ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Harriet Sherwood Religion correspondent
@harrietsherwood
Wednesday 19 October

Behind a locked door in York Minster, 100 stone steps spiral up to the door of the bell chamber. A second key is needed to enter the room, revealing spectacular views over the city and surrounding countryside. At its centre hang thick ropes leading up to 14 bells, with the heaviest weighing in at three tonnes.

It was in this chamber that the minster’s volunteer campanologists regularly gathered to make music, exercising a creative skill that was regarded by many as the best in the country.

But that all ended last Tuesday, when the 30-strong bellringing team was summoned at short notice to a meeting which blew the lid off the tensions that been simmering for months within the walls of the 15th-century cathedral.

According to bellringers’ accounts, those present were abruptly told they were being sacked. A few minutes were allowed for questions, then letters were handed to the assembled men and women, some of whom had been members of the York Minster Society of Change Ringers for decades. …

Six days after the meeting, John Sentamu, the archbishop of York and the second most senior person in the Church of England, held a press conference at which he disclosed that a safeguarding issue lay behind the mass dismissal.

Reading a statement from the minster’s governing body, the Chapter of York, Sentamu said: “Earlier this summer it was necessary for the chapter to take action regarding a member of the bellringing community on safeguarding grounds. This came after complex multi-agency activity involving the City of York council, York diocese safeguarding adviser and the Church of England’s national safeguarding officer.”

Since then, some campanologists had “consistently challenged the chapter’s authority on this and other important matters”, he added. Decisive action had been required. “This is why the chapter took the decision to disband the bellringing team last week.”

Few of the people closely involved in the drama were willing to speak on the record this week. But accounts from both sides suggest that the dispute centres on David Potter, a leading figure in the bellringing team who has been the subject of two police investigations following allegations made in 1999 and 2015. On neither occasion were charges brought.

In January 2000, days after Potter had been awarded an MBE for bellringing services over three decades, he was suspended as ringing master at York Minster and from his job as a teacher after claims of indecent assault. The following month, the police said he would not be charged.

Last year, Potter was the subject of another police investigation. “In June 2015 North Yorkshire police applied for a sexual risk order following concerns raised during multi-agency safeguarding processes about a 66-year-old York man and his contact with children,” the force said in a statement.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

October 20, 2016

PETER HOYSTED
ColumnistCanberra
@JacktheInsider

The first episode of Ballarat’s Children details a criminal conspiracy between Victoria Police and the Catholic Church in 1972. The prolific pedophile priest Monsignor Day avoided charges, victims were denied justice and the detective who sought to bring Day to account, Denis Ryan, had his career roughly terminated.

It is my strong view that this incident known now as the Mildura Conspiracy led to a proliferation of clerical abuse within the Ballarat diocese. Offending priests learned they could act with impunity and Bishop Ronald Mulkearns understood he was required to do no more than move offending priests from parish to parish when complaints grew too loud.

In some considerable way, this answers the question, why Ballarat?

Still, we are left to ponder why so many pedophile priests were active in that particular diocese and not in others like, for example, the adjoining Sandhurst diocese.

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CANADA
CBC News

By Katie Nicholson, Vera-Lynn Kubinec, CBC News Posted: Oct 19, 2016

A Métis man alleges he was physically and sexually abused by a Catholic priest and a nun at the Vogar church school in Manitoba’s Interlake region more than 70 years ago.

The allegations are in a lawsuit filed last week in Manitoba Court of Queen’s Bench naming the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Winnipeg, the order of nuns Les Oblats de Marie Immaculée du Manitoba, the province of Manitoba, as well as the priest and the nun.

“The plaintiff states that he did not complain to his parents or any authorities because his grandmother was the head of the family and she said he needed to be a good Catholic,” the claim said.

It is believed the priest and nun accused in the case are no longer alive, according to the lawsuit. The nun was a teacher at the Vogar church school in the R.M. of Siglunes from 1937 to 1942 when the incidents are alleged to have occurred, the lawsuit said.

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Indpendent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, N.M., Oct. 15, 2016

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

GALLUP — The Diocese of Gallup released a schedule of healing services to address the legacy of clergy sex abuse in the diocese, featuring 36 upcoming services that will take Bishop James S. Wall 15 months to complete.

The first service will be held at Gallup’s Sacred Heart Cathedral Nov. 19. The last scheduled service — in February 2018 — will be held at St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Gallup. The other 34 services will take the bishop to almost every currently operating parish across Arizona and New Mexico.

“Bishop James Wall and the Diocese of Gallup will unite in prayer for a series of healing services,” the news release stated. “We extend our invitation to attend these healing services to all who have been affected by physical, emotional, or sexual abuse in the Diocese, especially our brothers and sisters who have survived abuse by members of the Church.

“Families and friends of survivors, Catholics and community members who are struggling with forgiveness or who have been affected by the sin of abuse, and all people wishing to unite and seek healing; to them we extend the invitation to attend these services as well,” the statement continued.

The visits by the bishop were mandated as part of the Gallup Diocese’s Chapter 11 plan of reorganization. In the plan’s non-monetary commitments, the bishop agreed to visit each operating Catholic parish or school in which abuse occurred or where identified abusers served. According to the court document, the bishop “shall provide a forum/discussion during his visit to address questions and comments.” The news release, however, did not indicate the healing services would include a forum/ discussion time for general attendees.

According to the announcement, “The healing services will consist of prayer, scripture reading, and a reflection from Bishop Wall. The Bishop will also be available after the service to privately meet with survivors.”

“To those survivors, I wish to express my sincere apologies, profound sorrow, and deepest gratitude,” Wall is quoted as saying in the news release. “I am sorry, first and foremost, that you were abused and betrayed by members of the Church, and that the Diocese betrayed your trust. I am also grateful to you, for your courage in coming forward, in continuing to seek justice, even when that justice was not given for many years.”

For clergy sex abuse survivors who do not want to attend the church services, diocesan officials suggested they contact Elizabeth Terrill, the victims assistance coordinator pro tem, for a meeting with the bishop in a different setting. Terrill can be contacted at 505-906-7357.

“We understand that for many, even the idea of stepping into a church may prove painful,” the statement said.

The following is the 15-month schedule of healing services:

2016 Schedule:

Nov. 19: Gallup – Sacred Heart Cathedral.

Nov. 29: Fort Defiance, Arizona – Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament.

Dec. 2: Holbrook, Arizona – Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Dec. 9: Show Low, Arizona – St. Rita.

2017 Schedule:

Jan. 19: Lumberton – St. Francis of Assisi.

Jan. 20: Farmington – Sacred Heart Parish and School.

Jan. 27: Chinle, Arizona – Our Lady of Fatima.

Jan. 28: Page, Arizona – Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Jan. 29: Tuba City, Arizona – St. Jude.

Feb. 23: Grants – St. Teresa of Avila.

Feb. 24: Winslow, Arizona – Madre de Dios.

Feb. 25: St. Johns, Arizona – St. John the Baptist.

April 28: Flora Vista – Holy Trinity.

May 12: Seboyeta – Our Lady of Sorrows.

May 19: Springerville, Arizona – St. Peter.

May 20: McNary, Arizona – St. Anthony.

June 2: Bloomfield – St. Mary.

June 8: Thoreau – St. Bonaventure.

July 15: Winslow, Arizona – St. Joseph.

July 21: Overgaard, Arizona – Our Lady of the Assumption.

July 22: Snowflake, Arizona – Our Lady of the Snows.

Aug. 11: Concho, Arizona – San Rafael.

Aug. 18: St. Michaels, Arizona – St. Michael.

Aug. 27: Lukachukai, Arizona – St. Isabel.

Sept. 15: Blanco – St. Rose of Lima.

Sept. 29: Cibecue, Arizona – St. Catherine.

Sept. 30: Pinetop, Arizona – St. Mary of the Angels.

Oct. 6: San Rafael – San Rafael.

Oct. 19: Cubero – Our Lady of Light, St. Joseph and St. Joseph School.

Oct. 28: Crownpoint – St. Paul and Risen Savior.

Nov. 2: Vanderwagen – St. Patrick and Good Shepherd.

Dec. 1: Shiprock – Christ the King.

2018 Schedule:

Jan. 19: Farmington – St. Mary.

Jan. 20: Cuba, New Mexico – Immaculate Conception.

Feb. 3: Aragon – Santo Nino de Atocha.

Feb. 9: Gallup – St. Francis.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Marie Whitehead

When the state House voted 18-15 in April to approve a bill reforming Pennsylvania’s statutes of limitations for child sex abuse cases, survivors of child sex abuse and advocates across the state breathed a sigh of relief.

With the legislation’s elimination of the criminal statute of limitations and extension of the civil statute to age 50—along with retroactivity—survivors felt assured that they might one day have the chance to bring their abusers to justice in court.

Then the bill hit a major roadblock in the Senate Judiciary Committee

Swayed by misleading claims about the bill’s constitutionality and effect on private organizations, such as the Catholic Church, State Senators gutted the bill.

They stripped it of its retroactivity provisions and inserted a preamble that has become a poison pill for survivors and advocates, and threatens to adversely affect all tort and personal injury cases in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Oct. 19, 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)

Today’s New York Times reports that unwanted sexual groping is rarely addressed through criminal cases or civil lawsuits. This must change.

[New York Times]

Heightened awareness to sexual assaults is welcome. But those of us who were molested as children you know that greater public visibility isn’t enough. Awareness does not automatically bring reform. Aggressive action must follow awareness.

So we strongly urge

–police and prosecutors to more vigorously pursue cases of sexual violence (involving adults or kids, penetration or no penetration), and

–legislators to strengthen laws against all types of sexual assaults (especially by ending or extending predator-friendly statues of limitations).

Most of all, we urge every victim of sexual assault – whether groped or raped – to

–report their experiences to law enforcement (even if you believe nothing will happen), and

–check out whether they have any civil options.

It’s our civic duty to at least share what we know or suspect about sex offenders with the independent professionals in law enforcement. And it’s our moral duty to at least consider whether we can stop predators through civil lawsuits.

No matter what lawmakers or other officials do or don’t do, we urge every single person who saw, suspected or suffered sex crimes and cover ups – especially by the powerful or in institutions –– to protect others by calling police, get justice by calling attorneys, and be comforted by calling support groups like ours. This is how the vulnerable will be safer, the victimized will recover, the criminals will be prosecuted, the “enablers” will be exposed, the cover ups will be deterred and the truth will surface.

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UNITED KINGDOM
B31

By Sas Taylor – October 19, 20160

Twin brothers from Birmingham, who suffered sexual abuse as teenagers in a children’s home in Northern Ireland, are camping on The Green in Kings Norton as part of a campaign to raise awareness of the need for proper support for victims of abuse.

Bobby and Joe Blair were taken into foster care at Rubane House in County Down in 1977, where they were beaten and subjected to sexual abuse.

They waived their right to anonymity to tell their story the The Irish Sun in 2015, after giving evidence at the ­Historical Abuse Inquiry in Northern Ireland.

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NEW JERSEY
Road to Recovery

Bergen Catholic High School alumnus and childhood sexual abuse victim of Br. Timothy Joseph O’Sullivan, CFC, Walter Slipkowski, of Bogota, New Jersey, to speak publicly for the first time about his childhood sexual abuse at Bergen Catholic High School

Walter Slipkowski was a minor child in approximately 1970 when he entered Bergen Catholic High School and met a sexual abuser, Br. Timothy Joseph O’Sullivan, CFC, who was his science teacher

What
A press conference by Walter Slipkowski of Bogota, New Jersey, at which he will announce that he was sexually abused as a minor child at Bergen Catholic High School, Oradell, New Jersey, by Br. Timothy Joseph O’Sullivan, CFC

When
Thursday, October 20, 2017, at 11:00 am

Where
On the public sidewalk across from the main entrance of Bergen Catholic High School, 1040 Oradell Avenue, Oradell, New Jersey 07649

Who
Walter Slipkowski of Bogota, New Jersey, a 1974 graduate of Bergen Catholic High School, and resident of Bogota, New Jersey; Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., a former Irish Christian Brother of 23 years and President of Road to Recovery, Inc., a non-profit charity based in New Jersey that assists victims of sexual abuse and their families

Why
Walter Slipkowski will turn 60 years of age on October 31, 2016. His family moved from Jersey City, New Jersey, to Teaneck, New Jersey, when he was approximately 10 years old. Approximately 4 years later (1970), he began attending Bergen Catholic High School at approximately the age of 14. It was at Bergen Catholic High School in approximately 1970-1971 that he was a student in the science class of his teacher, Br. Timothy Joseph O’Sullivan, CFC, who sexually abused him in an anteroom of the science class and laboratory. It is believed that Br. Timothy Joseph O’Sullivan, CFC, left the Irish Christian Brothers many years ago and may have taught (or still may be teaching) at a college in Massachusetts. Walter Slipkowski will share his story of having been sexually abused as a minor child at Bergen Catholic High School in order to try to heal, be a support to other victims, and hopefully alert others to the dangers posed by pedophile Br. Timothy Joseph O’Sullivan, CFC.

Contacts
Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., Road to Recovery, Inc. – 862-368-2800 – roberthoatson@gmail.com
Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, Boston, MA – 617-523-6250 – garabedianlaw@msn.com

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UNITED KINGDOM
Premier

Wed 19 Oct 2016
By Aaron James

The chair of the national inquiry into child abuse has said former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey could face “explicit criticism” for the way he dealt with a paedophile bishop.

Peter Ball (below), now 84, pleaded guilty last year to assaulting two young men and using his position to do the same to others whilst the Bishop of Lewes.

The Old Bailey heard that when police initially investigated in 1992 he escaped prosecution. He received a caution and retired from ministry in 1993.

There have been claims that Lord Carey (main picture) helped covered up the child abuse of former Bishop of Lewes Peter Ball.

Lord Carey has always denied this and has applied to be personally represented in the national abuse inquiry, rather than by the Church of England, to avoid a conflict of interest.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

More than 2,000 people have signed a petition calling for the Church of England to re-examine the case against a former Bishop of Chichester.

Last year the church acknowledged that a woman had been sexually abused by the late George Bell in the 1940s and 1950s when she was a child.

It apologised and paid compensation to the victim.

Campaigners supporting the bishop said the case should be reopened as there was “a strong case for his defence”.

Dr Ruth Hildebrandt Grayson, a supporter of the George Bell Group, said: “In light of the fact that a strong case for the late bishop’s defence has now been assembled by a number of people with close connections to him, there is no excuse for the church to delay a fresh investigation any further.”

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AUSTRALIA
Courier

Melissa CunninghamMelissa Cunningham
@MeljCunningham

19 Oct 2016

Lifeline has been inundated with calls for help in the wake of the royal commissions into child sexual abuse and family violence.

During a visit to Ballarat on Wednesday, Lifeline chief executive Pete Shmigel said calls to the service related to past childhood trauma and family violence have been steadily increasing.The number of Australians taking their own lives has hit a 10-year high.

Mr Shmigel said rates of suicide were up to two and half times higher in regional areas than metropolitan cities. Ballarat is estimated to have between 100 and 150 annual suicide deaths but no official figures have ever been released.

“Suicide never comes down to a single factor, it is a tremendously complex phenomena,” he said. “Different things contribute to it, whether it’s trauma, abuse, family violence, economic restructures. Most of the people that call us aren’t actually mentally unwell. They’re overwhelmed, isolated and they feel alone.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Peter Walker Political correspondent
@peterwalker99
Wednesday 19 October 2016

Theresa May has rejected claims that the Home Office failed to act early enough on concerns about the leadership of the national child abuse inquiry, telling prime minister’s questions it could not be expected to respond to “suspicion, rumour or hearsay”.

May was placed under pressure after it emerged on Tuesday that a member of the abuse inquiry panel raised worries about the then inquiry chair, Dame Lowell Goddard, with the director general of the Home Office in April this year. May was still home secretary at the time.

The home affairs select committee also heard that relations between leading panel members and Goddard, who resigned in August, were so bad a professional facilitator had been brought in.

One of May’s officials told the committee that the Home Office first heard of the worries about Goddard only six days before she stepped down.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By MATT DATHAN, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT FOR MAILONLINE

Theresa May today defended her role in the disastrous child abuse inquiry after it emerged that concerns were raised when she was still Home Secretary in April.

She denied the Home Office dragged its feet over allegations Dame Lowell Goddard, the former chair of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), had mishandled the probe despite members of the panel revealing yesterday that Home Office officials were told of tensions in the inquiry four months before she quit.

Mrs May, who set up the inquiry more than two years ago, said those concerns were raised confidentially and insisted she was not made aware of them at the time.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Sky News

The Prime Minister has admitted she knew about concerns over the leadership of the child abuse inquiry but did nothing.

Theresa May said there were “stories” around about Dame Lowell Goddard’s leadership of the inquiry but said as Home Secretary she was not able to intervene on the basis of “suspicion” or “hearsay”.

Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions Mrs May admitted that complaints about Dame Lowell’s behaviour had been made to the Home Office in confidence months before she left the post.

However, she said the concerns had been raised in confidence and therefore she was unable to act.

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NEW ZEALAND
Sky News

By Katie Stallard, in Wellington, New Zealand

Dame Lowell Goddard has told Sky News no concerns were raised with her before her resignation from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse in August, and that she was never warned, officially or otherwise, about the alleged use of racially derogatory language.

The New Zealand judge is alleged to have said Britain had so many paedophiles “because it has so many Asian men”, according to a report in The Times.

The newspaper report included a number of allegations made by what it said were “well-placed figures” at the inquiry’s headquarters about her alleged conduct, including claims she treated staff with contempt.

The unnamed sources in the report also claimed she voiced shock at the size of the country’s ethnic minority population and allegedly complained of having to travel 50 miles from London to see a white face.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

Theresa May has told MPs she was right not to intervene when concerns were raised about the previous head of the child abuse inquiry while she was home secretary.

The PM said she could not step in on the basis of “suspicion, rumour or hearsay” about Dame Lowell Goddard.

The inquiry, set up in 2014, has been beset with controversy.

On Tuesday, new chairwoman Prof Alexis Jay said things would have become “very difficult” if Dame Lowell had not quit.

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BRASIL
G1

Valdivan Veloso
Do G1 Grande Minas

Um pastor de uma igreja evangélica foi preso na tarde desta quinta-feira (13) suspeito de estuprar uma criança de cinco anos em Montes Claros, no Norte de Minas. A Polícia Civil diz que ele dava aulas de inglês na sede da própria igreja, no Bairro Roxo Verde, onde os abusos aconteceram.

O inquérito foi instaurado no dia seis de setembro deste ano, após os pais denunciarem o caso à Polícia Civil. Eles relataram que desconfiaram do caso quando a criança se mostrava resistente em frequentar as aulas na igreja. “Ela dizia que não queria ir porque o Tio João fazia bobagem com ela”, diz um investigador.

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BRAZIL
Metro

[Note: The accused cleric is not a priest but pastor of an evangelical church.]

Toby Meyjes for Metro.co.uk
Wednesday 19 Oct 2016

A priest has been arrested in Brazil after the parents of a five-year-old girl discovered drawings that appeared to show a child being abused.

Father Joao da Silva, 54, is being interviewed by police over child abuse charges, which he denies, according to local media.

The girl’s parents, who live in Minas Gerais, are said to have found the pictures after their daughter refused to attend any more of the priest’s English classes.

She was so upset they took her to a child psychologist who suspected sexual abuse and urged her parents to search her room for any signs.

Hidden among her books they found six drawings detailing the sexual abuse in horrific detail.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

Dylan Caporn – The West Australian on October 19, 2016

A bid by a Liberal backbencher to remove the statute of limitations for claims of damages resulting from child sexual abuse before Parliament rises before the March state election appears doomed to fail.

Both the Liberal and National parties have given strong indications they would not support the Bill drafted by Liberal backbencher Graham Jacobs.

Despite receiving support in the Liberal Party room yesterday, it appears concerns from Attorney-General Michael Mischin about “unintended consequences” flowing from the legislation meant it will not be supported in its present form.

Deputy Liberal leader Liza Harvey said the party had agreed to accept the stance as policy, but it would be for a “future government” to consider.

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

Melissa CunninghamMelissa Cunningham
@MeljCunningham

18 Oct 2016

Peter Blenkiron describes his photography exhibition as an emotional journey made up of fragments of complete darkness and moments of light.

The clergy sexual abuse survivor unveiled his exhibition Putting The Pieces of Self Together One Moment at a Time at Vox Populi Art Gallery, upstairs at Boah Organic at the Bridge Mall on Friday.

The former Ballarat electrician describes the impacts of his complex post traumatic stress disorder on his mind as being like a “blown electrical circuit”.

Each image offers a rare glimpse into the inner world of a child abuse survivor learning to re-inhabit his body and mind.

With the guidance of his counsellor and from behind the lens of his smartphone he started taking photographs as form on mindfulness and solace.

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

19 OCT 2016
BY JAMES MONCUR

THE 14-year-old’s death was blamed on boxing match injuries – but schoolmates claim he could be a victim of violence at the notorious Christian Brothers home.

POLICE are being urged to launch a new probe into the death of a teenager at a notorious care home.

Alexander Harvey died at St Ninian’s School, in Fife, in 1960. His death was blamed on injuries he had received in a boxing match.

The 14-year-old’s death was never fully investigated but rumours have circulated in the village of Falkland that Alexander may have been the victim of abuse.

Schoolmates claim he could be a “forgotten victim” of violence at the Christian Brothers home, which has been at the centre of a historic scandal.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh City Paper

By Rebecca Addison

If you look at the legislation that Pennsylvania state Rep. Mark Rozzi has sponsored over the past year, you’ll notice a theme.

In February, Rozzi (D-Berks County) proposed a resolution designating April 2016 as “Sexual Assault Awareness Month.” In March, he co-sponsored a bill to add child sex abuse as an exception to sovereign-immunity laws. And his current fight to pass House Bill 1947 would eliminate the criminal statute of limitation on child sexual-abuse cases.

For Rozzi, sexual assault isn’t just another legislative issue. It’s the reason he ran for office in 2012. Rozzi was molested by an Allentown Diocese priest when he was 13.

After being molested, in the 1980s, Rozzi did his best to move on from the trauma. But he was spurred to take action in 2009 after a second childhood friend committed suicide; both of them had been molested by the same priest.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Christian Today

Mark Woods CHRISTIAN TODAY CONTRIBUTING EDITOR 19 October 2016

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey faces possible censure over his conduct regarding paedophile Peter Ball, formerly Bishop of Gloucester.

Ball was jailed last year for sex offences and misconduct in public office.

After serving as Bishop of Lewes, he was made Bishop of Gloucester in 1992. He received a caution in 1993 for gross indecency, rather than being charged with with indecent assault, and resigned his bishopric though he later returned to ministry.

Carey wrote to the director of public prosecutions at the time expressing concern at Ball’s “fragile health”.

While Carey was Archbishop, Lambeth Palace received six letters after Ball was cautioned revealing that he encouraged victims to pray naked, perform sex acts in front of him and share his bed. Lambeth Palace officials reviewing the letters in 2009 noted that had such evidence as provided by the letters been given to detectives in 1993, Ball may have been convicted of serious sexual offences as opposed to merely being cautioned.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philly.com

by Jason Nark, STAFF WRITER

An Archdiocese of Philadelphia priest accused of trying to rape a teenage boy will receive probation after pleading no contest Monday.

Jury selection had been set for Oct. 24 for James J. Brennan’s retrial on charges of attempted rape and endangerment, but a deal was reached Monday, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

Brennan, 53, pleaded no contest to one count of simple assault and will be sentenced to two years’ probation. He has not been in active ministry for more than 10 years.

Brennan’s attorney, William J. Brennan, said he was confident that a retrial would result in an acquittal but the offer from the District Attorney’s Office “was simply too good to refuse.”

“It’s the same level as a first-time DUI,” said Brennan, who is not related to his client.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Big Trial

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

The district attorney’s office has struck a deal with Father James J. Brennan, who was accused of the attempted rape twenty years ago of a then 14-year-old boy.

On Monday, Father Brennan, whose retrial was scheduled to begin Oct. 24th, pleaded no contest to a second-degree misdemeanor charge of simple assault, and was placed on two years probation.

“This case, which took six or seven years to resolve, ended with a whimper and not a bang because they made us an offer we couldn’t refuse,” said criminal defense lawyer William J. Brennan, no relation, who represented Father Brennan.

The case sure started with a bang. Back in 2011, the district attorney issued a grand jury report, still online, which stated eleven times that Father Brennan had anally raped 14-year-old Mark Bukowski back in 1996. It happened in the priest’s apartment, on a night when the priest admitted he showed the boy pornography and then got into bed with him.

This excerpt is from pages 11 and 12 of the 2011 grand jury report:

Father Brennan, who was now shirtless, insisted that Mark remove his gym shorts and climb into bed with him in only his underwear, which Mark did. Mark attempted to sleep on his side, with his back to Father Brennan, because he was afraid to look at the priest. As Mark lay in that position, Father Brennan hugged him from behind, resting his chin on Mark’s shoulder and pulling the boy closer to him.

When Father Brennan pulled Mark toward him, Mark felt Father Brennan’s erect penis enter his buttocks. Mark began to cry, and asked himself over and over again, “Why is this happening?” as Father Brennan anally raped him. Mark fell asleep that night with Father Brennan’s penis still in his buttocks.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Editorial

If it were less important for the victims and survivors of abuse, the tale of the biggest and most costly statutory inquiry ever launched would be a farce. But the scale of the responsibility of the independent inquiry into the institutional failure that allowed thousands of children to be abused over decades leached the humour from this afternoon’s Commons home affairs committee session with permanent secretary Mark Sedwill. After an hour of parrying and blocking MPs’ questions it felt damagingly like a high grade version of the institutional cover-ups that victims and survivors of abuse want the inquiry to expose.

Mr Sedwill was in an impossible position. The more he tried to argue that the independence of the inquiry into historic child abuse meant he could not know what was going on, the harder it was to understand why he had met the former chair, Dame Lowell Goddard, on at least two occasions. It was even more confusing that a member of the panel with which Dame Lowell was supposed to be working, Drusilla Sharpling, had actually raised her concerns with the Home Office in April this year, several months before Dame Lowell’s abrupt resignation in August.

The permanent secretary is impaled on the relationship between the inquiry, with its budget of £17m, and its sponsoring department, the Home Office. In a manner that must have appeared suspiciously opaque to victims and survivors of abuse, he tried to explain how an arm’s-length relationship can coexist alongside the home secretary’s power to hire and fire the inquiry’s chair. To those forgiving of the ways of Whitehall, this is an everyday expression of the kind of arrangement that keeps the bureaucracy moving; Mr Sedwill said the Home Office was insulated from the inquiry by an air gap. To the lay observer, it seems incomprehensible that the department, which has supplied a fifth of the inquiry’s staff, would not have got wind of the troubles at the top that led within weeks not only to the resignation of Dame Lowell, the third chair to exit unexpectedly, but also the departure of the inquiry’s counsel, Ben Emmerson QC, and its junior counsel, Elizabeth Prochaska.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Sandra Laville and Haroon Siddique
Tuesday 18 October 2016 1

A member of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse panel has said she went to the Home Office with concerns about the then chair, Dame Lowell Goddard, in April, months before the Home Office said it was aware of the reservations surrounding her.

Goddard unexpectedly resigned as chair of the public inquiry in August, throwing it into turmoil.

Last week the Times reported alleged concerns about her conduct and professionalism, including claims that she linked Britain’s child abuse problem to its population of Asian men. She has denied the allegations.

The Home Office said people within the inquiry raised concerns about Goddard on 29 July, six days before she resigned, but that version of events was challenged at a hearing of the home affairs committee on Tuesday.

Inquiry panel member Drusilla Sharpling told the committee she did not want to indulge in discussions of character but that there were “questions about the quality of the leadership” which she raised with the Home Office in April.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

Dame Lowell Goddard, the former head of an inquiry into child sexual abuse, kept panel members at a distance and would rather have worked alone, MPs have heard.

Professor Alexis Jay, her successor, told the Commons Home Affairs Committee that despite this, they tried to make arrangements work.

Dame Lowell Goddard, the inquiry’s third chairwoman, resigned in August.

The inquiry, set up in 2014, has been beset by controversies.

The committee quizzed Prof Jay, who was previously on the panel, and two current panel members about Dame Lowell Goddard’s departure and the inquiry’s progress.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Lisa Nandy

Tuesday 18 October 2016

As home secretary, Theresa May established an inquiry into child sexual abuse to shine a spotlight on institutions characterised by a culture of secrecy, denial and cover-up in which child abusers were able to operate in plain sight without challenge or consequence. It is a tragedy that the inquiry itself has become dogged by allegations about those very same characteristics.

A campaigner who exposed child abuse scandals in the Church of England said: “These are supposed to be the people who investigate cover-ups but they are behaving as if there’s some sort of cover-up going on regarding the inquiry itself.”

The probe has had four chairs in just two years following the departures of Lady Butler-Sloss, her successor lord mayor Fiona Woolf, and most recently Lowell Goddard, May’s third appointment. In the past month the two most senior lawyers for the inquiry have also both resigned without explanation, along with two more junior lawyers. The fiasco has prompted some victims and survivors’ groups to say publicly that they are losing faith in the process.

An inquiry on this scale cannot proceed without confidence. It is crucial that Amber Rudd, the home secretary, and her predecessor answer key questions to reassure us that the inquiry will now do its job. This must start with the truth surrounding the departure of Dame Goddard.

Instead on Monday in the House of Commons Rudd struggled to answer basic questions about the inquiry, referring repeatedly to its independence. Yet, as the chair of the home affairs select committee highlighted, the inquiry had a budget of £17.9m in its first year alone and raises profound questions of public importance. It must be accountable.

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SCOTLAND
Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry

Approach to the work of the Inquiry

17 Oct 2016

On 27 July I accepted appointment as the Chair of this critically important public inquiry. I come to this role with 15 years of experience as a judge of the Court of Session and High Court of Justiciary. I am personally committed to it and will discharge my duties independently, thoroughly and to the best of my ability.

This independent Inquiry was established in October 2015 for purposes which include the need to raise public awareness of the fact of children in residential care having been abused, to acknowledge and record the suffering of those children, to carry out investigations and to make recommendations.

It will investigate how children were failed, what went so badly wrong, identify what makes residential care safe for a child and make recommendations about what we consider is required to ensure that now, and in the future, the welfare of children is truly paramount and children are properly protected. My fellow panel member, Glenn Houston, and I are committed to delivering a thorough and conscientious response to its remit.

The Inquiry has commissioned research and has commenced the process of gathering information and documents from a range of institutions and organisations. It has published protocols and guidance – which you will find on this website – in relation to the ways in which it carries out its work.

I have issued restriction orders to protect anonymity where appropriate. A document management system provider has been appointed; that system will enable the documentary material that is ingathered and created by the Inquiry to be reviewed and analysed thoroughly and efficiently.

We are in the course of identifying and securing a suitable hearing venue and will also be appointing more members of the Inquiry team as its work is expanding. I hope to be able to provide more detail regarding our plans for investigations soon.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse

17 October

The Chair of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has today set out her strategy to ensure the Inquiry meets its remit to recommend measures to better protect children in the future.

But Professor Alexis Jay was clear that the Inquiry would hold true to its commitment to look at past and present failings by institutions in England and Wales.

Professor Jay also set out four thematic strands that will be the focus of our work and recommendations across all the institutions the Inquiry is examining. This will ensure the big changes that will have the most impact on better protection for children.

The four strands are:

* Cultural: examining the attitudes, behaviours and values within institutions that prevent us from stopping child sexual abuse.

* Structural: looking at the legislative, governance and organisational frameworks within and between institutions.

* Financial: considering the financial, funding and resource arrangements for relevant institutions and services.

* Professional and political: focusing on the leadership, professional and practice issues for those working or volunteering in relevant institutions.

Professor Jay said:

“I want to focus on prevention without neglecting the past. Lessons have to be learnt from institutional failures and any cover-ups that have come to light. Only in this way can we look to the future with confidence. I regard calls for us to forget the past with a degree of scepticism, not least because some institutions may have the most to hide and a vested interest in not turning a spotlight on what happened in the past. We will remain vigilant for other issues that may arise but this framework will provide the right basis for planning, prioritising and delivering the Inquiry’s work.”

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

By Conall Ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner Reporter

St Patrick’s Guild adoption agency requested a payment of “at least €50,000” from Tusla before it would transfer the more than 13,000 adoption records it holds.

The agency made the request on numerous occasions throughout 2015 and 2016. It was excluded from the current Mother and Baby Homes Commission despite the Government being told by the Adoption Authority of Ireland (AAI) that the agency was aware of “several hundred” illegal birth registrations.

It ceased operating at the end of 2014 but, due to lengthy negotiations to ensure Tusla were indemnified against any legal action taken by people seeking their records, the files were not transferred until May 2016.

However, it has emerged that the agency had contacted Tusla a number of times throughout 2015 and 2016 seeking a payment of €50,000 before it would agree to transfer any records.

Documents released under Freedom of Information show that Sr Francis Fahy, director of services with St Patrick’s Guild (SPG), wrote to Tusla national manager for adoption Siobhán Mugan in October 2015 requesting an “immediate payment” in regard to almost €48,000 in expenses.

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ARKANSAS
Arkansas Online

By Steven Mross

HOT SPRINGS — A former youth pastor charged in 2014 with sexually assaulting a girl who was 13 at the time at his former Hot Springs residence has been arrested on new accusations that he also raped the girl’s older sister.

Andrew Lee Jackson, 30, who lists a White Hall address, was taken into custody Sept. 30 and charged with 10 counts of rape, punishable by up to life in prison.

According to an affidavit, Garland County sheriff’s investigator Mike Wright began an investigation in November 2014 into rape allegations involving the 13-year-old and Jackson, her 28-year-old youth pastor. Wright was assisted by Arkansas State Police Crimes Against Children investigator Kathy Finnegan.

In December 2014, Jackson was arrested and charged with three counts of rape. Those charges are pending in Garland County Circuit Court.

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SCOTLAND
Evening Times

THE scope of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry will not be expanded, its new chairman has insisted, as it emerged the investigation has so far cost £2.5 million.

Lady Anne Smith, the judge appointed to head the troubled inquiry after the resignation of its previous chairman, said she brought 15 years’ experience as a high court judge and judge at the Court of Session to the role.

Abuse campaigners have called for the inquiry’s remit to be widened out to include victims who were targeted outwith residential care.

But Lady Smith said: “The terms of the remit were set when the inquiry began. Their width enables us to investigate the abuse of children in residential care in Scotland … from within the living memory of anyone who suffered such abuse up to the end of 2014.”

She said the inquiry was already extensive and had gathered “numerous accounts of abuse”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

Andrew Norfolk, Chief Investigative Reporter | Francis Elliott | Sean O’Neill
October 18 2016
The Times

Theresa May will be challenged tomorrow to reveal whether she was involved in a cover-up to hide alleged failings by the head of the national child abuse inquiry.

The prime minister is under mounting pressure to say when and what she was told of serious concerns about the conduct and competence of Dame Lowell Goddard, who quit abruptly in August. Amber Rudd, her successor as home secretary, was dragged to the Commons to account for her claim last month that her “only information” about the New Zealand judge’s resignation was that she was lonely and far from home. The Times revealed last week that concerns within the inquiry that Dame Lowell was unfit to continue in her £500,000 role were shared over many months with senior Home Office officials and advisers.

The judge was said to have been aggressive and abusive to staff, to have used racist language and to have struggled to grasp basic rules of English law. She has issued a detailed statement strenuously denying all allegations of misconduct and has described them as malicious.

Ms Rudd admitted yesterday that she was aware of warnings about Dame Lowell’s alleged lack of professionalism before the judge stepped down. She was accused in the Commons of having been “economical about what she knew” when she gave evidence to a parliamentary committee last month.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By REBECCA CAMBER and JACK DOYLE FOR THE DAILY MAIL

The Home Secretary last night admitted she had been aware of racism allegations against the ex-chairman of the child abuse inquiry.

Amber Rudd said she was alerted about allegations over Dame Lowell Goddard’s ‘professionalism and competence’ several weeks before she told MPs the judge had quit because she was ‘lonely’.

Miss Rudd was accused of being ‘economical about what she knew’ after the admission, which follows claims of a Home Office cover-up.

She told MPs last month that New Zealander Dame Lowell had left the inquiry because she felt lonely and ‘a long way from home’.

The beleaguered public inquiry threatened to turn into a political scandal last night as:

* Victims called for chairman Alexis Jay to resign as she signalled the probe’s remit will be cut back, so it does not last beyond 2020;

* Dame Lowell Goddard strenuously denied claims she ‘turned to drink’ at the inquiry;

* Its top lawyer, Ben Emmerson QC, was accused of ‘bullying’ behind the scenes.

Hauled before the Commons yesterday, Miss Rudd said it would have been ‘entirely inappropriate’ to tell the home affairs committee about the racism allegations against Dame Lowell.

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UNITED KINGDOM
AOL

The Home Office’s top civil servant will be questioned by MPs about the national inquiry into child sexual abuse today.

Mark Sedwill will appear before the Commons Home Affairs committee after it was disclosed that the former chairwoman of the probe, Dame Lowell Goddard, resigned days after the department was made aware of concerns about her “professionalism and competence”.

Dame Lowell, a New Zealand high court judge, has strongly denied allegations against her – including claims that she used racist language – describing them as “falsities”, “malicious” and part of a “vicious campaign”.

On Monday Home Secretary Amber Rudd said concerns were raised with Mr Sedwill, the Home Office’s permanent secretary, on July 29.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Largs & Millport Weekly News

Press Association

The head of the national inquiry into child sexual abuse has dismissed calls for it to “forget the past” as she unveiled her strategy to complete most of its work by 2020.

Professor Alexis Jay insisted the probe will stick to its commitment to look at past and present failings.

She said that a traditional “public hearing” model would not be used for all of the institutions in England and Wales that will fall under scrutiny, saying a “one size fits all” approach would mean the inquiry would never finish its work.

Prof Jay set out four thematic strands that will be focused on as part of a strategy to make the inquiry “manageable and deliverable”.

She said: “I want to focus on prevention without neglecting the past. Lessons have to be learnt from institutional failures and any cover-ups that have come to light.

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UGANDA
New Vision

By Juliet Lukwago
Added 18th October 2016

The Archbishop of Kampala Archdiocese, Dr Cyprian Kizito Lwanga has cautioned Christians to be wary of false prophets and to shun suspended priests.

He made the remarks while preaching to Christians during the launch of the 64th parish in the archdiocese; St Pius Masajja in Kampala Archdiocese in Wakiso district.

Lwanga said that any priest on suspension is prohibited from administering any sacrament in any diocese.

Recently, a Catholic priest was suspended over misconduct detrimental to the church.

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GEORGIA
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Ben Brasch The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A former Sunday School teacher was indicted on charges, including child molestation, for crimes that took place in an Acworth church.

On. Oct. 6, a grand jury indicted Jonathan Martinez on 16 charges: five counts child molestation, seven counts enticing a child for indecent purposes, three counts aggravated child molestation and sexual exploitation of children, according to the court system

Martinez was 27 when he was arrested Feb. 2 in Glynn County.

He allegedly sexually assaulted at least one of the students on church property during class by separating the girl from her friends and taking her to a basement conference room, according to an arrest warrant.

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AUSTRALIA
Catholic Leader

MUSIC legend Bruce Springsteen will tour Australia early next year, playing to packed houses.

At the same time, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will be preparing for what it’s calling the “Catholic Church Final Hearing”.

It’s expected to last for four weeks, enabling the Commission to ask questions about “a number of factors … including canon law, mandatory celibacy and the selection, screening, training and ongoing support and supervision of working priests and religious”.

This won’t be an easy time for the Catholic Church in Australia.

Mainstream media will rightly devote plenty of time to the final hearing, again reporting on the many times the Church acted in an appalling way when young people were being abused.

It’s a brutal story and it can never be defended.

So, what’s the link to Bruce Springsteen?

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CANADA
CKOM

By Chris Vandenbreekel October 17, 2016

A man running for a position as a Saskatoon Catholic school board trustee is a convicted sex offender.

According to a Saskatoon StarPhoenix story from 2003, Denis Robert Hall pleaded guilty in 1981 to two charges of having intercourse with girls aged 14-16, as well as two counts of indecent assault.

Hall was sentenced to 18 months in jail, and was released in June 1982.

He was sued by one of the girls, who became pregnant. He settled for $3,500 with the girl after she signed not to pursue further legal action.

Hall received a full pardon in 1994. According to the 1985 Criminal Records Act, this means the Parole Board of Canada believed he was “of good conduct” and the conviction “should no longer reflect adversely on the applicant’s character.”

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CANADA
StarPhoenix

CHARLES HAMILTON, SASKATOON STARPHOENIX

Published on: October 17, 2016

In a prepared statement released to the Saskatoon StarPhoenix late Monday, Denis Hall announced his decision to withdraw his candidacy for a seat on the Catholic school board.

“The use of the terms ‘pedophile’ and ‘sexual assault’ by the mainstream media are completely and categorically false,” Hall stated, referring to online news reports published earlier in the day.

“They misrepresent me and my ancient past in the worst possible light, and render untenable my continuance as a candidate, as well as my ability to serve on the Board should I have been elected.”

Hall pleaded guilty in July 1981 to two counts of having sexual intercourse with girls aged 14 to 16 and two counts of indecent assault on girls. He was a teacher at the time of the offences, which took place between 1974 and 1980 in Regina, Swift Current and Melfort. All of the girls involved were members of a community basketball team he coached.

According to a Regina Leader-Post story published in July 1981, Hall taught at Holy Rosary School and formerly coached the Holy Rosary Raiders girls’ basketball team. The team was sponsored by Holy Rosary Cathedral. The newspaper report was based on facts read into the court record when Hall pleaded guilty, and on testimony given by the victims at his preliminary hearing in March 1981.

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UNITED STATES
The Good Men Project

As a Catholic Mom of four boys, and in light of recent convictions of priests in the Catholic church of male child molestation, I’ve found myself questioning my own beliefs, the church, and indeed the people around me. I’m here to tell you that I now know five – count them, FIVE – convicted male sex offenders, and I’m sad to say that one of those was a priest.

The priest I knew who was recently convicted was, at the time I knew him, a confidante, a sympathetic ear, and a friend to me when I felt very alone and was going through a very difficult time in my life. The news of his conviction of sex offenses against boys made me call into question my involvement with the Catholic Church, but my faith in God and Jesus’ teachings haven’t changed; only my attitude toward the Catholic church as an institution, and the selective teachings that have been embedded into the Catholic faith. The Church’s ongoing insistence that only single men can preside over the mass; the Catholic Church being run primarily by a patriarchy of the elderly; the fact that priests are not entitled to have families of their own; the preaching that we are not to take communion unless we are in a state of ‘grace.’ No divorcees, no gays, no sinners welcome. These are not the teachings I want to bestow upon my sons, and these are not part of my faith, nor my relationship with God.

There is an underworld to everything that many of us aren’t even aware of, and one of the deepest underworlds is most certainly that of the Catholic church. The pedophilic Catholic priests are definitely the dark part of this underworld, but what about those priests who have secret lovers, not-so-secret relationships with other men or women, and those who have even married, and had families of their own? I wonder how many people are aware of that ‘underworld’, and how they integrate that into their own personal faith. Growing up, I watched a priest keep a divorced woman as his lover, while denying communion to the divorced of his congregation. I watched a priest get kicked out of the Church after a member of the congregation secretly complained that he was gay, and in a relationship. To be honest with you, the latter was definitely the best priest I’ve ever had the honor of listening to, knowing, and learning from.

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AUSTRALIA
West Coast Sentinel

Ken Grimson
17 Oct 2016

6.45pm:

Earlier, Judge Lerve said even the gravest of suspicions cannot amount to proof beyond reasonable doubt.

Judge Lerve said that in one of the police-recorded conversations between the priest and the alleged victim last year Fr Neru “all but admitted the conduct, it seems to me.”

The verdict was welcomed by St Joseph’s Leeton Parish Council chairman Rob Houghton.

“Ultimately it is good news for Fr Neru,” he said.

“However, it is a massive shame that he has had his name dragged through the mud.”

Mr Houghton said the St Joseph’s parish in Leeton had been shocked when Fr Neru was initially charged late last year.

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MASSACHUSETTS
The Connector

Taylor Carito
Connector Editor

As part of the Parker Lecture Series, Michael Rezendes, a member of The Boston Globe’s Spotlight Team came to UMass Lowell to speak about his experiences on the infamous case, being played by Mark Ruffalo in a film, and the overall importance of journalism in the modern world.

In 2015, The Boston Globe’s investigative team experienced their claim to fame with the academy award winning film “Spotlight.” Based on the true story, this film highlighted the infamous story the Spotlight Team exposed: the cover up of child molestation by priests in Boston churches.

Rezendes began the lecture by clarifying certain misconceptions about the Pulitzer Prize him and the rest of the team share as a result of this story. The Spotlight team did not discover the actual clergy sexual abuse. There were records that dated back to the 1980s, long before the team had any knowledge about it. The Spotlight Team did not start their research till decades later. “So why did we win the Pulitzer prize? And what makes our work different then everyone else’s work? There were several things that made our work very, very distinctive. The first, and perhaps the most significant, is we discovered the cover up,” says Rezendes.

The second thing that Rezendes mentioned assisted in making the story “bulletproof.” He said that all the information was from the church’s records that were carefully read by the members of the Spotlight Team. This made the articles safe from defamation and ultimately made the story impenetrable. Once the story was completed, Rezendes says the third thing that made the Spotlight story so unique was that it went on the internet because anyone could read the articles and see the documents, and it went viral. “People all over the world read the story,” said Rezendes. This was one of the first really significant journalistic pieces that went viral on the internet.

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SCOTLAND
The Times

Julia Horton
October 18 2016
The Times

The senior judge appointed to lead the Scottish government’s child abuse inquiry has urged victims and witnesses to come forward.

Lady Smith said she was determined to find out “what happened, where, how and why”. The inquiry will examine historical allegations of child abuse in Scotland and is expected to last four years. It will look at the extent of abuse of children in care and identify any systemic failures.

Lady Smith replaced Susan O’Brien, QC, as chairwoman of the inquiry after Ms O’Brien quit the post in July citing government interference. A second member of the three-person panel, Professor Michael Lamb, also resigned over similar concerns, leaving Glenn Houston, a social care expert, as the sole remaining member until Lady Smith’s appointment.

Lady Smith, who was appointed to the Inner House in 2012, said she was “personally committed” to the inquiry. The inquiry needed to “acknowledge and record the suffering” of children abused in care. She added: “[The inquiry] will investigate how children were failed, what went so badly wrong, identify what makes residential care safe for a child and make recommendations about what we consider is required to ensure that now, and in the future, the welfare of children is truly paramount and children are properly protected.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

[with video]

17 October 2016

The chairwoman of the child sex abuse inquiry, Professor Alexis Jay, has said she will not seek “any reduction or restriction” in its scope.

The independent inquiry has been beset by controversies, including the resignation of three of its chairwomen.

Prof Jay said that – although some measures would be taken to speed up the inquiry – it was “still very interested in the past”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By REBECCA CAMBER CRIME CORRESPONDENT FOR THE DAILY MAIL

The future of the child abuse inquiry was plunged into uncertainty again last night as its fourth chairman signalled a scaling back of its remit.

Professor Alexis Jay, who took over from Dame Lowell Goddard in August, said it was unrealistic to hold a public inquiry-style hearing into all of the institutions where abuse is said to have occurred.

She said while the inquiry would endeavour to look at many institutions where youngsters were allegedly abused, it would be ‘impossible to do so for all of them’.

Professor Jay sought to appease victims by saying the inquiry remained ‘very interested in the past’ and promised to complete most of its work by the end of 2020.

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UNITED KINGDOM

Sean O’Neill, Chief Reporter
October 18 2016
The Times

The public inquiry into child abuse will never be completed unless it is restructured, its chairwoman said yesterday.

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) will move away from the format of the traditional public hearings to complete its work within a reasonable time and budget.

Alexis Jay said claims that the inquiry’s remit was too big were “founded on an assumption that we must seek to replicate a traditional public inquiry in respect of each of the thousands of institutions that fall within our remit”. She added: “We will do so for some, but we would never finish if we did it for all.”

She did not say which inquiries would receive the full treatment, with witnesses being questioned in open sessions, or the format under which other investigations would be conducted.

The previous structure proposed as many as 25 separate investigations under the umbrella of the inquiry.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Culture

October 17, 2016

An agreement between the Holy See and Italy on fiscal matters went into effect on October 15.

The agreement, signed in April 2015, allows Italian authorities access to financial records of Italian residents who have accounts with the Vatican bank, to ensure that they report taxable income. The arrangement, the Vatican explained at the time, “will enable full compliance, with simplified procedures, with the tax obligations relating to financial assets held by institutions engaging in financial activities in the Holy See by various physical and legal persons resident in Italy.”

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service – Bollettino

On 15 October, following the entry into force of the Convention between the Holy See and the Government of the Italian Republic on fiscal matters, Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin issued the following provision on the implementation of articles 2, 3 and 4 of the Convention. This measure takes immediate effect.

The Secretary of State of His Holiness

With regard to the due ratification and entry into force of the Convention between the Holy See and the Government of the Italian Republic in fiscal matters, signed on 1 April 2015 (hereinafter “Convention”);

With regard to Article 10 of the Convention, which requires the Parties to adopt the regulations and the administrative and enforcement measures necessary for the implementation of the same Convention;

Considering that the Holy Father Francis has delegated to the undersigned the adoption of the necessary measures for implementation;

has issued the following provisions for the implementation of Articles 2, 3 and 4 of the Convention.

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CONNECTICUT
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: John J. Stronkowski was ordained for the Diocese of Bridgeport in 1985. He assisted at parishes in Bridgeport, Fairfield and Danbury before being named pastor of St. Ambrose in Bridgeport in 2004. He was the lead priest at St. Margaret Mary in Shelton from September 2012 until May 2014 when the bishop asked him to resign due to “persistent absenteeism from both the rectory and the parish and its ministries, his growing difficulties with both the staff and lay leaders of the parish, and other personal and administrative shortcomings.” Stronkowski was then on leave of absence. In June 2016 his name was included on the diocese’s list of “Credibly Accused Diocesan Priests” for abuse of a minor more than ten years previously. He was placed on Administrative Leave and his faculties were removed.

Ordained: 1985

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

THE scope of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry will not be expanded, its new chairwoman has insisted as it emerged the investigation has so far cost £2.5 million.

Lady Anne Smith, the judge appointed to head the troubled inquiry after the resignation of its previous chairwoman, said she brought 15 years’ experience as a High Court judge and judge at the Court of Session to the role.

Abuse campaigners have called for the inquiry’s remit to be widened to include victims who were targeted outwith residential care.

But Lady Smith said: “The terms of the remit were set when the inquiry began. Their width enables us to investigate the abuse of children in residential care in Scotland … from within the living memory of anyone who suffered such abuse up to the end of 2014.”

She said the inquiry was already extensive and had gathered “numerous accounts of abuse”.

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SCOTLAND
BBC News

The senior judge appointed to lead the Scottish government’s child abuse inquiry has urged victims and witnesses to come forward.

Lady Smith said she was determined to find out “what happened, where, how and why”.
The inquiry will examine historical allegations of child abuse in Scotland.

It is expected to last four years, and will look at the extent of abuse of children in care and identify any systemic failures.

Lady Smith replaced Susan O’Brien QC as chairwoman of the inquiry after she quit the post in July citing government interference.

A second member of the three-person panel, Prof Michael Lamb, also resigned over similar concerns.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

Martin Evans, crime correspondent
17 OCTOBER 2016

The controversial child sex abuse inquiry will be completed by 2020 after its new chairman signalled a scaling back of its remit.

Professor Alexis Jay, who took over following the shock resignation of Dame Justice Lowell Goddard in August, said it was unrealistic to hold a public inquiry style hearing into every one of the thousands of institutions where abuse is said to have occurred.

Instead she said the inquiry would focus on four main “thematic strands” in order to ensure that lessons were learned from the failings of the past.
Professor Jay said while she and her panel would endeavour to look closely at many institutions where youngsters were allegedly abused, it would be “impossible to do so for all of them”.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

DENIS SLATTERY
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, October 17, 2016

Organizers at a rally calling for the passage of a bill making it easier for child sex abuse victims to seek justice in New York blasted lawmakers for holding up the legislation.

The “Protect Children” rally was held Saturday in Saint James, Long Island, in the heart of Senate Republican Majority Leader John Flanagan’s district.

Flanagan and a handful of other lawmakers have opposed efforts, led by the Daily News, to pass the Child Victims Act.

“John Flanagan should be ashamed of himself,” said Gary Greenberg, a casino investor who created the Fighting For the Children political action committee to help usher in a Democratic Senate majority. “The failure of the Child Victim’s Act by the Senate Republicans has put our kids safety at risk.”

Greenberg, himself a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, blasted Flanagan.

“Predators are prowling our streets looking for your kids because of Senator Flanagan,” he said.

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INDIANA
The Star Press

Douglas Walker , dwalker@muncie.gannett.com October 17, 2016

MUNCIE, Ind. – A legal saga that began nearly eight years ago – on the day Barack Obama was sworn in as president – ended Monday when a count of sexual misconduct with a minor pending against a Muncie pastor was dismissed.

Matthew A. Kidd, now 60, had been scheduled to stand trial Monday in Delaware Circuit Court 3 on the misconduct charge, filed on Jan. 20, 2009.

Chief Deputy Prosecutor Judi Calhoun filed a motion to drop the charge – a Class C felony carrying a standard four-year sentence – and said the alleged victim in the case no longer wished to testify.

Kidd, pastor of Freedom Point Apostolic Church, was at first charged with child molesting, sexual misconduct with a minor and vicarious sexual gratification. He was accused of sexually abusing three brothers who were teenagers – and had attended his church – when the alleged assaults took place between 2002 and 2005.

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MISSOURI
Berger’s Beat

October 17, 2016 12:44 pm | Author: berger

The NY Times editorial page casts aspersions on Cardinal Tim Dolan’s “compensation” program for adults who were raped or molested by pedophile priests. It notes that a “tight deadline” is included, victims must “waive the right to sue,” and asks a troubling question: “How will this program help to prevent future abuses, expose the archdiocesan cover-ups or explain how priests were shielded and survivors silenced?”

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MAINE
WABI

OCT 17, 2016

CATHERINE PEGRAM

An organization that supports people sexually abused by priests wants the supervisor of a convicted Greek Orthodox priest in Bangor to be ousted.

54-year-old Adam Metropoulos is serving 6-and-a-half years in prison for sexual abuse of a minor after he was found guilty last year.

He was the head St. George Greek Orthodox Church in Bangor when he molested an alter boy there.

Members of the group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests are calling for Greek Orthodox Chancellor Theodore Barbas of Boston to be removed.

They say he was complicit or negligent in placing Metropoulos in a position with children.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Sky News

By Becky Johnson, North of England Correspondent

More than 11,000 people have signed a petition calling for the bell ringers at York Minster to be reinstated after they were sacked and ringing suspended until a new team is appointed next year.

The group of 30 volunteers say they were stunned when they were told their services were no longer required and asked to hand in the key fobs that gave them access to the bell tower.

Alice Etherington, the bell ringer who started the petition, told Sky News: “It’s not the way to go about changing things and getting people loyal and dedicated to you when you already have people loyal and dedicated to you and the services.

“We adore the Minster, we adore our community life there and we’re part of it and we feel shunned.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

York Minster dismissed 30 volunteer bellringers because one member of the group was regarded as a safeguarding risk, according to a statement delivered by the archbishop of York, John Sentamu.

Other members of the group “consistently challenged” the minster’s governing body, the Chapter of York, on this and other matters, the statement from York Minster said.

The volunteers were told at a special meeting last Tuesday that bellringing activity at the minster would cease with immediate effect for “health and safety” reasons and that they were dismissed.

The Chapter of York’s statement, delivered by Sentamu on Monday, said: “Earlier this summer it was necessary for the chapter to take action regarding a member of the bellringing community on safeguarding grounds. This came after complex multi-agency activity involving the City of York council, York diocese safeguarding adviser and the Church of England’s national safeguarding officer.”

The decision to dismiss the bellringers was taken in line with advice from safeguarding professionals on minimising risk to children, young people and vulnerable adults, it added.

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NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, Oct. 17, 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)

Cardinal Tim Dolan’s unilateral, top-down victim pay-off program has barely begun. Yet the man Dolan picked to head it is already insulting and blaming victims.

[New York Times]

Kenneth Feinberg told the New York Times that victims tend to be “procrastinators.” At best, that’s stupid. At worst, it’s hurtful. Both he and Dolan should apologize. And they should drop their insensitive, arbitrary and self-serving deadline which forces still-suffering victims to move quickly to deal with decades of pain or else be left out in the cold again.

If kids are to be safer, adults must make it easier, not harder, for victims to report sexual violence. Dolan’s selfish deadline and Feinberg’s callous comments are making it harder.

If victims are to be healed, adults must welcome their disclosures and respond to their suffering whenever victims are strong enough to step forward. Dolan and Feinberg must put the needs of deeply wounded victims ahead of their own convenience.

No matter what New York lawmakers or church officials do or don’t do, we urge every single person who saw, suspected or suffered child sex crimes and cover ups in Catholic churches or institutions – especially in New York – to protect kids by calling police, get help by calling therapists, expose wrongdoers by calling law enforcement, get justice by calling attorneys, and be comforted by calling support groups like ours. This is how kids will be safer, adults will recover, criminals will be prosecuted, cover ups will be deterred and the truth will surface.

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NEW YORK
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on an editorial in today’s New York Times:

The editorial in today’s New York Times, “Victims of Priests’ Abuse Face a Choice,” must be challenged on several counts. Its principal focus is the new initiative by the Archdiocese of New York, the Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program. This program is designed to deal fairly with claims of clergy sexual abuse.

The editorial says “the program is confidential.” It is important to emphasize that if someone requests confidentiality, the archdiocese will respect it, but it is also true that under the provisions of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, it has no authority to require it. Of course, the archdiocese is not going to publicize information on these matters on its website, but that is not the same as requiring claimants to sign a confidentiality agreement. That will not happen.

The editorial is unhappy with the provision that claimants are given only a few months to file. Naturally, the Times wants no deadline. Should they be given years? Decades? Is this its idea of justice?

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Amnesty International

“We have waited for justice for long enough” – Jon McCourt, abuse survivor

Victims of child abuse will today (Monday) set out detailed proposals and costings for a redress scheme which they want the Northern Ireland Executive to set up following the end of the Historic Institutional Abuse Inquiry.

The scheme, which could provide compensation for thousands of children who suffered abuse in residential institutions between 1922-1995, would cost at least £20 million. However, if the proposed scheme is implemented, it would actually save the public purse at least £10 million compared to the costs of compensation via the courts, argue abuse survivors.

The costs of the proposed redress scheme are detailed in a report (Cost Analysis of Proposed Redress Scheme for Historic Residential Abuses) commissioned from Quarter Chartered Accountants by the Panel of Experts on Redress, an independent initiative made up of survivor groups, individual survivors, academics, lawyers, human rights organisations, practitioners and national and international experts. It is proposed that survivors of abuse should receive a common experience payment of at least £10,000, calculated on the amount of time spent in an institution and an individual assessment for any mental, physical and sexual abuse suffered. The model compensation scheme is based on wide consultation with survivors and analysis of redress schemes in other jurisdictions.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Herald Scotland

The bill for compensating survivors of child abuse in Northern Ireland could run to £30 million, campaigners have warned.

Some 524 victims could be eligible to make claims over their treatment in institutions from 1922-1995, including at the notorious Kincora Boys’ Home in Belfast and by paedophile priest Brendan Smyth.

Campaigners are urging the Stormont Executive to agree to a special redress scheme, with basic payments starting at £10,000, to avoid lengthy, traumatic and expensive civil actions in the courts.

They said it could save £10m off the final bill.

Margaret McGuckin of Survivors and Victims of Institutional Abuse, said: “It is now up to ministers to deliver.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

By Joanne Fleming
PUBLISHED
17/10/2016

Victims of historical child abuse in Northern Ireland are to press for a compensation scheme of up to £30m at Stormont today.

The scheme could provide redress for hundreds of children who suffered abuse in residential institutions between 1922 and 1995, such as the Kincora Boys’ Home in Belfast and victims of the notorious paedophile priest Brendan Smyth.

While the scheme would cost at least £20m, the victims argue it will save the public purse over £10m compared to the costs of compensation via the courts.

The Historic Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry is currently examining allegations of child abuse in homes and other institutions over the 73-year period.

The HIA began its public evidence sessions at the former Banbridge Court House in 2014 and is due to report to the Executive in January 2017. The compensation is based on a figure of 524 eligible victims who have made applications to the HIA.

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CALIFORNIA
City of Angels

By Kay Ebeling
City of Angels

He was tall and thin and wore bow ties, and he was packing up his laptop to leave just as the hearing started.

While counsel for plaintiffs stood before the judge detailing obstruction of justice the Archdiocese carried out against pedophile priest victims, the court beat reporter from the L.A. Times was packing up to leave. And he was the only journalist there besides me.

The judge said something like: “So the monsignor bumped into the priest who then scampered into the woods to hide, then a nine-year-old boy came out of the rectory with blood running down his legs, and now defendant will not produce the monsignor for deposition?” to which plaintiff’s attorney emphasized, “Yes, your honor.”

I grabbed the L.A. Times guy’s arm and asked, “Why are you leaving?”

“Phil Spector!” he stage whispered and scampered out of the courtroom. ***

The Times reporter left with his two thousand dollar laptop and I stayed at the hearing, scribbling notes into a dime store notepad.

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GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Oct 17, 2016

By Krystal Paco

The Sunday pickets in front of the Hagatna Cathedral continued, this time with messages in support of a moratorium on the Neocatechumenal Way. As we reported, Father Mike Crisostomo proposed the moratorium to the Presbyteral Council in hopes of better assessing the NCS’s influence on the local church.

The moratorium is being reviewed by Guam’s apostolic administrator, Archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai. Picketers also demand that Archbishop Anthony Apuron be defrocked and that the Redemptoris Mater Seminary be returned to the Archdiocese of Agana.

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PHILIPPINES
Daily Mail (UK)

By FREYA NOBLE FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was sexually abused as a child by a Catholic priest, a traumatic experience which now drives his bloody war on drugs.

In his first interview since taking office 100 days ago, President Duterte told Al Jazeera that his tumultuous childhood shaped his current beliefs and policies.

‘It’s what you get along the way that shapes your character’.

Known as ‘the Punisher’, Duterte first spoke about being sexually abused as a child during a press conference in December 2015.

He claimed he was ‘fondled’ by a priest in the late 1950s, while attending the Jesuit-run Ateneo de Davao High School.

At the same time he made the suggestion that he was not the only one to have fallen victim to his attacker, but said he did not report the abuse out of fear.

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PHILIPPINES
Al Jazeera

[with video]

It’s been about 100 days into the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte.

Since he took power, the Philippine president has overseen the killing of more than 3,500 people in his war on drugs, offended world leaders and strained relations with the US.

In an exclusive first interview since he was sworn in, we talk to Duterte about his controversial war on drugs and foreign policy – including deteriorating relations with the United States and potentially warming relations with China.

“We have three million drug addicts, and it’s growing. So if we do not interdict this problem, the next generation will be having a serious problem … You destroy my country, I’ll kill you. And it’s a legitimate thing. If you destroy our young children, I will kill you. That is a very correct statement. There is nothing wrong in trying to preserve the interest of the next generation.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Stuff (New Zealand)

Here is the full statement from Dame Lowell Goddard and her lawyers in London:

In response to allegations published in the Times newspaper dated 14 October 2016, Dame Lowell Goddard QC said:

“My absolute commitment to the Inquiry and in particular to the victims and survivors is the reason why I gave up my career and life in New Zealand to take up the position of Chair of the Independent Inquiry Into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) and why I endured the logistical difficulties of the role. My report to the Home Affairs Select Committee of 5 September 2016 and my earlier report to the Home Secretary of 10 August 2016 which followed my resignation as Chair of the Inquiry, both made absolutely clear that I regarded the Inquiry as critical and fundamentally important, and I continue to regard it as such.

“I consider it to be paramount that the IICSA successfully and fairly addresses the welfare of victims, making soundly based, achievable and workable recommendations that will be effective in protecting children now and for the future.

“I was not motivated to commit to this difficult Inquiry for money or perks. I was already in receipt of an equivalent salary package in New Zealand, where I had tenure of judicial office until December 2018 and a lifestyle I enjoyed. I had to give up that tenure and formally resign from the New Zealand judiciary to accept the post as chair of the Inquiry. I accepted the post and came to UK out of a desire to help the country solve its awful problems with institutional child sexual abuse.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

Martin Evans
16 OCTOBER 2016

Victims of child sex abuse are threatening to sue the independent inquiry set up to help them after complaining that it has increased their suffering.

One man, who was abused at an approved school in Devon in the 1970s, said he was considering seeking damages for the trauma he has endured as the inquiry lurches from one crisis to another.

It could lead to similar claims or the withdrawal of many of those who were due to give evidence.

Known only as Phil, the man, who is a member of the Forde Park Survivors Group, told BBC Radio 5 Live that every time the inquiry had a false start he was forced to relive the horror of the abuse he suffered as a child.

Last week further damaging revelations emerged about the inquiry’s former chairman, Dame Justice Lowell Goddard. She was accused of making inappropriate remarks, including some of a racist nature, during her time in post. …

Child sex abuse inquiry | In numbers

£17.9m 2015/2016 budget
155 Staff members hired to date
3 Resignations of inquiry heads
33 Alleged victims of Lord Janner
188 Core participants in the inquiry
13 Separate historic abuse investigations carried out by the inquiry
2,000 Alleged child sex abuse victims who have contacted the inquiry

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By REBECCA CAMBER and STEPHEN WRIGHT FOR THE DAILY MAIL

The crisis-hit probe into child abuse was dealt yet another blow last night as victims called for its fourth chairman to be sacked.

Professor Alexis Jay has lost the ‘respect, confidence and trust of survivors’ and her ‘shambolic’ inquiry should be suspended, victims told Home Secretary Amber Rudd.

The dramatic twist came before a review due to be published today by Professor Jay to scale back the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, as it threatens to run on for a decade and cost tens of millions of pounds.

Victims now want Miss Rudd to appoint a High Court judge to carry out a judicial review of the ‘shambolic management of the inquiry’.

Professor Jay, who has no legal experience, also faces claims of a ‘potential conflict of interest’ over her past as a social worker in Scotland, which critics say may taint her views about those abused while in the care of council staff.

The developments raise new questions about Theresa May’s judgement in hastily appointing the inquiry’s fourth chairman in two years, after Dame Justice Lowell Goddard quit in August.

Last night Imran Khan, a solicitor who represents 47 victims, wrote to Miss Rudd saying: ‘Professor Jay is not legally qualified; has no record in cross-examination or questioning of witnesses in a forum such as this; and has no experience of legal decision- making.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

October 17, 2016

PETER HOYSTED
ColumnistCanberra
@JacktheInsider

JOHN FERGUSON
Victorian EditorMelbourne
@fergusonjw

The extent of Victoria Police complicity in covering-up child abuse by clergy in the scandal-plagued diocese of Ballarat has been detailed by former senior members of the force who shunned the influence of the ­so-called Catholic Mafia.

An investigation by The Australian has confirmed extensive evidence of the force actively shielding wrongdoing and ­perverting the course of justice by forcing the transfer of a notorious clergyman rather than prosecuting him.

The details of how the late Monsignor John Day abused hundreds of children in the 1960s and 70s but was protected by the force — and the church — are outlined in a new podcast examining the rarely-discussed fact that police worked with the church hierarchy to protect ­offenders like him.

The podcast’s author, Peter Hoysted, co-wrote the book ­Unholy Trinity with former ­Mildura detective Denis Ryan. The book isthe definitive ­account of police complicity with the church in the northwestern Victorian city of Mildura in the 1960s and early ’70s.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Colm Keena

Louise O’Keeffe’s long and courageous battle to have the State held liable for the abuse she suffered at her primary school in Dunderrow, Co Cork, was deemed at the time to have likely consequences for the finances of the State.

This was because there were other alleged victims waiting to see if the European Court of Human Rights would find against the rulings of the Irish courts in relation to State responsibility for sex abuse in schools run by boards of management and not owned by the State. Reports said some 200 people might be affected.

When O’Keeffe lost in the Supreme Court in 2008, the State Claims Agency wrote to some of these people to say they should drop their cases or the State would pursue them for costs. Quite a few withdrew their claims against that background.

Twelve months after the January 2014 O’Keeffe ruling, the State said it would make out of court settlements with extant claims that fell within the terms of the ruling, and that were not statute barred. Seven months later it said it would make out of court settlements with claimants who had discontinued their cases where the cases came within the terms of the Strasbourg court’s ruling and were not statute barred at the time of discontinuence.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish News

Ed Carty, Press Association
16 October, 2016

THE bill for compensating survivors of child abuse in Northern Ireland could run to £30 million, campaigners have warned.

Some 524 victims could be eligible to make claims over their treatment in institutions from 1922-1995, including at the notorious Kincora Boys’ Home in Belfast and by paedophile priest Brendan Smyth.

Campaigners are urging the Stormont Executive to agree to a special redress scheme, with basic payments starting at £10,000, to avoid lengthy, traumatic and expensive civil actions in the courts.

They said it could save £10m off the final bill.

Margaret McGuckin of Survivors and Victims of Institutional Abuse, said: “It is now up to ministers to deliver.

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PHILIPPINES
9 News (Australia)

[with video]

Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody war on drugs is heavily influenced by the sexual abuse he suffered at the hands of a Catholic priest, the president of the Philippines said in a remarkable interview with Al Jazeera.

More than 3500 people have been slaughtered by police and vigilante squads since Mr Duterte took office four months ago.

In his first interview since taking office, Mr Duterte was asked if the traumatic childhood experience had shaped his forthright policies and personal views.

“Yes, to a large extent actually,” said Mr Duterte. “It is what you get on the way that shapes your character, and even your politics.”

“It sort of blends into something which, it can be said forms your own values in life,” he added.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Times

Gerry Moriarty

Thousands of people who were in residential institutions in Northern Ireland would be entitled to individual payments of at least £20,000 if a proposed redress scheme published today were adopted by the Northern Executive.

The figure is included in detailed proposals for a compensation scheme, drawn up by accountants at the request of victims’ groups. The groups want the Executive to set up such a scheme now that the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) Inquiry, has concluded its hearings.

The scheme, if accepted by the Executive, would cost at least £20 million. The victims and their representatives argue that if it were adopted, some £10 million would be saved in legal fees.

“The Executive Office should move with urgency to consult with victims and to then set up the redress scheme. We have waited for justice for long enough,” said Jon McCourt of Survivors North West.

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NEW YORK
New York Times

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
OCT. 17, 2016

If you were sexually abused as a child by a priest of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan wants to give you money. He announced a settlement program this month that will be run by an independent mediator, Kenneth Feinberg. It will review claims and decide on an amount, which church officials will not be able to alter or reject. The settlements will not be capped; the archdiocese has promised to pay whatever it takes, by selling assets or borrowing.

There are strings attached. The program is only for those who have previously filed abuse claims with the archdiocese, and there is a tight deadline to sign up: the end of January. (New claims will be covered by a second phase of the program, whose details are not yet announced.) Participants waive the right to sue, and the program is confidential. Its goal is to attack the problem the way church officials prefer: quietly and out of court.

Should survivors take the deal? It depends. Those who want to try to get on with their lives may find it appealing. They may weigh the promise of prompt payment — within two months, the archdiocese says — against the time, expense, hassle, exposure and uncertainty of going to court, which for many isn’t an option, because of New York’s statute of limitations. They can have confidence in the independence of Mr. Feinberg, who has built a solid reputation running settlement programs after 9/11, the BP oil spill and the Boston Marathon bombing.

But survivors should be aware of the limitations, and mindful of the deadline, which gives them only a few months to act. Mr. Feinberg says settlement programs need strict deadlines, because claimants can be procrastinators. That seems unduly harsh, given the guilt, shame and silence that enshroud sexual abuse. It’s one thing to come forward as a victim of a bombing, quite another to do so as a survivor of a pedophile priest.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

Sean O’Neill, Andrew Norfolk
October 17 2016
The Times

Three senior figures at the national child abuse inquiry will be questioned by MPs tomorrow about the collapse of their working relationship with Dame Lowell Goddard, its former chairwoman.

Alexis Jay, Ivor Frank and Drusilla Sharpling were members of the inquiry’s panel of experts when Dame Lowell abruptly resigned from the inquiry in August.

They are understood to have been among a group of officials who reported their concerns about the New Zealand judge’s conduct at a secret meeting with Mark Sedwill, the Home Office’s top civil servant, on July 29.

The following week — on the day The Times detailed Dame Lowell’s long overseas absences from the inquiry — panel members and others are said to have confronted the judge to tell her that her position was untenable. She resigned immediately.

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GUAM
Guam Daily Post

Neil Pang | Post News Staff

As the weekly protests by Catholic activists continued yesterday outside the Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral-Basilica, leadership of the respective lay organizations said they are preparing to take legal action in order to return control of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary property in Yona to the Archdiocese of Agana.

Beyond the recent allegations of child sexual abuse leveled against Archbishop Anthony Apuron in May, the return of the seminary has been a central point of contention for the past couple of years.

David Sablan, president of Concerned Catholics of Guam, said a five-year window in which a complaint can be filed with the Superior Court of Guam to contest the declaration of deed restriction will close on Nov. 21. According to Sablan, there is a five-year statute of limitations on filing such complaints with the Superior Court of Guam.

“The statute of limitations on filing a complaint in Superior Court to have the Yona property returned to the patrimony of the Church will expire on 21 Nov. 2016,” Sablan said. “We have five years from the date the Declaration of Deed Restriction was filed with the Department of Land Management on 22 Nov. 2011 to file a complaint in Superior Court to get the property back, and rightfully keep it as an asset of the Archdiocese of Agana.”

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PHILIPPINES
Telegraph (UK)

James Rothwell
16 OCTOBER 2016

Rodrigo Duterte, the president of the Philippines, has said that being sexually abused as a child had a major impact on his politics, including a war on drugs which has left more than 3,000 people dead.

In his first interview since being sworn in as leader, Mr Duterte said his abuse at the hands of a Catholic priest largely shaped his personality and his political development.

Asked whether the experience affected his world view, Mr Duterte told Al Jazeera English: “Yes, to a large extent actually…it is what you get on the way that shapes your character, and even your politics.

“It sort of blends into something which, it can be said forms your own values in life,” he added.

Mr Duterte, who won the Philippines’ general election by a landslide last May, first revealed the abuse during a speech on the campaign trial in December 2015.

He claimed to have been molested by a priest named Father Paul Falvey at some point during the 1950s.

“That’s how we lost our innocence,” he said at the time. He said he did not report the incident because “I was young then and I was afraid of what will happen.”

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CHILE
La Tercera

[A church court has aquitted priest Francisco Cartes Aburto of abusing minors. This comes after a civil criminal court found him guilty in 2012 and sentenced him to 12 years in prison.]

Fallo a favor del religioso Francisco Cartes ocurre pese a que justicia penal lo condenó en 2013. Vicario Mario Molina dijo que no se hallaron “indicios de prueba que apunten a la culpabilidad”.

En un fallo unánime, el tribunal eclesiástico ad-hoc constituido en la diócesis absolvió de cargos al sacerdote curicano Francisco Cartes Aburto, condenado en 2012 a la pena de cinco años de presidio, con el beneficio de la libertad vigilada, por abuso sexual y exposición a actos de significación sexual contra un menor de edad.

Pese a que la sentencia de la justicia penal fue confirmada por la Corte Suprema en 2013, el tribunal eclesiástico desestimó los cargos y liberó de culpa al religioso, luego de dos años y medio de investigación interna.

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UTAH
The Salt Lake Tribune

By COURTNEY TANNER | The Salt Lake Tribune
First Published Oct 14 2016

A woman is suing a Jehovah’s Witnesses church in Weber County after, she says, one of its instructors repeatedly raped her when she was a minor and the organization’s leadership forced her to listen to an audio recording of one of the assaults.

The woman filed the lawsuit Wednesday in 2nd District Court, accusing the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses church in Roy — as well as naming the alleged perpetrator, several church leaders and the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society (the religion’s headquarters located in New York) — of knowingly allowing the “unfit” instructor to rise to a position of authority without warning members of his “dangerous propensities” and past sexual transgressions.

No representative of the Roy church, 1950 W. 4400 South, responded to a voicemail from The Salt Lake Tribune requesting comment Thursday.

The Tribune generally does not identify alleged victims of sexual assault. Because the man accused of assaulting the woman in this case has not been charged with a crime, The Tribune is not identifying him. It is not clear whether she reported the alleged incident to police, but members of the faith are encouraged to bring problems to elders in the church, rather than to outside authorities.

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WASHINGTON
Bellingham Herald

BY CALEB HUTTON
chutton@bhamherald.com

If a sex offender makes regular visits to an elementary school, who needs to know?

Some parents at Assumption Catholic School, a preschool and K-8 school in Bellingham, believe staff erred by waiting a year to warn all families of a parent who was a registered level II sex offender. At least three families were so concerned by the way the situation was handled that they withdrew their children from the school.

In August 2015, a man, 53, and his wife enrolled their daughter in preschool at Assumption. The man, who routinely dropped off his child at 2116 Cornwall Ave., had been on probation for sex offenses until late 2011. The school did not learn of his record until three months into the year.

In response, staff wrote a set of policies with guidance from the Seattle Archdiocese: At all times on campus the man would remain under supervision; he would not go on field trips with students; and he would not get out of the car when picking up or dropping off his child, unless staff accompanied him. Preschool parents were notified. Parents of children in kindergarten to eighth grade were not.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

James Tapper
Saturday 15 October 2016

Theresa May is set to be called by MPs to explain whether the Home Office covered up allegations about the conduct of the former child sexual abuse inquiry chair, Dame Lowell Goddard.

The home affairs select committee announced that it is considering calling the prime minister after summoning the permanent secretary to the Home Office, Mark Sedwill. This follows the admission on Saturday by his department that it had been aware of concerns about Lowell’s conduct before she resigned on 4 August.

When home secretary Amber Rudd gave evidence to the select committee on 7 September, she told MPs that “all the information” she had was that Lowell had quit because she was “a long way from home” and “too lonely”.

The New Zealander has been accused of using racist language to colleagues at the child abuse inquiry, allegations she has described as “falsities”, “malicious” and part of a “vicious campaign”.

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CALIFORNIA
San Diego Reader

By Dorian Hargrove, Oct. 15, 2016

The Watchotwer Tract Society, commonly referred to as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, is asking a San Diego Superior Court judge to return the bond money it posted as a result of an August ruling from a California appellate court which found the $13.5 million dollar sexual assault judgement against the church was too harsh.

The church filed the motion to return the bond money on October 7.

Jose Lopez, now aged 38, filed his lawsuit in June 2012 alleging that elder church member, Gonzalo Campos, of the Linda Vista Spanish Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses molested him during bible study sessions when he was seven years old.

Campos had been accused of molesting young boys before. According to Lopez’s complaint, senior church officials were aware of his behavior before the incident with Lopez had occurred. Three years before Campos allegedly assaulted Lopez, a 12-year-old boy who shared a room with Campos accused the then-18-year-old Campos of trying to have sex with him. During the following years, seven other church members lodged similar accusations against Campos, as well as the church for trying to bury the allegations. Now, only two complaints remain; Lopez’s case, which will be sent back to the trial court for a new judgement amount, and a lawsuit from former Linda Vista congregation member Osbaldo Padron.

Padron sued Campos and the church over similar molestation charges in 2013. In that lawsuit Padron claims that Campos molested him on numerous occasions in 1994 and 1995. In June of this year, superior court judge Richard Strauss, as reported by the Reader, imposed $4000 per-day sanctions on the church for failing to turn over documents to Padron’s attorneys during discovery. The church has since filed an appeal over those sanctions. The appellate court has yet to rule on the appeal.

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CALIFORNIA
The Tribune

BY KAYTLYN LESLIE
kleslie@thetribunenews.com

Ben Bradlee Jr. never thought he would inspire a movie — much less an Academy Award-winning one.

But he and his team of journalists at The Boston Globe did just that with their work uncovering sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, which won a 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Their work was portrayed in the film “Spotlight,” which took home the Oscar for Best Picture at the 2016 ceremony.

“Who knew that it would be: (A) a good movie, and (B) win an Academy Award?” Bradlee told The Tribune. “We never even thought a movie would really be made of this.”

Bradlee is now parlaying his experiences with both the Boston Globe reporting and subsequent filmmaking into a simple message: Investigative journalism is still important — possibly now more than ever.

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WEST VIRGINIA
Logan Banner

By Owen Wells – owells@civitasmedia.com

LOGAN, W.Va. — On October 17, 2015, the Logan Banner published a story detailing the arrest of a Logan County teacher for sexual abuse.

The teacher was John Cain, 49, of Mallory, W.Va., and now his victim has lodged a civil suit against Cain and the Logan County Board of Education.

Cain taught carpentry at Ralph R. Willis Career and Technical School, and was also preacher at the Big Springs Missionary Baptist Church in Mallory.

Cain is currently incarcerated and is due to serve more than 20 years for his actions against the student.

Attorney Steven Wolfe recently filed a civil action in Logan County Circuit Court on behalf of the student who is referred to in the documents as “Jane Doe.”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

The bill for compensating survivors of child abuse in Northern Ireland could run to £30 million, campaigners have warned.

Some 524 victims could be eligible to make claims over their treatment in institutions from 1922-1995, including at the notorious Kincora Boys’ Home in Belfast and by paedophile priest Brendan Smyth.

Campaigners are urging the Stormont Executive to agree to a special redress scheme, with basic payments starting at £10,000, to avoid lengthy, traumatic and expensive civil actions in the courts.

They said it could save £10m off the final bill.

Margaret McGuckin of Survivors and Victims of Institutional Abuse, said: “It is now up to ministers to deliver.

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OREGON
KVAL

EUGENE, Ore. – Tim Hershiser is the official bell ringer at St. John the Wonderworker Orthodox Church in Eugene where Daneil Mackay serves as a priest.

Police arrested Mackay on Wednesday on accusations involving a juvenile prostitute and cocaine.

“I’m sure everyone is praying for him right now,” Hershiser said.

He is skeptical of the charges.

“This is probably, you know, something that happens,” he said. “You know it happens periodically because we deal with, you, know homeless, and there’s prostitutes. That’s what the church is for: it’s to help the, you know, the down trodden, needy, all of that.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Premier

Sat 15 Oct 2016
By Alex Williams

The national inquiry into how the Church of England, the Church in Wales and other bodies dealt with the sexual abuse of children is going to be scaled back, it has been reported.

The results of a review by chairwoman Professor Alexis Jay into the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse (IICSA) is expected to prompt a cut in the number of public evidence hearings next week.

One inquiry insider told The Times: “We need to make this inquiry manageable and deliverable within a reasonable timescale and without excessive costs.”

Professor Jay, who previously led an inquiry into the sexual exploitation of children in Rotherham, became the IICSA’s fourth chairwoman in August, following the resignation of Dame Lowell Goddard.

The probe attracted more controversy in September when it’s senior lawyer, Ben Emmerson QC, and a junior colleague, Elizabeth Prochaska, both stood down.

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ARGENTINA
La Nacion

José E. BordónPARA LA NACION
SÁBADO 15 DE OCTUBRE DE 2016

SANTA FE.- El arzobispado capitalino y los herederos del ex arzobispo de la arquidiócesis local, Edgardo Gabriel Storni, fallecido en 2012, pero acusado y condenado en 2009 por abuso sexual en contra de un seminarista, deberán abonar $ 756.000, a favor de Rubén Descalzo, quien inició una demanda por daños y perjuicios en 2004.

Ese escándalo obligó a Storni a renunciar a la titularidad de la diócesis de Santa Fe en 2002. Pero luego, en 2011, la Cámara de Apelación Penal de Santa Fe declaró la nulidad de esa sentencia.

Storni fue uno de los primeros altos prelados de la Iglesia Católica argentina en recibir una condena por el delito de abuso sexual. Había renunciado a conducir la grey santafesina inmerso en un escándalo desatado cuando la periodista Olga Wornat le dedicó un capítulo de su libro “Nuestra Santa Madre”, en el que reveló conductas lujuriosas del prelado hacia seminaristas.

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ARGENTINA
Telam

El caso Storni tomó repercusión en el año 2000, a partir de una denuncia publicada en el libro “Nuestra Santa Madre”. La denuncia provocó conmoción en la ciudadanía. En setiembre de 2002, el entonces arzobispo santafesino renunció a su cargo.

Por Corresponsal

El ex seminarista Rubén Descalzo, quien abandonó la carrera religiosa tras sufrir explícitas insinuaciones e intentos de abuso sexual por parte del ex arzobispo santafesino Edgardo Gabriel Storni y que ahora la justicia resolvió resarcirlo económicamente condenando al Arzobispado santafesino, manifestó que “siempre esperé que desde el Arzobispado alguna persona se comunicara para ofrecer una disculpa, pero eso nunca sucedió”.

Descalzo afirmó en declaraciones realizadas a LT10 Radio Universidad Nacional del Litoral que “fueron muchos años de espera; 25 años desde que sucedieron los hechos y 15 desde que empezamos con este proceso judicial. Esperar pacientemente durante tanto tiempo que se termine un tema, cerrar algo que te llevó la mitad de la vida, de alguna manera te genera satisfacción. Alegría no, alegría hubiera sido que nunca pase, pero sí satisfacción y alivio”.

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ARGENTINA
Digital Journal

A court in Buenos Aires on Saturday ordered the Catholic Church to pay $50,000 to a former seminarian who alleged he was sexually abused some 25 years ago by an Argentine archbishop.

The breakthrough ruling is the first civil court judgment against the majority Roman Catholic church in Argentina, legal experts said.

The court issued the judgment of 756,000 pesos against the church in the case of a theology student in the province of Santa Fe, who claimed to have been victimized by late Archbishop Edgardo Storni.

Seminary student Ruben Descalzo filed a lawsuit claiming he was sexually assaulted by Storni in 1992.

A court in 2009 found Storni guilty of the sex assault charges against him and sentenced him to eight years in prison, but the sentence was overturned two years later by an appeals court.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Volksfreund

[(Trier) Bishop Stephan Ackermann has released a Trier diocesan priest from his duties. The Catholic priest had been caught shoplifting. This is not the first time that the 48-year-old has been in conflict with the law.]

(Trier) Bischof Stephan Ackermann hat einen Trierer Bistumspriester von seinen Aufgaben entbunden. Der katholische Geistliche war bei einem Ladendiebstahl ertappt worden. Nicht das erste Mal, dass der 48-Jährige mit dem Gesetz in Konflikt geraten ist.

Als R. vor drei Jahren seine neue Pfarrstelle in der Pfarreiengemeinschaft Linz am Rhein antrat, da bat der strafversetzte Geistliche die Gläubigen darum, ihm eine zweite Chance zu geben und „einen guten Neuanfang zu ermöglichen“. Freimütig räumte er seinerzeit ein, dass er seine bisherige Stelle in der Pfarreiengemeinschaft Hetzerath, Rivenich und Sehlem nicht freiwillig verlassen hatte, sondern „wegen finanzieller Unregelmäßigkeiten, die ich zu verantworten hatte“, gehen musste. „Möge Gott diesen Neuanfang segnen und stärken“, schrieb der Priester damals im Pfarrbrief seiner neuen Wirkungsstätte.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

Bill White

Rep. Mark Rozzi doesn’t like hearing that it’s too close to the election for legislators to support the strongest possible version of House Bill 1947, the child sexual abuse statute of limitations bill.

“That’s somewhat disconcerting to me,” he said. “Any representative or senator who would make a comment like that should be voted out.”

Anyway, Rozzi isn’t convinced voting in favor would be all that risky.

“The majority of people in Pennsylvania know what’s going on,” he said. “They want this to happen.”

The last time I wrote about Berks County Democrat Rozzi, it still was unclear whether the House leadership would go along with his plan to discard the watered-down Senate version of the bill and restore its most important component to many survivors and advocates, the provision of some kind of retroactive access to the courts for victims of past abuse.

There was some sentiment that it would be wiser to accept the weaker bill and get it signed rather than risk returning it to a very uncertain fate in the Senate. After all, even as amended by the Senate, HB 1947 is a big improvement on the state’s present law. And with more grand jury reports likely as a result of investigations into abuse in several Pennsylvania dioceses, including Allentown, a renewed effort to restore retroactive civil access would gain plenty of momentum in the next legislative session.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

MPs have asked the former head of the child sex abuse inquiry to explain her departure amid concerns the government was aware of misconduct claims.

Dame Lowell Goddard quit in August but denied a report on Friday alleging misconduct and racism against her.

The most senior civil servant in the Home Office has also been asked to explain to MPs what the government knew about her resignation.

Prime Minister Theresa May and the home secretary may also be asked to appear.

Asked if the inquiry was now an embarrassment, Mrs May told the BBC: “No, it’s very important.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

Andrew Norfolk, Chief Investigative Reporter | Sean O’Neill, Chief Reporter
October 15 2016
The Times

MPs were given misleading information by the home secretary, it emerged last night as the government admitted that senior officials were alerted to concerns over the “professionalism and competence” of the judge leading the child abuse inquiry.

Amber Rudd told MPs last month that Dame Lowell Goddard quit her £500,000 post because she was homesick and lonely. Responding last night to revelations in The Times, the Home Office conceded that the judge was forced to stand down after officials close to Theresa May learnt of allegations about the New Zealander’s conduct.

Its statement was the first acknowledgement that the government was aware of concerns about Dame Lowell’s leadership of the £100 million inquiry before she resigned.

The Times reported yesterday that Home Office staff and advisers received warnings over several months about Dame Lowell’s allegedly offensive behaviour at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) but took no action to end her “catastrophic” tenure.

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