ABUSE TRACKER

A digest of links to media coverage of clergy abuse. For recent coverage listed in this blog, read the full article in the newspaper or other media source by clicking “Read original article.” For earlier coverage, click the title to read the original article.

February 10, 2016

Child abuse inquiry: Angela Constance defends remit

SCOTLAND
BBC News

A Scottish government minister has defended its inquiry into child abuse after survivors’ groups called for its remit to be extended.

Campaigners have claimed institutions such as the Catholic Church and Boy Scouts could be “let off the hook”.

But Education Secretary Angela Constance said the scope of the inquiry was “very far reaching”.

And she said religious organisations were covered when they had looked after children in a residential capacity.

The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has been tasked with “raising public awareness of the abuse of children in care, providing an opportunity for public acknowledgement of the suffering of those children and a forum for validation of their experience and testimony.”

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.

Indian priest claimed superiors knew he abused before

FLORIDA
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

The Catholic diocese of Palm Beach in Florida was not informed that a priest convicted there last year on charges related to child abuse had a similar history in India.

Strabane-born Fr John Gallagher began canon law proceedings last summer against the Florida diocese after he was disciplined for raising questions about the Indian priest’s conduct.

The case by the Irish priest against Bishop Gerald Barbarito now rests with the Vatican’s new tribunal of accountability, set up to investigate the actions of bishops when faced with child abuse allegations.

Fr Jose Palimattom, who began working in Palm Beach in late 2014, admitted showing obscene images to a minor there on January 4th 2015. He subsequently pleaded guilty, served a sentence, and was deported to India.

According to police reports of the case seen by The Irish Times, investigating officers were told by three people that Fr Palimattom admitted he abused a minor in India prior to his arrival in the US, and said church authorities in India were aware of 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.

Archdiocese knew of allegations against art teacher

NEW MEXICO
KOAT

[with video]

SANTA FE, N.M. —Deputies recently served a search warrant at the Archdiocese of Santa Fe as part of an investigation involving an art teacher arrested after being accused of sexually touching young female students.

Another search warrant was served at Santo Nino Catholic School, where Aaron Chavez, 47, worked.

Deputies were able to retrieve a laptop, SD cards and personnel files to assist in the investigation, documents show. Chavez currently faces five charges for inappropriately touching students.

According to court records, one of the victim’s parents reported the alleged abuse to the archdiocese nearly four years ago. Those records show the archdiocese did its own investigation, but concluded the allegation was unsubstantiated.

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.

Authorities arrest former priest in connection with murder case

TEXAS
Valley Morning Star

By KRISTIAN HERNANDEZ and LORENZO ZAZUETA-CASTRO Staff Writers

EDINBURG — The man suspected of killing a McAllen woman more than 50 years ago was arrested yesterday.

John Feit, a former priest with Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen, was arrested by the Texas Rangers, Hidalgo County District Attorney’s Office investigators and McAllen police in Arizona. He was never charged with killing 25-year-old beauty queen Irene Garza in 1960, but was widely accused of the crime.

District Attorney Ricardo Rodriguez con-firmed his office presented the case to the grand jury last Thursday, and it came back with an indictment.

“We had kept it quiet as much as we could — we sealed the indictment,” he said.

Rodriguez said the next step is to see whether or not Feit will contest his extradition to Texas or waive 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.

Father John Feit update: Priest suspected in 1960 murder case arrested in Arizona

ARIZONA
ABC 15

SCOTTSDALE, AZ – A priest wanted in the 1960 murder of a second grade school teacher was taken into custody in Scottsdale Tuesday night.

The Hidalgo County District Attorney’s Office arrested former priest John Feit in the murder of Irene Garza.

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department arrested Feit outside of his apartment in Scottsdale.

According to ABC15 sister station KRGV.com , Feit is officially being charged with the murder of Garza. No one was ever arrested for the crime until Tuesday.

Feit has enjoyed life in the community in Arizona since the early 1970s. He’s married, has children and grandchildren and is a regular volunteer at his church.

Now, Feit will face charges for a crime he is accused of committing almost 56 years ago.

Feit spent time in the Rio Grande Valley in 1960 and was allegedly the last person to see Garza alive. She was 25 years old at the time.

The second grade teacher was going to confession at Sacred Heart Church the night before Easter Sunday, April 1960.

Feit heard her confession, but what happened after that was unknown. Garza never came back home.

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.

Priest suspected in 1960 murder of Texas beauty queen arrested in Scottsdale

ARIZONA
Tucson News Now

[with video]

By Catherine Holland

PHOENIX (KPHO/KTVK) –
A priest suspected in a 1960 Texas murder was arrested Tuesday in Scottsdale. The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the arrest of Father John Feit.

The body of Irene Garza, 25, was found in an irrigation canal in McAllen, TX in April 1960. The last time anybody saw the beauty queen, she was going to confession at Sacred Heart Catholic Church. Feit, 27 at the time, heard that confession. He was a visiting priest.

“48 Hours” aired a story about the case — “The Last Confession” — on March 1, 2014. The story was updated on July 26 that year.

While police interviewed hundreds of people in connection with Garza’s murder, Feit was their focus. He was the last person to see Garza alive.

As the investigation continued, another young woman came forward and said Feit attacked her three weeks before Garza’s murder. Feit was tried in 1961, but the jury deadlocked. To avoid another trial, he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was fined $500.

No charges were filed against Feit in Garza’s murder. Feit eventually left McAllen, and the case went cold amid what many believed was a cover-up by the church.

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

Former KRGV Reporter Surprised by Arrest in 56-Year-Old Murder Case

TEXAS
KRGV

[with video]

WESLACO- In 2003, CHANNEL 5 NEWS tracked down John Feit in Arizona. Even then, Irene Garza’s family had not given up hope to seek justice for her murder.

Former CHANNEL 5 NEWS reporter Kristine Galvan reported on the Irene Garza story. She said she was surprised about Feit’s arrest on Tuesday.

“Oh my gosh, this is an incredible development,” Galvan said. “I was completely floored when I learned… that John Feit had been arrested.”

Galvan reflected on the passage of so much time and the people attached to the case.

“It’s been decades,” Galvan said. “And if you think about all the people who were involved in the case, from 1960, most of them are not here. So for Irene’s family to have a shot at seeing justice done, this is a suspect who’s in his 80s, it’s just absolutely incredible.”

Galvan said she knows there is much ahead in Irene Garza’s case.

“This family just never gave up,” Galvan said. “We have to remember people are innocent until proven guilty. But I am just so happy for that family. They are at least getting to go through this process and allow the system to determine if this man killed their loved one.”

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.

Ex-Priest Arrested for 1960 Murder

TEXAS
KRGV

[with video]

MCALLEN – A former priest is in custody for a murder that happened in 1960. A grand jury indicted 83-year-old John Feit for the murder of Irene Garza, a McAllen elementary school teacher.

Garza was last seen alive heading to confession at Sacred Heart Church in McAllen, where Feit served as a priest. Five days later, two people found the 25-year-old’s partially clothed body in a canal.

There was a massive search for Garza’s murderer. City leaders spared no expense in attempts to find her killer. Investigators always considered Feit a person of interest in the case.

When they drained the canal where Garza’s body was discovered, they found an Eastman Kodaslide Viewer. Feit signed a statement admitting the Kodaslide Viewer belonged to him.

In 1960, police questioned him. His story changed over the course of questioning.

The Catholic diocese of San Antonio sent Feit away from the area. Feit wasn’t charged in the case; however, two people claimed he confessed to Garza’s murder.

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.

SNAP Organization Speaks Out on 56-Year-Old Murder Case

TEXAS
KRGV

WESLACO- An organization worked closely with Irene Garza’s family in her murder case.

Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests Director David Clohessy said the organization continued to follow the case for decades. The arrest of John Feit may now bring closure to Irene Garza’s family.

“Even though… Feit is yet to be convicted, just his arrest, we believe, will really be comfort for them and, quite frankly, make citizens of Arizona safer,” Clohessy said.

Clohessy said he can’t believe Feit was sent to Arizona to work at Catholic Charities as a suspected murderer.

“He was suspected of having murdered this young, vulnerable woman,” Clohessy said. “And yet, Catholic officials let him move to Phoenix, where he worked around very vulnerable young woman in Catholic Charities.”

Clohessy said he wants answers from the Catholic Diocese of Brownsville.

“We believe that Brownsville Catholic officials recruited, educated, ordained, hired, transferred, shielded Father Feit for decades,” Clohessy 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.

Authorities working to extradite former McAllen priest linked to 1960 murder

TEXAS
Valley Central

[with video]

BY ANALISE ORTIZ TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 9TH 2016

A former McAllen priest accused of killing Irene Garza nearly 60 years ago was taken into custody Tuesday.

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, who worked with the Texas Rangers, McAllen police investigators and the Hidalgo County District’s Attorney’s Office, arrested 83-year-old John Feit at his home in in Scottsdale, Arizona on Tuesday. He was later booked into Maricopa County jail.

An investigation into Garza’s death was launched after her body was pulled from an irrigation canal in McAllen in 1960.

Members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests told CBS 4 News that the arrest is a victory for those who continued to fight for Garza.

“This is a win for Irene Garza. The credit, the vindication, the validation – it’s all theirs and we hope that each and every person that knew her and loved her sleeps a little easier tonight. And we believe that they will,” said SNAP Director David Clohessy.

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.

Ex-priest arrested in connection with 1960 killing of McAllen beauty queen

TEXAS
San Antonio Express-News

By Aaron Nelsen

McALLEN — A former priest who was a suspect in the death of a McAllen beauty queen in 1960 was arrested Tuesday in Arizona.

John Feit, who faces a murder charge in the death of 25-year-old Irene Garza, was taken into custody in Maricopa County,where he awaits extradition to Texas.

“We felt that we had sufficient evidence to present to a grand jury. It was presented last week, and they came back with a true bill,” said Ricardo Rodriguez, the district attorney of Hidalgo County.

Garza was a prom and homecoming queen at Pan American College, and the Miss All South Texas Sweetheart 1958.

On April 16, 1960, Garza visited Sacred Heart Church in McAllen where Feit — who was 27 at the time — was a priest. She planned to go to confession that evening but never returned home, her body was found days later in an irrigation canal.

Feit, now in his 80s, long has been the subject of intense scrutiny in the murder of Garza, a faith-driven school teacher, but was never arrested until now.

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.

Former priest arrested in 1960 slaying of McAllen schoolteacher

TEXAS/ARIZONA
The Dallas Morning News

Claire Z. Cardona Follow @clairezcardona Email ccardona@dallasnews.com
Published: February 9, 2016

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department arrested former priest John Feit on Tuesday in the 1960 murder of a 25-year-old McAllen schoolteacher, officials said.

Feit, 83, was taken into custody on Tuesday afternoon outside his apartment in Scottsdale, Ariz., KRGV-TV reported.

The sheriff’s department arrested Feit on a murder charge from the Hidalgo County Prosecutor’s Office and the Texas Rangers, said Maricopa sheriff’s Deputy Joaquin Enriquez.

Feit will be charged after his initial appearance in front of a Texas judge. He is being held without bail until he can be extradited to Texas.

“Right now, he’s not going anywhere,” Enriquez said.

Irene Garza’s parents said their daughter planned to go to Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen for a confession on April 16, 1960. Her body was found several days later in an irrigation ditch about a mile from the church where Feit was a priest.

An autopsy determined she had been raped and bludgeoned.

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.

Police: Ex-priest arrested in Scottsdale for murder

ARIZONA
Arizona Republic

Christopher Silavong, The Republic | azcentral.com February 9, 2016

An 83-year-old former priest was arrested on Tuesday in Scottsdale in connection with the 1960 slaying of a Texas beauty queen, authorities said.

John Feit was booked into 4th Avenue Jail in Phoenix and is awaiting extradition to Hidalgo County, Texas, where he is facing a murder charge, according to the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.

In a statement released Tuesday night, sheriff’s spokesman Joaquin Enriquez said deputies assisted the Hidalgo County District Attorney’s Office and the Texas Rangers in making the arrest.

Irene Garza was 25 years old when her body was found in a canal in April 1960. At the time, Feit was a Catholic priest and considered a lead in the case. He left the priesthood, but accusations of his alleged involvement have continued to dog him.

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.

AZ–Priest arrested for TX murder; Victims respond

TEXAS/ARIZONA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, Feb. 9, 201

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 503 0003, bdorris@SNAPnetwork.org

A priest who has long lived in Arizona has been arrested for murdering a Texas girl. We are deeply grateful that John Feit has been apprehended

[The Monitor]

We are thrilled that Rene Guerra – who has refused to aggressively pursue a murder case involving a priest — was defeated at the polls and that newly elected prosecutor Ricardo Rodriguez honored his pledge to re-open this troubling case.

[The Monitor]

Guerra made biased and hurtful comments that will make it harder for police and prosecutors to pursue criminals (because he publicly and inappropriately attacked the honesty of a witness, which deters other witnesses from stepping forward)

[SNAP]

We hope that this move brings some hope to Garza’s family. And we hope that anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered clergy crimes or cover ups in the Brownsville diocese will call police, expose wrongdoers, protect others and start healing.

We also hope that Brownsville Bishop Daniel Flores will use personal appeals, parish bulletins, church websites and pulpit announcements to beg others with information or suspicions about Feit to call law enforcement immediately. Now is no time for Catholic officials to act powerless or for citizens to be complacent. Every shred of evidence – no matter how small, old or seemingly insignificant – should be withheld from police and prosecutors.

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.

Ex-priest John Feit arrested in Irene Garza murder case from 1960

TEXAS/ARIZONA
CNN

[with video]

By Gary Tuchman, Scott Bronstein and Ed Payne, CNN
Wed February 10, 2016

(CNN) John Feit, a former Catholic priest, has been arrested in a 56-year-old murder case.

Irene Garza was last seen alive the night before Easter 1960 when Feit heard her confession at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen, Texas. Five days later, searchers found the lifeless body of the 25-year-old former Miss South Texas face down in a canal.

Feit, 83, has long been the main suspect in the case, but he wasn’t arrested until Tuesday in Scottsdale, Arizona.

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office arrested him on a murder charge out of the state of Texas, according to the Hidalgo County, Texas, Prosecutor’s Office and the Texas Rangers. Authorities are working to extradite him from Arizona.

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.

Ex-priest arrested in 1960 killing of Texas schoolteacher

TEXAS
Washington Times

By – Associated Press – Wednesday, February 10, 2016

MCALLEN, Texas (AP) – A former priest has been arrested in Arizona in the 1960 slaying of a 25-year-old Texas schoolteacher.

Eighty-three-year-old John Feit was arrested Tuesday by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department and awaits extradition to Texas. Feit faces a murder charge in the death of Irene Garza.

Authorities say Garza visited Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen, where Feit was a priest, on April 16, 1960. Garza had planned to go to confession that evening but never returned, and her body was found days later in an irrigation canal.

According to an autopsy, Garza died from a head injury. Feit was a suspect in the killing but was never charged in the case.

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.

Former priest arrested in 1960 murder of Texas schoolteacher

TEXAS/ARIZONA
Fox News

Authorities in Arizona arrested a former Catholic priest Tuesday in connection with the 1960 murder of a Texas schoolteacher.

John Feit, 83, was arrested by Maricopa County Sheriff’s deputies outside his apartment in Scottsdale, ABC 15 reported. He faces a murder charge in connection with the death of 25-year-old Irene Garza, of McAllen, Texas.

Garza, a former beauty queen, was last seen going to confession on Easter Saturday, 1960. Her body was found several days later in an irrigation ditch about a mile away from Sacred Heart Catholic Church, where Feit served as a priest. An autopsy showed that Garza had been raped and bludgeoned to death.

Feit was believed to have been the last person to see Garza alive, having heard her confession. He was questioned at the time of the woman’s murder and denied any involvement.

The Dallas Morning News reported that Feit was prosecuted on a charge of assault with intent to rape in connection with another incident earlier that year. However, the case resulted in a mistrial and he pleaded no contest to a charge of aggravated assault.

Feit left the priesthood in the 1970s, married and settled in Arizona.

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.

The Pope’s Pursuit of Global Relevance Should be Quashed Because of Continuing Sex Abuse

UNITED STATES
The Open Tabernacle: Here Comes Everybody

Posted on February 10, 2016 by Betty Clermont

“The world looks to this great wisdom of yours,” the pope told China’s Xi Jinping. Francis “urged the world not to fear China’s growing power and conveyed a message of friendship” to the president in an interview published Feb. 2.

Pope Francis granted a 40-minute private audience to Iran president Hassan Rouhani on Jan. 26. If they discussed Iran’s alliance with Russia supporting Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s “extermination” of his civilian population, it was not mentioned in the Vatican’s press release – a strange omission for a pope who is always urging compassion for the Assad’s refugees.

Pope Francis will meet with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill and Cuban president Raul Castro on Feb. 12 in Cuba. Kirill is a close ally of Pres. Vladimir Putin, so the meeting has Putin’s approval. Kirill will be in Cuba at the invitation of Castro to celebrate the historic ties between the Russian Orthodox church and the island nation, a result of Cuba’s historical alliance with Russia. The meeting was probably arranged after Castro met Kirill in Moscow when he went to discuss with Putin “increased bilateral cooperation with Russia and the implementation of joint projects” last May and then flew directly to a private meeting with Pope Francis.

Pope Francis’ prestige outside the Catholic Church rests entirely on his being viewed as a moral authority. Yet recent events prove his continuing contempt for past, present and future victims of clerical sex abuse. The only outspoken member of the pope’s sex abuse commission was booted out on Feb. 6. “Peter Saunders has frequently argued that the panel is writing ineffectual guidelines instead of exposing predator priests who continue to molest children.” …

Peter Saunders, a British survivor of clerical sex abuse who was ousted from the pope’s Commission for the Protection of Minors, said that he felt betrayed by Pope Francis.

“Of course Pope Francis has established he is part of the problem,” Saunders said in an interview. “That breaks my heart because when I met him 18 months ago I thought there was a sincerity and a willingness to make things happen, and I am afraid that has been dashed now.”

“The way the Church and the commission operates,” Saunders said, “is also at the heart of why abuse within the Church is still so rampant and widespread.” He added: “It is because everything has to exist under conditions of secrecy and darkness and I am not prepared to work like that and I am not prepared to be silenced on an issue as important as child protection.”

“As a parent, it breaks my heart when I hear of serious allegations of abuse that are not going to be tackled.” Saunders said the notion that clerical sex abuse was a problem of past decades – an argument Vatican officials have assiduously promoted – had to be challenged. “This is not in any sense a historical issue or problem,” he said. “It has to be tackled now. The pope could do so much more and he is doing next to nothing.”

“This is a societal problem – but if the Church, the so-called moral leadership of the world, does not take a lead in this area it would quite rightly be considered morally bankrupt in every other area.”

Saunders now says he realizes the commission was always going to be about “smoke and mirrors” and that he is convinced the Church will never act alone to cure the “cancer” in its midst. “I made it clear that I would not be a member of a public relations exercise. The protection of our children is much more important than that.”

In fact, the commission was inaugurated as a “public relations exercise.”

On July 1, 2013, the United Nation’s Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) sent a request to the pope for “detailed information on all cases of child sexual abuse” committed by clergy and religious for the past 15 years and set Nov. 1 as a deadline for a reply.

Pope Francis responded to the CRC on Dec. 4 by stating his government would not disclose that information. He was criticized by the media for his response.

The next day, the creation of an “advisory” Commission on the Protection of Minors with no authority was announced.

Saunders also acknowledged that a Vatican tribunal supposedly instituted last June – reported as the pope’s “most significant move yet to deal with the sexual abuse scandals” by the media – to crack down on bishops who cover up for predators “exists in name only.” The new system gave the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith the authority to “judge bishops with regard to crimes of the abuse of office when connected to the abuse of minors.”

In a January report: “A former official in the Diocese of Regensburg (Germany) accused Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), of systematically covering up sexual abuse cases during his decade as bishop of the Bavarian diocese. Fritz Wallner, who once worked as chairman of Regensburg’s lay diocesan council, claims that the then-Bishop Müller and his vicar-general, Mgr Michael Fuchs, introduced what Mr. Wallner called, ‘The Regensburg System,’ which prevented such abuse cases from coming to light.” (Müller’s appointment of Fr. Peter Kramer, an already-convicted child sex abuser, as pastor in Regensberg, was well-known before Pope Francis promoted him to cardinal.)

Of course, if Pope Francis was really going to hold bishops accountable who failed to deal properly with clergy sexual abuse, he’d have to start with himself. As Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the pope advocated for convicted sex offender, Fr. Julio Grassi, and tried to discredit his young victims.

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

Chris Marshall: Only one chance for child abuse inquiry

SCOTLAND
Scotsman

CHRIS MARSHALL
Tuesday 09 February 2016

There’s a part in the Oscar-nominated Spotlight where a journalist assures an abuse survivor that previous failures to listen to his story will not be repeated this time around.

The film tells the real-life story of how The Boston Globe helped uncover sexual abuse in the Catholic Church amid claims it was systematically covered up by moving paedophile priests to different parishes.

But it also explores how the authorities and the media repeatedly failed to take accusations against the Church seriously.

The film was released just months after the Church in Scotland issued a “profound” apology to victims.

Archbishop Philip Tartaglia said Scottish bishops were “shamed and pained” by the abuse that had taken place.

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.

Gap in child sex abuse law leaves victims unprotected

TEXAS
KXAN

[with video]

By Brian Collister
Published: February 9, 2016,

AUSTIN (KXAN) — A once troubled teenager claims her church preacher and trusted family friend preyed on her weakness and molested her. But when she came forward, police said it was too late to press criminal charges.

Texas has laws to protect children from sexual abuse and seek justice for their abusers, but KXAN has discovered a gap in one of those laws, leaves some young victims unprotected.

The young woman we met recently says she fell into this gap in the law after she put her trust in a youth pastor at a Pflugerville church 10 years ago. She asked we not reveal her identity because she says the pastor molested her in 2006 when she was just 17 years old.

After troubles at home, she says the pastor invited her to live with his family so he could counsel her.

“I was going to their home to overcome my childhood abuse, and I trusted that he was going to fulfill that,” the young woman recounted to KXAN. “The physical touching started with a back adjustment and escalated very quickly to him coming into my room at night and pulling up my shirt, my bra, and touching me on the floor of my room.”

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.

Ex-St. George’s School chaplain now target of N.C. abuse probe

RHODE ISLAND
Boston Globe

By Bella English GLOBE STAFF FEBRUARY 10, 2016

In 1974, when the Rev. Howard H. White Jr. was quietly let go as assistant chaplain at St. George’s School in Middletown, R.I., after admitting to sexual misconduct with a male student, headmaster Tony Zane wrote White a letter telling him he “should not be in a boarding school” and “should seek psychiatric help.”

White went on to work at two other private schools, and neither reported complaints. But now North Carolina police are investigating a woman’s claim that, when she was a teenager, White sexually abused her at Grace Church in the Mountains in Waynesville, N.C., where he worked as a rector from 1984 to 2006. The investigation was first reported Saturday by the Providence Journal.

The woman, speaking publicly for the first time, told the Globe Tuesday that she was a sophomore in high school in the mid-1980s when White began to molest her in the church rectory, where he encouraged kids to spend time. She was diagnosed with PTSD in 2004, and said she is “terrified” of being found by White.

The woman said she is cooperating with law enforcement.

“I’m either going to be part of the solution, or I’m a coconspirator hiding it, just like everyone else,” she 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.

Springfield Bishop Rozanski asks for forgiveness, calls for those alienated by Catholic Church to return in pastoral letter

MASSACHUSETTS
MassLive

[the pastoral letter]

By Dan Glaun | dglaun@masslive.com
on February 10, 2016

SPRINGFIELD – As the world’s Catholics prepare for Lent’s 40 days of spiritual repentance, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield is issuing its own message of apology and renewal – to current and lapsed Catholics, to parishioners wounded by church closures, to victims of sexual abuse by priests and to LGBT Catholics alienated by the Church’s stance on gay rights.

In his pastoral letter issued on Ash Wednesday, the Most Rev. Mitchell T. Rozanski wrote that the church, inspired by the approachable tenor of Pope Francis’ approach to the papacy, is rededicating itself to evangelism – including the welcoming-back of Catholics who no longer feel represented by the Church.

“As the Diocese of Springfield, we must acknowledge this need for mercy, and ask forgiveness of God and each other for past sins and offenses. There are many people hurting in our Catholic community from the pain caused by our past failings as a diocese, as well as the grievous actions of some who ministered in our Church,” Rozanski wrote. “So, before I ask anything of you, let me as your bishop be the first to apologize and ask your forgiveness. ”

The pastoral letter is the diocese’s first to include a formal apology for Springfield’s priest sexual abuse scandal, Rozanski said, though Rozanski has previously expressed sympathy for abuse victims. The Diocese has paid out over $12 million to dozens of abuse victims for the actions of clergy like former Bishop Thomas Dupre, who resigned in 2004 after the Republican reported that two former altar boys had accused him of sexual 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.

Advocacy group wants Columbus bishop to publicize recent seminarian arrest

OHIO
The Columbus Dispatch

By JoAnne Viviano
The Columbus Dispatch • Tuesday February 9, 2016

An advocate for victims of sexual assault criticized the leader of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus on Tuesday for being “quiet and passive” about the recent arrest of a former seminarian on charges that he planned to travel to Mexico to rape infant and toddler girls.

Bishop Frederick Campbell should instead hold a public meeting to alert the community about the charges leveled against Joel A. Wright, who until late last month, was studying to be a priest at Pontifical College Josephinum on the Far North Side, said Judy Jones, Midwest associate director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. The network also wants Campbell to use the pulpit, church bulletins and church websites to encourage anyone who suspects Wright of crimes to contact police.

“This is too serious for Bishop Campbell to just sit back and do nothing,” Jones said at a Downtown news conference outside the diocese’s St. Joseph Cathedral. “He needs to aggressively reach out to anybody who had contact with Joel Wright, anyone who may have any information, any kind of knowledge, or anyone who has been harmed by him.”

Wright was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Homeland Security investigators in San Diego on Jan. 29 on charges of traveling with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct and to engage in sex with a child younger than 12. A Josephinum spokesman has said that Wright, 23, of Vermont, was expelled that day even before his arrest because he had left school without permission.

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Australian priest accused of child molest now in Sarawak in search of ‘young Asian men’

MALAYSIA/AUSTRALIA
Today

KUALA LUMPUR — A Catholic priest from Australia, who was suspended for allegedly abusing two boys, is now residing in Sarawak and in search of “young Asian men”, the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) reported today (Feb 10).

The Australian daily said that the priest, one Father Peter Grasby, moved to Kuching while on paid leave and is currently using a gay dating website “Planetromeo”, with his profile having been viewed some 7,907 times.

“Father Grasby says on his profile that he is a 66-year-old Catholic who ‘happens to like younger Asian men’ aged from 18 to 35 but is ‘not on here looking for sex…’

“The profile also lists details about his genitals and sexual preferences, and he describes himself as a ‘well-educated and really soft-hearted mature GWM [gay white male]’” the SMH reported.

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Bishop Rozanski releases pastoral letter with focus on mercy

MASSACHUSETTS
Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield – iobserve

By Peggy Weber

SPRINGFIELD – Springfield Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski offers an invitation and a challenge in his new pastoral letter, “The Wideness of God’s Mercy,” released Feb. 10, Ash Wednesday.

In the letter, he offers words of welcome and notes that the letter was inspired by the Jubilee Year of Mercy declared by Pope Francis. However, he said it also was a direct response to the people of the Diocese of Springfield.

“When we began this process of looking at our evangelization, one of the suggestions was to reach out to people – both those who are in the pews and those who are Catholics but not practicing their faith,” he said. “We wanted to ask them different questions about their perceptions of the faith or perhaps why they don’t practice.”

More than 3,000 people took the diocese’s online survey and many wrote comments. Bishop Rozanski said he wanted to assure those people that they had been heard.

He wrote in his pastoral letter: “There are many people hurting in our Catholic community from the pain caused by our past failings as a diocese, as well as the grievous actions of some who ministered in our church. The reality of that pain is that it still echoes many years later.”

He adds, “Before I ask anything of you, let me as your bishop be the first to apologize and ask your forgiveness.”

He said he was sorry for any pain caused by parish and church closings, the sexual abuse scandal and any other occurrences. He noted that most people encounter church on the parish level and that more effort must be made to make people feel welcome and accepted.

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Bishop Mitchell Rozanski seeks forgiveness for Diocese of Springfield’s misgivings

MASSACHUSETTS
Berkshire Eagle

By Dick Lindsay
rlindsay@berkshireeagle.com @BE_DLindsay on Twitter

SPRINGFIELD — The Most Rev. Mitchell T. Rozanski has apologized to and seeks forgiveness from Western Massachusetts Catholics pained by the clergy sex abuse scandal, church closings and any disconnect from their local parishes.

In an open pastoral letter titled “The Wideness of God’s Mercy,” the bishop for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield also called upon diocesan priests to get out among parishioners and work to make them a vital part of their churches.

Rozanski issued the letter on Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent, which he says is a time of mercy and evangelization. The epistle also coincides with the Jubilee Year of Mercy, which was declared by Pope Francis in December and lasts through the end of the liturgical year on Nov. 20.

In the letter, the bishop called for clergy and lay people to continue the healing for the church’s “past sins and offenses.”

“There are many people hurting in our catholic community from the pain caused by our past failings as a diocese, as well as the grievous actions of some who ministered in our church,” he writes. “The reality of this pain is that it still echoes many years later, as was given witness in our recent diocesan survey.”

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Mass protest over parish priest Father John Walshe spreads to second school

AUSTRALIA
The Age

February 10, 2016

Timna Jacks
Education Reporter

More than 40 parents pulled their children out of mass at a Melbourne Catholic school on Wednesday in protest over an allegedly abusive priest.

Parents at St John Vianney’s Primary School in Parkdale are calling for the resignation of parish priest Father John Walshe.

​Father Walshe, who defended Cardinal George Pell at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, has been accused of sexually abusing an 18-year-old seminarian in 1982.

The parents collected their children before mass at 11:30am, and dropped them back at school after 1pm.

Some parents took their children to other parishes instead – the St Patrick’s School parish in Mentone and Our Lady of Assumption parish in Cheltenham.

The parents’ protest comes a week after about 20 parents at Mentone’s St Patrick’s School – which is in the same parish – withdrew their children from weekly mass.

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Church left in the dark over paedophile priest Peter Grasby’s Asian relocation

AUSTRALIA
The Age

February 10, 2016

Nino Bucci
Crime reporter for The Age

The Archdiocese of Melbourne did not know a paedophile priest, who the church had put on paid leave, had left Australia.

The Age revealed on Wednesday that Father Peter Grasby, who was put on administrative leave in 2012, had left Melbourne for Malaysia and was seeking the company of “younger Asian men” using gay dating websites.

The church confirmed that the complaint against Father Grasby, which related to abuse at St Joseph’s in West Brunswick against a boy aged as young as 10, had been upheld in 2013.

The church said the complaint had also been referred to police, despite saying at the time that the victim had declined to report to the force.

Father Grasby was assistant priest at the time of the sexual abuse, which started in the late 1970s and may have continued until the early 1980s.

The priest asked to move overseas in August 2013, a Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne spokesman said.

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Aussie priest, who fled to Malaysia, reportedly seeking ‘young Asian men’

AUSTRALIA/MALAYSIA
Asia One

Wednesday, Feb 10, 2016

An Australian Catholic priest who was accused of child sexual abuse has moved to Malaysia, where he is reported to be seeking the friendship of young Asian men on a gay dating website.

Sydney Morning Herald today (Feb 10) reported that Father Peter Grasby, who was suspected of abusing boys from at least two Melbourne parishes during his almost 40 years as a priest, left Australia for Kuching in East Malaysia’s Sarawak state last month.

Father Grasby was also alleged to have propositioned a former parisher on a gay dating website, reported the news site.

Father Grasby reportedly describes himself as a 66-year-old Catholic who “happens to like younger Asian men” aged from 18 to 35 in his profile on gay dating website Planetromeo. But he is not looking for sex, because he is “getting a bit too old”, according to the profile.

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Sarawak says would deport Aussie priest accused of child molest, homosexuality

AUSTRALIA/MALAYSIA
Today

FEBRUARY 10, 2016

KUALA LUMPUR — Sarawak Immigration authorities said today (Feb 10) that they will expel an Australian priest accused of sexually abusing children in his home country, if he is found to be living in Kuching.

Responding to reports of a Father Peter Grasby who is said to have been suspended pending investigations into claims he abused two young boys and currently residing in Kuching where he is searching for “young Asian men”, the department said they will check if he has entered the state.

“We will deport the former priest if he is found to be in Sarawak,” Mr Ken Leben, who will assume duty as Sarawak’s new Immigration Department director on Feb 15, told Malay Mail Online.

Sarawak Minister of Welfare, Women and Family Development Fatimah Abdullah said if Grasby has a criminal record the police should be alerted so that they could monitor him.

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February 9, 2016

Escándalo de abuso sexual de curas de Campeche

(MEXICO)
Regeneración [Mexico City, Mexico]

February 9, 2016

Read original article

Los sacerdotes Martín Mena Carrillo y Francisco Velázquez Trejo fueron demandados por cometer abuso sexual contra Luis Felipe Izquierdo Cundafe entre 2007 y 2008.

Luis Felipe Izquierdo Cundafe presentó una demanda por daño moral en el Juzgado Tercero Civil del Primer Distrito Judicial de Campeche contra los padres Martín Mena Carrillo y Francisco Velázquez Trejo, además demandó a Ramón Castro y Castro, Obispo de Cuernavaca, y José Francisco González González, Obispo de Campeche, por supuesto encubrimiento.

El actual «sacerdote veterocatólico», como se define, presentó la demanda por daño moral y psicológico el 30 de noviembre del año pasado.

Ya en julio de 2015, el originario de Huimanguillo, Tabasco, había hecho público el presunto caso de pederastia, aunque no había emprendido acciones legales.

El escrito que Izquierdo presentó al juez señala que a principios de 2007, cuando tenía 16 años, viajó de Mérida a Ciudad del Carmen, para participar en una misión de paz.

Durante la misión de 15 días, a la cual fueron otros jóvenes, conoció en la parroquia de la «Divina Providencia» al padre Martín, quien lo invitó a entrar al Seminario de Campeche.

Izquierdo aceptó y en julio del mismo año regresó a dicha iglesia, donde Martín le dijo que primero se haría cargo del apoyo espiritual a grupos juveniles de la comunidad.

Según la demanda, el padre dio a Izquierdo un trato «muy especial», con regalos y paseos, hasta que una noche de agosto lo invitó a su habitación, en la casa de la parroquia.

«Estaba (el padre) con una botella de licor y me dijo ‘toma’, y me dio a tomar, era la primera vez que tomaba licor. Entonces comenzó a tocarme la pierna y acariciaba mi parte íntima.

«Mientras me acariciaba mi miembro, con voz excitada me decía ‘esto es normal, no pasa nada, esto es cariño que se demuestra cuando uno quiere mucho, y yo te quiero mucho’. Ese día me hizo sexo oral en la hamaca donde dormía», aseguró Izquierdo en el documento.

Días después, Martín lo volvió a invitar a su cuarto, a lo cual accedió. El escrito señala que esa noche el entonces adolescente fue obligado a penetrar al padre. En octubre del mismo año, Luis Felipe conoció en la ciudad de Campeche al padre Francisco Velázquez Trejo, «El Bimbo», de la parroquia del «Sagrado Corazón de Jesús».

Meses después, ya en 2008, el padre Francisco fue a la «Divina Providencia» y luego de ingerir bebidas alcohólicas con el padre Martín y Luis Felipe, invitó a éste a su habitación.

«Comenzó a tocarme mis genitales. Yo estaba muy nervioso porque el cuarto de Martín quedaba cerca y se podía enojar conmigo.

«En ese momento el padre Francisco me dijo que lo penetrara porque sabía lo que hacía con Martin, y me amenazó. Me vi obligado a (hacerlo)».

Intentos de suicidio y exilio

Luis Felipe relata que también fue acosado por otro padre identificado como «Leobardo», por lo que intentó suicidarse en tres ocasiones, cuando ya había entrado al Seminario.

Cuenta que el 18 de marzo de 2009 se tomó «un montón» de pastillas que había en la enfermería del seminario. Días después hizo lo mismo y luego trató de ahorcarse.

El joven llamó entonces a sus tíos Rafael y Miguelina, quienes fueron por él una semana después. Sin embargo, regresó al Seminario a finales del mismo año.

Durante «buen tiempo», refiere, se dio cuenta que Martín le hizo lo mismo a otros menores, por lo que decidió revelar el abuso al entonces Obispo de Campeche, Ramón Castro y Castro.

Sin embargo, éste lo amenazó con meterlo a la cárcel si ventilaba algo. El padre Francisco también lo contactó para ofrecerle dinero a cambio de no decir nada.

Luis Felipe se fue del seminario y viajó a Chile donde radica actualmente y profesa la religión veterocatólica, también conocida como Iglesia católica antigua.

Revelación

El demandante dice que envió cartas contando lo sucedido al Cardenal Norberto Rivera, al Obispo de Tabasco Gerardo de Jesús, así como al Arzobispo de Yucatán y al Nuncio Apostólico.

«Pasaron los meses y me llegó un correo, era el Obispo Ramón Castro y Castro, reclamándome y reprochándome por qué había enviado cartas a los Obispos.

«Manifestándome que él me había apoyado económicamente y me apoyó en todo», apunta. En dicha comunicación, aparentemente en 2014, Castro le pide a Luis Felipe hablar primero antes de recurrir a «otras formas».

El año pasado, Luis Felipe envió una carta al Papa Francisco con detalles del caso. El contenido de la misiva se publicó en el Diario Tribuna de Campeche el 2 de julio.

«Entre los sacerdotes hay autoprotección, son una mafia porque la Iglesia no sanciona a los responsables. Tengo la decisión de denunciar estos hechos ante las autoridades competentes.

«Con el fin de que no continúen esos atropellos y violaciones cometidos por los sacerdotes católicos, porque no sabemos cuántos menores han sufrido lo mismo», indica.

Luis Felipe asegura que los «predicadores de la fe» se aprovecharon de él para obligarlo a cometer actos indignos, denigrantes y humillantes que dejan secuelas perdurables.

«Se me expuso al descrédito, deshonor y desprecio de amigos, familiares y de la sociedad, con lo que se me afectó en mis sentimientos, honor, decoro, reputación, creencias, vida privada».

Con información de Reforma.

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MEDIA RELEASE – FEBRUARY 9, 2016

UNITED STATES
Road to Recovery

Road to Recovery, Inc., a non-profit charity that assists victims of sexual abuse and their families, is outraged that one of the two victim/survivors of clergy sexual abuse who serve on the Vatican’s Commission on Sexual Abuse, Peter Saunders of the United Kingdom, has been asked to step aside from the commission for pointing out and criticizing the “snail’s pace” progress of the commission

Road to Recovery, Inc. understands and empathizes with Peter Saunders in his frustration with the Papal Commission’s lack of substantive results and accomplishment since Pope Francis and Cardinal Sean O’Malley have determined for the commission its role, goals, and function; thus, the Papal Commission on Sexual Abuse is not independent

STATEMENT OF ROAD TO RECOVERY, INC.

Road to Recovery, Inc. calls on Pope Francis and Cardinal Sean O’Malley to:

1) Apologize to sexual abuse victim/survivor Peter Saunders for the retaliation he has been subjected to for attempting to hold the Papal Commission on Sexual Abuse faithful to its two-fold mission of helping to protect children and assisting local churches in dealing with the sexual abuse of children and young people.

2) Step aside and allow the Papal Commission on Sexual Abuse to determine its own goals, procedures, and policies, and provide the commission with the resources needed to fulfill the mission determined by its members.

3) Cease leading and directing the Papal Commission on Sexual Abuse and allow the victim/survivors, mental health professionals, and academic sexual abuse experts who are members of the commission to select their own Chairperson, committee structure, and goals.

4) Allow the “Tribunal on Bishop Accountability,” which was introduced by Pope Francis on June 6, 2015, but has not yet been constituted, be the responsibility of the Papal Commission on Sexual Abuse, giving it authority to investigate complicit bishops and make recommendations to Pope Francis on the dismissal of bishops.

5) Act swiftly and judiciously on the submissions of the American Catholic Whistleblowers Steering Committee regarding the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ handling of clergy sexual abuse cases and its request for the firing of three bishops for mishandling clergy sexual abuse cases.

CONTACT
Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D. – Co-founder and President, Road to Recovery, Inc. – 862-368-2800
roberthoatson@gmail.com – www.road-to-recovery.org

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THE LAST CONFESSION

TEXAS
CBS News

[Background story about Irene Garza’s murder.]

Produced by Lourdes Aguiar, Peter Shaw and Jennifer Simpson Ashmawy

[This story first aired on March 1, 2014. It was updated on July 26.]

It’s been more than 50 years, but the shadow of the unsolved murder of Irene Garza still hangs over McAllen, Texas.

“This was an atrocious case,” Noemi Ponce Sigler told “48 Hours” correspondent Richard Schlesinger. “And I couldn’t understand it. To this day, I can’t understand it.”

Sigler, who is part of Irene’s extended family, has never been able to forget this case — especially after she visited her aunt’s house several years ago.

“There was a portrait of Irene that I hadn’t looked at in years,” Sigler said. “So, I went up to the picture and I was mesmerized… And that’s when I said … ‘Irene where did you go?’ … I wanna know what happened to her.”

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Arrest Made in 56-Year-Old Murder Case

TEXAS
KRGV

The Hidalgo County District Attorney’s Office made an arrest in the murder of Irene Garza. She’s the second grade school teacher who was murdered in 1960.

No one was ever arrested for the crime until today.

CHANNEL 5 NEWS’ Cary Zayas was there when the former priest John Feit was arrested in Phoenix on Tuesday.

The former Reverend John Feit is officially being charged right now with the murder of Irene Garza.

We will continue following this story.

Note: Original post said “66-year-old” it should be “56-year-old murder case.

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Authorities arrest priest in connection with Irene Garza case

TEXAS
The Monitor

STAFF REPORT | Posted: Tuesday, February 9, 2016

The man suspected in connection with the 1960 murder of a McAllen woman was arrested Tuesday.

John Feit, a former priest who was with Sacred Heart , was arrested by Maricopa County Sheriff’s office in Arizona Tuesday. He was never charged with killing the 25-year-old beauty queen in 1960, but was widely accused of the crime.

District Attorney Ricardo Rodriguez confirmed late Tuesday his office presented the case to the grand jury last Thursday and they came back with a true bill.

“We had kept it quiet as much as we could — we sealed the indictment,” he said.

Rodriguez said the next step is to see whether or not Feit will contest his extradition to Texas or waive it.

“We would have to get a governor’s warrant. It usually happens even it’s contested,” Rodriguez said.

Former Hidalgo County District Attorney Rene Guerra came under fire when the case was reopened and went to an Hidalgo County grand jury in 2004, but the grand jury failed to indict.

When current DA Ricardo Rodriguez beat out the incumbent in March 2014, Guerra challenged him to finally solve the case. Garza’s family also asked Rodriguez to pursue it.

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SNAP Calls For Catholic Church To Host Public Meeting Regarding Joel Wright

OHIO
10TV

[with video]

By Maureen Kocot
Tuesday February 9, 2016 7

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The group SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is calling on the Catholic Diocese of Columbus to hold a public meeting, and to discuss the arrest of former seminary student, Joel Wright.

The Columbus diocese has repeatedly told 10TV it has no affiliation whatsoever with Wright.

Homeland Security says in January, the 23-year old tried to travel to Mexico to buy three girls, ages 1, 2, and 3, for sex.

Wright was sponsored by another diocese, the Steubenville Catholic Diocese, to study to be a priest at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus.

On Tuesday, SNAP urged Bishop Frederick Campbell to talk openly to Columbus parishioners about this case.

“When they’re sitting back and saying nothing and doing nothing,” SNAP member Judy Jones said.

Jones wants to know why Wright wasn’t exposed sooner?

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Former St. Boniface priest sentenced to 2 years behind bars

CANADA
CBC News

The former priest of a St. Boniface parish has been sentenced to two years behind bars for sexual assault.

Last July, Ron Leger pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual assault and one count of sexual interference with someone under the age of 16.

Leger, 77, used to lead Holy Family Parish and founded Teen Stop Jeunesse. He was defrocked by the church last summer.

The charges against Leger relate back to a series of incidents that occurred between 1984 and 2004.

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NM–Records from church HQ seized in child sex case; Victims respond

NEW MEXICO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2016

Statement by David Clohessy, director of SNAP (314 566 9790, davidgclohessy@gmail.com)

Police have seized documents from the headquarters of the Catholic church in New Mexico because of a child sex abuse case. We applaud this move and hope it results in top church officials being criminally charged for ignoring or hiding evidence about possible child sex crimes.

[New Mexican]

All too often, law enforcement agencies are not aggressive in pursuing those who commit or conceal heinous crimes against kids in religious settings. All too often, they go after the predators but not the enablers. All too often, they take church officials’ word that church staff have little or no relevant information in these cases.

Such a naïve approach is irresponsible, especially given the long and continuing pattern of Catholic officials valuing secrecy over openness and protecting their own careers over their flocks.

So we applaud the decision by New Mexico secular authorities to secure and execute search warrants on both the church headquarters and a parochial school (Santo Nino Regional Catholic School in Santa Fe).

We hope every single person who saw, suspected or suffered child sex crimes by Aaron Chavez or cover ups by his colleagues will come forward, get help, expose wrongdoers, protect kids and start healing.

And we hope Archbishop John Wester will use personal news conferences, pulpit announcements, church bulletins and parish websites to beg anyone with information or suspicions about crime by Chavez or cover ups in the Santa Fe archdiocese to call police and prosecutors.

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Police seize Santa Fe archdiocese files in molestation case

NEW MEXICO
Seattle PI

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Authorities have seized records from the Archdiocese of Santa Fe as part of an investigation into claims that a Catholic school teacher inappropriately touched female students.

The New Mexican reports (http://bit.ly/1mpCoUk ) that Santo Nino Regional Catholic School art teacher Aaron Chavez has been charged with five counts of sexually touching young girls during classes.

The archdiocese says the 47-year-old Chavez was placed on administrative leave.

Affidavits for search warrants filed in district court Monday say deputies took items from the school and archdiocese offices, including student files, teacher’s personnel files, a laptop computer and electronic memory cards.

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Purge at the Mount

MARYLAND
Inside Higher Ed

February 9, 2016
By Scott Jaschik

The president of Mount St. Mary’s University in Maryland on Monday fired two faculty members without any faculty review of his action or advance notice. One was a tenured professor who had recently criticized some of the president’s policies. The other was the adviser to the student newspaper that revealed the president recently told faculty members concerned about his retention plans that they needed to change the way they view struggling students. “This is hard for you because you think of the students as cuddly bunnies, but you can’t. You just have to drown the bunnies … put a Glock to their heads,” the president said.

Many believe a third faculty member may also be fired, as he also has criticized the president’s policies. Administrators were seen trying to find that faculty member today for an urgent meeting, which is how the two who were fired were dismissed. It is unclear whether they were able to locate the third faculty member.

Monday’s firings follow the dismissal on Friday of Provost David Rehm, who also raised questions about President Simon Newman’s retention plans. (Rehm held on to his faculty position.)

Newman’s letter firing the tenured professor — Thane M. Naberhaus of the philosophy department — accused him of disloyalty. …

Mount St. Mary’s is a small Roman Catholic university, with a strong emphasis on a rigorous and traditional liberal arts education.

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Priest convicted of molestation will not get a new trial

PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

By Torsten Ove / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A Johnstown-area priest convicted of molesting orphans in Honduras will not get a new trial after a judge on Monday ruled that his lawyer failed to show that new evidence regarding one of the victims would result in an acquittal.

U.S. District Judge Kim Gibson, presiding in Johnstown, denied Rev. Joseph Maurizio’s request for a second trial and set sentencing for March 2.

Rev. Maurizio was convicted in September of traveling to Honduras under the guise of doing missionary work and molesting three boys between 2004 and 2009.

The priest’s lawyer, Steven Passarello, had argued that one line in a statement by one of the alleged victims, in which he said Rev. Maurizio did not molest him, had been improperly withheld by government lawyers.

The victim made the claim in a five-page victim-impact report on Sept. 20, the day before closing arguments.

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CMU Student Files Lawsuit Against Isabella County Priest

MICHIGAN
9 and 10 News

By Karie Herringa, Web Producer

Father Denis Heames was a priest at the St. Mary’s Parish on the campus of Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant.

Back in July, Father Denis Heames was placed on administrative leave by the Catholic diocese of Saginaw after he was accused of violating priestly conduct. He was permanently replaced by Father Thomas McNamara in August.

Last month, a CMU student filed a lawsuit against Father Heames, stating he initiated weekly one-on-one counseling to help her spiritually after joining the parish in August 2012. From there, the relationship became sexual.

According to the lawsuit, Father Heames hired the student as a media intern for the parish in 2012 in an attempt to help conceal their relationship.

The student worked for the parish and had a relationship with Father Heames for two years.

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Catholic Church officials deny responsibility for supervising priests in damages lawsuit

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Giselle Wakatama

The Catholic Church is arguing it has no responsibility for the supervision of its priests, as it fights a damages case launched by an alleged victim of a dead priest in the New South Wales Hunter Valley.

A 2013 special commission of inquiry found the Catholic Church knew that father Denis McAlinden was a paedophile, dating back to the 1950s.

Among those officials who allegedly knew was the dead bishop Leo Clarke, whose estate is now being pursued as part of a damages case brought by a woman known as LG.

The inquiry found the former bishop failed to report McAlinden throughout the 20 years he was in his job.

The inquiry also found bishop Clarke’s inaction in relation to the paedophile priest was inexcusable.

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After Six Months Away, Pastor at Center of Church Cover-up Scandal Returns

MISSOURI
Riverfront Times

Posted By Danny Wicentowski on Tue, Feb 9, 2016

Who does Steve Wingfield think he’s fooling? The question seemed to twist through the pastor’s sermon on Sunday, which he delivered before an audience of roughly 200 in the main chapel of First Christian Church of Florissant, or FCCF.

It was Wingfield’s first trip to the pulpit of the evangelical church since his unceremonious banishment to a six-month sabbatical in August, and his return was met with high anticipation from those still faithful to the church and the Wingfield family name.

For Wingfield’s detractors — which by now include hundreds of former congregants — there was nothing but disappointment.

Wingfield’s sabbatical came after months of bad press and infighting within the north county megachurch. Under Wingfield’s leadership, FCCF worked feverishly to insulate itself from scandal after a former youth minister named Brandon Milburn was unmasked as a serial child molester and sentenced to 25 years in prison.

As chronicled in a Riverfront Times feature story, several congregants-turned-whistleblowers maintain that Wingfield ignored warnings about Milburn’s behavior and even trusted him with access to the church’s youth programs. In response, Wingfield and FCCF sued the whistleblowers and did everything he could to shut them up. It didn’t work. Then the pastor went on leave.

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MO–Complicit pastor is back on the job; Victims respond

MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2016

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

A vengeful, selfish pastor is back on the job while the brave whistleblowers he sued and hurt are still suffering, as are the families whose kids were abused by a now-imprisoned child molester who worked at the church.

[Riverfront Times]

Six months ago, the board of First Christian Church of Florissant put Rev. Steve Wingfield on leave, after he had “banned former FCCF members, (and) his own brother, pastor Paul Wingfield of White Flag Church, pressured a Christian college to fire an outspoken professor-turned-critic,” according to the Riverfront Times.

The controversy erupted after several courageous and concerned congregants began challenging church officials over how they dealt with Brandon Milburn, who sexually assaulted several youngsters.

These individuals, including Doug Lay, Dawn Varvil and Titus and Kari Benton, are heroes. They were ostracized and wounded because they dared to question an egomaniac minister and support abuse victims. And even now, virtually no official at FCCF has taken a single step to ameliorate their suffering. It’s utterly tragic.

Shame on FCCF’s Stan Dubose, vice chairman of the board of elders, and on every person who brought Wingfield back to the church and sat passively by while he ducked and dodged in his sermon last Sunday, expressing no real contrition whatsoever for his selfish, mean-spirited attacks on his own church members.

Ministers should not sue church members, period. They should welcome, not attack, those who expose wrongdoing, prevent abuse and help victims.

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MI–Saginaw priest is sued; Victims respond

MICHIGAN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2016

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

A Saginaw priest is being sued for sexually exploiting a college student. We applaud her courage while we deplore the secrecy of Saginaw’s bishop.

[Central Michigan Life]

For about two years, Fr. Denis Heames of St. Mary’s University parish manipulated, deceived, hired and supervised a student named Megan Winans. For about a month, Saginaw Bishop Joseph Cistone kept silent about Winans’ lawsuit against church officials, which was filed Jan. 14.

Shame on Bishop Cistone for keeping the case quiet for weeks. Why is his delay problematic? Because hours and days are crucial in a sex abuse case. Every minute a predator’s crimes are kept secret gives him and his allies’ time to destroy evidence, fabricate alibis, intimidate victims, threaten witnesses and discredit whistleblowers.

We suspect Fr. Heames has hurt other vulnerable students families with similar clerical misconduct. So we urge Bishop Cistone to aggressively reach out to others who may have been hurt by Fr. Heames.

Many know about child molesting Catholic clerics. But few realize priests abusing vulnerable adult parishioners is as or more widespread but still deeply hidden. It’s always wrong and hurtful for doctors to have sex with patients, therapists to have sex with clients and ministers to have sex with congregants. That’s especially true in Catholicism, where parishioners are taught, from birth, to respect and trust priests as holy celibate men who can forgive sins and get them into heaven.

In 17 states, it’s a crime for a cleric to have sex with a congregant.

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Diocese bankruptcy settlement hits a snag

NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, NM, Feb. 3, 2016

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

ALBUQUERQUE – Attorneys for the Diocese of Gallup will not be filing a plan of reorganization in U.S. Bankruptcy Court this week as they had predicted in January.

And hopes for a finalized settlement agreement with clergy sex abuse claimants might be sabotaged by an ongoing dispute between two parties in the bankruptcy case.

The dispute, which has been the subject of vague discussions in previous hearings, spilled out into open court during a status hearing Tuesday before Judge David T. Thuma. It involves an impasse between Michael P. Murphy, the future claims representative, and Catholic Mutual, which offers liability coverage to the Gallup Diocese.

As the future claims representative, Murphy will represent anyone who might come forward in the future with a clergy sex abuse claim against the diocese. Catholic Mutual has agreed to issue a certificate coverage to the diocese to cover the amount of the future claims fund.

Most of Tuesday’s hearing was dominated by back and forth discussion of the divisive issue separating Murphy and Catholic Mutual — how much of an inquiry into Catholic Mutual’s financial condition Murphy should be allowed as part of his fiduciary duty and how much financial information Catholic Mutual is willing to provide Murphy.

David Spector, an attorney for Catholic Mutual, objected to the “extraordinary review of the books and records of the financial condition of Catholic Mutual” that he claimed Murphy and Young Kim, Murphy’s representative in court, were insistent on receiving. Spector said Catholic Mutual was willing to let Murphy view only a financial balance sheet — after Murphy had signed an “ironclad protective order” that would protect the confidential nature of the information.

“But that is as far as we’ll go,” Spector said. “We won’t go any further. Mr. Murphy and Mr. Kim have insisted that that is the starting point.”

Under questioning by Thuma, Kim was unwilling to say Murphy might not want further financial information from Catholic Mutual. Kim noted that Catholic Mutual is not regulated or overseen by any organization and it is not a rated insurer.

Spector, who threatened to withdraw financing for the future claims fund, also complained that Murphy had been recommended for the future claims representative position by attorneys representing clergy sex abuse claimants. That, however, is not backed up in the court record. Murphy was actually nominated by attorneys for the Diocese of Gallup in a court motion filed Feb. 11, 2015. Diocesan attorneys cited Murphy’s experience as the future claims representative in church bankruptcy cases in Stockton, California; Fairbanks, Alaska; and Davenport, Iowa.

James Stang, legal counsel for the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors, which represents the interests of clergy sex abuse claimants, weighed into the dispute and expressed frustration that the Gallup Diocese’s settlement could fall apart if Catholic Mutual does not finance the future claims fund.

“Are we really going to lose this entire deal because people are speculating that someone’s going to be unreasonable or someone’s going to refuse to offer an answer to a question?” Stang said. “And that’s what’s frustrating me. I just can’t understand why we can’t at least start the first step on this path and see where it goes.”

By the end of the nearly hour long hearing, the judge also appeared frustrated by the lack of resolution. Addressing diocesan attorney Lori Winkelman, Thuma asked, “What happens to your time line if this conversation just continues ad nauseam and we never get anywhere?”

“We’ve got to get this figured out,” Thuma added, “and we’ve got to do it soon.”

Thuma then scheduled another continued status hearing Wednesday afternoon, and he instructed Kim to talk with Murphy and communicate Murphy’s views to the other parties in the bankruptcy prior to Wednesday’s hearing.

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Diocese bankruptcy lurches forward again

NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, N.M., Feb. 4, 2016

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

ALBUQUERQUE – The Diocese of Gallup’s bankruptcy case is back on track — at least until next week.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David T. Thuma held a continued status hearing Wednesday afternoon after a dispute Tuesday threatened to derail the Gallup Diocese’s plans to file a plan of reorganization. Different representatives from both sides stepped forward to cooperate on a couple initial steps to possibly mend the breach.

On Tuesday, Thuma navigated a legal conflict between Catholic Mutual, the insurer for the diocese, and Michael P. Murphy, the future claims representative who has the responsibility of representing the interests of any clergy sex abuse claimants who might come forward in the future.

David Spector, an attorney for Catholic Mutual, had vehemently objected to allowing Murphy a review of Catholic Mutual’s financial books and records, while Murphy’s representative, Young Kim, declined to agree that Murphy would be satisfied with viewing only a financial balance sheet from Catholic Mutual. Thuma had told Kim to talk with Murphy and report back during Wednesday’s hearing.

Murphy, who is returning to the United States from Hong Kong Friday, appeared at Wednesday’s hearing telephonically. He and Everett Cygal, an attorney for Catholic Mutual, agreed to work together to get a protective order signed that would guard the confidentiality of Catholic Mutual’s financial information.

Murphy also agreed to view the documents Catholic Mutual is willing to show him, which are the most recent audited balance statement and recent unaudited balance statements.

“It has been the offer that Catholic Mutual has been making for several months now to the future claims rep,” Cygal said.

In response, Murphy said he’s been willing to look at those documents for some time.

If Murphy believes the documents indicate Catholic Mutual has the financial wherewithal to cover the future claims fund, he will give the court a “thumbs up” and presumably the Gallup Diocese’s settlement agreement and plan of reorganization will continue to move forward.

However, if Murphy’s inspection of the documents leads to a “thumbs down,” the case could once again derail by the next status hearing Tuesday.

Susan Boswell, the diocese’s lead bankruptcy attorney, told the court she was continuing to work on the plan of reorganization in spite of the dispute.

“This issue simply cannot be the thing that drives whether or not this plan gets confirmed,” Boswell said.

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Diocese bankruptcy costs exceed $3.6 million

NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, N.M., Feb. 6, 2016

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

ALBUQUERQUE – As the Diocese of Gallup pushes to conclude its Chapter 11 case in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, its bankruptcy costs have exceeded $3.6 million. Attorneys, accountants and other professionals submitted quarterly billing statements totaling $340,520.07 for the period of Oct. 1 through Dec. 31, adding up to a total current cost of $3,587,597.65.

However, the quarterly statements do not represent a completely accurate total of the Gallup Diocese’s bankruptcy expenses. They do not include the $38,675 the diocese has paid the U.S. Trustee Program, which oversees the administration of bankruptcy cases.

The statements also do not include miscellaneous expenses the diocese has been paying each month from its bank accounts, such as the $45,000 the diocese paid Tucson Realty & Trust Co. and Accelerated Marketing Group to conduct two property auctions in September. Those U.S. Trustee and miscellaneous bankruptcy payments total more than $93,000 and push the post-bankruptcy filing total to more than $3.6 million.

In addition, prior to filing its Chapter 11 petition Nov. 12, 2013, the Diocese of Gallup made payments to some of its bankruptcy law firms and its accounting firm.

Unless otherwise stated, the following final quarterly figures for 2015 and the total fees and expenses will not be paid until the Gallup Diocese has an approved plan of reorganization:

-Quarles & Brady LLP: The Diocese of Gallup’s lead bankruptcy law firm from Tucson submitted a quarterly statement of $180,208.33 for legal fees and expenses. The firm’s total post-petition legal bill is now $1,994,521.23.

-Keegan, Linscott & Kenon P.C: This Tucson accounting firm has been overseeing the Gallup Diocese ‘s finance office. The firm submitted a quarterly statement for $18,596.50 in fees – its lowest quarterly bill during the bankruptcy. It did not bill for any expenses. The firm’s total post-petition bill is now $431,385.96.

-Stelzner, Winter, Warburton, Flores, Sanchez & Dawes P.A.: The diocese’s special counsel law firm from Albuquerque billed $303.87 in fees this quarter. The firm’s total post-petition bill is now $12,435.21.

-Insurance Archaeology Group: This insurance research company did not submit a statement for this quarterly period. To date the company has billed the Gallup Diocese $48,819 and has received payment for that amount.

-Estate Valuation Consultants Inc.: This real estate appraisal company did not submit a statement for this quarterly period. To date the company has billed the diocese $22,100 and has received payment for that amount.

-Michael P. Murphy: Murphy is the court appointed future claims representative who will represent any clergy sex abuse claimant who might come forward in the future. Murphy has not been paid yet, but his fee of $50,000 plus expenses will be due and payable upon the effective date of any plan of reorganization.

-Walker & Associates P.C.: The diocese’s Albuquerque bankruptcy law firm did not submit a statement for this quarter. To date, the firm has billed $18,062.40 in post-petition fees and expenses.

-Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones LLP: This California law firm is the legal counsel for the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors, which represents the interests of clergy sex abuse survivors who have filed claims against the diocese in the bankruptcy case. Although the committee represents abuse claimants, the Diocese of Gallup is responsible for those legal fees. The law firm submitted a quarterly statement for $141,412.37 in fees and expenses. The firm’s total post-petition bill is now $1,060,273.85.

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Syracuse Catholic diocese closes controversial retirement home for priests

NEW YORK
Syracuse.com

By John O’Brien | jobrien@syracuse.com
on February 09, 2016

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — The Catholic Diocese of Syracuse has closed its retirement home for priests after 59 years, citing financial concerns.

The decision to close the Tommy Coyne Residence for Priests in December was unrelated to concerns raised last year by survivors of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of priests, diocese spokeswoman Danielle Cummings said.

The diocese had been planning for two years to close the home because of the expense, Cummings said. She wouldn’t say how many priests were living in the 22-room home when it closed.

“The building simply was becoming too costly and the repairs needed did not justify continuing it as a retirement residence for priests,” she said.

Over the past 15 years, the facility was home to at least four priests against whom the diocese had found credible allegations of child-molesting, according to public records. Those priests were monsignors Charles Eckermann, Charles Sewall and John Zeder, and the Rev. Chester Misercola.

Another priest who lived at the home in recent years, the Rev. Robert Ours, was convicted of possessing child pornography.

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State Police start internal investigation after arrest of accused child molester

NEW MEXICO
KRQE

SANTA FE (KRQE) – State Police have started an internal investigation following the arrest of an art teacher, who had been investigated by their officers years ago.

State Police got a complaint against Aaron Chavez in 2012, accusing him of touching a student at Santo Nino Catholic School where he works. But State Police say investigators never took action and they don’t know why.

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Police seize Santa Fe archdiocese files in molestation case

NEW MEXICO
KRQE

SANTA FE (AP) – Authorities have seized records from the Archdiocese of Santa Fe as part of an investigation into claims that a Catholic school teacher inappropriately touched female students.

The New Mexican reports that Santo Nino Regional Catholic School art teacher Aaron Chavez has been charged with five counts of sexually touching young girls during classes.

The archdiocese says the 47-year-old Chavez was placed on administrative leave.

Affidavits for search warrants filed in district court Monday say deputies took items from the school and archdiocese offices, including student files, teacher’s personnel files, a laptop computer and electronic memory cards.

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Sheriff’s deputies seize Archdiocese records in molestation case

NEW MEXICO
The New Mexican

Posted: Monday, February 8, 2016

By Uriel J. Garcia
The New Mexican

Santa Fe County sheriff’s deputies have seized records from the Archdiocese of Santa Fe as part of an investigation into allegations that an art teacher at the Santo Niño Regional Catholic School inappropriately touched female students.

Affidavits for search warrants filed Monday in state District Court say deputies took various items Friday from archdiocese offices in Albuquerque as well as the school south of Santa Fe, including files on five students, the teacher’s personnel files, a laptop computer and electronic memory cards.

Criminal complaints filed recently in Santa Fe County Magistrate Court charge Aaron Chavez, 47, with five counts of sexually touching young girls during classes.

The archdiocese said last week that Chavez was placed on administrative leave as a result of the criminal investigation. On Monday, a spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment. Chavez is currently free on bond, court records show.

Chavez’s lawyer, John Samore, has said his client “denies and will vigorously defend against these allegations.”

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Bishop of Durham defends Church of England paedophiles who made ‘mistakes’

UNITED KINGDOM
The Sun

EXCLUSIVE By DAVID WOODING, Sunday Political Editor
6 Feb 2016

A BISHOP leading a probe into paedophile priests was blasted last night for describing their child abuse as “mistakes”.

Rt Rev Paul Butler made the remark in reference to ex-Bishop of Gloucester Peter Ball, jailed last year for a string of offences.

The Bishop of Durham told the House of Lords: “We have to recognise that it’s possible for great people to make mistakes.”

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VATICAN REMOVES SHADY PANEL MEMBER

UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on the Vatican’s suspension of one of the members of its commission on priestly sexual abuse:

The Vatican has announced that Peter Saunders, one of two representatives of abuse victims on its Commission for the Protection of Minors, has been suspended from the commission.

Saunders refuses to go quietly, however, saying only Pope Francis can dismiss him from the commission—even though, by his own statement, the commission’s vote to suspend him was unanimous, save for one abstention. So unless we are to assume bad faith on the part of every one of the 16 other commission members—beginning with its president, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston—there must be some merit to the members’ conclusion that they could not work with Saunders.

We have long had our own concerns about Saunders. From his savage attack last June on Australian Cardinal George Pell—whom Saunders never met—branding him as “callous,” “coldhearted,” “almost sociopathic”—to seeming inconsistencies in Saunders’ personal tale of abuse, we have good reason to question his character.

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G-9 meeting: Decentralization and the new dicasteries

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) The latest meeting of the Council of Cardinals, Pope Francis’ closest advisers, ended on Tuesday. During their meetings, the cardinals discussed the theme of ‘synodality’ and Pope Francis’ call at last year’s Synod of Bishops for the Church to move towards “a healthy decentralization.” The other main item on the agenda was a discussion and approval of the cardinals’ final proposals concerning the two new dicasteries that are being set up within the Roman Curia.

Pope Francis attended all three sessions, held on Monday morning and afternoon and on Tuesday morning. Often called the G-9, the Council of Cardinals is a group of cardinals chosen by the Pope to advise him on governing the Church and reforming the Roman Curia. It meets at regular intervals.

At a briefing following the end of this meeting, Father Federico Lombardi, the Director of the Holy See’s Press Office, summarized the main issues discussed.

Father Lombardi said the first session of the G-9 discussed the issues raised during the Pope’s keynote speech at the Synod of Bishops on October 17th 2015. This speech reflected on the theme of synodality within the Church and spoke of the need “to proceed towards a healthy decentralization” and Father Lombardi said this call by the Pope remains an importance reference point for the ongoing work of reforming the Curia.

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Victims seek Catholic bishop’s help

OHIO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

OH–FACT SHEET: Accused Catholic sex offender clerics linked to The Josephinum in Columbus

They also release list of 8 accused Columbus clerics
All attended same school as just-arrested seminarian
SNAP: “Ohio church staff ignored repeated red flags”
Prelate should hold “open public meeting” about case
“Why do Catholic institutions still put kids at risk?” group asks
All priests should “reach out now to any local victims,” SNAP says

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims and supporters will disclose the names of eight publicly accused sex offender clerics who spent time at a Columbus seminary. They will also beg the top Catholic official in Columbus to

—hold an open public media about the “troubling” pending case of a seminarian who offered $150 to babysit Ohio kids and arranged to buy infants and toddlers for sex, and
—use pulpit announcements, church bulletins and parish websites to “prod anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes or misdeeds by the seminarian to call police.”

WHEN
Tuesday, Feb. 9 at 1-p.m.

WHERE
On the sidewalk outside the St Joseph Cathedral, 212 East Broad St. in Columbus

WHO
Three-four members of a self-help group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org), including a Missouri woman who is the organization’s associate Midwest director

WHY
Victims are upset that Columbus Bishop Frederick Campbell is largely “being silent and passive” about Joel A. Wright, the recently-arrested Columbus seminarian who had arranged to buy, adopt and rape Mexican youngsters.

Until last month, Wright was a student at The Pontifical College Josephinum, just north of Columbus, and within the boundaries of Bishop Campbell’s diocese. (Bishop Campbell in fact has taught at the Josephinum.)

But in cases like this, SNAP says, bishops “distance themselves from and pretend to be powerless over Catholic institutions in their dioceses,” instead of “stepping up, admitting responsibility and aggressively helping law enforcement.” According to Catholic church practice, custom and law, a bishop is responsible for the safety and well-being of his entire flock, SNAP says.

“If Josephinum staff were ripping off Columbus Catholics financially, Bishop Campbell wouldn’t be passively sitting back and keeping quiet,” said Judy Jones, SNAP’s assistant Midwest director. “He can and should do more.”

“The only prudent assumption is that Wright has assaulted or exploited kids around here,” Jones said. “And Columbus Catholic officials have the ability and duty to see if that’s true by using their resources to beg others with information or suspicions about Wright to call police.”

SNAP is also releasing what it says is “a partial list” of “publicly accused sex offender clerics who have spent time at the Josephinum.” The group believes most of them, including Wright, also helped out at Columbus area parishes temporarily, another reason they say Bishop Campbell should do outreach seeking other victims of Wright.

News accounts show that Ohio Catholic officials had at least three warnings about Wright. But it seem clear that they did little or nothing to heed those warnings, SNAP says.

1) An informant for Homeland Security called and wrote to Josephinum staff about Wright and his efforts to buy infants or toddlers so he could abuse them.

2) Franciscan University officials in Steubenville reported to police that Wright had offered to pay $150 to babysit young kids alone (but the university may not have told Josephinum officials).

3) Wright’s mother admits that more than 40 seminaries across the US had rejected her son’s applications for enrollment. (She claims it was because of his physical disabilities, but SNAP leaders don’t believe this is true.)

On Jan. 29, he was arrested in San Diego en route to Mexico to obtain youngsters. At the time, his studies were sponsored by Steubenville Bishop Jeffrey Montforton.

[10TV]

This “horrific case” shows that the Catholic hierarchy still act recklessly with kids’ safety, SNAP says.

“Once again, Catholic officials endanger kids by ignoring clear, repeated warnings about an obviously sexually troubled cleric,” said David Clohessy, SNAP’s director. “And once again, when abuse reports surface, Catholic officials basically clam up instead of aggressively reaching out. They should be using pulpit announcements, church bulletins, parish websites and mailing lists to help find victims, witnesses and whistleblowers who could help law enforcement prosecute and convict Wright so kids will be protected from him for many years to come.”

SNAP is especially worried that Wright may have molested one or more Ohio children. When asked if he had ever had sex with an infant before, Wright wrote “had made it very close.”

[10TV]

Wright is originally from Vermont. A photo of Wright is at BishopAccountability.org

Columbus diocesan priests: Fr. Ronald J. Atwood, Fr. Thomas J. Brosmer, Fr. Michael Ellifritz, Fr. Joseph N. Fete, Fr. Michael F. Hanrahan, Fr. Robert E. “Paul” Hayden, Fr. David Heimann, Fr. Philip J. Jacobs, Fr. Raymond E. Lavelle, Fr. Frederick A. Loyd, Fr. Thomas L. McLaughlin, Fr. Samuel E. Ritchey, Fr. Francis R. Schaefer, Br. Fintan Shaffer (a.k.a. Guy Dale Shaffer), Fr. Martin “Marty” V. Weithman, Fr. Robert A Brown, Fr Aaron AJ Cote, Francis A Benham, and John J. Walsh
http://www.columbustruth.org/Photo_Page_Columbus.html

CONTACT

Judy Jones (314 974 5003, SNAPjudy@gmail.com), Carol Zamonski, 614 447 2084, doro@copper.net, David Clohessy (314 566 9790, davidgclohessy@gmail.com), Barbara Dorris (314 503 0003, bdorris@SNAPnetwork.org)

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Yeshivah Centre abuse victims fear bullying, intimidation

AUSTRALIA
The Age

[with video]

February 9, 2016 –

Timna Jacks
Education Reporter

Yeshivah Centre abuse victims still fear they will be bullied and ostracised if they disclose their abuse, one year after widespread cover-ups and intimidation of victims was revealed at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Fairfax Media is aware of at least four Yeshivah victims who have refused to take compensation from the centre, in protest against its new redress scheme.

They don’t trust the new scheme, fearing that their confidential disclosures will be handled poorly, or leaked to third parties, which they fear might lead to harassment and ostracisation.

Jewish Care Victoria – an organisation engaged by Yeshivah to receive initial inquiries from survivors of abuse – has already breached one victim’s trust, after a private email sent to the board of Jewish Care was leaked to a board member at Yeshivah.

“This identifies me to Yeshivah – that was the last thing that I want,” said the victim, who did not want to be named.

“Yeshivah, and in particular, its leadership, has a terrible history of bullying and harassing victims and the last thing victims want is to be identified to Yeshivah, because of that history.”

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Bistum unterscheidet bei Entschädigung der Opfer

DEUTSCHLAND
Welt

[The Regensburg diocese has paid out secretly much more money to victims of abuse than was previously known.]

Ein unabhängiger Anwalt klärt jetzt den Skandal bei den Regensburger Domspatzen auf. Derweil zahlt das Bistum Regensburg insgeheim viel mehr Geld an Missbrauchsopfer als bisher bekannt. Von Tim Röhn , Christian Eckl, Regensburg

Es gibt bei dieser Sache so viele Emotionen – Angst, Scham, Wut und auch Rachegelüste. Darum ist es gut, dass nun ein Mann wie Ulrich Weber die Zügel in der Hand hält. Weber, groß, breit, Rechtsanwalt, ist ein nüchterner Typ, seine Mimik und Gestik sagen: Ist mir wurscht, was ihr von mir denkt. Der 45-Jährige sitzt am Esstisch seines Regensburger Einfamilienhauses und sagt über sich: “Ich verstehe mich als Aufklärer, der die Basis für Aufarbeitung schafft.”

Deshalb beschäftigt er sich seit einem Dreivierteljahr mit fast nichts anderem mehr als dem Missbrauchsskandal bei den Regensburger Domspatzen, einem der berühmtesten und ältesten Kirchenchöre der Welt. 2010 hatte es erste Berichte über körperliche und sexuelle Gewalt bei den Domspatzen gegeben – ernsthaft untersucht werden die Vorfälle erst, seitdem Weber, der Mitarbeiter der Opferschutzorganisation Weißer Ring ist, zum unabhängigen Chefaufklärer ernannt wurde.

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Will Pope Francis confront the ‘devil’ in the Mexican Church?

MEXICO
Fusion

by Rafa Fernandez De Castro | February 9, 2016

MEXICO CITY—When Pope Francis visits Mexico from Feb. 12-17, many people will be watching to see if he finally addresses the Vatican’s failures to prevent and punish cases of child sexual abuse by some members of the Mexican clergy.

There’s plenty of such scandals to address—from a priest in Oaxaca accused of abusing indigenous minors to the fugitive priests of San Luis Potosí on the run from sexual abuse charges. There are other cases of the Church hierarchy allegedly protecting accused pedophile priests such as Nicolas Aguilar Rivera, who was transferred from Puebla to Los Angeles, California, after facing several accusations in Mexico.

But perhaps the most notorious case is that of Marcial Maciel, a priest accused of sexually abusing dozens of minors during his tenure as the leader of the powerful Catholic order known as “The Legionaries of Christ.” Maciel founded The Legion in Mexico City in 1941 as a movement to prepare young men for the priesthood and Catholic leaders from across Latin America. Today, the Legion is best known for creating dozens of private schools and universities that primarily serve Mexico’s middle- and upper-classes.

In a recent interview with a Mexican reporter, Pope Francis said Maciel, who died in 2008, was “sick, greatly sick.” But he downplayed the Vatican’s involvement in any cover-up. The pope told Televisa that Maciel most likely had an enabler within The Vatican—someone who “suspected and didn’t know” about the priest’s pederasty.

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Vorschläge zugunsten von Missbrauchsopfern

ROM
Zenit

Missbrauchsopfer sollen künftig unmittelbar von kirchlichen Repräsentanten Antwort auf ihre Anfragen erhalten. Die Päpstliche Kommission zum Schutz von Minderjährigen sieht dies so vor. Zudem ist ein „Welttag des Gebets“ und eine Bußliturgie in Vorbereitung. Eine Erhöhung der Transparenz kirchlicher Verfahren soll durch Arbeitsgruppensitzungen über die rechtlichen Aspekte des Kinderschutzes vorbereitet werden. Daran werden auch externe Experten teilnehmen. Eine Internetseite mit vorbildlichen Praxisbeispielen zum Kinderschutz wird darüber hinaus entwickelt.

Mit einer Reihe von Bischofskonferenzen sowie mit Konferenzen von Orden und Kongregationen arbeitet die Kommission zusammen, dabei einem Wunsch Papst Franziskus‘ folgend. Mitglieder der Kommission haben sich im zurückliegenden Jahr mit Vertretern von Einrichtungen aus Europa, Lateinamerika, Asien, Ozeanien und Australien getroffen. Ab März werden die Kontakte nach Afrika eng ausgebaut. In einer Woche beginnt zudem an der Päpstlichen Universität Gregoriana ein Diplomkurs zum Schutz von Minderjährigen, mit 19 Teilnehmern aus vier Kontinenten.

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Missbrauchsopfer Saunders wirft Papst Untätigkeit vor

VATIKAN
religion@orf

Der Brite Peter Saunders, der im Jahr 2014 von Papst Franziskus in die Kinderschutzkommission des Vatikans berufen wurde, hat dem Kirchenoberhaupt weitgehende Untätigkeit beim Kampf gegen die Pädophilie vorgeworfen.

Er habe immer das „Recht auf freie Rede“ für sich in Anspruch genommen, sagte Saunders AFP-Journalistin Ella Ide. Dies sei aber „mit der Funktionsweise der Kirche und der Kommission nicht kompatibel“. Hier liege der Schlüssel dazu, warum „Missbrauch in der Kirche noch immer so verbreitet“ sei.

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Peter Saunders wirft Papst Franziskus Untätigkeit vor

VATIKAN
T-Online

Der Brite Peter Saunders, der im Jahr 2014 von Papst Franziskus in die Kinderschutzkommission des Vatikans berufen wurde, hat dem Kirchenoberhaupt weitgehende Untätigkeit beim Kampf gegen die Pädophilie vorgeworfen. “Der Papst könnte so viel mehr tun – und er tut fast nichts”, sagte Saunders. Saunders ist selbst ein Missbrauchsopfer.

Der Vatikan erklärte am Montag, Saunders sei aufgefordert worden, aus der Kinderschutzkommission auszutreten. Saunders sagte dazu, lediglich der Papst könne ihn dazu zwingen, die Kommission zu verlassen. Er habe sein Amt nicht niedergelegt.

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Two ex-Marist brothers could attempt to avoid trial on child sex abuse charges

AUSTRALIA
Canberra Times

February 9, 2016

Christopher Knaus and Megan Gorrey

Two former Marist brothers have signalled they will try to avoid going to trial on historical child sexual abuse charges.

John William Chute, 83, and Gregory Joseph Sutton, 64, were among four men police charged with fresh offences as part of an ongoing investigation into child sexual abuse in ACT schools in the 1980s.

Chute did not appear in court to face two charges of indecent assault on a male and two acts of indecency on a person aged between 10 and 16.

His defence lawyer told Magistrate Bernadette Boss his client was infirm and suffered from Parkinson’s disease and dementia.

The court heard Chute, known as Brother Kostka, was the subject of separate charges in NSW that were set to come before court on Friday.

He had been assessed by experts to determine whether he could be declared unfit for trial.

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Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese puts two priests on leave amid sex abuse allegations

PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

BY LAUREN HENSLEY MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8TH 2016

ALTOONA, Pa.– The Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese said two more priests are on leave, each facing allegations of child sex abuse.

This brings the total to three suspended priests in just over a month. Each case involves allegations made decades ago.

Sunday Bishop Mark Bartchak announced Sunday the Rev. David Arseneault seen from Huntingdon’s Holy Trinity and the Rev. James Coveney, who is retired from Saint Mark’s Church in Altoona, have both been placed on leave from the ministry.

They are two priests accused in two separate incidents, but the church said they have one thing in common, the accusations date back about 20 years. Why is the church now choosing to review these accusations?

“I can’t answer that question but obviously Bishop Bartchak feels it is important to review these cases,” said Tony DeGol, secretary for communications.

6News sought to question the bishop directly but we were told he was unavailable.

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Sceptics query decision to allow Pell to give evidence via video link

AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

Cardinal George Pell will not be ordered back to Australia to testify to the child abuse royal commission, a ruling met with scepticism by abuse survivor groups.

Cardinal Pell will remain in his new home at the Vatican in Rome, with commissioner Peter McClellan accepting an Italian doctor’s evidence he is too sick to fly to Australia.

The decision has been met with suspicion by lawyers for former Melbourne school principal Graeme Sleeman, who resigned in 1986 in frustration over diocese inaction about an abusive parish priest.

Barrister Paul O’Dwyer, for Mr Sleeman, asked Justice McClellan on Monday to make Cardinal Pell’s medical report public.

“One of the issues in this case is the fact the church and particularly Archbishop Pell has a continuous history of non-disclosure and we would contend that this report, this medical report, is more of the same,” Mr O’Dwyer said.

Justice McClellan made some of Cardinal Pell’s medical details public but refused to release them in full.

He revealed the Italian report said Cardinal Pell was suffering high blood pressure and ischemic heart disease complicated by a previous heart attack.

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Cardinal George Pell issues statement on royal commission

AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

February 8, 2016

Shannon Deery
Herald Sun

CARDINAL George Pell says he wishes he could have returned to Australia to testify at the child abuse royal commission in person.

Instead Cardinal Pell, the third most senior figure in the global Catholic Church, will give his evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse from the Vatican.

It follows a ruling by commission chair Justice Peter McClellan that Pell could testify via videolink because of the cardinal’s poor health.

In a statement issued this morning from Rome Cardinal Pell said he was eager to respond to specific claims that have been made against him.

They include that he turned a blind eye to abuse and was involved in decisions to shuffle notorious paedophile Gerald Ridsdale between parishes. He has consistently denied any wrongdoing.

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Group Protests Diocese Of Steubenville For Handling Of Joel Wright Case

OHIO
TV10

[with video]

By Maureen Kocot
Monday February 8, 2016

STEUBENVILLE, Ohio – The group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, is calling on the Steubenville Catholic Diocese to go further to protect children after a seminary student was arrested by federal agents.

The Department of Homeland Security says 23-year-old Joel Wright tried to travel to Tijuana, Mexico to purchase three little girls, ages 1, 2, and 3, for sex.

Wright was sponsored by the Steubenville Diocese and a first year seminary student at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus.

The Diocese says Wright passed a stringent criminal background check, but SNAP wants to know why the diocese was unaware of a police report taken by Steubenville police that could have raised a red flag.

The report, obtained by 10TV, documents a Craigslist ad posted by a Joel Wright offering to pay parents $150 to babysit their children.

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US judge denies new trial for Maurizio

PENNSYLVANIA
The Altoona Mirror

February 9, 2016

By Phil Ray (pray@altoonamirror.com) , The Altoona Mirror

JOHNSTOWN – A new sentencing date was set Monday for Father Joseph D. Maurizio Jr. of Somerset County, who was denied a new trial on charges that he sexually abused several Honduran children in an orphanage he helped support over the years.

U.S. District Judge Kim R. Gibson in Johnstown ruled the 71-year-old priest will be sentenced on March 2 for illicit sexual conduct in a foreign place, possession of sexually explicit photographs of a minor and using money raised for the ProNino orphanage in El Progresso to pay for sexual services from the children.

Gibson, in a 48-page opinion, rejected a petition from Maurizio’s Altoona attorneys Steven P. Passarello and Daniel Kiss asking for a new trial because, the defense charged, the government withheld an impact statement in which one of the young victims denied Maurizio sexually abused him, which was contrary to the boy’s testimony during Maurizio’s trial last September.

“I am somewhat perplexed by the opinion,” Passarello stated Monday afternoon in reaction to the Judge’s decision.

The judge, he said, agreed with almost every point the defense raised: that the government had withheld a statement that showed Maurizio was innocent and that the statement was “material” in that it reflected on the credibility of the government’s testimony.

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“Spotlight” reporters address media students

INDIANA
Indiana Daily Student

By Austin Faulds

Michael Rezendes and Sacha Pfeiffer, journalists recently depicted in the Oscar-nominated film “Spotlight,” spoke to Media School students Monday about their experiences in journalism. af

Pfeiffer and Rezendes, along with other journalists on the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team, uncovered a series of child molestation scandals within Boston-area Catholic churches in 2002, which ultimately led to a major investigation and international reform within the Catholic Church. af

“This was the worst kept secret in town, maybe in the country, maybe in the world,” Rezendes said. af

In the film adaptation of their reporting, Pfeiffer and Rezendes were portrayed by Rachel McAdams and Mark Ruffalo, respectively. af

Through the investigation, the number of Boston clergymen participating in the sexual assault rose from 13 clergymen to about 90.

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The harsh truth

UNITED STATES
Evangelical Focus

AUTHOR José de Segovia

“If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one”, says the honourable lawyer played by Stanley Tucci in “Spotlight”.

It had been a long time since I had seen a character represent this profession with so much dignity. The same can be said of the journalists who are part of the investigative team of the newspaper that brought the shocking figures of child abuse in the archdiocese of Boston to light – around a thousand children for only 249 priests! –.

However, everything in it is so rigorous and contained, that even the catholic critics have taken their caps off to this film, which is probably the best that the industry has offered us in the last year.

Having already received a whole string of prizes, it is difficult not to talk about this film using superlatives. However, in these mediocre times, productions like this are so unusual that you might be forgiven for thinking that the clock had stopped ticking.

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Aker competent to stand trial

KENTUCKY
Ledger-Independent

CHRISTY HOOTS christy.hoots@lee.net

VANCEBURG | A former Lewis County preacher who currently faces sexual abuse charges, was found to be competent to stand trial during a recent circuit court appearance.

Duncan Aker of Greensburg, Ind., and formerly of Vanceburg, was arrested in May 2015, and charged with five counts of sexual abuse and four counts of sodomy after a Lewis County grand jury handed down an indictment against him in April 2015.

According to the indictment, Aker allegedly engaged in sexual intercourse and sexual contact through forcible compulsion with a male under the age of 12 between October 2007 and March 2010.

The indictment also states that Aker allegedly committed some of the offenses in the church where he was minister.

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Gallup diocese owes $3.5M in costs

NEW MEXICO
Albuquerque Journal

By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writer
Published: Tuesday, February 9th, 2016

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Legal and professional costs in the Diocese of Gallup’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case exceeded $3.5 million through Dec. 31, new filings in the case show.

An Arizona law firm representing the diocese, Quarles & Brady LLP of Tucson, is seeking fees and expenses totaling $1,994,521, according to a disclosure statement filed this month.

A Los Angeles firm, Pachulski, Stang, Ziehl & Jones LLP, is seeking payment for $1,060,274 in fees and expenses. The firm represents 57 alleged victims of sexual abuse by priests who have filed claims in the case.

Most legal costs will remain unpaid until a reorganization plan has been approved by presiding U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David T. Thuma.

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Melbourne priest Paul Grasby moves to Malaysia to pursue ‘young Asian men’ while on paid leave

AUSTRALIA
The Age

February 9, 2016

Nino Bucci
Crime reporter for The Age

EXCLUSIVE

A Catholic priest stood down amid child sexual abuse allegations has moved to Malaysia, where he is using a gay dating website to seek the company of “young Asian men” while on paid leave.
Father Peter Grasby, who is suspected of abusing boys from at least two Melbourne parishes during almost 40 years as a priest, also propositioned a former parishioner on a gay dating website, it can be revealed.

Father Grasby, the former parish priest of St Mary Magdalen in Jordanville, near Chadstone, was placed on administrative leave from the position when he was accused of abusing a boy aged 10 to 14 in another parish more than three decades earlier.

He was also accused in a Victorian parliamentary inquiry of allowing boys to sleep in his former presbytery at St Michael’s in North Melbourne and of surrounding himself with a concerning number of young Vietnamese boys at St Mary Magdalen.

The case of Father Grasby, who was placed on administrative leave in 2012, raises questions about the Melbourne Response, engineered by the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne to handle sexual abuse complaints, and the role it plays in allowing suspected serial offenders to go free on paid leave without supervision, a victim’s support group says.

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Former WA Catholic college student ‘too embarrassed’ to report sexual abuse

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Joanna Menagh

A former student at a Catholic college in Western Australia has told a Perth court he never spoke to anyone after he was sexually abused 45 years ago because he was “too embarrassed”.

The man was giving evidence in the District Court at the trial of Catholic Bishop Max Davis, who is accused of sexually abusing five boarders at Saint Benedict’s College in New Norica between 1969 and 1972.

Davis was a teacher and a boarding master at the school and in 1971 was ordained a priest.

Most recently he was the Catholic Bishop of the Australian Defence Force but he stood aside from his duties when he was charged two years ago.

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February 8, 2016

Acusan abuso sexual de curas en Campeche

MEXICO CITY (MEXICO)
Reforma [Ciudad de México, Mexico]

February 8, 2016

By Antonio Baranda

Read original article

Los sacerdotes Martín Mena Carrillo y Francisco Velázquez Trejo fueron demandados por cometer abuso sexual contra Luis Felipe Izquierdo Cundafe entre 2007 y 2008.

Izquierdo presentó una demanda por daño moral en el Juzgado Tercero Civil del Primer Distrito Judicial de Campeche contra los padres, además demandó a Ramón Castro y Castro, Obispo de Cuernavaca, y José Francisco González González, Obispo de Campeche, por supuesto encubrimiento.

El actual “sacerdote veterocatólico”, como se define, presentó la demanda por daño moral y psicológico el 30 de noviembre del año pasado.

Ya en julio de 2015, el originario de Huimanguillo, Tabasco, había hecho público el presunto caso de pederastia, aunque no había emprendido acciones legales.

El escrito que Izquierdo presentó al juez señala que a principios de 2007, cuando tenía 16 años, viajó de Mérida a Ciudad del Carmen, para participar en una misión de paz.

Durante la misión de 15 días, a la cual fueron otros jóvenes, conoció en la parroquia de la “Divina Providencia” al padre Martín, quien lo invitó a entrar al Seminario de Campeche.

Izquierdo aceptó y en julio del mismo año regresó a dicha iglesia, donde Martín le dijo que primero se haría cargo del apoyo espiritual a grupos juveniles de la comunidad.

Según la demanda, el padre dio a Izquierdo un trato “muy especial”, con regalos y paseos, hasta que una noche de agosto lo invitó a su habitación, en la casa de la parroquia.

“Estaba (el padre) con una botella de licor y me dijo ‘toma’, y me dio a tomar, era la primera vez que tomaba licor. Entonces comenzó a tocarme la pierna y acariciaba mi parte íntima.

“Mientras me acariciaba mi miembro, con voz excitada me decía ‘esto es normal, no pasa nada, esto es cariño que se demuestra cuando uno quiere mucho, y yo te quiero mucho’. Ese día me hizo sexo oral en la hamaca donde dormía”, aseguró Izquierdo en el documento.

Días después, Martín lo volvió a invitar a su cuarto, a lo cual accedió. El escrito señala que esa noche el entonces adolescente fue obligado a penetrar al padre.

En octubre del mismo año, Luis Felipe conoció en la ciudad de Campeche al padre Francisco Velázquez Trejo, “El Bimbo”, de la parroquia del “Sagrado Corazón de Jesús”.

Meses después, ya en 2008, el padre Francisco fue a la “Divina Providencia” y luego de ingerir bebidas alcohólicas con el padre Martín y Luis Felipe, invitó a éste a su habitación.

“Comenzó a tocarme mis genitales. Yo estaba muy nervioso porque el cuarto de Martín quedaba cerca y se podía enojar conmigo.

“En ese momento el padre Francisco me dijo que lo penetrara porque sabía lo que hacía con Martin, y me amenazó. Me vi obligado a (hacerlo)”.

Intentos de suicidio y exilio

Luis Felipe relata que también fue acosado por otro padre identificado como “Leobardo”, por lo que intentó suicidarse en tres ocasiones, cuando ya había entrado al Seminario.

Cuenta que el 18 de marzo de 2009 se tomó “un montón” de pastillas que había en la enfermería del seminario. Días después hizo lo mismo y luego trató de ahorcarse.

El joven llamó entonces a sus tíos Rafael y Miguelina, quienes fueron por él una semana después. Sin embargo, regresó al Seminario a finales del mismo año.

Durante “buen tiempo”, refiere, se dio cuenta que Martín le hizo lo mismo a otros menores, por lo que decidió revelar el abuso al entonces Obispo de Campeche, Ramón Castro y Castro.

Sin embargo, éste lo amenazó con meterlo a la cárcel si ventilaba algo. El padre Francisco también lo contactó para ofrecerle dinero a cambio de no decir nada.

Luis Felipe se fue del seminario y viajó a Chile donde radica actualmente y profesa la religión veterocatólica, también conocida como Iglesia católica antigua.

Revelación

El demandante dice que envió cartas contando lo sucedido al Cardenal Norberto Rivera, al Obispo de Tabasco Gerardo de Jesús, así como al Arzobispo de Yucatán y al Nuncio Apostólico.

“Pasaron los meses y me llegó un correo, era el Obispo Ramón Castro y Castro, reclamándome y reprochándome por qué había enviado cartas a los Obispos.

“Manifestándome que él me había apoyado económicamente y me apoyó en todo”, apunta.

En dicha comunicación, aparentemente en 2014, Castro le pide a Luis Felipe hablar primero antes de recurrir a “otras formas”.

El año pasado, Luis Felipe envió una carta al Papa Francisco con detalles del caso. El contenido de la misiva se publicó en el Diario Tribuna de Campeche el 2 de julio.

“Entre los sacerdotes hay autoprotección, son una mafia porque la Iglesia no sanciona a los responsables. Tengo la decisión de denunciar estos hechos ante las autoridades competentes.

“Con el fin de que no continúen esos atropellos y violaciones cometidos por los sacerdotes católicos, porque no sabemos cuántos menores han sufrido lo mismo”, indica.

Luis Felipe asegura que los “predicadores de la fe” se aprovecharon de él para obligarlo a cometer actos indignos, denigrantes y humillantes que dejan secuelas perdurables.

“Se me expuso al descrédito, deshonor y desprecio de amigos, familiares y de la sociedad, con lo que se me afectó en mis sentimientos, honor, decoro, reputación, creencias, vida privada”.


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After Bill Cosby and Brenda Tracy, lawmakers weigh more changes to sexual assault laws

OREGON
The Oregonian

By Ian K. Kullgren | The Oregonian/OregonLive
on February 08, 2016

SALEM — For the second time in as many years, lawmakers are considering changing the way officials prosecute sexual assault cases.

A bill in the Oregon Senate would create an exception to the 12-year statute of limitations for the most serious sex crimes — including rape, sodomy and child abuse — allowing prosecutors to bring charges if new concrete evidence emerges.

For example, they could reopen the case if multiple victims come forward with similar allegations or if new written evidence is discovered.

Senate Bill 1553 was inspired by high-profile rape cases, including the one involving Brenda Tracy, who reported being raped by four football players in Corvallis in 1998, and the one involving Bill Cosby, the former comedian facing a barrage of sexual assault allegations.

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SNAP addresses seminary student arrested on child sex charges

OHIO
WTOV

[with video]

BY KENDALL FORWARD MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8TH 2016

STEUBENVILLE, Ohio — Members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) are urging Steubenville’s Catholic Diocese to take action to notify potential victims of a former Franciscan student who was arrested in San Diego, CA by federal agents recently.

The victims’ rights group showed up at the Diocese office in downtown Steubenville on Monday. They’re concerned 23-year-old Joel Wright may have had contact with children in the area, and they are encouraging anyone who may have been victimized to speak up.

Wright was arrested on allegations that he was traveling to Mexico with the intention of adopting or buying a three-year-old girl and raping her.

Wright was studying to be a priest at a seminary college in Columbus, but had previously spent two semesters at Franciscan University.

A Steubenville police report also reveals that Wright was investigated for an online post seeking to pay people to babysit their children.

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Lawsuit filed against former St. Mary’s priest

MICHIGAN
Central Michigan Life

By Sydney Smith

For nearly two years, St. Mary’s University Parish Priest Denis Heames asked a Central Michigan University student to keep his sexual relationship with her a secret, according to a lawsuit filed in Isabella County’s 21st Circuit Court.

Senior Megan Winans is asking the court to consider whether she was abused by Heames, who was removed from St. Mary’s in June, during her work as a “media intern” at the church from 2012 to 2014. A civil lawsuit was filed Jan. 14 claiming battery, defamation, breach of fidiciary duty, fraud, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent supervision and retention.

Winans is suing for economic losses equivalent to $25,000 for each count and any other costs she may be entitled to.

Heames, who now resides in Canada according to the documents, was placed on leave for “boundary violations.” No other specific details were given in a press release from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saginaw other than to point out the violations had nothing to do with minors.

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‘Spotlight’ revelations transformed abuse group

UNITED STATES
The Morning Call

Bill White

David Clohessy, national director for the group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, likes to tell the story of the struggling early days of his organization — and when that changed, dramatically.

Clohessy, a victim of sexual abuse by a priest for about four years starting when he was 11 or 12, began volunteering for the support, information and advocacy group SNAP in the early ’90s. But as you saw if you’ve watched the Oscar-contending movie “Spotlight,” SNAP had a terrible time generating interest in the things it knew about child sexual abuse by priests and the way cases were covered up, in Boston and all over the country.

The movie dramatizes the Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston Globe investigation that exposed widespread child sexual abuse by Boston area priests and the massive coverup that allowed it to continue. It also depicted the frustration of New England SNAP founder/leader Phil Saviano, who had had no success in interesting the Globe in this larger story despite occasional individual reports of abuse by priests.

Clohessy said he had the same conversation every December with SNAP founder and fellow priest abuse survivor Barbara Blaine as they reviewed another frustrating year. “It went like this,” he said. “‘This is going nowhere. None of this will ever see the light of day. Why don’t we pack it up?'”

So it was in December 2001, just before the Globe story broke in early 2002. “I said to Barbara, ‘Well, these folks at the Boston Globe say they’re doing a big investigation. Let’s try it for one more year.

“Just a couple of weeks later, we felt like geniuses for not shutting the whole thing down.”

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Convicted Somerset County priest’s request for new trial denied

PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Review

BY LIZ ZEMBA | Monday, Feb. 8, 2016

A Somerset County priest convicted of molesting boys at a Honduran orphanage will not receive a new trial.

U.S. District Judge Kim R. Gibson issued an order Monday denying the Rev. Joseph D. Maurizio’s request for a new trial and setting a sentencing hearing for March.

In the 48-page opinion and order, Gibson found that defense attorney Steven Passarello of Altoona failed to show that newly discovered evidence contained in a witness’ victim-impact statement would result in a not-guilty verdict at another trial. Gibson said he took into account other evidence at the September trial when rendering his decision.

“Given the substantial evidence that exists in this case, and the court having examined the evidence already weighed and considered by the jury in the defendant’s first trial, the court finds that it is unlikely that a jury at a second trial would acquit defendant,” Gibson said in the opinion.

Passarello, who noted that Gibson sided with him on several points he raised, said he is disappointed in the denial.

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No New Trial for Priest Convicted of Sex Tourism With Boys

PENNSYLVANIA
ABC News

By JOE MANDAK, ASSOCIATED PRESS PITTSBURGH — Feb 8, 2016

A priest who was convicted of sexually assaulting poor street children during missionary trips to Honduras and said federal prosecutors wrongly withheld evidence in his case won’t get a new trial, a judge ruled.

The priest, 70-year-old Joseph Maurizio, was convicted in the sexual tourism case in September.

U.S. District Judge Kim Gibson rejected his appeal, clearing the way for him to be sentenced on March 2, barring further appeals. The Johnstown judge found that an accuser’s statement was wrongly withheld but wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the priest’s trial.

“Given the substantial evidence that exists in this case … the court finds it unlikely that a jury at a second trial would acquit defendant,” he wrote in the ruling, issued Monday.

The appeal, which prompted a hearing before the judge last week, concerned a statement given by one of the accusers who told investigators he wasn’t “abused” by the priest.

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CT–Controversial Catholic group invests in porn

CONNECTICUT
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, Feb. 8, 2016

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

A new book says that a high profile and controversial Connecticut-based Catholic religious order “invests in companies involved in the arms race, pornography and high-end real estate” and a Catholic journalist says this may make “a mockery” of Francis’ more progressive agenda. ­­­­­­­­­­

[National Catholic Reporter]

In The National Catholic Reporter, veteran investigative journalist Jason Berry reports that the Legion of Christ is pilloried in a new book. Berry calls the Legion “only marginally reformed.” We think that’s a generous assessment. We believe it’s still a secretive cult-like group more dedicated to enriching itself than protecting kids, exposing enablers, or ousting predators.

We urge Francis to denounce the Legion. We urge caring Catholics and citizens to boycott the Legion’s hotel and pontifical complex in Jerusalem (the Notre Dame Institute), its building company (the ECO Development Group, a.k.a. Equipo de Coordinación de Obras, SC), and its travel agency, New Gate Tours (a.k.a. Artic SA de CV) with branches in the USA, Italy and Spain.

We hope every single person who has seen, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes or cover ups in the Legion of Christ – whether by Legion founder Fr. Marcial Maciel or others – will speak up, expose wrongdoers, protect kids and start healing.

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Standing in the Spotlight: Without Shame

UNITED STATES
Good Men Project

By Peter Pollard

I sat in a theater in New York’s Times Square recently, soaking in every nuance of the film Spotlight. I already intimately knew the story of the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team’s investigation of the Archdiocese of Boston’s cover-up of sexual abuse by scores of its priests. I knew most of the characters: the reporters, the survivors, the attorneys, the Archdiocese’s higher ups – I even caught a glimpse of the name of the priest who sexually abused me back in the mid-1960s on a list of priests under review.

But what moved me most was the two adolescent boys sitting near me in the theater. They were laughing at inappropriate places and nudging one another during some of the most poignant moments in the film. Just before I leaned over to reprimand them for their disrespect, I stopped, and considered the fact that they were there at all. Of 25 films showing that night in the multiplex, they’d chosen the one about sexual abuse by clergy.

The boys’ discomfort was palpable.

I realized then, that through the film, the Spotlight team’s tireless efforts were perhaps freeing two more souls from the belief that they were alone and powerless – just as the team’s long series of stories in 2002 had freed so many of us, who once felt hopeless that our experiences of betrayal by the Catholic hierarchy would ever come to light.

I remember clearly, twenty eight years ago this month, storming out of the Chancery Office of the Archdiocese of Boston, shouting over my shoulder “maybe I’ll go to the Boston Globe. “ My then-idle threat felt like the only leverage I had left after the Archdiocese refused to remove from active ministry the priest who had sexually abused me two decades earlier.

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Victims applaud police and challenge Catholic officials

MASSACHUSETTS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, Feb. 8

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

We’re grateful to the Chicopee police for warning the public about ex-priest Richard Lavigne. We wish Springfield Catholic officials would likewise step up and alert and remind parents about this dangerous man.

[MassLive]

The mere passage of time doesn’t make child molesters less dangerous. We believe Lavigne is still a threat to kids. We hope that every single person who saw, suspected or suffered his crimes will find the courage to call police, expose wrongdoers and protect children.

And we hope that Springfield Catholic officials who recruited, educated, ordained, trained, hired, transferred and shielded Fr. Lavigne for decades will also aggressively seek out and support others who were hurt by him and beg them to call law enforcement. We hope that Bishop Mitchell Rozanski will lead this effort. But if he doesn’t, we hope that other church staff in the diocese will show real courage and use pulpit announcements, church bulletins and parish websites to do it.

Our hearts go out to the brave Crouteau family and everyone else who has been impacted by Lavigne’s crimes and church cover ups of those crimes.

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Vatican sex abuse commission ends turbulent meeting, cites progress

VATICAN CITY
Religion News Service

Rosie Scammell | February 8, 2016

VATICAN CITY (RNS) The Vatican commission on clerical sexual abuse has wrapped up a turbulent week-long meeting during which one of two victims on the panel was effectively ousted and Chilean Catholics upset that Pope Francis has not sacked a controversial bishop delivered protest letters.

But a statement released on Monday (Feb. 8) at the end of the biannual meeting of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors made no mention of its decision on Saturday that Peter Saunders, a clerical abuse victim from Britain, would take a “leave of absence.”

After that announcement, following a majority decision by the 17-member commission indicating they could no longer work with Saunders, he insisted that he had no intention of resigning.

The final statement by the papal commission on Monday instead cited progress on a range of issues and reiterated that its chief task is establishing policies that churches around the world should follow to protect children.

Saunders, founder of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood in Britain, has frequently been critical of the Vatican’s handling of clerical abuse and the apparent slow working pace of the commission, which was created by Pope Francis nearly two years ago.

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Pope Francis broke my heart, says child abuse victim sidelined by Vatican

ROME
Straits Times (Singapore)

ROME (AFP) – A British paedophilia survivor who has been asked to step down from a Vatican panel on the issue said Monday that he felt betrayed by Pope Francis.

“Of course Pope Francis has established he is part of the problem,” Peter Saunders said in an interview with AFPTV, during which he insisted he had not resigned and that only the pontiff himself could force him to quit the Vatican commission.

“That breaks my heart because when I met him 18 months ago I thought there was a sincerity and a willingness to make things happen, and I am afraid that has been dashed now.”

Saunders, the head of Britain’s National Association for People Abused in Childhood, was personally asked to join the panel by Pope Francis.

His involvement, along with fellow survivor Marie Collins, helped burnish its credentials as a symbol of the Church tackling the abuse head-on.

But Saunders now says he realises the commission was always going to be about “smoke and mirrors” and that he is convinced the Church will never act alone to cure the “cancer” in its midst.

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Latest sex offender notice from Chicopee police includes defrocked Roman Catholic priest

MASSACHUSETTS
The Republican/MassLive

By Patrick Johnson | pjohnson@repub.com
on February 08, 2016

CHICOPEE – Police on Monday released information on two registered Level 3 sex offenders residing in Chicopee as a way to alert the community of their presence.

Neither man is wanted for any crimes, and police warn against harassing either of them.

One of the two names, Richard Lavigne, is likely to be familiar to people in the area.

Lavigne, 74, is a defrocked Roman Catholic priest who was pleaded guilty in 1992 to two counts of molestation of a minor and was given a 10-year probation sentence.

He was also the only publicly identified suspect in the 1972 murder of Springfield alterboy Daniel Croteau. That slaying remains unsolved.

All people convicted of sex offenses are required to register with the state Sex Offenders Registry Board. The board then assigns a ranking based on the likelihood an offender will commit additional sex crimes. A level 3 offender is considered most likely to re-offend.

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PA–Victims blast Altoona bishop

PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, Feb. 8, 2016

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

Two more central Pennsylvania priests have been suspended because of child sex abuse reports. This means that 31 Altoona-Johnstown Catholic priests are publicly accused of sexually assaulting kids.

Fr. David Arseneault (AR’-sen-oh) and Fr. James Coveney are on leave due to allegtions that they molested kids.

Bishop Mark Bartchak’s announcement about this move was troubling.

First, he minimizes the horrors and promotes dangerous complacency by stressing that the alleged crimes happened years ago. That’s self-serving but wrong. He should be urging vigilance, not complacency.

Second, Bartchak says he must “re-examine” these abuse reports.” That suggests that he’s known about them for some time. Bartchack must honor his pledges of “openness and transparency” and reveal how long he’s been aware of these abuse reports and why he’s “re-examining” them now.

Third, he deceptively describes child sex crimes as “sexual misconduct involving young people.” Again, he’s mischaracterizing and minimizing sexual violence against children. Shame on him.

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Gallup Diocese bankruptcy case’s costs exceed $3.6 million

NEW MEXICO
Washington Times

GALLUP, N.M. (AP) – Costs for the Diocese of Gallup’s bankruptcy proceedings have exceeded $3.6 million.

The figures, which come from quarterly billing statements submitted by attorneys, accountants and other professionals, do not include the more than $38,000 the diocese has paid the U.S. Trustee Program or other miscellaneous expenses, according to the Gallup Independent (http://bit.ly/1LbKdDK).

The majority of the expenses will not be paid until the diocese has an approved plan of reorganization.

A bulk of the diocese’ bill is owed to Tucson, Arizona,-based law firm Quarles & Brady LLP, which has a total post-petition legal bill of more than $1.9 million. A Tucson accounting firm is also asking for more than $431,000.

The diocese Albuquerque-based law firm billed about $303 between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31, bringing their total bill to more than $12,000.

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Pope’s anti-abuse panel presses on despite criticism from survivor

ROME
Crux

By Inés San Martín
Vatican correspondent February 8, 2016

ROME — A day after announcing that one of two members who is a survivor of clerical sexual abuse is taking a leave of absence amid bitter criticism of the Church and the pope, a sexual abuse commission created by Francis sent a clear signal on Monday that its work will go on.

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors released a statement saying it is preparing to ask Pope Francis to remind all bishops of the importance of personal outreach to abuse victims, and also to institute a “Universal Day of Prayer” as well as a penitential liturgy for the crime of sexual abuse.

Led by Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley of Boston, the commission was created in December 2013 to advise Francis on best practices in the fight against child sexual abuse. It’s an advisory body, with no authority to set policy or to judge specific abuse complaints.

In upcoming months, commission members say they’ll hold workshops on the legal aspects of the protection of minors with the goal of promoting more transparent Church trials and present recommendations to the commission’s next general assembly.

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Francis heads to Mexico amid Legionaries of Christ disclosures

MEXICO
National Catholic Reporter

Jason Berry | Feb. 8, 2016

ANALYSIS On Feb. 12, Pope Francis flies to Mexico, a vast land scarred by barbaric drug cartels and deep poverty that are pushing migrants to America — all front-burner issues for a papacy advocating mercy and justice.

Amid this, a new book, El Imperior Financierio de Los Legionarios de Cristo was published in December by Grijal-bo in Mexico City. There is no English translation as yet. Written by Raúl Olmos, an investigative journalist in Mexico, the book focuses on the Legionaries of Christ, a religious order founded by the late Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, a notorious pedophile dismissed by Pope Benedict XVI in 2006 to “a life of prayer and penitence.” The home base of the order is Mexico City, in the world’s second-largest Catholic country (after Brazil).

The investigation into the order began in 2004, ordered by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future pope, as an ailing Pope John Paul II praised Maciel and gave the Legionaries control of the Notre Dame Center in Jerusalem.

The Legion operates a network of elite private schools and a major university in Mexico, with another university and house of studies in Rome. Among their many super-wealthy backers in Mexico is Carlos Slim, a telecommunications magnate and one of the world’s wealthiest men. He is the largest single investor in The New York Times, with a $100 million stock investment,according to Forbes.

In 2009, a year after Maciel’s death, the Legion disclosed that he had a daughter by a woman he never married; he supported both women in Madrid. In 2010, two men and a woman came forth, declaring themselves mother and sons of a second shadow-family in Mexico, which the Legion did not dispute. …

Fr. Pablo Perez, who left in 2012, after 39 years, tells Olmos: “They do not care about education or children — it’s the money. Legionaries do not waste their time with the poor or middle class. They choose their vocations among little white boys. We rent priests for your beautiful and expensive events, weddings, funerals, first communions.

“The son of Carlos Salinas de Gortari” — the former Mexican president, a figure disgraced by scandal, his brother in prison for corruption — “got married in April 2013. For his wedding, it was not a bishop or a cardinal, but a Legionary priest.”

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NC–Minister accused of molesting in Canada, NC and PA

NORTH CAROLINA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, Feb. 8, 2016

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

A Pennsylvania minister who is accused of molesting “at least three boys” at a Rhode Island school and reportedly admits molesting one in Canada is now being investigated by North Carolina police department for perhaps abusing a child in North Carolina.

[Providence Journal]

Rev. Howard W. White Jr. worked at two places in North Carolina. In the 1980s, Rev. White Jr. was headmaster of what was then the Asheville Country Day School in Asheville, North Carolina and was rector of Grace Church in the Mountains in Waynesville, North Carolina.

He now leads St. James Episcopal Church in Bedford, Pennsylvania and also worked at a school called Chatham Hall in Chatham, Virginia. But most of the accusations against him stem from his years in Rhode Island at St. George’s Episcopal School in Middletown.

A report issued by the school says that Rev. White — whom it refers to as “Employee Perpetrator #2” — had “inappropriate and potentially sexual misconduct with at least three male students.” School officials quietly “fired Rev. White in 1974 after a student’s parent reported the misconduct, which Rev. White admitted to the headmaster, but “the school never notified child-protection authorities — as required by the state’s 1974 mandatory reporting law,” according to the Providence Journal.

Waynesville police are investigating a new allegation of abuse against Rev. White.

We urge Episcopalian officials in all four states: North Carolina, Rhode Island, Virginia and Pennsylvania, to use church websites, parish bulletins and pulpit announcements to aggressively seek out anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered Rev. White’s crimes and beg them to call police. This is the very least that church officials should do.

All too often, when clergy sex crimes emerge, church staff pretend to be powerless. They are not. They have both the resources and the duty to spread the word and actively help police and prosecutors build a strong case against predatory preachers.

We hope every single person who has information or suspicions about Rev. White will summon the courage to call law enforcement, expose wrongdoers, protect kids and start healing. Our hearts go out to the brave individuals who have already stepped up and spoken up and shed light on this serial child molesting cleric.

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IS THE CATHOLIC CHURCH’S SEX ABUSE CRISIS THREATENING TO OVERWHELM POPE FRANCIS?

ROME
The Tablet (UK)

08 February 2016 | by Christopher Lamb in Rome

Despite his popularity, the Pope is in danger of being blindsided by the Vatican’s reaction to victims

Is the Catholic church’s sex abuse crisis threatening to overwhelm Pope Francis?

Anyone who has seen the new Spotlight film detailing clerical sexual abuse and its cover-up in Boston will be reminded how damaged the Church, in particular its bishops and the clerical leadership system, has been by the scandal.

Abuse and how it was handled dogged the papacy of Benedict XVI and it could also wound Pope Francis. At the weekend it was announced that Peter Saunders, a British abuse survivor, was no longer working with the pontifical child protection commission. Mr Saunders, a founder of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood (NAPAC), disputed his enforced “leave of absence” saying he was seeking a meeting with Pope Francis about the matter.

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Brits misbruikslachtoffer wil expertencommissie niét verlaten

VATIKAN
Kerknet

De Commissie voor de Bestrijding van Seksueel Misbruik schorst Peter Saunders na een vertrouwenstemming, maar hij wil voorlopig geen stap terugzetten.

De Brit Peter Saunders, een voorvechter van de strijd tegen seksueel misbruik en als kind zelf misbruikslachtoffer van twee katholieke geestelijken, maakte dit weekend bekend dat hij zijn taak bij de Vaticaanse Commissie voor de Bestrijding van Seksueel Misbruik niet zomaar tijdelijk neerlegt.

Saunders werd vrijdag geschorst na een vertrouwensstemming binnen de commissie. Daarna werd een communiqué verspreid waarin werd aangekondigd dat Saunders een rustperiode neemt om na te gaan op welke manier hij zich het best ten dienste kan stellen van de commissie. Dat moet hem tijd geven voor een bezinning, nadat hij had getracht om persoonlijk tussen te komen in concrete misbruikdossiers.

17 leden tellende commissie

Saunders zei zaterdag dat hij verontwaardigd is over de verspreiding van het communiqué zonder zijn inspraak en weigert zich bij de schorsing neer te leggen: Ik heb mijn taak niet neergelegd en ben dat ook niet van plan. Ik werd persoonlijk door de paus benoemd en wil enkel met hem overleggen.

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What happened to Jim? Experiments on Canada’s indigenous populations

CANADA
Global News

By Leslie Young
Investigative Reporter Global News

Jim White has six scars – three on each shoulder – left over from his time at a residential school in the early 1950s.

He’s not sure what they are, though he remembers how he got them.

He was told to report back to the nurse the next week to have the bandage changed. “By the time the week arrived to see the nurse, the smell that came off this was just, it was horrendous. It smelled like rotten food, is what it smelled like. And it went on until these openings closed up which took about a month or two.”

He was told nothing about why he was cut as a young child, he said.

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‘Spotlight’ is reminder of news media’s important role

PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

Bill White

It’s rare to see a movie in which reporters and their work are depicted in a realistic way.

The most notable exception was “All the President’s Men,” although most of us don’t look like Robert Redford. It offered a nice feel for a real newsroom and the kind of dogged digging that produces great stories

The results were so momentous and the movie’s portrayal of those events so compelling that they inspired a generation of journalists, not just to become reporters but to more vigorously embrace the role of a diligent press in a free society. I know I found it exhilarating.

To that short list of uplifting but realistic depictions of journalists, we now can add “Spotlight,” the Oscar Best Picture contender that dramatizes the Boston Globe investigation that exposed the horrible depth of child sexual abuse by Boston area priests and the massive cover-up perpetrated by Boston’s religious, legal and government establishment.

It’s a great movie, and it’s been gaining momentum throughout this awards season. But I had a special interest in it even before I knew how well it told this story.

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Vatican Stresses Policy Role of Sex-abuse Panel After Member’s Ouster

VATICAN CITY
Voice of America

Associated Press
February 08, 2016

VATICAN CITY—
Pope Francis’ sex-abuse commission stressed Monday that its sole purpose is to propose initiatives to protect children from pedophiles, after it effectively suspended a member who advocated a more activist role.

On Saturday, the commission told Peter Saunders, a British survivor of abuse, to take a leave of absence after he criticized the slow pace of progress and pressed to have the commission intervene immediately in individual cases, rather than just craft long-term policies to fight abuse.

In a statement Monday, the commission cited from its founding documentation that its “specific task” is to provide the pope with proposals to protect children and help local churches take responsibility for the problem.

It didn’t mention Saunders in the statement concluding its weeklong plenary meeting.

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Mit Bußliturgie?

VATIKAN
domradio

[The Vatican Child Protection Commission intends to propose to Pope Francis introducing a World Day of Prayer for victims of abuse. This could include a penitential liturgy.]

Die vatikanische Kinderschutzkommission will Papst Franziskus die Einführung eines Weltgebetstags für Missbrauchsopfer vorschlagen. Darüber hinaus könne über eine Bußliturgie nachgedacht werden.

Sechs Arbeitsgruppen hatten sich in der Vorwoche in Rom zu einer Bestandsaufnahme getroffen und mögliche Richtlinien und Vorschläge für die Zukunft erarbeitet, die dem Papst präsentiert werden sollen, wie aus einer am Montag veröffentlichten Presseerklärung des vatikanischen Gremiums hervorgeht.

Vorgeschlagen wurden auch Workshops zu rechtlichen Aspekten sowie zu mehr Transparenz bei den Verfahren, die unter Beteiligung externer Berater noch dieses Jahr stattfinden sollen. Das Gremium kündigte zudem den Start eines Universitätskurses zum Schutz von Minderjährigen an der Gregoriana in der nächsten Woche an.

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Vorschläge der vatikanischen Kinderschutz-Kommission

VATIKAN
Radio Vatikan

Die päpstliche Kommission für den Schutz von Minderjährigen setzt sich für die Einführung eines „Welttags des Gebets“ und einer „Bußliturgie“ ein. Sie sollen die Aufmerksamkeit für die Rechte Minderjähriger und gegen Missbrauchsfälle in der Kirche wachhalten. Außerdem betont die Kommission, alle Verantwortlichen in der Kirche müssten „Opfern, die sich an sie wenden, eine direkte Antwort geben“.

Das steht in einer Schlusserklärung der Kommission, die nach ihrer einwöchigen Tagung im Vatikan veröffentlicht wurde. Im weiteren Verlauf des Jahres will sich die von Papst Franziskus 2014 eingesetzte Kommission u.a. mit der Frage beschäftigen, wie bei kanonischen Prozessen gegen Missbrauchs-Täter „größere Transparenz“ hergestellt werden kann. Eine Webseite soll bald auf „Best Practice“-Beispiele aus aller Welt beim Kinderschutz aufmerksam machen.

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