ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Marist Brother Kostka Chute allowed to teach for years after first sexual assault complaints, royal commission told

June 19, 2014

David Ellery
Reporter for The Canberra Times.

The Marist Brothers did not remove serial child molester Kostka Chute from teaching in Canberra until the ACT’s youth advocate, Brian McLeod, was alerted in December 1993.

This was despite a history of complaints about the now disgraced former Marist Brother at the Canberra college dating back to at least 1986, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard.

Chute first offended in 1959 and was given a canonical warning about admissions of repeated child sex abuse offences in 1968.

Former Canberra Marist Brothers student, Damian De Marco, first complained of abuse by Chute in 1986 when he was in Year 12. This was ignored, the commission heard.

He complained again in September 1993 after learning Chute, who had assaulted him in 1981, was still teaching at the school.

Then-headmaster, Brother Christopher Wade, referred the complaint to the head of the order, Brother Alexis Turton, who returned to the stand to give evidence at Thursday’s hearing.

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AUSTRALIA
Echo Netdaily

The former head of the Marist brothers in Australia has denied he made a hasty decision to put a prolific child sex abuser on a plane to Canada three days after it became known police were investigating him.

Brother Gregory Sutton subsequently pleaded guilty to abusing children in schools in NSW, Qld and the ACT and had taught at Trinity Catholic College in Lismore.

Although he knew Brother Sutton had confessed to molesting a boy who later committed suicide, Brother Alexis Turton, the order’s provincial in 1989, thought it best to get him therapy at a Canadian centre for priest sex offenders.

Br Turton denied repeatedly at a child sex abuse royal commission hearing in Canberra on Wednesday that he sent Sutton to the Southdown centre near Toronto because police had begun asking questions.

Sutton was extradited from Canada and jailed for 12 years in 1996 after pleading guilty to multiple charges of assaulting school children from 1975 to 1986.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

The founder of a campaign group has said victims “cannot wait” for compensation after a request was made to extend the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry.

Margaret McGuckin, of Survivors and Victims of Institutional Abuse, said the inquiry should not be “prolonged”.

The first minister and deputy first minister are to recommend a one year extension to the NI Executive.

A decision is not expected until the autumn.

The extension request was made by Sir Anthony Hart, chairman of the HIA inquiry.

If the extension is granted, the HIA report may not be published until January 2017.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
TheMediaReport

David Pierre

Media outlets – both secular and religious – have been falling over themselves to tout the dramatic front-page story in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch by Lilly Fowler that St. Louis Archbishop Robert J. Carlson testified in a recent deposition that he was unaware that the sexual abuse of a child was a crime.

As one might imagine, however, even a cursory look at the actual facts reveals that the entire story is just plain silly at best and malicious at worst.

The Archbishop is obviously well aware that sex abuse of a child is, and always has been, a crime, and to suggest otherwise simply demonstrates how deeply ingrained the mainstream media’s animus is against the Catholic Church and its leaders.

Fowler’s selective facts

Fowler’s story is based entirely on selected excerpts from a deposition that Archbishop Carlson recently sat for in a lawsuit by the hyperbolic contingency lawyer Jeff Anderson. And no doubt the story was another plant by Anderson to pump up the value of his lawsuit by using useful idiots in the media like Fowler to put public pressure on the Church to settle the case on favorable terms to Anderson.
However, even a cursory review of the actual deposition (pdf) clearly illustrates that Archbishop Carlson was not claiming that he did not know that the sexual abuse of a child was a crime.

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UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

OMG. Oh my God! Are we seeing a parallel universe… or are we seeing the one-and-only Vatican universe (like those timeless wealthy ancient pyramids of Egypt, there’s the Vatican Pyramid)? On June 17, the Vatican Insider published Pope Francis’s homily on Vatican Radio from his papal abode at Santa Marta proudly tooting that he “thundered again” (an Opus Dei Beast PR stunt word for their third Opus Dei Beast puppet pope creation). But what Pope Francis was really doing was describing – in papal pompous style – exactly what we have been saying about him as the world’s Biggest Thief of Mankind – read here http://pope-francis-con-christ.blogspot.ca/2014/02/hidden-heist-in-holy-see-biggest-heist.html via the secret Vatican Swiss Banks that hoard the wealth of the world’s 1% wealthiest, and the Vatican Concordats that usurp billions of dollars from poor countries already buried in debt. Pope Francis sums it best in this phrase: “The corruption of the powerful is paid by the poor. There are three types, three groups: the corrupt politician, corrupt businessman and the corrupt clergy. All three hurt the innocent, the poor, because it is the poor who pay for the festivities of the corrupt! The bill goes to them”.. Pope Francis is quite right because these three groups are the three sides of the Vatican Pyramid that runs the Vatican State and the secret Vatican Swiss Banks and the Vatican Concordats.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Waiting for Godot to Leave

Kevin O’Brien

In this case, she focuses on Archbishop Carlson, who shocked normal people (though, sadly, not enough Catholics) when he said, in a sworn deposition, that he wasn’t sure if he knew that child rape was a crime or not when he was 40 years old and auxiliary bishop of St. Paul, and who has since insisted that he misunderstood the question put to him, a claim that a simple reading of the relevant part of the deposition does not support.

I’ve tried to be fair to Archbishop Carlson, who is my archbishop, and who (ironically) was actually waving red flags about the abusive priest in question back in St. Paul, and who did more than most others in the chanceries at the time, though certainly not enough. That he should compound his bad testimony (which amounts, in Christian terms to bad “witness”) with a denial that should rather have been an apology, is a shame. That he should go so far as to attempt damage control by distributing a letter to every parish in the archdiocese (when he’s never done that here on any doctrinal or moral issue), repeating his rather far-fetched denial while boasting of his own value as a bishop, is sad.

Hamilton reminds her readers – rightly enough – that we are not to put our trust in princes or in the sons of men (Ps. 146:3), but in the Son of Man; that we are all sinners, including our bishops, and that we must therefore avoid a kind of clericalism that serves only to bring us down when our clergy lets us down (as they inevitably do).

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NEW YORK
Frum Follies

Breaking- Nuchem Rosenberg Curtailed By Judge in Lashing Out at DA for No-Jail Deal for His Bleach Assailant

Today (6/18/14) was the sentencing of Meilech Schnitzler for throwing bleach into Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg’s face and almost blinding him. In return for his guilty plea, the office of the DA allowed Schnitzler off without a single day in jail.

Below is the prepared text of Rabbi Rosenberg’s Victim Impact Statement delivered this morning. Rabbi Rosenberg was not allowed to share the entire contents of this statement.

Judge Joseph Gubbay restricted some of the text relating to the issue of sex abuse and the impact of this attack and plea deal on the community. Judge Gubay missed the fact that this attack sent shock waves through the community of anti-abuse activists. It signaled that even as we won a conviction for Weberman, others would attack activists with impunity. The no-jail plea bargain confirmed that fear. I fully expect a celebration for Schnitzler in Williamsburg.

Your Honor,

Good Morning.

My legal name is Nathan Rosenberg but I am known in Hasidic Williamsburg as Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg.

Defendant Meilech Schnitzler, with premeditation, threw a cup of bleach in my face and almost blinded me.

For over nine years I have publicly fought for protecting my community’s children from sexual abuse. I operate a Yiddish language hotline with recorded weekly lectures about how to prevent and prosecute child molestation. My hotline draws several thousand listeners each week from all over the world.

My assault was not a random event and its timing was not an accident. Schnitzler threw that cup of bleach into my face one day after the fifty-nine-count jury conviction of a Satmar Hasid, Rabbi Nechemya Weberman, for sexually assaulting a girl for two and half years, starting when she was twelve. I supported the victim who testified against Weberman, something that made me very unpopular in my Hasidic community.

In spite of what the defendant’s attorney [Israel Fried] claimed in an interview with the New York Times, his attack did not grow out of a heated exchange between me and Schnitzler.

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VATICAN CITY
The Blaze

Jun. 18, 2014 Billy Hallowell

Rumors over Pope Francis’ health are beginning to swirl after the Vatican released a dramatically curtailed list of summer appearances — a radical departure from the full event schedule the pontiff typically holds.

The amended event announcement, which was posted Monday on the Vatican’s official news portal, noted that all Wednesday general audiences will be suspended until August.

Morning mass at Domus Sanctae Marthae, Francis’ residence, has also been canceled for the summer and is scheduled to begin again in September.

Despite these changes, the Angelus devotional prayer is scheduled to continue every Sunday during the summer, aside from select dates on which Francis, who is 77 and only has one fully functional lung, is scheduled to travel.

According to the Daily Beast’s Barbie Latza Nadeau, the fact that people already had tickets to the July audiences made it seem as though the scheduling changes were spontaneous.

“Several Vatican insiders also have noted that the pope is gaining weight and breathing harder than usual, which has caused some of his close associates to warn him to slow down,” Nadeau wrote.

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VATICAN CITY
CNN

By Daniel Burke, CNN Belief Blog Editor

(CNN) A Vatican spokesman denied reports on Wednesday that Pope Francis is ill, saying that the curtailment of his public summer schedule is common for popes.

“There is no sickness whatsoever,” said the Rev. Thomas Rosica, a consultant to the Vatican press office. “If there was, we would be open about that and asking people to pray for him.”

Francis made his usual public appearance in St. Peter’s Square on Wednesday morning and is planning a trip to South Korea from August 13 to 18.

But the Pope will curtail public appearances in St. Peter’s Square during July, as he did last year, and will scale back his daily celebration of Masses at Casa Santa Marta for the summer.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
Aljazeera America

[with video]

by Claire Gordon

Raised in a conservative Mennonite home in rural Ohio, Katie Landry was a sheltered kid. She hadn’t even held hands with a boy when, at age 19, she says her supervisor at her summer job raped her.

Two years later, and desperate for help, she reported the abuse to the dean of students at her college.

“He goes, ‘Well, there’s always a sin under other sin. There’s a root sin,’” Landry remembers. “And he said, ‘We have to find the sin in your life that caused your rape.’ And I just ran.”

Landry ended up dropping out of college, and didn’t tell anyone else for five years.

Her college was Bob Jones University in Greenville, S.C., the flagship campus of American fundamentalism, which teaches a literal interpretation of the Bible and separation from the world. Last year, BJU hired a watchdog group to investigate how it may have failed victims of sexual abuse. The so-called “fortress of faith,” one of the most closed-off Christian colleges in America, was finally opening itself up.

In an America Tonight investigation, five former students detailed similar and scarring treatment at the hands of BJU faculty. They spoke of a larger culture that heaped on shame and pushed them to silence — one focused on purity and reputation, and insistent on unquestioning obedience. But most damaging was how, through the language of Scripture, victims say they were told that their sins had brought on their rapes, that their trauma meant they were fighting God and that healing came from forgiving their rapists.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

The first minister and deputy first minister are to recommend a one-year extension to the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry.

Sir Anthony Hart, chairman of the inquiry, has requested the extension from Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness.

The HIA inquiry is currently due to deliver its final report to the NI Executive in January 2016.

A decision on the request is not expected before the autumn.

OFMDFM said they would recommend the extension to the executive. If granted, the HIA inquiry report may not be published until January 2017.

Sir Anthony Hart said the request was made with “considerable reluctance” and only after “detailed consideration of the implications”.

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NEBRASKA
Wahoo Newspaper

Posted: Wednesday, June 18, 2014

By Kris Byars

WAHOO – Monday was moving day for Fr. Christopher Goodwin, as he celebrated his final mass at St. John Nepomucene Church in Weston that morning.

“It was interesting, actually, because I was expecting it to be a typical Monday morning mass with maybe 10 people in attendance,” he said. “But there were probably a few dozen people there who came to see me off. The support I’ve received from the parishioners has been overwhelming.”

Goodwin, who has served the Weston and Touhy parishes and has acted as the superintendent of St. John Nepomucene Grade School in Weston for the last four years is now moving on to a very different position.

“I’m going to be serving as an administrative secretary at the Vatican Embassy in Washington D.C.,” explained Goodwin.

Each week, there are literally hundreds of letters that pass between the more than 200 American Catholic Diocese and the Holy See in Rome. Goodwin will be one of about five priests who help to handle that correspondence and the administrative work that goes with it.

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NEW YORK
Failed Messiah

Anti-abuse activist Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg asked the judge, Justice Joseph Gubbay (who called the attack “very disturbing” in one brief nod to Rosenberg’s suffering), to sentence Schnitzler to some jail time or, at the very least, to speak out against the very lenient plea deal. Gubbay did neither. Instead, he reportedly tried to get Rosenberg – who still suffers pain and discomfort every day from Schnitzler’s attack, which took place 18 months ago – to accept an “apology” from Schnitzler Gubbay asked Schnitzler to make. And when Rosenberg refused, Gubay lectured Rosenberg on the Jewish concept of forgivness.

A Day Of Shame In Brooklyn
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

Satmar hasid Meilech Schnitzler ran across a busy street and threw a cup of bleach in the face of Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg. Rosenberg is a well-known anti-child-sex-abuse activist. Schnitzler damaged Rosenberg’s face and eye and almost blinded him.

Nevertheless, the attack – carried out 18 months ago because of Rosenberg’s activism and the Satmar hasidic movements’ vehement objection to it – took place in Brooklyn, a place where corruption and obstruction of justice is the norm.

And therefore Schnitzler, who was sentenced today after pleading guilty to “intent to cause physical injury with a weapon” – a Class D Felony – will serve no prison time for almost blinding Rosenberg, whose sight was saved by a non-Jewish store owner who witnessed the attack and ran to the stricken rabbi with clean water to help Rosenberg flush out his eyes.

Brooklyn District Attorney Kenneth Thompson defended this awful plea deal by claiming Rosenberg wasn’t really hurt and had no permanent damage. And this, Thompson pointed out, was Schnitzler’s first arrest.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY OREN YANIV
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Published: Wednesday, June 18, 2014

A Brooklyn judge’s attempt to broker peace Wednesday between a rabbi who advocates against child sex abuse and a Hasid who threw bleach in his face resulted in bupkis.

Justice Joseph Gubbay asked Meilech Schnitzler to apologize to Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg, before he got sentenced to five years’ probation for the December 2012 Clorex attack.

“I want to say sorry for what I did,” Schnitzler, 38, a Williamsburg fishmonger, said awkwardly. “Can you please forgive me?”

But the eccentric activist was having none of it.

“No,” he replied in Brooklyn Supreme Court, “because you didn’t harm me. You harmed all the children I represent.”

Outside the courtroom, Rosenberg, 64, said he “felt very awful” about the jurist’s unexpected olive branch.

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NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, June 18, 2014

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

We wish the man who threw a cup of bleach in an anti-abuse activist’s face would be jailed. The sentencing today of Meilech Schnitzler was a disappointment.

We share Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg’s frustration with the outcome. A more harsh sentence would have done more to deter those who would assault abuse victims and their advocates.

[New York Daily News]

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KENTUCKY
Lex 18

A Wayne County minister who admitted to sexually abusing two girls will spend five years in prison.

Gerald Dishman was originally indicted on 13 counts of rape, but a deal was reached in which he received ten years – five of those, on probation.

He is accused of raping two young girls in the 1980’s and early 90’s.

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CANADA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, June 18, 2014

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

A former Canadian orthodox archbishop, who was convicted of child sexual abuse, will receive his sentencing July 9. We are glad he will soon be sentenced and hope the judge goes with the harshest option.

[CBC News]

Archbishop Seraphim Storheim was accused of abusing two brothers in the 1980s and he was found guilty of abusing at least one of them. Supporters of Storheim have been rallying around him and hurting victims since the accusations against him were made public. We praise the prosecutors in this case who pointed out that Storheim’s supporters prove he has “good skill{s} in developing trust in others.”

Predators are often skilled at hiding their true nature. When parishioners and other supporters publically support child molesters they intimidate victims and hurt those who are already suffering in silence and self blame.

The Orthodox Church in America should take immediate action and defrock Storheim. Defrocking Archbishop Seraphim would send a clear message that child sexual abuse is not tolerated in the OCA.

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CANADA
Winnipeg Free Press

By: James Turner

A former high-ranking Orthodox archbishop should serve a year in jail for violating his position of trust and sexually molesting an altar boy in Winnipeg in the 1980s.

That’s the view of Manitoba prosecutors as Seraphim (Kenneth) Storheim, 68, appeared for sentencing in the Court of Queen’s Bench this morning.

“The hallmarks of this case are the abuse of trust, the abuse of a child and the historical nature,” Crown attorney Breta Passler told Justice Christopher Mainella.

The Crown is seeking the term of real jail in hopes of sending a firm message to the general public that any child-sexual abuse cases will be seriously punished.

That’s even when the allegations date back decades and the perpetrator is of otherwise good conduct.

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NEW YORK
Failed Messiah

Meilech Schnitzler, the Satmar hasid who threw a cup of bleach in face of anti-child-sex-abuse activist Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in December 2012, is being sentenced in a Brooklyn criminal court this morning.

[Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg’s victim’s impact statement is posted in full at the bottom of this post]

Meilech Schnitzler, the Satmar hasid who threw a cup of bleach in face of anti-child-sex-abuse activist Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg in Williamsburg, Brooklyn in December 2012, is being sentenced this morning in a Brooklyn court.

Schnitzler pleaded guilty earlier this year to one felony count of “intent to cause physical injury with a weapon” in a plea deal that is supposed to net Schnitzler – who ran across a busy street carrying the cup of bleach, ran up behind Rosenberg, tapped Rosenberg on the shoulder and threw the bleach in Rosenberg’s face when Rosenberg turned around – a no-jail sentence.

This is a travesty of justice that calls the ability of new Brooklyn DA Ken Thompson to do his job into serious question.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia Inquirer

LAURA MCCRYSTAL, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
LAST UPDATED: Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Five Catholic churches slated to close at the end of the month, together totaling more than 13,000 parishioners, have filed appeals with Archbishop Charles J. Chaput.

Though their chances of winning are minimal, and the process is costly and lengthy, some parishes already are preparing for a second step: sending their cases to Rome.

Any appeals will not delay parish mergers, set to take effect July 1. So, as they prepare to shut their doors, a few parishes are also hiring lawyers familiar with church law, holding meetings, and raising money.

By Tuesday’s deadline to file appeals with the archbishop, the archdiocese had received letters from the five parishes, in Montgomery, Delaware, and Bucks Counties. Church law allows Chaput 30 days to respond. Parishioners can then appeal to the Vatican.

“We’re ready,” said Ralph DiGuiseppe, a parishioner at St. Ann Church in Bristol Township, Bucks County. “The appeal process is being formulated now. So, if this request is turned down, we’ll file the appeal to Rome.”

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Josephine McKenna Religion News Service | Jun. 18, 2014

VATICAN CITY Pope Francis’ abrupt decision to cancel his popular morning Mass and general audiences for the month of July has provoked fresh speculation about the health of the 77-year-old pontiff.

The Vatican has announced the pope will give no midweek general audiences in St Peter’s Square during July, and the intimate Mass he celebrates every day inside the chapel at the St. Martha residence will be suspended from July until September.

“There is no sickness whatsoever,” the Rev. Thomas Rosica, a consultant to the Vatican press office, said, according to CNN. “If there was, we would be open about that and asking people to pray for him.”

Francis will continue to lead the Angelus blessing at the Vatican every Sunday except when he travels to South Korea from August 13-18.

The pope has worked intensely since he was elected in March 2013 and has also made two demanding official visits, to Brazil last year and the Middle East last month. On Saturday (June 21), he is planning to go to Cassano All’Jonio, a mafia stronghold in the southern region of Calabria to pray for 3-year-old Nicola “Coco” Campolongo who was burned to death as he sat in a baby seat when his grandfather was shot dead in front of him.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Sydney diocese behind senior Vatican appointment rejects McAleese claim of ‘old boys’ club’

Joe Humphreys

Wed, Jun 18, 2014

Claims by former president Mary McAleese that a recent senior appointment in the Vatican was evidence of an “old boys’ club” has been rejected by a spokeswoman for the Australian cardinal involved.

In a public interview at UCD on Monday, Ms McAleese criticised the way in which Cardinal George Pell, Australia’s highest ranking Catholic, had appointed the business manager of his archdiocese to a new financial oversight post in Rome.

“That job was not openly advertised,” she said. “I am making no point about the man’s qualifications; I understand he is exceptionally well qualified. That is not the point.

“Here was an opportunity to introduce a process in which people who had necessary qualifications could put themselves forward and we would get – through a transparent process – the best person for the job, who might have been a man, or a woman, it could have been somebody from Kurdistan or somebody from Ireland, or it could have been a gentleman from Sydney.

“But it just looks to me like the gravitational pull of old boys’ clubs is going to need more than mere words which say ‘we have to do something about it’.”

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CANADA
CBC News

A Manitoba judge has reserved his decision in sentencing a former Orthodox archbishop convicted of sexual assault against an altar boy in Winnipeg during the 1980s.

After listening to sentencing submissions on Wednesday, Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Christopher Mainella said he will provide a decision on July 9 in the case against Seraphim Kenneth Storheim, 68.

The Crown is seeking a 12-month jail sentence while the defence is calling for a conditional sentence with no jail time.

Storheim had been accused of sexually assaulting two pre-teen brothers in 1985. He had faced two counts — one for each boy.

Earlier this year, he was found guilty in one case but not the other.

A number of Storheim’s supporters were in the courtroom for Wednesday’s hearing, and some appeared upset by the Crown’s remarks, the CBC’s Nelly Gonzalez reported.

The Crown said Storheim may have many friends and admirers, but that shows he has a “good skill in developing trust in others.”

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CANADA
Winnipeg Sun

A judge has reserved sentencing in a high-profile sex abuse case involving a former archbishop.

Court of Queens justice Christopher Mainella said Wednesday he will deliver a sentence to Kenneth (Seraphim) Storheim on July 9 after the former archbishop in the Orthodox Church in America was convicted in January of sexually abusing a young altar boy in the ’80s.

The Crown is seeking a 12-month jail term, while the defence argued a conditional sentence is adequate.

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CANADA
CJOB

Sean Leslie
June 18, 2014

The judge has reserved a decision on sentencing for an orthodox archbishop who sexually assaulted an altar boy in Winnipeg nearly 30 years ago.

Prosecutors want one year of jail time for Seraphim Storheim. Two brothers accused him of the assault but he was only convicted of assaulting one of them.

During the trial, he denied touching the boys but admits they may have seen him naked during sleepovers.

The defence is asking for a conditional sentence that would allow Storheim to avoid jail time.

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CANADA
Metro News

By Steve Lambert
The Canadian Press

WINNIPEG – A former Orthodox priest facing possible jail time for molesting an altar boy expressed empathy Wednesday toward his victim.

“Having read the victim impact statement, I felt extreme sadness and pain in my heart that he was feeling those things,” Seraphim Kenneth Storheim said in a brief address at the end of his sentencing hearing.

Storheim also said he will pray for the victim “even more” from now on.

The 68-year-old former cleric was dressed in simple black clothing that contrasted with his long white beard. He sat quietly throughout the hearing before making his statement.

The Crown requested a 12-month jail sentence for Storheim, who was convicted in January of one count of sexual assault on a boy who was living and working with him in Winnipeg in 1985. The boy had been sent to live with Storheim by his family who lived in another community.

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UNITED STATES
News 24 (South Africa)

An extraordinary report has emerged from the US about a court case where a person who was abused by a Catholic priest as a child is claiming redress from the church.

Incredibly, St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson testified that he wasn’t sure whether it was illegal for priests to have sex with children while he served as chancellor of the St. Paul and Minneapolis archdiocese.

[Ring of Fire Radio]

Q. Archbishop, you knew it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a kid?
A. I’m not sure whether I knew it was a crime or not. I understand today it’s a crime.
Q. When did you first discern that it was a crime for an adult to engage in sex with a kid?
A. I don’t remember.
Q. When did you first discern that it was a crime for a priest to engage in sex with a kid who he had under his control?
A. I don’t remember that either.
Q. Do you have any doubt in your mind that you knew that in the ’70s?
A. I don’t remember if I did or didn’t.

How can any adult, let alone an archbishop, not know that it is wrong, that is is a crime, to have sex with children?

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, June 18, 2014

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

Missouri prosecutors apparently now have a chance to pursue charges against some child molesters even in cases that are decades old. We hope they’ll take advantage of this opportunity.

We urge Missouri prosecutors to look long and hard at the successful prosecution (which ended yesterday) of a serial predator priest in Cooper County for crimes he committed in the 1980s.

All too often, law enforcement officials quickly tell victims “You’re too late. The statute of limitations has run.” That’s not necessarily the case. Time and time again, over the last 25 years, we in SNAP have seen that “where there’s a will, there’s a way.” We’ve seen that if they are determined and creative, police and prosecutors can charge and convict older sex offenders.

That’s what the Cooper County prosecutor has done. Parents and child sex abuse victims across Missouri owe him a debt of gratitude.

We are not lawyers, but our understanding is that Fr. Jerry Howard is behind bars now for two basic reasons. First, Abele argued that Missouri’s statute of limitations stopped “ticking” when Fr. Howard left the state. And second, Abele argued that because lawmakers have repeatedly changed the statute of limitations, Fr. Howard’s crimes in the 1980s could still be prosecuted.

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CANADA
Metro News

WINNIPEG – The Crown is seeking a 12-month jail sentence for a former Orthodox priest who sexually assaulted an altar boy in Winnipeg.

Crown attorney Breta Passler told a sentencing hearing that Seraphim Kenneth Storheim abused a young person and betrayed a position of trust.

The defence is expected to ask that Storheim be spared any jail time.

Passler says the fact that Storheim, who is 68, has no criminal record is a mitigating factor.

The altar boy, now in his 30s, testified that he was made to fondle Storheim and Storheim touched him inappropriately as well.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

A FEELING of deja vu might be affecting some minds in the wake of the report of the NSW special commission into allegations surrounding child sex abuse cases in the Catholic Church.

The sense that the Church will not look squarely into the face of its past sins seems troublingly familiar, as does the impression it might have more empathy for its own men of the cloth than it does for its parishioners – even those who have been victims of abuse.

Perhaps these sensations are unfair. Perhaps they are mistaken. They are, however, becoming more widespread with each passing day.

These feelings are gaining traction and becoming widely discussed and shared because of a perception – originating chiefly among members of the Church itself – that the organisation’s response to the damning findings of the commission of inquiry are weak, inadequate, patronising and self-serving.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By JOANNE McCARTHY June 18, 2014

A HUNTER group has called on Prime Minister Tony Abbott to show ‘‘Catholic leadership’’ after the Church’s response to an extraordinary broadside from former premier Barry O’Farrell over the Hunter’s damning history of child sexual abuse.

Mr O’Farrell accused Maitland-Newcastle Bishop Bill Wright of ‘‘spin’’, and slammed former bishop Michael Malone and Australian Bishops Conference general secretary Brian Lucas for their ‘‘criminal inaction’’ over Hunter paedophile priest Denis McAlinden, in a speech to NSW Parliament on Tuesday night.

It came after the tabling of the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry report into NSW Police and Catholic Church handling of allegations involving McAlinden and a second Hunter paedophile priest, Jim Fletcher.

The failure of Father Lucas and Bishop Malone to report McAlinden to police from 1993 was ‘‘inexcusable and unacceptable in anyone, but I find it unbelievable, abominable and, frankly, un-Christian when it is found amongst so-called ‘men of the cloth’,’’ Mr O’Farrell said.

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VATICAN CITY
The Tablet

17 June 2014 by Hannah Roberts in Rome

Pope Francis has revealed that he plans to follow in the footsteps of Pope Benedict XVI and retire when he is “no longer able to go on”.

Benedict “opened a door and created an institution” when he became the first pope in 600 years to step down last year, Francis said. In a wide-ranging interview with a Spanish newspaper he explained: “As we are living longer, we tend to reach an age where we cannot carry on. I will do the same as him, ask the Lord to send me a sign when I reach that time and tell me what to do and he will certainly tell me.”

Before he was elected Pope, he had already handed in his resignation as archbishop of Buenos Aires and picked out his retirement home: a foundation for elderly priests, he said.

The candid disclosures came during a hard-hitting interview with La Vanguardia newspaper, published in Barcelona, in which Francis also elaborated on his political views.

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VATICAN CITY
Yahoo! News

By Barbie Latza Nadeau
The Daily Beast

No one can argue that Pope Francis deserves a little break. Since taking office in March 2013, the 77-year-old Argentinian has been on the move almost nonstop greeting his adoring public and reforming the Vatican’s many troubled institutions.

But an announcement by the Vatican’s news service on Monday that the pope will be drastically curtailing his schedule by suspending his popular Wednesday audiences in July and skipping his daily Mass at the Casa Santa Marta, where he lives, has many in Rome wondering if the pope is really OK.

Many people already have tickets for the July audiences, which implies that the decision to suspend them was spontaneous, not preplanned. Several Vatican insiders also have noted that the pope is gaining weight and breathing harder than usual, which has caused some of his close associates to warn him to slow down. “Some in the Holy See are beginning to openly discuss concerns about Francis’ condition and asking if the Holy Father is overtaxing himself,” longtime Vatican correspondent Edward Pentin wrote after the surprising changes to the pope’s schedule.

The worries began last week, when the pope spontaneously canceled his Monday and Tuesday engagements after his historic trip to the Holy Land and Peace prayer with leaders from Israel and Palestine, sending the Vatican press corps in Rome into a minor moment of panic. This week’s announcement of his amended schedule has only added to the speculation that the pope’s health is suffering.

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CANADA
The Vanguard

By Eric Bourque

THE VANGUARD
www.thevanguard.ca

Five years after going public with his story of being sexually abused by a priest when he was a boy, Del Boudreau has put his story in a book, one he hopes will encourage others with a similar story to talk about it.

In the book, Deliver Us From Evil, Boudreau talks about growing up in Wedgeport and about the prominent role of the church in the community at that time.

Among other things, he recalls being chosen to be an altar boy – considered an honour at the time – and recounts how the abuse began.

He was about 10 years old when it started, he said, but it wasn’t until more than a half-century later, when he was 65, that he shared details of the abuse with his family before going public.

In early 2009 Boudreau saw a story in the Vanguard about two Wedgeport natives – including his younger brother – who said they had been abused when they were boys by Adolphe LeBlanc, the parish priest in Wedgeport for about a decade in the 1950s and 60s. After reading the article Boudreau contacted this newspaper and told his own story, saying he had been abused by the same priest. (Adolphe LeBlanc died in 1971.)

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

FORMER NSW premier Barry O’Farrell has called for a high-ranking Catholic priest to be sacked from a key leadership position for not reporting child sexual abuse to police.

Mr O’Farrell in a speech to parliament on Tuesday night called for Father Brian Lucas, general secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference, to be stood down.

The former leader made the comments while criticising the church’s response to Commissioner Margaret Cunneen’s damning report in late May into an alleged cover-up of child sexual abuse in the Catholic diocese of Maitland-Newcastle.

Father Lucas gave evidence on Tuesday at the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse in Canberra.

‘‘He is also a lawyer, which is a relevant fact because he, more than anyone involved in the sorry, squalid and scandalous saga, should have respected the law and reported illegal activities to police,’’ Mr O’Farrell said.

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IRELAND
irish Central

Sheila Langan @SheiLangan June 17,2014

The names, ages, and causes of death of all 796 children who died at St. Mary’s Home, in Tuam, Co. Galway from 1925 to 1960 have been published in full, below.

The list is long, and reading it is a horrifying, heartbreaking experience – though nowhere near as horrifying as the short lives of the children who died, or as heartbreaking as the sheer number of lost little lives.

When she began her research, Catherine Corless, the local historian who set out to uncover the truth about the bones buried at the site of the former Mother and Baby Home, had no idea the number of deaths would be that high.

As she told IrishCentral’s Cahir O’Doherty, she was simply looking for records – something neither the Order of the Bon Secours nuns, who ran the home, nor the Western Health Board, were able to help her with.

“Eventually I had the idea to contact the registry office in Galway. I remembered a law was enacted in 1932 to register every death in the country. My contact said give me a few weeks and I’ll let you know,” she recalled.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
UTV

Published Tuesday, 17 June 2014

A Belfast woman has told UTV how she has only now discovered that her brother, who was born at a mother and baby home 40 years ago, was buried in an unmarked mass grave at Milltown Cemetery.

Fionnuala McGoldrick was born in Marianville Mother and Baby Home in the south of the city, as was her older brother Paul, after her young unwed mother was sent there.

Paul died in another home from pneumonia seven months after he was born in August 1972.

Fionnuala, who was adopted into a new family, began the search to find her brother four years ago and a fortnight ago she obtained records that confirmed he was buried at the Bog Meadows on the edge of Milltown Cemetery in west Belfast.

The mass grave is believed to be the final resting place for so-called ‘limbo babies’ – unbaptised children denied a Christian burial.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Children’s Minister Charlie Flanagan has set-up a dedicated phone line and counselling service for former residents of mother and baby homes.

The move follows the establishment of a Commission of Investigation into the high-rate of infant mortality in Catholic Church run mother and baby homes.

There was widespread public outrage when it emerged almost 800 babies were allegedly buried in a mass grave beside a home in Tuam, Co Galway.

“There are a number of services available to those affected by the matters being considered in the context of mother and baby homes,” the minister said.

“In particular, I am conscious that there is a demand for information and my Department has worked with the HSE in relation to arrangements for the provision of information,” he added.

An update on the inquiry announced by the Minister today includes:

• An information & counselling service for former residents.

• New email address for submissions on Terms of Reference of Commission of Investigation (motherandbabyhomes@dcya.gov.ie).

• Dedicated telephone information line for people seeking information or details of support available.

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IRELAND
Journal

A NEW EMAIL address for submissions on the terms of reference for the Commission of Investigation into mother and baby homes has been launched.

Children’s Minister Charlie Flanagan announced this morning that anyone who wishes to make a submission should contact motherandbabyhomes@dcya.gov.ie.

Flanagan said that submissions could relate to the institutions or locations that should be considered for inclusion or the general matters that the commission should examine.

“The Government is anxious to have the Commission of Investigation established before the Dáil recess and has set a tight deadline. I am urging those who wish to make submissions to act without delay in availing of this opportunity to inform the considerations now underway.”

The Minister will meet with a number of advocacy groups and members of other political parties in the coming weeks to discuss the terms of reference.

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IRELAND
Breaking News

Connect Counselling is expanding its opening hours for the next six weeks to open seven days a week.

The move is being made in response to the recent public attention on the Tuam Babies revelations and subsequent plans for a Mother and Baby Homes Inquiry.

Connect offers a free telephone-based counselling service to victims of abuse, trauma or neglect at institutions.

It normally opens Wednesday to Sunday, but until the end of July it will operate from 6pm to 10pm seven nights a week.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

18 June, 2014

People living in Central West New South Wales who experienced child sexual abuse while in the care of an institution are encouraged to share their story with the Royal Commission.

Royal Commission staff are in the region from today meeting with local service providers and community organisations who are working with survivors of child sexual abuse in an institution.

Royal Commission CEO Philip Reed said the three day visit was focused on the towns of Orange, Bathurst and Lithgow, with future visits to nearby communities planned.

“This is a national Royal Commission hearing stories of child sexual abuse in institutions from across Australia, including regional communities,” Mr Reed said.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 18 June 2014)

The Marist Brothers sent a paedophile Brother (Gregory Joseph Sutton) away from Australia immediately after learning that he was being investigated by police, the national child-abuse Royal Commission has been told.

Brother Greg Sutton (born 19 March 1951) was sent by the Marist headquarters (in Sydney) to teach primary school children, from the early 1970s until the late 1980s, in Catholic schools in Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory.

In June 2014, the Royal Commission began holding a two-weeks public hearing (Case Study 13) which includes the question of how the Marist Brothers administration responded (or failed to respond) to the crimes of Brother Gregory Sutton, plus another Marist (Brother John “Kostka” Chute).

The public hearing was told that Gregory Sutton was finally convicted in New South Wales in 1996 on 67 charges relating to his 15 of his NSW victims (but this NSW court could not deal with any of his Queensland or Canberra offences). He served 12 years of his 18-year NSW sentence behind bars and was released in 2008.

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

June 18, 2014

David Ellery
Reporter for The Canberra Times.

The second highest ranking member of the Marist Brothers would have needed specialist legal advice to determine if an adult touching a child on the genitals was a criminal offence in 1985.

Brother Alexis Turton, the vice-provincial of the order at the time, told Wednesday’s hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, he would have also needed specialist advice to determine if it was criminal for an adult to make a child touch them on the genitals or to masturbate a child.

He did know what a paedophile was at the time and was aware sexual intercourse between an adult and a child was a criminal offence.

Brother Turton, who became the provincial of the order in 1989 and later served as its first professional standards director, said when he was made vice-provincial in 1983 he was not briefed on any sex offenders within the order.

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AUSTRALIA
Courier-Mail

Marist brother Alexis Turton told royal commission he wasn’t sure if touching children was a crime

A MARIST brother who held high positions in the order up to 2012 has said he would have had to get expert advice about whether intimately touching a child was a crime.

Alexis Turton who has been vice-provincial, then provincial and was until 2012 head of the orders’ professional standards office has told the Royal Commission into Institutional Handling of Child Sexual abuse, he knew sexual intercourse with a child was a crime in the 80s.

He was giving evidence in the case of former brother Gregory Sutton who was jailed in 1996 for 67 counts of sexual abuse against boys and girls in NSW, Queensland and the ACT.

Br Turton became involved in 1985, when as vice-provincial he visited St Carthage’s school in Lismore where the principal had raised concerns about Sutton’s behaviour with primary school girls. He told the commission he was not aware in 1985 that Sutton had a history of abuse at other schools, specifically at a primary school in far North Queensland where the principal had told the order Sutton was interfering with boys.

As far as he knew, there were no files the order had that would record his history.

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

Former Marist Brother provincial Alexis Turton denies shipping paedophile Greg Sutton to Canada to foil police investigation

June 18, 2014

David Ellery
Reporter for The Canberra Times.

Former Marist Brother provincial Alexis Turton has denied shipping a known paedophile out of the country on three days notice in order to foil a police investigation.

According to a memo presented in evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Brother Turton had learnt on August 13, 1989, that police were investigating claims Greg Sutton had molested students at St Thomas Moore Primary School in Sydney in 1984.
Sutton was put on a plane to a counselling centre in Canada on August 18.

Brother Turton did not deny he first spoke to the manager of the centre, known as Southdown, on August 15.

He denied writing the incriminating memo which refers to Sutton as ‘Bart’, but accepted that Bart was Sutton.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Dr Sean Lucey

Wed, Jun 18, 2014

In 1925, the medical officer of the Kerry County Home recommended 22 of the institution’s “unmarried mothers” receive two extra eggs daily because they were “required to perform work of an objectionable nature”.

When the department of local government and public health inquired further, the religious matron of the home, Sr Gerard, described the women’s harsh work regimes.

She informed the department there were no paid ward maids and the women were “engaged from 12 to 14 hours” in labour every day. The institution housed up to 400 patients: the majority were elderly and those suffering from long-term chronic sickness, mental illness and intellectual disabilities, and in need of frequent care.

In turn, the “unmarried mothers” carried out much of the manual labour in the home including cleaning, washing and laundry. The matron highlighted that much of this work was “so filthy and unhealthy” it was “almost inhuman” – particularly as the institution had no laundry machine and many of the patients were incontinent – and that some of the women were “almost physical wrecks”.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Wed, Jun 18, 2014

STEVEN CARROLL

Almost 80 per cent of the 796 children who died in the Bon Secours mother and baby home in Tuam did not live to see their first birthday.

Figures provided by the General Register Office, via the Department of Social Protection, show measles, whooping cough and influenza were some of the most common causes of death among the children who passed away in the Co Galway home between 1925 and 1961.

Candles are lit during a march from the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, Mespil Road to the Dáil, in solidarity with the babies and mothers from Tuam and all other homes. Photograph: Colin KeeganCounty homes took harsh toll on ‘unmarried mothers’

The children who died in the home did so at an average age of about 7.7 months. Some 126 of them did not live for more than one month. Some 630 of the 796 (79.1 per cent) did not make it to their first birthday.

The records show that Kathleen Cloran, who passed away on March 27th, 1932, had the longest life of any of the 796. She lived for nine and a half years before succumbing to what the records cite as “ulceration of larynx”.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Kathy Sheridan

Wed, Jun 18, 2014

A visit from the sincerely unloved parish priest was the last thing we needed after a hellish winter’s night holding a bellowing, colicky newborn by her armpits to quell the pain. I cowered nearby while my husband diverted him. But the sonorous voice travelled over several rooms: “There’s nothing as evil as an evil woman,” he boomed, about a case that was making the papers at the time.

His next visit was to acknowledge the birth of a second girl-child. In the bafflingly long, uncomfortable silence, he peeled an orange before heading for the door, signing off with a prayerful: “Ah shur mebbe it’ll be a little boy the next time.”

Yes, I have baggage where the institutional church is concerned. Most of us do, back through multiple generations. Vile misogyny is only the half of it. But as the media gallops away on another Dan Brown- style Angels and Demons blockbuster, it is all starting to sound a little too convenient.

When the kneejerk response to honest reporters or objective historians is a snorted “the cover-up begins”; when it requires real bravery to mildly suggest that perhaps critics might look at historical context, it starts to look a lot like bullying. To see this directed at Irish Times journalists – usually unfairly cast as the cheerleaders of the anti-church regiments – is almost amusing. Is it possible to ask for reflection without risking condemnation as a fellow-traveller?

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

The former head of the Marist brothers in Australia has denied he made a hasty decision to put a prolific child sex abuser on a plane to Canada three days after it became known police were investigating him.

Although he knew the brother had confessed to molesting a boy who later committed suicide, Brother Alexis Turton, the order’s provincial in 1989, thought it best to get Gregory Sutton therapy at a Canadian centre for priest sex offenders.

He denied repeatedly at a child sex abuse royal commission hearing in Canberra on Wednesday that he sent Sutton to the Southdown centre near Toronto because police had begun asking questions.

Sutton was extradited from Canada and jailed for 12 years in 1996 after pleading guilty to multiple charges of assaulting children in schools in NSW, ACT and Queensland from 1975 to 1986.

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CANADA
CTV News

The Canadian Press
Published Wednesday, June 18, 2014

WINNIPEG — A former high-ranking Orthodox priest convicted of sexually assaulting an altar boy in Winnipeg faces a sentencing hearing today.

Seraphim Kenneth Storheim was found guilty earlier this year of assaulting a boy who lived and worked with him in 1985.

At the time, Storheim was a priest for the Orthodox Church in America, and he would later rise to become archbishop — the church’s top cleric in Canada.

The former altar boy, now in his 30s, testified Storheim made him fondle him and that the cleric inappropriately touched the boy as well.

Storheim’s lawyer has indicated he may ask that Storheim be spared jail time, in part because the cleric has no criminal record.

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NEBRASKA
National Catholic Reporter

Robert McClory | Jun. 18, 2014

CRISIS OF CATHOLIC AUTHORITY: FAITH AND POWER IN THE DIOCESE OF LINCOLN, NEBRASKA
By Rachel Pokora
Published by Paragon House, $19.95

Crisis of Catholic Authority is a kind of ecclesiastical horror story. It relates what can happen when an autocratic hierarch chooses to exercise his supreme, punitive power over some of his subjects. No one on this earth will restrain him, neither the priests of his diocese, nor his fellow bishops in the U.S., nor the high authorities in Rome, not even the pope himself. And like some ancient gothic curse, this awesome penalty has acquired a life of its own, continuing in full force for 18 years, outliving the resignation of the bishop who pronounced it, still in effect to this day and into the foreseeable future.

The bishop is Fabian Bruskewitz, who ruled the diocese of Lincoln, Neb., from 1992 to 2012. Those immediately affected by excommunication in 1996 were some 45 members of the Nebraska chapter of the Call to Action organization who happened to live in the Lincoln diocese. They were given one month to resign from the accursed group, at which time the penalty would automatically go into effect. Also presumably affected were any other Call to Action members who would move to Lincoln in the future without renouncing their membership.

It should be noted that no other U.S. bishop has followed Bruskewitz’s lead in all these years, though the bishop himself has become a kind of folk hero to supporters of Mother Angelica’s EWTN television station and other far-right conservative Catholic organizations.

Author Rachel Pokora narrates the story clearly, without rancor or bitterness. She is a professor of communications at Nebraska Wesleyan University who moved to Lincoln after Bruskewitz struck. She chose to join CTA’s Nebraska chapter after experiencing the rigidity and extreme conservatism that marked parish life in the diocese, and she later served for several years as the chapter’s president.

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PARAGUAY
ABC Color

[Summary: The Vatican has been asked to suspended from ministry priest Carolos Urrutigoity of the Diudad del Este diocese who has been accused of pedophilia.. Excatequista Javier Miranda has forwarded Information on the cases has been sent to the Vatican and to the public ministry so that each can act according to their functions.]

Las informaciones sobre el caso han llegado tanto al Vaticano como al Ministerio Público, de tal manera que cada uno actúe conforme a su funciones, comentó a ABC Color el excatequista Javier Miranda, quien remitió la carta a la Santa Sede.

Miranda contó que hace algunos días, pidió nuevamente intervención del Vaticano en la Diócesis de Ciudad del Este. Además, se solicitó que tanto el titular de la diócesis, Liveres, y el cura argentino Carlos Urrutigoity, sean suspendidos.

El primero, por proteger al religioso, quien arrastra desde hace décadas y por diferentes países, denuncias de abuso sexual y pedofilia.

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OHIO
Vindicator

By LINDA M. LINONIS
linonis@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

On the day two appointments drew objections by the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, Bishop George V. Murry named someone to oversee child protection in the Youngstown Diocese.

Judy Jones, Midwest associate director of SNAP, along with Jerry Arnal, SNAP Youngstown leader, and Steven Spaner, SNAP Australia coordinator, talked to the media Tuesday afternoon near the diocesan office at 144 W. Wood St.

SNAP criticized the appointments of Monsignor John Zuraw as chancellor, replacing Nancy Yuhasz, who is retiring; and Joseph Kenneally, who was principal of John F. Kennedy High School Lower Campus in Warren, to principal of the high school.

Jones claimed Monsignor Zuraw, director of the Permanent Diaconate program in the diocese, had to know about allegations of sexual abuse against a teacher who became a deacon and previously was at Cardinal Mooney High School. Arnal asserted last August he had been abused by this deacon, who has since left the school. SNAP also said another person has accused the deacon of abuse.

Jones said Monsignor Zuraw, in the role of chancellor, should not be the one who oversees the diocese’s Child Protection Policy.

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AUSTRALIA
Central Queensland News

Rae Wilson | 18th Jun 2014

THE final submissions on child sexual abuse at a boy’s home at Riverview will begin on Monday.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will hear oral submissions in Sydney related to the Salvation Army case studies heard in January.

The commission is investigating child sexual abuse at various homes, including the Riverview Training Farm – formerly known as the Endeavour Training Farm.

It is also looking at movement of officers and staff accused of or found to have engaged in child sexual abuse between the homes.

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IRELAND
Evening Echo

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 18, 2014

A CAMPAIGN is under way to find out who is buried in an unmarked grave next to one of Cork city’s former Magdalene laundries.

The campaign, by a group of survivors of the Good Shepherd Magdalene Laundry, is also seeking the development of a memorial park at the cemetery adjoining the Good Shepherd convent in Sundays Well.

Maureen Considine, who is working with the group of survivors on the issue, said one grave in the tiny cemetery adjoining the laundry has the names of 30 women who had been sent to work there. But a second grave on the site has no gravestone and there is no indication who is buried there.

She said the site was owned by Cork City Council and she had contacted each of the councillors to get their support for a project to have those buried on the site identified and the creation of a memorial park at the cemetery.

She said: “This project was born out of the frustration of many Magdalene survivors who have not been able to visit the Magdalene grave which is located behind Cork City Gaol and adjacent to the site of the former Good Shepherd Convent, laundry and orphanage.

‘‘The area known as ‘the gym’ is adjacent to the grave. and is directly behind the Cork City Gaol. Currently the site can only be accessed via the steep embankment behind the College View housing estate and the grave cannot be accessed at all due to the high walls and locked gates surrounding it.”

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

PARENTS have become so anxious about their children being molested or abducted they could be making it easier for sex offenders to strike.

That is the fear of some child safety advocates who are worried about ultra-protective parents and caregivers, and urging them to think carefully about the messages they are sending to their children.

The Royal Commission into child sexual abuse, and crimes like the murder of Queensland 13-year-old Daniel Morcombe, means there has never been more attention on paedophiles and child sex offenders in our community.

Everyone is looking over their shoulders and it seems no one is above suspicion — statistics show many offenders are the people closest to children, such as neighbours or a family member or friend.

But too much paranoia that can counter what is really needed to keep children protected and informed.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

A senior Catholic Marist Brother said it never occurred to him that kissing and cuddling children in a locked room amounted to sexual abuse.

Brother Anthony Hunt has given evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Canberra.

He was the deputy principal of a school at Lismore in northern New South Wales during the 1980s and was also in charge of the the local Marist Brothers Community.

The community included the now convicted paedophile Brother Gregory Sutton.

Brother Hunt said he received allegations of inappropriate behaviour by Brother Sutton during the 1980s but did not report them, in part, because he did not think the sexual assault of children was a crime.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

June 17, 2014

John Warhurst

We are going through very dark times indeed, observing the dark side of too many institutions and individuals on a regular basis. It is no exaggeration to say that almost no institution in Australian society, public or private, left or right, big or small has been left untouched.

My focus is the current major inquiries into aspects of Australian life by royal commissions and/or the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. The list is a long one, including five major subjects of investigation. Each of the inquiries is broad. Most have called numerous witnesses to public hearings. No final reports have yet been issued but the preliminary findings and the content of public hearings all point towards damning conclusions.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is currently sitting in Canberra. Previous inquiries have been held in Melbourne and Newcastle. Its focus has been on the Marist Brothers in particular and the Catholic Church in general. But previous hearings have focussed on the shortcomings of government-run institutions as well as other churches. There have been hearings on the Salvation Army, the Scouts and the YMCA among other organisations. Police and the legal profession have also been implicated. Half or more of the Australian community has an association and/or identification with these institutions.

The NSW Independent Commission against Corruption has been sitting in Sydney to examine a number of cases involving criminal and/or unethical behaviour in public life. It has implicated both sides of major party politics, probably more so the previous state Labor government but Liberals, too. Several former ministers have been implicated in large-scale corruption and many others, including MPs, lobbyists, fund-raisers and party officials have been condemned for their association with dubious if not criminal behaviour. A dark underside to public life has been revealed.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail (UK)

Second church official admits he didn’t know that touching a child ‘intimately’ was a crime just a day after fellow brother said he wasn’t aware paedophilia was illega

By SARAH DEAN

A second Marist church official, who held high positions in the order up to 2012, has said he didn’t know touching a child ‘intimately’ was a crime and would need to get legal advice to find out.

Alexis Turton, who was until 2012 head of the orders’ professional standards office, has told the Royal Commission into Institutional Handling of Child Sexual abuse, he only knew sexual intercourse with a child was a crime in the 80s.

He was giving evidence in the case of former brother Gregory Sutton who was jailed in 1996 for 67 counts of sexual abuse against boys and girls in NSW, Queensland and the ACT.

On Wednesday, it was also revealed that three days after it became known that police were investigating Sutton, Turton put the paedophile on a plane to Canada.

Turton denied repeatedly that he knew police were involved when he sent Sutton for ‘intensive therapy’ to the Southdown clinic in Canada.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

[with video]

Royal commission into child sexual abuse: Former Marist Brothers provincial denies shipping paedophile overseas to avoid police investigation

By Ewan Gilbert

Damning evidence suggesting the Catholic Church was complicit in allowing a serial paedophile to flee the country and avoid arrest has been shown to the royal commission in Canberra.

Brother Gregory Sutton was extradited from the United States in 1996 to face 67 counts of child sexual abuse.

But today the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard Brother Sutton was “urgently” sent to Canada six years earlier for “therapy”.

Under cross-examination, the head of the Catholic Marist Brothers at the time, Brother Alexis Turton, was repeatedly forced to deny that the decision was made to thwart a police investigation and avoid sinking the church into scandal.

“I will ask you again, did you understand in or about 13 August 1989 that there was a police investigation into Brother Gregory Sutton?” counsel assisting Simeon Beckett asked.

“I don’t recall that, no,” Brother Turton replied.

But Brother Turton was shown a number of documents and reports suggesting that he was aware of trouble with Brother Sutton before the decision was made to send him overseas.

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AUSTRALIA
Echo Netdaily

A senior Catholic official who was found to be protecting the church from legal action by not taking notes in interviews with alleged sex abusers has defended his actions.

Father Brian Lucas, the general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference told the child abuse royal commission he could not remember a meeting in 1993 with child sex abuser John Chute and the Australian provincial of the Marist Brothers, Alexis Turton.

Fr Lucas, a lawyer, said he accepted the meeting had taken place but, as was his practice, he had not taken notes.

The commission is looking at how the Marist Brothers handled accusations against two men later jailed for multiple child sex abuse offences – Chute and Gregory Sutton.

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AUSTRALIA
Echo Netdaily

AAP – The former superior of Lismore’s Marist Brothers community and deputy principal Trinity Catholic College the told the child abuse royal commission on Tuesday (June 17) he did not associate child sexual abuse with crime in the ’80s.

The commission is looking at how the Marist Brothers handled accusations against two men later jailed for multiple child sex abuse offences – brothers John Chute and Gregory Sutton.

Brother Anthony Hunt, who led the community to which multiple child abuser Gregory Sutton was attached, said he thought Sutton’s behavior was ‘innocent’.

Br Hunt admitted he had not reported Sutton to authorities despite repeated indications that his behaviour with children at a primary school was ‘inappropriate’.

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FLORIDA
WTSP

Brandon, Florida — The Hillsborough County pastor accused of sexual abuse appeared in court Tuesday morning for a new charge.

Francisco Rios, 44, faces a new charge of molesting a girl under the age of 16. Rios was arrested back in April after two girls and a woman came forward with similar allegations.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

The former New South Wales premier Barry O’Farrell has hit out at the Catholic Church for failing to act on allegations of child sexual abuse within the Hunter Region.

Last night’s comments made in State Parliament were in response to the report handed down by the Special Commission of Inquiry, set up to investigate the diocese.

It found that senior Catholics failed to report abuse by former priests Denis McAlinden and James Fletcher, who are both now dead.

Mr O’Farrell says he was motivated to establish the inquiry after seeing ABC reports in 2012 and wanted to see those who abused children brought to justice.

This is behaviour…which I find abominable and frankly unchristian when found amongst so-called men of the cloth.

He singled out five key figures who failed to act on the allegations and criticised cover-ups made by the church.

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OHIO
Vindicator

Published: Tue, June 17, 2014

YOUNGSTOWN

Judy Jones, Midwest associate director of SNAP, voiced the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests’ objection to two recent appointments by Bishop George V. Murry of the Diocese of Youngstown.

Jones, along with Jerry Arnal, SNAP Youngstown leader, and Steven Spaner, SNAP Australia coordinator, talked to the media Tuesday afternoon near the diocesan office at 144 W. Wood St.

SNAP criticized the appointments of Monsignor John Zuraw as chancellor, replacing Nancy Yuhasz, who is retiring; and Joseph Kenneally, who was principal of John F. Kennedy High School Lower Campus in Warren, to principal of the high school.

Jones claimed Monsignor Zuraw, director of the Permanent Diaconate program in the diocese, had to know about allegations of sexual abuse against a teacher who became a deacon and previously was at Cardinal Mooney High School. Arnal asserted he had been abused by this deacon, who has since left the high school. Arnal talked about the alleged abuse last August; SNAP also said it was contacted by another person accusing the deacon of abuse.

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MISSOURI
Missourian

Tuesday, June 17, 2014
BY AUSTIN HUGUELET

BOONVILLE — A former priest pleaded guilty to sexually abusing three teenage boys in the 1980s during his time as a priest in Boonville and after he left the parish.

Gerald Howard entered a guilty plea Tuesday afternoon to two counts of forcible sodomy and one count of attempted forcible sodomy that earned him 12 years in prison.

In accepting the plea deal from Cooper County prosecutor Doug Abele, Howard admitted to three sexual incidents involving three young boys in 1984 and 1985, according to online court records.

Four other felony charges, including kidnapping, were dismissed as a result of his plea agreement.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Wednesday 18 June 2014

The former NSW premier, Barry O’Farrell, has called for a high-ranking Catholic priest to be sacked from a key leadership position for not reporting child sexual abuse to police.

In a speech to parliament on Tuesday night, O’Farrell called for Father Brian Lucas, the general secretary of the Catholic Bishops Conference, to be stood down.

The former leader made the comments while criticising the church’s response to Commissioner Margaret Cunneen’s damning report in late May into an alleged cover-up of child sexual abuse in the Catholic diocese of Maitland-Newcastle.

Lucas gave evidence in Canberra on Tuesday at the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse.

“He is also a lawyer, which is a relevant fact because he, more than anyone involved in the sorry, squalid and scandalous saga, should have respected the law and reported illegal activities to police,” O’Farrell said.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Annysa Johnson of the Journal Sentinel June 17, 2014

Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki will field questions from local journalists at a Milwaukee Press Club luncheon in September, one month before the scheduled confirmation hearing on the archdiocese’s bankruptcy reorganization plan.

Listecki will be the featured guest at the Sept. 3 Newsmakers Luncheon.

A U.S. bankruptcy judge has scheduled the confirmation hearing on the reorganization plan for Oct. 14-17.

That plan calls for the archdiocese to set aside up to $4 million to compensate 128 of the 575 men and women who filed claims in the bankruptcy alleging they were sexually abused as children by priests, teachers and others associated with the 10-county archdiocese. Survivors have criticized the plan as inadequate and unjust.

The archdiocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January 2011 to address its mounting sex abuse claims, one of several Catholic dioceses and religious orders to do so across the country.

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MISSOURI
Columbia Daily Tribune

By ALAN BURDZIAK
Tuesday, June 17, 2014

BOONVILLE — A former Catholic priest pleaded guilty Tuesday in Cooper County Circuit Court to three felonies for molesting three teenage boys in the 1980s and was sentenced to 12 years, to run concurrently, on each charge.

Gerald J. Howard, who also was known as Carmine Sita, admitted to drugging two 14-year-olds and a 15-year-old and forcing them to commit sexual acts or forced himself on them between May 1984 and September 1987. In taking a plea deal with Cooper County Prosecutor Doug Abele, Howard pleaded guilty to two counts of forcible sodomy and one count of attempted forcible sodomy and four other felony charges were dismissed. Howard admitted to giving the victims marijuana, alcohol, cocaine, LSD and psychotropic mushrooms.

Two of the boys, the 14-year-olds, Howard befriended while a priest at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Boonville. Howard met the third after he left the parish, Abele said in court. Howard would take at least two of the boys on long rides in the country without other supervision and, in the first two cases, abused them either in the car, at his apartment or in the parish’s rectory. The third boy was raped at Howard’s apartment on Third Street in Boonville, Abele said.

All three of the boys were afraid to disobey a priest and Howard, who turns 70 next year, also threatened them with physical harm if they told anyone, Abele said. Howard also outweighed each victim by about 100 pounds and was several inches taller, Abele said. This size and weight discrepancy enabled Howard to “exercise his will over” the victims, Abele said.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 06/17/2014

A Minnesota man befriended by a priest when he delivered newspapers to the church rectory as a boy has sued the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of New Ulm alleging sexual abuse.

The plaintiff in the lawsuit, identified as John Doe 109, said that the Rev. William J. Marks of St. John’s Church in Hector, Minn., sexually abused him in the 1950s.

His family was poor, and Marks would pay the boy for oral sex and other sexual acts, the plaintiff claimed in the suit filed Tuesday in Ramsey County District Court.

“Fr. Marks was pretty free with them $20 bills,” he is quoted as saying in the lawsuit. Marks would also take the boy out to eat at a restaurant where the boy’s mother worked, leaving her big tips.

“Plaintiff’s mother thought Fr. Marks was the ‘nicest guy in the world,’ ” and believed she could trust him, according to the lawsuit.

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UTAH/ARIZONA
ABC News

For immediate release: Tuesday, June 17 2014

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

We hope a judge looks quickly but seriously at the request to disband the police department in Warren Jeffs’ bizarre sect on the border between Arizona and Utah.

[ABC News]

The only thing worse than no police at all is corrupt or complicit police. We strongly suspect that the Arizona Attorney General is right to push for this reform.

Those in law enforcement must not only be above reproach. They should also avoid the appearance of bias. Our strong belief – given how insular and insidious Jeffs and his backers are – is that this so-called police department is in fact dreadfully discriminatory and influenced by this unhealthy cult.

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OHIO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Statement by SNAP leader and abuse survivor Jerry Arnal (JerryArnal@yahoo.com)

Last August, the news media covered a SNAP news conference in front of the Youngstown diocese chancery office, where I told of being sexually abused by a teacher who, at the time, worked at St. Christine School (in Youngstown) and later worked at Cardinal Mooney High School (also in Youngstown). He was a teacher and an ordained deacon.

As a result of that event, SNAP was contacted by another victim of the same teacher/deacon. We are grateful to this person, who we’ll call “Alex”, for reaching out to us. That takes courage.

Like me, “Alex” is worried that this deacon may have hurt others or may hurt others in the future.

But Youngstown Catholic officials are still being secretive about this offender and refusing to identify him, violating their repeated promise to be open about clergy sex crimes.

In fact, in Youngstown Vindicator (1/25/13), for the third time in as many years, Bishop George Murray pledged transparency in abuse cases and claimed that they are “taking every action possible” to protect children from sexual abuse. But keeping a predator’s name secret puts other kids in harm’s way. It also exacerbates the harm to victims by leaving them invalidated.

By naming the perpetrator of known abuse, other victims who may have suffered abuse by the same person begin to feel free to come forward to seek help and understanding with their abuse and finally feeling as if they are not alone. Bishop Murray and his staff know this. Yet they refuse to act responsibly to both “out” and oust this deacon, so he can’t hurt others and so that those he HAS hurt can better heal.

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday June 17, 2014

Statement by David Clohessy of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, 314 566 9790 cell, 314 645 5915 home, SNAPclohessy@aol.com

Years ago, a Catholic priest pled guilty to molesting a New Jersey boy, changed his name, and was sent to Missouri where he severely and repeatedly sexually assaulted at least four more boys. Now, he has finally pled guilty to a second set of crimes.

[ABC 17]

First, he was Fr. Carmine Sita. Then, he was Fr. Jerry (Gerry) Howard. Now, he’s an admitted felon. And hopefully he will never be able to hurt another child.

We are grateful that Fr. Howard will remain behind bars for at least several more years. And we are glad he’ll have to register as a sex offender if ever he is released.

The credit for this terrific outcome goes completely to the brave men who reported the horror they endured to law enforcement and to the determined prosecutors who pursued this case.

But at least a dozen of Fr. Howard’s Catholic supervisors are criminals too, though they have not been convicted. They hid his New Jersey crimes and they enabled his Missouri crimes by quietly letting him change his name and by sending him to unsuspecting parishioners. Each one of them – in Jefferson City, Jersey City, and with the Servants of the Paraclete (which “treated” him) – are incredibly callous and immoral people who should – if real justice were possible – be locked up as well.

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UTAH
My Fox Phoenix

Posted: Jun 17, 2014

By Brady McCombs
Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – The Arizona attorney general is asking a federal judge to disband the police department in Warren Jeffs’ polygamous sect on the Utah-Arizona border.

In a federal court filing this week, Arizona prosecutors say the former police chief for Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah, provided information that proves the agencies are influenced by sect leaders and discriminate against nonmembers of the religious group.

Court records show Marshal Helaman Barlow went to authorities after he was put on leave from his position, and received immunity from prosecutors.

If the judge doesn’t disband the agencies, Arizona prosecutors are asking for a monitor to oversee daily operations and hiring and firing.

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MISSOURI
ABC 17

Jessica Quick, Meteorologist & Digital Content Director, jessicaq@kmiz.com

BOONVILLE, Mo. –
A former Boonville priest appeared in Cooper County Court Tuesday afternoon for a hearing.

Gerald Howard pleaded guilty to two counts of forcible sodomy and one count of attempted forcible sodomy against minor children. One count of forcible sodomy and two counts of attempted forcible sodomy were dismissed.

Howard was sentenced to 12 years in prison on each charge to run concurrently.

The incidents happened between 1983 and 1986, according to court documents.

Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) reported in a news release Monday that Father Howard worked at St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Boonville, and that the priest allegedly sexually assaulted at least 3 boys in Cooper County.

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MISSOURI
ConnectMidMissouri

by Juliette Dryer

COOPER COUNTY, MO. — A former Boonville priest has pleaded guilty to three child sex crimes and was sentenced to a total of 12 years behind bars.

Gerald Howard pleaded guilty Tuesday in Cooper County Court to two counts of forcible sodomy and one count of attempted forcible sodomy. He was sentenced to 12 years for each charge, with sentences running concurrently.

The victims in the case said the abuse happened between 1984 and 1987.

Howard worked as a priest at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Boonville.

Before coming to Missouri, Howard had changed his name from Carmine Sita after a 1982 conviction for sexually abusing a minor in Jersey City.

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UNITED STATES
POPE FRANCIS the CON-Christ.

Paris Arrow

June 17, 2014

Former president of Ireland, Mary McAleese, said there was “just something profoundly wrong and skewed” about asking “150 male celibates” to review the Catholic Church’s teaching on family life. “The very idea of 150 people who have decided they are not going to have any children, not going to have families, not going to be fathers and not going to be spouses – so they have no adult experience of family life as the rest of us know it – but they are going to advise the pope on family life; it is completely bonkers,” she said.

Now you go, girl! Go Mary McAleese, go! That was a big punch in the nose of Pope Francis or better still…a kick in his podgy papal butt!

Mary McAleese also added her observations of Pope Francis who said he wanted a new role for women in the church but senior roles in the Vatican continue to be filled by men in a manner which lacked transparency. “You don’t need a new theology of women, you just need to end the old boys club,” she said.

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fFLORIDA
TBO

TBO.com staff
Published: June 17, 2014

A Brandon pastor arrested in April on molestation charges involving church members was back in custody Monday on a new charge, according to jail records.

Francisco Rios, 44, faces an addition count of lewd and lascivious molestation. He was being held without bond Tuesday, according to the Hillsborough County Jail website.

Details on the latest arrest have not been released.

Rios, the pastor at Casa De Amor Church, was arrested April 4 after Hillsborough sheriff’s deputies said he molested three females, ages 12, 17 and 43. He was later released after posting $150,000 bond.

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FLORIDA
Bay News 9

BRANDON —
A Bay area minister is behind bars again.

Francisco Rios was arrested Monday at his home in Brandon. He is facing new charges of lewd or lascivious molestation of a girl under the age of 16.

Rios was arrested in April and charged with three counts of lewd and lascivious molestation. The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office began investigating him in August after two girls, 12 and 17, and woman, 43, came forward with accusations, authorities said.

The 12-year-old girl said she was molested by Rios about twice a week over the past year, the sheriff’s office said. The older girl said Rios touched her about 15 times starting in 2011 and that he told her he was doing so because he loved her as a pastor and that she shouldn’t tell anyone because he could get in trouble, the sheriff’s office said.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Ireland’s portrayal of itself as the purest, holiest or richest country has brought us lies and exclusion

Fintan O’Toole

Tue, Jun 17, 2014

Meet an egomaniac and you know you are also meeting a deeply insecure person. People who are uncertain about themselves sometimes deal with their anxiety by creating an exaggerated image of superiority.

And it is the same with countries – our own for example. There is a certain irony to Ireland’s badness – it arises in part from delusions of grandeur. This place became so vicious partly because of a hysterical insistence on its unique virtue – a habit of mind that has never gone away.

It’s easy to understand why Catholic Ireland became so hyper-virtuous. A long history of denigration, humiliation and subjection creates a profound distortion. It is not enough to be as good as anybody else – you have to be better, indeed the best: uniquely wonderful. But this fantasy is not harmless. At best, it feeds a deluded detachment from reality. At worst, you have to hide, exclude, deny, those who threaten to spoil the picture of perfection.

Unlike the extreme versions of such dark utopias in Nazi Germany or Stalin’s Soviet Union, independent Ireland did not actually exterminate the spoilers of its unique purity. But it did get rid of them – mostly through emigration but also, notoriously, in its vast system of “coercive confinement”: industrial schools, Magdalene laundries, mother and baby homes and mental hospitals.

‘Impure’ women

Thus, the appalling treatment of “impure” women in these institutions was a direct consequence of the insistence that Irish femininity was uniquely pure. This was a key point of national difference: England seethed with sex and sin, Ireland was a paradise of continence and virginity.

This unique virtue in turn compensated for the real economic failures of the new State – what did it matter that we were poor, backward and exporting half our population? Our values were not material but spiritual. And, as Eamon de Valera openly claimed, this unmatched holiness would do nothing less than save the world: “Ireland today has no dearer hope than this: that, true to her own holiest traditions, she may humbly serve the truth and help by truth to save the world.”

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SCOTLAND
BBC News

A priest has gone on trial accused of sexually abusing two children in the Western Isles when he was a teenager.

Father John Angus MacDonald, 69, is claimed to have repeatedly raped a schoolgirl at a property in the Outer Hebrides between 1957 and 1958.

He is also alleged to have used lewd, indecent and libidinous practices towards a 10-year-old boy at various places on an island a few years later.

MacDonald denied all charges against him at the High Court in Aberdeen.

The court heard that MacDonald left the Hebrides just before his 13th birthday to train to be a priest at Blairs College in Aberdeen in 1958.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Road to Recovery

[The 49 Priests Listed in the Final Addendum, Including 24 Names Made Public for the First Time -Order Priests/Brothers – BishopAccountability.org]

Press Release

June 18, 2014

Dangerous pedophile lives across the street from a pre-k/kindergarten in Peabody, MA without the general public’s knowledge

Religious order allows pedophile to travel around the Peabody, MA area without supervision

Children are at risk at North Shore Mall where Carmelite Fathers have mini-church

What: A press conference and leafleting alerting the general public to the presence of a pedophile Catholic religious brother, Br. Damien Chong, O. Carm., living in Peabody, MA, at the Carmelite religious house at 4 Wheatland Street, Peabody, MA, and serving at the Carmelite Catholic Chapel at the North Shore Mall in Peabody, MA.

When: Wednesday, June 18, 2014 from 11:00 AM until 1:00 PM

Where: On the public sidewalk in front of the Peabody, MA, Town Hall and along Peabody’s downtown business district, 24 Lowell Street, Peabody, MA 01960

Who: Allan Bruce, a sexual abuse victim/survivor of Br. Damien Chong, O.Carm.; Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., co-founder and President of Road to Recovery, Inc., a non-profit charity that assists victims of sexual abuse and their families; and supporters.

Why: Br. Damien Chong, O. Carm., is a native Hawaiian who has been stationed in Catholic schools and institutions from Los Angeles to Boston. In the Boston suburb of Peabody, MA, the Carmelite Fathers and Brothers, who manage a daily Mass chapel and gift shop at the “Chapel in the North Shore Mall,” and without notifying the public, assigned Brother Damien Chong, O. Carm., to work in the mall chapel and gift shop despite knowing that Br. Damien Chong, O. Carm., is a sexual abuser of children and that a mall is one of the most popular venues visited by families and their children. Thousands of children visit the North Shore Mall annually. Br. Damien Chong’s current residence near the mall is located directly across the street from a facility run by Carmelite nuns for pre-kindergarten and kindergarten children.

Allan Bruce is a sexual abuse victim/survivor of Br. Damien Chong at a high school in California, and he will distribute leaflets to the public in front of the Peabody Police Department in order to inform the unsuspecting public about the presence of Br. Damien Chong, a pedophile. He will also reveal footage of Br. Damien Chong driving a motor vehicle through the streets of Peabody and Lynn with a much younger male riding in the passenger seat.

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

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Catholic Sentinel

Catholic News Service

ST. LOUIS — Archbishop Robert Carlson says he wants to “set the record straight” and “respond to certain misconceptions” about a deposition he gave in a lawsuit involving alleged abuse by a Minnesota priest 35 years ago.

“I understand this situation has caused concern and frustration for many people, and for that I apologize. Abuse of any kind is a serious moral offense and a crime,” he said in a statement.

Media outlets gave extensive coverage to a video clip of his deposition after the plaintiff’s lawyer highlighted it at a June 9 news conference.

Archdiocesan officials said the clip distorted Archbishop Carlson’s testimony by taking his response to a question out of context, suggesting he “did not know that it was a criminal offense for an adult to molest a child. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

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OHIO
WTRF

[with video]

Officials with SNAP, or the “Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests,” gathered in front of the Catholic Diocese of Steubenville on Monday afternoon.

The organization is concerned, they said, because of allegations brought against Gary Zalenski in 2007, who allegedly sexually abused a parishioner in 1991, while he served as the pastor of Scared Heart Parish in Neffs. He was removed from ministry in 2007 for the allegations, though no criminal charges were brought against him.

On Monday, SNAP organizers asked why Zalenski hasn’t been defrocked. Likewise, they urged Belmont College, Zalenski’s current employer, to suspend him for quote, “the safety of college students and staff.”

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 American Conservative

By ROD DREHER • June 17, 2014

Last week, Leadership Journal, a publication of Christianity Today, published an anonymous essay by a former youth pastor. It started like this:

Seven years ago I was hired by my church to be the new youth minister. The youth group was on life support at the time, with only a few students involved. My wife and I, newly married, already had good relationships with the students and their parents and, with my college ministry experience, I seemed to be the perfect fit for the position.
The ministry grew steadily. Within a few years the group that once struggled to fill a minivan was taking over 40 students to camp every summer. Teens were involved in every area of our church. The students were participating in local, regional, and international missions, and were inviting their friends to our activities. The gospel was being taught, and students were accepting Christ, getting baptized, and serving.

You can read the whole thing in PDF format here, but not on the Leadership Journal website. Instead, this is what you get there:

We should not have published this post, and we deeply regret the decision to do so.

The post, told from the perspective of a sex offender, withheld from readers until the very end a crucial piece of information: that the sexual misconduct being described involved a minor under the youth pastor’s care. Among other failings, this post used language that implied consent and mutuality when in fact there can be no question that in situations of such disproportionate power there is no such thing as consent or mutuality.

I think this is too bad. I’m glad they published the piece, and am only sorry that they didn’t do so with better framing at the beginning and the end, to anticipate the objections and deal with them.

The essay is valuable for at least two reasons. First, it shows how this youth minister allowed himself to fall into this grave sin, which is, of course, also a crime. The self-pity (“my wife isn’t paying enough attention to me”), the rationalizations, the secrecy, the all-consuming vanity (he loved being the center of attention in the youth group) — it’s all very human, and very real. If I were teaching a pastoral class at seminary, I would hand this essay out, along with strong warnings to my students to beware these danger signs.

Second, the essay itself shows how the prisoner, though he claims to be 100 percent to blame for his fate, still doesn’t appear to own up to the full consequences of what he did. The first clue is his description of the relationship as an “extramarital affair.” Which it was. But it was also statutory rape, because the female involved was a minor. This is what upset so many readers, and led to CT taking the entire essay down. I think that was an overreaction on the part of readers, and of CT.

The author did, at the end, concede that his partner was, in fact, a minor, and in an update, conceded further that she was a victim, and could not have legally consented to what happened. That wasn’t enough for the critics. I wish CT had left the piece up, but also published strong, reasonable criticism of it. If the piece fails to convey a proper sense of the author’s horror at the magnitude of his sin/crime, perhaps that is part of the lesson it teaches: that sex offenders are so narcissistic that they fail to see their victims as full persons. Or perhaps it was simply an editing oversight. It’s hard to know.

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

Victims blast 2 new church moves
They’re worried about principal who was selected
And they’re angry about new diocesan chancellor
Group has also heard from another victim of deacon
But bishop refuses to admit several allegations have been made
Prelate’s secrecy continues to endanger kids, SNAP charges

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, advocates for clergy sex abuse victims will blast two new appointments by Youngstown Catholic officials. They are;

–the new chancellor for the diocese, and
–the new principal for John F. Kennedy High School.
The victims will also

–announce they’ve heard from another victim of a child molesting deacon who was accused last year
— church officials need to identify and suspend the deacon, and
–prod church officials to post on their website the names of proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting clerics.

WHEN
Tuesday, June 17, 1:30 p.m.

WHERE
Outside of the Youngstown Catholic diocese headquarters, 144 W. Wood Street (corner of Elm) in Youngstown

WHO
Three members of a self help group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org), including a Youngstown area abuse victim who spoke up last year for the first time ever about his own painful experiences at the hands of a local cleric

WHY
SNAP will announce they’ve heard from another victim of a child molesting deacon who church officials refuse to identify or suspend. The deacon was publicly accused of abuse for the first time last year.

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.

FLORDIA
News-Press

Mary Wozniak, mwozniak@news-press.com
June 17, 2014

A scathing letter sent by 10 priests in the Diocese of Venice to Pope Francis’ United States representative criticizes their bishop, Frank Dewane, for a host of accusations that include bullying behavior and the secret acquisition of properties.

The letter is causing ripples of concern among across the Southwest Florida Catholics. The diocese covers 10 counties, including Lee and Collier. The diocese has 60 parishes and serves about 250,000 Catholics.

Addressed to Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who is the papal nuncio, or the Holy See’s representative in Washington, the letter says that priests are demoralized and fearful of reprisal if their names are revealed to the public.

“Aware of many letters of concern which have been sent to both the Apostolic Nunciature and the Congregation for Bishops in Rome, we come before you now as a united group to say our situation worsens with time and has become intolerable,” the group wrote. The nuncio’s office did not reveal names.

The letter, dated Jan. 17, talks about the believed breach of canon law, including dismissal of a council that investigates and resolves issues related to pastoral works in the diocese. It describes a management style of “absolute authoritarianism,” featuring “outbursts of rage, use of blasphemous language, despotic demands based not on reason or logic.”

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

MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Kyle Farris
Forum News Service
POSTED: 06/17/2014

DULUTH — The Catholic Diocese of Duluth was criticized Monday by a group representing victims of clergy sexual abuse for the church’s handling of rekindled allegations that a priest molested a boy in 1990.

Verne Wagner, northern Minnesota director for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, urged the church to share any knowledge it has of the allegations against Rev. Timothy Backous, who was asked by the church last week to stop assisting at St. Michael’s parish in Duluth while the alleged incident is investigated further. Backous also is on administrative leave from Essentia Health, where he ministers for Catholic hospitals in the Twin Ports.

“How can this happen in this day and age?” Wagner told reporters during a gathering outside the Duluth Diocese main office.

The investigation centers on allegations that Backous molested a 13-year-old boy during a choir trip to Europe, at which time Backous was working for St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville.

The parents of the alleged victim decided to air the allegations for a second time last month after learning that Backous was still working in proximity to 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.

PITTSBURGH (PA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priestsi

And they “out” another Pittsburgh predator priest
Church admits he committed “sexual misconduct”
But cleric is also accused of assaulting a PA boy later
Catholic officials should send more letters, group says
SNAP: Bishop Zubik “only acts when prodded to do so”

WHAT
Holding childhood photos and signs at a sidewalk news conference, clergy abuse victims and advocates will;

– expose another priest who church officials admit was guilty of sexual misconduct and who worked at five Pittsburgh area parishes (but has attracted no attention locally), and
– thank Pittsburgh diocesan officials for sending three “outreach” letters over the past few months to Catholic school alums about several credibly accused child molesting clerics.

They will also urge Pittsburgh Catholic officials to

–send letters to all alums of all local parochial schools, begging others who were molested by clerics to come forward, and
–aggressively use their other resources (church websites, parish bulletins, pulpit announcements and personal visits) to prod victims to speak up and call police, and
–explain why they are letting religious orders hide names and whereabouts of child molesting clerics.

WHEN
Tuesday, June 17, 11 a.m.

WHERE
Outside of the Pittsburgh diocese headquarters (“chancery office”), 111 Boulevard of the Allies (corner of Stanwix) in Pittsburgh, PA

WHO
Two-three members of a self help group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org)

WHY
In an unusual move, SNAP is thanking Pittsburgh Catholic officials for writing letters alerting their flock about several child molesting Catholic clerics (Fr. John Wellinger, Franciscan Brother Kenneth Ghastin, Franciscan Friar Michael Ledoux, and Marianist Brother Bernard Hartman).

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.

MEXICO
Angulo 7

[Summary: Victor Sanchez Espinosa, Puebla archbishop, said the three people arrested for sexual abuse and violence at Casa Hogard Domingo Savio were not priests and he urged authorities to reach an end to the investigation.]

El arzobispo de Puebla, Víctor Sánchez Espinosa, informó que los tres detenidos por abuso sexual y violencia que atendían la Casa Hogar Domingo Savio, no eran sacerdotes; así como exhortó a las autoridades a llegar a las últimas consecuencias.

Lo anterior fue en entrevista en el Seminario Palafoxiano durante la instalación de una estación de registro sísmico por parte de la Universidad Popular Autonóma del Estado de Puebla (Upaep), donde dijo que Armando Durán Martínez, director de la casa hogar, no es parte de la Arquidiócesis de Puebla, pues aseguró que no existe ninguna persona con ese nombre en los registros.

“Pedimos que se investigue. No tenemos a ningún sacerdote que se llame así”, señaló Sánchez Espinosa.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

Francis at Santa Marta thunders again: those who commit this crime “irritate God and cause people to sin”, the way out is to “ask for forgiveness”

DOMENICO AGASSO JR
ROME

The day after stating that “the corruption of the powerful is paid by the poor”, Pope Francis again, “thundered” – what’s more, like other times over the last year – against this “scourge”, involving “several prelates” as well.

When a person “enters” the “road of corruption”, “take his own lives, usurps and sells himself”, he takes advantage of the innocent “with white gloves, without dirtying his hands” he said in the homily at Casa Santa Marta, as Vatican Radio reported.

“A corrupt person irritates God and makes people sin”. Not only that: a corrupt person “is one who kills, who steals”, if they do not ask for forgiveness, they are condemned with “the curse of God”, because “they exploit the innocent”. Pope Francis relaunches his complaint against corruption reflecting on today’s First Reading, the martyrdom of Naboth – narrated in the first Book of Kings – killed at the behest of the corrupt King Ahab who has taken possession of his vineyard. The prophet Elijah, noted the Pope, says that the corrupt Ahab “sold” himself. It’s as though “he is no longer person but a commodity”, “buy and sell”: “This is the definition: it is a commodity! Then what will the Lord do with the corrupt, whatever the type of corruption … Yesterday we said that there were three types, three groups: the corrupt politician, corrupt businessman and the corrupt clergy. All three hurt the innocent, the poor, because it is the poor who pay for the festivities of the corrupt! The bill goes to them. The Lord clearly says what must be done, “I will bring disaster upon you and I will cut you off. For Ahab I will wipe out every male, salve or free, in Israel”.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

16 June, 2014

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will hear oral submissions in relation to two public hearings into The Salvation Army on Monday 23 June at 10am.

Oral submissions for The Salvation Army Case Study 5 and Case Study 10 and will be heard together.
Case Study 5 commenced in January 2014 and looked at the response of The Salvation Army (Eastern Territory) to child sexual abuse at boys’ homes in Indooroopilly, Riverview, Bexley and Goulburn.

Case Study 10 commenced in March 2014 and examined the handling by The Salvation Army (Eastern Territory) of claims of child sexual abuse between 1993 and 2014.

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

June 17, 2014

David Ellery
Reporter for The Canberra Times.

A senior Catholic priest has defended the church’s failure to mandate the reporting of alleged criminal activity by clergy in the early 1990s.

Father Brian Lucas, the general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, also defended the practice of not taking notes during meetings with clergy accused of sexual assault and other crimes.

He said he has no recollection of a meeting between himself, Brother Alexis Turton and serial paedophile Kostka Chute in 1993 as he took no notes.

When asked on Tuesday at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Canberra what advice he might have given at the meeting he cannot remember, Father Lucas interjected “we’re tilting at windmills”.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Waiting for Godot to Leave

Kevin O’Brien

Hey, St. Louis is suddenly trendy!

The Australians are investigating sex abuse within the Marist order. One of the serial pedophiles was Brother Gregory Sutton. There’s a St. Louis connection here, as Sutton left Australia at one point to become headmaster of a school here in St. Louis.

But that’s not the only St. Louis connection! It turns out events in my home town are also inspiring depositions and testimonies half way around the world!

The Canberra Times reports this testimony from one of Sutton’s Marist brothers …

“Do you mean you didn’t know it was a crime [to molest a child]?,” Royal Commission Chair, Justice Jennifer Coate asked.

“I’m unsure, it could well be the case. I’m unsure of that,” Mr Holdsworth replied.

The former Marist Brother was also unsure if, in 1989, he was aware that children were at risk of predatory sexual behaviour by adults.

“I really can’t put a time line to it [when he became aware of that],” he said.

Justice Coate asked him his age at that time.

“50 something, 54,” he said.

“Did you read newspapers or watch television?” Justice Coate asked.

“In some measure,” Holdworthy said. “I might have turned to the sport first.”

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 Times

Jacky Jones

Tue, Jun 17, 2014

Why are we so shocked about the 796 infants and children who died in St Mary’s mother-and-baby home in Tuam, Co Galway? The Sunday World referred to Ireland’s Holocaust, killing fields, and Cambodia. The Daily Mirror had a story entitled “My pals are buried in septic tank.”

This ignorant commentary, implying that there was something sinister about the deaths of children in mother-and-baby homes, is no help to anyone, especially the women whose children died in these institutions.

So far, no child health expert has reminded us that high infant mortality rates were normal for certain groups of people in Ireland until the 1970s. This was not right, but neither was it sinister.

Children died in mother-and-baby homes for the same reasons as those who died in Dublin’s slums: poverty and their mothers’ low status as citizens.

The rate of infant mortality among Travellers was about five times the national average. Children from poor families were four times more likely to die before their first birthday. Unmarried mothers were pariahs, so infant and child mortality rates in mother-and-baby homes were probably about 10 times the national average.

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 Rural

By David Ellery June 17, 2014

When the superior of serial paedophile Gregory Sutton’s Lismore monastery learnt he had taken an overnight trip with a young boy in 1986 it never occurred to him sexual abuse might be the motive.

Brother Anthony Hunt, 72, testified before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Canberra on Tuesday morning.

It had also failed to occur to him that a diary entry in which Sutton had written “Picked up AC. What an afternoon, she is magnificent” may also be linked to sexual abuse.

He told the commission he was not aware sexually abusing a child was a criminal act at that time.

Brother Hunt, who is now retired from teaching and living in a Marist Brothers’ community in Victoria, also denied ever being told of specific allegations made against Sutton by other teachers at St Carthage’s in Lismore.

These included Jan O’Grady, the then-assistant principal and the person who unearthed the incriminating diary entry which helped precipitate Sutton’s departure from the school.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Tuesday 17 June 2014

The former superior of a NSW Marist Brothers community and deputy principal of a school for 600 students has told an inquiry that in the 1980s he did not associate child sexual abuse with crime.

Brother Anthony Hunt was head of the Lismore Marist community to which Gregory Sutton, who was later jailed for sexually assaulting 15 children, was attached from 1985 to 1987.

Hunt was also deputy principal of the Marist Trinity College in Lismore which had 600 students at the time.

On Tuesday he gave evidence at the royal commission into child sexual abuse that although concerns were raised with him about the behaviour of Sutton at St Carthage’s primary school, he left it to the school to deal with.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

BY ANNETTE BLACKWELL
June 17, 2014

A senior Catholic official who was found to be protecting the church from legal action by not taking notes in interviews with alleged sex abusers has defended his actions.

Father Brian Lucas, the general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference told the child abuse royal commission he could not remember a meeting in 1993 with child sex abuser John Chute and the Australian provincial of the Marist Brothers, Alexis Turton.

Fr Lucas, a lawyer, said he accepted the meeting had taken place but, as was his practice, he had not taken notes.

The commission is looking at how the Marist Brothers handled accusations against two men later jailed for multiple child sex abuse offences – Chute and Gregory Sutton.

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
WDIO

By: Alan Hoglund
ahoglund@wdio.com

A member of an organization that supports victims of abuse by priests is demanding answers from the Diocese of Duluth. This comes after a priest at St. Michael’s Catholic Church was suspended when the diocese learned about allegations of abuse from nearly 25 years ago.

“Whether or not this man is guilty, that’s up for a court to decide,” Verne Wagner, the Northern Minnesota director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP), said at a news conference Monday afternoon.

Wagner is talking about Father Timothy Backous. Backous is accused of abusing a child at St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota in 1990. According to the Diocese of Duluth, Backous relocated to Duluth to work at Essentia Health. He has also been serving a roll at St. Michael’s on the weekends.
For now Backous’ work at both locations is on hold.

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UNITED STATES
New York Review of Books

Ingrid D. Rowland

A photograph taken in Argentina in 2007 shows two cardinals, Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Tarcisio Bertone, sitting side by side, although their chairs are on two different levels. At the time, Bertone was the Vatican’s Secretary of State, having traveled to a village in northern Patagonia “in the name of His Holiness Benedict XVI” to preside over the beatification of a turn-of-the-century religious student.

Bertone’s wooden armchair sits on a dais that puts him a good six inches higher than Bergoglio, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, who perches uncomfortably on his metal-and-plastic seat, and the man known to many as the “vice-pope” occupies his virtual throne with kingly complacency, clad in yards of fine Italian filetto lace beneath his golden cope, with a sporty pair of aviator sunglasses to complement his gold-embroidered miter (and is that a Rolex on his wrist?). Next to him, in Jesuit black under plain white robes, Cardinal Bergoglio, with his iron cross and his horn-rimmed spectacles, looks open-mouthed upon the radiant spectacle, his famously mobile face providing the perfect caption to the picture. Six years later, Bergoglio became Pope Francis, and things have not been the same since.

On May 19, the glossy, gossipy German newspaper Bild Zeitung printed a report that made immediate headlines in Italy: Vatican prosecutors had begun to investigate allegations that Cardinal Bertone, as the Holy See’s Number Two from 2006 to 2013, had embezzled 15 million euros ($20 million) from Vatican accounts, apparently to benefit an Italian television producer, a former director of the state broadcaster RAI named Ettore Bernabei, with deep connections to Italy’s conservative establishment and a longtime membership in the powerful Catholic organization Opus Dei. The transfer of these funds allegedly occurred in December 2012. The Vatican press corps swiftly denied that a “criminal investigation” was underway, and Bertone himself insisted that the deal had followed “all the rules.”

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