ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

November 24, 2015

Jane Lee
Legal affairs, health and science reporter

The Catholic Church has not ruled out blocking compensation claims for child sexual abuse if it occurred before certain time limits.

The church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council released a set of guidelines for the way it deals with survivors’ civil claims ahead of a royal commission hearing on the Melbourne Archdiocese’s handling of historic abuse on Tuesday.

The guidelines – which church lawyers helped draft – reveal for the first time how it intends to deal with legal defences which survivors consider to be the biggest barriers to obtaining compensation from the church.

Most states and territories have laws that allow the church to block civil claims for child abuse in court if they were made beyond certain time limits. Victoria last year abolished statutes of limitation for child abuse, largely because survivors typically take decades to disclose their abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
3AW

Religious people must stop ignoring the faults in their faith, says Tom Elliott.

The 3AW phone lines rang hot after Tom launched into a passionate editorial about the serious problems the world faces and their links to religion.

Tom referred to harrowing testimony presented at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Childhood Sexual Abuse today.

“There’s something about the Catholic Church and its insistence upon celibacy for its priests and its secrecy, it’s covering up – over not just years but decades of complaints – it says to me that there is something wrong with not just a few individuals but the structure of various churches themselves.”

“I believe at the root of it lies the fact that some people do not want to hear the possibility that their religion is flawed.”

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AUSTRALIA
Echo Netdaily

Sydney [AAP]

The Catholic Church plans to make it a requirement for dioceses or religious orders to help sex abuse claimants identify who they should sue if they want take legal action.

The requirement is contained in guidelines published on Monday by the Truth, Justice and Healing Council and have been endorsed by the Church leadership.

They will come into effect from January 1.

The council says they are designed to promote ‘justice and consistency’ in the way the church handles child sexual abuse claims and conducts litigation when taken to court.

A recurring problem identified by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse had been the difficulty experienced by child abuse survivors in identifying a correct defendant when it came to legal proceedings.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

AAP

The inquiry into child sexual abuse has heard that a Melbourne pedophile priest showed children a body in a coffin, carried a gun to school and held a knife against a child’s chest.

Father Peter Searson was described by a fellow priest as a bizarre human being who the commission heard indecently assaulted a girl during confession.

Former priest Philip O’Donnell told the commission that Sunbury parish nuns told him Searson took children into his room for sex education.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Tuesday 24 November 2015

A victim of child sexual abuse at the hands of a Melbourne priest, Peter Searson, has told a royal commission that he now sits at home in the dark with the door locked because it is the only place he feels safe.

The victim, identified only as BVD, said the abuse had begun when he was about nine years old in 1978, while he was serving as an altar boy at the Our Lady of Carmel parish in Sunbury. Searson was the parish priest and BVD was ordered to mow his lawn and wash his car.

“He was a very scary man and and very intimidating, with a gaze that would just pierce you like he was looking right through you,” BVD told the royal commission into institutional responses into child sexual abuse in Melbourne on Tuesday.

“I was very submissive as a child and I was very scared of Searson.”

Searson would order BVD to come inside with him every Saturday after he had finished washing his car, he said, and the priest’s behaviour progressed from drying BVD’s genitals to raping him.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

In 2002, child abuse survivor Phil Saviano blew the lid off the Catholic clergy abuse by coming forward to the Boston Globe. Saviano joins us, along with actor Neal Huff who portrays him in the new film, “Spotlight,” to tell his story.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

MELBOURNE’s Catholic Church has paid almost $17 million in compensation to 316 victims of child sexual abuse since 1980, new figures have revealed.

In that time 454 people have complained of being sexually abused by priests, religious, employees and volunteers within the Archdiocese of Melbourne.

Eighty-eight per cent of complaints related to incidents between 1950 to 1989, while the 1970s was the worst decade of abuse.

Of the complaints, 316 resulted in monetary compensation with victims receiving, on average, about $52,000.

The figures were revealed at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse which is probing the Archdiocese’s handling of abuse cases.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

A Melbourne parish priest had showers with a boy he was obsessed with, an inquiry has heard.

Former priest Philip O’Donnell says the boy told him Gladstone Park parish priest Father Wilfred “Bill” Baker taught him how to drive with the boy sitting on his lap and showered with him.

“I just thought it was utterly inappropriate for an adult male, particularly a parish priest, to be showering with a young lad,” Mr O’Donnell told the child abuse royal commission on Tuesday.

Then archbishop Frank Little did not believe the allegation when the boy’s parents complained in 1978, Mr O’Donnell said.

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AUSTRALIA
In Daily

The Catholic Church did nothing to protect children from a Melbourne priest who abused more than 50 children, an inquiry has heard.

More than 450 children have been sexually abused in the Archdiocese of Melbourne, mainly by priests, the child abuse royal commission says.

Counsel assisting the commission Gail Furness SC says the church has paid a total of $16.8 million to 454 people since 1980, once treatment, legal and other costs are taken into account.

The highest number of complaints – 56 – were against Kevin O’Donnell, the parish priest at Sacred Heart Parish in Oakleigh.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

AAP

EXTENT OF CHILD SEX ABUSE IN MELBOURNE ARCHDIOCESE REVEALED
HOW MANY WERE ABUSED?

* 454 made claims since 1980
* Against priests, religious, employees and volunteers
* Most abuse happened 1950-1989
* A third happened in 1970s
* Nearly all offenders men (eight per cent women)

HOW MUCH HAS CATHOLIC CHURCH PAID OUT?
* $12.8m in compensation for 316 claims
* $16.8m in total including treatment, legal and other costs
* Average $52,000 per claimant

WHAT ABOUT ABUSE BY PRIESTS ONLY?
* 335 people abused by priests
* Seven priests had more than 10 complaints each
* Most abuse happened at parishes and schools
* Highest number of complaints (56) against Oakleigh parish priest Kevin O’Donnell

WHAT HAS CHURCH PAID FOR PRIESTS’ ABUSE?
* 14 civil claims; compensation paid in half
* $1.9m total for civil claims – average almost $270,000
* $12.9m total for 277 complaints through church’s Melbourne Response claims handling process – average $46,000

SOURCE: Child abuse royal commission data on claims and substantiated complaints received by Archdiocese of Melbourne between January 1980-February 28, 2015.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

More than 450 people have made sexual abuse claims or substantiated complaints against Archdiocese of Melbourne priests, employees or volunteers since 1980, an inquiry has heard.

At a public hearing in Melbourne, the Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse said it had collected data on the conduct of Catholic priests that has never before been made public.

Senior Counsel Assisting Gail Furness, SC, said the royal commission conducted a survey of all Catholic Church authorities in Australia.

Most of the complaints against the Melbourne Archdiocese were about incidents that were alleged to have happened between 1950 and 1989.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

The Royal Commission will hold a public hearing in Melbourne from Tuesday 24 November 2015 commencing at 10:00am AEDT.

The hearing will start at 10:00am AEDT.

The public hearing will inquire into the response of the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne to allegations of child sexual abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey

Monday 23 November 2015

More than 450 people made claims and substantiated complaints of child sexual abuse against priests, religious employees and volunteers working within the Catholic archdiocese of Melbourne between January 1980 and February 2015, it has been revealed.

The child sexual abuse royal commission made the data public for the first time as its 35th case study began before Victoria’s county court on Tuesday, which is focusing on the conduct of eight priests within the archdiocese.

Counsel assisting the inquiry, Gail Furness, said in her opening address the data was the result of a comprehensive survey of all Catholic church authorities in Australia.

The survey revealed that when taking into account treatment, legal and other costs, the church paid $16.8m to 316 of the 454 victims at an average of about $52,000 each claimant, either from a civil claim or through the Melbourne Response, which was the internal method of handling sexual abuse cases by the archdiocese.

Over the next two weeks in Melbourne, the commission’s hearings will focus on the conduct and abuse at the hands of priests Nazareno Fasciale, Kevin O’Donnell, Ronald Pickering, Wilfred Baker, Peter Searson, David Daniel, Desmond Gannon and Barry Robinson.

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MINNESOTA
Legal Examiner

Media Advisory
November 23, 2015

St. Paul News Conference Tuesday

Five St. John’s Abbey Priest Files to be Released Tuesday

Files include: Richard Eckroth, Thomas Gillespie, Francis Hoefgen, Finian McDonald and Bruce Wollmering

What: At a news conference on Tuesday in St. Paul attorney Jeff Anderson will:

* Release the files of five St. John’s monks accused of sexually abusing children. Files to be released include Richard Eckroth, Thomas Gillespie, Francis Hoefgen, Finian McDonald and Bruce Wollmering. The files were obtained as part of the Troy Bramlage (Doe 2) settlement earlier this year.

* Discuss the contents of the five priest files. Finian McDonald spent more than 20 years as a counselor at St. John’s where he used his position to prey on and sexually exploit vulnerable students. Bruce Wollmering was part of the counseling staff along with McDonald who also preyed on vulnerable students who sought help. Francis Hoefgen was arrested for sexually assaulting a 17-year-old vulnerable boy in Cold Spring, MN in 1984. In 1996 St. John’s learned of Thomas Gillespie’s sexual abuse of a boy at St. Mary’s in Stillwater, MN approximately 20 years earlier and Richard Eckroth, a serial sexual psychopath abused dozens of St. Johns students, if not more, over his 60+ year career.

* Encourage survivors of these five perpetrators, and others, to come forward before the May 25, 2015 deadline under the Minnesota Child Victims Act.

* Survivor Troy Bramlage will be at the press conference to discuss the file release.

WHEN: Tuesday November 24, 2015 at 1:00 PM CT

WHERE: Jeff Anderson & Associates
366 Jackson Street, Suite 100
St. Paul, MN 55101

NOTES: Copies of the priest files and timelines will be available at the press conference and on our website tomorrow and the event will be live-streamed online with links available at www.andersonadvocates.com.

Contact Jeff Anderson: Office: 651.227.9990 Cell: 612.817.8665
Contact Mike Bryant: Office: 320.259.5414 Cell: 800.359.0061

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversry

Posted by Joelle Casteix on November 23, 2015

Events last week showed that the Vatican has the power to indict foreign journalists … but earlier this year needed to draft new rules in order to indict its own employees for sex abuse.

Let’s take a look. Last week, the Vatican issued indictments against five people, including two journalists, who “leaked documents that informed two books alleging financial malfeasance in the Roman Catholic church bureaucracy.”

The Vatican is seeking jail terms from four to eight years. But when it comes to sexual abuse, the Vatican has said it was “powerless” to police its own employees who are located outside of the Vatican.

Case in point: The cancelled trial of Jozef Wesolowski was going to be a NEW kind of Vatican Tribunal.

According to the New York Times, just this year, the tribunal: drafted new rules giving

prosecutors more leeway in the cases, allowing criminal charges to be applied to Vatican employees anywhere. Wesolowski died before the trial could be completed.

No one else in the global Catholic clergy sex abuse crisis has been indicted by the Vatican.

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UNITED STATES
Entertainment Weekly

BY JEFF LABRECQUE

Posted November 23 2015

Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy weren’t necessarily digging for a scoop while researching the 2002 Boston Globe exposé of the Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal for the screenplay that would become Spotlight. After all, they were already standing on the shoulders of giants – the Globe’s Spotlight team of investigative journalists had won the Pulitzer Prize for their series of articles that revealed how the Boston archdiocese, led by Cardinal Bernard Law, had shielded predator priests for more than three decades, shuffling them to different parishes when they molested children and shelling out millions to victims in confidential settlements.

Not only had the Globe published an official book documenting the Spotlight team’s findings, Betrayal, but all their articles, including the more than 600 stories published in 2002 — leading to Law’s resignation — were available online. Plus, the screenwriters had access to many of the Globe’s key people, including those depicted in the film: Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton), Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams), Matt Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James), Ben Bradlee Jr. (John Slattery), and Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber).

But one of the film’s most important twists — one that even eluded the Globe — fell into the filmmakers’ laps by accident. [The following contains SPOILERS.] In Spotlight, which the pair co-wrote and McCarthy directed, the dramatic weight of the film is epitomized by a line from the crusading attorney played by Stanley Tucci: “If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one.” The film asks the difficult question: Was everyone, including the media, too deferential to the Church while crimes were happening in their backyards?

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ROME
Telegraph (UK)

By Nick Squires, Rome 23 Nov 2015

Two journalists who will be put on trial by the Vatican for allegedly receiving leaked documents revealing corruption and waste in the Holy See have claimed they are being unfairly persecuted.

Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi, who both recently published books based on the leaked documents, have accused the Vatican of attacking press freedom.

The reporters, the first journalists to appear before a papal tribunal, will go on trial along with three other people after they were charged with what the Holy See called “the unauthorised and illicit sharing of sensitive and privileged documents and information.”

If convicted, they could be jailed for up to eight years.

The pair said they were astounded that they were being put on trial when the Vatican appeared to have done little to punish those behind the alleged wrongdoing within the stone walls of the city state.

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VATICAN CITY
Newsweek

BY CONOR GAFFEY 11/23/15

Five people will go on trial in a Vatican courtroom on Tuesday in relation to the leaking and publication of confidential church documents alleging financial mismanagement and widespread corruption in the Catholic Church.

The Vatican issued a statement via its press office on Saturday detailing the charges against two journalists and three church officials. The five have been charged in connection with the “unlawful disclosure of information and confidential documents” and are accused of forming a “brotherhood of crime” to undermine the Catholic Church, AFP reported. The journalists also stand accused of applying pressure to church officials to extort information and documents.

The scandal is the second concerning leaks of sensitive information from the Vatican after a series of confidential documents were leaked to journalists in 2012 under the former pope Benedict XVI. It is particularly embarrassing because Pope Francis has made financial reform of the church a priority since he was elected in March 2013.

Who is facing charges?

Italian journalists Emiliano Fittipaldi and Gianluigi Nuzzi both released controversial books in November based on leaked Vatican documents. They are both now in court with charges against them representing the first time in history that any journalist has been put on trial by the Vatican court, according to AFP.

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VATICAN CITY
The Daily Beast

Barbie Latza Nadeau

The Vatican is trying two journalists and their alleged sources for revealing corruption and cronyism at the Holy See.

VATICAN CITY — When Italian journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi walk into a Vatican tribunal on Tuesday morning, it will be the first time in centuries that anyone has been tried for what amounts to heresy at the Holy See. The two journalists are officially charged with the “unlawful disclosure of information and confidential documents” used in books (Merchants in the Temple by Nuzzi and Avarizia or Greed by Fittipaldi) published in November, but the reality feels a little bit more like the return of the Inquisition.

In fact, Nuzzi has been able garner considerable support on social network channels by asking followers to tweet pictures of his book cover under the hashtag #noinquisition (#noinquisizione in Italian). “Revealing secret [Vatican] news does not earn a medal, as happens for the free press in the entire democratic world,” he wrote on his website on November 10 when he refused to meet the Vatican’s Promoter of Justice, who acts as the attorney general in Vatican cases. “Instead it is always, and in every case, a crime.”

So worrying is the potential infringement on the free press by the Holy See that the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) reprimanded the Vatican for going ahead with the trial. “Journalists must be free to report on issues of public interest and to protect their confidential sources,” said Dunja Mijatovic, a spokesman for OSCE said in a statement released on Monday. “I call on the authorities not to proceed with the charges and protect journalists’ rights in accordance with OSCE commitments.”

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VIENNA
Reuters

The Vatican should withdraw criminal charges against two journalists who wrote books accusing it of corruption, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said on Monday, invoking press freedom.

The Vatican on Saturday ordered five people, including two Italian journalists, to stand trial for leaking and publishing secret documents, in the latest development in a scandal which is rocking the papacy.

Causing embarrassment and anger in the Vatican, the two journalists, Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi, used the leaks by Vatican officials in their books, which the Holy See described as giving a “partial and tendentious” version of events.

“Journalists must be free to report on issues of public interests and to protect their confidential sources,” the OSCE’s representative on freedom of the media, Dunja Mijatovic, said.

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ROME
News 24

Rome – The Vatican should drop plans to try two journalists who obtained leaked documents from a papal reform committee, a media freedom watchdog said on Monday, on the eve of the start of criminal proceedings.

“I call on the authorities not to proceed with the charges and protect journalists’ rights in accordance with OSCE commitments,” the media freedom envoy of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Dunja Mijatovic, said in a statement.

The Holy See, which represents the Vatican in international affairs, is one of the 57 members of OSCE, a Vienna-based European security and democracy watchdog.

Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi both published leak-based books this month, which accuse some top prelates of living in outrageous luxury and resisting Pope Francis’ drive to clean up Vatican finances.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Peter Feuerherd | Nov. 23, 2015
The Field Hospital

Editor’s note: “The Field Hospital” is NCRonline’s newest blog series, covering life in Catholic parishes across the United States. The title comes from the words of Pope Francis: “I see the church as a field hospital after battle. It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars! You have to heal his wounds. Then we can talk about everything else. Heal the wounds, heal the wounds. … And you have to start from the ground up.”

“The Field Hospital” blog will run twice weekly on NCRonline.org along with feature stories and news reports about parish life in the U.S. If you have a story suggestion, send it to Dan Morris Young (dmyoung@ncronline.org) or Peter Feuerherd (pfeuerherd@ncronline.org).

————————–

If the ideal Catholic parish is, as Pope Francis describes it, a field hospital for the wounded, Archbishop John Myers of Newark, N.J., thinks it should include some triage.

In a Sept. 22 letter to pastors, the archbishop reviewed who is welcome to Communion in the four counties in northeast New Jersey that comprise the archdiocese.

“The Church will continue to cherish and welcome her members and invite them to participate in her life to the degree that their personal situation permits them honestly to do so,” Myers said in the document, titled “Principles to Aid in Preserving and Protecting the Catholic Faith in the Midst of an Increasingly Secular Culture.”

The statement said that Catholics “must be in a marriage regarded as valid by the Church to receive the sacraments.” It added, “any Catholic who publicly rejects Church teaching or discipline, either by public statement or by joining or supporting organizations which do so, are not to receive the sacraments. They are asked to be honest to themselves and to the Church community.”

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UNITED STATES
Whispers in the Loggia

While several Stateside seminaries have reported upticks in enrollment over the last decade, the largest of the bunch remains across the Atlantic… and as the trend has only served to bolster the Pontifical North American College’s standing as the lodestar of priestly formation (and a good bit else) back home, this Monday brings the accordingly consequential word of a change at its helm.

At this hour atop the Gianicolo, the 156 year-old seminary is slated to introduce Fr Peter Harman, 42 – a priest of Springfield in Illinois who’s served since 2013 as the NAC’s top pastoral formator – as its 23rd Rector. The choice formally made by the Congregation for the Clergy, which accepted the recommendation of the college’s 15-bishop Board of Governors, the appointment takes effect on February 1st. In the post, Harman succeeds Msgr Jim Checchio, who returns to his Mom and clan in South Jersey after a ten-year tenure that’s significantly solidified the the NAC’s resources while likewise growing its enrollment by some 60 percent. (The duo are shown above, with Harman at right.)

For purposes of context, it’s no stretch to say that when the NAC sneezes, the US church catches a cold… and, indeed, a good chunk of global Catholicism starts sniffling, to boot. Even beyond its current 250-plus seminarians – a high over recent decades – the reach of “The Hill” is even more tellingly explained in the students’ presence from nearly 100 dioceses, comprising a majority of the nation’s Latin-church outposts, as well as a handful each from Australia and Canada. (An additional 75 priests in graduate studies live at the college’s Casa Santa Maria, the NAC’s original home in the city’s core until the Gianicolo compound opened in 1953.) Yet whether they come as theologians preparing for ordination or advanced degrees afterward, its alums have formed the modern backbone of American hierarchical leadership: today, no less than two-thirds of the nine Stateside cardinal-electors – including three of the four who lead dioceses – are products of the college and/or the Casa, along with a heavy plurality of the nation’s bishops and a wider network that leaves practically no church entity on these shores untouched. Borrowing from another field, it’s a profession-wide impact comparable to having the graduate pools of Harvard Law and Yale Law rolled into one.

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ILLINOIS
Journal 930

Father Peter Harmon to head pontifical college

A Quincy native has been named to head a leading Papal school in Rome.

Father Peter Harmon has been named rector of the Pontifical North American College (PNAC), effective February 1st. Harmon currently works at the College, which serves as the American seminary for clergy in Rome.

He previously was Pastor of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Springfield, where he oversaw the renovation of the Cathedral.

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ILLINOIS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, Nov. 23, 2015

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

A Springfield IL priest is being promoted to head (“rector”) perhaps the world’s most prominent Catholic seminary. We’re disappointed by this move, especially because he comes from a diocese riddled with many clergy sex crimes and cover ups.

http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/

Fr. Peter Harman will soon direct North American College in Rome, the 156 year-old school attended by 250-plus seminarians from nearly 100 dioceses study. “Its alums have formed the modern backbone of American church hierarchical leadership. Two-thirds of the nine US cardinal-electors – including three of the four who lead dioceses – are products of the college along with a heavy plurality of the nation’s bishops and a wider network that leaves practically no church entity on these shores untouched, according to noted Catholic blogger Rocco Palmo.

Just this year, we criticized Springfield Catholic officials for

–paying a predator priest’s lawyer (DeGrand)

http://www.snapnetwork.org/il_spgfld_bishop_pays_predator_priest_s_lawyer

–refusing to reach out to anyone hurt by two predator priests (Martinez & Firtzgerald)

http://www.sj-r.com/article/20150304/News/150309764

–criticizing the news media

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VATICAN CITY
Rome Reports

[with video]

The Vatileaks trial begins with five people accused of two different charges. Here’s everything you need to know about the blockbuster case.

THE ACCUSED

The main suspects are two members of a committee created by Pope Francis to reform the administrative and financial offices of the Holy See. They are a Spanish priest, Lucio Ángel Vallejo Balda, and an Italian laywoman and PR expert, Francesca Chaouqui.

Balda’s secretary Nicola Maio has also been charged.

They are accused of “criminal conspiracy to disseminate news and documents related to the fundamental interests of the Holy See and the Vatican City State.”

Also charged are the journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi. They face charges of “illegally procuring and later revealing news and documents related to the fundamental interests of the Holy See and the Vatican City State.”

THE PROCESS

The process begins at the Court of the Vatican City State on Tuesday, November 24th.

If any of the accused do not appear, they will be tried in absentia. Their lawyers have time until Saturday the 28th to present evidence in their defense.

The penalty for these offenses can be up to eight years in prison.

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ILLINOIS/MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

There’s a group of editors and reporters who I really hope will see the film Spotlight. They’re journalists in St. Louis and four Illinois towns: Alton, Godfrey, Peoria, and Belleville.

Earlier this month, a jury awarded $8.1 million to a victim of a predator priest, Fr. J. Vincent Fitzgerald, who once worked in each of these places. But as best we can tell, despite our best efforts, only one news outlet in these areas has covered this verdict

[Peoria Public Radio]

That’s a shame because it’s of course possible – maybe even probable – that Fr. Fitzgerald may have hurt a child in one of these communities. (For example, he had plenty of chances to assault a kid in Belleville where he lived for 16 years until his death in 2009. His full work history is here:

[BishopAccountability.org]

[KARE]

At first glance, Spotlight is about clergy sex crimes and cover ups in Boston. But a troubling and accurate sub-text throughout the film is that any number of journalists were alerted to the crisis but chose, for various reasons, not to pursue it.

So I hope reporters in Missouri and Illinois see this highly acclaimed movie, take its lessons to heart, and at least mention to their readers and viewers, however briefly, that this predator was in their midst.

(By the way, there are three other reasons the Fr. Fitzgerald case is noteworthy.

First, the size of the verdict. Second, the fact that there have only been about three dozen civil clergy abuse and cover up trials in US history. And third, the fact that it’s an unusual verdict, because jurors said that a bishop is responsible for most of the harm done by a predator priest, even though his paycheck was signed by a legally separate entity, the Oblates.

As we said when the verdict was handed down: “The bottom line is that every bishop is responsible for the safety of every Catholic kid from every Catholic pedophile, whether the offender is a Jesuit, a Marianist, an Oblate or whatever. Hair-splitting may work for bishops as a public relations strategy. It works less well as a legal defense strategy.”

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

The Catholic Church in Melbourne was aware of abuse from about the 1950s but failed to protect children in its care, a former priest is expected to tell a royal commission.

Former Melbourne priest Philip O’Donnell will be the first witness at the child abuse royal commission’s hearing into how the Catholic Church handled abuse allegations in the Melbourne archdiocese, which begins on Tuesday.

Mr O’Donnell, who was a seminarian and then priest from 1969 to 1999, gave evidence to a Victorian parliamentary inquiry two years ago.

He told the inquiry the Archdiocese of Melbourne had specific knowledge of child abuse from about 1950 to 1990 but completely failed children in its care with a hierarchy relying on a legal strategy of avoidance and denial.

Mr O’Donnell also gave evidence that former Melbourne archbishop Frank Little became hostile and evasive when told of allegations against Father Wilfred `Bill’ Baker in the 1970s.

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TEXAS/NEW MEXICO
El Paso Times

Diana Washington Valdez, El Paso Times November 22, 2015

Victims of a predatory priest who served in El Paso and Alamogordo helped provide the impetus for the Boston Globe investigation that revealed a widespread cover-up by the Catholic Church highlighted by the movie “Spotlight.”

The film’s all-star cast focuses on the newspaper’s investigation “Spotlight Investigation: Abuse in the Catholic Church,” which garnered the daily a Pulitzer Prize in 2003. The new movie by Open Road Films is showing in theaters across El Paso and the nation.

Robert J. Curtis and Phil Saviano were both victimized by the Rev. David A. Holley, who was considered one of the most notorious sexual predators who wore the cloth.

“It was estimated that Holley had molested over 32 boys during his three years as a parish priest at St. Jude’s Mission in Alamogordo,” Curtis said. In 1972, St. Jude’s was part of the El Paso Catholic Diocese.

Curtis, then 11 years old, was a paperboy for the El Paso Times in Alamogordo when Holley zeroed in on him.

“He lived down the street from me, and across the street from the school and church,” Curtis said. “When I asked him during his sentencing hearing why he picked me, he said because ‘it was convenient.’ I had to walk in front of his house every day.”

Curtis said other victims of Holley in Alamogordo had mentioned to him that a mysterious man from El Paso traveled to Alamogordo to photograph Holley’s victims. “I don’t remember that, but others said they did,” Curtis said.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Monday, November 23, 2015

By Conall Ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner Reporter

As Bessborough was investigated, the nuns were told don’t co-operate, writes Conall Ó Fatharta

MONTH after month, year after year we peel away another layer of the sordid history of Ireland’s mother and baby homes.

In a country where falling pregnant outside marriage was viewed as something worse than a crime, thousands of women and girls were instead hidden away and their children taken from them.

With no real solution to the ‘problem’ of ‘illegitimacy’, the State was happy to leave it to religious orders and a system of mother and baby homes where, even by the standards of the day, the physical and psychological treatment of women and the removal of their children bordered on criminal.

We have all heard the terms. Sadly, their shock value has waned over time. Only in Ireland can a public be fatigued by terms like forced adoption, illegal adoption, trafficking, slavery, child death and mass graves.

Other countries are shocked. The international reaction to the Tuam babies scandal proved as much. However, at home we have to listen to the usual mantra of ‘Sure those were the times’, ‘Nobody forced these girls to get pregnant’ and the old classic: “Sure the religious did their best’.

The fact that none of these arguments hold water doesn’t weaken their hold over people who want to believe them. The culture of death in mother and baby homes was deemed a scandal at the highest government levels more than 70 years ago. The only thing lacking was the courage in official Ireland to do anything about it.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Monday, November 23, 2015

By Conall Ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner Reporter

The State feared a “public scandal” in relation to the alarming number of children dying in mother and baby homes — 70 years before the Tuam babies scandal made worldwide headlines.

The revelation is contained in a letter sent on behalf of parliamentary secretary to the Minister for Local Government and Public Health Dr Con Ward in 1945 to the Bishop of Cork Daniel Cohalan.

The letter was in response to an angry letter sent to Dr Ward by Bishop Cohalan where he questioned the department’s request that the order remove the head of Bessborough over the “trouble” of infant mortality at the institution.

Records show there was an 82% infant death rate at Bessborough at the time.

“Rev Mother Martina has informed me that the Mother Superior in England was asked to remove her. That procedure was scarcely correct. Mother Martina is Reverend Mother of the Community of Sisters, it is an ecclesiastical appointment; it was not a correct thing to call for he removal,” he wrote.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Catholic Herald

by Edward Condon
posted Monday, 23 Nov 2015

Edward Condon is a canon lawyer working for tribunals in a number of dioceses. On Twitter he is @canonlawyered

The announcement that five people, including two journalists, allegedly responsible for latest round of leaks are to be charged under the laws of the Vatican City State, has generated considerable reaction and looks likely to generate more.

Last week, before the charges were even announced, the magazine Commonweal posted an article by Paul Moses calling the action “an effort to intimidate journalists from reporting the truth” and the “criminalising [of] investigative reporting”.

There will be a great deal of ink spilled in the coming weeks about a Vatican vendetta against truth and transparency, and how this shows that the Curia still considers itself above scrutiny. Cutting through the hyperbole, the decision to include the journalists in the indictments is seriously ill-judged and distracts from the real breach of law and trust that was committed by the leakers themselves.

Most governments seek to find a balance between respecting a free press and reserving the right to keep fundamental issues of governance confidential. In the case of the ongoing financial reform of the Curia we are talking about a wholesale restructuring of a state and a global Church, and these are fundamental issues of governmental integrity. For this reason the leaking of sensitive documents of state is and should be a criminal offence.

While it is seriously unlikely the journalists will actually be convicted, exactly because of the concerns that are being voiced, allowing the focus of attention to shift away from the leakers and on to issues of a free press shows a worrying blindness by the Vatican authorities to the real scandal.

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UNITED STATES
Gold Derby

By Paul Sheehan
Nov 22 2015

Our leading contender for Best Picture “Spotlight” made $3.4 million in its third outing as it jumped from 60 to 598 screens and went nationwide. That haul of just under $6K per screen was good enough for eighth place on the overall box office chart. Rave reviews boosted interest in this docudrama that details the work by the Boston Globe to expose the coverup by the local Catholic diocese of pedophile priests and its cumulative take is now up to $5.7 million as awards season heats up. That is a full million ahead of where last year’s Best Picture champ “Birdman” was after 17 days in theaters.

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VIENNA
The Express Tribune

AFP

VIENNA: The OSCE on Monday took the unusual step of taking the Vatican to task, calling for the withdrawal of criminal charges against two journalists over a leaks scandal rocking the Catholic Church.

“Journalists must be free to report on issues of public interest and to protect their confidential sources,” said Dunja Mijatovic, media freedom representative at the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe.

“I call on the authorities not to proceed with the charges and protect journalists’ rights in accordance with OSCE commitments,” Mijatovic said in a statement.

The Vatican said on Saturday that it has charged journalists Emiliano Fittipaldi and Gianluigi Nuzzi along with three other people for the “unlawful disclosure of information and confidential documents”.

Both have written books that use classified documents to back up allegations of corruption, theft and uncontrolled spending at the Vatican.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

NOVEMBER 24, 2015

John Ferguson
Victorian Political Editor
Melbourne

Tessa Akerman
Reporter
Melbourne

George Pell’s lawyers will cross-examine victims of sex abuse to protect the cardinal’s reputation because of the royal commission’s insistence on investigating unsubstantiated claims of wrongdoing, including attempted bribery.

Senior Catholic Church figures have been debating for months how Cardinal Pell should respond to the Royal Commission into ­Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse after the church ­initially said through its legal team victims would not be interrogated.

The Australian understands support for Cardinal Pell defending his position has widened — even among his internal critics — because of the potential for ­adverse findings or commentary flowing from his years serving the scandal-plagued Diocese of ­Ballarat in western Victoria. Cardinal Pell has for decades rejected claims he not only knew about rampant offending, but also was complicit in covering it up.

Lawyers for the church have previously told the commission they did not “generally’’ intend to cross-examine witnesses. The church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council also has stated publicly, as recently as last week: “We don’t cross-examine survivor witnesses.’’

However, The Australian understands that deep within the TJHC there has been growing support for Cardinal Pell to be ­allowed to have his lawyers question claims of bribery and cover-ups. The support is based on his right to have the ­allegations tested, but on the understanding the legal team will do its best to prevent re-traumatising victims.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service

Cathy Lynn Grossman | November 23, 2015

WASHINGTON (RNS) Viewers came to watch “Spotlight” for its dramatic themes: clergy sex abuse and power, God and media. Or they came for its top-flight cast and Oscar buzz.

Or they came because friends said it was a good movie. Said one millennial: “Mom said it was important.”

The retelling of The Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning expose of the clergy abuse scandal in Boston delivered on those expectations during a workweek afternoon viewing at the downtown Cineplex.

But it seems unlikely that the film, which opened to hundreds of theaters Friday (Nov. 20), will revive the general public rage and disgust with predatory priests and the church that hid them as the Globe’s stories did in 2002.

The idea that abuse could be rampant — yet buried from the bleach of public scrutiny — is not so surprising anymore, said Richard Boudreau, 67, who was once an altar boy and a graduate of a Jesuit high school.

A decade after the Globe expose when the Catholic scandal was at full boil, allegations that Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky abused children came to light. And so did allegations that university officials and others were aware of his actions but failed to protect youth in Sandusky’s nonprofit program.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

AAP

WITNESSES FOR ROYAL COMMISSION INTO MELBOURNE ARCHDIOCESE ABUSE:
CARDINAL GEORGE PELL
* Now Vatican financial chief
* Melbourne archbishop 1996-2001
* Auxiliary bishop of Melbourne 1987-1996
* Gives evidence week of December 14

ARCHBISHOP DENIS HART
* Melbourne archbishop since 2001

BISHOPS: Former vicars-general and auxiliary bishops of Melbourne archdiocese PETER CONNORS and HILTON DEAKIN

THOSE WHO SPOKE OUT:

* Former Melbourne priest PHILIP O’DONNELL – Told a Victorian inquiry then Melbourne Archbishop Frank Little (now dead) was told of allegations against a priest in 1970s, archdiocese knew about clergy abuse allegations since at least 1950s

* Former Holy Family Primary School (Doveton) principal GRAEME SLEEMAN – Complained about Doveton parish priest Peter Searson and resigned when nothing was done about him

* Former Holy Family Primary School teacher CARMEL RAFFERTY – Told Victorian inquiry group of teachers complained to Pell in early 1990s about sex abuse allegations against Searson

OTHERS INCLUDE: Four abuse survivors; former director of Catholic Education for Melbourne Father Thomas Doyle; Victoria Police assistant commissioner Stephen Fontana; Former principal of North Richmond’s St James Primary School Patricia Taylor.
Originally published as Pell and Hart among commission witnesses

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

Teachers tried to get the Catholic Church to act against a suspected Melbourne pedophile priest including taking their concerns to then bishop George Pell, a royal commission will hear.

The child abuse royal commission is investigating how church authorities dealt with abusers who operated in the Holy Family Parish in Doveton and elsewhere in the Archdiocese of Melbourne for decades.

Former Holy Family Primary School principal Graeme Sleeman and teacher Carmel Rafferty raised concerns about Doveton parish priest Father Peter Searson, a Victorian parliamentary inquiry heard in 2013.

Ms Rafferty told the inquiry a group of teachers visited Cardinal Pell, who was then bishop for Melbourne’s southern area, in 1991 to tell him about Searson, who was suspected of sexual molestation and seen visiting the boys’ toilets several times a day.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

Australia’s national child-abuse Royal Commission public hearing in Melbourne (for four weeks, starting Tuesday 24 November) will begin by examining the cover-up of abuse in the Melbourne Catholic archdiocese. The Commission may look at about ten Melbourne priests (up to four at the Doveton parish) and up to six at other parishes. For background information from Broken Rites about these ten priests, see: http://www.brokenrites.org.au/drupal/node/377

After looking at the Melbourne archdiocese, the Commission will also look at the Ballarat diocese. Finally it will deal with Cardinal George Pell and what he knew (or what he claims he “didn’t know”) about all this.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites reseacher (article updated 20 November 2015)

This Broken Rites article is the most comprehensive account available about how the Catholic Church protected Father Terry Pidoto for 25 years while he committed crimes against boys in his parishes.

Terrence Melville Pidoto was jailed in Melbourne in 2007 for seven years after being found guilty of 11 charges including rape.

Pidoto’s priestly career revolved around boys. His superiors and colleagues in the Melbourne archdiocese knew this but they tolerated him, thereby giving him access to victims.

According to court evidence, Pidoto was noted for giving boys a “massage”, sometimes behind closed (or locked) doors. The “massages” enabled Pidoto to commit sexual assaults, sometimes by anal penetration.

According to court evidence, Pidoto even took a boy to visit one of Australia’s leading priesthood-training colleges (Corpus Christi College, Melbourne) and sexually assaulted him in a room there. Other priests or student priests saw Pidoto with the boy at the seminary but they did not see anything unusual about this.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 20 November 2015)

Father Terrence Pidoto, who has already been in jail for committing sexual crimes against boys in parishes around Melbourne, was scheduled to face the Melbourne County Court again on 20 November 2015, charged with additional child-sex offences after some more of his victims contacted the detectives in the Victoria Police sex-crime squad. But he died last week and now his victims will not achieve justice.

During 2014, Pidoto’s new case went through preliminary procedures in the Melbourne Magistrates Court. According to court documents in 2014, the charges comprise 15 counts of indecent assault, allegedly committed against eight young males. The Magistrates Court was closed during the 2014 procedures.

At the County Court, on 20 November 2015, the prodeedings were to be chaired by a judge. But, because Pidoto is no longer available, his court case can no longer go ahead.

Terrence Melville Pidoto (born on 12 December 1944) was ordained as a priest for the Melbourne Catholic archdiocese in 1971. This diocese covers the Melbourne metropolitan area, plus some nearby country towns such as Kilmore.

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AUSTRALIA
Sunshine Coast Daily

Emma McBryde | 23rd Nov 2015

A SENIOR pastor failed to act protectively towards a young teen who was sexually abused at the hands of a youth pastor because the youth pastor was dating the senior pastor’s daughter, an inquiry has found.

Only a few months after Sunshine Coast senior pastor Dr Ian Lehmann hired Jonathan Baldwin in 2004 to head the church’s youth ministry, Baldwin began sexually abusing a 13-year-old who attended the church.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard the abuse continued for two years.

Only two days before Baldwin married Dr Lehmann’s daughter he forced the teenager, known during the inquiry as ALA, to perform oral sex on him.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

The head of a pentecostal Christian college in Victoria failed to protect students even though there was abundant evidence they were being sexually abused, a royal commission has found.

In a report released on Friday, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is heavily critical of how Northside Christian College and its affiliated pentecostal church in Victoria handled complaints against pedophile Kenneth Sandilands, who was jailed in 2001.

In October last year, the commission examined how a number of Australian Christian Churches (former Assemblies of God) institutions in Australia responded to abuse allegations.

Northside Christian College at Bundoora in Melbourne’s northeast, and the Sunshine Coast Church in Queensland, as well as Hillsong in NSW, were among those investigated.

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ROME
ANSA

(ANSA) – Rome, November 23 – PR expert Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui on Monday said she intends to appear in the courtroom on Tuesday for the first hearing in a Vatican trial over a document-leaking scandal in which she and five others were indicted at the weekend.

Chaouqui was indicted with former secretary of the COSEA commission on the Holy See’s economic-administrative structure Monsignor Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda, and his former assistant Nicola Maio.

The three are charged with conspiracy to commit a crime and with removing and distributing confidential Vatican documents.

Those indictments came together with those of two journalists, Emiliano Fittipaldi and Gianluigi Nuzzi, who are charged with using and distributing the allegedly stolen confidential information in their recent books, Avarice and Merchants in the Temple.

On Monday Chaouqui reiterated that she is innocent.

“I’ve decided that on Tuesday I’ll defend myself on trial, to show that not one paper ever passed from my hands to those of a journalist, any journalist, not only Emiliano and Gianluigi,” Chaouqui said on her Facebook page.

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

By Samantha Walker Nov. 23, 2015

A body representing the Catholic Church has released guidelines for how the church should respond to civil claims for child sexual abuse, which have received mixed reviews from a sexual abuse survivor and lawyer.

The Truth, Justice and Healing Council published the guidelines yesterday, which aim to “promote justice and consistency” with the church’s handling of sexual abuse claims and litigation. They include that church authorities should pay “legitimate claims without litigation” and “assist a claimant to identify the correct defendant to respond to legal proceedings”.

Ballarat clergy abuse survivor, Andrew Collins, welcomed the guidelines but said they needed to go further to guarantee survivors could receive compensation from the church.

“I’m very pleased to see them (the church) standing up and taking this seriously, because litigation has been very hard to pursue in the past,” Mr Collins said.

“One thing they need to do is to nominate an entity for survivors to sue.”

In the past the church has used a legal tactic known as the ‘Ellis Defence’ to avoid paying compensation to victims of sexual abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Helen Davidson
@heldavidson
Monday 23 November 2015

Brian Houston, the founder of the Hillsong Church, failed to alert the police about allegations his father had sexually assaulted children, and had a conflict of interest when he assumed responsibility for dealing with the accusations, a royal commission has found.

In October 2014 the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse examined the responses of the Assemblies of God in Australia (now Australian Christian Churches) to allegations against three men, including Frank Houston, a preacher who helped build the Pentecostal movement in Australia and who died in 2004.

Frank Houston had abused up to nine boys in Australia and New Zealand, and in its final report on the case released on Monday, the commission found multiple failings within the church executive – at the time led by Frank Houston’s son Brian – in responding.

Both the New South Wales executive and the national executive failed to follow its complaints procedure when handling the allegations, the royal commission found in its report.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Ben Worsley

The royal commission into child abuse has found the head of the Hillsong Church Brian Houston ignored a conflict of interest in dealing with allegations of sexual abuse against his father.

Brian Houston was president of the Assemblies of God Pentecostal movement in 1999, when his father Frank Houston, a senior pastor at the Sydney Christian Life Centre, confessed to abusing a boy in New Zealand 30 years earlier.

Last year, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was told Brian Houston ran the church’s investigation into the matter.

Frank Houston was eventually suspended from preaching but Brian Houston never called police.

Despite Brian Houston’s claim to the contrary, the commission has found there was a conflict of interest between his personal and professional roles and that the church ignored its own policies during the investigation.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

The head of a pentecostal Christian college in Victoria failed to protect students even though there was abundant evidence they were being sexually abused, a royal commission has found.

In a report released on Friday, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is heavily critical of how Northside Christian College and its affiliated pentecostal church in Victoria handled complaints against pedophile Kenneth Sandilands, who was jailed in 2001.

In October last year, the commission examined how a number of Australian Christian Churches (former Assemblies of God) institutions in Australia responded to abuse allegations.

Northside Christian College at Bundoora in Melbourne’s northeast, and the Sunshine Coast Church in Queensland, as well as Hillsong in NSW, were among those investigated.

The commission heard evidence from Emma Fretton, a former student at Northside, who was abused by Sandilands for four years from the time she was six.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

23 November, 2015

The Royal Commission’s report of Case Study 18 – the response of Australian Christian Churches and affiliated Pentecostal churches to allegations of child sexual abuse – was released today.

The report follows a public hearing held in October last year which examined the response of Hillsong Church in New South Wales, Northside Christian College and Northside Christian Centre (now Encompass Church) in Victoria, Sunshine Coast Church in Queensland and the Australian Christian Churches (formerly the Assemblies of God in Australia) to allegations of child sexual abuse.

Hillsong Church, Assemblies of God and Frank Houston

The hearing heard evidence that when allegations about Mr Frank Houston’s abuse of AHA emerged in 1999, Mr Frank Houston’s son, Pastor Brian Houston, was the National President of the Assemblies of God in Australia. He confronted his father, who confessed to the abuse.

The Commissioners express the view that the New South Wales Executive failed to appoint a contact person for the complainant, interview the complainant, have the State or National Executive interview the alleged perpetrator, or record any of the steps it took.

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AUSTRALIA
Stuff

Brian Houston, the charismatic leader of Hillsong Church in Australia, should have reported his father to police for child sex abuse offences, a royal commission has found.

And, as national president of the Assemblies of God in Australia in 2000, the charismatic preacher had a perceived conflict of interest when involved in handling abuse allegations against his father Frank Houston, who had confessed to being a child molester.

The commission report handed down on Friday follows a public hearing last year, which examined the response of Assemblies of God affiliates – Hillsong Church in NSW, Northside Christian College in Victoria and the Sunshine Coast Church in Queensland – to allegations of child sexual abuse.

The Australian branch of the World Assemblies of God – the largest pentecostal denomination in the world – is now known as Australian Christian Churches.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

By Liam Quinn For Daily Mail Australia and AAP

Brian Houston, leader of Hillsong Church in Australia, should have reported his father to police for child sex abuse offences, a royal commission has found.

Findings released by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse on Monday said Pastor Houston, who is the national president of the Assemblies of God in Australia, was also influenced by a conflict of interest when dealing with the allegations against his father.

The royal commission said when allegations surfaced in 1999 against Frank Houston, his son should have stepped aside.

Frank Houston reportedly abused up to eight boys in Australia and New Zealand, according to the commission’s findings.

The report comes after a public hearing was held in October last year, and examined the response of the Hillsong Church in New South Wales as well as Assemblies of God churches and centres in Victoria and Queensland to allegations of child sexual abuse.

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UNITED STATES
River Cities’ Reader

WRITTEN BY MIKE SCHULZ
SUNDAY, 22 NOVEMBER 2015

SPOTLIGHT

Spotlight, director/co-writer Thomas McCarthy’s dramatic procedural exploring the events leading to the Boston Globe’s 2002 exposé on sexual abuse within the Catholic church, isn’t much to look at. Its color palette is generally restricted to sallow browns and grays, and even under the fluorescent illumination of the Globe offices, the air is heavy with an oppressive pall. A man racing down a courthouse hallway is the closest the film comes to an action sequence. One montage is devoted solely to journalists scanning address directories with rulers. And to my eyes, Spotlight – scene by scene, minute by minute – still emerges as the least boring movie of the year.

It’s impossible to be bored, after all, when your brain is being actively engaged, and McCarthy’s latest is spectacularly engaging; following its two hours of journalistic legwork and mostly hushed conversation, I left the film’s auditorium far more alert than when I walked in. I’ll admit I’ve got a major jones for entertainments of this ilk, and if stranded on a desert island, could likely survive contentedly with only All the President’s Men and Zodiac for company. But try as I might, I can’t think of a single thing wrong with Spotlight, a film in which the writing (by McCarthy and Josh Singer), directing, acting, and below-the-line craftsmanship are in such harmonious accord that what results is something truly contradictory: a thrilling, even exhilarating account of the mundane.

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AUSTRALIA
Eureka Street

Frank Brennan | 23 November 2015

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is about to recommence its case study on the Catholic Church in Ballarat. Last week, the Melbourne Herald Sun reported: ‘Victims of child sexual abuse look set to be grilled by lawyers for Cardinal George Pell in a bid to quash explosive allegations he was complicit in a widespread cover-up.’

Cardinal Pell will have legal representation separate from the legal team appearing for the Church. He will return from Rome and give evidence at the public hearing next month.

I am one of those Catholic priests who thinks that the church’s Truth Justice and Healing Council has done a good job insisting that the needs of victims be paramount. From the start, the council’s lawyers told the Royal Commission that they would not be cross-examining witnesses, testing their credibility, and doubting their evidence of sexual abuse by church personnel.

Wanting to assist with healing for victims and wanting to learn all available lessons about how to avoid future abuse and cover-ups, the Church has been prepared to place second issues of institutional and personal reputation of church officials. The wellbeing of victims has been put first during the church’s conduct of the commission.

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ILLINOIS
State Journal-Register

Posted Nov. 22, 2015

The new movie Spotlight was released in selected major cities on Nov. 6 with a further rollout scheduled in other cities in coming weeks. The screenplay is based on the investigation of the Boston archdiocese’s sex abuse scandal of the early 2000s by the Spotlight team of investigative reporters at the Boston Globe.

Media coverage about the movie’s content may be difficult for those who were abused by a priest as it may serve as a reminder of a traumatic event in their lives. In addition, some Catholics and non-Catholics may approach the movie as a window to what is happening in the church today, not what happened in the past. The release of the movie could also be a difficult time for our own priests as they are reminded of a tragic and challenging era in the church.

Spotlight provides an opportunity to raise awareness of all that has been done to prevent child sexual abuse in the Church. Within the boundaries of our own diocese, more than 45,000 parishioners 18 and older have been trained in Protecting God’s Children since the program began in 2002 and continues on an ongoing basis in each parish.

We acknowledge the role of the Boston Globe reporters in bringing this issue forward for necessary action, and we continue to pray for the victims of abuse and their families. All life is precious. As such, we must all remain vigilant and strive to embody the teachings of the church and the example of Jesus.

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AUSTRALIA
Truth Justice and Healing Council

23 November 2015

The Catholic Church’s Truth Justice and Healing Council has released guidelines for how Church authorities should respond when claims of child sexual abuse are made against them.

The guidelines, which have been endorsed by the Church leadership, will come into effect from 1 January 2016 and are designed to promote justice and consistency in the way the Church andles child sexual abuse claims and conduct litigation when taken to court.

They also include a requirement for Church dioceses or religious orders to assist a claimant to identify the correct defendant to respond to legal proceedings.

The CEO of the Truth Justice and Healing Council, Francis Sullivan, said the community expects the Catholic Church to have a compassionate and consistent approach towards survivors of child sexual abuse, including when they take legal action.

“These guidelines provide a framework for Church authorities to do the right thing in court and ease the trauma of litigation for survivors,” he said.

The guidelines also cover issues such as:

 providing records, making an early assessment of claims, keeping costs down and paying legitimate claims without litigation

 being mindful of the traumatic experience for claimants during litigation and endeavouring to avoid legal proceedings wherever possible

 apologising if the Church authority is aware that it or its representatives or lawyers have acted wrongfully, improperly or in breach of the guidelines.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By the National Reporting Team’s Lorna Knowles

The Catholic Church has released new guidelines to deal with claims of child sexual abuse, which it says will promote a more compassionate approach towards victims.

But child abuse survivors and their lawyers say the guidelines are disingenuous because they do not expressly reject the controversial Ellis defence — a court ruling that the church is not a legal entity which can be sued.

Releasing the guidelines today, head of the Catholic Church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council, Francis Sullivan, said the church wanted to treat survivors and victims fairly, compassionately and in a timely manner.

“It’s about demonstrating how they will put the interests of the survivor first, provide information quickly, go through it openly and honestly, provide a proper defendant, if that survivor wishes to bring forward a suit of damages,” Mr Sullivan said.

But barrister and spokesman for the Australian Lawyers Alliance, Andrew Morrison SC, told the ABC the guidelines were a backward step for victims.

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Posted Nov. 22, 2015

By Rick Holmes

SOMERVILLE

It’s been 14 years since a spark struck in Boston grew to a flame that eventually engulfed the global Roman Catholic Church.

I remember when the story first hit our newsroom, back in the ‘90s, when John Geoghan became the first of the Boston-area priests accused of molesting children. The archdiocese had moved him from parish to parish over a 30-year career blighted by allegations of sexual misconduct and leaves for treatment that never seemed to work. I recall sending reporters to knock on doors for stories and reactions from the parishioners at one of his many stops. Nobody would talk.

When I first used the phrase “clergy sex abuse” in a headline, I remember wondering how readers would react. The term recognized what was becoming clear: that this scandal was no longer about one or two problem priests. And I can still remember picking up the Sunday Boston Globe in January of 2002 and being stunned by the story that exposed in graphic, undeniable detail the depths of the scandal and the complicity of Cardinal Bernard Law.

For every newspaper story, there’s a story of how they got the story, and “Spotlight,” a riveting new movie, tells both of them well.

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LUXEMBURG/DEUTSCHLAND
KerkNet

[BRUSSELS (KerkNet) – There will be soon a European church network for the prevention of sexual abuse. That is one of the concrete results of the first European convening of church abuse officials from 14 countries which met from Wednesday to Friday at the initiative of ‘The Luxemburg School for Religion and Society and the Diocese of Trier. The meetings were held in Luxemburg and Trier.]

BRUSSEL (KerkNet) – Er komt weldra een Europees kerkelijk netwerk voor preventie van seksueel misbruik. Dat is een van de concrete resultaten van het eerste Europese overleg van kerkelijke misbruikverantwoordelijken uit 14 landen, dat van woensdag tot vrijdag op initiatief van ‘The Luxemburg School for Religion and Society’ en het bisdom Trier, in Luxemburg en Trier plaatsvond. Volgens de Luxemburgse theoloog Jean Ehret, het hoofd van het Luxemburgse instituut, kan het netwerk al de komende maanden van start gaan.

Tijdens de bijeenkomst aan de Duits-Luxemburgse grens werden grote verschillen vastgesteld bij de kerkelijke strijd tegen seksueel misbruik in de verschillende Europese landen. “Maar overal moet dezelfde basisnorm zijn: zero tolerantie”, vertelde de theoloog Jean Ehret. De misbruikverantwoordelijke van het bisdom Trier, Andreas Zimmer, gaf een korte historische schets van de kerkelijke strijd tegen misbruik. Hij refereerde naar de voortrekkersrol van de Angelsaksische landen, die vanaf 2002 begonnen met de uitbouw van structuren voor preventie, vormingen, aanspreekpunten en wetenschappelijk onderzoek. Dit voorbeeld werd later ook in de landen van de Benelux en na het misbruikschandaal van 2010 ook in Duitsland nagevolgd. Anderzijds stelde hij vast dat in Frankrijk en Oost-Europese landen nog steeds een lange weg is af te leggen voor de kerkelijke preventie van seksueel misbruik.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Sunday Times

James Gillespie Published: 22 November 2015

MORE than 300 people prominent in public life are facing allegations of historic sex abuse, the police chief co- ordinating the investigations has revealed.

Simon Bailey, the chief constable of Norfolk and commander of Operation Hydrant, which is overseeing the inquiries into non-recent child abuse in institutions or by prominent people, also revealed that he is drawing up new guidelines, which will be issued to investigating officers within the next few weeks on how to handle witnesses and alleged offenders.

The move follows growing concerns over the handling of some cases in which witnesses have given lurid accounts of abuse — including murder — and named alleged abusers. A number of the most highly publicised accounts have subsequently turned out to be either impossible to substantiate or fantasy.

Bailey said that of 2,156 people identified by police as suspects, 302 were in positions of public prominence.

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UNITED STATES
Berkshire Eagle

By Lindsey Bahr
The Associated Press

POSTED: 11/20/2015

Mark Ruffalo never walks in “Spotlight.” His very slowest is just shy of a flat out jog. It’s a minor detail, but it’s crucial to appreciating why this studied, smart look at The Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into the abuses of the Catholic Church is also utterly exhilarating.

This is the kind of simmering process film that makes you want to roll up your sleeves and do some work. To knock on some doors, ask some questions, ignore warnings, crack open a beer, burn the midnight oil and really do something — or maybe that’s just what every journalist watching this film will think.

After all, investigative print journalism isn’t the most cinematic of endeavors. It’s tedious and quiet and there are more dead ends than big revelations. It’s a test of endurance — a long distance run where the finish is not even clear.

Of course, unlike an ongoing investigation, we know the outcome here already. The trick of “Spotlight” is making the potentially unsexy “how they got there” into not only one of the best movies of the year, but one of the best journalism movies of all time.

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CALIFORNIA
My News LA

POSTED BY KEN STONE ON NOVEMBER 20, 2015

The Kabbalah Centre International and one of its former co-directors should collectively pay more than $1.1 million to a former student who met the rabbi for a late-night meeting that turned into an attempted sexual assault, an attorney told a jury Friday.

In his final argument to a jury hearing trial of Jena Scaccetti’s lawsuit against the KCI and Rabbi Yehuda Berg, lawyer Alain Bonavida said his client was involuntarily touched on her leg and held by Berg in a tight embrace when she met with him at his mother’s New York City apartment the night of Oct. 25-26, 2012.

“That’s a sexual assault,” Bonavida said. “She didn’t consent to that.”

But Berg’s attorney, John Cline, said his client did not sexually abuse Scaccetti.

“This is not a case about rape, this is not a case about violence,” he told the Los Angeles Superior Court jury. “This was a human encounter between two people one night in their lives.”

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UNITED KINGDOM/INDIA
Daily Mail

By Christian Gysin and Lee Sorrell For The Daily Mail

A fugitive Church of England vicar has been told by judges to return to India where he faces charges of sexually assaulting a boy of 15.

The Rev Jonathan Robinson – an acquaintance of former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams – is accused of attacking the youngster twice in 2011.

The boy, who stayed at a children’s home set up by the clergyman, said he was kidnapped and taken to New Delhi where he was molested in cheap hostels.

But by the time a warrant was issued for Robinson’s arrest, the married cleric had returned home to Wales. Judges at the High Court in Madras have now agreed to lift an Interpol ‘wanted’ alert in the hope that he will voluntarily fly to India to face trial.

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INDIA
Premier

Sat 21 Nov 2015
By Aaron James

Judges in India have called for a former Church of England vicar to stand trial over claims he sexually abused a 15-year-old boy in the country twice.

According to the Daily Mail, Revd Jonathan Robinson is accused of abusing the boy in hostels in the Indian capital Delhi in 2011. The boy was under Mr Robinson’s care at a children’s home in Vallioor, south India, which he founded in 1998.

The home was part of The Grail Trust UK, a British charity also founded by Mr Robinson. In a career of more than forty years, Revd Robinson worked at churches in London, Surrey, Bath and Herefordshire before his retirement from that form of ministry in 2001.

He left the country for Wales before Indian authorities could issue an arrest warrant for him, and has since been on an Interpol “wanted” list.

Indian judges have decided to lift this status however, in the hope that Revd Robinson will return to India to stand trial.

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NEW YORK
The Examiner

Neal Rentz | Nov 22, 2015 |

A White Plains-based developer is proposing a major development for a portion of the property owned by the Legion of Christ in Mount Pleasant that would include 116 single-family homes and an assisted living facility.

The developer, Baker Residential, is also proposing to donate 16.5 acres of the 165-acre property on Columbus Avenue to the town, which would use it for recreational facilities.

The site is vacant wooded land that is located in a General Office Building zone (OB-1) at 582 and 590 Columbus Ave.

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ROME
The New York Times

By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
NOV. 21, 2015

ROME — Vatican prosecutors on Saturday formally indicted five people in connection with the theft of confidential documents used to write two tell-all books describing purported mismanagement in the Roman Catholic Church’s bureaucracy.

The five defendants were charged with “illegally procuring and successively revealing information and documents concerning the fundamental interests of the Holy See and the state,” the Vatican said in a statement issued Saturday.

Msgr. Lucio Ángel Vallejo Balda, and Francesca Chaouqui, a laywoman, were part of a commission set up by Pope Francis to examine the Vatican’s financial holdings and affairs. They were also charged with criminal conspiracy, as was Monsignor Vallejo Balda’s assistant, Nicola Maio.

The authors of the two books — Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi — are accused of “demanding and exercising pressures, above all on Vallejo Balda, to obtain confidential documents and information, that in part they used to draft two books,” according to the statement. The books, Mr. Nuzzi’s “Merchants in the Temple” and Mr. Fittipaldi’s “Avarice,” were published this month. …

Reached by telephone on Saturday afternoon, Mr. Fittipaldi said he was “incredulous” that the Vatican was putting him on trial. “I didn’t reveal anything that put the life of the pope at risk,” he said. “Instead, the documents recount the financial scandals of the curia, crazy investments, greed. It seems strange that they would investigate the teller of those misdeeds rather than those who carried them out.”

Putting journalists on trial is a chilling message from the Vatican, the writers said. “They want to show that they are a state with laws that have to be respected even if we don’t like them,” even if they are undemocratic, Mr. Fittipaldi said. “They want to make an example of this. It’s going to be more difficult for scandals of this type to emerge in the future,” because those who might want to expose corruption and mismanagement will be more wary.

Mr. Nuzzi remained defiant. “I am proud to have published information that was not supposed to get out, as any journalist would have done,” he said. “I didn’t reveal state secrets” involving internal military or security or intelligence issues, “but instances of dishonesty and abuse, and I will continue to do so.”

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UNITED STATES
Entertainment Weekly

BY JOE MCGOVERN

For all the severity of its subject matter, Tom McCarthy’s extraordinary journalism drama Spotlight (in theaters now) is not a movie of noble gestures and emotive Oscar-bait moments. And the performance which best encapsulates the film’s unassuming, non-vainglorious, worker-bee approach to its story is Liev Schreiber’s as the Boston Globe’s editor-in-chief Marty Baron, who pressed his paper to fully investigate the colossal cover-up in Boston of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.

Spotlight has been compared favorably — and justifiably — to the gold standard in journalism movies, 1976’s seminal All the President’s Men. According to that point of analogy, Schreiber’s top boss role is similar to Jason Robards Oscar-winning part as the saucy, colorful Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee. But Baron, who left the Boston Globe in 2012 and incidentally now runs the Washington Post, is a quieter and more reticent personality, especially for a newsman. Having arrived from his previous job at the Miami Herald as the film begins, Baron is viewed with suspicion by most of his staff — and the good ol’ boy Irish Catholic culture.

Schreiber’s acting in the film is a masterpiece of tranquility. The penetrating screen presence which the actor has brought to dozens of roles during his 20 year film and TV career — including The Daytrippers, The Sum of All Fears, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and Ray Donovan, not to mention his Tony-winning work on stage — has been fascinatingly coiled in Spotlight into a stealth tiger of a man, whose calmness betrays his deep ethical conviction. Baron, ultimately, is the truest hero of the movie. And Schreiber, for the miraculously ego-less way in which he communicates that, gives what just might just be the most nuanced, subtly commanding performance of his life.

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MEXICO
Huffington Post

Lee Moran
Trends Editor, The Huffington Post

A Christian pastor in Mexico has been arrested over allegations that he raped two underage sisters more than 100 times over a four-year period.

Alfredo Huerta Zavala, 56, allegedly told the siblings — who were 9 and 10 years old when the abuse is said to have begun — that they should trust him “unconditionally” because he had been chosen by Christ, multiple media outlets in Mexico reported Wednesday.

He is also alleged to have invoked the “name of God” to force them into performing sexual acts. The girls are now 13 and 14.

The attacks reportedly occurred when the sisters were supposed to be helping Zavala carry out chores around the Luz del Mundo church in the city of Oaxaca every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

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UNITED STATES
Georgetown Voice

By Brian McMahon on November 20, 2015

Over and over again, taking responsibility proves to be a challenging task for human beings and their institutions. Individuals go to great lengths to deny and conceal; as a result, others must go even further to unpack the truths that threaten our communities and livelihoods. Investigative journalism is a powerful medium, one that has condemned and exposed individuals, institutions, and governments. In the film world, depictions of investigative reporting have often cast the men and women behind the stories as heroes, as renegades working outside of and above whatever corruption they seek to uncover.

With the release of the movie Spotlight, which details The Boston Globe’s investigation of the Massachusetts Catholic sex abuse scandal, director Tom McCarthy has graduated from the mold that defines iconic journalism films such as All the President’s Men, the critically acclaimed film following two journalists as they exposed the Watergate Scandal. Instead of glorifying the paper’s reporters, McCarthy and co-screenwriter Josh Singer attempt to portray them as they were: intelligent but flawed individuals, capable of fantastic reporting but also of missing or neglecting crucial information.

Marty Baron, Executive Editor of The Washington Post, views Spotlight as more aware of the realities of investigative reporters. In an email to the Voice, Baron wrote, “I’m not an expert on Hollywood depictions of journalists. Generally, however, they seem to depict us as crusaders or as rascals, mostly the latter. The beauty of this film is that it recognizes that journalists, even as in memorable scenes, collaboration reigns supreme, individual senses of purpose augmented by a collective thirst they can do a lot of good, have their flaws. And sometimes those flaws mean we fail to pursue stories as energetically or as deeply as we should.”

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CALIFORNIA
San Diego Union-Tribune

By Peter Rowe Nov. 20, 2015

In the new movie “Spotlight,” a character describes Richard Sipe as a “hippie ex-priest shacking up with some nun.”

When the real Sipe heard this line, he laughed. The 82-year-old La Jollan is often called worse: Traitor.

Sipe never appears on screen in “Spotlight,” a dramatization of the Boston Globe’s 2001-02 investigation of the Catholic Church covering up the crimes of pedophile priests. Yet his insights, formed after decades of research on priests, permeate the film.

A psychotherapist who treated troubled clergy, Sipe drew on about 500 case files for his 1990 study of celibacy, “A Secret World.” Another 500 priests were also interviewed, plus an equal number of lay people who had been sex partners — as adults or children, willing or unwilling — of Catholic clergy.

His conclusions: At any one time, no more than half of priests are practicing celibacy. Most of the others are engaged in sexual relationships with women or men, but Sipe found that 6 percent prey on minors. (After further research, he revised that figure to 6 percent to 9 percent.)

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UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

Vatican action speaks louder than Pope Francis words.

Pope Francis keeps preaching but the Vatican keeps proving him wrong!

On November 17, 2015, Gianluigi Nuzzi (Via Crucis “Way of the Cross” translated in English as “Merchants in the Temple” author) defied Vatican summons and refused to go and appear before Vatican court – saying that Vatican law is “medieval”. Emiliano Fittipaldi (“Avarice” author) went – but he refused to answer prosecutors’ questions saying he’d rather go to jail than reveal his Vatileaks sources. Their books are alarming the Vatican because they expose several secret well-documented Vatican Evils: (1) colossal Vatican financial corruptions –– proving the Vatican is worse than the merchants in the Temple of Solomon. (2) Vatican properties in central Rome worth hundreds of millions of Euros –– proving the Vatican avarice and Pope Francis hypocrisy in a church for the poor. (VA now stands for both Vatican Autocracy & Vatican Avarice! Grazie mille, Italian journalists!) (3) Vatican-owned BROTHELS, pricey gay saunas and massage parlours where Catholic priests pay for sex –– proving the active sex gay double-life of celibate priests. On November 21, 2015, a Vatican judge indicted five people over leaked documents, alleging ‘Organized Crime’ (WTF & LOL)

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VATICAN CITY
Crux

By Inés San Martín
Vatican correspondent November 21, 2015

ROME — A Vatican judge has indicted a monsignor, two former members of an expired papal commission, and two Italian journalists for allegedly disseminating secret internal documents regarding the Holy See’s finances. They will stand trial for “procuring and revealing” confidential material.

The trial will begin Tuesday, one day before Pope Francis is set to depart for a five-day trip to Kenya, Uganda, and war-torn Central African Republic.

According to information provided by the Vatican’s Office for the Promotion of Justice, those who refuse to attend will be tried “in absentia.” That’s likely a reference to the two journalists, both of whom refused to be interrogated by Vatican prosecutors and said they won’t show up for a trial.

The five facing charges are Spanish Monsignor Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda, Italian public relations expert Francesca Chaouqui, Italian layman Nicola Maio (Vallejo’s assistant), and reporters Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi, who each wrote recently released books that relied on leaked documents.

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UNITED STATES
No Longer on a Pedestal

Carol Kuhnert always trusted priests completely. As a child growing up in a strict Catholic family, clergy stood on pedestals next to God in her eyes. When her brother, Norman, expressed a desire to become a priest and entered the seminary after eighth grade, Carol had no idea that one day, her daughter would reveal a shocking secret: Norman was a serial pedophile.

Stunned and angered by what she learned, Carol not only reveals how she confronted her brother and the Catholic Church but also reflects on the events that led up to that moment, providing a poignant glimpse into her faith, her belief that priests were infallible, and her trust in the church, its leaders, and their assurance to her that they were handling everything. But as time passed and Carol struggled to understand why molesters were being left in active ministry and victims were being ignored, she details how she embarked on a purposeful crusade to prompt the church to take action and bring justice and hope to its sexual-abuse victims.

No Longer on Pedestals shares the powerful and inspirational true story of one woman’s journey to the truth and her subsequent heartfelt mission to reach out to abuse survivors after she learns her brother is a pedophile priest.

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NEW JERSEY
Road to Recovery

Leaders of the Salesian Priests and Brothers have refused to settle a childhood sexual abuse claim against one of their priests, Fr. Joseph Maffei, SDB, causing the victim, who was abused in Indiana, to be re-victimized. The victim is being denied justice.

What
A press conference and leafleting alerting the media, parishioners, and general public about the refusal of the Salesian Priests and Brothers, based in New Rochelle, New York, to help settle a claim of sexual abuse of a child by a member of the Salesians of Don Bosco religious order, Fr. Joseph Maffei, SDB.

When
Sunday, November 22, 2015 from 9:30 am until Noon (Masses at 9:00, 10:30, and Noon).
Press conference at 11:30 am

Where
On the public sidewalk outside Our Lady of the Valley Church, 510 Valley Street, Orange, NJ, 07050. The parish is administered by the Salesian Priests and Brothers based in New Rochelle, New York.

Who
Members of Road to Recovery, Inc., a non-profit charity based in New Jersey that assists victims of sexual abuse and their families, including its co-founder and President, Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D.

Why
The Salesian Priests and Brothers of Don Bosco, based in New Rochelle, New York, refuse to settle the claim of a man who was sexually abused in Indiana as a child by a serial pedophile Salesian priest and help him heal. They have told the man to “take a hike.” The man was sexually abused as a minor child by a serial pedophile priest, Fr. Joseph Maffei, SDB, at St. Dominic Savio Juniorate in Cedar Lake, Indiana. The victim met with leaders of the Salesian religious order who coldly and callously informed him that they will not help him heal.

Demonstrators will call on the Salesians of Don Bosco, who administer Our Lady of the Valley Parish in Orange, to acknowledge and settle the claim of the childhood sexual abuse victim and help him heal.

In addition, demonstrators will call on Catholic parishioners of Our Lady of the Valley Parish to demand of their priests and brothers that they settle a sexual abuse case against Fr. Joseph Maffei, SDB.

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

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency

Elise Harris

Vatican City, Nov 21, 2015 / 09:34 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican has formally indicted five people for the recent leak and dissemination of private financial documents, including two former members of a Holy See commission and two journalists.

A Nov. 21 communique from the Vatican announced that the five would stand trial for the “unlawful disclosure of confidential information and documents.”

Those being charged are Spanish Msgr. Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda, Italian PR woman Francesca Chaouqui, Nicola Maio (Vallejo’s secretary), and journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi.

On Nov. 10 the Vatican announced it would be investigating Nuzzi and Fittipaldi for publishing the documents. At the same time the Vatican made known that others who, due to their position, could be complicit in having acquired the documents in question, were also being investigated.

Though no names were given, it now appears Maio was the one to whom the Vatican was referring.

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VATICAN CITY
BBC News

The Vatican has charged five people, including two journalists and a top priest or monsignor, over the leaking and publication of secret documents.

The documents were cited in two books, by journalists Emiliano Fittipaldi and Gianluigi Nuzzi, alleging misspending and corruption at the Vatican.

The journalists deny claims that they exerted pressure to obtain information.

Two members of a papal commission advising on economic reform, and an assistant, were also charged.

Monsignor Lucio Vallejo Balda, and his colleague on the commission, public relations expert Francesca Chaouqui, were arrested early in November.

The books, “Merchants in the Temple” by Mr Nuzzi and “Avarice” by Mr Fittipaldi, included details of alleged corruption, theft and uncontrolled spending in the Holy See.

In a statement, the Vatican said magistrates “notified the accused and their lawyers of the charges filed… for the unlawful disclosure of information and confidential documents”.

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VATICAN CITY
NRP

Two journalists and three former Vatican officials have been formally charged with “criminal misappropriation” and other crimes, the Vatican says, in a case tied to allegations of financial misdeeds by Catholic Church officials.

Those arrested include Spanish Monsignor Lucio Vallejo Balda and Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui, who served on a special Vatican commission on economic reform that was assembled by Pope Francis shortly after he was elected in 2013.

Vatican police arrested the pair earlier this month; Chaouqui was released after a brief detention, due to her cooperation with the authorities.

Also facing charges are Vallejo’s secretary, Nicola Maio, as well as Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi — two journalists who published books this month that promise a rare glimpse into scandals and corruption in the Roman Catholic Church.

Fittipaldi’s book, Avarice, is currently No. 3 on the list of bestsellers on Amazon’s Italian site, just behind Nuzzi’s Way of the Cross.

Nuzzi was also involved in the original “Vatileaks” scandal of 2012, when he published a book containing private Vatican documents and letters. Some say that scandal contributed to Pope Benedict’s resignation.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

Cardinal George Pell has been described as a lightning rod for outrage and his third time before the child abuse royal commission will be no different.

Cardinal Pell, now the Vatican’s financial chief, will return from Rome next month to give evidence to the commission’s resumed inquiry into widespread abuse in the Ballarat diocese and to answer what he knew about offenders in the Melbourne archdiocese.

The former Ballarat priest’s decision to hire lawyers to question abuse survivors, when the Catholic Church won’t, has already attracted outrage despite both victims being willing to be cross-examined.

Another Ballarat victim, Stephen Woods, said Cardinal Pell returning as a witness was a step in the right direction but he would also put victims who had given sworn evidence in trials and to the commission through more trauma.

“He’s never been in a situation where his whole life was traumatised,” Mr Woods said.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

Megan Neil
November 22, 2015

Melbourne’s Doveton parish appears to have been a “dumping ground” for problem priests, four of them pedophiles.

A string of abusers operated in the Holy Family Parish and elsewhere in the Archdiocese of Melbourne for decades.

“It appears to have been a parish that might have been a dumping ground,” Broken Rites spokesman Dr Wayne Chamley said of Doveton.

“There was a series of problem priests and they all seemed to end up down there. These priests were dropped in there and it was hoped that the problem was going to go away and unfortunately it didn’t.”

The Catholic Church must fully explain itself, the church’s own Truth Justice and Healing Council says.

“Regardless of whether we’re talking about Doveton or any of the other parishes, where Catholic communities have been scandalised by the handling of the abuse crisis, it needs to be made plain by the church what it did, how it did it and why,” TJHC chief executive Francis Sullivan said.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

ROME | BY GAVIN JONES

The Vatican on Saturday ordered five people, including two Italian journalists, to stand trial for leaking and publishing secret documents, in the latest development in a leaks scandal which is rocking the papacy.

The trial stems from the publication of two recent books which depict a Vatican plagued by mismanagement, greed and corruption and where Pope Francis faces stiff resistance from the old guard to his reform agenda.

The Holy See was embarrassed and angered by the books, which it said used information that should never have been allowed to leave the walls of the city state.

Prosecutors said three Vatican officials, including a high-ranking priest, formed “an organised criminal association” with the aim of “divulging information and documents concerning the fundamental interests of the Holy See and the State”.

The first hearing in the trial will begin on Tuesday at 0930 GMT, the president of the Vatican court ordered.

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UNITED STATES
The Open Tabernacle: Here Comes Everybody

Posted on November 21, 2015 by Betty Clermont

“Fraud worth millions, machinations of the Vatican Bank, the true extent of the pope’s treasury” and “offerings of the faithful withheld from charity, theft and trade scams” during the reign of Pope Francis are the subjects of two recently published books. One includes tape recordings revealing the pontiff’s hands-on management of the smallest details of his fortune.

Yet the mainstream media reported that these books prove the pope desires a “Church of the poor” and is “reforming” the Vatican despite opposition from the “old guard” obstructing his “clean-up.”

Due to this type of disceitful reporting, Pope Francis is still the fourth most powerful person in the world behind only Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel, and Barack Obama, but ahead of Xi Jinping.Avarizia (“Avarice – the deadly sin as a parasite in the fiber of the Church”) by Emiliano Fittipaldi and Via Crucis (released in English as “Merchants in the Temple”) by Gianluigi Nuzz were both released November 5.

Fittipaldi, a reporter for L’Espresso, has high-powered contacts both in and out of the Church. The author based his book on “a large amount of internal documents of the Vatican gathered from confidential sources and verbal statements from sources inside the curia.” “The greatest bombshell is that the Vatican is still working as a profitable merchant bank,” he said.

Nuzzi is best known for disclosing much of the information which fueled the “Vati-leaks” scandal in 2012 and was included in his book, His Holiness. Nuzzi said his sources were emails, minutes of meetings, recorded private conversations and memos. Via Crucis is about mismanagement, waste and secrecy.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

[with audio]

(Vatican Radio) On Friday November 20th, the day the UN marks Universal Children’s Day, a meeting of Catholic child protection experts concluded in Trier, Germany, with a pledge to step up Europe-wide cooperation in safeguarding and prevention of abuse. The meeting, jointly organised by the dioceses of Trier and Hamburg, together with the Church in Luxemburg, brought together representatives from 13 European countries to reflect on the theological, psychological, social and legal implications of the crisis. Philippa Hitchen has been attending the three day encounter.

35 years since the first survivors of clerical sex abuse started telling their stories, this conference is taking stock of how far European countries have come in dealing with the complex issues of prevention and care of all those affected by the crisis.

Unsurprisingly it’s in the English speaking countries, where such stories first started making news headlines in the late 1990s, that most work has been done to combat these crimes, to support survivors, to promote psycho-sexual training in seminaries and to make prevention a priority at parish, diocesan and national level. Telephone helplines, confidential counselling, advice on compensation and spiritual support programmes are among the many services available in these countries, while newer areas of research include the effects of this crisis on non-offending priests who often feel “tarred with the same brush” and have lost confidence in the institutional Church.

In Germany, the Netherlands and surrounding central European nations, revelations surfaced more recently, around five years ago, yet much work has been done here too by bishops and leaders of religious institutes to make up for lost time and put effective prevention and training programmes in place.

A very different picture emerges from the Mediterranean and eastern European countries where denial of the problem is still widespread and few victims are willing to come forward to speak about their experiences. France, Italy, Spain and Portugal may pay lip service to the guidelines required by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith yet the subject remains largely taboo, with little or no national coordination for victim support. One French survivor, abused as a child by a priest friend of her parents, spoke movingly of her journey of healing and repairing relationships with the Church, yet her courageous testimony – for the first time in a public arena – remains an isolated example.

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CITTA’ DEL VATICANO
Bolletino

Il Tribunale dello Stato della Città del Vaticano ha provveduto alla notifica agli imputati e ai loro avvocati della richiesta di rinvio a giudizio presentata dall’Ufficio del Promotore di Giustizia a conclusione della fase istruttoria del procedimento in corso per la divulgazione illecita di notizie e documenti riservati, e del conseguente Decreto di rinvio a giudizio, emesso dal Presidente del Tribunale in data 20 novembre.

Richiesta di rinvio a giudizio

Pubblichiamo qui di seguito la parte dispositiva della richiesta, firmata dal Promotore di Giustizia, Prof. Avv. Gian Pietro Milano, e dal Promotore di Giustizia Aggiunto, Prof. Avv. Roberto Zannotti:

IL PROMOTORE DI GIUSTIZIA

visti gli artt. 353, 355 e 359 c.p.p., chiede all’Ecc.mo Presidente del Tribunale di emettere, a carico delle persone di seguito indicate, e precisamente:

1. Angel Lucio VALLEJO BALDA, nato a Villamediana de Iregua (Spagna) il 12 giugno 1961;

2. Francesca Immacolata CHAOUQUI, nata a Cosenza l’8 dicembre 1981;

3. Nicola MAIO, nato a Benevento il 2 marzo 1978;

4. Emiliano FITTIPALDI, nato a Napoli il 13 novembre 1974;

5. Gianluigi NUZZI, nato a Milano il 3 giugno 1969.

decreto di citazione a giudizio per rispondere:

A) Angel Lucio VALLEJO BALDA, Francesca Immacolata CHAOUQUI e Nicola MAIO

del reato di cui all’ art. 248 cod. pen. (quest’ultimo come sostituito ad opera dell’art. 25 della Legge n. IX dell’11 luglio 2013) «perché all’interno della Prefettura per gli affari economici e di COSEA si associavano tra loro formando un sodalizio criminale organizzato, dotato di una sua composizione e struttura autonoma, i cui promotori sono da individuarsi in Angel Lucio Vallejo Balda e Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui, allo scopo di commettere più delitti di divulgazione di notizie e documenti concernenti gli interessi fondamentali della Santa Sede e dello Stato»;

B) Tutti gli imputati sopra citati (dal n. 1 al n. 5)

del reato di cui agli artt. 63 e 116-bis cod. pen. (quest’ultimo introdotto ad opera della Legge n. IX dell’11 luglio 2013) «perché, in concorso tra loro, Vallejo Balda nella qualità di Segretario generale della Prefettura per gli affari economici, Chaouqui quale membro della COSEA, Maio quale collaboratore di Vallejo Balda per le questioni riguardanti la COSEA, Fittipaldi e Nuzzi quali giornalisti, si sono illegittimamente procurati e successivamente hanno rivelato notizie e documenti concernenti gli interessi fondamentali della Santa Sede e dello Stato; in particolare, Vallejo Balda, Chaouqui e Maio si procuravano tali notizie e documenti nell’ambito dei loro rispettivi incarichi nella Prefettura per gli affari economici e nella COSEA; mentre Fittipaldi e Nuzzi sollecitavano ed esercitavano pressioni, soprattutto su Vallejo Balda, per ottenere documenti e notizie riservati, che poi in parte hanno utilizzato per la redazione di due libri usciti in Italia nel novembre 2015».

Reati commessi nella Città del Vaticano, dal marzo 2013 al 5 novembre 2015.

* * *
Decreto di rinvio a giudizio

A seguito della richiesta di rinvio a giudizio presentata dal Promotore di Giustizia, il Presidente del Tribunale della Città del Vaticano, Prof. Giuseppe Dalla Torre, ha emesso il Decreto che stabilisce per il giorno 24 novembre 2015, alle ore 10.30, la prima udienza del processo nei confronti degli imputati Angel Lucio Vallejo Balda, Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui, Nicola Maio, Emiliano Fittipaldi, Gianluigi Nuzzi, avvertendo che non comparendo saranno giudicati in contumacia.

Allo stesso tempo ha stabilito la seguente composizione del collegio giudicante: Prof. Giuseppe Dalla Torre, Presidente; Prof. Avv. Piero Antonio Bonnet, Giudice; Prof. Avv. Paolo Papanti-Pelletier, Giudice; Prof. Avv. Venerando Marano, Giudice supplente.

Il Decreto fissa al giorno 28 novembre 2015, alle ore 12.30, il termine per proporre le prove a difesa, mentre si riserva a successivo provvedimento la citazione dei testi.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Nov. 21, 2015

ROME The Vatican is criminally charging five people over the latest scandal of leaks of sensitive documents, in an extraordinary move that will see three Vatican employees and two Italian journalists stand trial for “procuring and revealing” confidential information.

The Vatican’s press office announced the charges in a press release mid-day Saturday, saying the first hearing in the case will be held Tuesday. Should any of the five decide not to attend, the release says they will be tried in absentia.

That last notice could raise interesting questions and controversy, as one of the journalists has already refused to participate in a Vatican investigation of the matter, saying the city-state’s legal process is based on norms from centuries ago and does not provide adequate protection for journalistic activity.

While Italy and the Vatican have an extradition agreement, it is unknown how that agreement would function should the journalist not participate in the trial and subsequently be found guilty.

The charges relate to books recently released by Emiliano Fittipaldi and Gianluigi Nuzzi, titled Avarizia (“Greed”) and Merchants in the Temple, respectively. Both books outline instances of questionable Vatican spending and financial practices, citing leaked documents.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican) The Vatican formally charged five people in connection with the unauthorized and illicit sharing of sensitive and privileged documents and information, including a pair of journalists who have written recently published books detailing alleged mismanagement in the Vatican, two officials, and a secretary to one of the officials.

A statement from the Press Office of the Holy See on Friday included the detailed charge sheet, which named the journalists, Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi, as well as the former Vatican officials, Msgr. Lucio Vallejo Balda and Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui, along with Msgr. Vallejo’s secretary, Nicola Maio.

Vallejo, Chaouqui, and Maio, are charged with criminal conspiracy “to divulge information and documents concerning the fundamental interests of the Holy See and the [Vatican City] State”, while all five defendants are charged with criminal misappropriation and misuse of Vatican documents.

A hearing has been scheduled for Tuesday, November 24th, 2015, at 10:30 AM, in the Vatican criminal court.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Register

by Edward Pentin 11/21/2015

The Vatican has charged five people over the leaking of confidential documents concerning financial reform of the curia.

In a statement released today, the Vatican said the Court of Vatican City State had summoned Msgr. Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda, Francesca Immaculate Chaouqui, Nicola Maio, Emiliano Fittipaldi, and Gianluigi Nuzzi to attend preliminary hearings beginning on the morning of Nov. 24.

The defendants are accused of “wrongful disclosure of information and confidential documents”.

Spanish Msgr. Vallejo and Italian PR expert Francesca Chaouqui were arrested earlier this month on suspicion of leaking the documents. Journalists Nuzzi and Fittipaldi were questioned after they published books containing leaked information.

Msgr. Vallejo and Chaouqui were both members of COSEA, a special commission set up by Pope Francis to advise him on economic reform within the Vatican. Maio worked as secretary to Msgr. Vallejo Balda on the commission which was disbanded to make way for the new Vatican Secretariat for the Economy.

Fittipaldi said he was shocked by the Vatican’s move. “Maybe I’m naive but I believed they would investigate those I denounced for criminal activity, not the person that revealed the crimes,” he told Italy’s ANSA news agency.

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VATICAN CITY
Business Standard

AFP | Vatican City
November 21, 2015

The Vatican has charged five people over a damning leaks scandal at the heart of the Catholic Church, with a preliminary hearing set for November 24, Italian media reported today.

Vatican deputy spokesman Ciro Benedettini confirmed to AFP that “summons are being served”, adding that an official statement would be made later.

“Vatican magistrates have charged five people at the end of an investigation into the stealing and publishing of confidential Holy See documents,” the Repubblica daily said.

Spanish priest Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda and Italian PR expert Francesca Chaouqui were arrested early this month on suspicion of stealing and leaking classified documents to the media.

Journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi were questioned after they published books containing leaked information.

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VATICAN CITY
Voice of America

Associated Press
November 21, 2015

VATICAN CITY—
A Vatican judge on Saturday indicted five people, including two journalists and a high-ranking Vatican monsignor, in the latest scandal involving leaked documents that informed two books alleging financial malfeasance in the Roman Catholic Church bureaucracy.

Two members of the pope’s reforms commission and a newly identified assistant were indicted on charges of disclosing confidential Vatican information and documents, while two journalists were indicted on a charge of soliciting and exerting pressure to obtain the information, according to the indictments released by the Vatican on Saturday.

Monsignor Lucio Vallejo Balda and Francesca Chaouqui were arrested by the Vatican earlier this month; Balda is being held while Chaouqui was released after agreeing to cooperate with the investigation.

The indictment also identifies for first time an assistant to Balda, Nicola Maio, as under suspicion.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Marianne T. Duddy-Burke Become a fan
Executive Director, DignityUSA

As the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) concludes its annual meeting this week, it reveals itself as grossly out of touch with both grassroots Catholicism and with Pope Francis. While there were certainly some who objected, the strong majority of US Bishops set forth an agenda that has little to do with the Gospel of Jesus, is opposed by the majority of US Catholics, and will squander Church resources, even as parishes, schools, and service programs continue to be shuttered due to decimated diocesan budgets.

USCCB members voted 210-21 (with a handful of abstentions) to promote a Voters’ Guide for Catholics that instructs Catholics to evaluate candidates based on their positions on abortion and same-sex marriage. In an even more lopsided vote (233-4), the bishops set their priorities through 2020 as:

• Evangelization
• Family and marriage (including attempts to rollback same-sex marriage and support for government officials who refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-gender couples)
• Ending abortion and limiting access to contraception
• Vocations to priesthood
• Religious liberty

Wait a minute! Where is the emphasis on supporting immigration reform and assistance for refugees fleeing war and violence? As the gap between rich and poor continues to widen, and as resources continue to flow to the few, why is ending poverty not at the top of this list? Do US bishops not believe our Church should be on the forefront of efforts to end climate change and its devastating effect on our one God-given planet? Where do efforts to end structural racism, misogyny, human trafficking, or terrorism fit among their concerns?

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Register

by STEVEN D. GREYDANUS 11/20/2015

In a crucial sequence in Thomas McCarthy’s Spotlight, a victim of sexual abuse by a priest telling his story to a Boston Globe reporter says simply, “Then he molested me.”

The reporter, Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams), looks at him empathically. “I think language is going to be so important here,” she prompts gently. “Just saying ‘molest’ isn’t enough. People need to know what happened.”

We cloak the monstrous in euphemisms. We call it “unspeakable” or “unthinkable” — designations that are accurate simply because in using them we make them so. In Catholic circles a dozen years ago, one sometimes heard about “The Crisis”; later it became “The Scandal.” We all knew what these terms referred to, but did we really know?

Did we picture scenes like Spotlight’s queasy prologue: an assistant DA arriving at a police station, late at night, where a detained priest has been deferentially placed in the break room, the press sent away, while a bishop soothingly assures reeling family members that the offending cleric will be removed, and this will never, ever happen again? Did we think about how routinely such scenes played out in police stations for years and years?

Did we think about the lawyers employed by Church authorities to facilitate private mediations with families so there would be no bookings, no charges, no court records, no paper trail? The testimony from victims, witnesses and whistleblowers that was buried, suppressed or just plain ignored?

“If it takes a village to raise a child,” flamboyant lawyer Mitchell Garabedian (Stanley Tucci) says, “it takes a village to abuse one.” That’s not true, of course, but it may take a village to let the same abusers get away with it again and again.

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SCOTLAND
Scottish Catholic Observer

BREAKING NEWS

The members of the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland have agreed on a plan for implementing the recommendations of the McLellan report.

The plan—detailing how the Church will overhaul its safeguarding structure for dealing with allegations of abuse—will go up on the Bishops’ Conference website on Sunday at noon. The release date was chosen to mark the second anniversary of the Bishops’ Conference announcement of a commission to investigate this issue and just over three months after the McLellan report was published.

The SCO has examined the plan, which aims to establish a comprehensive, transparent and consistent process, in advance of its release. The plan been devised under the auspices of the strategic management group, which contains representatives from the General Secretariat of the Bishops’ Conference and the Catholic Safeguarding Commission.

The document details the Church’s intention to overhaul its safeguarding service, its safeguarding manual and training and create an independent body to oversee these processes. It states that the Church ‘must reach out to survivors’ of clergy abuse and involve them in this process. It also states that the Church will establish a ‘clear policy with regard to meeting any costs relating to the counselling of survivors’ and will consider other case-specific forms of restitution for survivors.

The creation of an independent auditing group will be one of the first tasks, as this group will analyse the implementation of the McLellan report’s recommendations. The exact nature of the independent oversight will be determined by examples of best practice in other Churches and charities.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

ALASTAIR DALTON

An independent body is to be established by the Catholic Church in Scotland to oversee the safeguarding of victims and potential victims of abuse.

The move will form part of a major overhaul of how the Church deals with abuse cases as it implements recommendations by the McLellan Commission on protecting children and vulnerable adults.

The Church accepted the findings in full when the report was published in August. It aims to implement most of the recommendations within two years.

The commission report said creating proper safeguards was the “greatest challenge” facing the Church following decades of child abuse.

The reforms, agreed by the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland, will be published tomorrow – the second anniversary of the launch of the commission under the Very Rev Andrew McLellan, a former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Scotland’s bishops have agreed on an action plan in response to an independent review of the Catholic Church’s handling of abuse allegations, according to reports.

In August, a commission led by the Very Rev Andrew McLellan called for the church in Scotland to make an ”unmistakable and unequivocal” apology and said support for survivors of abuse must be its ”absolute priority”.

The commission made eight recommendations, including that justice must be done for those who have been abused and that the church’s safeguarding policies and practices be completely rewritten and subject to external scrutiny.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Bedford Today

Amanda Devlin
amanda.devlin@jpress.co.uk

Two men have been charged with abusing 26 boys – some as young as five years old – at a Shefford boys’ home in the 1960s.

A 79-year-old man from Swaffham, Norfolk, is charged with 66 offences – 18 sexual and 48 physical – which are alleged to have taken place at St Francis Boys’ Home between 1963 and 1974.

The 25 boys were aged between five and 16.

A 73-year-old man from Bedford has been charged with six sexual offences against four boys aged between 11 and 16.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

Two men have been charged with 72 counts relating to the abuse of 26 boys at a boys’ home in Bedfordshire.

The abuses are alleged to have happened at St Francis Boys’ Home in Shefford between 1963 and 1974.

A 79-year-old man from Swaffham in Norfolk, has been charged with 66 offences against 25 boys aged between five and 16.

A 73-year-old man from Bedford has been charged with six offences against four boys aged between 11 and 16.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Newmarket Journal

Two men have been charged with historical child sexual offences against 26 boys at a children’s home in Bedfordshire, police said.

James McCann, 79, is charged with with 66 offences dating back to 1963 against children as young as five.

The 18 sexual offences and 48 physical offences are alleged to have taken place at St Francis’ Boys Home, in Shefford, between 1963 and 1974, Bedfordshire Police said.

The 25 alleged victims were aged between five and 16.

John Christopher Cahill, 73, is charged separately with six sexual offences against four four boys aged between 11 and 16.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

By Nic Rigby
BBC News

Two men have been charged with abusing 26 children at a Catholic boys’ home in Bedfordshire more than 40 years ago.

James McCann, 79, of Suffield Court, Swaffham, Norfolk, is charged with 18 sexual assaults and 48 assaults in connection with St Francis Boy’s Home, Shefford, between 1963 and 1974.

John Cahill, 73, of Chandos Court, Bedford, has been charged with six sexual offences against four boys.

Both men will appear at Luton Magistrates’ Court on 30 November.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

The federal government is adding to abuse victims’ distress by not agreeing to a national redress scheme for survivors of institutional sexual abuse, a victim says.

Stephen Woods, who was abused by three Ballarat priests as a child, says the coalition’s stance is compounding the situation for survivors.

“The federal Liberal government refuses to help victims by coming to the table and seeing that as a whole society we need healing, we need a start,” Mr Woods told AAP.

“That is one thing that’s upsetting victims, absolutely hugely, and it is totally down to the federal Liberal government.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Daniel Keane

South Australia’s outgoing guardian for children has challenged the royal commission into the child protection system to be ambitious in its recommendations, saying previous overhauls have only tackled “low-hanging fruit”.

Pam Simmons will leave the job next month after more than 10 years in the role.

Since June 2004, she has been a strong voice for children in state care.

The current royal commission is being headed by former Supreme Court justice Margaret Nyland and was prompted by the crimes of former Families SA carer Shannon Grant McCoole.

It is due to hand down its findings next year.

It follows other major inquiries scrutinising the state’s child protection mechanisms including the inquest into the 2012 death of Chloe Valentine, and the Debelle Inquiry, which released its findings in 2013.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service

Jacob Lupfer | November 20, 2015

(RNS) Covering religion in the news media is not for the faint of heart. People of faith accuse writers of anti-religious bias, while nonbelievers allege excessive sympathy for religious subjects. Every story is controversial. Every story necessarily involves something many people hold to be sacred.

Yet it is frequently in the public interest for nonsectarian media to cover religion news vigorously. The Boston Globe’s reporting on the Catholic child sexual abuse scandal in that city was a shining example. Its coverage won the paper accolades, led to the exposure of abuse elsewhere, and is now the subject of a major motion picture. “Spotlight” opens nationwide Friday (Nov. 20).

The movie follows three reporters and three editors who pursued the story in 2001 and 2002. Sensing there was more to the story than a few abusive priests facing criminal charges, a new editor-in-chief assigned the Spotlight investigative team to dig deeper, even at the risk of upending the Catholic power structure in Boston.

The journalists interviewed victims, lawyers, and other sources and ultimately uncovered a systemic failure in the Catholic hierarchy to acknowledge and responsibly deal with scores of priests who sexually abused hundreds of victims.

Even as the number of known abusers grew from a few to nearly 100, the reporters, their editors, and the Boston Archdiocese knew that the most damning and sickening story was the practice of moving problem priests from parish to parish — guaranteeing that more children would be preyed upon.

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MINNESOTA
PRNewswire

MINNEAPOLIS, Nov. 20, 2015 /PRNewswire/ — The Cushman & Wakefield/NorthMarq (www.cushwakenm.com) Advisory Services Group of Paul Donovan, Jaclyn May and Jeremy Striffler is accepting bids through December 21 on the Hayden Center, a three-story, 63,000 sq. ft. former school at 328 Kellogg Boulevard West in St. Paul.

Cushman & Wakefield/NorthMarq has negotiated an agreement to sell the property, owned by the Archdiocese of Saint Paul & Minneapolis, for $4.5 million to the Minnesota Historical Society. That agreement is subject to approval by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, and the team will accept bids from other interested parties through the Dec. 21 deadline.

Any interested parties should contact Jeremy Striffler at 612-305-2108. Property information can be found at http://ebrochure.cushwakenm.com/HaydenCenter.

Cushman & Wakefield/NorthMarq continues to list three other properties for the Archdiocese, including:

The Chancery – Located at 226 and 230 Summit Avenue, the Chancery is a two-building, approximately 44,000 sq. ft. complex and was built in 1961. 226 Summit is a three-story office building with 230 Summit as an attached two-story structure that serves as the residence of the Archbishop. The Chancery has undergone numerous capital improvements since 2004 and sits on 3.38 acres of land. Together or separately 226 and 230 present re-purposing opportunities into office or residential as well as a complete ground up housing development.

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