ABUSE TRACKER

MINNESOTA
KAAL

By: Dave Aeikens

Ramsey County will not prosecute two separate cases of alleged priest abuse, County Attorney John Choi said Wednesday.

Investigations into alleged abuse from 1992-94 at St. John The Baptist Church in New Brighton and Saint Casimir’s Church in St. Paul did not produce enough evidence for charges, Choi said.

The investigation looked into the conduct of two priests.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Article by: CHAO XIONG , Star Tribune Updated: February 11, 2015

Two other cases remain open as part of “phase 2.”

The Ramsey County attorney’s office announced Wednesday that it has declined to file charges in two cases of alleged clergy sex abuse.

The cases involve alleged abuse from 1992 to 1994 at Saint John the Baptist Church in New Brighton, and alleged abuse from 1979 to 1984 at Saint Casimir’s Church in St. Paul.

“As we have said from the very beginning, the facts will lead the way; we can only do what the law allows; and we will do what justice requires,” Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said in a statement released Wednesday.

This brings to nine the number of cases of alleged clergy abuse that will not be pursued by Choi’s office.

In the New Brighton case, the alleged victim e-mailed the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in 2006 alleging abuse, according to a memo released by the county attorney’s office. The archdiocese reported the incident to New Brighton police that September.

The archdiocese told police they would e-mail the alleged victim, who was living abroad at the time, and ask the alleged victim to contact police. The case was closed in October 2006 when police did not hear from the alleged victim, the memo said.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

Westminster child abuse inquiry could last for FOUR years, New Zealand judge warns as she faces her ‘biggest challenge’

By MATT CHORLEY, POLITICAL EDITOR FOR MAILONLINE

The inquiry into Establishment child abuse could take up to four years to complete, its new chairman has revealed.

Lowell Goddard, a High Court judge in New Zealand, said leading the probe was the ‘biggest challenge’ she has ever faced as she set out plans to start in April.

The inquiry has already lost two potential heads, Baroness Butler-Sloss and Dame Fiona Woolf, who stood aside amid concerns over their establishment links.

Home Secretary Theresa May was forced to scour the globe to find a chairman for the inquiry, after fears leading figures in the UK would be seen as too close to the Establishment.

Giving evidence to MPs, Judge Goddard, the third chair-designate of the Statutory Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, told the Home Affairs Select Committee she was reluctant to set a timescale for the inquiry as this stage.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

By David Barrett, Home Affairs Correspondent

The child sex abuse inquiry could begin as soon as early April and will have a “truth and reconciliation” role similar to the commission set up in the wake of post-apartheid South Africa, MPs have heard.

Justice Lowell Goddard, the New Zealand high court judge appointed as the new chairman of the inquiry, said she would allow survivors of sexual abuse “to be heard”.

Justice Goddard, who has been a high court judge for 18 years, also insisted that she was not part of the establishment in her native country.

“We don’t have such a thing in my country,” she told the Commons’ home affairs select committee.
“I did have to seek clarification on exactly what it meant.

“Do I have any links with any institution or any person related to the subject matter of the inquiry? No, I don’t.”

She added that apart from an investigative role the inquiry would also offer victims of child sex abuse the chance to seek “truth and reconciliation”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Wednesday 11 February 2015

The New Zealand high court judge who is to chair the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse has said she has no links to the establishment, telling MPs: “We don’t have such a thing in my country.”

Justice Lowell Goddard, who arrived in Britain on Monday, said she hoped to have the troubled inquiry “up and running” by early April and would aim to revisit past wrongs, clarify what happened and ensure children were protected from sexual abuse.

She also said she intended for the inquiry, which she has been told could take three to four years, to have a “truth and reconciliation” element to it, which would allow survivors to speak about their experiences in private if necessary, as well as an investigative function.

Goddard is the third chair of the inquiry nominated by the home secretary, Theresa May, since it was first announced last July in the wake of the high-profile historic sexual abuse cases, including that of the late Jimmy Savile.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Sky News

By Tom Parmenter, Sky News Correspondent

The new chair of the Child Abuse Inquiry has insisted she has no links to the British Establishment.

New Zealand judge Justice Lowell Goddard revealed that, since arriving in the UK, she had to check what British people meant by the term “establishment”.

She told MPs during her first public engagement since being appointed: “We don’t have such a thing in my country.

“Do I have any links into any institution or person relevant to the subject matter? … No, I don’t,” she said.

The two women previously appointed by Home Secretary Theresa May both had to step down after their links to powerful people who may have been part of the investigations.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Sky News

The New Zealand judge who’s been drafted in to oversee Britain’s inquiry into historical child sex abuse says her whole career has been building towards this moment.

Lowell Goddard was grilled by MPs during a pre-appointment hearing at Westminster on Wednesday (Thursday morning NZ time).

She was asked to head the inquiry – which will examine allegations including that politicians committed and covered up abuse – after two previous chairs were forced to resign over establishment links.

‘My whole career path to date, and my experience I believe, has brought me to this point and I felt that I should make the commitment to undertake the inquiry for that reason,’ Justice Goddard told the Home Affairs Committee.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Examiner

Adam Davies | 12th Feb 2015

A NEW report has been critical of how the Catholic Church treated a former Lismore sexual abuse victim who said she was so petrified her secret would be revealed she got her attacker to oversee her first marriage during the 80s.

She said it was just easier at the time to keep up a facade she was simply friends with the Lismore Diocese priest.

Jennifer Ingham, 53, gave evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in 2013 that Father Paul Rex Brown had sexually abused her between 1978 and 1982.

The report, released on Wednesday, examined how the Catholic Church’s Towards Healing process responded to four people, including Mrs Ingham, who suffered sexual abuse from priests and have experienced adverse impacts.

The report was highly critical of how the church treated Mrs Ingham’s journey as an insurance matter instead of providing pastoral care, which was one of the main functions of the process.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

AAP

February 12, 2015

Senior Australian rabbis are expected to testify before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The inquiry is examining the response of Jewish colleges in Melbourne and Sydney to cases of sexual abuse of students, by men attached to the colleges, in the 1980s and ’90s.

Rabbi Abraham Glick, a former principal of Yeshivah College in Melbourne, and Rabbi Mordechai Gutnick, the president of the Rabbinical Council of Victoria, are due to give testimony on Thursday.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Simon Santow

A senior Sydney Rabbi has accused Jewish community leaders of defaming him and misrepresenting his views, after being heavily criticised over his recent evidence to the child sex abuse royal commission.

Rabbi Yosef Feldman provoked controversy when he told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse he would be “asking for more leniency” for reformed or inactive paedophiles.

He also offended many people when he lashed out at the media, saying publicity about child sexual abuse “encourages even people who may not be real victims or may want to be considered heroes” to go to the police.

A host of senior Jewish leaders then took aim at Rabbi Feldman, with the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies calling his views “repugnant” and declaring him to be “unfit to hold any position of authority or leadership in the Jewish community”.

Now Rabbi Feldman has told the ABC’s AM program he believed “everyone has been carried away by the hype without really knowing the facts”.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph

Cardinal George Pell failed to act like a Christian, report into child sex abuse finds

CARDINAL George Pell failed to act in a Christian way when he agreed to vigorously deny a man’s claims of sexual abuse as a child in order to discourage other victims from taking legal action, a report has found.

John Ellis was sexually ­abused by Father Aidan ­Duggan in the Sydney parish of Bass Hill in the 1970s.

Mr Ellis failed in his attempt to sue the Archdiocese of Sydney’s trust when a court ruled it could not be held liable.

This ruling cemented the precedent known as the Ellis defence, which has been a roadblock to litigation for other abuse victims.

Mr Ellis’ case was examined at the recent royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse, which yesterday released its findings on the way the Catholic Church dealt with a number of victims.

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VATICAN CITY
John Thavis

I’ve seen this week described as “crucial” for Pope Francis and his plans for Vatican reform, a “turning point” in his pontificate, a make-or-break moment for the Francis “revolution.”

But so far, there have been no dramatic announcements and no final decisions, just a series of progress reports from an array of councils and commissions that seem to meet a few times a year.

This doesn’t mean important things aren’t happening. But they are happening at a slower pace than many would have foreseen two years ago.

Pope Francis came out of the gate fast. Elected with a mandate to reform the Roman Curia and streamline Vatican structures, he quickly named a council of eight cardinals (now nine), established financial watchdog agencies and let it be known that his reforms would be deep, not superficial. Later he set up a child protection commission, another commission to revamp Vatican communications and brought in outside consultants to make recommendations on best practices.

But Francis soon came face to face with an inconvenient reality: The Vatican operates in its own time zone, a dimension where you can check your watch and calendar at the door, and where change is always in slow-motion.

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UNITED STATES
Questions from a Ewe

Several women complained to the Vatican’s Pontifical Council on Culture about using the sculpture “Venus Restored” (see previous blog article for a picture) as cover artwork for its working document on women’s culture. One of my friends received the following response today signed by Cardinal Ravasi, the Council’s head.

I have received your objection to the use of “Venus Restored” by the artist Man Ray on the Pontifical Council for Culture’s website to illustrate the working document of the Plenary Assembly on “Women’s Cultures: equality and difference”. While registering your complaint, we have chosen not to remove the image, as we believe it speaks clearly for one of the central points of our document: many women, alas, are still struggling for freedom (bound with rope), their voices and intellect often unheard (headless), their actions unappreciated (limbless).
Gianfranco Ravasi

First, I appreciate that Cardinal Ravasi at least responded to my friend, though he has not yet responded to my complaint. But let’s look at his response for a moment.

He defends using the artwork saying it speaks clearly to the issue of women’s voices and intellect often being unheard… kind of like the intelligent women’s voices being ignored by him on this very topic…

In two simple sentences Cardinal Ravasi encapsulates the hierarchy’s historical role in binding women, ignoring their voices and under-appreciating them. We objected but our voices were unappreciated and ignored in favor of being bound to his decision. Richer irony there never was than him dismissing intelligent women’s concerns as unfounded at the same time he envisions himself as some sort of knight in shining armor advocating for greater appreciation of women’s intellectual contributions.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Philly

BY CAROL GLATZ
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — As fresh economic reforms begin to take hold throughout the Vatican, the Council for the Economy has faced some resistance from larger offices that had been used to having greater autonomy, said a cardinal member of the council.

A fairly smooth rollout of more effective and transparent budgeting procedures and accountability throughout the Vatican met with “a hiccup” when some of the larger entities “did not want to come on board” and were more “resistant” to mandated changes, said Cardinal Wilfrid F. Napier of Durban, South Africa.

He said one such office was the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, which oversees the church’s missionary activities. The 400-year-old congregation had its own budget, managed its own investments independent of the Vatican’s main investment program and has its own office complex, located in downtown Rome a mile away from Vatican City.

“But it’s the very big ones we need (to comply) so the little ones have a good example” to follow, he told Catholic News Service Feb. 10 in between meetings in Rome.

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ARIZONA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Feb. 11

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 )

A just “outed” predator priest who reportedly molested at least one child in Minnesota is now living in Phoenix, according to Catholic officials.

[St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese]

We strongly urge Phoenix Catholic officials to aggressively warn parents, police, prosecutors and the public about John Robert Murphy. We urge Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmstead to use parish bulletins, church websites and pulpit announcements to reach out to anyone in Arizona who may have seen, suspected or suffered Murphy’s crimes.

It’s possible he molested a child just last night. And it’s possible that he could be prosecuted, convicted and kept away from kids.

Murphy has allegedly been “permanently removed from ministry.” But that doesn’t absolve Catholic officials from helping to protect others from him. Bishops recruited, ordained, hired, trained, supervised and shielded predators like Murphy. So they have an obligation to safeguard vulnerable kids from him even now.

We hope anyone with information or suspicions about Murphy will call police, expose wrongdoers, protect others, and deter cover ups. Silence and inaction only helps those who commit and conceal child sex crimes.

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MINNESOTA
KAAL

By: Jennie Olson

The names of 17 clergy who have been accused of sexual abuse or misconduct with a minor in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis were released Wednesday.

It’s the first times the names have been made public. Attorney Jeff Anderson says all of the clergy have been identified in notice of claims submitted to the Archdiocese and its insurance carriers.
The list of names includes:

Joseph Baglio
John Jerome Boxleitner
Patrick William Coates
Leonard Cowley
Alphonsus Ferguson, S.S.C.
Thomas Gardner, O.F.M.
Jerry Grieman
Marvin Klaers
James Namie
Jerome Plourde, o.s.c.
Noel Shaughnessy, O.F.M.
Ladislaus Sledz
Emil Twardochleb, O.M.I.
Joseph Warnemunde
Harold Whittet
Karl M. Wittman
Vincent Worzalla

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian Jewish News

AHEAD of the announcement that Rabbi Yossi Feldman would be stepping down from his roles at Yeshiva in Sydney, the principal of Melbourne’s largest Jewish school Rabbi James Kennard called for resignations among the leadership of Melbourne Yeshivah.

Revealing that he himself quit the Rabbinical Council of Victoria over its failure to call for Yeshivah leaders to be held to account in 2011, he wrote on Facebook, “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.

“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.”

While not naming any individuals, his call would include Rabbi Avrohom Glick who holds a senior position within the Yeshivah community. Rabbi Glick was principal of Yeshivah in Melbourne when according to the testimony of victims and their families allegations of child sexual abuse were brought to the attention of rabbis, but not reported to police, in the 1980s.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian Jewish News

THE Rabbinical Council of NSW (RCNSW) has stated that it made a mistake when it allowed Rabbi Yossi Feldman to remain president when, in 2011, some of his views regarding child sexual abuse allegations were made public by The AJN.

The AJN called on Rabbi Feldman to step down as president of the RCNSW when it published leaked emails, in which Rabbi Feldman put forward a view that a victim should go to a rabbi, not the police.

Rabbi Feldman stepped aside as president for several weeks but was then reinstated as president until the 2012 annual general meeting.

This week at the Royal Commission it was revealed that in 2011 Rabbi Feldman urged fellow rabbis not to call on victims to go the police because it would hurt his “friend”, and now convicted child sexual abuser, David Cyprys, argued that too much media attention would lead “fake victims” to come forward, labelled victim Manny Waks a “phony attention seeker” and put forward a view that a victim of child sexual abuse doesn’t know if the perpetrator will reoffend and therefore must go to a rabbi, and not the police.

“The RCNSW views with distress and dismay the increasingly sordid revelations that are emerging from the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse in Melbourne and Sydney,” the RCNSW executive said in a statement this week.

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AUSTRALIA
IOL

February 11 2015

REUTERS

Sydney –

The director of an ultra-orthodox yeshiva in Sydney resigned on Wednesday after his comments on paedophiles and apparent tolerance of historical child sex abuse caused an outcry.

Rabbi Yosef Feldman last week said not all sex abuse cases warranted police intervention and that courts could offer leniency to paedophiles who now no longer offend, in comments to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse.

He apologised on Wednesday to the Jewish community and the wider Australian community and said he would step down, The Australian Jewish News reported.

His testimony came as the national inquiry honed in on instances of sexual assault on children at yeshiva-run schools and other Jewish institutes in Australia.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Pope Francis is facing a critical test that will show whether he is a trustworthy leader or just another hierarchical hypocrite. Is Francis for the 99.99% Catholic faithful or for the 0.01% Catholic hierarchy?

The pope must fire forthwith his top money man, Cardinal George Pell, who exited Australia last year in a real hurry. We now know why! Australia’s Royal Commission has just found after two years of investigation that Pell fought a legal claim by an abuse victim, John Ellis, to discourage others from attempting the same. Pell spent, in effect, more than $1,000,000 fighting Ellis despite him asking for just a tenth of that amount in settlement, and put him through “distressing and unnecessary cross-examination” and threatened him with legal costs. Pell is not fit to manage Church money in a Christian manner.

The Royal Commission’s report also confirmed that the Australian Catholic Church, in which Pell had been the top leader for years, repeatedly failed in its dealings with victims of child sexual abuse at the hands of priests.A copy of the full report can be found here.

Pope Francis is losing all credibility on his promises to curtail the priest abuse scandal and to hold bishops like Pell accountable. The pope is relying, instead, on an almost farcical sex abuse commission. The pope’s commission is being exposed steadily to be no more than a classic political stall tactic in the form of an extremely unfocused, open ended, conflicted, inefficient and understaffed “study commission”, that is being orchestrated apparently by disgraced Boston Cardinal Bernard Law’s former canon lawyer, Fr. Robert Oliver. Please see, “NY Times Pulls Punches As SNAP Jabs Pope & US Pols On Abuse Ploys“, here,

[Christian Catholicism]

Catholics cannot be expected to donate to and support, and many will no longer donate to and support, the pope if he continues to leave Pell in charge of handling the Church’s finances. It is that simple, really. The pope can surely find a competent financial executive, female or male, to replace Pell and the pope needs to do so pronto.

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BELGIE
Trouw

[A Flemish priest who has been repeatedly accused of sexual abuse for many years has been in charge of an orphanage in Brazil. The Dutch congregation to which John D. belongs to is aware of the allegations, but has so far hardly intervened.]

Een Vlaamse pater die meermaals beschuldigd is van seksueel misbruik leidt in Brazilië al jaren een weeshuis. De Nederlandse congregatie waartoe Jan van D. behoort is op de hoogte van de beschuldigingen, maar heeft dusver nauwelijks ingegrepen.

Dat blijkt uit onderzoek van het televisieprogramma Brandpunt, dat vanavond een reportage aan hem wijdt. Trouw heeft die uitzending alvast kunnen bekijken. De eerste beschuldigingen tegen Van D. stammen uit de jaren ’70, toen hij nog werkte in parochies in Antwerpen. Halverwege de jaren ’70 werd hij overgeplaatst naar een ander stadsdistrict, om even later uitgezonden te worden naar Brazilië.

Toen ‘pater Jan’ België verliet, gingen daar al volop geruchten over zijn uitspattingen. In Brandpunt claimen enkele mannen dat ze bij hem op schoot moesten zitten en tijdens een kerkelijk kamp in de tent moesten komen liggen. “Hij zat altijd in mijn broek”, vertelt een van hen. “Hij wilde altijd maar tongzoenen.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

The judge leading the inquiry into historical child sex abuse in England and Wales has said she has no links to any person or institution which it might scrutinise.

Justice Lowell Goddard there was not such a thing as an “establishment” in her country, New Zealand.

Claims of paedophiles in Westminster in the 1980s sparked the inquiry.

Two women previously appointed to chair it have quit because of connections to people who held positions of authority.

Judge Goddard promised complete independence when she appeared before MPs on the Home Affairs Committee for a pre-appointment hearing, having been chosen by Home Secretary Theresa May to lead the inquiry.

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date: Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Source: Anne Steffens, Interim Director of Communications

From Archbishop John Nienstedt, Archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

Today, we are disclosing the names and assignment histories of four men who have substantiated claims against them of sexually abusing a minor while they were assigned as priests or, in the case of one, before he was a priest. A substantiated claim is one for which sufficient evidence exists to establish reasonable grounds to believe that the alleged abuse occurred. These names are being disclosed as part of our continual review of clergy files and our ongoing relationship with Jeff Anderson and Associates, announced as part of a settlement last October.

All of the reported incidents of abuse related to these four men occurred between the mid-1950s and the mid-1980s. One of the men is deceased, and the others have been permanently removed from ministry; they have been out of ministry for a decade or more. Two of the four men are from religious orders. I am profoundly saddened by the effect clergy sexual abuse continues to have on victims/survivors, their families and the community.

You may find clergy disclosure information linked on the archdiocesan website and at SafeCatholicSPM.org. We have also published this disclosure information in the archdiocesan newspaper, The Catholic Spirit. In addition, we alerted pastors at parishes where these men were previously assigned, so that pastors can communicate directly with their parishioners regarding the disclosures.

DISCLOSED NAMES

Michael Bik
James Robert Murphy
James Namie
Raimond Rose

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

17 Names of Clergy Accused of Sexual Abuse or Misconduct with Minors Publicly Released For the First Time Today

The names have been submitted in notice of claims to the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

(St. Paul, MN) – The names of 17 clergy who have been accused of sexual abuse or misconduct with a minor in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis were released for the first time today. All clergy whose names were released have been identified in notice of claims submitted to the Archdiocese and its insurance carriers. A complete list of all clergy named in the notice of claims is available at www.andersonadvocates.com.

The names released today have never been made public before. The list of names includes the following clergy:

Joseph Baglio
John Jerome Boxleitner
Patrick William Coates
Leonard Cowley
Alphonsus Ferguson, S.S.C.
Thomas Gardner, O.F.M.
Jerry Grieman
Marvin Klaers
James Namie
Jerome Plourde, o.s.c.
Noel Shaughnessy, O.F.M.
Ladislaus Sledz
Emil Twardochleb, O.M.I.
Joseph Warnemunde
Harold Whittet
Karl M. Wittman
Vincent Worzalla

“Making this information known is another step towards transparency and is a testament to the courage of survivors.” – Attorney Jeff Anderson

Contact Mike Finnegan: Office/651.318.2650 Cell/612.205.5531
Contact Jeff Anderson: Office/651.318.2650 Cell/612.817.8665

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency

by Elise Harris

Vatican City, Feb 11, 2015 / 06:11 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi told journalists Tuesday that rumors circulating about a possible assassination attempt on Pope Francis during his visit to the Philippines are unfounded.

“In the last few days there’s been talk of this hypothesis of an assassination attempt during the trip to the Philippines. Cardinal (Luis Antonio) Tagle, who has his good sources, said the information is unreliable,” the spokesman said Feb. 11.

Philippine media have reported that a man affiliated with Al-Qaeda had planned to place a bomb to be detonated along the route of the papal convoy, but police had gotten wind of the plan and altered the route.

Due to Cardinal Tagle’s closeness to the situation in the Philippines as Archbishop of Manila, Fr. Lombardi agreed that the rumors are “unfounded.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

[with audio]

(Vatican Radio) On the final day of the meeting of the Council of Cardinals – the so-called “C-9” group of Cardinals appointed by Pope Francis as his special advisors – the Director of the Holy See Press Office, Father Federico Lombardi, SJ, held a press conference explaining the Cardinals’ work of the past few days.

The C-9 group of Cardinals was established by Pope Francis especially to advise the Holy Father on the reform of the Roman Curia. Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez Maradiaga is expected to offer a report on the group’s work to the entire College of Cardinals, who are in Rome for a Consistory set to take place this Saturday, 14 February. The secretary of the C-9, Bishop Marcello Semeraro, is also expected to address the Cardinals. The reports of the two presenters were the focus of discussions during several sessions of the meeting of the C-9.

The Council of Cardinals also heard reports on the newly-established Secretariat for the Economy and the Council for the Economy, with a view to the finalization of the statutes for the two new bodies.

Father Lombardi said Cardinal Seán O’Malley is expected to address the Council of Cardinals on Wednesday afternoon, updating them on the work of the Commission for the Protection of Minors. The Commission concluded its first plenary session on Saturday 7 February.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”

That line, from the Wizard of Oz, leapt to mind when I read about Pope Francis’ recent endorsement of corporal punishment.

Or to be more accurate, that’s the line that I thought of after reading a Vatican spokesman’s defense of Francis’ remark.

“Who has not disciplined their child or been disciplined by parents when we are growing up?” Fr. Thomas Rosica, of the Vatican press office told Associated Press in an email. “Simply watch Pope Francis when he is with children and let the images and gestures speak for themselves!”

[RT]

Whoa!

Pay attention to “images and gestures,” we’re told. Ignore the substance or content, we’re told. If it looks or seems good, then it really is good, we’re told.

We in SNAP are always harping “Words don’t protect kids. Only actions protect kids.” But maybe we should revise our mantra. Maybe we should say “Words, images and gestures don’t protect kids. Only actions protect kids.”

Twice in recent years, Vatican officials dramatically beefed up their ‘image boosting’ operation. First, they hired a former veteran Fox reporter Greg Burke. Then they brought in a highly respected outside public relations firm.

And since then, these PR professionals have done a stunningly effective job at improving the reputations and image of the church hierarchy.

But from time to time, there’s still a clear flub in the Vatican image efforts.

And those flubs tend to be illuminating.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

The Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry has heard the Public Prosecution Service decided there was no case against a nun accused of physical abuse at a Belfast care home.

The nun cared for more than 100 children at Nazareth Lodge. Five made complaints.

One complainant described her as elderly and using a walking stick at the time.

The inquiry heard she was in her 30s and never used a stick.

The nun was giving evidence at the inquiry in Banbridge, County Down.

She also said she was told about a single incident linked to paedophile priest, Fr Brendan Smyth, at the home.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

FEBRUARY 12, 2015

Natasha Robinson
Senior Writer
Sydney

THE child abuse royal commission has slammed former Sydney archbishop George Pell, finding that he placed the church’s financial interests above his obligation to a victim of childhood sexual abuse as part of an aggressive legal strategy to protect the assets of the Sydney archdiocese.

The royal commission reported yesterday on three case studies, ­including that of solicitor John Ellis, who it found was denied justice and compassion by the Archdiocese of Sydney, which vigorously defended his compensation claim despite its own asses­sor’s conclusion he was telling the truth.

Mr Ellis was sexually assaulted by Father Aidan Duggan for five years between 1974 and 1979, when he was an altar boy. The abuse began when Mr Ellis was 13 years old. When he finally disclosed the abuse and, in 2002, took part in the church’s Towards Healingprocess, set up to offer pastoral care and reparation to victims, the church fundamentally failed to comply with the principles of its own policy.

Cardinal Pell initially dismissed Mr Ellis’s complaint, saying: “I do not see that there is anything the archdiocese can do.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Wednesday 11 February 2015

The management committee of an Orthodox Jewish religious centre never considered issuing a direct formal apology to child sex abuse victims under its care, or providing those victims with compensation, a royal commission has heard.

Don Wolf, who was the chairman of the Yeshivah centre in Melbourne until last year, also acknowledged that when victims asked for help because they were being victimised by the Orthodox community, management did nothing to help them.

Children were sexually abused predominantly throughout the 80s and early 90s by staff members of the Yeshivah centre, which runs schools, youth camps and synagogues, the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse has heard.

When questioned about what drove the inaction of management towards victims, Wolf said the management team was inexperienced.

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

One of the country’s leading clerics has said it is appalling that some religious orders delayed bringing in the most up-to-date child protection rules.

As watchdogs exposed seven congregations for lax efforts to prevent abuse, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said he was seriously concerned by audits carried out last autumn.

Only two religious orders inspected by the Catholic Church’s own reviewers demonstrated good compliance with rules to safeguard youngsters.

The National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland (NBSCCCI) warned seven congregations have considerable work to do on the issue and praised two – the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts and the Dominican Sisters.

Archbishop Martin said some of the delays in reporting allegations were appalling and that failures cast a shadow over the credibility of the entire church’s safeguarding efforts.

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SWITZERLAND
The Local

A catholic priest in a traditional Swiss village under fire for blessing a lesbian couple has defended his actions and rejected calls from the church hierarchy for his resignation.

Wendelin Bucheli, a priest in the church of Bürglen in the canton of Uri, blessed the two lesbians back in October 2014.

But after the priest’s actions became known, the Bishop of Chur, Vitus Huonder, called on him to step down, indicating that his actions contravened Catholic doctrine.

A spokesman for the bishop said the priest’s behaviour had caused controversy internationally and upset many believers, the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper reported.

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GERMANY
Buenos Aires Herald

BERLIN — A Chilean film showing defrocked priests protected by the Catholic Church and a Guatemalan film about the hard lives of Mayan coffee-farmers are making waves at the Berlin film festival.

Chilean director Pablo Larraín made The Club after he realized some paedophile priests had collaborated with the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet or were ordinary criminals, and had never paid for their misdeeds.

“The Catholic Church for decades really has been spiriting away those priests, hiding them, shielding them from the public sphere,” he told a news conference on Monday to loud applause.
“That’s how we came up with this ‘club’, the idea of a club of lost priests.”

The film focuses on four priests living in a fishing village whose cozy lifestyle is shattered by the arrival of a priest trailed by a tramp who proclaims from the street that the cleric had forced him to have sex with him.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Fiachra Ó Cionnaith
Irish Examiner Reporter

Wicklow TD and Labour parliamentary vice-chair Anne Ferris’s party future was under threat since her decision two weeks ago — based on heartbreaking personal experience — to rebel against the Government’s redress scheme for women held in mother and baby homes.

The move, and her clear call for Labour leaders to allow a free vote on Clare Daly’s bill on fatal foetal abnormalities last night, made it almost inevitable that Ms Ferris would lose the party whip and be expelled from the parliamentary Labour party.

Ms Ferris, 60, is Labour’s only elected representative in Wicklow after last May’s local election left support decimated, making her crucial to the party’s strategy in the county.

She entered the Dáil at the first attempt after the 2011 general election and is currently the Oireachtas justice committee’s vice-chair.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Sarah Mac Donald
PUBLISHED 11/02/2015

Religious congregations’ failure to implement child safeguards, and their mishandling of abuse allegations, point to the need for greater accountability in the Catholic Church, according to a senior Bishop.

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin lashed out at religious orders, saying it was “appalling” to read about their delays in fully implementing long- established church guidelines.

His criticism followed the National Board’s (NBSCCCI) revelation that opportunities to safeguard children were missed – and known abusers were allowed to remain in ministry into the 1990s.

The latest tranches of safeguarding audits covering 16 religious congregations also reveal that in some cases, congregations didn’t start to improve practices until 2009 and didn’t fully implement the Irish Church’s safeguarding standards and guidelines until 2013.
in his diocese to verify their commitment to “scrupulously” applying child safeguarding norms.

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GUAM
Concerned Catholics of Guam

February 11, 2015

On January 14, 2015, the Concerned Catholics of Guam issued a formal request to Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron to quitclaim the property of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary back to the Archdiocese of Agana. Click here to view and download the request.

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GUAM
KUAM

by Jolene Toves

Guam – The Concerned Catholics of Guam has reached out to Archbishop Anthony Apuron through a letter requesting that he file a quitclaim for the property which the Redemptoris Mater Seminary sits. The Redemptoris Mater Seminary was the subject of controversy in the Catholic community as a deed of restriction essentially transferred the property over to the Redemptoris Mater Seminary Corporation raising concerns that the archdiocese no longer controlled the asset.

CCOG vice president Dave Sablan said, “So there is an alleged violation of canon law here number one; number two if he does have control of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary Corporation then it would not be a problem for him to quitclaim which means I want to move that property back to the Archdiocese of Agana’s asset inventory he should be able to do that by signing a piece of paper and filing it with Land Management.”

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Conall Ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner Reporter

Just 72 of the almost 500 Magdalene survivors who have accepted redress will get the maximum amount of €100,000.

Responding to a series of parliamentary questions, Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald said 94 applications for redress have been refused, as the women were not in one of the 12 specified institutions.

Under Justice John Quirke’s redress scheme, Magdalene survivors are to receive cash payments ranging between €11,500 (if their duration of stay was three months or less) to €100,000 (for duration of stay of 10 years or more).

Ms Fitzgerald declined to say how many applicants received lesser amounts than they applied for, due to inaccurate and/or missing records.

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UNITED KINGDOM/NEW ZEALAND
3 News

The New Zealand High Court judge appointed to head Britain’s long-delayed inquiry into child sex abuse is to be grilled by MPs at Westminster.

Justice Lowell Goddard was named as inquiry chairwoman by Home Secretary Theresa May last week.

She is the third individual proposed to take charge of the inquiry, after Baroness Butler-Sloss and Dame Fiona Woolf both stood aside amid concerns over their establishment links.

Justice Goddard, who oversaw an inquiry into failures in the policing of child abuse in New Zealand, is due to be questioned by the UK parliament’s home affairs select committee in a hearing from 2pm on Wednesday (1am Thursday NZ time).

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SOUTH CAROLINA
WYFF

NEWS 4, INVESTIGATES. RIGHT NOW, THE 13TH CIRCUIT SOLICITOR IS LOOKING OVER THE 300-PAGE GRACE REPORT, LOOKING AT POSSIBLE CRIMINAL CHARGES. GABRIELLE: THE QUESTION IS, DID BOB JONES UNIVERSITY OVERLOOK SEXUAL ABUSE DISCLOSURES, AND DID THE UNIVERSITY REALLY PROTECT ITS STUDENTS?

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FLORIDA
First Coast News

[with video]

Anne Schindler, First Coast News February 10, 2015

DEERFIELD BEACH, Fla. — The Oscar nominated movie “Philomena” was the first time most people learned about the dark side of Ireland’s convents, and the forced adoptions that occurred in some. But it wasn’t news to Catherine Deasy.

She was one of tens of thousands of children born in so called mother-baby homes in Ireland. Run by the Catholic Church, and called “Magdalene Laundries” for the work the women provided, they served as refuge for girls in trouble – unmarried and pregnant. But while they provided a place to live, the tradeoff was cruel.

“My mother was locked up for 40 years in hard labor as punishment for being pregnant and not married,” says Deasey. “They were all enslaved there.”

Some 10,000 women passed through the laundries between 1922 and 1996. Most were forced to cut their hair, and work in total silence. They weren’t paid and many endured physical or sexual abuse. Worst of all, they were forced to give up any claim to their children.

The laundries have since become a source of national shame, earning a formal apology from the Irish prime minister and compensation for survivors. But it was decades before Deasey learned about them. Her mother was a farm girl named Johanna Sheehy, sent to work in a Catholic laundry after falling in love with and getting pregnant by the farm owner’s son. Deemed unfit for society, and without resources, Sheehy remained there until she was well into her 70s.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

A victim reacts to the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse report into the Catholic Church response, including Towards Healing

Wednesday 11 February 2015

I take this opportunity to thank the royal commission for exposing the true nature of my Towards Healing process. Towards Healing was introduced in 1996 by the bishops and religious institutes of the Catholic Church of Australia under the appearance of bringing healing to those affected by clergy sexual abuse. I entered this program in 1999 having already achieved a conviction against my perpetrator the previous year. The royal commission has shown that the Catholic Church of the archdiocese of Brisbane departed substantially from the undertakings they gave in their Towards Healing document. It is now public knowledge that the Catholic Church invited me into a situation which brought me more pain and suffering.

I am extremely grateful to the royal commission for upholding the finding on “justice and compassion” in my case. The Catholic Church in its protocol, Towards Healing, gave the community an undertaking that victims would be treated with justice and compassion. The church also asked that they be judged on the way that they adhered to their documented principles and procedures. Despite that, “the church parties said that no accepted or objective meaning of either ‘justice’ or ‘compassion’ was proposed or established and it was necessary to establish, ‘by evidence’, what is meant by and required by ‘justice ‘and ‘compassion’ before any adverse finding could be made that there was a failure to meet those standards.”1

The royal commission did not accept this argument. In their report the royal commission stated: “Towards Healing commits to the Catholic Church in Australia, and its various formations, to a ‘just and compassionate’ response to victims of child sexual abuse. It is the ordinary way in which readers of that public commitment will understand it that matters. That is the standard to which the formations of the Catholic Church in Australia and its personnel are accountable.”2

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Helen Davidson
@heldavidson
Wednesday 11 February 2015

Cardinal George Pell and the Sydney archdiocese fought a legal claim by an abuse victim, John Ellis, to discourage others from attempting the same, the royal commission has found. It also confirmed the Catholic church repeatedly failed in its dealings with victims of child sexual abuse at the hands of clergy.

In reports released on Wednesday the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse examined the Catholic church’s widely condemned Towards Healing program in dealing with four people, and the handling of complaints by Ellis. All matters had been examined in public hearings over the past two years,

The church spent more than $1m fighting Ellis despite him asking for just a tenth of that amount in settlement, and put him through “distressing and unnecessary cross-examination” and threatened him with legal costs.

“The archdiocese [of Sydney] wrongly concluded that it had never accepted that Father Duggan had abused Mr Ellis,” the report found.

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IOWA
The Daily Iowan

BY MARCUS BROWN | FEBRUARY 11, 2015

In a definitive step toward long overdue action by the Catholic Church, the commission advising Pope Francis is looking into the possibility of sanctioning bishops involved in the perpetuation of indecent behavior in the church.

The 17-member commission led by Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’ Malley met to discuss issues of “accountability” when it came to sexual abuse that extends beyond the proprietor to include those members of the clergy with proximity to said issues. The commission is making a point to hold members of the church accountable for their actions, given that as of now, bishops can only be dismissed by the pope, according to church law.

I applaud the pope for addressing this issue and at least giving the appearance of making tangible steps toward solving the issue in the larger context of the ramifications for church members indirectly involved in sexual misconduct. Discussing matters of culpability should and must include not only the individual perpetrator but also any other involved party. The larger culture of sexual misconduct must be addressed rather than placing all efforts on slamming down on individual cases.

When an institution as large as the Catholic Church gives the impression to the public that it is complicit or at the very least looking the other way, it creates an atmosphere of mistrust and apprehension. This atmosphere will increase the doubt cast on the institution’s ability to maintain expected levels of transparency and responsibility. Building trust needs to be the church’s primary concern because without it, any progress made will be marred by connotations of hypocrisy and suspicion. Once trust has returned, efforts made by the Catholic Church to combat this issue will be taken at full face value.

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UNITED STATES
Baptist News

A Baylor study finds that college women who are sexual assault victims can find healing in religious groups where strong theological beliefs and social networking are encouraged. Baptist chaplains at Mars Hill Univeristy and the University of Virginia agree.

By Jeff Brumley

Theological beliefs and belonging to religious organizations can help college women overcome the emotional damage caused by sexual abuse, a recently published Baylor University study has found.

The authors of the study say involvement in faith communities can restore the trust women lose after becoming victims of sex crimes.

“It’s not just about attendance, but about being embedded in a religious social network and about that being a part of your identity,” researcher Jeffrey Tamburello, a doctoral candidate in sociology at Baylor, said in a university report about the study. “This might help to mitigate some of the negative effects of being victimized.”

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

Cardinal George Pell failed to act in a Christian way when he agreed to vigorously deny a man’s claims of sexual abuse as a child in order to discourage other victims from taking legal action, a report has found.

John Ellis was sexually abused by Father Aidan Duggan in the Sydney parish of Bass Hill in the 1970s.

Mr Ellis failed in his attempt to sue the Archdiocese of Sydney’s trust when a court ruled it could not be held liable.

This ruling cemented the precedent known as the Ellis defence, which has been a roadblock to litigation for other abuse victims.

Mr Ellis’s case was examined at the recent Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which released its findings on Wednesday on the way the Catholic Church dealt with a number of victims.

The commission found the Archdiocese of Sydney was wrong in concluding Father Duggan did not abuse Mr Ellis, and that Cardinal Pell accepted legal advice to vigorously defend the claim so as to deter other victims from suing the church.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Lucy Carter and staff

Cardinal George Pell and the Sydney Catholic Archdiocese repeatedly failed in their dealings with abuse victim John Ellis, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has found.

Early last year, the commission examined the treatment of Mr Ellis, a Sydney lawyer and former altar boy who, as a teenager, was abused by Father Aidan Duggan between 1974 and 1979.

Mr Ellis later spent more than a decade seeking compensation but lost the case on a technicality in 2007 when the Court of Appeal ruled the Catholic Church was not an entity that could be sued.

He had asked for $100,000 after he first came forward with a complaint through the church’s Towards Healing pastoral and redress scheme in 2002, but was offered $30,000, a sum Cardinal Pell later described as “grotesque”.

The commission heard that the church spent more than $1 million over 12 years fighting Mr Ellis’s claim, denying in court that the abuse had happened and threatening him with court costs for several years.

The Archdiocese failed to conduct the litigation with Mr Ellis in a manner that adequately took account of his pastoral and other needs as a victim of sexual abuse.

Cardinal Pell was Archbishop of Sydney at the time of Mr Ellis’s legal battle and later apologised to him, admitting the church failed in its moral and pastoral responsibilities and, “from a Christian point of view”, did not act fairly.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

February 11, 2015

Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter

The Catholic Church vigorously fought a legal claim from a sexual abuse victim to discourage other potential claimants from mounting their own litigations, according to a report released by a royal commission on Wednesday.

A report into how the Catholic Church dealt with John Ellis’s complaint of horrific abuse at the hands of a priest found serious flaws in the church’s response.

It found that former Sydney archbishop Cardinal George Pell’s edict to church lawyers to not accept that Mr Ellis had been abused by Father Aidan Duggan was based on incorrect information.

“The archdiocese [of Sydney] wrongly concluded that it had never accepted that Father Duggan had abused Mr Ellis,” the report says.

“This conclusion allowed Cardinal Pell to instruct the archdiocese’s lawyers to maintain the non-admission of Mr Ellis’s abuse. The archdiocese accepted the advice of its lawyers to vigorously defend Mr Ellis’s claim.

“One reason Cardinal Pell decided to accept this advice was to encourage other prospective plaintiffs not to litigate claims of child sexual abuse against the church.”

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

[the full report]

11 February, 2015

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has published two reports; ‘Report of Case Study 4: The experiences of four survivors with the Towards Healing process’ and ‘Report of Case Study 8: Mr John Ellis’s experience of the Towards Healing process and civil litigation’.

The Towards Healing protocol is a set of principles and procedures established by the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference and the Australian Conference of Leaders of Religious Institutes. It contains principles and procedures for handling complaints of sexual abuse by a priest, religious or other Catholic Church personnel. It was introduced in 1997 and revised in 2000, 2003, 2008 and 2010.

Report of Case Study 4
This report examines how the Catholic Church’s Towards Healing protocol responded to four people who were sexually abused by priests or religious, and have experienced significant and continuing adverse impacts from the abuse.

Mrs Joan Isaacs was sexually abused by a Catholic priest, Father Francis Edward Derriman from 1967 to 1968. Mrs Isaacs started the Towards Healing process after Father Derriman had been convicted of two counts of indecent dealing against her.

After Mrs Isaacs’ settlement sum was agreed on she was required to sign a deed of release which included clauses that prevented her from disclosing the terms of the settlement and required her not to make ‘disparaging remarks or comments’ about the Church Authority. The Commissioners found that these clauses effectively imposed on Mrs Isaacs an obligation of silence about the circumstances that led to her complaint, which was inconsistent with Towards Healing principles.

Mrs Jennifer Ingham gave evidence that she was sexually abused by Father Paul Rex Brown between 1978 and 1982.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

AAP
February 11, 2015

A Queensland principal failed to appropriately deal with a pedophile teacher who sexually abused 13 schoolgirls, a report has found.

Terence Hayes didn’t report two allegations of sexual abuse against teacher Gerard Byrnes in 2007, despite having clear instructions to do so in the Catholic school’s child protection kit.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse report said the steps the Toowoomba principal took to monitor Byrnes “were inadequate and inappropriate”.

Despite the allegations against him, Mr Hayes allowed Byrnes to continue in his role as child protection officer for more than six months.

Byrnes retired from the position in June 2008, but Mr Hayes also allowed him to be re-hired as a relief teacher at the same school in July 2008.

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AUSTRALIA
J-Wire

February 11, 2015 by Ari Heber

As the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse continues its investigation we should be aware that the incidents it is investigating represent only a very small percentage of child sexual abuse incidents in Australia.

This is not a pleasant topic but one that has to be discussed so we can provide a safe and protected environment for our children.

I am one of the facilitators of a men’s support group MARS (Men Affected by Rape and Sexual abuse) www.marsaustralia.com.au. I also run Queensland Jewish Community Services Inc. I have worked with about 150 men in groups over the last 10 years and separately to the group have had around 60 members of the Jewish Community male and female disclose to me their childhood abuse.

Statistics show that approximately 25% of females and 17 – 20% of males are sexually abused by the time they are eighteen. These numbers appear to be consistent around the world across national, religious and ethnic boundaries. All communities are affected, without exception, with very similar levels of prevalence. No community can afford to be smug or complacent.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Tuesday 10 February 2015

After deeply offending child sex abuse victims and members of the Jewish community during his evidence before a royal commission, a senior rabbi, Yosef Feldman, has resigned as director of an Orthodox religious centre.

The Yeshivah Centre, which runs schools, youth camps and synagogues, issued a statement on Wednesday to say it had accepted Feldman’s resignation.

Last week Feldman told the royal commission into institutional responses to child sex abuse that he “didn’t have a clue” that one of his staff members massaging the genitals of a young student might be a criminal matter, and that he was ignorant of mandatory reporting laws around child sex abuse.

On Monday he told the commission that paedophiles who had not abused children for many years and repented should be granted leniency and should not necessarily be reported to police.

His comments saw one child sex abuse victim, Manny Waks, walk out of the hearing before Melbourne’s county court, and prompted the executive council of Australian Jewry and other groups to call for Feldman’s resignation.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

SHANNON DEERY HERALD SUN FEBRUARY 11, 2015

CONTROVERSIAL rabbi Yosef Feldman has stood down from the board of the Yeshiva Centre after sparking widespread criticism with his views on child sexual abuse.

Giving evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse, Rabbi Feldman admitted he was unfamiliar with child abuse laws and called for leniency for reformed paedophiles.

Today he resigned from his post as director on the board of management of The Yeshiva Centre.

“I apologise to anyone in the Rabbinate, the Jewish community and the wider Australian community who may have been embarrassed or ashamed by my views, words, understandings, recordings or emails about child sexual abuse or any other matter,” he said.

“I have dedicated my life to doing whatever I can to protect and assist all people in need including those who have suffered from any form of abuse, especially children, and it pains me greatly that words that I have expressed have upset victims and their families.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

FEBRUARY 11, 2015

Pia Akerman
Reporter
Melbourne

A RABBI condemned by Jewish leaders for his comments regarding child sex abuse “hype” and the need for pedophiles to receive greater leniency has resigned from the board of Sydney’s Yeshiva Centre.

Rabbi Yosef Feldman, a rabbinical director at the Yeshiva Centre in Bondi and son of the ultra-orthodox Chabad movement’s spiritual head in NSW, also told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that he did not know it was illegal for a man to

touch a child’s genitals when he had to deal with an abuse complaint in 2002.

His evidence to the royal commission provoked a firestorm in the Jewish community, with the Council of Orthodox Synagogues of Australia yesterday adding its voice to those calling for Rabbi Feldman to end his pastoral and community involvement.

Today the Yeshiva Centre said Rabbi Feldman had resigned his position as a director on its Board of Management, including his administrative responsibilities.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

February 11, 2015

Jane Lee

A senior Orthodox rabbi has resigned from the board of the Yeshiva Centre in Sydney amid revelations he did not know that touching a child’s genitals could be criminal.

Rabbi Yosef Feldman this week appeared before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse to give evidence on the centre’s response to child abuse allegations against its employees, where he has said that Jews who know of abuse allegations should report them to their rabbi before going to the police.

Rabbi Feldman, previously also the administrative director of the centre’s rabbinical college, resigned from the centre’s board of management on Wednesday.

“I apologise to anyone in the rabbinate, the Jewish community and the wider Australian community who may have been embarrassed or ashamed by my views, words, understandings, recordings or emails about child sexual abuse or any other matter,” he told Jewish news service J-Wire.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

The rabbi who told a child abuse royal commission there should be more leniency for repentant pedophiles has resigned from an organisation that runs Jewish schools.

Rabbi Yosef Feldman has issued an apology for comments during the Melbourne hearings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

He’s resigned as a director of The Yeshiva Centre, including his administrative responsibilities.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

The director of the ultra-orthodox Jewish Yeshiva centre in Sydney has resigned after last week telling a royal commission hearing he did not know it was a crime for an adult to touch a child’s genitals.

Rabbi Yosef Feldman’s evidence at a Melbourne hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was widely criticised by Australia’s broader Jewish community.

In a statement, Rabbi Feldman apologised for the comments he made to the royal commission and said he would step down from all responsibilities as the director on the board of management at Yeshiva.

“I apologise to anyone in the Rabbinate, the Jewish community and the wider Australian community who may have been embarrassed or ashamed by my views, words, understandings, recordings or emails about child sexual abuse or any other matter,” he said.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

IT is disheartening, and unacceptable, that some male religious congregations have yet to comply with the Catholic Church’s child protection guidelines.

In the light of the traumatic and heart-rending revelations of recent years, it seems incomprehensible too.

Speaking yesterday, Teresa Devlin, chief executive of the National Board for Safeguarding Children, expressed her disappointment that “for the majority of orders, the whole area of safeguarding is only being bedded down in the last couple of years”.

She also expressed unhappiness with the fact that some orders did not change the culture around speedy reporting of abuse or abuse allegations “until 2013”.

She expressed concern too that of nine congregations reviewed in reports published yesterday “only two orders have demonstrated good compliance and have demonstrated their commitment to putting in place good safeguards for children as well as prompt responses to allegations of abuse. For the other seven there is considerable work to be done”.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Caroline O’Doherty

A Catholic priest who admitted accessing child pornography was allowed to rise to a senior position in his order and remained in the post until recently.

The National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church last year sought an urgent review of the case, warning that the man posed a risk.

“His proximity to children, unrestricted/ unmonitored use of electronic equipment, and his perceived position of authority and responsibility, may increase that risk,” it said.

The Discalced Carmelite friar admitted “substantial” access to child pornography on “multiple occasions”. He was reported to gardaí but not convicted.

Fr A, as he is referred to in the NBSCCC report dated last October, was sent for numerous psychological assessments over 17 years but continued ministry at a school. He then took over as acting prior where he lived and was holding that role up to the intervention by the NBSCCC. It said the order took “immediate corrective action” when challenged.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

by Caroline O’Doherty

Some Catholic religious orders are still failing to adequately protect children against sex abuse 20 years after the scale of the problem became evident.

A review by the National Board for the Safeguarding of Children in the Catholic Church (NBSCCC) has revealed glaring gaps in its safeguards, including poor written policies around child protection; unclear procedures for dealing with complaints; a lack of commitment to education and training; incomplete records about past cases and current monitoring and supervision arrangements; and even in reporting allegations.

In one case, a priest who admitted accessing child porn was still in ministry and was an acting prior with “ambitions to continue or undertake a leadership position within the order”, according to the review.

The review also looked at historical cases and found numerous examples of “missed opportunities” to save children from abuse because earlier complaints had been effectively ignored.

The NBSCCC found that, in seven of the nine large orders and congregations it reviewed, changes in attitudes have only come about in the last few years despite the orders being signed up to safeguarding codes since 2008, and despite the horror of clerical abuse becoming widely known following the Brendan Smyth case in 1994.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

A SHERIFF has been urged to give permission for the Catholic Church to evict a priest who is at the centre of a row with senior church figures.

Father Matthew Despard, 50, is involved in a long-running dispute over a book he wrote alleging a gay mafia was operating at the top of the Church.

Fr Despard was ordered to leave his home at St John Ogilvie in High Blantyre, Lanarkshire, but refused, disobeying the wishes of the Bishop of Motherwell, Joseph Toal.

Bishop Toal told Fr Despard to leave the house in November 2013 but the Church later launched a legal action to evict him.

Church lawyers have now called on Sheriff Joyce Powrie to grant an order forcing Fr Despard to leave the property.

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BRASIL
Terra

Chico Siqueira
Direto de Araçatuba (SP)
26 NOV 2014

Acusados de pedofilia pela igreja Católica da Bélgica, dois padres deste país, residentes no Brasil, cuidam há décadas de crianças brasileiras. Entidades de direitos humanos e autoridades religiosas belgas alertaram sobre o perigo que isso representa, mas os dois permaneceram anos cuidando dos jovens sem o acompanhamento de autoridades civis e religiosas do País.

Um dos padres, Marc Dacuypere, é responsável pela Paróquia Nossa Senhora do Perpétuo Socorro, de Mata Escura, Salvador (BA), e capelão em uma escola católica de ensino regular da capital baiana. O outro padre, Jan Mathieu Van Dael, da ordem dos sacerdotes Sagrado Coração de Jesus (SCJ), é acusado de abusar de adolescentes brasileiros em uma instituição beneficente que possui, na praia de Pernambuco, em Caucaia, na região de Fortaleza (CE).

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Ross Douthat, at least, an opinion writer for the New York Times (NYT), seems to be pulling his paper’s punches on the evasive papal sex abuse commission. He seems, along with his “papal promoter tag team ally”, the Boston Globe’s John Allen, to be following “low tax” billionaires’ right wing 2016 US election talking points in discussing the almost farcical commission of this “Teflon Pope”. The commission is being exposed steadily to be no more than a classic political stall tactic in the form of an extremely unfocused, open ended, conflicted, inefficient and understaffed “study commission”, that is being orchestrated apparently by disgraced Boston Cardinal Law’s former canon lawyer, Fr. Robert Oliver.

Douthat, who evidently overlooked the Cardinal Law connection, also struggles in his latest papal puff piece to credit right wing Opus Dei for the work of the popular Latino martyr, Oscar Romero, who is now a centerpiece of Francis’ right wing 2016 US election strategy. Douthat seems still to be reeling from his recent apology for speaking for a fee at an allegedly right wing anti-gay group’ s event, see here,

[New York Times]

and here,

[Media Matters]

This spin in the NYT occurs just as seemingly sober (who can know for sure) Archbishop Cordileone, an ominous episcopal invitee to the pope’s Final Synod on the Family in less than eight months, provocatively steps up his homophobic crusade in the San Francisco home turf of the highest ranking elected woman in US history, practicing Catholic and pro-choice and pro-gay marriage Nancy Pelosi, see here,

[Think Progress]

Will Nancy Pelosi respond adequately and effectively? So far, she has apparently failed to do so.

SNAP and Catholicwhistleblowers (CW) have both just stepped up the pressure, perhaps in part out of concern that Fr. Oliver seems to have induced two prominent abuse survivors to help promote the new “go slow” papal sex abuse commission, including with a new CW documentary that may appear soon on the US PBS TV’s widely respected Front Line program, see here,

[National Catholic Reporter]

Meanwhile, Pope Francis is taking increasing heat from many quarters, including from an African child advocate over his “fallible” and insensitive advice on “spanking children with dignity”, here,

[UKZAMBIANS]

and from Holocaust victim activists following the release of Jesuit educated and former Wall Street lawyer, Gerald Posner’s explosive book, “God’s Bankers: A History of Money and Power at the Vatican” , (see at [Amazon] link). Posner’s new report, about the Vatican’s secret role in the theft of Holocaust victims’ assets, apparently contributed to the challenge to Pope Francis here,

[Market Watch]

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BRASIL
A Critica

[Vatican analyzes priest accused of pedophilia expulsion]

Sábado, 29 de Novembro de 2014

O Vaticano analisa um processo de expulsão do padre Jan van Dael, da congregação dos missionários Sagrado Coração de Jesus (SCJ). Dael é um dos dois padres belgas, acusados de pedofilia naquele país, que trabalham com crianças no Brasil. Dono de um abrigo de adolescentes carentes em Caucaia (CE), “Pai Jan”, como é conhecido pelos menores, foi acusado de abusar de cinco crianças belgas nas décadas de 1970 e 1980, e de também de abusar de crianças brasileiras abrigados em sua instituição, chamada Sítio Esperança da Criança, em Caucaia, cidade próxima a Fortaleza.

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BRASIL
Mediamax

[The Ceara prosecutor filed pedophile accusations against Belgian priest Jan Mathieu Van Dael Mathieu. He has for nearly 20 years been at a shelter for needy teenagers in Caucaia, Greater Fortaleza. Complaints made by youths earlier were dropped for lack of evidence. He has faced similar accusations in Belgium.]

O Ministério Público do Ceará arquivou as denúncias de pedofilia contra o padre belga Jan Mathieu Van Dael, que manteve por quase duas décadas um abrigo para receber adolescentes carentes em Caucaia, na Grande Fortaleza. Segundo o MP, as denúncias, que foram apuradas entre 2004 e 2008 e acusavam o padre de abusar sexualmente de meninos internados no abrigo, foram arquivadas por falta de provas.

Acusado em 2010 de ter abusado sexualmente de cinco crianças internadas em abrigos da igreja católica da Bélgica, na década de 1970, o padre estava no Brasil desde 1989 e desde 1995 cuidava de crianças brasileiras abrigadas em seu sítio Esperança da Criança, em Caucaia (CE). O padre só não cumpriu pena na Bélgica porque a punição pelos abusos praticados por ele contra três meninos e duas meninas estava prescrita, e ele retornou ao Brasil para continuar no comando do sítio.

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Belgium
Brandpunt

[Father Jean, dogged by persistent rumors about sexual abuse, is now at an orphanage in Brazil.].

Pater Jan, achtervolgd door aanhoudende geruchten rond seksueel misbruik, begon met medeweten van zijn Nederlandse congregatie aan een nieuw avontuur: een weeshuis in Brazilië. Hoe een kindervriend met de mantel der liefde de wijde wereld in trok.

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GERMANY
The Local

Reports that the former Bishop of Limburg has received a new job at the Vatican, despite being ousted from his post for a €31-million spending spree, sparked bafflement on Tuesday.

Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, who became known internationally as the ‘Bishop of bling,’ was forced to resign last March amid a public outcry over the lavish renovation of his headquarters, including €213,000 spent on a fish tank.

After several months living in an upscale 180-square-metre apartment in Regensburg, he is believed to have already relocated to Rome to take up a specially created post preparing catechetical materials for bishops’ conferences.

“The post was created for Tebartz-van Elst and has the hallmarks of a ‘make-work’ job because the Vatican couldn’t figure out what else to do with the prelate,” the RNS Religion News Service wrote from Vatican City on Tuesday.

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NEW YORK
National Catholic Reporter

Beth Griffin | Feb. 10, 2015

New York

“I did what I did out of love for the church. I don’t have an axe to grind against the church,” said self-described whistleblower Fr. Ron Lemmert. “… Our bad shepherds have done terrible deeds that have caused the sheep to scatter and now we’re reaping the results.”

The New York archdiocesan priest is an inspiration for “A Matter of Conscience: Confronting Clergy Abuse,” a new documentary about Catholic priests and women religious who confronted clergy sexual abuse. Lemmert joined the co-producers of the film in a panel discussion Thursday following a screening at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University in Manhattan.

The film, co-produced by Susan A. Michalczyk and John J. Michalczyk, examines the whistleblowers’ motives, actions and the considerable repercussions they experienced for speaking out against abuse. The couple, both professors at Boston College, made the film as a sequel to “Who Takes Away the Sins: Witnesses to Clergy Abuse,” a 2013 documentary compiled from interviews with survivors and advocates.

“You can’t be a bystander. You can’t look the other way. You can and must take a stand,” Susan Michalczyk said.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversry

Posted by Joelle Casteix on February 10, 2015

I give you two predators: One fictional. One real. The similarities will stun you.

It’s very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of an eleven-year-old girl,” he went on. “But I was patient. I wrote back. I was sympathectic, I was kind. Ginny simply loved me. No one’s ever understood me like you, Tom …I’m so glad I’ve got this diary to confide in … It’s like having a friend I can carry around in my pocket. …

“If I say it myself, Harry, I’ve always been able to charm the people I needed”

-Tom Riddle (AKA Voldemort) Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

“I was the guru, so to speak. And … and it was part of my nature to be manipulative. Which is what happened. And I manipulated these young men into doing things that … that were gratifying for me …

It’s not [the boys’] fault. No.”

– Convicted child predator Lynn Seibel in a sworn 2014 deposition

Lynn Seibel was convicted of sexually abusing six Shattuck-St. Mary’s students in 2013. He was sentenced to 52 months in prison. This deposition is a part of the victims’ civil case, which charges that Shattuck-St. Mary’s officials covered up child pornography and sexual abuse.

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UNITED KINGDOM
VICE News

By Tom Dale

February 10, 2015

In July 1981 a young boy disappeared from Barnes, south-west London, as he made his way home from the crowds gathered to watch the wedding procession of Prince Charles and Diana Spencer.

Months later, a man called the child’s father, claiming to be a prostitute and saying he had information about the young boy’s disappearance.

“He told me he believed (my son) may have been taken by pedophiles in the Elm Guest House near Barnes Common. He said there were very highly placed people there. He talked about judges and politicians who were abusing little boys,” the father later told the Telegraph.

Although he recorded the conversation and passed it to the police, it was apparently never investigated.

“They just pooh-poohed it and I never heard anything about the tape again. The whole thing went cold,” said the father. “At that time I trusted the police. But when nothing happened, I became confused and concerned. Now it is clear to me that there has been a huge cover up.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Huffington Post

By Jack Sommers

The former home secretary, who died before he could answer questions at an inquiry into an alleged paedophile ring in Westminster, has been buried discreetly and his family have withheld his grave’s exact location amid fears it could be vandalised, it has been reported.

The last months of Leon Brittan’s life were dogged by claims he failed to act on a dossier describing the ring’s activities when he was in office in the 1980s.

He died last month aged 75 and was buried at Golders Green Cemetery, where staff have been told to deny knowledge of it if asked by members of the public, according to investigative journalism website Exaro.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Care Appointments

The Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry has heard a nun was never been prosecuted, despite complaints against her by former residents of Nazareth House and Nazareth Lodge care homes.

Giving evidence at the inquiry today, the nun said she had been interviewed by police several times since 1995, but the Public Prosecutions Service (PPS) never pursued a prosecution against her.

She also said she regreted not reporting claims of sexual abuse by the priest, Fr Brendan Smyth. He was later convicted of more than 100 child abuse charges.

She said she told police: “I did not report this to anyone, and in hindsight that was a mistake on my part. We were so naive in those days.”

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MARYLAND
The Baltimore Brew

Fern Shen February 10, 2015

Saying that the Episcopal church should do more than investigate the Heather Cook case alone, a national leader has called for a review of the way bishops are selected and the church’s policy on alcohol and drug abuse.

Rev. Gay Clark Jennings’ statement, published yesterday, acknowledges the questions that have reverberated in Episcopal circles in the wake of the news that Cook, a recently-consecrated bishop in the Maryland diocese, fatally crashed her car into a bicyclist in Baltimore while allegedly drunk and texting, initially leaving the scene of the crash.

Four years before, while a church official in Easton, Md., Cook was arrested on DUI and drug possession charges. Last week, her superior, Maryland Bishop Eugene Taylor Sutton, revealed that just two nights before her consecration, Cook appeared to be inebriated. Her September 6 consecration ceremony proceeded as scheduled.

“Many people in the church have struggled to understand better how our systemic denial about alcohol and other drug abuse in the church may have contributed to Bishop Cook’s election and confirmation as a bishop even as she seemed to be struggling with addiction,” wrote Jennings, president of the Episcopal Church’s House of Deputies, which is composed of representatives from clergy and the laity.

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UTAH
Utah Political Capitol

by Curtis Haring • February 10, 2015

Last December, Utah Political Capitol reported on Representative Ken Ivory (Republican – West Jordan) appearing to pass legislation that focused on preventing childhood sexual abuse which would simultaneously benefit himself and his wife.

For this reason, it is only natural that we add extra scrutiny when reviewing Ivory’s HB 277 – Statute of Limitations for Civil Action, which would remove the statue of limitations for civil cases of sexual abuse .

Currently, under Utah law, if a person discovers childhood sexual abuse after turning 18, that individual has only four years to bring suit against the perpetrator before the civil (as opposed to criminal) statute of limitation expires – sometimes making it difficult for people to seek justice beyond a criminal sentencing.

Ivory, with HB 277, is removing the four year limitation – allowing anyone, at any time, to bring civil suit against an individual regardless of timelines. If you were abused when you were 4, found out about it at 23, and brought suit at 42, it would be allowed under Ivory’s bill.

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CALIFORNIA
Think Progress

BY JACK JENKINS POSTED ON FEBRUARY 7, 2015

The Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco is attracting criticism after issuing a new handbook for Catholic high school employees instructing them to refrain from “visibly” contradicting the Church’s teachings on homosexuality, birth control, and abortion.

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone unveiled the new language for the 2015-2016 faculty handbook earlier this week, announcing that all parochial school employees — including non-Catholics — will be expected to comply with church teachings. The language listed and reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s opposition to a variety of things including same-sex marriage and abortion, and compelled to school staff not to refute these positions in public.

“…administrators, faculty and staff of any faith or of no faith, are expected to arrange and conduct their lives so as not to visibly contradict, undermine or deny these truths,” the statement read. “To that end, further, we all must refrain from public support of any cause or issue that is explicitly or implicitly contrary to that which the Catholic Church holds to be true, both those truths known from revelation and those from the natural law.”

In a pastoral letter accompanying the release, Cordileone, who also played a key role in helping drum up support for California’s 2008 ban on same-sex marriage known as Proposition 8, insisted that the new language did not “target for dismissal from our schools any teachers, singly or collectively.” But he still cautioned against defying the rules, saying, “Dissenting from Catholic teaching or the natural moral law in a Catholic high school does not promote holiness, virtue and evangelization.”

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AUSTRALIA
Executive Council of Australian Jewry

9th February 2015

Rabbi Yossi Feldman’s reported statements to the Royal Commission have shocked and appalled his fellow rabbis, the Australian Jewish community and the wider community. Amongst his other objectionable comments, it is unacceptable for any religious leader to confess ignorance of basic law relating to the crime of child sexual abuse or to suggest that there are circumstances in which instances of such abuse should not be reported to the authorities. Nobody should take the law into their own hands, or be encouraged to do so.

Yossi Feldman’s statements are repugnant to Jewish values and to Judaism, which is centred on the sanctity and dignity of individual life, especially the life of a child.

We believe his position as a religious leader has become untenable. As painful as the Royal Commission is for us, it has performed an essential service in exposing deeply troubling and misguided thinking by certain religious figures and raises questions about their education and training.

Robert Goot AM SC,
President,
Executive Council
of Australian Jewry

Peter Wertheim AM,
Executive Director,
Executive Council
of Australian Jewry

Contact:
Peter Wertheim AM Executive Director
ph: 02 8353 8500 | m: 0408 160 904
e: pwertheim@ecaj.org.au | www.ecaj.org.au

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GEORGIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, Feb. 10

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

In just less than an hour, using simple “Google” searches, we’ve found six predator priests who’ve been in Atlanta but have never been exposed here as credibly accused child molesters. We suspect there are many more of them still “beneath the radar.” We also suspect that some of them have hurt kids here in Georgia and one or more of them may still be here, posing current threats to unsuspecting families, neighbors and co-workers.

That’s why we are urging Georgia citizens to help protect kids from these and other molesters, by pushing for a House Bill 17, the Georgia Hidden Predators Bill. This law would prevent more child sex crimes by enabling more victims to expose more predators. It would give anyone who was abused at any time by any predator to use the court system, over a two year period, to warn parents and the public about those who commit and conceal child molesters.

[Atlanta Journal Constitution]

And we are urging Georgia’s religious leaders – including its two Catholic bishops – to push for this sorely-needed child safety measure too. All too often, church figures fight against stronger child safety laws, fearing more abuse and cover up lawsuits. But if religious officials haven’t hidden child sex crimes and act responsibly when abuse is suspected or uncovered, they have nothing to fear from this legislation.

Virtually none of these six predator priests we’ve uncovered have attracted any real attention in the Atlanta area. Virtually any of them could have hurt a Georgia kid. And again, one or two of them could be back here in Atlanta right now visiting former parishioners and assaulting one of their children.

At the risk of seeming too graphic, I want to stress that it takes just seconds for a man to put his tongue in a girl’s mouth or his hands down a boy’s pants.

Until we found these new names, there were at least eight already publicly accused predator priests in Georgia – six the Atlanta archdiocese (Fr. Clarence Biggers, Fr. Philip S. Gage, Fr. Stanley D. Idziak, Fr. Anton Mowat, Fr. Alberto Rodriguez and Fr. Louis P. Rogge) and two in the Savannah diocese (Fr. Wayland Yoder Brown and Fr. Robert Murphy.)

Thanks to brave victims and responsible journalists, police and prosecutors, many in the public are aware of these eight dangerous men. But again, few in Georgia know much, or anything at all, about the six names we’re revealing today. We strongly suspect there are many more child molesting clerics about whom the public should be warned and who are still being hidden by Georgia Catholic officials.

We beg every single person who saw, suspected or suffered child sex crimes and cover ups in Georgia to speak up, expose wrongdoers, protect others, deter cover ups, start healing and prod lawmakers about the Georgia Hidden Predators Bill.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

It was “appalling” that some major religious congregations had delayed in fully implementing the Irish Catholic Church’s child protection guidelines and that “in some cases this process only really got under way in 2013”, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin has said.

The delays had left him “seriously concerned”.

He said: “The failure of any single Church organisation to implement the common norms casts a shadow over the credibility of the entire safeguarding efforts of the Catholic Church. ” It was also an affront to Pope Francis, he said.

Archbishop Martin was responding to findings in the latest, seventh tranche of reviews from the Church’s child protection agency, the Maynooth-based National Board for Safeguarding Children (NBSC).

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Rado

(Vatican Radio) Discussions about the future of the Pontifical Council for Culture and the Vatican media have been at the top of the agenda during a meeting of the group of nine cardinals that Pope Francis appointed as his top advisors. The Pope is taking part in the three day meeting, which began on Monday, at the Casa Santa Marta.

Fr Federico Lombardi, head of the Vatican press office, briefed journalists on Tuesday noting that the first morning meeting was dedicated to the preparation of a presentation on the Curial reforms for a meeting of the full college of cardinals which will take place on Thursday and Friday this week. That closed door encounter will be followed by a consistory for the creation of 20 new cardinals on Saturday and Sunday.

On Monday afternoon the C9 group held talks with the President of the Pontifical Council for Culture, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, regarding the future of that office within the broader reform programme. On Tuesday morning the group heard an interim report from Mgr Paul Tighe, secretary of the Commission charged with the reorganisation of all the Vatican media offices. That 12 member Commission, headed by Britain’s Lord Patten, is expected to complete its work later this spring.

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MARYLAND
Christian Today

Mark Woods 10 February 2015

The Episcopal Church needs to repent of its role in the death of Tom Palermo, killed when his bicycle was struck by Bishop Heather Cook while drink-driving, according to the president of its House of Deputies, Rev Gay Clark Jennings.

In a statement addressed to fellow deputies, he said that he was “deeply saddened” by Palermo’s death and outlined measures to “help our Church repent” for its failings.

Jennings continued: “In the weeks since Mr Palermo was killed, many people in the church have struggled to understand better how our systemic denial about alcohol and other drug abuse in the Church may have contributed to Bishop Cook’s election and confirmation as a bishop even as she seemed to be struggling with addiction.

Bishop of Maryland responds to Heather Cook hit-and-run incident, says Episcopal Church is in ‘deep pain’

“Many Episcopalians are asking what people in positions of authority in the Church knew about her history of addiction and driving while under the influence of alcohol. They are also asking why the electors in Maryland and the bishops and standing committees who consented to her election were not made aware of this information, some of which is a matter of public record.”

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2015

Statement by Barbara Blaine of Chicago, president of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 312 399 4747, bblaine@SNAPnetwork.org )

In September, Pope Francis will address the US Congress, a body that has refused, over decades, to take a single action to investigate or expose clergy sex abuse and cover up by Catholic priests, bishops, nuns, seminarians and brothers.

Abroad, a number of national or regional governments have conducted investigations and issued reports about this continuing crisis, including Ireland, Australia, Canada and Belgium.

In the US, a number of local jurisdictions have done such investigations. They include New York (Westchester County Grand Jury Report, June 19, 2002 and the Suffolk County Grand Jury Report, February 10, 2003), New Hampshire (Attorney General’s Report with investigative archive, March 3, 2003), Maine (Attorney General’s Report, February 24, 2004. See also the attorney general’s investigative materials released on May 27, 2005 and July 8, 2005), Boston (Reilly Report and Executive Summary, July 23, 2003), three in Philadelphia, PA (Report of the Grand Jury, September 25, 2003, unsealed September 15, 2005, made public March 29, 2011, another Grand Jury Report, September 15, 2005, and a third, Report of the Grand Jury, dated January 21, 2011, released February 10, 2011).

Non-profits have done investigations, like CRIN, the Child Rights International Network (Child Sexual Abuse and the Holy See: The Need for Justice, Accountability and Reform, January 15, 2014) and Amnesty International.

International bodies have done investigations, like the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (Concluding Observations on the Second Periodic Report of the Holy See 2/5/14 and Holy See, Second Report 10/22/12 and CRC, List of Issues 7/9/13.) and the Committee Against Torture (Concluding Observations June 17, 2014).

But since the first US pedophile priest made national headlines 30 years ago (Fr. Gilbert Gauthe, Diocese of Lafayette Louisiana), Congress has done virtually nothing.

Individual members of Congress have commented on the crisis. (In 2005, then-Senator Rick Santorum, for instance, cited Boston’s “liberalism” as a cause of the crisis: “When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political, and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm.”)

[BishopAccountability.org]

But as a body, no federal US institution has ever taken action about – or even investigated – this horrific, on-going scandal.

When dozens of baseball players were charged with illegal use of steroids, Congress held hearings. But Congress has held no hearings whatsoever when it comes to the known 6,427 US priests that are credibly accused of sexually assaulting more than 100,000 children. (See BishopAccountability.org)

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Whistleblowers

Pope Francis already has the power and authority necessary to hold bishops and religious major superiors accountable.

Catholic Whistleblowers appreciates the efforts of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors to hold accountable those bishops and religious major superiors who have failed to deal with priests who have sexually abused minors. We especially commend the two members of the Commission who are victims / survivors of clergy sexual abuse, Irishwoman Marie Collins and Englishman Peter Saunders, for their strong and publicly stated commitment to truth, justice, and healing.

Yet, we also note that the Commission does not need to reinvent the wheel. The Code of Canon Law already provides the way for Pope Francis to deal with these bishops and religious superiors.

Indeed, the pope has power and authority over all of the Church which he is always able to exercise freely (cc. 331, 333, §1 and 590, §1). And nothing in Church law prohibits the application of Church law by the pope regarding bishops and religious superiors.

Simply said, the actions that a diocesan bishop can take regarding a priest against whom there is an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor also are available for the pope to use in holding accountable bishops and religious superiors. To begin, the allegation against the bishop or religious superior would be that through his culpable negligence he has harmed people by not dealing with the abusive priest (c. 1389, §2). Next, just as the diocesan bishop would begin a penal process to investigate the allegation, so too the pope should begin a penal process regarding the bishop or religious superior to investigate their actions (cc. 1717-1731). Then and so as to prevent scandal , while the investigation is going on, just as the diocesan bishop can do regarding the priest, so too the pope can temporarily remove the bishop or religious superior from office and prohibit him from the public exercise of ministry (c. 1722).

Of course, the investigation must run its course so that justice may prevail.

Hence, Catholic Whistleblowers calls upon Pope Francis to use his already existing power and authority to hold accountable those bishops and religious major superiors who have failed to deal priests who have sexually abused minors. Doing so will help to prevent further scandal and to begin the long road to rebuild trust among the people in the Church’s leaders.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Care Appointments

Why are children from poor neighbourhoods more likely to be subject to a child protection intervention than those living in better off areas? And is deprivation the primary cause?

That is what a comprehensive new research programme involving seven UK universities aims to find out.

The two year project will be led by Professor Paul Bywaters and Dr. Geraldine Brady of the new research Centre for Communities and Social Justice at Coventry University. However, the project will involve teams in six partner universities, the Open University, the University of Nottingham, University of Stirling, University of Edinburgh, Queen’s University Belfast, and Cardiff University.

Funded by a research grant of over £550,000 from the Nuffield Foundation, the project will compare disparities in child safeguarding in England with Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales where child welfare systems and intervention rates differ.

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AUSTRALIA
J-Wire

February 10, 2015 by Roz Tarszisz

Witness ABV returned to Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Abuse today.

Royal-Commission290He spoke of his horrified reaction when attending a Yeshiva Bondi function where he noticed Daniel Hayman had been named on the official program as an event sponsor. This was after Hayman had been charged with child sexual abuse.

“It appeared that the rabbis had rallied about him as being the so-called victim in this process” said ABV.

After Hayman was convicted, AVB was never contacted by anyone connected with Yeshiva or offered any form of support.

Witness ABV stressed that he had always tried to behave in a dignified and respectful manner. He spoke of his vain attempts to get reactions from the rabbis in his community about how he and his wife had been treated after Daniel Hayman had been charged with child sexual offences.

He spoke of the previous day’s testimony from Rabbi Yosef Feldman regarding the time when sentencing was about to be handed down on Daniel Hayman. Prayers were said by Chabad (Yeshiva) for Daniel Hayman to stay out of prison showed that the culture of Chabad had not changed, even as recently as 2014.

Counsel assisting the Commission, Maria Gerace, asked him if he had been looking for support within his faith and community for recognition that a heinous and repugnant crime had been committed, both in secular law and within the precepts of Jewish law.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

FEBRUARY 11, 2015

Pia Akerman
Reporter
Melbourne

THE peak body for Australia’s ­Orthodox Jews has called for a senior Yeshiva rabbi to be stripped of all authority after he said there was too much “hype” around child sexual abuse and pedophiles should be shown greater leniency for historical crimes.

Rabbi Yosef Feldman — a rabbinical director at the Bondi ­Yeshiva centre in eastern Sydney and the son of the ultra-Orthodox Chabad movement’s spiritual head in NSW — has also told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that he did not know it was illegal for a man to touch a child’s genitals when he had to deal with an abuse complaint in 2002.

His evidence has provoked a firestorm in the Jewish community, with the Council of Orthodox Synagogues of Australia yesterday adding its voice to those ­calling for Rabbi Feldman to end his pastoral and community involvement.

“Such statements and opinions that he has expressed have no basis or foundation in Jewish law and are to be condemned ­unequivocally,” said president Romy Leibler.

“It is clear that having made such statements, Rabbi Feldman can no longer be regarded as fit and proper to serve in any communal capacity and in particular any position that involves any pastoral care and involvement within the Jewish and wider community at large.”

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VATIKAN
Stol

Es müsse sichergestellt werden, dass alle, die mit Kindern arbeiten, in solchen Fällen tatsächlich zur Rechenschaft gezogen würden. Papst Franziskus sei ein Vorschlag hierzu unterbreitet worden. Einzelheiten wurden nicht genannt. Zudem kündigte die Kommission an, einen Gebetstag für Missbrauchsopfer ins Leben zu rufen.

Die 17 Mitglieder der päpstlichen Kommission waren am Wochenende im Vatikan zu ihrer ersten Tagung zusammengekommen. Das Gremium setzt sich aus Geistlichen und Laien zusammen. Unter den acht Frauen und neun Männern sind auch zwei Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs durch Priester aus Irland und aus Großbritannien.

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VATICAN CITY
John Thavis

The Vatican has found a place for the “Bishop of Bling.”

It’s still a bit of a mystery, with no official confirmation, but it seems that Pope Francis has agreed to make German Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst the “delegate for catechesis” at the Pontifical Council for New Evangelization. It’s a new position, created just for him.

Nearly a year ago, Pope Francis accepted the resignation of Tebartz-van Elst as the bishop of Limburg, in the wake of a spending scandal. The bishop was remodeling his residence and a diocesan center to the tune of $40 million (his walk-in closets alone were said to have cost $480,000.)

At that time, the Vatican said Tebartz-van Elst would eventually be given another assignment. His position at the new evangelization council will involve making contact with bishops’ conferences on issues involving religious education, which has been one of his areas of interest. In contrast to earlier reports, he will not be given an executive position at the council.

It struck some as odd that a bishop forced to resign for financial mismanagement would land any job in the Roman Curia. All the more, in this case, because under the Curia restructuring plan being hammered out by papal commissions, the council for new evangelization may well disappear sometime next year.

However, parking problematic bishops in the Curia is a bit of a Vatican tradition.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Spectator

Melanie McDonagh 10 February 2015

One good thing has come out of the fuss over the pope’s comments about it being ok to smack your children (so long as their dignity is maintained); it has flushed out the former Irish president, Mary McAleese, as tiresomely conventional in much the same way as her predecessor, Mary Robinson – the very incarnation of PC. Shame, because I’d been a fan until I read her letter to the Irish Times on Saturday criticising the pope for his remarks, on the basis that they’re at odds with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child which, apparently, has zero tolerance when it comes to corporal punishment. Actually, make that two benefits to flow from the row. I hadn’t even heard about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child until she brought it up and if I hadn’t realised it was so preposterous, I’d probably have been instinctively in favour of it – well, who’s against the Rights of the Child?

Anyway, McAleese feels that the Vatican’s commitment to this particular UN Convention is now in doubt. Another critic is Peter Saunders, a former victim of clerical sexual abuse – I’m a bit tired of the term ‘survivor’ in this context – who is a member of the Vatican’s commission on stopping the molestation of minors. Saunders, also head of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, says he was hit and ‘it did me a lot of harm’. Well maybe, but there’s a spectrum here, isn’t there, between smacking a toddler for playing with matches to the modus operandi favoured by so many Irish fathers a generation ago, viz, whacking children with a belt.

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IRELAND
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin

Press Release February 10th 2015 Immediate

STATEMENT OF ARCHBISHOP DIARMUID MARTIN ON THE PUBLICATION OF THE SEVENTH TRANCHE OF THE REVIEW PROCESS OF THE NATIONAL BOARD FOR SAFEGUARDING CHILDREN IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN IRELAND

“Some of the results of the latest tranche of Reviews of Religious Congregations carried out by the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland leave me seriously concerned. It is appalling to read reports in the Reviews concerning the delays by some major religious congregations in fully implementing the long-established standards and guidelines of the Irish Church. The National Board Reviews indicate that in some cases this process only really only got underway in 2013.

For almost twenty years now, the Catholic Church has espoused what is called a “one-church-policy” to child safeguarding, involving common norms and common commitment by dioceses and religious congregations. The failure of any single Church organization to implement the common norms casts a shadow over the credibility of the entire Safeguarding efforts of the Catholic Church. Survivors trying to regain their confidence in the Church will be disillusioned once again. The many lay men and women who work voluntarily in Church safeguarding structures in our parishes must feel disheartened.

Failure of any Church organisation to implement fully and robustly the agreed clear norms is a direct affront to the desire of Pope Francis, repeated only one week ago, when he wrote that:

“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”

The Reviews note that improvements have been made especially by the current leadership of the congregations concerned. The failures and delays that have emerged point, however, to the need to ensure greater systems of accountability of Church authorities in the area of child safeguarding. The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, noted clearly in the past days as one of its priority concerns, noting that “Part of ensuring accountability is raising awareness and understanding at all levels of the Church regarding the seriousness and urgency in implementing correct safeguarding procedures,”

In a statement in December 2008, I said I was “extremely concerned at the fact that within a purported “one-Church-policy” there may in fact be a wide diversity in the interpretation and application of agreed procedures. This is of particular concern for the Archdiocese of Dublin where hundreds of priests from outside the diocese – from other dioceses and religious congregations – play an active role in many aspects of Church life in the Archdiocese of Dublin”.

A “one-Church-policy” means that all constituents not only refer to common norms, but that they all interpret and apply the norms in the same way.

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IRELAND
Derry Journal

Archbishop Eamon Martin has said there are now “robust and fair procedures in relation to the safeguarding of children” in Ireland.

The All Ireland Primate issued a statement following the publication of a letter by Pope Francis regarding the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

Speaking on Friday and referring directly to the letter, Archbishop Martin said: “I look forward to discussing its importance with the other members of the Episcopal Conference at the next meeting of the Bishops’ Conference. As the Holy Father points out, ‘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.’

“The National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland has been working with our dioceses, religious congregations and missionary societies to ensure that there are in place robust and fair procedures in relation to child safeguarding. The commitment of volunteers in parishes and Church organisations throughout the country is a vitally important part of the Church working to build up a culture of credible safeguarding practice. It is my hope that the newly-established Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors will continue to build up and enhance this good work,” he said.

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IRELAND
The Franciscan Friars in Ireland

The Franciscan Friars in Ireland (OFM) invited the National Board for the Safeguarding of Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland (NBSCCCI) to audit their safeguarding policy and practice in October 2014.

The NBSCCCI has now completed its review, and the Order welcomes the publication of the NBSCCCI Review Report.

The report describes the stark reality of abuse perpetrated by members of the Irish Franciscans over a 45 year period from 1953 to 1998. It relates that three friars were convicted by the courts during this period, and also highlights failure on the part of the Franciscan Order to deal adequately with complaints brought to their attention at that time. We regret that there were significant missed opportunities, as highlighted in the report, in terms of protecting other children from abusive behaviour.

As Provincial of the Irish Franciscans, I apologise unreservedly to each and every survivor for the pain and harm inflicted on those who suffered abuse while under our care. I apologise for the breach of trust, and the suffering victims and their families endured. I also know that no apology can ever be sufficient, and acknowledge with deep shame and sadness that the Franciscan Order failed you.

We are encouraged that the report noted there was a change in safeguarding practice from 2009 onwards. It recognises that over time the Order has put in place enhanced safeguarding structures, further strengthened by a willingness on the part of the leadership of the Order to correct some of the past wrongs, and ensure that current and future practice meets the expected standards.

The Franciscan Friars uphold the safety of children as paramount. In accordance with the recommendations of the NBSCCCI Review Report, the Order has revised its safeguarding structure, updated its policies and procedures, and appointed key safeguarding personnel. The Report notes in conclusion: “The Order now have key experienced and professional people in place to ensure that this Order’s safeguarding structures ensure that the safeguarding of children remains a key priority for all.”

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IRELAND
Newstalk

Jack Quann

The Franciscan Friars in Ireland (OFM) have apologised to abuse victims, as a new report is published.

The Safeguarding of Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland (NBSCCCI) report – spanning a 45 year period from 1953 to 1998 – shows three friars were convicted by the courts, and also highlights failure on the part of the Franciscan Order to deal adequately with the complaints.

The OFM say they welcome audit of their safeguarding policy, which took place in October last year.

“We regret that there were significant missed opportunities, as highlighted in the report, in terms of protecting other children from abusive behaviour,” the OFM said in a statement.

Hugh McKenna, the OFM’s minister provincial, added: “I apologise unreservedly to each and every survivor for the pain and harm inflicted on those who suffered abuse while under our care.”

“I apologise for the breach of trust, and the suffering victims and their families endured. I also know that no apology can ever be sufficient, and acknowledge with deep shame and sadness that the Franciscan Order failed you,” he added.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Irish Times
Patsy McGarry

The failure by some male religious congregations to comply with the Catholic Church’s own child protection guidelines has been criticised by the Church’s own child protection agency in its latest review.

Teresa Devlin, chief executive of the Maynooth-based National Board for Safeguarding Children (NBSC) said: “I’m disappointed that, for the majority of Orders, the whole area of safeguarding is only being bedded down in the last couple of years.”

She was referring to the Augustinians, Passionists, Franciscan Friars, Franciscan Brothers, the Servites, Discalced Carmelites, and Marist Fathers. She also found that where some congregations were concerned known abusers were allowed to remain in ministry in 1990’s while, when it came to delays in reporting abuse to civil authorities “for some practice did not improve until 2013.”

Of nine congregations reviewed in reports published on Tuesday, she said “only two Orders (the Dominican Sisters and Sacred Heart Fathers) have demonstrated good compliance with the standards, and have demonstrated their commitment to putting in place good safeguards for children as well as prompt responses to allegations of abuse. For the other seven there is considerable work to be done.”

The NBSC found that a total of 285 allegations were made between 1940 and 1998 against 98 priests and brothers in these nine congregations, with eight criminal convictions.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Only two religious orders audited by child safety watchdogs have demonstrated good compliance with rules to protect youngsters from abusers.

Following reviews last autumn, the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland (NSBCCCI) warned seven congregations have considerable work to do on the issue.

The two orders praised by the review team were the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts, an order with 18 priests working and living in London, Dublin and in the Cavan-Monaghan area, and the Dominican Sisters, based in Dublin, Galway, Wicklow and in the North, working largely in education.

Teresa Devlin, chief executive of the NBSCCCI, warned that much work was needed for seven orders to fall into line with the official child protection standards.

“In relation to the large reviews, I’m disappointed that, for the majority of Orders, the whole area of safeguarding is only being bedded down in the last couple of years,” she said.

“Of the nine only two orders have demonstrated good compliance with the standards, and have demonstrated their commitment to putting in place good safeguards for children as well as prompt responses to allegations of abuse. For the other seven there is considerable work to be done.”

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IRELAND
RTE News

The Catholic Church’s child protection watchdog has said seven of the nine orders it has just completed inspections on have a poor record of management, making any assessment of their current practice difficult.

The National Board for the Protection of Children says opportunities to safeguard children were missed and known abusers allowed to remain in ministry in 1990s.

In an Overview of its latest tranche of reviews, the Chief Executive of the National Board for the Safeguarding of Children in the Catholic Church, Teresa Devlin, says she’s disappointed that most of the Orders have only been “bedding down” the whole area of safeguarding in the last couple of years.

Her spokesman said the following seven had significant problems: the Augustinians; The Passionists: The Discalced Carmelites; The Franciscan Friars and Brothers; The Servites; and the Marist Fathers.

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IRELAND
National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church

Key Findings of the Reviews

This can be divided into two parts – a) findings from the full reviews which were assessed against the 7 standards and b) the shorter reviews of female religious where there is limited or no ministry with children and no allegations of sexual abuse in Ireland.

In relation to a) – findings from full reviews – the following themes emerged:

* There have been 285 allegations made against 98 priests, brothers or sisters.

* There have been 8 criminal convictions.

* Allegations relate to the period 1940 – 1998 with the largest number of incidents recorded between 1950 and 1990’s.

* Variable delays in reporting allegations to the civil authorities up until 2009 (introduction of Safeguarding Children: Standards and Guidance Document for the Catholic Church in Ireland) for most orders and congregations, however for some practice did not improve until 2013.

* Poor record management in many cases making an assessment of practice difficult.

* Opportunities to safeguard children were missed, known abusers allowed to remain in ministry in 1990’s.

* Management plans relating to accused priests and brothers and sisters have improved significantly over time, though there is still room for improvement, in terms of clarity of roles, review of restrictions and sharing of information.

* Support for complainants is good in many cases. Good evidence of pastoral support, outreach and direct contact between the provincial and the survivor.

* Adherence to other aspects of the 7 standards was less well developed in many congregations. Many have limited ministry with children in Ireland today therefore the applicability of all criteria was limited. Recommendations for improvement where relevant have been made.

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IRELAND
National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church

The NBSCCCI will host its first National Conference beginning with Mass at 5pm in St Mary’s Church Athlone. This will be followed by a keynote address at 6pm in the Sheraton Hotel, Athlone and then by dinner.

The Conference will resume at 9.15 in the Sheraton Hotel on Saturday 28th February and conclude at 5pm.

Speakers on 28th include:

Monsignor Steve Rosetti,

Msgr. Stephen J. Rossetti is a priest of the Diocese of Syracuse. He graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1973 and spent six years in the Air Force. After ordination, he served in two parishes before becoming Director of Education of the House of Affirmation. For 17 years, he served as the Executive Vice President and then the President and Chief Executive Officer of Saint Luke Institute in Silver Spring, Maryland, a residential treatment program for clergy and religious men and women. …

Marie Collins was born in Dublin, Ireland – is married with one son. A member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, she has campaigned for the protection of children and justice for survivors of clerical sexual abuse since bringing the priest who abuser her to justice in 1997. A founder member of the Irish depression support group, “Aware,” also a founding director of survivor support group One in Four (Ireland). …

Fr. Bob Oliver is a native of Bay Shore, N.Y. on Long Island, Bob attended Dartmouth College, graduating in 1982. He earned advanced degrees in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome before he became a priest in 2000. Until 2010 he was a professor of theology and canon law at the archdiocese’s main training ground for priests, St. John’s Seminary in Brighton. Until his appointment to the CDF as Promoter for Justice in 2012, he served as a visiting professor of canon law at The Catholic University of America in Washington.

Dr Anne-Marie Nolan, is currently engaged in the development and delivery of online learning at the School of Social Work and Social Policy at Trinity College Dublin, and is lead researcher for a new biography of former Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid. She is also a part-time lecturer in social science and the humanities at the University of Maynooth.

To book your place follow this link;
http://www.safeguarding.ie/?p=2560

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IRELAND
National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church

7th Tranche Reviews Reports – Larger Congregations

Augustinians

Discalced Carmelites – OCD

Dominican Sisters

Franciscan Brothers

Marist Fathers

Passionists

Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary – SSCC

Servites

Franciscan Friars OFM

2nd Tranche Review Reports – Female Religious

Holy Faith Sisters

Holy Family of Bordeaux

Missionary Sisters of the Holy Rosary

Our Lady Mother of Mercy

Sisters of the Infant Jesus

Society of the Holy Child Jesus

The Sisters of Nevers

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IRELAND
National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church

Overview of the Safeguarding Practice from 7th Tranche of Reviews conducted in the Religious Congregations of: The Augustinians; The Passionists: The Sacred Hearts Fathers of Jesus and Mary; The Discalced Carmelites (OCD); The Franciscan Friars; The Franciscan Brothers; The Servites; The Marist Fathers and The Dominican Sisters

And

The 2nd Tranche of small Female Congregations of:

Missionary Sisters of the Holy Rosary; Holy Faith Sisters; Holy Family of Bordeaux; Sisters of Charity of Nevers; Infant Jesus Sisters; Society of the Holy Child Jesus and the Sisters of Charity of Our Lady Mother of Mercy

February 10th 2015

Published today by the various congregations are 9 full inspection reports and a further 7 reports based on a tighter framework that reflects their lack of contact with children, age profile, absence of allegations relating to sexual abuse of children and size. The 9 longer reports cover 8 male religious orders and 1 female religious order, while the smaller reports focus on 7 female religious orders.

“In relation to the large reviews, I’m disappointed that, for the majority of Orders, the whole area of safeguarding is only being bedded down in the last couple of years,” said Teresa Devlin, CEO, NBSCCCI. “Of the 9 only 2 Orders have demonstrated good compliance with the standards, and have demonstrated their commitment to putting in place good safeguards for children as well as prompt responses to allegations of abuse. For the other 7 there is considerable work to be done.”

The inspection process revealed:

Poor record management in many cases making an assessment of practice difficult.

Opportunities to safeguard children were missed, known abusers allowed to remain in ministry in 1990’s.

Management plans relating to accused Priests and Brothers and sisters have improved significantly over time, though there is still room for improvement, in terms of clarity of roles, review of restrictions, and sharing of information.

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