ABUSE TRACKER

VATICAN CITY
Catholic Culture

Catholic World News – September 10, 2014

Pope Francis has appointed an American Jesuit as the Vatican’s top prosecutor in sex-abuse cases.

Father Robert Geisinger, a canon lawyer who serves as the procurator general of the Society of Jesus, is assuming the position of promoter of justice at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Father Geisinger succeeds Father Robert Oliver, a Boston archdiocesan priest who was appointed to the position in late 2012. Pope Francis has named Father Oliver the secretary of the recently established Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

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

VATICAN CITY
Omaha.com

Associated Press

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has named a fellow Jesuit to be the Vatican’s new sex crimes prosecutor after deciding to move the current one to be the No. 2 on his new sex abuse commission.

The Rev. Robert Geisinger, an American, is currently the top canon lawyer at the Jesuit order’s headquarters in Rome.

He replaces Monsignor Robert Oliver as the “promoter of justice” at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which processes all sex abuse cases.

The Vatican said Wednesday that Oliver would be the No. 2 in Francis’ commission to protect children and promote the best practices to combat abuse in the church. The commission, which has been slow to get off the ground, is headed by Oliver’s old boss, the archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean O’Malley.

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

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis has appointed Fr. Robert J. Geisinger SJ to the post of Promoter of Justice for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). He takes over from Fr. Robert W. Oliver, who has held the position since Jan. 3, 2013.

Fr. Geisinger has served as the General Procurator for the Society of Jesus and is a member of the Chicago Province. Fr. Oliver, of the Archdiocese of Boston, has been appointed Secretary to the Vatican Commission for the Safeguarding of Minors.

The Promoter of Justice is often referred to as the CDF’s ‘chief prosecutor’ and is charged with investigating canon-law offenses that are regarded as being the most serious, including crimes against the sanctity of the Eucharist, violations of the seal of confession and allegations of the abuse of minors by clergy.

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

UNITED STATES/ISRAEL
Frum Follies

Breaking- No Accreditation for Seminaries until Other Staff Testify, Some Staff are Fired, and Meisels Surrenders Control

The Chicago Special Beis Din (CBD rabbinical court) notified the Israeli Beis Din (IBD, this past Thursday (9/4/14), of their conditions for recommending the restoration of accreditation by Touro and HTC Colleges to the seminaries controlled by Meisels. The letter was signed by Rabbi Gedalia Dov Schwartz (RGDS), Av Beis Din (head of the rabbinical court) on behalf of the whole CBD and addressed to the IBD’s attorney, Aaron Twersky (AT). The full text is below the article complete with Exhibit A, an article by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Shafran, Av Beis Din of the IBD.

Conditions for Accreditation Recommendation

(Direct quotes unless labelled comment)

(Bolding was added by blogger, Yerachmiel Lopin)

Remedial measures … are necessary in our view to ensure a safe environment for students…

The Beis Din would like to hear additional testimony from certain staff members before finally determining the appropriate remedial measures.

Comment: A number of members of the seminary refused to testify to the CBD. I am guessing these are staff accused of enabling abuse. This demand is an obvious rejection of the IBD/3IRs claim that allegations of enabling were investigated and all existing staff were deemed to have a chezkas kashrus (presumption of being trustworthy). The CBD insists a proper investigation still needs to conducted with and about staff.

That determination can and will be made promptly following the completion of that testimony, and the Beis Din will withdraw its prior statements [here and here] as soon as those remedial measures [below] are satisfactorily implemented…

Comment: The carrot is rapid reinstatement of accreditation. The CBD makes a case that US accrediting colleges would otherwise be at risk of violating U. S.“Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972” because, as defined by that act there was “sexual violence” and some other employees were “aware of both specific Instances of misconduct and, more generally, gross violations of the norms of behavior in seminaries, and (ii) enabled this behavior by failing to take action to stop it”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Simon Danczuk
The Guardian, Tuesday 9 September 2014

Just when it looked as though the inquiry into child sex abuse could finally get under way, it once again has to face whitewash accusations. After the absurd appointment of Lady Butler-Sloss, which ensured the inquiry got off to a farcical start, Theresa May has made the equally dubious appointment of a replacement chair in Fiona Woolf. This time it emerges the chair has close links with Lord Brittan. Yes, Leon Brittan, the former home secretary who has been accused of covering up a massive child abuse scandal.

May’s inquiry was supposed to reflect the change in attitudes to these crimes, showing a willingness to bring perpetrators to justice and face failings that have destroyed lives. Above all, it was about telling the story of people who have been ignored for far too long.

Until now I’ve not questioned the home secretary’s judgment on the inquiry. I was pleased she resisted calls from within her party against the need for a child abuse inquiry. And I accepted that perhaps a genuine mistake was made in the appointment of Butler-Sloss. But I’m beginning to wonder if she doesn’t want this inquiry to ever really see the light of day. After all, even the most basic of checks would have revealed glaring problems with Woolf that were always going to cause difficulties and ensure victims had no confidence in the process.

I spoke to the home secretary last week about the appointment, and she politely went through the people she wanted to lead what will be a victim-oriented inquiry. I was a little unsure of the chair, given her obvious lack of knowledge about the matters she would be investigating, but I accepted there was a robust panel in place to guide her.

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

CALIFORNIA/ILLINOIS
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on September 9, 2014

This is a long story of anonymous emails, research, and vigilance. And it’s all coming to a head tomorrow.

Victims expose secret sex abuse and cover-up letters

Chicago youth activist and LA priest accused of abuse

Official demanded all emails about allegations destroyed

Church officials “quietly removed” cleric from LA parish

He’s now working with youngsters in Chicago

Where is the often-promised church “transparency?” group asks

WHAT:
At news conferences in Chicago and Los Angeles, victims of child sex abuse will expose for the first time previously secret letters that show church officials are currently covering up for a high-ranking priest and Chicago youth activist. The letters show that:

– the priest has a credible accusation of child sexual abuse against him,
– a church official told priests to “destroy” incriminating emails, and
– Chicago archdiocesan staff wanted the allegation kept secret

Victims will also

– demand complete transparency from Chicago and LA church officials
– urge both archbishops to reach out to parishes where the priest worked, and
– offer support to parishioners who have been “kept in the dark.”

WHERE AND WHEN:

CHICAGO: At 1:30 PM outside of the Chicago Archdiocese – 835 N. Rush St (corner of Pearson)
LOS ANGELES: At 11:00 AM Outside of San Gabriel Mission Parish- 428 S. Mission Drive (at Ramona) San Gabriel

WHO:
Three or four adults who were abused as kids by clergy and belong to a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (including a Chicago woman who is the SNAP president and a California woman who is the SNAP volunteer Western Regional Director).

WHY:
A Chicago church official recently ordered the destruction of incriminating emails about an LA priest who was recently sent back to Chicago where he previously worked – and now works – as a youth activist.

The secret letters about Claretian priest Fr. Bruce Wellems were written in May by his supervisor, Claretian provincial Fr. Rosendo Urrabazo, who has a history of quietly moving credibly accused predator priests.

The letters, which were written while Wellems was pastor at San Gabriel Mission in the Los Angeles archdiocese, were obtained by SNAP.

The first letter says that Wellems engaged in “inappropriate behavior with a younger child when he was a teen.” The allegations were allegedly “rediscovered” in a file review. A second letter says that the Chicago Archdiocese was “reconsidering” any public announcement about the allegations and that priests should destroy all copies of both letters.

Wellems was quietly sent back to Chicago from Los Angeles in May or June where he is now a “missionary” working with inner-city youth. Before working in LA, he was the executive director of Boys Town Chicago, Inc, a short-term residential assessment center in the Back of the Yard.

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

MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel Sept. 9, 2014

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee and its bankruptcy creditors have failed to reach a settlement after two days of negotiations, but the parties have agreed to continue settlement talks in two weeks.

The parties are scheduled to return to the negotiating table for two more days of talks Sept. 22 and 23, said Michael Finnegan, whose St. Paul, Minn., law firm represents most of the 575 men and women who have filed sex abuse claims in the bankruptcy.

He declined to comment on the round of talks that concluded Tuesday in Minnesota, or to speculate about prospects for a settlement.

Jerry Topczewski, chief of staff for Archbishop Jerome Listecki, who was in Minnesota for the meetings, could not be reached for comment.

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

UNITED STATES
Waiting for Godot to Leave

Kevin O’Brien

The Media Report comments on my post We Must Do what our Bishops will Not …

I cannot help but notice that folks like Kevin and SNAP keep on creating these new, unheard-of-before “standards” for how the Church is supposed to behave.

Since when are organizations under a moral obligation to notify victims upon the death of a perpetrator?

*When* has this *ever* happened??

Ever?

It seems Kevin and the bigots at SNAP want to bludgeon the Church for failing to uphold a standard that has never even existed before.

I’ll be willing to grant The Media Report’s point. I’ll be willing to say that bishops should not be held to the pastoral standard of reaching out to victims when the man who abused their son repeatedly over several years and drove him to suicide dies. Yes, comforting the afflicted is asking a bit too much of bishops. They have more important things to do, clearly. And, if you can believe the commenter at Rod Dreher’s article, most bishops showed “indifference or contempt” when the victim’s suicide letter was read aloud to them. So clearly they’re busy men preoccupied with more important things than common human decency.

I’ll grant all of that.

* But when they know one of their priests is taking pornographic pictures of children, including infants, they should tell parishioners. They should not make sure the evidence gets destroyed. They should not spend $1.4 million of diocesan money to defend themselves from two misdemeanors. They should not allow their brother bishops and that guy Donohue to lie about what they’ve done, especially when the evidence about their enabling of sex abuse exists in a report they themselves have commissioned.

* They should not blame the mother of a boy who was molested by a priest who parked his trailer in the parish parking lot and lured boys inside it. They should not insist that they are upholding the Dallas Charter when they’re not. They should not make covering their asses their primary goal.

* They should not tacitly identify victims by issuing press releases questioning their motivation for accusing their favorite priest of abuse. They should not settle civil cases out of court when abundant evidence such as texts and emails would come to light if the case went to trial. They should not answer dishonestly in a deposition and then spin their dishonest answer by creating a false context that the transcript of the deposition does not support.

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

CALIFORNIA
San Jose Mercury News

By Malaika Fraley
Oakland Tribune
POSTED: 09/09/2014

HAYWARD — A former staff member at a Hayward private school was order to trial Tuesday on 10 felony sex crime charges for allegedly sexually abusing a student over a two-year period.

Oakland resident Mia Cummings, who turns 30 Thursday, had been an after-school care assistant at All Saints Catholic School since 2005 when she was arrested late last year and jailed in lieu of $800,000 bail.

Alameda County deputy district attorney Samantha Kim said that Cummings first began being inappropriate with the male victim through Facebook contact.

Cummings is accused of sexually abusing the child beginning in December 2011 when he was 12 through 2013. Police began investigating her based on a report from another staff member.

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

UNITED STATES
The Valley Catholic

By John Mulderig
NEW YORK (CNS) — Set in rural Ireland, the bleak but powerful serio-comedy “Calvary” (Fox Searchlight) kicks off with a startling premise. In the confessional, a grown victim of childhood sex abuse by a priest tells Father James Lavelle (Brendan Gleeson), the dedicated pastor of a County Sligo parish, that in a week’s time he intends to avenge himself by killing the innocent clergyman.

With the perpetrator of the crimes against him dead, and despairing of being healed by therapy, the victim reasons that to take the life of a cleric would draw people’s attention.

As writer-director John Michael McDonagh chronicles the seven days that follow Father James’ life-threatening encounter, we learn that this thoroughly decent but otherwise ordinary man of the cloth is a widower and father ordained after his wife’s death.

He deals with his emotionally fragile daughter (Kelly Reilly) and with the variety of errant or merely eccentric souls who make up his small flock (including Chris O’Dowd, Orla O’Rourke, Dylan Moran, Aiden Gillen and M. Emmet Walsh), all the while wavering about how to respond to the threat on his life.

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UNITED STATES
Cornell Daily Sun

By SEAN DOOLITTLE

“Do not despair, one of the thieves was saved. Do not presume; one of the thieves was damned.”

Those familiar with the musings of St. Augustine or, much more likely, the works of Samuel Beckett, will no doubt recognize the above quote which introduces Calvary. The quote concerns itself with the two thieves crucified atop Calvary (or Golgotha, what have you) alongside Jesus, one penitent and one impenitent. To St. Augustine, our fates are almost entirely left up to chance, and whether or not we are saved or damned is out of our control; embracing destiny is the only option.

Beckett cited the quote as a major influence in writing the enigmatic Waiting for Godot, the play that kickstarted the “Theatre of the Absurd” movement and put the Irish playwright on the map. In the play, Vladimir and Estragon find themselves hopelessly meandering, searching without reason, for Godot, for purpose, for God, for meaning. Caught in a cycle, the characters never achieve anything; things just happen.

Thus is the ongoing theme of Calvary, John Michael McDonagh’s second directorial outing following 2011’s The Guard. McDonagh, much like his brother Martin McDonagh (writer and director of some of the best black comedies of the past decade ever, including In Bruges, Seven Psychopaths and my personal favorite, The Pillowman) is no stranger to the absurd and the tasteless. A clear lineage can be traced between the works of the McDonagh brothers and their pioneering countryman, Beckett. While Beckett and both McDonagh’s past work have more or less equally balanced the humor with the darkness, Calvary is often much more gallows than gallows humor. But that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

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

ARIZONA
The Arizona Republic

[with video]

Police have accused a Phoenix man of taking advantage of his position as a minister to sexually abuse at least two women and two girls in his congregation.

Jorge Vasquez, 47, was arrested Thursday and is being held in a Maricopa County jail on suspicion of six counts of child molestation, two counts of sexual conduct with a minor, four counts of sexual abuse, two counts of sexual assault and four counts of kidnapping, among other allegations.

Detectives from the Family Investigations Bureau of the Phoenix Police Department first learned about the allegations earlier this month, according to a police statement issued Friday.

Investigators say they developed probable cause to believe Vasquez engaged in sexual contact with females ages 12 to 33 against their will during counseling sessions or on other occasions during his 7-year tenure as pastor at La Roca, or the Rock Church, near 21st Avenue and Buckeye Road.

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

Ross Douthat

My Sunday column dealt with the extremely grim subject of the recent revelations about rape and official indifference in the English city of Rotherham, where Pakistani gangs “groomed” and sexually assaulted hundred and hundreds of (mostly white) girls and young women while social workers and cops seemed to look the other way. My piece tried to contextualize the grievous failure of the English authorities by linking the disaster to other high-profile cases of sexual abuse — in Roman Catholicism, of course, but also in New York’s private schools, at Joe Paterno’s Penn State, in Hollywood, elsewhere — and after the column appeared I noticed a few readers and Twitterers suggesting that as a Catholic I have an ulterior motive in generalizing about sex abuse, because generalizations are a good way to evade or minimize the particular sins of my own church.

I don’t think that’s a particularly fair reading of what I actually wrote, and I don’t think a browse of my past writings suggests that I have any interest in evading the issue of the church’s scandal. But there’s a grain of truth here, in the sense that I doubt I would have as strong an interest in these kind of stories, or have accumulated as much knowledge (perhaps more than is healthy, I sometimes think) about the ways and means of sexual abuse, if I weren’t a Catholic journalist with a vested interest in understanding exactly what happened in my own church. And to self-scrutinize a little bit, when you’ve spent a long time in the darkest basements of a family you still proudly belong to, an institution whose fundamental claims you still accept, there probably is a horrible, “it’s not just us” reassurance that comes with researching different-but-similar horrors in other contexts, recognizing commonalities and patterns and the universality of certain kinds of sins.

So readers should, by all means, keep that background and those possibilities in mind when I (or other Catholics, for that matter) write on patterns of sex abuse and rape in society writ large. But at the same time, they should also recognize that it’s possible to come up out of those dark basements with some hard-earned wisdom, wisdom that might be particularly worth sharing with those precincts of the culture — liberal, secular, tolerant, cosmopolitan — that pride themselves on being least like the ancient, hierarchical, dogmatic Catholic Church. Because it was very easy, I think, for people in those precincts who paid a kind of cursory attention to the Catholic scandals to come away with the assumption that there wasn’t all that much there that was applicable to their own contexts and situations — that Catholicism just had a celibacy-plus-hierarchy problem, which created warped people and warped incentives that wouldn’t have existed in a more egalitarian and less repressed environment.

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MINNESOTA
The Republic

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
September 10, 2014

ST. PAUL, Minnesota — A county attorney in Minnesota says some allegations of priest abuse may be too old to prosecute.

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi says the statute of limitations in 10 cases of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests will be a barrier to prosecution, unless a loophole can be found.

St. Paul police have been investigating claims of clergy abuse involving the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. A series of lawsuits have been filed against the archdiocese because of a change in state law which allows the litigation for claims dating back decades.

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

WASHINGTON
Care2

by Robin Marty
September 9, 2014

Mega church pastor Mark Driscoll has made headlines this week in the wake of an announcement that a number of his churches will be closing down. Driscoll has been well-known for his incendiary comments about Christianity, patriarchy, homosexuality and Biblical morality, but the most recent revelation — that he once referred to women as “penis homes” — has left a number of people wondering how a person like Driscoll could have had enough followers to fill one church, much less a series of them.

Sadly, his metaphor (“Knowing that His penis would need a home, God created a woman to be your wife and when you marry her and look down you will notice that your wife is shaped differently than you and makes a very nice home.”), was penned in 2001. Here are four more recent and just as problematic quotes from Pastor Driscoll.

1) “‘Serve‘ your husband.“ How do you show your love and obedience to God? According to Driscoll, oral sex on your husband does the trick. “I said, ‘You need to go home and tell your husband that you’ve met Jesus and you’ve been studying the Bible, and that you’re convicted of a terrible sin in your life. And then you need to drop his trousers, and you need to serve your husband. And when he asks why, say, “Because I’m a repentant woman. God has changed my heart and I’m supposed to be a biblical wife. She says, ‘Really?’ I said, ‘Yeah. First Peter 3 says if your husband is an unbeliever to serve him with deeds of kindness.’” Of course, there’s no mention of a husband serving his wife with anything in return.

2) “I would not have married her.“ Driscoll is a happily married man. Possibly. But in his own book he outs his own wife’s “sin” of being a victim of sexual abuse, blaming her for hiding her secret and allowing them to have really bad sex because of it. “My previously free and fun girlfriend was suddenly my frigid and fearful wife. She did not undress in front of me, required the lights to be off on the rare occasions we were intimate, checked out during sex, and experienced a lot of physical discomfort because she was tense… One night, as we approached the birth of our first child, Ashley, and the launch of our church, I had a dream in which I saw some things that shook me to my core. I saw in painful detail Grace sinning sexually during a senior trip she took after high school when we had just started dating. It was so clear it was like watching a film — something I cannot really explain but the kind of revelation I sometimes receive. I awoke, threw up, and spent the rest of the night sitting on our couch, praying, hoping it was untrue, and waiting for her to wake up so I could ask her. I asked her if it was true, fearing the answer. Yes, she confessed, it was. Grace started weeping and trying to apologize for lying to me, but I honestly don’t remember the details of the conversation, as I was shell-shocked. Had I known about this sin, I would not have married her.”

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

NEW ZEALAND
NZ Catholic

by ROWENA OREJANA

AUCKLAND — Clericalism is at the heart of the sexual abuse issue that has plagued the Catholic Church in Australia.

Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge told more than 100 priests of Auckland diocese that there is a “whirlpool effect” in the Australian Catholic Church, and the two powerful cross-currents at work are: the Royal Commission, and Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation,Evangelii Gaudium.

“A strange point of convergence [between the two cross-currents] is … what is often called clericalism. [Clericalism] is somehow central to the cultural difficulties, or the cultural
phenomena that enabled abuse to happen,” he said. “Somehow, we thought the law doesn’t apply to us.”

In the priests’ reflection of what clericalism is, Fr Anthony Malone provided a definition that his group, which included Auckland Bishop Patrick Dunn, came up with.

“We said it is focused on status, the misuse of power, and it’s allowing people to make others elite and allowing those people to see themselves as elite. They are aloof and non-available, and the opposite of that is total service,” explained Fr Malone.

Archbishop Coleridge agreed. “The power is certainly entrusted to the ordained. But how do you use the power: to create or to destroy? That’s when power is dangerous, and religious
power can be particularly dangerous. That is one of the things that emerges very clearly in these cases of sexual abuse,” he said.

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

IRELAND
International Business Times

By Bindu Jacob | September 10, 2014

Cardinal Seán Brady resigned from his position as the leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, and the Vatican accepted his resignation.

Cardinal Seán Brady resigned from the position as leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, and the Vatican accepted his resignation. Cardinal Seán Brady resigned on an account of child sex abuse scandals by clerical and his attempt to hide the case

Cardinal Seán Brady’s term was beset with clerical child sex abuse scandals — and he confessed that he helped cover up one case.

In 1975, when Brady was a young priest, he swore two teenage sex abuse victims to secrecy during an internal church meeting. The two boys were one of the countless victims of the infamous paedophile priest, Fr. Brendan Smyth.

Cardinal Brady, however, resigned on age grounds — and not for his sex abuse cover-up. The canon law states that a bishop must resign from service as soon as he turns 75 years old, and the Pope decides whether to accept it. The Cardinal turned 75 last Aug. 16 and his resignation was approved by Pope Francis just within a month, which was deemed unusually fast.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

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

Criminal charges against priests in 10 cases involving the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis are not likely.

Criminal charges are not likely to be filed in 10 cases of alleged sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests because the incidents are so old, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said.

The statute of limitations in each case “is going to be a barrier,” he said, unless loopholes can be found to circumvent time constraints. “But,” Choi added, “I’m pessimistic about that.”

Choi’s comments follow nearly a year of investigation by St. Paul police into cases of alleged clergy abuse involving the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. The criminal investigations in Ramsey County followed a series of lawsuits filed against the church since a 2013 state law allowed the filing of suits for claims dating back decades.

The cases have gripped the state and church while taxing local law-enforcement resources.

Choi said that he expects to announce official charging decisions in about a month regarding the 10 cases, one involving a deceased suspect.

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

UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Pope Francis’ Synod in three weeks, Wall Street’s pre-US election push with Vatican help, the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) censorship strategy, the disappointing start for the Boston Globe’s Crux website for Catholics, the “new rolling of the Nuns on the Bus” and efforts to protect children from priest rapists — these are all seemingly about to collide!

The apparent conservative takeover of NCR continues. Its “lifting” of David Gibson’s Religion News Service (RNS) report, about Sr. Simone Campbell (of the Nuns on the Bus) and “dark money”, has been “planted”, apparently, where it is inaccessible to NCR blogger comments. It inexplicably has been placed in NCR’s conservative “Hilton Foundation funded Global Sisters Happy Talk private enclosure” on NCR’s website. Other RNS “lifted” stories are not usually so restricted by NCR. Why is this being sealed off from comments?

NCR’s “spin tricks” continue to proliferate, it seems, no? For more background, please see my “What Is Really Up At the National Catholic Reporter?” here

[Christian Catholicism]

Of course, “dark money” manipulation apparently may include some of NCR’s donors, not just the Koch Brothers (who donated $1 million recently to the US bishops’ Catholic University of America), no?

Who do you suppose are behind some of NCR’s key donors and advertisers, such as FAIDICA’s Hilton Foundation and the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management? Hardly Mother Teresa types, to be sure!

Please see, for example:

[FADICA – Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities]

and

[The National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management]

I now have to wonder who suggested to billionaire financier, John Henry, to set up the Boston Globe’s new website, Crux, and to call and hire for Crux John Allen, NCR’s former chief “papal spinner”, now replaced at NCR by Tom Reese, a pliable and obedient Jesuit who is still swooning over a Jesuit Pope, even one who reportedly was quite disliked by many Argentinian Jesuits.

John Henry obviously has many Wall Street contacts, likely including some associated with key donors and advertisers at NCR. Disappointingly, Crux’s early efforts seem to me mostly to indicate just another papal spin outlet. This is what I had expected it would be, especially given Allen’s extensive history of”softball” papal promotions at NCR. A reporter like Allen apparently can get more interviews “pitching softballs” and accepting uncritically papal propaganda, than by being an objective and critical thinker. Allen may not understand that there is a difference between journalism and cheer leading.

I hope the Boston Globe newsroom has, at least, put some drapes over its earlier Pulitzer Prize for its game changing stories a decade ago about Cardinal Law and the Catholic hierarchy’s broader priest child abuse cover-ups. Wow, does the Vatican papal media machine recover quickly, or not?

Of course, Pope Francis had earlier worked closely with Cardinal Law and Carl Anderson in Spain, well after the Boston scandal disclosures, on a Curial Commission about “family matters”.

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

MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Media Advisory

September 9, 2014

St. Paul Press Conference Wednesday
Survivors, advocates pursue transparency and disclosure

What: At a news conference on Wednesday in St. Paul, attorneys Jeff Anderson and Mike Finnegan will:

· Announce the filing of a sexual abuse lawsuit in Brown County on behalf of two former altar boys, Doe 37 and Doe 38, who were sexually abused by Father Michael Skoblik at St. Joseph’s parish in Silver Lake, Minnesota. The lawsuit includes a claim of public nuisance naming the Diocese of New Ulm as the defendant.

· Demand Bishop John M. LeVoir release the names of 12 priests who have been accused of child sexual abuse in the Diocese of New Ulm. To-date, New Ulm is the only diocese in Minnesota who refuses to release the names of credibly accused priests.

WHEN: Wednesday, September 10, 2014 at 1:00 PM CDT

WHERE: Office of Jeff Anderson & Associates
366 Jackson St. Suite 100
St. Paul, MN 55101

Notes: Copies of the complaint will be available at www.andersonadvocates.com.

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

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

MICHIGAN
Battle Creek Enquirer

Trace Christenson September 9, 2014

A former Grand Rapids Christian radio host pleaded guilty Tuesday to raping an 11-year-old boy in Battle Creek.

John Richard Balyo, 35, pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal sexual conduct in the May 17 assault in a Beckley Road motel room.

He faces a minimum of 25 years in prison and could be sentenced to a maximum of life.

Balyo also faces a minimum of 15 years in prison after pleading guilty in July in U.S. District Court to sexual exploitation of a child and possession of child pornography. He will be sentenced there Nov. 6 and in Calhoun County on Nov. 10.

The sentences will be served concurrently.

Balyo, dressed in an orange Calhoun County jail uniform, appeared with his attorney, David Dodge, before Circuit Judge Conrad Sindt.

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MICHIGAN
MLive

By John Tunison | jtunison@mlive.com
on September 09, 2014

CALHOUN COUNTY, MI — John Balyo, the former Christian radio host accused of molesting young boys in at least two counties, has pleaded guilty to a felony in Calhoun County Circuit Court.

Balyo already is awaiting sentencing in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids after admitting he photographed sex acts with a 12-year-old boy at a Kalamazoo County hotel.

Balyo, 34, was a former morning show host for WCSG in Grand Rapids.

He pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal sexual conduct Tuesday, Sept. 9, in Calhoun County District Court and will be sentenced Nov. 10.

A charge of second-degree criminal sexual conduct will be dismissed at sentencing, a Calhoun County Circuit Court clerk said.

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NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, Sept. 9, 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 )

Thirty four abuse victims from Yeshiva University are asking the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to re-examine a recent ruling against them. We desperately hope the court listens.

As adults, we can either make it harder or easier for victims of rape and child abuse to report crimes. The three judge panel that sided with Yeshiva officials over these victims is making it harder to report crimes. That, in turn, leads to more adults and kids being sexually assaulted.

If more predators are to be caught, we must relax or repeal archaic laws that protect the guilty and endanger the innocent.

We commend these brave victims for persisting in their struggle for justice. It’s clear that Yeshiva officials hid and enabled heinous crimes against students. This will become even clearer if New York’s justice system will give these wounded but courageous victims their ‘day in court.’

We beg the Second Circuit judges to let these pained men have this opportunity

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AUSTRALIA/NORTHERN IRELAND
The Guardian

Henry McDonald, Ireland correspondent
theguardian.com, Tuesday 9 September 2014

Children abused in Northern Ireland’s children’s homes and orphanages who were shipped to Australia were painted black in order to entertain passengers on their voyages, a victim told an inquiry on Tuesday.

A former child migrant who was transported from a care home in Derry to western Australia revealed at the historical institutional abuse inquiry that “our faces were painted black to make us look like Aborigines” as part of on board “entertainment” for paying passengers.

The man is now in his 70s and asked for anonymity when he gave evidence to the inquiry at Banbridge courthouse in County Down. He had to wipe away tears as he described the humiliation on board the ship and later the abuse he suffered in an Australian care home. After being abused in the Termonbacca care home run by the Catholic church in Derry he was sent to Australia in 1953.

Describing the impact of the abuse both in the Derry home and later in Australia, he said: “I had no idea how to parent my children, or even how to cuddle and love them. I really don’t know what love is.”

Another witness to the long-running tribunal into decades of abuse in the region’s care homes and orphanages told the courthouse that the abuse he had endured in the Bindoon home in Australia was even worse than what he had suffered in Termonbacca. The ex-Australian Air Force recruit said: “After Bindoon, Termonbacca turned out to be a holiday camp.”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Derry Journal

A man once housed at a Catholic Church run home in Derry has told the inquiry into institutional abuse in Northern Ireland that he and other young boys who were shipped to Australia had their faces painted black in order to make them look like Aborigines.

Now in his 70s, the man told the inquiry sitting at Banbridge Courthouse that he was sent to Australia from Termonbacca in 1953.

He also said he was the victim of both physical and sexual abuse and continued by saying that on the boat journey to Australia the child migrants were made to entertain paying passengers and “our faces were painted to make us look like Aborigines.”

Another witness who later joined the Austrailian Airforce said he was beaten to “exact the most fear and terror” at Termonbacca and then suffered physical and sexual abuse at a Catholic training in Bindoon in Australia.

“After Bindoon, Termonbacca turned out to be a holiday camp,” he said.

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KENTUCKY
WDRB

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – A Meade County grand jury has indicted a priest on charges of sexual abuse.

The Louisville Archdiocese says they received a report in May of this year from a man who says he was sexually abused in the 1970s by Rev. Joseph Hemmerle.

Hemmerle was a priest at the St. Francis and Holy Cross Parishes in Marion County; the alleged abuse took place in Meade County.

A grand jury indicted Hemmerle on Sept. 9 on three counts of sexual abuse and six counts of sodomy involving a child under the age of 12.

The Archdiocese says Hemmerle is on administrative leave pending a police investigation.

The Archdiocese of Louisville released the following statement concerning the allegations:

“The Archdiocese of Louisville learned today that Father R. Joseph Hemmerle has been indicted in Meade County on several counts of sexual abuse. The Archdiocese has cooperated with law enforcement officials as they have investigated these allegations and will continue to fully cooperate. Archbishop Joseph Kurtz places Father Hemmerle on administrative leave in May of 2014 after an individual came forward who reported that he had been sexually abused by Father Hemmerle in the 1970s. Father Hemmerle had been serving as a pastor of Holy Cross Parish in Holy Cross, Ky. and St. Francis Parish in St. Francis, Ky. The Archdiocese encourages victims of sexual abuse to report their abuse to the police, and we hold all victims of abuse in our prayers.”

Barbara Dorris, Outreach Director for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, also released a statement:

“A Louisville priest has been charged with child sex crimes stemming from allegations by a second victim. We hope church officials take this more seriously than they apparently did after the first allegations were reported. We are also grateful to the brave victims who have come forward and are giving courage to others to do the same thing. In May, Fr. Hemmerle was removed from ministry again after a second victim came forward. He has now been charged with nine counts of sexual crimes against children. Fr. Joseph Hemmerle was first accused of abuse in 2001, after a man came forward and told the Archdiocese of Louisville. The Archdiocese put Fr. Hemmerle back in ministry, falsely claiming police had cleared him. These alleged internal church investigations often exonerate priests who are later civilly sued or criminally charged with child sex crimes. Ironically, if there’s one prelate in the U.S. who should get this right, it’s Louisville Archbishop Joseph Kurtz. He’s the head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. His Archdiocese has faced more than 250 abuse and cover up lawsuits and has at least 63 proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting clerics. But Kurtz and his staff put back on the job a priest who’s now been arrested and has had 12 or 13 more years to assault kids. We hope every single person who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sexual abuse, by Fr. Hemmerle or any other official will find the courage to come forward, report to police, help others and start healing. As this case clearly shows, when victims come forward they give courage to others who have been suffering in silence and self blame.”

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KENTUCKY
WHAS

Posted on September 9, 2014

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) — A Catholic priest and former Trinity High School student was indicted on charges of sexual abuse.

The Reverend Joseph Hemmerle is charged with six counts of sodomy and three charges of sexual abuse.

The allegations stem from a case in Meade County in the 1970s.

The alleged victim was under the age of 12.

Hemmerle was placed on leave from the archdiocese back in May.

He had been serving as the pastor at St. Francis Assisi and Holy Cross parishes in Marion County, Ky.

The Archdiocese of Louisville issued this statement surrounding the case of Joseph Hemmerle, a Catholic priest indicted on multiple counts of sexual abuse:

The Archdiocese of Louisville learned today that Father R. Joseph Hemmerle has been indicted in Meade County on several counts of sexual abuse.

The Archdiocese has cooperated with law enforcement officials as they have investigated these accusations and will continue to fully cooperate.

Archbishop Joseph Kurtz placed Father Hemmerle on administrative leave in May of 2014 after an individual came forward who reported that he had been sexually abused by Father Hemmerle in the 1970s. Father Hemmerle had been serving as a pastor of Holy Cross Parish in Holy Cross, Ky. and St. Francis Parish in St. Francis, Ky.

The Archdiocese encourages victims of sexual abuse to report their abuse to the police, and we hold all victims of abuse in our prayers.

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NEW YORK
The Jewish Daily Forward

By Paul Berger
Published September 09, 2014

A group of former students who say they were sexually abused at Yeshiva University High School for Boys have asked a full federal appeals court to reconsider a smaller judicial panel’s ruling that upheld the dismissal of their lawsuit.

The students’ attorney, Kevin Mulhearn, submitted a petition September 8 calling for an en banc, or full court, hearing of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit after a three-judge panel from the same court supported the dismissal of the students’ $680 million lawsuit.

The appeals followed an earlier judge’s rejection of the suit on the grounds that the statute of limitations for trying it had passed.

Calling the three-judge panel’s conduct “manifestly unjust, grossly improper, and…a blatant abuse of judicial power,” Mulhearn argues in his petition that the court “improperly assumed the role of Yeshiva University’s advocate and attorney.”

If the court refuses to rehear his case, Mulhearn has vowed to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

BY MICHAEL O’KEEFFE

The lawyer for 34 men who claim Yeshiva University covered up decades of sexual abuse picked a fight on Tuesday with the appeals panel that shot down a $680 million lawsuit last week, accusing the three judges who denied his appeal of being in the tank for the Washington Heights school.

Attorney Kevin Mulhearn didn’t pull any punches in papers filed on Tuesday asking the full Second Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear the case.

“The panel decision mocks the law, ignores the facts, insults the survivors of childhood sexual abuse and diminishes the dignity and integrity of this court,” Mulhearn wrote. “The panel decision is grossly flawed, intellectually dishonest and antithetical to well-settled Supreme Court and Second Circuit jurisprudence.”

Mulhearn called out three Second Circuit judges who upheld U.S. District Court Judge John G. Koeltl’s decision to toss the case, accusing them of acting as attorneys and advocates for Yeshiva rather than as objective jurists.

“If the Second Circuit Court upholds the panel decision, it will diminish its own honor and prestige,” Mulhearn said, accusing the panel of acting like a “a kangaroo court.”

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KENTUCKY
The Courier-Journal

Chris Kenning, ckenning@courier-journal.com 1:06 p.m. EDT September 9, 2014

Four months after he was removed from his ministry following an allegation of abuse, the Rev. Joseph Hemmerle was indicted Monday on six counts of sodomy and three counts of sexual abuse involving a minor, according to Meade County court officials.

Debbie Medley, the Meade County Circuit Court Clerk, said Hemmerle was arrested after the grand jury indictment and released after posting $5,000 of a $25,000 bond. She said the charges indicate the alleged victim was under 12 years of age.

Hemmerle, who could not be reached Tuesday, had been serving as pastor at St. Francis of Assisi and Holy Cross parishes in Marion County.

According to a May 8 letter from Archbishop Joseph Kurtz to parishioners, Hemmerle was placed on administrative leave after the archdiocese was “contacted by an individual who reported that he had been sexually abused by Father Hemmerle in the 1970s.”

He also said the matter was being relayed to authorities in Meade County.

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KENTUCKY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, September 9, 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 )

A Louisville priest has been charged with child sex crimes stemming from allegations by a second victim. We hope church officials take this more seriously than they apparently did after the first allegations were reported.

We are also grateful to the brave victims who have come forward and are giving courage to others to do the same thing.

Fr. Joseph Hemmerle was first accused of abuse in 2001, after a man came forward and told the archdiocese of Louisville. The archdiocese put Fr. Hemmerle back in ministry, falsely claiming police had cleared him. These alleged internal church investigations often exonerate priests who are later civilly sued or criminally charged with child sex crimes.

Ironically, if there’s one prelate in the US who should get this right, it’s Louisville Archbishop Joseph Kurtz. He’ the head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. His archdiocese has faced more than 250 abuse and cover up lawsuits and has at least 63 proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting clerics. But Kurtz and his staff put back on the job a priest who’s now been arrested and has had 12 or 13 more years to assault kids.

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UNITED STATES
dotCommonweal

Grant Gallicho
September 9, 2014

Read part one here, part two here, and part three here.

“At the beginning of the Gospel of St. John,” Fr. Carlos Urrutigoity wrote in a September 2001 fundraising letter, “we see the calling of the first apostles.” Upon meeting Jesus, they ask where he lives. “Come and see,” Jesus replies. “The Evangelist then simply states, ‘They went and saw where he lived and stayed with him that day,’” Urrutigoity continued. He was seeking financial support for the clerical-formation program of the Society of St. John, a traditionalist Catholic group he had founded in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in 1998—months after he was expelled from the schismatic Society of St. Pius X. But he wanted more than a seminary. Urrutigoity planned to build a liberal-arts college and a village for traditionalist-minded Catholics. His profligate spending, along with a string of sexual-misconduct allegations stretching from Argentina to Pennsylvania, ensured none of that would ever come to fruition.

Like the first followers of Jesus, Urrutigoity wrote in his September 2001 letter, the young men who joined the SSJ would be required to leave their families and friends. Novices would have to “detach themselves from all worldly affairs in order to give themselves entirely to the Lord.” That would mean “minimal contact with the outside world,” Urrutigoity explained—“no newspapers, no internet.” Those strictures would prove especially important to the Society in the weeks and months that followed. The day after Urrutigoity composed the letter, Dr. Jeffrey Bond—hired by Urrutigoity in April 2000 to establish his hoped-for college—circulated the first of a series of e-mails and open letters denouncing Urrutigoity for alleged sexual misconduct and Bishop James Timlin for allowing him to remain in ministry.

Indeed, Timlin—who invited Urrutigoity and the Society of St. John into the Diocese of Scranton, brokered the schismatics’ return to full communion with Rome, and proved unable to stop them from running up millions in debt—took every opportunity to defend them, even well after the diocese had settled the sexual-abuse lawsuit that would eventually lead to the group’s canonical suppression.

No one could say Timlin hadn’t been warned.

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KENTUCKY
Fairfield Citizen

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A Catholic priest that had been removed from ministry has been indicted on charges he sexually abused a minor in Meade County in the 1970s.

The Rev. Joseph Hemmerle was indicted Monday on six counts of sodomy and three charges of sexual abuse. The indictment says the victim was under 12 years old.

Louisville Archbishop Joseph Kurtz placed Hemmerle on leave in May after an individual contacted the archdiocese and reported that he had been abused by Hemmerle in the 1970s. Kurtz said the prosecutor in Meade County was also contacted about the allegation.

Hemmerle had been serving as pastor at St. Francis of Assisi and Holy Cross parishes in Marion County when he was removed.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

A man has told the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry that he and other young boys being shipped from Northern Ireland to Australia had their faces painted black to make them look like Aborigines.

More than 100 children were shipped to Australia in the mid 1900s.

Now in his 70s, the man was sent there in 1953, from the Termonbacca children’s home in Londonderry.

He also said he was the victim of physical and sexual abuse.

The former child migrant said that on the boat journey to Australia, the boys were made to entertain paying passengers and “our faces were painted black to make us look like Aborigines.”

He went on to explain the impact of the abuse in later life: “I had no idea how to parent my children, or even how to cuddle and love them.”

‘Abuse’

The witness, who wiped away tears a number of times during his evidence, said he suffered physical and sexual abuse in Australia.

“I really don’t know what love is,” he said.

Another witness, who joined the Australian Airforce, told the inquiry that he still lives with regrets about not doing more to save young girls from abuse, while he himself was a child. …
Institutions under investigation

Local authority homes:

• Lissue Children’s Unit, Lisburn
• Kincora Boys’ Home, Belfast
• Bawnmore Children’s Home, Newtownabbey

Juvenile justice institutions:

• St Patrick’s Training School, Belfast
• Lisnevin Training School, County Down
• Rathgael Training School, Bangor

Secular voluntary homes:

• Barnardo’s Sharonmore Project, Newtownabbey
• Barnardo’s Macedon, Newtownabbey

Catholic Church-run homes:

• St Joseph’s Home, Termonbacca, Londonderry
• Nazareth House Children’s Home, Derry
• Nazareth House Children’s Home, Belfast
• Nazareth Lodge Children’s Home, Belfast
• De La Salle Boys’ Home, Kircubbin, County Down

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LOUISIANA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, September 09, 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 )

In an unusual and troubling twist, a Louisiana bishop paid an alleged child sexual abuse victim even though he doesn’t think the accusation is true.

The Lafayette Advocate newspaper quotes a spokesman for Houma-Thibodaux’s Bishop Shelton Fabre, as saying even though the diocese has made at least one financial settlement with a man who said he was abused in the 1990s, “there has not been a case that we deemed to be true.”

The paper went on to report that “{Louis} Aguirre said that since the 2002 bishops charter the diocese has not alerted parishioners about allegations against priests because none have been credible.”

Huh?

We strongly suspect – and evidence strongly suggests – that this alleged victim is in fact a legitimate victim. But why on earth would Bishop Fabre give money to someone he thinks is besmirching a priest’s reputation by making up a story?

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PENNSYLVANIA
SF Gate

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

HUNTINGDON, Pa. (AP) — A bishop has put a central Pennsylvania priest on leave while allegations of unspecified “misconduct involving adults” are investigated.

Tony DeGol, a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, wouldn’t detail the accusations, except to say they occurred years ago.

Bishop Mark Bartchak announced the Rev. Chinemere Onyeocha (SHIN’-eh-meer awn-YOH’-shah) is on leave and cannot function publicly as a priest.

The 42-year-old priest had been assigned to St. Catherine of Siena parish in Mount Union, Huntingdon County.

Weekend Masses at the church will continue with other priests, but weekday Masses have been suspended indefinitely.

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LOUISIANA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, September 09, 2014

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

A Louisiana newspaper has disclosed that a Lafayette predator priest was quietly sent to work in the Lake Charles diocese and still lives there now. Because Catholic officials hid the abuse report for more than 40 years, we strongly suspect that the priest is living or working among unsuspecting neighbors or colleagues. So for the protection of kids and the healing of victims, we urgently call on Lake Charles Bishop Glen Provost to:

–warn his flock about the priest (through news conferences, news releases, on church websites, etc.),

–aggressively seek out anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered the cleric’s crimes and

–disclose whether there are or have been other pedophile priests who molested elsewhere and were secretly transferred to his diocese.

From January 1986 until October 1987, Lake Charles diocese officials quietly let Fr. Valerie Pullman come to work in their jurisdiction, even though he had been accused in 1972 and sued for molesting a child, the Lafayette Advocate reported on Sunday.

The revelation comes from long-secret Catholic church records that were unsealed in litigation and sought first by Minnesota Public Radio (for a profile of a former Louisiana bishop).

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FLORIDA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, September 09, 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 credibly accused predator priest who lived in Ft. Myers has passed away. He is Fr Marshall Larriviere, who allegedly molested at least two kids in Louisiana.

His passing on Aug. 27 was disclosed Sunday by a Louisiana newspaper.

In 2003, Fr. Larriviere was accused in a lawsuit of molesting a girl in the 1960s. Later, another girl joined the lawsuit. In 2008 the Lafayette Louisiana Catholic diocese quietly settled with the two victims for an undisclosed amount. He was “outed” in Florida in March.

Whether a predator priest has been defrocked, suspended, is ‘AWOL,’ and no matter whose payroll he is or was on, bishops must use their resources to protect kids and alert parents about predators through church websites, parish bulletins and pulpit announcements. They should also announce when a predator priest has died.

We hope that everyone who saw, suspected, or suffered clergy sex crimes in Ft. Myers -whether by Fr. Larriviere or other clerics – will call police, expose wrongdoers, protect kids and start healing.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 2014 (VIS) – The following is the full text of the presentation by Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, secretary general of the Synod of Bishops, of the participants in the upcoming Synod in October 2014:

“Why are two full pages of names being published today in the Osservatore Romano? Because these names correspond to people from all over the world, who will take part in the Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops (5-19 October) on the theme: “Pastoral challenges to the family in the context of evangelisation”. The aim of the meeting is to propose to today’s world the beauty and the values of the family, which emerge from the proclamation of Jesus Christ Who disperses fear and supports hope.

Synodus – which means ‘taking a path together’ – is the expression that indicates the eccesial space in which we convene in order to meet and to reflect – in the dual faith in God and man – before today’s challenges to the family. The list that follows is made up of representatives from the five continents, subdivided as follows: 114 presidents of Episcopal Conferences, 13 heads of the ‘sui iuris’ Eastern Catholic Churches, 25 heads of the dicasteries of the Roman Curia, 9 members of the Ordinary Council of the Secretariat, the secretary general, the under-secretary, 3 nominees from the Union of Superior Generals, and 26 pontifical nominees. Other participants include 8 fraternal delegates, 38 auditors, including 13 married couples, and 16 experts. The total number of participants in the Synod Assembly is 253.

In the dynamic of the renewal of the Church ordered by Pope Francis, the updating of the institution of the Synod is explained in particular in the preparatory process and in the process of the Assemblies themselves. This project, initiated with the convocation of the Synod Assembly, is developing in a new and renewed way, with concrete actions. The criterion for renewal is that of first painting the picture and then adding the frame. The rules in force provide the track along which the train of renewal proceeds. As we go ahead, the steps necessary for changing the rules or eventually setting about a full reconstruction of the Synod as an entity will become evident.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 9 September 2014 (VIS) – The following is a list of participants in the Third General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, dedicated to “Pastoral challenges to the family in the context of evangelisation”:

A. LIST OF SYNOD FATHERS ACCORDING TO ORDER OF PARTICIPATION

I. President

FRANCESCO, Supreme Pontiff

II. Secretary GENERAL

– Cardinal Lorenzo BALDISSERI

III. DELEGATE presidentS

Cardinals André VINGT-TROIS, archbishop of Paris, France, Luis Antonio G. TAGLE, archbishop of Manila, Philippines, Raymundo Damasceno ASSIS, archbishop of Aparecida, president of the Episcopal Conference of Brazil.

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IRELAND
Crux

By Sarah MacDonald
Catholic News Service

ARMAGH, Northern Ireland — The new primate of All Ireland has pledged to be a “servant leader” whose aim is to bring the Irish Catholic Church through a process of “humble renewal.”

Archbishop Eamon Martin, 52, succeeded Cardinal Sean Brady as primate of All Ireland, a leadership role that covers the 26 dioceses in the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland. For nearly 17 months, Archbishop Martin had served as Cardinal Brady’s coadjutor in Armagh, and his succession was automatic when Pope Francis accepted Cardinal Brady’s resignation Sept. 8.

The new Irish primate told Catholic News Service that his priorities would be “to get to know my people and to facilitate a movement that will allow people to be confident in their faith without being polemical and condemnatory.”

Dismissing those who see the role of primate as “some kind of massive CEO position” he said it is a figurative and honorary position because of Armagh’s significance as the see of St. Patrick.

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IRELAND
Vatican Radio

[with audio]

Archbishop Eamon Martin has become Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland after Pope Francis on Monday accepted the resignation of his predecessor, Cardinal Sean Brady. For the past 16 months Archbishop Martin has been the Coadjutor Bishop of the Diocese, with the right of succession. Aged 52, the new archbishop is a native of Derry in Northern Ireland. He spoke to Susy Hodges about his feelings on his first day in his new post, the challenges facing the Catholic Church and the state of the Northern Ireland peace process.

Archbishop Martin described himself as “a little bit nervous and fearful for the future” but also said he is “buoyed up” by the support and prayers of so many people. He said he considers his greatest challenge in his new position is “to have the courage to get up and go out” to the peripheries and in the words of Pope Francis views “his pastoral ministry in a missionary key.”

The archbishop says because of the impact of the clerical sex abuse crisis and other difficulties in recent years, the Church in Ireland has often tended to be too inward-looking.

“In some ways, the Church has become a little bit focused in on ourselves because we’re been going through a very tough time here in Ireland with all the scandals of the abuse and also with increasing secularism and fewer vocations.”

Asked whether he feels confident that with the safeguards now in place to protect children and vulnerable adults such abuse won’t ever happen again, Archbishop Martin warns that they can never be too complacent on this point.

“Sadly we can never say never, that there won’t be somebody there who will use their position in the Church to perpetrate these heinous crimes….. we have to be vigilant, to have robust procedures and guidelines.”

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NEW YORK
The Daily Beast

Batya Ungar-Sargon

An ultra-Orthodox elementary school principal has been accused of sexual abuse, but accusations of physical abuse go back much further.

In an ultra-Orthodox enclave of Upstate New York, a former student has accused a principal of sex acts. But amidst the allegations of sexual abuse, allegations of physical abuse have also begun to resurface. Rabbi Gavriel Bodenheimer, the principal of Bais Mikroh, a Yeshiva in Monsey for grades K-8, was arraigned on Aug. 12 and charged with three counts of criminal sexual acts and one count of sex abuse. Bodenheimer, who is 71 and a father of 14 and grandfather of 100, faces a maximum sentence of 25 years.

The abuse allegedly began when the accuser was seven years old, in August 2009, and went on for a year, until July 2010. According to the charges, the sexual acts took place in Bodenheimer’s office at Bais Mikroh, where the boy was a student. The accuser and his mother went to the police in December of 2013. A police investigation to establish probable cause took eight months, according to Lieutenant Emma at the Ramapo Police Department, who says the arrest was publicized in the hope that more victims will come forward.

But Bodenheimer’s lawyer, Deborah Wolikow-Loewenberg, said on the phone that her client is not guilty. He denies all the allegations and is proceeding to trial.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

A “big minority” of British children are subjected to sexual abuse, with as many as one in four falling victim to “this dreadful social problem”, the head of a children’s charity told Good Morning Britain.

Founder of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, Peter Saunders, said the convictions of perpetrators was “being driven by survivors and the media”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Advertiser

A POLICE investigation into historic allegations of physical, sexual and emotional organisational abuse in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s at St Francis Boys Home in Shefford is to be overseen by a senior officer.

Mark Ross and a team of detectives will ensure all previous allegations are investigated within current police guidance and review all of the information provided by the victims and witnesses.

In the course of the review, the investigation team will be contacting all victims and witnesses of previous and present investigations, and will ensure the current investigation is comprehensive, transparent and the victims are fully supported with assistance from partner agencies.

Mr Ross said: “The investigation has evolved due to the large number of victims and witnesses. We are now in a very different era and social attitudes and the criminal justice has changed significantly in the last 50 years. I aim to provide all of the victims involved with an outcome.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

Things This Blog Has Been Called This Week — A Sequel, Responding to Terri Hemker’s Question to Me Yesterday

William D. Lindsey

Because Terri Hemker asks me a direct question in this comment here yesterday, and because it’s directly related to my reason for needing some time to muster my resources and think about matters for a few days (something I blogged about yesterday), I’m going to contravene my rule of silence now to answer Terri’s question with a posting. This is my reply to her in the discussion thread in which she asked her question.

Terri asks me,

Bill, are you being sent intimidating letters or email or receiving calls from NCR threatening you in any way? Because that would really tick me off and that really wouldn’t be wise for anyone to do! I don’t have any money for anyone to take and I have no physical strength but, what I do have is determination and plenty of time on my hands.

Here’s what I replied to Terri:

Terri, since you ask me a direct question here and since it’s related to my reason for taking a break from my blog for several days, I want to answer.

Yes. Someone connected to NCR began threatening me in emails within 4 days after I posted my first report about Jerry’s censorship at NCR, the report that has had 1726 reads, as of today. I won’t go into details unless this person chooses to escalate her attacks.

The attacks have already moved from condescending statements informing me that I am theologically ignorant, to disparaging statements about my “blog” (her quotation marks) and me personally, to implied threats of legal action.

This person has close ties to NCR and also to the USCCB, and if she chooses to escalate the attacks, then I think both those entities would be drawn into a messy public discussion about how they do their behind-the-scenes work. That messy public discussion would occur in the media and on blogs, and perhaps also in courtrooms.

This is not to say that the person sending me threatening and insulting emails is acting on behalf of NCR. I do not know that. I know only that she is on their journalistic team, and such of her work as I have critiqued at my blog is published there.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Comet 24

James Scott
Tuesday, September 9, 2014

A senior investigator is to lead a review into historic allegations of abuse at St Francis Boys’ Home in Shefford.

Op Haryana will look into claims of physical, sexual and emotional abuse in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s at the boys’ home, which was run by the Catholic Church until it closed in 1974 and was turned into flats.

An investigation was opened in May last year after complaints were received against the home, but was closed in November after Bedfordshire Police concluded there was insufficient evidence to take the case forward.

A month later the case was reopened after 28 ex-residents came forward with allegations that they were physically or sexually abused at the home.

Two surviving suspects have now been identified and are the subject of further investigation.

Mark Ross, who will lead the review, said: “The investigation has evolved due to the large number of victims and witnesses. We are now in a very different era and social attitudes and the criminal justice has changed significantly in the last 50 years. I aim to provide all of the victims involved with an outcome.

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LOUISIANA
The Advertiser

By Claire Taylorctaylor@theadvertiser.com September 8, 2014

A retired Christian Brother accused of molesting boys at a Catholic school in El Paso, Texas, lives in Lafayette but no longer visits a Lafayette school campus on weekends because he is suffering from cancer, a spokesman for the order said Monday.

“At the risk of sounding cynical, hundreds of times over the last quarter-century we’ve heard Catholic officials make similar claims,” David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, told The Daily Advertiser on Monday.

Catholic officials have said accused clergy are deceased when they aren’t or have Alzheimer’s when they don’t, he said.

“Even if it’s true, molesters don’t need to be physically healthy to hurt kids,” Clohessy said. “We know of very elderly priests in wheelchairs that have molested kids.”

Brother Samuel “Sammy” Martinez, 78, of the Brothers of Christian Schools, was accused of sexually abusing at least three boys when he was principal of Cathedral High School in El Paso between 1976 and 1985, according to El Paso Times stories published in January and March 2012.

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IRELAND
Inside Ireland

By Ciarán Hanna

The new Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland Eamon Martin has said he is ‘humbled to be following in the footsteps of St Patrick’, on the day he took office following the resignation of Cardinal Seán Brady.

On 8th September, Pope Francis accepted Cardinal Brady’s resignation and 52-year-old Archbishop Eamon Martin became the 116th Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland in succession to Saint Patrick.

Cardinal Brady had let Catholic Church in Ireland for 18 years, but the last few years have been dominated by child sex abuse scandals in the Irish Catholic Church.

There were also claims that in 1975, the then Fr Brady covered up allegations of abuse by Fr Brendan Smyth.

On leaving Cardinal Brady thanked ‘the people, priests and religious of the Archdiocese of Armagh’ for their ‘welcome, friendship and so much kindness over many years’.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

You’ve read reports about how the Catholic church covered up evidence involving paedophile priests. You’ve followed the hearings of the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse, established by Julia Gillard in 2012 following the shocking allegations of a cover-up in NSW.

But nothing can prepare you for watching the grooming and abuse of an innocent 12-year-old boy by a respected school chaplain as it plays out dramatically in front of you.

The cosy chats in the front seats of the car, the secluded spot, the threat of harm to his parents, the gift of a lighter and the unwanted caresses.

If you’ve struggled to understand how it was that chaplains or parish priests who abused boys for decades were not stopped or why the church covered it up or why the victims took two decades to disclose the offences, a searing new television drama Devil’s Playground will bring you closer to an understanding.

Arguably Foxtel’s most challenging Australian drama series to date, Devil’s Playground is both a sequel to Fred Schepisi’s 1976 acclaimed feature film The Devil’s Playground and an original work.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

Patrick Counihan @irishcentral September 09,2014

Cardinal Sean Brady has asked victims of clerical sex abuse in Ireland for their forgiveness after Pope Francis finally accepted his resignation as leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland.

Victim support groups have welcomed the decision after the 75-year-old sought retirement at the age of 75 last month.

He had been heavily criticized for his part in the Fr Brendan Smyth case when he swore two victims of the pedophile priest to secrecy during an internal church inquiry in 1975.

State broadcaster RTE reports that their evidence was never handed over to police. Smyth continued to abuse children until he was finally jailed in 1994.

Cardinal Brady has insisted his role in the canonical inquiry was as a notetaker but victim groups have campaigned against the priest who has held the role of Archbishop of Armagh since 1996.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

Tue, Sep 9, 2014

The new Catholic primate and Archbishop of Armagh Eamon Martin (52) spoke yesterday of being “overwhelmed, fearful at what lies ahead but trusting in God I’ll be helped along and with people’s prayers.” At the same time he was “looking forward to it. It’ll be quite an adventure”.

Speaking to The Irish Times yesterday he said his biggest challenge would be “to get the message of the gospel to people whose lives are so busy and flustered with financial challenges, family difficulties, personal problems, to help them find that sacred space where they can feel the presence of God; find that still voice within.”

Agreeing the situation was difficult for the Church in Ireland, he commented that “the gospel has had to be presented in so many difficult environments down the centuries.” The Irish Church “of the 1940s and 1950s is gone and we would not want that back. It was very much tarnished gold.”

In this “increasingly secular world many have drifted away from regular practice but still sought support at particular moments in life.” For him “personally, there could be no more exiting time to be a priest or bishop.”

Commentary

A matter he found difficult in commentary following his appointment as Coadjutor Archbishop of Armagh was that, where the Church in Ireland was concerned, some described it was ‘ drawing of a line’ where the clerical abuse issue was concerned.

There was no such “drawing of a line” on abuse survivors, he said, for many of whom it was a lifelong matter, as was also the case with those who suffered trauma during the Northern Ireland Troubles. The protection of children could only be assured through “vigilance” and people “remaining on high alert” whether in the church or society at large.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

Tue, Sep 9, 2014

What was striking yesterday was the warmth and affection with which so many church leaders and others spoke of Cardinal Seán Brady. A naturally humble, decent and unassuming man, he formed easy friendships across the divisions which have bedevilled church relations on this island for centuries.

His non-threatening demeanour helped in no small way to pave the way towards an unprecedented normality in such relations among the four main churches in Ireland, but also with more hardline Protestants too. This helped to make the 1998 Belfast Agreement possible and to sustain the peace process since.

It was his old friend and colleague in Kilmore diocese Bishop Leo O’Reilly who described Cardinal Brady yesterday as “a humble pastor of deep faith”. This, he said, “equipped him well over the last 20 years as he led the Catholic Church through our most turbulent period since the Penal Laws.” The cardinal also, said Bishop O’Reilly, “prioritised and oversaw the development of robust child safeguarding guidelines for the church”.

Inquiry

While that is true, it is also the case that for the past four years the child abuse issue cast a cloud over Cardinal Brady’s tenure at the top. In 2010 it emerged that he had taken part in an 1975 inquiry into claims by 14-year-old Brendan Boland that he had been abused by Fr Brendan Smyth. He swore Brendan Boland to secrecy and another boy he spoke to about being abused by Smyth at the time. Neither case was reported to the police or to parents of any children named to him as victims of Smyth, who continued to abuse for 18 more years.

It is believed Cardinal Brady wanted to stand down in 2010 but Rome resisted. Since then he has been “taking a hit for the team”. He is not the first senior Irish churchman to do so. It was Cardinal Desmond Connell who protested at a fraught 2002 press conference in Maynooth that the abuse issue had “devastated” his period as archbishop of Dublin. He is not alone. The root in each case has been unquestioning loyalty to the institution.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Cardinal Brady will be glad to step out of the limelight but should have quit in 2010

David Quinn Twitter
Published 09/09/2014

The acceptance by Pope Francis of the resignation of Cardinal Sean Brady as Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland brings to an end a chapter in the life of the Irish Catholic Church.

Cardinal Brady is the last remaining senior prelate who is indelibly associated in the public mind with the Church’s appalling handling of the clerical sex abuse scandals.

Dr Brady became the Archbishop of Armagh in October 1996. He had been Cardinal Cahal Daly’s Coadjutor Archbishop and he automatically took over from Cardinal Daly once the cardinal stood down. In just the same way his own Coadjutor, Archbishop Eamon Martin, now automatically succeeds Dr Brady.

The year 1996 was a fateful one in the recent history of the Irish Church. Earlier that year, the bishops published their first-ever child-protection guidelines, signalling they were finally learning – albeit slowly and very painfully – the lessons of their past disastrous handling of the child abuse scandals.

Most of the scandals that have badly damaged the reputation of the Church pre-date 1996, that is, the incidents of abuse that later come to light happened prior to 1996, with a big majority occurring in the 1970s and 1980s.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
UTV

A woman who was sent from a Catholic home in Northern Ireland to Australia in 1947 has told the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry there is a need for an apology for the child migration scheme.

The woman, who was at Nazareth house in Londonderry when she was transported, told the inquiry that when she first arrived in the country she was told she was there to “fill the empty cradles of Australia”.

She also described how she was part of a child labour force.

Giving evidence by video link, the woman, who wanted to remain anonymous, said she wanted justice and for someone to be held accountable for the deaths of her two brothers – who took their own lives.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

A woman has made an impassioned plea to the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry seeking an apology for a child migrant scheme from Northern Ireland to Australia.

More than 100 children were shipped out in the mid 1900s.

The woman described how children were told upon arrival that they were there “to fill the empty cradles of Australia”.

She said they were later subjected to cruelty.

Giving evidence, via video link from Australia, she said the children had became part of what she described as a “child labour force” at a home run by Catholic nuns.

Appealing for an apology, the former child migrant said she wanted “someone to be made accountable” for the suicides of her two brothers.

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LOUISIANA
KATC

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests has called for a religious brother accused of child molestation to stop being allowed on a Lafayette school campus, following a KATC investigation.

Bro. Samuel Martinez, a member of the Brothers of Christian Schools, who was accused of molesting 10 boys in the 1980s, lives in a Lafayette retirement home and is transported to the Holy Family Community on the campus of John Paul The Great Academy on weekends for religious exercises, a KATC investigation uncovered.

“We urge officials at the John Paul the Great Academy and the Brothers of Christians Schools to do the right thing and keep a credibly accused serial child molester away from children,” SNAP Director David Clohessy said in a statement.

Martinez is not allowed to live on the campus like the other brothers because he’s under a safety plan. When he is taken to the campus, he is under constant supervision with another adult, Bro. David Sinitiere told KATC. Sintiere is the most recent head of the order’s New Orleans-Santa Fe District.

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IRELAND
Religion News Service

Andrew Coffman Smith | September 8, 2014

BELFAST, Northern Ireland (RNS) For years, the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, refused to heed repeated calls for him to step down over alleged cover-ups of sexual abuse of children by clergy.

Now at 75, the age cardinals are required to step down, Brady finally tendered his resignation, which Pope Francis accepted on Monday (Sept. 8).

“It has been a great joy and privilege for me to serve … and also to travel and meet people from all over Ireland in my role as primate,” he said in a statement referring to his title as archbishop of Armagh and primate of all Ireland.

Since he became head of the Catholic Church in Ireland in 1996, Brady has been dogged by allegations of child abuse cover-ups. His tenure, during which he became cardinal in 2007, has also been plagued by falling church attendance and strained relations with the Irish government.

In 2012, Brady publicly apologized for mishandling allegations of abuse after it emerged that in 1975 he was present at church meetings with two teenagers who alleged they were sexually abused by the Rev. Brendan Smyth. Instead of going to the authorities, the priests swore the alleged victims to secrecy, victims groups charged.

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By ROD DREHER • September 8, 2014

This news jolted me when I learned it just now:

Robert Larson, the Catholic priest convicted of sexually abusing altar boys while serving in the Wichita diocese, has died.

Diocesan officials on Thursday said Larson died Aug. 27 at the age of 84. He was buried in his home state of Michigan.

“We pray for all victims of sexual abuse and for their families,” the Most Rev. Carl Kemme, bishop of the Wichita diocese, said in a statement following Larson’s death. “We continue to learn from them and we recommit ourselves to vigilance in protecting children and young people from the tragedy of sexual abuse.”

Bob Larson was not just any child-molesting priest. As the Wichita Eagle reported back in 2000, Larson destroyed a number of lives. Here, from a National Review Online piece I wrote in 2002, is the story of several of them:

No statistics exist documenting the number of clergy-abuse victims who have killed themselves, but stories like that of Horace and Janet Patterson of Conway Springs, Kansas give us a feel for the worst kind of pain priest sexual abuse can contribute to. In the fall of 1999, their son Eric, 29, shot himself in the head with a Colt .45, ending years of torment that seemed to begin when he was first molested at age 12.

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IRELAND
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, September 08, 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 )

What now, since Cardinal Sean Brady has retired? To deter future cover ups and to avoid more pain – to hundreds of abuse victims and thousands of disillusioned parishioners – Catholic officials in Ireland and Rome should refuse to give Brady honors, roles, praise, or positions.

They should encourage him to avoid public speaking and high profile activities.

If Brady is allowed to go to church events, bishops’ meetings and other public activities, and is treated just like any retired bishop that will send two distressing signals.

First, it will say to other complicit church officials who are endangering kids and protecting predators that no matter how egregious their misdeeds are, they will always be welcomed by their church colleagues. That of course will just encourage these men to continue hiding evidence, fabricating alibis, making excuses, moving predators, disbelieving victims, discrediting whistleblowers, threatening witnesses.

Second it will say to many suffering adults – those who were sexually violated as children and those who were betrayed as adults – that wrongdoers’ feelings trump parishioners’ pain and victims’ pain.

After Philadelphia’s widely discredited Cardinal Justin Rigali retired, the Vatican sent him to eastern Europe to represent the pope. After Cardinal Bernard Law resigned in Boston, he was given a cushy job in the literal and figurative power center of Catholicism and allowed to keep sitting on eight important Vatican committees. We could go on and on. The practice of ignoring the complicity of church officials in clergy sex crimes is widespread. And it exacerbates the suffering of adults and encourages complicity by other church officials.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

[Accused Priests and Brothers of the Marianists – BishopAccountability.org]

For immediate release: Sunday, Sept. 7, 2014

Statement by Judy Jones of St. Louis, Midwest Assistant Midwest Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 636 433 2511, 314 974 5003, SNAPjudy@gmail.com )

At least 31 Marianists – including at least eight who worked at North Catholic school in Pittsburgh – are proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesters, according to an investigative report in today’s Tribune Review. There are at least 157 accusers.

Here’s what the article doesn’t mention and what the Marianists try desperately to hide: The Marianists continue to protect predators today.

– One accused predator. Fr. Charles H. Miller, was quietly sent to Rome after allegations against him surfaced in St. Louis (and were deemed “credible” by church officials). He is still on the job in the literal and figurative power center of Catholicism, where millions of unsuspecting young people and their families visit every year. (Keep in mind: it takes only seconds for a priest to shove his tongue in a girl’s mouth or his hand down a boy’s pants.)

– Fr. William Christensen, who’s accused of molesting at least 30 kids in Bangladesh (and may still be there now).

– Br. William Mueller, who’s accused of molesting dozens of kids in Missouri, Colorado and Texas (and still lives in Texas now).

Catholic officials will stress that the latter two have been defrocked. But they’ve never shown evidence of this. And the Marianists have made no efforts whatsoever to help law enforcement pursue any of their clerics.

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WASHINGTON
Salon

JENNY KUTNER

The Washington-based evangelical megachurch Mars Hill is shutting (some of) its doors. Following controversy over founder Mark Driscoll’s well-documented homophobic and sexist remarks, church officials announced over the weekend that they would be closing several of Mars Hills 15 Pacific Northwest branches, citing financial difficulties caused by “negative media attention.” Several staff and clergy members have also been laid off. At the end of last month, Driscoll himself announced that he would be taking a six-week-long leave of absence.

According to Pastor Mark Dunford, who was recently laid off from Mars Hill’s Portland branch, his dismissal comes in the wake of calls for Driscoll’s resignation, as well as Dunford’s denouncement of the founder for instilling a “lack of transparency” and “culture of fear” within the church ranks. A recent New York Times profile of Driscoll also reports accusations of “plagiarizing, of inappropriately using church funds and of consolidating power to such a degree that it has become difficult for anyone to challenge or even question him.”

The tide has been turning against Driscoll for some time, who has made a spectacle of himself over the years with his anti-LGBT, anti-woman remarks, many of which he has espoused as key elements of his theology. Preaching theological “complementarianism,” in which women are considered men’s followers and subordinates, Driscoll has expressed a belief that women should always be submissive. According to one report, the pastor once instructed a female congregant to get on her knees and apologize to her husband for failing to bend to his will, then give him a blow job.

The advice fits in with Driscoll’s long-apparent, disturbing view of women, examples of which feminist blogger Libby Anne unearthed and posted on Monday. In a 2001 blog post under the pen name William Wallace II, Driscoll blatantly asserts his patriarchal understanding of women’s role in the world, essentially calling them “penis homes”:

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UNITED STATES
Waiting for Godot to Leave

Kevin O’Brien

One of the ideas that Protestants have about Catholics is that we expect the priests to take care of our holiness for us. They offer the sacrifice of the Mass, they read and study Scripture, they study doctrine and theology – all so that we don’t have to.

And, though this is a stereotype, it’s largely true.

But the thing is that not only is this wrong-headed of Catholics, it’s often simply wrong. What I mean is that priests – and especially bishops – sometimes don’t come anywhere close to doing what we’re depending on them to do.

As yet another exhibit in this case, David Clohessy of SNAP issued a statement today that was more an honest lament than it was a press release.

He talks about the passing of child molester Fr. Robert K. Larson, whose victims included 17 children, 5 of whom eventually committed suicide. He talks about how Larson’s passing was kept secret until after the burial. He talks about how none of the victims or their families, who must be experiencing a difficult mixture of emotion now that Larson has died – none of them were contacted by any bishop. Clohessy states (my emphasis) …

We are sure [Larson’s] bishop will issue a statement expressing “sadness.” But that’s a public relations move, not a pastoral one. A truly compassionate shepherd would aggressively reach out to those in pain using every means possible, not just a terse, conveniently timed press release.

But that’s the story: generally speaking, bishops care more about PR than about hearts and souls. They care more about systems and spreadsheets than about men and women in need. This is not true for every bishop, but it’s true for most, and it’s the great lesson the Abuse Scandal has taught us.

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

08 SEPTEMBER 2014

Cardinal Sean Brady, the leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, has apologised and asked for forgiveness as his retirement was confirmed by the Vatican.

The cleric, whose final years at the head of the clergy were dogged by abuse scandals, handed in his resignation on age grounds last month after turning 75, as required under canon law.

Archbishop Eamon Martin will take over as Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland – the 116th man to fill the role.

In the last few years, Cardinal Brady faced repeated calls from clerical sex abuse survivors to quit over his involvement in the Brendan Smyth case.

The teacher and canon lawyer swore two victims of the notorious paedophile priest to secrecy during an internal church inquiry in 1975 into the abuse of two children.

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IRELAND
GlobalPost

Agence France-Presse September 8, 2014

Cardinal Sean Brady, who was criticised over his handling of abuse scandals, stepped down as leader of the Irish Catholic Church on Monday with an emotional plea for forgiveness.

“I too need to say sorry and to ask forgiveness and I do so again today,” Brady told the faithful at a mass in Armagh in Northern Ireland.

Brady, who played a key role in the peace process after being appointed in 1996, had tendered his resignation to the Vatican last month after turning 75, the normal retirement age for senior clergy.

His years as leader of the Irish church coincided with a series of damning revelations of widespread clerical sex abuse.

Brady himself became directly embroiled in accusations that he mishandled child abuse allegations during an investigation into notorious paedophile Father Brendan Smyth.

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IRELAND
National Catholic Reporter

Michael Kelly Catholic News Service | Sep. 8, 2014

DUBLIN
The 2013 conclave that elected Pope Francis was “the highlight of my life,” said Cardinal Sean Brady, the day the pope accepted his resignation as archbishop of Armagh, Northern Ireland.

Pope Francis “challenges and inspires me” with the “message of God having mercy and at the same time choosing us, despite our sinfulness,” the cardinal told people gathered in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Armagh. “It reminds me that I, too, need to say sorry and to ask forgiveness. And I do so again, now.”

Brady spoke Monday, the day it was announced at the Vatican that Pope Francis had accepted his resignation, which bishops must submit when they turn 75. The cardinal, who as archbishop of Armagh serves as primate of all Ireland, will be replaced by Archbishop Eamon Martin, who has served as coadjutor since early 2013.

“It has been my privilege to have been appointed a bishop by Pope St. John Paul II, to have worked closely with Pope Benedict XVI, and to have taken part in the conclave that elected Pope Francis — that conclave has been the highlight of my life,” he said. …

It was in this role that he assisted in a canonical inquiry into a priest who had been accused of abuse. Then-Father Brady interviewed a 14-year-old boy who alleged he had been abused by Norbertine Fr. Brendan Smyth. The allegations were not shared with the civil authorities, and Father Smyth went on to abuse in Northern Ireland, the Irish Republic and the United States; he was arrested and imprisoned in 1994.

When Brady’s role came to light in 2010, he faced serious pressure and calls for his resignation. However, he refused to quit, but admitted he had done wrong, sought forgiveness and pledged to stay on, describing himself as a “wounded healer.”

During his time as president of the Irish bishops’ conference, Brady was responsible for the adoption of stringent child-safeguarding procedures on both sides of the Irish border that have won praise from the civil authorities in both jurisdictions. He also spearheaded a zero-tolerance approach to abuse and insisted that all allegations are passed on to the civil authorities.

In a bid to ensure confidence in the new procedures, he established the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church as an independent watchdog to ensure that the church was following its own guidelines when it came to the protection of children and vulnerable adults.

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

LOUISIANA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, Sept. 8, 2014

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

A Louisiana newspaper has disclosed that a Lafayette predator priest was quietly sent to work in the Baton Rouge diocese. We strongly suspect that he is living or working among unsuspecting neighbors or colleagues. So for the protection of kids and the healing of victims, we urgently call on Baton Rouge Bishop Robert W. Muench to:

–warn his flock about the priest (through news conferences, news releases, on church websites, etc.),
–aggressively seek out anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered the cleric’s crimes and
–disclose whether there are or have been other pedophile priests who molested elsewhere and were secretly transferred to his diocese.

In the 1980s, Lafayette diocese officials “quietly moved another child sex-abusing priest, Fr. Robert Limoges, to the neighboring Diocese of Baton Rouge,” reported The Advocate yesterday.

The revelation comes from long-secret Catholic church records that were unsealed in litigation and sought first by Minnesota Public Radio (for a profile of a former Louisiana bishop).

Fr. Limoges was first exposed as a child molester almost three decades ago.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Sunday, Sept. 7, 2014

Statement by Mary Caplan of New York City, SNAP Leader, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 917 439 4187, mcaplan682@aol.com )

Another Indian court has ruled that a fugitive predator priest must return to the U.S. to face criminal child sex abuse charges, according to the Associated Press.

Twice this year, United Nations panels have harshly criticized Vatican officials for their refusal to help law enforcement apprehend this dangerous cleric, Fr. Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, who molested girls in the Crookston, MN diocese and worked at one event (maybe more) in the St. Paul Archdiocese.

We’ve long worried about the safety of girls in India near Fr. Jeyapaul, especially since his bishop put him in charge of overseeing schools, knowing full well that he was a fugitive from US criminal authorities.

Fr. Jeyapaul is one of an increasing number of accused predator priests who are allowed to flee to other countries despite credible child sex abuse allegations or sometimes arrest warrants.

According to BishopAccountability.org, Minnesota Catholic officials “knew of rumors about inappropriate behavior by (Jeyapaul) in 8/04” but Jeyapaul “suddenly returned to India in 9/05.”

We applaud Fr. Jeyapaul’s brave victims. We are grateful to law enforcement – in the US and in India – for pursuing this dangerous predator.

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

LOUISIANA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, September 08, 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 )

Several Louisiana Catholic bishops say they will not release the names of predator priests, despite pledges to be “open and transparent.”

There are four reasons why bishops should disclose the names of proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting clerics.

First, doing so enables parents, parishioners and the pubic to protect their children.

Second, doing so might enable police and prosecutors to charge, convict and jail dangerous molesters.

Third, doing so enables many victims to feel relieved and comforted.

And fourth, this is what bishops have repeatedly promised to do – to be “open and transparent” about clergy sexual abuse.

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

UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

“How do you do it? How do you read about and respond to all that pain and corruption and betrayal, day after day?”

When I tell people what I do for a living, I often get some version of this question.

My response is usually: “This work is draining, but it’s also a privilege and an honor. It helps me heal. I meet tremendously compassionate and brave people. I get to watch them recover. I see criminals outed, ousted, prosecuted and kept away from kids. There are many rewards.”

And I often tell people that I usually manage, somehow, to see the glass as half full.

But not this time.

Last Friday, a journalist told me that Fr. Robert K. Larson passed away back on Aug. 27. But his Wichita Catholic supervisors kept this information secret until this convicted child molesting cleric was buried.

Fr. Larson’s name might sound familiar. He attracted national attention in 2002 when the Boston Globe and Wichita Eagle ran page one reports saying that five of Fr. Larson’s alleged victims took their own lives.

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LOUISIANA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, September 08, 2014

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

A Louisiana Catholic brother, who is credibly accused of molesting at least 10 children, has been found going to a school campus. We are grateful that this information has been revealed so that parents can make safe choices for their children.

Bro. Samuel Martinez visits the Holy Family Community on the campus of John Paul The Great Academy on weekends. We are highly suspicious of the claim that he is allegedly monitored by an adult at all times. He belongs in a remote, secure treatment center run by independent professionals, not church officials.

However, David Sinitiere, the head of Martinez’s order, said that since Martinez was never convicted in court the rules about sex offenders being near children don’t apply. This is a dangerous statement. The order found the allegations against Martinez credible; they should treat him with the same caution as a criminally convicted sex offender. Predators rarely stop abusing, no matter how many years have passed since the first allegation.

We urge officials at the John Paul the Great Academy and the Brothers of Christians Schools to do the right thing and keep a credibly accused serial child molester away from children. And they should aggressively reach out to anyone who may have seen, suspected, or suffered child abuse to come forward, report to police and start healing.

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

CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly

By Gustavo Arellano Mon., Sep. 8 2014

There should be no tears of sadness shed for the passing of Cirilo Flores, the bishop of the Diocese of San Diego and former auxiliary bishop in Orange who passed away this weekend after a battle with cancer. As is the case with nearly every Catholic bishop of Flores’ generation, any good he did in his life (fight for the rights of illegal immigrants, of the poor, against the death penalty) was wiped away forever because of his role in letting pedophile priests in Orange get away with their crimes–not just by never disciplining admitted kiddie fiddlers, but by never even bothering to turn them over to authorities. Yep, that’s a prime candidate to become Satan’s latest cabana boy.

A refresher: Flores served on the Orange Diocese’s clergy-personnel board, the very board charged with investigating charges against diocesan priests. And as I wrote in a 2009 story shortly after it was announced Flores was becoming auxiliary bishop (for you non-mackerel snappers, it’s basically a minor-league bishop seat usually given for affirmative action purposes), the board didn’t discipline shit while he was there.

From my story:

Flores served on the board from 1995 until this year, a period that also happens to coincide with the Church learning about many cases of priestly sex abuse–but never bothering to discipline the offenders until the cases became public. The inaction of the clergy-personnel team wasn’t surprising: Flores’ peers on the board during this time include such sex-abuse-scandal luminaries as Michael McKiernan (Brown’s longtime secretary, who once told a parishioner that a priest possessing child-pornography images didn’t violate Brown’s zero-tolerance sex-abuse policy), Daniel Murray (on whose behalf the Orange diocese settled a $500,000 sex-abuse lawsuit in 2004 without alerting parishioners) and John Urell, a man who was so knee-deep in covering for molesting priests as Brown’s point man on the issue that he suffered a nervous breakdown during a deposition about his role (see “Bad Moves,” Sept. 27, 2007).

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PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, Sept. 8, 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 )

An Altoona area Catholic priest is accused of sexual misdeeds. His bishop should take his passport so he can’t flee overseas. And he should aggressively seek out anyone else who may have seen, suspected or suffered harm because of the priest’s misconduct.

We hope anyone with knowledge or suspicions about Fr. Chinemere Onyeocha’s wrongdoing will come forward promptly and contact independent sources of help: law enforcement, therapists or support groups like ours.

Fr. Onyeocha is the latest in a long and growing list of foreign-born Catholic priests who have been sent to the US and engaged in sexual crimes or misdeeds.

Just yesterday, the Associated Press reported that a court in India has ordered Fr. Joseph Jeyapaul back to the US to face child sex charges. Just last month, Fr. Carlos Urrutigoity was on the job in Paraguay despite allegations that he abused in the Scranton area.

And several years ago, the Dallas Morning News did a lengthy investigative report called “Hiding in Plain Sight” about proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting clerics who had been sent abroad to evade prosecution.

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VATICAN CITY
Crux

By Associated Press

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Cardinal Sean Brady, the leader of the Irish Catholic Church who resisted calls to resign after covering up for a priest who raped children.

Monsignor Eamon Martin has been named as expected as Brady’s replacement as archbishop of Armagh. Martin has been outspoken about the need for more church accountability on child sex abuse. Brady reached the mandatory retirement age of 75 three weeks ago, and Martin had been tapped to succeed him.

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

IRELAND
Anglo Celt

The Bishop of Kilmore has paid tribute to former Cardinal Sean Brady after it was announced today that Pope Frances has accepted his resignation as Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All-Ireland in line with canon law following his 65th birthday.

Coadjutor Archbishop of Armagh Eamon Martin now automatically succeeds to both positions under canon law.

Bishop Leo O’Reilly said it was a “sad day” for him personally and for Dr Brady’s many friends in his native Diocese of Kilmore.

“I have known and worked closely with Cardinal Seán, firstly as a colleague on the staff of Saint Patrick’s College, Cavan, as a fellow priest of the Diocese of Kilmore and, since my appointment as Bishop of Kilmore in 1998. On this day of mixed emotion, I wish to acknowledge Cardinal Seán’s innate decency and personal kindness, and I will miss his support, wisdom and outstanding leadership of the Bishops’ Conference.

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

IRELAND
Reuters

(Reuters) – Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, the Vatican said on Monday, drawing a line under a career plagued by accusations that he kept quiet about the sexual abuse of children by clergy.

Cardinal Sean Brady announced his plan to retire in August, just before he turned 75, at which age all bishops must offer their resignation to the pontiff, who can reject or accept it.

Brady became embroiled in a child sex abuse scandal which has rocked the Church in Ireland when a BBC television documentary aired in 2012 said he had failed to warn parents their children were being sexually abused by a priest in 1975.

The Vatican said Brady would be succeeded by Monsignor Eamonn Martin, 52, who was appointed last year as “coadjutor” archbishop of Armagh, an important diocese in Northern Ireland whose archbishop has the title “Primate of All Ireland”.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 8 September 2014 (VIS) – The Holy Father has accepted the resignation from the pastoral care of the archdiocese of Armagh, Ireland, presented by Cardinal Sean Baptist Brady, upon reaching the age limit. He is succeeded by Archbishop Eamon Martin, formerly coadjutor of the same diocese.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Bedfordshire on Sunday

A POLICE investigation into historic allegations of physical, sexual and emotional organisational abuse in the 1940s, 50s and 60s at St Francis Boys Home in Shefford is to be overseen by a senior investigator.

Mark Ross and a team of detective’s will ensure all previous allegations are investigated within current police guidance and review all of the information provided by the victims and witnesses.

In the course of this review, the investigation team will be contacting all victims and witnesses of previous and present investigations, and will ensure the current investigation is comprehensive, transparent and the victims are fully supported with assistance from partner agencies.

Mark Ross said: “The investigation has evolved due to the large number of victims and witnesses. We are now in a very different era and social attitudes and the criminal justice has changed significantly in the last 50 years. I aim to provide all of the victims involved with an outcome.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

A major review’s been launched into claims of physical, sexual and emotional abuse at the St Francis Boys’ Home in Bedfordshire.

The allegations span three decades dating back 70 years.

All victims and witnesses will be interviewed as part of the review by Bedfordshire Police.

Officers say their review will ensure all the allegations are investigated in line with modern police guidance.

“The investigation has evolved due to the large number of victims and witnesses. We are now in a very different era and social attitudes and the criminal justice has changed significantly in the last 50 years. I aim to provide all of the victims involved with an outcome. Investigating abuse of any kind will always involve issues of a sensitive nature, victims will be kept fully informed of any progress in relation to their case and given the support required. Many of the suspects have since died but police forces still have the responsibility to investigate these crimes and consider organisational responsibility at the time of the abuse.”

– MARK ROSS, BEDFORDSHIRE POLICE

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Londonderry Sentinel

SDLP Foyle MP Mark Durkan has congratulated Archbishop Eamon Martin who has become the Archbishop of Armagh and Catholic Primate of All Ireland.

Mr Durkan, who has known Archbishop Eamon Martin since their primary school days in Londonderry, said: “Congratulations and best wishes to Archbishop Eamon Martin on becoming the Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland. Eamon has gone from St Patrick’s Primary School in Pennyburn and an altar boy there to become St Patrick’s successor in Armagh. While he has gone far in that sense he has always remained rooted.

“While Eamon is a naturally humble man I hope he can enjoy the genuine pride that will again be felt by his family, his home parish, his schools and the Derry Diocese today.

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

IRELAND
Derry Journal

Vatican: Pope Francis accepts the resignation of Cardinal Brady and Archbishop Eamon Martin becomes Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland

Pope Francis accepts the resignation of His Eminence Cardinal Seán Brady as Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland. From today, the Coadjutor Archbishop of Armagh, His Grace Archbishop Eamon Martin (52), becomes the 116th Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland in succession to Saint Patrick.

Cardinal Seán Brady said: “I am pleased that Pope Francis has today accepted the resignation which I offered to him on the occasion of my seventy fifth birthday. I warmly congratulate Archbishop Eamon Martin who today becomes Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland and Coarb Phadraic. Let us rejoice and be glad.

“I pray that God may give to Archbishop Eamon in abundance all the graces he needs and I assure him of my help and total support at all times. Indeed I am quite confident that the people of the Archdiocese – priests, religious and lay faithful – will give to their new Archbishop the same whole-hearted support and faith-filled loyalty which they have always given to me and for which I will be eternally grateful.

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

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Monday accepted the resignation of Cardinal Seán Brady, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland, after he reached the age of retirement. A native of Laragh in Co Cavan, Archbishop Brady was elevated to the College of Cardinals by Pope Benedict XVI on the 24 November 2007.

On 19 February 1995 he was ordained Coadjutor Archbishop of Armagh and succeeded Cardinal Cahal B. Daly as Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland on 1 October 1996.

Among his other posts the Cardinal served as Rector of the Pontifical Irish College in Rome from 1987 to 1993.

The Cardinal will now be succeeded by Archbishop Eamon Martin who was appointed Coadjutor Archbishop of Armagh by Pope Benedict XVI on the 18th January 2013.

Archbishop Martin was previously Chaplin to Pope Benedict XVI and upon the retirement of Bishop Séamus Hegarty, was elected as Diocesan Administrator of the Diocese of Derry in Northern Ireland.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

Mon, Sep 8, 2014

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Cardinal Seán Brady as Archbishop of Armagh and Catholic Primate of All Ireland.

Coadjutor Archbishop of Armagh Eamon Martin automatically succeeds to both positions under canon law.

Cardinal Brady, who was 75 on August 16th last, submitted his resignation letter in July. As also required by canon law, every bishop must do so on reaching the age of 75. However he remains a cardinal for life and may take part in papal elections (conclaves) until he is 80.

In a statement this morning, Cardinal Brady congratulated Dr Martin and thanked the priests and people of the Armagh archdiocese and of Ireland as well as members of the other churches for “their welcome, friendship and so much kindness over many years.”

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

IRELAND
RTE News

The Vatican has confirmed that the Pope has accepted the resignation of Seán Brady as Catholic primate of all Ireland and Archbishop of Armagh.

He is being succeeded by Archbishop Eamon Martin with immediate effect.

Last month, Cardinal Brady offered his resignation to the Pope, as his 75th birthday approached, in accordance with Canon Law.

Archbishop Eamon Martin is aged 52 and from the Derry diocese.

He has been lined up as a replacement since his appointment as Coadjutor Archbishop of Armagh in January of last year.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

By Nic Rigby
BBC News

Ex-residents of a Catholic orphanage in Bedfordshire are to be re-interviewed by police in a new review into claims of physical and sexual abuse.

In May 2013 police revealed an investigation had begun into alleged abuse at the St Francis Boys Home in Shefford, in the 1950s and 1960s.

Ex-residents have been told there will be an evidence review under the command of senior investigator Mark Ross.

Bedfordshire Police said all previous investigations would be looked at.

The BBC has talked to former residents of the home who allege they were physically and/or sexually abused at the orphanage, run by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Northampton.

‘Out of the blue’

Many have said they were abused by priest Father John Ryan, who ran the home in the 1960s and died in 2008.

Others say they were abused by Fr Wilfred Johnson, who ran the home between 1945 and 1954 and died in 1994.

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IRELAND
Ulster Herald

The Vatican have confirmed that Pope Francis has today (Monday) accepted the resignation of Cardinal Seán Brady as Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland.

As of 11am, the Coadjutor Archbishop of Armagh, Archbishop Eamon Martin (52), has become the 116th Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland.

In line with the rules of the Catholic Church, Cardinal Brady offered his resignation to the Pope on the occasion of his 75th birthday last month.

It came two years after he refused to step down amid revelations contained in a BBC documentary. The ‘This World’ investigation found Cardinal Brady had names and addresses of children being abused by paedophile priest Brendan Smyth, but did not pass on those details to police or parents.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

Things This Blog Has Been Called This Week — A Grim Place of Wild Claims and Ranting, Uninformed, Disrespectful, Etc.

William D. Lindsey

Things this blog has been called in public in this week after I posted a posting about Jerry Slevin’s recent censorship by National Catholic Reporter:

1. Billgrimspage oblivion. Get it? Bill + grims + page = oblivion.
2. A blog for those who want to make wild claims and to rant.

Things this blog and I have been called in emails to me this week:

1. Uninformed and disrespectful.
2. Slanderous and libelous.

None of this takes into account John Shuster’s report in a comment here two days ago that two priests he monitors on Facebook, who keep their clerical status hidden, have mocked and disparaged this blog and me on Facebook after I published my report on Jerry Slevin’s censorship by NCR. I have deliberately not sought out information about that mockery since who needs to add misery to misery? The thread John has followed (and I very much appreciate his report about it) is no doubt one among others to be found at various sites online right now.

I’m a bit weary of it all right now, folks. And so I’m going to take a few days to try to think through what has been going on and to deal with the attacks coming to me in email, which began immediately after I posted my piece about Jerry’s censorship and which are clearly related to it — and which also clearly intend to see me silenced if at all possible.

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UNITED STATES
Jewish Business News

It has been a shandah to speak about a shandah in the Orthodox communities. But now, it is increasingly becoming a shandah not to speak about the shandah of sexual abuse, as outrage is now directed at rabbis and community leaders who cover up and protect sexual predators.

The internet, much feared in insular Haredi communities, is becoming an instrument that provides a voice to those who have been silent victims and who have been threatened that their lives, within the confines of utter control, would be destroyed by breaking the silence.

As allegations of sexual abuse rise, from Manhattan to Jerusalem, Michael Lesher has written a book on the topic, “Sexual Abuse, Shonda and Concealment in Orthodox Communities.” While the Catholic church years ago had its own sexual abuse scandals, the Orthodox communities are discovering, perhaps at the 11th hour, that they can no longer rely on purely rabbinic authorities to deal with felonies that should best be left to the police and the courts.

Lesher says, “There can be no legitimate role for the rabbinical court in any sex abuse investigation.” While many Orthodox rabbis have turned the tide of opinion and have urged victims to go to the police with such crimes, there is still widespread denial, threats against those who complain and even fundraisers held to keep high profile perpetrators out of jail.

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AUSTRALIA
Perth Now

SHERYL-LEE KERR
PERTHNOW SEPTEMBER 08, 2014

A job in Chile was beckoning the day actor John Noble got the script for Devil’s Playground, a miniseries which delves into the murky world of Catholic Church politics and intrigue. The former Adelaide Catholic schoolboy took only moments to decide.

“I looked at this script and I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is amazing, this is my childhood here’,” Noble says. “So I threw some things around so I could do it, simply based on the script.”

Noble plays progressive Bishop McNally who sees secrets, abuse and cover-ups within the church in the late ’80s. The story is based on the 1976 Fred Schepisi movie of the same name. It begins with the death of a Catholic schoolboy — and another child’s claim it was murder.

“He’s one of the good ones,” Noble says of his character.

“He knows a lot — there’s a veil of secrecy and protection in the Catholic Church. They’re like a family so if someone did err, then they would try to help them in different ways.

“The edict (to keep secrets such as abuse) came down from the top, the very top, that this needs to be covered up. It would have been the most agonising thing and it was, for the character I play, the most agonising thing to sit with, knowing this was happening and having to cover it up.”

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MISSISSIPPI
Sun Herald

The Associated Press
September 8, 2014

JACKSON, MISS. — A Mississippi pastor is appealing his 2013 conviction and 30-year sentence for the fondling of a child.

Larry Gene Singleton, now 72, was convicted in Tate County on two counts of fondling and one count of sexual battery.

Singleton, the former pastor of Bay Springs Baptist Church in Abbeville, Mississippi, was arrested in December of 2013 after sheriff’s investigators received a complaint from the victim, who accused Singleton of forcing him to have sex.

Authorities say the sexual abuse allegedly began when the victim was 11 years old and continued for several years.

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LOUISIANA
KATC

[with video]

A member of the Brothers of Christian Schools, who was accused of molesting several boys in the 1980s, is living in Lafayette and traveling to a school campus every week to pray with his order.

Bro. Samuel Martinez, 78, lives in a Lafayette retirement home and is transported to the Holy Family Community on the campus of John Paul The Great Academy on weekends for religious exercises.

But the most recent head of the order’s New Orleans-Santa Fe District, David Sinitiere, says Martinez is not a risk to children. Even though some sex offenders in Louisiana are not allowed to go within 1,000 feet of a school – even if no children are present – Martinez does not have to follow that restriction because he was never criminally charged. Everything was settled in civil court.

“Brother Samuel Martinez had what we determined a credible accusation against him. It was 40 years ago, but we still had to address the issue today,” Sinitiere said

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AUSTRALIA
Eureka Street

Frank Brennan | 08 September 2014

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has been granted its sought two-year extension. It will run for five years. That is appropriate. I predicted on the night Julia Gillard announced the commission that it would take five years to do its work.

I am still worried about this extended federal royal commission – and that is not because I am a Catholic priest afraid of what the commission might discover in the bowels of my Church. I have long been an advocate for State assistance to the Church in this area, concerned that the Church could not do it alone. All church members, and not just the victims who continue to suffer, need light, transparency and accountability if the opaque injustices of the past are to be rectified.

With the Commission’s case study last month into the Melbourne Response, much of the media focus was on Cardinal Pell, as it was during the case study on the John Ellis case. For some time, many Australians, myself included, had wondered how Cardinal Pell was not in a position when an auxiliary bishop in Melbourne between 1987 and 1996 to know much, if anything, about the extent of child sexual abuse by his clergy and to do much, if anything, to address the issue.

On 21 August 2014, Cardinal Pell told the Royal Commission that, prior to his becoming Archbishop in August 1996, he ‘had no knowledge of any criminal behaviour that was not being dealt with’ and that he was ‘not even sure to what extent (he) would have been privy to matters that might have been criminal but were being dealt with by the Vicar General’. He told the Commission, ‘I wasn’t in the direct line of authority before I was Archbishop. I was an Auxiliary Bishop with no responsibility in this area.’ In his written statement to the commission, he said, ‘When I took office (as Archbishop in 1996), it was my view that the arrangements in the Archdiocese for responding to and assisting victims of child sexual abuse were insufficient to ensure a compassionate, effective and consistent response. I thought there needed to be clearly documented procedures for dealing with complaints.’

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IRELAND
The Journal

POPE FRANCIS HAS accepted the resignation of Cardinal Seán Brady.

The Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland to Pope Francis offered his resignation in July in accordance with the requirement under Canon Law that he retire at the age of 75.

In a statement today, Cardinal Brady said he was pleased that the pontiff had accepted his resignation. In the past, diocesan bishops have been allowed to remain on in their positions past the age of 75.

He also congratulated Archbishop Eamon Martin who becomes the new Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland from 11am today.

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IRELAND
Newstalk

Sue Murphy
11:00 Monday 8 September 2014

The Pope has accepted the resignation of Sean Brady as the Catholic Primate of All Ireland.

Cardinal Brady offered his resignation in July, a month ahead of his 75th birthday.

Eamon Martin (52), who has been working as his Coadjutor for the past 16 months, is taking over in the position.

Archbishop Martin says he is honoured to take on the role.

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IRELAND
Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference

Pope Francis accepts Cardinal Brady’s resignation and Archbishop Eamon Martin becomes Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland

Today, on the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Holy Father Pope Francis accepts the resignation of His Eminence Cardinal Seán Brady as Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland. From 11:00am today (12 noon Rome time) the Coadjutor Archbishop of Armagh, His Grace Archbishop Eamon Martin (52), becomes the 116th Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland in succession to Saint Patrick.

Media are invited to meet Archbishop Eamon Martin for interview this morning outside Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, from 11:00am.

Please see below remarks delivered after Mass today in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral by Cardinal Brady and Archbishop Martin.

Remarks by Cardinal Seán Brady

I am pleased that Pope Francis has today accepted the resignation which I offered to him on the occasion of my seventy fifth birthday. I warmly congratulate Archbishop Eamon Martin who today becomes Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland and Coarb Phadraic. Let us rejoice and be glad.

I pray that God may give to Archbishop Eamon in abundance all the graces he needs and I assure him of my help and total support at all times. Indeed I am quite confident that the people of the Archdiocese – priests, religious and lay faithful – will give to their new Archbishop the same whole-hearted support and faith-filled loyalty which they have always given to me and for which I will be eternally grateful.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Sarah Stack
Published 08/09/2014

Pope Francis has accepted Cardinal Sean Brady’s resignation as leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland.

Cardinal Brady, has been Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland since 1996, wrote to Pope Francis several weeks before he approached his 75th birthday in August.

“I am pleased that Pope Francis has today accepted the resignation which I offered to him on the occasion of my 75th birthday,” said Cardinal Brady.

“I warmly congratulate Archbishop Eamon Martin who today becomes Archbishop of Armagh, Primate of All Ireland and Coarb Phadraic. Let us rejoice and be glad.”

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

08 SEPTEMBER 2014

Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Cardinal Sean Brady, the leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland.

The senior churchman whose final years as a clerical leader were dogged by abuse scandals, announced plans to step down on age grounds last month after turning 75, the standard retirement age in the church.

Archbishop Eamon Martin will take over the role as Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland – the 116th man to fill the role.

“I am looking forward to retirement and, no doubt, it will take me some time to get used to it, but it will be good to have more time for family, friends and to follow the football,” Cardinal Brady said.

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VATICAN CITY
BBC News

The Vatican has announced that it has accepted the resignation of the leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Cardinal Séan Brady.

Last month, Dr Brady, who has been the leader of Ireland’s Catholics for 18 years, confirmed that he offered his resignation to Pope Francis in July.

His tenure had been beset by clerical child sex abuse scandals and claims that he helped to cover up one case.

Archbishop Eamon Martin has been announced as his successor.

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AUSTRALIA
The Irish Times

Padraig Collins

Mon, Sep 8, 2014

Speaking in Sydney yesterday, former president Mary McAleese argued for a greatly increased role for women in the Catholic Church, saying: “The old boys’ club are going to have to go.”

About 1,000 people came to Sydney Town Hall to see Mrs McAleese interviewed by ABC radio presenter Andrew West.

In a reference to an Australian Catholic newspaper refusing to run an advertisement for the event because of Mrs McAleese’s views on homosexuality and the ordination of women, Mr West said: “We have to thank the Catholic Weekly for a full house today.”

Mrs McAleese said after the advert ban was reported by The Irish Times and other media “I had emails from friends in America and Japan saying ‘what’s going on in Sydney’?”

She said trying to be heard by the Catholic Church hierarchy was comparable to shouting at children: “If I’m yelling it’s because you didn’t listen to me when I said it nicely . . . I look at the curia and I don’t know too many of them who have gone through equal opportunity training.”

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

While banning commenters like me is the ultimate censorship tactic that NCR has adopted, apparently in light of its conservative Catholic donors’ influence or other unknown factors, see here:

[Christian Catholicism]

Bill Lindsey has brilliantly shown at Bilgrimage.com, see here:

[Bilgrimage] ,

how NCR Discus comment objection “flags” are being managed by some bloggers at NCR to depress comments either permanently or until most other readers have read others’ comments and moved on.

Since NCR got its $2 million dollar grant from the conservative Hilton Foundation, which is associated with FAIDICA (a group of seemingly conservative Catholic foundations, in part at least it appears, under the influence of wealthy investment bankers who have also advertised another of their related groups at NCR), NCR has turned considerably to the right in its coverage and focus in my opinion. It has also hired a new management team that appears to me to be dedicated often to pleasing right wing interests.

This seems to have been done (1) by neutralizing NCR’s focus increasingly to “feel good” stories about nuns and Pope Francis, (2) by seemingly reducing the coverage and frequency of tough stories on bishops’ misdeeds, especially on Vatican priest child abuse cover-ups, (3) by controlling content by increased comment censorship and the selection of more seemingly biased articles and writers, and (4) by seemingly focusing on selecting more NCR directors who likely may better please NCR’s major donors. For example, the sister who is the communications director of LCWR is no longer on NCR’s Board of Directors. Why not? Very puzzling, no?

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