ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

[with video]

William D. Lindsey

Pascal Bonnefoy reports for New York Times yesterday on the video about which I appended a note to Brittie Perez’s great essay, which was shot by an Argentine tourist in St. Peter’s Square last May, and released Friday. As I noted, it shows Pope Francis blaming “leftists” for the uproar that ensued when he appointed Juan Barros bishop of Osorno, Chile, and stigmatizing the people of Osorno as dumb.

Bonnefoy writes,

Many watched in disbelief: There he was, Pope Francis, calling people in Osorno, a city in southern Chile, “dumb” for protesting against a bishop accused of being complicit in clerical sexual abuse.

“The Osorno community is suffering because it’s dumb,” Pope Francis told a group of tourists on St. Peter’s Square, because it “has let its head be filled with what politicians say, judging a bishop without any proof.”

“Don’t be led by the nose by the leftists who orchestrated all of this,” the pope said.

The video, filmed by an Argentine tourist in May, was obtained by a Chilean television station and broadcast Friday, quickly instilling doubts here about the pope’s commitment to protecting victims of sexual abuse.

Bonnefoy quotes Juan Carlos Claret, a spokesman for Osorno’s Lay Organization which has been spearheading protests against Barros because of his close ties to Father Fernando Karadima, a priest who has sexually abused minors (Karadima’s victims allege that Barros covered up and was complicit in Karadima’s abuse): Claret says,

It is the Church of Osorno that is demonstrating; we are not taking orders from political parties. We are now seeing the real face of Pope Francis, and we demand an explanation.

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UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

This coming Friday, the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize will announce this year’s awardee and we implore the Nobel Committee NOT to vote for Pope Francis because he is all empty talk and he has done nothing – personally — for the good of children and mankind. Pope Francis is only a big-mouth who preaches and – plagiarises the hard works of others especially scientists of climate change who work their butts out in the field – and Pope Francis usurps the honor due to them. Last year, we praised the Nobel Committee for choosing a 17 year old girl Malala who is personally working out there in the field helping girls to have access and the right to education – at the risk of her personal life – and fighting threats against her personal life, against the Taliban and personal opponents. But Pope Francis suffer no such risks as Malala – and other more worthy awardees — because he is surrounded by ceremonial Swiss Guard Army and he is living in the lap of luxury of the Vatican Billions and within the fortress and comfort of the Vatican Palace that surpass the palaces of monarchs in Europe and in the world.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on the pope’s reaction to those who seek to exploit the issue of priestly sexual abuse:

Last May, when Pope Francis visited Chile, he spoke to residents of Osorno about allegations that the local bishop, Juan Barros, was complicit in a crime of priestly sexual abuse. The bishop, who was installed in March, has come under fire for covering up the abuses of Father Fernando Karadima. The priest was found guilty by the Vatican in 2011; the following year a Chilean court dismissed claims against him because the statute of limitations had expired.

It should be noted that the bishop’s principal accuser, Juan Carlos Cruz, a gay man, was 15 when the alleged abuse occurred and it did not end until he was 23! Moreover, we know that a Vatican inquiry was sufficient for Pope Francis to take the bishop’s side. “The Osorno community is suffering because it’s dumb,” he said. He explained that it “has let its head be filled with what politicians say, judging a bishop without any proof.” Then the pope got specific: “Don’t be led by the nose by the leftists who orchestrated all of this.”

Pope Francis could have admonished the crowd not to be manipulated by critics of the Church, or by those with an agenda. Instead, he identified “leftists.” Much the same could be said about those who have sought to exploit the homosexual scandal here at home.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

OCTOBER 9, 2015

A royal commission has heard the Victorian government was first made aware of alle­gations that staff at a Salvation Army boys home had sexually abused children as far back as 1964, and no evidence was ever found to show the matter was properly ­investigated.

The Health Department’s ­director of reporting, Alan Hall, yesterday told the Royal Commission into Institutional Res­ponses to Child Sexual Abuse that boys taken into the Box Hill and Bayswater homes had been let down, acknowledging the pain and suffering they had felt.

“We should have visited more, we should have been there much more for the times that you wanted someone to talk to,” Mr Hall said.

It was ­revealed this week that the South Australian government had known of abuse allegations at a Salvation Army-run home in the Adelaide Hills for more than 40 years until it closed in 1982.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release Thursday, October 8

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

An Italian priest has been suspended because he admits that he can “understand” pedophilia because sometimes youngsters essentially bring abuse on themselves.

Father Gino Flaim basically says that, at least in some cases, kids “looking for” affection tempt pedophile priests and cause them to commit child sex crimes. That’s preposterous and hurtful.

Time and time again, for decades, we’ve seen priests and bishops make this claim. Hundreds of clerics have publicly blamed kids for their own victimization. And we suspect that thousands more privately hold these self-serving attitudes but are smart enough to hide their views.

It’s especially common to hear this victim-blaming in unguarded, unscripted moments and when clerics who commit or conceal violence against kids are facing possible punishment for their crimes.

We’re glad that the Vatican reacted to Fr. Flaim’s hurtful comments. But he’s less of an aberration than many assume. And wouldn’t it be refreshing to see Catholic officials promptly and harshly punish priests like this who say similarly harmful things in private, instead of acting only when irresponsible behavior and hurtful words emerge in public?

Finally, speaking of prompt and harsh punishment, it’s worth noting that days ago, Vatican officials immediately ousted a gay priest, Fr. Krzysztof Charamsa, but they rarely act so quick and decisive with predator priests. Most child molesting clerics are never defrocked. If they are, it almost always takes years – and dozens of victims or lawsuits or negative publicity – before it happens. Even now, it often takes weeks or months to even get a credibly accused child molesting cleric suspended from active ministry. But in controversies that do not involve sexual violence or cover ups, when high ranking Catholic officials feel embarrassed or offended, they manage to quickly discipline those they consider wrongdoers.

Sadly, we see little evidence that this is changing. Remember the “Bishop of Bling” controversy early in Francis’ pontificate. In this case too, public outrage prompted speedy Vatican discipline against this lavish-spending German prelate. But hundreds of bishops have been publicly exposed as having protected predators, endangered kids, deceiving parishioners, misleading police, destroying evidence, intimidating victims, threatening whistle-blowers, and discrediting witnesses and suffer no consequences, despite repeated promises by Francis and others that they will be.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Premier

Thu 08 Oct 2015
By Antony Bushfield

A Catholic priest has been charged in connection with more than 3,000 indecent images of children.

Fr Paul Clarke is accused of offences relating to indecent images of children whilst at St Anthony’s Church in Rye, East Sussex.

The 71-year-old, who now lives in Urmston, Greater Manchester, is due to appear on bail at Brighton Magistrates’ Court on Thursday October 15.

He faces charges of possessing an indecent image of a child, possession of prohibited images, and three of making a total of 3,100 indecent images of children.

A Sussex Police spokesman said: “The charges, authorised by the Crown Prosecution Service, follow an intelligence-led investigation by the Paedophile On-Line Investigation Team (POLIT) of Sussex Police.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent

Lizzie Dearden Thursday 8 October 2015

A 71-year-old Roman Catholic priest has been charged with making 3,100 indecent images of children.

Father Paul Clarke, of Redclyffe Road in Urmston, but formerly of Rye in East Sussex, is due to appear at Brighton Magistrates Court today.

He has been charged with possessing an indecent image of a child, possessing prohibited images, and making a total of 3,100 indecent images of children.

Police searched his former residence at the presbytery of St Anthony of Padua church in Rye on 13 November last year, seizing computers and other alleged evidence.

The Rye News reported that Father Clarke resigned “suddenly” in February, having been at the church since 2009.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

A priest has been charged over possessing and making indecent images of children.
Paul Clarke, 71, faces five charges involving images taken from the internet.

One alleges his possession of an indecent image of a child, another alleges his possession of prohibited images, and three allege his making a total of 3100 indecent images of children.

The priest, who now lives in Urmston in Manchester but formerly lived in East Sussex, is due to appear on bail at Brighton Magistrates Court on Thursday 15 October.

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UNITED STATES
PR Newswire

WASHINGTON, Oct. 6, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) today released Child Forensic Interviewing: Best Practices. This bulletin represents the first collaborative effort by professionals from several major forensic interview training programs to summarize the current knowledge and application of best practices on gathering factual information from children regarding allegations of child maltreatment.

Most child abuse investigations begin with a forensic interview of the child. This bulletin provides guidance on topics such as interview timing and setting, question type, rapport-building between the interviewer and the victim, interview aids, and vicarious trauma and self-care. OJJDP commissioned this report as a resource for law enforcement, medical, court and other child protection professionals working in this field.

AUTHORS: Chris Newlin, Linda Cordisco Steele, Andra Chamberlin, Jennifer
Anderson, Julie Kenniston, Amy Russell, Heather Stewart, and Viola Vaughan-Eden

WHERE: www.ojjdp.gov/pubs/248749.pdf

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

Associate Investigators

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) was established to consider the institutional failings that allowed child sexual abuse to happen in the past and to make recommendations to prevent it from happening in the future. The Inquiry is chaired by Hon. Lowell Goddard DNZM and a Panel has been appointed by the Home Secretary to conduct the Inquiry.

All institutions – state and non-state – fall within the remit of the Inquiry. The Inquiry will conduct a series of detailed investigations into the conduct of these institutions and many of these investigations will culminate in public hearings. The Inquiry therefore needs a pool of experienced investigators to conduct these investigations on behalf of the Panel, gathering the evidence required.

We are seeking both Lead Investigators and Investigative Officers to support the Panel in their investigations.

Successful candidates will be required to undergo a security vetting procedure, after which they will be added to a pool of investigators. Investigators may be allocated short-term fixed term appointments dependent on the business need, role and skills required.

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IRELAND
The Journal

MANY CHILDREN HAVE positive stories from St Joseph’s School For Deaf Boys in Cabra, Dublin, from its 150-year history.

It was the chance for many to learn Irish Sign Language, allowing them to communicate and express themselves comfortably.

Others learned trades and were able to leave school and earn a living.

The school became known worldwide for its high standards of education – but it also has a murky history starting from the middle of last century.

“I didn’t know what to expect when I first arrived,” Larry Coogan recalls from his largely positive time at school between 1953 and 1958. He went on to become a master tailor.

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AUSTRALIA
Perth Now

A FORMER resident of a Salvation Army children’s home in Perth was beaten, humiliated and sexually abused, a royal commission has heard.

The 57-year-old cannot be identified, but has detailed her treatment at the Hollywood Children’s Village in Nedlands from 1969 to 1972.

She said she had trouble with bed-wetting as a child and as punishment a staff member would rub her face in the wet sheets.

“I was also forced to wear wet underpants on my head with the crotch part over my nose,” she told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Wednesday.

“All the bed-wetters were made to stand in the lounge room so everyone could see us.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

The Salvation Army has been urged to change its attitude and better recognise the horrific abuse suffered by children taken into its homes.

In a statement read to a royal commission in Adelaide, David Wright, who died recently, said the Salvos needed to acknowledge what happened to the ‘beautiful children’ who went into their homes.

‘They seem unprepared to turn their minds towards what happened, to what their employees were capable of,’ Mr Wright said in his statement read on Thursday.

Mr Wright spent two years at Box Hill Boy’s Home in Melbourne in the 1950s, arriving there when he was just nine years old.

His statement to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse detailed the emotional, physical and sexual abuse he suffered over that time.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

AAP

THE Victorian government says it failed boys taken into homes run by the Salvation Army, including those who were sexually and physically abused.

DEPARTMENT of Health and Human Services official Alan Hall has told a royal commission he wanted to acknowledge the pain and suffering felt by those boys abused during their time in the homes at Box Hill and Bayswater in Melbourne.

“I want it to be clear that the department had a clear responsibility for oversight of those homes and it clearly did not do enough,” Mr Hall told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Adelaide on Thursday.

“We should have visited more, we should have been there much more for the times that you wanted someone to talk to.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

AAP

A Salvation Army worker threatened a boy with a knife and broke his nose during four years of almost constant physical and sexual abuse at a boys’ home in Melbourne, an inquiry has heard.

Ross Rogers was just 11 when he was sent to the Box Hill home in 1965 and has detailed the horrific treatment he received at the hands of Willem Willemsen, which started within months of his arrival.

The odd-job man and medical officer took every opportunity he could to abuse the boy, often putting a hand over his mouth to stop him screaming.

“On more than one occasion he held a knife to my throat to threaten me,” Rogers told the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse in Adelaide on Thursday.

On another occasion Willemsen became aggressive and hit Rogers with a plank of wood, breaking his nose.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Candice Marcus

Harrowing accounts of abuse and cruelty at children’s homes run by the Salvation Army have been heard as royal commission hearings in Adelaide go into a third day.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse today heard stories of sexual violence committed against children at Box Hill and Bayswater boys’ homes in Melbourne.

Former resident Ross Rogers said he was frequently raped and sexually abused by senior Salvation Army officer Willem Willemsen in the 1950s.

He described being beaten and said on one occasion when he tried to resist the sexual abuse, Willemsen grabbed a nearby plank of wood and hit him across the face, breaking his nose.

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ALABAMA
WAAY

Rachel Keith rkeith@waaytv.com

According to court documents, a former Lauderdale County youth minister was sentenced to 2 years in prison for child molestation Wednesday.

As part of a plea agreement, 79-year-old Oliver Brazelle received a 10 year split sentence, but will only serve 2 years behind bars. His sentence will be reviewed by a judge after 2 years to determine if he will be released.

Brazelle was arrested and charged with sexual abuse in January. He was the youth and music minister at the Sheffield First United Methodist Church.

In August, Brazelle pled guilty to a lesser offense of child molestation and luring a child in order to perform or to propose sexual acts.

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ALABAMA
Times Daily

By Tom Smith Senior Staff Writer

FLORENCE — The father of a 12-year-old who was sexually molested by Oliver Brazelle said he wanted the former Sheffield youth minister to understand the “devastation” Brazelle brought on his family and the community.

“You were respected, an ordained member of the clergy. You had the trust of those members. We considered you and your family our best friends,” the father said. “We had no clue of the devastation you did on our son.

“My son (who is now an adult) is a hero because he came forward, put himself on the line to stop a monster like you. May God have mercy on your soul, but not on your body and your life while you are alive on this earth.”

Brazelle, 81, the former music and youth minister of First United Methodist Church of Sheffield, was indicted in August 2014 on sodomy and sexual abuse charges involving a teenage boy.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Argus

CAMPAIGNERS yesterday called for church leaders, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service to “hang their heads in shame” after the former Bishop of Lewes was poised to spend less than a month in prison for each of his victims.

The 32 month sentence handed down by a judge to Peter Ball was branded “a failure to do justice” as the 83-year-old is expected to serve half of that.

Ball was sentenced for two individual counts of indecent assaults, and one count of misconduct in a public office which encompassed acts of “debasement” perpetrated on sixteen young men who had come to his home seeking spiritual enlightenment.

After the sentencing a former Archbishop of Canterbury was forced to deny that his involvement in the case in the 1990s amounted to a “cover-up”.

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MASSACHUSETTS
The Sun Chronicle

BY BERA DUNAU SUN CHRONICLE STAFF

FOXBORO – The town’s efforts to widen the scope of state law designating who is considered to be a mandated reporter of child sexual abuse has taken the next step, thanks to state Rep. Jay Barrows.

And, it could have a big impact, he told selectmen this week.

Foxboro’s child sexual abuse committee asked Barrows, R-Mansfield, to run the home rule petition the committee has drafted for the town through the proper channels in state government last spring. Barrows took the petition to legal counsel for the Massachusetts House of Representatives.

“It’s a game changer, what was drafted,” Barrows said Tuesday.

He said that the house’s counsel has come back with some suggestions, and that he would like to meet with the child sexual abuse committee and town counsel to discuss how to go forward. Barrows will talk with the committee at its Oct. 15 meeting.

As currently written, the petition would define a mandated reporter to include any public or private school employee, any paid or unpaid person who works with children in any public or private facility, all employees of the Town of Foxboro and all volunteers who work with children in Foxboro, as well as any other person in an organization who has contact with children.

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PENNSYLVANIA
ABC 23

There are harsh accusations against a Somerset County Catholic Priest on Wednesday. We are learning about a sixty eight year old Priest that is now suspended because he is accused of sexual abuse. The Diocese confirms that Father Martin Cingle has been placed on a leave as they investigate allegations concerning sex abuse of a minor dating back to 2002. According to the Johnstown Catholic Diocese, Father Cingle is sixty eight years old and has been an Ordained Priest since 1973. He has served at about a dozen parishes throughout Central Pennsylvania. The most recent, All Saints Parish in Boswell and Saint Anne Parish in Davidsville. According to published reports Cingle is the twenty eighth Altoon Johnstown Diocese’s clergy member to be publicly accused of molesting children.

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NEW MEXICO
Albuquerque Journal

By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writer
Thursday, October 8th, 2015

A bankruptcy judge on Wednesday declined to order a new sale of properties belonging to the Diocese of Gallup even though auctioneers made an “error in judgment” by turning away a newspaper reporter and a graduate student from what had been billed as a public auction last month in Albuquerque.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David T. Thuma said that ordering a new auction could harm victims of sexual abuse by priests by reducing the money available to settle the diocese’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case.

Auctions held last month in Albuquerque and Phoenix netted the diocese about $160,000 after fees were paid to real estate brokers handling the sales. As of June 30, legal and professional costs in the case had mounted to more than $2.6 million. Ordering a new auction “would cost money,” Thuma said at the end of a hearing in Albuquerque. “There is a risk that ordering a new auction would harm the creditors, who are abuse victims.”

Thuma scheduled the hearing last week after Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola, a reporter for the Gallup Independent, and Meredith Edelman, a doctoral candidate, sent him letters saying they had been barred from a Sept. 19 auction in Albuquerque.

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IRELAND
The Irish Catholic

by Greg Daly
October 8, 2015

The sole Irish member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors has said she is “disappointed” with comments by Pope Francis recorded in a five-month-old video that was made public last week.

Abuse survivor Marie Collins was responding to a video in which the Pontiff was recorded speaking to the former spokesman for Chile’s bishops, who said the Chilean Church was “praying and suffering” for him.

The Pope promptly said the Church in Chile has “lost its head” over his controversial appointment of Bishop Juan Barros to head the Diocese of Osorno, urging him against being “led around by the nose by these leftists who are the ones who put this [opposition] together”.

Dr Barros’s appointment this March was widely opposed in Chile, with 51 of the country’s 120 parliamentarians having – along with over 30 clergy and 1,300 lay people from Osorno – written to Rome in protest. Despite a Vatican investigation into claims against him, he is widely regarded as a defender of his one-time mentor, Fr Fernando Karadima, a prominent priest who the Vatican in 2011 found guilty of abuse and sentenced to a life of “prayer and penance”.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Mazoe Ford

A Catholic priest and part-time police chaplain from the New South Wales Northern Rivers region who faces child sexual abuse charges from the 1980s has been granted bail.

John Patrick Casey will be effectively under house arrest at a relative’s remote 40-acre property and can only leave the address if accompanied by one of three family members.

The priest is not allowed to have any contact with children under the age of 16, must surrender his passport, has to report daily to police and must not contact anyone connected with the crown case.

Casey’s family offered up a $400,000 surety as part of his bail application to the New South Wales Supreme Court.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Eagle-Tribune

By Mike LaBella mlabella@eagletribune.com

HAVERHILL — A civil lawsuit says a former priest at All Saints Church convicted in 2000 of raping a 15-year-old girl also sexually assaulted a 5-year-old girl a decade and a half ago.

The suit, being brought against the Archdiocese of Boston, says former priest Kelvin Iguabita assaulted the younger girl from 1999 to 2001. The suit says the victim is now 21.

Iguabita was sentenced to 12 to 14 years in prison in 2003 for raping the 15-year-old girl in the All Saints Church rectory. Iguabita was defrocked, or thrown out of the priesthood. He is now 45, has served his jail sentence and is free.

In the civil complaint involving the younger girl, Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian said two priests from the Archdiocese failed to properly supervise Iguabita, which allowed him to become a threat to the younger girl. The complaint identifies those priests as the Rev. William Murphy,
currently bishop of Rockville Centre in Long Island, N.Y., who was the first assistant to Cardinal Bernard Law; and the Rev. Paul Miceli, currently dean of seminarians at the John XXIII Seminary in Weston and former secretary of ministerial personnel under Cardinal Law.

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BOSTON (MA)
Newsweek

BY ALEXANDER NAZARYAN 10/8/15

In the summer of 1982, a woman from Dorchester, Massachusetts, named Margaret Gallant wrote a letter to Cardinal Humberto S. Medeiros, then archbishop of Boston. In the letter, Gallant said that seven of her nephews and grandnephews had been abused by a local priest, John J. Geoghan. “It embarrasses me that the church is so negligent,” she wrote. Medeiros did not appear especially concerned for the welfare of the children. “To be sure, we cannot accept sin, but we know well that we must love the sinner and pray for him,” the cardinal wrote back.

This is how it always went with Geoghan, whose proclivities were well known by the 1980s. Back in 1954, at the Cardinal O’Connell Seminary, he was singled out for his “very pronounced immaturity.” At his first priestly posting, at the Blessed Sacrament Church in Saugus, Massachusetts, he was known to wrestle with boys in his private chambers.

As Geoghan moved from parish to parish throughout his career, he continued to prey on boys, almost always from poor families where an overworked mother was happy to have a little help from the parish priest. His abuse would inevitably attract the attention of the archdiocese. The prelates would force him into psychiatric care at a church-controlled treatment center, after which he’d return to pastoral care. In three and a half decades of wearing the cassock, Geoghan sexually assaulted 130 children.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By REBECCA ENGLISH ROYAL CORRESPONDENT FOR THE DAILY MAIL

When the Duchess of Cornwall lost her father in June 2006, Bishop Ball was invited to deliver a homily at his funeral.

His inclusion at such a high-profile event – attended by Prince Charles and his sons William and Harry – was a clear indication of Ball’s status in royal circles.

Yet 13 years before the funeral, he had been forced to resign after being cautioned by police over a sexual assault on a teenage monk.

Ball was even renting a house from the Duchy of Cornwall – the private estate which funds the heir to the throne.

He had moved in shortly after his very public disgrace.

Sources close to the prince were last night were unable to confirm whether he had ever written a letter in support of Ball.

And they were keen to point out that even lawyers involved in the case are unable to give details.

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CHILE
The New York Times

By PASCALE BONNEFOY
OCT. 7, 2015

SANTIAGO, Chile — Many watched in disbelief: There he was, Pope Francis, calling people in Osorno, a city in southern Chile, “dumb” for protesting against a bishop accused of being complicit in clerical sexual abuse.

“The Osorno community is suffering because it’s dumb,” Pope Francis told a group of tourists on St. Peter’s Square, because it “has let its head be filled with what politicians say, judging a bishop without any proof.”

“Don’t be led by the nose by the leftists who orchestrated all of this,” the pope said.

The video, filmed by an Argentine tourist in May, was obtained by a Chilean television station and broadcast on Friday, quickly instilling doubts here about the pope’s commitment to protecting victims of sexual abuse.

Under a heavy rain, demonstrators with black balloons chanted again outside the San Mateo Cathedral in Osorno on Sunday as the bishop at the center of the controversy, Juan Barros, said mass.

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NEW MEXICO
KOB

(AP) – A bankruptcy judge has ordered attorneys for a New Mexico diocese to explain why a property auction wasn’t made public.

The Gallup Independent reports that representatives of the Diocese of Gallup are scheduled to appear before U.S. bankruptcy Judge David T. Thuma on Wednesday.

Thuma says the diocese may not have conducted a public auction, which is required by federal bankruptcy rules. He says he got complaints from a researcher and the Gallup Independent saying they were.

One of the letters is from the Gallup Independent.

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PENNSYLVANIA
We Are Central PA

[with video]

By Marielena Balouris | mbalouris@wtajtv.com
Published 10/07 2015

Boswell, Somerset County, Pa.

Another priest from the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese is in hot water for allegedly sexually assaulting a minor.

No charges have been filed, but Father Martin Cingle has been suspended from the ministry while the Diocese investigates this most recent allegation.

The allegation is of sexual misconduct involving minors — and it dates back to 2002. The Diocese tells us that Martin has served at about a dozen parishes throughout the diocese — and currently is the pastor at All Saints parish in Boswell and Saint Anne parish in Davidsville, both in Somerset County. A letter was read to the parishes this past weekend informing them of this development, but the Diocese says Church business will continue while Martin is suspended.

Tony DeGol, who is the Secretary of Communications at the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, said, “Bishop Mark is planning at some point to schedule a time where he can go to the parishes and celebrate mass and speak with the people. In the meantime he is assuring them that the sacramental life of those parishes will continue.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By TOM KELLY and REBECCA ENGLISH FOR THE DAILY MAIL

Prince Charles was last night sensationally linked to Establishment support for a predatory bishop that led to a cover-up of his crimes.

The heir to the throne was forced to deny interfering in the legal process to help Peter Ball escape sex abuse charges as the 83-year-old was finally brought to justice yesterday over offences against boys dating back 40 years.

Charles’s dramatic intervention came after the Old Bailey was told a royal had written in support of the former Bishop of Lewes and Gloucester when he was first investigated.

The prince is understood to have been among MPs, cabinet ministers, public school headmasters and a former lord chief justice all said to have assisted Ball.

The astonishing claims emerged on the day Scotland Yard’s VIP abuse inquiry team faced fresh turmoil after being forced to apologise to Lord Brittan’s widow over its bungled probe into false rape allegations against him.

On Tuesday, the BBC’s Panorama cast grave doubt on the reliability of the inquiry’s key witnesses.

Ball was jailed for 32 months at the Old Bailey yesterday.

But in 1993 he was let off with a caution after admitting gross indecency against a boy of 17.

The royal who wrote to support him was not named in court, but Ball counted Charles as a ‘loyal friend’ and publicly thanked him for providing him with a Duchy of Cornwall home following his criminal caution.

Ball also read the homily at the funeral of the father of Camilla Parker Bowles in 2006.

A spokesman for Charles insisted: ‘The Prince of Wales made no intervention in the judicial process on behalf of Peter Ball.’

However he failed to deny there had been a letter in support of Ball.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

Updated: Wednesday, October 7 2015

Lauren Hensley

ALTOONA, Pa.– Altoona-Johnstown Diocese confirms a Somerset County priest, Martin Cingle, has been suspended as they investigate allegations concerning sex abuse of a minor dating back to 2002.

According to the Diocese, Cingle has been an ordained priest since 1973. He has served at about a dozen parishes throughout central Pennsylvania.

Most recently father Cingle served as pastor at All Saints Parish in Boswell and Saint Anne Parish in Davidsville.

Church officials have not released any more information regarding the allegations, causing victim service agencies to call for action.

“We are so sorry that a child has been hurt and we hope that they find healing. We would beg anyone with knowledge of these crimes any information to contact law enforcement,” Barbara Doris with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said.

SNAP’s web site said it is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. They have a strong message for the bishop of the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese and are calling him to action.

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ILLINOIS
Daily Herald

Barbara Vitello

A prominent Elgin imam, already on bond on charges he sexually abused a 22-year-old employee of the Islamic school he founded, faces new charges accusing him of sexually abusing a former student when she was teen.

Mohammad Abdullah Saleem — founder and former director of the Institute of Islamic Education, a private school in Elgin for children in sixth through 12th grades — was ordered held on $1 million bail Wednesday afternoon on charges of aggravated criminal sexual abuse.

Cook County Judge Joseph Cataldo ordered Saleem have no contact with this new accuser and no contact with anyone under age 18. Cataldo also ordered Saleem to surrender his passport.

Saleem’s new accuser says the cleric sexually abused her 15 to 20 times between 2001 and 2003, when she was between 14 and 16 years old and a student at the school, where he served as president and principal.

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ILLINOIS
Fox 32

ELGIN, Ill. (STMW) – A nationally renowned Islamic leader accused of sexually abusing a girl who attended his Elgin school was ordered held on a $1 million bond Wednesday.

Mohammed Abdullah Saleem, 75, turned himself in to Elgin police Wednesday morning and was charged with aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a minor, according to Elgin police and the Cook County state’s attorney’s office.

The victim began attending the Institute of Islamic Education in August 2001 when she was 14, according to prosecutors. Saleem founded the school in 1989 as a full-time residential educational institution for students in 6-12.

About one month later, Saleem requested the girl visit him in his office once a week, prosecutors said. During the visits, Saleem would force the girl to sit on his lap, touch and fondle her in a sexual manner, and give her gifts, including a gold necklace and cash.

The abuse continued until September 2003, when the victim moved out of state to finish high school, prosecutors said. In December 2014 the victim disclosed details of the abuse to a witness, who contacted Elgin police, who were already investigating Saleem for similar crimes.

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ILLINOIS
WLS

ELGIN, Ill. (WLS) — The founder of a suburban Islamic school is accused of abusing a former student.

Abdullah Saleem, 76, is charged with aggravated criminal sexual abuse. He is accused of inappropriately touching the victim in his office at Institute of Islamic Education in Elgin, Ill., on dozens of occasions from 2001 to 2003. The girl was 14 when the alleged abuse began, prosecutors said.

Police said they were notified of the abuse in 2014. He was held on a $1 million bond.

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ILLINOIS
San Francisco Chronicle

ROLLING MEADOWS, Ill. (AP) — A suburban Chicago Islamic scholar already facing charges of sexually abusing an employee of the school he founded faces new allegations that he abused a former student.

Mohammad Abdullah Saleem, founder of the Institute of Islamic Education in Elgin, was ordered held in lieu of $1 million bail Wednesday on charges of aggravated criminal sexual abuse.

The Daily Herald in Arlington Heights reports (http://bit.ly/1NogIUv) Saleem’s new accuser claims the cleric sexually abused her 15 to 20 times between 2001 and 2003, when she was between 14 and 16 years old and a student at the school. Illinois law allows sexual abuse charges within 20 years of an accuser’s 18th birthday.

Saleem had been free on bond on the earlier charge.

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ILLINOIS
Chicago Tribune

George Houde and Stacey Wescott
Chicago Tribune

The founder of an Islamic school in Elgin who is awaiting trial on sexual abuse charges now faces new allegations of abuse of a former student, police said.

Mohammed Abdullah Saleem, 76, a prominent imam who founded the Institute of Islamic Education in Elgin, turned himself in Wednesday morning at the Elgin police station, where he was charged with aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a minor, said Elgin police Lt. Rick Ciganek.

Saleem appeared in bond court Wednesday afternoon, where prosecutors said the new charges are based on allegations that Saleem abused the girl dozens of times between 2001 and 2003 when she was a student at the institute and Saleem was the school’s president and principal.

Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney David Shin said Saleem is accused of forcing the girl to sit on his lap while he was aroused and touching her in a sexual manner. Prosecutors said the alleged abuse began about a month after the girl enrolled at the boarding school when she was 14, escalated over time and ended when the girl moved out of state.

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CONNECTICUT
Darien News

By Martin B. Cassidy
Wednesday, October 7, 2015

After two members of Encounter Church confided histories of sexual abuse last spring, Pastor Landon Reesor, a father of five, decided he wanted to do more to help victims of sexual abuse.

Reesor reached out to Heather P. Wright, executive director of the Greenwich Center for Hope and Renewal, about establishing a counseling program to help sex abuse victims recover. The center is a faith-based counseling center in north Greenwich and Wright is a licensed counselor.

“If two people come to me within such a short period of time and said sex abuse is part of their story I know it can’t just be them,” said Reesor, who founded the church 10 years ago.

Reesor said the more he researches the issue of sex abuse, the more he believes many victims are not seeking help that could improve their lives.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Reuters

BY JIM CHRISTIE

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Milwaukee is a step closer to exiting its bitterly contested bankruptcy with court approval of its disclosure statement and a voting schedule on its plan to pay $21 million to settle sexual abuse claims.

Judge Susan Kelley of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Milwaukee gave her blessing on Monday to the disclosure statement and scheduled Nov. 3 as the voting deadline for creditors on the archdiocese’s reorganization plan. The judge will then hold a hearing on Nov. 9 to consider confirmation of the plan.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Road to Recovery

MEDIA RELEASE – OCTOBER 7, 2015

SEXUAL ABUSE OCCURRED AT ALL SAINTS PARISH, HAVERHILL, MA

Fr. Kelvin E. Iguabita, also known as Kelvin E. Iguabita-Rodriguez, a serial sexual abuser of children who served a long prison term, has been accused once again of sexual abuse of a minor child when she was approximately 5-6 years old at All Saints Catholic Parish in Haverhill, MA

Fr. William F. Murphy, currently the Bishop of Rockville Centre, Long Island, New York, who was the Vicar General and Moderator of the Curia of the Archdiocese of Boston at the time of the sexual abuse; and Rev. Paul E. Miceli, who was Secretary for Ministerial Personnel for the Archdiocese of Boston, at the time of the abuse, allegedly breached their fiduciary duty to properly hire, retain, direct and supervise Fr. Kelvin E. Iguabita at All Saints Parish, Haverhill, MA

What
A press conference alerting the media and general public of the filing of a civil complaint in Middlesex County against two priests of the Archdiocese of Boston; Fr. William F. Murphy, currently the Bishop of Rockville Centre, Long Island, NY, who was the number two man under Cardinal Bernard Law; and Fr. Paul E. Miceli, currently Dean of Seminarians at the John XXIII Seminary in Weston, MA and former Secretary of Ministerial Personnel under Cardinal Bernard Law

When
Thursday, October 8, 2015 at 11:00 am

Where
On the public sidewalk outside All Saints Roman Catholic Church, 120 Bellevue Avenue, Haverhill, MA 01832

Who
Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., Co-founder and President of Road to Recovery, Inc., a non-profit charity based in New Jersey that provides assistance to sexual abuse victims and their families

Why
From approximately 1999 when the plaintiff was approximately 5 years old to approximately 2001 when the plaintiff was approximately 6 years old, Fr. Kelvin E. Iguabita, a priest at All Saints Catholic Church in Haverhill, MA, repeatedly engaged in explicit sexual behavior and lewd and lascivious conduct with the minor child plaintiff. Fr. Kelvin E. Iguabita is a convicted felon, serial and dangerous sexual abuser of minor children and was allegedly improperly supervised by two priests of the Archdiocese of Boston; in particular, by Fr. William F. Murphy, Vicar General and Moderator of the Curia under Cardinal Bernard Law and now Bishop of Rockville Centre, Long Island, New York; and Fr. Paul E. Miceli, currently an administrator at the John XXIII Seminary in Weston, MA, who at the time of the sexual abuse of Fr. Iguabita was Secretary for Ministerial Personnel under Cardinal Bernard Law. Both priests allegedly were aware or should have been aware of Fr. Iguabita’s sexual abuse of children and allowed him access to minor children at All Saints Parish in Haverhill, MA.

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

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent

Prince Charles has denied using his influence to protect a bishop from a sex crimes prosecution in the 1990s during a concerted Establishment effort to defend the cleric’s reputation.

An unnamed member of the Royal Family sent a letter of support for Peter Ball, the former Bishop of Gloucester and one-time acquaintance of the Prince, as prosecutors considered putting him on trial for abusing aspiring priests, the Old Bailey was told.

Ball, 83, has finally been jailed for 32 months for abusing 18 young men over 15 years as his victims accused the criminal justice system of a cover-up to avoid a major Church scandal.

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MINNESOTA
National Catholic Reporter

Kris Berggren | Oct. 7, 2015

MINNEAPOLIS The Synod of Bishops on the Family is expected to result in some changes in church teaching on the touchy topic of sexuality, says Massimo Faggioli, associate professor of theology and director of the Institute for Catholicism and Citizenship at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minn.

Faggioli predicts the synod may move the dial on allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to participate in Communion and on welcoming gay people and their families into the church more fully without going so far as to bless same-sex marriage. While he says not to expect any changes to the official teaching on contraception soon,* Faggioli says that Francis has already reinterpreted Humanae Vitae, so that the teaching is not a big problem for the pontificate. …

It’s important to remember that the American church is only a small percentage of the global church but can have outsized influence on the natural discourse.

One example of undue American influence, says Faggioli, is mistranslation of portions of last year’s interim synod report from Italian into English, such as where the original Italian verb said that the church should “welcome” but was changed into English as “provide for” gays.

“It’s not clear if you are in or out,” says Faggioli. “What surprised me is they thought they could get away with it. That was ridiculous.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Editorial

The trial and sentencing of Peter Ball, a retired bishop, for sex offences against 18 adolescent boys is an act of justice very long and shamefully delayed. The last of the offences for which he is being punished took place in 1992 and at the time he was merely cautioned. The most shocking aspect of the case is the widespread support he received from the old establishment.

His immediate superior, Eric Kemp, then the bishop of Chichester, wrote in his memoirs that: “The circumstances which led to [Ball’s] early resignation were the work of mischief-makers.”

According to the Crown Prosecution Service, letters and phone calls in favour of this abuser were sent to the police by MPs, JPs, public school headmasters, and an unnamed member of the royal family. Immediately after Ball first accepted a caution, he was lent a cottage that belonged to the Prince of Wales. It was on an estate where Ball lived undisturbed until the case against him was reopened as part of a more general investigation of the rottenness of the Chichester diocese under Kemp.

What were they thinking? In all this extraordinary collection of the great and the bad was there no one who thought that the victims deserved more consideration than the perpetrator of the abuse? One answer is that Ball was widely considered an exceptionally holy man; in fact much of his abuse took place in the context of supposedly spiritual disciplines such as naked cold showering. Excess of charisma and sexual appetite are often closely linked, especially in a religious context. Another may be the confusion which at the time surrounded homosexual attraction. The first of the offences for which Ball has been convicted took place only 10 years after gay sex between consenting adults was legalised and, given the age of the victims, would have been illegal even if they had consented. A misplaced sense of solidarity led some people of liberal inclinations to overlook crimes they should never have tolerated.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Daily Beast

Nico Hines

LONDON — An extraordinary elite-level cover-up that included a member of the royal family, Cabinet ministers and judges conspired to keep a pedophile bishop safe from prosecution and free to continue abusing boys.

Peter Ball, the former bishop of Lewes, was finally convicted Wednesday for decades of sexual crimes against boys and young men that date back into the 1970s.

The accusations first emerged in the early 1990s but detectives investigating the case were bombarded by calls of support for the bishop from Members of Parliament, former school headmasters, judges and a Lord.

Further support from the establishment arrived in the mail, with more than 2,000 letters including references from Cabinet ministers and one member of the Royal family.

The Royal concerned has not been named, but Ball has described Prince Charles as “a loyal friend.”

The future King of England had been at the ceremony when Ball was appointed Bishop of Gloucester, and he allowed him to retire to a wisteria-clad lodge on one of his estates when a first round of sex abuse allegations forced his resignation.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daiy Mail

By HUGO GYE FOR MAILONLINE

A bishop who escaped prosecution for abusing young men when a host of Establishment figures – including a member of the Royal family – defended him is finally behind bars.

Peter Ball’s imprisonment comes as Prince Charles has denied that he is the unidentified Royal who intervened two decades ago to help out the former Bishop of Lewes and Gloucester.

Ball – who once described the heir to the throne as ‘a loyal friend’ – was arrested in 1992 after beating a 17-year-old novice monk and encouraging him to pray naked.

However, the Director of Public Prosecutions decided not to charge him after a number of VIPs including MPs, public school headmasters and the Lord Chief Justice phoned police to stand up for him.

Among 2,000 letters of support sent on behalf of Ball were some from cabinet ministers and one from a Royal, the Old Bailey heard.

When asked if the Royal was Prince Charles, a spokesman for Clarence House said: ‘The Prince of Wales made no intervention in the judicial process on behalf of Peter Ball.’

Ball, now 83, was today jailed for 32 months, two decades after he was let off with a caution for carrying out a string of sex attacks on vulnerable youths.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Church of England

05 October 2015

The Archbishop of Canterbury has today commissioned an independent review of the way the Church of England responded to the case of Peter Ball, the former Bishop of Gloucester.

During a hearing at the Central Criminal Court on September 8th of this year Bishop Peter Ball pleaded guilty to two charges of indecent assault and one charge of misconduct in public office following the work of Sussex police as part of Operation Dunhill.

Operation Dunhill began as a direct result of the safeguarding officer at Lambeth Palace raising concerns about Peter Ball following a church initiated review of files. The approach to the police was a proactive step on the part of the national Church leading to a self-initiated referral via CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre) to Sussex Police in 2012. This led to active co-working between the Church and Sussex Police on a complex enquiry with full information sharing.

Since Peter Ball’s guilty plea questions have been raised about the Church’s handling of this case. As a result the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has today commissioned an independent review of the way the Church responded.

The independent review will examine the Church of England’s cooperation with the police and other statutory agencies and the extent to which it shared information in a timely manner, identifying both good practice and shortcomings alike. It will also assess the extent to which the Church both properly assessed the possible risk that Bishop Ball might pose to others and responded adequately to concerns and representations submitted by survivors.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Church of England

07 October 2015

“It is a matter of deep shame and regret that a Bishop in the Church of England has today been sentenced for a series of offences over 15 years against 18 young men known to him. There are no excuses whatsoever for what took place and the systematic abuse of trust perpetrated by Peter Ball over decades.

We apologise unreservedly to those survivors of Peter Ball’s abuse and pay tribute to their bravery in coming forward and also the long wait for justice that they have endured. We note that there are those whose cases remain on file for whom today will be a difficult day, not least in the light of the courage and persistence that they have demonstrated in pressing for the truth to be revealed. We also remember Neil Todd, whose bravery in 1992 enabled others to come forward but who took his own life before Peter Ball’s conviction or sentencing.

As the Police have noted Peter Ball systematically abused the trust of the victims, many of whom who were aspiring priests, whilst others were simply seeking to explore their spirituality. He also abused the trust placed in him by the Church and others, maintaining a campaign of innocence for decades until his final guilty plea only weeks ago. Since that plea was made processes in the Church have begun to initiate formal internal disciplinary procedures against Peter Ball.

Operation Dunhill began as a direct result of the safeguarding officer at Lambeth Palace raising concerns about Peter Ball following a church initiated review of files. The approach to the police was a proactive step on the part of the national Church leading to a self-initiated referral via CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre) to Sussex Police in 2012. This led to active co-working between Lambeth Palace, the Diocese of Chichester and Sussex Police on a complex enquiry with full information sharing. We pay tribute to those detectives whose work on this case over the past three years has led to this conviction and sentencing.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

[with video]

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey has denied being involved in covering up the sex crimes of a former Bishop.

Peter Ball was jailed for 32 months for a string of sex crimes against young aspiring priests.

The Church of England is also investigating claims that senior clerics helped cover-up the sex crimes after victims claimed that it prevented him from facing justice for decades.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

[with video]

In 1986 ITV screened a documentary about a bishop heralded as one of the most spiritual and loving figures in the Church of England.

His name was Peter Ball.

At the time it was viewed as a fascinating insight into the work of Bishop of Lewes, who was running a retreat for spiritually curious young people, some of them aspiring priests.

I watched it again today.

Nearly 30 years on, it has a chilling quality.

In the opening minute of the programme Peter Ball tells his spellbound young audience, who have signed up to “give a year to Christ”:

VERY FAR from that, as one victim knows only too well.

He wanted to be identified but cannot be because of a court order imposed at the Old Bailey today.

We will call him Peter.

He was a teenager worshipping at a church in Eastbourne when the abuse began.
It lasted over a number of years. It was highly manipulative now I look back. But it was deeply confusing for me as a public schoolboy taught in the 1970s to respect authority and not question things.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Belfast Telegraph

A former Archbishop of Canterbury today denied presiding over a “cover-up” as one of his senior clergymen was jailed for sexually abusing aspiring priests – 22 years after it first came to light.

Lord Carey was head of the Church of England when it emerged that Peter Ball had misused his power over teenagers and young men who had come to his home in Litlington, East Sussex, through a Give A Year For Christ scheme.

While Bishop of Lewes, Ball had hand-picked 18 vulnerable victims to commit acts of “debasement” in the name of religion, such as praying naked at the altar and encouraging them to submit to beatings.

Despite a number of complaints, Ball, who went on to become Bishop of Gloucester, was never charged and even continued to work as a priest in Truro after he accepted a caution for gross indecency in 1993.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Brittie Perez (Brittmarie Janson Perez) has sent me another excellent essay that I’m delighted to publish today. Readers who have followed this blog will perhaps remember that I’ve previously published other pieces by Brittie — here and here. What follows is Brittie’s latest text, entitled Non Posso Piu:

The Italian phrase, Non posso piu, can be translated in any number of ways. Here it functions as “I can’t put up with it any longer.”

What is that “it” with which I can no longer put up?

The atitudes and behavior of the hierarchy who control the Catholic church.

My protest comprises non-attendance at the church which I attended here in Italy, built by my ancestors and now presided over by a well-meaning, innocent Italian priest. Assigned to the parish only a year ago, the priest presided over the splendid funeral given by the town to my late husband. To be assigned as the sole priest of this litte town had been a step up for him as, due to his lack of liturgical sophistication, the bishop of our diocese had kept close, allowed him to preside only over funerals, and bullied by his fellow priests. Though he will be astonished at my drastic action because he brings me Communion when I am ill, he is not as naive as most think. When I told him I was writing a piece on Kiko Arguello and the Neocathecumenals, he told me that, after attending a Neocathecumenal “mass” at the invitation of a fellow priest, he flatly told his host, “That is a sect.”

After seven decades of church going, what was the drop that finally caused my cup to overflow?

Like thousands of Catholics, my road out of the Church was well paved. In fact, I had taken that route in 1993 when the huge pedophilia scandal in New Mexico erupted leading to the resignation of Archbishop Robert F. Sanchez. However, I won’t go into all the causes of my dissaffection here. Just the fact that I have given this to Bill Lindsey for Bilgrimage should suffice. But as the devil is in the details, I must admit that Pope Francis’ meeting with Kim Davis, with all the Machiavellic machinations it involved, opened wide the EXIT gate.

Paradoxically enough, the last drop was an article in the Italian magazine Jesus, published by the Catholic Paulist press in Rome. In the April 2015 issue, I found an article by Mauro Castagnaro on the case of Chilean Monsignor Juan de la Cruz Barros, appointed bishop of Osorno over the protests of the victims of the sexual abuse by Fernando Karadima, victims who accused Barros of having covered up for Karadima. Details of the case can be found in Jason Berry’s “Chilean cardinals close to pope stained by abuse cover-ups,” published by NCR on 29 April 2014.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Oct. 7

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

Another Altoona priest has allegedly committed child sex crimes. He’s the 28th Altoona-Johnstown diocesan cleric to be publicly accused of molesting children.

[Daily American]

We hope that every single person who saw, suspected or suffered crimes or misdeeds by Fr. Martin Cingle will find the courage to step forward, get help, expose wrongdoers, protect kids and start healing. We especially appeal to current and former church employees to share what they may know or suspect about this priest with law enforcement.

Bishop Mark Bartchak should get out from behind his desk, ignore his lawyers, and personally visit each site where Fr. Cingle worked, begging victims, witnesses and whistle-blowers to call police and prosecutors.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Anglican Communion News Service

Posted on: October 7, 2015

[ACNS] The Church of England has spoken of its “deep shame and regret” this afternoon [Wednesday] after a former diocesan bishop was sentenced to 36 months in prison after admitting a series of abuse offences against 18 young men.

Peter Ball committed the abuse between 1977 and 1992 when he was Bishop of Lewes in the Diocese of Chichester.

In 1993, a year after being appointed Bishop of Gloucester, Peter Ball stood down from full time ministry after accepting a police caution for the sexual assault of a young man, named Neil Todd, who later committed suicide. A police caution in England and Wales is a non-judicial method of disposing of admitted criminal accusations and is usually reserved for first-time minor offences.

The renewed police investigation against Peter Ball was sparked by concerns raised by the Church of England following an in-house review of all clergy files by independent safeguarding professionals. Last month, after first arguing – unsuccessfully – that he was not fit to stand trial and that a bishop is not the holder of a “public office”, the 83-year-old pleaded guilty to charges of indecent assault and misconduct in public office.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Spectator

Damian Thompson

Pope Francis’s three-week Synod on the Family began on Sunday. Most of the 279 ‘Synod Fathers’ are senior bishops, many of them cardinals. They have no authority to change any aspect of Catholic teaching or pastoral practice. They are discussing the ‘hot button’ issues of communion for the divorced and remarried and the spiritual care of gay Catholics — but, once the meeting is over, power will rest entirely in the hands of the Pope.

Conservative Catholics aren’t happy. Last year, at a preparatory ‘extraordinary’ synod, officials hand-picked by Francis announced in the middle of the proceedings that the Fathers favoured a more relaxed approach to gay relationships and second marriages. Senior cardinals exploded with rage, because most Fathers favoured no such thing. The liberal synod organisers — Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, secretary general of the synod, and Archbishop Bruno Forte, its ‘special secretary’ — were forced to drop their claims. The whole thing was a car crash and obviously their fault.

Yet Francis stuck by them. As a result, once again the synod working papers are stuffed with sociological waffle. Worse, Baldisseri and Forte are sitting on the commission that will draft the final report that goes to the Pope. This time round, however, the conservatives are alert to the dangers. On Monday morning they struck first. …

One decision really bothers them. Why did Francis ask Cardinal Godfried Danneels, a retired Belgian archbishop, to join the assembly? Danneels maintains that the church ‘has never opposed the fact that there should exist a sort of “marriage” between homosexuals’. No other cardinal holds this batty view.

But that’s not the problem. In 2010, a man confided in Danneels that he had been abused by a bishop, Roger Vangheluwe. The cardinal, who didn’t know he was being tape-recorded, told him to shut up until after the bishop retired.

The victim was Bishop Vangheluwe’s nephew. And now the cardinal who tried to cover up the abuse has been invited by the Pope to a synod on the family. Also, very unhelpfully, he has just written a book claiming credit for getting Bergoglio elected. ‘The Danneels thing is the most troubling aspect of the synod,’ says a respected Catholic writer. ‘If the scandal breaks properly, it could blow the whole thing apart.’

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UNITED KINGDOM
Western Gazette

AN elderly woman was sexually assaulted by a priest because she was the “perfect victim”, a court heard.

Roy Catchpole, 69, of Gainsborough, Milborne Port, is charged with three accounts of sexual assault and one of exposure.

His trial began on Tuesday at Bournemouth Crown Court.

The alleged offences took place between August 1, 2013 and June 29, 2014.

Catchpole, who appeared smartly dressed in grey suit jacket and yellow shirt, denies all charges.

In her opening statement, prosecutor Fern Russell explained how the victim, a retired lady who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was the “perfect victim” for Catchpole.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Daily American

By ERIC KIETA erick@dailyamerican.com

A priest who heads churches in Boswell and Davidsville has been placed on leave and is under investigation by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown for an allegation that he sexually abused a minor in 2002.

Diocese spokesman Tony DeGol confirmed Tuesday that the Rev. Martin Cingle, 68, is on leave from All Saints in Boswell and St. Anne in Davidsville. Cingle, however, has not been arrested or charged by police.

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

BY ALANA FEARON

Ageing priests and a plummeting number of practising Catholics have left the Church facing an unprecedented crisis

Catholic churches may be shut down completely as a chronic lack of priests and falling attendance sees Masses cancelled.

The situation nationwide is already so critical that weekday services have been cancelled and Sunday Masses in many places are only held every second weekend.

Ageing priests, a lack of young seminarians and a plummeting number of practising Catholics have left the Church facing an unprecedented crisis.

The institution in America has dealt with the same turmoil by shutting churches and clustering whole parishes.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 7 October 2015 (VIS) – The Holy Father has appointed:

– Fr. Luy Gonzaga Nguyen Hung Vi as bishop of Kontum (area 25,240, population 1,775,200, Catholics 300,649, priests 169, religious 477), Vietnam. The bishop-elect was born in Ha Noi, Vietnam, in 1952, and was ordained a priest in 1990. He holds a licentiate in liturgy from the Institut Catholique of Paris, France, and has served as parish vicar of Binh Cang in Nha Trang, director of the minor seminary of Kontum in Ho Chi Minh City, and secretary of the episcopal office in Kontum. He is currently pastor of the parish of Phuong Nghia, Kontum. He succeeds Bishop Michael Hoang Duc Oanh, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese upon reaching the age limit was accepted by the Holy Father.

– Bishop Carmelo Cuttitta, auxiliary of the archdiocese of Palermo, Italy, as bishop of Ragusa (area 1,029, population 221,835, Catholics 213,252, priests 130, permanent deacons 8, religious 276), Italy. He succeeds Bishop Paolo Urso, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese upon reaching the age limit was accepted by the Holy Father.

– Fr. Peter Huynh Van Hai as bishop of Vinh Long (area 6,772, population 3,976,552, Catholics 199,404, priests 205, religious 775), Vietnam. The bishop-elect was born in 1954 in Ben Tre, Vietnam, and was ordained a priest in 1994. He holds a doctorate in philosophy from the Institut Catholique of Paris, France, and has served as head of vocations for the diocese of Vinh Long. He is currently lecturer in philosophy in the major seminaries of Can Tho and Ho Chi Minh City.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Phyllis Zagano | Oct. 7, 2015 Just Catholic

Early church fathers preferred asceticism but figured out that without marriage and children the church would not last long. They wrote that married households are the basis of Christian community.

Skip ahead several centuries and they are at it again. A room full of celibate men talking about marriage.

Oh, they’ve let a few other folks into the back rows: 17 married couples and some others. They even have three women religious (one each from Malta, Costa Rica, and the U.S.) representing the International Union of Superiors General.

The bottom line: it’s all-male, all the time, and 99.6% clerical. Of the 279 voting members of the Synod of Bishops on the Vocation and Mission of the Family in the Church and the Contemporary World, there is one brother — the superior general of the Little Brothers of Jesus, the lay group inspired by Charles de Foucauld to live simple lives among the people. There are nine other men religious — heads of Benedictine, Dominican, Franciscan, Jesuit and Redemptorist orders and others — and a reasonable number of the synod fathers are religious priests. But, aside from the religious men’s experiences of communal living, the voting members’ family life ended when they left Mom and Dad for the seminary, some at the age of 14.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Herald Scotland

A former bishop who exploited aspiring priests for his own “selfish sexual motives” has been jailed for 32 months – 22 years after the abuse first surfaced.

A member of the Royal family was among a host of Establishment figures who supported the former bishop of Lewes when he avoided charges in 1993.

Last month, after a last ditch attempt to get his case thrown out failed, Peter Ball pleaded guilty to misconduct in a public office and two counts of indecent assault on young men in their teens.

The court heard how Ball had convinced some of his victims to strip naked to pray and even suggested they submit to beatings between 1977 and 1992.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Frankfurter Allgemeine

[A priest named Wolf Dieter W. has been defrocked by Pope Francis. He was accused of abusing minors.]

Limburg/Würzburg/Rom.
Am 26. Juni entzog Papst Franziskus dem 75 Jahren alten Priester Wolfdieter W. alle Rechte und Pflichten, die mit dem Klerikerstand verbunden sind. Der 75-Jährige wurde somit aus dem Stand der Priester entlassen. Anlass für die Entscheidung des Papstes: sexueller Missbrauch von Minderjährigen.

Es war ein Fall aus dem Bistum Limburg, den der Papst handeln ließ. Er liegt lange zurück. Aber der 1940 in Grätz geborene Wolfdieter W. ist wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs schon mehrmals aufgefallen. 1985 gab es anonyme Hinweise in Miltenberg und eine Anzeige wegen möglicher Übergriffe auf Kinder. 1986 gab es ein Strafverfahren vor dem Amtsgericht Obernburg wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs. W. wurde zu einer Geldstrafe verurteilt und legte Berufung ein. Das Verfahren wurde 1987 gegen Geldauflage eingestellt. Noch 1986 trat W. seinen Dienst im Bistum Limburg an. Dort kam es ebenfalls zu Beschuldigungen wegen sexueller Belästigungen. Das Bistum versetzte den Pfarrer vom Westerwald nach Frankfurt in eine Klinik.

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ITALY
The Local

An Italian priest was immediately suspended from his church in the northern city of Trento on Tuesday after defending paedophilia during a live television interview, arguing that “children often seek affection”.

Father Gino Flaim, of the San Giuseppe and Pio X parish, said he “understands paedophilia” but wasn’t so sure about homosexuality.

When asked to explain his comments on the La7 show, L’aria che tira, he said:

“Because I’ve been to lots of schools and I know children. Unfortunately, there are children who seek affection because they don’t get it at home.”

He acknowledged that paedophilia is a sin, but that “like all sins, it has to be accepted”. He believes that homosexuality, on the other hand, is an “illness”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Catholic Herald

The winner of the prize will be announced on Friday

Pope Francis is among the front runners for the Nobel Peace Prize which will be announced on Friday morning.

Pope Francis is not the only Catholic among the contenders because an Eritrean priest is also a front runner for the prestigous prize.

Fr Mussie Zerai set up a hotline for refugees from his country making the perilous journey to Europe so that they can call the priest when they face difficuly.

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ITALY
The Guardian (UK)

Associated Press in Rome
Wednesday 7 October 2015

The Catholic church in northern Italy’s Trento region has penalised a priest who said paedophilia in the church was caused by children seeking the affection of clergymen, but that homosexuality was an inexplicable sickness.

The Trento archdiocese said in a statement it had removed the Rev Gino Flaim from all pastoral work and forbidden him from preaching, after an interview was aired on the La7 private network on Tuesday evening.

In the comments, Flaim said he had worked in schools and understood children. “Unfortunately, there are children who seek out affection because they don’t get any at home. And it can be that maybe they find some priests. And I understand this,” he said.

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ITALY
Irish Times

Paddy Agnew

A 75-year-old Italian priest, Don Gino Flaim, has been suspended from his functions at the San Pio X church in Trent, northern Italy, after he made comments in which he appeared to “justify” paedophilia.

Speaking to Italian current affairs TV programme, “The Way The Wind Is Blowing”, Don Gino said: “I can understand paedophilia. Homosexuality, I don’t know, I think it’s a sickness. I have worked a lot with schools and I know children.

“Unfortunately, there are children who seek out affection because they do not receive it at home. And maybe if they come across some priest, well maybe he will yield (to temptation). I understand this … It doesn’t surprise me that these type of cases exist because the Church is a community of sinners”.

Don Gino’s words prompted an immediate series of protests from local politicians.
Archbishop of Trent, Luigi Bressan, intervened both to disassociate the archdiocese from Don Gino’s comments and to suspend him from his role of “pastoral collaborator”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

Retired bishop Peter Ball – who has been jailed for 32 months after admitting abusing 18 young men across 20 years – was a sadistic sexual predator who groomed, controlled and abused his victims, one of whom ended up taking his own life.

Ball, 83, was part of the establishment of the Church of England, considered both powerful and deeply spiritual.

He abused most of his victims while he lived in East Sussex and was serving as Bishop of Lewes – but would go on to carry on the abuse as Bishop of Gloucester.

He admitted the abuse, which started in the 1970s and continued into the 80s and 90s, at the Old Bailey last month.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Premier

Wed 07 Oct 2015
By Aaron James

The former bishop of Lewes and Gloucester Peter Ball has been sentenced to 32 months in prison for abusing young men.

Rt Revd Paul Butler, the lead Bishop on safeguarding on behalf of the Church of England, said after sentencing: “It is a matter of deep shame and regret that a Bishop in the Church of England has today been sentenced for a series of offences over 15 years against 18 young men known to him. There are no excuses whatsoever for what took place and the systematic abuse of trust perpetrated by Peter Ball over decades.

“We apologise unreservedly to those survivors of Peter Ball’s abuse and pay tribute to their bravery in coming forward and also the long wait for justice that they have endured. We note that there are those whose cases remain on file for whom today will be a difficult day, not least in the light of the courage and persistence that they have demonstrated in pressing for the truth to be revealed.

“We also remember Neil Todd, whose bravery in 1992 enabled others to come forward but who took his own life before Peter Ball’s conviction or sentencing.

“As the Police have noted Peter Ball systematically abused the trust of the victims, many of whom who were aspiring priests, whilst others were simply seeking to explore their spirituality. He also abused the trust placed in him by the Church and others, maintaining a campaign of innocence for decades until his final guilty plea only weeks ago. Since that plea was made processes in the Church have begun to initiate formal internal disciplinary procedures against Peter Ball.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

By Nicola Harley 07 Oct 2015

Former bishop of Lewes has been jailed at the Old Bailey for 32 months for abusing his power to exploit young aspiring priests for his own “selfish sexual motive” over 15 years.

A court heard Peter Ball avoided prosecution for sexual abuse in 1993 after the intervention of the royal family.

Ball, 83, was sentenced at the Old Bailey after using religion as a “cloak” to groom aspiring young priests for sex during the 1970s, 80s and 90s.

But he almost escaped justice when his first victim reported allegations and was given a police caution after interventions from establishment figures, the Old Bailey was told on Wednesday.

Prosecutor Bobbie Cheema said the prosecution has investigated the way in which the police and prosecutors dealt with the claims in 1993. He was not prosecuted for two of the three offences he has now admitted at the of the initial investigation.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

7 October, 2015

When it comes to understanding why some institutions fail to identify and report child sexual abuse, research released by the Royal Commission suggests that a new approach that seeks a deeper understanding of why errors occur would be more effective in encouraging safe practices in the future.

The research, ‘Hear no evil, see no evil: understanding failure to identify and report child abuse in institutional contexts’ was conducted by Professor Eileen Munro (London School of Economics and Political Sciences) and Dr Sheila Fish (Social Care Institute for Excellence).

Royal Commission CEO Philip Reed said the research draws on two Royal Commission case studies and offers speculative findings on individual and organisational factors that have contributed to the failure to protect children in a timely and effective way.

The study identifies a number of challenges to creating and maintaining a safe organisation where staff members; are quick to recognise grooming or abuse behavior and trigger a process that investigates concerns and can take appropriate action so that children are protected from harm.

According to the researchers, one such challenge is the nature of child sexual abuse itself.

Perpetrators seek to conceal their activities, children and young people who are abused can be unable or slow to ask for help, and many behavioural indicators of abuse and grooming are ambiguous.

Mr Reed said the report contains useful examples of what organisations can do to make themselves safer places for children.

“According to the research, organisations that achieve a very good safety level share a fundamental belief that mistakes will happen and their goal is to spot them quickly,” he said.

“They encourage an open culture where people can discuss difficult judgements and report mistakes so that the organisation can learn.”

“The research will help the Royal Commission understand how child sexual abuse can be better identified and prevented in the future.”

Key findings:

* Detecting child sexual abuse is a task that many people may do rarely – if ever – at work. Grooming behaviour in particular is often ambiguous, making it difficult for colleagues, who may not be experienced in detecting grooming, to make sense of the behaviour and recognise it as child sexual abuse.

* Organisations that implement systems and processes that provide ways for staff to talk through their judgements and decision making process, and encourage a culture of critical reflection, can help minimise errors of reasoning and cognitive bias.

Read the full report at www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/policy-and-research/published-research

About the researchers:

Professor Eileen Munro CBE, Professor of Social Policy, Department of Social Policy, London School of Economics and Political Sciences. Professor Munro led the independent review of child protection in England.

Dr Sheila Fish, Head of Learning Together / Senior Research Analyst, Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE). Dr Fish leads SCIE’s work on a systems approach to safeguarding reviews.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

A FORMER resident of a Salvation Army children’s home in Perth was beaten, humiliated and sexually abused, a royal commission has heard.

The 57-year-old cannot be identified, but has detailed her treatment at the Hollywood Children’s Village in Nedlands from 1969 to 1972.

She said she had trouble with bed-wetting as a child and as punishment a staff member would rub her face in the wet sheets.

“I was also forced to wear wet underpants on my head with the crotch part over my nose,” she told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Wednesday.

“All the bed-wetters were made to stand in the lounge room so everyone could see us.”

The woman told how she was locked in a boiler room and one day thrown into a slop bin used to hold food for pigs.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail (UK)

AAP

Actor Jack Charles says he was bashed, sexually abused and regarded as “item of interest” during his time in a Salvation Army boys’ home in Melbourne.

Mr Charles has told a royal commission that he was put in the Box Hill home as a “social experiment” as one of the stolen generation who was taken from his mother when he was four months old.

“I certainly think the home whitewashed me,” he said.

“I left Box Hill a devout Methodist and without a sense of my Aboriginality.”

Mr Charles said staff members at Box Hill hit boys in the face with a closed fist for punishment and that he was sexually abused by both staff and other boys.

He said one staff member abused him at least 20 times, possibly more, while certain boys would “regularly have their way with me”.

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UNITED STATES
The Guardian (UK)

Kristina Keneally

Leaking, back-stabbing, corruption, and backroom deals done by faceless men – never mind Australian politics, this is the Catholic church.

Forget the bloodless assassination of Tony Abbott’s political career, the Vatican actually killed Pope John Paul I. At least that’s what lots of people believe. The “smiling pope” served for only 33 days, and the circumstances of his death have given rise to multiple books and many murder theories.

John Paul I came to office in 1978 promising a new style:

[W]arm, compassionate, genuinely happy to be with ordinary people, a man of obvious faith who didn’t wear his piety on his sleeve or take himself too seriously. He pioneered the simplification of the papacy by dropping the royal “we”, declining coronation with the papal tiara and discontinuing use of the … portable throne.

Remind you of anyone?

Depending on which conspiracy theory you want to believe, John Paul I was killed by the conservatives in the church either because he wanted to take the Catholic church in a radically new direction or because he was about to embark on a clean-up of the shadowy and suspect practices at the Vatican Bank.

Remind you of anyone?

Now we have another populist pope and a fresh round of conspiracy theories. Pope Francis is delighting many, wowing the world’s media and renewing interest in the Catholic church with his simplicity, his openness, and his apparent determination to shift the church’s focus away from legalistic obsessions, especially with sex and morality.

Refusing to judge homosexuals, allowing atheists to get into heaven, and speaking to the US Congress without once mentioning abortion: Francis seems to have the conservatives on edge and looking for ways to fight back.

If the conspiracy theories are to be believed, the conservatives struck a blow last week by strategically leaking that the pope had a “secret meeting” during his visit to the US with Kim Davis. The current cause celebre for American conservatives, Davis is a local government bureaucrat in Kentucky and an apparent defender of marriage as traditionally defined between a man and a woman (she’s had four of her own).

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ITALY
International Business Times

By Gianluca Mezzofiore
October 6, 2015

An Italian priest has been suspended from his parish after defending paedophilia on live television and attempting to blame victims for “seeking affection”. Don Gino Flaim, of the San Giuseppe and Pio X parish in the northern Italian town of Trento, claimed on air that he “understands paedophilia” whereas “I’m not sure about homosexuality”.

“Unfortunately there are children who seek affection because they don’t receive it at home and I understand that some priests can give up,” he said on La7 channel. “Paedophilia is a sin, and like all sins has to be accepted, also.” He went on affirming that homosexuality “is a disease”.

The statement comes as Pope Francis opened a synod of Roman Catholic bishops focusing on family issues amid an unprecedented row over the church’s attitudes and dogmas on homosexuality. On 5 October, the Argentine pontiff urged the church to “move forward”, saying it was not “a museum to keep or preserve”.

Days before the key meeting of 300 church leaders, Poland-born Vatican priest Krzysztof Charamsa announced he was in a gay relationship, saying he wanted to challenge the institution’s “backward” attitude to homosexuality.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Philly.com

Pennsylvania’s Superior Court on Tuesday ruled that two men who had sued the Archdiocese of Philadelphia for alleged sex abuse missed their legal deadlines to file.

The decision affirmed a Philadelphia judge’s separate rulings against Francis Finnegan, who alleged he was abused from 1968 to 1979, and Philip Gaughan, who alleged he was abused from 1994 to 1997.

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NEW JERSEY
The Record

WHEN POPE Francis came to the United States, there was talk about a “Francis effect.” Perhaps such an effect will light a fire under state senators who, so far, have failed to take action on a bill that would offer justice and closure to adults who were sexually abused as children.

A bill sponsored by Sens. Joseph Vitale, D-Middlesex, and Nicholas Scutari, D-Union, and co-sponsored by Sen. Loretta Weinberg, D-Teaneck, among others, would do just that. It would remove the statute of limitations on many civil cases of sexual abuse. As it stands now, someone who was abused as a minor has only two years after turning 18 to bring a civil suit.

The proposed bill, which appears to be going nowhere in the Legislature, would make it possible for someone to file a civil suit at any age. While the removal of all restrictions may be hard to sell to legislators, the current two-year time limit is woefully inadequate. If legislators want to get serious about a serious issue — and at the moment they are putting their energies behind a bill unofficially named for Britney Spears — this is the bill that should demand their immediate attention.

For many sexually abused children, there is a long road before closure. Memories are repressed, and often too much time passes from when the abuse occurred to bring criminal charges. And sadly, there are some in our society who see civil suits by victims as a ploy for money rather than a necessary public validation that something horrible was done to them as children.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Newcastle local court has heard the brief of evidence in the case against a Catholic brother, accused of hundreds of child sex offences, is now more than 9,000 pages long.

Bernard Kevin McGrath was extradited from New Zealand last year to face 252 child sex offences, alleged to have happened in the Lake Macquarie region in the 1970s.

McGrath faced court today via video link, dressed in prison greens and showing no emotion.

The court heard McGrath has recently changed lawyers, with his new solicitor expressing concern about the size of the brief of evidence.

She said she is at a slight disadvantage having only recently taken on the case.

The court heard a trial is likely to last at least six months.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

I really like Captain Michael Skiendzielewski’s comment in response to the article by Kieran Tapsell on the strange disconnect between Pope Francis’s words and actions re: sex abuse that I discussed in a previous posting today. I like it so much that I’m going to share it with you in its entirety:

It becomes more difficult with each passing day here in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to remain civil and respectful in one’s comments regarding the local RCC leadership, their statements, conduct and decision-making, past and present, relative to the abuse, destruction and devastation visited on child and young adult clergy abuse victims. Deliberate and deceitful obfuscation and hypocrisy……..Chaput asks “what more do they want us to do?”

He’s a learned, mature and educated man and he most assuredly “knows” what must be done to protect our children now and in the future. He also “knows” what must be done in Harrisburg to give past victims a voice, legal access and redress (ALL CHILD VICTIMS here in the Commonwealth of PA, regardless of the venue of the alleged abuse…..public or private, religious or secular, in the home or in the community). It doesn’t work, it doesn’t sell, and it is unconvincing when a man such as Charles Chaput feigns ignorance on what steps needed to be taken to address the protection of ALL of our children.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Sandra Laville
Wednesday 7 October 2015

MPs, a lord chief justice, a member of the royal family and public school headmasters all intervened to stop a bishop being prosecuted for sexual abuse 22 years ago, the Old Bailey has heard.

Former bishop Peter Ball was facing jail on Wednesday after admitting last month the sexual abuse of 18 young men between 1977 and 1992 when he was bishop of Lewes.

He escaped justice when his first victim complained in 1992 after interventions from leading figures in the establishment. Instead of being prosecuted he was given a caution.

Bobbie Cheema QC prosecuting said: “The police report that accompanied the papers sent to the CPS in 1993 after the police had done their work stated they had received telephone calls supportive of Peter Ball “from many dozens of people – including MPs, former public school headmasters JPs and even a lord chief justice”.

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CHILE
Publimetro

[Felipe Berrios on support from the pope to Bishop Barros: “It is a mistake”. Berrios, a Jesuit and founder of Techo referred to the controversial video in which the pope backed Bishop Juan Barros and said those opposing him were “left-handed” and stupid. The pope made a mistake in what he said and offended people in Osorno, Berrios said.]

El sacerdote jesuita y fundador de “Techo”, Felipe Berríos, se refirió al polémico video en el que se ve al Papa respaldando al obispo de Osorno, Juan Barros, diciendo que las críticas hacia él provienen de “zurdos” y “tontos”. Al respecto, dijo que las palabras del Sumo Pontífice son una equivocación.

“Este es un error del Papa. El Papa metió la pata. Este exabrupto ofendió a las personas, especialmente a las de Osorno”, dijo el sacerdote a SoyChile.cl.

Agregó que “este es el primer Papa que improvisa y le salen cosas que nos ha encantado, pero cuando se improvisa, también comete errores. Esto salió hace tiempo y no sé si él pensará lo mismo ahora”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

An 83 year-old former Bishop of Lewes has said he’s “very, very sorry” ahead of his sentencing for sexual offences against 18 young men.

Peter Ball committed the assaults over the course of 15 years stretching from the 1970s to 1990s.

There have been allegations that senior bishops within the Church of England helped cover up abuse allegations.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

Sean O’Neil Chief Reporter

MPs, a senior judge, members of the royal family and public school heads waged a campaign on behalf of an Anglican bishop who was under investigation for sex crimes, the Old Bailey heard today.

Police investigating Peter Ball, the former Bishop of Gloucester, in 1993 said they had received dozens of phone calls expressing support for the suspect.

Lawyers for Ball told the Crown Prosecution Service at the time they had 2,000 letters supporting the bishop including “letters from cabinet ministers and the royal family.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Littlehampton Gazette

Victims of former Bishop of Lewes and Gloucester Peter Ball are suing the Church for hundreds of thousands of pounds after he admitted abusing his position to groom young aspiring priests for his own sexual pleasure.

The ex-bishop will be sentenced at the Old Bailey on Wednesday for misconduct in a public office between 1977 and 1992 and two counts of sexual assault on young men in their late teens.

In all, the charges relate to 18 victims, excluding two counts of indecent assault on a boy of 12 or 13 and a 15-year-old youth which were denied and will lie on file.

Ball, 83, had used religion as a cloak to abuse the young men who had come to his home in Litlington, East Sussex, to religious instruction before he was moved to Gloucester in 1992.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Littlehampton Gazette

The disgraced ex-bishop of Lewes and Gloucester will finally face justice later when he is sentenced for preying on aspiring young priests for his own sexual gratification.

Peter Ball, 83, used religion as a “cloak” to groom his victims when they came to his home in Litlington, East Sussex.

Many were teenagers or in their early 20s at the time they sought out the bishop as aspiring priests or to explore their spirituality through a Give A Year For Christ scheme.

Last month, Ball, who has suffered ill health in recent years, pleaded guilty to misconduct in a public office after a last ditch attempt to get the case thrown out failed.

Between 1977 and 1992 he abused his position in authority “to manipulate and prevail upon others for his own sexual gratification” in relation to 16 young men.

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UNITED STATES
National Secular Society

Posted: Wed, 07 Oct 2015 by Keith Porteous Wood

Any genuine inquiry into the handling of allegations of child sex abuse by Bishop Peter Ball must answer key questions about alleged cover-ups by the Church, police and CPS, argues Keith Porteous Wood

The National Secular Society has been closely monitoring cases of clerical child abuse where religious organisations have systematically evaded and denied secular justice to victims. These cover-ups have enabled perpetrators to escape justice entirely and even reoffend. The perception is widely held that the Catholic Church is the chief offender. But cases are increasingly emerging within the Anglican Church.

Unlike his counterparts at the Vatican, however, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is to be commended for initiating an independent review into a serious abuse case, involving Ex-Bishop of Lewes Peter Ball.

Already in the public domain, there is prime facie evidence of spectacular abuses of process in the Ball case by the Church, and all arms of the law.

The seriousness of these offences and the long term damage to victims cannot be overstated. Shielding alleged perpetrators compounds their abuse.

There can be a no more bitter example than that of Neal Todd, who was one of Peter Ball’s victims. “[After] church officials pleaded with [Neal Todd’s] family not to go to the police”, Neal (like a significant proportion of other abuse survivors) “attempted suicide because he feared the bishops in Dulwich and Chichester would not act on his claims.” (Press Association 12/3/93). 20 years later Neal killed himself, in the same year that Sussex police opened a new case and more victims came forward.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

By Nicola Harley 07 Oct 2015

A disgraced bishop avoided prosecution for sexual abuse in 1993 after the intervention of the royal family, a Lord Chief Justice and MPs, a court has heard.

Peter Ball, 83, is being sentenced at the Old Bailey after using religion as a “cloak” to groom aspiring young priests for sex during the 1970s, 80s and 90s.

But he almost escaped justice when his first victim reported allegations and was given a police caution after interventions from establishment figures, the Old Bailey was told on Wednesday.

Prosecutor Bobbie Cheema said the prosecution has investigated the way in which the police and prosecutors dealt with the claims in 1993. He was not prosecuted for two of the three offences he has now admitted at the of the initial investigation.

The police report stated that they had received phone calls supportive of Ball “from many dozens of people – including MPs, former public school headmasters, JPs and even a Lord Chief Justice (Lloyd)”.

“In addition it was reported that the defence claimed to have more than 2,000 letters of support… including letters from Cabinet ministers and the Royal family,” said the prosecutor.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Legal Intelligencer

Gina Passarella, The Legal Intelligencer
October 6, 2015

Failure to realize the full extent of psychological harm from sexual abuse is not enough to toll the statute of limitations, the state Superior Court has ruled in determining a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder years after the abuse stopped does not extend the time to sue.

The Superior Court issued its unpublished decision Tuesday in lawsuits filed by Francis Finnegan and Philip Gaughan against the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and church administration official Monsignor William Lynn. Both Finnegan, 54, and Gaughan, 35, alleged they were abused by priests when they were children and were more recently diagnosed with PTSD.

The court, in an opinion by President Judge Susan Peikes Gantman, said Finnegan and Gaughan knew or should have known the facts of their injuries and were immediately capable of filing suit.

“That appellant Finnegan and appellant Gaughan might not have known the full extent of the psychological harm done until 2011 when they were diagnosed with chronic PTSD, is immaterial,” Gantman said. “The fact remains that they knew what was happening and who was doing it when the abuse occurred and should have instituted their actions within their prescribed statutes of limitations.”

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ILLINOIS
Patch

By LORRAINE SWANSON (Patch Staff)
October 7, 2015

A group representing victims of clergy abuse is taking U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez to task for statements he made praising a Des Plaines priest suspended amid allegations of an “inappropriate relationship” with an adult man.

Kate Bochet, a leader from SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, blasted Gutierrez’s remarks and public support of Rev. Marco Mercado as “insensitive,” which could potentially stifle or intimidate other victims of sexual abuse from coming forward.

Archbishop Blaze J. Cupich removed Mercado from his post rector of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Des Plaines and the priest’s “authority to minister” while the Archdiocese of Chicago conducts an investigation into a relationship that Mercado is said to have had with another adult man. The priest also served as Archbishop Cupich’s delegate to Hispanic ministries.

The Des Plaines priest was the invited guest of Gutierrez to hear Pope Francis’s address to Congress during the pope’s visit to the United States last month. Gutierrez, a Democrat who represents the 4th Congressional District, issued a statement praising the popular Des Plaines priest as an important spiritual and community leader.

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CHILE
Merco Press

Hundreds of protesters in Chile opposing the controversial appointment of a Santiago bishop, accused of being involved in a cover-up of sexual abuse, marched outside St Matthew’s Cathedral in Osorno, a day after supportive comments by Pope Francis were aired on Chilean television.

A local television station on Friday aired a video in which Pope Francis defends the bishop of Osorno, Monsignor Juan Barros, whose opponents allege was involved in a cover-up pertaining to a notorious pedophile priest. In the video, shot in May and broadcast only this week by Chilean TV channel Mega, Francis attacks “leftists,” blaming them for a campaign against Barros’ appointment.

“Don’t let yourselves be led by the noses, by the leftists who have plotted this,” the pope says in the video, speaking to Chilean visitors at the Vatican.

“Osorno is suffering from stupidity, and for not opening its heart to what God says. And for letting itself get carried away by the garbage everybody says,” he added, according to one translation of the video.

The pontiff also noted that the allegations against Barros had been dismissed by a Chilean court. The video was reportedly filmed by an Argentine on an iPad, who remains unidentified thus far.

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LATIN AMERICA
GlobalPost

Will Carless on Oct 7, 2015

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — A recent GlobalPost investigation found that Catholic priests accused of sexually abusing children in the United States and Europe were able to escape accountability by transferring to South America, where they continue to work as priests.

While the abuse crisis has led to more stringent scrutiny of priests in the United States and Europe, in less developed parts of the world, media and law enforcement investigations of priests are relatively rare. Advocates for church sex abuse survivors say problem priests are taking advantage of this by transferring to remote locations in the developing world, to secure impunity and ensure they can continue working for the church.

Among the questions raised by our investigation were:

* How were those priests able to relocate, despite public allegations against them? And,
* To what extent does the Vatican monitor these movements?

According to experts in church law, known as Canon Law, the official process is simple and clear-cut. But as GlobalPost and others have found, the official process isn’t always followed.
Here are three steps to understanding how priest transfers work in the Catholic Church.

1. Relocation depends on whether priests belong to a diocese or a religious order

Every Catholic priest on Earth falls into one of these two categories.

Diocesan priests are geographically organized. They work for an ecclesiastical district known as a diocese, if it’s overseen by a bishop, or an archdiocese (led by an archbishop). They were either “ordained” (given their holy orders) at that specific diocese, or they transferred there and were “incardinated” there (more on this in a minute.)

Religious order priests, in contrast, work for a brotherhood that follows a specific religious philosophy, like the Franciscans or the Dominicans. Franciscans, for example, concentrate on helping the poor.

Religious orders, of which there are hundreds, are often scattered around the globe.

Patrick Wall, a victim’s advocate and former priest who wrote a book on the Catholic sex abuse crisis, estimates that 60 percent of Catholic priests are diocesan and 40 percent belong to religious orders.

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ITALY
Daily Mail (UK)

VATICAN CITY, Oct 7 (Reuters) – Italy’s Roman Catholic Church on Wednesday fired a priest who said he could “understand” how paedophilia by clergy could occur because some children yearned for affection.

The diocese of Trento, in northern Italy, said Father Gino Flaim, 75, was removed from his position at a parish and was banned from preaching.

“Unfortunately there are children who seek affection because they don’t get it at home and then if they find some priest he can even give in (to the temptation). I understand this,” Flaim said in an interview on the private La 7 network on Tuesday.

Asked if the children were in some way responsible, he replied: “In many cases, yes.”

The diocese said in a statement that Flaim’s comments did not reflect the diocese’s position on child sex abuse by clergy and ran counter to “the sentiments of the entire Church community” on the scandal.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Candice Marcus

The South Australian Government was aware of allegations of physical and sexual abuse at a Salvation Army-run boys’ home from as early as the 1940s, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard.

The commission is examining four Salvation Army-run children’s homes in South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia.

On the first day of the hearing the commission was given graphic accounts of former residents of the Eden Park Boys’ Home at Wistow in South Australia of the abuse they had endured there.

Current Families SA and Education Department deputy chief executive Etienne Scheepers has given evidence of his review of the Government’s historic knowledge of allegations at the home.

He said there was documentary evidence to show the state government’s Child Welfare and Public Relief Board knew about allegations of physical and sexual abuse at the home in the early 1940s.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

A former police chaplain remains behind bars after being refused bail on child sex charges.

John Patrick Casey was working at a primary school in Sawtell until his arrest in July this year.

The Catholic priest was charged with nine offences relating to the abuse of two brothers in the Lismore Diocese in 1985.

The diocese takes in the area between Tweed Heads and Camden haven, south of Port Macquarie.

The accused priest had also worked as a police chaplain attached to the Mid North Coast Local Area Command.

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, N.M., Oct. 6, 2015

Protests filed on ‘public auction’ by Gallup Diocese

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

ALBUQUERQUE – U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David T. Thuma has ordered attorneys for the Diocese of Gallup into court to explain why the public and media were barred from attending the diocese’s recent property auction.

Thuma issued a notice to show cause Friday and set a hearing date for Oct. 19. However, Thomas D. Walker, the diocese’s Albuquerque bankruptcy attorney, filed an amended notice of hearing Monday, which bumped up the hearing to 1:30 p.m. Wednesday.

In his order, Thuma noted that the Gallup Diocese “may not have conducted a ‘public auction’ as required” by the Federal Rules of Bankruptcy Procedure. Attached to Thuma’s order were two letters of complaint from individuals barred from attending the Albuquerque auction Sept. 19. The first letter was written by Meredith Edelman, a doctoral scholar conducting research, and the second letter was from the Gallup Independent.

“These parties claim they were not permitted to observe the New Mexico auction,” Thuma stated. “The Court needs more information about whether the auction was a public auction, who was permitted to observe the auction, and who was excluded. If members of the press and/or public were excluded, the Court would like the Debtors to show cause why the auction sales should not be invalidated. If remedies less harsh than invalidation are available, the Court would like to hear argument related to advisability of such alternative relief.”

Thuma cited an Aloha Airlines case in 2009, in which U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Lloyd King ordered a new auction to be conducted after a reporter and a labor union representative were barred from attending an auction.

According to a Honolulu media report, King said, “The exclusion of a reporter was an outrage. It’s the United States conducting the sale, and you told a reporter no.”

The Diocese of Gallup’s hearings in U.S. Bankruptcy Court are open to the public, as are documents in the case’s court file. The only exceptions to this are confidential documents related to clergy sex abuse survivors who have filed claims in the case.

‘Agent for the court’

In the diocese’s Albuquerque auction, Todd Good, the CEO and president of Accelerated Marketing Group, barred anyone from entering the auction who wasn’t a qualified bidder. Good, along with George H. “Hank” Amos III, CEO and president of Tucson Realty & Trust Co., was hired by the Gallup Diocese to publicize and conduct the property auctions in Phoenix and Albuquerque.

Good and Amos were paid a flat fee of $45,000 by the diocese and allowed to collect a 10 percent buyer’s premium on each sale.

According to sales reports submitted to the court, both auction sales only garnered a fraction of the properties’ assessed or actual values. The total sales for both auctions was reported as $225,066, with the diocese only profiting about $160,660 and Good and Amos collecting about $65,500. Both auction reports also appear to contain a number of errors that diocesan attorneys have not explained or corrected.

Good, who described himself as an “agent for the court,” told the media, “We have discretions how we conduct the sale. We see no advantage to let somebody in the sale that is not a bidder. In other words, it doesn’t benefit the debtors and it doesn’t benefit the creditors, and therefore we only let qualified bidders into the event.”

In her letter to Thuma, Edelman said Good made a similar statement to her before threatening to have her removed from the hotel property where the auction was taking place. Edelman told the judge she believed it would have been beneficial to creditors to allow observers into the auction.

“The creditors in this instance are survivors of child sexual abuse whose abuse was covered up for years,” Edelman said. “They can only benefit from transparency in this process. If members of the public and the press are unable to observe the procedures, this transparency is lacking.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

The Salvation Army has been urged to ‘step up’ and ensure the ongoing welfare of boys sexually abused in its care rather than just offer one-off compensation payments.

Graham Rundle says victims like him should be helped with ongoing expenses like dental and medical bills and with accommodation and counselling.

‘The fear of being old with these financial burdens is very real for many victims,’ Mr Rundle has told the Royal Commission into child abuse.

‘They (the Salvation Army) should be made to step up in this way as they are the cause of our problems.’

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

Victims of former bishop Peter Ball are suing the Church for hundreds of thousands of pounds after he admitted abusing his position to groom young aspiring priests for his own sexual pleasure.

The former bishop of Lewes and Gloucester will be sentenced at the Old Bailey tomorrow for misconduct in a public office between 1977 and 1992 and two counts of sexual assault on young men in their late teens.

In all, the charges relate to 18 victims, excluding two counts of indecent assault on a boy of 12 or 13 and a 15-year-old youth which were denied and will lie on file.

Ball, 83, had used religion as a cloak to abuse the young men who had come to his home in Litlington, East Sussex, to religious instruction before he was moved to Gloucester in 1992.

Some 22 years after allegations first surfaced against him, Ball was finally brought to account in court, despite repeated bids to get the case thrown out.

Today, David Greenwood, of Switalskis Solicitors, who represents four of the victims, said that since his guilty plea, legal action had been lodged against the Diocese of Chichester.

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FLORIDA
Ocala.com

By Austin L. Miller
Staff writer
Published: Tuesday, October 6, 2015

FBI agents arrested a former Stuart youth minister Monday on suspicion of sexually abusing at least two girls under his care.

Jeffrey Brian Mobley, 24, was taken for a hearing Monday in federal court, where he was ordered held without bail until a detention hearing and preliminary examination on Oct. 7.

He was picked up in the 11000 block of West State Road 40 in Marion County and is charged with persuading, inducing, or enticing someone under 18 to engage in sexual activity. Mobley, a former youth pastor at The Grace Place Church in Stuart, declined an interview request from the Star-Banner.

If convicted as charged, Mobley could face from 10 years to life in prison, and possibly a lifetime of supervised release, according to a Justice Department news release. He would also have to register as a sexual offender.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Matt Miller | mmiller@pennlive.com
on October 06, 2015

Two men who claim they were sexually abused by Catholic priests decades ago waited too long to sue the Archdiocese of Philadelphia over the alleged assaults, a state court panel ruled Tuesday.

The Superior Court decision backs an earlier ruling by a Philadelphia judge who dismissed the lawsuits filed against the archdiocese by Francis Finnegan of Delaware County and Philip Gaughan of Delaware.

Both men filed their complaints independently in March 2011, and appealed the initial dismissals to the state court last year.

PennLive does not normally name people who allege they were victims of sexual abuse. However, Finnegan and Gaughan told the Associated Press in interviews soon after their suits were filed that they wanted to be named to encourage other victims to come forward.

The Superior Court opinion, written by President Judge Susan Peikes Gantman, notes that Finnegan, now 54, claims he was abused repeatedly from 1968 to 1970. Finnegan claimed in his suit that he suppressed the memories of the abuse until 2007. Those memories then came back to him “in waves,” he claimed and he reported the abuse to the archdiocese’s victim assistance program in 2008.

Finnegan, who was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, refused the archdiocese’s offers of medical and psychological assistance before filing his suit in Philadelphia County Court, Gantman noted.

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NEW JERSEY
WABC

LITTLE FERRY, N.J. (WABC) — A priest accused of pointing a functioning but unloaded musket at an 8-year-old boy in a church’s rectory pleaded not guilty Tuesday, with his lawyer explaining it as a joke spurred by the rivalry between the New York Giants and the Dallas Cowboys.

The Rev. Kevin Carter was arraigned Tuesday on charges of child endangerment and aggravated assault by pointing a firearm.

The priest, who was charged last week and is free on $15,000 cash bail, expressed concern on Monday for any “trauma” that publicity from the case may have caused the boy and his family. But in a statement issued by his lawyer, the 54-year-old priest said he was “confident” he would be vindicated.

The charges against Carter stem from a Sept. 13 incident at St. Margaret of Cortona Roman Catholic Church in Little Ferry.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Noah Cohen | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on October 06, 2015

HACKENSACK — A judge on Tuesday entered a not-guilty plea on behalf of the Little Ferry priest accused of pointing a replica Civil War-style gun at an 8-year-old boy, according to a published report.

The Rev. Kevin Carter, 55, who is assigned to St. Margaret of Cortona Church, appeared briefly in Bergen County Central Municipal Court, The Record reported.

Defense attorney Harold Cassidy previously said the incident was a joke and a parishioner who reported the encounter to officials misunderstood what happened, CBSNewYork.com reported.

Carter faces charges of child endangerment and aggravated assault by pointing a firearm, the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office said Friday.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Western Daily Press

The Church of England is right to hold an inquiry into how it handled the sex offence complaints against former bishop Peter Ball.

But it will be of value only if the church is willing to publicly admits its mistakes and then to ensure that any similar complaints made today are investigated thoroughly and that the police are contacted at the earliest possible stage.

In Ball’s case the church seems to have been in a state of denial initially and then only willing to impose the most lenient sanctions possible against Ball. The fact is he is someone who is a serious and perpetual child-abuser.

A man who cunningly used the apparent security of being a senior member of the church to take advantage of young boys to gratify his perverted sexual cravings.

A man who preached goodness but committed sin. A man who without question damaged many lives. A man whose sordid behaviour makes a mockery of the Christian office he held.

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