ABUSE TRACKER

SCOTLAND
STV

A former priest at a Highland abbey has appeared in court on six charges of assaulting pupils to their injury.

Father Benedict Seed taught chemistry at Fort Augustus Abbey before the Loch Ness boarding school closed in 1999.

The 82-year-old appeared at Inverness Sheriff Court before Sheriff Margaret Neilson under his real name of Thomas Seed.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MISSISSIPPI
WJTV

By Donesha Aldridge

JONES COUNTY, Miss. (WJTV) — A priest is arrested for sexual battery in Jones County after he confessed to the crime.

A judge set bond at $100,000 for 36-year-old Father Jose Vazquez. We’re told by authorities that Father Vazquez currently works in Stone County.

Sheriff’s Deputies went to the victim’s home on Sept. 9. after his father called authorities. The victim’s father said there was inappropriate behavior between his 12-year-old son and the priest.

When authorities arrived on the scene, Vazquez was still there. He was taken into custody and he confessed to multiple acts of sexual battery with the victim. He said one of the acts happened in Jones County and the other acts happened in other areas.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED STATES
Pacific Standard

TOM JACOBS

During his upcoming visit to the United States, Pope Francis will attempt to instill some fresh energy into American Catholicism, which desperately needs his holiness’ help. According to a new Reuters analysis, the Catholic Church in the U.S. is dealing with deep financial problems, as well as shrinking congregations—52 million self-identified members this year, compared to 55 million in 2007.

While multiple factors underlie these trends, a recently published study suggests the clergy sex-abuse scandals of recent years have played a major and lasting role.

Economists Nicolas Bottan of the University of Illinois and Ricardo Perez-Truglia of Microsoft Research report there was “a significant decline in religious participation as a result of the scandals,” as well as a parallel decline in charitable donations.

“The indirect cost of the scandals through the decline in giving is an order of magnitude higher than the direct costs of the scandals to the Catholic churches, such as the cost of lawsuit settlements,” the pair write in their study, published in the Journal of Public Economics.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

By Paul Peirce
Thursday, Sept. 10, 2015

A federal jury was seated Thursday morning in Johnstown to hear testimony in the trial of a suspended Somerset County Catholic priest accused of traveling to Honduras to have sex with poor street children during missionary trips.

The Rev. Joseph Maurizio Jr., 70, of Windber has been in jail since federal prosecutors charged him last fall with molesting a boy and possessing child pornography. An indictment in April added charges involving two other boys and alleged the priest illegally sent $8,000 to a charity to help facilitate the trips that ended in 2009.

The priest has denied the allegations.

The judge gave instructions to the jury of seven men and five women when court reconvened at 1 p.m. Thursday. They are expected to hear opening arguments in the afternoon.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

TEXAS
CBS DFW

Elizabeth Dinh

BEDFORD (CBSDFW.COM) – Community members in Bedford are angry after learning that an employee at First Baptist Church of Bedford was recently indicted on sex abuse charges in Alabama.

Investigators arrested and indicted Kyle Adcock back in January on 20 counts of rape and nine counts of sodomy. Authorities believe that the incidents happened while Adcock worked at Woodward Avenue Baptist Church from 2010 to 2012. Police said that the female victim was 14 years old at the time.

Adcock has not been convicted, and has pleaded not guilty in court.

After he was released, the judge in Alabama ordered Adcock’s parents to supervise him, mandating that the suspect live with his parents at their home here in Grapevine.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

GERMANY
National Catholic Reporter

Christa Pongratz-Lippitt | Sep. 10, 2015

German Jesuit Fr. Klaus Mertes, who first broke the story of the long-standing, systematic priestly sex abuse scandal in Germany in 2010, said in an interview with the German Internet portal katholisch.de, that the Vatican is not doing nearly enough to clear up sex abuse cases.

Mertes said he agrees with Australian Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, who testified to that fact in front of the Australian Royal Commission Aug. 23. Mertes also warned that this may cause credibility problems for the bishops at the coming Synod of Bishops on the family in October.

Robinson was not trying to reopen the subject of abuse and the way the Vatican handled it in his critical testimony before the royal commission, Mertes said. Robinson was deeply worried that the questions the church faced concerning priestly sexual abuse of children when it encountered the victims would once again meet with silence in Rome. This did not mean depreciating praiseworthy efforts like the foundation of the Child Protection Commission and the many different efforts being made to prevent abuse, Mertes said, but added, “They are simply not enough. The entire church is at stake.”

Mertes said he fully agreed with Robinson that Pope Francis had not yet shown the type of leadership needed to deal with child sexual abuse in the church and demanded that the Vatican make greater efforts to clear up sexual abuse cases by members of the clergy. Those responsible in the Vatican at the moment were “not credible” and their desire for clarification “doubtful,” he said.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PENNSYLVANIA
Catholics4Change

SEPTEMBER 10, 2015 BY SUSAN MATTHEWS

“Statutes of limitations exist to ensure a just verdict can be reached,” said Amy Hill, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, the bishops’ political arm in the state.

“Over time witnesses’ memories fade, evidence is lost or never found, and in many instances perpetrators or witnesses may be deceased.” – Reuters.com

Hill’s argument doesn’t hold water because there is no Statute of Limitations for murder in Pennsylvania. All the evidence challenges she mentions would also apply to murder trials. There should not be a Statute of Limitations on Child Sex Abuse.

This is just a case of the Church trying to avoid fiscal and moral responsibility.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED STATES
Al Jazeera

When Pope Francis makes his first visit to the U.S. this month, he will find that wounds from the U.S. Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal have not yet healed.

Those tensions are being played out in courtrooms and state legislatures, where the Church is using its legal and political clout to oppose bills that would extend the statute of limitations for victims of child sex abuse.

A statute of limitations forbids prosecutors or plaintiffs from taking legal action after a certain number of years.

The pontiff has vowed to root out “the scourge” of sex abuse from the Roman Catholic Church, and this year created a Vatican tribunal to judge clergy accused of such crimes.

But U.S. victims’ advocates contend the biggest obstacle they face in giving victims more time to report abuse remains the Church itself, and want the pope to change that stance.

The U.S. church has already been dealt a heavy financial blow by settlement payments and other costs totaling around $3 billion, which has forced it to sell off assets and cut costs.

“It is the bishops who have blocked any kind of meaningful reform,” said Marci Hamilton, a professor at the Cardozo School of Law in New York who studies statutes of limitations.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

AUSTRALIA
National Catholic Reporter

Kieran Tapsell | Sep. 10, 2015

ANALYSIS
Dying of cancer, Bishop Emeritus Geoffrey Robinson appeared Aug. 24 before the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse to testify to the prevalence of child sexual abuse in the church.

He painted a sad picture of a brave and lonely Sisyphus with his band of bishops in tow, pushing a boulder with a reasoned response to the crisis up the Vatican Hill, only to have it pushed back by popes and cardinals who had no idea about the issue and a blindness about the incapacity of canon law to deal with it.

“However great the faults of the Australian bishops have been over the last 30 years, it still remains true that the major obstacle to a better response from the church has been the Vatican,” Robinson told the commission. Most of the Roman Curia saw the problem as a “moral one: if a priest offends, he should repent; if he repents, he should be forgiven and restored to his position. … They basically saw the sin as a sexual one, and did not show great understanding of the abuse of power involved or the harm done to the victims.”

Robinson entered the seminary at 12-years-old, was ordained a priest, and became a canon lawyer and then auxiliary bishop of Sydney. In 1996, when revelations of clergy sexual abuse of children in Australia had reached a crescendo, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference appointed him to find a solution. In 2004, he resigned as auxiliary bishop of Sydney after concluding that the church’s response was still inadequate.

“I eventually came to the point where I felt that, with the thoughts that were running through my head, I could not continue to be a bishop of a church about which I had such profound reservations,” Robinson wrote in a 2008 book Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church. “I resigned my office as Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney and began to write this book, about the very foundations of power and sex within the church.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

SCOTLAND
BBC News

A former priest at Fort Augustus Abbey school has appeared in private at Inverness Sheriff Court on six charges of assaulting pupils to their injury.

Father Benedict Seed, 82, taught chemistry at the school on the banks of Loch Ness in the years leading up to its closure in 1999.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MISSISSIPPI
WDAM

By Eddie Robertson, Reporter

JONES COUNTY, MS (WDAM) –
This is a news release from the Jones County Sheriff’s Department

On Wednesday, Jones County Sheriff’s Deputies were dispatched to a residence in western Jones County on a complaint of sexual battery.

The father of a 12-year-old male victim reported inappropriate behavior between his son and a priest who previously worked in Jones County, Father Jose Vazquez, 36.

Vazquez is currently working in Stone County.

Vazquez was at the victim’s home at the time of the call and remained there as deputies arrived.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Sep. 10

Statement by Frank Meuers, Minnesota SNAP leader, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (952-334-5180, frankameuers@gmail.com)

We urge Catholics and citizens to donate to non-profits with proven records in preventing abuse and healing victims, not to the facility a convicted Minnesota predator priest and others are trying to set up.

[Minnesota Public Radio]

We fear that recent publicity about Fr. Gilbert Gustafson’s planned “healing center” will bring more donations to this effort. That would, in our view, be unfortunate.

Giving power and prestige to an admitted serial predator is reckless. But it will also likely encourage other predators to work harder to rehab their reputations and seek power and prestige. And we know that predators often use their power and prestige into befriend parents, groom kids and abuse again.

Just like an alcoholic shouldn’t seek a brewery job, a predator shouldn’t seek a position of power over others, especially already-vulnerable and still-wounded victims of childhood sexual abuse.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

TEXAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Group blasts church staff
They hired accused child molester
SNAP: “Local victims & witnesses must speak up”
Group urges other ministers to “denounce recklessness”

What:
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, abuse victims will

–blast the pastor of a Dallas area church for quietly hiring an accused child molester, and
–urge other local Baptist ministers to “publicly denounce” the pastor

They will also

–seek out others who saw, suspected or suffered misdeeds or crimes by the alleged predator, and
–prod current and former church members and staff to call law enforcement if they “saw, suspected or suffered” the accused molester’s crimes or his supervisors’ cover ups.

WHEN
Thursday, September 10 at 1:00 p.m.

WHERE
On the sidewalk outside the First Baptist Church Bedford (corner of Bedford Rd and Barr Dr) in Bedford, Texas

2045 Bedford Rd
Bedford, TX 76021

WHO
Two-three adults who belong to a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org), including a whistleblower from another Texas Baptist church

WHY

SNAP members are upset that First Baptist Church of Bedford Pastor Steve Knott quietly hired a pastor who is charged with child rape and sodomy in Alabama.

Alabama court records show that First Baptist music minister Charles Kyle Adcock faces charges for 29 counts of sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl at Woodward Avenue Baptist Church between 2010 and 2012.

For the safety of congregants, SNAP wants 1) the church board to “harshly and public discipline Knott for acting so recklessly,” and 2) all church staff and members to “aggressively search for and help anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes or cover ups” by Adcock (or other church staff) 3) prod victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to call law enforcement in both states and help them investigate and convict Adcock “and anyone who might have enabled or hidden his crimes.”

If more victims, witnesses or whistleblowers step forward, SNAP says, Adcock may face more charges which “will increase the chances that he’ll be extradited, convicted and imprisoned and make everyone safer and deters similar crimes and cover ups in the future.”

SNAP also contends that, to “deter such recklessness and secrecy in the future,” other Baptist officials in the Dallas/Fort Worth area should publicly denounce pastor Steve Knott “for his irresponsible actions that put children in harm’s way.”

Some church members or staff who may have information or suspicions about Adcock and his hiring may have quit the church in frustration or fear, SNAP says. So the organization is appealing to ex-church-goers and ex-church employees and ask them to “share any anything they may know about this troubling situation” with law enforcement.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MISSOURI
The Raw Story

BETHANIA PALMA MARKUS
19 AUG 2015

A Missouri pastor at a church called “Passion for Truth Ministries” will serve prison time for lying to and defrauding elderly investors, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.

Jim Staley, 40, was sentenced Wednesday to 7 years in prison and ordered to repay elderly investors $3.3 million. He pleaded guilty to four counts of wire fraud and profited $570,000 in the scam of elderly people who trusted him because of his Christian faith and family values. Some of them were suffering from dementia.

Although he apologized, the daughter of a man who lost $155,000 in Staley’s scam said it wasn’t sincere and was staged for church members.

His victims were not members of his parish.

Despite being warned by the court that not accepting personal responsibility for his actions could earn him more prison time, Staley has said in sermons that he was “in the wrong place at the wrong time” and blamed the economy.

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UNITED STATES
The Guardian (UK)

Amanda Holpuch in New York
@holpuch
Thursday 10 September 2015

For decades, the locker rooms at Chaminade College Preparatory School in St Louis were a place of terror for several students aged 11 to 18, who as adults have filed lawsuits against the school alleging widespread sexual abuse by its staff. Former students also say they were abused in Chaminade’s boarding school rooms and staff offices.

Christopher Wimmer, who says he was abused by two staff members at Chaminade for seven years, reports anger issues and problems with authority and is unable to keep a job because bosses frustrate him, along with a host of other mental and physical issues. He describes himself as “one of the good ones”, however, having seen people escorted into child sex abuse survivor support groups, unable to speak and barely able to function.

“I always thought that because I hadn’t eaten a gun or jumped off a bridge that I had transcended,” Wimmer said.

The story is a familiar one across the US, where the culture of child sex abuse in Catholic organizations persists.

When Pope Francis arrives in the US for the first time later this month, his reputation as the beloved “people’s pope” will be clouded by the trauma endured by the thousands of people abused as children in the Catholic church.

Wimmer told the Guardian that he hopes Francis is as “wonderful” as his reputation suggests. “But as far as this issue goes, he hasn’t done anything to give me hope,” the 56-year-old said.

Using data from John Jay College of Criminal Justice’s 2011 report on sex abuse in the church, BishopAccountability.org estimates that there have been at least 17,200 victims in the US. The site warns that this is a conservative estimate.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

Posted: Wednesday, September 9, 2015

By David Hurst
dhurst@tribdem.com

Attorneys will likely be able to deliver opening statements Thursday in a Central City priest’s sex abuse trial.

But both sides’ legal teams will begin the day weighing in on which of the 44 jury finalists should be seated in the 12-member jury panel – the final step in this week’s extended jury selection procedure.

Attorneys representing the U.S. Government and the Rev. Joseph Maurizio Jr., still have a limited number of “strikes” they can use to eliminate individuals viewed as unfavorable to their respective sides. But that process should be completed Thursday morning, U.S. District Judge Kim R. Gibson told the court.

Jury selection extends into a third day after two days of questioning eliminated 67 of 111 potential jurors for extraordinary hardships or “cause,” such as bias or prejudice toward one side or the other.

Maurizio, 70, is accused of using his Honduran mission to lure street orphans, offering them candy for sex acts.

Prosecutors have described him as a habitual abuser who transferred money across national borders to fund his fetish for young boys.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

AUSTRALIA
The Age

[with video]

Sex abuse inquiry: Former Geelong Grammar principal admits teacher accused of child sex abuse was paid to retire early

September 10, 2015

Henrietta Cook
Education Reporter at The Age

A former Geelong Grammar principal has admitted he paid a teacher accused of child sex abuse to retire early, but insists it was not a “sweetheart deal”.

Nicholas Sampson, who has been the headmaster of Sydney’s elite Cranbrook School since 2012, told the Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Abuse that he regretted writing a glowing letter to former teacher Jonathan Harvey, thanking him for his “exceptional service”.

Mr Harvey was jailed in 2007 for 10 months, with another 22 months suspended, after pleading guilty to abusing a former student between 1976 and 1978.

Mr Sampson, who was principal of Geelong Grammar from 2001 to 2004, said on Thursday he became aware of sexual abuse allegations involving Mr Harvey during his final month at the school.

In a tense discussion in Mr Sampson’s office, staff member BLW, who had attended the school as a child, revealed to the former Geelong Grammar principal that his brother had been sexually abused by Mr Harvey in the late ’70s.

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CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

In about 20 minutes, using one website (BishopAccountability.org), we found ten proven, admitted or credibly accused predator priests who were “outed” elsewhere but worked in the Sacramento area. On 9/8/15, SNAP disclosed their names:

–Fr. Robert “Bob” Marsicek

According to his personnel files, his superiors repeatedly told him to stop hugging and touching children. In May 2012, Sacramento police launched an investigation of Marsicek after a woman reported that the priest had molested her two sons in the late 1980s and early 1990s while he was their parish pastor.

Fr. Marsicek’s direct supervisor is Fr. Joseph Rodrigues, who knew of the Sacramento investigation but kept Fr. Marsicek in ministry in Milwaukee. Almost a year later, Fr. Marsicek was put on leave after a parish school teacher reported that she observed him on several occasions inappropriately touching a little girl.

He also worked in Arizona and Alabama. He belongs to a religious order called the Salvatorians.

As of 2013, he was said to be living in a church facility in Milwaukee.

–Br. William C. Farrington

He worked at Bellarmine College Prep in San Jose in the late 1960s. Fr. Farrington supervised students living on campus. School officials found accusations against him credible and publicly apologized to the accuser. They also reportedly sent letter to hundreds of former students about him.

In 2002, Fr. Farrington was removed from Loyola Marymount University after allegations from another student at Jesuit HS. He reportedly lives “under supervision” at Los Gatos Retreat Center in California. At least four other victims of his have come forward.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

By Sarah Pulliam Bailey September 9

A once-influential Orthodox rabbi who was sentenced to prison for videotaping dozens of women as they prepared for a ritual bath in a Washington synagogue, has issued an apology to the women, the first time he has spoken publicly since his arrest last fall.

In a letter published Wednesday, Barry Freundel wrote that he would have preferred to apologize individually to each of his victims, but he felt that it could cause further harm to some and would be unwelcome, so he issued a public apology, saying he “shattered the worlds of those I most loved.”

“No matter how many times I attempt to apologize, it will never be enough,” Freundel wrote in his Sept. 8 letter of apology, which was at the Washington Jewish Week’s Web site. “I am sorry, beyond measure, for my heinous behavior and the perverse mindset that provoked my actions.”

In May, Freundel who had pleaded guilty to secretly videotaping 52 women, was sentenced to 6 1 /2 years in prison. He had been arrested in October 2014 on charges that he videotaped nude women at Kesher Israel synagogue in Georgetown as the women prepared for the bath known as a mikvah, used as part of a purification ritual.

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UNITED STATES
CBS Baltimore

BALTIMORE (WJZ)—The rabbi who was sentenced to six and a half years in May for secretly videotaping naked women issues a public apology, calling his behavior “heinous” and “perverse”.

“No matter how many times I attempted to apologize, it will never be enough,” said Rabbi Barry Freundel in a personal apology posted on the Washington Jewish Week website.

“I am sorry, beyond measure, for my heinous behavior and the perverse mindset that provoked my actions.”

Freundel, who was a professor at both Towson and Georgetown universities, was arrested back in October 2014 of last year on charges of voyeurism.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

10 September, 2015

The Hon. Justice Peter McClellan AM, Chair of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, will address the Safe as Churches? conference hosted by the National Council of Churches in Australia in Sydney today.

Justice McClellan’s speech is available here.

Justice McClellan also delivered an address at the Supreme Court Conference in Bowral on Friday 4 September. You can access a copy of this speech here.

For media inquiries about the Royal Commission or Justice McClellan’s speeches, contact the Royal Commission media unit on 02 8282 3966 or media@childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au.

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AUSTRALIA
Pro Bono Australia

Posted: Thursday, September 10, 2015

The Catholic Church’s Truth Justice and Healing Council has called for the introduction of a new, consistent nation-wide criminal law requiring the reporting to the police of suspected child sexual abuse.

In its submission to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse Issues Paper 8, called Police and Prosecution Responses, the Council recommends the new law should require anyone who has a reasonable belief that a sexual offence has been committed against a child to disclose what they know to the police.

The Submission said the only circumstance in which this would not be required is if the person has a reasonable excuse, such as where the person believes the allegations have already been reported under mandatory reporting laws.

Francis Sullivan CEO of the TJHC said nationally consistent police reporting legislation would enhance a nationally consistent, trauma informed approach to survivors of child sexual abuse.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Argus

AN ALLEGED victim of former bishop Peter Ball says he has been “denied justice” now his case will not be heard in court – even as the clergyman finally admitted sexually abusing 18 young men.

Phil Johnson waived his anonymity to speak out after prosecutors accepted the former Lewes bishop’s guilty pleas on most counts, bu left Mr Johnson’s and another man’s allegations to lie on file.

The 49-year-old, from Eastbourne, who said he was indecently assaulted by Ball in 1978, which Ball denies, said: “I have been pursuing this for nearly 20 years and never has my experience been told in open court.

“Throughout the two decades since the original disclosures, none of the allegations has been tested or fully examined. At every turn there have been deals and cover-ups.”

On Tuesday, two decades of investigations and negotiations – including a phonecall from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the chief prosecutor behind the case were revealed after reporting restrictions were lifted at the Old Bailey.

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UNITED STATES
Reuters

BOSTON | BY SCOTT MALONE

Mark Rozzi says he was 13, a young altar boy, when a priest at his eastern Pennsylvania parish sexually assaulted him in a shower.

It took Rozzi, who says the priest spent a year grooming him with trips to McDonald’s and secretly shared beers, a quarter century to talk about the experience publicly. By then it was too late for any legal action.

Now a 44-year-old Pennsylvania state representative, Rozzi is a driving force behind one of about a dozen bills making their way through legislatures in states including New York and New Jersey that aim to give child sex assault victims more time to sue their attackers.

When Pope Francis makes his first visit to the United States this month, he will find that wounds from the U.S. Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal are still festering – and draining its finances – more than a decade after it burst onto the national stage.

The tensions are being played out in courtrooms and state legislatures, where the Church is using its legal and political clout to oppose bills that would extend the statute of limitations for victims of child sex abuse. A statute of limitations forbids prosecutors or plaintiffs from taking legal action after a certain number of years.

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CANADA
Waterloo Region Record

Editorial

In the 21 years since Vernon Leis died in a car crash, his reputation as a wise and caring Mennonite pastor has stood as the shining monument to his life.

Now, in the space of a few days, vague allegations of sexual and moral wrongdoing publicly brought against this local clergyman threaten to bring that monument crashing down.

To see this disturbing and distasteful spectacle playing itself out is to feel the pain that must be felt by the family of a man who was a beloved senior church official as well as a respected public figure in Waterloo Region before his death at the age of 60. It is also to question why so few words that could cause so much harm would be spoken against a dead man who cannot defend himself.

The Kitchener-based Mennonite Church of Eastern Canada says it was all about transparency when it tersely announced it had received “an allegation of sexual and ethical misconduct” against Leis that was “compelling and credible.” Pastors at three churches where Leis had served in Elmira, Kitchener and Tavistock repeated these accusations to congregants on Aug. 30.

To be fair to the Mennonite Church of Eastern Canada, it acted after interviewing the female complainant, and argued it had gone public with the accusations “to confront a hidden truth and bring it into the light for healing.” We have no doubt it is trying to do the right thing.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

[with video]

September 10, 2015

Eryk Bagshaw
Education Reporter

The headmaster of the eastern suburbs private school Cranbrook has admitted he paid a teacher at his former institution, Geelong Grammar, to retire early to avoid any formal complaints of child sex abuse being made against him.

Nicholas Sampson, who has been the headmaster of the Bellevue Hill school since 2012, also allowed maths teacher Jonathan Harvey to remain in his role at Geelong for a further six months after he was made aware of allegations of child sex abuse, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard on Thursday.

The evidence given at the commission has put Mr Sampson’s tenure at Cranbrook, an-all boys school that charges students $30,000 per year, under scrutiny.

A spokesman for the Anglican Church, which has two chairs on the Cranbrook school board, said that the church was disappointed at the evidence given by the headmaster.

“We do agree that his response at Geelong Grammar in 2004 was, as he told the commission, ‘just not good enough’.”

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MICHIGAN
WZZM

John Hogan, WZZM September 9, 2015

MUSKEGON, Mich. (WZZM) — A former Muskegon church leader accused of having sex with children lost his bid for a new trial following a Court of Appeals decision upholding his 2014 conviction, which resulted in a prison term of up to 35 years.

Carlton Lindberg Johnson, 78, a longtime leader at Faith Congregational Church of God in Christ, was convicted on three counts of criminal sexual conduct involving relatives, two of whom were under the age of 13.

Investigators said he sexually abused multiple girls dating back to 1957.

Johnson in June, 2014 was sentenced to between 17 and 35 years in prison. He’ll be 93 years old before he can be considered for release.

Johnson, who wore a clerical collar during his four-day trial, asked the Appeals Court to declare a mistrial, saying he was not afforded a fair and impartial jury.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Guy Stayner

Two former principals of Geelong Grammar have told the child abuse Royal Commission they regret their handling of abuse complaints at the school.

The headmaster of Sydney’s prestigious Cranbrook School, Nicholas Sampson, and John Lewis, who went on to be headmaster at the world-renowned Eton College in England, on Thursday fronted the commission over their time as principals at the school in Geelong.

Mr Sampson was headmaster at Geelong for three years from 2001 and authorised the payment of a year’s salary to teacher, Jonathan Harvey, after sex abuse allegations were made against him.

“I personally regret some of the things I did and I certainly wouldn’t do them again,” Mr Sampson told the Commission.

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TEXAS
Slate

By Beth Ethier

A church in Texas hired a youth minister from Alabama while he was out on bail for dozens of sex offenses allegedly committed against a child at his former job, Fox affiliate KDFW reports. Charles Kyle Adcock is currently employed as a music minister for the First Baptist Church of Bedford, Texas, where parents are reportedly upset about the background of the man giving their children music lessons:

Alabama court documents show [Adcock] has been charged with 29 counts of sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl between 2010 and 2012, when he was her youth minister.

He was working at Woodward Avenue Baptist Church in Muscle Shoals at the time, a city about two hours northwest of Birmingham.

The pastor at the First Baptist Church of Bedford told a KDFW reporter that the church usually conducts background checks on employees (as David Edwards notes at RawStory, a rudimentary Google search would have turned up multiple stories about Adcock’s arrest). First Baptist’s pastor also repeatedly stressed that Adcock hasn’t yet been convicted on the charges, KDFW reported.

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CONNECTICUT
The Connecticut Law Tribune

Christian Nolan, The Connecticut Law Tribune
September 8, 2015

Michael Doe v. Shawn Pahl, et al.: A member of a church youth choir who was sexually abused by the choir’s director has been awarded $400,000 in damages by a judge.

Because he was a minor when the abuse occurred, the male plaintiff is known only as Michael Doe in court documents. The defendant, Shawn Pahl, was hired as a part-time organist and choir director more than a decade ago at St. John the Evangelist Church in New Britain.

Lawyers involved in the case did not respond to repeated messages for comment. But according to court documents, Doe was 12 years old when he first met Pahl. Doe liked music and expressed an interest in playing the organ and singing in the youth choir. The two developed a friendship and when Doe was confirmed in the Catholic church, he asked Pahl to be his confirmation sponsor. When Doe was confirmed, he was 14; Pahl was 33.

After the confirmation, the two went back to Pahl’s parent’s home for dinner. Later, the two discussed various topics, including homosexuality. Doe had suspected from the rainbow stickers on Pahl’s car that he was gay. Doe was excited to talk to someone about what he was going through with his own sexuality. He was not close with his mother and his father was not in his life. Pahl became a father figure.

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

By: Tyler Berg

A victim of sexual abuse and a former priest convicted of sexually abusing minors came together in an attempt to start a healing center.

The duo and others formed the Gilead Project to purchase the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis’ Chancery building across from the Cathedral of St. Paul. The nonprofit’s effort hasn’t come without criticism from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

Susan Pavlak, the president of the project, said the location would serve as a memorial to victims, like herself, and help them with programs for healing.

“The wonderful thing we need to do is show people what the next horizon is in the sexual abuse crisis,” Pavlak said.

One of Pavlak’s partners, Gilbert Gustafson, was convicted of sexual abuse in 1983 when he was a priest.

“I don’t think the sky is falling,” Pavlak said. “I have worked with Gil Gustafson for a number of years.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

By Paul Peirce
Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2015

A federal jury is expected to be formally seated Thursday morning in Johnstown to hear testimony in the trial of a suspended Somerset County Catholic priest accused of traveling to Honduras to have sex with poor street children during missionary trips.

The Rev. Joseph Maurizio Jr. of Windber has been jailed since federal prosecutors charged him last fall with molesting a boy and possessing child pornography. An indictment in April added charges involving two other boys and alleged the priest illegally sent $8,000 to a charity to help facilitate the trips that ended in 2009.

The 70-year-old Maurizio has denied the allegations. He continues to receive support from some members of Our Lady Queen of Angels, the Central City church he pastored before he was placed on leave.

While jury selection continued Wednesday, prosecutors won a legal battle to permit jurors to hear from a psychologist who treats sexually abused children and sex offenders.

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MALTA
Malta Today

Jurgen Balzan 10 September 2015

One of the alleged victims of the defrocked paedophile priest Dominic Camilleri told MaltaToday that the Gozo Bishop, Mario Grech, had been informed about the sexual abuse of children resident at Dar San Guzepp in Ghajnsielem, in 2006.

However, the alleged victim said that although an ad hoc commission appointed by Grech had concluded that the sexual abuse had taken place at the home, no action was taken against at least two other perpetrators and “the victims still await justice”.

Some 10 years ago, 42-year-old Noel Gauci had gone public about the abuse he suffered, however he told MaltaToday that he has little hope in seeing justice being done.

“Apart from Camilleri, at least two other priests were involved in the abuse and both of them are still in active pastoral duty,” Gauci told MaltaToday.

He explained that Camilleri – who was dismissed by the Vatican over several allegations of sexual abuse on minors – visited Dar San Guzepp frequently before 1990.

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UNITED STATES
Counter Punch

by DAVID CLOHESSY

When Pope Francis lands in the US this month, news reports will tout his latest pledge regarding the continuing abuse and cover up in the church: a first-ever tribunal that will reportedly consider cases of complicity by Catholic officials in child sex crimes by clerics.

But few if any news accounts will look at a more simple but equally crucial part of the crisis: how US church authorities are abiding by a much earlier pledge: to remove credibly accused predator priests from ministry.

This won’t be examined because it’s considered “old hat”. It’s become a widely accepted truism that since 2002, bishops in this country promptly oust clerics who are alleged abusers when the first report of wrongdoing surfaces.

This does happen, of course. But not nearly as often as it should. Today, 13 years after the “Dallas Charter” and its alleged “one strike and you’re out” provision, dozens of priests remain on the job across the US who should not be.

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TEXAS
The Daily Beast

Gideon Resnick

A Texas church is in the hot seat after hiring Kyle Adcock for their music ministry, despite the fact that he’s been charged with 29 counts of sexual abuse against a minor.

Kyle Adcock has been charged with 29 counts of sexual abuse of a minor and now he is gainfully employed at a Texas church.

Alabama court documents indicate that Adcock was charged with sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl while serving as a youth minister between 2010 and 2012. He now works at the First Baptist Church of Bedford in Bedford, Texas, where congregants are understandably quite concerned about having teenagers take classes there where Adcock is a temporary employee in the music ministry.

According to Pastor Steve Knott, the church does background checks before hiring their staffers, but a Google search reveals many mugshots of Adcock and articles about his alleged offenses. When reached for comment by Fox 4 News, Pastor Knott pointed out that Adcock has not yet been convicted of a crime. A trial date for Knox is set for later this year.

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ALABAMA
AL.COM

By Crystal Bonvillian | cbonvillian@al.com

A former Muscle Shoals youth pastor facing 20 counts of rape and nine counts of sodomy in Alabama has been hired by a church in Texas, and congregants there are not pleased.

Charles Kyle Adcock, who was indicted in January on the charges involving an underage girl, is now an employee of First Baptist Church of Bedford in Bedford, Texas, according to Fox 4 News out of Dallas. Steve Knott, pastor of the church, told the news station that Adcock is a temporary employee in the church’s music ministry.

That temporary status does not stop congregants of the church from worrying.

“Kids trust ministers,” Julie Brooks, the parent of a teenager who takes classes at the church, told Fox 4. “And if they are approached by someone who works in the church, you would trust him. You would have no reason not to.”

The 32-year-old Adcock, who was arrested last August, was youth pastor Woodward Avenue Baptist Church in Muscle Shoals between 2010 and 2012, when the girl alleges he raped and sodomized her repeatedly. She was 14 years old when the alleged abuse began.

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NEW JERSEY
Road to Recovery

“Walk to End SOL (Statute of Limitations)” on sexual abuse of minor children, teenagers, and vulnerable adults in the State of New Jersey to begin on 9/11/15

A 270 mile walk from Cape May to Mahwah, New Jersey will pass by the offices of NJ legislators in order to encourage the passing of legislation that will give sexual abuse victims their day in court

One in four girls and one in six boys are sexually abused in the USA before the age of 18, and New Jersey must face this epidemic with courage and strong legislation

What
A press conference to kick off the 270 mile walk from Cape May, NJ to Mahwah, NJ by sexual abuse victims and their supporters

When
Friday, September 11, 2015 at 9:00 am

Where
Cape May Point Lighthouse, 215 Lighthouse Avenue, Cape May Point, New Jersey 08212
609-884-5404

Who
Fred Marigliano, a victim/survivor of sexual abuse, from Green Brook, New Jersey, who will walk the entire State of New Jersey; members of victim/survivor and advocacy agencies, including Road to Recovery, Inc. of Livingston, NJ; SNAP ( the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests); and Male Survivor

Why
For the past several years, the New Jersey State legislature has been asked to consider eliminating the statute of limitations on sexual abuse claims. Most recently, efforts have been made to encourage the NJ Senate and Assembly to post bills that would ensure the rights of children and adults who are victim/survivors of sexual abuse. The research is clear: victim/survivors are not able to deal with the effects of sexual abuse until they are well into adulthood, but current New Jersey law insists that victim/survivors report their claims of sexual abuse by approximately their 21st birthdays. This is not realistic! Therefore, victim/survivor Fred Marigliano of Green Brook, New Jersey, and his supporters will walk 270 miles throughout New Jersey, passing by the offices of NJ legislators and asking them to “get with it” and end the restrictive statute of limitations laws in the State. Senator Joseph Vitale has heroically led the charge on behalf of victim/survivors, and his colleagues will be asked to join him in ending antiquated sexual abuse laws in the State of New Jersey.

Contact
Fred Marigliano, Green Brook, New Jersey – 732-421-0033

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UNITED STATES
Failed Messiah

Mikvah Peeping Tom Rabbi Barry Freundel Issues Public Apology To Victims – And Especially To Other Rabbis

Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com

Mikvah voyeur Rabbi Barry Freundel has issued a public apology months after pleading guilty to dozens of counts of voyeurism and months after he began serving a 6-1/2-year jail sentence.

“No matter how many times I attempt to apologize, it will never be enough. I am sorry, beyond measure, for my heinous behavior and the perverse mindset that provoked my actions,” Freundel wrote.

The apology was posted online by the Washington Jewish Week.

Freundel used hidden cameras to video-record more than 150 women while they were completely naked preparing to immerse in the mikvah (ritual bath) adjacent to his Modern Orthodox synagogue in the tony Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, DC. He pleaded guilty to 52 of those incidents and the others were not charged because they fell outside the short statute of limitations.

“On May 15th, as I sat in the courtroom listening the victim impact statements, each felt like a blade entering my gut. The speakers expressed their feelings of rage, hurt, humiliation, vulnerability and violation. How could I have been so incredibly blind, so unaware of my impact on others? I ask myself that question every day. I became a rabbi precisely because I wanted to help people, as well as being drawn to the depth and the scholarship of Judaism, and I have tainted that miserably,” Freundel wrote.

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UNITED STATES
Haaretz

JTA

Barry Freundel, the disgraced Orthodox rabbi who went to jail for installing secret cameras in the mikvah ritual bath adjacent to his Washington synagogue, has issued a public apology.

“No matter how many times I attempt to apologize, it will never be enough,” Freundel wrote in his Sept. 8 letter of apology, which was posted Wednesday on the website of the Washington Jewish Week. “I am sorry, beyond measure, for my heinous behavior and the perverse mindset that provoked my actions.”

Freundel was arrested on charges of voyeurism on October 14, 2014, after members of his synagogue board alerted authorities to suspicions that he was secretly recording women undressing in the shower room of the mikvah adjacent to Kesher Israel, the prominent synagogue he led for some 25 years.

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

BY ADELINA CAMPOS

Only 2.5% of sex abuse claims made against priests in Ireland since 1941 resulted in criminal convictions, it has emerged.

Newly-released reports by the Catholic Church’s child protection watchdog revealed 325 allegations were made against 141 priests or brothers in the past seven decades.

Of those, only eight ended with a conviction.

Teresa Devlin, chief executive of The National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church, said: “Overall there is considerable improvement in safeguarding practice evidenced in these reports”.

“The history is undeniable, that once again a significant number of children were abused in the care of religious institutions.”

The latest reviews cover eight male orders including the Jesuits, Rosminians, and Capuchins, as well as 35 female orders. The reports state the Jesuit Order failed to tell gardai about at least 22 claims of sex abuse in the past four decades.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Online

By Marshall Connolly, Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)

9/9/2015

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) – Working in Catholic media, one of the most frustrating things is reading secular coverage on quintessentially Catholic matters. While every subject is a Catholic subject, for Catholic is a universal worldview that encompasses literally everything, it’s annoying to see outsiders attempt to co-opt Catholic teaching to promote secular agendas.

The latest claim that a coup is brewing in the hierarchy of the Church is an example of muckraking. Several media outlets have run with comments from Cardinal Raymond Burke that he would “resist” liberal changes in the Church and that “One must be very attentive regarding the power of the pope.” The comments were given to a French news team a few months ago.

The pope’s power, Burke explained, “is not absolute. The pope does not have the power to change teaching [or] doctrine.”

Burke is of course, correct. And Burke might have an axe to grind since he was allegedly demoted by Pope Francis from the Vatican’s highest court. For the record, Pope Francis denied that he demoted Burke, saying instead that he needed him elsewhere.

The much-trumpeted rivalry between Pope Francis and Cardinal Burke is almost certainly contrived by the media. The two men can have differences of opinion, as any two parish priests might have, and they can have preferences and grievances even. These realities aren’t unique to the Church, they exist in every job and in every household. And just as every disagreement in a house doesn’t end in divorce, every grievance in the Vatican does not a schism make.

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CHILE
Arzobispado de Santiago

Respecto de la publicación del diario electrónico El Mostrador, el Arzobispado de Santiago declara que se trata de correos privados entre los cardenales Ricardo Ezzati y Francisco Javier Errázuriz, en los cuales intercambian opiniones frente al nombramiento de un futuro capellán de La Moneda, como también respecto de la posibilidad de que uno de los demandantes por el caso Karadima integrara una comisión pontificia para la protección de menores.

El discernimiento de quiénes podrían ocupar determinados servicios eclesiales, es parte de la responsabilidad de las autoridades de la Iglesia. Sobre el primer tema, es una atribución canónica el nombramiento del capellán por parte del Arzobispo de Santiago, y en el segundo caso, la decisión compete exclusivamente a la Santa Sede.

Así mismo, el Arzobispado de Santiago considera grave la publicación de correos privados en un medio de comunicación.

Finalmente, en los próximos días, el cardenal Arzobispo de Santiago, Ricardo Ezzati, abordará estos temas en un diario de circulación nacional.

Dirección de Comunicaciones
Arzobispado de Santiago

Santiago, 9 de septiembre de 2015

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Dominican Today

Santo Domingo.- The prosecutor of National District on Monday said the Justice Ministry analyzes how to secure damages for the several boys allegedly sexually abused by Pope Francis´ envoy Jozef Wesolowski, who died at the Vatican late August.

“We understand that the victims should be compensated,” Yeni Berenice Reynoso told reporters.

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ILLINOIS
Northwest Herald

By EMILY K. COLEMAN – ecoleman@shawmedia.com

ROCKFORD – A lawsuit filed Tuesday accuses a priest, formerly of churches in Crystal Lake and Johnsburg, of sexually abusing a 7- to 9-year-old child while assigned to an Aurora church.

The lawsuit names the Rev. John C. Holdren, who retired in 1994 from St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Johnsburg where he spent 10 years as a priest. He also spent six years at St. Thomas the Apostle in Crystal Lake in the 1970s.

The Catholic Diocese of Rockford was notified of the lawsuit Tuesday, spokeswoman Penny Wiegert said, adding that the diocese didn’t have a comment as of Wednesday afternoon.

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CHILE
Radio Agricultura

[Archbishop of Santiago issues a public statement after publication of private emails.]

La filtración de la información fue considerada grave.

El arzobispado de Santiago emitió la tarde de este miércoles una declaración pública donde realizó una critica a la información que fue entregada por un medio electrónico y que tiene relación con la comunicación vía correo electrónico entre los cardenales Ricardo Ezzati y Francisco Javier Errázuriz.

A continuación la declaración pública:

Respecto de la publicación del diario electrónico El Mostrador, el Arzobispado de Santiago declara que se trata de correos privados entre los cardenales Ricardo Ezzati y Francisco Javier Errázuriz, en los cuales intercambian opiniones frente al nombramiento de un futuro capellán de La Moneda, como también respecto de la posibilidad de que uno de los demandantes por el caso Karadima integrara una comisión pontificia para la protección de menores.

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TEXAS
The Raw Story

DAVID EDWARDS
09 SEP 2015

Parents in North Texas want to know why a pastor with pending charges of child rape and sodomy in Alabama has been hired by the First Baptist Church of Bedford.

According to Alabama court documents obtained by KDFW, Kyle Adcock faces charges for 29 counts of sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl while he was working at Woodward Avenue Baptist Church between 2010 and 2012.

Julie Brooks and Jennifer Fawks told KDFW that they were concerned after learning that Adcock had been hired as a music minister because their children take classes at First Baptist Church during the week.

“Kids trust ministers,” Brooks explained. “And so if they are approached by someone that works in the church, you would trust them. You would have no reason not to.”

First Baptist Church Pastor Steve Knott insisted to KDFW that the church usually performed background checks on employees, but said that Adcock was only working as a temporary employee in the music ministry. Knott also argued that Adcock had not yet been convicted of a crime.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

SEPTEMBER 9, 2015 BY SUSAN MATTHEWS

As a child, I was among the million Catholics lining the parkway for Pope John Paul’s visit in 1979. My father propped me up on a mailbox. The sea of people was a sight to behold – one huge Catholic family. That memory is marred by what I now know as an adult about our institutional Church. It had very little regard for that “family” in so many instances around the globe and here.

According to a recent article in the Washington Post, the official itinerary for the Pope’s visit to Philadelphia on September 25 and 26th does not include clergy sex abuse. What topic could be more timely or appropriate to the World Meeting of Families? What is the short-term plan for the 1,446,508 Catholics in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia whose trust has been betrayed by the institutional Church and whose children were put at risk in parishes and schools?

The Vatican Commission and Tribunal may be workable long-term solutions, but Pope Francis could give practical meaning to his pastoral message of love and mercy by offering triage here at ground zero.

Three Grand Jury Reports (2003, 2005 and 2011) revealed case after case of allegations of clergy sex abuse covered up by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia under three Cardinals (Krol, Bevilacqua and Rigali). Abuse and cover ups occurred in several other US dioceses and globally.

This isn’t a problem in the distant past. Our Archdiocesan children were potentially put at risk here as recently as 2013. Father John Paul was allowed to remain pastor of Our Lady of Calvary for over a year while under investigation. Eventually more than a dozen people came forward with allegations and he has since chosen voluntary laicization. The Statute of Limitations prevents further criminal or civil action. He is able to live anywhere he’d like without monitoring.

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MINNESOTA
CBS Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A priest convicted of child sexual abuse is part of a group that is raising money to buy the Archdiocese of St. Paul & Minneapolis’ Chancery building.

The group, called the Gilead Project, is a collaborative venture of Susan Pavlak and Gil Gustafson. Gustafson was convicted of child sexual abuse as a priest and removed from public ministry in 2002.

The group says it hopes to turn the building into a place for healing for victims of sexual abuse.
According to the project’s website, Pavlak, Gustafson and allies are aiming to “transform the environment of Church and society regarding sexual abuse and abuse of power.”

“Susan and Gil have shared their experiences, strength and hope with various audiences including prisoners who have committed sexual offenses, Department of Corrections classes, denominational officials and seminarians,” the website statement said.

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UNITED STATES
Amazon

by Joelle Casteix

Protecting your child from sexual abuse can be as easy as opening a book.

Author Joelle Casteix has filled the need for an easy-to-read toolkit for parents when it comes to preventing childhood sexual abuse. When her own child was born, she was deluged with tomes that covered everything from breastfeeding to choosing the right college. But one book was noticeably absent. It’s the book that can help parents take action to prevent their child from becoming another statistic.

The Well-Armored Child gives parents the tools and strategies to understand how predators “groom” children, why many of our trusted institutions cover up abuse, and how to empower children without shame, fear, or inappropriate discussions of sex.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Lawyer

By: Mike Mosedale September 9, 2015 0

Priest convicted of abuse wants to buy Archdiocese HQ

MPR’s Madeleine Baran reports on a bizarre twist in the clergy abuse scandal/bankruptcy at the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis: a priest who was convicted of child sex abuse wants to buy the archdiocese’s 60,000 square foot chancery headquarters so he can turn it into “a healing center for abuse survivors.”

According to the story, the Rev. Gilbert Gustafson, who served six months in jail after pleading guilty to sexually abusing a boy in White Bear Lake in 1983, says he “feels called by God to minister to victims of abuse and that buying the chancery and converting it to a center that aids abuse victims is part of his ministry.”

“I get it. I’ve caused harm, and I engaged in behavior that is reprehensible, but I am not a monster,” Gustafson tells Baran. “It goes back to that line. I am not a monster. I have done monstrous things, but I am not a monster.”

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IRELAND
National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church

Overview Report of 8 Male religious congregations and 35 Female Religious Congregations ( published 9 September 2015).

43 Review Reports on Child Safeguarding Practice published today- 9 September 2015

43 Reports undertaken by the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church are published, clear Progress Made as Audit Process Nears Conclusion

The 43 audit reports published today include 8 orders of male religious all of which received a full audit and 35 orders of female religious with small congregations, with limited or no ongoing contact with children which were reviewed under a tighter framework more appropriate to actual current status.

“Overall there is considerable improvement in safeguarding practice evidenced in these reports,” said Teresa Devlin, CEO, NBSCCCI (National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland). “The history is undeniable, that once again a significant number of children were abused in the care of Religious. What is strikingly different from the past in relation to the reports is a determination to respond pastorally, to report to the civil authorities promptly and to seek guidance in order to minimize risk to children.”

For the 8 male orders a total of 325 allegations have been made since 1941 against 141 priests, or brothers resulting in 8 criminal convictions up to date of each review, one of these allegations relates to abuse having taken place in 2003. All other instances of abuse occurred prior to 1996. …

Results for the 35 female orders were as follows:

* Good commitment to child safeguarding is evident.
* Recognition that previous care of children was often harsh.
* For those Congregations who have had allegations, these have been appropriately dealt with.
* A large number of female Congregations who had considerable ministry with children in the past, now have no such ministry.
* Congregations are declining in numbers and increasing in age profile
* Members who minister outside these congregation follow the policy and procedures of the diocese/service in which they work;
* There is a strong sense of commitment to working positively with the National Board in spite of the reduced relevance of their ministries from a child safeguarding perspective.

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CHILE
El Mostrador

Los correos secretos entre Ezzati y Errázuriz y el rol clave de Enrique Correa en las operaciones políticas de la Iglesia

[The secret mail between Ezzati and Errazuriz and Enrique Correa key role in the political operations of the church.]

por ALEJANDRA CARMONA 9 septiembre 2015

En diversos e-mails, a los que tuvo acceso El Mostrador de modo íntegro y que están fechados entre 2013 y 2014, tanto el arzobispo de Santiago como el cardenal que lo precedió en el cargo, dan cuenta de una estrecha relación con la que no solo evitaron, en conjunto, que Felipe Berríos fuera capellán de La Moneda –para lo cual pidieron que intercediera el conocido lobbista–, sino también que Juan Carlos Cruz, víctima de Karadima, no integrara la comisión que creó el Papa Francisco para la tutela de los menores.

El 12 de octubre de 2014, un nuevo escándalo de la Iglesia se hacía público. La prensa consignó así la información: la Arquidiócesis de Santiago había enviado una serie de antecedentes al Vaticano. Era un dossier de declaraciones de los sacerdotes Felipe Berríos, Mariano Puga y José Aldunate con críticas que la autoridad de la Iglesia chilena, Ricardo Ezzati, consideraba como contrarias al Magisterio.

La defensa de Ezzati fue inmediata. Al día siguiente de la publicación, el Arzobispado envió un comunicado público desmintiendo este hecho: “El arzobispo de Santiago, Cardenal Ricardo Ezzati, no ha efectuado ni acusación ni denuncia alguna a la Congregación para la Doctrina de la Fe de la Santa Sede, en contra de los sacerdotes mencionados. Lo que el Arzobispo sí ha hecho en este sentido, es responder a una solicitud de la Nunciatura Apostólica en Chile, de enviar las distintas declaraciones que han hecho estos tres sacerdotes y que han aparecido en diversos medios de comunicación”, señalaba.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Simon Lauder

A long-serving principal of Geelong Grammar says he did not do anything about sexual abuse claims made against a staff member by a student because he did not believe he was entitled to investigate, a hearing has been told.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse today heard the story of a student who was abused by former Geelong Grammar house master, and now convicted paedophile, Jonathan Harvey.

Harvey was convicted in 2007 on 10 counts of gross indecency committed against another student of Geelong Grammar between May 1976 and May 1978.

The incidents raised in the hearing on Wednesday occurred in the mid 1980s while Harvey and the student were overseas and also involved abuse by other people.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – The World Today

DAVID MARK: A former principal of Geelong Grammar School has told the Royal Commission he didn’t remove a teacher accused of child sexual abuse from the school.

John Lewis gave evidence that the parent who made the abuse complaint didn’t want his son embarrassed, so he followed his wishes.

Mr Lewis was the principal of Geelong Grammar from 1980 to 1994 and went on to be Prince William’s headmaster at Eton College near London.

Samantha Donovan is following the royal commission hearings in Melbourne and she joins me now.

So Sam who was this teacher and what was he accused of doing?

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Well the teacher, David, was Jonathan Harvey, and he’s given evidence to the royal commission this week. He was convicted and jailed in 2007 for 10 months for the sexual abuse of a Geelong Grammar student in the 1970s.

But, the commission’s heard that the school never reported to the police any concerns about Harvey that came from parents over the years, and there were quite a few. And he taught at the school or was house master at Geelong Grammar for the best part of three decades.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

A former Geelong Grammar School headmaster failed to report any allegations of staff sexually abusing students because he decided himself they had no chance of being prosecuted.

John Lewis, later Princes William and Harry’s headmaster at England’s elite Eton College, believed it was the principal’s role to first determine the veracity of abuse allegations before involving police.

He did not investigate after a parent told him his son was sexually abused in the 1980s and “used in a degrading way” by a teacher on an overseas holiday, saying he was not authorised to do so.

“I did not take the view that boys in general or pupils in general were at daily or regular risk of being abused,” Mr Lewis told the child abuse royal commission.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

Former principal of prestigious Geelong Grammar school describes the sexual abuse suffered by students as ‘modest’

By LIAM QUINN FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

A former principal at a prestigious school in Geelong, Victoria, has described sexual abuse suffered by some students as ‘comparatively modest’.

Ex-Geelong Grammar headmaster John Lewis made the comments during an appearance at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Melbourne.

‘It’s worse than nil, but you are – if I may say so – creating the impression that sexual abuse was rife. It is not, in my opinion, a fair description of the overall situation,’ Mr Lewis said.

‘Any such incident is very, very serious but the scale of the alleged incidents that had occurred was, in the scheme of things, comparatively modest.’

Mr Lewis – principal from 1980 to 1994 – also denied his school was an unsafe place for students by September 1991. Mr Lewis was also headmaster of Eton College from 1994 to 2002, and taught Princes William and Harry.

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CANADA
Waterloo Region Record

By Greg Mercer

KITCHENER — The Mennonite Church of Eastern Canada has accused a well-known church leader and local pastor of sexual and ethical misconduct, more than two decades after his death.

Vernon Leis, killed in a head-on collision near Baden in 1994, was a pastor at churches in Kitchener, Elmira and Tavistock, and was once a senior official in the Ontario-wide Mennonite church organization.

On Aug. 30, pastors at three local churches took the unusual step of naming Leis in a statement from church leadership that revealed the allegation against him in front of congregants gathered for Sunday worship.

The move came after someone came forward with an allegation that was “compelling and credible,” the church said. Normally, a church committee’s investigation would give the pastor a chance to respond, but in this case it felt the accuser’s story was believable enough on its own to take action.

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IRELAND
Yahoo! News

By Michael Sheils McNamee | TheJournal.ie

A new report has found that 325 allegations of abuse were made against 141 priests or brothers in Ireland since 1960.

This comes as part of an review of religious organisations in which 8 male orders and 35 female orders were examined.

Included in the inspection of the male orders were the Jesuits, Clistercians, Rosminians and Capuchins.

It was found that one of the allegations of abuse took place in 2003, while all of the other allegations dated back to 1995 or earlier.

These have resulted in a total of eight criminal prosecutions.

The review into the treatment of children has been carried out by the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland (NBSCCCI).

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IRELAND
RTE News

The latest reports by the Catholic Church’s child protection watchdog, focusing on 43 religious congregations, reveal that 325 allegations were made against 141 priests or brothers in Ireland since 1941, resulting in eight criminal convictions.

The National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church (NBSCCC) audit of eight male religious orders and 35 smaller orders of nuns indicates that the Jesuit Order failed to tell the gardaí about at least 22 allegations of child sexual abuse made against its members in the past 40 years.

But NBSCCC CEO Teresa Devlin has said the Order had confirmed with gardaÍ that the cases concerned did not meet the threshold for reporting.

A Jesuit spokesperson said these cases were suspicions and concerns for which there were no reasonable grounds and that the board states that every allegation requiring reporting has been reported.

However, Ms Devlin said there were delays of up to four years in reporting substantial allegations to the gardaí in the early 1990s.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Sarah Mac Donald
PUBLISHED
09/09/2015

A significant number of children were abused in the care of religious orders according to the latest audits carried out by the National Board for Safeguarding in the Catholic Church.

The 43 reviews, which cover eight male orders and 35 female orders, show that a total of 325 allegations of sexual abuse were made since 1941 against 141 priests or brothers resulting in 8 criminal convictions.

“Overall there is considerable improvement in safeguarding practice evidenced in these reports,” Teresa Devlin, CEO of the NBSCCCI, said but she added that “The history is undeniable, that once again a significant number of children were abused in the care of Religious.”

However, she said that what is strikingly different among the orders today as opposed to the past is a determination to respond pastorally, to report to the civil authorities promptly and to seek guidance in order to minimise risk to children.

This latest series of reviews deals with orders such as the Jesuits, Rosminians and Capuchins.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Pamela Duncan, Patsy McGarry

More than 300 allegations of abuse were made against 141 priests or brothers relating to the period between 1960 and 2003, resulting in eight convictions, newly released audits reveal.
The National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church published 43 reports on Wednesday including audits of eight male religious orders.

The audits revealed discrepancies in the number of allegations of sexual, physical and emotional abuse made to two orders and those reported to gardaí.

The report states that of 79 allegations made against 36 members of The Society of Jesus (Jesuits). Of the allegations made just 57 were reported to gardaí. The last incident occurred in 2003.

The reviewers found that this latter case, in which a Jesuit touched a child’s breast, was “most certainly a situation of child abuse”. However, when the incident was reported to the civil authorities the response was that incident did not meet the threshold for reporting. The member was removed from ministry.

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IRELAND
National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church

As part of the process of Safeguarding reviews, the National Board was invited to examine the child safeguarding practice of the 43 Religious Orders and Congregations, whose reports are being made public today. Full details of those reviewed are appended to this overview.

The reviews were conducted according to two different methodologies, depending on the degree of ministry with children and whether there were known allegations against members of the Order/Congregation. The Terms of Reference for each type of review can be found on the Board’s website www.safeguarding.ie and are attached to each review report.

The fieldwork which began in January 2015 and completed in July 2015 was initiated through the signing of a data processing deed which allowed National Board reviewers to access data held by the Order/Congregation. The reviews consisted of an examination of case files, policies and procedures as well as interviews with all those who hold a role in the safeguarding structure, a critique of this material and an assessment against the Church’s seven safeguarding standards has been made in relation to those Orders/Congregations who have ministry with children and who have had allegations against their members.

The purpose of the full reviews is to ensure compliance against the Church’s safeguarding standards, approved and adopted in 2009, Safeguarding Children: Standards and Guidance Document for the Catholic Church in Ireland, with particular reference to the management of safeguarding allegations. Where there were allegations of sexual abuse, all cases files were examined. In addition, at the request of the Church Authority, allegations of other forms of abuse, physical and emotional were also examined. The Terms of Reference are clear in stating that in terms of allegations, the concentration is on current risk, in other words the reviewers read files relating to living priests/brothers/sisters. Where the reviewers referenced priests, or brothers or sisters who were deceased, it is because the review of those cases merited comment in terms of future safeguarding practice.

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IRELAND
National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church

Male Congregations;

Capuchins
Carmelites – OCarm
CIistercians
Jesuits
Order of St Camillus
Rosminians
Sacred Heart Fathers Dehonians
Salesians

Female Congregations ;

Benedictines Nuns
Bons Sauveurs
Bon Secours Sisters
Brigidine Sisters
Cistercian Sisters
Cross and Passion
Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul
Daughters of Mary and Joseph
Daughters of Wisdom
Daughters of the Holy Spirit
Disciples of the Divine Master
Franciscan Missionaries of St Joseph-FMSJ
Franciscan Missionaries of the Divine Motherhood ( FMDM)
Holy Cross Sisters
Little Company of Mary
Loreto
Marist Sisters
Marie Auxiliatrice
Missionary Sisters of the Assumption
Our Lady of the Apostle ( OLA)
Poor Servants of the Mother of God
Religious Sisters of Charity
Religious of Christian Education
Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary RSHM
Society of the Sacred Heart
Srs of Charity of St Paul the Apostle
Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition
Sisters of Christian Instruction
Sisters of St Joseph of Chambery
Sisters of St Joseph of Cluny–
Sisters of St Joseph of Sacred Heart
Sisters of St Paul of Chartres
Sisters of the Christian Retreat
Sisters of the Sacred Hearts (SSCC)
Sisters of St John of God- SSJOG

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VATICAN CITY
BD Live

BY RACHEL SANDERSON, SEPTEMBER 09 2015

THE office of René Bruelhart, the Vatican’s chief antimoney-laundering cop, is in an ochre building within the Vatican walls and overlooking a quiet park near St Peter’s Basilica.

On a sunny day, the calm scene is unexpected after the swell of tourists and pilgrims beyond the confines of the world’s smallest city state. More surprising is that his neighbour in the modest residence next door is Pope Francis.

In one of the first acts of his papacy, the Argentine pontiff chose to give up the usual papal residence for a sparse dormitory usually used by travelling clergy. Security has been stepped up after the move, with a greater presence of Swiss Guards, the traditional gatekeepers of the papal state.

But how has Bruelhart’s job altered since the arrival of Pope Francis in early 2013? The 43-year-old Swiss lawyer’s face brightens. “(The job) has changed tremendously; I really find open doors,” he says.

“I’ve just come back from the US, and politicians, people from the private sector, really top level, are saying: ‘If I can help, I am happy to help’.”

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BELGIQUE
InfoCatho

[Tournai: At the request of the bishop, the dean of Antoing resigns.]

Vendredi dernier, la police judiciaire a procédé à une perquisition au domicile du curé-doyen d’Antoing, l’abbé Jean George. Selon les médias du groupe Sud-Presse, le prêtre fait l’objet d’au moins une plainte pour des échanges avec des jeunes mineurs sur internet. A la demande de l’évêque de Tournai, Mgr Guy Harpigny, l’abbé a présenté sa démission de ses fonctions de curé-doyen.

A la suite de cette perquisition, le Vicaire général du diocèse de Tournai, l’abbé Olivier Fröhlich, a publié ce lundi 7 septembre le communiqué suivant:

« Ce samedi 5 septembre 2015, l’évêché de Tournai a eu connaissance, par les médias, d’une enquête de police menée à charge de l’abbé Jean George, curé-doyen d’Antoing, à propos de dialogues déplacés sur internet avec des jeunes mineurs.

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BELGIQUE
Diocese de Liege

Mgr Jean-Pierre Delville, évêque de Liège, a pris connaissance du mandat d’arrêt à l’adresse de Monsieur l’abbé Yvon Remacle. Celui-ci est inculpé pour une affaire de mœurs impliquant un mineur d’âge. Les faits ne se sont pas passés dans notre province, ni à plus forte raison dans les paroisses dont il était curé.

Le dossier est à l’instruction. La présomption d’innocence reste de mise jusqu’à une éventuelle condamnation. L’affaire est donc dans les mains de la justice.

En attendant l’issue du procès, Mgr Delville – pour qui la lutte contre la pédophilie est une priorité – a décidé de suspendre l’abbé Remacle de l’exercice de son ministère. L’évêque réitère aux paroissiens son soutien en ce moment difficile. Il n’a pas d’autre information disponible que celles de ce communiqué.

Alphonse Borras, vicaire général

A cette occasion, les responsables du diocèse rappellent qu’il existe des points de contacts/abus auxquels on peut s’adresser.

Il est possible d’envoyer un mail aux adresses suivantes: Pointdecontactabus.liege@catho.be et Kontaktmissbrauch.luettich@catho.be. Il existe un nouveau numéro de GSM qui reçoit les appels téléphoniques: 0492/830.120.

On peut aussi téléphoner au n° de gsm 0496 845 787 (deutsch) et, pour les francophones, au 02 509 97 44 (info.abus@catho.be).

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BELGIQUE
InfoCatho

[It is with shock and sadness that the leaders of the diocese of Liège have learned of the arrest of Father Yvon Remacle for immoral acts committed in another province. The Bishop of Liège directly suspended priest from his pastoral duties.]

C’est avec stupeur et tristesse que les responsables du diocèse de Liège ont appris la mise sous mandat d’arrêt de l’abbé Yvon Remacle pour des faits de mœurs, commis dans une autre province. L’évêque de Liège a directement suspendu le prêtre de ses fonctions pastorales.

Un communiqué publié le dimanche 6 septembre sur le site du diocèse de Liège, signé par l’abbé Alphonse Borras, Vicaire général, signale:

« Mgr Jean-Pierre Delville, évêque de Liège, a pris connaissance du mandat d’arrêt à l’adresse de Monsieur l’abbé Yvon Remacle. Celui-ci est inculpé pour une affaire de mœurs impliquant un mineur d’âge. Les faits ne se sont pas passés dans notre province, ni à plus forte raison dans les paroisses dont il était curé. »

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ROMA
Internazionale

[The perfect death of Józef Wesołowski.]

Francesco Peloso, giornalista

“Alle prime ore di questa mattina è stato trovato defunto nella sua abitazione in Vaticano sua eccellenza mons. Józef Wesołowski, già nunzio apostolico”. Si chiudeva così, lo scorso 28 agosto, la vicenda dell’ex diplomatico polacco sotto processo in Vaticano con l’accusa di aver abusato sessualmente di diversi minori nella Repubblica Dominicana (Wesołowski in realtà era stato ridotto allo stato laicale dalla Congregazione per la dottrina della fede, per questo nei comunicati successivi spariva il lapsus di quel “monsignore” contenuto nella prima versione della notizia diffusa alla stampa).

Fin da subito il Vaticano ha reso noto che il decesso era avvenuto per “cause naturali”, ma il corpo è stato comunque sottoposto ad autopsia. Così, nel comunicato seguente, la Santa sede faceva sapere che “gli accertamenti sono stati effettuati e, dalle prime conclusioni tratte dall’esame macroscopico, risulta confermata la causa naturale del decesso, riferibile ad evento cardiaco”. Un infarto insomma ha chiuso uno dei casi più clamorosi e drammatici legati allo scandalo pedofilia che negli ultimi anni ha scosso la chiesa.

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DEUTSCHLAND
kath.net

Die römische Bischofskongregation hält im Einvernehmen mit dem Staatssekretariat des Vatikan eine Prüfung von Schadenersatzleistungen sowie die Eröffnung eines entsprechenden kirchenrechtlichen Verfahrens für nicht angebracht.

Limburg (kath.net/KNA) Der zurückgetretene Limburger Bischof Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst (Archivfoto) muss keinen Schadenersatz an sein früheres Bistum zahlen. Die römische Bischofskongregation halte im Einvernehmen mit dem Staatssekretariat des Vatikan eine Prüfung von Schadenersatzleistungen sowie die Eröffnung eines entsprechenden kirchenrechtlichen Verfahrens für nicht angebracht, gab das Bistum Limburg am Mittwoch bekannt. Das Bistum hatte die Frage einer materiellen Wiedergutmachung wegen zu hoher Baukosten für den in der maßgeblichen Verantwortung von Tebartz-van Elst errichteten Bischofssitz auf dem Domberg zu Limburg aufgeworfen.

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BELGIE
React

[What is going on with the church in Flanders? Anyone who walks into a church can almost smell the musty smell of the mad progressive 70s and 80s. (Or to put it in other words, one can almost feel the smoke of satan so thick it hangs.) These were the years in which progressive believers and the whole two millennia of tradition began to break down. The pedophilia cases arising therem have made a lot of victims. This could have been averted?]

Wat is er aan de hand met de kerk in Vlaanderen? Wie een kerk binnenwandelt, kan bijna de muffe progressieve geur ruiken van de dolle jaren ’70 en ’80. (Of om het met andere woorden te zeggen: men kan de rook van satan bijna voelen, zo dik hangt hij.) De jaren waarin progressieve gelovigen de boel overnamen en twee millennia aan traditie begonnen af te breken. De pedofiliezaken die daaruit voortvloeien hebben enorm veel slachtoffers gemaakt. Had dit kunnen afgeweerd worden? Uiteraard, maar daarvoor had men uiteraard wel bekwamere mensen (of mensen die nog katholiek waren) dan Danneels nodig. Onder Danneels maakte Kerk&Leven immers reclame voor organisaties die een positief beeld van pedofilie wilden ophangen.

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BELGIE
Community

[Sexual abuse by clergy is enormous, yet some individuals try to minimize this constantly. Apparently, it is difficult for them to accept the reality. ]

Het seksueel misbruik door geestelijken is enorm, maar toch trachten sommige individuen dit steeds te minimaliseren. Blijkbaar is het voor hen moeilijk om de realiteit te aanvaarden. Blijkbaar is het voor hen moeilijk te aanvaarden, dat zij die achter het altaar plaatsnemen de grootste zondaars zijn. Wat zijn ze goed in het veroordelen van anderen als het om de seksualiteit gaat, maar ondertussen vergrijpen ze zich aan de misdienaar. Eigenlijk verwondert dit alles mij niet als je weet hoe midden jaren tachtig pedofilie werd benaderd door Kerk&Leven. Gedurende anderhalf jaar bestond er een werkgroep voor en door geestelijken die pedofilie als het ware afschilderde als een positief contact tussen het jonge kind en de geestelijke.Ook als er sprake was van het lichamelijke. Het zal u wellicht niet verbazen dat hier de naam van” Roger Vangheluwe” weer opduikt. Het betreft hier de oecumenische werkgroep pedofilie, waar er een uitgebreid artikel van verscheen in” De Morgen” van 05 juni 2010. Wellicht hebben vele onder u dit gemist. Vandaar dat ik het terug opneem in dit blogbericht.

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GERMANY
Deutsche Welle

Ex-bishop of Limburg Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst does not have to pay damages to his former diocese. Germany’s bling bishop was suspended after he wasted church money on a lavish residence.

The Vatican has decided that a canonical trial to ascertain whether Tebartz-van Elst should pay compensation was not warranted, the bishop’s former diocese announced on Wednesday, without explaining the reasoning behind the decision.

The diocese of Limburg in south-western Germany, which had demanded compensation from its former bishop, said it had accepted the decision as “the Holy See is ultimately responsible for any legal charges brought against a bishop,” Manfred Grothe, head of the Limburg diocese, said.

Tebartz-van Elst’s extravagant mansion in Limburg, which featured details such as bronze window frames and a 15,000-euro freestanding bath, set the Catholic Church back a princely 31.3 million euros ($34.2 million).

In April, the Episcopal See said the construction of the bishop’s residence had incurred a loss of 3.9 million euros for repair works and architects’ design plans that were not used in the end. It was the sum the diocese wanted to be compensated for.

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GERMANY
The Tablet (UK)

09 September 2015 by Christa Pongratz-Lippitt

The so-called “Bishop of Bling”, the former Bishop of Limburg, Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, will not have to pay the £2.8 claim for damages, which the diocese of Limburg in Germany planned to file against him in a Vatican court.

The Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, personally informed Bishop Manfred Grothe, the Apostolic Administrator of Limburg in Rome.

“The decision has now been taken, which makes it clear how to proceed with the reappraisal,” Grothe said. The talks he had had in Rome had been “constructive and purposeful”.

The Vatican’s and the Limburg diocesan leadership’s common aim was “to continue to reappraise the situation in Limburg in such a way that a new bishop would be able to take up his post as Bishop of Limburg without being burdened by the past”.

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GERMANY
News 24

Limburg – Catholic clergy who wanted to sue Germany’s disgraced “bling bishop” for using church funds to build a luxury home said on Wednesday the case is being dropped.

Following last year’s removal of Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst, the diocese of Limburg said it would not be applying for money damages from him in the Catholic Church’s own courts.

Tebartz-van Elst earned the moniker after spending $35m of church funds to rebuild his lavish home in Limburg with fixtures that included a two-seat bathtub and bronze window frames.

He was also assailed for flying first-class to anti-poverty projects in India.

Suing an ex-bishop requires clearance from Pope Francis’s staff. The diocese said Manfred Grothe, the interim head of the diocese, was told at the Vatican by Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for Bishops, to drop the case.

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GERMANY
Yahoo! News

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s Limburg diocese says the Vatican won’t open church law proceedings or examine possible compensation claims against its former bishop, removed by Pope Francis amid a scandal over his 31 million-euro ($35-million) new residence.

The diocese said earlier this year that it had raised the issue with the Vatican, though it didn’t file any formal complaint against Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst. It said Wednesday that the head of the Congregation for Bishops, Cardinal Marc Ouellet, informed the diocese’s interim administrator of the decision during a meeting in Rome.

Francis permanently removed Tebartz-van Elst from Limburg last year, finding that he could no longer exercise his ministry there.

That followed a controversy centering on the spiraling cost for the construction of a luxurious new bishop’s residence complex and related renovations.
___

This story has been corrected to fix time element to Wednesday, not Thursday.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, Sept. 8

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 503 0003, bdorris@SNAPnetwork.org)

We are alarmed that a convicted Minnesota predator priest is trying to raise money and start a “healing center.”

[Minnesota Public Radio]

We believe Fr. Gil Gustafson is a smart, charming, charismatic person. We know he’s an admitted and convicted serial child molester. We oppose the effort by Fr. Gustafson and others to start this purported non-profit. And we call on St. Paul archdiocesan officials – Archbishop Bernard Hebda and others – to harshly denounce this move designed to boost the reputation and career of a proven predator.

(NOTE – Fr. Gustafson has not been defrocked. So he is still a priest and presumably getting money from the archdiocese. He should not be called Mr. Gustafson” or “a former priest.”)

According to BishopAccountability.org, Fr. Gustafson admitted that he had sexually abused three boys and pled guilty in a criminal case of abusing one of them. Fr.Gustafson was also accused of sexually abusing a girl for five years. (In 2005, she received a settlement from the archdiocese.)

Still, from 1983 onward, church officials let him work in the chancery office (the archdiocesan headquarters), sit on an interfaith board on sexual trauma, and be a chaplain for nuns.

In 2002, Fr. Gustafson was finally removed from ministry. Still, in 2009, he was hired by Christo Rey Jesuit High School as a leadership consultant, and in 2010-2011 Fr. Gustafson was involved with a leadership training program at a Minneapolis monastery for nuns.

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AUSTRALIA
The Mercury

CHILD Protection Week is an annual event but its message is more poignant than ever this year.

The belief that child safety is fundamental to any decent society is so obvious it almost seems absurd to have to state it.

Yet our litany of failures on this most basic of rights is shameful.

Just last month came revelations of more problems in Tasmania’s child protection services.

It follows months of shocking revelations at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Since July 2013 the Royal Commission has been travelling the country, unearthing case after case of children betrayed and abused by adults in schools, churches and sporting clubs, of victims’ complaints ignored and the crimes of those in positions of trust hidden to protect the good name of institutions.

The lack of compassion for victims over many decades has extended to some of Australia’s, and Tasmania’s, most prestigious schools.

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ILLINOIS
Daily Herald

Barbara Vitello

Lawsuits against a prominent Elgin cleric seeking damages for sexual abuse his accusers say occurred decades ago will proceed, according to a Cook County judge.

Attorneys for Mohammad Abdullah Saleem had asked Judge James O’Hara to stay the civil cases until the conclusion of Saleem’s sole pending criminal case on charges he sexually abused a 23-year-old female office employee at the Institute of Islamic Education, an Elgin school that Saleem founded for children in sixth through 12th grades.

Saleem, 76, is charged with aggravated criminal sexual abuse, aggravated battery, criminal sexual assault and unlawful restraint after the woman claimed he hugged, touched and massaged her against her will starting in October 2013, a month after she began working for the school, and continuing through April 2014.

Saleem, a native of India and a naturalized U.S. citizen living in Gilberts, has pleaded not guilty.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Today

Reuters

When Pope Francis makes his first visit to the United States this month he will face a national Catholic Church whose finances are staggering under a shrinking membership and huge payouts to sex-abuse victims, threatening to undermine its social influence.

With the Church still absorbing the roughly $3 billion cost of a clergy sex abuse scandal, another financial crisis is looming – a potentially crippling shortfall in funding the pensions of its ageing priests.

A Reuters review of US Catholic financial disclosures shows the pension funding shortfall in 2014 probably approached $2 billion, with much of that coming due in the next five years as thousands of priests retire.

The US Catholic Church has lost millions of its members over the past 14 years following the child abuse scandal that tarnished its reputation and forced it to sell assets to pay billions of dollars in settlements.

The Church’s finances are also under pressure from emptying pews and a demographic shift among Catholics to the US south and suburbs that has left much of its inner-city bricks and mortar underused and bleeding money.

The financial woes and the destabilizing effect they could have on the Church’s social and educational work will be a constant backdrop to the pope’s September 22-27 visit to Washington, New York and Philadelphia.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

By David Hurst
dhurst@tribdem.com

A U.S. District Judge spent nearly seven hours Tuesday questioning a pool of prospective jurors for a Central City priest’s sex tourism trial.

But it wasn’t enough to seat a jury.

After excusing 45 potential jurors for extreme hardship or cause – such as bias or prejudice toward one side or the other – Judge Kim R. Gibson said a second batch of prospective jurors would need to be interviewed Wednesday to complete the process.

Out of an original pool of 70 men and women, 25 remained at the close of court.
Gibson is seeking 12 jurors and four alternates to hear the trial evidence.

But the remaining group still falls short because federal prosecutors and the Rev. Joseph Maurizio’s defense team still have an unspecified number of “strikes” they can use to disqualify jurors viewed as unfavorable to their case.

“It’s been a long day,” Gibson told the remaining group.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

A ROYAL commission wants major changes to how the Australian legal system handles child sex abuse cases.

THE final recommendations from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on redress and civil litigation went to the federal government at the beginning of last week.

Abuse survivors and institutions await the publication of the commission’s proposals, which are due to be tabled in the federal parliament and made public before the end of this week or early next week.

The commission has already signalled the need for changes to limitation periods in child sex abuse cases.

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VATIKAN
Frankfurter Allgemeine

[Former Limburger Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst does not have to pay compensation to his former diocese. The Vatican Congregation for Bishops in consultation with the Vatican state secretariat made the ruling.]

Der zurückgetretene Limburger Bischof Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst muss keinen Schadenersatz an sein früheres Bistum zahlen. Die römische Bischofskongregation halte im Einvernehmen mit dem Staatssekretariat des Vatikan eine Prüfung von Schadenersatzleistungen sowie die Eröffnung eines entsprechenden kirchenrechtlichen Verfahrens für nicht angebracht, gab das Bistum Limburg am Mittwoch bekannt. Das Bistum hatte die Frage einer materiellen Wiedergutmachung wegen zu hoher Baukosten für den in der maßgeblichen Verantwortung von Tebartz-van Elst errichteten Bischofssitz auf dem Domberg zu Limburg aufgeworfen.

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VIRGINIA
Loudoun Times-Mirror

Wednesday, Sep. 9, 2015 by Crystal Owens

The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office has enlisted the help of the Virginia State Police in the investigation of alleged sexual assaults at Sterling’s Calvary Temple church.

Loudoun County Sheriff Mike Chapman said last week that he has called in additional resources “to have them work with us in an abundance of caution that there could be a conflict of interest.”

The Virginia State Police could completely take over the investigation, which began six months ago, but doing so would mean starting from square one, according to Chapman.

Former Calvary members last week called for the Virginia State Police to take over the investigation over concerns that a member of the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office, Sgt. Kevin Robinette, is also a member of the Pentecostal church.

“Considering that you do have a member of the sheriff’s office that belongs to the church, we felt it was a good idea to get a set of independent eyes on it,” Chapman said.

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TEXAS
Fox 4

[with video]

People in North Texas are wondering how an accused child sex offender moved from a different state and got a job at a local church.

Former Alabama youth minister Kyle Adcock now works at First Baptist Church of Bedford.

Alabama court documents show has been charged with 29 counts of sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl between 2010 and 2012, when he was her youth minister.

Photo Child sex charges concern church members
He was working at Woodward Avenue Baptist Church in Muscle Shoals at the time; a city about two hours northwest of Birmingham.

Adcock was living in Frisco at the time of his arrest last year.

Julie Brooks and Jennifer Fawks have teenagers who take classes every week at First Baptist Church of Bedford.

Brooks and Fawks are worried about Adcock working at the church.

“Kids trust ministers,” said Brooks. “And if they are approached by someone who works in the church, you would trust him. You would have no reason not to.”

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ILLINOIS
WGN

AURORA, Ill. –A 70-year-old Aurora priest accused of molesting a boy 40 years ago says he knows nothing about the allegations and had nothing to do with the abuse.

Fr. John Holdren, once an associate pastor with St. Rita of Cascia in Aurora, is accused of molesting a boy repeatedly between 1971 and 1973. The child was between the ages of 7 and 9 at the time.

In a lawsuit filed today, the victim, known only as John Doe JP, says he suffers from PTSD, childhood amnesia and depression, among other things, and is asking for $50,000.

Fr. Holdren says, “Good luck getting the $50,000. I don’t have any money.”

He denies any abuse and says he doesn’t even know the victim.

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PENNSYLVANIA
American Daily

Posted: Wednesday, September 9, 2015

By JUDY D.J. ELLICH judye@dailyamerican.com

JOHNSTOWN — A panel of 70 jurors from five counties spent Tuesday in federal court as part of the selection process for the Rev. Joseph Maurizio Jr.’s sexual abuse trial scheduled to begin Thursday.

At the end of the day, 25 prospective jurors were told to come back to District Judge Kim Gibson’s courtroom Thursday for the final juror selection. Today, another panel of about 70 jurors will repeat the process. On Thursday the two smaller groups of jurors chosen during the two days will combine into a jury pool. The final 12 jurors and four alternates will be chosen by the prosecution and the defense teams from that group. Those people will decide the fate of the suspended 69-year-old Central City priest.

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SPAIN
The Local

09 Sep 2015

A court has ruled that the archdiocese of Granada can be held civilly liable for the alleged sexual abuse of a teenage altar boy by several priests.

A court ruled on Tuesday on a high profile case that has drawn intervention from Pope Francis.

Judge Antonio Moreno justified his decision on the grounds that accused Catholic priests “responded directly to the archdiocese of Granada” and because the events allegedly took place at parish headquarters.

The judge said any financial compensation which the archdiocese must pay would be established at a later date.

Spanish authorities opened their investigation late last year after a 25-year-old man filed a police complaint alleging that he was sexually abused by several priests in Granada when he was an altar boy between 2004 and 2007.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

9 September, 2015

The Royal Commission will hold a directions hearing in Sydney at 10:00am AEST on Monday 14 September 2015.

The purpose of the directions hearing is to hear from the State of South Australia in relation to production of documents to the Royal Commission.

The directions hearing is related to Case Study 33 into the experience of former child residents at institutions operated by The Salvation Army (Southern Territory) between 1940 and 1990.

The directions hearing will be presided over by Justice Peter McClellan AM, Chair of the Royal Commission, and will be live streamed on the Royal Commission website.

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MISSOURI
Daily Express

By Jason Hunsicker
@JHunsicker_KDE

Posted Sep. 8, 2015

Kirksville, Mo.
A priest accused of sexually abusing a Moberly child in the 1960s and 1970s later worked at Mary Immaculate Catholic Church in Kirksville before abuse allegations led to the Catholic Diocese of Jefferson City placing him on leave.

According to an Associated Press report, David Clohessy received a $40,000 check from the Catholic Diocese of Jefferson City late last week. The check came with a stipulation that Clohessy would not take further legal action against the diocese.

Clohessy had alleged he was sexually abused by Rev. John Whiteley at St. Pius X Catholic Church in Moberly, Mo. According to bishopaccountability.org, Whiteley worked at St. Pius X in 1969 and 1970.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

Sean O’Neill Chief Reporter
September 9 2015

The leadership of the Crown Prosecution Service was called into question last night after a former choirboy complained that he had been denied justice by a “backroom deal” that allowed a former Anglican bishop to avoid a trial.

Peter Ball, 83, the former Bishop of Gloucester and a friend of the Prince of Wales, admitted a string of sex offences against 18 young men in a plea bargain deal under which prosecutors left

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ESPANA
El Pais

[The Archbishop of Granada, and by extension the Catholic Church, have to pay any compensation if there is finally a conviction for the alleged sexual abuse of minors by priests who are under investigation in Granada.]

RAÚL LIMÓN Sevilla 8 SEP 2015

El Arzobispado de Granada, y por extensión la Iglesia católica, tendrá que pagar las posibles indemnizaciones si finalmente existe una condena por los supuestos abusos sexuales a menores por parte de sacerdotes que investiga el Juzgado de Instrucción 4 de Granada. El juez considera que, en caso de concretarse las acusaciones, la responsabilidad civil subsidiaria recaerá sobre la dirección de la Iglesia católica en Granada, por su obligación de elegir y vigilar a los sacerdotes implicados en el denominado caso Romanones.

La cuantía de dicha responsabilidad civil se determinará en el momento procesa

En el caso está implicado el sacerdote Román M., jefe del clan imputado por supuestos abusos sexuales contra el joven que envió al Papa una carta denunciando lo que había sufrido entre los 13 y 18 años, cuando era monaguillo. Otros dos curas y un seglar imputados están en libertad con cargos y orden de alejamiento. Los imputados se declararon inocentes y atribuyeron la denuncia a intereses espúreos por parte de los dos exmonaguillos de la parroquia de San Juan María de Vianney.

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ILLINOIS
Rockford Register Star

By Georgette Braun
Staff writer

Posted Sep. 8, 2015

ROCKFORD — A man who grew up in Aurora claims in a lawsuit filed in Winnebago County Court today that the Rev. John C. Holdren sexually assaulted him in 1972 and 1973.

The 49-year-old man, who lives in Maryland, is identified in court documents as John Doe JP, said his attorney Tim Frieberg of Rockford. The suit alleges that Holdren made unwanted sexual advances and fondled the victim when Holdren was at St. Rita’s of Cascia parish in Aurora.

The suit against Holdren, St. Rita and the Diocese of Rockford seeks damages of more than $50,000.

The suit says the church “knew or should have known of the dangers presented by Fr. Holdren but (failed) to adopt precautionary procedures” and “facilitated and enabled” the priest’s crimes.

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ILLINOIS
WIFR

Sep 08, 2015
By: Amanda DeVoe

ROCKFORD (WIFR) — Forty years later, a Maryland man comes forward with new allegations, claiming he was sexually abused by a priest while growing up in Rockford.

“From and early age, the thought of death has been my only comfort to unending pain,” said John Doe in a statement.

Protesters of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, also known as SNAP, are in support of John Doe, who claims priest John Holdren of the Catholic Diocese of Rockford, molested him as a child back in the early 1970s. Today Doe has filed a lawsuit against him.

“Basically, this priest got close to him. Took advantage of his closeness of a priest, and ultimately performed unwanted sexual acts on him. Running the gamut of everything from from fondling to a sodomy,” said Doe’s lawyer Tim Freiberg.

Barbara Blaine of SNAP says Holdren is a pedophile, who needs to be exposed.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Madeleine Baran Sep 8, 2015

The Rev. Gilbert Gustafson, a priest convicted of child sex abuse, is behind a new effort to raise money to buy the headquarters of the Twin Cities archdiocese and turn it into a healing center for abuse survivors.

The website for the nonprofit Gilead Project, which seeks to raise money online, does not mention the priest’s criminal conviction or acknowledge any abuse allegations against Gustafson. It also does not indicate that he is a priest.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis wants to sell the nearly 60,000 square-foot chancery property across the street from the Cathedral of St. Paul to pay creditors in bankruptcy. The archdiocese’s realtor has listed the price as “negotiable.”

Gustafson is one of two people mentioned by name on the Gilead Project website. The other is Susan Pavlak, who met Gustafson a few years ago at a restorative justice program run by the Minnesota Department of Corrections.

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CHILE
El Nuevo Diario

[The Catholic Church Chile on Wednesday denied covering up for the priest Fernando Karadima, condemned by the Vatican for sexual abuse of minors.]

La Iglesia Católica chilena negó el miércoles haber encubierto al sacerdote Fernando Karadima, condenado por el Vaticano por abuso sexual a menores, en respuesta a la difusión de cartas que comprobarían que se tomaron medidas para ocultar sus acciones.

Karadima, un reconocido formador de obispos, fue denunciado por abuso sexual por cinco hombres que, cuando eran adolescentes, concurrían asiduamente a la parroquia que él dirigida en un exclusivo barrio del este de Santiago.

La justicia chilena cerró sin sanción la causa en su contra en 2010, alegando la prescripción de los delitos, pero el Vaticano declaró culpable a Karadima de abuso sexual contra menores y lo condenó a “retirarse a una vida de oración y penitencia”.

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SPAIN
Yahoo! News

Madrid (AFP) – A Spanish court ruled Tuesday that the archdiocese of the southern city of Granada can be held civilly liable for the alleged sexual abuse of a teenage altar boy by several priests, in a case drawing intervention from Pope Francis.

Judge Antonio Moreno justified his decision on the grounds that accused Catholic priests “responded directly to the archdiocese of Granada” and because the events allegedly took place at parish headquarters.

The judge said any financial compensation which the archdiocese must pay would be established at a later date.

Spanish authorities opened their investigation late last year after a 25-year-old man filed a police complaint alleging that he was sexually abused by several priests in Granada when he was an altar boy between 2004 and 2007. He was aged 14 when he was first abused.

Pope Francis in November told reporters he received a letter documenting abuse from an alleged victim and called him, telling him to report it in person to the Granada diocese.

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UNITED STATES
Failed Messiah

[the petition]

Large Number Of Chabad Hasidim Sign Petition Backing Rabbi Who Harassed, Threatened Child Sex Abuse Victims

The following petition is being circulated in the Chabad community of Melbourne, Australia.

Rabbi Zvi Hirsh Telsner resigned as the top rabbi of Chabad’s Yeshivah Centre after he – again – lashed out a victim of child sex abuse, verbally attacked other victims and their families and showed no remorse for his previous bad behavior.

But powerful Chabad families don’t want Telsner to go, just as they don’t want any of the other disgraced Chabad rabbis to be punished or reprimanded or fired.

And so we now have this petition, which reads in part:

“…We stand behind Rabbi Telsner in solidarity of both him as an individual as well as the position of Rabbi as a representative of the wider community. The Koach HaTorah and Halachic principles must be upheld despite there being impediments and hardships.

“We further insist that the Yeshivah Centre – true to its title of being “Under the auspices of the Lubavitcher Rebbe” – follow the directives, principles and spirit of the Rebbe’s explicit and inferred opinions in its running and operation. This point is not negotiable.…”

The “Koach HaTorah and Halachic principles” the petition is talking about appears to be the prohibition against mesira (informing), meaning don’t “inform” on fellow Jews, even if they are pedophiles or enablers of pedophiles. Don’t call police. Don’t tell the media. Don’t complain. Don’t make a fuss. That essentially what Telsner repeatedly told victims and it’s a big part of what got him in trouble. The petition is saying Telsner was right to threaten victims this way because the halakha and the Torah say so.

(A large number of poskim, decisors of Orthodox Jewish law, even some Chabad poskim, rule that there is no ban against informing when it comes to child sex abuse, and that all child sex abuse must be reported to police. But large portions of Chabad hasidim disagree, apparently including the signatories below.)

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MARYLAND
WBAL

Former Episcopal bishop Heather Cook has plead guilty to auto manslaughter, DWI, driving while texting and leaving the scene of accident.

Cook’s vehicle struck and killed 41-year-old bicyclist Tom Palermo on a sunny Saturday afternoon in December. Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby stated that Cook’s blood-alcohol level was at .22 after the crash, nearly triple Maryland’s legal limit for driving.

Officials say Cook left the scene of the crash for about 20 minutes before returning.

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MARYLAND
The Baltimore Sun

By Justin Fenton
The Baltimore Sun

Former Episcopal bishop Heather Elizabeth Cook Tuesday pleaded guilty to charges in the December drunken-driving death of a bicyclist in North Baltimore.

Cook appeared in court a day before her trial was scheduled to begin. Her attorney previously had said that they were considering a plea and didn’t want to go through a trial “for everyone’s sake.”

Cook pleaded guilty to automobile manslaughter, driving under the influence of alcohol, leaving the scene of a fatal accident and texting while driving.
probation. Cook will have an opportunity to argue for less time at her sentencing this fall.

In April, Cook, 58, pleaded not guilty to all 13 counts against her, including automobile manslaughter, driving under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene of an accident, which left 41-year-old bicyclist Thomas Palermo dead.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Cape News

Posted: Thursday, June 19, 2014

ENTERPRISE STAFF

The Reverend Joseph Francis Byrne, 70, of East Falmouth died on June 18.

Fr. Byrne was born in Boston, the son of Joseph and Mary B. (Coursey) Byrne. He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Boston on May 21, 1969.

He served in St. Matthew Parish in Dorchester, St. John the Baptist Parish in Quincy, St. Albert the Great Parish in Weymouth, and Pastor of Our Lady Comforter of the Afflicted Parish in Waltham, before coming to Falmouth in 2003.

Fr. Byrne served in the Archdiocesan Office of Vocations, Project Rachel, and the Office of Spiritual Development. He also was the spiritual director for the Permanent Deaconate Program, the Chrism Adult Education Program, and the Special Needs Religious Education Program of the South Region of the Archdiocese.

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