ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED STATES
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor December 6, 2015

Last week I was in Youngstown and Akron, Ohio, where I’ve been speaking at First Friday clubs for several years. My wife Shannon, who handles my speaking calendar, is very loyal to these folks, and insisted that I offer them something new and original.

In response, I did something that’s basically an act of madness: I delivered a set of predictions for 2016 regarding the almost metaphysically unpredictable Pope Francis.

Spousal obedience, as it turns out, trumped professional caution. Herewith, those five forecasts for a pope of surprises in the New Year.

1. The next US cardinal Francis names will be a shocker.

It’s not clear whether Francis will create new cardinals in 2016, or whether one of them would be an American. If so, however, it probably won’t be anyone people are expecting — Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, for instance, or Blase Cupich in Chicago.

When distributing red hats, Francis likes to bypass the usual centers of power. In Italy, Turin and Venice don’t have cardinals, but Perugia and Ancona do. In the Philippines, Francis ignored Cebu and named a cardinal in Cotabato. In Haiti, he skipped the capital, Port-au-Prince, in favor of the small diocese of Les Cayes.

If there is a new American cardinal, look for him to be from some place out of the ordinary. One good candidate would be Bishop Gerald Kicanas in Tucson, Arizona, both to make a statement about the hardships of immigrants who cross the border there, and also to lift up a social justice-oriented bishop cut from the pope’s own cloth.

2. Francis will have a health issue.

So far, this pope has not had a serious health crisis. A bogus report in October of a benign brain tumor doesn’t count, since it fell apart almost as soon as it appeared.

On the other hand, Francis turns 79 on Dec. 17 and keeps up a schedule that would destroy people half his age. Those closest to Francis have long said they’re worried about the pope not taking care of himself, for instance by canceling his summer vacation at Castel Gandolfo. Watching him up close, he often seems visibly fatigued, and his struggles with sciatica seem more pronounced.

At some point, physical reality may assert itself and compel the pontiff to take some time off. If that happens, it won’t necessarily mean the end is near, but simply that he’s managing his time and energy more carefully.

3. The pope will be a player in the US elections.

Pope Francis is likely to emerge as a major factor in the US elections in 2016, an especially plausible prospect given that five of the GOP contenders are Catholic (Jeb Bush, Rick Santorum, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, and George Pataki; Bobby Jindal dropped out of the race in November).

One moment when the pope appears destined to inject himself into the race will come in February, when he travels to Mexico. The trip will feature a stop in Ciudad Juarez at the US/Mexico border, where Francis will make a major statement about immigration.

At that same moment, Americans will be heading to the polls in New Hampshire and Iowa. Media coverage will certainly draw the connection, turning the pontiff into a political point of reference.

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VATICAN CITY
BBC News

The Vatican has ordered the first ever external audit of its accounts as part of Pope Francis’ efforts to reform the Roman Catholic Church.

The auditor, accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers, will start work immediately, a papal spokesman said.

Pope Francis has promised to make the Vatican’s finances more transparent after a series of scandals.

Last year he created a new ministry to oversee papal finances, headed by Cardinal George Pell.
Cardinal Pell later said he had discovered millions of euros “tucked away”.

While he did not say any wrongdoing had occurred, he added Vatican departments long had “an almost free hand” with their finances.

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AUSTRALIA
60 Minutes

DECEMBER 6, 2015

From parish priest in Ballarat to third in charge at the Vatican, George Pell’s rise through the Catholic hierarchy has been impressive. But he’s been dogged every step of the way by what he knew, and what he did, about the sexual abuse of children at the hands of paedophile priests. If it wasn’t for Richard Carleton’s interview with the Cardinal on 60 Minutes in 2002, he might just have been believable. But he has since appeared to be a liar, and someone willing to go to great lengths to protect his own reputation. 60 Minutes presents damning new evidence against Pell. He has always argued his intervention on behalf of child abuse victims was innovative, independent and compassionate. But now, secret documents reveal it as a cynical smokescreen designed to protect the Catholic Church at all costs.

Reporter: Tara Brown
Producer: Gareth Harvey

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

THE victims of child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church just want to be heard.

And an investigation by journalist Tara Brown on 60 Minutes tonight on Nine exposes the secrets of George Pell’s Melbourne Response and its potential to gag victims and fail them.

The Melbourne Response was a program set up by Cardinal Pell in late 1996 when he was Archbishop of Melbourne.

It investigates allegations of child sexual abuse inflicted by people within the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne.

Complaints are assessed by an independent commissioner and referred on to a compensation panel.

Victims can receive compensation up to $50,000.

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UNITED STATES
Concord Monitor

Sunday, December 6, 2015

The half-smile on Cardinal Bernard Law’s lips doesn’t really reach his watchful eyes as he looks at Marty Baron, the newly installed editor of the Boston Globe, who has been summoned to meet with the prelate in his private study.

“I find this city flourishes when its great institutions work together,” says the cardinal.

His words hang in the air for a few moments before Baron responds. “I’m of the opinion that for a newspaper to do its job, it has to stand on its own.”

This is a succinct summation of the drama at the core of the movie Spotlight, now showing (through Thursday, Dec. 10) at Concord’s Red River Theatres. The film, which opened last month to near-universal acclaim, tells – pretty much accurately – the story of the Globe’s long investigation into the pedophile scandal that enveloped the Catholic Church in Boston and eventually across the country and the world.

It was a case study of clerical power vs. secular power, and secular power won. The movie is brilliantly done. Although we all know what happened and how it ended, this story of the Church’s longtime denial of the existence of pedophile priests in Boston – even as it was shielding the offenders – is almost unbearably suspenseful. It’s well worth seeing.

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NEW MEXICO
Albuquerque Journal

By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writer
Sunday, December 6th, 2015

Brian Gutierrez, 46, said he filed a lawsuit last year against the Archdiocese of Santa Fe to spare others the anguish he has endured for nearly 30 years and promote a “new era of openness” in the Catholic Church.

A key goal is to require the archdiocese to publicly disclose records that he says reveal the facts of his alleged rape by a priest in 1986, when Gutierrez was a 17-year-old freshman at the University of New Mexico.

The Catholic Church still keeps too many secrets, he contends.

And, in fact, few records ever have been released by the archdiocese in the hundreds of clerical abuse cases that have been filed and settled, or in the 18 now pending.

Depositions and other records, including the personnel files of 48 “credibly accused” priests, are sealed under a confidentiality order sought by archdiocese lawyers and approved by District Judge Alan Malott.

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NEW MEXICO
Albuquerque Journal

By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writer
Sunday, December 6th, 2015

SANTA FE, N.M. — The names of many of the former priests identified as alleged sexual abusers in recent New Mexico lawsuits have turned up frequently since the pedophile crisis erupted publicly in the early 1990s, here and in other states.

Among the former priests are those who were expelled from dioceses across the U.S. after being accused of sexually abusing children and were then sent to a treatment facility for priests in Jemez Springs operated by a Catholic religious order, Servants of the Paraclete.

Albuquerque attorney Brad Hall has filed 53 lawsuits since 2011 in 2nd Judicial District Court against the Archdiocese of Santa Fe on behalf of alleged victims of sexual abuse by priests. Of those, 35 have been settled, 18 remain active and at least 10 are scheduled for trial next year.

Some of the most notorious of the alleged pedophile priests:

David Holley pleaded guilty in 1993 to sexually molesting eight boys in Alamogordo and was sentenced to 275 years in prison, where he died in 2008.
A 2013 lawsuit filed by an Albuquerque man, now 36, alleged that Holley abused him at St. Jude’s Church in Alamogordo in the mid-1970s while Holley served as an assistant pastor.

Holley was sent in 1971 by a Massachusetts diocese to the Servants of the Paraclete in Jemez Springs after he was accused of molesting boys.

Jason E. Sigler, 76, pleaded guilty in 2003 to two counts of criminal sexual misconduct for molesting boys at a Catholic church in Michigan.

Sigler was a central figure in clerical abuse lawsuits filed in New Mexico in the 1990s. A Las Vegas man alleges in a 2014 lawsuit that Sigler sexually abused him from 1973-76 at Immaculate Conception Church in Las Vegas.

Sigler was released from a Michigan prison in 2014 and moved to a house in Albuquerque’s Taylor Ranch subdivision.

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UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

Introduction: Half-truth means a statement that is only partially true; a statement that mingles truth and falsehood with deliberate intent to deceive. A half-truth is a deceptive statement that includes some element of truth. The statement might be partly true, the statement may be totally true but only part of the whole truth, or it may use some deceptive element, such as improper punctuation, or double meaning, especially if the intent is to deceive, evade, blame or misrepresent the truth. The purpose and or consequence of a half-truth is to make something that is really only a belief appear to be knowledge, or a truthful statement to represent the whole truth… A half-truth deceives the recipient by presenting something believable and using those aspects of the statement that can be shown to be true as good reason to believe the statement is true in its entirety, or that the statement represents the whole truth. A person deceived by a half-truth considers the proposition to be knowledge and acts accordingly.

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UNITED STATES
Democrat-Gazette

By John Brummett
Posted: December 6, 2015

You should get out and see the Oscar-buzzed movie called Spotlight.

It dramatizes in realistic tones and with credible characters the finest in newspaper reporting, which is usually tedious, often resented, sadly fading and sometimes heroic.

After you’ve seen the movie, consider renewing your newspaper subscription.

Do that regardless of whether you can abide the editorials and columnists. Those can be taken or left. Investigative reporting can change the world.

Invest a few dollars in your community and in a principle.

I refer to the principle of hardworking and obsessively passionate and curious people who sometimes can be societal misfits–they’re called newspaper reporters–and who toil night and day for modest pay in a limping industry to ask in your behalf the things you can’t or won’t.

I refer to the age-old principle of a newspaper daring to pursue truth to afflict the comfortable, like the Catholic Church in an overpoweringly Catholic town like Boston, and comfort the afflicted, like the hundreds of priest-abused children in and around Boston.

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UNITED STATES
Los Angeles Review of Books

December 5th, 2015

IT’S A MOMENT we’ve seen dozens of times: the incorruptible newcomer summoned to an audience with the local heavy. On the surface, it’s a friendly meeting. The big shot is affable, welcoming. He offers to help the newcomer with anything he might need. Right below the surface, he’s issuing a warning: there’s a certain way things are done in this town, and if you’re smart, you won’t get in the way. Whether the scene is played out between a sheriff and a cattle baron, a crusading DA and a power broker who holds himself above the law, or an honest cop confronting a veteran on the take, we understand that the scene defines the stakes the hero is playing for, as well as the son of a bitch he’s going to have to go up against. It’s a measure of how uncompromised Spotlight is, then, that in this case, the s.o.b. is the head of the Boston Roman Catholic Archdiocese, Cardinal Bernard Law.

Spotlight is about what happened when, in 2001, the Boston Globe’s new editor, Marty Baron — the man called in for that sit-down with Cardinal Law (played as a pious old ward heeler by Len Cariou) — pushed the paper’s investigative reporting unit, the Spotlight team, to look into why a local priest who had molested more than 130 boys had been shuffled from parish to parish instead of turned over to the cops. What that four-person team uncovered was not a “few bad apples,” the term the Church and their defenders used to classify pedophile priests, but documentation that nearly 100 Boston-area priests had molested children and that in most of the cases, their superiors in the Archdiocese had known. The Spotlight team’s report, which ran in January 2002, won the Globe a Pulitzer Prize and effectively ended the career of Bernard Law, who resigned in 2002.

At least in America. Law was given a cushy Vatican appointment and with that, of course, the diplomatic status that would keep him from being extradited back to the States. But the effect of the Spotlight team’s work went far beyond Law. By shattering the few bad apples scenario, the Spotlight reporters — Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams), Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), and Matt Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James) — identified child sexual abuse not as an aberration but an accepted practice within the Church, given no more thought than the way old-time pols regard the corruption within their ranks. If that sounds like an exaggeration, Spotlight ends with a list of cities in which child sexual abuse scandals have been uncovered in the Catholic Church. Beginning with the US and then moving to the rest of the world, the list takes up four screens of small triple-column type.

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VATICAN CITY
Independent (UK)

Peter Popham @peterpopham

In 2013, when Pope Francis appointed outside management consultants to shed light on the inner workings of the Vatican, he hoped to bring order to an organisation mired in corruption and intrigue. The embarrassing leaks that resulted in the publication of hundreds of secret letters are believed by many to have contributed to Pope Benedict XVI’s unprecedented step of resigning earlier that year.

Now Pope Francis faces a somewhat similar scandal. But this time, sex and blackmail allegations have been thrown in – and his own management consultant appointees are at the heart of it.

On Monday, the trial of five people resumes inside the Vatican, including Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui, a PR expert and the only female member of the Pope’s commission. The other four include Gianluigi Nuzzi, a journalist whose earlier book about papal secrets brought the original “Vatileaks” scandal to a head, and, also from the commission, Lucio Vallejo Balda, a Spanish priest.

The trial centres on claims that Balda, Chaouqui and another plaintiff leaked confidential documents relating to the Vatican’s finances to Nuzzi and another journalist, who is also on trial.

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UNITED STATES
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

By Roy J. Harris Jr. Dec. 5, 2015

The best lessons about how journalists work come from seeing them in action. And no film ever has done a better job of showing reporters and editors in their “watchdog” role, digging out important news others want kept secret, than “Spotlight.”

The film tells the story of four members of The Boston Globe’s investigative unit, the Spotlight Team, and what happens after the Globe’s editor, on his first day on the job in 2001, has them look into the case of a defrocked Roman Catholic priest who had been repeatedly accused of sexually abusing children in his care. This leads them to investigate whether church leaders in Boston knew about the abuse by that priest and by others — and protected them by transferring them to new parishes, where they were free to harm other children.

Because the Globe did its job so well — eventually documenting shockingly widespread abuses by priests and the coverup by the Boston Archdiocese of a pervasive problem — “Spotlight” offers many lessons about the way news organizations can have a positive impact in their communities and beyond. (The Globe won the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2003 for this work.)

The movie’s biggest lesson is that bringing about significant societal change requires courage, risk-taking, and a willingness to upset powerful people and institutions.

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UNITED STATES
Questions from a Ewe

Truly, when I publish a blog article, I think it is my last one…until…something in the church cries out for commentary that does not seem to be getting expressed.

First, my last blog article about sexually active priests quickly catapulted to one of my most read articles. I am always humbled that people invest their time reading my blog.

But, I neglected to highlight one extremely important point in that article so I will do so now before delving into some recent comments Pope Francis made. The one African priest discussing priests’ sexual activity with me blurted out, almost as a defense for priests not honoring the implied chastity of their celibacy, that such sexually active priests do so in “secret.” What he saw as insignificantly dismissible, making priests’ sexual activity permissible, to me exposes significant moral disconnect and systemic foundational rot in the church.

Over 125,000 priests have fallen in love and done the honorable and healthy thing for themselves, their lovers and their relationships…they married. And as a reward for their honest, healthy relationships, these men were expelled from the priesthood.

Instead, we are left with the cowardly, selfish priests who engage in sexual relationships that they hide as though their lovers are some sort of embarrassing sin whom they publicly pretend do not exist so that they may continue in their prestigious role, deluding themselves that they serve some higher purpose as a priest, and therefore it’s ok to stuff their lovers in closets…for the greater good of humanity. These insidious men, who number 50% of the priesthood, are the ones we are stuck with…playing some perverted charade that they, who are fundamentally dishonest about their relationships and sexuality, provide the most astute moral guidance to lay people about human relationships and sexuality. Is my mind the only one numbed by the painful realities this demonstrates about the clergy’s moral fiber and the resulting systemic societal impact of revering categorically dishonest men as ultimate guardians of truth?

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) The Vatican’s Council for the Economy has appointed a new External Auditor for consolidated financial statements, PricewaterhouseCoopers.

A statement from the Council for the Economy said the “important step” was taken to continue “the implementation of new financial management policies and practices in line with international standards.”

The Council appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers (“PwC”), one of the “Big Four” major international auditing firms, after accepting the recommendation from its Audit Committee.

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VATICAN CITY
Deutsche Welle

The Vatican has hired an external auditor to review its finances following a series of scandals and concerns about transparency. The pope has vowed to clean up murky and wasteful finances at the Holy See.

With the Holy See plagued by financial scandals that have seen millions of euros go off the books, on Saturday papal spokesman Federico Lombardi said one of the world’s top auditing firms would examine the Vatican’s financial statements.

PricewaterhouseCoopers will audit church records including assets, income and expenses in order to implement “new financial management policies and practices in line with international standards,” Lombardi said.

Pope Francis has vowed to clean up church finances after a series of recent scandals have revealed widespread waste. Some of his reform efforts have come up against resistance from clergy.

A Vatican financial statement released this year found 1.1 billion euros ($1.2 billion) of assets off the books, as departments and clergy intent on maintaining power attempt to avoid scrutiny from a central accounting office.

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VATICAN CITY
Business Standard

AFP

The Vatican today announced that accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers will carry out its first external audit, as Pope Francis seeks to make the Holy See’s finances more transparent,

PwC will work “in close cooperation” with the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy, headed by Australian cardinal George Pell, a statement said.

On Thursday the pope unexpectedly took part in a meeting of his economy council to thank its members and encourage them to continue overseeing the Vatican’s administrative and financial workings.

The move to submit the Vatican’s finances to an external auditor comes a month after the publication of a book describing the pope’s fury over uncontrolled spending and an inadequate accounting system.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

The Vatican said on Saturday it had ordered the first external audit of its assets as part of a drive by Pope Francis to bring transparency to its finances where millions of euros have gone unrecorded without any central oversight.

Papal spokesman Federico Lombardi said auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers [PWC.UL] would start work immediately.

The pope has promised to overhaul the Vatican’s murky financial management, which have been hit by repeated scandals in recent years, however he has met resistance from Church officials who want to maintain tight control over operations.

Lombardi told reporters that the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy had called on PwC, the world’s second-largest audit firm by revenue, to review the Vatican’s consolidated financial statements, which includes assets, income and expenses.

The decision to work with one of the world’s top four auditors continued “the implementation of new financial management policies and practices in line with international standards,” he said.

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VATICAN CITY
ABC News

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
VATICAN CITY — Dec 5, 2015

The Vatican has engaged an outside auditor for its consolidated financial statements as part of economic reforms.

The Holy See said Saturday it has chosen PricewaterhouseCoopers, which will get to work immediately on the 2015 audit.

Turning to an outside auditor puts the Vatican, long known for its secretive banking and other financial practices, more in line with international standards.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

December 6, 2015

Chris Vedelago, Cameron Houston

The Catholic Church avoided paying up to $62 million in compensation to sexual abuse victims by creating the controversial Melbourne Response program, which capped payments at $50,000 for each victim.

Internal documents also show church leaders ordered written records about sex abuse be “kept to a minimum” to avoid losing lawsuits, and hired one of the country’s best spin doctors in a bid to prepare for the scandal in the early 1990s.

The revelations come after a week of explosive hearings at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse where former Melbourne archdiocese vicar-general Bishop Peter Connors referred to the church’s knowledge about paedophile priests preying on parishioners as “time bombs ticking away”.

The testimony and records tendered to the royal commission also detail the church’s preoccupation with protecting its reputation and financial position ahead of a flood of sexual abuse compensation claims, lawsuits and counselling expenses.

In 1996, concerns about managing the looming crisis led to the creation of the Melbourne Response program, which capped compensation payments at $50,000, and later, $75,000.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Spiegel

[Abuse in the Catholic Church: The Father, the girl and a secret protocol. The Hildesheim bishop is being criticized for being slow to act on report of the abuse of a girl.]

Für den Hildesheimer Bischof Norbert Trelle steht in diesen Tagen seine Glaubwürdigkeit auf dem Spiel.

Grund ist der Fall Peter R. Die Möglichkeit, den Priester als mutmaßlichen Missbrauchstäter vor ein ordentliches Gericht zu bringen, hat das Bistum Hildesheim im März 2010 offensichtlich leichtfertig vertan. Anzeige erstattete man erst geraume Zeit später.

Am 4. März 2010 kam eine Religionslehrerin mit ihrer 14-jährigen Schülerin in die Hildesheimer Bistumszentrale, um einen sexuellen Missbrauch anzuzeigen. Das Mädchen bestätigt: “Ich berichtete dort, dass der Priester Peter R. sich nachts zu mir ins Bett gelegt und mich geküsst hat.”

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

By Travis Andersen GLOBE STAFF DECEMBER 05, 2015

Parishioners who have kept vigil at a shuttered Catholic church in Scituate for more than 11 years were dealt a potentially crushing blow this week, when the state’s highest court declined to review a lower court ruling ordering them to leave the property.

The group keeping a round-the-clock vigil at St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Church said they were notified of the Supreme Judicial Court’s decision on Thursday.

“The faithful of St. Frances continue to ask the Cardinal to reconsider and show us the mercy that Pope Frances has indicated is the way of the Gospel,” the Friends of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini said in a statement on their Facebook page.

“At this juncture, The Friends of St. Frances are taking this decision under advisement with their attorney and reviewing as a community potential options and next steps.”

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Herald

Brian Dowling Saturday, December 05, 2015

Parishioners at St. Frances X. Cabrini Church in Scituate said they will decide tomorrow how to respond to losing their appeal to keep their vigil — considering every “peaceful” option from a hunger strike to an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“We are going to take the good ideas and take the bad ideas,” said Jon Rogers, a spokesman for the parishioners who have occupied the church for 11 years. “Everything peaceful and prayerful is on the table.”

The parishioners have been asking Boston Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley to visit and understand their opposition to closing the church to replenish the Archdiocese of Boston’s coffers that were drained by the sex abuse scandal and the outflow of people from the pews.

The state Supreme Judicial Court rejected the group’s appeal to stay in the church yesterday.

“I’m a little angry,” Rogers said. “The archdiocese’s response has been to close the church and sell it off — in essence stealing the place of worship and selling it to the highest bidder.”

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CHILE
Puranoticia

[The Santiago Court of Appeals upheld the ruling that denied the disclosure of documents held by the Archbishop of Santiago.]

La Corte de Apelaciones de Santiago ratificó la sentencia que denegó la exhibición de documentos en poder del Arzobispado de Santiago, solicitada por las víctimas de Fernando Karadima que demandaron a la iglesia de la capital.

En fallo unánime, la séptima sala del tribunal de alzada –integrada por las ministras Javiera González, María Soledad Melo y Romy Rutherford– confirmó la decisión que denegó la solicitud, porque la exhibición de dichos documentos vulneraría el Código de Procedimiento Civil y la reserva que impone el Código Canónico.

James Hamilton, Juan Carlos Cruz y Andrés Murillo, las víctimas de Karadima, habían solicitado el acceso a estos documentos en el marco de la demanda que presentaron contra el Arzobispado de Santiago por el supuesto encubrimiento de los abusos sexuales. Por estos hechos, el Vaticano condenó a Karadima a una vida de retiro en oración y penitencia.

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BOSTON (MA)
The Pilot

Protection of minors

Sunday, the Feast of Christ the King, I celebrated Mass at the Cathedral, and then set out for Costa Rica as part of a group of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors that was asked to address the bishops of the six episcopal conferences of Central America, called SEDAC, who were holding their annual gathering.

As you know, the Holy Father has asked that every bishops conference establish clear policies and protocols on the issue of child protection, and the bishops were very eager to have us advise them on this. I was joined by Msgr. Robert Oliver and Father Juan Molina, director for the Church in Latin America of the USCCB. Bishop-elect Luis Manuel Ali Herrera was unable to be with us because of problems with his visa. Bishop-elect Ali was recently named auxiliary Bishop of Bogota and serves on the child protection commission.

In our meetings we spoke about the need for educational programs, the importance of cooperating with civil authorities and reporting crimes of clergy sexual abuse, as well as the importance of pastoral care for victims and those accused. We also spent a great deal of time addressing the importance of prevention, including screening procedures and the need for human formation the seminaries.

The bishops were very receptive to what we had to say and, as you might expect, they had many questions, which we tried to answer to the best of our abilities.

Members of the Pontifical Commission have addressed other bishops’ conferences, but I was very happy to be able to attend this one and to be part of this very important work. I see this task of helping bishops conferences develop strong policies and to implement them well as one of the most important functions of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
WCNC

Dustin Wilson, WCNC December 4, 2015

ROCK HILL, S.C. — A Rock Hill pastor accused on inappropriately touching a young boy more than four years ago saw his day in court Friday in York County.

The prosecution and defense literally spent years preparing for a jury trial in the case of Johnny Cabe, but within the last few months a plea deal was struck.

Reverend Johnny Cabe stood before a judge and pleaded no contest to five counts of unlawfully practicing medicine. In 2010, while Pastor at Riverside Baptist Church, Cabe was accused of touching an 11-year-old boy’s private parts during a so-called medical exam. At that time Cabe faced charges of committing a lewd act with a child and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

“Mr. Cabe, in his mind, did not do anything wrong with the medical exam. It’s part of his religion that there’s healing, he does have some training,” said B.J. Barrowclough, Cabe’s Defense Attorney

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MAINE
CentralMaine.com

BY GREG KESICH

“Spotlight” is a movie about journalism. If you haven’t seen it, you should.

It tells the true story of how a team of editors and reporters at the Boston Globe connected “isolated incidents” of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests into a 2002 series of stories that exposed an institution more concerned with protecting its reputation than it was in protecting children.

The movie shows reporters who run down leads and pore over documents. Editors have vision and guts. Stories get banged out on deadline, presses roll and the world changes.

It had to be a movie about journalism, because movies are stories and stories have an ending.

It’s not that way for the survivors of child sex abuse, who can spend their whole lives trying to get back what had been stolen from them. The rest of us may get smarter and vow not to make the same mistakes, but their pain is forever.

So that’s why, I guess, when the credits filled the screen at the end of the movie, I found myself sobbing.

Back in 2002 and 2003, a big part of my life was interviewing survivors of sexual abuse by priests in Maine.

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INDIA
The Asian Age

A priest was arrested at a church in Shivaji Nagar on Wednesday evening for allegedly molesting a 13-year-old boy. He has been booked under Section 377 of IPC and molestation. He was produced at court and the police has been granted his custody till December 5.

A complaint was lodged against the priest on December 1 but the arrest was made on Wednesday as the police were waiting for reports of medical tests conducted on the minor. The accused has been identified as Father Johnson Lawrence (52), the priest-in-charge of Christ The King Church, at Shivaji Nagar. “On Wednesday, after all medical checkup reports of boy turned out to be positive, we arrested the priest,” a police official said.

“During interrogation, father Lawrence he told us that the molestation happened by mistake. He said that his intentions were not wrong and that he has not done any wrong to the child,” said an official from the Shivaji nagar police station. He further added, “The priest was insisting that the boy must have misunderstood his behaviour.”

On November 27, the alleged victim attended the church proceedings in the evening accompanied by his parents. After the prayer mass ended, the victim’s parents met other friends and left the church. The boy was left by himself inside the church.

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INDIA
The Free Press Journal

By FPJ Bureau | Dec 04, 2015

Mumbai : The Mumbai Police have arrested the church priest accused of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy. Father Johnson Lawrence, 52, is the priest of a prominent church in Govandi area of Shivaji Nagar.

The incident occurred on November 27, in the church premises after the boy and his parents had attended the prayer mass in the evening. The boy was alone in the church after talking to his friends. His parents had met up friends and left for home.

“He was arrested and booked under Sections 376 and 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and various sections of the Protection Of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act,” said Balasaheb Jadhav, Senior PI, Shivaji Nagar Police station. Police officers said they were investigating whether Lawrence has any previous cases against him. He is currently placed in police custody till December 5.

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INDIA
Times of India

Bella Jaisinghani,TNN | Dec 4, 2015

MUMBAI: Fr Lawrence Johnson (51), accused of abusing a teenage boy from his parish in Shivaji Nagar, could be disrobed or divested of priesthood if allegations against him are substantiated.

Fr Johnson was arrested for allegedly sodomising the 13-year-old at Christ the King Church in Govandi on November 27. The police have registered offences under Section 377 of the IPC and POCSO.

Senior inspector Balasaheb Jadhav told TOI that a medical examination had revealed grievous injuries to the victim’s private parts. “We have also sent fluid samples for chemical tests but those reports could become available after weeks. Such cases from all parts of the state are examined in sequential order,” he said.

Another officer said Fr Johnson did not appear remorseful. He said, “Even as the boy and his mother were sobbing, Fr Johnson shrugged and said, what is the need to arrest me?”

The case’s outcome will be the benchmark for how the Church deals with abuse. Fr Nigel Barrett, spokesman of the Archdiocese, indicated that they have a zero-tolerance policy in such matters. The Church has appointed a three-member committee to conduct an internal investigation.

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AUSTRALIA
The Saturday Paper

MARTIN MCKENZIE-MURRAY

There is a sound you’ll hear often in these hearings. It follows a victim’s swearing in – a secular affirmation, never on a Bible – and precedes their reading of a prepared statement on their abuse. The sound is a quick inhalation of breath, followed by an anguished release. It is swift but unmistakable. It is the sound of emotional preparation, a quick steadying of the nerves.

It preceded BTU’s statement this week, as it did BTO’s. Before BTO began on Monday, he tearfully told the hearing he was ashamed to speak his own name. His name was spoilt, he felt: sullied by the abuse he experienced as a boy at the hands of Father Wilfred Baker. It is sorrowful testament to the suggestibility of children, the way others’ behaviour becomes integrated with a child’s psyche, that today he still blames himself.

It was the 1970s, and BTO was attending Catholic schools in Gladstone Park, a suburb of Melbourne. He was a prepubescent boy when Baker began showing a special interest in him. BTO was flattered. “When I first met Father Baker,” BTO said this week, “I found him
to be very engaging. He took time to listen to me and gave me attention that I felt I was not getting at home. I’d
only recently moved to Gladstone Park and really didn’t 
know many people. I felt special around him and found
 Father Baker and the church a bit of a refuge.”

It is an unmistakable pattern of these hearings – abusers exploiting the nascent egos of their victims; cultivating their need for belonging, guidance and identity. Baker made BTO an altar boy, and he relished the role. It gave him a sense of prestige, membership in a warm and noble club – a community given to the advancement of souls. This was something on which he could base a life. Meanwhile, Baker was not only grooming BTO, but also ingratiating himself with his family – another pattern. Baker would have dinner at BTO’s home at least once a week.

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PHILIPPINES
Philippine Daily Inquirer

According press reports in the United States, in May 2007, the Society of Jesus agreed to a tentative payout of $16 million to settle claims that one of its priests, Fr. Mark Falvey, sexually abused at least nine children in Los Angeles from 1959 to 1975.

Accusations against Falvey began in 2002. He was never charged with a crime.

Ordained in 1928, Falvey was sent to Asia in 1933. The reports did not say when he came to the Philippines.

Falvey was assigned as a teacher at St. Ignatius High School (did not indicate in what country) from 1949 to 1950.

He was assigned to St. Rita’s Church in Balingasag, Misamis Oriental province, in 1952.

He returned to Los Angeles in 1959 and was assigned as assistant pastor at Blessed Sacrament Parish in Hollywood until his death in 1975. The report did not say if Falvey was assigned at the Jesuit-run Ateneo de Davao.

In May 2008, the Diocese of Sacramento paid $100,000 settlement to a person allegedly raped and molested by Mark’s brother, Fr. Arthur Falvey

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PHILIPPINES
Manila Times

December 5, 2015

by JEFRY TUPAS, CORRESPONDENT

Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday night named the Jesuit priest who allegedly abused him and several others while he was a student at the Ateneo de Davao University.

Duterte said a certain Fr. Mark Falvey molested him when he was between 14 and 15 years old.

“It happened during our generation, two years ahead of us and two years following us,” he added.

“It cost him some P25 million because other victims filed a case, it was a case of fondling–you know what–he did during confession, that’s how we lost our innocence early,” Duterte said.

As a young boy, according to him, he was afraid, thus, no case was filed against the priest.
“It was a sort of sexual awakening for each of us,” he said. “We realized quite early that ganun talaga ang buhay [life was like that], “Paano magreklamo [How to complain].”

But he said he still respects some members of the Catholic clergy, particularly Archbishop Oscar Cruz. …

Who is Fr. Falvey?

A 2007 report of the Los Angeles Times said the Jesuit order paid $16 million to settle claims against a certain Mark Falvey who allegedly sexually abused nine children over 16 years ending in 1975.

“Mark Falvey was accused of molesting four girls and five boys between 1959 and 1975 at Blessed Sacrament Roman Catholic Church in Hollywood. Falvey died 31 years ago (1976) and “was never charged with a crime,” the LA Times report read.

According to lawyer Raymond Boucher, one of Falvey’s victims was an 8-year-old girl who tried to commit suicide.

“This guy brought a lifetime of misery to a group of young children. They’ll never get over it,” Boucher said.

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PHILIPPINES
Philippine Daily Inquirer

By: Germelina Lacorte
@inquirerdotnet
Inquirer Mindanao
December 5th, 2015

DAVAO CITY, Philippines—Mayor Rodrigo Duterte has named the priest who allegedly molested him and several other high school boys when he was a teenager studying at the Jesuit-run Ateneo de Davao University (AdDU) here.

Duterte said the sexual abuser was the late Fr. Mark Falvey, SJ, one of the Jesuit priests at AdDU, and that the abuse happened once when he was a high school freshman in 1956. And he spelled out the name of the American Jesuit priest.

“It happened during our generation, two years ahead of us and two years following us,” Duterte told reporters here late Thursday.

“It was a case of fondling, you know, during confession, that’s how we lost our innocence early,” he said.

“It was a sort of sexual awakening for each of us. We realized quite early that ganun talaga ang buhay (life is really like that),” Duterte said.

He said Falvey was later involved in a payout amounting to P25 million in the United States after a number of his victims filed a case against him.

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UNITED STATES
Church Militant

By Dr. Monica M. Miller

“If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one.” This dialogue sums up the primary lesson of the film “Spotlight,” currently playing in a major nationwide release. The movie, “based on actual events” and starring Michael Keaton, chronicles a Boston Globe four-person investigative team’s discovery of Cdl. Bernard Law and the archdiocese of Boston’s cover-up of the priest sexual abuse scandal. The title of the film, taken from the name of the investigative team, of course does double-duty as a reference to a painful journalistic laser beam cast on the priest sexual abuse scandal when the Globe story broke on January 6, 2002.

“It takes a village to abuse a child” refers to the manner in which priest sexual abuse of young boys was mishandled, ignored and covered up by clergy, lawyers, school principals, teachers, public relations personnel — and even family members of the victims themselves. In other words, as the Globe editor Marty Baron, played by Liev Schreiber, opined, “This isn’t about one bishop; it’s about the system itself.” The Spotlight team is committed to exposing a broken, dysfunctional ecclesiastical system that, instead of defrocking offending priests or turning them over to law enforcement, often simply reassigned them while settling victims’ cases out of court in confidentiality agreements.

If you are a devout Catholic, as is this film reviewer, and believe that no matter what, the gates of Hell shall not prevail against Christ’s Church — sitting though “Spotlight” may be the longest two hours you’ll ever spend in a theatre. You will not be able to exit the multiplex reassured that this is a horrible movie, a hastily thrown-together thoughtless Hollywood hatchet job produced by people who obviously loathe the Catholic Church and are just out to get Her. Instead this is an intelligent, well-written, acted and directed movie. Due to the subject matter, Catholic filmgoers cannot help but feel “Spotlight” is rubbing their noses into one of the most demoralizing, pathetic and despicable episodes in the history of Catholicism.

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MINNESOTA
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: John Lloyd Caskey was ordained for the St. Cloud diocese in 1982. He worked in numerous St. Cloud parishes, mostly as pastor, and held a variety of leadership positions in the diocese. Notably, Caskey is not indexed in the 1986-1988 Directories, and in 1991-1992 he served as Sacramental Minister at a parish in the New Ulm diocese before returning to St. Cloud. In December 2007, Caskey was investigated by police under suspicion that he sent anonymous “obscene and suggestive” letters to an 18-year-old male. Caskey admitted to sending the letters. During the course of the investigation, police discovered child pornography on Caskey’s computer. He pleaded guilty to charges of possession of child pornography in August 2008 and was sentenced in May 2009 to one month in prison and five years’ probation. Bishop Kinney removed Caskey from his three parishes in January 2008. The Directories show him to be on “Special Assignment” through 2011.

Ordained: 1982

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ITALY
Mirror (UK)

BY IAN SPARKS , STEVE DOOHAN

A Catholic priest is facing trial in Italy for squandering £70,000 of church cash on holidays, luxury cars – and a facelift for his mum.

The 57-year-old churchman was put in charge of a £10million bequest to his parish in Legnaro, near Venice.

But instead of distributing all the money to charities for the poor, he splashed out on two sports cars, a motorbike, a skiing holiday and a break at a Mediterranean beach resort.

The priest even paid for a cosmetic skin tuck for his elderly mother, local police said.

The case is reminiscent of the plot of the classic sitcom Father Ted , where Irish priest Ted Crilly was exiled to Craggy Island as punishment following an embezzlement scandal from a fund set up to take an ill girl to Roman Catholic shrine Lourdes.

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MONTANA
National Catholic Reporter

Dan Morris-Young | Dec. 4, 2015

While its sexual abuse settlement and bankruptcy proceedings fade into history, the Helena, Mont., diocese’s “road less traveled” to healing and outreach for victim survivors continues, most recently through seven “deeply moving” prayer services throughout the sprawling see.

Helena Bishop George Thomas, who presided at each, described them as “one of the most difficult and challenging tasks in my 40 years of priesthood.”

During his homily repeated at each site, Thomas admitted he “experienced a deep sense of inadequacy as I searched to find words to express the sadness and sorrow I feel toward those who have suffered, so often in silence, for years if not decades.”

Called “Vespers — A Healing Journey,” the rites took place from Sept. 30-Oct. 8 throughout the diocese which is more than one and a half times the size of Ireland.

Nearly 1,200 participated, diocesan officials said.

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly

BY MATT COKER
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2015

Like the Orange County Sheriff’s Department before it, the district attorney’s office is turning to the public to locate other potential victims of Sean Patrick Aday, the 38-year-old youth pastor who is scheduled to be arraigned this morning on charges of forcibly raping a female church member and sexually abusing three other female church members.

The resident of Lake Forest, which is also where his Grace Community Church is located, could get 29 years in state prison if he is convicted of one felony count of forcible rape, one felony count of sodomy by force, one felony count of sexual penetration by foreign object and force, three felony counts of sexual battery by restraint, and four misdemeanor counts of sexual battery, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s office. Aday was out of custody on $500,000 bail heading into this morning’s 8:30 a.m. hearing in Santa Ana.

He is accused of assaulting the females, who ranged in age from their late teens to early 20s, at Grace Community Church, throughout Orange County and during church sponsored international trips to such locales as Moldova, Costa Rica and South Africa, according to the sheriff’s department.

The OCDA updates:

* Between, Jan. 1, 2008, and Nov. 6, 2015, Aday is accused of sexually assaulting Jane Doe 1 including forcible rape, sodomy, and sexual penetration by foreign object and force.
* Between July 1, 2015, and Oct. 1, 2015, the defendant is accused of sexually touching Jane Doe 2 against her will while she was restrained and inducing her to sexually touch him.
* On four occasions between Nov. 30, 2014, and Oct. 1, 2015, Aday is accused of committing sexual battery on Jane Doe 2, Jane Doe 3, and Jane Doe 4.

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CANADA
The Observer

By Vicki Gough, Chatham Daily News
Friday, December 4, 2015

A recently released American drama film depicting The Boston Globe’s Spotlight investigative team of journalists into the Massachusetts Catholic sex abuse crimes is not on a movie play list in Chatham.

Rob Talach, a London lawyer, is trying to reverse that decision.

Talach said he strongly urged officials at Galaxy Cineplex, which operates a movie theatre in Chatham, to show the movie locally, but was told Spotlight was not on its distribution plan.

“Chatham-Kent has been the epicentre (of Catholic sex abuse scandals) with one of the worst cases – (Charles Henry) Sylvestre and a number of other priests,” Talach told The Daily News.

In a Chatham court in 2006, Sylvestre pleaded guilty to indecent assault against 47 young girls and was sentenced to three years in prison.

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UNITED STATES
Gold Derby

By Paul Sheehan
Dec 03 2015

Our 22 Oscar experts drawn from major media outlets have now seen all the top contenders (save for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”) and have been busy updating their predictions. We have clear frontrunners in five of the eight top races. However, Director, Supporting Actor and Adapted Screenplay are turning into real contests.

“Spotlight” has widened its lead for Best Picture, with 16 Experts backing it compared to three apiece for “The Martian” and “The Revenant.” That gives this docudrama chronicling the efforts of Boston Globe reporters to expose pedophile priests leading odds of 5/1 versus 15/2 for the others.

“Spotlight” helmer Tom McCarthy has 11 Experts predicting him to win Best Director; that is good enough for leading odds of 5/2. However, “The Martian” director Ridley Scott, who has lost this race three times, has the support of seven experts. And last year’s big winner for “Birdman,” Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu has five of us in his corner. Both of them have odds of 4/1. McCarthy does look like a lock for Original Screenplay with 15 Experts predicting him and co-writer Josh Singer to win.

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BAHAMAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Dec. 4, 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)

Hundreds of pages of long-secret records about three child molesting Catholic priest who spent years in the Bahamas have been released. Church officials should tell parents, parishioners and the public about them.

Fr. Richard Eckroth, Fr. Thomas Gillespie and Fr. Finian McDonald worked at Saint Augustine’s in Nassau the Bahamas. They’re all “credibly accused” of abuse, according to their church supervisors, and have been or are being sued for abuse.

McDonald admitted abusing 200 children and traveled frequently to Bahamas until 2002.

[Star Tribune]

Eckroth is accused of abusing boys and girls and at one point was ordered back to St. John’s Abbey from Bahamas and then sent for treatment.

[KARE]

Gillespie allegedly abused at least four students and church officials admitted to one another in 2002 that he had molested kids.

Nassau Archbishop Patrick C. Pinder should personally visit the parishes near where these priests lived or worked, begging victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to come forward. He should also use parish bulletins, church websites and pulpit announcements across the entire diocese to seek out others who may have been assaulted and are still suffering. And he should permanently post on his diocesan website the names, photos and whereabouts of every child molesting Bahamas area cleric, whether alive or dead, diocesan or religious order, or admitted, proven or credibly accused. (About 30 US bishops have done this. It’s the bare minimum a bishop should do to protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded.)

We hope that every single person who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes or cover ups in the Bahamas will summon the strength to speak up. Kids are safer only when victims, witnesses and whistleblowers are courageous enough to act. Silence is tempting but it only helps wrongdoers.

It’s important that people with suspicions or knowledge of these crimes and cover ups call the independent professionals in law enforcement, not the biased amateurs in church positions.

NOTE – The attorneys involved in the records release are Jeff Anderson (651 227 9990 office, 612 817 8665 cell, jeff@andersonadvocates.com) and Mike Finnegan (651 227 9990 office, 612 205 5531 cell,mike@andersonadvocates.com). The Minnesota church spokesman who’s responsible for information about the priests is Brother Aelred Senna (320 363 2004, asenna@csbsju.edu, 320 363 2085 phone, 320 363 3039 (faxsjainfo@csbsju.edu).

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Dec. 4, 2915

Ousted predator priest is cleric in another denomination
Victims want church officials to warn the public about him
He’s left the Catholic church but is now Unitarian minister

A New Hampshire priest who was ousted because of credible allegations of child sex abuse has apparently been a minister for years at a rural New Hampshire Unitarian church.

Fr. Mark Fleming now heads South Parish Unitarian in Charlestown, NH (603 826 3418)

SNAP was notified recently of Fleming’s position by a New Hampshire man who suspected that the cleric wasn’t being fully honest about his past. Fr. Fleming did disclose to at least a few individuals that he’d been a Catholic priest.

“This is an outrageous betrayal that should never have happened,” said Rob Brown of Manchester, an abuse victim of a different predator. “I suspect that Unitarians didn’t properly vet this guy or they didn’t tell their flock the full truth about him.”

In 2002, Fr. Fleming was accused, in a civil lawsuit, of sexually abusing three brothers in the 1980s. The case went to the NH Attorney General’s office but it was not prosecuted. Catholic officials said that Fr. Fleming was not defrocked but his right to minister was reportedly revoked and he was sent to therapy for two years. Then, he reportedly left priesthood in 1986.

[BishopAccountability.org]

“Shame on Bishop Peter Libasci and his predecessor, Bishop John McCormack, for refusing to do more to warn the public about Fr. Fleming,” said David Clohessy of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “And shame on Unitarian officials for ordaining him and giving him access to kids.”

Brown and Clohessy are urging Catholic and Unitarian officials in New Hampshire to use church websites and parish bulletins and pulpit announcements to warn others about Fr. Fleming.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Dec. 4, 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)

We’re deeply saddened – but not surprised – by the news that $5 million has been spent on the St. Paul archdiocesan bankruptcy. It’s tragic how much bishops will spend to keep their abuse cover ups covered up.

[Minnesota Public Radio]

We’re convinced that church officials seek Chapter 11 protection to preserve their reputations, not their assets. They’ve learned that bankruptcy stops all lawsuits, discovery and depositions enabling church staff who are concealing child sex crimes to keep concealing child sex crimes.

We hope St. Paul Catholics will donate more generously than ever, but will give to institutions that prevent and expose child sex crimes, not to their archdiocese.

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PHILIPPINES
The Standard

December 05, 2015 by John Paolo Bencito

PRESIDENTIAL aspirant Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday night revealed the name of the Catholic priest who allegedly molested him and several other high school boys when they were teenagers in the 1950s while studying at the Jesuit-run Ateneo de Davao University.

“That priest was [the late] Fr. Paul Falvey. He wanted to touch [our private parts.] It happened during our generation, two years ahead of us and two years following us,” Duterte told Davao-based reporters on Thursday night.

“It cost him some P25 million because other victims filed a case. It was a case of fondling—you know what—he did during confession, that’s how we lost our innocence early,” Duterte said.

It took the young Duterte seven years to finish high school after being expelled from the Ateneo de Davao University for misconduct. He eventually finished high school at the Holy Cross of Digos.

“It was a sort of sexual awakening for each of us,” Duterte said. “We realized quite early that life was like that. How would you complain? We were afraid.”

Duterte also said that a joke in which he cursed the Pope for the traffic jam during his visit in January was not aimed at the pontiff but at incompetent government officials who could not handle the situation.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

A retired Melbourne Catholic bishop says he never contemplated telling police about child sex abuse complaints.

Bishop Hilton Deakin, a former Melbourne archdiocese vicar-general and auxiliary bishop, has told the child abuse royal commission he was to verbally report any sexual misconduct complaints to then archbishop Frank Little and there was to be no further discussion.

He says while an auxiliary bishop in 1994, he also told the Apostolic Nuncio, the Pope’s representative in Australia, Doveton parish priest Fr Peter Searson was a “most evil person doing evil things to little children”.

“I was hoping and praying that something would be done,” he told the commission.

A barrister for three abuse victims, Cassie Serpell, suggested there was a range of other actions he could have taken.

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UNITED STATES
The Armenian Weekly

By Katie Vanadzin on December 3, 2015

Special for the Armenian Weekly

It’s no secret by now that Boston has been Hollywood’s darling for the past few years. Just this fall, two Boston-themed movies have been released. For once, one of them wasn’t about Whitey Bulger. Released to rave reviews on Nov. 6, “Spotlight” stood out as a very different sort of “Boston movie.” Part of what sets it apart is that the story it portrays likely would never have been known had it not been for the tireless work of two Boston-area Armenians: veteran reporter Stephen Kurkjian and attorney Mitchell Garabedian.

Set in 2001, the film centers on the Spotlight team at the Boston Globe, the investigative team that has broken many of the city’s most defining stories. At that time, the team, made up of Walter “Robby” Robinson, Sacha Pfeiffer, Michael Rezendes, Ben Bradlee Jr., and Matt Carroll, was investigating the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, the discovery of which would ricochet around the world. But in early 2001, no one knew that the problem extended beyond Boston, and the reporters were as shocked as the public when the extent of the abuse within Boston alone was brought to light.

The cracks in the surface of the church’s reputation had begun to emerge in 1992, when Kurkjian investigated the case of James Porter, a priest in Fall River, Mass., who was convicted in 1993 of molesting 28 children and sentenced to 18-20 years in prison. Though Kurkjian discovered a handful of other priests between 1992 and 1993, who followed the same pattern of repeat abuse and quiet reassignments to new parishes, he had no inkling of the scope of the church’s cover-up.

Kurkjian, portrayed in the film by Gene Amoroso, worked as a reporter for the Boston Globe for 40 years and was a founding member of the Spotlight team in 1970 before relocating to Washington, D.C., to become chief of the paper’s Washington bureau. He returned to the Spotlight team shortly after the story on the sex abuse scandal broke and the team was flooded with calls from former victims. In the film version, this is right about when the credits begin to roll, but as Kurkjian can attest, there’s quite an epilogue.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DECEMBER 5, 2015

Gerard Henderson
Columnist

As far as I am aware, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse had not previously flagged a date for the expected appearance of any witness.

But last week it issued a witness list for its latest case study. Only one expected appearance date was specified, namely “Cardinal ­George Pell (from 16 December approx.)”.

This advance notice is helpful to the media to prepare for the appearance of the royal commission’s highest profile witness so far, who happens to be the third most senior figure in the Vatican.

Pell has his supporters and opponents inside and outside the Catholic Church.

Frank Brennan, the Jesuit priest and author, has been a considered critic of the present prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy, on some matters, through the years. However, in an article published in the online Eureka Street magazine on November 23, Brennan essentially called for Pell to receive a fair go at the royal commission and in the media.

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MINNESOTA
KARE

AP

MINNEAPOLIS – The cost of legal and professional services in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis bankruptcy case has topped $5 million.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Kressel approved more than $3 million in fees on Thursday to cover services provided for the archdiocese’s financial reorganization and clergy abuse claims.

Kressel reminded attorneys that he ordered the case to mediation to “save money and speed up the process.”

Acting Archbishop Bernard Hebda says the complexity of the case is a big reason for the costs.

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AUSTRALIA
Geelong Advertiser

A former Melbourne archbishop feared the reach of Roman canon law and being left with egg on his face if the Vatican overturned a priest’s removal, the child abuse royal commission has heard.

The commission has heard Archbishop Frank Little failed to remove a number of pedophile priests, which former vicar-general and auxiliary bishop Hilton Deakin believes was partly due to his fears about Rome.

The 1974-1996 archbishop, who died in 2008, feared the Vatican authorities would find in a priest’s favour on appeal to Rome, Bishop Deakin said.

“I think the archbishop was very much motivated and governed by his own problem about Roman law, about Roman authority, about dismissing a priest and having him come back and then finding egg all over his face and that sort of stuff,” he said on Friday.

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PHILIPPINES
Rappler

The presidential aspirant says the now deceased Fr Paul Falvey SJ abused several other students at Ateneo de Davao

DAVAO CITY, Philippines – Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday night, December 3, identified the Jesuit priest who allegedly abused him in high school, and said he was “afraid” to file a complaint at the time.

But he added he had already forgiven the priest who was his teacher when he was a freshman student at the Ateneo de Davao high school.

The now deceased priest, Paul Falvey SJ, also molested his peers at the Ateneo de Davao besides himself, according to Duterte.

Duterte was a student of Ateneo de Davao high school before he was expelled and went to Holy Cross of Digos.

Duterte told Rappler, “I will not file a case against the priest because I belong to the Catholic Church,” while some of those molested reportedly filed complaints. Falvey, according to Duterte, was ordered to pay “some P25 million” in damages.

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PHILIPPINES
Philippine Daily Inquirer

By: Germelina Lacorte

DAVAO CITY – Mayor Rodrigo Duterte late Thursday named the priest, who allegedly molested him and several other high school boys, when he was a teenager studying at the Jesuit-run Ateneo de Davao University (AdDU) here.

Duterte, who vowed to keep his mouth shut pending a talk with Davao Archbishop Romulo Valles on Friday, said the priest who made him and several other boys lost their innocence was the late Fr. Paul Falvey, S.J., one of the Jesuit priests at AdDU when he was still in his first year high school.

“It happened during our generation, two years ahead of us and two years following us,” Duterte told reporters Thursday night. “It cost him some P25 million because other victims filed a case, it was a case of fondling—you know what—he did during confession, that’s how we lost our innocence early,” the mayor told reporters here around 9 p.m. Thursday.

He said he did not file a case because he was still a young boy at that time, and he was afraid. “It was a sort of sexual awakening for each of us,” he said, “We realized quite early that ganun talaga ang buhay (life was like that), “Paano magreklamo (How would you complain)?” he asked, “Takot kami (We were afraid).”

Duterte said that’s why he has high regard for Archbishop Oscar Cruz, who voiced out his strong criticism against him. “That’s why, I respect Bishop Oscar Cruz, who is very frank and very brutal in his language, I respect him, kasi hindi siya (because it was not him),” Duterte said, adding that it “was an actionable wrong.” “I was only 14 or 15, I am now 70 years old. How do you suppose I should file a case?” he asked reporters.

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PHILIPPINES
Cococuts Manila

On Thu, Dec 3, Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte named the priest who allegedly molested him and several other high school boys, when he was a teenager studying at the Jesuit-run Ateneo de Davao University (AdDU).

“Duterte tagged the late Fr. Paul Falvey, S.J., one of the Jesuit priests at AdDU when he was still in his first year high school, as the one who sexually molested him,” reports Germelina Lacorte in Philippine Daily Inquirer.

Duterte related: ‘“It happened during our generation, two years ahead of us and two years following us. It cost him some P25 million because other victims filed a case, it was a case of fondling—you know what—he did during confession, that’s how we lost our innocence early.”

The report noted: “Duterte, who vowed to keep his mouth shut pending a talk with Davao Archbishop Romulo Valles, explained that he did not file a case because he was still a young boy at that time, and he was afraid.”

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

By Madonna King
4 DEC 2015

Chrissie Foster remembers her husband Anthony handing George Pell a photograph of their daughter Emma. Her arms and wrists were bloodied; the tell-tale signs that she wanted the torture that followed years of abuse to stop.

“I wanted to explain to him how Emma was telling the truth – she was only 14 or 15 at the time,’’ Chrissie tells me. “I wanted to break through this clerical belief that victims are liars and were after money.

“I thought if I could speak to him and tell him about Emma and how I was a good Catholic … I did lots of things around the Parish…that I wasn’t the enemy, and that this had happened to my daughter.’’

“It was too horrible. He didn’t bat an eyelid. There was no intake of breath. There was nothing.’’

Foster remembers Pell’s hard tone. “He didn’t let my husband finish his sentences. He’d just jump in with a legal point.’’ She remembers phrases like “prove it in court’’ or “take your evidence to court’’, and showing him the photograph of Emma was a last ditch effort to be heard.

“We hadn’t shown anyone that photo,’’ Chrissie says. “It was too horrible. He didn’t bat an eyelid. There was no intake of breath. There was nothing.’’

About 15 months later, Chrissie and Anthony found out a second daughter, Katie, had also been abused by Father Kevin O’Donnell, who has since died.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

By Jean Hopfensperger Star Tribune DECEMBER 3, 2015

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has spent $3.3 million on lawyers’ and professional fees in recent months, bringing to at least $5 million the costs incurred this year by attorneys handling the church’s bankruptcy and related clergy abuse issues.

At a court hearing Thursday, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Robert Kressel approved payments for dozens of law firm staffers who are addressing the archdiocese’s deep troubles, including its financial reorganization and related parish claims, its 400-plus clergy abuse claims and two abuse cases pending with the Ramsey County attorney’s office.

Most of the work was done between June and October.

Kressel listened as attorney after attorney explained why his firm should be paid from the archdiocese estate. While saying he appreciates the work being done to advance the archdiocese’s financial reorganization, Kressel reminded the attorneys that he ordered the case to mediation specifically “to save money and speed up the process.”

Acting Archbishop Bernard Hebda said the complexity of the case is a big reason for the legal fees.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Harriet Sherwood Religion correspondent
@harrietsherwood
Friday 4 December 2015

The Church of England has paid £35,000 in compensation and apologised to a survivor of clerical sexual abuse in the latest in a string of cases involving senior church figures.

The diocese of London has also agreed to an independent review of how the church handled the allegations of abuse, which date back to the 1980s.

The settlement was made days after Judge Lowell Goddard’s independent inquiry into child sex abuse announced that the church would be among its first investigations.

The survivor, who has remained anonymous, named his abuser as Garth Moore, an authority on ecclesiastical law and chancellor of the dioceses of Southwark, Durham and Gloucester. Moore died in 1990.

The survivor was 16 at the time of the abuse and an occasional server at St Mary Abchurch in the City of London, where Moore was vicar.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

December 4, 2015

Nino Bucci
Exclusive

Bishop Ronald Mulkearns​ is set to again evade questioning over his role as an alleged protector of paedophile priests, with the former Ballarat Bishop expected to shun a royal commission hearing despite being compelled to appear as a witness.

The testimony of Bishop Mulkearns, and the second grilling of Cardinal George Pell, shaped as a crucial piece of the final weeks of the commission’s hearings into institutional responses to child sexual abuse.

But Fairfax Media has been told that Bishop Mulkearns, who turned 85 last month, will not appear, again blaming ill-health.

The development appears to be a major blow to the commission, as Bishop Mulkearns was considered central to a failure to prevent decades of child sexual abuse at Catholic schools in the Ballarat region.

It can also be revealed that Brisbane Bishop Brian Finnigan will be called to give evidence, and is expected to be questioned about whether he was complicit in covering up abuse when he worked as Bishop Mulkearns’ secretary in Ballarat.

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UNITED STATES
Commonweal

Richard Alleva
December 4, 2015

Before the so-called Second Golden Age of Television was launched on cable, the one network show that captivated me (and in re-runs still does) was Law and Order, whose most curious feature was the mostly missing private lives of its regular characters. These cops and DAs pursued clues, interrogated suspects, cut deals…and never went home. The drama was strictly of the workplace. Domestic details eventually crept in but only when they were tied to the investigations and prosecutions at hand. Later, showrunner Dick Wolf created a spin-off, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, which took a different tack, immersing us in the private affairs and foibles of its heroes—so much so that the series continually tipped over into soap opera.

There is a similar contrast between two current movies, Spotlight and Truth. Both are about the splendors and miseries of journalism, and both are based on real events. Spotlight shows how the Boston Globe exposed the full extent of the sexual abuse of minors perpetrated by priests in the archdiocese of Boston. It portrays the Globe’s reporters as heroes, but theirs is a workaday heroism without flourishes or frills—no preachy monologues paying tribute to freedom of the press, no clichés of journalists jutting their jaws while righteously facing down hypocrisy and corruption. By contrast, Truth—about the downfall of Dan Rather at CBS—is soaked in personality. Specifically, the personality of Mary Mapes, Rather’s producer on 60 Minutes Wednesday. I was never sure whether the movie was urging me to lament the decline of the evening news or to weep for the misery of one nobly striving, high-strung producer.

Spotlight’s most salient virtue is a Spartan economy of storytelling that lets us lucidly follow the reporters as they track down their story. We witness the gradual discovery of horrifying crimes and an almost equally horrifying cover-up. “Spotlight” was the name of the Globe’s special investigative team, and the film shows how each member of the team had his or her special contribution to make. Some members interview victims; one tries to connect with a lawyer who was handling the lawsuits of dozens of victims; another approaches the former assistant DA who was in charge of the John Geoghan case, which led to further revelations; Spotlight’s chief, Robby Robinson, uses his friendship with a church attorney to secure facts; and the Globe’s new editor, Marty Barron, must establish some sort of relationship with Cardinal Bernard Law himself. It’s as if the many pieces of a huge jigsaw puzzle had been flung into a Boston windstorm, each piece landing in a different neighborhood. The storyline might have fragmented amid so much to-ing and fro-ing, but the script by director Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer keeps it all under control. No scene goes on too long or is cut off too soon. And despite the film’s inherently painful material, it never sinks into either sensationalism or mawkishness. The moviegoer’s intelligence is honored by the absence of stentorian music, overacting, and visual rhetoric. Spotlight is the most sinewy film I’ve seen in a long time.

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INDIA
The Hindu

Lawrence Johnson, the priest who was on the run after allegedly sodomising a 13-year-old boy from his area, was arrested on Wednesday evening. The Shivaji Nagar police said Johnson was picked up from a friend’s residence in Shivaji Nagar, after they received a tip-off . “Johnson was produced in court on Thursday and remanded in our custody till December 5. We are investigating whether he has similarly targeted other minors in the locality in the past,” said Senior Police Inspector Balasaheb Jadhav, Shivaji Nagar police station.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

A Melbourne bishop wrote a character reference for a priest he hardly knew who was facing child sex abuse charges, an inquiry has heard.

Bishop Hilton Deakin said he had no hesitation writing the reference for Fr David Daniel, despite not knowing him very well, and the priest told him he was innocent.

He said it was later that Daniel was found guilty.

“If you ask me now, I know more about Daniel than I did when I wrote it, I must say, and I think it was a bit crazy writing it, knowing what I now know. But at that time that didn’t occur to me,” Bishop Deakin told the child abuse royal commission.

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CANADA
CBC News

By Jennifer Choi, CBC News

A former Supreme Court justice testified today in a lawsuit between the Diocese of Bathurst and its insurance company.

Michel Bastarache took the stand and described how victims told him how they were sexually abused by Catholic priests in the diocese dating back to the 1950’s.

“Eighty per cent of people told me I was the first person they told,” said Bastarache in a Moncton courtroom. “About half of those people told me I’d be the last.”

Bastarache was in charge of a confidential conciliation or compensation process for victims of molestation by priests in the Bathurst diocese.

He was hired in 2010 by Bathurst’s bishop at the time, Valery Vienneau, who is now the Archbishop of Moncton.

“At that time I thought it would be 30 people and only two priests involved, but I interviewed 90 people,” said Bastarache.

The victims reported sexual abuse by a total of 26 priests in the diocese

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Martin Moylan Dec 3, 2015

The judge overseeing the bankruptcy of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis on Thursday approved the payment of about $3.3 million in legal and professional fees.

The payments cover services provided from June through October. Court records indicate the church’s total bill for its bankruptcy and related litigation since the bankruptcy filing in January now exceeds $5.1 million.

Archbishop Bernard Hebda released a statement after the court hearing.

“In the end, we hope the spirit of cooperation and good will among all parties — including the U.S. Bankruptcy Court — will help us reach the ultimate goal of a fair resolution of the claims as quickly as possible,” he said. “We believe that the legal expenses that have been incurred and approved by the court are a necessary part of achieving that objective.”

Judge Robert Kressel said he’s starting to get nervous about the speed and cost of the bankruptcy. The archdiocese is in mediation with abuse victims and insurers, hoping to reach a settlement.

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ROME
Chiesa

Mercy for all except the hierarchical Church, too closed-off and backward to deserve the pope’s forgiveness. But in the meantime two cases with uncertain outcomes have exploded: the trial of Balda and Chaouqui and the clash with the supreme court of Chile

by Sandro Magister

ROME, December 4, 2015 – With the jubilee inaugurated last Sunday in the heart of deepest Africa, Pope Francis has bent an instrument of ancient devotion to a new purpose entirely his own.

The jubilees do not have a good reputation – it was precisely the selling of indulgences that scandalized Luther – and yet the pope has brought them back into vogue for the living and for the deceased, in remission of the pains of purgatory. No one can therefore accuse him of abandoning tradition.

But the form is one thing, the substance is another. Because Francis is keeping only one part of that tradition alive: forgiveness. A forgiveness that is for all those who step through the holy door, go to confession, and receive communion. Only that the holy doors are everywhere. Even the door of a prison cell can become one, the pope has said, if only one asks God for mercy. …

> Ricca and Chaouqui, Two Enemies in the House (26.8.2013)

Not with prudence, for having wanted to haul into the dock even the two Italian journalists who wrote about it, in a bizarre revival of the index of prohibited books.

And even less with mercy, seeing the salacious pages that have been leaked from the court documents and have exposed to public ridicule not only the monsignor and the lady, already highly active in inflicting damage on themselves, but also her unfortunate relatives, completely uninvolved in the matter.

*
Bergoglio appeals to the people of the jubilee against the hierarchy for his other purifying enterprise as well, against clerical sex abuse of minors.

He says that he is unyielding with the bishops who cover up such misconduct and he has in fact removed some of them. But at the same time he shows himself merciful to excess with one cardinal who was one of his main electors in conclave, the Belgian Godfried Danneels, who in 2010 tried to conceal the sexual misconduct of the bishop of Bruges at the time, Roger Wangheluwe, with the victim being his young nephew. The scandal became public, but it does not appear to have bothered Pope Francis, who twice even put Danneels at the top of the list of synod fathers personally appointed by him, in a sign of great esteem, and promoted the cardinal’s protege as the new archbishop of Brussels:

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IOWA
Roman Catholic Diocese of Sioux City – The Catholic Globe

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

As Bishop of the Diocese of Sioux City, I am firmly committed to the safety of all people, especially children and the vulnerable, who participate in our parish, school, and diocesan programs. The current Safe Environment Program employed in our diocese is well-designed and working well to meet that goal. This program helps to ensure that all children and young people are kept safe. Our safe environment policies and practices have focused on educating parents, teachers, clergy, and all volunteers who work with children about the dangers of child predators, how to be aware of the behaviors exhibited by those who intend to victimize children, and how to report such behavior.

We recognize, in addition, that the prevention of child sexual abuse requires more than adult awareness, education, and training about the nature and scope of the problem. We must also give our children the tools they need to overcome the advances of someone who intends to do them harm. The newly-available Teaching Touching Safety curriculum is a tool designed to assist parents, teachers, catechists, youth ministers, and volunteers in this important task.

The U.S Conference of Catholic Bishops has issued guidelines for training programs in Catholic schools in order to ensure that children are given the tools they need to keep themselves safe. The Teaching Touching Safety curriculum, produced by the Virtus Company, through the National Catholic Risk Retention Group, meets these guidelines.

By this letter, I hereby promulgate the Teaching Touching Safety curriculum, for the training of children in the schools and parishes of the Diocese of Sioux City.

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WISCONSIN
Urban Milwaukee

By Bruce Murphy – Dec 2nd, 2015

Probably no city has gotten more attention for its clergy sex abuse problem than Boston. It’s been called “the epicenter” of the crisis, and it is once again in the Spotlight, which is the name of a widely acclaimed new movie that dramatizes the Boston Globe’s 2002 Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative series on pedophile priests.

The newspaper reported that the Boston archdiocese quietly settled child molestation claims against at least 70 priests and routinely transferred abusive priests to other parishes. The series blew the lid on a scandal that soon became a national and even international one, as more victims came forward and newspapers began aggressively reporting their stories.

In America alone, more than 6,900 priests have been accused of pedophilia, as USA Today has reported. By 2012, 16,787 people had come forward to say they were abused by priests as children, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the church had spent more than $2.6 billion in civil suits in the U.S. But that figure turned out to be an underestimate: the National Catholic Reporter tallied the data and found the total payout has been $4 billion.

The sheer scale of the scandal is astounding. The Conference commissioned a study which concluded that 4 percent of all priests who served from 1950-2002 had been accused of molesting minors. If the rate was that high for teachers in the U.S., that would equal 120,000 pedophiles.

But Peter Isely, the Milwaukeean who is Midwest director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, believes the percentage of pedophile priests is much higher. “If you look at federal reporting where there have been grand juries investigating this, the percentage gets near 10 percent.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
Main-Echo

[The Darmstadt public prosecutor brought a charge in the case of sexual abuse of children in a Catholic nursery in southern Hesse Pfungstadt. The accused man is suspected of nine cases of sexual abuse and possession of child pornography.]

Die Staatsanwaltschaft Darmstadt hat Anklage im Fall des sexuellen Missbrauchs von Kindern in einer katholischen Kindertagesstätte im südhessischen Pfungstadt erhoben.

Der beschuldigte Mann werde wegen des Verdachts auf sexuellen Missbrauch in neun Fällen und des Besitzes kinderpornographischer Schriften vor dem Amtsgericht Darmstadt angeklagt, teilte die Staatsanwaltschaft am Mittwoch mit.

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ITALIA
Noi Notizie

[Priest arrested for child pornography in Ostuni: Letter to the Archbishop and the Pope, “it takes a commission of inquiry”.]

Ostuni, Francesco Legrottaglie, 67enne, fu arrestato. Secondo l’accusa, aveva il computer pieno di immagini pedopornografiche, con tanto di nomi di santi dati alle cartelle contenenti tali immagini. Di seguito il testo del documento indirizzato dal gruppo Manifesto4Ottobre all’arcivescovo di Brindisi-Ostuni, Domenico Caliandro, documento indirizzato anche a papa Francesco e al segretario generale della Conferenza episcopale italiana, Nunzio Galantino:

Gent.mo Arcivescovo,

nel maggio scorso, qualche giorno dopo l’arresto di un parroco nella città capoluogo con l’accusa di violenza sessuale su minori di 14 anni con l’aggravante dell’abuso di autorità, Le indirizzammo una lettera* a conclusione della quale chiedevamo di istituire una commissione di inchiesta come avevano fatto due diocesi italiane, Verona e Bressanone.

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NEW YORK
Democrat and Chronicle

Steve Orr and Sean Lahman, @seanlahman December 3, 2015

Spoiler alert: This article contains information about the ending of the film Spotlight

Roman Catholics in the Rochester region were stunned when the Rev. Eugene Emo, a priest who had served in a dozen area churches and hospitals over the course of 35 years, was placed under arrest in February 1996.

Father Emo, then 60 years old, a beloved figure to some parishioners but already a subject of scorn to others, was charged with sexual abuse. He was hauled out of a rectory on Oxford Street in the city in handcuffs.

What followed was a chain of events that mirrored, in more ways than one, the story told in the hit film Spotlight. That film, which is getting a good deal of Best Picture Oscar buzz, depicts a year-long investigation by the Boston Globe newspaper of sexual abuse by priests and attempts by church officials in that city to cover up that activity.

As the film relates, the newspaper had written before about abusive priests in Boston. Some of that coverage had been quite extensive. But until the Spotlight team began its work, reporters had never connected the dots by examining the scope of the problem and the Boston archdiocese’s handling of it.

Spotlight culminates with the January 2002 publication of the investigative team’s first story, which exposes the presence of dozens of abusive priests in the archdiocese who had been reassigned, placed on leave or allowed to retirement rather than being punished by the church and the law for their misconduct. As the film ends, scrolling text describes the reaction to the Globe’s Puliter Prize-winning reportage and lists the many American cities in which priest-abuse scandals ensued.

Rochester, New York is on that list. A review of the Democrat and Chronicle’s clip files reveals that what happened here is exactly parallel to events in Boston.

Before Father Emo’s arrest, the Democrat and Chronicle and its now-closed sister paper, the Times-Union, had covered the cases of at least four priests accused of sexual abuse.

The Rev. Gerard Guli of Holy Rosary Church in Rochester and the Rev. Thomas Corbett of St. Theodore’s Church in Gates were arrested by police on sex-abuse charges in 1989 and 1991, respectively. Neither was convicted. Both left their churches and Guli left the priesthood. Corbett remained a priest and worked in the diocesan offices until at least 2002.

In the summer of 1993, a woman filed a sex-abuse civil suit against Brother John Heathwood, a popular teacher at Bishop Kearney High School in Irondequoit. A few months later, the Rev. Robert Winterkorn resigned his pastoral post at St. John the Evangelist Church in Spencerport after acknowledging a sexual relationship with an adult woman.

Winterkorn’s privileges were removed, according to Bishop Matthew Clark, and he died in 2005. The lawsuit against Heathwood was eventually dismissed, and he retired from teaching in 1993. Heathwood was a member of the Christian Brothers, so he was not subject to oversight by the Rochester Diocese.

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UNITED STATES
Catholics4Change

by C4C Guest Blogger

Last Friday night, I saw the movie “Spotlight” with two friends. It had been on my “to do” list since I had first seen the trailer. As a Clergy Abuse Survivor, it was interesting to me how the Catholic Church would be portrayed. All too often, Catholic apologists bash the media and critics as being “anti-Catholic” and haters – convenient defenses to cover the scandal within the Church. I was hoping that “Spotlight” would not fall into that trap.

One of the defenses that is also used is “that was in the past – it is not happening now.” However abuse from the past continues to surface involving present day priests. Two years ago, it became public that my abuser was being investigated.

This public announcement caused dozens, myself included, to file additional complaints with the Archdiocese. After two years of investigations, both by the Archdiocese and law enforcement officials in several counties, my abuser decided to quietly remove himself from the priesthood after one claim was substantiated by the Church. He disappears from the roll of active priests in good standing however does not appear on the list of priests who have had their faculties suspended or removed – sort of a clergy “limbo.”

The movie takes place in Boston – a city with many similarities to Philadelphia. A city of neighborhoods. A city where people identify so closely with their parish – their high school. A city where the Catholic Church has substantial influence. All of the major characters, with the exception of the Jewish editor, identify themselves as Catholic even though they admit that they are not regular churchgoers.

First, I want to say that every Catholic should see this movie. Many have closed their eyes for far too long and failed to educate themselves on the extent of the clergy abuse scandal and cover up. As has been said, “those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.”

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

Megan Neil
December 4, 2015

It will take generations to restore the trust destroyed by priests who sexually abused children, the former second-in-charge of the Melbourne Catholic archdiocese predicts.

Former vicar-general Bishop Peter Connors says church leaders completely failed to deal with pedophile priests as they tried to protect the church.

“There has been a terrible abuse of the trust that people gave implicitly to priests,” Bishop Connors told the child abuse royal commission.

“That trust was sacred but it was destroyed by priests, the way they acted.

“It will take generations for that trust to be restored.”

Bishop Connors, the vicar-general from 1976 to 1987, has admitted he should have done more after a teenage boy was abused by Fr Wilfred “Bill” Baker in 1978.

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ALABAMA
WAAY

Breken Terry Bterry@waaytv.com

Charles Adcock, the former youth pastor at Woodward Avenue Baptist Church whose charged with more than two dozen counts of rape and sodomy is suing Colbert County Sheriff Frank Williamson.

Adcock was charged in September 2014 for sex abuse crimes and let out on bond, but then brought back to the Colbert County Jail because he allegedly broke the conditions of his bond by taking another job as a youth minister in Texas.

Court documents filed at the end of November by Adcock’s attorney requesting a “Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus” to allow Adcock to go before a judge and plead his case on why he should be let out on bond.

The civil suit also says the church where Adcock was part-time employed knew of his sexual abuse charges in Alabama but were not allowing him unsupervised time with minors.

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MICHIGAN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Dec. 3, 2015

Statement by SNAP leader Bill McAlary (616-514-0654, bllmack1@gmail.com)

A young man who was sexually abused as a youngster by a tutor is filing a civil lawsuit against Catholic officials. We applaud his courage and are glad that he’s taking steps to expose those who ignored or concealed these heinous crimes. We’re especially grateful because too often, child sex crimes by women against boys and girls are minimized.

[MLive]

We strongly suspect that evidence will prove Grand Rapids Catholic church and school officials knew or should have known about Abigail Simon’s six months of abuse perpetrated on this boy. We agree with attorney Ven Johnson who says the diocese is “in the dark ages” about the sexual abuse of kids.

We hope that anyone who saw, suspected or suffered child sex crimes or cover ups in Grand Rapids – by clergy, teachers or staff – to call police, protect kids and expose those commit or conceal horrific crimes against the vulnerable.

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VATICAN CITY
Bloomberg Business

Carol Matlack John Follain

More than two and a half years after Pope Francis took office determined to clean up corruption, the Vatican is still finding financial skeletons in its many closets.

Two new books chronicle widespread mismanagement in the Holy See, including auditors’ discovery of $1.5 billion stashed in hidden accounts and the use of alms for the poor to plug holes in the church budget. The Holy See had a €25.6 million ($27.2 million) deficit in 2014. One of the books, Merchants in the Temple, by Gianluigi Nuzzi, also includes a description of a 2013 tape recording of Francis telling senior clerics that spending was “out of control.”

Adding to the impression of disarray, the Vatican in November filed criminal charges against a Spanish monsignor and two other members of a financial reform team appointed by the pope. They’re accused of leaking information to the books’ authors, who also face trial in a Vatican court. All the accused have denied any wrongdoing. “The trial is a sign the Vatican is on the defensive, and a sign of weakness,” says Emiliano Fittipaldi, author of the second book, Avarice. The Holy See hasn’t disputed the authenticity of the material, but the pope has called the breach of secrecy “a grave illegal act.”

€25.6 million
The Holy See’s 2014 budget deficit

The scandal doesn’t appear to have slowed Francis’s reform push. In the latest move, he’s ordered a panel of leaders from the Vatican and the Vatican bank, aided by professional auditors, to determine the value of the church’s massive financial and real estate holdings—including St. Peter’s Basilica and the Sistine Chapel. The group held its first meeting on Nov. 27. “You can’t plan if you don’t understand what your assets and obligations are,” says Danny Casey, right-hand man to Francis’s economic czar, Cardinal George Pell. “It’s not our money. The stakeholders are the 1.2 billion faithful and the many we serve,” says Casey, in an interview at the ornate Apostolic Palace, which includes part of the Vatican museums and the papal apartments. (Francis doesn’t live there, having opted instead to stay in a modest Vatican guesthouse.)

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VATICAN CITY
Daily Beast

Barbie Latza Nadeau

How the Vatican’s ill-advised plan to prosecute two journalists is backfiring badly.

VATICAN CITY — Be careful what you wish for.

If the Vatican had hoped to teach reporters a lesson in restraint by putting two journalists on trial for printing leaked documents, it was sorely mistaken. In fact, the global outrage at the Holy See’s attempt to stifle the free press may in fact be just what’s fueling a frenzy of steamy secrets and a no-holds-barred attitude that has been making the Vatican look more like a hotbed of ill repute than a holy place of prayer and moral guidance.

What started as a fairly banal Vatileaks II trial—in which a monsignor, a public-relations specialist, an administrative assistant, and two journalists faced charges for leaking and printing classified financial documents that, frankly, weren’t all that surprising nor all that secret—has turned into a tale of illicit sex, spies, extortion, and computer hacking.

Spanish Monsignor Lucio Vallejo Balda and PR specialist Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui were both on a committee set up by Pope Francis to offer guidance to help straighten out the Holy See’s muddled finances. According to prosecutors, they, with the help of Balda’s administrative cleric, allegedly fed journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi documents from the committee that showed the depth of corruption and questionable financial practices that were the norm in the Vatican for decades.

The journalists’ books sought to outline gross financial malpractice through balance sheets and petty gossip about overspending. But what has emerged on the sidelines of the case is, frankly, far more titillating.

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PENNSYLVANIA
We Are Central PA

Somerset County, Pa.

A judge rejected a request for new trial but dismissed one of Father Joseph Maurizio’s guilty counts on Wednesday.

Back in September, the former Somerset County Priest was found guilty of three counts of illicit sexual activity with Honduran children who lived in an orphanage.

According to the Altoona Mirror, because one of Maurizio’s victims allegedly changed his story about the abuse, his statement could not be used as “proof” that the acts had actually occurred.

The 70 year old is set to be sentenced on February 2nd, 2016.

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PHILIPPINES
CNN

By Alex Ho, CNN Philippines
Thu, December 3, 2015

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines) — There seems to be no end in sight yet to the tiff between Davao City Mayor Rodrigo “Rody” Duterte and some members of the Catholic clergy over a controversial statement involving Pope Francis and the traffic jam during the recent papal visit to the Philippines.

This time around, Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo called out Duterte on Thursday (December 3) to give details about his claims that he was sexually abused by a priest during his high school days at the Ateneo de Davao.

In a statement, Pabillo said Duterte should “stop the drama” and instead elaborate on his allegations.

“If there’s a mistake committed against him, he must reveal it immediately,” Pabillo said so that complaints or charges can be filed against the alleged priest involved.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 3 December 2015 (VIS) – The Holy Father has:

– accepted the resignation from the office of auxiliary of the diocese of Down and Connor, Ireland, presented by Bishop Anthony J. Farquhar, upon reaching the age limit.

– erected the new diocese of Guasdualito (area 35,184, population 200,000, priests 13, religious 9) in Venezuela, with territory taken from the dioceses of San Fernando de Apure and Barinas, making it a suffragan of the metropolitan metropolis of Merida.

– appointed Fr. Modesto Gonzalez Perez, S.B.D., as the first bishop of the new diocese of Guasdualito. The bishop-elect was born in 1959 in San Antonio de los Alpes, Venezuela, gave his religious vows in 1983 and was ordained a priest in 1986. He holds a licentiate in education from the Universidad Simon Rodriguez in Caracas and in pastoral theology from the Pontifical University of Salamanca, Spain. He has served in a number of pastoral roles, including parish vicar, bursar, parish priest, provincial counsellor and local superior. He is currently director of the Don Bosco agricultural centre in Molinete, in the archdiocese of Maracaibo.

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UNITED STATES
Reuters

By John Lloyd December 1, 2015

Leaking is essential to journalism. It is the ethical problem at the heart of the trade — since much leaking depends on the leaker breaking a promise not to leak. The conundrum is “solved” by appealing to the higher cause of holding power to account.

That rationale can vary from having the force of exposing official lies or corporate fraud to the grubbiness of publishing details, usually sexual, of the private life of well-known people. But leaking is especially essential in the coverage of the intelligence services, and of the way in which security in the face of militant jihadism is administered. It’s necessary to get beyond bland statements and partial briefings, and get some purchase on the scope and methods of institutions now, in every state, much more powerful and much larger than they had been since the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s.

The George W. Bush administrations were as angered as any before them by the leaking which surrounded their actions, especially in the second half of the 2000s. But, as reporters learned to their delight, the wars within it, in key departments like Justice and State as well as in the security services, meant that leakers had a large interest in getting their objections out, and in weakening opponents whom they thought wrong, or dangerous.

Under President Barack Obama, however, whose administration is more disciplined and which has been directed to go hard on leakers, the pickings — say reporters — are thinner, the penalties harsher. Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA officer who leaked material on Iran to New York Times reporter James Risen for his 2006 book State of War; John Kiriakou, also once with the CIA, who disclosed information about a brother officer to journalists; and Stephen Kim, a former State department expert, who gave details of contacts between the United States and North Korea to a Fox News reporter, have all served or are serving jail sentences for their acts.

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ISRAEL
Arutz Sheva

By Raphael Poch
First Publish: 12/3/2015

There has been a dramatic change over the past three decades with regard to how the Jewish community, and more specifically the Orthodox Jewish community, deals with the after effects and trauma of sexual violence and abuse. This change is not only taking place in the Modern-Orthodox world, but also in the Ultra-Orthodox (haredi) world.

Debbie Gross, founder and director of religious women crisis center Tahel told Arutz Sheva, that this is due to the work that Tahel and other organizations have been doing.

“25 years ago, no one was talking about domestic violence and sexual abuse in the Orthodox community. We saw last year that people were talking about it. That is due to our work. So we created a conference about it.”

Tahel’s conference last year was attended by over 650 people from around the world. Gross said that the major aspect of last year’s conference was idea sharing and cooperation.

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AUSTRALIA
Leader

December 3, 2015
Chad Van Estrop
Melbourne Leader

A FORMER principal of St James primary, North Richmond was told to supervise the school’s parish priest near children, as he continued working, amid allegations of child sexual abuse in the early 1990s, the Royal Commission has heard.

Patricia Taylor told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse this week she was warned about Father Wilfred Baker during an “off the record” meeting with the Catholic Education Office in 1992.

Ms Taylor said she was also told by the office to prevent children from being in confessional rooms with Baker and never be alone with him.

Ms Taylor told the commission she felt “abandoned” and “vulnerable” when dealing with Baker.

“I was charged with protecting a community from someone who was known to have fairly serious allegations made against them,” Ms Taylor said.

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UNITED STATES
GQ

BY MICHAEL HAINEY

A year ago, Michael Keaton took wing above Manhattan, soaring over the city in Birdman, riding the thermals of his out-of-this-world performance to help deliver a best-picture Oscar for that film. Now Keaton—a man whose Beetlejuice-and-Batman glory days seemed long behind him—has returned with another prestige role, in Spotlight, the story of The Boston Globe’s investigation of the Catholic clergy’s sex-abuse scandal back in 2002.

“I’ve been doing the same thing all along,” he insists. “It’s not that I wasn’t working. It’s that as you get older, you gain experience and you learn to wait for the right project. It’s like being an experienced hitter. You learn to foul off pitches—’not right for me…not right for me…’—and you stay in the box, patient, until they throw you the pitch you want. The pitch you know you can crush.”

I sat down with the actor at a restaurant in Livingston, Montana, about an hour from the ranch he owns out here, nestled in the gorgeous country between the Crazy Mountains and the Yellowstone River.

When working on your Spotlight role, do you go back to childhood memories? You were raised Catholic. I was raised Catholic, too. But it’s strange: I had nothing but the best experiences with the priests in my parish. They were terrific teachers.

I’m with you. I had an old-school nun who beat my hand with a ruler. “Go stand in the corner.” Stupid, mean, shameful punishment. It was what it was. And it shaped me. It was never a horrible thing. That said, I got lucky. I had some terrific nuns. But I got lucky. We both did. Now…those motherfuckers [the priests who abused children] have to pay the price. And as much as I respect my boy Fran [Pope Francis], ’cause that guy’s pushing a rock up a hill, he left the United States without saying, “I’m not going to stop until everyone who is culpable pays the right price.” Which he didn’t do. And he probably won’t, unfortunately. That’s a huge disappointment. But.

And yet, on the other hand, he’s said more than anyone.

I’ve never seen anyone…anything like this. Never seen a world leader with this impact.

Is it true you arranged for your mother to meet Pope John Paul II?

Yeah. I… [affects a bad-gangster voice] negotiated. Worked a deal. [laughs] I got a call years ago. The pope was on tour. Coming to the States.

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UNITED STATES
Newsbusters

By Matthew Balan | December 2, 2015

Wednesday’s CBS This Morning raved over the new movie Spotlight, which touts the work of the investigative reporters at the liberal Boston Globe who chronicled the Catholic priest sex abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston. Gayle King gushed, “Gosh, that movie was so good.” She later labeled the movie “very powerful.”

Fill-in anchor Kristen Johnson asserted that the new release was “such a fantastic movie.” The morning newscast brought on left-wing actor Mark Ruffalo and the Boston Globe correspondent he played in the movie, Mike Rezendes.

Johnson set up Rezendes to praise the movie, along with his profession: “When you saw the movie, were you pleased with how real it was?” The guest replied, “Yeah. I think the movie is incredibly authentic….I love the message that it gives about investigative reporting. I love the message it gives about clergy sex abuse.”

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ARGENTINA
Elancasti

[Priest Juan de Dios Gutiérrez, accused to sexually abusing a 16-year-old, was released from jail after spending 36 days in detention.]

BELÉN- El sacerdote Juan de Dios Gutiérrez (28), acusado de haber abusado sexualmente de una adolescente de 16 años, fue excarcelado tras haber pasado 36 días detenido, luego de que el juez de control de Garantías resolviera que recupere la libertad tras fijarle una caución de $50.000 y morigerarle la acusación planteada originalmente por la fiscalía.

La resolución del juez de Control de Garantías, Carlos Rodolfo Moreno, se conoció ayer al mediodía. En la audiencia de prisión preventiva realizada la semana pasada, el fiscal de la causa, Jorge Alberto Flores, había pedido que Gutiérrez continuara detenido e imputado por los delitos de “abuso sexual gravemente ultrajante agravado por ser un ministro de algún culto religioso reconocido o no”, y “corrupción de menores”.

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ALABAMA
WTVM

By Marie Waxel

MUSCLE SHOALS, AL (WAFF) –
It’s a last ditch effort to get a former Muscle Shoals Youth minister released on bond.

According to court paperwork, attorneys for Kyle Adcock are wanting the sheriff to allow their client to go before a judge to discuss the recent bond revocation.

Adcock’s attorney told WAFF 48 News, he doesn’t believe his client violated any of his original bond conditions therefore should be released from jail.

Earlier this fall authorities learned Kyle Adcock had been serving as a worship pastor in Texas.

A clear violation of his supervision orders which allowed him to live in Texas with his parents.

The courts issued a warrant out for his arrest, and Adcock returned to the Colbert County jail in October.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

3 December, 2015

The Royal Commission will hold the second part of the public hearing regarding Catholic Church authorities in Ballarat at the County Court of Victoria, Melbourne, commencing on Monday, 7 December 2015.

The scope and purpose of the second part of this public hearing is to inquire into:

The response of the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat and of other Catholic Church authorities in Ballarat to allegations of child sexual abuse against clergy or religious.

The response of Victoria Police to allegations of child sexual abuse against clergy or religious which took place within the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat.

Any related matters.

Cardinal George Pell is expected to give evidence from 16-18 December in relation to both Case Study 35 (the response of the Archdiocese of Melbourne to allegations of child sexual abuse) and Case Study 28 (the response of Catholic authorities in Ballarat to allegations of child sexual abuse.)

Date: Monday 7 December 2015
Duration: 7-15 December.
Hearing times: 10:00am – 4:00pm AEDT
Location: County Court of Victoria, 250 William Street, Melbourne, Victoria

The Royal Commission will provide a webcast of proceedings in the Trench room at the Ballarat Town Hall, Sturt Street, Ballarat, and the proceedings will be live streamed on the Royal Commission website www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Sarah MacDonald
PUBLISHED
03/12/2015

The head of the Catholic Church’s safeguarding watchdog has expressed concern at the low conviction rate of those accused of child sexual abuse.

Teresa Devlin, CEO of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church (NBSCCCI), said just 4pc of all allegations result in a conviction.

Ms Devlin was commenting on the findings of the latest tranche of audits by the watchdog which examined 53 allegations made against 44 priests, brothers or nuns across 20 religious orders.
The allegations cover the period between 1941 and 2009 and resulted in no criminal convictions, which Ms Devlin said is “very, very hard”.

Speaking to the Irish Independent, she said: “Coming forward with an allegation is probably the hardest thing that anybody does because there are so many barriers in their way.”

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Thursday, December 03, 2015

By Conall Ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner Reporter

The Government says an audit of adoption records held by the State is of very limited benefit, but recent revelations prove otherwise, writes Conall Ó Fátharta

THIS Government has consistently repeated the mantra that an audit of adoption records held by the State was “of very limited benefit” — despite revelation after revelation from this newspaper.

An examination of just a fraction of these records revealed that a religious order reported significantly higher levels of infant deaths to the State than it recorded privately, and that child victims of rape were present in mother and baby homes right into the 1980s.

There are tens of thousands of files in the hands of the State in relation to how unmarried women and their children were treated in state-licensed and funded mother and baby homes and adoption agencies. It seems nobody wants to take a look at them.

It’s not like they haven’t been asked. Adoption campaigners have called for an audit of all records for years. The Government and the Adoption Authority have ignored all requests.

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ROME
ANSA

ANSA) – Rome, December 2 – Italian finance police on Wednesday searched the Rome offices of Banca Finnat Euroamerica and seized documentation, working on a Vatican warrant. The bank’s president, Giampietro Nattino, is under investigation in the Vatican for alleged insider trading and money laundering. Nattino is being probed following statements implicating him in suspect operations by Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, the disgraced former head of analytic accounts at the Holy See’s asset-management agency APSA.

Scarano is under investigation in Rome after being arrested in 2013 for allegedly trying to illegally smuggle 20 million euros into Italy for rich friends.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Review

By Liz Zemba
Thursday, Dec. 3, 2015

A federal judge threw out one of the guilty verdicts a jury delivered against a Somerset County priest accused of traveling to Central America to have sex with boys but denied a request for a new trial on the remaining four counts.

The Rev. Joseph D. Maurizio Jr., 70, was found guilty Sept. 22 of three counts of engaging or attempting to engage in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places and one count each of possession of child pornography and money laundering.

Federal prosecutors said Maurizio used a self-run charity based in Johnstown, Humanitarian Interfaith Ministries, to visit a Honduran orphanage numerous times between 1999 and 2009, promising candy and cash to boys to watch them shower, have sex or fondle them.

Maurizio, the former pastor of Our Lady Queen of Angels Church in Central City, had pleaded not guilty and did not testify during the seven-day trial.

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KENTUCKY
Central Kentucky News

By TODD KLEFFMAN tkleffman@amnews.com

The former youth minister of a Danville church was indicted Monday by a Boyle County grand jury on seven felony counts related to illegal sexual activities with minors.

Bobby Cassady, 28, of 515 Tenikat St., was charged with three counts of first-degree unlawful transaction with a minor, two counts of first-degree sexual abuse, promoting a sexual performance by a minor and possession of material portraying a sexual performance by a minor.

Cassady’s bond was set at $50,000. Danville Detective Robert Ladd testified before the grand jury.

Cassady’s attorney, Ephraim Helton, declined to comment on the indictment Tuesday.

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TENNESSEE
Brentwood Home Page

By SAMANTHA HEARN
Published: December 2, 2015

After a family filed a lawsuit against Fellowship Bible Church on Monday for negligence in the rape of their 3-year-old child, the church has now commented on the issue in an email sent to its congregation.

The family, represented by Kathryn Barnett of Morgan & Morgan, filed the lawsuit after their 3-year-old was sexually assaulted and raped by a teenage volunteer at the church’s Brentwood campus last year. The teen has since appeared in court and plead guilty to aggravated sexual battery.

The complaint was filed with the Williamson County Circuit Court on Monday, Nov. 30 stating that Fellowship Bible Church was negligent and reckless in the handling of the incident, even going so far as to try and hide the incident from other church members.

The church is now saying that the allegations presented against them in the lawsuit are false, and that they immediately reported the incident to the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services as well as Brentwood Police when they were advised of the incident.

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NEW YORK
Rome Sentinel

On the day that 19-year-old Lucas Leonard was beaten to death at the Word of Life Christian Church, his mother admitted this morning that the teenager didn’t want to go.

But Leonard went with his family, sat through a day-long service, and then was attacked by church leaders, fellow members and his own family, authorities said.

He would not leave the building alive.

“The last I saw him, he was standing,” said the teen’s mother, 59-year-old Deborah Leonard in County Court this morning.

Leonard pleaded guilty today to first and second-degree assault. She will be sentenced to five years in state prison if she cooperates with the District Attorney’s Office and testifies against the other eight defendants, including her husband and her daughter.

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TENNESSEE
Tennessean

Collin Czarnecki, cczarnecki@tennessean.com

After a family filed a $37.5 million lawsuit against a Brentwood church for negligence in the sexual assault of their 3-year-old son, the church has issued a response.

According to a lawsuit filed Monday, the family’s son was raped by a male teenage volunteer in a bathroom of Fellowship Bible Church of Williamson County during church on Aug. 24, 2014. The teenager pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual battery.

The lawsuit alleges the church urged the family to not pursue charges and asked them to attend another church campus.

The lawsuit further states that the church “sought to hide the truth about the perpetrator pedophile and about the rape of (the 3-year-old) from other families.”

But in a statement to its congregation, Fellowship Bible Church Pastor Bill Wellons wrote that those allegations are false.

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MICHIGAN
MLive

By Barton Deiters | bdeiters@mlive.com
on December 02, 2015

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – The 15-year-old victim of sexual assault by Catholic school tutor Abigail Simon is 18 now and has filed a lawsuit seeking at least $25,000 from Simon, the private school system, the diocese and several administrators.

The now 18-year-old graduate of Catholic Central High School is represented by Detroit-based Ven Johnson – a so-called “super lawyer” and one-time partner of Geofrey Fieger. The suit was filed in Kent County District Court.

Johnson says the goal of the suit is to bring the diocese “out of the dark ages” when it comes to the sexual abuse of students, including male students, by staff or teachers.

“You cannot do this to your children and pretend not to notice,” Johnson said, adding that in cases such as these the Catholic church has tried to “ignore them and sweep them under the rug.”

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph

AAP

THE Catholic Church knew pedophile priests were ticking time bombs but covered up their evil deeds to protect its reputation, former church leaders admit.

MINUTES of a special issues committee meeting at a 1992 Australian Catholic Bishops Conference reveal: “It was agreed that there are serious time bombs ticking away in a number of diocese at the present time.”

Former Melbourne archdiocese vicar-general Bishop Peter Connors said there were time bombs ticking away in a number of dioceses including Melbourne’s Doveton parish, where a succession of pedophile priests were sent from the 1970s to the 1990s.

“That would certainly be the case I think particularly in the Diocese of Ballarat, the big time bomb was ticking away there,” Bishop Connors told the child abuse royal commission.

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PHILIPPINES
GMA Network

File a complaint.

This was the reaction of Archbishop Emeritus Oscar Cruz on claims by Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte that a priest sexually abused him when he was young.

In a report aired on News To Go on Thursday, GMA News’ Raffy Tima quoted Cruz as saying that while he understands Duterte’s manner of speaking, for which the presidential aspirant has drawn flak, the mayor’s “serious” claim against clergymen is another matter altogether, and that Duterte should file a case against the abusers.

“I think he should not just let go of this like that. Kung talagang reformer siya, he should follow through. Hindi ‘yung sasabihing, ”Wag na, kawawa naman sila.’ Oh, come on, walang ganiyanan,” he said.

Earlier, Cruz scored Duterte for his profanity-laced declaration speech last Monday, saying “Delikado ang mga ganitong nilalang.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Altoona Mirror

December 3, 2015
By Phil Ray (pray@altoonamirror.com) , The Altoona Mirror

The federal judge who presided over the child sexual abuse trial of a Somerset County priest has rejected a defense request for a new trial but has tossed out one of five guilty verdicts returned by the jury on Sept. 22.

Altoona attorney Steven P. Passarello, who represented the Rev. Joseph D. Maurizio Jr., said U.S. District Judge Kim Gibson’s decision to reverse the jury’s verdict on one of the charges of illicit sexual abuse against a child was a “major victory” for the defense.

“Very rarely… rarely, does a judge grant a motion of acquittal,” Passarello said.

Sentencing for the 70-year-old former pastor of Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic Church in Central City is scheduled for Feb. 2.

Passarello said he doesn’t know what the four remaining charges will mean in terms of time behind bars. He will know more when a presentence report is completed.

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UNITED STATES
World Socialist Web Site

By Joanne Laurier
3 November 2015

Directed by Tom McCarthy; screenplay by McCarthy and Josh Singer

Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight is a taut, quasi-political thriller that chronicles the Boston Globe’s landmark 2002 exposure of widespread child sexual abuse by Catholic priests in the Boston area.

The ‘Spotlight’ in the title refers to the newspaper’s four-person investigative unit that brought to light the long-term, systematic cover-up by Church officials of the abuse carried out by more than 70 local clergy. The Globe, having been recently acquired by the New York Times, won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for the story.

In McCarthy’s movie, the Spotlight team consists of its blunt editor Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton), reporters Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) and Michael Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), and researcher Matt Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James).

Spotlight opens with a brief sequence in which Father John Geoghan, a serial pedophile whose history of abuse was a factor in triggering the investigation, is walking out of a Boston police station a free man. (In his 30-year career, Geoghan molested at least 130 children.) The Globe’s new editor-in-chief Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber)—non-Bostonian and non-Catholic—pushes the Spotlight team to start looking into sexual abuse by priests.

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MINNESOTA
KDAL

Dave Strandberg

HIBBING, MN (MNN) – A Minnesota district judge has refused to drop felony charges against a Catholic priest from Hibbing who’s accused of sexually abusing girls. Sixth District Judge David Ackerson says the state has enough evidence to send the case of 30-year-old Brian Lederer to a trial. He’s charged with seven counts of sexual assault and child pornography possession. Not-guilty pleas have been entered in the case, and a pre-trial conference is set for December 24th. Investigators accuse Lederer of touching breasts and sexual organs of girls age-10-to-14 over their clothes.

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CANADA
Windsor Star

TREVOR WILHELM, WINDSOR STAR

At age 43 — with hundreds of thousands in retirement savings — Rev. Robert Couture was already talking about being able to retire comfortably.

“I was moving in that direction,” Couture, 53, testified Wednesday in his criminal trial.

The former pastor of Tecumseh’s Ste. Anne Parish spent Day 8 of his trial on the witness stand Wednesday taking questions from his lawyer and the prosecutor.

Couture is charged with theft over $5,000. He is accused of stealing between $170,000 and $234,000 from 2002 to 2010.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

By NICOLE LOW FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

A man haunted by the sexual and physical abuse he allegedly suffered at the hands of his adoptive father at a home for Aboriginal children in the 1960s has spoken out for the first time.

John Gordon was 10-years-old when he was adopted by Donald Henderson and his wife at Retta Dixon Home in Darwin, the ABC reports.

From 1964 to 1975, the Hendersons worked at the government-funded, religious home in Darwin where Mr Gordon had lived since he was removed from his family as a baby as part of the Stolen Generation period.

Mr Gordon told the ABC he felt ‘special’ and ‘chosen’ when they decided to adopt him but his Mr Henderson turned his life into a nightmare by allegedly molesting and beating him.

‘I remember when he used to give me beatings. It wasn’t just a slap on the ass… he’d flog me that hard I’d wet myself,’ he said.

‘I still have dreams about it. The last time I had dreams like that I woke up the whole house screaming.’

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