ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

August 25, 2016

DAN BOX
Crime reporterSydney
@DanBox10

The former dean of Newcastle’s Anglican cathedral allegedly sent an explicit greetings card to a teenager he had been having sex with for several years that read “Thank Heaven for little boys! For little boys get BIGGER every day.”

The card, tendered in evidence to the Royal Commission into ­Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, provides an insight into how brazen senior priests ­associated with the NSW diocese were about their alleged activities.

Its author, Graeme Lawrence, would subsequently work closely with the then bishop of New­castle, Roger Herft, now the Anglican Archbishop of Perth.

Other exhibits tendered to the commission allege Archbishop Herft was told on at least three ­occasions that Mr Lawrence was a sexual abuser, including of children, although he has given evidence saying he has no memory of this taking place.

Both men are due to face cross-examination next week.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Ciarán D’Arcy

There will be a review of social media policies and procedures for handling whistleblowers at St Patrick’s seminary in Maynooth following allegations of trainee priests using dating apps, the college’s board of trustees has announced.

During a meeting in Maynooth on Tuesday, the board also asked the Irish Bishops’ Conference which is based in St Patrick’s College to commission an independent audit and report into the governance of Irish seminaries.

Those who oversee the management of St Patrick’s came in for criticism earlier this month when media reports surfaced of trainee priests using the Tinder dating app as well as its gay equivalent, Grindr.

Following those reports, a number of ex-seminarians came forward with accounts of alleged bullying and sexual harassment they had suffered during their time at the Maynooth college, and in a statement released on Wednesday the trustees say they “share the concerns about the unhealthy atmosphere” there.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

24 August, 2016

The Royal Commission has published nine audio stories based on survivors’ experiences as revealed in private sessions.

These stories are accurate summaries of what was said in the private session, and use real quotes taken from the session. However, names have been changed and the stories have been narrated by actors to protect the identity of the survivors.

Royal Commission CEO Philip Reed said the stories promote community awareness of the impacts of child sexual abuse, while protecting the privacy of private session attendees.

“Bearing witness to the experiences of survivors in private sessions has been a defining feature of this Royal Commission,” Mr Reed said.

“Commissioners have now heard more than 5,500 stories in private sessions,” Mr Reed said.

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ILLINOIS
Courier-News

George Houde
Chicago Tribune

The founder of a suburban Islamic school who is accused of sexually abusing a former student and a former employee has been given until Sept. 2 to decide if he will accept a plea deal.

Cook County Associate Judge James Karahalios issued the deadline Tuesday after the imam, Mohammed Abdullah Saleem, declined to accept the terms of a plea deal offered by prosecutors. Karahalios said he intends to take Saleem to trial on Sept. 12 if the imam does not agree to the plea arrangement by the Sept. 2 deadline.

Saleem, 77, a conservative scholar and former principal of the Institute of Islamic Education in Elgin, is accused of groping a woman who worked for him at the boarding school and of molesting an underage female student. In both cases, authorities allege that the imam forced the woman and the girl to sit on his lap while touching them in a sexual manner, and that both were victimized multiple times.

The terms of the proposed plea bargain have not been made public. The sentencing guidelines for those convicted of aggravated criminal sexual abuse include the possibility of probation. Someone convicted of the crime could also be required to register as a sex offender.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

AAP on August 24, 2016

A 73-year-old former Sydney Catholic priest has had his six-month minimum jail term halved for sex offences against boys more than three decades ago.

Robert Flaherty, who was given between six and 12 months to live 11 months ago, was granted bail pending his appeal so he will now spend his first night behind bars.

He was jailed in February for two years and three weeks with a non-parole period of six months, being subject to the sentencing standards of the time the offences were committed.

Flaherty had pleaded guilty to three counts of indecent assault relating to two boys and a jury found him guilty of two other offences relating to a third boy.

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KENTUCKY
The Record – Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville

Record Staff Report

Attorney William McMurry filed suit Aug. 19 against the Archdiocese of Louisville on behalf of the parents of a child whom, according to the suit, Father Stephen A. Pohl photographed while pastor of St. Margaret Mary Church.

Father Pohl was sentenced on March 29 in federal court to 33 months after he pleaded guilty to accessing child pornography.

In addition to accessing child pornography online, the priest had more than 150 photos of St. Margaret Mary School children on his computer and other devices, court records say. While not pornographic, investigators described some of the photos as inappropriate, characterizing them as “child erotica.”

The Aug. 19 suit claims the archdiocese was negligent in its hiring and supervision of the priest. McMurry also filed suit against the Archdiocese of Louisville March 29 on behalf of another set of parents of a child whom, according to the suit, the priest photographed.

Claims in a lawsuit represent only one side of a legal case. The archdiocese does not comment on pending litigation.

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MISSOURI
KMOX

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) – The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) is ordered to help pay the legal fees of a Catholic priest who accuses SNAP of conspiring to ruin his reputation.

SNAP refused to turn over some documents in the civil suit filed by Father Joseph Jiang – who was once charged criminally with sexual misconduct involving a child, but the charges were dropped. They say it would compromise the privacy of alleged victims.

“Legally, this is certainly the most potentially harmful ruling we have ever faced,” David Clohessy of SNAP says. “We’ve already turned over more information in this case, than we ever have had to before.”

Jiang’s attorneys want the records to show the alleged conspiracy against Jiang.

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AUSTRALIA
Huffongton Post

[with videos]

Eoin Blackwell Senior Associate Editor, HuffPost Australia

(Warning: some of this material is confronting and disturbing. If the stories cause you sadness or distress and you need help, you can access support services here.)

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual abuse has for the first time published nine audio accounts of survivors’ experiences, in a move it hopes will bolster community understanding of abuse.

The nine private session stories tell of abuse that occurred in schools, children’s homes, state-run institutions and Aboriginal missions from the 1950’s to the 2000’s.

The Commission said the stories are accurate summaries of what was said in the private sessions, however names have been changed to protect the identity of the survivors, and actors have been used in the recordings.

Natalie’s Story Features A Catholic Priest Who Visited Her Primary School In The 1980s. She Was 11 Years Old.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

Rohan Smith
news.com.au
@ro_smith

WARNING: Disturbing content

NATALIE wanted desperately to become a model. So, when a Catholic priest set up a studio in his office, she jumped at the opportunity to be photographed.

Soon, she realised there was a problem. Father Collier, who assisted at the primary school attended by the 11-year-old in 1985, asked her to change out of her uniform and into something more flattering.

He handed her a white, see-through shirt and told her: “Don’t put any underwear on because you’ll see lines and it’ll ruin the photos.”

This year, telling her story to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Natalie said the photographs were the beginning of something worse.

“He asked me to pose like Elle McPherson,” she said. “I knew he was taking photos of my private parts … I was begging to go home.”

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date: Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Source: Tom Halden, Director of Communications

From Archbishop Bernard Hebda

The judge has asked all parties to negotiate in good faith, and that is what we are endeavoring to do. Our consistent goal remains the same: a fair and just resolution for all.

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MINNESOTA
Fox 9

[with video]

By: Samuel King
POSTED:AUG 23 2016

ST. PAUL, Minn. (KMSP) – Attorneys for clergy abuse victims are touting an alternative restructuring plan to the one offered by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis during its bankruptcy proceedings.

The Archdiocese filed its bankruptcy reorganization plan in May, calling for a total of $65 million in payments to abuse survivors and other creditors. The alternative plan would provide at $80 million in payments to survivors.

“The plan that they proposed of paying the survivors $16 million is deceptive and misleading and a betrayal of a pledge to transparency,” said Jeff Anderson, an attorney for the abuse victims. “This provides for transparency and a fair measure of accountability.”

The plan from the Committee of Unsecured Creditors also calls for a release of all documents related to the investigation of former Archbishop John Nienstedt to be made public, including documents from the Vatican.

“They funded that investigation. They can’t now hide it because they don’t like it,” Anderson said. “No more secrets, no more concealment.”

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MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By TORY COONEY | vcooney@pioneerpress.com
August 23, 2016

A group of sexual abuse victims who suffered at the hands of clergy in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis have filed a counter plan for the proposed settlement.

The archdiocese’s plan, submitted to bankruptcy court in May, is “grossly underfunded and grossly deficient,” said attorney Jeff Anderson during a press conference Tuesday. Anderson is a St. Paul attorney representing hundreds of people claiming sexual abuse by priests.

The plan submitted by the survivors, as the Creditors’ Committee in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, would require the archdiocese to pay $80 million to victims instead of the $16 million it proposed.

“The reality is that what the Archdiocese did (in submitting its plan) … was a scam,” Anderson said. He also claimed that the archdiocese has vastly under-reported its true ability to pay and has sheltered funds.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

UCC Plan 8-22-16
UCC Plan Disclosure Statement 8-22-16

By Jean Hopfensperger Star Tribune AUGUST 23, 2016

The committee representing clergy abuse victims in bankruptcy court has proposed its own financial reorganization plan for the Twin Cities Archdiocese, including provisions to mortgage the St. Paul Cathedral and to halt support payments to abusive priests and give the money to abuse victims instead.

The plan, filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court Monday, requires the archdiocese to contribute $80 million to abuse victims in its financial reorganization instead of the $13 million proposed by the archdiocese.

“This is a plan that would fairly compensate the more than 400 survivors who have ben so egregiously harmed,” victims’ attorney Jeff Anderson saidat a news conference Tuesday.

Anderson said the archdiocese has the ability to contribute far more to abuse victims than it proposed in its financial reorganization plan filed in May. That plan calls for the creation of a $65 million trust fund for victims, which could increase if further insurance settlements are reached.

The St. Paul and Minneapolis Archdiocese would contribute about $13 million to that fund, with insurers picking up most of the rest.

Of the $80 million in archdiocese contributions proposed by the victims’ committee, $38 million would come from loans leveraged from archdiocese assets such as the cathedral and property leased to several high schools, said Anderson.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
Clay Center Dispatch

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — A former pastor at a New Hampshire church has been arrested on charges of sexually assaulting a minor.

Thirty-seven-year-old old Stephen Jesmer was employed as a pastor at The Dialogue Church in Manchester.

He was arrested Monday night on three counts of felonious sexual assault and one count of witness tampering.

Police started investigating several months ago when they were told of potentially inappropriate behavior involving Jesmer and a minor.

WMUR-TV reports Jesmer is free on $100,000 bond. It was not immediately known if he is being represented by an attorney.

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OHIO
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: G.R. Keith Albrecht was was ordained for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati in 1977. Prior to that, in the early 1970s, he was a Franciscan friar preparing for solemn vows when the Order voted him out. As a Cincinnati archdiocesan priest, Albrecht assisted in parishes in Beavercreek, Xenia, and Coldwater OH, where he was named pastor in 1987. He also spent a year as a hospital chaplain in Dayton.

In 1986 Albrecht took nude photos of a “young man,” who then tried to blackmail him for money. Despite knowledge of this incident, the archdiocese elevated him to pastor the following year. In 1993 Albrecht was placed on leave after a man alleged molestation as a minor by Albrecht in the 1970s in Beavercreek. A second person subsequently came forward with allegations that Albrecht had molested him when he was an 8th grader in the late 1980s, during a trip with the priest to New York. Albrecht admitted to sexual behavior with youths, explaining that he thought he was acting “out of love.” He would reach out to troubled adolescent males, then molest them. At least two lived with him for a time in the rectory of his Coldwater parish. In 2004 a man filed suit against Albrecht and the archdiocese with claims of abuse 1977-1981, when the man was a 14 to 17-year-old boy. The suit was dismissed in 2006 due to a ruling by the Ohio Supreme Court that victims must file suit before the age of 20. Albrecht was laicized in 2005.

Ordained: 1977
Laicized: 2005

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MINNESOTA
CBS Minnesota

[with video]

UCC Plan 8-22-16
UCC Plan Disclosure Statement 8-22-16

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Survivors of sexual abuse by priests say the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis can pay victims a lot more than the church has proposed in bankruptcy filings.

A group of victims released its proposal on Tuesday for the Archdiocese’s reorganization. It says $80-million should go to victims. In May, the Archdiocese proposed paying around $16 million.

“The plan that they proposed of paying the survivors $16 million is deceptive, and deceiving and a betrayal of a place of transparency,” Jeff Anderson, the attorney representing abuse victims, said.

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TENNESSEE
WMC

[with video]

Tuesday, August 23rd 2016

By WMCActionNews5.com Staff
By Tiffany Neely

MEMPHIS, TN (WMC) –
A Memphis church hired a crisis management team to do an internal investigation after a former employee’s arrest.

Rick Trotter, former voice of the Memphis Grizzlies, was arrested for filming “upskirt” videos of women at Downtown Church and Fellowship Memphis.

Members at Fellowship Church, where Trotter worked at the church from 2005-2010, said it looks more like the church is doing damage control.

“Members of the church body should be able to trust their leaders,” said a church member, who asked to remain anonymous. “Fellowship had an independent outside form to investigation any, all facts surrounding this matter … So, when I heard that, I thought, ‘OK, they’re looking into it.'”

Members said they received an email containing more information about the firm handling the investigation; one member said something doesn’t seem quite right.

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CALIFORNIA
ABC 7

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Victims of sexual assault are staging a protest in the East Bay after a teacher was arrested, accused of having a relationship with a teenager.

Heather Butts, 40, used to teach at St. Elizabeth High School in Oakland. She was arrested in San Bruno last week, when someone said they spotted her acting inappropriately inside a car with the teen.

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KENTUCKY
Courier-Journal

Matthew Glowicki, @MattGlo
August 23, 2016

Parents of a young boy who claim their son was inappropriately photographed by a Roman Catholic priest, now a convicted sex offender, are suing the Archdiocese of Louisville for negligence.

The Rev. Stephen Pohl pleaded guilty in March to a federal charge of viewing child pornography, admitting to accessing more than 100 pornographic images of nude underage boys on computers at the St. Margaret Mary Catholic Church rectory and office.

While the criminal charge didn’t involve St. Margaret Mary students, investigators did discover hundreds of photos on Pohl’s computers depicting clothed Louisville students, some of which police deemed “child erotica.”

In the newly filed lawsuit, parents Daniel and Mary Agnes Hayden said their elementary school student was among the students secluded by Pohl, ordered into “inappropriate physical poses” and photographed.

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MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

By Joel Currier St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS • Exasperated by nearly two months of defiance of a court order to supply details about people making sexual abuse claims against a St. Louis priest, U.S. District Judge Carol E. Jackson dealt a heavy blow this week to the advocacy group SNAP and others.

In an order filed Monday in a suit by the Rev. Xiu Hui “Joseph” Jiang, Jackson says that the SNAP defendants did conspire together “to obtain plaintiff’s conviction on sexual abuse charges” and that it was because of “discriminatory animus against plaintiff based on his religion, religious vocation, race, and national origin.”

She also said that SNAP’s public statements “were false and that they did not conduct any inquiry into the truth or falsity of these public statements, but instead made these statements negligently and with reckless disregard for the truth.”

Jiang filed a defamation suit last year against the boy’s parents, police and SNAP leaders David Clohessy and Barbara Dorris, claiming they conspired against him for monetary gain, and that police went after him because of his religious and racial background. He had been named on criminal charges that were later dropped.

Jackson’s sanctions appear to apply specifically to SNAP.

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AUSTRALIA
Courier

Alicia Thomas
@aliciajthomas

23 Aug 2016

A former Ballarat priest has been found guilty of indecently assaulting a young girl in her own bed more than 40 years ago.

Leslie Sheahan, 85, who was an assistant priest of St Columba’s Church at the time of the offence, will return to the Ballarat Magistrates Court next month for sentencing over the historic indecent assault.

The woman assaulted as a young girl by the former Ballarat priest while she slept told the court the traumatic experience still haunted her.

The woman, who was aged nine or 10 at the time of the incident, gave evidence she woke one night in the 1960s to find Sheahan in her bed with his hand down her pants while he forced her hand on his penis.

“He kept telling me how nice it felt for me and I kept thinking no it wasn’t nice at all,” she told the court.

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Martin Moylan Aug 23, 2016

The committee representing sex abuse victims and other creditors in the bankruptcy of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis is proposing the church raise more money for victims by mortgaging the Cathedral of St. Paul and land leased to three Catholic high schools.

That move is part of an archdiocese reorganization plan filed by the committee late Monday. It says the archdiocese has far more resources to compensate abuse victims than the church has reported.

The church plan filed in May called for the archdiocese to provide about $13 million out of its own pocket. That was part of a $65 million proposed reorganization plan that included contributions from insurers, parishes, schools and other Catholic organizations.

But the creditors’ committee insists the archdiocese can come up with $80 million, with additional contributions coming from insurers and other parties that could raise the total available to creditors above $100 million.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
NH1

MANCHESTER — A former pastor of a Manchester church is facing sexual assault charges involving minors.

Stephen Jesmer, 37 of Manchester, turned himself in on Monday. He was being investigated by Manchester juvenile investigators for several months following an alert of inappropriate behavior involving the former pastor and a minor. The investigation led to an arrest warrant.

Jesmer is charged with three counts of aggravated felonious sexual assault, three counts of felonious sexual assault, and one count of witness tampering.

He was previously employed as a pastor with The Dialogue Church, 516 Pine Street at the time of the alleged assaults.

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NEW HAMPSHIRE
NECN

By Marc Fortier

A former pastor at a New Hampshire church was arrested Monday on charges that he sexually assaulted a minor.

Stephen Jesmer, 37, of Manchester, turned himself in to police on Monday night. He is charged with three counts of felonious sexual assault and one count of witness tampering and appeared in court on Tuesday.

Manchester Police said Jesmer was employed as a pastor with The Dialogue Church on Pine Street at the time of the alleged assaults. Church officials are cooperating with the investigation.

The investigation began several months ago when police were first alerted to potentially inappropriate behavior invovling Jesmer and a minor.

Police said the investigation is ongoing, and they are asking anyone with information regarding Jesmer to contact the juvenile investigative unit at 603-792-5551.

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ITALY
Daily Mail (UK)

By OLLIE GILLMAN FOR MAILONLINE

A Catholic priest has been charged with murdering a 92-year-old Italian monsignor who allegedly caught him stealing sacred statuettes.

Giuseppe Rocco had a broken neck and had been strangled to death when he was found in his bedroom in the Cleric House in Trieste, Italy, in April 2014 by a housekeeper who came in to check on him.

Prosecutors believe Father Paolo Piccoli – who read Rocco his last rites – killed the older priest because he had reported him for allegedly stealing a set of figurines.

Rocco told Catholic authorities in the weeks before he was killed that statuettes of the Madonna, horse and a ship had gone missing.

They suddenly reappeared after his complaint, but he was suspected Piccoli was to blame, news.com.au reported.

Piccoli, 52, had been accused of stealing relics from another parish in the past and is believed to have a fetish for old artifacts.

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MISSOURI
Crux

Associated Press

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A federal judge has admonished an advocacy group for clergy abuse victims for defying her orders to release personal information about people who accused a priest of sexual misconduct.

In a ruling Monday in St. Louis, U.S. District Judge Carol Jackson cited the “deliberate and willful refusal” by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests to turn over information to Father Xiu Hui “Joseph” Jiang.

Jiang is suing SNAP, St. Louis city, two police officers and the boy’s mother for defamation. His lawsuit, filed in 2015, names the accuser’s parents – by initials only – along with St. Louis police Officers Tonya Porter and Jaimie Pitterle, the city of St. Louis, SNAP and the group’s leaders, David Clohessy and Barbara Dorris.

In the lawsuit, Jiang claimed he’s the victim of both religious and racial discrimination, asserting that the priest had fled religious persecution in China only to face further harassment in the United States. He is seeking information about the people who lodged the accusations against him.

Jackson says she’ll direct that it has been established that SNAP plotted against Jiang.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Wir Sind Kirche

[Sexual violence is still lowercase in the Catholic Church.The We Are Church people’s movement wants an explanation of why Cardinal Reinhard Marx failed to address sexual abuse allegations when he was Trier bishop.]

Pressemitteilung München/Deggendorf 19. August 2016

Wir sind Kirche zu den Vorwürfen: Kardinal Marx wusste als Trierer Bischof vom Missbrauchsverdacht

Die KirchenVolksBewegung Wir sind Kirche hält die heutigen Erklärungsversuche, warum Kardinal Marx als Bischof von Trier Missbrauchsvorwürfen nicht konsequent nachgegangen sei, für „Vertuschung light“. Nur ein freimütiges Eingestehen des Versagens öffnet die Türen für eine wirkliche Aufarbeitung der Vertuschung sexualisierter Gewalt.

Sich heute darauf zu berufen, die Leitlinien der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz seien damals nicht so eindeutig gewesen, gibt einen Fingerzeig darauf, wie wenig ernst diese genommen wurden und immer noch werden, und das in mehrfacher Hinsicht.

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PENNSYLVANIA
York Daily Record

YDR invited Bishop Ronald W. Gainer to meet with our editorial board to discuss abuse cases. He declined.

After the York Daily Record published a story naming 15 priests with connections to the Harrisburg diocese who had been accused of sexual abuse of children, we invited Bishop Ronald W. Gainer to meet with our editorial board.

Some of the 15 names were a revelation because they had not been previously acknowledged publicly by the diocese.

We believe it’s important to get that information out there so victims of abuse can know they are not alone. In many cases, victims have only come forward after learning through published reports that their tormentors have been accused of harming others.

Those 15 names might have been a revelation to some, but we know there are other priests who have been accused who were not included on that list. That’s because in 2007 the church said publicly that 24 priests with connections to the diocese had been accused of sexual abuse either here or elsewhere.

We know 15 names. Who are the others? Since 2007, has the diocese become aware of even more? Is the number still 24 – or is it more?

We just don’t know.

The Harrisburg diocese acknowledged the accused clergymen that YDR had become aware of through other sources but declined to shed light on other cases.

We wanted the opportunity to discuss these issues with Bishop Gainer. Through a diocese spokesman, he declined our invitation. Instead, his spokesman provided a guest column addressing the issue of abuse.

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TENNESSEE
Fellowship Memphis

By Fellowship Memphis and Downtown Church Leadership Aug 11, 2016

To ensure our congregations are fully informed, Fellowship Memphis (Fellowship) and Downtown Church (Downtown) have come together to provide a joint narrative with the facts as we understand them regarding Rick Trotter and his employment with our institutions.

Let us first say we are here for the victims. Trotter’s actions are contrary to our values, and we are deeply sorry for the suffering of the victims.

Trotter was employed as a Worship Director by Fellowship from August 2005 to February of 2010. In February 2010, it was reported that Trotter was engaged in inappropriate conduct of a sexual nature at the corporate headquarters of Fellowship. Specifically, a single incident of Trotter recording people in a bathroom was reported. This was immediately reported to Fellowship’s lead pastor at the time. When confronted, Trotter did not deny the charges and was thereby terminated.

The individuals victimized, all adults, by this incident were notified of Trotter’s misconduct, made aware that he had been terminated, and asked whether they wanted to press charges. The victims were also offered independent professional counseling paid for by the church. It is our understanding that none of the victims at that time chose to press charges.

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TENNESSEE
Watch Keep

Former Memphis Grizzlies announcer Rick Trotter was arrested on August 9, accused of filming “upskirt” videos while women were kneeling at worship services at Downtown Church earlier this year. Stotter reportedly recorded women and minors at another church, Fellowship Memphis, in 2010, where he was on staff as a worship leader from 2005-2010. After the camera was discovered at Fellowship, Stotter was fired, but church officials did not report this incident to law enforcement, according to Memphis Police Department’s Lt. Karen Rudolph. Two of Trotter’s alleged victims that he recorded are minors. Everyone in Tennessee is a mandated reporter under state law.

Fellowship Church lead pastor John Bryson and Downtown Church lead pastor Richard Rieves issued a joint statement after Trotter’s arrest. The full statement is here.

To ensure our congregations are fully informed, Fellowship Memphis (Fellowship) and Downtown Church (Downtown) have come together to provide a joint narrative with the facts as we understand them regarding Rick Trotter and his employment with our institutions.

Let us first say we are here for the victims. Trotter’s actions are contrary to our values, and we are deeply sorry for the suffering of the victims.

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TENNESSEE
Catholic Standard – Archdiocese of Washington, D.C.

By Mark Zimmermann
Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Pope Francis has appointed Washington Auxiliary Bishop Martin D. Holley to become the new bishop of Memphis, Tennessee, and the pope has accepted the resignation of Memphis Bishop J. Terry Steib, 76, from pastoral governance of the diocese. The Vatican announced the appointment on Aug. 23.

“I am deeply humbled in my appointment as the fifth bishop of Memphis by His Holiness, Pope Frances and I thank him for expressing his confidence in me through this new assignment at this time in my life,” Bishop Holley said after his appointment was announced.

He will be installed as the bishop of Memphis at the Cook Convention Center on Oct. 19 at 2 p.m.

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

GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio, Pacific Daily News August 23, 2016

The rector of a seminary in Yona said Tuesday only Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron or his successor can lift the deed of restriction that gives the seminary and a theological institute the legal right to use the local Catholic church’s property.

The Rev. Pius Sammut, rector of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary in Yona, said the sole owner of the Yona property is the Archdiocese of Agana. Sammut said the archbishop who currently oversees the local archdiocese, Savio Hon Tai Fai, has said this repeatedly.

The deed restriction allows the Archdiocesan Redemptoris Mater Seminary to use the Yona property, Sammut said.

“The only one who can lift the deed of restriction is the ordained Archbishop of Agana, Mons. Apuron or, eventually, his successor,” Sammut told Pacific Daily News.

Proper legal action must be done in order for the Archdiocese of Agana to again take control of the property, said attorney and former island Sen. Robert Klitzkie.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

August 24, 2016

DAN BOX
Crime reporterSydney
@DanBox10

The Anglican Archbishop of Perth was allegedly told a senior priest was a sexual predator, including of children, on at least three occasions, documents tendered to a royal commission reveal, ­although his evidence says he “cannot recall” this happening at the time.

The priest in question, Graeme Lawrence, was dean of Newcastle Cathedral during the 1990s when Archbishop Roger Herft was ­bishop of the NSW diocese.

Mr Lawrence, whom the commission has heard was part of a “Gang of Three” that protected a serial pedophile priest, was subsequently defrocked after having group sex with a teenage boy.

Archbishop Herft and Mr Lawrence are to face cross-examination before the Royal Com­mis­sion into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse next week.

“To the best of my knowledge, I cannot recall the dean’s name being connected to child abuse within my time as bishop,” Archbishop Herft said in a witness statement tendered to the commission and released yesterday.

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

MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

UCC Plan 8-22-16
UCC Plan Disclosure Statement 8-22-16

August 23, 2016

St. Paul News Conference Today

Sexual Abuse Survivors File Proposed Bankruptcy Plan

Plan Calls for Archdiocese to Pay $80mFor the first time in any diocesan or religious order bankruptcy proceeding, sexual abuse survivors file their own reorganization plan

What: At a news conference Tuesday in St. Paul, Attorneys Jeff Anderson and Mike Finnegan will:

· Discuss the details of the proposed bankruptcy plan filed Monday by the Creditors’ Committee in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis bankruptcy case;

· Among other provisions, the proposed plan calls for the immediate release of the investigative report concerning former Archbishop John Nienstedt, all communications with the Vatican Embassy and requests an end to all payments currently being made to priests credibly accused of sexually abusing children;

· Demand the Archdiocese uphold its pledge made to sexual abuse survivors to be transparent and accountable throughout the bankruptcy proceedings.

WHEN: Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 1:00PM

WHERE: Jeff Anderson & Associates, PA
366 Jackson St. Suite 100
St. Paul, MN 55101

NEWS CONFERENCE WILL BE LIVE-STREAMED FROM OUR WEBSITE – LINK WILL BE AVAILABLE SHORTLY BEFORE NEWS CONFERENCE AT www.andersonadvocates.com

Please note there is construction on Jackson and 5th Streets so please allow for additional time to find parking.

Contact: Jeff Anderson: Cell: 612.817.8665 Office: 651.227.9990
Mike Finnegan: Cell: 612.205.5531 Office: 651.227.9990

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

SCOTLAND
STV

An 83-year-old former priest at Fort Augustus Abbey in the Highlands has denied assaulting eight pupils.

The incidents are alleged to have happened between June 1974 and July 1988 when Thomas Seed was a teacher at the school on the banks of Loch Ness.

Seed, of Brora, Sutherland, who went by the name Father Benedict, denied all charges at Inverness Sheriff Court on Tuesday.

His trial was due to begin next month but has been adjourned and is now expected to go ahead in Inverness on January 23.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
Ealing Today

A former Roman Catholic priest accused of historical sex offences against five boys at St Benedict’s School has appeared in court.

Laurence Soper, 72, has appeared at Ealing Magistrates’ Court facing nine charges which all allegedly took place at the school where he taught in the 1970s and 80s.

Mr Soper was arrested in 2010 and bailed, but failed to return to a London police station in March 2011. A European Arrest Warrant was issued for him in 2012 and he was detained in Kosovo in May.

He gave his name in court as Andrew Charles Kingston Soper – Laurence being the name he took when he was ordained as a priest.

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SCOTLAND
BBC News

The trial of a former priest accused of assaulting eight boys while teaching at Fort Augustus Abbey School has been adjourned until next year.

Father Benedict Seed, 83, denies the charges, which include striking pupils aged between 11 and 18 with a cane and a spiked golf in the 1970s and 80s.

A trial date has been fixed for 23 January for further investigations.

It also allows time to arrange for one witness to give evidence via a video link from Hong Kong.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Advertiser

LAUREN NOVAK, POLITICAL REPORTER, The Advertiser
August 22, 2016

SCREENING clearances to work with children will remain valid for five years and applicants will be tracked by an electronic identification number, under changes prompted by the Nyland Royal Commission.

The State Government has today revealed proposed changes to background screening laws which follow recommendations made by Royal Commissioner Margaret Nyland earlier this month.

A key change will establish a single check for working with children, which will be portable across different roles.

Teachers will be required to undergo the same check, despite currently being assessed under a different system.

Applicants will no longer be able to start working with children while their clearance is being processed.

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

CALIFORNIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Victim’s group: “Bishop must do outreach now”
SNAP: “others may be suffering alone and in silence”
First court appearance for the accused is September 19th
Survivors also urge officials to teach kids that women can be predators too

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will

— discuss the case of a newly-arrested abusive school teacher,
— stress the likelihood that she may have hurt kids at TWO schools, not just one,

They will also beg Catholic and school officials to

— educate kids and parents that women abuse too,
–“reach out to girls who may still be suffering alone and in silence,”
— use their resources to beg those who may have experienced, witnessed or suspected abuse by this teacher to come forward, and
— “come clean” to law enforcement investigators about any prior allegations of inappropriate behavior with students in the interest of public safety.

WHEN
Tuesday, August 23rd at 11:00 a.m.

WHERE
Outside the Cathedral of Christ the Light, 2121 Harrison Street (between 21st & Grand) in Oakland CA

WHO
Two-three members of a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org)

WHY
A public school teacher who had also taught at an Oakland Catholic school was arrested last week for sexually abusing a 15 year old girl.

[SFGate]

Heather Amanda Butts, a teacher at Taylor Middle School in Millbrae, was arrested on August 17th on suspicion of having sexually violating the teen. Butts had been a drama teacher at St. Elizabeth High School in Oakland from 1999 to 2002.

Melanie Sakoda, the East Bay Director for SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is concerned that Butts may also have had victims at the Oakland facility.

“Unfortunately, those who abuse kids rarely have just one victim, and they do not just wake up one day and decide to begin molesting. It’s highly unlikely that the Millbrae victim was this teacher’s first,” Sakoda said.

“Oakland’s bishop and his staff should aggressively reach out to girls who may be suffering alone and in silence,” she continued. “They need to know that they are not alone.”

The San Francisco Director for SNAP, Tim Lennon added, “Catholic officials should use every resource at their disposal to prod anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes by this teacher to call police. The diocese must also ‘come clean’ – to the public and the police – about any other reports of misconduct by Butts.”

Lennon also hoped that the Oakland bishop, as well as the school district, would take the opportunity to educate students and parents. “People are used to thinking about abusers as male, and often overlook the fact that women can, and do, abuse children of both sexes.”

Sakoda concluded, “Kids are always safer when predators are jailed. People in the Oakland Diocese may have information that can help insure that happens here.”

Butts’ first court appearance will be on September 19th at 8:30 a.m. in the San Mateo County Superior Court in Redwood City.

Anyone with information on the case can call police at (650) 616-7100 or email sbpdtipline@sanbruno.ca.gov.

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GROSSBRITANNIEN
Contra

[According to an internal document, bishops of the Church of England were instructed not to apologize for sexual assaulst in order to avoid lawsuits.]

Einem internen Dokument zufolge wurden die Bischöfe der Church of England angewiesen, sich nicht für sexuelle Übergriffe zu entschuldigen, um so Klagen zu vermeiden.

Von Marco Maier

Sexueller Missbrauch ist bei den christlichen Kirchen ein Thema, welches von deren Religionsführern nicht gerne aufgegriffen wird. Denn egal ob nun die Katholische Kirche oder auch diverse andere christlichen Konfessionen und Sekten – quer durch die Bank ziehen sich Missbrauchsvorwürfe gegen deren Vertreter. In Großbritannien macht nun ein internes Schreiben der Church of England die Runde, welches für großes Aufsehen sorgt.

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

NEW JERSEY
CBS New York

Justice for seven alleged victims of child sex abuse – years after they claim it happened. It’s the end of a long and emotional journey. Gus Rosendale reports.

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

NEW JERSEY
CBS New York

[with video]

ORADELL, N.J. (CBSNewYork) — Bergen Catholic High School has reached a nearly $2 million settlement with 21 alleged sex abuse victims – all former students at the private school in Oradell, New Jersey.

As WCBS 880’s Mike Smeltz reported, the former Bergen Catholic students reached the settlement for alleged cases abuse that took place over a 15 year span.

Peter Alrutz, who attended the school in the 1960s, said he saw a lot of teacher-on-student physical abuse at the school.

“A lay teacher punched with a closed fist and knocked teeth out of a student’s mouth,” he said.

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NEW JERSEY
News 12

ORADELL – Officials at Bergen Catholic High School in Oradell have reached a settlement with 21 former students over alleged sexual abuse.

The school will offer no formal admission of guilt or apology, but gave $1.9 million to the 21 alleged victims who went to the school in the 1960s and 1970s. They were allegedly abused by 11 teachers and staff members.

Road to Recovery, an organization dedicated to helping survivors of sexual abuse, helped some of the victims in the group.

“It is an acknowledgement first of all from the school – yes, it did happen. They are credible. These are not made up allegations,” says Co-Founder Robert Hoatson. “No amount of money will ever bring these men’s lives back and the damage that was done to them.”

Hoatson says that it took a year of talks and protests to come to the settlement. He says the Road to Recovery organization also wants the school to release all files regarding any other sexual abuse. They believe there could be more victims.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Sara Jerde | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

ORADELL—Peter Alrutz, 67, cannot recall exactly how old he was when he was first sexually abused, but he can still remember when a teacher asked to see him outside of class at Bergen Catholic High School and took him to a closet where the school stored books.

Alrutz said Brother Charles Borromeo Irwin asked him to move some books and when the student bent over, Irwin put his hand down his pants.

He said there was a physical struggle, but beyond that, “my recollection after that point is not real clear.”

Victims of alleged sexual abuse at the all-boys high school in Oradell stepped forward Monday to announce a $1.9 million settlement that will be shared among 21 men who accused staff of the school of abusing them years earlier.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

MICHAEL O’KEEFFE
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Bergen Catholic High School has agreed to pay $1.9 million to 21 men who say they were molested by 11 teachers during the 1960s and 1970s, but the former student who sparked the settlement talks is not part of the deal because he has refused to take down a website detailing sexual and physical abuse at the school.

Kobutsu Malone said lawyers for the Oradell, N.J., school want to silence him in hopes of making the sex-abuse scandal go away with as little fanfare as possible.

“Considering the charges we are making, to find the school in a– covering mode rather than healing mode is really disgusting,” said Malone, a 66-year-old Buddhist monk who now lives in Maine.

The school agreed to the settlement in November, but the deal was not made public until Monday.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Shannon Deery, Herald Sun
August 23, 2016

AUSTRALIA’S most notorious Catholic diocese for paedophile priests has added another serial child abuser to its number.

Former Ballarat priest Leslie John Sheahan was today found guilty by a magistrate of two charges of indecently assaulting a young girl from his time as a young priest in the 1960s.

The girl is his fourth known victim after Sheahan last year admitted molesting another three victims from the Ballarat and Horsham areas.

Sheahan was ordained alongside former Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns in 1956, and like so many priests under his watch, was left to work alongside kids after allegations of misconduct surfaced.

Sheahan, 85, denied the most recent allegations, refused to be interviewed by police and declined the opportunity to give evidence at today’s hearing at the Ballarat Magistrates Court.

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CANADA
CBC News

By Marion Warnica, CBC News Posted: Aug 22, 2016

Brett Mittelsteadt was a family man, trusted teacher, coach and active member of the Catholic church when he started sending sexual text messages to a girl less than half his age — who was also one of his students.

The details are outlined in the agreed statement of facts, a list of details agreed on by the court when Mittelsteadt pleaded guilty on Monday morning to luring and touching a minor for a sexual purpose.

Brett Mittelsteadt, teacher, facing sex charges against a student​

The girl, who cannot be named because of a court order that protects her identity, was 14 years old when her teacher at Holy Spirit Catholic School in Sherwood Park started grooming her for a sexual relationship. He was already a close friend of the family. And at that time, in March 2013, the child’s parents say she was a “hard-working, bright-spirited girl,” whose spirit and flame were extinguished by the dark “narcissistic” decisions Mittelsteadt made in secret.

Seemingly sweet texts like “I love you,” and “You are beautiful” were mixed in with increasingly explicit language and photos over several weeks.

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

UTAH
Daily Herald

BRADY McCOMBS
Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY — LDS Church attorneys argued Monday that a lawsuit accusing religious officials of not doing enough to protect four Navajo children from sexual abuse in a now defunct church-run foster program belongs in federal court because the alleged incidents occurred off tribal land.

U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby heard nearly three hours of arguments Monday about whether to keep the case in tribal court. Shelby said he’ll issue a ruling at a later date.

The alleged victims say they were sexually abused between the 1960s and early 1980s in the Indian Student Placement Program, which placed thousands of Navajo children in Mormon foster homes in Utah, Idaho and New Mexico.

Craig Vernon, an attorney for the victims, conceded that the alleged abuse didn’t happen on tribal lands, but he said decisions about where to place children and the inaction after the kids reported the abuse occurred on the Navajo Nation.

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UTAH
Gephardt Daily

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, Aug. 22, 2016 (Gephardt Daily) — A U.S. District judge on Monday said he won’t decide quite yet whether Thomas S. Monson, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, will be forced to provide deposition testimony in a sex abuse lawsuit against the church.

U.S. District Court Judge Robert Shelby said several other key issues in the case should be decided before he rules on the subpoena issue, according to a report by Fox 13.

Monson — who turned 89 on Sunday and who has served as the president of the LDS church since 2008 — was subpoenaed by attorneys for four people who say they were sexually abused decades ago by members of their host families while participating in an LDS church placement program for Navajo children.

The four alleged victims, two males and two females who filed their cases in Arizona’s Navajo Tribal Court, say they were abused in the 1960s and 1970s while participating in the church’s Indian Student Placement Program (ISPP).

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NEW JERSEY
The Daily Beast

After Gregorio Martinez was convicted of sexually abusing a boy, he vanished. Two reporters working on one tip did what law enforcement couldn’t: Find him.

KATIE ZAVADSKI

It took a jury 30 minutes to find preacher Gregorio Martinez guilty of molesting a 13-year-old boy.

The New Jersey preacher was convicted February 2015 of aggravated criminal sexual contact, child abuse, and endangering the welfare of a child, for which he was expected to be sentenced to probation.

But more accusers came forward before the sentencing phase began, opening up the possibility of more prosecution for Martinez.

Facing at least a decade in prison, Martinez disappeared.

For the next year and a half police, U.S. Marshals and prosecutors searched in vain for the pervert pastor. It was only thanks to two journalists that he was found—living 2,000 miles away.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
Christian Today

Ruth Gledhill CHRISTIAN TODAY CONTRIBUTING EDITOR 22 August 2016

Bishops in the Church of England were instructed to give partial apologies to victims of clergy child sex abuse to help minimise the cost of being sued, it has been disclosed.

Confidential legal advice to bishops seen by The Telegraph said the furthest the bishops should go was to “express regret”. It warns bishops to be careful before meeting victims, and not to do so without first talking to a lawyer.

It warns of the “unintended effect of accepting legal liability” for sex abuse and the danger of “inadvertently” conceding guilt.

The advice, issued in 2007 and replaced last year, indicates that any apology to a victim of clergy sex abuse should be drafted in a way that would avoid making the Church liable for compensation.

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IRELAND
The Tablet (UK)

22 August 2016 | by Sarah Mac Donald in Dublin

Among their main concerns is the appointment of ‘inadequate’ bishops

The Papal Nuncio to Ireland has come under fire from a prominent group of Irish priests over his selection of a series of what they say are “like-minded” new bishops whom the priests claim are “inadequate” for the needs of the Irish Church today.

In a statement, the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP), which has a membership of over 1,000 Irish clerics, charged Archbishop Charles Brown with choosing “narrow-minded” bishops whom the reform-minded priests say are out of sync with the majority of the faithful.

Speaking to The Tablet, Fr Brendan Hoban, a spokesman for the ACP, warned that Irish priests, and not just ACP members, have lost confidence in the process of selecting bishops and specifically with the lack of consultation.

According to Fr Hoban, the Nuncio has “drawn from a very narrow mind-set, out of tune with the theology of the Second Vatican Council and the realities of Irish Catholic life today”.

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FLORIDA
Palm Beach Post

By Andrew Marra – Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Monday, Aug. 22, 2016

BOCA RATON — At Saint Andrew’s School, no rules barred student-teacher sleepovers, a school-commissioned report released to parents Friday says. Faculty members received little training about child abuse. The student handbook said little to nothing about sexual harassment.

The lax rules and poor training helped to enable a teacher’s months-long pattern of “inappropriate” behavior with boarding students at the Boca Raton Episcopal school, including sleepovers, long embraces and late-night excursions, concludes the report by New Hampshire attorney David Wolowitz.

No evidence of sexual misconduct has been found, but the report criticizes the school for exposing students to “potential abuse” and says it failed to comply with a law requiring that child abuse concerns be reported to state authorities.

While the investigation blames several administrators for failing to report the former teacher’s actions, others call it an indictment of the school’s top leaders and board of trustees, whose members include Bishop Peter Eaton of the Episcopal Diocese of Southeast Florida, a non-voting member.

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TEXAS
San Antonio Express-News

By Elaine Ayala
August 22, 2016

A national organization leading efforts to expose the sexual abuse of children by priests has turned its attention to the Archdiocese of San Antonio for giving refuge to a Chicago priest removed from ministry last fall for an “inappropriate relationship with an adult man.”

Now at a South Side parish and seeking a formal transfer to the archdiocese here, Father Marco Mercado has been assigned to hospital ministry but his duties might expand in the future, according to a statement Monday from Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller.

“Father Marco Antonio Lopez Mercado, a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago, is in residence at St. Lawrence Church in San Antonio,” the statement said.

“Following his removal from ministry in his last assignment in Chicago, we have conducted our own independent review of the facts and, following that effort, as well as the counseling Father Marco has undertaken and his acceptance of responsibility in the situation in question, we are satisfied that he is suitable for ministry here,” García-Siller’s statement said.

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KENTUCKY
WDRB

Aug 22, 2016

By Marcus Green

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) – The parents of a boy who attended St. Margaret Mary School have sued the Archdiocese of Louisville, alleging the church should have known that a former parish priest who took inappropriate photographs of students was “dangerously unsuitable” for his job.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in Jefferson Circuit Court, is at least the second such action related to ex-pastor Stephen Pohl, who pleaded guilty in January to possessing child pornography and was sentenced in March to 33 months in federal prison.

Among other claims, it accuses the Roman Catholic archdiocese of failing to report Pohl’s behavior to police and giving “meaningless assurances of child safety” despite pledges to find and remove abusive priests in the wake of a sweeping abuse settlement in the 2000s.

“The fact that for decades Pohl could engage in the possession and distribution of child pornography and take thousands of sexually exploitative photographs of children tells the faithful followers of the Church, including the parishioners and families of St. Margaret Mary students, that their children are not safe and that the decades of callous leadership, denial and complacency did not change with these promises,” attorney William F. McMurry, the parents’ attorney, wrote in the complaint.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Stephen Naysmith

A man who is demonstrating chained to a cross outside Glasgow’s St Andrews Cathedral is receiving regular offers of help from the Archdiocese of Glasgow over his history of childhood abuse, a spokesman for the Catholic Church has claimed.

Dave Sharp began his protest yesterday, saying the church had failed victims of abuse and had not apologised after the recent conviction of two former schoolteachers for abuse carried out at St Ninian’s School in Fife, which was run by the Christian Brothers.

He said chaining himself to a wooden cross was a symbol of his inability to escape from his past without acknowledgement from the Church.

However a spokesman for the Archdiocese said Archbishop Philip Tartaglia had issued a full public apology a year ago, when he described child abuse within the Catholic Church as inexcusable and intolerable. Asking for forgiveness, the Archbishop’s statement said: “We apologise to those who have found the Church’s response slow, unsympathetic or uncaring and reach out to them.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent

Siobhan Fenton, Dina Rickman @siobhanfenton

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish rabbis have banned women from going to university, The Independent has learned.

The strict Satmar sect issued the decree, seen by The Independent, warning that university education for women is “dangerous”. Written in Yiddish, the decree warns: “It has lately become the new trend that girls and married women are pursuing degrees in special education. Some attend classes and others online. And so we’d like to let their parents know that it is against the Torah.

“We will be very strict about this. No girls attending our school are allowed to study and get a degree. It is dangerous. Girls who will not abide will be forced to leave our school. Also, we will not give any jobs or teaching position in the school to girls who’ve been to college or have a degree.

“We have to keep our school safe and we can’t allow any secular influences in our holy environment. It is against the base upon which our Mosed was built.”

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MAINE
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Ordained in 1949, James P. Vallely started his priesthood in in the Archdiocese of Portland OR. In 1951 he transferred to the Diocese of Portland ME, where he was incardinated in 1952. He assisted in parishes in Waterville, Bangor and Portland, and was chaplain for a hospital and an orphanage. He served as temporary administrator of a Limestone parish before being named pastor in Machias and then South Berwick. He retired in 1988, spending winters in the Orlando FL diocese and assisting in area parishes.

In 1993 a ME man reported to the diocese that Vallely sexually abused him in the late 1950s over a two to four-year period at St. Dominic’s in Portland. He said the abuse began when he was a 9-year-old altar boy. He and a second man with similar allegations went to the media. As a result, a third man came forward alleging abuse as a boy at St. Dominic’s by Vallely. The diocese received five complaints about Vallely between January and March 1993, and he was sent to outpatient treatment in FL. He died in 1997.

Vallely accusers continued to emerge. In 2007 a woman told the diocese she was sexually abused by Vallely in 1976, when she was an 11-year-old altar server at St. Michael’s in Berwick. She received a settlement in 2009. In 2013 two brothers alleged abuse by Vallely when they were St. Michael’s altar boys in the 1970s, and in 2015 four more men reported abuse by Vallely as boys at St. Michael’s. Six men sued the diocese in November 2015, claiming Vallely abused them between 1956 and 1977, and that the diocese knew he was a sexual predator. The abuse is said to have included rape, and the victims were 8 to 15 years-old. The men cited a 2005 letter which indicated that at least five boys at St. John’s in Bangor reported in the 1950s that Vallely was abusing them. The diocese settled with the six men for $2.1 million in August 2016.

Ordained: 1949
Retired: 1988
Died: December 12, 1997

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CALIFORNIA
New York Daily News

LEONARD GREENE
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, August 22, 2016

California’s state assembly is close to accomplishing something New York lawmakers could not do — change the way sexual assault is prosecuted.

Inspired by Bill Cosby, of all people, elected leaders in the Golden State passed a bill last week to end the time limit for prosecuting rape and felony sex crimes.

Under the California’s current law, rape and felony sex crimes must be tried within 10 years, unless DNA evidence comes to light after that time period.

And sex crimes against children younger than 18 must be prosecuted before the victim turns 40. Cosby stands accused of assaulting more than 35 women in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s, but in several of their cases, the statute of limitations has expired.

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ILLINOIS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priestsi

For immediate release: Monday, Aug. 22, 2016

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

We are grateful that an abuse case against a prominent Chicago Muslim cleric may soon get resolved. But now is not the time for complacency. It’s time for every single person who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes or misdeeds by Mohammad Abdullah Saleem – or cover ups by or at the Institute for Islamic Education – to come forward, get help, call police, expose wrongdoers and protect kids.

[Courier-News]

[Chicago Tribune]

Our hearts go out to the four extraordinarily brave women who report having been molested and assaulted by this cleric and to the 23 year old who is cooperating with law enforcement. We are grateful that some of these women are also seeking justice in the civil courts. Victims of sexual violence should use every avenue they can to warn the public about dangerous predators.

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INDIA
The New Indian Express

PALAKKAD/COIMBATORE: AS the chargesheet is being readied against defrocked priest, H Arockiaraj, accused in the suspicious death of a teenage girl at the pastor’s residence attached to the St. Stanislaus church in Walayar in 2013, the Coimbatore Bishop and three members of the clergy are likely to be made approvers.

According to police summons might be issued to Bishop Thomas Aquinas and the priests, Fr BF Madalaimuthu, Fr Kulandairaj, Fr Lawrence Melcure arrested and later released on bail for withholding information, to give a statement under section 164 before the Magistrate. If they supported the prosecution, they are likely to be made approvers. The Bishop and the three priests would have to give a statement to the Chief Judicial Magistrate which will determine the course of the case.

On July 23, 2013, the body of Fathima Sofiya was found in the living room of Fr Arockiaraj’ residence attached to the St. Stanislaus church in Chandrapuram. She was then 18 years and 4 days old. Subsequently, four weeks after the ‘murder’, a canonical court was set up by the Coimbatore Bishop, which found that Fr Arockiaraj guilty. He was suspended from the diocese and defrocked.

Sources, privy to the investigation, said the post mortem report by police surgeon Dr PB Gujral has clearly stated that rape had been committed on the girl while ruling out ligature strangulation. However, Shanthi Roselin, the mother of the girl, continued to maintain that her daughter was strangulated. As such, investigators are learnt to have sought medico legal opinion on whether under these circumstances Section 302 (murder) could be included in the chargesheet.

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GUAM
Guam Daily Post

“It is time to return the property to the Archdiocese of Agana,” said David Sablan, newly elected president of the Concerned Catholics of Guam.

In a press conference yesterday, Aug. 22, CCOG officials responded to Archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai’s recent statement regarding the ongoing dispute over the Redemptoris Mater Seminary in Yona.

In a statement Thursday, Aug. 18, Hon reported findings presented to him and the Archdiocese’s Presbyteral Council detailing the current status of the seminary property. Hon said that while the property was “acquired” by the Archdiocese of Agana, its use had “been conceded in perpetuity to RMS and (the Blessed Diego Theological Institute).”

“Archbishop Hon’s announcement is an admittance that the seminary property is not controlled by the Archdiocese of Agana,” Sablan said. “An asset of the church worth anywhere between $40 million and $75 million was given away for free with no benefit to the local Catholic church.”

While Hon claimed that legal rights to the Yona property belong “uniquely” to the Archdiocese of Agana, Sablan and CCOG take issue with a “deed restriction” that Archbishop Anthony Apuron filed with the Department of Land Management in November 2011.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A former Roman Catholic priest accused of historical sex offences against five victims has appeared in court.

Laurence Soper, 72, appeared at Ealing Magistrates’ Court accused of assaulting boys, one under 14, over a period from 1971 to 1983.

The nine charges include offences of buggery, gross indecency and indecent assault, and all allegedly took place in Ealing, west London.

Mr Soper was returned to the UK from Kosovo after a five-year police hunt.

He was arrested in 2010 and bailed, but failed to return to a London police station in March 2011. A European Arrest Warrant was issued for him in 2012 and he was detained in Kosovo in May.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Sara Jerde | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Bergen Catholic High School has reached a $1.9 million settlement with 21 alleged sex abuse victims, a lawyer representing group told NorthJersey.com.

The men said they were assaulted by brothers at the parochial school between 1963 and 1978.

The lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian, said the victims he was representing were between 13 and 17 years old at the time of the alleged assaults. Each will receive sums that range from $65,000 to $115,000, Garabedian told NorthJersey.com.

A lawyer for the school, Thomas Herten, said in a statement last year that Bergen Catholic had done a “good faith mediation” of the accusations, but wasn’t admitting guilt by doing so, according to the report.

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

[with video]

22 AUG 2016
BY JAMES MONCUR

DAVE Sharp was raped and sexually assaulted by a Christian brother – he wants to see compensation and more support for the victims.

AN ABUSE survivor is protesting outside one of Scotland’s largest cathedrals chained to a cross.

Dave Sharp was raped and sexually assaulted by a Christian brother at St Ninian’s residential school, in Fife.

A former headteacher and ex-teacher from the school were convicted at Glasgow’s High Court last month of abusing and sexually assaulting six boys there in the 1970s and 1980s.

Dave spent six years at the school and would have given evidence at the 3-month trial but the man who brutalised him – former head teacher Brother Gerry Ryan – is dead.

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PENNSYLVANIA
York Daily Record

Bishop Ronald W. Gainer

August 22, 2016

Your Aug. 14 article detailing the priests in the Diocese of Harrisburg accused of child abuse in the past casts an important light on the scourge of child sexual abuse in society. I want to acknowledge the role of media in bringing this issue forward and thank you for reporting on the Diocese’s efforts to combat and prevent sexual abuse.

Let me be clear: The sexual abuse of children is an appalling sin and a crime. Since the 1990s, the Diocese of Harrisburg has a well-established zero-tolerance policy for clergy. We report all allegations of sexual abuse immediately to law enforcement, even if the cleric is deceased and no matter how long ago the abuse occurred.

I also want to assure you that no one in active ministry in our Diocese has a credible accusation of abuse against them. It has been our policy and practice for decades that all persons in a child-serving position must pass rigorous background clearances and checks, specifically the Pennsylvania State Police, Department of Human Services, and, in some cases, FBI fingerprint checks. This certainly applies to all priests and deacons as well as to priests coming into our Diocese from both Religious Orders and other Dioceses. The Religious Orders or Dioceses who send these priests to us must also provide clear assurances that there have been no credible allegations of abuse against the priests who they are sending to minister in our Diocese. This is a standard set by the USCCB since the 2002 Charter (article 14)

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ILLINOIS
Courier-News

George Houde
Chicago Tribune

A possible plea deal is under consideration for the founder of an Islamic school accused of sexual abusing a former student and a former employee.

Mohammed Abdullah Saleem, an imam who founded the Institute of Islamic Education in Elgin, is charged with molesting a female student dozens of times between 2001 and 2003, when she was a student at the school and he was principal.

That allegation of aggravated criminal sexual abuse came after Saleem, 77, had already been charged with groping a woman who worked for him at the school. The case is in court Monday morning.

If the case goes to trial, Saleem faces the prospect of having not just the two alleged victims testify against him in open court, potentially in explicit detail. Cook County Judge James Karahalios has also ruled that he will allow testimony from two other women who say they too were groped by the imam — a turn that presumably puts more pressure on Saleem to strike a plea deal.

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NEW JERSEY
The Record

BY STEFANIE DAZIO AND NICHOLAS PUGLIESE
STAFF WRITERS | THE RECORD

ORADELL — A Boston lawyer for seven alleged child sexual abuse victims at Bergen Catholic High School said 21 victims settled with the parochial school in November for $1.9 million. Two advocates — neither of whom were abused at the Oradell high school — hosted a press conference today in front of the school to announce the settlement.

Mitchell Garabedian said nothing has changed legally since November but “victims want to come forward now.”

Garabedian said at the time of the alleged abuse, his clients were between 13 and 17 years old between 1963 and 1978. They are now between 53 and 68 years old. They were allegedly abused by brothers at the school. Each victim receives between $65,000 and $115,000, Garabedian said.

Road to Recovery, Inc., hosted the press conference outside the high school in Oradell. The organization assists victims of sexual abuse.

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UNITED STATES
Thomas P. Doyle via BishopAccountability.org

Thomas P. Doyle, J.C.D., C.A.D.C.
ANNUAL SNAP CONFERENCE
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

June 24 to 26, 2016
Revised August 16, 2016

In the original presentation I followed the basic format suggested for speakers at Alcoholics Anonymous and other Twelve Step meetings: What it was like before. What Happened. What it is like now. I have revised the original and expanded it to article length and have retained to this format. [See also a PDF of Doyle’s original Word file.]

WHAT IT WAS LIKE BEFORE

The present era of awareness of sexual violation by Catholic clerics began in 1983 in two Catholic dioceses: the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Lafayette in Louisiana. This was not the start date of the problem of sexual violation but the beginning of widespread public awareness.

The reality of sexually dysfunctional clerics preying on minors and adults goes back through the centuries. In our lifetime it had been covered with a thick blanket of secrecy. It was unknown to the vast majority of lay persons and clerics as well. Many bishops knew about it but when they had to confront real cases they did so in secret with only a very small number of their closest advisors, all clerics, involved. Although they knew about sexual violation of minors in general, they were incapable of comprehending both its deeply pathological nature and its disastrous effects on victims.

Few knew about such abuse in the Church and even fewer believed it existed and this was due to the nature of the Catholic Church at the time. Back in the forties and fifties there was only one Catholic Church and it was the visible monarchical structure, a stratified society with a clerical aristocracy that was made up of celibate men and the vast ocean of lay commoners. The wall between the clerical caste and the “faithful” as the commoners are known, was steep and almost totally impenetrable.

Catholics were programmed either from birth or from the process of conversion to believe that the bishops and priests were exalted, privileged beings because of their ordination and the fact that God had chosen them to be his representatives on earth. They were taught that priests were “ontologically different” and “conjoined to Jesus Christ, “ thanks in great part to the largely incomprehensible theology of Pope John Paul II.

The Church we knew was often referred to as the “Church Triumphant.” The Vatican II definition of the Church as “The People of God” was an unknown and alien concept…. alien because it could be construed to lead people to believe there was some degree of equality with the sacred clerics, a threat not to be tolerated. The Church was totally identified with the external structures and the clerical establishment.

Bishops, priests and religious were an aristocracy within a vast monarchy with the pope presiding over all as an absolute ruler, answerable to no earthly power. Priests and bishops lived behind the mists of the clerical citadel. Their private lives were shrouded in mystery but one thing was certain and it was the presumption that these private lives, like their public lives, were clearly marked by holiness, virtue and knowledge. We took this all for granted because for most of us it was simply inconceivable to think of it in any other way.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Peter Mickelburough, Herald Sun
August 22, 2016

A SENIOR administrator of Yeshivah College is suing for libel, claiming she had been accused of pressuring child sex abuse victims not to pursue their complaints with police.

The orthodox Jewish school’s former general manager, Nechama Bendet, has lodged a writ in the Supreme Court seeking damages over five Facebook posts by Bruce James Cooke, whom she describes as a “vocal member of the Jewish community”.

Now the school’s director of development, she claims Mr Cooke suggested she had sought to ostracise two victims by calling them “mosers” for going to police and had thereby tried to pressure them not to pursue their complaints.

“Moser” is an offensive ­Hebrew term for one who breaks a code banning Jews from informing on one another to secular authorities.

This year, Ms Bendet told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse that the college had never discussed investigating claims of a cover-up after a former Yeshivah guard, David ­Cyprys, was accused of child sex crimes.

In 2011, it approached Robert Richter, QC, who ­advised it on public relations and dealing with victims, she said.

In her statement of claim, she says Mr Cooke’s posts suggested that she knew of abuse but did not report it to police; that she had shown complete disregard for victims by asserting the school had no legal obligation to report their abuse; that she condoned not reporting child sex abuse and rape to police unless there was a legal requirement to do so; and that there were reasonable grounds for police to investigate whether she had engaged in criminal conduct in relation to abuse.

Ms Bendet claims he also suggested she bullied and intimidated teachers and staff at Yeshivah and at Beth Rivkah Ladies College; that she abused her position by terminating a security contract for personal reasons; and that by her behaviour she was destroying the Yeshivah Centre and must be immediately removed.

She claims the posts were published without an honest belief in their truth or with reckless indifference, that her feelings, credit and personal and business reputation had been gravely injured, and that she had been humiliated and embarrassed.

Ms Bendet is also seeking a permanent injunction restraining Mr Cook from making such publications.

Mr Cooke’s lawyer, Chris Stakis, said his client would defend the case because he believed the publications were part of a legitimate debate on matters of importance.

peter.mickelburough@news.com.au

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ITALY
news.com.au

A MONSIGNOR. A murder. A missing treasure. It’s a mysterious crime that has gripped Italy. But now the story of April 25, 2014, is about to be told.

It was 7.30am. Housekeeper Eleanora Dibitonto knocked on the door to Monsignor Giuseppe Rocco’s small, Spartan room, in a manse in Trieste. It was her job to make sure the frail 92-year-old would wake in time for morning mass.

This morning, there was no response.

So Eleanora opened the door. She saw Rocco lying, fully dressed, on his back on the floor.
He was dead.

First she called an ambulance. Then she called another priest.

Father Paolo Piccoli, 52, gave Rocco his last rites.

But when the ambulance officers arrived, they noticed something odd.

The dead clergyman had a broken bone sticking out of his neck. Then two spots of blood were seen under his body.

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NEW ZEALAND
New Zealand Herald

By Deborah Hill Cone

This is not a topic which is easy to write about. But maybe someone has to. Deep breath. Last week there was outrage in a community in Hamilton after two men with convictions for sexual offending against children were found to have been living in a boarding house where children were also living.

And another family with two young girls were apparently told by the Department of Corrections to play on the other side of their house after a paedophile was moved in next door. This horrifies us. Most of the public discourse around sexual offending on young children is hysterical and terrified, with the impression of a lynch mob assembling in the background.

But this fear and anger, far from protecting children in the future, may be doing the opposite. The desire to have sex with a child is considered so shocking and perverse that we aren’t inclined to try to understand it. But experts say the repugnance we feel when we read about crimes like these is getting in the way of trying to explain them and prevent them from happening.

Last week the Economist magazine, noting Dame Lowell Goddard’s resignation as head of the UK’s child sex abuse inquiry, published a well-informed editorial cautioning that the need to punish child sex abusers is sometimes being pursued at the expense of prevention. The Economist argued governments need to put more resources into research in this area because at this stage, there’s almost no way to identify child abusers before they commit a crime. If we want to keep children safe we need to get over our repugnance and try to understand it in a rational manner. Yes, even if you find the topic yucky and would prefer to turn the page.

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GUAM
KUAM

By Krystal Paco

It’s the Archdiocese of Agana’s biggest asset. (Or at least it was.)

Once a hotel but converted into a seminary, the Redemptoris Mater Seminary is estimated to value up to $75 million. In a secret transaction back in 2011 however, Archbishop Anthony Apuron gave the property away for free – and for the last year has directly disobeyed Pope Francis’ orders to rescind and annul a deed restriction.

While apostolic administrator Archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai is asking for the new owners to hand back the property without going to court, the Concerned Catholics of Guam organization is preparing for what could be a lengthy litigation.

It’s the new multi-million dollar question, posed by CCOG president Dave Sablan: “We ask – will the board of guarantors and the board of directors of the RMS Corporation do the right thing and return the property to the Archdiocese of Agana?” In a press conference on Monday, he said the group is preparing for what could be a lengthy court battle to take back the Redemptoris Mater Seminary in Yona. As we reported, a declaration of deed restriction essentially assigned the RMS property, which once belonged to the Archdiocese of Agana, to the non-profit Redemptoris Mater Seminary Corporation in perpetuity or forever.

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GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Aug 22, 2016

By Krystal Paco

Concerned island Catholics continued their weekly protest outside the Hagatna Cathedral on Sunday morning. With the recent admittance that the Redemptoris Mater Seminary is no longer owned by the Archdiocese of Agana, Jose Martinez, who was among the picketers, says there’s plenty of unanswered questions to follow.

He told KUAM News, “As far as the seminary itself and the accreditation and everything else about I guess the validity of the priests that are coming out of there, that’s another subject. That if the deed restriction is all settled, we still need to address that also. Because that has been one of the major sticking points in our archdiocese is that group, the Neocatechumenal Way.”

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

[with video]

Kyle Daly, kjdaly@guampdn.com August 22, 2016

The president of a group that has repeatedly called for the removal of Guam’s archbishop said Monday that a nonprofit organization that has a deed to use Yona property on which a seminary sits should return the property to the local archdiocese.

David Sablan, president of the Concerned Catholics of Guam, held a press conference Monday afternoon in Tamuning.

Sablan’s remarks were a response to a statement released last week by Archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai regarding the property. Hon currently oversees the local archdiocese. He was put in charge of the archdiocese after several allegations of sexual abuse were made against Guam’s archbishop, Anthony S. Apuron, earlier this summer.

In a written statement released last week, Hon said Apuron didn’t follow instructions by Pope Francis to rescind and annul a deed restriction on the property, which the Concerned Catholics have said is valued between $40 million and $70 million.

The deed gives Redemptoris Mater Seminary, a Guam nonprofit corporation, the authority to use the property indefinitely.

Sablan, on Monday, reiterated statements that the Concerned Catholics made in October 2015 that the deed conveying the property to RMS was recorded at the Department of Land Management by Apuron in November 2011, without the knowledge of the Archdiocesan Finance Council, nor the Vatican, which, the group has said, is required by church law to give their consent before such a major transaction is made.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY KEN LOVETT
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Monday, August 22, 2016

Here is an expanded version of the second item from my “Albany Insider” column from Monday’s editions:

The creator of a political action committee pushing for enactment of a Child Victims Act has endorsed Marisol Alcantara in a three-way Democratic upper Manhattan state Senate primary.

“She has a strong background in health care and understands the issue well,” said Gary Greenberg, an upstate investor and child abuse survivor who founded the Fighting For Children PAC.

Greenberg said Senate Independent Democratic Committee Leader Jeffrey Klein’s support of Alcantara also helped. “He’s been a friend to us,” he said.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By MARTIN ROBINSON, UK CHIEF REPORTER FOR MAILONLINE

A Catholic monk has been returned to Britain from Kosovo following a five-year police manhunt and charged with a string of historical sex offences.

Father Laurence Soper is accused of abusing five boys as young as 14 between 1972 to 1986.

The nine charges include offences of buggery, gross indecency and indecent assault.

The 72-year-old was arrested as he arrived at Luton Airport on Sunday by officers from Scotland Yard’s Sexual Offences, Exploitation and Child Abuse Command.

Soper, who was detained under a European Arrest Warrant in Kosovo in May, will appear at Ealing Magistrates’ Court today.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Sun

BY BRITTANY VONOW 22nd August 2016

A FORMER monk who had been at the centre of a five year manhunt has returned to the UK and charged over nine historic child abuse allegations.

Laurence Soper, now 72, had been on the run since 2011 after skipping bail while on accusations of child sex abuse.

He had been arrested after a man in his 20s came forward to police in 2010, alleging that Soper had been involved in sexual assaults at St Benedict’s School in Ealing.

But the monk, who had been the abbot of Ealing Abbey in west London from 1991 to 2000, skipped bail in March 2011, managing to avoid authorities for five years.

Soper has now been charged with nine offences that allegedly targeted five victims, including an act of gross indecency towards a boy of 14-years-old and indecent assault of a boy under the age of 16.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Catholic Herald

Fr Laurence Soper was arrested on Sunday after being returned to the UK from Kosovo

A former abbot of Ealing Abbey accused of child sex abuse offences has been arrested after returning to the UK from Kosovo following a five-year police search for him.

Fr Laurence Soper, 72, was arrested at Luton Airport on Sunday on suspicion of a series of sexual offences allegedly committed at St Benedict’s School in Ealing where he taught in the 1970s and 1980s.

A spokesman for Scotland Yard confirmed the arrest and said Fr Soper was “arrested on suspicion of nine offences of sexual assault committed over a period from 1972 to 1986.”

Fr Soper, who was the abbot of Ealing Abbey from 1991 to 2000, was arrested in May under a European Arrest Warrant (EAW) in Kosovo, but Kosovan courts twice blocked extradition attempts due to the fact that the country has a 30-year statute of limitations.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Reuters

British police have charged a former priest with child sex crimes after he returned to the UK from Kosovo, where he had been on the run for around five years living under a false name.

Laurence Soper, 72, was due to appear at a west London court later on Monday to face charges for crimes he is accused of committing from 1972 to 1986. He was arrested at Luton Airport on Sunday after he flew back to Britain.

He faces nine charges in total, according to a police statement, which said there were five victims.

Described by police as a monk, Soper had lived in the town of Peja in Kosovo for about five years under the name Andrew Charles Kingston. British media said the former abbot from Ealing, west London, who was a teacher in the 1970s and 80s, had jumped bail in 2011.

Kosovan authorities detained Soper on an international arrest warrant in May but two extradition requests were rejected by courts in the country, the second because the crimes were committed too long ago.

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UNITED KINGDOM
National Secular Society

Posted: Mon, 22 Aug 2016 by Richard Scorer

Richard Scorer, a specialist child abuse lawyer at Slater & Gordon draws attention to organisations seeking more lenient treatment over child abuse-connected matters because they are religious and makes the case for no concessions being given.

Which is more important: religious freedom, or safeguarding children from abuse? Should churches and religious organisations be exempt from secular standards of child protection? Two recent court cases involving the Jehovah’s Witnesses raise this issue in its starkest form.

Some background. Over the past two decades a significant number of abuse cases have emerged in the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Clients of mine who allege they have been abused within the organisation describe a culture which is profoundly collusive with child abuse. It’s hard enough for abused children to speak out in any setting; in the Jehovah’s Witnesses, it’s bordering on the impossible. The organisation is notorious for its “two witness” rule: anyone who accuses an adult of abuse must have a corroborating witness. Since the vast majority of child abuse occurs in secret, the effect of this rule is to silence abuse victims. Moreover, if there is no corroborating witness, the complainant is often treated as having made a false accusation. This leads to the complainant being “disfellowshipped”, or ostracised by other Witnesses. A terrifying prospect if, like most children growing up in the Jehovah’s Witnesses, your entire family life revolves around them. In this way, victims say, the culture of the Jehovah’s Witnesses facilitates and protects abusers.

The two legal cases have opened a window into this culture. The cases involve the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society, the legal entity through which the Jehovah’s Witnesses operate. One case concerns the Watch Tower Society’s liability to pay damages to a proven victim of abuse. The Society sought to argue that its devolved structure means that it cannot be ‘vicariously liable’ for the actions of its officials who abuse children. It’s a variation of the argument advanced by the Catholic Church, which maintained for many years that priests were not employees and therefore the Church could not be liable for their actions. The Catholic Church’s long running battle to evade responsibility on that basis ended in failure in 2012. The Watch Tower Society’s defence failed at first instance in 2015, and its attempt to take the case to the Court of Appeal was dismissed last month.

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INDIA
Global Sisters Report – National Catholic Reporter

by Jose Kavi

Two top bodies of the Catholic church in India are now busy finalizing a policy to address sex abuse and other forms of abuse by clergy.

“A draft policy is in the final stage now. It has been circulated among all bishops and major superiors in India,” says Bishop Theodore Mascarenhas, secretary general of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India.

Mascarenhas, who in July also became spokesperson for the church in India, says the standing committee, the executive body of the bishops conference, will finalize the draft at its biannual meeting Sept. 21-23 in Bangalore, southern India.

The bishop spoke to Global Sisters Report following a June 24 story citing an increase in cases of clergy sex abuse of women religious, withholding sacraments as punishment and otherwise denying rights to nuns. The issues were detailed in a “letter of concern” that the Forum of Religious for Justice and Peace, an advocacy group for women religious, addressed to the bishops and major superiors in February. Also in February, Mascarenhas was elected secretary general of the bishops conference.

Mascarenhas says the new policy, tentatively titled “policy on sexual harassment in work places,” will address all such issues systematically and comprehensively.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Michelle Brown

A Catholic priest who sexually assaulted boys during wrestling bouts has been sentenced to a minimum of five years and four months in jail after being convicted of 44 child sex offences against six victims.

Priest David O’Hearn committed the assaults in the Hunter region while working as a trainee priest and priest in parishes including Cessnock, Muswellbrook and Windale in the 1980s and 90s.

O’Hearn, who is already in jail, was sentenced to 18 years and three months for the offences to be served from the December 18, 2012.

With time served, he will be eligible for release on parole on the February 17, 2022.

The crimes committed against the boys, aged between 10 and 15, included sexual intercourse, indecent assault and inciting a minor to commit an indecent act.

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AUSTRALIA
The Islander

JOANNE MCCARTHY
22 Aug 2016

NOTORIOUS Hunter paedophile priest David O’Hearn was “like a standover man in his local community”, a judge has told a Sydney court.

Judge Richard Cogswell said O’Hearn, 55, had the public profile of a holy man but in private was “a major criminal”.

Judge Cogswell is sentencing O’Hearn who was found guilty of 44 child sex offences against six boys in the Hunter in the 1980s and 1990s.

His victims are in the court – several in tears – as Judge Cogswell described O’Hearn’s offences against them. O’Hearn used wrestling as a “deliberate and calculated” way of engaging sexually with boys who were vulnerable, or from devout families.

He committed offences “under the guise or cover of a legitimate sporting activity”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Christian Today

Carey Lodge CHRISTIAN TODAY JOURNALIST 22 August 2016

Soper allegedly committed the offences at St Benedict’s School in Ealing, west London, where he was a teacher.

A former Catholic priest accused of abusing five boys in the 1970s and 1980s has been returned to the UK and arrested after skipping bail in 2011.

Father Laurence Soper, 72, was arrested on suspicion of nine charges including indecent assault, gross indecency and buggery.

He was arrested in Kosovo in May under a European Arrest Warrant but a Kosovan judge blocked his return to the UK because Soper’s alleged crimes had occurred too long ago.

However, UK police announced on Sunday that the priest had been arrested at Luton Airport “on suspicion of nine offences of sexual assault committed over a period from 1972 to 1986”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Journal (Ireland)

A BRITISH PRIEST accused of child sex offences was arrested at London’s Luton airport yesterday, five years after he went on the run.

Laurence Soper was arrested as he arrived back in the UK from Kosovo, police said in a statement.
Soper, 72, was taken into custody in London and is accused of nine sexual assault offences committed between 1972 and 1986.

His arrest concludes a lengthy legal battle between the UK and Kosovo, where Soper was arrested in May on a European warrant issued by Britain.

Police in Kosovo said at the time he was known as “Father Laurence” and gave his full name as Andrew Charles Kingston Soper.

Earlier this month a Kosovo court refused for the second time to extradite the Catholic priest, ruling he could not be extradited because the statute of limitations for the alleged crimes had been reached.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Times LIVE (South Africa)

AFP

A British priest accused of child sex offences has been sent back to the UK from Kosovo and arrested at London’s Luton airport, five years after he went on the run, police said.

Laurence Soper was detained on Sunday as he arrived back in the country, British police said in a statement.

Soper, 72, was taken into custody in London and later charged with nine sexual assault offences committed between 1972 and 1986.

He was due to appear in Ealing Magistrates’ Court on Monday, London’s Metropolitan Police said.

His arrest concluded a lengthy legal battle between the UK and Kosovo, where Soper has been arrested in May on a European warrant issued by Britain.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A former Catholic priest accused of historical sex offences has been returned to Britain from Kosovo after a five-year police hunt.

Lawrence Soper, 72, was arrested as he arrived at Luton Airport on Sunday on suspicion of nine offences of sexual assault allegedly committed over a period from 1972 to 1986.

Mr Soper had been detained in May under a European Arrest Warrant in Kosovo.

He is now being held in custody at a west London police station.

Mr Soper was arrested in 2010 and bailed, but failed to return to a London police station in March 2011.

A European Arrest Warrant was issued for him in 2012.

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NEW JERSEY
Road to Recovery

1.9 MILLION DOLLAR SETTLEMENT REACHED BETWEEN BERGEN CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL, ORADELL, NEW JERSEY, AND TWENTY-ONE (21) CHILDHOOD SEXUAL ABUSE VICTIMS OF TEN (10) IRISH CHRISTIAN BROTHERS AND ONE (1) LAY TEACHER

A 1.9 million dollar settlement was reached between twenty-one (21)) childhood sexual abuse victims from Bergen Catholic High School. The abusers are identified as:

1) Br. Richard Daniel Berryman, C.F.C. – he is no longer an Irish Christian Brother and allegedly lives in Florida

2) Br. John Bonaventure Chaney, C.F.C. – he is still an Irish Christian Brother and may be living in New Rochelle, New York

3) Br. Ronald Alexis Howe, C.F.C. – he left the Irish Christian Brothers, married, and is deceased

4) Br. Charles Borromeo Irwin, C.F.C. – he is a deceased Irish Christian Brother, and may have been a chief financial officer of the Eastern American Province of the Irish Christian Brothers for many years

5) Br. Lawrence Sean Mc Elhatton, C.F.C. – his location and status are unknown

6) Br. Eugene David Mc Kenna, C.F.C. – he is a deceased Irish Christian Brother and the founding Principal of Bergen Catholic High School. A prestigious graduation award at Bergen Catholic High School may still bear his name.

7) Br. Timothy Joseph O’Sullivan, C.F.C. – he is no longer an Irish Christian Brother and may have worked for several years as a professor of science at a Massachusetts university

8) Br. Robert Jogues Roepke, C.F.C. – he is a deceased Irish Christian Brother and may have been Principal of Blessed Sacrament High School in New Rochelle, New York, in the 1970s

9) Br. John Peter Seibert, C.F.C. – his location and status are unknown

10) Mr. James Sokoloski (Lay Teacher) – his location and status are unknown

11) Br. Donald Dominic Walsh, C.F.C. – his location and status are unknown

Bergen Catholic High School currently refuses to reasonably settle an additional claim of sexual abuse by the Reverend Kobutsu Malone, Buddhist monk, formerly Kevin Malone, who was sexually abused by Br. Charles B. Irwin, C.F.C. at Bergen Catholic High School because Reverend Kobutsu Malone, age 66, continues to practice transparency regarding clergy sexual abuse cases in order to protect children. His website, bergencatholicabuse.com, has been a major source of transparency and information for Bergen Catholic victim/survivors and many others.

What
A press conference announcing a 1.9 million dollar settlement between Bergen Catholic High School, Oradell, NJ, and twenty-one (21) men who were sexually abused as minor children by ten (10) Irish Christian Brothers and one (1) lay teacher at Bergen Catholic High School, Oradell, NJ in approximately the 1960s and 1970s

When
Monday, August 22, 2016 at 11:00 am

Where
On the public sidewalk outside Bergen Catholic High School, 1040 Oradell Avenue, Oradell, NJ, 07649, 201-261-1844

Who
Members of Road to Recovery, Inc., including its co-founder and President, Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., Inc., who spent 23 years as an Irish Christian Brother and is a victim/survivor of sexual abuse by Irish Christian Brothers. Road to Recovery, Inc. assists victims of sexual abuse and their families and advocates on behalf of several of the victim/survivors involved in this settlement

Why
For decades, students at Bergen Catholic High School were sexually abused as minor children by several teachers, many of whom were members of the Irish Christian Brothers religious order and one lay teacher. Bergen Catholic High School reached a settlement of 1.9 million dollars with twenty-one (21) of those students who were childhood sexual abuse victims of ten (10) Irish Christian Brothers and one (1) lay teacher. These men were found credible. However, Bergen Catholic High School currently refuses to settle the sexual abuse claim of Reverend Kobutsu Malone, age 66, because he continues through his website, bergencatholicabuse.com, to practice transparency regarding clergy sexual abuse in order to protect children.

Contacts
Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., Road to Recovery, Inc. – 862-368-2800 – roberthoatson@gmail.com
Reverend Kobutsu Malone, Maine – 207-359-2555 (victim/survivor of Br. Charles B. Irwin)

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CANADA
Winnipeg Free Press

By: Katie May
Posted: 08/21/2016

Some residential-school survivors seeking compensation for sexual abuse were wrongly required to try to prove their abusers’ motive, Manitoba’s Court of Queen’s Bench has ruled.

The recent decision from Justice James Edmond could set a precedent for how residential-school compensation claims are settled, affecting “at least dozens, possibly hundreds” of residential-school survivors, a Winnipeg lawyer says.

The case involves a man, identified only by his initials, J.W., who attended residential school in Manitoba. He told an adjudicator at his initial compensation hearing that he had been molested by a nun as a young boy – that she had called him over while he was waiting in line to use the shower and grabbed his penis. When he pushed her hand away, she took him by his left ear and tried to slam his head against the wall, he testified. The adjudicator said she believed J.W.’s account and didn’t question that what happened to him had caused him embarrassment and “certain harms,” but she denied compensation because she was “not satisfied on a balance of probabilities that there was a sexual purpose associated with [the nun’s] conduct,” the decision states.

That logic meant J.W. was held to a stricter standard of proof for sexual assault than is required under the Criminal Code, said his lawyer, Martin Kramer.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

Camilla Turner
22 AUGUST 2016

A Catholic priest who skipped bail five years ago has been arrested on suspicion of nine counts of historic sexual assaults.

Father Laurence Soper, 72, the former abbot of Ealing Abbey, was wanted on a European Arrest Warrant over allegations of child abuse.

The accusations date back to when he taught at St Benedict’s School, a private independent Catholic school which is part of Ealing Abbey in west London.

In March 2011, Fr Soper was believed to have been living in a monastery in Rome and was due to return to London to answer bail but he failed to show up, sparking an international search.

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NEW JERSEY
Philly.com

JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) – Authorities say a church pastor who fled the country after he was convicted of sexually assaulting a teenage boy has been detained in the Honduras.

Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez announced the capture of Gregorio Martinez on Sunday. She said he was apprehended Tuesday in the town of Danli, but further details were not disclosed.

Suarez says her office will be “exploring all options” to return Martinez to New Jersey, where he faces sentencing for the sex assault conviction. He’s also facing charges stemming from the alleged sexual assaults of three other males who came forward following Martinez’s conviction in February 2015.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Mark Mueller | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

An evangelical preacher who has been on the run since a jury convicted him last year of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy has been arrested in Central America, the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office said Sunday.

Gregorio Martinez, whose flight from justice was chronicled in a special report by NJ Advance Media this spring, was detained in Danli, Honduras, on Tuesday, Prosecutor Esther Suarez said in a statement.

Few details were immediately available, but Suarez said Honduran police made the arrest. The U.S. Marshals Service and the FBI had been involved in the hunt for Martinez. It was not clear if representatives of either agency were present when the fugitive was detained.

In February of last year, a jury took less than 30 minutes to convict Martinez of aggravated criminal sexual contact, child abuse and endangering the welfare of a child. Free on $250,000 bail, the Jersey City resident failed to appear for a pre-sentencing review weeks later.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Mirror

22 AUG 2016
BY DAVID WILCOCK

Laurence Soper, 72, disappeared after failing to answer bail in March 2011 over allegation of sexual assault at St Benedict’s School in Ealing, west London.

A former Catholic monk who went on the run after being arrested over historic child sex abuse allegations was last night being quizzed by police after being returned to the UK.

Laurence Soper, 72, disappeared after failing to answer bail in March 2011 over allegation of sexual assault at St Benedict’s School in Ealing, west London.

Soper, who was abbot of Ealing Abbey in west London from 1991 to 2000, had been arrested in September 2010 after a man aged in his 40s made a complaint to police.

A European Arrest Warrant was issued for Soper in 2012, when police said they believed he had been living in Italy.

He was finally arrested in Kosovo in May this year. He had reportedly been living in the city of Pec for several years.

Scotland Yard last night said the former monastic leader had been flown back to the UK from the eastern European country.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Philly.com

AUGUST 21, 2016

by Dan Geringer, STAFF WRITER

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput has decided to close three worship locations in the region, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced Sunday.

Worshipers learned during weekend services that the St. John of the Cross Church building in Roslyn (Queen of Peace Parish), the Mater Dolorosa Church building in Frankford (Holy Innocents Parish) and the St. Cecilia Church building in Coatesville (Our Lady of the Rosary Parish) no longer will serve as Roman Catholic churches as of Sept. 16.

The Archdiocese explained that no one lost a parish church as a result of Sunday’s announced closings because the three churches’ congregations already had merged into other parish churches.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

John Bingham, religious affairs editor
21 AUGUST 2016

Survivors of child sexual abuse have accused the Church of England of “acting like Pontius Pilate” as a previously unseen document revealed that bishops were explicitly instructed only to give partial apologies – if at all – to victims to avoid being sued.

Legal advice marked “strictly confidential” and circulated among the most senior bishops, told them to “express regret” only using wording approved by lawyers, PR advisers and insurers.

The guidance – written in 2007 and finally replaced just last year – also warns bishops to be wary of meeting victims face to face and only ever to do so after legal advice.

It speaks of the “unintended effect of accepting legal liability” for sexual abuse within their diocese and warns them to avoid “inadvertently” conceding guilt.

The paper, seen by The Telegraph and confirmed as genuine, advises bishops to use “careful drafting” to “effectively apologise” without enabling victims to get compensation.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

JOANNE MCCARTHY
21 Aug 2016

HE is the Catholic priest who stole boys’ lives.

Father David O’Hearn spent eight years fighting the men he sexually abused as vulnerable young boys in the 1980s and 1990s. On Monday some of them will be in a Sydney court to watch him pay the price.

They will pay for the rest of their lives, the men said in victim impact statements.

“We will never know what it’s like to live a normal life as we had that opportunity taken away from us as young boys,” said one of O’Hearn’s victims.

“I think my life could have been totally different if the abuse had never occurred. I would be a different person but I will never know what that person would have been like. I know that I can’t blame everything in my life on the abuse but I do know it’s had a significant impact on me.”

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GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Aug 20, 2016

By Sabrina Salas Matanane

Concerned Catholics continue their weekly protests outside the Hagatna Cathedral. They want Archbishop Anthony Apuron defrocked.

Aside from multiple allegations of sexual molestation, just this past week Apostolic Administrator for the Archdiocese of Agana, Archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai revealed that Apuron was disobedient to the Pope’s directive a year ago to nullify and rescind the Deed of Restriction for the Redemportis Mater Seminary in Yona.

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