ABUSE TRACKER

HAWAII
Hawaii News Now

[with video]
[includes names of accused abusers]

By Keoki Kerr

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) –
A Catholic church in Kailua and a school in Kalihi are the two locations that generated the most allegations about priests and teachers sexually abusing students decades ago, a Hawaii News Now investigation has revealed.

The accusations have been made by 63 people against 26 priests, teachers and others.

Altogether, 40 lawsuits make claims against 18 schools and churches across the state.

Saint Anthony Church in Kailua and Damien Memorial School in Kalihi have recorded the highest number of sexual abuse complaints: 21 each from the 1950s through the mid 1980s, according to court documents.

And the man accused the most of sexual abuse is the late Father Joseph Henry, a pillar in the Kailua community.

A total of 18 men have alleged in lawsuits Henry molested them from 1952 to 1972; most of those incidents allegedly occurred at Saint Anthony Church in Kailua.

Abuse victims — including former altar boys — said Henry and other Saint Anthony priests would sometimes give them money from the collection plates after having sex with them.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Advocate

By Georgie Burgess
Feb. 3, 2016

AUSTRALIA’S former head of state says his handling of a complaint of child sexual abuse within the Anglican Church was ”misguided and wrong”.

Former governor-general Peter Hollingworth on Wednesday apologised to a survivor of abuse at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse which has been holding public hearings in Hobart.

Dr Hollingworth was the Archbishop of Brisbane when he received a complaint about former Tasmanian Church of England Boy’s Society leader John Elliot.

Elliot, who was jailed in 2002 for 30 child sex offences, moved from Tasmania to Queensland in the late 1960s and continued to be involved in CEBS.

A survivor, BYB, gave evidence to the commission that he met Elliot in 1975 as a young boy through 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.

AUSTRALIA
The Advocate

By ADAM LANGENBERG
Feb. 4, 2016

THE sons of former Tasmanian Anglican Bishop Philip Newell have told a royal commission they deny hearing their brother joke about child sexual abuse at the family dinner table.

John and Michael Newell told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that their brother Christopher Newell did not say that Church of England Boys Society members had sore bottoms when Priest Louis Daniels was at camps.

Christopher Newell’s former partner Catherine Hutchinson told the inquiry he had made those comments at the dinner table in the mid 1980s, in front of Bishop Newell.

Daniels was later convicted of child sexual abuse against seven different boys.

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

AUSTRALIA
Mercury

February 3, 2016

PATRICK BILLINGS
Mercury

THE son of a Tasmanian bishop denies there was ever table chatter at the family home regarding a priest’s sexual abuse of boys.

A royal commission in Hobart has heard evidence that Christopher Newell, son of Bishop Phillip Newell, made a joking reference to Louis Daniels inappropriate behaviour towards children in the Church of England Boys Society (CEBS)

Catherine Hutchinson said Christopher, then her boyfriend, said words to the effect that when Louis Daniels was on camping trips “CEBS boys have sore bottoms”.

Christopher had been involved in CEBS around the time.

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

LOUISIANA
KPLC

By Theresa Schmidt

SOUTHWEST LOUISIANA (KPLC) –
Ongoing testimony in the trial of ex-priest Mark Broussard shows a lengthy history of alleged sexual abuse of boys dating back to the early 1980s – until he left the priesthood in 1994.

Wednesday’s testimony revealed information about yet a fourth adult who said he was a victim of Broussard even before he was a priest.

The case against Broussard is unfolding through the testimony of witnesses who’ve told how, when they were boys, he would gain their trust – often first by inviting them to McDonald’s. Calcasieu Parish Sheriff’s Office Det. Kathy LeBlanc, who interviewed the victims, said they told her, “He’d gain their trust. Take them to McDonald’s. Make them feel special.”

LeBlanc also testified about how two of the victims who’d never met each other testified that Broussard had a foot fetish.

She told of her conversation with one man who said he had never told anyone what happened and spent his whole life trying to hide it and act like it never occurred. He was an altar server at Our Lady Queen of Heaven Church during the year 1986 and 1988.

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

AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

FEBRUARY 4, 2016

By Andrew Drummond
AAP

One of Australia’s most senior Anglican leaders says evidence suggests boys were traded interstate by pedophiles linked to the church.

But Brisbane archbishop Phillip Aspinall said whether there was a “ring” of sex abusers operating during the 1970s, `80s and `90s is a matter for the royal commission to decide.

The leader of the Brisbane diocese, who boasts a near-life-long association with the church which started as an eight-year-old member of the Church of England Boys’ Society (CEBS), on Thursday gave evidence at a public hearing in Hobart.

“Certainly there were abusers who knew each other,” Archbishop Aspinall said.

“There seems to have been evidence that some abusers sent boys from one state to another state where they were abused.”

Asked if that constituted a “pedophile ring”, the archbishop said it was not his place to judge.

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.

NEBRASKA
Lincoln Journal Star

BY BISHOP JAMES CONLEY

When I became Bishop of Lincoln in 2012, I undertook a systematic review of the safe-environment and child-protection policies and procedures governing the Church in southern Nebraska. To assist me, I asked our independent Review Board, a group of experts in criminal justice, psychology, and education, to recommend enhancements to our background checks and training programs.

The Diocese of Lincoln is fully compliant with the child protection laws of Nebraska, and the child protection policies of the Catholic Church. Last autumn, I announced that our diocese would begin undergoing annual independent audits of our compliance with child protection policies.

And this week, the Diocese of Lincoln will announce the appointment of a full-time safe environment coordinator to assist in child-protection education and coordination across southern Nebraska. Parents can be confident that the Diocese of Lincoln is committed to ensuring the safety of their children and families.

In December of 2015, I announced that Bishop Robert Finn, the former bishop of Kansas City, Missouri, would serve as the chaplain to a community of religious sisters, his long-time friends, in the Diocese of Lincoln. In 2012, Bishop Finn was convicted of a misdemeanor for failing to report a priest in possession of child pornography.

Because of serious acts of negligence under his leadership, Bishop Finn faced serious penalties. He faced a criminal court, and served the sentence he was given. He resigned his leadership position in the Church. He also accepted responsibility for his actions, and he has expressed sincere regret to those whom his negligence may have harmed.

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

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Selina Ross

Archbishop of Brisbane Phillip Aspinall has rejected claims that his actions led to a youth being abused by a paedophile priest more than 30 years ago.

He said it was “right and proper” that he wrote a reference for paedophile priest Louis Daniels
Archbishop Aspinall faced the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Hobart today.

He came under intense questioning over what he knew about paedophiles operating in the Anglican Church and its youth group, the Church of England Boys Society (CEBS).

It heard allegations from a witness known as BYF who blamed Archbishop Aspinall for the abuse he suffered at the hands of convicted paedophile Garth Hawkins in January 1982.

Archbishop Aspinall, who was youth officer at CEBS at the time, said BYF told him Hawkins had made an advance on him when they were staying with the priest and he thought the priest was gay.

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

IRELAND
The Irish Catholic

by Michael Kelly
February 4, 2016

A joke popular in some clerical circles is to quip that anyone who wants to be a bishop deserves it. But, more often than not, many a true word is spoken in jest.

Anyone intimately acquainted with the appointment of bishops will tell you it can be a notoriously tricky exercise. For example, sometimes, when it looks as if an ideal candidate has been found and approved by the Pope, that man may well reject the elevation and so the process begins again.

Currently, a number of Irish dioceses are awaiting the appointment of a bishop, though only Killaloe is sede vacante (i.e. without a bishop). Since Dr Kieran O’Reilly was installed as Archbishop of neighbouring Cashel & Emly a year ago, Killaloe has been awaiting the appointment of a new shepherd, though an announcement is now said to be imminent.

Bishop John Kirby of Clonfert submitted his resignation over two years ago while Cork’s Bishop John Buckley, Raphoe’s Philip Boyce and Meath’s Michael Smith have also sent letters to Rome formally resigning having reached the mandatory retirement age of 75.

Vacancies

So, in all papal nuncio Archbishop Charles Brown currently has four vacancies to fill with all the consultation, paperwork and back and forwarding with Rome that this entails.

Presuming that the vacant diocese will be filled and those over retirement age replaced, Pope Francis will have appointed 11 Irish diocesan bishops, Benedict XVI appointed nine and six will have been appointed by Pope St John Paul II.

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

UNITED STATES
New Statesman

Spotlight fans interested in a deeper, survivor-led exploration of the extent of abuse in the Church would do well to watch Alex Gibney’s documentary Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God.

BY ANNA LESZKIEWICZ

“If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one.” These are the words of Stanley Tucci’s character, attorney Mitchell Garabedian, in the Oscar-nominated film Spotlight. It’s a sentiment that runs throughout the film, which centres on four journalists working at the Boston Globe in 2001, as they attempt to uncover the extent of sex abuse crimes committed by priests of the Catholic Church.

The film follows their mounting horror as they uncover more and more people were involved in the abuse, both directly and indirectly: their estimates of priests abusing children in the local area climb from seven to thirteen to ninety, their geographical understanding of the scope of the problem broadens from Boston, across the United States, all the way to the Vatican.

It focuses on the journalistic efforts involved in bringing this disturbing scandal to light, so while it deals sensitively with interviews with victims, it never fully explores the impact of abuse on the individual, or forensically explores the full extent of the Church’s crimes.

Audience members interested in a deeper, survivor-led exploration of the extent of abuse in the Church would do well to watch Alex Gibney’s Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, available in the UK on Netflix. It focuses on the first known protest against clerical sex abuse, told primarily through a series of subtitled or dubbed interviews with four deaf men, Terry Kohut, Gary Smith, Pat Kuehn and Arthur Budzinski, all of whom were abused by their teacher Father Lawrence Murphy at St. John’s School for the Deaf in Milwaukee in the 1960s.

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.

CHILE
El Mostrador

[Juan Carlos Cruz, victim of priest Fernando Karadima, will travel to Rome to meet next week with members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Children.]

Entre este viernes y el martes de la próxima semana, Juan Carlos Cruz, una de las víctimas de Fernando Karadima, viajará a Roma invitado por un miembro de la Comisión Papal para la tutela de los menores creada por el Papa Francisco en el marco de los casos registrados en todo el mundo.

Aunque hubo una petición especial de otro de los miembros de la comisión para agendarlo en plenario y así el periodista pudiera exponer su visión sobre estos hechos, eso aún no es seguro que ocurra. Lo que sí es claro, es que Cruz lleva consigo cartas del Clero de Osorno, de víctimas chilenas de abusos sexuales cometidos por sacerdotes en Chile y en otros países.

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.

OHO
10TV

[with video]

By 10TV Web Staff
Wednesday February 3, 2016

STEUBENVILLE, Ohio – The man who traveled to Mexico to allegedly rape and molest infants was also trying to have contact with young children alone in Ohio.

According to a police report last May from the Steubenville Police Department, Joel Wright placed an ad on Craigslist offering to pay parents up to $150 to watch and babysit their young children.

The ad (from a man listed as “Joel”) reads he would play with the children as parents supervised, however it goes on to read “Then you can leave to go out, go shopping, go to a movie, etc…”

The report states a tipster answered the ad and alerted police because she was concerned.

The responder said he lived in Steubenville and is a student at Franciscan University. He also sent over a photo of himself, which was later identified as Joel Wright by university security.

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.

CALIFORNIA
Hollywood Reporter

by Roger Durling 2/3/2016

Thanks to ‘Spotlight,’ Roger Durling, the head of the fest (running Feb. 3-13), is opening up about his “painful journey of healing”: “Now I’m allowed to feel vindicated.”

This story first appeared in the Feb. 12 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.

I feared the idea of watching Spotlight, but as the credits rolled, there was an incredible feeling of cathartic liberation. I sat in the theater realizing that I was not invisible anymore. I had seen victims of priest child abuse portrayed on the screen with the utmost sympathy.

When I was a young boy, I myself became a victim of abuse by a priest in Panama, where I was born. I rarely discuss it publicly, but it’s been a painful journey of healing and coming to terms with the fact that it wasn’t my fault. I’m a sur­vivor. I’ve been lucky. I know victims who have become drug addicts, who have turned to prostitution or — worse — who have committed suicide. For many years, I compartmentalized my struggle. I had completely erased the events from my history. Sadly, the trauma remained. I couldn’t be intimate. I hated my body and the way I looked. I washed my hands compulsively. Being a gay man made me an easy prey to my oppressor, and for close to 30 years I struggled with the idea that my sexuality was to blame for my instability.

Movies saved my life and gave me purpose. My abuse had made me feel that I wasn’t good enough for anything, that ultimately I would fail at whatever I set out to do. I got a graduate degree from Columbia University, but I didn’t believe in myself enough to capitalize on my education. After school, I attempted to be a writer, but I didn’t push myself as hard as I should have. I feared rejection too much. I would accept jobs with abusive bosses because that’s the way I felt most comfortable. My only solace was movies. In the dark, among fellow cinephiles, I didn’t feel disfigured. I could look Hannibal Lecter in the face — and I was fearless.

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.

PENNSYLVANIA
Church Militant

by Joseph Pelletier • ChurchMilitant.com • February 3, 2016

Victim allegedly admits he was not sexually abused by Fr. Joseph Maurizio

JOHNSTOWN, Penn. (ChurchMilitant.com) – New evidence is emerging in the case of a Pennsylvania priest convicted of sex abuse.

A federal judge heard claims Tuesday that prosecutors withheld evidence against Fr. Joseph Maurizio, 70, who was found guilty in September of repeated sexual abuse over the course of several years while acting as a missionary in Honduras.

The convictions include sexually abusing children at the ProNino orphanage in El Progresso, using orphanage funds to pay for sexual favors from “street children” and taking a photo of a naked child.

According to Tuesday’s hearing, a statement by one of the alleged victims known as Erick had not been brought forth during the trial, and involved the boy admitting to officials that he hadn’t been “abused” by Fr. Maurizio. “Perhaps they think he really abused me, but that was not the case,” Erick had informed the team of investigators.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Amy Larson asserts that in the mind of the alleged victim, the word “abuse” refers to a specific sex act, as the boy later elucidated his statement and confirmed that the priest had indeed fondled him. This, says Larson, is in line with his 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.

NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, NM, Feb. 1, 2016

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Independent correspondent

GALLUP — As an advocate for victims of sexual abuse, Joelle Casteix has used her own experience to help support other survivors.

Casteix was sexually molested as a teenager by one of her high school teachers. Although she has worked as a journalist, educator and public relations professional, that devastating experience as a teen eventually led Casteix to become the volunteer Western Regional director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. Despite the word “priest” in the title, the organization offers support to abuse victims from all backgrounds and denominations.

In recent years, Casteix, who lives in California, has widened the scope of her efforts to also educate parents and communities about abuse-prevention strategies. As a result, she recently published the book “The Well-Armored Child/A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Sexual Abuse.”

Q: Why was it important to you to write this book?

A: I have been a survivor/ advocate for almost 15 years, working with victims of child sexual abuse from all over the world. But no matter where the survivor was from, every victim’s story was strikingly similar to that of other victims, and my own.

I realized that the vast majority could have been saved from abuse — or become a “hard target” — if the victim’s parents and community members had learned a few simple tools. The problem is that no one tells parents what those tools are.

Q: What are some of the warning signs that a child is being sexually abused?

A: Is an adult spending too much time with your child and/or showering your child with attention? Have you noticed behavioral changes in your child, including secrecy, changes in peer group, secret social media and email accounts, gifts that your child cannot or will not explain (including technology, gift cards, pornography and other expensive items)? Has your child recently quit a favorite sport or hobby for no apparent reason? Is your child suddenly ashamed or embarrassed about his or her body? Is he or she skipping class? Are you seeing overly sexualized behavior or language in your child?

Older teenagers who have been sexually abused can and do show more aggressive “acting out,” including drug and alcohol use, anger and aggression. Girls tend to act more “inward,” and instead show signs of shame, depression, cutting (or other self-destructive behaviors), isolation and fear. Always address any noticeable changes in behavior and open up lines of communication with your child.

Q: Explain what “grooming” is, and list some of the common grooming tactics of predators.

A: Predatory grooming is how an adult targets and creates a “compliant” victim, that is, a victim who is too scared and manipulated to understand and/or report the sexual abuse. Predators use attention, flattery, gifts (including technology, drugs, alcohol, money, food and toys) and secrets to isolate the child from peers, make the child feel special, blur sexual boundaries, and convince the child that the abuse is love. It’s a long process of subtle manipulation that can take weeks to months. The goals? Gain access to a child, build trust and make him or herself the center of the child’s world … in order to sexually abuse the child.Grooming is a main reason why many victims can take decades to report. Because the child was so carefully manipulated, the child believes he or she did something to “ask for” or “deserve” the abuse. The child believes the abuse was his or her fault. What’s even more tragic is that a carefully groomed child will often love and respect their abuser, even though the child knows the abuse is wrong.

Q: Are there typical red flag behaviors that predators tend to exhibit?

A: Not really. Predators are cunning. They are not the “strangers in trench coats” and do not follow stereotypes. They can be men, women and even other children. That’s why it’s important you empower your child with strong body boundaries, the proper biological language to describe his or her body, and make your rules and boundaries clear to others when it comes to your child. A predator is far less likely to target a child who knows the proper names for body parts, has a good relationship with his or her parents, and who has parents who will not allow the predator to spend inappropriate unsupervised time one-on-one with a child.

Q: How common is the sexual abuse of children by other kids or older teens?

A: Recent statistics from the Office of Victims of Crime state that approximately 25 percent of child sexual abuse is perpetrated by another child. The reason this type of abuse proliferates is twofold. First, adults tend to shrug off the behavior as “child’s play” or “boys will be boys.” The second reason is the idea that a child could sexually abuse another child is abhorrent: We don’t want to think about it. Fortunately, our society has taken a strong stance on bullying — encouraging children to report, not be a bystander, and stand up to aggressive children. Because of that, child-on-child sexual abuse is now reported more often by children, who see it as a violent form of bullying.

If your child says he or she has seen this kind of abuse or has been sexually abused by another child, report to law enforcement immediately. Both the victim and the abusive child need immediate help and intervention. It is a serious crime.

Q: What should parents know about children’s use of the Internet and social media?

A: Predators can groom children just as easily over the Internet as they can in person — and this kind of grooming is preventable. Monitor all Internet-enabled devices in your home.

If you get pushback from your child, remember: It is your name on the contract for Internet service. Therefore, your child should have no expectation of privacy on the Internet. Make sure all Internet-capable devices (phones, tablets, gaming consoles) are only kept and used in common areas of the home and never behind closed doors. Make a “no cellphones in bathrooms” rule. Ensure your children understand and communicate to peers and adults that you monitor everything — this not only cuts down on cyber bullying, but puts predators on notice.

Q: What can parents do to protect their children from being vulnerable to sexual abuse?

A: There are three things: Communicate openly with your child, help your child cultivate strong body boundaries and authentic self-esteem, and monitor Internet-enabled technology.

Q: If a reader has experienced sexual abuse, what message would you share with him or her?

A: Acknowledge the abuse, talk about it and get help. You are not alone and the abuse was not your fault. There are wonderful healing resources available for men and women of all ages who were sexually abused as children and/or sexually assaulted as an adult. You can regain your power, your dignity and your voice. And by speaking out, getting help and healing, you can help break the cycle.

Q: How much is your book, and where can readers purchase it?

A: The book is $12.95 for the paperback and $3.99 for the ebook (Kindle/Nook). It can be purchased directly through Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

Information:
jcasteix@gmail.com

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

NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, N.M., Feb. 2, 2016

Did accused abuser, ‘Mr. Wonder,’ have links to Zuni?

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

GALLUP — When U. S. Marshals arrested Frank Selas, aka Frank Szeles, last week in California, law enforcement officials in Louisiana were a step closer to finally resolving a decades-old child sex abuse case.

With Selas’ arrest, however, several new mysteries surfaced. Was Selas, 76, really the fugitive law enforcement officials had been hunting for 37 years? Had Selas left a trail of sex abuse victims around the world? And had Selas once worked as a school principal at the Diocese of Gallup’s St. Anthony Mission School on the Pueblo of Zuni in 1974?

‘Mr. Wonder’

On Jan. 26, Sheriff William Earl Hilton, of Louisiana’s Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office, called a news conference about Selas’ arrest the previous day.

“As I have stated many times before, there are cases you never forget, some that always are in the back of your mind that you hope one day to solve,” Hilton stated in a news release. “And today, this person has been brought to justice.”

According to Hilton, back in 1979, Selas was a children’s television personality in Monroe, Louisiana, known as “Mr. Wonder” on KNOE-TV. In addition to hosting his kiddie TV show, Selas invited children between the ages of 5 and 11 to enjoy free camping weekends with “Mr. Wonder.”

In June 1979, Hilton said, he was a detective when several parents accused Selas of sexually abusing their sons on a camping trip. An investigation was launched and an arrest warrant was issued, but Selas skipped town before he could be arrested. His car was found a day later in the Dallas area, and he remained a fugitive for the next 37 years.

“The primary reason for this press conference is detectives believe there are more victims out there, possibly over several jurisdictions on (sic) Louisiana, nationally and even internationally as Selas travelled to several countries including Japan and Central and South America,” the news release stated.

Hilton encouraged anyone with knowledge about Selas to contact Detective Stephen Phillips at the Rapides Parish Sheriff’s Office at 318-473-6727 or 318-473-6700.

Classified ad clues

After Selas’ disappearance in 1979, sheriff’s officials began learning more about his past. They learned Selas had bragged that he had worked in 31 different countries, and they verified his teaching position at St. Mary’s International School in Tokyo, a Catholic school that has been impacted by the clergy sex abuse scandal. While at St. Mary’s, Selas led adventure trips for adolescent boys that he called the “Junior Peace Corps.” To date, however, there are no known allegations against Selas during his time at St. Mary’s.

But prior to working in Louisiana, did Selas also work briefly at St. Anthony Mission in Zuni?

Ken Booth, a retired journalist, has been attempting to track Selas for more than three decades. Booth’s online research led him to the discovery of classified ads in the Gallup Independent from 1974. Three ads, placed in August and September of that year, directed job seekers to contact the principal of St. Anthony School, listed as “Frank Seles” or “Frank Selas.”

“We have no records of the man at all,” the Rev. Patrick McGuire, St. Anthony’s current pastor, said in a phone interview Monday.

McGuire said he was contacted by a detective from Louisiana last week inquiring about Selas. McGuire said he has looked through the school’s old personnel records, covered with “50 years of dust,” and found no reference to Selas. The detective, McGuire said, told him Selas reportedly worked at several other schools that also have not been able to locate Selas’ old personnel records.

McGuire, who said he would continue to search mission files, said four employees at St. Anthony have had a relationship with the school dating back to the 1960s and none remember Selas’ name or recognize his face from law enforcement photos.

“They have no recollections of him,” McGuire said.

Jeanette Suter, superintendent for Catholic schools in the Diocese of Gallup, was reached at her chancery office Monday. Suter said she had been out of town and was unaware of the Selas inquiry but she would look through chancery’s archives.

Franciscan records

The Rev. Thomas Maikowski, who resigned as director of education for the Gallup Diocese in 2005, was also contacted Monday. He suggested the Franciscan sisters in Colorado might have information about Selas’ possible employment in Zuni. Maikowski said he did not take over the diocesan education department until the late 1970s, so any principal in 1974 would have pre-dated him. The Franciscan sisters, however, were in charge of the Zuni mission school then, he said.

Questions to the Sisters of St. Francis of the Perpetual Adoration, based in Colorado Springs, were directed to Gail Hickert, the CEO of Mount St. Francis. In addition to once running St. Anthony School in Zuni, sisters from the religious order founded Gallup’s now defunct St. Mary’s Hospital.

Hickert said she had no idea where the religious order’s old personnel records from Zuni might be kept and said elderly sisters who once worked in the Gallup Diocese now have dementia.

Marquette University in Milwaukee does have Catholic archives from Native American communities in the western U.S., including the Pueblo of Zuni. According to an online Marquette resource, the university has some archived Zuni Mission records from the Sisters of St. Francis between the years 1935 and 1991, but none is specifically listed as dated from 1974.

Disputed identity

Selas was booked into jail in San Diego, where he is being held without bail. At his arraignment Wednesday, Selas pleaded not guilty to a fugitive charge, and he and his attorney are disputing that he is the person named in the criminal complaint.

Law enforcement authorities believe Selas fled to South America in 1979, returned to the U.S. in the 1980s, and then lived in numerous locations across the country, including Connecticut, Vermont, Illinois, Massachusetts and finally Southern California. They said Selas changed his surname to Szeles in 1992 in San Diego County.

After Selas’ arrest, spokesmen from both the Boy Scouts of America and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued statements that the California resident known as “Frank Szeles” had failed to comply with their youth protection policies in the past and had been barred from contact with children. Those violations, however, never resulted in any criminal charges.

Since Selas is arguing that he is not the man wanted by Louisiana authorities, San Diego Superior Court Judge David Szumowski has scheduled an identity hearing Feb. 11.

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.

INDIA
Business Standard

Press Trust of India | Mumbai
February 4, 2016

A 35-year-old former priest attached to a temple was arrested from South Mumbai for allegedly raping and blackmailing a 38-year-old married woman, police said today.

The accused, identified as Prem Singh Parmar, was arrested last night.

Police said Parmar, earlier working with a temple in Cotton Green area, had allegedly been raping the woman since 2013.

A police official said Parmar became friendly with the woman when she used to visit the temple.

Parmar, a resident of Kalbadevi in South Mumbai, allegedly called the woman to his house in 2013 under the pretext of offering her a “special prasad”.

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.

LOUISIANA
KATC

Wednesday was the third day of trial for former priest Mark Broussard, who is facing child molestation charges that date back to the 1980’s.

Broussard was living in Duson when he was arrested in 2012 on rape and sexual battery charges after a letter surfaced in late 2011, alleging that the former priest had sexually abused a Calcasieu Parish man as a child.

Wednesday morning, the prosecution was still calling witnesses for its case. A deacon with the Lake Charles Diocese took the stand to testify for the state.

The deacon presented Broussard’s personnel files from when he was with the diocese, including a letter Broussard wrote to his friends and family in 1994.

The letter was written two days before his resignation from the priesthood to tell his loved ones that he was leaving the church, “It is best for me and it is best for the Church,” read one line of the letter.

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

UNITED STATES
New York Post

By Kyle Smith

February 3, 2016

MOVIE REVIEW
THE CLUB
**
In Spanish, with English subtitles. Running time: 97 minutes. Not rated (sex, nudity, profanity, disturbing images)

Picking up where “Spotlight” left off, Chile’s “The Club” wanders through a purgatory where ex-priests reflect upon their many sins.

In a tranquil beach town, four defrocked priests live in the Catholic Church’s version of house arrest, isolated from the community and tended to by an ex-nun (Antonia Zegers). But an act of violence and an investigation by a visiting church official (Marcelo Alonso) shatter their equipoise.

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BOSTON (MA)
Crux

By Abuse survivors and their supporters
Special to Crux February 3, 2016

Over the past 14 years, thousands of survivors of sexual abuse by priests and their supporters have maintained a vigil every Sunday at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in downtown Boston. We have protested lies, broken promises, and survivor re-victimization by the Catholic Church and its hierarchy; we have supported men and women survivors in dealing with the horrors of abuse; we have demanded change in a Church that for too long denied and facilitated and covered up the rape of children.

Yet some parishioners still ask: “Why are you demonstrating? What do you want?”

In January 2002, the Globe Spotlight team published the story of how Cardinal Bernard F. Law, Bishop John McCormack, and others in Boston had transferred priests who had sexually abused children from parish to parish, where they continued to abuse even more young people. The reporters’ skill and courage in exposing the crimes that one of the most powerful institutions in Boston had committed is dramatically presented in the movie “Spotlight,” which is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture this year. Everyone should see it.

But the movie stops with the initial revelation in 2002.

The survivors and their supporters who have stood outside the Cathedral every Sunday for 14 years since then are committed to keeping the issue of sexual abuse of children by priests alive. By their presence, they validated the truth of what survivors were saying and made a commitment that survivors would never be alone again. What this meant to survivors needs to be heard.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Jewish News

by Yehudis Goldsobel, Independent sexual violence adviser for the Jewish community

WE ARE currently marking Sexual Abuse and Sexual Violence Awareness Week across the country and I’m spearheading a campaign to recognise our community is not immune from these horrendous crimes.

We must no longer allow abusers to hide among us and victims must know that they need not suffer in silence.

The whole community has to acknowledge that this has been the status quo for too long. Enough is enough.

Sexual abuse is a universal evil. No community is immune. I’m delighted that the United Synagogue has recognised that sexual abuse is occurring to men, women and children in our community every day. Prompted by Chief Rabbi Mirvis, the United Synagogue is now setting up a support network to encourage victims of these terrible crimes to report their abusers and seek help. It also recently delivered training to community leaders to help them recognise possible signs of abuse, particularly in children and the vulnerable, and teach them the steps that then need to be taken to protect the victims and report the abusers to the police and social services.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Jewish News

by Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis

IT’S SEXUAL abuse and Sexual Violence Awareness Week across the UK – the first of its kind, aiming to generate a frank and necessary public conversation about a crime as old as the taboo that has, shamefully, protected it. It is a poor reflection on our society that such an awareness week is necessary. Sadly, it is.

Sexual violence and abuse are among the most insidious of evils, with devastating lifelong consequences.

Let there be no illusions – the campaign to end the scourge of sexual abuse is as pertinent for the Jewish community as it is within all of our society.

The Torah links the way we speak to others, to the prohibition of being an inactive bystander: “You may not go about as a talebearer among your people; neither may you stand idly by the blood of your neighbour” (Leviticus 19:16).

The inference here is that just as harmful speech can sometimes be a killer, so too can silence. If keeping quiet has the effect of allowing others to be victims of cruelty, there is an obligation to speak out against a perpetrator, regardless of the implications on his or her reputation.

The Talmud, based on this verse, defines the role of the bystander in the following way: “One may not stand idly by while others are in danger. One should exhaust all means to rescue people from rape, drowning, attack by criminals or attacks by animals. Until the victim has been fully extricated from the dangerous predicament, the obligation still obtains.” (Sanhedrin 73a). There is no doubt that this unequivocally denotes a responsibility to prevent a child abuser from destroying lives, now and in the future.

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HAWAII
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Kailua Attorney Mark Gallagher and Jeff Anderson & Associates Confirm Representation in More than Two Dozen of These Cases

(Honolulu, HI) – On January 14, 2016, the Diocese of Honolulu filed a lawsuit naming First Insurance as a defendant and releasing information pertaining to ongoing negotiations in a court-ordered mediation between survivors of childhood sexual abuse and the Diocese of Honolulu and other parties. This suit disclosed that dozens of lawsuits have been settled since the mediation process began in September 2015.

Mark Gallagher of Kailua, working in conjunction with Jeff Anderson & Associates, a national clergy abuse law firm based in Minnesota, has represented 36 survivors in this process and been involved in a majority of the resolved cases disclosed by the diocese. These cases involve various priests, teachers and other religious figures who worked in the Diocese of Honolulu.

“We have been working with a large number of plaintiffs to bring resolution to sexual abuse survivors under the supervision of the court and with complete cooperation of the diocese and religious order defendants,” said Mark Gallagher. “The process is completely confidential. We can confirm there have been a number of successful resolutions, but we must refrain from commenting further upon the status of the mediation or any particular settlements. We will continue to work hard with the survivors and the parties, including the diocese, to bring resolution and reconciliation.”

In 2012, the Hawaii legislature passed the Child Victims Act allowing survivors of sexual abuse in Hawaii a two-year window in which to file civil lawsuits against their abusers and institutions that may have allowed the abuse. The window was extended in 2014 for an additional two years and is set to expire on April 24, 2016. We encourage other sexual abuse survivors to come forward before this important deadline.

More information can be found at www.abusedinhawaii.com.

Contact: Mark Gallagher: Office: 808-535-1500; Cell: 808-779-5012
Jeff Anderson: Office: 651-964-3458; Cell: 612-817-8665
Mike Reck: Office: 646-649-4960; Cell: 714-742-6593

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MINNESOTA
City Pages

BY MIKE MULLEN
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 2016

The City Pages People Issue celebrates ordinary folks who do extraordinary things. Though their triumphs are rarely acknowledged, they make the Twin Cities a better place.

Madeleine Baran’s phone rings. She wasn’t expecting a call, but this one will take over her life, and the lives of many others, for the next two years.

The woman on the other end, Jennifer Haselberger, is a former high-ranking official within the Archdiocese of Minneapolis and St. Paul. It takes just a few minutes for Baran, a reporter with Minnesota Public Radio, to realize that if what Haselberger says is true, the local Catholic church had been involved in a cover-up of sexual abuse by priests that lasted decades.

It was all true, and then some. Baran pursued the complicated tale, peeling back its layers, each one darker and more rotten than the next.

Baran knifed through stacks of court records detailing abuses, occasionally taking breaks from reading the most upsetting passages. She interviewed victims, then their abusers, asking how their superiors in the church let them get away with it. On a trip to Louisiana, she undid the myth of former archbishop Harry Flynn, whose lies about meeting with victims’ families and reforming church practices were believed by Minnesota media.

In the end, Baran’s reporting implicated three archbishops in the conspiracy. The last, John Nienstedt, resigned in June, just days after criminal and civil legal filings were brought against him. For their exhaustive efforts, Baran and MPR shared a Peabody Award, the most prestigious accolade in radio.

But it’s the other, equally unexpected phone calls Baran got that mean most to her. After the investigation aired, abuse victims from across the state started calling. There were hundreds of them. Some were men who hadn’t told anyone, not even their wives of 50 years. They weren’t demanding justice. They just needed someone to listen.

“I’m genuinely honored that someone would tell me that — that I would be that person,” Baran says as her voice catches in her throat.

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UNITED STATES
The Jewish Week

Mon, 02/01/2016

Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz

Just after the giving of the Law at Sinai, the Torah presents us with an assortment of laws, some criminal, some civil and some purely religious.

The civil laws in our Torah portion this week, Mishpatim, regulate how we act with one another. They must have been of immediate, practical use, even in the desert; they dealt with slavery, mayhem, and stealing, among other sins. Even more basic are the foundational principals of justice – some explicit and some implicit, but clear in their meaning. The Torah is clear about equality. No one is above the law. Individuals of all stations in life and society must be treated equally. It does not matter if they are of high rank or not. It is of no concern whether they are men, women or small children: the law is equal to all of them.

These laws are as relevant today as they were in ancient times. Mishpatim makes clear, for example, that Judaism abhors the abuse of children.

As the Torah well understands, child molestation is an ancient vice. It has become much more widely discussed because of several recent scandals, mostly in religious institutions.

There are some objective reasons why such things happen quite often in religious institutions. Children are taught and trained to be obedient and to accept their elders as authorities – which makes it so much more difficult for them to resist abuse or to report it. Unfortunately there is no sex education in some of the schools; nor is the subject discussed in some homes. So when something like this happens, it takes time for a child to understand it and even more than that – to talk about it.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Onetz

[For some, the Regensburg choir boarding school was a place of terror, for the other a formative school of life. How can the experience of the cathedral choir diverge so widely?]

Jürgen Herda

Für die einen war das Internat ein Ort des Terrors, für die anderen eine prägende Schule des Lebens. Wie können die Erfahrungen der Domspatzen so weit auseinanderklaffen? In einem Kuratorium gehen jetzt Bistum und Opfer aufeinander zu.

Weiden/Regensburg. Die Fakten liegen auf dem Tisch. An den Zahlen, die Rechtsanwalt Ulrich Weber vorgelegt hat, kommt keiner vorbei: Nach seinen Hochrechnungen sollen zwischen 1953 und 1992 etwa 700 Buben im Etterzhausener Internat oder im Regensburger Gymnasium der Domspatzen körperlich oder psychisch misshandelt worden sein. Weber hält auch rund die Hälfte der 67 vorliegenden Vorwürfe sexuellen Missbrauchs für “höchstplausibel”.

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OSTERREICH
Nachricten

[A priest accused of abusing minors in Austria has had a stroke and is in a care home, according to the public prosecutor.]

LINZ. Wegen schweren sexuellen Kindesmissbrauchs hat die Staatsanwaltschaft Linz gegen einen 73-jährigen Pater des Stiftes Lambach im Vorjahr Anklage erhoben. Nach einem Schlaganfall ist der angeklagte Geistliche ein Pflegefall.

Der Geistliche soll im Mai 2015 auf einer Toilette am Linzer Bahnhof gegen Bezahlung Sex mit einem zwölfjährigen rumänischen Stricherbuben gehabt haben. Doch einer Verurteilung dürfte der Angeklagte, der ein Geständnis abgelegt hatte, entkommen.

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CALIFORNIA
New York Times

By LIAM STACK and ASHLEY SOUTHALL
FEB. 2, 2016

A young seminary student from Ohio flew across the United States on Friday in pursuit of a goal he had spent weeks discussing online in explicit detail: finding a baby, either through adoption or cash purchase, to sexually assault.

The flight was the first leg of an itinerary that was to lead to Mexico, but the seminarian, Joel A. Wright, was arrested at San Diego International Airport before he could continue the trip.

Unbeknown to him, he had been trading emails with undercover federal agents.

Mr. Wright was arrested by Homeland Security Investigations, part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which said he had spent almost two years searching for female children under the age of 4 in Tijuana, Mexico, for a violent sexual encounter.

“This investigation opens a window into a secret world where sexual predators prey on young children around the globe,” Dave Shaw, a special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in San Diego, said in a statement.

Federal prosecutors charged Mr. Wright on Friday with felony counts of traveling with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor and aggravated sexual abuse of a child, according to the complaint.

The seminarian made his first court appearance on Monday in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California. He did not enter a plea and remained in custody, said Kelly Thornton, a spokeswoman for the United States attorney’s office in San Diego.

Magistrate Judge Bernard G. Skomal appointed public defenders to represent Mr. Wright and scheduled a detention hearing for Thursday. Federal prosecutors filed a motion to keep Mr. Wright in custody, deeming him a flight risk and a danger to the community.

A preliminary hearing in the case was scheduled for Feb. 11.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Altoona Mirror

February 3, 2016

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

JOHNSTOWN – Tuesday was supposed to be the day that Father Joseph D. Maurizio Jr. of Somerset was sentenced for sexually abusing several Honduran children, but instead, the hearing turned into an argument for a new trial based on a victim’s impact statement in which he said the 71-year-old priest did not abuse him.

That statement made by Victim 2, referred to in court as Erick, ran counter to his testimony during last September’s trial in which Maurizio was found guilty of sexually abusing children at the ProNino orphanage in El Progresso, taking improper pictures of a naked child and using funds raised to support the orphanage to pay for sexual favors from the children.

Erick said in his appearance on the witness stand last September that he was one of three boys who, during a March 2009 visit by Maurizio to ProNino, were asked to help transport supplies throughout the large complex.

He was 15 years old at the time, and he told a federal court jury that he had once been a street child.

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OHIO
10TV

[with video]

By Tylar Bacome
Tuesday February 2, 2016

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A man who says a priest abused him as a child believes seminaries should be doing more thorough screenings when accepting individuals.

David Clohessy is the director of the Survivor’s Network for Those Abused by Priests or SNAP.

“I was abused as a kid from age 11 or 12 through 16 by a priest who molested three of my siblings. One of my brothers went on to become a priest and molest kids himself,” Clohessy said.

Clohessy has been following the Joel Wright case and said he fears Wright could have multiple victims who haven’t come forward.

“In our experience there almost always are,” he said.

He is calling on the Josephinum and the Diocese of Steubenville to release whatever background checks and psychological assessments they conducted on Wright and how they differ from those done by the more than 45 other seminaries where Wright reportedly tried to enroll.

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DELAWARE
Delaware State News

February 3, 2016 by Craig Anderson

DOVER — With a precedent-setting determination regarding confidentiality among some church members last week, a Superior Court judge continued a lawsuit against a Sussex County congregation.

Judge Mary M. Johnston did not dismiss a lawsuit filed by the state of Delaware against the Laurel Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses regarding whether it should have reported child abuse allegations in 2013.

The state is suing the congregation and two elders for allegedly not disclosing knowledge of a reported sexual relationship between an adult member and juvenile member, according to court documents. The complaint was filed on July 10, 2014, in New Castle County Superior Court.

The congregation filed a motion for summary judgment on Nov. 9, 2015, which was denied on Jan. 26 by Judge Johnston.

The motion centered around the application of the “priest-penitent in a sacramental confession privilege” and whether conversations among Jehovah’s Witnesses leaders and members were covered in Delaware Code.

According to court papers, the state alleged two elders met with a juvenile and his mother, both congregation members, in January 2013 and a disclosure of a sexual relationship was made.

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UNITED STATES
Failed Messiah

Shmarya Rosenberg

I had a much longer post I was moments away from publishing when my computer crashed and I lost it, so I’ll make this do-over post more concise.

I’ve been working on a deal that would allow me to work on anti-poverty issues and today, after about a year of trying, that deal came to fruition. That means I’ll be leaving FailedMessiah.com, the website I founded almost 12 years ago.

So let me thank all of you who read, commented and debated here, those of you who agreed with me and even those of you who did not, and those of you who sent me stories, tips and pashkvils.

I’d like to encourage all of you to work to stop child sex abuse and to work to stop those who enable it or cover it up. I’d also like to encourage you to do what you can to bring some light to the haredi world which is, sadly, still shrouded in some intense darkness. No kid should go to 13 years of school and leave without a valid high school diploma, proficiency in the language of the country, and extensive knowledge of math, science, history and civics, even if their religious community’s elders claim it is their religious right to deprive them of this much-needed education. Please continue to fight for those kids.

I’d also like to ask you work to equalize and humanize the US Sentencing Guidelines. With very few exceptions, nonviolent criminals should not be incarcerated for decades. Prison should not primarily be a place of punishment. Instead, it should be a place where combined with loss of freedom, inmates also get good regular mental health care and are trained in skills (or given education) that can earn them gainful employment on release. In the long run, it is far cheaper for society to work help inmates than it is to punish them. It is also far better for society because the recidivism rate for inmates who are well treated rather than abandoned and abused is lower. That means fewer victims and fewer losses for all of us.

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ITALIA
Il Messaggero

[Priest Roberto Elici was arrested in Rome and charged with abusing two teenager when he was a pastor in Palermo.]

«Gli ho fatto troppo male nell’animo con i miei modi di amarlo e questo gli ha distrutto il cuore a poco a poco», si confessava così don Roberto Elici, 40 anni, accusato di avere abusato di tre minorenni quando era parroco a Palermo. Non nasconde quanto ha fatto e ammette, chattando su whatsapp con la madre di due delle vittime, le violenze imposte ai suoi figli, due adolescenti di 13 e 15 anni. La polizia è andato ad arrestarlo oggi a Roma, città dove viveva da quasi un anno, su decisione della Curia, avvertita dell’inchiesta, ospite di un centro per sacerdoti con problemi. L’accusa che gli contestano l’aggiunto Salvo De Luca e il pm Claudio Camilleri è pesantissima: violenza sessuale nei confronti di tre ragazzini. A denunciarlo, nel 2014, è stata la madre riuscita a farlo confessare in chat. La donna è andata dagli investigatori e ha raccontato le confidenze raccolte dai figli. Don Roberto li avrebbe molestati sessualmente più volte.

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MISSISSIPPI
WTVA

[with video]

By Courtney Ann Jackson Feb. 2, 2016

JACKSON, Miss (WTVA) — Sex crime victims could soon have more options to pursue charges.

The amount of time that passes before they go to the cops can make a difference.

It doesn’t matter how severe the crime.

Some victims don’t see justice if they don’t speak up soon enough.

Senate bill 2063 would give victims more protection and prosecutors more flexibility.

“It is limited to crimes which are sexual in nature which again are some of our more heinous crimes,” Michael Guest, Madison/Rankin District Attorney, said.

Obscene electronic communications via things like social media and text messages are also common.

But as it stands, there’s a two year statute of limitations.

“We don’t want people who are walking the streets and the only reason that they’re not in jail is because they’ve been time barred by the prosecution and are left to remain out and potentially commit additional crimes,” Guest said.

There are already some crimes like murder and rape– that don’t have a time limit for prosecution in Mississippi. But about half the crimes that would require someone to register as a sex offender–aren’t included.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

[with video]

BY JILLIAN HARTMANN TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 2ND 2016

JOHNSTOWN, Pa — A federal judge is deciding whether a former Central City priest convicted of having sexual relations with children during missionary trips should be granted a new trial.

Father Joseph Maurizio was found guilty on five of eight counts of abuse, a count of international money laundering, a count of possessing a photo that exploited a child and three counts of illicting sexual conduct with three separate victims.

Prosecutors said the abuse happened during his trips to Honduras from 2004 to 2009.

Defense Attorney, Steven Passarello argued in court that prosecutors withheld a statement by one of the victims claiming he was not abused by Maurizio. Passarello said the statement discredits his court testimony.

Justice Department Trial Attorney Amy Larson disagreed, saying Passarello was focusing on one line in a five-page questionnaire.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Leslie Turner, a retired primary head teacher, was paid £17,000 in compensation by the Irish Christian Brothers, after claiming two priests from the Catholic Order sexually abused him at school in Sunderland in the 1960s. The church has not accepted liability for the alleged abuse. Turner, now 66, has waived his anonymity in a film for the Guardian to allege he was molested from the age of 12 by two Irish Christian Brother teachers at St Aidan’s Roman Catholic Grammar School in Sunderland between 1961 and 1967. Both priests are long dead, but he sued after being diagnosed with delayed onset post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of what he said he suffered.

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WASHINGTON
The Seattle Times

By Seattle Times editorial board

OPEN the secret files, Archbishop J. Peter Sartain.

The Archdiocese of Seattle last month took the long overdue act of naming 77 local clergy accused of sexual misconduct with minors. It should have happened in 2004, when a high-level review board comprised primarily of lay people suggested the diocese come clean.

Better late than never. But this was only a half-step toward repentance.

Two members of that layperson review board — former U.S. Attorney Mike McKay and former King County Superior Court Judge Terry Carroll, both prominent Catholics who’ve devoted their careers to justice — called on the archdiocese to release confidential files on the abusive priests.

Their questions are spot on. When did the abuse happened? To how many youths? At which specific parish?

Most important, the public and parishioners want to know who failed to act on credible reports of child abuse. Who knew what? And when?

Releasing the secret files would answer these questions. A full release — with the names of victims redacted — would also help heal the church and allow victims to move forward.

Other archdioceses already have opened their secret files. Portland and Los Angeles opened files as part of legal settlements. Chicago Archbishop Francis George did so voluntarily in the hopes of “bringing healing for victims.”

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CONNECTICUT
CT Post

By Daniel Tepfer Published Wednesday, February 3, 2016

BRIDGEPORT — Wielding the threat of dark magic, a suspect arrested in a drug probe kept an East Side neighborhood virtually captive, afraid to complain about him, police said.

Felix “Cuba” Delgado, who was already being sought by Massachusetts police for grave robbing, was arrested Tuesday afternoon — but officers weren’t prepared for what they found in his Hallett Street basement.

“We found two human skulls and bones that appear to have come from the remains of two people,” said Police Capt. Armando Perez. “This was like nothing we had ever seen before.”

Perez said they found altars throughout the first-floor apartment and basement, many covered in blood.

“Delgado is a high priest in the Santeria religion and practices the dark arts,” Perez said. “People in the neighborhood are either from Puerto Rico or the West Indies, where this religion is practiced and they were afraid to say anything against Delgado for fear he would put a curse on them.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Stoke Sentinel

CHURCH volunteer Daniel Nicklin has been locked up after grooming a teenage girl and then having sex with her.

The 28-year-old – who helps out at Hanley Baptist Church – took advantage of the youngster, who was under 16, and encouraged her to engage in sexual activity.

Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court heard ‘intelligent’ Nicklin asked for pictures of his victim and sent her images of his own body.

The abuse has ‘ruined the childhood’ of the victim, the court was told. Now Nicklin has been jailed for five years and placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register for the rest of his life.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

[with video]

Jenny Kleeman and Helen Pidd
Wednesday 3 February 2016

The Catholic church continues to quietly pay out compensation to victims of alleged sex abuse at Catholic schools in Britain while refusing to accept liability.

Leslie Turner, a retired primary headteacher, was paid £17,000 in compensation by the Irish Christian Brothers in 2014, after claiming two priests from the Catholic order sexually abused him at school in Sunderland in the 1960s.

Turner, now 66, has waived his anonymity in a film for the Guardian to allege he was molested from the age of 12 by two teachers at St Aidan’s Roman Catholic grammar school in Sunderland between 1961 and 1967. Both priests are long dead, but he sued after being diagnosed with delayed onset post-traumatic stress disorder in 2012 as a result of what he says he suffered as a child.

“After the abuse stopped was actually worse than when the abuse was taking place,” Turner told the Guardian. “I tried to become invisible. It never occurred to me to tell anybody. When the headteacher has been abusing you, who do you tell? I put it into a cupboard in my head and I shut the cupboard door.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Argus

Exclusive by Joel Adams, Reporter

TODAY, for the first time, the victim of George Bell has spoken about the sexual abuse she suffered as a five-year-old child at the hands of the wartime Bishop of Chichester.

Speaking exclusively to The Argus, she described how he repeatedly molested her over a period of four years while telling her that God loved her.

Her testimony brings new clarity to a story which has changed the world’s perception of one of the most revered Anglicans of the 20th century since news of a church payout was announced last October.

Motivated to speak by comments made in the press in defence of Bell’s legacy, she raises fresh questions over the failure of senior church officials to respond adequately to allegations of which they were first informed in 1995.

As the leading bishop in the diocese of Chichester, George Bell was head of the Anglican Church in Sussex for 29 years from 1929 until his death in 1958.

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NEW MEXICO
Albuquerque Journal

By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writer
Published: Wednesday, February 3rd, 2016

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Progress in settling the 26-month-old Diocese of Gallup bankruptcy case has stumbled because an insurer is unwilling to provide detailed financial information demanded by a representative for future sex abuse claims against the diocese, attorneys told a judge on Tuesday.

An attorney for Catholic Mutual Relief Society of America, a church-owned nonprofit that insures the diocese, said the dispute may lead Catholic Mutual to withdraw its offer to pay future claims against the diocese. Attorneys described the future claims fund as a crucial part of the settlement.

“We are very close to saying that someone else should fund their future claims fund,” said David Spector, Catholic Mutual’s attorney. “We would hate to see this deal crater.”

The Diocese of Gallup in 2013 became the ninth Roman Catholic diocese in the U.S. to file for Chapter 11 reorganization bankruptcy in response to lawsuits alleging sexual abuse of children by clergy. Mediation talks in December led to a tentative agreement on funding a settlement, but unresolved details include setting up a trust fund to pay for future claims.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Peta Carlyon

Former Archbishop of Adelaide Ian George has told the child abuse royal commission he should have done more to help victims.

Bishop George told the hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Hobart, he felt “a deep sense of remorse” the Church did not protect children from notorious paedophile Robert Brandenburg.

Brandenburg took his own life in 1999, days before facing court on 365 charges of child abuse.

Bishop George acknowledged the Church “provided an avenue and an opportunity” for Brandenburg to abuse while failing victims and their families.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – The World Today

KIM LANDERS: At the child sexual abuse Royal Commission hearings in Hobart, the former governor-general Peter Hollingworth has given a personal apology to an abuse survivor.

Dr Hollingworth told the commission his handling of the man’s abuse complaint, when he was Archbishop of Brisbane in the early nineties, was misguided and wrong.

Samantha Donovan is following the commission hearings and joins me now.

Samantha what has this abuse survivor told the royal commission about his dealings with the then Anglican Archbishop Hollingworth?

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Well Kim the survivor witness BYB has given his evidence to the commission this morning and he told them that he was closely involved with the Anglican Church and the Church of England Boy’s Society in Queensland in the 1970s when he was a boy, and that from the age of about eight to 13 he was sexually abused by an Anglican lay preacher, John Elliot, who later became a priest.

Now BYB gave evidence that when he was in his twenties, he decided to complain to the church about his abuse and alert it to Elliot’s offending. Elliot by then an ordained priest and the rector of the Dalby parish in Queensland.

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

AAP

Former Australian governor-general Peter Hollingworth admits that in 1993 he was more worried about the welfare of a pedophile priest than a young victim, and 23 years later has offered a personal apology for his poor handling of the matter.

A 47-year-old man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, on Wednesday gave evidence to a royal commission hearing that through his childhood connection with Brisbane’s St Barnabas Anglican Church at Sunnybank and the Church of England Boys’ Society, he was sexually abused by then-lay preacher John Elliot in the 1980s.

As a young adult in 1993, by which time Elliot had been ordained a priest and appointed rector of Dalby parish, the victim took his complaint to Dr Hollingworth who was then archbishop of the diocese of Brisbane.

He told Dr Hollingworth that Elliot was a pedophile who had abused him repeatedly over a number of years and that he should not be permitted to have any further contact with the public.

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AUSTRALIA
Mercury

PATRICK BILLINGS
Mercury

FORMER Governor-General Peter Hollingworth has apologised personally to a victim of child abuse whose allegations he seriously mishandled when he was Anglican Archdeacon of Brisbane.

The victim, known by the pseudonym BYB, was sexually abused by John Litton Elliot over a period of four years from the late 1970s.

At the time Elliot was a Church of Engliand Boys’ Society leader and a lay preacher in Queensland.

In 1993, BYB reported the abuse to Archdeacon Hollingworth as Elliot was by then a priest in Queensland.

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AUSTRALIA
Mercury

PATRICK BILLINGS
Mercury

FORMER Governor-general Peter Hollingworth has told a child abuse inquiry in Hobart how he, as the then leader of Brisbane’s Anglican Church, took “a punt” on a paedophile priest in allowing him to remain a rector in Queensland.

Dr Hollingworth was the Brishbane Anglican Archdeacon in 1993 when he learnt priest Johnt Litton Elliot had sexually abused a boy prior to ordination.

Elliot was a former Church of England Boys (CEBS) leader in Tasmania before he moved to Queensland in the 1960s.

In the late 1970s he started abusing a boy, aged nine or 10, for about four years while working as a lay preacher and CEBS leader.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

February 3, 2016

Adam Morton
Senior Writer

Former governor-general Peter Hollingworth has apologised to a sex abuse survivor and conceded he manifestly failed in his response to an abuse claim while he was Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane in the 1990s.

Giving evidence to the royal commission into institutional sex abuse, Dr Hollingworth said his failures included giving incorrect evidence to a 2002 inquiry into abuse in the Brisbane diocese, while he was governor-general.

In 1993, Dr Hollingworth allowed paedophile priest John Elliot to continue to work as rector of Dalby, on Queensland’s Darling Downs, after hearing allegations the priest abused at least one boy between 1975 and 1981.

The commission heard Elliot had admitted to the abuse and that psychiatrist John Slaughter, who assessed Elliot, had advised Dr Hollingworth that paedophilia was not treatable.

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HAWAII
Hawaii News Now

By Keoki Kerr

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) –
It will cost roughly $20 million to settle lawsuits brought by 63 people — mostly men — who claim Catholic priests and teachers in Hawaii molested them decades ago, sources told Hawaii News Now.

And First Insurance of Hawaii, which provided liability insurance to both the Catholic Church and Damien Memorial School for decades, has refused to fund any settlements in 40 lawsuits that went to mediation last fall and early this year, according to a lawsuit filed by the church and the school.

In its lawsuit, the Catholic Church said it paid First Insurance of Hawaii for liability insurance from 1951 to 1987, but during the last year and a half of negotiations, it’s been unable to get First Insurance to help pay the bill for settlements and legal fees.

The church’s lawsuit, filed January 14, claimed First Insurance “has delayed, obfuscated, and misled its policyholder, consistently putting its interests ahead of the interests (of the church)”

The church said with no help paying the big bill, it has been forced “to consider liquidating assets in order to meet its settlement obligations. The prospect of additional unreimbursed defense and settlement costs puts funding for the ministry and services” provided by the church “in serious jeopardy.”

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AUSTRALIA
Courier Mail

[with vidoe]

Andrew Drummond
AAP

FORMER governor-general Peter Hollingworth is among two senior Anglican leaders who have apologised for the way they dealt with ­reports of child sexual abuse.

Giving evidence to a royal commission hearing yesterday, Dr Hollingworth said his failure to take action against then-priest John ­Elliot heightened the distress for a victim, a man who cannot be named for legal reasons.

“I want to make an apology to (the victim) and to all the members of his family for the way which his complaint of abuse against John ­Elliot was handled when it was first referred to me as archbishop of Brisbane in 1993,” Dr Hollingworth told the commission hearing in Hobart.

“After a great deal of consideration over the past 22 years I acknowledge unreservedly that my actions were misguided, wrong and a serious error of judgment and that I genuinely regret it.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – PM

MARK COLVIN: The child sexual abuse Royal Commission has been told that the former Anglican Archbishop of Adelaide, Ian George, disregarded reports of abuse for several years in the late ‘90s and early 2000s.

Anglican priest Don Owers gave evidence that he lobbied the Archbishop to make a public statement on the abuse but was ignored.

The royal commission is examining how the Anglican Diocese of Adelaide and the Church of England Boys’ Society handled abuse allegations over several decades.

Samantha Donovan reports.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: The royal commission has been examining how the Church of England Boys Society, known as ‘CEBS’, and the Anglican Church have handled child sexual abuse in Tasmania.

It’s now turning its attention to what those organisations have done in the diocese of Adelaide.

Survivor witness BYA told the commission today he was sexually abused by five CEBS leaders in the 1960s. The abuse started when he was 15.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

The former leader of Brisbane’s Anglican church, Peter Hollingworth, admits he poorly handled a complaint of sexual abuse by a priest and has apologised to the victim.

Giving evidence to a royal commission hearing in Hobart on Wednesday, Dr Hollingworth said his failure to take action against then-priest John Elliot heightened the distress for a victim, a man who cannot be named for legal reasons.

“I want to make an apology to (the victim) and to all the members of his family for the way which his complaint of abuse against John Elliot was handled when it was first referred to me as archbishop of Brisbane in 1993,” Dr Hollingworth said.

Dr Hollingworth was head of the Brisbane diocese from 1990 to 2001 and went on to become governor-general until 2003 when he stepped down over the church’s handling of the abuse allegations.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Wednesday was told that Dr Hollingworth was visited by the victim in August 1993.

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CALIFORNIA
NBC San Diego

By R. Stickney

A Vermont man accused of traveling to San Diego to have sex with infant girls appeared in court Monday to face to two felony counts.

Joel A. Wright, 23, was a seminary student in Columbus, Ohio when he flew to San Diego International Airport on Jan. 29.

Special agents with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) met Wright outside of baggage claim and took him into custody.

According to officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Wright had plans to travel to Mexico to have sex with at least three babies.

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CALIFORNIA
NBC4i

SAN DIEGO (WCMH)–On Thursday, a federal court will determine if former Ohio seminary student Joel Wright should be allowed to bond out or should be incarcerated until his trial.

Wright, who studied at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus for one semester, was arrested at Lindberg Field in San Diego last Friday.

He is now charged with traveling with the intent to engage in a sexual act with a minor and attempting to engage in illicit sexual conduct in a foreign country.

According to federal investigators, 23-year-old Wright’s arrest comes on the heels of a months-long investigation.

He made his first appearance in federal court Monday afternoon in San Diego before U.S. Magistrate Judge Bernard G. Skomal.

The judge appointed federal defenders to represent him, and set the detention hearing for Thursday Feb. 4 at 10 a.m. The government moved for detention based on risk of flight and danger to the community, according to the Office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of California

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UNITED STATES
BuzzFeed

Nicolás Medina Mora
BuzzFeed News Reporter

The blind seminarian got off the plane shortly after noon on Friday and made his way through the San Diego International Airport. When he got to baggage claim, he took out his cell phone and dialed the number of a woman he’d met on Craigslist.

Authorities say the seminarian believed the woman had agreed to take him to Tijuana and find three toddler girls to rape.

The priest-in-training, a 23-year-old named Joel A. Wright, picked up his duffle bag and walked out of the airport into the sunny California afternoon. And then, without warning, he was under arrest.

The woman he’d been talking with online was actually a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations. The feds had been on Wright’s tail for months — and they were ready to charge him with two crimes relating to interstate travel with the purpose of having sex with children.

At his first appearance in U.S. District Court in San Diego, Wright declined to enter a plea and was ordered held. Wright’s court-appointed lawyers could not be reached for comment. And his mother declined to comment to BuzzFeed News.

But the federal criminal complaint filed against him outlines the sordid path Wright allegedly took to San Diego, and the unlikely collaborator who brought him down: A con-artist based in Mexico who trolled Craigslist for gullible Americans to scam.

Originally from Vermont, Wright was diagnosed with severe glaucoma as a young child, according to a profile of him published by the state’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities. After graduating high school in 2010, he enrolled as a seminarian at the Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio, where he has since been expelled for what the school called “heinous and reprehensible” allegations.

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ARKANSAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2016

Statement by Bill Lindsey of Little Rock, Arkansas director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (501-993-7933, wdlindsy@swbell.net)

Arkansas Catholic officials should aggressively seek out anyone who might have seen, suspected or suffered child sex crimes by a Catholic teacher.

[Arkansas Online]

[Arkansas Matters]

Erica Suskie has been arrested for allegedly molesting a boy at Catholic High School.

In nearly every case, church officials do little or nothing to help – and instead sometimes hinder – the investigating and prosecuting of child sex cases. Catholic institutions, however, have many ways they can prod victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to call police and prosecutors. But they rarely use these resources to make sure child molesters are kept away from kids.

We call on Arkansas Bishop Anthony Taylor, and every Catholic employee, to spread the word about the charges against Suskie. We urge them to ask others, especially current and former students and staff at Catholic High School, to call 911 if they have any information or suspicions about this teacher or other child sex crimes or cover ups in Catholic parishes or schools. We beg them to use church bulletins and school mailing lists and parish websites in this outreach effort.

We hope every single person who saw, suspected or suffered crimes by Catholic employees or cover ups by Catholic officials will find the strength to call police, expose wrongdoers and protect kids.

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

Posted by Joelle Casteix on February 2, 2016

What made the Stubenville diocese take a potential seminarian that 45 other dioceses and religious orders had previously rejected?

Joel Wright is the 23-year-old Catholic seminarian who has been charged with attempting to adopt or purchase (for cash) a 1-year-old and a 4-year-old. He didn’t want to be a father. He wanted them for the purpose of molesting. Yeah, that’s repugnant.

But the larger story is far more pernicious.

When interviewed, Wright’s mother gave away a bombshell.

From Columbus Ohio’s Channel 10:

[Wright’s mother] said life for her son as one of roughly 15 pre-theology students at Pontifical College Josephenum wasn’t easy. She claims his path to priesthood was a bumpy road filled with dozens of rejections because of his cataracts and glaucoma.

“I stopped counting after 45 rejections of how many diocese and religions orders that declined him for his physical disability, for his vision, for his orthopedic for his health impairment.”

If the Catholic Church in the United States refused to accept men into the priesthood due to visual impairments, they would have a big ADA complaint on their hands. In fact, who better to help and minister to the visually impaired than someone who shares the same struggles? The 45 rejections had nothing to do with his eyesight.

My guess? He failed the psych exams. And Wright kept applying and applying and applying until he found a place desperate (and negligent) enough to take him.

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LOUISIANA
KPLC

CALCASIEU PARISH, LA (KPLC) –
The second day of testimony has begun in former Calcasieu priest Mark Broussard’s sex abuse trial.

Broussard is accused of raping altar boys while he was a priest at Our Lady Queen of Heaven and St. Henry Catholic Church, from 1986-91. Broussard is charged with molestation of a juvenile, oral sexual battery, aggravated oral sexual battery and two counts of aggravated rape.

The mother of one of the men who claims he was sexually abused by Broussard is testifying this morning.

KPLC’s Theresa Schmidt is in the courtroom. Get the latest by following her at twitter.com/KplcTschmidt.

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LOUISIANA
American Press

A state district court jury heard testimony Monday from a man who said former priest Mark Broussard began sexually assaulting him when he was an 8-year-old altar boy at St. Henry Catholic Church.

Broussard is charged with molestation of a juvenile, oral sexual battery, aggravated oral sexual battery and two counts of aggravated rape. The charges — he originally faced 224 counts of child molestation — stem from his time as a priest in Lake Charles in the late 1980s and early ’90s.

The victim’s testimony followed opening statements and testimony from Bishop Glenn John Provost, the first witness called by prosecutors.

Provost, who joined the diocese in 2007, said he met the victim in December 2012, speaking with him about a day and a half after the victim had talked to Monsignor Daniel Torres, the vicar general of the diocese.

“I found him quite presentable,” Provost said. “He was convincing, and the story was quite compelling.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Review

BY LIZ ZEMBA | Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2016

A federal judge on Tuesday delayed ruling on a Somerset County priest’s request for a new trial on his convictions for sexually molesting orphaned boys.

But U.S. District Court Judge Kim R. Gibson took interest in a defense allegation that prosecutors failed to turn over a victim’s statement that might have been favorable to the Rev. Joseph D. Maurizio.

“To me, it’s pretty clear this is favorable to the defense,” Gibson said during the hearing in Johnstown. “Whether it’s material is a separate issue.”

Maurizio is awaiting sentencing on charges he sexually molested boys at a Honduran orphanage between 1999 and 2009. The sentencing was postponed when his attorney, Steven Passarello of Altoona, filed motions seeking a new trial based on newly discovered evidence and an alleged Brady violation.

Passarello said the new evidence is a statement one of the victims gave an investigator on Sept. 20, when the trial was nearly over. In it, the victim indicates he was not “abused” by Maurizio, Passarello said.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Daily American

JOHNSTOWN — The prosecution hid evidence favorable to the defense during the trial of the Rev. Joseph D. Maurizio Jr. in September, defense attorney Steven P. Passarello argued before U.S. District Judge Kim R. Gibson Tuesday.

The defense claims that the U.S. District Attorney’s Office suppressed evidence that a key witness told prosecutors a different version of his story in a statement after his testimony that Maurizio abused him. The prosecution violated a 1963 U.S. Supreme Court landmark case, Brady v. Maryland, the defense said. The high court’s decision requires prosecutors to turn over any evidence to the defense that could be used by a defendant to support his innocence or to cast doubt on his guilt. The defense wants a new trial.

The judge said he would not make his decision from the bench, but would review the arguments and then decide soon on whether the Central City priest will get a new trial.

“It is very clear it (a statement to the prosecution by one of its key witnesses that contradicts his testimony) is favorable to the defense,” Gibson said.

The judge said, however, that whether that information is “material” is a different issue and one that will turn his decision on whether Maurizio should have a new trial.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Lebanon Daily Record

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A federal judge has heard arguments that prosecutors may have wrongly withheld evidence against a Pennsylvania priest convicted of sexually abusing children in Honduras.

The 70-year-old priest, Joseph Maurizio, was convicted in September of molesting two boys during missionary trips.

Tuesday’s hearing concerned a statement given by a boy who, at one point, told investigators he wasn’t “abused.” Federal prosecutors say the boy’s meaning was lost in translation and he later clarified that the priest fondled him.

But the priest’s lawyer says their client could have used the boy’s statement to create doubt among jurors. They say he deserves a new trial.

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MILWAUKEE (WI)
Mythicist Milwaukee

January 25, 2016

PETER ISELY ON THE MYTHICIST MILWAUKEE SHOW

Peter Isely is a founding member and longtime Midwest Director of SNAP, The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, the world’s oldest organization of survivors of childhood rape and sexual assault by clergy, with over 18,000 survivors in hundreds of chapters worldwide.

A graduate of Harvard Divinity School, Peter is a psychotherapist in private practice in Milwaukee, Wisconsin where he established the nation’s only inpatient hospital program for victims of clergy sexual trauma.

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LOUISIANA
KATC

A second alleged victim has come forward to testify against former priest Mark Broussard, who appeared again in court Tuesday morning for trial on molestation charges stemming from the 1980s.

Broussard was living in Duson when he was arrested in 2012 on rape and battery charges after a letter surfaced in late 2011 alleging that the former priest had sexually abused a Calcasieu Parish man as a child.

So far, two alleged victims have taken the stand claiming Broussard sexually abused each of them when he was their priest in Lake Charles.

The first victim sparked the investigation and trial when he wrote a letter to the bishop with molestation accusations. That victim testified about his experiences on the first day of the trial.

Tuesday, a separate victim, who attended a different school and church, testified that Broussard also touched him inappropriately as a child.

The second victim told the court that the former priest molested him at least three or four times a week for more than three years.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Peter Feuerherd | Feb. 2, 2016

Some, but not all, dioceses and parishes are taking a new look at securing offertory collections, and that’s a good thing, say critics of how the church has handled money.

“The bishops are finally recognizing that embezzlement doesn’t help their moral standing,” Charles Zech, the director of the Center for Church Management and Business Ethics at Villanova University, told NCR.

Zech noted that diocesan-wide procedures are in many ways answering long-time critics, such as Michael W. Ryan, who have long argued that collection procedures in parishes needed tightening. “He’s been crying out in the desert,” said Zech.

Such cries are being heard in dioceses and archdioceses as diverse and geographically spread as Boston, Miami and San Bernardino, Calif. Videos on archdiocesan websites for Boston and Miami offer how-tos on best practices for parish collections to assure that cash dropped into the collection baskets each Sunday actually gets to the parish bank account. An estimated 40 percent of Sunday collections comes from cash donations, seen as particularly vulnerable to pilfering.

The Diocese of San Bernardino is presenting a conference in February that will address parish collection security.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

By the early 2000s most victims approaching Tasmania’s Anglican church complaining of sexual abuse by priests were seeking financial assistance, a royal commission has been told.

Bishop John Douglas Harrower was the leader of the diocese of Tasmania for 15 years from July 2000 and one of his first moves in the job was to make a public apology for child-sex offences linked to the church.

“I was made aware of what had happened and I thought it was horrendous and I felt it was important to make an apology,” Bishop Harrower said in evidence to the commission on Tuesday.

Subsequently the bishop received 10 complaints from 10 men about their childhood abuse by former priest Garth Hawkins.

While police were investigating the matters, Bishop Harrower said the church could take no disciplinary action against suspects but moved to offer support to the victims by funding counselling and other support.

– See more at: http://www.skynews.com.au/news/local/hobart/2016/02/02/bishop-sought-funds-for-sex-abuse-victims.html#sthash.1cdU8ZWH.dpuf

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AUSTRALIA
The Conversation

Kathleen McPhillips
Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Newcastle

It’s a frontrunner to win Best Picture at the Oscars, has cleaned up the critics’ awards and won extraordinarily high ratings from filmgoers.

But I wouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t seen the recent release Spotlight yet. In a summer dominated by the return of Star Wars, who wants to watch a movie about Boston journalists exposing the Catholic Church for decades of child abuse and cover ups?

But I hope more people do see it, because as the final moments of the film make clear, Spotlight is not just a movie about historic wrongs in one US city. It’s a story about too many people, in too many countries, including my home town of Newcastle, north of Sydney.

Australia’s current Royal Commission into institutional child abuse was set up after years of dogged work by survivors, supporters and journalists to uncover abuse across many institutions but particularly the Catholic Church. Like Boston, Australian towns where the Catholic church is dominant, such as Newcastle, Wollongong and Ballarat, have been badly affected.

When I went to see Spotlight in a Newcastle cinema on a Saturday afternoon, I wasn’t surprised by who else was in the audience: I recognised survivors, families and supporters of victims, and Catholic community members, including a number of priests.

But even as a researcher who’s attended and written about the Catholic Church at the Royal Commission and the NSW Special Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, Spotlight’s finale came as a shock.

Just before the final credits roll, the filmmakers list dozens of other American cities affected by clerical abuse, which have all been tracked by the website Bishop Accountability. That US list is followed by towns and cities worldwide. The names go on and on, over several screens: from Auckland, Beunos Aires and Cape Town, to Manchester to Manila and beyond.

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UNITED STATES
Religion Dispatches

BY PATRICIA MILLER FEBRUARY 2, 2016

Fast on the heels of the news that a Bavarian boys choir directed by Pope Benedict’s brother was a hotbed of physical and sexual abuse for decades, comes the allegation that Cardinal Gerhard Müller covered up the abuse when he was the bishop of Regensburg.

According to the National Catholic Reporter, the allegation is being made by the former head of the lay diocesan council in Regensburg, Germany, who said that Müller and a deputy “systematically” covered up the abuse, disbanded the diocesan council to thwart outside investigation, and installed at least one known abuser priest in a parish who then committed more acts of abuse.

Müller has served as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the second most powerful position in the Vatican, since 2012 and has emerged as one of the most outspoken opponents of Pope Francis’ efforts to modernize church practices around marriage and divorce and the treatment of gay Catholics.

He also oversaw the disciplining of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) for its supposed disobedience to the Vatican and was widely criticized for the public dressing down he gave the nuns in 2014.

If the allegations hold up, Müller will be the third prefect of the CDF to be accused of turning a blind eye to reports of sexual abuse. Benedict has been accused of allowing serial abuser Father Marcial Maciel to hold an exalted position in the church for decades while he was prefect of the CDF despite credible charges of abuse.

Cardinal William Joseph Levada, who held the position after Benedict, came under fire for how he handled charges of abuse when he was the bishop of Portland and San Francisco. Like Benedict, who was given a report on Maciel that he disregarded, Levada reportedly received a brief in the mid-1980s from a three-priest panel on the brewing U.S. abuse scandal that he ignored.

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AUSTRALIA
The Tablet (UK)

02 February 2016 | by Mark Brolly

The Australian bishops warned it makes uncomfortable viewing but is an opportunity to re-double efforts to support victims

Two Australian bishops have encouraged Catholics to see the film Spotlight, while warning it makes uncomfortable viewing.

Archbishop Timothy Costelloe of Perth said the film about The Boston Globe’s uncovering of sex abuse in the Catholic Church in Boston Archdiocese “is an opportunity for all of us in the Church to acknowledge the extent to which some of our brothers and sisters, including our leaders, have failed so badly, also here in Australia, to be the signs and bearers of God’s love and compassion they were expected, and appointed, to be.

“More importantly it can be an opportunity to re-double our efforts to assist those who have been the victims, and now survivors, of this terrible abuse and for whom the screening of this movie might well open up painful wounds. And it must reinforce our shared determination to make our parishes and other institutions and agencies places of absolute safety for our children and young people.”

Archbishop Costelloe said survivors had lost so much, “including perhaps your faith in the Church”. “Please do not give up on God.”

“The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse continues its vital work of investigating this terrible scourge which is, to our great shame as a nation, far more widespread in institutional settings than any of us have previously realised,” he said.

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ARKANSAS
Arkansas Online

By Jaime Dunaway

A former substitute teacher at Catholic High School for Boys surrendered to authorities Tuesday on a charge of sexual assault in the first degree, prosecutors said.

Erica Suskie appeared in North Little Rock District Court on Tuesday morning and entered a plea of not guilty, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporter Scott Carroll said on Twitter.

Suskie was with her husband, former Arkansas Public Service Commission chairman Paul Suskie, at the brief hearing.

The Suskies were friends with the family of the alleged victim, who went to school at Catholic High in Little Rock, Pulaski County Chief Deputy Prosecutor John Johnson said.

Catholic High principal Steve Straessle said he reported the misconduct to a hotline, as required by law, when rumors about it developed in October. He declined to offer details about what the rumors suggested had occurred.

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ARKANSAS
Arkansas Matters

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – A substitute teacher at Catholic High School has been taken into custody after surrendering to police on sexual assault charges.

Police say Erica Suskie turned herself in this morning to face charges in the case.

On October 26 of last year, the North Little Rock Police Department received a report from the Arkansas State Police Crimes Against Children unit about the alleged abuse.

Officials with Catholic High School say they addressed the issue three months ago when the allegations were made, and took measures to protect their students.

Suskie’s arrest affidavit says that an alleged male victim said he had sexual contact and intercourse with Suskie, who’s a family friend and was his Algebra tutor.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Tara Conlan
Tuesday 2 February 2016

Use of the words “historic”, “victims” and “child pornography” should be avoided when reporting on children who have been abused, according to new media guidelines from the National Association for People Abused in Childhood.

In the wake of revelations about abuse carried out years ago by Jimmy Savile and other celebrities, the term “historic child abuse” has been widely used in newspapers and television as part of broader discussion of the issue. But Napac’s guidelines put forward language survivors would prefer journalists to use and also offer case studies.

As rapes or murders are not referred to as “historic” Napac says the word should be avoided to describe sexual abuse because, “there is nothing historic” for those who survived abuse as many are still living with the consequences.

Instead the organisation suggests reporters use the phrase “non-recent child abuse” or state the decade in which the alleged crime took place.

Napac also says that “many adults who were abused as children prefer to be known as ‘survivors’ rather than ‘victims’”, although it recognises that the word “victim” often has to be used in a legal context.

And the guidelines also ask the media to avoid using the terms “rent boy” and “child pornography” and instead write “indecent images of children or child abuse images” and “sexually exploited child”.

When speaking to those who have been abused, Napac advises reporters to “not generalise or make assumptions about the impact of child abuse on an individual survivor”.

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AUSTRALIA
Manny Waks

2/2/2016

​I have deliberately stayed silent on the proposed governance ‘reforms’ that have been recently disseminated by the Melbourne Yeshivah Centre in response to last year’s Royal Commission. Some of the proposed ‘changes’ are concerning and appear no more than an attempt by the existing trustees to entrench their power when the only proper course of action is for them to resign. But rather than criticise, I wanted to afford the Yeshivah Centre the opportunity to properly consider its position and, to the extent that they’re prepared to speak up, to hear what the rest of the Yeshivah/Chabad community had to say.

However, it now seems that the Yeshivah Centre has been vetoed by the organisation that apparently has always had ultimate power, authority and responsibility: Chabad Headquarters, which is based in Brooklyn New York. It is important to note that since this scandal became public in 2011, Chabad Headquarters have remained silent for the most part, other than a solitary statement issued following the Royal Commission.

The intervention by Chabad Headquarters raises a number of questions about their responsibility for the child sexual abuse cover-ups within Yeshivah and their failure to speak out against the leadership and communal bullying and harassment of child sexual abuse victims, their families and supporters. At the same time, it again exposes the incompetence of the Yeshivah leadership who can’t even seem to clean up their own mess properly. I have briefly addressed each of these issues below, and reproduced the letter from Chabad Headquarters and the 1973 Merkos Guidelines they reference in their letter.

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UNITED STATES
The Mennonite

Anna Groff is executive director of Dove’s Nest and chair of the Sexual Abuse Panel appointed by Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Education Agency.

Ervin Stutzman is executive director of Mennonite Church USA.

Mennonite Church USA Executive Board, Mennonite Education Agency and the Sexual Abuse Prevention Panel are extending a broad invitation to any individuals interested in confidentially disclosing if they have been approached or abused by Luke Hartman, formerly of Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) in Harrisonburg, Virginia.

Mennonite Church USA has named Linda Gehman Peachey, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and Regina Shands Stoltzfus, Goshen, Indiana, as the individuals to receive any complaints regarding Hartman’s behavior.

Hartman was the former vice president for enrollment at EMU. He also served as a professor in the EMU teacher education program and an instructor in the master of education program for the past 12 years.

With great sadness, we received the news that Hartman resigned from EMU on Jan. 12 as a result of a Jan. 8 misdemeanor charge of solicitation of prostitution by Harrisonburg Police Department. We pray for God’s grace upon Hartman, his family, friends, and the EMU community. At the same time, we feel called to extend an invitation to persons who may have been hurt by Hartman’s actions.

To be clear, this invitation does not presume Hartman’s innocence or guilt regarding the charge of solicitation of prostitution before him. Neither are we accusing Hartman of abuse. We do not have any knowledge that he hurt any individuals connected to his work at EMU or elsewhere.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

Australia’s former governor-general, Peter Hollingworth, is due to front a royal commission to give his account of how the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane responded to allegations of child sex abuse when he headed it.

Dr Hollingworth, the former Anglican archbishop of Brisbane, is listed to appear in Hobart on Wednesday when he is expected to make an apology to abuse victims, citing a serious error of judgment on the church’s handling of the matters.

Some evidence linked to Dr Hollingworth relates to John Elliot, who was a lay member of the Church of England Boys’ Society from the late 1950s, including in Tasmania.

The first report of Elliot’s misconduct was made to the Brisbane diocese in mid-1993 and was immediately escalated to Dr Hollingworth, the commission has been told.

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OHIO
ABC 22

BY LISA SMITH MONDAY, FEBRUARY 1ST 2016

DAYTON — An unbelievable case of alleged international human trafficking with ties to Ohio. Joel Wright, a former seminary student in Columbus, was in federal court Monday, on charges related to an attempt to adopt a baby in Mexico for sex. Experts on human trafficking here in the Miami Valley say it’s the reality and we shouldn’t be surprised.

“No. It’s not hard to believe,” said Diane Ream, program director for Oasis House in Dayton. “It’s really the world we live in because you can purchase anything on Craigslist, and so, to sell a human being is not unthinkable,” said Ream.

Oasis House is a local organization that helps women get on their feet after escaping human trafficking. Their walls are decorated with drawings by former human trafficking victims. It shows the pain of years of abuse.

“Most people think it only happens in third world countries, but it actually happens here,” said Ream. “A lot of the women that we work with have gone through that life, growing up in that life.”

Ream said the easy access to the interstate highways creates numerous hot spots around the Dayton area where human trafficking takes place. She said children and young girls are targeted by predators through secret gifts.

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OHIO
10TV

[with video]
[timeline]

By Tylar Bacome
Monday February 1, 2016

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Joel Wright appeared on a Vermont CBS affiliate WCAX not once but twice, at 16-years-old and 13-years-old; both times he was excited about a planned trip to a papal mass.

It was a sharp contrast to the 23-year-old seminary student who appeared in federal court on Monday on two felony charges for allegedly planning a trip to Tijuana, Mexico to buy a 1-year-old and 4-year-old for sex.

Homeland Security Agents arrested Wright Friday morning in San Diego between connecting flights.

Speaking to 10TV from the Vermont home where she raised Wright, his mom Teresa Poquette says her son was set up. “He didn’t do it he’s innocent. I still do not believe it’s true,” she said.

When asked why her son was traveling to Tijuana, Mexico when he was arrested on his connecting flight out of San Diego, she responded, “I don’t know.”

Poquette said life for her son as one of roughly 15 pre-theology students at the Josephenum wasn’t easy. She claims his path to priesthood was a bumpy road filled with dozens of rejections because of his cataracts and developed glaucoma.

“I stopped counting after 45 rejections of how many diocese and religions orders that declined him for his physical disability, for his vision, for his orthopedic for his health impairment.”

Wright was eventually admitted to Franciscan University in Steubenville where he spent two years before his studies as a pre-theology student majoring in Philosophy at the Josephenum. Both schools say Wright passed two thorough criminal background checks and psychological assessments before beginning the journey to priesthood he’d spoken about for years.

A Josephenum spokesperson said despite strict rules not to leave campus without permission, Wright emailed the school at 6:00 a.m. the day he was arrested, saying he was traveling for the weekend and would be back Tuesday.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Tuesday, February 02, 2016

Joe Leogue

The commission of investigation into mother and baby homes has cost the State €1.78m to date, Children’s Minister James Reilly has revealed.

The commission, which is due to publish its findings in February 2018, was set up last year to determine whether women and children in mother and baby homes were subject to forced separation or mistreated, and if these abuses were subsequently covered up.

The three-person commission is comprised of chairwoman Judge Yvonne Murphy and commissioners William Duncan, an international legal expert on child protection and adoption, and Prof Mary E Daly, a historian.

Mr Reilly revealed the costs in his reply to a parliamentary question from Renua leader Lucinda Creighton.

He said the €1.78m spent to date includes set-up costs and costs incurred by his department in supporting the commission.

The commission’s terms of reference have been criticised by survivors groups for being too narrow.

In December the Coalition of Mother and Baby Home Survivors delivered a letter to the offices of the commission of investigation to demand that the terms of reference be widened.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Stephen Rogers
Irish Examiner Reporter

Two clerical abuse victims have criticised a homily by the Bishop of Kilmore in which he described the abuse at the hands of the clergy as an “aberration”.

Bishop Leo O’Reilly said the religious of Ireland have experienced “the prophet’s rejection in recent times in a very painful way”.

“Indeed the whole Church in Ireland has experienced it,” he said. “In the media reaction, some years ago, following the publication of the Ryan Report, and in other media productions and commentary since, you could be forgiven for thinking that the story of religious life in Ireland, and indeed of the Church as a whole, was one of unmitigated evil and abuse.

“There was evil and abuse of course, and it was right that it be exposed and condemned. But that evil was a very small part of the story, an aberration and an exception.”

Clerical abuse victim Colm O’Gorman said Bishop O’Reilly’s comments were another example of the Church attempting to rewrite history.

“Too often bishops fail to recognise that they are uniquely responsible for the enormous decline in the authority of the Roman Catholic Church,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

February 2, 2016

Paul Bibby
Court Reporter

A Catholic priest repeatedly sexually abused three young altar boys in regional NSW in the 1980s, including raping one child at the church’s altar, a court has heard.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is being tried for 17 offences allegedly committed against the boys, aged 11 and 12, between 1980 and 1984.

The court heard the man, who is no longer a priest, has already pleaded guilty to 40 other child sex offences and is awaiting sentencing for those crimes.

In his opening to the ex-priest’s trial in the Downing Centre District Court on Tuesday, Crown prosecutor Bryan Rowe outlined a series of alleged incidents in which the accused groped, molested, raped or forced oral sex on the boys.

He said one of the boys was the victim of 11 separate offences, including repeated indecent assaults during trips to a local swimming pool.

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UNITED STATES
Reveal: The Center for Investigative Reporting

By Trey Bundy / February 1, 2016

In 2013, 30-something Katheryn Harris Carmean White confessed to elders in her Jehovah’s Witnesses congregation that she had repeatedly had sex with a 14-year-old boy.

The two elders didn’t tell police. They, and the congregation, now face a lawsuit from the Delaware attorney general accusing them of violating the state’s mandated reporting laws. The defendants claim the elders were protected from having to report the abuse by a legal exemption for clergy.

The case highlights the struggle of courts to interpret a convoluted web of clergy reporting laws that stretches across U.S. Elevating the tension is the fact that Jehovah’s Witnesses explicitly are instructed not to report child sexual abuse to secular authorities unless required by state law.

Clergy are mandated to report child abuse in 45 states, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. But laws in 32 of those states contain some version of a loophole called a clergy-penitent privilege. Those exceptions allow clergy to withhold information from authorities if they receive it from members seeking spiritual advice.

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NEBRASKA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release, February 1, 2016

January 27, 2016

Dear Bishop Conley:

We are members of a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org). Our goal is to protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded.

Recently, we learned that you have invited Bishop Robert Finn into your diocese and are letting him minister to nuns at Lincoln’s School Sisters of Christ the King convent.

As you are well aware, he was convicted of refusing to tell police of suspected child sex crimes by Fr. Shawn Ratigan. He resigned as head of the Kansas City diocese. And he signed a contract

with 40+ victims, agreeing to take steps to prevent future abuse. But he was found by an arbitrator to have broken his word and his diocese was forced to pay $1.1 million to those brave victims.

[BishopAccountability.org]

The Ratigan case is far from the only case of known or suspected child sex crimes in which Finn acted recklessly, callously or deceitfully. For example, another credibly accused child molesting cleric, Fr. Michael Tierney, was kept on the job by Finn for more than six months despite multiple child sex abuse allegations against him in at least two lawsuits.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher, article posted 1 February 2016

Australia’s national child-abuse Royal Commission will officially inquire in early February 2016 whether Cardinal George Pell is prepared to appear in the witness box in Australia later in February to answer questions about how the Catholic Church, historically, has dealt with clergy sexual abuse in two Australian cities — Melbourne and Ballarat. At present, Pell seeks to remain in the Vatican, instead of re-visiting Australia.

Since May 2015, the Royal Commission has been holding a series of occasional public hearings to obtain information about the archdiocese of Melbourne (covering the Melbourne metropolitan area) and the diocese of Ballarat (covering the western half of the state of Victoria). The Melbourne inquiry is Case Study 35, while Ballarat is Case Study 28.

George Pell, who was born in Ballarat, was originally a priest in the Ballarat diocese. He was later the archbishop of Melbourne (from 1996 to 2001) and then became the archbishop of Sydney before gaining his current senior role in the Vatican.

During a four-weeks public hearing in November-December 2015, the Royal Commission examined a series of submissions concerning clergy sexual crimes in Melbourne and Ballarat. The Royal Commission heard from victims in Ballarat and Melbourne who alleged that church leaders had been ignoring or concealing these crimes. The Commission also questioned priests from Ballarat and Melbourne who replied to many of the Commission’s questions by stating: “I do not remember” or “I cannot recall”.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Shannon Deery

MELBOURNE’s troubled Yeshivah Centre has been banned from making changes to the school’s leadership in the wake of its sexual abuse crisis.

Following a damning probe by the child abuse royal commission last year the centre announced it would replace its board of trustees and committee of management.

Many of the centre’s leaders were blamed for decades of cover-ups that led to an epidemic of sexual abuse that has shamed the Yeshivah community.

A string of former staff members have been jailed in recent years for heinous crimes committed against children.

A Governance Review Panel was setup to create a new constitution for the centre with all trustees and the interim committee of management expected be stood down by last December.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Review

BY LIZ ZEMBA | Monday, Feb. 1, 2016

The attorney for a Somerset County priest convicted in federal court of sexually molesting boys at a Honduran orphanage is seeking a new trial based on newly discovered evidence and allegations that prosecutors withheld evidence favorable to the defense.

The Rev. Joseph D. Maurizio Jr., 70, was to be sentenced Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Johnstown. But the former pastor of Our Lady Queen of Angels Church in Central City instead will appear before Judge Kim R. Gibson for an evidentiary hearing on motions for a new trial.

Federal prosecutors said Maurizio used a self-run charity based in Johnstown, Humanitarian Interfaith Ministries, to visit the orphanage numerous times between 1999 and 2009, promising candy and cash to boys to watch them shower, have sex or fondle them.

Maurizio did not testify during his trial in September. Through his attorney, Steven Passarello of Altoona, he has maintained his innocence.

Gibson denied an earlier motion seeking a new trial that was based on insufficient evidence but dismissed one of the jury’s five guilty verdicts.

Passarello is again seeking a new trial, this time in two motions filed under seal.

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CANADA
CBC News

By Martha Troian, for CBC News

The Department of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (INAC) has located thousands of people accused of physically and sexually abusing students at Indian residential schools — though the public may never learn any of their identities.

As part of the mandate set out in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement agreement, INAC located 5,315 alleged abusers, both former employees and students at these schools.

To do this, 17 private investigation firms were contracted, at a cost of $1,576,380, beginning in 2005, according to information provided by the department.

The alleged perpetrators were tracked down not to face criminal charges, however, but only to see if they would be willing to participate in hearings to determine compensation for residential school survivors. The Independent Assessment Process (IAP) is the out-of-court process for resolving the most severe abuse claims coming out of the residential schools system

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CANADA
The Daily Courier

TORONTO — A well-known Toronto pastor who officiated at Jack Layton’s state funeral is denying accusations of sex crimes in Nova Scotia that police allege date back four decades.

“I want to be crystal clear: I am innocent of these allegations,” Rev. Brent Hawkes said in a statement on the website of the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto.

“The purported events simply did not take place.”

RCMP Staff Sgt. Craig Burnett said Monday that Hawkes has been charged with indecent assault and gross indecency related to allegations of a sexual assault in the 1970s.

Hawkes, 65, and a native of Bath, N.B., officiated over the state funeral for NDP leader Jack Layton in Toronto in August 2011, and has been a senior pastor at the Metropolitan Community Church for decades.

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TEXAS
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

BY DEANNA BOYD
dboyd@star-telegram.com

Days into his trial on charges that he molested a teenage church member more than a decade ago, the former pastor of Cowboy Way Church in Alvarado pleaded guilty Monday to indecency with a child in exchange for seven years’ deferred adjudication probation.

Under the sentence, if Dan William Haby Jr. abides by the terms of his probation, the case will be dismissed with no conviction on his record.

If he violates probation, he can be sentenced to a maximum of 20 years in prison.

Either way, Haby is now required to register as a sex offender for life.

Afterward, the victim, now 31, said Haby’s plea gave him a “freedom that I haven’t had in 16 years.”

“It forced him to tell everyone that he’s guilty and admit to what’s he done, and that is a freedom for me not to have to carry the burden of what’s been 16 years of a lie,” the victim said. “I pray that he finds forgiveness and that he seeks the healing … and the counseling he needs to get better.”

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LOUISIANA
KSLA

By Theresa Schmidt

LAKE CHARLES, LA (KPLC) –
A jury in a former priest’s sex abuse trial heard graphic testimony Monday from a man who said he was sexually assaulted by Mark Broussard.

The witness’s testimony portrayed Broussard as a predator who groomed the boy for sexual activity, eventually accelerating to rape.

Mark Anthony Broussard is charged with molestation of a juvenile, oral sexual battery, aggravated oral sexual battery and two counts of aggravated rape. The allegations revolve around Broussard’s time as a priest at Our Lady Queen of Heaven and St. Henry Catholic Church, from 1986-91. The charges against Broussard are based on allegations of two men who were altar boys. Broussard, who is free on $1.5 million bond, was initially indicted on 224 counts of sexual abuse, but the charges were reduced to five, which reflect the entirety of the accusations.

KPLC’s Theresa Schmidt is covering the trial. Follow her at twitter.com/KplcTschmidt.

The man who took the stand Monday said he was about 8 years old and riding his bike around the parking lot of St. Henry when a stranger stopped him. That man was Broussard.

According to the witness, Broussard befriended him and eventually fondled, molested and raped him as the sexual contact accelerated over the course of about a year.

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AUSTRALIA
The Advertiser

Nigel Hunt

A VICTIM of notorious paedophile Robert Brandenburg was threatened with legal action on two occasions by a senior Anglican Church official when he reported the abuse, an inquiry has been told.

In astonishing evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Adelaide man Mark King detailed how he reported his abuse in 1993 to then Archdeacon Brian Smith — only to be dismissed and threatened with legal action if he spoke about it to others.

Mr King, who was also abused by a Church of England Boys Society leader, fellow members and Brandenburg after he joined the Plympton branch when aged 10, said Archdeacon Smith was “aggressively defensive’’ about Brandenburg and had told him he had known him for more than 30 years.

He said Archdeacon Smith was president of CEBS when Brandenburg was the CEBS Commissioner for South Australia. Archdeacon Smith had also told him that Brandenburg had often been to his house and he vouched for his good character.

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CALIFORNIA
10 News

A seminary student accused of traveling from Ohio to San Diego with the intent of going to Tijuana to have sex with female infants should be held without bail because he is a flight risk and a danger to the community, a prosecutor told a federal judge Monday.

Joel Alexander Wright, 23, was arrested at Lindbergh Field on Friday and charged with traveling with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct and aggravated sexual abuse of a child.

The defendant, clad in white jumpsuit with a chain between his ankles, was advised of the charges against him and had an attorney appointed to represent him.

Magistrate Judge Bernard Skomal scheduled a detention hearing for Thursday.

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AUSTRALIA
Mercury

ANDREW DRUMMOND

BY the early 2000s most victims approaching Tasmania’s Anglican Church complaining of sexual abuse by priests were seeking financial assistance, a royal commission has been told.

Bishop John Douglas Harrower was the leader of the diocese of Tasmania for 15 years from July 2000 and one of his first moves in the job was to make a public apology for child-sex offences linked to the church.

“I was made aware of what had happened and I thought it was horrendous and I felt it was important to make an apology,” Bishop Harrower said in evidence to the commission on Tuesday.

Subsequently the bishop received 10 complaints from 10 men about their childhood abuse by former priest Garth Hawkins.

While police were investigating the matters, Bishop Harrower said the church could take no disciplinary action against suspects but moved to offer support to the victims by funding counselling and other support.

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

AAP

More than four decades after the childhood sexual abuse his mind had repressed, a car crash brought the memories flooding back.

The victim, who cannot be named for legal reasons, on Tuesday told a royal commission that as an Adelaide teenager in the late 1960s he was abused by five men, each with links to the Anglican church.

But he had no recollection of the abuse until 2010, after an accident when his car rolled.

“I started having flashbacks about the car accident and then I started to have flashbacks about the sexual abuse,” the man told a public hearing in Hobart.

“These flashbacks escalated over the next month and began occurring every day.”

It made the man remember the abuse he suffered after joining the Church of England Boys’ Society at St Richard’s in the Adelaide suburb of Lockleys.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Emilie Gramenz

Peter Hollingworth, a former Anglican archbishop of Brisbane and Australian governor-general, was warned a paedophile priest “posed a risk of re-offending”, a psychiatrist has told an inquiry.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is investigating the Anglican Church and its youth group, the Church of England Boys Society (CEBS).

Brisbane psychiatrist Dr John Slaughter told a hearing in Hobart he consulted with Anglican priest John Elliot in 1993.

Mr Hollingworth had asked the psychiatrist to see Elliot after an allegation of abuse, and Elliot allowed information about the sessions to be relayed back to the then-archbishop, Dr Slaughter said.

The inquiry heard Elliot told Dr Slaughter about previous offences, disclosing that he remained sexually attracted to boys and preferred boys who were around puberty.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

A former NSW Catholic priest accused of molesting young altar boys in churches and pools is already in custody awaiting sentence for 40 other child sex offences, a jury has heard.

The trial of the 61-year-old man began on Tuesday, with Sydney’s District Court hearing allegations he abused three altar boys in the early 1980s, all from the same church.

They were then aged about 11, and the accusations range from grabbing genitals to raping a boy on a church altar.

The former regional priest, who can’t be identified, also repeatedly targeted one victim in a local pool, crown prosecutor Bryan Rowe said.

After drinking tea with the alleged victim’s family the former priest would take the boy to a local pool and during several trips he allegedly pinched the boy’s buttocks, pinned him against the pool wall and rubbed the boy’s penis.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

February 2, 2016

Henrietta Cook
Education Reporter at The Age

Concerned parents and students at a Melbourne Catholic school have boycotted mass after calling for their priest to resign over abuse allegations.

A group of parents at St Patrick’s School in Mentone and St John Vianney’s School in Parkdale have been demanding that parish priest Father John Walshe stand down.

The Catholic priest defended Cardinal George Pell at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and has been accused of sexually abusing an 18-year-old seminarian in 1982.

He was in his early 20s at the time and had been recently ordained. He denied the abuse and said the incident was consensual.

It was revealed in December that the victim received $75,000 in compensation after the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne apologised and accepted that he had been sexually abused by Father Walshe.

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OHIO
WTOV

[with video]

STEUBENVILLE, Ohio — A Catholic seminary student who was arrested Friday on child sex charges was confirmed to have attended Franciscan University for two semesters.

Joel Wright, 23, was taken into police custody in California on allegations that he planned to adopt a three-year-old girl from Mexico for the purpose of raping her.

Franciscan University issued a statement Monday. School officials said they are not permitted to go into detail, but Wright was a student in the fall 2015 and spring 2015 semesters.

The statement went on to say “Franciscan University cooperates fully with law enforcement agencies on any issues of concern. Any questions regarding an ongoing criminal investigation need to be directed to legal authorities.”

Wright was a student at Pontifical College in Columbus before he was arrested. He has since been expelled.

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CANADA
CBC News

Brent Hawkes, a prominent Toronto pastor, has been charged with committing sex crimes in Nova Scotia, lawyer Clayton Ruby confirmed to CBC News.

Ruby said his client was charged by the RCMP in December with indecent assault and gross indecency in Kings County, N.S. The incidents allegedly occurred in the 1970s.

The 65-year-old, who delivered the eulogy at former New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton’s 2011 funeral, has been the senior pastor at the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto for nearly 40 years.

Hawkes is well-known in the LGBT community and has been recognized for his work by the City of Toronto, the United Nations Toronto Association, York University and the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Emilie Gramenz

Former Tasmanian bishop Philip Newell “must have known about” a paedophile priest who was abusing boys, his son’s former girlfriend has told the royal commission into child sexual abuse.

A public hearing in Hobart is investigating the Anglican Church and its youth group, the Church of England Boys Society (CEBS).

In the 1980s, Catherine Hutchinson dated Christopher Newell, the son of former bishop Phillip Newell.

Their relationship lasted about five years.

Ms Hutchinson told the commission Christopher Newell made comments about the conduct of paedophile priest Louis Daniels in 1984, prior to any official complaints being made.

“He said, when Lou Daniels is around at CEBS camps, there will be CEBS with sore bottoms,” she said.

Counsel Assisting Naomi Sharp then asked “did you ever pursue with Christopher Newell what he meant when he made these comments?”

“No, I didn’t,” Ms Hutchinson said.

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