ABUSE TRACKER

OKLAHOMA
Newson6

Richard Clark, NewsOn6.com

TULSA, Oklahoma – The pastor of the Greater Cornerstone Church in west Tulsa has been indicted for financial fraud.

Pastor Willard Lenord Jones, 63, is charged with three counts of wire fraud and one count of filing a false tax return.

Jones is the executive director of the Greater Cornerstone Community Development Project, located on 41st West Avenue. The community center offers a range of social services, ranging from help with food and clothing to health services.

Court documents say as executive director, Jones solicited millions of dollars in donations for the center, then diverted $933,507.80 of those funds for his own use.

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MARYLAND
WJLA

[with video]

Nathaniel Morales, former Covenant Life Church leader convicted of sexual abuse, sentenced to 40 years in prison

ROCKVILLE, Md. (WJLA/AP) – A Las Vegas man convicted of sexually abusing boys while he was a youth leader at a church in Maryland in the 1980s was sentened Thursday to 40 years in prison.

Nathaniel Morales received the sentence in Montgomery County Circuit Court.

A jury found him guilty in May on three counts of sexual abuse of a minor and two counts of sexual offense. He had faced up to 85 years in prison.

Prosecutors said Morales worked with youth ministries and conducted Bible studies for Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg.

He was convicted of abusing three boys from 1983 to 1991 at group sleepovers and in their homes.

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NORTH CAROLINA
WSOC

By Tina Terry

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Detectives with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department’s Youth Crimes Unit have charged Orlando Agusto Caldera, 64, with 26 additional felony charges involving Caldera allegedly sexually assaulting victims while serving as an associate minister at his church.

Youth Crimes detectives were able to identify five additional female victims who they said had been sexually assaulted by Caldera, according to CMPD.

In a news conference, police said it took a lot of courage for those five little girls to speak up about alleged sex abuse by Caldera.

They told police Caldera, a former pastor at Memorial United Methodist Church, offered them gifts and candy to gain their trust then sexually assaulted them at the church.

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NORTH CAROLINA
Charlotte Observer

By Steve Lyttle
slyttle@charlotteobserver.com
Posted: Thursday, Aug. 14, 2014

Orlando Agusto Caldera, 64, faces 26 additional charges involving sexual abuse of children, according to Charlotte-Mecklenburg police.

A former minister at an east Charlotte church faces more than two dozen additional charges of sexual assault involving children, according to Charlotte-Mecklenburg police.

Authorities said Orlando Augusto Caldera, 64, is accused of assaulting children between ages 6 and 10. He was charged with 26 felonies, in addition to the two indecent liberties with a child charges that were filed last week.

Caldera served for about five years as a minister at Memorial United Methodist Church, in the 4000 block of Central Avenue. He is no longer listed by the church as a staff member.

The first arrest came Aug. 4, after police were called to the church to deal with a disturbance. They were met by a 10-year-old girl, a 6-year-old girl and the mother of one of the children. The three accused Caldera of inappropriately touching the children, and after being interviewed by detectives, Caldera was charged.

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TENNESSEE
National Catholic Reporter

Dan Stockman | Aug. 13, 2014

NASHVILLE, TENN. The largest leadership organization for U.S. women religious began its first full day of its annual assembly Wednesday by focusing on one of the criticisms leveled against it: the contemplative, collaborative process for making decisions.

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious, made up of Catholic sisters who are leaders of their orders in the United States, represents about 80 percent of the 51,600 women religious in the United States. Nearly 800 of the group’s 1,400 members have gathered here for their four-day annual conference.

Wednesday morning’s session began with an examination of the decision-making process LCWR uses: contemplation, observation and exploration, reflection and dialogue, and finally, decision and action. The process is in stark contrast to the hierarchical decision-making process used by the Catholic church.

Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain listened intently as facilitators Catherine Bertrand of the School Sisters of Notre Dame and Mary Jo Nelson of Our Lady of Victory Missionary Sisters explained how truly listening to others and reflecting on their thoughts can change your thinking from individualistic to what is best for the community. Failure to listen, they said, leads to judgment, cynicism and fear.

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MARYLAND
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Aug. 14, 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 Maryland megachurch leader will be sentenced today after being found guilty of sexually abusing three boys. We hope he gets the harshest sentence. Children are safer when predators are locked up, where they can’t hurt another innocent child.

Nathaniel “Nate” Morales was the youth leader at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, MD. By using his position of trust and authority he was able to sexually assault at least three boys, the youngest being only 11 years old.

We are grateful to the brave victims and whistleblowers who came forward and helped with this case. Their bravery will keep a dangerous man away from kids. Morales could face an 85 year prison sentence and we hope he gets it.

We hope anyone else who may have seen, suspects or suffered child sex crimes by Morales, or any other church officials, will find the courage to speak up, report what they know and start healing.

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NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, August 13, 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 new child sex abuse lawsuit has been filed against Fr. William Authenrieth who is originally from the Diocese of Brooklyn, abused in New York and Florida, and now lives in Massachusetts.

We urge Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio to urge his colleagues in Massachusetts to warn the public and their parishioners about Fr. Authenrieth, who has been accused of or sued for child sex crimes at least five times. Since Fr. Authenrieth was recruited, ordained, and trained in Brooklyn (before he was transferred to Orlando), Brooklyn Catholic officials should at least warn unsuspecting families about him.

Some might argue that, given his age (about 80), Fr. Authenrieth isn’t likely assaulting children now. They would be wrong.

It takes only seconds for a man to shove his hands down a boy’s pants or his tongue down a girl’s throat. And who would parents or kids trust more than an elderly, balding, stoop-shouldered, grandfatherly-looking figure?

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UNITED STATES
Cranach: The Blog of Veith

[with video]

August 12, 2014 by Gene Veith

Sinead O’Connor is a singer perhaps best known for ripping up the pope’s picture on Saturday Night Live, but her latest song shows a realization of what church is for. It’s called “Take Me to Church.” Here is the refrain:

Oh, take me to church
I’ve done so many bad things it hurts
Yeah, take me to church
But not the ones that hurt
‘Cause that ain’t the truth
And that’s not what it’s for
Yeah, take me to church
Oh, take me to church
I’ve done so many bad things it hurts
Yeah, get me to church
But not the ones that hurt
‘Cause that ain’t the truth
And that’s not what it’s for

Hear the song–which is quite good–and see the video after the jump.

Go here for the rest of the lyrics. Note the self-repudiation of the first stanza. I’m not saying she has her theology all together, but her distinction between churches that “hurt” and that churches that offer forgiveness is surely a good one.

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LOUISIANA
KATC

Abbeville attorney Tony Fontana made a name for himself representing priest sex abuse victims and their families. A lifelong catholic, Fontana says the lawsuits against the diocese shook the foundation of his church, but not his faith. Now he’s showing support for the current Lafayette priest, whose name surfaced in the latest media reports on the scandal.

When the priest sex-abuse scandal was put back into the spotlight by an investigation by Minnesota Public Radio, so too was newly-discovered evidence, including an affidavit signed by Fontana back in 1995. The statement details what Fontana knew and when. In that affidavit, Fontana brought up a name never before mentioned in the scandal, Father Gilbert Dutel, the current priest at St. Edmond in Lafayette.

“The accusations, had nothing to do with children,” said Fontana. “It had to do with young adults.”

Dutel’s name was also mentioned in a deposition by Bishop Gerard Frey in 1995. Frey said he never heard about any problems with Dutel concerning children, but there was one complaint concerning an adult. Frey said Dutel denied the accusation, and he was “transfered and sent somewhere for treatment.”

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DELAWARE
Delmarva Public Radio

By DON RUSH

The Catholic Diocese of Wilmington paid out $15.8 million to lawyers, financial advisors and others who worked on its 2011 bankruptcy.

That’s according to a final report filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court this week.

Anthony Flynn, an attorney for the diocese told the Wilmington News Journal, it was the third highest of around 10 diocesan bankruptcies nationwide.

The diocese paid $77.4 million into a trust fund to resolve the claims of victims in the priest sex abuse scandal that has rocked the church.

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DELAWARE
WDEL

By Associated Press

A 2009 bankruptcy filing by the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington cost $15.8 million in lawyers’ fees and other expenses.

The diocese filed for bankruptcy in 2009 in the face of lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by a former priest. It emerged in 2011 after paying $77 million into a trust fund for victims.

The News Journal says a report this week in U.S. Bankruptcy Court detailed the overall costs of the filing.

More than $12 million of the money went to lawyers’ fees and expenses.

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AUSTRALIA
Courier-Mail

Opinion: Cardinal George Pell’s mean spirit in dealings with child abuse victims lives on after his transfer to Rome

TERRY SWEETMAN THE COURIER-MAIL AUGUST 15, 2014

THE Catholic Church has moved another embarrassing priest to a new parish.

I refer, of course, to Cardinal George Pell who has been transferred from Australia where his ineffectual, sometimes insensitive, oversight of dealings with abused children and their parents was fast becoming an insupportable embarrassment. He became the public face of a church beset with putrid crimes and clumsy cover-ups.

He has been posted to Rome to oversee the reform of the Vatican’s finances, a process that will lead to a church that is not “sloppy or inefficient’’ with its money, he assured the Catholic Herald.

He seems eminently qualified given he was so efficiently parsimonious in dealings in his own archdiocese. Pope Francis wanted a “poor Church for the poor,” but that “doesn’t necessarily mean a Church with empty coffers”, said Pell.

Events suggest that much of Pell’s life as a bishop has been preparation for guarding those coffers.

Pell might have gone to a more tranquil place but his spirit lives in television repeats of interviews and unimpressive appearances at the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into abuse and the royal commission into institutional responses to the scourge.

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ILLINOIS
Oakpark.com

Opinion: Columns
Tuesday, August 12th, 2014 12:52 PM

By Dan Haley
Editor and Publisher

Odds and ends with some a bit odder than others:

Name in the news: Had not thought about Monsignor John Fitzgerald in a good long time. Like many active or deactivated Catholics, I suppose I live with the dull dread that the next time I hear a name from the past it will not be in connection with a blessing but with a sin.

And so it was on Sunday with the news that Fitzgerald, the long-dead pastor of Ascension Church, has now been accused of sexual abuse by a woman, then a teen, who says that the priest sexually attacked her while she sought counseling from him back in 1964. While reports are still sketchy, some of the details we have were rightly provided in the parish bulletin by Larry McNally, the current pastor.

As usual, there are questions about how the archdiocese has handled this information.

More will be learned. That’s the usual pattern. But until we know more, here are a few recollections of Fitzgerald that neither endorse him nor convict him but just offer some context for a person who was a major force in south Oak Park — well beyond his church — in the 1950s, 1960s and into the early 1970s:

He is credited with using his clout in the 1950s to stop the building of an additional entry and exit to the under-construction Congress Expressway (now the Ike) just a block south of his East Avenue church. In the 1960s he was visible in Oak Park’s early open-housing efforts, lending his name to petitions and, as the Journal has reported, working to help an African-American family purchase a home in the parish in part because he wanted his school integrated.

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ILLINOIS
Oakpark.com

By Ken Trainor
Staff writer

By KEN TRAINOR
Staff Writer

Ascension Catholic Church parishioners found the following message from Rev. Larry McNally in the church bulletin on Sunday:

“In the spirit of transparency and the parish family’s right to know … I received a phone call from the Archdiocesan Office of Youth and Protection. At a SNAP [Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests] press conference, an adult female spoke and said she was sexually abused by Monsignor John Fitzgerald in 1964. Msgr. Fitzgerald (now deceased) was pastor at Ascension from 1951 until 1973. The Archdiocese has paid for her therapy.”

The accuser is Gail Peloquin Howard, who now lives in Norwalk, Connecticut. According to the SNAP website (SNAPnetwork.org), “In 2005, [Ms. Howard] reported to Chicago archdiocesan officials that in 1964, as a teenager, she sought guidance from her pastor at Ascension parish in Oak Park, Msgr. John D. Fitzgerald, who sexually attacked her during that meeting and later he offered to pay her for one year of therapy. … The archdiocese has paid for Howard’s therapy.”

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CANADA
Straight

by TRAVIS LUPICK on AUG 13, 2014

Gary Patsey’s Gitxsan First Nation name is Kaliskalan. Loosely translated, it means “last man up the river”, he told the Georgia Straight recently over coffee in Hazelton, in northwestern B.C.

In a separate interview, Dimdiigibuu, whose English name is Ardythe Wilson, told a story that revealed the path on which Patsey was set when he was given that title upon his birth.

“We’ve had a generation of people Gary’s age who have died,” Wilson began. “Most of his friends are gone. He struggles, almost alone, as a lone voice of his generation, calling out for some kind of recognition of the impacts of residential schools. And he’s doing that because that goes a long way in starting the healing process.”

Wilson, a program coordinator for the Gitxsan Child and Family Services Society, explained that First Nations people still feel the psychological trauma inflicted on them through Canada’s residential schools. The last such facility designed for assimilation, in Saskatchewan, closed in 1996, she said, and many former students died when they were still young. Depression, chronic alcoholism, drug abuse, suicide, and degenerative diseases remain common problems among survivors.

At the Historic B.C. Cafe, Patsey recalled years he spent trying to suppress memories of his time at a residential school outside Edmonton.

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NEW YORK
Troy Record

Clifton Park >> A Catholic priest arrested in April pleaded guilty Wednesday afternoon in Clifton Park Town Court to one count of endangering the welfare of a child.

Dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, and dark tie, Rev. James Michael Taylor, 30, stood with his attorney before Judge James Hughes and calmly and clearly said, “Guilty, your honor” when Hughes asked for his plea.

Taylor, who was a youth minister at Corpus Christi Church in Clifton Park at the time of the incident, was arrested in April, accused of engaging in inappropriate conduct with a 15-year-old Clifton Park girl. He is said to have met the girl while serving as deacon and leader of the church’s youth ministry program. Taylor is said to have had physical contact but not forced contact, and shared telephone calls, text messages, and inappropriate photos with the girl.

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NEW YORK
Albany Times Union

By Robert Gavin

Clifton Park

A Niskayuna priest who carried on a seven-month relationship with a 15-year-old girl admitted he endangered the minor Wednesday — but will spend no time behind bars.

The Rev. James Michael Taylor, who was serving as an associate pastor at St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish in Niskayuna, pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a child, a misdemeanor that carries no more than a year in jail.

But Taylor, 30, known as “Father Michael,” will receive no jail time when he is sentenced Oct. 8, according to people familiar with the case.

A five-year order of protection prevents Taylor from contacting the victim.

Saratoga County District Attorney James A. Murphy III said via Twitter that the victim was satisfied with the conviction and it serves justice. Murphy noted it was not a plea bargain, and Taylor pleaded guilty to the charge he faced.

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NEW MEXICO
Dow Jones & Company

Diocese of Gallup Seeks More Time to Reach Deal With Victims

Tom Corrigan
August 13, 2014

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Gallup, N.M., has asked a federal judge for an additional eight months under bankruptcy-court protection to continue negotiations with more than 100 individuals who allege they were sexually abused by clergy members.

The church’s exclusivity period, during which sexual-abuse claimants or others are barred from filing their own reorganization proposals, is set to expire Sept. 8.

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

BY SARAH MACDONALD – 14 AUGUST 2014

Cardinal Sean Brady was the only churchman from Ireland or Britain at the conclave that elected Pope Francis in March 2013.

Highly regarded in the Catholic Church, the revelation that he was linked to the cover-up of child sex abuse in the 1970s was the first time he had faced major criticism from the faithful.

Dr Brady was ordained a priest in 1964, after studying for the priesthood in Maynooth and Rome. As a seminarian he played at minor football for Cavan in GAA football and was even selected for senior level. However, he had to pass it up when he was sent to Rome to study for a doctorate in canon law.

In 1975, he was present when children signed a vow of silence after they accused paedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth of sexually abusing them.

Smyth continued abusing children and was not jailed until 1994.

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

BY SARAH MACDONALD – 14 AUGUST 2014

Pope Francis is expected to accept the resignation of Cardinal Sean Brady as Primate of All Ireland in the coming months.

The leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland wrote to the Vatican several weeks ago indicating that he is prepared to step down, it has been learned.

The decision by Cardinal Brady, who became Primate in 1996, to submit his notice almost a month before his birthday has been seen as surprising in religious circles.

Cardinal Brady, who turns 75 on Saturday, does not automatically abdicate the role as he can only retire with the Pope’s permission.

A spokesperson for the Catholic Communications Office confirmed: “When Pope Francis accepts the retirement, Coadjutor Archbishop Eamon Martin will become Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland.”

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Michael Kelly
Published 14/08/2014

As Cardinal Sean Brady sends his retirement letter to Pope Francis this week, he’ll surely breathe a sigh of relief – and hope it’ll be swiftly accepted.

As Primate of All Ireland for almost 20 years, he has been responsible for guiding the Catholic Church through some of its darkest days and most turbulent times. It has rarely been out of choppy waters and often on the rocks.

He has been the subject of sharp criticism and intense anger from many people over his own failures in the case of the notorious abuser-priest Brendan Smyth.

Dr Brady has stubbornly resisted calls for his resignation over his failure to save further victims by reporting Smyth’s crimes to the police.

Dr Brady and his supporters point out that he was only a note-taker during the canon law investigation into Smyth, that his role was periphery. But that misses the point: as Archbishop of Armagh he presented himself as the leader of a church which had learnt the lessons of the past and had cleaned up its act on child abuse. Yet, every time the cardinal appeared, he was a potent – and for survivors, a painful – reminder of a corrupt church culture which put the avoidance of scandal and the reputation of the church ahead of the rights of children.

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MINNESOTA/WASHINGTON
Pioneer Press

A former minister from Minnesota wanted on child-molestation charges reportedly was spotted Wednesday in Washington state.

Victor Arden Barnard, 52, was charged in April in Pine County (Minn.) District Court with 59 counts of criminal sexual conduct. Barnard, who led a cult-like religious sect, is accused of abusing numerous girls and young women who lived apart from their families at the congregation’s compound in northern Pine County.

According to a news release from the Washington State Patrol, a witness reported seeing Barnard leaving a McDonald’s restaurant Wednesday in Raymond, in western Washington, heading toward the city of Aberdeen.

The patrol said that Barnard was believed to be driving a dark blue, two-door Audi with tinted windows and a spoiler and that he had a female passenger. Additional information placed Barnard in the Raymond and Aberdeen areas for about the previous week, the patrol said.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

Jane Walsh @irishcentral August 14,2014

Beloved Irish star Brendan Gleeson revealed, on US national radio, that he was molested by a Christian Brother as a young boy, in school.

Gleeson, who is in the United States to promote the movie “Calvary” said a brother had “dropped the hand” on him once but that he was not traumatized by it and never told his parents.

He told National Public Radio’s Bob Edward’s Weekend show it was “just one of those things where something odd happened.”

He said “Yeah, it’s odd…I remember a particular Christian Brother dropped the hand on me at one point. It wasn’t very traumatic and it wasn’t at all sustained, it was just one of these things where something odd happened.

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

Aug 14, 2014 By Stuart Macdonald

BISHOP Joseph Toal told a court that Father Matthew Despard rigged up a device to shower “liquid or powder” on anyone who opened one of the doors.

A CATHOLIC bishop yesterday accused a rebel priest of booby-trapping a church house.

Bishop Joseph Toal told a court that Father Matthew Despard rigged up a device to shower “liquid or powder” on anyone who opened one of the doors.

It’s the latest bizarre twist in the long battle between Despard and Toal over a book the priest wrote alleging that a gay mafia were operating at the top of the Church.

Bishop of Motherwell Toal removed Despard from his parish last year over the book and ordered him to get out of the parish house. But Despard refused to leave and Toal is taking court action to evict him.

Toal told Hamilton Sheriff Court that the booby trap was found in January by the priest he appointed to replace Despard at St John Ogilvie church in High Blantyre, Lanarkshire.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Thursday 14 August 2014

A Bishop has claimed a priest at the centre of a row with the Catholic Church booby-trapped his parish house.

Father Matthew Despard refused to leave his home at St John Ogilvie in High Blantyre, South Lanarkshire, despite being ordered out by the Bishop of Motherwell, Joseph Toal.

He had been suspended by senior church figures after writing a controversial book alleging a gay mafia was operating in the Catholic clergy.

Bishop Toal ordered Fr Despard to leave the house in November 2013 after disciplinary measures were taken against him, but the priest refused to comply.

The Church took legal action against him and yesterday a civil hearing at Hamilton Sheriff Court heard Bishop Toal allege a hidden device that let out liquid had been placed near a door in the property.

Father William Nolan was appointed to replace Fr Despard at the parish, and it was claimed he discovered the device in January this year.

Bishop Toal said: “My memory is that there was some door that once you got it open, some sort of liquid or powder would come down on the person who opened it.

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MARYLAND
WUSA

GAITHERSBURG, Md. (WUSA9) — A former Montgomery County megachurch leader will be sentenced Thursday for sexually abusing three boys in the 1980s and 1990s.

Nathaniel “Nate” Morales was found guilty on three counts of sexual abuse of a minor and two more counts of sexual offense in the second degree in May.

He was a youth leader at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg when he sexually abused boy at group sleepovers and in their homes from 1983-1991.

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AUSTRALIA
Pro Bono

Thursday, August 14, 2014

A submission from the Catholic Church’s Truth Justice and Healing Council to the child abuse Royal Commission has called for a mandatory national victims’ redress scheme operated by Government but funded by the institutions responsible for the abuse.

CEO of the Truth Justice and Healing Council, Francis Sullivan, said the scheme needed to be non-adversarial, low cost to claimants and provide just, compassionate and fair compensation for victims.

“The days of the Catholic Church investigating itself are over,” Sullivan said.

“For the sake of the survivors of clerical sexual abuse within the Church and all other institutions the development of an independent national victims’ redress scheme is a giant step forward in delivering justice for people suffering the devastating impacts of child sexual abuse.

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NEW YORK
The New York Times

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
AUG. 13, 2014

Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a bill last week that adds compensated public school coaches to the list of professionals, including teachers, required to report to authorities suspected cases of child sexual abuse and other maltreatment. This leaves uncovered some (but not all) private and parochial school coaches, volunteer coaches and college-level coaches. And it does nothing to elevate New York’s low ranking when it comes to providing justice to the victims of child sexual abuse. That shabby distinction is directly related to the state’s failure to extend its severely short statute of limitations in child-sexual-abuse cases.

Serious abuse cases involving institutions like Yeshiva University High School for Boys, Horace Mann and Penn State show that it can take years before victims are emotionally and psychologically ready to come forward. Many states have made changes to better align their statutes of limitation with that practical reality. But not New York, where people have just until age 23 in most circumstances to bring a claim against their abusers.

By comparison, Hawaii, in 2012, extended its time limit for civil lawsuits by child victims from 20 to the age of 26, or to three years from the time the victim realizes the abuse caused harm. The Hawaii reform also created a two-year window to allow victims to file claims even if the statute of limitations under the old law had expired. Hawaii lawmakers recently tacked on another two-year window. And, just a few week ago, the Massachusetts governor, Deval Patrick, signed a law raising the limit for filing civil lawsuits against abusers from age 21 to 53.

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CANADA
Daily Courier

CRANBROOK, B.C. – Two leaders of an isolated religious commune in British Columbia have been charged for the second time with practising polygamy, more than two decades after allegations of multiple marriage, sexual abuse and cross-border child trafficking first attracted the attention of the outside world.

Winston Blackmore and James Oler, who lead separate factions in a community known as Bountiful, were each charged Wednesday with one count of polygamy. Blackmore is accused of having 24 marriages, while Oler is accused of four.

Oler is also charged along with two others — Brandon Blackmore and Emily Crossfield — with unlawfully removing a child from Canada for sexual purposes.

The charges are the latest step in a series of investigations and failed attempts at prosecutions dating back to the early 1990s involving Bountiful, which follows a fundamentalist form of Mormonism.

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TEXAS
KVUE

ORANGE – Day two of testimony is under way in the sentencing of a former youth pastor who pleaded guilty to sexual assault of a child.

Joshua Luke McDonald, 37, of Bridge City, was indicted in February on six counts of aggravated sexual assault. He pleaded guilty in June, admitting to having sexual relations with two victims under the age of 17.

McDonald asked that he be sentenced by a jury.

The state has rested and the defense began its side Tuesday morning. McDonald’s attorney told jurors about his client, saying, “in his short young life he’s helped a lot of people but made a mistake.”

Some supporters of McDonald cried as they heard testimony from a sex offender treatment counselor.

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CANADA
The Catholic Register

BY MICHAEL SWAN, THE CATHOLIC REGISTER

August 13, 2014

Two months after the OPP seized a computer from St. Patrick’s parish in Caledonia, Ont., looking for child porn, police have returned the computer and closed the investigation — no child porn, just annoying pop-up advertising the computer’s firewalls were not equipped to block.

St. Patrick’s pastor Fr. Mario Fernandes lived and ministered under a cloud for two months while the Ontario Provincial Police’s Child Sexual Exploitation Section investigated.

“It was very stressful,” Fernandes told The Catholic Register. “When people label you for no reason when you’re not involved in that sort of thing, and here the whole town is concerned about that.”

But two months is lightning fast when it comes to computer crimes and sexual exploitation, said investigating officer Doug Rees.

“Usually an investigation goes 12 to 18 months,” he said. “Because it’s computers and it’s forensics.”
The OPP went out of its way to let Caledonia residents know they had cleared Fernandes.

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NORTH CAROLINA
ABC 13

A Yancey County man is out on bond after being arrested over the weekend on a felony charge of taking indecent liberties with a minor.

Sheriff’s Detective Brian Shuford says Brandon Wayne Bailey, 49, paid the $25,000 bond he was being held on. Last week, Shuford says a minor came forward alleging he was inappropriately touched by Bailey during a private music lesson at his home along Highway 197 in Green Mountain.

Bailey was formerly employed at Higgins Memorial United Methodist Church, where he helped lead musical worships. Lead Pastor Wes Sharp says Bailey resigned from his position Friday, before being arrested Saturday.

“I would like to say my personal prayers and those of our people here at Higgins are for Brandon, a very valued person, employee and servant, for the alleged victim and for his or her family,” says Sharp.

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MINNESOTA/WASHINGTON
Fox 9

Updated: Aug 13, 2014

posted by Shelby Capaci

Authorities in the state of Washington may be closing in on a cult leader who was charged with 59 counts of criminal sexual conduct involving minors after two victims came forward to say he raped them.

According to the Washington State Patrol, a credible tip on the location of 52-year-old Victor Barnard came in on Wednesday. Police say Barnard was apparently spotted leaving a McDonald’s restaurant on SR 101, and additional information leads them to believe he has been in the Aberdeen and Raymond areas of Grays Harbor County recently. Now, they’re hoping members of the public will help find him.

Troopers say the car Barnard is believed to be traveling in is a dark blue, 2-door Audi with tinted windows and a spoiler. He apparently departed toward Aberdeen with a young white woman in the vehicle. Anyone with information on his whereabouts is urged to call 911.

A nationwide warrant was issued for his arrest on April 11 after he was charged with 59 counts of criminal sexual conduct involving minors. The case had been inactive until a Fox 9 Investigation brought the stories of Lindsey Tornambie and Jess Schweiss to light at the end of February.

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MONTANA
Ravalli Republic

By LISA BAUMANN Associated Press

HELENA – Settlement talks earlier this month between the Ursuline Sisters of the Western Province and hundreds of people who claim they were sexually abused by priests and nuns have failed, attorneys said Wednesday.

Molly Howard, an attorney for some of the plaintiffs, filed a report Tuesday in Lewis and Clark County District Court saying the parties were unable to resolve the case through discussions ordered by Judge Jeffrey Sherlock in June. It was the third attempt at a settlement between the parties with a mediator involved, Howard said.

“We didn’t have a lot of confidence,” Howard said of the talks. “This was unsuccessful.”

Ursulines attorney Thomas Johnson said the two sides remain fairly far apart although the nuns were able to bring more money to the table after a lender said they’d put up money against the Ursulines property.

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NEW YORK
Fox 23

[with video]

CLIFTON PARK, N.Y. – A guilty plea was entered in Clifton Town Park Court Wednesday by a priest accused of endangering the welfare of a child.

James Michael Taylor, 30, also known as Father Michael, will not serve jail time nor be placed on probation as part of the plea.

Saratoga County Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Buckley said the DA’s office only asked for a five-year order of protection in court Wednesday. She said it was per the victim’s family’s request.

The Saratoga County Sheriff said Taylor was having an inappropriate relationship with a 15-year-old Clifton Park girl since October 2013. The behavior allegedly included physical contact, telephone calls, text messages and photos.

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DELAWARE
The New Journal

Beth Miller, The News Journal August 14, 2014

The Catholic Diocese of Wilmington paid $15.8 million in fees and expenses to lawyers, financial advisers and other professionals involved in its 2011 bankruptcy, according to its final report filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court this week.

As other dioceses have done around the nation, the Diocese of Wilmington sought Chapter 11 protection in 2009 after a flood of civil lawsuits were filed by survivors of clergy sexual abuse under provisions of Delaware’s 2007 Child Victim’s Act.

The 2007 law opened a two-year window for child sexual abuse cases that would otherwise have been barred by the statute of limitations.

The diocese emerged from bankruptcy in 2011, paying $77.4 million into a trust fund to resolve all claims by abuse survivors and another $10 million into a pension fund for lay employees that was found to be underfunded during financial disclosures.

Several religious orders throughout the diocese – the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, the Brothers of the Holy Cross, the Capuchins – also settled cases by adding to the trust fund, which eventually totaled about $110 million.

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MINNESOTA
Fox 9

Documents made public Monday by attorneys attempting to make the case that the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis is a public nuisance suggest Archbishop John Nienstedt gave false statements under oath about a priest who was accused of abusing minors.

The documents released by St. Paul attorney Jeff Anderson show that each year, Nienstedt was updated on Father Kenneth LaVan’s continuing work and approved of it as recently as one year ago. Yet, in a sworn deposition on April 2, Nienstedt claimed he did not know until March of this year that the priest accused of sexually assaulting at least one 16-year-old girl in the 1980s was still active in ministry.

“I was not aware that he was publicly in ministry,” Nienstedt said of LaVan, “and as soon as I realized it, I had his faculties removed.”

While Nienstedt contends he learned of LaVan’s continuing ministry during a review of clergy files ordered by the archdiocese, attorneys at Anderson’s law office tell a different story — one that alleges LaVan was removed to keep the case from surfacing amid increased media attention on the growing clergy sexual abuse scandal. Memos from 20 years ago show top church officials took steps to ensure the problem would not “blow up.” In fact, some of the documents released Monday expose conversations between top church officials over allegations of harassment, sexual misconduct with married parishioners, “lavish” expenditures on lovers, and a diagnosis of “compulsive sexuality.”

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NEW YORK
Niskayuna

Probation awaits the Rev. James Michael Taylor after he admitted child endangerment — a charge stemming from sexual contact he had with a 15-year-old girl while serving as a youth minister at Corpus Christi Church in Clifton Park.

Taylor, 30, pleaded guilty to the one misdemeanor count in Clifton Park Wednesday afternoon with the understanding that he won’t face any jail time. Instead, he will have a five-year order of protection placed on him that will prevent him from having any contact with the girl.

Taylor, who was suspended by the Albany Roman Catholic Diocese after being charged in April, did not make any statement following the plea and will face sentencing Oct. 8. Defense attorney Daniel Stewart said his client admitted to the count in part to prevent the girl from having to testify.

“The purpose [of this plea] obviously is to accept responsibility for his conduct, to minimize the impact on the victim and to move on with his life,” Stewart said after the proceedings.

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UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

The Redemptorist Order (founded by St. Alphonsus Ligouri) who administers the famous shrine of St. Anne de Beaupre (built in 1926) near Quebec City is to pay $20 million dollars to the victims of its bestial pedophile priests (see news below). “It’s a landmark settlement,” said Robert Kugler, the lawyer representing victims in a class-action lawsuit. “It’s the most that has ever been paid in the settlement of a sexual abuse class action in the history of Quebec.”

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IRELAND
Huffington Post

By Antonia Blumberg

Irish singer Sinead O’Connor has no faith in Catholic Church reforms under Pope Francis, she told Billboard in an interview for the August 16 issue.

“I find it quite laughable that they’re talking about revolutionizing the church when, in fact, they’re equating female ordination and pedophilia,“ the singer said. “When you consider that, it shows you how little they think of children and the rape of children.”

In July 2010 the Vatican added a provision to what was intended to be a sweeping reform that would once and for all address the ongoing sex abuses in the church. The new rules included procedures for defrocking priests for sex abuses under canon law and extended the period during which trials could take place in a church court from 10 to 20 years after the 18th birthday of his victim.

Much to the dismay of many Catholics, the Vatican added a provision to the document that made the “attempted ordination” of women one of the “gravest offenses a priest can commit” — essentially putting it on par with sexual abuse.

O’Connor has criticized the Catholic Church over the years for sex abuses and coverups, but she said she doesn’t blame the incumbent pope personally.

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NEW YORK
CBS 6

[with video]

Updated: Wednesday, August 13 2014

CLIFTON PARK – A local priest has pleaded guilty to endangering the welfare of a child after having inappropriate contact with a Saratoga County teen.

Prosecutors say James Michael Taylor exchanged phone calls, text messages and pictures with a 15-year-old girl between October 2013 and April 2014.

Taylor met the victim while serving as Deacon and Youth Minister for the Corpus Christi Church in Round Lake. The Albany Catholic Diocese says that Taylor will remain on leave, pending a review from Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany’s Sexual Misconduct Review Board.

While that process is ongoing, a spokesperson from the Diocese tells CBS6, “While on administrative leave, he is not permitted to publicly present himself as a priest, celebrate the sacraments or wear clerical garb.”

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NEW YORK
Time Warner Cable News

SARATOGA COUNTY, N.Y. — An area priest accused of texting and having physical contact with a 15-year-old girl pleads guilty in Saratoga County Court.

James Michael Taylor, 30, who went by Father Michael, plead guilty to endangering the welfare of a child.

Deputies say the incidents happened between October 2013 and April of this year while he was a Deacon and youth minister for the Corpus Christi Church in Clifton Park.

Investigators say Taylor’s relationship with the girl involved physical contact, text messages, and photos.

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NEW YORK
Albany Times Union

By Robert Gavin
Updated 4:42 pm, Wednesday, August 13, 2014

CLIFTON PARK — A Roman Catholic priest pleaded guilty Wednesday to a misdemeanor endangerment charge and will not have to serve jail time.

The Rev. James Michael Taylor appeared in Clifton Park Town Court. He is to be sentenced in October.

Taylor was accused of engaging in physical contact and shared phone calls, text messages and pictures with a 15-year-old girl he met when he served as a deacon and youth minister at Corpus Christi Church in Clifton Park.

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CHILE
New York Daily News

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

BY CAROL KURUVILLA

The Chilean Catholic church is punishing an alleged baby-stealing priest by sending him to Spain for a period of “reflection.”

The church confirmed Tuesday that Father Gerardo Joannon “actively participated” in the forced adoptions of at least two babies, who were snatched from their unwed single mothers more than thirty years ago and handed off to married couples who raised them in traditional Catholic families. Joannon was also allegedly engaged in an “inappropriate relationship” with one mother.

But since so much time has passed, church officials have chosen to send Joannon to Madrid in October “to initiate a process of psychological and spiritual accompaniment,” the Catholic News Service reports. Joannon will not have any pastoral responsibilities during his time in Spain.

Officials from Chile’s child protection agency have urged the Chilean church to keep the priest inside the country to “clarify the truth in this case.”

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FLORIDA
News 13

By Amanda McKenzie, Reporter
Last Updated: Wednesday, August 13, 2014

ORLANDO —
A 52-year-old Orange County man has filed a legal complaint against the Catholic Diocese of Orlando, claiming he was sexually abused by a priest in Seminole County over 35 years ago.

The victim’s 13-page complaint, dated Monday, details years of sexual abuse at the hands of Father William Authenrieth, then an associate pastor at All Souls Catholic Church in Sanford, where the plaintiff served as an altar boy.

According to the plaintiff, identified only as “GS Doe” in the complaint to protect his privacy, the alleged abuse took place between January 1976 and July 1978, while he was in sixth- to eighth-grade. The incidents happened in the church’s sacristy and the priest’s living quarters.

The complaint said Father Authenrieth convinced the victim that “sexual contact between a child and a priest was completely normal.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

AUGUST 14, 2014

Dan Box
Crime Reporter
Sydney

THE Catholic Church’s decision to renounce its support for unlimited financial compensation for child sexual abuse has ­provoked a furious response from victims, with the national lawyers’ body also describing the proposals as “bullying”.

In a submission to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse this week, the church contradicted its previous calls for an ­independent national body able to award uncapped payments to victims.

The Australian Lawyers Alliance criticised the submission, which said payments should be capped “in line with community standards” and that victims who accept such compensation should surrender their right to sue the church, describing it as “extremely flawed”.

National president Andrew Stone was concerned about the suggestion that any scheme could reduce the role played by lawyers.

“No lawyers is code for church power over victims,” Mr Stone said.

“This is exactly the sort of bullying behaviour that occurred in the past.”

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CHILE
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, August 13, 2014

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

A Chilean priest who Catholic officials say stole babies from their mothers (claiming that the infants were dead) says he’ll return from Spain to face criminal charges if they are filed against him. We believe Father Alex Vigueras is lying.

We also think this Chilean priest is lying when he says he was trying to stop abortions. We believe he was motivated by greed. Evidence in Spain suggests that priests and nuns there stole babies from mothers for financial gain.

We suspect this was true in Chile too.

Catholic officials in either Spain or Chile should insist that this abusive priest live in a treatment center until he is quickly defrocked and harshly denounced by the church hierarchy.

We hope that every single person who has seen, suspected or suffered crimes or misdeeds by Fr.Gerardo Joannon or his church colleagues or supervisors will contact law enforcement, get help, expose wrongdoers, and start healing.

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NEW YORK
The Jewish Week

08/13/14
Amy Sara Clark
Staff Writer

When Kenneth Thompson unseated longtime Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes last November, advocates for Jewish victims of sex abuse were jubilant.

But, despite Thompson’s release last week of the names of 20 defendants in sex abuse cases that his predecessor had refused to unveil, in the months since Thompson has taken office the optimism advocates and victims initially felt has, for some, turned to disappointment.

Thompson campaigned on a platform of reform, including promising to more vigorously prosecute sex abuse cases than his predecessor, who is accused of dragging his feet on those cases to win the support of Brooklyn’s charedi leaders, who prefer to handle the claims internally.

But survivors and their advocates have decidedly mixed reviews of Thompson so far.

Ben Hirsch, co-founder of Survivors for Justice, an organization that advocates and educates on issues related to child safety, has been critical of Thompson’s tenure to date. He points to the DA’s plea bargain that led to no jail time for a man who threw bleach in the face of a prominent victim’s advocate as sending a message that he’s not going to go after people who try to intimidate victims and their advocates into not testifying.

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NEW YORK
Frum Follies

The blogger, Jewish Whistleblower stopped posting in 2005. But he’s continued to monitor abuse in the orthodox world, assiduously scouring press reports and court records. On a regular basis he shares important facts by commenting on Frum Follies and other blogs. His reporting of facts is consistently accurate and he’s alerted me to many things I did not know. — Yerachmiel Lopin

Guest Post by Jewish Whistleblower

Earlier this week Brooklyn DA Kenneth Thompson’s office released 20 names (of defendants in cases where former DA Hynes refused to divulge the names because they involved Orthodox Jewish suspects and/or victims) to Sue Edelman of the New York Post. 14 of those names have yet to be publicly reported.

[New York Post]

Today we learned from the NY Jewish Week that the DA’s office claims that “Since January, Thompson’s office has arrested seven people accused of sexual abuse in the Orthodox Jewish community”.

[The Jewish Week]

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CHILE
Catholic Sentinel

Catholic News Service

SANTIAGO, Chile — The Catholic Church in Chile announced that Father Gerardo Joannon, a prominent Chilean priest, will be sent to a community in Madrid “to initiate a process of psychological and spiritual accompaniment” after his alleged involvement in a scandal of stolen newborn babies.

Father Alex Vigueras, provincial superior of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary in Chile, said Aug. 12 that an internal investigation conducted by the Archdiocese of Santiago concluded there is credible evidence that Father Joannon was involved in irregular adoptions during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship.

The case is already being investigated by Chilean Judge Mario Carroza, who is working to establish the extent of the network that stole newborn babies from single mothers to give them to married couples during the 1970s and 1980s.

The victims were unmarried women, generally from well-off families, who were pressured by their relatives to give up their child for adoption to avoid the social stigma of unmarried motherhood. If they refused to do so, they were led to believe that their baby had died during childbirth.

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

By ALEX HAMER Aug. 14, 2014

A COUNCIL representing the Catholic Church has outlined a new scheme to help victims of sex abuse, while also apologising for its past actions.

The Truth Justice and Healing Council submitted the plan to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Tuesday, and expects it would be rolled out nationally for any institution in which a child had been sexually abused.

The move would see capped compensation, counselling and more general support available to victims, even if they have already received money from the church in the past.

Ballarat abuse victim and advocate Andrew Collins said the plan was heartening, but it needed to be put in place as soon as possible.

“I think it’s very positive, definitely a turnaround from the church, but it needs to happen soon. There are still survivors out there whose lives are ending prematurely,” he said.

Mr Collins said the federal government should step in and put in the redress scheme before the Royal Commission handed down its report in 2017. While feeling positive of the idea, Mr Collins was critical of the council for putting a cap on payments, which it had previously rejected. “The cap on payments was the clincher. Previously they said they shouldn’t be there. (But) as long as those caps were in line for what people could expect, from what they could get from the courts, it would be acceptable,” he said.

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FLORIDA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, August 13, 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 new child sex abuse lawsuit has been filed against Fr. William Authenrieth who is apparently still alive and living in Massachusetts.

We urge Orlando Bishop John Noonan to urge his colleagues in Massachusetts to warn the public and their parishioners about Fr. Authenrieth, who has been accused of or sued for child sex crimes at least five times. That’s the least Noonan can do to protect children. (After all, Florida Catholic officials recruited, educated, hired, trained, shielded and transferred Fr. Authenrieth. They can’t simply suspend him from parish work and do nothing more to seek out those he has hurt and safeguard those he may hurt.)

Some might argue that, given his age (about 80), Fr. Authenrieth isn’t likely assaulting children now. They would be wrong.

It takes only seconds for a man to shove his hands down a boy’s pants or his tongue down a girl’s throat. And who would parents or kids trust more than an elderly, balding, stoop-shouldered, grandfatherly-looking figure?

It’s irresponsible for anyone to assume that because a child molester is older, he’s somehow safer.

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UNITED STATES
The Other Journal

by David Cramer & Jenny Howell & Jonathan Tran & Paul Martens on Monday, July 7, 2014

In the years following, some say preceding, the 1972 publication of his monumental The Politics of Jesus, the celebrated Christian ethicist John Howard Yoder emotionally manipulated and sexually violated numerous women.[1] Yoder’s conduct troubles us on multiple levels. Because these behaviors strike us as profoundly dissonant with the ways in which his thought has deeply influenced us, we spent the last year attempting to find out all we could about his actions and to reflect theologically on what we found. In this essay, we first report what we know about Yoder’s manipulations and violations and their histories at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary and the University of Notre Dame. Next we consider inconsistencies and consistencies between those behaviors and his theology. Finally, we utilize one aspect of his thought—his account of the fallen powers—to reevaluate his legacy in the terms of his theology.

Saying what we know is easy enough, because what we know with certainty remains minimal. Here is what we know, and we share it because it is important that readers of Yoder’s theology are aware of his conduct so that they can judge for themselves how to take his vision of Christian discipleship.

Initial reports put the number of women involved at around ten, but subsequent estimates have gone as high as one hundred. Yoder’s actions toward these women, including students, ranged from verbal sexual innuendo to physical sexual acts, including intercourse. Some commentators are convinced that these behaviors took place over most of his decades-long teaching career, whereas others believe they occurred during a fixed and much shorter period of time. In his interactions with these women, we understand that Yoder saw himself involved in a “grand noble experiment” with them even though some women use “harassment” and “abuse” to describe what he did to them.[2]

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NEW ZEALAND
The Tablet

13 August 2014 by Katherine Backler

The Vatican’s lead prosecutor on abuse cases has praised the media for keeping sex abuse cases in the public eye.

Mgr Robert Oliver, Promoter of Justice for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, told New Zealand’s Sunday Star-Times: “It’s hard for any group over time to keep up the kind of energy that’s needed to do this work. What the media has been doing was to keep that energy up.”

Mgr Oliver said that the Church had “much to seek reconciliation for … particularly in not listening to victims.”

He spoke of how meeting survivors of sex abuse reminds him of the importance of his work. “You realise what this does to people… how deeply harmed they are.”

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POLSKA
Gazeta Wyborcza

Michał Wilgocki 12.08.2014

SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests – dosłownie sieć współpracy ocalonych, którzy padli ofiarą nadużyć seksualnych ze strony księży) zrzesza ofiary księży pedofilów. Powstała w 1989 r., w USA ma swoich przedstawicieli w 56 krajach, m.in. w Australii, Peru, Kanadzie, Argentynie. Zbiera informacje na temat osób molestowanych przez księży. Walczy też o odszkodowania. Skutecznie. Za jej sprawą w USA zbankrutowało 11 diecezji. Ostatnia w Los Angeles na początku tego roku.

Wypłacane przez nią odszkodowania idą w setki milionów dolarów. Organizacja współpracowała także z ONZ podczas przesłuchań przedstawicieli Watykanu w Genewie w 2014 r., kiedy tłumaczyli się z pedofilii w szeregach Kościoła – przed Komitetem przeciwko Torturom i Komitetem ds. Praw Dziecka.

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POLAND
The News

The largest international organisation devoted to aiding victims of Church child abuse and exposing paedophile priests is setting up branches in Poland.

SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests), which was founded in the US in 1989, currently has representatives in 56 countries.

“We want to appoint a local [SNAP] leader in every diocese or region,” said Maria Mucha, who is setting up the organisation’s Polish network, in an interview with the Gazeta Wyborcza daily.

She added that each leader will “gather information about victims and perpetrators.
“You have to collect it locally, as that is the most effective method,” she argued.

In recent years, SNAP campaigns have led to the bankruptcy of 11 US dioceses owing to compensation cases involving child abuse victims.

This June, leading Polish archbishops held a penitential mass in Krakow for the sins of clergymen guilty of child abuse.

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LOUISIANA
KATC

Following a KATC investigation piece last night, a support group for those abused by priests is calling for Lafayette’s bishop to release the names of those priests with credible accusations against them.

According to David Clohessy, Executive Director of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests), releasing the names would both protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded. He argues that parents will be able to better protect their children from predators if they know who the predators are.

“We are disappointed in Lafayette’s Catholic bishop and its district attorney. The bishop won’t release the names of 15 credibly accused predator priests and the D.A. won’t even ask the bishop for them. What an irresponsible decision by both men,” says Clohessy.

He says after a pledge by bishops to be more open and transparent, roughly 30 U.S. bishops posted names of suspected abusive priests on their websites.

“If even one of these 15 credibly accused sex offenders is alive, let’s err on the side of safety. If he is too dangerous to put on the job in a parish, then he’s too dangerous to live among unsuspecting single mothers in an apartment complex, teach piano lessons in his home, be a volunteer tutor, coach basketball, or babysit his nieces,” says Clohessy.

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LOUISIANA
The Advertiser

Claire Taylor August 13, 2014

A national group of priest sex abuse victims is calling on Bishop Michael Jarrell and District Attorney Mike Harson to release the names of 15 credibly accused priests.

The Daily Advertiser was first to report that Jarrell, bishop of the Diocese of Lafayette, refused to release the names of the 15 priests.

Jarrell acknowledged in 2004 and again to The Advertiser on July 31 that the Diocese and its insurers had paid $26 million in settlements to the victims of 15 priests. But he told The Advertiser he “sees no purpose” in releasing the priests’ names.

The Advertiser asked Harson last week if he would request, demand or subpoena the names from the Diocese. In a response Monday, Harson said he would not investigate unless a victim stepped forward who was willing to pursue the case.

“What an irresponsible decision by both men,” David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said in a statement today. “We hope both men will reconsider.”

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TENNESSEE
Road to Recovery

August 13, 2014

MEDIA RELEASE

Advocacy organization to shed light on sexual abuse by nuns during annual convention

New York-based nun organization ignores pleas of sexual abuse victim

What: A demonstration and leafleting regarding the sexual abuse of a young girl by a nun and the injustice of the religious order of nuns toward the sexual abuse victim.

Where: On the sidewalk outside the Courtyard by Marriott at Opryland Hotel, 125 Music City Circle, Nashville, TN.

When: Thursday, August 14, 2014 from 8:00 AM until dark

Friday, August 15, 2014 from 8:00 AM until Noon

Who: Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., co-founder and President of Road to Recovery, Inc., anon-profit charity that assists victims of sexual abuse and advocate for Cecilia Springer, a sexual abuse victim of a nun who has been ignored by the nuns in whose school she was sexually abused.

Why: American Catholic nuns have done little to address and resolve cases of sexual abuse by nuns. They have refused to allow victims to address them at their annual conventions, and the 2014 convention is no different. The demonstration and leafleting will shed light on one claim that is emblematic of all the others. A young girl, Cecilia Springer, was sexually abused by a nun at a New York City Catholic girls’ high school, reported the abuse to the school and the nuns who run the school, and they told Cecilia Springer to take a hike. Cecilia Springer is over 80 years of age, spent time as a nun, taught at the school where she was abused, and now demands justice from the Sisters of Saint Ursula and Notre Dame School, New York City. The leaders of the Sisters of Saint Ursula most likely are in Nashville this week and must come to their moral senses in dealing with the sexual abuse claim of Cecilia Springer.

Contacts: Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., Road to Recovery, Inc., 862-368-2800
Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, Boston, MA – 617-523-6250

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
Road to Recovery

SHAME ON THE SISTERS OF SAINT URSULA OF NEW YORK CITY

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), a national organization of nuns, is meeting this week here in Nashville, TN. The LCWR will once again ignore a critical issue during its convention; namely, the sexual abuse of children, teenagers, and vulnerable adults by nuns.

One such case of sexual abuse by nuns comes out of New York City. The Sisters of Saint Ursula is a religious community of nuns with a regional center in Manhattan, New York City. For the past few years, the Sisters of Saint Ursula have ignored the pleas for help from a former nun from their religious order. Her name is Cecilia Springer, and she is nearly 85 years old. She was a nun for decades, and she was sexually abused by her high school Principal as a minor child.

In 1946, Cecilia Springer was a high school sophomore at Notre Dame School in Manhattan, New York City, when her Principal, Sister Mary Andrew, SU (aka Sr. Frances Doyle) followed her up the staircase from the lunch room and sexually assaulted her by embracing and kissing her on the lips on more than once occasion. At least one other classmate of Cecilia has reported a similar assault. Cecilia reported the sexual abuse to the leaders of Notre Dame School and the Sisters of Saint Ursula, who are most likely here this week in Nashville, but they have refused to help Cecilia Springer heal by acknowledging her claim of sexual abuse or providing her with resources that will help her live a more stress-free life.

Over a year ago, Cecilia Springer and her attorney met with representatives of Notre Dame School, the Sisters of Saint Ursula, and their attorney and told the story of having been sexually abused by Sister Mary Andrew, SU (aka Sister Frances Doyle). Following the meeting, Notre Dame School and the Sisters of Saint Ursula told Cecilia Springer to take a hike.

It is probable that leaders of the Sisters of Saint Ursula and Notre Dame School are here this week to partake in the deliberations of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. It is ironic that Sister Mary Dolan, SU, the regional superior (Provincial) of the Sisters of Saint Ursula, would be here among leaders because she has ignored Cecilia Springer. Sister Mary Dolan, SU, was an elementary school student of Cecilia Springer many years ago when Cecilia Springer was a teacher. Sister Mary Dolan is urged this week to come to her moral senses and respond to the sexual abuse claim of Cecilia Springer.

Sister Virginia O’Brien, SU, is the President of Notre Dame School. Perhaps she is here this week as well, and she has the opportunity to do the right thing and care for a former Notre Dame School student, teacher, alumna, and nun. It is our hope that Sister Mary Dolan and Sister Virginia O’Brien will be impressed by the discussions on topics such as justice and truth and act compassionately toward Cecilia Springer.

CONTACTS: Robert M. Hoatson, Advocate for Cecilia Springer, and President of Road
to Recovery, Inc., Livingston, NJ – 862-368-2800
Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, Boston MA – 617-523-6250

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FLORIDA
WFTV

ORLANDO, Fla. — A new clergy sex abuse lawsuit was filed against the Diocese of Orlando.
The plaintiff claims he was abused in a parish in Sanford in the 1970s.

The alleged victim is an adult. His attorney said he’s lived with the shame his entire life and is looking for justice.

This week, the unnamed plaintiff filed a lawsuit against the Diocese of Orlando for the alleged abuse that happened when the victim was a teenager.

Attorney Adam Horowitz said this is the fifth lawsuit he’s filed against Father William Authenrieth, who is living in a retirement community in Massachusetts. However it’s the seventh lawsuit filed against Authenrieth in all.

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

FLORIDA
ClickOrlando

[with video]

ORLANDO, Fla. –
A new sex abuse and coverup lawsuit was filed Wednesday against Bishop John Gerard Noonan and the Diocese of Orlando.

According to the lawsuit, a now 52-year-old man was sexually abused by Fr. William Authenrieth at All Souls in Sanford Parish in the mid- to late 1970s. The plaintiff was a 13-year-old altar boy when the sex abuse began, the lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit claims that Authenrieth engaged the boy in various types of sexual activity and gave him money, threatening him if he ever told anyone.

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FLORIDA
Orlando Sentinel

By Jeff Kunerth, Orlando Sentinel
11:50 am, August 13, 2014

Following Pope Francis’ statement last month that it’s time for the Catholic Church to make reparations to its victims, a 52-year-old Orlando man has filed a lawsuit against the Orlando Catholic Diocese for sexual abuse by a priest in the 1970s.

The Pope’s statement is important only if it is carried out by the local diocese, attorney Adam Horowitz said at a press conference this morning.

The lawsuit, filed against the Orlando Catholic Bishop John Noonan, alleges that the Orlando man was sexually abused by Father William Authenrieth as a 13-year-old altar boy at All Souls Catholic Church in Sanford.

Horowitz said he believes this is the seven lawsuit against the Diocese based on the actions of Authenrieth, who has admitted he molested boys while a priest.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Berger’s Beat

…”Find a suitable cover story and get him into an in-patient program. . . so that this thing doesn’t blow up.” That was then-Bishop Robert Carlson’s advice to his boss about predator priest Fr. Kenneth LaVern [LaVan], according to Minnesota Catholic church records. . .

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TEXAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, August 13, 2014

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

We applaud Cedar Park Chief of Police Sean Mannix for clarifying the Greg Kelley case.

It’s rare that a law enforcement official takes the time to explain the evidence and court process so thoroughly.

We understand why that’s rare: the job of the police is to catch those who commit crimes, not ”win over” those who side with criminals.

But this case is somewhat different, and very troubling.

It’s somewhat different because family and friends of an admitted, convicted child molester are vocally supporting him, even after a court of law found him guilty.

And it’s very troubling because this public rallying around him.

So we’re grateful to Chief Mannix for shedding more light on this case and explaining why Kelley’s backers are making the job of catching and prosecuting child sex offenders much tougher.

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

CHILE
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Aug. 13, 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)

Chilean Catholic officials admit that a priest who “was instrumental in the forced adoption of at least two babies without the knowledge of their mothers” will not be punished. Shame on them.

Let’s put this as clearly and simply as possible: Fr. Gerardo Joannon stole children from their mothers through deceit, and Catholic officials acknowledge this fact.

As depraved as this is, it’s every bit as depraved that Catholic officials are doing nothing to punish Fr. Joannon. Shame on every member of the Catholic hierarchy who made or is silently tolerating this irresponsible, hurtful decision.

Fr. Joannon should be loudly and promptly drummed out of the priesthood.

Instead, Catholic officials are simply moving Fr. Joannon to Spain where, presumably he’ll be around unsuspecting and vulnerable families. (Catholic officials also admit that the priest had an “inappropriate relationship” with one mother.)

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CHILE
Chilevision

[con video]

La Congregación de los Sagrados Corazones dio a conocer una declaración pública sobre la actuación del sacerdote Gerardo Joannon en el caso de dos adopciones ilegales, las cuales fueron denunciadas en un reportaje de Ciper.

En el texto, que revela las principales conclusiones de la investigación canónica que realizó el Superior Provincial Alex Vigueras, sobre este tema, se sostiene que “Joannon participó activamente en ambos casos de adopciones irregulares. No es verosímil afirmar que el Dr. Monckeberg actuó por iniciativa propia en el caso de la hija de Andrés Rillón”.

Descarta que la motivación primera en ese caso fue evitar un aborto y que Joannon siempre supo que ambas guaguas no murieron al nacer.

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CHILE
IOL

Santiago – Chile’s Catholic church confirmed on Tuesday that a priest was instrumental in the forced adoption of at least two babies without the knowledge of their mothers, and had also maintained an “inappropriate relationship” with one mother.

Gerardo Joannon is being investigated judicially for illegally handing over an undetermined number of babies for adoption in the 1970s and 1980s, born to single mothers who were told the infants had died.

The priest has said the babies were removed mainly from middle-class women due to the stigma attached to unmarried mothers at that time in Chile’s Catholic society.

“The preliminary investigation has established the truth of the accusations… he always knew that both babies did not die,” said Alex Vigueras, a regional church head who is in charge of the probe into Joannon.

The priest even led masses for the supposedly dead children who he knew to still be living, Vigueras said.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Set forth below is Fr. Thomas P. Doyle, O.P.’s extremely important address on August 2, 2014 at SNAP’s 25th Anniversary Convention in Chicago.
______________________________________________________

A letter sent by the Vicar General of the Diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana to the papal nuncio in June, 1984, was the trigger that set in motion a series of events that has changed the fate of the victims of child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy and clergy of all denominations. The letter informed the nuncio that the Gastel family had decided to withdraw from a confidential monetary settlement with the diocese. It went on to say they had obtained the services of an attorney and planned to sue the diocese.

This long process has had a direct impact on much more than the fate of victims and the security of innocent children and vulnerable persons of any age. It has altered the image and role of the institutional Catholic Church in western society to such an extent that the tectonic plates upon which this Church rests have shifted in a way never expected or dreamed of thirty years ago.

I cannot find language that can adequately communicate the full import of this monstrous phenomenon. The image of a Christian Church that enabled the sexual and spiritual violation of its most vulnerable members and when confronted, responded with institutionalized mendacity and utter disregard for the victims cannot be adequately described as a “problem,” a “crisis” or a “scandal.” The widespread sexual violation of children and adults by clergy and the horrific response of the leadership, especially the bishops, is the present-day manifestation of a very dark and toxic dimension of the institutional Church. This dark side has always existed. In our era it has served as the catalyst for a complex and deeply rooted process that can be best described as a paradigm shift. The paradigm for responding to sexual abuse by clergy has shifted at its foundation. The paradigm for society’s understanding of and response to child sexual abuse had begun to shift with the advent of the feminist movement in the early seventies but was significantly accelerated by the mid-eighties. The paradigm of the institutional Church interacting in society has shifted and continues to do so as the forces demanding justice, honesty and accountability by the hierarchy continue their relentless pressure. The Catholic monolith, once accepted by friend and foe alike as a rock-solid monarchy, is crumbling.

The single most influential and forceful element in this complex historical process has not been the second Vatican Council. It has been the action of the victims of sexual abuse.

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ILLINOIS
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: John D. Fitzgerald was a priest of the Chicago archdiocese, ordained in 1933. His early career was spent in the Chancery, as a Metropolitan Tribunal official. In 1951 Fitzgerald settled into a pastorship of Ascension parish in Oak Park IL, where he spent the remainder of his career. One source notes his death to have been in 1984, but he is listed in the Official Catholic Directories through 1986. In 2005 a woman reported to the archdiocese that Fitzgerald sexually abused her in 1964, when she was a teenager and Ascension parishioner. The information was kept quiet until the woman spoke to the media in July 2014. The archdiocese acknowledged paying for the woman’s therapy.

Ordained: 1933
Died: Nov. 4, 1984?

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OHIO
Vindicator

Published: Wed, August 13, 2014

Staff report

Leaders of SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said they have written Bishop George V. Murry of the Diocese of Youngstown about having a public discussion on the issue of abuse by clergy.

David Clohessy of St. Louis, executive director of SNAP, indicated that the request was motivated in part by an email sent last week by SNAP, noting it had discovered a former deacon and teacher at two parochial schools in the diocese had lost his teaching license.

Ernest Formichelli, who taught at Cardinal Mooney High School from 1976-2013 and St. Christine School, 1971-76, had lost his teaching license, according to September 2013 minutes of the Ohio Board of Education.

Formichelli is no longer a deacon, and the state board “revoked permanently the five-year professional high school teaching license and permanent non-tax teaching certificate” of Formichelli.

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TEXAS
Fox 7

Cedar Park Police Chief Sean Mannix is not holding back when it comes to his feelings about the conviction of Greg Kelley and the movement to get that conviction overturned.

Mannix called Kelley supporters cult-like in an internal letter to his officers and said with each rally they are causing the victims’ families to be victimized all over again. That letter has since been made public.

The fight for GK supporters have held multiple rallies since Kelley’s conviction including one over the weekend and they will gather back here at the courthouse Wednesday.

Mannix, whose department handled the case, cautioned his officers not to be discouraged by critics of their work.

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IRELAND
Commonweal

David Carroll Cochran
August 12, 2014

For an Irish Catholic Church desperate for good news, the bad keeps coming. Most recent are the revelations about a mother-and-child home run by the Bons Secours sisters in the town of Tuam, County Galway, which operated from 1925 to 1961. While some early, highly sensationalized media reports about hundreds of dead babies dumped into a septic tank have turned out to be false, details about the treatment of children—their living conditions, mortality rates, and burial after death—unleashed a fresh round of shock and outrage in a nation that has seen plenty of both during two decades of reports detailing a history of physical and sexual abuse in Catholic settings.

This string of revelations has obviously sparked blistering criticism of the church in Ireland. Much of it is deserved, but it is also important to understand the multiple dimensions of the calamity that Irish Catholicism finds itself in.

The abuse crisis in Ireland is really two crises. The first is the sexual abuse of minors by priests. This crisis has followed a now-familiar pattern. For decades, a small number of priests used their position to abuse vulnerable children. Some continued undetected for years; others were discovered at the time. When this happened, church leaders, especially bishops, consistently hushed up the crimes, transferring offenders to new and unsuspecting communities while pressuring victims and their families into silence. The need to “avoid scandal” produced scandalous behavior, allowing abuse to continue and the abused to suffer in shame and silence.

This dimension of the crisis, then, is not unique to Irish Catholicism; we continue to see similar revelations from around the world. If given access to minors, a small percentage of men will sexually abuse them. While this percentage is not higher among Catholic priests than ministers in other denominations or those in secular positions such as coaches, teachers, or counselors, it is the historical response by Catholic leaders (as well as the church’s size, longevity, and practice of keeping detailed personnel records) that has produced an abuse crisis in country after country. From the United States to Germany to Australia to Ireland, it is the cover-up as much as the crime that has sparked outrage.

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UNITED KINGDOM
North Devon Journal

A RETIRED NFU officer has denied sexually abusing a 14-year-old boy at his Devon farm more than 40 years ago.

Philip Huxtable is a lay preacher, former Captain of the Braunton Boys Brigade, governor of two primary schools in North Devon and clerk to three parish councils.

He is on trial at Exeter Crown Court accused of abusing a boy who he met while running a youth club and whom he employed with a Saturday job for three months on his farm at Shirwell in 1973. …

The jury were read two testimonials detailing Huxtable’s work in the community as an elder of the Christ Church Methodist and United Reform Church in Braunton and the associated Boys Brigade, where he was Captain for 18 years.

He was also chair of governors at Shirwell Primary School for eight years and a governor at North Molton school for 20 years. He has also been clerk to the Pilton, Shirwell and Fremington parish councils and chairman of the Dexter Cattle Group.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Helen Davidson
theguardian.com, Tuesday 12 August 2014

The Catholic church has joined calls for a national redress scheme for victims of child sexual abuse, with mandatory participation by the institutions concerned, but wants to retain some of its controversial gag orders to prevent victims suing.

In its submission to the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse, the church also altered its previous position by proposing a cap on financial compensation.

The Truth Justice and Healing Council, which represents the Catholic church in dealings with the royal commission, said the legally binding deeds of release, which many victims of abuse signed in order to get redress under the church’s Towards Healing program, should remain in place to prevent civil litigation against the church.

But the releases should not prevent victims making a second claim under an official national scheme. The submission said that while there are “strong policy arguments” against allowing someone to reopen a claim, “where an individual can show that there was something manifestly inadequate about the process in which they reached their settlement, they ought to be entitled to reopen the matter”.

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

AAP

The government should run a mandatory compensation scheme for victims of institutional child sex abuse, the Catholic Church says.

But Archbishop Philip Freier, the newly installed Anglican Primate of Australia, said talks were still going on about the best model for a compensation scheme.

He said there were “active discussions” on Tuesday about the issue in the wake of the Victorian parliamentary committee inquiry into child sex abuse.

“I think there were a couple of models that the Victorian policymakers are putting forward so settling on one might be a bit premature for me yet,” Archbishop Freier told reporters on Wednesday.

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AUSTRALIA
Christian Today

By: Rachel Ford
Wednesday, 13 August 2014

The Catholic Church has called for a national victims’ redress scheme in a bid to alleviate the suffering of child abuse victims.

A submission to the child abuse Royal Commission by the Truth Justice and Healing Council proposed the scheme be operated by the government, but funded by the institutions responsible for the abuse.

“The days of the Catholic Church investigating itself are over,” Francis Sullivan, CEO of the Council, said.

He also expressed hope that the redress scheme would be a ‘giant step forward’ in providing justice for victims continuing to suffer from the ‘devastating impacts of child sexual abuse, and added that a non-adversarial approach would be needed to ensure ‘just, compassionate and fair’ compensation was provided.

A spokeswoman for the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests approved of the proposed scheme, but said that ultimately “actions speak louder than words.”

“Our experience has been that they make big promises but, when it comes down to it, what they deliver is nothing like the PR message,” she told the Sydney Morning Herald.

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MASSACHUSETTS
New England Public Radio

[with audio]

by: Henry Epp
AUGUST 12, 2014

The Catholic Diocese of Springfield installed its new leader in a service Tuesday. Bishop Mitchell Rozanski now leads the estimated 200,ooo Catholics in western Massachusetts.

About 900 people filled St. Michael’s Cathedral in Springfield to welcome the new Bishop. Judith Kennedy of Chicopee sat in the pews nearly an hour before the service. She says she’s excited for Rozanski’s leadership.

“We’re like lost sheep, and he being our new shepherd, we’re anxious to follow him,” says Kennedy. “He seems like an open fellow, just have to convert him to the Red Sox fan.” …

A national group representing survivors of sexual abuse by priests says it’s “not optimistic” about Rozanski’s ability to address victims of abuse. Rozanski was asked after the service how he plans to approach victims.

“I believe that as bishop, I show the way, to reach out to victims of sexual abuse, to bring God’s pastoral love and care, to show them that nothing is their fault, and that this was perpetrated upon them, and that the bishop has to be there as an agent of reconciliation,” said Rozanski.

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MASSACHUSETTS
The Republican

By Jim Kinney | jkinney@repub.com
on August 12, 2014

SPRINGFIELD – Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski was asked Tuesday if he has a message for those in the Springfield Diocese who suffered sexual abuse at the hands committed by priests.

The topic came up at a brief news conference just after the installation ceremony at the Cathedral of St. Michael the Archangel.

Rozanski said:

“I believe that as bishop I show the way to reach out to victims of sexual abuse, to bring God’s pastoral love and care, to show them that nothing is their fault. This was perpetrated upon them and that the Bishop has to be there as an agent of reconciliation.”

Earlier in the news conference, Rozanski spoke of feeling at peace as he walked into the cathedral Tuesday. He felt at peace because he found a people at prayer.

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CANADA
The Globe and Mail

INGRID PERITZ
MONTREAL — The Globe and Mail
Published Tuesday, Aug. 12 2014

The Redemptorist religious order is probably best known in Canada for its association with the Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré shrine near Quebec City, a major tourist attraction and holy pilgrimage site for devout Catholics. Now the congregation is in the spotlight for a dark chapter in its past.

The Catholic community has agreed to pay $20-million to people who were once schoolboys in its care in what is described as a record sexual-abuse settlement in Quebec.

In a deal announced on Tuesday, the order approved settling a class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of abuse victims at the school during a 27-year span beginning in 1960. The students, all boys, were aged 12 to 16 at the time.

“This is a landmark case,” said Robert Kugler, a Montreal lawyer who represents the victims. “This is the highest amount that has ever been paid by a religious congregation in Quebec to settle a class action dealing with sexual abuse.”

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AUSTRALIA
Yahoo! News

By Kate Stowell and staff | ABC

The leadership of the Catholic Church has formally proposed a major shake-up of its compensation scheme for survivors of clergy child sexual abuse.

In a written submission to the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse, the church said it wanted the Government to set up a national scheme to determine claims and compensation.

The scheme would be independently run, but would be funded by institutions where abuse occurred.

Abuse survivors who had already received money under the Towards Healing and Melbourne Response programs would be allow to apply.

Francis Sullivan from the Catholic Church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council told AM the church did not want to wait for the Royal Commission’s findings.

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LOUISIANA
KATC

[with video]

District Attorney Mike Harson tells KATC without victims coming forward, he can’t prosecute old cases of alleged sexual-abuse by priests.

The priest sex-abuse scandal was brought back in the spotlight after a sweeping investigation by Minnesota Public Radio last month.

The Diocese of Lafayette has acknowledged “credible accusations” against 15 priests, but is refusing to release their names. “The Bishop sees no purpose in releasing their names,” wrote diocese spokesman, Monsignor Richard Greene.

Msgr. Greene adds that none of those 15 priests are still in the church here, or elsewhere. Of those 15 only one, Father Gilbert Gauthe, ever faced criminal charges in Lafayette.

“Put out the 15 names,” says Abbeville attorney Tony Fontana, who represented a number of priest sex-abuse victims and their families. “Start showing that you care more about protecting kids than you do about protecting the pervert priests.”

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CANADA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, Aug. 12

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

A $20 million clergy sex abuse settlement means one thing: Catholic officials were incredibly scared of the evidence about complicity that would have emerged in court.

[Toronto Sun]

That’s almost always the motive when the church hierarchy pays this much money to abuse victims.

We applaud these brave men and women for having the strength to report these crimes, the wisdom to seek justice in court and the tenacity to endure needless legal delays by Redemptorist officials. Kids are safer today because of the courage of these victims. We hope their action will prevent future abuse and cover ups. And we are confident that their healing will be helped by this resolution.

No amount of money can restore the stolen childhoods and shattered trust of these once-innocent and trusting children. Those who committed or concealed these heinous crimes should be in jail. But the civil justice system can help validate those who have been severely and needlessly harmed, and that’s what we believe happened here.

We hope the bravery of these victims will inspire others who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes and cover ups in Canada to speak up, get help, expose wrongdoers, protect kids and start healing.

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NEW YORK
The Journal News

Steve Lieberman
slieberm@lohud.com 3:47 p.m. EDT August 12, 2014

A prominent Monsey rabbi who runs a boys school pleaded not guilty Tuesday morning to charges he sexually assaulted a 7-year-old male student repeatedly in his yeshiva office.

Gavriel Bodenheimer, 71, principal of Yeshiva Bais Mikroh for decades, stood shackled at the waist during his arraignment on three counts of first-degree criminal sexual act and one count of first-degree sex abuse.

Judge William Nelson set Bodenheimer’s bail at $25,000 cash or bond. The rabbi’s lawywer, Deborah Wolikow-Loewenberg, said he would be able to post bail and be released later Tuesday.

“We are going to fight the allegations because they are not true,” Wolikow-Loewenberg said after the court session.

Ramapo police arrested Bodenheimer Monday based on a sealed grand jury indictment. He was kept overnight at the Rockland County jail in New City pending his court appearance, when the indictment was unsealed.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Sarah MacDonald
PUBLISHED 12/08/2014

The Vatican’s heresy case against Irish priest Fr Tony Flannery is built on shaky ground, according to a new book by a leading Irish theologian, who also accuses the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of being “tyrannical”.

‘The Church: Always in Need of Reform’, by Augustinian Fr Gabriel Daly, is due to be published by Dominican Publications before Christmas.

It deals with the need for reform of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Rome’s doctrinal watchdog which was formerly known as the Inquisition.

Discussing the plight of Redemptorist priest Fr Tony Flannery, who was silenced by the Vatican in 2012 and threatened with excommunication, as well as the treatment of three other censured Irish priests, Fr Daly accuses the CDF of being “theologically inept”.

He focuses on an article Fr Flannery wrote for the journal ‘Reality’ which was cited by the CDF as one of the reasons for its decision to censure the Redemptorist.

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CANADA
Montreal Gazette

BY GEOFFREY VENDEVILLE, THE GAZETTE AUGUST 12, 2014

Victims of sexual abuse at the hands of Redemptorist priests at the St-Alphonse Seminary in Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré, east of Quebec City, have reached a $20-million, out-of-court settlement with the Catholic order.

“It’s a landmark settlement,” said Robert Kugler, the lawyer representing victims in a class-action lawsuit. “It’s the most that has ever been paid in the settlement of a sexual abuse class action in the history of Quebec.”

The agreement will be submitted to a judge within the next 30 days for final approval.

On July 10, Quebec Superior Court judge Claude Bouchard awarded the victims between $75,000 and $150,000 each in compensation. The parties reached the settlement at the last minute before the deadline to appeal the decision expired the afternoon of Aug. 11. Kugler was only able to reveal the sum of money included in the agreement after meeting with a judge Tuesday morning.

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CANADA
Toronto Sun

QUEBEC CITY — A Catholic order has agreed to pay $20 million to at least 100 former students molested by priests between 1960 and 1987.

Nine priests were accused of abusing children at Saint-Alphonse college east of Quebec City. Some of the priests have since died.

The college is associated with the internationally revered shrine at the Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre Basilica, located northeast of the city.

A lawyer for the Redemptorist order at the centre of the scandal confirmed the cash settlement Tuesday.

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CANADA
CBC News

The Redemptorist Order of Catholic Priests will pay $20 million to victims of sexual abuse at its St-Alphonse Seminary near Quebec City during the 1970s and ’80s.

Robert Kugler, the lawyer representing former students at the seminary, said the landmark out-of-court settlement is the largest ever paid in a class-action sexual abuse lawsuit in Quebec.

In July, Superior Court Judge Claude Bouchard ordered the Redemptorist Order, the St-Alphonse Seminary and Rev. Raymond-Marie Lavoie to pay at least $75,000 to each of the lawsuit’s 70 claimants.

Other victims have since come forward, bringing the number of total claimants to more than 100 — and counting.

“That number is likely to go up by a lot… We have tried to simplify the process to ensure that a maximum number of victims present claims,” Kugler told Radio-Canada.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Derry Journal

by Andrew Quinn
Twitter: @AndrewEQuinn

Published on the 12 August 2014

Derry man, Brian Doherty, has a message for Pope Francis.

“Don’t forget about Northern Ireland,” said Brian.

Brian Doherty was born in 1947 and when he was three weeks old he was placed into the care of the Sisters of Nazareth in the St. Joseph’s Home in Termonbacca. Brian remained there until he was 14 years-old.

Brian has spoken very openly about the abuse he suffered at the hands of the Sisters of Nazareth in the 1940s and 50s and within the last 12 months he has sent six letters to Pope Francis asking him to meet with survivors of clerical abuse from Northern Ireland.

“The Pope met with clerical abuse victims from Ireland and mainland United Kingdom last month but there was no one there to represent the victims from Northern Ireland. Do we not matter simply because we are from Northern Ireland? It’s as simple as this, child abuse is wrong no matter what part of the world you are from.

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TEXAS
Watch Keep

I am posting with permission of the Cedar Park, Texas Chief of Police Sean Mannix, his statement on the Greg Kelley child sexual assault case emailed on July 30, 2014 to his police department, a matter of public record.

All,

As you are all aware, on July 15, 2014, Greg Kelley was convicted of two counts of Super Aggravated Sexual Assault of a small child and sentenced to 25 years in prison with no eligibility for parole or appeal, through a plea agreement. In most cases the next step would be a quiet departure to a state prison with little fanfare. Not in this case. I know that you are all in tune with the fact that Mr. Kelley has garnered much support from his old classmates and others and a movement was established called “Fight for GK”. This group has been very vocal in their support of Mr. Kelley and very critical of the police department and the DA’s office. The Fight for GK movement has taken on a cult-like appearance, as it is mostly high school kids that have only been exposed to the news reports and what fellow supporters have told them, with no interest in seeking the truth. This movement, in my opinion, has been fueled by what I can only characterize as some of the most biased news coverage of a trial that I have ever encountered in three decades of doing this work. In this case there was tremendous coverage of the defense case and Mr. Kelley’s support group and very little coverage of the substance of the trial itself. I have not been able to figure out if the bias was intended or just lazy reporting.

You all saw Detective Dailey take a beating by the Defense with no coverage of his testimony to the Prosecution. A picture was painted that he did something improper by entering the interview room and asking the child to tell them what the child had told his mother. This was irregular, but not improper. In a perfect world the child would have been subject to a deep forensic interview, but at the time the CAC had lost their only staff member qualified for such interviews. We have a luxury of having a child advocacy center available to us. Many investigators around the country do not have access to these resources and are forced to do the child interviews themselves. While that is not ideal, it is anything but improper.

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MINNESOTA
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on Minnesota Public Radio’s (MPR) latest attempt to discredit St. Paul and Minneapolis Archbishop John Nienstedt:

Those waging war on Archbishop Nienstedt are losing ground, and they know it. In a contrived attempt to keep the flame alive, MPR is now charging that “New Documents Show Falsehoods in Nienstedt Testimony.” But as with previous efforts, this one comes up lame.

The story involves Rev. Kenneth LaVan. Here is the relevant timeline.

Some thirty years ago, two teenage girls made accusations against LaVan. About the same time, he was also charged with “boundary violations” with adult females.
In 1998 he retired.
In 2008 Archbishop Nienstedt is installed.
In 2013, after accusations that not enough was being done about accused priests, an outside firm is hired to investigate this issue. In December, Nienstedt is apprised of LaVan’s history and he is formally and permanently removes him from ministry.

MPR is saying that Nienstedt should have known about this priest when he allegedly approved a limited assignment for him earlier last year. But inconveniently for MPR, the documents it references never mention child sexual abuse. What Nienstedt approved was a monitoring plan based on the priest’s inappropriate conduct with adult women. Moreover, when MPR finds it necessary to cite the fact that Nienstedt “spent time socially with LaVan,” and that he even wrote a letter to him thanking him for a gift, it shows how utterly desperate it is.

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ITALY
Malta Independent

The 60-year old archpriest of Taormina, Don Salvatore Sinito”, has been abruptly removed by the Archbishop of Messina.

The case has raised a scandal in the Italian press.

On the one hand, the priest was commended for restoring and reopening the many small and historic chapels of the town but on the other hand he was criticised for turning the whole into a big money-making enterprise especially anything to do with weddings, which are very popular there.

He had given new life to the saint of the town after the feast had fallen into neglect but he was criticised widely for the decision not to accompany dead persons to the cemetery but only to the church’s porch.

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NEW YORK
Post-Standard

By Douglass Dowty | ddowty@syracuse.com
on August 12, 2014

Syracuse, NY — An Onondaga County Court judge today warned a Syracuse priest that if he continues to fight child pornography charges and loses, he could wind up behind bars.

Robert Ours, 65, was charged in May with six counts of possessing a sexual performance by a child. The retired priest, who led churches in the Southern Tier, lives at a residence for priests in Syracuse.

The Syracuse Diocese alerted authorities to the allegations against Ours earlier this year, and the diocese cooperated with the investigation, prosecutors have said.

Plea negotiations have gone on all summer, but Ours is still contesting the charges.

Today, County Court Judge Joseph Fahey set a hearing for Sept. 4 to determine whether authorities properly investigated the computer with the child porn.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

August 12, 2014

Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter

Advocates for survivors of child sex abuse have cautiously welcomed the Catholic Church’s proposed compensation scheme for victims of institutional abuse.

The Catholic Church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council has called for a national redress scheme to be administered by the federal government but funded by the institutions responsible for the harm, in a recommendation to the royal commission into child sex abuse.

Its submission, lodged on Tuesday, also recommends that victims who have already received compensation be able to access the new scheme for an independent review of past settlements.

Care Leavers Australia Network executive officer Leonie Sheedy said many survivors had just received “breadcrumbs” to compensate them for the abuse they suffered, saying a fair redress scheme was well overdue.

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UNITED STATES
MintPress News

By Jason Berry | August 12, 2014

When Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the superiors who represent 80 percent of American nuns, open their four-day summer convention Tuesday in Nashville, key members of the US Catholic hierarchy will be on hand, notably the Vatican-assigned overseer of the sisters’ group, Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain.

The big question will be whether one side blinks.

Vatican officials and certain US bishops are in a standoff with the liberal leadership of the mainstream communities of American religious sisters.

The rift between the two sides opened in 2012 when the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) ordered the nuns to revise their statutes and work under the supervision of a bishop for their alleged tilt toward “radical feminism” and for promoting theological positions at odds with the magisterium, or teaching office at the CDF.

As GlobalPost reported in 2013, key cardinals and bishops behind the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) investigation had been publicly tarnished for their concealment of pedophile priests.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Northern Echo

A ROMAN Catholic priest arrested on suspicion of fraud has been granted police bail for a further two months.

Father John Reid, 66, was arrested earlier this year and was bailed by police until today (Tuesday, August 12)

Detectives were called in after an audit by officials of the Hexham and Newcastle Diocese revealed that cash was missing from St Cuthbert’s Church in Ropery Lane, Chester-le-Street, County Durham.

Police later obtained an order from magistrates at Peterlee to keep £1,770-worth Euros and £675 Sterling they had found at his home.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

AUGUST 13, 2014

Dan Box
Crime Reporter
Sydney

CARDINAL George Pell will give evidence by video-link from the Vatican to a royal commission next week after the Catholic Church yesterday said it would abandon the process by which it investigates claims of child abuse committed by its priests.

Key among these is the Melbourne Response, introduced by Cardinal Pell in 1996, and which will be the focus of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse hearing, beginning on Monday.

The Melbourne Response, as well as the Towards Healing process operated elsewhere within the church, have dealt with hundreds of victims, many of whom have criticised a lack of independence during the handling of their case.

Cardinal Pell, who now is responsible for the Vatican’s finances, has previously defended both schemes, describing the Melbourne Response as “first and foremost about helping victims”.

The commission is expected to question him over three cases dealt with under the Melbourne Response. He has already given evidence about Towards Healing and the church’s use of civil litigation to respond to claims.

“The days of the Catholic Church investigating itself are over,” the head of the church’s ­national Truth, Justice and Healing Council, Francis Sullivan, said yesterday, after formally calling for an independent victims’ redress scheme to handle abuse claims. In a 47-page submission, the council called on the commission to recommend the federal government establish such a body, funded in part by the church, to investigate claims and determine the compensation victims receive.

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LOUISIANA
IND

District Attorney Mike Harson says unless a victim comes forward, his office will not launch an investigation into recently uncovered allegations of sexual abuse by a priest from the Diocese of Lafayette.

“To engage in an investigation without their commitment would appear to be a fruitless endeavor since I would certainly have to have their involvement in order to have any chance of success and it could unnecessarily revisit their trauma and open wounds that they thought were long dealt with, all without their request or desire,” says Harson in an interview with The Daily Advertiser.

Harson also says he has no plans to ask for a list cited by Bishop Michael Jarrell of 15 priests whose victims received settlements from the diocese. He also doesn’t plan on looking into allegations against the Rev. Gil Dutel.

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