ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Jessica Kidd
Fri 17 Oct 2014

A senior police officer who sat on an internal Catholic Church panel set up to manage allegations of sexual abuse by members of the clergy says it was not her role to report that information back to New South Wales Police, an inquiry has heard.

The Police Integrity Commission (PIC) is investigating whether then-Senior Sergeant Elizabeth Cullen’s appointment to the Church’s Professional Standards Resource Group (PSRG) amounted to police misconduct. She is now an Inspector.

It is also examining whether an information-sharing arrangement between the Church and the police breached mandatory reporting laws set out in the NSW Crimes Act.

The commission heard Inspector Cullen was privy to individual cases of alleged sexual abuse by members of the clergy when she sat on the PSRG from 1999 until 2005, while working in the Child Protection Enforcement Agency.

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UNITED STATES
Aljazeera America

October 17, 2014

by Puck Lo

Frank Lindsay, 62, is a father, small-business owner and avid surfer. He’s also one of 105,000 people in California — and 760,000 nationally — listed as a sex offender. In accordance with federal law, his name, photograph and home address appear in a public, online offender registry. In 1979, Lindsay, then 27, was convicted of lewd and lascivious acts with a minor under the age of 14.

“I thought I could do whatever I wanted,” Lindsay says. “Add on some alcohol, and I was a real asshole.”

Today, Lindsay considers himself a reformed man. He says he hasn’t had a drink in 30 years, is a Taoist and advocate for restorative justice — encouraging violent people to make amends for their actions. But, he says, “It seems that I can never be forgiven.”

Few groups are as widely despised as sex offenders. Activities prosecuted as sex offenses vary by state, but can include public urination, consensual sex between teenagers, streaking, prostitution, downloading child pornography and rape. In some states, law-enforcement officials distribute flyers to notify neighbors of registrants’ convictions. Some registrants are prohibited from using the Internet. In 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that indefinite detention at psychiatric hospitals — or “civil commitment” — of sex offenders is constitutional.

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ALABAMA
KFVS

[with video]

MONTGOMERY, AL (WSFA) – Embattled church pastor Juan McFarland has complied with a judge’s order to turn over keys, bank accounts and a Mercedes Benz to Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church officials prior to a 5 p.m. deadline, according to the church’s board of trustees chairman

Montgomery Circuit Court Judge Charles Price ruled against McFarland earlier in the day, telling him in a preliminary injunction hearing to return the property to the church’s leadership. In addition to returning the property, the judge barred McFarland from the church’s property.

The ousted pastor arrived in the Mercedes around 4 p.m., surrendered it to the church, and drove away in a different Mercedes with an unidentified woman.

The ruling against the pastor came several hours after Judge Price called a morning recess for the courtroom, packed with more than two-thirds of the church’s members. Juan McFarland sat on the very back row and had to be called to the front by the judge to join his co-defendant.

Both McFarland and his co-defendant, Marc Peacock, Sr. were being sued by church members who say they voted McFarland out of the church by an 80-1 margin after he admitted from the pulpit to having sexual relations inside the church building – with congregants – while knowingly having AIDS. McFarland has also admitted to drug abuse and misuse of church finances. Still, the pastor refused to step down.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

October 17, 2014

Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter

Australian Pentecostal churches might have to enforce a strict national child protection policy as a condition of registration with their umbrella body Australian Christian Churches, a royal commission has heard.

The national president of Australian Christian Churches, Wayne Alcorn, told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse that the organisation would review its structure after listening to shocking cases of abuse which occurred at three affiliated churches.

A mandatory and enforceable child protection policy for the ACC’s 1000 churches will be discussed at the national executive conference in April next year.

“We will seriously examine whether or not we can demand, for ongoing registration, the adoption and adherence to a policy for child protection,” he said.

Churches registered with the ACC are independently run by their senior pastors and not currently required to adopt any policies from their umbrella body.

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AUSTRALIA
Courier-Mail

BY ANNETTE BLACKWELL AAP OCTOBER 17, 2014

A YOUNG man abused as a boy by a Pentecostal pastor says attempts by leaders of the movement to justify themselves at a royal commission have made him even angrier.

HIS statement was read on the fifth day of a hearing into how a Queensland church and the Australian Christian Churches (ACC) handled allegations youth pastor Jonathan Baldwin sexually abused the boy for two years from 2004 to 2006.

“The past 10 years of my life have been a living hell,” he said.

The young man, given the pseudonym ALA, said the local church and the ACC “utterly failed to acknowledge, take responsibility, support and help my family and I anywhere near an acceptable level”.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

The involvement of Hillsong pastor Brian Houston in handling abuse allegations against his father is one reason the Pentecostal movement will review its conflict of interest rules, an inquiry has heard.

Wayne Alcorn, the national president of the Australian Christian Churches (ACC) group that represents 1000 affiliated churches, said today the conflict of interest rules only covered financial matters not familial.

He was giving evidence at the end of a two-week hearing in which the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse looked at three cases of child abuse in Pentecostal institutions.

In two of these cases, there was a familial conflict of interest.

In the first case, well-known Hillsong church senior pastor Brian Houston, who was then president of the ACC, handled complaints against his father Frank Houston.

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UNITED STATES
POPE FRANCIS the CON-Christ.

Paris Arrow

The problem of the Roman Catholic Church today is not gays, divorcees, schism, blasphemy or heresy but – extinction and total annihilation – and no Council of the Vatican or of Constance and Synod of Bishops can turn back the clock of time that’s leading to St. Peter’s Basilica turning into another Parthenon where giant statues as those of Zeus and festivals and incenses are a thing of the wistful past. This extinction and annihilation is already happening with the mass exodus of millions countless Catholics who no longer go to church or are formally asking for their “de-baptism” especially in the continents of Europe as best exemplified in The Netherlands, in Germany, and in North America in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, where hundreds of Catholic churches are shut down and sold because of empty pews and disappearance of Roman Catholic believers, read more and see PHOTOS of extinct churches here – Jesus Christ is liberated from hundreds of tabernacles (prison) in Catholic churches shut down, sold-off, converted into apartments, stores, warehouses http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2014/09/jesus-christ-is-liberated-from-hundreds.html

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Nicole Chettle
Fri 17 Oct 2014

A man who was sexually abused by a Sunshine Coast youth pastor as a child says Australian Christian Churches was more concerned with protecting its reputation than protecting him, an inquiry heard.

The Royal Commission into the Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has completed hearings into the way Pentecostal churches managed complaints of child sexual abuse in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.

On the final day of evidence at the Sydney hearing, Peter O’Brien, the lawyer representing a man who was abused by the youth pastor read a statement from his client, known as ALA, that said the past 10 years had been a “living hell”.

“They failed to detect the abuse. They failed to prevent the abuse. They failed to support us through the criminal trial process,” ALA said.

“It appears to me they were more concerned about the reputation and financial position of the ACC (Australian Christian Churches) above all else.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

The Pentecostal movement needs a hotline for senior pastors to report child sex abuse allegations to the executive, a retired church leader says.

Chris Peterson was senior pastor of a small church in Queensland when Jonathan Baldwin, a former youth pastor, was jailed for eight years for indecent treatment of a child under 16 and one count of sodomy.

At a Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse hearing on Thursday, Pastor Peterson said he accepted some responsibility for not passing the information up the line to the state and national executive of the Australian Christian Churches (ACC).

ACC is the umbrella body to which more than 1000 Pentecostal churches are affiliated.

It credentials pastors but the local churches are autonomous and expected to deal with abuse cases themselves. They can arrange insurance cover through the business arm of the ACC.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: MARK PETERSON Updated: October 16, 2014

The media tirelessly cover the sex abuse scandal, focusing on a just a sliver of the priesthood.

The Star Tribune regularly reminds us of the scandal in the Catholic Church, highlighting the horrible actions of the priests who molested young boys and the bishops who covered up for those priests.

These priests and bishops committed horrendous sins and will be held to account not only in the media but by Almighty God. As a practicing Catholic, I pray often for healing for all the victims of this terrible abuse.

Yet I believe that today’s media are painting a picture of the Catholic Church based on the actions of a minority of priests. The John Jay Report of 2011 estimated that about 4 percent of priests were accused of abuse between 1950 and 2002.

On a regular basis, newspapers print front-page stories detailing the actions of the four among every 100 priests who went astray, while paying little or no heed to the 96 good and humble priests who have remained faithful and true to God and to their congregations.

The story has become so distorted that it is like opening a Bible to the New Testament accounts and finding references only to Judas Iscariot, the one apostle of the 12 who went astray, while discovering that the references to the 11 who remained faithful have been expunged, or perhaps mentioned only in footnotes. Judas Iscariot’s actions should never be used to tarnish Jesus and his message. In the same way, the actions of four of every 100 priests cannot falsify the teachings of the Catholic Church.

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

By Stefan Armbruster
17 OCT 2014

A 72-year-old priest deported from Papua New Guinea to Australia on Wednesday is expected to be charged with 62 historical sexual assault offences against seven victims.

A Cairns court this morning approved Roger Melville Mount’s extradition from Cairns to Victoria.

Detectives from Victoria historical child sexual abuse SANO Task Force have arrested the man.

The alleged incidents happened in the Melbourne suburb of Greensborough between 1968 and 1974, Victoria Police said in a press release.

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MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times

Times Editorial Board October 16, 2014

The recent landmark settlement between the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona and sexual abuse victims is remarkable for its accomplishment and promise.

The accomplishment is a list of protocols agreed to by Roman Catholic church leaders and the lawyers for abuse victims.

According to an Associated Press news report, the protocols include:

• Church leaders won’t recommend a priest for active ministry or for a position working with minors if the priest has been credibly accused of sexual abuse.

• Church leaders won’t conduct an internal investigation or “interfere in any way” with law enforcement investigations.

• Each clergy member will sign a declaration stating he has not abused a minor.

• The diocese must reveal the names of all abusers and all documents related to their cases.

• More details about the care the archdiocese is required to provide victims.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
Daily Star Journal

Kansas City — An 11-day trial in a former altar boy’s lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph ended abruptly with a nearly $10 million settlement that covers his case and 29 others alleging sexual abuse by priests.

Jon David Couzens filed his lawsuit in 2011 alleging he was repeatedly molested by Monsignor Thomas O’Brien three decades ago and the diocese took no action to protect him, The Kansas City Star reported. He had been seeking $10 million in compensatory damages and an undisclosed amount of punitive damages, far more than what he will receive under the $9.95 million deal announced Tuesday.

“Even though mine is just one of 30 lawsuits, this gives the other victims a chance to be free and be able to speak about it,” Couzens said. “Not just these 30 victims, but those who haven’t had a voice.”

The 30 lawsuits were filed from September 2010 through February 2014 involving 13 current and former priests, several of whom have died. The alleged sexual abuse happened between 1963 and 1987.

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UNITED STATES
The Jewish Daily Forward

By Elyse Goldstein

It’s time for Simchat Torah, but I don’t feel much like dancing. A promise I made long ago has been broken.

In the summer of 1986, I wrote what many consider the first piece about non-Orthodox women using the mikvah. Published in Lilith Magazine, in “Take Back the Waters” I proposed a feminist re-appropriation of mikvah and all its symbolism. I suggested that the mikvah no longer be considered the domain only of married women; its rationale not only to make us “kosher” for resumed sex with our husbands but to mark important moments in our female lives: first menstruation, menopause, lactation. After that article I started taking women to the mikvah for all sorts of experiences: after chemotherapy, after marital infidelity, after rape. I went before my ordination and again after shloshim for my sister. I wrote other articles and suggested many times that mikvah be considered “spiritual therapy.” I found myself on panels with psychologists speaking about how helpful mikvah could be for these non-traditional uses.

In effect, I promised women that the patriarchy which controlled our bodies and the mikvah itself could be overturned with our good feminist intentions.

This week proved me wrong.

Rabbi Barry Freundel, a once-highly respected Orthodox rabbi, is accused of peeping at women through hidden cameras in the mikvah. Much has been said and written already about all this.

Let me add my voice in this direction: we must continue to see this travesty not as an isolated incident but as a result of a system which continues to both sexualize and desexualize women concurrently, and all within the name of Jewish law.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Jewish Times

October 16, 2014
BY DMITRIY SHAPIRO

Shuffling into Superior Court Magistrate Judge William Nooter’s courtroom late Wednesday in ankle chains and handcuffs, a black kippah atop his head and a grave, pensive expression on his face, Rabbi Barry Freundel entered a plea of not guilty to six charges of voyeurism.

The rabbi’s wife, Sharon, and a young woman who appeared to be the rabbi’s daughter, sat emotionless in the gallery as they had the entire day waiting for the preliminary arraignment.

In contrast to their apparent stoicism, Emma Shulevitz, 27, of Rockville, one of the alleged victims in the case was outspoken in her reaction to being allegedly recorded undressing before a practice run of her mikvah ceremony required as part of her conversion to Judaism.

“I feel violated,” she said. “The ceremony is supposed to be between a woman and God and not between a woman and her rabbi.”

Freundel, who had served as head rabbi at the Modern Orthodox Kesher Israel synagogue in Georgetown and is currently suspended without pay, is accused of making secret video recordings of women in the bathroom and shower area of the National Capital Mikvah, which is separated from the main synagogue by a courtyard. Although a separate legal entity for tax and legal purposes, the mikvah is affiliated with the synagogue.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
CBS – Crimesider

[with vidoe]

WASHINGTON – Police say a rabbi set up a recording device disguised as a digital clock radio to secretly videotape at least six women changing clothes at a ritual cleansing bath affiliated with his District of Columbia synagogue.

The rabbi, 62-year-old Barry Freundel, is charged with voyeurism. He appeared in court Wednesday and was released from custody but ordered to stay away from his alleged victims and his synagogue.

Charging documents filed in D.C. Superior Court allege Freundel set up the recording device in the changing and showering area of the National Capital Mikvah, which is affiliated with the Kesher Israel Congregation.

Police say he recorded women on June 2 and Sept. 13, and that he appears on tape setting up the device.

The congregation’s website says Freundel, who has been the rabbi there for over 25 years, has been suspended without pay. Freundel also held a teaching position at Towson University. The school has since suspended him, reports CBS Baltimore.

Emma Sulevitz, a 27-year-old Maryland woman, told 48 Hours’ Crimesider she believes she may be a victim of the rabbi. She says she went for a “practice dunk” at his ritual cleansing bath, or mikvah, in 2012 when she was in the midst of converting to Judaism.

“I remember the clock. He said, ‘Don’t put anything there. No, you can’t do that,'” Sulevitz said. “I always thought that was suspicious.”

Sulevitz said she went through with the submersion that day and that afterwards, Freundel was sure to advise her that she still hadn’t officially been converted and told her she could come back to practice “as many times as you want.”

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Fox 5

[with video]

By Paul Wagner, FOX 5 Reporter

WASHINGTON –
There is new information in the case of the rabbi accused of voyeurism. Newly unsealed search warrants show police found another device inside Barry Freundel’s Georgetown home capable of “surreptitious” recording along with evidence the rabbi had been secretly recording women in “several” different locations.

The search warrant affidavits say investigators found evidence in the rabbi’s home indicating the 62-year-old was saving files of women undressing in the shower of the synagogue’s mikvah and they were listed by name.

The warrants also say investigators discovered evidence the rabbi has been using more than one recording device with files going back to at least February of this year.

The two warrants, one for the rabbi’s home and the other for the synagogue, show D.C. police took quite a bit of potential evidence out of Freundel’s O Street home when they searched it Tuesday.

A list of the items seized includes six external hard drives, seven laptops, five desktop computers, three cameras, 20 memory cards and 11 flash drives.

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CANADA
CTV Ottawa

[with video]

Published Thursday, October 16, 2014

There are more allegations of fraud within Ottawa’s Catholic Church.

CTV News has learned the allegations target three men– including an Ottawa lawyer– who sat on the St. Patrick’s Fallowfield Cemetery Committee.

St. Patrick’s Fallowfield Catholic Church is one the most popular parish’s in west-Ottawa.
The troubling allegations date back more than a decade, reported for the first time now only after a CTV investigaton.

According to court documents, The Roman Catholic Episcopal Corporation of the City of Ottawa has launched a lawsuit seeking damages of 736-thousand dollars. The civil lawsuit names three men, Ottawa lawyer Ronald Houlahan, Michael Rooney and Glenn Clarke, all former members of the church’s cemetery committee.

It’s alleged they used “deceitful transactions” to divert $413,970 from the St. Patrick’s Fallowfield Cemetery. The allegations of fraudulent activity date back to 2003 and continued until 2011. A forensic investigation alleges that over those eight years money from the sale of plots had gone missing, honorariums were handed out, and unsupported payments were made through the signing of cheques by all three men. The alleged irregularities only discovered after a review of the cemetery’s finances in 2010.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 10/16/2014

Rumors spread among priests in the Twin Cities archdiocese after the Rev. Thomas Stitts died in 1985: He had written a letter to be sent to another priest upon his passing. It “spoke of his personal moral life and implicated several priests in his activities,” according to an internal church memo.

At least 15 men have accused Stitts of sexually abusing them when they were boys at parishes in Hastings, St. Paul, Edina and Long Lake, Minn.

Stitts’ letter came up in a Ramsey County courtroom Thursday as attorneys debated whether the former Rev. Dick Rice — the priest who was to have received it — should be ordered to disclose more information.

“This man deserves to ask the question: Did Stitts ever admit to abusing this boy?” attorney Patrick Noaker said, gesturing toward his client, who has sued the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis as John Doe 104.

Noaker conducted a deposition of Rice on June 18. Rice said he did not know the letter existed until “very recently.”

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
KSHB

[with video]

Syed Shabbir

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Just outside the Catholic Diocese Center in downtown Kansas City, Mo., a half circle of men formed Thursday afternoon to share their stories of how they were sexually abused as children by priests.

Their demonstration comes just two days after the Diocese agreed to pay $9.95 million to settle 32 cases of abuse involving 13 local priests.

Among the cases was Phillip Ricottas’.

“Little by little the grooming started, and you find yourself at that age in places you don’t want to be,” Pisciotta said. “And there’s no way out.”

Pisciotta said his abuse happened in 1962 and 1963 at St. Bernadette’s Parish in Raytown, Mo. He was 12 at the time and didn’t speak of it until 40 years later.

“You find creative ways to block it,” Pisciotta said. “But it’s always there.”

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UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

Pope Francis keeps preaching about the Gospel of the Poor yet he is nowhere near poor West Africa in the fight against Ebola. If Pope Francis really means it about helping the poor other than lip-service to them, he should partake in the fight against Ebola after all the Vatican Roman Catholic Church is the wealthiest institution on the planet and he should donate some billions of dollars – looted from hundreds of countries through the years via the Vatican Concordats, read more here http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2013/10/abolish-vatican-concordat-in-dominican.html. Pope Francis should dip a small bucket of maybe 2 or 3 billion dollars – especially from the hundreds of billions of dollars and assets of the Vatican in the USA. Francis must walk the talk from his Vatican Circus and show not only his teeth but the Vatican Billions that can make a difference in the lives of the poor.

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VATICAN CITY
Bolletino

Relatio – Circulus Anglicus “A”

Moderator: Em.mo Card. Raymond Leo BURKE
Relator: S.E. Mons. John Atcherley DEW

I present this report of behalf of the English speaking group Anglicus “A”. The group has suggested a number of amendments to the RELATIO POST DISCEPTATIONEM, some are major amendments and others quite small, nevertheless they have significant meaning attached to them. In proposing amendments we have shifted the focus from particular situations described in the Relatio to the people involved in the situations, concentrating on the goodness to be found in them.

We believed that there needed to be a new introduction to the Relatio. Our proposed Introduction is placed within the context of the great gift of the Sacrament of Matrimony and the grace of God freely given through the sacraments. It also provides a theological anthropological foundation, which we believe is needed in order to address serious issues spoken on in the Synod. We have addressed these issues within the context of Scripture and the remarkably rich Magisterium of the Church. We want the final Synod document to speak of human life, marriage and family life, as we know it to be revealed to us by God through reason and faith, both aided by the grace of God. The Relatio Synodi must proclaim the truth of the Gospel, the truth of human life and sexuality as revealed by Christ. The Word of Christ illuminates our knowledge of human nature and the intrinsic sexuality of man and woman through the natural law.

We agreed that this is to be a pastoral document, as has been expressed as the wish of the Synod, a document which speaks to people about the often critical issues which confront families today. Those issues cannot be separated from Church teaching found in the treasury of her documentation. We are aware that the final Relatio Synodi will be discussed and debated over the next year; therefore as we proposed amendments we indicated appropriate references to the Sacred Scriptures and Magisterial documents

We referred to the methodology used as appearing to be based on the SEE, JUDGE, ACT principles, but in this case it was LISTEN, JUDGE, ACT.

LISTEN and observe what others are saying and what the situation is regarding marriage and family life in the world today.

JUDGE according to what we have been gifted with through the Deposit of Faith.

ACT through our pastoral accompanying of all God’s people entrusted to our care.

W e have attempted to show in our amendments that the “Listening” or “seeing” must always be through the lens of the Gospel. Our Proposals have stressed God’s love and our pastoral love and care for individuals, while at the same time honestly recognizing and acknowledging sinful situations, and searching for ways to invite conversion of heart.

In our amendments we see suggest a return to the SEE, Judge, Act formula.

We know that the final Synod document gives us a wonderful opportunity to influence the prevailing culture and for the Church to present the way of Jesus Christ who is “The Way, the Truth and the Life” (John 14). Our amendments have tried to show that living as disciples of Jesus Christ, with all the challenges that brings is the life that leads to true joy and human happiness.

For example, where the Relatio appeared to be suggesting that sex outside of marriage may be permissible, or that cohabitation may be permissible, we have attempted to show why such lifestyles do not lead to human fulfillment. At the same time, we want to acknowledge that there are seeds of truth and goodness found in the persons involved, and through dedicated pastoral care these can be appreciated and developed. We believe that if we imply that certain life-styles are acceptable, then concerned and worried parents could very easily say “Why are we trying so hard to encourage our sons and daughters to live the Gospel and embrace Church teaching?”

We did not recommend the admission to the sacraments of divorced and re-married people, but we included a very positive and much –needed appreciation of union with Christ through other means.

The group recognizes and favors the concern and compassion the Relatio shows for those who face difficult pastoral situations in their lives. However our amendments suggest that we express these carefully so as not to create confusion in the minds and hearts of our people.

We had serious questions about the presentation of the principle of GRADUALITY. We wished to show in our amendments that we are not speaking of the GRADUALITY of DOCTRINE of faith and morals, but rather the gradual moral growth of the individual in his or her actions.

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ROME
Crux

By Inés San Martín
Vatican correspondent October 16, 2014

ROME — In yet another unexpected turn in the Synod of Bishops, the bishops decided today to make all the discussions of the past week public, and those internal reports offer an x-ray of a divided summit on the family.

In a Vatican briefing today, Italian layman Francesco Miano, one of the synod participants, described the main fault line as running between truth and mercy — with one camp insisting on clarity about Church teaching, and another outreach to constituencies that don’t fully live it, including gays, the divorced, and people living together outside of marriage.

The reports have no official standing, and were described today by a Vatican spokesman as one step in a long and yet unresolved process. It marks the first time a synod has released these reports from its 10 small working groups, which are organized by language.

The documents suggest general agreement on the importance of restating that there’s only one role model of family promoted by official Church doctrine, which is that marriage is between a man and a woman and open to new life.

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ROME
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor October 16, 2014

ROME – As the Synod of Bishops continues to produce drama, coming today in a surprise decision to release frank internal reports of its debates, one big-picture question captured by the event seems to be coming into clear focus.

Here it is in a nutshell: Is a tipping point drawing close, when conservatives who have been inclined to give Pope Francis the benefit of the doubt will, instead, turn on him?

Granted, labels such as “liberal” and “conservative” often conceal as much as they reveal, especially when applied to the Church. That said, they capture something at a big-picture level, and the fault line between left and right has seemed especially clear over the past two weeks.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WTRF

MONROEVILLE, Pa. (AP) – A western Pennsylvania volunteer youth pastor has resigned and been jailed after the district attorney’s office charged him with possessing hundreds of images and videos of child pornography, some featuring adults performing sex acts with infants.

Forty-five-year-old Andrew Patterson, of Monroeville, was jailed after his arraignment Thursday. He faces a preliminary hearing Oct. 28.

The Allegheny County district attorney’s office says child pornography being shared on the Internet was traced to Patterson’s computer address. Online court records don’t list an attorney for Patterson.

Sylvia Tyron, the pastor at Living Waters Family Worship Center in Irwin, says Patterson resigned his volunteer position Thursday morning.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WTAE

MONROEVILLE, Pa. —A youth pastor was arrested Thursday on child pornography charges after search warrants were executed at his family’s Monroeville home, the District Attorney’s Office said.

Andrew Patterson, 45, kept his head down and did not comment as Monroeville police took him for arraignment by District Judge Jeffrey Herbst.

An FBI special agent saw more than 1,000 images and video files depicting children in sexual acts or poses on a desktop computer that was seized from Patterson’s home on Foxboro Drive, according to the criminal complaint.

A naked female infant and a girl about 4-6 years old were among the minors seen in the videos, according to the complaint.

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NORTH CAROLINA
Fay Observer

By Nancy McCleary Staff writer

SOUTHERN PINES – The rector of Emmanuel Episcopal Church and another man are accused of engaging in sex acts in Reservoir Park earlier this month, the Southern Pines Police Department said.
Father John Grey Tampa, 63, of Southern Pines, and Howard Reynolds, 79, of Whispering Pines, are each charged with indecent exposure, which is a misdemeanor.

The alleged incident was reported Oct. 2, Police Chief Robert Temme said Wednesday.

A plainclothes officer was checking activity in Reservoir Park about 12:45 p.m. when he saw an elderly man sitting in a vehicle, Temme said.

A second vehicle pulled in and parked, Temme said, and a man, identified as Tampa, got out. Reynolds got out of his vehicle shortly after, Temme said.

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UNITED STATES
The Jewish Daily Forward

By Danya Ruttenberg

Yesterday, prominent Modern Orthodox Rabbi Barry Freundel was arrested on charges of voyeurism. The police report obtained by the media indicates that he had used cameras to record women showering as they prepared to use the mikveh.

Freundel should, and will, have his say in court. These charges are serious, though, and there are implications to the fact that this allegedly took place in the mikveh, of all places.

The mikveh is sacred space. All of it, including the rooms in which women prepare to immerse. The act of preparation is, in fact, part of the ritual. And the profound, complex, and deeply personal feelings that can be part of mikveh immersion can manifest in the preparation room as well as in the water itself.

Picture a woman returning to the mikveh for the first time after a miscarriage. She’s swimming in grief, still, maybe. Judaism doesn’t traditionally have a formal ritual to mark the loss of a pregnancy — except the mikveh. Her first immersion after first a time of hope, and then one of what’s all too often an unnamed bereavement is her ritual to mark what’s happened inside her body and her heart, everything she’s feeling and everything that’s different now.

Now picture a woman coming back to the mikveh after her third miscarriage.

Now picture a woman coming to the mikveh once again, despite months or years of trying to conceive, and the ways in which that ritual space holds her frustrations, pain, questions, grief, anger, letting go, not letting go.

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UNITED STATES
The Jewish Daily Forward

By Josh Nathan-Kazis
Published October 15, 2014.

A national Orthodox rabbinic association recently investigated allegations of impropriety made against the rabbi accused of videotaping women at his mikvah, the Forward has learned.

Rabbi Barry Freundel, spiritual leader of the Washington, D.C. congregation Kesher Israel, will be charged with voyeurism after a witness allegedly saw him installing a hidden camera above a shower stall at his synagogue’s mikvah.

The president of the Rabbinical Council of America, Rabbi Leonard Matanky, confirmed that the RCA received allegations over the summer of “ethical issues that came up regarding an issue with a woman.” The allegations were investigated, but no action was taken.

The RCA suspended Freundel’s membership on October 15, after his arrest.

A person who works in the travel industry told the Forward that they had informed the RCA earlier this year that Freundel, who is married, made reservations to stay overnight in a hotel with a woman converting to Judaism who was not his wife. The person declined to be identified, citing confidentiality rules.

Matanky said that the RCA questioned Freundel about the allegations. The person who brought the charges was unwilling to provide supporting evidence for legal reasons.

Read more: http://forward.com/articles/207382/orthodox-group-probed-alleged-mikveh-peep-rabbi-ba/#ixzz3GL1CZRE9

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ROME
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor October 16, 2014

ROME – Every day, the 2014 Synod of Bishops on the family, a summit of 260 bishops and other participants convened by Pope Francis, seems more and more like a daytime soap opera. Today brought more surprising turns on multiple fronts.

For one thing, the bishops made the unprecedented decision to release internal reports of small group discussions about a working document released Monday that became a sensation due to its positive language about same-sex unions, couples who live together outside of marriage, and others in “irregular” situations.

The reports photograph a vigorous debate within a divided synod, with one camp seemingly embracing a more positive vision of situations that fall outside the boundaries of official Catholic doctrine, and another clearly alarmed about going soft.

Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, one of the leaders of the moderate camp, today compared the situation in the synod in which a mother says “watch out, be careful,” and the father says “no, that’s fine, go ahead.”

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Berger’s Beat

. Embattled Kansas City Bishop Robert Finn, who was ordained and promoted in our town, has just agreed to pay, for the third time in his decade-long tenure in K.C., an expensive settlement to dozens of clergy sex abuse victims. This time, it’s almost $10 million to 30 plaintiffs. (The deal was announced late last night.) In 2008, it was $10 million to 47 victims. And in August, he was forced to shell out $1.1 million to 40+ victims in an unusual breach of contract case.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on October 16, 2014

UPDATE: Grisham apologized. Looks like he finally read the memo. And he got people talking …. –

Child pornography is criminal for a reason: It’s gross, vile, and extremely damaging to the children who were exploited.

But someone didn’t get the memo.

John Grisham (yes, THAT John Grisham) said recently in an interview that men who look at 16-year-old girls in sex acts are not pedophiles and should not be punished.

If you are sexually aroused by watching minors being sexually abused and/or forced into sex acts, you have real issues.

But I am not going to get into that in this post. What I AM going to talk about is why these photos are illegal and why people who create, sell, and/or look at them should be punished.

Here are reasons why John Grisham is horribly mistaken:

1) The actions involved in the photos are criminal.

Child pornography is not “art.” It includes photos of children (boys, girls, toddlers, and teens) being tied up, raped, drugged, sodomized, and violated. It’s disgusting stuff. Talk to prosecutors—they will tell you.

2) All of the children in these photos are victims of sex trafficking. Sex trafficking is when a child is sold for sex—including prostitution and child pornography. The children in the photos—whether they be 10-year-old boys or 16-year-old girls—are being sold for sex. Period. Bad people are making money off of this. Yes: They are making money off of pictures of children being raped.

3) Let’s talk about the kids in the photos. How do you think that pornographers get the kids? They don’t do a casting call and abide by union rules. Instead, they exploit and imprison runaways, force kids into drug addiction, or take pictures of children they are already sexually abusing. Other children are isolated from friends and family, marked with tattoos to show that their pimp “owns” them, and then are forced to comply if they want to eat, sleep, or get a hit of drugs to keep them from going into painful withdrawal symptoms.

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ISRAEL
Haaretz

By Rabbi Eliyahu Fink | Oct. 16, 2014

The digital era has given society many gifts. Near the top of the list of those gifts is easy access to information and the rapid speed at which information can be shared. Perhaps this explains why it feels like scandals are reported in media at an alarming rate. Today it is nearly impossible to limit the reach of any given story: The Internet has created a global community in which we know and care more about people and events from every corner of the globe. As a result, we learn more about people behaving badly more often and more quickly than at any other time in history – including rabbis.

In recent days, Kesher Israel, a prominent Modern Orthodox synagogue in Washington D.C. and its community has been reeling from a terrible scandal. Their rabbi, Barry Freundel, was arrested on charges of voyeurism and it is alleged that he installed a camera in the equivalent of a women’s locker room where he filmed potential converts in varying degrees of undress before their ritual bath. Indeed, the shockwaves in the aftermath of this scandal reverberate well beyond the District and are being felt across the entire Jewish world.

Generally, rabbinic ‘scandals’ come in one of two varieties. Some scandals merely involve flawed human behavior that is only considered scandalous because of the stature of the rabbinic figure. If a non-rabbi would commit the same acts there would be no story. In my opinion, these are not scandals. Human beings behaving in a manner consistent with other human beings are not news. After all, rabbis are people too.

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NEW JERSEY
NBC New York

Thursday, Oct 16, 2014

A Catholic priest was convicted Wednesday of groping a woman but acquitted of molesting her two children.

Marukudiyil Velan’s defense attorney, S. Karl Mohel, said his client is unlikely to face prison time. The crime carries a maximum penalty of 18 months in prison but is not an offense subject to Megan’s Law registration requirements.

Velan was convicted by a jury of criminal sexual contact. He was acquitted of sexual assault charges involving the woman’s then-5-year-old daughter and then-13-year-old son, The Asbury Park Press reported.

The boy and his mother testified that Velan groped them at their home in July 2012 and then went out for pizza. Mohel said the family lied to collect money in a lawsuit against Velan and the church. The girl, now 7, did not testify at the trial and neither did Velan.

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NEW JERSEY
Philly.com

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
POSTED: Thursday, October 16, 2014

TOMS RIVER, N.J. (AP) – A Catholic priest was convicted Wednesday of groping a woman but acquitted of molesting her two children.

Marukudiyil Velan’s defense attorney, S. Karl Mohel, said his client is unlikely to face prison time. The crime carries a maximum penalty of 18 months in prison but is not an offense subject to Megan’s Law registration requirements.

Velan was convicted by a jury of criminal sexual contact. He was acquitted of sexual assault charges involving the woman’s then-5-year-old daughter and then-13-year-old son, The Asbury Park Press reported (http://on.app.com/1qBtyyC).

The boy and his mother testified that Velan groped them at their home in July 2012 and then went out for pizza. Mohel said the family lied to collect money in a lawsuit against Velan and the church. The girl, now 7, did not testify at the trial and neither did Velan.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Tablet

16 October 2014 11:49 by Joanna Moorhead

Archbishop of Southwark Peter Smith has ordered an inquiry into the events that led to the resignation of Bishop Kieran Conry of Arundel and Brighton, who stepped down this month after admitting he had broken his priestly vows.

This week, a diocesan spokesman said the investigation would “be undertaken in respect of Bishop Conry’s relationship with potentially vulnerable female adults”.

The inquiry will be headed by an approved independent investigator whose identity will not be made public, and will be managed by the safeguarding commission of the diocese of East Anglia. It is expected to report within three to four months, but its report will not be released. What happens next to Bishop Conry is likely to depend very much on the inquiry’s findings.

In his resignation statement, read out at all Masses in his former diocese, Bishop Conry said he wanted “to reassure you that my actions were not illegal and did not involve minors”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

By John Bingham, Religious Affairs Editor
16 Oct 2014

The Roman Catholic Church has ordered a secret inquiry into whether the former Bishop of Arundel and Brighton, who resigned over an adulterous affair, took advantage of “vulnerable” women.
An independent investigator has been called in to examine whether the allegations against Bishop Kieran Conry, the Church’s former head of outreach, have “safeguarding” implications.

It is understood the inquiry will take between three and six months but even the name of the investigator is to be kept secret.

Although the Bishop, who is current undergoing a period of “prayer and reflection”, will be allowed to see the findings, the report itself will also never be published.

And anyone wishing to raise fresh concerns about the bishop must log a complaint with the Church first before it can be passed on.

The Archbishop of Southwark, the Most Rev Peter Smith, has been appointed by Pope Francis as apostolic administrator to oversee the running of the diocese following Bishop Conry’s resignation last month.

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NEW JERSEY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, October 16, 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 )

We are grateful that Fr. Marukudiyil Velan, known as “Fr. Chris” has been found guilty of criminal sexual conduct. Often trusted members of the clergy are given “light” sentences and then free to move into unsuspecting communities where they pose a very real danger.

We are especially grateful to the brave mother who reported what happened to her and allegedly to her children. Her courage to speak up and to seek justice will protect more people.

This is not the time to become complacent. Predators are known to molest throughout their lifetime. Church officials should reach out to any other possible victims or witnesses. We have a simple message to every current and former Catholic Church employee and member: It’s never too late to share what you know or suspect with law enforcement officials. It’s up to us to pass on information. And it’s up to police and prosecutors to determine what will help them further prosecute or imprison a criminal.

Velan was an adjunct priest at Church of the Visitation and in 2012 molested a mother. Velan admitted what he did on video tape during the police investigation.

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NEW JERSEY
Courier-Post

Kathleen Hopkins, @Khopkinsapp 9:09 a.m. EDT October 16, 2014

TOMS RIVER – A jury on Wednesday convicted a popular Brick priest of groping a woman, but acquitted him of molesting her two children.

After deliberating about nine hours over two days, the panel of six men and six women announced its verdict about 5 p.m. in the trial of Marukudiyil Velan, better known to parishioners at Church of the Visitation in Brick as “Father Chris.”

The jury found Velan, 66, guilty of criminal sexual contact on the woman, among the least serious of the charges he faced, and acquitted him of six other crimes related to alleged molestation of the woman’s two children.

Velan’s attorney, S. Karl Mohel, said his client is unlikely to face prison because the offense he was convicted of, a fourth-degree crime, carries a presumption of no incarceration for people who do not have any prior criminal convictions. The crime, which carries a maximum penalty of 18 months in prison, is not a Megan’s Law offense, so the priest will not be required to register his whereabouts with police or be on parole for the rest of his life, Mohel said.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Rob Spahr | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on October 16, 2014

TOMS RIVER – A Brick Township priest has been convicted of criminal sexual contact on a female parishioner, but was acquitted of six other crimes involving the alleged molestation of the woman’s two children, Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office Spokesman Al Della Fave said.

The jury announced its verdict in the trial of 66-year-old Marukudiyil Velan on Wednesday after deliberating for several hours over two days.

Della Fave said the priest likely faces only a probationary sentence and because the fourth-degree crime he was convicted of is not a Megan’s Law offense, Velan will not be required to register with police.

“But hopefully with the jury’s verdict his current vocation will nevertheless be impacted,” Della Fave said via email.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release Thursday, October 16, 2014

For more info: Barbara Dorris ( 314 503 0003, SNAPdorris@gmail.com ), David Clohessy ( 314 566 9790, davidgclohessy@gmail.com )

A hearing will be held tomorrow in a St. Paul courtroom in a clergy sex abuse and cover-up case that revolves around the question of whether a priest can refuse to answer questions about alleged childhood sexual abuse by asserting the priest-penitent privilege.

It will be held in Ramsey County District Court (Room 1470) before Judge John B. Van de North, J. The accused priest is Fr. Thomas Stitts. One of the clerics who is refusing to answer questions is Fr. Richard “Dick” Rice, a Jesuit.

“Time and time again we’ve seen Catholic officials abuse various ‘privileges’ to protect their colleagues while endangering kids,” said David Clohessy of SNAPO, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “Not everything one priest tells another is ‘off-limits’ in clergy sex abuse and cover up cases. Sometimes, the physical safety of children trumps the beliefs of two powerful adults. ”

In 2013, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis was sued relating to allegations that Fr. Stitts sexually abused a Minneapolis man.

The archdiocese was alleged to have known of Stitts’ sexual of abuse of children as early as 1970, but allegedly took no action to discipline him or to prevent further abuse by him.

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VATICAN CITY
Religion News Service

Josephine McKenna | October 15, 2014

VATICAN CITY (RNS) After two days of fighting between happy liberals and angry conservatives, the Vatican on Wednesday (Oct. 15) dispatched a leading moderate from the U.S. church to tell both sides to temper their expectations about impending changes in church doctrine.

Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, stressed that a working document on family issues released on Monday (Oct. 13) is simply that — a draft document still subject to amendment by about 200 bishops and lay delegates meeting at Vatican City.

Monday’s midpoint report from the two-week Synod on the Family raised expectations that the Catholic Church was poised to revolutionize its teaching on homosexuality, divorce and cohabitation, saying gays and lesbians have “gifts and qualities” to offer the church.

On Wednesday, Kurtz, flanked by Spanish Cardinal Lluis Martinez Sistach and Italian Archbishop Rino Fisichella, urged both sides to take a breath.

“The working document is an important moment, but it is a moment,” Kurtz told journalists. “It’s at the surface of the synod discussion. I see the synod as a process. My focus is going to be on the document that will be the fruitfulness of the whole process and that includes our amendments.”

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: A priest of the New England Province of the Society of Jesus ordained in 1936, Bonn was a poet and a teacher of English at Boston College in Massachusetts, Fairfield University in Connecticut and Marycrest College in Davenport, Iowa. Additionally, he served as a Navy chaplain during World War II. Bon died in 1975. In 2011 an Iowa woman reported to the Davenport diocese that Bonn and two other priests sexually abused her beginning when she was four years-old, in 1969. She said the priests were her father’s best friends. The woman received a settlement from the diocese.

Ordained: 1936
Died: Jan. 17, 1975

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WASHINGTON (DC)
The Jewish Daily Forward

By Josh Nathan-Kazis
Published October 15, 2014.

Rabbi Barry Freundel recorded secret videos of at least six women women showering at the mikvah in his synagogue, according to allegations filed by authorities at his arraignment on Wednesday afternoon.

Freundel, 62, pleaded not guilty to a charge of voyeurism, a misdemeanor, and was freed without bond.

The details from the charging documents were posted on Twitter by WTOP reporter Neal Augenstein.

According to Augenstein’s account, the police found backed-up videos of the six women, plus video of Freundel himself setting up the camera.

Police were seen removing computers and other electronic equipment from Freundel’s home Tuesday morning after they led him out in handcuffs.

Fruendel was arrested by police on Tuesday at his home in the U.S. capital’s upscale Georgetown neighborhood, a few blocks from his modern Orthodox synagogue, Kesher Israel Congregation.

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UNITED STATES
The Jewish Daily Forward

By Beth Kissileff

A respected rabbi installing cameras in the preparation room of the mikveh in the building next door to his synagogue? The sensationalistic story of alleged voyeur Rabbi Barry Freundel seems tailor-made to go viral in our internet age. So what can be done to counteract the negative publicity this gives to the observance of mikveh, the Jewish ritual bath, and to general trust in rabbis? How can we ensure this type of situation (assuming the allegations are true — that has yet to be legally corroborated) doesn’t happen again?

It’s simple: Put women in charge of the mikveh system.

I’d like to see a world where the mikveh and all questions about it are totally overseen by female scholars, who possess the relevant Jewish legal wisdom and are permitted to be part of that authority structure.

This is an area where we women need to be trusted with the knowledge of our own bodies and how they function. This is an area where we should be the main experts.

I recently interviewed a number of women trained as yoatzot halacha, legal advisors, at Nishmat in Jerusalem, for an article on female educators. These women have studied the laws of “family purity” and are able to answer questions over the phone and online from women all around the world, and from all walks of Jewish life. Manhattan’s Yeshivat Maharat — the only Jewish seminary dedicated to training Orthodox women as synagogue clergy — is likewise educating a new generation of female experts on Jewish law as it pertains to sensitive topics like the body, fertility and sexuality. The Israeli institute Matan also has a five-year program in which women study Jewish law at the highest levels.

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MARYLAND
WBAL

Towson University has suspended a DC rabbi, who served on the university’s faculty, after he was arrested on charges of voyeurism.

Dr. Barry Freundel, who is a member of the faculty in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, was arrested on Tuesday on charges that he videotaped women using a shower.

In a statement on the university’s website, spokesman Ray Feldman said, “Dr. Freundel has been suspended from any and all faculty duties and responsibilities, pending the outcome of that investigation and associated criminal proceedings. At this time there is no indication that these activities occurred on the Towson University campus.

“We are concerned about the serious nature of this matter, and we are providing support and counseling resources to members of the campus community.”

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WASHINGTON (DC)
JTA

By Ron Kampeas
October 15, 2014

WASHINGTON (JTA) – Rabbi Barry Freundel was known to the Washington Jewish community as a champion of moral rectitude. But on Tuesday, the spiritual leader of Kesher Israel congregation for the past 25 years, was charged with the most intimate of transgressions: voyeurism.

Freundel, 62, was taken away Tuesday in handcuffs, after uniformed officers and plainclothes detectives from the Metropolitan Police Department searched his home in the Georgetown section of Washington. A local NBC affiliate reported that the rabbi had installed a clock radio with a hidden camera, called the “Dream Machine,” in the women’s showers of the congregation’s mikvah, or Jewish ritual bath.

The arrest marks a startling turn in the career of a rabbi known as a national leader in establishing precepts for conversion and as a strict moralist, who just last month railed against the corrosive effect of pornography on marriages. His synagogue, Kesher Israel, is one of the most prominent in Washington; Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and New Republic Literary Editor Leon Wieseltier are members, and former Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman is a former congregant.

The synagogue board in a statement said it had reported Freundel to authorities. “Upon receiving information regarding potentially inappropriate activity, the Board of Directors quickly alerted the appropriate officials,” the statement, posted on the congregation’s website, said. “Throughout the investigation, we cooperated fully with law enforcement and will continue to do so.”

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Haaretz

The Rabbinical Council of America suspended Barry Freundel, the Washington D.C. rabbi arrested this week on a voyeurism charge.

The RCA board met in an emergency meeting Wednesday and suspended Freundel, effective immediately, extending the ban to his activities with the Beth-Din of America, meaning that Freundel’s functions as one of the leading conversion rabbis in the United States were also suspended.

In a letter to member rabbis of the Orthodox body, the president, Rabbi Leonard Matanky, said the charges Freundel faces are “deeply troubling” and confirmed what had until now been attributed to anonymous sources — that the alleged peeping took place in the mikvah adjacent to Kesher Israel, Freundel’s Georgetown shul.

Freundel is “facing charges that are deeply troubling,” Matanky said, adding that the alleged peeping is a “terrible, awful violation of privacy and of the sanctity of the mikvah.”

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WASHINGTON (DC)
The Daily Beast

Steven I. Weiss

Barry Freundel was busted for allegedly spying on female congregants. Last year, he booked a trip with a woman who’s not his wife, which is prohibited under Orthodox law.
One of the most powerful Orthodox rabbis in America was arrested Tuesday for allegedly spying on nude women in his synagogue, but possibly sinful behavior by Barry Freundel may be more damanging.

Documents reviewed by The Jewish Channel and The Daily Beast reveal that Freundel was booked on a cross-country trip with a woman who was not his wife this year, which is prohibited under Orthodox laws of yichud. It’s not clear when they met or what the exact nature of their relationship was.

Freundel’s work responsibilities until last year included setting standards for Orthodox conversion in the United States and overseeing thirteen rabbinical courts around the country, Until last year, Freundel served as the chairman of the Conversion Committee for the Rabbinical Council of America, the largest body of Orthodox rabbis in the United States. In his position, he oversaw 13 rabbinical courts and set standards for Orthodox conversion. In both positions, Freundel has been in a position to decide what activities make one eligible and ineligible to be an Orthodox Jew. Freundel is also rabbi of the prominent Kesher Israel synagogue in Washington. Not only is the congregation full of prominent Jews like Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew but it’s also one of America’s most modern, letting women read from the Torah and hold positions of leadership.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Toronto Sun

A prominent Washington rabbi who police allege installed a video camera in a ritual bathing area pleaded not guilty to a voyeurism charge on Wednesday, according to court documents.

Rabbi Barry Freundel, 62, was arrested by police on Tuesday at his home in the U.S. capital’s upscale Georgetown neighborhood, a few blocks from his modern Orthodox synagogue, Kesher Israel Congregation.

Freundel pleaded not guilty in District of Columbia Superior Court to voyeurism, a misdemeanor.

Judge William Nooter ordered Freundel to stay away from all individuals he had helped convert to Judaism and participated with in the Jewish ritual bathing process known as mikvah, according to court documents online.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
The Jewish Daily Forward

By Ron Kampeas
Published October 15, 2014

WASHINGTON — (JTA) — Rabbi Barry Freundel was known to the Washington Jewish community as a champion of moral rectitude. But on Tuesday, the spiritual leader of Kesher Israel congregation for the past 25 years, was charged with the most intimate of transgressions: voyeurism.

Freundel, 62, was taken away Tuesday in handcuffs, after uniformed officers and plainclothes detectives from the Metropolitan Police Department searched his home in the Georgetown section of Washington. A local NBC affiliate reported that the rabbi had installed a clock radio with a hidden camera, called the “Dream Machine,” in the women’s showers of the congregation’s mikvah, or Jewish ritual bath.

The arrest marks a startling turn in the career of a rabbi known as a national leader in establishing precepts for conversion and as a strict moralist, who just last month railed against the corrosive effect of pornography on marriages. His synagogue, Kesher Israel, is one of the most prominent in Washington; Treasury Secretary Jack Lew and New Republic Literary Editor Leon Wieseltier are members, and former Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman is a former congregant.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By MICHELLE HARRIS Oct. 15, 2014

THE former commander of the Child Protection Enforcement Agency has told an inquiry he was unaware that Catholic Church officials routinely withheld the names of victims when they reported sex abuse to police, as he never checked on the Church’s reporting practices.

John Heslop also told the Police Integrity Commission on Wednesday he could not recall a draft agreement between NSW Police and the Church that set out abuse reporting protocols, although the agency’s chief of staff received advice while Mr Heslop was commander that warned the draft’s terms breached criminal laws and the Catholic Church was seeking ‘‘preferential treatment’’.

Documents show Police later explicitly told the Church it would not sign the agreement as it did not comply with obligations under the Crimes Act to report information about serious indictable offences.

But another draft of the memorandum (MOU) was produced the following year.

The Police Integrity Commission is considering whether the MOU effectively operated and whether any police misconduct was involved in the arrangements, as well as the participation of officers in the Church’s Professional Standards Reference Group between 1998 and 2005.

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.

VATICAN CITY
Crux

By Nicole Winfield
Associated Press October 16, 2014

VATICAN CITY — It’s one of the great mysteries of the meeting on family life taking place behind closed doors at the Vatican this week: Just where did the authors of a draft report come up with such ground-breaking language that gays had gifts to offer the church, and that even same-sex partnerships had merit?

Officially speaking, the draft report was a synthesis of the interventions from more than 200 bishops, a starting point for small working groups to propose amendments, elaborations, additions, and subtractions to the drafting committee preparing a final report that will be released on Saturday.

But conservative cardinals have said their views were not reflected in the draft. They blasted the report as “unacceptable” and said it was in sore need of an overhaul.

US Cardinal Timothy Dolan said his fellow American, hardline Cardinal Raymond Burke, reflected the view of “a good number of people in saying, boy, this document is a rough draft, does it ever need major revisions.”

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.

CHILE
Yahoo! News

Ein Geistlicher des ultrakonservativen katholischen Ordens Legionäre Christi ist in Chile des Kindesmissbrauchs schuldig gesprochen worden. Der 68-jährige John O’Reilly, der 1984 aus Irland nach Chile kam und 2008 die chilenische Staatsbürgerschaft erhielt, habe ein jetzt neunjähriges Mädchen seit es fünf Jahre alt war wiederholt missbraucht, befand die Richterin María Teresa Barrientos am Mittwoch in Santiago de Chile. Das Strafmaß soll am 11. November verkündet werden, die Staatsanwaltschaft plädierte auf zehn Jahre Gefängnis.

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.

OSTERREICH
kathweb

[Rejected motion for bias in lawsuit against Admonter Fathers]

Graz, 15.10.2014 (KAP) In eine weitere Runde geht eine Zivilrechtsklage gegen Admonter Patres, bei welcher der Anwalt des Klägers einen Befangenheitsantrag gegen den Richter am Landesgericht Leoben gestellt hatte. Dem Antrag wurde vom Senat nicht stattgegeben, entschied das Gericht am Mittwoch, woraufhin nach Ankündigung des Klägeranwalts nun das Oberlandesgericht Graz eine Entscheidung treffen soll. Schon bei Bekanntgabe des Antrags hatte das Stift in einer Stellungnahme die “unbegründete” erneute Verzögerung der Neuverhandlung bedauert.

Bereits im Vorjahr war ein Befangenheitsantrag gegen den Verhandlungsrichter aufgrund eines angeblichen familiären Naheverhältnisses zu Stift Admont beim Senat des Landesgerichts Leoben abgelehnt worden. Beim jetzigen Klagsweg geht es nach Darstellung des Klägers darum, dass der Richter eine Rechtsmeinung geäußert habe, noch bevor er selbst vernommen wurde. Stiftssprecher P. Winfried Schwab zufolge habe der Richter jedoch vielmehr die Rechtsauffassung des Oberlandesgerichts in Wien zitiert und dies auch wiederholt betont.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Evangelisch

[Hamburg Bishop Kirsten Fehr said the final report of a group consisting of lawyers and social scientists on sexual abuse in the church revealed a situation that is “disgraceful and shocking.” According to the group, the church from 1993 to 2012 had a total of 16 disciplinary proceedings against 14 pastors. These involved sexual acts on children, adolescents and adults in the context of pastoral care. The acts are barred from prosecution in many cases.]

Die Hamburger Bischöfin Kirsten Fehrs bezeichnete den Abschlussbericht der aus Rechtsanwälten und Sozialwissenschaftlern bestehenden Kommission bei der Veröffentlichung am Dienstag als “beschämend und erschütternd”.

Demnach führte die nordelbische Kirche von 1993 bis 2012 insgesamt 16 Disziplinarverfahren gegen 14 Pastoren. Ihnen wurden sexuelle Handlungen – von der Belästigung bis zum Missbrauch – an Kindern, Jugendlichen oder Erwachsenen im Rahmen der Seelsorge vorgeworfen. Die Taten geschahen zwischen 1973 bis 2011 und sind in vielen Fällen strafrechtlich verjährt.

Fehrs dankte den Opfern für ihre Offenheit, ohne die die Kirche nicht hätte verstehen können, was vorgefallen sei. “Wir als Institution Kirche sind schuldig geworden. Wir als Kirche tragen Verantwortung für Ihre Verletzungen.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Jessica Kidd

A senior police officer who sat on a panel set up by the Catholic Church to investigate allegations of child sexual abuse was not obligated to report the information she received, an inquiry has heard.

The Police Integrity Commission (PIC) was investigating the conduct of Inspector Elizabeth Cullen while she was a member of the church’s Professional Standards Resource Group (PSRG) to determine if it amounted to police misconduct.

The inquiry was also examining whether the information sharing arrangement between the Catholic Church and New South Wales Police, in the form of blind reports, breached mandatory reporting laws set out in the Crimes Act.

Inspector Elizabeth Cullen (then a senior sergeant) was appointed to the PSRG from 1998 until 2005.

The PSRG was set up by the church in 1997 to investigate allegations of sexual abuse by members of the clergy, working within the church’s Professional Standards Office (PSO).

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

A former NSW child protection squad commander has defended the system of blind reporting of sex abuse cases by the Catholic Church to police, saying it has kept open the lines of communication.

But Kim McGee only considered information about sex abuse from a key church- and police-sanctioned body as intelligence reports, and not reports of crimes.

‘In some regard it kept conversations open between the church and police,’ Ms McGee told the Police Integrity Commission in response to a question about blind reporting.

‘It opened up a lot of things that were very problematic with the law in this area.’

The retired policewoman, who was at the Child Protection Enforcement Agency (CPEA) in 2003, said the blind reports provided valuable intelligence.

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Three who lost their abuse cases get a break
New settlement with 30 victims will be shared with them
SNAP: “This is an unprecedented and extremely generous move”
More than 90 victims of KC pedophile priests have now come forward, group says
Advocate praises them for “breaking new ground” & “showing incredible kindness”
And victims prod KC Catholic officials to do more about two now-ousted local priests
One is Missouri’s most prolific child molesting cleric; the other lives near several schools

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will

–disclose an unusual, perhaps “first-ever” arrangement in which 30 clergy sex abuse victims are agreeing to share part of their new $9.95 million settlement with three other victims whose cases were tossed out of court on legal technicalities,
–praise the 90+ KC area men and women who, over the past 20 years, have settled abuse and cover up suits against KC church officials and
— urge KC Catholic officials to warn the public about two credibly accuse serial predator priests who are still living in the KC area (one near several schools).

They will also urge anyone who saw, suspected or suffered child sex crimes to come forward and report to police.

WHEN
Thursday, Oct. 16 at 2:00 p.m.

WHERE
On the sidewalk outside the KC Catholic Diocese headquarters, 20 W. 9th St. (corner of Baltimore Ave.) in downtown Kansas City, MO

WHO
Four members of a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org), including a St. Louis man who is the organization’s long time director and was molested by a Missouri priest

WHY
In what may be an unprecedented move, 30 clergy sex abuse victims will share part of their new $9.95 million dollar settlement with three other victims who aren’t formally part of the deal. Their cases were rejected by judges largely based on what SNAP calls “a bizarre legal technicality” – because the alleged crimes took place on private property, not church property.

[BishopAccountability.org]

[BishopAccountability.org]

“The bad news is that Bishop Robert Finn and other Catholic officials successfully exploit this loophole,” said Mike Hunter, SNAP’s KC director. “The good news is that, despite Bishop Finn’s callous and selfish behavior, these three victims are not being left out in the cold, because their brothers and sisters who just settled are recognizing and generously remedying this injustice.”

SNAP leaders say they can’t recall a similar situation anywhere in the country.

“Usually, we’re isolated and abused as kids by Catholic predators, and often, in litigation, we’re isolated and betrayed again by church officials, each of our cases winning or losing in individual hearings before individual judges,” said Barbara Dorris of SNAP. “It’s heart-warming and inspiring to see these 30 KC victims overcoming this isolation and showing such compassion to their brothers who would otherwise walk away with no justice or compensation at all.”

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

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Nicole Chettle

A man abused by a Sunshine Coast youth pastor as a child is still extremely angry at the church’s handling of his complaint more than five years after his abuser was jailed, an inquiry has heard.

Perpetrator Jonathan Baldwin befriended his victim, referred to in the commission as ALA, at a Queensland church that cannot be named for legal reasons in 2004.

The abuse allegedly occurred over a two-year period beginning when ALA was 13, the Royal Commission into the Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard.

The inquiry heard the boy’s family was baffled by the “deafening silence” of the church when in 2009 Baldwin was jailed for eight years, with a non-parole period of four years, on charges including “maintaining”, the indecent treatment of a child under 16 and sodomy.

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

AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

[with video]

October 16, 2014

Rory Callinan
Investigative journalist

A Catholic priest who was allowed to continue preaching in Papua New Guinea despite being named in child abuse compensation settlements has been deported to Australia and is likely to face being extradited from Queensland to Victoria.

Earlier this month, Fairfax Media revealed how Father Roger Mount was still being allowed to minister at a remote parish in PNG despite being named in the Catholic church documents as an alleged child abuser of boys in homes in Victoria and NSW.

Following more revelations that Mount had been living in the country illegally without a visa for the past three years, the PNG Government on Wednesday deported him to Cairns.

The 72-year-old Catholic priest had been alleged to have abused children when he was working as Brother Gabriel with the Catholic St John of God Order at a home for intellectually disabled boys at Kendall Grange in Morisset, about 65km north of Sydney, and at boys homes in Victoria run by the same order.

Legal documents obtained by Fairfax reveal at least two boys from the homes had successfully sought apologies and compensation payments after they reported the abuse to the St John of God Order in the 1990s and the 2000s.

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

AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

October 16, 2014

Paul Bibby
Court Reporter

COURTS

The former head of the NSW Police Force’s child protection command has admitted she knew the Catholic Church’s practice of “blind reporting” child sex abuse to police was against the law but she accepted it because “it kept the conversation going”.

Kim McGee made the comments during a emotional day of evidence before the NSW Police Integrity Commission on Thursday.

The police regulator is examining allegations police were complicit in the covering up of allegations of child sex abuse by the Catholic Church.

The former chief of the force’s Child Protection Enforcement Agency broke down as she spoke of the difficulties she faced in trying to get victims of child sexual abuse to come forward.

“We worked so hard to encourage them to report the crimes,” Ms McGee said, crying.

“Particularly women in Aboriginal communities.”

But the retired officer defended her acceptance of the practice of blind reporting, where the Catholic Church would report the details of an alleged sex abuse offence, but not the name of the alleged victim.

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WALES
Barry and District News

by Dominic Jones

CHANGES to the way the Jehovah’s Witness Church deal with child abuse allegations are being sought by victims of Barry sex predator Mark Sewell.

Two of the women who suffered at the hands of the Barry church elder are also taking legal action against the church, saying that they were failed by a culture of secrecy that “protected” Sewell.

In July, Mark Sewell, 53, was jailed for 14 years after being found guilty of one count of rape and seven accounts of sexual assault at Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court.

The offences stretched back more than 20 years, during a time when Sewell, of Porthkerry Road, Barry was a trusted and respected church elder.

One of his victims, his niece Karen Morgan, is spearheading a campaign against practices within the church that she says allowed sexual predator Sewell to run rampant.

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.

OHIO
Washington Post

By Abby Ohlheiser October 15

In Ohio’s Grace Cathedral, the Rev. Ernest Angley says he can heal the sick in the name of Jesus. The televangelist is famous for it.

But a stunning series of reports from the Akron Beacon Journal has thrown a spotlight on what many former members of the Cuyahoga Falls church say is a terminal illness plaguing Angley’s empire.

That illness, they say, is Angley himself.

Even for those who don’t know Angley’s church, the allegations are shocking. The 93-year-old televangelist has torn apart families, pressured congregants to get abortions and vasectomies, and turned a blind eye to sexual abuse within his congregation, according to former church members who spoke to Akron Beacon Journal reporter Bob Dyer. There are also allegations of abuse at the hands of Angley.

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.

KENTUCKY
New York Daily News

BY RACHELLE BLIDNER

A Kentucky Sunday school teacher confessed to sexually abusing one of his 16-year-old students after he was arrested Monday night, police said.

Rex Allen Murphy, a 30-year-old teacher at Polly Ann Church of God in Eubank, Ky., was charged Monday night with sexual assault, sodomy and the use of a minor in a sexual performance, police chief Colin Hatfield said.

Murphy allegedly touched the male victim inappropriately at church and at Murphy’s home, with at least 10 incidents of sexual abuse over the course of six months, police said.

Murphy also allegedly threatened the teen with black magic, The Commonwealth Journal reported.

“What the suspect told the victim is that if he touched his skin or shook his hand, he could tell the victim’s sins from the past,” Hatfield told the Daily News. “If the victim ever told anybody like his parents what was going on between the two, he would notify his parents of his past sins.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

October 16, 2014

Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter

The Pentecostal movement needs a child sexual abuse telephone hotline because it’s too hard for church leaders to report crimes to the state executive body, a royal commission has heard.

Retired senior pastor Chris Peterson told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses into Child Sexual Abuse that reporting abuse to the movement’s umbrella body, Australian Christian Churches, was “too difficult a course”.

He said the senior pastors of the 1000 Australian churches affiliated with the movement needed an easier way to report abuse.

“We [should] create some sort of hotline or facility where a senior pastor has an immediate connection on matters of such importance,” he said.

Mr Peterson was the senior pastor at a Queensland church where a teenage boy had been sexually molested by a youth pastor.

The church had a child abuse policy, written by two volunteers with no child protection background, that implied abusers should try to avoid detection and said Satan was to blame for accusations, the commission heard.

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AUSTRALIA
Perth Now

BY ANNETTE BLACKWELL AAP OCTOBER 16, 2014

A retired church leader says the Pentecostal movement needs a hotline to report abuse allegations.
THE Pentecostal movement needs a hotline for senior pastors to report child sex abuse allegations to the executive, a retired church leader says.

CHRIS Peterson was senior pastor of a small church in Queensland when Jonathan Baldwin, a former youth pastor, was jailed for eight years for indecent treatment of a child under 16 and one count of sodomy.

At a Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse hearing on Thursday, Pastor Peterson said he accepted some responsibility for not passing the information up the line to the state and national executive of the Australian Christian Churches (ACC).

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
KSHB

[with video]

Andres Gutierrez

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Victims of sexual abuse by members of the Kansas City Diocese are one step closer to receiving a settlement.

The lawyers and victims held their last hearing in the case Wednesday morning on the second floor of Jackson County courthouse in Independence.

On Tuesday, the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph agreed to pay $9.95 million to settle 30 lawsuits that alleged sexual abuse by priests.

This comes after former altar boy Jon David Conzens filed a lawsuit in 2011, accusing Monsignor Thomas O’Brien of molesting him 30 years ago.

Conzens was pleased with the settlement, but the plaintiff’s attorney Rebecca Randles said the decision is bittersweet.

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.

CHILE
Press TV (Iran)

[with video]

A Chilean court has found an Irish-born Catholic priest guilty of sexually abusing a child in his care at a religious school in the capital Santiago.

John O’Reilly, who migrated to Chile from Ireland in 1985, was found guiltily of sexually abusing a pre-teen girl between 2007 and 2009 at the Colegio Cumbres private Catholic school.

“The tribunal has established beyond all reasonable doubt that… O’Reilly resolved to carry out actions of a sexual nature via body contact with a school student,” said Judge Maria Teresa Barrientos on Wednesday.

The priest, who has denied the charges, is to face sentencing next month. Prosecutors are seeking a jail term of 10 years.

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UNITED STATES
The Monitor

JOSE DE LEON III | STAFF WRITER

Posted on Oct 15, 2014

U.S. Marshals are attempting to find a former Catholic priest who disappeared after he was accused of molesting a six-year-old Brooklyn girl last June.

The suspect, Augusto Rafael Cortez, who was priest in Long Island, was already on probation after being charged in June 2008 with second-degree sexual assault. He eventually pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of forcible touching, according to Long Island-based website Newsday, which did not require him to register as a sex offender.

“We found out he has friends and family down here,” said Deputy U.S. Marshal Juan Lara, the agency’s local spokesman. “He was probably here in the Valley or he made it back into the interior of Mexico.”

Reportedly, the six-year-old girl contracted a sexually transmitted disease from Cortez. He is wanted by the New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force-Long Island Division and charged with first-degree sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a minor.

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

Oct 16, 2014 By Kenny Smith

Parishioners at a Cambuslang church have vowed to support their priest who has been suspended from his duties after police launched an investigation into historic sexual abuse allegations.

Father Paul Morton has been the Parish Priest at St Bride’s Church for 14 years.

We reported last week there was concern amongst his flock when he was unable to take Mass on October 5, with the Bishop of Motherwell stepping in his place.

It was later revealed Fr Morton (54) has stepped aside from his duties at the church, as a result of an investigation by Police Scotland.

Police Scotland said this week the investigation was still at an early stage.

A spokesperson for the Catholic Church said: “As a result of an ongoing police inquiry, Fr Paul Morton, parish priest of St Bride’s, Cambuslang, has been asked to take administrative leave from parish ministry for an unspecified period of time.

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AUSTRALIA
WA Today

A Catholic priest will spend at least 11 months behind bars after being convicted of abusing a West Australian teenager more than 30 years ago.

Glenn Humphreys, 61, was found guilty of abusing a teenager between 1983 and 1986 when he was 15 to 17.

A District Court jury found Humphreys guilty of four counts of unlawful and indecent assault, but acquitted him of carnal knowledge against the order of nature.

During sentencing submissions on Wednesday, defence lawyer Seamus Rafferty argued there was an “immature context” to the offending rather than any form of grooming.

Mr Rafferty said his client was struggling with his sexuality at the time and there was an “adolescent quality” to the hugging and touching that made the case “exceptional”

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SOUTH CAROLINA
GoUpstate

By Daniel J. Gross
daniel.gross@shj.com
Published: Wednesday, October 15, 2014

An Upstate conservative radio host has been charged with criminal sexual conduct.

Josh Kimbrell, host of Common Cents on Christian Talk 660, is accused of inappropriately fondling his 3-year-old son, according to a warrant from the Greenville Police Department.

He was charged Tuesday and taken to the Greenville County jail. The warrant states that the incident took place Sept. 24.

Kimbrell, of 531 Caledon Court in Greenville, recently served as the emcee to a roundtable discussion with U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz at the Spartanburg Community College Downtown Campus.

“He hasn’t even been before a judge yet. We’re going to let things play out as far as the courts are concerned,” said Gary Miller, operations manager for Christian Talk.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
WYFF

Christian Talk radio host accused of sex crime against 3-year-old

GREENVILLE, S.C. —An Upstate man who is the host of a conservative radio show on a Christian talk channel has been charged with a sex crime against a 3-year-old boy, according to arrest warrants.

Josh Kimbrell, who is the host of Common Cents on Christian Talk 660AM/92.9FM, is charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor under 11.

According to the arrest warrant, Kimbrell, under the guise of a game, fondled the child and committed other sexually acts against the boy.

Greenville police said that Kimbrell was arrested Tuesday. He is being held without bond.

Kimbrell’s Common Cents show airs weekdays at 5 p.m. He was born and raised in the Upstate and attended North Greenville University, according to his website. It says he is also chair of the Palmetto Conservative Alliance.

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CHILE
The Journal

AN IRISH-BORN priest was found guilty in Chile today of sexually abusing a young girl for years from the time she was a toddler.

John O’Reilly, 68, was accused of repeatedly molesting the girl, who is now nine, between 2007 and 2010 when he was a spiritual advisor at an elite school in eastern Santiago.

“A majority of the court’s members take as established, beyond a reasonable doubt, the following facts… that O’Reilly decided to engage in acts of a sexual nature through physical contact with a student at the school,” Judge Maria Teresa Barrientos said in her ruling.

O’Reilly was also accused of molesting the girl’s older sister but the court acquitted him unanimously of that charge, considering there was insufficient evidence.

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ISRAEL
Haaretz

By Allison Kaplan Sommer Oct. 15, 2014

Sadly, it’s a sign of our times that no one is exactly stunned by clergy sex scandals anymore. It is arguable whether sexual impropriety by spiritual leaders happens more now than in the past – or if simply more of the cases now come to light. Either way, it seems that hardly a month goes by when we don’t hear something about a priest, minister, imam or rabbi of accused of some form of bad behavior involving sex. In the Jewish community, as elsewhere, the spectrum of offenses range from the revelations of embezzlement of synagogue funds to hush up affairs to yeshiva rabbis convicted of sexually assaulting their students.

Each time it happens, it rocks a community to its core, and creates waves that affect adherents of that religion far beyond the immediate area. The scandals also provide fuel for those who may have an issue with the religion in question or the form in which it is practiced.

But the underlying lesson is usually the same: once again, we learn that every human being, no matter how exalted or respected, is tragically flawed and capable of terrible things. The fact that someone is learned in holy teaching and stands in front of congregations in ritual garments, preaching to them about distinguishing between good and evil doesn’t make anyone immune from giving in to base or unethical urges.

That said, the unfolding news of why Rabbi Barry Freundel, rabbi of the Kesher Israel synagogue in Washington, D.C. in handcuffs and charged with voyeurism, has succeeded in shocking even those who thought they couldn’t be surprised anymore. The details of his arrest as reported by a local television station:

“D.C. police say Rabbi Freundel used cameras set up in a changing area just outside the mikvah to peep on women. According to a police report, Freundel was seen installing a camera hidden in a clock radio above a shower at the mikvah.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
The Jewish Week

Rabbi Barry Freundel, the longtime spiritual leader at Kesher Israel in Washington, D.C., was arrested and charged with voyeurism after the synagogue board alerted the authorities.

Freundel, 62, was taken away Tuesday in handcuffs after uniformed officers and plainclothes detectives from the Metropolitan Police Department searched his home in the Georgetown section of Washington, Washingtonian magazine reported.

Reportedly the rabbi is accused of surreptitiously filming women showering in the synagogue’s mikveh. However, the police declined to confirm this detail.

A statement from the board of directors emailed to congregants said it had suspended Freundel without pay.

“Upon receiving information regarding potentially inappropriate activity, the Board of Directors quickly alerted the appropriate officials,” said the statement. “Throughout the investigation, we cooperated fully with law enforcement and will continue to do so.”

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Failed Messiah

[with copy of the police report]

Rabbi Dr. Barry Freundel, one of the top Modern Orthodox rabbis in the world, is Jformer US Senator Joseph Lieberman’s and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew’s rabbi, was arrested yesterday ona voyeurism charge. Here’s the police incident report.

Note that Freundel claimed the purpose of the clock radio that was also a hidden camera and recorder was to provide “ventilation” for the shower area of the women’s mikvah.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington City Paper

Posted by Perry Stein on Oct. 15, 2014

District police removed a black Sony Dream Machine radio clock and camera as evidence on Sunday from Kesher Israel in Georgetown—the modern orthodox synagogue whose rabbi was arrested Tuesday on voyeurism charges.

Police arrested Rabbi Barry Freundel at his nearby Georgetown home Tuesday and he is expected to appear in D.C. Superior Court this afternoon.

According to the police incident report, a 35-year-old woman reported seeing Freundel plug in the electronic device in the showers in the mikveh—a bath used in orthodox Jewish rituals. Freundel said, according to the report, that he was using the device for ventilation in the shower area. Women often use mikvehs for spiritual cleansing and purity after child birth and menstruation. mikvehs are also used by men and people converting to Judaism. During this spiritual cleansing, all clothing must be removed.

If the allegations are true, it could mean the rabbi was spying on people in his congregation while they were partaking in a religious ritual.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
CBS News

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A prominent Georgetown rabbi was arrested Tuesday after being accused of setting up a camera inside the women’s shower rooms at his synagogue, police say.

Dr. Barry Freundel, 62, was arrested Tuesday morning at his home. Freundel is the rabbi at Kesher Israel Congregation.

CBS affiliate WUSA reports that a 35-year-old woman reported the incident. According to police reports, when the woman confronted Dr. Freundel, he told her he was fixing the shower ventilation system in the mikvah, a ritual cleansing bath.

According to a statement on their website, Kesher Israel has suspended Freundel without pay and is cooperating with law enforcement.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

Rabbi charged with voyeurism hid camera in clock-radio in ritual bath, police report says

By Peter Hermann and Michelle Boorstein October 15

A prominent modern Orthodox rabbi at a Georgetown synagogue who was arrested Tuesday on a charge of voyeurism had a camera inside a clock-radio in the showers of a ritual bath, according to a D.C. police report made public on Wednesday.

A woman saw the 62-year-old rabbi, Barry Freundel of Kesher Israel Congregation, plugging the radio in, the report says, and police were notified. The synagogue’s board said in a statement that they informed authorities of the alleged impropriety.

It is not immediately clear whether anyone was filmed or photographed. Police were called to the synagogue on N Street Northwest on Sept. 28. Police arrested Freundel on Tuesday after a search of his home on O Street Northwest, also in Georgetown.

Freundel was charged with one count of voyeurism and is expected to make an initial appearance in D.C. Superior Court Wednesday afternoon. More information about the case will most likely be available then when police affidavits are unsealed. If images were not distributed, the charge is a misdemeanor carrying up to a year in jail; if images were showed to others, the charge can be a felony carrying a prison term of up to five years.

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CHILE
RTE News

An Irish priest has been found guilty of sexually abusing a child in his care at a religious school in the Chilean capital, Santiago.

The court found that John O’Reilly, who moved to Chile from Ireland in 1985, had abused the girl at the private Colegio Cumbres in the affluent area of Las Condes between 2007 and 2009.

“The tribunal has established beyond all reasonable doubt that … O’Reilly resolved to carry out actions of a sexual nature via body contact with a school student,” said Judge Maria Teresa Barrientos.

O’Reilly, who denied the charges, will be sentenced next month.

Prosecutors have requested that he be sent to prison for ten years.

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CHILE
ABC News

AP

An Irish-born priest was found guilty on Wednesday of sexually abusing a minor while he was chaplain at a school in Chile’s capital.

A court in Santiago said that the Rev. John O’Reilly committed the abuse while he was the spiritual guide at the Cumbres school located in the affluent neighborhood of Las Condes.

The families of two sisters had accused the priest of molesting the pre-teen girls between 2007 and 2012. The court absolved him in one of the cases. His sentence will be announced on Nov. 11.

“The court has established … beyond all reasonable doubt the following facts: that O’Reilly decided to carry out actions of a sexual nature through body contact with a school student,” Judge Maria Teresa Barrientos, said adding that the priest committed the abuse several times in 2010 and 2012 during school hours.

O’Reilly, who arrived to Chile in the mid-1980s and was granted Chilean citizenship in 2008, is a member of the Legion of Christ. The once-respected conservative order fell into scandal after it revealed that its founder had fathered a child and had sexually abused seminarians.

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KENTUCKY
WKYT

[with video]

PULASKI COUNTY, Ky. (WKYT) – Police say the victim in this case is a 16-year- old who told them Rex Murphy intimidated him with tales of witchcraft.

“The victim stated that the suspect told him on numerous occasions that by brushing his skin or shaking his hand…he could tell his sins by the power he has. He comes from family of warlocks,” said Eubank Police Chief Colin Hatfield.

Police say Murphy, a Sunday School teacher at Polly Ann Church of God, also abused the 16-year-old. He’s charged with sodomy and sexual abuse.

“The accusations were very graphic,” said Hatfield.

Police say Murphy told them he was both the church’s youth pastor and Sunday School teacher. The Polly Ann Church of God pastor said he was only a Sunday School teacher. The pastor says the situation is being dealt with internally but because of confidentiality little else could be said. Police say Murphy threatened the victim if he told his parents.

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Dominican Today

Santo Domingo.- The Dominican Judicial Observatory (OJD) of the think tank Funglode on Wednesday said the country has legal options to seek the extradition of former Vatican envoy Josef Wesolowski, charged with sexually abusing minors in Dominican Republic, EFE reports.

The Polish-born defrocked bishop, 66, is accused of abusing minors during his stay in the country, from January 2008 to August 2013, and of possession of child pornography in Italy.

Justice minister Francisco Domínguez in September said Wesolowski’s trial could begin later this year or the beginning of 2015, but in the Vatican.

The analysis by OJD criminal justice researchers Junior Santana and Héctor Peña notes that the Dominican State can exercise its criminal jurisdiction as stipulated in the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography.

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CANADA
Catholic Register

BY DEBORAH GYAPONG, CANADIAN CATHOLIC NEWS
October 15, 2014

OTTAWA – A lawyer representing the Catholic entities involved in Indian residential schools has vehemently rejected criticism from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) head who has accused the Catholic Church of withholding documents.

Pierre Baribeau says commission chair Justice Murray Sinclair has unfairly targeted the Catholic entities.

“We have a feeling that we have been discriminated against by the TRC, compared to the way they have treated the other churches,” said Baribeau. “That’s a strong feeling, and it’s very unfortunate.”

Baribeau was reacting to a speech in Winnipeg Sept. 29 by Sinclair, who said the road to reconciliation after 150 years will be a long one and the Catholic Church isn’t helping, as reported in the Prairie Messenger. Sinclair said the “government of Canada and the Catholics have not provided documents” needed for the commission to complete its work. He also said the churches were being unco-operative, and the Catholic Church in particular fears more abuse stories will emerge against living clergy.

Sinclair chairs the commission that began with a five-year mandate that has been extended by a year. It is looking into the abuses that occurred over the years in Indian residential schools in which government policy was to assimilate Canada’s First Nations’ youth with the rest of Canadian society. From 1820 to the 1970s, the federal government removed aboriginal children from their homes and placed them in Church-run boarding schools in what became known as an effort “to kill the Indian in the child.” The children were not allowed to speak their language or practise their culture and many suffered abuse.

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CHILE
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, October 15, 2014

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

An Irish born priest, who had been working in Chile, has been found guilty of sexually abusing a child. We are grateful for the bravery of the victims for coming forward. We hope the perpetrator is put behind bars for a long time.

Fr. John O’Reilly is a member of the notorious Legion of Christ and has been convicted of abusing a girl while he was a chaplain at Cumbres School in Santiago. There are at least two allegations against O’Reilly.

We urge church officials to immediately alert parishioners and the community about O’Reilly’s conviction and beg anyone else who suffered, witnessed or suspects abuse to call law enforcement immediately.

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MINNESOTA
West Central Tribune

[with poll]

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and sexual abuse victims took a major step toward healing Monday with the announcement of a historic lawsuit settlement and agreement on future child protection.

At an emotional news conference Monday, church officials and sexual abuse survivors along with their lawyers shared a public platform to make this significant announcement.

This announcement is a positive one for all involved, but especially so for the sexual abuse survivors of the church in Minnesota.

“We’ve come forward together today because we’ve forged a new way,” said plaintiff’s attorney Jeff Anderson.

Church officials apologized Monday saying they were sorry the abuse happen and that it should not have happen.

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CHILE
Irish Independent

An Irish-born Chilean priest was found guilty on Wednesday of sexually abusing a child in his care at a religious school in the capital, Santiago.

The court found that John O’Reilly, who moved to Chile from Ireland in 1985, had abused the pre-teen girl behind closed doors at the private Colegio Cumbres in the affluent neighborhood of Las Condes between 2007 and 2009.

“The tribunal has established beyond all reasonable doubt that … O’Reilly resolved to carry out actions of a sexual nature via body contact with a school student,” said Judge Maria Teresa Barrientos.

O’Reilly, who denied the charges, will be sentenced next month. Prosecutors have requested that he be sent to prison for 10 years.

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NEW JERSEY
Asbury Park Press

Kathleen Hopkins, @Khopkinsapp October 15, 2014

TOMS RIVER – Jurors deliberating molestation charges against a popular Brick priest just reviewed a videotape of the clergyman acknowledging that he touched a 5-year-old girl, her 13-year-old brother and the children’s mother.

On the videotape, about one hour and 15 minutes long, Marukudiyil Velan, better known to parishioners at Church of the Visitation in Brick as “Father Chris,’’ readily admits he touched the mother’s breast on the date in question, July 13, 2012, and that he had done so in the past in the process of hugging her.

Regarding the children, Velan, 66, said he was resisting their inappropriate moves when he touched them.

He denied, however, touching the boy inappropriately on a previous occasion in April 2012, when the pair were in his car en route to McDonald’s.

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CHILE
Business Insider

SANTIAGO (Reuters) – An Irish-born Chilean priest was found guilty on Wednesday of sexually abusing a child in his care at a religious school in the capital, Santiago.

The court found that John O’Reilly, who moved to Chile from Ireland in 1985, had abused the pre-teen girl behind closed doors at the private Colegio Cumbres in the affluent neighborhood of Las Condes between 2007 and 2009.

“The tribunal has established beyond all reasonable doubt that … O’Reilly resolved to carry out actions of a sexual nature via body contact with a school student,” said Judge Maria Teresa Barrientos.

O’Reilly, who denied the charges, will be sentenced next month. Prosecutors have requested that he be sent to prison for 10 years.

The school where the abuse took place is part of the network of the Legionaries of Christ, a conservative religious order whose founder was revealed to be a fraud and pedophile who had fathered several children.

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CHILE
Diario U Chile

La fiscalía pide 10 años de cárcel para el sacerdote Legionario de Cristo mientras que su defensa reclama que se le condena a muerte por su avanzada edad.

El Tercer Tribunal Oral en lo Penal determinó que el sacerdote John O’Reilly, perteneciente a los Legionarios de Cristo, sí procedió a abusar sexualmente contra una de las ex alumnas del Colegio Cumbres, entre los años 2007 y 2009.

La justicia determinó que el sacerdote se aprovechaba de su condición de guía espiritual para sustraer constantemente de la sala de clases a J.P.H.M y abusar de ella.

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CHILE
La Tercera

El Tercer Tribunal Oral en lo Penal afirmó que el sacerdote John O’Reilly sí procedió a abusar sexualmente contra una ex alumna del Colegio Cumbres.

La jueza afirmó que el tribunal de forma mayoritaria decidió que el religioso es culpable de los hechos que se le acusan.

Por otro lado, fue absuelto de forma unánime de la acusación del abuso sexual contra la hermana mayor de la víctima, ya que no se pudo acreditar el delito con las pruebas presentadas durante el juicio oral.

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CHILE
New Zealand Herald

Thursday Oct 16, 2014

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) A court in Chile has ruled that an Irish-born priest is guilty of sexually abusing an underage minor.

The court said Wednesday that the Rev. John O’Reilly committed the abuse while he was chaplain and spiritual guide at the Cumbres school in Santiago.

The families of two sisters accused the priest of molesting the girls between 2007 and 2011. The court absolved him in one of the cases.

O’Reilly is a member of the Legion of Christ. The once-respected conservative order fell into scandal after it revealed that its founder had fathered a child and had sexually abused seminarians.

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ROME
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor October 15, 2014

ROME – True old-timers in the Vatican press corps still love to reminisce about how much fun it was covering the Second Vatican Council, a gathering of the world’s Catholic bishops from 1962 to 1965 that launched the Church on a course of modernization and reform.

It was a gripping story, filled with colorful characters. There were the great lions of the reform camp, such as Cardinal Leo Suenens of Belgium and Giacomo Lercaro of Italy, facing off against the old guard, personified by Italian Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani, whose episcopal motto Semper Idem, “Always the Same,” was an entire ideological program in miniature.

Underneath the drama was the sense that something momentous was happening — a Church that had seemed frozen in place was suddenly on the move. Whether it was doing so in a wise or haphazard fashion is a matter of debate to this day, but no one denied that the plates were shifting.

Over the past two weeks, that kind of drama has been back on the Vatican beat.

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NEW JERSEY
Claims Journal

By MICHAEL CATALINI | October 15, 2014

A man who’s suing the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark, alleging a priest sexually molested him more than 30 years ago, wants the state to change the statute of limitations in such cases.

Stephen Marlowe, of Hoboken, and members of a sexual assault victims advocacy group on Tuesday called for passage of a state Senate measure aimed at rolling back the state’s two-year statute of limitations in civil lawsuits involving sex assault.

“People are very forgiving, but you need to show acts of contrition, that you’re sorry and that you’re not attacking victims,” Marlowe, who’s 48, said before a news conference on the steps of the statehouse.

His lawsuit, which was filed last month in state Superior Court, seeks a ruling against the defendants and unspecified punitive damages.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

By Kathy Mellott
kmellott@tribdem.com | Posted: Tuesday, October 14, 2014

A Central City priest is charged with sex crimes involving children in Honduras, and attorneys expect a surge in allegations of kids in poorer countries suffering sexual exploitation.

Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian said global child abuse is gaining more attention from law enforcement.

“We’re just now seeing what’s going on in the Third World,” Garabedian said. “The sexually abused victims in Third-World countries are just now coming forward.”

The Rev. Joseph Maurizio Jr. was arraigned Tuesday in Federal Court in Johnstown, accused of engaging in illicit conduct in foreign places and possessing material depicting sexual exploitation of a minor.

Garabedian is representing alleged victims of sexual abuse at the hands of former Bishop McCort Catholic High School teacher Brother Stephen Baker.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Catholics4Change

OCTOBER 15, 2014 BY SUSAN MATTHEWS

I recently founded a political action committee (PAC) called Protect PA Kids. Kathy and other dedicated professionals joined the board and generously donate their time to working for candidates who work hard to keep our commonweath’s children safe. Why a PAC? Lobbyists for financially-driven issues drown out the voices of grandparents, parents, law enforcement officials and advocates. As a PAC, we can leverage our collective resources on their behalf. We support candidates who are working hard to protect children and hold those who aren’t accountable. Please considering joining this PAC. Information is available at www.ProtectPaKids.com. The PAC is non-partisan and not connected to any organization, candidate or ballot measure.

While we focus on issues ranging from teen driving laws to educator background checks, we’ve prioritized child sex abuse Statute of Limitations (SOL) reform. Child predators could be living in your community because of the current SOL. Bill blockers in the state house may say the current ages of 30 for civil and 50 for criminal are adequate. But we know that recourse doesn’t apply to all victims whose abuse happened prior to 2002 and 2007, when those laws were enacted. Our state representatives and senators should not be concerned about whether a particular bill will lead to the financial duress of institutions, will cause insurers liability, give victims false hope or allow lawyers to profit. They should act on behalf of voters and children.

Delaware, Minnesota, Illinois, Massachusetts and other states have enacted SOL reforms. With institutional cover-ups making headlines, including those involving Penn State and our Church, isn’t it time for Pennsylvania to do the same?

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TEXAS
Ecumenical News

Henri Rose Cimatu
Wednesday, October 15 2014

A Houston family has filed a lawsuit the Second Baptist Church for its role in the sexual assault of a 12-year-old girl.

The lawsuit claims that the megachurch’s youth pastor Chad Foster used his position to abuse teenagers, CultureMap Houston reported.

Second Baptist Church is led by senior pastor Ed Young and has some 65,000 members across five campuses with an annual budget of $53 million.

The church is accused of giving Foster the opportunity to interact with public school students without giving him proper training when dealing with minors.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, October 15, 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 prominent Orthodox Rabbi from Washington DC has been arrested after allegedly video tapping women bathing in a ritual bathhouse. We applaud the brave woman who alerted officials to her suspicions.

Prior to his arrest, Rabbi Barry Freundel has been the rabbi at Kesher Israel in Georgetown since the late 1980s. He allegedly was filming women as they bathed at the synagogue’s mikvah, which is a traditional bathhouse. We are disappointed that a trusted official allegedly abused his position of authority to violate the privacy of maybe countless women.

We hope officials at Kesher Israel reach out to anyone who may have been violated. And we urge law enforcement officials to vigorously investigate and pursue the allegations and we urge synagogue officials to contact former synagogue members and staff who may have information about these allegations.

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