ABUSE TRACKER

MEXICO
Mega Noticias

[con video]

[Bishop Jonás Guerrero Corona, Culiacan bishop, has denied covering-up for pedophile priests. He rejected remarks made abut him and said the Vatican did not investigate.]

Julio 7, 2015

Escrito por Megacanal Culiacan

Tras haberse publicado en un medio nacional acusaciones contra el obispo de Culiacán Jonás Guerrero Corona, sobre encubrimiento de pederastia, en conferencia de prensa rechazó los señalamientos que se le atribuyen, y sostuvo que el vaticano no lo investiga en ese sentido.

Aseguró que como obispo auxiliar en la ciudad de México, actuó en el 2007 contra el sacerdote Carlos López Valdés, acusado de abuso sexual a un menor.

JONÁS GUERRERO CORONA/OBISPO DE LA DIÓCESIS DE CULIACÁN

“Yo a nadie, y ahí están mis 14 años de obispo, y me sujeto a cualquier indagatoria. Eso ni existe, ni existe el tribunal, existe el dicasterio de obispos donde se lleva el currículum del obispo donde hay un asunto que diga oiga en su diócesis está pasando esto que está pasando… pero ese tribunal todavía no existe al que hace referencia esta noticia calumniosa…”

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MEXICO
Proceso

[MEXICO CITY .- The Archdiocese of Mexico plans to civily sue former priest Alberto Athie Gallo, because he said Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, head of the Archdiocese, covered up for pedophile priests in an interview published in the currently circulating edition of the journal Proces. The archdiocese is also considering civily suing Proceso. Announcement of these legal measures was made by Armando Martinez, Cardinal Rivera’s lawyer.]

LA REDACCIÓN
30 DE JUNIO DE 2015
NACIONAL

MÉXICO, D.F. (apro).- La Arquidiócesis Primada de México demandará civilmente al exsacerdote Alberto Athié Gallo, debido a que denostó al cardenal Norberto Rivera Carrera, titular de la Arquidiócesis, al señalar que encubrió a sacerdotes pederastas, en una entrevista publicada en la edición que circula actualmente de la revista Proceso.

Además, la Arquidiócesis estudia la posibilidad de también demandar civilmente a Proceso, ya que en esa entrevista que le hizo a Athié Gallo el semanario se alejó de la “nota periodística” para pasar al “ataque y la difamación”.

El anuncio de estas medidas legales fue hecho por Armando Martínez, abogado del cardenal Rivera, en una entrevista concedida el pasado lunes al noticiero radiofónico matutino de MVS, conducido por Alejandro Cacho.

Al preguntársele si demandará a Athié, el abogado Martínez respondió:

“Sí, por supuesto. Y también estaremos evaluando la situación de la revista Proceso, porque una cuestión es la nota periodística y otra cuestión es el ataque y la difamación”.

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MEXICO
Proceso

[MEXICO CITY (Process) .- Given the imminent opening of a Vatican tribunal to judge the bishops covering up pedophile priests in the Church, in an unprecedented move in Mexico there is already a list and records of Mexican Catholic leaders triable for the offense and that most likely will be reported in the new instance.

Led by Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, archbishop primate of Mexico, the list also includes Jesus Carlos Cabrero Romero, archbishop of San Luis Potosi; Jose Luis Chavez Botello, Archbishop of Oaxaca; Jonah Guerrero, bishop of Culiacan; Marcelino Hernandez, bishop of Colima; and Raul Vera, bishop of Saltillo, among others.

One of the most militant fighters against priestly pedophilia in Mexico, Alberto Athie Gallo, told Proceso that now that Pope Francis has gone from recognizing that there are pedophile priests, he now moves against bishops who protect these priests.]

RODRIGO VERA
27 DE JUNIO DE 2015
REPORTAJE ESPECIAL

En lo que constituye un hecho inusitado, este mes el Papa Francisco ordenó la creación de un tribunal especial en el Vaticano para juzgar a quienes hayan protegido a curas pederastas. En México, uno de los hombres que más ha luchado contra el flagelo de los abusos sexuales perpetrados por sacerdotes es Alberto Athié. En entrevista, dice ya tener la lista de los jerarcas católicos del país que caen en ese supuesto: la encabeza el arzobispo primado Norberto Rivera Carrera, defensor de Marcial Maciel.

MÉXICO, D.F. (Proceso).- Ante la inminente apertura en El Vaticano de un tribunal para juzgar a los obispos encubridores de sacerdotes pederastas –hecho inédito en la Iglesia–, en México ya se tienen la lista y los expedientes de los jerarcas católicos mexicanos enjuiciables por ese delito y que muy probablemente serán denunciados en la nueva instancia.

Encabezada por el cardenal Norberto Rivera Carrera, arzobispo primado de México, dicha lista también incluye a Jesús Carlos Cabrero Romero, arzobispo de San Luis Potosí; José Luis Chávez Botello, arzobispo de Oaxaca; Jonás Guerrero, obispo de Culiacán; Marcelino Hernández, obispo de Colima; y Raúl Vera, obispo de Saltillo, entre otros.

Uno de los más combativos luchadores contra la pederastia sacerdotal en México, Alberto Athié Gallo, comenta a Proceso: “Ahora el Papa Francisco le subió de nivel al reconocer que no solamente existen sacerdotes pederastas, sino también obispos que los protegen. Reconoce la necesidad de procesar a estos obispos encubridores a través de un tribunal exclusivo para ellos. Es algo novedoso, nunca antes visto”.

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MEXICO
W Radio

[The former priest Alberto Athie noted that there is a list of some Mexican bishops who should be prosecuted for covering up pedophile priests Interviewed in the weekly Proceso, Athie said Cardinal Norberto Rivera has been harboring Mexican pedophile priests. The archbishop said he may sue the magazine.]

Por Cynthia Basulto

México.- El ex sacerdote Alberto Athié Gallo es demandado por La Arquidiócesis Primada de México porque en una entrevista para el semanario Proceso denostó al máximo líder en México de la organización religiosa, es decir, al cardenal Norberto Rivera. En la publicación, el ex sacerdote señaló a Rivera por encubrir a los sacerdotes pederastas mexicanos.

El abogado de la iglesia católica en México, Armando Martínez rechazó que Norberto Rivera haya encubierto a sacerdotes. Dijo que las declaraciones de Alberto Athié no tienen pruebas y reprobó que tan sólo se busque denostar simplemente porque está de moda.

La Arquidiócesis Primada de México ha declarado que también buscarán demandar a la revista Proceso pues de acuerdo con la Iglesia Católica la revista se aleja de la “nota periodística” para pasar al “ataque y la difamación”.

Según la Arquidiócesis los señalamientos de Athié son parte de “una campaña nueva que se está iniciando contra los obispos de México”.

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MICHIGAN
C and G News

By Thomas Franz
July 14, 2015

MACOMB COUNTY — The case of a former employee at a local catholic high school is heading to Macomb County Circuit Court.

Joseph Sturza, a former director of admissions at Austin Catholic High School in Ray Township and a former youth minister at St. Isidore Catholic Church in Macomb Township, is charged with four felony counts: child sexual abuse activity, accosting a child for immoral purposes, and two counts of using a computer to communicate with a minor in order to commit a crime.

On July 8, Sturza and his defense conditionally waived his right to a preliminary exam at district court 42-A District Court in Romeo.

“We appear to have a resolution of this matter that will be entered in at circuit court, but in the event that plea is not entered, then we would ask that this court agree to conditionally waive this matter,” prosecuting attorney William Harding said.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Madeleine Baran Jul 14, 2015

The first hearing in the criminal case against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has been pushed back several weeks.

The hearing, originally set for this Friday, is now scheduled for Aug. 25.

In an interview last week, Archbishop Bernard Hebda, the temporary administrator of the Twin Cities archdiocese, said he wasn’t “exactly sure” how the archdiocese would plead. “Of course, we want to plead the truth,” he said, “and then also to be able to figure out what’s correct, and I need a little bit more time to do that.”

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi charged the archdiocese last month with six gross misdemeanor counts for allegedly failing to protect children from Curtis Wehmeyer, a former priest now in prison for sexually abusing children and possessing child pornography.

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MICHIGAN
Midland Daily News

DETROIT (AP) — A Catholic priest who was a teacher years ago at a Detroit high school has been sentenced to 12 years in prison in a child pornography case.

The government calls the Rev. Richard Kurtz a “wolf in shepherd’s clothing.” His collection of child porn was discovered in 2011 when priests were packing his belongings in Oakland County and Chicago.

The 70-year-old Kurtz got his sentence Tuesday in Detroit federal court.

In 2001, he was dismissed from University of Detroit Jesuit High School when a student accused him of sexual assault on a trip to Colorado. The family didn’t pursue charges at the time, but Kurtz was convicted 10 years later and placed on probation.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Ruben V. Abaya is a Filipino priest who worked in the US from 1977 to 1982, in New Jersey. He was accused in a 1984 lawsuit with six other priests of sexual abuse of a girl 1980-1982 in the Los Angeles CA archdiocese. Abaya visited the other priests at St. Philomena parish in Carson CA in April 1980, and allegedly assaulted the girl then. The girl became pregnant by one of the priests (not Abaya). The priests fled the US and returned to the Philippines after the 1984 lawsuit was filed; the suit was then dropped. In 1991 Santiago Tamayo, the priest who first raped the girl, held a news conference to apologize to the victim for his own crimes and for involving the other priests in her abuse. In 2007, the LA archdiocese paid $500,000 to settle the victim’s case. A Rev. Ruben V. Abaya, JCD is listed online in a 2012-2013 Catholic directory as Defender of the Bond of the Laoag diocese and as chaplain for Monasterio de Santa Clara, a convent in Laoag City, province of Illocos Norte

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

Editorial

With the issue of sexual assault becoming more visible on campuses, colleges are trying a variety of approaches to addressing the problem. One recent study of Canadian universities found that teaching female freshmen risk assessment and self-defense techniques reduced their risk of being assaulted. Other experts have argued that such programs need to reach all young people, including boys, much earlier than college.

A recent editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine pointed out that 40 percent of women who report being raped say they were first assaulted before the age of 18, which suggests that assault prevention education should start well before high school. In fact, several programs introduced in middle schools have proved effective.

In a group of Illinois middle schools, teaching communication and emotion management to students reduced both sexual harassment and homophobic name-calling. And a study of 30 New York City middle schools found that a combination of anti-violence posters, student-led mapping of especially dangerous areas of the school building (with corresponding increased security in those areas) and safety planning for victims led to significant reductions in inappropriate touching at school.

Researchers are also studying whether teaching students about sexual health reduces the risk of assault. Some educators believe that it does and that students should learn not just about preventing pregnancy and diseases but also about how to decide when they want to have sex and how to respect other people’s decisions.

Parents may object to their children learning about sexuality in middle school and even before, but it’s possible to address this issue with children in age-appropriate ways. In the Netherlands, for example, children in kindergarten learn about things like how to express affection, as part of a broader educational program that in later grades includes information about contraception and consent. Dutch teenagers do not have sex any earlier, on average, than teenagers in the United States. And the birthrate of teenagers in the Netherlands is about one-fifth the United States rate, according to the World Bank.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on July 14, 2015

There has been no shortage of news this summer when it comes to the US clergy sex abuse crisis. Although the Vatican is attempting to clean up the mess as much as possible before Pope Francis’ September visit (including accepting the resignations of the St. Paul and Minneapolis archbishop and bishop, as well as finally ousting the convicted Kansas City-St. Joseph bishop), very little has changed when it comes to zero tolerance.

You can read about some of the recent scandals—where credibly accused priests remain in ministry—here, here, and here.

We still need to remain vigilant. And as more victims in other organizations such as the Boy Scouts and religious groups besides the Catholic Church come forward and demand justice, it’s vital that we remember that our top priorities must always be child safety and victim healing.

In light of this, let’s go back to basics: the Code Words.

If you or your child are a part of an organization with an allegation of child sexual abuse, demand transparency … or leave the group. And if you’re wondering if your institution is transparent, keep an eye out for these cover-up Code Words. Not every code word means that there is sexual abuse, but every one of these code words can be a sign of real trouble and cover-up.

* Boundary violation
* Inappropriate touching
* Victim alleged additional details, discredited
* Long hugs
* Kissing
* Secrets
* Confidential investigation
* Accused is a minor
* Tickling, horseplay, rough-housing
* Questionable photos
* Monitored employee
* Not allowed to work with children
* Immature (when describing an employee)
* Consensual relationship with a teen/child
* Well-developed child
* Troubled/emotionally disturbed child or family
* History of alcohol/drug abuse (in victim or alleged perpetrator)
* Mature teen
* Lap-sitting
* Co-sleeping
* Overnight, unsupervised trips
* Affair with a teen/child
* Inappropriate (and not described) conduct
* Internal investigation (that is not made public)
* Employee sent to undisclosed treatment
* “Times were different”
* After numerous interviews, child retracted the story
* Complete review of personnel file (that is not made public)
* Misunderstood affection

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Brial

TUESDAY, JULY 14, 2015

By Ralph Cipriano
for Bigtrial.net

The civil case of Billy Doe, the truth-challenged former altar boy who’s seeking to cash in on an improbable tale of serial sex abuse, was originally scheduled for trial against the Archdiocese of Philadelphia on Aug. 3rd.

The Pope is scheduled to be in Philadelphia a month later, from Sept. 25-27, for the World Meeting of Families.

What were the chances of the Pope and Billy, however briefly, sharing a media spotlight?

Apparently zero. On July 10, on the court docket there’s a new trial date posted for the civil case of Billy Doe v. the Archdiocese of Philadelphia et al of Nov. 9th.

Meanwhile, when Pope Francis visits the city, he’s scheduled to visit Philadelphia’s Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility. But one of the inmates the Pope won’t be meeting with is Msgr. William J. Lynn, the first Catholic administrator in the country to be sent to jail for failing to supervise predator priests.

According to Lynn’s lawyer, Thomas A. Bergstrom, Lynn was moved last week from Curran-Fromhold to SCI Waymart, a state prison located two and a half hours north of the city.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A former church official jailed for his handling of priest sexual-abuse complaints no longer resides at a Philadelphia jail on the pope’s U.S. itinerary.

Monsignor William Lynn is serving a minimum three-year sentence for endangering children in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

The 64-year-old Lynn has recently been housed at the city’s Curran-Fromhold Correctional Center while appealing his 2012 conviction.

But defense lawyer Thomas Bergstrom says he is now back at a state prison near Scranton.

Appeals courts have been split on whether Lynn should have been convicted under the child-endangerment law and he has been in and out of prison.

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ARKANSAS
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

By Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
This article was published July 10, 2015

A former Mount St. Mary Academy athletic director who was convicted of not immediately reporting a sexual relationship between a teacher and a student had her teaching license suspended for a year Thursday.

Kathy Griffin, 58, will have her teaching license suspended from July 1, 2015, to June 30, 2016, according to an agreement that her attorney, Clayton Blackstock, made with the state Department of Education. She could receive her license at the end of that period.

The Arkansas Board of Education unanimously agreed to accept the agreement Thursday.

Griffin would have faced a revocation of her teaching license, but Blackstock said he had looked back at similar cases to see what type of punishment was imposed. She had voluntarily surrendered her license after her misdemeanor conviction and hasn’t been teaching for three years, he added.

A jury convicted Griffin in 2013 of failing to immediately report a sexual relationship between former math teacher and coach Kelly O’Rourke, now 44, and a student, who was 16 at the time the relationship began. O’Rourke was later convicted of first-degree sexual assault.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

Ex-priest, 67, who used to dress up as Santa says he couldn’t have sexually abused two young boys because he is too fat

By EMMA GLANFIELD FOR MAILONLINE

A former priest who used to dress up as Santa has claimed in court that he couldn’t have abused two young boys because he is too fat to be sexually active.

Christopher Howarth, from Uckfield, East Sussex, who is also a former deputy school principal, is accused of 19 counts of abusing two underage boys between 2005 and 2011.

However, the 67-year-old, who dressed as Father Christmas to visit families in his parish, denies the offences – telling jurors he has not been sexually active since the mid-1990s because of his weight.

Howarth, who was a lay priest at St Michael’s in Little Horsted, East Sussex, Holy Cross in Uckfield and St Margaret’s in Ifield, West Sussex, said he was in ‘total, utter shock’ when he was arrested by police a fortnight after being suspended as a priest in December 2012.

He said he believes the allegations were motivated by financial gain.

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CANADA
CBC News

The Archdiocese of St. Boniface issued an apology Tuesday after a former priest that served at the Holy Family Parish on Winnipeg’s Archibald Street pleaded guilty to sexual assault in court Monday.

Rev. Ronald Léger, 77, pleaded guilty to three sex assault charges and one charge of sexual interference when he appeared in court. The offences occurred between 1984 and 2004.

The sexual interference charge is because one of the victims was under 16 years of age.

“The Archdiocese of St. Boniface continues to express its deep sorrow to the victims who have come forward, as well as to their families and the entire parish community of Holy Family who have been affected by the acts of their former pastor,” the organization’s statement read.

The statement also praised the courage of the victims who had come forward, as well as those you had yet to reveal their experiences.

The archdiocese said the organization has been working closely with police since February 2014.

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, NM, July 3, 2015

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

ALBUQUERQUE — The Diocese of Gallup’s request to auction unwanted real property in Arizona and New Mexico was approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David T. Thuma June 26.

The purpose of the property auction is to help the Gallup Diocese fund its plan of reorganization, including payment of administrative expenses.

With Thuma’s approval, the Gallup Diocese will now hire Tucson Realty & Trust and Accelerated Marketing Group, a California firm, to conduct the auction and an accompanying media blitz designed to promote the auction. Statements submitted by both companies assert the firms have “extensive experience marketing difficult, rural properties” in the Southwest.

If the auction is scheduled as diocesan attorneys first proposed, it should be held within 90 days of Thuma’s order, or before the end of September.

The Diocese of Gallup listed 38 properties, made up of 116 land parcels, on its initial auction list. In its motion, the diocese said it might add or delete properties from the list as the marketing and sale process proceeds.

The initial auction list included 18 parcels in Apache and Navajo counties in Arizona, and 98 parcels located in nine New Mexico counties, including 64 parcels outside of San Rafael, in La Vega Estates. Six parcels are located in Gallup.

According to Thuma’s order, Tucson Realty & Trust and Accelerated Marketing Group will be paid “the sum of $45,000 or such lesser cost as may be the actual expense” of marketing the properties. The companies will also retain a 10 percent buyer’s premium from the auction for each property sold.

St. Bonaventure dispute

No one filed an objection to the proposed auction, although the attorney for St. Bonaventure Indian Mission and School was apparently considering such a move. Thuma twice issued orders extending the deadline for the Thoreau mission to file an objection, but no objection was ever filed.

Instead, Thuma’s order approving the auction included reference to St. Bonaventure and its property dispute with the Diocese of Gallup. Thuma noted the disputed Thoreau property is not currently listed on the auction list, but added the diocese had reserved the right to add more property for auction.

“The Debtors dispute that St. Bonaventure has any interest in the Disputed Property,” Thuma’s order stated. “The Debtors and St. Bonaventure wish to reserve all their rights and arguments with respect to the interests they assert in the Disputed Property.”

In his order, Thuma prohibits the Gallup Diocese from adding any of the disputed property to the auction list absent further order of the court, but he said the diocese may seek to do so after providing at least seven days’ notice to St. Bonaventure.

In addition, Thuma’s order included an attached exhibit that featured a list of the disputed property in Thoreau that included St. Bonaventure’s use of the property. This was an apparent nod to St. Bonaventure’s recent complaints.

When the Diocese of Gallup filed for bankruptcy, Bishop James S. Wall and his bankruptcy attorneys listed more than a dozen properties in Thoreau as being real property owned by the diocese. However, they neglected to note that most of the Thoreau property had been used by St. Bonaventure for decades.

In a recent media interview, St. Bonaventure executive director Chris Halter cried foul and complained that Wall and his attorneys had noted the use of other property by church entities such as Catholic Charities but excluded any mention of St. Bonaventure.

Now with Thuma’s order, the disputed Thoreau property’s use is finally listed as St. Bonaventure Indian School, a school parking lot, teacher housing, mobile home parks, thrift store, transportation barn/garage, volunteer/low income housing and vacant lots.

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, NM, July 10, 2015

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

GALLUP — Tucson businessman George H. “Hank” Amos III is optimistic his company will be able to replicate for the Diocese of Gallup what it was able to do for the Diocese of Tucson a decade ago.

And for Amos that means auctioning off every piece of excess real property and getting good prices with each sale.

Amos, the CEO and president of Tucson Realty & Trust Co., has been authorized by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, along with Todd Good, the CEO and president of Accelerated Marketing Group, to conduct the marketing and auction of excess real property owned by the Gallup Diocese.

The auction is part of the diocese’s effort to raise money to help fund its Chapter 11 plan of reorganization.

Amos said Monday that he and Good were successful in selling all of the Diocese of Tucson’s excess property, including a number of land parcels that Amos described as out in the “middle of nowhere.”

“We sold every single one,” he said, adding, “They sold their properties for more than what they appraised for.”

Amos credited those unexpected sales and high prices to supporters of the diocese who purchased the properties. “A lot of people wanted to help the church out,” Amos said, adding that he assumes the same thing will happen with the Diocese of Gallup sales.

“It’s definitely the best way to dispose of these properties,” Amos said, explaining if the diocese tried to sell the land through traditional real estate methods, it would take years to sell all the properties.

According to Amos, there are currently 19 land parcels in Arizona on the auction list and 101 parcels in New Mexico. The Arizona parcels are slated to be auctioned in Phoenix on Sept. 12, he said, and the New Mexico parcels are scheduled to be auctioned in Albuquerque on Sept. 19.

Amos said he and Good plan to market the properties locally, regionally and nationally. They also plan to physically visit each property prior to the auctions, he said, as part of their marketing research.

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, NM, July 11, 2015

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

ALBUQUERQUE — A month after the Diocese of Gallup entered court ordered mediation, the diocese’s bankruptcy case seems to have derailed.

Any hopes that the Gallup Diocese might be closer to a resolution of its Chapter 11 case were dashed this week with a flurry of motions filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court by attorneys for the diocese and attorneys representing clergy sex abuse claimants.

On Monday, attorneys for the diocese filed notice of an expedited status hearing slated for July 17 and requested the bankruptcy court order the parties back into mediation with a new mediator. Two days later, attorneys representing clergy sex abuse claimants filed several motions asking the court to lift the bankruptcy case’s automatic stay that prohibits civil lawsuits against the diocese from moving forward. And in a surprising development related to those motions, an Arizona attorney revealed he recently filed a 14th clergy abuse lawsuit against the Diocese of Gallup in spite of the case’s automatic stay.

Failed mediation

U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge David T. Thuma now has the challenge of getting the case back on track and moving forward during Friday’s upcoming hearing.

Exactly what went wrong during last month’s mediation is unclear. Retired U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Randall J. Newsome conducted the failed mediation June 10-11. Newsome also presided over the failed mediation in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee bankruptcy case, a case that has dragged on for more than four years.

“The Debtors believe that a change in mediator will facilitate the mediation process,” lead diocesan bankruptcy attorney Susan G. Boswell stated in her motion to the court Monday. Boswell declined to further elaborate in response to media questions.

“Mediation matters are confidential by law,” she said in an email Friday. “We will not be commenting on the mediation.”

However, in her motion, Boswell requested Thuma approve attorney Frank “Dirk” Murchison as the new mediator. According to Murchison’s website, he has been an attorney for more than 40 years and has offices in Texas and New Mexico. Since 2001, Murchison’s practice has been limited to arbitration and mediation of catastrophic personal injury litigation and complex commercial, estate, trust, employment and sexual abuse cases. His website states he has successfully mediated over 60 clergy sexual abuse cases.

New abuse lawsuit

When contacted Friday, Phoenix attorney Robert E. Pastor, who represents 17 sex abuse claimants in the bankruptcy case, also agreed he was “not permitted to speak about the mediation or settlement discussions.” However, in court documents filed this week, Pastor blamed the Diocese of Gallup and its insurance companies.

“I believe that the mediation failed because the Debtor and its insurance carriers, despite sworn depositions of individual Survivors, did not conduct a fair, independent, and reasonable claims evaluation,” Pastor stated.

Pastor did, however, email a copy of an amended civil lawsuit he filed in Arizona’s Coconino County Superior Court on June 24. The plaintiff in the case, identified as Jane L.S. Doe, alleges she was sexually abused by the late Brother Mark Schornack “when she was a young girl at the Catholic church and school located in St. Michael’s Arizona” on the Navajo Nation. The lawsuit does not specify a time period when the abuse allegedly occurred.

Schornack, a Franciscan friar who was assigned to Native American missions in the Southwest, died in 2012. He was named as a perpetrator in another lawsuit filed by Pastor previously.

The Diocese of Gallup was initially named as a defendant in this latest civil complaint, along with Franciscan provinces in New Mexico and Ohio, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, St. Michael’s Mission and School and Schornack.

But should the Gallup Diocese have been named as a defendant while it is in bankruptcy? When the diocese filed its Chapter 11 petition in November 2013, that filing triggered an “automatic stay” that halted all litigation against the diocese from moving forward.

Pastor has since dropped the Gallup Diocese as a defendant. In a notice of voluntary dismissal without prejudice, filed with Coconino County Superior Court Tuesday, Pastor reserved the right to amend the complaint in the future and add the diocese back in as a defendant if the U.S. Bankruptcy Court lifts the automatic stay.

Lifting the stay

On Wednesday, Pastor and his co-counsel John Manly filed motions for relief from the automatic stay so three of their clergy sex abuse lawsuits could move forward in Arizona. The three cases include the recently filed lawsuit against Schornack, as well as earlier lawsuits alleging abuse by the late Rev. Clement Hageman and the Rev. Raul Sanchez, a former chancellor for the Gallup Diocese who is reportedly now living in Mexico.

Diocesan attorney Boswell declined to comment on the Schornack lawsuit or the motions to lift the automatic stay because they are matters pending before the court.

However, attorney James Stang, the legal counsel for the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors that represents the interests of sex abuse claimants, has weighed in with his committee’s support for lifting the automatic stay. In a detailed 35-page memorandum also filed Wednesday, Stang laid out his legal arguments and cited dozens of court cases and bankruptcy law.

“Civil trials will provide valuations of abuse cases that will educate and inform all of the parties,” Stang argued. “Trials may also force the debtor and its insurance carriers to make a reasonable evaluation of the claims. Ultimately, trials will lead to a speedier conclusion of this bankruptcy process and the sooner payment of entitled creditors.”

Stang described the Diocese of Gallup’s bankruptcy case as being “at a near dead-stop,” and he cited the Diocese of Wilmington’s Chapter 11 case as an example of how allowing such civil trials can prove to be “a constructive way to break logjams” in church bankruptcies.

In an email Friday, Pastor said lifting the automatic stay was important to his clients who are survivors of clergy sex abuse.

“Over the course of the last five years, Bishop James Wall has had every opportunity to make good on his promise to help heal the wounds caused by clergy sexual abuse,” Pastor said. “Throughout that time the diocese has refused to disclosed (sic) the files of credibly accused priests, refused to publish a complete list of priests who hurt children, and refuses to acknowledge the severity of the harm these Gallup priests caused. The diocese has used our civil justice system and the bankruptcy court to delay and deny survivors of abuse the justice they deserve. We believe a civil jury made up of citizens of this community has the power to resolve these disputes in a fair and just manner.”

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, NM, July 7, 2015

Property listed in documents has low value

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

GALLUP — With the U.S. Bankruptcy Court’s approval of the Diocese of Gallup’s plan to auction some of its real property, the question arises: Just how much money might the diocese get from the sale of its six properties it is willing to sell in Gallup?

That’s anybody’s guess at this point, but if the “actual values” of the six properties — as listed by the McKinley County Assessor’s Office — offer any clues, it won’t be a large amount. In fact, those assessor’s actual values for the properties only added up to about $183,000, or about the price of one middle class home in Gallup.

The diocese is auctioning off real property in Arizona and New Mexico to help fund its plan of reorganization. Although it owns more property in and around Gallup, the diocese is currently only listing six of those properties for sale. In addition, the diocese is selling about 19 parcels of real property in Arizona and about 95 other parcels in various New Mexico counties.

Of the six Gallup parcels, three are on Gallup’s south side and three are on the city’s north side. One is zoned for commercial use, but the remaining five, although they are located in residential districts, are poorly suited for residential use. Four are on rocky hillsides, and three are landlocked, with no road access. The following is a closer look at each property.

■ Parcel No. 2-106-088-088-110 (McKinley County Assessor’s Account No. R050261): This downtown parking lot is located on the northwest corner of Aztec Avenue and Fourth Street. It is directly across the street from the Lowe’s Downtown Plaza, another Diocese of Gallup property that is not included on the auction list. The former site of a gas station, the parking lot is currently being leased by the city of Gallup for city vehicles. It is located in a heavy commercial district zone of C-3A. The assessor’s office lists the property as having an actual value of $119,280, but the lot’s real market value is unknown.

■ Parcel No. 2-105-087-522-352 (McKinley County Assessor’s Account No. R050547): This small vacant lot sits directly east of the Sacred Heart School gym and is located on the southeast corner of Park Avenue and Fourth Street. The parcel’s actual boundary lines do not follow the boundaries of the gravel lot. The parcel is zoned as RS-2, or a single family residential district, although there are no nearby homes. Currently, the lot is sometimes used for overflow parking for sporting events. The assessor’s office lists the actual value of the parcel as $16,090.

■ Parcel No. 2-105-088-052-047 (McKinley County Assessor’s Account No. R005169): This is a landlocked parcel of land on a steep hill. The parcel is directly west of a house sitting on the corner of Burke Drive and Idaho Circle, and the parcel runs down the hillside from Burke. Another hillside parcel just to the north is currently listed for sale by another owner. The zoning is RM-4 for a multiple family residential district. The assessor’s office lists the property as having an actual value of $2,840.

■ Parcel No. 2-105-088-519-402 (McKinley County Assessor’s Account No. R179523): This is another landlocked parcel of land on a steep hill. Located north of East Wilson Avenue, the parcel is the rocky hillside behind the Missionary of Charities property, beginning at 201 E. Wilson, and ending behind the Casa Reina Prayer Chapel at 217 E. Wilson. It is zoned as RS-OD, or a single family residential overlay district. The assessor’s office lists the parcel as having an actual value of $10,590.

■ Parcel No. 2-105-088-428-444 (McKinley County Assessor’s Account No. R051012): This is a large rocky hillside and canyon parcel located north of Pershing Avenue and south of Wilson Avenue. It has a steep roadway access by way of Pershing and Grandview Drive. It also has an RS-OD zoning as a single family residential overlay district. Much of the hilltop is strewn with broken glass. The assessor’s office lists the parcel as having an actual value of $30,940.

■ Parcel No. 2-105-088-476-479 (McKinley County Assessor’s Account No. R205842): This is another landlocked rocky hillside on Gallup’s north side. The parcel, which features a steep cliff, is located southeast of Gallup’s Sky City Park. It also has an RS-OD zoning as a single family residential overlay district. The assessor’s office lists the parcel as having an actual value of $3,570.

McKinley County Assessor Kathleen Arviso did not return a call requesting information about how the county determines actual values of property compared to market values.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

AAP
July 14, 2015

An elderly former Anglican priest and scout leader has been charged over child sex allegations dating back 60 years.

Police say the 83-year-old Wembley Downs man sexually assaulted three boys – two aged 10 and the other 16 – in separate incidents between 1954 and 1979 while he served as an Anglican priest in Ravensthorpe and as a scout leader at Wembley.

He has been charged with two counts of indecent treatment of a child under 14 and one of committing indecent practices between males in a private place.

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IRELAND
Irish Central

Dara Kelly @irishcentral July 14,2015

A letter from the nuns at Sean Ross Abbey in County Tipperary to adoptive parents, published this week, throws a harsh light on the prevailing attitudes of the clergy to unwed Irish mothers and their offspring, who were often forcibly adopted for cash, records show.

Mary Lawlor was offered for adoption by the nuns at Sean Ross Abbey in the early 1960s. This week she published letters to her adoptive parents from the nuns that underline their disapproving attitudes to the children of unwed and poor mothers.

In the letter the nuns warn Lawlor’s adoptive parents not to choose a child of the “wrong class,” and they advise them that “the better class girl has to leave here quickly so as not to be detected in her sorrow,” implying that her child will be much younger and easier to parent.

In the letter dated July 26, 1961, the sister in charge of the Roscrea institution writes to Lawlor’s adoptive parents:

“We had a wonderful reference from your priest and we think you should take a baby over six months, for one reason the baby will be brought up just as you would bring your own child up and a child of two years has been too long in an institution to fall easily into your ways.”

The letter continues: “Another thing is the better class girl has to leave here quickly so as not to be detected in her sorrow, so the better class child will be younger… We have a very nice little girl Mary Margaret who is of good background and very intelligent,” the nun wrote.

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MICHIGAN
Click on Detroit

DETROIT –
Prosecutors are seeking a 14-year prison sentence in a child pornography case involving a priest who was a teacher years ago at a Detroit high school.

The government calls the Rev. Richard Kurtz a “wolf in shepherd’s clothing.” His collection of child porn was discovered in 2011 when priests were packing his belongings in Oakland County and Chicago.

The 70-year-old Kurtz is returning to federal court for his sentence Tuesday.

In 2001, he was dismissed from University of Detroit Jesuit High School when a student accused him of sexual assault on a trip to Colorado. The family didn’t pursue charges at the time, but Kurtz was convicted 10 years later and placed on probation.

He was living in Missouri last year when he was arrested in the child porn case.

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MICHIGAN
CBS Detroit

DETROIT (WWJ/AP) – Prosecutors are seeking a 14-year prison sentence in a child pornography case involving a priest who secretly recorded hockey players while teaching years ago at a Detroit high school.

The government calls the Rev. Richard Kurtz a “wolf in shepherd’s clothing.” The 70-year-old is returning to federal court for his sentence Tuesday.

Kurtz’s collection of child porn was discovered in 2011 when priests were packing his belongings in Oakland County and Chicago.

The government says Kurtz went into the hockey locker room and secretly recorded video of players as they changed clothes in the late 1990s. Beyond that, the FBI also discovered that Kurtz transferred additional child pornographic material from his residence in Clarkston, Mich. to another home in Chicago.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Sexueller Missbrauch durch Angehörige der katholischen Kirche im Bistum Trier

[Diocese of Mainz: controversial e-mail]

Mit freundlicher Genehmigung darf ich in diesem Zusammenhang auch folgende Fragen, die mich per email erreichten, veröffentlichen:

“Warum wurde im Fall der Mainzer Kita so schnell mit fristloser Kündigung reagiert, statt die ErzieherInnen -wie es fair gewesen wäre- erst einmal bis zur Klärung des Sachverhaltes freizustellen? Durch die Kündigungen wird den Mitarbeiterinnen die Möglichkeit genommen, sich öffentlich zu den Vorwürfen zu erklären.

Wenn die MitarbeiterInnen in summa derart pädagogisch unfähig waren, wie vom Bistum Mainz dargestellt, stellt sich die Frage, wie diese jemals vom Träger eingestellt worden konnten bzw. ob die von diesem angebotenen Schulungen entsprechend hohen Qualitätsstandard haben (dies wird von Insidern bezweifelt): “Alles mit über 14- jährigen ist ok” (Zitat Generalvikar Giebelmann)

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ISRAEL
Arutz Sheva

By Tova Dvorin
First Publish: 7/13/2015

One of the complainants alleging she was sexually abused by a well-known – but yet-unnamed – rabbi in Tzfat (Safed) has written to Arutz Sheva on Monday, before the rabbi is due in court, in an open letter to the defendant.

“I read the things you said to reporters, that you do not know us and want to look us in the eyes,” she began. “The truth this time is that you’re right for a change.”

“You really do not know us, you know just know our bodies; you never saw us,” she wrote. “You did not see our souls.”

“We have husbands, children, families,” she continued. “You trampled on our dignity.”

“Thank God we were released from you, you are in prison and probably will stay there for many years to come.”

“Thanks to your arrest, we can lift our heads high,” she added. “We know you are evil and we’re fine, that you are bent and we are straight, that you are unclean and despicable and we are your victims of that.”

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ARKANSAS
5 News

JULY 13, 2015, BY CURT LANNING

POPE COUNTY (KFSM) – An Arkansas youth minister was arrested for the second time in 2015 and accused of sexually assaulting a college student, telling her “God wants this,” authorities say.

Jonathan Neeley, of Nashville, Ark. (formerly of Russellville) surrendered himself to authorities on Friday (July 10) after learning of the warrant for his arrest, according to the River Valley Leader.

Court documents state that between July 1, 2012, and June 30, 2013, Neeley sexually assaulted an intern working directly for him at a student center near the Arkansas Tech University campus.

The victim told authorities that during the time they worked together, Neeley began to ask her about her “past experiences with boys” and making comments about how beautiful she was, according to court documents.

She said their relationship became physical, and it happened nearly every time they were together, court documents state.

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IOWA
KCRG

By Katie Wiedemann, KCRG-TV9 July 14, 2015

DUBUQUE — The Catholic Archdiocese said it has cleared one of its former priests of sex abuse allegations from the mid-1980s.

Earlier this year, Jeff Buchheit accused Reverend Leo Riley of abusing him while he was an altar boy in 1985. That year, Riley was serving as a Church of the Resurrection associate pastor.

Buchheit made the claims after the statute of limitations had expired, meaning no criminal case was possible. However, any time a priest or former priest in the Archdiocese of Dubuque is accused of sexual abuse, its Clergy Abuse Review Board investigates. The board draws its members from a wide range of disciplines.

“The head of the review board right now is a judge,” said Archbishop Michael Jackels. “We have former police investigators and people involved in the mental health area.” Jackels added no Archdiocese employees are allowed on the review board.

But the President of Iowa Survivor’s Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) takes issue with one aspect of the board’s composition: the lack of abuse survivors.

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MAINE
Portland Press Herald

BY SCOTT DOLAN STAFF WRITER
sdolan@pressherald.com | @scottddolan | 207-791-6304

Michael Geilenfeld, the American founder of an orphanage for boys in Haiti, testified Monday that he had never heard of Freeport resident Paul Kendrick before Kendrick’s first email arrived on Jan. 31, 2011, accusing him of sexually abusing children in his care.

“I never sexually abused children anywhere,” Geilenfeld said. “I did not know what he was relying on. … This is the first time I had heard from him.”

Geilenfeld said that after that first email, he would awake nearly every day at St. Joseph’s Home for Boys in Port-au-Prince to find new “blitzes” of emails from Kendrick to more than 500 recipients claiming that Geilenfeld was a pedophile.

Geilenfeld filed a federal lawsuit against Kendrick in 2013, accusing him of defamation.

Geilenfeld’s testimony came as the defamation trial entered its second week in U.S. District Court in Portland. He testified all day Monday and is expected to return to the witness stand Tuesday.

The trial was supposed to begin in October but was delayed after Geilenfeld was imprisoned in Haiti while police investigated Kendrick’s claims. Criminal charges against Geilenfeld were dropped in April, but only after he spent 237 days locked up. Haitian officials have since told the Associated Press that attorneys for alleged abuse victims have petitioned to have the case re-examined.

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NEW MEXICO
Albuquerque Journal

By Associated Press
PUBLISHED: Monday, July 13, 2015

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Gallup wants a new mediator in its bankruptcy case after negotiations fell apart last week.

The Gallup Independent reports (http://bit.ly/1jl8YBA) the diocese filed for bankruptcy in November 2013 as lawsuits mounted over claims of clergy sex abuse.

Lawyers for the diocese filed a motion in bankruptcy court following last week’s mediation, calling for a new mediator, while attorneys representing the claimants have filed a motion to remove bankruptcy protections preventing civil lawsuits against the diocese from proceeding.

Phoenix attorney Robert E. Pastor represents 17 of the case’s sex abuse claimants, and filed an amended lawsuit in Coconino County Superior Court that adds a plaintiff.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Helen Pidd
Monday 13 July 2015

Alexis Jay officially retired two years ago – not that you’d notice. In 2013 she stepped down from her role as Scotland’s chief social work adviser, shortly after being awarded an OBE. But rather than tending to her garden she ended up digging up horrific claims of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham. That job done, the scalps of many officials taken, she moved on to sort out Northern Ireland’s safeguarding children boards.

But last week the 66-year-old began her biggest task yet, when she joined the panel of what has been described as Britain’s most complicated and wide-reaching statutory inquiry ever. The independent inquiry into child sex abuse (IICSA) is expected to take five years investigating claims of abuse in faith and religious organisations, the criminal justice system, local authorities and national institutions such as the BBC, NHS and Ministry of Defence.

Jay was one of the first names confirmed as part of the panel. So mammoth is the task that last week the government committed £17.9m to cover the next year of the inquiry alone. “I think it’s very complex and I don’t under-estimate the scope of the inquiry. It’s huge. Very wide ranging,” she says, when I meet her in Glasgow.She is under no illusions about how tough the new gig is – not least because the inquiry had such a rocky start, losing the support of victims very early on, along with its first two chairs, who were found to be too close to the establishment figures they would be investigating. But Jay, who is a visiting professor at the University of Strathclyde’s Centre For Excellence For Looked After Children, insists she is determined. “I am passionately committed to it taking place and to the victims and survivors, and to get justice and truth out of the process,” she says.

Almost a year on from the televised press conference at Rotherham football club that made her name, Jay still can’t believe the rumpus her report caused. Taking her place in front of a cluster of microphones last August with a leopard-print iPad, she read out a statement to the assembled press corps revealing that, by her conservative estimate, 1,400 children had been sexually exploited in Rotherham over a 16-year period.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic News Service

By Nancy Frazier O’Brien Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Because the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” is a “living document” open to differing interpretations, those in charge of implementing the charter at the diocesan level face a variety of challenges, according to the head of the bishops’ national office.

“We’re dealing with a charter that is loose in the way it is written … in order to respect the bishop’s right to govern his own diocese,” said Deacon Bernie Nojadera, executive director of the Secretariat for Child and Youth Protection at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington.

“We’re 12 years into the (sex abuse) crisis and we’ve done quite a bit to get to where we are,” he added, referring to the first audit after the 2002 adoption of the charter by the bishops in Dallas. “But there are always things to learn.”

Deacon Nojadera said U.S. Catholics at every level need to guard against “a tendency for complacency” toward the sex abuse crisis.

“We have established procedures and policies, and we think that we have that in place,” he told Catholic News Service. “There might not be that ongoing mindfulness and certain small things might start to slide. They are not really paid attention to the way they should.”

In a separate interview, Francesco Cesareo, chairman of the National Review Board, echoed Deacon Nojadera’s concerns. The board is the all-lay group that monitors dioceses’ performance in dealing with sexually abusive priests and creating a safe environment for children throughout the church.

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CANADA
Winnipeg Sun

BY DEAN PRITCHARD, WINNIPEG SUN
FIRST POSTED: MONDAY, JULY 13, 2015

A former Winnipeg priest who founded a drop-in centre for youth pleaded guilty Monday to sexually assaulting three boys.

Ronald Leger, 77, will return to court for sentencing early next year. Crown and defence lawyers have agreed to jointly recommend a sentence but did not disclose it to court.

“My client is presently in a therapeutic setting, more than anything to deal with some of these issues and prepare him for what will … ultimately be a significant incarceratory period,” defence lawyer Saul Simmonds told court.

Leger ran Ron’s Drop-in on Sterling Avenue between 1980 and 1995. Leger admitted to sexually assaulting two boys he met through the centre, the first in 1984 and 1985, the second in the late 1980s, and a third boy in 2004 and 2005.

Court heard the offences involved brief fondling of the boy’s genitals. The first victim was 12 or 13 years old and visiting the drop-in centre when Leger came up behind him and squeezed his genitals, Crown attorney Debbie Buors told court. The boy asked Leger what he was doing and immediately left the drop-in centre.

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FLORIDA
NBC 2

By Sophie Nielsen-Kolding, Collier County reporter

EAST NAPLES, FL –
A priest accused of sexually abusing a child 30 years ago has been cleared and could return to his East Naples church.

The Diocese of Venice tells NBC-2 that an investigation done by another district found the allegation against Father Leo Riley couldn’t be substantiated.

Last year, a man came forward with accusations Riley sexually abused him in the 1980s, when Riley worked in Iowa.

Following the allegation, Riley was placed on administrative leave from St. Peter Parishioners Church in East Naples.

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CANADA
Winnipeg Free Press

By: Mike McIntyre

An elderly, defrocked Catholic priest is facing a lengthy prison sentence after admitting to years of sexual abuse against three young Winnipeg boys he took under his care.

Father Ronald Léger, 77, the former pastor of Holy Family Parish on Archibald Street, pleaded guilty Monday to sexual assault and sexual interference. It was a surprise move. Léger had been arrested months earlier and was expected to make a routine court appearance.

Sentencing isn’t expected to be held until early 2016 to allow Léger, who is out on bail, to finish an treatment program.

“He’s presently in a therapeutic setting,” defence lawyer Saul Simmonds said.

But that freedom has an expiry date, as Crown and defence lawyers said Léger will be receiving a “significant incarceratory period” under a joint recommendation they expect to make.

Léger was arrested earlier this year after the victims went to police after years of silence. Two of the victims were attacked in the 1980s, while the third occurred between 2002 and 2004. They were between the ages of nine and 18 at the time of the abuse.

Crown attorney Debbie Buors read a brief statement of facts in court Monday, saying Léger was like a mentor to the three victims. He repeatedly fondled them at various locations, including his own home and even a school changing room following a basketball game one of the boys had just played in.

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UNITED KINGDOM
London Evening Standard

MARTIN BENTHAM

Published: 13 July 2015

The judge leading the Government’s inquiry into historical child sex abuse will receive a pay package worth up to £500,000 a year.

New Zealander Justice Lowell Goddard, who has vowed to name politicians and other high-profile figures involved in paedophile activity, will be paid an annual salary of £360,000.

That means she is due to be paid £1.8 million by the end of the five-year inquiry. The total could rise if the inquiry overruns.

Justice Goddard will also be given a living allowance of £110,000 a year, £12,000 a year to cover utility bills, and other entitlements including four return flights a year to New Zealand for her and her husband.

A further two economy-class return flights a year will be provided by taxpayers for other family members.

Her package also includes the use of a chauffeur-driven car for official business. The size of the judge’s pay deal will prompt renewed concern about the scale and cost of the inquiry.

It is budgeted to cost taxpayers £17.9 million in its first year alone and is certain to cost tens of millions of pounds before it is completed.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Alan Travis Home affairs editor
Monday 13 July 2015

The New Zealand high court judge chairing a UK inquiry into child abuse is to receive a pay package worth £500,000 a year, it has been disclosed.

Justice Lowell Goddard, who officially opened the inquiry last week, is to receive a salary of £360,000 a year with a rental allowance of £110,000 a year and a £12,000 utility allowance on top.

The terms of her appointment also provide for four return flights a year to New Zealand for Goddard and her husband, plus two economy return flights a year for her family. The Home Office will provide her with a car and driver to be used for official travel only.

Goddard’s appointment is for the duration of the inquiry, which is expected to last until at least 2020, but she is on an initial fixed-term contract until December 2018 with provision to extend it for a further period to be agreed with the Home Office.

Keith Vaz, chair of the Commons home affairs committee, who has praised Goddard’s “outstanding credentials” for chairing the child abuse inquiry, nevertheless complained in March that his committee had been “duped” into approving her appointment without being told any details of her salary package.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

By David Barrett, Home Affairs Correspondent
13 Jul 2015

Justice Lowell Goddard, the senior New Zealand judge appointed to head the Government’s child sex abuse inquiry, will be paid £360,000 a year with a further £122,000 in allowances, it has been disclosed.

The Home Office will also pay for four business class return flights for her and her husband a year between New Zealand and Britain, plus two return economy flights a year for unspecified “immediate family” members.

The unexpected size of Justice Goddard’s remuneration package means she is expected to received about £2.5 million in pay and allowances over the course of the inquiry, which she said last week is due to run until late 2020.

Justice Goddard’s salary alone is two and a half times that of David Cameron, the Prime Minister, who earns £142,500.

It is also substantially more than the highest-paid judge in England and Wales, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, the Lord Chief Justice, who receives £244,665.

She is understood to have earned about £180,000-a-year in her previous job in New Zealand.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

The judge leading the inquiry into historical child sex abuse in England and Wales is to receive a pay packet worth more than £480,000 a year.

Justice Lowell Goddard is to receive a salary of £360,000, an annual rental allowance of £110,000 and £12,000 a year to cover utilities.

The Home Office will also cover the cost of four return flights from the UK to the judge’s native New Zealand.

The inquiry is examining how public bodies handled abuse claims.

At its opening on 9 July, Justice Goddard said there were suggestions one child in every 20 in the UK had been sexually abused.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Belfast Telegraph

The judge leading the independent inquiry into historic child sex abuse will earn a salary of £360,000 a year.

Justice Lowell Goddard will also receive an annual rental allowance of £110,000 and £12,000 a year to cover utilities.

In addition the Home Office will cover the cost of four return flights from the UK to the judge’s native New Zealand per year for her and her husband and a further two return flights from New Zealand to the UK for other immediate family members.

Details of the pay packet have been disclosed today after Justice Goddard formally opened the long-awaited probe last week.

The terms, published on the inquiry’s website, state that her appointment will be for the duration of the inquiry.

It has been fixed for an initial period from April this year until December 2018 and can be extended by mutual agreement.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By JENNY AWFORD FOR MAILONLINE

The senior New Zealand judge flown in to lead the historic child sex abuse inquiry is to receive a pay package worth £500,000 a year plus 10 return flights to her native country, it has been revealed.

Justice Lowell Goddard, who officially opened the inquiry last week, will be paid a salary of £360,000 a year with a rental allowance of £110,000 a year and a £12,000 utility allowance on top.

The Home Office will also fund four business class return flights for the High Court judge and her husband to return to New Zealand plus a further two return flights for family members.

Justice Goddard is expected to receive around £2.5million in pay and allowances over the course of the inquiry, which she said last week is due to run until late 2020.

This means she would be the highest paid public servant in Britain in terms of her basic salary which is also two and a half times that of Prime Minister David Cameron.

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NEW JERSEY
Frum Follies

Rabbi Matisyahu Solomon is accused in court papers of counseling an eleven-year-old girl to deliberately be hostile to her mother as a way of manipulating a custody dispute between her parents.

Solomon is the mashgiach (spiritual advisor) at the large Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood, NJ since 1998. Before that he was masgiach in Gateshead, England, which is where he grew up.

Papers filed in Queens County Family Court accuse Rabbi Matisyahu Solomon of “assisting” a father in “wrongful attempts to alienate the daughter… from the mother.”

The mother submitted a motion to have the court issue “an Order of Protection directing Matisyahu Solomon… from having any contact with” the daughter.” There is a hearing on the motion on Thursday, July 16, 2015. Matisyahu Solomon has been subpoenaed to appear at that hearing.

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UNITED STATES
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor July 13, 2015

When the First Vatican Council formally declared the dogma of papal infallibility in 1870, it was very carefully circumscribed. According to the council’s formula, a papal edict is regarded as incapable of error only if:

* It pertains to faith and morals
* It does not contradict scripture or divine revelation
* It’s intended to be held by the whole Church

As Benedict XVI put it in July 2005: “The pope is not an oracle; he is infallible [only] in very rare situations.” Benedict reinforced the point when he published his book “Jesus of Nazareth,” actually inviting people to disagree with him.

At the popular level, however, those limits often haven’t registered. Many people assume Catholics are supposed to accept everything a pope says as Gospel truth — or, at least, that it’s a major embarrassment if a pope is caught in a mistake.

In that context, it’s especially striking that Pope Francis appears determined to set the record straight by embracing what one might dub his own “dogma of fallibility.” The pontiff seems utterly unabashed about admitting mistakes, confessing ignorance, and acknowledging that he may have left himself open to misinterpretation.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Tablet

13 July 2015 by Liz Dodd

The Church of England voted this weekend to introduce a raft of new measures aimed at strengthening safeguarding procedures.

Under the new measures approved by General Synod on Saturday archbishops and bishops – who can already suspend clergy against whom allegations have been made – can now do so based on information received from local authorities and police.

In addition, a one-year limitation period for complaints of sexual misconduct made against clergy has been removed.

Bishops are also now obliged to appoint a Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser.

People named on statutory barred lists under the Safeguarding and Vulnerable Groups Act can now be disqualified from serving as church wardens or members of the parochial church council; they can also be suspended in the same way as clergy.

For the first time clergy are obliged to follow the House of Bishops’ guidelines. Up to now it has only been recommended. It has taken the Church of England two years to implement the package, which was introduced at Synod in February 2014 following a consultation launched in July 2013.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

By Tom Heyden
BBC News Magazine

Bill Cosby faces a string of allegations of sexual assault but cannot be prosecuted in the US because of the statute of limitations. In the UK there is no time limit in sexual abuse and other serious cases. What explains this difference?

The statute of limitations is effectively an expiry date for allegations of crimes. And that expiry date varies from state to state in the US.

In recent years in the UK, there have been a number of high-profile prosecutions of historical sexual abuse cases. Entertainer Rolf Harris was jailed last year for offences that took place between 1968 and 1986. Broadcaster Stuart Hall was jailed in 2013 for offences between 1967 and 1985. TV weather presenter Fred Talbot was jailed this year for offences that took place in 1975 and 1976.

Labour peer Lord Janner is currently facing criminal proceedings relating to 22 allegations of sexual abuse against nine children during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

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IOWA
Radio Iowa

July 13, 2015 By Dar Danielson

SNAPAn Iowa spokesman for a group that helps survivors of abused by priests says a Catholic priest who was publicly identified in Minnesota as a “credibly accused” child molester also worked in three Iowa towns. Father Paul Kabat worked in Milo from 1995 to 1998, Council Bluffs from 1992 to 1995 and Logan from 1985 to 1992.

Steve Thiesen of Hudson is the Iowa director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests or SNAP. Thiesen says they would now like the bishops in the parishes to reach out to each of the parishes in Iowa where Kabat was stationed to see if there are other people who were abused. “And have any of them come forward, report it to law enforcement, it’s up to the victim if they want to report it to the diocese,” Thiesen says. He says the bishops need to work with any victims and “get that victim healed.”

Thiesen says the Catholic bishops have agreed to do this. “The United States Catholic Conference of Bishops all agreed to be transparent and to follow the child abuse policies. And not only the diocesan priests, but the religious men and women, the nuns, they need to do the same thing,” Thiesen says. “They need to come out and let people where members of their communities have sexually abuse teens, kids or vulnerable adults, and let these people get a chance to heal and to seek justice.” to seek justice.”

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IOWA
The Republic

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: 7/13/15

DUBUQUE, Iowa — A former Dubuque priest has been cleared of allegations that he sexually abused an altar boy in the 1980s following a review by the Archdiocese of Dubuque.

Dubuque Archbishop Michael Jackels said that the Archdiocesan Review Board considered evidence against the Rev. Leo Riley and that church officials hired a licensed private investigator to interview Riley and the altar boy, who is now 39 years old and made the accusations in March, the Telegraph Herald (http://bit.ly/1RtQIcW ) reported.

Jackels said in a Sunday letter to parishioners that “the best information available does not support a reasonable belief that the allegation is true.”

“Unless additional evidence is presented, there is no need to pursue it any further,” Jackels said.

Riley had served as a Church of Resurrection associate pastor in 1985 and 1986. He was placed on leave as a pastor in the Diocese of Venice, Florida, after the allegations surfaced.

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IOWA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Sunday, July 12

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

We have little faith in secretive church “investigations,” so we are worried that Fr. Riley has allegedly been “cleared” by his bishop of child sex abuse accusations. It seems obvious that Bishop Michael Jackels’ hand-picked panel did not even interview the accuser but instead relied on the second-hand report of a person hand-picked and paid by Jackels.

We hope parishioners, the press and the public will press Jackels to disclose more about his so-called “investigation” and how it was carried out, and about the claim that Fr. Riley was sent to Florida to allegedly be near family (see below).

We beg every single person who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes by Fr. Riley or cover ups by his supervisors to speak up now. It’s crucial to share what you may have seen, heard or suspected with secular autyhorities, not church officials.

Fr. Riley’s work history is, at best, odd, and at worst, highly suspicious and lend credibility to the accusations against him.

First, he apparently was sent to work in Florida during the year the church’s abuse and cover up scandal erupted (2002).

[BishopAccountability.org]

Second, in Florida he lived, in an unusual arrangement, in a rectory with two priests from Newark (Fr. Nicholas McLoughlin and Fr Jean-Marie ‘Fritz’ Ligonde) and one from Marquette (Fr. Thomas Wantland).

Fr. McLoughlin was named as a defendant in a clergy sex abuse and coverup lawsuit for allegedly concealing child sex crimes by his brother, also a priest.

[BishopAccountability.org]

Third, Fr. Riley was demoted while in Florida.

Fourth, Fr. Riley was transferred often during his Iowa years. He worked in churches in Cresco, Dubuque, Roseville, Buffalo Center, Woden, Forest City, Lake Mills, Clermont, Postville, Dougherty, Rockford, Rockwell, and Cartersville.

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IOWA
TH Online

Posted: Monday, July 13, 2015

A former Dubuque priest accused of sexual abuse has been cleared by the Archdiocesan Review Board, but an advocacy group for clerical-abuse victims doubts the veracity of the investigation.
The Rev. Leo Riley served as a Church of the Resurrection associate pastor in 1985 and 1986.

Jeff Buchheit, 39, formerly of Dubuque, had said in March that he was in fourth grade and serving as an altar boy in October 1985 when he was abused by Riley. In response, Riley had been placed on leave from his position as a pastor in the Diocese of Venice, Fla.

Neither the Florida diocese nor Buchheit could immediately be reached for comment on Sunday.
Dubuque Archbishop Michael Jackels wrote in a letter to parishioners Sunday that “the best information available does not support a reasonable belief that the allegation is true.”

He wrote that the review board considered evidence against Riley and that church officials hired a licensed private investigator to interview Buchheit, Riley and people who knew them. The investigator also checked criminal complaints made against Riley.

“Unless additional evidence is presented, there is no need to pursue it any further,” Jackels wrote.
Jackels wrote that the findings of the church investigation would be communicated to Riley and his bishop in Florida.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

As the Chair set out in her Opening Statement on 9 July, the Home Secretary has approved a budget of £17.9m for the Inquiry for 2015/16.

We have today published details relating to the costs of the Inquiry. In doing so, we have written to the Home Affairs Select Committee and provided them with details of costs, terms and conditions relating to the Chair’s appointment and the Chair’s declaration of interests. The budget of £17.9m will cover the following elements of the Inquiry’s operating costs:

Staffing
The Chair’s salary and other costs relating to those working for the Inquiry. Details of the Chair’s salary can be found in the supporting documents below. Panel members receive £565/day. Staffing-related costs account for 41% of the budget.

Chair’s Terms of Appointment
Chair’s Salary Package
Chair’s Declaration of Interests

Estates
Costs relating to the set-up and running of the Inquiry’s offices across England and Wales account for 21% of the budget.

Information Management and IT services
These account for 17% of the budget.

Operational costs, including safeguarding support
These account for 15% of the budget.

Other set-up costs
These account for 6% of the budget.

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NEBRASKA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, July 13

For more information:

David Clohessy (314-566-9790 cell, SNAPclohessy@aol.com), Barbara Blaine (312-399-4747, bblaine@snapnetwork.org), Steve Theisen (319-231-1663, ltreggiefan@cs.com)

Two predator priests “outed” for first time
They spent time in two Nebraska Catholic dioceses
Both are “credibly accused child molesters,” church admits
Long secret records about them were just released last week
More hidden documents will be disclosed in the months ahead

Two Catholic priests who spent time in Nebraska have been publicly identified for the first time as “credibly accused” child molesters and a victims group wants local church officials to “aggressively seek out and help” others who have been hurt by them.

They are Fr. Michael Charland and Fr. Emil Twardochleb.

According to the Official Catholic Directory, in 1972, Fr. Charland was a full-time student at the Oblate House of Studies at Creighton University. In 1968, Fr. Twardochleb worked at St. Patrick’s parish in McCook, NE

[Anderson Advocates]

[Anderson Advocates]

Fr. Charland is now a psychologist in the Twin Cities area. Fr. Twardochleb is deceased.

[Minneosta Public Radio]

“We’re afraid Fr. Charland may be hurting kids right now,” said David Clohessy of St. Louis. He heads an international support group called the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “And it’s very likely others who were hurt by both priests are still suffering in shame, silence and self-blame. Omaha’s archbishop, other clerics and lay Catholics should do everything possible to protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded through aggressive outreach to others victims witnesses and whistleblowers.”

SNAP is also

— prodding anyone who was hurt by the priests to speak up and get help, and
— prodding Catholic officials in Omaha, Minnesota, Belleville and elsewhere to “come clean” with more information about the priests and aggressively seek out their victims.

Creighton is in the Omaha Archdiocese which is headed by Archbishop George Lucas. McCook is in the Lincoln diocese which is headed by Bishop James D. Conley.

“Over the years, these predators had easy access to literally thousands of girls and boys in Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois and elsewhere,” said Barbara Dorris, outreach director for SNAP. “There could be dozens of adults mired in pain because of their crimes. Prelates in Nebraska, Canada, Minnesota, Mississippi, Texas, Wisconsin and North Dakota and South Dakota should use parish bulletins, church websites and pulpit announcements to aggressively seek out and offer help to these wounded victims.”

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MINNESOTA
Indian Country Today Media Network

Stephanie Woodard
7/13/15

Law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates has released the names of seven priests and brothers whom a Catholic religious order agreed had been “credibly accused” of child sexual abuse. The disclosure results from a 2014 lawsuit brought in Minnesota against the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

The seven named are Michael Charland, Vincent Fitzgerald, Paul Kabat, Orville Lawrence Munie, Thomas Meyer, Robert Reitmeier and Emil Twardochleb. Some served in Native communities, including White Earth and Leech Lake, in Minnesota, and the Pine Ridge and Lake Traverse (Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate) reservations, in South Dakota. The law firm’s website details the men’s work histories and includes a map of their movements, as they were shuttled among parishes.

The suit was made possible by Minnesota’s Child Victims Act. Passed in May 2013, the law gave childhood-sexual-abuse survivors older than 24, the previous age limit, a three-year window during which to bring civil claims. That opportunity for most new claimants ends on May 25, 2016. In addition to those abused in Minnesota, Anderson associate Mike Finnegan said he believed Natives abused in other states by members of religious orders operating in Minnesota could also sue.

There’s a second, tighter time limit for survivors of abuse that took place within the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. That’s because the archdiocese has filed for bankruptcy, and the court has set a deadline of August 3, 2015, for claims against it.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

All Catholics, especially Pope Francis, should read the really remarkable and very readable new book, Whistle: Tom Doyle’s Steadfast Witness For Victims Of Clerical Sexual Abuse, by Robert Blair Kaiser. The book has been noted in a highly recommended and related brief series of articles, including ones by Jason Berry, Tom Fox and Barbara Blaine. Please consider reading all parts of the series. Please see below also Tom Doyle’s recent prophetic remarks about the really outrageous treatment of priest abuse survivors by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee in its seemingly endless and very expensive bankruptcy proceedings.

This new book is the first truly insider account of the Vatican’s ongoing US strategy since 1985 for priest child abuse cover ups, a timely reminder as the popular pope plans to begin his diversionary US and UN public relations tour in September. Fr. Thomas Doyle, a Dominican priest in good standing, was there at the outset working from 1981 to 1986 behind closed doors as a canon lawyer for the Vatican’s US ambassador, Pio Laghi. For five years earlier, Laghi had as papal ambassador overseen Pope Francis’ questionable role as Argentinian Jesuit provincial in the midst of the papacy’s self interested acquiescence in the ruthless military dictatorship’s reign of terror during Argentina’s so called Dirty War.

Laghi, as this bold and revealing book reports, was then in 1985 a central figure, along with Pope John Paul II, Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law and Philadelphia’s Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua and others, in the formation of the US bishops’ continuous cover up strategy that protected child rapists. Laghi was also one of Pope John Paul II’s key liaisons to US President Ronald Reagan and later Bush presidents and to their billionaire backers. The Vatican, in effect, apparently delivered US votes, and right wing US presidents reciprocally delivered diplomatic protection and governmental subsidies. The Vatican’s 2016 US election strategy will likely try to reinstate this political reciprocity with another Bush president, from most current indications.

For their obedience, apparently, John Paul II rewarded Laghi by making him cardinal in 1991 and Jorge Bergoglio (Pope Francis) by making him a bishop in 1992, unusual for a Jesuit. Tom Doyle, on the other hand, for being honest and brave on behalf of defenseless children, was exiled and harassed as a military chaplain, but kept on battling for children and survivors for over a quarter century, with considerable success. This very moving and fast paced book tells Doyle’s inspiring and hopeful story, one that is continuing.

Doyle is still battling. Over the last three years, he told his story in interviews to Robert Blair Kaiser, who has reported it vividly and informatively here. Kaiser, a former Jesuit for a decade, had been one of the top US reporters on Vatican matters for over fifty years, as well as the author of numerous insightful books, including “The Politics of Sex and Religion”, the classic and still relevant history of the 1960’s papal birth control commission, that Kaiser generously made available for free recently as an downloadable e-book at [Smashwords] . Kaiser at 84 died two weeks after heroically finishing this book on his deathbed. The book has benefited much from Kaiser’s broad and unique knowledge of the Catholic Church and its leadership. Kaiser, like Doyle, did not mince words and remained focused on the worst crisis facing the Catholic Church since the Reformation. This is a refreshing change in the current Francismania world where the pope’s latest planned public relations diversion (like his climate encyclical) controls most of the compliant media’s and opportunistic papal cheerleaders’ agendas. The pope usually overlooks the abuse scandal, so many in the media follow his lead!

Pope Francis has skillfully managed for over two years to avoid addressing seriously and timely holding bishops accountable for protecting priest child abusers and for denying priest abuse survivors basic justice due them. The pope now has, in effect, passed the buck to his successor in five years. Indeed, the Vatican might have succeeded in burying the abuse scandal completely, but for the brave advocacy of Tom Doyle and groups like SNAP, and some intrepid journalists like Jason Berry, Tom Fox and Arthur Jones, and the detailed documentation relentlessly generated at ABUSETRACKER at the website, BishopAccountability.org. Tom Doyle is unlikely to get a favorable call from the pope anytime soon.

What this book makes clear is that the Vatican can try to continue a bit longer to survive as an absolute monarchy, but intrepid Catholics like Doyle, by their courageous actions and truthful message also make clear, that the Vatican’s strategy will ultimately fail, sooner rather than later. The Vatican may have survived, barely, Luther and the printing press, but prophets like Tom Doyle and the Internet and 24/7 news cycle will soon sink the Vatican from most indications. The truth has it own indomitable power.

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ARGENTINA
Informe Digital

[con los documentos]

Feb. 1, 2013

Se filtró a la prensa un documento de suma importancia para la causa. Se trata de la investigación del Juicio Diocesano que realizó en los ’90 el Arzobispado de Paraná. El escrito compromete a Karlic, Puiggari, y otros sacerdotes.

El caso en que se investiga al cura Justo José Ilarraz vuelve a la escena judicial luego de la feria de esta repartición del Estado. La investigación que está en manos del juez de Instrucción Alejandro Grippo, tiene el testimonio de siete víctimas, ex seminaristas entre 1985 y 1993, cuando Justo José Ilarraz fue prefecto de disciplina en el Seminario.

Uno de los documentos enviados el 22 de septiembre a pedido de la justicia entrerriana ya circula por la prensa y compromete como gran responsable de encubrir la investigación a Alberto Puiggari, ya que vivía en el Seminario y conoció niños que le contaron lo sucedido. Cabe recordar que Puiggari era el veedor inmediato del obispo, ya que le transfería información a Estanislao Karlic. Según el análisis del documento que es revelado por INFORME DIGITAL, el actual cardenal tiene responsabilidad porque se enteró de los hechos, encomendó realizar una investigación y archivó lo realizado.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Anglican Communion News Service

Posted on: July 13, 2015

[Church of England] The General Synod [on 11 July] gave final approval to a package of proposals intended to take further the process of making the Church a safer place for children and vulnerable adults – both by making the disciplinary processes under the Clergy Discipline Measure 2003 more effective where safeguarding issues arise and by strengthening the Church’s wider legal framework in relation to safeguarding in various ways. The legislation was originally introduced in February 2014 following a consultation launched at Synod in July 2013.

Speaking in the debate, Bishop Paul Butler, lead bishop on safeguarding, said:

“We all want every single one of our churches and institutions to be safer places and communities for all people; notably for children and adults at times of risk and harm, whether that be long or short term.” He added that along with facing up to the consequences of the past “our emphasis has to be on prevention” stressing that, along with the new legislation, high quality training, safe recruiting and effective quality assurance needed to be implemented at every level of church life. The Safeguarding and Clergy Discipline Measure and draft Amending Canon No. 34 (links below) contains a range of elements including:

Adding to the bishop’s existing powers to suspend a priest or deacon, extending to circumstances where the local authority or police provide information which leads the bishop to be satisfied that they present a significant risk of harm, with similar powers for an archbishop to suspend a bishop in such circumstances. (As with all existing provisions this includes a right of appeal to President of Tribunals where suspension occurs).

* Provision for the disqualification from office as a churchwarden or member of a parochial church council (‘PCC’) anyone whose name appears on a statutory barred list (under the Safeguarding and Vulnerable Groups Act).

* Provision for the bishop to suspend a churchwarden or PCC member on safeguarding grounds in circumstances similar to suspending clergy (with a similar right of appeal).

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UNITED KINGDOM
International Business Times

By Mark Piggott
July 12, 2015

Victims of child abuse have been told by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby that the Church of England will conduct its own investigation into allegations of abuse if the latest judge-led inquiry fails to look into them within six months.

Welby made the commitment to five representatives of child abuse victims at a private meeting at Lambeth Palace.

A Church of England (CofE) spokesman told The Independent that The Archbishop “has asked that the Church of England is reviewed first by the Government’s National Inquiry once it begins its investigations. If this does not happen within six months then he will instigate an independent past cases review.”

Sheikh Dr Muhammad Al Hussaini of the Church Reform Group said: “During the meeting that we had with Justin Welby he promised that he would undertake an independent audit into abuse in the Church of England and this independent audit would be overseen by survivors’ organisations, representatives, sat alongside representatives of the archbishop.”

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BANGLADESH
UCA News

Stephan Uttom, Dhaka
Bangladesh
July 13, 2015

The Catholic Church in Bangladesh has launched a campaign to educate clergy, religious and laypeople into making its institutions safe and secure for children.

The campaign by the Catholic Bishops’ Episcopal Commission for Justice and Peace and Marist Brothers Bangladesh was launched at a national workshop titled “The Church is a safe and secure home” held in Dhaka July 7-11.

Participants came from seven Catholic dioceses across the country and included priests, nuns, brothers, schoolteachers, hostel directors and Holy Childhood Association animators.

“Protection of children is a top priority and this campaign will continue indefinitely,” said Father Albert Rozario, the commission secretary.

“We would like to ensure all Catholic institutions and people work more sincerely to protect children,” he said adding, “This campaign is the first of its kind in Bangladesh.”

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Matt Sepic St. Paul · Jul 12, 2015

The interim leader of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis received a warm welcome from Catholics Sunday, as he celebrated his first mass at the Cathedral of Saint Paul.

Archbishop Bernard Hebda of Newark, N.J., is overseeing the archdiocese until Pope Francis appoints a replacement for John Nienstedt, who resigned as archbishop last month.

Hebda comes to the archdiocese as it faces bankruptcy and criminal charges related to clergy sex abuse.

In his homily, Hebda said the church will not be judged in the long term on how it handles court cases and finances, but on how it adheres to its primary mission.

“We should have the joy that comes from always knowing that there’s always light at the end of the tunnel, that our struggles are not in vain, and that Christ and his church will triumph,” he said

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MINNESOTA
KAAL

[wiith video]

By: Cleo Greene

On Sunday, Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda—who was selected by Pope Francis to temporarily lead the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis—held his first mass in the Twin Cities.

Hebda’s official title is apostolic administrator of the archdiocese; a role he’s held since former Archbishop John Nienstedt resigned last month.

And on Sunday, pews were full and standing room was limited as parishioners gathered at the Cathedral of Saint Paul to see and hear from Hebda.

“Pope Francis has been reminding us that we are not only called, but we are sent,” Hedba said during mass.

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MINNESOTA
Washington Times

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) – The interim leader of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis celebrated his first public mass since taking over the organization last month.

Minnesota Public Radio News reports (http://bit.ly/1eU0qU8 ) Archbishop Bernard Hebda received a warm welcome Sunday at the Cathedral of Saint Paul.

Hebda, of Newark, New Jersey, is overseeing the archdiocese until Pope Francis appoints a replacement for John Nienstedt, who resigned last month.

He arrives as the archdiocese faces bankruptcy and criminal charges related to clergy sex abuse.

In his homily, Hebda said the church will not be judged in the long term on how it handles court cases and finances, but on how it adheres to its primary mission.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Forward

JTA

Rabbi Barry Freundel is appealing the length of his prison sentence for filming women nude at a ritual bath.

Freundel, who was sentenced in May to 6 1/2 years for videotaping dozens of women at a Washington, D.C., mikveh, is arguing that he should have been sentenced to no more than one year in prison, the Washington Post reported Friday.

A hearing on the appeal will be held in Washington Superior Court on July 31.

Freundel, 63, was given 45 days for each of the 52 counts of misdemeanor voyeurism for the videotaping that took place between 2012 and 2014. He will serve the sentences successively.
His attorney is arguing that the rabbi should not have been sentenced separately for each of his victims and instead only for one act of videotaping, the Post reported.

Freundel is being held in isolation in a Washington jail after prison officials received threats against him.

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INDIA
Times of India

NEW DELHI: A priest at a temple in Rangpur Pahari was thrashed by public and handed over to police for sexually abusing an eight-year-old girl who had gone to collect offerings from him on Saturday night.

Locals informed police that the 62-year-old priest, identified as Lakhan Giri, had disrobed the girl and was about to assault her when he was caught.

Around 8pm on Saturday, the girl went to the temple with her four-year-old brother to ask for offerings from the priest. Her brother told police that Giri then called her into his room while he asked him to wait outside. After a few minutes, other people in the temple heard the girl’s cries and rushed into the priest’s room where they found him molesting her. Giri was then dragged outside and thrashed before being handed over to the police.

The girl was taken for a medical examination and later sent to an NGO for counselling. In her statement, the girl said the priest gagged her and then disrobed her. He even threatened her with dire consequences if she raised an alarm.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Marino Eccher
meccher@pioneerpress.com

In the gospel reading before Archbishop Bernard Hebda’s first homily in the Cathedral of St. Paul, the apostles were sent forth to new places.

They didn’t come from New Jersey and they likely packed lighter than he did — just a single shirt and pair of sandals, according to the reading — but Hebda hinted their charge was not so different than his own: Preach, purify and heal.

The passage “has the consequence,” he said, “that all of us become locals.”

Hebda, appointed by the Vatican in June to help run the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in the wake of resignations and legal issues, took a major step toward doing so Sunday in his first Mass here.

“What a joy it is for me to celebrate Mass here in this beautiful cathedral for the first time,” he told the near-capacity crowd of worshippers.

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MINNESOTA
CBS Minnesota

[with video]

ST. PAUL, Minn. (WCCO) — Many Catholics in the Twin Cities got their first chance Sunday morning to meet Archbishop Bernard Hebda.

The new interim leader of the St. Paul and Minneapolis Archdiocese celebrated his first mass at the St. Paul Cathedral.

He is the replacement for Archbishop John Neinstedt, who resigned last month following several revelations in a decades-long child sex abuse scandal.

Many expected Hebda to address the scandal in his homily. Yet while he didn’t speak to the scandal specifically, he did talk about the church as a community, and how members are summoned and sent to do different things.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

By Pat Pheifer JULY 12, 2015

There was a slight hum of excitement in the air Sunday morning before mass began at the Cathedral of St. Paul.

It was a full house that had come to hear interim Archbishop Bernard Hebda’s first public mass since being thrust into the leadership of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis following the June 15 resignation of Archbishop John Nienstedt.

Hebda emanated warmth from the start, with a smile that reached his eyes as well as his mouth. In his homily, he referenced Bible readings that reminded those in the pews that “All of us are both summoned and sent,” but only briefly touched on the clergy sex abuse, lawsuits and criminal charges that have swirled around the archdiocese, enveloping Nienstedt and Nienstedt’s predecessor, Harry Flynn.

Hebda told the gathered, “We can never be lone rangers. The work of the church is always communal . . . [and] at times we’ll have to share the blame.

“It’s not how quickly we resolve court cases,” he said. “But how effectively we make the love of Jesus and only Jesus.”

Hebda was sent by Pope Francis to the archdiocese as a healer, and his message resonated with many Sunday.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By STEVE DOUGHTY FOR THE DAILY MAIL
12 July 2015

The Church of England is to restore its traditional powers to defrock vicars who break the law, Church leaders said yesterday. (Sun)

The punishment of expulsion from the priesthood – abolished 12 years ago – is to be reinstated as a demonstration of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s determination to stamp out child abuse.

Restoration of the most severe penalty for clergy guilty of sex abuse or other crimes was revealed after the Most Reverend Justin Welby told a survivors group that the Church is ready to launch its own examination of the extent of child sex abuse by priests.

The Archbishop said the Church will start its own investigation if the Government-backed inquiry led by New Zealand judge Lowell Goddard does not look at the Church’s record in the next six months.

Defrocking a vicar – technically called deposition from Holy Orders – was the strongest sanction against ill-behaved clergy until 2003, when a new disciplinary code removed it.

The authors of the new rulebook thought it was enough to bar criminal vicars from conducting services, and they were swayed by religious arguments which say that once someone has been ordained as a priest they cannot be deprived of their status.

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CANADA
Failed Messiah

Report: Cops Blocked Child Protection Workers From Protecting Lev Tahor Haredi Cult Kids

Police detectives trying to investigate human trafficking and forgery in the Lev Tahor haredi cult in 2013, then located in rural Quebec, Canada, blocked province child protection workers from removing children from the cult – children who were allegedly being sexually, physically and emotionally abused, forced into child marriage, and otherwise hurt by cult leaders.

Police detectives trying to investigate human trafficking and forgery in the Lev Tahor haredi cult in 2013, then located in rural Quebec, Canada, blocked province child protection workers from removing children from the cult – children who were allegedly being sexually, physically and emotionally abused, forced into child marriage, and otherwise hurt by cult leaders.

Cops wanted to get enough information from inside the closed cult (and through discovery of forged visas, etc.) to prosecute cult leaders. The decision to wait was especially bizarre because the cult had a history of fleeing and because the cult’s leader, Rabbi Shlomo Helbrans, is a convicted kidnapper of a child.

The delay police caused by police allowed Helbrans and the cult to flee justice. A similar series of bad decisions made in the neighboring province of Ontario soon afterward allowed Helbrans and his cult to flee Canada to Guatemala, where the cult’s children are still in peril.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Have bishops “narrowed” their “privacy zones?”

Reuters reports “Bill Cosby’s forthright views on black parenting came back to haunt him this week when a U.S. judge called the comedian a ‘public moralist’ who had lost the right of personal privacy in a 2005 civil sexual assault case.”

Judge Eduardo Robreno of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said that Cosby “has donned the mantle of public moralist and mounted the proverbial electronic or print soap box to volunteer his views on, among other things, childrearing, family life, education and crime,” and that by doing so, “he has voluntarily narrowed the zone of privacy that he is entitled to claim.”

The result: Cosby’s damaging long-sealed deposition in a civil lawsuit has been unsealed. And more people now realize what a criminal he is.

Let’s hope legal advocates for abuse victims start using this argument in clergy abuse and cover up cases. Surely church officials are perhaps the oldest and loudest “public moralists,” aren’t they?

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ARGENTINA
Contexto

El sacerdote Justo José Ilarraz fue procesado por el delito de promoción a la corrupción agravada de menores, en el marco de la investigación por más de 50 abusos denunciados por ex estudiantes de un seminario en la ciudad entrerriana de Paraná.

El procesamiento fue dispuesto el viernes por la jueza de Transición Paola Firpo, quien además le impuso un embargo de $ 500 al religioso y citó a prestar declaración a otros sacerdotes y una psicóloga.

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ARGENTINA
Diario El Argentino

[Ilarraz the priest was indicted for child molestation. Judge Paola Firpo announced Friday where priest Justo Jose Illarraz has been indicted for promotion of aggravated corruption involving minors.]

La jueza de Transición 2 de Paraná, Paola Firpo, dio a conocer la resolución tomada este viernes, por la cual dictó el procesamiento de Justo Ilarraz en el marco de la causa por el delito de “Promoción a la Corrupción Agravada”.

La jueza resolvió procesar a Justo José Ilarraz “por el delito de Promoción a la Corrupción de menores agravada por ser su educador, en forma reiterada -artículo 302 del Código Procesal Penal, y artículos 125 y 55 del Código Penal-, manteniendo el estado de libertad en que se encuentra, dejando subsistente las restricciones oportunamente dispuestas”, informaron desde el Servicio de Información del Poder Judicial.

Asimismo, “resolvió trabar embargo o inhibición sobre bienes de su propiedad y a los fines del art. 534 del C.P.P., hasta cubrir la suma de pesos quinientos (500 pesos), librándose a tal efecto el mandamiento correspondiente”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Mirror

BY KEIR MUDIE , NICK DORMAN

Mr Watson, leading the campaign to expose decades of child abuse by VIPs, says the inquiry needs full access to the British intelligence agency’s secret documents

The Government’s child-sex abuse inquiry must be given full ­access to MI5’s secret files c­ontaining the names of ­offenders, says campaigning MP Tom Watson.

Mr Watson, 48, said: “The MI5 files are key to understanding who knew what and when.

“They might also reveal how reported crimes were not adequately investigated and on whose orders.”

The campaigning Labour MP, who first raised the VIP paedophile allegations in the Commons three years ago, says the Official Secrets Act should be disregarded as the panel takes evidence.

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

12 JULY 2015
BY JAMES WARD

The Commission of Inquiry into Mother and Baby Homes is a “time waster” that will leave survivors with nothing, it was claimed on Saturday.

Derek Leinster, a representative of The Bethany Home, accused the Government of waiting for survivors to die before justice is done.

The inquiry will examine the dreadful conditions children were subjected to in the State-run institutions throughout most of the last century.

Mr Leinster said survivors of the Bethany Home, a Protestant facility where 227 children perished, are being swept aside despite having documents that prove they were residents.

He told the Irish Sunday Mirror: “By us going on this commission it means it’s going to be dragged out for another eight to 10 years, five at the best.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Independent

Archbishop of Canterbury ‘promises inquiry into church sex abuse’ to survivors in private meeting this week

MICHAEL SEGALOV Author Biography Sunday 12 July 2015

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has met survivors of historic sex abuse in the Church, and outlined his promises to the delegation. He wants a Government enquiry set up and running in the next six months and the Church of England to be examined first by the group.

In July 2014 Theresa May, Home Secretary, called for an independent enquiry into historic sex abuse, after shocking allegations of a cover-up of child sex abuse at the very heart of the political and religious establishment began to surface, involving politicians, members of the Church’s higher echelons, and other senior public figures.

Some of the most disturbing revelations indicate that a young boy was strangled to death by a Tory MP at an “abuse party,” according to one victim of the alleged Westminster paedophile ring.

But Theresa May’s enquiry, which is expected to last up to five years, and will be led by New Zealand based judge Lowell Goddard, may not move fast enough for Welby, it seems.

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VATICAN CITY
New Zealand Herald

By Nick Squires

Sunday Jul 12, 2015

The Vatican’s first child sex abuse trial opened yesterday and closed after six minutes when the defendant failed to turn up.

Jozef Wesolowski, 66, the Holy See’s former ambassador to the Dominican Republic, was supposed to appear before a tribunal within the walls of the Vatican to face charges of paying underage boys for sexual acts in the Caribbean country.

However, the former archbishop was taken to hospital hours before the hearing was due to start, with Vatican officials saying he was in intensive care for an “unexpected” but unspecified illness, probably related to heart problems and stress.

The opening hearing in the trial went ahead anyway, but was swiftly adjourned, with lawyers saying the trial would resume at a later date after Wesolowski has recovered.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

The Archbishop of Canterbury has promised to investigate sex abuse in the Church of England if the judge-led abuse inquiry does not look into it within six months, survivors say.

Justin Welby made the promise during a private meeting with survivors earlier this week, they say.
The independent inquiry into child sex abuse led by Justice Lowell Goddard is expected to last five years.

Lambeth Palace said the archbishop wanted the Church to be reviewed first.

But it said if this did not happen within six months, then the archbishop would instigate an “independently-led past cases review”.

Muhammed al Huseini, who was one of five people representing survivors’ groups at the meeting at Lambeth Palace, said: “During the meeting that we had with Justin Welby he promised that he would undertake an independent audit into abuse in the Church of England and this independent audit would be overseen by survivors’ organisations, representatives, sat alongside representatives of the archbishop.”

‘Momentous’ day

Marilyn Hawes is founder of Enough Abuse UK, which she set up after her sons were abused by a Church of England headteacher.

She was at the meeting and told BBC Radio 5 live that day was a “momentous one for the survivor community”, adding that there needs to be an emphasis on abuse prevention in future.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

THE international head of an evangelical church has flown to Perth this week to apologise to a victim for the “disgraceful and disgusting” sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of a local pastor.

Reverend Peter de Fin, the international director of South African-based Acts Christian Church, told The Sunday Times he was shocked by Dawid Volmer’s actions and “cannot make excuses for a minister of the gospel who should have known better”.

Volmer, better known as David Volmer, pleaded guilty last week to 12 charges of raping, molesting and drugging an underage girl.

The 41-year-old married father of two set up the Acts Christian Church in Carramar, and until recently, headed WA’s Prison Fellowship Program — a religious outreach scheme targeting inmates.

Rev. de Fin said Volmer had “betrayed the trust” that people place in a minister, offered no excuses and asked the victim and her loved ones to forgive the church for “failing” her.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
The Independent

MICK BROWNE , JAMES HANNING Saturday 11 July 2015

Authorities in Northern Ireland are refusing to reveal what they know about a notorious convicted paedophile with close links to a former government adviser on the grounds of “national security”, despite official assurances that two major inquiries will uncover the truth about an alleged child sex-abuse ring involving leading members of the establishment.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) will not say if it holds information on Dr Morris Fraser, a convicted paedophile, following a Freedom of Information request.

The revelation is likely to fuel suspicions that there was official collusion, for political and security ends, surrounding the abuse of boys at, for example, the Kincora Boys’ Home in Belfast in the 1970s.

The abuse continued for years, despite several people alerting the authorities.

Speaking to The Independent on Sunday, a former boy at Kincora alleged for the first time that he was abused by Fraser, who had extensive links to like-minded groups in England and was close to an adviser to Margaret Thatcher. This is likely to be seized upon by campaigners who insist that there was a link between abuse at Kincora and in England, and cited as further evidence for the need for the inquiries to be merged. …

When asked what information the police held on Fraser, following convictions in London and the US for child sexual abuse in the early 1970s, the PSNI said that it could “neither confirm nor deny that it holds the information” and cited, alongside privacy and prejudicial disclosure issues, “Section 23(5) – Information supplied by, or concerning, certain security bodies (national security)”.

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CALIFORNIA
Stockton Record

By Almendra Carpizo
Record Staff Writer

Posted Jul. 10, 2015

Allegations of a priest’s “inappropriate conduct with a minor” have resurfaced almost 15 years after the case was first brought to the attention of the Diocese of Stockton and authorities, according to the diocese.

On Friday, the Diocese of Stockton released a statement that it received information alleging Father Editho Mascardo’s misconduct. The diocese said it had alerted authorities and had placed Mascardo on administrative leave.

The alleged incident seemed to have occurred in 2001, said Sister Terry Davis, spokeswoman for the Diocese of Stockton. The allegations were reported at the time, and law enforcement was notified. The case was investigated by the San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office, but there were no charges filed at the time, she added.

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RUSSIA/ISRAEL
Interfax

Moscow, July 9, Interfax – Health of priest Gleb Grozovsky, who is accused of pedophilia and is under arrest in Israel, is of great concern to his defense after the priest was transferred to prison for terrorists and his personal belongings were taken away.

“Last week Grozovsky was transferred to a different Israeli prison – for terrorists, where he was placed in a cell with seven Arabs not speaking English and with whom he can not communicate. At that, his personal belongings – inner rason he put under his head, Gospel – were removed, even tooth brush and [tooth] paste were taken. During the transfer to a new cell significant share of his belongings was supposedly lost. Manuscripts with notes on life in prison were taken from him as well,” Grozovsky’s public defender Andrey Murashko told Interfax.

“Difficult conditions were created for Grozovsky and, as we believe, this could be related to our complaints. He is not provided with dental care, and his knee injury received at Kos Island is back. He is in pain but no one is treating him. At the same time, prison employees are rude. He is trying to file complaints but this is useless and local lawyer does not advise him to do this for some reason. I am concerned he will be killed in prison. We fear for his life,” Murashko said.

According to attorney’s information, some directive stating the necessity to extradite the priest as soon as possible has arrived from Russia to Israel.

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UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

The Vatican announced that its:

The panel of judges is composed of Professor Giuseppe Dalla Torre, president; Professor Piero Antonio Bonnet; Professor Paolo Papanti-Pellettier; and Professor Venerando Marano, substitute.

The promoter of Justice is Professor Gian Piero Milano, assisted by Professor Alessandro Diddi and Professor Roberto Zannotti. The defence counsel is Antonello Blasi.

The only person not a professor in the trial is the defence lawyer, the defence counsel is Antonello Blasi – who must be already a shrewd secular lawyer somewhere in Rome or Italy who can even overturn a mafia member’s verdict.

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MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

07/11/2015

Jennifer Haselberger

Since yesterday afternoon, when various media outlets began to publish the first person-to-person interviews with Archbishop Bernard Hebda, the new Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, several people have contacted me to express their disappointment in what was said- and wasn’t said- by the Archbishop. Faithful and clergy who were anxious for transparency and a clear break from previous media-spin were obviously disappointed, as well as others who were looking for an indication of more concrete policy changes.

For my part, I wasn’t at all surprised. It is unlikely that the message will change as long as those who are crafting the messages remain the same. At the same time, I was disappointed with some statements that appeared to be a little too carefully crafted to be representative of the type of ‘transparency’ that many of the faithful feel entitled to.

Take, for instance, this exchange between the Archbishop and MPR news:

BARAN: Has the archdiocese turned over everything to police and prosecutors that they’ve asked for?

HEBDA: In the time that I’ve been here, nothing’s been asked for. We haven’t had that situation. My understanding is we’re, everything that, we’ve been working very closely with the authorities. And also obviously there’s always a judge or a court that’s able to decide those things as well.

BARAN: Would you say to the lawyers and the other people who work in the chancery: Look, if the police or the prosecutors ask you for any information, please turn it over?

HEBDA: I think obviously we have to be cooperative. We also have to recognize that there are some documents that are privileged. And that’s very fair I think from both sides, and so certainly being cognizant of the parameters of the law, that we want to be able to cooperate fully.

As far as I am aware, Archbishop Hedba was not dishonest anything that he said in this exchange.

However, it also did not provide the faithful or other individuals following this drama with the information they would feel entitled to. A more transparent response, in my opinion, would have been to acknowledge that prior to his appointment a warrant was executed at the Chancery, and that in the course of that execution documents were recovered relating to the Greene Espel investigation of Archbishop Nienstedt (though not, I believe, ‘the report’, if such a report even exists). And, while the warrant was executed prior to his appointment, it was after his appointment that the Archdiocese appeared before the court to assert that the document(s) were privileged and therefore should not be provided to prosecutors.

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WATYKAN
RMF

Przyczyną hospitalizacji byłego arcybiskupa Józefa Wesołowskiego, w przeddzień otwarcia jego procesu w Watykanie w sprawie zarzutów o pedofilię, był poważny spadek ciśnienia z powodu upału, stresu i wieku. Taką informację podała agencja ANSA, powołując się na źródła za Spiżową Bramą.

W sobotę proces karny 67-letniego byłego nuncjusza na Dominikanie, oskarżonego o pedofilię i posiadanie ogromnych ilości materiałów pornograficznych, został otwarty przed trybunałem w Watykanie, a następnie po kilku minutach odroczony bezterminowo z powodu jego – jak podkreślono – usprawiedliwionej nieobecności.

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VATICAN CITY
St. Louis Post-Tribune

By FRANCES D’EMILIO The Associated Press

Vatican City • A former papal diplomat accused of sexually abusing teenage boys while stationed in the Dominican Republic has been hospitalized in intensive care, forcing adjournment of his trial Saturday in a Vatican courtroom for allegedly causing grave psychological harm to the victims and possessing an enormous quantity of child pornography.

Medical records showing that Jozef Wesolowski had been admitted Friday because of “sudden illness” to an intensive care unit of a Rome public hospital were presented by the prosecutor to the judge, who read it without revealing what ails the former prelate.

The 66-year-old Pole’s lawyer, Antonello Blasi, told journalists he hadn’t been told what the illness is.

“I saw him two or three days ago, and, given his age and his state of mind, he was fine,” Blasi said. The lawyer told the court that Wesolowski had been “willing and able” to come to court.

Wesolowski, who resides in a room in the courthouse, had been put under house arrest at the Vatican, but subsequently was allowed to go outdoors as long as he stays within the confines of Vatican City. …

When the trial resumes, those monitoring the Vatican’s handling of sex abuse scandals that started disgracing churchmen in the United States and elsewhere decades ago will watch t o see if testimony indicates top-ranking officials might have heard allegations about Wesolowski’s conduct but stayed quiet.

“If he is found guilty, the pressure will be on Pope Francis and the Vatican to cooperate in all the countries where he served,” said Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopsAccountability.org, a watchdog group that follows the global abuse crisis in the Catholic Church.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Church of England

The Church of England has agreed the following:

Policy Statements-

Promoting a Safe Church (safeguarding policy for adults) 2006

Protecting All God’s Children (safeguarding policy for children and young people, 4th edition, 2010)

Responding to Domestic Abuse (guidelines for those with pastoral responsibility, 2006)

Responding Well (policy and guidance for the church of England, 2011)

Practice Guidance-

Responding to Serious Safeguarding Situations (2015)

Risk Assessment for Individuals who may Pose Risk to Children or Adults (2015)

Safer Recruitment (2015)

Safeguarding in Religious Communities (2015)

Joint Practice Guidance with The Methodist Church-

Safeguarding Records: Joint Practice Guidance for the Church of England and the Methodist Church (2015)

Safeguarding Guidance for Single Congregation Local Ecumenical Partnerships (2015)

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UNITED KINGDOM
Church of England

11 July 2015

The General Synod today gave final approval to a package of proposals intended to take further the process of making the Church a safer place for children and vulnerable adults – both by making the disciplinary processes under the Clergy Discipline Measure 2003 more effective where safeguarding issues arise and by strengthening the Church’s wider legal framework in relation to safeguarding in various ways. The legislation was originally introduced in February 2014 following a consultation launched at Synod in July 2013.

Speaking in the debate, Bishop Paul Butler, lead bishop on safeguarding, said:
“We all want every single one of our churches and institutions to be safer places and communities for all people; notably for children and adults at times of risk and harm, whether that be long or short term.” He added that along with facing up to the consequences of the past “our emphasis has to be on prevention” stressing that, along with the new legislation, high quality training, safe recruiting and effective quality assurance needed to be implemented at every level of church life. The Safeguarding and Clergy Discipline Measure and draft Amending Canon No. 34 (links below) contains a range of elements including:

Adding to the bishop’s existing powers to suspend a priest or deacon, extending to circumstances where the local authority or police provide information which leads the bishop to be satisfied that they present a significant risk of harm. With similar powers for an archbishop to suspend a bishop in such circumstances. (As with all existing provisions this includes a right of appeal to President of Tribunals where suspension occurs).

· Provision for the disqualification from office as a churchwarden or member of a parochial church council (‘PCC’) anyone whose name appears on a statutory barred list (under the Safeguarding and Vulnerable Groups Act).

· Provision for the bishop to suspend a churchwarden or PCC member on safeguarding grounds in circumstances similar to suspending clergy (with a similar right of appeal).

· For the first time a statutory obligation on office holders in the Church to have regard to safeguarding advice issued by the House of Bishops (it has previously been expected of clergy but it is now formalised into a statutory provision).

· Removal of current one year limitation period that applies generally to complaints of clergy misconduct: in relation to complaints of clergy sexual misconduct towards children and vulnerable adults there will be no time limit.

· Canonical duty on diocesan bishop to have a Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser (‘DSA’) to carry out certain functions. Dioceses have in fact had DSAs for a number of years but this formalizes the requirement to ensure proper provision is in place.

· A new power given to archbishops and bishops to direct bishops and clergy to undergo a risk assessment (with it the right to request that the President of Tribunals reviews the direction). Subject to this review, it would be misconduct to refuse to undergo the assessment.

· Similar powers for the bishop in relation to readers and layworkers.

The aim is to secure Parliamentary approval and the Royal Assent by the end of the year.

Notes

The Bishop of Durham’s speech on Final approval for the Draft Safeguarding and Clergy Discipline Measure.

Bishop of Durham’s speech on the Final approval for the Draft amending Canon No. 34.

The Draft Safeguarding and Clergy Discipline Measure

Draft amending Canon No. 34

The latest practice guidance, approved by the House of Bishops, May 2015

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

By John Bingham, Religious Affairs Editor
11 Jul 2015

Paedophile priests could get back into the pulpit despite a major overhaul of Church of England child protection rules to prevent a repeat of a series of sexual abuse scandals, the Archbishop of York has warned.

Dr John Sentamu voiced alarm that the long-awaited changes to ecclesiastical law, which were passed unanimously by the General Synod on Saturday, might not be enough to stop abusers already been banned from ministry from demanding to be reinstated.

The Archbishop, the second most senior figure in the Church of England, warned that even he has no power to demand to see the files of banned cleric from other dioceses who retire to his area and apply for a new permission to serve as a priest again.

He told the Synod that unless the loophole is closed, abusers could return to serve as priests in a different part of England and potentially reoffend.

Speaking as the Bishop of Durham, the Rt Rev Paul Butler, outlined a swathe of new safeguarding rules to the Synod, Dr Sentamu told of two separate cases where retired priests banned from ministry elsewhere had applied to him for PTO [Permission To Officiate] but refused to take part in a risk assessment.

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CANADA
Indian County Today Media Network

Indigenous leaders in Canada welcomed the apology of Pope Francis for the Catholic Church’s complicity in the “grave sins” of colonization, though they hoped it was just a prelude to further statements aimed directly at the deeds committed during the country’s residential schools era.

In his speech on July 9 during a three-country trip to South America, the Pontiff “humbly” asked for forgiveness for the “crimes against Native peoples during the so-called conquest of America.”

“This can be taken perhaps as an indication that maybe he will be open to complying with, accepting our recommendation, that he come to Canada and apologize specifically to survivors of residential schools and their families,” Justice Murray Sinclair, head of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), told Yahoo Canada News. “Overall, I see it as a good sign.”

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VATICAN CITY
The New York Times

By GAIA PIANIGIANI

JULY 11, 2015

VATICAN CITY — The trial of a former Vatican ambassador accused of sexually abusing boys while stationed in the Dominican Republic and of possessing child pornography was adjourned indefinitely on Saturday after he fell ill and was hospitalized.

The defendant, Jozef Wesolowski, 66, was taken to an Italian hospital for an “unexpected illness” on Friday, the Vatican said in a statement. The trial will resume when Mr. Wesolowski recovers, it said.

Before the adjournment, the Vatican’s chief prosecutor, Gian Piero Milano, accused Mr. Wesolowski of purchasing and retaining on his two computers an “enormous quantity” of child pornography and of sexually abusing a number of boys in the Dominican Republic presumed to have been 13 to 16 years old.

Mr. Wesolowski, a former archbishop, is also accused of causing serious harm to the boys he is accused of abusing and of offending “Christian morality,” Mr. Milano said in a statement released Saturday.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service – Rhymes with Religion

Boz Tchividjian | Jul 10, 2015

One of the great privileges of child advocacy is the opportunity to meet the real heroes of life. These include those who were victimized as children and have come to a point in their life where they are able to advocate for so many others who suffer in silence. Mary DeMuth is one such hero. As I take a short hiatus from my blog to enjoy some time with my amazing family, I was thrilled that Mary agreed to write this guest post. Let’s hope and pray that the Church listens to her powerful and convicting words, and that those suffering in silence may get a glimpse of authentic love and hope. Thank you, Mary. – Boz
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Something is wrong when churches protect perpetrators and marginalize victims. In recent months, we’ve seen a bit of the underbelly of covering up sexual abuse, demanding victims forgive and forget instantly for the sake of the poor offenders whose lives might be ruined if they were found out.

Cover up that exalts the “ministry” or a ministry personality over the well being of one who has been sinned against does not represent the Jesus I follow.

Jesus looked for the outcasted. He dignified the marginalized. He stooped (in the sweetest, gentlest way) to side with the woman caught in adultery, against her prosecutors and (perhaps) her sexual partner. He confronted sin in his closest group of ministry partners, even telling Satan to take a backseat. He noticed the woman with the issue of blood—a victim of biology and the probably shunning of the crowd. He clearly listened to the downtrodden. He identified, by coming to earth, with those bent beneath their loads. He welcomed scampering children while the disciples scoffed. His lap was safe.

And He said this: “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea” (Mark 9:42, ESV). When a ministry adult or congregant pursues his/her own sexual deviance and violates a child sexually, how is he/she exempt from the millstone? And why do we try to alleviate the weight of that millstone by covering up?

The Church does far better when it acknowledges its sin, living fearlessly and honestly, than when it prefers to show a pretty, unadulterated face to the world. Unfortunately, we have become so enamored with the ministries we have built, forgetting that God Himself builds His Church (and thinking it weighs on our shoulders), that we have lived in depraved fear, preferring the words of perpetrators over the words of those abused. We wrongly believe that we are in the business of reputation management.

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MICHIGAN
The Morning Sun

Editorial

Last week, it was announced that the Rev. Denis Heames, of St. Mary’s Parish on the campus of Central Michigan University, was being placed on administrative leave due to “boundary violations related to his priestly ministry.”

A statement released by the Diocese of Saginaw stated: “Last weekend, it was brought to my attention that Father Heames has been involved in boundary violations related to his priestly conduct, serious enough to require appropriate assessment and treatment,” Bishop (Joseph) Cistone shared with parishioners at St. Mary University Parish… ‘It is important to assure you that these actions in no way involved minors. Nonetheless, peoples’ lives have been affected and Father Heames will need to address these matters in a comprehensive way. Consequently, this past week, I placed Father Heames on an administrative leave of absence.’”

The reaction from the community was one of shock. Father Heames, or Father Denis, as he is also known, seemed to be well liked in the parish community.

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VATIKAN
Blick

Vatikanstadt – Der erste Pädophilie-Prozess im Vatikan ist am Samstag nach nur sieben Minuten vertagt worden. Der Angeklagte, der ehemalige polnische Erzbischof und Vatikanbotschafter Jozef Wesolowski, wurde schwer erkrankt auf die Intensivstation in ein Spital in Rom gebracht.

Dies teilte Staatsanwalt Gian Piero Milano dem Gericht mit. Ein neuer Termin stand zunächst nicht fest. Die Staatsanwaltschaft wirft dem 66-jährigen Ex-Geistlichen sexuellen Missbrauch minderjähriger Jungen in seiner Zeit als Nuntius in der Dominikanischen Republik von 2008 bis 2013 vor.

In seiner anschliessenden Zeit im Vatikan und bis zu seiner Festnahme im September 2014 soll er zudem kinderpornographisches Material aus dem Internet heruntergeladen haben. Sein Verhalten stelle eine grobe Verletzung der «religiösen Prinzipien und christlichen Moral dar», erklärte Staatsanwalt Milano bei der Verlesung der Hauptanklagepunkte.

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VATIKAN
Wir Sind Kirche

[Twenty women have been appointed to the Vatican culture council to give advice on women.]

Der Vatikan installiert erstmals ein weibliches Beratungsgremium für eine Kurienbehörde, und zwar für den Päpstlichen Kulturrat.

Anregungen aus der Sicht von Frauen vermitteln. Unter den Mitgliedern ist auch die italienische Franziskanerin Sr. Mary Melone, die erste Rektorin der Päpstlichen Universität Antonianum in Rom. In seiner Begrüßungsansprache sagte Kardinal Ravasi, er freue sich darauf, den Rat der Frauen anzuhören und sich von ihren Einsichten herausfordern zu lassen.

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VATIKAN
Spiegel

Kurz vor Beginn seines Missbrauchsprozesses ist der ehemalige Vatikanbotschafter Josef Wesolowski ins Krankenhaus eingeliefert worden. Er sei auf der Intensivstation und könne daher nicht an dem Prozess wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs Minderjähriger teilnehmen, teilte der Vatikan mit. Die Eröffnungssitzung am Samstagmorgen werde sich daher auf eine kurze Anhörung beschränken.

Wesolowski wird vorgeworfen, während seines Aufenthalts in der Dominikanischen Republik von 2008 bis 2013 Kinder sexuell missbraucht zu haben. Außerdem soll er während seines Aufenthalts im Vatikan zwischen August 2013 und September 2014 kinderpornografisches Material aus dem Internet heruntergeladen haben.

Der 66-jährige Pole leidet bereits seit Längerem an nicht öffentlich bekannten gesundheitlichen Problemen. Wesolowski war im September 2014 im Vatikan festgenommen und zunächst unter Hausarrest gestellt worden. Papst Franziskus hatte ihn nach Bekanntwerden der Vorwürfe im Herbst 2013 von seinem Posten abberufen. Nach einem disziplinarischen Verfahren wurde der frühere Erzbischof in den Laienstand versetzt – die höchstmögliche Strafe in der Kirche.

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VATIKAN
Evangelisch

Der ehemalige Nuntius in der Dominikanischen Republik, Josef Wesolowski, liege in einem Krankenhaus auf der Intensivstation, hieß es im Vatikan am Samstag.

Der Prozess sollte am Samstagvormittag beginnen. Er wird nun vermutlich auf unbestimmte Zeit vertagt. Dem polnischen Ex-Erzbischof wird Missbrauch von Kindern in der Dominikanischen Republik und der Besitz pornografischen Materials vorgeworfen.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Mirror

11 JULY 2015
BY CHRIS OSUH

Todros Grynhaus molested two teenage girls then fled the UK and tried to exploit Israel’s ‘Law of Return’ to get citizenship and escape prosecution

A paedophile Jewish scholar who fled to Israel after his crimes were exposed has been jailed for over 13 years.

Todros Grynhaus was branded an ‘utter hypocrite’ for professing his Orthodox faith while ‘cynically condemning his victims to suffer’.

The 50-yesar-old fled the UK in February 2013 and tried to exploit Israel’s ‘Law of Return’ to get citizenship and escape prosecution here, the Manchester Evening News reports.

But in a landmark ruling top judges in Israel, where he arrived with false papers, rejected his case and deported him back to Manchester to face justice in September last year.

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CALIFORNIA
Modesto Bee

Bee Staff Reports

A priest in residence at Modesto’s Holy Family Catholic Church has been placed on administrative leave due to allegations of inappropriate conduct with a minor occurring years ago.

In a statement released Friday, the Most Rev. Stephen Blaire, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Stockton, said the allegations against Father Editho Mascardo have been reported to the Stockton Police Department.

No further information about the accusation, including the age and gender of the minor or when and where the alleged conduct might have taken place, was released.

Mascardo, also a chaplain for Stanislaus County, had served previously as an associate pastor at St. Anthony’s Church in Hughson from 2006 to 2011. He also served as parochial vicar at St. Patrick’s Church in Sonora, where in 2013, he celebrated the 30th anniversary of his ordination, according to a church bulletin.

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CALIFORNIA
ABC 30

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) — The Catholic priest accused of stealing close to a half million dollars from a church in Tulare has pleaded not guilty to embezzlement charges.

Father Ignacio Villafan entered the plea during an appearance in court in Tulare Friday morning. He’s charged with stealing $425,000 from St. Rita’s Catholic Church. Villafan was arrested in December.

Tulare authorities say someone at the church discovered accounting problems and notified the diocese, which then reported problems to Tulare police. Charging documents say Villafan took money between 2005 and 2012. If he’s found guilty, Villafan will face seven years in state prison.

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INDIA
New Indian Express

KADAPA: Acting on a complaint made by Bharataratna Mahila Mandali organisers that a prostitution gang was transporting minor girls to Tamil Nadu, police and RPF personnel raided the group in Kadapa railway station and nabbed three minor girls, two of their relatives and one more person on Friday.

Many of the girls ran away from the station after seeing the police. It was revealed that a local church was reportedly taking 25 local minor girls to Tirupur in Tamil Nadu for providing them training in tailoring.

According to reports, the church organisers of Kalasapadu in the district regularly send unemployed women and girls to Tirupur spinning mills to give them training in tailoring works. On Friday, under the protection of church priest Prasad, 25 minor girls aged between 13 and 15 years assembled at the Kadapa railway station waiting for their train.

Meanwhile the media got phone calls from Bharataratna Mahila Mandali organiser Moole Saraswathi saying that a prostitution gang was at the railway station to transport minor girls to Tamil Nadu. Immediately mediapersons along with police and RPF rushed to the spot.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Mancunian Matters

By Lewis Chapman-Barker

A Salford paedophile has been jailed for historic sex offences against two children, including sexual abusing a girl from the age of seven, following a trial at Manchester Crown Court.

Todros Grynhaus, 50, from Salford was found guilty of four counts of indecent assault of a girl under the age of 16, and two counts of indecent assault of a girl under the age of 14 and sexual assault.

Grynhaus was today sentenced to 13 years and two months of jail time, and signed the sex offenders register for life.

Between 1996 and 2004, he sexually abused a girl from when she was seven to the age of 15 in the Salford area, and in 2004 he sexually abused another 15-year-old girl in the Salford area.

Detective Sergeant Joanne Kay said: “Grynhaus had gained the trust of his victims before sexually assaulting and abusing them.

“He thought he could get away with his crime but thanks to their bravery in coming forward and supporting this investigation, we have been able to prosecute him.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
International Business Times

By Lewis Dean
July 10, 2015

Prominent Orthodox Jew Todros Grynhaus has been jailed for sexually abusing girls as young as seven despite pleading that he lived his life by strict Jewish rules.

Grynhaus, 50, from Salford, was found guilty of four counts of indecent assault of a girl under the age of 16, two counts of indecent assault of a girl under the age of 14 and sexual assault following a trial at Manchester Crown Court.

He was today (Friday, 10 July) sentenced to 13 years and two months and ordered to sign the sex offenders register for life.

The son of influential London rabbi and Beth Din judge Dayan Dovid Grynhaus, Todros Grynhaus had dismissed the accusations as “pure fiction” and part of a “revenge plot”.

But he was found guilty of sexually abusing a girl between 1996 and 2004 from when she was seven to the age of 15 in the Salford area. He was also guilty of sexually abusing another 15-year-old girl in the Salford area in 2004.

Flight to Jerusalem

Police launched an enquiry in November 2012 after information was disclosed to them regarding alleged crimes. Three months later, Grynhaus fled to Jerusalem using a false passport but was deported in September 2014 and arrested.

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VATICAN CITY
Sky News

A former papal diplomat charged with the sexual abuse of boys has been admitted to hospital ahead of his trial at the Vatican.

Jozef Wesolowski is being treated in intensive care as his trial was set to open on Saturday.

The judge is expected to immediately adjourn the case to a later date.

The 66-year-old faces charges that he sexually abused shoeshine boys in the Dominican Republic and possessed child pornography.

The former Catholic archbishop’s trial was seen as a high-profile way for Pope Francis to make good on pledges to punish high-ranking churchmen involved in sex abuse of minors, either by molesting children or by systematically covering up for priests who did.

Sky Correspondent Mark Stone says the criminal trial represents the first of its kind.

Wesolowski, from Poland, was discretely recalled to the Vatican by Pope Francis in 2013 after allegations surfaced in an investigative TV programme in the Dominican Republic.

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