ABUSE TRACKER

CONNECTICUT
Norwich Bulletin

By Ryan Blessing
rblessing@norwichbulletin.com, (860) 425-4205

Posted Aug. 31, 2016

NORWICH — A 37-year-old Woodstock man has filed a lawsuit against the Diocese of Norwich alleging he was sexually assaulted hundreds of times by a priest while serving as an altar boy during the 1990s.

The complaint, filed earlier this month in New London Superior Court, claims the priest, Paul Hebert, hand-picked the plaintiff, Jonathan Roy, to be an altar boy at age 11.

It alleges Hebert, now deceased, began sexually abusing the boy on church grounds and at the rectory, “on the premise that he was engaging in priestly duties with the Plaintiff.”

The diocese previously settled two lawsuits brought by men who were molested by Hebert when he served at St. Michael the Archangel Church in Pawcatuck from 1971 to 1981.

The new complaint states that Hebert coerced the victim with alcohol and lavish gifts in exchange for his silence. It claims Hebert sexually assaulted him hundreds of times between 1990 and 1996, and that he photographed and videotaped the abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By David Marchese

A notorious paedophile priest who molested dozens of boys raised concerns about his sexual attraction to children before entering the seminary, the child abuse royal commission has heard.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse hearing in Newcastle is investigating the Catholic Church’s response to widespread paedophilia in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese.

Much of the probe is focusing on the abuse by paedophile priest Vincent Ryan, who has already served 14 years in jail for abusing boys between 1972 and 1991.

He was released from jail in 2010 and is currently awaiting sentencing on separate child sex offences.

Giving evidence today, Sister Evelyn Woodward was questioned about her knowledge of abuse carried out by Ryan on altar boys and about whom she told in the church hierarchy.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

IAN KIRKWOOD
1 Sep 2016

THE Royal Commission has heard that bishop Michael Malone intervened to stop a priest later convicted for paedophilia being appointed as principal of St Francis Xavier College in 1997.

Although he did this, he told the commission he did not report the priest, Brother Dominic, to the police, and left it to others to deal with.

He also defended alerting his colleague Brother Michael Hill about two other suspect priests, brother Patrick and brother Romuald, and describing their conduct as unlikely to be “criminal”.

He told the commission he said this because he thought their actions were more “touchy feely” than “penetration or masturbation publicly or anything of that nature”.

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.

PHILIPPINES
Rappler

Pia Ranada
@piaranada
September 01, 2016

MANILA, Philippines – President Rodrigo Duterte, not exactly the holiest of men, said that he once mulled joining the priesthood.

“I consider[ed] at one time in my life [to be] a priest,” Duterte said on Wednesday night, August 31, during a gathering of a religious group in Davao City.

It’s unclear if this is another of his outrageous statements that should not be taken seriously.

But he followed it up with a statement that elicited much laughter from his audience.

“Mabuti hindi ako nasali doon eh ‘di ngayon naging bakla na ako,” said the President.

(It’s good I didn’t join the priesthood or else now I would be a homosexual.)

Even during the 2016 campaign season, Duterte did not hesitate to express his views on the Catholic Church.

Although he says he is a Catholic, he has blasted the church for “hypocrisy,” blaming them for sins like corruption and sexual abuse.

Duterte had even admitted he himself was sexually harassed by a Jesuit priest when he was in high school.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

JOANNE MCCARTHY
1 Sep 2016

HE was the Catholic bishop whose term in office started in 1995 with two of the Hunter’s most notorious paedophile priests, was dominated for 16 years by “quite explosive local problems of historical abuse”, and ended with his request for early retirement, exhausted by the struggle within his own church.

In the witness box at the royal commission on Thursday, retired Maitland-Newcastle Bishop Michael Malone said he reached a point where “You either had to try to defend the church or you had to try to serve the needs of survivors, and I chose the latter”.

Royal commission chair Justice Peter McClellan responded with the question at the heart of the child sexual abuse crisis within the Catholic Church – “Why was it ever a choice?”

Bishop Malone gave evidence for the second time in three years about his response to child sexual abuse allegations in the diocese. On Thursday he was questioned about paedophile priest Vince Ryan. In 2013, at the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry, it was about priests Denis McAlinden and Jim Fletcher.

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.