ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED KINGDOM
Express

By LAURA MOWAT
Sun, Oct 23, 2016

A CHILD abuse lawyer continues to be paid £1,700 a day even though he has officially quit and does not go to the office.

Ben Emmerson QC quit the child abuse inquiry one day after he was suspended following concerns about his leadership.

The lawyer will continue to work on the £100 million inquiry until the end of November, which is two months after he officially quit.

Chairwoman of the inquiry, Professor Alexis Jay said: “He was continuing to be instructed for a short period to conclude the work. I believe it was two months.”

It is thought that Mr Emmerson has received £700,000 in two years as the leader of the inquiry.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

Kaya Burgess, Religious Affairs Correspondent
October 24 2016
The Times

Lord Carey of Clifton, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has said that he deserves to face personal criticism from the national child abuse inquiry for his support of a bishop later convicted of indecent assault, it is understood.

Lord Carey was told last week that he may be subject to “explicit criticism” from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse because of the way he handled revelations about Peter Ball, then bishop of Gloucester.

Lord Carey was Archbishop of Canterbury when allegations of abuse came to light in 1992 and when Ball received a police caution in 1993. Last week Alexis Jay, the professor leading the inquiry, said that Lord Carey’s application to the inquiry acknowledged that he “had a pastoral and disciplinary role in relation to Peter Ball at that time”.

A source close to Lord Carey was reported by the Sunday Telegraph as saying that he admitted he deserved criticism. “Clearly the Church didn’t handle it well and Lord Carey was naive in trusting Peter Ball. The acknowledgment now is he wasn’t doing the Christian thing by the victims.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Michelle Brown

The principal of Sydney’s elite Trinity Grammar School has given evidence to the child abuse royal commission that is at odds with testimony already given by his deputy.

The commission is examining whether the private Sydney boys’ school responded appropriately to allegations of the rape and attempted rape of boarding house students, sometimes with a wooden dildo.

Deputy principal Peter Green last week told the commission he provided incident reports alleging multiple assaults to the principal Milton Cujes on August 11, 2000.

The reports detailed the assault of a younger boarder by senior students, as well as allegations there had been other boys subjected to rape and simulated rape.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

October 24, 2016

SAM BUCKINGHAM-JONES
Journalist
Sydney

The headmaster of a prestigious inner Sydney independent school says he was unaware one of the school’s pupils had been raped repeatedly with a wooden dildo because he “delegated” the responsibility to find out what had happened and he was not told.

Milton Cujes, the headmaster of Trinity Grammar School in Sydney’s inner west, also told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse he didn’t follow up when reports of an incident were brought to him in August 2000, partly because they were brought to him “in the context of a Friday afternoon.”

Over months, the commission has previously heard, a student at the Anglican boys school was raped about 50 times by older pupils with a variety of items — including a wooden dildo. The student gave staff a written statement outlining what had happened.

However, Mr Cujes denied that details of the rape were brought to his attention, stressing he was only told was there were “junior boys involved in an altercation with some more senior boys”. It was recommended to him some of the boys should be suspended.

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AUSTRALIA
The Daily Telegraph

Ashleigh Gleeson, The Daily Telegraph
October 23, 2016

TRINITY Grammar’s headmaster has told a Royal Commission the school was making a decision about rape allegations “in the context of a Friday afternoon before trial HSC exams”.

Milton Cujes was today asked about whether he believed the way the school handled rape allegations made by a boy in August 2000 were “adequate”.

“They were adequate in terms of ensuring the safety of the boys. They were, in the context expeditious, bearing in mind that we couldn’t stop trial HSC exams,” Mr Cujes told the commission.

“… My impression… Was that the consensus was this was a dormitory incident that had gone too far, it needed attention and therefore in the context of the Friday afternoon before the trial examinations we needed to act and demonstrate that it was completely unacceptable, hence the endorsement of the suspension.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Rachel Browne

Two of Sydney’s most prestigious private boys’ schools have been accused of placing their reputations ahead of student welfare at a royal commission.

A teenager who was allegedly indecently assaulted while studying at The King’s School told the inquiry the school had a culture of silence.

“The culture at The King’s School was that you could stand up and make a complaint about the behaviour but then it would get worse,” he said. “It was better to say nothing and hope for the best.”

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was told the witness, now 19, was called “cum rag” and “cum dumpster” by other boys after a fellow student allegedly ejaculated on his sleeping bag at a school camp in April 2013.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

By RACHEL EDDIE FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA and AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATED PRESS

The principal of an elite private school has admitted allegations boys were raping fellow students with implements were not properly investigated.

A boy, known as CLB, claimed older students at Trinity Grammar had tried to rape him by ‘lifting his legs in the air and pumping at his bottom’ on August 11, 2000.

CLB reported the incident to the Summer Hill, inner-west Sydney, school the same day with allegations they had raped him with objects more than 50 times. He said they had been sticking a 30cm wooden dildo made in wood-tech class up other students’ bottoms.

Principal Milton Cujes told the royal commission into child abuse the school had to decide on a punishment for the culprits ‘in the context of a Friday afternoon’ ahead of trial HSC exams the following week.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

Andi Yu – AAP on October 24, 2016

A former student of The King’s School in Sydney has told the abuse royal commission he was driven out of the school by relentless bullying that started after a boy ejaculated on his sleeping bag.

The now 19-year-old is the first from the prestigious private boys’ school to testify at the inquiry, which is examining institutional responses to harmful sexual behaviours by students.

On Monday, the young man, referred to as CLC, described being a happy boarding student with plenty of friends until a cadet camp at the beginning of year 10 in 2013.

“During the night I woke up to hear laughing and one of the boys saying: ‘Did you really do that? That’s disgusting’,” he told the commission.

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ROME
Chiesa

It will not be discussed at a synod, but pressure is growing in favor of the ordination of married men. The most highly esteemed of the Italian theologians has puts a spotlight on the question in an authoritative magazine. And he is opting to hold on to celibacy: not only “opportune,” but “necessary”

by Sandro Magister

ROME, October 24, 2016 – Interviewed a few days ago by Gianni Cardinale for the newspaper of the Italian episcopal conference, “Avvenire,” the secretary general of the synod of bishops, Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, confirmed that the theme chosen by Pope Francis for the new session in 2018 – “Young people, faith, and vocational discernment” – was the same one that the fourteen cardinals and bishops of the synodal secretariat had put on the top of the list of their proposals.

But Baldisseri also said that just after it, on the list, were the ordained ministries. Without specifying further but with the obvious, implied question of the ordination of married men.

Already once before, in 1971, a synod had addressed this issue. And many voices had been raised in favor of the ordination of “viri probati,” meaning “married men of mature age and of established probity.” That request was put to a vote and defeated only narrowly by the opposing side: 107 against 87.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY KENNETH LOVETT
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS ALBANY BUREAU CHIEF Monday, October 24, 2016

ALBANY — The creator of a political action committee pushing to make it easier for child sex abuse victims to seek justice as adults is convinced the governor will make passage of the measure a priority next year.

Gary Greenberg, an upstate investor and child sexual abuse survivor who created the Fighting For Children PAC, spoke with Cuomo at a recent fund-raiser the governor headlined for state Sen. Todd Kaminsky (D-Nassau County).

Greenberg, whose PAC is supporting Kaminsky, said he believes Cuomo might include the call for passage of the Child Victims Act in his January State of the State address.

“He said he would propose it in early 2017 and that it’s going to get done,” Greenberg said.

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ALASKA
KTOO

Associated Press
October 23, 2016

The Presbyterian Church of America has apologized for the experiences of Native Americans at boarding schools that had ties to the church.

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports a group of people who attend a Presbyterian church in the state gave the official apology at the end of the Alaska Federation of Natives Convention on Saturday.

Convention co-chairman Jerry Isaac thanked the church and said he hoped other governments and groups take similar action.

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CANADA
CBC News

New allegations of sexual assault have emerged against a Winnipeg priest and convicted sex offender, CBC News has learned.

Four men have come forward alleging Ronald Léger, 78, sexually assaulted them beginning when they were children aged 10 to 12, during the 1980s. All frequented the youth drop-in centre he founded, Teen Stop Jeunesse (TSJ).

Ronald Léger, former priest, pleads guilty to sex assault
Winnipeg police confirmed Friday afternoon Léger has been charged with eight counts of sexual assault and remains in custody.

“When I look at it now, the place was just a giant spider web,” said one of the men. CBC News is protecting their identities because of the nature of the allegations.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

KATHRYN POWLEY, Herald Sun
October 23, 2016 9:06pm

A MELBOURNE-based musician has released a stirring song to inspire and celebrate survivors of child sexual abuse in the Catholic education system.

Ian Whitehead’s “99 Candles in Ballarat” is dedicated to the brave survivors, their victims and families.

The song also pays tribute to those who suffered abuse and committed suicide.

Mr Whitehead, who was himself abused in a Catholic school, gave evidence to the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse in a closed session in Ballarat.

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CANADA
CBC News

A class-action lawsuit alleging sexual abuse at a former Catholic boarding school in Granby has been expanded to include the names of 11 religious brothers.

The lawsuit was initially launched earlier this month by an anonymous 56-year-old man, who says he was sexually abused more than 300 times at Mont-Sacré-Coeur College between 1973 and 1975.

His lawsuit named one priest, Brother Claude Lebeau, a member of the Les Frères Sacré Du Sacré-Coeur congregation, which ran the school at the time.

The claims in the lawsuit have not been tested in court. Lebeau is believed to be living in the Montreal area.

Since the lawsuit was launched, several more people have come forward saying they were abused at the school between 1940 and 1980, the plaintiff’s lawyer said.

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TEXAS
The Freethinker

Misty Rae Hopkins, above, the widow of a Burnet pastor, has been sentenced to five life terms and four 20-year terms after she was found guilty of aggravated sexual assault and indecency.

According to this report, prosecutors say she and her late husband confined and sexually abused their children over a period of seven years.

Assistant District Attorney Stacy Burke called Hopkins:

A truly evil person who tortured her children.

Hopkins, 49, and her late husband, John Hopkins, lived in Burnet where John Hopkins was the pastor of a church when the offences occurred.

The offences, committed from 1999 through 2005 in Burnet County, involved “numerous acts of sexual abuse” that she and her husband committed individually and in tandem.

When the oldest victim was 14, the family moved to Blanco County and later to Llano County.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Freya Michie

Prestigious independent Victorian school Geelong Grammar says it wants to encourage survivors of past child abuse at the school who have not yet come forward to contact them for “guidance and support”.

In a letter to all parents, the school announced it had appointed a new “survivor liaison coordinator” to help support those who were sexually abused at the school.

Principal Stephen Meek said the school believed there were former students who were survivors of past child abuse who had not yet come forward.

He said those people could be reluctant to come forward, because they did not want to speak to the school which they held responsible for their abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

October 24, 2016

DAN BOX
Crime reporterSydney
@DanBox10

Plans to provide compensation and medical support to tens of thousands of child sex-abuse victims have run into disagreement between the federal and state governments, with victims themselves saying they are likely to reject the Prime Minister’s preferred response.

Thirteen months after the Royal Commission into Instit­utional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse recommended that a $4.3 billion national redress scheme be set up, those who work with victims say they fear the ­opportunity to achieve this may be lost.

The royal commission recommended establishing a single, ­independent body able to order institutions to apologise, pay compensation to and help with the medical expenses of an ­estimated 65,000 victims.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk wrote to a psychiatrist who works with child-abuse victims earlier this month, saying “redress should be operated as a single national scheme by the federal government to provide equity and consistency for survivors”.

“We are committed to working with the federal government and other states and territories on the development of a single NRS ­(national redress scheme),” her letter said.

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MICHIGAN
The Detroit News

Mike Martindale, The Detroit News October 22, 2016

Pontiac — An Oakland Circuit judge has been asked to dismiss a lawsuit by a graduate of a Madison Heights parochial school who claims she was exposed to sexual demands of a male teacher.

“Jane Doe” says she was a 17-year-old honors student at Bishop Foley Catholic High School in 2008 when her art teacher, Richard Fischer, allegedly initiated a relationship with her that encompassed inappropriate teacher-student physical contact on and off school grounds. She claims Fischer annually targeted and manipulated underage female students to be what he called his “girlfriend.”

It wasn’t until last November — nearly eight years later — that the teenager reported the matter to police after hearing the parent of another student had complained of Fischer to a guidance counselor in 2006 and nothing was done. “Jane Doe” said she was so ashamed she had never told anyone of the alleged sexual misconduct.

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UNITED STATES
The Atlantic

LILLY FOWLER

Native Americans who were part of a little-known Mormon program from 1947 to the mid-1990s share much of the same story. Year after year, missionaries or other members of the Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-day Saints approached these families and invited their children into Mormon foster homes. As part of the Mormon Indian Student Placement Program, Native American children would live with Mormon families during the school year, an experience designed to “provide educational, spiritual, social, and cultural opportunities in non-Indian community life,” according to the Church. Typically, the Mormon foster families were white and financially stable. Native American children who weren’t already Mormon were baptized. And some of them now claim they were sexually abused.

“They knew there were things going on. They just turned around and closed their eyes to it,” said BN, a former participant of the program who has filed a sexual-abuse lawsuit against the LDS Church, and who remains anonymous in court documents, in an interview. So far, three sexual-abuse lawsuits involving four past participants have been filed in Navajo Nation District Court. No criminal charges have been brought against the defendants, who are also anonymous in all pleadings. The alleged victims include a brother and sister who were both in the program. The brother, referred to in court documents as RJ, claims in the lawsuit that he was not only sexually abused, but physically and emotionally abused, and forcibly had “his mouth washed out with soap whenever he spoke Navajo to the other placement children in the home,” according to court documents. A fourth lawsuit is pending, according to their lawyer, Craig Vernon.

The LDS Church maintains that the “plaintiffs’ allegations are just that—allegations,” according to David Jordan, its lawyer. While many of the perpetrators named in the suits are dead, “I can tell you that the surviving family members of the alleged abusers with whom we have been able to speak do not believe the allegations,” Jordan claimed. “I also want to emphasize that the Church would have had absolutely no motive to send a child back into an abusive environment if a report of improper conduct had been made by any of the plaintiffs.” The Church has not answered the allegations other than to challenge the jurisdiction of Navajo court, and has asked a federal judge to prevent the cases from going forward in tribal court.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

October 24, 2016

PIA AKERMAN
ReporterMelbourne
@pia_akerman

PETER HOYSTED
ColumnistCanberra
@JacktheInsider

A detective who helped build the case against one of the country’s most notorious pedophiles has ­revealed he urged his superiors to establish a taskforce to properly investigate the scourge of clerical sexual abuse and how he lament­ed the general lack of resourcing by the force.

Former detective sergeant Blair Smith said he was shocked to learn the extent of pedophilia within Catholic institutions when it first came across his desk in 1993, sparking years of “a total fight” with the church.

Mr Smith, who was part of a small Victoria Police unit investig­ating domestic violence and sexual assaults, has spoken publicly for the first time in The Australian’s podcast Ballarat’s Children.

He said he had received minim­al support from his commanding officers as he pursued alleg­ations of child sexual abuse against former Christian Brother Edward (Ted) Dowlan.

“I recall saying to someone — and it probably would have been the chief inspector — ‘these files and all these clerical complaints should have been handled by a taskforce’,” Mr Smith said.

“You’re like a one-man band …. as it goes up the ladder, it’s just ­another file.”

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NEW YORK
New York Post

By Susan Edelman

October 23, 2016

A prominent Orthodox Jewish school in Brooklyn agreed to pay an unprecedented $2.1 million to two former students who charged their teacher — accused serial molester Rabbi Joel Kolko — of sexually assaulting them, The Post has learned.

Kolko’s case marks the first time a New York yeshiva has paid off victims of sex abuse, experts said.

“This is unheard of. I am not aware of any other settlements,” said Rabbi Yosef Blau, a spiritual adviser at Yeshiva University in Manhattan and longtime victims advocate.

Secret settlements between Yeshiva Torah Temimah on Ocean Parkway and two boys — 6 years old when molested — were filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court a week ago when the yeshiva failed to make payments.

Lawyers for the two plaintiffs filed a judgment for $1 million — the total the yeshiva still owes both boys for the trauma they suffered.

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NEW YORK
Glens Falls Post-Star

Ken Tingley

The New York Roman Catholic archdiocese has announced it is willing to pay off the victims of pedophile priests in exchange for their silence.

Any records of such abuse and what the church did about it would also remain private.

It’s an attempt by the church to again avoid accountability and responsibility for the abuse of children.

It should hit home in this community.

It should be an outrage here because of what Father Gary Mercure did in Queensbury and Glens Falls.

He served as priest at Our Lady of Annunciation in Queensbury from 1982 to 1991.

He was the campus minister at Adirondack Community College from 1982 to 1999.

He was the principal at St. Mary’s-St. Alphonsus Regional Catholic School from 1991 to 1995 as well as a priest at St. Mary’s.

And he was convicted in a Pittsfield, Massachusetts, courtroom in 2011 of three counts of forcible rape on a child younger than 14.

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VATICAN CITY
Crux

John L. Allen Jr. October 22, 2016
EDITOR

Although nobody believes there’s going to be a papal election anytime soon, the consistory taking place next month to create 17 new cardinals, 13 eligible to vote, is nevertheless the closest thing the Catholic Church has to the Iowa Caucus, when all the candidates are on display.

It may be election season in America, but that’s definitely not the vibe one gets in ecclesiastical Rome these days. Pope Francis is in good health, he remains fully in charge and operating at a breakneck pace, and there’s no sense that a transition is imminent.

As a result, no one’s spending a great deal of time thinking about papabili, meaning potential candidates for the papacy, because most people don’t believe the job is going to be available anytime soon.

On the other hand, there’s a consistory next month, meaning the event in which a pope creates new cardinals, so at least in theory the candidate pool is getting fresh blood. Moreover, virtually all the cardinals of the world will be in Rome for the event, which makes a consistory the closest thing in the Catholic Church to the Iowa Caucus – an early campaign milestone, when all the candidates are on display and anything seems possible.

Granted, from a faith point of view there’s something far more important than a political cattle call that will be happening on Nov. 19.

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ALASKA
Alaska Dispatch News

Lisa Demer

FAIRBANKS – For the first time, a church organization has apologized to the Alaska Federation of Natives for its treatment of Native people and especially for abuses in boarding schools.

The Presbyterian Church’s national general assembly agreed in June, at the prompting of Alaskans, to issue an apology to all Native Americans abused, mistreated or diminished through church schools and boarding schools or otherwise.

An expression of sorrow for long-ago wrongs was delivered in person at the AFN convention on Saturday by the Rev. Curt Karns, the Anchorage-based executive presbyter – or administrator – of the Presbytery of the Yukon.

“To those individuals who were physically, sexually and emotionally abused as students of the Indian boarding schools in which the (Presbyterian Church USA) was involved, we offer you our most sincere apology. You did nothing wrong; you were and are the victims of evil acts that cannot under any circumstances be justified or excused,” Karns told the AFN convention.

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VATICAN CITY
The Tablet (UK)

22 October 2016 | by Christopher Lamb in Rome

Pope Francis has urged bishops to carefully vet who they ordain as priests so they ensure the world is served by “mature and balanced” clergy.

“When it comes to vocations to the priesthood and those entering the seminary, I beg you to discern the truth, to have a shrewd and cautious look,” Francis told a Vatican conference on vocations this week, adding that this discernment should be done without “shallowness or superficiality.”

He went on: “especially to my brother bishops, I say: vigilance and prudence. The Church and the world need mature and balanced priests, pastors who are intrepid and generous, capable of closeness, listening and mercy.”

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MEXICO
Regeneracion

En Oaxaca, el sacerdote Gerardo Silvestre Hernández hace una década destrozó la vida de al menos 40 niños, pese a las pruebas nadie creyó a las víctimas y persiste impunidad.

Regeneración, 22 de octubre 2016.- El párroco de las localidades de la Sierra Juárez de Oaxaca, Gerardo Silvestre Hernández abusó sexualmente de al menos 40 niños hace diez años, siendo denunciado por otro sacerdote, Manuel Arias, quien ha sufrido amenazas de muerte.

De acuerdo con el cura Manuel Arias, uno de los 10 religiosos que han denunciado a Silvestre, se enteró de los casos en 2009 en la comunidad de Santiago Camotlán, en donde un profesor le entregó una carta, en la cual aseguraba que Silvestre “metía a los jóvenes al cuarto, los emborrachaba y luego tenía relaciones sexuales con ellos”.

Al tener los elementos, buscó al arzobispo José Luis Chávez Botello, con documentos y grabaciones, pero no le creyó, cuenta Arias.

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MEXICO
Mexico News Daily

Saturday, October 22, 2016

The father of one of the children in the eight documented cases of pedophilia committed by a priest in Oaxaca has spoken out about the forgotten victims of the crime: the relatives of the abused child.

Pedro Mendoza, whose son was allegedly a victim of Catholic priest Gerardo Silvestre, says he and his wife suffered along with their son when the crime was uncovered.

“The suffering continues, and now includes our other children. It is a chain, and sadly the seed planted by the sexual abuse has taken root,” he said.

His son, who now lives in the State of México with his mother and siblings, has “given in to a life of vice and crime,” he told the newspaper El Universal.

Silvestre allegedly abused over 40 youths over a decade ago in mountainous indigenous communities in the state of Oaxaca. Of those cases, only eight have been documented. Witness reports said Silvestre’s modus operandi was to invite the boys into the parish house, where he got them drunk before sexually abusing them.

Mendoza’s official accusation against the priest, filed in 2012, was the first received by the authorities, but the Catholic church had had knowledge of the priest’s crimes since 2009 when another priest, Manuel Arias, informed the archbishop of Oaxaca, José Luis Chávez Botello, about what was happening.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

Robert Mendick, chief reporter
22 OCTOBER 2016

Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has admitted he deserves to be criticised over his support for a bishop convicted of sexual assault, as it emerged separately that his son, a priest, has been arrested for historic child sex abuse.

The retired Anglican Archbishop has been warned he can expect to face “explicit criticism” over claims the criminal activities of Peter Ball, the then Bishop of Gloucester, were covered up by the Church of England.

Lord Carey, who was a friend of Ball’s, has now been given his own lawyer, paid for by the Church of England, to represent him personally at the national child sex abuse inquiry.
Lord Carey had previously been using the Church’s own lawyers but last month requested his own team over concerns of a “conflict” between the Church’s interests and those of its former leader. A source close to Lord Carey said he accepted that he would be criticised for his handling of the allegations against Ball.

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TEXAS
The Dallas Morning News

Liz Farmer, Breaking News producer

A Central Texas woman was sentenced Wednesday for sexual assault of her children, who reported the abuse after escaping from her house, officials said.

The trial started Monday in the 424th District Court in Burnet, about 60 miles northwest of Austin, regarding allegations of sexual abuse by both Misty Rae Hopkins and her late husband, John Hopkins, who acted together, as well as apart, according to a press release from the district attorney’s office.

John Hopkins was a pastor at a church in the area during the time of the offenses.

Assistant District Attorney Stacy Burke told the jury Hopkins is the worst pedophile she’s seen in her career, adding that Hopkins is a truly evil person who tortured her children.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Nancy French October 21

“Should we pick him up?” The preacher pointed to the side of the road to a hitchhiker.

“No!” I shrieked, but the idea was intoxicating. I’d lived in a one-festival town my whole life. Pulling over seemed like the kind of careless, wild action that could possibly blow up the roteness of small-town life. “I don’t know. Maybe?”

I was disappointed when he laughed and sped up. Nothing ever happens here. The most exciting thing that had happened to me was that morning’s vacation Bible school — all Kool Aid and butter cookies with holes in the center we wore as rings on our pinkies. The preacher offered to take me home when my mother needed to run errands. I was honored to be in his car, giggling as we sped by the hitchhiker. This preacher was younger than most and wore cool glasses. I tried to match his gregarious spirit. I should’ve said yes to the hitchhiker, I thought. That’s what cooler, older people would’ve done.

After winding down the long gravel road to my house, the preacher walked me in. I was too young to have rules for boys in the house, but this wasn’t a boy.

“Here’s the living room, and here’s the sitting room,” I said, flipping on some lights. There was a blue and white love seat up against the wall, in the room that my grandmother had used as a bedroom before she died. She’d once been alive but now was dead. It felt odd to just repurpose her room into a TV room without acknowledging that a person had so recently dwelled there.

I was thinking of her, when the preacher’s thin mouth pressed against mine, his wiry tongue stuck down my throat. He pulled me down onto the love seat and ran his hands over my budding breasts. Though I’d failed the hitchhiker test, I had another chance to prove I was cool enough to deserve attention.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Bristol Post

By Ian Onions | Posted: October 22, 2016

The son of Lord Carey, former Bishop of Bath and Wells, has been arrested over allegations of child sex abuse which date back to the 1980s.

The Rev Mark Carey, 51, was arrested by police at his home in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, and later released pending further inquiries.

Lord Carey, who was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1991 to 2002, became Chancellor of the University of Gloucestershire in Cheltenham after he retired.

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UNITED STATES
Crux

John L. Allen Jr.October 21, 2016
EDITOR

As it turns out, the Trump v. Clinton showdown isn’t the only election of interest to American Catholics this fall.

The U.S. bishops are also going to be voting for their own new leaders in mid-November, and in some ways their choices are almost certain to be read as a referendum on how the American hierarchy wants to position itself vis-à-vis the new winds blowing in the Church under Pope Francis.

By tradition, a slate of ten candidates is nominated for the presidency and the vice-presidency of the conference, and they select both positions from among those nominees. The new president will replace Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, who’s served the usual three-year term.

The nominees are:

Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond of New Orleans
Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, OFM Cap., of Philadelphia
Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City
Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston
Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville
Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles
Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore
Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron of Detroit
Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski of Miami
Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe

If one were to open a betting line right now, I suspect a DiNardo/Gomez ticket would attract a lot of money, but of course that’s why we hold elections rather than letting bookmakers and pundits settle things – because anything can happen.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

Australian Associated Press

The Anglican diocese of Melbourne will establish an independent body to investigate sexual abuse complaints.

The move comes as part of the church’s response to the 2013 Victorian parliamentary inquiry and the royal commission, and is aimed at improving transparency, independence and avenues of redress for victims.

The new complaint body is separate from the diocese and the archbishop, and can work across any number of dioceses, the church said on Saturday.

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INDIA
Daiji World

By Sugandha Rawal

New Delhi, Oct 22 (IANS): “Spotlight” — a film which infused life into an award-winning investigative teams story that exposed a Catholic paedophile scandal involving priests in Boston — was named as the Best Picture at the Oscars this year. And Michael Rezendes, one of the journalists who worked on the story, says the relevance of the issue doesnt end with the movie.

In the film, Tom McCarthy’s dramatic depiction shows the whole process of the 2002 investigation that blew open the child sex abuse in the Catholic Church and also puts in the spotlight the emotions that the journalists went through as it questioned their faith and religion. The investigative team of The Boston Globe won the Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for the story.

“The clergy sex abuse topic is very relevant today. The Catholic Church has taken some steps to deal with these issues, but I think the church has a long way to go, particularly outside the United States. American bishops have adopted a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to sex abuse.

That has not been adopted by others around the world,” Rezendes told IANS on the phone from Boston.

“The Vatican, in fact, 15 years later, is still studying the issue but has not come out with anything. I think the issue is very much alive. One of the reasons that I love the movie is because it puts the spotlight on the issue,” he added.

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VIRGINIA
Southwest Virginia Today

Saturday, October 22, 2016

Accused of sexually abusing a teenage girl in August, a then Wythe County minister is facing two felonies.

Nathan Phillips, 59, of Austinville was indicted Monday on charges of aggravated sexual battery and object sexual penetration following an investigation by the Wythe County Sheriff’s Office.

Both allegations, which have an Aug. 13 offense date, involve the same teenage girl, according to the indictments.

Police said that Phillips was pastor at the Austinville Pentecostal Holiness Church when the allegations came to light but that he has since resigned.

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CAMBODIA
Cambodia Daily

BY SEK ODOM | OCTOBER 22, 2016

A South Korean pastor accused of raping several girls who lived with him at his church was charged on Friday with procurement of child prostitution and sexual abuse of a minor.

Park Youl, 62, who was arrested on Wednesday after being called in for questioning by Siem Reap municipal police based on a tip, was charged in the Siem Reap provincial court and sent to the provincial prison on Friday morning, court spokesman Riem Channy said.

Mr. Park was accused of abusing eight girls, including six who lived with him at the Christian church, and buying them and their families off with gifts of rice, cash and motorbikes, according to Duong Thavry, the province’s anti-human trafficking police chief.

She said Mr. Park admitted to raping some of the girls, who were now aged between 13 and 21.

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IOWA
Blog for Iowa

October 22, 2016 | Author Dave Bradley

That is a quote from Donald Trump denying that he committed the dozen or so episodes of sexual assault on women that he is accused of.

Of course there weren’t, you dolt. Sexual assault is not usually something that you want to do in front of an audience. It is a crime and therefore something that is done in secrecy. It is also frequently done by someone who has some form of power to another person that the first person has that power over.

This pattern should be familiar to anyone who followed the stories of the boys and some girls who were abused by priests. As a victim of priestly abuse myself, when the stories started coming out I recognized the pattern as if it were taken from a textbook. Powerful person corners a victim in a situation where the powerful person can force their attention on the victim. Often the assaulter has created the situation to make sure that there is little chance of discovery yet looks to be a spur of the moment thing.

When the assault is done the victim is often warned that any attempt to report on this incident will be denied by the assaulter. Who do you think authorities will believe, a liar like you or someone with a pristine reputation like me? If you do anything I will destroy your life in some way. Thus the victim is silenced.

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PENNSYLVANIA
ABC 27

[with video]

HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) – Dozens of photos of a Midstate teacher performing sexual acts with a student — that’s what court documents show police found during their investigation.

Police filed the paperwork yesterday in charging 33-year-old Randi Zurenko of Millerstown with sexual abuse of children and sexual assault, among other crimes.

The arrest affidavit details two relationships the Bishop Mcdevitt High School social studies teacher had with students.

“Sexual violence is a widespread problem in Pennsylvania,” Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape CEO Delilah Rumburg said.

And make no mistake, she added, this is sexual violence.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Mirror

21 OCT 2016
BY KEITH PERRY

Rev Mark Carey, 51, is accused of assaulting a young girl in the 1980s when he was in his late teens

The vicar son of a former Archbishop of Canterbury has been arrested over claims of historic child sex abuse .

Rev Mark Carey, 51, whose father is Lord Carey, was held at his church-owned home on Wednesday.

His alleged victim, now in her 30s, claimed she was assaulted when he was in his late teens and Lord Carey was a priest in the North-East.

Rev Carey was released on police bail and has since been suspended by the Church of England pending inquiries.

Father of three Rev Carey, who followed his father into the church in 1995, has not been seen since his arrest.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Sun

BY PAUL SIMS 21st October 2016

THE priest son of a former Archbishop of Canterbury has been arrested over claims of historic child sex abuse.

Rev Mark Carey, 51, whose father is Lord Carey, was held at his church-owned home on Wednesday.

His alleged victim, now in her 30s, claimed she was assaulted when he was in his late teens and Lord Carey was a priest in the North-East.

Rev Carey was released on police bail and has since been suspended by the Church of England pending inquiries.

Father of three Rev Carey, who followed his father into the church in 1995, has not been seen since his arrest.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By PADDY DINHAM FOR MAILONLINE

Mark Carey was detained at his home after claims that he abused a girl in the 1980s

A priest son of former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey has been arrested over claims of historic child abuse.

Mark Carey was detained at his home after claims that he abused a girl, who is now in her 30s, when he was in his late teens and his father was a in the north east during the 1980s.

A Durham Police spokesman told MailOnline: ‘A 51-year-old man was arrested on Wednesday on suspicion of historical sexual offences. He has been bailed pending further enquiries.’

A Church of England spokesman added: ‘A 51-year-old priest in the Diocese of Leeds has been suspended by the Bishop following his arrest by Durham Constabulary concerning allegations of historical abuse.

‘No further statement will be made at this time.’

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NEW JERSEY
NorthJersey.com

BY RICHARD COWEN
STAFF WRITER | THE RECORD

The former pastor of a Clifton Ukrainian Orthodox church who was charged this week with choking a baby in a Walmart store in Kansas was told to leave the church last year because of a drinking problem, the parish council vice president said Friday.

Oleh Zhownirovych had led the Ukrainian Orthodox Holy Ascension Cathedral for 15 years, and had been married with two children. But his wife and children eventually left him, and last year, the church severed ties with him because of his drinking, said Walter Mohuchy, vice president of the Holy Ascension church council.

“We essentially asked him to leave because he was battling alcoholism,” Mohuchy said. “He knew people in Florida, and we thought he was there to get himself well. But Kansas? How did he end up there?”

Zhownirovych, 54, is now being held in the Johnson County Jail on $100,000 bail, charged with aggravated battery. He was arrested around 7:30 a.m. Wednesday following a bizarre incident at a Walmart in Overland Park, which is about 15 miles southwest of Kansas City.

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NEW YORK
Esquire

BY CHARLES P. PIERCE
OCT 21, 2016

Well, I have to say that, when it comes to appearing before an audience of influential clergy, Joan of Arc got a better reception than Donald Trump did. Usually, you can’t get the Roman Catholic hierarchy booing you unless you’re carrying a condom, or maybe a subpoena.

But, seriously, folks…

Before we get to the Los Alamos of after-dinner speeches, let’s pause for a moment and pay tribute to the founder of the feast, our jovial host, His Eminence, Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York, Yankee fan, and otherwise inexcusable presence in the country’s spiritual life. Never one to miss a chance to preach to the spotlight, Dolan spouted off on the subject of some mildly critical comments on conservative Catholics that allegedly were exchanged by members of the upper echelons of the campaign of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

“The remarks attributed to John Podesta, who is Mrs. Clinton’s chief of staff, are just extraordinarily patronizing and insulting to Catholics. What he would say is offensive. And if it had been said about the Jewish community, if it had been said about the Islamic community, within 10 minutes there would have been an apology.”

Poor Dolan of New York, beset on all sides by heretics on the Intertoobz. You know what else is extraordinarily patronizing and insulting to Catholics? Hiding money in a diocesan cemetery fund so you don’t have to pay it out to the victims of your depraved diocesan clergy, that’s what. This guy should be studying Scripture in a monastery on the side of a cliff in Turkey, under a vow of silence, rather than yukking it up with posh Fifth Avenue Catholics.

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PENNSYLVANIA
MSNBC

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Maria Panaritis discusses pending Pennsylvania legislation that would allow child sex-abuse victims to take retroactive legal action against organizations.

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CANADA
Metro

WINNIPEG — Police have laid more charges against a former Winnipeg priest previously convicted of sexual abuse.

Ronald Leger, who is 78, faces eight counts of sexual assault.

Leger is accused of abusing four boys who were between 10 and 12 years old when the alleged crimes began in 1981.

Police say the abuse spanned more than 10 years.

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ITALY
Daily Mail (UK)

By SARAH DEAN FOR MAILONLINE and AFP

A priest has been arrested on suspicion of molesting women while carrying out exorcisms and spiritual ‘healing’.

The priest in Palermo, Sicily, was arrested on sex abuse charges along with an army colonel, local media reported Friday.

Father Salvatore Anello, 59, is suspected of molesting four women and a 12-year-old girl during ‘healing prayers,’ supposedly intended to help them recover from illness or liberate them from possession by the devil, the AGI news agency reported.

Anello’s arrest follows a six-month investigation into Salvatore Muratore, 52, an army colonel who was active in the Renewal of the Holy Spirit Catholic community.

Muratore has been accused by alleged victims of similar assaults.

Both men have been detained in custody and the investigation is still ongoing to ascertain if there were more victims, police told AGI.

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AUSTRALIA
The Times

A MUCH-LOVED Riverina priest acquitted this week of raping a 10-year-old girl will never escape the black mark against his name, according to a former Griffith mayor who himself was cleared of serious charges.

Griffith councillor Mike Neville said Father Neru Leuea will always be stalked by the unproven allegations he sexually assaulted the girl in 2003.

Cr Neville faced a high-profile sexual assault case in 2012, while he was Griffith mayor, but was not found guilty.

“No matter where he (Fr Neru) goes or what he does in the future, this will follow him,” Cr Neville said.

“You don’t get your life back; you have to make a new life and it was not just for me, it was for my family – all of those lives have been changed.

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ITALIA
La Repubblica

Il sacerdote era anche cappellano dell’ospedale Civico. In manette anche un colonnello dell’esercito, Salvatore Muratore: è accusato di aver violentato quattro donne. L’inchiesta nata dalla denuncia di una vittima, scoperti 10 casi. Il drammatico racconto di una dodicenne, affetta da epilessia: “Mi toccava e diceva, così guarisci”

di SALVO PALAZZOLO

E’ uno dei sacerdoti più noti di Palermo, conosciuto come “guaritore” ed “esorcista”. Questa mattina, padre Salvatore Anello è stato arrestato con l’accusa di violenza sessuale. Gli investigatori della sezione di polizia giudiziaria della polizia di Stato in servizio presso la procura dei minori lo hanno fermato all’interno del convento dei Cappuccini. Il 59enne sacerdote, che faceva anche da cappellano all’ospedale Civico, è accusato di aver palpeggiato due donne e tre minorenni che si erano rivolte a lui per essere aiutate. Fra riti e benedizioni avrebbe commesso violenze. “Preghiere di guarigione”, le chiamava lui. E nessuno aveva mai avuto il coraggio di reagire. Poi, il racconto di una vittima ha infranto il muro dell’omertà. Non solo sul prete che diceva di essere un esorcista, anche se ufficialmente non era riconosciuto come tale dalla diocesi di Palermo.

Le testimonianze raccolte dalla polizia hanno portato in carcere pure un ufficiale dell’esercito, si tratta del colonnello Salvatore Muratore, ha 59 anni, è in servizio alla caserma Turba: era uno degli animatori più attivi della comunità del Rinnovamento nello Spirito Santo di Palermo. Secondo la ricostruzione del sostituto procuratore Giorgia Righi e del procuratore aggiunto Salvatore De Luca, l’ufficiale avrebbe approfittato di quattro donne e di una minorenne che si trovavano in uno stato di fragilità psicologica, alcune erano anche gravemente ammalate. “Io faccio preghiere di guarigione”, si vantava. Le violenze sarebbero avvenute nelle abitazioni delle vittime. Quando le donne mostravano qualche perplessità, il colonnello Muratore rassicurava: “E’ il diavolo che ti fa dire queste cose, io sto solo invocando il demone della lussuria per liberarti”.

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ITALY
Deutsche Welle

A priest and an army colonel pretending to be exorcists have been detained in Sicily. Investigators have said they took advantage of ill women and sexually abused them.

A Catholic priest posing as a “healer” and “exorcist” was arrested in Sicily on sexual molestation charges, Italian media reported on Friday. 59-year-old Salvatore Anello is charged with inappropriately touching four adult women and a 12-year-old girl.

His case follows a similar one a few months earlier in Palermo, wherein Colonel Salvatore Muratore was charged with 10 counts of molestation while a member of the Renewal of the Holy Spirit Catholic community.

According to La Repubblica newspaper, Anello was arrested by investigators from the state police’s child protection unit at a Capuchin convent. Prosecutors claim he took advantage of women who came to him for help when he was a chaplain at a local hospital. He claimed he could free them of demonic possession with “healing prayers”, and took advantage of the situation to molest them.

The Diocese of Palermo has said that Anello is not authorized to act as a exorcist, La Repubblica reported. Indeed, exorcisms officially condoned by the Catholic church have dwindled significantly since the doctrine behind the practice was revised in 1999.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By REBECCA CAMBER CRIME CORRESPONDENT FOR THE DAILY MAIL

The former head of the beleaguered child abuse inquiry is to face MPs over explosive racism claims threatening to derail the £100million probe.

Dame Lowell Goddard has pledged her ‘commitment to assist’ a Parliamentary committee investigating incendiary misconduct claims, which Theresa May has been accused of covering up.

The judge, who was the third chairman of the crisis-hit inquiry, is now expected to give evidence to MPs via video link from New Zealand, where she lives.

She is set to face questions about allegations that she made racist remarks about Asian men, abused junior staff and threw tantrums during her tumultuous 16-month tenure. The accusations, which she vehemently denies, threaten to develop into a major political scandal for the Prime Minister and Home Secretary Amber Rudd, who have both admitted knowing about concerns over Dame Lowell’s conduct before she quit the inquiry in August.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Michelle Brown

The deputy principal of an elite Sydney boys school has conceded he should have called police about sexual abuse in the school’s boarding house, a royal commission has heard.

Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is examining how various schools responded to students with problematic or harmful sexual behaviours.

It has heard boys at Trinity Grammar raped and simulated the rape of other students more than 15 years ago, and had used a wooden implement in some of the assaults.

Trinity Grammar’s deputy principal Paul Green was asked about an incident report filed in 2000 by a Year 7 student.

It alleged a fellow boarder had forcibly held his legs in the air and simulated rape by pumping his front against him.

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AUSTRALIA
The Daily Telegraph

Ashleigh Gleeson, The Daily Telegraph
October 21, 2016

RAPE allegations at Trinity Grammar School involving large wooden sex toys were initially dismissed as “inappropriate rumbling”, a Royal Commission has heard.

Deputy Headmaster Peter Green stopped investigating reports multiple boys were being raped at the Summer Hill campus with the 30cm sex toy after only three days.

“I didn’t go on to find out who the victims, the alleged victims were,” Mr Green told the hearing.

“The investigation, in my part, to my regret, I did not investigate further.”

The commission heard multiple boys were raped with wooden sex toys at the school in 2000.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

Rohan Smith
news.com.au
@ro_smith

STUDENTS at a prestigious Sydney private school rounded the edges of a large piece of machined wood and used it to rape other students, a royal commission has heard.

The child sex abuse royal commission is focusing on what went on at Trinity Grammar School in Sydney’s inner west during August and September, 2000.

Former students who attended the boarding school say they were held down and had boot polish rubbed on their genitals. Others say that on as many as 50 occasions they were held down and raped with the wooden instrument.

When they told staff at the school, the alleged offenders were suspended “for the weekend” and allowed to return to school on Monday morning.

In his opening address, counsel-assisting the inquiry David Lloyd said one Year 7 student, known as CLA, was sexually assaulted as “a birthday present”.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Rachel Browne

The deputy headmaster of Trinity Grammar School was told a student’s underpants had been torn off and older boys had attempted to rape him but did not believe the allegation warranted a report to police, a royal commission has heard.

Trinity Grammar deputy headmaster Peter Green told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse he believed the year 9 student had just been “rumbled” by other boys in the school’s boarding house.

The Summer Hill school’s headmaster Milton Cujes’ evidence is he believed the allegation was “horseplay” based on the initial report from Mr Green and Robert Scott, then head of the boarding house where 60 boys resided.

The inquiry has heard a number of boarders were allegedly attacked at the school in 2000 by older students wielding wooden dildos and at least two boys were allegedly assaulted on up to 50 occasions.

Mr Green told the commission he was made aware of an allegation that the student, CLB, had been held down by three boys who simulated sex with him in August 2000.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

ANDI YU
Australian Associated Press
October 21, 2016

The headmaster of a Sydney private boys’ school has told a Royal Commission hearing that he had no idea there was anything sexual about so-called “rumbling” in the boarding house.

Trinity Grammar School headmaster Milton Cujes faced questioning at the child sex abuse Royal Commission in Sydney on Thursday about rape allegations made by two students in 2000.

Mr Cujes, his deputy Peter Green and former teacher Robert Scott all gave evidence that “rumbling” – boys wrestling each other in a non-serious manner – was a normal part of boarding house life.

The prestigious Anglican school in Sydney’s inner west is the first to be examined by the inquiry in a fresh set of hearings examining institutional responses to “problematic or harmful sexual behaviour by students”.

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NEW JERSEY
The Record

BY MELANIE ANZIDEI
STAFF WRITER | THE RECORD

A 1974 Bergen Catholic High School graduate came forward Thursday to share for the first time his account of being sexually abused by his chemistry teacher as a 13-year-old student, echoing public claims made by dozens of others who attended the school from the 1950s through 1970s.

Standing across the street from his alma mater in Oradell late Thursday morning, Walter Slapkowski, 59 of Bogota, shared in detail his recollection of the abuse he said he endured in after-school detention several decades ago.

“I was completely naked. He put me over his lap, and he started smacking me – and I mean hard,” Slapkowski said.

“When he was done,” he added, “he was completely on top of me. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t tell anybody. I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do. I was so scared.”

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GEORGIA
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

By Alexis Stevens – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A Gainesville church and the Boy Scouts of America committed fraud when they allowed a confessed predator to keep his leadership positions, according to a lawsuit filed by a former scout who was raped in 1985.

It wasn’t until 2015 that Robb Lawson learned the name of his abuser, Fleming Weaver, and found out the church and scouts knew four years before the rape that Weaver was dangerous. But Lawson’s 30-year silence before confronting the church that sponsored his troop should be reason to drop his civil suit, attorneys for the Boy Scouts, the church and alleged molester argued Thursday.

Lawson’s attorneys argued that the Boy Scout oath — taken by scouts and volunteers — misrepresented the truth behind the organization, which covered up the abuse along with others in the church community.

“We’ve alleged actual fraud,” attorney Natalie Woodward told the court. “We’ve alleged fraudulent misrepresentations that continued on.”

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CAMBODIA
Phnom Penh Post

Fri, 21 October 2016
Bun Sengkong

A South Korean national who was the pastor of two churches in Siem Reap town was arrested yesterday after police received a tip-off that he had allegedly been sexually abusing children for “many years”, authorities said.

According to Duong Thavery, provincial chief of anti-human trafficking and juvenile protection police, suspect Park Youl had been living in Siem Reap for about 10 years, and was the pastor of one church in Siem Reap town and another in Prasat Bakong district. He was arrested yesterday at about 9am after police investigated a tip from child protection NGO Action Pour Les Enfants (APLE).

“APLE knew the information from a victim who stopped living in the church [in Seam Reap town],” said Thavery. “The victim stopped living there, and reported that she was called by the pastor to his room and he eventually had sexual intercourse with her.”

“After that, we asked for [permission] from the deputy prosecutor to look into the case. After the investigation, we called in the pastor for questioning and called in other kids,” she added. “Each of the kids was abused by the pastor for many years.”

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CAMBODIA
The Cambodia Daily

BY OUCH SONY | OCTOBER 21, 2016 | អានជាភាសាខ្មែរ

Police in Siem Reap City have arrested a South Korean pastor accused of sexually abusing eight girls on multiple occasions over the past several years and buying them and their families off with gifts of rice, cash and motorbikes.

Park Youl, 62, was arrested on Wednesday morning after being called in for questioning based on a tip, Siem Reap province’s anti-human trafficking police chief Duong Thavry said on Thursday. She said one of the victims talked to police because she was angry that the pastor had refused to give her a motorbike like some of the others.

“She said the pastor had persuaded her to have sex with him many times,” Ms. Thavry said. “We invited the suspect to come in for questioning…and bring the children who were living with him at the church. That’s when the crime was revealed.”

The police chief said eight female victims had been identified so far, including six who were living with the pastor at the Christian church, which she said had no name. She said Mr. Park began abusing each of them at least five years ago, and that they were now between the ages of 13 and 21.

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NEW MEXICO
Farmington Daily Times

FARMINGTON — About three years after the Diocese of Gallup declared bankruptcy to address a growing number of clergy sexual-abuse lawsuits, Bishop James Wall has announced plans to officiate healing services at many affected New Mexico and Arizona churches.

Starting next month, Wall will lead healing services at parishes that employed a priest or lay person who has been “credibly accused” of sexual assault during any point of his career. A total of 36 hour-long services are scheduled through early 2018. The first local service is expected to take place in January in Farmington.

“A healing service is a prayer service with the intention of offering healing and comfort to survivors of sexual abuse,” Wall said in an email to The Daily Times. “It’s a time of prayer, reflection and an opportunity to open oneself up to the healing power of God.”

Wall said the services allow him “to personally apologize to survivors of sexual abuse and to unite in prayer with them to our loving God.”

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ITALY
ANSA

(ANSA) – Palermo, October 21 – Police on Friday arrested a Catholic priest and an Army officer on sexual assault charges. Father Salvatore Anello, known in Palermo as an exorcist and a healer, is accused of fondling two women and three underage girls when they turned to him for help. Colonel Salvatore Muratore, 52, is accused of sexually assaulting four women and one underage girl. The officer co-founded a group called the Renewal of the Holy Spirit, and went to people’s homes along with the priest to allegedly free them from demonic possession and conduct “healing prayers”.

When the victims protested at the abuse, the colonel reportedly replied, “I’m invoking the demon of lust in order to liberate you”.

Exorcism from the devil is a permitted rite in the Catholic Church, but it must be authorized by higher-ups. Anello was not recognized as an exorcist by his diocesis, sources said.

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CANADA
CBC News

By Katie Nicholson, Holly Moore, Vera-Lynn Kubinec, CBC News Posted: Oct 21, 2016

New allegations of sexual assault have emerged against a Winnipeg priest and convicted sex offender, CBC News has learned.

Four men have come forward alleging Ronald Léger sexually assaulted them beginning when they were children aged 10 to 12, during the 1980s. All frequented the youth drop-in centre he founded, Teen Stop Jeunesse (TSJ).

“When I look at it now, the place was just a giant spider web,” said one of the men. CBC News is protecting their identities because of the nature of the allegations.

“You put a whole collection of kids there, and then there’s some he could go farther with and some that he wouldn’t, right? And I think he was a smart predator,” he said. “He would just slowly test the boundaries, I guess.”

All four men have given statements to Winnipeg police. Sources confirm Léger was arrested on Wednesday and charges are pending. Léger’s lawyer, Saul Simmonds, said he was not in a position to comment.

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ITALY
The Local

A Sicilian priest and a soldier have been arrested for sexual abuse, which they carried out under the guise of spiritual ‘healing’, local media reported on Friday.

The pair, both based in Palermo, used the pretext of liberating victims from demonic possession in order to abuse women and children. The two were named by media as Salvatore Anello, 59, who belonged to the Capuchin order, and Salvatore Muratore, 52, who worked for the Italian army in Palermo.

The men reportedly convinced victims that they were possessed by evil spirits, before carrying out a ‘healing prayer’ in their homes which involved “repeatedly touching their genitals”, Palermo Today reported.

Anello was arrested at dawn on Friday morning and is being held in police custody, following a six-month long investigation into Muratore, who was a member of a local prayer group, and claimed to be able to perform exorcism.

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NEW JERSEY
News 12

CLIFTON – A Ukrainian Orthodox priest from Clifton is accused of trying to choke a baby in the Kansas City, Kansas, area.

Prosecutors say Oleh Zhownirovych, 54, tried to choke the 4-month-old baby while at a Wal-Mart in Overland Park, Kansas. He was charged with felony aggravated battery and misdemeanor battery.

Zhownirovych was a priest at the Ukrainian Orthodox Holy Church in Clifton.

Police say Zhownirovych walked up to a women in the checkout aisle Wednesday and started to choke her baby without provocation. The mother screamed and Zhownirovych stopped, according to police.

Wal-Mart workers apparently restrained Zhownirovych until police arrived.

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PENNSYLVANIA
ABC 27

By Dennis Owens
Published: October 20, 2016

HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) – Victims of sexual abuse are anxious.

Some say they are being re-victimized by a legislature split on a bill that would let them sue their abusers.

That bill, House Bill 1947, is in jeopardy with just three days left in the legislative session despite the fact that most lawmakers agree on most everything that’s in it.

Shaun Dougherty was in the Capitol advocating for HB 1947 this week. He was molested by a priest named in the attorney general’s report about the Johnstown-Altoona Catholic diocese.

“He sexually abused me; stair stepping from tickling to patting to fondling to groping to digital penetration,” Shaun said.

Shaun was 10 when the abuse started in 1980. The statute of limitations has expired for him to bring a civil suit. The House version of 1947 would extend the civil statute of limitations for future victims to the age of 50 and would also make it retroactive for people like Shaun.

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FLORIDA
Naples Daily News

MIAMI (AP) — A youth pastor is facing charges after being accused of recruiting teenage boys for sex.

News outlets report 52-year-old Ron Maurice Cooper was arrested Monday on human trafficking, false imprisonment and other charges.

Police say Cooper recruited several males, ages 16 to 18, telling them he could get them modeling work.

He arranged for them to meet a photographer, who the victims said was actually someone who had paid to have sex with them. Cooper allegedly posted photos of the victims on websites like Backpage to find more clients.

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FLORIDA
Charisma News

JESSILYN JUSTICE

Police arrested a youth pastor on human trafficking charges after he allegedly forced boys into prostitution, according to a report.

Miami’s Ron “Romeo” Cooper sold the boys, ages 16-18, to clients online. Romeo raped and assaulted the victims, as well as forced them to do drugs like crystal meth, the report says.

“The boys went through with the sex act because they were afraid of the defendant. The defendant has in the past physically grabbed them and yelled at them in their faces. He also has threatened to go to their families and basically extort them and blackmail them, stating that he was going to show them the photographs he had taken and the advertisements for sex he himself had posted,” a prosecutor said.

Cooper used sites like Backpage for his despicable alleged actions. The Backpage CEO was arrested in Texas earlier this month on human trafficking charges.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WGAL

HARRISBURG, Pa. —
A Harrisburg teacher has been charged with institutional sexual assault.

Authorities say 33-year-old Randi Lynn Zurenko of Millerstown, Perry County cultivated inappropriate relationships with two separate Bishop McDevitt High School students while she was a teacher at the school.

Read more from the Dauphin County’s DA’s office:

“Detectives from the Dauphin County District Attorney’s Criminal Investigation Division this afternoon arrested Randi Lynn Zurenko, 33, of Millerstown, Perry County. Zurenko was charged with Institutional Sexual Assault (13 counts total), Sexual Abuse of Children (153 counts total), Unlawful Contact with Minors (33 counts total), Dissemination of Obscene Materials to a Minor (20 counts) and Corruption of Minors (13 counts total).

Between January 1, 2013 and October 14, 2016, Zurenko cultivated inappropriate relationships with two separate Bishop McDevitt High School students while she was a teacher at the school. Victim #1 graduated from the school in 2013. Prior to victim #1’s graduation, Zurenko engaged in behavior that led to an encounter between the two at Fort Hunter In Susquehanna Township. During this encounter, Zurenko massaged victim #1’s back and undid the victim’s bra. On several occasions, both before and after victim #1’s graduation, Zurenko provided alcohol to victim #1 who was underage at all times during these incidents. Victim #1 was interviewed by police on October 17 and 18, 2016.

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PENNSYLVANIA
ABC 27

By Chris Eckstine
Published: October 20, 2016

HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) – A Bishop McDevitt High School teacher is facing institutional sexual assault charges for allegedly having inappropriate relationships with two separate students.

Detectives from the Dauphin County District Attorney’s Criminal Investigation Division arrested Randi Lynn Zurenko, 33, of Millerstown, Perry County on Thursday.

Zurenko was charged with 13 counts of institutional sexual assault, 153 counts of sexual abuse of children, 33 counts of unlawful contact with minors, 20 counts of dissemination of obscene materials to a minor and 13 counts of corruption of minors.

Authorities allege that Zurenko had inappropriate relationships with two Bishop McDevitt students while she was a teacher at the school.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Eric Veronikis | everonikis@pennlive.com

The Dauphin County District Attorney’s office arrested and charged a Bishop McDevitt High School teacher with dozens of child sex abuse counts Thursday.

Randi Lynn Zurenko, 33, of Millerstown, Perry County, is charged with 13 counts of institutional sexual assault, 153 counts of sexual abuse of children, 33 counts of unlawful contact with minors, 20 counts of dissemination of obscene material to a minor and 13 counts of corruption of minors.

Between January 1, 2013 and October 14, 2016, Zurenko sexually abused two Bishop McDevitt students while she was a teacher at the school in Lower Paxton Township, according to DA Ed Marsico Jr.’s office.

The DA’s office said Zurenko and the first victim had “an encounter” at Fort Hunter park in Susquehanna Township before the student graduated in 2013.

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NEW JERSEY
Fios 1

[with video]

Walter Slapkowski graduated from Bergen Catholic High School in 1974. But over 40 years after he left, Slapkowski returned Thursday to detail how he was allegedly abused while attending the school.

Slapkowski alleges that Christian Brother Timothy Joseph O’Sullivan took advantage of him during what was supposed to be detention. He says he came forward now because of a $1.9 million settlement in August, after a lawsuit from 21 men accusing staffers of sexual abuse decades ago. Slapkowski is one of the seven other victims who came forward, after the settlement.

Road to Recovery, a non-profit group that provides help to sex abuse victims, backs Slapkowski in his mission to spread awareness and stop the abuses.

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NEW JERSEY
Patch

By Daniel Hubbard (Patch Staff) – October 20, 2016

A former Passaic County pastor was arrested Wednesday after he allegedly choked an infant girl in a Kansas City-area Walmart.

Oleh Zhownirovych, 54, was charged with aggravated battery, Overland Park Police spokesman Officer John P. Lacy said.

Police responded to the Walmart Wednesday at 7:23 a.m. on a report of a man choking a 4-month-old girl, Lacy said.

The infant was with her mother, Quisha Hill, in a checkout line when a man walked up from behind her and put his hands around the baby’s throat, Lacy said.

Hill said the man told her he was taking the baby and tried to pull the infant’s carrier out of Hill’s shopping cart, Lacy said.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Sara Jerde | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

ORADELL — Eight more former Bergen Catholic High School students have come forward to accuse former staff members at the school of sexual abuse.

The eight have levied their allegations since it was revealed in August that the all-boys high school in Oradell had reached a $1.9 million settlement with 21 men who said they were sexually abused at the school.

The eight men, who are now between the ages of about 55 to 75 years old, say they were sexually abused when they were teens between the years of 1956 and 1977, said Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston lawyer who represented some of the previous alleged victims.

The timeframe of the alleged attacks is similar to the one provided by the other alleged victims who settled with the school. They had said they were abused between 1963 and 1978.

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WASHINGTON
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Oct. 20, 2016

Statement by Mary Dispenza, volunteer Seattle director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (425-644-2468, Seattle@SNAPnetwork.org)

Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain should fire a Bellingham principal for deceiving parents – in at least two ways – about a sex offender at a Catholic elementary school.

[Bellingham Herald]

First, the principal kept the offender’s presence secret for a year. When he finally did “come clean (only after having been prodded by distraught parents), he further deceived parents by claiming, with no apparent basis, that the offender was “in the first percentile” of child molesters who were rehabilitated. (According to one news account, the man remains “registered as a level II sex offender, meaning he is considered at moderate risk to reoffend.”)

That principal, Dan Anderson (360 733 6133, theoffice@school.assumption.org, ,danderson@school.assumption.org) claims “It was never that we weren’t going to communicate this information to parents” and “We gave (the information) to (parents) when we felt it was necessary.”

No, Anderson and his colleagues gave the information when they were virtually forced to do so because parents discovered it on their own and were beginning to pressure church and school staff. And Anderson and his colleagues should have given as much information to parents about a sex offender at their school as quickly as possible, not when officials “felt it was necessary.” That self-serving arrogance – that Catholic officials get to hide information about known predators – is the reason 6500 priests (and countless nuns, brothers, bishops, seminarians and other current and former church employees) have been able to molest more than 100,000 children.

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AUSTRALIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Oct. 20, 2016

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 503 0003 cell, bdorris@SNAPnetwork.org)

A former Catholic cleric who headed an elementary school here will plead guilty to indecently assaulting two boys at a school in Australia.

Gregory Joseph Sutton, 65, was one of four men police charged earlier this year. He belonged to a Catholic group called the Marists.

[Canberra Times]

For two years in the 1990s, Sutton was principal of St. Dismas Catholic school in Florissant MO and lived in Shrewsbury MO.

According to BishopAccountability.org: “Sutton, principal of Catholic school in Missouri, was arrested 8/95 on charges he molested students in Australia in 1980s. No accusations in Missouri. He was extradited at request of Australian officials 5/96 after several court battles. US officials knew he was wanted in Australia for almost year but didn’t know he was a school principal. In Australia in 5/96 he pleaded guilty to numerous charges of abuse between 1976-1987. Sentenced to 18 yrs jail on total of 67 charges against 15 children. As of 5/14, he had been ranked as one of Australia’s most-publicized child sex offenders.”

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Oct. 20, 2016

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

A priest faces charges of strangling a four month old in a Kansas City suburb. His church supervisors and colleagues must aggressively reach out to others in KS, MO and NJ who may have seen, suspected or suffered other crimes by the cleric.

[Philly.com]

The accused is Fr. Oleh Zhownirovych, of Clifton, NJ is or was a priest affiliated with the Ukrainian Orthodox Holy Ascension Church in Passaic County.

All too often, when church staff and volunteers are arrested on criminal charges, their current and former church colleagues do nothing. All too often, corrupt church officials refuse to act and thus essentially protect criminals and endanger children. And all too often, secular officials with the power and duty to safeguard society’s most vulnerable pursue ONLY church staff who COMMIT abuse and ignore church staff who CONCEAL abuse.

Church members and employees in any place this priest has been have a moral and civic duty to help law enforcement investigate and prosecute him. They’ll be tempted, of course, to do nothing. But that’s wrong. And their inaction might help enable the priest to exploit legal technicalities and escape punishment and hurt more kids.

Church officials will no doubt be tempted to do nothing about him. That too is wrong. Their inaction might well encourage other clerics to ignore or conceal known or suspected crimes against children by their colleagues.

So we hope that anyone who saw, suspected or suffered this priest’s crimes will speak up, call police, protect kids, expose wrongdoers, deter cover ups and start healing. We hope church officials will take aggressive steps to help police and prosecutors.

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OREGON
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, October 20, 2016

Statement by Melanie Jula Sakoda of Moraga, California, Orthodox Director for SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (925-708-6175, melanie.sakoda@gmail.com)

A Serbian Orthodox priest was arrested last week on a sex charge and a St. Louis based victims’ group wants church officials to stop some parishioners from rallying around him.

Father Daniel James Mackay, pastor of Saint John the Wonderworker Orthodox Church in Eugene, was arrested on October 12th on suspicion of purchasing sex with a minor on more than one occasion and also of using the girl to traffic cocaine.

[Register-Guard]

Members of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, responded to the news.

Melanie Jula Sakoda, one of the two Orthodox Directors for SNAP stated, “Since, according to the police, this apparently wasn’t a ‘one time’ offense, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that kids in the parish were also victimized. Parents need to be acutely aware of this possibility and not rush to the defense of the priest in front of their children. It’s really hard for survivors to come forward, and public displays of support for the clergyman, and I’m already aware of one in this case, can have a chilling effect on these important disclosures.”

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KANSAS
KCTV

[with video]

By Daniel Barnett, Digital Producer
By Chris Oberholtz, Digital Content Manager
By Lisa D’Souza, News Reporter

OVERLAND PARK, KS (KCTV) –
A man is in jail accused of trying to strangle a 4-month-old girl at and Overland Park Walmart.

That man is from Clifton, NJ. Police say they’re trying to figure out what he was doing in Kansas City and what would have motivated him to go after an infant.

Police say a man in his 40s named Oleh Zhownirovych tried to strangle the child in the checkout line with her mother. The store is located in the 7700 block of Frontage Road.

Officers say other customers and security quickly got involved, pinning the suspect to the ground until police arrived. The baby was treated at the scene. She is OK.

Zhownirovych was taken to a hospital before he was sent to jail. Police are investigating if drugs or alcohol could be a factor in this attack. Meantime, they’re relieved others were to quick to help.

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KANSAS
Philly.com

OCTOBER 20, 2016

A Ukrainian Orthodox priest from North Jersey reportedly has been arrested and is facing charges for allegedly choking a 4-month-old girl inside a Walmart in Overland Park, Kan.

The child was not seriously injured and police credited a security guard and bystanders who responded to her mother’s screams with tackling the assailant, identified as Oleh Zhownirovych, of Clifton, Passaic County, Kansas City station KCTV5 reports.

Until 10 months ago, Zhownirovych was a priest affiliated with the Ukrainian Orthodox Holy Ascension Church in Passaic County, according to KMBC.com and KansasCity.com.

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BRASILIEN
Mopo

Montes Claros –
In Brasilien hat ein Pfarrer ein kleines Mädchen sexuell missbraucht. Die Polizei nahm den Pastor fest, nachdem sie im Zimmer der Fünfjährigen verstörende Zeichnungen entdeckt hatte.

Auf den Bildern hatte sich das Mädchen selbst gezeichnet, wie es von einem Mann bedrängt wird. Nach ihrem Fund verhaftete die Polizei Pfarrer Joao da Silva aus Montes Claros, berichten

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ROM
cath.ch

[Rome, 19:10:16 (kath.ch) The Jesuit Hans Zollner of the Child Protection Center at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome is one of the best experts for the prevention of sexual abuse. In the interview, a member of the papal Child Protection Commission talks about a change of mentality among bishops and the future of the Commission.]

Rom, 19.10.16 (kath.ch) Der Jesuit Hans Zollner leitet das Kinderschutzzentrum an der Päpstlichen Universität Gregoriana in Rom und ist einer der renommiertesten Fachleute für die Prävention von sexuellem Missbrauch. Im Interview spricht das Mitglied der päpstlichen Kinderschutzkommission über einen Mentalitätswandel unter Bischöfen und über die Zukunft der Kommission.

Thomas Jansen

Papst Franziskus hat im Juni ein neues Gesetz erlassen. Danach können nun auch jene Bischöfe kirchenrechtlich belangt werden, die einem Verdacht auf sexuellem Missbrauch in ihrem Bistum nicht ausreichend nachgehen. Ist das aus Sicht der päpstlichen Kinderschutzkommission ausreichend?

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DEUTSCHLAND
Augsburger Allgemeine

[The Ingolstadt prosecutors had launched an investigation against the then parish priest of the town of Pfaffenhofen in April on criminal charges of abuse. The investigation finished but was no action was taken against the priest.]

Die Staatsanwaltschaft Ingolstadt hatte im April auf die Strafanzeige der Missbrauchsbeauftragten des Bistums Augsburg ein Ermittlungsverfahren gegen den damaligen Stadtpfarrer der Stadt Pfaffenhofen an der Ilm eingeleitet. Dem lagen von anonymer Seite erhobene Verdachtsmomente zugrunde, dass sich der Beschuldigte sexuell motivierter Übergriffe gegen Ministranten der vom Beschuldigten in der Vergangenheit betreuten Pfarreien schuldig gemacht haben könnte.

Wie Staatsanwaltschaft nun mitteilt, konnten nach Durchführung der polizeilichen Ermittlungen, insbesondere der Einvernahme von Angehörigen der betroffenen Pfarreien und möglichen Geschädigten, jedoch keine Hinweise dafür gefunden werden, dass das Verhalten des Beschuldigten gegenüber Kindern und Jugendlichen strafrechtlich relevantes Tun darstellte.
.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Ingolstadt

[Prosecutor presents an investigation against former Pfaffenhofener town priest on suspicion of sexual abuse of children.]

Staatsanwaltschaft stellt Ermittlungsverfahren gegen ehemaligen Pfaffenhofener Stadtpfarrer wegen des Verdachts des sexuellen Missbrauchs von Kindern ein

(zel) Es war ein Paukenschlag in Pfaffenhofen, als erklärt wurde, dass die Staatsanwaltschaft Ingolstadt ein Ermittlungsverfahren gegen Stadtpfarrer Peter Wagner eingeleitet hat. Es ging dabei um nicht weniger als den Verdacht des sexuellen Missbrauchs von Kindern. Bekannt wurde diese schockierende Nachricht heuer am Fronleichnamstag, verkündet von Generalvikar Harald Heinrich von der zuständigen Diözese Augsburg, der dafür eigens angereist war. Wagner wurde vom Dienst suspendiert, die Fronleichnams-Prozession fiel aus.

Heute wurde nun bekannt, dass das Ermittlungsverfahren der Staatsanwaltschaft gegen den Geistlichen eingestellt worden ist. Das bestätigte Oberstaatsanwalt Nicolas Kaczynski auf Anfrage unserer Zeitung. Im Verlaufe der Untersuchungen seien Angehörige der Pfarreien, in denen Wagner eingesetzt war, ebenso befragt worden wie mögliche Opfer. Ergebnis: Es haben sich nach den Worten von Kaczynski “keinerlei Hinweise auf strafrechtlich relevante Vorfälle” oder Vorgänge ergeben.

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MASSACHUSETTS
The Patriot Ledger

By Andy Tomolonis
The Standard-Times

FALL RIVER – Radoslaw Czerkawski, a Polish national awaiting trial for animal cruelty charges in Quincy’s Puppy Doe case, was convicted Tuesday on a litany of larceny-by-check charges in a separate New Bedford case and sentenced to serve three to five years in state prison.

Czerkawski, 35, pleaded guilty to eight counts of larceny by check over $250 stemming from the theft of money from St. Lawrence Parish in New Bedford, where Czerkawski had stayed for several months in 2012. He is already serving a three-to-five-year sentence on an embezzlement conviction out of Quincy.

During a sentencing hearing in Fall River Superior Court – held immediately after the court accepted Czerkawski’s guilty plea – Assistant District Attorney Brian Griffin argued that based on Czerkawski’s history of convictions, he should serve three to five years in prison. Czerkawski requested a one-year sentence at the county House of Correction. Judge Raffia Yessayan imposed the prosecution’s full sentence after hearing arguments from both sides.

In 2012, Czerkawski told officials with the Diocese of Fall River that he wanted to become a priest, according to a statement from the office of Bristol District Attorney Thomas M. Quinn III. The diocese assigned him to the St. Lawrence Parish in New Bedford, knowing that the head pastor speaks Polish and the church has a large number of Polish congregants. Czerkawski, a Polish national, was assigned to the church to explore the seriousness of his calling to become a priest, according to Quinn’s statement.

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TENNESSEE
LifeSite News

NASHVILLE, Tennessee, October 19, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) — Three mental health professionals are warning parents whose children attend Fr. Ryan High School in Nashville, Tennessee that the school’s mandatory explicit sex-ed course puts their children at risk for sexual abuse. Their concerns are amplified by the fact that the school has a history of sexual abuse of students by administration dating back to the early 1960s.

“In my line of work I’ve seen time and again the pattern of how predators use material like this emphasizing explicit sexual detail and encouraging physical contact to erode a child’s innate sense of modesty, making them vulnerable to be preyed upon,” psychiatrist Dr. Rick Fitzgibbons told LifeSiteNews.

When Fitzgibbons reviewed Fr. Ryan High School’s sex-ed program, including the supplement “Growing toward Intimacy” by Bob Bartlett, he told LifeSiteNews that the course puts children at risk of future sexual abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

AAP on October 20, 2016

WA Premier Colin Barnett says scrapping the six-year time limit for survivors of child sexual abuse to take civil action has been adopted as Liberal policy but it won’t become law this year.

Debate on the private member’s bill was adjourned last week after Mr Barnett didn’t speak in support of it, then descended into personal abuse, with independent MP Rob Johnson labelling the premier a “disgraceful turd”.

On Thursday, Mr Barnett said the name-calling was shameful and “basically killed off the debate”.

“We have adopted formally now as government policy that we will change the statute of limitations but it’s not going to happen in the next two (parliamentary sitting) weeks, I’m afraid,” he told ABC radio.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

Dylan Caporn – The West Australian on October 20, 2016

Four Liberal and National backbenchers have backed an Opposition motion to spark a debate on removing the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse claimants.

The motion, moved by shadow attorney-general John Quigley, called on Parliament to make Liberal MP Graham Jacobs’ Bill a priority.

Liberal backbenchers Ian Britza, Peter Abetz and Nationals MP Wendy Duncan joined Dr Jacobs in supporting the motion.

Mr Quigley said the statute of limitations was shutting victims out of the legal system.

“There is an old legal maxim – justice delayed is justice denied,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Jacob Kagi

Time restrictions on when victims of child sexual abuse in Western Australia can sue for damages appear certain to remain in place until next year, despite four Government MPs crossing the floor to vote with Labor on an attempt to bring the issue to a parliamentary vote.

The vote, which followed a fiery debate, means the scrapping of the six-year statute of limitations for child sexual abuse civil cases will not happen until after the state election even though both major parties have now declared support for the policy.

Labor sought to bring the private member’s bill introduced by Liberal backbencher Graham Jacobs to a vote this morning, following Premier Colin Barnett’s comments that the legislation would not proceed until after the election.

Dr Jacobs and fellow Liberal MPs Ian Britza and Peter Abetz, as well as National Wendy Duncan and Independent Rob Johnson, all voted with Labor but the motion was still defeated 23-29.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Rachel Browne

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

The King’s School headmaster Tim Hawkes told the parents of a student who suffered an alleged indecent assault on a camp that the boy “bore some of the blame” for subsequent bullying, a royal commission has heard.

The school failed to make a formal report to police about the incident, despite a senior constable advising the deputy headmaster to do so, according to evidence to be presented to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

In his opening address, counsel assisting the commission David Lloyd told the hearing The King’s School student, given the pseudonym CLC, was on a camp in April 2013 when another student allegedly ejaculated on his sleeping bag.

Mr Lloyd told the hearing that the teenage boy was bullied by other students and called “cum rag” and “cum dumpster”. The inquiry heard a student changed the name of a Wi-Fi network at the school to “CLC’s a cum rag”.

The commission was told CLC did not report the alleged incident to the school because that would “make the situation worse”.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

October 20, 2016

DAN BOX
Crime reporterSydney
@DanBox10

A prestigious Sydney private school did not tell police about the alleged rape of pupils with a wooden dildo for a month, with the victim’s parents not told for another month after that, a royal commission heard today.

A second of the city’s leading boarding schools did not report an alleged indecent assault to police, despite being told “there is little doubt that there has been an offence”, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard.

Both schools, Trinity Grammar in Sydney’s inner-west and The King’s School in the city’s west, are Anglican-run and the Archbishop of Sydney, Glenn Davies, is the president of both, the commission heard.

In August 2000, staff at Trinity Grammar School became aware that at least two older students were “raping” other boys using cricket bats and wooden dildos made during a technology class, which they nicknamed the Anaconda and the Excalibur.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Australian Associated Press
Wednesday 19 October 2016

Students at Sydney’s Trinity grammar school used an item made during a woodwork class to rape a younger student, the abuse royal commission has heard.

On day one of fresh hearings in Sydney, counsel assisting David Lloyd gave an overview of the cases of “institutional responses to children with problematic or harmful sexual behaviours” to be examined by the inquiry.

These include instances of harmful behaviour and sexual assault perpetrated by students at two of Sydney’s most prestigious private boys’ schools – the King’s school in Parramatta and Trinity grammar school in Summer Hill.

There will also be private hearings into incidents at three public primary schools, which include behaviour by a 12-year-old towards two younger children and two children in a special needs class.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

Andi Yu – AAP on October 20, 2016

A culture of cover-up was at the centre of a top Sydney school’s response to a boy who was raped with an assortment of pole-like implements, the abuse royal commission has heard.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse began fresh hearings on Thursday in Sydney, this time casting a spotlight on schools’ responses to children with “problematic or harmful sexual behaviours”.

Prestigious Anglican school Trinity Grammar, in the inner-western suburb of Summer Hill, is the first of several schools to come under the inquiry’s spotlight over the next two weeks.

The commission heard of two boys in the school’s boarding house in 2000 who reported they had been repeatedly “raped” with a range of implements that their attackers had nicknamed the Anaconda, the Excalibur and the Dagger.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Raveen Hunjan

Students at Trinity Grammar School in Sydney’s inner-west raped and simulated rape on other students using a wooden implement more than 15 years ago, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard.

The inquiry is hearing evidence about responses to harmful sexual behaviour at three unnamed New South Wales primary schools, three faith-based private schools — Trinity Grammar School, The King’s School and St Ignatius College — as well as a private school, Shalom Christian College in Queensland.

In his opening address, counsel-assisting the inquiry David Lloyd said Trinity Grammar School staff knew about sexual abuse against a Year 7 student, known as CLA, for a month before action was taken.

“Between 11 August 2000 and 7 September 2000, at least some staff at the school were aware of multiple written accounts of students who alleged that there had been repeated incidents of rape or simulated rape of young boys in the boarding house by the use of a wooden dildo and other implements,” he said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

Megan Gorrey

A former Marist College Canberra teacher will plead guilty to indecently assaulting two boys at the school in the 1980s, a court has been told.

Gregory Joseph Sutton, 65, was one of four men police charged with fresh offences earlier this year as part of an investigation into historical child sexual abuse in territory schools.

Sutton had faced allegations in the ACT Magistrates Court of indecent assault committed against two children in the early 1980s.

He had not entered pleas but the matter was committed to the ACT Supreme Court in August.

Sutton will now avoid going to trial after lawyers told the court on Thursday he would plead guilty to two charges of indecent assault against the boys in 1980 and 1981.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

Laura Kuenssberg
Political editor

Often the simplest questions are the hardest to answer.

As we reported yesterday, the troubles of the inquiry into historical child abuse continue to unravel.
But the departure of the inquiry head, Dame Lowell Goddard, potentially could cause the prime minister herself a significant political headache.

During Prime Minister’s Questions today Theresa May was asked the question – what did she know, and when, about the problems at the inquiry? The prime minister’s answer implied that she had known something was up.

She said: “There were stories around about the inquiry and about individuals related to the inquiry but the home secretary cannot intervene on the basis of suspicion, rumour or hearsay.”

A conversation in April involving a Home Office official “was asked to be confidential and as far I am aware it was treated as such”, she said.

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IRELAND
Sunday World

Patrick O’Brien

A former lay worker with the Church of Ireland will be sentenced next month for the rape and molestation of 14 young boys over the course of 30 years.

Patrick O’Brien (76) pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to 48 sample counts of indecent assault, including various instances of anal penetration, and three counts of sexual assault of the boys between 1977 and 2010 at numerous locations throughout the state including Kildare, Westmeath, on a boat in Loughrea in Co Galway and at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin where he worked as a volunteer.

He has one previous convictions for a sex assault of another boy in 1989 for which he got a one year suspended sentence.

O’Brien, with an address at Knocklyon Road, Templeogue, Dublin, was sent forward for trial from Dublin District Court. Judge Cormac Dunne previously ruled that the media could identify the accused following an application by RTÉ at the District Court.

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UNITED STATES
Indian Country Today Media Network

Suzette Brewer
10/19/16

In March 2016, two Navajo siblings filed suit against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—also known as LDS or Mormon Church—in the Window Rock District of the Navajo Nation Court. In their suit, the siblings allege that they were sexually abused numerous times in several homes during their time in the “Indian Placement Program,” a foster care program operated by the church. All names and identifying information of the plaintiffs have been changed to protect their privacy.

‘Wrestling a Shadow’

He had decided to call it quits. After buying two fifths of whiskey and two cases of beer, Plaintiff X had secreted himself away in a hotel room in Salt Lake City, Utah, planning to drink himself to death. For more than three decades, he had been haunted by memories of violent physical and sexual abuse at the hands of Mormon foster parents, with whom he was placed in the seventh grade. By early 2014, however, the weight of his past had reached a point where he could no longer face the prospect of living another day in pain.

“I drank for five days straight,” he told Indian Country Today Media Network in an exclusive interview in Ogden, Utah, in September. “I wanted to end it.”

But on the fifth day, he fell into unconsciousness and wound up in a Salt Lake City hospital with life-threatening liver and kidney damage. When he came to, the doctors told him in no uncertain terms that if he did not quit drinking he would die.

It was a turning point for the shy, 48-year-old Navajo Nation citizen. After dropping out of high school in the 10th grade, he started drinking heavily and spent the next 33 years running from his demons. On his hospital bed, confronted with the very real prospect of leaving his wife and family, X made the decision to turn and fight.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Sonya McLean

A former lay worker with the Church of Ireland will be sentenced next month for the rape and molestation of 14 boys over the course of 30 years.

Patrick O’Brien, aged 76, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to 48 sample counts of indecent assault and three counts of sexual assault of the boys between 1977 and 2010.

O’Brien, with an address at Knocklyon Rd, Templeogue, Dublin, has one previous conviction for a sex assault of another boy in 1989, for which he got a one-year suspended sentence.

One of O’Brien’s youngest victims, who was raped as a nine-year-old boy, described himself in his victim impact report as “a lion without a roar”. He said he developed a shield and like a tortoise, a shell, to bury this “violent secret” inside.

One victim cycled to his local Garda station to report O’Brien a day after the man tried to rape him. When he arrived he got “cold feet” and felt intimidated. He was worried about the consequences for him if he reported it and decided to put the abuse to the back of his mind. O’Brien continued to abuse the boy in the months afterwards until the boy threatened to report or kill him.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Rev. Jennifer Butler
CEO, Faith in Public Life Action Fund

Every American should be appalled by Donald Trump’s recently unearthed —and sadly revealing—comments on his behavior toward women. Yet these comments do not just speak to the character of Mr. Trump, they reveal a grander injustice that our sisters, mothers, and daughters suffer each and every day.

This moment presents all of us, especially faith leaders, with an opportunity and an obligation to directly confront the aggression and marginalization that almost every woman experiences at some point in her life. The Access Hollywood tape ignited a national dialogue about the twin sins of sexual violence and misogyny, and we should seize the moment to preach, teach and bring people together.

Trump and his supporters have tried to dismiss his comments as “locker room talk.” Pat Robertson echoed this sentiment by saying the presidential candidate was just “trying to be macho.” This is precisely the problem. When we teach our sons that being a man means debasing women, we perpetuate a destructive rape culture for another generation.

When we refuse to condemn abusive behavior, we harm our communities and play a part in normalizing oppression. When we dismiss the stories of women who have been victimized, we make it harder for tomorrow’s victims to come forward to receive the help they need to heal. And for faith leaders, when we fail to call attention to violence, we fail in our pastoral responsibility to provide compassion.

Recently, I asked Christian women clergy to join me in condemning Trump’s abusive remarks; more than 1,200 faith leaders have responded by signing an open letter calling for a full offer of contrition by Mr. Trump that acknowledges the seriousness and depravity of his actions. But condemnation is not enough, and while an unlikely act of contrition would help move us forward, I believe we have an additional responsibility to preach and teach a different message.

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IRELAND
The Irish Catholic

by Greg Daly
October 20, 2016

The head of the Irish Church’s safeguarding committee has reiterated that keeping clerical abusers out of ministry remains an absolute priority for the Church.

Her comments come against the background of an RTÉ documentary which questions whether the Church’s approach to priests who have harmed children or vulnerable adults demonises abusers and ultimately endangers children.

On ‘Beyond Redemption?’, a Would You Believe? special, UCD’s Dr Marie Keenan claims that the Catholic Church’s response to clerical offenders is driven by public opinion with the intention of protecting the institution.

Theresa Devlin, head of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland (NBSCCCI), told The Irish Catholic that the board’s new guidelines help give clarity to Church bodies in handling clergy and religious against whom allegations have been made. Denying that the policies are intended to protect the Church, she said they are based on extensive research and consultations with survivors, convicted abusers, and Church bodies.

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