ABUSE TRACKER

UNTIED STATES
ABC 7

(CNN) — Here is a look at the life of Pope Francis, the current pope and first non-European pontiff of the modern era.

Personal:

Birth date: December 17, 1936

Birth place: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Birth name: Jorge Mario Bergoglio

Father: Mario Bergoglio

Mother: Regina (Sivori) Bergoglio

Religion: Roman Catholic

Other Facts:

The first Jesuit pope.

The first Latin American pope and the first from the Americas.

The first non-European pope in over 1,000 years.

Reportedly received the second most votes in the 2005 papal election.

As archbishop of Buenos Aires, Bergoglio took the bus to work and cooked his own meals.

Pope Francis had part of one lung removed when he was a young man, but is in good health, according to the Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi.

Timeline:

December 13, 1969 – Is ordained as a priest.

1973-1979 – Serves as provincial for Argentina.

1980-1986 – Rector of the Philosophical and Theological Faculty of San Miguel.

June 3, 1997 – Appointed Coadjutor Archbishop of Buenos Aires.

February 28, 1998 – Succeeds Cardinal Antonio Quarracino as archbishop of Buenos Aires.

February 21, 2001 – Is made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II.

November 8, 2005-November 8, 2011 – President of the Bishops’ Conference of Argentina.

February 11, 2013 – Pope Benedict XVI announces that he will retire, effective February 28th. He cites his “advanced age” as the reason.

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IRELAND
Catholic Herald (UK)

Bishop Emeritus of Kerry said to be very shaken by the incident

Bishop Emeritus Bill Murphy of Kerry was punched in the face last month by a drunken passenger angry about the Church’s handling of sex abuse claims, according to the Irish Times.

The retired bishop, aged 79, had been travelling on a train from Killarney to Dublin with his brother, Archdeacon Michael Murphy.

Archdeacon Murphy told the newspaper that a man recognised him and came over to them. “He had quite a lot [of drink] on him. He spoke about being ill. The bishop was reading his office.”

The man left but a short time later returned. “He started giving out about problems in the diocese, and punched him [Bishop Murphy] in the face. He got a shock. But we continued on our way,” Archdeacon Murphy said.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

TINA CAMPBELL
Friday 04 September 2015

The Catholic Church in Scotland is taking steps to tackle the problems of abuse and to help survivors, writes Tina Campbell

SINCE my appointment in 2013 as National Safeguarding Co-ordinator for the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland, a church body that enables the bishops of the eight Scottish dioceses to work together, there have been several major initiatives:

Starting in 2013 there has been annual publication of all allegations reported each year. At the same time, a historical review of all case files of those against whom allegations were made between 1947 and 2015 was launched and, lastly, a review of safeguarding policies and practice was instituted.

The annual publication of the Audit of Allegations is now an essential part of the work of the Scottish Catholic Safeguarding Service (SCSS). The audits reflect a pattern of reporting many years after the abuse or other harm took place. This is consistent with the complex reasons why those who have been harmed find it difficult to disclose what happened to them. It is equally important that survivors of abuse feel confident that in reporting to the safeguarding teams within the Church, that they are both believed and that appropriate professional action is taken.

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PUERTO RICO
Imperial Valley News

San Juan, Puerto Rican – A former pastor and two other men received a collective sentence of 68 years Wednesday for transporting minors with the intent to engage them in criminal sexual conduct. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), working jointly with the Puerto Rico Crimes Against Children Task Force (PRCACTF), conducted the investigation.

Nelson Santiago-Colon, 49, former pastor of the Peniel Christian Church located in Santa Isabel, was sentenced to 40 years in prison followed by 15 years of supervised release. HSI special agents arrested him February 2013 in Ponce. According to the three-count complaint, Santiago-Colon transported a 14-year-old boy and a 12-year-old boy from the Peniel Christian Church to his home for the purpose of committing sexual assault and lewd acts with the minors. Count three charges him with transporting a 14-year-old minor from the minor’s home to his home with the intent to perform lewd acts on the minor.

Hilton Rios-Rivera, 51, of San Sebastian, was sentenced to 18 years in prison followed by 15 years of supervised release for transporting a female minor to several motels with the intent that she engage in criminal sexual conduct. After receiving substantial assistance from local authorities, including the Puerto Rico Police Department’s Sexual Crimes Division and the Puerto Rico Department of Justice, HSI special agents arrested Hilton Rios-Rivera, aka Pochy, for having transported a 14-year-old minor on approximately three different occasions to motels in Aguada and Añasco in order to engage in sexually explicit conduct with her.

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TENNESSEE
WMC

MEMPHIS, TN (WMC) –
A former youth minister charged with rape was extradited to Shelby County on Thursday.

Luke Cooke was indicted on rape and aggravated sexual battery charges in 2007. Shelby County investigators said Cooke raped an 8-year-old and a 16-year-old.

Cooke then left the country. He was found in China, but when U.S. Marshals prepared to deport him back to the United States, he ran again.

In 2014, detectives learned that Cooke was in Morocco. A few weeks later in April 2014, Interpol contacted the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office to say they found Cooke in an airport in Albania with an expired passport.

U.S Marshals obtained a federal arrest warrant for Cooke, charged him with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, and began the extradition process.

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MICHIGAN
The Detroit News

Mark Hicks, The Detroit News September 3, 2015

An Orthodox bishop in Michigan with ties to Metro Detroit is under investigation amid allegations of sexual misconduct, church authorities said.

Irineu Duvlea, an auxiliary bishop with the Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of America also listed as Bishop of Dearborn Heights, is “presumed innocent pending the outcome of the investigation,” according to a statement posted Tuesday on the website for the group.

However, as required under policies by the Orthodox Church in America’s Office for Review of Sexual Misconduct Allegations, Bishop Duvlea has been “placed on leave of absence and does not have a blessing to serve liturgically in our Episcopate or at any other location,” the statement read.

The statement, which did not detail the allegations, was attributed to Nathaniel Popp, archbishop of Detroit and the Romanian Episcopate, who added: “The process is highly confidential, and no one should discuss the investigation with anyone.”

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Must-Reading As Papal Visit Nears: The Economist on “Unholy Mess” of Finances in U.S. Catholic Church

For anyone asking why so many Catholics have walked away and continue to do so despite the “Francis effect”; for those with serious concern for the future of the Catholic church; for those who care about the effectiveness of the church in proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ to the world:

This Economist article entitled “Earthly Concerns” should be must-reading.

It appears to have been published in 2012, but I just learned of it today after Tom Roberts linked it in today’s “Morning Briefing” column in National Catholic Reporter. The opening paragraph of the article:

OF ALL the organisations that serve America’s poor, few do more good work than the Catholic church: its schools and hospitals provide a lifeline for millions. Yet even taking these virtues into account, the finances of the Catholic church in America are an unholy mess. The sins involved in its book-keeping are not as vivid or grotesque as those on display in the various sexual-abuse cases that have cost the American church more than $3 billion so far; but the financial mismanagement and questionable business practices would have seen widespread resignations at the top of any other public institution.

That’s a recurring refrain in the essay: The financial mismanagement and questionable business practices [of Catholic leaders] would have seen widespread resignations at the top of any other public institution.

Or: “In a public company, this type of thing would attract regulatory scrutiny.”

Or:

In a corporate bankruptcy, if insurance is relevant to the reason for the company’s failure then its insurance policy has to be listed as an asset. Not so those of the Catholic Mutual Group (CMG), which stepped up its help for Catholic dioceses in the mid-1980s—a time when liability insurance became too expensive as a result of the increase in sexual-abuse claims.

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ILLINOIS
Chillicothe Times-Bulletin

Pam Adams
Journal Star reporter

Posted Sep. 2, 2015

PEORIA — In spite of the Catholic church’s decades-long entanglements in sex abuse scandals, parishioners of St. Ann Church were still jolted by news that their pastor, the Rev. Terry Cassidy, was the subject of allegations of sexual misconduct with a minor.

“It’s shocking. People are just bewildered and confused. It’s just not a good thing,” said John Carlson, a member of St. Ann, where Cassidy has served as pastor since 1999.

The Catholic Diocese of Peoria announced Aug. 26 that Cassidy had been removed from public ministry in light of accusations dating back nearly 30 years. It’s not clear where or when the alleged misconduct occurred, not even if it happened in Illinois.

Carlson and the Rev. John Blossom, a local Episcopal priest, indicated Cassidy’s support and popularity cross denominational lines because of his work in the Cursillo movement.

For parishioners, learning of the allegations through media reports was like hearing bad news about a beloved family member, Carlson said.

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WISCONSIN
Fox 6

SEPTEMBER 3, 2015

CEDARBURG — A Milwaukee priest is on administrative leave after an allegation arose of sexual abuse against a minor. The alleged abuse happened 38 years ago, but only recently was an identification made.

According to the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, the priest denies this allegation and the district attorney has decided not to prosecute. However, this priest will be on leave while an investigation is underway.

A meeting of the pastoral council was held on Thursday, September 3rd at St. Francis Borgia Parish in Cedarburg. Members were told that Father Tom Eichenberger is now on administrative leave.

Eichenberger is accused of sexual assault of a minor back in 1977. This allegation first arose in 2012, as part of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy process — but only in the last few weeks was a name attached to the claim.

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PENNSYLVANIA
ABC 23

In less than a week the Central City Priest accused of inappropriately touching young boys while on a mission trip overseas will face a jury. Thursday though Father Joseph Maurizio was back in court as his Defense Team argued against an expert witness being heard at trial. That expert is a licensed Psychologist who specializes in interpersonal Violence including physical and sexual abuse of children. The expert admitted she hasn’t talked with any of the alleged victims nor does she know anything about the case. The Judge will announce a decision Friday.

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

4 SEPTEMBER 2015
BY BILL HEANEY

Apologies were made for 61 cases of sexual abuse by clergy and related others in the past decade

It was the strangest press conference I have ever attended in half a century in journalism.

One half of it was held in Edinburgh in the Apex Waterloo Hotel and the other half in Glasgow in St Andrew’s Cathedral.

They were not linked – or at least they were not supposed to be seen to be linked – but one had been set up to launch the report of the McLellan Commission on clerical abuse in the Catholic Church in Scotland. The other was for Archbishop Philip Tartaglia to respond to the report which Scotland’s bishops had invited a panel of “experts” to deliver.

This panel of 12 distinguished apostles of democracy, faith and fairness was set up in 2013 under the chairmanship of Dr Andrew McLellan, a former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

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VENICE
WBUR

[with video]

VENICE, Italy Full-length films about two of Massachusetts’ longest-running scandals make their debuts at the Venice Film Festival this week.

One — “Black Mass” — covers the life of convicted mobster James “Whitey” Bulger. The other — “Spotlight” — looks at how The Boston Globe exposed the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests.

The resemblance of the two stories is striking. Both are tales of shocking crimes, institutional corruption, cover-up and a crisis of faith that followed.

The first to premiere was “Spotlight.”

The movie is set in late 2001 as investigative reporters for the Globe secretly work to uncover the crimes of former priest John Geoghan. They search for his victims, and seek to obtain sealed documents that show what church authorities did — and, more importantly, what they did not do.

Walter Robinson, who is played by actor Michael Keaton, was the editor of Spotlight, the Globe’s investigative team that gives the movie its title.

“Reporters, we stumble around in the dark a lot,” Robinson said. “We started out focused on one priest but very quickly learned that Geoghan was the tip of the iceberg, that there were many, many other priests.”

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INDIANA
The Courier-Journal

Matthew Glowicki, @MattGlo September 3, 2015

A Sellersburg, Ind., pastor and fellow church workers are accused of beating multiple children in their care with a wooden paddle.

Clark County Prosecuting Attorney Jeremy Mull said the abuse occurred at Crossroads Baptist Church, led by Pastor Gerald Harris. It operates a boarding academy complete with dormitories and classrooms for mostly out of state students, he said.

While parents, teachers and caretakers are allowed to discipline children “in a legal way,” Mull said, the bruising allegedly seen on the children constituted criminal abuse.

“That’s the point where, in my opinion as a prosecutor, it crosses the line from appropriate discipline to a criminal battery,” he said.

Harris, 47, and Christopher Williams, 21, were both arrested earlier this week and face preliminary charges of battery and neglect of a dependent, said Clarksville Chief of Police Mark Palmer in a news release. Clark County Jail records indicate both live at the church.

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INDIANA
WHAS

Shay McAlister, @WHAS11Shay September 3, 2015

CLARKSVILLE, Ind. (WHAS11) — Christopher Williams appeared in court Thursday, Sept. 3.

His preliminary charges are battery and neglect.

His friends and family were seen outside of the courtroom holding bibles, and holding hands. But police said Williams didn’t act alone. Pastor Gerald Harris is accused of the same crimes, and already bonded out. Police said they know the abuse happened at the Well of Grace Boarding Academy in Clarksville but there’s still a lot of mystery surrounding the case.

“Were looking at exactly what the arrangements were for keeping the kids, what the philosophy was, what the reasoning were for kids being here”, Clark County Prosecutor Jeremy Mull said.

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INDIANA
WKLY

[with video]

By Mark Vanderhoff

More details have been released about the child abuse allegations at an Indiana boarding school.

Jerry Harris and Christopher Williams were both arrested Wednesday on charges of battery and neglect.

Harris and Williams work at the Well of Grace Boarding School, which is affiliated with Crossroads Baptist Church in Sellersburg, Indiana.

A judge set Williams’ bond at $15,000.

According to a probable cause affidavit, Williams and Harris beat students so hard that they bruised.

The suspects appeared in court Thursday.

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MALTA
Gozo News

Archbishop Charles Scicluna and Gozo Bishop Mario Grech in joint statement have said they want to give assurance to the public that the protection of minors is always among the key targets in dioceses managed by them. With the law, both church and state, is always observed and executed in this matter, as in any other matter.

“In the autumn of 2014 the Bishops, together with Religious Superiors in Malta and Gozo had adopted and published a policy on how to investigate cases of alleged abuse of minors by clergy, and religious people.”

The Bishops said that at the beginning of this year, the same ecclesiastical authorities appointed a group of experts to form the Commission for the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults, also called the Safeguarding Commission, headed by Andrew Azzopardi, and has been in operation since February.

Gozo Diocese announces dismissal of priest by the Vatican

“According to this policy and the law of the church, when there is an allegation of abuse by a priest, the Bishop will immediately restrict or suspend the pastoral ministry of the priest, to not have further contact with other minors, and refer the case to the Safeguarding Commission for the necessary investigations.”

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

By Jean Hopfensperger Star Tribune SEPTEMBER 3, 2015

Leaders of Twin Cities parishes identified in clergy sex abuse claims will be allowed to view the confidential abuse claims made by the alleged victims, a federal bankruptcy court judge ruled Thursday.

Attorneys for parishes had argued that key parish leaders needed access to claims involving their church in order to provide information to their insurance companies and to make informed financial decisions.

However, the more than 400 individuals who filed child abuse claims against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis had been guaranteed strict confidentiality, argued victims’ lawyers, who said many still attend the church where the abuse occurred and could be identified.

Bankruptcy Judge Robert Kressel agreed, with some reservations, with parishes. The question for the court, he said, was: “How do we balance the needs of the parishes … and the privacy of claimants.”

Lawyers, now the main group authorized to view the claims, have private offices where documents can be kept securely, he said. Church leaders often do not.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Friday, September 04, 2015

Anne Lucey

The retired bishop of Kerry was punched in the face on a train by a man believed to have been angered by the diocese’s response to child sexual abuse.

It has been confirmed by the diocese that the retired bishop of Kerry, 79-year-old Dr Bill Murphy, was assaulted while travelling with his brother last month on a train from Kerry to Dublin.

Gardaí in Killarney are investigating the attack.

Bishop Murray was said to have been very shaken by the assault, and a passenger in the same carriage came to his assistance

The man, in his 30s, is alleged to have approached Bishop Murphy in a carriage after the train had left Mallow Station on the morning of August 6 and punched him in the face.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY STEPHEN REX BROWN , CHRISTINA CARREGA-WOODBY NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Thursday, September 3, 2015

A well-known Brooklyn advocate against child sex abuse who was attacked with Clorox as retribution for outing pervs on the Internet is suing his attacker.

Nathan Rosenberg was attacked on Dec. 11, 2012, by Meilech Schnitzler with Clorox after revealing information about pedophiles victimizing the Brooklyn Orthodox Jewish community.

“This is Brooklyn, not Syria,” charged Rosenberg’s attorney Robert Tolchin.

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MISSOURI
Fox 2

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) – A Missouri advocate who says he was sexually abused by a priest as a teenager says the Catholic Diocese of Jefferson City gave him $40,000.

David Clohessy said Thursday that the diocese wrote him a check after he asked for $200,000 for therapy and medical expenses. Clohessy says he agreed not to take legal action against the diocese.

Clohessy sued the diocese in 1991 and alleged that he was abused by a priest. The case was dismissed in 1993 because the statute of limitations had run out.

A diocese spokesman didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

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FLORIDA
Naples Daily News

Ryan Mills

NAPLES, Fla. – A St. Louis man who accused a Catholic priest with Naples ties of sexually abusing him received a $40,000 settlement from a Missouri diocese last month.

The check, from the Catholic Diocese of Jefferson City, was issued to David Clohessy on Aug. 19. Clohessy, 58, is the director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, an advocacy group based in Chicago. He accused the Rev. John J. Whiteley Jr. of sexually abusing him in the mid-to-late 1960s.

Whiteley, who has not served as an active priest since the early 1990s, lived for years in Collier County, most recently in the Naples Mobile Home Park off U.S. 41 North in Naples. However, neighbors and a park staff member said Whiteley recently sold his trailer and moved to the Miami area.

Attempts to reach Whiteley for comment were unsuccessful Thursday. He has never been charged with or convicted of a crime in this case.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Sept. 3

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

We are grateful, and kids are safer, any time a predator’s name is posted on line or appears in print. So we’re glad that Malta Catholic officials will reportedly put child molesting clerics’ names on church websites.

[Times of Malta]

At the same time, however, we’re highly skeptical that the lists will be complete or that accurate and adequate information will be provided. Historically, Catholic officials have often posted only names of predator priests who have already been “outed” and whose identities are already known because of civil lawsuits and criminal prosecution or others means.

While this pledge may sound promising, we urge victims, witnesses, whistleblowers, Catholics and citizens to keep pushing for full disclosure and real reform. And we urge anyone who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes and cover ups to seek help from independent sources, like police, prosecutors, therapists, loved ones and support groups like ours, not from Catholic officials.

NOTE – About 30 US bishops have posted names of proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting clerics on their websites, almost always after considerable public pressure.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/AtAGlance/lists.htm

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MALTA
Times of Malta

Thursday, September 3, 2015

The names of defrocked priests are to start being published on the Malta and Gozo church websites with immediate effect, Archbishop Charles Scicluna and Gozo bishop Mario Grech said today.

In a statement this afternoon the bishops said this was in addition to the current practice of informing the parish priest of the town where the former priest would be living. The defrocked priest would also be deleted from the clerical list.

The bishops said that the safeguarding of minors was at the forefront of their aims and the laws both of the state and also of the Church were always observed.

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MASSACHUSETTS
The Republican

By Ray Kelly | rkelly@repub.com
Follow on Twitter
on September 03, 2015

Chicago actress Laurie Heineman will portray Hampden Superior Court Judge Constance M. Sweeney in “Spotlight,” an upcoming movie chronicling the pedophile priest scandal in Massachusetts.

Hollywood A-listers Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, Mark Ruffalo and Michael Keaton star as Boston Globe staffers probing allegations of sexual abuse. Canadian actor Len Cariou plays Cardinal Bernard Law.

The film on the Pulitzer Prize winning investigation is set for release on Nov. 6.

In 2001, Sweeney reversed another judge’s ruling and ordered the release of 10,000 documents from 84 lawsuits concerning John J. Geoghan, a former priest convicted of molestation.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Katholisch

[The banker of God, Roberto Calvi, was found with a rope around his neck under a bridge in London. Pope John Paul I died after 33 days in office under mysterious circumstances. And now the 67-year-old former Nuncio Jozef Wesolowski is found dead shortly after his trial started. He was found dead in the TV room of his Vatican residence. Dan Brown says hello.]

Der Bankier Gottes, Roberto Calvi, wurde mit einem Strick um den Hals an einer Brücke in London aufgefunden. Papst Johannes Paul I. starb nach 33 Tagen im Amt unter ungeklärten Umständen. Und nun wird der 67-jährige ehemalige päpstliche Nuntius Jozef Wesolowski kurz vor seinem Prozessbeginn tot im Fernsehraum seines vatikanischen Domizils gefunden. Dan Brown lässt grüßen.

War es Mord? War es Suizid? Angeklagt werden sollte Wesolowski wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs. Als Botschafter des Vatikans in der Dominikanischen Republik hatte sich der Würdenträger erwiesenermaßen an mehreren Jungen zwischen 13 und 16 Jahren vergangen. Außerdem befanden sich auf seinem Computer 100.000 kinderpornografische Bilddateien. Im August 2013 wurde er deshalb von Papst Franziskus seines Amtes enthoben, im Sommer darauf versetzte ihn die Glaubenskongregation in den Laienstand. Von September bis Dezember letzten Jahres wurde er im Vatikan sogar unter Hausarrest gestellt, der aber dann aus gesundheitlichen Gründen gelockert wurde. Wegen Wesolowskis Herzproblemen musste der Prozessauftakt vertagt werden.

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POLAND
The News

A foundation that aids victims of child abuse by clergymen is planning a protest at the funeral of a defrocked bishop who died last week before his trial completed at the Vatican.

A funeral mass for Józef Wesołowski is reportedly due to be held in Czorsztyn, southern Poland, on Saturday 5 September.

It is unclear whether the former bishop will be buried in Czorsztyn or in his family’s tomb in the nearby village of Sromowce Wyżne.

Marek Lisiński, head of the ‘Nie lęjajcie się’ foundation (‘Do not be afraid’), has told Radio Zet that the protest will be against what he described as “the ignorance” of the Polish Church regarding the problem of child abuse.

He said that the protesters would not heckle or impede mourners during the service.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry, Anne Lucey

Thu, Sep 3, 2015

Former bishop of Kerry Bill Murphy (79) was assaulted by a drunken passenger on the Killarney-Dublin train last month in an incident related to a perception of Kerry diocese’s response to clerical child sex abuse.

The bishop was travelling with his brother, Archdeacon Michael Murphy, on the 7.30am Killarney-Dublin train on August 6th last. The incident occurred shortly after the train left Mallow.

Speaking to The Irish Times, Archdeacon Murphy said he and his brother were on their way to visit a Sister in Dublin when a man approached. He “definitely recognised me” said the Archdeacon.

“He came along to me. He had quite a lot [of drink] on him. He spoke about being ill. The bishop was reading his office.”

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MICHIGAN
Press and Guide

By Jodi Rempala
jrempala@heritage.com

A Michigan Orthodox bishop is on leave and cannot work as a priest following allegations of sexual misconduct.

Dearborn Heights Archbishop Nathaniel Popp on Tuesday publicly disclosed that his auxiliary bishop the Right Rev. Irineu Duvlea, is being investigated for sexual misconduct.

Popp said in a statement that Duvlea, 53, is presumed innocent, but has been placed on leave and is banned from working until the investigation is complete.

The church did not announce any information about potential victims.

Popp added that the investigation is highly confidential and urged his followers not to speak about the matter.

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VENICE
Deadline

by Nancy Tartaglione
September 3, 2015

In what’s been the warmest reception I’ve seen for a film this year in Venice, Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight hit the Lido today, bringing awards buzz, and leaving the press corps exclaiming ‘Bellissima!’. Given this is a film whose subjects the audience knows a thing or two about — journalism and the Catholic church — the sustained press screening applause sounded a ringing endorsement for the out-of-competition title. Afterwards, McCarthy and stars Mark Ruffalo and Stanley Tucci said they hoped Pope Francis would get to see the film that traces the Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe investigation into a sex abuse and corruption scandal which rocked a city, and one of the world’s oldest and most trusted institutions.

Saying he was speaking on behalf of the real-life characters, the cast and victims, Ruffalo expressed they were all “hoping that the pope and the Vatican use this very, very sober and judicious story to begin to heal the wounds that the church also received.” Spotlight is “a perfect opportunity” for the Vatican “to begin to right these wrongs, not just for the victims and their destroyed lives, but for all the people who’ve lost a way to order a chaotic world for themselves.”

Set in 2001, the movie follows the dedicated members of the Globe‘s Spotlight news team as they delve into allegations of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, ultimately exposing a decades-long cover-up at the highest levels of Boston’s religious, legal, and government establishment, and setting off a wave of revelations around the world. Ruffalo plays lead writer Mike Rezendes and Tucci is victims’ attorney Mitch Garabedian. Also starring are Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, Brian d’Arcy James and John Slattery.

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VENICE
Sciclonic

Tom McCarthy‘s Spotlight made a highlight in Venice today, bringing happiness in director’s squad. The film is said to be superbly controlled drama.

Spotlight is about The Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” team, the oldest continuously operating newspaper investigative unit in the United States, and their coverage of the Massachusetts Catholic sex abuse scandal, for which The Globe won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. The film stars Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Brian d’Arcy James, Michael Keaton, Stanley Tucci, Liev Schreiber, and Billy Crudup.

McCarthy and stars Mark Ruffalo and Stanley Tucci said they hoped Pope Francis would get to see the film that traces the Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe investigation into a sex abuse and corruption scandal which rocked a city, and one of the world’s oldest and most trusted institutions.

Ruffalo expressed they were all “hoping that the pope and the Vatican use this very, very sober and judicious story to begin to heal the wounds that the church also received.”Spotlight is “a perfect opportunity” for the Vatican “to begin to right these wrongs, not just for the victims and their destroyed lives, but for all the people who’ve lost a way to order a chaotic world for themselves.”

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VENICE
The Hollywood Reporter

The Bottom Line
An explosive topic gets a prosaic treatment.
Venue
Venice Film Festival
Opens
November 6 (Open Road)
Cast
Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, John Slattery
Director
Tom McCarthy

Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams play Boston Globe reporters trying to expose a cover-up of sexually abusive priests in Tom McCarthy’s fact-based drama.

A would-be All the Cardinal’s Men, the less-than-resonantly titled Spotlight makes a dry affair of the sensational story of a small circle of Boston Globe journalists who, more than a decade ago, exposed the Roman Catholic church’s institutional protection of sexually abusive priests. As numerous notable films have demonstrated, the spectacle of lowly scribes bringing down the great and powerful can make for exciting, agitating cinema, but director and co-writer Tom McCarthy’s fifth feature is populated with one-dimensional characters enacting a connect-the-dots screenplay quite devoid of life’s, or melodrama’s, juices, which are what distantly motivate this story in the first place. Virtuous only by nature of its subject matter, this Open Road release, set to open in November, might have been more at home on the small screen.

It was a very big deal indeed when the church was finally called to account for its history of looking the other way or quietly shuffling misbehaving clergy off to obscure parishes when caught with their robes up or pants down. It was virtually unthinkable to the city’s fifty percent Catholic population that the trail would lead all the way to the Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Law, who resigned in 2002 when faced with numerous irrefutable first-hand testimonies.

To tell the story, McCarthy and co-writer Josh Singer (the dreary The Fifth Estate) focus on the small investigative “Spotlight” team of Globe reporters, who routinely worked on stories for months and wouldn’t give up on this one until their chain of evidence was complete and unbreakable. Unfortunately, the filmmakers don’t make them interesting and distinctive people, and the uniformly excellent actors playing them can’t bring them to life all by themselves. The truly dramatic story here lies off-screen and to a great degree in the past, while the journalists’ work consists mostly of persistence, constant grinding and not having a life until the job is done. (And maybe not even then.)

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VENICE
Times LIVE (South Africa)

Angus MACKINNON and Giovanni Grezzi | 03 September, 2015

Pope Francis still has to prove the Church is serious about addressing sex abuse by priests, according to the director of a major new film about how the damaging scandal was exposed in the United States.

Tom McCarthy’s Spotlight, a newsroom drama that focuses on how the Boston Globe broke a local story that was to become a global crisis for the Church, had its premiere on Thursday at the Venice Film Festival.

Starring Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams as key members of the Globe’s investigations team, the film recounts the paper’s pursuit of evidence of how the local Catholic hierarchy, headed by Cardinal Bernard Law, systematically and, at times, cynically, covered up for abusive priests in their midst.

By the time the Globe’s team had earned their Pulitzer Prize it had become clear that the Church in the Boston area had, for years, harboured more than 70 predatory paedophiles, shuffling them from parish to parish when the rumours got too loud and acting swiftly to ensure any legal suits were settled silently and secretly.

After the story went to press in early 2002, the number of victims willing to testify to having been abused rose to a total of nearly 1,500, lifting the lid on the scale of a scourge the Church had spent decades dismissing as limited to a few rotten apples.

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UNITED STATES
Variety

Kristopher Tapley
Co-Awards Editor
@kristapley

Since launching in 2011 through a partnership between theater chains AMC Theatres and Regal Entertainment Group, distributor Open Road Films has amassed a sui generis blend of often genre-leaning product that stands apart from the competition. Movies like Joe Carnahan’s “The Grey” (longtime readers will recall my affinity for that, the best film of 2012) and Steven Soderbergh’s “Side Effects” were favorably received by critics, while others like Jon Favreau’s “Chef” were hits as well. But none truly flirted with the awards season until last year’s “Nightcrawler.”

Nevertheless, Dan Gilroy’s broadcast news thriller came up short, too. It picked up surprise notices from the producers and screen actors guilds and was, for obvious reasons, adored by press and critics groups. But only the writers branch of the Academy spoke up for it come Oscar time. It was a scathing film, one that packed a heavy and cynical punch — perhaps too cynical. Maybe voters had trouble embracing that. Maybe they struggled between Jake Gyllenhaal’s uncanny performance and another creepy depiction in the field, Steve Carell’s in “Foxcatcher.” Or maybe the high simply wore off as films like “American Sniper” came along to rally support toward the end.

Whatever the case, it’s interesting to note that the company will be back this season with yet another pulse-quickening tale of journalists on the beat, albeit one that colors the profession in a much more noble light. And that could make all the difference. Indeed, Tom McCarthy’s “Spotlight” has a real shot at becoming Open Road’s first best picture nominee to date.

After testing through the roof this summer, the film premiered at the Venice Film Festival Thursday and is expected to screen in Telluride this weekend before moving on to Toronto. A focused, dialed-down account of shoe-leather reporting at its finest, it’s one of the great newsroom dramas. And it will be sweet vindication for McCarthy, whose last film — Adam Sandler starrer “The Cobbler” — was mauled by critics.

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VENICE
Boston Globe

By Mark Shanahan GLOBE STAFF
SEPTEMBER 03, 2015

VENICE – In the shadow of the magnificent churches that crowd this ancient city, “Spotlight,” the movie about The Boston Globe’s award-winning series exposing the clergy sex abuse scandal in the Boston Archdiocese, premiered to sustained applause Thursday.

The drama detailing the newspaper’s dogged pursuit of a story that would rock the Catholic church to its foundation is one of two highly anticipated Hollywood features debuting at the Venice Film Festival in which Boston plays a starring role. “Black Mass,” the saga of South Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger and his unholy alliance with the FBI, premieres Friday.

Directed by Tom McCarthy and featuring an ensemble cast that includes Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Liev Schreiber, John Slattery, and Stanley Tucci, “Spotlight” was well received at Thursday’s press screening, with critics interviewed afterward calling it engrossing without being melodramatic.

A.O. Scott, film critic for The New York Times, said what “Spotlight” lacks in spectacle – it’s about old-fashioned, shoe-leather journalism, after all – it makes up for in artful storytelling.

“It’s a detective story, fundamentally,” said Scott. “It’s very procedural and impressively told.”

In its review, Variety compared “Spotlight” to “All the President’s Men,” calling it “a superbly controlled and engrossingly detailed account” as well as “a magnificently nerdy process movie — a tour de force of filing-cabinet cinema.”

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UNITED STATES
The Daily Beast

Marlow Stern

The Oscar-nominated actor turned Marvel superhero opened up about his role as an investigative journalist in ‘Spotlight’ and where his activist streak comes from.

Mark Ruffalo, the breezy, floppy-haired two-time Oscar nominee from Kenosha, Wisconsin, is what 4chan trolls would refer to as an “SJW,” or Social Justice Warrior. For the uninitiated, it’s a bit of bullshit acronym ammunition employed by the narrow—and feeble—minded to box in those who yearn for a better world. And Ruffalo is one of those people.

Unlike most tight-lipped actors these days, Ruffalo is very outspoken on Twitter and his personal blog, voicing his support for Black Lives Matter, the LGBTQ movement, feminism, anti-fracking, you name it. So it should come as little surprise that the sometime superhero has decided to portray a journalist in the film Spotlight, which made its premiere at the 2015 Venice Film Festival.

Directed by Tom McCarthy (The Station Agent), Ruffalo plays Michael Rezendes, a real-life Boston Globe reporter and member of their elite “Spotlight” investigative journalism unit that helped uncover a sex abuse epidemic within the Boston archdiocese, thrusting the issue of child sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic priests into the national discourse. For their efforts, which resulted in the conviction of five Catholic priests for child sexual abuse, the Globe won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service.

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VENICE
The Hollywood Reporter

by Ariston Anderson 9/3/2015

“I hope the Vatican will use this movie as a perfect opportunity to begin to right these wrongs,” Tom McCarthy said.

Tom McCarthy’s thriller Spotlight has its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival Thursday. The true-life story tells follows the investigative Boston Globe team, played by Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Brian d’Arcy James and Rachel McAdams, that pulled back the curtains on how the Church covered up Boston’s child molestation scandal. The consequences of the Boston Globe’s work reverberated throughout the Catholic Church around the world.

What starts as a follow-up story into child molestation expands into a year-long investigation, revealing dozens of complicit priests, cardinals, law officials and lawyers who helped cover-up hundreds of cases of abuse within Boston. While some estimates mark 6 percent of priests guilty of molestation, the film points out the dual abuse pattern of its victims, both on a physical and spiritual basis. The case helped open the door for other cities to follow suit, revealing a crime that had infested the Catholic Church on a global scale.

At the press conference in Venice, Italian media questioned the impact the film might have on the Church’s actions today. Pope Francis has recently set up a Vatican tribunal to hear cases of bishops who failed to protect children within their own dioceses.

Actor Stanley Tucci, who plays lawyer Mitchell Garabedian, who won millions in settlements for his clients in Boston, was extremely supportive of the Pope. “I think this new Pope is extraordinary and he’s bringing the Catholic Church into the 21st century and I think if anybody is to help stop such abuses in the future it would be him.”

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VENICE
Reuters

VENICE | BY HANNA RANTALA

“Spotlight” starring Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo as reporters working on the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation of paedophile Roman Catholic priests deals with just a fraction of sexual predation in the Church, its director says.

Reports of sexual misconduct by the late British entertainer Jimmy Savile and other high profile cases are an indication of the global scope of the problem, and of failures to deal with it, Tom McCarthy said before his film’s screening on Thursday at the Venice Film Festival.

“These moments where we know people have done things wrong and we don’t, as a society, we don’t stand up to them, it takes years and years and years and the question is why? Why does it take so long?,” McCarthy said in an interview on Wednesday.

The Globe’s Spotlight team exposed the attacks over a period of decades by priests in the Boston archdiocese who molested young boys but instead of being reported to the police were given counseling and moved to a different parish. The expose led to the resignation of Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law in 2002.

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MASSACHUSETTS
The Guardian (UK)

[with video]

Peter Bradshaw
@PeterBradshaw1
Thursday 3 September 2015

“If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one,” is how one character here summarises the issues. This high-minded, well-intentioned movie, co-written and directed by Tom McCarthy, is about the Boston Globe’s investigative reporting team Spotlight, and its Pulitzer-winning campaign in 2001 to uncover widespread, systemic child abuse by Catholic priests in Massachusetts.

The film shows that in the close-knit, clubbably loyal and very Catholic city of Boston, no one had any great interest in breaking the queasy, shame-ridden silence that made the church’s culture of abuse possible, and even tentatively suggests that the Globe itself was one of the Boston institutions affected. The paper had evidence of abuse 10 years before the campaign began, but somehow contrived to downplay and bury the story, and it took a new editor, both non-Boston and Jewish, to get things started.

Spotlight has a few inevitable journo cliches: male reporters are dishevelled mavericks who don’t need to keep the same hours as everyone else, doing a fair bit of shouting and desk-thumping. There is much cheeky machismo on the subjects of poker and sports, and they somehow never need to do the boring grind of sitting down and writing stuff on computers. But this is a movie that is honourably concerned to avoid sensationalism and to avoid the bad taste involved in implying that journalists, and not the child abuse survivors, are the really important people here. So there is something cautious, even occasionally plodding, in its dramatic pace.

We keep hearing about how the church is going to come after reporters who dare to challenge its authority – but this never really happens, and there is none of the paranoia of a picture like Alan J Pakula’s All the President’s Men (1976) or Michael Mann’s The Insider (1999). Yet McCarthy keeps the narrative motor running, and there are some very good scenes, chiefly the extraordinary moment when Rachel McAdams’s reporter doorsteps a smilingly hospitable retired priest and asks him, flat-out, if he has ever molested a child. The resulting scene had me on the edge of my seat.

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VENICE
Variety

Tom McCarthy Speaks About Opening ‘Spotlight’ In Catholic Italy, How He Cast Michael Keaton, And How Journalism Is Deteriorating

Nick Vivarelli
International Correspondent
@NickVivarelli

Tom McCarthy’s new film “Spotlight,” about the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation in 2002 into the priest pedophilia scandals and subsequent cover-ups within the Catholic Church, is making a splash at the Venice Film Festival where it world premieres this evening after playing positively for the press this morning. Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams and Brian d’Arcy James star in the ensemble drama as the Globe’s Spotlight Team. They are assigned by a new editor, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber), with investigating allegations of pedophilia. Spotlight editor is Walter “Robby” Robinson, played by Michael Keaton, in his first role after “Birdman.”

You were raised Irish Catholic and you went to Boston College, so you were educated by Jesuits. How did your background play into the film?

It certainly prompted my interest. When I was approached by Blye Faust and Nicole Rocklin approached with this story and the life rights to the reporters, the first person I sat down with was my father to say: ‘I’m doing this.’ He’s a very strong Catholic. And I told him: ‘As soon as they announce it in the papers, you and mom are going to hear about it.’ And sure enough calls started coming from all their friends saying, ‘Why is he doing this?’ ‘Can’t we move on?’ But they heard me out why I wanted to do it, and they agreed.

Did you meet a lot of the Boston Globe guys?

From day-one Josh Singer (who co-wrote the screenplay) and I went down to Boston, sat down with each of them. We started expanding and sat down with the lawyers, survivors, family members, former reporters, lawyers, editors, publishers. Anyone who would talk to us. It was just trying to get as many angles to the story as we could and really trying to understand the context of not just life at the Globe at the time, but of life in Boston.

Now the reporters text me all the time. They are completely annoying. They are relentless reporters. It’s a funny relationship because they are sometimes the trickiest people to interview. Reporters weirdly don’t like that.

Ultimately they are the heroes of our story, and I think we all owe them a debt of gratitude for the work they did. That said, they become our subjects too, so there is always that line that at one point we are going to have to tell the story, and maybe it won’t all be favorable to some degree.

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VENICE
San Francisco Chronicle

VENICE, Italy (AP) — Thomas McCarthy wants Pope Francis to go to the movies.

Specifically, the American director would like the pontiff to see his new film “Spotlight,” a fact-based expose of clerical sexual abuse and its cover-up by the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Boston.

The movie stars Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams as real-life Boston Globe reporters, and premieres Thursday at the Venice Film Festival.

McCarthy says he’s excited and apprehensive about holding the film’s first public screening in overwhelmingly Catholic Italy. But he doesn’t expect to be getting rave reviews from the church.

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Sept. 3, 2015

For more information: David Clohessy of St. Louis, SNAP Director (314) 566-9790 cell, davidgclohessy@gmail.com, SNAPclohessy@aol.com

Diocese pays abuse settlement
Cleric is long time Naples resident
Victim is veteran head of support group
Pedophile priest worked in nine Missouri towns
Man worries that predator “may still be hurting kids now”

More than 25 years after he first reported his childhood sexual abuse to mid-Missouri Catholic officials, a St. Louis man has received a settlement stemming from his suffering at the hands of a priest who lives in the Naples area.

David Clohessy, the long time executive director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, approached a Jefferson City diocesan staffer last November about “the effects of (the) betrayal” he suffered at the hands of Fr. John Whiteley.

In January, Clohessy met with two church employees, Sr. Kathleen Wegman and Mike Berendzen. He asked the diocese to post the names of “proven, admitted and credibly accused child molesting clerics” on parish websites and to warn Catholics in Florida about Whiteley, who lives in Naples. He also asked for $200,000 for therapy and medical expenses.

Several email exchanges followed and last week, the diocese sent Clohessy a check for $40,000. Clohessy had to sign a release form forbidding him from ever suing the diocese, he said.

“I asked Bishop John Gaydos for half a dozen steps to protect kids and warn others about Jeff City predator priests but was completely rebuffed,” he said. “I’ve spent way more than $40,000 on therapy alone. Still, I’m grateful.”

It’s “sad and ironic,” he says that he had to approach diocesan officials. Catholic bishops and church abuse policies routinely talk of doing “outreach” to those hurt by priests.

“In nearly 30 years, I don’t recall ever getting so much as a Christmas card from any of the hundreds of Catholic employees of Jeff City parishes. They could have kept on ignoring me, as they’ve done for decades, but at least Mike did respond when I emailed him,” Clohessy said.

In his work with SNAP, Clohessy said he actively discourages victims and others from talking with church officials. At best, Clohessy says, it’s usually a waste of time. At worst, it’s re-victimizing and enables Catholic staff to better conceal crimes and silence victims.

“More kids are safe and more truth is revealed when victims, witnesses, whistleblowers and concerned parishioners call police, prosecutors and journalists instead of church employees,” he stressed. “But I hope if others learn a lesson here, it’s that persistence pays off. If other victims opt to reach out to Catholic staffers, I hope they’re more successful than I was in getting tangible reforms and warnings, not just a check.”

Clohessy says Fr. Whiteley repeatedly molested him between the ages of 12 and 16 when he attended St. Pius X church in Moberly. He repressed the memories for years, he says. Around 1990, he wrote then-Bishop Michael McAuliffe twice but received “very cold, terse and unhelpful replies,” Clohessy said.

In 1991, he sued the diocese using the name “John Doe.” Within days, McAuliffe “outed” Clohessy to the Columbia Tribune.

A few years later, the Missouri Supreme Court tossed out the lawsuit because the statute of limitations had expired.

Why did Clohessy seek a settlement now, after all these years?

“As I age and my kids age, I’m gradually becoming even more aware of what was taken from me and from us because of a serial predator priest and a sick clerical system,” he said. “I may well end up going to therapy on and off for the rest of my life.”

He says that three of his brothers were also assaulted by Fr. Whiteley. One of them, Kevin, went on to attend a controversial Missouri seminary, St. Thomas in Hannibal, whose director, then-Fr. Anthony O’Connell, became a bishop and admitted molesting a student in 2002.

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MISSOURI
WGEM

Updated: Sep 03, 2015

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) – A Missouri advocate who claims he was sexually abused by a priest as a teenager says the Catholic Diocese of Jefferson City gave him $40,000.

David Clohessy said Thursday that the diocese wrote him a check after he asked for $200,000 for therapy and medical expenses. Clohessy says he agreed not to take legal action against the diocese.

Clohessy sued the diocese in 1991 and alleged that the Rev. John Whiteley abused him at St. Pius Parish in Moberly. The case was dismissed in 1993 because the statute of limitations had run out.

A diocese spokesman didn’t immediately return a request for comment. A number Clohessy provided for was disconnected.

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VENICE
The Guardian (UK)

Andrew Pulver
@Andrew_Pulver
Thursday 3 September 2015

Actor Mark Ruffalo issued a dramatic plea to the pope to use the new film Spotlight, which chronicles the investigation into widespread clerical sexual abuse in Boston, to “begin to heal the wounds sustained not just by the survivors, but all the people that lost their faith because of the revelations”.

Ruffalo was speaking to journalists at the world premiere of Spotlight at the Venice film festival, and directly addressed Pope Francis. “I hope the Vatican will use this movie to begin to right those wrongs: not just for the victims and their destroyed lives, but for all the people who have lost their way to order a chaotic world for themselves. We are hoping the pope will use this sober and, I believe, judicious story to begin to healing the wounds the church also received.”

However, Spotlight’s director Tom McCarthy said he was not hopeful that there would be any meaningful change within the Catholic church. “I remain pessimistic. I was raised Catholic – but words are one thing, actions are another. I have high hopes for Francis, but what actually changes remains to be seen. To be honest, I expect no reaction at all. Nothing would make me happier to be proven wrong. I would love the pope, the cardinals and bishops and priests to see it. I don’t think anyone can think this is an attack on the church: everything in the movie has been well reported on and documented.”

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AUSTRALIA
Telegraph (UK)

By Jonathan Pearlman, Sydney
03 Sep 2015

It is the exclusive, 160-year-old private school in Australia long described in glowing terms by its most famous old boy, Prince Charles, who “loved it” despite being called a “Pommie bastard” and enduring 70-mile hikes.

For the young Prince, his two terms at Geelong Grammar in 1966 – mostly at the 325-hectare Timbertop campus in rural Victoria – appear to have been character-building but rewarding. It “was hell,” the prince recalled during a return visit to the school in 2005, “but despite all this, I loved it all”.

Though the Prince was no doubt unaware, some of his fellow students at the school were experiencing far more horrific forms of abuse.

The school – whose other notable alumni include media mogul Rupert Murdoch and novelist Peter Carey – has been publicly shamed this week, as it emerged that staff failed to crack down on rampant child sex assaults lasting several decades.

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NEW JERSEY
Observer-Tribune

By PHIL GARBER Managing Editor

MENDHAM – The twice-vandalized memorial to child victims of clergy sex abuse erected 11 years ago in the garden of St. Joseph Church has been partly destroyed again.

This time, the church pastor said the memorial has disintegrated because the materials could not withstand last winter’s cold temperatures.

But the sculptor who made the memorial said the materials normally withstand varying extremes of weather and temperatures.

The memorial initially built in 2004 included a 400 pound black basalt millstone. It was vandalized in 2011, later rebuilt and two figures of a boy and girl were added.

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MALTA
Malta Today

Jurgen Balzan 3 September 2015

The Gozo Church today said that pedophile priest Dominic Camilleri was in fact dismissed by the Vatican after MaltaToday revealed that the Gozo bishop had failed to execute the Holy See’s order.

On Sunday, MaltaToday reported that Camilleri had been defrocked by the Vatican in 2013 but Gozo bishop Mario Grech had not yet dismissed him.

In a brief statement sent to this newspaper, the Gozo curia confirmed that Camilleri had been dismissed by the Vatican, however it did not state when the papal decree was issued.

“Camilleri was personally notified of the decision in March of this year and his lawyer was also informed of the decision in May,” the Gozo curia said.

Meanwhile, bishops Charles Scicluna and Mario Grech today said that priests who are either dismissed or under restrictive orders will be named publicly.

In a joint statement, the two bishops said that “with immediate effect all definitive decisions imposing restrictions on clerical activities or dismissal from the clergy, will be made public on the dioceses webpages.”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC New NI

By Kevin Sharkey
BBC News NI

A member of a Catholic order failed to report alleged child abuse at a Belfast school at the height of the Kincora sex abuse scandal, an inquiry has heard.

The Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Inquiry has been told that two boys had informed staff at St Patrick’s Training School about alleged abuse.

The boys alleged that a worker “offered them money to do bad things with them”.

The claims were made in the 1980s, just months after news broke of the Kincora scandal in an east Belfast boys’ home.

St Patrick’s Training School, run by the De La Salle Order of Christian Brothers, was a juvenile justice centre based in west Belfast. It closed in 1995.

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ITALIA
Quotidiano

[con il video]

Venezia, 3 settembre 2015 – Entra nel vivo la 72esima mostra del cinema di Venezia, anche se uno dei film più attesi è fuori concorso. Si tratta di ‘Spotlight’, film che commuove e convince, a giudicare dagli applausi a scena aperta alle proiezioni dedicate alla stampa.

Spotlight mette sotto i riflettori l’inchiesta del Boston Globe che portò alla luce lo scandalo della pedofilia tra i preti della città e la copertura della Chiesa: uscirono 600 articoli per raccontare oltre 1000 violenze ai bambini. E a farlo fu un pool – Spotlight appunto – di giornalisti come si deve. Il film, regia di Tom McCarthy, vanta un cast di tutto rispetto in cui spiccano Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo e Stanley Tucci. Di certo farà discutere anche in Italia: al centro c’è la figura dell’arcivescovo Bernard Law, che mise tutto a tacere e che, come ricorda l’ultima scena del film, è arciprete emerito della Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore a Roma.

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ITALY
The Local

Pope Francis still has to prove the Church is serious about addressing sex abuse by priests, according to the director of a major new film about how the damaging scandal was exposed in the United States.

Tom McCarthy’s “Spotlight”, a newsroom drama that focuses on how the Boston Globe broke a local story that was to become a global crisis for the Church, had its premiere on Thursday at the Venice Film Festival.

Starring Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams as key members of the Globe’s investigations team, the film recounts the paper’s pursuit of evidence of how the local Catholic hierarchy, headed by Cardinal Bernard Law, systematically and, at times, cynically, covered up for abusive priests in their midst.

By the time the Globe’s team had earned their Pulitzer Prize it had become clear that the Church in the Boston area had, for years, harboured more than 70 predatory paedophiles, shuffling them from parish to parish when the rumours got too loud and acting swiftly to ensure any legal suits were settled silently and secretly.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Catholic Herald

by Stephen White
posted Thursday, 3 Sep 2015

The only American bishop currently leading a significant curial office is Cardinal Seán O’Malley of Boston

There are indications that American influence in Rome has been on the wane in recent years, as a number of Americans have left – or been removed from – various high-profile curial posts. These changes reveal something about the state of the Church and the pontificate of Pope Francis. But what they reveal is not what one might first suspect.

A few short years ago one heard quite a bit about the “Americanisation” of the Roman Curia. Pope Benedict XVI had chosen an American, Cardinal William Levada, to be his successor as prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the then Archbishop James Harvey was still prefect of the Papal Household, and Cardinal Raymond Burke was head of the Apostolic Signatura.

In addition to the curial posts he entrusted to American prelates, Pope Benedict created nine new American cardinals between 2006 and 2012. When the conclave of 2013 met to elect Benedict’s successor, 11 electors hailed from the States. Only the Italians boasted more.

Things look quite different today.

The only American bishop currently leading a significant curial office is Cardinal Seán O’Malley of Boston, who moonlights as president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. Cardinal Levada was replaced at the CDF. Archbishop Harvey was reassigned as Archpriest of St Paul Outside the Walls.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

1: The Holy Father appoints Msgr. Alberto Ortega as apostolic nuncio in Jordan and Iraq, at the same time elevating him to the dignity of archbishop.

He also appoints Professor Alfredo Pontecorvi director of the Department of Health and Hygiene of the Governorate of Vatican City State. The new director is professor of Endocrinology and director of the School of Specialisation in Endocrinology and Metabolic Diseases at the Agostino Gemelli Teaching Hospital.

4. Bishop Fernando Jose Castro Aguayo, auxiliary of Caracas, Venezuela, is appointed as bishop of Margarita in Venezuela.

6. The Pope accepts the resignation of Bishop Joseph Kunnath, C.M.I., from the pastoral care of the eparchy of Adilabad of the Syro-Malabars, India. Bishop Kunnath is succeeded by Fr. Anthony Prince Panengaden, former protosyncellus and parish priest in the same eparchy.

He erects the apostolic exarchate for the Syro-Malabars in Canada and appoints Fr. Jose Kalluvelil as the first exarch, elevating him to the dignity of bishop.

8. Appointment of Cardinal Andre Vingt-Trois, archbishop of Paris, France, as the Holy Father’s special envoy to the consecration of the new cathedral of the diocese of Creteil, France, to be held on 20 September 2015.

The Pope appoints Professor Fabrizio Soccorsi, former head physician of hepatology at San Camillo Hospital, Rome, as his personal doctor.

10. The Holy Father appoints Fr. Juan Carlos Bravo Salazar, parish priest of Nuestra Senora de Belen en Guasipati, as bishop of Acarigua-Araure, Venezuela.

Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley, O.F.M. Cap., archbishop of Boston, U.S.A., is appointed as the Holy Father’s special envoy to the ceremony for the 450th anniversary of the first founding mass of the city of St. Augustine, Florida, U.S.A.

14. The Holy Father appoints Fr. Paolo Bizzetti, S.J., as apostolic vicar in Anatolia, Turkey, elevating him to episcopal rank. The new apostolic vicar was formerly rector of the Patavina Residentia Antonianum.

15. The Pope appoints Bishop Michael Didi Adgum of El Obeid, Sudan, as coadjutor archbishop of Jartum, Sudan, and apostolic administrator of El Obeid.

22. Cardinal Daniel Fernando Sturla Berhouet, S.D.B., archbishop of Montevideo, Uruguay, is appointed as the Holy Father’s special envoy to the Fifth Eucharistic Congress of Bolivia (Traija, 16-20 September).

The Pope appoints Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, president emeritus of the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum” as his special envoy to the concluding ceremony of the First National Eucharistic Congress of the Czech Republic (Brno, 17 October).

24. The Holy Father accepts the resignation presented by Bishop Gilberto Delio Goncalves Canavarro dos Reis from the pastoral ministry of the diocese of Setubal, Portugal, upon reaching the age limit, and appoints Fr. Jose Ornelas Carvalho, S.C.I., superior general of the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Dehonians) as the new bishop of Setubal.

26. The Holy Father extended the eparchy of Mandya of the Syro-Malabars, India, to include the six civil districts around Bangalore in which Syro-Malabar faithful are resident: Bengaluru Urban, Bengaluru Rural, Chickballapur, Kolar, Ramnagara and Tumkur.

The Pope gave his assent to the election by the Synod of the Syro-Malabar Major Archiepiscopal Church of Fr. Antony Kariyil C.M.I., former director of the Rajagiri School of Engineering and Technology, Cochin, India, as eparchal vicar of Mandya of the Syro-Malabars.

28. Appointment of Fr. Jean-Pierre Cottanceau, S.S.C.C., as apostolic administrator of the archdiocese of Papeete, French Polynesia.

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NEW MEXICO
The Daily Times

By Hannah Grover

FARMINGTON — An organization that is dedicated to helping the homeless may find itself without a home soon.

The building that houses Catholic Charities, 119 W. Broadway Ave., has been put on a list of properties to be auctioned off in connection to the Diocese of Gallup’s bankruptcy.

The diocese filed for bankruptcy in 2013 as a way to deal with several lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by Catholic priests from the diocese. Since then, it has released a list of more than 30 priests the diocese believes have been credibly accused of abuse.

It is also auctioning off 36 properties located in Arizona and New Mexico as part of the bankruptcy proceedings.

Suzanne Hammons, a spokeswoman for the Diocese of Gallup, said most of the properties are vacant. One other property on the list is also used for a ministry. That property, located in Winslow, Ariz., houses the St. Vincent de Paul Society’s Food Bank, Hammons said.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

Royal Commission to hold public hearing into Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne and to continue the Ballarat hearing

3 September, 2015

The Royal Commission will hold a public hearing to inquire into the response of the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne to allegations of child sexual abuse. The public hearing will commence on a date to be confirmed during the period 23 November to 18 December 2015 in Melbourne at the County Court of Victoria.

The Melbourne hearing will be co-ordinated with the continuation of the hearing into the Catholic Church authorities in Ballarat and evidence from witnesses common to each hearing will be received.

Further evidence in the Ballarat hearing, including the response of the Christian Brothers, together with final submissions in relation to the Ballarat hearing will be heard in Ballarat in the first half of next year.

The scope and purpose of the public hearing in relation to the Archdiocese of Melbourne is to inquire into:

1. The experience of survivors of child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy associated with the Holy Family Parish, Doveton, and Holy Family Primary School, Doveton.

2. The response of relevant authorities within or associated with the Archdiocese of Melbourne to allegations of child sexual abuse against these Catholic clergy.

3. Any related matters.

The date for leave to appear applications will be announced closer to the hearing.

The public hearing will be streamed live to the public via webcast on the Royal Commission’s website at www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au.

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AUSTRALIA
J-Wire

September 3, 2015

Aleph Melbourne says that the apology published by former Melbourne Yeshivah Rabbi Zvi Telsner “falls short”.

A release by Aleph states: “Whilst his resignation letter claims remorse for his actions, his apology falls short of addressing his claims that homosexual people can be cured of what he believes is an ailment.

To demonstrate genuine remorse for his harmful words Zvi Telsner must undertake secular education on homosexuality and strongly distance himself from any notion that homosexuality can either be cured or is abnormal.

As a senior religious leader in his community his authority combined with his ongoing intolerance of homosexuality will feed into the self-destructive outcomes that same-sex attracted people experience due to intolerance of their sexuality.

Homosexuality has not been considered an illness by mental health professionals for over 40 years and is now affirmed as a normal expression of human sexuality. For any person to consider it curable demonstrates gross ignorance.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Danny Tran

Pressure is mounting on the Royal Commission in Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse to return to Ballarat, with some victims considering a boycott if hearings are not moved from Melbourne.

The news has not swayed the royal commission, which appears to be going ahead with the Melbourne hearings in November.

Andrew Collins said survivors like himself were bitterly disappointed with the decision.

“They’re saying well, we just can’t do this … if they’re not going to put the survivors forefront in this, then maybe we won’t go,” he said.

“I think that by boycotting the event, it would send a message to the royal commission that they’ve lost the support of the very people they’re there to help.

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PUERTO RICO/REPUBLICA DOMINICANA
El Nuevo Dia

[Thursday, September 3, 2015
Wesolowski’s death

Suspicions are aroused in the death of Polish ex-nuncio Jozef Wesolowski, who was nuncio in the Dominican Republic and apostolic delegate to Puerto Rico between 2008 and June 2014, when he was demoted to the lay state by Pope Francis.

Wesolowski, 67, waiting for a trial at the Vatican after finding him guilty of sexual abuse in Santo Domingo, child prostitution and pornography. Many questions are left unanswered!

In the trial that in the Vatican State they should have revealed the identity of “others unknown” who participated in their depravity and if the sexual crimes committed both in Dominican Republic and “elsewhere” in Puerto Rico, where he traveled regularly, staying in the apartment that the Church pays to the apostolic delegates in Guaynabo.

The sexual abuse scandal involving priests in the Diocese of Arecibo was allegedly covered up by Wesolowski, an expert canonist, during the time that he represented the Pope Benedict XVI in the ecclesiastical province of Puerto Rico.]

por Jaime Torres Torres

Despierta suspicacias la muerte del exreligioso polaco Jozef Wesolowski, que fue nuncio en la República Dominicana y delegado apostólico en Puerto Rico entre 2008 y junio de 2014, fecha en que fue degradado al estado laical por el papa Francisco.

Wesolowski, de 67 años, aguardaba por un juicio en El Vaticano tras hallarlo culpable la fiscalía de Santo Domingo de abuso sexual, prostitución infantil y pornografía, según revelaciones de la prensa dominicana. ¡Qué muchas preguntas dejó sin responder!

En el juicio al que se hubiese enfrentado en el Estado del Vaticano debía revelar la identidad de los “otros desconocidos” que participaron de sus depravaciones y, si los crímenes sexuales cometidos tanto en República Dominicana como “en otros lugares”, también ocurrieron en Puerto Rico, adonde viajaba periódicamente, hospedándose en el apartamento que la Iglesia le paga a los delegados apostólicos en Guaynabo.

El escándalo de abusos sexuales que involucran a sacerdotes de la Diócesis de Arecibo fue alegadamente encubierto por Wesolowski, experto canonista, durante el tiempo en que representó al papa Benedicto XVI en la provincia eclesiástica de Puerto Rico.

En enero de 2014, la licenciada Agnes Poventud reveló a los medios la denuncia que un año antes presentó contra el obispo de Arecibo por un supuesto acto de índole sexual contra un hombre, cuando era menor. Como “medida cautelar”, según dispone el Derecho Canónico, si un sacerdote es acusado de conducta depravada es relevado de su ministerio mientras se investiga.

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UNITED STATES
Variety

Justin Chang
Chief Film Critic
@JustinCChang

It’s not often that a director manages to follow his worst film with his best, but even if he weren’t rebounding from “The Cobbler,” Tom McCarthy would have a considerable achievement on his hands with “Spotlight,” a superbly controlled and engrossingly detailed account of the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into the widespread pedophilia scandals and subsequent cover-ups within the Catholic Church. Very much in the “All the President’s Men”/“Zodiac” mold of slow-building, quietly gripping journalistic procedurals, this measured and meticulous ensemble drama sifts through a daunting pile of evidence to expose not just the Church’s horrific cycles of abuse and concealment, but also its uniquely privileged position in a society that failed its victims at myriad personal, spiritual and institutional levels. The result may be more sobering and scrupulous than it is cathartic or revelatory, but with its strong narrative drive and fine cast, “Spotlight” should receive more than a fair hearing with smarthouse audiences worldwide.

As with so many movies drawn from controversial real-life events, any attempt at damage control by the organization under scrutiny could merely wind up boosting the film’s commercial and cultural profile when Open Road releases it Nov. 6 Stateside. As such, Catholic officials might be disinclined to take up arms against “Spotlight” as vocally as they did with “Philomena” (2013), which invited legitimate criticism with its cartoonishly villainous Irish nuns and other dramatic liberties. McCarthy’s picture is all the more authoritative for its comparative restraint: Perhaps realizing the number of different ways they could have tackled a narrative of this density, the director and his co-writer, Josh Singer (“The Fifth Estate”), have shrewdly limited themselves to the journalists’ perspective, ensuring that everything we learn about the scandal comes to us strictly through the Globe’s eyes and ears.

There are no triumphant, lip-smacking confrontations here, no ghoulish rape flashbacks or sensationalistic cutaways to a sinister clerical conspiracy behind closed doors. There is only the slow and steady gathering of information, the painstaking corroboration of hunches and leads, followed by a sort of slow-dawning horror as the sheer scale of the epidemic comes into focus. When a reporter notes that he’d love to see the looks on the faces of Cardinal Bernard Law (Len Cariou) and other Boston Archdiocese officials, it’s a measure of the film’s rigor that it refuses to oblige.

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MALTA
Malta Today

In such cases, the greatest erosion of trust may have less to do with the abuse in itself, than with the Church’s handling of the issue.

There can be little doubt that, if any one issue has seriously undermined public trust in the global Catholic Church in recent years, that issue would be child abuse.

Scandals erupting in Ireland, the USA, Australia and elsewhere have undeniably traumatised the world Catholic community. The Maltese Church was no exception, as the cases of Godwin Scerri and Carmelo Pulis – two priests convicted in 2012 of having abused up to 11 boys – made clear.
In such cases, however, the greatest erosion of trust may have less to do with the abuse in itself, than with the Church’s handling of the issue. Child abuse is of course a heinous crime, and can only be aggravated by the fact that many of the victims would be vulnerable minors entrusted to care institutions. But a crime it remains: and one that is by no means confined to the Catholic Church. Clearly, it would be unfair to tar the institution in its entirety on the basis of individual actions committed by a minority of its members.

In many instances, however, it was the Church’s failure to adequately act against this minority that truly shocked and outraged the wider public. Almost everywhere such scandals occurred, the subsequent pattern of behaviour seemed to be consistent: investigations would be carried out internally and behind closed doors; victims were often encouraged not to go public with their accusations; and most disturbing of all, it often emerged that some priests found guilty by such internal tribunals were simply transferred to other dioceses, where the pattern of abuse would continue unabated.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Jaime DeLage
jdelage@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 09/02/2015

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis announced Wednesday it is removing a former St. Paul priest from active ministry because of an allegation of sexual abuse.

At the same time it is returning a recently accused priest to ministry in Richfield.

Both decisions were made after investigations by the archdiocese’s newly formed Ministerial Review Board, a confidential body that advises the archbishop on matters involving accused priests.

The priest being reinstated is the Rev. Gerald Dvorak, pastor of the Church of St. Peter in Richfield.

Dvorak was accused in May of sexually abusing a minor in the 1970s. The review board interviewed Dvorak and the complainant and concluded the allegation was not substantiated, according to a statement from Archbishop Bernard Hebda.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Madeleine Baran Sep 2, 2015

The Rev. Gerald Dvorak, who went on a leave of absence in May because of an allegation that he sexually abused a child in the 1970s, will return to ministry after a confidential archdiocesan-funded review found the allegation to be “not substantiated,” Archbishop Bernard Hebda said in a statement Wednesday.

Hebda did not describe the allegation against Dvorak or disclose the names of the people on the 12-member archdiocesan board that evaluated the claim. Dvorak will return to his assignment as pastor of St. Peter in Richfield. He could not be immediately reached for comment. Dvorak has previously denied abusing anyone.

“The Archdiocesan Ministerial Review Board (MRB) reviewed this entire matter, including results of the investigation and other information related to Rev. Dvorak’s 37 years of faithful service to this Archdiocese,” Hebda said in his statement.

“The MRB concluded that the allegation is not substantiated and recommended that Rev. Dvorak should be returned to ministry.”

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

By Jean Hopfensperger Star Tribune SEPTEMBER 2, 2015

The Rev. Joseph Gallatin, accused of inappropriately touching a teenage boy on a mission trip in 1998, is the second priest in the past week disciplined by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis for alleged child abuse — a pace considered “extraordinary” by some victim advocates.

Gallatin, who most recently served as pastor at the Church of St. Peter in Mendota Heights, is barred from celebrating mass in a church, hearing confessions, wearing a priestly collar or engaging in other ministry activities. His case has been sent to the Vatican for “final resolution.”

“Imposing these precautionary measures reflects the seriousness of the allegation,” wrote interim archbishop Bernard Hebda in a statement, “but should not be viewed as a presumption of guilt.”

The archdiocese also announced the reinstatement of the Rev. Gerald Dvorak to the Church of St. Peter in Richfield. Dvorak was put on a leave of absence in May following an accusation that he sexually abused a minor in the 1970s. An archdiocese investigation determined the claim was not substantiated.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Review

By Liz Zemba
Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2015

Federal prosecutors have identified a fourth minor whom they contend a Somerset County priest attempted to photograph in the nude when he traveled to Central and South America, allegedly to have sex with orphaned boys.

A judge will decide whether jurors will hear from the alleged victim during the Rev. Joseph D. Maurizio’s trial next week because none of the charges against the Roman Catholic priest involve the newly identified person, according to a motion filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Johnstown.

Jury selection for the trial, expected to last at least three weeks, is set to begin Tuesday.
The fourth victim’s testimony is needed to prove Maurizio’s motives in the alleged sexual abuse, prosecutors Amy E. Larson and Stephanie L. Haines said in the motion.

Now an adult, the alleged victim will testify that Maurizio tried to photograph him when he was a boy, naked in a bathtub and while performing a sex act at a Honduran orphanage, prosecutors said.

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VATICAN CITY
The Independent (UK)

Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski: Papal envoy who was sacked by Pope Francis and put on trial in Rome on charges of sexually abusing teenagers

Thursday 03 September 2015

Jozef Wesolowski was a former papal envoy to the Dominican Republic who went on trial during the summer for alleged sexual abuse of minors. The trial was an opportunity for Pope Francis to show that he is carrying out pledges to punish high-ranking churchmen accused of sexual offences or covering up abuse.

Wesolowski never set foot in the tiny courtroom for the trial, held in the building where he was living. On the eve of the trial’s opening, he was taken to hospital with what the Vatican described as “a sudden illness”. He appears to have died of a heart attack.

But before the trial was adjourned for Wesolowski’s illness, the court clerk’s reading aloud of the charges gave a vivid idea of the case’s gravity. Prosecutors alleged that Wesolowski “corrupted, through lewd acts, adolescents presumed to be between 13 and 16 years old, in order to carry out on them, and in their presence, sexual acts”.

Wesolowski was born in Poland in 1948, and was ordained in 1972 by Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II. He was appointed as nuncio to Bolivia in 1999 and in 2000 was consecrated as Titular Archbishop of Slebte by Pope John Paul. He was subsequently nuncio to Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, before taking up the same post in the Dominican Republic in 2008.

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

AAP

Cardinal George Pell will give evidence to a royal commission inquiry into child sex abuse in the Melbourne archdiocese as well as its Ballarat investigation.

The royal commission will hold a public hearing into the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne’s response to child abuse from late November.

The hearing will run alongside the second stage of its inquiry into clergy abuse in the Ballarat diocese.

Cardinal Pell, now the Vatican’s finance chief, had already agreed to return to Australia for the Ballarat inquiry.

Cardinal Pell is a former Melbourne and Sydney archbishop and Ballarat priest.

He and other witnesses who have evidence common to both inquiries will give evidence during a month-long sitting in Melbourne beginning on November 23.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

3 September, 2015

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will hear oral submissions in relation to the public hearing for Case Study 22 on Thursday 17 September 2015.

The public hearing commenced on 2 February 2015 and examined the response of Yeshivah Melbourne and Yeshiva Bondi to allegations of child sexual abuse.

The oral submissions will commence at 10am at Royal Commission Hearing Room 1, Level 17, Governor Macquarie Tower, 1 Farrer Place, Sydney.

The oral submissions will also be streamed live on the Royal Commission website.

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

By: Jennie Lissarrague

A Richfield priest has been allowed to return to public ministry after the Archdiocesan Ministerial Review Board determined that an abuse allegation against him was not substantiated.

Rev. Gerald Dvorak is the pastor of the Church of Saint Peter in Richfield. He took a voluntary leave of absence back in May after the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis received an allegation the he sexually abused a minor in the 1970s.

Dvorak denied the allegations when they surfaced. In a statement, he said, “I pray for all victims of sexual abuse, but I have never abused anyone. Please pray for me and all those involved.”

The investigation included interviews with Dvorak and the complainant. After the investigation, the board concluded that the allegation was not substantiated and recommended that Dvorak be returned to ministry.

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KANSAS
The Wichita Eagle

BY STAN FINGER AND AMY RENEE LEIKER
The Wichita Eagle

A priest charged Tuesday with stealing nearly $151,000 from the Catholic Diocese of Wichita and two small southeast Kansas churches to finance his gambling habit told the diocese last year that he had misused parish funds.

The Rev. Thomas H. Leland, 48, is accused of one federal count of bank fraud for taking unauthorized reimbursements, salary advances and overpayments and too much money for conducting church services between 2012 and 2014 while he was the parish priest at St. Francis in St. Paul and at St. Ambrose in Erie, according to a charging document filed in U.S. District Court.

Diocesan spokeswoman Amy Pavlacka, in an e-mailed response to questions, said Leland “self-reported” misusing the money in March 2014.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Associated Press SEPTEMBER 2, 2015

ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis is reinstating one priest and removing another from active ministry.

Interim Archbishop Bernard Hebda said Wednesday the Rev. Joseph Gallatin was removed after an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor. The allegation was reported in 1998, but earlier reviews concluded there was insufficient evidence.

But a new ministerial review board concluded there was sufficient evidence. The case has been referred to the Vatican. Gallatin has denied the allegation.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

KATHERINE TOWERS
THE AUSTRALIAN
SEPTEMBER 3, 2015

The spiritual head of Melbourne’s Yeshivah centre faced intense pressure from leaders of the ultra-orthodox Jewish community to quit to avoid embarrassment at a sex abuse royal commission hearing scheduled for later this month.

Rabbi Zvi Telsner, who told the commission in February that pedophiles and homosexuals could be “cured”, finally stood down earlier this week and apologised to victims of sexual abuse after it was revealed he bullied and berated an abuse victim last Thursday during a conversation about the centre’s leadership.

Rabbi Telsner allegedly ­kicked the victim out of a meeting and attacked other victims as “crazy” or “garbage” and out to destroy the community.

The Australian has been told Rabbi Telsner was asked to quit, a claim denied by the centre.

The latest allegations appalled some of the new members of the interim management of the Yeshivah Centre, which lies at the heart of the tight-knit community, who were bought in to replace the old board following shocking allegations of sexual abuse and cover-ups at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Australian Associated Press
Wednesday 2 September 2015

Geelong Grammar should repay the school fees of abuse victims because the elite school failed children and parents, a former student has told the royal commission.

The student, referred to as BKM, told the child abuse royal commission, which is hearing evidence about five decades of child abuse at the school, his final year was ruined when a teacher indecently assaulted him.

“They made my father pay an exceptional amount of money in school fees for me to attend the school and yet they failed me and him,” BKM said.

“I was sexually abused and repeatedly and seemingly uncaringly re-exposed to the situation that allowed the abuse.”

BKM, who described Geelong Grammar as one of the best schools in the world, said the schools and institutions involved in abuse cases should pay back the fees paid by parents as compensation.

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MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

[with document]

09/02/2015

The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis released the following statement on Father Joseph Gallatin today. Per Archbishop Hebda’s announcement, Gallatin’s case has now been submitted to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (a mere thirteen years after it was called for).

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date: Wednesday, September 2, 2015
Source: Tom Halden, Director of Communications

Today, Rev. Gerald Dvorak returns to public ministry as the pastor of the Church of Saint Peter in Richfield.

In May of this year, the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis received an allegation that the Rev. Dvorak, pastor of St. Peter in Richfield, sexually abused a minor in the 1970s. In accordance with Archdiocesan protocols, the allegation was treated as credible pending an investigation. The definition of “credible” in this context means “not manifestly false or frivolous.” The use of the term was neither a presumption nor a determination of guilt.

Law enforcement was notified and authorized the Archdiocese to conduct an investigation of the allegation. Rev. Dvorak took a voluntary leave of absence pending the outcome of that investigation. Upon completion of the Archdiocesan investigation, law enforcement was notified of the results of the investigation and the decision to reinstate Father Dvorak.

The investigation included interviews with Rev. Dvorak and with the complainant. The Archdiocesan Ministerial Review Board (MRB) reviewed this entire matter, including results of the investigation and other information relating to Rev. Dvorak’s 37 years of faithful service to this Archdiocese. The MRB concluded that the allegation is not substantiated and recommended that Rev. Dvorak should be returned to ministry. Judge Tim O’Malley, Director of the Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment, also reviewed this matter and was present for all MRB deliberations. He is in agreement with the MRB’s findings and recommendation.

I support the conclusions of the MRB and Director O’Malley, and so have ordered the reinstatement of Rev. Dvorak to public ministry.

I ask for your prayers and support for all victims of sexual abuse and their families.

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date: Wednesday, September 2, 2015
Source: Tom Halden, Director of Communications

Today, Rev. Joseph Gallatin was removed from ministry and his case involving an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor has been referred to Rome for adjudication and final resolution.

In 1998, the Archdiocese received an allegation that Rev. Gallatin had inappropriate physical contact with a minor. The matter was considered by three Archdiocesan Review Boards, in 1998, 2002 and 2014. Each time, the earlier Boards concluded that there was not sufficient evidence to support a finding that Rev. Gallatin’s conduct in 1998 constituted sexual abuse of a minor. The 2014 Board recommended that Rev. Gallatin be permitted to continue in limited ministry. Rev. Gallatin’s ministry was restricted accordingly.

Since the 2014 Review Board’s recommendation, additional information from people involved in the 1998 incident has been obtained. The Archdiocese conducted further investigation and, as that information was uncovered, additional restrictions were placed on Rev. Gallatin’s ministry. Earlier this month, investigative results were presented to the newly-formed Ministerial Review Board (MRB). The MRB reviewed the entire matter, including information from years ago, the actions of previous review boards, and investigative information obtained recently.

The MRB concluded that there is sufficient evidence to support an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor. Because of that, the MRB recommended that Rev. Gallatin’s case be referred to Rome for adjudication in accordance with Canon Law. Judge Tim O’Malley, Director of the Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment, has also reviewed this matter and was present for all MRB deliberations. He is in agreement with the MRB’s findings and recommendation for referral to Rome.

I do not know how long it will take for Rome to resolve this matter, but I have confidence that they will proceed with fairness and justice for all parties involved. Effective immediately and for the duration of time that this matter is pending in Rome, Rev. Gallatin is prohibited from celebrating Mass in the presence of laity, hearing confessions, preaching, assisting at weddings or funerals or otherwise engaging in any priestly ministry. Rev. Gallatin is not permitted to wear a collar or present himself as a priest publicly. Imposing these precautionary measures reflects the seriousness of the allegation, but should not be viewed as a presumption of guilt. Rev. Gallatin has denied that he has sexually abused a minor and is accorded the presumption of innocence during this time.

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

Created: 09/02/2015

By: Jennie Lissarrague

A priest who served in multiple cities throughout the state is being removed from ministry.

The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis announced Wednesday that Rev. Joseph Gallatin was removed from ministry after he was accused of sexually abusing a minor.

The case has been referred to Rome for a final resolution.

The allegation was first received by the Archdiocese in 1998. Three review boards considered the matter, and each time they decided that there wasn’t enough evidence to support that his actions constituted as sexual abuse of a minor.

In 2014, a board recommended restrictions be put on his ministry.

Since 2014, more people involved in that 1998 incident have come forward with information, leading to more restrictions being placed on Gallatin’s ministry.

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KENTUCKY
Washington Times

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) – A former Louisville Catholic priest facing federal child porn charges will be released from jail.

Stephen Pohl was arrested in Florida last month for accessing child porn on computers at his church.

Pohl appeared in federal court Wednesday, and Magistrate Judge Dave Whalin agreed to release him on a $25,000 unsecured bond.

Louisville Archdiocese officials say the FBI found child pornography on his computer and photos of students from St. Margaret Mary parish, where he was pastor. Pohl has since resigned.

Pohl smiled briefly at family members as he entered the courtroom Wednesday. The 57-year-old will live with his mother while awaiting trial and cannot have computers in the home. He will also wear monitoring equipment.

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KENTUCKY
WHAS

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) – A replacement has been named for St. Margaret Mary parish after its former leader awaits trial on child pornography allegations.

Archbishop Joseph Kurtz appointed Father Bill Hammer, who is currently the pastor of St. Joseph Proto-Cathedral in Bardstown, as Pohl’s replacement.

Pohl currently awaits trial for allegedly accessing child pornography and has recently been released on $25,000 bond.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
UTV

The sister of a teenage boy murdered by the IRA in 1973 has described her shock at hearing his case is the “most horrific” before the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry.

Bernard Teggart was a vulnerable 15-year-old boy when he was abducted by the IRA, along with his twin brother Gerard, from St Patrick’s Training School in west Belfast in November 1973.

Gerard was let go, but his brother was beaten, tortured, shot and dumped near Belfast Zoo.

“At first they had taken Gerard, thinking Gerard was Bernard, because they were identical. They brought Gerard back and then came and took the two of them,” Alice Harper, Bernard and Gerard’s sister told UTV.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

2 SEPTEMBER 2015
BY MAURICE FITZMAURICE

The brother of a schoolboy shot dead by the IRA says he was failed “at every level”.

Bernard Teggart was only 15 when he was abducted and murdered by the terror group in 1973.

The IRA denied being involved in the killing, but admitted it and apologised in 2004 and again in 2008. However, the teenager’s death was raised again today when it was introduced at the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry where it was described as the “most horrific” case of child abuse being considered by the probe.

Bernard Teggart was abducted from St Patrick’s Training School in West Belfast before being shot in the head some hours later. He later died in hospital.

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CANADA
Canadian Mennonite

(The following article discusses a difficult topic in story form. All characters are fictional, although the events referred to are based on an amalgamation of true experiences.)

She went to her pastor for advice, not sex.

Another woman accepted her pastor’s invitation to chair a committee he oversaw, not an invitation to be sexually preyed upon.

And still another woman was encouraged by her pastor to enter the ministry, not to enter a sexual relationship with her seminary professor, who was also the on-campus pastor.

Each of these women thought they knew what they had agreed to. None of these women ever expected a pastor to do something so egregious as to manipulate them into having sex with him. The worst part of it was that each woman blamed herself for having an “affair” with her pastor and each woman hid silently in her shame. By holding his secret, each woman protected the trusted authority figure who had betrayed her.

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REPUBLICA DOMINICANA
el Caribe

Varios jóvenes de los que supuestamente fueron abusados sexualmente por el fallecido exnuncio vaticano en el país Josef Wesolowski acudieron este miércoles a la Fiscalía del Distrito Nacional, donde exigen una indemnización. Uno de los jóvenes dijo que necesita el dinero para ayudar a su familia.

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DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Dominican Today

Santo Domingo.- Several youngsters who were allegedly sexually abused by former Vatican envoy the late Josef Wesolowski went to the National District Office of the Prosecutor on Wednesday, to demand compensation.

One boy said he needs the money to help his family, elcaribe.com.do reports.

Wesolowski, charged with sexually abusing boys during his tenure in the Dominican Republic, died at the Vatican reportedly from a heart attack last Friday.

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KENTUCKY
WDRB

By Antoinette Konz

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Father Steven Pohl, a former priest at St. Margaret Mary Church facing several child pornography charges, faced a federal judge Wednesday at his initial hearing.

During the proceedings, U.S. Magistrate Judge Dave Whalin approved Pohl’s release on 24-hour federal home incarceration on strict conditions.

Pohl, who is being housed in Grayson County, will not be released until Thursday when they can get all of the required monitoring equipment set up at his mother’s house, which is located in Jefferson County.

Prosecutors acknowledged acknowledged that his mother’s home is located near several schools, but they said they do not believe he poses a risk to the community. They also said that while Pohl left the state during the investigation, they don’t believe he did it to flee law enforcement, so they are OK with his release on home incarceration.

Pohl’s attorney, Ted House, said Pohl was arrested at his sister’s home near Tampa, Fla., and that he is “in no way” a flight risk.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Lawyer

Clergy abuse victims’ privacy to be debated in bankruptcy court, the craziest law review article ever, and a melodrama in the Pennsylvania AG office

By: Mike Mosedale September 2, 2015

In clergy sex abuse cases: Who gets to review victims’ claims?

The Wall Street Journal checks in on the latest legal jousting in U.S. Bankruptcy Court between the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and victims of clergy sex abuse.

Plaintiffs attorneys are pushing back against a request to allow as many as 1,000 additional individuals – including parish pastors, parish financial councils, board members and other lawyers – to review “the unusually detailed and intensely personal details” in the victims’ claims.

While those particulars have already been eyeballed by the archdiocese, insurance carriers, and the parishes’ bankruptcy lawyers, Mary Jo. A. Jensen-Carter – a lawyer representing a group of parishes – said in court papers that it is “imperative that individuals governing the parish be involved in the process of analyzing the claims.”

Judge Robert Kressel is expected to take up the matter at a hearing in Minneapolis tomorrow.

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ILLINOIS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, September 2, 2015

For more information: David Clohessy (314-566-9790 cell, davidgclohessy@gmail.com, SNAPclohessy@aol.com), Barbara Dorris (314 503 0003, bdorris@SNAPnetwork.org), Jeff Jones, Peoria SNAP leader (jjones10072gmail.com, 815 985 9441)

Victims challenge bishop about alleged predator priest
He’s a “credibly accused child molester,” church admits
But group worries that his whereabouts now are secret
“We fear he has hurt others or is hurting others,” SNAP says
Cleric reportedly also led weekend retreats for Catholic teenagers

A victims’ group is prodding Peoria’s bishop to be more honest about a just-suspended priest who allegedly committed child sexual abuse. It also wants Catholic officials to “aggressively seek out others who may have seen, suspected or suffered these crimes so the wrongdoers might be prosecuted.”

Last week, Fr. Terry Cassidy was removed as pastor of St. Anne’s parish in Peoria because of accusations of child sexual abuse. The announcement was made in a news release from the Peoria Diocese. But Bishop Daniel Jenky would “not specify a number of victims, when the misconduct occurred or when the allegations were made,” according to the Peoria Star Journal.

[Journal Star]

Leaders of a support group called the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests are writing to Jenky urging him to “take decisive action to protect the vulnerable, heal the wounded and expose the truth.”

Specifically, SNAP wants the bishop to disclose:

–where Fr. Cassidy is now,
–how much time elapsed between the first abuse report against Fr. Cassidy and his suspension, and
–how many individuals have reported child sex crimes by Fr. Cassidy.

They also want Jenky to

–put Fr. Cassidy in “a remote, secure, independent and professionally-run treatment center, so that kids will be safe,”
–personally visit every place where Fr. Cassidy worked, “begging victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to call law enforcement,” and
–turn over to law enforcement all church records about Fr. Cassidy.

“Catholic officials will often oust child molesting clerics from parishes because it’s a smart legal defense and public relations move for them,” said Jeff Jones, SNAP’s Peoria leader (jjones10072gmail.com, 815 985 9441). “The real issue is: Will church officials warn and help protect the public from these dangerous predators? That’s what almost every bishop refuses to do.”

“We hope Bishop Jenky will show some courage, go beyond the bare minimum and do what any caring shepherd would really do, by aggressively seeking out victims, witnesses and whistleblowers,” said David Clohessy of St. Louis. He is SNAP’s director. “For starters, Jenky should tell parents, police, prosecutors, parishioners and the public where Fr. Cassidy is now so that kids can be kept away from him.”

“We’re afraid Fr. Cassidy may be hurting kids right now,” said Clohessy. “And it’s very likely others who were hurt by him are “still suffering in shame, silence and self-blame. So Peoria’s bishop, priests and lay Catholics should do everything possible to protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded.”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

The IRA murder of a schoolboy is the “most horrific” case of child abuse being considered by the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) , it has been revealed.

Barney Teggart, 15, was abducted from St Patrick’s Training School in west Belfast in 1973.
He was shot in the head some hours afterwards and died in hospital.

Inquiry counsel said the killing is “the most horrific incident of child abuse to come before the HIA Inquiry”.

It was revealed that the school authorities did not report the abduction to the police.

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KANSAS
Arensberg-Pruett Funeral Home

Fr. Camillus Matthias Wurtz, OSB
(November 21, 1928 – August 16, 2013)

Father Camillus (Matthias) Wurtz, O.S.B. died on August 16, 2013, at the Heartland Regional Medical Center after a short illness. He was born on November 21, 1928, in Greenleaf, Kansas, the son of Matthias A. and Rhea (Hogue) Wurtz.

Vespers for the Dead, followed by visitation, will be on Tuesday, August 20, 2013, at 7 p.m. in St. Benedict’s Abbey Church. The Mass of Christian Burial for Fr. Camillus will be in the Abbey Church on Wednesday, August 21, at 10:30 AM, with interment following in the Abbey cemetery.

Memorials in honor of Fr. Camillus can be made to St. Benedict’s Abbey, 1020 N. Second St., Atchison, KS 66002. The Arensberg-Pruett Funeral Home of Atchison, Kansas, is in charge of arrangements.

Father Camillus attended Greenleaf High School 1942-1944, and finished at Maur Hill Prep School, Atchison, in 1945. He attended St. Benedict’s College for two years before entering the novitiate on July 10, 1946.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

TESSA AKERMAN
THE AUSTRALIAN
SEPTEMBER 3, 2015

Geelong Grammar has been ­exposed cynically dealing with child sexual abuse, including a cover-up and ruse where the school manufactured concern to limit the fallout of the decades-long scandal.

The child sex abuse royal commission has revealed explosive evidence detailing how the school council in 2004 had a policy of hushing up abuse and that in 2006 incumbent principal ­Stephen Meek was fully aware of confidentiality clauses used by the institution in deals with ­victims.

In damning evidence, the commission released a facsimile from 1997 written by the then head of the Toorak junior campus, Phillipa Beeson, detailing the legal strategy of dealing with a victim.

Ms Beeson told then Geelong headmaster Lister Hannah that the school should not admit liability to the victim but instead ­ingratiate itself with the victim, who was assaulted as a child in 1980 but the complaint was made in 1997.

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KENTUCKY
WHAS

Derrick Rose, @WHAS11 September 2, 2015

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) — With an escort from United States Marshals, Father Stephen Pohl, the former pastor of St. Margaret Mary Parish, is back in Louisville to face a federal judge in connection to a child pornography investigation, a federal official confirmed to WHAS11 news Wednesday morning, Sept. 2.

Pohl is facing charges of accessing child pornography here in Louisville.

The case started when an FBI task force began investigating Pohl. The investigation revealed that Pohl had several images of children on his computer as well as child pornography. The Archdiocese of Louisville revealed some of that investigation revealing that Pohl had nearly 200 images of schoolchildren from when he worked at Saint Margaret Mary.

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KENTUCKY
The Courier-Journal

Matthew Glowicki, @MattGlo September 2, 2015

The Rev. Stephen Pohl, the former pastor at St. Margaret Mary, has been extradited from Florida and is due to appear in U.S. District Court at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday in Louisville, court records show.

Pohl was originally arrested in Florida last month and charged with a federal count of accessing child porn.

Investigators say Pohl viewed multiple pornographic online images of nude young boys ranging in age from infancy to mid-teens with their genitals exposed, according to a criminal complaint.

Pohl, 57, viewed those images on his laptop and desktop computer seized from the office and rectory of St. Margaret Mary Parish, said Detective Dan Jackman of the Louisville Metro Police Crimes Against Children Unit in a complaint affidavit.

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KENTUCKY
WLKY

LOUISVILLE, Ky. —Former St. Margaret Mary priest Stephen Pohl is back in Louisville.

Pohl will be in court at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday to answer to a charge of knowingly accessing with intent to view material that contained an image of child pornography that had been transported using any means or facility of interstate commerce and foreign commerce by any means including by computer.

Pohl was arrested last month in Pinellas County, Florida. He resigned from his position at St. Margaret Mary a day before his arrest.

Investigators said they found more than 150 pictures of children from St. Margaret Mary School on Pohl’s electronic devices. Detectives said several of the pictures of students were inappropriate.

An examination of the hard drives from Pohl’s office and home computers showed the presence of child pornography. The images were not downloaded, but rather appeared in the cache, indicating that he had accessed and viewed materials but did not download or purposely store them.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Gloucester Times

Eileen Ford Insights and Outbursts

“Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
– Lord Acton

I spent a week last month at the Marie Joseph Spiritual Center in Biddeford Pool, Maine, on a directed retreat, speaking with one of the sisters for an hour each day but otherwise, remaining in silence most of the time.

At Marie Joseph, newspapers were available on a table near the entrance to the dining room but I wasn’t interested in news until I read “It’s time to end pattern of deceit and denial on clergy sex abuse cases,” a headline on the July 3-16 issue of the National Catholic Reporter.

It took me back to a painful time when I lost faith in a church I always respected. As a retired NYC Transit Police lieutenant responsible for investigating allegations against police officers at one time, I wondered if the church needed a civilian review board, for it was obvious that in at least one critical area, the welfare of children, church leaders failed to police themselves.

I shared those feelings with my director and our conversations helped me regain the sense of living in the present moment and enjoying my time there.

But I also felt a need to celebrate the “unsung heroes” responsible for any improvements in the church, not bishops or popes but the survivors of abuse and clerical negligence I got to know, many of them still standing outside Catholic cathedrals every Sunday, ignored by bishops and parishioners.

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UNITED STATES
Renew America

By Matt C. Abbott

A bit of good news to share: A reliable source has informed me that Father John Corapi, a popular priest among orthodox Catholics who departed public life after a tumultuous period a few years ago, remains in the priesthood and is re-establishing his spiritual life.

There’s no indication he’ll be returning to public life anytime soon, if ever. However, it’s nice to know that Father Corapi can at least be a quiet prayer warrior during this extremely difficult time in the Church and world.

I won’t go into the particulars about what transpired in the past – it’s water under the bridge – and I’m sure there’s information on the Internet (some of it more reliable than other information, obviously) for those who may not be familiar with the situation. Plus, those who really didn’t pay attention to him in the first place likely don’t care one way or the other about his current status.

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OSTERREICH
Kleine Zeitung

Laut Staatsanwaltschaft bestand kein Autoritätsverhältnis zwischen dem Pater und den Burschen. Auch der Vorsatz der Belästigung sei nicht nachweisbar.

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VATIKAN
Katholishches

[Requiem for ex-nuncio Wesołowski took place in the rite for laymen.]

(Rom) Die Begräbnis von Józef Wesołowski, des ehemaligen Apostolischen Nuntius der Dominikanischen Republik und Titularerzbischofs, fand nicht im Ritus für Bischöfe, sondern für Laien statt. Wesołowski war von der Glaubenskongregation des sexuellen Kindesmißbrauchs für schuldig befunden und in den Laienstand zurückversetzt worden.

Der polnische Kurienerzbischof Konrad Krajevski, seit Sommer 2013 Päpstlicher Almosenier, leitete die Totenmesse für den ehemaligen polnischen Vatikan-Diplomaten, der im August 2013 von Papst Franziskus seines Amtes enthoben worden war (siehe Ex-Vatikandiplomat Wesołowski tot – Ihm drohten bis zu zehn Jahre Haft wegen Kindesmißbrauch).

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

Abuse victim and former Yeshiva student Manny Waks has welcomed the resignation of a senior Australian Rabbi.

Rabbi Zvi Telsner yesterday announced he would step down as head of Melbourne’s Yeshiva Centre, which manages schools including Yeshiva College.

In a letter to the Jewish community on Tuesday evening, Rabbi Telsner apologised for the way he dealt with child sex abuse victims and their families.

“We must all be aware of how our words and actions impact on others and therefore would like to apologise for my conduct and urge everyone to show compassion and support towards victims and their families,” he said.

Speaking with SBS from France this morning, Mr Waks said the decision was necessary.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Sarah Farnsworth

A man with no memory of sexual abuse perpetrated at Geelong Grammar is trying to come to terms with shattered memories of his beloved school, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard.

Luke Benson said he had only fond memories of his time at prestigious Victorian school from when he first started at the Highton campus in 1988.

He told the inquiry the school took pride in its ability to look after children and he developed incredibly close and intimate bonds with teachers and staff.

“I was made to feel loved,” Mr Benson said.

“It was like going to a slumber party every night for two years.”

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

LIFE was “brutal” at Timbertop, much like the scenes depicted in William Golding’s classic novel about the descent into barbarity of a group of marooned schoolboys.

THAT’S how former student BKO recalls his time at Geelong Grammar School’s rural campus, famously attended for two terms by Prince Charles in 1966.

In Golding’s book Lord of the Flies, the stranded boys run riot and turn on one another once they are removed from the rules of civilisation.

BKO, who spent a year at Timbertop in 1973, describes the school campus on 325-hectares of bush and farming land as an unusual and “quite a brutal” environment.

“You’re out in the bush with 14 other boys in your unit and you live very closely with those boys.”

He said it was very different to Geelong Grammar’s Corio campus, where if you did not get on with somebody you did not really have to see them much at all.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

September 2, 2015

Timna Jacks
Reporter

A Geelong Grammar School student who was abused up to 40 times by a school tutor he considered a “father figure” has no memory of the abuse, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse has heard.

Luke Benson, who has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, attended the school from the late 1980s to early 1990s, was asked to attend Prahran police station in 2005. There, he was informed that one of the school’s house assistants, Philippe Vincent Trutmann, had admitted to sexually abusing him 30 to 40 times over a two-year period.

“It is confusing to have no recollection of the abuse,” Me Benson said. “I have no memory of this happening and I inquired whether it was a mistake.

“The police told me that Trutmann had reviewed school yearbooks and identified from photographs the boys who he had abused. I think this was the worst day of my life.”

Trutmann was sentenced to up to six-and-a-half years in jail in 2005, for sexually abusing 40 young male boarders at the school’s Highton campus between 1985 and 1995.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Staff and agencies
Wednesday 2 September 2015

Former pupils of the elite Australian school where Prince Charles spent two terms have told a royal commission that complaints of sexual abuse against numerous teachers over decades were ignored or dismissed.

One witness, referred to as BKO, said Geelong Grammar’s rural campus, Timbertop, where in 1966 the 17-year-old prince spent most of his time, was a brutal environment and a “Lord of the Flies-type situation at times”.

Australia’s long-running royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse is holding a two-week hearing into events at Geelong Grammar. On Tuesday, a former student, Robert Llewellyn-Jones, told the commission the school was a “hothouse of violent acts” with a “subculture of brutality”.

On Wednesday, BKO told the commission, sitting in Melbourne, that the school was more concerned with avoiding scandal than dealing with abuse.

BKO said the school chaplain, the Rev John Davison, had fondled his genitals and those of boys during supposed hynotism sessions. When he reported the abuse to a maths teacher, Jonathan Harvey – who was later convicted for abusing a student – he found the process very threatening and was told he might be expelled, he said.

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