ABUSE TRACKER

CAMADA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For Immediate Release: Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2014

Contact: David Clohessy of St. Louis MO 314 566 9790,SNAPclohessy@aol.com, Brenda Brunelle of Windsor, Canada 519 800 3492, windsor@SNAPnetwork.org

Ottawa man pleads guilty in sex case
He was former head of Catholic youth group
He was indicted for 1984 child sexual assault
In 2002, a civil case against him & Knights of Columbus was settled
Victims urge others who were hurt to “come forward, get help, call police”

An Ottawa man who was the provincial director of a national Catholic youth organization admitted guilt in a criminal case stemming from an August 1984 child sexual assault.

Steve Fagan pleaded guilty yesterday to sexual assault and will face a sentencing hearing on October 17. The Crown is seeking a six month jail sentence, two years’ probation, and that Fagan be listed on the sex offender registry.

Fagan was arrested in November or December of 2013 for the sexual assault of a boy. At the time of the assault, Fagan was a member of the Knight of Columbus and State Chairman for the Ontario Columbian Squires. The Knights are a 1.8 million member Catholic men’s organization and the Squires are the Knights’ youth auxiliary.

Fagan used his position as provincial director to target and molest a boy who was a member of the organization. That individual, now in his 40s read a ‘victim impact statement’ at the hearing in Kingston.

Members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org), are saluting the victim’s bravery and tenacity. They also applaud prosecutors, who pursued the case when many others might have passed.

“It takes real courage to step forward, report abuse and seek justice when you’ve been sexually violated as a child,” said Brenda Brunelle of Windsor, Canada. She’s a SNAP leader for Windsor. “This courageous young man has successfully stepped forward twice – in both criminal and civil court – and children are safer because of him.”

“All too often, victims hear that they cannot use the criminal courts because too much time has passed,” said David Clohessy of SNAP. “The fact that prosecutors pursued this case shows that’s not always the case. Smart and determined police and prosecutors can often successfully pursue even older child sex crimes. But first, victims must find the courage and strength to speak up.”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Northern Ireland Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry

Media Release

12th August 2014

The Northern Ireland Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry will focus on a migration scheme which involved the transport of children to Australia when it recommences its public hearings at the beginning of September.

Public hearings for the Inquiry’s second module of evidence will commence at 11am on Monday, 1st September at Banbridge Courthouse, Banbridge, Co Down, Northern Ireland.

A team from the Inquiry and its confidential Acknowledgement Forum has already made two trips to Australia, during which a total of 66 applicants, now residing in Australia, were interviewed. All these individuals had applied to participate in the statutory Inquiry and/or Forum processes.

The witnesses being asked to provide evidence to the oral hearings have been chosen because they can describe the events which occurred to them before they left Northern Ireland when they were sent as child migrants to Australia. The majority of these witnesses will provide their oral evidence via video-link. The module is scheduled to last three weeks.

Documentation examined by the Inquiry has revealed that, between 1946 and 1956, children were sent from various institutions in Northern Ireland to institutions in Australia (primarily Western Australia), as part of a UK government policy of child migration.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
UTV

Published Tuesday, 12 August 2014

The next hearings of the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry will focus on a migration scheme which involved the transport of children to Australia.

A team from the inquiry has made two trips to Australia and interviewed 66 people who applied to give evidence.

“The witnesses being asked to provide evidence to the oral hearings have been chosen because they can describe the events which occurred to them before they left Northern Ireland when they were sent as child migrants to Australia,” a spokesperson explained.

“The majority of these witnesses will provide their oral evidence via video-link.”

The inquiry, which was set up to examine allegations of abuse over a 73-year period up to 1995, said documents it has seen have revealed that children were sent from NI institutions to Australia between 1946 and 1956 as part of a UK government policy of child migration.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

A migration scheme that transported children to Australia will be the focus of the next public hearings of the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry.

The inquiry (HIA) is examining the extent of child abuse in the Catholic church and state-run institutions in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 1995.

Public hearings began in January. They ended in May and will resume on 1 September at Banbridge courthouse.

A team from the inquiry has already made two trips to Australia.

Sixty-six people living there have applied to take part in the inquiry or give statements to the confidential acknowledgement forum.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
News Letter

Sixty-six people have applied to give evidence about the alleged abuse of child migrants from Northern Ireland, the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry has said.

More than 100 children were sent to Australia in the 1940s and 1950s. Most were transferred by Catholic religious orders, like the Sisters of Mercy and the Christian Brothers, who ran care homes.

Witnesses will address chairman Sir Anthony Hart’s public hearings or a private acknowledgement forum. Most will speak using a video-link.

A spokeswoman for the inquiry said: “The witnesses being asked to provide evidence to the oral hearings have been chosen because they can describe the events which occurred to them before they left Northern Ireland when they were sent as child migrants to Australia.”

The treatment of young people, orphaned or taken away from their unmarried mothers, in houses run by nuns, brothers or the state is a key concern of the retired High Court judge’s inquiry which is being held in Banbridge, Co Down, and was ordered by ministers.

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CANADA
The Telegram

Rosie Mullaley
Published on August 12, 2014

An Anglican priest and his wife have pleaded guilty to swindling money from their parish.
John and Catherine Dinn are in provincial court in St. John’s this morning.

John Dinn, 55, pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud under $5,000 and one count of theft under $5,000, while Catherine Dinn, 52, pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud under $5,000.

The incidents happened between May 2012 and November 2012.

According to the facts of the case, read out by Crown prosecutor Sheldon Steeves, the couple took cheques at St. Evangelist Church in Conception Bay South meant for various charities, forged John Dinn’s name on them and deposited them into the couple’s joint bank account.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Press

12 August 2014

THE Archbishop of York has said he is “deeply ashamed” of the Church of England’s failure to protect vulnerable children.

A national newspaper has reported that Dr John Sentamu has written to a number of men who were abused as children by the Very Rev Robert Waddington, the former dean of Manchester Cathedral, who preyed on schoolboys in Britain and Australia over a 60-year period.

Dr Sentamu is preparing to publish an independent report by Judge Sally Cahill, QC, in to Waddington, who died in 2007, and the mishandling of abuse allegations in 1999, 2003 and 2005 against him from former choirboys and students in England and Australia.

It also investigated the former archbishop of York, now Lord Hope of Thornes who last year expressed regret at not reporting the allegations to police or other child protection agencies.

Archbishop Sentamu wrote in his letter to Waddington’s victims that “we in the Church of England should face up to the wrong which has been allowed to be done to those children who were abused by the late Robert Waddington’’.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By John Breslin

Brendan Gleeson has revealed he was molested as a child by a Christian Brother who “dropped the hand” on him in primary school.

But Gleeson, in an interview on National Public Radio in the US, said he was not “traumatised” in any way by the incident.

“It was just one of those things where something odd happened,” said Gleeson, speaking following the US release last week of his latest film Calvary, in which he plays a priest in a small town in Ireland.

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

“I remember that was in primary school and, frankly, I was not traumatised by it at all. It was just a bit weird and obviously the vibe was that he never came at me again.

“The same guy was in secondary school and I remember a couple of us starting trading stories and really that he was a bit off.

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

Aug 12, 2014 By Claire Healy

Veteran Irish actor made the startling revelation during a US radio interview alongside Calvary director John McDonagh

Actor Brendan Gleeson has revealed that he was molested by a Christian Brother as a child.

Promoting his latest flick Calvary – which is on a limited US release – Gleeson appeared on NPR’s Bob Edwards Weekend alongside director John Michael McDonagh to chat about the film.

In the film Gleeson plays a good priest who is confronted by one of his parishioners about sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of a Catholic priest when he was a child.

The radio presenter then asked the pair did either of them know anyone who had been abused by priests during their childhood.

Gleeson revealed: “Yeah, it’s odd. I remember a particular Christian Brother dropped the hand on me at one point.

“And 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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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

Mon, Aug 11, 2014

The work of a priest is “almost impossible unless there is humour, humanity, honesty”, a member the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) leadership team has commented.

Augusinian priest Fr Séamus Ahearne was expressing his support for a recent observation by the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin, who said the willingness of Pope Francis “to break away from accepted traditions” was a cause of disquiet among some priests.

In an address last month at the Catholic Leadership Centre in Melbourne, Archbishop Martin spoke of a curate in Dublin who was “not at all happy with some of the utterances of Pope Francis, which he felt were not in line with what he had learned in the seminary, and he felt that this was making the faithful insecure and even encouraging those who do not hold the orthodox Catholic belief to challenge traditional teaching”.

Fr Ahearne said the archbishop’s observations were “apt”.

He said younger priests were “very few and some embrace a very traditionalist view of Church. It is understandable too because there is great insecurity among the young. They need certainties. We don’t have them.”

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CANADA
CHCH

[with video]

It is one of societies most abhorrent crimes. Possession of child pornography. Charges can lead to prison time, destroying the lives and reputations of convicted felons.
It was back in June when police seized computers at a Catholic church in Caledonia following a tip that they contained inappropriate pornographic images. The incident shocked residents and devastated the parish priest, wrongfully linked to such a heinous allegation.

Father Mario Fernandes has spent his life devoted to helping others. A native of India, Father Mario worked as an addiction counsellor in Vancouver’s east side before moving to Ontario where he was appointed pastor of St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church in Caledonia.

In June of this year, Father Mario’s life was shattered when police seized computers at the church after receiving a complaint that they contained inappropriate pornographic images. But a thorough check by the OPP’s technical crime unit found the images in question were advertising pop ups, that the computer’s firewall was unable to block. Today the computers were returned, and the case was closed. Still the incident has shocked the community and shattered the life of an innocent man.

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POLAND
The News

A progressive priest who apparently said that the older generation of Polish bishops needs ‘to die out’ has been given a ‘final chance’ by his superiors.

Father Wojciech Lemanski was banned from leading occasional masses at his former parish of Jasienica, near Warsaw, following controversial remarks made at the Prystanek Woodstock rock festival.

However, head of the Warsaw-Praga diocese Archbishop Henryk Hoser has told Catholic weekly Gosc Niedzielny that he hopes that Father Lemanski will uphold “the unity” of the Church.

“This is the last attempt and the last chance,” Hoser said. “My decisions are designed to save his priesthood,” the archbishop argued.

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MALTA
Malta Independent

Tuesday, 12 August 2014 by Neil Camilleri

The former Mgarr Parish Priest has hit out at his “unfair dismissal” by Archbishop Paul Cremona and Auxiliary Bishop Charles Scicluna and said the two top Curia officials had succumbed to undue pressure by a small group of extreme traditionalists who wanted him out of their parish. In doing so, the Curia is exposing its “leadership crisis”, he said.

In exclusive comments to The Malta Independent, Fr Emanuel Camilleri reacted to a report in L-Orizzont about his dismissal, which claimed he had set out on the wrong foot with parishioners over a ban on unauthorised statues in the Via Sagra procession. The report also claimed that Mgr. Scicluna had personally gone to Mgarr to deliver the bad news and that the parish priest had decided on his own when to be formally appointed as parish priest. But speaking to this newspaper, Dun Emanuel gave his version of the story.

“I did not decide when to appoint myself. The ceremony was due to be held on Saturday 16h August with the Archbishop’s blessing.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

August 10, 2014

Konrad Marshall
Senior Reporter for The Age

Manny Waks knows all too well the backlash the coming week will bring, but he is ready.

Since Waks first went public in 2011 with personal accusations of repeated sexual abuse and cover up from his time as a young boy at Yeshivah College, he has become all too familiar with the pattern of fallout.

In the three years since his bombshell, as other survivors came forward, as government inquiries listened to the list of crimes, as abusers were exposed and jailed, Waks continued to face a fate known well to whistleblowers.

First came shunning from some segments of the ultra-orthodox Chabad community in which he was raised. Then the bullying and outright ostracism of his parents, Zephaniah and Chaya, who uprooted their lives and moved to Israel to escape harassment and isolation. And finally the no-less-painful suggestions that Waks, 38, simply “move on” and leave his pain behind.

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UNITED STATES
Waiting for Godot to Leave

Kevin O’Brien

Has anyone ever commented on the fact that, not only is it shocking that bishops have been covering for, lying for, and enabling abusive priests – but that when a priest is sexually active at all (even with consenting adults), this seems to be no big deal to bishops?

In the case of Fr. LaVan in St. Paul, who was kept in ministry until very recently (in violation of the Dallas Charter), not only was he (by the admission of the archdiocese) “credibly accused” of raping two teenage girls and yet allowed to serve in parishes for 25 years after these rapes, but over that period of time, he also had a series of affairs with adults – who were married parishioners.

As early as 1986, LaVan admitted to having affairs with at least four married women (up to that time) who were parishioners of his. He bragged to the woman whose husband he threatened to murder that he had several “woman lovers” from his parishes that he kept in contact with even after he would be sent to a new parish.

Now, it’s bad enough that LaVan was allowed to continue to function as a priest, even after the archdiocese was convinced he had raped two teenage girls.

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NEW YORK
News 12

[with video]

MONSEY – A Monsey rabbi, who is also a principal at a local yeshiva, was arrested Monday for alleged sexual abuse.

Gavriel Bodenheimer, 71, was arrested for alleged criminal sex acts and sex abuse, but prosecutors have been tight-lipped about who the rabbi allegedly abused and when. He is principal of Yeshiva Bais Mikroh, a boys’ yeshiva.

Bodenheimer’s lawyers say they have not seen the charges yet and won’t see them until the indictment is unsealed in court. They say Bodenheimer has been active in many charities in his community for decades.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

August 11, 2014

Aisha Dow
City Reporter for The Age

The Catholic Church found a Melbourne paedophile priest accused of interfering with young girls during confession guilty of child sex abuse, more than a decade before Cardinal George Pell denied a cover up, it has been revealed.

The ABC’s Four Corners program has obtained a confidential draft report that shows former Doveton parish priest, Father Peter Searson, was found guilty of sexual abuse by the church during an internal hearing in 1997.

That is despite the fact former Archbishop of Melbourne Cardinal Pell previously denied the church ignored complaints about Searson, in what victims described as an attitude of “hear no evil, see no evil, say nothing”.

“No conviction was recorded for Searson on sexual misbehaviour,” Cardinal Pell told the Victorian inquiry into child sexual abuse last year. “There might be victims. He was convicted for cruelty. But speaking more generally, I totally reject the suggestion.”

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AUSTRIA
The Raw Story

By Katie Halper
Monday, August 11, 2014

A woman filmed herself exposing her breasts and touching herself in an Austrian parish, in June. She also was holding a bible and rosary, in case you were worried about her going to hell. A church-going-porn-fan was trying to enjoy some secular online porn, when he recognized the interior of his church. Like any church-going-porn-watching-upstanding-tattle-tale, he informed his local priest, in what I imagine must have been an uncomfortable discussion.

In a compliment to the woman’s handwork, the church expressed outrage that, in addition to her sneaking herself in, she had snuck in a crew and cameras. According to the Austrian Times, “Local police confirmed that no permission had been requested or given for the church to be used to shoot the movies….” I’m sure the church would have been more than happy to sign a release form authorizing the woman to shoot a porn in their house of worship. The Austrian Times also reported that The ”Diocese of Linz said police are still investigating how the crew and actors were able to get into the church.” Then, the police realized that the quality and angles suggested this had been a DIY project, in a few aspects, actually.

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AUSTRALIA
Yahoo! News

By Quentin McDermott and Peter Cronau | ABC

The Catholic Church’s spokesman on child sexual abuse has questioned its stance on the sanctity of the confessional when it is used by priests who make admissions of abuse.

Francis Sullivan, the chief executive of the Truth, Justice and Healing Council, has told the ABC’s Four Corners program in an extended interview that in his mind, “the child’s safety is paramount and it’s incumbent upon the church to explain to the Catholic community and beyond why the confessional and information in it is sacrosanct”.

Wayne Chamley from Broken Rites, an organisation which researches the alleged cover-up of abuse in the Catholic Church, told Four Corners that “a deviant paedophile priest may use the confessional as a way to lock in his superior”.

“It may be that tactically these people – because they’re incredibly clever paedophiles, and they’re incredibly devious – at times were able to use the confessional as a way of locking in the people who did have some authority over them, so that the person just didn’t go near them because it was signed and sealed by the confession that had been made.”

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MARYLAND
BishopAccountability.org

By Robert A. Erlandson and Joe Nawrozki
The Baltimore Sun
August 10, 1994

Baltimore City detectives investigating sex abuse allegations against a Roman Catholic priest dug up a van load of confidential records yesterday the priest had ordered buried four years ago in Brooklyn’s Holy Cross Cemetery.

City police were accompanied by the two Baltimore County homicide detectives assigned to the revived investigation of the unsolved 1969 slaying of Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik.

A high-ranking county police official said investigators were there because the name of the priest — the Rev. A. Joseph Maskell — had come up during their probe of the 25-year-old crime.

Father Maskell and Sister Catherine were both on the faculty of the all-girls Archbishop Keough High School in Southwest Baltimore in the late 1960s.

Father Maskell, 55, stepped down as pastor of St. Augustine’s Church in Elkridge on July 31 amid allegations that he had sexually abused students at Keough during his tenure as chaplain and counselor from 1967 to 1975.

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MARYLAND
Websleuths

Baltimore, City Paper
By Tom Nugent | Posted 1/5/2005

snipped
The body of the 26-year-old nun was found Jan. 3, 1970, in southwest Baltimore County. The circumstances surrounding the case were mysterious and disturbing at the time; in the wake of a City Paper investigation, those circumstances seem even more disturbing now.

Years after Cesnik’s murder, a lawsuit documented numerous findings of sexual abuse at the Catholic high school for girls where Cesnik taught shortly before her death. City Paper’s investigation also reveals that a second young murder victim (killed only four days after Cesnik vanished, and only a few miles from where the nun died) attended the same Catholic church where the alleged sex-abuser had been serving as parish priest.

snipped
…Cesnik had vanished on Nov. 7 during a brief, early evening trip to a shopping center about a mile from the Westgate apartment she shared with another Notre Dame nun, Sister Helen Russell Phillips.

snipped
Talking fast, the officer told the M Squad captain that two hunters had just called to report what looked like a “woman’s body” lying near a garbage dump off Monumental Avenue, in an isolated, wooded area in the southwest Baltimore County community of Lansdowne.

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MARYLAND
Open Salon

The body of Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik, Sister Cathy to those who knew her, was found on January 3, 1970 covered in snow near a garbage dump in Lansdowne, Maryland, about twenty minutes outside the city of Baltimore. The 26-year-old Roman Catholic Nun had been beaten to death, her skull crushed with an unknown blunt object. Her body was too decomposed and mauled by animals and insects for the coroner to determine whether she had been sexually assaulted or not. To this day her murderer has never been found.

Catherine Ann Cesnik was born in the small community of Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania across the River from Pittsburg to a postal worker father and a homemaker mother in a deeply devout Roman Catholic family.

When they were old enough, Cathy and her sisters attended St. Mary’s Assumption elementary school connected to the Church of the same name where she was taught by the Sisters of Notre Dame. When Cathy entered St. Augustine Catholic High School she was sure of her Vocation and shortly after she graduated in 1960 she entered Convent of the School Sisters of Notre Dame in Baltimore as a candidate for Sisterhood. After seven years as a Postulant, Cathy Cesnik took her final vows on July 21, 1967, taking the new name, Sister Joanita.

The Sisters of Notre Dame are a teaching Order and in 1965, while still a Postulate, Cathy Cesnik began to teach at the newly opened, all-girls Archbishop Keough High School.

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MARYLAND
The Baltimore Sun

August 11, 2014

This week in ‘Crime Scene,’ former TV police reporter and Baltimore City Police spokesman Matt Jablow brings you a case that has gone unsolved for nearly 45 years.

In November 1969, a 26-year-old nun, Catherine Cesnik, disappeared after leaving her Southwest Baltimore apartment to go shopping. Two months later, her beaten body was found in a frozen field in Baltimore County.

No suspect was named in the original investigation, but in 1994, sensational allegations arose that re-opened the case. However, those leads ultimately went cold and Sister Catherine Cesnik’s murder remains unsolved.

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MASSACHUSETTS
The Republican

By The Republican Editorials
on August 11, 2014

On Tuesday, Mitchell Rozanski will be installed as the region’s ninth bishop since the diocese was created in 1870 and the first bishop with Polish roots. To date, at least seven of the region’s eight bishops have had Irish background. The product of Catholic schools, he graduated from the Catholic University of America and its Theological College in Washington, D.C. …

Rozanski has been part of the solution in terms of the dark past of priest abuse of children.

He has been involved with minor revisions of the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. He warns of constant vigilance – at every level and institution to protect children.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Madeleine Baran St. Paul, Minn. Aug 11, 2014

Documents made public Monday in a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis show that Archbishop John Nienstedt made false statements under oath in April about his knowledge of a priest accused of child sexual abuse.

Nienstedt said in an April 2 deposition that he didn’t know until March that a priest accused in the 1980s of sexually assaulting at least one teenage girl and “sexually exploiting” several women was still in ministry, a violation of church policy.

“I was not aware that he was publicly in ministry,” Nienstedt said, referring to the Rev. Kenneth LaVan. “And as soon as I realized it, I had his faculties removed.” Though retired, LaVan continued to assist with Masses at Twin Cities parishes until he was formally removed from all ministry in December 2013. Nienstedt said he learned of LaVan’s continuing ministry as part of a review of clergy files conducted by the Kinsale Group, a firm hired by the archdiocese.

However, documents released Monday show that, year after year, the archbishop received updates on LaVan and approved his continuing work at Twin Cities parishes, as recently as Aug. 15, 2013.

For example, Nienstedt received an annual report on LaVan in 2013 from a church official who monitors abusive priests. The monitor described “two face to face contacts” with LaVan over the past year and noted that LaVan assists at “a few parishes in the metro area when asked,” primarily St. Olaf in Minneapolis.

Nienstedt reviewed the information and approved the arrangement for another year.

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis – via KSTP

In February 2014, we disclosed that there were substantiated claims of sexual abuse of a minor against Kenneth LaVan. Then in March, 2014, we publicly released the following additional information, which was reported in the media at the time:

(T)he archdiocese received reports in 1988 that he had abused two girls between 1958 and 1970. In 1989 and 1992, the archdiocese settled civil suits brought by the two victims. The archdiocese removed LaVan from ministry in early 1989 and required him to undergo treatment. After completion of treatment he was returned to parish ministry at St. Joseph in Lino Lakes with monitoring. LaVan retired in January 1998, but continued to provide limited assistance at St. Olaf in Minneapolis (and other parishes as requested) until December 2013. LaVan has also been accused of inappropriate sexual relationships with adult women.

Under today’s standards and protocols, if we were to receive similar allegations regarding a priest, police would immediately be notified.

In addition, we have changed the way we use psychological treatment for priests. We consider it a way to get an understanding of their mental health. A priest who has sexually abused a child may indeed receive treatment, but would not be considered again for ministry, no matter what progress he
might make in treatment.

I apologize for the harm caused by some of our priests, and ask for forgiveness from sexual abuse victim/survivors, their families and their friends.

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

By: Megan Matthews

A file publicly released Monday, accuses the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis of ignoring the fact that a priest, Father Kenneth LaVan, was accused of inappropriate behavior multiple times. He continued in ministry until 2013.

The files, released by Jeff Anderson and Associates, say LaVan was first accused of inappropriate sexual behavior in the 1980s. He was sent for treatment twice and was diagnosed with compulsive sexuality disorder in 1989.

According to Anderson, LaVan’s history was reviewed in 1995, and despite the allegations and a lawsuit, the Clergy Review Board recommended LaVan continue in ministry. It wasn’t until December 2013, when Kinsale Management reviewed LaVan’s files, that he was removed from ministry.

LaVan’s name was not part of the original list of credibly accused priests released by the Archdiocese last December; however, LaVan’s name was later added.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis released a statement Monday saying it made public that there were “substantiated claims of sexual abuse of a minor against Kenneth LaVan” in February 2014. A month later it released a statement saying LaVan was removed from ministry in 1989 to undergo treatment. He was only allowed to return to parish ministry at St. Joseph in Lino Lakes with monitoring, after he finished treatment.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, August 11, 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 )

One bishop writes another bishop about an accused cleric who abused three girls and several women and even “mentioned a threat about possibly burning down the house” or “have your husband murdered.”

Yet the bishops keep it all secret and let the accused cleric stay on the job for another 25+ years.

That’s what newly disclosed, long secret St. Paul Catholic Archdiocese records show.

Then-Bishop Robert Carlson wrote an incriminating memo to then-Archbishop Harry Flynn that detailed Fr. Kenneth LaVan’s abuse of women and girls. But Carlson or Flynn aren’t responding to these disturbing revelations. Instead, Archbishop John Nienstedt trots out a spokesman who claims church officials would have handled the case differently these days. Frankly, we don’t believe that. And we find that insulting. Where’s the outrage? Where’s a single Catholic church employee who has the courage to say “I’m disgusted that Carlson would urge Flynn to lie and that Flynn took this advice and that LaVan was able to spend another quarter century on the church payroll around unsuspecting families.”

Carlson also admits in one memo that he did “not confront” Fr. LaVan about “the financial misdealing or the other girlfriends as he readily admitted.”

Other phrases in just that one Carlson memo are illustrative:

“the lavish ways that Father LaVan would retain . . .his woman lovers”

“from the very beginning, there were sexual overtones to Father LaVan’s conversation with her”

“it sounds like Father LaVan has a real sexual addiction problem”

“He apparently also is doing a lot of gambling and a fair amount of drinking.”

When will it ever end? When powerful, dishonest prelates like Flynn, Carlson and others are punished, both by church officials and secular authorities. And not until then.

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

MINNESOTA
Waiting for Godot to Leave

Kevin O’Brien

If atheists are right, and there is no God, then let’s burn down all the churches, for they’re all monuments to lies. If Catholics are right, and there is a God and He is who He says He is, then when He says, “Know the truth, and the truth shall set you free” (John 8:32) we’d better realize He means it. That much, at least, Catholics should have in common with atheists: a devotion to the Truth.

But if we are too scared to be loyal to what is True, then we will also fail in being faithful to what is Beautiful and what is Good. The prince of Lies and the God of Truth don’t really mix that well.

I write a lot about Unreality on this blog, by which I mean a religious attitude that is divorced from the reality of life. Unreality is a form of idolatry, of using the things of God for your own small-minded purposes, of leaning on the Church to support your tottering house of cards, of being contrived and artificial, of adopting airs and affectations, of making the worship of God not about understanding and serving the Truth (troubling though the Truth may be), but about shoring up your own deliberately narrowed and circumscribed agenda. It is the main temptation facing devout Christians of all stripes.

And here’s how Unreality works in practice.

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.

ILLINOIS
OakPark.com

Monday, August 11th, 2014

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.

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.

OKLAHOMA
Opposing Views

The Highway of Holiness Church in Oklahoma City, Okla., recently invited a convicted sex offender, Dale Hoffert, to attend their Children’s Crusade event.

“I was upset. I was sick to my stomach,” mom Tanya Cotton told News 9 (video below).

“You should send your kids to church and feel safe about it,” added Cotton. “His past is not good with children. Do not be tempting him with our kids.”

Cotton saw Hoffert on a cell phone video that was shot by her 10-year-old son in the children’s church event.

Hoffert used to be the youth pastor at the church, but was convicted of forcible oral sodomy in 2007.

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

VATICAN CITY
District Chronicles

By Josephine McKenna/Religion News Service
On August 11, 2014

VATICAN CITY – The defrocking of a former Vatican ambassador is a “sign of the seriousness” with which Pope Francis and the Vatican are approaching the clergy sexual abuse scandal, according to the Holy See’s representative to United Nations agencies in Geneva.

Archbishop Silvano Tomasi was tasked with defending the Catholic Church’s record when he presented reports to the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child and the U.N. Committee Against Torture in Geneva earlier this year.

During questioning, Tomasi was asked whether the Vatican would agree to extradite Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, a Polish archbishop and papal envoy, to his native Poland after he was recalled from the Dominican Republic last September on claims of sexual abuse.

Wesolowski was defrocked this month, and Tomasi said the former nuncio was being investigated by Vatican prosecutors. Speaking in Rome last week, Tomasi said he hoped other states and institutions would now follow the approach taken by the Holy See in dealing with cases of pedophilia.

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

UNITED STATES
The Daily Beast

[with video]

Here’s why you should listen to those protesters in front of churches

By Adam Grannick for the Moral Courage Project

The two men sit across from each other on a sofa, like old friends. “When I was twelve years old,” Kevin confesses, “I wanted nothing more in life than to be a priest.” Bob nods solemnly. “In all the time that I’ve known you,” Kevin continues, “I never called you Father Bob. Many people do, but I didn’t. It would have been detrimental for me.”

Kevin is one of many abused by priests as children, and the trauma continues to affect him to this day. Battling various anxieties, Kevin spent time in shelters as well as living out of his car. His unlikely friendship with Bob Hoatson, a former priest and abuse survivor himself, stems from Hoatson’s work as an advocate for those abused by priests.

Many within the Catholic Church feel that it is unfair that so much attention be focused on the Church, when—as we’ve seen—many communities are rife with incidents of abuse. “The Catholic Church’s issue is magnified,” Hoatson explains, “because they covered it up and secreted it for so long.” There are some glimmers of progress, and Pope Francis recently formed a team to combat child sexual abuse within the Church. However, Hoatson is among those who believe that the problems that lead to abuse run deeper.

“The image of the Church, and the maintaining of the secrets of the Church, are what is most important to the bishops. I felt that it was very important for me to expose all of this, so that victims would feel more comfortable coming out, so that they can get on the road to recovery and heal from the many injuries that they’ve received as a result of the abuse.”

A big criticism that Hoatson and others like him often face is that it’s not right for clergy to blow the whistle so loudly and so publicly. The abuse occurred within the Church, so it should be appropriate to address the crisis within the Church, right? Wrong, says Hoatson. “It became very clear that anyone who was going to whistleblow inside the structure [of the Church] was persona non grata. So we had to use the media, we had to go public. Because children were still being hurt.”

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.

NORTHERN IRELAND
Derry Journal

SDLP Foyle MP Mark Durkan has written to the chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, Keith Vaz MP, calling for the allegations of abuse at Kincora Boys’ Home in east Belfast to be included in a new investigation into child abuse across the UK.

Mr Durkan, who was the seconder of the original motion in the Northern Ireland Assembly which led to the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry – and also questioned the Home Secretary Theresa May in the House of Commons in 2012 over allegations of abuse at Kincora – said: “The remit of the “national panel” outlined by the Home Secretary should cover cases of abuse in Northern Ireland.

“The over-arching inquiry should cover the abuse at Kincora Boys’ Home. It should seek to uncover the apparent cover-up in relation to the complicity of security services, any governmental awareness and related action or inaction.

“If any other cases of abuse in Northern Ireland, including instances and patterns before the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry were known to, or suspected by, relevant authorities, and especially if such intelligence was shared with ministers and / or their officials, then that dimension should also be examined by the over-arching inquiry.

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VIRGINIA
WHSV

By: Channing Frampton

ROCKINGHAM COUNTY UPDATE: 08/10/2014

The church’s pastor says Layman is no longer with the church. He also says the incident involves a member of Layman’s family.

A children’s pastor with a Rockingham County church has been arrested and accused of a sex crime involving a child.

A member of the congregation from the Spring Creek Church of the Nazarene tells WHSV that an announcement was made Sunday regarding the arrest of the church’s children’s pastor.

The Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that Leonard “Sonny” Layman was arrested over the weekend for a sexual crime involving a child. We’re also told he is in jail without bond and waiting for a first court appearance Monday morning.

According to the church’s website, Layman was called into children’s ministry in 1990.

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.

VIRGINIA
WHSV

By: Samantha Galvez

HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) — A former children’s pastor accused of a sexual crime with a child made his first court appearance Monday morning.

Sheriff’s deputies arrested Leonard “Sonny” Layman this weekend and charged him with seven felonies, including five counts of sexual abuse of a minor.

As of last Wednesday, Layman is no longer with the church.

According to members of the Spring Creek Church of the Nazarene in Bridgewater, where Layman was a pastor, an announcement was made at services Sunday morning abut his arrest.

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
National Catholic Reporter

David Clohessy | Aug. 11, 2014 Examining the Crisis

Last week, we in the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests celebrated our 25th anniversary. This week, we take note of another, less positive milestone.

It’s now been 10 years since we first began prodding the largest group of U.S. nuns to take action on abuse by women religious. It’s been a frustrating and fruitless decade.

Almost every August since 2004, we have shown up at and held news conferences outside the annual gathering of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, America’s largest organization of nuns. We’ve begged LCWR to expose the truth about child sex crimes and cover-ups by women religious. We’ve politely but firmly urged it to take simple steps to protect the vulnerable from abusive nuns and heal those wounded by abusive nuns.

And we’ve been politely but repeatedly rebuffed. (Our website lists each of our interactions with the LCWR over the past decade.)

How many boys and girls over the decades have been sexually violated by nuns? No one knows. We in SNAP have roughly 250 men and women who report having been molested by women religious, most as children, a few as adults. Who knows how many more are out there, likely suffering in silence, shame and self-blame?

Specifically, we’ve asked the leaders of the LCWR to:

* Put a link to our website on the LCWR website so victims of abusive nuns are given options if they want to heal or take action;
* Ask member orders to do the same;
* Invite SNAP members who are victims of sexual abuse by women religious to speak to LCWR member communities during LCWR national and regional conferences;
* Give us a list of member orders with addresses and names of contact people if a survivor of nun sexual abuse would wish to find healing and comfort from an order;
* Set up a national review board for sexual abuse by women religious to ensure this abuse comes to an end and so that those who were sexually abused by women religious can begin their journeys of healing.

Sadly, however, there has been no progress on any of our requests, and LCWR officials have not made any counterproposals that would show a good-faith effort to help prevent abuse in the future or help those hurting from abuse in the past.

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NEW YORK
The Journal News

RAMAPO A Monsey rabbi and school principal was arrested Monday by Ramapo police after an investigation led by the Rockland District Attorney’s Office special unit that deals with crimes against children.

The exact charges against Gavriel Bodenheimer were unclear. His lawyer, David Ascher, said the charges were contained in a sealed indictment that he had not been able to see.

Bodenheimer, 71, was being processed Monday afternoon at the Rockland County jail, Ascher said. He said he has been told the arraignment and unsealing of the indictment will take place Tuesday morning.

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LOUISIANA
The Advertiser

Claire Taylor August 11, 2014

District Attorney Mike Harson said he will not take action on newly uncovered allegations of child sex abuse by priests unless asked to do so by a victim.

“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,” Harson wrote in an email Monday in response to The Daily Advertiser’s questions.

The Daily Advertiser asked Harson last week if he will ask, demand or subpoena a list of 15 priests whose victims received settlements from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lafayette or its insurers, as stated by Bishop Michael Jarrell.

The Advertiser also asked Harson if he will investigate allegations against the Rev. Gil Dutel, pastor at St. Edmond Catholic Church in Lafayette.

Dutel says he is innocent and Jarrell said the Diocese has no evidence of abuse or misconduct by Dutel, although it also has no report on the investigation.

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.

MASSACHUSETTS
The Republican

By Anne-Gerard Flynn | aflynn@repub.com
on August 11, 2014

Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, will be installed as the ninth bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield, on Aug. 12 at 2 p.m. at St. Michael’s Cathedral, with a public reception at 5 p.m., at the Better Living Center on the grounds of the Eastern States Exposition in West Springfield.

During an Aug. 5 meeting at the diocesan offices, Rozanski welcomed questions on a variety of topics, with the resultant interview, Springfield’s Bishop Mitchell Rozanski, loyal to Orioles, Church doctrine and being a listener, offering insight into the next generation of bishops, as well as into the Church under Pope Francis.

The Catholic Church has faced disgrace globally during the last decade, as victims of pedophile priests have broken years of silence, and unsealed court documents revealed patterns of cover up within dioceses, as suspected clergy were reassigned by bishops, rather than reported. The Church in the U.S., alone, has paid out billions in settlement awards to victims.

A United Nations committee recently accused the Vatican of violating an anti-torture treaty it signed, in 2002, by failing to report accusations of abuse to legal authorities.

Francis, who became became pope in March, has promised to hold bishops accountable for any failures of reporting, and he has appointed a commission to advise him on Church efforts on protection of minors, and outreach to victims. The United States Catholic Conference of Bishops, in 2005, created a charter mandating what dioceses must do when sex abuse allegations are made.

Against this background, Rozanski was asked to what extent the Church’s failure to report clergy sex abuse contributed to a lessening of its influence on secular society.

Rozanski said that the Church cannot evangelize, “unless we ourselves are evangelized and rooted fully in the Gospel.” He spoke about the effectiveness of the 2005 charter, and the need for dioceses to stay vigilant. In terms of secular culture, he said, today’s “crime, drugs, general lack of respect for one another, is really based on in the disintegration of family life.”

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.

TEXAS
Watch Keep

They called it “Freedom Fest.”

Among the crowd, Greg Kelley’s high school sweetheart, Gaebri Anderson — speaking on television about Greg for the first time.

She says there’s no way her boyfriend is guilty of this crime.

“From my perspective, I have known him for so long, I know his heart. I know he’s not capable of such terrible things,” she said.
…

But there is a big outcry, especially on social media from those who feel justice was done in the Greg Kelley case.

Amy Smith is with a group called SNAP that supports victims of abuse.

“Some of those that I have connected with on Twitter and through Facebook and then some have reached out to me privately through social media saying ‘we live here, we live in Leander, we live in Austin. And we’re very disturbed by such a public outpouring.’ And some of them are sexual abuse victims themselves and that really touched a nerve with them,” Smith said.

Smith says there are better, more private ways to show support for Kelley. She says many are upset Sunday’s Freedom Fest was held at a church.

“To a child, that says ‘They’re against me.’ And to even question ‘Is God against me because I spoke up?’ And so it’s the public way of showing support…and I don’t think you need to have a public festival with dancing and games and food and a party with a slip and slide to show support for an imprisoned friend or family member,” she said.

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TEXAS
KVIA

Darren Hunt

EL PASO, Texas –
Victor J. Reza, an El Paso diocesan school board member, has been granted $20,000 bond by a federal judge on Monday morning.

According to the affidavit in the case, Reza admitted to investigators to downloading child pornography.

In court Monday, it was revealed that Reza had done information technology (IT) work at St. Raphael Parish and St. Pius X Parish and also played in band at St. Raphael.

Reza was arrested on Aug. 5 on a federal child porn charge. According to jail records, Reza has been charged with in transit/receipt and distribution of child sexual exploitation material.

In the affidavit Reza told investigators that he works in the computer and information technology (IT) field.

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.

MISSOURI/MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, August 11, 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 )

“Find a suitable cover story. . . so that this thing does not blow up.” That’s what then-Bishop Robert Carlson wrote to his boss about a credibly accused predator priest.

That priest was finally removed from active ministry just a few months ago.

Carlson now heads the Archdiocese of St. Louis. The memo, written in 1985, was made public this morning in Minnesota.

It is yet another example – in Carlson’s own words – of his willingness to deceive the public and his own parishioners about child molesting clerics.

Let’s see how Carlson spins this one. Let’s see what possible excuse he offers to “explain away” such Machiavellian, self-serving and irresponsible advice from one professed spiritual figure to another.

Our guess is that he’ll ignore this, even though these are his words, in writing, while he was a bishop. (We hope St. Louis Catholics, citizens, and journalists won’t let him ignore it.) Will Carlson claim that 20+ years ago, he didn’t know lying was wrong?

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – Four Corners

[with video]

By Quentin McDermott and Peter Cronau

MONDAY 11th August 2014

They were sexually abused by the clergy and then found themselves targeted by the Church’s lawyers. Why did it happen and who was responsible for the strategy?

This week on Four Corners, reporter Quentin McDermott reveals the systematic way the Catholic Church sought to conceal the sexual abuse of children, using lawyers to minimise the potential financial impact to the organisation.

Talking to the abused, their families and employees of the Church, and by examining the detail of Royal Commission testimony, McDermott pieces together a strategy that even those inside the Church now concede was misplaced and utterly unethical.

“It’s a major, major crisis. It’s not only a crisis of scandal and crime; it’s also a crisis of faith and credibility.”

The program begins by looking at two cases where the Church clearly accepted that all the available evidence suggested abuse had happened, even offering a small settlement. When this was rejected, the lawyers acting on behalf of the Church argued the abuse had never happened.

“Firstly they disputed that the abuse had occurred and then they denied that our daughters had suffered from that abuse.”

The investigation examines the tactics employed by the Church in negotiating with victims in private, often with no legal representation, during compensation negotiations. …

‘IN THE NAME OF THE LAW’, reported by Quentin McDermott and presented by Kerry O’Brien, goes to air on Monday 11th August at 8.30pm on ABC. It is replayed on Tuesday 12th August at 11.00am and 11.35pm. It can also be seen on ABC News 24 on Saturday at 8.00pm, ABC iview or abc.net.au/4corners.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

AUGUST 12, 2014

Sarah Elks
Reporter
Brisbane

THE Catholic Church did not sack a parish priest even after an internal investigation commissioned by George Pell discovered he was guilty of child sex abuse.

ABC TV’s Four Corners last night revealed the results of a 1997 church investigation into Peter Searson that concluded he had for years sexually abused girls at the parish of Doveton, outside Melbourne.

However, Searson successfully appealed to Rome the ruling by the church’s internal Independent Commissioner into Sexual Abuse, Peter O’Callaghan QC, who had been appointed by Cardinal Pell, then archbishop of Melbourne. Searson argued Mr O’Callaghan didn’t have the jurisdiction to make such a finding.

Cardinal Pell is now in charge of Vatican finances.

Four Corners reported Cardinal Pell was approached by teachers at the Holy Family School in Doveton in 1989 and in the early 1990s, pleading with him to remove Searson after repeated complaints by children, parents and other teachers.

“I didn’t do nothing; I certainly did,” Cardinal Pell told the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into child sex abuse last year.

He denied there had been a cover-up.“No conviction was ­recorded for Searson on sexual misbehaviour,” he said. “There might be victims. He was convicted for ­cruelty. But speaking more generally, I totally reject the ­suggestion.”

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

MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Father Kenneth LaVan, removed from ministry in December 2013, is a serial predator whom the Archdiocese continually disregarded as being a threat to women and children.

Allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior were made in the 1980s and twice LaVan was sent for treatment. A lawsuit involving one of LaVan’s victims was settled in 1985 and by 1989 LaVan was diagnosed with a compulsive sexuality disorder. In 1995 the Clergy Review Board examined LaVan’s history and recommended he continue in ministry. Archbishop Flynn was informed in 2005 that LaVan was not part of the monitoring system and Flynn advised Father Kevin McDonough to leave the situation alone. Finally, after a review of Church files by Kinsale Management LaVan’s faculties were removed in December 2013.

Kenneth LaVan’s file was released as part of a civil lawsuit filed in 2013 in Ramsey County. Doe 1, a sexual abuse survivor of Father Thomas Adamson, successfully sought and obtained the release of a list of credibly accused priests and their secret files from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and Diocese of Winona. LaVan’s name was not part of the original list of credibly accused released by the Archdiocese in December 2013. LaVan’s name was later added after Kinsale completed its review.

A summary of the LaVan documents, a timeline, and a summary of LaVan’s priest file are available below.

Kenneth LaVan file, part 1
Kenneth LaVan file, part 2
Kenneth LaVan file, part 3
Kenneth LaVan Timeline
LaVan Hot Docs
LaVan summary

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 08/11/2014

The Rev. Kenneth LaVan began sexually abusing girls with his first parish assignment in the 1960s, and later threatened to burn down a woman’s house and have her husband killed — yet he was not removed from active ministry in the Twin Cities until last year, according to court and internal church records.

The Rev. Kevin McDonough told then-Archbishop Harry Flynn in 2005 that, while he knew of LaVan’s “boundary violations with adult females, I had forgotten that there were two allegations in the late 1980s concerning sexual involvement with teenaged girls.”

There were “significant doubts” about the girls’ stories, however, McDonough told Flynn. Nevertheless, he raised the possibility of “reopening an investigation into these old matters.

The details about LaVan’s record at parishes in West St. Paul, Crystal, Lake St. Croix Beach and Lino Lakes, among other locations, were revealed through a court-ordered release of his internal church file. Attorney Jeffrey Anderson, who sued the archdiocese on behalf of a man alleging sexual abuse by a different priest, released the contents of the file Monday to reporters.

“The secret personnel file of Kenneth LaVan shows a pernicious ‘blind spot’ among Catholic officials at the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis: the stunning and heartless minimization of the sexual abuse of girls and women,” Anderson said in a written statement.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail (UK)

The priest who abused girls at confession – and how the Catholic church kept it secret: Furious families demand the truth about string of child sex abuse scandals

By EMILY CRANE FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

A secret Catholic Church report found an Australian parish priest had been internally investigated and found guilty of child sex abuse, despite no criminal charges ever being laid against him.

A report into a confidential investigation into Father Peter Searson of the Doveton parish, south east of Melbourne, in 1997 found he was guilty of the offences, ABC’s Four Corners reports.

While Cardinal George Pell rejected a church cover-up of Father Searson’s crimes when he gave evidence at last year’s Victorian inquiry into child sex abuse, he did not make reference to the internal 1997 investigation or the finding that he had sexually abused children in his parish.

The revelation the church knew about Father Searson’s abuse was found in a report by the Independent Commissioner into Sexual Abuse, Peter O’Callaghan.

He was appointed in 1997 by Cardinal Pell, who was Archbishop of Melbourne at the time, to look at allegations from teachers and parents regarding Father Searson.

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WASHINGTON
Religion News Service

Sarah Pulliam Bailey | August 8, 2014 | 36 Comments

(RNS) Seattle megachurch pastor Mark Driscoll has been removed from a church-planting network of more than 500 churches he helped found after a pattern of “ungodly and disqualifying behavior.”

Driscoll, co-founder of the Acts 29 Network, has been an influential but edgy pastor within conservative evangelical circles for several years. His own Mars Hill Church attracts some 14,000 people at 15 locations across five states each Sunday.

At the same time, however, Driscoll has been controversial in evangelical circles for years. The New York Times Magazine called him “one of the most admired — and reviled — figures among evangelicals nationwide.” He has been provocative, occasionally profane and has faced allegations of plagiarism and inflating his book sales.

After Acts 29 board action, all of Driscoll’s Mars Hill Church locations have been removed from the website of the network.

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CANADA
Christian Week

By CRAIG MACARTNEY Senior Correspondent | August 1, 2014

ROCKWOOD, ON—An advocacy organization that helps the children of missionaries deal with their sometimes painful pasts has opened a Canadian chapter.

Missionary Kids Safety Net (MK Safety Net) works primarily with adults whose parents were missionaries. Some “missionary kids” (MKs) suffered abuse or trauma while their parents were in the field, and MK Safety Net is helping them connect with counsellors and other abuse survivors. The organization also helps survivors walk through the process of reporting abuse and initiating investigations.

“Even as children and teens, MKs often live in a great deal of emotional isolation from one another and that isolation continues into adulthood,” says Beverly Shellrude Thompson, a former MK and president emeritus of MK Safety Net Canada. “The work we do includes creating safe environments for people who want to talk about trauma they experienced to connect with others from their schools or people from different settings.”

MK Safety Net was founded following an investigation into abuse at Mamou Alliance Academy in Guinea. After a 1999 retreat held for survivors, including Shellrude Thompson, to review the investigation, numerous other MKs began contacting them with reports of past abuse in various organizations. The group decided to incorporate and continue their support work.

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OKLAHOMA
News 9

[with video]

By Deanne Stein, News 9

OKLAHOMA CITY –
A mother is outraged after finding out a known registered sex offender attended an annual children’s event at a southwest Oklahoma City church.

Tanya Cotton says she is still shocked that the Highway of Holiness Church, located at 2800 S.W. 38th Street, allowed registered sex offender, 29-year-old Dale Hoffert Junior, to attend the Children’s Crusade event last week.

“I was upset. I was sick to my stomach,” said Cotton. “You should send your kids to church and feel safe about it.”

After the services, Cotton watched the videos on her 10-year-old son’s cell phone when she saw Hoffert in one of the videos, participating in the service. She recognized him immediately, because he used to be the youth pastor at the church.

“His past is not good with children,” she said. “Do not be tempting him with our kids.”

Hoffert was convicted on charges of forcible oral sodomy in 2007. The victim was not a member of the church. Court records show he served time in prison until he got out earlier this year on a suspended sentence.

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.

OKLAHOMA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, Aug. 11, 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 )

Every person at the Highway of Holiness Church should be ashamed and outraged that church officials let a registered sex offender attend the Children’s Crusade event last week.

Convicted bank robbers can’t own handguns. Convicted drunk drivers can’t operate school buses. And convicted child predators should be nowhere near kids, even after “paying their debt to society.”

A reformed alcoholic doesn’t seek work in a brewery. And a truly repentant and reformed child molester doesn’t attend a children’s church service.

But Dale Hoffert Junior is just doing what predators do: spend time around kids. The more troubling wrongdoers here are the staff and members of Highway of Holiness Church, who are knowingly endangering kids by letting Hoffert near children.

You can believe God changes people without tempting fate and setting up risky situations in which children are put in harm’s way.

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
Detroit Free Press

By Patricia Montemurri
Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

Sister Sharon Holland, a Catholic nun who grew up in Pontiac as a judge’s daughter and became one of the highest-ranking women at the male-dominated Vatican, is used to navigating conflict and controversy.

And there’s more ahead.

On Friday, Holland, 75, becomes the president of the Leadership Council of Women Religious (LCWR), an organization representing most of America’s Catholic sisters that is under attack by Vatican overseers for being too liberal.

Observers say her 21 years of experience working as a Vatican-based canon lawyer — a legal expert trained in Catholic Church law — will assist her in the delicate, yet confrontational, discussions with Vatican representatives.

Holland is a member of the Monroe-based Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) and before she earned a Catholic canon law degree from Gregorian University in Rome, she once taught elementary school at St. Mary’s in Wayne as Sister Marie Russell.

The LCWR, which is holding its annual meeting in Nashville beginning Tuesday, is comprised of female religious leaders from orders across the U.S. The Leadership Council’s 1400 members represent some 80% of an estimated 52,000 Catholic sisters in the country. Holland, who declined to be interviewed for this article, will become LCWR’s president Friday.

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

OHIO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, August 11, 2014

For more information: Judy Jones (636) 433-2511, SNAPjudy@gmail.com, David Clohessy of St. Louis (314) 566-9790 cell, davidgclohessy@gmail.com

Abuse victims challenge bishop
“Stop defaming us,” group says
“Let’s have an open discussion,” they ask

A support group for clergy sex abuse victims is challenging Youngstown’s Catholic bishop to a public discussion about his handling of child molesting clerics and is accusing him of “defaming” their organization.

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, are writing Bishop George Murry urging him to set up “an open debate or discussion about the on-going clergy sex abuse and cover up scandal.”

The request comes on the heels of last week’s disclosure that Deacon Ernest Formichelli has allegedly been ousted as a teacher and a deacon in the diocese. The Ohio State Board of Education has also permanently revoked Formichelli’s two teaching licenses.

“Bishop Murry’s spokesman, Fr. John Jerek, claims we’re misinformed, but conveniently, neither man will explain why,” says David Clohessy of St Louis, SNAP’s executive director. “They’re slinging mud when they should be shedding light. That’s not helpful. So we hope that Bishop Murry will overcome his fears and sit down with us in public and talk about this troubling situation.”

“Murry keep promising ‘transparency’ in clergy sex cases so why wouldn’t he have an open meeting about the biggest crisis the US Catholic church has ever faced?” said Judy Jones, SNAP’s Midwest associate director. “The bishop only comments on clergy sex cases through a spokesman, who issues a written statement only when forced to do so by disclosures from victims or reports from journalists. That’s no way to inspire confidence, bring healing, or clarify confusion.”

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GUAM
Jungle Watch

….after some parishes had already picked up their weekly copies of the U Matuna this past Friday, the Chancery suddenly gave the order to confiscate and destroy all 8000 or so copies? And then had to print a whole different edition?

The Pacific Daily News (which prints the paper) thanks you for the extra business by the way. Nice to know we have that kind of money to throw around. Gotta wonder how many homeless the cost of that extra run could have fed.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Online

[with video]

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) – The Vatican bank two years ago invested in an Italian television company that makes family movies, including films about popes and a series about a bike-riding country priest who helps police solve crimes.

The Vatican’s at-the-time Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone ordered the investment in Lux Vide SpA. He said the company shared the Holy See’s “lofty goal of evangelization.”

Bertone, who was the second-in-command to former Pope Benedict, pushed the deal through despite objections from the bank’s director and board members.

The Vatican last month booked a loss for the entire amount spent, as part of a wider review of Vatican finances that has also led to the closure of hundreds of accounts at the Institute for Religious Works, or IOR.

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

LOUISIANA
KATC

[with video]

Newly discovered court records from the 1990s are giving us a look back at a dark era for the Diocese of Lafayette and the scope of just how many people were involved.

The church sex-abuse crisis has been back in the spotlight, after an in-depth report by Minnesota Public Radio last month. The report opened an old wound in Lafayette, which saw the first cases of priest sex-abuse in the country. When the scandal seemingly passed, federal documents relating to the scandal were unsealed in 1998. Those documents remained boxed-up in a courthouse in Ft. Worth, TX, until now.

KATC and our media partner, The Advocate, had 5 boxes of documents shipped in from Ft. Worth on Friday. The documents detail the Lafayette Diocese’s suit against their insurance company in the late 80’s. Among the documents are depositions from victims and members of the diocese, psychiatric reports on abusive priests and even personnel files.

One personnel file is a list of 41 priests, and includes basic information like dates of birth and ordination. The file goes one step further with a brief description of each priest. Some of the descriptions include terms like: “known pedophilia (sic),” “suspected of homosexuality,” and “effeminent (sic), counseling recommended.”

There were also minutes from a diocesan personnel board meeting from February 16, 1977, concerning the re-assignment of certain priests. While the reasons for the changes were not documented, two priests who would later be convicted of child molestion were discussed–Father Lane Fontenot and Father Gilbert Gauthe.

In discussing the placement of Fontenot, the diocese writes: “Because of a recent situation with Father Gilbert Gauthe in St. Mary Magdalen’s, we feel that assigning Father Fontenot to Abbeville would not be prudent. (this is strongly felt).”

Gauthe would go on to become the most notorious child molester in the diocese, and one deposition details how a father of one of his victims wanted to kill him. In the deposition, the boy’s father said when he heard what Gauthe did to his son, who was an altar boy at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in New Iberia, he went to the rectory with a shotgun.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

A Catholic priest has stepped aside while an “historical complaint” is investigated, the Bishop of Dromore has said.

Monsignor Aidan Hamill, who is based in Lurgan, County Armagh, has voluntarily stepped aside from his duties.

Bishop John McAreavey said he was recently made aware of the allegations.

“In accordance with both national and diocesan child protection policy and procedures, the relevant statutory authorities were informed,” he said.

Bishop McAreavey said social services were carrying out an independent risk assessment.

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.

TEXAS
Fox 7

[with video]

They called it “Freedom Fest.”

The goal was to raise awareness about 19-year-old Greg Kelley and to help his family with mounting legal fees.

“This is a freedom fight for Greg. This is our big fundraiser. We’ve been raising funds, we’ve raised over $23,000 already. But this is the one we started in motion pretty much right after Greg got convicted,” said organizer Pam Brimberry.

Brimberry knows Greg through her daughter. She says Freedom Fest has a line up of live music, food, a chance to sign the petition and to donate. …

Amy Smith is with a group called SNAP that supports victims of abuse.

“Some of those that I have connected with on Twitter and through Facebook and then some have reached out to me privately through social media saying ‘we live here, we live in Leander, we live in Austin. And we’re very disturbed by such a public outpouring.’ And some of them are sexual abuse victims themselves and that really touched a nerve with them,” Smith said.

Smith says there are better, more private ways to show support for Kelley. She says many are upset Sunday’s Freedom Fest was held at a church.

“To a child, that says ‘They’re against me.’ And to even question ‘Is God against me because I spoke up?’ And so it’s the public way of showing support…and I don’t think you need to have a public festival with dancing and games and food and a party with a slip and slide to show support for an imprisoned friend or family member,” she said.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

Anglican Church strips former archdeacon Peter Coote of clergy position over sexual misconduct allegations

ABC

August 11, 2014

The Diocese of The Murray has revoked the licence of former archdeacon Peter Coote following an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct.

The decision means Mr Coote can no longer hold any office or position as a member of the clergy within the South Australian diocese.

It came after more than 10 years of investigations and hearings by the Anglican Church Professional Standards Boards and reviews of their findings and recommendations.

Mr Coote was the parish priest at Happy Valley when he became the subject of sexual misconduct and inappropriate behaviour complaints involving three women in the southern suburbs in 2004.

At that time Mr Coote was reprimanded.

An internal church investigation took place three years later when the Anglican Church’s Professional Standards Board decided to stand Mr Coote down.

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

AUSTRALIA
7 News

Secret Catholic Church report found parish priest Peter Searson was guilty of child sex abuse, despite no charges ever being laid against him

ABC

BY QUENTIN MCDERMOTT AND PETER CRONAU
August 11, 2014

A secret Catholic Church report concluded a parish priest was guilty of child sexual abuse, despite no charges ever being laid against him.

The internal report of a confidential 1997 investigation into Father Peter Searson, of the outer-Melbourne parish of Doveton, made a finding that “the parish priest had been guilty of sexual abuse”, Four Corners has revealed.

In his evidence to last year’s Victorian inquiry into child sexual abuse, Cardinal George Pell rejected suggestions of a cover-up of Father Searson’s crimes, stating: “No conviction was recorded for Searson on sexual misbehaviour. There might be victims. He was convicted for cruelty. But speaking more generally, I totally reject the suggestion.”

Cardinal Pell made no reference to the inquiry about the internal hearing into Father Searson which had taken place in 1997, or the finding that the parish priest had sexually abused two girls.

Cardinal Pell was regional bishop in the early 1990s when allegations were being made about Father Searson in Doveton.

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

AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph

Former head of St Gregory’s College Campbelltown Brother Peter Pemble charged with child indecent assault

IAN WALKER THE DAILY TELEGRAPH AUGUST 11, 2014

A FORMER Western Sydney catholic school headmaster is to face court next week over an alleged decades-old child indecent assault.

The former head of St Gregory’s College Campbelltown, 66-year-old Brother Peter Pemble, allegedly indecently assaulted a boy at Maitland between 1971 and 1972.

Detectives began investigations last year after they received information about an assault on a child.

At the time Br Pemble was studying at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium after he stepped down at St Gregory’s due to ill-health in 2008.

He returned to Australia and was questioned by detectives in Surry Hills on July 22 about the alleged Maitland assault.

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.

ST. LOUIS (MO)
Riverfront Times

By Lindsay Toler Sun., Aug. 10 2014

Father Alexander Lippert, a Catholic priest who served in eleven St. Louis-area parishes over 33 years, sexually abused a minor in the 1970s, according to the Archdiocese of St. Louis.

Archbishop Robert Carlson says a report accusing Lippert of abusing a minor is credible, the archdiocese announced last week. Since Lippert died in April 2000 and can’t respond to the allegations, the archdiocese has officially ruled the report of sexual abuse as “credible though unsubstantiated.”

The archdiocese did not release details about the abuse or the victim, who was a minor at the time.

The archdiocese said it would post bulletins about the allegations against Lippert in the parishes where he served or resided. Lippert was assigned to Holy guardian Angels parish in south St. Louis in April 1956; Immaculate Conception in Union in July 1959; St. Liborius in north St. Louis in 1961; St. Teresa in north St. Louis in 1963; St. Ferdinand in Florissant in 1965; St. Aloysius in Spanish Lake in May 1968; St. Paul the Apostle in Pine Lawn (resided, during leave of absence) in July 1970; Basilica of St. Louis, King of France (Old Cathedral) in Downtown St. Louis in June 1980; St. Catherine of Alexandria in Coffman in November 1980; St. Ambrose in south St. Louis in May 1983; and St. Thomas of Aquin in south St. Louis in April 1986.

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
Pew Research Center

BY MICHAEL LIPKA

The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), which includes representation from more than 80% of American nuns, is set to hold its annual assembly next week in Nashville. The meeting comes as the organization continues to draw scrutiny from the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church, and also at a time when there has been a steep decline in the number of nuns.

The Vatican first began taking a hard look at some organizations of U.S. nuns about five years ago, eventually ordering an investigation and a “doctrinal assessment” of the LCWR – and a plan for organizational reform.

While the church’s specific concerns with the nuns are complex, a few major areas were highlighted in a 2012 Vatican document, which said the LCWR was “silent on the right to life from conception to natural death” and that Roman Catholic views on the family and human sexuality “are not part of the LCWR agenda in a way that promotes Church teaching.” The document also raised concerns about “radical feminist themes” at programs sponsored by the LCWR, and cited addresses at LCWR assemblies that “manifest problematic statements and serious theological, even doctrinal errors.”

More recently, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, the prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, criticized the LCWR in an April address before a meeting with the organization and reiterated the Vatican’s intention to require approval for speakers and awardees at LCWR events.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

Sean O’Neill Crime Editor

The Archbishop of York has told victims of sexual abuse by predatory clergy that he is “deeply ashamed” of the Church of England’s failures to protect vulnerable children.

Dr John Sentamu has written to a number of men who were abused as children by the Very Rev Robert Waddington, the former dean of Manchester Cathedral, who preyed on schoolboys in Britain and Australia over a 60-year period.

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

NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Clarion Herald – Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans

Published on Monday, 27 January 2014

Written by Peter Finney Jr

In his decades serving as a pastor and as vicar for clergy in the Archdiocese of New Orleans, Msgr. Ray Hebert, who died Jan. 16 at 85 at West Jefferson Hospital, was known for his gentle demeanor and his willingness to listen carefully with an open heart.

Although he was one of the most respected priests in the archdiocese, his loving spirit did not shield him from the cross – having to bear the weight of false sexual abuse accusations lodged against him by former residents of Madonna Manor in Marrero.

Protesting from the beginning that the 50-year-old allegations were false, Msgr. Hebert filed a defamation suit against his accusers and worked feverishly in his retirement to have the accusations publicly withdrawn.

Forgiveness shined through

When the last of his accusers finally recanted in 2010, Msgr. Hebert could have pressed for civil damages, but instead he turned the other cheek.

“Msgr. Hebert said he would withdraw his lawsuit if the man made a public retraction that was published in the newspaper,” former Archbishop Alfred Hughes said following Msgr. Hebert’s funeral Mass Jan. 20 at Immaculate Conception Church in Marrero. “He eventually did that, and then Ray withdrew the lawsuit.

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

NEW YORK
New York Post

By Susan Edelman
August 10, 2014

David Seff, a math professor at Brooklyn College, asked a female student to meet him in a classroom one late afternoon in August 2011 to help with a “listening experiment.” Alone with the young woman, Seff pounced on her, authorities charged.

Seff, now 68, allegedly grabbed her breasts and crotch. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor harassment last September and was ordered to stay away from her for a year.

But his case never made the news — his name was kept under wraps by then-Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes.

That secrecy is over, says DA Kenneth Thompson, who succeeded Hynes in January.

At The Post’s request, Thompson’s staff last week released 20 names of defendants in cases Hynes had refused to divulge because they involved Orthodox Jewish suspects and/or victims.

Hynes, who would issue press releases on non-Orthodox sex offenders, insisted he was shielding Orthodox victims or their families from Mafia-like intimidation in their insular community. …

Other previously unpublicized suspects include:

 * Israel Moshe, 47, accused in 2010 of raping a 22-year-old woman with cerebral palsy who answered a Craigslist ad. He’s a fugitive with a warrant for arrest.

 * Alexander Rogalsky, 30, a camp counselor accused in 2011 of first-degree sodomy with a 13-year-old boy in 2003. Under a plea deal with Thompson in February, he copped to second-degree sodomy and got 10 years’ probation.

 * David Zimmer, 43, a locksmith convicted of sexually abusing a 10-year-old girl in 1999 and arrested again in 2012 for taking photos of a 9-year-old girl in Borough Park. He pleaded guilty to failure to register in June and faces sentencing Sept. 13.

 * Naftolis Schwartz, 57, a Hebrew teacher accused in 2012 of sexually abusing a 13-year-old student. He pleaded guilty in February to endangering the welfare of a child and received no jail time.

* Yosef Ederi, 42, a repeat pedophile accused of sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy at their synagogue in 2011. He pleaded guilty to child endangerment in July 2013, was set free, and struck again. In May, he was convicted of molesting an 8-year-old boy and sentenced to a year in Rikers. He’s already out.

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 KINGDOM
Archbishop of York

Wednesday 23rd July 2014

The Independent Inquiry chaired by Her Honour Judge Sally Cahill QC into the Church’s handling of reports of alleged sexual abuse by the late Robert Waddington, formerly Dean of Manchester, has now concluded its investigations.

The Archbishop of York has now received a copy of the Inquiry’s Report. When all those referred to in the report have been informed of its completion, and when the Archbishop has met with the Chair of the Inquiry, it will be for the Archbishop to determine how and when to make public the findings of the Inquiry.

Although commissioned by the Archbishop, the process of this Independent Inquiry has rightly been outside the control of the Church. It has been the responsibility of the Inquiry to determine its own investigations, in order to complete the work and report as thoroughly and fairly as possible.

The Archbishop of York said: “Whilst it is never possible to put right the wrongs that have been done, the seriousness of the crimes which have been committed makes us determined both to acknowledge our responsibility and our shame for our failure to protect children in the past, and to respond far more positively to those victims who bravely come forward to share their experience today. I am thankful to all those who have participated, at some personal cost, in the process of this Inquiry. May we learn from the tragedy of abuse and ensure that systemic failure in the past can never be repeated.”

The Bishop of Manchester, the Rt Revd David Walker, said, “I welcome the news that the Inquiry Group have completed their work and passed their report to the Archbishop of York. I wish to pay tribute to those who are brave enough to come forward and report abuse that they have suffered. They have a vital part to play in driving institutional abuse out of British society.”

Anyone wanting to inform the Statutory Authorities of past or present abuse can speak to a Local Authority Designated Officer, who can be contacted through your Local Safeguarding Children Board.

If anyone would value support from people who have been through similar experiences, they can contact MACSAS, Minsters and Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors. MACSAS is a support group for women and men from Christian backgrounds who have been sexually abused by Ministers or Clergy, as children or as adults. Please see their website at www.macsas.org.uk.

The following groups may also be of help:

•NSPCC: Helpline: 0808 800 5000 (24 hours, every day) www.nspcc.org.uk
•ChildLine: Helpline: 0800 1111 (24 hours) www.childline.org.uk
•Survivors UK : Helpline: 0845 122 1201 www.survivorsuk.org
•The National Association of People Abused in Childhood: Helpline: 0800 085 3330 www.napac.org.uk

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

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

AUGUST 11, 2014

Michael McKenna
Reporter
Brisbane

AUSTRALIAN and British child sex victims have finally been vindicated after years of cover-up by the Anglican Church, with an ­official admission that one of its most senior clergymen was a pedophile who had been ­“allowed’’ to abuse children.

Archbishop of York John Sentamu has written to victims of the late Robert Waddington — a ­former Queensland headmaster who later ran hundreds of Anglican schools in Britain — saying he was “deeply ashamed’’ the church had not listened and acted on complaints of child sex abuse.

The extraordinary admission follows a year-long inquiry into Waddington, the former dean of Manchester who died in 2007, and the mishandling of abuse allegations in 1999, 2003 and 2005 against him from former choirboys and students in England and Australia.

The inquiry, sparked by a joint investigation of The Australian and The Times of London that showed Waddington’s trail of horrific rapes and beatings of boys over five decades and inaction by senior church officials, was headed by sitting English judge Sally Cahill QC. It also investigated the former archbishop of York, now Lord (David) Hope of Thornes who last year expressed regret at not reporting the allegations to police or other child protection agencies.

Archbishop Sentamu wrote in his letter to Waddington’s victims that “we in the Church of England should face up to the wrong which has been allowed to be done to those children who were abused by the late Robert Waddington’’.

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.

GUAM
Juan Malimungga

Good Evening my dear friends and family,

Shocking that I would take the time two write about some of the issues that affected me and I continue to ask you today and always to keep the faith. These are very difficult times for many people and I recognize that I cannot be the sole person to come forward each and every time to fight against this kind of devious and criminal actions by leaders. Yet I do it knowing that I am putting into the universe and most importantly, to God above, that I am trying to follow his teachings in Loving my enemy as myself. And indeed, while some people may argue that I often time do this risking so much before me and my professional life, I cannot but help to state for the record, I can’t do it without you! You are the ones that I am madly in love. You, the suffering Chamorro People of the Marianas, and when ever something “major” like this happens, it has been our culture “to keep silent” and “to keep quiet.” And granted, this too is part of a colonial disposition – to feel helpless and to remain silent so that we don’t shame anyone in public or on the radio or even on T.V. However, this kind of behavior is really the work of Satan and we must do everything in our power to get rid of these devils that roam around the world seeking for the ruin of souls. This kind of behavior by Church officials, to keep things silent, is truly a shame upon all of us, the faithful in this Archdiocese. Yet, what my hope is in all of this is to continue to teach the young people who will have my words and my actions for the remaining time that I am alive and to illustrate to them that if anything like this happens – when you are abused in any way – that you take it one step up and seek help from authorities who must listen to your story. This is in the best interest of all involved because if we just keep silent, what would happen if another boy or another girl gets hurt. You and I have the opportunity to stop those who abuse in their place. If we just remain silent and don’t really do anything, then this teaches that person “NOBODY CAN GET ME!” – famous quotation used by other advocates on this island!

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

AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

August 10, 2014

Colin Kruger
Business Reporter

Cardinal George Pell appears to have settled in quite nicely to his new role as ‘’God’s banker’’.

CBD is not sure how his Italian language skills are faring but in a recent interview with the Catholic News Service from St John’s Tower in Vatican City, he certainly showed how well he has boned up on the corporate lingo.

In an article titled Pope’s finance chief talks Vatican reform, Pell was asked what he was doing in Rome and why the reform was necessary.

‘‘I’d say we’re attempting to put into place the best available set of management practices,’’ Pell says.

There are international standards for accounting and money management which Pell says he’s introducing to the Vatican, such as regular independent audits.

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

AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

Broken Rites has helped the Australian Broadcasting Corporation with research for a Four Corners television program, being broadcast on Monday 11 August 2014. The program is about how the Catholic Church in Australia tries to cover up its child-sex abuse – and how the church avoids paying full compensation to victims. The ABC producers obtained information from Broken Rites research. Here are the links to some of the relevant Broken Rites articles.

The Four Corners program includes case studies of some of the church’s paedophile priests. For example (you can click on any of the following names):

Fr Aidan Duggan: Cardinal George Pell instructed the church’s lawyers to crush a former altar boy (John Ellis) who had been one of Duggan’s victims. The church is still using this legal tactic (known in legal circles as “the Ellis defence”) to avoid paying full compensation to other victims.

Fr Kevin O’Donnell: George Pell praised Father O’Donnell but Broken Rites supported the victims.

Fr Peter Searson: The church inflicted this “chaplain” on disadvantaged victims.

Fr Dominic Phillips:This priest “befriended” young schoolgirls.

Four Corners also gives an example of one notorious Melbourne parish – Doveton. This low socio-economic area is on Melbourne’s south-eastern outskirts, near Dandenong. The Melbourne Archdiocese leadership sent a succession of sexually-abusive priests to this parish. For example (you can click on any of the following names).

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.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

TUESDAY, AUGUST 5, 2014

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

In a grudge match before the state Supreme Court, defense lawyers for Msgr. William J. Lynn will square off against District Attorney Seth Williams.

At stake is the freedom of Lynn, whose historic June 22, 2012 conviction on one count of endangering the welfare of a child was reversed on Dec. 26, 2013 by the state Superior Court.

Both the district attorney and Lynn’s defense lawyers have filed briefs in anticipation of a yet-unscheduled hearing before the state’s highest court. The district attorney began his 33-page filing on July 10th by charging that Lynn “was a high ranking Archdiocesan official specifically responsible for protecting children from pedophile priests.”

“Instead, he relocated them, as part of a general scheme of concealment, in a manner that put additional children at risk of being sexually molested,” the district attorney wrote. In reversing Lynn’s conviction, “The Superior Court erred and should be reversed,” concluded the brief filed by Chief of the D.A.’s Appeal Unit Hugh J. Burns Jr., Deputy District Attorney Ronald Eisenberg, First Assistant District Attorney Edward F. McCann Jr., and D.A. Seth Williams.

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

LOUISIANA
The Advertiser

Judy Bastien

Recent allegations of sex abuse of a child by a local priest has sent ripples through the congregation at St. Edmond Catholic Church and at the same time has spurred them to rally in support of its pastor.

“I’m very sad that a leader of my parish has had to go through this,” said Bob Chaney of the Rev. Gilbert Dutel — “Father Gil,” to his parishioners. Chaney, who called Dutel “an inspiring man,” firmly believes in his innocence, as it seems, does the whole congregation.

Last weekend, Dutel received standing ovations from his parishioners during Mass.

“If a person is innocent, it’s fabulous to have support of a community that believes in you,” said Kathryn Elliott, who holds a doctorate in psychology and is in private practice at the Anthetic Psychology Center. “That’s archetypical, loving support.”

But that kind of support can cut both ways. A support system that protects the guilty does the community a disservice.

It should be said that accusations do not always constitute guilt.

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

NEW YORK
Post-Star

Meg Hagerty

ALBANY

Edward Scharfenberger remembers having a couple of sleepless nights after getting a call from the apostolic nuncio at the Vatican notifying him he had been named to succeed Howard Hubbard as the 10th bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany.

He wasn’t afraid of leaving the Brooklyn parish he served for 12 years, but he feared in his new position he’d be stuck behind a desk all day.

But the 66-year-old has not been languishing in his office since he started his duties in April. He has made it a priority to meet the Catholics in the 12 deanery, 14-county area bishopric.

Kenneth Goldfarb, director of communications for the diocese, said even he has trouble keeping track of the bishop. …

From 2002 to 2008, Scharfenberger was a member of the Diocesan Review Board for Sexual Abuse of Minors for the Brooklyn Diocese, charged with evaluating the way sexual abuse cases were handled. He and a committee determined whether an allegation was credible, then made recommendations to the bishop. During his last year on the board, he took on the role of Promoter of Justice and worked to protect and pursue individual and ecclesial rights in the church.

Sharfenberger acknowledged there was a “lack of vigilance” in the past on the part of church officials to respond to allegations of sexual abuse. As far back as the 1970s, mental health professionals were suggesting perpetrators only needed counseling and reassignment to a new parish and all would be well, he said.

“Those were obviously, as you look back, not the right decisions to be made. Never again,” he said. “Now we urge the public, if they see something, to say something. To many of the victims, more than anything else, the most healing thing is just knowing that somebody is listening to them and takes them seriously.”

Scharfenberger praised Pope Francis for reaching out and apologizing to victims of clergy sexual abuse. In the past 10 years, the Catholic Church has had to do “personal soul searching,” he said.

“That was important. The church that only focuses in on itself and, God forbid, in a very defensive way, is not going to be effective in claiming the Gospel. That having been said, what I like about the Francis approach is that it doesn’t seem like he’s doing this in order to bring people to convert, to proselytize. That’s very distasteful,” he said.

Scharfenberger said the Albany diocese has an agreement with each of the district attorneys in the 14 counties and if an allegation is made, it is forwarded to that office immediately. In addition, the diocese conducts its own investigation with the review board.

“I’m personally present throughout that process to keep an eye on things,” he said. “My goal is to be transparent, to follow law and go beyond in terms of those that have been affected.”

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

IRELAND
Irish Mirror

Aug 10, 2014 By Marie Kierans

Cardinal Sean Brady should be axed over his role in the cover-up of sex abuse against children, a victim of paedo priest Brendan Smyth claimed on Saturday.

Brendan Boland’s poignant new book Sworn To Silence reveals for the first time an Oath of Secrecy that he signed as a young boy in 1975.

Fr Brady also put his name to the official document.

After plucking up the courage to report the abuse to another cleric following two years of hell, the youngster was summoned to a secret Church inquiry and questioned on his own by a group of priests including Fr Brady while his father was told to stay outside.

And despite assurances to both him and his dad that the matter would be dealt with, Smyth continued to abuse children for another two decades before being convicted of more than 100 counts.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Dan Box
Crime Reporter
Sydney

A DISABLED woman is suing the former Superior of a Catholic religious order, alleging that he sexually abused her over 14 years and that others in the church failed­ to act on their knowledge of what took place.

Documents tendered to the NSW Supreme Court show former school teacher Jennifer Herrick, 61, alleges Father Thomas Knowles repeatedly assaulted her without consent, including by forcing her to have sex in a park grandstand and within sight of other people.

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

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By the national reporting team’s Lorna Knowles

A disabled woman has begun a legal case against her former parish priest for sexually abusing her over a 14-year period.

Jennifer Herrick is seeking aggravated damages from Father Tom Knowles and three senior members of his Catholic Church order, the Blessed Sacrament Fathers.

Ms Herrick says Father Knowles repeatedly exploited her vulnerability as a disabled and sexually naive parishioner.

In June, Ms Herrick spoke exclusively to the ABC about how the church was using the controversial Ellis defence to fight her claim.

Today, she took the long train ride from her home on the NSW Central Coast to Sydney for the first day of her hearing in the Supreme Court.

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

AUSTRALIA
ABC – PM

MARK COLVIN: A disabled woman has begun a legal case against her former parish priest, who she says sexually abused her over a 14 year period.

Jennifer Herrick is suing Father Tom Knowles and three senior members of his Catholic Church order, the Blessed Sacrament Fathers.

Ms Herrick says Father Knowles repeatedly exploited her vulnerability as a disabled and sexually naive parishioner.

Two months ago, Jennifer Herrick spoke to PM about how the church was using the controversial Ellis defence to fight her claim.

Lorna Knowles has the story.

LORNA KNOWLES: Early this morning, Jennifer Herrick took the long train ride from her home on the New South Wales Central Coast to the Supreme Court in Sydney, to take on the man she says abused her for 14 years.

JENNIFER HERRICK: It felt surreal in some ways, when you had had a close knowledge of someone that was so betrayed as I’ve had, to then be in a courtroom discussing that same person, it’s not a normal circumstance, and it’s very difficult.

LORNA KNOWLES: She sat silently in court, as a church barrister described her claims as excessive.

JENNIFER HERRICK: I was really affronted by that term. It was insulting and I thought frivolous on his part to something that’s extremely serious.

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

AUSTRALIA
7 News

ABC

KATHLEEN DYETT AND JONATHON GUL
August 10, 2014

The Anglican Church has apologised to victims of abuse at special church services across Canberra and Goulburn.

Bishop Stuart Robinson publicly apologised to victims of abuse at the hands of church members, or groups connected to the church.

The apology was either read out to congregations at Lamentation Sunday services, or a video of the apology delivered by Bishop Robinson was played in church.

“From time to time I have to deliver messages which are difficult and painful, and this is one of them,” he said.

“I do make this apology sincerely and genuinely, we do hope to care for people.”

“I take this opportunity to apologise for any abuse or mistreatment, that those in this event, that is the service that you’re attending, may have experienced by groups or individuals connected with our Anglican church,” Bishop Robinson said.

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

AUSTRALIA
Daily Advertiser

By ELLA SMITH Aug. 10, 2014

THE Anglican church broke its silence on abuse within the ministry with a formal apology in Wagga yesterday.

The service acknowledged the pain, hurt and sorrow caused by the actions and inactions of the church, and sought to act as a step towards healing, forgiveness and reconciliation.

The Anglican Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn, Reverend Stuart Robinson, made a public apology before local priests led their own congregations in services across the diocese.

“The general response in my community, many people were in tears, there was a heavy feeling of sorrow and the chance to lament the immense pain,” Rector of Anglican parish of Wagga, Father Michael Armstrong, said.

“It’s also about us, as a church, asking for forgiveness.

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

NEW YORK
Buffalo News

By Jay Tokasz | News Staff Reporter
on August 9, 2014

The 26 teenagers sat stone silent as Bishop Richard J. Malone stepped down from the altar to talk with them about the sacrament of confirmation during Mass inside St. Francis of Assisi Church in Athol Springs.

A confirmation service often is the only direct interaction that many Catholics experience with a bishop in their lifetimes, and Malone, sensing timidity in this group, encouraged them not to be afraid “to talk in church when the bishop asks you to.”

He wanted to know how many of them played sports – a ready icebreaker in sports-obsessed Western New York. He professed his own loyalty to the Boston Red Sox and compared the practice of Catholicism to being a good teammate who trains regularly and keeps in shape.

Malone then ratcheted up the gravity of his homily, urging the young Catholics not to become complacent in their religion. …

Still, the push to revitalize the Buffalo Diocese could not come at a more difficult time.

The Catholic Church hasn’t fully recovered from clergy sex abuse scandals that began rocking the American church more than a decade ago. A 2013 Pew Research Center survey found that 34 percent of American Catholics viewed sex abuse and its cover-up as the church’s most important problem.

In addition:

• For some Catholics, discontent lingers from church and school closings under former Bishop Edward U. Kmiec;

• A shortage of priests will only grow more acute as a large crop of pastors nears retirement age, with many clergy already feeling overburdened and underappreciated; and,

• After years of growth, overall Catholic parish collections, which reached as high as $101 million in 2002, are now headed downward, even as many costs increase, potentially hampering the diocese’s attempts to launch new evangelization programs. The diocese also estimates it has $85 million to $110 million in “long-term” financial commitments for which it must prepare, including priest and lay employee retirement plans and cemetery maintenance costs.

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
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

NCR’s full article with Haselberger’s speech focal points and our rebuttal after each paragraph is below these preliminary commentaries.

Jennifer Haselberger take SNAP Chicago Convention ‘for a ride’ to South Africa. (‘Take for a ride’ means to cheat or deceive someone)

According to NCR, Jennifer Haselberger got a standing ovation before she uttered a word at the SNAP convention in Chicago last week. The “who’s who” list of speakers who played major roles (in the past) in revealing the Catholic church’s clergy sexual abuse crisis frequently referenced to her (past) role in exposing the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese’s mishandling of pedophile priests. One speaker alone (was assigned) recapped portions of her dissertation (so she wouldn’t have to waste time repeating the past).

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

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Vinnie Rotondaro | Aug. 9, 2014 NCR Today

Few Americans knew much about (or had even heard of) Burwell v. Hobby Lobby before the Supreme Court ruled June 30 that the religiously devout owners of the Oklahoma-based arts and crafts retail chain didn’t have to pay for four kinds of contraceptive care for female employees under the Affordable Care Act.

In the end, what the Supreme Court dropped was a culture war bomb. America has been in the throes of the culture wars since 1970s, says Vince Miller, the Gudorf Chair in Catholic Theology and Culture at the University of Dayton. NCR interviewed Miller to learn more about the culture wars and the effect they have on American society.

NCR: What are the culture wars, and how do they work?

Miller: Culture war politics focuses on what can divide groups, polarize them and then mobilize them against each other. Part of what defines the culture wars is rhetoric: using language that portrays the opponent as not simply wrong, but morally depraved. Politically, it seeks policies and legislation that do not appeal to the majority. It aims to mobilize the base, but not broad coalitions. It’s always about getting 51 percent. …

What have the culture wars done to Christianity?

The religious right was enormously well organized and enormously well funded. And for my entire generation, they were the public voice of Christianity. For people whose access to Christianity is largely what they see on television or in the news or in the paper, they got to define the public face of Christianity. And study after study has shown that the millennial generation has gotten that message loud and clear, and they don’t find it interesting at all. They find it repugnant. In 2007, a Barna study showed that among non-Christians under 30, only 15 percent had a positive view of Christianity. When they were asked to describe Christianity, the words they gave were judgmental, hypocritical, old-fashioned, and too political.

I’m 32, and sometimes when I mention I’m Catholic, I get a look.

Right, and if people don’t know that there’s something else that Catholicism represents — if they don’t already know about Dorothy Day, Oscar Romero, or Sr. Dorothy Stang, about the church’s concern for justice and peace — then there’s no way they would ever learn about any of it in the broader media.

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

NEW ZEALAND
Stuff

STEVE KILGALLON

As the Vatican’s “Promoter of Justice”, Monsignor Bob Oliver bears the “best job title I’ll ever have”.

Catchy title, unenviable occupation.

Oliver is out to capture paedophile priests, surrendering them to civil law, then exacting whatever punishment the Catholic Church can mete out. It makes him a lightning rod for anti-church sentiment, forces him to confront the church’s dark past and its worst miscreants, and means many meetings with victims, often talking of their abuse for the first time. “It breaks your heart,” he said.

It’s been a major worldwide problem for the church: in the US alone, they’ve paid more than $US3b in settling over 3,000 lawsuits from victims; in Ireland, there have been several government apologies and inquiries and estimates of thousands of victims. The new pope, Francis, has taken a hard line on abuse and Oliver, 52, was one of his first appointees.

Oliver visited New Zealand last week, for a conference in Wellington, and granted the Sunday Star-Times a rare interview. The church was once deeply suspicious of the media’s approach to sex abuse cases but Oliver believes media did the church a service: “It’s hard for any group over time to keep up the kind of energy that’s needed to do this work,” he explains. “What the media has been doing was to keep that energy up . . .”

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
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Thomas J. Sullivan was ordained a Jesuit priest of the California Province in 1944. His assignments took him to Jesuit Universities in Los Angeles and San Francisco CA, as well as to Japan, Rome and Hawaii. In Los Angeles he directed a retreat center while residing at a high school. Sullivan died in 1992. He was accused in 2002 of abuse in Los Angeles in 1953. In a 2003 lawsuit he was accused of sexually abusing a male high school student, also in Los Angeles,1956-1958. A 2004 archdiocesan report shows that three people had thus far come forward with reports of abuse said to have occurred 1952-1958.

Ordained: June 17, 1944
Died: Feb. 2, 1992

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
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: John J. “Jack” Wood was ordained for the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus in 1950. He had been working in Alaskan villages as a seminarian since 1945. In 1962 he transferred to Seattle University to teach, returning in 1965 to Alaska for another year. Next he was assigned to a Portland OR parish, back to Seattle U., on to a Spokane convent and then to a Beaverton OR nursing home as chaplain. Wood spent the following 11 years at a Portland OR retirement facility and another nearly 10 years at a Care Center in Spokane. He died in Spokane March 11, 1997. Wood’s name was included on the Fairbanks diocese’s list in 2009 of “individuals against whom one person has brought a complaint of sexual abuse”. The abuse is said to have occurred in Chevak AK, where he was assigned in the 1950s.

Ordained: June 17, 1950
Died: March 11, 1997

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
Religion News Service

I am grateful to my good friend Stephanie Smith for contributing this guest post as I spend a little time away with my family – Boz
__________________________________________________________________________

I’m so pleased to be able to fill in for Boz this week as he enjoys a well-deserved time away with his family. Aside from being able to help out a friend, this guest post provides me an opportunity to address a topic that is of great interest and concern to me in protecting children from predators: Recidivism.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines recidivism as, “The tendency to relapse into a previous condition or mode of behavior.” This has become a hot topic in the last few years as it relates to the different treatment models that have been put into place for sexual offenders. One school of thought argues that nothing can be done for sex offenders to change their behavior. Another school of thought argues that there is some evidence that some offenders can avoid reoffending with the managing of behaviors and triggers.

This is a complex subject that certainly cannot be fully addressed in one post. However, I think it is important to begin this discussion with a few key points to consider when re-offense (recidivism) rates are discussed:

1. Treatment options for those who have committed sexual offenses against children is a young and changing field. Although we know that the sexual abuse of children has been occurring throughout history, the idea of providing treatment to offenders is new and is largely untested with very little accompanying research. Much more remains to be learned about the effectiveness of treatment for child sexual offenders.

2. Recidivism studies require that the offenders have been caught and adjudicated within the time period being studied (five years, fifteen years, etc.). Many reported cases that will result in conviction might not be fully adjudicated within that time frame of the study due to the length of time involved in investigating and prosecuting such cases. Furthermore, the delay in the judicial process is also impacted by the fact that most abuse survivors do not immediately report the abuse.

3. Recidivism studies require accurate data regarding reoffending. The fact that child sexual abuse is one of the most underreported offenses makes it extremely difficult to collect accurate data on the recidivism of offenders. For example, the fact that there has not been a new report of abuse regarding a certain offender does not necessarily mean that the offender has not reoffended. It may simply mean that additional victims have not reported the offense.

4. Any study under discussion needs to be reviewed thoroughly to ascertain how “sex offenders” are defined. Are we looking at a broad or specific category of sex offenses? For example, are we considering only offenses against adults, or just offenses against children, or a combination of offenses against adults and children?

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
Religion Dispatches

BY PATRICIA MILLER AUGUST 8, 2014

Novelist, essayist and biographer Mary Gordon takes on Pope Francis’ treatment of American nuns, and by extension his and the Catholic Church’s attitudes toward women as a whole, in an essay in the August issue of Harper’s Magazine.

Gordon notes that Francis’ much-quoted assertion that the church has focused too much on “issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods” has “suggested the possibility of a new era for the Church, on in which economic justice would take precedence over divisive social issues.” As American nuns “have been the de facto leaders of the country’s liberal Catholics,” Gordon says that Francis’ treatment of the nuns can be seen as a marker of how serious he is about “shifting the Church’s attention.”

But, she concludes, “a year and a half into his papacy, Pope Francis is looking an awful lot like his predecessors,” most notably by allow the investigation into the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and their ongoing censure and the larger “apostolic visitation” of all American nuns to continue at the behest of Vatican conservatives.

RD’s Patricia Miller talked to Gordon about Francis’ treatment of the nuns and the history of hostility between women religious and the all-male hierarchy, which she says “has been consistent throughout Catholic history.” …

You point to a crisis of masculinity among the hierarchy as a result of the sex abuse scandal and the fear of powerful women (who are playing a surprisingly effective role in the political arena, as Network and the LCWR did during the debate over ObamaCare). Does this come down to a question of authority in the church and who wields it?

Yes, it does. With all people in authority, when they feel embattled they get more aggressive. The bishops aren’t any different. They really perceive that their authority is being challenged by the nuns. It is a kind of default setting to look at women when that happens and to try and dominate them to reestablish authority.

You note how badly the attacks on the LCWR and the American nuns in general have gone over with the general public. It really has been a PR disaster for the Vatican. Why don’t you think they have recalibrated, if for no other reason than they seem to be generating more and more sympathy for the nuns?

Because I think they perceive, correctly, that their growth area is with the right wing. That’s their base and that’s where the money comes from. In America, the people who like the nuns are the liberals and they aren’t in the pews every Sunday.

It all comes down to the money. They don’t want to alienate Dominos Pizza [Dominos Pizza founder Thomas Monaghan is a major donor to conservative Catholic causes] and the other big money donors. No one on the left gives them the kind of money that they get from the right. You see this all the time with Catholic colleges like Boston College. Wealthy alumna will make a fuss about something they don’t like and they will pull back.

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.

CANADA
APTN

By Kathleen Martens
APTN Investigates

WINNIPEG – There’s a new sheriff in charge of dealing with lawyers who might prey on Indian Residential School survivors.

Retired British Columbia judge Ian Pitfield has been deputized by BC Supreme Court Justice Brenda Brown as a “special independent advisor” on survivor complaints about their legal services.

The fact there’s enough work to keep Pitfield busy may surprise some. But officials say they welcome the help. All parties to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement approved his hiring effective June 30th.

The details are contained in a court order issued by Justice Brown that was recently made public. She is one of the supervisory judges of the settlement agreement, and has presided over one investigation into a lawyer’s conduct and is presently reviewing another’s.

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
Huffington Post

David Briggs
Writer, Association of Religion Data Archives

The women came seeking healing. Many of these survivors of the Rwandan genocide had lost family members and some had been raped and infected with HIV. More than a few were struggling just it to make it to another day before they found Solace Ministries.

Sometimes it took a month, or a full year before they spoke about their experiences with other survivors. When they did, even if it was only to say a few words before they broke down in tears, other survivors gathered around, embracing one another.

The passage from the Book of Isaiah — “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God” — was the mantra for this ministry, which helped women take the first steps to escape from the depths of horror.

Envisioning a future with a sense of hope was nurtured among a loving community that reinforced their belief in a God who had not abandoned them.

One sermon topic was off limits, however, for the Solace ministers.

“They never, ever, ever preached forgiveness,” said University of Southern California sociologist Donald Miller, who has visited Rwanda 16 times and conducted more than 260 interviews with widows and orphans of the 1994 genocide.

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

IRELAND
Journal

‘DEEP DISAPPOINTMENT’ has been expressed at draft redress legislation aimed at securing medical and community services for survivors of Magdalene laundries.

Justice for Magdalenes Research (JFMR) has said the Heads of Bill falls short of what was recommended by Justice John Quirke.

The group has also raised concerns for survivors living abroad, and said it was ‘dismayed’ at the delay in the publishing of this draft legislation.

Some survivors had passed away or have required frequent hospitalisation, the group claimed.

JFMR has noted that “important services” are missing from the Bill, ranging from “complementary therapies, high tech drugs and home support to assist with household tasks”.

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

IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Conor Ryan
Investigative Correspondent

Justice for Magdalenes has strongly criticised draft legislation that deals with the entitlements of those given compensation for their suffering in the laundries.

JFM said the heads of bill fell far short of what had been recommended to the Government and limited the key medical entitlements that were supposed to be available.

The draft bill allows for a certain level of free medical care to those who receive ex-gratia payments.

However, the way the benefits are parsed means they are actually more restrictive than the established medical card (HAA) scheme.

“Important services which are missing from the bill include complementary therapies, high-tech drugs, and home support to assist with household tasks,” JFM research said in a statement. “The bill also requires a GP referral for counselling, which is not necessary under the HAA card scheme.”

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

IRELAND
Breaking News

Justice for Magdalenes has criticised recommendations in draft legislation which sets out their compensation entitlements for treatment they received in the laundries.

The group is unhappy at the delay in publishing the legislation.

It says the medical care listed is restrictive and falls short of what was recommended by Judge Quirke.

Justice for Magdalenes says it will work with TDs and Senators to ensure the Bill is amended to honour the Government’s committments to Magdalene survivors.

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
Christianity Today

Sabrina Hardy, guest writer

“At least he didn’t take your virginity,” the leader of my Bible study group murmurs sympathetically, handing me a tissue to wipe away the tears brought on by my choked confession of a previous abusive relationship. I tense, mutter “that’s true,” and escape the conversation feeling just as broken and empty as before I worked up the courage to talk to her.

I have this conversation with three separate spiritual leaders at my Christian college, a roommate, and several close friends, and when they hear my ex-boyfriend never abused me sexually, their well-meaning first response always falls along similar lines: “It could have been worse—he could have raped you.” “At least he never laid a hand on you.”

I leave each conversation with none of the relief I expected, and each time, I spend a restless night staring at the walls of my dorm, wondering, Is my depression wrong because I was never sexually abused? and the more destructive, Maybe if he had taken my virginity, someone would listen to me.

Victims of sexual abuse are increasingly speaking out about the aching sense of shame and loss that accompanies such a violation and how it can become exacerbated by the church’s focus on feminine virginity. Yet, even these conversations and debates fall into the same trap: a narrow focus that seems to elevate sexuality to a position of sole importance.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

Fr. Eddie Siebert, S.J. The IN Network | Aug. 8, 2014 NCR Today

It was a frigid, gray February morning, and we huddled alongside thousands of pilgrims packed outside St. Peter’s Square waiting for the pope. Heeding smart advice, my colleague Kathleen Kelly and I arrived just before 8 a.m. to an already massive crowd for the 11 a.m. General Audience. We were in Rome for the SIGNIS World Congress for Catholic Communicators, and it seemed that the main topic of conversation that morning among our fellow conference attendees was just how crowded the Vatican felt since Francis’ election. We were told that audiences are usually held inside St. Peter’s in winter, but the event had been moved outside to accommodate the record-breaking throngs hoping to see the pope.

At 10 a.m., the roar of the flock erupted to the level you might expect at a One Direction concert. He had arrived early — a move characteristic of a pope who has a habit of choosing to spend more time with the people than allotted on the papal schedule. Instead of making a beeline for the front VIP section, where the politically and ecclesially connected waited, the pope entered from the back of the crowd, greeting those with the worst views and least connections. He hopped off the popemobile and lingered there, looking very much at home embracing a mother and her baby, blessing a young disabled woman, and laughing with an older man who may have been homeless. There was this palpable joy in the air as we all watched Francis model something so simple and yet so profound.

His popularity is something even the best PR machines here in Los Angeles can’t execute. It seems like every day, there’s a new story about the popular pontiff — but unlike much of what we see in the news, the Francis stories don’t reek of strategic PR stunts. My own observation of him that day in February and most of the accounts I hear have a few things in common. This is a man who doesn’t start his encounters with theology or dogma. In each situation, he starts with the person right in front of him. He’s not afraid to go after the estranged, to walk with people in their darkness, anger or pain. He seems most comfortable on the margins, with the complicated people and complicated situations many of us would prefer to ignore. …

We also spoke with Peter Saunders, head of the London-based group the National Association for People Abused in Childhood. Sexually abused by two Catholic priests as a child, Peter has been an outspoken voice for change and reform in the Catholic church in the U.K. He was one of six abuse victims to have a groundbreaking face-to-face meeting with the pope last month. Peter admits he’s still not sure why he was invited, as he’s hardly a “safe bet from a PR perspective.” We spoke with him about his “life-changing meeting” with the pope, in which he said, “there wasn’t any pressure to hold back. The pope listened intently and said all the right things.”

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.

MISSISSIPPI
Huffington Post

By David Moye

A church leader in Roach, Missouri, is out of a job after being arrested for allegedly trying to arrange a sexual encounter with a dog.

Jerald Hill, 56, was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of attempted unlawful sex with an animal and attempted animal abuse.

Authorities began investigating Hill after the Boone County Sheriff’s Department Cyber Crimes Task Force got a tip about a Craigslist post by a man looking for two types of animals for sex.

One of the chosen animals was a dog, but investigators declined to mention the other type of animal, the Columbia Tribune reports.

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AUSTRALIA
The Leader

By Monica Heary Aug. 9, 2014

THE Catholic Church has to be more open about the sexual abuse that has clouded its name, a former Sutherland priest celebrating 50 years in the ministry has said.

“The church has to do away with secrecy looking at this issue and also at celibacy; these are real questions for it to consider,” said Father John Sullivan, 74.

The priesthood has been a long learning process for the retired parish priest.

Among the parishes where he has ministered are Marayong, Malabar and Concord.

He has been a Parramatta Psychiatric Centre chaplain and a private secretary to cardinals James Freeman and Edward Clancy. But it was while he was ministering to alcoholics that he received one of his most profound messages.

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CANADA
The Globe and Mail

TOM HAWTHORN
Special to The Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Aug. 08 2014

At the age of 10, Alvin Dixon was removed from his home and family and sent more than 500 kilometres south to the Alberni Residential Indian School on Vancouver Island. Two hours after arriving, he was beaten with a strap. His crime: speaking the only language he knew, which was not English.

Many more beatings were to be endured in the following years. The boarding school operated by the United Church would be revealed later to have been a stalking ground for sadists and at least one predatory pedophile, their quarry the helpless children snatched away in the name of civilization.

What young Alvin and the other children suffered is shocking for its callousness and cruelty. Even the mundane seemed puzzling; he was expected to fill out a form detailing what he had eaten after every meal, an odd bureaucratic task considering the boys all ate from the same shared pot. Only last year it was revealed the children had been the unwitting subjects of experiments conducted by the federal government and the Canadian Red Cross to determine how little nutrition they needed to survive. Alvin Dixon, a malnourished boy, had been a human guinea pig.

Mr. Dixon, who has died at 77, survived the school, earned a university degree, and later counselled fellow residential school survivors. Later still, as a respected Heiltsuk First Nation elder, he became an eloquent and sometimes angry voice for those wronged.

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TEXAS
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

BY MAX B. BAKER
maxbaker@star-telegram.com

The family of a teenage girl who was sexually assaulted by a teacher and basketball coach on the campus of the Burton Adventist Academy in Arlington is suing the Texas Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, saying officials did not do enough to protect the girl while she was at school.

In June, Carlos E. Rodriguez, 37, pled guilty in Tarrant County court to continued sexual abuse of a child under 14 and was sentenced to 30 years in prison without possibility of parole. The assaults took place in 2012 when the girl was 13 and in the eighth grade, according to the court documents.

The family still lives in the area and waited until after the criminal case was completed to sue, one of their attorneys said. They are not named in court documents to protect the girl’s privacy.

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