ABUSE TRACKER

ILLINOIS
Chicago Tribune

David Pollard
Pioneer Press

A Guerin Prep High School administrator has been arrested for allegations of inappropriate sexual contact with a student off campus.

The 34-year-old assistant principal at the River Grove high school was arrested Wednesday by members of the Chicago Police Department’s Special Investigations Unit on accusations of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, according to a Chicago Police Department spokeswoman.

Charges had not been filed as of Thursday afternoon, the spokeswoman said.

The man allegedly had inappropriate contact with a 17-year-old Guerin Prep student on Sept. 20 in the 2600 block of North Sayre Avenue in Chicago’s Galewood neighborhood, according to police.

While working at Guerin, the assistant principal was also the musical director at St. William Catholic Church, located at 2600 N. Sayre Ave., the block where the alleged incident took place.

The Archdiocese of Chicago acknowledged the arrest in an emailed statement.

“The Archdiocese of Chicago is aware of the situation and can confirm that the situation was properly reported to [the Department of Children and Family Services],” the statement said. “We are monitoring the situation and will continue to cooperate with the civil authorities.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – PM

TIM PALMER: The former head of one of Australia’s most elite schools has spent hours in the witness box at the royal commission into child sex abuse.

Robert Bugg was campus headmaster of Geelong Grammar, investigated for its response to several abuse allegations.

Previous witnesses gave evidence that Mr Bugg contributed to expelling a student who make allegations of abuse.

Today Mr Bugg denied that, saying if he’d been told at the time he would have acted.

Tom Nightingale reports.

TOM NIGHTINGALE: Robert Bugg was the master of Geelong Grammar’s Highton campus at a time when one staff member was committing devastating abuse.

Boarding house staffer Philippe Trutmann admitted to abusing 40 students over a decade ending in 1995.

Robert Bugg was questioned extensively about Trutmann today, and consistently denied knowing anything was wrong.

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CANADA
Global News

IQALUIT, Nunavut – A defrocked Arctic priest in prison for dozens of sex offences against Inuit children is appealing.

The news came out in a Nunavut court in Iqaluit on Thursday as Eric Dejaeger was sentenced for more child sex assaults in Alberta.

The former Oblate was given five-year sentences for acts committed against three children between the ages of six and nine in Edmonton and Grande Cache in the 1970s.

One of the victims, then a nine-year-old altar boy, was assaulted over four years. The other two were a brother and sister, eight and six, who were assaulted over a three-year period.

In victim impact statements, the brother told court he has become aggressive and has trouble controlling his impulses. His sister said she has suffered from substance abuse and depression.

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MISSOURI
Berger’s Beat

LAST YEAR, HE WAS RIDICULED FROM COAST-TO-COAST FOR repeatedly saying he “couldn’t recall” when he learned that child sexual abuse was a crime. Now, he’s running for a leadership post in the U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops. Our town’s Archbishop Robert Carlson is campaigning for the chairmanship of the USCCB’s Catholic Education Committee. Carlson was deposed in the case against Fr. Joseph Ross, who worked in Richmond Heights, Woodson Terrace, Pacific, U. City and elsewhere. The election is next month in Baltimore. Carlson’s opponent is the bishop of Youngstown, Ohio, says noted Catholic blogger Rocco Palmo. …

PRIESTS’ PENSIONS

October 21, 2015

Some funding levels for pensions of priests have fallen below 65 percent. The St. Louis Archdiocese now requires parishes to contribute to the retirement of their priests. Archdiocese CFO Robert Bouche tells Reuters: “Aggressive steps have been taken in recent years to increase funding levels.”

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UNITED STATES
Vanity Fair

BY RICHARD LAWSON

Sure, it’s only October, but that’s no reason why we can’t get the awards season rolling with the first awards nominations of the year. The Gotham Awards, which highlight the best independent films of the year (along with the actors, writers, and directors who made them happen), announced its 2015 nominations this morning, so let’s see if we can glean anything about the Oscar season from these first, very early tea leaves.

The big takeaway is probably that the Gothams took special care to invent an award for the ensemble cast of Spotlight, Tom McCarthy’s journalism procedural, which took the Toronto Film Festival by storm in September. Could this be an early indicator that Spotlight is, as we’ve intimated on these pages, the current front-runner for a best-picture Academy Award? I think so! Of course, there are still some unseen movies lurking on the horizon—Joy, The Hateful Eight, The Revenant—that could spoil it for Spotlight, but right now it’s the film to beat.

Elsewhere, Carol had a strong showing, nominated for best feature, best screenplay, and best actress. Cate Blanchett was the performer singled out here, which might further dilute her co-star Rooney Mara’s awards chances, even though Mara won the best actress prize at Cannes. Though, she’ll likely be run in supporting for the big dance, so this snub might not actually mean anything bad for her. Either way, the nominations are a good, important bump for the film, which has been received rapturously by critics at festivals, but has to sustain that buzz until it’s released next month, and beyond.

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CHILE
Publimetro

[A move in underway in Chile to have Pope Francis questioned as part of the civil law suit against priest Fernando Karadima. The request document after being drafted will be sent to the Supreme Court which will in turn forward it to the Chilean Foreign Ministry and ultimately will be sent to the Vatican. This action comes after publication of a video recorded by an Argentine citizen at the Vatican where the pope told Chilean Catholics that people in Osorno were stupid and led by “lefties” in their opposition to appointment of Bishop Juan Barros to the Osorno diocese.]

El documento, tras ser redactado, deberá ser enviado a la Corte Suprema, quien a su vez lo remitirá al ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores para comenzar su viaje a El Vaticano.

El ministro de fuero Juan Manuel Muñoz, que lleva adelante la demanda civil interpuesta por tres víctimas del sacerdote Fernando Karadima contra la Iglesia Católica chilena, dio luz verde para preparar un exhorto con la finalidad que sea respondido por el papa Francisco.

La acción se da tras la publicación de un video grabado por un ciudadano argentino en El Vaticano, donde el sumo pontífice relató a fieles chilenos que la gente de Osorno era “tonta” por creer acusaciones de “zurdos”, las cuales entregarían algún grado de responsabilidad al obispo de esa ciudad -Juan Barros- para encubrir las acciones del ex párroco de la iglesia El Bosque.

Los denunciantes de Karadina, James Hamilton, Juan Carlos Cruz y José Andrés Murillo, buscan obtener una indemnización superior a los 400 millones de pesos ya que, según su versión, la jerarquía de la iglesia criolla omitió y tuvo una actitud negligente al momento de conocer estas acusaciones.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The JC

By Simon Rocker, October 22, 2015

For some of the boarders at the exclusive Carmel College, a Saturday night treat was in store. A select group of half a dozen or so young boys would be invited up to watch Match of the Day in the flat of one of their teachers Trevor Bolton, who would give them fizzy drinks and crisps.

Bolton had arrived when he was 31 at the Jewish school, secluded in a pleasant rural campus outside Oxford, to teach French in 1968. He became master of the junior boarding house, looking after boys from 10 to 13 or 14.

When some of the boys became homesick or bullied, he would offer them comfort and a reassuring hug.

One former pupil recalled being “taken under his wing” when he was unhappy; the boy felt out of place at an institution where other pupils arrived in a chauffeur-driven Rolls while he came from modest circumstances.

Another pupil who also found life as boarder difficult said the teacher wanted to be a “second father”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The JC

By Josh Jackman, October 22, 2015

Former Carmel College Trevor Bolton has been found guilty of all 25 counts of sexual assaulting students at a Jewish boarding school.

The jury at Oxford Crown Court returned a majority guilty verdict on four remaining counts on Thursday, having already convicted Bolton on 21 counts of abusing boys aged 11 to 15 at the Oxfordshire school College over a 20-year period.

The abuse, committed between 1968 and 1988, included 16 counts of indecent assault on a male person, six counts of indecency with a child and three other serious sexual offences.

Bolton was remanded in custody, with sentencing expected on Friday.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Borehamwood & Elstree Times

Jyoti Rambhai, Reporter / Friday 4 September 2015

THE co-founder of an American-style children’s camp in Bushey has been arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to cause cruelty to children.

Tal Landsman was one of the directors of LL Camps, based at St Margaret’s School in Merry Hill Road. He has been charged with conspiracy to cause cruelty to a child and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

The 25-year-old, of Admiral Drive, Stevenage, was arrested on Thursday, August 27, along with two others in an operation led by detectives at Hertfordshire Constabulary’s specialist joint child protection investigation unit.

Larry Lewis, 55, of Lullington Garth, Borehamwood, has been charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Borehamwood & Elstree Times

Jyoti Rambhai, Reporter Thursday 22 October 2015

The director of an American-style children’s camp in Bushey faces further charges relating to taking indecent photographs of a child.

Ben Lewis, of Lullington Garth, Borehamwood, who ran LL Camps, has been charged with two counts of taking an indecent photograph of a child in Hertfordshire on or before May 6, 2015.

He has also been charged with making indecent photographs of a child in Hertfordshire on or before May 6, 2015 and attempting to observe another person doing a private act without consent for sexual gratification in Hertfordshire, on or between January 1, 2012 and December 31, 2012.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

Victims of institutional abuse in Northern Ireland should be compensated now, say campaigners.
It is three years since the Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry was set up to consider allegations dating back to 1922.

Such is the scale of its task, however, that its final report is not expected until next year at the earliest.

With the inquiry examining cases stretching back over decades, many of those affected are now elderly.

Some abuse victims have died without receiving any compensation or form of recognition.

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CANADA
CBC News

Former Catholic priest Eric Dejaeger was sentenced in Iqaluit today to five years in prison for sex offences stemming from the mid-1970s when he was studying in Edmonton.

Dejaeger had pleaded guilty in September to two counts of gross indecency, one count of indecent assault on a female, and one count of indecent assault on a male. The crimes were committed when the former priest was studying at the Newman Theological College in Edmonton.

He had previously applied to have the charges heard in a Nunavut courtroom rather than in Alberta.

In February, Dejaeger was sentenced to 19 years in prison for sexually abusing children in Igloolik, Nunavut, more than 30 years ago. He was convicted of 32 sex crimes ranging from indecent assault to bestiality, dating back to his time as a priest in the community.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Herald (UK)

Pope Francis has announced the creation of a new Vatican department for laity, family and life.

He made the announcement at this evening’s session of the family synod in Rome.

The new dicastery was proposed by the Council of Cardinals, the Pope’s closest cardinal-advisers.

It is currently unclear if the new department will be called a council or a congregation. It is also not know who will lead it.

The statutes of the new body are expected to be released in December.

According to a Vatican statement, the Holy Father told the synod fathers: “I have decided to establish a new dicastery with competency for laity, family and life, that will replace the Pontifical Council for the Laity and the Pontifical Council for the Family. The Pontifical Academy for Life will be joined to the new dicastery.

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PERU
Telesur TV

The head of the wealthy and powerful Catholic organization called Solidatium is involved in cases of child rape and other physical and sexual abuses.

Journalist and author Pedro Salinas gave a press conference in Lima, the Peruvian capital, to speak of the impact his recent publication is having.

The book is titled “Half Monks, Half Soldiers” and in it Salinas documents the abuses by the Catholic cult called Sodalitium Christianae Vitae.

The publication has stirred up the organization and many sectors of the Peruvian society. Among a series of violations, the book shows five cases of child sexual abuse by leaders of the organization, including repeated rapes by the founder Luis Fernando Figari, who founded Sodalitium in Lima in 1971, and it acquired its canonical recognition from Pope John Paul II in 1977.

According to their website, Sodalitium is a “society of Apostolic Life made up of laymen and priests who live in community as brothers, and have fully given their lives to God, proclaiming the Gospel in the diverse circumstances of human life” and make commitments of “obedience and celibacy.” It operates in seven Latin American countries, the United States and Italy.

This content was originally published by teleSUR at the following address:
“http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Peru-New-Cases-of-Child-Abuse-by-Catholics-Documented-20151021-0044.html”. If you intend to use it, please cite the source and provide a link to the original article. www.teleSURtv.net/english

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OSTERRICH
Wiener Zeitung

Von Matthias Greuling

Vor rund zehn Jahren, da war die Welt der schreibenden Zunft noch in Ordnung. Da leistete sich ein Blatt wie der renommierte “Boston Globe” eigene Recherche-Teams, die oft monatelang hinter einem Skandal herrecherchierten, ohne auch nur ein einziges Wort darüber zu publizieren. Wenn am Ende dann die Bombe platzte, wurde schnell klar, wieso man solche Medien als “renommiert” bezeichnete: Weil sie die Kernaufgaben einer freien Presse nicht nur wahrnahmen, sondern regelrecht zelebrierten. Im Zeitalter der Blogger-Invasion und oberflächlichen Ja-Sager-Journaille sind solch edle Tugenden rar, weil unwirtschaftlich geworden.

Das befand auch Regisseur Tom McCarthy, der für “Spotlight” anhand eines handfesten Skandals die Tugenden des aufrechten Journalismus durchdekliniert. Es geht um den sexuellen Missbrauch von Kindern durch katholische Geistliche, den der “Globe” 2001 aufdeckte und der den Bostoner Kardinal Bernard Francis Law schließlich den Job kostete. Das spannend inszenierte Drama mit Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams und Mark Ruffalo zeigt die beschwerliche Handarbeit, die Aufdeckerjournalisten leisten müssen, um hinter die Fassaden zu blicken.

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ROME
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor October 22, 2015

ROME — A Synod of Bishops at the Vatican is always a sprawling, multi-headed creature, and that’s certainly been true of the 2015 edition devoted to issues facing the family.

There have been hundreds of speeches, three sets of reports from 13 small working groups, daily press briefings, more media interviews than anyone can possibly track, not to mention a daily avalanche of commentary from a staggering variety of voices.

On Saturday, the synod is expected to adopt a final document. It likely will be a long, complex text, and on some contested points, its language may be intentionally vague in order to attract consensus.

Given all that, in some ways it’s misleading to talk about “the” Synod of Bishops, singular. In terms of perceptions, there are actually several different synods, plural, depending on who’s trying to describe it and what agenda they bring.

As the end nears, three competing narratives seem to be floating around both inside and outside the synod hall. In shorthand fashion, they are:

* The “Everything’s Fine” narrative: This view holds that impressions of clash and rivalries have been exaggerated, that differences in the synod haven’t meant division, and that the bishops are united on a wide range of matters.

* The “Rigged Synod” narrative: This storyline holds that from the beginning, the people in charge of the synod have been pushing a progressive line, and that conservatives have had to fight back to try to level the playing field.

* The “Don’t Like the Pope” narrative: This way of framing the situation posits that concerns about the synod process are artificial, that the event is actually remarkably free and open, so such complaints are really a proxy for opposition to Pope Francis.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Mari Flor L. Herrero October 22, 2015

This Aug. 16 , his excellency Archbishop Anthony Sablan Apuron celebrated the 43th anniversary of his ordination as a capuchin priest.

He was installed as the metropolitan archbishop of the Archdiocese of Agana on May 11, 1986. That is, he has been the spiritual shepherd of the Catholic Church in Guam for the last 29 years — no small feat!

It is obviously clear that when one is at the top of any organization, he/she is also the center of public scrutiny. No matter what you do, it will be scrutinized, and rightly so. There will always be someone who will find faults and shortcomings in every decision and circumstance. However, it will be the results of the decisions taken and the overall effect on the present and future of our Catholic Church in Guam that will eventually render a clear and fair judgment of our archbishop.

As for me, anyone in his right senses should acclaim and applaud Archbishop Apuron for his vision and foresight; actually he should be held in high esteem.

I still remember very vividly when I first came to Guam in the late ’70s and there were four Augustinian priests from Spain in various parishes of Guam. That made it very easy for me to attend Mass because I felt at home; I could understand what the priests were saying. That is not to say that everyone did, though; the language barrier was always there, but with a little bit of good will and lots of faith, all barriers can be conquered.

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ROME
Telegraph (UK)

By Nick Squires, Rome 22 Oct 2015

The Vatican alleged on Thursday that Pope Francis was the victim of an internal plot to undermine his authority after a false story was leaked to the Italian press claiming that he was suffering from a brain tumour.

The front-page story was published by Quotidiano Nazionale, an Italian daily, on Wednesday, but was indignantly denied by Vatican spokesmen.

It took to new heights the atmosphere of skulduggery and Machiavellian intrigue that swirls around the Holy See at the best of times.

Cardinals and others within the Catholic Church hierarchy suggested that the unfounded story about the tumour was an attempt by “enemies” of the 78-year-old Pope to discredit him and to suggest that his judgment was impaired.

They said the timing of the leak was deeply suspicious – it came just days before the conclusion of the Synod, a three-week meeting of 270 bishops and cardinals at the Vatican which has been discussing delicate issues such as divorce and the Church’s attitude towards homosexuality.

The bishops are due to present their final report to the pontiff on Saturday.

In a forthright notice, L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s own newspaper, called the story about the tumour “false” and “unfounded”.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Butler Eagle

EAST BRADY, Clarion County — A former youth pastor at an East Brady church is accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl in his charge.

New Bethlehem police on Monday arrested David T. Pesci, 24, of East Brady, alleging he kissed and fondled the teen, a member of his youth group at the East Brady First Baptist Church, on three occasions beginning last year.

District Judge Jeffrey Miller arraigned Pesci on three felony counts each of sexual assault by a volunteer or employee of a nonprofit organization and corruption of minors. He remains free on $10,000 bail.

In an e-mail statement this morning, the church said that Pesci resigned as youth pastor July 5.

At a church sleepover in early 2014, the teen recounted, Pesci kissed her in his home, which is the church parsonage.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WPXI

EAST BRADY, Pa. — A former youth pastor is accused of sexually assaulting a teenage girl who was a member of a church youth group.

David Pesci, 24, was the youth pastor at East Brady Baptist Church until he resigned in July.

Police told Channel 11’s Jennifer Tomazic the allegations came to light when they received an anonymous tip about inappropriate activity during youth group sleepovers at the pastor’s home.

The alleged victim, who is now 16 years old, told investigators the relationship began last November when she went to Pesci for advice. She was 15-years-old at the time.

According to the criminal complaint, the girl told police, “She was in the basement and went to a separate couch to go to sleep and Pesci then came over to her and kissed her.”

The paperwork goes on to say, “The kissing continued…she could recall Pesci kissing her on two separate occasions in the church, near the pulpit.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
CBS Pittsburgh

October 22, 2015 By Lisa Washington

EAST BRADY (KDKA)- A local youth pastor has been arrested for allegedly having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl.

East Brady First Baptist Church youth pastor David Pesci has been charged with sexual assault and corruption of minors.

New Bethlehem Police say the relationship started when the girl began attending a youth group at the church when she was in ninth grade. She said that Pesci, 24, was her youth pastor.

According to the complaint, the teen went on to say that the two of them began texting and messaging on Facebook less than a year ago. She said she had a fight with her best friend and was looking for advice from Pesci.

Over the months, the 16-year-old said she became very close with him and would regularly spend the night at Pesci’s home, the church parsonage along with other youth group members and Pesci’s wife.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Chichester Observer

BISHOP LUFFA school will be urged to change the name of one of its houses by a charity supporting victims of rape and sexual abuse.

Maggie Ellis, director of Chichester-based charity Lifecentre said she would ask the school to change the name of ‘Bell’ house and would also be asking Chichester Cathedral to rename George Bell House, a former archdeaconry now used as a venue for away-days, meetings, quiet days, residential weekends, and conferences for up to 40 people.

The Diocese of Chichester has today apologised to a victim of the former Bishop of Chichester George Bell, who was abused as a child in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

“As a charity supporting survivors of rape and sexual abuse, we shall be writing to Bishop Luffa school to urge them to no longer name one of their ‘houses’ after Bishop Bell,” said Mrs Ellis.

“It is now clearly entirely wrong to have such a bishop held up as a person to be honoured by the school and as a figure head for children.

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ITALY
The Local

After a choppy few weeks for Pope Francis, a strongly denied report that he has a brain tumour has sent Vatican and Italian conspiracy theorists into overdrive.

“The timing chosen reveals the manipulative intention of throwing up a cloud of dust,” the Vatican’s Osservatore Romano claimed in its first edition after another newspaper, Quotidiano Nazionale, published its “scoop” about the pontiff’s health.

Italian media on Thursday largely concurred with the Vatican’s description of the story as baseless and commentators were quick to air their suspicions of a plot to undermine Francis’s authority in the run-up to this weekend’s conclusion of a synod on family that has divided the Church along progressive/conservative lines.

Massimo Franco, an editorialist for Corriere della Sera, said the episode should be seen in the context of a number of embarrassing, controversial or scandalous incidents Francis and his staff have had to react to recently.

Rather than a conspiracy orchestrated by one person or group, the sequence of events realed “a more heterogenous and diffuse malaise,” Franco wrote.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Herald (UK)

The group provided detailed suggestions for divorced and civilly remarried Catholics who want to receive the sacraments

When presenting its third synod report, the German-language group has said its members felt called to admit that “in an ill-conceived attempt to respect the doctrine of the Church, repeatedly we have had harsh and merciless pastoral attitudes that created suffering, especially for unwed mothers and child born out of wedlock,” cohabiting couples, homosexual persons and those who are divorced and civilly remarried.

“As bishops in our Church, we ask forgiveness,” said the report approved by the group’s members, who include Cardinal Gerhard Muller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Cardinal Walter Kasper, a theologian and former president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

The German-speaking group also provided detailed suggestions for responding to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics who want to receive the sacraments but, members said, “the discussions demonstrated that there are no simple and general solutions.”

They cited St John Paul II’s statement in the 1981 exhortation Familiaris Consortio, that pastors “must know that, for the sake of truth, they are obliged to exercise careful discernment of situations. There is in fact a difference between those who have sincerely tried to save their first marriage and have been unjustly abandoned, and those who through their own grave fault have destroyed a canonically valid marriage. Finally, there are those who have entered into a second union for the sake of the children’s upbringing, and who are sometimes subjectively certain in conscience that their previous and irreparably destroyed marriage had never been valid.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A victim who was sexually abused as a young child by a former Bishop of Chichester who died in the 1950s has received compensation from the Church.

Allegations against the Rt Rev George Bell were first made by the victim in 1995 but were not investigated or referred to the police.

Bell was Bishop of Chichester from 1929 until his death in October 1958.

Current Bishop Dr Martin Warner issued a formal apology after the Diocese of Chichester settled the civil claim.

‘Remains bitter’

He paid tribute to the victim’s courage in coming forward to report the abuse.

“I am committed to ensuring that the past is handled with honesty and transparency,” he said.

The allegations of sexual offences against Bell date from the late 1940s and early 1950s and concern an individual who was at the time a young child.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Harriet Sherwood Religion correspondent
@harrietsherwood
Thursday 22 October 2015

The Church of England has issued a formal apology for sexual abuse committed by one of its most senior figures after settling a civil claim brought against George Bell, the late bishop of Chichester, who died 57 years ago.

The bishop abused a young child, whose identity and gender has not been disclosed, in the 1940s and 50s. The survivor first came forward 20 years ago, but the matter was not investigated or referred to police at the time.

Bell, who sat in the House of Lords, was once tipped as a possible archbishop of Canterbury, although his opposition to the bombing of German civilians by the RAF during the second world war was thought to have counted against him.

The church settled the claim at the end of September and on Thursday released a letter from the serving bishop of Chichester, Martin Warner, to the survivor expressing “deep sorrow” and apologising for a “devastating betrayal of trust”.

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VATICAN CITY
Washington Post

By Anthony Faiola October 22

VATICAN CITY — At one point during a major summit of the Roman Catholic hierarchy that ends this weekend, a senior conservative bishop took the floor inside the Vatican’s assembly hall and promptly charged his liberal peers with doing the devil’s work.

The three-week gathering, known as a synod, has erupted into a theological slugfest over Pope Francis’s vision for a more inclusive church, displaying the most bitter and public infighting since the heady days of Catholic reform in the 1960s.

Archbishop Tomash Peta of Kazakhstan captured the intensity of the divide, raising eyebrows — and even a few incredulous laughs — as he decried some of the policy changes being floated at the synod as having the scent of “infernal smoke.”

It was just another day at a synod that — more than any single event since Francis began his papacy in 2013 — has highlighted the extent his outreach to once-scorned Catholics has triggered a tug-of-war for the soul of the Catholic Church. More important, it underscored just how hard it may be for Francis to recast the church he serves in his image.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Chichester Obsever

A sex abuse victim of former Bishop of Chichester George Bell remains ‘bitter’ an earlier complaint was not followed up, according to a solicitor.

The Bishop of Chichester in 1995 Eric Kemp was told of the allegations but did not refer it to police, according to the victim’s solicitor Tracey Emmott.

“The new culture of openness in the Church of England is genuinely refreshing and seems to represent a proper recognition of the dark secrets of its past, many of which may still not have come to light,” she said.

“While my client is glad this case is over, they remain bitter that their 1995 complaint was not properly listened to or dealt with until my client made contact with Archbishop Justin Welby’s office in 2013.

“That failure to respond properly was very damaging, and combined with the abuse that was suffered has had a profound effect on my client’s life.

“For my client, the compensation finally received does not change anything. How could any amount of money possibly compensate for childhood abuse?

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POLAND
Yahoo! News

Warsaw (AFP) – A Polish bishop on Wednesday defrocked a high-ranking Catholic priest fired by a furious Vatican earlier this month after he came out as gay on the eve of a key synod on the family.

Bishop Ryszard Kasyna has decided that Krzystof Charamsa should no longer be able to celebrate mass, administer sacraments like communion and baptism or wear a cassock, according to a statement on the website of their northern Pelplin diocese.

Charamsa had held a senior position working for the Vatican office for protecting Catholic dogma, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The 43-year-old priest sparked outrage at the Vatican on October 3 by publicly declaring his homosexuality — and presenting his Catalan boyfriend Eduardo — on the eve of a bishops’ synod set to touch on the divisive issue of the Catholic Church’s relationship to gay believers.

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ITALY
Breitbart

A progressive Sicilian Catholic priest who took a commendable interest in the welfare of young African migrant boys is facing a significant jail sentence for extorting sex from them in return for residency permits.

Monsignor Don Sergio Librizzi, who sat on the local committee handling asylum claims to Italy and who was involved in a number of local charities and initiatives promoting the welfare of young boys was arrested last year and admitted his guilt, allowing him to be released from prison, reports La Repubblica. Although he is now under house arrest and wears an electronic tag, Sicily prosecutors are now seeking a 10-year custodial prison sentence for his having sex with young illegal migrants, reports TheLocal.it.

The charges against Msgr. Librizzi include sexual extortion and sexual violence, relating to his treatment of young migrants under his care as a manager of immigration centres, a member of the committee processing their applications, and an organiser of charities providing food, work, and training to young migrant men and boys. It is alleged he gave the boys money and political refuge papers in return for sexual favours.

La Repubblica reported in June that the priest had also been accused of abusing seminarians under his care in the 1990s. The youths allegedly involved were then aged between 14 and 16 years old, but decided to come forward to report the assaults as adults after his arrest. Msgr. Librizzi is also under investigation for mismanagement of charities.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Madeleine Baran Oct 21, 2015

Attorney Jeff Anderson asked jurors in Ramsey County Wednesday to award $11.7 million to a man who says he was sexually abused by a priest in the Diocese of Duluth when he was a teenager in the late 1970s.

The case is the first clergy sex abuse lawsuit to be argued in front of a jury in Minnesota since state lawmakers passed the Child Victims Act in 2013, according to available court records. The law opened a three-year window for people to file lawsuits for older incidents of abuse.

For decades, most clergy sex abuse cases in Minnesota had been settled privately or were tossed out of court. Earlier this year, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis prevented hundreds of cases from going to trial when it filed for bankruptcy.

Anderson has represented thousands of victims of clergy sex abuse across the country, but his cases are rarely decided by a jury. Two of his cases that went before juries in Minnesota attracted national attention — one in 1990, the other in 1996.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Brighton and Hove News

By : Frank le Duc

A payout has been agreed to the victim of child sexual abuse at the hands of a man tipped to become Archbishop of Canterbury.

The Church of England settled the case relating the former Bishop of Chichester George Bell 20 years after the victim first complained.

The news comes just two weeks after another Bishop from the diocese – former Bishop of Lewes Peter Ball – was jailed for sexually abusing boys and young men.

The diocese covers Brighton and Hove and has its administrative offices in New Church Road, Hove.

The current Bishop of Chichester Martin Warner has written to Bishop Bell’s victim to express his “deep sorrow” in a formal apology sent after the church agreed an out of court settlement.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

By John Bingham, Religious Affairs Editor
22 Oct 2015

A former Church of England bishop revered as a peacemaker – and granted the closest thing Anglicanism has to a saint’s days – was a paedophile, the Church has acknowledged.

George Bell, who was bishop of Chichester for 30 years until his death in 1958, sexually assaulted a young boy, who is still alive, in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

The Church of England has issued a formal apology to the victim, who wishes to remain anonymous, and settled a legal claim for compensation.

The man first came forward in 1995 but his complaint was effectively ignored by the then Bishop of Chichester, Eric Kemp, who died in 2009.

It was not until he contacted the office of the current Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev Justin Welby, two years ago that the allegations were finally investigated properly.

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VATICAN CITY
The New York Times

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN and ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
OCT. 21, 2015

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis had encouraged bishops from more than 120 countries to speak freely when they gathered at the Vatican nearly three weeks ago for a broad discussion of family matters to guide the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics. And speak freely, they have.

The result has been the most momentous, and contentious, meeting of bishops in the 50 years since the Second Vatican Council, which brought the church into the modern era. The meeting has exposed deep fault lines between traditionalists focused on shoring up doctrine, and those who want the church to be more open to Catholics who are divorced, gay, single parents or cohabiting.

As the bishops face a deadline Saturday to present their report to the pope, it is increasingly clear that Francis is struggling to build consensus for his vision of a more inclusive and decentralized church. The question is whether the pope, who has won the hearts of those in the pews, can persuade the bishops to help create a church that fully welcomes people with the kinds of family situations it now condemns.

“This is a pivotal moment of this pontificate,” said Roberto Rusconi, who teaches the history of Christianity at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, a state school. Pope Francis is sounding out the world’s bishops “to better understand whether they are going to follow his line or not.”

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NEW YORK
Times Newsweekly

BY AUXILIARY BISHOP PAUL R. SANCHEZ

In reference to her Oct. 1 op-ed in The Queens Courier and Ridgewood Times, I agree with Assemblywoman Margaret Markey that our state and nation must do everything we can to eliminate child sex abuse and bring those accountable for such crimes to justice. Where Markey and the Catholic Church part ways is in her methodology.

To be clear, Assemblywoman Markey is not proposing changes to the criminal statute to allow offenders to be brought to trail and imprisoned. Indeed, the church has supported changes that would extend the period of statute of limitations for just such a purpose. Moreover, the church has supported extending the statute of limitations in a reasonable way so that both individuals and institutions might be civilly liable.

What we do not support is a half measure that fails to protect all our children and only seeks “justice” for some. Due to the extra protections given to public institutions in existing law, Assemblywoman Markey’s bill would not offer the same opportunities to bring time-barred lawsuits against public schools and municipalities as it would for the Catholic Church and other private institutions.

In the last decade, the Catholic Church, not unlike other institutions both public and private, has become painfully aware of our past failures to protect children. Today, no institution private or public is more diligent in the protection of young people and transparent when crimes and misconduct occur.

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NEW MEXICO
New Mexico Survivors of Catholic Priest Abuse

Why was I ‘chosen’ to be abused? This is the first question I wanted answered. The fact is that I was not chosen for whom I was, but for the opportunity, I presented. This perpetrator did not go to find me on the street or break into my house, but unfortunately, due to my Catholic upbringing and the trust it fostered in me for all things Catholic, I delivered myself to his literal doorstep. In most priest-abuse cases, there is a proper and trusting relationship that develops before the abuse. In my case, I made contact with my abuser because I was eager to learn about the priesthood, since it was vocation that I was seriously considering. He did not abuse me the first or second time we met. It took a number of interactions where I now realize that he was grooming me for that ‘perfect’ opportunity. He leveraged the fact that I had spent a significant portion of my childhood listening to him every Sunday morning delivering mass on the radio and that I believed he was a priest that represented the values that I believed were universally Catholic and had been instilled in me through my weekly attendance of mass in the various parishes of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe I had belonged to.

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VATICAN CITY
Japan Today

By NICOLE WINFIELD and DANIELA PETROFF
Associated Press

OCT. 22, 2015

VATICAN CITY —
A Japanese brain cancer specialist identified in an Italian news report as having diagnosed a brain tumor in Pope Francis has denied ever examining the pontiff and says the reports are “completely false.”

Dr Takanori Fukushima, director of the Carolina Neuroscience Institute in Raleigh, North Carolina, issued a statement Wednesday through Duke University.

He said: “I have never medically examined the pope. These stories are completely false.”

Citing unnamed sources, the Italian news outlet National Daily said Fukushima had examined the pope and determined that the small dark spot on Francis’ brain was a tumor that could be treated without surgery.

The Vatican denied the reports Wednesday.

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CALIFORNIA
KPCC

Statutes of limitations set limits on how long a person has after an event to take legal action pertaining to that event.

The idea is to protect the defendants from being accused for long periods of time and to encourage plaintiffs to be diligent about pursuing legal action. But where is the line between protecting defendants from being accused of a crime for years and protecting defendants from ever seeing the inside of a courtroom.

Joelle Casteix argues these laws are more likely to do the latter in a recent L.A. Times op-ed titled “Don’t let time shield sex predators.” Casteix was a victim of sexual abuse in her teens and says while she was able to prosecute the person who assaulted her, many other victims aren’t so fortunate. She says California’s sex crimes laws are “abysmally complicated” and that the deadlines for victims to come forward are “arbitrary — and downright confusing.”

How do you feel about statutes of limitations as they pertain to sex crimes? Would you support a reform of state statutes of limitations on certain crimes? When is a statute of limitations appropriate and when is it not?

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – The World Today

ELEANOR HALL: One of Australia’s most prestigious schools is back in the spotlight today over allegations it covered up sexual abuse at the school for decades.

A former headmaster at the Geelong Grammar School’s Highton Campus has taken the stand at the Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse.

Jessica Longbottom has been following the proceedings and she joins us now.

Jessica, former students who’ve alleged they were harmed have been waiting on the evidence of this former headmaster. What are the key allegations against him?

JESSICA LONGBOTTOM: Well Eleanor, at previous hearings we’ve heard that abuse flourished at Geelong Grammar in the 80s and 90s when at least two paedophiles were operating at the school.

And it was when Robert Bugg, who was the headmaster of the school’s Highton campus from 1981 to 1993, when he was in charge it was when one of the worst paedophiles was operating.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Nick McLaren

An organisation supporting victims of child sex abuse has called for a full investigation into an alleged incident involving abuse of a primary schoolboy by a Wollongong priest in the 1980’s.

The claims against the priest, who is now an academic at the University of Wollongong, were aired as part of a court case into another Wollongong Catholic priest and former teacher, Father Patrick Kervin.

The allegation was aired in Albion Park local court on October 16, 2015.

The case was previously investigated by the Wollongong Archdiocese of the Catholic Church.

It was also referred to the NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione and the Sex Crimes Squad with no charges laid.

But Nicky Davis from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, says a more thorough investigation is needed.

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ROME
The Irish Catholic

Those affected by abuse need extra special care – expert

Catholics who are too angry, disillusioned or afraid to return to the Church because of clerical sexual abuse need very special care, according to an observer attending the Synod of Bishops.

Maria Harries, a member of Australia’s Truth, Justice, Healing Council said in an interview that abuse by clergy has led to a crisis of faith and a loss of trust in the Church’s moral authority.

Explaining that many people no longer go to Mass, “because of the abuse and we have to work out ways to deal with that,” she said that the shockwaves of abuse and its mishandling can be felt across multiple generations and among extended families and friends.

Asking “how do you address now a community of pain, a community of agony and a community of trauma?” she also pointed out that those hurt by abuse include members of religious congregations who have been accused of doing little or nothing to stop abuse. Such religious who have “always lived good lives and who feel terribly tainted and embarrassed and traumatised by what their brothers have done” are also shattered or disoriented, making them “another set of victims” that needs recognition and a pastoral response, she said.

– See more at: http://www.irishcatholic.ie/article/synod-briefs#sthash.BWRXclYJ.dpuf

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UNITED KINGDOM
Church of England

22 October 2015

The Bishop of Chichester has issued a formal apology following the settlement of a legal civil claim regarding sexual abuse against the Right Reverend George Bell, who was Bishop of Chichester from 1929 until his death on 3rd October 1958.

The allegations against Bell date from the late 1940s and early 1950s and concern allegations of sexual offences against an individual who was at the time a young child.

Following settlement of the claim the serving Bishop of Chichester, the Right Reverend Dr. Martin Warner, wrote to the survivor formally apologising and expressing his “deep sorrow” acknowledging that “the abuse of children is a criminal act and a devastating betrayal of trust that should never occur in any situation, particularly the church.”

Bishop Warner paid tribute to the survivor’s courage in coming forward to report the abuse and notes that “along with my colleagues throughout the church, I am committed to ensuring that the past is handled with honesty and transparency.”

Tracey Emmott, the solicitor for the survivor, today issued the following statement on behalf of her client:

“The new culture of openness in the Church of England is genuinely refreshing and seems to represent a proper recognition of the dark secrets of its past, many of which may still not have come to light. While my client is glad this case is over, they remain bitter that their 1995 complaint was not properly listened to or dealt with until my client made contact with Archbishop Justin Welby’s office in 2013. That failure to respond properly was very damaging, and combined with the abuse that was suffered has had a profound effect on my client’s life. For my client, the compensation finally received does not change anything. How could any amount of money possibly compensate for childhood abuse? However, my client recognises that it represents a token of apology. What mattered to my client most and has brought more closure than anything was the personal letter my client has recently received from the Bishop of Chichester.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Echo

James Johnson, Senior Reporter

A WOMAN broke down in tears in court as she relived the moments she claimed to have been sexually abused by a former Hampshire teacher and church youth leader.

Michael McKenna, 72, is alleged to have indecently assaulted the woman over a period of six years.

Bournemouth Crown Court saw an interview recorded with the alleged victim in which she claimed McKenna abused her hundreds of times from the age of 13.

The former science teacher taught at Applemore Technology College and is accused of carrying out the assaults at his home on Springfield Avenue, Holbury.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Victims abused in church, voluntary and state-run children’s homes in Northern Ireland should be offered interim compensation payments before a long-running inquiry in to the crimes is completed, campaigners have urged.

Many former residents of institutions where abuse was committed are now old and cannot wait until the Historical Abuse Inquiry (HIA) finishes hearing evidence and produces an official report to Stormont, charity Survivors and Victims of Institutional Abuse (SAVIA) warned.

Retired judge Sir Anthony Hart is leading the HIA probe, one of the UK’s largest inquiries into physical, sexual and emotional harm to children at homes run by the church, state and voluntary organisations.

The inquiry was formally established in January 2013 by the Northern Ireland Executive to investigate child abuse which occurred in residential institutions over a 73-year period from 1922 to 1995.

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ARMENIA
Hetq

The Vatican says it will investigate long standing rumors that a Catholic priest serving in the Samtskhe-Javakhk village of Tzghaltbila has sexually abused boys serving in the church.

The priest in question is Reverend Father Anatoly Ivanyuk, who has served as pastor in the Armenian-populated village, where most are Catholic, for the past 25 years.

The boys who allege to have been sexually abused by the priest haven’t raised the issue, either to local police or to the Vatican hierarchy. It’s a traditional and religious community and any such charges of pedophilia and homosexuality wouldn’t be taken seriously for starters. The boys are also fearful of being ridiculed by friends and family. They also are fearful of Father Anatoly.

Hetq has obtained testimony from some of the boys claiming to be sexually molested by the clergyman. They describe, in detail, what Father Anatoly did to them between 2001 and 2007 when serving as church acolytes.

The boys claim that Father Anatoly invited them to bathe in his house and that the incidents took place afterwards. (Naturally, we will not publish the names of these boys.)

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

By Chao Xiong Star Tribune OCTOBER 21, 2015

John Doe 30 grew up in rural Minnesota the youngest of seven. He loved animals. He loved the Catholic Church.

But he didn’t fit in, his attorney Jeff Anderson said Wednesday, and he paid the price.

His brothers and classmates called him derogatory names because they thought he was effeminate.

The boy sought refuge at St. Thomas More parish in Lake Lillian, Minn. There, he met the Rev. James Vincent Fitzgerald, who took the boy, then 15, on a trip across the state in 1978 and sexually assaulted him while working for the Diocese of Duluth, Anderson told jurors.

“The evidence will show that [Doe 30] has lost his ability to trust …,” Anderson said in the opening statements of his civil case against the diocese, the first under the Minnesota Child Victims Act to go to trial. The 2013 law has allowed older claims of child sex abuse previously barred by statutes of limitations to have their day in court.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Anglican Diocese of Chichester

The statement to follow communicates news that has brought us a bewildering mix of deep and disturbing emotions. In touching the legacy and reputation of George Bell, it yields a bitter fruit of great sadness and a sense that we are all diminished by what we are being told.

Our starting point is response to the survivor. We remain committed to listening to all allegations of abuse with an open mind. In this case, the scrutiny of the allegation has been thorough, objective, and undertaken by people who command the respect of all parties. We face with shame a story of abuse of a child; we also know that the burden of not being heard has made the experience so much worse. We apologise for the failures of the past.

The revelation of abuse demands bravery on the part of a survivor, and we respect the courage needed to tell the truth. We also recognise that telling the truth provides a legitimate opportunity for others to come forward, sometimes to identify the same source of abuse.

We also believe that in the Church of England as a whole, and certainly in the diocese of Chichester, we have done all we can to ensure that our safeguarding policies reflect best practice, and are fully and evenly implemented. The statement below speaks of an earlier report of this case, in the 1990’s. There will no doubt be some who allege a cover-up by the Church. We acknowledge that the response then would not be adequate by today’s standards, although that falls far short of a cover-up. In the present context, the diocese of Chichester has worked with Police and other agencies to ensure that we have sought the fullest understanding possible of what happened.

Please hold in your prayers all victims of abuse, especially those who have never been able to seek or receive help and a proper response. Please pray for all who are affected by this news, especially those who are our ecumenical partners, those unable to comprehend its implications, and those whose faith is damaged by it. Please pray for the diocese of Chichester, for each other, lay and ordained, as we seek to remain faithful to our apostolic mission in spite of much that could discourage and deter us.

+Martin

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UNITED KINGDOM
Premier

Thu 22 Oct 2015
By Antony Bushfield

The Church of England has issued a formally apology and said it feels “deep sorrow” for failing to properly deal with allegations of sexual abuse against the former Bishop of Chichester, Rt Revd George Bell.

Accusations that Bell abused a young child between the late 1940s and early 1950s were made in 1995 but the Church has now admitted the response “fell a long way short”.

The survivor told the then Bishop of Chichester, Eric Kemp, about the abuse in August 1995 but he was only offered pastoral support and the allegations were not referred to the police.

The Church said from the information it has, it seems Bishop Kemp did not investigate the matter further.

It was not until the claim was made to Lambeth Palace in 2013 that the survivor was put in touch with the safeguarding team at the Diocese of Chichester who referred the matter to the police and offered personal support and counselling to the survivor.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Chichester Observer

The Bishop of Chichester Martin Warner has today apologised after former diocese bishop George Bell was revealed as a paedophile.

The Right Reverend George Bell died in 1958 and he was Bishop of Chichester from 1929 until his death.

The apology follows the settlement of a legal civil claim regarding sexual abuse.

“The allegations against Bell date from the late 1940s and early 1950s and concern allegations of sexual offences against an individual who was at the time a young child,” said the statement from the diocese.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Wigan Today

A FORMER Wigan vicar has been jailed at the age of 91 for child abuse.

Rev Frank Baldwick is now facing excommunication, having earlier this year been found guilty of two counts of sexual assault against a boy more than 35 years ago.

The frail pensioner, who had denied the attacks at vicarages in both Bolton and Atherton, was sentenced at

Manchester Crown Court and the diocese which oversees his two former parishes says the conviction will ultimately lead to his being de-frocked.

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AUSTRALIA
The Record

The days of the Church in Australia conducting its own investigations into child ¬sexual abuse “must be over”, according to the Chief Executive of the Truth, Justice and Healing Council, Francis Sullivan.

Mr Sullivan’s comments were published in The Weekend Australian on 16-17 October in response to a call for a national ¬redress scheme to compensate ¬victims of abuse.

“More than anything else, abuse survivors have been calling for fair and compassionate redress,” Mr Sullivan said.

“With the decisions about what this looks like taken out of the hands of the institutions responsible for the abuse,” he said.

“In the case of the Catholic Church, the days of the Church ¬investigating itself must be over.”

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MINNESOTA
Duluth News Tribune

By Elizabeth Mohr, St. Paul Pioneer Press

ST. PAUL — There’s no dispute that the Rev. James Vincent Fitzgerald sexually abused a Minnesota teen in 1978, according to opposing attorneys in a lawsuit filed by the victim.

The question for a jury: Who supervised the priest when the abuse took place?

The victim’s attorney, Jeff Anderson, said during his opening statement Wednesday that the Diocese of Duluth was charged with overseeing the priest while he worked in one of its parishes, where the abuse took place.

The diocese’s attorney, Susan Gaertner — former Ramsey County attorney-turned-defense attorney — said that because Fitzgerald was an oblate priest, a member of a religious order, the leader of his order was in charge of his oversight, not the diocese where the order placed him.

“Doe 30” filed his lawsuit in early 2014 in Ramsey County District Court against the Diocese of Duluth, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate and the Diocese of New Ulm. The Duluth diocese is the sole remaining defendant; the oblates order settled with Doe 30 and the court dismissed the New Ulm diocese earlier this year.

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UNITED STATES
Stop Baptist Predators

Christa Brown

“A life of wholeness does not depend on what we experience. Wholeness depends on how we experience our lives.”
— Desmond Tutu

I felt so honored when retired judge Sheila Murphy invited me to contribute a chapter for a book on restorative justice that Archbishop Desmond Tutu was supporting and writing an introduction for. I had never met Sheila before, but after my speech at the 2013 SNAP convention for clergy sex abuse survivors, Sheila introduced herself and pressed into my palm a yellow post-it note with these words: “Yoga as Restorative Justice.” That was the topic she wanted me to write about. I looked at my palm, looked at her, and then said, “Huh?”

Fortunately, Sheila wasn’t deterred by my monosyllabic response. “You may not have used the language of restorative justice,” she said, “but I think it’s what you were really talking about just now in your speech.”

“It was?” Again, any pretense of wit or wisdom eluded me.

But ultimately, the more we talked, the more I decided that Sheila was right. It’s funny how communication is a two-way street like that. Sometimes, what gets communicated depends as much on what’s in the mind of the listener as it does on what comes out the mouth of the speaker. Sheila had heard more in my speech than what even I had realized I was saying.

So, I wrote the chapter, and the book has recently been released. You can read my chapter here: “Yoga as a Practice of Restorative Justice.”

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VATICAN CITY
Religion News Service

David Gibson | October 21, 2015

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Barrels of ink, digital and real, have been spilled by journalists trying to convey the gravity of the high-stakes debate on church teaching in Rome this month, as the melodrama that a closed-door Vatican gathering of some 270 churchmen almost guarantees.

The synod, as it’s called, has it all: steady leaks to the press, rumors of lavish dinners and reports of intense lobbying, plus open disagreements over doctrine. It’s a steady diet of soap opera and theology, and almost too much for any reporter to keep up with.

Which is why, if you want to know what it’s like to be a player in such an event, and in the extracurricular socializing where much of the work is done, you have to read the blog of Australian Archbishop Mark Coleridge.

The 67-year-old head of the Archdiocese of Brisbane has been writing his online diary nearly every day since he left for Rome on Oct. 1, offering witty, chatty postings that provide equal helpings of dish and doctrine. It’s made him something of an Internet sensation back home and the media star of the Anglophone world at the Vatican.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

WRITTEN BY MITCH DUDEK POSTED: 10/21/2015

In an unprecedented public relations maneuver, top Chicago Archdiocese officials met with several newspapers this week — days before the big screen release of a star-studded Hollywood drama depicting the Boston Globe’s 2002 expose on clergy sex abuse — to say, basically: “Don’t confuse us with Boston.”

Vicar General Ronald Hicks, second-in-command to Archbishop Blase Cupich, explained the proactive stance to the Sun-Times’ editorial board earlier this week.

“We think there’s a possibility that there’s going to be new energy and new questions around this and what we want to do is make sure that the media knows that Chicago is extremely different in handling the case of clerical sexual abuse of minors than Boston and how it’s being portrayed in the movie.”

Actors Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams and Mark Ruffalo play the journalists behind the Pulitzer-Prize-winning stories that shook the world in 2002, and ultimately encouraged a large number of victims in other cities, including Chicago, to come forth with their own tales of abuse, setting off a global crisis for the church.

The film, “Spotlight,” debuts locally at the Chicago Film Festival Oct. 29 and is scheduled for wider release Nov. 6.

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, N.M., Oct. 17, 2015

Thuma warns he may remand abuse cases back to state court

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

ALBUQUERQUE – As the Diocese of Gallup’s Chapter 11 case nears its second year in bankruptcy court, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David T. Thuma expressed frustration that the case has yet to be settled.

“I’m trying to figure out the best way to get this case resolved,” Thuma told nearly a dozen attorneys during a court hearing Thursday. “I’m not sure it’s anybody’s fault, but we’re here two years in the case and we don’t have a settlement, and the parties are very much at odds at the moment.”

Attorneys for the Gallup Diocese requested the hearing Thursday to address an emergency motion to continue a final hearing slated for Nov. 10. That final hearing, which was also referred to as a trial, centered on motions to lift the bankruptcy case’s automatic stay that prohibits civil lawsuits against the diocese from moving forward.

Phoenix attorney Robert E. Pastor, who represents 18 clergy sex abuse claimants in the case, had filed the lift stay motions. Prior to the Diocese of Gallup filing its Chapter 11 petition, Pastor had filed 13 clergy sex abuse lawsuits against the diocese in Flagstaff’s Coconino County Superior Court. With the lift stay motions, Pastor was requesting Thuma to allow two or three of his lawsuits to be remanded back to state court for trial.

The Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors, which advocates on behalf of the interests of clergy sex abuse claimants, is supportive of Pastor’s efforts. Both Pastor and attorneys for the committee have argued that trying the cases before a Flagstaff jury will “educate” the diocese and its insurance companies about the value of the claims.

“If I believed that letting these cases go forward would prompt settlement, I wouldn’t be standing in front of you,” Susan Boswell, the lead bankruptcy attorney for the diocese, told Thuma.

Boswell said the Gallup Diocese had an obligation to oppose lifting the stays because diocesan officials believe there would be a detrimental impact to the estate as a whole, including to all the claimants and other creditors.

Settlement roadblocks

During the hearing, Thuma heard opposing statements from Boswell, Pastor and Ilan Scharf, an attorney for the committee, about discovery requests concerning documents and depositions of witnesses related to the lift stay final hearing on Nov. 10.

Thuma, however, seemed more interested in the larger picture of what roadblocks were continuing to impede a settlement among the various parties. Throughout the hearing, the judge asked a number of questions of the attorneys, particularly questions about negotiations with insurance companies.

According to Boswell, the diocese had no insurance coverage before 1965. From 1965 until Dec. 1, 1977, the diocese was covered by a company that later went into receivership. Claims under that company are now covered by the New Mexico Property Casualty Insurance Guaranty Fund. And since Dec. 1, 1977, the diocese has been covered by insurance from Catholic Mutual.

Boswell told Thuma the diocese was attempting to resolve a dispute with the New Mexico Guaranty Fund over insurance coverage. However, the possibility of filing a declaratory judgment action against the Fund was still a possibility.

Thuma questioned why the three cases named in Pastor’s lift stay motions include one claim that is not covered by insurance and two claims that are under the limited coverage of the New Mexico Guaranty Fund. He expressed reluctance to allow Pastor’s first case, which was four months away from trial when the Gallup Diocese filed its Chapter 11 petition, to be the “test case” since it is the claim not covered by insurance.

Scharf explained the case involved a perpetrator who abused many claimants, and the other two cases were representative claims with respect to particular abusers or co-defendants.

Warning to attorneys

At the hearing’s conclusion, Thuma agreed to the diocese’s request to grant a continuance on the final hearing on the stay relief motions. In its place he scheduled a status conference Nov. 10.

Because another session of formal mediation talks is scheduled for Dec. 3-4, and both Boswell and Scharf agreed that informal mediation discussions continue to be ongoing, Thuma stressed the importance of achieving a settlement of the case by the end of the year.

If that doesn’t happen, Thuma warned the attorneys, he will consider granting stay relief for two cases — but two cases with insurance coverage — so the diocese’s estate won’t be burdened with the defense costs.

“What I want to do is to have a status conference shortly after mediation, and if the thing isn’t moving toward settlement, I want Mr. Pastor and the committee to go through their list of claims and tell me which claims against New Mexico Guaranty or Catholic Mutual can get teed-up the quickest,” Thuma said. “And I’m inclined to grant stay relief just to try it out … I’m ready to try something if we’re not palpably closer to settlement in December than we are today.”

“There’s so much very expensive litigation we can do in this case before the net recovery to the abuse victims is zero,” Thuma said. “Everyone needs to think about that a little bit harder than they have been because you’re not doing a service to your clients if that’s your result.”

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POLAND
Fox News

AP

WARSAW, Poland – A Polish priest who lost his job at the Vatican earlier this month after revealing that he is gay and has a boyfriend has been suspended by the church in Poland from performing the functions of a priest.

Krzysztof Charamsa, 43, came out as gay and criticized the Vatican for its approach to homosexuality on the eve of a major meeting of world bishops in Rome. The Vatican immediately fired him from his job with the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

[with video]

October 21, 2015

Jane Lee and Latika Bourke

A former royal commissioner has hit back at claims by senator Bill Heffernan that he failed to properly investigate lawyers who allegedly attended a “boy brothel”, as new details emerge of a “secret list” containing the names of high-profile alleged paedophiles.

The controversial Liberal senator used parliamentary privilege on Wednesday to claim that a former Australian prime minister was on the list, which he claims forms part of a police document.

Many of the people on the list and otherwise named in the documents were “prominent”, Senator Heffernan said: “They were delivered to me by a police agency some time ago because no one seems to want to deal with them.”

He also claimed every Commonwealth attorney-general since Philip Ruddock had seen the list.
Fairfax Media understands Mr Ruddock referred Senator Heffernan’s list to his department when he was the federal attorney-general in the Howard government between 2003 and 2007.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Paul Kalina
Deputy TV Editor

Filmmaker Danny Ben-Moshe had no interest at first in making a follow-up to Code of Silence, the Walkley-winning documentary about Manny Waks, the whistleblower who lifted the lid on child sex abuse within Melbourne’s Orthodox Jewish community.

But listening to the testimony presented to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse, he was dumb-struck at what he describes as the “phenomenally preposterous” answer a prominent rabbi gave to a question about appropriate adult conduct.

What was meant to be a jokey remark about making a sequel became reality, and 48 hours later he was filming outside Melbourne’s County Court.

The clincher was that the leaders of Melbourne Yeshivah Centre, who had refused to talk to the filmmakers in Code of Silence, were now under the spotlight in the courtroom making cringeworthy and clumsy confessions. Rabbi Yosef Feldman, among others, had unwittingly given them a gift.

“It was the prevarication, the obfuscation, the denials, the twisting,” recalls Ben-Moshe of the courtroom testimony.

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VATICAN CITY
The Nation

John Lloyd
Reuters October 21, 2015

The Catholic Bishop of Accra, Ghana, Charles Palmer-Buckle, sometimes can’t sleep at night. He’s tormented by the distance between the Vatican’s teaching and his flock’s behaviour.

Unusually for an African bishop – the continent’s Catholic hierarchy is renowned for the strictness of its doctrinal observation – he sways towards accommodating the behaviour of the flock.

Describing, in an interview earlier this year, a parishioner married to the same man for 35 years, with children together, but sharing her husband with two other wives, he said: “If I want to apply the law as it is, I must tell her to quit the marriage. But if I do that, she and her children are going to say, ‘The Church destroyed my family.’ As a bishop, I tell you, I have sleepless nights… If a person is wounded in marriage and is having difficulty, what do you do? That’s what the Church is struggling with.”

Bishop Palmer-Buckle will struggle with this and more dilemmas with his brothers-in-Christ in the Vatican’s ongoing Synod on the Family. It’s been billed as the most serious internal debate on sexuality in its various forms that the Church has ever had. It may live up to that billing.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Oct. 21, 2015

VATICAN CITY
The group of German speaking prelates at the ongoing Synod of Bishops — which includes a rather diverse range of so-called progressive and conservative voices — has presented a way that certain divorced and remarried Catholic persons might be allowed to take Communion in the church.

But while their arguments are being echoed by prelates of at least one other language group at the gathering, they have clearly not found support in others — which have closed all openness to any possibility on the matter.

Catholics who remarry are currently prohibited from taking Communion unless they obtain annulments of their first marriages. The issue of the church’s practice in the matter has become one of the most discussed during the Oct. 4-25 Synod, called by Pope Francis to focus on family life issues.

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MALTA
Times of Malta

by Fr Joe Borg

The Bristol Comic Expo in 2005 brought with it the publication by Michael Molcher of the semi-annual fanzine titled The End Is Nigh. Each issue deals with themed Apocalypses foretelling the end of the world.

Judging from a number of media coverages throughout the Synod of bishops on the family currently in its final phase at the Vatican one might be led to think that a similar magazine proclaiming the end of Church would be so popular that it would fill the coffers of its publishers with easy money.

Damian Thompson’s blog in The Spectator (13 October) was titled: “This week the Catholic Church is in chaos.” And true to his ultra-conservative colours, Thompson told us that the “Pope Francis is to blame.” The article is followed by the anti-Francis vitriolic comments of those brave Catholics who hide behind a pseudonym.

Similar comments are common posts in Crux, a website purporting to cover all things Catholics. A certain Tanyi Tanyi wrote that “Francis thanks he can manipulate the whole Church and govern in an authoritarian fashion” while proposing a cherry on the cake with the statement “May God protect this Church from Francis.”

Another conservative blog said that the Synod was about “blasphemy, Heresy, Schism and the “Collapse” of the Church (but, hey, at least the bishops will get to vote).” Others predicted that Pope Francis would become an Anglican.

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MINNESOTA
Northlands News Center

[with video]

[part 1]

[statement from the Duluth diocese]

By Barbara Reyelts

October 20, 2015

Duluth, MN (NNCNOW.com) — The Duluth Catholic Diocese is under fire from a lawsuit claiming the sexual abuse, by priests, of children from 1956 through 1974.

The Diocese has been ordered by the St. Louis County District Court to turn over all records on child sex abuse by clergy during those years.

While it may seem like it all happened long ago, experts say the tragic effects of child sexual abuse continue to plague victims throughout their lives.

“It was very traumatic for me,” Gene Saumer, who lived at St. James Orphanage.

“I couldn’t deal with these feelings, I felt inadequate,” Larry Dickinson, who lived at St. James Orphanage from 1968-70, said.

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OCTOBER 22, 2015

John Lyons
Associate Editor
Sydney

The Catholic Church has described its history regarding child abuse in Australia as “shameful, corrosive and complicit”.

The church says it now expects its liability exposure to be potentially $1 billion on top of payments already made.

Catholic spokesman Francis Sullivan said the church’s history was “littered with examples of cover-ups and crimes and of church leaders failing in one of the very basic tenets of their calling”.

Mr Sullivan is leading the church’s support for a national redress scheme to compensate victims of abuse. The scheme has been recommended by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

In a speech to the Australian Catholic University, Mr Sullivan said it was important Catholics did not succumb to a feeling that the commission or media were out to “get” the church.

“The facts are we are at the very centre of the royal commission because collectively the Catholic Church is responsible for more abuse than any other institution in Australia, public or private,” he said on Tuesday night.

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ROME
Washington Post

By Michelle Boorstein October 21

At Pope Francis’s closed-door meeting in Rome this month, top clergy are intensely debating whether the church should bend more to the messy realities of modern families, and on Wednesday released some early reports revealing their deep divisions. In daily life, however, contemporary messiness has already changed the Catholic Church.

Questions on the agenda at the rare, high-level meeting that ends this weekend include whether those who divorce and remarry outside the church can receive Communion, and whether there is a place in Catholic life for same-sex couples. Changing Catholicism’s stance towards such things could begin to unravel the unity of the world’s largest church, say opponents who see the debate in Rome as directly tied to the future of Catholicism. But in many parts of the world – the West in particular – the church has for years quietly been making changes to engage with Catholic families who are transforming in ways that mirror the rest of the society.

Seminaries and theology schools have added classes on sex and family that were absent a decade or two ago. Some of the highest-level bishops are open about not denying Communion outright to anyone, even if the person appears to be violating church teachings on the family. And Pope Francis has changed the entire conversation about what threatens family stability by emphasizing things like economic stress and cultural isolation rather than a deviation from orthodox sexual ethics.

The first real reports from the dozens of bishops at the synod were released Wednesday, staking out varied and often highly nuanced positions. The 13 working groups are divided by language. The majority of the four English and three French groups appeared to either dismiss any significant changes or reserve judgment, while delegates from Germany and some Spanish speaking nations were calling for progressive changes, including one proposal from the Germans to allow priests to make exceptions to teachings prohibiting communion for divorced and remarried Catholics.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 21 October 2015 (VIS) – The Holy Father has appointed:

– Fr. Henrique Aparecido De Lima, C.SS.R., as bishop of Dourados (area 38,125, population 535,000, Catholics 375,000, priests 59, permanent deacons 11, religious 154), Brazil. The bishop-elect was born in Toledo, Brazil in 1964, gave his religious vows in 1995 and was ordained a priest in 1999. He has served in a number of pastoral roles including parish vicar, pastor and administrator of the diocese of Jardim, and deputy provincial of the Redemptorists. He is currently superior of the Redemptorist Province of Campo Grande. He succeeds Bishop Redovino Rizzardo, C.S., whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese upon reaching the age limit was accepted by the Holy Father.

– Fr. Jose Reginaldo Andrietta as bishop of Jales (area 12,788, population 400,000, Catholics 323,000, priests 36, religious 15), Brazil. The bishop-elect was born in Pirassununga, Brazil in 1957 and ordained a priest in 1983. He holds a master’s degree in catechesis from the Institut de Catechese et Pastorale Lumen Vitae in Brussels, Belgium and a licentiate in pastoral theology from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium. He has served in a number of pastoral, academic and administrative roles in the diocese of Limeira, Brazil and in Brussels, Belgium, including parish vicar, parish priest, professor of pastoral theology and member of the presbyteral council. He is currently pastor of the “Sao Judas Tadeu” parish in Americana. He succeeds Bishop Luiz Demetrio Valentini, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese upon reaching the age limit was accepted by the Holy Father.

– Msgr. Paulo Bosi Dal’Bo as bishop of Sao Mateus (area 15,496, population 469,000, Catholics 335,000, priests 46, religious 49), Brazil. The bishop-elect was born in Colatina, Brazil in 1962 and was ordained a priest in 2000. He holds a degree in accounting sciences and master’s degrees in social communications and psychology of education. He has served in a number of roles in the diocese of Colatina, including director of the “Nossa Senhora Mae dos Pobres” house of formation, parish vicar and parish administrator, pastor, rector of the diocesan seminary and president of the Organisation of Seminaries and Philosophical and Theological Institutes in Brazil. He is currently vicar general of the diocese and parish priest.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 21 October 2015 (VIS) – The director of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., issued the following statement this morning:

“The circulation of entirely unfounded news regarding the health of the Holy Father by an Italian newspaper is gravely irresponsible and unworthy of attention. Furthermore, as is clearly evident, the Pope is carrying out his very intense activity in an totally normal way”.

Subsequently, during a briefing on the Synod, he added the following further information:

“I fully confirm my previous statement, having verified the facts with the appropriate sources, including the Holy Father.

No Japanese doctor has visited the Pope in the Vatican and there have been no examinations of the type indicated in the article. The competent offices have confirmed that there have been no arrivals of external parties in the Vatican by helicopter; similarly, there were no arrivals of this type during the month of January.

I am able to confirm that the Pope is in good health.

I reiterate that the publication of this false information is a grave act of irresponsibility, absolutely inexcusable and unconscionable. It would be equally unjustifiable to continue to fuel similarly unfounded information. It is hoped, therefore, that this matter be closed immediately”.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

A Catholic brother will stand trial in the Newcastle district court, accused of more than 200 child sexual abuse offences.

The man, referred to as BM for legal reasons, was extradited from New Zealand last year, accused of more than 250 offences.

They are alleged to have happened in the Lake Macquarie region in the 1970s.

He faced court today via video link, dressed in prison greens, shuffling paperwork in front of him and staring at the floor for long periods of time.

The Director of Public Prosecutions today withdrew 39 charges, meaning BM is now accused of 218 offences.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Donald Cozzens | Oct. 21, 2015

A STILL AND QUIET CONSCIENCE: THE ARCHBISHOP WHO CHALLENGED A POPE, A PRESIDENT, AND A CHURCH
By John A. McCoy
Published by Orbis, $26

It is one thing to suffer for the church, but quite another to suffer from the church. We understand that any Christian trying to bear witness to the Gospel will encounter pushback from the consumer-oriented, self-satisfied corners of our society. One would be naive to think otherwise. But to suffer public censure and humiliation from the church itself for bearing witness to the Gospel is particularly hurtful.

John McCoy’s biography of Archbishop Raymond “Dutch” Hunthausen paints the painful story of a bishop’s conscience and Rome’s determination to hold fast to institutional control.

Whether or not Hunthausen’s withholding of half his federal income tax as protest against nuclear weapons marked “a pivotal point in the history of the U.S. Catholic Church” as McCoy contends, it was unprecedented as a prophetic voice from an American Catholic bishop — and raised alarm bells in the halls of the Roman Curia.

Hunthausen, transformed by the profound breakthroughs of the Second Vatican Council, made the pastoral care of his priests, religious and laity a priority. In doing so, he would earn the disdain often accorded to a prophet and raised the suspicions of Rome. In the eyes of the entrenched church leaders committed to at least containing, if not reversing, the reforms of the council, a bishop whose pastoral judgment didn’t always square with canon law and the church’s official teachings was indeed dangerous.

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MISSOURI
Berger’s Beat

There were few dry eyes at the Hi Pointe Backlot as two dozen media types viewed the film “Spotlight,” which is already generating Oscar buzz. Featuring Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton and Rachel McAdams, it’s the gripping story of how the Boston Globe’s investigative team broke open the long-simmering but largely invisible yet widespread crimes by pedophile priests. (Eventually the paper ran almost 600 stores that one year and helped expose 249 child molesting clerics and led to the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law, who once ran the Springfield, MO diocese.)

AT THE SCREENING: Kevin Steincross of KTVI, Calvin Wilson of the P-D and Lynn Venhaus of the Belleville News Democrat (who in the 1990s wrote many stories about predator priests in southern Illinois.) The film was especially moving to victims’ attorney Ken Chackes, SNAP’s David Cohessy, who spent hours on the phone with Globe editors and reporters during their investigation and a Webster Groves mom whose young son took his own life after being abused by two predators – Fr. James Funke and teacher Jerome Robbins – at DuBourg High School

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SINGAPORE
The Guardian (UK)

Associated Press
Wednesday 21 October 2015

The founder of a popular Singapore church was found guilty on Wednesday of misappropriating more than $35.5m in donations to support his wife’s singing career in Asia before helping her break into the US market for evangelization purposes.

Kong Hee, the founder and senior pastor of City Harvest church, was found guilty with five other church leaders of stealing S$24m ($17m) designated for building and investment-related purposes through sham bond investments.

The state court also found they used another S$26m ($18.5m) to hide the first embezzlement from auditors. It is a rare case of corruption of such magnitude in the city state, which has an image of being highly law-abiding and largely graft-free.

Presiding judge See Kee Onn said in finding Kong guilty on three counts of criminal breach of trust: “They were not genuine transactions because the accused persons controlled these transactions.”

“Evidence points to a finding that they knew they were acting dishonestly, and I am unable to conclude otherwise,” he told a courtroom packed with church supporters, who formed long queues since early morning to get seats.

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VATICAN CITY
BBC News

The Vatican has rejected as “seriously irresponsible” an Italian media report that says Pope Francis has a small but curable tumour on his brain.

The Quotidiano newspaper said the Pope had travelled by helicopter to Tuscany to see a world-renowned Japanese brain surgeon.

The Pope was diagnosed with a small, dark spot but did not need surgery, the paper said.
A Vatican spokesman said the report was totally unfounded.

“As everyone can see, the Pope is carrying out his extremely intense activities in an absolutely normal manner,” Father Federico Lombardi said.

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ITALIA
Quotidiano

Pisa, 21 ottobre 2015 – Arrivano le prime conferme sulla notizia diffusa dal nostro giornale circa il tumore al cervello di Papa Francesco. Il Vaticano ha smentito: “Nessuna fondatezza”, ma l’Ansa ora conferma quanto scritto da Qn sulla presenza del medico Takanori Fukushima in Vaticano. L’esperto di tumori al cervello sarebbe stato in Vaticano “a fine gennaio”, “probabilmente”, scrive l’agenzia di stampa, “per occuparsi dello stato di salute di Papa Bergoglio”.

IL VOLO DA SAN ROSSORE – Un volo dell’elicottero della clinica San Rossore con a bordo l’esperto di tumori al cervello e aneurismi partì allora da Pisa. Fu proprio il medico, da anni consulente della struttura, secondo quanto appreso da ambienti vicino alla clinica, a chiedere la disponibilità di un elicottero per organizzare in tempi rapidi una visita in Vaticano. Da qui, come ha scritto oggi Qn, la diagnosi per Bergoglio di un piccolo tumore al cervello per il quale non sarebbe necessario un intervento chirurgico.

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VATICAN CITY
Business Standard

AFP | Vatican City
October 21, 2015

The Vatican today dismissed an Italian media report that Pope Francis has a treatable brain tumour as “unfounded and seriously irresponsible.”

Quotidiano Nazionale (QN), the newspaper which made the claim, said it stood by its story that a “small dark spot” had been detected on the 78-year-old pontiff’s brain earlier this year.

The paper said it was discovered by Japanese physician Takanori Fukushima during an examination at the San Rossore di Barbaricina clinic near Pisa in central Italy.

The professor reportedly concluded that the tumour was treatable and that no surgery was required.

“The publication of completely unfounded reports on the health of the holy father by an Italian newspaper is seriously irresponsible and not worthy of attention,” Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said in a statement.

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VATICAN CITY
Sun-Times

On Wednesday, Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi dismissed a report in the Italian newspaper Quotidiano Nazionale that Pope Francis has a small, curable tumor in his brain, calling it “absolutely baseless” and “a complete lie.” In a statement, Lombardi said that “as everyone can see, the pope is always carrying out his intense activity without interruption, in an absolutely normal way.”

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2015

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

A serial predator priest is being sued for sexually assaulting another child. We commend this brave man for seeking justice and exposing wrongdoers. We hope his courage will prompt others who were hurt as kids by clerics to step forward.

In 2013 – 31 years after child sex abuse allegations against him first emerged – Fr. Leroy A. Valentine was “permanently remove him from active ministry.” Though archdiocesan officials have paid settlements to at least three of his victims, Fr. Valentine has apparently still not been defrocked. And we believe, but are not certain, that no one from the archdiocese has been supervising or monitoring Fr. Valentine for at least the last 12 years.

In 1982, when a North County mother reported that he sexually assaulted her three sons. The St. Louis Archdiocese paid the boys a settlement – believed to be around $20,000 each – and reportedly sent Valentine for treatment and then transferred him to another parish where he kept working. Catholic officials insisted that the boys never speak publicly about the abuse or the settlements

In 2002, Valentine was an associate pastor at St. Thomas the Apostle in Florissant with an adjoining parochial school. He was one of “at least three St. Louis priests who have been accused in civil court of sexual abuse remain active in the archdiocese today, two in contact with children,” according to the New York Times and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

(The other two were Fr. Bruce Forman who was – and still is – the director a youth choir in Soulard and Fr. Thomas Graham who was chaplain at a south St. Louis County nursing home. Graham was convicted in a criminal trial of molesting another boy but the jury’s verdict was later overturned. )

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SOUTH DAKOTA
Argus Leader

Mark Walker, mwalker@argusleader.com

A former South Dakota pastor has been sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to having sex with a minor while employed by a Canton church.

Tony Haglund was sentenced on Friday on one count of felony child abuse. He was originally charged with three counts of sexual penetration by a psychotherapist, sexual contact with a child under 16 and sexual contact by a psychotherapist.

He was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine or up to that amount restitution to the family.

Haglund was arrested on Oct. 6 in Sumter County, Fla., last year where he worked as a real estate agent.

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SOUTH DAKOTA
Press & Dakotan

Associated Press

CANTON, S.D. (AP) — A former South Dakota pastor who authorities accused of having sex with a teenager has been sentenced to three years in prison.

Fifty-year-old Tony Haglund earlier pleaded guilty to one count of child abuse. The Argus Leader (http://argusne.ws/1Go9j5g ) reports Haglund was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine or up to that amount in restitution to the family of his victim.

Haglund was indicted last year on three counts of sexual penetration by a psychotherapist, sexual contact with a child under 16 and sexual contact by a psychotherapist. He was arrested on October 2014 in Florida, where he worked as a real estate agent.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Elizabeth Mohr
emohr@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 10/20/2015

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis said Tuesday that it is temporarily removing from ministry a priest who was acquitted last year of sexual misconduct with a female parishioner.

The archdiocese launched its investigation into the Rev. Mark Huberty after the criminal case ended and determined the priest might have violated canon law, according to a statement from Archbishop Bernard Hebda.

While the internal investigation, or canonical process, unfolds, Huberty is barred from performing ministerial duties; he cannot “wear a Roman collar or present himself as a priest publicly,” the statement said.

“Removing a priest from ministry, even temporarily, is gravely serious to me and to the Church,” Hebda’s statement said. “But based on the evidence and testimony from those involved, this is the proper course of action.”

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

21 October, 2015

The Royal Commission has published 24 submissions from organisations and those with professional experience in response to its issues paper on police and prosecution responses to institutional child sexual abuse.

Royal Commission CEO Philip Reed said the responses reflected the importance the community places on issues of criminal justice.

“In particular, the submissions indicate the community’s concern over institutional failures in reporting, investigating and responding to allegations and incidents of abuse,” he said.

“We’ve received submissions from a range of organisations including advocacy groups, the legal fraternity and agencies representing young people, people with disability and victims of crime.

“We have also received a number of submissions from individuals giving details of their personal experiences of police and prosecution responses to institutional child sexual abuse.

“We are reviewing these submissions for privacy and procedural fairness concerns, and they are not being published at this stage.”

Mr Reed said the Royal Commission’s terms of reference require it to look into what governments should do to address or alleviate the impact of past and future child sexual abuse in institutional contexts.

“This includes in ensuring justice for victims through processes for referral for investigation and prosecution,” he said.

Mr Reed said all of the submissions to the issues paper will be considered along with research the Royal Commission has commissioned on this topic, as well as relevant case studies and the personal experiences shared by survivors of abuse in private sessions.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

AP

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has temporarily removed a priest from ministry after he was acquitted on sexual misconduct charges in December.

Interim Archbishop Bernard Hebda made the announcement Tuesday about the Rev. Mark Huberty. A Ramsey County jury acquitted Huberty of criminal sexual conduct involving an adult female parishioner he was counseling.

Since Huberty’s acquittal, his case was reviewed by a new ministerial review board. The board found sufficient evidence to suggest Huberty may have committed a serious offense under canon law and recommended proceedings to resolve the allegations.

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NEW JERSEY
The Record

BY JAMES GOODNESS
THE RECORD

THE RECORD’S coverage during the week of Oct. 12 about principles that Archbishop John J. Myers had shared with the priests of the archdiocese to help them deal with people in different situations regarding married life and maintain church teaching is misdirecting people from the truth of the document.

It is important to put the document and the coverage into perspective.

The document, “Principles to Aid in Preserving and Protecting the Catholic Faith in the Midst of an Increasingly Secular Culture,” very clearly says that these are principles. They are not “rules” or “particular law” being set down. In his role as primary teacher of the faith in this archdiocese, it is appropriate and central to Archbishop Myers’ ministry to give advice and direction to priests and others involved in parish ministry as they deal directly with people facing some of the challenges about married life and living according to the faith. It is also important to make sure that this is done in line with the laws and teaching of the church.

In particular, the principles call on priests to walk with the people as they journey through their situations, and to cherish and welcome them to participate in the life of the church to the extent they can.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

PRIME Minister Malcolm Turnbull is under pressure to launch an investigation into elite paedophile rings in Australia, after allegations surfaced of a former prime minister on a police list of suspected paedophiles.

Child sex abuse survivors advocates have backed calls from Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan to expand the royal commission into child sex abuse.

The calls for an urgent inquiry follow the Senator’s sensational claim yesterday that he has a police list which names 28 prominent people, including a former PM, as suspected paedophiles.

Nicky Davis, the leader of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) urged the Mr Turnbull to act, saying the government should immediately announce a thorough investigation of elite paedophile rings in Australia, similar to one already underway in the UK.

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ROME
Chiesa

It took this South African archbishop to clarify in public the true reasons for the letter, which he signed with the others. It all started with the 2014 synod and the maneuvers of some to force its results. Here he is, word for word

by Sandro Magister

ROME, October 21, 2015 – Already four days before the letter of the thirteen cardinals to Francis became public knowledge, he was singled out among the “conspirators” who wanted to sabotage the synod and lash out against the pope himself:

> The Letter of the Thirteen Cardinals. A Key Backstory

And after the publication of the letter, the aggression against him and the other signers continued with even greater vehemence, with the de facto support of the Vatican managers of synod information.

Until the day came, yesterday, Tuesday October 20, on which Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier, archbishop of Durban, South Africa, was finally able to speak his mind on the synod and on the letter of the thirteen to the pope, in the official context of the daily press conference moderated by Fr. Federico Lombardi:

> Press briefing…

Napier took part in the press conference in his capacity as joint president delegate of the synod. An obligatory presence. And it was the first time that one of the thirteen signers of the letter appeared in the Vatican press office after the chaos exploded.

An “ad hoc” question for him couldn’t be left out. And in fact it came, timely and polemical, from a leading journalist of “liberal” American Catholicism, Robert Mickens, founder and director of “Global Pulse Magazine”.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Herald (UK)

The full report of Circulus Anglicus ‘D’

Members of English circle D again stressed the need to support the many families that already live the Catholic understanding of marriage and family life joyfully.

Members of our group revisited the importance of the Church acknowledging the role of women and mothers and men and fathers. Our ecumenical representative felt the document should address the whole Christian community and not simply the Catholic Church. Much discussion took place about the importance of funerals in the lives of families. Members felt this matter deserves far more attention, along with the role of the family in situations of illness and death.

Members felt that when the document talks about the Word of God, it needs to more fully convey the meaning of that term in the tradition of the Church. The Word of God refers to Jesus personally, to the written word of Scriptures, but also to the word proclaimed in the community.

Bishops said that the text paid inadequate attention to chastity formation. This work should begin very early in life and should not be delayed until marriage preparation. The danger of government authorities doing sex education caused great concern for many group members.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Culture

Auditors at the Synod of Bishops have spoken on topics ranging from the role of women to medical ethics and the persecution of Christians.

The auditors—whose talks were delivered on October 15 and 16, and made public on October 20—included:

* Agnes Offiong Erogunaye, a Nigerian woman who spoke on how many African women care for their households by themselves.

* Sister Maureen Kelleher, an American religious who asked Church leaders “to recognize how many women who feel called to be in service of the Kingdom of God but cannot find a place in our Church.

* Lucetta Scaraffia, an Italian history professor, who said: “Women are great experts in the family: leaving abstract theories behind, we can turn in particular to women to understand what must be done.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A retired Church of England priest from West Sussex has admitted making sexual advances towards four of his alleged male victims but not the two youngest.

Vickery House, who faces indecent assault, denied any inappropriate contact with two teenage boys.

He told the Old Bailey he was ashamed of his actions in the 1970s and 80s, but said they were not sexual assaults.

Mr House, 69, denies eight charges of indecent assault against six males aged 15 to 34, between 1970 and 1986.

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MINNESOTA
CBS Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A Twin Cities priest who was previously acquitted of criminal sexual conduct charges has been temporarily removed from the ministry.

Rev. Mark Huberty was arrested in 2013 and charged with one count each of fourth- and fifth-degree criminal sexual conduct.

The complaint said that Huberty and a woman met in 2008 when she came to him for counseling at Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church in Maplewood. He was accused of engaging in a sexual relationship with someone he was counseling and of groping her without consent.

In 2014, a jury found Huberty not guilty.

On Tuesday, Archbishop Bernard Hebda said, “I have the sad responsibility of communicating that Rev. Mark Huberty has been temporarily removed from ministry for the duration of a formal canonical process that has been initiated to address some serious allegations that have come to the attention of the Archdiocese.”

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date: Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Source: Tom Halden, Director of Communications

From Archbishop Bernard Hebda

Today, I have the sad responsibility of communicating that Rev. Mark Huberty has been temporarily removed from ministry for the duration of a formal canonical process that has been initiated to address some serious allegations that have come to the attention of the Archdiocese.

In 2013, Rev. Huberty was arrested and charged with two counts of sexual misconduct with an adult woman. Rev. Huberty has been on a voluntary leave of absence since that time. A Ramsey County jury acquitted him of those charges last December.

During the criminal investigation and court process, the Archdiocese cooperated with civil authorities and did not conduct its own review to preserve the integrity of the police investigation and the fairness of the court proceedings—which is our protocol.

Since the acquittal, Rev. Huberty’s case, which does not involve sexual abuse of a minor, has been investigated by the Archdiocese’s Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment, and that investigation has been reviewed by its director, Judge Tim O’Malley, and the recently-formed Ministerial Review Board (MRB). The MRB consists of ten lay members and two priests, who have expertise in sexual abuse, domestic violence, psychology, medicine, criminal justice, law enforcement, and related fields.

The MRB found that there was sufficient evidence to suggest Rev. Huberty may have committed a serious offense under canon law and recommended that any questions of law or fact be resolved through a canonical process so that the truth of the matter may be determined and an appropriate penalty, if any, may be imposed. Judge O’Malley was present for all MRB deliberations, reviewed the case, and has agreed with the Board’s recommendation.

Removing a priest from ministry, even temporarily, is gravely serious to me and to the Church. But based on the evidence and testimony from those involved, this is the proper course of action.

During the canonical process, Rev. Huberty is prohibited from celebrating Mass in the presence of laity, hearing confessions, preaching, assisting at weddings or funerals or otherwise engaging in any priestly ministry. He is not permitted to wear a Roman collar or present himself as a priest publicly. Imposition of these precautionary measures reflects the seriousness of this matter, but should not be viewed as a presumption of guilt. Rev. Huberty is to be accorded the presumption of innocence during this time.

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MINNESOTA
Minneapolis Sun-Times

WRITTEN BY TWIN CITIES PIONEER PRESS POSTED: 10/20/2015

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis said Tuesday that it is temporarily removing from ministry a priest who was acquitted last year of sexual misconduct with a female parishioner. The archdiocese launched its investigation into the Rev. Mark Huberty after the criminal case ended and determined the priest might have violated canon law, according to a statement from Archbishop Bernard Hebda.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Thomas Reese | Oct. 20, 2015

VATICAN CITY
With time running out, the synodal fathers appear no closer to resolving their conflicts over issues facing the family than they were a year ago. One of the principal sticking points is over Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics who do not have an annulment. Another controversy is over the language to be used in speaking about homosexuals.

The Synod of Bishops concludes this Sunday after meeting in Rome since Oct. 4. The synod has been discussing issues facing families, the same issues discussed at a similar gathering of bishops last October.

The pope and the bishops argue that the synod is about the family and decry the media’s focus on homosexuality and divorce, but there is no question that these are the topics around which the bishops have conflict. There is little disagreement over other issues.

One group of bishops, led by Cardinal Walter Kasper, would like to see a pastoral solution that would allow a penitential process leading to Communion for such Catholics, but this is opposed by others, perhaps a majority, who feel that this would violate church doctrine.

Many bishops hoped that they could find a pastoral solution that would not involve a change in doctrine, but conservative bishops are not buying this approach.

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ITALY/MASSACHUSETTS
Xaverian Missionaries

Fr. EUGENIO CUMERLATO
Bassano del Grappa, 20 febbraio 1910
Parma, 4 dicembre 1989

di Bassano d. Grappa – VI
Lavorò nelle nostre case: in Italia, specialmente in USA e Messico
Di anni 80. Numero di professione 204
Sepolto a Parma

Fr. Cumerlato nacque a Bassano del Grappa il 20 febbraio 1910.

Era nel fiore degli anni quando scoprì che niente come l’ideale missionario poteva dare senso pieno alla sua vita. Perciò net 1932 entrò nello Istituto Saveriano e, fatta la professione religiosa, chiese d’essere mandato in missione. “Oso domandare e sperare – scrisse nel 1936 al Superiore Ge-nerale – d’essere ammesso a questa fortunata spedizione” (di partenti per la Cina). Aggiungeva Però: “Saprò accettare con allegria anche un bel rifiuto, sapendo che dappertutto si può piacere a Dio”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Rajeev Syal
Tuesday 20 October 2015

The detective who quit as head of the VIP paedophile inquiry after reportedly being undermined by Tom Watson, Labour’s deputy leader, will appear before a select committee on Wednesday despite objections from senior Met officers.

DCI Paul Settle, who stepped away from Operation Fernbridge last October, will give evidence to the home affairs select committee, followed by Watson. Both will be grilled about their alleged roles in the rape and paedophile investigations into Leon Brittan, the late Conservative peer.

The Met’s deputy commissioner Craig Mackey wrote to the committee arguing that MPs should not ask a relatively junior officer to appear before parliament. In a letter to Keith Vaz, the committee’s chair, Mackey said Settle’s appearance was inappropriate and had significant implications for the operational independence of the police.

“In our view this would create an unhelpful precedent and may lead to anxiety amongst officers taking operational decisions that they may subsequently have to justify the detail of those decisions before a committee of the House of Commons,” he wrote.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull must immediately launch an investigation into elite pedophile rings in Australia, says a survivors’ network for people abused by priests.

The call follows a claim by Liberal senator Bill Heffernan that he has a police list which names 28 prominent people, including a former prime minister, as suspected pedophiles.

The senator didn’t name names but on Tuesday called on Attorney-General George Brandis to expand the child abuse royal commission to include the legal fraternity.

Nicky Davis, the leader of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) said the government should immediately announce a thorough investigation of elite pedophile rings in Australia, similar to one already underway in the UK.

Senator Heffernan’s revelations came as no surprise to many survivors of child sexual abuse, Ms Davis said in a statement early on Wednesday.

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MISSOURI
KMOV

By Stephanie Baumer, Online News Producer

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOV.com) – A lawsuit has been filed against the Archdiocese of St. Louis by a man who claims he was sexually abused between 1977 and 1981.

The lawsuit alleges that Father Leroy Valentine sexually abused the plaintiff while he was a student at the Church of the Immacolata.

According to the lawsuit, Father Valentine has been accused of childhood sexual abuse multiple times in the past and resigned as an associate pastor at St. Thomas the Apostle in 2002 after another child sexual abuse allegation. In 2013, Archbishop Robert Carlson stated that an allegation of child sexual abuse against Father Valentine was found to be credible.

“I approached the Archdiocese multiple times for help and tried to get assistance without getting lawyers involved,” the plaintiff, called John Doe 121 in the lawsuit, said in a statement. “Filing a lawsuit was my last resort and due to their inaction.”

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ROME
Chiesa

He is Timothy Dolan, one of the thirteen cardinals of the letter to the pope. A living example of that “parresia,” that candor of word and thought, so desired by Francis

by Sandro Magister

ROME, October 19, 2015 – In the uproar unleashed by the publication of the letter of the thirteen cardinals to the pope, the Vatican authorities who manage communication – from Santa Marta more than from the Apostolic Palace – have in fact fomented attacks not so much against the one responsible for the publication, but much more against the synod fathers who signed the letter.

And yet these are personalities of the highest rank, archbishops of important dioceses like New York, Toronto, Houston, Utrecht, Bologna, Durban, Nairobi, Caracas. Not to mention three pillars of the Roman curia old and new like George Pell, Gerhard Müller, and Robert Sarah, themselves bishops in the past of dioceses like Sydney, Regensburg, and Conakry.

There was so much aggression in the media against this towering and tightly knit representation of the worldwide hierarchy – accused of “conspiring” against the pope even before the letter was published – that it brought up another unresolved question on top of those raised in the letter: concerning the management of the communication of what happens in the synod.

It is enough to see how Fr. Thomas Rosica, the official media liaison at the synod for the English-language media, has immediately circulated with his own enthusiastic approval the most virulent and authoritative attack against the thirteen signers of the letter, made by Washington archbishop Donald Wuerl, one of Bergoglio’s preferred cardinals, in an October 18 interview with “America,” the magazine of the “liberal” New York Jesuits:

The fact is that, in spite of these reactions, the letter of the thirteen cardinals has gotten results. And it got them above all after its publication, which allowed a larger number of synod fathers to become acquainted with it and recognize themselves in it, and therefore to exercise firmer pressure on those who govern the synod, in order to obtain answers more satisfying than the ones given until then.

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ROME
dotCommonweal

Grant Gallicho
October 20, 2015

ROME—In the beginning was the letter. And the letter was published. By Sandro Magister, longtime Vaticanista, sometime critic of this papacy, and current insinuator of the idea that one of those responsible for leaking the text may be the most famous resident of Casa Santa Marta.

Last week, Magister published a letter sent by several cardinals to Pope Francis, criticizing the synod process for favoring those who want to change church practice on a range of contested issues. The letter, which was sent to the pope before the synod began, received a direct response when Francis delivered an unscheduled address on the second day of the proceedings. He reminded the synod fathers that he had personally approved of the synod process, and urged them not to fall victim to a “hermeneutic of conspiracy.” (That memorable line was amusingly interpreted by the camptastically named “Xavier Rynne II”—who has been aiming his firehose of verbiage at the goings-on here since the synod began. And by George if he doesn’t think the pope’s phrase wasn’t really referring to those who have been hoping for some change out of this meeting. XR2 assures that the leak “certainly did not involve the Holy Father.” So that’s a relief.)

Later it was reported that Magister got several of the signatories wrong. Some who acknowledged putting their names on a similar letter said that the version Magister published wasn’t the one they signed. This occasioned not the slightest hint of regret from Magister. Instead, he published a follow-up piece noting this correction but basically saying he was right all along. He still hasn’t explained how he got the letter, what the version he published actually was, or how he managed to botch the list of signatories.

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VATICAN CITY
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor October 20, 2015

ROME – As the Oct. 4-25 Synod of Bishops on the family nears its end, two features of the process seem especially striking. One is how much the bishops have left to do; the other is how much uncertainty still surrounds exactly what they’re doing.

The final result is to be a document to be presented to Pope Francis. It’s designed to be based on a working document distributed before the synod, but there’s been enough dissatisfaction with that earlier text that it’s possible the 10-member drafting committee could essentially start from scratch.

That drafting committee includes:

* Cardinal Peter Erdo, archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest and the synod’s relator general
* Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, secretary of the synod
* Archbishop Bruno Forte, archishop of Chieti-Vasto, Italy
* Cardinal Oswald Gracias, archbishop of Bombay, India
* Cardinal Donald Wuerl, archbishop of Washington, DC
* Cardinal John Dew, archbishop of Wellington, New Zealand
* Archbishop Victor Manuel Fernandez, rector of the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina
* Bishop Mathieu Madega Lebouakehan, bishop of Mouila, Gabon
* Bishop Marcello Semeraro, bishop of Albano, Italy
* The Rev. Adolfo Nicolas, head of the Jesuit order

Whether the group overhauls the original working document, called the Instrumentum Laboris, or goes back to the drawing board, it’s supposed to incorporate the hundreds of suggestions made by the synod’s 13 small working groups.

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MICHIGAN
Memorial Networks

Reverend Fr. Loren F. O’Dea
June 11, 1928 – October 14, 2015

Age 87, of Waterford, died early Wednesday morning, October 14, 2015, at Lourdes Senior Community, Waterford.

Father Loren was born June 11, 1928, the son of the late Joseph Daniel Sr. and Harriet O’Dea.

Father Loren had a career as a social worker, then Director of Mental Health at Pontiac General Hospital. In retirement, he returned to Sacred Heart Major Seminary where he was ordained a priest in 1993. He served Our Lady of Sorrows Parish in Farmington.

In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by siblings, J. Daniel Jr., Paul (Kathryn), Catherine, Robert (Lois), John “Jackie”, and Michael (Joan).

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MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS • A new sexual abuse lawsuit has been filed against the Archdiocese of St. Louis and Archbishop Robert Carlson over a priest who has been accused multiple times in the past.

Father Leroy Valentine, also a defendant, is accused in the suit of repeatedly abusing a young student who attended the Church of the Immacolata between approximately 1977 and 1981, starting when the boy was age 11.

Attorneys from Chackes, Carlson and Gorovsky filed the suit last week in St. Louis County Circuit Court. The petition says Valentine told the boy the abuse was “special training” required for becoming an altar boy.

Valentine has been accused of childhood sexual abuse multiple times in the past.

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