AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By David Weber

The former head of the Australian Defence Force’s Catholic diocese is yet to decide if he will resume his role in the military, after being cleared of child sex allegations.

Bishop Max Davis was on trial last week charged with six counts of being grossly indecent with boys at St Benedict’s College in New Norcia between 1969 and 1972.

A jury found the 70-year-old not guilty on all charges, after about four hours of deliberation.

Bishop Davis was a dormitory master at St Benedict’s College.

He had always denied any wrongdoing and denied ever having a sexual interest in children.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Justin Wm. Moyer February 16

Saint Pope John Paul II was the 20th century’s towering super-pontiff. He survived the Nazi occupation of Poland and an assassination attempt. He helped end communism in Europe and, even when plagued by severe health problems, left his mark on the Catholic Church in a papacy that stretched over much of three decades. Metaphorically and physically, he climbed mountains.

This week, however, an unexpected glimpse of the man beneath the white hat came from the BBC. In a new report, the network has shined a light on “secret letters” from John Paul II to a married woman that show an intense, if not necessarily inappropriate, friendship.

The lasting connection between the man once known only as Cardinal Karol Wojtyla and Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, a Polish philosopher with three children, began in the 1970s. John Paul II died in 2005; Tymieniecka sold letters from him to her — letters not made public until now — to the National Library of Poland in 2008, and died in 2014.

And, whatever the nature of their acquaintance, John Paul II was extremely devoted to a woman he called “a gift from God.”

In 1976, he wrote to Tymieniecka: “God gave you to me and made you my vocation.” And: “You write about being torn apart … I could find no answer to these words.” And: “If I didn’t have this conviction, some moral certainty of grace, and of acting in obedience to it, I would not dare act like this.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

February 16, 2016

Christopher Knaus
Reporter for The Canberra Times.

Former Marist students have urged the school to rename a student house that honours a brother who helped move and protect a known child sex offender in the late 1960s.

Marist College Canberra has faced private calls to change the name of Othmar House, a student house body that honours the former Marist Brother Othmar Weldon, who held the senior position of provincial leader within the organisation in the 1960s and 1970s.

Brother Weldon’s actions came under close scrutiny in the Canberra hearings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse last year.

Damian De Marco, a victim of Brother Kostka, who was named ACT Local Hero of the Year in 2015 for campaigning to prevent child abuse Photo: Jamila Toderas

The royal commission found Brother Weldon had learnt of complaints that Brother John William Chute, also known as Brother Kostka, sexually abused a boy at a school in Lismore.
Brother Kostka admitted molesting the child, but the provincial council, chaired by Brother Weldon, simply issued him a “canonical warning”. He was then shifted to another school, where, disturbingly, he was promoted to principal.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

February 16, 2016

Shannon Deery
Herald Sun

CROWDFUNDING has raised more than $55,000 to send victims of sexual abuse to Rome to watch George Pell give evidence to the child abuse royal commission.

But the Royal Commision into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has refused to comment on whether it will force Cardinal Pell to testify in public.

Members of the Ballarat and District Child Abuse Survivors group have called for the commission to ensure the Cardinal is forced to testify publicly, and want to be in Rome to witness it.

Donors have already contributed more than $22,800 just a day after a Go Fund Me site was set up by TV personalities Gorgi Coghlan and Meshel Laurie.

In just 24 hours, more than 340 people had donated to the fund, which is hoped will raise $55,000 to send 15 people to Rome.

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VATICAN CITY
UCA News

February 16, 2016

Cardinal Sean O’Malley, president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors issued a statement stressing the “moral and ethical responsibility” to report all suspected cases of sexual abuse to the civil authorities.

“The crimes and sins of the sexual abuse of children must not be kept secret for any longer. I pledge the zealous vigilance of the church to protect children and the promise of accountability for all,” the cardinal said in a Feb. 15 statement, Vatican Radio reported.

The statement also stressed the commission’s “extensive education efforts” within local churches over the past two years and reiterated the members’ willingness to provide this material at courses offered in Rome, “including to the annual training program for new bishops and to the offices of the Roman Curia for their use in their own child protection efforts.”

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ROME
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) The Pontifical Gregorian University on Monday began its first Diploma Program on the Safeguarding of Minors.

The one-semester course is conducted under auspices of the Centre for Child Protection, as a unit of the University’s Institute of Psychology.

In a speech to the first class of the programme, the Rector of the Gregorian University Father François-Xavier Dumortier, S.J., said it was a “relevant part” of the academic structure of the Pontifical Gregorian University.

“Since 2011-2012, we did our best to confront the sad phenomenon of the sexual abuse of minors – especially within the Church,” Fr. Dumortier said. “Responding to Pope Benedict XVI’s and to Pope Francis’ call to root out this evil, we set up this Centre for Child Protection … In the face of situations and facts that wounded, so deeply, many people but also damaged the Church’s witness and credibility, there was a crucial need to address this challenge.”

The diploma course is designed for those presently working in the field of safeguarding, or who will be doing so in the future. This would include child protection officers for dioceses, religious congregations, and other institutions; as well as those who advise or offer training on the issue in educational institutions such as seminaries, formation houses, and schools.

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MISSISSIPPI
Sun Herald

BY ROBIN FITZGERALD
rfitzgerald@sunherald.com Twitter: robincrimenews

GULFPORT — A former Stone County preacher is going to prison for 22 full years for molesting a girl over a three-year period, starting when she was 11 years old.

Carlos Smith, 55, of Saucier, was sentenced Monday in Harrison County Circuit Court in Gulfport.

Smith sexually abused the girl in church and in a family member’s home, according to testimony at his recent trial.

Judge Roger Clark ordered Smith to serve his prison term day for day without eligibility for probation or parole. Clark also ordered lifetime registration as a sex offender.

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AUSTRALIA
Bendigo Advertiser

By Shane Worrell
Feb. 16, 2016

BENDIGO Bishop Andrew Curnow says he feels a “great sense of shame” about incidents of child sexual abuse in the Anglican Church and believes it faces a tough battle regaining credibility.

Bishop Curnow, head of the Anglican Diocese of Bendigo, said the actions of clergymen across the country and the response from bishops aware of abuse had severely damaged the public’s view of the church.

Such actions have been recounted at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse in recent weeks.

“I felt a great sense of shame to sit there and look at the way our church behaved,” he said.

“Not only the way it behaved but what appeared to me … to be the inability of the church to deal with it – the absolute mishmash the bishops at the time made of it by not acting decidedly and appropriately.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Review

Tim Minchin has penned a song in his ever so polite, succinct, and yet jaunty way imploring Cardinal George Pell to return to Australia to give evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Cardinal Pell is apparently too poorly to fly and can’t make it home to give evidence about what he knew, or otherwise, about sexual abuse in the 1980s by priests in the Ballarat diocese.

Minchin said Pell’s excuse to not attend the hearing “stinks to high heaven” and in his single Come Home (Cardinal Pell) asks one of the most powerful priests in the world to: “Come and face the music, Georgie/You owe it to the victims, Georgie”.

Proceeds from the sale of the the single will go to a gofundme.com campaign to help abuse survivors from Ballarat travel to Rome to observe Pell give video evidence to the Commission on February 29.

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NEW MEXICO
Albuquerque Journal

By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writer
Published: Tuesday, February 16th, 2016

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A financial consultant who had complained about a lack of transparency by a church-owned insurance group resigned last week from his role in the Diocese of Gallup’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case.

Settlement talks in the 26-month-old bankruptcy case stalled last month after Catholic Mutual Relief Society of America, a church-owned nonprofit, declined to turn over extensive financial records demanded by the consultant, Michael P. Murphy, the managing director of Michigan-based AlixPartners LLP.

Murphy was hired last year to represent the interests of sexual abuse victims who may file claims in the future.

Earlier this month, Murphy told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David T. Thuma of Albuquerque that he would view Catholic Mutual’s financial statement, then give the judge a “thumbs up or thumbs down” decision whether to oversee a future-claims trust fund to distribute money paid by Catholic Mutual.

Murphy gave Thuma a “thumbs down” last week and asked to be relieved as the future-claims representative.

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MINNESOTA
WDAY

By Dan Romano

The Diocese of Duluth and attorneys representing child sexual abuse victims have agreed to enter mediation for victim claims.

The Diocese of Duluth filed for bankruptcy in December, saying the move will allow them to protect assets and pay out what is due to victims. However, Judge Robert Kressel encouraged the Diocese and all parties involved to work with a mediator.

Gregg Zive, a federal judge with experience in diocesan bankruptcy cases, is expected to approved as mediator by Judge Kressel.

“He’s a federal bankruptcy judge out of Nevada, and he has mediated a number of cases like this in Catholic abuse cases across the country where the diocese or religious organization was in bankruptcy. He’s been very successful at that,” said Mike Finnegan, attorney from Jeff Anderson & Associates, the law firm representing a number of the victims in this case.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Tuesday 16 February 2016

Survivors of child sexual abuse are crowdfunding to send representatives to Rome to hear Australia’s most senior Catholic, cardinal George Pell, give evidence before a child sex abuse royal commission via video link from 29 February.

Earlier this month Pell was cleared to give evidence about child sex abuse that occurred within Ballarat parishes while he was an assistant priest at Ballarat East via video rather than in person. The chair of the royal commission into institutional responses into child sexual abuse, justice Peter McClellan, made the ruling.

Pell suffers from medical conditions related to hypertension and heart disease, which meant flying could be potentially dangerous, the commission heard.

The decision prompted the comedian and radio and television personality Meshel Laurie, who has spoken to survivors of child sexual abuse and their supporters, to launch a crowdfunding campaign.

She did so with support from Loud Fence, a support group for survivors of child sexual abuse in Ballarat religious institutions.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Ballarat survivors of sexual abuse plan to travel to Rome to hear Cardinal George Pell give evidence to the royal commission into child sex abuse, as a result of a crowdfunding campaign.

Cardinal Pell will remain in Rome after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse accepted a doctor’s report that said he was too sick to return to testify in Australia.

Comedian Meshel Laurie and television presenter Gorgi Coghlan started a GoFundMe page to send 15 representatives from the City of Ballarat, survivors and support people to Rome for the hearing.

The campaign exceeded its target of $55,000 after the fundraising page was shared more than 3,100 times on Facebook and Twitter.

The campaign aimed to raise the funds before the hearing on February 29 and says “the opportunity to face Cardinal Pell is the least our community can do for these brave people who have bared their souls to ensure the world is a safer place for all children”.

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RUSSIA/ISRAEL
RAPSI

MOSCOW, February 16 (RAPSI) – The Supreme Court of Israel has ordered the extradition to Russia of Gleb Grozovsky, a priest from St. Petersburg who stands charged with sexual abuse of children, his lawyer Haim Azencott told RAPSI on Tuesday.

According to Russian investigators, Grozovsky committed sex crimes against several minors in 2011 and 2013.

In 2013, he fled to Israel where he applied for citizenship. However, his application was dismissed.

In April 2014, Grozovsky was put on the international wanted list. Israeli police arrested him in September. In January 2015, a court in Jerusalem ruled that the priest should be extradited to Russia pursuant to the European Convention on Extradition.

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AUSTRALIA
Church Militant

by Bradley Eli, M.Div., MA.Th. • ChurchMilitant.com • February 15, 2016

Australian Bishop Max Davis found not guilty of child abuse dating back to 1969

PERTH, Western Australia (ChurchMilitant.com) – Bishop of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) Max Davis, accused of molesting boys almost 50 years ago, was exonerated Monday in the Perth District Court.

Davis, 70, stepped down from his duties as Catholic bishop of the ADF two years ago, when he was charged with six counts of indecent dealing with five male children dating back to events occurring between 1969 and 1972. At that time Davis was dormitory master at St. Benedict’s College in New Norcia, northeast of Perth in Western Australia.

The prosecution alleged that Davis, as dorm master, molested five boys aged 13 to 15 in residence at the college. One former student testified that he was sexually abused while being examined in the college’s first-aid room for a groin injury sustained while playing football. Another man testified he was abused while ill when he stayed in the dorm master’s bed and thought it was part of a medical examination.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release, February 15, 2016

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, outreach director for SNAP (314 503 0003, bdorris@SNAPnetwork.org)

A second member of a papal abuse panel is blasting Vatican officials for “great resistance” to child abuse reforms.

Marie Collins of Ireland said she was “horrified, absolutely horrified” to hear that new bishops were told they need not report known or suspected abuse to secular authorities. “It couldn’t be further from best practice if you tried to,” she told the Irish Times in a new interview.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/roman-curia-not-co-operating-with-child-abuse-commission-1.2534608

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2016/02/15/abuse-survivor-on-vatican-committee-accuses-roman-curia-of-blocking-reforms/

Another panel member, Peter Saunders of the UK, is also critical of the Vatican.

http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/208717/%E2%80%98on-child-abuse-there-is-no-sincerity-on-francis%E2%80%99-side%E2%80%99

Francis’ handling of the abuse crisis is coming under fire from others too:

—The Global Post: http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/208717/%E2%80%98on-child-abuse-there-is-no-sincerity-on-francis%E2%80%99-side%E2%80%99

—The New York Times editorial board: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/11/opinion/tracing-the-bishops-culpability-in-the-child-abuse-scandal.html?_r=0

—John Allen of Crux: http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2016/02/07/what-new-catholic-bishops-are-and-arent-being-told-on-sex-abuse/

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

Christina Tatu
Of The Morning Call

Marty Baron, executive editor of the Washington Post and a graduate of Lehigh University, will return to his alma-mater Thursday for a free screening and discussion of “Spotlight,” the Oscar Best Picture contender dramatizing the Boston Globe’s investigation into child sexual abuse by the Catholic priests.

As the Globe’s editor, Baron, 61, oversaw the paper’s 2002 investigation exposing the depth of child sexual abuse an and massive cover-up in the Boston Archdiocese.

The investigation earned a Pulitzer Prize, and the digging by the paper’s investigative Spotlight team – for which the movie is named – sparked similar investigations and shocking revelations in archdioceses all over the country.

Baron, whose career included stints at The Miami Herald, New York Times and Los Angeles Times, recently answered questions about the investigation, movie and his time at Lehigh. …

Q. What did you think about the movie’s portrayal of events?

A. I was very pleased with how the movie portrayed things. It was the overall outline of how the investigation unfolded…I think it’s important to recognize it is a movie and not a documentary, so there is some dramatic license.

Q. How much time did producers spend researching for the movie and how much were you involved in that research?

A. (Director Tom McCarthy and writer Josh Singer) interviewed all the journalists who are the central characters. They interviewed us for ‘hours on end,’ they looked at e-mails people had saved and every legal document that was available – and that’s lots and lots of them.

Liev Schreiber (the actor who portrays Baron) came to my office at The Washington Post and we talked for a bit less than two hours. I was able to review the screenplay a couple times and provide my commentary on it, and my colleagues in Boston were also able to review the movie.

Q. What did you think when you learned they wanted to make a movie about the Spotlight team?

A. I never went into this business with the expectation I would be portrayed in a movie, and frankly, I never expected this movie to be made…Even when I read the screenplay, I wasn’t sure it would get made. It was a very difficult movie to finance.

One, it deals with a very sensitive subject and a controversial subject. It doesn’t have any special effects or car chases, and there are no cartoons, none of the stuff that generally draws people to movies today…

Finally, it was at a time when the world got a new pope…The church finally acquired a new pope who was popular with the public, and I thought for sure that would kill off the movie…

Q. What did you think when you first saw the movie?

A. I first saw it at the Toronto International Film Festival (in September 2015). I had not seen it on the big screen until that point. It was a very emotional moment. There were 2,000 people in a gigantic theater (Princess of Wales Theatre). To see and hear the reaction of the audience affected me a lot.

It finally dawned on me that the whole world would know this story…

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UNTIED STATES
South China Morning Post

James Mottram
life@scmp.com

There are many shocking things about Spotlight, Tom McCarthy’s new film about the discovery of widespread sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, but perhaps the most shocking thing of all comes at the end.

Fear not, this is not a spoiler. Before the credits roll on this Boston-set story, a caption lists hundreds of cities around the world where such crimes were subsequently uncovered. It will make you gasp with disbelief.

“It’s astounding!” admits Stanley Tucci, one of the stars of Spotlight. “But if you know it’s happening in Boston, you know it’s happening all over the place. If it’s that systemic in one city … the Catholic Church, it’s all connected. It’s all connected!”

He breaks off, aware that he’s beginning to sound like his character, eccentric lawyer Mitchell Garabedian. “It’s not like this is a new thing. It’s appalling. It’s disgusting.”

Spotlight doesn’t just examine how priests targeted children in their parishes. Set in the early 2000s, it showcases how the four-strong investigative team at The Boston Globe uncovered a widespread cover-up within the Catholic Church, as predatory priests were simply removed from one diocese, sent to a treatment centre and quietly reintegrated into another parish “where the abuse would continue”, as McCarthy puts it.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) Cardinal Seán O’Malley, President of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors on Monday issued a statement stressing the “moral and ethical responsibility” to report all suspected cases of sexual abuse to the civil authorities.

Speaking on behalf of all the Commission members, the cardinal said: “The crimes and sins of the sexual abuse of children must not be kept secret for any longer. I pledge the zealous vigilance of the Church to protect children and the promise of accountability for all”.

The statement also stressed the Commission’s “extensive education efforts” within local Churches over the past two years and reiterated the members’ willingness to provide this material at courses offered in Rome, “including to the annual training program for new bishops and to the offices of the Roman Curia for their use in their own child protection efforts”.

Please see below the full statement from Cardinal Seán O’Malley, President of the the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors

Cardinal Seán O’Malley, OFM Cap., president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, together with all the Commission Members, issued today the following statement on the obligation to report suspected sexual abuse to civil authorities:

“As Pope Francis has so clearly stated: ‘The crimes and sins of the sexual abuse of children must not be kept secret for any longer. I pledge the zealous vigilance of the Church to protect children and the promise of accountability for all’. We, the President and the Members of the Commission, wish to affirm that our obligations under civil law must certainly be followed, but even beyond these civil requirements, we all have a moral and ethical responsibility to report suspected abuse to the civil authorities who are charged with protecting our society”.

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TEXAS
The Monitor

Irene Garza’s family said they are overwhelmed with the news of John Feit’s arrest last week in connection with the rape and murder of their 25-year-old cousin in 1960.

Garza’s first cousin, Lynda de la Viña, broke the family’s silence Sunday with their first official statement. Below is the statement in it’s entirety:

STATEMENT OF IRENE GARZA FAMILY

Statement by Dr. Lynda Y. de la Viña, first cousin of Irene Garza on behalf of the Garza and Cisneros Families (Josie Cavazos, sister; and Nick and Ciro Cavazos, nephews; John de la Viña, first cousin; and the Cisneros first cousins):

“We were overwhelmed with the news of John Feit’s arrest and we continue to stand united after 56 years in the pursuit of justice for Irene. Proverbs 25:2 (King James Bible) says It is the Glory of God to conceal a thing, but the honour of kings is to search out a matter. In other words, nothing can be hidden from God, but it is the honour of rulers, to bring to light hidden works of darkness. We express our deep appreciation to the McAllen Police Department, The Texas Rangers, and the District Attorney’s office for their focused and relentless pursuit of justice for Irene.”

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IRELAND
Irish Times

When abuse victim Marie Collins claims the Roman Curia is frustrating efforts to implement decisions which will make the church a safer place for children, we must take notice

A feature of the clerical child abuse scandals that emerged in Ireland over recent decades has been the central role women played in bringing them to light. As pertinent has been the male-determined legalistic mindset they’ve had to deal with in response. The latter has consistently favoured structure over the suffering of children and its prevention.

Next Monday will mark the 20th anniversary of the broadcasting by RTÉ of Dear Daughter, the documentary wherein the late Christine Buckley and other women detailed their experiences as children in Dublin’s Goldenbridge orphanage. What was intended as a feel-good story of orphan girl meeting long-lost father became something more explosive at the insistence of Ms Buckley; then also lobbying politicians to help all who had been in such institutions as children.

Then too the late Mary Raftery, with Sheila Ahern, was at work on her ground-breaking States of Fear series which recounted the horrors of what had been going on in those same residential institutions for children. In 2002 her Cardinal Secrets programme exposed the handling of clerical child sex abuse allegations in Dublin’s Catholic archdiocese.

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MISSOURI
KMOX

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) – An ex priest, John Feit faces murder charges from a 1960 Texas case, and he has ties to St. Louis.

Last week, Feit was charged with killing Irene Garza. Evidence linked him to the case years ago, but the Survivors’ Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP’s David Clohessy, says he was moved to St. Louis and Ava Missouri.

Clohessy says “It’s going to be tough for prosecutors to resolve a 56 year old murder case. Every single victim, or witness, or whistleblower, or anybody who was hurt by Father Feit or who might have information about his crimes really needs to come forward. It’s possible that Father Feit might have hurt a woman while he was here in St. Louis.”

Feit also pleaded no contest to assaulting another young woman in Texas, just days before Irene Garza was killed.

A former monk, says Feit confessed to the murder during counseling sessions in the 1960’s, after being sent to an Ava Missouri Monastery, following the murder.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

By Ed Stourton
BBC News

Pope John Paul II was one of the most influential figures of the 20th Century, revered by millions and made a saint in record time, just nine years after he died. The BBC has seen letters he wrote to a married woman, the Polish-born philosopher Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, that shed new light on his emotional life.

Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka was a great hoarder, and she seems to have kept everything relating to her 32-year friendship with Saint John Paul. After her death, a huge cache of photographs was found among her possessions. We are used to seeing John Paul in formal papal clothing amid the grandeur of the Vatican, and yet here he is on the ski slopes, wearing shorts on a lake-side camping trip, and, in old age, entertaining privately in his rather sparse-looking living quarters.

Even more revealing is the archive of letters that Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka sold to the National Library of Poland in 2008. These were kept away from public view until they were shown to the BBC.

When the two met in 1973, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla – as he then was – was the Archbishop of Krakow. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka was Polish by birth, and, like him, had endured the searing experience of the Nazi occupation during World War Two. After the war she left to study abroad and eventually pursued an academic career as a philosopher in the United States, where she married and had three children.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

[The Secret Letters of Pope John Paul II – video which can only be seen in the UK.]

Hundreds of letters and photographs that tell the story of Pope John Paul II’s close relationship with a married woman, which lasted more than 30 years, have been shown to the BBC.

The letters to Polish-born American philosopher Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka had been kept away from public view in the National Library of Poland for years.

The documents reveal a rarely seen side of the pontiff, who died in 2005.

There is no suggestion the Pope broke his vow of celibacy.

The friendship began in 1973 when Ms Tymieniecka contacted the future Pope, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, then Archbishop of Krakow, about a book on philosophy that he had written.

The then 50-year-old travelled from the US to Poland to discuss the work.

Shortly afterwards, the pair began to correspond. At first the cardinal’s letters were formal, but as their friendship grew, they become more intimate.

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UNITED STATES
Deadline

EXCLUSIVE: Open Road just got this testimonial for Spotlight from Carl Bernstein, who with Spotlight posterBob Woodward led the Washington Post investigation that traced the Watergate burglary all the way to the Nixon White House and was immortalized in All The President’s Men. They’d been trying to get him to see the movie, and finally he rang up producer Michael Sugar with this quote: “Spotlight is a film that demonstrates finally, in the era of Twitter, why we need great reporting: more than ever—and shows how real journalism is done, with all its difficulty and complexity and, especially, the moral ambiguities and choices a truly free press must deal with. Ultimately, as Spotlight makes clear, the press remains our last chance at holding institutions accountable through the best obtainable version of the truth.”

What is intriguing about this endorsement during the Best Picture voting week is that, the whole time director Tom McCarthy, his co-writer Josh Singer and the entire cast were out promoting Spotlight, they assiduously steered clear of trying to compare themselves to All The President’s Men, the 1976 Alan J. Pakula-directed film about the Woodward-Bernstein Washington Post triumph that led to Richard Nixon’s resignation. That reticence is understandable, given that All The President’s Men is considered one of the best American pictures ever made. But there are valid grounds for comparisons: Both are journalistic procedural story lines; Watergate was a local story for the Washington Post, just the way that the Catholic Church pedophile-priest scandal was a local story for the Boston Globe‘s Spotlight team. In both cases, taking on a dominant institution in town — the White House and the Catholic Church — would have ended careers had the reporters not nailed each story to the tree and forced historic reforms.

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, Feb. 15, 2016

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

An ex-priest who was just charged with raping and murdering a beauty queen spent time in St. Louis, a daily newspaper disclosed yesterday. We fear he may have hurt a woman in here too.

[The Monitor]

We urge Missouri Catholic officials, especially St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson, to

— disclose where in St. Louis Feit was, and

— aggressively beg victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to come forward to law enforcement so the full truth about this heinous crime can be uncovered.

Last week, John Feit was arrested in Phoenix for killing a 25 year old parishioner in McAllen, Texas in 1960. Two years later, he pled “no contest” to assaulting another young woman.

[The Monitor]

After Irene Garza’s murder, Catholic officials quietly moved Feit several places including St. Louis and Ava Missouri, according to The McAllen Monitor. In Ava, he reportedly admitted, in detail, several times, how he killed Garza.

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IRELAND
Catholic Herald (UK)

by David V Barrett posted Monday, 15 Feb 2016

Marie Collins said the Curia has shown ‘great resistance’ to proposals made by the the Vatican’s Commission for the Protection of Minors

The Curia is blocking improvements in the handling of abuse cases, according to a member of the Vatican’s Commission for the Protection of Minors.

Marie Collins, who was abused when she was 13 by the chaplain at Dublin’s Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin in 1960, has been a member of the abuse commission for two years.

In an interview with the Irish Times, she has expressed her frustration that little is being done by the Curia to push through proposals made by the commission, despite Pope Francis’s support for action.

A Vatican tribunal was set up last year to hold bishops to account on the handling of abuse cases, but Collins says it’s implementation has been slow to materialise.

“We as a commission put forward the proposal. It went to the Council of Cardinals, they approved it. It went forward to the Pope. He approved it. It was announced in the press, then it went to be implemented and that’s where the brick wall is. The implementation is the problem,” Collins said.

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FRANCE
Le Figaro

L’association “La parole libérée”, qui regroupe les victimes du prêtre Bernard Preynat, accusé de pédophilie sur des scouts mineurs qu’il avait en charge entre 1986 et 1991 dans la région lyonnaise, a décidé de porter plainte contre l’Archévêque de Lyon, annonce aujourd’hui FranceTVinfo.

L’association met en cause directement Monseigneur Barbarin pour n’avoir pas dénoncé à la justice les actes de pédophilie dont il a eu connaissance “vers 2007-2008”, selon ses dires sans La Croix la semaine dernière.

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FRANCE
Europe 1

[The association called La parole liberee (liberated speech), which includes victims of Bernard Preynat, criticized the Cardinal Archbishop of Lyon for not acting when he learned the crimes of pedophile priest. The associated said it intends to file a complaint against Philippe Barbarin, archbishop of Lyon.]

L’association “La parole libérée“, qui regroupe les victimes de Bernard Preynat, reproche à l’archevêque de Lyon de ne pas avoir agi lorsqu’il a appris les crimes du prêtre pédophile.

Cette fois, c’est l’institution qui est en cause. L’association “La parole libérée”, qui regroupe les victimes du prêtre auteur d’actes pédophiles Bernard Preynat, a manifesté son intention de déposer une plainte contre l’archevêque de Lyon, Philippe Barbarin. Le prélat se voit reprocher de ne pas avoir alerté la justice des exactions de l’ancien prêtre du diocèse de Lyon, mis en examen depuis fin janvier pour “agressions sexuelles sur mineurs de moins de 15 ans par personne ayant autorité”.

“Des faits anciens pour lesquels il n’y avait jamais eu de plainte”. Dans un entretien accordé à La Croix, le cardinal Barbarin dit avoir été mis au courant des crimes du père Preynat “vers 2007-2008”. Il explique s’être alors expliqué avec le prêtre pédophile, qui le convainc de son innocence. “Il s’agissait de faits anciens pour lesquels il n’y avait jamais eu de plainte, ni aucun indice de récidive”, ajoute-t-il, précisant avoir recueilli en 2014 un premier témoignage de victime. “Ma seule préoccupation est qu’aucun mal ne soit plus jamais commis.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Freethinker

The Roman Catholic church has lifted the suspension of a Tamil Nadu priest convicted last year of sexually assaulting a 14 year-old girl in the US more than a decade ago.

The suspension of Rev Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, above, was lifted after the bishop of the Ootacamund Diocese in Tamil Nadu consulted with church authorities at the Vatican, said Rev Sebastian Selvanathan, a spokesman for the diocese.

Bishop Arulappan Amalraj of Ootacamund (Ooty) had referred Jeyapaul’s case to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and the suspension was lifted on the church body’s advice, he added.

The Vatican declined immediate comment.

Jeyapaul was sent to Minnesota in 2004. He was suspended in 2010 after being charged with sexually assaulting two girls who were both 14 at the time.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Stephen Moss
@StephenMossGdn
Monday 15 February 2016

‘More smoke than fire,” says the Vatican of Panorama’s programme about The Secret Letters of Pope John Paul II. For once, it’s hard not to agree with the cardinals. For more than three decades, Pope John Paul – the Polish pontiff who oversaw the Catholic world for 27 years and is being fast-tracked to sainthood – carried on an intense correspondence with Polish-born American philosopher Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka. They met frequently, collaborated on books, wrote each other what were to all intents and purposes love letters, but it seems they never … how can I put this … actually did it. John Paul’s vow of celibacy remained intact – as far as we know, anyway.

If that is the case, it would seem to strengthen the case for sainthood, rather than weaken it. Clearly, they loved each other; they had plenty of opportunity – numerous meetings à deux, not least while Tymieniecka was translating John Paul’s book The Acting Person (her translation is controversial and the real story may be that she screwed up the book). But we are led to believe that nothing ever happened. Certainly, Panorama could find no evidence. It’s a miracle.

The personal lives of modern popes are largely dull – hence the interest in these letters. If a cardinal had a love child, the rest of the conclave would almost certainly know about it and his chances of election would be minimal. More fire than smoke. The Vatican may be secretive, but it’s not stupid, and papal candidates are expected not to have too much personal baggage.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Derry Now

Monday 15th of February 2016

An Executive agreement to set up a working group to make recommendations on a proposed inquiry into Mother and Baby Homes/Magdalene Laundries has been welcomed by Sinn Fein MLA Maeve McLaughlin.

An inter-departmental working group led by the Department of Health has been set up to make recommendations on the scope of any proposed inquiry into Mother and Baby Homes and Magdalene laundries.

The working group will bring its recommendations to the Executive within six months.

Welcoming the announcement, Miss McLaughlin (pictured), the chairperson of the Stormont Health Committee, said the move was a “step forward” for all those who had suffered “greatly” in such homes.

She added: “Last week my party colleague Jennifer McCann met with a number of individuals and groups who were directly affected by the abuse they suffered in Mother and Baby Homes and listened to their experiences.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

FEBRUARY 16, 2016

Rachel Baxendale
Reporter
Melbourne

Catholic Church sex abuse victims say that if Cardinal George Pell will not travel to Australia to give evidence at the child abuse royal commission, they will go to Rome to watch him testify.

Earlier this month, commissioner Peter McClellan accepted the evidence from the cardinal’s lawyers that a worsening heart condition would prevent the 74-year-old attending a third public hearing into Catholic Church authorities in Ballarat, which is due to begin in Sydney at the end of the month.

Cardinal Pell will instead give evidence via videolink from Rome, where he manages the Vatican’s finances.

A group of victims, including Andrew Collins, Anthony and Chrissie Foster, Paul Levey, Maureen Hatcher, David Ridsdale and Stephen Woods, yesterday called on the commission to ensure Cardinal Pell gives evidence under conditions as close as possible to an Australian court setting.

“While it was always preferable that Cardinal Pell appear in person, we accept the ruling of the commission and seek to move forward in the most equitable fashion possible,” the group said.

“Attending in person was an opportunity for the cardinal to ­ensure the evidence given was unambiguous and within a courtroom setting.

“It was also an opportunity to provide direct ­responses to the survivors of the crimes committed under the auspices of the Catholic Church.”

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IOWA
KWQC

DUBUQUE, Iowa (KWQC) – An ex-priest who was arrested last week and charged with raping and murdering a beauty queen in Texas over 55 years ago also spent time in Dubuque. David Clohessy, Director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) says the group fears he may have hurt a woman in Iowa too.

Last week, John Feit was arrested in Phoenix for killing a 25-year-old parishioner in McAllen, Texas in 1960. Two years later, he pleaded “no contest” to assaulting another young woman.

After Irene Garza’s murder, SNAP says Catholic officials quietly moved Feit several places including “a monastery in Dubuque, Iowa,” according to a 7,100 word investigative report on the case in Texas Monthly.

SNAP argures that even though Feit’s time in Iowa was allegedly “brief,” it takes just seconds to assault a vulnerable person. They say even if he did not hurt a single Iowa woman, “the prudent, caring move now would be for Iowa Catholic bishops to use parish bulletins, church websites and pulpit announcements to urge anyone with information or suspicions about Feit to call secular authorities.”

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Matt Sepic · Feb 15, 2016

Advocates for clergy abuse victims are criticizing a decision by Catholic church officials in India to reinstate a priest convicted of sexual assault in Minnesota.

After he was extradited to the U.S., the Rev. Joseph Jeyapaul pleaded guilty last year to assaulting a 16-year-old girl in Greenbush, Minn., in 2005.

A spokesperson for the Diocese of Ootacamund told The Associated Press that Jeyapaul’s suspension was lifted following approval from the Vatican.

David Clohessy of the victims group Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests says Jeyapaul should have been banned from ministry permanently.

“I think this convicted predator is being put back on the job for the same reason that bishops continue to conceal child sex crimes all across the globe,” Clohessy said, “simply because they can.”

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Aodhan O’Faolain
PUBLISHED
15/02/2016

Three people sexually abused by paedophile priest Brendan Smyth want the Supreme Court to permit them sue a Catholic Bishop here over the church’s alleged failure to act to prevent Smyth abusing children.

If the church kept “under wraps” facts that would have identified Smyth as being an abuser of children, that is a matter of “significant public importance” entitling his side to appeal to the Supreme Court, Michael Counihan SC, for the three, said.

The Court of Appeal last November granted Bishop Leo O’Reilly orders halting the three actions brought here against him, in his capacity as representative of the Kilmore diocese, over the church’s alleged failure to move to stop Smyth’s abuse.

The three – a man, his sister and a cousin – settled Northern Ireland court actions in 1998 for Stg £25,000 damages each over being sexually abused over years as children by Smyth.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

Marie Collins is tired, not surprisingly. Dealing with the grinding, mechanical mindset she has encountered again and again at senior levels in the Catholic Church would have long since killed off the determination of a lesser person.

In her seventh decade, she has spent the last three of those focused on one thing – making the Catholic Church a safer place for children. In her own young life she knew it to be otherwise. She later discovered the lengths to which it would go to protect itself, even if that meant further violation of the innocent.

She was aged 13 in 1960 when she was sexually abused by the then chaplain at Dublin’s Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin. He has since been convicted of the crime and of the abuse of other children.

In the 1980s, while receiving counselling for her abuse, she was advised to report it to church authorities. The priest she approached refused to take details and implied the abuse was her fault. “Shattered”, she returned to silence for 10 more years.

Prompted by the furore following the jailing of Fr Brendan Smyth in Belfast, after a 40-year career of abusing children, and fearful that her own abuser might still be active, she went to Dublin church authorities in 1995.

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UNITED STATES
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor February 15, 2016

One could have an argument about this, I suppose, but I’m going to state the claim baldly anyway: There’s no public figure in the world today with an image defined by a more misleading soundbite than Pope Francis, whose signature line from almost three years ago remains, “Who am I to judge?”

Uttered in connection with his attitude toward gay people, that celebrated phrase has been taken to suggest an accepting and laid-back sort of pontiff, more or less “I’m Okay, You’re Okay” in a white cassock.

Reality couldn’t be more different.

In truth, Francis is one of the most “judgmental” figures around, in the sense of never pulling punches when he thinks something is wrong. We’ve had several stinging reminders during his current trip to Mexico, from his thundering denunciation of drug dealers with their “hands drenched in blood” to his strong pleas for justice for immigrants and indigenous persons.

There’s yet another constituency in Mexico right now feeling rather thoroughly judged by the pontiff, and, for the record, found not altogether up to snuff: the country’s roughly 170 Catholic bishops.

In a remarkable 4,500-word address to the bishops on Saturday, one of the most developed and detailed speeches of his papacy, Francis laid out a vision of the kind of prelate he believes the Church needs today — and left little doubt that it’s not always the kind of shepherd it actually has.

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FRANCE
Liberation

[Cardinal Philippes Barbarin has been accused of not reporting a suspect pedophile priest.]

Par Bernadette Sauvaget — 12 février 2016

Le cardinal Barbarin accusé de non-dénonciation de pédophilie

Relativement épargnée ces dernières années par le scandale de la pédophilie, l’Eglise catholique en France est à la veille d’une grande tempête. En cause, l’un des plus puissants et médiatiques évêques de l’Hexagone : le cardinal-archevêque de Lyon, Philippe Barbarin, grand pourfendeur du mariage pour tous.

«Dans les prochains jours, des plaintes vont être déposées contre lui pour non-dénonciation de faits de pédophilie», indique à Libération François Devaux, le président de l’association La Parole libérée. Fondée en décembre, elle regroupe les personnes qui auraient été victimes du père Bernard Preynat, un prêtre du diocèse de Lyon, mis en examen le 27 janvier pour «agressions sexuelles sur mineurs de moins de 15 ans par personne ayant autorité».

Les faits (reconnus par l’accusé) se seraient produits entre 1986 et 1991 dans le cadre d’un groupe de scouts d’une paroisse de Sainte Foy-lès-Lyon. «L’affaire Preynat est désormais dans les mains de la justice. En revanche, l’attitude de l’évêque de Lyon a été déplorable. Il l’a laissé en poste jusqu’en août 2015 et au contact des enfants, un prêtre dont il connaissait les agissements», souligne le président. Il précise que les faits ne sont pas prescrits.

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FRANCE
La Vie

[The case grows. While the diocese of Lyon announced in October 2015 that one of its priests was impeached and indicted for sexual abuse of minors, a victims association was constituted and put into question the silence the diocese and Cardinal Barbarin.]

LAURENCE FAURE
CRÉÉ LE 12/02/2016

L’affaire prend de l’ampleur. Alors que le diocèse de Lyon a annoncé en octobre 2015 qu’un de ses prêtres était destitué et mis en cause pour abus sexuels sur mineurs remontant à plus de 25 ans, une association de victimes s’est constituée, mettant notamment en cause le silence du diocèse et du cardinal Barbarin.

De quoi s’agit-il ?

Le père Bernard Preynat, septuagénaire, prêtre du diocèse de Lyon, est soupçonné d’avoir commis des attouchements sexuels dans les années 1980, sur des scouts âgés de 7 à 11 ans, dans le cadre des activités paroissiales de la paroisse Saint-Luc à Sainte-Foy-les-Lyon, où il était vicaire de 1972 à 1990. Quatre plaintes ont été déposées en mai 2015, et certainement « plusieurs autres à venir », prévient François Devaux, ancienne victime (en 1990, à l’âge de 11 ans), joint par téléphone, qui rappelle que « techniquement », toutes ne sont pas « victimes » au sens juridique du terme « car il y a prescription » – celle-ci s’appliquant 20 ans à compter de la majorité de la victime.

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ITALIA
Rete L’Abuso

[Priest Diego Rota is arrested and charged with sex with minors.]

Solza, Arrestato Don Diego Rota: Sesso Con Minori, Le Intercettazioni

Lombardia
redazione web – 13 febbraio 2016

Le intercettazioni telefoniche tra il prete di Solza, don Diego Rota, e le sue due vittime minorenni: uno smartphone in regalo in cambio di sesso. Gli incontri avvenivano spesso al cimitero di Seriate

Stupore, sgomento e profondo dolore. Confidiamo nella giustizia, vogliamo che tutto il cuore che la verità si affermi”. Questa la nota con cui la curia bergamasca ha replicato alla notizia dell’arresto di Diego Rota, giovane parroco – ha 45 anni – di Solza, piccolo Comune di meno di 2000 abitato che si trova nell’Isola, ad una quindicina di chilometri dal capoluogo.

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ITALIA
Rete L’Abuso

[More and more people have stopped believing because of the pedophilia problem in the Catholic Church. They see pedophilia as the Anti-Christ.]

Sempre più persone smettono di credere. La pedofilia nella Chiesa è l’Anticristo, una piaga che va sanata con denunce immediate.

“Troppi preti pedofili, basta! Smetto di credere in Dio”, capita spesso di sentire questa frase lanciata tra i passanti, per le strade del centro o in metropolitana. Ormai, la gente è sfiduciata, ha smesso di credere nella figura del sacerdote e di conseguenza ha deposto anche la fede. Nulla di più sbagliato. La religione è una pratica, ma la fede è un sentire. Cosa ha a che fare con i preti pedofili? Dietro l’abito talare si nasconde sempre un uomo con pregi e difetti umani, questo non va mai dimenticato.

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MEXICO
El Pais

[The curia does not smell of sheep. This morning, the shadowy figure of the Archbishop Primate of Mexico Norberto Rivera in the back seat of the popemobile was moving portrait of the uneasy relationship between Francis and the conservative Mexican hierarchy; and especially with the wing of Rivera, who at the time of John Paul II was powerful but in the last ten years has been declining, especially for an ominous reason: The way in which he defended to the hilt, the Mexican and founder the multimillion congregation of the Legionaries of Christ Marcial Maciel Degollado, icon of the Church pedophilia.]

Esta mañana, la figura sombría del Arzobispo Primado de México Norberto Rivera en el asiento de atrás del papamóvil era el retrato en movimiento de la incómoda relación entre Francisco y la conservadora jerarquía mexicana; y muy especialmente con el ala de Rivera, que en tiempos de Juan Pablo II fue poderosísimo pero en los últimos diez años ha ido menguando, sobre todo por una razón ominosa: la manera en que defendió, a capa y espada, al mexicano y fundador de la multimillonaria congregación de los Legionarios de Cristo Marcial Maciel Degollado, icono de la pederastia eclesial.

La curia que no huele a oveja Norberto Rivera, el cardenal que no quiso escuchar a las víctimas

“Norberto fue un cachorro de Maciel. Cuando fue ungido cardenal hizo su fiesta en la casa de la Legión de Cristo en Roma. Y aunque sigue manejando la arquidiócesis más grande del mundo, ahora todos saben que es un mariscal de la derrota”, afirma el antropólogo experto en religión Elio Masferrer.

Sobre el cardenal Rivera pende la sospecha de haber encubierto a lóbregos curas como Carlos López Valdés y Nicolás Aguilar, acusado de actos como convencer a un niño de que si no le hacía sexo oral su madre podría morirse o violar a otro en la rectoría mientras se escuchaba oficiar misa en el templo. Otros casos –estos ajenos a la incumbencia de Rivera– son los del sacerdote Eduardo Córdova, que se calcula que abusó al menos de 20 menores y está prófugo, y el de Gerardo Silvestre, supuesto violador de niños indígenas. “México tiene a los pederastas más crueles de la Iglesia”, ha dicho Alberto Athié, un exsacerdote de la propia Arquidiócesis de México convertido en valeroso catalizador de denuncias de víctimas, y que exige que el Vaticano entregue a los violadores a la justicia civi

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FRANCE
BFM TV

[avec video]

[Cardinal Barbarin could be prosecuted for “non denunciation of pedophilia”. One of the victims of sexual assault by Father Preynat father in the 90s decided to press charges against the Archbishop of Lyon, one of the heads of the Catholic Church in France. He said the cardinal has maintained the priest in his post despite the allegations.]

TEMOIGNAGE BFMTV – L’une des victimes d’agressions sexuelles du père Preynat dans les années 90 a décidé de porter plainte contre l’archevêque de Lyon, l’une des têtes de l’église catholique en France. A travers son association la Parole libérée, il dénonce le fait que le cardinal ait maintenu le prêtre pédophile dans ses fonctions en dépit de son passé. BFMTV l’a rencontré.

François Devaux a été victime d’agression sexuelle en 1990 par le père Bernard Preynat alors qu’il était jeune scout. A l’époque, ses parents avertissent l’Eglise, le curé est alors affecté à d’autres fonctions. L’histoire aurait pu s’arrêter là mais il y a quelques mois, le jeune père de famille découvre ce qu’est devenu son agresseur.

“Doyen jusqu’en août 2015”

“Pour la première fois de ma vie, j’ai tapé sur Google le père Bernard Preynat et j’ai vu qu’il était doyen jusqu’en août 2015 et qu’il donnait des cours de catéchisme à des petits enfants”, rapporte-t-il.

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FRANCE
Riposte Catholique

[Victims of Father Preynat wish to file a complaint against the Archbishop of Lyon for failure to report a statutory rape offense.]

Une affaire compliquée qui n’est pas sans rappeler l’affaire Mgr Picon. Sans diminuer les manquements des prélats dans cette affaire, il est difficile de ne pas comparer le profil dérangeant de ceux que l’on voudrait mettre en accusation.

Des victimes du P. Preynat souhaitent porter plainte contre l’archevêque de Lyon pour non-dénonciation d’infraction sexuelle sur mineur

Alors que le cardinal Philippe Barbarin dit avoir été mis au courant « vers 2007-2008 », des « comportements » d’un prêtre lyonnais mis en examen pour des agressions sexuelles sur de jeunes scouts entre 1986 et 1991, des victimes de ce prêtre, le P. Bernard Preynat, pourraient porter plainte contre l’archevêque de Lyon pour non-dénonciation d’infraction sexuelle sur mineur.

« Nous porterons plainte pour non-dénonciation de faits de pédophilie en fin de semaine prochaine ou début de semaine suivante », explique François Devaux, président de l’association La Parole libérée, fondée en décembre pour regrouper les victimes du P. Preynat.

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MEXICO
La Jornada

[Outraged by the presence of Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera with Pope Francis on his arrival in Mexico, Juan Carlos Cruz Chellew, victim of sexual abuse of Catholic clergy and one of the most important Latin American complainants to the Holy See, said he is very disappointed the pope . The presence of Cardinal Rivera is a symbol that the Pope does not take importance the victims of priestly pedophila. He said the cardinal has protected Mexican priests and abusers.]

Sanjuana Martínez
Especial para La Jornada
Periódico La Jornada
Domingo 14 de febrero de 2016, p. 8

Indignado por la presencia del cardenal Norberto Rivera Carrera junto al papa Francisco a su llegada a México, Juan Carlos Cruz Chellew, víctima de abusos sexuales del clero católico y uno de los más importantes denunciantes latinoamericanos ante la Santa Sede, dice sentirse muy decepcionado del pontífice.

“La presencia del cardenal Rivera es símbolo de que al Papa no le importamos las víctimas de pederastia sacerdotal. El cardenal es un monstruo para todos nosotros porque ha protegido a los curas mexicanos abusadores, y pasearse con él en el papamóvil y verlos juntos como grandes amigos me produce repulsión y un dolor enorme. Ambos se burlan en nuestras caras. Al Papa se le cayó su máscara de sacerdote bondadoso; no le interesan las víctimas de pederastia clerical”.

Desde hace 20 años, el cardenal Rivera Carrera ha sido denunciado ante el Vaticano por víctimas de abusos sexuales de sacerdotes. Lo acusan de no solamente proteger a los perpetradores con sotana, sino de ser cómplice de sus crímenes.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Spiegel

[BBC documentary: Pope John Paul II is said to have close links to women.]

Über Jahrzehnte soll Papst Johannes Paul II. in engem Kontakt mit einer verheirateten Frau gestanden haben. Das berichtet die BBC. Es soll gemeinsame Skiferien und Campingausflüge gegeben haben.

Papst Johannes Paul II. soll laut einem Bericht der BBC über viele Jahre eine enge Verbindung zu einer verheirateten Frau gehabt haben. Demnach war die Beziehung mit der Philosophin Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka rein platonisch; es gebe keinerlei Hinweis darauf, dass der spätere Papst das Zölibat gebrochen habe. Die BBC-Doku, die im deutschsprachigen Fernsehen am Dienstagabend auf Arte ausgestrahlt wird, stützt sich auf Hunderte Briefe und Fotos, die die jahrzehntelange Beziehung dokumentieren.

Der spätere Papst und Tymieniecka lernten sich demnach 1973 kennen; die Frau hatte sich nach einem Buch erkundigt, das er geschrieben hatte. In den folgenden Jahren hätten sich die Frau und der damalige Erzbischof von Krakau öfter getroffen und häufig Briefe geschrieben. Es soll gemeinsame Spaziergänge, Skiferien und Campingausflüge gegeben haben. Ein Foto zeigt die beiden vor einem Zelt stehen, der spätere Papst in kurzer Hose und T-Shirt.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

Tim Clarke
February 15, 2016

The Catholic Bishop to Australia’s Defence Forces has been found not guilty of sexually molesting five boys while he as teaching at a Benedictine boarding school in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Max Leroy Davis had denied six charges of gross indecency relating to five different boys aged between 12 and 15 at the time they say they were all assaulted while pupils at St Benedict’s College in New Norcia.

The five victims, who are all now in their 50s, alleged remarkably similar abuse while boarding at the school – and all say it was Mr Davis who abused them.

But after four hours deliberation following a week-long trial, the jury at Perth District acquitted him of all charges, after hearing Mr Davis categorically deny it had been him who had abused them.

The 70-year-old was at the time a Dorm Master, and dean of discipline at the school, which was run under the Benedictine order of monks who still reside in the town north of Perth.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

The head of the Australian Defence Force’s Catholic diocese has been found not guilty of sexually abusing five students more than 40 years ago.

Catholic bishop Max Davis, 70, was on trial in the Perth District Court accused of six counts of indecent dealings with male children between 1969 and 1972, when he was dormitory master at St Benedict’s College in New Norcia, north east of Perth.

He stood aside from his duties as Catholic Bishop of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) when he was charged two years ago.

The prosecution alleged Bishop Davis performed indecent acts on five students aged between 13 and 15 years old.

One former student testified he was sexually abused while he was being examined in the first-aid room because he had injured his groin playing football.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Herald (UK)

The director and co-writer of Spotlight, the Hollywood film about the Boston Globe’s investigation into the cover-up of clerical abuse in the Archdiocese of Boston, paid tribute to British abuse survivor Peter Saunders while accepting an award at the Baftas ceremony.

Tom McCarthy and his co-writer Josh Singer, who was not in attendance, won the Bafta for best original screenplay.

During his acceptance speech, McCarthy said Saunders, who recently refused a request to “take a leave of absence” from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors after a vote of confidence, was “an inspiration”.

In his short speech, McCarthy commended “the courageous survivors (of abuse) who came forward and shared their stories with us and the world.”

“They continue to do that now, continue to put pressure for change,” he said.

“I’ll give a shout out to Peter Saunders, a UK citizen and survivor and the great work he is doing now in this country and at the Vatican. You are an in inspiration to us all, quite truly.”

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INDIA
Times of India

NEW DELHI: The Roman Catholic church has lifted the suspension of a Tamil Nadu priest convicted last year of sexually assaulting a 14 year-old girl in the US more than a decade ago, a spokesman said on Saturday .

The suspension of Rev Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul was lifted last month after the bishop of the Ootacamund Diocese in Tamil Nadu consulted with church authorities at the Vatican, said Rev. Sebastian Selvanathan, a spokesman for the diocese.

Bishop Arulappan Amalraj of Ootacamund (Ooty) had referred Jeyapaul’s case to the Vatican’s ‘congregation for the doctrine of the faith’, and the suspension was lifted on the church body’s advice, he added. The Vatican office of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith declined immediate comment.

Jeyapaul was sent to Minnesota in 2004. He was suspended in 2010 after being charged with sexually assaulting two girls who were both 14 at the time.

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AUSTRALIA
Sunshine Coast Daily

Kathy Sundstrom | 15th Feb 2016

FATHER Joe Duffy admits he feels embarrassed by the extent of the abuse which has been revealed in the Catholic Church.

The Maroochydore Parish Priest was ordained during the dark period of history when priests were abusing children and getting away with it.

But he said if he was to blame for anything within the church in the 1950s to 1980s, it was that he was “naive and unaware” of what was going on.

“I grew up in a decent, good family and child abuse just wasn’t talked about,” he said.

“I had no personal experience of this type of thing and in the 1950s, it was either a taboo topic or wasn’t mentioned.

“We can’t excuse ourselves on that basis any more than we can excuse ourselves for buying a ticket on a plane that crashed.”

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HAWAII
The Worthy Adversary

February 14, 2016 Joelle Casteix

The first step to transparency is being, well … transparent. And when your former bishop is a three-time-accused (that we know of) predator, that makes transparency even more important.

Victims to Hawai’i Bishop: Make all predators’ names public
Thirty other dioceses have exposed accused clerics
Seattle list included abuser in hiding in Honolulu
Former bishop should also be on list, group says
Releasing names is public safety imperative, SNAP says

Victims of sex abuse are demanding that the Catholic Bishop of Hawai’i publicly release the names of all clerics, employees, and volunteers who have been credibly accused of child sexual abuse.

In a letter to Honolulu Bishop Larry Silva, members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPNetwork.org), say that releasing the list is an “important step for transparency, healing, and child protection.”

More than 30 other dioceses have released the names of accused clerics, and a recent list released by the Archdiocese of Seattle exposed a 50-time accused former Irish Christian Brother who is living “under the radar” in Hawai’i.

The group fears that Hawai’i’s credibly accused predator clerics could be living in local neighbors where they have unfettered access to children.

“How many credibly accused predators are living ‘under the radar’ here and elsewhere, where they can continue to prey on children?” the letter said. “Releasing these names is a public safety imperative.”

The letter also stresses the importance of releasing names of all of the accused, living and deceased. For example, former Honolulu Bishop Joseph Ferrario has been publicly accused of sexual abuse by at least three men. The first came forward in the 1980s.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

15 February, 2016

The Royal Commission will hold a public hearing in Sydney commencing on Tuesday 15 March 2016 at 10.00am AEDT.

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

1. The experiences of survivors of child sexual abuse in an institutional context in the criminal justice system as complainants against an accused who was the subject of allegations by more than one complainant.

2. The admissibility and use of evidence variously described as:

a. tendency and coincidence evidence
b. propensity and similar fact evidence
c. evidence of discreditable conduct, and
d. evidence of bad character,

and the law and practice concerning when charges in relation to multiple complainants of child sexual abuse in an institutional context against a single accused may be tried together in a joint trial.

3. The experiences of survivors, particularly young children and people with disability, in reporting child sexual abuse in an institutional context to police and in being complainants in prosecutions.

4. How the requirements of the criminal justice system, including in relation to oral evidence and cross examination, affect the investigation and prosecution of allegations of child sexual abuse in an institutional context, particularly where the complainant is a young child or a person with disability.

5. Any related matters.

Any person or institution who believes that they have a direct and substantial interest in the scope and purpose of the public hearing is invited to lodge a written application for leave to appear at the public hearing by 1 March 2016.

Applications for leave to appear should be made using the form available on the Royal Commission website.

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TEXAS
The Monitor

Posted: Sunday, February 14, 2016

KRISTIAN HERNANDEZ | STAFF WRITER

The news that former Sacred Heart priest John Feit was arrested last week in connection to the 1960 homicide of Irene Garza did not come as a surprise to Dale Tacheny.

For 52 years, Tacheny has believed Feit, now 83 years old, killed the young Texas beauty queen the night before Easter, because he said he heard about the crime from Feit himself.

Tacheny also believed that the pastor of Sacred Heart at the time worked in concert with McAllen police to cover up Feit’s involvement in the murder that was to become perhaps McAllen’s most notorious unsolved crime ever.

“He mentioned he had heard the (sacrament of) confession of Irene Garza and after hearing her confession he assaulted her, bound her, and gagged her,” Tacheny told The Monitor last week.

“He removed her clothing from the waist up and fondled her.”

Tacheny, now 86 years old, recalled Feit’s words Wednesday afternoon from his office in Oklahoma City, where he works as a tax preparer.

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UNITED STATES
Patch

By LORRAINE SWANSON (Patch Staff) – February 15, 2016

An ex-Catholic brother and teacher who left a trail of sex abuse complaints from New York to Chicago to Seattle, has surfaced in Hawaii.

Throughout his three decades as a member of the Irish Christian Brothers, Br. Edward Courtney was badgered by allegations that he had sexually abused children, including students at Chicago’s Brother Rice High School and St. Laurence High School in Burbank.

in 2013, 80 alumni of Brother Rice, St. Laurence and Leo High Schools, were part of a $16.5 million settlement with over 400 accusers nationwide during a bankruptcy reorganization between creditors and the Edmund Rice Christian Brothers North American Province, known as the Irish Christian Brothers.

The order also agreed to enforce a no-tolerance policy for brothers accused of sexual abuse.

Courtney, among others, were named in a lawsuit against the order for allowing the men to continue teaching despite allegations that they had sexually abused children.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Paul Vallely

Even by Vatican standards the timing is spectacularly inept. The six Oscar nominations for the movie Spotlight have refocused the attention of the world on the issue of paedophile priests inside the Catholic church – almost certainly the biggest scandal to plague the institution in the past century. And yet, with disdain or disregard for world opinion, just two weeks before the Oscars the most outspoken member of the pope’s commission to combat sex abuse has been sacked.

Pope Francis is busy elsewhere. After Friday’s historic meeting with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church – the first for almost 1,000 years – he has been about his usual business: visiting prisoners, migrants, indigenous people and the families of victims of the violence of drug traffickers, this time in Mexico.

But in his absence a hidden civil war inside the Vatican continues. On one side are reformers who want public accountability for abuser priests and the bishops who have overseen them. On the other is the recidivist Roman old guard whose instinct for cover-up continues.

Two years ago Francis set up the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. It is made up of clerics, theologians, psychiatrists, therapists and – most significantly – two survivors of priestly sex abuse. The most vocal member was Peter Saunders, who founded the National Association for People Abused in Childhood, one of the world’s most forthright anti-abuse campaigners.

His sacking last weekend is a signal that, behind the scenes, the Catholic church is reverting to its old bad habits.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Chris Elliott

Two recent complaints about the Guardian’s reporting of historical sexual abuse allegations illustrate the difficulties and pitfalls facing journalists writing about such cases. The first concerned the settlement by the Church of England of a civil claim brought against George Bell, the late bishop of Chichester, who died 57 years ago.

The story, headlined “Church’s ‘deep sorrow’ over abuse by bishop”, published on 23 October 2015 said: “The bishop abused a young child, whose identity and gender has not been disclosed, in the 1940s and 50s. The survivor first came forward 20 years ago, but the matter was not investigated or referred to police at the time.”

There was also an online story published on 22 October with the headline “Church of England Bishop George Bell abused young child”.

Peter Hitchens, a newspaper columnist, complained to the readers’ editor that both the headlines are inaccurate; as neither makes clear that the claims of abuse were allegations, not tested in a criminal court.

I rejected the complaint on the basis that the church had settled the civil claim and accepted his guilt. A statement by the church in October 2015 said: “A formal claim for compensation was submitted in April 2014 and was settled in late September of this year. The settlement followed a thorough pre-litigation process during which further investigations into the claim took place including the commissioning of expert independent reports. None of those reports found any reason to doubt the veracity of the claim.”

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MARYLAND
Washingtonian

By Tiffany Stanley on February 14, 2016

Pam Palmer was at a barbecue when she heard the news.

It was 2011, five years after her family had left Covenant Life Church. But the Gaithersburg congregation and its founder, C.J. Mahaney, remained on her mind. Now one of her relatives was telling her that amid controversy Mahaney had surrendered the top post at the organization he had built into an international empire. “Literally,” Pam says, “that moment changed my life.”

Pam had been one of the church’s early followers back in the 1980s. And she’d given 22 years of her life to the megachurch, in the all-in manner that many members embraced. Early on, her husband, Dominic Palmer, whom she’d met there, led one of the small fellowship groups that underscore church life, and she dutifully assisted him. When the couple had children, Pam homeschooled them, as so many women in the church did. Every step of the way, a foundational principle of the church was reinforced—that Christian men knew best.

But in the years since the Palmers left Covenant Life, Pam had come to see its culture as toxic.

After the barbecue, she went online to find out more about the revolt inside Sovereign Grace Ministries, the religious conglomerate that Covenant Life had grown into. A few years earlier, a pair of disillusioned followers had launched a blog called SGM Survivors. It was like a public square, and an increasingly crowded one at that, where former congregants of Sovereign Grace churches—there were roughly 90 at the time—gathered to vent.

Pam had visited the blog before. But this time, she encountered a whole new narrative. Parents were reporting that their children had been sexually abused by other church members. And they were sharing stories, saying they were mistreated by churches when they spoke up. Until that moment, Pam had no idea there were other families out there just like hers.

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MINNESOTA
Duluth News Tribune

By Tom Olsen on Feb 14, 2016

The Diocese of Duluth and attorneys representing dozens of child sexual abuse victims have agreed to enter mediation talks ahead of a May deadline for filing claims, according to documents filed last week in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

Gregg Zive, a federal bankruptcy judge in Arizona with experience in diocesan bankruptcy cases, is expected to assist in negotiations between the parties.

His appointment, which was requested by the diocese, is subject to approval by Judge Robert Kressel, who previously encouraged mediation. Attorneys have said they expect to reach an amicable agreement — as has been the case in all 14 previous diocese and religious order bankruptcies in the United States.

The diocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December after being hit with a $4.9 million verdict in the first case to go to trial under the Minnesota Child Victims Act, which opened the way for victims of sexual abuse to file lawsuits that would otherwise be barred by statutes of limitation.

With an annual budget of about $3.3 million — and facing dozens of additional claims — diocese officials stated that bankruptcy was the only way they could fairly compensate all victims while maintaining essential church operations.

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UNITED STATES
Reveal: The Center for Investigative Reporting

By Phil Bronstein / February 14, 2016

Those of us who report and publish the news always notice that we rank somewhere south of head lice in public opinion polls. So only a journalist who’s delusional would spend Feb. 14 waiting for the inbox to fill with hearts, candy and flowers.

But this year, we’ve got “Spotlight,” a giant, ongoing Valentine’s Day gift to the power, efficacy and necessity in our society of investigative journalism. This is extra sweet at a time when that kind of expensive, hard reporting is seriously threatened by failing business models, failure of imagination and the media world’s obsession with substance-free, adrenalized news bursts.

The film is now well known as the story of The Boston Globe team that uncovered the scope and virulence of the Catholic Church’s pedophile priest problem and the accompanying massive cover-up.

What’s less known – despite the previously inconceivable fact that members of the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors sat down in Rome just last week and watched “Spotlight” before engaging in a panel on clerical sex abuse – is that this is a Valentine’s gift that keeps on giving.

The film came out in November. But since then, the church has released names of accused priests in Yakima, Washington, and files on delinquent clergy in Minneapolis. Well over a dozen dioceses and archdioceses from Chicago to Seattle; Albany, New York, to St. Petersburg, Florida; Raleigh, North Carolina, to Santa Fe, New Mexico, have issued statements citing “Spotlight” in recommitting themselves to vigilantly weeding out the guilty and comforting and supporting victims.

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AUSTRALIA
The Standard

By Melissa Cunningham
Feb. 15, 2016

Clergy abuse survivors are pushing to fly to Rome to front Australia’s most senior Catholic in person when he gives evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse this month.

On Monday morning survivors released a public statement outlining a request to the inquiry to allow them to travel overseas to face Cardinal George Pell. They also pushed for his evidence to be given outside of the walls of the Vatican.

Earlier this month, Cardinal Pell succeeded in a bid to remain in Rome after the inquiry accepted a doctor’s report which said he was too sick to return to Australia to testify. He is scheduled to give evidence on February 29.

Speaking on behalf of survivors, David Ridsdale, victim and nephew of disgraced priest Gerald Ridsdale said the conditions of his evidence must replicate an Australian court setting.

“(Evidence) should be given in the Australian embassy or somewhere with broadcast quality connection to ensure there are no technical difficulties,” he said. “As the commission hearings are open to the public we request the ability for interested parties to travel to Rome and attend the evidence in person.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

[fundraising link]

February 15, 2016

Melissa Cunningham

Clerical abuse survivors are pushing to fly to Rome to be present when Cardinal George Pell gives evidence via videolink to a Royal Commission this month.

On Monday morning, survivors released a public statement outlining a request to the inquiry to allow them to travel overseas to face Cardinal Pell, the Ballarat Courier reports.

They also pushed for his evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse to be given outside of the walls of the Vatican.

Earlier this month, Cardinal Pell succeeded in a bid to remain in Rome after the inquiry accepted a doctor’s report which said he was too sick to return to Australia to testify.

He is scheduled to give evidence on February 29.

Speaking on behalf of survivors, David Ridsdale, victim and nephew of disgraced priest Gerald Ridsdale said the conditions of his evidence must replicate an Australian court setting.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

February 14, 2016

Shannon Deery
Herald Sun

VICTIMS of child sexual abuse are planning to confront George Pell in Rome when he gives evidence to the child abuse royal commission.

The Cardinal is due to testify at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse via videolink from the Vatican from February 29.

He was excused from personally attending the Ballart hearing because of ill health.

Questions have been raised about the 74-year-old’s sudden decline in health, with sceptics accusing him of trying to avoid coming face to face with victims.

But he could still be forced to testify in front of victims, with a delegation planning a trip to Rome.

Members of the Ballarat and District Child Abuse Survivors group have called for the commission to ensure the Cardinal is forced to testify publicly.

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TEXAS
The Monitor

Posted: Sunday, February 14, 2016

An arrest is made more than five decades after perhaps the most notorious crime to befall the Rio Grande Valley. But as some celebrate the shocking development in the Irene Garza murder case, the question must be asked: how hard will it be to prosecute former priest John Feit, who has been charged with murder?

Join us at noon on Tuesday for an online MonitorChat, a Live Stream discussion about the challenges of prosecuting this crime nearly 56 years after it happened.

The Monitor will be joined by renowned defense lawyer Rolando Garza, who is board certified in criminal law and criminal appellate law, to discuss the legal complexities of this case.

Readers are encourage to send in their own questions by emailing news@themonitor.com or by tweeting #monitorchat.

Remember to join us at noon on Tuesday at www.themonitor.com

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Monica Tan
@m_onicatan
Friday 12 February 2016

Tim Minchin has written a song about Cardinal George Pell, in which he lambasts Australia’s most senior Catholic cleric over the fact he won’t be returning from Rome to testify at the royal commission into institutional child abuse.

“It’s a really nice song, the chorus just goes ‘come home, Cardinal Pell / we hear you’re not feeling well’,” Minchin said at a press conference in Perth on Friday. “There’s also a bit where I call him a fucking coward.”

Pell is due to appear via video link at a royal commission to give evidence about child sex abuse that occurred within his parishes. Victims were hoping Pell’s medical condition would improve so he could appear in person, but on Monday were told he was still too unwell to make the flight from Rome to Melbourne.

Minchin made the comments while promoting the Perth International Arts festival’s outdoor extravaganza, Home.

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INDIA/UNITED STATES
Independent (UK)

Chloe Farand

An Indian priest convicted of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in the United States more than 10 years ago has had his suspension lifted by the Roman Catholic church.

Rev Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, 61, had the suspension lifted by the bishop of the Ootacamund Diocese in India’s southern Tamil Nadu state after he was instructed to do so by authorities at the Vatican, spokesman for the diocese Rev Sebastian Selvanathan told CBS News.

“After Jeyapaul’s release from the United States and his return to India, this matter was referred to Rome, and according to the guidelines of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the suspension against Jeyapaul was removed,” Rev Selvanathan said.

The Vatican office of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith declined ito comment, when approached by CBS News.

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ARGENTINA
Buenos Aires Herald

By Richard Townley
Herald Staff

Sex abuse survivor expresses frustration at Vatican, Francis’ reluctance to tackle child molestation

The Catholic Church has lost “all moral responsibility” for tackling ongoing child abuse by its clergymen, a member of a papal panel appointed to deal with the issue has told the Herald, adding that he feels he has been personally “deceived” by Pope Francis. “The Church is failing in the protection of children”, Peter Saunders said.

Peter Saunders, an outspoken member of Francis’ commission set up to tackle child abuse, was at the centre of war of words last week after he was controversially told to take “a leave of absence” from the panel. He has refused, saying only Francis can dismiss him, and has renewed his criticism of both the Church and the pontiff for lacking the resolve to tackle the issue.

“On child abuse, I now fear, there is little or no sincerity on his (Francis’) part to effectively make change,” said Saunders, who was abused by two priests as a child.

Just a year after the Argentine-born pontiff was ordained head of the Catholic Church, Francis set up the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors to address the endemic sexual abuse of children.

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ARIZONA
Newsday

Associated Press

PHOENIX – For nearly 20 years, John Feit was known around the St. Vincent de Paul nonprofit agency as one its most compassionate employees.

The former priest worked in downtown Phoenix with food-pantry volunteers and even raised money to buy a house for a needy family. His desire to help others was apparent at his church and whenever he showed up on the doorsteps of the poor with donated food or furniture. He also mediated disagreements when local agencies were first planning a campus to house multiple services for the homeless.

Feit was able to do all this charity work despite public knowledge that he had long been a suspect in the 1960 rape and killing of a Texas schoolteacher and beauty queen.

Now 83, he was arrested Tuesday for the murder of 25-year-old Irene Garza in McAllen, Texas. She was last seen at the church where Feit was a priest. Her bludgeoned body was discovered in a canal days later.

A grand jury brought the charge based on yet-to-be-disclosed evidence. Feit, who uses a walker, is now in jail and plans to fight extradition to Texas.

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HAWAII
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Sunday, Feb. 14, 2016

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

An abusive Catholic cleric – who worked in Nevada, may have molested 50 kids and whose whereabouts were deemed “unknown” by church officials – has turned up in Hawaii. Though his church supervisors knew of his crimes as far back as the 1960s, they let keep teaching for years.

[Los Angeles Times]

He’s Brother Edward C. “Chris” Courtney. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, he taught at parochial schools and churches in MI, NY, IL and WA. In the 1980s, he also taught in public schools in Reno.

[Seattle Weekly]

We urge Reno Bishop Roque Calvo to use pulpit announcements, parish bulletins, church websites and other tools to aggressively seek out others in Nevada who saw, suspected or suffered crimes by Courtney or cover ups by his colleagues.

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ISRAEL
Jerusalem Post

By LAHAV HARKOV \ 02/14/2016

Proposal includes first legal definition of an abusive cult; leading a cult would be considered a crime carrying a 10-year prison sentence.

Legislation defining abusive cults and giving the authorities tools to fight them was approved by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation Sunday.

MK Orly Levy-Abecassis (Yisrael Beytenu) called the bill, which she proposed, “the first step towards formulating an overarching policy and building a broad and effective system to fight abusive cults.”

If the bill becomes law, it will be the first time a cult is defined by law and differentiated from other, non-abusive religious groups.

The bill states that an abusive cut its “a group of people, incorporated or not, who unite around a person or idea in a way that takes advantage of a relationship of dependence or authority or of emotional distress of one or more members by using methods of control through thought processes and behavioral patterns and acts in an organized, systematic and sustained pattern while committing crimes according to Israeli law.”

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 15 February 2016

Cardinal George Pell has had a long-standing “heart problem” but this didn’t stop him from making a secret trip by air to Australia in March-April 2015, Broken Rites has learned. Even the Australian bishops’ spokesman on Royal Commission matters (Mr Francis Sullivan, from the church’s “Truth, Justice and Healing Commission”) didn’t know about the trip until journalists told him in May 2015; and, by then, Pell was safely back in the Vatican. Now, in 2016, Pell is refusing to re-visit Australia, preferring to give his next batch of evidence to the Royal Commission by video-link from Rome without having to face the church’s victims. Some victims are offering to pay first-class air fares for a medical heart specialist to accompany Pell on a flight to Australia for the Royal Commission. But, clearly, Pell is avoiding Australia while civil investigations are under way about church sexual abuse that occurred on Pell’s watch. As for Pell’s “heart problems”, church victims say that Pell is behaving towards them as though he was born without a heart.

Pell’s trip to Australia in March-April 2015 included a visit to Ballarat, the town at the centre of church-abuse allegations (and the cover-up) in western Victoria. And the trip was just a few weeks before the Royal Commission was due to hold a public hearing in Ballarat (the hearing was from Tuesday 19 May to Friday 29 May 2015).

Pell’s trip to Australia was revealed in the April 2015 edition of the magazine of St Patrick’s College, Ballarat — the school where Pell had been a pupil. The magazine indicates that Pell’s visit to the school occurred about 27 March 2015, “during a short vacation in Australia”. There is a photo of Pell, together with headmaster John Crowley, while touring the school to see its latest extensions.

It is not known what else Pell did during his 2015 trip to Australia but it would have been an ideal opportunity to have discussions with his Australian lawyers and his communications strategists, to figure out how to handle the Royal Commission and the victims. (Did the Royal Commissioners realise that Pell had privately visited Australia from Rome in March 2015?)

Pell’s testimony, by video link, in May 2015 was a technical disaster, with disruptions to the vision and/or the sound. And, with the Royal Commissioners sitting in a court-room in Ballarat, it was difficult for the commissioners to show certain documents to Pell when seeking his comment about those documents.

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

February 15, 2016

Tom McIlroy
Legislative Assembly reporter at The Canberra Times

The ACT government will move to create a new independent authority to oversee legal reporting requirements for child abuse and neglect, ahead of the completion of the royal commission.

Under the plan put forward by Chief Minister Andrew Barr, organisations with responsibility for children will be legally required to report any allegations of abuse or neglect to a new statutory authority. The move is designed to end internal reporting and handling mechanisms, previously used by churches and other organisations seeking to handle abuse allegations outside legal structures.

The scheme would be based on systems already in place in NSW, which the government believes would bring effective reporting requirements to the territory and complement measures already in place in the ACT.

The proposed scheme would to increase statutory responsibility by creating a new independent oversight body armed with powers to provide further protection for children and young people.

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CALIFORNIA
Boston Globe

GLOBE STAFF FEBRUARY 14, 2016

“Spotlight,” the film about The Boston Globe’s investigation of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, won best original screenplay at the 2016 Writers Guild Awards Saturday night.

The newspaper drama, which already won best ensemble at the Screen Actors Guild Awards and is nominated for six Oscars, including best picture, was written by Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy.

The Writers Guild Awards cermony was held concurrently in Los Angeles and New York. The guild honors excellence in film, television, new media, video games, news, radio, promotional and graphic animation.

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CALIFORNIA
Variety

Dave McNary
Film Reporter
@Variety_DMcNary

“The Big Short” and “Spotlight” won the Writers Guild of America’s top screenplay trophies Saturday, while the fourth season of “Veep” and the final season of “Mad Men” took the top TV series awards.

“The Big Short,” a darkly comic look at the 2008 financial meltdown, won for best adapted screenplay for Charles Randolph and Adam McKay, while “Spotlight” took the original screenplay award for Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy.

The guild’s 68th annual awards, based on voting by the 12,000 members of the WGA, were announced Saturday in concurrent ceremonies in Los Angeles at the Century Plaza and the Edison Ballroom in New York City. …

The award for “Spotlight,” which details the Boston Globe’s investigation into pedophile priests, was first announced in New York as the WGA continued its tradition of not being able to coordinate the announcement of its two top screenplay awards.

“Spotlight,” which is also nominated for an Oscar, won over the scripts for “Bridge of Spies,” “Sicario,” “Straight Outta Compton” and “Trainwreck.”

McCarthy thanked Open Road “for letting us make the movie we wanted to make” and saluted the Globe reporters and survivors of sexual abuse who are the heart of the story.

In Los Angeles 30 minutes later, “Spotlight” was announced as the winner. “It’s humbling to be here in front of such great storytellers,” said Singer.

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CALIFORNIA
The Virginian-Pilot

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Oscar contenders “Spotlight” and “The Big Short” won the top awards for screenwriting from the Writers Guild of America at a ceremony Saturday that was held in Los Angeles and New York.

“Spotlight,” about the Boston Globe’s effort to uncover a priest sex-abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, won for best original screenplay. The writers are Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy.

“The Big Short,” about the 2008 financial crisis, won for best adapted screenplay. Writers Charles Randolph and Adam McKay wrote a screenplay adapted from the book of the same title by Michael Lewis.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By ALEXANDER ROBERTSON FOR MAILONLINE

A BBC documentary will explore the possibility that Pope John Paul II fell in love with a married Polish-American academic.

The latest Panorama programme will delve into the late Pope’s relationship with women and is thought to have discovered a stack of letters sent between him and Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka.
Tymieniecka worked with the Pontiff in the 1970s, when he was still known as Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, on his philosophical treatise The Acting Person.

Monday night’s show will investigate claims the Pope and Tymieniecka engaged in a four-year correspondence during the period in which they were working together on the book, when they were both in their fifties.

Tymieniecka, a philosopher and academic, was born into an aristocratic Polish family before later marrying a Harvard professor in 1995, but remained close to the Pope up until his death in 2005.

It is understood that the show will not make the claim that the Pope ever breached his vow of celibacy nor make any firm statements about his relationship with the academic, who died in 2014.

Carl Bernstein, a journalist who wrote a John Paul II biography, conducted interviews with Tymienecka, in which she denied any romantic involvement with the Pope.

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VATICAN CITY
Radio Poland

14.02.2016

The Vatican has dismissed an upcoming BBC documentary expected to probe whether late Polish-born pontiff John Paul II led romantic correspondence with a married female academic, a newspaper has reported.

The 30-minute “The Secret Letters of Pope John Paul II” documentary will be aired on BBC One on Monday.

“Pope John Paul II ruled the Catholic Church for 27 years until 2005. He was one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century, revered by millions and made a saint in record time.

Now reporter Edward Stourton can offer a new perspective on the emotional life of this very public figure,” the BBC writes on its website.

The documentary is expected to delve into the correspondence between the Pope and Polish-born American academic Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka who translated at least one book penned by the Pope while he was still a Cardinal in Kraków.

The two are believed to have written a series of personal letters over four years, and the BBC documentary will explore the possibility the letters had a romantic tone to them, British newspapers have reported.

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NEW YORK
New York Post

By Dean Balsamini February 14, 2016

Alleged S&M priest Peter Miqueli never broke his vow of celibacy and is a “man of faith” who wants to return to the altar, his attorney said.

The Catholic cleric — who resigned as pastor of his Bronx church after The Post revealed that he was accused of pilfering $1 million in parish funds to pay for bondage sessions with a slave master — denies he engaged in kinky sex or stole any money, said lawyer James Pascarella.

“Absolutely no theft. The sexual allegations are completely untrue,” Pascarella said. “He loves what he does, and he wants to be a priest . . . He’s never violated his vows.”

The 52-year-old priest is being smeared by “unreliable sources” and a “small group of parishioners who don’t care for him,” Pascarella said.

Miqueli “knows” Keith Crist, the 41-year-old hardbody alleged to have been his slave master, but “it’s not a sexual relationship,” the lawyer said.

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ESPANA
El Pais

“Now I understand that it was not normal to be touched.” Because of insistence of the father of a victim, 30 years of repeated sexual abuse has been uncovered at a Marist school in Barcelona.]

ALFONSO L. CONGOSTRINA
CAMILO S. BAQUERO

El Beni, como los alumnos del colegio barcelonés Maristas Sants-Les Corts conocían a Joaquín Benítez, tenía un sueño. Que el shootball o balón tiro fuera un deporte reconocido. En los 30 años que enseñó gimnasia intentó promover esta actividad entre sus alumnos. Les dedicó el reglamento que escribió: “Vosotros aglutináis gran parte de mis aptitudes positivas”. Durante ese tiempo, este pederasta confeso abusó de al menos dos menores y tiene cuatro denuncias en su contra.

El caso de Benítez, que dejó el colegio en 2011 tras la denuncia de una familia que no prosperó, desencadenó un rosario de denuncias que involucran al centro concertado religioso de los Hermanos Maristas. Los indicios sobre abusos se han extendido a otros dos exdocentes (M. M. y A. F.), un subdirector que ha sido cesado de manera cautelar (F. M.) y un monitor de comedor en prácticas en el centro en 2015. Las primeras denuncias se remontan a hechos a principios de los años 80. La comunidad educativa pide que no se meta “a todos en el mismo saco” y trata de recuperarse del golpe. Todos se preguntan por qué nunca trascendieron los casos ante las autoridades.

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ESPANA
El Pais

[The Marist order faces lawsuits involving five teachers and school monitors.]

ALFONSO L. CONGOSTRINA
CAMILO S. BAQUERO

Emili Turú, el actual Superior General de la Congregación de los Hermanos Maristas, aseguró ayer que los protocolos antipedofilia de los centros en los que está presente su orden “están muy claros y estudiados”, pero que “no sabe a qué se debe el silencio” de la dirección del colegio barcelonés respecto a la media decena de docentes y empleados que han sido denunciados. Las críticas del director de la orden llegaron el mismo día en el que trascendió que los ‘mossos’ detuvieron en diciembre a un monitor del mismo centro por haber abusado de cinco niñas.

El Superior General de los Maristas defendió en una entrevista a Catalunya Ràdio que inicialmente el centro había emprendido “los pasos correspondientes” pero después reprochó el silencio sobre nuevos escándalos, por los que pedirá explicaciones a la dirección provincial de su orden. Turú reveló que trabajó en la década de los 80 en ese mismo centro durante dos años, en los que coincidió con el profesor de gimnasia, y agresor sexual confeso, Joaquín Benítez. El Superior General negó ayer que cuando él trabajaba como docente en el centro existieran las sospechas de abusos.

El colegio solo ha enviado hasta ahora dos comunicados de prensa en los que explica que en 2011 remitió a Fiscalía el caso de Benítez, que entonces fue despedido. El centro no se ha posicionado sobre los nuevos casos a pesar de que la lista de personal involucrado ya asciende a cinco profesionales, que han sido objeto de denuncias ante los jueces y los Mossos d’Esquadra, aunque algunos casos han prescrito. La policía autonómica confirmó ayer que el pasado mes de diciembre detuvieron a un monitor de comedor del centro por haber abusado de cinco niñas.

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ESPANA
El Pais

[Sexual abuse involving three teachers has been uncovered at Marist College Sants Les Corts.]

CAMILO S. BAQUERO
ALFONSO L. CONGOSTRINA

Una semana después de que se destaparan los casos de pederastia en el colegio Maristas Sants Les Corts —que ya alcanza a tres exprofesores, un directivo cesado cautelarmente y a un monitor de comedor— la pregunta principal sigue sin resolver: ¿Qué falló en los sistemas escolar y judicial para que no se detectaran los abusos? En los últimos días el centro concertado, el departamento de Enseñanza y la justicia han intercambiado reproches sobre sus respectivas participaciones en los hechos que, a la larga, llevaron a que se invisibilizaran los casos.

El último episodio de estos reproches fue ayer. El colegio concertado por la Orden de los Hermanos Maristas desmintió al Tribunal Superior de Justicia de Cataluña (TSJC) sobre su supuesta negativa a colaborar con la investigación de 2011, cuando una familia le comunicó al centro que su hijo, un exalumno ya mayor de edad, había sido abusado por el aun profesor de gimnasia, el confeso pederasta Joaquín Benítez.

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VATICAN
La Croix

[Monsignor Tony Anatrella said there has never been a question that allegations of child sexual abuse should be reported to law enforcement. He said one line in his text has been taken out of proportion.He particularly blamed British media for reporting that he said allegations do not necessarily have to be reported.]

Nicolas Senèze avec I.Media, le 12/02/2016

Accusé par la presse britannique d’avoir expliqué aux nouveaux évêques que la dénonciation des abus sexuels aux autorités ne serait pas obligatoire, le prélat français dénonce un « mauvais procès ».

Dans un entretien à l’agence romaine I.Media, Mgr Tony Anatrella a assuré qu’il n’a « jamais été question de ne pas signaler à la police les délits sexuels sur mineurs », contrairement à des titres de la presse britanniques affirmant que, dans un cours donné aux nouveaux évêques, à Rome, il aurait dévoilé de « nouvelles règles » du Vatican en la matière.

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TEXAS
The Monitor

KRISTIAN HERNANDEZ AND LORENZO ZAZUETA-CASTRO | STAFF WRITERS

EDITOR’S NOTE: In Monday’s edition, former priest Dale Tacheny details in a taped interview with The Monitor John Feit’s confession to Irene Garza’s murder.

EDINBURG — Noemi Sigler stood over her cousin Irene Garza’s grave Friday and felt the weight of a decades-long fight to bring the young woman’s killer to justice had finally been lifted from her shoulders, she later said.

“You can’t even imagine. I had so many doors closed in my face, and I would often get so discouraged,” said Sigler, who for the past 32 years tirelessly pressed law enforcement to get the man who killed her cousin.

“Many times I would try to stop and I’d try to leave it alone, but Irene would always bring me back,” she added.

But in a stunning development last week, Sigler’s efforts finally seemed to pay off as news broke that the man she believes killed her 25-year-old cousin the night before Easter in 1960 had been arrested in Arizona.

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MEXICO
BBC Mundo

[The specter of sexual abuse that haunts the Pope’s visit to Mexico.]

Alberto Nájar
BBC Mundo, Ciudad de México

En su primera visita a México el papa Francisco encuentra una Iglesia Católica que no logra superar uno de los mayores escándalos de su historia reciente: las denuncias de abuso sexual contra menores cometidos por algunos de sus sacerdotes.

Organizaciones de sobrevivientes de los ataques dicen que las víctimas son cientos, y la mayoría de los casos están impunes.

Las acusaciones alcanzan a altos jerarcas de la Iglesia, acusados de proteger a los agresores.

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MEXICO
CNN

By Daniel Burke, CNN Religion Editor

(CNN)Imagine this split screen: On one side is Donald Trump, repeating his campaign pledge to build a big wall between the United States and Mexico. On the other is Pope Francis, kneeling to pray for the thousands of undocumented immigrants who have died trying to cross the border.

As the Pope visits Mexico February through February 17, he is not expected to tussle with Trump or directly criticize U.S. immigration policy. Papal aides said Francis wants to avoid appearing to intervene in the presidential election.

That hasn’t stopped Trump from taking aim at the Pope.

“I think that the Pope is a very political person. I think that he doesn’t understand the problems our country has,” Trump said in an interview Thursday on Fox Business. “I don’t think he understands the danger of the open border that we have with Mexico.” …

Some Catholics say the Pope may also seek to atone for the sexual abuse perpetrated by Marcial Maciel Degollado, the disgraced founder of the Legion of Christ who sexually abused seminarians and fathered several children. Degollado, who died in 2008, was a powerful figure in the Mexican church for decades.

“It will be the first time a pope has been in Mexico since that blew up,” said Kesicki. “That’s another flashpoint that I think he may have to address.”

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NORTH CAROLINA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Saturday, Feb. 13, 2016

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

We are grateful that the Episcopal Diocese of Western North Carolina is admitting that a rector has been accused of sexual abuse while working at a Waynesville church for 12 years.

[Citizen-Times]

He is accused of molesting “at least three boys” at a Rhode Island school and is now being investigated by North Carolina police department for perhaps abusing a Waynesville NC.

[Providence Journal

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

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

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

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

February 13, 2016 Joelle Casteix

Eric Johnson is the man who was sexually abused by Fr. Bruce Wellems when Wellems was teen and Eric was seven (photo above). In the piece below, he responds to Bruce Wellems’ statements to the Chicago Tribune. He also responds to commenters on this blog, who say that they are parishioners who say that they love and have forgiven the accused priest.

On Sunday, the Chicago Tribune ran a page-one piece about the case of Fr. Bruce Wellems, a Chicago priest who admitted to luring a seven-year-old boy from basketball games and then sexually abusing him multiple times during the course of a year. Wellems was an older teenager at the time.

Did the Claretians (the religious order to which Wellems belongs) adhere to their promises of transparency and tell Catholics about Wellems?

No … in fact, Claretian officials ordered their priests to destroy emails about Wellems and his crimes.

In 2014, did the Archdiocese of Los Angeles adhere to their promises of transparency and give parishioners in San Gabriel the correct information about Wellems? Did they post information about Wellems’ admission on their website, the parish website, or attempt to reach out to other potential victims?

No. They made one announcement from the pulpit, and then kept parishioners in the dark about the allegations. In fact, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and Archbishop Jose Gomez allowed parishioners to believe that the allegations and admissions stemmed from a “consensual dating relationship.”

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HAWAII
The Worthy Adversary

February 13, 2016 Joelle Casteix

Yesterday’s LA Times told the story of Edward Courtney, former Irish Christian Brother who is accused of molesting upwards of 50 kids. He’s living “under the radar” in Hawaii.

The bigger story is that EVERY cleric in Hawaii who has been accused of abuse (including former Bishop Joseph Ferrario) lives or has lived under the radar.

Why? Because unlike more than 30 other dioceses across the US, the Diocese of Honolulu and Bishop Larry Silva (pictured above) aren’t telling us who the perpetrators are.

These are men like:

* Former Honolulu Bishop Joseph Ferrario, who has been accused of abuse by at least two boys. When one of his victims came forward in the 1980s, the diocese said that according to an internal investigation, the accusations were “groundless.” The diocese’s sham investigation and repugnant treatment of the first accuser, David Figueroa, are well-known.

* George DeCosta, a retired priest who still runs retreats on the Big Island. Two civil suits have been filed against him, and he was reportedly forced to retire from the priesthood in 2002.

* Joseph Henry, who has been accused of sexual abuse by at least 18 boys. Although the diocese had known about Henry and his crimes for decades (Henry died in 1974), the diocese last November finally removed a plaque that named the hall at Kailua’s St. Anthony’s Parish after the serial child molester.

* Larry Spellen, who has been accused of abuse by at least two boys. After he was removed from ministry in 1993 by the Bishop of Salt Lake City, he moved to Orange County, CA, where he worked as a hospital chaplain (so much for that suspension) before he died in 2003. You’ll note in the obituary that he is survived by “two foster sons.” Does that remind you of anyone?

And what about the guys who are living “under the radar?” What about the 60 lawsuits? Who’s in there? What about the predators that the diocese knows about, but no victims have filed cases?

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UNITED STATES
Boston.com

What is Spotlight?

By Kristin Toussaint @kristindakota
Boston.com Staff | 02.12.16

“This 2015 drama shows how The Boston Globe uncovered abuse claims against the Catholic Church.”

What is Spotlight, a major motion picture chronicling the Globe’s reporting, and now an answer on Jeopardy!?

Sacha Pfeiffer, Globe reporter, columnist, and member of the Spotlight team that broke the 2002 story on the systemic sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, tweeted out Friday a picture of the game show’s nod to the film.

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PHILIPPINES
Manila Bulletin

by Paulyn Abando
February 14, 2016

It has been earning praise from critics even before it was nominated for Best Picture at the 2016 Academy Awards. Now, we know why.

“Spotlight,” award-winning director Tom McCarthy’s inside look at a newspaper exposé on child abuse by the Catholic Church, is gripping.

It helped that the ensemble cast, including big Hollywood names like Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Stanley Tucci, Liev Schrieber and Brian d’Arcy James, were convincing in their respective roles.

The film is based on a true story of Boston Globe’s Pulitzer prize-winning investigative team dubbed the Spotlight spending some two years painstakingly pinning down pedophiles within a Catholic Church in Boston.

It wasn’t exactly an easy subject, probably why the film earned an R-16 rating, but the film braved the sensitive issue to become a truly absorbing thriller.

To be clear, the film is not about religion or God. It simply highlights the plight of child molestation victims and their search for justice.

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Religion Digital

[Peter Saunders and Juan Carlos Cruz, two brave men vetoed by the cardinals.]

(Mario Vargas Vidal, en RyL).- Personalidades del mundo cristiano coinciden en que Roma silenció a un valiente, Peter Saunders, uno de los expertos de la Comisión vaticana contra la pedofilia; víctima en su infancia de abusos sexuales por parte de sacerdotes, fue informado sorpresivamente por la Santa Sede que: “Se decidió que el señor Peter Saunders tomaría una licencia para ausentarse de su pertenencia y ver cómo podría apoyar mejor el trabajo de la Comisión” especializada en el trabajo y denuncia de los abusos sexuales a menores por parte del clero.

Así recibió el día Peter Saunders, sorprendido por la noticia la cual calificó de indignante. ” Nunca me dijeron antes de dicha decisión y me resulta indignante que no me lo dijeran “. Pero Saunders estaría muy lejos de renunciar como al parecer lo desean altos dirigentes curiales. Esta víctima, convirtió en una espina para el vaticano cuestionando abiertamente que no han hecho nada, ningún progreso en relación a esta delicada materia de los abusos: ” Nuestro Papa podría hacer mucho más, hacer que las cosas sucedan ahora “.

Saunders, también es un crítico de la forma y el fondo que a la Comisión le han querido atribuir. “Hacer lo que los funcionarios han hecho por décadas: astutamente fijarse en las políticas internas y discutir sin sentido en el papel que dan la impresión de progreso, mientras no se cambia prácticamente nada”.

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MEXICO
La Jornada

[Clerical pedophilia has left more than a thousand victims in Mexico: Alberto Athié.]

Periódico La Jornada
Sábado 13 de febrero de 2016, p. 10

El presidente de Morena, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, consideró que la presencia del papa Francisco en México es esperanzadora. Como se expresó en la frase bíblica, nuestro pueblo tiene hambre y sed de justicia, señaló.

Aseveró que aunque corresponde a los mexicanos cambiar su amarga realidad, las palabras del Papa en favor de la justicia, como todo sentimiento espiritual humanitario o cristiano, inquietan, asustan a los poderosos y, lo más importante, reconfortan y alientan a los débiles y desposeídos. …

Es uno de los pendientes que tiene la Iglesia católica, sostuvo en conferencia, y urgió a que la Santa Sede acate las recomendaciones emitidas por el Comité de los Derechos del Niño de Naciones Unidas. ¿A qué viene el Papa a México: a decirnos palabras maravillosas o a comprometerse con la comunidad cristiana?, preguntó.

Athié mencionó que en el país hay por lo menos cinco arzobispos responsables de encubrimiento de curas pederastas: tres de la arquidiócesis de San Luis Potosí; el cardenal Norberto Rivera en la Ciudad de México y algunos de sus obispos auxiliares, así como la arquidiócesis de Oaxaca.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Kim Bellware
Reporter, The Huffington Post

As the Catholic church reckons with decades of indifference to clergy abusing children, some followers are finding both their faith and their patience tested.

Catholics world wide are intently watching how the Vatican addresses the issue, while a new controversy has revealed just how far the church has to go in making amends for this dark chapter.

Training guidelines for new bishops prepared by French Monsignor Tony Anatrella, a controversial psychoanalyst and clergy member, include a section that says bishops are not legally obliged to report abuse.

“According to the state of civil laws of each country where reporting is obligatory, it is not necessarily the duty of the bishop to report suspects to authorities, the police or state prosecutors in the moment when they are made aware of crimes or sinful deeds,” Anatrella said, according to Crux.

As several reports note, the guidelines were drafted without any input from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, the group created by Pope Francis to highlight “best practices” for stamping out clergy abuse. …

SNAP has been highly critical of the Vatican’s response to child abuse revelations, with Blaine characterizing the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors — made of up both clergy and laypeople — as little more than an empty gesture.

On Tuesday, the commission reportedly tried to oust one of its members, abuse survivor Peter Saunders. Saunders said the commission accused him of being difficult to work with and too open with the media, Reuters reported. Saunders, head of Britain’s National Association for People Abused in Childhood, resisted pressure to step down.

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GlobalPost

Will Carless
Feb 13, 2016

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — A member of a commission set up by Pope Francis to advise him on child abuse says the group is a “token body” exercising in “smoke and mirrors” that won’t help children stay safe from abusive priests.

Peter Saunders, the commission member, is now on a leave of absence as he considers whether to continue with an effort he says he has lost faith in.

Meanwhile, new Catholic bishops are still being taught they’re not obliged to report cases of child abuse by priests to the police.

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which Francis set up with much fanfare in 2014, was supposed to issue guidelines for the Vatican on how to deal with child abuse. But the body was never consulted about the training for new bishops on exactly that topic.

These are just some of the signs that Francis’ reform efforts, and his pledge to clean up the Catholic Church’s most damaging crisis, seem to be unraveling before they’ve even really gotten started.

The problems come as Pope Francis pays a visit to Latin America, a region where, as GlobalPost has reported, the church is accused of reassigning and protecting many alleged predator priests. Among the latest scandals in the region, Chileans are outraged that the pope appointed a bishop accused of shielding the country’s most despised pedophile priest from investigation.

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INDIA
ABC News

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW DELHI — Feb 13, 2016

The Roman Catholic church in southern India has lifted the suspension of a priest convicted last year of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in the United States more than a decade ago, a spokesman said Saturday.

The suspension of the Rev. Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul was lifted last month after the bishop of the Ootacamund Diocese in India’s Tamil Nadu state consulted with church authorities at the Vatican, said the Rev. Sebastian Selvanathan, a spokesman for the diocese.

Bishop Arulappan Amalraj of Ootacamund had referred Jeyapaul’s case to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and the suspension was lifted on the church body’s advice, Selvanathan said.

“After Jeyapaul’s release from the United States and his return to India, this matter was referred to Rome, and according to the guidelines of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the suspension against Jeyapaul was removed,” Selvanathan said. …

Bishop Amalraj lifted the suspension in mid-January, but Jeyapaul has not yet been assigned any responsibilities, Selvanathan said. “That will be decided in May, when decisions are taken by the diocese on changes and assignments,” he said.

Jeyapaul could not be contacted, with Selvanathan saying the church did not know his whereabouts.

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CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

PRESS RELEASE SENT STATEWIDE 2-11-16
– – – – – – – –
2016 CALIFORNIA BALLOT MEASURE
Elimination of Civil & Criminal Statutes of Limitations pertaining to sex crimes against children.

San Francisco, California – William Lynch (Proponent) announces granting of Title and Summary by the California Attorney General and the beginning of the qualification process for a 2016 California ballot measure. http://www.StopChildSexAbuse.org

William Lynch was sexually assaulted when he was 7 years old. Like a textbook case of child sex abuse, Will told no one. When the truth came out 20 years later, Will was informed that the criminal statute of limitations had expired when he was 13 and the priest could not be prosecuted.

After exhausting every legal remedy to bring his attacker to justice, Will confronted the retired priest. A physical altercation ensued, and Will was arrested. Will’s trial brought international media attention to the issue of child sex abuse. During the trial, Will took the stand, and told the truth. In a landmark victory and contrary to the law, the jury acquitted Will of all charges exercising jury nullification.

After his acquittal Will founded RISE (http://www.RiseAboveAbuse.org), an advocacy organization dedicated to protecting other children from a similar fate.

After Gov. Brown vetoed SB 131, Will declared that politicians and the legislative process could no longer be trusted to protect children. He has developed a solution that relies on the collective will of the voters to stop child sex abuse once and for all by passing the 2016 California Ballot Initiative that eliminates the criminal and civil statutes of limitations on sex crimes against children.

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RHODE ISLAND
NBC 10

[with video]

BY PARKER GAVIGAN, NBC 10 NEWS FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12TH 2016

During a taping of 10 News Conference Friday, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter F. Kilmartin said he was “outraged” over recent comments made by the Department of Children, Youth, and Families related to reporting sexual abuse of children.

The comments were made on the heels of the scandal that has plagued the elite St. George’s School in Middletown. Alumni and former students have alleged rape and sexual misconduct by teachers from the 1970s and 80s and said the school did nothing to help them or report the alleged abuse.

On Thursday, the NBC 10 I-Team uncovered a more recent police report from Middletown, where in 2005, a former student told police he was sexually molested by his dorm master in the fall of 2004. He told a detective he was touched inappropriately about 15 times.

Police investigated the teacher, identified by the report as Charles Thompson, but closed the case with no corroborating evidence of an assault. The school told police he took a leave of absence and that families in his dorm were notified. However, lawyers for some alumni and the student involved in the 2005 report said St. George’s did not report to police or child protective services, other student complaints they allegedly received about Thompson.

“There was an absolute legal obligation in 2004 to make reports to social services,” said Carmen Durso, a Boston attorney who is representing the former student and alumni. “Why did the school not take action? Why were teachers allowed to continue there? Why were students put in a situation like this, continually, even after they made complaints?”

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NEW YORK
National Catholic Register

But its chief spokesman insists it has responded appropriately to the allegations of financial and sexual misconduct leveled against the parish priest.

by BRIAN FRAGA 02/12/2016

NEW YORK — Shortly after he was assigned to a parish on Roosevelt Island in New York City, Father Peter Miqueli told a local newspaper that he hoped his parishioners would help him become a good priest.

“I am a regular person from the community who has been called upon to serve the community,” Father Miqueli told The Wire in February 2002.

Today, Father Miqueli, while still a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, has no parish or any assignment. He has been sued by parishioners from two churches who accuse him of embezzling $1 million and of alienating the faithful with an aloof and abrasive demeanor. The embezzling allegations — extensively detailed in a lawsuit filed in December 2015 — are being investigated by the Bronx District Attorney’s Office.

The lawsuit also details, in lurid fashion, an alleged long-running paid homosexual relationship that Father Miqueli is said to have had with Keith Crist, an alleged male escort whom parishioners say they often saw around their churches, and who Father Miqueli allegedly assigned to run a parish-operated thrift shop on Roosevelt Island.

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