ABUSE TRACKER

UNTIED STATES
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils.

Paris Arrow

– Criminal Complaint: Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis 6.5.15.pdf
— Civil Petition: Archdiocese Petition 6.5.15.pdf
— RCAO Media Briefing Video: RCAO Announces Charges Against Archdiocese

This looks like the French Revolution in the Vatican Roman Catholic Church begins in Minnesota! HOORAH Ramsey County !!! for daring to take on the mighty Goliath Vatican Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis!!!!

On Friday, June 5, 2015, the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office (RCAO) filed criminal charges against the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis with multiple counts of failing to protect children. The RCAO and its secular prosecutor prove that in the 21st century, the Vatican aka Holy See, the Roman Catholic Church and its dioceses, its popes, cardinals, bishops and priests are no longer above the law – secular law, that is, – or temporal law (as they say it in the BS Latin language of the Vatican). In the Medieval or Middle Ages the spiritual power was considered as “higher” than the temporal power. In 1301, Pope Boniface VIII wrote Unam Sanctam, his ex-cathedra declaration that “There is no power but of God, and the powers that be are ordained of God”…and those allowed to judge are only the “ordained priests, kings and princes”. OMG it took 700 years to defy and revolutionize that Papal Bull because it’s only now in the 21st century that priests and their higher cardinals and bishops are no longer doing the judging (with their colorful liturgical vests or black priestly uniform) and their spiritual powers count for naught in the civil or secular court of law of nations. But imagine the countless injustices they have carried out for centuries because of that Papal Bull(shit), the countless people who suffered be it burning at the stake for women and heretics, and those countless victims who were wrongfully punished because of the spiritual powers of “ordained” men of God.

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UNITED STATES
The Open Tabernacle: Here Comes Everybody

Posted on June 6, 2015 by Betty Clermont

The UN Committee against Torture “found that the widespread sexual violence within the Catholic Church amounted to torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.” After Vatican officials were called to Geneva in May 2014 to respond to tough questions like why the pope believes his responsibility for protecting children against torture only applies within the Vatican City State, the committee issued its report.

The members “ordered the Vatican to hand over files containing details of clerical sexual abuse allegations to police forces around the world, … to use its authority over the Roman Catholic Church worldwide to ensure all allegations of clerical abuse are passed on to the secular authorities and to impose ‘meaningful sanctions’ on any Church officials who fail to do so.” With the exception of one staged PR event, the pope has refused to take any of these measures.

The Vatican had issued an “Initial Report” preparatory to the hearing. “Nowhere in the Holy See’s [the name of the Church’s global government] Initial Report under the Convention does it make any mention of the widespread and systemic rape and sexual violence committed by Catholic clergy against hundreds of thousands of children and vulnerable adults around the world. There is no mention of acts that have resulted in an astonishing and incalculable amount of harm around the world – profound and lasting physical and mental suffering – with little to no accountability and access to redress … [T]he Vatican has consistently minimized the harm caused by the actions of the clergy, through both the direct acts of sexual violence and Church officials’ actions which follow, such as cover-ups and victim-blaming. … The Holy See’s Initial Report to this Committee is itself evidence of the minimization of these offenses and the resulting harm.”

The Committee against Torture report came “after senior officials sought to distance the Vatican legally from the wider Church … saying priests were not legally tied to the Vatican but fell under national jurisdictions. But the committee insisted that officials of the Holy See – including the pope’s representatives around the world and their aides – have a responsibility to monitor the behavior of all under their ‘effective control.’”

The committee also urged a “prompt and impartial” investigation in the case of Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, the pope’s nuncio (ambassador) to the Dominican Republic.

Wesolowski solicited sex for money from Santo Domingo’s poorest boys. “We learned from the children that Wesolowski took pictures of them while they were masturbating. Oral sex was performed,” Nuria Piera, an investigative journalist in the Dominican Republic, said. “He abused that poverty and used that mechanism to approach children and take advantage of them for years,” according to Yeni Berenice Reynoso, National District prosecutor.

A dossier accusing Wesolowski of sex abuse of minors was sent to Pope Francis “sometime in July” 2013 by Santo Domingo Cardinal Nicolás de Jesús López Rodríguez. The pope found the information credible enough to dismiss Wesolowski on August 21 via confidential letter. But the pope never reported Wesolowski to civil authorities nor made the information public.

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CHILE
Economia y Negocios

[The provincial superior of the Schoenstatt Fathers, Mariano Irureta, said through a statement that there is a preliminary investigation against the priest Francisco Mendez Basáñez. He is being investigated for alleged abuse of authority and sexual abuse that happened between 2002 and 2005.]

El superior provincial de los Padres de Schoenstatt, Mariano Irureta, informó a través de un comunicado que existe una investigación previa en contra del sacerdote Francisco Basáñez Méndez.

El religioso está siendo indagado por presuntas situaciones de abuso de autoridad y abuso sexual que habrían ocurrido entre 2002 y 2005. El padre Basáñez ha sido separado de toda actividad pública y pastoral. “Según los resultados que arrojen las investigaciones, se tomarán todas las medidas necesarias”, indicaron en el texto.

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MINNESOTA
Noticias 24/7

Acusan a una arquidiócesis de Minnesota de alentar los abusos sexuales perpetrados por un sacerdote

Una arquidiócesis católica con un legado jurídico emblemático de abusos sexuales infantiles ahora se enfrenta a reclamos judiciales por la manera en que los ha manejado.

En 1983, el abogado Jeff Anderson presentó un caso civil contra la arquidiócesis de Saint Paul, Minnesota, por abuso sexual a menores por parte de un sacerdote. Eso abrió una compuerta de víctimas que se presentaron con historias de abusos sexuales del clero en todo Estados Unidos.

El viernes, John Choi, el fiscal del condado de Ramsey, subió a seis los cargos contra la arquidiócesis de Saint Paul y Minneapolis. La acusó de alentar, causar o contribuir al abuso sexual de tres víctimas por parte de un sacerdote en 2010 y 2011.

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UNITED STATES
InTouch Weekly

PSYCHOLOGIST: DUGGARS FAILED TO ACKNOWLEDGE JOSH WAS A SEXUAL PREDATOR

While Jessa Duggar identified herself as a victim of sexual molestation by her brother Josh Duggar, she was quick to come to his defense — saying people who are calling him “a child molester or a pedophile or a rapist” are going “overboard.”

And this isn’t surprising, according to clinical psychologist Paula Bruce — who has not treated Josh, Jessa or any of the victims, but specializes in child sexual abuse and trauma.

She explains to In Touch Weekly that Jim Bob and Michelle not only neglected to recognize the suffering their daughters experienced, but also failed to view their son as a predator.

“There’s nothing [in Josh’s statement] that acknowledges that this is something sexual and that that sexual stuff came from somewhere and that it had an impact on someone else sexually in terms of their sexual development,” Dr. Bruce tells In Touch.

“I think that there’s an complete failure to understand 1. his own sexuality and 2. the damage that sexual behavior [caused] and that he was a sexual predator. None of them acknowledged that this is predatory behavior.”

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CANADA
Global News

The Canadian Press

COLLINGWOOD, Ont. – Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne calls the federal government’s response to recommendations from a six-year study of Canada’s residential schools legacy “disappointing.”

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission released 94 recommendations Tuesday along with a summary of its conclusions, including its description of a “cultural genocide” and the estimated deaths of more than 6,000 children.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper did not address a ceremony that was held on Wednesday to formally close the commission’s work.

He has suggested in the House of Commons that his government has already moved on addressing aboriginal concerns in the seven years since he issued an historic apology from the government of Canada.

Wynne began her speech to the Ontario Liberal annual general meeting on Saturday by acknowledging the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and saying there is “no possible excuse for any government to ignore the abuses of our past relationship.”

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ARKANSAS
Fox 8

ARKANSAS – Jill and Jessa Duggar explained the precautions their parents took after Josh admitted to molesting them while they were asleep.

In an interview airing Friday at 9 p.m., the sisters share their feelings about the news being public and their brother being called a pedophile and a rapist. They defend him, saying they know the truth because they are victims, says Cosmo.

In the interview, Jill says her father put locks on the doors and didn’t allow the children to play hide-and-seek anymore.

“As a mother now I look back and I think, you know, my parents did such an amazing job for me,” Jessa said. “Even when we went through the DHS investigation, they complimented my parents on what an amazing job they did through that process. … I see as a mom, I hope that I can set up the same safeguards in my family that they did.”

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MINNESOTA
Rai News (Italia)

L’arcidiocesi della Chiesa cattolica del Minnesota è stata incriminata dalle autorità dello Stato per aver coperto una serie di casi di abusi sessuali su minori da parte di un sacerdote. Ad essere sotto indagine sono i leader religiosi locali, che non avrebbero affrontato una serie di report interni in cui si parlava della questione.

Le accuse

I reati contestati all’arcidiocesi sono sei, tra cui quello di non aver protetto i bambini e quello di aver gestito male il caso di pedofilia venuto alla luce anni fa riguardante il reverendo Curtis Wehmeyer. Il religioso alcuni anni fa ha riconosciuto di essere colpevole e di aver molestato due bambini. Per questo motivo è stato condannato a cinque anni di carcere. L’uomo è accusato anche di molestie nei confronti di un terzo minore in Wisconsin.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Idea

[The evangelical church should intensify both the work-up of sexual abuse of young people in its facilities as well as preventive measures.]

Stuttgart (idea) – Die evangelische Kirche sollte sowohl die Aufarbeitung von sexuellem Missbrauch an Jugendlichen in ihren Einrichtungen als auch Vorbeugungsmaßnahmen intensivieren. Das forderten Experten beim Deutschen Evangelischen Kirchentag in Stuttgart. Der Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Fragen des sexuellen Kindesmissbrauchs, Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig (Berlin), appellierte an die EKD, einen Leitenden Geistlichen einer Landeskirche mit der Aufklärung vergangenen Unrechts zu betrauen. Es wäre ein starkes Signal, wenn die evangelische Kirche die Aufarbeitung des Missbrauchs zur Chefsache machen würde. In der katholischen Kirche habe ein Bischof diese Aufgabe übernommen, während es im Bereich der EKD nur eine „Konferenz für Prävention, Intervention und Hilfe bei Verletzung der sexuellen Selbstbestimmung“ gebe.

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VATIKAN
RD (Nederland)

[The papal advisory committee for the protection of minors in the church, which was instituted by Pope Francis in the fight against sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Church, wants to see vigorous action against bishops who abuse cases to cover up. This was reported by the Belgian news KerkNet Thursday. The committee recommends that entered into the canon law sanctions against bishops who evade their responsibilities in the fight against abuse.]

De pauselijke advies­commissie voor de bescherming van minderjarigen in de kerk, die door paus Franciscus is ingesteld in de strijd tegen seksueel misbruik binnen de Rooms-Katholieke Kerk, wil dat er streng wordt opgetreden tegen bisschoppen die misbruikzaken in de doofpot stoppen.

Dat meldde de Belgische nieuwsdienst KerkNet donderdag. De commissie pleit ervoor dat in het kerkelijk recht sancties worden ingevoerd tegen bisschoppen die in de strijd tegen misbruik hun verantwoordelijkheid ontlopen.

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SCHWEIZ
Appenzeller Zeitung

[The Catholic Church continued to report persons as victims of sexual assaults by clergymen. The dioceses registered last year twelve incidents.]

Bei der katholischen Kirche melden sich weiterhin Personen als Opfer sexueller Übergriffe durch Kirchenleute. Die Bistümer registrierten im vergangenen Jahr zwölf Vorfälle. Die neuen Meldungen gehen fast alle auf die Jahre 1950 bis 2000 zurück.

Ein Fall datiert aus dem Jahr 2013, wie die Schweizerische Bischofskonferenz (SBK) am Freitag im Nachgang zu ihrer Versammlung in Einsiedeln mitteilte. Von den zwölf gemeldeten Opfern waren zum Zeitpunkt der Übergriffe acht Kinder und drei erwachsene Frauen. Ein Opfer war ein Jugendlicher.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

By Mark Shanahan GLOBE STAFF JUNE 05, 2015

“Spotlight,” the movie based on The Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning series exposing the Catholic Church abuse scandal, has a release date. We’re told the film, directed by Tom McCarthy, will be in theaters Nov. 6.

The movie has an impressive cast that includes Liev Schreiber as former Globe editor Marty Baron, Michael Keaton as Spotlight team editor Walter Robinson, Mark Ruffalo as reporter Michael Rezendes, Rachel McAdams as reporter Sacha Pfeiffer, Brian d’Arcy James as reporter Matt Carroll, and Maureen Keiller as former Globe columnist Eileen McNamara.

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NEW JERSEY
Patch

By MICHELLE SAHN (Patch Staff)

A Catholic school basketball coach from Woodbridge has been has been charged with repeatedly performing a sex act in the presence of a 14­-year-­old girl, authorities said.

Darren Ventre, 40, of the Fords section of Woodbridge, was arrested Friday and charged with aggravated criminal sexual contact and endangering the welfare of a child.

He volunteered as athletic director and as coach of the girls’ basketball team at St. Matthew the Apostle R.C. Church in Edison, according to a news release from Middlesex County Prosecutor Andrew C. Carey and Woodbridge Police Robert Hubner.

Ventre brought the girl to his home and performed the sex act on a number of occasions over an extended period, the news release said.

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NEW JERSEY
MyCentralJersey

Suzanne Russell, @SRussellMyCJ

WOODBRIDGE – A township man who is a girls basketball coach for an Edison Catholic parish is facing aggravated criminal sexual contact charges after he allegedly performed a sex act in the presence of a 14-year-old girl at his home.

Darren Ventre, 40, of the Fords section, was arrested Friday and charged with aggravated criminal sexual contact and endangering the welfare of a child in connection with allegedly repeatedly performing a sex act in the teen’s presence, according to Middlesex County Prosecutor Andrew C. Carey.

Carey said Ventre is being held at Middlesex County Adult Correction Center in North Brunswick on $75,000 bail.

According to Carey, Ventre volunteered as athletic director and coach of the girls basketball team at St. Matthew the Apostle Parish, 81 Seymour Ave., Edison. The team included girls from the school and the parish.

Ventre allegedly brought the teenage girl to his home and performed the sex act on a number of occasions over an extended period. The investigation began after the girl told a counselor, who contacted the state Division of Child Protection and Permanency, Carey said.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Sue Epstein | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on June 05, 2015

WOODBRIDGE — The coach of the girls’ basketball team at St. Matthew the Apostle Church in Edison was charged Friday with repeatedly performing a sex act in the presence of a 14-year-old girl, Middlesex County Prosecutor Andrew Carey announced.

Carey said Darren Ventre, 40, of the Fords section of Woodbridge, was arrested and charged with aggravated criminal sexual contact and endangering the welfare of a child.

The prosecutor said Ventre volunteered as athletic director as well as the girls’ basketball coach at the Catholic school.

He said Ventre was arrested and charged during an investigation by county Detective Grace Brown and Woodbridge Township police Detective Tina Small.

The investigation revealed Ventre brought the girl to his house and performed the sex act on a number of occasions over an extended period of time, Carey said.

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MINNESOTA
CNN

[with video]

(CNN)A Catholic archdiocese with a landmark legal legacy in child sexual abuse now faces criminal complaints in its handling of them.

In 1983, attorney Jeff Anderson filed a civil case of priest sexual abuse of minors against a U.S. archdiocese in Saint Paul, Minnesota. It opened a floodgate of victims who came forward with clergy sex abuse stories across the country.

On Friday, Ramsey County prosecutor John Choi leveled six counts at the archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. He accused it of encouraging, causing or contributing to the sexual abuse of three victims by a priest in 2010 and 2011.

Read the criminal complaint

Each count is a “gross misdemeanor,” and each carries a maximum of one year in prison and/or a $3,000 fine. The complaint focuses on abuse by former priest Curtis Wehmeyer, but it and an accompanying document say his case was just one of many that the archdiocese let slide.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

The Vatican and the US political establishment appear to share the same basic approach to “insiders” who abuse children sexually or who protect the abusers — “DON’T ASK ! DON’T TELL !”. This approach will change soon, just watch !!

Pope Francis will visit the USA in September. He wants to try to help elect next year a “Vatican friendly” US President and Congress and thereby solidify a “friendly” US Supreme Court majority for decades to come. The pope’s evident immediate goal is to head off a potentially catastrophic US national investigation of institutional child sexual abuse, like independent investigations already underway in Australia, Ireland, the UK, Canada and elsewhere.

The media magnified pope prefers, often with amplification by some opportunistic and fawning journalist cheerleaders, to pontificate vaguely, superficially and even at times magically and inconsistently, about subjects like the “poor” and “climate change”. He pontificates as an out of touch celibate 78 year old bachelor who got a community college equivalent certificate in chemistry over a half century ago. He then ruled for years in a purportedly mainly Catholic Argentina where few now even regularly attend Mass.

The pope had been invited to speak to the US Congress before top US leaders got to see strong evidence of the pope’s real weakness among Catholic voters, as Irish voters recently overwhelmingly proved in rejecting a key position of the pope’s on marriage. Many Catholics like the pope’s friendly and refreshing style, but the Irish have shown few will vote for the pope’s medieval positions that are mostly aimed at preserving the absolute papal monarchy.

The pope wants to avoid discussing openly in the USA how his irrational and self interested opposition to modern birth control hurts the poor and accelerates global warming by generating unaffordable and unwanted population growth. And surely the pope wants to avoid talking about still unaccountable bishops, like Cardinal George Pell and those ten US Catholic Church officials described in a recent criminal complaint in Minneapolis, who protect alleged priest child abusers, as the pope also did in Argentina, and in effect is still doing as pope from many indications.

Unfortunately for the pope, there are clear, disturbing and public parallels between (A) his troubling disregard, evident when promoting Pell last year to the No.3 Vatican position, of credible allegations about Pell relating to serious child sex abuse cover-up and even worse actions, and the pope’s ongoing avoidance mostly of the worldwide priest child sex abuse scandal, just shown again in the Minneapolis criminal complaint covering at least ten senior Church officials’ failures, and (B) the US Congress’ recent minimizing of child sex abuse allegations about longtime former No. 3 US government official, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (who was recently criminally indicted), and the US Congress’ (and President Barack Obama’s) inexcusable avoidance of investigating the US institutional child sex abuse epidemic, including in the US Catholic Church. The case for a US national inquiry into institutional child sexual abuse has been made by many, including here by leading Australian advocate for abuse survivors, Aletha Blayse.

Hastert’s recently disclosed scandal, and the recent disgraceful revelations about Minneapolis’ Church officials, including Fr. Kevin McDonough, brother of President Obama’s Chief of Staff, Denis McDonough, now help explain perhaps why both the US Congress and the White House avoid even mentioning the Catholic child sex abuse scandals.

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SCOTLAND
BBC News

Nine men have been reported to the procurator fiscal in connection with alleged abuse at a former Catholic boarding school in the Highlands.

Prosecutors are considering the claims linked to Fort Augustus Abbey.

The Crown Office said the reports were submitted to the fiscal in Inverness.

A spokesperson said: “The procurator fiscal has received reports concerning nine men in relation to incidents alleged to have occurred between September 1967 and December 1992.”

The statement added: “The reports remain under consideration.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
Regensburg Digital

Als Leiter des Canisius-Kollegs trat Pater Klaus Mertes 2010 eine Welle bei der Aufdeckung von sexuellem Missbrauch los. Am Sonntag war er in Regensburg.

Von Robert Werner und Stefan Aigner

„Sie hätten wir hier gebraucht“, sagt Udo Kaiser, nachdem er eine gute Stunde zugehört hat. „Warum hat man Sie nicht zu Rate gezogen?“ Kaiser ist einer jener missbrauchten Domspatzen, die das Schweigen vor fünf Jahren gebrochen haben und seitdem immer wieder auf die fehlende Aufarbeitung im Bistum Regensburg aufmerksam machen.

Pater Klaus Mertes, den Kaiser anspricht, hat dieses Schweigen ebenfalls gebrochen. Nachdem sich ehemalige Schüler 2010 gegenüber dem damaligen Leiter des Canisius-Kollegs als Opfer körperlicher, psychischer und sexueller Gewalt geoutet hatten, schrieb Mertes einen Brief an etwa 600 ehemalige Schüler der Berliner Jesuiten-Schule und trat damit eine Welle des Aufdeckens von Missbrauchsfällen an schulischen Einrichtungen in ganz Deutschland los.

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CALIFORNIA
San Francisco Chronicle

By C.W. Nevius
June 5, 2015

I’m starting to be concerned about San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone. For a man of the cloth, he seems awfully fixated on sex.

It seems he can turn any topic into an examination of sex and sexual identity. On Wednesday, Cordileone was at a conference in Manhattan that was promoting the idea of conducting Mass in Latin. If you think it would be difficult to turn that into an attack on transgender men and women, you are underestimating our archbishop.

Quicker than you could say Caitlyn Jenner, who became a news sensation by adopting a female identity after living most of her life as Olympic champion Bruce Jenner, Cordileone was off.

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NEW YORK
WHEC

[with video]

By: Berkeley Brean – @whec_bbrean

A Hollywood music producer is accused of sexually abusing teenage boys in Rochester.

Police say the abuse happened inside Roy Battle’s home in the city over three and a half years from 2009 to mid 2012. But during that time, police say Battle was affiliated with a church in Chili and that his alleged victims were teenagers at the church.

Police will not release his mugshot even though we asked for it several times, but we know he was indicted on ten counts of sexual abuse in March. The district attorney’s office says he posted bail after his arraignment. That’s why police told us about Battle’s indictment now. They’re concerned there are more victims out there.

Officers want the families of those children — if they exist — to call Investigator O’Shaughnessy at (585)428-9379.

Friday, we worked to learn more about Battle. In a 2012 documentary, using the stage name “Battle Roy,” he talks about getting involved in local Rochester churches.

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SCOTLAND
Press and Journal

6 June 2015 by Jane Candlish

Nine men have been reported to the fiscal in connection with alleged abuse at a former Catholic boarding school in the Highlands.

Prosecutors are now considering the evidence submitted in relation to Fort Augustus Abbey.

The alleged offences took place between 1967 and 1992 – around the time that the school, which was run by Benedictine monks, was closed.

A number of victims came forward in the aftermath of the revelations about Jimmy Saville’s paedophile past.

The shamed broadcaster visited the school several times during his trips to the Highlands.

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CANADA
Toronto Star

By: Donovan Vincent News reporter, Published on Fri Jun 05 2015

A Superior Court judge has ordered Ottawa to perform additional searches for RCMP documents pertaining to allegations of abuse at a residential school at Moose Factory, Ont., in the 1960s.

Ottawa lawyer Fay Brunning is acting on behalf of claimants who say they witnessed events related to the alleged severe beating of a child at the now defunct Bishop Horden Indian Residential School. Some of the claimants say they saw numerous employees or supervisors of the school subsequently fired and or criminally charged.

Brunning had argued in a factum that the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement called for Ottawa to scour its historical records for documents pertaining to the schools including “at the very least” documents about abuse.

But Brunning argued the federal government didn’t meet its legal obligations to do so. Only records kept by Libraries and Archives Canada and Indian Affairs were searched as part of the compensation process, she argued.

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MINNESOTA
Fox 9

[with video]

ST. PAUL, Minn. (KMSP) –
Ramsey County Attorney John Choi has filed criminal charges against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis “to hold it criminally accountable for its failure to protect children.” The charges are connected to 3 separate victims of sexual abuse by former Catholic priest Curtis Wehmeyer, who is currently serving a 5-year prison sentence for molesting two boys in his parish.

“It is not only Curtis Wehmeyer who is criminally responsible for the harm caused, but it is the archdiocese as well,” Choi said at a Friday news conference.

VIDEO – Archbishop Nienstedt’s deposition on Father Wehmeyer

In 2013, Wehmeyer was convicted on 20 felony charges for sexually abusing two minors. He’s also charged in Chippewa County, Wisconsin with second-degree sexual assault. Father Wehmeyer was defrocked by Pope Francis just this past March.

No individuals charged

The 6 gross misdemeanor charges list the archdiocese as a corporation, as Choi says there is insufficient evidence at this time to pursue criminal charges against individuals. Since the charges target the archdiocese as a whole, a conviction would result in a fine but no jail time.

‘Facts were ignored’

The charges allege church ignored warnings about Father Wehmeyer being a sexual predator, including his bunking with a child on camping trip to Big Sandy Lake in Aitkin County.

“Facts were ignored, minimized, not shared with other individuals who needed to know,” Choi said.

Investigation not finished

The investigation is ongoing and St. Paul police and the Ramsey County attorney’s office are renewing their requests for anyone with information to come forward. Statements from more than 50 witnesses and the review of more than 170,000 pages of documents over the past 20 months led to the charges announced Friday.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Timeline of charges

2013

February: The Rev. Curtis Wehmeyer is sentenced to prison for abusing two boys in 2010. He is later defrocked.

May: Minnesota Child Victims Act prompts the filing of lawsuits alleging clergy abuse, some decades old.

September: Whistleblower Jennifer Haselberger says church officials knew of Wehmeyer’s sexual misconduct.

December: Under court order, archdiocese releases names of 33 credibly accused priests.

2014

January: Ramsey County declines to charge church officials in Wehmeyer case, saying it can’t prove they violated law requiring immediate reporting of abuse allegations.

March: Ramsey district judge orders archdiocese to produce files related to credibly accused priests.

April: Archdiocese’s internal task force reports “serious shortcomings” in its handling of child sex abuse.

May: First criminal charges following new law are filed against former priest Francis Hoefgen in Dakota County.

October: Archdiocese and clergy abuse victims reach settlement, including reforms in reporting abuse.

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MINNESOTA
The Sun Daily (Malaysia)

Posted on 6 June 2015

CHICAGO: US prosecutors laid criminal charges against the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis on Friday for its failure to protect children from sexual abuse at the hands of a disgraced priest.

The archdiocese in the northern state of Minnesota is one of a number of Catholic institutions which has declared bankruptcy in the wake of massive payouts to the victims of clergy sex abuse.

“We are alleging a disturbing institutional and systemic pattern of behavior committed by the highest levels of leadership of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis over the course of decades,” Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said in a statement.

Choi said the church failed to respond to “numerous and repeated reports” of troubling conduct by Curtis Wehmeyer leading all the way back to when he first entered the seminary in 1997. He was defrocked in March 2015.

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

MINNESOTA
Press TV (Iran)

The Catholic Church in the US city of Minneapolis faces criminal charges for turning a blind eye to reports of child abuse by a priest for years.

Prosecutors accused the church authorities of failure to protect children and act on repeated reports of the troubling conduct by Priest Curtis Wehmeyer.

The priest was convicted in 2013 of molesting two brothers and was defrocked and is currently in prison.

John Choi, a Minneapolis attorney, filed the criminal charges against the archdiocese, accusing it for failing “to protect children” from the abusive priest.

“Today we are alleging a disturbing institutional and systemic pattern of behavior committed by the highest levels of leadership of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis over the course of decades,” said Choi on Friday.

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

AUSTRALIA
Independent Australia

Lyn Bender

6 June 2015

‘Father forgive them for they know not what they do’ doesn’t cut it for a Church that has protected itself and its priests over victims, writes Lyn Bender.

THE Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has exposed generations of abuse that has been quietly countenanced by “good” people, and respected institutions.

The evidence given in Ballarat to the Royal Commission is excruciatingly unbearable to hear. It is blood chilling evidence of a cancerous contagion of loathsome cruelty. It is generational and passed on from priest to priest — some of whom received their own fierce initiation.

But while the abuse is of itself a horror story, the damage reaches far out into the community. The greatest injury is to the trust in those to whom many would turn in time of need. Those anointed to provide support wisdom and moral guidance. Those who betrayed trust were pronounced the guardians of Christian teachings — on love, compassion and care for the vulnerable. But the Church is also the guardian of centuries of outdated dogma that excludes and punishes. It is perhaps this contradiction that has fostered the schism of values that has institutionalised a satanic enactment of abuse and brought suffering to its children. “Suffer the little children” has been bastardised.

The lukewarm apology of the Catholic Church to the unfolding revelations of cruelty is, of itself, appalling testimony to the pervasive attitude of diminishing the harm done. With the vast lexicon of words to describe sin and transgression, those now bearing witness as church elders at the Commission can muster very little ownership of the trauma inflicted. All seems to be concentrated on saving the beast of the constructed Church. In the reverence for this incarnation of a religion, the parishioners have been forgotten.

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

MINNESOTA
KFGO

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) – Leaders of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis say they will ”continue to cooperate” with authorities after the archdiocese was criminally charged with failure to protect children.

Ramsey County prosecutors filed six gross misdemeanor charges Friday against the archdiocese as a corporation. County Attorney John Choi says archdiocese leaders turned a blind eye to repeated misconduct by the Rev. Curtis Wehmeyer for years before Wehmeyer was eventually imprisoned for molesting two children.

Bishop Andrew Cozzens says the archdiocese deeply regrets the abuse suffered by Wehmeyer’s victims.

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

MINNESOTA
Catholic World Report

Minneapolis, Minn., Jun 5, 2015 / 05:35 pm (CNA).- The Minneapolis-St. Paul archdiocese has pledged cooperation amid charges of mishandling allegations against a former priest of sexual misconduct involving children.

“We deeply regret the abuse that was suffered by the victims of Curtis Wehmeyer and are grieved for all victims of sexual abuse,” Bishop Andrew Cozzens, an auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese, said June 5.

“We all share the same goal: to provide safe environments for all children in our churches and in our communities,” he added.

Bishop Cozzens said the archdiocese will continue to cooperate with the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office.

The archdiocese on Friday was served with civil and criminal complaints that it failed to protect children from former Curtis Wehmeyer. The criminal charges total six misdemeanors with a maximum fine of $3,000 each, the New York Times reports.

In 2013 Wehmeyer was convicted to five years in prison for criminal sexual conduct and possession of child pornography. He was convicted of abusing two boys while a pastor at a church in St. Paul, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. He also faces sex crimes charges in Wisconsin.

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

MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date: Friday, June 5, 2015

Source: Tom Halden, Director of Communications

From Judge Tim O’Malley, Director of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment

I want to offer a few comments about the criminal and civil charges filed today.

We have the utmost respect for Ramsey County Attorney John Choi, his office, and the St. Paul Police Department, its investigators and Chief Tom Smith. Importantly, we equally respect the civil and criminal law processes here in Minnesota.

We all share the goal of protecting children. To that end, the Archdiocese will continue to work with the St. Paul Police Department and the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office, as well as our private and public sector partners, to accomplish that goal. We share County Attorney Choi’s and Chief Smith’s commitment to prevent the kind of harm caused in the Wehmeyer case from ever happening again.
As County Attorney Choi noted, facts must lead the way. Truth is in the details. We join Chief Smith in thanking those who have courageously come forward to help find that truth and, in turn, protect children. We also join the County Attorney and the Chief in encouraging anyone with information to contact the St. Paul Police Department. The more complete the information, the more likely justice will be served.

Because this is an ongoing investigation and we do not want to interfere with it, we cannot make any other comments at this time.

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

MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date: Friday, June 5, 2015

Source: Tom Halden, Director of Communications

From Bishop Andrew Cozzens, Auxiliary Bishop, Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

Today, the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis was served with civil and criminal complaints, charging that the corporation failed to protect children in the 2012 case involving former priest, Curtis Wehmeyer.

We deeply regret the abuse that was suffered by the victims of Curtis Wehmeyer and are grieved for all victims of sexual abuse.

We will continue to cooperate with the Ramsey County Attorney’s office. We all share the same goal: To provide safe environments for all children in our churches and in our communities.

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

MINNESOTA
Legal Examiner

Posted by Mike Bryant
June 5, 2015

Today the Ramsey County Attorney’s office filed criminal charges against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis for “failing to protect children” from an abusive priest. The charges arise from the actions of former priest Curtis Wehmeyer.

As reported by the Minneapolis Tribune:

Today we are alleging a disturbing institutional and systemic pattern of behavior committed by the highest levels of leadership of the archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis over the course of decades, said Ramsey County Attorney John Choi.

This is a historic action and involves a County Attorney who has been tentative to this point in bringing claims. As Jeff Anderson said today:

I have, in the past, been openly critical of the seeming inaction by the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office and John Choi in not charging the Archdiocese officials pertaining to Curtis Wehmeyer and others, and expressed frustration over a seeming lack of vigor. Today, I am praising the Ramsey County Attorney for taking this action. It is evident that it took that office a long time to carefully develop the evidence and to conduct their own independent investigation, armed with the documents disgorged in civil litigation and the depositions taken of the top officials, by interviewing witnesses and developing a body of evidence that has supported a criminal complaint against the Archdiocese as a corporation.

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

MINNESOTA
CBS Minnesota

[with video]

Rachel Slavik

ST. PAUL (WCCO) — The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis now faces criminal charges over how it handled an abusive priest.

The Ramsey County Attorney today said top church leaders failed to protect children from the Reverend Curtis Wehmeyer. He’s in prison for molesting two brothers in Minnesota and facing charges of sexually abusing a third boy in Wisconsin.

Over the last several months they’ve interviewed more than 50 witnesses specifically looking at who knew what when with complaints against Curtis Wehmeyer. Although Wehmeyer committed the crimes, prosecutors say the top church is also criminally responsible.

“Facts can’t be ignore, they can’t be dismissed, and are frankly appalling,” Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said.

A 43 page criminal complaint outlines Wehmeyer’s 11 years with the Catholic Church — a tenure filled with complaints of inappropriate behavior with young boys and men but no effort to stop him.

“When confronted with disturbing information about Curtis Wehmeyer, church officials time and time again turned a blind eye,” Choi said.

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NEW JERSEY
Road to Recovery

MEDIA RELEASE – JUNE 5, 2015

Kevin Malone and three of his schoolmates were unsuspecting students from towns throughout Bergen County, New Jersey, when they attended Bergen Catholic High School in Oradell, New Jersey, many years ago but were sexually abused either by Brother Charles B. Irwin, CFC, or Br. John B. Chaney, CFC at Bergen Catholic High School. Brother Charles B. Irwin, CFC, and Brother John B. Chaney, CFC, both are named serial pedophiles from Bergen Catholic High School

Bergen Catholic High School has re-victimized all four sexual abuse victims by foot-dragging and failing to be reasonable in settlement negotiations

What
A demonstration and leafleting alerting the media; parents, students, and alumni of Bergen Catholic High School; and the general public of the recent re-victimization of four credible sexual abuse victims of either Br. Charles B. Irwin or Br. John B. Chaney and the foot-dragging and failure to be reasonable in settlement negotiations

When
Saturday, June 6, 2015 from 4:30 pm until 6:15 pm (Graduation at 6:00 pm)

Where
On the public sidewalk outside Bergen Catholic High School, 1030 Oradell Avenue, Oradell, New Jersey 07649

Who
Rev. Kobutsu Malone (formerly Kevin Malone), sexual abuse victim of Br. Charles B. Irwin (by telephone, from Maine); Dr. Robert M. Hoatson, former member of the Congregation of Christian Brothers and sexual abuse victim of three Christian Brothers; and other members of Road to Recovery, Inc., a non-profit charity that assists victims of sexual abuse and their families

Why
Buddhist monk Rev. Kobutsu Malone, formerly known as Kevin Malone in the 1960s when he was a student at Bergen Catholic High School, was sexually abused along with many classmates by Br. Charles B. Irwin, CFC, an acknowledged serial sexual abuser, at Bergen Catholic High School. Kobutsu Malone and two of his schoolmates, sexually abused by serial sexual abuser Br. Charles B. Irwin, and one sexual abuse victim of serial sexual abuser Br. John B. Chaney at Bergen Catholic High School, are being re-victimized by Bergen Catholic High School’s foot-dragging and failing to be reasonable in settlement negotiations. Demonstrators will call on Bergen Catholic High School to do the right thing, compensate the credible victims of sexual abuse for their injuries, validate their claims and help them try to heal.

Contacts
Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., Road to Recovery, Inc. – 862-368-2800
Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, Boston, MA – 617-523-6250
Rev. Kobutsu Malone, Sedgwick, Maine – 207-359-2555

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Father Ronald Mulkearns refuses to front royal commission despite presiding over Ballarat misery

by ANDREA HAMBLIN
HERALD SUN, Melbourne, Saturday JUNE 06, 2015

THE bishop who was in charge at Ballarat when some of Australia’s worst paedophiles preyed on young children has no plans to help a royal commission uncover the truth about sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.

Father Ronald Mulkearns was bishop while children suffered at the evil whims of Fr Gerald Ridsdale, Fr Paul Ryan and Brothers Robert Best and Edward Dowlan.

A Victorian inquiry has previously heard Fr Mulkearns could not give evidence to it because he was too ill and suffered memory loss due to a stroke.

But he may yet be called to face the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

In a statement to the Herald Sun on Friday, the commission said: “Whether Bishop Mulkearns is able to give evidence to the royal commission has not yet been determined.”

In Aireys Inlet on Friday, where he maintains a peaceful retirement in his seaside home with million-dollar views of the Great Ocean Rd, Fr Mulkearns would not comment on his condition.

The only evidence of ill-health was a packet of throat lozenges he bought from a pharmacy.

The 84-year-old appears capable; he lives independently and drives daily.

During lone walks to buy a paper and milk, he smiles and occasionally chats to passers-by.

Earlier this year, he travelled to Sydney for a celebration dinner organised by the church.

Speaking publicly for the first time since the inquiry began, Fr Mulkearns told the Herald Sun he sympathised with victims — but he would not attend the inquiry.

“I have heard the accounts of those who have suffered abuse and I recognise the pain and suffering experienced by them and their families,” he said.

“I support the royal commission.”

But asked if he would attend the hearings, he said: “No.”

His refusal to answer questions has angered victims and their advocates.

Some locals also want to know why he won’t come forward.

“Hiding only makes him look guilty,” one woman said.

Another local who knows Fr Mulkearns said the excuse of poor health was troubling.

“It turns my stomach,” the local said.

“I doubt he’s too ill to attend the royal commission.”

Fr Mulkearns has the option of providing a statement to the commission, but refused to say whether he planned to do so.

Asked if he felt a responsibility to help victims, he said: “I’m feeling all sorts of things at the moment.”

Declining to be interviewed further, he said he did not want to “interfere” with the commission’s “important work”.

Victims’ group Broken Rites said Fr Mulkearns had the power to prevent suffering at the hands of priests.

“Victims have been waiting 20 years and more to hear the truth about what was known about Ridsdale’s offending,” a spokeswoman said.

“Many children could have been saved from vile criminal acts if the church reported Ridsdale and others to the police.”

Fr Mulkearns was in charge when accused priests were moved to other parishes.

In 1971, he refused to move paedophile Monsignor John Day when Day was first accused of multiple counts of sexual abuse against boys and girls across Victoria.

Charges had been dropped, but a deputy headmaster wrote to the bishop urging him to remove Day from parishes.

The bishop replied: “Any such move would be tantamount to a public declaration that I consider him guilty.”

Day had been subjected to “very great embarrassment”, the bishop wrote.

He was also accused of destroying church documents from his time at Ballarat.

According to minutes shown to the inquiry last month, Fr Mulkearns moved Ridsdale to another parish.

andrea.hamblin@news.com.au

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MINNESOTA
Ramsey County Attorney’s Office

Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis criminally charged with multiple counts of failing to protect children

— Criminal Complaint: Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis 6.5.15.pdf
— Civil Petition: Archdiocese Petition 6.5.15.pdf
— RCAO Media Briefing Video: RCAO Announces Charges Against Archdiocese

County Attorney also files civil petitions to ensure justice

Saint Paul, MN – The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office (RCAO) today filed criminal charges and a civil petition against the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis to hold it criminally accountable for its failure to protect children and seek legal remedies to prevent such failures from ever happening again. These charges are in connection with three separate victims of sexual abuse by former Catholic priest Curtis Wehmeyer. 1

Statement from Ramsey County Attorney John Choi:

Today, we are alleging a disturbing institutional and systemic pattern of behavior committed by the highest levels of leadership of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis over the course of decades. By filing criminal charges and taking civil action, we are holding the Archdiocese accountable for its failure to responsibly and meaningfully respond to numerous and repeated reports of troubling conduct by Curtis Wehmeyer, beginning with his entrance into seminary in 1997 and ending with his formal dismissal as a priest in March of 2015. It was not only Curtis Wehmeyer who harmed children, but it was the Archdiocese as well. The Archdiocese’s failures have caused great suffering by the victims and their family and betrayed our entire community – from the many courageous clergy and laypeople whose legitimate concerns about Wehmeyer’s behavior were ignored or minimized to those Catholics and non-Catholics alike who were falsely led to believe that the Archdiocese had effective measures in place to protect children. By taking these actions, we are determined to hold the Archdiocese accountable for its crimes, achieve justice on behalf of the victims and our community, and take all necessary steps to ensure that such failures by the Archdiocese never happen again.

1 On November 8, 2012, Curtis Wehmeyer pled guilty in Ramsey County District Court to three felony counts of criminal sexual conduct with two minors and seventeen felony counts of possession of child pornography. On November 7, 2014, the Chippewa County (Wisconsin) District Attorney’s Office charged Curtis Wehmeyer with second degree sexual assault involving a third minor victim. The Wisconsin prosecution is still ongoing.

2 Today’s Criminal and Civil charges specifically seek to hold the Archdiocese accountable for its role in contributing to Curtis Wehmeyer’s victims’ need for protection or services and their delinquency or status as juvenile petty offenders:

* The criminal charges include three separate counts of Contributing to the Need for
Protection or Services (Minn. Stat. § 260C.425) and three separate counts of Contributing
to Status as a Juvenile Petty Offender or Delinquency (Minn. Stat. § 260B.425).

* The civil petition alleges the Archdiocese contributed to the need for protection or services of children (Minn. Stat. § 260C.335) related to the same conduct contained in the criminal complaint. The civil petition is brought under legal authority solely vested with a county attorney and is intended to seek legal remedies to prevent the Archdiocese from allowing this behavior to ever happen again.

The actions taken by the County Attorney are the product of an intensive 20-month investigation conducted by investigators from the Saint Paul Police Department (SPPD) and the RCAO that initially began with victims coming forward to police and an investigation into the facts and circumstances surrounding the Archdiocese’s report to police on June 20, 2012, concerning the victims of Curtis Wehmeyer. Based upon the facts uncovered in this initial phase of the investigation, a second phase of this investigation was initiated in March of 2014 with a specific focus on the Archdiocese and its handling of Curtis Wehmeyer and concerning information about him. During the second phase, investigators from the SPPD and RCAO interviewed more than 50 witnesses and obtained approximately 170,000 pages of documents from numerous sources. This investigation is still ongoing.

“Our goal throughout the process was to serve as fact finders, and that is exactly what we did. We presented a case—based on facts—that demonstrates our commitment to helping victims and holding the guilty accountable,” Saint Paul Police Chief Thomas Smith. “We will continue to investigate all allegations of misconduct, but we need the public’s help. The more people— whether victims, clergy or others—who come forward, the more we can do to protect the vulnerable and the abused.”

It should be noted that a criminal complaint is merely an accusation and that a defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.
_____________________________________________________________________________
RCAO Contact: Dennis Gerhardstein at dennis.gerhardstein@co.ramsey.mn.us or 651.600.1830
SPPD Contact: Steve Linders at steve.linders@ci.stpaul.mn.us or 651.266.5735

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MINNESTOA
Ramsey County Attorney’s Office

Related Documents for June 5, 2015 Press Event:

— Criminal Complaint: Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis 6.5.15.pdf
— Civil Petition: Archdiocese Petition 6.5.15.pdf
— RCAO Media Briefing Video: RCAO Announces Charges Against Archdiocese
— RCAO Press Release: Archdiocese criminally charged with multiple counts of failing to protect children.

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MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

Jennifer Haselberger

[with copy of the criminal complaint]

06/05/2015

Subject: Message from Very Reverend Charles V. Lachowitzer Regarding Charges Against the Archdiocese

Dear Friends in Christ,

At noon today the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office served the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis with civil and criminal complaints that the Archdiocese failed to protect children in the case against former priest Curtis Wehmeyer several years ago. The charges are against the archdiocese as a corporation, not against any individual.

We are reviewing the charges and will continue to cooperate with the County Attorney’s office and investigators from the St. Paul Police Department. We will follow up with further information when available. Please join in praying for victims/survivors of sexual abuse by clergy, as well as for healing in our local Church. Sincerely yours in Christ, Very Reverend Charles V. Lachowitzer Vicar General and Moderator of the Curia

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Statement by Frank Meuers of Plymouth, Twin Cities SNAP leader, 952-334-5180

We’re glad the Ramsey County Attorney can no longer ignore the large amount of data that has been made available from victims, survivors, and Ms. Jennifer Haselberger, a former archdiocesan employee. It shows the blatant, repeated cover up of crimes by archdiocesan officials, way beyond just the Fr. Curtis Wehmeyer case.

The demand for justice has finally overridden the ploy of secrecy, and now charges have at last been filed. We now ask anyone with any information about abuse or cover up to come forward at once. Please help facilitate this movement from silence to openness.

We urge prosecutors to ask church officials for their passports so there’s no chance they can flee overseas.

We dispute the notion that Catholic officials “turned a blind eye” to abuse. They did worse. They deliberately and repeatedly put and kept kids in harm’s way by valuing their reputations and comfort and devaluing boys and girls. They engaged in active wrongdoing, not passive wrongdoing. These are smart men with smart lawyers and smart PR advisors. These were – and continue to be – cover ups, not “mistakes” or “failures.”

We hope that individual church officials will be charged. Dozens of current and former Catholic staffers planned and participated in the cover up. So in that sense, it’s an institutional crime. But individual Catholic officials intentionally made these selfish choices. So individuals should be held responsible too. That’s the only real way to deter cover ups in the Catholic church in the present and future.

It’s good that the persistent cries of so very many abused people of this archdiocese are being hear. It will be better, however, when more charges are filed against individual church staff and a guilty verdict is issued against them.

[Star Tribune]

Choi called the archdiocese claim to monitor problem priests “a sham.” So it the archdiocesan claim to “investigate” predator priests.

“We were falsely led to believe that the Archdiocese had an effective program in place” to monitor priests, Choi said. He’s one of tens of thousands who’ve been misled by Catholic officials.

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MINNESOTA
International Business Times

By Eben Blake

The Roman Catholic archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis was charged Friday for how it handled multiple allegations of sexual abuse over the course of several years. The archdiocese received six gross misdemeanor counts as a corporation, according to the Minneapolis-based Star Tribune, with a prosecutor saying that the church “turned a blind eye” to the conduct of a priest.

The charges stemmed primarily from the archdiocese’s actions surrounding Curtis Wehmeyer, who was sentenced to five years in 2013 for criminal sexual misconduct and possession of child pornography and was defrocked as a priest in March. Wehmeyer pleaded guilty in 2012 to molesting two brothers, according to the Associated Press. He is currently charged with sex crimes in both Minnesota and Wisconsin.

“It is not only Curtis Wehmeyer who is criminally responsible for the harm caused, but it is the archdiocese as well,” said Ramsey County prosecutor, John Choi, reported the Star Tribune. “Today, we are alleging a disturbing institutional and systemic pattern of behavior committed by the highest levels of leadership of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis over the course of decades,” said Choi, reported the New York Times.

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

MINNESOTA
BBC News

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis is facing criminal charges after US officials said church leaders ignored reports that a priest was molesting children.

Archdiocese is charged as a corporation with failing to protect children, but no individuals were charged.

Officials alleged that the archdiocese “turned a blind eye” to complaints about priest Curtis Wehmeyer for years.

Wehmeyer, now defrocked, was convicted of molesting two brothers in 2013.

`It is not only Curtis Wehmeyer who is criminally responsible for the harm caused, but it is the archdiocese as well,” said Ramsey County prosecutor John Choi at a news conference on Friday.

“This organization said it protected children when in reality it did not”, said Mr Choi who called the church’s monitoring program for trouble priests “a sham”.

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ILLINOIS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, June 5

Statement by Barbara Blaine of Chicago, president of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 312-399-4747, bblaine@SNAPnetwork.org )

We extend our deepest sympathies to the dozens of relatives, hundreds of friends and thousands of admirers of Eugene Kennedy, who has passed away at the age of 86. Most knew him for his towering intellect, compelling speeches and gripping writing. We knew him for his generous and kind heart.

Early in the Catholic abuse and cover up crisis, Kennedy relentlessly and eloquently reminded everyone he could that it’s about complicit bishops more than predator priests. He was also among the first to emphasize that genuine reform could happen best when victims and lay people ignored the church hierarchy and instead prodded secular authorities.

Even earlier (in 1971), he directed a psychological study of US priests for the American Bishops that showed a shockingly large sub-set of clerics whose inner psych-sexual growth lagged far behind their chronological growth. From these half grown men many sex abusers arose. Kennedy quietly but persistently warned bishops about these men. Later, he charged church officials with failing to address sexual intimacy and he held the Vatican responsible for a sexually dysfunctional system.

With deep compassion, he empowered lay Catholics to speak up, seek reform and avoid being intimidated or cowed by self-serving prelates. Kennedy stressed that the hierarchy wasn’t and isn’t the church but that rank-and-file Catholics were and are the church. He managed to always couch his wise counsel in gentle terms, without ever sounding impatient or judgmental.

Outspoken and inspiring advocates like Kennedy have played and still play an enormous role in prodding recalcitrant Catholic officials to respond to abuse victims and the laity. His voice – and his heart – will be sorely missed.

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MINNESOTA
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

As Chris has noted in a comment here today, this noontime the Ramsey County, Minnesota, prosecutor’s office announced that it has filed criminal charges against the archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis. Mitch Smith writes for New York Times:

Prosecutors in Minnesota filed criminal charges on Friday against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, accusing church leaders of mishandling repeated complaints of sexual abuse by a priest.

The charges and accompanying civil petition, announced by the Ramsey County prosecutor, John J. Choi, are a sweeping condemnation of the archdiocese and how its leaders have handled sex abuse allegations.

“Today, we are alleging a disturbing institutional and systemic pattern of behavior committed by the highest levels of leadership of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis over the course of decades,” Mr. Choi said in a statement.

Note that the New York Times story has a link to the court document containing the charges. Jennifer Haselberger has also published a copy on her blog. She also notes that the archdiocese has issued a response — of sorts — and she provides a copy of the response.

As Brian Roewe notes for National Catholic Reporter, these criminal charges were, according to Haselberger, what she had both hoped for and feared when she blew the whistle on the archdiocese’s cover-up of the case of Rev. Wehmeyer, after which she resigned her position as the chancellor for canonical affairs for the archdiocese.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on the latest attack on the Duggar family:

Sarah Palin, and her daughter Bristol, have rightly slammed the mainstream media for bashing the Duggars as hypocrites while continuing to laud Lena Dunham, the celebrity who sexually molested her own sister. But it’s not just the secular media that are guilty of rank duplicity—it’s hit the Catholic media.

On the front page of the National Catholic Reporter, a newspaper and website which opposes every Catholic Church teaching on sexuality [click here], there is an article by David Clohessy, the director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). He condemns the Duggars because “no one told the police” about Josh Duggar’s sexual molestation of his sisters.

In the 1990s, David Clohessy knew about the crimes committed by a sexual molester but never called the cops. The abuser was his brother Kevin, then a priest.

It gets worse. In his article today, David Clohessy slams Bishop Robert Finn, who previously led the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, for not reporting a disturbed priest who downloaded crotch-shot pictures of fully-clothed girls (there was one non-pornographic photo of a naked girl) to his computer. Yet the founder of SNAP, Barbara Blaine, who works closely with Clohessy, wrote to the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners in 2009 pleading with the panel to go easy on Dr. Steve Taylor: he is a former SNAP shrink who was sent to prison for downloading child pornography to his computer

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MARYLAND
The Baltimore Sun

By Kevin Rector
The Baltimore Sun

The trial of former Episcopal bishop Heather Cook has been delayed until September.

Former Episcopal bishop Heather Elizabeth Cook, charged in the December drunken-driving death of a popular bicyclist in Baltimore, doesn’t want to go through a “contested trial,” her attorney said Thursday.

“We would hope that we could resolve the case without trial for everyone’s sake,” including the family of 41-year-old bicyclist Thomas Palermo, David Irwin said outside Baltimore Circuit Court.

Irwin’s comments, which came shortly after a brief court proceeding in which Cook waived her right to a speedy trial and accepted a postponement until Sept. 9, were the first indication that Cook is considering accepting culpability in the case through a plea deal.

Irwin said he has made the “earliest of plea considerations,” but has only spoken “very, very briefly” with prosecutors on the matter.

Cook, 58, has pleaded not guilty to all 13 counts against her, including automobile manslaughter, driving under the influence of alcohol and leaving the scene of an accident.

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

MINNESOTA
NPR

SCOTT NEUMAN

The Archdiocese of St. Paul has been criminally charged with allegedly turning a “blind eye” to sexual abuse against minor boys by former priest Curtis Wehmeyer, who pleaded guilty in 2012.

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said he was holding the archdiocese to account as a corporation on six gross misdemeanor charges and a related civil complaint for failing to stop Wehmeyer’s abuse.

Choi said the archdiocese “time and time again turned a blind eye” to what was going on at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament in St. Paul., where Wehmeyer served. He was dismissed as a priest by Pope Francis in March, three years after he was permanently barred from ministry.

“The facts we have gathered cannot be ignored, they cannot be dismissed, and are frankly appalling, especially when viewed in their entirety,” the attorney said.

Choi said facts in the case were still being uncovered. St. Paul Police Chief Tom Smith asked anyone with information to come forward.

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

MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Head of support group holds news conference
He’ll react to charges against Catholic archdiocese
And he’ll beg other victims to “keep stepping up and speaking up”
SNAP: Choi should take church officials’ passports so they can’t flee

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a hastily-called sidewalk news conference, a Twin Cities clergy sex abuse victim who heads a support group will discuss the new criminal charges against the local Catholic archdiocese

WHEN
TODAY, Friday, June 5 at 4:15 p.m.

WHERE
On the sidewalk outside the Chancery, Archdiocese of St. Paul & Minneapolis, 226 Summit Avenue, Saint Paul, MN

WHO
At least two individuals, including Frank Meuers, Minnesota SNAP leader, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (952-334-5180, frankameuers@gmail.com)

WHY
Meuers says “The demand for justice has finally overridden the ploy of secrecy, and now charges have at last been filed. We now ask anyone with any information of abuse to come forward at once, and help facilitate this movement from silence to openness, and we congratulate the county attorney and his staff for heeding the persistent cries of so very many abused people of this diocese.”

Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, SNAP Outreach Director of SNAP, says “We’re glad the Twin Cities archdiocese is being charged. But the credit goes to brave Minnesota victims who have stepped forward and exposed wrongdoing. Their civil lawsuits, police reports and courage has made this happen.

We believe this is the first time in more than a decade that a Catholic diocese has faced criminal charges.

Catholic officials almost always hire expensive lawyers, exploit every technicality and fight bitterly to protect their clerical careers. We predict that will happen here.

So it’s not time for complacency. Every single man and woman has a moral and civic duty to call prosecutors with what they know or suspect about Twin Cities clergy sex crimes or cover ups, no matter how seemingly insignificant or long ago.

By passing a three year civil window, lawmakers gave victims hope. Victims then filed suits and police reports. And now, a big and powerful Catholic institution faces charges. That’s not ideal but its progress.

The cover ups in the Twin Cities are so widely-documented at this point, we believe John Choi had little choice but to pursue the church hierarchy. We’re glad he did. But a charge is not a conviction. So it’s crucial that current and former church staff and members overcome their fears, pick up the phone and call the law, whether they’re victims, witnesses or whistleblowers.”

Meuers will discuss his own abuse at the hands of a Minnesota priest and will take questions.

CONTACT
Barbara Dorris (314 503 0003, SNAPdorris@gmail.com)
David Clohessy (314 566 9790, SNAPclohessy@aol.com)
Verne Wagner (218-340-1277, lwagsmn@yahoo.com)

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

MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release Friday, June 5

Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, SNAP Outreach Director of SNAP, bdorris@SNAPnetwork.org, 314-503-0003

In a rare move, the Twin Cities Catholic archdiocese – where St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson spent 50 years – is being criminally charged with “a disturbing institutional and systemic pattern of behavior committed by the highest levels of leadership over the course of decades,” according to a prosecutor.

Carlson worked in the Twin Cities until 1994 and has been deposed under oath several times about clergy sex abuse and cover up cases there. The investigation is on-going and we hope that Carlson himself will be charged individually.

Carlson was born in Minneapolis, attended Catholic schools, studied at St. Paul Seminary, and ordained to the priesthood there in 1970. He earned a Master’s in Divinity from St. Paul Seminary in 1976, and went on to work as a pastor, a judge on the archdiocesan tribunal, director of the Office of Vocations, and chancellor of the curia in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. He was also chaplain at the University of St. Thomas in the Twin Cities.

In 1983, Carlson was appointed auxiliary bishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

The credit for these charges goes to brave Minnesota victims who have stepped forward and exposed wrongdoing. Their civil lawsuits, police reports and courage has made this happen.

We believe this is the first time in more than a decade that a Catholic diocese has faced criminal charges.

Catholic officials almost always hire expensive lawyers, exploit every technicality and fight bitterly to protect their clerical careers. We predict that will happen here.

So it’s not time for complacency. Every single man and woman has a moral and civic duty to call prosecutors with what they know or suspect about Twin Cities clergy sex crimes or cover ups, no matter how seemingly insignificant or long ago.

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

MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

[Investigation photos in Curtis Wehmeyer case]

By Jean Hopfensperger Star Tribune JUNE 5, 2015

The Ramsey County Attorney’s office filed criminal charges Friday against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis for “failing to protect children” from an abusive priest.

The charges stem from the archdiocese’s oversight of former priest Curtis Wehmeyer, who is now serving a prison term for abusing two boys while he was pastor of Blessed Sacrament Church in St. Paul.

“Today we are alleging a disturbing institutional and systemic pattern of behavior committed by the highest levels of leadership of the archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis over the course of decades,” said Ramsey County Attorney John Choi.

“By filing criminal charges and taking civil action, we are holding the archdiocese accountable for its failure to responsibly and meaningfully respond to numerous and repeated reports of troubling conduct by Curtis Wehmeyer.”

Choi said church officials failed to enforce their own restrictions for Wehmeyer. He cited a 2010 incident when a priest reported to Auxiliary Bishop Lee Piché that on a camping trip Wehmeyer had slept in the same bed with one of the victims.

He said others also had contacted church officials about Wehmeyer’s behavior.

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

MINNESOTA
Minneapolis/ St. Paul Business Journal

Jun 5, 2015

Cody Nelson
Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal

The Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St. Paul is being criminally charged for “failing to protect children” who were victims of sexual abuse at the hands of priests, the Pioneer Press reported Friday.

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said the organization is facing gross misdemeanor charges. No individuals were charged.

Friday’s news is just the latest in a long string of turmoil for the archdiocese that started with an investigation by MPR News.

In January, the archdiocese filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection because it couldn’t afford the claims brought against it for sex abuse lawsuits.

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

MINNESOTA
KARE

ST. PAUL, Minn. – The Ramsey County Attorney announced criminal charges against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis Friday, in response to the way sexual abuse allegations were handled within the church.

John Choi, county attorney, and St. Paul Police Chief Thomas Smith held a press conference Friday to announce six gross misdemeanors against the church and condemn the way the Archdiocese handled former priest Rev. Curtis Wehmeyer, who is currently behind bars for abusing children. A civil petition has been filed, as well.

Wehmeyer pleaded guilty in November of 2012 to several counts of criminal sexual conduct with minors and 17 felony counts of possession of child pornography. He was also charged with criminal sexual conduct with a third victim in Wisconsin. He’s currently serving a five-year sentence.

“It is not only Curtis Wehmeyer who is criminally responsible for the harm caused, but it is the Archdiocese, as well,” Choi said.

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

MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By Elizabeth Mohr
emohr@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 06/05/2015

Ramsey County attorney John Choi said Friday that a 20-month investigation has led to criminal charges against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis for “failing to protect children.”

Choi cited the case of Curtis Wehmeyer, a priest convicted of molesting two boys.

“It is not only Curtis Wehmeyer who is criminally responsible for the harm caused, but it is the archdiocese as well,” he said.

Choi called the archdiocese program to monitor problem priests “a sham.”

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

MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Jeff Anderson Statement Praising Actions of Ramsey County Attorney in Charging Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

6/5/2015

(St. Paul, MN) – The charges filed by the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office and John Choi today deserve high praise. The complaint is against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and it demonstrates and recites the problem to be a systemic one, a corporate one, by the top officials, by the Archdiocese, spanning years. It names 10 officials engaged in a pattern of conduct and alleges serious violations of law about which we have been concerned and addressing for years.

I have, in the past, been openly critical of the seeming inaction by the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office and John Choi in not charging the Archdiocese officials pertaining to Curtis Wehmeyer and others, and expressed frustration over a seeming lack of vigor. Today, I am praising the Ramsey County Attorney for taking this action. It is evident that it took that office a long time to carefully develop the evidence and to conduct their own independent investigation, armed with the documents disgorged in civil litigation and the depositions taken of the top officials, by interviewing witnesses and developing a body of evidence that has supported a criminal complaint against the Archdiocese as a corporation.

Naming the Archdiocese as a corporation implicates the wrongdoing and the failure to protect children by all of the top officials, past and present, and the scope of this demonstrates a serious systemic problem that, now, law enforcement has chosen to address in a definitive way. For that, we are grateful and it brings great comfort to the survivors and the many families who have never been able to understand why top officials have not been held accountable like ordinary citizens would be if they had made the choices this Archdiocese has.

THE MOST PRAISE GOES TO THE COURAGEOUS SURVIVORS WHO HAVE COME FORWARD, SHARED THE SECRET AND ALLOWED BOLDER ACTIONS TO BE TAKEN, AND CHANGES TO BEGIN TO BE MADE. THEIR COURAGE IS MAKING A DIFFERENCE EVERY DAY.

Contact: Jeff Anderson: Office/651.237.5143 Cell/612.817.8665
Mike Finnegan: Office/651.237.5143 Cell/612.205.5531

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

MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, June 5

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 314 503 0003, SNAPdorris@gmail.com )

We’re glad the Twin Cities archdiocese is being charged. But the credit goes to brave Minnesota victims who have stepped forward and exposed wrongdoing. Their civil lawsuits, police reports and courage has made this happen.

We believe this is the first time in more than a decade that a Catholic diocese has faced criminal charges.

Catholic officials almost always hire expensive lawyers, exploit every technicality and fight bitterly to protect their clerical careers. We predict that will happen here.

So it’s not time for complacency. Every single man and woman has a moral and civic duty to call prosecutors with what they know or suspect about Twin Cities clergy sex crimes or cover ups, no matter how seemingly insignificant or long ago.

By passing a three year civil window, lawmakers gave victims hope. Victims then filed suits and police reports. And now, a big and powerful Catholic institution faces charges. That’s not ideal but it’s progress.

The cover ups in the Twin Cities are so widely-documented at this point, we believe John Choi had little choice but to pursue the church hierarchy. We’re glad he did. But a charge is not a conviction. So it’s crucial that current and former church staff and members overcome their fears, pick up the phone and call the law, whether they’re victims, witnesses or whistleblowers.

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

MINNESOTA
KSTP

By: Jennie Lissarrague

Charges have been filed against the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis, which is accused of failing to protect children, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi announced Friday.

Choi said the charges are in relation to three victims of former priest Curtis Wehmeyer.

Six charges have been filed, all of which are gross misdemeanors. They include three counts of Contributing to Need for Protection or Services and three counts of Contributing to Status as Juvenile Petty Offender or Delinquency.

Because the charges are against a corporation rather than individuals, Choi said no one is looking at jail time; if convicted, the archdiocese faces up to $3,000 in fines on each charge.

Choi said the charges are part of a 20-month-long investigation involving more than 50 witnesses and 170,000 pages of documents.

“This case isn’t about religion,” St. Paul Police Chief Tom Smith said. “It’s about allegations of misconduct and crimes committed.”

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

MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said Friday the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis is being criminally charged for its “role in failing to protect children” from a priest’s abuse.

by Meg Martin, MPR News 1

Raw audio: Ramsey Co atty announces charges against Twin Cities archdiocese

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

[with copy of the criminal complaint]

Jon Collins
Madeleine Baran

Jun 5, 2015

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis is being criminally charged for its “role in failing to protect children and contribution to the unspeakable harm” done to three victims of former priest Curtis Wehmeyer, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said Friday.

• Sept. 23, 2013: Archdiocese knew of priest’s sexual misbehavior, yet kept him in ministry

The charges place responsibility for the abuse of those children not just on Wehmeyer “but the archdiocese as well,” Choi told reporters as he announced the charges.

Choi said the six counts qualify as gross misdemeanors and could lead to fines against the archdiocese. Prosecutors “don’t have sufficient evidence” to charge any church official at this point, he added.

The Ramsey County Attorney’s Office has also filed a civil petition against the archdiocese.

Choi said the investigation remains ongoing and “robust” and that new facts that support the allegations in the charges today have been uncovered.

Church officials time and time again turned a blind eye in the name of protecting priests at the expense of protecting children, Choi said.

• Listen: Friday’s news conference

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

MINNESOTA
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Jun. 5, 2015

The Ramsey County prosecutor has brought multiple criminal charges against the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese “for its failure to protect children” in relation to former priest Curtis Wehmeyer.

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi announced at a midday press conference Friday six charges related to three victims of sexual abuse linked to Wehmeyer, who is in jail serving a five-year sentence after he pleaded guilty in November 2012 to three felony counts of criminal sexual misconduct with two minors and 17 felony counts of possession of child pornography.

The charges — all gross misdemeanors with possible fines, according to reports out of the press conference — include three counts of contributing to the need for protection or services and three counts of contributing to status as a juvenile petty offender or delinquency. In addition, Choi brought a civil petition against the archdiocese alleging that because of conduct related to the criminal charges, the archdiocese contributed to the need for protection or services of children.

The county attorney told local media that at this stage, there is not currently sufficient evidence to bring charges against individual church officials.

“Today, we are alleging a disturbing institutional and systemic pattern of behavior committed by the highest levels of leadership of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis over the course of decades,” Choi said in a statement.

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

MINNESOTA
Los Angeles Times

By TINA SUSMAN

Prosecutors in Minneapolis announced charges Friday against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, saying clergy there caused “unspeakable harm” to young victims of sexual abuse at the hands of a former priest.

The priest, Curtis Wehmeyer, is serving a five-year prison term for sexually abusing boys while he was a pastor in St. Paul.

The charges are against a corporation — the diocese — not an individual, meaning nobody will face jail time, but the archdiocese could face fines. The charges, misdemeanors, allege that the archdiocese as a whole failed to protect children, and Ramsey County Atty. John Choi said they stem from its handling of Wehmeyer.

At a news conference on Friday, Choi said prosecutors did not have enough evidence to charge specific individuals, but he said church officials in general opted to protect priests at the expense of children.

“The allegations reveal a disturbing way in which this organization said it protected children when in reality it did not,” he said.

The charges come after a 20-month investigation led by police and county prosecutors into the handling of clergy abuse by the archdiocese. The probe was sparked by Wehmeyer’s arrest in 2012 on sexual abuse charges.

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

MINNESOTA
Daily Mail (UK)

MINNEAPOLIS, June 5 (Reuters) – Prosecutors in Minnesota brought criminal charges on Friday against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, accusing it of failing to protect children in connection with a priest who pleaded guilty in 2012 to sexual abuse.

Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said prosecutors were alleging “a disturbing institutional and systemic pattern of behavior” over the course of decades at the highest level of leadership in the archdiocese.

The six misdemeanor charges and a related civil complaint seek to hold the archdiocese accountable for the victims’ needs for protective services and their delinquency resulting from the conduct, Choi said in a statement.

Choi said the archdiocese failed to respond meaningfully to “numerous and repeated reports” of troubling conduct by priest Curtis Wehmeyer from his entrance into seminary in 1997 until his formal dismissal as a priest in March of this year.

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

MINNESOTA
Huffington Post

The Associated Press | By AMY FORLITI

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Criminal charges were filed against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis on Friday for its handling of a priest who molested children, with a prosecutor saying church leaders “turned a blind eye” to problems with the priest.

Ramsey County prosecutors charged the archdiocese as a corporation with six misdemeanor counts alleging that it failed to protect children. No individual church leaders are named in the criminal complaint.

The charges stem from the archdiocese’s handling of the Rev. Curtis Wehmeyer, who was eventually sent to prison for molesting two boys. Attorneys for several victims who sued the archdiocese have alleged that church officials waited too long between when they confronted Wehmeyer in 2012 and when they informed police, which they say gave Wehmeyer time to destroy evidence.

Wehmeyer, a former priest at Church of the Blessed Sacrament in St. Paul, later pleaded guilty to molesting two boys and was sentenced to five years in prison.

“It is not only Curtis Wehmeyer who is criminally responsible for the harm caused, but it is the archdiocese as well,” Ramsey County Attorney John Choi said Friday. He said the archdiocese “time and time again turned a blind eye” to what was going on with Wehmeyer.

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

MINNESOTA
The New York Times

By MITCH SMITH
JUNE 5, 2015

CHICAGO — Prosecutors in Minnesota filed criminal charges on Friday against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, accusing church leaders of mishandling repeated complaints of sexual abuse by a priest.

The charges and accompanying civil petition, announced by the Ramsey County prosecutor, John J. Choi, are a sweeping condemnation of the archdiocese and how its leaders have handled sex abuse allegations.

“Today, we are alleging a disturbing institutional and systemic pattern of behavior committed by the highest levels of leadership of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis over the course of decades,” Mr. Choi said in a statement.

Though there have been several allegations of sexual abuse over the years by priests in the archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Friday’s charges focus on the church’s handling of “numerous and repeated reports of troubling conduct” by Curtis Wehmeyer, who was dismissed as a priest in March.

Mr. Wehmeyer, 50, was sentenced to five years in 2013 for criminal sexual conduct and possession of child pornography. He is in prison in Minnesota, and he has been charged with sex crimes in Wisconsin.

The six criminal charges, all misdemeanors with a maximum fine of $3,000, accused the archdiocese of failing to protect children. Mr. Choi also filed a civil petition against the archdiocese that he said was intended to provide legal remedies to prevent similar inaction from happening again.

Civil cases against the archdiocese and priests have poured in since 2013, when the Minnesota State Legislature passed the Child Victims Act, which opened a three-year window for filing lawsuits involving claims of sexual abuse that were beyond the legal statute of limitations.

David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said he was pleased to hear of the indictment, “but the credit goes to

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, June 5

Statement by Verne Wagner of Duluth, Northeast MN SNAP director ( 218- 340-1277, lwagsmn@yahoo.com )

We’re glad Bishop Paul Sirba met with one parish about Fr. Brian Lederer.

[Hibbing Daily Tribune]

But predator priests molest at more than one location and often hurt non-Catholic kids too. So Duluth Catholic officials should hold an open public meeting about this case, answer questions, and prod anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes by Fr. Lederer or cover ups by his colleagues to call law enforcement.

Meeting with dozens at one church is damage control. Reaching thousands through public outreach is real reform.

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ARKANSAS
People

Despite outcry from the Duggars, police records detailing how Josh Duggar molested five underage girls as a teen – including four of his sisters and the family babysitter – were not illegally released, the Springdale, Arkansas, city attorney said in a statement Thursday.

Last month, after consulting with Springdale City Attorney Ernest Cate, the city’s police chief, Kathy O’Kelley, released the scathing, 2006 police report containing child molestation accusations against the 19 Kids and Counting stars’ eldest son to a tabloid, which unleashed a media firestorm and led to Josh resigning from his job at the Family Research Council.

During their exclusive interview with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly Wednesday night, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar said they believe their son’s police records were illegally released – and that they are looking into taking legal action to make sure this never happens again.

“This information was released illegally,” Jim Bob told Kelly. “I wonder why all of this press is not going after the system for releasing juvenile records. That is a huge story.”

But Cate says that the Springdale Police Department did not break any laws. “On May 20, 2015,” his statement reads, “in full compliance with Arkansas law, the Springdale Police Department responded to a records request under the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act.

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UNTIED STATES
Breitbart

by JOHN NOLTE
5 Jun 20150

Let’s not fool ourselves. We are not talking about a youthful indiscretion here — we are not talking about smoking dope, a DWI, a shoplifting beef, or even a secret abortion. At the age of 14 and 15, Josh Duggar molested five underage girls. Four of those girls were his sisters. One of those sisters was only five-years-old at the time. According to Josh’s own parents, Jim Bob and Michelle, the “touching” occurred both on top of and under the clothes of the victims, and at times, when the victims were asleep.

Let me repeat:

Josh Duggar molested 5 underage girls.

Josh Duggar molested his own sisters.

Josh Duggar molested a sister who was five-years-old.

This is an abominable crime, and the fact that Josh Duggar escaped paying for this crime through our criminal justice system is more than just a little troubling. The idea that, even as a juvenile, you can molest five underage girls and face no legal consequence is inexcusable.

From what I can glean from this mess of a story, sometime in 2003, after Josh admitted to his parents for a second time that he was still molesting his own sisters (and one outsider), his dad decided it was time to tell law enforcement what was going on.

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NEW YORK
Road to Recovery

MEDIA RELEASE – JUNE 5, 2015

Hollywood screenwriter Neal E. Gumpel, who was sexually abused as a minor child by known Jesuit priest pedophile Roy Alan Drake, SJ, will be joined by his wife, Helen Gumpel, retired successful fashion model and actress, who thwarted a sexual attack in Bill Cosby’s dressing room on the set of “The Cosby Show,” at Alumni Weekend at Fordham University to draw attention to the lack of appropriate response by Fordham University, Fordham Prep School, and the Northeast Province of the Jesuit Fathers and Brothers to the sexual abuse allegations of Neal E. Gumpel.

Rev. Joseph Mc Shane, SJ, President of Fordham University, will give a talk during Alumni Weekend entitled, “Fordham: Living the Mission” but will probably not include the hypocrisy of the Jesuit Fathers and Brothers in not acknowledging the sexual abuse of a minor boy by Fr. Roy Alan Drake, SJ, and not helping him heal. Alumni will be called upon to remind Fr. Mc Shane and the Jesuits of their mission to validate and help heal those harmed by their own members, especially Neal E. Gumpel.

What
A press conference and leafleting alerting the media, alumni and supporters of Fordham University, Fordham Prep, the Northeast Province of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), and the general public of the refusal of these institutions and organizations to help a clergy sexual abuse victim of one of its priests and teachers, Fr. Roy Alan Drake, SJ, heal by validating his claim of sexual abuse as a minor child.

When
Saturday, June 6, 2015 from 10:00 am until 11:30 am – President Rev. Joseph Mc Shane’s address to alumni begins at 11:00 am in Duane Library.

Where
On the public sidewalk outside the motor vehicle entrance to Fordham University, Bronx, New York, across from the New York Botanical Gardens on Southern Boulevard.

Who
Hollywood screenwriter Neal E. Gumpel, a resident of Connecticut and son of two Fordham University alumni (Jane and Dr. Roy); Helen Gumpel, wife of Neal E. Gumpel, former successful fashion model and actress who appeared in an episode of “The Cosby Show”; and members of Road to Recovery, Inc., a non-profit charity that assists victims of sexual abuse and their families.

Why
Neal E. Gumpel was an unsuspecting high school minor teenager when his brother invited him to spend a weekend at Maine Maritime Academy in Castine, Maine. Rev. Roy Alan Drake, SJ, was a Jesuit priest from Fordham Prep School and the greater Fordham Jesuit community who was working at the time at Maine Maritime Academy and invited Neal E. Gumpel to his residence on or near the campus, served him alcohol and sexually abused him. Demonstrators will call on Fordham University, Fordham Prep School, and the Northeast Province of the Society of Jesus to do the right thing by validating the claim of Neal E. Gumpel and helping Neal E. Gumpel heal.

Contacts
Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., Road to Recovery, Inc. (Fordham Alumnus, Ph.D. 1988) – 862-368-2800
Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, Boston, MA – 617-523-6250

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AUSTRALIA
Exame

Sidney — O cardeal George Pell, terceira autoridade mais influente do Vaticano, enfrenta acusações de criar um programa de compensação de vítimas de abusos sexuais para proteger os ativos da Igreja e de fazer uso de táticas agressivas para desencorajar as vítimas a ingressar com ações judiciais quando era bispo na Austrália.

Pell, que no ano passado foi colocado à frente das finanças do Vaticano pelo Papa Francisco, também se defronta com acusações relacionadas ao início de sua carreira, quando era padre e auxiliar de bispo.

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

CANADA
BBC News

[with video]

A report on Canada’s history of separating indigenous children from their parents at residential schools has called the practice “cultural genocide”. But what does the proposed reconciliation mean for survivors?

In 1966, five-year-old Joseph Maud was separated from his family and sent to live at a Canadian residential school for indigenous students in Pine Creek, Manitoba.

Forty-nine years later, he returned to the site of the former school with the BBC. Even after five decades, the experience is still fresh in his mind.

“My reconciliation includes trying to reconcile with that five-year-old boy – and that nothing was his fault.” Maud says.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

JUNE 06, 2015

Rebecca Puddy
Reporter
Adelaide

The Catholic Church in Adelaide has conceded that the damage caused to disabled children and their families by a convicted sex offender can never be ­repaired.

The child sex abuse royal commission this week handed down its findings on the church’s handling of offences against disabled children at St Ann’s school in the late 1980s and early 90s by pedophile Brian Perkins.

Adelaide Archdiocese Vicar General Philip Marshall said the church would do all it could to stop child abuse. “I don’t think you can ever repair the damage that those children went through,” he said.

Father Marshall declined to comment on compensation claims for three of the victims, which were still being negotiated with the church.

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AUSTRALIA
The Saturday Paper

Diarist-at-large Richard Ackland flys about the nation.

Cardinal Pell is fortunate, indeed, to have sermons delivered on his behalf by Father Gerard Henderson, the texts of which are published regularly in The Catholic Boys Weekly, aka Lord Moloch’s Weekend Australian.

As a result the Cardinal’s public standing could not be in better shape. According to Hendo, Pell has dedicated his life to hunting down clerical paedophiles in his midst and if anyone thinks otherwise it is the fault of the ABC, Mark Scott, and left-wing journalists.

I couldn’t agree more. In recent sermons Fr Gerard recounted how he wrote to current ABC chairman J. J. Spigelman asking him to “renounce” the comments of one of his long-ago predecessors as chairman of Aunty, Professor Richard Downing, who defended an ABC program in 1975 that discussed “the phenomenon of paederasty”.

It’s a complete puzzle why Spigsy is not busying himself rummaging through ABC programs of 40 years ago and “renouncing” ones that Fr Gerard says represent a “double standard”.

Such is life in the Spigeltent.

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MISSOURI
Riverfront Times

By Danny Wicentowski Fri., Jun. 5 2015

For critics of First Christian Church of Florissant’s embattled lead pastor Steve Wingfield, the road to reform has been paved with hollow promises and paper victories.

In April, Wingfield sued four former members of the north St. Louis County megachurch for defamation. These so-called whistleblowers, Wingfield insisted, were actually spreading lies about how he’d supposedly ignored early warnings about Brandon Milburn, a charismatic youth minister who this March was sentenced to 25 years in prison for sexually abusing two young boys between 2007 and 2009.

Milburn’s crime devastated the 2,500-member congregation, some of whom believe Wingfield hasn’t done nearly enough to help Milburn’s victims or come clean about the full scope of his work at the church. Some current and former members are calling for Wingfield’s resignation, while his supporters (including the church’s board of elders) have stood firm behind their leader.

But the tide may be shifting. Last month, Wingfield dismissed the defamation lawsuit against the four former church members. Now, one of those defendants, a woman named Dawn Varvil, is taking some demands of her own to Wingfield.

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UNITED KINGDOM
West Briton

By CMJohannaCarr | Posted: June 05, 2015

THE FORMER communications chief for the Bishop of Truro is facing jail after pleading guilty to sexual offences against five young boys.

At Truro Crown Court on Friday, Jeremy Dowling, 76, of Church Path, Bude, admitted 15 counts of sexually abusing the boys, who cannot be named for legal reasons, between 1959 and 1971.

The pensioner retired as communications officer for the Truro Diocese in 2009, having worked for several bishops over the previous 25 years.

He was also a governor at Budehaven School for 18 years, before stepping down in 2013.

Dowling admitted four counts of indecently assault one boy aged under-13, including at a cricket match and in an outside toilet.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Pirate FM

A former press officer for the Bishop of Truro admits a string of child sex offences.

Jeremy Dowling worked for the Diocese for 25 years before he retired in 2009.

He has admitted fifteen charges spanning over a decade from 1959 to 1971.

The case was adjourned for the preparation of a pre-sentence report on Dowling by the probation service.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A Diocese of Truro press officer has admitted sexually abusing boys over a period of more than 10 years.

Jeremy Dowling, 76, carried out the assaults on five children, aged between 12 and 15, from 1959 to 1971.

Truro Crown Court heard Dowling abused the boys at sporting events and in toilets while working as a teacher in Devon.

The Bishop of Truro described Dowling’s offences as “deeply shocking” and said his thoughts were with the victims.

Sentencing was adjourned until July 10 for a pre-sentence report to be prepared.

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UNITED STATES
The Wall Street Journal

By ALLYSIA FINLEY
June 4, 2015

When Pope Francis visits Washington, D.C., in September, he will canonize Junipero Serra, the 18th-century Franciscan priest who led the spread of Christianity in the New World. Last month, the pope exalted Father Serra for ushering “in a new springtime of evangelization in those immense territories, extending from Florida to California.”

Ironically, the Spanish missionary who will become the U.S.’s first Hispanic saint is being vilified by multiculturalists as a rapacious imperialist. To add injury to insult, in the lead-up to the pontiff’s visit, liberal legislators in Sacramento are looking to remove the soon-to-be-saint’s statue in the U.S. Capitol.

Father Serra spent most of his missionary life in Mexico. However, his greatest legacy was founding California’s first nine missions—there are 21—and the 600-mile connecting trail El Camino Real that runs from San Diego to Sonoma. Dozens of roads and schools, including NFL quarterback Tom Brady’s alma mater, are named in his honor. Generations of California fourth-graders have had to construct miniature cardboard models of the missions.

While being Christianized, natives learned how to cultivate crops, raise livestock, weave clothes, make soap and perform other tasks necessary to sustain themselves. Father Serra was as integral to California’s founding as John Winthrop was to the settlement of Plymouth Bay. Gov. Jerry Brown has hailed the priest as “a very courageous man and one of the innovators and pioneers of California.”

Yet revisionist historians take a dim view of the missions. A fourth-grade state history textbook (which my class used in 1997) noted that “for the people who had lived in California for hundreds of years before the Spanish arrived, the growth of the missions was tragic . . . Thousands of Indians died, and by the end of the 1800s much of the Indian way of life had died also.”

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MINNESOTA
Hibbing Daily Tribune

Posted: Friday, June 5, 2015

by Brian Arola Staff Writer barola@hibbingdailytribune.net

HIBBING — Bishop Paul Sirba of the Diocese of Duluth held a town hall-style meeting with parishioners of Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church Tuesday to answer questions in the aftermath of sexual misconduct charges levied against the church’s associate pastor in May.

Brian Lederer, the priest charged with five felony counts of sexual conduct on May 7, is currently on administrative leave from the parish. He was expected to appear in St. Louis County Court in Hibbing Thursday, but the hearing was reset to July 23. He has yet to enter a plea.

The hour of question and answer time drew more than 100 individuals to St. Leo’s Hall, with questions ranging from what will happen next for Lederer, to what Assumption School is doing in response to the alleged incidents.

Sirba started out the hour by stating that Lederer’s future status with the church will be dependant upon the court’s determination.

While labelling the allegations as “credible,” he called on parishioners to let the legal process play out before prejudging the case.

“Civil authorities have taken their rightful place in conducting an investigation,” Sirba said. “We still have, by law, the presumption of innocence.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

June 6, 2015

John Silvester
Crime reporter, The Age

Collusion, cover-ups and conspiracies are usually the domain of Hollywood writers, the naive and the slightly nutty. Except, that is, when they are true.

In recent times senior police have condemned leaders of the Catholic Church for failure to co-operate with investigations into sexual assaults by clergy members.

About two years ago Victoria’s then deputy commissioner (and now new Chief Commissioner) Graham Ashton told a state parliamentary inquiry, “The processes of the Catholic Church are designed to put the reputation of the church first and the victims second”.

But the terrible truth is that for decades police were part of the problem, with key officers actively working for the church and against fellow officers investigating rogue priests.

They were known as the Catholic mafia – men who covered up crimes, tipped off the church and allowed sex offenders to continue molesting children – all in the name of protecting their religious institution.

Some were local sub officers that stood over younger police. One became a commander and had state-wide influence and yet another was a key member of the CIB and monitored major investigations.

And if there is a God they must have all gone to hell in the express lane.

Some issues were relatively minor. A recently retired officer remembers, “During the early 1970s Catholic priests were bullet-proof. I recall even in the early 1980s one of my constables booked a priest for speeding and was forced to withdraw the ticket after being lectured about the correct procedures by the (extremely Catholic) senior sergeant.”

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NEW YORK
Buffalo Business First

Jun 5, 2015

Michael Petro
Buffalo Business First

A few months ago, Diane Tiveron and some of her colleagues at HoganWillig went to Albany to stand behind state Assemblyman Margaret Markey as she lobbied for the Child Victims Act of NY.

The Amherst law firm represents Buffalo natives Antonio Flores and Vanessa DeRosa, victims of child sexual abuse who are now adults with no legal remedy due to the state’s statute of limitations on such cases.

Tiveron, the firm’s managing partner, was in Albany on behalf of her clients but also, she said, because she felt the reform effort was right and just.

She pointed out that New York is on the wrong end of an anomaly among states that allow only five years after a victim’s 18th birthday to commence a lawsuit against their abuser.

The five years is on the lower end of similar state statutes, joining the ranks of such places as Georgia, Alabama and Missouri, she said. Many other states have expanded the number of years in their statutes or have no limitations.

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CANADA
Catholic Culture

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) has responded to the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, which was established in 2008 to examine the treatment of Native Americans in religious residential schools.

From 1884 to 1948, Canadian law compelled Native Americans to send their children away from home to residential schools, most of which were Catholic or Anglican institutions. The last residential school closed in 1996, and in 2009, Pope Benedict apologized for “the deplorable conduct of some members of the Church.”

“Seventeen dioceses and 37 religious institutes” were “involved in managing and helping to operate the former Indian Residential Schools which were under the jurisdiction of the Government of Canada,” the CCCB stated in a notice posted on its website.

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CANADA
Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops

Immediately following the presentation of the summary report by Justice Murray Sinclair, Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), on June 2, 2015, the Most Reverend Gerard Pettipas, C.Ss.R., Archbishop of Grouard-McLennan and President of the corporation of Catholic Entities party to the Indian Residential Schools Settlement (CEPIRSS), released a statement. CEPIRSS represents 17 dioceses and 37 religious institutes involved in managing and helping to operate the former Indian Residential Schools which were under the jurisdiction of the Government of Canada.

A joint statement was also issued on behalf of The Anglican Church of Canada, The Presbyterian Church in Canada, the Roman Catholic Entities Parties to the Settlement Agreement, The United Church of Canada, and the Jesuits of English Canada.

Neither the Catholic Bishops of Canada as a whole nor the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) was ever involved in the operations or management of the former Indian Residential Schools. The Anglican Church of Canada, The Presbyterian Church in Canada, and the United Church of Canada were involved as national bodies in decision-making and management involving the schools. However, the CCCB is not the national office of the Catholic Church in Canada, nor does it have authority over dioceses or religious communities in the country.

Link to the statement by Archbishop Pettipas (PDF)

Link to the joint statement

Link to a summary report on media coverage (PDF)

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VATICAN CITY
euronews

By Philip Pullella

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – The Vatican appointed its first auditor-general on Friday in Pope Francis’ latest move aimed at ensuring transparency in the scandal-plagued finances at the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church.

A statement said the pope, who has made cleaning up finances a major plank of his papacy, had chosen Libero Milone, a 66-year-old Italian who is a former chairman and CEO of the global auditing firm Deloitte in Italy.

Cardinal George Pell, head of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy, has said the auditor-general will be autonomous, answerable only to the pope and free to “go anywhere and everywhere” in the Vatican to review the finances and management of any department.

Milone was born in the Netherlands and has experience working as an accountant in major firms in Britain, Italy, and the United States. He has also worked as an auditor for the Rome-based United Nations World Food Programme and major Italian companies such as car maker Fiat and the Wind telecoms group.

As a result of the clean up campaign, the Vatican bank, which had been embroiled in numerous scandals in the past, has enacted a wide-ranging drive to tighten financial governance and eliminate abuse.

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NEW YORK
The JC

June 4, 2015

A New York rabbi who was once considered for the post of chief rabbi of Britain has been accused of encouraging male members of his congregation to join him for naked sauna sessions.

Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt, currently the leading rabbi at Riverdale Jewish Centre in the Bronx, is a well-respected member of New York’s Orthodox Jewish community and a visiting scholar at Harvard University.

However, the New York Times published an article last weekend in which several of his former students claimed that he had a habit of inviting them into the sauna with him after a game of squash. The young men were allegedly encouraged to strip naked, and some claimed that he stared at them in the showers. One man claimed that when he was 15 years old, the rabbi invited him over for late-night conversations, during which he frequently put his hand on the boy’s leg.

The allegations against Mr Rosenblatt reach back as far as 1988, when Sura Jeselsohn, a parent in Mr Rosenblatt’s congregation, made complaints regarding his behaviour.

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NEW YORK
JTA

(JTA) — The board of a New York synagogue in a letter to congregants said its rabbi, Jonathan Rosenblatt, committed “no misconduct” amid a debate about the propriety of his sauna talks with boys and young men launched by a published report.

In its letter sent Tuesday to members of the Riverdale Jewish Center in the Bronx, the board wrote that Rosenblatt adhered to established guidelines when playing racquetball and visiting the showers and sauna with boys and young men from the congregation.

Over the weekend, The New York Times wrote in an article that some of these congregants and former congregants of the modern Orthodox synagogue discussed the trips to the sauna during which the rabbi “engaged the boys in searching conversations about their lives, problems and faith.” Some of the boys were “uncomfortable” with the rabbi in the sauna, according to the article, and some said he gawked at and touched them.

According to the synagogue board’s letter, “We recognize that there are strong feelings about the situation and the appropriate steps the congregation should take going forward. We want to assure you the Board agreed upon a process that includes gathering more information and giving careful consideration to our options in the best interest of the community.”

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NEW YORK
The Jewish Link

BY PHIL JACOBS

Riverdale—Michael Stein had a particularly difficult and late night last Sunday.

The Riverdale Jewish Center board member and former assistant rabbi to Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt, the shul’s spiritual leader, was collecting some 40 signatures of former RJC rabbinic interns in support of their mentor.

All of Stein’s efforts were part of an effort to offset the impact of a New York Times story detailing Rabbi Rosenblatt’s use of a shvitz or sauna as a part of his rabbinic practice. There after a game of squash with a youth or adult, he’d be nude in the athletic facility’s open showers with congregation members, students, youth, young adults or others and then both would cover up with a towel in the sauna. That, according to Stein, was where a great deal of relationship building, counseling and bonding would take place.

“Never,” said Stein, who was also a rabbinic intern at RJC, “did it involve touch or anything that was sexual. That is and was never the intention of the rabbi.”

The synagogue has gone into damage control since the Times story was published.

Indeed, its executive committee released a letter Tuesday to its membership directed at the Times article.

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By Eleanor Gordon-Smith, 5/6/2015

Way back in 2012 — a safer time, when Skywhale was just a multi-boobed glimmer in Patricia Piccinini’s eye — the Gillard government announced The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

You might have seen it in the news this week, because on Monday Cardinal George Pell was called back from the Vatican to front the Commission’s second hearing in Ballarat later this year.

Is Child Abuse In This Country Really So Bad?

Well, that’s one of the things we wanted to find out. It all started with Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, who contra to popular belief is not the villain in a Roald Dahl short story, but a brave and experienced police officer. Fox told a November 2012 episode of Lateline that the scale of sexual abuse allegations he had seen was “astonishing” and said “the [Catholic] Church hinders police investigations”, as he called for a royal commission.

About a week after that interview, Prime Minister Gillard announced the creation of the royal commission, saying there were “too many revelations of adults who have averted their eyes from this evil”. The commission proceeded with bipartisan support, in part because it did not set out to investigate just the Catholic Church. It would be about “institutions”, including schools, youth groups, exercise clubs and the Church.

The commissioners come from a diverse range of backgrounds, and assembled for this task like the bespectacled white-haired Avengers: there’s an ex-cop (Bob Atkinson) a child psychiatrist (Helen Milroy), a judge (Jennifer Coate), a senator (Andrew Murray), and Thor.

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TENNESSEE
WBIR

Brittany Bade, WBIR

(WBIR-Greeneville) A former East Tennessee priest, convicted of raping an altar boy in 2011, wants a new trial.

William Casey is serving a more than 30 years after he was convicted of inappropriately touching Warren Tucker in the 1970’s.

“He used to take me back and forth from Kingsport to Greene County. Where he lives and had a rural cabin on his property. There was the majority of the abuse,” said Tucker, who was last living in Indiana, in the 2011 trial.

Tucker’s 40-year-old memories were called into question in the Summer of 2013, when the former priest tried to get his conviction thrown out. His then-attorneys argued too much time passed between the crime and the trial, but his conviction was upheld. …

SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, told 10News in a statement, “We’re sad that an admitted predator priest is rubbing salt into the wounds of his victims by making yet another desperate legal move to escape responsibility for his heinous crimes by exploiting legal technicalities.”

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Daily

By S. I. Rosenbaum June 4, 2015

If you’ve followed the abrupt, strange downfall of Rabbi Barry Starr, the Commonwealth’s case against him goes a long way toward defending his character.

Starr was arraigned Tuesday, pleading not guilty to charges of embezzlement and larceny. He’s accused of misappropriating thousands of dollars in temple funds and loans from congregants at Temple Israel in Sharon, where he served as a rabbi for 28 years. The money allegedly went to pay off Nick Zemeitus, a Milton man who was allegedly blackmailing the rabbi over an alleged sexual encounter. (Zemeitus was arraigned last month on charges of extortion and larceny, and is being held on $400,000 cash bail.)

Yet as the District Attorney’s office lays out the charges against Starr, it also takes pains to counter what it says are “lies” Zemeitus told. For example: In an email found on Starr’s computer, Zemeitus wrote demanding money from Starr and threatening to expose what he said was a sexual liaison between Starr and Zemeitus’s brother, a sixteen-year-old boy. This detail, included in early police reports, was quickly repeated in media stories that did not debunk Zemeitus’s claim.

But as it turns out, Zemeitus admitted he was an only child. “Zemeitus lied in his emails about having a younger brother,” the DA’s office wrote in the statement. And police investigators found not even “a single incident of child pornography or allegations,” or any child porn images on Starr’s computer, the DA’s office wrote.

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NEW YORK
JTA

June 4, 2015

NEW YORK (JTA) — Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt asserted his innocence in his first public comment since the publication of a New York Times article about his habit of inviting young males to join him for naked heart-to-heart talks in the sauna.

In a letter sent Thursday to congregants of his Orthodox synagogue, the Riverdale Jewish Center in New York, Rosenblatt said he never did anything unlawful, does not agree with the accusations and attacks against him, and regrets if his conduct inadvertently offended anyone. He did not acknowledge any inappropriate behavior.

“If any of you feel that my behavior, even if innocent, was inappropriate, I apologize to those affected,” he wrote.

Earlier in the week, the board of the Riverdale Jewish Center sent a letter to congregants saying that Rosenblatt was not involved in any “misconduct.”

The story published last Friday on the Times website focused on Rosenblatt’s custom for decades of inviting male congregants or students, some as young as 12, to play squash or racquetball, then join him in the public shower and sauna or steam room, often naked. No one cited in the story accused Rosenblatt of sexual touching, but several expressed their discomfort with the practice and described the behavior as deeply inappropriate for a rabbi and mentor. At various times, Rosenblatt was told by rabbinic bodies or his congregation’s board to limit such activity.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Church Times

by Madeleine Davies

Posted: 05 Jun 2015

CALLS have been made for the Church of England to open up its safeguarding files to independent review, after the example set by the Methodist Church last week.

The Methodist Church published a report, Courage, Cost and Hope, on Thursday of last week, and offered survivors of abuse a “full and unreserved apology”. The 100-page document is an independent review, spanning 64 years and identifying nearly 2000 cases of abuse. Six police investigations have been instigated as …

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

5 June, 2015

This is the second stage of the Royal Commission’s public hearing examining preventing child sexual abuse in out-of-home care and responding to allegations of child sexual abuse occurring in out-of-home care.

Evidence will be received from care leavers, representatives from organisations which provide advocacy and support services and oversight bodies (Children’s Guardians, Public Advocates, Children’s Commissioners and Ombudsmen).

The scope and purpose of the public hearing is to inquire into:

1. The incidence of child sexual abuse in contemporary out-of-home care settings.

2. Recruitment, assessment and training of carers in out-of-home care.

3. Monitoring and oversight of children in out-of-home care in the context of preventing child sexual abuse and responding to allegations of child sexual abuse.

4. Systems, policies, practices and procedures for

a. reporting allegations of child sexual abuse in out-of-home care
b. responding to allegations of child sexual abuse in out-of-home care, and
c. supporting children who have been sexually abused in out-of-home care.

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VATICAN CITY
Fortune

by Shawn Tully JUNE 4, 2015

Under new leadership, the Institute of Religious Works is looking to progress from handling deposits to asset management.

For decades, the Institute for Religious Works embarrassed the Vatican with a legion of alleged sins––rampant money-laundering, thwarting Italian authorities by concealing the identity of its depositors, and an arrogance that might be best expressed by the phrase, “God’s bankers do their own thing. The rest of the banking world can do theirs.” Even bank offices in a medieval prison tower commissioned by Pope Sixtus V deepened the dark legend.

But since early 2013, the IOR, informally called the Vatican Bank, has modernized its operations and rescued its reputation. Today, the IOR is tightly regulated by the Vatican’s SEC, the Department of Financial Intelligence. It regularly exchanges tax and other information on its depositors with the Italian government. It publishes richly detailed annual reports, which are audited by Deloitte.

Now, IOR’s president, Jean-Baptiste de Franssu, wants to transform the bank’s business model. Appointed last July, de Franssu is the IOR’s second professional leader, and the former European chief of Invesco, the $800 billion-plus mutual fund colossus based in Atlanta.

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ROME
The Guardian

Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Rome
Friday 5 June 2015

George Pell has always courted – some say relished – controversy. From the time the staunchly conservative Australian cardinal suggested that sex abuse had never been a systemic problem in the Catholic church, to his refusal in the past to grant communion to gay Catholics – saying God did not make “Adam and Steve” – Pell’s uncompromising style has ruffled feathers.

Now Pell – a senior official in charge of church finances – is embroiled in a bruising fight of a different sort: one that has pit him against a layman, Peter Saunders, who was handpicked by Pope Francis last year to help rehabilitate the church following years of sex abuse scandals and cover-ups.

This week Saunders claimed in an interview in Australia that Pell’s allegedly “callous” past treatment of sex abuse victims was “almost sociopathic”.

In response, Pell – who has vehemently denied allegations that he once sought to bribe an abuse victim in return for his silence, among other cover-up allegations – said he would seek advice on legal action against Saunders, who is a survivor of sex abuse and a member of the pope’s commission on abuse in the church. Pell has previously apologised to victims of clergy sex abuse for the pain they endured.

The loaded exchange occurred after witnesses spoke out against Pell at a hearing before an Australian royal commission on child abuse. Claims that Pell ignored or sought to silence allegations of abuse are more than a decade old. Pell has denied all of the claims and was summoned to testify at the next hearing by the royal commission. A date has not yet been set.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

THE Catholic Church has reaffirmed an apology to students and families affected by abuse at a school in Adelaide following a damning report from the sex abuse royal commission.

IT has also pledged to circulate the findings to every Catholic school principal in SA to ensure they are complying with policies and practices to prevent such abuse happening again.

Vicar General Philip Marshall said the report made it clear systemic failures at St Ann’s Special School allowed bus driver Brian Perkins to abuse intellectually disabled children between 1986 and 1991.

Father Marshall repeated the “full and complete” apology first offered in 2002 for the “suffering and anguish” inflicted on the children and their families.

In its report on Thursday the abuse inquiry detailed a litany of failures by police, the school and the church in their handling of the St Ann’s case.

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AUSTRALIA
Headlines from the Catholic World

Canberra, Australia, Jun 5, 2015 / 12:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A group of Australian bishops have emphasized Cardinal George Pell’s record of leadership against clergy sex abuse following critical news broadcasts and comments from a member of the pontifical council against abuse.

“He is a man of integrity who is committed to the truth and to helping others, particularly those who have been hurt or who are struggling,” seven bishops said of the cardinal in a June 3 statement.

They said the cardinal was one of the first bishops to implement a comprehensive response to investigate alleged sex abuse by Catholic clergy and to help abuse victims.

The seven bishops included Archbishops Anthony Fisher of Sydney, Mark Coleridge of Brisbane, Timothy Costelloe of Perth, Julian Porteous of Hobart, and Christopher Prowse of Canberra-Goulburn. Bishop Peter Comensoli of Broken Bay and Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney Terence Brady also signed the statement.

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NEW YORK
WHEC

A former Rochester man has been charged in a sexual abuse case involving a church youth group.
Roy Battle, age 36, who now lives in California, has been indicted on charges of sexual abuse in the first degree.

We’re told the charges stem from the abuse of two teenage boys who were members of a church youth group that Battle led from 2005 to 2012.

Police say Battle was charged following an investigation that began in July 2014 when one of the boys came forward saying Battle “subjected him to inappropriate sexual contact.” We’re told the contact happened at Battle’s home on Glendale Park.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

South Australian Catholic schools will review their procedures after a damning report was handed down into the church’s employment of paedophile Brian Perkins.

About 30 intellectually disabled students were sexually abused by Perkins in the late 1980s and early ’90s at St Ann’s Special School at Marion, which is now closed but was run by the Catholic Education Office.

Perkins worked as a bus driver at the school between 1986 and 1991, and also undertook volunteer work, but it was not until 2003 that he was convicted of abusing three children.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Thursday released its findings into the case, and identified a number of failings by the school, the police and Catholic Church.

It found the school did not comply with its own policies on volunteer supervision, and the school principal failed to report the initial allegations of abuse.

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TENNESSEE
WATE

Laura Halm, WATE 6 On Your Side Reporter

GREENEVILLE (WATE) – A former East Tennessee priest, convicted of rape, is asking for a new trial.

William Casey was sentenced to a 35 year prison term in 2011 for aggravated rape and sexual misconduct in a case dating back to the 1970s. The now-adult victim, Warren Tucker, says the abuse lasted for years.

Casey has recently hired a new attorney, Frank X. Santore, Jr. The State of Appeals Court has already upheld Casey’s conviction and was denied permission to appeal to the Tennessee Supreme Court. Santore says he can’t get Casey’s conviction thrown out, so he wants a new trial.

“I am not sitting here saying this is going to be a slam dunk. In fact, we have the burden going forward by clear and convincing evidence here. The presumption of innocence is removed,” said Santore. …

Catholic Diocese of Knoxville spokesperson Jim Wogan sent us the following: “These allegations were thoroughly investigated years ago. A court of law made its decision in 2011. Beyond that, the Diocese of Knoxville will have no further comment on this matter.”

According to SNAP, Survivors Network Abused by Priests, Warren Tucker does know about this post-conviction relief petition and is very concerned. SNAP says they hope this petition is not granted because it means dragging the victim through horrible experiences all over again. The organization adds they do know that the law can take many turns, so they’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, they’ll continue to listen and advocate for victims

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AUSTRALIA
Perth Now

Mother of St Ann’s Special School paedophile victim says commission findings won’t diminish impact of the crimes

THE mother of one of Brian Perkins’ vulnerable young victims says the royal commission findings would allow those affected to “get the real truth”, but the horrific crimes would live with them forever.

Helen Gitsham told The Advertiser the commission had confirmed her beliefs about the scandal that “anything that could go wrong did go wrong”.

Her son David attended the school from 1975 to 1988 while paedophile bus driver David Perkins was employed at the school.

His behaviour deteriorated in the years after, but it was not until 2001 when the abuse was uncovered publicly they began to suspect he had been a victim of Perkins.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

REPORT OF CASE STUDY NO. 9 :The responses of the Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide, and the South Australian Police, to allegations of child sexual abuse at St Ann’s Special School

Executive summary

St Ann’s Special School was located in Adelaide in South Australia. St Ann’s was owned and operated by Catholic Special Schools Incorporated (CSSI). It was established in 1975 and became Our Lady of La Vang School in 2013.

The school catered for students with intellectual disabilities ranging from a moderate to profound level of severity. Many of the children enrolled at the school had limited communication abilities. There were between 50 and 60 students at the school. They were aged between five and 20 years old.

Mr Brian Perkins was born on 20 February 1936. In 1956 he was convicted of abduction of a child by force or fraud. He was sentenced to a three-year good behaviour bond. In 1968, he was convicted of carnal knowledge or attempted carnal knowledge and sentenced to 12 months’ imprisonment. In 1974, he was convicted of carnal knowledge or attempted carnal knowledge and sentenced to two months’ imprisonment and a $50 fine. He also had previous convictions in South Australia and Victoria between 1952 and 1974 for larceny and minor dishonesty offences.

Mr Claude Hamam was the principal of St Ann’s from September 1985 to December 1996.

Mr Perkins applied for a job at St Ann’s as a bus driver. The job required him to take children with intellectual and communication disabilities to and from the school each day while unsupervised.

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