ABUSE TRACKER

CONNECTICUT
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford

20 June 2015

Statement by the Archdiocese of Hartford

“The Archdiocese of Hartford has learned that an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor has been made against the Rev. Jeremiah N. Murasso. The alleged abuse reportedly took place over twenty years ago, while Fr. Murasso was serving in New Haven at St. Francis Home for Children, also known as, Highland Heights. Pursuant to its established policy, the Archdiocese has placed Fr. Murasso, who most recently was serving at Blessed Sacrament and the Shrine of St. Anne in Waterbury, on administrative leave until this allegation is resolved.

The Archdiocese of Hartford condemns the type of misconduct that has been alleged. It encourages anyone who has been a victim of sexual abuse as a minor by any personnel of the Archdiocese, to contact civil authorities (the State Department of Children and Families and/or the local police) and the Victims Assistance Coordinator of the Archdiocese at: 860-541-6475.”
– Archdiocese of Hartford.

Rev. Jeremiah Murasso Parish Assignments

Position, Location, Dates

Asst. Pastor, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Meriden, 7/16/1979 – 8/27/1982
Asst. Pastor, St. Joseph, New Haven, 8/27/1982 – 3/21/1985
Co-Pastor, St. Vincent de Paul, East Haven, 3/21/1985 – 3/1/1986
Administrator, St. Vincent de Paul, East Haven, 3/1/1986 – 9/14/1989
Pastor, St. Vincent Ferrer, Naugatuck, 9/14/1989 – 5/18/1992
Interim Dir., Highland Heights, New Haven, 5/18/1992 – 7/1/1992
Director, Highland Heights, New Haven, 7/1/1992 – 10/4/1995
Pastor, St. Vincent Ferrer, Naugatuck, 10/4/1995 – 9/15/2003
Pastor, St. Francis Assisi, South Windsor, 9/15/2003 – 3/5/2012
Pastor, Blessed Sacrament & Shrine of St. Anne, Wtby., 3/5/12 – Administrative Leave

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CONNECTICUT
Republican-American

BY PAUL SINGLEY REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN

WATERBURY — A Roman Catholic priest at Blessed Sacrament Church and the Shrine of St. Anne has been accused of sexually abusing a minor more than 20 years ago in New Haven.

The Archdiocese of Hartford says it has placed the Rev. Jeremiah Murasso, 62, on administrative leave from the Waterbury churches until the allegation is resolved.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

Wednesday, July 1 2015

By: Maria Miller

ALTOONA, Pa. — Another friar at a monastery in Altoona has taken his own life following what appears to be an investigation by state officials.

The Blair County Coroner’s Office confirmed Wednesday that David Kaczmarek died by means of hanging. His death was ruled a suicide.

The 53-year-old was found Sunday morning at the St. Bernadine Monastery of the Immaculate Conception Province just two days after authorities reportedly took pictures outside and computers and documents from inside.

The monastery is part of the Franciscan Friars Third Order Regular, defining itself online as a home for retired members of the religious community, but it’s not clear how long Kaczmarek resided there or where he came from.

Searches online and through 6 News archives show no records of Kaczmarek locally, but his picture does appear on their website several times and lists addresses for him in Minnesota and Florida – both states where the friars have ministries.

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ALABAMA
Vestavia Voice

by ERICA TECHO
July 1, 2015

Following a warrant for his arrest, former Vestavia Hills youth pastor Ryan Scott Rodgers, 36, turned himself into the New Orleans Police Department on June 26. Rodgers was on staff at Liberty Park Baptist Church from 2003-2009, according to Pastor Scott Guffin.

Guffin said the allegations against Rodgers first came to the church’s attention when the complaints were filed in New Orleans.

“We initially heard about it when the complaints were filed, and when he was here, there were no incidents or allegations,” Guffin said.

Rodgers is a youth pastor in the Orleans, Jefferson and Plaquemines Parishes in Louisiana.

Rodgers was booked on one count of simple battery, one count of sexual battery and seven counts of indecent behavior with juveniles. Bond was set at $100,000. He is out of jail and faces a status hearing with the Orleans Parish Magistrate Court on July 2.

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SCOTLAND
Evening Times

A RETIRED assistant priest has been spared jail string of sex attacks on three teenage boys including one from Glasgow.

The then-father Colman McGrath abused two boys who were training to join the priesthood at Blairs College in Aberdeen.

McGrath, 76, then went on to indecently assault another school boy he was tutoring at his chapel in Langside, Glasgow’s South Side.

The abuse only came to light years later and in June 2014 McGrath – who retired in 2006 – was interviewed by police about his conduct.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

BY DAVE SUTOR
DSUTOR@TRIBDEM.COM

Posted on Jul 1, 2015

HOLLIDAYSBURG – A second friar associated with the Province of the Immaculate Conception of the Third Order Regular Franciscans has committed suicide.

Rev. David Kaczmarek, 53, hung himself on Saturday, probably around 6 p.m., according to Blair County Chief Deputy Coroner Paul Kerns. His body was discovered at St. Joseph Friary on Walnut Street in Hollidaysburg on Sunday.

Kaczmarek was reportedly the subject of a legal investigation, per Kerns.

“I don’t know what the deal is with that,” Kerns said.

In January 2014, Brother Stephen Baker is said to have died from a self-inflicted knife wound to the heart, while staying at the province’s St. Bernardine Monastery on Monastery Road in Newry. Baker was accused of sexually molesting possibly more than 100 male students at the former Bishop McCort High School.

Last October, 88 former students received a combined $8 million in compensation as part of a settlement with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, Province of the Immaculate Conception of the Third Order Regular Franciscans and what is now known as Bishop McCort Catholic High School. Other cases are still ongoing.

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KENTUCKY
The Ledger Independent

VANCEBURG | A former Vanceburg pastor, facing charges of sexual abuse, appeared in Lewis County Circuit Court Wednesday.

During the pretrial hearing for 63-year-old Duncan Aker, his defense attorney, Daniel Dickerson, told Circuit Judge Robert Conley that he would like more time in order to view the recorded interview with the alleged victim in the case.

Mike Frye, with Commonwealth’s Attorney Mel Leonhart’s office, said after the defense views the recording, his office will work with Dickerson’s office to come to a resolution in the case.

“We’ll go back to court in September and see if we can’t come to a resolution,” Frye said. “If we can’t, then we’ll proceed to trial.”

The next pretrial hearing was set for Sept. 4 at 9:30 a.m.

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SCOTLAND
STV

A petition for judicial review of the decision to appoint Susan O’Brien QC to chair an inquiry into historic child abuse in Scotland has been refused.

The Congregation of the Poor Sisters of Nazareth and the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent De Paul lodged a petition for judicial review at Edinburgh’s Court of Session objecting to the Scottish Government’s appointment of Susan O’Brien QC.

Their action centred on Ms O’Brien’s involvement in a case brought against the Poor Sisters of Nazareth at the House of Lords by two former residents of Nazareth House children’s home in Glasgow who alleged they were abused in the 1960s and 70s.

Ms O’Brien acted as counsel for the former residents in their 2008 appeal which unsuccessfully challenged an earlier court ruling that the claims were time barred, or made too late.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Wednesday 1 July 2015

A judge has dismissed a legal bid by two Catholic charities to overturn the appointment of a top QC as chairwoman of an inquiry into historic child abuse in Scotland.

Lord Woolman refused the challenge from The Congregation of the Poor Sisters of Nazareth and the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent De Paul to the Scottish Government’s choice of Susan O’Brien to lead the probe.

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SCOTLAND
BBC News

A judge has dismissed a legal bid by two Catholic charities to overturn the appointment of a top QC as chairwoman into historic child abuse in Scotland.

Lord Woolman refused the challenge from The Congregation of the Poor Sisters of Nazareth and the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent De Paul.

The Scottish Government’s appointed Susan O’Brien to lead the probe.

The charities had raised fears of “apparent bias” relating to her involvement in a previous case.
It had been brought against the Poor Sisters of Nazareth.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Freitag

[The Bundestage on Thursday is scheduled to set up a national commission to explain sexual violence in the country. ]

Missbrauch Der Linken-Abgeordnete Norbert Müller findet die neue Aufarbeitungskommission gegen sexuelle Gewalt zu schwach. Wer aufarbeiten will, brauche echte Ermittlungsinstrumente

der Freitag: Herr Müller, der Bundestag will am Donnerstag eine nationale Kommission einsetzen, die sexuelle Gewalt aufklären soll. Seit 2010 wird doch überall aufgeklärt, reicht das nicht?

Norbert Müller: Nein, ein Schlussstrich bei der Aufarbeitung sexualisierter Gewalt wäre völlig falsch. Der droht aber meines Erachtens gerade dadurch, dass Berichte aus Institutionen wie der Kirche, den Reformschulen oder bei den Grünen vorliegen und das öffentliche Interesse langsam abnimmt.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Review

By Mike Wereschagin and Brad Bumsted
Wednesday, July 1, 2015

A Blair County friar hanged himself two days after agents with the state Attorney General’s Office raided another, nearby monastery connected to a sexual abuse scandal, the Blair County Coroner’s office confirmed Wednesday.

The Rev. David Kaczmarek, 53, died around 6 p.m. Saturday at St. Joseph’s Friary in Hollidaysburg, the coroner’s office said. Another friar found him about 8 a.m. Sunday. The Immaculate Conception Province website, of which St. Joseph’s is part, lists Kaczmarek as provincial secretary.

On Thursday and less than four miles away, state investigators raided St. Bernardine Monastery, where a friar accused of molesting children killed himself in 2013. Kaczmarek was not a target of the investigation, a source told the Tribune-Review.

Both the St. Bernardine Monastery and St. Joseph’s Friary are part of the Immaculate Conception province of the Franciscan Friars of the Third Order Regular. St. Joseph’s serves as the province’s home for semi-retired friars, according to the province’s website.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

[with video]

A former resident of a Christian Brothers boys’ home has launched a Supreme Court bid for damages over claims of sadistic sexual abuse by three brothers more than 40 years ago.

A writ filed this week outlines the Perth man’s claims of psychiatric and psychological harm from the abuse he alleges was inflicted at Castledare Boys Home by Brothers Verdon, Dick and Daly between 1971 and 1973.

The action comes after a royal commission last year scrutinised historic sexual and physical abuse in a case study of Castledare and three other WA Christian Brothers homes.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard from 11 former residents of the homes, who named 16 Brothers as abusers.

The writ, lodged against the Trustees of the Christian Brothers and the estates of seven late leaders and members of the congregation, claimed the man was owed a duty of care and the sexual and physical assaults on him were breaches of that duty.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Durham Times

A FORMER senior clergyman has appeared at crown court for the first time in relation to historic sex allegations.

The Venerable George Granville Gibson, who previously served as Archdeacon of Auckland, one of the leading posts in the Durham diocese of the Church of England, faces a total of eight charges dating from the late 1970s and early 80s.

Following an initial hearing at South Durham Magistrates’ Court in Newton Aycliffe, last month (June 17), district judge Stephen Harmes sent the case involving the 79-year-old former church minister to Durham Crown Court.

During a short preliminary hearing at the crown court today (Wednesday July 1), the charges were not put to Mr Gibson, but arrangements were made for future proceedings in the case.

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LOUISIANA
The Times-Picayune

By Jonathan Bullington, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on June 26, 2015

Ryan Scott Rodgers, a 36-year-old youth minister accused by New Orleans police of having “inappropriate sexual behavior” with two male teenagers, surrendered to authorities Friday (June 26), NOPD said in an email.

Police have accused Rodgers of sexually abusing the teenagers over the course of at least a year, starting sometime in 2014. Most of that abuse took place inside Rodgers’ Central City apartment in the 1700 block of Baronne Street, police said, and involved inappropriately touching the teenagers as they slept. Police also said he purchased underwear for the teenagers and forced them to pose in front of him.

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ALABAMA
AL.com

By Carol Robinson | crobinson@al.com
on July 01, 2015

A former Vestavia Hills youth pastor has been arrested in New Orleans, accused of repeatedly touching two teenage boys while they were sleeping and making them pose in underwear.

Ryan Scott Rodgers, 36, surrendered to New Orleans police on Friday, June 26, according to NOLA.com. Rodgers is charged with sexual battery and seven counts of indecent behavior with juveniles. He formerly served at Liberty Park Baptist Church as youth pastor for six years.

New Orleans police on June 25 announced the charges against Rodgers in a press release. He was not in custody at the time, and had moved out of his apartment and was believed to be staying in hotels to avoid arrest. He turned himself in two days later.

Authorities said most of the incidents are reported to have occurred at Rodgers’ Central City apartment, and said the boys were awakened by Rodgers fondling them. The victims told New Orleans Police Department Special Victims Section Detective Stephanie Taillon that Rodgers sexually abused them for over a year.

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UNITED STATES
Christianity Today

Ted Olsen

MAY 8, 2015

I don’t usually get mad at news stories. Not anymore. After 20 years of working at CT, I’m used to reading about human sin. Part of my job used to include sifting through every religion news tidbit and highlighting the top stories for our online readers. The daily drumbeat of ministry leaders resigning or being fired for moral failure was so common that I rarely noted it. But it was demoralizing. During one period, I kept hoping for a break in the streak. After one unbroken month of moral failure stories, I sought out spiritual help. My crisis passed.

So I was surprised to find myself grieving this month amid another series of reports. Grieving, and mad.

There was Patrick Sookhdeo, one of the most prominent advocates for persecuted Christians, especially in Muslim-majority countries. A British court found him guilty of sexually touching a female employee and intimidating witnesses.

Around the same time, human rights activist Chai Ling was accusing apologist Yuan Zhiming of raping her in 1990, before they both became prominent Christians. (See “Matthew 18, 25 Years Later.”)

And these weren’t the only two such cases we investigated this month. But the Sookhdeo and Yuan cases illustrated the defensive response we tend to get from organizations when their leaders’ sins are made public.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Altoona Mirror

Rev. Kaczmarek was center of AG investigation last week

July 1, 2015

By Russ O’Reilly (roreilly@altoonamirror.com) , The Altoona Mirror

HOLLIDAYSBURG – Another friar of the Immaculate Conception Province has died by suicide, Blair County Coroner Patty Ross confirmed Tuesday.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

By: WJAC Web Staff

HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. — WJAC-TV is working to learn more on the details surrounding the death of another friar at the Immaculate Conception Province in Blair County.

The state Attorney General’s Office is investigating the death, which authorities said was a suicide.

The Blair County Coroner told the Altoona Mirror that Rev. David Kaczmarek died at the province’s friary Saturday evening. Kaczmarek was at the center of an investigation last week, but little details are being released on what the investigation was about.

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ARKANSAS
In Touch Weekly

In Touch magazine has exclusively learned that Tontitown, Arkansas, cops recently took off-duty paid jobs guarding the Duggars while the department has an open investigation into the family.

Emails obtained exclusively by In Touch through a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that the interim police chief of Tontitown OKed the off-duty work.

Kate Gosselin’s longtime bodyguard Steve Neild — who’s now working for the Duggars — paid off-duty officers from the local force in Tontitown, Arkansas, $25 an hour to provide security at the Duggar family home on May 21, 2015, and Josh’s new home on May 20 and 21 when Josh returned home from Washington, D.C., after In Touch broke the story about his sexual molestation scandal and he resigned from the Family Research Council.

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UNITED STATES
In Touch Weekly

A non-Duggar family molestation victim is preparing to file a civil suit against Josh Duggar, sources tell In Touch magazine exclusively in the new issue on newsstands today.

The shocking development means that Josh and his parents Jim Bob and Michelle could be forced to give depositions and testify about Josh’s molestation scandal. The Duggars likely will have to answer every question as they will not be able to invoke their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination because the criminal statute of limitations has expired.

The family is once again under investigation the Department of Human Services and the fate of their reality show 19 Kids and Counting is still undecided. The impending lawsuit sets up a nightmare scenario for TLC: if the network brings back 19 Kids and Counting, the show could be on the air while the Duggars are fighting a lawsuit that exposes all of Josh’s secrets surrounding the molestations and how the family covered it up.

The Duggars will face questions about how many years it took them to get Josh and his victims counseling, what type of safeguards they put in place in 2002 after first being alerted to Josh molesting female minors. “All the church elders who knew about this will have to be named,” a source tells In Touch.

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UNITED STATES
Christianity Today

From Unquestioning Submission to Speaking Out

Michelle Van Loon

My husband and I once belonged to a congregation where leaders took their cues from the Shepherding Movement. Emphasizing allegiance and church unity, they expected members to submit to their authority in all matters. One of their favorite mantras came from 1 Corinthians, using the King James Version for extra emphasis: Touch not God’s anointed. I was taught that to question a leader was to defy God himself.

I was a naive sheep in this flock until I stumbled upon the elaborate efforts to keep hidden the pastor’s porn addiction and infidelity with a congregant. Anyone who got too close to this secret was branded a problem. I found myself drafted into the uncomfortable role of whistleblower. After my husband and I brought our concerns to church leadership, the elders made it clear that we were untrustworthy and troublemakers. After a number of failed attempts to resolve the situation, we left the church.

It took a while to heal from the manipulation and misuse of authority my husband and I experienced at the hands of these men. Over time, others experienced the same treatment, which, turns out, was a demonically effective way of deflecting attention from the real problem. Over a decade passed before the pastor’s marriage fell apart and the truth came out.

I’ve watched from afar as similar scenarios play out as whistleblowers decry leaders-gone-bad in organizations and congregations across the country: Doug Phillips, Bill Gothard, Mark Driscoll. Especially online, we hear from these voices long before the pastor finally makes a grudging public admission of his wrongdoing.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Courthouse News Service

By JOE HARRIS

ST. LOUIS (CN) – A Catholic priest accused of sexual misconduct with minors sued an accuser’s parents and the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, claiming they targeted him for monetary gain because of his race.

The Rev. Xiu Hui “Joseph” Jiang sued St. Louis, two city police officers, the parents A.M. and N.M., the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests and SNAP leaders David Clohessy and Barbara Dorris in Federal Court.

Jiang claims the officers failed to fully investigate the claims and that SNAP embarked on a smear campaign, damaging his reputation.

The charges against Jiang were dismissed by St. Louis City Prosecuting Attorney Jennifer Joyce in June without explanation.

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AUSTRALIA
The Tablet (UK)

Cardinal Pell’s 40-year-old passport ‘disproves allegation that he knew about child’s abuse by priest’

01 July 2015 by Mark Brolly

A Melbourne newspaper says passport details prove Cardinal George Pell was studying in Oxford 46 years ago at the time a survivor of child sexual abuse says the Australian prelate, then a young priest, heard him plead for help a few weeks after being raped by a Christian Brother in the Victorian city of Ballarat.

The Herald Sun reported on 27 June that the Prefect of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy, a former Archbishop of Melbourne and later of Sydney, had given it access to a copy of his full passport, showing his travel in the 1960s and ’70s.

“The passport makes it clear that Cardinal Pell was not in Australia in 1969,” the paper said in a story headlined ‘Pell’s passport proves point’. The Herald Sun reported on Monday that Paul Lyons, 55, had challenged the cardinal to prove he was not in Ballarat at the time he told priests at St Alipius Presbytery of his rape.

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IRELAND
RTE News

A woman who alleges she was sexually abused by a catholic priest in Nigeria has told the High Court she was first abused while in hospital at the age of 13.

Dolores Atwood has begun giving evidence in a defamation case taken by former archbishop Richard Burke, who claims he was wrongly branded as a paedophile in an RTÉ television programme.

Ms Atwood said she first met Mr Burke when she was a schoolgirl and had gone to her local church to buy rosary beads.

She said she began meeting him after mass on Sundays and he began giving her hugs.

Ms Atwood said she found it very comforting as she had no emotional support at home. Her parents had divorced and she had problems with her stepmother.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Mary Carolan

Wed, Jul 1, 2015

A woman has told the High Court a priest kissed her and touched her breast while she was being treated for typhoid fever in a hospital in Nigeria in 1983.

Dolores Atwood, who was born in August 1969, said she first met Richard Burke, a member of the Kiltegan Fathers order, after mass at a Catholic church in Nigeria in 1982 and had enjoyed conversations with him.

When she became ill in 1983, she was treated in hospital for typhoid fever and he came to visit her, she said. She was “surprised” and, while he was there, the light went off and he kissed her and touched her breast and was “touching me inappropriately”.

When the light came back on, he had gone back to the position where he was standing before the light went off, she said.

Ms Atwood has begun her evidence in the action by Mr Burke (66), a native of Co Tipperary, against RTÉ alleging he was defamed in the RTÉ Prime Time Investigates: Mission to Prey programme broadcast on May 23rd 2011. He claims material in the programme wrongly meant he was a paedophile. RTÉ denies defamation.

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SCOTLAND
STV

A priest who abused three teenage boys in the 1970s and 80s has avoided jail.

Colman McGrath, 76, abused two boys who were training to join the priesthood at Blairs College in Aberdeen and went on to indecently assault another school boy he was tutoring at his chapel in Langside, Glasgow.

But McGrath, who is now retired, was only interviewed by police in June 2014 after the abuse came to light decades later.

McGrath pleaded guilty to three charges of indecent assault between August 1972 and September 1982 at Glasgow Sheriff Court.

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MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

06/30/2015

Jennifer Haselberger

Priests and parish staff have been asked to add the following announcement to this week’s bulletins.

Come welcome Archbishop Bernard Hebda to the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. Our new Apostolic Administrator will be celebrating the 10:00am Mass at The Cathedral of Saint Paul on Sunday, July 12th. All are encouraged to gather for the Eucharist and meet Archbishop Hebda following Mass. The Cathedral of Saint Paul is located 239 Selby Street in Saint Paul. For directions and other information about The Cathedral of Saint Paul, go to www.cathedralsaintpaul.org or call 651.228.1766.

If you have trouble finding the Cathedral, you can also navigate by the ‘For Sale’ signs that surround it.

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SCOTLAND
BBC News

A retired priest has been told to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work after admitting indecently assaulting three teenage boys in Aberdeen and Glasgow.

Colman McGrath, 76, abused two boys who were training to join the priesthood at Blairs College in Aberdeen and a boy at his parish in Langside, Glasgow.

The offences were committed between August 1972 and September 1982.

At Glasgow Sheriff Court, McGrath was put on the sex offenders’ register and placed on supervision for three years.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
TheMediaReport

Finally! A falsely accused priest has had enough and is not going to take it any more.

After being twice accused and cleared on wild charges of sex abuse, Rev. Xiu Hui “Joseph” Jiang has filed a federal lawsuit against his accusers, the lawyer-funded, anti-Catholic group SNAP, and members of the St. Louis police department for publicly accusing him of being a child molester.

Something rotten in Denmark

[**CLICK to read Rev. Jiang’s federal lawsuit**]

In both 2012 and 2014, Rev. Jiang was publicly accused of abuse charges which received wide media attention with SNAP breathlessly claiming that Jiang was a dangerous child molester on the prowl. Yet even at a glance the accusations against Jiang were clearly bogus.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

By Jean Hopfensperger Star Tribune JUNE 30, 2015

The St. Cloud Diocese faces the prospect of making unprecedented disclosures about priests accused of sexual misconduct, under a ruling filed Monday in Stearns County court that builds on a series of legal victories for Minnesotans claiming clergy abuse.

Judge Kris Davick-Halfen ruled that lawyers can proceed with a “public nuisance” claim against the diocese by an alleged victim of priest sex abuse — a move that allows attorneys to investigate the diocese’s records and documents on all priests who have been accused of misconduct over decades.

Four of Minnesota’s six dioceses now face similar court-ordered scrutiny. Judges have made similar rulings on the public nuisance claim in the dioceses of Ramsey, Winona and New Ulm. The motion is under advisement in a case against a priest from the Diocese of Duluth.

The St. Cloud Diocese declined to comment on the ruling. It serves 130,000 Catholics in 16 counties across central Minnesota.

“These nuisance suits put Minnesota at the forefront of a growing national movement to expose those who commit and conceal heinous crimes against children,” said David Clohessy, national director of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. “In no state have as many victims successfully used the nuisance argument to unearth more records of abuse and names of perpetrators.”

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Wednesday, July 01, 2015

A range of health services will become available from today for women who worked in the Magdalene Laundries.

The move is part of the Government’s redress scheme for women who were resident in certain institutions.

The services include GP, medical and surgical services, as well as home help, counselling and nursing services.

Ex-gratia payments ranging between €11,500 and €100,000 are also being paid out. About 86% of the applications received so far have been paid, at a cost of €18m.

Claire McGettrick of the Justice for Magdalenes Committee said the health scheme coming into effect today did not go far enough.

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CALIFORNIA
Daily Pilot

By Jeremiah Dobruck
June 30, 2015

Attorneys concluded their arguments Tuesday in the case of a Costa Mesa Sunday school volunteer accused of sexually abusing a half-dozen boys and trying to lure another.

Jurors will decide whether they believe testimony from witnesses who over the past few weeks accused 51-year-old Christopher McKenzie of fondling or raping the boys.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Heather Brown told jurors that McKenzie is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, a man who hid behind a guise of religious piety that he cultivated at Rock Harbor church in Costa Mesa.

McKenzie met three of the boys at the church, where he helped in a fifth-grade classroom, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.

“Mr. McKenzie handpicked these boys,” Brown said.

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IRELAND
Herald

THE country has been convulsed with shock, disgust and anger since the full extent of clerical child sex abuse became known.

This sickening scandal rocked the Catholic Church to its very foundations and destroyed the trust and faith of many.

Even more shocking have been the extraordinary lengths the church has gone to cover things up.

The overriding imperative of the vast majority of the church hierarchy has been to protect the good name of that institution at all costs.

misery

Many a blind eye has been turned to the misery and suffering inflicted on innocent children by evil paedophile priests.

This was further highlighted dramatically last week when Cardinal Sean Brady, the retired head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, appeared before the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry in Co Down.

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VIRGINIA
Roanoke Times

By Laurence Hammack laurence.hammack@roanoke.com 981-3239

LEXINGTON — A former pastor charged with molesting a teenage boy from his church is asking that his upcoming trial be moved from Rockbridge County.

Larry McKinley Clark’s attorney argued Tuesday that extensive publicity about the case would make it all but impossible to seat an impartial jury. Complicating the problem for Clark, attorney Dirk Padgett said, that news media coverage includes that of an earlier trial in which Clark was convicted of sexually abusing a second young parishioner.

“I do think it raises it to a different level if [potential jurors] are aware of a conviction,” Padgett argued during a hearing in Rockbridge County Circuit Court.

Judge Michael Irvine took the motion for a change of venue under advisement, saying he will first try to seat a jury in Lexington as the law requires. Irvine also agreed to postpone Clark’s trial, which had been set for next week, until Sept. 14.

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MINNESOTA
Al Jazeera

by Mary Turck @maryturck

On June 15 Minnesota Archbishop John Nienstedt and his deputy, Bishop Lee Piché, resigned from their positions days after the county attorney filed criminal charges against the archdiocese for failing to protect children from sexual abuse.

Nienstedt may personally be linked to the scandal: In 2014 he first ordered, and then blocked, an internal investigation of his private life. His resignation, which came after years of his insistence that he would not resign, was announced, but not explained. It highlights the bigger issues that are dogging the Catholic Church on every continent. Nienstedt’s resignation also underscores the struggle between progressives and conservatives over abuse of authority by bishops and the Vatican and, ultimately, over the direction the church will take under Pope Francis.

The fallout within the Minneapolis-St. Paul archdiocese is not surprising. Years of clergy sex abuse scandals have led to bankruptcy and the departure of many Catholics from the church. In fact, the abuses that led to Nienstedt’s resignation were first reported more than 30 years ago. Public concern escalated in 2013 as Minnesota Public Radio published an investigative series based on new evidence disclosed by diocesan canon lawyer and whistleblower, Jennifer Haselberger. The MPR reports, which documented sexual abuse of children by priests and the failure of three archbishops to respond over 30 years time, catapulted the archdiocese into a national spotlight.

The new revelations outraged Catholics across the state and nation. They already knew about the sex abuse by priests, with reports starting at least in the 1970s, but the extent of abuse and cover-ups had never been disclosed. For example, archbishops failed to report crimes to police, transferred pedophile priests from parish to parish, and sometimes arranged early retirement and special payments to the accused priests.

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NORTHERN IRELAND/IRELAND
RTE News

A Belfast solicitor has said he is finalising preparations to begin civil actions on behalf of five clerical abuse victims who allege they were let down by Irish authorities.

Last week, Northern Ireland’s Historical Abuse Inquiry heard claims of contacts between a Dublin hospital and gardaí in Finglas about paedophile priest Brendan Smyth.

The substance of the claims being prepared by solicitor Kevin Winters is that elements of the Irish healthcare system and gardaí knew about the activities of Smyth in 1973.

This was more than 20 years before he was brought before the courts for his crimes.

For two decades afterwards, the Co Cavan-based priest abused children in Ireland, north and south and elsewhere.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

PUBLISHED
01/07/2015

A FORMER Catholic Archbishop has told the High Court he wanted a woman to withdraw and seek the return of a letter, sent by her to Rome, which accused him of sexually abusing her when she was aged 13 and 14.

Richard Burke denies he sexually abused Dolores Atwood in Nigeria when she was aged 13 or 14. He and Ms Atwood had consensual sex for the first time when she was aged 20 and he was 40, he insists.

Mr Burke (66), a native of Co Tipperary, has completed his evidence in his action against RTE alleging he was defamed in the RTE Prime Time Investigates: Mission to Prey programme broadcast on May 23rd 2011. He claims material in the programme wrongly meant he was a paedophile. RTE denies defamation.

After Mr Burke’s re-examination concluded this morning, the seventh day of the case, Ms Justice Iseult O’Malley and the jury were told the evidence of behalf of Mr Burke had concluded.
The jury was then asked to go out while legal discussion began in their absence.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Matt Sepic Jun 30, 2015

A ruling by a Stearns County judge could lead to the release of extensive files on sexual abuse by priests in the Diocese of St. Cloud.

District Court Judge Kris Davick-Halfen said a public nuisance lawsuit against the diocese may proceed. The unnamed plaintiff in the case claims that the Rev. James Thoennes sexually abused him in the early 1970s at a Catholic school in Foley, Minn.

Jeff Anderson, an attorney who represents victims of sexual abuse by priests, said the ruling will allow him to take depositions of top diocese officials about how they handled abuse cases.

“Given the magnitude and the importance of this effort and this ruling, we are going to move this forward aggressively,” Anderson said.

A similar decision in 2013 led to the release of thousands of clergy files by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Frank Meuers, a Minnesota leader of Survivors of those Abused by Priests, said in a statement that the nuisance suits make the state a leader in a growing movement to expose those who commit crimes against children.

“In no other state have child sex abuse victims been as successful at disgorging secrets from corrupt institutions through the creative and aggressive use of this novel legal strategy,” Meuers said.

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MEXICO
El Debate

Ciudad de México.-Francisco Javier García Rodríguez, sacerdote en el municipio de Autlán, Jalisco, fue detenido por las autoridades presuntamente por violar a una niña de 11 años.

De acuerdo con un reporte de la Fiscalía General del estado, el clérigo de 60 años se aprovechó de la amistad y el hospedaje que la familia de la menor le brindó para abusar sexualmente de la pequeña, así lo informó el portal de Excelsior.com.

La familia de la pequeña consideraba al sacerdote como amigo y por eso le ofrecían frecuentemente hospedaje, por lo que el 4 de febrero pasado el cura se encontraba en la casa, como huésped en el cuarto de la niña, y durante dos noches la agredió sexualmente

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MEXICO
The Yucatan Times

A 60-year-old Catholic priest is in custody after being accused of sexually abusing an 11-year-old girl in the Mexican state of Jalisco.

Catholic Priest Francisco Javier García Rodríguez was a friend to the girl’s family, residents of Punta Pérula in the municipality of La Huerta, and was a frequent overnight visitor to their home.

But after a visit in February during which the priest allegedly attacked her sexually on two nights, she told her mother in spite of threats of violence by García Rodríguez.

The accusation was made before authorities on April 23, who say that physical and psychological tests have revealed evidence of sexual violence. The priest was subsequently arrested in the community of El Chante, in Autlán, where he lived.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Anthony Canu was a priest of the Third Order Regular Franciscans, ordained in 1955. Canu’s name was included on the St. Cloud diocese’s January 3, 2014 list of 33 priests clergy against whom there had been “likely claims of sexual abuse of minors.” Canu worked in the diocese 1959-1962. In addition to St. Cloud, he was assigned to the dioceses of Altoona PA, Detroit MI and Richmond VA. His assignments included a high school seminary, a high school and home for boys, and several parishes. His whereabouts beyond 1974 are unknown.

Ordained: 1955

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MINNESOTA
The Legal Examiner

Court Rules That Survivors’ Public Nuisance Claims Against Diocese of St. Cloud May Proceed

Posted by Mike Bryant
June 30, 2015

(St. Cloud, MN) – Stearns County District Court Judge Kris Davick-Halfen has ruled that a clergy sexual abuse survivor’s public nuisance claim against the Diocese of St. Cloud can proceed. Judge Davick-Halfen’s June 22, 2015, order will help hold the Diocese of St. Cloud accountable for protecting pedophile priests in the past and will help keep children safe in the future.

In 2014 the Diocese of St. Cloud released a list of 33 priests who worked in the Diocese who had been credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors. The Diocese has not released files or documents pertaining to those priests or their patterns of grooming and abuse. Such information is necessary to educate the public about the threat and keep the public safe.

In January 2015, Plaintiff Doe 50 filed suit against the Diocese of St. Cloud, claiming that he was sexually abused as a child by Father James Thoennes (pronounced “Tennis”), a priest at St. John’s Parish and School in Foley, Minn., in the early 1970s. St. John’s is in the Diocese of St. Cloud.

“This ruling will allow us to bring this serious, ongoing problem in the Diocese of St. Cloud out into the light so that we can protect children in the future from going through the same harm that Doe 50 and many other kids like him had to endure as a result of the Diocese’s mishandling of abusive priests,” said Jeff Anderson, an attorney representing Doe 50.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

By Jean Hopfensperger Star Tribune JUNE 30, 2015

A Stearns County judge has ruled that a public nuisance claim against the Diocese of St. Cloud by an alleged victim of priest sex abuse may proceed, a move that could pry open the Catholic diocese’s clergy abuse files on the priest sued and all others.

The order, filed Tuesday by Judge Kris Davick-Halfen, is similar to a 2013 decision in Ramsey County which resulted in an unprecedented release of names and documents of clergy sex offenders from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

The St. Cloud diocese lawsuit was filed by a man who says he was sexually abused in the early 1970s by Rev. James Thoennes in the city of Foley. It says the diocese was aware that Thoennes had abused at least one other child previously.

The diocese created a “public nuisance” by allowing Thoennes to remain in public ministry and by not informing the public about his past, the lawsuit claims.

“This ruling will allow us to bring this serious, ongoing problem in the Diocese of St. Cloud out into the light so that we can protect children in the future from going through the same harm that Doe 50 and many other kids like him had to endure …” said Jeff Anderson, the attorney for the alleged victim.

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MINNESOTA
LaCross Tribune

ST. CLOUD, Minn. (AP) — A Stearns County judge is allowing a public nuisance claim to proceed against the Diocese of St. Cloud.

The claim is part of a lawsuit by a man who accuses former St. Cloud diocese priest James Thoennes of abusing him when he was a boy in Foley in the early 1970s.

The lawsuit claims the diocese knew of past abuse by Thoennes before it assigned him to St. John’s parish in Foley. The St. Cloud Times reports (http://on.sctimes.com/1C5j7Pu ) that Thoennes admitted in a deposition in a separate lawsuit that he sexually abused at least five boys while working in the St. Cloud Diocese.

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IRELAND
RTE News

A former Catholic Archbishop has denied that payments made to a woman with whom he had a sexual relationship were made in an effort to get her to withdraw complaints about him.

Richard Burke, 66, from Tipperary is continuing his cross-examination in his action for defamation against RTÉ in which he claims he was wrongly branded as a paedophile in the programme.

Mr Burke also denied that he made one of the payments after a trip to Rome during which it was allegedly suggested by his superiors that restitution be made to the woman who made abuse allegations against him.

Counsel for RTÉ Paul O’ Higgins said Dolores Atwood will say she had never asked for €26,000 given to her in October 2007 and that €50,000 given to her on another date was part of a process of Richard Burke attempting to get her to withdraw her complaint against him.

Mr Burke said that was “not the tenor of the conversation. I was protesting my innocence and I am not guilty of the allegation and to withdraw the case and withdraw the allegation.”

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priestsr

For immediate release: Tuesday, June 30

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

Though many predator priests are now suspended from parishes, many church officials who shielded them have are now promoted. That’s why we applaud a new ruling in St. Cloud that lets a clergy sex abuse and cover up suit move forward. This decision will help police, prosecutors, parents, parishioners and the public learn about who has and who is endangering kids and protecting predators.

[Jeff Anderson & Associates]

These nuisance suits put Minnesota at the forefront of a growing national movement to expose those who commit and conceal heinous crimes against children. In no other state have child sex abuse victims been as successful at disgorging secrets from corrupt institutions through the creative and aggressive use of this novel legal strategy. We praise each victim who has done this for his or her courage.

We are grateful to this brave survivor for bringing this lawsuit and to Stearns County District Court Judge Kris Davick-Halfen for ruling on the side of children’s safety.

We urge St. Cloud diocesan officials, especially Bishop Donald Joseph Kettler, to “come clean” about both the predators and the enablers who are or have been on the Catholic church payroll in his diocese.

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

6/30/2015

Order May Lead to the Disclosure of Additional Names of Perpetrators and the Release of Secret Abuse Documents

Doe 50 Public Nuisance Order

(St. Cloud, MN) – Stearns County District Court Judge Kris Davick-Halfen ruled that a clergy sexual abuse survivor’s public nuisance claim against the Diocese of St. Cloud can proceed. Judge Davick-Halfen’s June 22, 2015, order will help hold the Diocese of St. Cloud accountable for protecting pedophile priests in the past and will help keep children safe in the future. A similar decision in 2013 in Ramsey County allowed a public nuisance claim to proceed involving the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. This led to the disclosure and identification of dozens of perpetrators and for the first time, thousands of secret church documents were released.

In January 2015, Plaintiff Doe 50 filed suit against the Diocese of St. Cloud, claiming that he was sexually abused as a child by Father James Thoennes (pronounced “Tennis”), a priest at St. John’s Parish and School in Foley, Minn., in the early 1970s. St. John’s is in the Diocese of St. Cloud.

In 2014 the Diocese of St. Cloud released a list of 33 priests who worked in the Diocese who had been credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors. The Diocese has not released files or documents pertaining to those priests or their patterns of grooming and abuse. Such information is necessary to educate the public about the threat and keep the public safe.

“This ruling will allow us to bring this serious, ongoing problem in the Diocese of St. Cloud out into the light so that we can protect children in the future from going through the same harm that Doe 50 and many other kids like him had to endure as a result of the Diocese’s mishandling of abusive priests,” said Jeff Anderson, an attorney representing Doe 50.

In a deposition in another case in September 2014, Father Thoennes testified that years before Doe 50’s abuse he reported to Monsignor Bernard Wildenborg that he had sexually abused a young boy at St. Anthony of Padua in St. Cloud. Civil authorities and the public were not informed of the abuse and the Diocese allowed Thoennes to continue in public ministry until 1997. Thoennes currently lives alone in an apartment owned by the Diocese of St. Cloud and is free to go where he wants at will anywhere in the St. Cloud area.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Here is the schedule for Pope Francis’ September 2015 Apostolic Journey to the United States of America as released by the Vatican on June 30, 2015. All times listed are Eastern Daylight Time.

Tuesday, September 22 (Washington, DC)

4:00 p.m. Arrival from Cuba at Joint Base Andrews
Wednesday,September 23 (Washington, DC)
9:15 a.m. Meeting with President Obama at the White House
11:30 a.m. Midday Prayer with the bishops of the United States, St. Matthew’s Cathedral
4:15 p.m. Mass of Canonization of Junipero Serra, Basilicia of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception

Thursday, September 24 (Washington, DC, New York City)

9:20 a.m. Address to Joint Session of the United States Congress
11:15 a.m. Visit to St. Patrick in the City and Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington
4:00 p.m. Depart from Joint Base Andrews
5:00 p.m. Arrival at John F. Kennedy International Airport
6:45 p.m. Evening Prayer (Vespers) at St. Patrick’s Cathedral

Friday, September 25 (New York City)

8:30 a.m. Visit to the United Nations and Address to the United Nations General Assembly
11:30 a.m. Multi-religious service at 9/11 Memorial and Museum, World Trade Center
4:00 p.m. Visit to Our Lady Queen of Angels School, East Harlem
6:00 p.m. Mass at Madison Square Garden

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MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times

David Unze, dunze@stcloudtimes.com June 30, 2015

A Stearns County judge has dismissed parts of a clergy sex abuse lawsuit filed against the Diocese of St. Cloud, but left in place a key claim that has led to the release of numerous priest personnel files in other suits across the state.

The lawsuit was filed in January by a former student at a Foley elementary school. He accused former St. Cloud diocese priest James Thoennes of abusing him years after the diocese knew the priest had abused other children.

The lawsuit accuses Thoennes of abusing the boy in the early 1970s when Thoennes was assigned to St. John’s parish in Foley. The suit says Thoennes abused the child at Thoennes’ mother’s home in Central Minnesota, a place where Thoennes invited several children to accompany him on overnight visits.

The lawsuit also named the diocese as a defendant and accused the diocese of knowing that Thoennes had abused children before it assigned him to Foley.

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IRELAND
Newstalk

Richard Burke is suing the broadcaster for defamation, which is denied

A High Court jury has heard RTÉ denies its documentary ‘Mission to Prey’ alleged former Catholic archbishop Richard Burke is a paedophile.

The ex-cleric is suing the broadcaster for defamation, which is denied.

Mr Burke (66) has admitted having sex with several women while a cleric, including Nigerian woman Dolores Atwood.

However he claims he was aged 40 and she was aged 20 when they first slept together in 1989 – and not 14 as RTÉ alleged in its 2011 documentary ‘Mission to Prey’.

He is suing the station for defamation because he claims the programme wrongly depicted him as a paedophile, an interpretation rejected by RTÉ’s senior counsel Paul O’Higgins.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Mary Carolan

A former Catholic Archbishop has told the High Court he has no recollection of telling a Nigerian woman, when she got engaged in 1995, that he was “not pleased” and she had not “waited for him”.

Richard Burke, a priest of the Kiltegan Fathers since 1975 who also served as a Bishop and later Archbishop in Nigeria until he resigned in 2010, said there was “no intention on my part of leaving the priesthood” and he had no recollection of making those remarks to Dolores Atwood.

He is being cross-examined by Paul O’Higgins SC, for RTÉ, in his continuing action alleging he was defamed in the Prime Time Investigates: Mission to Prey programme broadcast on May 23rd, 2011. He claims the programme wrongly meant he was a paedophile.

Today, Mr O’Higgins said RTÉ denies the programme meant Mr Burke was a paedophile. RTÉ’s defence was the programme meant Mr Burke had sexually molested Ms Atwood when she was a 13-year-old girl and slept with her when she was aged 14, he said.

Under cross-examination, Mr Burke said he had decided in November 2007 to tape calls made to him from Ms Atwood in Canada, where she moved after she married a Canadian national, Chris Atwood in 1995.

He decided to tape the calls because of trauma he experienced after receiving a call on November 7th, 2007 from Ms Atwood during which for the first time, she accused him of being a “paedophile”, he said.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Fox 32

By Larry Yellen, FOX 32 News Legal Analyst

CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) –
Whether it was the Palatine Brown’s Chicken Killers, James Degorski and Juan Luna, or a pedophile priest like Daniel McCormick – before heading to prison, they appeared in courtrooms at 26th and California.

The longtime presiding judge at the Criminal Courts Building is stepping down next week. But before the big day, Judge Paul Biebel Jr. sat down for a rare interview with FOX 32’s Larry Yellen.

“It’s a tough business we’re in, standing in judgment of people’s actions, and ultimately, where their lives are going,” Judge Paul Biebel Jr. said.

For almost 15 years, Judge Paul Biebel Jr. has presided over the largest criminal courthouse in America. Next Monday, he retires, satisfied that a dream he had as an eighth grade debater has been fulfilled.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Ekklesia

The Methodist Conference yesterday (29 June) vowed to make significant changes to its policy and procedures in a move to make the Church a safer place for all. This follows the publication in May of an independent review of past safeguarding cases related to the Church from 1950 to 2014.

The Past Cases Review identified 1,885 past cases, which included physical, emotional, domestic and sexual abuse as well as cases of neglect. In approximately one quarter of these cases, church ministers or lay employees were identified as the perpetrators or alleged perpetrators.

The Conference discussed the findings of the Review and appointed an implementation group to take forward the report’s 23 recommendations. Former Barnardo’s Deputy Chief Executive Jane Stacey, who led the independent review, has been appointed as a member of the implementation group, which will be chaired by the Rev Gwyneth Owen.

“The Past Cases Review has undoubtedly been a wake-up call for the Church, and one we cannot ignore” said Rev Owen. “The recommendations of the report are many and wide-ranging but at the heart of it all lies the need to bring about significant cultural change. (http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/21748)

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CANADA
Daily Courier

TORONTO – A youth pastor working at a Toronto church is charged in the alleged sexual exploitation and sexual assault of a teen girl.

Police say the incidents took place between Jan. 1, 2012 and March 31 of this year.
The alleged victim is now 17.

Police say the accused worked at the Keys of the Kingdom Ministries Life in the Spirit Fellowship Church in the city’s northwest.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Elizabeth Mohr
emohr@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 06/29/2015

With the court-imposed deadline looming for victims of clergy sexual abuse to file claims against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the bankruptcy court has been asked to compel church officials to show an informational video in every parish to help spread the word.

The archdiocese filed for bankruptcy protection in January, citing an operating deficit and concerns about more lawsuits for clergy sexual abuse.

In April, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Kressel approved a request by the archdiocese to set an Aug. 3 deadline for anyone wishing to file a claim related to clergy sexual abuse, despite a state law letting them file until May 25, 2016.

The church said it would make efforts to notify people of the court-imposed deadline via news organizations and Catholic publications.

The committee of unsecured creditors Monday asked the court to force the archdiocese to have the video shown in all 187 parishes during the weekend of July 11-12 and to have the video published or promoted on parish websites.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Tim Healy
PUBLISHED
30/06/2015

A former Catholic Archbishop had sexual experiences with “quite a lot” of people, the High Court has heard.

Tipperary-born Richard Burke (66) admitted to having relationships with women but is suing RTÉ arising out of its ‘Prime Time’ ‘Mission to Prey’ programme broadcast on May 23, 2011. Mr Burke claims the programme wrongly depicted him as a paedophile.

Yesterday, he denied the reason a woman was “deeply troubled” in her relationships was because he had sexually exploited her when she was “a vulnerable child”.

He told the High Court he had not had any sexual encounter with Dolores Atwood until 1989 when she was aged 20 and he 40.

Under cross-examination on the fifth day of his action he said that when they first had sex, Ms Atwood was very sexually experienced and his interaction with her could not have warped her later relationships.

He agreed he had other sexual encounters while he was a cleric, including with a married Nigerian mother of eight. He also said he had “embraced” and “improperly touched”, but had not had sex with, a sister of Ms Atwood.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A paedophile priest fled the country after a police officer tipped off the Catholic Church in Birmingham, a sex abuse victim has claimed.

The man said the officer passed on documents about 30 years ago which led to James Robinson being “spirited away” overseas. The priest was later jailed.

The Archdiocese of Birmingham has always denied knowingly covering up the activities of paedophile priests.

West Midlands Police said claims about the officer were being looked into.

Abuse victim “Donald” campaigned for Robinson to be extradited from the US
The anonymous victim, known as “Donald”, was brought up in the Father Hudson Home for orphans in Coleshill, Warwickshire, where he was repeatedly abused by Father Eric Taylor, who was jailed in 1998.

BBC Midlands Today correspondent Peter Wilson said: “Robinson was Taylor’s protégé, a Roman Catholic priest working across the West Midlands and Staffordshire. He was a serial child abuser.
“In 1985 he moved to America. Donald campaigned for his extradition.”

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IRELAND
irish Examiner

Tuesday, June 30, 2015by Ann O’Loughlin

A former Catholic archbishop has denied a suggestion by lawyers for RTÉ the reason a woman was deeply troubled and “skewed” in her relationships was because he had sexually exploited her when she was “a vulnerable child”.

Co Tipperary-born Richard Burke, aged 66, said in the High Court he had not had any sexual encounter with Dolores Atwood until 1989 when she was aged 20 years and he was 40.

When they first had sex, she was very sexually experienced and his interaction with her could not have warped her later relationships, he said.

When she was aged in her 30s, she told him uninvited and in detail about her sexual experience, he claimed.

Mr Burke agreed he had other sexual encounters while he was a cleric, including with a married Nigerian mother-of-eight. He also said he had “embraced” and “improperly touched”, but had not had sex with, a sister of Ms Atwood.

Mr Burke, a member of the Kiltegan Fathers who served as a priest, and later as bishop and archbishop in Nigeria after being ordained in 1975, remains under continuing cross-examination in his action against RTÉ.

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OREGON
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, June 29

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

A priest kept quiet for a month and his archbishop kept quiet for another month about a hidden camera in a church restroom. Portland Archbishop Alexander Sample and Fr. Ysrael Bien both owe parents, parishioners and the public apologies and explanations. We hope that anyone who has information or suspicions about this crime will summon the strength to call law enforcement immediately.

[Oregon Live]

Fr. Bien should be harshly and publicly disciplined, not just suspended. Catholic officials routinely turn a blind eye to evidence of sexual misdeeds. When wrongdoers are caught, Catholic officials rarely punish them severely. And that’s why clergy sex crimes and misconduct continues – because those who ignore, hid or enable it are usually promoted, not punished.

Current or former church staff or members at St. Francis Church should do what’s right – call police or prosecutors immediately with any knowledge or suspicions they may have about sexual wrongdoing, no matter how old, small or insignificant it may seem.

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

MINNESOTA
CBS Minnesota

Esme Murphy

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Three victims of clergy abuse have made a video appeal for other victims to come forward.

An attorney for victims is asking a judge to order the video be played in all 216 Minnesota parishes on Sunday, July 12. Victims have only until August 3 to file a claim.

The original deadline was May of 2016. That was part of the law passed by the Minnesota legislature that temporarily waived the civil statute of limitations in child sex abuse cases. But because the archdiocese filed for bankruptcy, the deadline had to be rolled back to August 3.

The seven minute YouTube video features an appeal by three abuse victims who have filed claims against the archdiocese.

“I used to be a victim but now I am a survivor you can be one too,” Marie Mielke said in the video. “I know it’s scary, but you are not alone.”

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

MINNESOTA
KIMT

[with video]

By Levi Ismail

KIMT News 3 – Attorneys representing victims of clergy abuse are producing a video they hope to be played in churches across Minnesota.

The video is produced by the official committee of unsecured creditors appointed in the bankruptcy case filed by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minnesota.

In the video are three clergy sexual abuse victims who share their messages about why they stepped forward and spoke out. The idea is by playing the video in parishes in the state, other victims can come forward before the August 3 bankruptcy claim file deadline.

“We’ve got to reach the survivors to preserve their rights and to give them a chance to get a measure of justice they’ve never had before. The time however is short and the clock is ticking,” said attorney Jeff Anderson with Jeff Anderson and Associates PA.

Anderson is one attorney representing 103 total victims so far who have come forward to make claims against their abusers. That does not include any other victims who may seek other representation.

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

CONNECTICUT
The Connecticut Law Tribune

Christian Nolan, The Connecticut Law Tribune
June 29, 2015

The Connecticut Supreme Court has upheld a $1 million jury verdict in a priest sexual abuse case against the Archdiocese of Hartford. The 57-page majority ruling also shot down challenges from the diocese that the state’s expanded statute of limitations for bringing sex abuse claims was unconstitutional.

“Given the unique psychological and social factors that often result in delayed reporting of childhood sexual abuse, which frustrated the ability of victims to bring an action under earlier revisions of the statute of limitations, we cannot say that the legislature acted unreasonably or irrationally in determining that the revival of child sexual abuse victims’ previously time barred claims serves a legitimate public interest and accomplishes that purpose in a reasonable way,” wrote Justice Richard Robinson.

Initially such lawsuits had to be filed two years after the victim reached the age of 18. Then in 1991, Connecticut lawmakers extended the statute of limitations to allow civil sexual abuse claims brought by victims until they reach the age of 35 years old. In 2002, during the Bridgeport Catholic Diocese scandal, lawmakers extended the age again, this time allowing plaintifs to file suit until they reach the age of 48.

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

MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

06/29/2015

Jennifer Haselberger

As many of you will know by now, last Thursday Father John Bauer, rector and pastor of the Basilica of Saint Mary in Minneapolis, published an open letter to Archbishop Hebda, Bishop Cozzens, and Father Lachowitzer. If you have only read media reports of the letter, but not the letter itself, I strongly encourage you to read it now by clicking here.

Apparently, by Saturday afternoon members of the media had received a short response from Archbishop Hebda, in which he notes that Father Bauer is a ‘respected pastor’ and a member of the College of Consultors, promises to consider the points he raised, and pledges to continue to meet with people to hear their concerns.

Which raises the question of who he has met with or plans to meet with. Before anyone asks, I can assure you that he has not met with me, nor has he expressed any interest in doing so. I also haven’t heard from anyone else indicating that he has met with them or requested to do so.

As a very wise woman reminded me last week, C.S. Lewis had the following to say about progress:

‘We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.’

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

IRELAND
Irish Mirror

BY AODHAN O’FAOLAIN

Richard Burke, 66, also had a relationship with a 20-year-old woman but denies having sex with her when she was 14, as she claims.

A former Catholic Archbishop has admitted a string of affairs while he was a priest, including one with a married mother of eight.

Richard Burke, 66, also had a relationship with a 20-year-old woman – but denies having sex with her when she was 14, as she claims.

His sexual history is coming under scrutiny in the High Court, where he is suing RTE for a programme he says depicted him as a paedophile.

Mr Burke, who has since left the priesthood, also denied a suggestion that the reason Dolores Atwood was “deeply troubled” and “skewed” in her relationships was because he had sexually exploited her as a vulnerable child.

The Tipperary-born former cleric said he had not had any sexual encounter with her until 1989 when she was aged 20 and he 40.

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

OREGON
KGW

SHERWOOD, Ore. – A Sherwood priest has been placed on leave after he waited nearly a month to report a hidden camera found in a church bathroom to the police.

Father Ysrael Bien of the St. Francis Church in Sherwood was placed on administrative leave June 24, according to a spokesman for the church.

In a letter distributed to the church community, the Archdiocese explained that a hidden camera found in the men’s bathroom was brought to Fr. Bien on April 26. Bien, however, waited until May 20 to report the incident to Sherwood police.

The camera was made to look like a plug outlet and was put next to a toilet, according to Sherwood police.

“It is deeply troubling that well-established Church protocols for the protections of parishioners were not followed,” said Archbishop Alexander Sample. “Finding a hidden camera in a church restroom should have been the cause for prompt and decisive action.”

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

IRELAND
Slugger O’Toole

Darren Litter on 29 June 2015

Cardinal Sean Brady’s engagement with the HIA outlines a fundamental problem with organized religion: power and rank too often take precedent over a commitment to personal conscience.

While Cardinal Brady has tried to articulate it in a more sugar-coated way, what his conduct in relation to Brendan Smyth shows is that he was prepared to sacrifice his own sense of morality to preserve the power of the Catholic Church in Ireland, and enable himself to climb the Church’s ranking system through displaying an absolute commitment to orders.

Anyone with a steadfast sense of principle would have been appalled by the fact that the Church responded to widespread internal paedophilia with a power preservation strategy. Such a person would have dissented from the Church, and put the actions of somebody like Brendan Smyth on public record so that a process of scrutiny and change could take place.

Clergy like Sean Brady cannot lay claim to integrity because they placed the Church and their own personal standing within it over the sexual abuse of children. They were not outraged by a tremendous evil like the systematic sexual abuse of children to the point of taking clinical action that would potentially result in their own excommunication from the Church.

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

OREGON
Oregon Live

By Emily E. Smith | The Oregonian/OregonLive
on June 26, 2015

A parishioner discovered a hidden camera in the men’s bathroom of St. Francis Catholic Church in Sherwood, police said Friday.

The camera was disguised as a power outlet and positioned on the wall next to the toilet. It was found April 26 in a bathroom near the chapel, according to police.

The parishioner then handed the camera over to the church’s priest, said Sherwood Police Capt. Ty Hanlon.

Officers began investigating when the priest reported the camera stolen on May 20, Hanlon said. The device turned up missing before the priest could turn it over to authorities, he said.

Officers have done several interviews and searches during their investigation into the disappearance of the device. They have not identified a suspect.

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

OREGON
Oregon Live

By Brad Schmidt | The Oregonian/OregonLive
on June 28, 2015

A Sherwood priest is on administrative leave as police investigate who is responsible for hiding a camera in a church bathroom.

The St. Francis Church priest, Ysrael Bien, has not been accused of wrongdoing nor has he been named a suspect by police.

The Archdiocese of Portland notified parishioners this weekend that Bien was placed on leave Wednesday, more than a month after church leaders became aware of the incident. The Oregonian/OregonLive reported the investigation on Friday.

The Archdiocese said in a statement that it did not notify parishioners or immediately place Bien on leave “out of an abundance of caution not to interfere with an ongoing police investigation.” The Archdiocese notified parishioners who visited this weekend and also authored a letter, dated June 25, about the incident.

Police said the camera device does not need power to operate and can be placed anywhere by adhering it to a wall with tape.

A church member initially found a camera – disguised as a power outlet – in a St. Francis bathroom on April 26 and turned it over to Bien.

But Bien didn’t contact police until May 20, when he reported it as stolen.

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

OREGON
New York Daily News

[police statement]

BY JOEL LANDAU

A hidden camera made to look like an electrical outlet was found in the bathroom of an Oregon church and a priest has been placed on leave for not reporting the incident for nearly a month.

The Archdiocese of Portland addressed members of the St. Francis Church in Sherwood, Ore. in a letter Thursday to explain that Fr. Ysrael Bien was placed on administrative leave, Oregon Live reported.

A camera that was designed to look like an electrical outlet was discovered in a men’s restroom in the church and reported to Bien in late April. But the clergyman did not notify police of the incident until May 20, the archdiocese said. The camera, which was attached to the wall with tape, is now missing.

“It is deeply troubling that well-established church protocols for the protection of parishioners were not followed,” the Archbishop Alexander Sample said in a statement. “Finding a hidden camera in a church restroom should have been cause for prompt and decisive action.”

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

IRELAND
Newstalk

Francesca Comyn

Ex-cleric Richard Burke is suing RTE for defamation over its 2011 Mission to Prey documentary

A former archbishop has told a High Court jury that Nigerian woman Dolores Atwood was very sexually experienced when they began an intimate relationship.

Ex-cleric Richard Burke is suing RTE for defamation over its 2011 Mission to Prey documentary, over claims the programme wrongly depicted him as a paedophile.

RTE denies defamation.

The High Court has heard Nigerian woman Dolores Atwood will testify that the former Archbishop was the first person she had sex with when she was 14-years-old.

66-year-old Richard Burke alleges she was 20-years-old when they slept together in 1989 and he gave evidence today that she was very sexually experienced.

In phone calls with Dolores’s husband Christopher in 2007 the former priest said she’d asked him for money; that he felt she was blackmailing him; that she was totally obsessed with him and that the relationship had never stopped in her heart.

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

IRELAND
Irish Times

Mary Carolan

Mon, Jun 29, 2015

A former Catholic archbishop has denied a suggestion by lawyers for RTÉ the reason a woman was “deeply troubled” was because he had sexually exploited her when she was “a vulnerable child”.

Co Tipperary-born Richard Burke (66) said he had not had any sexual encounter with Dolores Atwood until 1989 when she was aged 20 and he 40.

When they first had sex, she was very sexually experienced and his interaction with her could not have warped her later relationships, he said. When she was aged in her thirties, she told him uninvited and in detail about her sexual experience, he added.

He agreed he had other sexual encounters while he was a cleric, including with a married Nigerian mother of eight. He also said he had “embraced” and “improperly touched”, but had not had sex with, a sister of Ms Atwood.

Mr Burke, a memer of the Kiltegan Fathers who served as a priest, and later as Bishop and Archbishop in Nigeria after being ordained in 1975, remains under continuing cross-examination in his action against RTÉ.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Jun. 27, 2015 NCR Today

ROME
Pope Francis has consolidated and elevated the level of importance of the Vatican’s different communications enterprises, creating a new high-level Secretariat for Communications tasked with carrying out work before undertaken by nine separate offices.

The new secretariat becomes only the third of its type at the highest levels of the Vatican bureaucracy, joining church departments that oversee foreign and internal relations and economic matters in importance.

Created with a papal letter known as a “motu proprio” announced in a press release Saturday, the new secretariat will consolidate the work of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, the Holy See Press Office, Vatican Radio, the Vatican Television Center, and five other separate entities.

Francis has named Msgr. Dario Viganò, director of the television center, to serve as prefect of the new secretariat. Msgr. Lucio Ruiz, the head of the Vatican Internet Service, will serve as secretary.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis promulgated on Saturday, 27 June 2015, a Motu Proprio instituting the Secretariat for Communications and nominating Rev. Msgr. Dario Edoardo Viganò as Prefect of the new Secretariat.

The Motu Proprio establishes that all communications offices will be incorporated under the direction of the new Secretariat for Communications, including the Pontifical Council for Social Communications, the Holy See Press Office, Vatican Internet Service, Vatican Radio, the Vatican Television Center (CTV), the Osservatore Romano, Vatican Typography, Photograph Service, and the Vatican Publishing House (Libreria Editrice Vaticana).

The new Dicastery will also work in union with the Secretariat of State for the direction of the institutional website of the Holy See, www.vatican.va and the Twitter account of the Holy Father: @pontifex .

Those nominated to direct the Secretariat are:

-Prefect: Rev. Msgr. Dario Edoardo Viganò, current Director of the Vatican Television Center (CTV)

-Secretary: Rev. Msgr. Lucio Adrian Ruiz, current Office Head of the Vatican Internet Service

-Director General: Dr. Paolo Nusiner, current Director General of Avvenire, Nuova Editoriale Italiana

-Vice Director General: Dr. Giacomo Ghisani, current Head of International Relations Office and Legal Affairs of the Vatican Radio and member of the Administrative Council of the Vatican Television Center (CTV)

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

By Manya Brachear Pashman
Chicago Tribune

Chicago’s Archbishop Blase Cupich said he won’t disclose any more of what Pope Francis shared with him during a private meeting last week inside the Vatican, only that the Holy Father has repeatedly asked for prayers in the two personal encounters that followed.

“He was very pronounced about this,” Cupich said in a Skype interview from Rome on Monday. “It’s not a casual type of thing. He really needs prayers at this time of his life.”

Cupich received the pallium from Pope Francis on Monday morning during a Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica. The pallium, a piece of wool that symbolizes his new office as Chicago’s archbishop, was enclosed in a leather box embossed with gold images of St. Peter and St. Paul. Tied with an orange ribbon, it also included a sealed envelope addressed to the pope’s U.S. ambassador, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, the contents of which remain a mystery.

“I don’t open other people’s mail,” Cupich said. During a ritual previously performed by the pope on the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul in Rome, Vigano will drape the pallium around Cupich’s shoulders Aug. 23 inside Holy Name Cathedral.

The one-on-one interview came a day after Cupich released a statement about two of last week’s Supreme Court rulings, upholding health care and legalizing same-sex marriage in all 50 states. The statement came out as Chicago’s 46th annual Pride Parade came to a close Sunday afternoon. But Cupich said the timing was not intentional. He simply needed a few days to reflect on the ruling amid a hectic schedule.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Benzinga

In his new novel released by Dog Ear Publishing, Fr. Paul Morrissey, O.S.A., a prison chaplain in Philadelphia, confronts the struggle between loyalty and honesty in the Church during the crisis of sexual abuse and the cover-up by some of its bishops.

(PRWEB) June 29, 2015

The priest on the cover of this new book is rendered mute by his collar, both literally and figuratively. As Fr. Morrissey says, “We need to be able to speak honestly in the Church as Pope Francis has encouraged us. My hope is that this book will foster a discussion about sexuality, gender and power in the Church so that we can heal.” His book is dedicated to Pope Francis.

In the midst of the sexual abuse crisis that is tearing the Church apart, a Catholic priest is caught between fighting for the victims of sexual abuse and his bond of loyalty to the Church. What makes this conflict unique is the internal struggle of the priest who is gay, in a Church that is ashamed of his orientation and rewards him for his silence.

While working as a chaplain in Riker’s Island Jail, Father Zach learns from an inmate’s confession, that the priest whom the inmate is accused of murdering, sexually abused him when he was a teenager. Father Zach discovers that his friend, who is now a bishop, was the one who reassigned this priest after his first abuse. The battle of the priest, determined to defend the inmate, and the bishop, intent on defending the Church, drives the plot to its courtroom climax. Which will prevail – honesty or loyalty?

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

MEREDITH BOOTH THE AUSTRALIAN JUNE 30, 2015]

Parents of intellectually disabled students sexually abused by a South Australian Catholic school volunteer in the 1980s are refusing to sign confidentiality agreements with the church.

It is understood three of the six families seeking compensation for children abused by bus driver Brian Perkins at St Ann’s Special School in Adelaide’s southern suburbs between 1986 and 1991 have received payouts but feel devastated by the process.

One parent said he would not sign a secrecy agreement because it went against the church’s stated desire to be open, honest and generous with victims of abuse.

Peter Mitchell said he would seek advice from the South Australian Commissioner for Victims’ Rights about his right to an open deal for his son, now aged in his 40s. “As far as I understand it, if we don’t sign we don’t get anything for our son,’’ he said.

He said Adelaide Archbishop Phillip Wilson, who stepped away from his post to plead not guilty last month of concealing child sex abuse in the church in a separate NSW matter, had apologised publicly for the childrens’ abuse but had not spoken directly to the families.

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OHIO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, June 29, 2015

For more information: Melanie Jula Sakoda (melanie.sakoda@gmail.com, 925-708-6175 cell), Cappy Larson (cappy@rlarson.com, 415-637-2006)

Bishop retired for sexual misconduct is quietly reinstated
He now works as a “parish priest” in a Pennsylvania church
Victims say it’s an “dangerous, deceptive and callous” move
SNAP wants Orthodox Church officials to take immediate action

A support group for survivors of sexual abuse recently received a phone tip that an Orthodox bishop retired for sexual misconduct was now working as a “parish priest” in a Pennsylvania church.

Bishop Matthias Moriak was retired by the synod of bishops of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA) on April 15, 2013, after he was found to have engaged in sexual misconduct.

[Orthodox Church in America]

[Orthodox Church in America]

However, on June 26, 2015, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) received a phone tip that the bishop was working at a parish in Hermitage, Pennsylvania. While there was no indication that Moriak was working at the parish on the OCA’s website, the contact page for Holy Cross Orthodox Church directed emails to “Bishop Matthias – Parish Priest.”

[Orthodox Church in America]

[Holy Cross Orthodox Church]

The parish belongs to the Romanian Episcopate of the OCA. That diocese is led by Archbishop Nathaniel Popp (nathaniel@roea.org, 517-522-4800). Popp is the longest serving hierarch on the OCA’s synod.

Melanie Jula Sakoda of SNAP was appalled to learn the tip was verified. “It’s outrageous and reckless for Archbishop Nathaniel to allow a cleric who the Church determined to have engaged in sexual misconduct to be reinstated as a parish priest.”

“Even when a clergyman engages in sexual misconduct with an adult, the resulting damage can be serious,” added Cappy Larson, also of SNAP. “In the 16 years I have been working with Orthodox victims, two who were abused as adults were in such pain that they chose to end their own lives.”

“The OCA synod needs to put a stop to this,” concluded Sakoda.

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

[with video]

Sexual Abuse Survivors Request the Archdiocese of St. Paul & Minneapolis Play Outreach Video in All Parishes

(St. Paul, MN) – The creditors’ committee in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis bankruptcy case filed a motion in federal bankruptcy court today requesting the Archdiocese play an outreach video in all 216 of its parishes. It is the first time ever in a diocesan bankruptcy that survivors/creditors have made this request. Newly appointed apostolic administrator Bernard Hebda now has an opportunity to demonstrate the Archdiocese’s commitment to helping survivors of clergy sexual abuse.

The video features three members of the bankruptcy creditors’ committee urging all sexual abuse survivors in the Archdiocese to come forward before the August 3, 2015, bankruptcy claim filing deadline. The three survivors tell their stories of trials and tribulations in their individual battles in dealing with the effects of childhood sexual abuse by members of the clergy. The survivors also discuss the feelings of hope and relief they experienced when they eventually broke their silence and came forward and disclosed their history of abuse. The three survivors in the video are:

James Keenan – (Formerly John Doe 76C) James was sexually abused by Fr. Thomas Adamson in the early 1980s at Risen Savior Church in Apple Valley, MN. He has been publicly advocating on behalf of sexual abuse survivors for several years.

Marie Mielke – (Formerly Jane Doe 20) Marie bravely came forward in January 2015 for the first time to speak publicly about her sexual abuse by Fr. Michael Keating, a priest and close family friend.

Curt Raymond – Curt is speaking publicly for the first time about his sexual abuse by Fr. Robert Kapoun. As part of this outreach video Curt has courageously stepped forward to help other sexual abuse survivors find their voice and take action before this important deadline.

“There is a fierce time urgency to reach survivors,” said Attorney Jeff Anderson. “We commend these committee members in their courage and urge all survivors to know that the time is now.”

Contact: Jeff Anderson: Office/651.964.3523 Cell/612.817.8665
Mike Finnegan: Office/651.964.3523 Cell/612.205.5531

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By GABRIEL WINGATE-PEARSE: June 22, 2015

WITH few true leaders among us, it was refreshing to hear from Newcastle’s Anglican Bishop last week, who delivered an apology with grace and compassion.

Too often those who become leaders seem to arrive at the top of the pile by virtue of arbitrary succession, internal political machinations or by other means entirely separate to their worth as a leader.

After so long, and after what I regard as such a glaring lack of accountability from others addressing failures in their communities, organisations, and congregations, Anglican Bishop Greg Thompson’s remarks in relation to evidence gathered for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse seemed heartfelt and true.

At times struggling to contain his emotions, Bishop Thompson reportedly told those gathered in a church hall how sorry he was for the terrible harm done by perpetrators of child sexual abuse, by those that protected them, and by a culture that would not listen.

Marking his 500th day in the position, he spoke frankly not only about the distant past, but about recent threats which he said had been made against him by bullies within the church.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

By Sean Tynan June 29, 2015

THE following is a response to Gabriel Wingate-Pearse’s opinion piece (‘‘Compassion, and so on’’ Herald, 23/6) .

I acknowledge that as the manager of Zimmerman Services, the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle’s child protection service, I am biased. It’s not my intent to comment on the Right Reverend Greg Thompson, Anglican Bishop of Newcastle. Nor am I defending the eloquence, or otherwise, of Catholic Bishop Bill Wright and his introduction of Francis Sullivan on February 25, 2015.

Critical analysis of the diocese’s commitment to protecting children and working to address its terrible legacy of historic child sexual abuse is legitimate and important. I acknowledge our performance to date is not perfect.

However, I believe the article’s premise is unfair. Its argument is that a poor introduction by Bishop Bill at a public forum equates to a lack of commitment or leadership in addressing such issues. Shouldn’t such criticism be based on a more comprehensive consideration of words and deeds?

In my first meeting with Bishop Bill in 2011, he wanted a comprehensive briefing on the diocese’s issues of child abuse. I left absolutely certain of the bishop’s capacity and determination to lead the diocese and do everything reasonable to promote healing and to cooperate and actively support the exposure and investigation of past crimes, whilst working to maximise protection of children and minimise future risk.

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UNITED STATES
Mennonite World Review

Twelve survivors of sexual abuse and their advocates have formed an Anabaptist-Mennonite chapter of an organization that “protects the vulnerable, heals the wounded and exposes the truth.”
Leaders of the group, known as SNAP-Menno, announced its formation June 23.

SNAP stands for Survivor’s Network of Those Abused by Priests. Founded 26 years ago to expose sexual violations by U.S. Catholic clergy, it has expanded to serve survivors of predators and pedophiles from a variety of faith communities.

SNAP-Menno “provides a safe place, entirely independent of institutional structures, for Mennonite-related survivors to seek healing,” according to a news release.

The group is convened by longtime victim-advocate Ruth E. Krall, an emerita professor at Goshen (Ind.) College, with SNAP-trained survivor-advocates Cameron Altaras, Barbra Graber and advocate Jeff Altaras.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

Article updated by a Broken Rites researcher, 29 June 2015

A former Catholic priest, John Joseph Farrell, 62, appeared in court on 25 June 2015, charged with 27 sexual offences allegedly committed against five boys between 1981 and 1984 in northern New South Wales. Some offences allegedly occurred while Father Farrell was based at the Moree parish (within the territory of the Armidale Catholic diocese); and some offences allegedly occurred when Farrell visited a parish at Tweed Heads on the NSW north coast. The magistrate rejected Farrell’s request to have his name suppressed. Farrell was remanded in custody. The case is listed for its next mention in Sydney’s Central Local Court on June 30.

John Joseph Farrell was charged by a specialist team of detectives (named Strike Force Glenroe), which was established in 2012 by the Sex Crime Squad at the NSW Police Headquarters, Parramatta, Sydney. This strike force is continuing its investigations while the Farrell matters are awaiting the future court hearings.

Farrell has been living for the past three years at Harden [near Cootamundra and Young] in southern NSW, the June 25 hearing was told. Therefore, the June 25 court procedure was held in southern NSW (at the Wagga Local Court). This was a preliminary hearing to enable these 27 charges to be officially filed for the first time. Now the case, rergarding these 27 charges, has moved to Sydney’s Central Local Court.

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IRELAND
RTE News

A former Catholic archbishop has told the High Court he had sexual experiences with a number of other people while he was a bishop in Nigeria.

66-year-old Richard Burke from Tipperary is continuing his cross examination in his action for defamation against RTÉ in which he claims he was wrongly branded as a paedophile in a television documentary.

Mr Burke denies he had sex with a woman featured in the programme, Dolores Atwood, when she was 14. He claims she was 20 when they first had sex.

He told the court he had also “embraced and inappropriately touched” her sister after Ms Atwood had moved to Canada.

Mr Burke accepted in cross examination that his relationship with Dolores Atwood was not the only sexual relationship he had.

It was put to him by counsel for RTÉ Paul O’Higgins that he had relationship with a lot of others, numbering “in the teens”.

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AUSTRALIA
Northern Star

IT’S been just over a year since the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse heard the harrowing stories from victims of paedophile Marist Brothers at St Carthage’s in Lismore in the 1980s, but it’s still unclear when the commission will hand down its findings.

Over eight days from June 10 to August 7, evidence was given from 17 witnesses in an attempt to establish the Marist Brothers’ response to allegations of child sexual abuse against Brother John “Kostka” Chute and Brother Gregory Sutton.

Former St Cathages assistant principal Jan O’Grady told the commission she long suspected Brother Gregory Sutton was a poison to St Carthage’s Primary School but had her warnings ignored by the Marist Brothers and the Lismore Catholic Education Office.

She said she first became concerned in 1985 when she saw the same group of about five or six children hanging about Sutton in the playground and frequently going into the store room with him to apparently collect sporting equipment.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

GREG CRAVEN HERALD SUN JUNE 30, 2015

IT is rare an entire society is traumatised. But it is undeniable we are all shattered by the evidence before the royal commission into institutional child abuse.

We have seen the leering face of evil. Horror inflicted on the innocent by monsters.

Nothing has been more traumatic than the revelations of abuse in the Catholic Church. That ministers of the kindest being ever to walk the Earth could be so cruel is almost beyond belief.

But it is beyond dispute, and those most appalled are themselves Catholic.

The victims were our friends, our families, ourselves.

Rage is an inevitable and entirely appropriate response.

But we must be careful our just rage does not lead to unjust responses.

The prime case here is Cardinal George Pell. He is such a ready target for our fury.

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CANADA
CBC News

A woman who was abused by a priest decades ago is getting ready to walk 900 kilometres across Newfoundland in an effort to improve services for abuse victims at religious institutions.

Gemma Hickey will start her walk in Port aux Basques on Thursday.

On Sunday she held a “pre-walk” around Quidi Vidi Lake in St. John’s — an opportunity for people to walk with her and learn more about why she’s taken on the challenge.

Gemma Hickey is going to walk 900 kms across Newfoundland to bring attention to the need for improved services for abuse victims of religious institutions. (CBC)

Hickey founded an organization called Pathways for men and women who have experienced abuse within religious institutions.

“It’s a deep wound in our province, and I think the best way for people to move forward and deal with it is to actually look at what happened and work toward prevention,” she said.

“We have to do that collectively. It can’t just be one individual.”

Hickey’s goal is to walk 30 kilometres every day, arriving at the Mount Cashel Memorial in St. John’s in early August.

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UNITED STATES
The Open Tabernacle: Here Comes Everybody

Posted on June 28, 2015 by Betty Clermont

Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the United Kingdom in 2010 was supposed to be a debacle. Richard Dawkins reportedly was planning on making a citizen’s arrest of the pope because of the clerical sex abuse scandals. A mock memo suggesting the launch of “Benedict” condoms, his blessing same-sex unions, opening an abortion ward and ordaining women was widely published. Protestors wanted his “state visit” downgraded to a “pastoral visit” so the cost would be paid by the Catholic Church. Arguments for this rested on whether the Vatican counted as an actual state, and even so, state visits are for political reasons.

But by the time the pope arrived, the wind had shifted significantly. Catholic Voices, a project founded by [Opus Dei] specifically for the pope’s visit, had stepped in and provided media training to faithful Catholics who wanted to convey the joy of the Gospel through the media.”

Opus Dei, an official institution of the Catholic Church, at the top is a secret society of international bankers, financiers, businessmen and their supporters. Their goal is the same as other plutocrats – unbridled power – except they use the influence of the Catholic Church and its worldwide network of institutions exempt from both taxes and financial reporting requirements to advance right-wing parties and governments.

Co-founder of Catholic Voices, Jack Valero, is also press officer for Opus Dei in the UK. He was joined by Austen Ivereigh who works with the Opus Dei Pontifical University of the Holy Cross on conferences and making videos for their School on Church Communications.

“Inspired by the success of Catholic Voices, similar groups have appeared across the world, notably in Spain and Mexico, where Ivereigh and Valero have travelled to give training.” Right-wing National Review editor, Kathryn Jean Lopez, is the founding director of the U.S. branch of Catholic Voices. Lopez regularly lectures at Opus Dei’s Catholic Information Center on K Street, Washington D.C., as do other “leaders in the conservative policy world.”

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

Probably not, but Pope Francis and his low tax billionaire donors seem intent on trying to do so. Indeed, if US voters by the November 2016 elections fail to wake up, the pope could even succeed, at least on matters crucial to the Vatican and their subordinate US bishops. Pope Francis comes from a centuries old tradition of absolute papal monarchs who exploit secret communications and media manipulation. This has been made clear in revealing and well documented detail once again by Betty Clermont here, the stalwart Catholic grandmother and author of The Neo-Catholics. She connects many of the dots that too many in the media seem oblivious to, apparently out of indifference or self interest. What a disappointing shame many in the media are!

The pope has recently confirmed his top down and secretive approach to transparency and media matters with his new clerically controlled Vatican Secretariat for Communications. Now both Vatican finances and information will be tightly controlled by a majority of Vatican clerics answerable ultimately only to an unaccountable pope selected by unaccountable cardinals. The names and committees may change, but the monarchical structure continues. Will Pope Francis’ mythical reformer facade survive his farcical “familyless” October Family Synod or even his US elections’ focused September US visit? Can the papal “spinners” spin that fast? Time will tell, but time is running out for the pope’s “Mañana Strategy”. Catholics are running out of patience and tolerance for the pope’s continuing stall strategies.

Pope Francis, with his planned September US visit, is preparing to step up his diversionary efforts to help elect next year a US president, preferably another named Bush. This troubling papal political interference in US elections seeks the return on a long term basis of a “Vatican friendly” (1) US Supreme Court majority (as up to 5 of the 9 current Supreme Court Justices may be replaced by appointees selected by the next US president), and (2) US Justice Department/Criminal Division, each as had existed mostly under the last two “Vatican friendly” Bush presidencies. Much has changed adversely for the pope, however, since US Republican House leader John Boehner asked him many months ago to address the US Congress. These include (A) ongoing child abuse cover-up criminal proceedings in Minneapolis that could involve the seemingly troubling roles of the brother of President Barack Obama’s Chief of Staff and possibly even the pope’s US ambassador/nuncio, (B) the troubling recent disclosures about the pope’s top financial aide, Cardinal George Pell and Ireland’s former Primate, Cardinal Sean Brady, (C) the vague, almost illusory, Vatican announcement, under pressure from brave abuse survivors Peter Saunders and Marie Collins, of a “captive tribunal” for bad bishops to be set up over five years (after the pope’s own predicted departure date), (D) a Catholic revolt over clerical sex abuse cover-ups in Chile, (E) an overwhelming papal rejection vote on same sex marriage in Catholic Ireland, and even (F) the child abuse allegations about former US Speaker Dennis Hastert that US leaders, including Boehner and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, apparently missed addressing earlier, raising questions as to why no US leaders to date have called for a long overdue national investigation into institutional child sexual abuse. Indeed, the possibility that Hastert, the second in line constitutionally for eight years to be US president if the president and Vice President were unable to serve, might have been a child abuser would make the earlier presidential scandals of Clinton and Nixon seem almost minor by comparison. It seems clear that attention to Hastert’s alleged misdeeds will soon expand quickly to protected institutional child abusers, including US Catholic bishops.

Whatever it takes the pope now, it appears, is acceptable for the Vatican to secure US national political and judicial protection, even if necessary by changing the child abuse subject, including with a diversionary climate encyclical, some selective and hurried Hispanic canonizations (Fr. Junipero Serra and Archbishop Oscar Romero) and multiple wasteful and mainly media driven US papal extravaganzas. The Vatican seems hellbent to try to head off a US national investigation of institutional child sexual abuse, like the massive investigation now underway in Australia and the one now beginning in the UK. The “pope of the poor” seems as profligate in his expenditures for bishops’ protection as were the German “Bishop of Bling” and Newark’s Archbishop Myers on their lavish bathtubs. Incidentally, the Bling Bishop just represented the Vatican in good standing at the US bishops’ semi-annual conference. So much for the pope’s bishop accountability approach.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

June 29, 2015

Paul Bibby
Court Reporter

Young people who spend their childhoods in Out of Home Care are finding it virtually impossible to access their own case files because the process is choked in red tape, the Royal Commission has heard.

As the Commission continued its examination of institutional child sexual abuse on Monday, four youths who grew up in care described the instability, under-resourcing and lack of ongoing support which continue to characterise the system.

The youths, who now advocate for others in care, said that many wanted to access their case files but gave up because of the impenetrable bureaucracy such requests involved.

“I decided not to do it because it was going to be a nightmare,” Kate Finn from the Youth Movement Initiative said.

“I’ve been told that I need to have permission from anyone who can possibly be mentioned in there who is over the age of 18,” she said.

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CALIFORNIA
Merced Sun-Star

BY COREY PRIDE
Los Banos Enterprise

A Catholic priest who has been charged with possession of child pornography pleaded not guilty at his arraignment in Los Banos on Friday.

The Rev. Robert Gamel stood next to his attorney in Merced Superior Court and declared he was not guilty of a felony count of possession of matter depicting sexual conduct of a person under the age of 18.

If convicted, Gamel faces up to three years in jail or prison. Judge Harry Jacobs set Gamel’s next court appearance, a pre-preliminary hearing, for July 29 at 1:30 p.m.

Gamel, 64, was arrested June 10, following a 10-month investigation by the Los Banos Police Department.

In August, church officials told police the then-pastor of Los Banos’ St. Joseph’s Catholic Church may have obtained nude photographs of a teenage parishioner through the Internet, according to court records.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Keeping abuse “secret – very, very, secret” marred lives and smeared the church as authorities reacted poorly

Colum Kenny
PUBLISHED
28/06/2015

James Finley was abused physically and sexually as a child. He overcame the abuse and decided to become a monk. Years into his training he was abused by a priest, and quit.

Finley turned his life around. Today he is a clinical psychologist and respected spiritual teacher. In Ireland last week he gave a moving talk to mark the launch of Spire, the new Irish Spirituality Institute for Research & Education.

But his visit was overshadowed by more revelations about sex abuse here. The kind of positive religious path that he walks, one praised by Fr Michael O’Sullivan SJ who introduced him, seems choked by a Catholic Church mired in abuse and cover-ups.

It is hard to look at pictures of the late Brendan Smyth, multiple child-molester, without wincing. He abused scores of victims when church authorities let him. And it seems, the Gardai let him also.
Any idea that people “did not adequately understand” what child abuse really was “back then” was blown away last week at the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry in Northern Ireland.

Revelations continue to emerge north of the border, where UTV in 1994 first revealed Smyth’s crimes.

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PARAGUAY
U.S. News

By PETER PRENGAMAN, Associated Press

CIUDAD DEL ESTE, Paraguay (AP) — Children awaiting surgery and women fleeing domestic violence never saw the $350,000 donated for their benefit. Then, there were the questionable property sales and the money for a cleaning business partially owned by a relative.

In the months since Pope Francis ousted the bishop of Paraguay’s second-largest diocese, questions keep surfacing about the Rev. Rogelio Livieres Plano’s management of church money.

As Paraguayan Catholics prepare to welcome Francis during his South American tour that starts July 5, new leaders of the diocese in this eastern border city are trying to erase the debt left by the controversial bishop, raising money through raffles and bingo games. Many parishioners are demanding answers.

“The former bishop ran things like a mafia,” said Carlos Pereira, a humanities professor at the Catholic University in Ciudad del Este. “How did we end up in debt? What happened to the diocese’s properties, to all its assets?”

The diocese is $800,000 in debt, a considerable sum in one of South America’s poorest countries. The arrears have come to light since Livieres Plano, a member of the conservative Opus Dei movement, was pushed out in September.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Brendan Smyth’s psychiatric records revealed at abuse inquiry give fresh insights into a child sex abuse that still haunts the Catholic church

Maeve Sheehan
PUBLISHED
28/06/2015

A man hovered in the yard beside Banbridge court house pulling on a cigarette waiting for the now retired Cardinal Sean Brady to come out.

The retired Cardinal had spent Thursday morning telling the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry about the church’s “flawed” response to complaints about Brendan Smyth, the paedophile priest back in 1975.

The man outside the court house watched as Cardinal Brady emerged to a whirr of cameras, got into a waiting silver car and drove away. Then he told a bit of his own story. He had been sexually abused by Smyth in various children’s homes in Northern Ireland. Some years later he was doing time in Magilligan prison when Smyth was incarcerated there for abusing more than 40 children. Some of the other inmates attacked him with snooker balls in a bag but he never went near him. He was still terrified of the monster Brendan Smyth.

Last week, Northern Ireland’s Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) resurrected the ghost of Brendan Smyth. Almost 20 years after his death, when you’d think there was little more that could shock us about paedophile priests and the protectionist Catholic hierarchy, the HIA put into the public domain decades’ worth of internal church documents, letters, medical records and police reports and transcripts.

They provide further insight into the horror of what Smyth’s crimes, marking the response of his superiors – already widely acknowledged as being woeful – as even worse. This is one case where the devil is truly in the detail.

The HIA is investigating whether systemic failures allowed Smyth, who abused at least seven boys in children’s homes, to continue abusing for so long.

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UNITED STATES
POPE FRANCIS the CON-Christ.

Paris Arrow

Pope Francis has not said a word on why Bishop Finn resigned and why Archbishop Nienstedt resigned. That’s strange. No explanation from the innate loquacious Jesuit Master of Deceits on the exact reasons why the most infamous bishops resigned under his short-term papacy. The truth is Pope Francis is not a reformer but a conformist, a chameleon and a puppet who does not have any “hard lines” but only PR campaigns –– obeying his boss the Opus Dei Beast PR Deceits Team and their cunning strategies –– to save the Vatican Empire that’s crumbling down like the Roman Empire.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency

Vatican City, Jun 27, 2015 / 02:09 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican’s nine communications offices will soon be consolidated under the authority of the newly-established Secretariat for Communications, per a Saturday directive of Pope Francis.

The Roman Pontiff instituted the new secretariat with a motu proprio titled The current communication context, promulgated June 27. The letter states that the new management body will take effect June 29.

“The current communication context, characterized by the presence and the development of digital media, by the factors of convergence and interactivity, requires a rethinking of the information system of the Holy See and dedication to a reorganization which … must proceed decisively towards integration and a unified management,” the Pope wrote.

“For these reasons, I desire that all organizations which, thus far have dealt with communications in different ways, be brought together in a new Dicastery of the Roman Curia … thus, the communication system of the Holy See will respond in an ever more efficacious manner to the needs of the mission of the Church.”

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service – Rhymes with Religion

Boz Tchividjian | Jun 27, 2015

A three year old child is brutally beaten by his mother’s boyfriend and then threatened to remain quiet or he’ll get another beating. One morning following another beating, the child goes to school with bruises on his face and is questioned by a concerned teacher. Petrified and not knowing what to do or say, the little boy eventually discloses the horrific abuse to the teacher who calls the police. It is later discovered that this boy had belt marks on his back and stomach, and bruises all over his body. Police also find his 22-month old sister with black eyes, burn injuries, a swollen hand, and two pigtails having been ripped out of their roots. The abuser, Darius Clark , is arrested and charged with aggravated child abuse. Justice seems to be having its way until shortly before the trial when the judge decides that the child isn’t capable of testifying against the defendant.

At trial, the judge did allow the teacher to testify about what the child had told her regarding being hit by the defendant. Fortunately, the defendant was convicted of these horrific crimes and sentenced to prison for 28 years. Unfortunately, just when it seemed as if justice had finally been served, the appellate court reversed the defendants’ conviction. The court ruled that since the child was not able to testify, the teacher’s testimony about what the child had reported violated the defendant’s constitutional right to confront his accuser.

Was the court saying that abused children who are unable to confront their abusers are simply out of luck? Was the court siding with those who hurt little ones? Where is the justice in that?

Fortunately, the appellate court didn’t have the last word. That last word was published last week in a Supreme Court decision getting a bit less attention than others, but no less important. A decision that has the potential to bring much needed justice to abused children around the country.

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