ABUSE TRACKER

MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

rosario@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 10/13/2014

The unprecedented public reconciliation was held Monday afternoon in the most appropriately named building in the Saintly City.

Indeed. The joint announcement of a financial settlement and a child-safety plan hammered out by Roman Catholic archdiocese officials and a noted lawyer who has waged, at least litigiously, a holy war on behalf of child clergy-abuse victims for over three decades, was held at the Landmark Center. The number of the room where the historic gathering was held was also symbolic — 317.

Look up Luke 3:17 and this is what it says: “His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Essentially, Jesus will hold folks accountable and ultimately keep the good and do away with the bad.

Room 317 turned into a mass confessional box on Monday afternoon. All that was needed were the exterior green and red lights to determine whether the room was occupied or empty to receive another sinner’s atonement.

But occupied this afternoon it was, except that the roles were reversed. This time, it was the church expressing the mea culpa to the aggrieved congregants.

More than 100 people — including more than 20 male abuse survivors — came not only to hear details about a court-approved resolution to a pending lawsuit, but to witness something they have never seen before — St.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: JEAN HOPFENSPERGER and CHAO XIONG , Star Tribune staff writers Updated: October 13, 2014

A settlement reached Monday in a historic lawsuit that has rocked the St. Paul-Minneapolis Archdiocese will require the archdiocese to overhaul how it handles reports of clergy sex abuse, how reports are investigated, and how it responds to abuse victims.

A 17-point child protection plan was revealed at an often emotional news conference in St. Paul that brought together on the same platform — for the first time — archdiocese officials, victim’s attorney Jeff Anderson and abuse victims.

The plan requires the archdiocese to report any child abuse claim to law enforcement, and refrain from conducting its own internal investigation until law enforcement finishes its investigation. The provision comes in response to victim’s complaints that the archdiocese has dismissed their claims based on their own findings.

“We’ve forged a new way and that new way is an action plan that not only protects kids in the future but honors the pain and sorrow and the grief of survivors in the past,” Anderson said at the news conference in downtown St. Paul.

He was joined at the microphone by Auxiliary Bishop Andrew Cozzens, vicar general Charles Lachowitzer, two survivors of sexual abuse, and his co-attorney on the case, Mike Finnegan. Also on hand was Minneapolis attorney Charles Rogers, who represented the archdiocese in the negotiations over the past month that led to the historic plan.

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date: Monday, October 13, 2014
Source: Anne Steffens, Interim Director of Communications

From Archbishop John Nienstedt, Archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

The joint agreement that has been reached between the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis and Jeff Anderson and Associates and the survivors he represents is a historic moment in our efforts to assure the safety of children and vulnerable adults. The agreement embodies a strengthened spirit of collaboration in addressing the issues related to clerical sexual abuse.

I am deeply saddened and profoundly sorry for the pain suffered by victims, survivors and their families.

Today we take a significant step closer to achieving the goals we set nearly a year ago to protect children, to help survivors heal, and to restore trust with our clergy and faithful. I am grateful to all those on both sides of the courtroom aisle who have worked so diligently to bring about this agreement.

I pray that this local Church will continue to be inspired by the Word of God to respond to the needs of those who have been harmed and seek healing as we move forward toward a new day for this Archdiocese as well as for our local community.

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date: Monday, October 13, 2014
Source: Anne Steffens, Interim Director of Communications

Today, attorney Jeff Anderson and officials from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis announced a settlement of the first case filed under the Minnesota Child Victims Act and a history-making agreement to work together to protect children and help clergy sexual abuse victims/survivors heal. A court meeting in the Doe 1 case this morning precipitated the afternoon press conference. Please see the news release from Jeff Anderson and Associates and the statement from Archbishop John Nienstedt.

As part of global settlement negotiations, the archdiocese committed to abiding by a set of 17 child protection protocols that were developed and approved by both archdiocesan leadership and by Jeff Anderson and Associates. The protocols form the template to be expanded upon in archdiocesan safe environment policies and codes of conduct. Some existing archdiocesan child protection policies are more extensive than the protocols. All existing policies that are more extensive will remain in place.

Letter from Doe 1 to Vicar General Charles Lachowitzer

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: JAMES NORD , Associated Press Updated: October 13, 2014

ST. PAUL, Minn. — A Ramsey County judge dismissed a groundbreaking clergy abuse case after victims’ attorneys and Catholic church leadership in St. Paul and Winona came to a settlement on Monday. Some questions and answers about the case:

WHAT HAPPENED?

Attorneys representing victims of abuse and Catholic church leaders in Minnesota settled what appears to be unprecedented litigation regarding allegations of clergy abuse and whether the church’s withholding of information represented a public nuisance. St. Paul attorney Jeff Anderson’s firm filed the lawsuit in May 2013 under a state law that temporarily opened up the statute of limitations for victims of past sexual abuse, which in this case was said to have occurred in 1976 and 1977 in St. Paul Park, Minn.

WHAT’S IN THE SETTLEMENT?

Details are private because the victim, identified as Doe 1, didn’t want them disclosed. Victims’ attorneys and church officials, though, outlined 17 “Child Protection Protocols.” Some of those include adopting a whistleblower policy about reporting abuse, making available documents regarding a substantiated claim of sexual abuse, continuing to disclose those claims and not moving forward with any internal investigations until police inquiries are closed or law enforcement authorizes such an investigation.

WHAT’S THE SIGNIFICANCE?

Anderson and church officials touted the settlement and new protective policies as a way to cut down on lawsuits and instead work together. Victims said the new policies would help protect childrenin the future, and church officials apologized for their missteps. The settlement heads off a November trial that would have tested Anderson’s argument that Minnesota Catholic officials created a public nuisance by withholding information about an abusive priest from parishioners.

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MINNESOTA
Fox 9

by Fox 9 staff

ST. PAUL, Minn. (KMSP) –
St. Paul attorney Jeff Anderson, sexual abuse survivor Al Michaud and officials with the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis gathered at the Landmark Center on Monday to announce a major settlement in the case of John Doe No. 1. Financial terms of the settlement were not disclosed, at the request of the victim, but the settlement also includes 17 child protection protocols that have been implemented by the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona.

“This child protection protocol, invested in by Doe 1, survivors and the Archdiocese, signals a new day and a new way for protection of children, healing of survivors, and full transparency and disclosure in a new way we’ve never seen,” Anderson said at a news conference.

17 child protection protocols

1. Abuse claims + active ministry: The Archdiocese shall not recommend any clergy for a position in active ministry (i.e., those clergy with permission to exercise priestly ministry to the faithful) or a position that provides for access to minors, who has a pending credible or previously substantiated claim of sexual abuse of a minor against him, or is otherwise deemed unsuitable for ministry under circumstances that arise in whole or in part, out of accusations or risk of sexual abuse of a minor. Unsuitability determinations are made by the Archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis with recommendations from the Director of Ministerial Standards and the Clergy Review Board. Likewise, the Archdiocese shall not recommend, and shall direct clergy not to recommend, any non-clergy employee for a position that provides access to minors, who has a pending credible or previously substantiated claim of sexual abuse of a minor against him or her.

2. Disclosure of sexual abuse claims: The Archdiocese shall disclose any accusation of sexual abuse of a minor to any Diocese, Catholic entity or secular employer who inquires about the existence of any accusation of sexual abuse of a minor with regard to a past or present Archdiocesan clergy member to the extent that communication is allowed by federal and state law. The Archdiocese shall also disclose the status or resolution of that claim as reflected in its records as allowed by federal and state law. This policy does not apply to ministerial assignments within the Archdiocese.

3. Meetings with survivors of abuse: Archdiocesan leadership shall meet with any survivor or his or her support person as reasonable in a supervised setting with a facilitator when appropriate, with due respect for the needs of the survivor. Meetings shall be private and may be interrupted or delayed by the facilitator if the setting becomes overly difficult.

4. Requests for victims to report abuse: The Archdiocese shall publish in the Catholic Spirit four times per year for five (5) years and one time per year for an additional five (5) years thereafter a statement urging those subject to the sexual abuse of a minor to contact law enforcement to make a report of the abuse.

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MINNESOTA
Huffington Post

Shawn Lawrence Otto

A historic turn in the international battle against sexual abuse by priests may have begun today in Saint Paul, Minnesota. For the first time in 30 years, the world’s leading clergy sex abuse litigator, Jeff Anderson, stood with two high-ranking Catholic priests and some 70 survivors of child sexual abuse, and announced what he called “a transition from litigation to mediation and to resolution” of claims.

Anderson says that for the first time, a Catholic Archdiocese and its attorneys have come to the table and sought to work with his firm to proactively stamp out priestly sex abuse and create a safe place for children, instead of battling with him in court over money. “They are finally putting survivors first,” he said.

Anderson acknowledged that is was big change for some survivors to swallow, and to help allay doubts he was joined at the podium by prominent survivors and moral activists Al Michaud and Jim Keenan, who expressed hope that the agreement would lead to a new era in Church conduct in handling sex abuse claims.

In taking the step, Anderson acknowledged he is putting his international credibility with survivors on the line. But he says it’s not the end, it’s the beginning of a new “trust but verify” approach involving a 17-point protocol that, he says, will improve transparency and accountability by turning over much of the power in the situation to outside parties.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

[with video]

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 10/13/2014

Attorneys for sexual abuse victims stood alongside church officials Monday in downtown St. Paul to announce the settlement of a sweeping lawsuit and a landmark agreement for future child protection.

“We’ve come here together today because we’ve forged a new way,” said plaintiff’s attorney Jeff Anderson. “That new way is an action plan. It not only protects kids in the future. It honors the grief and sorrows of survivors of abuse.”

Andrew Cozzens, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, said that Archbishop John Nienstedt, who approved of the agreement, wanted to be present but is in Africa confirming African students in a remote village.

“I do want to say I’m sorry. I’m sorry it happened. It shouldn’t have happened,” Cozzens said.

A former courtroom at the Landmark Center was standing-room-only Monday afternoon with abuse survivors, attorneys, media and onlookers.

At one point, Anderson asked all abuse survivors who were willing to come to the front the room. Cozzens and Vicar General Charles Lachowitzer walked down the line of mostly male survivors and shook hands with them. Many survivors wiped away tears.

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OHIO
WFMJ

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio –
The Diocese of Youngstown says it is in compliance with a set of procedures for addressing allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy.

A statement issued on Monday says that an annual audit has concluded that the diocese has procedures in place to conform with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

The Charter was established by the USCCB in June 2002. The Charter includes guidelines for reconciliation, healing, accountability, and prevention of future acts of abuse.

According to the USCCB, the Charter provides churches with ways of creating a safe environment for children and young people, and sets up rules for making prompt and effective response to allegations.

It also sets guidelines for cooperating with civil authorities and disciplining offenders.

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WISCONSIN
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel Oct. 13, 2014

Arthur Budzinski, a deaf man who helped expose one of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee’s most notorious child sexual abusers, the late Father Lawrence Murphy, will be honored Saturday by the Wisconsin School for the Deaf Alumni Association.

Budzinski, who graduated from the school in 1968, is among 10 alumnae who will be inducted into the Delavan school’s Hall of Fame for their service to the community.

“Arthur has been a courageous and staunch advocate for victims abused by priests since the early of 1970s,” the association said in announcing the award.

Budzinski was among dozens of boys molested by Murphy as children at the archdiocese’s St. John’s School for the Deaf in St. Francis between 1950 and 1974. One church psychologist estimated Murphy may have molested as many as 200 deaf children before he died in 1998.

Budzinski was among a group of alumni who had been pushing the church since the 1970s to remove Murphy and confront its failure to protect children. Their work has been documented by the Journal Sentinel and New York Times and was featured in the 2012 Alex Gibney documentary, “Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God.”

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VATICAN CITY
Washington Post

Vatican stuns Catholic world with greater openness toward gays and lesbians

By Josephine Mckenna | Religion News Service October 13

VATICAN CITY — The world’s Catholic bishops on Monday (Oct. 13) signaled a move toward greater tolerance of gays and lesbians, an about-face so unexpected that leaders of the church’s right wing called it a “betrayal.”

Noting that gays and lesbians have “gifts and qualities” to offer the church, the midpoint assessment reflected the impact that Pope Francis seems to be having on the two-week Synod on the Family as he pushes for a more open, less doctrinaire approach.

“Are we capable of welcoming these people, guaranteeing them a fraternal space in our communities?” said the communique from the nearly 200 bishops and lay delegates. “Often they wish to encounter a church that offers them a welcoming home.

“Are our communities capable of providing that, accepting and valuing their sexual orientation, without compromising Catholic doctrine on the family and matrimony?”

While they reaffirmed their opposition to gay marriage and same-sex unions, the bishops’ groundbreaking document nonetheless said homosexuality called for “serious reflection” and described it as an “important educative challenge” for the church.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Madeleine Baran St. Paul, Minn. Oct 13, 2014
Updated 2 p.m.

Attorneys connected to a landmark public nuisance lawsuit against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona confirmed Monday that a settlement had been reached and that the case has been dismissed.

“We’ve forged a new way and that new way is an action plan that not only protects kids in the future but honors the pain and sorrow and the grief of survivors in the past,” Attorney Jeff Anderson said in an afternoon press conference with church officials where he offered details of the settlement.

It was unclear, however, how much of the agreement involved new actions by the Catholic Church.

In a statement, the Winona diocese said the settlement “reaffirms” child protection policies it already has in place.

“Today is not a promise of future action. Today is the announcement of actions already taken, and the steps we will follow on a path of healing and reconciliation, restitution,” Archdiocese Vicar General Charles Lachowitzer told reporters.

Anderson laid out 17 “child protection protocols” at the heart of the agreement.

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MINNESOTA
dotCommonweal

Grant Gallicho October 13, 2014

At a press conference today, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona, Minnesota, with attorney Jeff Anderson, announced the settlement of a sexual-abuse lawsuit that has rocked the Minnesota church for over a year. Plaintiff John Doe alleged that by failing to disclose information about predator priests, both dioceses had created a public nuisance. This is the first time a diocese has settled such a suit. The full terms of the agreement remain unclear (financial terms have not been made public), but both dioceses have agreed to implement a set of seventeen protocols governing their response to cases of accused priests.

Several of the protocols simply require the dioceses to maintain policies they already have, such as not reassigning credibly accused priests and providing regular abuse-awareness training to staff and volunteers. (A credible allegation is one that is not “manifestly false.”) But the protocols go further. Both dioceses agreed to make public the personnel files of accused priests (after a canonical proceeding has concluded). They also agreed to publish the names not only of accused priests, but also the names of priests who are taken out of ministry “under circumstances that arise, in whole or in part, out of accusations or risk of sexual abuse of a minor.” Perhaps most surprisingly, the diocese agreed to obtain signed statements from every priest affirming that he has not sexually abused any minors, and that he has no knowledge of abuse committed by any other priest or employee of the diocese.

Some have expressed skepticism about the plan. First, how will the protocols be enforced? Second, to what extent does this make priests responsible for the crisis? “I want to express my gratitude to the many good priests of this archdiocese,” said Jennifer Haselberger, Archbishop John Nienstedt’s former top canon lawyer who went public last with her concerns about the way he and others were handling the crisis. “I fear that the burdens of this agreement will fall disproportionately on them, rather than on those whose leadership, or lack thereof, brought us to this end,” according to her statement. “This settlement is a heartbreaking acknowledgment of how far the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has strayed from its mission.”

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OHIO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, October 13, 2014

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

An Ohio televangelist church leader allegedly hid multiple allegations of abuse and sexually abused parishioners and associates himself. We are grateful to the brave victims, witnesses, whistleblowers and journalists who have brought these horrendous accusations and deeds to light.

Ernest Angley is the leader of Grace Cathedral in Cuyahoga Falls. The Akron Beacon Journal has been investigating a number of disturbing allegations surrounding Rev. Angley, including that he prodded women to get abortions and men to get vasectomies.

Rev. Angley admits asking boys to get naked and encouraging men to have vasectomies and examining them afterwards. He’s accused of encouraging abortions and ignoring child sex abuse reports. He has no business pretending to be a spiritual figure. He should be investigated by law enforcement and, if possible, prosecuted.

We urge anyone in the community – whether victim, witness or whistleblower – to speak up now and safeguard innocent kids and vulnerable adults by exposing wrongdoers. We especially call on current and former church officials to act responsibly and share what they know or suspect about those who commit or conceal child sex crimes with the police, prosecutors, congregants and the public right away.

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MINNESOTA
CBS News

MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota judge signed off on a settlement Monday in a groundbreaking case that accused Catholic church leaders in Minnesota of creating a public nuisance by failing to warn parishioners about an abusive priest.

Ramsey County Judge James Van De North approved the settlement after meeting with both sides Monday, said Jeff Anderson, an attorney for the plaintiffs.

“This is a landmark case,” Anderson said on emerging from the settlement conference. “It’s monumental in a lot of ways.”

St. Paul-Minneapolis Archbishop John Nienstedt issued a statement calling it “a historic moment in our efforts to assure the safety of children and vulnerable adults.”

Full details of the settlement weren’t given, but the sides did release 17 “child protection protocols.”

Among them: Church leaders said they will not recommend a priest for active ministry or a position working with minors if they’ve been credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor. They also said they would disclose any accusation of sexual abuse of a minor by a priest when asked by the priest’s potential employer – whether it’s by another diocese or outside the church – along with the resolution.

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MINNESOTA
ABC News

MINNEAPOLIS — Oct 13, 2014

By AMY FORLITI Associated Press

Catholic church leaders in Minnesota say they won’t recommend any priest for active ministry if they’ve been credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor.

The pledge is part of child protection protocols called for in Monday’s settlement of a groundbreaking public nuisance lawsuit against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona.

Church leaders were accused of failing to warn parishioners about an abusive priest.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Historical Abuse Inquiry: Alleged victim refused copy of her child abuse statement

13 OCTOBER 2014

A woman who says she was molested at a children’s home has lost a legal battle to obtain a copy of her private statement to the Historical Abuse Inquiry.

Court of Appeal judges upheld a decision that she has no right to be provided with a recording of her account to a panel.

Emphasising the need for confidentiality, Lord Justice Gillen ruled there was no basis for declaring the refused disclosure unreasonable or unfair.

He said: “The grim truth is that if it were to become commonplace for such recordings to be provided, with all the attendant risks of such material innocently or otherwise getting into the public domain, we can readily see the deleterious effect this might have on the process as a whole.”

The woman, who cannot be identified, claims to have been subjected to physical and psychological abuse at Nazareth House in Belfast during years she spent there in the 1970s.

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

[with 1 p.m. Central live stream]

Press Conference to begin at 1:00 P.M. Central
Audio will become available once the press conference begins.

On Monday, October 13, 2014, St. Paul, Attorney Jeff Anderson and sexual abuse survivor Al Michaud, along with: Tim O’Malley, Director of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment for the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis; Auxiliary Bishop Andrew Cozzens and; Vicar General Rev. Charles Lachowitzer, came together to announce the settlement of the Doe 1 v. Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, Diocese of Winona and Thomas Adamson civil lawsuit.

As part of this historic settlement, 17 child protection protocols have been implemented by the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona. A copy of the protocols for the Archdiocese and Diocese of Winona are below, along with a letter from Doe 1.

“This child protection protocol, invested in by Doe 1, survivors and the Archdiocese, signals a new day and a new way for protection of children, healing of survivors, and full transparency and disclosure in a new way we’ve never seen,” said Attorney Jeff Anderson.

Archbishop Nienstedt Statement
Archdiocese Child Protection Protocols
Doe 1 letter to Fr. Lachowitzer
Winona Child Protection Protocols

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Diocese of Winona

[Bishop Quinn video]

Posted on October 13, 2014 10:02

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MEDIA CONTACT:
Joel Hennessy, Director of Mission Advancement
jhennessy@dow.org office 507.858.1249 cell 507.254.3948

A Statement from Most Rev. John M. Quinn, Bishop of Winona

WINONA, MN – October 13, 2014 – Today the Diocese of Winona, Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Plaintiff, known as Doe 1, have agreed to fully settle a lawsuit pending in Ramsey County District Court. At the request of the Plaintiff, the terms of the Settlement Agreement are confidential. Doe 1 has asserted claims of negligence and public and private nuisance against the Diocese of Winona. Today’s settlement fully resolves all issues in this case that stems from the sexual abuse by former priest of the Diocese of Winona, Thomas Adamson.

We are ashamed of the horrific crimes that Thomas Adamson has perpetrated against children in our Diocese and in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. We are committed to ensuring the safety of the children entrusted to our care in our schools and in our parishes. As part of the settlement in this case the Diocese of Winona has committed to a series of child protection protocols which will further help to ensure the safety of all of God’s children. Most of the child protection protocols that the Diocese of Winona has committed to have been previously adopted and implemented. This agreement reaffirms the existing protocols and demonstrates our resolve and conviction to take every possible step to ensure the safety of all God’s children. The protocols are posted on the Diocese of Winona website along with our entire Safe Environment Program www.dow.org/safeenvironment.

The Diocese of Winona remains committed to providing support and healing to those who have been tragically abused by clergy. We encourage anyone that has been abused recently or in the past to report the abuse to civil authorities.

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MINNESOTA
Crux

By Associated Press
October 13, 2014

Winona Bishop John Quinn says his diocese has already implemented some protocols adopted as part of a settlement between the church and a man who claimed he was abused by a former priest.

A judge on Monday approved a settlement that resolves a case against the Diocese of Winona and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. The lawsuit alleged church leaders created a public nuisance by failing to warn parishioners about an abusive priest.

Quinn’s statement says the Winona Diocese is “ashamed of the horrific crimes … perpetrated against children.”

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: JEAN HOPFENSPERGER , Star Tribune Updated: October 13, 2014

A settlement has been reached in a historic lawsuit that had forced the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to make public the names and personnel files of priests who had abused children over the past four decades.

Attorneys for the archdiocese and the victim’s attorney Jeff Anderson met with Ramsey District Court Judge John Van de North Monday morning. Van de North has filed an order for dismissal of the case.

As part of the settlement, 17 child protection protocols have been implemented by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona, both defendants in the case. Details will be announced at a news conference this afternoon.

The financial settlement will not be made public, under the request of the man identified as John Doe 1, who filed the lawsuit that has rocked the Catholic Church in Minnesota.

However, the settlement includes a process for making public the names and church files of priests accused of abuse that are currently sealed, something that the archdiocese had long opposed.

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MINNESOTA
KTTC

[with video]

ST. PAUL, Minn. (KTTC) — A landmark settlement has been reached in a clergy sex abuse lawsuit against the Diocese of Winona, and Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

The details of the settlement will likely be made public during a news conference Monday afternoon in St. Paul. This historic agreement comes just weeks before a trial was scheduled to begin in a case accusing the Diocese of Winona of creating a “public nuisance” by covering up clergy sex abuse cases for decades.

As part of the settlement, 17 child protection protocols have been implemented by the Diocese of Winona, and Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

In a statement, Winona Bishop John Quinn said the terms of the settlement agreement are confidential. He said the settlement fully resolves all issues in this case related to sexual abuse by former priest Thomas Adamson. Adamson, a native of Byron, was ordained a priest in 1958 and got his first assignment in Winona with pastoral duties at St. Casimir’s Parish. Adamson was removed from ministry in 1985 and defrocked in 2009.

“We are ashamed of the horrific crimes that Thomas Adamson has perpetrated against children in our Diocese and in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis,” Quinn said in a statement. “We are committed to ensuring the safety of the children entrusted to our care in our schools and in our parishes. As part of the settlement in this case the Diocese of Winona has committed to a series of child protection protocols which will further help to ensure the safety of all of God’s children. Most of the child protection protocols that the Diocese of Winona has committed to have been previously adopted and implemented.” Read the rest of the statement here.

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UNITED STATES
A Room with a Pew

Paul Fericano

“Forgiveness is a word no one can agree on.”
–Marina Cantacuzino, The Forgiveness Project

Forgiveness is often a complex and confusing aspect of any healing process, particularly for those molested by the clergy. According to my own traditional Catholic school upbringing, the act was designed to be simple. We were told to forgive and we felt obligated to do so. We merely spoke the right words and our faith transformed us. But any movement in that direction was mostly driven by guilt, fear and control. I wasn’t the only one who was left feeling empty and unfulfilled. Most of us had no understanding of either the act or the method. How could we know otherwise? When forgiveness was preached it was often more about imposing beliefs and values and less about helping others find comfort and stillness.

In truth, there’s nothing simple about forgiveness. It involves diligence, a desire to chart a new course, and a willingness to be honest with our feelings. Forgiveness is not a convenience. It’s a conversation. There are no guarantees that those we forgive today will be forgiven tomorrow, including ourselves. It’s a fluid and ever-deepening practice. Like a river that constantly flows into and from our own experiences, it’s an ongoing process that reflects our struggles. When we freely immerse ourselves in that river our choices become clearer and our efforts more meaningful.

In my first column for “A Room With A Pew” which appeared in December, 2013, I briefly mentioned forgiving my offender, Franciscan friar, Mario Cimmarrusti, who had passed away that November. Two months later, I was compelled to publish an “In Memoriam” piece on Mario in which I discussed my relationship with him over the years, and how forgiveness helped me come to terms with his presence in my life. In both articles, I didn’t relate the details or circumstances of my decision to forgive. Instead, I chose to focus on the effects of my resolution.

In the last few months I’ve received a number of inquiries from clergy abuse survivors asking me to share more of my personal experience regarding those details and circumstances. This hasn’t surprised me. The language of forgiveness may be foreign to many survivors, but more and more men and women have begun to explore this issue in earnest. One survivor spoke of her failed attempts to convince herself. “I’m not really clear about what forgiveness means to me anymore,” she wrote. Another survivor struggled with direction. “I’d read things and figured I could do this,” he explained. “I had no idea how or where to start.” Others felt trapped or disappointed in the theological propositions of inclusion and exclusion. One survivor aptly summed it up: “My cynicism makes forgiveness impractical.”

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.

ALABAMA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, October 13, 2014

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

It’s an outrage that a minister who admits having sexually exploited congregants while infected with AIDS is still preaching at his church.

We urge his flock to denounce this and take immediate steps to permanently oust him. And we call on other pastors in Alabama to preach this weekend about how wrongdoers and misguided believers abuse and misconstrue the notion of forgiveness in ways that put innocent children and vulnerable adults at risk of more crimes, harm and betrayals.

We should forgive the school bus driver whose alcoholism led to an accident. But we should not let her drive a bus again.

We should forgive the man who shoots someone in a fit of rage. But we should not let him have a gun again.

And we should forgive a minister who abuses his powerful, prestigious position to sexually exploit devout, vulnerable congregants. But we should not let him be a minister any more.

Forgiveness is secondary. Safety is primary. So right now, the job of current and former members and staff of Pastor Juan McFarland’s church is to seek out and comfort others who have been hurt by this man. It is to call police and prosecutors with any information or suspicions they may have. And it is to do whatever they can to help make sure that McFarland can’t con and hurt others.

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
The Raw Story

DAVID EDWARDS
13 OCT 2014

Former members of Grace Cathedral have accused televangelist Ernest Angley of forcing them to have abortions, and vasectomies. And they said that he sexually abused boys in the church, which he has denied.

In the first part of a six-part series on Sunday, the Akron Beacon Journal said that church members had provided it with a recording of a recent church service where 93-year-old televangelist Ernest Angley addressed accusations that he had inappropriately touched a former pastor.

“I’m not a homosexual. God wouldn’t use a homosexual like he uses me. He calls me his prophet, and indeed I am,” Angley explained. “They called Jesus a homosexual, did you know that? And still do. Because he was with men.”

As for the claim that Angley encouraged men in the church to have vasectomies, he said that he had “helped so many of the boys down through the years.”

“They had their misgivings,” he recalled. “Sure, I’d have them uncover themselves, but I did not handle them 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.

MINNESOTA
KSTP

A support group for victims of clergy sexual abuse is applauding a man who pursued a public nuisance claim against church leaders in Minnesota.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests says it hopes victims in other states will also use the public nuisance law to force church officials to release records on priests accused of abuse.

A judge approved a settlement Monday between the man, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona. The settlement includes 17 child protection protocols.

SNAP says it welcomes efforts to force Catholic officials to be more responsible about the safety of children and more open about clergy sex crimes, however it urges caution. The group says it has seen church officials violate pledges for change in the past.

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

MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon and Kristi Belcamino
Pioneer Press
POSTED: 10/13/2014

Years ago, he was a young Minnesota priest — and alleged rapist
A Ramsey County judge has signed the order dismissing a sweeping priest sexual abuse lawsuit, both sides announced Monday morning.

“Doe 1 has settled,” plaintiff’s attorney Jeff Anderson told reporters outside the chambers of Judge John Van de North.

The Rev. Charles Lachowitzer, vicar general of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, concurred. “It’s good to be on the same side,” he said.

Though financial terms will remain confidential, the parties will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. Monday at the Landmark Center in St. Paul to announce what Anderson called a new set of “protocols … to ensure transparency and child protection.”

“As part of this historic settlement, 17 child protection protocols have been implemented by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona,” Anderson said in a written statement.

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

MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Madeleine Baran St. Paul, Minn. Oct 13, 2014

Attorneys connected to a landmark public nuisance lawsuit against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona confirmed Monday that a settlement had been reached and that the case has been dismissed. But they said financial terms of the settlement will remain confidential.

Attorney Jeff Anderson this morning said Ramsey County Judge Van de North approved the settlement terms in a meeting this morning. An attorney for the archdiocese said the financial settlement will be confidential at the request of the victim.

Part of the deal will include a process for releasing the names of accused priests currently under seal.

Anderson is expected to speak in detail to the media at a 1 p.m. press conference. He has said generally the agreement will require ongoing disclosure to his law firm and the public about abuse cases and that the agreement is more extensive than a deal reached years earlier with St. John’s Abbey about its handling of clergy abuse claims.

Anderson had filed the suit in Ramsey County last year on behalf of a man who said he was sexually abused as a child by the Rev. Thomas Adamson in the late 1970s. Adamson, who served in the Twin Cities archdiocese and the Winona diocese, is no longer a priest.

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Media Advisory

October 13, 2014

Jeff Anderson, with Survivors and Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis Officials, to Stand Together and Announce Historic Child Protection Action Plan and Settlement of the Doe 1 Civil Lawsuit

Protocols outline 17 requirements to ensure transparency and child protection

This is the first time in 30 years Anderson will stand with Archdiocese Officials to work in cooperation for child protection

WHAT: At a news conference today in St. Paul, attorney Jeff Anderson and sexual abuse survivor Al Michaud, along with: Tim O’Malley, Director of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment for the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis; Auxiliary Bishop Andrew Cozzens and; Vicar General Rev. Charles Lachowitzer, will come together to discuss the settlement of the Doe 1 v. Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, Diocese of Winona and Thomas Adamson civil lawsuit.

As part of this historic settlement, 17 child protection protocols have been implemented by the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona. A copy of the protocols will be available at the press conference and on our website later today.

“This child protection protocol, invested in by Doe 1, survivors and the Archdiocese, signals a new day and a new way for protection of children, healing of survivors, and full transparency and disclosure in a new way we’ve never seen,” said Attorney Jeff Anderson.

WHEN: Today, October 13, 2014, at 1:00PM CDT

WHERE: Landmark Center – Ramsey County Room #317
75 5th Street
St. Paul, MN 55101

NOTES: We will live stream the press event online from our website www.andersonadvocates.com.

Broadcasters wishing to take in a live feed of this press conference can access the following Satellite Coordinates:

Galaxy 17 21K Upper, Digital Only
Uplink Frequency: 14429.0000 V
Downlink Frequency: 12129.0000 H
Specs: HD Mpeg-2 4:2:0 DVB-S QPSK
Access Contact: Intelsat
Access Phone #: 800.321.3959
Access Reference #: 1390442
Window Opens at 12:30 PM Central for Testing

Event is Live from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM Central

Contact Jeff Anderson: Office/651.227.9990 Cell/612.817.8665
Contact Mike Finnegan: Office/651.227.9990 Cell/612.205.5531
Contact Anne Steffens, Interim Director of Communications, Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis: Office/651.291.4525

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MINNESOTA
Washington Post

By Associated Press October 13

MINNEAPOLIS — Victims of clergy sex abuse and church officials in the Twin Cities and Winona have reached a settlement in a landmark case that alleged church leaders created a public nuisance by failing to warn parishioners about an abusive priest, a person with knowledge of the case said Monday.

The person says the settlement resolves the public nuisance case against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the person wasn’t authorized to talk about the settlement ahead of an official announcement, planned for 1 p.m. Monday.

The archdiocese was not commenting before a scheduled news conference. A statement from victims’ attorneys said survivors of abuse and archdiocese officials would announce a plan to protect children.

Joel Hennessy, a spokesman for the Diocese of Winona, said the diocese would release an official statement later Monday regarding any potential settlement.

The case against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona is believed to be the first clergy sexual abuse case nationwide to use the public nuisance theory at trial.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, October 13, 2014

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

Evidently, John Doe 1 has settled his civil child sex abuse and cover up lawsuit against the Twin Cities Catholic archdiocese and the Winona diocese.

We applaud John Doe 1 for his courage and his persistence. We especially praise him for his creative use of the public nuisance law to force complicit and self-serving Catholic bureaucrats to disclose records of those who committed and are concealing known and suspected child sex crimes. We hope other victims in other states explore the possibility of using nuisance laws to disgorge the deeply-hidden truth about child molesting clerics and their corrupt colleagues.

Because he was strong enough and brave enough to file suit and seek justice, Doe has been able to extract more secrets from complicit Catholic officials than all but a few abuse victims anywhere. Minnesota citizens and Catholics, including law enforcement officials, owe him an enormous debt of gratitude. We hope he feels proud of himself for all that he has achieved and we hope that his example will prod others who have been assaulted as kids to get help from independent sources and use the time-tested US justice system to protect kids, expose wrongdoers and deter cover ups.

Based on our 25 years of experience, we urge caution regarding the claims by St. Paul archdiocesan officials of “change.” We welcome innovative efforts to force Catholic officials to be more responsible about kids’ safety and more open about clergy sex crimes and cover ups. At the same time, however, we have repeatedly seen Catholic officials violate their pledges about child protection, even those pledges that may seem to have strong enforcement mechanisms.

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VATICAN CITY
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

The Family Synod’s initial and disappointing report confirms what was obvious all last week. Pope Francis and his Synod appear to be changing the sharp lyrics, but so far basically to be retaining the harsh tune. It appears to me that the report had been mostly written before the Synod even began.

See the report at:

[Vatican.va]

As stated in pertinent part in the report’s conclusion:

“58. The reflections put forward, the fruit of the Synodal dialog that took place in great freedom and a spirit of reciprocal listening, are intended to raise questions and indicate perspectives that will have to be matured and made clearer … These are not decisions that have been made nor simply points of view. All the same the collegial path of the bishops and the involvement of all God’s people under the guidance of the Holy Spirit will lead us to find roads of truth and mercy for all. ….

Cutting through the scholastic smokescreen of “graduality” and “mercy”, the Bishops have in effect decided, it appears, at the direction of Francis and his Vatican clique, obviously, with no effective input from 99.9% of the world’s Catholic faithful, that “sinners”, included the divorced and remarried, those who rely on the Pill to responsibly plan their families, and gay couples, should not be called “sinners” so often or so loudly.

Instead, these sinners must be smoothly dragged through better theological messaging to enable them to follow more closely the Holy Bishops’ “divinely inspired” and ultimately condemnatory message against divorce, contraception and gay marriage. And maybe the Vatican will also make annulments easier, if not cheaper, another hypocritical Vatican exercise.

In the ultimate irony, the Catholic hierarchy appears now to be applying their failed approach to the clerical rape of children to a new, “more merciful” , “more gradualitistic”, approach to divorce, contraception and gay marriage — acknowledge these are all seriously sinful, but avoid talking about them so much, while somehow still inculcating the Vatican’s party line. This appears theologically to be talking out of both sides of the papal mouth, no?

The Sopranos “FUGEDABOUTIT” is seemingly being baptized by “graduality” and “mercy” into a theological maxim. Why should or would Catholics accept this massive dose of papal “doublespeak”? Will this initial report by reversed during this next week? Given the careful “stage management” so far, this is highly unlikely.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

In court nearly two years ago, Leo Omar Hernandez was the only witness who could corroborate any part of Billy Doe’s wildly improbable tale about being repeatedly raped as an altar boy by a couple of priests and a school teacher.

Hernandez was supposedly the “best guy friend” that Billy Doe first confided his story of sex abuse to back when they were high school classmates at the International Christian Academy in Northeast Philadelphia.

Hernandez told the jury that when he and Billy were sophomores at the Christian Academy, they used a Bible verse as a weapon against a male teacher who got “touchy-feely” with them. In court, Hernandez presented himself as a clean-cut, straight-arrow, honorably-discharged Air Force vet living with his girlfriend and newborn son at a house he owned in Mayfair. But none of that turns out to be true.

Billy Doe is currently suing the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and his alleged abusers in a civil suit in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court. Meanwhile, his former “best guy friend” Leo Omar Hernandez has filed a medical malpractice case filed in Common Pleas Court against a Philadelphia osteopath, a male doctor that Hernandez claims got him hooked on drugs and then had an abusive sexual relationship with him.

Records gathered for that medical malpractice case show that while Leo Omar Hernandez claims he’s a victim, he also admits he’s a former drug addict, steroid abuser, and dancer in gay male strip clubs.

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MINNESOTA
Fox 9

by Bill Keller

ST. PAUL, Minn. (KMSP) –
The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis is expected to announce a major settlement in a clergy sex abuse lawsuit, just weeks before a trial was set to start. Attorney Jeff Anderson will present terms of the settlement to a judge Monday morning.

For decades, Anderson has been trying to hold the Catholic Church accountable for alleged abuse by priests and other clergy. On his Twitter account, Anderson said, “this will be the first time in 30 years [he] has stood with archdiocese officials to work in cooperation for child protection.”

Details of the confidential settlement between victims and the church will be presented to a Ramsey County judge later Monday morning.

The lawsuit, involving John Doe No. 1, was scheduled to go to trial in just a few weeks, but sources said the settlement also covers hundreds of others who are accusing the clergy of sexual abuse. Anderson said not only will there be a financial settlement, but there will also be new protocols put in place on how to handle future claims of sexual abuse against priests.

Legal action against several dioceses has not only triggered the release of thousands documents and forced the church to release the names of known offenders, but the deposition of top church officials including Archbishop John Nienstedt.

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MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times

A settlement between child sex abuse victims and church officials will be announced Monday, only a few weeks before a groundbreaking trial accusing the Roman Catholic church of turning a blind eye to clergy abuse was scheduled to begin, the victim’s attorney said.

Details of the confidential settlement between victims and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona will be outlined before a Ramsey County judge Monday morning before an official announcement is made later in the afternoon.

Sources said the landmark agreement not only settles a lawsuit slated to go to trial Nov. 3 but also covers hundreds of other alleged abuse victims who have been waiting in the wings with their own allegations.

Along with the financial settlement, the agreement will stipulate how future allegations of abuse are handled.

“This feels to me like a new way and a new day,” said Jeff Anderson, attorney for the victims. “There is a strict difference between policy and protocol and action, but they (archdiocese officials) are committed to working with us than against us.”

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.

CHICAGO (IL)
CBS Chicago

[with video]

Nancy Harty

(CBS) — Priest sex abuse survivors leafleted outside a Catholic church on Chicago’s North Side Sunday to draw attention to an ongoing investigation, reports WBBM’s Nancy Harty.

Many parishioners at St. Alphonsus Catholic Church in Lakeview didn’t know about a Cook County Sheriff Department’s investigation into the parish’s pastor, according to Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests spokeswoman Kate Bochte.

“We’re here to clear the record that the investigation [into] Michael O’Connell, as far as the criminal investigation, is still open and ongoing,” Bochte said.

A handful of SNAP members passed out flyers outlining the sheriff’s investigation that began in December and ended in April after police were unable to support any charges. A review by the Archdiocese also failed to substantiate claims against O’Connell, so he was reinstated.

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
John Thavis

In pastoral terms, the document published today by the Synod of Bishops represents an earthquake, the “big one” that hit after months of smaller tremors.

The relatio post disceptationem read aloud in the synod hall, while defending fundamental doctrine, calls for the church to build on positive values in unions that the church has always considered “irregular,” including cohabitating couples, second marriages undertaken without annulments and even homosexual unions.

Regarding homosexuals, it went so far as to pose the question whether the church could accept and value their sexual orientation without compromising Catholic doctrine.

While defending the traditional teachings that reject divorce and gay marriage, the synod said the modern church must focus more on the “positive elements” in such relationships, rather than their shortcomings, and open a patient and merciful dialogue with the people involved. The ultimate aim, it said, is to use these “seeds” of goodness to bring people more fully into the church.

It summed up the pastoral challenge for the church in this way:

“It is necessary to accept people in their concrete being, to know how to support their search, to encourage the wish for God and the will to feel fully part of the Church, also on the part of those who have experienced failure or find themselves in the most diverse situations. This requires that the doctrine of the faith, the basic content of which should be made increasingly better known, be proposed alongside with mercy.”

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Herald (UK)

Introduction

During the prayer vigil held in St Peter’s Square on 4 October 2014 in preparation for the Synod on the family, Pope Francis evoked the centrality of the experience of family in all lives, in a simple and concrete manner: “Evening falls on our assembly. It is the hour at which one willingly returns home to meet at the same table, in the depth of affection, of the good that has been done and received, of the encounters which warm the heart and make it grow, good wine which hastens the unending feast in the days of man. It is also the weightiest hour for one who finds himself face to face with his own loneliness, in the bitter twilight of shattered dreams and broken plans; how many people trudge through the day in the blind alley of resignation, of abandonment, even resentment: in how many homes the wine of joy has been less plentiful, and therefore, also the zest — the very wisdom — for life […]. Let us make our prayer heard for one another this evening, a prayer for all”.

The source of joys and trials, of deep affections and relations – at times wounded – the family is truly a “school of humanity” (“Familia schola quaedam uberioris humanitatis est”, Vatican Council II, Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, 52), of which we are in great need. Despite the many signs of crisis in the institution of the family in various contexts of the “global village”, the desire for family remains alive, especially among the young, and is at the root of the Church’s need to proclaim tirelessly and with profound conviction the “Gospel of the family” entrusted to her with the revelation of God’s love in Jesus Christ.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service – Bolletino

[Unofficial translation]

Introduction

Part I

Listening: the context and challenges to the family
The socio-cultural context
The relevance of emotional life
Pastoral challenges

Part II

The gaze on Christ: the Gospel of the Family
The gaze on Jesus and gradualness in the history of salvation
The family in God’s salvific plan
The discernment of values present in wounded families and irregular situations
Truth and beauty of the family and mercy

Part III

Discussion: pastoral perspectives
Proclaiming the Gospel of the family today, in various contexts
Guiding couples on the path in preparation for marriage
Accompanying the first years of married life
Positive aspects of civil unions and cohabitation
Caring for wounded families (separated couples, the divorced who
have not remarried, the divorced and remarried)
Welcoming homosexual persons
The transmission of life and the challenge of declining birthrate
The challenge of education and the role of the family in evangelization

Conclusion

* * *
Introduction

1. During the prayer vigil held in St Peter’s Square on 4 October 2014 in preparation for the Synod on the family, Pope Francis evoked the centrality of the experience of family in all lives, in a simple and concrete manner: “Evening falls on our assembly. It is the hour at which one willingly returns home to meet at the same table, in the depth of affection, of the good that has been done and received, of the encounters which warm the heart and make it grow, good wine which hastens the unending feast in the days of man. It is also the weightiest hour for one who finds himself face to face with his own loneliness, in the bitter twilight of shattered dreams and broken plans; how many people trudge through the day in the blind alley of resignation, of abandonment, even resentment: in how many homes the wine of joy has been less plentiful, and therefore, also the zest — the very wisdom — for life […]. Let us make our prayer heard for one another this evening, a prayer for all”.

2. The source of joys and trials, of deep affections and relations – at times wounded – the family is truly a “school of humanity” (“Familia schola quaedam uberioris humanitatis est”, Vatican Council II, Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, 52), of which we are in great need. Despite the many signs of crisis in the institution of the family in various contexts of the “global village”, the desire for family remains alive, especially among the young, and is at the root of the Church’s need to proclaim tirelessly and with profound conviction the “Gospel of the family” entrusted to her with the revelation of God’s love in Jesus Christ.

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
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Oct. 13, 2014

VATICAN CITY Taking a decidedly different tone than many church statements in recent years, the worldwide meeting of Catholic bishops on family issues has released a document calling for the church to listen more, to respect people in their various struggles, and to apply mercy much more widely.

Summarizing the work of the continuing meeting, known as a synod, the document acknowledges bluntly that the strict application of church doctrine is no longer enough to support people in their quest for God.

“It is necessary to accept people in their concrete being, to know how to support their search, to encourage the wish for God and the will to feel fully part of the Church, also on the part of those who have experienced failure or find themselves in the most diverse situations,” states the document, released Monday morning.

“This requires that the doctrine of the faith, the basic content of which should be made increasingly better known, be proposed alongside with mercy,” it continues.

The document, known as a relatio post disceptationem, is a summary of the discussions held at the synod so far, which is meeting from Oct. 5-19. It was read Monday morning to the some 190 prelates attending the synod by Hungarian Cardinal Peter Erdo, who is serving as the synod’s relator, or secretary.

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VATICAN CITY
The Tablet

13 October 2014 by Christopher Lamb in Rome

A major shift in the Church’s pastoral care for gay Catholics was put forward today at the Vatican’s Synod on the Family on Monday.

A document released at the halfway point of the gathering said that gay Catholics’ orientation should be valued and that they have “gifts and qualities” to offer parishes. The document also praised elements of same-sex partnerships.

“Are we capable of welcoming these people, guaranteeing them fraternal space in our communities? Often they wish to encounter a Church that offers them a welcoming home,” the document, presented this morning by Cardinal Peter Erdo, the relator general of the synod, stated. “Are our communities capable of providing that, accepting and valuing their sexual orientation, without compromising Catholic doctrine on family and matrimony?”

It goes on to explain that while there are “moral problems” with homosexual unions, there are times when their “mutual aid to the point of sacrifice constitutes a precious support in the life of the partners”.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

October 13, 2014

Paul Bibby
Court Reporter

NSW Police Force officers may have “condoned” and even “encouraged” the cover-up of child sexual abuse by the Catholic Church, the Police Integrity Commission has heard.

The allegations emerged on the first day of the commission’s hearing into the involvement of police officers in the Professional Standards Resource Group (PSRG), set up by the Catholic Church as part of Towards Healing, its response to child sex abuse within the church.

In her opening address, counsel assisting the commission, Kristina Stern, SC, said the group had been set up in 1997, was responsible for dealing with complaints of child abuse within the church, and involved the participation of police at regular meetings.

One of these officers was Elizabeth Cullen, now an inspector, who was part of the group from 1999 to 2005.

Ms Stern said there were several issues with the processes of dealing with complaints within the group.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Sunday 12 October 2014

There was a climate of fear at the pentecostal school where children as young as six were sexually abused by a teacher who was later jailed, a national inquiry has heard.

Margaret Furlong, who still teaches at Melbourne’s Northside Christian college, told the child sexual abuse royal commission on Monday she had reported her concerns that another teacher, Kenneth Sandilands, was behaving inappropriately with children.

She then trusted “godly men” to do the right thing.

Furlong, who worked at the primary school from 1987 until 1998, said three children had complained Sandilands was touching them.

One girl, Emma Joy Fretton, wanted to be transferred from his class “because he did bad things” but wasn’t allowed to.

Fretton, now 34, on Friday told the commission Sandilands abused her for three years from 1987, touching her, beating her with a wooden paddle and making her sign obscene stories which he dictated to her.

Furlong said she reported her concerns to the then-principal Neil Rookes, but told the inquiry there was no follow up.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Thomas Oriti, Jessica Kidd
13 Oct 2014

The police corruption watchdog in New South Wales has been told an intelligence-sharing arrangement with the Catholic Church potentially allowed the clergy to withhold information from officers.

In the late 1990s, New South Wales police agreed to have a serving officer from the Sex Crimes Squad involved in the Professional Standards Resource Group (PSRG).

The internal panel was established by the Catholic Church to respond to complaints of child sexual abuse.

The arrangement between police and the church continued until 2005, despite internal police legal advice warning the arrangement was “illegal, nonsensical and undesirable”.

As part of Operation Protea, the Police Integrity Commission is now investigating whether that involvement amounted to police misconduct.

Counsel Assisting the Commission Kristina Stern SC told the hearing the officer, Inspector Elizabeth Cullen (then a Senior Sergeant), played a key role in the internal church panel.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

The Catholic Church has been accused of going against the wishes of sex abuse victims by not providing key information to investigators, an inquiry has heard.

The Police Integrity Commission has also heard the practice of ‘blind reporting’ – a process by which allegations of child sexual abuse were reported to police without identifying the victim – was open to misconduct and may have been in breach of the NSW Crimes Act.

In her opening address on Monday, counsel assisting Kristina Stern SC said the vast majority of complainants were not advised by the church’s Professional Standards Resource Group (PSRG) to take their complaint to the police.

Created by Catholic bishops, the PSRG, which included members of the police force, was set up to advise the church’s Professional Standards Office (PSO) on child sexual abuse cases involving clergy and others.

The former head of the PSO, John Davoren, told the inquiry the only reason complaints weren’t passed to police was if the victim said that’s what they wanted.

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WALES
Wales Online

Oct 12, 2014 By Grace Macaskill

Two of perverted Mark Sewell’s sex attack victims are suing the Jehovah’s Witness Church in a landmark case which could blow the religion’s child protection policies apart.

Lawyers for the women will lodge High Court papers claiming the church failed in its duty to protect them from the elder.

The case could open the floodgates for dozens of UK women to take action against the church.

Jehovah’s Witness elder Sewell was jailed for 14 years in July for raping a fellow worshipper and abusing two schoolgirls more than 20 years ago. He also molested an employee.

Victims claim elders at the church knew of Sewell’s attacks but did nothing. Three of Sewell’s victims have waived their anonymity to tell of his horrendous sexual reign of terror, including Karen Morgan and Wendy who are taking legal action against the church.

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OHIO
Beacon Journal

Ernest Angley’s Grace Cathedral rocked by accusations involving abortions and vasectomies

By Bob Dyer
Beacon Journal staff writer

Depending whom you ask, one of two things is happening at the big Cuyahoga Falls church run by legendary television evangelist Ernest Angley:

• The devil himself has infiltrated the church, and Angley, who is a prophet of God, has been working tirelessly to fight him off.

• Angley’s church is a dangerous cult where pregnant women are encouraged to have abortions, childless men are encouraged to have vasectomies and Angley — who preaches vehemently against the “sin” of homosexuality — is himself a gay man who personally examines the genitals of the male parishioners before and after their surgeries. They also say he turns a blind eye to sexual abuse by other members of his church.

During the past few months, a tear has ripped through the 3,000-seat auditorium known as Grace Cathedral. One longtime associate pastor resigned, telling friends and family he felt he had been inappropriately touched by Angley for seven years.

The dispute exploded on July 13, when Angley and two others in his camp addressed the situation in a 2½-hour open service. The service was recorded by one of the attendees and shared with the Beacon Journal.

In response to swirling accusations that he is a homosexual who has abused both his associates and members of the congregation, Angley, 93, had this to say to a large Sunday gathering.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

[with video]

Hillsong leader Brian Houston has spoken of the moment he confronted his pedophile father over sexual abuse allegations.

Speaking with Karl Stefanovic on TODAY this morning, he also said his congregation had offered him incredible support after he faced the Royal Commission inquiry last week.

Mr Houston’s father Frank, a Hillsong pastor himself, admitted abusing children in the 1970s to his son in 1999.

Frank Houston died in 2004.

“I confronted my father – [it was] the worst day of my life,” Mr Houston said.

“The shock of finding out was just horrendous.

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AUSTRALIA
TVNZ

The leader of the Hillsong Church has broken his silence on his paedophile father, addressing his 3000 strong congregation in New South Wales.

Brian Houston told his followers it was wrong of him not to report his father to police, but said other church leaders also knew and did nothing.

Giving his first sermon since testifying last week at the Australian Royal Commission on Child Sexual Abuse, Mr Houston said no-one told him to report his father.

“You had a situation where this was the first time I had ever heard about my father’s abuses. There was a victim, a survivor, who was adamant he did not want a police investigation and he didn’t want a church investigation,” he said.

Mr Houston was told in 1999 that his pastor father Frank had molested a boy in a Sydney household in the 1970’s.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

October 13, 2014

Annette Blackwell

A primary school teacher given two severe warnings about inappropriate touching of children continued to teach for another six years at the same Pentecostal school, an inquiry has heard.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is examining how a Pentecostal church and its school handled complaints against Kenneth Sandilands, who taught there from 1983 to 1992.

Sandilands was jailed in 2000 for two years for offences against eight boys and girls at Northside Christian College at Bundoora in the northern suburbs of Melbourne.

In September 2014 he was sent back to jail for 26 months on a further six counts of indecent assault at St Paul’s Anglican primary School in Frankston, Victoria, where he had worked in the 1970s.

Denis Smith, senior pastor at the Northside Christian Life Centre church which ran the school, said on Monday the then-principal Ken Ellery investigated allegations against Sandilands in December 1986.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph

Royal commission into child sex abuse: pastor said it would be ‘normal to have girls sitting on knee’ of teacher

JANET FIFE-YEOMANS THE DAILY TELEGRAPH OCTOBER 13, 2014

A CHURCH pastor who investigated allegations of sexual assault by a teacher said that having young girls sitting on their knee in class “would be quite normal in a teaching situation”, the child sex abuse royal commission has been told.

Three girls who reported the abuse in 1987 at Melbourne’s Northside Christian College were given a “firm lecture.”

The teacher, Kenneth Sandilands, 69, went on to plead guilty and was jailed for two years in 2000 for 13 counts of indecent assaulting eight victims at the college, which is run by Encompass Church, a member of the Australian Christian Churches which was formerly known as the Assemblies of God.

Last month, Sandilands, who retired in 1992 because he was going blind, was sentenced to a further 26 months in jail for abusing children at St Paul’s Anglican Primary School in Frankston between 1970 and 1974.

The commission has been told that there will be evidence that over the 10 years that Mr Sandilands taught at Northside Christian College between 1983 and 1992, there were allegations that he had sexually abused about 30 children.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

October 13, 2014

Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter

A paedophile teacher continued to work in the classroom for six years after allegations of sexual abuse were first made against him, a royal commission has heard.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was told that jailed teacher Kenneth Sandilands was eventually allowed to resign from his position due to his failing eyesight.

At the time he left Northside Christian College in 1992, the Victorian school had received claims of abuse involving nine young children. The commission has been told up to 30 children were abused by Sandilands at the school.

Sandilands was jailed in 2000 for the offences committed at Northside Christian College and last month was sentenced to a further 26 months in prison for sexual offences committed at another Victorian school, St Pauls Anglican Primary School, between 1970 and 1974.

The commission was told Northside Christian Centre, which ran the school, did not check Sandilands’ references, instead relying on an endorsement by the Victorian education department.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

‘It’s obvious he was a paedophile and that his behaviour was repetitive’: Hillsong’s Brian Houston believes his father sexually abused victims over a decade… and he fears there could be more

By EMILY CRANE and DANIEL PIOTROWSKI and LILLIAN RADULOVA FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

The son of Hillsong founder Frank Houston says it is obvious his father was a paedophile as he admits to not knowing how many victims the church leader allegedly sexually abused.

Brian Houston gave his first sermon at Hillsong on Sunday since testifying about his father’s sexual abuse last week at a Royal Commission, amid claims he tried to cover up his dad’s alleged paedophilia when he was first informed.

‘At that time I thought there was one (victim) and then 12 months later it became clear there were many more, mostly in New Zealand,’ Mr Houston told Today.

‘It’s obvious he was a paedophile and that his behaviour was repetitive and it seems like it was over a period of a decade in the late sixties and seventies.’

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

Child sex abuse inquiry: Teacher repeatedly raised concerns about paedophile Kenneth Sandilands touching children, inquiry hears

BY NICOLE CHETTLE
October 13, 2014

An inquiry has heard that a teacher repeatedly raised concerns about convicted paedophile Kenneth Sandilands touching students at a Melbourne Christian college.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is looking into how Northside Christian College handled complaints made against Sandilands, who was a teacher there in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Margaret Furlong began working in the primary school section of the college in 1987 when she was 23.

She told the commission she repeatedly raised concerns with the principal about students who said they had been touched by Sandilands, who was later jailed for indecent assault.

Mrs Furlong said a culture of fear, bullying and harassment may have contributed to preventing the exposure of child sexual abuse.

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MINNESOTA
Rich Kupchella’s Bring Me The News

By Melanie Sommer

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis is expected to announce Monday a settlement to a clergy abuse lawsuit that was scheduled to go to trial in just a few weeks, according to reports from the Star Tribune and KARE 11.

They quote sources who say that lawyers for the archdiocese, the Diocese of Winona and the plaintiff’s attorney Jeff Anderson will outline terms of the settlement to a Ramsey County judge Monday morning – then make the details public at an afternoon news conference.

Sources quoted by the St. Paul Pioneer Press said the agreement not only settles the lawsuit that’s meant to go to trial on Nov. 3, but also covers hundreds of others who have also alleged they were sexually abused by clergy.

In addition to any financial settlements, the agreement will establish a new court-monitored protocol for handling allegations of sexual abuse against priests, according to KARE.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon and Kristi Belcamino
egurnon@pioneerpress.com

A settlement between child sex abuse victims and church officials will be announced Monday, only a few weeks before a groundbreaking trial accusing the Roman Catholic church of turning a blind eye to clergy abuse was scheduled to begin, the victim’s attorney said.

Details of the confidential settlement between victims and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona will be outlined before a Ramsey County judge Monday morning before an official announcement is made later in the afternoon.

Sources said the landmark agreement not only settles a lawsuit slated to go to trial Nov. 3 but also covers hundreds of other alleged abuse victims who have been waiting in the wings with their own allegations.

Along with the financial settlement, the agreement will stipulate how future allegations of abuse are handled.

“This feels to me like a new way and a new day,” said Jeff Anderson, attorney for the victims. “There is a strict difference between policy and protocol and action, but they (archdiocese officials) are committed to working with us than against us.”

Auxiliary Bishop Andrew Cozzens and Vicar General Charles Lachowitzer are expected to join Anderson and some of the victims at the joint news conference at 1 p.m. Monday at the Landmark Center in St. Paul. Anderson spent most of Sunday contacting survivors and former and current clients.

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MINNESOTA
Winona Daily News

Attorneys for sex abuse victims and the Diocese of Winona and Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis are expected to announce Monday a settlement related to multiple claims of abuse that date back a half-century, according to several reports.

Jeff Anderson and Associates, the firm preparing to take a case to trial next month on behalf of a man who claims he was abused by former diocesan and archdiocesan priest Thomas Adamson, announced on Sunday plans to hold an afternoon news conference Monday following a morning appearance in Ramsey County District Court.

The firm did not release additional details Sunday, but described the conference as featuring an announcement of a “historic child protection action plan.” The conference will be the first time in decades Anderson will appear together with archdiocese officials, the firm said.

Multiple media outlets, including the Star Tribune of Minneapolis and Pioneer Press of St. Paul, reported Sunday evening that the plan will come as part of a settlement that will cover not only the unidentified man who brought the existing suit, but potentially hundreds of others who have claimed abuse at the hands of priests.

The agreement will include both details on financial arrangements with victims, as well as lay out a process to handle and report abuse claims in the future, the Pioneer Press reported.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Madeleine Baran St. Paul, Minn. Oct 13, 2014

Attorney Jeff Anderson will announce a settlement agreement Monday in the landmark public nuisance lawsuit against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona, according to a source with knowledge of the announcement.

The settlement will include an agreement for how church officials will handle future allegations of abuse, the source said. Vicar General Charles Lachowitzer and Auxiliary Bishop Andrew Cozzens, both of the Twin Cities archdiocese, are slated to attend the news conference at the Landmark Center in St. Paul. Victims of abuse have also been invited.

Anderson had filed the suit in Ramsey County last year on behalf of a man who said he was sexually abused as a child by the Rev. Thomas Adamson in the late 1970s. Adamson, who served in the Twin Cities archdiocese and the Winona diocese, is no longer a priest.

The lawsuit accused the Twin Cities archdiocese and the Winona diocese of creating a public nuisance by keeping information on abusive priests secret. Anderson and his colleague Mike Finnegan argued in court that the secrecy placed children at risk of abuse from unknown

Those claims were bolstered by an MPR News investigation last fall that showed top church officials continued to protect priests accused of abuse. One priest, the Rev. Clarence Vavra, had privately admitted to sexually abusing a child on an Indian reservation in South Dakota in the 1970s. MPR News found him living half a block from a school. In another case, Harry Walsh, a former priest who was accused of abusing two children, had been hired by Wright County to teach sex ed to at-risk teenagers.

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

By: Cassie Hart

Officials from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis are expected to join sex abuse attorney Jeff Anderson to announce a child protection action plan on Monday.

Anderson has filed several lawsuits on behalf of alleged sex abuse victims, accusing individuals and the archdiocese of failing to protect children. This will be one of the rare occasions the two sides will come together.

Archbishop John Nienstedt has apologized to victims, their families and their communities and asks for forgiveness for the harm done.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Attorney Jeff Anderson and ­officials from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis are slated to unveil a “historic child protection action plan” at a news conference Monday.

“This will be the first time in 30 years Anderson has stood with ­archdiocese officials to work in cooperation for child protection,” said a news release from ­Anderson’s office announcing the event ­scheduled for 1 p.m. at the Landmark Center in St. Paul.

Anderson is a St. Paul attorney who has spent a career representing victims of clergy sex abuse both in Minnesota and nationally. He currently represents an alleged victim of former priest Tom Adamson, in a historic lawsuit that has thrown open the church’s files on abusing priests. A trial is set for November.

The revelations have tarnished the reputation of the church and Archbishop John Nienstedt, who has been under fire for not doing enough to prevent priests ­— who had been credibly accused of child abuse — from molesting more victims.

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MINNESOTA
KARE

Steve Eckert, Investigative Producer KARE 7:58 p.m. EDT October 12, 2014

ST PAUL, Minn. – There’s a landmark settlement – scheduled to be announced Monday – in a clergy sex abuse law suit that has rocked the local Catholic church.

Sources tell KARE 11 News that lawyers for the church and for abuse victim’s attorney Jeff Anderson will outline terms of the settlement to a Ramsey County judge Monday morning – then make a public announcement at an afternoon news conference.

In addition to a confidential financial settlement, the agreement will establish a new court-monitored protocol for handling allegations of sexual abuse against priests.

The historic agreement comes just weeks before a trial was scheduled to begin in a case that accused the Archdocese of St Paul and Minneapolis – and the Diocese of Winona – of creating an “public nuisance” by covering up clergy sex abuse cases for decades.

For months, now, attorneys for child abuse victims have been publicly releasing thousands of pages of damaging internal church files they uncovered during court-ordered discovery.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Pope Francis, and surely the “German Shepherd ex-Pope”, likely are very worried about the Five Hundredth Anniversary in three years of Luther’s Theses that started the Reformation. Will Francis’ current “three year Synod plan” succeed in time?

German Catholicism is already in decline. German government tax subsidies to German Catholic Bishops, recently over $6 billion annually, now provide the Catholic hierarchy with its largest dependable source of income worldwide. And the Vatican has repeatedly hurt its German position with, among other miscues, mainly unchecked clerical child sexual abuse, disrespect for German divorced and gay Catholics, the Bishop of Bling’s financial excesses, the Vatican’s gratuitous exploitation of anti-Muslim propaganda and even Pope Francis’ “welcome celebration” for Russia’s Putin.

Luther, of course, helped eliminate an earlier papal revenue stream from the sale of indulgences. One of Luther’s theses was: “Why does the pope, whose wealth today is greater than the wealth of the richest Crassus {an extremely wealthy ancient Roman}, build the basilica of St. Peter with the money of poor believers, rather than with his own money?” The unending revelations about the Vatican’s current financial scandals suggest Luther would still find much to reform at present.

Luther also advocated for a priesthood of all believers and for real lay oversight of Church leaders. He also married and fathered six children. His message and example have dogged the Vatican for a half a millennium.

Given the big bucks at stake with the German subsidy, it is then not surprising that Pope Francis’ Family Synod is focusing so much on appealing to divorced ex-Catholics, especially German ones, while the “womenless” Family Synod mostly (1) stonewalls on addressing the curtailment of children being raped by clerics, including German ones, and (2) tries to underplay the continuation of the Ban on the Pill..

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UNITED KINGDOM
Express

By: John Chapman
Published: Sun, October 12, 2014

City banker Simon Hodgkinson, whose wife Olivia has been linked with Bishop Kieran Conry, called on Catholic leaders to act.

Demanding that the former Bishop of Arundel be barred from the priesthood, Mr Hodgkinson is compiling a formal complaint over claims about Bishop Conry’s intimate friendships with women in recent years.

Mr Hodgkinson will submit his complaint to the Papal Nuncio, the Pope’s representative in the UK, along with Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the head of the Catholic church in England and Wales, and the Vicar General, one of the church’s most powerful figures.

The complaint will state that 63-year-old Bishop Conry broke his vows of celibacy and flouted the church’s central teaching on adultery and the sanctity of marriage and family life. It will also claim that the Bishop took advantage of his position of authority with women who had turned to him for spiritual comfort and advice after marital problems.

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Media Advisory

This will be the first time in 30 years Anderson has stood with Archdiocese Officials to work in cooperation for child protection

WHEN: Monday, October 13, 2014, at 1:00PM CDT

WHERE: Landmark Center – Ramsey County Room #317
75 5th Street
St. Paul, MN 55101

NOTES: We will live stream the press event online from our website www.andersonadvocates.com.

Broadcasters wishing to take in a live feed of this press conference can access the following Satellite Coordinates:

Galaxy 17 21K Upper, Digital Only
Uplink Frequency: 14429.0000 V
Downlink Frequency: 12129.0000 H
Specs: HD Mpeg-2 4:2:0 DVB-S QPSK

Access Contact: Intelsat
Access Phone #: 800.321.3959
Access Reference #: 1390442

Window Opens at 12:30 PM Central for Testing
Event is Live from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM Central

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

Contact Anne Steffens, Interim Director of Communications, Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis: Office/651.291.4525

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AUSTRALIA
Illawarra Mercury

By MICHAEL BACHELARD Oct. 12, 2014,

Every so often, a convicted Australian paedophile – we’ll call him “Malcolm” – transfers small amounts of cash via Western Union to his “friends” in Indonesia.

Perhaps Malcolm is just being nice to some poor families in a country where 43 per cent of the population subsists on less than $2 per day.

But Australian police believe his “small but suspicious” cash transfers of $30, $40, $50, mean Malcolm may be buying sex acts which children are forced to perform live for him in front of a webcam. In other words, they believe, he’s commissioning pay-per-view paedophilia.

But he does not stop there. Several times since 2013, most recently in the past three months, according to Australian Federal Police regional commander Chris Sheehan, Malcolm has travelled to Indonesia, usually for four to six weeks at a time.

“We know from our inquiries with the Indonesian police that he has a relationship with people here who have relationships with young children: family members,” Sheehan told Fairfax Media in his Jakarta office.

“We suspect he’s arranged for pay-per-view, and likes the child, so he comes to Indonesia to access the child.”

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ILLINOIS
The Raw Story

TOM BOGGIONI
11 OCT 2014

Montgomery, Illinois, woman who attempted to kill her three daughters told police that she wanted them to “meet Jesus Christ,” after receiving messages from her estranged pastor husband telling her the world was coming to an end, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Police arrived at the door of Pamela J. Christensen, 47, on Sept. 25 following two 911 hang-up calls to discover the woman covered in blood.

According to court documents, Christensen dropped to her knees and confessed that she had tried to kill her daughters.

The three girls, ages 12, 16 and 19, told police that their mother had dressed them all in white and had held a knife to them, asking them if they accepted Jesus Christ as their savior.

Two of the girls were stabbed, suffering minor injuries. Christensen had also stabbed herself in the chest and abdomen and was treated at a local hospital.

According to police, Christensen had initially tried to poison her daughters with a concoction made up of household cleaners in the hope that they would doze off and she could stab them in their sleep. The daughters reportedly refused to drink the poison.

According to the police report, Christensen told officers she that she was sending the girls home to “meet Jesus Christ,” following messages left on her phone from her husband, Vaughn Christensen, stating that the world was ending and that she needed to prepare the family to meet Jesus.

Vaughn Christensen is a former pastor at a Sugar Grove church.
A month prior to the stabbings, Christensen had served her husband with a restraining order, stating that the two were going through a divorce, and that her husband had become increasingly violent towards her and the children.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

JESSICA PARKS
LAST UPDATED: Sunday, October 12, 2014

Weeks after completing its last round of parish mergers and closures, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced on Sunday that 14 more parishes in Philadelphia, Montgomery and Delaware counties could be subject to changes.

The latest round of evaluations will include:

In Delaware County’s Springfield Township, the parishes of Saint Francis of Assisi, Holy Cross and Saint Kevin;

In Montgomery County, the parishes of Saint Alphonsus in Maple Glen, Saint Anthony of Padua and Saint Joseph in Ambler, Saint Catherine of Siena in Horsham, Saint Genevieve in Flourtown, and Holy Martyrs in Oreland;

In Philadelphia’s Port Richmond neighborhood, the parishes of Saint Adalbert, Saint George, Mother of Divine Grace, Nativity BVM, and Our Lady Help of Christians.

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OSTERREICH
Begegnun and Dialogue

[Father Helmut Schuller said he expects an opening of all issues and questions to be discussed at the bishops synod t the Vatican. Discussion so far has been blocked by the church, he said. A new openness should be the goal of the synod, he added. Schuller heads the Pastor’s Initiative in Austria.]

STANDARD: Papst Franziskus lädt ab kommendem Sonntag zur ersten Bischofssynode in seinem Pontifikat. Ehe, Familie, Sex – thematisch betrachtet, ist es wohl eine der spannendsten Synoden der letzten Jahrzehnte. Was erwarten Sie sich?

Schüller: Mindestens erwarte ich mir eine Öffnung der ganzen Themen und Fragen. Bisher war ja die Diskussion darüber in der Kirche blockiert. Da hat man stets auf unverrückbare Lehramtsposition verwiesen. Eine neue Offenheit wäre das große Ziel dieser Bischofssynode.

STANDARD: Es hat in den letzten 50 Jahren keiner gewagt, den Staub von
den moralischen Grundwerten zu wischen. Warum sollte man jetzt plötzlich in aller Offenheit darüber sprechen?

Schüller: Weil die Zeit reif ist – und Papst Franziskus die Basis für diesen wichtigen Diskurs geschaffen hat. Es ist ja schon ein Riesenschritt vorwärts getan, wenn derzeit Kardinäle öffentlich die Rolle von wiederverheirateten Geschiedenen debattieren. So etwas hat es bisher nicht gegeben. Und sobald die Diskussion eröffnet ist, entsteht eine Eigendynamik. Und die lässt sich auch nicht mehr von einer Seite kontrollieren. Daher erwarte ich mir auch konkrete Veränderungen.

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POLSKA/POLAND
Ocaleni

ocaleni.polska@gmail.com

Były już ksiądz Jacek S. z kościoła garnizonowego w Legionowie (Kuria polowa Wojska Polskiego), gdzie służył i uczył religii, został skazany na 10 lat pozbawienia wolności za gwałt na 14-latce i inne czyny pedofilskie. Sąd mógł wymierzyć mu karę łączną od 5 do 15 lat. Jednak obrona księdza zarzucała sądowi “rażącą surowość kary” i odwoływała się od wyroku. Na szczęście sąd apelacyjny uznał, że nie ma podstaw, aby karę złagodzić.

/ Jacek S., an ex-priest from the garrison church in Legionów (military curia of Poland), where he used to serve and teach religion, was sentenced to 10 years of prison for rape on a 14-year old girl and pedophilia. The court could have sentenced him from 5 to 15 years of prison. However, the defence of the priest accused the court of ‘flagrant decision’ and appealed. Luckily, the court of appeal decided that there is no ground for mitigation.

Ks. Jacka S. zatrzymano i aresztowano w styczniu 2012 r. Kuria Polowa WP zawiesiła go od razu w pełnieniu funkcji. Potem sam poprosił o przeniesienie do stanu świeckiego. Czyny, których dopuścił się Jacek S., nie powinny się nigdy zdarzyć (gwałt i molestowanie dziewczynek); zero tolerancji dla pedofilii – mówił w październiku 2013 r. biskup polowy Wojska Polskiego bp Józef Guzdek, który przeprosił osoby pokrzywdzone. Otrzymują one pomoc psychologiczną finansowaną przez ordynariat polowy, który zlecił też szkolenia księży dotyczące pedofilii i przemocy w rodzinie.

Cała sprawa, mimo ewidentnych dowodów przeciwko Jackowi S. (smsy, e-maile, zeznania lekarzy na temat zmuszania zgwałconej dziewczynki do dokonania nielegalnej aborcji, itd.), trwała – od zatrzymania księdza – prawie 3 lata! To dlatego, że oprawca odwoływał się od nałożonych na niego wyroków.

Ocalonym dzielnym dziewczętom gratulujemy odwagi oraz wygrania i ostatecznego zakończenia sprawy. Jesteśmy z Was dumni. Prawidłowa była też reakcja przełożonych księdza, aczkolwiek zastanawiające jest, czemu nikt nie zauważył tego nieszczęścia wcześniej?

Na przyszłość życzylibyśmy sobie, aby Kościół lepiej kontrolował swoich funkcjonariuszy oraz aby pedofile nie bronili się do upadłego – to tylko przedłuża sprawę, wydłuża cierpienie poszkodowanych i kompromituje Kościół.
——————————-

Jacek S. Was arrested in 2012 and suspeneded by Military Curia of Poland. He then requested to be defrocked. The crimes that Jacek S. commited should never be allowed (rape and sexual abuse of minors); no tolerance for pedopilia, said Józek Guzdek, bishop of Polish army, who apologized the victims in October 2013. They are provided with psychological support compensated by military ordinariate, which also decided to send priests to workshops on pedophilia and domestic violence.

Despite the incontrovertible evidence against Jacek S. (text messages, emails, doctors testimony regarding forcing the victim of a rape to undergo illegal aborion etc.), it took three years for the case to be resolved! It was possible because the abuser appealed to the court’s decision.

We congratulate the Survivors on their bravery and final victory. We are proud of you. The reaction of the priest’s superiors was proper, but we are wondering how come nobody noticed the tragedy for so long?

We kindly ask the Church to be more restrictive in controlling the priests. Pedophiles, do not even try to appeal– you only extend your victim’s suffering and you disgrace the Church.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Berger’s Beat

October 12, 2014 9:52 am | Author: berger

Ex-GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum speaks on 10/20 in St. Charles. A few years back, he created a firestorm when the Catholic abuse crisis erupted in Boston and he claimed, “it is so surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm.”

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The Economist

ACROSS the Western world, religious organisations have fought a hard and mostly successful battle to retain the right to “discriminate” when choosing their own priests, rabbis and imams. And that seems reasonable enough. Something peculiar would be going on if say, a Christian church were obliged, under equality legislation, to admit to the priesthood a person who professed either atheism or some other religion.

But the number of jobs over which religious bodies have some influence goes far beyond the ranks of clerics or prayer leaders. There are church-based charities and foundations. There are jobs like hospital chaplaincies where the employer is secular but appointments are subject to church vetting. There are university faculties, indeed entire universities, which are religious foundations. And across western Europe, churches have an influence over the education of children which is far out of proportion to the number of people who actually attend services. In Germany, more than 1m jobs are in the gift of the Protestant or Catholic churches, as the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) noted when considering a religious employment case.

On the face of things, the further you get from narrowly defined clerical institutions and posts, the harder it would seem to justify “discrimination” and the scrutiny of employees’ beliefs and private lives—something which would not be tolerated in any other walk of life. At any rate, that’s what secularists would strongly argue.

But the most recent high-profile court cases on both sides of the Atlantic have tended to vindicate religious groups. In 2012 the American Supreme Court rejected a complaint of unfair dismissal lodged by a teacher at a Lutheran school, on grounds that she was technically a “minister” and therefore serving at the church’s pleasure. Two landmark German cases considered by the ECHR were about employees of religious institutions who were laid off because of extra-marital affairs. The court upheld the complaint of an organist at a famous cathedral, but rejected that of a public-relations officer for the Mormons. In yet another case, the ECHR (in a split vote) rejected the complaint of a Spanish retired teacher and ex-priest who was fired because he married and joined a campaign against compulsory celibacy for priests.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

Facing his flock: Hillsong pastor Brian Houston defends not reporting his paedophile father to police in address to his congregation

By AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATED PRESS and DANIEL PIOTROWSKI and LILLIAN RADULOVA FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

In his first sermon since testifying about his father’s sexual abuse, Hillsong’s senior pastor Brian Houston defended his lack of action upon finding out his father was a paedophile.

Mr Houston told the congregation of thousands at Baulkham Hills in New South Wales on Sunday that he did not approach police because Frank Houston’s victim, named AHA, did not want to prompt an investigation into the abuse.

‘You had a situation where this was the first time I had ever heard about my father’s abuses,’ Mr Houston said to the huge crowd, according to The Daily Telegraph.

‘There was a victim, a survivor, who was adamant he did not want a police investigation and he didn’t want a church investigation.

The Hillsong leader also suggested that no other church leaders advised him to approach police about the abuse allegations, despite also being informed of the claims.

‘So, I genuinely believed at the time, by the way no one gave me any advice to counter this, that if he wanted to go to police, he was 36, he could,’ Mr Houston said.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

October 13, 2014

The handling of abuse allegations by NSW Police and Catholic Church is set to be probed at a police corruption watchdog hearing starting on Monday.

The Police and Integrity Commission (PIC) is investigating the conduct of a police officer in a Catholic Church professional standards group between 1998 and 2005.

The watchdog will also examine any agreement between the police and the church about how complaints of abuse at the hands of the church were dealt with.

The hearing comes after freedom of information (FoI) documents revealed the Catholic Church believed it had an understanding with the NSW police in 2003 that allowed them to conceal evidence against pedophile priests.

The file, accessed through FoI laws by NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge and obtained by ABC’s Lateline, documents the Catholic Church’s attempt to co-opt NSW police to strike into the illegal agreement.

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ITALIA
Il Mattino

[23,000 people downloaded and watched images of babies being violated by paying 500 euros. The price allowed people to buy an e-mail with the sequence of photos of tiny babies being raped and tortured. It is the latest discovery of a non-profit organization founded by Father Fortunato Di Noto who reported this to police in eastern Sicily. The priest said his organization has been viewing the site and found 1,290 photos and videos of child abuse involving about 700 children.]

Sono stati 23.100 visitatori che hanno guardato e scaricato immagini di neonati violati pagando 500 euro, il prezzo che permette di acquistare con una mail la sequenza di foto con piccolissimi violentati e torturati, che è possibile ricevere su proprio tablet o smartphone. È l’ultima scoperta su Internet dell’all’associazione Meter onlus, fondata da don Fortunato Di Noto, che ha denunciato tutto alla polizia postale della Sicilia orientale, con sede a Catania.

Complessivamente, secondo quanto riferito dall’associazione che ha visionato il sito, ci sono 1.290 scatti e video di pedofilia, con circa 700 bambini violati. Coinvolte anche delle donne e ripresi e fotografati una serie di abusi perpetrati da uomini adulti, a viso scoperto. Tra le foto, neonati e bambini che massimo arrivano a 10 anni.

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ITALIA
Repubblica

[Don Giovanni Desio, former pastor of Casal Borsetti in Ravenna, admitted to abusing a few kids – 14 and 15-year-olds. He is now in jail for six months on charges of pedophilia. Yesterday, during an interrogation he made light of the relationships with a third minor.]

Ha ammesso di aver avuto rapporti con alcuni ragazzini – 14 e 15enni – che frequentavano la sua parrocchia don Giovanni Desio, l’ex parroco di Casal Borsetti, nel Ravennate, in carcere da sei mesi con l’accusa di pedofilia.

Ieri, durante un interrogatorio, è stata fatta luce sulla relazione con un terzo minorenne – dopo i due che erano finiti all’attenzione degli investigatori sin dalle prime battute delle indagini – che lo andava a trovare in parrocchia. Si sarebbe trattato, ha spiegato il prete, di una sorta di “relazione amorosa” della quale non aveva parlato all’inizio per una supposta volontà di “protezione” nei confronti del ragazzino.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Der Westen

[Theologian Dorothee Trynogga since 2010 has investigated on behalf of the bishops cases of sexual abuse within the Essen diocese. She experienced many stressful conversations with victims and perpetrators and in the end had five convictions. She now gives her office to a successor.

The period covered the years from 1950 to the present day, focusing on the years 1960 to 1980. She found 88 potential offenders from the diocese, including 35 priests and 19 religious.]

Essen. Seit 2010 ist die Theologin Dorothee Trynogga im Auftrag des Bischofs Fällen sexuellen Missbrauchs im Bistum Essen nachgegangen. Sie erlebte viele belastende Gespräche mit Opfern und Tätern und am Ende fünf Verurteilungen. Jetzt übergibt sie ihr Amt einem Nachfolger.

Es waren menschliche Abgründe, in die Dorothee Trynogga nun fast fünf Jahre hineinblicken musste. Priester, die sich an Jugendlichen sexuell vergingen, Ordensschwestern, die Heimkinder schlugen, kirchliche Mitarbeiter, die eine Machtposition ausnutzten. Im Mai 2010, auf dem Höhepunkt der Debatte um Missbrauchsfälle im Bistum Essen, ernannte Bischof Franz-Josef Overbeck die Diplom-Theologin und fünffache Mutter offiziell zur „Bischöflichen Beauftragten für die Prüfung von Vorwürfen sexuellen Missbrauchs Minderjähriger und erwachsener Schutzbefohlener“. Zum 1. Oktober hat die 51-Jährige ihr Amt nun an ihren Stellvertreter Karl Sarholz übergeben.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By GABRIEL WINGATE-PEARSE Oct. 3, 2014

THE relationship between the Catholic Church and NSW Police is being investigated once more, this time by the Police Integrity Commission.

Operation Protea, announced yesterday, will look specifically at police involvement in any “agreement, protocol or memorandum of understanding” between police and the Catholic Church concerning the handling of complaints of abuse by Catholic Church personnel or employees.

The investigation follows the release of internal police documents to Greens MP David Shoebridge under freedom-of-information legislation in October 2013.

As the Newcastle Herald reported at the time, the documents include an unsigned memorandum of understanding allowing the Church to produce edited abuse reports, carry out investigations and decline to release the results to police without court orders.

When a senior NSW Police officer advised the Church in August 2003 that the memorandum of understanding appeared to be “in direct conflict” with legal requirements to report crime, police did not investigate whether the Church had failed to report abuse cases.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

The New South Wales Police Integrity Commission has launched Operation Protea to investigate any agreements between the state’s police force and the Catholic Church which may have enabled the church to conceal information about child sexual abuse. Last year, the ABC revealed details of a drafted memorandum of understanding between the police and the Catholic Church and a special arrangement that saw a police officer sit on an internal church panel in charge of handling child abuse allegations against clergy. The inquiry will examine whether there was any police misconduct stemming from any formal or informal agreement with the church.

Transcript

MARK COLVIN: The New South Wales Police Integrity Commission has opened an investigation into agreements between the police force and the Catholic Church which may have enabled the church to conceal information about child sexual abuse.

Last year, the ABC revealed details of a draft memorandum of understanding between the police and the Catholic Church.

There was also a special arrangement that saw a police officer sit on an internal church panel in charge of handling child abuse allegations against the clergy.

The Police Integrity Commission has launched Operation Protea to look at whether there was any police misconduct as a result of any agreement to cooperate with the church.

Emily Bourke reports.

EMILY BOURKE: Exactly 12 months ago, the ABC’s Lateline program reported accusations that the Catholic Church tried to strike a formal agreement with New South Wales Police over how to handle allegations of child sexual abuse and what information would be handed over for investigation.

There are questions over whether this memorandum of understanding was ever signed, approved or even in operation.

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VATICAN CITY
The Daily Beast

Barbie Latza Nadeau

A growing chorus in Rome, straight and LGBT, echo Pope Francis as they ask the assembled bishops at a critical summit, “Who are you to judge?”

VATICAN CITY—Hundreds of celibate men from the Roman Catholic Church have spent the last week hearing people who actually have sex actually talk about it. The topics range from who should have it to when they should have it and how they should have it, which, according to British Bishop Vincent Nichols, is “not what we bishops talk about mostly, quite honestly.” Novelty aside, the real question is whether these avowedly chaste men of the cloth are listening.

The last time anyone at the Vatican openly obsessed about sex as much we’re seeing at the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops being held in Rome was back in 1968 when Pope Paul VI penned Humanae Vitae. That encyclical letter on the heels of the Second Vatican Council became the how-not-to manual of Catholic sexuality for some, and what amounted to a theological cold shower for others. The letter reiterated the unbendable teachings of the Catholic Church during the height of the sexual revolution, essentially banning everything that was revolutionary at the time, starting with The Pill, but hardly ending there. While the rest of the Western world explored free love, Catholics were instead told “no” to premarital sex, birth control, masturbation and homosexuality.

Pope Paul VI and the Church at that time could be forgiven for puritanical idealism. Humanae Vitae was in response to unbridled sexual liberation, written well before the advent of the Internet or sexting, when pornography was either pulp or peep show, and when “50 Shades of Grey” was what happened when priests accidentally washed their white clerical collars with their dark cassocks. So it is little wonder that Pope Paul VI’s Church defined sex as nothing more than a sort of marital perk between men and women that was “noble and worthy” with a special emphasis on the sins of using contraception. It was not necessary to try to avoid pregnancy, the pope said, because the Church teaches that sex is meant only for the purpose of procreation. Essentially, anyone having the type of sex that isn’t open to giving life—like gays and lesbians—shouldn’t be having sex at all.

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UNITED STATES
Minnesota SNAP

By Vinnie Nauheimer

Dear Bishop: ________________
Almost five hundred years ago on October 31, 1517, Dr. Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses on the door of the Cathedral of Wittenberg. At the turn of the second millennium the church once more finds itself in dire need of major reform. St. Paul admonishes us in Cortinthians 1: 5-6 “Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump.” The survivors of Clergy Sexual Abuse, their families, friends and the Catholic laity demand change, justice and reform. These are the Forty Theses of Clergy Sexual Abuse and we demand their immediate adoption by the Roman Catholic Church. We urge you and all members of the Roman Catholic clergy to forward these to the Vatican. Without the immediate implementation of these Forty Theses by the Roman Catholic Church neither the victims of clergy abuse nor the church can move forward.

FORTY THESES OF CLERGY ABUSE

1. The Pope must immediately release and open for public inspection all secret files contained in dioceses throughout the world including the Vatican that have information relating to the abuse of children.

2. The Catholic Church must release and make public the names of all priests, bishops, and cardinals who have had credible accusations of sexual abuse made against them, their current status as well as their current location.

3. The pope must, in writing, free all those survivors from their confidentiality agreements “Gag Clauses” with any dioceses around the world in order to let victims of clergy abuse speak freely.

4. The Vatican should demand of all clergy, as applicable, that as an act of atonement, they will, in writing, declare null and void all private confidentiality agreements made between them and their victims.

5. The Pope and the Vatican must release and forever disavow keeping any secrets of the “Holy Office” related to clergy or any other form of abuse perpetrated by the clergy.

6. All secret letters and instructions issued to cardinals and bishops worldwide such as “Crimen Sollicitationis” are to be declared null and void.

7. The hierarchy of the Catholic Church must change its policy on clerical abusers to demand under penalty that they report cases of abuse to their local civil authorities.

8. The pope will issue a Papal Bull reconfirming the love of Jesus for children and that none should be harmed as they, and not the clergy are our greatest treasure.

9. The hierarchy of the Catholic Church must recognize that the children are our future and if the church is to have one, their future too.

10. The hierarchy of the Catholic Church must recognize that all children have the inalienable right to grow up without fear of being sexually abused by any cleric or lay minister.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

By Patrick Sawer
12 Oct 2014

The husband of a woman involved in a close relationship with the Bishop of Arundel is to make an official complaint to Catholic leaders about his behaviour and is calling for him to be barred from the priesthood.

His intervention coincides with new claims about Bishop Kieran Conry’s intimate friendships with women in recent years. It has been claimed he may have had relationships with as many as four women in total, raising questions as to whether the Catholic church hierarchy turned a blind eye to what he was doing.

Simon Hodgkinson, whose wife Olivia is the woman most recently linked with the Bishop, is now compiling a formal complaint against him. It will be submitted to the Papal Nuncio, the Pope’s representative in the UK, along with Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the head of the Catholic church in England and Wales, and the Vicar General, one of the church’s most powerful figures.

Citing canon law, the complaint will state that Bishop Conry not only broke his vows of celibacy, but in so doing flouted the church’s central teaching on adultery and the sanctity of marriage and family life by having such an intimate friendship with Mrs Hodgkinson, a mother of two, along with an affair with another married women.

It will also claim that the Bishop took advantage of his position of authority with both women, who had turned to him for spiritual comfort and advice after going through problems in their marriages.

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NEW JERSEY
The Record

OCTOBER 12, 2014
BY ABBOTT KOLOFF AND JEFF GREEN
STAFF WRITERS
THE RECORD

The impact of dozens of sex-abuse allegations against North Jersey priests has reached just about every corner of the region since 2002, when victims say they became emboldened to step forward because of an unfolding national sex-abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church.

A review by The Record of dozens of cases since 2002 shows at least 21 North Jersey municipalities have been affected in some way, including Englewood, Fair Lawn, Ho-Ho-Kus, Mahwah, Montvale, Oradell, Ridgewood, Ridgefield, Ridgefield Park, Rochelle Park, Paramus, Rutherford, Wyckoff, Park Ridge, Fairview, Edgewater, Paterson, Passaic, Clifton, Wayne and Pequannock. In many cases the priests were subjects of credible allegations, and in a few, priests were convicted of crimes. In rare instances, priests have been cleared of any wrongdoing.

Officials from the Newark and Paterson dioceses say they have removed at least 30 priests from active ministry and defrocked seven of them because of such allegations since 2002, when they say they changed their policies as part of a national bishops’ initiative. The clerics often had moved from parish to parish, spreading the impact beyond the communities where alleged sex abuse took place.

Twelve years later, church officials say they have made great strides in the way they handle abuse cases. Some top church officials admitted in 2002 that they kept quiet about some cases of abuse. That year, they agreed in a document called the Dallas Charter to provide more information to parishioners and the public.

Still, victims’ advocates say the Catholic Church often remains too secretive about what happens to priests who are removed from ministries because of sex-abuse accusations, including where they are living. Accused priests who have not been defrocked typically continue to receive pensions. In at least one case in North Jersey, a defrocked priest receives a stipend because he is destitute.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Mail on Sunday

By OLLIE GILLMAN FOR MAILONLINE

The cuckolded husband of a woman involved in a ‘close relationship’ with the Bishop of Arundel has called for him to be sacked from the Catholic Church.

Simon Hodgkinson, whose wife, Olivia, 43, is the latest woman to be linked to the bishop, is compiling a formal complaint against Kieran Conry over his intimate friendship with her.

It has been claimed that Bishop Conry had relationships with up to four women, breaking his vow of celibacy.

Mr Hodgkinson’s complaint will be sent to Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, the Papal Nuncio, the Pope’s representative in the UK, and the Vicar General, one of the Church’s most powerful figures, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

As well as stating Bishop Conry broke his celibacy vow, the complaint will say he has gone against Church teachings on adultery, marriage and family life by having a close relationship with Mrs Hodgkinson, a 43-year-old mother-of-two, and an affair with another married woman.

Mr Hodgkinson also claims the bishop abused his authority, taking advantage of both women after they turned to him for help with their marriages.

Graham Baldwin, from the charity Catalyst – which helps individuals whose family life has been affected by religious or cult groups – said: ‘Bishop Conry has … by his own admission on at least one occasion, committed adultery with a married woman, which in the eyes of the Church is a mortal sin.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Mirror

Oct 11, 2014 21:11 By Grace Macaskill

Widespread child sex abuse and rape by church members has been covered up by Jehovah’s Witnesses, it is claimed.

Elders have been accused of brainwashing abused women and girls into not going to the police so the church can maintain its squeaky-clean image, reveals the Sunday People.

The Christian religion, known for its door-to-door preachers, is said not to have taken enough action against suspected paedophiles in its ranks.

But now two women who were sexually abused are filing papers with the High Court saying the church failed in its duty of protection.

Their lawyer has warned this could be the tip of the iceberg – likening it to the sex scandals which have rocked the Catholic church.

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ROME
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor October 12, 2014

ROME – Heading into an Oct. 5-19 Vatican summit of bishops to discuss the family, the single most controversial question was whether Catholics who divorce and remarry outside the Church ought to be allowed to receive Communion. Since the meeting reaches its halfway mark Sunday, it’s logical to wonder where things stand.

Alas, the answer is: We really don’t know.

To be sure, the divorce and remarriage debate is hardly the only iron in the fire at this Synod of Bishops on the family. African prelates have talked about the challenges of polygamy and witchcraft, while Middle Eastern voices have pointed to the impact of war on family life. Westerners have pondered how to overcome a pervasive cynicism about making a lifetime commitment to anything.

In addition, there are a couple of things we actually do know about the Communion question. One is that there’s no push for changing Church teaching that marriage is for life. As Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin, Ireland, put it Saturday, “Nobody’s talking about Catholic divorce.”

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

Documents show NSW Police Service warned twice that intelligence sharing arrangement with Catholic Church on child abuse claims was illegal

ABC

BY THE NATIONAL REPORTING TEAM’S LORNA KNOWLES – EXCLUSIVE
October 12, 2014

Documents obtained by the ABC reveal the NSW Police Service was warned twice by one of its own lawyers that an intelligence sharing arrangement with the Catholic Church on child abuse claims was illegal.

In explosive evidence expected to emerge at a Police Integrity Commission (PIC) hearing this week, an officer from NSW Police Service’s Crime Agencies Legal support sounded the warnings in 2001 and 2002 about a draft Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the church and NSW Police.

Under the draft MOU, a police sex crimes squad officer sat on an internal church body, known as the professional standards resource group.

Set up by Catholic bishops, the expert panel was created to advise the church on specific cases of child sexual abuse involving clergy and others.

The officer’s role was to advise whether church practices had breached the law. She would also advise on whether priests should be removed from their positions.

The PIC will investigate whether the participation of this officer, between 1998 and 2005, amounted to police misconduct.

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VATICAN CITY
John Thavis

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin had some interesting things to say at today’s press briefing for the Synod of Bishops on the family. Archbishop Martin was present at the 1980 synod on the family (and at synods after that), and he reflected on what has changed – notably, the very open debate at this session, and the willingness to look at new approaches.

“On some of the subjects, the theological debate has been going on for years, and I don’t expect this synod is going to bring that to a conclusion. But this synod cannot simply repeat what was said twenty years ago. It has to find new language, to show that there can be development of doctrine, and that there has been a willingness to listen to what emerged in the questionnaires that went out and what emerged in the synod itself,” he said.

Archbishop Martin said that in general, there’s a movement away from seeing the church’s teaching on marriage as something that is “taught” to people, and a better understanding that the church itself learns through the experience of the sacramental marriages of its faithful. Catechesis is essential, he said, but the church also has to recognize that while many couples could not explain the theology of marriage and the family, they “understand it, and live it.”

The synod heard a lot about truth and mercy, and Martin said it was important to find real ways of bringing the two together. Because of the strong canonical tradition in the Catholic Church, he said, “we’re not good at dealing with exceptions.” He said we have both “rigorism” and “laxism” in the church, but “most people fall in the gray areas between those two, and we have to exercise our pastoral responsibilities in the gray areas, not falling into either extreme.”

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VATICAN CITY
Crux

By Josephine Mckenna
Religion News Service October 10, 2014

VATICAN CITY – From questions of welcoming a gay son home for Christmas to denying the sacraments for the children of gay and lesbian parents, an ongoing debate on the Catholic Church’s approach to homosexuality has raised the hopes of some LGBT advocates and provoked the ire of the church’s right wing.

At the two-week Synod on the Family convened by Pope Francis here, the issue of homosexuality is competing for air time with similar questions of denying Communion to divorced and remarried Catholics or how to respond to couples that live together outside of marriage.

But with a rapidly shifting legal landscape, and a pope who famously asked “Who am I to judge?”, the debate over homosexuality is eliciting personal and charged reactions from all corners of the church.

The controversial debate was unwittingly fired up by Australians Ron and Mavis Pirola, the parents of four and delegates to the church family summit.

The Sydney couple told nearly 200 bishops about friends who had invited their gay son and his partner home for Christmas.

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UNITED STATES
POPE FRANCIS the CON-Christ

Paris Arrow

DOUBLE VICTORY! Pope Francis defeated again! Vatican Mammon Beast aka Opus Dei Beast defeated again! Hail to our chief, St. Michael the Archangel for defeating Pope Francis and thus justice and truth triumph and prevail for the children of humanity.

The youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan, said in her acceptance speech in England where was healed from the gunshot wound and where she now resides and goes to school, “We change the world, one girl at a time, one book at a time, one pen at a time”. Likewise we too say, we change the world, one blog at a time.
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The announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize winners – 17 year old Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan and 60 year old Kailash Satyarthi of India – feels like the FIFA victory of Germany over Argentina – when 22 year old Mario Goetz made the single winning goal that saved the face of Brazil and saved its people from humiliation and pain especially from the rowdy 100,000 Argentinians who descended in Brazil and took over Rio de Janeiro and occupied Copacabana Beach.

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UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

The Nobel Peace Prize sided with children this year and not with old Pope Francis the head of complicit cardinals and bishops of the JP2 Army – John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army, read more in Cold-blood-ed John Paul is no saint for children because he said nothing and did nothing to save and protect them for 27 years http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2014/05/cold-blood-ed-pope-john-paul-ii-is-no.html

The Norwegian Nobel Committee chose the two winners of the Nobel Peace Prize “for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.” The Nobel Committee did not choose Pope Francis because he is the head of state of the Vatican fake country, the Holy See that has been found guilty of crimes against humanity’s children twice by the United Nations. Read our related article, UN condemns Vatican for crimes against children. HOORAH. 10 Reasons to abolish the papacy and why there should never be another pope http://popecrimes.blogspot.ca/2014/02/un-condemns-vatican-for-crimes-against.html

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UNITED STATES
The Open Tabernacle: Here Comes Everybody

Posted on October 11, 2014 by Betty Clermont

The head of the notorious Society of St. Pius X, Bishop Bernard Fellay, met with Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, prefect of the powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, on Sept. 23, 2014, “with a view to the envisioned full reconciliation” with the Catholic Church. Known by its acronym, SSPX, the society “does not have a canonical status in the church [and] its ministers do not exercise legitimate ministries in the church.” Nevertheless, a French SSPX priest was allowed to say mass in St. Peter’s Basilica a month earlier.

The Vatican initiated “non-official” contact with the SSPX leading to an “informal meeting” between Fellay and church officials on Dec. 13, 2013, despite SSPX offering to hold the funeral Mass of a convicted Nazi war criminal the previous October and disrupting a November ceremony in Buenos Aires marking the anniversary of the beginning of the Holocaust.

Former S.S. Captain Erich Priebke had said he wanted a Catholic burial. Like thousands of other war criminals, he had escaped Europe via one of the Vatican ratlines and lived quietly in Argentina for the next 50 years until he was exposed by an ABC News investigative team.

Priebke was extradited to Rome and convicted in 1997 of participating in the 1944 Ardeatine Massacre of 335 Italian resistance fighters but remained unrepentant. He was put under house arrest due to his age where he died at age 100 on Oct. 11, 2013. When the Diocese of Rome, German and Argentine officials refused to bury him, SSPX offered to hold the funeral Mass but was prevented from doing so when “protesters surrounded the car which was carrying the body to their church.” Priebke was buried in an Italian prison cemetery.

In Buenos Aires, Catholics, Jews and Protestants hold an annual ceremony in the Catholic Metropolitan Cathedral “to mark Kristallnacht, the Nazi-led mob violence in 1938 when about 1,000 Jewish synagogues were burned and thousands of Jews were forced into concentration camps, launching the genocide that killed 6 million Jews.” SSPX members disrupted the Nov. 13, 2013, ceremony by shouting the rosary and the “Our Father” and distributed pamphlets stating, “followers of false gods must be kept out of the sacred temple.” Fr. Christian Bouchacourt, leader of the SSPX in South America, said his organization had the right to feel outraged when rabbis preside over a ceremony in a Catholic cathedral.

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VIRGINIA
New York Daily News

SEE IT: Videos show teen brutally attacked by Christian boarding school workers — leading to assault, battery convictions

BY NINA GOLGOWSKI
Friday, October 10, 2014

As a 14-year-old boy was viciously pummeled to the ground at a Christian boarding school surrounding witnesses not only turned the other cheek but their eyes as well.

Newly released video from Virginia’s Abundant Life Academy in Milford reveals two such brutal scenes which led to the convictions of four former workers who took a plea deal for misdemeanor assault and battery Thursday, WTVR reported.

The three life coaches and a program instructor — identified as Liam Galligan, 44, Jovany Rivera, 22, Timothy Jordan, 26, and William Honea, 49 — had been charged with assault by mob and assault after the video shot in April surfaced.

In one scene the boy is seen being tackled in the academy’s sanctuary hall while in another he’s flipped on his back from behind while standing in the cafeteria.

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VIRGINIA
The Raw Story

SCOTT KAUFMAN
10 OCT 2014

Video obtained by CBS 6 shows four Christian boarding school workers chasing down and beating the trouble youths they were supposed to be helping.

In the video, which was taken in April, three life coaches and a program director at Abundant Life Academy in Caroline County, Virginia can be seen beating a 14-year-old in their charge. He attempted to run away, but the four employees chased him down and began assaulting him again.

According to The Free Lance-Star, the teen was tackled and then violently restrained because he had been caught “talking to a girl.”

The investigation into abuse at the Christian center began in April, when four teenagers escaped from the facility. When authorities captured them, they claimed that they had fled the facility because of rampant abuse.

The boarding school’s mission, according to its website, is to “equip students and families to live a life of love, acceptance and forgiveness through modeling and training of biblical principles, bridging the gap between parents and children.”

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VIRGINIA
WTVR

[with video]

BY JON BURKETT

CAROLINE COUNTY, Va. — It’s shocking video of four boarding school workers assaulting a teen boy they were supposed to be helping — and their crimes were caught on camera.

The images were taken inside the cafeteria and sanctuary hall at Abundant Life Academy in Caroline County back in April.

The video shows a 14-year-old boy making a run for it, only to be snagged and then assaulted by three life coaches and a program director.

The four boarding school employees were arrested and charged with assault by mob and assault.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Pope Francis, as an elderly “interim pope”, had about three years to go until his 80 year old normal Cardinal retirement age, when he admirably and reluctantly agreed last year to serve as interim pope. He projected a very friendly public image, but had little international or even Vatican experience, as the Vatican was in the midst of an unprecedented and unexpected crisis triggered by the first papal resignation in 600 years. Francis’ challenge was and is to preserve an unaccountable top down leadership structure and its wealth.

In 225 years since the French Revolution, no other European absolute monarchy has been able to evade democratic oversight of its actions and finances. Neither will the Vatican much longer, despite Francis’ and his Vatican cliques’ well funded and desperate efforts.

Francis then established, likely with the guidance of the ex-Pope and Cardinal Sodano, a two step process to convene (1) an interim Synod of Bishops, now under way, at least to discuss Church changes after a year and a half, and (2) a larger Synod of Bishops next October to discuss further potential final changes. This process in 2016 would allow Francis then, in his eightieth year, to implement as pope whatever changes evolved at the final Synod that he decided he wanted to approve. Francis then could retire and pass the papacy on to his much younger (now 59 years old) likely successor, Sodano’s protege, Cardinal Parolin, who is evidently being groomed as the top prospect to be the next pope.

This two step Synod plan would then for three years also enable Francis to contain mounting pressure from many Catholics for long overdue changes. In the meantime, other Vatican Cardinals could deal with the Synod charades, like disregarding lay Catholics’ questionnaires and locking out independent lay participation at the Synods. And ecstatic Catholic “reformers” and “wishful thinkers” and opportunistic papal cheerleaders could endlessly recycle all the “happy talk” of change, until Francis is finally flushed out in 2016.

Francis’ three year plan is, however, in real jeopardy. Reality has finally overtaken Pope Francis’ well funded myth makers. Marketed last year as the new “Francis of Assisi” and TIME’s Man of the Year, the new pope has this past week faced a confluence of bad news and resistance relating to more hierarchical scandals and uninspiring change proposals.

Pope Francis, with the ex-Pope’s and Sodano’s apparent concurrence, if not direction, as seemingly originally planned, could then let Sodano’s “man”, Cardinal Baldisserri, run the Synod, and the ex-Pope’s “man”, Cardinal Mueller, run the Vatican’s doctrinal and discipline department, as has already occurred. Pope Francis could then, as he has for 19 months, focus mainly on the Vatican’s No. 1 priority — trying to salvage, by political alliances with powerful elites, by massive media campaigns and otherwise, some cardinals and bishops who may be facing potential criminal investigations relating to child abuse and financial scandals that exploded under the mismanagement of the ex-Pope and his actor predecessor, Pope John Paul II.

Like Dumas’ Three Musketeers, the Catholic hierarchy is “all for one and one for all”, especially since, with their many shared secret sins, if one falls publicly, a domino effect may be triggered taking down many more, as happened with another secretive international all male group, the Mafia.

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ROM
Spiegel

[Oh what were the good time for a cardinal! The Vatican was all around. We met with friends in bars and restaurants and shared what they had. Even the Vatican bank with its secretive accounts was open to worldly customers when they came with a recommendation. Then came Jorge Mario Bergoglio and the quality of life of the eminences went downhill.

The Papal States once had about 100 cars in the service fleet but then came the pope, characteristically named Francis after St. Francis of Assisi, the go-googer and poverty preacher. Soon you could no more climb into a Mercedes sedan without receiving negative attention. And then the new dress code! Gorgeous silk robes that eminences wore that cost 10,000 euros or more. When Francis came with work shoes and the Francis dress, no one dared to shine in gold and purple.]

Von Hans-Jürgen Schlamp, Rom

Ach, was waren das für schöne Zeiten für einen Kardinal! Im Vatikan und rundherum! Man traf sich mit Freunden in den Bars und Restaurants und teilte, was man hatte. Geld hatten die Kirchendiener zwar nicht viel, aber zum Beispiel Eintrittskarten für das Kirchenreich, wo die Freunde steuerfrei tanken und einkaufen konnten. Auch die Vatikanbank mit ihren verschwiegenen Konten stand weltlichen Kunden offen, wenn sie mit einer Empfehlung aufwarteten.

Dann kam Jorge Mario Bergoglio, und mit der Lebensqualität der Eminenzen ging es bergab.

Etwa hundert Dienstwagen standen im Fuhrpark des Kirchenstaats, als Bergoglio am 13. März vorigen Jahres zum Papst gekürt wurde und sich bezeichnenderweise Franziskus nannte, nach dem heiligen Franz von Assisi, dem Weltverbesserer und Armutsprediger. Bald konnte man keine Mercedes-Limousine mehr besteigen, ohne gleich negativ aufzufallen.

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AUSTRALIA
News Mail

Emma McBryde | 10th Oct 2014

A WOMAN told the royal commission she was only one of 63 children who came forward about sexual abuse they suffered at Victorian teacher Kenneth “Ken” Sandilands’ hands.

Emma Fretton chose to testify without a pseudonym at the public hearing in Sydney today.

Ms Fretton said she was in Mr Sandilands class for years 1, 2 and 3 at Northside Christian College in the mid-1980s when he abused her.

The commission is examining the response of the church body in charge of the college – Northside Christian Centre – and Australian Christian Churches, then known as the Assemblies of God.

Ms Fretton testified she told two teachers Sandilands was touching her inappropriately and writing sexual stories about her family then forcing her to sign them.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

AAP OCTOBER 11, 2014

HILLSONG senior pastor Brian Houston consulted a lawyer about his father’s position when abuse allegations were raised but didn’t mention that meeting in his statement to the royal commission into the matter.

The man who is a leading light in the evangelical movement in Australia was in the witness box for a second day at a hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney yesterday.

The commission is examining how Pentecostal churches responded to complaints of child sex abuse by its pastors.

It has heard that Frank Houston admitted in 1999 to abusing children in Australia and New Zealand, when his son was national president of the Assemblies of God in Australia, the umbrella organisation for more than 1000 churches. Frank Houston died in 2004, aged 82.

It has emerged in evidence that Brian Houston consulted a lawyer at prominent firm Mallesons about his father’s position. Mr Houston said: “Where I went as my father’s son to go to see a lawyer about my father — this commission is about institutional child abuse so in that sense, I don’t see that it was particularly relevant that I went to see a lawyer. It was something that was between a father and son.”

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AUSTRALIA
Religion News Service

Sarah Pulliam Bailey | October 10, 2014

(RNS) The founder of Hillsong, an Australian megachurch that has exported its influence to major global cities and into churches’ music across the U.S., is facing strict scrutiny for what he

In 1999, Brian Houston’s father, Frank Houston, who was also a minister, confessed to sexually abusing an underage male at his New Zealand congregation 30 years before. In response, the younger Houston, who was then president of the Assemblies of God in Australia, fired his father, took control of the church and merged it with Hillsong.

The elder Houston died in 2004.

On Thursday and Friday (Oct. 9-10), the son took the witness stand in Sydney and denied any attempt to cover up the allegations. Next week, Brian Houston will be in New York City for the church’s c, at Madison Square Garden.

In his testimony, Brian Houston denied trying to hide his involvement in a $10,000 compensation payment made to a man who was abused as a child by his father.

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ALABAMA
Heavy

An Alabama pastor told his flock during a sermon that he has full blown AIDS and, despite knowing of his HIV infection for years, continued to have sex with numerous parishioners. In further bombshells, Reverend Juan McFarland of the Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church in Montgomery revealed his cocaine abuse and the embezzlement of church money. Even so, he was allowed to preach for two more Sundays before church deacons finally yanked him from the pulpit.

Here’s what you need to know:

1. One of His Partners Is Being Tested for HIV

In September, McFarland told the parishioners at Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church that he had AIDS. He described how he was diagnosed with AIDS in 2008 and HIV in 2003.

WSFA News reports a member of the flock saying, “The church was very accepting of Reverend McFarland and was willing to help in any way possible.” It isn’t known if McFarland told his sexual partners that he had AIDS, although one woman he was with is being tested.

Al.com reports that McFarland isn’t taking medicine for his illness.

In addition to divulging his AIDS diagnosis, McFarland told his followers that he was a cocaine user.

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