ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
9 News

Australia’s worst pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale will likely have to again appear before the child sex abuse royal commission.

Ridsdale has finished two days testifying as part of its investigation into widespread abuse by clergy in the Ballarat diocese and the response of the Catholic Church.

Church lawyers have asked for time to consider Ridsdale’s evidence before questioning him.

Ridsdale is now likely to be recalled either at or before the commission’s second Ballarat hearing, expected to be held in November or December.

The commission may sit in Sydney if Ridsdale is questioned before the second hearing.

Ridsdale, giving evidence via videolink from jail, could remember very few details about who in the church knew of his offending and moved him from parish to parish.

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MICHIGAN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, May 28

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 )

An already convicted and imprisoned serial predator priest is being indicted today in Michigan on more child sex charges. (He pled not guilty.) This should happen more often.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette is filing more child sex charges against James Francis Rapp who allegedly molested kids at Jackson Lumen Christi Catholic High School in Jackson in the 1980s.

Once a child molester is convicted, many people who could be helpful get complacent. They assume his sentence will stand, his appeals will fail, and he’ll be kept away from kids for many years. But often, child molesters – especially clerics – get top notch defense lawyers, exploit legal technicalities, and escape with little or no jail time. Then, when other victims, witnesses and whistleblowers find this out, it’s too late for them to really make a difference.

So we’re glad Michigan’s attorney general is being prudent and pro-active here.

There are two important lessons. First, these days, police and prosecutors are often more aggressive and creative about pursing child predators, even in older cases. (The old adage “where there’s a will, there’s a way,” fits here.) More law enforcement officials should follow Schuette’s example and consider going after even elderly child molesting clerics.

Second, no victim, witness or whistleblower should ever assume ‘it’s too late’ to seek justice. It’s our job to share what we know and suspect about possible child sex crimes. It’s the job of law enforcement to determine whether anything can be done. If we stay silent, we’re helping those who commit and conceal child sex crimes.

So if you saw, suspected or suffered any crimes or cover ups related to Fr. Rapp, it’s time to find the courage to speak up, so that the vulnerable can be protected, the wounded can be healed and the truth can be exposed and so that cover ups are deterred.

We beg Jackson Michigan Bishop Joseph R. Kopacz, Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul S. Coakley and Salt Lake Archbishop John Wester to use their vast resources to seek out and help others who were sexually assaulted by Fr. Rapp.

NOTE – Rapp belonged to the Toledo-based Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, Inc.

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ARGENTINA
Vatican Insider

The explosive claim regarding Horacio Verbitsky , was published today, May 18, in Argentina, in the blog www.plazademayo

GERARD O’CONNELL

Horacio Verbitsky, the man who publicly and repeatedly accused Jorge Mario Bergoglio of complicity with Argentina’s military rulers when he was Provincial of the Jesuits in the second half of the 1970s, actually worked for the country’s military dictators from 1978 to 1981 and was on their payroll.

This is the explosive claim published today, May 18, in Argentina, in the blog www.plazademayo, under the headline “Verbitsky: Con Dios y Con el Diabolo” (“Verbitsky: With God and With the Devil”).

The article is written by two investigative reporters – Gabriel Levinas and Sergio Serrichio, who have spent more than fourteen months researching the whole affair. It gives a preview of the book that will soon be published. In it, they draw on important documentary evidence which they discovered and on testimonies given by people who knew what actually happened.

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

5/27/2015

(St. Paul, MN) – The acquittal of Fran Hoefgen in the criminal case is sad, scary and a travesty of justice. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty because they were not able to know and hear the full picture of predatory conduct well-established by Fran Hoefgen.

Today we release more information that the jury did not hear that could have and should have changed the outcome. Because they did not learn Fran Hoefgen abused at least two boys, had been sent to treatment for it, had admitted having abused at least one boy in prior parishes and given a free pass by a former prosecutor in Stearns County, the jury saw this as one boy against a priest who testified that he did not even know who the boy was. The acquittal of Fran Hoefgen permits this offender to continue in the community unabated. He poses a risk of peril and harm to many, both in his denial and the freedom that he should not be able to enjoy.

The documents we are releasing with this statement, and available on our website, demonstrate a long pattern of predatory conduct by this former priest. He is a peril. We are scared for the children and we praise and applaud the courageous survivor who did come forward, stand up, speak the truth and while he told his story, the whole story, the full truth was not revealed to this jury and they were left a half truth and a lie by Fran Hoefgen. He is a known serial offender. He is a risk of harm to the community and kids and he belongs behind bars.

The statements made by Hoefgen’s lawyer, Michael Colich, about the deficiencies of the police is also misleading and deceptive. The fact is the police fully interviewed the other victims of abuse by Hoefgen, who were prepared to testify to the offenses committed against them years ago, in the same pattern as Hoefgen employed at the parish of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seaton in Hastings. They did thorough police work and Hoefgen’s criticism of the police is unwarranted, misleading, and deceptive as it is disturbing. This was a systemic failure and children remain at serious risk in the community while Hoefgen remains at large.

Hoefgen Documents
Hoefgen apology letter
Abbot apology letter
Hoefgen Statement 3-19-84
Konz Statement 2-9-93
Francis Hoefgen Timeline
St. Luke Letter to Konz regarding Hoefgen treatment

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

TESSA AKERMAN THE AUSTRALIAN MAY 29, 2015

The Catholic church in NSW failed to stop notorious pedophile Gerald Ridsdale offending in the 1980s despite the then Archbishop of Sydney believing he had “done enough” to prevent further abuse.

Ridsdale was removed from Mortlake, in southwestern Victoria, to the Catholic Enquiry Centre in Sydney in 1982.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse yesterday heard Ridsdale give evidence via video link from prison of his offending while he was based in Sydney.

Ridsdale said he could not recall the Bishop of Ballarat, Ronald Mulkearns, who was aware of his offending and arranged the transfer, or anyone else involved with the church imposing “restrictions or limitations or conditions” on what he could do while working in Sydney.

In evidence from 1993 tendered to the commission, the late cardinal Edward Clancy advised that Ridsdale’s initial transfer to Sydney was arranged between Clancy’s predecessor, cardinal James Freeman, and Bishop Mulkearns. Clancy said Bishop Mulkearns spoke to him at a conference in 1983 and explained ­“Father Ridsdale had certain sexual problems, was under professional treatment”.

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MICHIGAN
UP Matters

LANSING – Attorney General Bill Schuette today announced the arraignment of former Jackson Lumen Christi High School priest, teacher, maintenance supervisor, and wrestling coach James Rapp, 75, on charges of multiple felonies for his alleged sexual assault of several Michigan boys in the 1980s.

Rapp was arraigned on Thursday, May 28 at 8 a.m. before Judge Joseph S. Filip of the 12th District Court in Jackson, where a plea of not guilty was entered on the defendant’s behalf to three counts of first degree criminal sexual conduct and 10 counts of second degree criminal sexual conduct. Rapp was also assigned a $1 million cash bond. He is next due in court for a pre-exam conference on June 26, 2015 at 8 a.m. before Judge Joseph S. Filip of the 12th District Court in Jackson. Jackson-area attorney Alfred Brandt has been appointed to represent Rapp.

Case Background

In spring of 2013, more than 30 years after the alleged crimes occurred, two of Rapp’s victims reported the alleged sexual abuse to the Jackson County Sheriff’s Department, who then launched an extensive investigation revealing several more victims.

JLC was not Rapp’s first church or school assignment. Rapp was ordained in 1959 and held teaching assignments in Philadelphia (1959 – 1961), Salt Lake City (1968 – 1973), and in Lockport, New York (1979 – 1980). Following Rapp’s resignation at JLC, Rapp served as a priest and teacher in Naperville, Illinois (1987 – 1990) and Duncan, Oklahoma (1990 – 1998).

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MICHIGAN
WKHM

A former Lumen Christi HIgh School priest was arraigned on 13 counts of criminal sexual conduct in the first and second degree Thursday morning in the court of Judge Joseph Filip. James Francis Rapp, 74, appeared in a jumpsuit and shackles under the watchful eyes of two officers from the Michigan Department of Corrections.

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CHILE
Daily Journal

By LUIS ANDRES HENAO Associated Press
First Posted: May 28, 2015

SANTIAGO, Chile — The video shows a woman climbing a stairwell, her belly visibly pregnant, as she offers suggestions: Make sure there are no security cameras. Be careful not to look down or you might regret it.

She tumbles backward as the screen goes black. “When you reach the bottom everything will be OK,” she says.

The video is one of a series of mock abortion tutorials, part of a public campaign urging Chile to allow women to end pregnancies in cases of rape or medical complications. It would be a radical change for Chile, one of only six countries that prohibit all abortion, according to the New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights.

The debate comes as Chile, one of Latin America’s most socially conservative countries, grapples with shifting views on once-taboo issues. The mostly Roman Catholic country began to allow divorce in 2004. Earlier this year, Congress recognized civil unions for gay couples and, recently, a pilot program in Santiago harvested the country’s first legal medical marijuana.

The changing attitudes mark a generational shift, as young people born after the 1973-1990 military dictatorship come of age. The trend has accelerated since a wave of student protests demanding educational reform began in 2011 and in the wake of Catholic priest sex-abuse scandals that have provoked questioning of church doctrine.

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UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

Le Moyne a Jesuit University vs. La Sapienza a secular University

The Le Moyne vs. La Sapienza saga has the same moral story as the NCAA/Penn State University vs. the Vatican State.

The main difference between the Le Moyne graduates who failed to oust Cardinal Dolan as their speaker for their graduation – versus the La Sapienza University students who successfully ousted Pope Benedict XVI-RATzinger as speaker for their convocation in 2008 –– is that Le Moyne is a Jesuit University while La Sapienza is a secular university (albeit originally a pontifical university). The morals of secular universities and secular institutions are more good and more radically evident and are in sharp contrast to –– Catholic institutions that have allegiance to the Vatican and therefore will cover-up by all means Pope Crimes & Vatican Evils and seek only to protect its Catholic reputation and the Vatican Billions assets especially in the USA.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Tablet

28 May 2015 by Joanna Moorhead

Bishop Richard Moth thanked his predecessor Kieran Conry and called his contribution to the diocese “very significant” during his installation as bishop of Arundel and Brighton on Thursday.

Bishop Emeritus Conry resigned last year after admitting he had broken his vow of celibacy and had a sexual relationship with a woman.

In his homily at the ceremony at Arundel Cathedral Bishop Moth paid tribute to Conry for his “contribution in the field of evangelisation within the diocese and beyond”.

Bishop Moth also alluded to the crisis surrounding Bishop Conry, saying there were times in all our lives when we experience difficulties as individuals and as families, and there were also times of “weakness and pain as a diocese too”. But, he said, his installation Mass was a moment to recommit to Christ and the Church.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

CARDINAL George Pell is anxious to return to Australia to answer allegations he covered up sex abuse by paedophile priests and attempted to bribe a victim, according to those close to him.

A Rome-based confidante of the cardinal said he believed he had already fully dealt with the allegations when they were raised in 2013 at a parliamentary inquiry.

“The Cardinal was anxious to support the Inquiry and provided detailed submissions as well as many hours of sworn evidence and questioning,” the close friend said.

“No adverse findings on these issues emerged.”

Another Vatican confidante spoken to by News Corp Australia confirmed Pope Francis was personally aware of the allegations against Cardinal Pell but was treating them as just that — unconfirmed allegations.

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DEUTSCHLAND
BR

Von: Katja Strippel

Rund 200 Frauen und Männer hatten sich für den Job beworben – ausgewählt wurden 15. Sie kümmern sich von Berlin aus um die Belange von Menschen, die Opfer von sexuellem Missbrauch geworden sind. Vor zwei Monaten gab es die konstituierende Sitzung beim Missbrauchs-Beauftragten Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig. Aber damals wollten viele Mitglieder des neuen Betroffenenrates noch anonym bleiben. Jetzt haben die meisten von ihnen ihr Schweigen gebrochen. Tamara Luding aus Hof ist eine von ihnen. Sie ist als Kind selbst missbraucht worden.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Badische Zeitung

[Abuse victim gains recognition in the archdiocese of Freiburg.]

Das Erzbistum Freiburg hat in einem viel diskutierten Missbrauchsfall das Leid des mutmaßlichen Opfers anerkannt. Der beschuldigte Priester arbeitet im Bistum Münster.

Eigentlich ist das Bistum Münster für den Fall zuständig, weil der beschuldigte katholische Pfarrer dort lebt und arbeitet (siehe BZ vom 10. April). Seit fast einem Jahr aber schiebt die dortige Missbrauchskommission eine Entscheidung vor sich her. Ständig setzte sie dem mutmaßlichen Opfer – einer 48-jährigen Frau aus der Nähe von Freiburg – in den vergangenen Monaten neue Ansprechpartner für Anhörungen vor. Das Bistum Freiburg hatte indes an der Glaubwürdigkeit des Opfers längst keine Zweifel mehr und entschied den Fall ohne weitere Absprache mit Münster.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Westdeutsche Zeitung

[Church to apologize. The case Georg K. is not yet over. Johannes Heibel fights for compensation of affected children in South Africa.]

Von Werner Dohmen

Der Fall Georg K. ist noch nicht zu Ende. Johannes Heibel kämpft für eine Entschädigung der betroffenen Kinder aus Südafrika.

Willich. Im Februar hat das Krefelder Landgericht den ehemaligen Pfarrer Georg K. zu sechs Jahren Haft verurteilt. Über Jahre hatte er seinen Patensohn und dessen jüngerer Bruder sexuell missbraucht. Für Johannes Heibel von der Initiative gegen Gewalt und sexuellen Missbrauch von Kindern und Jugendlichen ist die „Akte K.“ damit aber längst nicht geschlossen: Er kämpft für die Rechte von Opfern, die völlig aus dem Blickfeld geraten sind. Es geht um die Jungen, denen sich K. in Südafrika in einem Kommunion-Camp genähert haben soll.

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ARKANSAS
Huffington Post

By Hilary Hanson

The Arkansas state trooper who reportedly gave the young Josh Duggar a “very stern talk” once had a Yahoo profile in which he detailed his own sexual interest in children, according to a 2009 court document.

The Pulaski County, Arkansas, “risk assessment” document, which is publicly available online and was posted by Jezebel on Wednesday, detailed the criminal history of the former officer, Joe Hutchens, who is now serving a 56-year sentence on child porn charges.

When Hutchens was still working as a trooper in 2006, Jim Bob Duggar approached him with the information that the teenaged Josh had sexually molested someone, according to a police report obtained by InTouch. Josh had, in fact, “forcibly fondled” five underage girls, some of whom were his sisters. Hutchens did not officially report the teen’s actions but instead gave him a “very stern talk,” the report said.

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UNITED KINGDOM
York Press

A RETIRED vicar from York has been jailed for indecently assaulting a young girl more than forty years ago.

Graham Gregory, 79 of Brockfield Park Drive, Huntington, York was sentenced to three years imprisonment at Kingston Crown Court, having been found guilty in 2014 of two counts of indecent assault on a girl under 13 years.

Gregory was acquitted of two further counts of indecent assault following a retrial at the same court.

Detective Constable Aaron Vardy, of the Met’s Sexual Offences Exploitation and Child Abuse Command, said: “Gregory abused his position as a figure of trust and authority. It takes a lot of courage to report this type of crime and in some cases victims feel that they are only able to come forward years after the offence. This conviction highlights that regardless of how much time has passed, we remain committed to bringing offenders before the courts.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Sussex Express

A retired vicar who indecently assaulted a young girl more than 40 years ago has been jailed following a trial at Kingston Crown Court.

Graham Gregory, 79, of Brockfield Park Drive, Huntington, York was sentenced to three years imprisonment at Kingston Crown Court on Tuesday (May 26), having been found guilty in 2014 of two counts of indecent assault on a girl under 13 years.

Gregory was acquitted of two further counts of indecent assault following a retrial at the same court.

Detectives were contacted by a woman in 2012 who claimed that she had been abused as a child between 1969 and 1971 when she lived in Wandsworth and attended the church where Gregory was curate.

She told officers that he kissed her on several occasions before assaulting her.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A retired vicar who abused a child more than 40 years ago has been jailed for three years.

Graham Gregory, 79, of Brockfield Park Drive, Huntington, York, was a curate in Wandsworth when he indecently assaulted the girl, then aged under 13.

Police were contacted by the victim in 2012 who said she had been abused by him between 1969 and 1971.

Gregory was found guilty of two counts of indecent assault by a jury at Kingston Crown Court.

As well as working as a curate in Southfields, Wandsworth, Gregory also held positions in Hastings, Chichester, York and the Isle of Man as a vicar.

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CANADA
CNW

News Advisory – Truth and Reconciliation – Declaration and Call to Action by Canada’s Philanthropic Organizations

June 1, 2015 – 11:00 am to 12:00 pm ET
Delta Ottawa – 101 Lyon Street Ottawa, ON – Plenary

OTTAWA, May 28, 2015 /CNW/ – The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) is holding its closing events from May 31 to June 3 in Ottawa. The TRC has spent six years hearing the truth about Canada’s Indian Residential Schools and establishing a reconciliation process that will lead to better relations between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples of Canada.

Coinciding with these closing events, Canada’s philanthropic organizations will be signing a Declaration of Reconciliation and Call to Action on June 1, to ensure that the TRC’s work leads to positive steps forward. The Declaration and signing has been organized by the Inspirit Foundation.

Spokespersons will be available for interview, including:

Andrea Nemtin, President & CEO, Inspirit Foundation
Wanda Brascoupé Peters, Executive Director
The Circle on Philanthropy and Aboriginal Peoples in Canada

What
Signing of Declaration and Call to Action

Who
Canada’s Philanthropic Organizations
Photo Op
Ceremony with TRC representatives

Declaration cultural object to be placed in ceremonial bentwood box

Spokespersons including

Wanda Brascoupé Peters, Andrea Nemtin

Where
Delta Hotel, 101 Lyon Street, Ottawa, ON K1R 5T9

When
June 1, 2015 – 11:00 am to 12:00 pm (Philanthropic organizations presentation 11:45 am to 12:00 pm)

About the Inspirit Foundation

The Inspirit Foundation is a national, grant-making organization that supports young people (aged 18 to 30) in building a more inclusive and pluralist Canada. One way we do this is by funding projects that foster engagement and exchange between young people of different spiritual, religious and secular backgrounds.

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IRELAND
National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church

(28th May 2015)

The National Board for the Safeguarding of Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland (NBSCCCI) published its annual report today. It details the work done by the Board and its National Office during the year ending 31st March 2015.

The Board has set itself the task of completing the reviews of the religious in Ireland by the end of this year and has indicated that an updated version of the Safeguarding Standards and Guidance will also be completed, though its implementation date is yet to be decided.

During the 2014/15 period, 184 new allegations, suspicions or concerns have been shared with the National Office. The allegations relate to physical, emotional and sexual abuse.

In addition, 81 allegations of physical and emotional abuse, previously reported to the civil authorities by one religious congregation were reported to the Board.

Abuse allegations against Diocesan clergy relate to 1950 up to 1997, with one case noted outside this timeframe where the abuse is alleged to have taken place in 2006. In the case of Religious Orders and Congregational priests and religious, abuse allegations relate to 1950 up to 1990, with one case where the abuse is alleged to have taken place in 1999.

The Board has received no allegations of abuse taking place after 2006 in the year under review.

All allegations notified to the Board have been passed to the Gardaí/PSNI and where appropriate to the HSCT/TUSLA.

Ms Teresa Devlin, CEO welcomed the continued improvements in prompt reporting of all allegations to the civil authorities and commended the Church Authorities for maintaining their focus on safeguarding children.

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IRELAND
National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church

Annual Report 2014

Allegations Notified to the National Office – 1 April 2014 to 31 March 2015

The National Board has a responsibility to monitor safeguarding practice across all dioceses and religious orders/congregations. In addition to reviews of safeguarding practice, the Board monitors compliance with the seven standards in other ways. Most notable is the role of monitoring whether new allegations brought to the attention of a diocese or religious congregation/order have been shared with the civil authority agencies. There is an expectation that the National Office is informed at the same time as the civil authority agencies of allegations. In addition, we ask for information about the date of the abuse (if known), the status of the respondent’s ministry and what safeguarding action has been taken.

During the 2014–15 period, 184 new allegations, suspicions or concerns have been shared with the National Office. In addition, 81 allegations were submitted in one batch against 18 members of a specific congregation. The events surrounding this batch of allegations all relate to physical and/or emotional abuse. Advice received by the Church authority from TUSLA (Child and Family Agency) is that they do not require information relating to allegations against deceased priests and religious; however all allegations irrespective of the status of the accused are mandatorily reported to An Garda Síochána or the PSNI.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Thursday, May 28, 2015

Dozens of new allegations or suspicions of historic abuse by Catholic clergy have been raised with a national watchdog in the past year.

The National Board for Safeguarding of Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland (NBSCCCI) says the allegations concern physical, sexual and emotional abuse.

It says all 184 claims have been passed on to the Gardaí and PSNI – as well as Tusla.

The Board said that it also received 81 allegations of physical and emotional abuse which had previously been reported to civil authorities by a religious congregation.

Abuse allegations against Diocesan clergy relate to 1950 up to 1997, with one case noted outside this timeframe where the abuse is alleged to have taken place in 2006.

In the case of Religious Orders and Congregational priests and religious, abuse allegations relate to 1950 up to 1990, with one case where the abuse is alleged to have taken place in 1999.

The Board has received no allegations of abuse taking place after 2006 in the year under review.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Thursday, May 28, 2015

by Joe Leogue

An Irish priest has said he disagrees with the comments of a high-ranking Vatican official who described last week’s marriage equality referendum result as a “defeat for humanity”.

Fr Seán McDonagh of the Association of Catholic Priests said that he does not know why Cardinal Pietro Parolin expressed his disappointment at the result in such terms, and said that the result should not have come as a shock to the Vatican’s secretary of state.

“Looking at the polls in the four to five weeks running up to the election they were 70-30 in favour, so the result came as no surprise,” Fr McDonagh said.

He said the church needs to address its approach to homosexuality, and change its attitude of criticising and dismissing gay people and their experiences.

He was critical of the church’s decision to drop a paragraph on the “gifts and qualities” gay people can offer from a report on its extraordinary synod on the family which was held last year. “It raises serious questions for the synod on the family which will be held in October of this year.”

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CHILE
Terra

[Deputy Espinoza has questioned the new guide for handling church exual abuse. Fidel Espinoza, socialist MP, called on the Catholic church to remove Bishop Juan Barros of Osorno, who has been critiicized for its role in covering up abuse by priest Fernando Karadima. The socialist parliamentarian responded to the guidance announced on Wednesday the Episcopal Conference to address child sexual abuse. The text is called “Care and Strength” and updates the rules enacted in 2003 and 2011 to proceed against complaints and seeks to prevent such situations. According to the Social Democrat, “the updating of the rules against sexual abuse minors, which was presented by the Episcopal Conference, should be taken as a new opportunity to change course with the bishop Barros. ” ]

I diputado socialista Fidel Espinoza emplazó a la iglesia a remover al obispo Juan Barros de Osorno, quien ha sido cuestionado por su eventual papel como encubridor de los abusos cometidos por el ex párroco de la Iglesia de El Bosque, Fernando Karadima.

El parlamentario socialista reaccionó ante la guía que dio a conocer este miércoles la Conferencia Episcopal para tratar los abusos sexuales a menores. El texto se denomina “Cuidado y Fuerza” y actualiza las normas decretadas los años 2003 y 2011 para proceder frente a denuncias y busca prevenir este tipo de situaciones.

A juicio del parlamentario socialista, “la actualización de las normas frente a los abusos sexuales a menores, que ha sido presentado por la Conferencia Episcopal, debiera ser tomada como una nueva oportunidad para enmendar el rumbo con el obispo Barros”.

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SCOTLAND
The National

KATHLEEN NUTT

ANGELA Constance is today expected to name the chairman of the long-awaited statutory public inquiry into historic child sex abuse, and to reveal its remit.

The Education Secretary, who announced there would be an inquiry in December, will outline the inquiry’s details in the Holyrood chamber to MSPs and dozens of members of survivors’ groups this afternoon.

Retired judge Lord McEwan, who made a landmark ruling to lift a legal time-bar to enable an abuse victim to take civil action, is favoured by some victims to chair the inquiry.

Survivors’ groups have also told The National that they would consider Lord Malcolm as a suitable appointment.

The former Edinburgh University academic served as Vice Dean of the Faculty of Advocates from 1997-2001 and Dean from 2001-2004. He was a founder member of the Judicial Appointments Board and has also served as a part-time member of the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland.

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, N.M., May 26, 2015

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Independent correspondent
religion@gallupindependent.com

ALBUQUERQUE – The Diocese of Gallup’s legal fees and expenses for its bankruptcy case now exceed $2.25 million.

Attorneys, accountants, insurance researchers and real estate appraisers submitted quarterly billing statements to U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the period of Jan. 1 through March 31, 2015. The total figure of $2,258,084.14 includes approximately $57,000 already paid by the diocese. The remaining professional fees and expenses billed by attorneys and accountants will not be paid until the Gallup Diocese has an approved plan of reorganization.

The listed professionals have submitted the following quarterly and total billing figures, which do not include any payments made to them by the diocese prior to its bankruptcy filing on Nov. 12, 2013.

Quarles & Brady LLP: The Diocese of Gallup’s lead bankruptcy law firm from Tucson submitted a quarterly statement for $215,067.99 for legal fees and expenses. The firm’s total post-petition bill is now at $1,344,666.05.

Keegan, Linscott & Kenon, P.C: This Tucson accounting firm took over the Gallup Diocese’s finance office in the summer of 2013 after Deacon James Hoy, the diocese’s chief financial officer, resigned. The firm corrected a billing error of $556.25 from its 2014 final quarterly statement, and it submitted a 2015 first quarterly statement for $38.279.28 in fees and expenses. The firm’s total post-petition bill is now at $314,816.44.

Stelzner, Winter, Warburton, Flores, Sanchez & Dawes, P.A: The diocese’s special counsel law firm from Albuquerque billed $996.71 in fees this quarter. The firm’s total post-petition bill is now at $10,750.76.

Insurance Archaeology Group: This insurance research company submitted a quarterly statement for $1,495.80 in fees and expenses. To date the company has billed the Gallup Diocese $47,929 and has been paid that amount.

Estate Valuation Consultants, Inc: This real estate appraisal company submitted its first quarterly statement for $12,200 in fees and expenses and has been paid $9,200 thus far.
Michael P. Murphy: Murphy was recently appointed as the “Unknown Claims Representative” to represent any new clergy sex abuse victims who might come forward in the future. Murphy has not submitted any fees or expenses yet, but his flat fee of $50,000 will be due and payable upon the effective date of any plan of reorganization.

Walker & Associates, P.C: The diocese’s Albuquerque bankruptcy law firm did not submit a statement for the first quarter of 2015. To date, the firm has billed $18,062.40 in post-petition fees and expenses.

Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones LLP: This law firm represents the legal interests of clergy sex abuse survivors who have filed claims against the diocese in bankruptcy court. The firm submitted a quarterly statement for $86,284.57 in fees and expenses. The firm’s total post-petition bill is now at $459,659.49.

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GUAM
KUAM

By Jolene Toves

Former Guam resident John Toves is attempting to raise $2,000 in funds to retain a canon lawyer. Toves made allegations of sexual harassment against Archbishop Anthony Apuron late last year, however because no victim ever came forward the complaint was not investigated by the Archdiocese of Agana.

At the time Archbishop Apuron issued an exclusive television statement to KUAM News on the matter denying the allegations and announced plans to file a lawsuit. According to Toves he also plans to file a suit with the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith and directly to the Promoter of Justice.

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UNITED STATES
Vox

Updated by Tanya Pai on May 27, 2015

Stories about reality TV star Josh Duggar and the revelations that he molested several minors while he himself was a teenager have saturated the news over the past week.

The details of the allegations are bizarre, involving an alleged cover-up by Duggar’s parents and church, a disturbing police report, and a very badly timed marathon of the reality series Duggar stars in on a network that has experienced more than one reality show scandal in recent years. There’s also an element of religious hypocrisy and a muted attempt to turn this into another front in the culture wars.

For people who don’t watch lots of reality TV — to say nothing of those who don’t watch lots of TLC reality, which is almost a genre unto itself, focused on families from outside the American mainstream — the whole thing can sound like a particularly strange satire of how far the television industry will go to garner big ratings.

But it’s not.

Who are the Duggars?

The Duggars are an Arkansas family and stars of the TLC reality series 19 Kids and Counting. The show, TLC’s most popular, regularly scored in the Nielsen cable top 25 before it was pulled from the air.

The show began on September 29, 2008, as 17 Kids and Counting, and starred Jim Bob Duggar, a former Arkansas state representative turned real estate agent; his wife, Michelle Duggar; and their 17 biological children. Since that time, Jim Bob and Michelle have had two more children.

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FLORIDA
WPBT

[with video]

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. —A jury has been seated in the sexual molestation trial against former Rosarian Academy teacher Stephen Budd.

Both sides are questioning a pool of potential jurors in the Stephen Budd sexual molestation trial which began Tuesday. Budd, 53, was a fourth grade teacher at Rosarian Academy in 2006-2007 when two former students now say he coerced them into performing sex acts on him and each other, in exchange for “Budd Bucks.”WPBF 25 News at Noon

He’s accused of serially molesting two 9 year olds in his classroom in 2006-07.

His attorney, Jason Weiss, asked potential jurors if they were so appalled by the charges that they could not be fair.

“Is there something so awful or distasteful in your mind, that the mere accusation against Mr. Budd makes you think that he’s probably guilty?” asked Weiss.

Some in the pool answered that they did have problems with the charges and could not be impartial.

Budd is accused of having the girls perform sex acts on him under his desk while he taught, taking naked pictures of the girls and having them perform sexual acts on each other.

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OREGON
East Oregonian

By PETER WONG
Capital Bureau

SALEM — The Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday approved a bill doubling Oregon’s statute of limitation on rape to 12 years.

House Bill 2317, which has already cleared the House, moves to the full Senate without change, despite pleas that Oregon’s statute of limitations should be set even longer.

Advocates had urged the committee to extend the deadline for prosecutions to 20 years.

“It took me years not only to disclose everything Pastor Mike did to me, but to even realize just how badly the abuse affected my life,” said Jessica Watson, one of seven victims of Mike Sperou, who was convicted April 30 in Multnomah County Circuit Court.

Sperou, 64, was pastor at a Happy Valley church. He was convicted in connection with only the youngest of the seven victims, who all chose to go on the record. The statute of limitations barred his prosecution on crimes involving the others, including Watson.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

Religious Culture of Abuse of Females in Right-Wing Christianity: A Current Case Study

William D. Lindsey

In my posting on the Duggar family earlier today, I cited Jenny Kutner to note that what shouldn’t be overlooked in the Duggar story is how Josh Duggar’s abuse, his parents’ cover-up, and the excuses being made by the religious and political right are rooted in a religious culture of abuse of females. As I indicated, the religious ideology defended by the Duggars and their friends calls on women and girls to submit to men and boys. It routinely excuses even outright abuse, sexual or otherwise, perpetrated on females by males as just how boys behave.

And it does all this by invoking God, as if God is one of the old boys chuckling at the way real men knock women around — or take advantage of them sexually.

Lest you think I’m making all this stuff up or exaggerating, a case in point from yesterday’s news: as Mark Woods reports for Christian Today, the Village Church in Dallas, Texas, has forgiven Jordan Root, a former missionary of the church in East Asia, after he was discovered to have been viewing child pornography online. Root has also admitted having abused children for whom he was a babysitter.

After all of this information came out, Root’s wife Karen, who was on the East Asian mission along with him, asked for their marriage to be annulled. The church has disciplined Karen Root.

He with the history of child molestation and use of child pornography: forgiven.
She who asks to be unyoked from him, the child abuser, in marriage: not forgiven.

Can the picture be any clearer than this?

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – PM

MARK COLVIN: A warning this report contains information you may find disturbing.

The convicted paedophile Gerald Ridsdale has told the royal commission he’s sorry Catholic Church officials didn’t report his behaviour to the police because it would have saved “so many” children.

The royal commission has heard that Ridsdale’s offending first came to the attention of a bishop in 1961 but he was left to assault possibly hundreds of victims over the next three decades.

The inquiry was told today one of Ridsdale’s victims believed that another priest saw him attacking her in the early 1970s but didn’t intervene.

Samantha Donovan reports.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Gerald Ridsdale’s victims live with the knowledge that if someone in the Catholic Church had reported him to police when his offending first became known, they would have been safe, something the convicted paedophile acknowledged at the royal commission today.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

On the second day of Gerald Ridsdale’s appearance at the Royal Commission, senior counsel Gail Furness pushes the paedophile priest to admit his abuse of children in rural areas.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

AAP

Pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale can’t remember which priest may have walked in on him while he was sexually assaulting a girl, the royal commission has heard.

A judge last year said a girl believed another priest was present for a short time while Ridsdale was sexually assaulting her and must have been aware of the assault but did not intervene.

On Thursday, senior counsel assisting the child sex abuse royal commission, Gail Furness, asked Ridsdale who that priest was.

“I don’t know because I’ve said I don’t know who the other priests were there at the same time except George Pell,” Ridsdale said.

“I have no idea of the priests who were there with me at Ballarat East.”

Asked if he had a recollection of sexually assaulting the girl, Ridsdale said: “No, a lot of them I don’t have, no.”

The incident took place in Ridsdale’s bedroom at the Ballarat East presbytery, where he lived in 1972-1973, after the girl went to look at his rock collection.

Ms Furness asked Ridsdale if he accepted that when he assaulted the girl there could well have been another priest in the presbytery.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

Following another priest’s sworn evidence that contradicted his own, Gerald Ridsdale changes his story about approaching now-Cardinal George Pell.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

May 28, 2015

Jane Lee
Legal Affairs Reporter for The Age

COMMENT

In his blind loyalty to those who have washed their hands of him, Gerald Ridsdale has betrayed those he has already failed.

Who was the priest in the room when he raped a child in his office?

He would not, or could not, say. For almost two days, he said he could not remember George Pell living with him. Now he said he could only remember McMahon.

Expectations were probably too high. He is an elderly man in jail. He has admitted to more than 100 crimes against children, which have been aired at three court cases, one state inquiry and half a royal commission. What more, one might think, does he have to lose?

Two things: a few years of freedom if he is released on parole in 2019, and any remaining ties he has left with senior church authorities.

The commission already knows that the church authorities decided Ridsdale should move on to other parishes, where he then abused others. All that was left was to find out who he told, what he said, and how they reached these decisions.

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UNITED STATES
Verdict

The Front Against Child Sex Abuse Expands to the Family: Josh Duggar, the Duggars, and What Every Family Should Know About Incest

Marci A. Hamilton

The war against child sex abuse received an infusion of weapons and power when the Boston Globe revealed the pattern of the cover-up by the Catholic hierarchy in 2001. With horror, the world witnessed secondhand the bishops shuffling pedophiles among parishes and fresh child victims. That same pattern has emerged in state after state, like Pennsylvania, where Philadelphia District Attorneys Lynne Abraham and Seth Williams put together thorough documentation in 2005 and 2011 Grand Jury Reports, and Minnesota, where statute of limitations reform has opened the door to the justice system that in turn has revealed the specifics of the cover-up. The unfolding story has also been told in Australia and Ireland.

These revelations painted a paradigm of adults letting children be abused by other adults. I call it “adult preferentialism.” As adults, we are persuaded that our interests (e.g., reputations and jobs and relationships) are much more important than the needs of children. We worry about the long-lasting effects on our reputations, but expect the kids to “get over it.” It is shocking when revealed, but that paradigm has played itself out in one venue after another since 2001, including (1) multiples of religious organizations from the Jehovah’s Witnesses to the ultra-Orthodox Jews, and (2) sports programs from Penn State football to Olympic swimming and speedskating.

Then elite private schools like Poly Prep and Horace Mann came into the spotlight, as well as public schools. Horace Mann is in the news this week because a coalition of alumnae and experts like Judge Leslie Crocker Snyder, Charol Shakeshaft, and I banded together to find a way to make sure the serial abuse at Horace Mann and the institution’s hardhearted response did not happen at any other private schools. The Horace Mann Action Coalition issued a scathing report this week, replete with important guidelines for private schools.

The Irony Underlying All of these Revelations About Child Sex Abuse: Most Abuse Happens in the Home

While we learned about, discussed, and reacted to the abuse in all of these “safe” venues, the abuse that occurs the most remained unspoken: Incest. There was a time when all sex abuse discussions were taboo; that taboo has persisted with respect to family-on-family abuse. Incest is the last frontier for child sex abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
The Conversation

Jayne Lucke
Professor & Director of the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health & Society at La Trobe University

Thanks to many generous contributors I now have an arsenal of potential responses to the question “what do you do?”. My options span a wide range of possible replies, including the flippant, cheeky, risqué, straight, cryptic, serious, intense, and downright arrogant. I am now equipped for any situation with an answer I can choose to suit the context, the characteristics of the questioner, and my own willingness to engage.

If only we all had such luxury when it comes to matters relating to sex. Misunderstandings and awkwardness about sex can be more than just an inconvenience or embarrassment. Sometimes there are potentially devastating consequences. The way we engage with ideas relating to sex can have far-reaching effects on our lives as individuals, within our families and on a broader societal level.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse provides us with a painful example of how badly things can go wrong. The public hearings in Ballarat have reminded us of the awful pain of people abused by a person in authority and the long-term impact of this betrayal. The royal commission also raises questions for us all about what went wrong, how to bring those responsible to justice, deal compassionately with the many people affected and most importantly, how to make sure this does not happen again.

This week in an op-ed piece for The Age, Dr Timothy Jones proposes that the view of the Catholic Church towards paedophilia as a sin, rather than a criminal act, was one of the factors that led to the church’s approach towards offenders – a policy that protected the offender and exposed new groups of vulnerable children to horrific abuse. A realisation of the impact on abused children came later as broader understandings of child sexual abuse changed.

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UNITED STATES
The Cap Times

E.J. DIONNE JR. | national columnist

BOSTON — Consider the stunned disbelief, perhaps of a somewhat aggressive sort, that would have greeted anyone who might have told a tavern crowd in Dorchester or Southie three decades ago that Ireland would be the first nation in the world to approve gay marriage by popular vote.

It is a mark of how much has changed in such a short time that Ireland’s vote for gay marriage last week was, in the end, the expected outcome — even if the breadth of marriage equality’s victory was breathtaking.

The referendum carried 62 percent of the vote. Only one of the nation’s 43 parliamentary constituencies, Roscommon-South Leitrim, voted “no,” and even there, supporters won nearly 49 percent of the vote. The rural-urban split many anticipated did not materialize. Socially conservative areas that had opposed liberalizing Ireland’s abortion and divorce laws in the past voted to allow gays and lesbians to marry.

The different outcome this time says something about why social liberalism finds its strongest expression these days around gay rights questions. If politics is often polarized because social changes can leave behind both winners and losers, it is far harder to make a case that there are any losers in the effort to provide for equality around sexual orientation. Ireland, a heartland of Catholicism that did so much to shape the Catholic Church in the United States, seemed to see things exactly this way.

But it’s also true that Ireland has undergone a sweeping cultural transformation in a very short time. Irish faith in the church was badly shaken by the hierarchy’s cover-up of the sex-abuse crisis even as the island was overtaken by a raucous materialism during the economic boom between 1995 and 2008. It was the era of the “Celtic tiger,” a prime example of how good things could be under capitalism.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Nottingham Post

By Tom Norton | Posted: May 28, 2015

More reports of abuse within the Methodist church were recorded in our region than anywhere else in the country, a publication has revealed.

The Methodist Church in Britain has published findings showing that more than 220 reports of historic abuse were made locally, out of 1,885 cases across the country.

The organisation’s general secretary, Reverend Dr Martyn Akins, has issued a full apology to survivors of abuse, calling the findings “a deep source of grief and shame to the Church.”

The most common report of abuse related to sexual abuse, of which there were 914 cases in the UK.

Five hundred and sixty-five cases were classified as “other”, followed by 245 cases of physical, 207 of emotional, 135 of neglect, 87 of financial, 85 of domestic violence, 76 of institutional, 69 of racial and four of spiritual/ritual.

There were also 126 reports made where the category is “not-stated”.

In Nottingham and Derby 225 safeguarding concerns were reported. In some cases, multiple concerns could have been submitted about one individual.

The church has said that a high number does not necessarily indicate more abuse, with at least one other district reporting high numbers because of good record keeping.

Seventy active ministers from Nottingham and Derby were contacted, of which 68 replied.

The independent inquiry was led by Jane Stacey, former deputy chief executive of Barnado’s.

She said: “There are many lessons to be learnt, but the most challenging are those that require a significant culture change throughout the church, and particularly for ministers and church leaders. The Church will need further courage to implement the review’s recommendations, which are far-reaching and call for major changes in both practice and culture.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

A report into allegations of historical abuse within the Methodist Church has been published.

It covers physical and sexual abuses cases, dating back to the 1950s.

In the UK and Channel Islands, there was a total of nearly 2,000 reports of abuse. Seven of those cases were reported by people in the Channel Islands.

The report shows a large number of the cases concerned the abuse of children, and many were of a sexual nature:

34% Of victims were under age 18
46% Of victims were female
200 Cases of alleged abuse by Church Ministers
276 Cases of alleged abuse by Church lay employees
914 Cases of reported sexual abuse

The Church has said it wants to be open about the past, and to improve safeguarding procedures in the future.

It has also apologised for failing to protect children and adults.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Express

By TOM BATCHELOR

The Methodist Church in Britain has offered an “unreserved apology” for its systemic failure to protect youngsters dating back to the 1950s.

Leading child safety charity NSPCC described the findings as a “horrifying catalogue of abuse”, adding: “A vast number of victims must have endured appalling experiences while the Church refused to listen to their pleas for help.”

Responding to the shocking 100-page report, the Church said it was now committed to introducing safeguards for children.

The investigation, which has taken three years, has led to six police investigations into abuse, with the NSPCC warning that “abuse was still being inflicted in recent years”.

The Church said it was “deeply regrettable” that ministers had “not always listened properly” to those who had suffered abuse.

Rev Dr Martyn Atkins, general secretary of the Methodist Conference, said: “On behalf of the Methodist Church in Britain I want to express an unreserved apology for the failure of its current and earlier processes fully to protect children, young people and adults from physical and sexual abuse inflicted by some ministers in Full Connexion and members of the Methodist Church.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Press Association
Thursday 28 May 2015

The Methodist Church in Britain has apologised for failing to protect children and adults after an investigation uncovered nearly 2,000 reports of physical and sexual abuse within the institution dating to 1950.

The MCB, which published the findings of the independent inquiry on Thursday, said it wanted to be open about the past and to have stronger safeguarding procedures in the future.

Rev Dr Martyn Atkins, its general secretary and secretary of the Methodist Conference, said: “On behalf of the Methodist Church in Britain, I want to express an unreserved apology for the failure of its current and earlier processes fully to protect children, young people and adults from physical and sexual abuse inflicted by some ministers in Full Connexion and members of the Methodist Church. That abuse has been inflicted by some Methodists on children, young people and adults is and will remain a deep source of grief and shame to the church.”

He described it as “deeply regrettable” that the church had “not always listened properly to those abused” nor had it always cared for them. “In respect of these things we have, as a Christian church, clearly failed to live in ways that glorify God and honour Christ,” he said. “I am certain that the Methodist Conference will want to resolve to do all in its power to improve its systems to protect children, young people and adults from abuse within the life of the church and on church premises, and to review them diligently on a regular basis.”

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COLORADO
Montrose Press

By Katharhynn Heidelberg Daily Press Senior Writer

The trial for Jeremias Quintero, who is accused of sexually abusing a teenage boy, has been reset from its June date to October.

Quintero is charged with sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust and with sexual exploitation of a child.

He denies allegations that he molested the teen and showed him pornography in 2013, at which time Quintero was the pastor of an apostolic church in Delta and Glenwood Springs.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Mirror

28 MAY 2015
BY RYAN HOOPER

The British arm of the Methodist Church has sensationally apologised for failing to protect children and adults, after garnering almost 2,000 complaints of physical and sexual abuse since the 1950s.

In a 100-page report, published today, the church said it wanted to be honest and open about the past.

The church was also keen to ensure that mistakes from the past can be learned from in the future.

Rev Dr Martyn Atkins, general secretary of the Methodist Conference said: “On behalf of the Methodist Church in Britain I want to express an unreserved apology for the failure of its current and earlier processes fully to protect children, young people and adults from physical and sexual abuse inflicted by some ministers in Full Connexion and members of the Methodist Church.

“That abuse has been inflicted by some Methodists on children, young people and adults is and will remain a deep source of grief and shame to the church.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Methodist Church in Britain

28 May 2015

Courage, Cost & Hope: The Report on the Past Cases Review, 2013-2015

News: Church issues ‘full and unreserved apology’ to abuse survivors
____

Background to the review

THE PAST CASES REVIEW SUBMISSIONS OFFICIALLY ENDED ON THE 24TH DECEMBER 2014. ANY PAST CONCERNS (AS WITH CURRENT CONCERNS) SHOULD BE REPORTED DIRECTLY TO YOUR DISTRICT SAFEGUARDING OFFICER.

SEE THE MAIN SAFEGUARDING PAGE FOR YOUR DISTRICT SAFEGUARDING OFFICER CONTACT DETAILS

“The Church needs to be sure that it has revisited cases using the benefit of hindsight, to be sure that no one has mistakenly left situations where vulnerable people may remain at risk. This is a great opportunity to see what went well, as well as to learn from mistakes we may have made, alongside reviewing the safety of past cases.”

Elizabeth Hall, Safeguarding Adviser (Child & Adult Protection) for the Church of England & the Methodist Church in Britain.

The Church aims to review all ‘safeguarding cases’ since 1950. For the purposes of the review, a ‘safeguarding concern’ is defined as any concern that a child or adult may be at risk, be suffering or have suffered abuse, or that someone represents a risk of abuse to others.

The review invites anyone from the districts with any knowledge of a previous or current concern, to respond.

The Church has commissioned an independent expert who will review all the responses and advise the Church on any action that needs to be taken.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Methodist Church in Britain

A. BACKGROUND

The Methodist Conference in 2010 adopted replies to Memorials 35 and 36 that accepted the need for a review of past child protection cases, something to which the Methodist Council was already committed, and asked for a strategy for such a review process to be presented to the Methodist Council and for progress to be reported to the Conference in 2011.

The 2011 Conference approved the outline plan for the Past Safeguarding Cases Review (2011 Conference Agenda, pp. 119-129), which included proposals for a pilot to be based in the Wales Synod and Leeds District.

The following remit was agreed:

Remit – what is a case?

It is suggested that ‘case’ is defined as a ‘safeguarding concern’.

The Church of England focused its work, which started in 2007, on child protection cases. Since that date, the work with adults who may be vulnerable has developed in importance. The Methodist Church has just published a new policy ‘Safeguarding Adults’. It is therefore proposed that this review incorporate harm to adults.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Methodist Church in Britain

Full report available here

The Methodist Church in Britain has today published the report of an independent review of past safeguarding cases related to the Church from 1950 to 2014.

Speaking on behalf of the Church, the Secretary of the Methodist Conference and General Secretary the Revd Dr Martyn Atkins has issued a full and unreserved apology to survivors and victims of abuse in response to the report:

“On behalf of the Methodist Church in Britain I want to express an unreserved apology for the failure of its current and earlier processes fully to protect children, young people and adults from physical and sexual abuse inflicted by some ministers in Full Connexion and members of the Methodist Church. That abuse has been inflicted by some Methodists on children, young people and adults is and will remain a deep source of grief and shame to the Church.

“We have not always listened properly to those abused or cared for them, and this is deeply regrettable. In respect of these things we have, as a Christian Church, clearly failed to live in ways that glorify God and honour Christ.

“I am certain that the Methodist Conference will want to resolve to do all in its power to improve its systems to protect children, young people and adults from abuse within the life of the Church and on Church premises, and to review them diligently on a regular basis.”

The independent Past Cases Review considered all safeguarding cases for which there were written records and those recalled from memory by ministers and members of the Church going back to 1950. These included cases that occurred within a church context as well as those which were reported to the church as a matter of pastoral concern but which occurred away from the church.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Yorkshire Post

The Methodist Church in Britain has apologised for failing to protect children and adults following nearly 2,000 reports of physical and sexual abuse within the institution dating back to the 1950s.

Publishing a 100-page report today, the Methodist Church in Britain said it wanted to be open about the past and to have stronger safeguarding procedures in the future.

Rev Dr Martyn Atkins, general secretary of the Methodist Conference said: “On behalf of the Methodist Church in Britain I want to express an unreserved apology for the failure of its current and earlier processes fully to protect children, young people and adults from physical and sexual abuse inflicted by some ministers in Full Connexion and members of the Methodist Church.

“That abuse has been inflicted by some Methodists on children, young people and adults is and will remain a deep source of grief and shame to the church.”

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TEXAS
WOAI

A salacious civil lawsuit, accusing the San Antonio catholic archdiocese and two high profile priests of sexual abuse and the following cover-up, has been filed in Bexar County.

The unnamed male claims that, between 1980 and 1983, he was living in an orphanage steps away from Assumption Seminary. He was befriended by a student, named Brother Jesus Dominguez, who would help him with homework and take him out to restaurants.

“For about two years, Brother Dominguez would end our outing by taking me back to his dormitory quarters, where he would often fondle and masturbate my penis,” the lawsuit, obtained by Newsradio 1200 WOAI, reads.

It goes on to say that Brother Dominguez took the victim and a friend to Disneyland, where they faced about one month of abuse. When he questioned the abuse, the lawsuits claims Brother Dominguez would fake a heart attack or, on another occasion, threaten to kill them both.

The lawsuit reads that the victim confided in father Virgilio Elizondo, but was once again sexually assaulted.

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AUSTRALIA
WA Today

Following another priest’s sworn evidence that contradicted his own, Gerald Ridsdale changes his story about approaching now-Cardinal George Pell.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Child sexual abuse inquiry: Notorious paedophile Gerald Ridsdale raped girl at home he shared with George Pell, ‘and another priest heard’

By court reporter Peta Carlyon

Notorious paedophile Gerald Ridsdale molested an 11-year-old girl in the home he once shared with other priests, including now Cardinal George Pell, an inquiry into child sexual abuse has been told.

Ridsdale, an 81-year-old former priest, was back in the witness box for a second day at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Ballarat.

The inquiry heard the defrocked priest abused the girl at the Ballarat East presbytery in the 1970s, where he was living with a number of other priests, including Australia’s now most senior Catholic leader.

The inquiry heard the girl went to look at the rock collection in Ridsdale’s bedroom, but saw a pornographic magazine and ran away.

When Ridsdale caught up to her, he raped her.

Court documents read out at the inquiry revealed the girl believed another priest was there and heard her being assaulted, but did not intervene.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Oliver Milman
@olliemilman

Thursday 28 May 2015

Convicted paedophile Gerald Ridsdale has been questioned over the sexual abuse of a young girl in a house he shared with George Pell, Australia’s most senior Catholic cleric.

At a royal commission hearing in the Victorian city of Ballarat on Thursday, Ridsdale, who has been in jail for child sex offences since 1994, was asked about a further conviction last year for an assault on a 10 or 11-year-old girl in 1972 or 1973.

The judge in the case remarked in sentencing that “this complainant believes another priest was present for a short time while you were sexually assaulting her and must have been aware of the assault but did not intervene”.

Under questioning from Gail Furness, counsel assisting the royal commission, Ridsdale said he did not remember the incident but accepted he committed the offence and that another priest may have been present.

Asked with whom he was living at the time, Ridsdale said: “Well, I said I didn’t remember any of the priests who were there with me but you tell me that George Pell was there at the same time so I have to accept that, that George Pell was there, but I don’t remember any of the others.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

‘Another priest’ present when Gerald Ridsdale abused a child in his bedroom, royal commission hears

May 28, 2015

Jane Lee, Rania Spooner

Another priest was present when Gerald Ridsdale raped a child in his bedroom in a house he shared with other priests, including George Pell, a royal commission has heard.

Ridsdale told the royal commission he could not remember who the priest was.
Counsel assisting the commission, Gail Furness, SC, asked Ridsdale about his abuse of a child in his bedroom at St Alipius’ presbytery, where he lived with George Pell in the early 1970s. Ridsdale has accepted that he lived with Pell at the time, but has told the commission he cannot remember having any dealings with him.

Between 1972 and 1973, he abused a girl after she followed him into his bedroom to see his rock collection.

The girl believed that there was another priest there for a short time while Ridsdale sexually abused her, but did not intervene.

“I accept that’s what she believed,” Ridsdale said.

Counsel assisting the commission said “can you help us with who was the priest?”

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

By AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATED PRESS

Two Sydney archbishops knew of pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale’s “sexual problems” and that he should be kept away from children, an inquiry has heard.

The child sex abuse royal commission has also heard allegations raised during Ridsdale’s last court case that a victim believed another priest walked in while Ridsdale was sexually assaulting her.
Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns also knew Ridsdale was committing crimes and abusing children, the commission heard.

Ridsdale was sent out of Victoria, effectively to a desk job in Sydney, to get him away from parishes and access to children, senior counsel assisting the commission Gail Furness SC said on Thursday.

Documents before the commission show Bishop Mulkearns discussed with the new Archbishop of Sydney Cardinal Edward Clancy the conditions of Ridsdale’s transfer to Sydney, as agreed under his predecessor Cardinal Sir James Freeman.

The conditions were that Ridsdale worked at the Catholic Enquiry Centre, had no contact with children and continued with counselling.

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AUSTRALIA
Perth Now

By Megan Neil
AAP

EVEN Gerald Ridsdale says he should never have been a priest.

THE 81-year-old says he’s sorry “so many others” could have been saved had Catholic Church figures who knew he was abusing children gone to police.

Two Ballarat bishops knew of Ridsdale’s crimes, one as early as 1961, and two Sydney archbishops knew he had “sexual problems” and should be kept away from children, an inquiry has heard.

Ridsdale was moved between numerous Victorian parishes before being sent to a desk job in Sydney, a move senior counsel assisting the royal commission Gail Furness SC said was designed to get him away from parishes and access to children.

Documents before the child sex abuse royal commission show Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns first agreed on conditions for Ridsdale’s transfer with the Archbishop of Sydney Cardinal Sir James Freeman.

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

Source: AAP
28 MAY 2015

The family of a boy abused by pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale in NSW visit him in jail in Victoria, not knowing their son was molested, the royal commission has heard.

Ridsdale said he could not remember offending against a child when he went to live at White Cliffs in NSW, after stepping down from parish work in 1988.

“I can’t think of anyone that I did,” he told the child sex abuse royal commission’s Ballarat inquiry on Thursday.

Senior counsel assisting the commission Gail Furness SC said there was a family Ridsdale met and became friendly with.

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NEW YORK
Watertown Daily Times

PUBLISHED: WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 2015

WATERTOWN — The former pastor of Smithville Baptist Church was sentenced Wednesday in Jefferson County Court to 10 years’ probation supervision for having sexual contact with a 9-year-old girl in 2008.

Thomas W. Wilson, 63, of 20560 Weaver Road, was also ordered to register with the state as a Level 1 sex offender after pleading guilty March 24 to first-degree sexual abuse.

He had been charged in January with having sexual contact with the youth July 6, 2008, in Sackets Harbor. State police said at the time of Mr. Wilson’s arrest that the incident occurred behind the Lake Ontario Playhouse in Sackets Harbor.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

May 28, 2015

Rania Spooner

Paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale has conceded he shared meals with George Pell and chatted with him when the pair lived together in the ’70s, but denied telling the prominent Catholic leader that he was abusing children.

The admission comes after he told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Wednesday, which was holding hearings in Ballarat, that he could not remember living with Cardinal Pell at all.

Records show they lived together for about a year.

The commission has also heard that Cardinal Pell was present at a September 1982 meeting involving three other senior clerics – including then-Bishop Ronald Mulkearns – who had all received complaints about Ridsdale’s behaviour towards children.

At the meeting there was a discussion about removing Ridsdale from the Victorian town of Mortlake – where he has since admitted abusing more than 50 children – and moving him to Sydney.

Ridsdale accepted the reason that he was moved was to get him away from Victorian parishes and limit his access to children.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

Megan Neil
May 28, 2015

Pedophile priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale says he did not tell then-Father George Pell that he was abusing children.

Ridsdale and Pell lived in the Ballarat East presbytery together for about a year in the early 1970s.

Ridsdale told the child abuse royal commission he would have chatted with Father Pell but he did not tell him about his issues with children since his time in the seminary.

“No I don’t think so,” Ridsdale told the commission’s Ballarat inquiry on Thursday.

The commission has heard Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns told a meeting of his advisers, the College of Consultors, that it had become necessary to move Ridsdale from the parish of Mortlake in 1982.

Commission chair Justice Peter McClellan said it was incredible Ridsdale could not remember his discussions with Bishop Mulkearns about being removed.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

live stream

Former priest Gerald Ridsdale continues his testimony for a second day.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Catholic Herald

Lord Patten of Barnes’ lecture for the English and Welsh bishops’ World Communications Day

The Invitation

Shortly after the 2010 election, I was asked by the Prime Minister, David Cameron, if I would help to organise the visit of Emeritus Pope Benedict to the United Kingdom. This naturally brought me into regular contact with Vatican officials. I had visited the Vatican before as a Minister and European Commissioner and met both Pope St John Paul and some of his officials. But the events of 2010 ensured more regular contact and some complicated discussions. I have to say, for example, that acting as a go-between with the First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond, and the Vatican was far from straightforward not least at the Edinburgh side of the partnership! But in the event, the visit of His Holiness went very well, above all for two reasons. First, the Pope himself – who impressed all who met him as a holy, scholarly, gentle intellectual with a remarkable facility for expressing complex issues in simple and beautiful language. Second, there were the congregations who came to the masses and vigils during the visit, representing as they did the depth and breadth of Catholicism in England and Scotland – every age, every social class and every ethnicity.

It was perhaps my encounters with Rome then, and my subsequent three year experience as the principal regulator of the BBC, that led to an unexpected phone call in July last year. I was telephoned out of the blue by Cardinal George Pell whom I had only seen once before preaching in his cathedral in Sydney at a Christmas morning mass a few years ago. I of course know as well that he was an Oxford alumnus, with a doctorate from the university and a formidable knowledge of English history especially of the 16th century. Cardinal Pell invited me to take the chair of a committee charged with reviewing the Holy See’s media operations and proposing new structures. This was related to the overall work he was doing to reform the Vatican’s financial and administrative structures which had become subjects of growing public and private concern.

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INDIANA
ABC 57

By Melissa Hudson

SOUTH BEND, Ind. – A Notre Dame professor and priest is a defendant in a lawsuit filed in San Antonio, Texas alleging he and another priest sexually abused a minor in the 1980s.

The priests named in the suit are Father Jesus Armando Dominguez and Father Virgilio Elizondo.

Notre Dame confirmed Elizondo is on the faculty, according to a statement by University Spokesman Dennis K. Brown..

We can confirm that Father Elizondo is on the faculty, but we have just learned of the allegation. We are reserving further comment until we examine the plaintiff’s San Antonio filing and make further inquiries.

The lawsuit says while living in an orphanage near the Assumption Seminary of the Archdiocese of San Antonio, Father Dominguez, then still a student at seminary, began acting as a father figure to the victim and took him out to eat and to movies.

The victim alleges after these outings, Father Dominguez would take him back to the dormitory quarters and fondle him.

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TEXAS/INDIANA
WSBT

[with video[

Annie Chang

NOTRE DAME, Ind. –
Former students of Fr. Virgilio Elizondo, the Notre Dame professor and Texas priest accused of sexually abusing a boy in the 1980s, spoke to WSBT 22 about their teacher Wednesday.

Elizondo is named in a lawsuit filed last week in San Antonio. Court documents filed on behalf of the plaintiff, an unnamed man, accuse two priests of sexually molesting the man when he was a child.

The plaintiff, an orphan, claims he was regularly abused by a local priest named Fr. Jesse Dominguez, over a period of two years, until Dominguez moved away.

The plaintiff also claims he tried to confide in Elizondo about those experiences in 1983. The two were in the car together. That’s when, according to court documents, Elizondo allegedly reached over, kissed the minor, and began to “fondle the Plaintiff’s genitals.”

The suit names the ArchDiocese of San Antonio, accusing officials of trying to cover up the plaintiff’s story, as well as the two priests.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Catholic Herald

British peer offers scathing critique of the Holy See’s current communications structures

The British peer charged with the reform of the Vatican’s media operation has urged the Holy See to radically overhaul its communications.

Lord Patten of Barnes offered a scathing critique of the Vatican’s current media structures, saying they were unfit for the digital age.

Giving the English and Welsh bishops’ World Communications Day Lecture in London, he said that, while “the Church has cleaned up and cleared up the way it manages its finances, putting an appropriate emphasis on modern accountancy and auditing, including transparency”, communications had not received adequate attention.

He said: “It would be bizarre if the Vatican was to run its media with its eyes closed to the way every other media organisation is managed in the second decade of the 21st century.

“It would be beyond bizarre to deny the Vatican the sort of modern media operation that others – including existing national church organisations – take for granted.”

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ARKANSAS
Huffington Post

By Hilary Hanson

The Arkansas state trooper who reportedly gave the young Josh Duggar a “very stern talk” once had a Yahoo profile in which he detailed his own sexual interest in children, according to a 2009 court document.

The Pulaski County, Arkansas, “risk assessment” document, which is publicly available online and was posted by Jezebel on Wednesday, detailed the criminal history of the former officer, Joe Hutchens, who is now serving a 56-year sentence on child porn charges.

When Hutchens was still working as a trooper in 2006, Jim Bob Duggar approached him with the information that the teenaged Josh had sexually molested someone, according to a police report obtained by InTouch. Josh had, in fact, “forcibly fondled” five underage girls, some of whom were his sisters. Hutchens did not officially report the teen’s actions but instead gave him a “very stern talk,” the report said.

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CANADA
Ottawa Citizen

MARK KENNEDY, OTTAWA CITIZEN

Opposition party leaders are calling on Prime Minister Stephen Harper to show personal “leadership” in his government’s public response to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) next week.

But it’s unclear if Harper will even participate in the closing events for the six-year probe of the aboriginal residential school system.

Harper’s involvement is considered important because he was the political leader who delivered a historic apology in the House of Commons in 2008 for the federal government’s role in the residential school saga.

Now, he will be faced with responding to recommendations from the commission that will tell the brutal truth of how 150,000 aboriginal children were stripped from their families for many decades by the federal government and sent to church-run schools where many suffered physical, emotional and sexual abuse.

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UNITED STATES
Barrier Breaker

Matt Chandler: Let Us Reconcile You To Your Child Porn Viewing Ex, Or You’re Excommunicated

May 27, 2015 by Peter Mosley

So, this one pisses me off. It pisses me off because it shows, clearly, the oppressiveness of the concept of Christian grace.

People think that “grace” is the most wonderful concept in Christendom. But it’s the most offensive, in my opinion, because it is a tool the church can use to give you no recourse against people who have profoundly hurt you. It is a way the church can say you HAVE to be OK with something someone did that was profoundly offensive. Most common — among far right movements like Quiverfull and within the Catholic Church — it seems, is the forced forgiveness of child sexual abuse.

You think child sexual abuse is bad? Get over it. God forgave that person (especially if it is a man). Move along; nothing to see here. Oh, you’re not a Christian? You’re LGBT? Sorry, but the church is going to bear down on you, hard, and say that you’re an ugly-hearted degenerate who is unable to control his or her sexual desires around children, whether there is proof that you actually or more at risk for molesting children or not. Sorry, our magic wand of God’s grace isn’t bestowed to you, sinner. But repent and say that our imaginary friend who loves you so much he wants to control every aspect of your life is the ruler of the universe, and we can use him to force people to be OK with whatever child you decide to sexually abuse.

And people deny this is true when it is right in front of our faces and has happened for years. Louis CK has a skit in which the Catholic Church is portrayed as an excuse for priests to “fuck little boys in the ass,” which has a strong ring of truth to it.

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NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, May 27

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

We’re very grateful to the Horace Mann alums and victims who have painstakingly and courageously put this report together. Kids are safer because of their courage and hard work.

But of course Horace Mann officials, not Horace Mann victims, should have shown this courage and done this hard work. Tragically, they refused. They also refused to cooperate with this investigation in any way.

We support these victims in their recommendations for reform and prevention, especially regarding the statute of limitations.

One in four girls and one in eight boys is molested. So clearly, what our society is doing now to stop predators and protect kids, especially in churches and schools, is failing.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY GINGER ADAMS OTIS

As many as 64 students at an upscale Bronx prep school Horace Mann were abused by as many as 22 faculty and staff in a decades-long sex abuse scandal, according to an independent report released Wednesday.

The comprehensive report was the result of an investigation funded by Horace Mann alumni and conducted by Judge Leslie Crocker Snyder — who noted throughout her findings the school refused to

Snyder had to rely primarily on the testimony of alleged sex abuse victims, she said. …

l Included among the abusers — both men and women — were a headmaster, coaches, teachers, a school chaplain, a dean of guidance and department heads.

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CHILE
Iglesia – Conferencia Episcopal de Chile

Al presentar el texto, el secretario general de la Conferencia Episcopal, mons. Cristián Contreras Villarroel, obispo de Melipilla, explicó que desde el año 2002, la CECh se ha planteado como un desafío prioritario abordar la problemática del abuso sexual de menores de edad, tanto en la Iglesia como en la sociedad chilena.

Tras el primer Protocolo del año 2003 para enfrentar estas situaciones, actualizado y complementado el año 2011, los Obispos redactaron, a petición de la Santa Sede, el documento de Líneas guía, es decir, procedimientos claros y coordinados en el manejo de los casos de abuso, tanto para asistir a las víctimas como para formar a la comunidad eclesial en la protección de los menores de edad.

El texto fue revisado por la Santa Sede y su versión final fue aprobada en la 109ª Asamblea Plenaria, celebrada en abril pasada. Lleva por título “Cuidado y Esperanza. Líneas Guía de la Conferencia Episcopal de Chile para tratar los casos de abusos sexuales a menores de edad”.

Mons. Contreras Villarroel informó que el pasado domingo 24 de mayo, en la solemnidad de Pentecostés, la fiesta del Espíritu Santo, todos los obispos diocesanos de Chile firmaron el decreto que promulga estas Líneas Guía como norma oficial en cada una de las circunscripciones. Explicó que las nuevas Normas comenzarán a regir el 16 de julio, solemnidad de Nuestra Señora del Carmen.

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CHILE
Ultima Hora

[Presentadas Líneas guía para casos de abusos a menores de edad – Iglesia]

[Chilean Catholic bishops deliver guidance for dealing with cases of sexual abuse.The Conference of Catholic Bishops of Chile on Wednesday presented the document “Care and Hope,” a guide to procedures for handling cases of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.The text drafted by the Chilean bishops was developed at the request of the Vatican which in May 2011 sent a letter to the Episcopal Conferences worldwide requesting general guidelines for assisting victims of abuse and to prevent such cases. “This I is the result of a process undertaken by the church in Chile one of the most painful moments in its history. The abuse of minors perpetrated by clerics certainly mark a before and after in the Chilean church life,” said Bishop Alejandro Goic, vice president of the Episcopal Conference.]

La Conferencia de Obispos Católicos de Chile entregó este miércoles el documento “Cuidado y Esperanza”, una guía con procedimientos para el manejo de los casos de abusos sexuales dentro de la iglesia católica.

EFE

El texto redactado por los obispos chilenos se elaboró a petición del Vaticano, que en mayo de 2011 remitió una carta a las Conferencias Episcopales de todo el mundo solicitando líneas generales para asistir a las víctimas de abusos y para prevenir este tipo de casos.

“Este es el fruto de un proceso emprendido por la iglesia en Chile en uno de los momentos más dolorosos de su historia. Los abusos contra menores perpetrados por clérigos marcan, ciertamente, un antes y un después en la vida eclesial chilena”, sostuvo el vicepresidente de la Conferencia Episcopal, monseñor Alejandro Goic.

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TEXAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, May 27

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

Notre Dame officials should immediately suspend a priest on their faculty who is accused of child sex crimes. They, along with San Antonio Catholic officials, should aggressively seek out others who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes by the cleric or cover ups by his church supervisors.

[WSBT]

A high-profile priest and professor, Fr. Virgilio Elizondo, is accused in a new civil lawsuit of sexually assaulting a child in Texas in the 1980s. We commend this brave individual who is taking action to protect others and expose those who commit and conceal heinous crimes against children.

More than a dozen years ago, US Catholic officials pledged to promptly suspend credibly accused child molesting clerics. This new suit, we believe, constitutes a credible allegation.

Fr. Elizondo should be removed from his post and sent to a remote, secure, independently-run treatment facility so that kids can be safer. And anyone with information or suspicions about clergy sex crimes or cover ups should call secular authorities, not church officials.

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ARKANSAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, May 27

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 )

It’s time for the Duggar family to break their silence about admitted child sex crimes by one of their own, especially in light of new revelations that they sued an Arkansas child safety agency. And it’s time for an independent law enforcement investigation into this serious matter.

[In Touche Weekly]

[People]

They should also stop minimizing Josh Duggar’s crimes by calling them “teenaged mistakes.” And every single person who saw, suspected or suffered crimes or cover ups by the Duggars or their church colleagues should find the courage to call police and prosecutors now.

Josh, Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar obviously did not promptly report suspicions or admissions of child sex crimes to law enforcement. Josh has made a vague, brief apology. His parents, however, have not – and one could argue, because they were adults at the time, they are even more culpable than their son was.

They have thus forfeited any moral authority they may have had.

But there are many ways to skin a cat. And just because law enforcement authorities were thwarted years ago doesn’t necessarily mean they are thwarted still. It’s possible that the Duggars might be prosecuted for crimes like the intimidation of witnesses, the destruction of evidence, or the obstruction of justice. So we call on Arkansas secular officials to investigate this troubling situation so that the truth might be exposed, future cover ups might be deterred and faith in the justice system might be restored.

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INDIANA
The Republic

By TOM COYNE Associated Press
May 27, 2015

SOUTH BEND, Indiana — A Texas lawsuit accuses a Roman Catholic priest who’s a theology professor at the University of Notre Dame and a former priest of sexually abusing an underage boy more than 30 years ago.

The lawsuit filed Friday in San Antonio, Texas, alleges the unidentified boy was sexually abused by ex-priest Jesus Armando Dominguez while he was a student at Assumption Seminary of the Archdiocese of San Antonio. The lawsuit alleges he was sexually abused again when he reported the abuse to the Rev. Virgilio Elizondo, now a Notre Dame professor. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.

Notre Dame spokesman Paul Browne said Wednesday the university was “reserving comment until further inquiries are completed.”

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AUSTRALIA
Gazette Herald

Pedophile priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale will resume giving proof for a second day earlier than the kid intercourse abuse royal fee’s Ballarat inquiry.

On Wednesday, he revealed how he had a longtime sample of discovering victims, befriending their households and establishing drop-in centres to lure weak younger boys.

However, victims have been disillusioned that his testimony revealed only a few particulars about who within the church knew of his offending and moved him from parish to parish.

Instead Ridsdale testified that he couldn’t even recall sharing a presbytery with Cardinal George Pell in 1970s.

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NEW MEXICO
KRQE

GALLUP, N.M. (AP) – The Roman Catholic Diocese of Gallup has incurred over $2.25 million of legal fees and expenses in its ongoing bankruptcy reorganization case.

The Gallup Independent reports that the cost figures are from billing statements submitted to the federal Bankruptcy Court by attorneys, accountants, insurance researchers and real estate appraisers.

Facing mountain lawsuits alleging clergy sex abuse, the diocese filed in November 2013 for protection under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code.

The total cost figure of $2.25 million includes $57,000 already paid by the district. The remaining fees and expenses won’t be paid until the diocese has an approved plan for reorganization.

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OHIO
Ohio.com

By John Harper, Northeast Ohio Media Group
on May 22, 2015

NORTHFIELD CENTER TOWNSHIP, Ohio — The sentencing of a former teacher and school board president on 15 child porn charges has opened old wounds for parents and former students at St. Barnabas School and church in Northfield Center.

Decades of child abuse at St. Barnabas and other catholic schools came to light 13 years ago when the Rev. Daniel McBride, the only priest indicted in a sweeping grand-jury investigation of sex-abuse complaints in the Cleveland Catholic Diocese. McBride was sentenced to three years’ probation for having sex with a teen prostitute last year

The diocese issued a statement saying McBride’s case was “a personal matter and was never connected with the exercise of his priestly ministry.”

Now the Rev. Ralph Wiatrowsky of St. Barnabas has asked a judge to reconsider sentencing former Nordonia Hills school board President Steve Bittel to prison after 67 child porn files were found on his computer. And the letter has some parents outraged.

Angela Mitchell was a student at St. Barnabas in the 1980s, and while she was never a victim of sexual abuse, she says she knows others who were. She is one of 1,600 local parents who have joined a private Facebook group to coordinate efforts asking the Diocese of Cleveland to reconsider Wiatrowsky’s job.

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ARKANSAS
In Touch Weekly

DUGGAR BREAKING NEWS: DISGRACED COP WHO DIDN’T REPORT MOLESTATION SHOOTS DOWN JIM BOB’S STORY

The disgraced Arkansas state trooper who was first alerted to the Josh Duggar molestation allegations is contradicting the story Jim Bob Duggar later told Springdale, Ark., police, In Touch Weekly is reporting exclusively in the new issue that goes on sale today.

In 2006, Jim Bob told Springdale police that he took Josh to see State Trooper Joseph Hutchens and that Josh “admitted to Hutchens what [Josh, redacted] had done,” according to the police report, obtained exclusively by In Touch through the Freedom of Information Act. At this point, there were five victims and multiple molestations by Josh.

But Hutchens, in his only interview since the Duggar scandal has been uncovered, says that Jim Bob told him about only one incident of molestation and that, in part, is why he decided not to report Josh to the abuse hotline.

Hutchens is serving 56 years in prison for child pornography and admits his “reputation is shot.” He was interviewed by a representative of a local law firm at In Touch’s request and promised nothing in return for his recollections.

Hutchens’ failure to report the abuse caused the police to halt their 2006 investigation because the statute of limitations ran out.

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FLORIDA
WPBF

[with video]

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. —Both sides are questioning a pool of potential jurors in the Stephen Budd sexual molestation trial which began Tuesday.

Budd, 53, was a fourth grade teacher at Rosarian Academy in 2006-2007 when two former students now say he coerced them into performing sex acts on him and each other, in exchange for “Budd Bucks.”

The fake money with Budd’s picture on it could be traded for candy and prizes.

The girls told police the abuse went on for months in the classroom, where Budd would have them perform sex acts on him while they crouched under his desk during class. They said he also had them perform sex on each other and take nude pictures with the class Polaroid.

One girl said she would throw her clothing away after it was soiled for fear her parents would discover it.

The girls said they took a vow of silence, but one came forward recently after she said Budd contacted her on Facebook.

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ARKANSAS
The Raw Story

TRAVIS GETTYS
27 MAY 2015

The former state trooper said Jim Bob Duggar – a one-time friend of his – lied when he brought his teenage son to him to discuss molestation claims, according to reports.

The reality show star said he took his eldest son, Josh Duggar, to meet with Joseph Hutchens, then an Arkansas state trooper and now serving a 56-year prison term for child pornography, a year after learning the teen had molested his sisters and at least one other girl.

But Hutchens said the patriarch of the “19 Kids and Counting” family lied to him and said the teen had molested only one girl, reported the InTouch Weekly.

“Jim Bob explained to me that Josh inappropriately touched [a victim] while she was asleep,” Hutchens told the magazine. “He said it only happened one time.”

Hutchens gave Josh Duggar “a very stern talk,” according to his father, but took no official action – but he told the magazine that he might have done more if he realized the extent of the abuse going on in the family’s home.

“I am a Christian myself, and I worry that if something else had happened, I would have been responsible,” said Hutchens, who was convicted four years later on child porn charges.

He served three years in prison but was arrested shortly after his 2010 release on four additional counts for distributing child pornography and remains in prison – where he spoke to an Arkansas lawyer on behalf of InTouch as part of an investigative report.

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CITTA DEL VATICANO
La Repubblica

CITTÀ DEL VATICANO .
Un summit con inviti mirati, nel cuore di Roma, per discutere sui temi più sensibili del prossimo Sinodo sulla famiglia, compresa quale pastorale adottare verso le coppie omosessuali e i divorziati risposati. Un incontro programmato da tempo e a cui sono stati invitati esponenti di primo piano della Chiesa tedesca, francese e svizzera, e che cade significativamente oggi, quarant’otto ore dopo quel sì alle nozze gay dell’Irlanda che ha aperto in tutto il mondo cattolico una riflessione che non può essere scontata: «Ci dobbiamo fermare, guardare ai fatti e metterci in ascolto dei giovani. Non si può negare l’evidenza », ha dichiarato l’arcivescovo di Dublino, Diarmuid Martin, alla televisione nazionale irlandese. Del resto, anche Francesco l’ha detto a chiare lettere: il Sinodo non è un Parlamento nel quale fazioni diverse si contrappongono.

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ROMA
La Repubblica

ROMA .
«Cosa possiamo dire a una gioventù che non si ritrova negli orientamenti della Chiesa? Come dobbiamo impostare una pratica dell’eros? Qui ci troviamo di fronte a problemi con cui fare i conti, altrimenti la gente finirà per allontanarsi».

L’allarme pacato lanciato a metà lavori da un sacerdote e docente scuote i tavoli messi a rettangolo fra i 50 convenuti all’Università Gregoriana di Roma, nella giornata di studio organizzata per il Sinodo dei vescovi previsto in autunno. “Matrimonio e divorzio”, “Sessualità come espressione dell’amore” sono i titoli su cui si discute. Temi di un’attualità bruciante, dopo il sì del referendum in Irlanda sulle nozze gay. Ci sono molti big della Chiesa, come il cardinale Reinhard Marx, arcivescovo di Monaco di Baviera e capo dei vescovi tedeschi, l’arcivescovo di Marsiglia Georges Pontier che è presidente della Conferenza episcopale francese, quello di Havre, Brunin, il vescovo di Dresda, Koch, quello della Bassa Sassonia, Bode, lo svizzero Gmur, il segretario generale dei vescovi tedeschi Langendorfer, teologi emeriti e professori universitari come il presidente della Comunità di Sant’Egidio, Marco Impagliazzo. Tutti ospitati dal vice rettore della Gregoriana, padre Hans Zollner, e vincolati a non attribuire la paternità delle dichiarazioni agli intervenuti. Lavori a porte chiuse, a cui è stata invitata a partecipare, quale unico media italiano, La Repubblica.

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ROME
National Catholic Register

BY EDWARD PENTIN 05/26/2015

ROME — A one-day study meeting — open only to a select group of individuals — took place at the Pontifical Gregorian University on Monday with the aim of urging “pastoral innovations” at the upcoming Synod of Bishops on the Family in October.

Around 50 participants, including bishops, theologians and media representatives, took part in the gathering, at the invitation of the presidents of the bishops’ conferences of Germany, Switzerland and France — Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Bishop Markus Büchel and Archbishop Georges Pontier.

One of the key topics discussed at the closed-door meeting was how the Church could better welcome those in stable same-sex unions, and reportedly “no one” opposed such unions being recognized as valid by the Church.

Participants also spoke of the need to “develop” the Church’s teaching on human sexuality and called not for a theology of the body, as famously taught by St. John Paul II, but the development of a “theology of love.”

One Swiss priest discussed the “importance of the human sex drive,” while another participant, talking about holy Communion for remarried divorcees, asked: “How can we deny it, as though it were a punishment for the people who have failed and found a new partner with whom to start a new life?”

Marco Ansaldo, a reporter for the Italian daily newspaper La Repubblica, who was present at the meeting, said the words seemed “revolutionary, uttered by clergymen.”

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TEXAS
San Antonio Express-News

BY MICHELLE CASADY : MAY 27, 2015

SAN ANTONIO — A civil lawsuit that alleges sexual abuse on the part of two priests in the Archdiocese of San Antonio was filed this month in Bexar County Court.

Father Jesus Armando Dominguez and Father Virgilio Elizondo are named as defendants in the suit, alongside the Archdiocese of San Antonio and three archbishops, who, according to the allegations laid out in the 19-page suit, conspired to cover-up the abuses rather than report them to authorities.

The plaintiff, identified as John Doe, alleges he was sexually abused by Dominguez from 1980 until 1983 when he was living in an orphanage and Dominguez was attending seminary school at Assumption Seminary.

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INDIANA/TEXAS
WNDU

By: Brandon Kusz

A decorated priest and member of the University of Notre Dame faculty has been accused of sexually molesting a minor.

The allegations were made in a civil lawsuit filed May 22 in Bexar County, Texas.

The unnamed plaintiff alleges that Father Jesus Armando Dominguez and Father Virgilio Elizondo sexually molested him while he lived in a San Antonio orphanage in the early 1980s.

Elizondo, who became known as the “father of U.S. Latino religious thought,” has been a member of the Notre Dame faculty since 2002.

He was also presented with Notre Dame’s highest honor, the Laetare Medal, in 1997.

“I came from a neighborhood where no one thought I would make it out or amount to anything,” he said, in a quote posted on his Notre Dame faculty webpage. “Even as a boy, I knew I wanted to do something good for the world.”

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OHIO
Toledo News Now

[with video]

By Cristina Mutchler

(Toledo News Now) – Friday, the Diocese of Toledo issued a statement regarding a Maumee priest being accused of violating the diocesan code on sexual abuse of minors.

Reverend Samuel Punnoor of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church is now on administrative leave. And while he has not been formally charged with any crime, Lucas County Children Services is investigating.

The diocese says the allegations were brought forth on May 6 and immediately brought to the attention of Lucas County Children Services. Punnoor was addressed by Bishop Thomas and diocesan officials about the allegation last week after he returned from his home parish in India.

The diocese says this is the first allegation regarding Father Punnoor, who has served in the Diocese of Toledo since April 2011. They say he passed necessary background checks and completed ‘safe environment training.’ …

Representatives of the group SNAP, or ‘Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests,’ say that’s not enough.

“We think that at a bare minimum, the Bishop should be reaching out and encouraging parishioners and employees and former employees and former parishioners to speak up. That it’s both their Christian and civic duty to report any information they have to the police. We think they should be reporting all of this information to police and law enforcement officials rather than to church officials,” said Barbara Blaine, President of SNAP.

The Toledo Diocese says it’s fully cooperating with the Children Services investigation. After it is complete and a report is giving on the findings, an ecclesiastical investigation will be open through the diocese.

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MINNESOTA
Sun Current

By Andrew Wig
May 27, 2015

A Richfield priest is on leave after an allegation of sexual abuse surfaced.

Rev. Gerald Dvorak, 61, a pastor at St. Peter’s Church in Richfield, is the subject of a “credible allegation” regarding the sexual abuse of a minor in the 1970s, according to a written statement from Archbishop John Nienstedt issued May 19.

Dvorak has been pastor at St. Peter’s since 2011 and was canonical administrator at Blessed Trinity Catholic School from 2011 to 2014, according to a list of Dvorak’s ministerial history provided by the Archdiocese of Minneapolis and Saint Paul.

That list dates Dvorak’s history with the ministry back to 1978, when he was a teaching parish seminarian at Saint Matthew’s Catholic Church in Saint Paul. The allegations pertain to Dvorak’s role as a seminarian, according to a letter to St. Peter’s parishioners signed by Deacon Mark Johanns. However, Nienstedt’s statement does not indicate the location to which the allegation refers.

But Nienstedt’s statement did explain what the allegation against Dvorak means.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Fermanagh Herald

LOCAL firebrand preacher Ivan Foster has launched a scathing attack on Irish Catholicism after the South’s landslide yes vote to legalising gay marriage saying the historic vote was a direct result of the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandals.

Speaking after 62 per cent of people in the South voted in favour of changing the constitution to allow gay and lesbian couple to marry, the former minister of Kilskeery Free Presbyterian Church went on to brand it as a “false religion” which has “cursed” Ireland.

In a statement sent to the Fermanagh Herald, the fundamentalist accused the South of defying God and “embracing sodomy”. “This has been done in defiance of God’s Word. That, of course, is hardly surprising since the people of the land have been under the heel of Romanism for centuries and have thereby been taught to pay scant heed to what the Bible says, irrespective of the allegiance to the Word of God that the Church of Rome professes.

“Romanism is a false religion which masquerades as the religion of the Lord Jesus Christ. It has indoctrinated the Irish people in its falsehoods for centuries. What a curse its dark shadow has been to Ireland.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Today

Mark Woods CHRISTIAN TODAY CONTRIBUTING EDITOR 27 May 2015

he hit US reality TV series 19 Kids and Counting, now in its 10th season, is built around the Duggar family, whose parents Jim Bob and Michelle have brought their many children up according to a strictly conservative religious ethic.

They don’t allow their children to wear revealing clothing and practise ‘chaperoned courtship’ in which no physical contact is allowed. They are strict disciplinarians who have also become spokespeople for conservative causes such as the campaign against same-sex marriage, opposition to abortion and home-schooling children.

Now, however, one of the children – Josh Duggar, now married with three children – has been found to have molested five girls, reportedly some of his own sisters among them, when he was a teenager more than 10 years ago, in 2002-3. The case had expired under the statute of limitations by the time it was reported to the police in 2006 and the police report itself was ordered destroyed by a judge last week, though it has been widely leaked on the internet. …

So is there any way back for the Duggars? Perhaps: but this is what their defenders are getting wrong.

1. They’re minimising Josh Duggar’s offences. They seem to be saying that because he ‘repented’, everything’s OK. But you don’t avoid paying the price for wrongdoing just by saying the right things.

2. They aren’t talking about the victims. The focus is all on Josh and the Duggar family. Actually, five girls were involved too, and the impact on them is simply not known. They might have been deeply marked, or not at all, but it surely wasn’t the senior Duggars’ call to make.

3. They’re angry and defensive. The Duggar family has been inspirational for a lot of conservative evangelicals and the temptation is to defend them to the hilt. That makes them blind to the real issues. Yes, some of their critics might be godless liberals who just want to give them a good kicking, but that doesn’t mean they’re wrong to criticise.

4. They aren’t admitting that the senior Duggars got it wrong. They seem to have thought the problem wasn’t a problem because they’d ‘dealt with it’. But they sidestepped the law. If they’d done the right thing, they might not have had a TV show but they wouldn’t be facing this firestorm. …

And this is what the Duggars’ attackers are getting wrong.

1. Some of them are driven by an irrelevant agenda. The Duggars are poster-children for everything liberal America hates: they’re outspoken evangelical Christians and conservative right-wingers who don’t believe in sexual permissiveness and are against homosexuality, abortion and gun control and are in favour of the death penalty. A lot of the critics are only too glad to see them take a tumble.

2. Some of them are angry because they think they’ve been betrayed. A lot of people looked up to the Duggars in a way that probably wasn’t very healthy. This was an American family that really seemed to work and that had traditional values. Finding out that they weren’t perfect hurt people, and that fuels the bitterness. Some people need to step back and dial it down.

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UNITED STATES
Daily Mail

[with copy of the police report]

By CHRIS SPARGO FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

A new report claims that last week’s unsealed police report that revealed the molestation of minors by Josh Duggar also exposed the fact that Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar use a ‘rod’ to ‘spank’ their children.

Radar Online is reporting that one of the unnamed minors police spoke to in their investigation made this accusation when they said ‘mother and dad spank’ followed by ‘they have a rod.’
According to the site, this individual is telling ‘investigators about alleged abuse by Jim Bob and Michelle.’

The actual police report does not at any point identify the minor being questioned or the who the ‘mother and father’ they are referring to in their statement might be.

The report reads; ‘Inv. Taylor asked [name redacted] about getting spanked. [Name redacted] said that when [redacted] is bad that [redacted] mother and dad spank [redacted].

‘Inv. Taylor asked what they use to spank. [Redacted] said that they have a rod.

‘Inv. Taylor asked if they do this to all the kids [redacted] said yes.

‘Inv. Taylor asked if they leave any bruising [redacted] said no.’

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ARKANSAS
In Touch Weekly

DUGGAR MOLESTATION CASE — ANOTHER BOMBSHELL REVEALED: JOSH SUED THE ARKANSAS DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES

The Josh Duggar molestation case did not end when Springdale, Ark. police closed their investigation in 2006 because the statute of limitations had run out, In Touch Weekly is reporting exclusively.

Police referred the matter to the Families in Need of Services agency, which has jurisdiction over minors. The Department of Human Services (DHS) was then brought into the case, In Touch has learned. Nine months after those agencies entered the Duggar molestation case, Josh Duggar sued the Arkansas Department of Human Services. A trial was held on August 6, 2007.

The results of the investigation into the Duggars and Josh’s trial are sealed. But a source familiar with the Duggar investigation told In Touch it was likely that Josh “appealed the DHS decision or finding from their investigation.” The source notes that DHS had the authority to apply “restrictions or stipulations about him being at home with the victims.

“Josh would be considered an in-home offender, giving DHS the authority to do an investigation. As part of your appeal rights you can request a DHS hearing to challenge what they found and their ruling.”

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ARKANSAS
New York Daily News

BY KIRTHANA RAMISETTI

A new revelation has been made in the the Duggar family’s molestation scandal.

Josh Duggar sued the Arkansas Department of Human Services several months after the police closed their 2006 investigation because the statute of limitations had run out, In Touch Weekly reports.

The publication reports that after the Springdale, Ark., police department ended its probe into allegations that 14-year-old Duggar had molested five girls (including possibly his sisters) in 2002, police referred the issue to the Families in Need of Services agency, which looks into cases involving minors.

The Department of Human Services was also brought into case, the publication reports. Nine months after the two agencies looked into the matter, Duggar sued the Department of Human Services, with the trial taking place August 6, 2007.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Jewish News

The Chief Rabbi will hold a compulsory seminar for United Synagogue rabbis to help them respond to incidents of child abuse, following the conviction of a Charedi teacher.

Writing on his website this week in the wake of the trial of Todros Grynhaus, a 50-year-old father of 10 from Manchester who was found guilty on five counts of sexual abuse of girls as young as 14, Ephraim Mirvis stated: “The conviction of a prominent member of the Manchester Jewish community for sexual abuse is of immense significance.

“I would like to commend the victims and others who withstood tremendous pressure and gave evidence. I hope that their courage will inspire others to come forward in the future.

This kind of abuse is a stain on all of society and we are no less vulnerable to the scourge of sexual crimes than any other community.

“Further to previously held training seminars for rabbis, I will be writing this week to rabbis across the country, advising them of a mandatory, dedicated seminar that the United Synagogue is organising on behalf of its communities, in order to better prepare rabbis to identify and respond to incidents of child abuse in their communities and to reinforce the importance of being vigilant at all times. In addition, I am meeting with victims of abuse and campaigners in this area to seek views from them as to what more can be done to better protect vulnerable people in our communities.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
JTA

May 27, 2015

(JTA) — British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis called on the Jewish community to report allegations of sexual abuse “without delay.”

The statement was issued on Wednesday by the Office of the Chief Rabbi in the wake of the conviction last week of a well-known teacher at several Jewish schools for sexually assaulting in the 1990s two girls who came forward in 2013.

“Perpetrators of these crimes destroy lives, and every one of us shares in the responsibility to protect victims and potential victims. As such, we must not only ensure that all incidents are reported to the police without delay, but that we must do everything in our power to promote a culture whereby reporting such crimes to the relevant statutory authorities is supported and encouraged,” the rabbi said in his statement.

“I would like to commend the victims and others who withstood tremendous pressure and gave evidence. I hope that their courage will inspire others to come forward in the future,” Mirvis also said

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UNITED STATES
Thomas P. Doyle, J.C.D., C.A.D.C.

[note: This story does not link to a web site.]

May 26, 2015

Recently a prominent psychologist with over two decades of intense experience helping clergy abuse victims said that the most morally compromised group of people he knew of were the attorneys who represent the Catholic Church in the abuse cases. The recent pronouncement of Francis LoCoco, lead lawyer for the Milwaukee Archdiocese, confirms this opinion. “Let’s spend the money” he is quoted as saying, in reference to the 56 million dollars that Cardinal Dolan illegally and immorally tried to divert in the notorious Milwaukee bankruptcy proceedings. Lest the lawyers bear the brunt of the blame, the main culprits are the present archbishop, Listecki, and his predecessor, Dolan. The squadron of attorneys work for them and not the other way around.

When abuse survivors call attention to the stonewalling tactics and often-vicious attitudes of the Church’s lawyers, its not uncommon for the bishops to plead innocence, claiming that it’s the lawyers doing their job. But the lawyers are hired by and work for the bishop and not vice versa. The disgusting charade going on in Milwaukee was cooked up by and has been sustained by Dolan and Listecki. Thus far the Milwaukee lawyers have spent over $20 million dollars to stonewall the victims. Some bishops and church cheerleaders in this case and others have regularly tried to blame the victims and their lawyers, claiming they are only in it for the money. This is nonsense. The Church lawyers get paid by the hour, win or lose. Victims’ lawyers are paid on the contingency that the case will end in favor of the victim. I have known lawyers who represented victims who took major cuts so that their clients would end up with some respectable compensation. How many of the Church lawyers work sex abuse cases pro bono? The money the archbishop is encouraging his lawyers to squander comes from the People of God of the archdiocese.

The bankruptcy process was initiated over four years ago, on January 4, 2011 to be exact, two days before the archbishop was scheduled to be deposed. The church’s lawyers are challenging each and every claim of the 570 victims who have come forward. Many of the claimants were among the 200 deaf boys sexually violated by Fr. Lawrence Murphy at St. John’s School for the Deaf. These victims have been fighting for decades for some form of justice and what they have received instead has been vicious, dishonest and certainly unchristian revictimization.

The archbishops of Milwaukee going back to Cardinal Albert Meyer have all played a key role in making the Milwaukee Church unique in its hypocritical and narcissistic response to the havoc caused by its priests. Meyer was told about Lawrence Murphy way back in the mid fifties and sent him on retreat for a month. The Redemptorist priest who reported Murphy to Cardinal Meyer also reported his behavior to the Apostolic delegate in Washington so the Holy See effectively knew about Murphy way back then.

Archbishop Cousins, whose tenure lasted from 1958 to 1977, knew about Murphy and not only did nothing, but he threatened one of the deaf boys who reported Murphy and forced him to sign a letter of retraction.

Rembert Weakland was archbishop from 1977 to 2002. He was faced with reports not only about Murphy but several other Milwaukee priests. Weakland’s track record in responding to victims is far from stellar but at least he tried to get Murphy laicized with no success, thanks to former Pope Benedict and his cohort, Cardinal Bertone who refused Weakland’s request and allowed Murphy to live out his days in the dignity of his priesthood while his victims lived out their days in the agony of his abuse. Then came Dolan in 2002.

Dolan tried to deal with the sex abuse nightmare primarily with his “hail fellow well met” personality but his rhetoric and back-slapping fell flat in the face of what he was really up to. Bankruptcy was being used by some bishops as a way to avoid trials and the revelation of the truth that comes with them, as well as a way to limit the compensation given to victims. Although he would be gone when the bankruptcy process started Dolan obviously knew where it was all going. He diverted approximately $56 million dollars into a cemetery trust in 2007. When accused of trying to hide the money in 2011, he lashed out at victims’ attorney Jeff Anderson and accused him of spreading “groundless gossip.” Dolan’s lie was discovered when a letter he wrote to the Vatican in 2007 came to light….a letter in which he sought permission to transfer the $56 million to a restricted trust. Why? To quote his own words “I foresee an improved protection of these funds from and legal claim and liability.” A local judge, Rudolph Randa, ruled that the transfer was protected by the first amendment and that “removing some or all of these funds from the trust and placing them in the bankruptcy estate would undoubtedly put substantial pressure on Archbishop Listecki to modify his behavior and violate his beliefs.” Over two years later a federal appeals court ruled that Randa was not only wrong but should have removed himself from the case. The $56 million was back on the table. Now LoCoco and his fellow lawyers have declared that they plan on spending it all in litigation. Is this protracted and obscenely expensive process about achieving justice and assuring fair compensation for victims, as Archbishop Listecki has claimed in attempting to justify it? Not by a long shot!

In his narcissistic arrogance Listecki openly invited all who were sexually abused to step forward: “nothing will prevent me from making every possible effort at moving forward toward healing and resolution with those who have been harmed.” His real plan was to get them all to step up so that he could have his lawyers do everything possible to have their cases thrown out of court. The best comment on this comes from one of the victims: “These victims have already been betrayed by the Church in the most damaging ways imaginable. How could the archbishop, a man of God, then proceed to try to throw each and every one of their cases out of court? This action in effect re-abused and betrayed these fragile victims yet again.”

Judge Randa said that putting the cemetery trust millions back on the table would put pressure on Listecki to violate his beliefs. What beliefs? There is nothing even remotely Christian or even Catholic about the travesty he is presiding over. He’s a civil lawyer himself so he knows well that the millions spent thus far represent countless billable hours for the lawyers defending his strategy. This is tons of money they will take home whether they win or lose. The only belief that seems to be in danger of violation is the belief that the victims whose lives have already been severely damaged by the negligence of his predecessor, must now be pounded into the ground and defeated once and for all.

The Milwaukee bankruptcy has been a mockery of the American judicial process. It is an unconscionable abuse and subversion of the legal process, using it as a weapon to punish and further traumatize the victims. It has surely justified the pessimistic and negative image of civil attorneys and it has also made a mockery of the office of bishop. It is an example of the virus of clericalism at its virulent worst. What Dolan, Listecki and the phalanx of attorneys have completely lost sight of, in addition to the objective meaning if justice, is what this is really all about: several hundred young boys and girls who were believing and trusting Catholics and who were betrayed and violated in the worst imaginable ways by the very men they trusted. As their lives unfolded they had the courage to take the risk of confronting the Archdiocese. Rather than act like the Body of Christ, the leaders of this Church have come at the victims with every resource available to punish them for having had the audacity to demand that which their Church incessantly preaches about, justice and charity.

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IRELAND
Religion News Service

Paul F. Morrissey / USA Today | May 27, 2015

How is it possible that Ireland, one of the most Catholic countries in the world, voted overwhelmingly to legalize gay marriage in an historic vote on May 22?

Throughout the world, the Roman Catholic Church has made opposition to gay marriage its hallmark for the past few years, even as the momentum for “marriage equality” has grown in leaps and bounds. One reason that this stunning two-to-one approval has taken place in Ireland, the first country on the world to do so, is precisely because Ireland is so overwhelmingly Catholic.

Ireland, the source of Catholic missionaries throughout the word for hundreds of years, has suffered a drastic exodus of people from its church-going ranks since the sexual abuse scandal broke into public view during the past decade. The majority of Irish men and women may still call themselves Catholic, but they no longer accept the hierarchy as believable, particularly in matters of sexual morality. Thus, the stunning rejection of the church’s view of gay marriage as an invalid relationship in the eyes of God and the church. What the church teaches about sexuality is rejected almost as a duty. The church has no credibility in matters of sexuality in Ireland.

The Irish have been brought up by the Catholic Church to view marriage as a sacrament and that’s the reason they can shift sideways to see a same-sex relationship in the same God-blessed way. Because marriage is a beautiful commitment of love, taught to them by the church, the Irish can make the connection to two people of the same sex loving each other with a similar commitment. It is the love commitment they value, and have come to see in their friends and family members who are gay and lesbian as well. Love conquers. The Irish are lovers. It doesn’t matter who the partners are — “I promise to love you all the days of my life, so help me God.”

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MINNESOTA
Hastings Star Gazette

By Jane Lightbourn

A Dakota County jury decided that there was not enough evidence to convict a former Hastings priests of criminal sexual abuse.

On Tuesday evening, after four hours of deliberations, the jury acquitted former priest Francis Hoefgen of two counts of criminal sexual conduct in the first degree. The trial had begun last Wednesday, May 20, and concluded earlier Tuesday.

Hoefgen, 64, now living in Columbia Heights, had been accused of repeatedly sexually assaulting a former altar boy at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church in Hastings from the spring of 1989 to the fall of 1991. Hoefgen had pleaded not guilty to the charges filed almost a year ago in Dakota Country District Court.

Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom said it was difficult to prosecute the case.

“We respect the jury’s decision in this matter and will always be grateful for the courage shown by the individual who came forward to share his story of sexual assault he said was inflicted upon him many years by the defendant,” he said. “Proving beyond a reasonable doubt that a crime occurred 24, 26 years years ago without significant collaborating physical evidence of the crime itself is always a difficult task. Without such corroborating evidence the jury must render the decision based primarily upon the person’s word against that of another.”

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UNITED STATES
Think Progress

BY JACK JENKINS POSTED ON MAY 27, 2015

Last week, famously Catholic Ireland voted overwhelmingly to legalize same-sex marriage in a national referendum, making it the first nation in the world to enact marriage equality through a popular vote. Within hours of the results, several journalists and pundits painted the results as a victory for secularism and a telltale sign of Ireland’s willingness to abandon the Catholic Church, which staunchly condemns same-sex marriage and whose leaders urged their congregants to vote against LGBT equality. The Church’s longstanding influence on Irish life, they concluded, was ending.

But while the narrative of a dying church is tidy, it fails to account for a religious and distinctly Catholic movement for LGBT equality quietly triumphing in Ireland and elsewhere. To be sure, recent census results show a marked growth in Irish who don’t affiliate with any religious tradition, and a notable drop in the number who attend mass each week. This is largely due to the dark specter of the child sex abuse scandal, which was particularly horrific in Ireland, as well a younger generation fed up with conservative views of homosexuality. But for all this talk of a vanishing Catholic Church, Ireland remains a deeply Catholic nation: although more than 62 percent of Irish who voted in the referendum supported same-sex marriage, a full 83.2 percent of the population still claims to be Catholic.

While the narrative of a dying church is tidy, it fails to account for a religious and distinctly Catholic movement for LGBT equality quietly triumphing in Ireland and elsewhere.

So how did so many self-identified Catholics vote for something their Church blatantly forbids? There were no national exit polls for the referendum, but Ursula Halligan, a prominent Irish TV news presenter in Ireland, offered a clue earlier this month in an op-ed for the Irish Times. In it, she detailed her own struggle with sexual identity — explaining how she fell in love with a girl at 17 — before boldly claiming that her support for same-sex marriage was not a rejection of her faith, but a passionate embrace of the person God compels her to be.

“As a person of faith and a Catholic, I believe a Yes vote is the most Christian thing to do,” Halligan wrote. “I believe the glory of God is the human being fully alive and that this includes people who are gay.”

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Anniversaries for Finn & Law

What a weekend it was! No one apparently noticed that over Memorial Day, it was Robert Finn ten year anniversary of taking over the Kansas City diocese AND the 30 year anniversary of Bernard Law being named a cardinal.

With the possible exception of Cardinal Edward Egan, Cardinal Roger Mahony, Archbishop John Nienstedt, Archbishop John Myers, could there be two more disgraced US Catholic prelates than Finn and Law, the first US bishop who was convicted in the abuse crisis and the first US bishop who resigned in the abuse crisis?

As we said recently in a post on Marci Hamilton’s blog: Some call Finn’s belated resignation “punishment.” But we don’t.

Finn did no jail time, of course.

He still wears a Roman collar. In fact, he still wears the pointy bishop’s hat too. And the fancy ring and robes.

That’s right – he’s still a bishop. He’s just been freed from the mundane chores of running a diocese.
But he still gets the glory roles: twice this month, to the chagrin of many, he ordained the newest clerics into the diocese.

That leads many to wonder if Finn will be showing up for graduations, ground-breakings, confirmations, funerals and other functions in Kansas City for years to come. (He’s an apparently healthy 62 years old.)

And when hundreds of US prelates gather next month in St. Louis for their annual meeting, Finn will likely be there. Ditto for bishops’ installations and the papal trip to the east coast this fall.”

[Hamilton and Griffin on Rights]

Like Finn, Law was let down easy too.

After a brief, low key stint staying with some nuns, Law rose to even greater power in Rome than ever before, exercising even more influence on the world-wide church as he sat, for years, on several key Vatican committees, including the one that helped pick and promote prelates all across the planet.

In the Catholic Church, nearly every other prevention measure – except punishing the hierarchy – has failed. Despite decades of scandals, lawsuits, settlements, exposes, prosecutions, and defections, bishops keep protecting predators and endangering kids.

So something more and different must be done. Punishing wrongdoers must happen, instead of promoting wrongdoers.

But don’t hold your breath waiting for justice in the church. Just be grateful for – and keep pushing for – justice in the courts.

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