ABUSE TRACKER

NEW HAMPSHIRE
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

[with video]

By LYNNE TUOHY

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A teenage girl who accused a senior at an elite New Hampshire prep school of raping her last year told jurors Wednesday that she felt “frozen” when he became aggressive.

The accuser testified that Owen Labrie, of Tunbridge, Vermont, bit her breast and tried to pull her underwear off in a building at St. Paul’s School two days before his graduation in 2014. On the witness stand, the girl said she was in pain when he bit her and during intercourse but said nothing to Labrie, who was 18 at the time. She was a 15-year-old freshman.

“I’m thinking how naive of myself, and I never should have left my room that night,” she testified. “I felt like I was out of my body. … I didn’t want to believe this was happening to me.”

Prosecutors have said the rape occurred as part of a tradition at St. Paul’s called “Senior Salute” in which seniors try to have sex with underclassmen.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
NBC News

[with video]

by JON SCHUPPE

A 16-year-old girl who says she was raped at a prestigious New Hampshire prep school returned to the witness stand on Wednesday, describing a secret date with an older boy that turned suddenly aggressive.

The girl described her confusion as he groped her in secluded room of a campus building at St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire. “I felt like I was frozen,” she said through tears as she described the accused, Owen Labrie, kissing and biting her and trying to pull down her underwear.

As the groping continued, she said, “I felt like I had no control. I felt like I couldn’t say no.”

At one point, the girl said, she did say no. But as the alleged attack continued, she said she tried to zone out, looking at the ceiling and trying to ignore the pain.

“I didn’t want to believe that this was happening to me,” the girl said under questioning from Deputy Merrimack County Attorney Catherine Ruffle.

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NORTH CAROLINA
StarNews

By F.T. Norton
StarNews Staff
Published: Wednesday, August 19, 2015

NEW HANOVER COUNTY — A former youth pastor was arrested this week on a sexual assault allegation from 2013.

Donald Dwayne Ramsey, 45, is charged with felony second-degree sexual offense. He was arrested July 24 at his home in Wapakoneta, Ohio, on the New Hanover County warrant.

New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office investigators picked Ramsey up from Ohio on Sunday, said Sgt. Jerry Brewer.

According to Brewer, Ramsey was a youth pastor at Peace Baptist Church on Military Cutoff Road.

The alleged offense took place while Ramsey was working in his capacity as youth pastor and at a time when he was supposed to be taking the 16-year-old female victim to the church, Brewer said.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Angela Lavoipierre

The number of people enrolled in child safe training with the advocacy group Bravehearts has increased almost six-fold since the royal commission into child sexual abuse was announced in late 2012.

The programs teach adults how to spot and respond to child sexual abuse.

“We’re getting organisations across the board — sporting, church, commercial organisations — ringing us up,” said Bravehearts chief executive Hetty Johnston.

“[They’re] saying, ‘We need some help, we need to know all about this issue, we need to make sure that as we’re up the frontline with these children, that we’re going to be responding appropriately if ever this issues come home to roost in our organisation’.”

In 2011, Bravehearts trained 375 people in how to better identify and respond to child sexual abuse as well as other types of harm experienced by children, such as bullying.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Michael Sean Winters | Aug. 19, 2015

We are more than two years into the papacy of Pope Francis. The entire nation is focused on his upcoming visit to the United States, which will begin exactly one month from Saturday. In DC, I can assure you, the begging and the shoving and the cajoling to get tickets to one of the papal events is unlike anything I have ever seen. So, it is a good time to discern what are the most important themes in this pontificate, what are the areas of continuity and discontinuity from previous pontificates, and where is Pope Francis leading the Church at this moment in time. Or put differently, who is this man who is coming to America next month?

Today, I kick off a series of columns that will set the table for the pope’s visit. Today, I explore what I think is the over-arching theme of this pontificate, and tomorrow, I will examine how that one large theme plays out in six, smaller sub-themes. Friday, we will dig down on what we can expect specifically from his talks – and more than the talks, from the gestures – in the U.S. Next week I will examine how the pope challenges both the Catholic Left and the Catholic Right.

I discern one overarching theme to this pontificate, with several subheadings, and a second major theme that has not been much remarked upon. The overarching theme is this: The Church has become too self-referential and worldly, and this has crippled its ability to evangelize, to spread the Good News, to be the graced sacrament where people encounter the Risen Lord, leaving the Church sick or irrelevant or both, and the antidote is a Church of encounter, especially at the margins, after the model of Jesus. That, in one sentence, is the essence of this pontificate and he returns to this theme again and again. Just last month, in one of his morning sermons, the Holy Father recalled Jesus throwing the money changers out of the temple and he said:

The people who went on a pilgrimage there to implore the blessing of our Lord, to make a sacrifice: Those people there were exploited! The priests were not teaching them to pray or giving them a catechesis… it was a den of thieves…. I don’t know… maybe we’d do well to reflect on whether we encounter similar things going on in some places. It’s using God’s things for our own profit.

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KENTUCKY
WAVE

By Katie Bauer

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) – A Louisville Archdiocese accountant was about to be indicted for stealing half a million dollars from three parishes, but the case was halted.

The woman at the center of all, Lisa Roth, took her own life on July 6th, the same week an audit was set to occur.

The Fayette County Coroner’s Office in Lexington confirmed that Roth, 60, had committed suicide.

Archdiocese officials said they’re using the case as a wakeup call. When it comes to handling church funds, there are specific policies in place.

“We have very clear written procedures about how money is — cash or non cash gifts are treated, everything from how it is counted, recorded and deposited,” Archdiocese Chancellor Dr. Brian Reynolds said.

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KENTUCKY
Lex 18

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) A court case in Louisville was halted after a Louisville Archdiocese accountant took her own life on July 6.

The accountant, Lisa Roth, was about to be indicted for allegedly stealing half a million dollars from three parishes.

The Fayette County Coroner’s office in Lexington confirmed that Roth, 60, had committed suicide, the week she was supposed to be audited.

Archdiocesan officials said that there are specific policies in place for handling church funds, and they are using this case as a wakeup call.

“We have very clear written procedures about how money is – cash or no cash gifts are treated, everything from how it is counted, recorded and deposited,” Archdiocese Chancellor Dr. Brian Reynolds told Wave 3 reporter.

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FIJI
Fiji Broadcasting Corporation

A fifty four year old priest of Lautoka has been acquitted of rape by the Lautoka High Court.

It was alleged that in 2011 at Balevuto in Ba, Jagdish Sharma allegedly raped the complaint after entering her home through a window one evening before making her drink beer.

During the cross examination, the complainant admitted consenting to sex and stated she only reported the matter out of anger.

The complainant also admitted that she knew the accused from childhood and they have been friends for many years since they were born in the same village.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Mark Mueller | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on August 19, 2015

In an extraordinary admission of wrongdoing, a priest sought by authorities in New Jersey has acknowledged engaging in a sexual encounter with a 15-year-old boy, but he deflected blame for the incident by saying the teen “wanted” it and had “evil in his mind.”

In a telephone interview with NJ Advance Media, in email exchanges and in a lengthy post he shared publicly on Twitter, the Rev. Manuel Gallo Espinoza said it was a “mistake” to have sexual contact with the boy in the rectory of a Plainfield church in 2003. He said he fled to his native Ecuador after the victim told a nun and another priest that Gallo Espinoza raped him.

“One thing that I am conscious (of) is he was at that time a teenager, and it is a big mistake for me. But I didn’t force him to do anything he didn’t want,” Gallo Espinoza wrote. “He was older (sic) enough to walk away, but I think that I was attracted to him, that is the only explanation that I can think right now.”

Gallo Espinoza added: “He had something evil in his mind. He approached me many times.”

The 51-year-old priest, who was not questioned by detectives in 2003 because he could not be located, is now the subject of a criminal investigation by the Union County Prosecutor’s Office.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

By Phil Lawler
Aug 18, 2015

Karl Keating, the founder of Catholic Answers, raises an interesting question: A New Pope in 2016? This is not a prediction, he emphasizes; it’s a sort of mental exercise.

Pope Francis has referred to the resignation of his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, as “a beautiful gesture of nobility, of humility and courage,” Keating reminds readers. Last year the Pontiff told reporters that he expected his own pontificate “will last a short time: two or three years.” In 2016, he will have been Pope for three years.

(It is not clear whether Pope Francis meant to say that he would serve for a total of 2-3 years, or for 2-3 years past the time when he made that statement in 2014, which was already one year into his papacy. But even if he meant the latter, Keating observes, “Two years from 2014 is 2016.”)

But that’s not the only reason why Keating wonders if 2016 could bring another papal resignation. Pope Francis, he recalls, was elected with the expectation that he would bring reform to the Vatican. He has certainly changed the public image of the papacy, and under the guidance Cardinal Pell, the Vatican’s finances have finally been brought under rational control. But as for the Roman Curia, Keating judges: “Two-and-a-half years into Francis’s papacy, not much seems to have changed.”

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PERU
Malay Mail

LIMA, Aug 18 — Peru’s leading newspaper said it will no longer publish editorials by the cardinal and archbishop of Lima after accusing him of plagiarising past popes in his articles.

The suspect stories have also been taken down from the website of El Comercio “because the newspaper does not publish articles in which the text is signed by someone but in reality written by another,” the publication said.

An investigation by the Peruvian website Utero.pe revealed last week that Juan Luis Cipriani had copied portions of the book Communio, written by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger before he became Pope Benedict XVI, and of the encyclical Ecclesiam Suam, written by Pope Paul VI in two of his editorials.

The revelations unleashed a flood of social media criticism against Cipriani, a prominent conservative and member of Opus Dei.

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MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

08/18/2015

Jennifer Haselberger

Last Friday, Curtis Wehmeyer, once a priest of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, pleaded guilty to third degree sexual assault in Chippewa County, Wisconsin. Wehmeyer, who is currently serving a five-year sentence at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Lino Lakes, was sentenced to an additional three years in prison followed by three years of supervised release.

Sadly, Friday’s guilty plea and sentencing arose from charges that in 2011 Wehmeyer sexually assaulted a teenage boy after the teen had passed out after drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana provided to him by Wehmeyer. The teen victim is the older brother of the two victims who were abused beginning in 2010.

Those who have been following the abuse cases involving Wehmeyer will recall that in May of 2011, presumably before the camping trip in Wisconsin, Father Kevin McDonough disregarded my warning that Wehmeyer’s parishes had not been informed of his sexual issues. The memo from McDonough to Father Laird and Tim Rourke, the monitor assigned by the Archdiocese to oversee sexually abusive priests, arguing against the need for disclosure is one of the most damning aspects of this tragedy. The mother of the victims was an employee of the parish at which Wehmeyer served.

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OREGON
WJTV

SHERWOOD, Ore. (KOIN) — An arrest warrant was issued Tuesday for a local priest who was placed on administrative leave last month for allegedly lying about hidden cameras found in a church bathroom.

But officials said they believe he may have left the country.

A warrant was issued for the arrest of 34-year-old Father Ysrael Bien for personal invasion of privacy, tampering with physical evidence and initiating a false police report.

In June, police said a teenager discovered a camera disguised as an outlet on a bathroom wall at St. Francis Catholic Church in Sherwood.

He allegedly told Fr. Bien about the camera, who then told the boy he would report it to police.

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OREGON
KATU

SHERWOOD, Ore. — A Sherwood priest is wanted in connection with a hidden camera discovered at his church earlier this year.

The hidden camera was found last May inside a bathroom socket at St. Francis Catholic Church. When it was first discovered, Sherwood Police say the church’s priest, Father Ysrael Bien, reportedly lied to a parishoner that he had filed a police report and that an investigation was ongoing.

He’s now wanted on charges of invasion of privacy, tampering with evidence and initiating a false report.

According to a news release, police believe Bien may have left the country.

Officials at the Archdiocese of Portland said in a statement late Tuesday that Bien was placed on administrative leave because of the investigation. Officials said they were saddened to learn that he was being charged.

“It is gravely troubling to find out that one of our priests has been charged with criminal misconduct, but we appreciate the diligence of the Sherwood Police Department in pursuing its investigation of the incident,” said Archbishop Alexander Sample in the statement. “We will continue to cooperate with authorities in the resolution of this matter. Our prayers are with parishioners of Saint Francis Church, Sherwood, and all who have been affected.”

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OREGON
The Oregonian

By Emily E. Smith | The Oregonian/OregonLive
on August 18, 2015

An arrest warrant was issued Tuesday for Father Ysrael Bien, a Sherwood priest, in the case of a hidden camera found in a church bathroom.

Bien, 34, is wanted on misdemeanor charges of invasion of privacy, tampering with evidence and initiating a false report. Sherwood Capt. Ty Hanlon, a police spokesman, said officers believe the priest may have left the country.

The arrest warrant comes after police obtained records showing that a “wall socket hidden camera” was purchased under Bien’s name and shipped to Bien’s address, Hanlon said.

The investigation began in May after a 15-year-old parishioner of St. Francis Catholic Church discovered the camera April 26, court records say.

In the bathroom next to the vesting room, where altar servers and the priest prepare for Mass, the teenager noticed an electrical outlet placed at waist-height next to the toilet. Thinking that was odd, he pulled it from the wall and brought it to the priest. The device contained a hidden camera.

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OREGON
Washington Times

By – Associated Press – Tuesday, August 18, 2015

SHERWOOD, Ore. (AP) – Police have obtained an arrest warrant for an Oregon priest after a 15-year-old parishioner discovered a hidden camera in a church bathroom, but authorities believe the priest may have left the country.

The warrant, issued Tuesday by Washington County Circuit Court, seeks the arrest of Father Ysrael Bien of St. Francis Catholic Church in Sherwood for invasion of privacy, tampering with evidence and initiating a false police report.

Sherwood police said they tried to find Bien, but another priest told them he had left the country. The Oregonian reported (http://is.gd/alqVyQ ) hat Portland Archbishop Alexander Sample said in a statement Tuesday that church officials learned only after Bien had left that he had gone to the Philippines, where he has family.

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ARKANSAS
Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

By Ron Wood
Posted: August 19, 2015

FAYETTEVILLE — A juvenile court judge denied motions Tuesday from Springdale and the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette related to whether police should release copies of a 911 call in May from outside the Jim Bob Duggar home.

Washington County Circuit Judge Stacey Zimmerman said the 911 call and any related documents are outside the scope of any orders she issued related to a 2007 Families in Need of Services case involving the Duggar family.

A procedure to allow a nonparty, called intervenor, to join ongoing litigation, either as a matter of right or at the discretion of the court, without the permission of the original litigants. The basic rationale for intervention is that a judgment in a particular case may affect the rights of nonparties, who ideally should have the right to be heard.

Springdale police released in June a number of documents requested by Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporter Doug Thompson under the Freedom of Information Act, but didn’t include the May 27 audio recording of a 911 call. The call had previously been released to In Touch magazine and received extensive press coverage.

The magazine’s account of the recording says the 911 caller identified himself as a Washington County case worker for the state Department of Human Services. He was quoted as giving the Duggar’s address and saying: “We have an investigation, and I guess they’re not being cooperative. We have to see the child to make sure the child is all right. So we just need police assistance.”

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SCOTLAND
The National

YESTERDAY’S apology by the Catholic Church has been a long time coming. The Church has known for decades that some priests have inflicted horrific sexual abuse on children who trusted them.

It has known and done nothing to give the victims support and help. Instead its efforts have concentrated on covering up the crimes and protecting the perpetrators.

Yesterday’s publication of the McLellan report and the apology delivered by Archbishop Phillip Tartaglia may have been years too late but have to be regarded as at least steps in the right direction.

The report contains many sensible recommendations, which the Church has promised to act upon.

It urges the Church, for instance, to scrap its existing safeguarding policies and replace them with new practices that are fit for purpose. It calls for a consistent approach to dealing with allegations across the country and better training in the Church.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

19 August, 2015

The public hearing was held in September 2014 and examined the experiences of 10 former residents of the Retta Dixon Home in Darwin.

The Retta Dixon Home was established by Australian Indigenous Ministries (AIM) at Bagot Aboriginal Reserve in 1946 as a home for Aboriginal children and mothers and a hostel for young Aboriginal women.

AIM accepts that, before 2013, AIM did not have any guidelines or procedures for persons working with children on how to respond to allegations of child sexual abuse.

AIM accepts that from 1947 until 1980, when the Retta Dixon Home operated, AIM did not provide training to persons who worked at the home on how to detect or respond to child sexual abuse.

Following a number of failings on the part of AIM the Commissioners have concluded that, in respect of the matters the subject of the case study, AIM did not meet the obligations that it had to children in its care, including protection from sexual abuse.

The Commissioners were unable to make a finding on the material presented to the Royal Commission as to whether or not the Commonwealth failed in its duty of care to the children of the Retta Dixon Home. However, a question remains as to whether in the circumstances the Commonwealth should have taken remedial action to protect the residents of the home from sexual abuse.

Read The Report of Case Study No. 17 at the Royal Commission’s website.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Helen Davidson and agencies
@heldavidson
Wednesday 19 August 2015

Australian Indigenous Ministries failed to meet its obligations to protect children, including from sexual abuse, when it ran the Retta Dixon home for Aboriginal children and mothers in Darwin for more than 40 years, the child abuse royal commission has found.

The commission was unable to make a finding on whether the commonwealth government also failed in its obligations.

“However, a question remains as to whether in the circumstances the commonwealth should have taken remedial action to protect the residents of the home from sexual abuse,” it said.

The findings, released on Wednesday, were based on a public hearing held in Darwin in late 2014, which heard from men and women abused as children between 1947 and 1980 at the Retta Dixon home. The institution was established in 1946 “for half-caste children and mothers”.

Many who were taken to Retta Dixon under what was then Australian law now identify as members of the stolen generation.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Brian Donnelly, Senior News Reporter / Tuesday 18 August 2015

AN abuse survivor has criticised the most senior Catholic Archbishop in Scotland for delivering an apology to victims in the setting of a church mass.

Former nun Helen Holland said the apology would not reach victims of abuse because most have long since broken ties with the institution.

The 55-year-old, who was sexually abused in a children’s home run by nuns and priests in Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, said she believed the apology that came after an inquiry into abuse in the Catholic Church in Scotland was a missed opportunity.

She said: “I am not sure who the Archbishop was apologising to because most survivors of abuse I know don’t go back to the church.

“It is sad. I think a lot of survivors had expected more from it.

“I also think it is ironic that the Catholic Church needs to be told to apologise.”

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

BY STEPHEN STEWART

ARCHBISHOP Philip Tartaglia said Scottish bishops were “shamed and pained” by the suffering over the years.

SCOTLAND’S most senior Catholic yesterday offered a “profound” apology to the Church’s sex abuse victims.

Archbishop Philip Tartaglia said Scottish bishops were “shamed and pained” by the suffering over the years.

But campaigners dismissed the apology as empty words. And they accused the Catholic Church of glossing over decades of abuse.

Tartaglia spoke out after an independent commission set up to investigate abuse called on the Church to make an “unmistakeable and unequivocal” apology.

Speaking at St Andrew’s Cathedral in Glasgow, the archbishop said: “On behalf of all the Bishops of Scotland, I want to offer a profound apology to all those who have been harmed and who have suffered in any way as a result of actions by anyone within the Catholic Church.

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

FOR the thousands of abuse victims, yesterday’s apology from the Catholic Church in Scotland was far too little, far too late.

Scotland’s most senior Catholic, Archbishop Philip Tartaglia, offered a “profound apology” to victims of abuse within the church following the release of an independent review of how they handled past allegations.

It has taken much too long for the church in ­Scotland to show contrition and it would feel more sincere if they had not acted only hours after the McLellan report told them to.

Of 46 allegations made against the Catholic Church between 2006 and 2012, only 39 per cent resulted in prosecution, a lack of action that speaks louder than any repentance from a pulpit.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
New Hampshire Union Leader

By DALE VINCENT
New Hampshire Union Leader

CONCORD – Owen Labrie, accused of raping a 15-year-old fellow student at St. Paul’s School on May 30, 2014, in a tradition called “Senior Salute,” will testify in his Merrimack County Superior Court trial.

Labrie, 19, of Tunbridge, Vt., was a graduating senior and a Prefect, a student leader, when he’s accused of inviting the girl to meet him for the Senior Salute, which allegedly occurred in a room in one of the campus buildings that was off limits to students.

In her opening statement, Assistant Merrimack County Attorney Catherine Ruffle told jurors Tuesday that the victim, who is not being named by the newspaper, will testify she was not a willing participant in the sexual activity.

Ruffle said people had different ideas of just what the Senior Salute entailed, with some thinking it was as simple as kissing. Others thought of it as taking the virginity of an underclassman.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
The News Tribune

BY LYNNE TUOHY
Associated Press

CONCORD, N.H.
The teenager who says she was raped last year by a senior at the elite St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire will return to the witness stand to testify about events surrounding the alleged assault.

The accuser, who was 15 at the time, said she initially declined an invitation by then 18-year-old Owen Labrie of Tunbridge, Vermont, to Senior Salute — the practice of seniors boys making sexual conquests of younger students before they graduate.

She said she was familiar with the tradition, but testified she didn’t think at the time it involved any “special expectations.”

Defense attorney J.W. Carney told jurors Tuesday that emails between the two suggest the girl was a willing participant.

Carney, who minimized the Senior Salute element, read to jurors from a string of emails between the two before and immediately after they got together the night of May 30, 2014 — two days before Labrie graduated. In them, the freshman agreed to meet Labrie “only if it’s our little secret.”

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

NO-ONE can doubt the sincerity of the profound apology offered by the Archbishop of Glasgow to those abused at the hands of the Catholic Church.

From the pulpit, Archbishop Philip Tartaglia spoke of the “horrific crime” of child abuse that had been carried out within the church and pleaded for forgiveness.

After years of cover-up, at last the Catholic Church appears to be acknowledging what Tartaglia described as the “inexcusable and intolerable” crimes committed by a religious institution found guilty of damaging children in the most appalling way imaginable.

Tartaglia’s apology was made following the publication of yesterday’s independent report into abuse carried out by those involved with the church – a document that made very grim reading indeed.

The investigation, led by Dr Andrew McLellan, a former Moderator of the Church of Scotland, touched on the devastation wrought on young lives by those they were supposed to trust.

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SCOTLAND
The National

AUGUST 19TH, 2015

JANICE BURNS

CHILD abuse victims reacted with anger yesterday at the outcome of a long-running inquiry into the Catholic Church in Scotland’s handling of the scandal, describing it as “a joke” and “total bull****”.

Survivors’ groups insisted the eight recommendations laid down in the McLellan Commission report published yesterday was “nothing but a face-saving exercise to restore the damaged reputation of the Catholic Church”, offering nothing to help victims rebuild their broken lives.

A commission led by the Very Rev Andrew McLellan demanded that the Scottish Catholic Church make an “unmistakeable and unequivocal” apology to survivors of abuse, and insisted justice must be done and be seen to be done.

Survivors said Church leader Archbishop Tartaglia’s “profound apology” to abuse victims, which followed the publication of the report, was “16-years too late” and “meaningless”.

McLellan, former moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and one-time chief inspector of prisons, demanded support for survivors of abuse to be an “absolute priority”.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

The archdiocese caved; Billy Doe got paid.

That’s the depressing bottom line in the civil case of Doe v. Archdiocese of Philadelphia et al, according to multiple sources.

On the court docket today, Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Jacqueline F. Allen dismissed both a motion for partial summary judgment filed by the former altar boy, and a motion for summary judgment filed by the archdiocese, as “moot,” because both parties had “settled all claims . . . in the instant matter.”

The settlement is confidential. As part of the settlement, Msgr. William J. Lynn, the archdiocese’s former secretary for clergy, was dismissed as a defendant in the civil case, according to sources. Billy Doe’s civil lawyers had also sued the estate of the late Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, the former archbishop of Philadelphia, but that claim too was settled, according to the court docket.

A trial in the civil case had been scheduled for Nov. 9th. Three defendants who had supposedly sexually assaulted the former altar boy remain in the case: former priest Edward V. Avery, the late Father Charles Engelhardt, and former Catholic teacher Bernard Shero. The trio of alleged assailants were the defendants at two historic criminal trials. Avery pleaded guilty on the eve of the first trial in 2012; the following year Engelhardt and Shero were convicted by a jury in the second trial on sex charges and sent to jail.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
The New York Times

By JESS BIDGOOD and MOTOKO RICHAUG. 18, 2015

CONCORD, N.H. — Owen Labrie, a senior at the St. Paul’s School, made up a list of potential girls for his “senior salute” — a school ritual in which older students proposition younger ones for as much intimacy as they can get away with: a kiss, touching, or more.

It was the spring of 2014, and on the list, held up in court by prosecutors on Tuesday, one girl’s name appeared in capital letters. First, prosecutors said, Mr. Labrie wooed her by email. Then, they said, using a key that was shared among students seeking privacy, he took her to a mechanical room on campus. And there, prosecutors said, he raped her.

“This case is about Owen Labrie sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl,” said Catherine J. Ruffle, the deputy county attorney, during her opening statement at Mr. Labrie’s trial. “It’s about how he thought about this for months. How he made a plan.”

While Mr. Labrie is the one on trial, prosecutors here have also pointed to both the senior salute and to the key, passed down from senior class to senior class, as vital context for the alleged sexual crimes. In court records and in Tuesday’s opening statement, they described an elite boarding school here that was not just an institution of higher learning and prominent alumni, including Secretary of State John Kerry and Cornelius Vanderbilt III, but also a place of secret rites and sexual conquest.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
MSNBC

By James Novogrod

CONCORD, New Hampshire — The accuser in the rape case that has raised questions about campus life at one of the country’s most elite prep schools took the stand Tuesday, breaking down in tears as she identified the man who she says assaulted her in a school building in May last year.

Nineteen-year-old Owen Labrie is accused of raping the then 15-year-old girl two days before his graduation from St. Paul’s School here in Concord.

The prosecutor in the case said in opening statements Monday that the assault occurred as a part of a school tradition called “Senior Salute,” in which members of the senior class allegedly seek sexual conquests with younger students.

Taking the stand late in the day, the accuser recounted how Labrie, then 18, sent her an email message proposing they spend time together. The girl, who was a freshman at the time, told the court that she turned the invitation down but reconsidered after being pressed by a fellow classmate.

Court adjourned as the girl’s testimony was still in progress. She is expected to resume her testimony Tuesday.

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PARAGUAY
The New York Times

By SAM ROBERTS
AUG. 18, 2015

Rogelio Livieres Plano, a conservative bishop in eastern Paraguay who was deposed by Pope Francis last year, died on Friday in Buenos Aires. He was 69.

His death, from complications of diabetes, was confirmed by Archbishop Edmundo Valenzuela of Asunción, Paraguay, according to The Associated Press.

Bishop Livieres sheltered an Argentine priest, the Rev. Carlos Urrutigoity, who had been accused of molesting seminarians in Pennsylvania and Argentina. He then promoted Father Urrutigoity, making him his vicar general, responsible for handling accusations of sexual abuse by clergymen in the diocese.

Bishop Livieres said Father Urrutigoity had been recommended by cardinals in the Vatican, including Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who became Pope Benedict XVI.

In 2004, the Diocese of Scranton, Pa., settled a lawsuit against Father Urrutigoity and another diocesan priest for $400,000.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Daily Mail (UK)

Teen breaks down in tears on the stand as she accuses elite prep school student of raping her in ‘virginity taking’ game

By Kelly Mclaughlin For Dailymail.com and Associated Press

A teenage girl accusing an elite prep school graduate of raping her as part of a campus practice of sexual conquest broke down in tears as she took the stand on Tuesday in court.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers in the trial of Owen Labrie allegedly raping a freshman girl told jurors that the case hinges on the credibility of the accuser.

Prosecutor Catherine Ruffle said in her opening statement that Labrie, of Tunbridge, Vermont, raped the 15-year-old girl on the roof of a campus building in May 2014 as part of the Senior Salute at the prestigious St Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire.

She referred to the practice, in which graduating boys try to take the virginity of younger girls before getting their diplomas, as ‘the context for this entire event’.

Labrie, now 19, has pleaded not guilty to several felonies.

On the witness stand Tuesday, the accuser broke down crying and pointed at Labrie when asked if he was in the courtroom.

The petite student, her ash blonde hair pulled back from her forehead, told jurors the two were not friends, but he was a classmate of her sister.

She said during her testimony that she thought Labrie’s invitation to a Senior Salute was ‘disgusting’ because he had written it so sappily, according to WMUR.

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SCOTLAND
Telegraph

By Auslan Cramb, Scottish Correspondent

The Roman Catholic Church in Scotland has offered a “profound apology” to the victims of child sex abuse after a damning review said it must rid itself of systems “which allow evil”.

A commission led by Dr Andrew McLellan, a former moderator of the Church of Scotland, said support for those abused must be an “absolute priority” if the church was to restore its credibility.

He called for an “unmistakable and unequivocal” apology to the survivors of abuse and warned his report represented an “unrepeatable chance” to make things better.

The churchman said that if the opportunity was missed, survivors would know there was “no hope left for them within the Catholic Church in Scotland”.

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NEW YORK
The New York Times

By ANDY NEWMAN
AUG. 18, 2015

A prominent Orthodox rabbi in the Bronx who was the focus of scrutiny for having taken young boys naked to a sauna will keep his job, after his synagogue’s board changed course and decided not to seek his removal.

The rabbi, Jonathan Rosenblatt of the Riverdale Jewish Center, had fought efforts to remove him and apologized for lapses in judgment, and seemed to have the support of most of the 700-member congregation.

“After carefully considering various scenarios over the last several weeks, we firmly believe that the approach laid out by Rabbi Rosenblatt is an effective and appropriate way forward,” the board’s president and chairman wrote in an email to members last Thursday. The rabbi, the board said, had “shared his vision” about strengthening bonds among members and maintaining the synagogue’s financial stability.

The email was reported on Monday by The Times of Israel.

At least two board trustees resigned over the decision to keep Rabbi Rosenblatt, and dozens of congregation members unhappy with the process have begun holding services at each other’s homes instead of at the synagogue.

In May, an article in The New York Times described how shortly after taking the helm of the synagogue in 1985, Rabbi Rosenblatt began taking boys from his congregation, as young as 12, to a gym to play squash or racquetball, then to the sauna, where he would talk with them about their faith. The rabbi and the boys were often naked during the chats.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Yahoo! News

By Ted Siefer

CONCORD, N.H. (Reuters) – Two very different versions of a sexual encounter last year between two pupils at an elite New Hampshire prep school emerged on Tuesday, the opening day of the rape trial of one of the students.

A state prosecutor and an attorney for the defendant, Owen Labrie, 19, of Tunbridge, Vermont, made opening statements at Merrimack Superior Court in Concord, New Hampshire, where Labrie faces charges of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old freshman girl days before he graduated in 2014 from St. Paul’s School.

The prep school counts among its graduates numerous prominent U.S. business and political leaders, including U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

The trial is shining a spotlight on the culture of St. Paul’s, and specifically a tradition described as a “senior salute,” in which younger students have sexual encounters with graduating seniors. Labrie had initially told police that there was a competition among students to see who could “score” with the most girls.

“This is the face of Owen Labrie,” prosecutor Catherine Ruffle said. “It’s probably not the face you think of when you think of sexual assault, but when you see and hear the evidence, we believe you will see a different side of the defendant.”

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MINNESOTA/WISCONSIN
Minnesota Public Radio

Peter Cox Aug 18, 2015

A former priest, currently in prison in Minnesota for sexually abusing two boys, has been sentenced to three years in prison in Wisconsin for sexually abusing a third boy.

Curtis Wehmeyer, 51, pleaded guilty Friday to third degree criminal sexual assault, according to Chippewa County, Wis., court records. He was sentenced to three years in prison and three years of extended supervision.

He’ll serve the Wisconsin prison sentence when he completes the five-year sentence he’s serving at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Lino Lakes. According to the criminal complaint in that case, he abused two boys while serving the Church of the Blessed Sacrament in St. Paul.

Wehmeyer pleaded guilty in November 2012 to criminal sexual conduct and possessing child pornography. His anticipated release date from Lino Lakes is May 31, 2016.

According to the criminal complaint filed in Wisconsin, Wehmeyer provided a teenage boy with alcohol and marijuana while they were on a camping trip in 2011 at Brunet Island State Park in Estella, Wis. The teen woke up to find Wehmeyer in bed with him and touching him sexually, according to the complaint.

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SCOTLAND
Scottish Catholic Observer

During Mass at St Andrew’s Cathedral today, Archbishop Philip Tartaglia offered the Scottish Church’s full response to the publication of the McLellan report from the commission chaired by Dr Andrew McLellan, a former Church of Scotland Moderator

The Bishops of Scotland came together in Glasgow’s St Andrew’s Cathedral this afternoon as Archbishop Philip Tartaglia apologised on behalf of the hierarchy to those abused by people in the Church, saying such abuse ‘shamed and pained’ them.

At a Mass concelebrated by Bishops Joseph Toal of Motherwell, Hugh Gilbert of Aberdeen and William Nolan of Galloway and Archbishop Emeritus Mario Conti of Glasgow and Bishop Emeritus Maurice Taylor of Galloway, Archbishop Philip Tartaglia, president of the Bishop’s Conference of Scotland, gave the Church’s response to the final report from the McLellan Commission report into safeguarding practice in the Church.

The Archbishop of Glasgow began by addressing the first recommendation in the report that the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland make a public apology to all victims and survivors of abuse.

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SCOTLAND
Channel 4

The findings of a Commission say the Church has an “unrepeatable chance to make things better” and calls for support for survivors of abuse to be an “absolute priority.”

The Catholic Church in Scotland must move from “secrecy to openness, from systems which allow evil to survive to systems which ensure that good is done.”

A commission led by the Very Rev Andrew McLellan published a report on Tuesday detailing the failures in the safe-guarding practices of the Catholic Church in Scotland, making eight recommendations, including calling for support for survivors of abuse to be an “absolute priority”.

Mr McLellan, a former moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and one-time chief inspector of prisons, was tasked with evaluating the procedures in place to protect vulnerable children and adults. He said the Church must make an “unmistakeable and unequivocal” apology to survivors of abuse.

Using powerful language on Tuesday Mr McLellan said: “Our report gives the Catholic Church a chance – an unrepeatable chance – to make things better.”

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

ROMAN Catholic Archbishop Philip Tartaglia has apologised to survivors of abuse within the church in Scotland following the publication of an independent review of its handling of allegations.

A commission led by the Very Rev Andrew McLellan called for the church to make an “unmistakable and unequivocal” apology and said support for survivors of abuse must be its “absolute priority”.

Archbishop Tartaglia, president of the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland, issued the apology in his homily during a mass at St Andrew’s Cathedral in Glasgow this afternoon.

He said: “As the president of the Bishops’ Conference, and on behalf of all the Bishops of Scotland, I want to offer a profound apology to all those who have been harmed and who have suffered in any way as a result of actions by anyone within the Catholic Church.

“Child abuse is a horrific crime. That this abuse should have been carried out within the Church, and by priests and religious, takes that abuse to another level.

“Such actions are inexcusable and intolerable. The harm the perpetrators of abuse have caused is first and foremost to their victims, but it extends far beyond them, to their families and friends, as well as to the church and wider society.”

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SCOTLAND
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

LONDON (AP) — An independent commission is urging the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland to offer an unequivocal apology to victims of sex abuse.

The inquiry was set up in 2013 following a series of scandals. Disgraced Cardinal Keith O’Brien stepped down in February 2013 after three priests and a former priest made allegations of inappropriate behavior.

The commission described support for survivors Tuesday as an “absolute priority,” and recommended that the church’s safeguarding policies and practices be completely rewritten and subjected to external scrutiny.

The investigation’s chair, Very Rev Andrew McLellan, described the report as “a chance — an unrepeatable chance — to make things better.”

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SCOTLAND
Christian Today

Ruth Gledhill CHRISTIAN TODAY CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
18 August 2015

The Catholic Church must make an “unmistakable and unequivocal” public apology to all survivors of abuse within the Church, a report says today.

The Church must act both to “heal the hurt” and address the anger of the many victims of abuse over many decades, says the report by the McLellan Commission, set up by the Roman Catholic bishops of Scotland.

The Church now has an “unrepeatable” chance to put things right for victims of abuse.

“If this opportunity is not taken the public credibility of the Catholic Church in Scotland will be destroyed,” warned the Very Rev Dr Andrew McLellan, a former moderator of the Church of Scotland, who was asked to chair the 11-member commission set up after a series of scandals that went right to the top of the Church.

The allegations included reports of abuse at a former Catholic boarding school at Fort Augustus Abbey in the Scottish Highlands.

Cardinal Keith O’Brien, former Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, resigned two years ago after it was revealed that he had engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct with junior priests.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
ABC News

Aug 18, 2015

By SUSANNA KIM and MICHELE McPHEE
via GOOD MORNING AMERICA

Opening arguments and testimony begin today for a rape case involving an elite New Hampshire prep school that has raised questions about the campus culture.

The defendant, Owen Labrie, 19, of Tunbridge, Vermont, is a graduate of St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire. He is accused of raping a 15-year old girl on campus on May 30, 2014, days before he graduated.

Labrie’s attorney, Boston defense attorney J.W. Carney, displayed enlarged printouts of email exchanged between Labrie and the alleged victim before that time, including what he called “romantic” language in French.

“Neither of us were there. None of you were there. What we have to focus on is the evidence,” Carney told the jury today, asking them to zero in on the alleged victim’s words about whether she was a “willing participant.”

He read to the jury a text message conversation that allegedly took place after May 30 in which the alleged victim asked Labrie if he wore a condom and he asks if she was using “the pill,” and the two text “haha” several times.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Boston.com

By Allison Manning @allymanning
Boston.com Staff | 08.18.15

Opening statements are scheduled to begin Tuesday in the trial of a New England prep school graduate who is accused of raping a 15-year-old classmate as part of the “Senior Salute,” an alleged tradition of sexual conquest at the school.

Owen Labrie, 19, is accused of raping a female student at St. Paul’s School in May 2014. He has pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of sexual assault.

Prosecutors say the assault was part of a ritual called the “Senior Salute,” in which senior boys kept a tally of how many female classmates they could have sex with before graduation.

Opening statements will begin this morning after the jury visits the Lindsay Center, the location on the school’s campus where the assault allegedly occurred.

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IOWA
Weekly Standard

BY MICHAEL WARREN

Supporters of Iowa Democrat Bruce Braley will raise money Wednesday night at the home of an attorney who once defended a Catholic bishop accused of molesting young boys. Trial lawyer Tim Bottaro will host the fundraiser at his home in Sioux City along with other supporters of Braley’s Senate campaign.

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TEXAS
Dallas Observer

BY AMY SILVERSTEIN
TUESDAY, AUGUST 18, 2015

In February, a missionary agency made a startling report about one of its members. “… Mr. [Jordan] Root admitted that he has been sexually attracted to prepubescent female children for many years and that during his service with SIM [Serving in Mission] he has been viewing nude photographs of children via the Internet in order to gratify this desire,” says a leaked, confidential report by Serving in Mission International, the missionary agency that Root and his then-wife had volunteered through. The report alleged that Root, who was not charged with a crime, admitted to pedophilia in an interview with Serving in Mission investigators, and the agency recommended that they terminate Root’s membership. What followed next was a bitter, drawn-out battle between Root’s ex-wife and the Dallas megachurch that the couple had attended as covenant members.

Root initially confessed to watching child porn to his former wife Karen Hinkley, according to interviews that Hinkley previously gave to the Observer, The Daily Beast and WatchKeep, the blog run by local activist Amy Smith. After Serving in Mission severed ties with Root, Dallas’ The Village Church wrote an email to all covenant members saying that they had notified police and were placing restrictions on Root, including keeping him away from any children’s facilities in the church. But privately, the church asked Hinkley to stay married to her husband and forgive him. When she insisted on an annulment, Pastor Matt Younger wrote an email to her chastising her for violating a membership covenant she had signed: “…this decision violates your covenant with us — and places you under discipline,” Younger wrote to her. The Village Church declined to discuss the case and instead sent us a generic statement in June about the membership covenant. Among other stipulations, it dictates: “I will seek to preserve the gift of marriage and agree to walk through the steps of marriage reconciliation at The Village Church before pursuing divorce from my spouse.” (The Village Church’s Pastor Matt Chandler later offered Hinkley a public apology).

The allegations against Root are disturbing, and not just because of his work as a missionary. For three years, has also worked as a therapist at a mental hospital in Dallas, the Timberlawn Mental Health System. “As a therapist, he worked with kids and families on the children & adolescent unit,” his ex-wife writes in a message. He decided to stop doing the work in May 2014, she says, several months before she says he first admitted to her that he viewed child pornography. (The activist group Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests first revealed the information about Root’s employment at Timberlawn in May, but that nugget of news was left out in news media coverage of the church controversy).

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SCOTLAND
Belfast Telegraph

Scotland’s most senior Catholic Archbishop, Philip Tartaglia, has apologised to survivors of abuse within the church in Scotland following the publication of an independent review of its handling of allegations.

A commission led by the Very Rev Andrew McLellan called for the church to make an ”unmistakeable and unequivocal” apology and said support for survivors of abuse must be its ”absolute priority”.

Archbishop Tartaglia, president of the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland, issued the apology in his homily during a mass at St Andrew’s Cathedral in Glasgow this afternoon.

He said: “As the president of the Bishops’ Conference, and on behalf of all the Bishops of Scotland, I want to offer a profound apology to all those who have been harmed and who have suffered in any way as a result of actions by anyone within the Catholic Church.

“Child abuse is a horrific crime. That this abuse should have been carried out within the Church, and by priests and religious, takes that abuse to another level.

“Such actions are inexcusable and intolerable. The harm the perpetrators of abuse have caused is first and foremost to their victims, but it extends far beyond them, to their families and friends, as well as to the church and wider society.”

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SCOTLAND
Belfast Telegraph

Catholic Church in Scotland must support and apologise to abuse survivors, says review that followed Cardinal Keith O’Brien scandal

By Claire Cromie and Catriona Wenster
PUBLISHED
18/08/2015

An independent review ordered in the wake of the cardinal Keith O’Brien scandal has told the Catholic Church in Scotland it must make an “unmistakeable and unequivocal” apology to survivors of abuse.

A commission led by the Very Rev Andrew McLellan has made eight recommendations, including calling for support for survivors of abuse to be an “absolute priority”.

It also says justice must be done for those who have been abused.

The commission was set up in November 2013 by the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland in response to a series of scandals, including the resignation of disgraced cardinal Keith O’Brien, from Northern Ireland.

He stepped down from the archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh in February 2013 after three priests and a former priest made allegations of inappropriate behaviour against him.

Mr McLellan, a former moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and one-time chief inspector of prisons, was tasked with evaluating the procedures in place to protect vulnerable children and adults and ensure that the church is ”a safe place for all”.

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SCOTLAND
BBC News

The Catholic Church in Scotland has apologised to victims of “criminal and sinful” abuse.
Addressing the survivors of abuse, Archbishop Philip Tartaglia said: “We say sorry, we ask forgiveness”.

An independent commission into allegations of sexual abuse had recommended that the Church address the wrongs of the past.

The review body, led by Dr Andrew McLellan, had been set up by Scottish bishops after a series of scandals including the resignation of Cardinal Keith O’Brien.

The apology was made to a congregation which had assembled for mass at St Andrew’s Cathedral in Glasgow on Tuesday.

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SCOTLAND
Sky News

By James Matthews, Scotland Correspondent

Scotland’s most senior Catholic has offered a “profound apology” to victims of abuse within the Church, following the release of an independent review of how it has handled past allegations.

The report urged the Church to address the wrongs of the past and make an “unmistakable and unequivocal” apology to those who have suffered.

Archbishop Philip Tartaglia used Tuesday afternoon’s homily at St Andrew’s Cathedral in Glasgow to address the issue publicly.

“As the president of the Bishops’ Conference, and on behalf of all the Bishops of Scotland, I want to offer a profound apology to all those who have been harmed and who have suffered in any way as a result of actions by anyone within the Catholic Church,” he told the congregation.

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SCOTLAND
Scottish Catholic Observer

After the McLellan report’s release this morning, the President of the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland extends apology from the hierarchy for Church’s handing of abuse Church safeguarding staff commit to implementing commission’s recommendations

The McLellan report into how the Scottish Church handles allegation of sexual abuse has said the Church must ‘put survivors first’ from now on and apologise publicly for past wrongdoing..

Dr Andrew McLellan (above), the former Church of Scotland Moderator who the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland asked to chair the independent review, said at the landmark report’s release this morning his commission had found there was ‘no doubt’ that ‘abuse of the most serious kind has taken place within the Church in Scotland.’ He also said that dealing with this was the ‘greatest challenge facing the whole Catholic Church in Scotland.’

He then outlined eight key recommendations the Church can follow to ensure it is ‘a safe place for all.’ The Church has indicated it will embrace the findings of the report.

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SCOTLAND
Scottish Catholic Media Office

Following the publication earlier today a “Review of Safeguarding Protocols and Procedures” by a Commission chaired by the Very Rev Dr Andrew McLellan, the Catholic Bishops of Scotland have welcomed the report and accepted its recommendations in full.

The report comprises a detailed assessment of all aspects of Safeguarding within the church and can be viewed here: www.mclellancommission.co.uk

In the report preface, Dr. McLellan notes:

“The invitation to chair this Commission came from the Bishops’ Conference of the Catholic Church in Scotland. When I accepted it I made it clear that I did not feel that my first responsibility was to them. My first responsibility was, and has been through all our work, to those who have been harmed.“

Dr. McLellan adds:

“The fact that the Bishops commissioned a Minister of the Church of Scotland to carry out this review demonstrated an ecumenical trust, which could not have been guessed at in Scotland thirty years ago. I appreciate that generosity of spirit.“

In the Report, the Commission set out 8 principal recommendations:

1. Support for the survivors of abuse must be an absolute priority for the Catholic Church in Scotland in the field of safeguarding. The Bishops’ Conference of Scotland should make a public apology to all survivors of abuse within the Church.

2. The “Awareness and Safety” manual should be completely revised or rewritten.

3. There must be some external scrutiny and independence in the safeguarding policies and practices of the Catholic Church in Scotland.

4. Effectiveness and improvement must be measured at every level of safeguarding in the Church.

5. A consistent approach to safeguarding is essential: consistent across different parts of Scotland and consistent across different parts of the Church.

6. Justice must be done, and justice must be seen to be done, for those who have been abused and for those against whom allegations of abuse are made. …

Child abuse is a horrific crime. That this abuse should have been carried out within the Church, and by priests and religious, takes that abuse to another level. Such actions are inexcusable and intolerable. The harm the perpetrators of abuse have caused is first and foremost to their victims, but it extends far beyond them, to their families and friends, as well as to the Church and wider society.

I would like to assure the survivors of abuse that the Catholic Bishops of Scotland are shamed and pained by what you have suffered. We say sorry. We ask forgiveness.

We apologise to those who have found the Church’s response slow, unsympathetic or uncaring and reach out to them as we take up the recommendations of the McLellan Commission.”

Commenting on the report, Bishop Joseph Toal, the Bishop responsible for Safeguarding said:

“In accepting fully the recommendations in this report, the Catholic Church in Scotland renews its commitment to protect and safeguard everyone in our parish communities. Our clergy and lay faithful are committed to on-going training and professional development and accept this is a priority for all those involved in Safeguarding at every level. We ask God’s blessing on the clergy and lay faithful who have special responsibilities in carrying out this essential service in our parishes and church organisations.”

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SCOTLAND
The Catholic Herald

Archbishop Philip Tartaglia has offered a “profound” apology to victims of “criminal and sinful” abuse within the Catholic Church in Scotland.

The Archbishop of Glasgow, who is the president of the Bishops’ Conference for Scotland, also said the Church is “pained and shamed” by incidents of abuse that have taken place within it.

Archbishop Tartaglia was speaking at St Andrew’s Cathedral, in Glasgow, earlier today.

The apology comes after the McLellan Commission delivered its report on all aspects of safeguarding policy, procedure and practice within the Catholic Church in Scotland.

The commission, led by Dr Andrew McLellan, made eight key recommendations, including making “support for the survivors of abuse… an absolute priority for the Catholic Church in Scotland”.

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MAINE
TheMediaReport

[the lawsuit]

David Pierre

Congratulations to Michael Geilenfeld, Executive Director of St. Joseph Family of Haiti, to whom a jury awarded $14.7 million after “online activist” Paul Kendrick “endlessly defamed, bullied, and harassed” him by claiming that Geilenfeld had repeatedly abused children in his care in Haiti.

Geilenfeld is a former Brother with the Missionaries of Charity Brothers, created by Mother Teresa. Since 1994, Geilenfeld has operated St. Joseph Family of Haiti as a full-time residence and school for Haitian children with physical and mental disabilities, providing these needy children permanent residence, room and board, meals, physical therapy, recreational therapy, formal education, religious education, and more.

As a result of Kendrick’s defamation campaign against Geilenfeld and Hearts With Haiti – the organization that raised funds for St. Joseph’s – reliable donors ceased supporting Geilenfeld’s operation out of fear that their money might be supporting child abuse. The damage that Kendrick wreaked was utterly devastating.

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SCOTLAND
The Catholic Herald

Justice must be done – and seen to be done – for those who have survived abuse within the Scottish Church, an independent report has said.

The McLellan Commission, which published the report today, was established in 2014 with a remit to undertake a critical review of all aspects of safeguarding policy, procedure and practice within the Catholic Church in Scotland.

Dr Andrew McLellan, chairman of The McLellan Commission, has made eight key recommendations to Scotland’s Catholic bishops to help improve the current standards of safeguarding within the Church.

Dr McLellan told a press conference that “the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland should make a public apology to all survivors of abuse within the Church” and that the apology must be made in a way that is “unmistakeable and unequivocal”.

“The bishops have said from the outset that they will accept our recommendations,” he said.

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SCOTLAND
STV

By Cara Sulieman
18 August 2015

Survivors of abuse at the hands of the Catholic Church should receive an “unmistakeable and unequivocal” public apology from Bishops, according to a review into handling of allegations.

The McLellan Commission was set up in November 2013 to evaluate the procedures in place to protect vulnerable children and adults.

It published its findings on Tuesday, with a total of eight recommendations.

The Very Rev Andrew McLellan, a former moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland who led the inquiry, told a press conference in Edinburgh an public apology should be made.

He also said there was “no doubt” the Catholic Church put protecting its reputation and offenders before the needs to abuse victims.

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

A commission led by the Very Rev Andrew McLellan has called for survivors of abuse to be prioritised.

The Catholic Church in Scotland must address the wrongs of the past, according to an independent review of its handling of abuse allegations.

A commission led by the Very Rev Andrew McLellan has recommended that the church’s safeguarding guidelines be updated and has called for survivors of abuse to be prioritised.

Mr McLellan, a former moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and one-time chief inspector of prisons, was tasked with evaluating the procedures in place to protect vulnerable children and adults and ensure that the church is “a safe place for all”.

At a press conference in Edinburgh to set out the findings of his 11-member commission, he said: “Nothing in our independent report is more important than our first recommendation: that support for the survivors of abuse must be an absolute priority for the Catholic Church in Scotland.”

The commission has also recommended that a public apology is made to survivors of abuse within the church.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
New Hampshire Public Radio

[with audio]

By PAIGE SUTHERLAND

A jury has been seated in the trial of a 19-year-old high school graduate charged with raping a freshman at Saint Paul’s School in Concord. Opening statements are expected to begin Wednesday morning.

On Monday 11 men and 3 women were selected to serve in a rape trial involving a 15-year-old girl at the elite prep school. Following Tuesday’s opening remarks the jury is scheduled to visit the building where the girl says she was raped two days before graduation. The trial is expected to last roughly one week.

Then-senior Owen Labrie of Vermont has pleaded not guilty and has repeatedly said he did not have sex with the accuser.

When police questioned Labrie last spring he spoke in detail about a school tradition known as the “senior salute” in which senior boys attempt to “score” with younger female students before graduation.

Before his arrest Labrie had been accepted and was planning to study theology at Harvard.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
The Daily Beast

Lizzie Crocker

Was the tradition of the ‘Senior Salute’ at St. Paul’s, a top New Hampshire private school, an innocent sexual game, or did it have a much darker side?

As summer winds down and college students across the country arrive on campus, some may be surprised when the sexually liberated environment they expected to find there is in fact a dangerous hunting ground, where young women are in grave danger of sexual assault.

They may not experience it this way, but they will be warned about it from the minute they arrive. Still more will have been warned about it before they get there, and will be prepared to enroll in mandatory affirmative consent programs.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Yahoo! News

By Ted Siefer

CONCORD, N.H. (Reuters) – Opening statements are expected on Tuesday in the trial of a man accused of raping a fellow student at one of the United States’ most prestigious preparatory schools.

The suspect, Owen Labrie, 19, of Tunbridge, Vermont, is charged with sexually assaulting a 15-year-old freshman girl days before he graduated in 2014 from St. Paul’s School.

The prep school counts among its graduates numerous prominent business and political leaders, including U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

The trial is expected to shine a spotlight on the culture of the elite academy, founded in 1856. It is clustered on 2,000 wooded acres (810 hectares) in Concord, New Hampshire’s state capital.

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IDAHO
KTVB

EAGLE — An Eagle couple is facing felony charges after sheriff’s officials say they sexually abused two teenage girls in their care.

Michael Paul Magill, 30, and Jennifer Nicole Magill, 32, were house parents at the Christian Children’s Ranch on Duck Alley Road in Eagle when the alleged abuse occurred. The victims, a 17-year-old and a 14-year-old, were placed in the Magills’ care through that group.

According to the Christian Children’s Ranch website, the organization provides homes for at-risk or homeless children. House parents live on the 80-acre ranch and care for up to 10 children at a time “in a loving and structured environment,” according to the site.

Sheriff’s officials say the Magills, who worked as youth group leaders and camp counselors, may have additional victims.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
Live5News

By Traci Washington

PORT ROYAL, SC (WTOC) –
A judge in the Lowcountry will soon decide if the sexual assault charges filed against a Sunday School teacher will be dropped, or if the case will head to a grand jury.

A four-year-old accused 41-year-Joel Iacopelli of sexually assaulting her at the Community Bible Church, back in June.

In a preliminary hearing last week, investigators told a judge the four-year-old victim changed her story about what happened. She initially told her mother and investigators that Iacopelli sexually assaulted her in a Sunday school classroom, when the female teacher left the room to take other children to the restroom. She later told someone that she made the story up.

Iacopelli’s attorney, Jared Newman, told the judge the video evidence from the church disputes parts of the mothers and the four-year-olds’ story. Now, they are hopeful the judge would drop all the charges.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

Liam Croy
August 18, 2015

A 65-year-old Narrogin man has been charged with sexually abusing three young girls at a Perth children’s home in the 1990s.

The charges are a result of an investigation by WA Police’s Taskforce Tonalite, a subsection of the child abuse squad established in 2010.

It will be alleged the 65-year-old committed the offences at Manguri Residential Cottages in Queens Park between 1991 and 1996.

The three girls were allegedly aged between four and 10.

Manguri, formerly known as Sister Kate’s Children’s Home, was an accommodation centre for indigenous children and an agency of the Uniting Church.

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IDAHO
KTVB

Katie Terhune, KTVB August 17, 2015

BOISE — An Eagle couple accused of sexually abusing minors placed in their care through a program for at-risk children made their first court appearance Monday afternoon.

Michael and Jennifer Nicole Magill both face charges of sexual battery on a minor and sexual abuse of a child. The Magills were “house parents” at Christian Children’s Ranch on Duck Alley Road. An administrator said Monday morning the pair was no longer employed by the organization.

Deputy Prosecutor Lucy Juarez said the couple engaged their teenage victims in sexual games of Truth or Dare. The Magills are accused of inappropriately touching the girls – a 17-year-old and a 14-year-old – multiple times over the summer, at least once in front of other children at the home.

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SCOTLAND
BBC News

A commission investigating abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland has called on it to make an “unmistakeable and unequivocal” public apology.

It said the church must “heal the hurt and address the anger” of victims.

The church asked Dr Andrew McLellan to lead a review of how it handles allegations of abuse, following a series of scandals.

It took evidence from victims in a bid to improve support services and protect vulnerable children and adults.

Dr McLellan, a former moderator of the Church of Scotland, was tasked with coming up with proposals aimed at making the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland “a safe place for all”.

The 11 review commissioners, who include a senior police officer, a journalist and an MP, were tasked with assessing the quality of support available to survivors.

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SCOTLAND
ITV

The Catholic Church in Scotland should make an “unmistakeable and unequivocal” apology to survivors of abuse, an independent commission has said.

The review, which was set up in November 2013 following a series of scandals including the resignation of disgraced cardinal Keith O’Brien, made eight recommendations, including calling on the church to update its guidelines on safeguarding vulnerable children and adults.

However, former chief inspector of prisons the Very Rev Andrew McLellan, said nothing in its findings were “more important than our first recommendation: that support for the survivors of abuse must be an absolute priority for the Catholic Church in Scotland”.
The recommendations were made as church figures revealed that there were no prosecutions in 61% of cases reported between 2006 and 2012.

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SCOTLAND
The McLellan Commission

A Review of the Current Safeguarding Policies, Procedures and Practice within the Catholic Church in Scotland

The McLellan Commission published its Report on 18th August and has made eight key recommendations to Scotland’s Catholic Bishops to improve the current standards of safeguarding within the Catholic Church.

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Overview

Part 1 – Background and Context

Chapter 1 – Context
Background
Remit
Context
Terms and Language Used
Methodology

Part 2 – Findings

Introduction

Chapter 2 – To establish the truth of what happened in the past

The truth of harm
The truth about good practice
Recommendations for Chapter 2

Chapter 3 – To take whatever steps are necessary to prevent abuse from occurring again

Awareness and Safety
Advisers and Coordinators
Evaluation, Scrutiny, Monitoring and Review
Independence
A Consistent Approach
Theology
Recommendations for Chapter 3

Chapter 4 – To ensure that the principles of justice are fully respected

Justice
Advocacy
Whistleblowing
Recommendations for Chapter 4

Chapter 5 – Above all, to bring healing to the victims and to all those affected by these egregious crimes

Reaching out to Survivors
Listening
Saying Sorry
Not Blaming
Support
Reparation
Accountability
Recommendations for Chapter 5

Chapter 6 – Implementation

Acting on the Report
Recommendations for Chapter 6
Recommendations

Annex 1
Commission members
Annex 2
Glossary of terms used
Annex 3
Questionnaire posted on the secure website
Annex 4
Individuals providing formal evidence to selected members of the Commission
Annex 5
Individuals providing evidence to full meetings of the Commission
Annex 6
Individuals providing evidence to subgroups of the Commission

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ZIMBABWE
Nehanda Radio

By Thandeka Moyo

BULAWAYO – A Cowdray Park pastor allegedly turned a congregant, 16, into a sex slave and infected her with HIV and genital warts while claiming to be driving out a death demon that wanted to kill her father.

Greatness Tapfuma, 33, the founder of Kingdom Rulers International Church was recently acquitted of raping two other congregants. In the latest case, it is claimed that his emissaries attempted to bribe his victim with a house, a car or cash.

He pleaded not guilty to two counts of rape yesterday before regional magistrate Chrispen Mberewere.

Tapfuma was later arrested together with his three congregants for manhandling a photographer from The Chronicle who had taken pictures of him.

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FIJI
Fiji Broadcasting Corporation

A court in Wellington, New Zealand has heard that a pastor at a Fijian fellowship church indecently touched two girls and tried to get one to have sex with him.

Forty-two year old, Jone Conikeli, from Stokes Valley, was a pastor at the Kingdom Ambassador International Fellowship church’s Wellington chapter.

The Dominion Post reports he pleaded not guilty in Wellington District Court yesterday to two charges of assault with intent to commit sexual violation, two of doing an indecent act on a person under 16, and three of doing an indecent act on a child.

Crown prosecutor Ian Murray said Conikeli exploited opportunities to sexually abuse two girls he knew through family and friends.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

THE findings of an independent review of the Catholic Church in Scotland’s handling of allegations of abuse are due to be published.

The Very Rev Andrew McLellan, a former moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and one-time chief inspector of prisons, has led the external inquiry into the policies and practices of the church.

The 11-member McLellan Commission was tasked with evaluating the procedures in place to protect vulnerable children and adults, and ensure the church is “a safe place for all”.

Mr McLellan will reveal its key findings and recommendations at a press conference in Edinburgh to coincide with the publication of a final report.

The commission was set up in November 2013 by the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland in response to a series of scandals, including the resignation of disgraced Cardinal Keith O’Brien.

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SCOTLAND
Sky News

By James Matthews, Scotland Correspondent

A report into abuse within Scotland’s Catholic Church has recommended it address the wrongs of the past and make an “unmistakeable and unequivocal” apology to victims.

An independent commission has also suggested the Church updates its safety guidelines and that support for survivors be an “absolute priority”.

Eight primary recommendations have been made by the commission, which was established by Scotland’s Roman Catholic Church in November 2013 to review its practices in dealing with allegations of abuse.

It has examined the Church’s policies for how it relates to vulnerable children and adults with the aim of making it a “safe place for all”.

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SCOTLAND
Scottish Catholic Media Office

You are invited to send a reporter, photographer, camera crew to St. Andrew’s Cathedral, Clyde Street, Glasgow on Tuesday 18 August for 1pm, when Archbishop Philip Tartaglia, will formally respond to the publication of the Report of The McLellan Commission.

Scotland’s Catholic Bishops invited Dr. Andrew McLellan to establish a Commission to undertake a review of all aspects of safeguarding policy, procedure and practice within the Catholic Church in Scotland in November 2013. The Commission will publish its Report on 18th August 2015, at 11am.

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SCOTLAND
The Guardian

Press Association
Tuesday 18 August 2015

The Catholic church in Scotland must address the wrongs of the past, an independent review of its handling of abuse allegations has said.

A commission led by the Very Rev Andrew McLellan recommended that the church’s safeguarding guidelines be updated and called for survivors of abuse to be prioritised.

The former moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and one-time chief inspector of prisons, was given the job of evaluating the procedures in place to protect vulnerable children and adults and ensuring the church was “a safe place for all”.

At a press conference in Edinburgh on Tuesday to set out the findings of his 11-member commission, he said: “Nothing in our independent report is more important than our first recommendation: that support for the survivors of abuse must be an absolute priority for the Catholic Church in Scotland.”

The commission has also recommended that a public apology is made to survivors of abuse within the church.

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MINNESOTA/WISCONSIN
Star Tribune

A former priest serving prison time in Minnesota for molesting two young brothers pleaded guilty Friday in Wisconsin to sexually assaulting their older brother.

Curtis Wehmeyer, 50, pleaded guilty in Chippewa County Circuit Court to third-degree sexual assault in the 2011 abuse of an 18-year-old man. He initially had been charged with second-degree sexual assault.

Wehmeyer was sentenced the day of his plea to six years in prison, three to be served in custody and three under supervision, said Wade Newell, the Chippewa County assistant district attorney.

Wehmeyer’s Wisconsin sentence will begin in 2016, after he completes his Minnesota sentence for sexually abusing two brothers, then 12 and 14, in a camper parked outside Blessed Sacrament Church in St. Paul.

Newell said that the victim in the Wisconsin case is the brother of the Minnesota victims, who were abused in 2010.

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WISCONSIN
Chippewa Herald

An inmate at the Lino Lakes Correctional institute in Lino Lakes, Minnesota has been sentenced to three years in prison for a sexual assault in the summer of 2011 in the town of Estella.

Judge Roderick Cameron also placed Curtis Carl Wehmeyer, 40, to serve three years of extended supervision after the prison term for the assault. Cameron said his sentence will be served consecutive to any other sentence Wehmeyer has.

According to a criminal complaint:

A boy said he was sexually assaulted by Wehmeyer while at a camping trip at Brunet Island State Park in Cornell. The boy said Wehmeyer provided him with alcohol and marijuana, and later asssaulted him.

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MINNESOTA/WISCONSIN
Pioneer Press

By Elizabeth Mohr
emohr@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 08/17/2015

A former St. Paul priest, serving a five-year prison term for molesting two boys in his parish — whose case led to criminal charges against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis for an alleged coverup — has pleaded guilty to similar charges in Wisconsin.

Curtis Wehmeyer, 50, was charged in November in Chippewa County, Wis. He pleaded guilty to third-degree sexual assault and was sentenced Friday to three years in prison and three years of supervised release, to run consecutive to his five-year sentence in Minnesota.

According to the Wisconsin charges, Wehmeyer sexually assaulted a teenage boy who passed out after drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana, provided to him by Wehmeyer, during a 2011 camping trip at Brunet Island State Park in Estella, Wis.

Wehmeyer was sentenced in Ramsey County District Court in February 2013 for molesting two brothers from the Parish of the Blessed Sacrament on St. Paul’s East Side while he was pastor there. Those assaults took place in 2010. He also was convicted of possessing child pornography.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Wonkette

by Evan Hurst
Aug 17

Oh, to be back at boarding school! Mumsy and Popsy would seldom visit, and even then, only to meet with the headmaster about which one of our family names would christen the new Humanities building. And what fun we all had! Pulling pranks down by the old river bend, Spirit Week contests where we’d all dress up like cheerleaders, and best of all, the Senior Fucking Contest, where all the senior boys would engage in a mighty endurance competition to see who could do the most fucking to the underclassmen. Oh how St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire did prepare us for storied careers in finance, industry, government and WAIT A MINUTE, did we just type “Senior Fucking Contest”?

Yes we did, because here is why. This 19-year-old kid, Owen Labrie, is on trial for raping a 15-year-old girl in 2014, while both were students at St. Paul’s. He has pleaded not guilty to the raping, but he also needs everyone to know that there is this thing called the “Senior Salute,” and it is gross:

Labrie, of Tunbridge, Vermont, talked openly about the tradition when he was interviewed by Concord police. On a campus where upperclassmen studiously avoid their younger peers in most settings, Labrie told a detective some students “take great pride” in having sex with younger students before they leave school.

Labrie also told the detective of a contest where boys compete to “score” with the most girls, keeping a running tally written in indelible marker on a wall behind washing machines. The school kept painting over the scoreboard so it eventually was moved online. He acknowledged to the detective he was “trying to be number one,” the detective wrote.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
ABC News

[with video]

Aug 17, 2015

By MEGHAN KENEALLY
via GOOD MORNING AMERICA

A graduate of a highly regarded New Hampshire prep school is headed to court this week over rape charges stemming from an alleged attack there last year.

Owen Labrie, who is now 19 and a former student at St. Paul’s School, is charged in the alleged rape of a 15-year-old girl in 2014. He has pleaded not guilty to multiple felony counts.

The accused teen has told police about an alleged competition at the elite school, in which, he says, some seniors competed to have sex with the most younger girls. The investigation is ongoing.

What Happened?

Prosecutors contend that Labrie, who was accepted to Harvard, raped the girl inside a building on the school’s Concord, New Hampshire, campus May 30, 2014, according to ABC affiliate station WMUR-TV in Manchester.

The girl’s name has not been publicly released because of her age and the nature of the crime.

The timing would mean that the alleged attack happened two days before his June 1 graduation.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
NBC News

[with video]

by JON SCHUPPE

A former student at an elite New Hampshire prep school went on trial Monday on charges he raped a 15-year-old girl on campus. But it’s not just the defendant who’s facing judgment.

The rape allegedly occurred at the prestigious St. Paul’s School, whose alumni include Secretary of State John Kerry, former FBI Director Robert Mueller, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Garry Trudeau and several members of Congress. The trial is expected to cast a spotlight on unsavory aspects of the boarding school’s on-campus sexual culture — including accusations of graduating boys’ competitive pursuit of younger students.

The defendant, 19-year-old Owen Labrie, is accused of raping the freshman girl on the roof of a school building in May 2014, just before he graduated. He has been charged with three counts of aggravated felony sex assault, four counts of misdemeanor sex assault, endangering the welfare of a child and using a computer to lure her to meet him via email and Facebook.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
WCVB

CONCORD, N.H. —A jury was selected Monday in the trial of a prep school senior charged with raping a 15-year-old freshman as part of a school tradition known as the “Senior Salute,” days before he graduated.

Owen Labrie, now 19, of Tunbridge, Vermont, has pleaded not guilty to multiple felony charges, including forcible rape.

Prosecutors said Labrie raped the girl in a building on the Concord campus of St. Paul’s School on May 30, 2014. …

Founded in 1856, St. Paul’s is an Episcopal school that counts among its alumni senators, congressmen, Pulitzer Prize winners, a Nobel laureate and Secretary of State John Kerry.

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NEW YORK
JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) – The Riverdale Jewish Center has decided to keep in place Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt, whose sauna chats with naked boys garnered headlines after an exposé in The New York Times in late May.

Rosenblatt, who denied any criminal wrongdoing but apologized for inappropriate behavior, had been fighting efforts by some in his Orthodox congregation to buy out the remaining three years on his contract. Despite the controversy stirred by the article about Rosenblatt’s practice for years of inviting teenage boys and young men for naked heart-to-hearts in the sauna after racquetball games, the rabbi appeared to retain the support of most of his congregants, insiders said.

In a letter sent to congregants on Aug. 13, the synagogue leadership said it had decided that Rosenblatt’s own plan for moving past the scandal was the best of various alternate scenarios for the New York shul, which has been led by Rosenblatt for the last 30 years.

“Rabbi Rosenblatt shared his vision and commitment to continue serving our membership and partnering with the RJC’s lay leaders, staff and community,” said the letter, which was signed by the synagogue’s board chairman, Donald Liss, and president, Samson Fine. “He described how we will strengthen communal bonds between and among our members, maintain the financial stability of our synagogue and enhance the spirit of collaboration that exists between the RJC and the community.

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KENTUCKY
WLKY

By Anna-Lysa Gayle

LOUISVILLE, Ky. —Students and parents at St. Margaret Mary attended orientation Monday while their priest remains on administrative leave during a child pornography investigation.

Classes will begin Wednesday for more than 700 students at the parish school.

Father Stephen Pohl, who oversees the church and the school, is on administrative leave.

The Archdiocese of Louisville sent a letter to parents about the FBI cybercrime unit’s investigation.

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, Aug. 17

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

We urge Cape Girardeau area citizens to boycott the Iron Mountain Railroad. The head of the railroad is callously hurting adults who have been molested and youngsters who are being molested right now.

[St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

Jeffrey B. Moffat of Jackson, who has portrayed Santa Claus for the Iron Mountain Railway in Jackson, is charged with statutory rape and sodomy against a child. Railroad president Cheryl Huffman could be prodding anyone who might help resolve these accusations to step forward. Instead, in an act of stunning callousness, she’s declaring Moffat innocent.

That’s incredibly hurtful. That makes it even less likely that boys and girls who, right now, are being sexually assaulted will break their silence, get some help, and expose dangerous predators.

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UNITED STATES
GetReligion

Jim Davis

To harp on a favorite theme of mine, you need experienced specialists to cover religion news. Today’s case in point is a positive one: the Washington Post’s in-depth piece on Catholics who want Pope Francis to address clerical sex abuse during his upcoming U.S. visit.

Rather than relying cheap shots from pressure groups, the Post’s Godbeat veteran Michelle Boorstein draws her sources from Catholic authorities or those who have had direct experience with the abuse problem – some as victims. Their viewpoints range from support to opposition, and the usually neglected points in between.

In the 1,800-word article, victims of priests confess their hopes of pressing a single point to Francis during his September visit to Philadelphia: Do more to root out sex abuse and bring justice to the abused. But the piece adopts an attitude that is not skeptical but adversarial.

The Post gives about half the story to John Salveson, an abuse survivor who has been pressing church authorities for answers off and on since the early 1980s. It reports Salveson’s initial letters to his bishop, which got non-answers; then his part in a class-action lawsuit against his diocese, which failed because of a statute of limitations; then his creation of a pressure group, “which advocates for longer criminal statutes of limitations and expanded civil windows for victims to sue.”

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NEW YORK
kath.ch

[New York Times: ISIS sees child abuse as a religious right.]

Washington/Berlin, 16.8.15 (kath.ch) Die Terrororganisation «Islamischer Staat» (IS) treibt die Perversität ihrer Gräueltaten auf die Spitze: IS-Kämpfer sehen die Vergewaltigung von nicht-muslimischen Mädchen und Frauen als ihr religiöses Recht an. Das geht aus einem Bericht der Zeitung «New York Times» hervor, den der deutsche Informationsdienst der Evangelischen Allianz (idea) am Sonntag zusammenfasste.

Nach diesem Bericht hat sich ein IS-Kämpfer wiederholt an einem zwölfjährigen jesidischen Mädchen vergangen, das sich als Geisel in seiner Gewalt befand. Er habe jeweils vor und nach der Tat auf Knien zu Allah gebetet und behauptet, dass der Koran ihm nicht nur das Recht gebe, «Ungläubige» zu vergewaltigen, sondern ihn auch dazu ermutige. Indem er sich an ihr vergehe, komme er Allah näher. Er habe sein Opfer gefesselt und geknebelt. Das Mädchen hatte nach elfmonatiger Gefangenschaft in ein Flüchtlingslager fliehen können.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Evangelische Kirche in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern

[08/16/2015 |. Rostock A 1.4-ton millstone to be installed here in September honors victims of child abuse.]

16.08.2015 ǀ Rostock. Ein 1,4 Tonnen schwerer Mühlstein erinnert ab September neben der Rostocker Marienkirche an die Opfer von Kindesmissbrauch. Der 1,40 Meter große “Mahlende Mühlstein” werde am 3. September von Berlin nach Rostock transportiert, wie die Firma Gustke Logistik mitteilte. Nach kurzer Aufarbeitung durch einen Steinmetz werde er bis November neben der Kirche aufgestellt. Die Aktion des in Rheinland-Pfalz ansässigen Vereins “Initiative gegen Gewalt und sexuellen Missbrauch an Kindern und Jugendlichen” startete vor sieben Jahren. Weitere Stationen des wandernden Mahnmals sind Schwerin, Lübeck und Kiel.

Auf dem Stein ist ein Bibelwort aus dem Matthäus-Evangelium eingemeißelt. Darin sagt Jesus Christus sinngemäß, dass derjenige, der Kindern Schaden zufügt, ein Mühlstein um den Hals gehängt und in die Tiefe des Meeres versenkt werden sollte. Die Kampagne gegen Kindesmissbrauch war 2008 im bayerischen Regensburg eröffnet worden. Seitdem “wandert” der Stein durch Deutschland. Rostock ist die erste Station im Norden.

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UNITED STATES
Mennonite Central Committee

MCC is joining other faith-based organizations to break the silence about sexualized violence in our communities and congregations by raising awareness and providing resources for an effective response, prevention, and care.

This initiative will be participatory and begin with a listening process to gather baseline information from representative MCC constituents – churches, universities, and constituent organizations. Using this baseline information, MCC will provide open conversations, trainings for pastors and leaders, and written and web resources. Through this process, MCC hopes to build the capacity of our constituents to address sexualized violence within their own contexts by building awareness and providing tools for practical methods of prevention and care.

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MISSOURI
KMBC

[with video]

KANSAS CITY, Mo. —The Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph has begun a series of healing services for victims of sexual abuse at the hands of priests.

Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann placed ads and sent letters to people inviting them to the search.

One of the people who received the letters, abuse survivor Michael Sandridge, said the letter contained an apology.

“I am so sorry for what happened to you, and I realize that no words are likely to heal your wounds,” the letter said. “As a small step toward reconciliation, I apologize on behalf of all the priests of this diocese and all the members of our Catholic church for the terrible hurt you have suffered at the hands of someone entrusted with your spiritual care.”

“The only thing the letter does is say, ‘You were right and I’m sorry,’” Sandridge said. “It’s too late. It’s too late, for me. Do I still believe in God, absolutely, but not so much the Catholic view of it.”

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

A Resource to Recommend: Ruth Krall on How to Smell a Rape-Prone Campus

Here’s a very valuable resource I’d like to share with you, which Ruth Krall has just uploaded to the “Tools” section of her Enduring Space blog site: “How to Smell a Rape-Prone Campus” (pdf file). I’ll point out, too, that it’s timely, as a new semester begins for college students around the country.

In 24 succinct statements, Ruth describes the kind of campus on which rape is a serious problem, and where it’s highly likely to be covered up. These statements obviously draw on her own wide experience as a therapist and theologian working with victims of sexual violence, and with her activism monitoring institutions that cover up the sexual violence of pastors and professors.

Some of the points that leap out at me as I read through her extremely helpful description of rape-prone campuses:

(4) Men occupy all positions of real power where rape might logically be reported; campus ministries, student physician, student counseling services, and student personnel or student life staff. 


(12) More concern goes to protecting student men’s reputations than to women’s safety. This is particularly so if the men are athletic stars or student leaders on campus. 


(13) Students (and staff) are not urged to report rapes, attempted rapes or other forms of sexual harassment to the police. In fact they may be urged or told outright not to report. 


(14) Rape gets added to board meeting dockets as in the topic of how the campus is managing its rape policies in light of the federal guidelines. The board may or may not be given accurate information about numbers of rapes in any given year. The board does not insist on receiving a quarterly and annual update on the amounts of affinity violence reported. 


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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

AUGUST 17, 2015

Rick Morton
Social Affairs Reporter
Sydney

Every religious leader in the country and their officers would be required to undergo working with children checks under proposed sweeping reforms to the system recommended by the child abuse royal commission.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse authored a report on state and territory working with children checks which was tabled in parliament today.

“A person must apply for a Working With Children Check (WWCC) in each state or territory in which they intend to engage in child-related work,” the report says.

“Organisations and people working across borders report substantial challenges in working with the varied schemes, including extra costs and difficulty understanding and complying with the various laws.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

AN inconsistent and complex approach by states and territories to running background checks on people wanting to work with children has failed those the schemes are supposed to protect, prompting the royal commission into child sexual abuse to call for sweeping changes.

THE Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse says that an over-reliance on the schemes – known as Working With Children Checks (WWCCs) – can actually be detrimental to children’s safety and it has delivered a scathing assessment of efforts by various governments to address the problem.

In a report tabled in the federal parliament on Monday, the commission has made a series of recommendations including that a national scheme for conducting background checks be introduced within 12 months, and that a centralised database, operated by CrimTrac, and which is readily accessible to all jurisdictions, be created.

The report has also recommended that all religious leaders and officers, or personnel of religious organisations, be required to undergo a background check.

The recommendations come after the commission found inconsistencies between states and territories regarding screening practices, as well as a lack of information-sharing across jurisdictions. This means the system is failing the children it was meant to protect.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

August 17, 2015

Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter

The failure of state and territory governments to introduce a nationally consistent system to reduce the risk of paedophiles working with children has been described as “inexcusable” by a royal commission that has recommended sweeping changes to background checks.

State and territory governments will have one year to implement recommendations made on Monday by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The recommendations include a call for a national system which would prevent child sex abusers applying for clearance to work with children in different jurisdictions and improve cross-border information sharing.

A national Working With Children Check scheme would help organisations and people working across borders by reducing complexity and duplication.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Danuta Kozaki and staff

Working with children checks should be strengthened and unified across all states and territories as a matter of urgency, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has recommended.

Currently in Australia, each state and territory has its own scheme for conducting background checks on people who want to work with children.

But the commission’s report into working with children checks found the eight different schemes were inconsistent, complex and gave a false sense of security to institutions and families.

The ABC has reported that some staff working in organisations with vulnerable children in Victoria have been working without valid police or working with children checks.

The commission’s report said problems with working with children checks have been recognised by governments for some time, but for too long they have favoured maintaining their own systems over working together.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

The Royal Commission released its report on Working With Children Checks on 17 August 2015.

The recommendations in the report aim to strengthen the protection children receive through Working With Children Checks.

Download the full report

More information: Working With Children Checks Report and Executive summary

Roundtables

The Royal Commission has consulted widely on Working With Children Checks. In June 2014 Justice McClellan and Commissioner Fitzgerald hosted a roundtable in Canberra to discuss Working With Children Checks. Participants included state and territory government representatives, Children’s Commissioners, advocates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and non-government organisations.

Issues Papers

We received 80 submissions in response to Issues Paper 1 – Working With Children Check released in June 2013. These submissions helped us to identify the problems with the current schemes and approach.

In August 2013, we released Issues Paper 3 – Child-Safe Institutions. Many responses addressed Working With Children Checks by placing them in the broader context of child-safe organisations.

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AUSTRALIA
The Chronicle

Owen Jacques | 17th Aug 2015

ALL religious leaders and staff in Australia would have to have “Working With Children Checks” if new recommendations from the Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse are adopted.

It includes a national approach to how these checks, called a “Blue Card” in Queensland, are conducted.

The Royal Commission has today released its report into Working With Children Checks, which at the moment are approved at a state level.

These eight schemes, according to the report, “are inconsistent and complex”.

The Commission has taken aim at the inconsistencies this creates nationally, warning that those who may be banned from working with children in one state can “forum shop” to receive an approval somewhere else.

If someone is unfit to work with children but has no criminal history, the states have no way of sharing that information.

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MICHIGAN
WOOD

[with video]

Marlee Ginter

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — The most traumatic moment of Bill McAlary’s life happened in 1958. Nearly 60 years later, he’s still visibly shaken just talking about it.

McAlary says a Catholic priest molested him when he was a 12-year-old altar boy in Ionia.

“I woke up. He was molesting me sexually, on his knees next to my bed,” McAlary recalled. “That’s how I woke up.”

He said he immediately told his mother, but she didn’t do anything about it.

“I didn’t know what the right word was for a pedophile, but I knew what the word ‘queer’ meant. She said she didn’t know what it meant and didn’t do anything,” McAlary recalled.

He remembers going up to his room, where he stood and stared for 45 minutes. With no support, he continued Catholic school under the same priest.

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NEW ZEALAND
The Dominion Post

A pastor at a Fijian fellowship church indecently touched two girls and tried to get one to have sex with him, a Wellington jury has been told.

Jone Draiva Conikeli, 42, from Stokes Valley, was a pastor at the Kingdom Ambassador International Fellowship church’s Wellington chapter.

He pleaded not guilty in Wellington District Court on Monday to two charges of assault with intent to commit sexual violation, two of doing an indecent act on a person under 16, and three of doing an indecent act on a child.

Crown prosecutor Ian Murray said Conikeli exploited opportunities to sexually abuse two girls he knew through family and friends.

Conikeli’s lawyer, Chris Nicholls, said the two girls had colluded to make up the allegations as retribution over a complicated family situation for which Conikeli had been blamed.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Crain’s Chicago Business

SHIA KAPOS

Father Michael Garanzini, the chancellor of Loyola University and newly-named board member for the Chicago Board of Education, says it’s time Catholic priests be allowed to marry.

“I think it would be healthy. I used to say ‘well, it will change but probably not in my lifetime.’ And then Pope Francis came along, and what I see him doing is opening the avenues for discussion,” he told me.

Prior to our conversation, Garanzini spoke to some 40 members from Chicago’s business and social communities during a private gathering. Broadcaster Bill Kurtis moderated the Q&A event.

Garanzini says the issue is likely to come up during an October bishops’ conference in Rome.

“There’s been talk in various places in the church—especially in England, where there are several bishops who have said they intend to raise the question,” he said, referring to Catholic leaders in England, which has seen married Anglican priests cross over to serve in the Catholic Church. …

He says the discussion of priests marrying has come as a result, in part, of “the fallout of the priest sexual abuse problem.”

“Some good things” have evolved since then, he says, “and one is this question of openness to a priest’s physical and psychological health. The second is that the hierarchy, the leadership, that we have needs to be more open and transparent and admit problems and faults as they happen and that we’re not above the law. Those two things are a direct result of the scandal.”

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KENTUCKY
Inquisitr

Louisville, Kentucky, priest Father Stephen A. Pohl was placed on leave by his archdiocese this week after reports surfaced that he has become the target of an FBI probe looking into the creation and distribution of child pornography. The investigation is reportedly being conducted by the Bureau’s task force on cyber crimes.

Pohl, who has been an ordained Catholic priest for 30 years and pastor of at St. Margaret Mary Parish in Louisville for the past seven, has not been arrested or formally accused of any criminal wrongdoing — but the Archdiocese of Louisville nonetheless issued a public statement stating why church officials have removed Pohl from his parish and put him on administrative leave.

The investigation is looking into “inappropriate photos of children that have been taken and collected by Father Pohl to determine if he has possessed or distributed child pornography,” the archdiocese said in the statement, adding that it has no further information or detail regarding the investigating targeting Pohl, according to a report in The Louisville Courier-Journal.

“We realize that this is a painful situation,” said Louisville Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, in a letter to Pohl’s parishioners on Friday. “As more information becomes available, we will be in touch about opportunities to address your concerns and questions.”

Jeff Koenig, a leader of Louisville’s chapter of the advocacy and support group SNAP — Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests — commended the local archdiocese for being “transparent” about the investigation into Pohl’s activities, adding that he hoped the “transparency” would continue.

A report on WLEX-TV in Lexington, Kentucky, said that Pohl conducted a weekly mass for grade school children at the parish’s elementary school but he taught no classes at the school.

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