ABUSE TRACKER

MALTA
Malta Independent

Rachel Attard
Sunday, 8 February 2015

An archpriest has been accused of slightly injuring a woman after he punched her in church.

The archpriest has also been charged with breaching the peace.

The vice-archpriest of the same community, who witnessed the incident, has also been charged with breaching the peace and insulting the woman with the utterance: “itilqu lill-Arċipriet, m’hawnx qassis li ma tisfrattaħx u ma tistax tara qassis…” (Leave the archpriest alone, you cannot set eyes on a single priest without leading him astray).

The woman has, in turn, been charged with harassing the archpriest himself.

She first got to know him a few months before the incident, which took place on 8 November, the woman’s birthday. She had turned to him for spiritual guidance following a bad break-up and started attending mass daily at the parish church.

The woman was eventually asked by the archpriest to start giving catechism lessons to children at the parish.

But later, the two had a falling out and when the woman sought an explanation for his distinct change in attitude toward her, the archpriest became angry and allegedly punched her. The incident was witnessed by the vice-archpriest who, according to the criminal complaint filed, had also insulted the woman.

The victim immediately filed a police report at the locality’s police station and was examined at a polyclinic, where she was certified to have suffered slight injuries to one of her shoulders and her neck.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

* Pope Francis, a reportedly very hands on manager, apparently selected the members of his advisory sex abuse commission to deal, slowly it seems, with his biggest challenge, the scandal of sexual predatory priests and their unaccountable bishop accomplices.

* The pope has been facing for some time building governmental pressure in Australia. He now faces it in the UK as well (as reported here, [Mirror] and here, [BBC News]), and will probably face it in the USA soon enough. Francis selected two well respected priest abuse survivors, Ireland’s Marie Collins and the UK’s Peter Saunders, as commission members. After their initial commission meeting recently, these two survivors both reportedly stated that, in their view, the Vatican has a year or two at most to implement child protection policies with teeth, otherwise they will leave, that is, they would resign from the commission.

* Why wait, Marie Collins and Peter Saunders? They should consider seriously resigning now. Their empty public resignation threats after two years clearly suggest they have seen enough already. They must have serious reservations about the commission, which has done so little now after two years into Pope Francis’ papacy. Francis and his commission staff have generally stalled for two years until now, intentionally, it seems. They now will have two more years to “study” — likely then a full four years to change nothing of substance. Meanwhile, Pope Francis continues to honor disgraced Cardinals, including Law, Rigali and Danneels, who have poor records on dealing with priest sexual abuse. Have Marie Collins and Peter Saunders failed to notice this?

* Marie Collins had already waited a year, after her initial commission appointment more than a year ago, for the first full commission meeting. Peter Saunders has acknowledged the advocacy leadership of the international abuse survivor group, SNAP, and knows that SNAP’s leader had serious reservations about the pope’s commission even befor the poor commission start. Both Marie Collins and Peter Saunders must know well what a really independent commission looks like, having seen several in Ireland and watched close up the recent struggle to establish the new independent UK commission. They both must also be well aware by now that the Vatican’s commission is far from independent, which is essential for an effective commission.

* Pope Francis will probably retire in two years at 80 years old, having by then the all important 2016 US presidential elections behind him. His biggest fear, as best I can tell, has to be if either President Obama or, after 2016, another Democratic US President, Hillary Clinton, were to set up an Australian type institutional child sex abuse commission in the USA. Please see “Catholic Right Still Tied to Big-Money Republicans“, here, [Church and State]. Pope Francis’ new “go slow study commission” now gives him considerable ‘cover’ until after these very important US elections, with his likely hoped for new “allies”, Jeb Bush and Ted Cruz.

* The pope’s commission staff, presumably under disgraced Boston Cardinal Law’s former canon lawyer, Fr. Robert Oliver, has reportedly split up the sex abuse commission’s subject matter assignments, which permits the staff to “cherrypick” assignments and assign “study group members”, etc. Incidentally, it is unlikely that Marie Collins, then a commission member, had any real say on Fr. Oliver’s appointment. The commission reportedly will now meet as a group only four times in the next two years, it appears. That is clearly inadequate to get real results, sooner rather than later, in my view in light of my extensive professional experience.

* I am confident that both Marie Collins and Peter Saunders, very brave survivors, are trying their best, but from my professional perspective, they both seem to be being exploited. They would have more impact, it appears to me, if they resigned now. They are giving the commission by their presence a legitimacy the commission has not earned on its merits, and likely as currently structured never will earn. This can have serious negative repercussions for other abuse survivors worldwide, including quite desperate ones in bankrupt USA dioceses, especially Milwaukee and Minneapolis. Hopefully, other survivors are giving Marie Collins and Peter Saunders their input directly. A lot is at stake for all of them with this commission.

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
Star Tribune

Article by: JEAN HOPFENSPERGER , Star Tribune Updated: February 7, 2015

Insurance companies have paid up to 85 percent of abuse settlements nationally. They’re the invisible, powerful players.

The $45 million listed as assets by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis does not count a critical but invisible “asset” still being determined — the value of its insurance.

Dusty policies stored in church archives and basements have played a huge role in clergy abuse settlements nationally. Insurance covered two-thirds of the $75 million archdiocese bankruptcy settlement in Portland, Ore., for example, and $19 million of the $37 million bankruptcy settlement in Davenport, Iowa.

With the stakes so high, coverage also is fiercely contested, as evidenced by the archdiocese’s lawsuit against 20-some insurers to try to force them to cover their liabilities for clergy abuse claims.

As the archdiocese and its creditors enter their third week of bankruptcy court mediation, attorneys for the insurance companies are the biggest group entering the doors of the federal courthouse in Minneapolis.

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CALIFORNIA
Fox 40

[with video]

FEBRUARY 7, 2015, BY RINA NAKANO

SACRAMENTO-
A family representative of an alleged child sex abuse victim spoke exclusively to FOX40, after the alleged abuser appeared in Sacramento County Court earlier this week.

Kareem Abdul Mitchell, 42, is the minister of music for the New Testament Baptist Church Choir in North Highlands. He is accused of sodomy, oral copulation, and other sex acts on a then 16-year-old boy between 2005 and 2008.

A woman who said she is representing the victim’s family told us Mitchell allegedly has a “type.”

“They are usually good looking African American children, males, and usually there is not a father present in the home, and those were the type of kids he targeted,” the woman said.

She said the victim’s father had passed away at an early age, and he sought after a father figure.

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AUSTRALIA
J-Wire

February 8, 2015 by J-Wire Staff

Rabbi James Kennard, principal of Mount Scopus Memorial College in Melbourne has issued a statement on the current hearing at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse….declaring “sentiments without action are not enough”.

Rabbi Kennard has called for resignations and change…”already long overdue”.

His full statement:

“In October 2013 I resigned from the Executive of the Rabbinical Council of Victoria (RCV) and subsequently from the Council itself. At the time I made no comment on my action, since any publicity would have served no purpose.

But that is no longer the case.

As the orthodox community is being engulfed in the terrible chilul Hashem (desecration of G-d’s name) that is revealed each day at the Royal Commission; as the media coverage has made “rabbi” a mark of shame and “orthodox Jew” a byword for the cover-up of child abuse, it is time to speak out.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

February 8, 2015

Steve Lillebuen

The head of Victoria’s largest Jewish school has criticised ultra-Orthodox leaders who remained silent over child sex abuse allegations, saying only their resignations and a new watchdog for rabbis can restore faith in the community.

Rabbi James Kennard, principal of Mount Scopus Memorial College, said the royal commission on child sex abuse had revealed painful and horrific details about Yeshivah Melbourne and the organisation’s Sydney chapter.

Those who were in charge when historical abuse claims were made must be removed from leadership positions, or the community would never be able to move on, he said.

“The resignations that are required need not be an acceptance of personal responsibility, but an acknowledgement that if abuse, or a failure to deal properly with abusers, took place on an individual’s ‘watch’ then it is honourable and right for such an individual to step down,” he said on Sunday.

The royal commission has been examining Yeshivah Melbourne and Yeshiva Bondi’s response to abuse allegations against former employees Daniel Hayman, David Kramer and David Cyprys, who was convicted of sexually abusing children.

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VATICAN CITY
euronews

A member of Pope Francis’ newly-established sex abuse commission has sharply rebuked a remark made by the pontiff, which seemed to encourage smacking children, as long as their dignity is respected.

Commission member Peter Saunders was sexually abused by a priest as a teen. He said:
“He’s (Pope Francis) never had to raise children and he doesn’t know much about that. And again I think it’s a perfect illustration of why he’s asked the commission, which is a mixed bag of people – some of us parents, some of us not – to advice him on these matters.”

“I think that we need to talk to the pope about this issue, because there are millions of children around the world who are physically beaten on a daily basis. And, you know, it might start off as a light tap, (but) actually the whole idea of hitting children is about inflicting pain. That’s what it is about, and there is no place in this day and age for having physical punishment, inflicting pain in terms of how you discipline your children.”

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VATICAN CITY
Crux

By Inés San Martín
Vatican correspondent February 7, 2015

ROME — Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston, in his capacity as president of a papal commission on sexual abuse, has called on bishops around the world to meet with victims of clerical abuse and also has asked every bishops’ conference to designate a contact person to coordinate anti-abuse efforts.

Speaking in a Vatican briefing on Saturday, O’Malley said that meeting with victims was a life-changing experience for him and also an eye-opener on how little the Church had done on the issue by 1993, when he first encountered it.

O’Malley said “there have to be consequences” for bishops who don’t respond appropriately to reports of abuse, including procedures that allow these cases to be handled efficiently and not in an “open-ended way.”

Commission members also criticized Pope Francis’ remarks that it’s okay for parents to spank their children, saying there is no place for physical discipline. The panel plans to make recommendations to him about protecting kids from corporal punishment.

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VATICAN CITY
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

February 8, 2015

By Philip Pullella / Reuters

VATICAN CITY — A commission advising Pope Francis on how to root out sexual abuse of children by clergy in the Roman Catholic Church is studying sanctions for bishops suspected of cover-ups or of failing to prevent abuse, members said Saturday.

“There have to be consequences,” Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, the head of the commission, told a news conference.

Victims groups have been urging the Vatican for years to make bishops more accountable for abuse in their dioceses even if they were not directly responsible for it. …

However, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, which has long campaigned for bishops to be held accountable, called Cardinal O’Malley’s comments “insulting and deceptive” to victims and demanded immediate action.

“O’Malley knows that the church has plenty of ways, right now, to respond when bishops are complicit in clergy sex crimes and cover ups. The pope can oust them,” the U.S.-based group said in a statement.

Mr. Saunders also criticized Pope Francis on Saturday for appearing to endorse parents who spanked their children.

“Children don’t need to be hit. We need to talk about positive parenting … physical violence has no part in modern-day child upbringing,” Mr. Saunders said.

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VATICAN CITY
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor February 7, 2015

A new Vatican commission created to lead the charge for reform on the Catholic Church’s child sexual abuse scandals met this weekend in Rome, with a couple of members making headlines by protesting recent comments by Pope Francis on spanking.

In truth, however, it was a different gauntlet commission members threw down in front of the pontiff that’s likely to prove far more consequential.

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors was created by Pope Francis in March 2014, and features Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston as president. It has 17 members from around the world, including two abuse survivors, and its mandate is to advise the pope and Church leaders around the world on best practices in anti-abuse efforts.

Two days before the group assembled in Rome, Pope Francis stirred controversy by casually opining during a Wednesday General Audience that it’s okay for parents to use corporal punishment as long as the “dignity” of their children is maintained.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

February 7, 2015 7:17 PM

By Torsten Ove / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The federal trial of a Johnstown-area priest accused of traveling to Honduras for sex with young boys has been pushed back from next month to September and is expected to last four weeks or longer.

U.S. District Judge Kim Gibson on Friday ordered the trial of Rev. Joseph Maurizio, 69, delayed until the fall trial term in Johnstown.

The trial had been scheduled for March 9 but both sides said they needed more time to prepare.

The judge said the trial is expected to last three or four weeks, and possibly take a fifth week, because many of the witnesses don’t speak English and will need an interpreter.

Rev. Maurizio remains jailed pending trial as a danger to the community and a risk to flee, especially considering his apparent wealth. Although he told a pre-trial services officer that his net worth was $107,000, the IRS Criminal Investigation Division found that it was really about $1 million.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian Jewish News

Rabbi James Kennard, principal of the largest Jewish school in Melbourne and former executive member of the Rabbinical Council of Victoria (RCV), has called on Rabbi Avrohom Glick to stand down from his senior position at the Yeshivah Centre.

Rabbi Glick was principal of Yeshivah in Melbourne when allegations of child sexual abuse were brought to the attention of rabbis, but not reported to police, in the 1980s.

He remains in a senior position at the Yeshivah Centre and has refused to step down but after a horrific week at the Royal Commission into the Institution Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Rabbi Kennard has had enough and is demanding action.

“While anyone who held a position of leadership in the Yeshivah community in the period when these terrible mistakes were made remains in such a position today, the community is not able to say that it has learnt and it has changed,” Rabbi Kennard said.

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UNITED STATES
Bridget Mary’s Blog

1. Hire women in leadership positions in the Vatican, dioceses and parishes. Set up fair labor practices and protection from firing for disagreeing with hierarchy. Make the goal 50% and give women decision-making power and job protection.

2. Hire top notch theologians, especially feminist theologians, who are critical of centuries of sexism in the church and invite all Catholic Universities to do so immediately.

3. Drop the excommunications against Roman Catholic Women Priests and our supporters and begin a dialogue on a renewed priestly ministry as a blessing to the church.

4. Return decision making power to local churches throughout the world, mandate 50% of parish councils, diocesan councils be women in all pastoral positions.

5. Recognize that women are fully capable as moral agents to make decisions about their bodies and relationships in light of their consciences. Drop the ban on artificial birth control.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency

By Elise Harris

Vatican City, Feb 7, 2015 / 12:47 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- One survivor of priestly sexual abuse says that despite a common perception that clerical celibacy can lead to sex abuse of minors, most perpetrators likely had issues before entering the seminary.

“People don’t enter the priesthood and become child abusers, I don’t think that’s the case. I think that they had serious issues before entering Holy Orders,” Peter Saunders told journalists in a Feb. 7 press briefing.

Although there are “far too many” clerics who have committed sexual abuse of minors, “the vast majority of priests and religious will never hurt a child. I think it’s important to acknowledge that.”

Saunders said that the term “pedophile” is overused, and that the priests who abused him, rather than having any illness, “were very lonely.”

One of the 17 members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, Saunders spoke alongside the commission’s head, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, giving journalists an update on the work they’re doing during their Feb. 6-8 meeting in Rome.

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VATICAN CITY
Los Angeles Times

By TOM KINGTON

A group of child abuse experts summoned by Pope Francis to help tackle priestly abuse in the Roman Catholic Church has criticized remarks made by the pope himself in which he suggested that it was permissible for parents to spank their wayward children.

Two members of the 17-strong commission, holding its first full meeting at the Vatican, said Saturday they objected to Francis’ comments, made last Wednesday, in which he backed corporal punishment.

Leading British anti-abuse campaigner Peter Saunders, abused by two Catholic priests as a child, said the committee would ask the pope to reconsider his remarks.

“It might start off as a light tap, but actually the whole idea about hitting children is about inflicting pain,” Saunders said at a news conference at the Vatican.

“That’s what it’s about and there is no place in this day and age for having physical punishment, for inflicting pain, in terms of how you discipline your children,” he said.

Fellow commission member Dr. Krysten Winter-Green, a New Zealand native who works in the U.S. with young abuse victims, said any physical punishment of children was unacceptable. “There has to be positive parenting, in a different way,” she was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.

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IOWA
Des Moines Register

William Petroski, bpetrosk@dmreg.com February 7, 2015

Victims in decades-old cases of alleged sexual abuse could bring new lawsuits under proposed legislation that church and school officials say could leave their organizations vulnerable to huge legal liabilities.

The bill would undoubtedly have its biggest effect on clergy abuse lawsuits involving the Catholic Church, which has paid out more than $2.5 billion in damages nationwide because of past incidents involving more than 16,500 victims allegedly abused by religious members.

The Iowa proposal, Senate File 107, is strongly supported by victim advocates, including the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault, which says the crimes are often psychologically repressed for decades.

“This really becomes kind of a no-brainer when you look at it. It is putting first the children of Iowa and the children who have been victimized,” said an adult man only identified as “John,” who spoke before the Senate panel about his experience as a victim of child sexual abuse.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Bishops who do not comply with the child protection norms adopted by their bishops’ conferences and approved by the Vatican must face real consequences, said Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston, president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

The commission, he said, “is very, very concerned about this whole area of (bishops’) accountability” and has a working group drawing up recommendations for Pope Francis.

The proposed new norms, the cardinal told reporters at the Vatican Feb. 7, “would allow the church to respond in an expeditious way when a bishop has not fulfilled his obligations.”

“We think we have come up with some very practical recommendations that would help to remedy the situation that is such a source of anxiety to everybody” on the pontifical commission, he said. The recommendations will be presented to Pope Francis.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Insider

The Pontifical Commission for Child Protection is holding its first meeting in the Vatican with all members present. Two former victims of sexual abuse by priests said that if pastors are not held accountable we’re leaving. A day of prayer and guidelines for Bishops’ Conferences are currently being considered

IACOPO SCARAMUZZI
VATICAN CITY

The Vatican Commission for Child Protection created by Pope Francis is holding its first meeting in the Vatican, with all members present. The Commission expressed its deep concern about the accountability of bishops, about whether they will admit responsibility before faithful, whether they will react with negligence in the face of paedophilia charges made against a priest in their diocese. The Commission’s members expressed this concern at a briefing in the Vatican, announcing that they are “working on policy recommendations for the Holy Father’s approval.” The two members of the Commission that were sexually abused by priests as children have stated that if things do not change over the next couple of years they will hand in their resignation.

The Child Protection Commission is “very, very concerned” about accountability of bishops and working on policy recommendations for the Holy Father’s approval, said the Commission’s president, the Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, one of the Pope’s nine cardinal advisors. The body has and will continue discussing procedures that can be introduced in cases where a bishop does not take accusations relating to the sexual abuse of children by a priest seriously: “There needs to be procedures that will allow these cases to be dealt with in an expeditious way, rather than just having things open-ended,” the cardinal said, “all members of the Commission are well aware of this”. Sister Kayula Gertrude Lesa from Zambia and Peter Saunders from England also gave statements during the briefing. Saunders, who was abused by a paedophile priest as a child, was received by the Pope last summer, but almost all members of the Commission were present in the newsroom. “If in a year or two there isn’t some firm action on those matters, then I don’t think I’ll be sitting here talking to you,” Saunders said. “I think it’s not disputed that there have been far too many cover ups, there have been far too many clergy protected, moved from place to place,” Saunders added, stressing the need for Church leaders to report those who are guilty to civil justice.

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CIUDAD DEL VATICANO
ABC

Dos días después de que el Papa indicase a los obispos de todo el mundo que estén atentos a las directrices de la nueva Comisión Pontificia de Protección de Menores, su presidente, el cardenal de Boston Sean O’Malley, anunció que la Comisión propondrá al Papa medidas de castigo a los obispos negligentes y tendrá un enlace en cada conferencia episcopal.

Los 17 miembros de la Comisión, formada por mujeres y hombres expertos en la materia, acudieron este sábado a una conferencia de prensa en el Vaticano para confirmar el empeño en convertirse en punto de referencia mundial en la prevención del abuso sexual de menores.

Junto al cardenal O’Malley, tomó la palabra Peter Saunders, de 57 años, víctima de abusos sexuales por sacerdotes en su colegio de Wimbledon y fundador de la NAPAC, que ayuda a superar los traumas. Les acompañaba la irlandesa Marie Collins, víctima de abusos del capellán del hospital en que estaba ingresada en Dublín.

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SCOTLAND
The Times

Michael Glackin
Published February 7 2015

A sharp fall in donations to the Catholic Church since the Cardinal O’Brien sex scandal broke has plunged its finances into crisis and will force it to close a number of parishes across Scotland.

The Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh, which encompasses an area from Perthshire to The Borders, has announced plans to reduce the number of its parishes by more than two thirds — from 109 to 30 – in an effort to tackle the collapse of funds.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Register

by Edward Pentin 02/07/2015

Pope Francis, in his approach to reforming the Roman Curia and the Church, is pursuing a “spiritual cleansing of the temple, at the same time both painful and liberating, so the glory of God can shine in the Church, the light of all mankind,” the Vatican’s doctrinal chief has said.

In an article in tomorrow’s L’Osservatore Romano, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, addresses the theological criteria for a reform of the Church and the Roman Curia, laying out what he believes should be the basis of the changes.

The publication of the piece is timed to coincide with a meeting from Monday to Wednesday next week of the C9 Council of Cardinals who are to evaluate progress on the reforms. Their conclusions are to be presented at a consistory of the College of Cardinals, scheduled for 12 and 13 February.

Cardinal Müller makes a point in the article of warning against worldliness in the Church. He argues that the Church receives “her true meaning not from social consensus” or through “political power” but through preaching salvation, especially “to the poor and those on the peripheries of life.”

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VATICAN CITY
RTE News

Marie Collins, the Irish victim of sexual abuse who advises Pope Francis on child protection, has joined a chorus of dissent following the pontiff’s endorsement of what he called “dignified” corporal punishment in the home.

However, the Vatican spokesman has issued a statement denying that the Pope encourages parents to hit their children.

Ms Collins has sharply criticised the Catholic Church here over its cover-up of her abuse by a priest while she was a patient in Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital in Crumlin.

She is in the Vatican for a meeting of the Commission for the Protection of Minors, to which Pope Francis appointed her shortly after his election in 2013.

Speaking at a news conference she disagreed with the Pope’s remarks at a public audience on Wednesday, praising a father he had met for respecting his children’s dignity by spanking them without striking them in the face.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Childless Pope Francis, and his other old bachelor cronies, have done it again. They have shown once more their extreme insensitivity and tone deafness to the protection of women and children. The pope has clearly condoned violence to children, while his subordinate Polish bishops have, in effect, condoned violence to women, it appears. Will the media, if they truly care about defenseless children and desperate women, now finally report what this “Teflon Pope” is really about? Will they end their nonstop nonsense that seemingly aims at perpetuating the myth of a “big teddy bear” pope, despite his well reported authoritarian Jesuit and “bouncer” history and his many continuously inconsistent and insensitive actions?

As Pope Francis’ illusory sex abuse commission is now being exposed as little more than another of the Vatican’s Machiavellian political ploys — a classic stall tactic in the form of an extremely unfocused, open ended, conflicted and understaffed “study commission”. The Vatican appears to be trying to use courageous, but frustrated, abuse survivor members, Ireland’s Marie Collins and the UK’s Peter Saunders, as mere window dressing, while millions of cowardly Catholics worldwide shamefully temporize and make these two martyrs, who have already suffered too much, do the heavy lifting alone. These two survivors have reportedly also voiced further concerns after the commission’s initial meeting about the Vatican’s efforts on curtailing priest child abuse. They reportedly also said the Vatican has a year or two at most to implement policies with teeth, otherwise they will leave.

Please see “Pace of Vatican child protection body frustrates Marie Collins“, here,

[Irish Times]

Meanwhile, Pope Francis, and his subordinates in Poland, once more confound the world — this time about spanking children and beating women. Please see my full discussion below and “Holy See must clarify stance on corporal punishment“, by outspoken former Irish President and canon lawyer, Mary McAleese, here,

[Irish Independent]

, and “Pope’s sex abuse commission alarmed by Francis’ comments about spanking kids, says it’s not OK” , here,

[U.S. News]

and “Clergy sexual abuse victim criticises pope over spanking remark“, here,

[Irish Independent]

and “Poland votes to ratify treaty to protect women” , here,

[Zee News]

and “Pope calls again for ‘incisive’ women’s presence in church, offers no specifics“, here,

[National Catholic Reporter]

Why do so many in the media let Pope Francis “zig and zag” so often, without calling him on it. Just follow his meandering Yellow Brick Road. Don’t breed like rabbits, just don’t use the Pill. Help the poor, but honor, like he seems to do, the crony capitalist billionaires who help keep them poor. Protect children, but don’t report priest child abuse to the police unless legally obligated to do so. Slap your kids, but do so respectfully. Protect women, but oppose treaties that seek to do so. Be nice to abuse survivors, but go bankrupt to avoid compensating them justly. Don’t judge gay folks, just ostracize them from Church institutions. Is Pope Francis really shrewd, or just opportunistic, or even duplicitous and hypocritical? Perhaps his advanced age has caught up to him? What do you think?

Pope Francis personally, and probably unintentionally, is evidently undercutting steadily the world’s respect for papal moral authority, as well as the belief of many Catholics in papal infallibility. This papal myth is the key to the modern post-1870 “supreme papacy”. Pope Francis is almost singlehandedly exposing this myth, by his unpredictable, inconsistent and even seemingly contradictory statements and actions, with respect to protecting children and women, to contraception, to treating women, divorced persons, gay folks and others with dignity, and on other significant matters as well.

Significantly, well informed and reliable, Anne Barrett Doyle, of BishopAccountability.org has responded to the pope’s sex abuse commission’s first press conference wisely and pointedly, in pertinent part as follows (in italics):

” … If Commission members are going to fulfill the vision articulated by Pope Francis earlier this week — to become an “important and effective means” of helping the Pope “rid the Church of the scourge” of sexual assaults by clergy — we urge them to:

1. Insist on accountability measures that are tough and unambiguous. Church officials who endanger children and protect dangerous priests must be removed and censured.

2. Insist on a church abuse policy that is strict, uniform, and global. Cultural norms are not an acceptable excuse for putting children in danger. A priest who would be deemed unsafe by bishops in one country must not be allowed to work in another.

3. Take issue with Pope Francis’s instruction to church officials this week that the provisions of the CDF’s May 2011 Circular Letter be “fully implemented.” This document is more about due process for priests than protection of children. Some of its provisions are dangerously weak.

4. Ask why the Circular Letter contains NO provision regarding zero-tolerance – that is, the permanent removal of a priest guilty of an act of child sexual abuse.

5. Demand that true zero tolerance become the church’s global standard. It must be stated in every abuse policy of every bishops’ conference and religious institute.

6. Avoid recommending universal adoption of the U.S. church’s norms unless those are tightened. While stricter than the Circular Letter provisions, the U.S. norms have proved to be too lenient. They give U.S. bishops too much discretion in deciding whether to remove an accused priest.

7. Insist that bishops and religious superiors be required to: a) investigate every allegation; b) remove accused clergy during investigations; and c) submit all allegations to independent, lay review boards.

8. Insist too that every abuse policy require church officials to report allegations to civil authorities, even when not mandated to do so under local law.

9. Recommend that the following red-flag language be removed from the Circular Letter and from every Conference’s abuse policy: “the bishop has the duty to treat all his priests as father and brother.” This language belongs in documents about doctrine, not sex crimes by clergy. Bishops worldwide invoke this principle to justify not reporting child-molesting priests to secular law enforcement. Bishop Charles Scicluna confirmed this in a 2010 interview. A bishop calling the police on a priest is “a gesture comparable to that of a father denouncing his own son,” he said, and the church therefore does “not force bishops to denounce their own priests.” The abuse policy of the Philippine Church is explicit on this score: its bishops do not report priests to civil authorities, since the bishop-priest relationship is “analogous to that between father and son.”

10. Insist that the norms require transparency. Bishops and religious superiors must be required to publicly release information about credibly accused clergy, including their names, assignment histories, alleged crimes, and church files. And this transparency should begin with Pope Francis. Just as he has modeled a simple lifestyle for the world’s bishops, he could set an example of transparency, by disclosing information about credibly accused clergy he has managed during his career.

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

VATICAN CITY
Reuters

BY PHILIP PULLELLA
VATICAN CITY Sat Feb 7, 2015

(Reuters) – A commission advising Pope Francis on how to root out sexual abuse of children by clergy in the Catholic Church is studying sanctions for bishops suspected of cover-ups or of failing to prevent abuse, members said on Saturday.

“There have to be consequences,” Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, the head of the commission, told a news conference.

Victims groups have been urging the Vatican for years to make bishops more accountable for abuse in their dioceses even if they were not directly responsible for it.

O’Malley said the commission, holding its first full meeting since it was established last year, was drafting recommendations for the pope on how to make bishops more accountable, including possible sanctions.

“We think we have come up with some practical recommendations,” he said, without giving details but adding that they would “hopefully be implemented”. Under current Church law only the pope can dismiss a bishop.

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

UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

February 7, 2015 – For Immediate Release

By Anne Barrett Doyle, Co-Director, BishopAccountability.org (781-439-5208 cell)

While we remain skeptical of the Commission’s ability to change the way the Catholic Church manages sexually abusive priests, we are heartened by Cardinal Sean O’Malley’s reassurance today that the Commission is going to recommend accountability measures for poor church officials. Catholic bishops and religious superiors throughout the world continue to conceal, protect, and retain sexual abusers in the priesthood. Our recent research in the Philippines confirms this. If Commission members are going to fulfill the vision articulated by Pope Francis earlier this week — to become an “important and effective means” of helping the Pope “rid the Church of the scourge” of sexual assaults by clergy — we urge them to:

1. Insist on accountability measures that are tough and unambiguous. Church officials who endanger children and protect dangerous priests must be removed and censured.

2. Insist on a church abuse policy that is strict, uniform, and global. Cultural norms are not an acceptable excuse for putting children in danger. A priest who would be deemed unsafe by bishops in one country must not be allowed to work in another.

3. Take issue with Pope Francis’s instruction to church officials this week that the provisions of the CDF’s May 2011 Circular Letter be “fully implemented.” This document is more about due process for priests than protection of children. Some of its provisions are dangerously weak.

4. Ask why the Circular Letter contains NO provision regarding zero-tolerance – that is, the permanent removal of a priest guilty of an act of child sexual abuse.

5. Demand that true zero tolerance become the church’s global standard. It must be stated in every abuse policy of every bishops’ conference and religious institute.

6. Avoid recommending universal adoption of the U.S. church’s norms unless those are tightened. While stricter than the Circular Letter provisions, the U.S. norms have proved to be too lenient. They give U.S. bishops too much discretion in deciding whether to remove an accused priest.

7. Insist that bishops and religious superiors be required to: a) investigate every allegation; b) remove accused clergy during investigations; and c) submit all allegations to independent, lay review boards.

8. Insist too that every abuse policy require church officials to report allegations to civil authorities, even when not mandated to do so under local law.

9. Recommend that the following red-flag language be removed from the Circular Letter and from every Conference’s abuse policy: “the bishop has the duty to treat all his priests as father and brother.” This language belongs in documents about doctrine, not sex crimes by clergy. Bishops worldwide invoke this principle to justify not reporting child-molesting priests to secular law enforcement. Bishop Charles Scicluna confirmed this in a 2010 interview. A bishop calling the police on a priest is “a gesture comparable to that of a father denouncing his own son,” he said, and the church therefore does “not force bishops to denounce their own priests.” The abuse policy of the Philippine Church is explicit on this score: its bishops do not report priests to civil authorities, since the bishop-priest relationship is “analogous to that between father and son.”

10. Insist that the norms require transparency. Bishops and religious superiors must be required to publicly release information about credibly accused clergy, including their names, assignment histories, alleged crimes, and church files. And this transparency should begin with Pope Francis. Just as he has modeled a simple lifestyle for the world’s bishops, he could set an example of transparency, by disclosing information about credibly accused clergy he has managed during his career.

About BishopAccountability.org

Founded in 2003 and based near Boston, Massachusetts, USA, BishopAccountability.org is a large online archive of documents, reports, and news articles documenting the global abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church. An independent non-profit, it is not a victims’ advocacy group and is not affiliated with any church, reform, or victims’ organization. In 2014, its website hosted 1.5 million unique visitors.

Contact for BishopAccountability.org

Anne Barrett Doyle, Co-Director, barrett.doyle@comcast.net, 781-439-5208 cell
Terence McKiernan, President and Co-Director, mckiernan1@comcast.net, 508-479-9304

Related Links

Letter of Pope Francis to Catholic Church Officials Concerning the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, February 2, 2015

Circular Letter to Assist Episcopal Conferences in Developing Guidelines for Dealing with Cases of Sexual Abuses of Minors Perpetrated By Clerics

Essential Norms for Diocesan/ Eparchial Policies Dealing with Allegations of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Priests or Deacons, USCCB

Letter from Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos to Bayeux-Lisieux Bishop Pierre Pican, September 8, 2001

Interview of Msgr. Charles Scicluna conducted by Gianni Cardinale on the Strictness of the Church in Cases of Paedophilia , March 13, 2010

Pastoral Guidelines on Sexual Abuses and Misconduct by the Clergy, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, 2003:

Letter to Gabriel Dy-Liacco, Ph.D., Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, from BishopAccountability.org, February 3, 2015

Sexual Misconduct among Priest in the Philippines: Key Cases [Special Report by BishopAccountability.org]

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

VATICAN CITY
Religion News Service

David Gibson | February 7, 2015

VATICAN CITY (RNS) A papal commission on clergy sex abuse is close to giving Pope Francis recommendations on how to punish bishops who shield priests suspected of misconduct, one of several moves announced Saturday (Feb. 7) that are encouraging the two victims on the panel who have voiced concerns about the Vatican’s efforts on this issue.

But they also said the Vatican has a year or two at most to implement policies with teeth, otherwise they will leave.

Peter Saunders of Great Britain, who was sexually assaulted as a boy by priests at his Catholic school, told a crowded news conference at the Vatican press office that he came to the meeting “with a fair degree of trepidation” that anything significant would result.

But after the initial two days with what he called a “group of quite remarkable and determined people,” including Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, head of the commission, he said “the trepidation has kind of disappeared.”

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VATICAN CITY
John Thavis

For months, I’ve heard mixed reviews of Pope Francis’ efforts to confront the sex abuse scandal in the church.

The pope generally gets high marks for two initiatives – his meeting with abuse victims last summer and his establishment of a Vatican child protection commission to strengthen and coordinate anti-abuse policies worldwide.

Critics, however, have pointed out that the commission, established late in 2013, is still getting organized and setting priorities. That makes its current three-day meeting in Rome especially important. People are waiting to see what concrete changes will emerge.

On Saturday we got a glimpse of the commission’s agenda from Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, who heads the Vatican agency. Probably the most important disclosure was that the commission is drawing up recommendations for sanctioning bishops who have covered up abuse cases.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
Guardian

Saturday 7 February 2015

by Joseph Flaig

The delayed launch of an inquiry into historic child abuse at a Church of England-run school for vulnerable girls has been criticised by one of the victims.

Teresa Cooper, 48, has campaigned for an investigation into abuse at Kendall House, a Church of England-run care home for “emotionally disturbed” teenagers that operated between 1920 and 1986 in Gravesend, Kent.

Ms Cooper, who now lives off Moreton Road in Ongar, was sent to Kendall House in 1981 when she was 14.

During the 32 months she was there, records show she was forcibly given drugs such as Valium and other tranquilisers more than 1,200 times.

She says she was sexually abused while under the effect of the drugs and has suffered ill health ever since, as have all three of her children.

In 2009, a BBC investigation found a number of other ex-residents had gone on to have children with birth defects after being forcibly given cocktails of drugs in the 1970s and 1980s.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Saturday, Feb. 7

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

Cardinal Sean O’Malley claims a church panel will recommend “methods for measuring compliance” with abuse policies. That’s unnecessary and virtually impossible.

It’s unnecessary because church abuse policies don’t impact church abuse practices. No matter what’s written on paper, in reality, every bishop deals with abuse in whatever way is most convenient and safe for him. That may sound harsh. But that’s what we continue to see after 25 years of work on this crisis.

It’s virtually impossible because “measuring compliance” means church officials will ask other church officials to voluntarily disclose whether they’re doing anything wrong. That’s not “measuring compliance.” That’s posturing.

“Measuring compliance” won’t protect kid. Enforcing compliance – by punishing bishops who endanger kids – might protect kids, if ever church officials could bring themselves to do this.

US bishops claim that for more than a dozen years they’ve had “methods for measuring compliance” with abuse policies. But not a single church official here has in any way experienced any negative consequences for NOT complying. So it’s an utterly meaningless exercise, except that it’s used to mollify parishioners and the public. (“See, we’re abiding by the guidelines we’ve adopted,” bishops claim. If they were being honest, they’d say “See, we have found ourselves ‘abiding’ by the vague, weak and unenforceable guidelines we’ve been forced to adopt by intense outside pressure and by our clever public relations consultants.”)

(And Cardinal O’Malley, by the way, has been found – by other church officials – to be ‘not in compliance’ with the US bishops abuse policies.)

O’Malley also promises a Day of Prayer on abuse. How about a Day of Action on abuse? A day on which every bishop makes public the name of even one child molesting cleric whose crimes have been hidden. A day on which every bishop lobbies secular politicians to adopt better child safety laws. A day on which every bishop demotes one church staffer who ignored, concealed or enabled child sex crimes.

O’Malley disingenuously talks again about long-promised “policies that will allow the Church to respond in an expeditious way when a bishop has not fulfilled his obligations.” This is insulting and deceptive.

O’Malley knows that the church has plenty of ways, right now, to “respond” when bishops are complicit in clergy sex crimes and cover ups. The Pope can oust them. He’s done it when bishops have “not fulfilled” their “obligations” in other ways. He refuses to do so when the wrongdoing is concealing and enabling the rape of children.

So this claim that church officials have insufficient policies to fire a bishop is a flat out lie.

Let’s keep in mind a few realities.

This panel has no power. It’s just an advisory group.

Its first members were appointed a full year into Francis’ papacy.

Its first full meeting takes place two full years into Francis’ papacy.

It’s one of hundreds of similar groups appointed by Catholic officials over the past few decades.

And over decades, thousands of individuals and organizations have given tons of advice, solid advice, to Catholic officials.

But all that advice has had very little impact. It’s been great public relations for the church hierarchy, but otherwise mostly meaningless.

Why?

Because the advice-seekers – church officials – haven’t sincerely been seeking advice. And because they don’t have to take any advice. They are the lords of their own kingdoms, answerable to no one.

Bishops pretend to seek advice because this implies that they’re genuinely trying to reform but need education. And that’s simply not the case. They know what to do. But they refuse to do it.

And since the church is a monarchy, with one pope purportedly “overseeing” 4,000 bishops, no one forces bishops to do what’s right or take advice.

Bishops know precisely how to deal with abuse and cover ups. This new panel will tell them nothing new. The panel’s recommendations will be adopted and ignored, just like the recommendations of panel after panel across the globe.

Remember this panel’s job. It has been asked to recommend changes “in (church) norms and procedures for protecting children and vulnerable adults.” Two points need to be stressed here.

First, in 2011, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith required all dioceses in the world to develop guidelines on handling allegations of abuse. But some have ignored this edict. Yesterday, in fact, in a letter to all bishops, Francis “reminded” them to do this.

[Catholic Herald]

(Of course, none of these bishops who are violating the CDF’s order of course have been punished or even exposed, which shows just how irrelevant Catholic abuse policies are.)

So if some bishops won’t even follow orders the home office, after four years, what makes anyone think they’ll follow recommendations from this new powerless panel?

If some bishops don’t even have abuse norms, why bother setting up yet another church panel to tweak the “church norms and procedures” that already exist and are changing nothing?

Second, hundreds of thousands of kids have not been sexually assaulted because of inadequate “church norms and procedures.” Again, advice and information isn’t what church officials lack. They lack the courage and compassion to do what’s right. They fear doing what’s right will derail their clerical careers. They see none of their colleagues being defrocked, demoted, or disciplined for hiding abuse. So they keep hiding abuse.

Remember the Bishop of Bling, who was quickly ousted from his German diocese because of his outrageous ostentatiousness? Francis didn’t want two years to convene a volunteer panel to recommend changing “church norms and procedures.” Francis just fired him. But he’s never done this with a single bishop who stonewalled police, deceived prosecutors, transferred predators, hidden crimes and endangered kids. Not one.

Again, as we said hours ago, if my house is filthy, I don’t need to learn “best cleaning practices.” I just need to start sweeping out the dirt.

In that same letter to the world’s bishops, Francis also wrote that priests and heads of religious communities “should be available to meet victims and their loved ones; such meetings are valuable opportunities for listening to those who have greatly suffered and for asking their forgiveness”, he wrote. How sad that Francis has to tell bishops that this is their duty.

Prodding independent and professional secular authorities – police, prosecutors, legislators – is the best way to safeguard kids, not prodding recalcitrant and self-serving Catholic figures.

[SNAP]

[SNAP]

[SNAP]

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

Victims of paedophile priests at Catholic seminary in Yorkshire speak of horrendous 1960s abuse as British police plead with Italian forces to extradite the last living cleric for questioning

By JENNIFER SMITH FOR MAILONLINE

The victims of paedophile priests who sexually assaulted them as young boys in a Catholic seminary have spoken out against their abusers forty years after leaving the religious Order.

The men, most of whom are now in their sixties, were given sums of money by Comboni Missionaries – formerly known as the Verona Fathers – in October last year following a lengthy civil court case.

While two of their abusers are dead, another alleged assailant is still alive and living out his final days in the Order’s Mother House in Verona.

West Yorkshire Police have implored him to return to the UK for questioning but Italian authorities have deemed him unfit to travel.

Despite compensating each of the men, Comboni Missionaries did not accept last month that all had been abused and rejected the claim that sexual assault was embedded in its culture.

Now, 40 years after leaving Mirfield Junior Seminary in Yorkshire, the men have waived their right to anonymity to tell of the depraved abuse they fell victim to.

Gerry McLaughlin, who now lives in Ireland, was taken to Mirfield in 1964 at the age of 11.
‘I’d just turned 11 in June. A priest came round the school and gave a talk, there may have been slides,’ he told MailOnline.

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UNITED STATES
dotCommonweal

Grant Gallicho February 7, 2015

Days after Pope Francis instructed the world’s bishops to cooperate with the commission on sexual abuse he established last year, the seventeen-member group met for the first time in Rome. During a press conference at the Vatican this morning, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, spoke about the commission’s work, which will include promoting education about child safety, suggesting best practices to dioceses, and developing methods for measuring compliance with those norms. The commission is “very concerned” with the question of accountability for bishops who fail to protect the vulnerable, O’Malley said, and would recommend consequences in time. He stopped short of suggesting what those consequences might be, but said that there must be a way of dealing with such cases “not in an open-ended way.”

The commission is working on educational programs for church leaders–including seminars for members of the Roman Curia and for newly appointed bishops who visit Rome for episcopal orientation, according to O’Malley. The cardinal also said he is asking every bishops conference to name a person who will serve as a liason between the commission and the local church. In 2011, the Vatican asked dioceses to turn in their child-protection norms. At this point, about 96 percent of dioceses have complied, O’Malley said. The commission will be in touch with the rest. Very few dioceses have not yet developed such norms, according to the cardinal. But more than a few have guidelines that are too “weak.”

O’Malley is urging Catholic funding organizations to include child-protection requirements in their funding-eligibility guidelines–and to help dioceses in poorer countries pay for abuse-prevention training.

Differences across cultures is another aspect of the crisis being examined by the commission. In Africa, for example, “there are issues of abuse that have to be addressed very urgently,” according to Fr. Hans Zollner, another member of the commission, who spoke with Vatican Radio yesterday. Zollner, who heads the Institute of Psychology at the Gregorian University in Rome, mentioned “the abuse of power in a very authoritarian way by bishops and priests, the abuse of women–including religious women–by priests, which is not so frequent in Europe or the United States,” but too common in some parts of Africa. And in some Asian cultures “the public debate on abuse does not take place because in the society at large…sexual abuse is an absolute taboo topic,” Zollner explained.

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VATICAN CITY
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

[with video]

Associated Press

Members of Pope Francis’ sex abuse commission have sharply criticized his remarks that it is OK for parents to spank their children, saying there is no place for physical discipline and that the commission would be making recommendations to him about protecting kids from corporal punishment.

The commission met with its full 17 members for the first time this week and announced progress Saturday on drafting policies for holding bishops accountable when they cover up for pedophile priests. It will also be organizing educational seminars for Vatican officials and newly minted bishops on protecting children from predators.

But members got an unexpected and urgent new task when Francis told his general audience this week that it was OK for parents to spank their children if their dignity was respected.

Commission member Peter Saunders, who was sexually abused by a priest as a teen, said the committee would recommend that the pope revise his remarks, given that “millions of children around the world are physically beaten every day.”

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VATICAN CITY
Irish Independent

Philip Pullella
PUBLISHED 07/02/2015

A victim of child sexual abuse by clergy criticised Pope Francis on Saturday for appearing to endorse parents who spanked their children.

“Children don’t need to be hit. We need to talk about positive parenting … physical violence has no part in modern-day child upbringing,” said Peter Saunders, who is advising the Vatican on how to deal with its abuse crisis.

“I was hit throughout my childhood and it did me a lot of harm,” said Saunders, who was abused by a priest when he was a teenager and is one of 17 members of a Vatican commission tasked with recommending reforms in the 1.2 billion-member Church.

During a talk on fatherhood at his general audience last Wednesday, Francis departed from his prepared text to recount a conversation he once had with a father at a family encounter.

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VATICAN CITY
First Post

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Francis on Saturday condemned female mutilation and domestic violence against women, calling them degradations that had to be combated.

“The many forms of slavery, the commercialisation, and mutilation of the bodies of women, call out to us to be committed to defeat these types of degradation that reduce them to mere objects that are bought and sold …,” he told a meeting on women’s issues hosted by the Vatican’s Council for Culture.

According to the United Nations, more than 140 million girls and women have undergone some form of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) around the world, mostly in Africa and the Middle East.

He also denounced domestic violence against women.

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VATICAN CITY
Fox News

Associated Press

VATICAN CITY – Members of Pope Francis’ sex abuse commission have criticized his remarks that it’s OK for parents to spank their children, saying there is no place for physical discipline and that the panel would make recommendations to him about protecting kids from corporal punishment.

The commission met with its full 17 members for the first time this week and announced progress Saturday on drafting policies to hold bishops accountable when they cover up for pedophile priests. It will also be organizing seminars for Vatican officials and newly minted bishops on protecting children.

But they got an unexpected and urgent new task when Francis told a weekly general audience that it was permissible for parents to spank their children if their dignity was respected.

Member Peter Saunders said: “You don’t hit kids.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

[with audio]

(Vatican Radio) Making the Church a safe place for children and vulnerable adults means having proper protection procedures in place, making sure they are implemented and holding bishops accountable when they are not.

In essence, these are the priorities before the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors and Vulnerable Adults which is holding its first full Plenary Assembly since it was set up by Pope Francis in 2013.

Speaking to the press Saturday, the Commission President, Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley, said the 17 member Commission’s primary role is to help bishops conferences not just respond to accusations but also to protect minors and vulnerable adults.

To do this the Commission is setting up working groups, with outside consultants, on issues such as outreach to victims, the nature of abuse, Church law governing cases and accountability.

Card. O’ Malley stressed that key to all of the Commissions’ work is collaboration with local churches around the globe and with Vatican dicasteries. One idea being mooted is workshops for people working in the Roman Curia and for new bishops who come to Rome for orientation courses.

Referring to the Holy Father’s recent letter to Bishops and Religious Superiors on this very issue, Card. O’Malley added that each conference will be asked to name a contact person to work with the Commission for Child Protection.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Tablet

07 February 2015 by Hannah Roberts in Rome

Pope Francis was wrong when he said it was acceptable to smack children, and should revise what he said, a British abuse survivor advising the Vatican on child protection has insisted.

Peter Saunders, who was invited to meet Francis last year, has been appointed to a panel of experts advising the pope on how to tackle the clerical sex abuse scandal.

All 17 members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, met for the first time on Friday. Other members include leading British psychiatrist Baroness (Sheilla) Hollins and Irish abuse survivor and campaigner Marie Collins. At a press conference following the commission’s meeting, Mr Saunders said that the “elephant in the room” was Pope Francis’ apparent support for smacking.

Francis told the General Audience on Wednesday that parents should in certain circumstances punish their children, advising them to “do the right thing, and then move on,” as he acted out a smacking movement. He quoted a father who said he smacked his children sometimes ‘but never in the face so as to not humiliate them,’ and said he was doing the right thing.

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VATICAN CITY
Irish Times

Paddy Agnew

Sat, Feb 7, 2015

Sex abuse survivor Marie Collins has admitted to feeling frustrated by the slow pace set by the Holy See’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, of which she is a member.

Ms Collins was speaking in Rome on Saturday on the sidelines of a Holy See press conference given by commission president Cardinal Sean O’Malley.

The commission, which was established in late 2013, has been having its first ever plenary meeting, attended by 17 members including French pyschologist Catherine Bonnet; former Polish prime minister and ambassador to the Holy See Hanna Suchocka; British psychiatrist Baroness Sheila Hollins; and two abuse survivors – Ms Collins and Englishman Peter Saunders.

Ms Collins said a key issue for her was the accountability of bishops.

“I have spent the last year feeling quite frustrated about the slowness,” she said. “I always knew that the church worked slowly but when you are on the inside it seems even slower. As a survivor, I am thinking of children out there today who are being abused…and accordingly, I would like to see things being moved along as fast as possible.”

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Feb. 7, 2015

VATICAN CITY The Vatican commission advising Pope Francis on clergy sexual abuse will be making recommendations to the pontiff regarding consequences for Catholic bishops who do not follow church guidelines on preventing and reporting abuse, Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley has said.

While the cardinal said the commission has yet to recommend specifically what those repercussions might be, he added: “Obviously, there has to be consequences.”

“There needs to be procedures that will allow these cases to be dealt with in an expeditious way, rather than just having things open-ended,” O’Malley continued, responding to a question at a Vatican press conference Saturday from NCR about prelates like U.S. Bishop Robert Finn who remain in place despite mishandling sexual abuse cases.

The Vatican commission on clergy sexual abuse, which the pope created to advise him on the protection of minors in all circumstances, is meeting at the Vatican for the first time this weekend with all 17 of its members.

O’Malley, who leads the group, was speaking at a conference Saturday alongside two of its other members. The issue of accountability for bishops who do not appropriately respond to reports of clergy sexual abuse came up several times at the event.

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CANADA
Orthodox Church in America

SYOSSET, NY [OCA]

On Thursday, February 6, 2015, the Court of Appeals of the Province of Manitoba affirmed the conviction of Archbishop Seraphim on one count of sexual assault. Archbishop Seraphim has begun his eight-month prison sentence imposed by the trial court in this case.

The process leading to a spiritual court will commence as mandated by the Canons of the Orthodox Church and by the Policies on Sexual Misconduct of the Orthodox Church in America, the latter of which require that clergy who have been convicted of child sexual abuse be deposed by the Holy Synod of Bishops.

The Synodal Commission investigating the case on behalf of the Synod of Bishops of the Orthodox Church in America has been directed to complete its investigation and submit its conclusions and recommendations to the Synod of Bishops for consideration and final disposition of this matter.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 7 February 2015)

This Broken Rites article is the most comprehensive account available about the background of Australia’s notorious paedophile Christian Brother Ted Dowlan. Despite Dowlan being jailed in 1996, the Christian Brothers did not expel him from their Order. Instead, they said that they would continue looking after him. Dowlan later changed his surname to Bales and, helped by the Christian Brothers organisation, he moved into a private residence of his own. In October 2014, after more of his earlier victims finally contacted the police, “Ted Bales” pleaded guilty to some more of his crimes and was remanded in custody to await his next sentencing procedure, which is scheduled for 27 February 2015.

It was Broken Rites that first documented the Christian Brothers policy of continuing to support any criminal member in their ranks, even after a court conviction. A senior Christian Brothers official explained this policy in the Melbourne County Court in July 1996, when Brother Edward Vernon Dowlan faced charges for indecently assaulting boys in Victorian Catholic schools. A Broken Rites researcher was present in court, day after day, taking notes during the 1996 proceedings. The following article is based on those notes.

According to submissions made in court in 1996, Dowlan was openly molesting boys (in the presence of other boys) at his first two schools (in 1971-72), and therefore the Christian Brothers’ Victoria-Tasmania administration moved him to another school, a boarding school (St Patrick’s College, Ballarat) in 1973, enabling Dowlan to commit more crimes on more boys, including boarders. The parents of at least one St Patrick’s victim confronted St Patrick’s head Christian Brother about Dowlan’s offence. The Christian Brothers’ headquarters then kept transferring Dowlan to more schools (and more victims) — until the police finally caught up with him in 1993.

During final pre-sentence submissions in court by the defence in 1996, a senior member of the Christian Brothers leadership (Brother Peter William Dowling, not to be confused with the prisoner Edward Dowlan) gave “character” evidence for Edward Dowlan. Brother Dowling, who was the Victoria-Tasmania deputy leader of the Christian Brothers in 1996, was a pupil at Melbourne’s Parade College in the 1960s, one year ahead of fellow-pupil Ted Dowlan. Peter Dowling told the court that, if there were sex-abuse complaints about Brother Ted Dowlan in the 1970s, the Christian Brothers leadership at that time would certainly have known it. But, he said, the Brothers would have regarded the sex abuse as a “moral” problem (rather than a criminal offence). He said the offender would merely have to “promise not to do it again”.

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Aug 25, 2014

The recent death of Joshu Sasaki Roshi and the publication of an extensive article on John Howard Yoder raise once again the contradiction of beneficial teachings and abusive teachers. What legacies do these prominent faith leaders leave?

Joshu Sasaki Roshi was a Rinzai Zen Buddhist teacher who came to the U.S. in 1962 and taught for over 50 years. He was very influential in bringing Zen Buddhism to the U.S. and he was equally controversial because of his sexual abuse of women students. Although many people knew about Sasaki’s misconduct, no one was able to successfully challenge him or hold him accountable. Some teachers and students explained that Sasaki’s sexual touching of women students was part of his “teaching.” Others were clear that he was abusing students and some began to speak out.

In an article by Mark Oppenheimer, Bob Mammoser, a resident monk at Rinzai-ji, said that he had heard allegations about Sasaki since 1980 and did not doubt their veracity. Mammoser also said, “What’s important and is overlooked, is that, besides this aspect (italics mine), Roshi was a commanding and inspiring figure using Buddhist practice to help thousands find more peace, clarity, and happiness in their own lives.” What about the hundreds of Sasaki’s students who found chaos, confusion and suffering in their lives because of his sexual abuse?

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Feb. 7, 2015

VATICAN CITY Pope Francis has called again for a more “incisive” presence of women in the leadership of the Catholic church, calling them akin to a “welcoming womb” but offering little specifics for how they might take on additional responsibilities.

The pope has also praised the role of women in the public sphere, saying they should have a “freedom of choice” between work and family roles.

“I am convinced of the urgency of offering spaces for women in the Church and to welcome them,” the pope said Saturday in a speech to the Pontifical Council of Culture.

“It is desirable,” the pontiff continued, “a feminine presence more capillary and incisive in the community, so that we can see many women involved in pastoral responsibilities, in the accompaniment of persons, families and groups, as well as in theological reflection.”

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UNITED STATES
Mary Dispenzia

When a long buried memory surfaced after nearly half a century, it sent Mary Dispenza on a quest to understand how the unforgivable happens and what a person can do to survive.cover of SPLIT by Mary Dispenza

SPLIT, her courageous memoir, reveals the shocking story of her rape by the parish priest at seven years of age, an experience too horrible for the little girl to face.

Leaving the abused part of her self behind, Mary tried to live a normal life, while carrying her terrible, forgotten secret. SPLIT tells of her lifelong struggle for the intimacy, healing and love that always seemed to lay beyond her reach and the events that finally brought her to wholeness.

SPLIT is a story that leaves the reader engaged in current events, encouraged about healing and hopeful of a better future for the faithful and the church.

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NEW YORK
The New York Times

Jennifer Finney Boylan

I ONCE had a friend with a boomerang. One day we took it to the Jersey Shore and I watched as he whupped it around. It was beautiful: the young man and the boomerang, the bright sun and the water. Then, late in the day, he tossed it out over the ocean, and the boomerang didn’t come back. For a while we stood together, looking out, wondering whether we might just have lost sight of it. We glanced around nervously, on the off chance that it might yet clock us on the head, returning from a direction we had not anticipated.

I thought of that long-lost boomerang recently, when the Vatican announced that Pope Francis would be visiting New York in September. It will most likely be a one-day visit, including a speech at the United Nations and probably a Mass at Madison Square Garden and a visit to St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

This pope has gotten rave reviews for his supposedly progressive views, although it may be only that he seems progressive when compared to Pope Benedict XVI, the pope whose philosophy, at times, sounded like the pastoral version of “Get off my lawn.” It is hard to imagine a pope being chosen as the Person of the Year by both Time magazine and The Advocate (a leading L.G.B.T. magazine), but Francis was, in 2013. He’s said that evolution and “the notion of creation” were not “inconsistent”; urged the church to help the poor; and asked, “Who am I to judge?” on the issue of gay priests. The best measure of the pope’s liberalness might be that Rick Santorum says he finds him “very difficult to listen to.”

Yet it’s worth remembering that Francis has not actually changed any church doctrine on these issues. And he hasn’t done a thing to walk back Benedict’s egregious comments on transgender people, which suggested that in living our lives openly, we somehow make human dignity “disappear.” Then, this week, Francis praised Slovakian pilgrims for defending the family, in a quote that appeared to give support to a referendum in their country scheduled for today that could ban marriage and adoption for same-sex and transgender couples.

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WALES
Care Appointments

Written by The Editorial Team

Wales’ Health and Social Services Minister, Mark Drakeford has called on the UK Government to ensure Wales is fully represented on the independent Panel Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.

In a letter to the Home Secretary, Rt Hon Theresa May MP, the Minister has welcomed the appointment of Justice Lowell Goddard to chair the independent Panel, but has repeated calls for the appointment of members “with distinct representation from Wales.”

Mark Drakeford said: “I welcome the announcement that Justice Lowell Goddard has accepted the Home Secretary’s invitation to chair the independent Panel Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse. I also welcome the decision to place the Inquiry on a statutory basis under the Inquiries Act 2005.

“The role of the Chair and the Panel is fundamental to securing the confidence of the survivors of abuse and for demonstrating that the work of the Inquiry is both inclusive and transparent. It is equally important that clear and coherent arrangements are in place to ensure that those survivors wishing to give evidence are effectively supported and empowered both in presenting their evidence but also subsequently.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Mary McAleese

PUBLISHED 07/02/2015

The Holy See is a Signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). The Committee on the Rights of the Child, which monitors the implementation of the Convention, advocates the universal abolition of corporal punishment of children in all circumstances believing it to be a violation of their rights under the Convention (and natural law) to bodily integrity, human dignity and freedom from violence.

In 2014, the Holy See made both written and oral submissions to the Committee on this subject.

Here are the words of the Holy See’s official report to the Committee: “On the international level, the Holy See does not promote corporal punishment.[…] the overall message, which the New Testament will bring to perfection, is a forceful appeal for respect for the inviolability of physical life and the integrity of the person.[…] The 1987 Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC, 2221‑2223) recognises that parents are obliged in the first instance to educate, guide, correct, instruct and discipline their child; the terms ‘corporal punishment’ or ‘punishment’ are not used.”

On the strength of those assurances, the Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child said: “The Committee welcomes the statement during the interactive dialogue that the delegation of the Holy See will take the proposal of banning corporal punishment of children in all settings back for consideration.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

Paul Cullen

Sat, Feb 7, 2015

Former president Mary McAleese has criticised Pope Francis’s apparent support for parents smacking their children in the name of discipline.

Ms McAleese accused the Vatican of reversing its position on parental corporal punishment, and questioned whether the pope “has turned the clock back considerably”.

“What faith are we to have now in the Holy See’s commitment to the Convention on the Rights of the Child?” she asked in a letter to The Irish Times.

Speaking in Rome this week, Pope Francis outlined the traits of a good father – one who forgives but is able to “correct with firmness” while not discouraging the child.

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GERMANY
DNA

Germany and a leading anti-corporal punishment group rejected as “unacceptable” the pope’s comments that it’s OK to spank your children to discipline them, as long as their dignity is maintained.

In his general audience this week, Pope Francis had praised a father who admitted smacking his child “but never in the face so as to not humiliate them.” Francis described the man’s comment as “beautiful,” adding: “He knows the sense of dignity! He has to punish them but does it justly and moves on.”

Verena Herb, a spokeswoman for Germany’s Families Ministry, told reporters yesterday that “there can be no dignified hitting.” “There must be no misunderstanding here, because any form of violence against children is completely unacceptable,” she said. Germany is one of several countries where corporal punishment of children is illegal.

Separately, the Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children, a leading advocacy group, said it was disappointed by Francis’ comments given that other faith leaders have come out in support of prohibiting all physical punishment of children. “There is a very strong human rights consensus that children have an equal right to respect for their human dignity and physical integrity and to equal protection under the law,” the group’s Peter Newell said in an email to The Associated Press.

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UNITED STATES
Boston Globe

By Kara Baskin and David Mogolov
GLOBE CORRESPONDENTS FEBRUARY 06, 2015

When I was a kid, my parents spanked us sometimes, but never much. Now that I have kids, I’m starting to think about spanking (everybody has an opinion — even Pope Francis, who says spanking is okay as long as children are not “demeaned”). I’m kind of on the fence, to be honest. Is it OK to spank?

David: In our house, kids don’t get hit or spanked, and I think that’s becoming more and more common.

The world is moving rapidly away from corporal punishment. Thirty-three nations have outlawed corporal punishment, according to the Gunderson National Child Protection Training Center. While the US isn’t one of them, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child requires all members to “take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence,” which seems to obligate us to end the practice.

I know many parents believe in spanking, and that they see it as a traditional and effective method of discipline. Every time corporal punishment makes the news, people invariably say, “I was spanked, and it didn’t do me any harm.” Just look at the comments section or tweets related to any article about Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson’s abuse charges for evidence of this.

But I’m not convinced. The science behind corporal punishment is resoundingly anti-spanking. “The American Academy of Pediatrics strongly opposes striking a child.” This is the beginning of the organization’s statement on physical punishment. The American Academy of Child & Adult Psychiatry’s statement says, “Extensive research demonstrates that although corporal punishment may have a high rate of immediate behavior modification, it is ineffective over time, and is associated with increased aggression and decreased moral internalization of appropriate behavior.” So not only does it cause anguish, it’s ineffective.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Former President Mary McAleese has criticised Pope Francis’ comments on smacking children, warning it could signal a turning back of the clock in the church’s attitude to corporal punishment and children’s rights.

Earlier in the week, the Pope reaclled a conversation he had with a father who told him he sometimes hit his children, condoning the punishment.

In a letter to the Irish Independent, the former professor of law at Trinity highlights the Vatican is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

“Is the Holy See now doing what it claimed not to be doing a year ago, namely actively and internationally promoting the corporal punishment of children,” she wrote.

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IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

BY SARAH MACDONALD – 07 FEBRUARY 2015

Former Irish President Mary McAleese has questioned Pope Francis’s comments on smacking children, warning it could signal a turning back of the clock in the church’s attitude to corporal punishment and children’s rights.

The former Ardoyne resident who was a professor of law at Trinity is currently completing a doctorate in canon law.

She highlights that the Vatican is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

It advocates the universal abolition of corporal punishment of children in all circumstances.

The mother-of-three refers to an exchange last year between the Holy See and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child which claimed corporal punishment “remains widespread in some Catholic institutions” and “reached endemic levels” in Ireland as revealed by the Ryan Report.

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RHODE ISLAND
Town Hall

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Three lawsuits filed by a woman who says her late aunt was coerced into donating $60 million to a disgraced Roman Catholic order called the Legion of Christ have been dismissed by a Rhode Island court.

The state Supreme Court justices Friday upheld a lower-court decision and ruled Mary Lou Dauray doesn’t have standing to sue the Legion of Christ in an attempt to block it from receiving the money.

Dauray’s aunt was Gabrielle Mee, of North Smithfield. Dauray says her aunt was defrauded and wouldn’t have donated the money if she knew the Legion of Christ’s founder secretly fathered three children and molested seminarians.

The late Rev. Marcial Maciel founded the Legion in 1941. Documents show Vatican officials knew about his abuse.

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MINNESOTA
William Mitchell College of Law

The Child Protection Program, in partnership with Jeff Anderson ’75, will present an all-day symposium that will examine the complicated history and current situation surrounding sexual abuse in the church and other institutions. The symposium will be held on Friday, Apr. 17, in the William Mitchell Auditorium.

“Looking Back and Moving Forward: A Critical Look at Sexual Abuse and Institutional Failure,” will feature Jeff Dion, director of The National Crime Victim Bar Association as the keynote speaker. He will be joined by the Very Rev. Charles Lachowitzer, Minnesota vicar general, and a remarkable group of local and national experts who will share messages of hope, help, and healing as they discuss policies and strategies to help institutions and survivors move forward after abuse has occurred.

Dion, who has worked for the National Center for Victims of Crime since 1998, lectures across the U.S. to foster greater understanding among crime victims and trial attorneys. He has trained advocates and attorneys in 37 states and serves on the board of directors for the Sexual Assault Victim Advocacy Service of Prince William County. He is an advisory council member for the National Association to Prevent Sexual Abuse of Children and is the recipient of the Ronald Wilson Reagan Public Policy Award, an award honoring an individual whose leadership has led to significant changes in public policy and practice to benefit crime victims.

The symposium is made possible, in part, by the generosity of Jeff Anderson, trial attorney at Jeff Anderson & Associates. A dedicated sexual abuse litigator, Anderson has represented thousands of victims and their families, trying more than 250 jury trials to verdict across the country. He was also instrumental in exposing the large scale cover-up of sexual abuse by priests in the 1980s. He frequently lectures on litigation techniques and publishes on the topic of sexual misconduct in the clergy.

Looking Back and Moving Forward: A Critical Look at Sexual Abuse and Institutional Failure
Keynote Speaker:

Jeff Dion, director of The National Crime Victim Bar Association

Speakers:

Chris Anderson, executive director, MaleSurvivor
Jeff Anderson ’75, Jeff Anderson & Associates, attorney for victims of sexual abuse
Alison Fiegh, program manager, Jacob Wetterling Resource Center
The Very Reverend Charles Lachowitzer, Minnesota vicar general
Professor Charles Reid, University of St. Thomas School of Law
Charles Rogers, Briggs and Morgan, attorney
Retired Major General Robert Shadley, author of The Game: Unraveling a Military Sex Scandal
The cost to attend the symposium, which runs from 9 am–4 pm, is $75 for general admission and $25 for public interest admission. Student admission is free. Application will be made for seven hours of CLE credit.

Learn more or register by Monday, Apr. 13.

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POLAND
Business Recorder

WARSAW: Poland’s parliament voted Friday to ratify a treaty combatting violence against women, despite considerable opposition from the right and the country’s powerful Catholic Church.

Lawmakers voted by 254 to 175 in favour of adopting the 2011 Istanbul Convention, the world’s first binding instrument to prevent and combat violence against women, from marital rape to female genital mutilation. Eight lawmakers abstained.

Critics claim the treaty links violence to religion and tradition. The Polish episcopate said the convention is based on “extremist, neo-Marxist gender theory”.

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TEXAS
Dallas Observer

By Amy Silverstein Fri., Feb. 6 2015

Even before Joshua and Jordan Earls were formally charged with making child pornography and child molestation in 2013, it should have been obvious to the Garland church where they worked that something was awry, one of their former victims says.

Josh moved to Texas to work as a youth minister at the Arapaho Road Baptist Church in 2008, and his brother “Jordy” followed him the next year. They quickly fell into favor with the kids in the youth group and their parents. They paid particularly close attention to several teenage girls, attention that would eventually lead to criminal charges.

They gave the girls gifts and cards, one girl identified only as “Jane Doe 103” says in lawsuit, and picked the girls up from school without telling their parents. The brothers also held an exclusive “book club” meeting for the girls at the apartment they shared together and offered to give Doe private guitar lessons. From there, the brothers moved into “inappropriate full-body hugs” and other sexual touching.

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NEW YORK
Niagara Frontier Publications

Panepinto calls for complete repeal of statute-of-limitations for sexual offenses against minors

Submitted

Fri, Feb 6th 2015

State Sen. Marc Panepinto, D-60, along with childhood sexual abuse victims Vanessa DeRosa and Tino Flores, and their attorneys, came together Friday to call for the complete repeal of New York’s statute-of-limitations for sexual offenses against minors. Panepinto highlighted his two pieces of co-sponsored legislation that aim to remedy this legal problem and bring reform to the justice system.

“It is unnerving and, frankly, frightening that a victim of childhood sexual abuse can be told that it is too late to bring a claim against their abuser in a court of law,” Panepinto said. “But that is the unfortunate reality in New York state, where the heinous crimes of sexual predators and abusers are shielded behind the law’s archaic statute-of-limitations code.

“The two Senate bills that I have co-sponsored aim to fix this wrong by completely repealing the statute of limitations for sexual offenses against minors. As the newest member of the Senate codes committee, I will advocate tirelessly to ensure this critical legislation is brought before the full Senate for a vote. Mr. Flores, Ms. DeRosa, and the countless other victims throughout our state deserve nothing less.”

Attorney Diane Tiveron of HoganWillig, the law firm representing Flores and DeRosa, said, “We want to extend our sincere thanks and gratitude to Sen. Marc Panepinto and his office in taking this bold step to effectuate a change in the statute of limitations associated with victims of abuse and the constraints they face in bringing their abusers to justice. We also want to thank all the brave people who have contacted our office after our press conference last week and conveyed their individual and personal stories of unpunished abuse. Our clients, Tino Flores and Vanessa DeRosa, are pleased that their efforts may finally right a wrong that has caused irreparable pain to countless people.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

SARAH VINE: Sex abuse in Rotherham and why we British women of ALL faiths must make a stand against the bigots who betray Islam

Feminism, it is now often argued, is an idea that has had its day. In Britain, where women are equal in the eyes of the law, and where girls outperform boys in education, emancipation no longer feels like the fight of our lives.

But this week I realised that we need feminism perhaps more than ever before. We need to empower women, listen to young girls — and challenge the appalling behaviour of certain men whose belief systems would seem to legitimise the idea that women are forever second-class citizens.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the shocking case of the sexual exploitation of an estimated 1,400 girls and young women by overwhelmingly Muslim Pakistani men in Rotherham.

Because if their behaviour tells us anything about the culture of certain Muslim men, it tells us how they value females. Which is to say, not very highly. Or not, at least, by the standards of modern Britain.

I am not saying, let me stress, that every Muslim man is a misogynist. Indeed there are countless numbers who are hard-working exemplary citizens, model husbands and fathers, who love their wives and daughters as more than equals.

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COLORADO
CBS Denver

[with video]

GOLDEN, Colo. (CBS4)- A pastor who pleaded guilty to sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust has been sentenced to 10 years to life in prison.

Gerald Clark’s victims include three young women who knew him through the church they attended with their families. The abuse happened over a period of seven years and date back as far as 2005 and as recently as April 2012.

Clark originally faced 10 counts, but those were dropped in exchange for a guilty plea in December 2012 to one count that covers all three felony counts of victims under the age of 18.

At the sentencing on Friday, the judge said it was a disturbing case even troubling his own faith as he went over the details, not only because it involved sexual abuse but also spiritual abuse.

The first young woman to come forward told police that Clark was a father figure and mentor to her. She said the sexual abuse occurred approximately 30 to 50 times between 2009 and 2012 when she was 13 to 16 years old.

Clark met that alleged victim and her family at Victory Church. They then followed Clark to Jericho Ministries International that Clark ran out of his Westminster home.

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NEW YORK
WBFO

By SARA ALI

Efforts are being made to repeal New York State’s statue of limitations in response to claims recently brought forward by two victims of child sexual abuse.

Last month, Vanessa DeRosa and Tino Flores asked for a papal investigation into the Buffalo Diocese’s response to their claims, which they claim was inadequate.

State Sen. Marc Panepinto is co-sponsoring bills to eliminate the 10-year timeframe victims have to bring forth claims. Panepinto, on Friday, talked about what that would mean for the two victims.

“It would allow both of them, who did not bring forth their abuse within ten years of the event happening, the ability to get the medical treatment they need, the compensation they deserve for the abuse, and to help put their lives back together again,” said Panepinto.

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RHODE ISLAND
Providence Journal

BY PATRICK ANDERSON
panderson@providencejournal.com

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The Rhode Island Supreme Court Friday denied a woman’s latest bid to block the disgraced Legion of Christ from receiving $30 million from her late aunt’s estate.

Upholding a 2012 Superior Court decision, the justices ruled that Mary Lou Dauray, the niece of Gabrielle D. Mee of North Smithfield, did not have standing to challenge the will.

Dauray had argued that the Legion, a religious order whose founder, the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, was discovered to have molested young seminarians, used fraud and coercion to convince her aunt to bequeath her family’s entire fortune.

In a ruling for the court, Justice Maureen McKenna Goldberg wrote that because Dauray did not stand to benefit if her aunt’s will was invalidated, she did not have standing to sue.

According to Dauray’s attorney, the Legion of Christ has already received roughly $30 million from the Mee estate and stands to receive another $30 million over the next three decades.

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TEXAS
News 4 San Antonio

Updated: Friday, February 6 2015

By LAUREN LEA News 4 San Antonio

SAN ANTONIO — The El Paso Archdiocese has settled a lawsuit with two alleged victims of sexual abuse at the hands of a now-deceased priest.

Attorneys say Father Alfonso Madrid, a Jesuit Catholic priest, sexually assaulted two boys decades ago in El Paso, but he may have victimized a child in San Antonio too.

The lawsuit against the El Paso Archdiocese uncovered an allegation of abuse at a San Antonio church, which was reported in 1968 to Madrid’s superiors.

“It was reported to him that Father Madrid had taken a nine-year-old boy from the bingo hall at Our Lady of Guadalupe there in San Antonio and taken him to the rectory where he sexually abused that little boy,” explained attorney Hal Browne.

The lawsuit alleges the Jesuits knew about the San Antonio abuse allegation when Madrid was transferred back to El Paso, and no investigation occurred at the time. He served at Our Lady of Guadalupe from 1966 to 1970, and Browne believes there could be other victims.

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CHICAGO (IL)/WISCONSIN
Chicago Tribune

By Lisa Black
Chicago Tribune

A high-ranking Greek Orthodox bishop in Chicago was warned by a prosecutor against “potential efforts to intimidate witnesses” in a case involving a priest accused of stealing more than $100,000 from a Milwaukee church.

The warning came after another priest in Milwaukee told authorities that Bishop Demetrios of Mokissos, the No. 2-ranking official in the Greek Orthodox faith in the Midwest, threatened in emails to remove him from his post if the church did not withdraw a theft complaint against the priest’s predecessor.

“We have received some extremely distressing news regarding potential efforts to intimidate witnesses,” a Milwaukee prosecutor wrote to an attorney for the Chicago church leadership last April, according to court documents. “… I believe that Bishop Demetrios needs to retain independent representation as quickly as practical.”

The emails were exchanged between the bishop and the Rev. Angelo Artemas of Annunciation Church in Milwaukee as prosecutors there were investigating theft claims against a former Annunciation priest, the Rev. James Dokos.

The emails indicated the bishop sought a meeting with Annunciation leaders to talk about the case against Dokos, who has since been charged with improperly spending money from a trust fund intended to benefit the church.

Members of Annunciation had taken their concerns about the trust fund to Milwaukee authorities after officials with the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Chicago determined in an internal investigation that Dokos did nothing wrong.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Is Pope Francis so shrewd that he is personally trying to undercut belief in papal infallibility, the key to the modern post-1870 “supreme papacy”, by his unpredictable, inconsistent and even seemingly contradictory statements and actions — the latest arising out of a recent address described below to top officials of the Italian interior (police) ministry ?

Pope Francis “zigs and zags” often: Don’t breed like rabbits, just don’t use the Pill. Help the poor, but honor, like he seems to do, the crony capitalist billionaires who help keep them poor. Protect children, but don’t report priest child abuse to the police unless legally obligated to do so. Slap your kids, but do so respectfully. Be nice to abuse survivors, but go bankrupt to avoid compensating them justly. Don’t judge gay folks, just ostracize them from Church institutions. Is Francis shrewd, or just opportunistic, or even duplicitous and hypocritical? What do you think?

Meanwhile, Francis’ fellow Jesuit, Fr. Hans Zollner, a key member of the pope’s sex abuse commission, seems to be reading from a different script, in his recent and almost embarrassing promotional interview on Vatican Radio. entitled “Child protection at top of Pope Francis’ priority list“, here,

[Vatican Radio]

Even usually sympathetic journalists seem now to be second guessing Pope Francis. Please see, for example, David Gibson’s “Vatican sex abuse commission meets amid new hopes, old concerns’“, here,

[National Catholic Reporter]

and see also former New York Times’ reporter, Ken Briggs’ “Pete Rose, Meet Junipero Serra“, here,

[National Catholic Reporter]

It may be that Pope Francis just wants to appeal to different Church donation sources, for example, divorced and remarried Germans, with their substantial governmental tax subsidy, and right wing US Republican plutocrats who seem to think they need more of the anti-gay marriage, as well as US Latino, voters to elect a “low tax/low regulation” presidential ticket in 2016, like Jeb Bush/Ted Cruz in all likelihood. Please see Betty Clermont’s relevant, comprehensive and well documented, “Catholic Right Still Tied to Big-Money Republicans“, here.

[Church and State]

Pope Francis is halfway through his four year term. He can be expected to retire at the end of of 2016 — after he helps (with his media missives on Cuba, Oscar Romero, Junipero Serra, Our Lady of Guadalupe, anti-contraception, anti-gay marriage, etc.) get out the US Latino vote for the JebBush/Ted Cruz ticket in the US presidential elections. By then, as an 80 year old with one lung, he will likely be replaced by Cardinal Parolin, whom Francis is evidently grooming as his successor, to be expected for one of of powerful Cardinal Sodano’s top proteges.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian Jewish News

The Australian Jewish community has just witnessed one of its darkest weeks.

I have covered child abuse in the Jewish community for several years but even I didn’t understand the extent of the cover-ups, the lies, the ignorance and ridiculous actions of Rabbis in our community.

It’s time for us, as a community, to wake up and smell the roses.

* There are dozens of victims of child abuse in our community.
* Victims considered suicide, became addicted to drugs and some will never recover.
* Many victims have never, and probably will never, come forward.
* Victims came forward to Rabbis in Sydney and Melbourne in the 1980s.
* Sometime, Rabbis did nothing.
* Sometime, Rabbis tried to “fix” child sexual abusers.
* And every time, Rabbis didn’t tell the police.

And in Sydney, which has been the focus of most of this week it was worse:

* One rabbi thought a victim was joking when he came forward.
* Another rabbi placed a young girl in the home of convicted child sexual abuser Daniel ‘Gug’ Hayman and then told her she was lying when she claimed she was sexually assaulted.
* At one time an entire group of victims came forward to a rabbi, and was ignored.
* Yeshiva spiritual leader Rabbi Pinchus Feldman did not tell police they knew alleged child sexual abusers were planing to leave the country because Rabbi Feldman “did not know there was any such obligation”.
* Rabbi Pinchus Feldman now accepts that his right-hand-man, Rabbi Baruch Lesches, knew of abuse allegations, but didn’t tell him.
* The head of Yeshiva’s Rabbinic School, Rabbi Yossi Feldman, did not know it was a crime for a teacher to touch the genitals of a child in 2002.
* Rabbi Yossi Feldman, at the age of 33, didn’t understand mandatory reporting laws when he was the director of a company that had a school.
* As recently as 2011 Rabbi Yossi Feldman said you “must” go to rabbis to report abuse instead of the police.
* As recently as 2011 Rabbi Yossi Feldman urged the rabbis not to call on victims to go the police because it would hurt his “friend”, and now convicted child sexual abuser, David Cyprys.

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CANADA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release Thursday, February 5, 2015

Statement by Melanie Jula Sakoda of Moraga, CA, Orthodox Christian Director for SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 925-708-6175 cell, melanie.sakoda@gmail.com )

The appellate court today announced that it has denied the appeal of convicted child molester Archbishop Seraphim Storheim. Storheim was for many years the highest ranking Orthodox Church in America (OCA) official in Canada. We are extremely grateful for this decision

[Winnipeg Free Press]

We hope that the two men who courageously testified about what they had suffered at Storheim’s hands will again feel vindicated. Without their bravery, the conviction would not have been possible and kids would still be at risk.

Now that Storheim has had his conviction affirmed, we hope that the OCA will finally act to remove him from the ranks of clergy. We also hope that the Archdiocese of Canada will examine its records to insure that the archbishop did not use his position to shield other predators or to discipline whistle blowers.

Finally, we recognize that pedophiles usually have many victims. We beg anyone who suffered, saw, or suspected Storheim’s crimes to report to the professionals in law enforcement and help protect kids.

The archbishop worked in the following locations:

5/30/1980-1/31/1981: Supply priest in Valamo Monastery, Finland
1/1981-10/1982: Missionary priest, Alberta, Canada
10/1982-12/15/1983: Missionary priest, Charlotte, North Carolina, United States of America
12/15/1983-12/1/1984: Missionary priest in London, Ontario, Canada
12/1/1984-6/13/1987: Rector of Holy Trinity Sobor, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
6/13/1987-6/29/1990: Bishop of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
10/28/1990-3/21/2014: Ruling hierarch of the Archdiocese of Canada with his seat in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

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MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

02/06/2015

Jennifer Haselberger

Pastors of more than 100 parishes in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis received this letter via email today. Interested parties, take note.

Judge Arthur J. Boylan (ret.)
Mediation Arbitration
310 S. Fourth Ave. Suite 5010
Minneapolis, MN 55415
C: 612-387-5655
mediatoraspm@gmail.com

February 6, 2015 RE:
Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis Bankruptcy

Dear Fathers: As you know, the Archdiocese of St Paul and Minneapolis filed a Chapter 11 bankruptcy case on January 16, 2015. Judge Robert J. Kressel, the bankruptcy judge handling the case, has appointed me as Mediator to assist the Archdiocese and its creditors in formulating a Chapter 11 plan of reorganization to resolve the bankruptcy case.

The mediation process is underway and moving rapidly. Participants include the plaintiffs, the Archdiocese and its insurers, and a group of 60 or so parishes (both with notices of claims and without). It is apparent that all the parishes of the Archdiocese have a strong interest in the ultimate resolution of the Archdiocese’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case, and I am concerned that there are a number of parishes that are not yet participating in the process and do not have representation. The Parish Group that is currently participating in the mediation process is being represented by bankruptcy attorney Mary Jo Jensen-Carter of Buckley & Jensen and insurance coverage attorney Margo Brownell of Maslon, LLP.

Whether you elect to join this group or retain separate counsel, I encourage all of you to seek legal counsel to protect the interests of your parish. If you wish to join the existing group, you may contact Mary Jo Jensen-Carter at 651-486-7475 or maryjo@buckleyandjensen.com for more information. I expect this mediation proceeding to move forward quickly, so I would urge you to obtain representation as soon as possible. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at MediatorASPM@gmail.com.

Sincerely,
s/ Arthur J. Boylan
Judge Arthur J. Boylan

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TEXAS
KCEN

CORYELL COUNTY — A youth pastor with Coryell Community Church is in jail on multiple charges including sexual assault of a child.

Wil Jackson, 32, was booked into the Coryell County Jail late Thursday night. He’s also charged with Indecency with a Child.

According to the church website, Jackson started serving in student ministry in 2004. He’s been married since 2002 and has two children.

Coryell County Sheriff says the Jackson bonded out of jail on Friday afternoon.

No additional details about the charges against Jackson have been released.

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TEXAS
Killeen Daily Herald

Chris McGuinness | Herald staff writer

CORYELL COUNTY — A Gatesville youth minister is facing felony charges of sexual assault of a child and indecency with a child.

Jail records indicated Evan William Jackson, 32, was arrested Thursday on the two felony charges. He bonded out of Coryell County Jail on $45,000 bond Friday afternoon.
DR Horton Eurotech Car Care

Jackson is a youth minister at the Coryell Community Church in Gatesville. Jackson is a father of two and his wife also works for the church, according to a biography on the church’s wesbite.

Jackson began working at the church in 2004. On Friday, Coryell County District Attorney Dusty Boyd told local media outlets the incident that got Jackson arrested happened at least 10 years ago, and did not involve any children at the church.

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TEXAS
KWTX

By: Paul J. Gately and Ethan Hutchins

GATESVILLE (February 6, 2015) An affidavit released Friday afternoon details the allegations against a youth pastor at a Gatesville church who’s charged with two counts of sexual assault of a child and one count of indecency with a child.

Evan William Jackson, 32, was released from the Coryell County Jail Friday after posting bonds totaling $45,000.

The incidents from which the charges stem date back more than a decade and did not involve any children at the Coryell Community Church, Coryell County District Attorney Dustin Boyd said.

The victim, who’s now 26, but who was 14 at the time of the alleged incidents, told an investigator that Jackson first fondled her sometime around January 2003, the affidavit said.

“She said Jackson abused her on a weekly and sometimes bi-weekly basis for about two years,” the investigator said in the affidavit.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Die Welt

Freunde wählten einen Pfarrer zum Patenonkel ihres Sohnes. Der kümmerte sich scheinbar rührend um sein Ziehkind. Jetzt wurde er wegen schweren sexuellen Missbrauchs zu sechs Jahren Haft verurteilt.

Ein katholischer Priester ist wegen Kindesmissbrauchs in Krefeld zu sechs Jahren Haft verurteilt worden. Das Landgericht sprach den 56-Jährigen am Freitag wegen schweren sexuellen Missbrauchs, Kindesmissbrauchs und Missbrauchs von Schutzbefohlenen schuldig. Das Gericht sah 25 Taten als erwiesen an.

Der Geistliche habe sein Patenkind und dessen jüngeren Bruder missbraucht. Dabei sei er einer Strategie gefolgt, sagte der Vorsitzende Richter: “Er wollte sich die jungen Menschen als seine Partner heranziehen.” Das Gericht ging mit seinem Urteil noch über den Strafantrag der Staatsanwältin hinaus, die fünfeinhalb Jahre beantragt hatte.

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GERMANY
Deutsche Welle

A Catholic priest has been given prison time for his misconduct with minors in Germany. He previously faced similar charges while working abroad in South Africa.

Georg K.,* a 56-year-old former Catholic priest from Krefeld in western Germany, was sentenced to six years in jail on Friday after being found guilty on charges of sexual abuse of minors.

Presiding judge Herbert Luczak accused the defendant of having selfishly sought out two young boys as sexual partners and keeping the consequences of their actions hidden from the victims. The six-year sentence is even more time than was originally sought by the prosecution.

Georg K. was charged with abusing two brothers, aged between 11 and 15, from 2001 to 2007. He had already been suspended by the diocese of Aachen. Similar charges have been leveled against him in South Africa, where he lived and preached after 2007.

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UNITED STATES
Church and State

By Betty Clermont | 16 January 2015
Daily Kos

The last time anyone counted, “about one-in-five religious advocacy organizations in Washington D.C. have a Roman Catholic perspective,” the biggest spender being the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) at $26.67 million. Unfortunately, the report didn’t list the organizations it considered to have a “Roman Catholic perspective.” Because they’re not based in Washington D.C., the 195 dioceses, Catholic Foundations and the state level Catholic Conferences who lobby on behalf of the local bishops, and the approximately 40,000 other organizations controlled by the bishops throughout the U.S., were not included. Unlike Evangelicals, all the above speak with a unified voice on anti-equality for women and gays. Additionally, no other religion has a global financial network capable of accepting and moving “dark money” thanks to exemptions in requirements to file financial statements and to pay taxes.

Based in Connecticut and not Washington D.C., the Knights of Columbus “have invested millions” in anti-women and anti-gay causes.

The Knights have contributed so much to the bishops’ political agenda that “nearly 90 archbishops and bishops – including 11 cardinals” showed up at their last annual meeting, including the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin. Supreme Knight Carl Anderson has had three private meetings with Pope Francis and the pontiff met with the Knights’ board of directors shortly after his election.

There are many organizations which don’t declare themselves “Catholic” but are allied with the USCCB agenda. They include right-wing think tanks such as the Acton Institute and the Ethics & Public Policy Center (EPPC). The Acton Institute is primarily funded by groups like ExxonMobil, the Scaife foundations and the Koch brothers. Its president, Fr. Robert A. Sirico has met with Pope Francis as has George Weigel, head of the EPPC.

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CALIFORNIA
ABC 11

By Dan Noyes
Thursday, February 05, 2015

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Archbishop Riordan High School (ARHS), a prestigious, all-male Catholic prep school run by the Archdiocese of San Francisco, is facing a scandal involving sexually-graphic pictures and a racy video of a student. Tuition is $16,820, but boarding students pay $47,500.

Over the last 18 months, at least five teachers have complained to the archdiocese about the principal showing pictures of naked women and other images not appropriate for a school environment. And some of those teachers say have faced retaliation because they took a stand.

Vittorio Anastasio graduated from Riordan, coached the wrestling team for years, worked as guidance counselor and became principal in 2013. Several teachers are now accusing the 48-year-old of conduct that is not proper for a school setting.

Teacher 1: “And he showed me an inappropriate picture of a frontal of a naked woman.”
Noyes: “From top to bottom?”
Teacher 1: “Yes.”
Noyes: “You could see everything?”
Teacher 1: “Yes.”

Our sister station in San Francisco spoke with three Riordan High teachers on camera. They don’t want to show their faces out of concern for their careers. Their stories echo what other faculty and staff have said– that Anastasio, on more than 20 occasions, used a phone or iPad to show pictures of naked women, including some sexually-explicit photos, and one picture of the principal meeting porn star Ron Jeremy.

Noyes: “How does it come up?”
Teacher 2: “‘Let me show you this. Look at this. What do you think about this one?’ That’s how it comes up. Casually, like it’s no big deal.”

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UNITED STATES
Flicks and Bits

Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Mark Ruffalo, Liev Schreiber & More Highlighted In The First ‘Spotlight’ Image

The above first image has arrived online from writer-director Tom McCarthy’s (The Station Agent) much buzzed about drama ‘Spotlight,’ which is about the Boston Globe investigation into sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. From left to right: Michael Keaton as Walter “Robby” Robinson, Spotlight Team editor; Liev Schreiber as Marty Baron, Boston Globe editor; Mark Ruffalo as Michael Rezendes, Boston Globe reporter; Rachel McAdams as Sacha Pfeiffer, Boston Globe reporter; John Slattery as Ben Bradlee, Jr., Boston Globe deputy managing editor; Brian d’Arcy James as Matt Carroll, Boston Globe reporter.

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WISCONSIN
Urban Milwaukee

By Michael Zahn – Feb 6th, 2015

Father James Dokos Jr., accused of stealing more than $100,000 from a trust fund, offered an unusual defense: that he was protected by the constitutional guarantee of freedom of religion — an argument made by his trio of lawyers, including high-profile attorney Frank Gimbel.

Sorry, said Circuit Judge M. Joseph Donald in a ruling yesterday: “The United States Supreme Court has previously observed that no person may ‘under the cloak of religion . . . commit frauds upon the public.’” So Asst. District Atty. David Feiss can go ahead and prosecute the priest.

Dokos Jr. had served since 1990 and until recently at the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Wauwatosa. The building is easily the best-known Greek Orthodox structure in this area, and one of the best-known Frank Lloyd Wright-designed buildings in the state. Two longtime parish members, the late Ervin and Margaret Franczak, had established a trust totaling more than $1.2 million which was intended for the mortgage and maintenance of the parish’s James W. Pihos Cultural Center, next to the church at 9400 W. Congress St.

But the complaint against Dokos says that from August 2008 through October 2012, he spent more than $110,000 — writing checks outside the terms of the trust, as Fox 6 has reported.

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NEW YORK
WKBW

[with video]

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) –

A State Senator is speaking out on behalf of adults who say they were victims of sexual assault years or even decades ago.

Marc Panepinto (D-Buffalo) says New York is one of the worst states in the country to help survivors of childhood sexual assault. He stood side by side with two victims on Friday morning, calling for a repeal of the statute of limitations for sexual abuse against minors.

Under current law, adults in New York that have been sexually abused must make a claim by the age of 23.

Victims say that in some cases, that is not enough time. Advocates say there may be too much trauma, fear and repressed memories for the victim to feel he or she can come forward.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Ken Briggs | Feb. 6, 2015 NCR Today

Junipero Serra and Pete Rose have become fellow brinksmen on a still shaky threshold of glory.
Serra is back in the running for sainthood after being tarnished by earlier outcries against his treatment of Native Americans. Rose, as most of the world knows, was banned from baseball for gambling on games while manager of the Reds, but this week a new major league commissioner opened the door for him to gain eligibility for baseball’s canonization into the Hall of Fame.

The stains on both of their backgrounds testify to the impossibility of matching the ideals we concoct to imagine the existence of superior beings who lack ordinary perfidy.

Serra’s record of alleged human rights violations were played down or obscured by the Vatican even as John Paul II announced that he would beatify the founder of a string of missions in Southern California in a grand public ceremony during his visit to the U.S. in 1987. Due to the indignation that then arose from historians and descendants of Serra’s victims, however, the celebration was canceled. John Paul quietly did the deed the next year but for decades Serra’s cause was placed out of sight presumably until the storm blew over and it was prudent again to elevate him. Pope Francis says he plans to follow through during his American tour later this year, installing Serra in the sainthood class of ’15. A new round of protests has begun, fueled further by appeals to Francis’ oft-stated advocacy for the poor and marginalized, but it would seem likely that the Vatican has anticipated the push-back and intends to install Serra despite the claims of injustice.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

FEBRUARY 07, 2015

Pia Akerman
Reporter
Melbourne

A RABBI who knew an accused child abuser might flee the country says he did not know at the time that it was illegal for an adult to touch a child’s genitals.

Yosef Feldman, the rabbinical administrator of Bondi’s orthodox Yeshiva centre, told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse yesterday that the prospect of criminal charges did not cross his mind when he spoke to the alleged abuser the day after a young boy’s mother notified Yeshiva College of her son’s allegation in 2002.

Rabbi Feldman said at the time he believed the allegation only ­related to the man, a rabbinical student and teacher’s aide known as AVL, lying down with the boy and massaging him.

“I didn’t know it could have been a crime,” Rabbi Feldman said. “I didn’t see that as necessarily being sexual … (but) it could potentially be something which is highly inappropriate. I don’t know what the criminal code is and what’s a crime and what’s not a crime. A lot of things could be a crime (when) I don’t think it is.”

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VATICAN CITY
Radio Vatican

[with audio]

(Vatican Radio) Child protection experts from five continents began talks in the Vatican on Friday at the first full meeting of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. The 17 member Commission was established by Pope Francis in 2014 and includes a range of professional men and women, together with survivors who were sexually abused by priests during their childhoods.

One of the founding members is German Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, head of the Institute of Psychology at Rome’s Gregorian University and director of its Centre for the Protection of Minors. He talked to Philippa Hitchen about the huge challenges facing the Commission and about the difficulties of tackling the broader issues of abuse of power within the Church today..

Fr Hans says the Pope has already started the process of looking into the abuse of power in different sectors so he has “put his finger in a wound that has been there for many years” and which reappears over the centuries in the Church….

As Catholics and Christians, Fr Hans says, we have a special responsibility to live authentically what we profess, adding that “it’s one of the major driving forces behind all the reform process that is going on, including the issue of looking at sexual abuse and its roots in the Church”….

Asked about the work of the Pontifical Commission, Fr Hans says it’ll be interesting to meet with members from the five continents, bringing a “language and a world of experience which is different from each other”. Fr Hans notes there are issues that need to be addressed urgently in parts of Africa, such as the abuse of power and the abuse of women, including women religious, by priests. It’s also important, he says, to find the right language to speak about these problems because in some Asian cultures there is so much denial that “sex abuse is an absolute taboo and cannot even be mentioned by the media”.

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VATICAN CITY
The Tablet (UK)

05 February 2015 by Hannah Roberts in Rome

A landmark conference on women at the Vatican this week accepted that there is a major discrepancy between the status of women in Western culture and their role in the Church.

“In modernity, where work is the main way to avoid poverty and exclusion, women want to work, have a career and recognition of this commitment in terms of status and money equal to men. They want space in the public sphere equal to that given to men … not as secondary citizens,” the outline document for the plenary assembly at the Pontifical Council for Culture on “Women’s Cultures: Equality and Difference” said.

The paper went on to acknowledge “women who, perhaps with great difficulty, have reached places of prestige within society, but have no corresponding decisional role nor responsibility within ecclesial communities”.

In a pointed contrast between past and present the working document, produced by 15 women advising president of the Pontifical Council for Culture Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, asserted: “Women no longer spend their afternoons reciting the Rosary or taking part in religious devotions; they often work, sometimes as top managers engaged as much as, if not more than, their male counterparts, and frequently they also have to care for their families.”

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ROME
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Feb. 6

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

The latest church abuse panel, meeting now in Rome, is to “come up with best practices for dioceses and religious orders to implement” (AP) and “propose ways for the church to improve its norms and procedures.” (Catholic News Service).

But if my house is filthy, I don’t need to learn “best cleaning practices.” I just need to start sweeping out the dirt.

That’s what Pope Francis must do. But that’s what he hasn’t done and won’t do. The dirt is just too widespread.

It’s a lack of decisive action, not a lack of ‘norms,’ that keeps predators in parishes and abuse cover ups covered up. No plethora of procedures can or will force bishops to be honest about child molesting clerics and responsible about innocent childrens safety.

Since royalty are never demoted or disciplined in a monarchy, clearer or “better” or more procedures do nothing but create the image of reform. So we have few hopes for this panel. Whatever it recommends will be adopted and then ignored because this pope, like his predecessors, lacks the spine to fire corrupt men like Archbishop John Neinstedt or Bishop Robert Finn.

Or Philippine Bishop Arturo Mandin Bastes who right now is keeping a known abuser, Fr. Arwyn N. Diesta, in ministry. (Fr. Diesta worked in the Los Angeles archdiocese in the 1980s and abused a young teen seminarian there. Three times Sorsogon diocesan officials were warned about Fr. Diesta – twice by Cardinal Roger Mahony and once by the Vatican. Yet Bishop Bastes puts youngsters in harm’s way today by keeping Fr. Diesta on the job.)

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VATICAN CITY
Religion News Service

David Gibson | February 6, 2015

VATICAN CITY (RNS) When Marie Collins first joined a new Vatican commission to fight sex abuse set up by Pope Francis, she had high hopes for quick action despite a wariness of church promises made in the decades since she was raped by a priest as a girl in Ireland.

Francis had been shaking up the church in remarkable ways almost since the moment of his election nearly two years ago, and last May he finally set his reformist sights on the clergy sexual abuse scandal: he named Collin and seven others —mainly lay people and experts — to an unprecedented commission tasked with giving him recommendations for changes.

In December, he doubled the commission’s membership, adding including another prominent abuse victim.

Yet it’s only now, as the full commission begins a critical three-day Vatican meeting on Friday (Feb. 6), that Collins thinks advocates have a chance to really shake things up – though there are still no guarantees.

“I find it very frustrating how slowly the church moves, as a lay person coming in from the outside,” Collins, 68, said in an interview on the eve of the meeting, which runs through Sunday.

“It’s a shock to the system really how slowly they move,” she said. “I would definitely like to see things moving more quickly. But you have to try and achieve what you can achieve. All we can do is get in there and try and move as fast as we can. But I personally do have a great frustration with the speed of the church.”

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Feb. 6

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

There’s an encouraging aspect of the horrific Troy fake kidnapping case that’s worth noting: the system worked.

[St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

Within 48 hours of hearing this poor boy’s traumatic account, school officials, police and prosecutors leaped into action, arresting and charging four adults for this awful crime.

The boy spoke up. School staff believed him. They called police. Police investigated. Prosecutors charged. Wrongdoers were exposed. And a victim was validated and protected.

Time and time again, we hear about the cases where the system does not work. Kids can’t disclose horror. If they do, then the adults don’t listen. Or the adults disbelieve them. Or the adults do nothing. Or the adults say “Just let it go.” Or the adults try to “handle” the crimes quietly or internally. Or law enforcement moves slowly.

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TEXAS
Baptist News

By Bob Allen

A Southern Baptist church in Texas has been sued for $1 million by an unidentified woman who claims lack of oversight enabled a former youth minister and his younger brother to sexually abuse her as a teenager.

A lawsuit filed Feb. 3 in Dallas County District Court alleges negligence, breach of fiduciary duty and vicarious liability by Arapaho Road Baptist Church in Garland, Texas.

Joshua Earls, the former student pastor at the church affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas and the Southern Baptist Convention, pleaded guilty in federal court to child pornography charges in 2013. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

His younger brother, Jordan “Jordy” Earls, was not officially employed by the church but helped his brother with music and as a youth-group volunteer. The lawsuit claims the brothers, who shared an apartment, groomed several girls in the youth group, and with the plaintiff it escalated to weekly sexual abuse by Jordy Earls during her sophomore and junior years in high school.

The lawsuit says the brothers departed abruptly in 2013, telling youth they were “called” to other ministry assignments in South Carolina. The truth, however, was that the family of another girl told police that Josh Earls had molested their minor daughter at a pool party in 2012.

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COLORADO
CBS Denver

[with video]

JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. (CBS4) – Gerald Clark, a Westminster pastor, will be sentenced on Friday for his sexual abuse crimes against multiple victims.

One of the victims told police that he was like a father figure to her. But that trust ended when she said he began sexually abusing her. She told police it happened 30 – 50 times, between 2009 and 2012, when she was 13 – 16 years old.

Clark had been a pastor and was associated with Victory Church as well as Jerico Ministries International, which he ran out of his home.

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MONTANA
Indian County Today Media Network

Stephanie Woodard
2/6/15

Suicide, alcoholism, drug abuse. A plaintiff in a lawsuit against the Diocese of Helena (Montana) and the Ursuline Sisters of the Western Province ticked off the long-term effects of the sexual, physical and emotional abuse by nuns and priests that he and other plaintiffs suffered as children. “The memories keep coming back,” said the plaintiff, who asked to be referred to as John Doe. “It’s daily. You withdraw.” The problems have devastated individuals and entire communities, he said.

A proposed settlement in the lawsuit has just been accepted by all sides. The 362 plaintiffs are mostly Native Americans, who were abused from the 1930s through the 1970s. The defendants are the Diocese, which oversaw western Montana and will pay the plaintiffs copy5 million via bankruptcy reorganization and insurance proceeds, and the Ursulines, who ran a boarding and day school in St. Ignatius, Montana, where much of the abuse took place. The Ursulines will pay $4.45 million, largely from sale of assets, according to Tamaki Law Offices, one of the firms representing the plaintiffs.

Court documents say nuns, priests and lay employees also raped, sodomized, fondled and beat children at other western Montana schools and parishes. The Ursulines ran their school with the help of Jesuits, who are also named as abusers.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Pope Francis is halfway through his four year term. He can be expected to retire at the end of of 2016 — after he helps (with his Cuba, Oscar Romero, Junipero Serra, Our Lady of Guadalupe, anti-contraception, anti-gay marriage, etc., media missiles) get out the Latino vote for the JebBush/Ted Cruz ticket in the US presidential elections. By then, as an 80 year old with one lung, he will likely be replaced by Cardinal Parolin, whom Francis is evidently grooming as his successor, to be expected for one of of powerful Cardinal Sodano’s top proteges.

A two-day Cardinals’ meeting in Rome, before Pope Francis installs 20 new Cardinals on Feb. 14, will now fine tune the Catholic Church’s top down central bureaucracy to assure a smooth transition to an even tighter papal control under a younger pope. Church leaders under Francis have evidently decided to work together in mutual self interest to stonewall outside government efforts to subject the Vatican and Cardinals to their laws protecting children. How long can such a short sighted strategy succeed? Not long, as I discuss below.

Francis so far appears to have met the main goals of the frightened Cardinals who elected him two years ago. He has kept all of them out of jail and most of their bishops out of bankruptcy courts, despite several serious scandals. He has also stemmed the theft of Vatican wealth and gotten financial regulators to back off somewhat. None of these outcomes appeared inevitable when the failed Pope Benedict suddenly quit under pressure two years ago. The ex-Pope, a misguided manager, left his successor a massive legal and financial mess in the Church’s “house of cards”, as Francis quaintly put it. Francis has navigated this so far by skillfully employing media management and by pursuing dangerous geo-politics, ranging from endearing himself to major leaders of China and Russia, Saudi Arabia and US Republicans, to dictators in Cuba and even to the disgraceful “leader for life” Mugabe in Africa, see “Zimbabwean leader among faithful marking Pope Paul VI′s beatification“, here,

[Star Africa]

Francis has, disappointingly but not surprisingly, “charged” the wishful thinking and docile “Catholic 99.99%” a very high price to save the 0.01 % Church leadership. Among other charges, (1) children remain at serious risk of sexual predator priests due to continued Vatican stonewalling on child abuse, as Peter Saunders, the leader of UK abuse survivors recently added to Francis’ new sex abuse commission, has just boldly reminded Francis, see”Pope Francis told to hand priests over to police as new Vatican child abuse commission starts work“, here,

[Telegraph]

(2) many women are still denied access to effective contraception options and all women remain perpetual subordinates as “Adam’s ribs”, and (3) major Vatican financial liabilities still remain, as is even more evident now with the release of Jesuit educated and former Wall Street lawyer, Gerald Posner’s explosive and comprehensive book, “God’s Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican” , (see at [Amazon] link).

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VATICAN CITY
RT

Pope Francis gave parents the go ahead to smack children – if their dignity is preserved. His remarks during his weekly general audience in Rome have provoked social media outcry with many accusing the Argentinian pontiff of supporting violence. …

“It is disappointing that anyone with that sort of influence would make such a comment,” the coordinator of the Global Alliance to End Corporal Punishment of Children, Peter Newell, said.

According to the founder of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, Peter Saunders, the pope’s remarks were misplaced.

“I think that is a very misguided thing to have said and I’m surprised he said it, although he does come up with some howlers sometimes,” Saunders, who was abused for over five years by two Catholic priests as a child in London, told the Telegraph.

In December, Saunders was appointed by Pope Francis to his new Vatican commission on protecting children from abusive priests.

“It is a most unhelpful remark to have made and I will tell him that,” he added.

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VATICAN CITY
Yahoo! Lifestyle

By Alison Coldridge

He was hailed a modern Pope after actively encouraging women to breastfeed during his church services, but Pope Francis has revealed that his views on disciplining children remains dated.

The head of the Catholic Church used one of his recent services to reassure parents that smacking their children is OK when they’ve been naughty.

In one of his weekly general audience, this time dedicated to the role of fathers in the family, the Pope regaled a story of a dad smacking his child – and approved of the approach the father in took.

“One time, I heard a father in a meeting with married couples say ‘I sometimes have to smack my children a bit, but never in the face so as to not humiliate them.’ How beautiful!’ said Pope Francis. …

Peter Saunders, the founder of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, told The Telegraph, “It is disappointing that anyone with that sort of influence would make such a comment.” Saunders added that Pope Francis’ comments were “very misguided.”

But Vatican officials have been quick to stress that the Pope was advising on “helping someone to grow and mature.”

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

A former Christian Brother who pleaded guilty to more than 50 child sex abuse charges will be sentenced at the end of the month.

The man, now known as Ted Bales, faces charges of indecent assault and gross indecency against boys in the 1970s and 1980s.

He appeared in the Melbourne County Court on Friday.

The 65-year-old has also served time for child sex abuse under a different name, Edward Vernon Dowlan.

He had been stationed with the Christian Brothers at Ballarat and Warrnambool.

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AUSTRALIA
J-Wire

February 6, 2015 by J-Wire Staff

The Rabbinical Administrator of Yeshiva Gedolah,Bondi, Rabbi Yosef Feldman, present at a July 2002 meeting with name protected AVL and his father, Rabbi Pinchus Feldman, admitted that AVL, a student at the Yeshiva accused of inappropriate sexual behaviour, was a relative by marriage.

Yeshiva Gedolah is a tertiary education centre for young men training to become rabbis. AVL returned home to New York very soon after his meeting with the two rabbis.

At the meeting, AVL was told he would not be ordained. When AVL asked what would happen if he left Australia, Rabbi Pinchus told him words to the effect that it was not their decision what AVL wanted to do with his life. However if AVL left Australia, he would not be ordained.

During a separate conversation to the meeting, AVL told Rabbi Yosef that he lay down with the child and had just been massaging him. Rabbi Yosef didn’t think in legal terms about what might be a crime and should be reported to police.

“From a Jewish law perspective, this was highly improper” said Rabbi Yosef.

However, he didn’t see the lying down and massaging a child as necessarily being sexual.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service – Spiritual Politics

Mark Silk | Feb 6, 2015

Well, maybe not exactly secret. But in the letter he sent yesterday to the heads of bishops conferences and religious orders around the world, Francis made it clear to insiders, in a way most outsiders won’t grasp, that Rome has changed how it looks at the cover-up of child sexual abuse. The letter, sent at the request of the commission on the protection of minors Francis established last March, includes the following key paragraph:

Families need to know that the Church is making every effort to protect their children. They should also know that they have every right to turn to the Church with full confidence, for it is a safe and secure home. Consequently, priority must not be given to any other kind of concern, whatever its nature, such as the desire to avoid scandal, since there is absolutely no place in ministry for those who abuse minors.

“The desire to avoid scandal” is not just one concern among many. It is the key reason given in document after internal diocesan document explaining why a priest credibly accused of sexually abusing a minor is being quietly shuffled off to another parish, another diocese, another country — anything other than reported to the civil authorities and the faithful.

And that’s because “scandal” means more ecclesiastically than it does in common parlance. Aquinas defines it as an unrighteous word or deed that occasions the ruin of another, the idea being that sinful activity, if known to others, begets more sin. For that reason, Canon Law (1352) mandates the suspension of punishment “either in whole or in part to the extent that the offender cannot observe it without the danger of grave scandal or loss of good name.”

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CALIFORNIA
KGO

By Dan Noyes

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — Archbishop Riordan High School (ARHS), a prestigious, all-male Catholic prep school run by the Archdiocese of San Francisco, is facing a scandal involving sexually-graphic pictures and a racy video of a student. Tuition is $16,820, but boarding students pay $47,500.

Over the last 18 months, at least five teachers have complained to the archdiocese about the principal showing pictures of naked women and other images not appropriate for a school environment. And some of those teachers tell Dan Noyes they have faced retaliation because they took a stand.

Vittorio Anastasio graduated from Riordan, coached the wrestling team for years, worked as guidance counselor and became principal in 2013. The I-Team spoke with several teachers now accusing the 48-year-old of conduct that is not proper for a school setting.

Teacher 1: “And he showed me an inappropriate picture of a frontal of a naked woman.”
Noyes: “From top to bottom?”
Teacher 1: “Yes.”
Noyes: “You could see everything?”
Teacher 1: “Yes.”

The I-Team spoke with three Riordan High teachers on camera. They don’t want to show their faces out of concern for their careers. Their stories echo what Noyes heard from other faculty and staff — that Anastasio, on more than 20 occasions, used a phone or iPad to show pictures of naked women, including some sexually-explicit photos, and one picture of the principal meeting porn star Ron Jeremy.

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ILLINOIS
Chicago Tribune

[court document]

By Lisa Black
Chicago Tribune

A judge on Thursday rejected the argument made by a Glenview priest that a felony theft case against him should be dropped because it violated religious freedom laws.

The Rev. James Dokos, 62, of Chicago, is accused of improperly spending more than $100,000 in trust fund money that authorities contend was to benefit Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Milwaukee, where Dokos was a priest for years.

“Determining whether or not the defendant embezzled money does not require this court to appoint religious ministers, decide tenets of faith (or) interpret church doctrine,” Milwaukee Circuit Judge M. Joseph Donald wrote in his ruling, issued Thursday. “Neither (Dokos) nor the hierarchical church is more capable of determining whether or not he unlawfully retained money to which he was not entitled.”

Dokos did not appear at the hearing; he was excused after submitting a note from a doctor saying he’d had a recent cardiac procedure, according to court records.

The priest has been on unpaid leave from his most recent position as pastor at Sts. Peter and Paul Greek Orthodox Church in Glenview since the formal charge was filed last July. Dokos moved from the Milwaukee to the Glenview parish in 2012.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Dorset Echo

by Press Association 2014

The long-delayed inquiry into historic child sex abuse is to be reconstituted under a new chair with tough new powers to compel witnesses to attend and provide evidence.

Home Secretary Theresa May named New Zealand High Court judge Lowell Goddard to head the inquiry, which lost its first two chairs after questions were raised over their links with establishment figures.

Justice Goddard promised to hold a “robust and independent inquiry” which would hold to account those responsible for failing abused children.

Announcing her appointment to the House of Commons, Mrs May said that Justice Goddard had been selected after a search that involved more than 150 candidates, “due diligence” on potential conflicts of interest and consultation with victim groups.

The existing panel is being dissolved, with members able to reapply for positions, Mrs May told MPs. The terms of reference are also being revisited, potentially meaning that investigations could go back beyond 1970, though Mrs May indicated they were unlikely to be extended – as some have demanded – beyond England and Wales.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Thursday 5 February 2015

The former director of an Orthodox Jewish school “didn’t have a clue” that one of his staff members massaging the genitals of a young student might be a criminal matter, the royal commission has heard.

Rabbi Yosef Feldman said when he found out a teacher’s aide at the Sydney Yeshivah’s Gedolah college had been accused of sexually abusing a child in 2002, his ignorance of secular law meant he didn’t view it as a criminal offence.

Feldman said he was not aware of laws around mandatory reporting of child abuse, and he did not feel he needed training because “sex abuse is not common”.

“My role in general is to look at things from a Jewish law perspective,” Feldman told the royal commision into institutional responses into child sex abuse on Friday. “I’m not in the business of thinking of how society would deal with issues.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Thursday 5 February 2015

A senior religious figure within New York’s Orthodox Jewish community, Rabbi Boruch Lesches, has been asked to appear before Australia’s royal commission into institutional responses into child sex abuse.

Lesches had been contacted and asked to provide a statement or appear via video link but was yet to respond, counsel assisting Maria Gerace told the commission at Melbourne’s county court on Friday.

Lesches was a former senior figure and rabbi within Sydney’s Yeshivah community, and currently heads the Lubavitch community in Monsey, New York.

Child abuse victims told the commission this week that Lesches had dismissed their abuse allegations when they gained the courage to tell him what they had suffered within Yeshivah centres and their schools in the late 80s and early 90s.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

February 6, 2015

Jane Lee
Legal Affairs Reporter for The Age

The head of a Sydney rabbinical college says he was not aware that inappropriately touching a child could be criminal when one of his students left Australia amid accusations of child sexual abuse.

Rabbi Yosef Feldman, whose father, Rabbi Pinchus Feldman, is the head of Sydney’s orthodox Chabad community, also told the royal commission into child sexual abuse on Friday that he believed:

* Child sexual abuse was “not common” and did not affect more than 30 per cent of society
* Understanding the nature of abuse and responding to abuse allegations were largely a matter of “common sense”.
* Since he and his father failed to prevent his student, known as AVL, from leaving Australia, he said he had not undertaken formal training in child sexual abuse
* Rabbis, he said, should be trained in how to deal with child sexual abuse. But the rabbinical curriculum now only mentions abuse as it relates to Jewish law

Rabbi Feldman was the administrative director of the rabbinical college at orthodox Jewish institution Yeshiva in Sydney in 2002, when a parent complained that a man – known as AVL – had massaged their child while lying beside them.

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