ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED STATES
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

By Liz Zemba
Saturday, Oct. 4, 2014

It began one day in 2009 with a fight among a group of boys — orphans, all of them — from the toughest, poorest streets of Honduras.

They argued about a priest, a pudgy, bespectacled older man from America who showed up now and then with gifts — offerings of cash and candy that carried a hefty price, according to Department of Homeland Security records.

Sometimes they paid by having sex with the man, records show. Other times, they showered nude, urinated or performed sex acts while he watched or took photos, records indicate.

But on that day when the boys argued about acquiescing to the Rev. Joseph D. Maurizio Jr.’s demands, an orphanage worker overheard the conversation and reported it, court records show.

Not long after, officials from the foundation running the orphanage traveled to Western Pennsylvania to report the boys’ allegations to the priest’s superiors at the Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, the state Attorney General’s Office and the FBI, according to records.

But four years later, Maurizio was traveling to other orphanages, so a frustrated official sent an email about the allegations to a website, bishop-accountability.org, dedicated to tracking sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Church.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

The unprecedented ongoing crisis, of bishops and priests who sexually assault children with impunity, presents Pope Francis with a fundamental choice — Francis can either try to save the coercive top-down papacy and thereby risk losing the hierarchical Church to prosecutors from the USA, Australia and elsewhere, or he can try restore a consensual bottom-up Church like the one that Jesus’ original disciples, including some women, left behind. Only a Church with independent and effective lay oversight will ever convince prosecutors at this point that children are safe from clerical predators.

So far Pope Francis has mainly followed the top down script that ex-Pope Benedict and Cardinal Sodano apparently offered him last year as a pre-condition to his becoming Pope. This is evident from the ten goals described in detail below that Francis now appears to be pursuing vigorously.

Popes have of necessity had political strategies for almost two millennia. For the initial three centuries, as the small Christian movement spread widely, popularly selected popes usually tried quietly to peacefully coexist with political leaders . Constantine and his successors changed that in the 4th Century, increasingly influencing top-down imperial papal selections. Since then, popes’ main priority has often been to maintain a close working relationship with the most powerful political leaders.

Pius XI and XII sought this mistakenly with powerful fascists, Mussolini, Franco and Hitler, while Paul VI unsuccessfully sought peaceful co-existence with the Soviets and the West. In the American Century, the last three popes, including Francis, have sought to exchange (A) papal “pull” with key fundamentalist anti-abortion and anti-gay US voters for (B) potential subsidies and legal protection, from a favored relationship with powerful US right wing leaders, including Reagan, the Bushes and Romney.

Francis has in many ways already shown his hand on supporting the election in four weeks of a right wing US Senate (likely to preserve a US Supreme Court majority friendly to Francis’ “low tax” billionaire donors and legally vulnerable bishops).

Now before the Family Synod has even started, Francis has preemptively and autocratically indicated the Synod will end on Sunday, Oct. 19 with the beatification of Pope Paul VI, the third 20th century pope that Francis will elevate this year. Can the Synod now evaluate contraception honestly in the presence of their “cherry picked” natural family planning couple cheer leaders and challenge Paul VI’s best known mistake. In addition. Paul VI undercut episcopal collegiality and optional celibacy implementation. Of course, the Synod “Fathers Without Kids” cannot and will not now pursue the Synod’s hyped reconsideration of Paul VI’s Ban of the Pill — this appears to be just more “papal bull”. So much for the “Sense of the Faithful”!

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VATICAN CITY
Christian Science Monitor

By Nicole Winfield, Associated Press

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Sunday opens a two-week meeting of bishops and cardinals from around the world aimed at making the church’s teaching on family life — marriage, sex, contraception, divorce, and homosexuality — relevant to today’s Catholic families. The pre-synod debate has been dominated by mudslinging between liberals and conservatives over divorce and remarriage, but there are many more issues up for discussion.

Here are five things to know about the synod.

What’s on the table?

Last year, Vatican officials sent out a 39-point questionnaire to bishops’ conferences across the globe asking for frank input from clergy and lay Catholics on a host of hot-button issues like pre-marital sex, contraception, and gay unions. They got it.

In a brutally honest compilation of the data released in June, the Vatican conceded that the vast majority of Catholics reject church teaching on sex and contraception as intrusive and irrelevant. It said the church had to do a better job ministering to gays in civil unions and legal marriages and to children being raised in such families.

It blamed pastors for failing to adequately preach church teaching and said a “new language” was necessary to convey the church’s message. The findings are to form the basis of the discussion.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Mail on Sunday

Wrath of husband cuckolded by bishop…who STILL denies affair: ‘Arrogant’ Catholic priest abused his power over my wife, rages City boss in his first interview since the story broke

By ADAM LUCK FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

Simon Hodgkinson still has a sinking feeling in his stomach when he recalls the moment he realised that his suspicions his wife Olivia was having a passionate relationship with a Roman Catholic bishop were true.

The couple had been having marital difficulties and 43-year-old Olivia had moved out of the family home. But last April, when Olivia failed to turn up for choir practice at their local church, Simon decided to visit the substantial home of Kieran Conry, the Bishop of Arundel and Brighton.

Speaking for the first time about the collapse of his marriage and his wife’s illicit relationship, Simon, a successful City executive, explains: ‘I thought it was odd when she didn’t arrive at choir practice because normally she would never miss one. I went to her house to drop some music through her letterbox but she wasn’t at home.

‘By then it was about 10pm and I thought it was really weird. I decided it was time to test my suspicion that she was having an affair.

‘I went up to the bishop’s residence and her car was there. I checked and it was there all night. I was devastated.’

So much so that he has waived his anonymity to tell a quite astonishing – and at times explosive – story that asks questions of the very top of the Catholic Church in Britain.

Bishop Conry, 63, last week resigned from his post after admitting he had been ‘unfaithful to my promises as a Catholic priest’ following an affair with a woman six years ago.

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PHILIPPINES
Mirror (UK)

By Lewis Panther, Simon Lennon

A paedo campaigner who was once ­branded the vilest man in Britain by the Sunday People is facing a string of child-sex ­charges in the Philippines.

Ex-navy chef Douglas Slade – who helped mastermind the sickening Paedophile Information Exchange – was arrested for allegedly abusing Filipino youngsters for as little as £2 a time.

Cops said they also found depraved images of boys on the 74-year-old’s laptop.

Police raided his home in the red-light district of Angeles City after a tip-off he was photographing children there.

Cops claim Slade – who has cooked for the Queen – lured poverty-stricken kids with offers of food or by ­paying them between £2 and £3.50 to pose for lurid pictures.

Three of the boys – all under 12 and one of them only nine – claim he also molested them, a crime carrying a jail ­sentence of up to 20 years.

Slade was first publicly shamed for his evil appetites in 1975 when we revealed he was one of three ringleaders of PIE, which campaigned to legalise child-sex. …

Last night Shay Cullen, a Catholic priest and child-welfare worker in the Asian archipelago, said many perverts escaped ­justice by paying hush-money to the children and their families.

He said: “Lots of British paedophiles are coming over here.

“They treat children as sex-toys for their ­gratification and buy them for the price of a hamburger. But they will be caught.

“We are doing all we can to see that justice is done and to prevent victims and their parents being paid off.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
CBS Chicago

Mike Parker

CHICAGO (CBS) – Cardinal Francis George led a mass of atonement on Saturday, as part of the ongoing healing process for victims of clergy sex abuse.

CBS 2’s Mike Parker reports it seemed a sign of the progress the Catholic Church has made in the wake of the clergy sex scandal.

The cardinal was at Holy Family Church on Saturday to celebrate mass for the healing of abuse survivors, their families, the church, and society.

“Each day, we ask God to forgive our sins, and we ask for forgiveness also for the sins of others, particularly those who as priests or deacons or other clerics in the church have abused children,” George said.

Among those at the service was a man who, as a child, was abused by a priest, then kept silent for more than three decades.

“I consider the mass to be a healthy balance between acknowledging and apologizing for past abuse in our church, but also acknowledging and saying thank you to all of the good people who are protecting children in the Catholic schools and parishes,” Michael Hoffman said.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Sunday Times

Margarette Driscoll

A ROMAN CATHOLIC bishop who has been forced to resign after claims of a love affair with a parishioner says he wants to remain a priest, despite breaking his vows of celibacy.

Kieran Conry, the Bishop of Arundel and Brighton, resigned last week after the estranged husband of one of the women with whom he was said to have had a relationship threatened to sue the church.

The man had hired a private detective to follow his wife.

Conry, 63, says that he has received hundreds of messages of support and only one angry response.

He has admitted one previous sexual relationship. “I did wrong.” he said.

“Celibacy may be a tradition rather than an article of faith but the vast majority of priests are faithful to their promise.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
Daily Herald

Daniel White

Cardinal Francis George celebrated a Mass of Atonement and Hope Saturday at Holy Family Church in Chicago to promote healing for child and youth sexual abuse survivors, their families and the Catholic Church.

“As a clergy-abuse survivor, I consider this Mass to be striking a healthy balance by apologizing and acknowledging for abuse that happened in the past, but also for being thankful for all the hard work going into protecting children now in our Catholic Schools and parishes,” said Mike Hoffman, one of the founders of a Healing Garden created in 2010 adjacent to the church. “This event is a very healthy way to do that.”

The Mass was attended by clergy, victims-survivors, family members of survivors, Catholic School leadership and others committed to the protection and safety of children.

“What I thought was powerful was the fact that the Mass was all about children and the survivors and there was no talk about the perpetrators,” said Tom McCarthy of Hanover Park. “It was all about praying for atonement and for the children.”

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CHICAGO (IL)
WLS

CHICAGO (WLS) — Chicago’s Francis Cardinal George was the main celebrant at a Mass of atonement and hope Saturday.

It is part of the healing process for sexual abuse survivors, their families and the church.

The service took place at Holy Family Catholic Church in Chicago.

There was also a service at a nearby Healing Garden, a place for survivors of clergy sex abuse to pray.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

By Michelle Manchir

Cardinal Francis George called for the continued healing of sexual abuse survivors and the rebuilding of trust with the Catholic church at a mass Saturday that included an address from a victim of abuse by a priest.

Referring to the sexual abuse of young people by clergy as a “terrible injustice,” George led a mass of “atonement and hope” for victims and their families at Holy Family Catholic Church in the Little Italy neighborhood.

“When trust is betrayed, then of course hope also leaves,” George said during a homily that lasted about six minutes.

George said it was important to pray for forgiveness and keep up with the work the archdiocese and others have done to rebuild trust and hope among the abused.

People at the mass said they were glad George chose to address the issue in the final weeks that he will head the archdiocese. Bishop Blase Cupich of Spokane, Wash. is set to take over Nov. 18.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star

BY JUDY L. THOMAS
THE KANSAS CITY STAR
10/03/2014

Jon David Couzens faced Jackson County jurors on Friday and for more than three hours described the repeated acts of sexual abuse he said he endured three decades ago at the hands of a Catholic priest.

In graphic detail and at times sobbing, the former altar boy told jurors that the abuse began when he was 9 or 10 years old and a student at Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary school in Independence. Monsignor Thomas O’Brien, he said, molested him in the confessional as he sought forgiveness for his sins. In the sacristy while preparing for Mass. In the church basement after a Cub Scout Pinewood Derby event. And in the monsignor’s own bedroom in the church rectory.

“He raped me, he abused me, he molested me,” Couzens said. “All of those things.”

Jurors heard the fifth day of testimony in a civil trial involving Couzens, who filed a lawsuit against the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph saying O’Brien sexually abused him in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Couzens claims the diocese was told repeatedly that O’Brien was a danger to children but failed to prevent the abuse.

The diocese contends that no credible evidence exists to prove those allegations and argues that Couzens’ claims of repressed memory are invalid. O’Brien, who has been the subject of dozens of sexual abuse lawsuits, died last year at 87.

During his testimony, Couzens described growing up in a Catholic family where he was taught to revere priests.

“Priests were next to God himself,” he said. But when he was in the fourth or fifth grade, Couzens said, O’Brien began targeting him for abuse.

As Couzens testified, Pedro Irigonegaray, one of his attorneys, carried a small blue Royals jacket to the witness stand. Couzens said he wore the jacket when he was 10 years old — the time frame that he was being molested.

He said much of the abuse took place in the confessional. O’Brien would move him to the back of the line, he said, so he would be the last to confess. Once inside the confessional, he said, O’Brien abused him.

“This was during the time that he was forgiving you for your sins?” Irigonegaray asked.

“Yes,” Couzens said.

As Couzens described the sexual abuse, he looked at his mother, who sat in the packed courtroom with other family members, friends and former classmates of Couzens. “I’m sorry, Mom,” he said, sobbing.

Couzens also described incidents that he said occurred in the sacristy with three other altar boys. On multiple occasions, he said, O’Brien would line them up against the wall and make them perform sexual acts on him and on one another.

“Every time that he had his way, he would grab us by the face and he would tell us that if we told, we would die and go to hell, we would get kicked out of the Catholic Church and our parents would disown us,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

OCTOBER 01, 2014

Amos Aikman
Northern Correspondent
Darwin

FORMER residents of a Darwin missionary home where Stolen Generation and other children were allegedly viciously sexually abused will try for the third time to get justice by asking police to lay fresh charges against one of their accused tormentors, convicted pedophile Donald Henderson.

A small group, including people who recently gave evidence to Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, left hearings in Darwin this morning and marched to a nearby police station, where they asked officers to take statements reopen investigations.

The commission has heard graphic accounts from former residents who say they were beaten, chained and raped by some of the missionaries who ran the Retta Dixon Home inside Darwin’s Bagot Aboriginal reserve between 1946 and 1980.

Mr Henderson was twice prosecuted for allegedly sexually abusing children at the RDH, first in 1975 and then again in 2002. At one stage he faced more than 80 charges, but both cases collapsed before they got to trial. In 1984 he pleaded guilty to two counts of indecently assaulting young boys at a Darwin swimming pool.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Wednesday 1 October 2014

Former residents of a home for Indigenous children that has been at the centre of recent hearings of the royal commission into child sexual abuse have marched on a Darwin police station to demand charges be laid against an alleged abuser.

The royal commission has wrapped up after almost two weeks of hearings in Darwin about the Retta Dixon home, which housed children from 1946 until 1980.

Nine former residents gave harrowing evidence of physical, emotional and sexual abuse suffered at the hands of carers.

This included being raped and molested, belted until they bled, force-fed until they vomited, and chained to their beds.

Former house parent Donald Henderson was twice committed to stand trial for sexual abuse, in 1976 and 2002, but both times prosecutors dropped the charges over a lack of evidence.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

OCTOBER 02, 2014

Amos Aikman
Northern Correspondent
Darwin

FORMER residents of a Darwin missionary home where Stolen Generations and other children were allegedly serially sexually abused have threatened demonstrations if the site is not given to them and turned into a community centre and a “sea of flowers”.

A group marched on a Darwin police station yesterday demanding action against convicted pedophile Donald Henderson, who a royal commission has heard molested children at the Retta Dixon Home in the 1960s and 1970s.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse concluded yesterday after nearly two weeks of hearings into alleged abuse at the home operated by Australian Indigenous Ministries inside Darwin’s Bagot Aboriginal reserve.

The commission heard children were routinely beaten, chained up and subjected to shocking viol­ations, including being raped repeatedly, being rubbed with feces and forced to eat their own vomit.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

ABC

BY SALLY BROOKS AND XAVIER LA CANNA
October 5, 2014

Indigenous children housed between 1946 and 1980 at a former Darwin institution now at the centre of child sex abuse allegations are pursuing legal action against those they say responsible for their suffering.

On Saturday, alleged victims from the Retta Dixon home met at the site where the facility once stood.

An Aboriginal smoking ceremony to cleanse the area was held and traditional dances were performed.

Retta Dixon was a home in Darwin that operated for more than three decades and housed mainly Aboriginal children, many of whom identify as being from the Stolen Generation.

Irene Pearson, a former resident of the home, said the gathering marked an important part in the healing process.

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VATICAN CITY
GlobalPost

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of a leading British Roman Catholic Bishop who acknowledged that he had broken his vows and who was believed to have had an affair with a married woman, the Vatican said on Saturday.

Bishop Kieran Conry of the diocese of Arundel and Brighton, one of Britain’s largest, disclosed in an announcement posted on the diocese’s website last week that for years he had been “unfaithful to my promises as a Roman Catholic priest” and had decided to offer his resignation.

He apologized for the “shame that I have brought on the diocese and the Church” but he said his actions were not illegal and did not involve minors.

Neither Conry’s statement nor the Vatican statement gave any details of how the 63-year-old bishop had broken his vows, but British media reported that he had had a long-running affair with a married woman some 20 years his junior.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Catholic Herald

By FR ALEXANDER LUCIE-SMITH on Friday, 3 October 2014

The print edition of the Catholic Herald makes very interesting reading today. On Monday, Bishop Kieran Conry, who had earlier spoken to the Daily Mail, spoke also to this paper. The Herald report also carried a quotation from a member of the diocese, a voice from the pew, if you like.

I am struck by the ‘disconnect’ between what he has to say and what the member of his flock has to say. What this boils down to is something that we have heard many times: there is a lack of accountability and transparency in the governance of the Catholic Church. In a way, the sad outcome of Bishop Conry’s career is not really what is important here: what is important is to consider how we arrived at this point in the first place. What is needed now is something very simple: an investigation into the way bishops rule their dioceses, and the checks and balances that are in place, and the way that bishops are chosen, and supervised and supported after they are chosen. This does not simply concern England: this seems to be a universal problem, given the way several bishops have been sacked of late.

Of course, we all know that canon law and the customs of the Church make provision for all of these matters. But this is the real point: canon law is not working. Bishop Conry’s appointment as bishop was made according to the processes laid down in canon law, but these processes, which should have brought to light several red lights, or at least amber ones, on his path to the episcopate, failed to work.

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UNITED STATES
Standing on My Head

October 3, 2014 by Fr. Dwight Longenecker

I wrote earlier in the week here about the resignation of Kieran Conry and was one of the few voices to say, “Hang on. Let’s not just brush this under the carpet with a sweet Christian, ‘Well we are all sinners, let’s forgive and forget and move on. Water under the bridge. Nothing more to see.’”

In fact there is more to see and some sources from the UK who are very much on the inside with this story have emailed me with information that justifies a bit more attention to this sad tale.

You can be sure the left leaning media will give it more attention. They’ll use it to push for an end to celibacy for priests, re-marriage of divorcees and then same sex marriage and the whole shootin’ match.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent Catholic News

Following the unexpected resignation of the Bishop of Arundel and Brighton, Bishop Kieran Conry, Archbishop Peter Smith, who leads the Archdiocese of Southwark, and Cardinal Emeritus Cormac Murphy O’Connor, who served as Bishop of Arundel and Brighton for 24 years, before he came to Westminster, have sent letters of support to the Diocese which will be read out at all all Masses this weekend. The texts of both letters follows below.

Archbishop Smith writes:

My Dear brothers and sisters,

The announcement last weekend that Bishop Kieran had offered his resignation to the Holy Father came as a great shock and was very distressing. Working with him in the Bishops’ Conference since 2001, and more recently as a Bishop of the Province of Southwark, I am well aware of all his dedicated work in the Diocese and nationally in his work as Chairman of the Department of Evangelisation and Catechesis.

My heart goes out to you at this difficult time, and I just wanted to write and let you know that I have offered Mass for you and all those hurt or distressed by Bishop Kieran’s actions. I will be keeping you and all those involved in my prayers in the coming weeks and months as you continue your preparations to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the Diocese next year.

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VATIKAN
Zeit

Franziskus wird für sein hartes Durchgreifen beim Thema Missbrauch von den Medien gefeiert. Doch es bleiben Zweifel am Aufklärungswillen des Papstes. VON JULIUS MÜLLER-MEININGEN, ROM

Der Vatikan ist der kleinste Staat der Welt. Aber dass hier Gut und Böse so nahe beieinanderwohnen, ist doch eine Überraschung. Franziskus lebt im zweiten Stock des Gästehauses Santa Marta an der gleichnamigen Piazza im Schatten des Petersdoms. Seit Dienstag vor einer Woche hat hier auch Jozef Wesolowski sein vorübergehendes Zuhause. Der ehemalige Erzbischof und päpstliche Nuntius in der Dominikanischen Republik sitzt im unmittelbar an Santa Marta angrenzenden Gebäude des Vatikan-Tribunals im Hausarrest. Beide – der Papst und der bislang höchste wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs belangte Prälat – haben denselben Blick aus dem Fenster. Er geht auf eine Tankstelle.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Mark Mueller | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on October 04, 2014

Calling the actions of one his priests “inexcusable,” Trenton Bishop David M. O’Connell on Friday publicly apologized to a South Jersey man who says he was sexually assaulted hundreds of times in the 1980s and 1990s by the diocese’s former youth leader.

In a four-paragraph statement placed prominently on the diocese’s website, O’Connell offered his prayers for the alleged victim, Chris Naples, and for “all those affected by the horrible scourge of sexual abuse of minors.”

O’Connell issued the statement hours after NJ Advance Media disclosed that Naples had reached a $610,000 settlement with the diocese in August. Naples filed suit against the diocese five months earlier, alleging church officials knew the Rev. Terence McAlinden was a danger to children and allowed him to remain in ministry anyway.

Naples said in a story published Friday that an apology was one of his key demands during the negotiations but that he had not yet received one.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Register

by Edward Pentin Saturday, October 04, 2014

The Franciscan Friars of the Renewal have announced that Father Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R., has died at the age of 81.

The co-founder of the order passed away on October 3rd at 11 PM, the vigil of the feast of St. Francis.

The Cardinal Newman Society reported on their facebook page earlier this week that Father Groeschel had taken a fall and reinjured the same arm that was hurt in his accident ten years ago. One of his brother friars, Father Glenn Sudano, said that Father Groeschel was in much pain.

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VATICAN CITY
New Zealand Herald

Sunday Oct 5, 2014

VATICAN CITY (AP) Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of a British bishop who admitted last week that he had been “unfaithful” to his vows as a priest.

In a statement read across his Arundel and Brighton diocese, Bishop Kieran Conry didn’t say what he had done but said “my actions were not illegal and did not involve minors.”

British news reports have said the 63-year-old Conry had an inappropriate relationship with a married woman in his parish.

In a statement Saturday, the Vatican said Francis had accepted Conry’s resignation under the code of canon law that allows for bishops to resign early if they are sick or for another “grave” reason that makes them unfit for office.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
CBS 58

by Priscilla Luong

MILWAUKEE– Seven hundred people gathered at the Hyatt in Downtown Milwaukee Friday evening for the St. Francis of Sales Seminary Dinner.

“If it happens to fall on a day that we’re scheduled in court, it’s just a coincidence,” said Archbishop Jerome

Tickets for the event cost $150.00 per person. Organizers say the celebration is the largest fundraiser the seminary has ever had, with proceeds going to recruit and retain new priests, but it came just hours after the Milwaukee Archdioceses’ bankruptcy hearing.

“This is a time to express tremendous remorse,” said Peter Isely, Midwest Director for the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.

Isley says the annual fundraiser could not come at a worse time.

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NEW YORK
Time Warner Cable News

By: Antoinette DelBel
Updated 10/03/2014

CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. — Churches are seen as a safe haven for many, but behind the walls of Hedstrom Baptist Church in Cheektowaga, police said there were some troubling incidents involving a then-12-year-old girl and 26-year-old man.

“It was something that’s very disturbing,” said Cheektowaga Assistant Police Chief Jim Speyer.

During the summer of 2013, Speyer said Caleb Sexton, 27, had sexual contact with the apparent victim. Police said the abuse went on for about four months in a secluded part of the church.

The girl eventually confided in her mother, which led to Sexton’s arrest last Friday.

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NEW YORK
WGRZ

[with video]

Erica Brecher
October 3, 2014

CHEEKTOWAGA, NY — A Lancaster man faces child sex charges for his alleged sexual contact with a 12-year-old girl last year.

Caleb Sexton, 27, is charged by Cheektowaga Police with a criminal sexual act in the second degree, sexual abuse in the second degree, and child endangerment.

Police say this all took place at the Hedstrom Baptist church over a nine-month period last year.

That’s where the relationship started. Sexton and his then-12 year-old victim met at church. Then they became friends on Facebook, where Cheektowaga police say the two often chatted.

“It ended up turning into a relationship where he took advantage of her trust,” said assistant police chief Jim Speyer.

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NEW YORK
WIVB

By Elysia Rodriguez
Published: October 3, 2014

CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. (WIVB) – A Lancaster man allegedly had sexual contact with a 12-year-old girl over a period of time in 2013 at the Hedstrom Baptist Church in Cheektowaga, where his father is the pastor.

Police say 27-year-old Caleb Sexton met the girl at the church in January 2012. The victim befriended Sexton on Facebook a year later, where they regularly chatted.

That summer, police say Sexton would meet the victim in a secluded part of the church and had sexual contact with her on multiple occasions. The encounters lasted until September 2013.

“They gravitate towards these positions of trust and, unfortunately, they betray their trust,” said Cheektowaga Police Asst. Chief James Speyer. “They’re preying on the weakest members of our society: our children.”

When the girl’s mother learned about the incidents in late August, she contacted police. Sexton was arrested September 26 following an in-depth investigation and charged with second degree criminal sexual act, second degree sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child.

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WASHINGTON
Seattle PI

Posted on October 3, 2014 | By Joel Connelly

Churches are at their most private, even opaque, when called upon to investigate in-house charges of misconduct. The troubled Mars Hill Church is acting in that tradition while probing allegations brought by 21 former church elders against Senior Pastor Mark Driscoll.

Driscoll announced Aug. 25 that he was taking “a break for processing, healing and growth for a minimum of six weeks,” while a board of elders would investigate accounts of abusive, duplicitous conduct toward staff and pastors at the Seattle-based mega-church.

The redoubtable Warren Throckmorton, a Pennsylvania-based professor who writes for the Patheos website, has exposed a myriad of internal secrets at Mars Hill.

He has been on the Driscoll watch as one of two nationally watched investigations into clerical error. The other is a Vatican probe of whether Bishop Robert Finn is fit to continue leading the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese. Finn pleaded guilty to shielding a priest accused in a sexual misconduct case.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Pope Francis seems, with his diversionary Family Synod strategy, to be pressing very hard to change the subject and distance himself from the escalating fallout from the priest child rape scandal. Francis has for over 18 months mainly avoided addressing this scandal directly, effectively and transparently, even though the scandal is the most serious Vatican crisis since 1789. The French Revolution then began the challenges to absolute monarchies like the Vatican, the world’s oldest continuous unaccountable monarchy. The revolutionary fever has now crossed the Tiber to Vatican Hill. Increasingly, Catholics are demanding accountability of its leaders, as had existed for centuries in the Church that the disciples of Jesus, including some women, left behind.

The latest major abuse scandal fallout may soon be emitted from Puerto Rico (PR), a territory of the USA, where the papal apostolic delegate to PR, Archibishop Wesolowski, had been the senior Vatican official for five years. He fled secretly last year to the Vatican’s purported legal immunity protection, as potential investigation targets Cardinals Law and Pell seemingly also have done. Indeed, Pell appears still to be in the cross hairs of the important commission that is investigating institutional child sexual abuse in Australia and that is also relentlessly moving in on the Vatican’s complicit role there, it appears.

Significantly, President Obama’s Federal prosecutors in PR recently have stepped up considerably priest child abuse and related criminal investigations. Given Wesolowski’s reported computer stash of 100,000+ child porn images, and his reported sexual obsession with young boys, US investigators may soon identify some Puerto Rican boys, all US citizens, as being among his many child victims. Obama’s Federal prosecutors are also involved in Minneapolis priest child porn investigations relating to allegations previously reviewed insufficiently by the Vatican and by local vicar general, Fr. Kevin McDonough, close brother of Denis McDonough, Obama’s Chief of Staff.

US Federal prosecutors treat child porn as a very serious criminal matter. Also, the US has an extradition treaty with Italy, but not with the Vatican. This may help explain Weslowski’s reportedly being moved to a Vatican apartment, since he had earlier been spotted walking freely in Rome in Italian territory.

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VATICAN CITY
RTE News

By Joe Little

During next Sunday’s Mass in Saint Peter’s Basilica, Pope Francis will open an Extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Catholic family and its future.

Already preparations for the gathering have made waves, with last year’s unprecedented circulation online of a Vatican questionnaire designed to gauge what Catholics think of Church teaching on issues like contraception, abortion, and homosexual unions.

But all continents will be represented and issues far from removed from the western mindset will also be discussed.

The fortnight-long Synod is shaping up to be the most open consultation of its kind since Pope Paul VI introduced such gatherings almost 50 years ago after the Second Vatican Council.

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LOUISIANA
Christian News Wire

Catholic Action Organization Rallies Support for Diocese of Baton Rouge’s Religious Liberty Appeal to U.S. Supreme Court

Contact: Thomas McKenna, Catholic Action for Faith and Family, 858-461-0777

SAN DIEGO, Oct. 3, 2014 /Christian Newswire/ — Catholic Action for Faith and Family (CatholicAction.org) has filed an Amicus Brief with the Supreme Court of the United States in support of the Diocese of Baton Rouge, which is appealing a ruling that a diocesan priest may be forced to break the Seal of Confession.

A state appeals court initially ruled that a confession, made by a minor allegedly regarding her sexual abuse at the hands of a parishioner, was “confidential” and that the priest did not have to testify in court as to its alleged contents or whether it even took place.

In May, however, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that the priest of the Baton Rouge Diocese could be forced to testify in court about the supposed confession.

In response, Catholic Action for Faith and Family contacted the Freedom of Conscience Defense Fund (consciencedefense.org) to prepare a “Friend of the Court” Brief, which it did in less than a week. Working with nationally acclaimed attorney Charles LiMandri and his team of attorneys, Catholic Action for Faith and Family obtained the support of 17 other Catholic and Christian organizations that signed on to the Brief. The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, Catholic Answers, Catholics Come Home, The National Pro-Life Religious Council and Priests for Life were just a few of the organizations who joined the Brief.

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WISCONSIN
WTAQ

MILWAUKEE (WTAQ) – A judge took steps today to keep the Milwaukee Catholic Archdiocese bankruptcy case moving forward.

Federal Bankruptcy Judge Susan Kelley met with lawyers for the church, victims of sex abuse by priests, and other creditors. She outlined a plan for dealing with issues that were not resolved after a second round of mediation sessions in recent weeks.

The next court hearing in the case was set for October 22nd. Kelley’s agenda includes determining which abuse victims have valid claims.

That’s after 575 abuse victims sought compensation, and the Archdiocese proposed paying just 130 of them. Kelley also wants to resolve sticking points that deal with insurance matters, and the value of the archdiocese bank accounts.

The judge also told the church to give the creditors’ attorneys financial statements for 15 parishes.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
TribTown

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First Posted: October 03, 2014

PHILADELPHIA — In a story Oct. 2 about property sales by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, The Associated Press reported erroneously the amount and type of liabilities the sales are to help offset. The sales will help pay about $126 million in pension and trust and loan fund liabilities, not $287 million in pension and insurance liabilities.

A corrected version of the story is below:

Philadelphia Archdiocese sells properties for $56M

Philadelphia Archdiocese sells properties for $56 million to help shore up finances, pensions

By KATHY MATHESON

Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA — The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia is selling three parcels of land for more than $56 million in an effort to shore up its finances, church officials announced Thursday.

Most proceeds from the transactions, which involve about 700 acres in the Philadelphia suburbs and Lehigh Valley, will go toward a parish trust and loan fund. About $3.7 million will go to the priests’ pension fund, officials said.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Christian Order

January 2002

MICHAEL McGRADE

“Theology in crisis has become a crisis of faith in God. Private judgement has been substituted for Catholic belief. Faith in the divine foundation of the Church, in many places, has vanished.
Cardinal Ratzinger

“I am left with my back to the wall. God Himself will see to the saving of His Church.”
Pope Pius VII, 1809

As Father Paul Marx, OSB, the great pro-life apostle and founder of Human Life International put it to me a few years ago, “the Church is in total chaos.” I knew it was. But when that familiar fact is confirmed by someone of his stature who has observed the Catholic crisis first-hand in close to 100 countries, it gains new resonance. Thirty-six years after the Council the Body of Christ remains deeply sick, and from Capetown to Quebec, from Christchurch to Cork, with a mere handful of noble exceptions in between, there is no cure in sight. When scandal becomes scandalously routine – so much a part of the Catholic landscape that one is astonished if a priest gets through Holy Mass without improvisation, sacrilege or heresy, or one sighs with blessed relief when a cleric gets caught with a female rather than a male – when it comes to that, you know that “crisis” has become “chaos” has become “basket case.” …

Bishop Kieran Conry

Father Summersgill, of course, can afford a ‘sticks and stones…’ response to all this, because he is on track for the episcopal heights and controversies are not about to derail him. Should he ever strike trouble, however, he need only phone Bishop Kieran Conry for reassurance. Recently installed in Cardinal Murphy O’Connor’s former diocese of Arundel and Brighton (or what is left of it after his tenure), the former Mgr. Conry was earmarked for higher things by Cardinal Hume during his time as Director of the Catholic Media Office. Despite one priest’s assessment of his time there as being “by any objective standards a disaster,” Mgr Conry became one of the sponsored ‘untouchables’ – and acted accordingly. “For a period I saw quite a bit of Conry,” a deacon confided. “He seemed to live in a secular, corporate world rather than a priestly one. I never once saw him dressed as a priest. His point of view was unfailingly liberal.” In other words, he was left to do his own thing. And if that is considered par for the priestly course nowadays, I guess one could say the same about his ‘special friendship.’ “Kieran was often seen out and about with his female friend,” a London priest informed me. “Everyone knew about it in the same way that everyone, including the bishops, knew about the homosexual relationship between Martin Pendergast [ex-Carmelite priest] and Julian Filochowski [Director of CAFOD, the bishops’ overseas aid agency].”

Several years ago, around the time of the Roddy Wright scandal, I explored how British bishops turn a blind eye to the “occasion of sin” in which a priest “keeping company” places himself, tempting fate and grave scandal [“Six Bishops and a Funeral: Why The Common Good was Dead on Arrival,” CO, Jan. 1997]. At that time, in commenting on the routine breaking of vows of chastity acknowledged by the hierarchy in a message to the Pope, Mgr (now Bishop) Arthur Roche had assured The Times that “… the bishops of England and Wales are realists.” Just how “realistic” they are I indicated by relating, among other cases, the example of the London priest well known to be living with his Pastoral Assistant, who he took along to Deanery meetings at the Bishop’s house! In that context, Mgr Conry ‘merely’ keeping regular company in such public fashion is hardly surprising. Yet even if such increasingly common ‘relationships’ are purely platonic, the point is that scandal is given, above all to those of simple and delicate conscience who are offended by it and interpret it in a bad sense. St. Joseph Cafasso, a nineteenth century version of the Cure of Ars, called this kind of scandal “the scandal of the little ones.” A priest’s life is not his own, and so the Saint exhorts him to absolutely abstain from any behaviour which might give scandal, even if caused by appearance only and the result of the ignorance of others.

One assumes that this is the case with Mgr Conry. But regardless, does it not leave the gravest questions about ecclesiastical propriety? Not to say about his prudential judgement and ability to offer wise moral leadership and counsel to others? Especially when shortly before his episcopal consecration Mass he is seen in Italy strolling hand in hand and enjoying leisurely outings with his lady friend at Palazzola, the residence on Lake Albano belonging to the English College. Again, it was the appearance of scandal that upset those who viewed the liaison, including one priest who was sufficiently disgusted to make representations to a Vatican Congregation. Word quickly spread and it is said that Church authorities may have queried Mgr Conry about the matter. Whatever the case, it is a measure of the unqualified protection afforded to Modernist cronies that not only did Mgr Conry’s less than discreet romantic entanglement not disqualify him from consideration for a bishopric in the first place, but that the Palazzola coup de grace did not even delay his elevation by a single day. It is especially shocking in light of the numerous sexual scandals in recent years which have caused such harm to the Church in general and episcopate in particular, and which, one might have thought, would have seen Rome acting swiftly to snuff out the slightest possibility of further tabloid headlines. Not on your life. Ensconced in a plum see, Bishop Conry is now fulfilling the standard expectations of his liberal patrons: Protestantising and bureaucratizing his diocese behind a welter of Modernist buzz-words about “community,” “renewal” and “change.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

How the Church covered up its Casanova bishop for 12 years: The Catholic Bishop of Brighton has resigned after two affairs with parishioners and now he’s linked to a THIRD

By BARBARA DAVIES FOR THE DAILY MAIL

By all accounts, the ordination of Kieran Conry was a suitably dignified and solemn affair. Hundreds of worshippers filled the vast neo-Gothic spaces of Arundel Cathedral in West Sussex to watch him be installed as their new Roman Catholic bishop in June 2001.

But even as the car mechanic’s son from Coventry lay prostrate on the Cathedral’s stone floor to show his humility before God in the historic ceremony, rumours were circulating about his suitability for the weighty role ahead of him.

This week, after more than 13 years as Bishop of Arundel and Brighton, 63-year-old Conry dramatically resigned after revelations of love affairs with two parishioners — one of them a 43-year-old married mother-of-two — admitting that he had been ‘unfaithful to his promises’ as a priest.

But his insistence that the Catholic Church knew nothing about his affairs has been met with a chorus of disbelief — and not just from the husband of one of the women.

The husband is now consulting lawyers after claiming to have proof that the Catholic authorities did know about Conry’s behaviour, and simply chose to turn a blind eye to it.

There are growing calls from leading Catholics for a Papal inquiry into who within the Church knew what, and when.

As Conry’s resignation threatens to plunge the Church into yet another scandal, Britain’s most senior Catholic cleric, Cardinal Archbishop Vincent Nichols, has refused to comment on accusations of yet another cover-up. …

The January 2002 edition of Christian Order, which is published in Britain, quoted an unnamed priest saying: ‘Kieran was often seen out and about with his female friend. Everyone knew about it.’

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

By Phil Lawler | Oct 03, 2014

Suppose you were arrested and told that you’d be facing criminal charges that could lead to a 12-year prison sentence. Would you say that the police were “sheltering” you? I doubt it.

Yet a Boston Globe editorial complains that the Vatican is sheltering Jozef Wesolowski, the defrocked archbishop and former papal nuncio who now faces criminal prosecution before a Vatican tribunal.

You can argue that the Vatican should have been tougher on abusive bishops in the past, and you’d be right. You could say that in this case, the Vatican should have locked up Wesolowski as soon as he was recalled from his diplomatic assignment in the Dominican Republic, and you’d have a strong case. But now that the Vatican is doing the right thing—now that the accused former prelate is under arrest and will face criminal prosecution, it’s a strange time to register these complaints. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

“Vatican trial for abuse suspect undercuts zero-tolerance goal,” reads the Globe’s headline for the editorial. That’s a confusing statement in itself: Is the editorial suggesting that a criminal trial is a show of tolerance? And the argument that follows confuses the reader still further by Wesolowski case with the trial of Paolo Gabriele, the papal butler, on theft charges. The cases actually have very little in common, aside from the fact that they were (or in Wesolowski’s case, will be) tried before a Vatican tribunal.

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KENTUCKY
Business Wire

LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Attorneys at the national law firm of Owen, Patterson and Owen are representing an individual who was a student/athlete at Trinity High School in Kentucky, from approximately 1985 through 1989. While at Trinity High School, our client alleges he was repeatedly sexually abused by his football coach, Phillip Dale Anderson, at Anderson’s home. Our client also alleges he was sexually abused by a priest at Trinity, Ron Domhoff, on the school premises and teacher, Donald Switzer, in Switzer’s classroom at Trinity. He also states that the abuse started when he was in Jr. High. Our client is willing to share details of his abuse with the press in order to encourage other victims to come forward.

“For 30 years I have seen how lives are shattered when a child is molested. These monsters must be found and punished. If not, they victimize again and again. These children will never be the same”

Our client has found the courage to come forward with his story and tell the truth after viewing the story of another man’s abuse at the hands of Anderson, which aired on August 17, 2014 on WHAS 11 (http://www.whas11.com/news/Fmr-St-Raphael-teacher-arrested-charged-with-sexual-abuse-271623131.html). Our client believes that other victims, who were students at St. Raphael School in Louisville, Kentucky (“St. Raphael”), St. Agnes School in Covington, Kentucky (“St. Agnes”), and Trinity High School in Louisville, Kentucky (“Trinity”), were also abused by Anderson, Domhoff and/or Switzer.

“I encourage all students and athletes who were sexually abused by any of these men to come forward. We have to stop them from hurting others. The world needs to know about this and about how many lives have been damaged by what they did to not only our client, but likely to many others,” states Gregory J. Owen, Esq., lead trial counsel at Owen, Patterson and Owen.

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KENTUCKY
WHAS

Posted on October 3, 2014

Louisville, Ky. (WHAS11) – The Archdiocese of Louisville has placed a priest on administrative leave.

That comes after the Archdiocese was imformed by police that an adult male made allegations he was sexually abused in the 1980s.

Father Ronald Domhoff was the pastor at St. Peter the Apostle Parish on Johnsontown Road.
Police notified the Archdiocese that a man had just recently come forward, saying he’d been abused by three people during the 1980’s.

One of the people he is accusing of abuse is Father Domhoff.
He has not been charged in this case.

When an accusation of sexual abuse involving clergy is received , a leave of absence is standard procedure.

The Archiodese is working with authorities and is conducting an internal investigation.
During the leave, Domhoff is prohibited from public ministry.
———————————
The Archdiocese of Louisville released this statement on the matter:

Last weekend, at the Saturday and Sunday Masses on September 27-28, the parishioners of St. Peter the Apostle Parish (5431 Johnsontown Road) were informed that their pastor, Father Ronald Domhoff, has been placed on an administrative leave of absence. Parishioners also were informed in a letter from Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz.

Recently, the Archdiocese received information from the police that an adult male reported that as a minor during in the 1980s, he had been sexually abused by three persons, and Fr. Domhoff was named on that list. The Archdiocese has no other information about this report.
When an accusation of sexual abuse involving clergy or Church employees is received, the Archdiocese takes the following actions in accordance with its sexual abuse policies:

• A leave of absence for the person who has been accused.
• Outreach, if possible, to the person making the accusation.
• A report to civil authorities if not already contacted.
• An internal investigation of the accusation.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel Oct. 3, 2014

Whether Catholic parishes that harbored sex abuser priests should be given blanket immunity from future lawsuits is among the issues that will be hammered out in the coming months as the Archdiocese of Milwaukee attempts to emerge from its nearly 4-year-old bankruptcy.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley on Friday voiced disappointment that the parties could not reach a settlement during two rounds of talks last month. And she issued a road map that will dictate how the case proceeds, saying she wants it “on a fast track.”

“If this case is not going to be settled amicably…it’s time to litigate the remaining issues,” Kelley told attorneys at a status hearing on Friday. “I want this case over.”

The hearing came as the archdiocese filed a new round of objections to claims filed by individuals who allege they were abused by non-diocesan priests, parish staff and others for whom the archdiocese maintains it is not liable.

Kelley on Friday issued a schedule for taking up a number of disputed issues. Among them:

■ Whether the archdiocese’s proposed reorganization plan — which sets aside less than $4 million for 128 victims of diocesan priests — is fair and equitable.

■ Whether a key provision of that plan — a $8 million payment from London Market Insurers in return for a release from any future parish lawsuits — is reasonable.

■ And whether certain other assets, including the Cousins Center headquarters building and thousands of dollars in 50 or more fixed-income accounts, should be part of the bankruptcy estate.

The question of parish immunity — and whether the archdiocese should have to turn over parish financial information — prompted the day’s most heated exchange.

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TEXAS
Associated Baptist Press

By Bob Allen

A Southern Baptist megachurch in Texas is being sued by parents of a teenage girl claiming careless hiring and supervision of a former youth minister in prison for sexual assault of a child.

A lawsuit filed Oct. 1 in Harris County Court accuses Second Baptist Church in Houston of negligent hiring, supervision and retention of Chad Foster, a former youth pastor sentenced last year to five years in prison after pleading guilty to raping a 16-year-old girl in 2011 and soliciting another teen online.

The parents, identified by pseudonyms so their daughter remains anonymous, seek actual damages including the cost of counseling, as well as punitive and “exemplary” damages for “breach of fiduciary duty” after entrusting their daughter to the church’s care and breach of fiduciary and “vicarious liability,” claiming Foster was “acting within the scope of his employment” when he committed his crimes.

The lawsuit describes “a simple yet effective marketing scheme,” where Second Baptist Church entices preteens and teens in public schools with lunches provided by places such as McDonald’s or Pizza Hut. Youth counselors befriend the children they speak with and invite them to church activities.

“What we have here is the proverbial pedophile with candy in his pocket,” the victim’s attorney, Cris Feldman, told Houston TV station KPRC Local 2. “Except this pedophile in question was sent into public schools with candy in his pocket provided by Second Baptist.”

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CANADA
VOCM

[with audio]

A well known local public figure is coming out about sexual abuse he suffered as a child. VOCM’s Linda Swain reports.

Sean McCann of Great Big Sea has announced that he was the victim of sexual assault at the hands of his former priest when he was 16-years-old. He says after denying the abuse to himself for over 30 years, and resorting to alcohol to numb his pain, he has decided to speak out.

McCann recently attended a Recovery Breakfast in London Ontario, where he heard from speaker and former abuse victim Paulie O’Byrne who inspired him to share his own truth. O’Byrne is a London-based hockey player who was abused by a former hockey mentor. He resorted to drugs, and overdosed three times before coming to terms with the abuse that almost ruined his life. He says since starting to acknowledge the abuse, and sharing his story, he’s come to terms with the embarrassment and shame that nearly destroyed him.

McCann shared his story online this week, saying that he is taking back what was stolen from him, his innocence, his confidence and his trust, and knows that he is not alone.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Sarah Farnsworth
Updated 3 Oct 2014

A recent Victorian Court of Appeal ruling has sparked concerns a clamp down on the way child abuse cases are handled could thwart convictions.

In June, three Court of Appeal justices ruled only cases that are “remarkably” similar would go before the same jury, making it harder for groups of victims to band together.

For cases to be heard together, the court needs to allow what is known as tendency evidence – which is used to prove a person’s tendency to act in a certain way.

In the case of sexual abuse, it can be used to establish predatory behaviour.

It was used successfully in the Sydney trial of Hey Dad! star Robert Hughes and in the UK trial of Australian entertainer Rolf Harris.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Many of the problems in the church today come from accepting men who are unsuitable for the priesthood, Pope Francis told the Congregation for Clergy.

The vocations crisis and lack of priests have meant that “we bishops are tempted to take in, without discernment, the young men who present themselves. This is bad for the church,” he told those taking part in the congregation’s plenary assembly meeting at the Vatican.

“We have to think of the good of the people of God,” which means taking the time to screen and “study” those seeking a vocation, he said Oct. 3.

“Examine closely whether he belongs to the Lord, if that man is healthy, is balanced, if that man is capable of giving life, of evangelizing, if he is capable of forming a family and turning that down in order to follow Jesus,” he said in off-the-cuff remarks.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Survivor Advocates Coalition

EDITORIAL

Finn – Fit to be Leader? The National Catholic Reporter (NCR) broke a story this week that Archbishop Terrence Prendergast of Ottawa has conducted an apostolic visitation — at the behest of the Vatican — of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri. The Archbishop, it is reported, asked of supporters and defenders of Bishop Robert Finn: Do you think Bishop Finn is fit to be a leader? It is possible that given all of the mounds of heart breaking evidence that’s been produced through the courage of the survivors in this crisis – evidence that has been ignored, attempted to be explained away, and pushed under massive rugs – Oriental and otherwise — and vigorously assigned – but not staying put – as history, — that the Archbishop will answer his question in the affirmative and deliver the answer to the Vatican that Finn is a fit leader. But, while we still are in that place in these days where the decision is yet to be make – or, if made, not yet carried out – it may be possible to entertain the thought of what hell freezing over would sound like. A cautionary damper is placed on this though by the at first hopeful news and then disclaimered news that the reason Paraguayan Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano was removed from office was his protection of Monsignor Carolos Urritigoity against whom a federal lawsuit charging abuse was filed in the United States. The suit was followed by a bishop to bishop warning from Diocese of Scranton Bishop James Timlin not to give Utttigoity faculties in Paraguay. Now in the case of Finn’s fitness, Archbishop Prendergast stands in the breach. We urge any one with information regarding Bishop Finn’s and his diocese’s conduct in regard to the Shawn Ratigan child pornography case and the Diocese’s protestation of payment of $1.1 million ordered by an arbitrator for violating the 2008 settlement conditions for victims of sexual abuse by priests in the diocese to raise their voice, their pen, their email, their faxes – and any other method of preferred communication. We mean everyone with information: attorneys, advocates, people in the pews, concerned citizens, chancery officials, priests, deacons, religious, and brother bishops. We urge them to answer Archbishop Prendergast’s question: is Finn fit to be a leader? Here is Archbishop Prendergast’s contact information through the Archdiocese of Ottawa: The Diocesan Centre 1247 Kilborn Place Ottawa, Ontario K1H 6K9 Telephone number: 613-738-5025 The voicemail system, the Archdiocese says, is available 24/7 Fax number: 613-738-0130 E-mail: reception@archottawa.ca Or send your information to us and we’ll forward it.

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TEXAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, October 3, 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 )

Parents of a girl who was groomed by a former youth pastor are suing two Texas churches. We applaud the bravery of these parents for seeking justice and exposing wrongdoers.

According to the suit , officials at the two Houston churches – Second Baptist Church and Community of Faith Church- were negligent in their supervision of Chad Foster. Foster was part of a recruitment scheme that allowed him into schools to recruit children into the church. It is there that he met a young girl and began to sexually assault her.

Foster plead guilty to the charges and in 2013 was sentenced to five years behind bars.

We urge church officials at Second Baptist and Community of Faith to reach out to anyone else who may have been hurt by Foster. They should also make immediate changes to their child protection policies to ensure something like this doesn’t happen again.

We hope anyone who saw, suspects or suffered abuse will speak up, call secular officials, and start healing.

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IRELAND
The Guardian (UK)

John Boyne – author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas – grew up gay in Catholic Dublin. Now, after years of silence he is finally ready to write about sexual abuse within the church – and to talk about the effect it has had on his life

John Boyne
The Guardian, Friday 3 October 2014

Over the course of my writing life, I’ve often been asked why I don’t set my novels in Ireland. To this question, I had a stock reply: that I didn’t want to write about my own country until I had a story to tell. Now, having written a book that takes the subject of child abuse in the Irish Catholic church as its theme, I wonder if that answer was entirely honest.

I’ve spent the past two years recalling experiences from my childhood and teenage years that I would rather forget, reliving events that should never have taken place and recreating through fiction, moments that seemed small at the time but that I’ve come to realise caused me great damage. Which makes me think that the real reason I never wrote about Ireland until now is explained in the opening sentence of my novel:

“I did not become ashamed of being Irish until I was well into the middle years of my life.”

When I was growing up in Dublin in the 70s and 80s, the parish priest lived in the house to my left while eight nuns lived in the house to my right. I was an altar boy, went to a Catholic school and was brought to mass every Sunday. I knew there were Protestants in Dublin, and Methodists and Jews and Mormons, but I never laid eyes on any of them, and probably would have run a mile if I had. They were going to hell, after all, or so the priests told us. And as long as we learned our catechism by heart and lived good Catholic lives, we were not.

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AUSTRALIA
New South Wales Government – Police Integrity Commission

The Commission is to hold a public hearing on Monday 13 October 2014 at 10.00am at the Commission’s hearing room, Level 3, 111 Elizabeth Street, Sydney.

The general scope and purpose of that hearing will be to investigate:

1. Whether there was any police misconduct involved in the participation of any New South Wales Police Force (“NSWPF”) officer in the Catholic Church Professional Standards Resource Group between 1998 and 2005; and

2. Whether there was any police misconduct involved in the participation by the NSWPF in any agreement, protocol or Memorandum of Understanding (whether or not formally entered into) between the NSWPF and the Catholic Church concerning the handling of complaints of abuse committed by Catholic Church personnel or employees.

Media enquiries: Pru Sheaves 9321 6777 or 0425 317 535

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

October 3, 2014

Nick Ralston
Crime Editor

The police corruption watchdog will investigate whether there was any misconduct by the NSW Police Force in its dealings with the Catholic Church over the handling of complaints of abuse.

The Police Integrity Commission’s investigation, dubbed Operation Protea, will conduct a public hearing in Sydney on October 13.

A statement from the PIC, released on Friday, said that it would examine two main areas.

The first is whether there was any police misconduct by any NSW officer in the Catholic Church Professional Standards Resource Group between 1998 and 2005.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service – Rhymes with Religion

The sexual abuse of boys is a topic that is all too often overlooked inside and outside of the Church. I am so grateful for my dear friend, Mike Reagan, who is working to bring about a greater public dialogue on this issue. As a survivor of child sexual abuse, Mike understands the unique dynamics and devastating stigmas associated with the sexual abuse of boys. With the assistance of writer and sexual abuse survivor, Jerome Elam, Mike contributes a guest post this week that will prayerfully help begin to empower the public and the Church to understand the issues related to the epidemic of male trafficking. It is only then that we are able to take effective steps to bring this nightmare to an end. – Boz
_____________________________________________________________________________

The heavy door closed with a loud thump as the young boy left the hotel room. As he walked, a look of pain swept across his face as he struggled to forget the physical and emotional trauma he had just endured. At the bottom of the stairs a man waited and as the boy approached he grabbed him by the arm and shook him. The boy reaches into his pocket and hands the man a collection of crumpled bills. The man slaps the boy across his face adding to the rapidly growing collection of bruises on his young body. He turns the boy’s pockets inside out as a candy bar and a small toy fall to the ground. The man drags the boy towards a nearby van and opens the back door. Inside a collection of boys and girls sit dirty and hungry in the grip of the dark world known as human trafficking. When they are not being sold for sex, the children are forced to shoplift and steal wallets. Many are from abusive homes and no one has ever reported them missing. The only constant in their lives is the feeling of worthlessness and the fear of death threats from the human traffickers that have stolen their lives and broken their spirits.

America is being eroded at its very base and one of the most rapidly expanding parasites on our society is the crime of human trafficking. The Department of Justice estimates that between 100,000 and 300,000 children are at risk of being trafficked in this country right now. Human trafficking is a $9.5 billion a year business in the U.S. according to the United Nations. Within the first forty-eight hours of leaving home, a runaway child will be approached by a human trafficker and is at risk of being forced into sexual servitude. Human trafficking is second only to the drug trade as the largest criminal enterprise according to the Justice Department. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) reports that pimps can make from $150,000 to $200,000 per year for each child. The NCMEC also reports a pimp has an average of four children and the Polaris Project, an anti-trafficking non profit, reports the average victim of sex trafficking is forced to have sex 20-48 times a day. These numbers are shocking and part of a tragedy that is actively swallowing America’s children. The life of a child being trafficked is brutal. Drugs, alcohol, beatings and death threats are used as tools to keep innocent children as slaves to the depths of depravity. The Federal Bureau of Investigation reports the average life span of a child being trafficked is seven years. The drugs, alcohol and abusive lifestyle wither the fragile spirit of a child leaving them to die in the shadow of hope.

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TENNESSEE
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, October 03, 2014

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

A registered sex offender in Nashville has been charged with child sexual crimes involving alleged victims he met at an Oregon church.

We are glad that law enforcement are working to find more victims.

Joseph William Wehage is listed as a registered agent of Oregon Territorial Assembly Church. Since he allegedly met one of his victims at church it’s very possible that he assaulted others who attend or work at the church or their children.

Wehage had been living in Nashville and we are concerned that he may have abused children there.

We urge anyone who saw, suspects or suffered wrong doing by Wehage to immediately call secular law enforcement. We urge staff and members at any church where he attended to aggressively seek out others who may have seen, suspected or suffered his crimes and beg them to call law enforcement.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Oct. 3, 2014

ROME
An unmistakable air of expectation mixed with uncertainty pervaded the atmosphere here as Pope Francis prepared to open in early October his global meeting of Catholic bishops to discuss issues of contemporary family life.

As of now, nearly every aspect of how the event will unfold is unclear — from how delicate questions like divorce and remarriage will be handled, to how much discussion will be allowed, to even if it will be known who is speaking each day inside the closed-door Oct. 5-19 Synod of Bishops.

But the one prelate who is chiefly responsible for shepherding the process said Wednesday that at least one thing is clear: The coming days would see an “opportunity to deal with existential issues,” both for individual families and for the Catholic church at large.

The theme is “the pastoral challenges of the family in the context of evangelization,” and synod members will be called upon to find ways to improve the pastoral application of church teachings, ways to explain it, and ways to help Catholics live it.

During their discussions, the bishops are going to attempt “to respond to the new challenges of the family, starting from the family as the main cell of society and the domestic church for Christians,” said Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, October 03, 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 )

At the risk of seeming simplistic, children are safer when predators are imprisoned. So we are grateful that a Twin Cities pastor has been sentenced to 24 years behind bars for raping two girls.

It’s pathetic, and hurtful, to hear the manipulative claims Jacoby Kindred Sr. made to exploit the innocence of these girls. And it’s sad to see no remorse from him.

We suspect Kindred assaulted other children. Let’s hope each one of them feels validated and safer today. And let’s hope each one of them steps forward and starts healing.

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OREGON
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, October 03, 2014

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

A pastor from Oregon has been arrested for allegedly sexually abusing a child from Utah. We are grateful to the brave victim and her parents for alerting law enforcement.

According to police reports Leonel Rocha-Pereda was working on setting up a new church in Salt Lake City and had been staying with the victim’s family during the time of the abuse.

We are deeply disappointed that a man entrusted by this family and the community abused his position and allegedly touched and sent sexual text messages to a child.

We urge anyone who saw, suspects or suffered wrong doing by Rocha-Pereda, in Oregon or Utah, to immediately call secular law enforcement.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Catholic Herald

By FR MARK DREW on Friday, 3 October 2014

There is a story that when Giacomo della Chiesa was elected pope in September 1914, Cardinal Raphael Merry del Val turned to his neighbour in the Sistine Chapel and exclaimed: “This is a disaster!” His interlocutor wryly answered: “For Your Eminence, yes it is.”

Merry del Val had enjoyed untrammelled authority as secretary of state to Pius X, and della Chiesa, who took the name Benedict XV, was the candidate of a rival faction. Merry del Val had vigorously opposed his election and feared the end of his career. In the end, his fears were only partly fulfilled. Benedict was known to detest the Anglo-Spanish cardinal cordially, but he did not feel able to banish his influence completely. Although he was indeed replaced as secretary of state, Merry del Val lived out the remainder of his life as secretary of the Holy Office, a post only marginally less powerful.

Almost exactly a century later, many are sensing a settling of scores of a comparable, but more radical nature at work in the curial nominations being made by Pope Francis. So many heads have rolled, or are said to be about to roll, that one prominent Vaticanologist has written of a process of “de-Ratzingerisation” at work in the Curia.

It does seem at first sight as if several of those closest to Benedict XVI have fallen victim to the change of climate in Rome. First to feel the heat – at least publically – was the genial Italian Cardinal Mauro Piacenza, whose move a year ago from the post of prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy to the post of prefect of the Apostolic Penitentiary is hard to interpret as anything but a demotion. Another high profile change was the removal of the Spaniard Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera from the prefecture of the Congregation for Divine Worship – a congregation whose remit is at the heart of the Ratzingerian project – to become archbishop of his native Valencia. Since Cañizares was known as the “little Ratzinger” – as much on account of his appearance as because of his theology – many were quick to see his departure from Rome as evidence of a purge.

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Oct. 3

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

Victims appeal to new SLU president
SNAP “Tell students & staff about abusive clerics”
SNAP: University has “long, sad history” of hiding predators
An ex-SLU head sexually exploited a 20 year old college student
Another admitted child molesting cleric works & lives across the street
A third was criminally charged in 2004 for sodomizing a St. Louis boy

A support group for clergy sex abuse victims is urging the new president of St. Louis University to disclose that several abusive priests have worked at the school and that an admitted child molesting cleric priest lives and works and lives on the edge of the campus.

One is a fugitive and another is a former SLU president, the group notes

Today, Dr. Fred P. Pestello will installed as the head of SLU. The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) wants him to “come clean” about “proven, admitted and credibly accused” current and former university staffers who have faced child sex or sexual misconduct allegations.

SNAP is most concerned about Fr. Vincent W. Bryce who, according to a Chicago newspaper and internet searches, works at the Aquinas Institute and lives in a Jesuit building at the corner of Grand and Lindell, both directly across from the SLU campus) despite the fact that he told his Catholic supervisor that he had molested at least one child.

[BishopAccountability.org]

The group is also concerned about Fr. Daniel O’Connell who is believed to still be living in St. Louis. According to the New York Times, he “was accused of sexually assaulting a 20-year-old college student in 1983. His Jesuit supervisors “found the accusation credible,” paid her a $181,000 settlement. and agreed to remove O’Connell “from a teaching post at another Jesuit institution” and bar him “from public ministry.”

[The New York Times]

Besides Fr. Bryce and Fr. O’Connell, the others proven, admitted or credibly accused abusive clerics to be or have been at SLU are Fr. Franklyn W. Becker, Fr. Juan Carlos Duran, Fr. Charles H. Miller, Fr. Gerhardt B. Lehmkuhl, Fr. Eugene Maio, Fr. John Slowey, Fr. John J. “Jack” Campbell, Fr. Edward F. Beutner, Fr. Chester E. Gaiter, and Fr. Thomas J. Naughton.

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NEW JERSEY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, October 3, 2014

Statement by Mark Crawford of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 732-632-7687, mecrawf@comcast.net )

A lawsuit against a suspended priest with multiple allegations of child sexual abuse has been settled. We are grateful to the brave victims who fought for justice and accountability and hope he finds healing from this ruling.

Terence McAlinden was first placed on leave in 2007 after the diocese of Trenton learned about an investigation of child sexual abuse. This was allegedly the first time the diocese learned about allegations against Fr. McAlinden. However in 2011 another man came forward and said that he told the diocese about McAlinden in 1989 and settled with the diocese in 1992. And now they have settled with another victim.

The Diocese of Trenton knew McAlinden was a danger, but chose to ignore the warnings. It was nothing more than a savvy business move. Instead of doing the right thing church officials chose to avoid embarrassment and protect a predator. This settlement is damage control pure and simple.

If this settlement were any real sign of change, why hasn’t the bishop come out and apologized to each of all the other victims which have recently come forward in his diocese? Why hasn’t he posted the names and whereabouts of all the credibly accused on the diocesan website, so other families can be protected?

We hope others who may have seen, suspect, or suffered child sex crimes in the diocese of Trenton, by McAlinden or any other church official, will find the courage to speak up, expose predators and those who cover it up, and start healing.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article posted 3 October 2014)

New South Wales detectives have charged Marist Brother Peter Pemble (aged 66) with child-sex offences allegedly committed when he worked at a Catholic boys’ school early in his career, more than 40 years ago. The detectives allege that the incidents occurred at Maitland (in the Hunter region, north of Sydney) in 1971-1972, when Brother Pemble was in his twenties. Later in his career, Brother Peter Pemble became the principal of several Catholic schools in New South Wales before retiring in 2009.

In recent decades, Brother Pemble’s appointments as a principal have included:

* St Patrick’s Marist college Dundas, western Sydney;
* Marist College in North Sydney:
* Trinity Catholic College Lismore, northern NSW; and
*St Gregory’s College Campbelltown, south-western Sydney.

After retiring from teaching in 2009, Brother Peter Pemble began doing some study in Australia and overseas.

In mid-2014, while Brother Pemble was studying in Belgium, he made a visit to Australia. Detectives contacted him in Australia and interviewed him on 22 July 2014 at a Sydney police station about a complaint from a male who was a boy at Maitland in 1971-72.

Brother Pemble was then charged with three incidents of indecent assault of a male and was granted bail pending the court proceedings.

Detectives filed the charges at a hearing in the Newcastle Local Court on 14 August 2014. This was a brief administrative procedure. The court has scheduled the case to come up for further mention in the same court on a future date, for the next steps in the prosecution process.

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NEW YORK
Staten Island Advance

By Diane C. Lore | lore@siadvance.com
on October 03, 2014

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Roman Catholics on Staten Island are being asked to dig deeper into their wallets to increase their financial support of their local parish churches, as well as to help support the Catholic school system.

Pastors say the borough’s Catholic churches are struggling to pay a hefty regional “schools tax” assessed to each parish by the New York Archdiocese, at the same time many parishes are struggling to make ends meet and pay off debts to the Archdiocese.

For some parishes it could mean cutting back services to parishioners, such as reducing the number of Sunday masses, or parish youth and sports programs, in order to pay the school tax, balance their books, and pay off debts to the Archdiocese.

Some Island pastors say they have no recourse but to ask mass-goers to increase their giving. Some parishes are even accepting online donations.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
LaCrosse Tribune

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Attorneys for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, sexual abuse victims and others owed money in the church bankruptcy case are due back in court Friday after mediation failed to yield a deal.

The archdiocese filed for bankruptcy in 2011, saying it wouldn’t have the money to pay if it lost lawsuits filed by victims of clergy sexual abuse. Hundreds of victims then filed bankruptcy claims.

The archdiocese has proposed a bankruptcy reorganization plan that would set aside $4 million for roughly 130 people who were abused by priests who worked directly for the archdiocese, but nothing for hundreds of others abused by religious order priests or laypeople. Victims say that’s not enough.

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VATICAN CITY
InterAksyon

By: Philip Pullella, Reuters
October 3, 2014

VATICAN CITY — A global assembly of Roman Catholic bishops is shaping up as the first major showdown of Pope Francis’ papacy, with conservative and progressive cardinals trading insults ahead of its start on Sunday.

The two-week synod on the theme of the family will be attended by more than 250 people — nearly all of them bishops of the 1.2 billion-member Church and also 13 married couples.

The session will prepare the way for a larger gathering of Catholic clerics next year and could become a milestone in the clash between conservatives and liberals over the future direction of a Church that the pope has insisted must become less bureaucratic and theologically esoteric.

The synod, the first since Francis’ election in March 2013, is seen as a test case for him and his vision of a Church he wants to be closer to the poor and suffering and not “obsessed” by issues such as homosexuality, abortion and contraception.

The run-up to the meeting has been dominated by a rare public feud between cardinals centered on whether the Church should modify teachings that ban Catholics who have divorced and then remarried in civil services from receiving communion.

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BOSTON (MA)
Religion News Service

The October 8 event, which coincides with Extraordinary Synod of Bishops in Vatican City, will feature Cardinal George Pell and Cardinal Timothy Dolan

BOSTON (October 2, 2014) – Crux, a news website covering all things Catholic, has announced its first international event will take place on October 8 in Rome and feature leading voices within the Catholic Church. “Francis: A Pope For the 21st Century” will also live-stream at Cruxnow.com.

His Eminence George Cardinal Pell, Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, and His Eminence Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York, will contribute to a discussion, led by Crux associate editor John L. Allen Jr., one of the premiere Vatican reporters in the world; Crux Vatican correspondent Inés San Martín; and national reporter Michael O’Loughlin.

Monsignor James Checchio of North American College and Boston Globe editor Brian McGrory will make opening remarks.

As a champion of openness, inclusiveness and social justice, Pope Francis has not shied away from voicing his views on global issues such as outreach to people on the margins, the role of women in both the church and society, immigrant rights and war and peace.

“People around the world are interested in what Pope Francis has to say,” said Brian McGrory, editor of the Boston Globe. “This discussion will focus on the pope’s role as a transformative religious figure for modern times. We also look forward to extending the conversation to other national and global locations with future events.”

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VATICAN CITY
IOL

October 3 2014

By Jean-Louis De La Vaissiere
Reuters

Vatican City – Pope Francis looks set to have his mettle tested by his first mutiny in the ranks this weekend at a Catholic meeting on the contentious issue of traditional marriage.

The Church has long refused to relax rules for “sinners”, but amid a flurry of countries legalising same-sex marriage and a rise in divorce levels, reform-minded Francis has suggested there may be wiggle-room on doctrine, sparking panic among conservatives.

Hundreds of bishops will attend the October 5-19 synod at the Vatican and tensions are running high after weeks of heated sparring.

“On the one side there are those who fear openness will result in the Catholic doctrine crumbling away, and on the other there are those who are waiting for big news and may be disappointed,” Iacopo Scaramuzzi, Vatican expert for TMNews, told AFP TV.

Francis said last year that it was time to “re-examine… rules or precepts” and “certain customs” in the Church, calling for generosity towards wayward believer

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MICHIGAN
TribTown

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
First Posted: October 03, 2014

DETROIT — An investigator says a Detroit-area Catholic priest on trial in the theft of money from a fund set up to help poor people admitted to embezzlement following his arrest.

Detective Cory Williams, an investigator for the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office, read from the statement by the Rev. Timothy Kane on Thursday in Circuit Court. In the statement, Kane says he had a sexual relationship with a prison inmate and embezzled money for the man and his family.

Afterward the testimony, Kane and his lawyer, Steven Scharg, declined comment. The Detroit Free Press reports (http://on.freep.com/1E8bCFb ) the trial resumes next week.

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NEW JERSEY
The Republic

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
October 03, 2014

TRENTON, New Jersey — The Trenton Diocese has paid $610,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by a New Jersey man who said he was sexually abused for years as a teen by a priest who headed the diocese’s youth group.

Forty-two-year-old Chris Naples of Bass River Township claimed church leaders allowed the Rev. Terence McAlinden to remain in the ministry for 15 years after paying a settlement to another man.

The diocese suspended McAlinden in 2007 after it found Naples’ claims to be credible.

Under terms of the settlement, the diocese denies culpability.

Naples tells NJ Advance Media (http://bit.ly/1pw9VYi ) he was assured Bishop David O’Connell would issue a written apology in the diocese’s newspaper.

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ROME
BBC News

With leaders of the Catholic Church about to gather in the Vatican to consider the future of the Church’s teaching on the family, the BBC’s director of news and current affairs, James Harding, asks whether Pope Francis is the moderniser progressives hope for, or an orthodox pontiff with a personal touch.

Just over a year ago, a phone rang in the offices of La Repubblica – Italy’s main centre-left newspaper. Stella Somma, personal assistant to the editor, answered.

The man at the end of the line said he would like to speak to Eugenio Scalfari, the founder and former editor of the paper, a 90-year-old atheist, and a hero of the secular left.

“Who’s speaking?” Stella asked. “Papa Francesco,” the man said.

“Ah, the Pope,” Stella replied – and put the call through to Scalfari. “Listen, I have the Pope on the line.”

Scalfari picked up the phone at home and told Stella: “You’re crazy, it must be a joke.”

“No, it’s not a joke, I can’t make the Pope wait, so let me put you through.”

Scalfari remembers a voice saying, “‘Good morning, this is Pope Francis… you asked me for a meeting, and I want to do that. Let’s fix a date.’ And with the phone on his ear, he tells me, ‘Wednesday I can’t. Maybe Monday? Is that OK for you?’ And I told him: ‘Any day is fine for me. Monday is fine.'”

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WASHINGTON
NBC Chicago

By Phil Rogers

Bishop Blasé Cupich has at least one strong tie to Spokane, which will tug him back to the Pacific Northwest, even after he assumes his new role as Chicago’s new Archbishop. He’s a witness in a court case.

Cupich is actually the plaintiff in a case in which he filed suit against his own law firm, Paine Hamblen, alleging malpractice. The firm, longtime attorneys for the Catholic Diocese of Spokane, managed the bankruptcy case for the Church, prompted by tens of millions of dollars in claims alleging sexual abuse.

That bankruptcy was a first for the Catholic Church in America, a court action taken when the Spokane Diocese faced over $70 million in claims, with only about $10 million in assets.

“We did a very good job,” says Jane Brown, the law firm’s managing partner. “We were able to bring the Diocese through that whole experience, managing its liabilities, and able to continue to ministry and promote healing.”

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

By: Megan Matthews

Noaker Law Firm has filed complaints against four Minnesota priests, who are all deceased, accusing them of sexually abusing kids.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis said this is the first time the church has heard of an accusation against Ramon Buckley, who died 15 years ago. The church said John McGrath was removed from ministry in 1995 after investigating credible claims of abuse.
Statement Regarding Buckley and McGrath

The Diocese of New Ulm says it met with parishioners back in 1993 regarding a claim against Michael Skoblik. The Diocese also acknowledged the claim against William Marks filed Thursday but did not comment about him or the suit against him.

You can read the three complaints filed Thursday below:
Complaint on Behalf of John Doe 114
Complaint on Behalf of John Doe 115
Complaint on Behalf of John Doe 116

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star

BY JUDY L. THOMAS
THE KANSAS CITY STAR
10/02/2014

A former student at Nativity of Mary School in Independence told jurors Thursday that he and a friend endured sexual abuse on a weekend excursion with Monsignor Thomas O’Brien in 1983.

When the boys got home and told their parents, one father reported it to the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City St.-Joseph and met with then-Bishop John J. Sullivan, according to testimony presented to the Jackson County jury. But those families had no idea at the time that the priest who groped the boys and stripped naked on a bed in front of them had been reported to the diocese multiple times over the previous 20 years.

“To this day,” attorney Pedro Irigonegaray asked Darren Wahwassuck, “has a single representative of the Catholic diocese contacted you to say, ‘I’m sorry’?”

“No, sir,” Wahwassuck replied.

Jurors heard the fourth day of testimony in a civil trial involving Jon David Couzens, a former altar boy who says O’Brien sexually abused him in the early 1980s. Couzens claims the diocese was told repeatedly that O’Brien was a danger to children but failed to prevent the abuse.

The diocese contends that no credible evidence exists to prove those allegations and argues that Couzens’ claims of repressed memory are invalid. O’Brien, who has been the subject of dozens of sexual abuse lawsuits, died last year at 87.

Five witnesses testified Thursday, including a former Nativity teacher and a clinical psychologist who evaluated Couzens.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

Editorial

POPE FRANCIS sounds genuinely contrite for the sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy, and he has promised that those responsible will be called to account . Yet as an institution, the church still seems stuck in the habit of protecting clergy members from secular criminal justice systems.

In certain ways, the church has been moving more swiftly than usual in response to the troubling case of the Vatican’s former ambassador to the Dominican Republic, Jozef Wesolowski, who was accused of sexually molesting boys in the island nation. When the accusations reached the Vatican in August of 2013, Wesolowski was quickly yet quietly recalled to Rome, and a church tribunal defrocked him in June of this year. Wesolowski became the highest-ranking Vatican official ever to be found guilty of sex abuse under canon law.

Even so, he apparently remained a free man; he has been seen strolling around Rome, according to a troubling New York Times report in August. The newspaper detailed the allegations of sexual crimes by Wesolowski in the Dominican Republic, where he arrived as nuncio in 2008; his young victims say Wesolowski paid them for sexual favors. Aggravating the situation, it seemed that the 66-year-old former nuncio had retained his diplomatic immunity even after being defrocked. That is, until the Vatican eventually released a statement saying Wesolowski did not have that protection anymore.

Then, late last month, the church announced Wesolowski’s arrest as a separate Vatican criminal court held a hearing on his case. Beyond charges of sexual abuse, he was also accused of having child pornography. If found guilty — after Pope Francis’ revision of the Vatican law regarding sexual abuse in 2013, Wesolowski can be sentenced to up to 12 years in prison — the former ambassador would be the highest-ranking church official to be convicted. And it would be only the second major case in recent memory, after Paolo Gabriele, Pope Benedict’s former butler, was sent to Vatican prison on charges of aggravated theft.

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UTAH
The Salt Lake Tribune

By Michael McFall | The Salt Lake Tribune

First Published Oct 02 2014

South Salt Lake police have arrested an Oregon pastor for allegedly sexting and touching a 15-year-old.

Police arrested Leonel Rocha-Pereda, 66, on Wednesday morning on suspicion of sexually abusing a minor, enticing a minor over the Internet and sexual exploitation of a minor. As of Thursday afternoon, he had not been formally charged in 3rd District Court.

Rocha-Pereda, of Salem, Ore., had been e-mailing the girl since July, and in mid-September, made a trip to Salt Lake City to start a new church, according to a police news release.

The girl told police that the man was the pastor of her church.

The girl’s family knew Rocha-Pereda from when they used to live in Oregon and invited him to stay at their South Salt Lake home, said police spokesman Gary Keller.

“During the time the suspect was in Salt Lake he [allegedly] grabbed the victim’s breasts and groin on two separate occasions,” the release reads. The alleged touching occurred at the girl’s home and at a local mall, police say.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

ABC

BY TYSON SHINE
October 3, 2014

Two Tasmanian men who have appeared before the royal commission into child sexual abuse are urging others to come forward.

The men say they were victims of historic child sexual abuse at St Virgil’s school in Hobart in the 1950s.

They want to convince witnesses to come forward to the Federal Government’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Sexual Abuse.

Tasmania remains the only state or territory where the commission has not held an open session, but it plans to return and take formal evidence in an open hearing before the end of the year.

The ABC’s 7.30 Tasmania spoke with two victims who spoke to the commission in private sessions about paedophile Christian Brother Patrick Timothy Farrell, who taught at the college in the 1950s.

Brother Farrell was the head of the junior dormitory where the sexual assaults took place.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Elizabeth Byrne
Updated 3 Oct 2014

A man who sexually abused eight young girls who attended his family’s home church in Canberra has been jailed for 14 years.

Cameron Flynn Tully, 40, was found guilty of 18 counts of sexual assault, ranging from rape to acts on indecency, after a trial in June.

Sentencing Tully, Justice John Burns described the abuse as “brazen, revealing an arrogant belief that your victims would not report the crimes, and if they did would not be believed”.

The crimes were committed in the 1990s and early 2000s at his family’s farm in Cook where he would mind the children of people attending meetings, including home church.

Justice Burns said it was clear the abuse was a pattern of behaviour that continued over about 10 years and was not a single isolated event.

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POLAND
Catholic Herald (UK)

By JONATHAN LUXMOORE on Friday, 3 October 2014

Polish Catholic leaders urged legislators not to ratify an international convention combating violence against women, claiming some of its clauses violate Catholic teaching.

The Family Affairs Council of the Polish bishops’ conference said: “This convention is not directed at countering violence, as its title suggests, but at imposing an ideological cultural revolution. It seeks to redefine sex as an alterable social phenomenon, rather than a biological one, and to blame the foundational communities of marriage and family for all violence.”

The statement was issued on October 2 as Polish members of Parliament prepared to debate ratification of the Council of Europe’s “Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence.”

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By GABRIEL WINGATE-PEARSE Oct. 3, 2014

THE Police Integrity Commission has taken up the issue of informal agreements between NSW Police and the Catholic Church which allowed the church to withhold the results of internal investigations of abuse.

The Commission released a notice on Friday announcing Operation Protea with a public hearing to be held on Monday October 13.

The general scope and purpose of the hearing will be, firstly, to investigate whether there was any police misconduct involved in the participation of a police officer in the Catholic Church Professional Standards Resource Group between 1998 and 2005.

Secondly, it will investigate 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.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Suzanne Smith
Updated 3 Oct 2014

The announcement today that the Police Integrity Commission (PIC) in NSW will hold a public hearing as part of Operation Protea – an investigation into the relationship and agreements between police and the Catholic Church – is a welcome move.

There should be absolute clarity as to whether these arrangements were appropriate or could be in contravention of section 316 of the NSW Crimes Act – which refers to concealment of crimes.

If there was no complicity between the organisations, that will be a welcome relief.

What needs to be cleared up is whether the Catholic Church, through tricky legal thinking, set up these arrangements so they could not be prosecuted under new mandatory reporting laws in NSW.

The Catholic Church argues it acted in good faith, and wanted these arrangement to ensure there was no risk to children in their care.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Emily Bourke
Updated 3 Oct 2014

The NSW Police Integrity Commission (PIC) has opened an investigation into 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’s Lateline reported accusations that the church tried to strike a formal arrangement with police over how to handle abuse allegations and what information would be handed over for investigation.

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

Operation Protea has now been set up to investigate such arrangements and whether there was any police misconduct between 1998 and 2005.

It will also look at the secondment of a senior police officer to an internal church committee which dealt with allegations of child abuse by clergy.

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UTAH
Fox 13

OCTOBER 2, 2014, BY MARK GREEN

SOUTH SALT LAKE, Utah – Police have arrested a man who allegedly sexually exploited a minor who said he is the pastor of her church.

Police stated they were contacted Wednesday by the parents of a 15-year-old girl, and the parents said their daughter had been exchanging messages of a sexual nature with a 66-year-old male.

The suspect was identified by police as 66-year-old Leonel Rocha-Preda of Salem, Oregon.

The victim told police the man was the pastor of her church and that she had been exchanging emails with him since July, according to a press release from South Salt Lake Police Department. The man came to Salt Lake City in mid-September to establish a new church in the Salt Lake City area, and he was invited to stay at the victim’s house at that time.

The release states that while he was in Salt Lake the man grabbed the victim’s breasts and groin on two separate occasions. The alleged touching occurred at the victim’s home and at a local mall.

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UTAH
KSL

By McKenzie Romero

SOUTH SALT LAKE — An Oregon pastor who came to Utah in order to open a new church has been accused of sexually abusing a teenage girl in his congregation.

South Salt Lake police arrested Leonel Rocha-Pereda, 66, for investigation of sexual abuse of a minor, enticing a minor over the Internet and sexual exploitation of a minor.

The pastor from Salem, Oregon, reportedly began exchanging emails with the 15-year-old girl in July and came to stay with her family in September when he traveled to Utah to establish a new church in the Salt Lake area, according to police.

Rocha-Pereda reportedly gave the girl a cellphone, which he instructed her not to tell her parents about, to exchange sexually explicit messages and photos. He is also accused of touching the girl inappropriately in her home and at an area shopping mall.

The girl’s parents notified police, who interviewed Rocha-Pereda and arrested him Wednesday. Rocha-Pereda denies touching the girl inappropriately, according to police.

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TEXAS
Houston Chronicle

By Anita Hassan | October 2, 2014

The parents of a teenage girl are suing two well-known Houston churches, claiming the organizations were negligent by employing a youth pastor who was convicted of sexually soliciting their daughter while working there.

According to the lawsuit, filed this week in Harris County, Second Baptist Church and Community of Faith Church were careless in their supervision and hiring of 35-year-old Chad Foster, a one-time youth pastor who pleaded guilty to trying to pressure the girl into having sex using the Internet in 2011.

Second Baptist and Community of Faith could not be reached for comment after hours Thursday.

Foster was part of a “marketing scheme” by Second Baptist that allowed youth pastors to encourage students in public schools to attend church activities and events, enticing them with fast food, the suit states. The goal was to recruit their parents to join. He later went to work for Community of Faith, the suit states.

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TEXAS
Click to Houston

Author: Phillip Mena, Anchor/Reporter, pmena@kprc.com
Published On: Oct 02 2014

HOUSTON –
A family is suing two popular Houston churches, accusing them of failing to protect their daughter from a sexual predator working as a youth minister.

Second Baptist Church and Community of Faith were named in the lawsuit filed in a Harris County court earlier this week.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are the family of a teen girl who was allegedly victimized by Chad Foster, a former youth pastor for both Second Baptist and Community of Faith.

Foster admitted to making online sexual advances to the girl. He met at her school when she was 12 years old. He pleaded guilty to online solicitation of a minor. Foster also pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl he also met at school in his role as youth pastor. Foster is currently serving a five-year prison sentence.

The lawsuit claims Second Baptist Church didn’t train Foster to work with minors and knew about Foster’s sinister agenda.

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OREGON
KATU

By Chelsea Kopta

PORTLAND, Ore. – Police are asking for help finding more potential victims of a man accused of sexually abusing a teenage boy who baby sat his children.

Joseph William Wehage, 39, has been charged with 11 felonies: seven counts of first-degree sodomy; two counts of second-degree attempted sodomy; one count of first-degree attempted sodomy; and one count of second-degree sodomy.

At his arraignment Thursday, Wehage pleaded not guilty to all charges. His attorney filed a motion to have him released on his own recognizance but it was denied. A judge set Wehage’s bail at $2,030,000.

Detectives began an investigation in August after they said Wehage sexually abused the teen who worked as a baby sitter for Wehage’s family. Police said Wehage met the teen through a church both families attended, Evergreen Presbyterian, located in Beaverton.

Police believe Wehage might have more potential victims as baby sitters.

KATU went to Wehage’s listed address in Oregon, an apartment in Southwest Portland, but no one was home. It also talked to the church’s senior pastor but he said Wehage was not a member of the church and did not want to provide any further details.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Helen Davidson
Friday 3 October 2014

In 1972 a 16-year-old resident of a Sydney boys’ home was charged with buggery after he tried to report to his carers that he had been raped by a supervisor at work.

Peter Solway says he was forced by the home’s administrator to lie to the police and confess to what was then a crime, or be transferred to a notoriously violent detention facility in Tamworth.

As New South Wales moves to join Victoria in allowing people to have their convictions for homosexuality expunged, Solway’s story serves to show how the conviction is often only part of the story, and the bill only one step towards making amends for damaged lives. …

In October 1971, aged 15, Solway was charged with being “uncontrollable” and sent to the Wright house at the Church of England Charlton boys’ home in the Sydney suburb of Ashfield, living

At least two of the four Charlton homes are now believed to have been places of physical and sexual abuse of young boys, for which the governing body of the Sydney diocese of the Anglican church issued an official apology in 2004.

Last year, 73-year-old, Albert John Abel, was sentenced to three years and four months in prison for attacking a 12-year-old boy he abused over several years at the Charlton home in Glebe.

Solway tells Guardian Australia that soon after arriving at Ashfield he and other boys were taken by Charlton’s executive officer, Ray Menzies, on a camping trip to Sydney’s Blue Mountains. Solway says he witnessed Menzies sexually abusing a boy there.

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CANADA
Williams Lake Tribune

by Monica Lamb-Yorski – Williams Lake Tribune
posted Oct 2, 2014

First Nations from surrounding communities and as far away as Bella Bella and Kitimat gathered Thursday at Sugar Cane to mark the 20th anniversary of the Residential School Survivors Society.

It was Williams Lake Indian Band’s turn to host the society’s AGM, which they marked with an elders’ tour, a community dinner, drumming and presentations.

The society provides education, workshops, art therapy, information sessions, health and support services. said finance administrator Christine Johnson who works out of the North Vancouver office and is originally from Alkali Lake.

Aside from North Vancouver there are offices in Williams Lake, Downtown Vancouver, Penticton, Kamloops and Terrace.

“We are still feeling the impacts of residential schools today,” said Chief Mike Archie of Canim Lake. “There’s a lot of history there but our strength will come in how we move forward.”

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NEW YORK
Post-Standard

By John O’Brien | jobrien@syracuse.com
on October 02, 2014

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — A national victims’ advocacy organization today criticized the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse over its handling of a child-molesting accusation against a monsignor.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests questioned why it took more than a year after receiving the allegations for the diocese to permanently remove Monsignor Charles Eckermann from ministry.

“Why on earth does it take a more than a year – and consultation with church bureaucrats in Rome – to determine whether a child sex abuse report against a New York priest is ‘credible’?”

“When officials move slowly and quietly in abuse cases, they break their promises to be ‘open and transparent,’ and they endanger other children,” Clohessy said. “Child abusers rarely abuse once. There is no telling how many more children might have needlessly been victimized.”

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: JEAN HOPFENSPERGER , Star Tribune Updated: October 2, 2014

All of the Minnesota priests are now deceased.

Three lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse were filed Thursday against four Minnesota priests, including one priest whose name has not been previously linked to pedophilia.

One of the suits alleges that the Rev. Ramon Jerome Buckley, a new name in the sex abuse scandal rocking the Catholic Church, sexually abused an altar boy at Sacred Heart Parish in Robbinsdale during the late 1970s.

According to the suit filed against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Buckley sexually assaulted the boy in the parish office, including performing oral sex on him. The boy was between 12 and 14 years old, the suit says.

The suit, filed in Ramsey County District Court, alleges that when Buckley left the church and was replaced by the Rev. John McGrath, McGrath continued to abuse the boy for another two years. McGrath also had served in parishes in St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Both priests are deceased.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 10/02/2014

A never-before-accused priest was sued Thursday by a man who claims the cleric sexually abused him while he was an altar boy at Sacred Heart parish in Robbinsdale.

The Rev. Ramon Jerome Buckley fondled the boy and forced him to have oral sex at the parish office, according to the lawsuit filed Thursday in Ramsey County District Court.

The abuse took place from about 1978 to 1979 when the boy was 12 to 14, according to the suit. In the same general time period, from 1978 to 1980, the same boy was the victim of abuse by a second priest at Sacred Heart, the Rev. John McGrath, the lawsuit claimed.

Following his time in Robbinsdale, Buckley worked as an associate priest at the Church of St. Mark in St. Paul from 1979 to 1982, according to the archdiocese. Buckley also served at Holy Cross in Minneapolis and St. Luke in Clearwater, Minn., the archdiocese said. He died in 1999.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Madeleine Baran St. Paul, Minn. Oct 2, 2014

A lawsuit filed Thursday in Ramsey County claims that the late Rev. Ramon Buckley sexually assaulted a boy at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Robbinsdale in the late 1970s.

The lawsuit, filed by attorney Patrick Noaker on behalf of an unnamed man, marks the first public allegation of sexual abuse against Buckley, a priest of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis who died in 1999. It accuses the archdiocese of negligence for allegedly failing to protect the boy from Buckley and another priest, the Rev. John McGrath, who served alongside Buckley at Sacred Heart.

Before his death in 1995, McGrath was accused of sexually abusing girls. Two women sued McGrath and the archdiocese in the early 1990s, and Archbishop John Nienstedt included McGrath on a list of “credibly accused” priests released in December 2013.

The lawsuits are allowed under a law passed in May 2013 that gives older victims of child sex abuse more time to sue. Minnesota law previously required sex abuse lawsuits to be filed before a victim turned 24. The Child Victims Act eliminated the statute of limitations for new cases of abuse and created a three-year window for older victims to file suit. The window expires in mid-2016. More than 30 clergy sex abuse lawsuits have been filed so far, according to attorneys at two law firms handling abuse cases.

According to the lawsuit filed Thursday, Buckley first abused the boy in about 1978 or 1979 at the Sacred Heart parish office when the boy was about 12. Buckley summoned the boy from class several times, Noaker said, and over about two years would sexually assault him and send him back to class.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 10/02/2014

A Maplewood pastor was sentenced to 24 years in prison for raping two young girls over a period of several years.

Jacoby Kindred Sr., 62, insisted, as he had at trial, that he was innocent.

“I did nothing to those children,” he told Ramsey County District Judge Rosanne Nathanson on Thursday. “I never touched them.”

He said the sisters falsely accused him because their family was angry with his family.

A jury convicted Kindred on July 17 on two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, one for each victim. The older girl was about 6 or 7 when the abuse began, she testified.

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MINNEAPOLIS
CBS Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) –A 62-year-old Maplewood man and self-proclaimed pastor was sentenced Thursday to 12 years in prison for raping two young girls for almost a decade.

Jacoby Kindred was convicted on two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, and was given consecutive sentences of 144 months for each.

According to the criminal complaint, Kindred was considered the grandfather to his two victims, even though he was actually the father of their mother’s ex-boyfriend, and not a blood relative.

The victims — who are now both teenagers — would often sleep over at Kindred’s home beginning when they were both young girls.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Oct. 2, 2014 NCR Today

ROME
Wearing pins declaring “families must have a vote in family synods,” a global group pushing for greater inclusivity in the church is meeting here this week in an effort to influence the Vatican’s upcoming global meeting of Catholic bishops.

The coalition, known as Catholic Church Reform International and claiming backing of like-minded groups around the world, is calling specifically for more ways for ordinary families to have input in the discussions at the meeting, known as a synod.

During a two-day conference Thursday and Friday held near the Pantheon, the group is calling on the synod and Pope Francis to “dialogue, dialogue, dialogue.”

“Dialogue with spouses, with parents, and with families of every kind,” it states in a press release. “Listen to them, learn from them, and trust their Spirit-led discernment by including them in the decision-making process.”

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MICHIGAN
Detroit Free Press

Patricia Montemurri, Detroit Free Press Staff Writer October 2, 2014

Detroit Catholic priest Timothy Kane had a sexual relationship with a Michigan prison inmate, and embezzled money from the Archdiocese of Detroit’s Angel Fund charity to get money for the inmate and his family, according to a confession the priest made after his arrest.

Kane’s confession was read Thursday to a Wayne County Circuit Court jury by Detective Cory Williams, an investigator for the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office who arrested the priest at the St. Gregory the Great Catholic Church rectory in northwest Detroit on Feb. 6.

Kane waived his rights to remain silent after the arrest, Williams said.

Kane, 58, met the prisoner, Fonsha Reid, when Kane served as a prison chaplain about 14 years ago and they had a sexual relationship over the last three to four years, according to the confession. Reid was imprisoned for manslaughter from 1994 to March 2009 and then returned to prison for a felony firearm conviction from summer 2009 to mid-June 2014, according to state records.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: KAREN ZAMORA Updated: October 2, 2014

The 23-year-old man met the girls online, picked them up in Andover and brought them to Burnsville home, charges say.

A 23-year-old Burnsville man is accused of sexual assault and kidnapping after bringing two 13-year-old Andover girls he met online to the basement of his parents’ home, according to charges filed Thursday in Anoka County.

Casey Lee Chinn was charged with six felonies — two counts of third degree criminal sexual conduct, two counts of kidnapping and two counts of solicitation

Authorities say Chinn met the girls through Omegle, a free online chat site, and picked them up around 7:30 Monday evening in Andover. Police, using clues gleaned from the girls’ electronic devices, tracked them to the Burnsville home Tuesday morning. …

On Tuesday, officials at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Minneapolis placed Chinn on leave from the part-time job as volleyball coach he began in September.

“We are cooperating fully with the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office and are encouraging our school families to discuss any interactions that their children may have had with Mr. Chinn and to come forward with any concerns,” the school said Tuesday.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

A Burnsville man has been charged with six felonies, including kidnapping and sexual assault, in a case tied to two 13-year-old girls from Andover who were reported missing on Tuesday.

The complaint charges that Casey Lee Chin, 23, allegedly met the girls online through a website called Omegle, which encourages users to “talk to strangers.”

According to the Anoka County Attorney’s Office, Chinn contacted the girls online, picked them up in Andover Monday night and took them to his Burnsville home. He told them to use the back door and go to the basement because he lived with his parents. There, he allegedly sexually assaulted the girls.

Deputies were able to track Chinn’s location through computer forensics and arrested him early Tuesday morning. …

Chinn coached youth sports at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Minneapolis and East Ridge High School in Woodbury.

At East Ridge, Chinn was a volunteer baseball coach and had gone through a background check, the South Washington County Schools district said.

“We are extremely concerned to hear of this issue from our law enforcement community and will act swiftly and accordingly to ensure the safety and well-being of our students,” South Washington Superintendent Keith Jacobus said in a statement.

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NEW YORK
CNY Central

SYRACUSE — The Vatican says a child molestation claim against a Catholic monsignor and former Bishop Ludden High School principal is “credible,” according to the Syracuse Roman Catholic Diocese.

83-year-old Monsignor Charles Eckermann was removed from ministry in April after the accusations of rape from a former altar boy were considered credible. The alleged rape happened 25 years ago.

The Vatican confirmed the finding today, according to the Syracuse Diocese.

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NEW YORK
WSYR

Vatican: Child molestation claims against former priest of the Syracuse Diocese are credible

Syracuse (WSYR-TV) – Vatican officials have confirmed that child molestation accusations against a decorated former priest of the Syracuse Diocese are credible, officials say.

Charles Eckermann, who was designated with the title “Monsignor,” was suspended in April when a Diocesan review board determined that accusations are credible, a spokesperson for the Syracuse Diocese confirmed on Thursday.

The accusations stem from an incident that allegedly occurred 25 years ago.

Eckermann was a priest at St. Ann’s in Manlius and served as a principal at Bishop Ludden High School.

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OREGON
KOIN

By Brent Weisberg

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN 6) — A 39-year-old man is accused of sexually abusing a young boy who was supposed to be the family’s babysitter, police said.

Joseph William Wehage pleaded not guilty Thursday morning to a secret grand jury indictment charging him with seven counts of first-degree sexual abuse, two counts of attempted second-degree sodomy, and one count each of second-degree sodomy and attempted first-degree sodomy.

Detective Jason Christensen, who is assigned to the Portland Police Bureau’s Sex Crimes Unit, opened the investigation in August 2014 after police learned about the case through a mandatory reporter.

Wehage sexually abused the boy from 2012-2013 at an apartment in the 5000 block of Southeast Beaverton Hillsdale Highway in SW Portland, police said. Wehage, the victim and the victim’s family all met through a local church. Police declined to release the church’s name because Wehage was not part of the clergy or its administration.

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OREGON
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Oct. 2

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

We are very disappointed that Portland police officials are withholding the name of a church where an accused child molester met his victim.

[KOIN]

Whether or not Joseph William Wehage had a formal leadership role at the church is irrelevant. It’s very possible that he assaulted others who attend or work at the church or their children.

Parents, parishioners and the public need and deserve more information, not less, about credibly accused child molesters. Withholding the church’s name smacks of the outdated deference that law enforcement officials once routinely gave to church officials but which, thankfully, has waned because of thousands of well-documented cases of clergy sex crimes and cover ups.

We urge Portland police officials to reconsider this timid and misguided decision.

(SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. We’ve been around for 25 years and have more than 18,000 members. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we have members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers. Our website is SNAPnetwork.org)

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Mark Mueller | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on October 02, 2014

In what is believed to be one of New Jersey’s largest individual settlements involving sexual abuse by a priest, the Diocese of Trenton has paid $610,000 to a Burlington County man who says he was molested for more than a decade by the former head of the diocese’s youth group.

Chris Naples, 42, of New Gretna, filed suit against the diocese in March, alleging church leaders allowed the Rev. Terence McAlinden to remain in ministry for 15 years after quietly paying a settlement to another alleged victim.

It wasn’t until 2007, when Naples publicly accused McAlinden, that the diocese suspended the priest. A church investigation at the time found Naples’ claims to be credible.

Had the diocese acted on the earlier allegation, Naples says, his own abuse would have not lasted as long. He alleges McAlinden molested him hundreds of times in the late 1980s and 1990s, beginning when Naples was 13.

In recent years, a third alleged victim also has come forward, saying McAlinden repeatedly sexually assaulted him in the 1960s at the priest’s first assignment, Our Lady of Victories Church in Sayreville. The diocese settled with the man in 2012.

Naples, who reached agreement with the diocese in August after months of mediation, said in an interview the settlement is less about the money than the message it sends.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

The RUC and state agencies knew about sexual abuse at a boys’ home in County Down, in 1964, an abuse inquiry has heard.

They were alerted after a 14-year-old boy was abused by a De La Salle brother at Rubane House.

The details were revealed at the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Inquiry.

A total of 13 Northern Ireland institutions are being investigated.

On Thursday, the inquiry heard that the order removed the perpetrator from the home and he was eventually expelled from the order.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, October 02, 2014

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

Attorneys for child sex abuse victims have filed new clergy sex abuse and cover up lawsuits regarding four Minnesota priests, one of whom has never been publicly accused before. We applaud the brave victims who broke their silence and are working towards justice.

The new lawsuits name four alleged child molesting priests from the Twin Cities archdiocese and New Ulm; Fr. Ramon J. Buckley (who has never been publicly exposed by the church), Fr. William Marks, Fr. John McGrath, and Fr. Michael Skoblik.

Many assume virtually all of the Twin Cities predator priests have been ‘outed.’ Today’s case against Fr. Buckley shows that this just isn’t true. There could be a dozen or more child molesting clerics who are still ‘under the radar.’ Exposing them and protecting kids should not be the burden of their victims. Hundreds of Catholic church staff and members – current and former – should stop being cowards and start speaking up about these dangerous clerics.

We urge church officials to reach out to anyone who may have been hurt by any of these clerics. We hope anyone who saw, suspects, or suffered clergy sex crimes will gain courage from these brave survivors and report what they know to secular officials.

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