ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED STATES
ProPublica

by Stephen Engelberg
ProPublica, Feb. 25, 2016

There’s a moment in almost every movie when people in the audience who really know the line of work depicted on screen cry out in frustration and say: “Oh, come on!” “Absurd.” “Never happens.”

Over the decades, Hollywood screenwriters have taken liberties with every imaginable profession and craft, from doctors to lawyers to spies to police detectives. Rocky Balboa survives punches that would decapitate an ordinary boxer. The car chases in The Bourne Identity defy physics. John McClane, the hard-boiled cop in the Die Hard series, displays a supernatural ability to evade bullets.

Journalism movies have had their share of utterly improbable moments. In the 1994 film “The Paper,” the city editor of a New York City tabloid gets into a fist fight with his female boss as he tries to stop the presses. (Not a great career move.) More recently, the first season of HBO’s television series The Newsroom showed a producer landing a series of astounding scoops in the first hours after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon. The reporter’s information came from miraculously well-placed sources – a sister who worked at Halliburton and a close friend who happened to be a junior BP executive attending all the key crisis meetings.

All of this makes “Spotlight,” the film based on the Boston Globe’s investigation of the Catholic Church, a remarkable achievement. The movie, which has been nominated for six Academy Awards including best picture, vividly captures the mix of frustration, drudgery and excitement that goes into every great investigative story. Where liberties were taken, and there were a few, they are in line with the realities of the news business.

One of the most credible aspects of the movie is the cluelessness with which the reporters begin their quest. As is often the case, the Globe’s group of reporters, known as the “Spotlight” Team, have no idea of the size and scope of what they’re trying to examine. At first, they stumble around, lacking the most basic information about how the church bureaucracy worked.

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UNITED STATES
Variety

Sacha Pfeiffer
@SachaPfeiffer

No good can come from getting involved with Hollywood.

That was my firm conviction when a pair of producers approached me and my Boston Globe Spotlight team colleagues seven years ago with what seemed a fanciful proposal: that one of our past projects, on the Catholic Church’s cover-up of clergy sex abuse, could become an intriguing film.

I was highly wary. Never mind that the grim topic would likely have little appeal to mainstream audiences. Never mind that our jobs are hardly cinematic — we make phone calls, review documents, collect data — and were unlikely to be compelling on screen.

Beyond that, I feared for our personal lives, the loss of privacy, the inevitable sensationalism as reality morphed into screenplay. I envisioned fictionalized interoffice affairs — the Hollywoodization of our lives.

But my colleagues had fewer reservations, and were persuaded by Blye Faust and Nicole Rocklin’s pitch: They told us they wanted to make a movie that would celebrate journalism at a time when the newspaper industry is in great financial peril.

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UNITED STATES
TCPalm

By Paul Janensch

My choice for best picture of 2015 is “Spotlight.”

This extraordinary movie shows us how reporters and editors at The Boston Globe exposed the sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests in the Boston area.

We’ll find out if it wins the Oscar for best picture when ABC brings us the Academy Awards at 8:30 p.m. Sunday.

I was the editor of another newspaper that informed the public of sexual abuse by priests. More on that angle later.

“Spotlight” already has won a number of awards after receiving rave reviews. Even the Catholic News Service called it “illuminating.”

The movie takes its name from the Globe’s Spotlight investigative team, which began looking into sex-abuse cases in 2001 under then new editor Martin Baron and despite the opposition of Cardinal Bernard Law, who covered up the scandal.

Not only a gripping drama, “Spotlight” is the most accurate movie portrayal of how good journalists do their work since “All the President’s Men.” …

Ten years before the Globe’s disclosures, I was the new editor of the Telegram & Gazette in Worcester, Massachusetts, west of Boston.

Soon after I started, I learned that priests in the Worcester diocese had sexually abused minors but the offenses were kept secret. We started investigating.

Men who said they had been victims as boys consented to be interviewed. They asked not to be named. I already had established a policy that anyone quoted in a staff-written story must be named and persuaded the men to let us identify them.

We published several stories about such cases on Page 1 under restrained headlines.

A monsignor who was executive assistant to the bishop called me to say that I, a Mass-going Catholic, was a disgrace to the church.

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ROME
Religion News Service

Rosie Scammell | February 25, 2016

ROME (RNS) Police in Spain have arrested a fugitive businessman accused of swindling pensioners from the U.S. and elsewhere out of millions of euros with the backing of a Catholic priest who worked at the Vatican before retiring to the Canary Islands.

Christian Ventisette was stopped at Madrid airport after an international arrest warrant was issued for the French-Italian businessman, Italy’s financial police said Wednesday (Feb. 24).

Ventisette is accused of scamming more than 250 investors out of around 30 million euros ($33 million) in an international operation involving an Argentine priest.

The retired cleric, the Rev. Patrizio Benvenuti, was put under house arrest in Italy earlier this month. He previously worked at a Vatican tribunal and currently has residency in the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago off the west coast of Africa.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Jane Martinson and Jamie Grierson
Thursday 25 February 2016

Serious failings at the BBC allowed Jimmy Savile and Stuart Hall to sexually abuse nearly 100 people without detection for decades, according to two damning reports published on Thursday, which insisted that the corporation still had lessons to learn from the affair.

Dame Janet Smith, who started the independent inquiry in October 2012, found that despite what had happened with Savile and Hall in previous years, those worked at the BBC were still worried about reporting potential abuse and taking on the broadcaster’s stars.

She concluded that “an atmosphere of fear still exists today in the BBC possibly because obtaining work in the BBC is highly competitive and many people no longer have the security on an employment contract”.

It was incumbent on the BBC to examine its culture today, Smith added, particularly when it came to the continued fear of speaking out and its attitudes towards “the talent”, or on-air stars.

In total, Savile sexually assaulted 57 females and 15 boys from the late 1950s to the middle of the last decade. Three incidents of rape and attempted rape took place on BBC premises, Smith said, and the youngest victim to whom Smith spoke was eight yearsold at the time of the offence.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Sandra Laville
Thursday 25 February 2016

A hierarchical organisation, overseeing a climate of fear, where the overriding concern is to protect reputation rather than investigate the sexual abuse of children and young people.

Remind you of anyone? Today it is the BBC taking the onslaught as Dame Janet Smith’s report highlights decades of sexual abuse carried out by Jimmy Savile under the noses of senior managers – whom Smith kindly clears because they “generally did not hear rumours”.

But the BBC can take depressing comfort from overwhelming evidence that it was not and is not alone in its failures. The Church of England, the Catholic church, leading private schools, local authorities in Oxford, Rotherham, Rochdale, Derby, the police service and numerous other institutions in British public life have all exhibited these same traits.

When a senior police officer first revealed the scale of Savile’s offending three years ago he noted the entertainer had been “hiding in plain sight” for decades. But the likes of Jimmy Savile, albeit of varying degrees of recidivism, have been hiding in plain sight across many British institutions and within society for years.

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NEW YORK
The Riverdale Press

By Shant Shahrigian
Posted 2/25/16

Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt is “stepping aside from the Senior Rabbinate” of Riverdale Jewish Center (RJC), according to a Wednesday email from the president of the synagogue to congregants obtained by The Press.

The move follows a 2015 report in The New York Times that described the rabbi’s years-long habit of taking boys to a sauna naked, prompting some members of RJC to leave the institution.

It was not immediately clear what role, if any, Rabbi Rosenblatt would maintain at RJC. The email from RJC President Samson Fine reads in full:

“Update Regarding Rabbi Rosenblatt’s Plans

“Dear Congregants,

“Rabbi Rosenblatt has today informed RJC’s leadership that he intends to step aside from the Senior Rabbinate of the RJC. The Shul’s Board of Trustees was informed at this evening’s Board meeting and we anticipate discussing transition details with the Board in the next two weeks.

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AUSTRALIA
Border Mail

By Tim Barlass
Feb. 26, 2016

A 72-year-old former Sydney Catholic priest given six months to a year to live has been sentenced to two years and three weeks in jail for sexual assault against teenage boys.

Father Robert Flaherty, who committed the offences in the 1970s and 1980s was allowed to remain seated in the dock at the Downing Centre court with his walking stick in front of him as the sentence was announced.

He had previously pleaded guilty to three charges against two boys but was found guilty in a jury trial last September for two offences committed against an altar boy at the priest’s Mollymook holiday home.

Sentencing Judge Richard Cogswell, SC, said that Flaherty’s age and health together with the impact of a prison sentence must be reflected in the non-parole period.

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FRANCE
Metro

PROCES – Quatre hommes âgés de 46 à 61 ans étaient jugés ce mercredi par le tribunal correctionnel de Paris pour avoir escroqué, tenté d’escroquer ou recelé des biens provenant d’une escroquerie commise à l’encontre de prêtres. 158 hommes d’églises se sont faits avoir entre 2009 et 2012 pour un préjudice environnant les 300 000 euros.

Seule une victime était présente dans la salle ce mercredi. Au total, ils sont pourtant 158 prêtres à avoir fait les frais, entre 2009 et 2012, d’une vaste escroquerie commise par quatre hommes âgés de 46 à 61 ans.

Le tribunal correctionnel les a condamnés ce mercredi à des peines allant de six mois de prison avec sursis à quatre ans de prison ferme pour les faits qui leur étaient reprochés. Jugés pour escroquerie et tentative d’escroquerie, Michel, 59 ans – absent à l’audience pour raisons de santé – et Jacky, 61 ans, ont été condamnés respectivement à quatre ans et deux ans de prison ferme (peine aménageable pour le dernier). Karim, 52 ans, et Denis, 46 ans – lui aussi absent pour raisons de santé – ont eux été condamnés à six mois de prison avec sursis pour recel de bien provenant de l’escroquerie.

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FRANCE
International Business Times

BY JESS MCHUGH @MCHUGHJESS ON 02/25/16

A Paris court on Wednesday sentenced a French man to four years in prison for swindling 158 priests out of 300,000 euros, or approximately $330,286, local media outlets reported. The man, identified only as “Michael,” said the multiple-year scam was vengeance for having been sexually abused by a priest as a child.

Michael, 59, claimed he was abused as a child by a priest or possibly multiple priests who worked for Les Orphelins D’Auteil, a nonprofit foundation for orphans. He later took his allegations to the diocese of Troyes, in the region where the alleged sexual abuse occurred, and then all the way to the Vatican. An official inquest from the Vatican found that the priests in question were deceased.

Available reports do not clarify whether Michael discovered his abusers were dead before or after he began his lucrative scam. The scam included targeting elderly priests by soliciting donations for a Christian charity. He would gain their trust by saying that they had baptized his child or by using their first names before he asked for their donations. Other versions of his story included saying he was a recently released convict and needed money to get back on his feet.

Michael was sentenced to four years in jail for his scheme and three other accomplices, including a friend identified as “Jacky”, were sentenced for their participation and handed sentences ranging from six months to two years. Jacky was an avid gambler and took over the scam when Michael went to jail in 2010. As an active gambler, Jacky told the court he stole money from the priests for gambling, not out of revenge.

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ROME
The Tablet (UK)

25 February 2016 | by Christopher Lamb

Benedict XVI made strenuous efforts to clean up one of the Church’s worst abuse scandals, Pope Francis has said, while hinting that his predecessor was prevented from taking tougher action.

During an in-flight press conference returning home from Mexico, Francis was asked about the case of Fr Marcial Maciel, the Mexican founder of the Legionaries of Christ, who sexually abused numerous seminarians.

He was also a drug addict, maintained relationships with two women and fathered up to six children, two of whom he was accused of abusing.

Despite this, he founded a successful and extremely wealthy religious order, which included a lay branch, Regnum Christi, and was close to Pope John Paul II and senior figures in the Vatican.

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AUSTRALIA
Latin American Herald Tribune

BANGKOK – Former Catholic bishop Ronald Mulkearns said Thursday when he had to tackle child abuse cases involving priests in his diocese in Australia, he knew it was wrong but was not sure if it was a crime, local press reported.

Mulkearns, 85, made an appearance through video-conference at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which is investigating responses from religious, public and educative institutions to pederasty in recent decades in Australia.

The former bishop of Ballarat diocese (1971-1996), in the southeastern state of Victoria, said he never directly asked priests if they had abused minors, but knew about it through reports from psychologists, according to ABC news.

At least 14 priests were denounced in 130 cases of child abuse from the 1960s to the 1980s, and many of the victims committed suicide due to the trauma.

Gerald Francis Ridsdale, one of the abusers, was sentenced to eight years in 2014 for several cases of pedophilia, including one involving his own nephew, between 1961 and 1981.

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NEW YORK
Times of Israel

BY RAOUL WOOTLIFF AND JTA February 25, 2016

Following a tumultuous year of sexual misconduct allegations and a community effort to bring about his ouster, Rabbi Jonathan Rosenblatt told his New York synagogue Wednesday that he would step down as community rabbi.

The decision was announced in a letter sent to the members of the Riverdale Jewish Center by its president, Samson Fine.

“Rabbi Rosenblatt has today informed RJC’s leadership that he intends to step aside from the Senior Rabbinate of the RJC,” the email read. “The Shul’s Board of Trustees was informed at this evening Board meeting and we anticipate discussing transition details the Board in the next two weeks.”

The Riverdale Jewish Center had decided to keep Rosenblatt in place despite protests over reports of sauna chats with naked boys revealed in an exposé in The New York Times in May 2014.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

22 February

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has today announced March preliminary hearing dates for three further investigations, in addition the hearing on 9 March in Lord Greville Janner:

The Anglican Church
Lambeth Council
Cambridge House, Knowl View and Rochdale

The Preliminary Hearing on allegations of child sexual abuse involving the Anglican Church will take place on the morning of Wednesday 16 March, in Court 73 of the Royal Courts of Justice.

The Preliminary Hearing on allegations of child sexual abuse involving Cambridge House, Knowl View and Rochdale will take place in the afternoon of Wednesday 16 March, in court 73 of the Royal Courts of Justice.

The Preliminary Hearing on allegations of child sexual abuse involving children in the care of Lambeth Council will take place on the morning of Thursday 24 March, in Court 73 of the Royal Courts of Justice.

As previously announced, the Preliminary Hearing into allegations of child sexual abuse involving Lord Greville Janner and the institutional responses to those allegations will take place on Wednesday 9 March, in Court 73 of the Royal Courts of Justice.

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WALES
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

24 February

The Chair of the Inquiry Hon. Dame Lowell Goddard DNZM today met with eight Welsh victim and survivor groups at the Sexual Assault Referral Centre in Cardiff Royal Infirmary. Also at the meeting was Inquiry Panel member, Professor Sir Malcolm Evans, and Michael May and Lucy Duckworth from the Inquiry’s Victims and Survivors’ Consultative Panel (VSCP).

At the meeting were representatives from Rape and Sexual Assault Support Centre Wales, New Pathways, Seren, Survivors Trust Cymru, Stepping Stones, North Wales Sexual Assault Referral Centre, Cyfannol Women’s Aid, and Ynys Saff Cardiff and Vale Sexual Assault Referral Centre.

The visit marks the next step in the Inquiry’s work in Wales. During the course of the meeting, the Chair discussed the Truth Project and set out plans for the opening of the Inquiry’s Welsh office, which will be located in Cardiff. She also launched the Welsh version of the Inquiry’s website

Hon. Dame Lowell Goddard said,

“I would like to thank the representatives of the Rape and Sexual Assault Support Centre Wales, New Pathways, Seren, Survivors Trust Cymru, Stepping Stones, North Wales Sexual Assault Referral Centre, Cyfannol Women’s Aid, and Ynys Saff Cardiff and Vale Sexual Assault Referral Centre for taking the time to talk to me about their work and to Ynys Saff SARC for hosting our meeting today. Every single day these organisations work incredibly hard, supporting victims and survivors of child sexual abuse right across Wales.

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WALES
Wales Online

The judge investigating the child sexual abuse scandal in Britain has met Welsh victims’ groups ahead of the establishment of the inquiry’s dedicated office in Wales.

Dame Lowell Goddard is leading the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which was set up by the Home Secretary after wide-ranging abuse was revealed following the Jimmy Savile scandal .

The New Zealand judge will look into whether institutions in Wales and England failed to protect youngsters from sexual abuse.

And she has urged victims from any “city, town or village” to get in touch with the inquiry.

Her remit also includes demanding accountability for any past failings and will give recommendations to ensure similar failings are avoided in future.

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UNITED STATES
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

‘Spotlight’ 4 stars

Pittsburgh native Michael Keaton stars in the story of how the Boston Globe discovered a conspiracy to cover up clergy sexual abuse of children.

On his first day in 2001, editor Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) orders the staff to look at defrocked priest and accused sexual predator John J. Geoghan and what the archdiocese did or did not know and do about him.

The task falls to the four-person Spotlight team — editor Walter “Robby” Robinson (Mr. Keaton) and reporters Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) and Matt Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James) — which normally picks its own projects.

Mr. Keaton plays a member of the Globe investigative team as though he had been working in newsrooms all his life and reminds us he can shine in an ensemble as well as a leading role.

“Spotlight,” which nails the details about how reporters dress, eat and work, treats this investigation as a suspenseful detective story. But it never loses sight of the young people harmed by pedophile priests, the church that figuratively and literally looms large throughout, and the mandate to keep pursuing the story when other editors might have been satisfied with far less much earlier.

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UNITED STATES
Sky News (Australia)

A victim of abuse by a Catholic priest, whose story is the focus of the Oscar contender Spotlight, says the Vatican is still failing to tackle the scandal.

Phil Saviano was repeatedly assaulted, along with several school friends, by a priest in their small home town near Boston in the 1960s.

He revealed his abuse in the 1990s and a decade later handed the dossiers of information to the Boston Globe’s ‘Spotlight’ investigations team.

Their work uncovered evidence that the church in Boston was aware of abuse by dozens of priests and had sought to keep it quiet.

The movie Spotlight, starring Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams, is regarded as a favourite to land the Academy Award for Best Picture at Sunday’s ceremony.

Mr Saviano, who still lives in Boston, told Sky News he has been disappointed by the Vatican’s response to the now-global scandal.

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CANADA
The Peterborough Examiner

By Jason Bain, The Peterborough Examiner
Wednesday, February 24, 2016

A former city youth pastor given a 90-day intermittent sentence last year for historical sexual assault will face trial again late this year for outstanding charges of administering a stupefying substance and administering a noxious thing.

Clifton Pelley, 50, appeared in Peterborough Superior Court of Justice on Wednesday where the non-jury trial expected to last between seven and 10 days was scheduled to begin Dec. 5 in Lindsay, with pre-trial motions set for Sept. 26 and assignment court Oct. 17.

The outstanding charges relate to another alleged victim in the case who was not part of Pelley’s non-jury trial, which took place from Oct. 20 to 28, 2014.

A judicial pre-trial, where lawyers from both sides meet before a judge to narrow the scope of a case, usually behind closed doors, was also completed Wednesday – even though Pelley did not have a lawyer formally on the record.

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ISRAEL
Australian Jewish News

Criminals across the world will be watching the case of Malka Leifer very closely. Not because they are necessarily interested in her alleged crimes or have any direct connection to the former Adass head teacher, but because if she can avoid extradition she might set a precedent others will try and follow.

Leifer, who is living in Israel, is fighting an extradition order to return to Australia and face charges relating to child sexual abuse allegations.

So far, she isn’t resisting the order on its merits or by claiming that she has asylum in Israel or by asking for more time to prepare her defence. Her team is simply stating that she has crippling panic attacks before her court appearances that prevent her from showing up.

As a result, the process is facing delay after delay after delay.

And pleading for his client’s health to be taken into account, her lawyer requested last Friday that the case be dismissed, asking the court, “Why are we doing this to her?”

The answer is very simple. Leifer is wanted by Victorian police to face 74 counts of sexual assault.

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COLORADO
Western Slope Now

[with video]

The Senate is seeing two bills involving domestic violence and sexual assault after the House passes both with enormous support.

House Bill 16-1260 wants to double the statute of limitations to report sexual assault from 10 years to 20.

House Bill 16-1066 takes aim at habitual domestic violence offenders, creating their fourth offense open to a class five felony charge, should the prosecute choose.

“”I had two Colorado Women who shared with me their story of being drugged and assaulted by Bill Cosby.” Rep. Rhonda Fields said, a Democrat representing Aurora.

She wrote a previous bill that was killed aiming to eliminate the statute completely. Fields said that bill would have been a stretch.

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AUSTRALIA
Coffs Coast Advocate

Chris Calcino | 25th Feb 2016

BOTH sides of New South Wales politics have backed legislation removing the statute of limitations on civil child abuse claims.

The bill is moving through the lower house and attracting support from all corners.

However, Labor Member for Prospect Hugh McDermott claimed the government was playing politics with the issue.

Mr McDermott used his maiden speech to parliament last year to pay tribute to his mother, who was abused after being taken from her parents and sent to Bidura Children’s Home as a small child.

“I do express my disappointment that a similar bill was put forward by the Opposition last year, and the government decided to oppose that bill,” Mr McDermott said.

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UNITED STATES
USA Today

Maeve McDermott, USATODAY February 25, 2016

Before Liev Schreiber donned wire-framed glasses to play Marty Baron in Spotlight, the newspaper editor was already a legend in his own right, from spearheading the Boston Globe’s investigation of the Catholic Church to winning Pulitzer Prizes at nearly every other paper he’s edited, most recently as the executive editor of the Washington Post.

On Thursday night, Baron discussed the Oscar-nominated film — that he’s seen “eight times,” if anyone’s counting — in a wide-ranging conversation at American University, discussing everything from the film’s impact on abuse survivors and the shocking details uncovered by screenwriters to his opinion of the Revenant.

He loves Schreiber’s portrayal

Baron had nothing but praise for Schreiber, who he’ll presumably meet again when they both travel to the Oscars on Sunday. “He’s a fantastic actor,” he said, joking, “Since the movie came out people say he looks like me.”

He’s been approached by abuse survivors sharing their stories for the first time

“It’s resonated with abuse survivors in an incredible way,” Baron said, sharing an anecdote about an 82-year-old man who, after watching Spotlight at a screening, shared his own account of abuse for the first time.

“He said he’d tried twice to see this movie and couldn’t make it past the parking lot of the theater. He saw it at this screening … he’d never told anyone, never spoken to anyone about it before. He talked about how it’d stayed with him his entire life. He said, ‘All I want to say is thank you,’ and that was incredibly moving, and then he walked back to his family.

That sort of thing has happened at a lot of events I’ve been at … abuse survivors encouraged to come forward and talk about the abuse they suffered.”

And newspapers who’ve changed their minds about investigative reporting

It’s hard to come away from Spotlight and not feel reinvigorated about the role of journalism. Apparently, this extends to journalism execs.

“I’ve heard from publishers saying they are rededicating themselves to investigative reporting,” Baron said.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Stephanie Dalzell

A former Catholic priest has been sentenced to more than two years in prison for child assault offences in New South Wales dating back to the 1970s.

Robert Flaherty, 72, assaulted three boys in their early teens in Sydney and at Mollymook, on the state’s south coast, during the 1970s and 1980s, but was only arrested in 2013.

A complaint was first made in 1972, however instead of being referred to police, Flaherty was transferred to a parish in Ryde.

The former priest pleaded guilty to three offences of indecent assault, but was also found guilty by a jury last September of two further offences.

He appeared at Sydney’s Downing Centre court and sat impassively as his sentence was handed down.

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ROME
ABC News

By Europe bureau chief Lisa Millar

Cardinal George Pell’s private secretary has sent an email to colleagues in Rome asking for them to attend a royal commission hearing beginning at 10pm (local time) on Sunday in Europe.

A copy of the email, seen by the ABC, was sent out to Fathers and Seminarians saying Cardinal Pell would be pleased if they could provide support with their presence at the hotel.

It tells them to register with the Royal Commission.

The note appears to come from Cardinal Pell’s private secretary, Father Mark Withoos.

Father Withoos confirmed he sent a private email to priest friends of the Cardinal who had made inquires about how they might help when he gave his video evidence.

The email has now been seen by several seminarians, clergymen and media representations, and the ABC is aware that there have been conversations with Father Withoos about gathering support.

The email says there will be at least 15 victims and advocates from Australia, and possibly others who might arrive from elsewhere in Europe, as well as a large media “cohort”.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Australian Associated Press
Wednesday 24 February 2016

A Victorian bishop says he tried to protect the church’s reputation and ensure pedophile priests did not offend again but regrets he did not handle it differently.

Ronald Mulkearns, the bishop of Ballarat from 1971 to 1997, said he retired early because he was not handling the problem of a number of cases of pedophilia in the diocese as well as he should have.

“I certainly regret that I didn’t deal differently with pedophilia,” he told the child abuse royal commission on Thursday. “We had no idea, or I had no idea, of the effects of the incidents that took place.”

The commission has heard Mulkearns knew about priests who abused children and moved them between parishes, also sending some for treatment.

The counsel assisting the commission Gail Furness SC put to the bishop that he chose to protect the church’s reputation over protecting children in the way he dealt with the abuse complaints.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

Megan Neil
AAP

Prayers couldn’t help Gerald Ridsdale, he needed jail or castration, a psychiatrist says.

Hard-core sexual deviants like pedophile priest Ridsdale had significant personality disorders, had no concept of empathy and were masters of deception, former Franciscan priest and psychiatrist Dr Peter Evans said.

“They are far more difficult to treat. They need to be in jail,” Dr Evans told the child abuse royal commission.

If the hard-core deviants were not in jail they would need medical castration, the use of medication to suppress their sexual drive for as long as it took for them to learn to control their behaviour, he said.

“It’s very difficult to treat them out of jail. It’s almost impossible to stop them acting out.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

February 25, 2016

Chris Johnston

John Skewes was sitting at home in Ballarat on Thursday, reading about all the allegations against and proven crimes by Catholic clergy in the regional city he has lived in all his life.

As a victim of abuse himself – not once but twice, although not by Catholics or Christian Brothers – Mr Skewes, 66, decided to drive to the Nazareth House nursing home, a grand Victorian building beside Lake Wendouree. This is where former Ballarat bishop Ronald Mulkearns lies in palliative care, looked after by nuns. He is 85. Today he was giving evidence by video link to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

There John met two women, Gabby Short and Wendy Dyckhoff, holding a quiet vigil outside the nursing home. Both spent time there as children when it was an orphanage and was ruled by notorious paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale, the chaplain. The women say orphanage girls were sexually, physically and emotionally abused by him. Bishop Mulkearns shuffled priests, including Ridsdale, between parishes, where they continued to offend.

But it was too much for Mr Skewes, who says the “high level of anxiety” in Ballarat while the royal commission rolls through town triggers his own anxiety, and when he got to Nazareth House, he broke down and cried in the women’s arms. He had trouble speaking and forming words. His acute anxiety – caused by the abuse he suffered as a child – literally renders him speechless.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

By TANG LI FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA and AAP

A long-time Victorian Catholic bishop has apologised for moving pedophile priests among parishes to avoid scandalising the church.

In his apology, he said he’s sorry and regrets not doing his job very well in handling pedophilia in the Ballarat diocese.

But retired bishop Ronald Mulkearns, 85, denies trying to cover up widespread child sex abuse.

Bishop Mulkearns knew about pedophile priests whom he sent for treatment and moved among parishes, the child abuse royal commission has heard.

The 1971-97 Ballarat bishop admitted he wanted to protect the reputation of the church but told the inquiry he was trying to stop further offending.

Counsel assisting the commission Gail Furness SC said Bishop Mulkearns covered up the conduct of pedophile priests.

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AUSTRALIA
Canberra Times

February 25 2016

Christopher Knaus

A child abuse campaigner has urged Australian governments to follow the ACT’s proposed mandatory disclosure scheme, saying it would have saved children like him from being molested at the hands of a Marist brother decades ago.

Damian De Marco, named ACT Local Hero of the Year for his campaigning, is set to speak at a NSW Ombudsman’s conference in Sydney on Friday, where he will praise the ACT’s “courageous” plans to prevent institutional child sexual abuse and urge other states and territories to follow suit.

That scheme would see organisations with responsibility for children legally required to report any allegations of abuse or neglect to a new independent statutory authority, which would then handle complaints, denying institutions the chance to deal with them internally.

Chief Minister Andrew Barr confirmed on Thursday that he would seek to raise the issue of a consistent, strong national approach to reportable conduct at the next Council of Australian Governments meeting.

“Our children deserve to be protected wherever they live. Some jurisdictions, such as NSW, already have similar measures in place,” Mr Barr said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Standard

By MELISSA CUNNINGHAM
Feb. 25, 2016

A FORMER Ballarat Bishop who presided over decades of paedophile priests says he is “terribly sorry” for not taking the mounting allegations of sexual abuse of children seriously, admitting the situation was out of control and he did not know how to handle it.

“I wish I had of done things differently in that time,” he told the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse on Thursday.

“I really didn’t know what to do or how to do it.”

Appearing via video link from a Nazareth House nursing home,terminally ill Bishop Mulkearns, 85, said he could not have comprehended the gravity of damage the sexual abuse of children by clergy would caused.

“In those days, it’s a long time ago but we really didn’t know how quite to deal with these things,” he said.

“Well I didn’t anyway.”

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HAWAII
Hawaii News Now

By Keoki Kerr

SALT LAKE, OAHU (HawaiiNewsNow) –
A longtime Catholic school teacher accused of molesting dozens of boys in three states for decades is living on Oahu, but his name and those of priests accused of sexual misconduct are not listed in the state’s sex offender registry.

Catholic schoolteacher brother Edward Courtney is accused of sexually abusing more than 50 boys from New York to Chicago to Seattle over three decades.

“Sadly, while bad, it’s not alone. There are other priests who have molested hundreds of kids,” said Michael Pfau, a Seattle-based attorney who has represented hundreds of alleged victims of Catholic clergy and teachers, including 52 men in the Courtney case.

In 2013, Courtney, 81, moved to Oahu and now lives in an apartment on Likini Street in Salt Lake.

But you won’t find Courtney’s name or that of any priests accused of sexual molestation in Hawaii’s Sexual Offender Registry, because they were never convicted of a crime.

“Because the criminal statute of limitations expired for most of these sex crimes, very very few Catholic priests, brothers and other clerics went to jail,” said Pfau, who represented 52 men who sued Courtney, claiming he abused them when they were children.

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NEW YORK
Daily Mail (UK)

A Catholic priest who was convicted last year by a U.S. court of sexually abusing a minor was reinstated by the church last month.

Indian priest Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, 61, was suspended for less than a full year by his local diocese in India five years ago after being accused of sexually abusing two girls during a posting to Minnesota.

He later pleaded guilty to molesting one of the teenagers, who has not been identified publicly, and served time in jail. Both of the girls were 14 at the time of the alleged abuse.

In January, the Vatican lifted Jeyapaul’s suspension following a recommendation by an Indian bishop.

Megan Peterson, now 26 and living in New York, accused Jeyapaul of raping and sexually assaulting her over the course of a year when she was 14, according to the New York Daily News.

She was shocked after learning the priest had been reinstated by Catholic Church officials.

‘It’s very clear what side the Church is on and it’s not about child protection or about morality,’ Peterson, an artist who resides in Queens, told the New York Daily News.

‘The bottom line is that the Church is not protecting children.’

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MICHIGAN
Central Michigan Life

By Sydney Smith

A therapist who has sex with a client could lose their license. The same goes for a doctor who has sex with a patient.

In some states, it’s illegal for a priest to have sex with a parishioner. Michigan is not one of these states.

In June 2015, former St. Mary’s University Parish priest Denis Heames was placed on leave for “boundary violations” related to his priestly conduct, said Bishop Joseph Cistone of the Saginaw Diocese.

A complaint about Heames by a Central Michigan University faculty member launched an internal investigation, which found Heames sexually harassed DeWitt senior Megan Winans before and during her time as a parishioner and media intern for the church.

Winans filed a civil lawsuit in Isabella County Court in January against Heames, his spiritual director Trudy McCaffrey, St. Mary’s and the diocese.

Heames’ status as a priest is unclear, as is his affiliation with the Diocese of Saginaw. Central Michigan Life asked for this information multiple times, but the diocese declined to comment. Heames has not responded.

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UNITED STATES
The Villager

BY LINCOLN ANDERSON | Soho actor Neal Huff is known to fans of “The Wire” as Michael Steintorf, chief of staff to Mayor Tommy Carcetti.

Now, in the Academy Award-nominated film “Spotlight,” Huff plays a pivotal supporting role as Phil Saviano, a child sex abuse survivor who helps the Boston Globe’s Spotlight investigative team blow open the hidden plague of pedophile priests in the Boston Archdiocese. The Globe won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service based on the Spotlight team’s reporting.

The film also stars Michael Keaton as Spotlight Editor Walter “Robby” Robinson, Mark Ruffalo and Rachel McAdams as reporters Michael Rezendes and Sacha Pfeiffer and Liev Schreiber as Marty Baron, the tough-minded new editor who pushes the team to tackle the story.

Huff plays Saviano as frazzled and frustrated: He had pitched a story to the Globe years earlier about priest abuse in Worcester, but it only resulted in one article that was hardly far-reaching enough, and there was no follow-up.

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AUSTRALIA
The Advertiser

Nigel Hunt
The Advertiser

THE Anglican Church has reactivated its investigation into disgraced priest Father John Fleming in the wake of the damning Supreme Court judgment against him.

Sources have revealed an extraordinary meeting of the Anglican Professional Standards Committee has been called for next Tuesday night to consider the judgment.

The Anglican Church’s Professional Standards Committee had been examining the same allegations against Fr Fleming, but its inquiry was put on hold while the lengthy Supreme Court case was under way.

The move came on Thursday as the Catholic Church moved swiftly to suspend Fr Fleming from ministry as it launched its own investigation.

The Vicar General of the Catholic Archdiocese of Adelaide, Fr Phillip Marshall, advised Fr Fleming of the move.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Argus

Joel Adams, Reporter

SEX abuse campaigners have called for investigations to look at the former head of the Anglican church in Sussex Eric Kemp after it was revealed he knew of abuse by bishop Peter Ball.

Peter Ball was jailed last year for sexual offences in the 1970s and 1980s against 18 young men who were under his guidance.

Revelations have come out in a report which shows that a Church of England priest held secret talks with police in an attempt to cover up the scale of Ball’s abuse.

The 1993 report, written by a private investigator “in utter confidence” for Eric Kemp and then – Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, concluded that Ball had abused “very many young men through his care.”

The investigator, a Church of England priest, then held talks with police “to prevent a scandal in the press, especially as Peter was a frequent visitor to Sandringham and is friendly with Prince Charles.”

The pressure bore fruit and Ball was cautioned rather than tried, which the CPS have since acknowledged was the wrong decision in light of the available evidence.

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NEW ZEALAND
Manawatu Standard

RICHARD SWAINSON
February 25 2016

The Catholic church is an easy target.

A socially conservative agenda stands in broad opposition to mainstream thought in liberal western democracies.

The church’s stance on homosexuality, contraception, abortion, transgender issues, the ordination of women and euthanasia is no longer that of the majority.

Its history is full of examples of failing to live up to the high standards of Christian behavior. You cannot easily sweep the Crusades, the Borgias or the Spanish Inquisition under the carpet.

In the 20th century questions about how the church rose to the challenge of fascism can be posed.

It was on the side of Franco in Spain and there are at the very least conflicting views about its relationship with a Nazi regime where a good portion of senior leadership claimed nominal Catholicism.

Then there is the issue of historic sexual abuse by its clergy and the systematic practice of covering these obscene crimes up and even perpetuating them by shifting offenders from one parish to another.

That the institution put the needs of its reputation above that of innocent children is now an acknowledged fact. If the church refuses to engage in a conversation about the effects of enforced celibacy on priests or the predilection of those who put themselves forward for the priesthood to offend it can no longer deny that grave and indefensible errors were made.

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AUSTRALIA
Geelong Advertiser

A VICTORIAN bishop says he regrets that he did not deal with pedophile priests properly and admits he tried to protect the church’s reputation.

Bishop Ronald Mulkearns, who knew about pedophile priests and moved them between parishes, said to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse he did not know how to deal with abuse complaints while head of the Ballarat diocese from 1971 to 1997.

“I certainly wanted to protect the reputation of the church. I wanted to make sure these incidents didn’t happen in the future and tried my best to work in such a way that it didn’t happen again,” he told the child abuse royal commission on Thursday.

Mulkearns had been living independently in Aireys Inlet, but has recently moved into an assisted living facility in Ballarat.

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AUSTRALIA
SBS

AAP

Sexual abuse allegations against Cardinal George Pell were not leaked by Victoria Police, the chief commissioner says.

Victoria’s anti-corruption watchdog is investigating how allegations Cardinal Pell sexually abused five to 10 victims while he was a priest in Victoria became public over the weekend.

“I know we’re often easy targets when it comes to alleging leaks, but I’ve seen no evidence we’ve leaked anything,” Chief Commissioner Graham Ashton told 3AW radio on Thursday.

Mr Ashton said he was taking accusations Victoria Police leaked the sexual abuse allegations seriously.

“It concerned me that there was this immediate rush to allege the police have leaked something,” he said.

If Victoria Police are found by the Independent Broad-based Anti-corruption Commission to have done something wrong, then “we’ll absolutely wear that”, Mr Ashton said.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

February 25, 2016

Beau Donelly
Reporter

A former bishop of Ballarat has apologised for failing to halt what he called a widespread and long-lasting “problem with priests” in Catholic schools and churches in the city.

Abuse survivors and their families have waited decades to hear from retired priest Ronald Mulkearns, who served as Bishop of Ballarat until the late 1990s, and has been accused of failing to prevent rampant child sex abuse during his 26-years as bishop.

On Thursday morning, the 85-year-old appeared via video link from his nursing home, Nazareth House, less than 3 kilometres from where the commission is sitting.

Bishop Mulkearns said he retired in 1997 because he wasn’t “doing the job as well as I felt I should be doing”.

Questioned by Counsel assisting the commission, Gail Furness, SC, about what he was not handling well at the time, he said the “problem with priests”.

“And I’d like to say, if I may, that I’m terribly sorry that I didn’t do things differently in that time, but I didn’t really know what to do or how to do it.

“I certainly regret that I didn’t do it differently with … paedophilia. We had no idea, or I had no idea of the effects of the indecent [assaults] that took place.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

[live stream]

February 25, 2016

Former Catholic bishop Ronald Mulkearns has told a royal commission he is not sure if he knew child abuse was a crime during his time in charge of the Ballarat diocese, but he knew it was wrong.

The former bishop made his much-anticipated appearance at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse via videolink from the nursing home in which he now lives.

Until now Bishop Mulkearns had been excused from giving evidence because he was too sick.

Asked if he referred paedophile Gerald Ridsdale for help because he knew he was abusing children, he said yes.

Bishop Mulkearns told the hearing he never asked priests directly if they were abusers but instead got reports from psychologists.

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AUSTRALIA
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor February 24, 2016

SYDNEY/MELBOURNE — It’s undoubtedly an exaggeration to suggest that the entire nation of Australia will come grinding to a halt next Monday at 8 a.m. local time, when Cardinal George Pell is set to begin giving live video testimony before a Royal Commission examining child sexual abuse scandals.

Still, it sort of feels like that here right now.

I’m in Australia this week, not to cover the Pell story, but to speak at several venues. It’s impossible to move around, however, especially in Catholic circles, without the conversation turning sooner or later to Pell and his discontents.

In Australia, Pell has become the public face of what’s perceived as a callous Church response to the abuse scandals. He’s been parodied in a derisive song calling him “scum” and a “coward,” he’s become a staple of news chat, and right now a bright red wagon is being pulled through the streets of the city of Ballarat, where the Royal Commission is meeting, with the slogan, “Pope must act: Sack Pell now!”

In part, the attacks on Pell are about substance: whether at various points in his career he knew about abuse that was going on and either failed to act, or acted primarily to protect the Church’s interests. In part, too, it’s about his pugnacious, strongly conservative public persona and his seeming inability to project the contrition that many Aussies appear to want.

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TEXAS/ARIZONA
The Monitor

PHOENIX — John Feit, the former priest accused of killing a McAllen teacher 55 years ago, has waived his right to an extradition hearing. That means Texas has 30 days to pick him up from Arizona to face a murder charge.

“We’re one step closer to dispensing justice,” District Attorney Ricardo Rodriguez said after the hearing.

Rodriguez added Feit will be picked up “sooner than later.”

Feit, 83, the man long suspected by many of killing Irene Garza more than five decades ago, remains in custody of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, where he has sat for more than two weeks as he awaits for the extradition process to run its course.

Feit was arrested Feb. 9 at his apartment in Scottsdale, Arizona, where he had lived in the Phoenix area since the early ‘80s, when he had started a new life after leaving the priesthood.

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TEXAS/ARIZONA
NBC DFW

An 83-year-old Arizona man accused of murdering a Texas beauty queen when he was a young priest in 1960 has waived his right to extradition.

Maricopa County Superior Court officials say John Feit will be transported to Texas in the next 30 days.

Feit was arrested in Scottsdale, Arizona, on Feb. 9 after he was indicted in south Texas’ Hidalgo County for the killing of Irene Garza, a 25-year-old school teacher.

Authorities allege the then-27-year-old Feit killed Garza on April 16, 1960, after hearing her confession at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen, where he was a priest.

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ARIZONA/TEXAS
Arizona Republic

Megan Cassidy, The Republic | azcentral.com February 24, 2016

A Scottsdale man accused of slaying a Texas beauty queen in 1960 will not fight extradition back to Hidalgo County, Texas, where he will face a long-awaited charge of murder.

John Feit, an 83-year-old former priest, was arrested Feb. 9 in Scottsdale. After a brief hearing Wednesday afternoon, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge ordered Feit to be returned to Texas within 30 days.

The proceedings come more than a half century after Feit’s name first found its way to the top of the case’s list of suspects in the murder of schoolteacher Irene Garza.

Over the decades, Feit’s freedom has withstood the glare of suspicion by investigators, media and Garza’s family, all convinced he was the sole suspect responsible in the 25-year-old’s death.

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TEXAS/ARIZONA
Valley Central

John Feit, the former McAllen priest accused of killing Irene Garza in 1960, has waived extradition to Texas.

Feit was arrested at his home in Scottsdale, Arizona on Feb. 9 and later booked into the Maricopa County jail.

The 83-year-old man waived his right to extradition during a hearing Wednesday.

Feit has long been suspected of killing Garza, whose body was pulled from an irrigation canal in McAllen in 1960.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Harvard Law Today

By LEWIS RICE, February 24, 2016

Josh Singer ’01 gives a lot of credit to Harvard Law School for helping him in his career. But in one way, it has made things difficult for him.

In his latest project, he was supposed to write a scene in a movie having to do with a legal topic. You may think that would be a cinch for him. But there was one problem.

“I’d write the first draft of the scene, and it would be something no one could understand unless they had gone to Harvard Law,” he said.

Since the filmmakers wanted a slightly wider audience, he went back and rewrote—and then rewrote again. It worked out pretty well, and so did the movie as a whole, since the result, the script for the movie “Spotlight,” turned into one of the most acclaimed movies of the past year, with six Academy Award nominations, including best original screenplay for Singer and his co-writer, Tom McCarthy, who also received a nomination as director.

Singer is thrilled with the acclaim, not so much for himself, he says, but for the exposure that has brought increased attention to the story about the Boston Globe investigation into the Achdiocese of Boston’s coverup of priest sexual abuse and the societal issues it raises. The complexity of the story—and the filmmakers’ commitment to presenting an authentic portrayal of the events—necessitated copious research, many trips to Boston, and lengthy interviews with those involved.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

Steve Schmadeke
Chicago Tribune

The final pending criminal case against defrocked Roman Catholic priest and convicted sex offender Daniel McCormack ended Wednesday, when prosecutors said they were forced to drop all charges.

McCormack, 47, who was not in court Wednesday, pleaded guilty in 2007 to molesting five boys and was sentenced to five years in prison. In 2009, prosecutors sought to have him declared a sexually violent offender and committed indefinitely to the Illinois Department of Human Services, which holds such offenders.

That case is pending.

The former St. Agatha’s priest was charged in 2014 with aggravated sexual abuse involving a 10-year-old boy in 2005. The case had been set for trial, but on Wednesday prosecutors said they were dropping the charges because the alleged victim was no longer cooperating.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Jewish Chronicle

by Toby Tabachnick, Senior Staff Writer

David Menachem Gordon was a lone soldier in the Israel Defense Forces during 2014’s Operation Protective Edge when he went missing one day in mid-August. Two days later, he was found dead, with his rifle beside him.

Gordon, who served in the Givati Brigade, lived for a time in White Oak with his family before making aliyah. He was a student at Hillel Academy of Pittsburgh from 2008 to 2010, and his parents, Ruth and Jacob Gordon, were members of the Orthodox Gemilas Chesed Synagogue.

But it was Gordon’s childhood in Detroit — where he was sexually abused from within the Orthodox community when he was 9 to 11 years old — that arguably had the greatest impact on the trajectory of his life.

David’s mother recounted his story to a packed auditorium at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh Sunday night as part of a program sponsored by Jewish Community Watch, a nonprofit founded in 2011 to combat child sexual abuse (CSA) in the Jewish community, and to help victims. JCW is based in New York.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY REUVEN BLAU, THOMAS TRACY NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, February 24, 2016

An investigation into an attempted abduction of a 14-year-old girl in Brooklyn fell apart after it was learned that the suspect comes from a prominent Orthodox family, law enforcement sources said Wednesday.

The suspect, a 20-year-old Orthodox man, showed up at the 61st Precinct with his attorney Tuesday — a day after the NYPD released an enhanced photo of him as a suspect in the crime.

But when investigators contacted the victim after the suspect came forward the family “stopped cooperating with the cops,” a police source said.

A source with knowledge of the investigation said the girl changed her mind about talking to authorities after receiving pressure from the community.

The suspect’s father is the principal of a yeshiva and his grandfather is an “influential rabbi,” the source said.

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TEXAS/ARIZONA
The Monitor

LORENZO ZAZUETA-CASTRO | STAFF WRITER

PHOENIX — The former priest accused of murdering a McAllen beauty queen is set to appear for his first extradition hearing since his arrest.

John Feit, 83, the man long suspected by many of killing Irene Garza more than five decades ago remains in custody of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, where he has sat for more than two weeks as he awaits for the extradition process to run its course.

Feit is scheduled to appear Wednesday in Maricopa Superior Court.

Feit, who was arrested Feb. 9 at his apartment in Scottsdale, Arizona, had lived in the Phoenix area since the early ‘80s, where he had started a new life after leaving the priesthood. At his initial hearing the following day, Feit chose to fight his extradition back to Texas. A commissioner set his bond at $750,000 cash only.

Russell Richelsoph, a Tempe-based criminal defense attorney who has more than 16 years of experience, said the hearing Wednesday, the first of four scheduled for Feit, will be a routine check-in for both the defendant and the state.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Sun-Times

WRITTEN BY RUMMANA HUSSAIN POSTED: 02/24/2016

Cook County prosecutors Wednesday said they were forced to drop an aggravated criminal sexual abuse charge against a convicted child molester and defrocked Catholic priest because the alleged victim was reluctant to cooperate.

Daniel McCormack, who is at a state-run mental health facility pending a hearing on whether he is a sexual deviant person, wasn’t in court before Judge Dennis Porter.

Neither was the alleged victim of the 2005 incidents.

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CHICAGO (IL)
WREX

CHICAGO (AP) – Cook County prosecutors have dropped an aggravated criminal sexual abuse charge against a former Chicago priest because the alleged victim stopped cooperating.

They dismissed the charge Wednesday against Daniel McCormack, who pleaded guilty to multiple child sex abuse charges in 2007 and was sentenced to five years in prison. He was removed from the priesthood.

McCormack also was arrested in 2014 in a 2005 case involving a 10-year-old alleged victim at a West Side parish, but prosecutors say as the case progressed in the courts, the victim stopped cooperating with them.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports (http://bit.ly/1VEPfyf ) prosecutors called out in court Wednesday to see if anyone representing the victim was there and when no one responded, they told a judge they were moving to dismiss the charge. McCormack wasn’t present.

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UNITED STATES
Chicago Tribune

Ted Slowik

Most oddsmakers and film critics say “Spotlight” is a long shot to take home the Best Picture Oscar at Sunday’s Academy Awards. “The Revenant” is favored over the film about The Boston Globe’s investigation into the Catholic Church’s coverup of priests who sexually abused children.

Still, “Spotlight” is an Oscar-worthy film that recounts in dramatic fashion how Globe reporters exposed the systemic transferring of repeat offenders to other parishes, the Church’s relentless efforts to discredit accusers and the willingness of good Catholic laymen to go along with the program.

Reporters who uncovered abuse in other dioceses appreciate “Spotlight’s” accuracy and authenticity. I covered how the issue affected the Roman Catholic Diocese of Joliet, which includes all of Will County.

Others on the beat at the time included Allison Hantschel of the Daily Southtown and David Heinzmann of the Chicago Tribune. Southtown columnist Tim Placher recounted his experience being abused by a priest. Those of us who investigated this issue locally encountered the same personal and professional challenges faced by the Globe team as depicted in “Spotlight.”

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ISRAEL
Australian Jewish News

JERUSALEM – Former Adass Israel head teacher Malka Leifer’s attempt to avoid extradition to Australia took a blow last week when a judge ordered that she undergo a fresh psychiatric assessment.

It is now almost two years since attempts began to extradite the alleged sex abuser from Israel to face 74 charges in Melbourne.

Leifer fled in to Israel in 2008 shortly after allegations of her abusing students at the school became public.

However, she is claiming to be suffering panic attacks whenever court proceedings loom, and therefore unable to participate, causing misery for her accusers who want her to face her charges.

In court on Sunday, the Israeli state prosecutor said that psychiatrists haven’t adequately checked whether there are “elements of fabrication” in her claim and the judge ordered that she be subjected to examination by a state psychiatrist.

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OHIO
Raw Story

TRAVIS GETTYS
24 FEB 2016

A southern Ohio pastor was indicted on more than a dozen felony sex assault charges against two girls and a woman.

Dennis Wright was arrested on seven counts of rape, two counts of sexual battery, two counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, three counts of gross sexual imposition, and one count of illegal use of a minor in nudity-oriented material or performance, reported the Gallipolis Daily Tribune.

Investigators said two of the victims, a girl and the woman, were parishioners at the Old Emory Church in Jackson County, where Wright served as pastor.

Neighbors and even Wright’s son said the pastor was an ill-tempered man who behaved inappropriately around children.

“Everybody in the neighborhood knew what was going on,” said Elliott Perry, who lives next door to the small church outside Oak Hill.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY MICHAEL O’KEEFFE NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Wednesday, February 24, 2016

When Megan Peterson was 14, she was raped and sexually assaulted — sometimes inside the church confessional booth — over the course of a year by her parish priest.

So the abuse survivor was astounded to learn her tormentor, the Rev. Joseph Jeyapaul, was reinstated earlier this month by Catholic Church officials after a suspension of roughly the same duration of her time as a victim.

“It’s very clear what side the Church is on and it’s not about child protection or about morality,” said Peterson, a 26-year-old artist who now lives in Queens. “The bottom line is that the Church is not protecting children.”

Peterson, the New York City coordinator for the advocacy group SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests), charges the church gave a virtual green light for Jeyapaul to target children in his native India.

The reverend returned to his homeland late last year, when he also appealed for a return to his priestly duties. He was suspended for less than a full year.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Charlotte King
Updated February 25, 2016

They call themselves “Nazzie girls” — children who ended up in the care of the Sisters of Nazareth girls home in Ballarat in the 1950s and 1960s.

Gabrielle Short does not hesitate when she is asked to summarise her childhood here.

“Ninety-five per cent hell, torture, abuse, fear, terror,” she says.

Sisters say they accept residents of the now-nursing home “based on their current needs”.
In the early 1960s, paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale was their chaplain.

“Up there, in the middle floor there, one of the girls actually tried to jump out the window because she reported the abuse to the nuns, and one of the nuns belted the life out of her until she was lifeless,” Ms Short says.

A group of the girls, now women, are back to confront the order of nuns who run the facility as a nursing home to, Ms Short said, “ask why they’re giving sanctuary to an enabler of this man who ran amok”.

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UNITED STATES
New York Times

By MIKE McPHATE
FEB. 24, 2016

“Journalistic objectivity be damned. I’m hoping it wins the entire lot.”

That’s Martin Baron, the executive editor of The Washington Post and former editor of The Boston Globe.

It has been a disorienting time for the journalists like Mr. Baron depicted in “Spotlight,” the film about The Globe’s investigation in 2002 of sexual abuse of children by members of the Roman Catholic clergy.

Mr. Baron, portrayed in the movie by Liev Schreiber, said the embrace from Hollywood had melted away any pretense of impartiality about the outcome of the Oscars race. The movie is up for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

With the ceremony approaching, Mr. Baron weighed in Wednesday with an essay for The Post.

Mr. Baron said he was overcome during the film’s showing at the Toronto International Film Festival last year. After the credits rolled, the actors were called on to the stage, then the journalists, for a sustained standing ovation.

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NEW JERSEY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

for immediate release: Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2014

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, 314 645 5915 home, davidgclohessy@gmail.com)

A predator priest, Fr. Gerald P. Ruane, has passed away. As best we can tell, Newark Archbishop John Myers kept this quiet, denying abuse victims months of comfort. Myers seems incapable of handling any part of the church’s on-going abuse and cover up crisis with honesty and compassion.

[Obits for Life]

Fr. Ruane was accused in 2002 of abusing a boy in 1970s-1980s. A second accuser also stepped forward. Archdiocesan staff “investigated” and found deemed Fr. Ruane “credibly accused.”

Myers claims to have suspended Fr. Ruane but apparently told no one (or at least few people). So in 2005, Fr. Ruane was still celebrating mass in public, until exposed by the Newark Star-Ledger, in violation of the US bishops’ conference abuse policy. That’s when his name was finally publicly released as a credibly accused child molester. (See BishopAccountability.org for more information.)

[SNAP]

We have heard from one of Fr. Ruane’s victims, Michael Iatesta, who stumbled across news of the priest’s passing by chance this week. A statement from Michael is below.

It would have taken Myers minutes to approve and have his public relations team send out a news release about Fr. Ruane’s death. That would have brought relief to those who worried, until now, that Fr. Ruane might still be hurting children.

We hope this predator’s passing will bring some comfort to those whose lives he devastated. We also hope that someday, Myers might opt for sensitivity over self-serving secrecy. And we hope that anyone who was hurt by any Newark priest, nun, seminarian or other archdiocesan staff will find the courage to speak up, get help, expose predators, protect kids, deter cover ups and start healing.

Statement by Michael Iatesta, abused as a youngster by Fr. Ruane:

“As I was looking for my mom’s obituary to send to family and friends I accidentally came across this notification. How ironic it was, in so many ways, that the priest who sexually and emotionally abused me as a young boy was laid out (August, 2015) at the same funeral home just a few months before my mom. In his obituary he was described as one who lived a life devoted to God and served God’s people with great dignity. I know for certain my mom lived a more saintly life and was always selfless in her actions and in her heart-felt service to others. She is resting in peace now knowing that the man she bestowed her trust upon when I was grieving my father’s death could no longer hurt/abuse or take advantage of any other vulnerable young children. She spoke and wrote to me on countless occasions about the guilt she had not knowing therefore not reporting his inappropriate actions. But as a woman of great faith she was able to forgive him for his sins as she taught us through her own actions, faith and devotion that love and forgiveness is what would ultimately bring us all closer to God and eternal happiness. She was a dedicated Catholic who saw everyone as God sees them and touched the lives of countless people in countless ways. She was in a true sense “priestly” and” charismatic'” unlike Ruane who selfishly used and exerted his priestly duties for his own alternative motives.”

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WISCONSIN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Feb. 24, 2016

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, 314 645 5915 home, davidgclohessy@gmail.com)

An independent Catholic newspaper has compared church bankruptcies in Milwaukee WI and Helena MT. Predictably and rightfully, Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki is exposed as particularly callous and foolishly litigious.

[National Catholic Reporter]

Both dioceses “faced two dozen lawsuits” and “established $21 million funds to compensate victims” though Milwaukee is much larger,” the National Catholic Reporter found, but

–Helena settled in 13 months” while “Milwaukee took nearly five years,”

–“Helena spent about $2.5 million on lawyers” while “Milwaukee’s legal fees” were “$20 million”

–“Helena did not challenge the validity of any of the 362 claims” while “Milwaukee challenged each of the more than 575 claims,”

–Helena’s bishop said “a small number of claims appeared bogus” while Milwaukee’s archbishop challenged, to the end, the legal standing of each of the 575 claims” (while stubbornly claiming “bankruptcy was the only way to treat all equitably.”

A lawyer who has represented (victims) in 11 church bankruptcies, “including those of Milwaukee and Helena,” said “the lack of consultation on the part of the Milwaukee Archdiocese was almost unheard of in bankruptcy cases.”

Not surprisingly, Helena’s bishop “received praise from lawyers on the other side and from the judge who handled the case” and says “the relatively swift resolution has resulted in high priest morale and increased support by people in the community,” according to the NCR.

No one in the Milwaukee Catholic hierarchy can make that claim here.

We hope Wisconsin citizens and Catholics will read this report and learn more about how church officials elsewhere treat clergy sex abuse survivors more compassionately and less combatively than they do here in Milwaukee.

To Wisconsin victims, there’s little news here. To Wisconsin citizens and Catholics, however, there’s eye-opening information, if they’ll take the time to read this troubling comparison.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Focus

Regisseur Tom McCarthy hat sich mit „Spotlight“ an ein heikles Thema gewagt: sexueller Missbrauch in der katholischen Kirche. Das Star-Ensemble wurde brillant gecastet. Es ist ein Film, der berührt, aufwühlt und vielleicht sogar tief erschüttert. Gerade deswegen ist es ein ganz wichtiger Film.

Sexueller Missbrauch in der katholischen Kirche – ein heikles Thema, das sich Regisseur und Drehbuchautor Tom McCarthy („Cobbler – Der Schuhmagier“) für seinen Film „Spotlight“ ausgesucht hat. Er schickt sein brillantes Star-Ensemble in ein Fadenkreuz des Glaubens und lässt sie Stück für Stück die erschütternde Wahrheit aufdecken. Dieser Film, der auf wahren Begebenheiten beruht, wird niemanden kalt lassen, er wühlt auf, berührt und erschüttert. Gerade deswegen ist es ein ganz wichtiger Film. „Spotlight“ ist für sechs Oscars nominiert, u.a. „Bester Film“, „Beste Regie“, „Bestes Drehbuch“ und Mark Ruffalo und Rachel McAdams als „Beste Nebendarsteller“.

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DEUTSCHLAND
NZZ

von Tim Slagman
24.2.2016

Nur ein einziges Mal platzt jemandem der Kragen: «Es ging um Kinder, und Sie haben es einfach zugelassen», brüllt Michael Rezendes seinem Boss entgegen, dem Leiter des Investigativ-Ressorts «Spotlight» beim «Boston Globe». Dessen Team gewann 2003 den Pulitzerpreis für seine Recherchen zu Fällen von sexuellem Missbrauch in den Institutionen der katholischen Kirche – Dutzende von Vergehen alleine in der Erzdiözese Boston, die jahrelang systematisch vertuscht wurden. Rezendes’ Wutanfall ist also absolut verständlich, womöglich sogar notwendig, und dennoch eine bemerkenswerte Anomalie in dem Film von Tom McCarthy, der die Geschichte dieser Enthüllung nacherzählt.

Ein Schauspielerfilm

McCarthy, der gemeinsam mit Josh Singer auch das Drehbuch verfasst hat, mag keine Heldengeschichten, kein Skandalpathos. Er hat 2003 in seinem Langfilmdebüt «Station Agent» den «Game of Thrones»-Star Peter Dinklage entdeckt. Doch McCarthy hat kein Interesse am Epischen, an der grossen Geste. Der Regisseur, der auch als Schauspieler arbeitet und in der legendären Krimiserie «The Wire» ausgerechnet einen betrügerischen Reporter gespielt hat, macht Filme für Schauspielkollegen – und für Antihelden.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Welt

Der Film “Spotlight” mit Michael Keaton feiert die Reporter, die den Missbrauchsskandal der Kirche in Boston aufdeckten. Der Cast sieht aus wie bei einem Comic-Film. Aber Superkräfte hat hier keiner. Von Lucas Wiegelmann

Stellen Sie sich vor, Ihr Pfarrer kommt morgen zu Besuch. Stellen Sie sich nicht irgendeinen Priester vor, einen gesichtslosen Mann mit schwarzem Hemd und weißem Kragen, sondern wirklich Ihren Pfarrer. Den Mann, den Sie vielleicht hin und wieder im Gottesdienst sehen. Der vielleicht Ihre Kinder getauft hat oder jedes Jahr auf dem Adventsbasar das Waffeleisen bedient oder vor einiger Zeit nach dem Tod Ihres alten Schulfreundes eine tröstliche Rede gehalten hat.

Vielleicht haben Sie sogar irgendwann schon einmal bei ihm gebeichtet. Vielleicht ist es schon Jahre oder Jahrzehnte her, und als Sie fertig waren mit Ihren bescheidenen Vergehen, mit dem Neid auf den Mercedes des Nachbarn oder mit den unprofessionellen Gedanken, die der Anblick ihrer hübschen neuen Kollegin in Ihnen hin und wieder auszulösen pflegt, hat der Priester Ihnen die Absolution erteilt, nicht mit Worten, sondern mit seinem Wesen, mit seiner Aura, er war die Mensch gewordene Vergebung. Er hat Ihnen die Hand auf die Stirn gelegt. So etwas tun sonst nur Mütter, wenn ihr Kind Fieber hat. So eine Berührung war das.

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UNITED STATES
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

By Barbara Vancheri / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Michael Keaton said he had the “greatest day” — thanks to the Teenie Harris photography collection in Pittsburgh — and 200-plus people could boast the same, thanks to the actor known as Beetlejuice, Batman, Birdman, Mr. Mom and one of the stars of “Spotlight.”

The Pittsburgh native and Walter “Robby” Robinson, the real-life Boston Globe editor he portrays on screen, were part of a private event Tuesday night at the SouthSide Works Cinema. Outside was a small red carpet and inside, flutes of champagne, phones in camera mode, and sobering conversations about challenges both in the Catholic Church and the newspaper business.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette organized the reception, the screening of “Spotlight” and a conversation with the men afterward, moderated by executive editor David Shribman.

“Spotlight” is the story of how the Boston Globe exposed predatory priests and the Catholic Church’s cover-up of the molestation. Clergy were shuffled from one parish to the next or placed on “sick leave” while their superiors lost sight of their targets, often young boys from poor or broken homes.

The Globe’s investigation won the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for public service. The movie goes into Sunday’s Academy Awards with six nominations, including for best picture, director and original screenplay.

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, N.M., Feb. 22, 2016

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

ALBUQUERQUE – Two years ago U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David T. Thuma urged attorneys to get to the “end zone” in the Diocese of Gallup’s Chapter 11 case.

On Friday, after attorneys for the diocese were not able to reach their own goal of filing a plan of reorganization the first week of February, Thuma pushed attorneys in the case to have the plan filed Feb. 29.

“We are behind where we hoped to be a month ago, but things are moving along and progressing,” diocesan attorney Thomas Walker told Thuma Friday, during the latest in a series of continued status hearings.

Walker said attorneys for the Gallup Diocese planned to distribute a “somewhat vetted plan” and disclosure statement to all the parties in the case next week. With the distribution, he said, the plan would be open for discussion and possible changes.

“It’s still in draft form,” diocesan attorney Lori Winkelman explained. “There’s different parts that need to be discussed and are still being somewhat negotiated, but we’re hoping that everybody can move relatively quickly on that and shoot for having something on file at the end of the month. That is still our goal.”

Winkelman said retired U.S. District Court Judge Michael R. Hogan, the new future claims representative, has already had discussions with many of the parties in the case. In addition, Winkelman said an “all parties call” is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon that will include “the entire universe of the settling parties” to discuss approval of a disclosure statement and other documents.

Attorney James Stang, legal counsel for the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors, which represents the interests of clergy sex abuse claimants, agreed the call was a good idea and will allow all the parties to “literally do a page turn” on significant documents.

Stang said his committee had approved someone to be an abuse claims reviewer and had approved an allocation protocol. The committee had also offered comments to the Gallup Diocese about the last version of a settlement agreement with Catholic Mutual and still owed comments on a Franciscan settlement agreement.

Thuma scheduled another status conference Friday morning and urged the attorneys to have the reorganization plan ready the following Monday.

“I hope I’m not leaning on people too hard… I think it would be great to get a plan on file by the 29th,” Thuma said. “So let’s shoot for it and see if we can get it done.”

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CALIFORNIA
LAObserved

By Kevin Roderick | February 24, 2016

Washington Post editor Martin Baron usually falls asleep during the Academy Awards, but this year he will have to stay awake. That’s because he will be inside the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood as part of the contingent for “Spotlight.” In the movie about the Boston Globe investigation into Catholic priest sexual abuse and the Boston church’s cover-up, he is portrayed by Liev Schreiber.

It’s not about the statuette, the former LA Times reporter and editor writes for the Post.

The movie has been nominated for six Oscars, including best picture. And, journalistic objectivity be damned, I’m hoping it wins the entire lot. I feel indebted to everyone who made a film that captures, with uncanny authenticity, how journalism is practiced and, with understated force, why it’s needed.

The awards take the form of a statuette, recognition for outstanding moviemaking. The rewards of this film matter more to me, and they will take longer to judge.

The rewards will come if this movie has impact: On journalism, because owners, publishers and editors rededicate themselves to investigative reporting. On a skeptical public, because citizens come to recognize the necessity of vigorous local coverage and strong journalistic institutions. And on all of us, through a greater willingness to listen to the powerless and too-often voiceless, including those who have suffered sexual and other abuse.

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UNITED STATES
Hi-Def Digest

Posted by Philip Brown – February 24, 2016

‘The Club’
Movie Rating:
3.5

Complex, thought-provoking, daring and bleakly funny in the most disturbingly possible ways, Pablo Larrain’s ‘The Club’ is a savage little intimate drama.

It’s also a peculiar companion piece of sorts to this year’s awards darling ‘Spotlight’. Anyone who has seen that movie will recall the sequence in which a father discovers that a house on his street was used to shelter priests accused of child molestation. Larrain’s film takes place inside one of those houses and tackles all the icky subject matter therein head on.

The film opens by gradually introducing viewers to the four aging priests and one creepily perky nun sharing a house in a small community. Their days are dull, spent mostly in hiding. Their only connection to the outside world is a dog that they train to race with great success. They watch the race from a distance through binoculars and squirrel away their winnings for unknown purposes. Things are shaken up when a stranger (Roberto Farias) arrives. He screams about being molested as a child in graphic detail outside the house. Eventually, one of the hidden priests commits suicide. That event prompts the arrival of a new priest (Marcello Alonso), sent to interrogate and challenge these lost souls in the hopes of getting some sort of confession and doling out penance. In other words, the movie doesn’t exactly occur within a happy space, and you can be certain that it isn’t marching towards a redemptive ending either.

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MICHIGAN
Death Notices

GRANDPRE REV. LOUIS E. Age 81, a beloved priest, pastor and educator, died on Saturday, February 20, 2016, at Angela Hospice in Livonia, after a long illness. Fr. Grandpre, who resided in Detroit, was remembered as a genuinely pastoral man with a kind heart, an enthusiastic smile, and a scholarly mind. Fr. Lou is the beloved brother of Don and the late Kay Kuntz. Also survived by several nieces, nephews, and many loving friends. Family will receive friends Friday 3-8 p.m. with prayers 7 p.m. at A.J. Desmond & Sons (Vasu, Rodgers & Connell Chapel), 32515 Woodward (between 13-14 Mile), 248-549-0500. Mass of the Resurrection Saturday 11 a.m. at SS. Peter & Paul Jesuit Catholic Church, 629 E. Jefferson Ave., Detroit, MI 48226. Visitation at the church begins at 10 a.m. Memorial tributes to SS. Peter & Paul Church Warming Center (Pope Francis Center), Angela Hospice, or the charity of donor’s choice.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Martin Baron

February 24

Most years I try to stay attentive, or at least awake, through the Academy Awards. Most years I fail.

On Sunday, however, fatigue has an overwhelming counterweight — obvious self-interest. Plus, I will be sitting inside the Dolby Theatre.

“Spotlight” brought to the big screen the first six months of a Boston Globe investigation that in 2002 revealed a decades-long cover-up of serial sexual abuse by priests within the Boston Archdiocese.

Liev Schreiber portrays me as the newly arrived top editor who launched that investigation, and his depiction has me as a stoic, humorless, somewhat dour character that many professional colleagues instantly recognize (“He nailed you”) and that my closest friends find not entirely familiar.

The scandal disclosed by the Globe’s Spotlight investigative team ultimately took on worldwide dimensions. Fourteen years later, the Catholic Church continues to answer for how it concealed grave wrongdoing on a massive scale and for the adequacy of its reforms, as it should.

The movie has been nominated for six Oscars, including best picture. And, journalistic objectivity be damned, I’m hoping it wins the entire lot. I feel indebted to everyone who made a film that captures, with uncanny authenticity, how journalism is practiced and, with understated force, why it’s needed.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston.com

By Eric Levenson @ejleven
Boston.com Staff | 02.24.16

Former Boston Globe editor Marty Baron emphatically approves of the Oscar-nominated film Spotlight, in which he is portrayed by Liev Schreiber.

But there’s one scene Baron wishes had been in the movie.

Reflecting in The Washington Post ahead of Spotlight’s turn at the Academy Awards, Baron writes that a particular real-life speech railing against the Globe’s investigation into the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandal has stuck with him almost 15 years later.

“Occasionally I have been asked what I would have liked to see in the movie that was not portrayed,” he writes. “One answer, I confess, is a product of my own anger that the years have yet to extinguish.”

He continues:

I’m referring to a Nov. 4, 2002, speech given by Mary Ann Glendon, a Harvard law professor who would later become U.S. ambassador to the Vatican. “All I can say,” she declared before a conference of Catholics, “is that if fairness and accuracy have anything to do with it, awarding the Pulitzer Prize to the Boston Globe would be like giving the Nobel Peace Prize to Osama bin Laden.”

Glendon’s infamous analogy came amid a lengthy criticism of the Globe. Glendon also said that the Globe had created a “climate of hysteria the likes of which has not been seen in Boston since the Ursuline convent was burnt down.”

As Baron tells it, that speech was emblematic of larger issues.

“A brief glimpse of the speech might have said volumes about the culture of denial and defiance that afflicted the Church before, and for long after, our investigation,” he writes.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

Michael Cavna February 23

I LIVE for composition. Whether staring at a still-life or gazing at the glow of a projected image in motion, there is something beguiling about the balance of objects created in space and manipulated to trip the wires of our minds. To decode composition is to understand what the artist is saying without words; you are invited to join in this telepathic dance.

This year, five wonderful cinematographers are nominated for Oscars, including two favorite legends, Roger Deakins (“Sicario”) and Emmanuel Lubezki (“The Revenant”): Both are virtuosic in their ability to elevate storytelling through visual craft. And both are painters in space who can dazzle you with their panache.

Then there is a film like “Spotlight,” which is up for six Oscars this weekend, including best picture. Truthful films that function as procedurals of journalism and the law often dwell in the cinematic realm of nuance. The camera must inform but not distract, and the visual tone necessarily must match the gravitas of the tale told.

Among the films that “Spotlight” director Tom McCarthy has said he drew influence from are “All the President’s Men” and “The Verdict,” and it’s worth noting that neither of those much-lauded movies received Oscar nominations for cinematography. (The former film won four Academy Awards, and was up for best picture; the latter film was nominated for five.) Visual subtlety isn’t particularly magnetic near awards hardware, yet it’s an art of informational restraint unto itself. If you look closely, you can be dazzled by the discipline.

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ILLINOIS/WISCONSIN
Chicago Tribune

John Kass

If you stole $100,000 from a church, a reasonable person would expect that you’d get some jail time for your crimes.

If a poor kid was charged with stealing a fraction of that much cash from a sandwich shop, chances are that jail would be waiting.

But a Wisconsin priest stealing from a church trust, a priest with a fondness for luxury goods and fine restaurants, a priest with a powerful ally in the Chicago Greek Orthodox church hierarchy?

Well, that’s a different story, because that’s no poor kid. That’s a holy man with the robes to prove it.

And in this one, the priest walks and doesn’t serve a day in jail.

It is the case of the Rev. James Dokos, the Greek Orthodox priest who pleaded guilty this week in Milwaukee County Circuit Court to a felony for embezzling more than $100,000 from the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church in Milwaukee.

He paid the money back as restitution, and if he behaves himself and spends 40 hours doing community service, it’ll all be dropped down to a misdemeanor, authorities said.

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MEXICO
La Jornada Oriente

[Perhaps the Archbishop of Puebla, Víctor Sánchez Espinosa, knows the whereabouts of the priest Nicolas Aguilar, a pederast who raped dozens of children in the region of Tehuacan and the United States and may be ministering with impunity, according to Alberto Athie, defender of victims of sexual abuse by clergy. He said this impunity can spread as a bad example to other priests who commit statutory rape.]

Publicado por Martín Hernández Alcántara

Es posible que el arzobispo de Puebla, Víctor Sánchez Espinosa, sepa el paradero del cura pederasta Nicolás Aguilar, quien violó a decenas de niños en la región de Tehuacán y Estados Unidos y que incluso el sacerdote siga ejerciendo su ministerio con impunidad, advirtió Alberto Athié, defensor de las víctimas de abuso sexual por clérigos.

Athié consideró que la impunidad que goza Nicolás Aguilar puede cundir como ejemplo para otros sacerdotes que incurren en la violación de menores, por lo que re necesario que desde la comunidad católica se presione a la jerarquía para que se castigue al cura, tal y como ha sucedido en Estados Unidos en casos similares.

Los comentarios de Athié se dieron en el marco de una jornada de análisis y reflexión titulada “¿Qué deja la visita de Francisco a México?”, celebrada ayer en la Universidad Iberoamericana Puebla y en el que participaron especialistas y activistas expertos en el tema.

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ROMA
Hoy Los Angeles

Una escena extraordinaria tendrá lugar en un hotel en Roma el domingo por la noche, cuando uno de los asesores más cercanos al papa Francisco enfrente la primera de cuatro noches de declaraciones –que serán transmitidas en vivo-acerca de su rol en un supuesto encubrimiento de abuso sexual en Australia.

El cardenal George Pell, ministro de finanzas del Vaticano y alto clérigo católico de Australia, se someterá a un interrogatorio entre las 10 p.m. del domingo y las 2 a.m. del lunes, durante al menos tres –posiblemente cuatro- noches. La indagatoria será realizada por jueces de diferentes países, que se conectarán con Sídney (donde será de mañana) por videoconferencia, desde las distintas partes del mundo.

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ROMA
il Giornale

[Peter Saunder, former members of the papal child abuse commission, said the pope has done nothing against pedophilia in the church.]

Lucio Di Marzo – Mar, 23/02/2016

L’accusa è delle più gravi e arriva da un’intervista alla Bbc, in cui Peter Saunders, che Papa Bergoglio aveva voluto nella commissione vaticana contro i preti pedofili si scaglia contro la Santa sede, accusando Francesco di non fare abbastanza per arginare il fenomeno.

“La Chiesa cattolica non ha fatto nulla per eliminare gli abusi sui minori da parte del clero”, spiega Saunders, riferendosi al periodo successivo all’elezione al Soglio pontificio del Papa argentino. Vittima di molestie da parte di un sacerdote, Saunders sostiene di essere “una spina nel fianco del Vaticano” e di esserlo stato fin dal momento in cui è entrato nella Commissione, da cui è stato sospeso a febbraio.

Pensai che il nostro lavoro sarebbe stato quello di prendere delle decisioni contro i singoli sacerdoti abusatori e invece l’obiettivo è creare politiche e linee guida per stabilire quali sono le migliori pratiche per evitare gli abusi”, accusa Saunders, secondo cui la Commissione è solo una “questione di pubbliche relazioni”.

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BELGIQUE
La Libre

[Abus sexuels dans l’Eglise]

[Victims of abuse in the Belgian Catholic Church are urging other victims to file complaints with the church.]

OPINIONS

Nous lançons cet appel à tous les Belges qui ont été agressés ou abusés dans leur enfance ou adolescence, par le clergé de l’Eglise catholique en Belgique, et qui n’ont jamais porté plainte contre ces agressions.

Quelque 950 personnes ont déjà fait appel à notre association Droits des hommes dans l’Eglise catholique. Nous invitons ces personnes à porter plainte contre les coupables de l’époque, vivants ou décédés, et également contre la hiérarchie ecclésiastique qui avait autorité sur les coupables en ces moments, si l’on peut soupçonner que certains de ces supérieurs étaient au courant de ce qui se passait et n’ont rien fait pour arrêter cela.

La façon dont la hiérarchie ecclésiastique belge se défend chez le juge est si pénible pour les victimes que nous nous sentons obligés d’exprimer cette douleur (pour preuve, écoutez l’exposé de leur avocat Me Keuleneer, fin janvier dans la class action à Gand (2) concernant la plainte de 39 victimes pour omission coupable des supérieurs ecclésiastiques à l’époque des abus).

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BELGIE
De Standaard

[Werkgroep Mensenrechten in de Kerk – Wegen tot herstel]

[Fifty victims of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church have come forward publicly and want to help others, still hidden, to complain about their abuse.]

door Yves Delepeleire

Vijftig slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik in de Kerk komen vandaag voor het eerst met naam naar buiten. Ze hopen andere slachtoffers ervan te overtuigen om alsnog een klacht in te dienen.

Meer dan vijftig slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik komen (bijna allemaal) voor het eerst met hun naam en voornaam naar buiten: alleen al daarom is hun oproep in De Standaard uniek. De vijftig richten zich tot alle slachtoffers van seksueel misbruik in de Kerk die hun verhaal tot nu toe voor zich hebben gehouden, uit schaamte of angst. Ze roepen hen op om er alsnog mee naar buiten te komen door bij de politie een klacht in te dienen tegen de dader of zijn hiërarchische overste, als er sprake zou zijn van schuldig verzuim. Óf ze kunnen naar een opvangpunt van de bisdommen en congregaties stappen.

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DEUTSCHLAND
epd

[A reporting center for those abused at Korntaler homes has been set up.]

Eine “Unabhängige telefonische Meldestelle Aufarbeitungsprojekt Korntal” startet am 1. März. Personen, die sexuelle Gewalt und anderes Unrecht in Heimen der Evangelischen Brüdergemeinde Korntal erlebt haben oder davon wissen, können dort vertraulich und auf Wunsch anonym anrufen, teilte Mechthild Wolff von der Hochschule Landshut am Dienstag mit. Wolff und drei weitere Expertinnen wurden von der Brüdergemeinde mit dem wissenschaftliche Forschungsprojekt “Historische Aufarbeitung der Heimerziehung der Evangelischen Brüdergemeinde seit den 50er Jahren” beauftragt. Dafür sammelt die Meldestelle Informationen.

Die Meldestelle solle dazu beitragen, “Ausmaß und Art von Unrechtsfällen zu erfassen”, teilte Wolff mit. Ziel des Projekts sei die Aufklärung von Gewalttaten und der individuellen und institutionellen Verantwortlichkeiten. Anlass waren Berichte von ehemaligen Heimkindern aus drei Kinderheimen der Evangelischen Brüdergemeinde Korntal über sexualisierte, physische und psychische Gewalt. Die Täter waren teils Erziehungs-, Bildungs- und Leitungspersonal, aber auch Personen im technischen Bereich oder aus dem heimnahen Umfeld.

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ROM
religion@orf

Der Finanzchef des Vatikans, der australische Kardinal Kardinal George wird per Videoschaltung als Zeuge im australischen Ballarat bei Melbourne aussagen. Zehn Missbrauchsopfer wollen persönlich an der Befragung von Pell in Rom teilnehmen.

Der Finanzchef des Vatikans, der australische Kardinal Kardinal George Pell, wird per Videoschaltung zu Vorwürfen des Missbrauchs durch Priester in der Stadt Ballarat bei Melbourne als Zeuge aussagen. Der Kardinal wird am kommenden Sonntag in dem Konferenzsaal mit dem Gerichtssaal in Ballarat verbunden sein, berichteten italienische Medien.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Christian Today

Ruth Gledhill CHRISTIAN TODAY CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
24 February 2016

The Archbishop of Canterbury has appointed a woman who is an expert on government and safeguarding to head his independent inquiry into whether there was any kind of cover-up in the Church of England over sex abuse bishop Peter Ball.

Justin Welby, who last year disclosed the inquiry was to take place, has announced that Dame Moira Gibb is to chair the investigation into “the way the Church of England responded” to complaints about the disgraced former Bishop of Gloucester, jailed last year for a string of sex offences.

Dame Moira, former chief executive of Camden Council until 2011 and who chaired the serious case review into safeguarding at Southbank International School in the wake of the crimes committed by William Vahey, is expected to report before the end of this year.

The separate Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, chaired by Justice Goddard, will also be looking at the Peter Ball case.

Dame Moira’s chairmanship was announced as The Times reported that a Church of England priest who was a former police officer held talks with police in an attempt to cover up the scale of offending by Ball. The priest had set out to establish that Ball was innocent but according to a 1993 document seen by The Times, and written up for the attention of the then-Archbishop Lord Carey of Clifton, the priest found that Ball had abused “very many young men who passed through his care”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Church of England

24 February 2016

The Archbishop of Canterbury has announced the appointment of Dame Moira Gibb to be chair of the independent review into the way the Church of England responded to the case of Peter Ball, the former Bishop of Gloucester, who was jailed last year for sex offences.

Dame Moira has worked at a senior level in the statutory sector – she was Chief Executive of Camden Council until 2011 – and holds a range of non-executive roles. Most recently she was the chair of the Serious Case Review (published January 2016) into safeguarding at Southbank International School in the wake of the crimes committed by William Vahey.

She will be assisted in the review by Kevin Harrington JP, safeguarding consultant and lead reviewer on a range of Serious Case Reviews; James Reilly, former Chief Executive of Central London Community Healthcare NHS Trust (until Feb 2016); Heather Schroeder MBE, currently vice chair of Action for Children and formerly held senior positions in social services and children’s services in a number of local authorities.

The review will be published once Dame Moira and her team have completed their work which is expected to be within a year. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) chaired by Justice Goddard will also be looking at the Peter Ball case but have made it clear that institutions should continue with their previous commitments on safeguarding and the Church is in ongoing touch with IICSA on this.

The aim of the review will be to consider: What information was available to the Church of England, who had this information and when and to provide a detailed timeline and transparent account of the response; whether the response was in accordance with recognised good practice, and compliant with CofE policy and legislation as well as statutory policy and legislation; lessons about any necessary changes and developments needed within the CofE to ensure that safeguarding work is of the highest possible standard; how complaints and disciplinary processes are managed and any other specific areas of Church behaviour and practice identified by the review.

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UNITED KINGDOM
National Secular Society

Posted: Wed, 24 Feb 2016

The National Secular Society has warned that the Church’s inquiry into their handling of the Bishop Peter Ball sex abuse case could leave significant questions unanswered.

Bishop Ball was jailed last year for sexual offences, after escaping justice twenty years previously. A letter-writing campaign at the time saw support for the bishop come from senior establishment figures, including a member of the royal family.

The Church of England has now announced that an inquiry will look at the case to establish how much senior figures in the Church of England knew about Ball’s crimes.

However, the NSS has criticised the terms of reference of the Church of England’s review and warned that they do not go to the heart of the failures which contributed to Ball escaping justice for twenty years. In this period one victim committed suicide.

The review will establish “what information was available to the Church of England … concerning Peter Ball’s abuse of individuals; who had this information and when. To provide a detailed timeline and transparent account of the response within the Church of England. To consider whether the response was in accordance with recognised good practice, and compliant with Church of England policy and legislation as well as statutory policy and legislation.”

But the review into the case will be carried out behind closed doors. Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, warned that “while this may encourage greater frankness of those giving evidence, it will be regarded as lacking openness and transparency, qualities already shown to be sorely lacking in the Church over such matters even today.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

A bishop who sexually abused young men escaped justice thanks to a “deeply sinister, co-ordinated” cover-up, one of his victims has said.

Former Bishop of Lewes Peter Ball was jailed for 32 months in October 2015 after pleading guilty to historical sex offences, but he had been originally investigated and cautioned by police in 1993.
Documents seen by the BBC suggest that his defence team in the first investigation sought a deal with the police to avoid scandal as the bishop was “friendly with Prince Charles”.

The Rev Graham Sawyer, one of the men abused by Ball, told the BBC: “It looks like there was a deeply sinister, co-ordinated, but probably in the end rather inept attempt at a cover-up.”

After Ball was sentenced, Lord Carey, who was the head of the Church of England when it emerged that the bishop had misused his power over teenagers and young men, apologised for dealing with his victims “inadequately” but denied presiding over a cover-up.

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UNITED STATES
United Church of Christ

February 02, 2016
Written by Barb Powell

Download the “Spotlight” discussion guide.

Sexual abuse of children, teens and adults by church leaders is a serious problem brought back into focus recently by the heralded film, “Spotlight.” To aid thoughtful dialogue about issues highlighted in the movie, the United Church of Christ has released a film discussion guide for use by churches interested in addressing ways to ensure members of our faith communities are not vulnerable to abuse.studyguidecover.jpg

The story of how the Boston Globe uncovered the massive scandal of child molestation and cover-up in the local Catholic Archdiocese, “Spotlight” is a top contender for the Best Picture Oscar and recently took home the best ensemble cast award from the Screen Actors Guild awards.

“‘Spotlight’ is indeed a cautionary tale for us all. While non-Catholics might be tempted to walk away from the theater with just a tinge of self-righteousness, assuming that this is a Catholic problem, don’t give into that temptation,” said the Rev. Marie M. Fortune, a UCC minister who heads the Seattle-based FaithTrust Institute, which is working to end sexual and domestic abuse. “The fact is that sexual abuse of children, teens, and adults by those designated as faith leaders is a serious and disturbing reality in every faith community. No exceptions.”

The discussion guide, developed by the UCC’s Local Church Ministries as part of the denomination’s 2016 multimedia campaigns tied to its core mission, encourages UCC members and leaders to see the film and then reflect on its implications for their local churches and the denomination as a whole.

“‘Spotlight’ is a wonderfully engaging, yet haunting, film,” said the Rev. J. Bennett Guess, executive minister of Local Church Ministries. “It is the perfect movie for church audiences to see together and then discuss how our churches are taking the necessary steps to protect children and other vulnerable people who are in our care.”

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TEXAS/ARIZONA
Arizona Republic

Christopher Silavong, The Republic | azcentral.com

February 24, 2016

An extradition hearing will be held Wednesday for an 83-year-old Scottsdale man accused of murdering a Texas beauty queen when he was a young priest in 1960.

Prosecutors want John Feit to be returned to Hidalgo County, Texas, to be tried for the first-degree murder of Irene Garza, a 25-year-old school teacher. She went to Feit’s parish on April 16, 1960, and never returned home.

Since nearly a lifetime ago, Feit had been the sole occupant on detectives’ list of suspects in the murder, although he never had been arrested or charged.

His name is absent from the earliest police records generated in the missing-person-turned-murder case. The Republic obtained copies of those records with help from the McAllen Monitor.

The following is an account of the very first days of the case, from when Irene Garza’s father reported her missing to the McAllen Police Department through the forensic examination of her body that would occur five days later.

The beginning

Irene Garza hadn’t called her mother, something she did whenever she was going to be late.

She left home at about 6:30 p.m. for Sacred Heart Catholic Church. It was the night before Easter 1960.

The missing person report gives no indication about when her family expected her home, just that eight hours had passed without word.

Her parents, Josefina and Nicolas Garza, were worried something happened. Nicolas went driving and found her car parked just south of the church. His next stop was the McAllen Police Department to report Irene missing, a report taken at 3:10 a.m. April 17.

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CANADA/UNITED STATES
Toronto Star

By: Peter Goffin Staff Reporter, Published on Mon Feb 22 2016

A man who resigned as director of a Toronto private school in 2008 over graphic poems on his website is now facing child-pornography charges in California.

On Monday, the district attorney of Contra Costa County in the San Francisco Bay area charged David Prashker, 60, with possession of child pornography and attempting to destroy evidence.

County investigators went to search Prashker’s home in Lafayette, Calif. on Feb. 18. When they arrived, Prashker allegedly ran to the back of the house and threw a laptop out a second-storey window into the backyard.

The district attorney’s office said that forensic examiners later found evidence of child pornography on the laptop.

Prashker had recently worked as a substitute teacher at two private schools in Contra Costa, the district attorney said. He has also worked at schools in London and Miami.

From 2004 to 2008, Prashker was director of Leo Baeck Jewish Day School, a kindergarten-to-Grade-8 private school with campuses in Thornhill and just west of Forest Hill.

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NEW JERSEY
Obits for Life

Date of Birth:
Saturday, January 6th, 1934
Date of Death:
Saturday, August 15th, 2015
Funeral Home:
Farmer Funeral Home
farmerfuneralhome.com
45 Roseland Avenue
ROSELAND, New Jersey, UNITED STATES
07068

Obituary:

Rev. Gerald P. Ruane, 81, of Brick, New Jersey, passed away on August 15, 2015, the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. Rev. Ruane was ordained a Priest of the Archdiocese of Newark in 1960. He was a Priest at Our Lady of Lourdes, West Orange, N.J., Pastor of Holy Trinity Church, Westfield, N.J., Professor and Chaplain at Caldwell College, Caldwell, N.J., and Director and Founder of the Sacred Heart Institute in Caldwell, N.J., until his retirement in 2004.

Gerald was much more than a priest. He lived a dynamic life. He was a gifted speaker and author of many books. With a love for travel, he often led spiritual retreats to Rome, the Holy Land, and Medjugorie. His abundant love for family and friends was evident through frequent visits and gatherings for meals, prayers, masses and intriguing conversation. He was well known and loved for his various inspirational Community and Fellowship work – most recently with Alcoholics Anonymous. He generously shared his spirit, time, witty sense of humor, and counsel, all of which will never to be forgotten.

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ISRAEL
The Jewish Week

Tue, 02/23/2016

Nathan Jeffay
Contributing Editor

Will the Jewish women who claim sexual abuse by their headmistress get to see her go to trial? Or will Malka Leifer become the next Avrohom Mondrowitz — another alleged abuser who won’t be extradited from Israel to stand trial.

Mondrowitz, an American Orthodox rabbi, fled the U.S. in 1985 before an arrest warrant could be executed on an indictment handed down against him for child abuse. In the case of Leifer, she fled to Israel from Melbourne, Australia, in 2008, when allegations surfaced that she had abused girls in her care at the Adass Israel School.

She is living in the predominantly Orthodox city of Bnei Brak, and attempts to extradite her are proving fruitless, despite her house arrest. In fact, it’s thought to be one of the most complicated extradition cases in Israeli history.

Leifer claims that she cannot attend extradition proceedings because when court dates loom, the stress brings on psychotic episodes — and these claims have delayed proceedings for a year-and-a-half. The Israeli state prosecutor pushing for extradition told the Jerusalem District Court on Sunday that it’s time to have a state psychiatrist examine whether there may be “elements of fabrication” in this claim.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

Outspoken Liberal senator Bill Heffernan has renewed his call for a national investigation of the judiciary, alleging cover-ups of pedophilic judges.

Senator Heffernan has told parliament on Wednesday the child abuse royal commission should be extended to investigate sex abuse in judiciary ranks, producing an alleged list of pedophiles he says includes senior judges and lawyers, as well as a former prime minister.

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AUSTRALIA
The Islander

By MELISSA CUNNINGHAM
Feb. 24, 2016

A RELIGIOUS superior has admitted to a woefully inadequate culture of protecting children and told an inquiry the Christian Brothers could have not comprehended the enormity of the trauma caused by their brutality and sexual abuse.

Superior of the Christian Brother’s Ballarat community and former headmaster of St Patrick’s College Brother Paul Nangle said the psychosexual formation of brothers was “defective” and while the rape of children could never be justified, he believed society was more relaxed about matters of sexuality during the sexual revolution in the 1970s.

“In my regret I profoundly wish I had of been better informed and had better knowledge of what was occurring,” Br Nangle said.

“I’m appalled at what happened and I’m deeply sorry for pain people have suffered as a result of that.”

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

Megan NeilAAP

A religious superior threatened to “get” a teacher who complained about a pedophile Christian Brother, an inquiry has heard.

A lay teacher was shocked when another pedophile Brother, Br Edward Dowlan, joined Geelong’s St Mary’s College, soon after another had left, the child abuse royal commission heard.

“Dowlan’s inappropriate behaviour with the students was worse than (redacted) and I couldn’t believe what was happening,” Robert Thompson told police.

“Within a short period of time I was beginning to receive complaints from students about Br Dowlan and that he was sexually interfering with them.”

Mr Thompson said he was “frozen out” at the college after approaching the Christian Brothers community leader Br John O’Halloran in 1987 or 1988.

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AUSTRALIA
Courier

[with video]

Federal member for Ballarat Catherine King has made an emotional plea for Cardinal George Pell not to let the Ballarat community down again.

In a prepared speech in parliament on Tuesday, Ms King said the Cardinal’s failure to appear at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse in Ballarat were “not the actions of a man of courage”.

Labelling the Cardinal “Ballarat to the core”, a clearly emotional Ms King had this to say: “As you prepare to give testimony on the 29th, I want to say to you: please do not let them down again.”

Her speech followed that of Wendouree MP Sharon Knight, who made a similar speech on February 10.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – PM

MARK COLVIN: Meanwhile, a lot of people in Ballarat are on edge to hear the testimony of the city’s former bishop Ronald Mulkearns at the Royal Commission tomorrow.

Some victims have waited decades for the bishop to respond to allegations that he ignored complaints that his priests were abusing children.

He’s also been accused of moving paedophile priests from parish to parish during his term between the years of 1971 and 1997.

Bishop Mulkearns is expected to give his evidence by video link from his Ballarat nursing home tomorrow.

Today, some of the victims of the ergion’s most infamous paedophile priest, Gerald Ridsdale, took their complaints to the door of that home.

Charlotte King reports from Ballarat.

CHARLOTTE KING: They call themselves ‘Nazzie girls’: children who ended up in the care of the Sisters of Nazareth girls’ home in Ballarat in the 1950s and ‘60s.

GABRIELLE SHORT: Ninety-five per cent hell. Yeah torture, abuse, fear, terror.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By TOM KELLY FOR THE DAILY MAIL

The scandal of a predatory Bishop who escaped prosecution for child abuse for two decades deepened last night as it was claimed that the Church of England knew he was a serial abuser of ‘young men’.

Peter Ball – who was eventually jailed after admitting the abuse last year – benefited from a ‘deeply sinister cover-up’.

Secret documents claimed that he had been let off 23 years ago to ‘prevent a scandal in the press’ – despite the Church of England being told he was a serial abuser. Ball resigned as Bishop of Gloucester in 1993, but returned to work within two years.

The report was compiled at the time by a private detective working for Ball’s legal team. It warned senior figures that Ball had been ‘abusing not only his office but many young men’ and had confessed to his behaviour.

Its existence was reported by the BBC and it was described as being for the information solely of the Bishop of Chichester, the late Eric Kemp, and the then Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey.

The documents also indicate the private investigator frequently got to his victims before police did. They also made it clear that Ball had confessed to abusing boys.

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BELGIUM
The Brussels Times

Between 2012 and 2015, 418 victims of sexual abuse commited by men of the cloth have come forward say centres established by the Catholic Church, and also a further 628, the Arbitration Centre opened at the request of the Commission Spéciale du Parlement pour le Traitement des Plaintes pour Abus Sexuels (Special Parliamentary Commission for Sexual Abuse Complaints-handling) states.

During this period, the ecclesiastical authorities have given 3.9 million euros to such victims, it emerges from a new report written by Manu Keirse, Professor Emeritus of the KULeuven (University of Leuven) and President of the Commission Interdiocésaine pour la Protection des Enfants et des Jeunes (Inter-diocesan Commission for the Protection of Children and Youths) which will be presented this Monday (today) in Brussels.

To deal with victims’ complaints, the Church has itself put in place reception centres, which are spread across Belgian dioceses and religious congregations, as well as a central information point where those wishing to make a complaint are assisted to do so.

Victims of crimes which are statute-barred, who cannot take legal action have also been encouraged to come forward through public appeals. “Just because the legal time-limits for these crimes have passed, does not mean that these crimes are a thing of the past for victims,” Manu Keirse asserts.

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KENTUCKY
Lexington Herald-Leader

BY MICHAEL MCKAY
mmckay@herald-leader.com

The church worker charged with rape of a 16-year-old met his alleged victim when she was 10 and warned her she would be banned from mission trips if she told anyone about their activities, a Lexington detective testified Tuesday.

Tony Sasnett, 39, was the home Bible study director for Greater Faith Apostolic Church on Clay’s Mill Road in Lexington. As a result of Sasnett’s church role, police and the prosecution argued he was in a position of “special trust” with the victim, but his attorney, Dan Carman, disputed that contention at Tuesday’s preliminary hearing with Fayette District Judge Kim Wilkie.

Sasnett is charged with four counts of third-degree rape, one count of sexual abuse and one count of using a phone to solicit nude photos of a minor. He was originally charged with five counts of rape, but one charge was dismissed at Tuesday’s hearing because the alleged event happened in neighboring Jessamine County.

In testimony, detective Tyler Smith with the Crimes Against Children Unit described how the father of three school-aged children escalated the relationship with the victim from a joke about a massage to sex in parked cars and in Sasnett’s home.

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OHIO
WOWK

[with video]

By Randy Yohe

A community expressed relief after police arrest a man they are calling a sexually violent predator. Police arrested a Southern Ohio country church pastor Monday, and said he preyed on children and the disabled.

A Jackson County, Ohio Grand Jury charged 67-year-old Dennis Wright with 15 felony charges. Charges that included seven counts of rape, two counts of sexual battery, two counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, and several other sexually related charges …

Reports said two of the victims belonged to the church where Wright worked as a Minster. 13 news has more on how police are now looking for more victims.

“Everybody in the neighborhood knew what was going on,” Elliott Perry said.

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BELGIUM
WEST – Welfare Society Territory

by Ivano Abbadessa – 2016.02.23

In Belgium, more than 1,000 people have reported sexual abuse committed by priests between 2012 and 2015. It’s just one of the striking findings of a report presented in Brussels by an inter-diocese Commission for sexual abuse in the Church. The victims were mainly children with 89 per cent still classed as juveniles at the time. Almost one-quarter (23 per cent) were under 10 and 71 per cent were male. They were abused by dozens of paedophile priests. Although 80 per cent of cases took place more than 30 years ago, the horror suffered by the victims leaves an indelible mark that often drives them to alcohol, drugs and, in extreme cases, even suicide. This European scandal is a close-to-home reminder of the American abuse cases, uncovered as part of the ‘Spotlight Investigation’. Now an Oscar-nominated film just out in Italian cinemas, Spotlight tells the story of the Boston Globe reporters who, in 2002, revealed the abuse perpetrated in the US Church, which for years hid the most serious acts of paedophilia by clergy.

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