

by ALLAN HALL IN BERLIN
Updated on the 01 December 2014

JEWISH groups worldwide hope to learn soon the extent of papal collaboration with Hitler during the Holocaust, when the Vatican archives – sealed since the time of Pope Pius XII – are opened.

Pius has been branded “Hitler’s Pope”, who did not do enough to try to save the doomed Jews of Europe.

After the war “rat lines” assisting top Nazi war criminals to escape to South America were set up in Rome by Bishop Hudal, a German who critics say acted with papal approval.

Now current Pope Francis has reiterated his position on opening secret Vatican archives to researchers.

In an extensive interview with the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronot, Francis said there was “an agreement between the Vatican and Italy from 1929 that prevents us from opening the archives to researchers at this point in time. But because of the time that has passed since World War Two, I see no problem with opening the archives the moment we sort out the legal and bureaucratic matters”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Peterborough Telegraph

by Stephen Briggs
stephen.briggs@peterboroughtoday.co.uk
Published on the 01 December 2014

Monday 11.30am: A doctor with links to a large Peterborough church has been jailed for 22 years for sexually abusing young boys in his care.

Myles Bradbury, (41), was part of a 15-strong group that went to Swaziland to help orphaned children in 2012 with the Kingsgate Church, based in Staplee Way, Parnwell, Peterborough.

Today Bradbury was jailed at Cambridge Crown Court after he pleaded guilty to 25 charges against a total of 18 victims he treated at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge. The victims ranged in age from eight to 17 and suffered from illnesses including cancer and blood disorders.

The African trip came at the same time that Bradbury was abusing the vulnerable boys at Addenbrooke’s Hospital.

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NEW ZEALAND
ABC News

A New Zealand judge has today heard an extradition appeal by a former Hunter priest, wanted on more than 250 charges of child sexual abuse.

Former Catholic brother Bernard Kevin McGrath, 66, is facing 252 charges of child sexual abuse, alleged to have occurred in the Lake Macquarie region in the 1970s and 80s and involving 35 victims.

Now living in New Zealand, he has been fighting extradition to Australia for years and was ordered by New Zealand’s Justice Minister to surrender to Australia in August.

That prompted an appeal by McGrath to the High Court in Christchurch.

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GUAM
KUAM

by Jolene Toves

Guam – A California man who is accusing the head of the island’s catholic church of sexual molestation is welcoming a defamation lawsuit. John Toves not only stands by his accusations but will be in Guam in the next 24 hours to confront the archbishop in person.

It was on Friday, Archbishop Anthony Apuron issued an exclusive statement to KUAM News, regarding recent allegations accusing him of sexual misconduct. “It is a horrible calumny, and I am obliged to defend not my person, but the Church. On the advice of legal counsel, I will not answer any questions. However, defending the church compels me to file a suit for defamation; any damages that I receive I will not keep for myself, but will be given to the charitable causes of our Church,” he said.

John Toves said in response, “I welcome that. I invite him to and I look very much forward to it. So I hope he will manage to follow through. And do opposite of everything all of his assistants have been unable to do is basic follow through on every level. So dear archbishop, please follow through.”

The accusations were first made on Isla63-AM radio a couple of weeks ago. Toves, a former Guam resident called into The Buzz with Jess Lujan, he accused the archbishop of sexually molesting his relative in the 1980’s. In a complaint Toves filed with the archdiocese he alleged the sexual misconduct occurred when he and his relative were attending minor seminary at Tai. He alleges the archbishop was a priest at the time. Toves will be in Guam as early as Tuesday evening. He once again spoke with Lujan on Isla63-AM Monday morning.

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Dominican Today

Warsaw, Poland.- Justice minister Francisco Dominguez flew to Poland Saturday to meet with judicial officials in that country, in the case against Catholic priest Wojciech Waldemar Gil (Padre Alberto), for alleged sexual abuse of at least five Dominican boys, while head of the parish at the highland town of Juncalito Santiago province (central).

Dominguez met with the attorneys assigned to represent the minors, in a meeting in which Santiago district prosecutor Luisa Liranzo also took part.

The official stressed the case’s impact throughout Dominican society and especially Juncalito’s inhabitants. “These children have suffered in a painful manner, and the events’ psychological impact on them has been very strong, which has resulted in the Justice Ministry’s direct support to them, to the families and the people of Juncalito. It’s an occurrence that has marked us all very painfully.”

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