ABUSE TRACKER

NEW YORK
Gawker

Ashley Feinberg

A New York Orthodox rabbi announced last night that he’s refusing to leave his post—despite his synagogue board’s requests to the contrary in response to the revelation of his habit of taking naked sauna dips with young male congregants in the 1980s and 90s, some of whom were as young as 12 years old.

The shvitz enthusiast, Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt, had previously promised to work out a deal in which the board would buy out his remaining contract. But it appears that the pants-less patriarch of the Riverdale Jewish Center had a change of heart. From The New York Times:

“This is a crisis created by my own lapses of judgment,” said Rabbi Rosenblatt, 58, on a recording of the speech transcribed by a synagogue member. “I have brought pain to people, shame to my family and I have caused a desecration of the divine name.”

Still, according to another member, he said “that the calls for him to no longer be the rabbi are disproportionate to what he did. And he said he looks forward to serving his community.”

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Berger’s Beat

June 25, 2015 10:53 am | Author: berger

With friends like these, who needs enemies? That was Bill Hannegan on local TV news last night defending the flying of Confederate flags. He’s also founder of Friends of Fr. Joseph Jiang, the twice-accused predator priest who’s close to Archbishop Robert Carlson. Hannegan has also fought restrictions on smoking cigarettes in public.

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IRELAND
UTV

Victims of the paedophile priest Brendan Smyth have said they will be taking legal action against An Garda Síochána.

It follows Wednesday’s claims at the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry that Irish police knew about Smyth’s activities in the early 1970s.

Solicitor Kevin Winters said civil proceedings had been launched because of the “appalling failure” to stop the paedophile priest.

He said: “A number of victims of Smyth’s abuse have asked us to write to the Garda commissioner to find out why they didn’t act on a letter sent to Finglas Garda station in 1973.

“Our clients are shocked to learn that the document didn’t alert the Gardai and the authorities to the very real risk of future abuse by Smyth.”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
International Business Times

By Callum Paton
June 25, 2015

The former leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland has admitted information surrounding historical sex abuse involving clerics was protected by a code of secrecy.

Speaking at the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry, which is hearing evidence on the abuse of children in Northern Ireland in residential institutions, Cardinal Sean Brady said victims were made to swear oaths promising they would not divulge information to anyone outside the Catholic church.

“There was a shroud of secrecy and confidentiality with a view not to destroying the good name of the church,” he said to the inquiry in Banbridge.

“The scandal that somebody who was ordained to serve people should so abuse the trust for their own pleasure was appalling.

“To offset that, the scandal was kept a secret – very, very secret.”

The Belfast Telegraph reported Brady was criticised over revelations that he was present when two teenage victims of paedophile priest Father Brendan Smyth were sworn to secrecy during interviews over their abuse.

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CANADA
Rabble

BY JOHN MILLER | JUNE 25, 2015

For two months after a damaging story about him appeared in the Georgia Straight, John Furlong made no move to sue anyone.

Not the eight former students named in the story who claimed that he beat and racially taunted them when he was a missionary-teacher in northern British Columbia in 1969 and 1970, a period of time that he strangely left out of his autobiography.

Not the weekly newspaper that dared to print the story.

Not even the CBC, which broadcast more serious allegations against him, including evidence of sexual assault.

At a press conference on Sept. 27, 2012, the day the Georgia Straight article appeared, Furlong issued a blanket denial and accused Laura Robinson, the reporter, of a “shocking lack of diligence in researching the article.” He added that “this feels very much like a personal vendetta.” He threatened to sue for defamation.

Instead, the man who organized the Vancouver Olympics resorted to the court of public opinion. He mounted a public relations campaign against her, accusing her of having “open contempt for the Olympic Games and male authority figures in sport.” He also disparaged her long career exposing wrongdoing in amateur sport as “a two-decade long pattern of inaccuracy.” She was an activist, he said, not a journalist. …

Robinson expects the fight for her reputation and to defend herself from Furlong`s abandoned lawsuit will cost her and her husband up to $500,000, but feels it is necessary. Perhaps she feels she is also fighting for the right of other journalists to investigate public figures who happen to have wealthy and influential friends and who choose to defend themselves by blaming the messenger. The tactics of former Toronto mayor Rob Ford come to mind.

Her case should be all about journalistic standards, and whether her story met them. Was there any evidence she was out to get Furlong and took shortcuts in verifying the information she was given? Did she make a genuine effort to get his side of the story? Did she use questionable journalistic techniques? Is there any evidence she had a personal interest in damaging his reputation? Were any facts or details fabricated? Was she an advocate for a certain cause or was she acting as an ethical and diligent journalist?

I examined her reporting and the story as an independent expert witness and gave testimony on the opening day of the trial. I found no evidence that what Furlong said about her was factual. Rather the opposite: I measured her reporting techniques against accepted journalistic standards (mainly those of the Canadian Association of Journalists) and found that she’d met the test. Her sources were all named, each had sworn an affidavit, and she’d approached Furlong five times over four months to give his side of the story. Each time he refused to answer her questions.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
The Guardian

Henry McDonald Ireland correspondent

Thursday 25 June 2015

Senior figures in Ireland’s Catholic church set up inquiries into historical sexual abuse by solely to protect the church from scandal, the former leader of Ireland’s Catholics has admitted.

Dr Seán Brady, the former primate of All Ireland, told an inquiry into historical abuse on Thursday that he and other Catholic clerics were sworn to secrecy about these tribunals so that the “good name” of the church could be protected.

Brady was giving evidence on Thursday at the historical abuse inquiry in Northern Ireland, a wideranging investigation into the abuse of children at state and church-run care homes and other institutions across the region.

The retired cleric’s evidence focused on the scandal surrounding Father Brendan Smyth, a serial child rapist who continued to abuse for decades after the church first learned that he was a paedophile.

The cardinal has faced heavy criticism for keeping secret a meeting in 1975 between senior clerics and victims of Smyth, Ireland’s most notorious paedophile priest whom the inquiry was told earlier this week possibly abused hundreds of children.

Although the Catholic hierarchy knew about Smyth’s abuse in the mid-70s they failed to report it to the police in Northern Ireland. Instead, the church moved Smyth around parishes and even hospital chaplaincies for two decades while he raped and abused children in Ireland, Britain and the US.

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FLORIDA
Local 10

The mother of an 11-year-old girl who was allegedly sexually assaulted by a Miami Beach rabbi said she’s being ostracized by members of the congregation after coming forward to police.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Mary Carolan

A former Catholic Archbishop claims an RTÉ programme falsely depicted him as a “sexual predator” and a “rapist” who took advantage of a vulnerable teenage girl in Nigeria who regarded the church as a “sanctuary”.

The Prime Time Investigates: Mission to Prey programme broadcast on May 23rd, 2011, wrongly meant Richard Burke sexually assaulted Dolores Atwood in a hospital bed in Nigeria when she was 13 and had had sex with her when she was aged 14, Jack Fitzgerald SC said.

Mr Burke (66), from Clonmel, Co Tipperary, would say he had had consensual sexual relations with Ms Atwood when she was an adult but this programme wrongly depicted him as a paedophile, counsel said.

RTÉ had sought information from Mr Burke about how many people he had sex with but his consensual sexual relations with other women were irrelevant as this defamation case is “about paedophilia and nothing else”.

He will say he is not a paedophile, he “abhors it, it offends him and he will tell you the truth”, counsel said. “This man is a human being and he has a reputation.”

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Lesley-Anne McKeown, Press Association
PUBLISHED
25/06/2015

VICTIMS of paedophile priest Father Brendan Smyth are to take legal action against the Gardai.

The move follows revelations that officers in Dublin knew about his sex abuse in the early 1970s.
Solicitor Kevin Winters said civil proceedings had been launched because of the “appalling failure” to stop Smyth.

He said: “A number of victims of Smyth’s abuse have asked us to write to the Garda commissioner to find out why they didn’t act on a letter sent to Finglas Garda station in 1973.

“Our clients are shocked to learn that the document didn’t alert the Gardai and the authorities to the very real risk of future abuse by Smyth.”

Yesterday, previously unseen confidential documents from St Patrick’s Hospital in Dublin were shown to the Historical Abuse Inquiry (HIA).

They revealed Smyth had asked his psychiatrist to have him admitted to hospital after coming to the attention of Gardai in Finglas in 1973.

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ROME
Religion News Service

Rosie Scammell | June 25, 2015

ROME (RNS) As the Vatican continues to work on policies to combat clergy sex abuse, a leading pontifical university in Rome hosted a conference this week on how the Catholic Church can better address the current crisis and released details of a new diploma program on protecting children.

A series of measures pushed through in recent months by Pope Francis has given Vatican officials new tools for dealing with child molesters within the church, but critics argue that the Holy See has been too slow to act on scandals globally.

In the latest such move, the Vatican set a July trial date for Jozef Wesolowski, a Polish ex-archbishop who stands accused of abusing children while ambassador to the Dominican Republic. He will be tried in a Vatican criminal court, an unusual step.

That announcement came just days after the pope approved the Vatican’s first system for judging bishops who fail in their duty to protect children from abusive clerics, a plan proposed by the papal commission that Francis set up to tackle sexual abuse.

As new policies are implemented at the Vatican, similar discussions are underway in Rome and around the world.

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ROME
Vatican Radio

[with audio]

(Vatican Radio) Representatives of bishops conferences from 15 English speaking countries met at the Pontifical Gregorian University this week to discuss a spiritual and theological response to the sex abuse crisis in the Catholic Church.

The annual meeting of the Anglophone conference on the Safeguarding of Children, Young People and Vulnerable Adults, which concluded on Wednesday, was jointly hosted by the Gregorian’s Centre for Child Protection and the U.S. Catholic Bishops Conference.

Participants raised challenging questions about the meaning of redemption or reconciliation for survivors of sexual abuse. They also discussed the anger and confusion of so many Catholics who’ve left the Church as a result of the abuse crisis.

Among the renowned theologians addressing the conference was Sr Sara Butler, president of the Academy of Catholic Theology in Washington D.C. and former member of the International Theological Commission….

Sr Sara says people who’ve heard about the sex abuse crisis begin to wonder whether the sacraments celebrated by priests who were offenders are valid…..

She looks back at the history of the Church, starting with the Diocletian persecution in North Africa in the early 4th century, through to later reformers who sought to stop the sexual abuses of the clergy of their day by saying that the sacraments were not valid…..

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TEXAS
WRIC

TARRANT COUNTY, Texas (WRIC) — Geronimo ‘Pastor G’ Aguilar’s legal proceedings are far from over.

Aguilar was convicted of sexually assaulting two girls when they were just 11 and 13-years-old in Texas on Wednesday.

The defense has requested a pre-sentence report, which could take a couple of months. Sentencing may take place as soon as September. Prosecutors plan to push for life behind bars.

In Texas, both the defense and the prosecution will be allowed to call witnesses at Aguilar’s sentencing. Prosecutors have told 8News investigator Kerri O’Brien that they have several people lined up. We could hear from witnesses we never heard from during the trial . 8News was also told a number of the potential witnesses are from here in Richmond.

While the defense wouldn’t talk to 8News on camera, they have told other media outlets they plan to appeal.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

VATICAN CITY | BY PHILIP PULLELLA

Homosexuals can attend a Catholic family congress in Philadelphia during Pope Francis’ U.S. visit this year but won’t be allowed to use it to attack Church teachings, the city’s archbishop said on Thursday.

“We don’t want to provide a platform at the meeting for people to lobby for positions contrary to the life of our Church,” said Archbishop Charles Chaput. The Catholic Church teaches homosexuality is not sinful but homosexual acts are.

“We are not providing that kind of lobbying opportunity,” he told a news conference presenting the September 22-27 congress known as the World Meeting of Families.

Gay Catholic groups and families headed by gay Catholics had asked for an official presence at the gathering to present their view that homosexuals should be fully welcomed in the Church.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Soli Salgado | Jun. 25, 2015 NCR Today

Sexual abuse allegations against theologian John Howard Yoder are decades old. The officials who chose to either ignore his past or bury it are mostly dead. The institutions where the misconduct happened have since enacted policies to prevent such harassment. And Yoder is no longer a threat, having died in 1997. So why is his story worth revisiting?

Rachel Goossen, the historian who recently researched Yoder’s past for the Mennonite church, said that Yoder’s works and writings did not die with him. They continue to be reprinted and have a formative place in the theological realm. Such studies require context.

“It’s important to know that while he was incredibly influential in his lifetime and also after his death in his writings on nonviolence, Yoder was also perpetrating violence in his private life and using his religious status to make things happen for himself,” Goossen said. “If they’re going to interpret his writings, they should have information about this extraordinary theologizing that he did that was very harmful to women.”

While many of the key players in the story have died, she added, most of his victims — who were typically decades younger than Yoder — are still alive.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Soli Salgado | Jun. 25, 2015

When John Howard Yoder became a full-time professor exclusively at the University of Notre Dame in 1984, he gave a significant boost to the school’s theology department. He brought with him international acclaim as a Mennonite theologian, scholar, ethicist and pacifist.

He also brought with him a long history of predatory behavior toward women, especially young female students, described as his “experiments.”

Leaders of the Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary — formerly Goshen Biblical Seminary, where Yoder taught theology for 24 years — gathered March 22 this year to apologize to his victims for the first time, publicly taking responsibility for the seminary’s neglect that allowed Yoder to abuse more than 100 women. Yoder, who died in 1997, faced 13 charges of sexual abuse in 1992.

But what remains unanswered is who knew what at Notre Dame at the time of his hiring, whether officials there simply ignored his past and what officials on the South Bend, Ind., campus subsequently did as reports of his abusive behavior began to surface.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Mary Carolan
PUBLISHED
25/06/2015

A FORMER Catholic Archbishop claims an RTE programme falsely depicted him as a “sexual predator” and a “rapist” who took advantage of a vulnerable teenage girl in Nigeria who regarded the church as a “sanctuary”.

The Prime Time Investigates Mission to Prey programme broadcast on May 23rd 2011 wrongly meant Richard Burke sexually assaulted Dolores Atwood in a hospital bed in Nigeria when she was aged 13 and had had sex with her when she was aged 14, Jack Fitzgerald SC said.

Mr Burke (66), from Clonmel, Co Tipperary, would say he had had consensual sexual relations with Ms Atwood when she was an adult but this programme wrongly depicted him as a paedophile, counsel said.

RTE had sought information from Mr Burke about how many people he had sex with but his consensual sexual relations with other women were irrelevant as this defamation case is “about paedophilia and nothing else”.

He will say he is not a paedophile, he “abhors it, it offends him and he will tell you the truth”, counsel said. “This man is a human being and he has a reputation.”

Today is the second day of Mr Burke’s action over alleged defamation in the Mission to Prey programme. The case is being heard before Ms Justice Iseult O’Malley and a High Court jury of six men and six women.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
RTE News

The former Catholic Primate of All Ireland, Sean Brady, has said he wanted to express his horror and to offer an unreserved apology to all those affected as a result of the crimes of convicted paedophile Brendan Smyth.

The Cardinal is appearing before the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry in Northern Ireland.

The Cardinal commended the courage of the 14-year-old boy who came forward in 1975.

He said “unfortunately the response to his complaint was neither adequate or effective. For this I’m truly sorry,” he said.

He is giving evidence about a meeting in 1975 where the then teaching priest took notes when a 14-year-old told of being sexually abused by Smyth.

Cardinal Brady said that there was a shroud of secrecy and confidentially with a view to not destroying the good name of the church.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Historical abuse inquiry live: Cardinal Brady admits ‘shroud of secrecy’ over sex abuse investigations

By Lesley Anne McKeown
PUBLISHED
25/06/2015

Clerics involved in investigating child sex abuse were bound to secrecy so the Catholic church’s “good name” could be protected, a former primate of Ireland has claimed.

Cardinal Sean Brady, who resigned on age grounds last year, was giving evidence to the Historical Abuse Inquiry (HIA) in Banbridge, Co Down.

He said: “These were unspeakable crimes.

“There was a confidentiality resting upon us too.”

Live updates from Belfast Telegraph reporter Rebecca Black @RBlackBT

The Cardinal faced fierce criticism after it emerged he had attended meetings where two teenage victims of paedophile priest Father Brendan Smyth were sworn to secrecy in 1975.

He added: “There was a shroud of secrecy and confidentiality with a view not to destroying the good name of the church.

“The scandal that somebody who was ordained to serve people should so abuse the trust for their own pleasure was appalling and it was.

“To offset that, the scandal was kept a secret – very, very secret.

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NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand Herald

A Napier-based Anglican minister accused of sexual violation was stripped of his “permission to officiate” when the church learned of the allegations against him.

John Hamilton Tovey, 64, a former associate priest at Taradale’s All Saints Anglican church, faced court on sex and indecency charges yesterday.

He appeared in Napier District Court and was remanded on bail without plea until July 15 by a registrar.

Tovey faces one charge of sexual violation and two charges of indecent assault – all three charges relating to the same alleged female victim.

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MINNESOTA
LaCross Tribune

MIKE TIGHE mtighe@lacrossetribune.com

Unlike most Catholics, John Nienstedt must have been inoculated against guilt somewhere along his career path toward becoming an archbishop.

Or perhaps he has spent so much of his life pointing out the splinters in others’ eyes that he simply can’t see the log in his own.

How else could he shirk blame for criminal charges against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis that propelled his resignation just days after the charges were filed?

No individuals are charged in the 44-page legal document detailing six misdemeanor counts related to sexual abuse cover-ups. But it chronicles Nienstedt’s acceptance of the Rev. Curtis Wehmeyer’s escapades of drinking, drug use, cruising for sex among adults and boys, and abuse of teens that would have resulted in a lifetime in sack cloth and ashes for a lay person in confession.

Bishops, priests and lay staffers warned Nienstedt not to make Wehmeyer a pastor because of such behavior, for which the archdiocese had sent the priest to treatment for sexual disorders in 2004 and ordered him to attend Sexaholics Anonymous.

Turning a deaf ear, Nie

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CANADA
CBC News

By Jason Proctor, CBC News

A nun who ran a Burns Lake, B.C., Catholic elementary school where John Furlong taught more than 40 years ago says the former Olympics CEO was “always kind” to his students.

Sister Marie Melling testified Wednesday in B.C. Supreme Court, where Furlong is defending himself against a claim he defamed Laura Robinson, the journalist who wrote an article claiming he abused students at Immaculata school in 1969.

“He treated the children with respect,” Melling said. “He was always pleasant.”

Furlong arrived in B.C. as a teen

Melling was one of four defence witnesses called on Furlong’s behalf; among the others were his romantic partner and an RCMP officer who investigated an allegation of sexual abuse by a former student.

In the September 2012 Georgia Straight article, Robinson reported that eight people had signed affidavits claiming Furlong physically and verbally abused them while they attended the school.

She claims Furlong’s responses to her article caused her financial and emotional damage by implying she was unprofessional and motivated by a personal vendetta.

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NEW YORK
The Riverdale Press

Learning to deal with clergy abuse

By Shant Shahrigian
Posted 6/25/15

While Riverdale grapples with the consequences of recent revelations that a long respected rabbi led boys into a sauna naked over a period of years, one local institution is working to avert that kind of scandal from happening in the first place.

Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (YCT), located at 3700 Hendry Hudson Parkway, requires its roughly 40 rabbis in training to undergo weekly sessions with psychologists or a psychotherapist. Small groups of students meet with professionals to discuss issues like boundaries with congregants, part of YCT’s effort to train rabbis both as experts on Judaism and community leaders.

“You’re really working so hard to help people and make a difference,” said YCT’s president, Rabbi Asher Lopatin. “You don’t always stop to think, what am I doing? Am I doing the right thing? What are my motivations?”

After a May New York Times article about Riverdale Jewish Center’s (RJC) Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt taking boys to a sauna naked in the 1980s and 1990s prompted the Bronx District Attorney’s office to ask people to come forward if they have information, Rabbi Lopatin took to Facebook to encourage people to do so. Most other local Jewish leaders have shied away from openly addressing the situation at RJC, where congregants have bitterly disagreed over whether Rabbi Rosenblatt should remain as their leader.

In a recent interview, Rabbi Lopatin, who became head of YCT in fall 2013, did not discuss the crisis at RJC at length, saying he did not want to inflame the situation while the community is going through a tough time.

But Rabbi Lopatin said longstanding feelings with Jewish communities against “airing dirty laundry” and against gossiping make it hard to deal with abuse when it arises in the first place.

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NEW YORK
New York Times

By ANDY NEWMAN
JUNE 25, 2015

A prominent Modern Orthodox rabbi who has been criticized for taking boys as young as 12 naked to the sauna defied the board of his synagogue and told supportive congregants Wednesday night that he would remain as their spiritual leader.

The rabbi, Jonathan Rosenblatt, of Riverdale Jewish Center in the Bronx had agreed to negotiate with the board on a deal to buy out the last three years of his contract, after a New York Times article last month about his sauna talks with young men.

But an apologetic Rabbi Rosenblatt told a mostly packed house that he intended to stay at the helm of the 700-member synagogue he has led for 30 years, according to several people who attended the members-only event.

“This is a crisis created by my own lapses of judgment,” said Rabbi Rosenblatt, 58, on a recording of the speech transcribed by a synagogue member. “I have brought pain to people, shame to my family and I have caused a desecration of the divine name.”

Still, according to another member, he said “that the calls for him to no longer be the rabbi are disproportionate to what he did. And he said he looks forward to serving his community.”

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IRELAND
Newstalk

[with audio]

Patrick Corrigan of Amnesty International speaks to Breakfast ahead of the former Primate’s testimony today

The former Primate of All Ireland Sean Brady will appear before the North’s Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry today.

The probe is focusing on the abuses carried out by paedophile priest Brendan Smyth and examining whether systemic failings allowed him to continue offending for so long.

Yesterday, the inquiry heard that Gardaí were aware of Smyth’s abuses as early as the 1970s.

Patrick Corrigan, Programme Director of Amnesty International in Northern Ireland, spoke to Breakfast this morning and said former Cardinal Brady’s testimony comes after a harrowing week of testimony.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Yahoo! News

The Journal

By Catherine Healy

A woman who was sexually assaulted by paedophile Brendan Smyth at the age of 13 has said that she may take legal action against members of An Garda Síochána who had known about his activities at the time of her abuse.

Smyth abused Rose (not her real name) in 1993, 20 years after his behaviour first came to the attention of gardaí.

She was 13 at the time.

Speaking on Morning Ireland, Rose said she would consider including gardaí who were aware of his abuse in a civil case she is taking against Bishop Leo O’Reilly, Cardinal Sean Brady and Smyth’s former order, the Norbertines.

I think all the victims’ civil cases could be broadened out – even those that have been settled.

She said she knew “for a fact that [Smyth] didn’t just visit [her] house” in the years he took shelter in Kilnacrott Abbey in Cavan after being extradited from Northern Ireland.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

The former leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland has arrived at a public inquiry into abuse by the paedophile priest, Fr Brendan Smyth.

Cardinal Seán Brady will address Northern Ireland’s Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry about a “secret” church inquiry into Smyth’s behaviour in 1975.

The senior cleric has already provided a statement to the inquiry.

He has admitted that he now recognises that the church inquiry was flawed.

Smyth was at the centre of one of the first clerical child sex abuse scandals to rock the Catholic Church in Ireland.

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CANADA
The Globe and Mail

SUNNY DHILLON
VANCOUVER — The Globe and Mail
Published Wednesday, Jun. 24, 2015

The RCMP officer who investigated a sex-abuse allegation against former Vancouver Olympics CEO John Furlong says the complainant’s story kept changing and could not be corroborated, prompting the decision to not lay charges.

Corporal Quinton Mackie testified Wednesday in a B.C. Supreme Court defamation case. Freelance journalist Laura Robinson has sued Mr. Furlong and alleged he defamed her in his response to a September, 2012, story.

A criminal complaint was filed against Mr. Furlong by Beverly Abraham in July, 2012. She had been a student at Immaculata Roman Catholic Elementary School in Burns Lake, B.C., where Mr. Furlong was a physical-education instructor in 1969-70.

Cpl. Mackie testified that after investigating Ms. Abraham’s complaint he chose not to file a report to Crown counsel.

“In the case of Ms. Abraham, there was never a consistent story,” he said. “There were certain consistent aspects to the story but names were changed, scenarios were changed all the time. And there was nobody – be it a parent, a friend, a family member – that could corroborate anything that was being said.”

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IRELAND
Herald

A FORMER Roman Catholic Archbishop who resigned over breaking his vow of celibacy has sued RTE for defamation.

Tim Healy – 25 June 2015

Richard Burke, former Archbishop of Benin city in Nigeria, claims he was wrongly depicted as a paedophile in the 2011 Prime Time Investigates programme Mission to Prey.

Co Tipperary-born Mr Burke, now aged 66, had intimate sexual relations with Dolores Atwood, who featured on the RTE programme, but not when she was under age, his counsel Jack Fitzgerald SC told a High Court judge and jury.

Mr Burke “is not a paedophile”, has never in his life ever molested a child and, at the end of this case, you will be convinced that is the truth, counsel said.

As an Archbishop who had sexual relations with Ms Atwood, she had “leaned” on him and he paid her “a large sum of money”, about €176,000, but that was something not mentioned in the programme, counsel said.

The jury would hear the pressure Ms Atwood put on Mr Burke was such he became “terrified” of the exposure of their relationship, he said.

The court would also hear Mr Burke paid large sums to her due to pressure she was putting him under.

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LOUISIANA
New Orleans Advocate

BY MATT SLEDGE| MSLEDGE@THEADVOCATE.COM
June 25, 2015

Police are searching for a youth minister affiliated with the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in Gentilly who they believe sexually abused two teenage boys and may have more victims in parishes across the region.

Ryan Scott Rodgers, 36, is accused of touching two teenage boys while they were sleeping. The boys then woke up to find Rogers fondling them, police said. The abuse occurred for more than a year, according to police.

NOPD Detective Stephanie Taillon said Rodgers abused the boys during sleepovers at his house and elsewhere.

“He groomed them for future molestations,” she said.

The case was brought to authorities’ attention when the boys’ mother contacted police, Taillon said.

Rodgers is not married and is not a registered sex offender.

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FLORIDA
WTSP

[with video]

Kendra Conlon, WTSP

A local church is trying to keep the faith after a trusted parishioner is accused of molesting a boy in the church parking lot.

The Pasco County sheriff fears Huiell “Derk” Denton may have more victims.

The Adult Sunday School teacher is accused of groping and kissing a fellow parishioner, an 11-year-old boy, outside Calvary Baptist Church of Holiday. This isn’t the first time he’s been accused of a similar crime.

“Both of these families, and it doesn’t just affect those two families, but the whole church are suffering right now,” says Pastor Doug Kirk from Calvary Baptist.

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TEXAS
New York Daily News

BY DOYLE MURPHY

A perverted pastor is going to prison.

Former megachurch preacher Geronimo Aguilar was found guilty on Wednesday of sexually assaulting two young sisters two decades ago in Texas.

The Tarrant County jury convicted the 45-year-old church leader on all seven felony charges, including sexual assault of a child, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

Aguilar shared a home with the sisters, who were ages 11 and 13 at the time, while he was a Fort Worth minister.

The older sister testified the abuse lasted for two years in the 1990s and included rape.

Aguilar moved in 2001 to Richmond, Va., where he founded the Richmond Outreach Center with his wife. He helped build the congregation of just 19 people into the ministerial powerhouse ROC parish with thousands of members. He was fired in 2014 following his indictment.

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TEXAS
WRIC

By Kerri O’Brien
Published: June 24, 2015

FORT WORTH, Texas (WRIC) — Former Richmond megachurch pastor Geronimo Aguilar was found guilty of sexually assaulting two girls when they were just 11 and 13-years-old in Texas on Wednesday.

The founder of the Richmond Outreach Center (ROC), once considered the fastest growing church in America, is now a convicted criminal off to prison.

As a policy, 8News doesn’t normally identify victims, but the women asked we show their faces and use their names because they said they want others to know it’s okay to come forward.

“We’re just very thankful, 20 years and it is finally coming out,” said victim Nancy Mohr. “The hardest part is that nobody believes you or that people who have heard don’t do anything.”

The victims were overcome with emotion — tears of joy and a sense of justice — after all this time, someone believes them. And the man who abused them will pay the price.

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VIRGINIA/TEXAS
NBC 12

By Britni McDonald

RICHMOND, VA (WWBT) –
Geronimo Aguilar, better known as Pastor G, faced a Texas jury Wednesday for the ultimate decision: Guilty on all seven counts of child sexual abuse.

The verdict comes after hours of deliberations and years after his arrest, but it’s been more than two decades since the alleged assaults of the two girls in Texas. They date back to the ’90s, years before Pastor G founded the Richmond Outreach Center. The ROC made its mark quickly, even named one of the fastest growing churches in America. But that all came to a standstill in 2013 when Aguilar was arrested and charged with sexual assault.

He and three other pastors resigned shortly after. But Pastor G has denied the allegations from the start. In fact, just a day before the verdict, he took the stand in his own defense, reportedly denying having any sexual contact with the alleged victims, even saying he considered them like sisters. It’s something the jury and Virginia Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests Director Becky Ianni doesn’t buy.

“I’m glad that he was found guilty,” said Ianni. “When you’re abused by someone religious, in a way, you almost feel like you’ve been abused by God.”

Being a victim of sexual assault as a child by a church leader herself, she applauds the victims for coming forward and hopes more can do the same.

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IRELAND
RTE News

A former Catholic archbishop who was based in Nigeria has commenced a defamation case against RTÉ arising out of allegations of paedophilia in the 2011 Prime Time Investigates programme on clerical sexual abuse entitled “A Mission to Prey”.

Opening the case, counsel for Richard Burke, Jack Fitzgerald SC, told the jury that the RTÉ programme had claimed that his client was a paedophile – but he was not.

He said this case was at the extreme level of defamation because the allegation was so serious, and there was nothing worse you could say about anyone.

Mr Fitzgerald acknowledged that Mr Burke was a man who had resigned as Archbishop of the diocese of Benin City in Nigeria in 2010 because he had not complied with his commitments to celibacy as a cleric.

He said for that reason he had let down himself, his family and his church because of his non-compliance with his celibacy commitment.

He said Mr Burke was ashamed, remorseful, humiliated and in pain because of that resignation.

However, he was not a paedophile.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

By Deborah McAleese
PUBLISHED
25/06/2015

Paedophile priest Brendan Smyth threatened to punch another cleric who warned him to stay away from children.

Smyth told Fr William Fitzgerald he was going to “knock (his) head off” when confronted with allegations that he had sexually abused young boys and girls, the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIAI) heard yesterday.

Fr Fitzgerald, who is a member of the Norbertine Order which Smyth belonged to, said that the notorious child abuser turned angry when he told him he was not welcome to assist in altar service.

“I told him that ‘in view of rumours about your sexual activities I will not have you near these kids under my watch’,” Fr Fitzgerald told the court.

He added: “He told me ‘I’ll knock your head off’, and I said ‘make my day, you b*****d’. I’m 18 inches taller than him.”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Historical abuse inquiry live: Former leader of Catholic church in Ireland Cardinal Brady gives evidence

A long running public inquiry into child abuse is expected to hear from a former leader of the Catholic church in Ireland.

Cardinal Sean Brady, who resigned on age grounds last year, is due to give evidence to the Historical Abuse Inquiry (HIA) in Banbridge, Co Down later today.

Live updates from Belfast Telegraph reporter Rebecca Black @RBlackBT

The senior cleric faced fierce criticism after it emerged he had attended meetings where two teenage victims of paedophile priest Father Brendan Smyth were sworn to secrecy in 1975.

Their evidence was never handed over to police, allowing the west Belfast churchman to continue abusing children before he was finally jailed in 1994.

As Cardinal Brady arrived to give evidence at the inquiry Amnesty International repeated its call for the Northern Ireland Executive to establish an inquiry into clerical child abuse in non-residential settings.

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CANADA
Times Colonist

Keith Fraser / The Province
June 24, 2015

A former head coach of Canada’s men’s basketball team took the stand yesterday in defence of John Furlong at the trial at which the former Vancouver Olympic CEO is being sued for defamation.

Ken Shields said he received a phone call from freelance journalist Laura Robinson, who filed the defamation suit against Furlong, in 1994 during the world championships in Germany.

“It was a very aggressive, I would say, caustic call accusing me of racial bias,” Shields said.

“It was just a horrendous experience. I didn’t feel that she was open to anything I said.”

Shields told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Catherine Wedge that Robinson accused him of racism in his selection of national team members. – See more at: http://www.timescolonist.com/news/b-c/defamation-trial-witnesses-defend-furlong-call-journalist-aggressive-1.1977761#sthash.xZt9bHiy.dpuf

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CANADA
Georgia Straight

by Carlito Pablo on June 24th, 2015

The freelance journalist behind an explosive exposé on previously unknown facts about the early life of 2010 Olympics head John Furlong is dealing with huge legal bills.

According to Laura Robinson, she has an outstanding tab as of April 30 this year of about $160,000 in connection with the defamation countersuit she filed against Furlong.

That doesn’t cover expenses in May leading up to and including the trial of her suit against the former Vancouver Olympics CEO, which started on June 15.

“It’s a massively expensive undertaking,” Robinson told the Straight during an interview at B.C. Supreme Court. The Ontario writer is being represented by Bryan Baynham of the Harper Grey law office.

In her testimony on June 16, Robinson said she spent $150,000 to defend against a defamation suit filed by Furlong, one that he eventually dropped. He also discontinued a similar lawsuit against the Georgia Straight.

Robinson authored a story headlined “John Furlong biography omits secret past in Burns Lake”, which was published in the Straight on September 27, 2012. The article reported that he arrived in the northern B.C. town in 1969 as a Christian missionary—not in 1974, as he wrote in his memoir Patriot Hearts—and that he allegedly taunted and physically hurt First Nations students he taught as a gym teacher at the former Immaculata Elementary School.

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CANADA
The Tyee

By Bob Mackin, Today, TheTyee.ca

Former Vancouver 2010 CEO John Furlong told court journalist suing him for defamation ‘was trying to destabilize my relationships with the companies.’

On the annual International Olympic Day, the former chief executive of Vancouver’s 2010 Winter Games revealed in B.C. Supreme Court that his wife left their Olympic Village apartment while he slept in a desperate effort to save his reputation.

Deborah Sharp Furlong, who died after a 2013 car crash in Ireland, roamed Vancouver streets and filled his 4×4 with copies of the Sept. 27, 2012 Georgia Straight. The issue contained reporter Laura Robinson’s exposé that alleged Furlong abused gym class students in 1969 and 1970 at an aboriginal elementary school and that his 2011 Patriot Hearts memoir was riddled with inconsistencies. The woman he married that summer was gone three hours, he said.

“She felt she made a contribution,” Furlong said June 23 under cross-examination by Robinson’s lawyer Bryan Baynham in the high-profile defamation trial against Furlong.

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CANADA
Georgia Straight

by Carlito Pablo on June 24th, 2015

John Furlong’s girlfriend testified in court as part of his defence in a defamation suit brought by freelance journalist Laura Robinson.

Renee Smith-Valade, a former subordinate of Furlong at the Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, of which he was CEO, took the witness stand on the eighth day of the trial of the civil case.

As Smith-Valade recalled in B.C. Supreme Court, she has worked with Furlong for many years and they were friends.

Sometime in late 2013 or early 2014, according to her, that changed.

“Our relationship evolved into more of a committed relationship, a partnership,” Smith-Valade said in her direct testimony today (June 24).

In cross-examination, Robinson’s lawyer, Bryan Baynham, asked Smith-Valade about her role in events that are subject to his client’s defamation suit.

These include the creation of Furlong’s October 2, 2012, statement, which accused Robinson of contempt towards the Olympics, the leadership of Vanoc, and male authority figures in sport.

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CANADA
CTV

Geordon Omand, The Canadian Press
Published Wednesday, June 24, 2015

VANCOUVER — A freelance journalist suing former Vancouver Olympics’ CEO John Furlong for defamation penned a hand-written letter claiming he had abused more than 40 First Nations’ students at a northern British Columbia school, the trial has heard.

Former 2010 Games spokeswoman Renee Smith-Valade told B.C. Supreme Court Wednesday she was “stunned” when Laura Robinson handed her a lengthy note during a chance encounter at a Toronto airport in April 2013. The note alleged Furlong’s actions had resulted in at least one suicide.

“She invites me to be an off-the-record interview for her,” said Smith-Valade, reading from the message. “She said, ‘I’m hoping you will consider this option to go off the record as a way of being a member of the human race.”‘

Smith-Valade said she immediately handed the letter over to Furlong’s lawyers after landing in Vancouver.

Robinson is suing Furlong for defamation based on public comments he made after she published a newspaper article in 2012.

The article included affidavits from eight former First Nations’ students and alleged Furlong physically and verbally abused the children while working as a gym teacher at a Roman Catholic school in Burns Lake, B.C., about 45 years ago.

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VIRGINIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, June 24

Statement by Becky Ianni of Burke VA, DC area director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 703 801 6044, SNAPvirginia@cox.net )

A jury has found a Richmond pastor guilty on seven counts of child sexual abuse.

The former pastor of Richmond Outreach Center, Geronimo Aguilar (a.k.a. Pastor G) was convicted by a Texas jury this afternoon. We applaud this verdict and hope it brings some comfort to Aguilar’s victims.

We also hope he gets the most severe sentence possible.

Last year, even after being indicted, Pastor G was scheduled to speak on Good Friday at Cedar Street Baptist Church in Richmond.

We continue to urge anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered Aguilar’s crimes to contact police. And we urge current and former ROC staff and members to help reach out to others who may have suspicions or knowledge about Aguilar.

According to the Dallas Morning News, “Aguilar settled in Richmond in 1999 and has been a pastor at the Richmond Outreach Center since the early 2000s.” According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, some in Aguilar’s church community have expressed its support for the religious leader. (Among the ROC members who have, as recently as last year, spoken up in support of Aguilar are Shebeney Miles, Kimberly Williamson, and Bobby Thomas.) We hope they will publicly apologize for their hurtful remarks.

Finally, we encourage anyone who may have been harmed by or who has any information about harm done by Aguilar to contact the police. Only when victims and witnesses speak out are children safer.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Martin Moylan Jun 24, 2015

Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis officials are concerned criminal charges filed against the archdiocese might compromise insurance coverage for clergy sex abuse by bolstering insurers’ arguments for denying claims.

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi has charged the archdiocese with six gross misdemeanors for allegedly failing to protect the victims of a former St. Paul priest. At most, the archdiocese faces fines of $18,000, not much for an organization worth millions.

The archdiocese, however, warned in a recent bankruptcy filing that a criminal conviction may affect its insurance coverage for existing and future sex abuse claims and create ripple effects on the church’s bankruptcy proceedings.

Archdiocese insurers were already challenging their coverage liability months before the criminal charges — and the insurers’ case now becomes stronger, University of Minnesota law professor Christopher Soper said.

“The charges allege that the archdiocese knew about the abuse and didn’t protect the child,” Soper said. “That would likely preclude insurance coverage for the charged conduct because most insurance policies don’t cover intentional acts or criminal acts.”

It’s clear why insurers fight. The financial stakes are high.

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TEXAS
WTVR

FORT WORTH — Former Richmond pastor Geronimo Aguilar has been found guilty on all counts of sexual assault in his jury trial. The jury just handed down the decision and CBS 6 confirmed the verdict via the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Two sisters said Aguilar had sexual relationships with them beginning when they were 11 and 13 years old. They said it happened in the 90s while he was a pastor at their church there in Houston. The 13-year-old said she was raped by Aguilar.

Aguilar denied the allegations though he confessed to affairs with other women, but the jurors still convicted him. Aguilar’s wife Samantha testified that his affairs were “emotionally draining,” and that he slept with her sister-in-law. “I didn’t want the details. I still don’t want the details,” Samantha Aguilar said to the Star Telegram. “I don’t want to have to keep going through it.”

Aguilar served as pastor and founder of the ROC church here in Richmond, which was recently renamed. He was fired in 2014.

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TEXAS
Richmond Times-Dispatch

BY MITCH MITCHELL Fort Worth Star-Telegram

FORT WORTH — A Tarrant County jury on Wednesday convicted the former pastor of the Richmond Outreach Center of sexually assaulting two sisters in Fort Worth and Grapevine almost 20 years ago.
Geronimo Aguilar, 45, who had been free on bond, was immediately taken into custody.

He elected to have state District Judge Louis Sturns set his punishment. Sturns ordered a pre-sentencing report to be filed with him in 80 to 90 days.

The maximum sentence on a charge of aggravated sexual assault of a child is life in prison.
Aguilar’s attorney said he would appeal the conviction.

In closing arguments Wednesday morning, prosecutors said Aguilar, a former minister in Fort Worth and Richmond, pursued a pattern of sexually abusing minors that started 19 years ago.

“He started off by rubbing up against her, by touching her, and then if he sensed that everything wasn’t going to go right, he’d step back and ask, ‘Is everything all right?’ He would just check to make sure that he wouldn’t get arrested,” prosecutor Sheila Wynn said.

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UNITED STATES
POPE FRANCIS the CON-Christ.

Paris Arrow

Now that John Paul II is a saint, he is venerated with his first-class relics in every altar in all Catholic churches and he is prayed to in the daily canon of the Eucharistic Mass (and daily rosary). But it is quite an irony that the more he is invoked upon and his writings are quoted as the official version of the word of God — the effects are quite alarming — in that they repel Catholics and jolt churches. More and more, millions of Catholics are abandoning hundreds of churches especially in the USA as it has already happened in Europe. Recently Cardinal Dolan announced the closure and sale of more than 150 churches in New York. This unstoppable Exodus of Catholics is reminiscent of the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt but the Pharaohs here are Saint John Paul II, Benedict XVI-RATzinger and Pope Francis with their army of JP2 Army – John Paul II Pedophile Priests Army, Opus Dei members and Jesuits Masters of Deceits.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, June 24

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

We applaud Minnesota’s highest court for re-instating the conviction of a predator priest. Now, it’s up to the new head of the Twin Cities archdiocese to seek out and help others hurt by this criminal.

[Pioneer Press]

[Minnesota Supreme Court]

Fr. Christopher Wenthe preys on vulnerable, devout women who have been raised since birth to respect and revere allegedly celibate priests who posture as Christ’s representatives on earth. That’s why it’s illegal in Minnesota and other states for clerics to sexually exploit congregants. We’re grateful the Minnesota Supreme Court recognizes this fact.

Bishop Bernard Hebda is essentially a “caretaker.” He can’t initiate radical changes in the archdiocese. He can, however, use church resources to reach out to others who saw, suspected or suffered Fr. Wenthe’s crimes. And if he wants us to believe he’s a better shepherd than his predecessor, that’s precisely what he’ll do. Parish bulletins, pulpit announcements, church websites, news releases – these are a few of the many ways Hebda could prod others with information or suspicions about Fr. Wenthe’s crimes to step forward.

We challenge Hebda to do this immediately and to personally go to each place where Fr. Wenthe worked spreading this message.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

By Rochelle Olson Star Tribune JUNE 24, 2015

A split Minnesota Supreme Court has reinstated the sexual misconduct conviction of a St. Paul Roman Catholic priest, saying prosecutors weren’t required to prove that he knew he was in a spiritual counseling session with his accuser when they had sex.

The court’s action, announced Wednesday, stripped out a new requirement that had been imposed on prosecutors by the state Court of Appeals in the case. The lower court had required them to prove that the cleric had knowledge that the accuser was seeking or received religious or spiritual advice, aid or comfort in the meeting.

Justice G. Barry Anderson wrote the 25-page decision signed by Chief Justice Laurie Gildea and Justices David Lillehaug and David Stras. Justice Alan Page wrote a 15-page dissent, saying prosecutors should be required to show that a defendant clergy member knew or had reason to know the nature of the meeting was for spiritual counseling.

The state Supreme Court’s ruling reinstated the conviction of Christopher Thomas Wenthe. He was convicted of one count of clergy third-degree sexual misconduct occurring between Nov. 1, 2003, and Dec. 31, 2003. He was acquitted of a second count covering the entirety of the one-year sexual relationship.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

PUBLISHED
24/06/2015

A FORMER Roman Catholic Archbishop who resigned over breaking his vow of celibacy has sued RTE for defamation.

Richard Burke, former Archbishop of Benin city in Nigeria, claims he was wrongly depicted as a paedophile in the 2011 Prime Time Investigates programme ‘Mission to Prey’.

Co Tipperary-born Mr Burke, now aged 66, had intimate sexual relations with Dolores Atwood, who featured on the RTE programme, but not when she was under age, his counsel Jack Fitzgerald SC told a High Court judge and jury.

Mr Burke “is not a paedophile”, has never in his life ever molested a child and, at the end of case, you will be convinced that is the truth, counsel said.

As an Archbishop who had sexual relations with Ms Atwood, she had “leaned” on him and he paid her “a large sum of money”, about €176,000, but that was something not mentioned in the programme, counsel said.

The jury would hear of pressure Ms Atwood put on Mr Burke such he became “terrified” of the exposure of the relationship he had with her, he said.

The court would also hear Mr Burke paid large sums to her due to pressure she was putting him under.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Supreme Court

A12-0263

Court of Appeals Anderson, J.
Dissenting, Page, J.
Took no part, Dietzen and Wright, JJ.

State of Minnesota,
Appellant,
vs. Christopher Thomas Wenthe,
Respondent.

ANDERSON, Justice.

Respondent Christopher Thomas Wenthe was convicted of third-degree criminal sexual conduct, Minn. Stat. § 609.344, subd. 1(l)(i) (2014), for sexually penetrating A.F.—a member of the parish where Wenthe served as a priest—at a single meeting at which A.F. sought spiritual counsel. Appellant State of Minnesota seeks review of three issues: (1) whether the district court committed plain error affecting Wenthe’s substantial rights by failing to provide a specific-unanimity jury instruction; (2) whether the State was required to prove that Wenthe had knowledge that A.F. sought or received religious or spiritual advice, aid, or comfort at a meeting that also involved sexual penetration; and (3) whether the district court abused its discretion by denying Wenthe’s motion to admit evidence of A.F.’s sexual history after it admitted the State’s evidence of A.F.’s sexual inexperience. The court of appeals concluded the district court erred with respect to all three issues and that the cumulative effect of the errors necessitates a new trial. We reverse.

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

Associated Press
POSTED: 06/24/2015

The Minnesota Supreme Court has reinstated a sexual misconduct conviction for a St. Paul priest accused of having sex with a woman who was seeking his spiritual advice.

Christopher Wenthe was convicted in 2011 of third-degree criminal sexual conduct for incidents dating back to 2003 while he was working at Nativity of Our Lord church in St. Paul. Last year, the Minnesota Court of Appeals reversed his conviction and ordered a new trial, but on Wednesday the Supreme Court disagreed and reinstated his conviction.

State law makes it a felony for clergy members to have sex with people they are spiritually advising.

Wenthe didn’t dispute the relationship, but denied the encounters occurred while he was providing spiritual aid.

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TEXAS
Style Weekly

by Kerri O’Brien
June 23, 2015

Former Richmond megachurch pastor Geronimo Aguilar, lauded for founding and leading the Richmond Outreach Center, is on trial this week in Fort Worth, Texas, accused of assaulting two underage girls.

Two years ago in June, Aguilar resigned from the church, which is working to regroup under the name Celebration Church and Outreach Ministry. Aguilar faces charges that he sexually assaulted two sisters who were underage in the 1990s while serving as their youth pastor and living with their family.

Prosecutors presented their case last week, and Aguilar took the stand Monday in his defense. Style asked Kerri O’Brien of 8News, who’s been the only Richmond reporter in the courtroom, to share some of the most striking moments that emerged:

1. Journalist subpoenaed. In a shocking move, an hour into covering jury selection, I’m called out of court and served a subpoena to be a witness for the defense. It appears to be ploy by Geronimo Aguilar’s attorneys to limit media coverage of the trial and keep me out of the courtroom. Lawyers for my station file a motion to quash the subpoena, which is successful, and I return to work.

2. The alleged sex began at 13. The first alleged victim told the jury she clearly recalls the first time she had sex with her Texas church youth pastor, Aguilar. She testifies that it happened Halloween night in 1996, when she was 13. She says the sex continued for a couple of years and that the two had intercourse in multiple locations at the church in Fort Worth — in the church bathroom, the church van and the pastor’s office. She says she never told anyone at the time, and liked the attention from such a powerful and important man.

3. Pastor allegedly played strip poker with a child. The second alleged victim testifies that she recalls lying on a king-sized bed with Aguilar, playing strip poker at the age of 12. She says that once she got down to her underwear, she tried to cover herself with a bed sheet.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry

Module 6 – Fr. Brendan Smyth

Timetable, Evidence Called and Transcripts.

Readers may find parts of the evidence transcripts and documents offensive or distressing. Some of them contain graphic descriptions of violent and sexual behaviour, which are not suitable to be viewed by persons under 18 years of age. If you have been affected by reading this material you may wish to seek appropriate support. Lifeline can be contacted on 0808 808 8000.

To view transcripts, evidence or witness statements for a particular session, please click onto the links provided.

Updated on 24-06-2015 @ 10.30

Week Commencing 22nd June 2015

Opening statements

Day 1 transcipt

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OHIO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, June 24

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

[Vindicator]

An Orthodox pastor has just been arrested on a sex charge involving a teenager. Now, it’s time for his church colleagues and supervisors to take action.

It’s very unlikely this is a “one time” offense. We beg Orthodox officials in Ohio and Pennsylvania to show courage and compassion by actively seeking out anyone else who may have seen, suspected or suffered Rev. Andoni’s crimes.

It’s the moral and civic duty of those with information or suspicions about sex crimes to call police. Church officials gave Rev. Andoni access to innocent kids and vulnerable adults. He may have assaulted some of them. So church officials need to step up, speak out, reach out and try to find and help his victims while also helping law enforcement convict him.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Paedophile priest Father Brendan Smyth threatened to punch another cleric when warned to stay away from altar boys, an inquiry has heard.

Fr William Fitzgerald, who served with Smyth at Kilnacrott Abbey in Co Cavan during the late 1980s, described the serial child molester as a scary individual whose notoriety extended across the world.

Giving evidence to the Historical Abuse Inquiry (HIA) the 61-year-old Australian also said he had to bar Smyth from church rehearsals with nine altar boys.

He said: “I told him, ‘in view of the rumours about you and your sexual activities with children, you will not be anywhere near these kids under my watch’.

“He said ‘I’ll knock your head off.’

“I said ‘oh make my day you b*****d. I’ll knock your head clean off’.”

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Jamie Manson | Jun. 24, 2015 Grace on the Margins

It’s been nearly a week since the much-anticipated release of Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment. Since then, the document’s many beautiful and challenging elements have been justifiably lauded in both the religious and secular media.

His call to replace fossil fuels is bold, his understanding of overconsumption and scarcity is prophetic, his compassion for the earth and all of its creatures is stunning. I could go on, but so many other commentators and theologians have done the work of parsing and praising the document so well that I will focus on an issue that remains woefully underdeveloped in the encyclical: overpopulation.

I say “woefully” because few people who are as concerned about ecological destruction as Francis is would deny that overpopulation is one of greatest threats to the earth’s survival.

In 2012, the United Nations issued a special report on the looming crisis. By 2040, the global population is expected to swell from 7 billion to 9 billion. The U.N. estimates that by 2030, the world will need at least 50 percent more food, 45 percent more energy and 30 percent more water.

If the global community fails to stabilize population growth, the report said, we risk condemning 3 billion people to extreme deprivation.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Historical abuse inquiry live: Police in the Republic knew about the activities of Fr Brendan Smyth, inquiry hears

By Lesley-Anne McKeown
PUBLISHED
24/06/2015

Police in the Republic of Ireland knew about the activities of a notorious paedophile priest in the early 1970s, an inquiry has heard.

Confidential documents from a psychiatric hospital in Dublin have revealed Fr Brendan Smyth, who went on to abuse hundreds of children over four decades, had asked to be admitted after coming to the attention of Gardai in 1973.

Live updates from Belfast Telegraph reporter Deborah McAleese @DeborahMcAleese

Joseph Aiken, counsel for the inquiry said: “For some reason Brendan Smyth has asked the doctor looking after him to write a letter to Finglas Garda station to say that he is going to be taken in for some inpatient treatment.”

Smyth had been conducting a retreat in Finglas in July 1973.

The documents, which were only released to the long-running Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry this morning, also show how Smyth was officially diagnosed as a paedophile in 1974.

The hearing was delayed for several hours today because the medical notes, which the Norbertine order had been trying to obtain for many years, were finally released from St Patrick’s Hospital this morning.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
RTE News

An institutional abuse inquiry in Northern Ireland has heard that gardaí were aware of the activities of paedophile priest Brendan Smyth as far back as the early 1970s.

Confidential documents revealed at the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry in Banbridge show that Smyth asked to be admitted for treatment at St Patrick’s Psychiatric Hospital in Dublin after he came to the attention of gardaí in 1973.

The documents also reveal that Smyth had been diagnosed as a paedophile in 1973.

Medical notes revealed Smyth was prescribed medication in the hope it would have a dampening effect on his libido.

The notes also showed he was regarded as being a “little bit crazy” and having “a screw loose”.

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NORTHERN IRELAND/IRELAND
BBC News

Police in Dublin were aware of the abuse by a notorious paedophile priest as far back as the early 1970s, an inquiry has heard.

Northern Ireland’s Historical Abuse Inquiry has been examining the activities of Fr Brendan Smyth.

New evidence has shown that police were aware of his activities more than 20 years before he was convicted.

The inquiry heard on Monday that Smyth admitted he could have abused hundreds of children.

Smyth was at the centre of one of the first clerical child sex abuse scandals to rock the Catholic church in Ireland.

He was convicted in the 1990s of more than 100 indecent assaults against children over a 40-year period.

He died in prison in 1997 after a heart attack.

Diagnosis

For years, authorities had been trying to get access to documents regarding Smyth held by St Patrick’s Hospital in Dublin.

The hospital had been treating Smyth in 1973.

On Wednesday, the documents were presented to the inquiry, revealing that he was initially being treated for “homosexual problems”.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
UTV

Police in the Republic of Ireland knew about the activities of notorious paedophile priest Brendan Smyth in the early 1970s, an inquiry has heard.

Confidential documents from a Dublin psychiatric hospital have revealed Fr Brendan Smyth, who went on to abuse hundreds of children over four decades, had asked to be admitted after coming to the attention of Gardaí in 1973.

Joseph Aiken, counsel for the inquiry said: “For some reason Brendan Smyth has asked the doctor looking after him to write a letter to Finglas Garda station to say that he is going to be taken in for some inpatient treatment.”

Smyth had been conducting a retreat in Finglas in July 1973.

The documents, which were only just released to the long-running Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry, also show how Smyth was officially diagnosed as a paedophile in 1974.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Mirror

BY LESLEY-ANNE MCKEOWN

The documents, which were only released to the long-running Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry this morning, also show how Smyth was officially diagnosed as a paedophile in 1974

Gardai knew about the activities of a notorious paedophile priest in the early 1970s, an inquiry has heard.

Confidential documents from a psychiatric hospital in Dublin have revealed Fr Brendan Smyth, who went on to abuse hundreds of children over four decades, had asked to be admitted after coming to the attention of Gardai in 1973.

Joseph Aiken, counsel for the inquiry said: “For some reason Brendan Smyth has asked the doctor looking after him to write a letter to Finglas Garda station to say that he is going to be taken in for some inpatient treatment.”

Smyth had been conducting a retreat in Finglas in July 1973.

The documents, which were only released to the long-running Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry this morning, also show how Smyth was officially diagnosed as a paedophile in 1974.

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PERU
Telesur

Peru is one of the places where the Opus Dei organization of the Catholic Church has a strong foothold but its main leader is under scrutiny.

Peruvian Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani’s personal investments are tied with one of the country’s largest construction companies, a local investigation revealed on Monday. Journalist Laura Grados released a second article in her investigation series, published in the local Diario 16, on the leader of Opus Dei and prominent Catholic figure.

For decades, the cardinal has used his position in the Catholic Church to openly criticize social movements and protests against extractive industries in the country. Under his leadership the Archdiocese of Lima became an investor in the stocks of one of the most controversial mining companies, Yanacocha, which sparked the mobilization of large-scale environmental social movement in the country.

“Does (the Church) pay taxes with those for-profit investments? Because on the (fax identification form) the archdiocese appears as a religious association,” Grados said after publishing her investigation, which featured documents highlighting the Church’s for-profit activities.

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OHIO
WKBN

By Jonathan Stroshine
Published: June 23, 2015

BOARDMAN, Ohio (WKBN) – The Mahoning County Sheriff’s office charged a man with grabbing another man’s private area in mid-May at a Boardman restaurant, according to a police report.

Police charged James Callozzo, 73, with sexual imposition, a third-degree misdemeanor, after the incident that they say happened May 15. Nativity of Christ Orthodox Church is listed as Callozzo’s employer in the police report.

According to the testimony of an 18-year-old man in the police report, Callozzo approached him in the bathroom of the Perkins Restaurant on Boardman-Poland Road in Boardman and began asking strange questions. Callozzo then grabbed his privates before he forced Callozzo off of him.

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OHIO
Vindicator

By Jordyn Grzelewski
jgrzelewski@vindy.com

BOARDMAN

The pastor of a Youngstown church is accused of sexual imposition after an incident that purportedly took place in a restaurant restroom.

James Callozzo, 73, appeared in Mahoning County Area Court here Tuesday for arraignment on the misdemeanor charge. He entered a plea of not guilty.

An 18-year-old said Callozzo approached him May 15 in the restroom at Perkins Restaurant & Bakery, 804 Boardman-Poland Road, asked him questions about his genitals and then forcefully touched his genitals, according to a report filed May 30 with the Mahoning County Sheriff’s Office.

The teen reported that after following him into the restroom, Callozzo repeatedly asked to see “down there.” He said Callozzo then grabbed his genital area and didn’t let go until the teen forced Callozzo off of him.

In the report, Callozzo’s employer is listed as Nativity of Christ Orthodox Church on Miller Road in Youngstown. Callozzo is pastor of the church, according to the church’s website. There, he is known as the Right Rev. Archim Andoni.

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OHIO
WFMJ

By Mike Gauntner, Online Content Manager

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio –
The pastor of a Youngstown church is accused of fondling a 18-year-old man in the rest room of a Boardman restaurant.

Court officials tell 21 News that seventy-three-year-old James Callozzo of the Nativity of Christ Orthodox Church faces a July 28 pretrial on a charge of sexual imposition.

Callozzo was booked into the jail on Tuesday following his appearance in county court in Boardman.

The alleged victim tells county sheriff’s investigators that a man followed him into the bathroom of the restaurant on May 15th and asked him if he could see his private area.

The Boardman 18-year-old says he forced the man away from him after he reached in front of him an fondled his genitals.

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TEXAS
Richmond Times-Dispatch

By MITCH MITCHELL Fort Worth Star-Telegram

FORT WORTH, Texas — The former pastor of the Richmond Outreach Center megachurch testified Tuesday that he once told a woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair that the Almighty understood the weakness of their flesh.

“God knows we are sinners,” Geronimo Aguilar said he told his assistant, Jammie Chasteen, during their eight-to-10-years-long relationship.

Aguilar also acknowledged numerous other sexual liaisons while he was married.

“When the affairs started, I passed the marriage counseling duties onto another pastor,” Aguilar said.

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TEXAS
WRIC

TARRANT COUNTY, Texas (WRIC) — The trial for a former Richmond pastor continues in Texas this morning.

Prosecutors are expected to call two more rebuttal witnesses in court on Wednesday.

The defense rested its case Tuesday and Geronimo ‘Pastor G’ Aguilar took the stand.

Aguilar admitted he had multiple affairs with Richmond Outreach Center (ROC) church parishioners, but stressed he never sexually assaulted a child.

We also heard from the former ROC parishioner who claims Aguilar was inappropriate with her when she was just 16-years-old.

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NEW ZEALAND
Dominion Post

An Anglican priest has been charged with sexually violating a woman in Napier.

John Tovey appeared in Napier District Court on Wednesday to face two charges of sexually violation and one charge of indecent assault. The alleged offending occurred in Napier between April last year and January 2.

Tovey, 64, did not enter a plea and was remanded on bail until next month.

He was previously a vicar in North Canterbury and a priest in charge at Churton Park in Wellington for five years, and then in Wainuiomata for 10 years, before moving to Hawke’s Bay in 2010, where he became associate priest at All Saints parish in Taradale, a position he held until late 2011.

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CANADA
CBC News

By Jason Proctor, CBC News Posted: Jun 23, 2015

The former head coach of Canada’s national men’s basketball team says he was the subject of a “sickening” and erroneous report by Laura Robinson, the same journalist who wrote an article accusing former Olympics CEO John Furlong of abuse.

Ken Shields testified in Furlong’s defence Tuesday at a B.C. Supreme Court trial where Robinson accuses Furlong of defaming her.

Shields said Robinson wrote a piece in the Globe and Mail in 1994 implying he was a racist because of a lack of black players on the national team.

“I was absolutely devastated that anyone would say I had a racial bias over anything in my life,” he testified.

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NEW ZEALAND
Hawke’s Bay Today

A former associate priest at Taradale’s Anglican All Saints church has appeared in court on sex charges.

John Hamilton Tovey, 64, appeared before a registrar in Napier District Court today and was remanded on bail without plea until July 15.

He faces one charge of sexual violation and two charges of indecent assault, all three charges relating to the same alleged female victim.

The sexual violation is alleged to have occurred in January this year. One of the indecent assault charges relates to an alleged act on the same day, while the second indecent assault charge allegedly occurred last year.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Emma Younger

The Anglican Church in Victoria will soon become a company to allow any future child sexual abuse victims to sue for damages.

All five of the church’s Victorian dioceses voted to incorporate following a recommendation by the 2013 Victorian parliamentary inquiry into child sex abuse.

It ends the legal debate about whether the church can be sued by creating a legal entity accountable for children in its care.

The nation’s top Anglican and Archbishop of Melbourne, Philip Freier, said it was part of an effort to modernise the church’s governance.

“I would hope that people who are survivors of child sexual abuse will take some heart out of the willingness that we have to set up this more accountable and transparent means,” he said.

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NEBRASKA
Press & Dakotan

PAPILLION, Neb. (AP) — A 62-year-old pastor accused of inappropriately touching a 14-year-old girl in an Omaha suburb has been convicted of a lesser charge.

Online court records show Clifton Wells, of Papillion (puh-PIHL’-yuhn), pleaded no contest and was convicted of a misdemeanor on Monday in Sarpy County District Court. Prosecutors lowered the charge from felony sexual assault of a child in exchange for Wells’ plea.

Prosecutors say Wells inappropriately touched the girl several times in July when he gave the girl a ride to pick up a job application. Wells told investigators he’d been counseling the girl about her misbehavior at school, and he denied that any sexual assault occurred.

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UNITED STATES
WRIC

By Kerri O’Brien
Published: June 23, 2015

FORT WORTH, Texas (WRIC) — A former ROC parishioner, who says Geronimo Aguilar was inappropriate with her when she was just 16, testified Tuesday in the former pastor’s sex abuse trial in Texas.

After the defense rested its case Tuesday, shocking testimony came from the prosecutions rebuttal witness, the aforementioned former ROC parishioner. She told the jury her pastor, Aguilar, said he had feelings for her and at 16, she thought he was her boyfriend.

“It started slow, he wanted a hug,” she said. “I remember being like physically shaking. I was just scared.”

Now an adult, the young woman testified Aguilar eventually kissed her. And the witness alleges soon the kissing progressed to fondling.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

Northern Ireland’s Historical Abuse Inquiry has begun focusing on the activities of paedophile priest Brendan Smyth.

The (HIA) inquiry is examining whether systemic failings allowed Smyth – a member of the Norbertine order – to perpetrate the abuse over more than four decades.

The inquiry is sitting at Banbridge Courthouse in Co Down.

Today the inquiry is due to hear from Fr William Fitzgerald – a member of the Norbertine order.

Smyth died from a heart attack in prison in the Republic of Ireland in August 1997.

His abuse has already been described by a number of witnesses who have previously given evidence to the inquiry.

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ALABAMA
Baptist News

By Bob Allen

A judge in Cherokee County, Ala., has sentenced a former Southern Baptist youth minister to 10 years in prison for sex crimes, but it won’t add any time to the 15-year sentence he already received in another county.

According to local media, Mack Allen Davis, 74, former youth minister at Lakeside Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., was sentenced June 19 by Judge Jeremy Taylor in Cherokee County to 10 years in prison for attempted sodomy in the second degree and 12 months in jail for each of seven counts of sexual abuse in the second degree.

The sentences will run concurrently with a 15-year sentence handed down May 15 in Jefferson County Court in Birmingham.

Cherokee County authorities arrested Davis in April 2014 after two men came forward claiming he sexually abused them from the late 1970s throughout the 1980s. One of the alleged victims said the abuse began when he was 9.

After Davis was released on bond, he was rearrested in Jefferson County on a grand jury indictment charging him with three counts of second-degree sexual abuse of a minor between the ages of 12 and 16, one count of first-degree sodomy and two counts of first-degree sexual abuse. He pleaded guilty to those crimes in December.

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TEXAS
WRIC

FORT WORTH, Texas (WRIC) — The former Richmond mega church pastor, Geronimo Aguilar, is on trial in Texas, accused of sexually assaulting two girls in the ’90s.

On the stand today, a very calm and relaxed Geronimo Aguilar, who often looked directly at the jury when he spoke, testified that he had a lot of extra marital affairs but he never did anything inappropriate with a minor.

Just moments before taking the stand, the former ROC pastor appeared to be deep in thought, prepping for his critical testimony.

Once he was sworn in under oath, Aguilar told the jury there was no truth to the allegations of an inappropriate with relationship with two girls.

“No sir, never ever in my life and never ever even accused of having sex with a child in my until this,” he testified.

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CANADA
CTV

Laura Kane, The Canadian Press
Published Tuesday, June 23, 2015

VANCOUVER — Former Vancouver Olympics CEO John Furlong raised his voice and angrily thumped his fist during testimony as he defended himself at a B.C. Supreme Court defamation trial on Tuesday.

During fiery cross-examination, Furlong accused lawyer Bryan Baynham — who is representing freelance journalist Laura Robinson — of sullying his deceased wife’s reputation.

Baynham suggested Furlong lied when he testified that Deborah Furlong filled up their truck with Georgia Straight newspapers on the morning in September 2012 that Robinson’s article came out, with allegations about his past in northern British Columbia.

“How dare you sully her reputation and her life like that? I gave you exactly what she did,” Furlong shot back. “She was totally distraught.”

Robinson is suing Furlong for comments he made after the publication of her article, which included sworn affidavits from eight former students alleging he physically and verbally abused them at a Roman Catholic school about 45 years ago.

Furlong has testified that the allegations are “absolutely not true.”

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MASSACHUSETTS
Nashoba Publishing

POSTED: 06/23/20

By Jon Bishop
jbishop@sentinelandenterprise.com

HARVARD — An Eldridge Road man who teaches part time at Mount Wachusett Community College and is the husband of the Harvard Public Schools superintendent is facing charges in Pennsylvania that he had sex with a minor in 2006 while he was teaching at a Catholic high school.

James Scott Dwight III, 47, of 3 Eldridge Road was arrested Feb. 26 at his home as a fugitive from justice by Lancaster, Pennsylvania, City Detective Aaron Harnish, assisted by the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force Service and Massachusetts State Police.

Dwight is charged with two counts of corruption of minors. According to LancasterOnline, a local news site, after his arraignment March 2, he was released on $20,000 unsecured bail.

As reported by WPMT-TV Fox43 in Pennsylvania, Dwight was arrested after an investigation that stemmed from a February 2014 report from a then-25-year-old woman that Dwight allegedly had sexual contact with her at his home in June 2006, when she was 17 and a student at Lancaster Catholic High School. Dwight taught English at the school from 2005-2007, according to a report from Lancasteronline.com.

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CANADA
The Globe and Mail

The Canadian Press

Former Vancouver Olympics CEO John Furlong’s temper boiled over while he was under cross-examination at the civil court trial where a journalist accuses him of defamation

Furlong accused Bryan Baynham — the lawyer for journalist Laura Robinson — of sullying his deceased wife’s reputation.

Robinson is suing Furlong for public comments he made after she wrote a 2012 article that included allegations he physically abused First Nations students at a Roman Catholic School in northern B.C. some 45 years ago.

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CANADA
Georgia Straight

by Carlito Pablo on June 23rd, 2015

John Furlong has admitted in the witness stand that he arrived in Canada as a landed immigrant from Ireland in 1975—not in 1974 as he wrote in his autobiography and told in stories about his life.

The former Vancouver Olympics CEO made the admission upon the resumption today (June 23) of his cross-examination by the lawyer of a freelance journalist who is suing him for defamation.

Bryan Baynham, who is representing plaintiff Laura Robinson, began by asking about the name of the “famous customs agent” in Edmonton who supposedly stamped Furlong’s passport, welcoming him to Canada with a call to make the country “better”.

Furlong couldn’t remember who the officer was. Besides, according to him, there was a point he was trying to make with the story that he told in his 2011 book Patriot Hearts.

“The point about that story isn’t about his name. It’s about the message,” he said in B.C. Supreme Court.

That message was about the responsibility of all Canadians to their country, and Baynham said that he knew about that, but there was the question of when Furlong actually arrived.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Gerry Moriarty

The former abbot of the Kilnacrott Norbertine Abbey in Co Cavan, Kevin Smith, has been accused of telling lies about his knowledge of when Fr Brendan Smyth first began sexually abusing children.

At the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry in Banbridge, Co Down yesterday it was alleged Abbot Smith lied to the RUC in 1997 when he was interviewed about Smyth’s activities.

He told police it wasn’t until 1989 that he first became aware that Smyth abused children.

Junior counsel for the inquiry Joseph Aiken, however, said Abbot Smith in 1994 told UTV journalist Chris Moore, who first exposed Smyth’s activities, that the paedophile priest received medical treatment for his sexual proclivities in 1968 and 1973 and that he received “institutionalised” treatment in 1974.

Mr Smith also told Moore that Smyth’s behaviour had “perplexed and troubled our community over many years”.

“We always hoped that a combination of treatment, Fr Smyth’s intelligence, and the grace of God would enable Fr Smyth to overcome his disorder,” he said. “We did not adequately understand the compulsive nature of his behaviour or the serious damage it could cause.”

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Berger’s Beat

A notorious predator who pimped some of his victims to his fellow clerics, including one who later lived in University City, passed away in Iowa. Fr. James Janssen was accused of molesting dozens of kids and enabling Fr. William Wiebler to assault some of them. Wiebler came to a Catholic facility here, got an apartment 750 feet from Delmar Harvard elementary school and about 1,000 feet from Julia Goldstein preschool. “Neighbors often saw that fat, white-bearded priest – who resembled Santa Claus – on his third-floor back porch, dressed in a flimsy robe (watching) children walking home from school,” according to one news account. . .Meanwhile, a Memphis newspaper has turned out a pleasing profile of Bishop Richard Stika, a former St. Louis priest who now leads the Knoxville diocese. . .

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Mirror

BY RHIAN LUBIN

Speaking for the first time under her real name, Loreto said the former priest “will never be dead to me”

A tormented victim of evil Brendan Smyth told how she is tortured by not knowing where the sicko stashed naked pictures he took of her.

Speaking for the first time under her real name, Loreto said the former priest “will never be dead to me”.

Recalling the sick abuse at the hands of Smyth, she detailed how he “raped, abused and humiliated” while at boarding school.

She told the Pat Kenny Show: “I don’t know where those photographs are that Smyth took of my body.

“Where are they? Who has seen them? Are they published? All those things will always stay, that continues the abuse. There are no answers.”

Loreto told how she felt her life had ended and it became a “case of existing” and managing from day-to-day.

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INDIANA
Newsbug

ANDERSON, Ind. (AP) — A former youth pastor has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for sexual misconduct with a teenage girl during a central Indiana church conference.

A Madison County judge ordered the maximum sentence Monday for 34-year-old Derrick Hampsch, who pleaded guilty last month to a felony charge of sexual misconduct with a minor.

The Herald Bulletin reports (http://bit.ly/1GD5ZQi ) that Hampsch was the youth pastor at First Baptist Church in Vincennes when he and the then-14-year-old girl attended the 2010 conference in Anderson. Authorities say Hampsch fondled the girl and had her fondle him while they and others stayed overnight at an Anderson church.

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FLORIDA
New Times

BY KYLE MUNZENRIEDER
TUESDAY, JUNE 23, 2015

Steve Karro, a substitute rabbi at Shaare Ezra Sephardic Congregation and a well-known local artist with his own gallery in Miami Beach, was arrested last month on charges that he molested an 11-year-old girl. Now the child’s family claims Karro handed the alleged victim’s mother $500 in cash just days before his arrest in order to buy her silence.

Karro was a friend of the family and had known the girl most of her life. The incident happened April 16 at Karro’s Arthur Godfrey Road gallery, where he allegedly grabbed the girl’s buttocks, sat her on his lap, and kissed her neck. The girl ran off but claims Karro gave her a bag of candy and told her not to tell her mother. Karro says he was simply trying to “cleanse” the girl of “negative energy.”

The family has since retained the services of lawyer Jeff Herman, well known for defending victims of sexual abuse cases, including those in the Catholic Church, and now claims Karro tried to buy the family’s silence.

A video shows Karro showing up at the mother’s job at a restaurant and handing her an envelope. The mother claims it contained $500 cash and turned it over to Miami Beach Police. Karro told Local 10 that the money was for something else but refused to elaborate, citing advice from his legal counsel.

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TEXAS
WRIC

By Kerri O’Brien
Published: June 18, 2015

TARRANT COUNTY, Texas (WRIC) — In a surprise move, the state of Texas rests it’s case against the founder of the ROC Church. Geronimo Aguilar is accused of sexually assaulting two girls in Texas in the late 1990s.

The prosecution’s witness list was long, it originally contained the names of more than 50 people prosecutors planned to call to the stand. Thursday, they were not even half way through the witness list when the state announced it was resting its case.

The decision came after a day of scathing testimony.

Jammie Chasteen, who was Geronimo Aguilar’s’ personal assistant at the ROC Church in Richmond, told the jury, “Yes, I have wired transfers, money orders.”

She testified that on several occasions, the former ROC pastor had her wire what seemed like hush money to one of the alleged victim’s mom.

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TEXAS
San Antonio Express-News

BY JOSHUA FECHTER : JUNE 19, 2015

A Fort Worth mother knew that a minister was sexually abusing her two daughters, ages 11 and 13 at the time, during the 1990s, witnesses testified this week.

Geronimo Aguilar, 45, allegedly repeatedly sexually assaulted the two girls when Aguilar and his wife lived with the sisters and their parents in Fort Worth and Grapevine, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. He is also accused of playing strip poker with the young girls.

A Tarrant County grand jury indicted Aguilar in 2014 on two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child, three counts of sexual assault of a child under 17 and three counts of indecency with a child.

Carl Everett White, a teenage boyfriend of the older daughter who now lives in San Antonio, testified Wednesday that their mother once tried to stop him from entering their home, according to the Star-Telegram.

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TEXAS
WRIC

By Kerri O’Brien
Published: June 22, 2015

FORT WORTH, TEXAS, (WRIC) — Geronimo Aguilar’s wife took the stand Monday calling him a horrible husband but not a child molester.

The trial for the former Richmond ROC pastor accused of sexually assaulting two girls in Texas continued in Fort Worth.

For the first time since the allegations of abuse and the scandal at the former ROC Church surfaced, the court is hearing from Geronimo Aguilar’s wife. Samantha Aguilar doesn’t deny the affairs he had, but says she never saw anything inappropriate between her husband and the alleged victims.

“Yeah, he was a horrible husband, but they deserve a father, yeah that’s what we are doing,” said Samantha Aguilar.

An emotional Samantha Aguilar said as the ROC Church grew in popularity, she and her husband began to drift apart and her husband’s affairs began.

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TEXAS
Star-Telegram

BY MITCH MITCHELL
mitchmitchell@star-telegram.com

Remembering the names of the women her husband had affairs with was emotionally draining for Samantha Aguilar as she testified Monday in her husband’s trial.

She said her husband, Geronimo Aguilar, confirmed to her that he had sex with these women at least once: her sister-in-law, his personal assistant, a family friend who baby-sat their three daughters, a board member’s wife and another family friend who was a member of the Richmond Outreach Center (ROC), the church that the couple built together in Virginia.

She said she heard many of the names first from reporters after her husband was indicted on two counts of sexually assaulting children.

Samantha Aguilar testified that she never asked her husband for further details about his relationships.

“I didn’t want the details. I still don’t want the details,” Samantha Aguilar said. “I don’t want to have to keep going through it.”

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TEXAS
WRIC

TARRANT COUNTY, Texas (WRIC) — The former Richmond Outreach Center (ROC) pastor took the stand on his behalf Tuesday morning.

Geronimo ‘Pastor G’ Aguilar began his testimony by describing his troubled childhood and how his mother was murdered by his step dad. Pastor G said he’d never been in trouble with the law before he was accused of sexually assaulting two girls when he was their youth pastor back in the late ’90s.

When asked about the sex abuse allegations, Pastor G denied ever doing anything inappropriate with the oldest of the alleged victims. Aguilar appeared very calm while on the stand, even looking directly at the jury as he spoke.

Pastor G said his wife wasn’t away on trips that alleged victims referred to when the alleged abuse happened. He said that the Child Protective Services investigation in Texas in the 1990s talked to the alleged victims family as well as himself, but law enforcement never got involved as CPS didn’t find any truth to the allegations.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Disgraced priest Fr Brendan Smyth penned an angry letter from jail denying he had damaged the Catholic Church, an inquiry has heard.

Just months after he was jailed for sexually assaulting more than 100 children, the prolific paedophile wrote to former Catholic Primate Cahal Daly claiming he had pleaded guilty to “false” allegations to spare the reputation of the church.

In a letter sent from Magilligan Prison, Co Derry, in December 1994, Smyth wrote: “I wish to express my anger and disbelief that a person with your lofty intellectual qualifications could possibly have made such statements.

“Whatever my sins and failings, and there are many of them, it is not they but the media reporting of them which was created an atmosphere of mixed shame and embarrassment…

“I pleaded guilty to wildly exaggerated and in some cases false allegations to try to limit the media coverage. In that I admit I failed dismally.”

The letter was shown to Northern Ireland’s long running Historical Abuse Inquiry (HIA) which is examining whether systemic failings allowed Smyth – a member of the Norbertine order – to perpetrate the abuse over more than four decades between the 1960s and 1990s.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Independent

Lesley-Anne McKeown
PUBLISHED
23/06/2015

Self confessed paedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth blamed the media for adding to the “distress” of his victims, an inquiry has heard.

In a letter written in 1995 after his conviction for sexually assaulting more than 40 children in Northern Ireland, the west Belfast-born priest said he hoped his victims could also find solace and lashed out at the media for adding to their distress.

He also claimed he had found “peace with God”.

Smyth, who died in jail in 1997, wrote: “I have welcomed the prison sentences imposed by the courts as a fitting means of paying my debt to society.

“I would like to take this opportunity to express my deep sorrow to anyone who has in any way suffered as a result of my actions and also to those relatives, friends and members of my religious community who suffered because of the media treatment of these matters for a long time now

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

23 JUNE 2015

Self confessed paedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth found peace with God, an inquiry has been told.

In a letter written in 1995 after his conviction for sexually assaulting more than 40 children in Northern Ireland, the west Belfast-born priest said he hoped his victims could also find solace and lashed out at the media for adding to their distress.

Smyth, who died in jail in 1997, wrote: “I have welcomed the prison sentences imposed by the courts as a fitting means of paying my debt to society.

“I would like to take this opportunity to express my deep sorrow to anyone who has in any way suffered as a result of my actions and also to those relatives, friends and members of my religious community who suffered because of the media treatment of these matters for a long time now.

“I have been at peace with my God and I trust they too will find a similar peace.”

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Martin Moylan Jun 23, 2015

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has incurred about $2 million in legal costs so far in its bankruptcy reorganization.

The archdiocese filed for bankruptcy in January. Soon after the filing, the judge assigned to the case ordered key parties into mediation, hoping that would expedite a resolution and keep legal costs down.

But the latest operating report filed by the archdiocese indicates it has racked up $1.4 million in legal fees, mostly with the Briggs and Morgan law firm.

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ILLINOIS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, June 23

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

One of the nation’s most prolific predator priests – who worked in Joliet – has passed away and a victims’ group wants Catholic officials to “aggressively seek out and help” others who the priest assaulted.

[Quad-City Times]

Fr. James M. Janssen reportedly abused at least three dozen boys, often along with other pedophile priests (Fr. Francis Bass, Fr. Theodore Anthony Geerts and Fr. James W. Murphy). He is also accused of pimping his victims to other clerics (Bass, Murphy and Fr. William Wiebler).

For two years (1956-1958), Janssen worked at – and abused at least one child at – St. Isaac Jogues parish in Hinsdale. The victim’s mother discovered obscene letters between the Janssen and the boy. She gave them to the parish priest, the priest wrote to the bishop, and Janssen was suspended from his position at Holbrook IL where he worked with “the boy scouts and the teenagers”

Janssen allegedly used sacrilege and petty crime to groom his victims, and sometimes took them out of state to abuse them. Janssen’s “stable of boys” ranged in ages from five to 18. He continued to abuse at least one into his twenties, and he kept in touch with several into their adulthood, according to multiple sources (see BishopAccountability.org)

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UNITED STATES
Jeff Anderson & Associates

6/22/2015

Patrick J. Wall

One of the most common questions we are asked in child protection is how many minors does a child molester sexually abuse in their lifetime?

In the case of Norbertine Father Reverend Brendan Smyth O. Praem, we have a glimpse into the mind, methods and devastating results from a Priest who was allowed by the Roman Catholic Hierarchy to decimate children in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, Scotland, Wales and the United States.

“Mr. Aiken said that Smyth was convicted of 117 cases of indecent assault against 41 children in the North and South. There were 74 convictions against 20 children in the Republic and 43 convictions against 21 children in Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland convictions were between 1964 and 1984 and the Southern convictions between 1967 and 1993.”

[Irish Times]

If we extrapolate just the number of Irish survivors alone, 41, and apply that to the number of priest perpetrators from the Suffolk County Grand Jury Report on the Diocese of Rockville Centre New York, 58, we can deduce the number of minors sexually abused by Bishops, Priests and Deacons on Long Island was at least 2,378.

[National Catholic Reporter]

In her 2003 book, Predators, Anna C. Salter, Ph.D., writes: “There are a lot of sexual offenses out there, and the people who commit them don’t get caught very often. When an offender is caught and has a thorough evaluation with a polygraph backup, he will reveal dozens, sometimes hundreds, of offenses for which he was never apprehended. In an unpublished study by psychologist Dr. Pamela Van Wyk, twenty-three offenders in her incarcerated treatment program entered the program admitting an average of three victims each. Faced with a polygraph and the necessity of passing it to stay in the treatment program, they revealed an average of 175 victims each.”

The thousands of survivors and their families who daily endure the repercussions of child sexual abuse by their Pastors, what Saint Pope John Paul the Great called a great scare upon the soul, need an avenue of redress. The Grand Jury Report points out the obvious, that the statute of limitations and the doctrine of ex post facto defend those responsible for these heinous crimes against our children.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Today

David Robertson 23 June 2015

I assumed that he or someone close to him had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and so I promptly tweeted a reply that sympathised and sought prayer for him. And then I read that Billy Graham’s grandson, Tullian Tchividjian, had resigned as the pastor of a Florida megachurch after admitting an adulterous relationship.

It was distressing news to wake up to. Tullian is the latest high-profile pastor in the US to fall from grace and find himself on the front pages for all the wrong reasons.

Tullian issued a statement saying that his wife had had an affair and that while he had taken a sabbatical to heal his marriage he had “sought comfort in a friend” and developed “an inappropriate relationship” himself. Kim, his wife, issued her own statement saying that her husband’s reflected his own views, not hers, and asked for respect for their family’s privacy.

It is a desperately sad situation, in many ways – not just for the family and all that is involved in the breakup of a marriage with three children, but also the collateral damage to the church and to the reputation of the gospel. “Oh no, not another one” is a common despairing reaction.

Tullian is the fourth megachurch pastor to resign in recent years in Florida alone, for what is usually called ‘an inappropriate relationship’ but biblically is just called ‘adultery’. Of course, many in the secular media and wider public love this kind of scandal – it allows them to luxuriate in sexual titillation and at the same time rejoice in charges of Christian hypocrisy.

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UNITED STATES
Charisma News

SHANE IDLEMAN

Within weeks, two of my heroes have fallen from grace, and some of my friends in pastoral ministry have taken detours in their destiny as well. Moral failings among leaders are becoming an epidemic. No one is beyond the reach of Satan’s grasp. Although I’m disappointed, my faith is not shaken because only Christ should be placed on a pedestal.

Why do they fall? They fall for the same reason that all Christians fall. Each of us are drawn away by our own evil desires and enticed. When these desires are acted upon, they lead to sin (cf. James 1:14-15). Sin has a life cycle—it either grows or withers, depending on whether we feed or starve it. John Owen, the prolific Puritan author wrote, “Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.”

Consider the following ways that sin gains entrance:

1. “It will never happen to me.” 1 Corinthians 10:12 reminds us that if we think that we are standing firm, we should be careful that we don’t fall. “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall” (Prov. 16:18). Pride says, “I’ve never committed adultery. It will never happen to me.” Humility says, “By the grace of God, I haven’t, but I can.” Strength is found in admitting our weaknesses: “For when I am weak I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10). Pride opens the door to compromise and unwise decisions; it ignores conviction. Conviction is not always a hammer to the head, it’s a still, small voice to the heart. Sadly, many confuse God’s patience with His approval. C.H. Spurgeon rightly noted, “We are never, never so much in danger of being proud as when we think we are humble.”

2. I’m “too busy.” We are all susceptible to putting God second and ministry first. If we’re too busy to cultivate a prayer life that places God first—we’re too busy. Men would live better if they prayed better. We’re often too busy because we’re doing too much. “When faith ceases to pray, it ceases to live” (E.M. Bounds). It’s hard to fall when you’re always on your knees. Moral failing cannot gain a stronghold in a broken, praying heart that spends time in the Word and obedience to it (cf. James 1:22). Nine times out of 10, when a leader falls, he or she has no meaningful prayer or devotional life.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

BY DEBORAH MCALEESE – 23 JUNE 2015

For 40 years Brendan Smyth used his position in the Catholic Church to target, groom and sexually abuse innocent young children.

The Church was well aware of his crimes, but rather than address them he was simply moved from diocese to diocese.

A “very intelligent” man, he “used his intelligence and cunning to intimidate and oppose those who confronted him,” revealed Fr William Fitzgerald, of the Norbertine Order, of which Smyth was a member.

“He was able to silence and ridicule those who would confront him,” Fr Fitzgerald told the historical abuse inquiry yesterday.

Smyth was born in west Belfast on June 8, 1927. According to Smyth’s medical notes he said that his family were poor, but were secretive about their lack of wealth. His father worked as an auctioneer.

Smyth had asthma as a child and was not as athletic as his brother at school.

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