ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
60 Minutes

60 Minutes broadcasts an extraordinary development surrounding Australia’s most senior Catholic, Cardinal George Pell.

“I think it’s critical that George Pell is moved aside, that he is sent back to Australia, and that the Pope takes the strongest action against him.” These are the damning words of Peter Saunders, the man handpicked by Pope Francis to sit on the new Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

In an interview with Tara Brown in Rome, Peter gives a wide-ranging and damning assessment of Cardinal Pell’s actions to date, and calls for Pope Francis to move against him.

“He is making a mockeryof the papal commission, of the Pope himself, but most of all of the victims and the survivors. More importantly, anybody who is a serious obstacle to the work of the commission and to the work of the Pope in trying to clean up the church’s act over this matter needs to be taken aside very quickly and removed from any kind of position of influence.”

STATEMENT BY SPOKESPERSON FOR CARDINAL GEORGE PELL

31 May 2015

Cardinal Pell has not seen the material that 60 Minutes is planning to broadcast this evening.

The Cardinal has not met and has not been approached by Mr Saunders.

Cardinal Pell knows of the important work Mr Saunders has done as a survivor of abuse to assist victims, including the establishment of a victims survivors group in the United Kingdom and more recently serving as member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors established by the Holy Father to develop policy to achieve this.

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

IRELAND
Irish Independent

John Mulligan

31/05/2015

A senior priest at one of Dublin’s wealthiest suburbs has told parishioners that he sees “no logical reason” why there can’t be women priests.

He also said the Church will have to reassess its approach to a wide range of issues following the groundswell of support last Friday week for same-sex marriage.

Father Gary Darby, a co-parish priest in Portmarnock, Co Dublin, told his congregation at mass today that the vote has been a wake-up call for the church.

He recieved rapturous applause for his sermon, in which he voiced opinions that would have caused significant controversy only a few years, or even months ago.

He said that most young people he knows don’t attend mass because they say the church is now irrelevant to them. But Fr Darby said that he believed young people didn’t attend mass because they also felt judged and shamed by the institution. He also told parishioners that he also felt the same when he was growing up.

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.

UNITED STATES
Catholic Herald (UK)

Investigation into Archbishop Paglia’s financial affairs ‘do not impact’ plans for September gathering

An Italian investigation into a Vatican archbishop’s financial affairs will not affect this year’s World Meeting of Families, the Archbishop of Philadelphia has said.

Archbishop Charles Chaput said he was saddened to learn that Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, head of the Pontifical Council for the Family and lead Vatican organiser of September’s World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, is under investigation by Italian prosecutors for alleged embezzlement, “and will pray for him”.

“At the same time,” Archbishop Chaput said, “I assure everyone that matters facing him do not impact our plans for September. We continue to work without interruption and joyfully anticipate welcoming our Holy Father and the world to Philadelphia later this year.”

Reports in European media outlets say the investigation stems from 2011 when the archbishop led the Diocese of Terni in Italy, and diocesan funds may have been used improperly in a scheme to purchase then resell a 14th-century Italian castle at a profit.

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

IRELAND
Irish Independent

Claire Mc Cormack and Nick Bramhill

The outcome of Ireland’s same-sex marriage referendum will be “a point of tension” at this year’s Synod of Bishops in Rome, leading Vatican experts told the Sunday Independent.

Although Pope Francis and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church had anticipated a Yes vote, experts believe the volume of people in favour was “surprising” to the Holy See.

Others admit that while the Church’s teaching on marriage is “not up for debate right now”, serious discussion on how the Church interacts with members of the gay and lesbian community is looming.
The “working document” for this year’s Synod of Bishops on the Family, which will take place in October, will be published over the coming weeks.

Following the global interest in our referendum, experts are now confident the Church’s response to so called “irregular” relationships – including civil marriages, co-habitation and same- sex couples – will be on the agenda.

“There will be bishops who will say that we need to do something to affirm what is good in these relationships even if they are not ideal and many bishops will be ready to say we need to affirm very clearly the Church’s teaching about these things and I think that will be a point of tension,” said Francis X Rocca, Vatican correspondent for The Wall Street Journal 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.

MISSOURI
The Kansas City Star

BY JUDY L. THOMAS
jthomas@kcstar.com

A Shawnee woman is suing the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas, alleging that officials lodged a false child abuse complaint with the state against her after she raised concerns about her daughter being bullied at school.

Also named as defendants are Sacred Heart Catholic Church and its school principal.

The lawsuit, filed by Melissa Schroeder this month in Johnson County District Court, alleges that the bullying took place at the Shawnee school in 2014 and caused serious health issues for her 10-year-old daughter. After Schroeder tried to get the school to resolve the problem, the lawsuit says, officials retaliated by making a false report with the state child welfare agency, saying among other things that Schroeder had requested an exorcism for her daughter.

“What happened to her was appalling,” said Schroeder’s attorney, Sarah Brown. “This is about a mom trying to get the bullying to stop and then having the church retaliate against her.

“Catholic officials should praise — not persecute — brave parents who report hurtful actions against kids.”

A spokeswoman for the defendants provided a response from archdiocesan superintendent of schools Kathy O’Hara, who said no one would be able to comment on the lawsuit because the archdiocese had not yet seen it.

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
60 Minutes

How would you know if your children are being groomed online? Preying on kids has exploded in the digital age as social media makes targeting victims chillingly easy for paedophiles. Their false identities and shifting online profiles mean police face an almost impossible task to catch them. The statistics are frightening. But now vigilantes are using the paedophiles’ own techniques against them. Leading the chase are people like Stinson Hunter, the Paedophile Hunter. This Sunday, Allison Langdon joins Stinson on the hunt for paedophiles and while the ethics are questionable, the results are undeniable.

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
60 Minutes

31 May 2015

Cardinal Pell has not seen the material that 60 Minutes is planning to broadcast this evening.

The Cardinal has not met and has not been approached by Mr Saunders.

Cardinal Pell knows of the important work Mr Saunders has done as a survivor of abuse to assist victims, including the establishment of a victims survivors group in the United Kingdom and more recently serving as member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors established by the Holy Father to develop policy to achieve this.

While members are of course entitled to their views and opinions, the recently approved Statutes of the Commission make it clear that the Commission’s role does not include commenting on individual cases, nor does the Commission have the capacity to investigate individual cases.

From the promotional material issued by 60 Minutes it seems clear Mr Saunders is not well informed about the claims made against Cardinal Pell in the Ballarat hearings of the Royal Commission and the fact that no new material emerged during recent hearings. Many of the issues were addressed in the final report of the 2013 Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry where there are no adverse findings against Cardinal Pell. These old and repeated allegations have been addressed many times by the Cardinal since 2002.

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
Perth Now

CARDINAL George Pell has been condemned over his treatment of abuse victims by the man hand-picked by the Pope to protect children in the Catholic Church.

In an extraordinary attack aired on Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes, Peter Saunders said the cardinal had acted with “callousness” and “cold-heartedness”.

Pope Francis’s specially appointed commissioner for the protection of children added:“I think it’s critical that he is moved aside — that he is sent back to Australia and that the Pope takes the strongest action against him.”

In the past fortnight, the Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse heard damning evidence in Ballarat against Father Gerald Ridsdale, Australia’s worst paedophile priest. Witnesses accused Pell of ignoring warnings about Ridsdale, and one claims Pell tried to silence him with a bribe, an allegation he has previously denied.

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.

SCOTLAND
Scotsman

PRESSURE is growing on the Scottish Government to make interim compensation payments to elderly victims of historical child abuse amid fears many of them will not live to see the conclusion of a public inquiry.

It is thought that as many as 10,000 victims may eventually come forward once the inquiry – to be led by Susan O’Brien QC – begins later this year.

However, there are immediate concerns for around 100 elderly survivors who are nearing the end of their lives.

At least three survivors are known to have died in recent weeks, including one man who took his own life after learning he could not take legal action against his alleged abusers.

Labour MSP Jackie Baillie is among those calling on the Scottish Government to follow the example of Ireland, where a number of survivors were awarded interim payments of 10,000 euros.

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

AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Pope’s commissioner for child protection says Cardinal Pell is a ‘dangerous individual’ and ‘almost sociopathic’

May 31, 2015

Kerrie Armstrong

Cardinal George Pell is “a dangerous individual” and “almost sociopathic” in his response to child sexual abuse victims, Pope Francis’ specially-appointed commissioner for the protection of children, Peter Saunders, says.

In an interview with Channel 9’s 60 Minutes, Mr Saunders said Cardinal Pell had a “moral responsibility” to front the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and address allegations that he knew of priests abusing children in Ballarat and elsewhere but did nothing to stop it. Cardinal Pell has denied these accusations.

“I personally think that his position is untenable, because he has now a catalogue of denials,” Mr Saunders said in the interview which aired on Sunday night. “He has a catalogue of denigrating people, of acting with callousness, cold-heartedness – almost sociopathic, I would go as far as to say – this lack of care.”

Pope Francis last December appointed Mr Saunders, himself a survivor of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, to the new Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors to ensure the Catholic Church acted with greater accountability and transparency in relation to child sexual abuse.

Mr Saunders said by refusing to front the royal commission until he was specifically invited, Cardinal Pell was “making a mockery of the Papal Commission, of the Pope himself, but most of all, of the victims and the survivors”.

“I think anybody who is a serious obstacle to the work of the commission and to the work of the Pope in trying to clean up the church’s act over this matter, I think they need to be taken aside very, very quickly and removed from any kind of position of influence.”

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
9 News

AAP

One of Pope Francis’s closest advisers says Cardinal George Pell’s position is “untenable”.

Peter Saunders was hand-picked by the Pope six months ago to be the Catholic Church’s commissioner for the protection of children.

Cardinal Pell has been under fire since allegations that he turned a blind eye to abuse resurfaced last week at the royal commission into child abuse in Ballarat.

“He is making a mockery of the Pope himself, but most of all of the victims and the survivors,” Mr Saunders told the Nine Network’s 60 Minutes program.

“More importantly, anybody who is a serious obstacle to the work of the commission and to the work of the Pope in trying to clean up the church’s act over this matter needs to be taken aside very quickly and removed from any kind of position of influence.”

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.

UNITED STATES
Daily Record

Teresa C. Younger May 31, 2015

In the aftermath of revelations about child sexual abuse reportedly committed by Josh Duggar, many questions remain unanswered. Why was Josh Duggar able to abuse five girls, some even after members of his family and church community were aware of allegations against him? Why did police officials fail to charge Josh when Jim Bob Duggar finally turned in his son? What happened to the children who were sexually abused?

Child sexual abuse happens far beyond the confines of made-for-TV families. All too often, victims are left unprotected and without qualified counseling to help them recover. Too often their abusers remain free to continue the abuse.

Many are especially angered by this case because the Duggars have been outspoken critics of same-sex marriage and women’s reproductive rights. The Duggars want the government more involved in women’s and LGBT people’s lives while they worked to thwart legitimate government involvement in their own lives.

The hypocrisy is palpable.

We know that survivors of sexual abuse can suffer into adulthood, especially if they do not receive adequate support. Girls who are sexually abused are more likely to be diagnosed with eating disorders and more than twice as likely to have a teen pregnancy. We are concerned about what sort of treatment and support Duggar’s victims are receiving, given the inappropriate response to the allegations.

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ARKANSAS
Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

By Doug Thompson
Posted: May 31, 2015

SPRINGDALE — Joshua James Duggar, now 27, gave a full and frank account of fondling his victims in his 2003 confession to an Arkansas State Police corporal, according to a witness who contradicts a recent account by the former corporal.

“I’m not saying he is a liar, but my recollection is that Joshua came clean and told everything,” the witness said. “I definitely remember telling him before we went that he needed to come clean, and I definitely remember being satisfied that he did that when it was over.”

All law enforcement officers are required by state law to report sexual abuse involving minors to the state’s child abuse hotline. Joseph Truman Hutchens, the former corporal, expressed regret for not doing so in an interview published Wednesday in In Touch magazine of Englewood Cliffs, N.J.

By the time other authorities were tipped off in 2006 about Duggar’s earlier acts, the statute of limitations had expired on any possible criminal charges. Duggar was 15 years old when the last of the acts was committed.

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UNITED STATES
Daily Mail

Physically abused, told they would die at 12 and banned from school: ‘Real-life Kimmy Schmidt’ twins reveal what life was like inside controversial Children of God sect

As children growing up in a controversial religious sect, they spent every day ‘paralyzed by fear’.
They were physically abused, banned from school and told they would die as martyrs aged 12.

But now, twin sisters Flor and Tamar Edwards, 34, have escaped from The Children of God cult and are both living and working in California – one as a freelance writer, the other as a yoga teacher.

They have opened up to ABC’s Nightline about their lives inside the sect – which blended free love attitudes with preparing for the second coming of Jesus – and their transition to the outside world.

‘I didn’t know what a movie theater was,’ said Flor, who along with her sister has compared their situation to that of the lead female character in the Netflix show, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

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.

UNITED STATES
PopeCrimes& Vatican Evils

Paris Arrow

Ireland’s yes vote to its same-sex marriage referendum is a major victory for humanity, a triumph for secularism and secular human rights, a ground swelling success for –– liberty from religion and freedom from Roman Catholicism aka Vatican Autocracy –– especially from its centuries-old religious oppression, coercion, tyranny of people via subjugation of their sex lives (e.g. forbiddance of condoms and contraception, condemnation of gays’ “evil acts”). The Irish have proven that they can reject obsolete religion edicts and oppressive religious traditions –– even if they are based on the ancient Bible –– and they have prevailed and caused –– a shameful defeat for religion –– that of Roman Catholicism. Other religions must follow suit. The Liberal Democrats are seeking to disestablish the Anglican Church of England. It’s time for all countries to abolish the Vatican Concordats and annul the Vatican as a country since it is composed only of 800 celibate only-male religious “foreigners”, i.e. Pope Francis, cardinals, bishops, priests, Swiss Guard Army.

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TEXAS
The Daily Beast

Matthew Paul Turner

When missionary Karen Hinkey found out her husband was attracted to children, she tried to separate from him. Her church elders told her to knock it off and “submit” to their will.

After attending seminary, Karen Hinkley, along with her onetime husband, Jordan Root, dreamed of becoming missionaries. The couple married in the spring of 2012 and eagerly began seeking out opportunities serve God overseas.

At the time, she had no way of knowing that alleged abuse of the most awful kind would sink their marriage. Or that church would discipline her for wanting to end her marriage to a confessed child porn addict. Or that her pastor would try to block her from leaving the congregation.

Shortly after marrying, Karen and Jordan began attending The Village Church (TVC), a mega-sized Dallas-area Southern Baptist congregation with 5 campuses and 11,000 weekly attendees.

In time, TVC not only became the newlywed’s home church but also the community that would support—financially and spiritually— their desire to become missionaries. That’s not surprising; according to its website, TVC supports a number of missionaries in a dozen or more countries.

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.

UNITED STATES
New York Daily News

BY NICOLE HENSLEY

As young girls, Flor and Tamar Edwards emerged from an apocalyptic cult to find a world they didn’t understand.

Learning how to ride a bike, to use water fountains, eat pizza and go to movie theaters seems more like a episode from Netflix series “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” but it was a hard reality for the twin sisters when the religious sect formerly known as the “Children of God” disbanded in 1994.

“When we saw a drinking fountain for the first time, we all just saw and huddled around it like it was some novelty,” Flor Edwards explained to ABC Nightline.

The twin sisters can relate to Kimmy Schmidt, portrayed by Ellie Kemper for the Netflix series ‘Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’ about a group of women forced to live in an apocalyptic cult.

The twins revealed what it was like growing up in the religious movement founded around the free love spirit of the 1960s. Some ex-members have gone as far to call the sect a cult and accused its founder David Berg of sexually abusing women and children.

The group’s beliefs encouraged sexual encounters as a form of expressing their faith.

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NEW MEXICO
ABQ Journal

By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: Sunday, May 31, 2015 l

THOREAU – Darlene Arviso is a grandmother, school bus driver and silversmith, but to hundreds of people in this southeastern corner of the Navajo Nation, she is “the water lady.”

At 8 a.m. each weekday, after she drops off a busload of children at the St. Bonaventure School, Arviso cranks up a heavy-duty Chevrolet truck and fills its 4,000-gallon water tank at a well owned by the St. Bonaventure Indian Mission.

For the next seven hours, she bounces over rutted, dirt roads, covering some 300 miles a week, delivering water to people who lack services most Americans take for granted, including electricity and running water.

As she pulls up outside a house, residents quickly emerge with barrels, jugs, even a large cooking pot – anything that will hold the precious liquid.

“These people really depend on the water truck,” especially the elderly and those who lack transportation, she said, tearing up as she described the living conditions of some families and children she serves. “That’s why I love my job.”

As harsh as life is for Navajo families here, Arviso and others fear the worst because the St. Bonaventure Indian Mission and School has become entangled in a bankruptcy case filed by the Diocese of Gallup.

A judge this year approved a plan to appraise several properties, including St. Bonaventure’s land in Thoreau, as a possible source of funding to pay for a bankruptcy reorganization plan.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service

Cathy Lynn Grossman | May 30, 2015

Raise your hand if you hear a familiar bell ring as a scandal now envelops former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, a scandal ripe with still-unconfirmed links to teen sexual abuse during his long-ago years as a high school wrestling coach.

It’s that ring of familiar quotes: “Are they talking about our Denny?” says someone who coached for a rival team. “He was a man of character, a pillar in the community.”

Where have I heard talk like that before?

Ding! Ding! Ding! Catholic scandal, circa 2002, anyone?

The Catholic scandal ruptured like an abscess in the Archdiocese of Boston in 2002. And soon people in every state discovered the pestilence could be found there, too, maybe their own parish.

Across the country that year, as priest after priest was revealed to have molested or raped children and teens, we heard a refrain from shocked parishes:

Oh no, Father So-and-so was such a great priest! He loved kids. He helped kids. This can’t be so….

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AUSTRALIA
Perth Now

Cardinal George Pell faces more criticism from the man hand-picked by the Pope to protect children

CARDINAL George Pell continues to draw fire with the man hand-picked by Pope Francis to protect children and help others abused by members of Catholic Church saying he needs to go.

“I think it’s critical that George Pell is moved aside, that he is sent back to Australia, and that the Pope takes the strongest action against him,” Peter Saunders said speaking to 60 Minute’s Tara Brown in Rome.

Pell has been under fire of late for allegedly ignoring warnings about Father Gerald Ridsdale, Australia’s worst paedophile priest.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse which has been sitting in Ballarat has heard witnesses claim Pell turned a blind eye to abuse.

One witness claims Pell tried to silence him with a bribe while another said Pell was present at a meeting where it was announced that Ridsdale needed to be moved to another parish.

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.

UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

A Pope & + Burke On Damning A Million Irish, World Leaders & US Judges as “worse than the pagans for legalising gay marriage”!

The over-hyped “who am I to judge” Pope Francis likes to pick subordinates who seem to love to rush to judge others, such as for causing a purported “defeat for humanity” and for acting even “worse than the pagans for legalising gay marriage.” A classic “good cop/bad cop” ploy — let the subordinates be the bad guys! Pope Francis should skip these contrived distractions and face directly the crisis before him.

Pope Francis now faces new “messes” even before his too touted US trip begins, as Cardinal Raymond Burke, in effect, damns over legalizing civilly same sex marriages many of the USA’s and world’s political and judicial leaders that favor civil same sex marriage, including by implication apparently some US Supreme Court justices, as well as President Barack Obama and many members of the US Congress. The pope should have an interesting visit to Washington DC with Burke in tow, perhaps wearing his $30,000+ special cardinal’s costume.

Meanwhile, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the top Vatican official working on Philadelphia’s September World Meeting of Families and the pope, and who also serves as head of the pope’s Family Council, is reportedly under serious criminal investigation as a key figure for fraud and other crimes. Italian prosecutors after a two year investigation allege that Paglia, as an instigator, and others, including clerics, in 2012 used funds illegally obtained from Paglia’s heavily indebted diocese to buy a former religious property/castle for one-third of its value with the intention of selling it for an almost $5 million quick profit.

Vatican hierarchs seeking to profit, directly or indirectly, from unused Church property transactions, including of nuns’ properties, is not new. For example, intrepid investigative reporter, Jason Berry, in a critical look at how the Catholic Church handles property, has reportedly written that Cardinal Angelo Sodano watched on as an American real estate company, that prominently employed his nephew, trumpeted its ties to the Vatican, implying that it had inside knowledge on closed church properties coming on the market. Its president, Raffaello Follieri, pleaded guilty to US federal charges of cheating investors in 2008. Berry says the FBI found that before his fall, Follieri paid two Vatican employees $800,000 for their assistance. No Vatican employee was charged by civil authorities, nor were any disciplined by the church.

And of course, the recently ended Vatican witchhunt of American sisters triggered many complaints from US sisters of the Vatican’s near obsession with the sisters’ assets, mostly real estate.

One wonders how the pope picks his men for key assignments. Paglia, Cardinal George Pell, Monsignor Battista Ricca, et al., all had poor records when Pope Francis gave them important tasks. Ricca has been Francis’ ‘eyes and ears’ at the Vatican Bank despite reports he had a string of notorious homosexual affairs. Paglia’s alleged fraud involvement was known for at least two years and Pell’s alleged over-ups of priest child abusers and cruel treatment of an abuse survivor were publicly reported for many years.

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MASSACHUSETTS
International Business Times

By Aditya Tejas

A Massachusetts judge on Friday ruled that a group of parishioners who had occupied a closed Roman Catholic church for over a decade must end their vigil by next week. St. Frances Xavier Cabrini church in Scituate, Massachusetts, has been the site of a 24-hour vigil ever since the Archdiocese of Boston ordered its closure in 2004.

Massachusetts Superior Court Justice Edward Leibensperger said the church’s parishioners needed to vacate the building by June 5 and abandon their “stubborn refusal to accept the reality of final decisions of the courts,” according to Reuters.

“Defendants may, of course, continue their protest of the decision to close the parish, but they may not do so by an around-the-clock vigil in violation of the property rights established by neutral principles of property law,” Leibensperger said in his ruling, according to the Associated Press.

The parishioners, who demand that the church be either reopened or sold to the group, had filed an appeal in the Massachusetts Appeals Court after their request was denied by the Apostolic Signatura, the Roman Catholic church’s highest authority. The parishioners have said that they are willing to face arrest for trespassing, if necessary.

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UNITED STATES
Daily Mail (UK)

Catholic priest convicted of abusive sexual contact for groping woman who was sleeping on cross-country flight

By EVAN BLEIER FOR DAILYMAIL.COM

A Catholic priest aboard a US Airways cross-country flight was found guilty of abusive sexual contact for putting his hands on the ‘breast, groin and buttocks’ of a sleeping woman last August.

The female passenger awoke to find Father Marcelo De Jesumaria groping her and reported what had happened to the crew of the flight from Philadelphia to Los Angeles.

De Jesumaria was taken into custody when the flight landed and then indicted in October once enough evidence had been collected by authorities.

The shamed priest was found guilty on Friday after a three-day trial and will face up to two years in prison when his August 24 sentencing comes around, according to NBC Los Angeles.

His old employer, the Diocese of San Bernardino, removed him from his role in November.

‘The Diocese of San Bernardino considers the actions alleged of Father De Jesumaria in the federal indictment to be sinful and unlawful,’ according to a statement.

‘We removed him from ministry in the diocese immediately after we became aware of this allegation in November and we are deeply regretful of any harm that may have occurred as a result of his actions.

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MINNESOTA
Legal Examiner

Posted by Mike Bryant
May 30, 2015

This past week, retired St. John’s priest Richard Eckroth died. He had been living at St. John’s Abbey for years. He was the subject of a lawsuit that we started last year and has a long history of predatory conduct. The number of kids Eckroth abused continue to be unknown, but initial lists indicate there may be into the hundreds.

From a press release from Anderson and Associates concerning the claims they have made:

What we have learned about this predator is that as a priest, monk, professor and pastor of St. John’s, he easily built the trust of parents who readily gave him permission to bring their children to a remote cabin owned and maintained by St. John’s Abbey where he then abused many of them. Eckroth plied children, some as young as eight years old, with alcohol and often employed means of coercion and threats of violence to accomplish his abuse. Over the years we have worked with several of those kids, now adults, who struggle with an aftermath of depression, anxiety, shame and guilt as a result of what Eckroth did to them.

The Child Victims Act continues to permit survivors of abuse by Eckroth and others to bring civil actions until May 25, 2016. The lawsuite against Eckroth arise from his sexually abusing kids a cabin in Northern Minnesota in the early 1970s. There are many kids believed to be raped and abused by Eckroth while a monk. The death of Eckroth or any offender does not prevent survivors from asserting claims against those who made the conscious choices to protect the Eckroths and other abusers like him in the past. Every time one of Eckroth’s survivors and the survivors of others like him, comes forward and shares the secret, they can begin the process of recovery. And survivors can come forward confidentially.

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UNITED STATES
POPE FRANCIS the CON-Christ.

Paris Arrow

Cardinal Raymond Burke is living in the Medieval Ages when in1302, Pope Boniface VIII decreed his monarchial ex-cathedra Papal Bull Unam Sanctam (Latin for “I believe one “). Here are excerpts:

“Urged on by our faith, we are obliged to believe and hold that there is one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. And we firmly believe and profess that outside of her there is no salvation nor remission of sins, as the bridegroom declares in the Canticles…

So, when the Greeks or others say that they were not committed to the care of Peter and his successors, they must confess that they are not of Christ’s sheep, even as the Lord says in John, “There is one fold and one shepherd.”

“We declare, say, define, and pronounce that it is absolutely necessary for the salvation of every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.”

The 21st century Irish people just defied this Papal Bull and demonstrated very clearly ––– that they do not believe that it is absolutely necessary for their salvation to be “subject to the Roman Pontiff” ––– especially regarding their sex life, and now, their gay marriage.

So as usual, it is Vatican diplomacy for Cardinal Burke to thrash and condemn the Irish as “worse than pagans” ––– meaning that they are not-Catholics because they are “not committed to the care of Peter and his successors and they must confess that they are not of Christ’s sheep”. Cardinal says it for the Irish that they are as excommunicated for they are worse than pagans aka non-Christians aka no religious affiliation.

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.

TEXAS
The Raw Story

TOM BOGGIONI
30 MAY 2015

A Dallas megachurch has backed off and issued an apology to a former member of the church who was placed “under discipline” by church elders who believed she was acting hastily when she sought an annulment from her pedophile husband.

According to Crosswalk, Karen Hinkley (formerly Root) and her husband Jordan were recalled from their missionary service in South Asia by the Dallas-based Village Church after Jordan confessed that he had viewed online pornography involving children.

Upon returning to the U.S., the church turned the information they had on Jordan Root over to the police who, in turn, turned it over to the FBI which later declined to prosecute him. In addition to withdrawing financial support for Root, the church restricted him to certain portions of their Dallas campus — keeping him away from all youth activities — while he undergoes “a season of intentional pastoral care” in an attempt to get right with God again.

While the church said they would continue to financially support Karen Hinkley through August of this year, church elders were disappointed that she wanted to have her marriage to Jordan annulled and felt she was acting hastily.

In an email sent to “Covenant Members” of the church, Pastor Matt Chandler lamented the fact that she filed for annulment

“We have reached out to love and support her during this time, but unfortunately she has chosen not to accept our attempts to care for her and provide counsel. Instead, Karen limited her communication with The Village and has now stopped responding entirely,” he wrote. “This began less than four weeks after Karen’s return to the US when she filed for an immediate annulment of her marriage to Jordan apart from the counsel of the church and requested to be placed back in the mission field. We encouraged Karen to slow down and allow us to walk with her in a season of healing before making these life-altering decisions, but she declined to take this step.”

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INDIANA
The Observer

Observer Staff Report | Saturday, May 30, 2015

Theology professor Fr. Virgilio Elizondo, who is widely considered the founder of U.S. Latino theology and won the 1997 Laetare Medal, was named in a San Antonio civil suit alleging Elizondo sexually abused the unnamed plaintiff when he was a minor, according to a report originally run by WSBT.

The lawsuit was filed against the Archdiocese of San Antonio, Fr. Jesus Armando Dominguez and Elizondo last Tuesday in Bexar County district court. It alleges Dominguez repeatedly sexually abused the plaintiff, listed as “John Doe” in the 1980s. When the plaintiff asked Elizondo for help dealing with Dominguez’s abuse in 1983, the lawsuit alleges “Elizondo began to fondle the Plaintiff’s genitals, taking advantage of the same sexual liberties Plaintiff complained of with Father Dominguez,” according to excerpted court documents published by WNDU.

“As Father Elizondo reached over, kissed him, and began to fondle him, the Plaintiff immediately became angry, frustrated, scared, and confused because Plaintiff thought that he would help,” the suit states. “Instead, he gave the Plaintiff more reasons to feel unsafe within the care and guard of the Roman Catholic Church. Once again, the sexual abuse of the Plaintiff continued.”

The suit seeks unspecified damages and claims the plaintiff has suffered from anger, depression, emotional distress, addiction and suicidal attempts as a result of the abuse.

According to his personal website, Elizondo joined the Notre Dame faculty in 1999, but still maintains his primary residence in San Antonio, where he works with Catholic Television of San Antonio and St. Rose of Lima parish, and commutes to the University.

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MINNESOTA
CBS Minnesota

Bill Hudson

ST. PAUL, Minn. (WCCO) — Suspicions over a Minnesota monk’s alleged molestation of children are following him to his grave.

Funeral services were held for Richard Eckroth on Friday at St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville amid new revelations about his past.

A number of private documents related to the case were released Friday, which show that St. John’s Abbey officials knew of serious problems with Eckroth as early as 1993.

Father Eckroth was placed on a list of credibly-accused priests in 2002.

One document is the psychological and physical examination report that was done on Eckroth by St. Luke Institute in Maryland in 1993. It recommends that Eckroth have no unsupervised contact with minors.

St. John’s Abbey has been criticized for keeping the sexual allegations quiet from everyone, including authorities.

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.

UNITED KINGDOM
Spectator

Damian Thompson

The attempt to implicate Cardinal George Pell in the Ballarat child abuse scandal is a virtuoso display of score-settling by Australia’s left-leaning journalists, who have hated Pell for many years. This morning, however, The Australian broke ranks by publishing a column by Gerard Henderson that helps set the record straight. I’m simply going to quote extracts from it because you can be damn sure that they aren’t going to penetrate the liberal Aussie media’s firewall.

On Pell’s record in tackling child abuse:

On all the available evidence, Pell was among the first Catholic bishops in the world to address the issue of child sexual abuse by clergy. He was appointed archbishop of Melbourne in July 1996 and announced the creation of the Melbourne Response (to deal with child sexual abuse) the following October …

The fact is that Pell was a leader on this issue not only within the Catholic Church but also within the Christian community. And he was well ahead of many secular and government institutions.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Berger’s Beat

.. On the other hand, just when you think he can’t get more incendiary, Cardinal Raymond Burke says something even more outlandish than before. This time, at Oxford University, the former head of our town’s archdiocese says Ireland has gone further than paganism and “defied God” by legalizing gay marriage. So reports Katherine Backler and Liz Dodd in the British Catholic publication The Tablet. “I mean, this a defiance of God. It’s just incredible. Pagans may have tolerated homosexual behaviours, they never dared to say this was marriage.”

Oxford University student Katherine Backler watched Burke – who’s known for his fondness for silk finery – lead a mass at the school. She wrote “the altar party that processed into the church was so thoroughly medieval that the term truly seemed appropriate. The cardinal was flanked by 11 altar servers (all male, obviously), at least 10 priests, some Knights of Malta in their regalia, and a banner that would have looked quite at home, in fact, at a pageant. I would not have been surprised if a fanfare had sounded.”

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CALIFORNIA
New York Daily News

BY RACHELLE BLIDNER NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Saturday, May 30, 2015

A Catholic priest from California was found guilty Friday of sexually assaulting a sleeping woman aboard a U.S. Airways flight.

Father Marcelo De Jesumaria was convicted of abusive sexual contact by a federal jury in a three-day trial after a female passenger woke up to find his “hands on her breast, groin and buttocks” in August, NBC Los Angeles reported.

The woman reported the assault to the crew of the Philadelphia-to-Los Angeles flight, allowing federal authorities to meet De Jesumaria at the gate.

De Jesumaria was indicted in October.

The Diocese of San Bernardino, where De Jesumaria used to work, said it removed him from the ministry “immediately” after learning of the allegations in November.

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UNITED STATES
David R. Henson

May 28, 2015 by David R. Henson

Now is the time to talk about abuse in the church.

Now, when you are tired of talking about it. Now, when you’ve moved on to the next social media buzz. Now, when you think you’ve exhausted every possible angle of it.

That’s because now is the time where we get to decide whether we will change or whether this was just another distraction, another voyeuristic foray of using tragedy to score political or cultural points.
Now is the time to stop pointing fingers at the far away.

One of the most frustrating elements of the progressive response to the horrendous Duggar scandal is the unspoken insinuation that this kind of abuse only occurs or is much more likely to occur in fundamentalist, conservative, or patriarchal churches.

It been a way for liberals and progressives to tut-tut in the wake of tragedy rather than engage in critical self-reflection of our own institutions. While some social and theological elements certainly can exacerbate in terrible ways abuse, the sobering truth is that any institution — religious or secular, conservative or liberal — that includes or ministers to children can find itself in the midst of an abuse scandal. Institutions and their leaders must remain vigilant at all times and must not succumb to the self-satisfied notion that this kind of scandal is something more likely to happen in those churches over there, among those conservatives, or with those homeschoolers. With a one in four women and one in six men were sexually abused, it’s clear that abuse isn’t just happening in conservative spaces.

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.

TEXAS
Baptist News

By Bob Allen

A Dallas megachurch has apologized to a wife subjected to church discipline for leaving her husband without permission after learning he is a pedophile.

Elders of The Village Church, a multisite Southern Baptist congregation led by Acts 29 president Matt Chandler, sent a letter to members posted online by blogger Matthew Paul Turner admitting to mishandling of a disciplinary process instituted against former member Karen Hinkley.

Earlier, church leaders said Hinkley violated her membership covenant with Village Church by having her legal marriage to Jordan Root annulled without seeking reconciliation after he confessed to her that he is sexually stimulated by little children and had viewed child pornography throughout their courtship and marriage. Root was not disciplined because he repented and entered counseling, but his access to children was restricted.

Previously Village Church financially supported the couple, who served as missionaries in East Asia with Serving in Mission (SIM) USA until Jordan Root was dismissed for violating the mission organization’s child safety policy. In February Karen Root (who later returned to using her maiden name) notified church leaders she was withdrawing her membership. The elders refused to accept her resignation and put her under church discipline for spurning their attempt at pastoral care.

Hinkley went public May 20 on Watchkeep, a blog written by abuse-survivor advocate Amy Smith, in a statement criticizing the Village Church pastors for “minimization and secrecy” about Root’s offenses and urging them not to assume he has told them the whole truth. Early on church leaders were inclined not to reveal Root’s confession to a number of former employers, churches and families where over the years he had access to children, but informed the church membership after the story was reported on blogs and news sites and was under consideration by the Dallas Morning News.

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
Global News

By Chinta Puxley The Canadian Press

Mike Cachagee was just four-and-a-half when he was taken from his home and sent to a residential school in northern Ontario.

For the next 12 years, he never celebrated a birthday.

He was never hugged. He never heard “I love you.” He was never encouraged or praised.

He was beaten and sexually abused.

When he and his younger brother finally returned home, his mother had remarried and started a new family. She barely recognized her sons.

It took Cachagee two failed marriages, years of alcohol and drug abuse and therapy before he started to come to grips with what happened to him.

His brother never did. He descended into a life of addiction on Winnipeg’s streets.

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
Global News

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission examining Canada’s Indian residential schools is to release a summary of its final report Tuesday after hearing testimony from 7,000 survivors over five years. Here is a by-the-numbers look at residential schools:

The 1840s — Church-run schools are established for aboriginal children.

1883 — The year the federal government establishes three large residential schools in Western Canada to “kill the Indian in the child.”

1920 — The year the Indian Act is amended to make it compulsory for status Indian children between seven and 15 to attend residential school.

70 — The number of residential schools operating by the 1930s.

130 — The total number of residential schools that received support from the federal government at the program’s peak.

60 per cent — The proportion of residential schools run by the Catholic church.

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CANADA
Rabble

BY DENNIS GRUENDING | MAY 29, 2015

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) will release its final report into the history and legacy of Indian residential schools on June 2. There is very little suspense about what the three commissioners think about the schools: they were an aggressively assimilationist policy at best and genocidal at worst.

That much was signalled in the TRC’s interim report in 2012 and in recent comments made by commission chair Justice Murray Sinclair. More telling in the report will be what the commission has to say about the way forward. If ever there is to be true reconciliation, Canadians will have to acknowledge and repent for an ugly and enduring episode in our history.

Interim report

Here is a much abbreviated summary of that interim report: The schools were an assault on Aboriginal children, their families and communities. The impact of forcibly removing children from their families and communities and placing them not schools where they were humiliated and not allowed to speak in their mother tongues were, in the commissioners’ words, “immediate” and “on-going.”

The schools were also an assault on self-governing and self-sustaining Aboriginal nations. “The residential school system,” the commissioners wrote, “was intended to assimilate Aboriginal children into the broader Canadian society. With assimilation would come the breaking up of the reserves and the end of treaty obligations. In this way the schools were part of a broader Canadian policy to undermine Aboriginal leaders and Aboriginal self-government.”

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
CBC News

Survivors of residential schools gathered in Sudbury on Friday to mark the beginning of the closing ceremonies for Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

It was tasked with informing Canadians about the abuses that happened in the residential school system.

Ella Visitor-Young was sent to a residential school when she was five-years-old. (Elyse Allard)

Ella Visitor-Young attended Friday’s event at Laurentian University. She was sent to a residential school when she was five-years-old.

“I found it very difficult,” said Visitor-Young. “I had a hard time coping with things.”

Visitor-Young said she had a difficult time with language and staff who she said tried to control her.

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CANADA
Vancouver Sun

BY PETER O’NEIL, VANCOUVER SUN MAY 29, 2015

OTTAWA — Many of B.C.’s top aboriginal leaders have a personal and deeply emotional stake in the release Tuesday of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s initial report into the federal government-funded, church-run attempt to “kill the Indian in the child.”

They are among the estimated 150,000 Indian, Inuit and Métis, 80,000 of whom are still alive, who attended 132 residential schools across Canada that were run by the Anglican, Catholic, Presbyterian and United Churches from the 1870s until the 1970s — though one remained open until 1996.

The official attempt by the Canadian government to assimilate aboriginal children was a form of “cultural genocide,” Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin said in a speech this week.

Grand Chief Ed John, a member of the B.C. First Nations Summit, recalls getting on the school bus in his remote village one September in the late 1950s to begin a year of schooling at the Le Jac Indian Residential School near Prince George.

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CANADA
CBC News

At least 6,000 aboriginal children died while in the residential school system, says Justice Murray Sinclair, the chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Sinclair, who has been tasked with studying the legacy of the residential schools, says that the figure is just an estimate and is likely much higher. Residential schools were established in the 19th century and the last ones closed in 1996.

“We think that we have not uncovered anywhere near what the total would be because the record keeping around that question was very poor,” Sinclair told Rosemary Barton of CBC’s Power & Politics. “You would have thought they would have concentrated more on keeping track.”

Sinclair offered the figure of 6,000 in a later interview with Evan Solomon to air Saturday on CBC Radio’s The House — much higher than earlier estimates that put the number of school children who died in the system at less than 4,000.

Sinclair, who was Manitoba’s first aboriginal judge, estimates 24 to 42 per cent of aboriginal children who attended the residential schools died at school or shortly after leaving school.

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FLORIDA
CBS 12

Story by Melissa Howell/CBS12

WEST PALM BEACH (CBS12) — Stephen Budd was back in court Friday for the second day of trial, following allegations of sexual abuse.

The accusers say the crimes took place during his time as a teacher at Rosarian Academy.

Friday, prosecutors played the phone call between Budd and his accuser that was set up by police in an attempt to get Budd to confess.

On Thursday, the woman, now 18, recounted the moments her 4th grade teacher, Mr. Budd, allegedly molested her and a friend.

She says at the time of the alleged abuse, she told classmates about how she and a friend would go under Mr. Budd’s desk because they were his favorite students. The students claim he molested them and showed them his genitals.

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UNITED STATES
Mennonite Life

Stephanie Krehbiel
ISSUE 2015, VOL. 69
YODER IN CONTEXT

I first encountered Ruth Krall’s work at the same time that many Mennonites did, in 2013, with the release of the third volume of her online series of books on religious sexual violence, The Elephants in God’s Living Room. That volume, more than any work that came before it, brought attention to the John Howard Yoder’s sexual violence as a symptom of a systemic problem, enabled by negligent institutions and a religious culture that elevated male leaders and devalued the lives of sexual abuse victims.

While theological scholars of Yoder were mostly unreceptive to Krall’s book, it hit the crumbling institutional wall of silence around Yoder’s abuse with an enormous shove. Within less than a year of its release, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary and the Mennonite Church USA Archives in Goshen granted historian Rachel Waltner Goossen access to numerous sealed files on Yoder. Goossen’s work made clear what many Mennonite women and abuse survivors had known for years: Krall was a central figure challenging the Mennonite institutional players who enabled and covered up Yoder’s violations of women.

Krall started out as a nurse, and her clinical background has never ceased to be the ethical ground on which she stands. As a young woman, Krall was on a fast-track career in psychiatric/community-health nursing and administration. In 1974, she was a member of the first class to be certified by the American Nurses’ Association as a psychiatric/mental health clinical nurse specialist – the forerunner of today’s certified nurse practitioners. But her formative experiences as a counselor for rape victims left her with a desire for a better understanding of the roots of violence, which led her to a doctorate in theology and ultimately to 20 years of teaching in Goshen (Indiana) College’s peace, justice and conflict studies program, which she helped to design.

Krall’s work experiences inside and outside the religious academy put her in contact with both abusers and victims. Seeking to understand this phenomenon, she turned to emerging Roman Catholic literature about priest sexual abuse of the laity and institutional clericalism. Through the work of Catholic anti-abuse activists such as Father Tom Doyle and Richard Sipe, Krall added an ecumenically minded analysis of clericalism to the knowledge she had already accrued from second-wave feminism and the women’s health movement.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

Critically Important to Analyzing Duggar Story: Stephanie Krehbiel and Ruth Krall Discussing Issues of Sexual Violence (and Cover-Up) in Churches

William D. Lindsey

In the latest issue of Mennonite Life (issue 2015, vol. 69) (online here), Stephanie Krehbiel interviews Ruth Krall on the topic “Breaking Open the Structure of Sexual Violence.” As she notes, Ruth’s magisterial book The Elephants in God’s Living Room, which Ruth published at her Enduring Space blog, has done a tremendous amount to publicize the sexual violence practiced by the noted Mennonite 20th-century theologian John Howard Yoder. Perhaps more than any other Mennonite scholar, Ruth has been responsible for organizing Mennonite women to force the male-dominated leadership structure of their church to face the Yoder story and do something about it.

Here’s Stephanie’s testimony about the importance of Ruth’s book in her own journey as a Mennonite woman and scholar:

That volume [i.e., Elephants in God’s Living Room], more than any work that came before it, brought attention to the John Howard Yoder’s sexual violence as a symptom of a systemic problem, enabled by negligent institutions and a religious culture that elevated male leaders and devalued the lives of sexual abuse victims.

A symptom of a systemic problem, enabled by negligent institutions and a religious culture that elevated male leaders and devalued the lives of sexual abuse victims: as you can see, Ruth’s analysis ties right into the conversation about the Duggar story, and, in particular, the analysis of Diary of an Autodidact about which I just posted, which argues that “few churches are really safe places for victims.”

Ruth’s response to Stephanie on this point:

I’m convinced that there is a structure to this stuff, and if we really could understand it, we might be able to break it open. I don’t think we’ve broken it open yet. Somewhere in Mennoland today, a minister or youth minister or a Sunday School teacher is abusing somebody.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
CBS Philly

[with video]

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — The top Vatican official leading the World Meeting of Families coming to Philadelphia in September is denying charges that he allegedly participated in a property scam that could have netted millions in profit.

Italy’s leading newspaper names Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia as one of ten people under investigation.
Italian prosecutors allege that Paglia and others used funds illegally from the diocese to buy an expansive property for one-third of its value in 2012 with the intention of selling it for millions.
Paglia denies any wrong-doing, saying he has full confidence in the system of justice.

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput released the following statement: ‘I was saddened to learn of the recent news regarding Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia and will pray for him. At the same time, I assure everyone that matters facing him do not impact our plans for September. We continue to work without interruption and joyfully anticipate welcoming our Holy Father and the world to Philadelphia later this year.’

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Vatican official with a role in organizing Pope Francis’ September visit to Philadelphia is under investigation in Italy.

The Italian News Agency ANSA reports that Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia (vih-CHEN-zo PAH’-lee-ah) is among 10 people under investigation over the sale of a castle in his former Diocese of Terni in central Italy. No charges have been filed.

Paglia leads the Pontifical Council for the Family. The office organizes the Vatican’s World Meeting of Families, which this year will be in Philadelphia with Pope Francis.

Paglia says in a statement that he learned of the accusations from news reports. He says he is making himself available to prosecutors and trusts in “earthly justice.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Daily News

A VATICAN OFFICIAL with a role in organizing Pope Francis’ September visit to Philadelphia is under investigation in Italy.

The Italian News Agency ANSA reported that Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia is among 10 people under investigation over the sale of a castle in his former Diocese of Terni in central Italy. No charges have been filed.

“The alleged scam would have netted a profit” of about $4.4 million, according to the British newspaper the Independent.

Paglia leads the Pontifical Council for the Family. The office organizes the Vatican’s World Meeting of Families, which this year will be in Philadelphia with Pope Francis.

Paglia said in a statement that he learned of the accusations from news reports. He says he is making himself available to prosecutors and trusts in “earthly justice.”

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
International Business Times

By Aditya Tejas

At least 6,000 aboriginal children died while they were in the care of Canada’s residential school system, according to the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Canada’s residential school system was established in the 19th century, and its last institution closed in 1996. They were government-funded and church-affiliated schools that housed aboriginal First Nations children, designed as civilizing institutions that would “kill the Indian in the child.”

They have been condemned for their practices, which included isolating students from their families, sterilization, and exposure to physical and sexual abuse.

In 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper offered an apology on behalf of Canada for the conditions suffered by the children in the schooling system. However, Justice Murray Sinclair, the commission’s chair, said the figure was just an estimate based off the best available data. The commission heard testimony from 7,000 survivors of the system over five years.

“We think that we have not uncovered anywhere near what the total would be because the record keeping around that question was very poor,” Sinclair said in a CBC interview. “You would have thought they would have concentrated more on keeping track.”

Sinclair’s estimates, which were given in an interview aired Saturday, are significantly higher than previous estimates, which put the number of aboriginal children who died in the residential school system at less than 4,000.

Sinclair estimates that 25 to 42 percent of the aboriginal children who attended residential schools died during or shortly after their time in the school. About 30 percent of the country’s native children were placed in residential schools across Canada.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Jailed paedophile Ridsdale is ‘arrogant’, hides in cell, had sexual relationship behind bars, is visited by Catholic priests

CARLY CRAWFORD SUNDAY HERALD SUN MAY 30, 2015

EVIL priest Gerald Ridsdale is “arrogant”, spends his jail time hiding inside his small unit and has multiple Catholic Church priests on his list of contacts.

The serial paedophile, who the Catholic Church allegedly protected during his horrific 30-year sex offending spree, hardly ever leaves his residence inside the Ararat jail.

“He rarely ventures out into the main area,” said a prison source.

“He keeps to himself, presumably because he’s worried about getting bashed.”

Ridsdale, who abused more than 50 children while he was a Catholic priest, has become the face of the Catholic Church abuse scandal.

The 81-year-old was evasive under questioning this week at the Royal Commission into institutional child sex abuse.

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.

UNITED STATES
Failed Messiah

Yehudis Goldsobel, a British victim of child sex abuse who was shunned by her Chabad community when she pressed charges – successfully – against her abuser, founded Migdal Emunah, which bills itself as providing “independent sexual abuse advice and education.”

A new open letter to rabbis and haredi community leaders from a victim of Toros Grynhaus, the haredi teacher convicted earlier this month of abusing two teenage girls, was posted today on Migdal Emunah’s Facebook page. Here it is:

An open letter to Rabonim and Askonim

In the aftermath of what has been a very difficult time for chareidi leadership in the UK, I ask you to allow me to reflect on my experience as a victim of Mr Grynhaus, and to hear what I have to say.

There are indecent people in every society. Our community, which prides itself on kedusha and tahara, is not immune. Some people are just sick. They need to be kept away from children as a basic safety measure for the klall.

I don’t want to talk about those types of people.I want to talk about other people, who are not sick. Who don’t have twisted desires and who have self-control and self-respect. I’m referring to rabonim, teachers, layleaders, frum GPs and therapists.

The behaviour of some of these people is what pushed me to the edge of my sanity, and to the edge of my faith. I was lied to, lied about, ignored, pacified, and profoundly betrayed. Not by sick, indecent men, but by people who thought they were doing the right thing.

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UNITED STATES
LaCrosse Tribune

MIKE TIGHE mtighe@lacrossetribune.com

Churches must practice what they preach regarding the scandal of child sexual abuse, according to a grandson of the famed evangelist known as America’s Pastor.

“This is really fundamental,” says Basyle “Boz” Tchividjian, a grandson of the Rev. Billy Graham. “The gospel we preach is about a God who sacrificed himself for the individual.”

But religious leaders frequently renounce abuse victims to protect clerical and institutional reputations, Tchividjian said in a phone interview Friday.

The interview was in advance of his address at a Chaplains for Children conference that the Gundersen National Child Protection Training Center is sponsoring June 8-10 at Viterbo University in La Crosse.

“If we are preaching that gospel, churches need to sacrifice the church and stop sacrificing the individuals,” said Tchividjian, the 46-year-old founder and executive director of GRACE, Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment.

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

By Jean Hopfensperger Star Tribune MAY 30, 2015

Soon after a Dakota County jury acquitted Francis Hoefgen of criminal sexual misconduct with a former altar boy, St. Paul attorney Jeff Anderson released evidence that the jury did not hear — documents in which the former Catholic priest admitted to police that he had sexually assaulted a different teenage boy in 1984.

The latest documents add to more than 50 pages already available about Hoefgen, 64, a priest identified as credibly accused by St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minn., and whose trial was monitored by victims’ advocates across the country.

Advocates, including Anderson, claim the acquittal amounts to a “travesty of justice.” Legal experts say it underscores the difficulties of prosecuting older child abuse cases as Minnesota enters a new era of exposing clergy sexual offenders.

“These are extremely challenging prosecutions,” said Marci Hamilton, a law professor at Yeshiva University in New York and a national expert on clergy abuse litigation. “Evidence can be strong about a pattern of abuse, but not about the incident in a particular case. There must be evidence about this crime, by this perpetrator and this victim, to put someone away.”

Prior sexual misconduct can be admitted as evidence in the growing number of civil court cases filed in Minnesota courts, which now number 44. However, for the handful of criminal cases in play, it will be up to a judge to determine.

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TEXAS
San Antonio Express-News

By Guillermo Contreras
May 29, 2015

A noted Hispanic Catholic theologian and well-respected San Antonio priest denied Friday that he sexually abused a boy in the 1980s, calling the allegations baseless.

“I look forward to the legal process so that I may have the opportunity to refute these assertions,” Father Virgilio Elizondo said of claims that he took advantage of an orphan who came to him for help after another priest allegedly molested the boy for several years.

Elizondo denied the allegations made by an individual identified only as John Doe, who in the 1980s lived in a San Antonio orphanage. The man allegedly was molested by Jesus Armando Dominguez, who was studying for the priesthood. Dominguez was later ordained in California and defrocked amid more sexual abuse allegations, the San Antonio Express-News confirmed.

“I would like to thank the San Antonio community, my family and friends for the support I have received,” Elizondo said in a statement Friday. “The allegations made against me are not true and have absolutely no basis in fact. I deny all the claims which have been asserted against me.”

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CALIFORNIA
NBC 4

[with video]

By Joel Grover

A Catholic priest was found guilty Friday in federal court of sexually assaulting a woman aboard a flight from Philadelphia to LAX.

A federal jury found Father Marcelo De Jesumaria, who is based out of Arrowhead, California, guilty of abusive sexual contact on the US Airways flight to Los Angeles last August.

The FBI told the NBC4 I-Team that a female passenger, identified in legal documents only as “BD,” woke up during the flight to find the priest’s “hands on her breast, groin, and buttocks.”

De Jesumaria had previously served in the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Bernardino, but was removed from the ministry in November when the allegations against him surfaced, the diocese said in an emailed statement. He is a member of the Chicago-based Congregation of the Resurrection, which will determine his future in the priesthood, the statement said.

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SOUTH CAROLINA
SC Now

BY MELISSA ROLLINS Morning News mrollins@florencenews.com

FLORENCE, S.C. — In the early 2000s, the Catholic Church faced many allegations against its priests. After that time, a required program was instituted to try prevent abuse from happening again.
Bonnie Sigers, safe environment manager for the Diocese of Charleston, which includes St. Anne and St. Anthony locally, said the program has been in place for a decade now.

“In response to the allegations in 2005, the bishops in the United States created the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” Sigers said. “It outlined what dioceses needed to do to create and maintain safe environments. So we derive our policies from that charter.”

Sigers said all Catholic churches use the charter as a base point for their training. The curriculum used by the Diocese of Charleston is VIRTUS, a program created by The National Catholic Risk Retention Group, Inc.

“All employees and any volunteers that work with children have to go through a background screening, because we have to know all that we can about them,” Sigers said. “They have to attend an education session on how to prevent child sex abuse, have to read and sign a code of conduct for their interactions with children and have to sign-off that they’ve read our policy. All of those things are kept at every parish and school.”

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MASSACHUSETTS
Patriot Ledger

By Patrick Ronan

Posted May. 29, 2015

DEDHAM

A judge has ordered the parishioners who have been holding vigil at the closed St. Frances X. Cabrini church in Scituate for the past 10 years to vacate the church by next Friday, June 5.

On Friday, Norfolk County Superior Court Judge Edward Leibensperger denied the emergency motion filed by the Friends of St. Frances X. Cabrini to suspend the injunction barring the parishioners from entering the church by May 29 pending an appeal.

In his denial of the Friends’ motion, Leibensperger pushed back the order to vacate the Hood Street church by a week to June 5 at 5 p.m.

“I can’t even comment on that,” Maryellen Rogers, one of the leaders of the Friends of St. Frances, said Friday when asked if the group will adhere to the judge’s order and leave the church by June 5.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Wall Street Journal

By JENNIFER LEVITZ
May 29, 2015

A Massachusetts judge refused to halt the eviction of parishioners who have held a nearly 11-year vigil at a closed Roman Catholic church south of Boston.

A Superior Court judge ruled Friday that the unbroken vigil at St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Church must cease by June 5.

Parishioners, working in shifts, have occupied the Scituate, Mass., church round-the-clock since it was closed by the Archdiocese of Boston in 2004 as part of a downsizing plan.

A judge said this month that vigil participants were trespassing and ordered them to leave, at a date the court would determine later.

The parishioners filed an emergency motion to suspend the eviction. The judge denied that request Friday and ordered the occupation to end by 5 p.m. on June 5.

Parishioners said they plan to appeal the ruling to a state appeals court early next week.

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CANADA
Ottawa Citizen

MARK KENNEDY, OTTAWA CITIZEN

Canada’s indigenous people and non-aboriginals have a “shared responsibility” to fix their broken relationship for the sake of future generations, says the head of the country’s largest aboriginal organization.

In an interview Friday with the Citizen, Assembly of First Nations (AFN) national chief Perry Bellegarde called on people from all walks of life to heed the recommendations next week of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

That commission spent six years examining the residential school system, in which the federal government sent aboriginal children to church-run schools, where many faced physical, emotional and sexual abused.

The commission is expected to propose far-reaching changes to restore trust between the country and its First Nations, and to help improve the lives of aboriginals in areas such as health, education and justice.

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TEXAS
Matthew Paul Turner

MAY 29, 2015 BY MATTHEW PAUL TURNER

Yesterday’s statement from TVC was a mouthful, a carefully written, meticulously worded, and likely meticulously reworded mouthful. (Read it here.)

It was kind. Or maybe it was just nice. Either way, its tone wasn’t terrible. That much I’ll give them. But honestly, most of their communication toward Karen was presented with what can be perceived as kindness.

And I’ll give them this, too: it seemed to be humbly expressed.

But humbly expressed what is still what; it just requires one to actually ask what, process the what, and then ask again what.

So, now that I’ve lived with the response for several hours, I must ask: WHAT?!

I mean, first of all: WHAT were the reasons for offering an apology?

Sure, they offered a humbly presented apology to Karen, but they actually don’t apologize for anything that has, for the last 5 months, been a thorn in Karen’s side.

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NEVADA
Courthouse News Service

By MIKE HEUER

CARSON CITY, NEV. (CN) – The Catholic Diocese of Green Bay, Wis., need not pay a $500,000 judgment to the man who claims that a priest molested him when he was 13 in 1984, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled.

Because Nevada’s Clark County District Court does not have jurisdiction over the diocese, the justices unanimously reversed its $500,000 award to an unidentified man.

“The diocese did not have sufficient contacts with Nevada,” Justice Michael Cherry wrote for the court Thursday.

John P. Feeney, the former priest at the center of the litigation, had originally been assigned to the diocese in Wisconsin, and then moved on to Los Angeles before winding up in Las Vegas.

In his complaint, John Doe said the diocese was aware Feeney molested children in Wisconsin but “negligently retained and supervised Feeney and failed to warn others that Feeney was a danger to children,” Cherry wrote.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

A respected and leading expert on Catholic Church reform for almost a half century, Tom Fox of the National Catholic Reporter, asks perceptively and directly : Can the Catholic hierarchy finally admit it has Catholic sexual teachings wrong? Admittedly, he notes, it’s a tall order, pointing out that if Pope Francis and his hierarchy just withhold judgment without addressing and amending past teaching errors, it will not be enough. Nowhere near enough.

Fox also points out the gift Pope Francis and the Catholic hierarchy have been handed by the Irish with their overwhelming vote to legalize same sex marriages. Coming just months before the Synod on the Family set for next October in Rome, the vote by this Catholic nation is nothing less than a church plebiscite – a vote of the Catholic sensus fidelium for all to see that official Catholic teaching on human sexuality is wrong, hurtful, and even, at times, immoral.

He correctly cites a recent NCR editorial that states the situation succinctly. It reads in part (in italics):

It is time for church teaching to reflect what social science tells us and what Catholic families have long understood: Catholicism must cast off a theology of sexuality based on a mechanical understanding of natural law that focuses on individual acts, and embrace a theology of sexuality that has grown out of lived experience and is based on relationships and intentionality.

Fox fairly observes that the Irish vote is a wake up call. If the Synod on the Family ends with only a “pastoral” conclusion, a call that we all need “to open our selves and parishes to essentially wayward, sinners, that we need to love these “sinners” even as they continue to engage in “intrinsically disordered acts,” it will have failed all of us. The Synod then, despite the best intentions, will almost certainly end up further eroding the Catholic Church – if this is possible – as moral force on matters of family, human relationships and sexual theology.

Pope Francis says Catholics should “create a mess” to help him promote changes in the Catholic Church. The Irish responded and have created a “mess”. The Catholic majority are pleased for now; although many are skeptical. Some see a bright ray of hope shining through the crisis of trust triggered by Church scandals. Others think the window of opportunity for hopeful light from Pope Francis will close soon if he is not prophetic and transparent in his limited time still available. Indeed, some even think the Vatican’s current “holy mess” will be its final mess.

Yet, Francis has so far offered few indications about concrete changes he really wants. Many Church leaders seem fearful of any changes. Yet, many Catholics and others are finally pressing for permanent changes. They have by now seen Vatican misconduct up close and too often. They now also understand better that many of the Vatican’s frequently ambiguous, if not vague, basic biblical and historical sources supporting papal power and “unchangeable dogmas”, have too often been overplayed, if not misused, in encyclicals and a Catechism, to justify supreme papal power, a clearly unchristian concept.

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OHIO/MARYLAND
Cleveland Jewish News

ED WITTENBERG | STAFF REPORTER
ewittenberg@cjn.org

A criminal trial has been set for 9:15 a.m. Aug. 3 in Baltimore County Circuit Court for Rabbi Ephraim (Frederick) Karp, director of spiritual living at Menorah Park Center for Senior Living in Beachwood.

The Circuit Court of Maryland’s website also indicates that criminal motions – pretrial motions involving the prosecutor and defense team – are scheduled in the same court at 1:30 p.m. July 13.

Marc Zayon, a Baltimore-based lawyer, is listed as Karp’s attorney on the website. Karp remains in the Baltimore County Detention Center in Towson, Md., said Lisa Dever, spokesperson for the state’s attorney’s office for Baltimore County.

Karp, of Beachwood, was indicted Feb. 23 by the state’s attorney’s office for Baltimore County on charges of sexual abuse of a minor, continuing course of conduct; perverted practice and second- and third-degree sex offenses.

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

By FIONA HENDERSON May 30, 2015

A FEBRUARY 2013 meeting has ignited a war of words between Ballarat Bishop Paul Bird and clergy sexual abuse survivor Andrew Collins.

The meeting was held between Bishop Bird, Mr Collins and fellow survivor Peter Blenkiron to discuss the diocese footing the bill for the difference between the disability support pension, which many survivors live on, and the returned servicemen’s pension, which is an extra $256 a week.

Giving evidence to the royal commission earlier this week, Mr Collins said Bishop Bird said at the meeting the church would endure long after the victims were dead, and that they were trying to bankrupt the diocese.

But in a statement to the royal commission on Friday, Bishop Bird claimed he had said: “Such a proposal would be beyond the resources of the diocese.”

He also said he never said they were “intent on destroying his church”.

“I did not attribute any such motive to Mr Collins or Mr Blenkiron. I saw them as men who were seeking assistance for themselves and others in a similar situation.”

Bishop Bird also said he did not say the church would endure after the victims were all dead. “Making such a comment to anyone, let alone a victim of sexual abuse, would be extremely hurtful and I would not do so.”

But Mr Collins, speaking outside the royal commission, said he was “very disappointed” by Bishop Bird’s statement.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Tablet

28 May 2015 by Katherine Backler, Liz Dodd

Ireland has gone further than paganism and “defied God” by legalising gay marriage, one of the Church’s most senior cardinals has said.

Cardinal Raymond Burke, who was recently moved from a senior role in the Vatican to be patron of the Order of Malta, told the Newman Society, Oxford University’s Catholic Society, last night that he struggled to understand “any nation redefining marriage”.

Visibly moved, he went on: “I mean, this is a defiance of God. It’s just incredible. Pagans may have tolerated homosexual behaviours, they never dared to say this was marriage.”

A total of 1.2 million people voted in favour of amending the constitution to allow same-sex couples to marry, with 734,300 against the proposal, making Ireland the first country to introduce gay marriage by popular vote.

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NEW JERSEY
Star-Ledger

By Star-Ledger Editorial Board
on May 28, 2015

When Newark Archbishop John Myers removed a popular priest at Seton Hall, he insisted through a spokesman that it had nothing to do with his Facebook posts supporting a group promoting gay marriage.

“That could not be farther from the truth,” said Jim Goodness, whose unenviable job it is to come up with excuses for Myers.

The reassignment, he said, was part of the “normal transfer cycle that involves scores of priests each June.” Only when pressed did he concede the posting “was a factor.”

Now, Fr. Warren Hall has decided to come out as gay, and open up about his removal to a gay magazine. He said he received a note to call the archbishop five months after the Facebook issue was already resolved.

It’s unclear whether Myers knew he was gay at the time. But Hall says the archbishop told him: “None of us want bullying, but you have a further agenda here, and I can’t have you at Seton Hall because of that.”

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Thomas C. Fox | May. 29, 2015 NCR Today

What a gift the Catholic hierarchy has been handed by the Irish with their overwhelming vote to legalize same sex marriages. Coming just months before the Synod on the Family set for next October in Rome, the vote by this Catholic nation is nothing less than a church plebiscite – a vote of the Catholic sensus filelium for all to see that official Catholic teaching on human sexuality is wrong, hurtful, and even, at times, immoral.

A recent NCR editorial states the situation succinctly. It reads in part

It is time for church teaching to reflect what social science tells us and what Catholic families have long understood: Catholicism must cast off a theology of sexuality based on a mechanical understanding of natural law that focuses on individual acts, and embrace a theology of sexuality that has grown out of lived experience and is based on relationships and intentionality.

The Irish vote is a wake up call. If the Synod on the Family ends with only a “pastoral” conclusion, a call that we all need “to open our selves and parishes to essentially wayward, sinners, that we need to love these “sinners” even as they continue to engage in “intrinsically disordered acts,” it will have failed all of us and the synod, despite the best intentions, will almost certainly end up further eroding the Catholic church – if this is possible – as moral force on matters of family, human relationship and sexual theology.

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MISSOURI
Sexual Abuse Within the Church: A Case Study at First Christian Church of Florissant

Doug Lay with Titus Benton

6th Edition March 28, 2015

The Churches 1

First Christian Church of Florissant

The beginning of the story goes back to a time when Brandon first arrived in St. Louis. He enrolled at Saint Louis Christian College1 in August of 2005 and began attending and volunteering with the children’s ministry at FCCF. The church hired Brandon part-time as a children’s intern with two other interns the next year (2006), working with 5th graders. He would continue as a paid intern through December of 2007.

During the 2006-2007 school year, a former staff member reported that “I had conversations with Brandon about being alone with both (Family Name) boys and the youngest (Family Name) as all 3 boys stated how uncomfortable they had gotten. Not to my surprise, he pushed what I was saying away. I told the (Family Name) about my conversation and how uncomfortable their son was and they asked Brandon to move back to SLCC. From there, I honestly avoided him…because he honestly, avoided me.”2

In June of 2007, Brandon committed the six accounts of sodomy against two young boys under the age of 12. It would be four months later, in October of 2007, that Brandon committed the seventh count of sodomy.

No one knew except the two innocent victims—and Brandon.

We now know—so as the steps of Brandon’s story are retraced, we hope it may help to interpret the “circumstantial” evidence to better understand and learn from this tragic event.

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UNITED STATES
Vice

by Drew Millard
Associate Editor

The story of the Josh Duggar scandal—that as a teen, the 19 Kids and Counting Star molested multiple young women, only to have his father, Jim Bob Duggar, underplay and cover up his actions—is simple. The narratives surrounding it, however, are not, exposing underlying questions about faith, morality, and abuse in the Christian patriarchy movement, a fundamentalist set of beliefs popular among Evangelical homeschooling families like the Duggars.

The scandal is the latest in a series of sexual abuse allegations that have rocked the Patriarchy movement, which holds that women in general should be subject and subordinate to men. According to Evangelical leaders, including Home School Legal Defense Association founder Michael Farris, who has distanced himself from the movement, biblical patriarchy goes beyond even typical Christian fundamentalism in treating women as subjects, discouraging females from voting or attending college and promoting the idea that “unmarried adult women are subject to their fathers’ authority.”

The Duggars, who homeschool their children, belong to an even more specific sect known as “Quiverfulls,” which advocates for large, patriarchal families. Each family member is an “arrow” in a “quiver.” Vyckie Garrison, a former Quiverfull adherent who runs the Patheos blog No Longer Quivering, which acts as a watchdog against the movement, describes the “quiver” metaphor this way:

The whole point of having a quiver full of babies is to… out-populate the “enemy”… and to shoot those many arrows “straight into the heart of the enemy.” And by that, we meant that our children would grow up to be leaders in all the major institutions of our society.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, a central tenet of Quiverfull beliefs is a rejection of any and all forms of contraception. The Quiverfull website contains links to articles with titles like “The Case Against Birth Control,” sells a booklet titled “Does the Birth Control Pill Cause Abortions?,” and includes a link to a now-disabled site that encourages vasectomy reversals. The message is clear: Women ought to have as many children as possible, regardless of their personal preferences.

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UNITED STATES
Pewsitter

By Frank Walker
Pewsitter.com

Archbishop Paglia, the postulator for the cause of once-blocked Liberation Theology icon, Oscar Romero, and perhaps the only person who seems to have first-hand knowledge that Pope Benedict supposedly lifted it after blocking it for a generation, is being accused of fraud.

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, a Vatican official, is under investigation by Italian prosecutors on suspicion of embezzlement and price fixing during the sale of an historic castle, according to media reports Wednesday.

The sale of the San Girolamo castle in central Italy has already led to the arrest of two employees of the diocese of Terni where Paglia, who is president of the Holy See’s council for family matters, was bishop.

Now prosecutors are probing Paglia on allegations of criminal conspiracy and fraud in relation to the sale of the castle four years ago to real estate company IMI immobiliare, which was headed by one of the arrested diocese employees.

Diocese funds were allegedly used illegally and money was found to be missing from diocese funds.

According to Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, which cited the prosecutor for the city of Terni in central Italy, Paglia is alleged to be one of the instigators of the fraud.

The mountain of things we are supposed to believe in the new FrancisChurch just gets higher and higher! Pope Francis doesn’t endorse the condemned Communist-produced heresy of Liberation Theology and neither did murdered, I mean ‘martyred,’ Archbishop Romero, but both of them repeatedly spoke and acted just like Liberation Theologists. Both associated with the leaders of the movement and receive their praises, and the FrancisChurch has placed its guiding ‘lights’ at the seats of highest honor in the Church.

The denials are perfunctory. The beatification itself is telling. Martyred for loving the poor? How do you love the poor by defending Marxist guerillas?

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ITALY
The Local

Published: 28 May 2015

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, a Vatican official, is under investigation by Italian prosecutors on suspicion of embezzlement and price fixing during the sale of an historic castle, according to media reports on Wednesday.

The sale of the San Girolamo castle in central Italy has already led to the arrest of two employees of the diocese of Terni where Paglia, who is president of the Holy See’s council for family matters, was bishop.

Now prosecutors are probing Paglia on allegations of criminal conspiracy and fraud in relation to the sale of the castle four years ago to real estate company IMI immobiliare, which was headed by one of the arrested diocese employees.

Diocese funds were allegedly used illegally and money was found to be missing from diocese funds.

According to Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, which cited the prosecutor for the city of Terni in central Italy, Paglia is alleged to be one of the instigators of the fraud.

Those under investigation have 20 days to hand over files explaining their defence.

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ITALY
The Tablet (UK)

29 May 2015 by Grace Isaac
A senior Vatican official has denied accusations of fraud relating to the purchase of an historic castle in Umbria.

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, is one of ten people under investigation by Italian prosecutors for alleged fraud and embezzlement over the purchase of San Girolamo castle in 2011.

The castle, on the hills outside the town of Narni, is situated in the diocese of Terni, where Paglia was bishop from 2000 to 2012.

The local council sold San Girolamo castle to the real estate company IMI Immobiliare, which is headed by the bursar of Terni diocese, Paolo Zappelli.

The then Bishop Paglia is accused of having illegally used diocesan funds to purchase the castle.
Council officials are alleged to have colluded with Paglia, selling the castle in 2011 for far less than its true value.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholic Philly

BY MATTHEW GAMBINO

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the head of the Pontifical Council for the Family and lead Vatican organizer of September’s World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia, is under investigation by Italian prosecutors into charges of embezzlement.

Published reports in European media outlets say the investigation stems from 2011 when the archbishop led the Diocese of Terni in Italy, and diocesan funds may have been used improperly in a scheme to purchase then resell at a profit a 14th century Italian castle.

A diocesan financial officer at the time was also the head of an Italian firm that purchased the property, which today remains undeveloped.

In Philadelphia, Archbishop Charles Chaput said in a statement May 29 that he was saddened to learn the news of Archbishop Paglia, “and will pray for him.”

“At the same time,” Archbishop Chaput said, “I assure everyone that matters facing him do not impact our plans for September. We continue to work without interruption and joyfully anticipate welcoming our Holy Father and the world to Philadelphia later this year.”

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ITALY
Telegraph (UK)

By Nick Squires, Rome 28 May 2015

A senior Vatican official is under investigation for alleged fraud and embezzlement in relation to the sale of a 14th century castle in Umbria, in the latest scandal to hit the Roman Catholic Church.

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, who is the head of a Vatican department, is accused of buying the castle in central Italy at an artificially low price with the intention of later selling it at its market value, in an alleged scam that would have netted a profit of nearly €4 million (£2.9 million).

San Girolamo castle, in the town of Narni, was owned by the local council before being sold to the Church.

Council officials are alleged to have colluded with the archbishop, selling the castle four years ago for a knock-down price of €1.76 million – about a third of its true value.

Prosecutors in the nearby city of Terni suspect that the alleged conspirators planned to manage it for a few years, either as an upmarket guesthouse or for religious purposes, and then sell it for €5.6 million.

Archbishop Paglia, 70, who is head of the Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family, is alleged to have illegally used diocese funds to purchase the property.

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ITALIA
Corriere della Sera

Monsignor Paglia indagato per l’acquisto del castello di Narni L’accusa: associazione a delinquere Don Vincenzo incredulo

di Amalia De Simone – Fiorenza Sarzaninidi

La procura di Terni chiude le indagini sulla compravendita del castello di San Girolamo e contesta l’associazione per delinquere oltre a numerosi reati per l’irregolarità della gara pubblica. Tra gli indagati, monsignor Vincenzo Paglia – attuale presidente del Pontificio consiglio per la famiglia – il vicario episcopale della diocesi Francesco De Santis, oltre al presidente dell’Istituto diocesano per il sostentamento del clero, Giampaolo Cianchetta. Le indagini sono state svolte dal nucleo valutario della Guardia di Finanza guidato dal generale Giuseppe Bottillo e dalla Questura di Terni guidata da Carmine Belfiore.

Lo scenario

Operazioni finanziarie e immobiliari realizzate con i conti correnti della diocesi umbra di Terni, Narni e Amelia, gravata da un pesante buco economico, sono lo scenario dell’ inchiesta che coinvolge uno dei più importanti esponenti della chiesa cattolica. Monsignor Vincenzo Paglia, esponente di spicco della comunità di Sant’Egidio e vescovo della diocesi di Terni dal 2000 al 2012, è stato raggiunto da un avviso di conclusione indagini firmato dal pm della procura di Terni Elisabetta Massini. Le accuse vanno dall’associazione per delinquere alla turbata libertà degli incanti, truffa ai danni del Comune di Narni, abusivo esercizio del credito, appropriazione indebita.

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CITTA DEL VATICANO
Corriere della Sera

di Gian Guido Vecchi

CITTÀ DEL VATICANO «Ovviamente, resto a disposizione dell’autorità inquirente e confido totalmente nella giustizia terrena». A metà pomeriggio di una giornata scandita dalle telefonate con l’avvocato, monsignor Vincenzo Paglia mette nero su bianco e lima e fa trasmettere alle agenzie di stampa poche righe sorvegliate che fanno trapelare solo una parte del suo sconcerto.

Chi gli è vicino fa notare che un vescovo in una diocesi ha dei collaboratori e non controlla di persona i movimenti dei conti, che vede e parla con un sacco di persone e non ha idea se una chiacchierata al telefono col sindaco costituisca una «fattispecie delittuosa» che ti può mettere nei guai, che quel progetto gli era stato presentato come una «buona azione, addirittura meritoria»: il «castello-convento» che va in rovina e nessuno vuole, una possibilità di «crescita del patrimonio immobiliare» della diocesi per farne un «uso ecclesiastico» o magari «un centro di ospitalità e di cultura», il tutto «portando beneficio al territorio».

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ITALIA
Corriere della Sera

di Gian Guido Vecchi

«Ovviamente, resto a disposizione dell’autorità inquirente e confido totalmente nella giustizia terrena». A metà pomeriggio di una giornata scandita dalle telefonate con l’avvocato, monsignor Vincenzo Paglia mette nero su bianco e lima e fa trasmettere alle agenzie di stampa poche righe sorvegliate che fanno trapelare solo una parte del suo sconcerto.

Chi gli è vicino fa notare che un vescovo in una diocesi ha dei collaboratori e non controlla di persona i movimenti dei conti, che vede e parla con un sacco di persone e non ha idea se una chiacchierata al telefono col sindaco costituisca una «fattispecie delittuosa» che ti può mettere nei guai, che quel progetto gli era stato presentato come una «buona azione, addirittura meritoria»: il «castello-convento» che va in rovina e nessuno vuole, una possibilità di «crescita del patrimonio immobiliare» della diocesi per farne un «uso ecclesiastico» o magari «un centro di ospitalità e di cultura», il tutto «portando beneficio al territorio».

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ITALY
Yahoo! News

Rome (AFP) – Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, a Vatican official, is under investigation by Italian prosecutors on suspicion of embezzlement and price fixing during the sale of an historic castle, according to media reports Wednesday.

The sale of the San Girolamo castle in central Italy has already led to the arrest of two employees of the diocese of Terni where Paglia, who is president of the Holy See’s council for family matters, was bishop.

Now prosecutors are probing Paglia on allegations of criminal conspiracy and fraud in relation to the sale of the castle four years ago to real estate company IMI immobiliare, which was headed by one of the arrested diocese employees.

Diocese funds were allegedly used illegally and money was found to be missing from diocese funds.

According to Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, which cited the prosecutor for the city of Terni in central Italy, Paglia is alleged to be one of the instigators of the fraud.

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ITALY
International Business Times

By Umberto Bacchi
May 28, 2015

A top Vatican official has been placed under investigation for embezzlement in relation to the purchase of an historic Italian castle in what might become the last of a series of scandal to hit the Holy See, it has been reported.

Prosecutors in Terni, central Italy, have included the name of Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia among a list of individuals suspected of having fraudulently manoeuvred the sale of the 19th-century San Girolamo castle, located on the lush Umbrian hills near the town of Narni, local press said.

The building, which houses an old Franciscan convent, was sold by the Narni City Council to a real estate company named IMI Immobiliare four years ago for about €1m (£700,000, $1.1m).

At the time, Monisgnor Paglia, currently the president of the Holy See’s council for family matters, was serving as the bishop of Terni, a diocese which includes Narni.

Prosecutors allege that the castle was sold way below its real value – which they estimate at more than €5.5m – and purchased with church money as part of a criminal conspiracy orchestrated by the archbishop, Il Corriere della Sera reported.

The director of IMI Immobiliare (the buyer) was in fact Paolo Zappelli who was also the bursar of the diocese of Terni.

Detectives claim the company completed the purchase with funds from the diocese, which was at the time facing a separate deficit crisis, and later gained it the dubious title of Europe’s second most indebted diocese.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

DAVID O’REILLY, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
LAST UPDATED: Friday, May 29, 2015

The Vatican archbishop in charge of overseeing the World Meeting of Families is under investigation for possible embezzlement, according to several European news organizations.

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Council for the Family, reportedly bought the 14th-century San Girolamo castle in Umbria at an artificially low price with the intention of reselling it at full market value.

“The alleged scam” would have netted a profit of about $4.4 million, the British newspaper The Independent reported Friday.

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia, which is hosting the ninth triennial World Meeting of Families here in September, issued a statement Friday saying the investigation of Paglia did not appear to affect the meeting.

“I assure everyone that matters facing him do not impact our plans for September,” Philadelphia’s Archbishop Charles J. Chaput said in the statement.

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WISCONSIN
Green Bay Press-Gazette

Paul Srubas, Press-Gazette Media May 29, 2015

A Nevada man who claimed he was molested by a former Freedom priest is not entitled to compensation from the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The case involved a lawsuit filed by “John Doe 119,” who claimed the former Rev. John P. Feeney molested him in 1984 in Las Vegas. The lawsuit states the man was 13 when he was assaulted by Feeney, but it was not until around 2008 that Doe recognized that he had psychological trauma as a result of Feeney’s acts. Doe sued the diocese for negligence in hiring and retaining Feeney.

In the lawsuit, Doe claimed Feeney, a pastor in Las Vegas at the time of the assault, was still an agent of the diocese, that the diocese was aware Feeney had molested children in Wisconsin and that it negligently failed to warn others that he was a danger.

Doe won his case in a lower court in Clark County, Nev., where a jury in 2012 awarded him $500,000 in compensation from the diocese, according to a report by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The state Supreme Court decision reverses that.

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UNITED STATES
Charisma News

JENNIFER LECLAIRE

I never enjoy writing about pastors falling into sexual immorality—and when pastors take their own lives it reminds me of the suicide in my own family just a few years ago. But this column is among the most tragic I’ve ever penned.

Please understand, I am writing this with sorrow upon sorrow for the sole purpose of laying an axe to the root of the devil’s plans to steal, kill and destroy more lives.

Yesterday I learned that Seth Oiler died in the prime of his life. The 42-year-old pastor of First United Methodist Church (UMC) in Newark, New Jersey committed suicide in his church-owned home a week ago. His untimely death followed an adulterous affair with a church staff member to which he admitted. I can only imagine the guilt, shame and condemnation that was flooding his soul.

We reported on a similar story in December 2013, when Isaac Hunter, former pastor of Summit Church in Orlando, took his own life. His death came about a year after he admitted to an affair with a former staffer. Unlike Oiler’s story, with Hunter there were apparent warning signs, including reports of a downward spiral of violence, drug and alcohol abuse, and suicidal thoughts. A suicide note was even discovered far in advance of his death.

Stopping This Deadly Cycle

Sexual immorality is tragic, but there is a way back from this sinful path. Indeed, we know that many pastors have been fully restored to ministry even after falling into immorality and idolatry. What’s especially tragic is that the devil that tempts people into sex immorality—or any manner of sin—is the same devil that later brings accusations, guilt, shame, condemnation and the like. It’s a set up. The question is, how do we stop the deadly cycle?

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TEXAS
Christian Today

Mark Woods CHRISTIAN TODAY CONTRIBUTING EDITOR 29 May 2015

The Village Church has issued an extensive apology for its treatment of Karen Hinkley over the annulment of her marriage to Jordan Root, who confessed to watching images of child abuse over many years.

Root entered what the church called a “process of walking in repentance” which saw him removed from ministry and reported to the authorities. However, Hinkley found herself the subject of church discipline because she had her marriage annulled contrary to the church’s covenant membership provisions. The church refused to accept her resignation from membership while she was under discipline because that too was contrary to the covenant.

The Dallas megachurch, whose leader is Matt Chandler, was widely criticised for its conduct. According to a Christianity Today report, Chandler plans to apologise in services this weekend for failing to show compassion to struggling church members. He said that elders had been “domineering” in their approach to church discipline in a few cases and that this was wrong and unChristian.

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MISSOURI
Riverfront Times

By Danny Wicentowski Fri., May 29 2015

Doug Lay was beloved among his students at St. Louis Christian College. The student body voted him 2015’s Teacher of the Year.
But the bookish English professor was nowhere to be found among the well-wishers who gathered at First Christian Church of Florissant earlier this month for the college’s graduation ceremony.

Lay’s conspicuous absence was no accident: He’d been banned from the church’s premises in April, one month after he’d started raising questions about the way the church’s senior pastor, Steve Wingfield, handled allegations of sexual abuse.

In a meticulously researched report titled “Is It Enough: Sexual Abuse Within the Church: A Case Study at First Christian Church of Florissant,” Lay accused Wingfield of ignoring warnings about a youth minister named Brandon Milburn. A former student of Lay’s, Milburn had once been a rising star in the north county megachurch. Last year, Milburn was unmasked as a serial child molester.

In 2014, Doug Lay sent his accusation-filled report, “Is it Enough,” to FCCF leadership.
As documented in a Riverfront Times investigation, Milburn started hanging around First Christian Church of Florissant, or FCCF, in 2005. That’s also where he found his victims, two eleven-year-old boys, whom he abused repeatedly between 2007 and 2009.

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MASSACHUSETTS
National Catholic Reporter

Steve Sheenan | May. 20, 2015 Examining the Crisis

BOSTON

In 2002, I stood on the sidewalk in front of the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston with several hundred members of the Voice of the Faithful and a handful of people who had been sexually abused by members of the clergy of the Roman Catholic church. One by one, the survivors told us their stories of the abuse they suffered and how it had taken them many years before they found the strength to come forward and bare their pain and torment in the public arena.

A few of those present then formed an organization called Speak Truth to Power (STTOP) and began meeting in front of the cathedral on Sunday mornings in a protest demanding that the Boston archdiocese provide justice to the survivors and take all the precautions necessary to ensure the safety of children and vulnerable adults and to bring this shameful history of the archdiocese to an end. A call was also made for the resignation of the cardinal archbishop of Boston, Bernard Law, for his role in covering-up the abuse by reassigning offending priests and protecting them from being indicted and tried for their crimes.

Last Sunday, May 17, a group of 25 survivors and supporters gathered in front of that cathedral to celebrate the 700th consecutive Sunday of this protest.

Not all of these 25 were present every Sunday, but every Sunday there were members of the group out there on the sidewalk in spite of the snow, rain, or scorching heat. These demonstrations were held calmly and politely, not wishing to cause a public disturbance or interrupt a religious service. The intent has always been the same, to remind the cardinal archbishop of Boston and all bishop/cardinals that we will not go away until justice has been served for the survivors and that children everywhere are provided a safe environment in which to live and grow.

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TEXAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, May 29

Statement by Amy Smith, Dallas co-leader of SNAP ( 281-748-4050, watchkeepamy@gmail.com )

An officials at a large Dallas church says he’ll apologize on Sunday to a woman whose mistreatment by church officials has generated a firestorm of protest. We’re not impressed by the pastor’s promises.

[Christian Today]

If an apology happens, it will likely be a belated, grudging and vague one from Matt Chandler of The Village Church to Karen Hinkley. Still, we hope it brings some comfort to Karen who has suffered so much and so needlessly because TVC officials have acted so selfishly, secretively recklessly and hurtfully.

(Hinkley’s husband, Jordan Root, admitted viewing images of child abuse. TVC officials disciplined her when she sought to annul their marriage.)

[Christian Today]

We suspect Chandler is doing this only because he and his colleagues have been severely and widely criticized for their cruelty to this brave, wounded woman.

But an apology does nothing to protect the vulnerable or heal those already hurt because of the crimes of Jordan Root and the actions of TVC staff.

We firmly believe that kids are at risk now because Root walks free, living and working among unsuspecting families. And we firmly believe there are kids he has hurt who are suffering in silence, shame and self-blame.

TVC staff should use their vast resources to alert parents, police, prosecutors and the public about Root’s crimes and to aggressively seek out youngsters he has assaulted. The church has a moral and civic duty to help law enforcement investigation and prosecute Root, so that other kids may be spared devastating harm.

Adults can heal themselves, with or without apologies from complicit church officials. Kids, however, ca

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TEXAS/INDIANA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, May 29

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

Catholic officials are putting innocent children at risk by keeping an accused predator priest on the job even though he was sued for child sex abuse more last week ago.

We demand that staff at Notre Dame, the Ft. Wayne diocese and the San Antonio diocese suspend him immediately. They are acting recklessly and callously and are breaking the US bishops’ child sex abuse policy.

[WSBT]

Since 2002, the US Catholic church hierarchy has formally and repeatedly pledged it would suspend credibly accused child molesting clerics. Yet a high-profile priest and professor, Fr. Virgilio Elizondo, was accused last week in a civil lawsuit of sexually assaulting a child in Texas in the 1980s.

Fort Wayne-South Bend Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades, San Antonio Archbishop Gustavo Garcia-Siller and Notre Dame president Fr. John Jenkins are needlessly taking risks with the safety of boys and girls. They should

— immediately suspend Fr. Elizondo from any and all positions,
— send him to a remote, secure, independently-run treatment center, and
— use their vast resources to aggressively seek out others who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes by this cleric or cover ups by his church or university supervisors.

Some at the university say Fr. Elizondo spends little time on campus. That doesn’t matter. It takes only seconds for a child molester to shove his tongue in a boy’s mouth or his hands down a girl’s pants.

Anyone with information or suspicions about clergy sex crimes or cover ups should call secular authorities, not church officials.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

VATICAN CITY | BY PHILIP PULLELLA

May 29 The Vatican bank has made good progress in transparency but needs more changes to consolidate anti-money laundering reforms, the Holy See’s financial regulator said on Friday.

The Financial Intelligence Authority’s (AIF) also said in its annual report for 2014 that it had forwarded seven cases of suspected fraud or tax avoidance to the Vatican prosecutor’s office for further investigation.

It said the number of reports it had received of potentially suspicious financial activity fell to 147 last year, down from a peak of 202 in 2013, which officials said showed that reforms and reporting procedures were working.

The Vatican bank, seeking to repair its image after a series of financial scandals, has been undergoing massive reforms over the past three years.

The bank, formally known as the Institute for Religious Works (IOR), has toughened regulatory standards and closed thousands of accounts.

Reforming the IOR has been one of the most sensitive issues tackled by Pope Francis as he has sought to overhaul the complex Vatican administration.

The report said it had carried out the first on-site inspection of the IOR to see if it was fully complying with new international transparency and accounting requirements as well as anti-money laundering legislation.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Catholicism

Jerry Slevin

USA, Germany, Italy, UK, Philippines, et al., Must Press Pope, Like Ireland & Australia Have, To Restore Church Democracy To Protect Catholics

The Vatican’s sexual morality policy errors on same sex marriage, contraception and other matters are only sick symptoms of a fundamentally deformed Church management structure. These errors stem mostly from the Vatican’s self-interested goal of preserving the myth of a top down, unaccountable, infallible and absolute papal ruler with his unaccountable Vatican bureaucracy and subordinate worldwide bishops. True monarchies like the papacy are doomed in this world of democracies.

The editors at the National Catholic Reporter recently referred to the pope’s many seemingly intentional and contradictory statements and actions as the “Francis two-step”, or the “Pope Francis shuffle”. On the issue of church teaching on sexuality, the editors believe the time for dialogue is likely passed. Action is needed. The strongest message out of the Irish referendum is that on its teaching about sexuality, the Church today faces a watershed moment, just as it did in 1968 with Humanae Vitae banning the birth control pill.

The editors note that Pope Paul VI, whom incidentally Pope Francis unnecessarily, hastily and unwisely beatified, addressed contraception with a disastrous formula. By rejecting the evolving learning about artificial birth control and married love — documented by social science and the testimony of committed, faithful married Catholics on the papal commission he appointed — Paul contributed mightily to the erosion of episcopal credibility. Pope Francis is doing likewise with his “son of the Church” ideological nonsense.

The editors at the National Catholic Reporter view the recent Irish vote for same-sex marriage as a watershed moment for Catholic Church teaching. As an experienced international lawyer, I am more sceptical.

Pope Francis has failed in two years even to initiate any significant permanent reforms in the Catholic Church’s top down governance structure — the source of most papal scandals and sexual morality errors. After much spin, the unnecessary Vatican Bank has reported still almost 150 suspicious transactions in 2014 involving many hundreds of millions of dollars.

Moreover, the pope’s failure to address seriously his biggest challenge, the priest child abuse scandal, is telling. This is clear, for example, from the pope’s acquiescence in the continuing merciless abuse of survivors in Milwaukee, as described below by Fr. Thomas Doyle, and the pope’s outrageous promotion and protection of Cardinal George Pell, also described more below.

It is clear the Vatican is mainly trying to ride out the scandals — keeping the hierarchy out of jail and flush with cash as top priorities. German and US bishops are do battle with each other over giving remarried divorced Catholics access to communion — a big money issue for bishops in both countries. The German bishops want to loosen up the marriage rules to appeal to divorced couples to protect the multi-billion dollar annual German governmental subsidies. US bishops want to preserve the rigid marriage rules to appeal to “low tax” US billionaires who need the anti-gay marriage voters to elect a US Republican president next year.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Cardinal George Pell said this week he is prepared to return to Australia from the Vatican to give evidence in person to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, if he is officially requested to attend. This newspaper would be astounded were the royal commission not to make such a request, for Cardinal Pell’s testimony may be a pivotal part of this important inquiry into one of this nation’s darkest and most tragic chapters.

Cardinal Pell has had a distinguished career with the Catholic Church, including key leadership positions such as Archbishop of Sydney and Archbishop of Melbourne. He will have a crucial insight into its operations. Nor can he ignore the fact that his own time in Ballarat coincided with some of the worst abuses of children by other priests.

The royal commission this week held hearings in that city, and heard that Cardinal Pell once shared a home with other priests including one of the worst child sexual abusers in our history, Gerald Ridsdale. Indeed, Cardinal Pell gave public support to Ridsdale during a 1993 court appearance. Ridsdale, appearing via video link from jail, where he is serving a lengthy sentence for his appalling crimes, said that when he approached now-Cardinal Pell for that support, the church leader would have known the nature of the charges.

Counsel assisting the royal commission, Gail Furness, SC, described how the College of Consultors – a group of priests who advised Ballarat’s then bishop, Ronald Mulkearns – decided to move Ridsdale between parishes. Cardinal Pell was for a time a member of that group. He has repeatedly denied knowing children were abused in Ballarat when he was there, yet his recollections of the time, and knowledge of the processes of the church, will be important information for the commission.

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

5/29/2015

It was reported that St. John’s priest Richard Eckroth, who was retired and living at St. John’s Abbey for years, died this week. It must also be noted that Eckroth had a long history of predatory conduct that shattered the lives and souls of innocent children whose numbers are yet to be known. The number of kids Eckroth abused could exceed 100. What is known is that Eckroth was a serial offender that had been described by at least one Abbot as dangerous. What is also known is that Eckroth was given cover for many of those years by top St. John’s officials.

Our firm currently represents three survivors of abuse by Eckroth and has worked with many others over the past twenty-plus years. What we have learned about this predator is that as a priest, monk, professor and pastor of St. John’s he easily built the trust of parents who readily gave him permission to bring their children to a remote cabin owned and maintained by St. John’s Abbey where he then abused many of them. Eckroth plied children, some as young as eight years old, with alcohol and often employed means of coercion and threats of violence to accomplish his abuse. Over the years we have worked with several of those kids, now adults, who struggle with an aftermath of depression, anxiety, shame and guilt as a result of what Eckroth did to them.

The Child Victims Act now permits those survivors of abuse by Eckroth and others to bring civil actions until May of 2016. The death of Eckroth or any offender does not prevent survivors from asserting claims against those who made the conscious choices to protect the Eckroths and other abusers like him in the past. We applaud the courage of the survivors who have come forward and encourage others to do so knowing that by coming forward they can regain some measure of the power that was taken from them as a child. When a survivor comes forward it can bring hope and help to themselves and to others. Richard Eckroth no doubt left a trail of devastation and broken and shattered lives wherever he went. However, every time one of Eckroth’s survivors and the survivors of others like him, comes forward and shares the secret, they can begin the process of recovery. And survivors can come forward confidentially.

Today we release some of the documents that have been disgorged in other litigation concerning Richard Eckroth’s history. These documents include a 1993 report from St. Luke’s Institute where Eckroth was sent for sexual deviancy and abuse. Other records reflect the knowledge of top officials at St. John’s that regarded Eckroth as a “danger” for years.

Eckroth St. Luke Report 1993
Return to St. Luke
Eckroth travel to St. Luke
Evaluation Arrangements
Email regarding allegation
Email regarding Eckroth
E-mail regarding Eckroth allegations
Email regarding Eckroth settlement
Letter to detective regarding Eckroths wherabouts
1971 Eckroth Cabin
Eckroth Photo

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MINNESOTA
CBS Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A retired St. John’s Abbey priest accused of sexually abusing children is dead.

The law office of Jeff Anderson and Associates announced Friday that Father Richard Eckroth passed away this week at the age of 88.

Allegations of abuse against Eckroth date back to the late 60s and early 70s, when he was accused of sexually abusing children that he took to a St. John’s Abbey-owned cabin in Bemidji.

Three adult survivors of his alleged abuse are being represented by Attorney Jeff Anderson.

“Eckroth plied children, some as young as eight years old, with alcohol and often employed means of coercion and threats of violence to accomplish his abuse,” Anderson said.

Anderson and Associates released a document Friday from St. Luke’s Institute concerning Eckroth. The report, written in 1993, reveals Eckroth was sent to the institute by St. John’s Abbey for evaluation of sexual deviancy and abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

TESSA AKERMAN THE AUSTRALIAN MAY 30, 2015

The Ballarat diocese of the Catholic Church may not be able to continue funding settlements for ­child sex survivors, so great is the scale of the abuse.

At least 10 and possibly more than 14 diocesan priests from late last century have had complaints against them substantiated, the royal commission into child sex abuse heard yesterday.

Bishop of Ballarat Paul Bird said settlements to abuse survivors which are not covered by Catholic Church Insurance were paid from a bequest set up in the 1930s.

He said the fund had about $1 million left and once that was ­extinguished, claims would be paid from general ­accumulated funds of the diocese. “I do have doubts that we could meet those claims,” he said yesterday.

There was a development fund with more than $100m from various contributors which the diocese could draw upon, but the financial position of the diocese was “not strong” and many parishes required subsidies.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

AAP

Ballarat Bishop Paul Bird says he hopes the child abuse royal commission provides some healing for victims.

The royal commission has heard the community in the Victorian regional city is divided, with groups “at war” over the response to the history of child sexual abuse in the Ballarat diocese.

Bishop Bird agreed the leaders of the church, not just in Ballarat, needed to tell the community that it was a good thing for abuse victims to come forward.

“I’ve said it several times but I would need to continue to say it because some people don’t see that that’s a good thing,” he told the commission.

He said some people did not appreciate the full impact of the abuse.

Reading a statement to reporters, Bishop Bird apologised to victims.

“I have been very moved and I am very sorry that as young children they endured such horrendous abuse at the hands of the very people who should have cared for them.

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ITALY
America Magazine

Gerard O’Connell | May 27 2015

The Italian media are reporting that Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, has been listed among those placed “under investigation” by an Italian prosecutor in connection with the sale of a castle at Narni, in the region of Umbria, central Italy, that took place four years ago in the diocese of Terni, where he was bishop from 2002-2012.

The press alleges that he is being investigated for association with others to swindle the municipality of Narni, and for false declaration, abusive exercise of credit and undue appropriation. They say that the notification that he is under investigation has been sent to him as well as to the vicar-general of the diocese and to the president of the diocesan institute for the support of the clergy. They report that the notification was issued after the deputy-prosecutor of Terni, Elisabetta Massini, had completed a two-year preliminary investigation.

It’s important to note that under Italian law that fact that one is being placed “under investigation” does not mean that one is being charged with a crime, much less that one is guilty of the said crime. It simply means that there is a need for further investigation and the prosecutor has the legal responsibility to notify the person of this. This further investigation could lead to one’s acquittal, or to being brought to court for trial.

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ITALY
Al Dia

By Ana Gamboa
May 29, 2015

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, the President of the Pontifical Council for the Family, this week was listed among those placed “under investigation” by an Italian prosecutor in connection with the sale of a castle at Narni, in central Italy, America Magazine reported.

According to the investigation, the archbishop is part of a list of individuals suspected of having fraudulently maneuvered the sale of the 19th-century San Girolamo castle, located on the lush Umbrian hills near the town of Narni.

Last time we reported on Archbishop Paglia was on a much lighter note, when he visited Philadelphia back in March. As the Catholic archbishop in charge of organizing Pope Francis’ September visit to the city, he helped unveil a special milkshake at the Center City location of Potbelly Sandwich Shop chain.

On Wednesday, America Magazine reported that the Vatican archbishop told the Italian news agency ANSA he had not received any notification from the state prosecutor about being under investigation. “Obviously, I remain at the disposition of the investigating authorities and trust totally in the earthly justice,” he stated.

The Archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles J. Chaput, told AL DÍA he was saddened to learn of the recent news regarding Archbishop Paglia. “I will pray for him. At the same time, I assure everyone that matters facing him do not impact our plans for September. We continue to work without interruption and joyfully anticipate welcoming our Holy Father and the world to Philadelphia later this year.”

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NEVADA
National Law Review

Friday, May 29, 2015

The ecclesiastical doctrine of incardination defines the relationship between clerics and the church. According to the United States Conference of Bishops (no relation), “incardination is traditionally used to refer to the attachment of the priest or deacon to a diocesan Church headed by the diocesan bishop.” In an opinion issued yesterday, the Nevada Supreme Court tackled the question of whether a relationship established by canon law also establishes a relationship defined by civil law. Catholic Diocese of Green Bay v. John Doe 119, 131 Nev. Adv. Op. 29 (2015).

The question arose from a lawsuit filed by a sexual assault victim against the Catholic Diocese of Green Bay in Nevada. The priest involved had originally been incardinated in the Diocese of Green Bay. The victim obtained a jury verdict and the diocese, a religious organization incorporated and headquartered in Wisconsin, appealed on the basis that the Nevada state courts lacked personal jurisdiction. The District Court found support for the existence of an employment or agency relationship between the priest and the Diocese of Green Bay based on the incardination. The Supreme Court disagreed finding “that the ecclesiastical system of incardination does not conclusively establish employment or agency.” Writing for court, Justice Michael A. Cherry noted that while the court cannot opine on ecclesiastical matters, it could determine whether a religious organization’s structure creates an employment relationship.

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UNITED STATES
The Raw Story

TRAVIS GETTYS
29 MAY 2015

A Quiverfull author and homeschooling advocate defended the Duggars against “pagans and gullible Christians” who are “howling for scalps.”

Rick Boyer, who wrote the book “Take Back The Land” endorsed by Jim Bob Duggar, said the reality TV stars had responded appropriately to revelations that their eldest son had molested his sisters and other girls as they slept at the family home, reported Right Wing Watch.

“‘Abuse’ is the new ‘racism,’” wrote Boyer as part of a series of Facebook posts. “As soon as you’re accused of it, you’re considered guilty. Just what would you like the Duggars to have done? Turn all their kids over to a godless psychologist? Maybe one supplied by the local public school system where ‘abuse’ is so unheard of? Should they have skinned Josh alive, rolled him in salt and hung him on a meathook?”

The posts by the Home Educators Association of Virginia board member, who also wrote the book “The Hands-On Dad,” were flagged by the watchdog group Homeschoolers Anonymous.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Jack Waterford
Editor-at-large, The Canberra Times

It’s been an uncomfortable week – indeed it’s been an uncomfortable few years — for the declining numbers of Australian Catholics adhering firmly to the values of the church, and believing as firmly in the edicts of its leadership as in its teaching and traditions.

A high proportion of Australian Catholics have origins in Irish Catholicism where, a week ago, a country overwhelmingly, if increasingly nominally Catholic, voted in a referendum for gay marriage.

An institution that could bring down governments can now scarcely govern itself.

The church campaigned hard for a no vote. A generation ago, as when the Irish had a referendum about divorce, that would have settled the matter. This time church opposition settled it the other way.

The conscious rejection of the church’s argument was the more explicit because of its appalling record with the physical and sexual abuse of children. And of equally contemptible policies, going all the way back to the Vatican, of cover-up, and putting the commercial interests of the church and the reputation of its officers ahead of the interests of children.

The collapse of the Irish church’s moral authority is witnessed by a catastrophic decline, in only 30 years, of church attendance, and political influence.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

POLAND/DOMINICAN REPUBLIC- Polish official visits Dominican Republic to discuss alleged sex crimes by Archbishop Józef Wesołowski

For immediate release: Friday, May 29, 2015

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

We are grateful that a Polish official has gone to the Dominican Republic to discuss alleged child sex crimes by Polish Catholic clerics. We hope the trip results in secular criminal charges against one cleric and more charges against the other.

[The News]

We especially hope defrocked Archbishop Józef Wesołowski is sent to Poland from Rome and is put on trial. Catholic officials in Rome claim they’ll hold some sort of proceeding there about Wesolowski. But we’re very skeptical. It’s unjust and unwise to let any institution deal internally with serious child sex crimes, especially an institution like the Catholic hierarchy with a long, dreadful, well-documented and on-going track record of ignoring and concealing heinous sexual violence against children.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Yorkshire Evening Post

A lawyer says the number of people who have reported being abused by church officials is “the tip of the iceberg” after more victims of a paedophile Leeds priest came forward.

The Yorkshire Evening Post reported this month how the Church of England awarded a six-figure payout to a man who was abused by Terence King from the age of 11.

King, a former vicar at St Mary’s Church in Woodkirk near Morley, killed himself while being investigated by police in 2002. It is thought detectives were looking into complaints by several victims at the time.

Now the lawyer representing the man who made the successful claim says the story has prompted others to begin the fight for justice.

Dino Nocivelli, of Bolt Burdon Kemp, said: “My firm has been contacted by several people who have also suffered child abuse within the Church of England, including two people who suffered abuse at the hands of King.

“This confirms my view that when we talk about child abuse within the Church of England, we have only seen the tip of the iceberg in terms of the number of people who have come forward.”

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INDIANA
Catholic Philly

BY CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (CNS) — Father Virgilio Elizondo, founder of the Mexican American Cultural Center in San Antonio and a theology professor at the University of Notre Dame, has been accused of sexually abusing an unidentified boy more than 30 years ago in a lawsuit filed against him, the San Antonio Archdiocese and a former priest.

The lawsuit, filed May 22 in Bexar County District Court in San Antonio, alleges that a boy listed as John Doe was sexually abused by a former priest, Jesus Armando Dominguez, while he was living in an orphanage and was a student at Assumption Seminary. According to The Associated Press, the boy was allegedly sexually abused again when he reported the incidents to Father Elizondo. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.

A spokesman for the San Antonio Archdiocese told Catholic News Service May 28 that the archdiocese declined to comment on the case because it had not been served the lawsuit.

The former priest accused of abuse was ordained for the Diocese of San Bernardino, California, the spokesman said.

An email from a Notre Dame spokesman said the university was “reserving comment until further inquiries are completed,” adding that school had only became aware of the allegation after it was reported by a local television station.

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UNITED KINGDOM
York Press

TWO more people have come forward to say they were abused at the hands of a retired York vicar.

The Press reported earlier this month how the Church of England had made a six-figure payout to a man who said he suffered years of physical and psychological abuse by the Rev Terence King while he was serving as a vicar in Morley, West Yorkshire.

Mr King retired to York in 1999 and committed suicide in 2002 while under investigation by West Yorkshire Police over child sex abuse allegations.

Now Dino Nocivelli, a senior solicitor from Bolt Burdon Kemp, who represented the victim, has revealed that two more people had since contacted the firm to allege they too were abused by Mr King.

Meanwhile, an independent investigation for the Methodist Church has uncovered that allegations of abuse were made against a total of 91 individuals within its York and Hull district between 1950 and the end of 2014.

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