ABUSE TRACKER

SCOTLAND
Daily Record

A commission led by the Very Rev Andrew McLellan has called for survivors of abuse to be prioritised.

The Catholic Church in Scotland must address the wrongs of the past, according to an independent review of its handling of abuse allegations.

A commission led by the Very Rev Andrew McLellan has recommended that the church’s safeguarding guidelines be updated and has called for survivors of abuse to be prioritised.

Mr McLellan, a former moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and one-time chief inspector of prisons, was tasked with evaluating the procedures in place to protect vulnerable children and adults and ensure that the church is “a safe place for all”.

At a press conference in Edinburgh to set out the findings of his 11-member commission, he said: “Nothing in our independent report is more important than our first recommendation: that support for the survivors of abuse must be an absolute priority for the Catholic Church in Scotland.”

The commission has also recommended that a public apology is made to survivors of abuse within the church.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
New Hampshire Public Radio

[with audio]

By PAIGE SUTHERLAND

A jury has been seated in the trial of a 19-year-old high school graduate charged with raping a freshman at Saint Paul’s School in Concord. Opening statements are expected to begin Wednesday morning.

On Monday 11 men and 3 women were selected to serve in a rape trial involving a 15-year-old girl at the elite prep school. Following Tuesday’s opening remarks the jury is scheduled to visit the building where the girl says she was raped two days before graduation. The trial is expected to last roughly one week.

Then-senior Owen Labrie of Vermont has pleaded not guilty and has repeatedly said he did not have sex with the accuser.

When police questioned Labrie last spring he spoke in detail about a school tradition known as the “senior salute” in which senior boys attempt to “score” with younger female students before graduation.

Before his arrest Labrie had been accepted and was planning to study theology at Harvard.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
The Daily Beast

Lizzie Crocker

Was the tradition of the ‘Senior Salute’ at St. Paul’s, a top New Hampshire private school, an innocent sexual game, or did it have a much darker side?

As summer winds down and college students across the country arrive on campus, some may be surprised when the sexually liberated environment they expected to find there is in fact a dangerous hunting ground, where young women are in grave danger of sexual assault.

They may not experience it this way, but they will be warned about it from the minute they arrive. Still more will have been warned about it before they get there, and will be prepared to enroll in mandatory affirmative consent programs.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Yahoo! News

By Ted Siefer

CONCORD, N.H. (Reuters) – Opening statements are expected on Tuesday in the trial of a man accused of raping a fellow student at one of the United States’ most prestigious preparatory schools.

The suspect, Owen Labrie, 19, of Tunbridge, Vermont, is charged with sexually assaulting a 15-year-old freshman girl days before he graduated in 2014 from St. Paul’s School.

The prep school counts among its graduates numerous prominent business and political leaders, including U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

The trial is expected to shine a spotlight on the culture of the elite academy, founded in 1856. It is clustered on 2,000 wooded acres (810 hectares) in Concord, New Hampshire’s state capital.

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IDAHO
KTVB

EAGLE — An Eagle couple is facing felony charges after sheriff’s officials say they sexually abused two teenage girls in their care.

Michael Paul Magill, 30, and Jennifer Nicole Magill, 32, were house parents at the Christian Children’s Ranch on Duck Alley Road in Eagle when the alleged abuse occurred. The victims, a 17-year-old and a 14-year-old, were placed in the Magills’ care through that group.

According to the Christian Children’s Ranch website, the organization provides homes for at-risk or homeless children. House parents live on the 80-acre ranch and care for up to 10 children at a time “in a loving and structured environment,” according to the site.

Sheriff’s officials say the Magills, who worked as youth group leaders and camp counselors, may have additional victims.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
Live5News

By Traci Washington

PORT ROYAL, SC (WTOC) –
A judge in the Lowcountry will soon decide if the sexual assault charges filed against a Sunday School teacher will be dropped, or if the case will head to a grand jury.

A four-year-old accused 41-year-Joel Iacopelli of sexually assaulting her at the Community Bible Church, back in June.

In a preliminary hearing last week, investigators told a judge the four-year-old victim changed her story about what happened. She initially told her mother and investigators that Iacopelli sexually assaulted her in a Sunday school classroom, when the female teacher left the room to take other children to the restroom. She later told someone that she made the story up.

Iacopelli’s attorney, Jared Newman, told the judge the video evidence from the church disputes parts of the mothers and the four-year-olds’ story. Now, they are hopeful the judge would drop all the charges.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

Liam Croy
August 18, 2015

A 65-year-old Narrogin man has been charged with sexually abusing three young girls at a Perth children’s home in the 1990s.

The charges are a result of an investigation by WA Police’s Taskforce Tonalite, a subsection of the child abuse squad established in 2010.

It will be alleged the 65-year-old committed the offences at Manguri Residential Cottages in Queens Park between 1991 and 1996.

The three girls were allegedly aged between four and 10.

Manguri, formerly known as Sister Kate’s Children’s Home, was an accommodation centre for indigenous children and an agency of the Uniting Church.

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IDAHO
KTVB

Katie Terhune, KTVB August 17, 2015

BOISE — An Eagle couple accused of sexually abusing minors placed in their care through a program for at-risk children made their first court appearance Monday afternoon.

Michael and Jennifer Nicole Magill both face charges of sexual battery on a minor and sexual abuse of a child. The Magills were “house parents” at Christian Children’s Ranch on Duck Alley Road. An administrator said Monday morning the pair was no longer employed by the organization.

Deputy Prosecutor Lucy Juarez said the couple engaged their teenage victims in sexual games of Truth or Dare. The Magills are accused of inappropriately touching the girls – a 17-year-old and a 14-year-old – multiple times over the summer, at least once in front of other children at the home.

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SCOTLAND
BBC News

A commission investigating abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland has called on it to make an “unmistakeable and unequivocal” public apology.

It said the church must “heal the hurt and address the anger” of victims.

The church asked Dr Andrew McLellan to lead a review of how it handles allegations of abuse, following a series of scandals.

It took evidence from victims in a bid to improve support services and protect vulnerable children and adults.

Dr McLellan, a former moderator of the Church of Scotland, was tasked with coming up with proposals aimed at making the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland “a safe place for all”.

The 11 review commissioners, who include a senior police officer, a journalist and an MP, were tasked with assessing the quality of support available to survivors.

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SCOTLAND
ITV

The Catholic Church in Scotland should make an “unmistakeable and unequivocal” apology to survivors of abuse, an independent commission has said.

The review, which was set up in November 2013 following a series of scandals including the resignation of disgraced cardinal Keith O’Brien, made eight recommendations, including calling on the church to update its guidelines on safeguarding vulnerable children and adults.

However, former chief inspector of prisons the Very Rev Andrew McLellan, said nothing in its findings were “more important than our first recommendation: that support for the survivors of abuse must be an absolute priority for the Catholic Church in Scotland”.
The recommendations were made as church figures revealed that there were no prosecutions in 61% of cases reported between 2006 and 2012.

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SCOTLAND
The McLellan Commission

A Review of the Current Safeguarding Policies, Procedures and Practice within the Catholic Church in Scotland

The McLellan Commission published its Report on 18th August and has made eight key recommendations to Scotland’s Catholic Bishops to improve the current standards of safeguarding within the Catholic Church.

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Overview

Part 1 – Background and Context

Chapter 1 – Context
Background
Remit
Context
Terms and Language Used
Methodology

Part 2 – Findings

Introduction

Chapter 2 – To establish the truth of what happened in the past

The truth of harm
The truth about good practice
Recommendations for Chapter 2

Chapter 3 – To take whatever steps are necessary to prevent abuse from occurring again

Awareness and Safety
Advisers and Coordinators
Evaluation, Scrutiny, Monitoring and Review
Independence
A Consistent Approach
Theology
Recommendations for Chapter 3

Chapter 4 – To ensure that the principles of justice are fully respected

Justice
Advocacy
Whistleblowing
Recommendations for Chapter 4

Chapter 5 – Above all, to bring healing to the victims and to all those affected by these egregious crimes

Reaching out to Survivors
Listening
Saying Sorry
Not Blaming
Support
Reparation
Accountability
Recommendations for Chapter 5

Chapter 6 – Implementation

Acting on the Report
Recommendations for Chapter 6
Recommendations

Annex 1
Commission members
Annex 2
Glossary of terms used
Annex 3
Questionnaire posted on the secure website
Annex 4
Individuals providing formal evidence to selected members of the Commission
Annex 5
Individuals providing evidence to full meetings of the Commission
Annex 6
Individuals providing evidence to subgroups of the Commission

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ZIMBABWE
Nehanda Radio

By Thandeka Moyo

BULAWAYO – A Cowdray Park pastor allegedly turned a congregant, 16, into a sex slave and infected her with HIV and genital warts while claiming to be driving out a death demon that wanted to kill her father.

Greatness Tapfuma, 33, the founder of Kingdom Rulers International Church was recently acquitted of raping two other congregants. In the latest case, it is claimed that his emissaries attempted to bribe his victim with a house, a car or cash.

He pleaded not guilty to two counts of rape yesterday before regional magistrate Chrispen Mberewere.

Tapfuma was later arrested together with his three congregants for manhandling a photographer from The Chronicle who had taken pictures of him.

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FIJI
Fiji Broadcasting Corporation

A court in Wellington, New Zealand has heard that a pastor at a Fijian fellowship church indecently touched two girls and tried to get one to have sex with him.

Forty-two year old, Jone Conikeli, from Stokes Valley, was a pastor at the Kingdom Ambassador International Fellowship church’s Wellington chapter.

The Dominion Post reports he pleaded not guilty in Wellington District Court yesterday to two charges of assault with intent to commit sexual violation, two of doing an indecent act on a person under 16, and three of doing an indecent act on a child.

Crown prosecutor Ian Murray said Conikeli exploited opportunities to sexually abuse two girls he knew through family and friends.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

THE findings of an independent review of the Catholic Church in Scotland’s handling of allegations of abuse are due to be published.

The Very Rev Andrew McLellan, a former moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and one-time chief inspector of prisons, has led the external inquiry into the policies and practices of the church.

The 11-member McLellan Commission was tasked with evaluating the procedures in place to protect vulnerable children and adults, and ensure the church is “a safe place for all”.

Mr McLellan will reveal its key findings and recommendations at a press conference in Edinburgh to coincide with the publication of a final report.

The commission was set up in November 2013 by the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland in response to a series of scandals, including the resignation of disgraced Cardinal Keith O’Brien.

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SCOTLAND
Sky News

By James Matthews, Scotland Correspondent

A report into abuse within Scotland’s Catholic Church has recommended it address the wrongs of the past and make an “unmistakeable and unequivocal” apology to victims.

An independent commission has also suggested the Church updates its safety guidelines and that support for survivors be an “absolute priority”.

Eight primary recommendations have been made by the commission, which was established by Scotland’s Roman Catholic Church in November 2013 to review its practices in dealing with allegations of abuse.

It has examined the Church’s policies for how it relates to vulnerable children and adults with the aim of making it a “safe place for all”.

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SCOTLAND
Scottish Catholic Media Office

You are invited to send a reporter, photographer, camera crew to St. Andrew’s Cathedral, Clyde Street, Glasgow on Tuesday 18 August for 1pm, when Archbishop Philip Tartaglia, will formally respond to the publication of the Report of The McLellan Commission.

Scotland’s Catholic Bishops invited Dr. Andrew McLellan to establish a Commission to undertake a review of all aspects of safeguarding policy, procedure and practice within the Catholic Church in Scotland in November 2013. The Commission will publish its Report on 18th August 2015, at 11am.

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SCOTLAND
The Guardian

Press Association
Tuesday 18 August 2015

The Catholic church in Scotland must address the wrongs of the past, an independent review of its handling of abuse allegations has said.

A commission led by the Very Rev Andrew McLellan recommended that the church’s safeguarding guidelines be updated and called for survivors of abuse to be prioritised.

The former moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and one-time chief inspector of prisons, was given the job of evaluating the procedures in place to protect vulnerable children and adults and ensuring the church was “a safe place for all”.

At a press conference in Edinburgh on Tuesday to set out the findings of his 11-member commission, he said: “Nothing in our independent report is more important than our first recommendation: that support for the survivors of abuse must be an absolute priority for the Catholic Church in Scotland.”

The commission has also recommended that a public apology is made to survivors of abuse within the church.

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MINNESOTA/WISCONSIN
Star Tribune

A former priest serving prison time in Minnesota for molesting two young brothers pleaded guilty Friday in Wisconsin to sexually assaulting their older brother.

Curtis Wehmeyer, 50, pleaded guilty in Chippewa County Circuit Court to third-degree sexual assault in the 2011 abuse of an 18-year-old man. He initially had been charged with second-degree sexual assault.

Wehmeyer was sentenced the day of his plea to six years in prison, three to be served in custody and three under supervision, said Wade Newell, the Chippewa County assistant district attorney.

Wehmeyer’s Wisconsin sentence will begin in 2016, after he completes his Minnesota sentence for sexually abusing two brothers, then 12 and 14, in a camper parked outside Blessed Sacrament Church in St. Paul.

Newell said that the victim in the Wisconsin case is the brother of the Minnesota victims, who were abused in 2010.

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WISCONSIN
Chippewa Herald

An inmate at the Lino Lakes Correctional institute in Lino Lakes, Minnesota has been sentenced to three years in prison for a sexual assault in the summer of 2011 in the town of Estella.

Judge Roderick Cameron also placed Curtis Carl Wehmeyer, 40, to serve three years of extended supervision after the prison term for the assault. Cameron said his sentence will be served consecutive to any other sentence Wehmeyer has.

According to a criminal complaint:

A boy said he was sexually assaulted by Wehmeyer while at a camping trip at Brunet Island State Park in Cornell. The boy said Wehmeyer provided him with alcohol and marijuana, and later asssaulted him.

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MINNESOTA/WISCONSIN
Pioneer Press

By Elizabeth Mohr
emohr@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 08/17/2015

A former St. Paul priest, serving a five-year prison term for molesting two boys in his parish — whose case led to criminal charges against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis for an alleged coverup — has pleaded guilty to similar charges in Wisconsin.

Curtis Wehmeyer, 50, was charged in November in Chippewa County, Wis. He pleaded guilty to third-degree sexual assault and was sentenced Friday to three years in prison and three years of supervised release, to run consecutive to his five-year sentence in Minnesota.

According to the Wisconsin charges, Wehmeyer sexually assaulted a teenage boy who passed out after drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana, provided to him by Wehmeyer, during a 2011 camping trip at Brunet Island State Park in Estella, Wis.

Wehmeyer was sentenced in Ramsey County District Court in February 2013 for molesting two brothers from the Parish of the Blessed Sacrament on St. Paul’s East Side while he was pastor there. Those assaults took place in 2010. He also was convicted of possessing child pornography.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Wonkette

by Evan Hurst
Aug 17

Oh, to be back at boarding school! Mumsy and Popsy would seldom visit, and even then, only to meet with the headmaster about which one of our family names would christen the new Humanities building. And what fun we all had! Pulling pranks down by the old river bend, Spirit Week contests where we’d all dress up like cheerleaders, and best of all, the Senior Fucking Contest, where all the senior boys would engage in a mighty endurance competition to see who could do the most fucking to the underclassmen. Oh how St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire did prepare us for storied careers in finance, industry, government and WAIT A MINUTE, did we just type “Senior Fucking Contest”?

Yes we did, because here is why. This 19-year-old kid, Owen Labrie, is on trial for raping a 15-year-old girl in 2014, while both were students at St. Paul’s. He has pleaded not guilty to the raping, but he also needs everyone to know that there is this thing called the “Senior Salute,” and it is gross:

Labrie, of Tunbridge, Vermont, talked openly about the tradition when he was interviewed by Concord police. On a campus where upperclassmen studiously avoid their younger peers in most settings, Labrie told a detective some students “take great pride” in having sex with younger students before they leave school.

Labrie also told the detective of a contest where boys compete to “score” with the most girls, keeping a running tally written in indelible marker on a wall behind washing machines. The school kept painting over the scoreboard so it eventually was moved online. He acknowledged to the detective he was “trying to be number one,” the detective wrote.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
ABC News

[with video]

Aug 17, 2015

By MEGHAN KENEALLY
via GOOD MORNING AMERICA

A graduate of a highly regarded New Hampshire prep school is headed to court this week over rape charges stemming from an alleged attack there last year.

Owen Labrie, who is now 19 and a former student at St. Paul’s School, is charged in the alleged rape of a 15-year-old girl in 2014. He has pleaded not guilty to multiple felony counts.

The accused teen has told police about an alleged competition at the elite school, in which, he says, some seniors competed to have sex with the most younger girls. The investigation is ongoing.

What Happened?

Prosecutors contend that Labrie, who was accepted to Harvard, raped the girl inside a building on the school’s Concord, New Hampshire, campus May 30, 2014, according to ABC affiliate station WMUR-TV in Manchester.

The girl’s name has not been publicly released because of her age and the nature of the crime.

The timing would mean that the alleged attack happened two days before his June 1 graduation.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
NBC News

[with video]

by JON SCHUPPE

A former student at an elite New Hampshire prep school went on trial Monday on charges he raped a 15-year-old girl on campus. But it’s not just the defendant who’s facing judgment.

The rape allegedly occurred at the prestigious St. Paul’s School, whose alumni include Secretary of State John Kerry, former FBI Director Robert Mueller, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Garry Trudeau and several members of Congress. The trial is expected to cast a spotlight on unsavory aspects of the boarding school’s on-campus sexual culture — including accusations of graduating boys’ competitive pursuit of younger students.

The defendant, 19-year-old Owen Labrie, is accused of raping the freshman girl on the roof of a school building in May 2014, just before he graduated. He has been charged with three counts of aggravated felony sex assault, four counts of misdemeanor sex assault, endangering the welfare of a child and using a computer to lure her to meet him via email and Facebook.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
WCVB

CONCORD, N.H. —A jury was selected Monday in the trial of a prep school senior charged with raping a 15-year-old freshman as part of a school tradition known as the “Senior Salute,” days before he graduated.

Owen Labrie, now 19, of Tunbridge, Vermont, has pleaded not guilty to multiple felony charges, including forcible rape.

Prosecutors said Labrie raped the girl in a building on the Concord campus of St. Paul’s School on May 30, 2014. …

Founded in 1856, St. Paul’s is an Episcopal school that counts among its alumni senators, congressmen, Pulitzer Prize winners, a Nobel laureate and Secretary of State John Kerry.

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NEW YORK
JTA

NEW YORK (JTA) – The Riverdale Jewish Center has decided to keep in place Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt, whose sauna chats with naked boys garnered headlines after an exposé in The New York Times in late May.

Rosenblatt, who denied any criminal wrongdoing but apologized for inappropriate behavior, had been fighting efforts by some in his Orthodox congregation to buy out the remaining three years on his contract. Despite the controversy stirred by the article about Rosenblatt’s practice for years of inviting teenage boys and young men for naked heart-to-hearts in the sauna after racquetball games, the rabbi appeared to retain the support of most of his congregants, insiders said.

In a letter sent to congregants on Aug. 13, the synagogue leadership said it had decided that Rosenblatt’s own plan for moving past the scandal was the best of various alternate scenarios for the New York shul, which has been led by Rosenblatt for the last 30 years.

“Rabbi Rosenblatt shared his vision and commitment to continue serving our membership and partnering with the RJC’s lay leaders, staff and community,” said the letter, which was signed by the synagogue’s board chairman, Donald Liss, and president, Samson Fine. “He described how we will strengthen communal bonds between and among our members, maintain the financial stability of our synagogue and enhance the spirit of collaboration that exists between the RJC and the community.

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KENTUCKY
WLKY

By Anna-Lysa Gayle

LOUISVILLE, Ky. —Students and parents at St. Margaret Mary attended orientation Monday while their priest remains on administrative leave during a child pornography investigation.

Classes will begin Wednesday for more than 700 students at the parish school.

Father Stephen Pohl, who oversees the church and the school, is on administrative leave.

The Archdiocese of Louisville sent a letter to parents about the FBI cybercrime unit’s investigation.

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, Aug. 17

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 urge Cape Girardeau area citizens to boycott the Iron Mountain Railroad. The head of the railroad is callously hurting adults who have been molested and youngsters who are being molested right now.

[St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

Jeffrey B. Moffat of Jackson, who has portrayed Santa Claus for the Iron Mountain Railway in Jackson, is charged with statutory rape and sodomy against a child. Railroad president Cheryl Huffman could be prodding anyone who might help resolve these accusations to step forward. Instead, in an act of stunning callousness, she’s declaring Moffat innocent.

That’s incredibly hurtful. That makes it even less likely that boys and girls who, right now, are being sexually assaulted will break their silence, get some help, and expose dangerous predators.

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UNITED STATES
GetReligion

Jim Davis

To harp on a favorite theme of mine, you need experienced specialists to cover religion news. Today’s case in point is a positive one: the Washington Post’s in-depth piece on Catholics who want Pope Francis to address clerical sex abuse during his upcoming U.S. visit.

Rather than relying cheap shots from pressure groups, the Post’s Godbeat veteran Michelle Boorstein draws her sources from Catholic authorities or those who have had direct experience with the abuse problem – some as victims. Their viewpoints range from support to opposition, and the usually neglected points in between.

In the 1,800-word article, victims of priests confess their hopes of pressing a single point to Francis during his September visit to Philadelphia: Do more to root out sex abuse and bring justice to the abused. But the piece adopts an attitude that is not skeptical but adversarial.

The Post gives about half the story to John Salveson, an abuse survivor who has been pressing church authorities for answers off and on since the early 1980s. It reports Salveson’s initial letters to his bishop, which got non-answers; then his part in a class-action lawsuit against his diocese, which failed because of a statute of limitations; then his creation of a pressure group, “which advocates for longer criminal statutes of limitations and expanded civil windows for victims to sue.”

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NEW YORK
kath.ch

[New York Times: ISIS sees child abuse as a religious right.]

Washington/Berlin, 16.8.15 (kath.ch) Die Terrororganisation «Islamischer Staat» (IS) treibt die Perversität ihrer Gräueltaten auf die Spitze: IS-Kämpfer sehen die Vergewaltigung von nicht-muslimischen Mädchen und Frauen als ihr religiöses Recht an. Das geht aus einem Bericht der Zeitung «New York Times» hervor, den der deutsche Informationsdienst der Evangelischen Allianz (idea) am Sonntag zusammenfasste.

Nach diesem Bericht hat sich ein IS-Kämpfer wiederholt an einem zwölfjährigen jesidischen Mädchen vergangen, das sich als Geisel in seiner Gewalt befand. Er habe jeweils vor und nach der Tat auf Knien zu Allah gebetet und behauptet, dass der Koran ihm nicht nur das Recht gebe, «Ungläubige» zu vergewaltigen, sondern ihn auch dazu ermutige. Indem er sich an ihr vergehe, komme er Allah näher. Er habe sein Opfer gefesselt und geknebelt. Das Mädchen hatte nach elfmonatiger Gefangenschaft in ein Flüchtlingslager fliehen können.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Evangelische Kirche in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern

[08/16/2015 |. Rostock A 1.4-ton millstone to be installed here in September honors victims of child abuse.]

16.08.2015 ǀ Rostock. Ein 1,4 Tonnen schwerer Mühlstein erinnert ab September neben der Rostocker Marienkirche an die Opfer von Kindesmissbrauch. Der 1,40 Meter große “Mahlende Mühlstein” werde am 3. September von Berlin nach Rostock transportiert, wie die Firma Gustke Logistik mitteilte. Nach kurzer Aufarbeitung durch einen Steinmetz werde er bis November neben der Kirche aufgestellt. Die Aktion des in Rheinland-Pfalz ansässigen Vereins “Initiative gegen Gewalt und sexuellen Missbrauch an Kindern und Jugendlichen” startete vor sieben Jahren. Weitere Stationen des wandernden Mahnmals sind Schwerin, Lübeck und Kiel.

Auf dem Stein ist ein Bibelwort aus dem Matthäus-Evangelium eingemeißelt. Darin sagt Jesus Christus sinngemäß, dass derjenige, der Kindern Schaden zufügt, ein Mühlstein um den Hals gehängt und in die Tiefe des Meeres versenkt werden sollte. Die Kampagne gegen Kindesmissbrauch war 2008 im bayerischen Regensburg eröffnet worden. Seitdem “wandert” der Stein durch Deutschland. Rostock ist die erste Station im Norden.

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UNITED STATES
Mennonite Central Committee

MCC is joining other faith-based organizations to break the silence about sexualized violence in our communities and congregations by raising awareness and providing resources for an effective response, prevention, and care.

This initiative will be participatory and begin with a listening process to gather baseline information from representative MCC constituents – churches, universities, and constituent organizations. Using this baseline information, MCC will provide open conversations, trainings for pastors and leaders, and written and web resources. Through this process, MCC hopes to build the capacity of our constituents to address sexualized violence within their own contexts by building awareness and providing tools for practical methods of prevention and care.

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

MISSOURI
KMBC

[with video]

KANSAS CITY, Mo. —The Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph has begun a series of healing services for victims of sexual abuse at the hands of priests.

Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann placed ads and sent letters to people inviting them to the search.

One of the people who received the letters, abuse survivor Michael Sandridge, said the letter contained an apology.

“I am so sorry for what happened to you, and I realize that no words are likely to heal your wounds,” the letter said. “As a small step toward reconciliation, I apologize on behalf of all the priests of this diocese and all the members of our Catholic church for the terrible hurt you have suffered at the hands of someone entrusted with your spiritual care.”

“The only thing the letter does is say, ‘You were right and I’m sorry,’” Sandridge said. “It’s too late. It’s too late, for me. Do I still believe in God, absolutely, but not so much the Catholic view of it.”

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

A Resource to Recommend: Ruth Krall on How to Smell a Rape-Prone Campus

Here’s a very valuable resource I’d like to share with you, which Ruth Krall has just uploaded to the “Tools” section of her Enduring Space blog site: “How to Smell a Rape-Prone Campus” (pdf file). I’ll point out, too, that it’s timely, as a new semester begins for college students around the country.

In 24 succinct statements, Ruth describes the kind of campus on which rape is a serious problem, and where it’s highly likely to be covered up. These statements obviously draw on her own wide experience as a therapist and theologian working with victims of sexual violence, and with her activism monitoring institutions that cover up the sexual violence of pastors and professors.

Some of the points that leap out at me as I read through her extremely helpful description of rape-prone campuses:

(4) Men occupy all positions of real power where rape might logically be reported; campus ministries, student physician, student counseling services, and student personnel or student life staff. 


(12) More concern goes to protecting student men’s reputations than to women’s safety. This is particularly so if the men are athletic stars or student leaders on campus. 


(13) Students (and staff) are not urged to report rapes, attempted rapes or other forms of sexual harassment to the police. In fact they may be urged or told outright not to report. 


(14) Rape gets added to board meeting dockets as in the topic of how the campus is managing its rape policies in light of the federal guidelines. The board may or may not be given accurate information about numbers of rapes in any given year. The board does not insist on receiving a quarterly and annual update on the amounts of affinity violence reported. 


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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

AUGUST 17, 2015

Rick Morton
Social Affairs Reporter
Sydney

Every religious leader in the country and their officers would be required to undergo working with children checks under proposed sweeping reforms to the system recommended by the child abuse royal commission.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse authored a report on state and territory working with children checks which was tabled in parliament today.

“A person must apply for a Working With Children Check (WWCC) in each state or territory in which they intend to engage in child-related work,” the report says.

“Organisations and people working across borders report substantial challenges in working with the varied schemes, including extra costs and difficulty understanding and complying with the various laws.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

AN inconsistent and complex approach by states and territories to running background checks on people wanting to work with children has failed those the schemes are supposed to protect, prompting the royal commission into child sexual abuse to call for sweeping changes.

THE Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse says that an over-reliance on the schemes – known as Working With Children Checks (WWCCs) – can actually be detrimental to children’s safety and it has delivered a scathing assessment of efforts by various governments to address the problem.

In a report tabled in the federal parliament on Monday, the commission has made a series of recommendations including that a national scheme for conducting background checks be introduced within 12 months, and that a centralised database, operated by CrimTrac, and which is readily accessible to all jurisdictions, be created.

The report has also recommended that all religious leaders and officers, or personnel of religious organisations, be required to undergo a background check.

The recommendations come after the commission found inconsistencies between states and territories regarding screening practices, as well as a lack of information-sharing across jurisdictions. This means the system is failing the children it was meant to protect.

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

AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

August 17, 2015

Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter

The failure of state and territory governments to introduce a nationally consistent system to reduce the risk of paedophiles working with children has been described as “inexcusable” by a royal commission that has recommended sweeping changes to background checks.

State and territory governments will have one year to implement recommendations made on Monday by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The recommendations include a call for a national system which would prevent child sex abusers applying for clearance to work with children in different jurisdictions and improve cross-border information sharing.

A national Working With Children Check scheme would help organisations and people working across borders by reducing complexity and duplication.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Danuta Kozaki and staff

Working with children checks should be strengthened and unified across all states and territories as a matter of urgency, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has recommended.

Currently in Australia, each state and territory has its own scheme for conducting background checks on people who want to work with children.

But the commission’s report into working with children checks found the eight different schemes were inconsistent, complex and gave a false sense of security to institutions and families.

The ABC has reported that some staff working in organisations with vulnerable children in Victoria have been working without valid police or working with children checks.

The commission’s report said problems with working with children checks have been recognised by governments for some time, but for too long they have favoured maintaining their own systems over working together.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

The Royal Commission released its report on Working With Children Checks on 17 August 2015.

The recommendations in the report aim to strengthen the protection children receive through Working With Children Checks.

Download the full report

More information: Working With Children Checks Report and Executive summary

Roundtables

The Royal Commission has consulted widely on Working With Children Checks. In June 2014 Justice McClellan and Commissioner Fitzgerald hosted a roundtable in Canberra to discuss Working With Children Checks. Participants included state and territory government representatives, Children’s Commissioners, advocates for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and non-government organisations.

Issues Papers

We received 80 submissions in response to Issues Paper 1 – Working With Children Check released in June 2013. These submissions helped us to identify the problems with the current schemes and approach.

In August 2013, we released Issues Paper 3 – Child-Safe Institutions. Many responses addressed Working With Children Checks by placing them in the broader context of child-safe organisations.

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AUSTRALIA
The Chronicle

Owen Jacques | 17th Aug 2015

ALL religious leaders and staff in Australia would have to have “Working With Children Checks” if new recommendations from the Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse are adopted.

It includes a national approach to how these checks, called a “Blue Card” in Queensland, are conducted.

The Royal Commission has today released its report into Working With Children Checks, which at the moment are approved at a state level.

These eight schemes, according to the report, “are inconsistent and complex”.

The Commission has taken aim at the inconsistencies this creates nationally, warning that those who may be banned from working with children in one state can “forum shop” to receive an approval somewhere else.

If someone is unfit to work with children but has no criminal history, the states have no way of sharing that information.

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MICHIGAN
WOOD

[with video]

Marlee Ginter

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — The most traumatic moment of Bill McAlary’s life happened in 1958. Nearly 60 years later, he’s still visibly shaken just talking about it.

McAlary says a Catholic priest molested him when he was a 12-year-old altar boy in Ionia.

“I woke up. He was molesting me sexually, on his knees next to my bed,” McAlary recalled. “That’s how I woke up.”

He said he immediately told his mother, but she didn’t do anything about it.

“I didn’t know what the right word was for a pedophile, but I knew what the word ‘queer’ meant. She said she didn’t know what it meant and didn’t do anything,” McAlary recalled.

He remembers going up to his room, where he stood and stared for 45 minutes. With no support, he continued Catholic school under the same priest.

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NEW ZEALAND
The Dominion Post

A pastor at a Fijian fellowship church indecently touched two girls and tried to get one to have sex with him, a Wellington jury has been told.

Jone Draiva Conikeli, 42, from Stokes Valley, was a pastor at the Kingdom Ambassador International Fellowship church’s Wellington chapter.

He pleaded not guilty in Wellington District Court on Monday to two charges of assault with intent to commit sexual violation, two of doing an indecent act on a person under 16, and three of doing an indecent act on a child.

Crown prosecutor Ian Murray said Conikeli exploited opportunities to sexually abuse two girls he knew through family and friends.

Conikeli’s lawyer, Chris Nicholls, said the two girls had colluded to make up the allegations as retribution over a complicated family situation for which Conikeli had been blamed.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Crain’s Chicago Business

SHIA KAPOS

Father Michael Garanzini, the chancellor of Loyola University and newly-named board member for the Chicago Board of Education, says it’s time Catholic priests be allowed to marry.

“I think it would be healthy. I used to say ‘well, it will change but probably not in my lifetime.’ And then Pope Francis came along, and what I see him doing is opening the avenues for discussion,” he told me.

Prior to our conversation, Garanzini spoke to some 40 members from Chicago’s business and social communities during a private gathering. Broadcaster Bill Kurtis moderated the Q&A event.

Garanzini says the issue is likely to come up during an October bishops’ conference in Rome.

“There’s been talk in various places in the church—especially in England, where there are several bishops who have said they intend to raise the question,” he said, referring to Catholic leaders in England, which has seen married Anglican priests cross over to serve in the Catholic Church. …

He says the discussion of priests marrying has come as a result, in part, of “the fallout of the priest sexual abuse problem.”

“Some good things” have evolved since then, he says, “and one is this question of openness to a priest’s physical and psychological health. The second is that the hierarchy, the leadership, that we have needs to be more open and transparent and admit problems and faults as they happen and that we’re not above the law. Those two things are a direct result of the scandal.”

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

KENTUCKY
Inquisitr

Louisville, Kentucky, priest Father Stephen A. Pohl was placed on leave by his archdiocese this week after reports surfaced that he has become the target of an FBI probe looking into the creation and distribution of child pornography. The investigation is reportedly being conducted by the Bureau’s task force on cyber crimes.

Pohl, who has been an ordained Catholic priest for 30 years and pastor of at St. Margaret Mary Parish in Louisville for the past seven, has not been arrested or formally accused of any criminal wrongdoing — but the Archdiocese of Louisville nonetheless issued a public statement stating why church officials have removed Pohl from his parish and put him on administrative leave.

The investigation is looking into “inappropriate photos of children that have been taken and collected by Father Pohl to determine if he has possessed or distributed child pornography,” the archdiocese said in the statement, adding that it has no further information or detail regarding the investigating targeting Pohl, according to a report in The Louisville Courier-Journal.

“We realize that this is a painful situation,” said Louisville Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, in a letter to Pohl’s parishioners on Friday. “As more information becomes available, we will be in touch about opportunities to address your concerns and questions.”

Jeff Koenig, a leader of Louisville’s chapter of the advocacy and support group SNAP — Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests — commended the local archdiocese for being “transparent” about the investigation into Pohl’s activities, adding that he hoped the “transparency” would continue.

A report on WLEX-TV in Lexington, Kentucky, said that Pohl conducted a weekly mass for grade school children at the parish’s elementary school but he taught no classes at the school.

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IRELAND
RTE News

A US cardinal archbishop has accused opponents of quoting out of context his 2007 statement to the Vatican that he was strengthening a diocese’s protection against litigation by child sexual abuse victims by putting most of its assets into a cemetery trust fund.

Cardinal Archbishop of New York Timothy Dolan told RTÉ’s This Week opponents are ignoring that state law required him to move the money beyond diocesan control.

The cardinal also praised this month’s offer of €21m by his former archdiocese of Milwaukee to over 300 clerical abuse victims, which has been dismissed by their lawyer as “harsh and hurtful”.

The offer ended four years of bankruptcy proceedings in the courts in the United States.

The former archbishop of the archdiocese of Milwaukee was leading a pilgrimage to Knock and other parts of the west of Ireland last week.

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MARYLAND
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Baltimore

August 13, 2015

Monsignor Joseph Davies died in 1992. On August 31, 1993, a man in his 50s contacted the Archdiocese to report that he had been sexually abused as a child by Davies in the 1950s. The Archdiocese reported the allegation in writing to the Maryland Attorney General’s Office on September 8, 1993 and offered the victim an apology and counseling assistance. Additional allegations against Msgr. Davies have been made in the ensuing years, all of which have been reported in writing to the appropriate civil authorities at the time they were received. In each case the victims were offered an apology and counseling assistance.

The Archdiocese has been forthcoming in naming all priests credibly accused in their lifetime and has done so consistently since 2002. At that time, Cardinal William H. Keeler, Archbishop of Baltimore from 1989-2007, stated that there were a number of priests about whom the Archdiocese received allegations of abuse after their death, with allegations dating back to the 1930s. He noted that the allegations were always reported to civil authorities and alleged victims were offered counseling assistance. He publicly explained the Archdiocese’s decision not to disclose those names since the Archdiocese could not question the accused. He stated: “They are no longer a danger to children, and the Lord is now judging them. We pray that any other victims will come forward so that we may apologize and offer help.”

The Archdiocese of Baltimore is committed to protecting children and helping to heal victims of abuse. We urge anyone who has any knowledge of any child sexual abuse to come forward, and to report it immediately to civil authorities. If clergy or other Church personnel are suspected of committing the abuse, we ask that you call the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s Office of Child and Youth Protection Hotline at 1-866-417-7469.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

August 16, 2015

Simon Scott

Jacob was 11 years old when he was raped, in a Catholic school chapel, by two Brothers who threatened to do the same to his younger brother if he spoke out. It took 48 years to break his silence. He tells Simon Scott his story.

In late 1964, after his family moved to Japan from Australia, Jacob Bernstein* was enrolled at St Mary’s International School, a prestigious, private school in an upmarket Tokyo neighbourhood.

His father, Robert*, a diplomat, had been posted to the Australian embassy in the city.

Late in 1965, Jacob was searching for somewhere to eat lunch when he passed the school chapel. Being Jewish, the 11-year-old grade 6 student couldn’t eat the lunches served in the dining room. St Mary’s, a Catholic boys’ school run by the Brothers of Christian Instruction, or Mennaisians, was unable to prepare food that was kosher, so he had to bring lunch from home.

That day his mother had prepared his favourite, rollmops – pickled herring fillets held together with skewers – so he was eager to tuck in. “I saw the chapel door open and went in and started eating my lunch alone. I didn’t think it was not permitted,” says Bernstein.

Brother Lawrence Lambert in St Mary’s 1969 Yearbook. It shows that he was back teaching 6th Grade elementary students at the school by 1969, just four years after the sexual assault of Australian schoolboy ‘Jacob Bernstein’.

Brother Lawrence Lambert in St Mary’s 1969 Yearbook. It shows that he was back teaching 6th Grade elementary students at the school by 1969, just four years after the sexual assault of Australian schoolboy ‘Jacob Bernstein’.

Suddenly, Lawrence Lambert and another Catholic Brother entered, made the sign of the cross and then approached him. “Brother Lawrence said I was to be punished for eating in the chapel,” he recalls. “I was taken to a table near the door and made to face it and drop my pants and bend over. I thought I was to be spanked. One of them pulled my pants right off.” Then, he says,

“Brother Lawrence started to sodomise me. I had no idea of what he was doing, only that it hurt.”

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KENTUCKY
KFVS

By John Paxton

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) – The pastor at St. Margaret Mary Parish has been placed on leave after the archdiocese learned he was under investigation for alleged possession of child porn.

The Archdiocese of Louisville issued a release Saturday saying Fr. Stephen A. Pohl was being placed on an administrative leave of absence. Parishioners will be notified at weekend masses.

The release says he is under investigation for allegedly taking and collecting inappropriate photos of children.

Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, in a letter to parishioners dated August 14, wrote, “We realize this is a painful situation, and we want to support you during this time of uncertainty.”

David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, issued a statement urging church members who may have information to come forward. He also called the timing of today’s release disingenuous, and criticized the Catholic church for its past handling of abuse allegations.

“We urge anyone – Catholic or not – to call law enforcement if they have any information that might help prove or disprove these troubling allegations,” Clohessy said.

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MIDDLE EAST
Al Arabiya

Yara al-Wazir

Just over a year ago, ISIS began their carefully calculated capture of the Yazidi people. Yazidi polytheism was the core reason that ISIS targeted them in August of 2014. After surrounding them on top of Mount Sinjar, they killed the men and captured the women. In the October issue of ISIS’s Dabiq journal, they admitted that it was planned and that their research found that the enslavement of Yazidi women was “justified.” This is consistent with research by Human Rights Watch., which agrees that the sex trade of minorities has been systematic and organized.

The fate of the Yazidi women hasn’t been the main topic of conversation, but a question remains: Could Muslim, Christian, and Jewish women be next?

We’re all in this together

The systematic enslavement and rape of Yazidi women is inhumane, and one of the most brutal acts that ISIS has committed in the region. Amnesty International’s report describes the escape of a small fraction of women as an “escape from hell.”

Although ISIS has systematically targeted Yazidi women in their organized slave labor camps, this is just the beginning. The future of their skewed interpretations of Islam cannot be predicted.

The brutality of ISIS increases exponentially as time passes

Thus, we must all realize that we’re all in this together. The brutality of ISIS increases exponentially as time passes – although it started off with showing mercy for foreign hostages and letting them go in exchange for ransoms, it has shown no mercy to anyone in recent months.

Despite initially justifying the enslavement of Yazidi women by the fact that they are not the ‘people of the book’ (Christians or Jewish – of an Abrahamic religion), a recently leaked document disputes that. The document, which details the trading price of women based on their age, refers to slaves as either “Christian or Yazidi.”

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MIDDLE EAST
The Guardian (UK)

One year on from the summit to end sexual violence in conflict, convened by Angelina Jolie and William Hague in London, the self-proclaimed Islamic State has developed a complex bureaucracy of sex slavery that makes a mockery of the summit’s goal to bring about an end to the use of rape and sexual violence in war.

The systematic use of sexual violence to terrorise, humiliate and subjugate communities during times of war has a dark history, with an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 women raped in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and 20,000 to 50,000 women raped during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

And Isis is not the only party in the Syrian civil war to use rape as a weapon – rape is endemic in detention centres run by the secular regime of Bashar al-Assad. But what makes Isis’s use of rape so horrifying is its attempt to justify, codify and institutionalise the practice using ostensibly religious justifications for this war crime.

In its online magazine, Dabiq, Isis says that, prior to its conquest of the Yazidi-dominated town of Sinjar, it tasked its “sharia students” to determine which “Islamic rulings” should apply to the Yazidi community. It concludes that Yazidi women could be enslaved under Islamic law and establishes that one-fifth of the women should be transferred to the Isis leadership and the remainder divided among the fighters who participated in the conquest of Sinjar. The article goes on to reassure its readership that: “Many well-known [Islamic legal] rulings are observed, including the prohibition of separating a mother from her young children.”

Based on its widely refuted interpretations of Islamic texts, Isis has gone about systematising rape, sexual assault and slavery by embedding the buying, selling and gifting of slaves into a system of rewards for its fighters. Of the estimated 3,500 Yazidi women held by Isis, survivors report being interrogated and in some cases stripped naked for sorting and categorising. They have been rated according to desirability, labelled and transported across Isis-held territory. They have been traded between fighters, and awarded by leadership as prizes.

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ARIZONA
Arizona Daily Star

By Gabriela Rico

Arizona properties 1

Arizona properties 2

More than two dozen residential and commercial properties in Arizona owned by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Gallup, N.M., are going up for auction as part of the church’s bankruptcy reorganization.

One residential property on Tucson’s far east side is next to Paul McCartney’s ranch, said Hank Amos, president of Tucson Realty & Trust, which is offering the properties at auction along with Accelerated Marketing Group.

The 13.9-acre site up for auction near Redington Pass has an assessed value of $750,000. It is next door to the ranch bought by the McCartneys in 1979; the couple visited Tucson frequently until Linda McCartney’s death in 1998.

Other Southern Arizona properties to be featured in the Sept. 12 auction are in Tumacacori, Tubac, Hereford, Sierra Vista and Benson and various locations in Northern Arizona.

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

THE probe at The Mallard, in Springburn, has been ordered amid concerns that previous police investigations were flawed.

DETECTIVES have been ordered to launch a fresh inquiry into ­allegations of historic child abuse at a church care home.

The probe at The Mallard in Springburn, Glasgow, has been ordered by the Crown amid ­concerns that three previous police investigations were flawed.

Prosecutors gave the order after an SNP minister raised concerns about the criminal investigations.

The allegations of sexual and physical abuse date back to the 90s and were first brought to police attention by a dad who removed his son from the Church of Scotland home in 1999.

Deputy First Minister John ­Swinney is the father’s MSP and contacted the Lord Advocate on his behalf.

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MICHIGAN
WZZM

[with video]

Phil Dawson, WZZM

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WZZM) — Retired Grand Rapids Roman Catholic priest Father Charles Antekeier may no longer call himself a priest. After investigating allegations of sexual abuse, the Vatican says Antekeier, is officially removed from the ministry.

The Grand Rapids Diocese says the accusation dates back to the mid 1980’s.

But at least one Grand Rapids parent says he believes his son was molested by Father Antekeier years earlier in the 1970’s when he was an altar boy at St. James Parish.

“He had been assigned to an early mass so there is nobody around, nobody in the sacristy,” says his father, who we are not naming to conceal the identity of his son. “He was raped several times.”

His father says the sexual assault changed the boy.

“The experience overwhelmed him,” he explains. “He thought the priest was the line to God.”

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

ROME
Crux

By Inés San Martín
Vatican correspondent August 15, 2015

ROME — A conservative Latin American bishop fired by Pope Francis last September, who once claimed he was the victim of “ideological persecution” but later moved to reconcile with the pontiff, died Friday at the age of 69.

Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano, a native Argentinian, died in Buenos Aires from complications related to diabetes. He had been the bishop of Ciudad del Estes in Paraguay before his removal on Sept. 25, 2014.

Before his death, Livieres reached out to the pope.

Last July, while meeting local bishops during his trip to Paraguay, Francis read a letter Livieres had written to the pontiff. In it, the bishop expressed his gratitude to the pope and his “full communion” with Rome.

According to a Vatican statement in September 2014, Francis removed Livieres from his post for unspecified “serious pastoral reasons” and “the greater good of preserving the unity of the local Church.”

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

KENTUCKY
Lex 18

A Catholic priest in Kentucky is on leave after child porn allegations surfaced.

The Archdiocese of Louisville issued a statement saying Father Stephen Pohl was being placed on administrative leave. The statement says Father Pohl is under investigation for allegedly taking and collecting inappropriate photos of children.

Father Pohl has been with Saint Margaret Mary Parish in Louisville since 2008. He celebrated mass at the Saint Margaret Mary grade school every week, but did not teach any classes.

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

KENTUCKY
Courier-Journal

Chris Kenning and Rob Gates, Louisville August 15, 2015

A Louisville priest has been placed on administrative leave amid an investigation into child pornography, according to a statement from the Archdiocese of Louisville.

Father Stephen A. Pohl, pastor of St. Margaret Mary Parish at 7813 Shelbyville Road, was put on leave after the Archdiocese said it learned of an investigation about “inappropriate photos of children that have been taken and collected by Father Pohl to determine if he has possessed or distributed child pornography.”

Parishioners are being notified this weekend. The Rev. J. Mark Spalding, Vicar General and pastor of Holy Trinity Parish, has been named as the temporary administrator of St. Margaret Mary Parish.

“We realize that this is a painful situation,” Archbishop of Louisville Joseph Kurtz wrote in a letter to parishioners dated Aug. 14. “As more information becomes available, we will be in touch about opportunities to address your concerns and questions.”

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

KENTUCKY
WAVE

Aug 15, 2015
By John Paxton

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) – The pastor at St. Margaret Mary Parish has been placed on leave after the archdiocese learned he was under investigation for alleged possession of child porn.

The Archdiocese of Louisville issued a release Saturday saying Fr. Stephen A. Pohl was being placed on an administrative leave of absence. Parishioners will be notified at weekend masses.

The release says he is under investigation for allegedly taking and collecting inappropriate photos of children.

Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, in a letter to parishioners dated August 14, wrote, “We realize this is a painful situation, and we want to support you during this time of uncertainty.”

David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, issued a statement urging church members who may have information to come forward. He also called the timing of today’s release disingenuous, and criticized the Catholic church for its past handling of abuse allegations.

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

KENTUCKY
WHAS

August 15, 2015

LOUISVILLE, Ky (WHAS11) — Parishioners at St. Margaret Mary Parish that attend the Saturday and Sunday Masses this weekend will be notified of an ongoing situation involving Father Stephen A. Pohl while those that do not attend will be informed via a letter from Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz.

According to a just released press release from the Archdiocese of Louisville, an FBI Task Force investigation is underway about inappropriate photos of children that have been taken and collected by Father Pohl to determine if he has possessed or distributed child pornography. At this time, the Archdiocese has no other information about this investigation. When an allegation about possible child pornography is received, the following actions are taken in conformity with the Sexual Abuse Policies of the Archdiocese of Louisville:

The person who has been accused is placed on an administrative leave of absence.

The Archdiocese submits a report to civil authorities, if not already contacted, and fully cooperates with civil authorities as the investigation proceeds.

The Archdiocese conducts an internal investigation of the accusation.

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

PARAGUY
Vanguardia

[Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano dies; bishop in Paraguay ousted by Pope Francis was 69]

ASUNCION, PARAGUAY.- El obispo Rogelio Livieres, destituido de la diócesis paraguaya Ciudad del Este hace un año por el papa Francisco, falleció ayer viernes en un hospital de la capital argentina debido a problemas relacionados con la diabetes.

“Días atrás visitamos al hermano Rogelio en el hospital Austral, en las afueras de Buenos Aires, en donde le manifestamos nuestra satisfacción porque volvió a la comunión de la iglesia”, dijo monseñor Edmundo Valenzuela, arzobispo de Asunción, en entrevista con la radioemisora católica Cáritas.

Agregó que “felizmente nos despedimos en vida del hermano Rogelio; el sábado será sepultado en el cementerio La Recoleta, de Buenos Aires, según nos dijeron en el Opus Dei, prelatura a la que él pertenecía”.

Livieres, de 69 años, había nacido en la ciudad argentina de Corrientes pero de niño se trasladó con su familia a Asunción.

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PARAGUAY
Pagina 12 (Argentina)

[Protector of Pedophiles. Former Bishop Rogelio Livieres Plano of the Ciudad del Este diocese in Paraguay died yesterday in an Argentine hospital.]

El ex obispo de Ciudad del Este, el argentino Rogelio Livieres Plano, falleció ayer en el Hospital Universitario Austral, de Buenos Aires, como consecuencia de una afección hepática. Internado en el lugar hace tiempo, no pudo ser sometido al trasplante de hígado recomendado por los médicos para su cuadro por una afección cardíaca. Hasta el mes pasado, Livieres seguía recibiendo visitas del clero, como la del actual obispo de Ciudad del Este, Guillermo Steckling. En septiembre del año pasado, el religioso fue relevado del cargo por el papa Francisco por haber dado refugio y un cargo como vicario para la juventud en su diócesis al cura argentino lefebvrista Carlos Urrutigoity, que había sido acusado por pedofilia en Estados Unidos. El Vaticano también había considerado, al momento de apartarlo del obispado, que en la diócesis de Livieres se registraban manejos financieros poco claros.

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MIDDLE EAST
Christian Science Monitor

By Ariel Zirulnick, Correspondent AUGUST 14, 2015

A wrenching look by The New York Times into the Islamic State’s enslavement and rape of women from the Yazidi minority group has shed light on one of the most disturbing aspects of its rule in Syria and Iraq.

The practice, according to reporter Rukmini Callimachi, was formalized a year ago, when IS announced it was bringing institutionalized slavery back. Since then an entire “infrastructure” – warehouses, buses, viewing rooms – has emerged to facilitate the trade of women and girls.

A total of 5,270 Yazidis were abducted last year, and at least 3,144 are still being held, according to community leaders. To handle them, the Islamic State has developed a detailed bureaucracy of sex slavery, including sales contracts notarized by the ISIS-run Islamic courts. And the practice has become an established recruiting tool to lure men from deeply conservative Muslim societies, where casual sex is taboo and dating is forbidden.

Even if captives are released or manage to escape, the trauma doesn’t end, given the stigma that is associated with rape victims in conservative societies. So far, the Yazidi community has said all the right things. Baba Sheikh, a prominent religious leader, has at least twice reassured women they will be welcomed back to the community, according to a Human Rights Watch report in April.

Even if captives are released or manage to escape, the trauma doesn’t end, given the stigma that is associated with rape victims in conservative societies. So far, the Yazidi community has said all the right things. Baba Sheikh, a prominent religious leader, has at least twice reassured women they will be welcomed back to the community, according to a Human Rights Watch report in April.

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MIDDLE EAST
Wall Street Journal

By HALEH ESFANDIARI and KENDRA HEIDEMAN

Last August, Vian Dakhil pleaded with her colleagues in the Iraqi parliament, and for the outside world, to pay attention to the atrocities Islamic State was inflicting on Yazidi men and women. She told of Yazidi women and girls being kidnapped, separated from their families, taken from their homes, and enlisted into sexual slavery.

A year later, the world is well aware of ISIS’s brutality—yet the plight of Yazidi women has grown worse. Interviews with women who managed to escape ISIS slave camps and phone calls by women who were taken provide harrowing accounts of enslavement, abuse, and repeated rape; of human beings trafficked and sold to different partners. There are makeshift markets where men can choose their sex slaves. Zainab Bangura, the United Nations special representative on sexual violence in conflict, has reported that ISIS has sold abducted teenagers at slave markets “for as little as a pack of cigarettes.” Ms. Bangura cited an internal ISIS document that lists prices for female slaves—often the younger the girl, the higher the price.

ISIS has an elaborate, organized structure for its sexual slave trade, much like it developed an infrastructure for basic services in territories it has claimed. The New York Times reported this week that ISIS planned to establish a sex market before its attack on Iraqi Yazidis on Mount Sinjar last August. The report details how ISIS uses religion to justify rape and sexual slavery and to entice new recruits. A 12 year-old girl repeatedly raped by an ISIS fighter described her experience: The man would go down on his knees and pray before and after raping her, she said, viewing his violation of her as a means of “drawing closer to God.” ISIS considers the sexual use and abuse of Yazidi women as permitted under Islam because they are “infidels.” This distorted interpretation of Islam permits the rape of girls as young as 9.

Muslims and the international community need to do much more to end these barbaric practices. A number of Muslim theologians have challenged Islamic State’s misuse of passages in the Quran to rationalize its abuse of women, but many more need to speak out—and repeatedly. The world must hear much more from the teachers and thinkers at the great centers of Islamic learning such as al-Azhar in Egypt, Najaf in Iraq, and Qum in Iran. They can provide leadership and set a new tone.

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MIDDLE EAST
Irish Times

In the moments before he raped the 12-year-old girl, the Islamic State fighter took the time to explain that what he was about to do was not a sin. Because the pre-teen girl practised a religion other than Islam, the Koran not only gave him the right to rape her – it condoned and encouraged it, he insisted.

He bound her hands and gagged her. Then he knelt beside the bed and prostrated himself in prayer before getting on top of her. When it was over, he knelt to pray again, bookending the rape with acts of religious devotion. “I kept telling him it hurts – please stop,” said the girl, whose body is so small an adult could circle her waist with two hands.

“He told me that according to Islam he is allowed to rape an unbeliever. He said that by raping me, he is drawing closer to God,” she said in an interview alongside her family in a refugee camp in Qadiya, Iraq, to which she escaped after 11 months of captivity.

The systematic rape of women and girls from the Yazidi religious minority has become deeply enmeshed in the organisation and the radical theology of Islamic State in the year since the group announced it was reviving slavery as an institution. Interviews with 21 women and girls who recently escaped Islamic State, as well as an examination of the group’s official communications, illuminate how the practice has been enshrined in the group’s core tenets.

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IOWA
KCRG

By Associated Press August 14, 2015

INDIANOLA, Iowa (AP) — A 20-year-old counselor at a church youth camp in southern Iowa has been accused of sexually assaulting a colleague.

Warren County sheriff’s deputies have arrested Asa Bruss, of Cedar Falls, and were holding him Friday in the county jail. He faces four counts of sexual abuse. Online court records don’t list the name of an attorney who could be contacted to comment on Bruss’ behalf.

An 18-year-old counselor at Wesley Woods Camp and Retreat Center in Indianola told deputies that Bruss had sexually abused her at the camp last month.

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NEW MEXICO
Albuquerque Journal

By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: Saturday, August 15, 2015

A second round of court-ordered mediation talks this week in the Diocese of Gallup Chapter 11 bankruptcy case ended in deadlock, again over the issue of money, attorneys said in a hearing Friday in Albuquerque.

With the second anniversary of the bankruptcy case looming in September, an attorney warned that “the limited resources of the diocese will quickly be consumed” if the case isn’t resolved soon.

“If I could manufacture money, I could get this case resolved tomorrow,” Susan Boswell, a Tucson attorney representing the diocese, told U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge David Thuma.

The Diocese of Gallup became the ninth Roman Catholic diocese to file for bankruptcy in 2013 in response to a growing number of lawsuits by people alleging that as children they had been sexually abused by clergy. Legal and professional costs in the case have mounted to more than $2.6 million through June 30.

The purpose of the bankruptcy case will have failed “if we end up with no money for the abuse survivors,” Thuma warned attorneys.

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MICHIGAN
WZZM

[with video]

Phil Dawson, WZZM August 15, 2015

Retired Grand Rapids Roman Catholic priest Father Charles Antekeier may no longer call himself a priest. After investigating allegations of sexual abuse, the Vatican says Antekeier, is officially removed from the ministry.

The Grand Rapids Diocese says the accusation dates back to the mid 1980’s.

But at least one Grand Rapids parent says he believes his son was molested by Father Antekeier years earlier in the 1970’s when he was an altar boy at St. James Parish.

“He had been assigned to an early mass so there is nobody around, nobody in the sacristy,” says his father, who we are not naming to conceal the identity of his son. “He was raped several times.”

His father says the sexual assault changed the boy.

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MICHIGAN
WWMT

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) – A retired priest with the Grand Rapids Diocese was removed from the ministry over accusations of sexual abuse.

The Diocese issued a statement Friday saying it was approached by a victim regarding alleged incidents in the mid 1980’s with the Reverend Charles Antekeier at Saint James Parish in Grand Rapids.

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ROME
Money Morning

In 2013, Pope Francis publicly stated he’d get to the bottom of several scandals plaguing the Catholic Church.

Despite the pontiff’s investigation, one scandal remains shrouded in mystery: that of the Vatican Bank and Nazi gold.

You see, some bits of evidence suggest the Vatican collaborated with Nazi party members responsible for plundering Jewish citizens’ gold during World War II. But other evidence casts doubt on the extent of the Catholic Church’s direct participation in Nazi activities. The Holy See has long denied any sort of affiliation between the Church and the Third Reich ever existed. Still, limited independent research into a possible connection has been conducted by several agencies, including the U.S. Treasury.

“During and after World War II, was the Vatican bank a witting or unwitting accomplice of Nazi collaborators known as Ustashi who made their way from a seminary in Rome to safe havens in South America?” The National Catholic Review asked July 15. “Did the Vatican bank profit as a result of payments received from these Nazi collaborators who were known as the Ustashi? If we were to follow the Ustashi money, where would the trail lead?”

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

By Clifford Ward
Chicago Tribune

Officials will continue to monitor restitution payments made by priest who stole, gambled away church money.

DuPage County prosecutors will maintain some legal leverage for another six months to make sure a priest continues to repay the almost $300,000 he embezzled from his Roselle parish.

The Rev. John Regan appeared in court Friday on the four-year anniversary of his sentencing on charges that he stole money from St. Walter Church, where he was pastor, to fund a gambling addiction.

Regan has met the conditions of his 48-month probation sentence — Judge John Kinsella called him “compliant in the extreme” — but he still owes about $280,000 in restitution, which prompted prosecutors to file a petition to revoke probation.

The petition gives prosecutors continued jurisdiction over Regan and is intended to ensure he continues making restitution payments, Assistant State’s Attorney Louisa Nuckolls said.

The judge set a February status date but otherwise released Regan from probation. That means he will no longer have to report to the county’s court services department and will not be required to continue working at a $9.75-per-hour factory job, attorney Jim Ryan said.

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UNITED STATES
Daily Mail (UK)

Islamic State ruler ‘kept 26-year-old American aid worker as his personal sex slave’ before she was killed in February

By Ashley Collman For Dailymail.com and Associated Press

Before her death earlier this year, 26-year-old Kayla Mueller was a sex slave for the top leader of the Islamic State, the American aid worker’s parents have revealed.

In a Friday interview with ABC on what would have been Kayla’s 27th birthday, her parents said that they were informed by government officials that their daughter was repeatedly raped by the caliph of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

ISIS announced Kayla’s death on February 10, claiming that the aid worker from Prescott, Arizona had been killed in an coalition airstrike.

However, ISIS was aware that the U.S. was working to rescue Kayla and the true circumstances of her death are not known.

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MIDDLE EAST
The New York Times

Written by RUKMINI CALLIMACHI; Photographs by MAURICIO LIMAAUG. 13, 2015

QADIYA, Iraq — In the moments before he raped the 12-year-old girl, the Islamic State fighter took the time to explain that what he was about to do was not a sin. Because the preteen girl practiced a religion other than Islam, the Quran not only gave him the right to rape her — it condoned and encouraged it, he insisted.

He bound her hands and gagged her. Then he knelt beside the bed and prostrated himself in prayer before getting on top of her.

When it was over, he knelt to pray again, bookending the rape with acts of religious devotion.

“I kept telling him it hurts — please stop,” said the girl, whose body is so small an adult could circle her waist with two hands. “He told me that according to Islam he is allowed to rape an unbeliever. He said that by raping me, he is drawing closer to God,” she said in an interview alongside her family in a refugee camp here, to which she escaped after 11 months of captivity.

The systematic rape of women and girls from the Yazidi religious minority has become deeply enmeshed in the organization and the radical theology of the Islamic State in the year since the group announced it was reviving slavery as an institution. Interviews with 21 women and girls who recently escaped the Islamic State, as well as an examination of the group’s official communications, illuminate how the practice has been enshrined in the group’s core tenets.

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UNITED STATES
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Jay Bookman

I’ve been reading as deeply as I can on the origins and characteristics of ISIS, trying to come to grips with its emergence and how it might be eradicated. But the truth is that each time we have tried a largely military approach to an Islamic extremist group, we’ve succeeded in mestastizing the cancer and ensuring its re-emergence in an even more virulent form. A military component will be essential, but it will not be sufficient.

At the very least, the existence of ISIS reminds us again that true evil does exist in the world. The ideology of the group is at least as demented and cruel as that of National Socialism under Adolph Hitler, and if given the backing of a powerful state military would be as equally dangerous. Of course, the paradox is that if it relied upon the backing of a powerful state military, it would also be a lot easier to defeat. Instead it lives as almost a virus in the info-sphere, capable of quickly evolving into new forms to match whatever new conditions it encounters.

If you haven’t read this story in today’s New York Times about the systemic use of rape as a recruiting tool and even religious rite by ISIS, I urge you to do so, with the caveat that it is deeply unsettling:

“The systematic rape of women and girls from the Yazidi religious minority has become deeply enmeshed in the organization and the radical theology of the Islamic State in the year since the group announced it was reviving slavery as an institution. Interviews with 21 women and girls who recently escaped the Islamic State, as well as an examination of the group’s official communications, illuminate how the practice has been enshrined in the group’s core tenets.

The trade in Yazidi women and girls has created a persistent infrastructure, with a network of warehouses where the victims are held, viewing rooms where they are inspected and marketed, and a dedicated fleet of buses used to transport them.

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MIDDLE EAST
Inquisitr

ISIS has grown from a mere militant group to a body of believers waging a war against any non-ISIS group, creating caliphates in as many territories as possible. Their infamous videos are gruesome and violent and never ending. ISIS’ growth has been the demise of peace in the territories it controls. The littlest victims have been the most affected either indirectly through the death of their parents or directly through kidnapping, forced into fighting and sexual assaults, which are now on the rise as ISIS believes that rape of women and children “brings them closer to God.”

Based on a tapered analysis of the Quran, ISIS sees rape as a sacrament and an encouraged act of worship, according to the New York Times in a report recounting the rape of a 12-year-old girl by an ISIS soldier.

“He said that by raping me, he is drawing closer to God.”

The girl’s story went on to detail how the ISIS fighter opened and closed his “act of worship” with prayer. Another girl’s story chronicled how the ISIS soldier who repeatedly raped her defended his actions, telling her raping her was “his prayer to God.”

“He kept telling me this is ibadah (worship).”

ISIS is well organized in its enslavement of women for sex. Their methods include notarized contracts, policy guidelines, and updates in an online magazine that frames the dividing of sex slaves as “spoils.”

While ISIS has created a solid infrastructure, they have created no boundaries, subsequently allowing the rape of children. An internal pamphlet defines child rape as “permissible.” The pamphlet also cites it is permissible to “beat them and trade them in.”

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UNITED STATES
Slate

By Joshua Keating

An important and horrifying feature by Rukmini Callimachi published today in the New York Times details ISIS’s “theology of rape,” the group’s deliberate and systematic practice of sexually enslaving women and girls from the Yazidi religious minority as it has expanded its territory in Iraq and Syria.

Based on interviews with 21 survivors, the article details how rape “has become deeply enmeshed in the organization and the radical theology of the Islamic State” since the group overran Yazidi territory in 2014. ISIS has created “a network of warehouses where the victims are held, viewing rooms where they are inspected and marketed, and a dedicated fleet of buses used to transport them,” and issued a 34-page how-to manual with guidelines for rape. Its leaders have celebrated sexual assault as “spiritually beneficial, even virtuous.” A 12-year-old escapee, now living with her family in an Iraqi refugee camp, describes how an ISIS fighter would pray before and after raping her and explain that the Quran gave him the right to do so.

The deliberateness of ISIS’s system of sex slavery is unusually horrendous, but unfortunately ISIS is not the only armed group in the world today systematically using rape in warfare. It’s not even the only one in Syria: The rape of female prisoners is believed to be widespread in Bashar al-Assad’s prisons. Widespread, systemic rape has been a brutal part of modern conflicts in Africa, Europe, Latin America, and Asia and has been carried out by state and nonstate actors of every nationality and ideology.

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UNITED STATES
NBC News

by LEXI RUDOLPH and JON SCHUPPE

Kayla Mueller, the American aid worker who died while being held captive by ISIS, was repeatedly raped by the terror group’s leader in Syria, her family confirmed Friday.

U.S. officials told the family was told in June of the assaults by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a representative of Mueller’s family told NBC News.

The sexual assaults are the latest outrage by ISIS, which has published graphic videos showing the beheading of captives, among other atrocities. Mueller, a 26-year-old from Prescott, Arizona, was captured by the terror group in Syria in August 2013 and in February the U.S. confirmed she died in ISIS captivity.

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NEW MEXICO
Las Cruces Sun-News

By The Associated Press

POSTED: 08/14/2015

ALBUQUERQUE >> A judge is considering requests to let three civil cases move forward against the Diocese of Gallup, which has been in bankruptcy proceedings since 2013.

The Albuquerque Journal reports court records show the Diocese of Gallup has “virtually non-existent” assets and was either uninsured or underinsured when many of the 57 claims of clergy sex abuse were made.

Los Angeles attorney James Stang says allowing the three trials to go forward would set valuations for the abuse cases to ensure the claimants are offered reasonable payments.

But diocese attorneys are urging U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge David T. Thuma to stop the cases, saying that Stang is seeking the trials as a way of “gaining tactical advantage” should mediation talks resume.

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The New York Times

Kidnapping and Sex Slavery: Covering ISIS’ Religious Justification for Rape

By ERIKA ALLEN
AUG. 14, 2015

Rukimini Callimachi has told the stories of those held as prisoners of the Islamic State before. This week, her front page article detailed the kidnapping, enslaving and ISIS-sanctioned rape of women and girls from the Yazidi religious minority.

Ms. Callimachi talked to Times Insider about the reporting process that lead to devastating first-person accounts from girls as young as 12-years-old who were separated from their families and sold as sex slaves to ISIS fighters.

Q: How did you discover this situation of the Islamic State enslaving and raping the Yazidi women and girls?

A: Soon after August 3 of last year, when ISIS attacked Sinjar Mountain [in Iraq], we started seeing reports of Yazidi women saying they had been raped. At first, we didn’t know what to make of the reports. They seemed exaggerated, and it seemed hard to believe they had enslaved large numbers of women.

Then in October of last year, the turning point for me was when ISIS published a feature article in their flagship magazine, Dabiq, entitled the “The Revival of Slavery Before the Hour.” To my horror, they laid out the fact that they had enslaved these women and explained in granular detail the theological justification for taking the Yazidis on the grounds that they are infidels and nonbelievers. They were citing Quranic passages and Islamic scholars who believe the principle that they could be enslaved.

That was the minute I became interested in this. I was busy with a lot of other things and couldn’t really come until July of this year. That was the beginning of it.

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PARAGUAY
Star Tribune

By PEDRO SERVIN Associated Press AUGUST 14, 2015

ASUNCION, Paraguay — Rogelio Livieres Plano, a former bishop in Paraguay who was revered by some for building a successful seminary but who was ousted by Pope Francis amid several controversies, has died. He was 69.

Livieres Plano died on Friday in a hospital in Buenos Aires, Argentina, from complications related to diabetes, Asuncion Archbishop Edmundo Valenzuela told The Associated Press.

Valenzuela said a group of Paraguayan clergy recently visited Livieres Plano in Buenos Aires.

“Happily we were able to say goodbye to our brother Rogelio” before he died, said Valenzuela.

Livieres Plano was a member of the conservative Opus Dei movement and spent 10 years overseeing the diocese of Ciudad del Este, a sprawling city in eastern Paraguay that borders Brazil.

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MICHIGAN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Aug. 14

Statement by SNAP leader Bill McAlary (616-514-0654, bllmack1@gmail.com), who was abused as a child by Fr. Stanislaus A. Bur, who worked in parishes in Grand Rapids, Beal City, Hastings, Traverse City, Muskegon, Ionia, Maple City, Beal City, Kinde, Pinnebog and Beaver).

Grand Rapids Catholic officials apparently kept silent about child sex abuse reports against a priest. They apparently kept silent when while supposedly “investigating” those reports. They apparently kept silent when they deemed those reports credible. They apparently kept silent when they quietly sent the case to the Vatican. And only now, likely years later, are Grand Rapids Catholic officials finally disclosing that he’s a child molester, while providing virtually no helpful information that might protect other vulnerable kids Shame on them.

[Grand Rapids diocese]

Fr. Charles Antekeier is a priest. But now he can’t act like one in public. This is a belated, tiny step forward. Much remains to be done.

Despite a national church abuse policy that supposedly mandates “openness and transparency,” Bishop David J. Walkowiak refuses to

–say where Fr. Antekeier is now,
–say when the abuse report was made,
–say whether Fr. Antekeier is being supervised,
— say whether he molested boys or girls,
–say whether Fr. Antekeier admitted the crimes, or
–say whether they’ve given police and prosecutors.

This is reckless, callous and deceptive. Parents, parishioners, police, prosecutors and the public deserve more information so they can protect other innocent kids.

We beg every single person who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes and cover ups in Grand Rapids – by Fr. Antekeier or other clerics – to call police right away. All adults must protect kids, expose predators and stop cover ups, even if it may seek hard or risky.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

Activists urge Pope Francis to address sex abuse by clergy during U.S. visit

By Michelle Boorstein August 13

PHILADELPHIA — John Salveson didn’t give up his obsession with the Catholic Church easily. There were polite letters in the early 1980s, asking that the priest who molested him when he was a teenager be removed.

His bishop wrote back, but the priest remained, transferring parishes through the late ’80s, according to a grand jury report. “Sincerely yours in Christ,” the bishop closed his letters.

Later, Salveson led a group that advocated for church reform. But by the mid-2000s, he had grown discouraged and shifted his focus to pushing for stronger laws and enforcement.

Prompted by Pope Francis’s trip to Philadelphia this fall, Salveson has renewed his activism toward the church, calling for the pontiff and other participants in a global Catholic meeting on family issues to discuss child sex abuse by clergy members and wear black ribbons to represent “the darkness that infects the souls of survivors,” he said.

The official itinerary for Francis’s U.S. trip includes no mention of the topic, although some experts think the pontiff will address it in an impromptu way, as Pope Benedict did during his last trip to the United States, in 2008.

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FLORIDA
Click on Orlando

Author: Daniel Dahm, Managing Editor of ClickOrlando.com, ddahm@clickorlando.com

ST. CLOUD, Fla. –
A 22-year-old man described by police as a St. Cloud police as a church youth leader was arrested Thursday on allegations of molesting a boy at a sleep over.

Raymond Francisco Caraballo was arrested on charges of lewd and lascivious molestation and child abuse.

According to St. Cloud police, Caraballo hosted a church sleep over on July 30 at his house when the incident occurred.

Although police and the victim described Caraballo as a youth leader at City of Life Church in Kissimmee, the church said he was an usher, not a youth leader.

Police said Caraballo confessed to the allegations and was arrested. He’s being held on no bond.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on August 14, 2015

Here’s a hypothetical:

Your boss borrows your car and runs over your beloved dog Rover in the company’s parking garage. When your boss returns the car, you ask him about your dead dog and the blood stains all over the bumper. He denies all knowledge.

When confronted with video surveillance footage, your boss finally admits that he did run over your dog, but claims that “he thought he did the right thing for you and Rover.” He is not fired. In fact, he is backed up by the company and remains in his job for three more years, where he supervises your work and is your “go-between” to higher management.

You can’t quit because you are under contract. After those three years, your boss resigns. But he keeps his paycheck and gets to go on all of the company golf outings free of charge.

Soon after the resignation and well-publicized golf outings, your company invites you to come to a “healing meeting” where you are invited to heal from the pain of losing your dog. Your boss is invited, too.

The company will be collecting donations for the “coffee fund” at the meeting, so attendees are asked to bring their checkbooks. Your company also invites the press. When the press calls you about the meeting, you tell them that you aren’t going.

You are portrayed in the media as angry and ungrateful for not participating. Ridiculous? You bet it is.

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MICHIGAN
MLIVE

By John Tunison | jtunison@mlive.com

on August 14, 2015

GRAND RAPIDS, MI — A 79-year-old retired priest with the Grand Rapids Diocese has been removed from the ministry amid sex abuse allegations stemming from the mid-1980s.
antekeier.jpg

The Rev. Charles Antekeier no longer may present himself as a priest or wear the collar.

Father Charles Antekeier is named in a Friday, Aug. 14 statement from the Diocese.

In the statement, Bishop David J. Walkowiak expresses his “deepest apologies” to any children and their families who “have been abused by members of the clergy in the Diocese of Grand Rapids.”

Antekeier was ordained in 1962 and served at the following churches during the specified years:

1962: St. Charles, Cheboygan
1966: St. Patrick, Grand Haven
1966: St. Mary, Grand Rapids
1972: Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Belmont
1977: St. James, Grand Rapids
1987: St. Francis Xavier, Grand Rapids
2000: Senior priest status (Retired)

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MICHIGAN
Up North Live

A priest who served at St. Charles Church in Cheboygan in 1966 is being removed from the ministry by the Vatican after sex abuse allegations.

The Diocese of Grand Rapids was notified by the Vatican that father Charles Antekeier can no longer present himself as a priest.

The 79-year-old last served at a church in Grand Rapids and has been retired for 15 years

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on a front-page story in today’s Washington Post about the visit by Pope Francis to the U.S. next month:

Whenever there is a papal visit to the U.S., those with their own political agenda surface, aided and abetted by members of the mainstream media. Want proof? Read today’s piece by Michelle Boorstein (click here) in the Washington Post. It reads more like an op-ed than a news story.

Though there is no institution in the nation—secular or sectarian—that has a better record of combating the sexual abuse of minors than the Catholic Church, one would never know this by reading Boorstein’s article. She drums up one case from Long Island about a guy who says he was abused by a priest decades ago.

What is remarkable about Boorstein is her incurious attitude. She writes of this alleged victim that “the relationship [with the priest] continued until [the accuser] was 20 and broke things off with the priest.” (My italic.) I didn’t know that victims of sexual molestation had “relationships” with their victimizers. Similarly, never does Boorstein question why the alleged victim stayed in his relationship until he was 20-years-old!

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MICHIGAN
Roman Catholic Diocese of Grand Rapids

August 14, 2015

The Diocese of Grand Rapids has received notice from the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that Father Charles Antekeier, a retired priest of the Diocese of Grand Rapids, has been permanently removed from ministry in accord with the provisions of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People and the Essential Norms for Diocesan/Eparchial Policies Dealing with Allegations of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Priests or Deacons. Father Antekeier, age 79, is further obligated to lead a life of prayer and penance, and cannot publicly present himself as a priest.

The Diocese was approached by a victim regarding incidents that occurred in 1984-1985 while Father Antekeier was serving as pastor of Saint James Parish in Grand Rapids. The Diocesan Review Board examined the case and made its recommendations to Most Reverend David J. Walkowiak, bishop of the Diocese of Grand Rapids, who then forwarded it to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith where the decision was confirmed.

“I want to express my deepest apologies to any children, young people and their families who have been abused by members of the clergy in the Diocese of Grand Rapids,” said Bishop Walkowiak. “While there are no words that can heal such wounds, I humbly ask for forgiveness for the pain and injury you and your families have suffered.”

The Charter provides that “for even a single instance of sexual abuse of a minor – whenever it occurred – which is admitted or established… the offending priest is to be permanently removed from the ministry (Article 5).” In addition, dioceses are to be open and transparent in communicating with the public. The Diocese of Grand Rapids has also reported the information to the appropriate civil authorities.

The diocese encourages anyone who has been sexually abused as a minor by a priest, deacon or church employee, or who has knowledge of any such offense against a minor, to contact the appropriate civil authority or the Diocesan Victim Assistance Coordinator at 616-243-0491.

Father Charles Antekeier Biographical Information:
Ordained: 1962
1962: St. Charles, Cheboygan
1966: St. Patrick, Grand Haven
1966: St. Mary, Grand Rapids
1972: Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Belmont
1977: St. James, Grand Rapids
1987: St. Francis Xavier, Grand Rapids
2000: Senior priest status (Retired)

Contact:
Carl Apple, diocesan director of communications
Phone: 616-826-9808 | Email: capple@dioceseofgrandrapids.org

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MICHIGAN
WOOD

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) – A retired priest of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Grand Rapids has been permanently removed from the ministry following allegations of sexual abuse of a minor, according to a release posted Friday on the diocese’s website.

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith sent notice to the diocese that it has cut ties with Father Charles Antekeier, 79, who retired in 2000 and served in several different West Michigan churches.

He is no longer allowed to “publically present himself as a priest,” the release said.

The alleged victim notified the diocese about incidents that allegedly happened between 1984 and 1985 while Antekeier served at Saint James Parish in Grand Rapids, according to the diocese.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service – Rhymes with Religion

Boz Tchividjian | Aug 14, 2015

He’s come forward after learning that there actually is a voice for the victims in this matter.

– Attorney representing 19 victims who have alleged being sexually abused as children by a mentor who was part of a United Airlines sponsored afterschool program at an inner-city elementary school in Chicago.
_____________________________________________________________________________

The tragic reality is all too often victims of sexual abuse remain silent about the horrors they have endured. Many live their entire lives in silence. Studies have found that approximately sixty-three percent of adult sexual assaults and eighty-eight percent of child sexual abuse is never reported.

Why do so many victims remain silent? In over twenty years of confronting this evil, I have learned that there are many reasons that silence takes over the life of survivors. Like everyone else, abuse survivors are individuals with a unique life story and their own reasons for not telling anyone about the abuse. During the past twenty years, I have grieved as I have listened to some of the darkest chapters in the life stories of many amazing abuse survivors. Oftentimes, the gloomiest chapter is the silence.

A silence that holds victims hostage with little hope for release.
A silence that deceives victims day after day that they suffer alone.
A silence that extinguishes all remaining hopes and dreams.
A silence that is no different than a prison cell.

Though the reasons for silence may differ with each survivor, there are two that I have encountered time and time again when listening to survivors. I share them hoping that a greater understanding and empathy will propel us to do whatever we can to help survivors escape the cell of silence.

Disbelief. I cannot recount how often abuse survivors have shared with me that their silence was fueled by an incapacitating fear of not being believed. So often this fear is legitimized when survivors see how other victims are disbelieved and marginalized when they take the brave step forward out of their cell of silence. Case in point, how many women had to come forward before many people even began to acknowledge that Bill Cosby is a rapist? To date, almost 50 victims have stepped forward and there are still some that disbelieve their claims and have the audacity to label these courageous women as “opportunistic”. Please don’t think that the refusal to believe a sexual abuse victim is a rarity in 2015. Tragically, it happens every day to so many brave victims, old and young, who take a step out of their cell of silence. Oftentimes, these survivors are disbelieved by the very people they had hoped would believe and support them such as family members, friends, pastors, church members, teachers, and even police officers. The list goes on and on. Disbelief pushes many survivors back into their cells of silence. Disbelief also alerts other watching victims who are considering ending their silence that it may be safer to suffer in silence. What a tragedy.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

THE Jehovah’s Witnesses will only compensate survivors of sex abuse if God tells them to, a royal commission has been told.

SENIOR church figure Geoffrey Jackson told the sex abuse royal commission that any changes the Jehovah’s Witnesses made to their rules and doctrine had to be informed by God.

Mr Jackson said God’s word is accessed through the Bible and the church’s first-century interpretation of it.

Chief Commissioner Peter McClellan asked him on Friday if the church would be willing to take part in a joint scheme with other institutions to provide financial redress to abuse survivors.

Mr Jackson told him the church would need to see that “nothing was scripturally against us doing that”, but it was something that was not totally out of the “option pool”.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

Those who highlight child sex abuse in the Jehovah’s Witness church may be non-believers telling lies, a church senior says.

In one of many interesting exchanges at a royal commission into child sex abuse on Friday, a member of the group’s governing body was asked if he disagreed with those who say efforts to highlight and deal with abuse within the church are engaged in “apostate lies”.

Geoffrey Jackson, a member of the church’s powerful seven-member governing body in New York, said the question is a broad one because sometimes people making those accusations make many others as well.

“But let me assure you, the person making the accusation is not the main thing,” Mr Jackson said.

“The main thing is, is there some basis to the accusation.”

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AUSTRALIA
Washington Post

Jehovah’s Witnesses face child sex abuse investigation in Australia

By A. Odysseus Patrick August 14

Sydney — The abuse was meticulously catalogued. From 1950 to 2014, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society amassed some 5,000 files detailing sexual abuse of Australian children by 1,006 of its members, who believe only they — the Jehovah’s Witnesses — proclaim the truth about God.

Young girls were assaulted by neighbors. Teenagers were raped by their fathers. Victims were forced to pray with their abusers.

When the children reached out for help, the church’s obsession with secrecy and hostility to outsiders kicked in. Victims, ordered to keep quiet, were forced to confront their abusers in person. All complaints — which averaged one a month for six and half decades — were carefully recorded in sealed files, along with the church’s by-the-Bible responses.

One hundred and twenty-seven church officials were demoted. No one was reported to the authorities. Child abuse was recorded and hidden away.

Now, sordid details from the closed world of Jehovah’s Witnesses are being exposed that could severely tarnish the image of a powerful organization that has 8.2 million members around the world and has mostly avoided scrutiny.

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MICHIGAN
Detroit Free Press

[Kuppe Complaint – via Click on Detroit]

By Katrease Stafford, Detroit Free Press August 13, 2015

A 21-year-old former employee of the Jewish Community Center in West Bloomfield was charged today in federal court on several child pornography charges, after he allegedly abused multiple children at a day camp.

Matthew David Kuppe, of West Bloomfield was charged with production, distribution, receipt and possession of child pornography and is in federal custody until a detention hearing on Tuesday, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Kuppe was arrested after the Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Investigations uncovered dozens of nude photographs of young boys, presumably at the camp. West Bloomfield Police assisted, according to Deputy Chief Curt Lawson.

Lawson declined to say how many victims there are but said some have already been identified. Lawson said the Jewish Community Center has been “fully cooperative in this investigation.” According to the center’s website, children between the ages of 2 1/2 and 15 attend the camps.

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MICHIGAN
Patch

By JOE VINCE (Patch Staff)

A West Bloomfield man faces child pornography charges after he was accused of taking nude photos of boys attending the day camp he used to work at, according to a Detroit Free Press report.

Matthew David Kupee, 21, was charged Thursday in federal court with production, distribution, receipt and possession of child pornography, the report stated. He will remain in federal custody until his detention hearing Tuesday, the report added.

Investigators from the Department of Homeland Security, along with West Bloomfield police, arrested Kuppe on Wednesday when they discovered a collection of photos of naked boys in his possession, the report stated. Earlier this month, Homeland Security’s Detroit bureau was tipped off that Kuppe’s photos had been posted on a foreign image-sharing website, the report added.

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MICHIGAN
The Detroit News

Robert Snell, The Detroit News August 13, 2015

A counselor at a Jewish day camp was charged in federal court Thursday with producing child pornography after investigators said he filmed prepubescent boys in a locker room.

Jewish Community Center counselor Matthew David Kuppe, 21, of West Bloomfield faces up to 20 years in federal prison if convicted of three child pornography charges, including production and possession.

Kuppe’s arrest left federal agents, prosecutors and West Bloomfield police trying to determine if there are more possible victims.

Kuppe, who worked at the West Bloomfield camp for at least two years, including a stint supervising special-needs campers, made an emotional appearance Thursday in federal court. He was arraigned in front of his parents, who minutes earlier read a copy of a graphic, seven-page criminal complaint listing the allegations against their son.

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MICHIGAN
JTA

(JTA) — A counselor at a JCC day camp in suburban Detroit was charged with producing child pornography after allegedly filming prepubescent boys in the JCC locker room and sharing the photos online.

Matthew David Kuppe, 21, of West Bloomfield, Michigan, was arraigned in federal court Thursday and charged with production, distribution, receipt and possession of child pornography, the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press reported.

If convicted, the rising senior at Michigan State University faces up to 20 years in federal prison. He is being held without bond pending a hearing Tuesday in federal court. Prosecutors are trying to determine if there are additional victims.

“This defendant had access to a large number of children, and we would like to conduct interviews and look at evidence,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara Woodward said Thursday, according to the Detroit News.

Kuppe, who used the handle “jcclockerroom” to post several photos of the naked boys on a foreign website, worked at the JCC of Metropolitan Detroit’s day camp for two years and at one point supervised its special-needs campers. Under questioning, he allegedly admitted to posting nude photos of the boys on the website and using the jcclockerroom email account, which contained several emails with child pornography.

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MINNESOTA
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Allan P. Speiser was ordained for the St. Cloud diocese in 1948. He assisted in many parishes, pastored a few, and had two separate year-long stints assisting at a parish outside of the diocese, in St. Paul. He also taught for many years at St. Cloud’s Cathedral High School. Speiser retired in 1992 and died October 5, 2001. Speiser’s name was included among 33 released by the St. Cloud diocese January 3, 2014 of clergy involved in incidents of likely claims of sexual abuse of minors.

Born: February 18, 1923
Ordained: June 6, 1948
Retired: 1992
Died: October 5, 2001

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MARYLAND
The Catholic Review

August 13, 2015

By Erik Zygmont
ezygmont@CatholicReview.org

TOWSON – Two graduates of Calvert Hall College High School held a press conference Aug. 13 at the Baltimore County Courts Building to release documents pertaining to an allegation of abuse against Monsignor Joseph A. Davies, a priest of the Archdiocese of Baltimore who died in 1992.

Frank Dingle of the Calvert Hall class of 1959, and Fran Bacon, of the class of 1952, say they want Monsignor Davies’ name removed from a scholarship offered by the Towson all-boys high school.

Materials distributed by Dingle include a two photocopied photographs of Monsignor Davies, in which he is labeled “chaplain.” The photos, according to the documents, were taken from the 1958 and 1959 Calvert Hall yearbooks.

Dingle, who is affiliated with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, and Bacon, who said he was present in support of SNAP, said they also want the archdiocese to release names of deceased priests who have been accused of abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Sex abuse Royal Commission: Church elder reveals seven men control Jehovah’s Witness teachings

AUSTRALIA has been given a rare insight into the workings of the Jehovah’s Witness Church, which believes only 144,000 people will get to heaven and they are top of the list.

A member of the secretive church’s New York-based governing body Geoffrey Jackson is giving evidence at a child sex abuse royal commission hearing in Sydney.

On Friday Mr Jackson, quoting the Bible, including from the gospel of Matthew, Deuteronomy, and the Book Of Revelations, explained that the church believes the world is now in its “last days” and seven reputable men were anointed by the Holy Spirit to be the equivalent of Jesus’s disciples.

Mr Jackson is on the seven-member body which interprets scriptures for their congregations around the world.

The commission has raised concerns that the church’s scriptural interpretations applied as doctrine mean its handling of child sex abuse allegations traumatises abuse victims and is not safe or effective.

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AUSTRALIA
The Chronicle

Tara Miko | 14th Aug 2015

ONE of the seven global leaders of the Jehovah’s Witness church gave evidence at a royal commission into child abuse.

Geoffrey Jackson is one of the most senior members of the church.

Mr Jackson was believed to have been staying in Toowoomba for the past week, and flew to Sydney yesterday afternoon.

He was the last witness to testify in a series of hearings into how the organisation handled cases of sexual abuse within the church.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Senior Jehovah’s Witness Geoffrey Jackson says church might offer compensation to alleged abuse victims

August 14, 2015

Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter

One of the most senior members of the Jehovah’s Witness Church worldwide said compensation could be made to people allegedly sexually abused within its ranks if there was a Biblical basis for a redress scheme.

Geoffrey Jackson is one of seven men on the church’s New York-based Governing Body, which oversees decisions regarding the organisation’s 8.2 million members internationally.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse issued a summons for Mr Jackson, who was in Queensland visiting his sick father.

Appearing via video link from Toowoomba on Friday, Mr Jackson told the royal commission that the church would join a co-ordinated redress schemes for victims of institutional sexual abuse, provided “that nothing was scripturally against us doing that”.

In evidence, Mr Jackson said an apology to alleged sex abuse victims was “perceivable”.

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