ABUSE TRACKER

CANADA
Peterborough Examiner

By Jason Bain, The Peterborough Examiner
Saturday, November 19, 2016

Tackle your issues head-on before you no longer can, urges Great Big Sea co-founder Sean McCann, who himself used music to overcome his own problems.

The former band member, who will perform and speak Nov. 26 at Market Hall as the final stop in his 2016 Road to Recovery Tour, is celebrating his fifth year of sobriety thanks to using the notes as medicine, as his own personal therapy.

“I guarantee I wouldn’t have been able to do it without my guitar,” he said earlier this week prior to a show in Calgary.

The former alcoholic once blamed the former energetic folk rock band, which wrote many songs about drinking, for leading him down a self-destructive path and into hard times. But he soon learned he was to blame, not the pieces the Newfoundlanders sang.

“It wasn’t bad at all. I was just singing the wrong song,” he said, adding how performing and sharing his story is what has really given him a sense of purpose. “This is what has propelled me to this moment in life.”

McCann has been outspoken about his struggle with addiction as his way to deal with the trauma of childhood sexual abuse by his parish priest while growing up in St. John’s.

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TENNESSEE
Commercial Appeal

Yolanda Jones , yolanda.jones@commercialappeal.com November 18, 2016

A city of Memphis library employee has been placed on paid leave after an ongoing police investigation into allegations that he sexually assaulted children when he worked as an assistant youth minister at a Germantown church 18 years ago.

The employee, who has not been arrested or charged in the cases, was placed on paid administrative leave pending the investigation into the allegations, city officials said in an email earlier this week.

Memphis police spokesman Louis Brownlee confirmed that the department’s sex crimes detectives are investigating.

“We do have an open investigation related to these allegations,” Brownlee said. “As with any investigation, if there are additional victims who have not come forward to file a complaint with law enforcement or if there are any individuals who have information concerning these incidents, they should contact MPD at any precinct or report to the Sex Crimes Bureau located at 201 Poplar Avenue, 11th floor.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By PRESS ASSOCIATION

A child sex abuse inquiry panel member has defended its fourth chairwoman after o ne of the largest victims’ groups involved withdrew from the probe – branding it an “unpalatable circus”.

Drusilla Sharpling insisted Professor Alexis Jay was “ideally” qualified for the job as t he Shirley Oaks Survivors Association (Sosa) and Labour MP Chuka Umunna called for her to be replaced.

Earlier, Sosa delivered a blistering critique of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) – describing it as a “stage-managed event” which has “lurched from crisis to crisis”.

Sosa represents victims affected by abuse at children’s homes run by Lambeth Council in south London.

It said it feared Prof Jay is “an uninspiring leader” and it does not believe she is the right person to uncover the truth behind allegations of historical abuse.

Downing Street and Home Secretary Amber Rudd have voiced their support and Ms Sharpling said Prof Jay’s work exposing prolonged abuse in Rotherham meant she had the expertise needed.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A panel member of the independent inquiry into child sex abuse has defended chairwoman Prof Alexis Jay as being “qualified for the job.”

The Shirley Oaks Survivors Association, for 600 victims who lived in children’s homes in London, is pulling out of the inquiry because of its leadership.

But Dru Sharpling said it would not prevent the inquiry from carrying on.

Labour MP Chuka Umunna has called for a new head, but Home Secretary Amber Rudd has backed Prof Jay’s leadership.

The inquiry said its work would continue with “confidence and clarity”, and Prime Minister Theresa May this week said she had absolute confidence in the inquiry’s leadership.

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DEUTSCHLAND
N-TV

[Six years after emergency of the abuse scandal in Germany, those affected continue to regard a high risk of attacks on children and adolescents.]

2010 werden in der Katholischen Kirche Missbrauchsfälle in großem Ausmaß bekannt. Heute seien Kinder und Jugendliche nicht weniger in Gefahr, Opfer sexueller Gewalt zu werden, sagt der Betroffenenrat. Das betreffe viele Bereiche der Gesellschaft.

Sechs Jahre nach dem Bekanntwerden des Missbrauchsskandals in Deutschland halten Betroffene die Gefahr von Übergriffen auf Kinder und Jugendliche weiter für hoch. “Kindesmissbrauch ist weltweit ein Bestandteil gesellschaftlicher Strukturen”, teilte der Betroffenenrat in Berlin mit. Familien seien ebenso betroffen wie Bildungseinrichtungen und religiöse Gemeinschaften.

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OSTERREICH
katholisch

[The State and the Catholic Church in Austria have apologized to victims of abuse. Cardinal Christoph Schonborn said for too long the victims have been disccarded and disowned. The event was attended by 250 victims.]

Österreich | Wien – 18.11.2016

Mit einem Staatsakt haben Staat und katholische Kirche in Österreich bei Opfern von Missbrauch um Entschuldigung gebeten. Viel zu lange sei verharmlost, vertuscht, verleugnet und weggeschaut worden, sagte Kardinal Christoph Schönborn am Donnerstagabend im Parlament in Wien. “Ich bitte um Entschuldigung”, so Schönborn an die Adresse der 250 Missbrauchs-Betroffenen, die bei der Veranstaltung zugegen waren. Wir haben in der Kirche wie auch im Staat zu lange weggeschaut. Wir haben vertuscht, wir haben, wenn Missbrauch bekannt geworden ist, Leute versetzt und nicht abgesetzt”, so der Wiener Erzbischof. “Für diese Schuld der Kirche stehe ich heute vor ihnen und sage: Ich bitte um Vergebung.”

Mit dem Staatsakt wollten Staat und Kirche eine gemeinsame “Geste der Verantwortung” für jenes Unrecht setzen, das Heimkinder in den vergangenen Jahrzehnten in staatlichen und kirchlichen Einrichtungen in Österreich erlitten haben. Das österreichische Fernsehen übertrug live. Bereits zuvor hatte Schönborn dazu gemahnt, das Thema Kindesmissbrauch nicht mehr zu verdrängen. Es sei wichtig, dass es aus dem öffentlichen Bewusstsein nie wieder verschwinde. “Und auch nicht aus dem Bewusstsein der Kirche”.

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MISSOURI
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Michael S. McGrath was a St. Louis archdiocesan priest, ordained in 1975. He assisted in parishes in Florissant, Wentzville, Overland, Concord Village, Pagedale and Bridgeton. For a short while he was the lead priest in Jennings. McGrath also taught in several parish schools and at DuBourg High School.

In 1993 McGrath was placed on leave and sent for treatment for a year after the archdiocese received an allegation that, while he was a seminarian in 1973-1974, McGrath fondled a boy. He was returned to active ministry. In 1997 he was suspended again after a concerned priest reported that McGrath had taken a group of boys on a trip to New Orleans. The archdiocesan review board recommended the suspension, saying that McGrath was not using “common sense.” McGrath found work driving buses for the city and for Greyhound.

In June 2003 a wrongful death suit was filed by the parents of a man who had recently committed suicide; the parents said McGrath sexually abused their son in the 1980s, beginning when the boy was a fourth-grader. The suicide occurred just after the man learned that the statute of limitations prevented him from filing criminal charges against the priest. This was the first of at least 21 lawsuits by people claiming abuse as children by McGrath. McGrath’s modus operandi was reportedly to take children on outings in his van, such as getting ice-cream or attending baseball games. There were also overnight trips. He typically would allow children to help drive the van while they sat in or near his lap. Most allegations were of fondling; at least one was of forced oral copulation. McGrath’s alleged victims were boys and girls. Two former female students of DuBourg High School separately reported that McGrath fondled them while they were sleeping during a trip in his van.

McGrath was laicized in 2005.

Ordained: 1975
Laicized: 2005

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

[with video]

Part 1: Johnstown man confronts past of sexual abuse by priest

BY MARTY RADOVANIC FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18TH 2016

JOHNSTOWN – A state grand jury continues its investigation of child sex abuse within the Catholic Church.

Agents of the attorney general recently raided the offices of the diocese of Erie, collecting boxes of documents.

Whispers of abuse have been prevalent in the Catholic Church for years.

That whisper became a roar when the grand jury announced its findings of widespread abuse in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown.

When the grand jury report was released in March, Shaun Dougherty says he knew it was time for him to go public, to make sure what happened to him would not happen to another child.

He reached out to a longtime friend, state Rep. Frank Burns, who in turn introduced him to Rep. Mark Rozzi, who says he had been molested by a priest as a child.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

November 19, 2016

DAN BOX
Crime reporterSydney
@DanBox10

The former dean of Newcastle’s Anglican cathedral has denied being questioned by the current Archbishop of Perth over reports that he sexually abused children during the late 1990s, a royal commission has heard.

Graeme Lawrence also told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse yesterday that he took no action against another priest alleged to have abused children as he expected his then bishop, Roger Herft, to do so instead.

“I didn’t take any particular action. I left it to the diocesan bishop and the registrar to do those ­actions that were in their purview, not mine,” Mr Lawrence said.

Asked why he did not return a call in 2000 from a man identifying himself as a detective and asking about the priest, Mr Lawrence said he doubted the call was genuine, despite believing the victim had gone to police.

“Are you seriously suggesting in your evidence that this telephone call was some kind of hoax?” counsel assisting the commission Naomi Sharp asked.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

Part 2: Dougherty plans to keep fighting for victims of child sex abuse

BY MARTY RADOVANIC FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18TH 2016

JOHNSTOWN — The sexual abuse scandal within the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown has been making headlines again after the release of a grand jury’s findings on the case.

However, not many victims have come forward in an effort to move past that part of their lives.

But one man who said he was abused by his parish’s priest said he can’t keep quiet any longer.

Shaun Dougherty was born and raised in Johnstown with eight siblings.

Dougherty’s family belonged to the St. Clement parish in Upper Yodder Township, and St. Clement Church was a large part of the Doughertys’ lives.

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

11/18/2016

Plan Exposes Unreasonable Insurance Companies

Committee Amended Disclosure Statement 11-17-2016
Committee Amended Plan of Reorganization 11-17-2016

(Minneapolis, MN) – The Creditors’ Committee in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis bankruptcy case has filed an amended reorganization plan. The plan preserves the rights to over $1 billion in available insurance assets.

“Some of the major insurance companies in the Archdiocese bankruptcy case are refusing to pay what they owe, leaving the abuse survivors to suffer,” said Attorney Jeff Anderson. “Travelers, CNA and AIG are asking the court to allow them to pay pennies on the dollar when their insurance contracts require them to pay close to $1 billion. The survivors’ plan makes sure that these insurance companies don’t get away with these deceptive practices.”

On Wednesday, the Archdiocese filed an amended reorganization plan, again leaving behind sexual abuse survivors. The plan calls for the Archdiocese to contribute less than 1% of its assets. The plan also lets the insurance companies off-the-hook and significantly undervalues their exposure.

The original plan filed by the Creditors’ Committee in August was the first of its kind filed by sexual abuse survivors in any diocesan or religious order bankruptcy proceeding. Among other provisions, the proposed Creditors’ Committee plan calls for the immediate release of the investigative report concerning former Archbishop John Nienstedt, all communications with the Vatican Embassy and requests an end to all payments currently being made to priests credibly accused of sexually abusing children.

A hearing is scheduled for December 15, 2016, at 1:00PM in United States Bankruptcy Court to discuss the two plans.

Contact: Jeff Anderson: Cell: 612.817.8665 Office: 651.964.3458
Mike Finnegan: Cell: 612.205.5531 Office: 651.964.3458

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TEXAS
TXK Today

By Fernanda Hernandez – November 18, 2016

A Texarkana pastor accused of sexually abusing two girls he met through his work as a clergyman is scheduled to appear for arraignment on nine felonies and one misdemeanor the week after Thanksgiving.

David Wayne Farren, 41, was arrested twice in August on warrants accusing him of sexual misconduct. He is currently free on a total $40,000 bond.

Earlier this month a criminal information was signed by Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Connie Mitchell charging Farren with nine felonies and one misdemeanor. Counts one through seven allege Farren had sex with a minor, “and was in a position of trust or authority over the victim and used the position of trust or authority to engage in sexual intercourse or deviate sexual activity,” with the girl.

All seven counts of first-degree sexual assault allegedly occurred beginning in April 2013 and continuing through August 2013. Count eight alleges Farren engaged in sexual contact with the same girl beginning in April 2012 and continuing through August 2013.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

David Gibson Religion News Service | Nov. 18, 2016

Vatican City — Pope Francis is firing back at foes of his efforts to make the Catholic church more open and pastoral in its ministry, telling an interviewer that “they are acting in bad faith to foment divisions.”

The pontiff’s lengthy interview in Avvenire, the official newspaper of the Italian hierarchy, was published Friday and followed days of news coverage of demands by four hard-line cardinals who have grave concerns about Francis’ approach.

The four say that focusing on ministering to people in their particular circumstances is eroding the church’s doctrinal absolutes and that Francis must dispel any ambiguities or face serious consequences.

The four critics, led by U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke, a Rome-based prelate and longtime opponent of the pontiff’s policies, had written privately to Francis in September.

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, N.M., Nov. 17, 2016

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

GALLUP – Bishop James S. Wall, of the Diocese of Gallup, will offer his first healing service for clergy sexual abuse survivors Saturday at Sacred Heart Cathedral in Gallup.

The service, which is scheduled for 7 p.m. Saturday, is the first in a series of 36 scheduled healing services spanning a period of about 15 months. The services, designed to atone for clergy sexual abuse, resulted from the Gallup Diocese’s Chapter 11 plan of reorganization. As outlined in the plan’s non-monetary provisions, Wall agreed to visit each operating Catholic parish or school in which sexual abuse occurred or where identified abusers served.

Diocesan officials designed the healing services to meet the plan’s requirement to have those visits.

No public forum

Suzanne Hammons, spokeswoman for the Diocese, said the services will consist of hymns, readings from Scripture, a reflection from the bishop and prayer. Hammons said the services are expected to last approximately 30 minutes.

“After each healing service, Bishop Wall will be available to meet privately for discussion with survivors and their families – one-on-one, if they request it,” Hammons wrote in an email Tuesday. “They will be able to ask him questions and discuss any concerns they might have with him at that time.”

According to the non-monetary provisions, the bishop “shall provide a forum/ discussion during his visit to address questions and comments.”

Hammons said the forum/discussion time will be after the services and not open to the general public. Rather, she said, they will be reserved for the questions and comments from abuse survivors during the private meetings.

“This is, first and foremost, a time for the survivors, so there is a place for a forum and discussion, and during these visits, it is provided to those affected by abuse,” Hammons said. “The format of the visit has been carefully crafted after discussion with the survivors’ committee, and it also closely follows what many other Dioceses have done and reported as productive for fostering healing.”

Plaque installation

Hammons acknowledged the media and “probably some parishioners” were hoping that the forum for questions and answers would be part of the service. However, she said, having private space for survivors to meet with Wall was the priority of the diocese.

“Bishop Wall makes many, many visits to each parish and school, and is almost always available to meet the Catholics of these parishes and speak with them,” she said.

“This does not mean we wish to ignore the concerns of Catholic parishioners – on the contrary, we welcome them!” Hammons added. “As always, I try to give out many ways of contacting us for parishioners who do wish to get in touch and ask questions.”

In addition to requiring the bishop’s visits, the non-monetary provisions require the diocese to “prominently and visibly” install plaques at each Catholic parish and school stating: “This Parish (or school) is strongly committed to the emotional, physical, spiritual and moral wellbeing of all of its members. Abuse of any kind will not be tolerated.”

Hammons said every church and school should have received its plaque and be in the process of installing it.

Before the end of the year, three more healing services are scheduled to be offered in Arizona parishes: Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament in Fort Defiance Nov. 29, Our Lady of Guadalupe in Holbrook Dec. 2, and St. Rita in Show Low Dec. 9. The series of services at other parishes and schools will resume in January.

Abuse survivors who would prefer to meet with the bishop in a different setting should contact Elizabeth Terrill, the victims’ assistance coordinator pro tem, at 505-906-7357.

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TENNESSEE
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Nov. 18, 2016

Victims want minister ousted
He admits not calling police in alleged abuse case
Still, he’s now with a regional Baptist group in TN
“This just encourages others to stay silent about abuse,” group says
Instead, SNAP wants church officials to “punish him and deter cover ups”
That’s how wrongdoing will be discouraged & victim will heal, support group maintains

A support group wants a Mid-South church organization to oust a Baptist minister who admits he didn’t call police when alleged child sex crimes were reported to him.

Leaders of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, are urging Mid-South Baptist Association in Tennessee to “denounce, discipline and publicly remove Rev. Scott Payne” from any posts in their organization.

In media interviews, Payne admits that he did not call police when he was confronted in the 1990s with allegations that Immanuel Baptist Church assistant youth pastor Chris Carwile had abused kids.

In recent news reports, several victims have come forward to tell their abuse stories and file police reports against Carwile. He’s worked recently at the main branch of the Memphis Public Library until he was suspended days ago.

SNAP contends that Payne’s actions are “a violation of common sense, common decency, pastoral responsibility and state law.”

“Rev. Payne should have no role or position in any church or religious body and should be drummed out of the ministry and never again given a position in which he might again ignore or hide child sexual abuse, either known or suspected,” David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP. “We hope law enforcement will investigate his actions – and inaction – and consider prosecuting him.”

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UNITED STATES
The Open Tabernacle: Here Comes Everybody

Posted on November 17, 2016 by Betty Clermont

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), “looks forward to working with President-elect Trump to protect human life from its most vulnerable beginning, [a] commitment to domestic religious liberty, ensuring people of faith remain free to proclaim the truth about man and woman [anti-transgender dogwhistle], and the unique bond of marriage that they can form …. We are firm in our resolve that our brothers and sisters who are migrants and refugees can be humanely welcomed without sacrificing our security.”

Much of this echoes the Vatican’s statement that “points of dialogue” with Trump will include “internal [domestic] subjects such as religious freedom, Catholics’ commitment and attention to the most vulnerable bands of society.”

Martin R. Castro, chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, recently stated: “The phrases ‘religious liberty’ and ‘religious freedom’ will stand for nothing except hypocrisy so long as they remain code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance.”

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UNITED STATES
Church Militant

by Christine Niles, M.St. (Oxon.), J.D. • ChurchMilitant.com • November 17, 2016

The recent elections of various prelates to top positions at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops means more of the same for American Catholics — which is to say, not much at all. Church Militant earlier reported on the election of Cdl. Daniel DiNardo as new head of the USCCB, who allowed the funeral Mass in his co-cathedral of a public organizer of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast (the same affiliate caught on video trading in aborted baby parts) and open gay “marriage” advocate, and the next year allowed the funeral Mass of an openly gay man in a public “marriage” to his male partner.

The USCCB’s newly elected vice president is Abp. Jose Gomez of Los Angeles, a man who has done little to clean up the mess left by his predecessor Cdl. Roger Mahony. Gomez oversees the gay and lesbian ministry in his archdiocese, which annually sponsors a gay pride Mass to coincide with the city’s gay pride parade. The archdiocesan ministry openly promotes same-sex “marriage,” health benefits for same-sex couples and gay-straight alliances in public schools, where children are indoctrinated in gay ideology.

Gomez also presides over the LA Religious Education Congress, notorious for its liturgical abuses, and which has offered transgender workshops where Church teaching on gender ideology is openly questioned. The Congress has also repeatedly invited Fr. Greg Boyle to speak, a dissident priest who is on public record supporting gay “marriage” and female ordination.

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ISRAEL
Times of Israel

The Jerusalem Magistrate Court on Thursday convicted a prominent rabbi after he admitted to two counts of indecent acts and one case of assault in a plea deal with the prosecution.

Under the terms of the deal, Rabbi Eliezer Berland, 79, who was extradited to Israel to face the charges after three years on the run, was cleared of two other charges of indecent acts. His sentencing hearing will be held next week.

However, Channel 2 reported that he is likely to serve 18 months of jail time, including time served since his arrest in the summer.

Considered a cult-like leader to thousands of his followers from the Bratslav Hasidic sect, Berland fled Israel in 2013 amid allegations that he molested two female followers, one of them a minor.

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GUAM
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Agana

The Archdiocese of Agana extends prayers to all victims of sexual abuse by Guam clergy during these difficult times.

With Father Louis Brouillard, a priest who served on Guam beginning in the 1950s having confessed last October to abusing altar boys on Guam decades ago, we convey our deepest apologies to Mr. Vicente Perez and Mr. Bruce Diaz for the pain they have suffered. No words can truly ease the suffering victims of abuse have experienced.

We convey our prayers again for the late Joseph “Sonny” Quinata and for his family who came forward in the past with allegations of abuse against Archbishop Anthony Apuron while he was still a priest.

The Archdiocese of Agana takes the matter of sexual abuse by clergy very seriously. A Task Force for the Protection of Minors was formed in September and since October, has been visiting each of our Catholic schools conducting training of staff and faculty about the prevention of sexual abuse.

A new Victims Support Group has been meeting regularly to develop even more comprehensive outreach, support and counseling help for all victims who come forward. Meanwhile, our Sexual Abuse Response Coordinator (SARC) Deacon Leonard Stohr continues to reach out to victims and persons alleging abuse and can be reached at all hours at 727-7373.

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GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Nov 18, 2016

By Sabrina Salas Matanane

In response to the newest court filings alleging child sex abuse by Guam clergy, the Archdiocese of Agana extends prayer to all victims. On Thursday, three more complaints for damages were filed.

Bruce Diaz and Vicente Perez alleged they were molested by Father Louis Brouillard when they were altar boys in the Barrigada parish and while they were Boy Scouts, where he served as scoutmaster. The third case was filed by the estate of the late Joseph Quinata. His mother, Doris Concepcion, alleged he told her on his deathbed that he had been molested by Archbishop Anthony Apuron decades ago.

In a statement issued this afternoon, the archdiocese acknowledged that Father Brouillard confessed to the abuse and extended their deepest apologies to the victims. They additionally conveyed prayers to Quinata and his family.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com 5:15 p.m. ChST November 18, 2016

Archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai and local organizations Concerned Catholics of Guam and Laity Forward Movement this week thanked the Carmelite sisters, dedicated to contemplation and prayer, for being a power station for Catholic church activities on Guam since 1966.

Carmelite Mother Superior Dawn Marie this week held a press conference, announcing the Carmelites decided to leave Guam after 50 years and move to California because of the “toxic environment” here, including the way Archbishop Anthony Apuron handled the Yona seminary and the sexual abuse allegations made against Apuron by former altar boys.

She said the Carmelites anonymously donated $2 million to purchase the seminary property for the Archdiocese of Agana, but said Apuron and others wanted the nuns to lie and say they intended their gift to be used for a seminary and theological institute controlled by the Neocatechumenal Way.

Hon expressed the Archdiocese of Agana’s sadness in seeing the nuns leave the island after 50 years, and apologized to them for having to experience a toxic environment.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Pacific Daily News , news@guampdn.com 5:14 p.m. ChST November 18, 2016

After 50 years, the Carmelite nuns have left Guam because of what Mother Superior Dawn Marie described as a “toxic environment” on the island. The nuns were behind the $2 million anonymous gift that was used to pay off the loan for the Accion Hotel, which was later converted to the Redemptoris Mater Seminary and the San Vitores Theological Institute of Oceania.

According to the mother superior, who is the last Carmelite nun here, they were also asked by Archbishop Anthony Apuron to lie about the donor’s intent for the gift.

The Carmelites’ website states that the order first arrived on Guam in 1966 from Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. They are cloistered, which means they leave the monastery only for emergencies. They lead quiet lives of work and contemplative prayer.

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ROME
Chiesa

The new president is one of the thirteen cardinals of the famous letter that infuriated the pope. The new vice-president is a member of Opus Dei. The defeat of the bishops favored by Bergoglio

by Sandro Magister

ROME, November 18, 2016 – Seven days after the election of Donald Trump to the presidency, the more than two hundred bishops of the United States also went to vote. To elect the one who will preside over them for the next three years.

A vote to which they came “as for a referendum on Pope Francis,” in the plain statement of John L. Allen, the top vaticanista in the United States.

And indeed it was a bit like this, even if the new president, Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo, immediately made a point of saying that it is “crazy” even to think that he is on the side of this pope, who is “doing some marvelous things for the Church.”

The fact is that when Francis visited the United States, in September of 2015, he ordered the bishops to change course and get into step with him.

Enough with “preaching complicated doctrines,” with the “harsh and divisive language,” with “making the cross a banner of worldly struggles.”

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SCOTLAND
The Times

Hamish Macdonell
November 18 2016
The Times

Survivors’ groups have reacted angrily after John Swinney announced only limited changes to Scotland’s child abuse inquiry.

The education secretary told MSPs that he would lift the three-year time bar which has prevented many survivors from launching civil actions against their alleged abusers.

But Mr Swinney said he would be failing the survivors of in-care abuse if he opened up the scope of the inquiry to include incidents at youth groups and day schools.

He also announced a consultation on compensation, disappointing those who wanted the minister to unveil a package of payments for those who have suffered.

Alan Draper, of the In Care Abuse Survivors group, accused Mr Swinney of “continuing to fail countless survivors”, claiming the lengthening process was starting to resemble legal proceedings from a Dickens novel.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Stephen Naysmith

THE Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry was set up to shine a light on the abuse of children in residential care provided by the state, or by charities and others acting on its behalf.

The inquiry’s job is straightforward: to acknowledge victims of the most horrendous breach of trust, and to attempt to learn from what happened so future children can be better protected.

But there has been an increasing clamour from groups representing child abuse survivors for the inquiry’s remit to be extended. It is unjust, they argue, that some children who were abused by adults in positions of power are not covered by the inquiry because that abuse was not carried out in the care of the state. This may seem unfair. But Education Secretary John Swinney is correct. Such cases cannot be covered by this inquiry.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent

Rob Merrick Deputy Political Editor @Rob_Merrick

The child sex abuse inquiry descended into further chaos today when a senior MP called for its fourth chairwoman to be sacked.

Labour’s Chuka Umunna spoke out after the largest victims’ group, representing 600 victims who lived in London children’s homes, quit the inquiry – calling it an “unpalatable circus”.

The Shirley Oaks Survivors Association said its members had voted “overwhelmingly” to pull out, warning it had no confidence in Alexis Jay, its fourth leader.

Many of the group’s abuse victims live in the South London constituency of Mr Umunna, a member of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, which recently quizzed Professor Jay.

Today, the Labour MP told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that only the leadership of a judge, at High Court level or above, could rescue the inquiry.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Damien Gayle

One of the biggest survivors’ groups involved in the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse is to formally withdraw from the investigation, denouncing it as a “botch job that needs a drastic overhaul if it is ever to achieve its initial objectives”.

The Shirley Oaks Survivors Association (Sosa), which represents people subjected to abuse at children’s homes run by Lambeth council in south London, described the inquiry as a “stage-managed event which has now been contrived in such a way that it enables the guilty to wash their dirty hands, whilst the establishment pats itself on the back”.

It is the latest setback for the inquiry, which is on its fourth chairwoman since it was established in 2014 and has had three people resign from its legal team.

On Friday morning, Chuka Ummuna, the Labour MP whose Streatham constituency is home to many Sosa members, said he had lost confidence in Prof Alexis Jay’s ability to chair the investigation and called for a judge “of high court standing or senior” to take the reins.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Evening Standard

KATE PROCTOR

The independent inquiry into historical child sex abuse was thrown into further turmoil today when the largest victims’ group withdrew, branding it an “unpalatable circus”.

The Shirley Oaks Survivors Association, which represents 600 victims of alleged sexual abuse, said it has lost confidence in the inquiry’s leadership. The group’s withdrawal is yet another blow for the inquiry, which is on its fourth chairwoman in just two years and has seen a number of senior lawyers resign in recent months.

The group represents former residents of children’s homes run by Lambeth council who claim they were abused by paedophiles over several decades. It said it believed the inquiry was a “botch job” and chair Professor Alexis Jay was the wrong person to lead it. Its representative, Raymond Stephenson, told the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme the inquiry was “failing tragically” and “failing publicly”. He added: “They need to get rid of Alexis Jay, who has been parachuted in by the Home Office.

“She hasn’t done anything wrong, she’s just not the right person. We have to make a decision based on what we feel.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By JAMES TAPSFIELD, POLITICAL EDITOR FOR MAILONLINE

Labour MP Chuka Umunna has demanded Professor Alexis Jay stand aside after the biggest victims’ group withdrew their support.

The Shirley Oaks Survivors Association condemned the probe – set up by Theresa May when she was home secretary – for allowing the ‘guilty to wash their dirty hands’.

The latest setback will fuel questions about the future of the inquiry, which has had four different chairs in just two years.

However, Downing Street insisted the Prime Minister still had full confidence in Professor Jay.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

Home Secretary Amber Rudd has defended the independent inquiry into historical child sex abuse after the largest group of victims pulled out of the process.

The Shirley Oaks Survivors Association, for 600 victims who lived in children’s homes in Lambeth, said it had no confidence in the inquiry’s leadership.

Chuka Umunna MP said the inquiry chair, Prof Alexis Jay, should be replaced.

But Ms Rudd said: “We owe it to victims and survivors to get behind the inquiry, and its chair.”

She said the inquiry had a “vital role to play in exposing the failure of public bodies and other major organisations to prevent child sexual abuse”.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

IAN KIRKWOOD
18 Nov 2016

THE defrocked former Anglican dean of Newcastle, Graeme Lawrence, has begun his long-awaited stint of evidence before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Taking the stand under oath after the lunch break, an at-times combative Mr Lawrence was taken through his relationships – professional and social – with the other main Anglican figures named in this section of the commission’s investigations.

Having been mentioned so frequently during this inquiry, Mr Lawrence’s evidence was always going to be pivotal, and he clashed from early on with the counsel assisting the commission, Naomi Sharp.

Although he was forced by the revelation of documents to modify some of his early evidence, he insisted that while he was dean of Christ Church Cathedral from 1984 to 2008, he had only ever heard one allegation of an Anglican clergyman abusing children, that of priest CKC accused of abusing a person code-named CKA.

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IRELAND
Church Times (UK)

by Gregg Ryan, Ireland Correspondent
Posted: 18 Nov 2016

AN ELDERLY man who admitted to abusing young boys over a 40-year period, and who had undertaken volunteer work in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, was sentenced on Thursday to 13 years in prison.

Patrick O’Brien, aged 76, of Knocklyon Road, Templeogue, on the south side of Dublin, was described as a “prolific child-molester”.

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AUSTRALIA
Cairns Post

Megan Neil, Australian Associated Press
November 18, 2016

Compensation payments to people sexually abused as children by Catholic clergy in the Melbourne archdiocese are expected to surpass $31 million after the church doubled the maximum available payout.

The compensation cap under the church’s Melbourne Response scheme will rise from $75,000 to $150,000, putting it in line with the maximum payment under the federal government’s planned commonwealth redress scheme.

Past payments to abuse survivors under the much-criticised Melbourne Response, set up in 1996 by then Melbourne archbishop Cardinal George Pell, will be topped up if the victim would have received a higher offer had the new system been in force when their compensation was determined.

Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart said the $15 million the archdiocese had paid in compensation under the scheme was expected to rise to $31.7 million under the new system, which brings in changes recommended in a review by retired Federal Court judge Donnell Ryan QC.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

IAN KIRKWOOD
18 Nov 2016

NEWCASTLE’S assistant Anglican Bishop Peter Stuart has told the Royal Commission that Newcastle had more of a problem with clerical child sexual abuse than either Adelaide or Tasmania, where he had also worked.

Concluding his evidence to the Royal Commission, Bishop Stuart said Tasmania had developed a “culture of awareness and an arena of safety” and he did not think such a set-up had been in place in Newcastle.

Resuming after the morning adjournment, Bishop Stuart was asked about the congregation at St Stephens, Adamstown, where the defrocked former dean of Newcastle, Graeme Lawrence, has been worshipping in the congregation of Reverend Chris Bird.

Bishop Stuart said he had concerns about Mr Lawrence worshipping there.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Australian Associated Press

The Catholic church has doubled the maximum compensation payment to people sexually abused as children by clergy in the Melbourne archdiocese to $150,000.

Abuse survivors who have already received payments under the Melbourne Response can have their cases reviewed to determine if they are eligible for additional compensation.

The doubling of the compensation cap from 1 January 2017 puts it in line with the maximum payment under the federal government’s redress scheme starting in 2018.

On Friday Melbourne archbishop Denis Hart said the archdiocese was committed to a fair system of redress.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

Miranda Forster – AAP on November 18, 2016,

Former Anglican dean of Newcastle Graeme Lawrence says allegations he sexually abused children are “incorrect”, and denies ever being asked about them by senior clergy despite documents that suggest he was.

Lawrence, now defrocked, appeared at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney on Friday.

He was taken to a 1995 letter from then-Bishop of Newcastle Roger Herft to youth camp leader Robert Wall, who has made a statement to the commission that two boys told him Lawrence sexually interfered with them.

“Mr Wall is absolutely incorrect,” Lawrence said of the statement, and maintained he’d never been to a youth camp.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

Telegraph Reporters
18 NOVEMBER 2016

One of the biggest victims’ groups involved in the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has announced it is formally pulling out of the probe.

In the latest setback for the inquiry, set up by then home secretary Theresa May, the Shirley Oaks Survivors Association, described it as a “stage-managed event which has now been contrived in such a way that it enables the guilty to wash their dirty hands, whilst the establishment pats itself on the back”.

The group, which represents people affected by abuse at children’s homes run by Lambeth council in south London, said in a statement: “Having watched the IICSA unpalatable circus stumble and lurch from crisis to crisis with multiple resignations and claims of racial and sexual abuse thrown into the mix, it no longer matters whether we think the inquiry is just another stitch-up because it’s clearly a botch job that needs a drastic overhaul if it is ever to achieve its initial objectives.”
The announcement comes two days after it emerged that another senior lawyer at the inquiry, chaired by Professor Alexis Jay, had resigned.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Care Appointments

Written by The Press Association

One of the biggest victims’ groups involved in the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse has announced it is formally pulling out of the probe.

In the latest setback for the inquiry, set up by then home secretary Theresa May, the Shirley Oaks Survivors Association, described it as a “stage-managed event which has now been contrived in such a way that it enables the guilty to wash their dirty hands, whilst the establishment pats itself on the back”.

The group, which represents people affected by abuse at children’s homes run by Lambeth council in south London, said in a statement: “Having watched the IICSA unpalatable circus stumble and lurch from crisis to crisis with multiple resignations and claims of racial and sexual abuse thrown into the mix, it no longer matters whether we think the inquiry is just another stitch-up because it’s clearly a botch job that needs a drastic overhaul if it is ever to achieve its initial objectives.”

The announcement comes two days after it emerged that another senior lawyer at the inquiry had resigned.

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AUSTRALIA
Premier (UK)

Fri 18 Nov 2016
By Premier Journalist

Compensation pay outs to child abuse survivors are expected to cost the Catholic Church in Australia £18.4 million ($31million).

After a review, the church made the decision to raise the compensation cap for victims from £44,500 to £89,000 ($75,000 to $150,000).

After a series of allegations against the conduct of Catholic priests in the Australian city, the Archdiocese of Melbourne set up the Melbourne Response to investigate the accusations in 1996.

Complaints are assessed by an independent commissioner and referred on to a compensation panel.

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CONNECTICUT
Yale News

It was fear of a new boss that prompted longtime Boston Globe journalist Walter “Robbie” Robinson and his investigative team to get the ball rolling on its Pulitzer Prize-winning series about the Catholic church’s cover-up of sexual abuse by priests in the Boston archdiocese.

Robinson, now editor-at-large of the Boston Globe, led the newspaper’s investigative Spotlight team for seven years until 2006. In 2002, the team began the series of stories revealing that for years the church knew about and covered up sexual abuse in its ranks — sometimes with secret settlements with victims. The team’s investigative efforts were portrayed in the Academy Award-winning 2015 movie “Spotlight” (in which Michael Keaton played Robinson).

Robinson and other Boston Globe reporters reacted like “deer caught in the headlights” when their new boss, Marty Barron, asked his staff during his first news meeting with them about a lawsuit involving one priest, the journalist told the audience during a well-attended conversation with Dr. Richard Schottenfeld, head of Davenport College, in the college’s common room. The judge had put the records that the church provided the plaintiff under seal, and Barron asked the reporters what was being done to gain access to them.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Chris Vedelago Cameron Houston

The Catholic Church has pledged to double potential compensation payments for child sex abuse survivors to $150,000 but has back-tracked on a promise to publicly release an independent review into its controversial Melbourne response victim compensation scheme.

The decision is expected to upset survivors, their families and victims advocates who have been waiting for more than a year for Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart to authorise the release of the report, some of whom contributed to its creation.

In 2014, retired Federal Court judge Donnell Ryan was commissioned to examine the operation of the Melbourne Response program following complaints about its fairness.

The report was handed more than a year ago to Archbishop Hart, who had pledged to release its findings.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By David Marchese

A disgraced former Anglican dean facing allegations of child sexual abuse has emphatically denied any wrongdoing to a royal commission during a dramatic afternoon of questioning.

Graeme Lawrence has been one of the most anticipated witnesses at a child abuse royal commission hearing that is probing the response to widespread paedophile activity in the Newcastle diocese spanning several decades.

Mr Lawrence served as dean of Newcastle’s Anglican cathedral from 1984 until 2008 and was defrocked in 2012 in the wake of abuse allegations levelled at him.

Counsel assisting the commission, Naomi Sharp, asked Mr Lawrence about whether he had had any involvement in handling allegations of child abuse in the diocese.

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NEW YORK
Esquire

BY ERIC LEWIS NOV 17, 2016

During the summer of 1968, Robert and Pamela DiBenedetto spent four weeks at sleepaway camp in upstate New York. The siblings, twins from Brooklyn, were twelve years old, and their camps were on opposite sides of a lake. One morning, Pamela woke up in her cabin with a swollen arm, an injury that puzzled the camp nurse: Pamela had not fallen or tripped, been bitten or stung. At the end of the season, however, she learned that her brother had broken his arm across the lake the day her swelling began.

As a high school student at Fontbonne Hall, a Catholic girls’ school in Bay Ridge, Pamela came to every football game at Poly Prep, the nearby boys’ school where Robert and I were both students. Now sixty-one, she long ago took the last name, Romano, of her late husband. But when I saw her recently, she had the same bright green eyes and balletic grace that she had in her youth. She told me the story about her arm to illustrate the bond that she and her brother had shared until his death in 1984.

Robert had been two grades ahead of me at Poly Prep. A smart kid with wiry hair and glasses, he was always laughing at the center of a gang of football players. He wasn’t big enough to play on the great teams of our era, but from ninth grade on, he served as a manager for the varsity squad. Known to everyone as DiBo, Robert had close friends among the players, and he took it upon himself to introduce new guys like me to the team, whether at school or at Short’s, the dive bar where we hung out on the weekends. (A sign over the bar said STRICT PROOF OF AGE REQUIRED, which, we joked, meant you had to prove you had an age.)

After the twins’ father died suddenly when they were in ninth grade, Robert was taken under the wing of Poly’s head football coach, a squat colossus of a man named Philip Foglietta. Fat and muscular, Foglietta was around five foot five and weighed well over 250 pounds. From the moment he’d arrived at Poly Prep, in 1966, he had dominated the campus; players, students, and colleagues all saw him as the ultimate macho man. Those of us on the football team were desperate to please him, but we also feared his wrath, which often found expression in his unique dialect of Neapolitan Brooklynese. (“Gamine Gotz, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” was a favorite curse.) By 1972, when Foglietta took Poly to the Ivy Prep School league championship, he was widely regarded as one of the best high school football coaches in New York City.

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CANADA
Brampton Guardian

KENTVILLE, N.S. — His face streaked with tears, the middle-aged man put his head in his hands and breathed heavily.

Testifying about an alleged sexual encounter with Brent Hawkes as a teen more than 40 years ago, his face was red with emotion. The man declined suggestions, however, that he should take a break from the witness stand.

“I think this is as good as it’s going to get,” the man quietly said of his emotional state Tuesday.

It was his first day of testimony at the well-known Toronto pastor’s trial on charges of indecent assault and gross indecency. The man, the complainant in the case, will return to the stand Thursday after an off-day Wednesday.

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CANADA
Local Express

by: Ian Fairclough

The trial of Rev. Brent Hawkes continued in Kentville provincial court Thursday morning, with defence lawyer Clayton Ruby again questioning the memory of a man who alleges that Hawkes sexually assaulted him in the 1970s.

Hawkes is charged with indecent assault and gross indecency for allegedly assaulting the man when he was a student at West Kings District High School in the 1970s.

He showed the man a document that indicated Hawkes wasn’t a teacher when the man was in Grade 9, as he had testified. The man said he couldn’t explain that.

“That’s my memory,” the man said of his assertion that he had Hawkes as a teacher.

“That’s my point,” Ruby replied.

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CANADA
Newstalk

Don Mitchell
November 17, 2016

The Toronto pastor accused of sexually assaulting a minor back in the ’70s took to the stand in a Nova Scotia courtroom on Thursday.

Brent Hawkes said there was no sexual activity at his then home, a trailer in the Annapolis Valley, during what a witness described as a drinking party.

Hawkes is facing charges of indecent assault and gross indecency.

Earlier in the trial, a witness testified that Hawkes had taken him to a bedroom in the trailer and performed sexual acts on him.

“I do not recall… walking (the complainant) down the hallway,” Hawkes said.

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CANADA
CBC News

By Blair Rhodes, CBC News Posted: Nov 17, 2016

Two very different versions of what happened on a night some 40 years ago emerged Thursday as Toronto pastor Brent Hawkes and his accuser both testified in a Nova Scotia courtroom.

Hawkes, a prominent rights activist, is charged with gross indecency and indecent assault for incidents that allegedly occurred in the 1970s. His trial began Monday in provincial court in Kentville, N.S.

When asked by Crown Prosecutor Bob Morrison about the night in question, Hawkes was emphatic.

“It’s not true,” he told the court. “It did not happen.”

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CANADA
Toronto Star

By ALY THOMSON
The Canadian Press
Thu., Nov. 17, 2016

KENTVILLE, N.S.—Prominent Toronto pastor Brent Hawkes appeared calm on the witness stand Thursday as he categorically denied that he performed sex acts on a teenage boy at his trailer in Nova Scotia in the mid-1970s.

“It’s not true. It did not happen,” Hawkes said in a hushed voice, shaking his head in the Kentville, N.S., courtroom.

On Tuesday, a man testified that Hawkes led him down a hallway during a drunken get-together at his trailer in Greenwood, N.S., and forced oral sex on him in a bedroom.

Hawkes, then a teacher in his mid-20s in the Annapolis Valley, said Thursday it wasn’t unusual for students and teachers to stop by his trailer, especially around that time, as they wanted to say goodbye before he moved to Toronto to work with a church.

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NEW YORK
Road to Recovery

Clergy sexual abuse victim, Neal E. Gumpel, his wife, and supporters to demonstrate at Fordham University and Fordham Prep in the Bronx in the aftermath of a Business Insider article (http://www.businessinsider.com/catholic-church-sexual-abuse-victims-compensation-fund-2016-11) that told his story of sexual abuse by a Catholic Jesuit priest, Fr. Roy Alan Drake, SJ, a deceased Fordham Prep and Fordham University teacher and professor, who has been previously identified as a sexual abuser, and the refusal of the Northeast Province of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits), Fordham University, and Fordham Prep to fairly compensate him. After an investigation, Mr. Gumple was found to be credible by the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) with regard to his claim.

Business Insider, the largest business news site on the web, published an article during the week of November 14, 2016, entitled, “The Catholic Church has a plan to compensate sexual-abuse victims, but many will get nothing.” It described the compensation plan of the Archdiocese of New York which assists victims of clergy (Archdiocesan priests and deacons only) sexual abuse but does not include sexual abuse victims of religious order priests, sisters (nuns), brothers, deacons, and all lay Church employees who work or have worked in the Archdiocese of New York with the express consent of the Cardinal/Archbishop of New York.

Demonstrators will urge Fordham University and Fordham Prep students, faculty, administrators, and the general public to demand that Fordham University, Fordham Prep, and the Society of Jesus do the right thing by fairly and justly compensating sexual abuse victims of Jesuit priests, like Neal E. Gumpel, whose allegations of sexual abuse by Fr. Roy Alan Drake, SJ, have been found credible. In addition, Cardinal Timothy Dolan must demand of religious orders that they fairly and justly compensate sexual abuse victims of their members and lay employees or else they may not serve in the Archdiocese of New York

What and Why
A demonstration and leafleting alerting faculty, students, administrators, and the general public about the unfair and re-victimizing policy of the Archdiocese of New York to NOT include in its recently-announced compensation program for victims of Archdiocese of New York clergy, sexual abuse victims of religious order personnel, like Jesuits, who sexually abused children; and the unfair and re-victimizing policy of the Society of Jesus, Fordham University, and Fordham Prep NOT to compensate a sexual abuse victim of Fr. Roy Alan Drake, SJ, previously identified as a sexual abuser, Neal E. Gumpel, whose allegations have been found credible by the Society of Jesus, Fordham University, and Fordham Prep

When
Friday, November 18, 2016 from 11:00 am until 1:00 pm

Where
Outside the main gates of Fordham University and Fordham Prep, 400 Southern Boulevard, Bronx, NY (near the entrance of the New York Botanical Garden)

Who
Neal E. Gumpel, his wife, Helen, and Dr. Robert M. Hoatson, President of Road to Recovery, Inc., a non-profit charity based in New Jersey that assists victims of sexual abuse and their families

Contact
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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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Tom Gordon , Scottish Political Editor

JOHN SWINNEY has been accused of letting down the survivors of child abuse after refusing to extend the remit of the inquiry established by the Scottish Government into the issue.

The Education Secretary was criticised after he said he would not expand the independent Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry to cover day schools and youth groups.

The four year inquiry will focus on sexual, physical and emotional abuse in foster care, children’s homes, boarding schools and long-term hospital care.

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BELGIE
HLN

[The facts of sexual abuse in the College in Waregem, dozens of years ago, are barred. So says the Office of West Flanders, department Kortrijk. There is a claim made to dismiss the case. In March 2015 a complaint was filed with a civil action in the courts. That complaint was directed against four different parties within the Sacred Heart College. Some priest-teachers were accused of sexual offenses in the 70s and 80s.]

De feiten van seksueel misbruik in het College in Waregem, van tientallen jaar geleden, zijn verjaard. Dat zegt het parket van West-Vlaanderen, afdeling Kortrijk. Er is een vordering tot buitenvervolgingstelling opgesteld.

In maart 2015 werd een klacht met burgerlijke partijstelling ingediend bij het parket. Die klacht richtte zich tegen vier verschillende partijen binnen het Heilig-Hartcollege. Enkele priester-leraars werden beschuldigd van zedenfeiten in de jaren 70 en 80.

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URUGUAY
MDZ

[Uruguay Three priests of the Catholic Church were charged with sexually assaulting several children. The cases were recorded in the province of Entre Ríos.]

Tres sacerdotes de la Iglesia Católica fueron imputados por atacar sexualmente a varios niños. Los casos se registraron en la provincia de Entre Ríos.

Según reveló Jorge Riani en diario La Nación, el caso que mayor repercusión generó fue el que involucra al cura Justo José Ilarraz, que dentro de poco tiempo irá a juicio, acusado de haber violado a seminaristas, menores de edad, entre 1984 y 1992.

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PARGUAY
La Vanguardia

[A court in Asuncion condemned a priest to six years in prison for a crime of sexual abuse against two minors who helped him as altar servers, the Paraguayan prosecutor said Wednesday.]

Asunción, 15 nov (EFE).- Un tribunal de Asunción condenó a un sacerdote a seis años de prisión por un delito de abuso sexual contra dos menores de edad que le ayudaban como monaguillos, informó hoy la Fiscalía paraguaya.

Los hechos ocurrieron a finales de 2013 en una parroquia del barrio San Vicente de Asunción, cuando las víctimas tenían trece años de edad, de acuerdo con un comunicado de la Fiscalía.

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URUGUAY
Prensa Latina (Cuba)

[The Episcopal Conference of Uruguay announced today that four priests of its ministry were suspended for committing sexual abuse against minors.]

Montevideo, 16 nov (PL) La Conferencia Episcopal de Uruguay anunció hoy que cuatro sacerdotes de su ministerio fueron separados por cometer abusos sexuales contra menores.

Hoy queremos informar sobre los resultados del estudio que emprendimos para conocer ‘con exactitud esta triste situación’, y las medidas que hemos adoptado, señaló un comunicado publicado en su sitio web.

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LUXEMBURG
L’essentiel

[LUXEMBOURG – “It began with a kiss from the pastor” – a Luxembourgian said in court how a priest from Belair became abusive on a Taizé trip.]

LUXEMBURG – «Es begann mit einem Kuss vom Pastor» – ein Luxemburger Messdiener berichtet vor Gericht, wie ein Priester aus Belair auf einer Taizé-Fahrt zudringlich wurde.

Stille im Gerichtssaal in Luxemburg-Stadt: In einem Prozess um Missbrauchsvorwürfe gegen einen Luxemburger Pastor berichtet das mutmaßliche Opfer gestern, wie sich die Tat abgespielt haben soll. Die Aussage des inzwischen 22-Jährigen wurde per Video in den Saal gespielt, die Verhandlung fand öffentlich statt. Das berichtet RTL.

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ISRAEL
Arutz Sheva

Rabbi Eliezer Berland, who fled Israel after allegations of sexual misconduct against female followers came to light in 2012, will serve 18 months in prison for sexual abuse.

Berland, 79, is the founder of the Shuvu Banim yeshiva in the Old City of Jerusalem and was a prominent figure within the Breslov community. He managed to evade Israeli authorities until his capture in South Africa in late 2015. Rabbi Berland was finally returned to Israel in July, 2016.

According to a plea bargain agreement signed on Thursday, Berland will plead guilty to two charges of sexual assault against two of his female followers, and will be sentenced to 18 months imprisonment.

The nearly four months Berland has already served will be counted towards his jail term.

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UTAH
Daily Utah Chronicle

CONNOR RICHARDS on November 8, 2016

The Book of Mormon. You’ve probably heard of it. A holy book that contains the official beliefs and teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it is ultimately a narrative of an intense battle between good and evil, black and white. Literally. Translated by LDS founder and prophet Joseph Smith in the early 1800s, it tells the tale of two lost tribes of Israel — the Nephites and Lamanites — that left the holy land in 600 B.C. In traditional Mormon teachings, the Nephites are described as being noble, handsome and fair-skinned. The Lamanites, on the other hand, are portrayed as being brute, savage and dark-skinned.

You can guess who the good and bad guys in the story are.

The story goes that the Lamanites beat out their white and holy counterparts and claimed the Americas for their own. Thus, the origin of Native Americans, according to Mormon leaders and scholars.

One implication of this history is an inherent and intellectually inescapable belief that Native Americans, as well as other races cursed with “skin of blackness,” for that matter, are inferior to white folk. This is well-documented in Mormon and Utah history. It explains why black men were barred from holding the priesthood until 1978, as well as why black and interracial couples were disqualified from having their marriages sealed in the temple until that same year.

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UNITED STATES
The Atlantic

LILLY FOWLER OCT 23, 2016

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

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

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

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

TOM PETERKIN

John Swinney is to remove a three year time bar which constrains the ability of child abuse victims to seek civil damages in court.

The Deputy First Minister published legislation to get rid of the time bar, which requires those who want to raise a personal injury action for damages to do so within three years of the date on which the injuries were sustained.

The current law means that child abuse survivors are usually required to raise civil action by the date of their 19th birthday – three years after they reach the age of 16.

Survivors have campaigned for the removal of the time bar while the Scottish Government has been working on its inquiry into historical abuse, chaired by Lady Smith.

The bar will be abolished under the forthcoming Limitation (Childhood Abuse) (Scotland) Bill, which will be the Scottish Government’s first piece of legislation of the 2016/17 parliamentary year.

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SCOTLAND
STV

Aidan Kerr

The inquiry into child abuse in Scotland will only investigate incidents which took place against those who were not in the legal care of their parents, John Swinney has said.

In a statement to MSPs on Thursday, the education secretary said he has made the remit of the inquiry clearer to make sure there was no confusion over what the panel could investigate.

The inquiry, chaired by Lady Smith, will hear evidence of abuse carried out against children who were in long-term legal care of institutions and bodies.

If abuse against those individuals was carried out outside the institution but while they were still under their care, the inquiry will investigate it.

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GUAM
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Agana

Message by Archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai, SDB

We all were saddened by the news that the Carmelite Sisters were to leave the Island. It was absolutely a very difficult move both for them and for the faithful on Guam. The Archdiocese has been so privileged to have them among us ever since 1966. With their dedication to contemplation and prayer, the Carmelite community has become a power station for Church activities.

To the beloved Carmelite Sisters, I have to apologize and to admit certain damages of the “toxic environment” they experienced. In the month of July, eight seminarians were asked by their bishops to return to their dioceses from the RMS. Before their departure, I met them one by one and started to better realize the complexity of the issues which gave rise to the so-called “toxic environment”.

The Sisters did not only assist the Archdiocese spiritually but also materially. We are now in a position to express our heartfelt gratitude publicly to you and your community, for it was through your effort that we received two million dollars to settle our big loan from the bank for the purchase of the Yona seminary property in view of the formation of future priests.

We appreciate the clarification made by Mother Dawn Marie this week regarding the genuine intent of the benefactor, which was unfortunately twisted by some people. The Sisters tried hard to tolerate it and to remain silent as much as possible. I personally knew of their suffering because as a Secretary working in the Holy See I was able to read those correspondences mentioned by the Mother Prioress and I respect their willingness to suffer in silence. However, silence in this case did not suffice, because things were getting worse to a point that the reputation of their community was at stake. I am glad that before her departure this week Mother Dawn Marie was able to reveal the truth in a limpid way.

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GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Nov 17, 2016

By Sabrina Salas Matanane

Archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai is expressing his gratitude and issuing an apology to the Carmelite Sisters. This week, Mother Superior Dawn Marie of the Carmelite Sisters on Guam broke her silence about what happened several years ago as it related to the Archdiocese of Agana’s acquisition of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary in Yona. She also shared the reasons for the departure of the Carmelite Sisters from Guam. One month after celebrating 50 years on island, the Carmelite nuns packed up and moved to California because of what Mother Dawn described as a “toxic environment” surrounding the local church embroiled in controversy over allegations of child sex abuse and questions of ownership of the RMS property.

During a press conference held at the Carmelite’s home in Tamuning, Mother Dawn revealed that she was the one who was able to secure $2 million dollars from her Carmelite Sisters in the states to pay off a loan that was used by the Archdiocese of Agana to purchase the RMS property in Yona. The donor was supposed to be kept anonymous. Mother Dawn said Archbishop Apuron not only revealed that the Carmelite Sisters in the states were the benefactor but also years later he would write a letter asking that they say the donation was purposely earmarked for the RMS and the San Vitores Theological Institute of Oceania. Mother Dawn said they did not agree to do that because “that was completely untrue”. She told media that this was reported to the Vatican and to their attorneys, but the Carmelites decided to remain silent and not litigate the issue. That was until this week.

In a statement issued Thursday evening, Archbishop Hon said they were all saddened by the news that the Carmelite Sisters were to leave Guam. He also apologized and admitted to certain damages of the toxic environment that they experienced. “We appreciate the clarification made by Mother Dawn Marie this week regarding the genuine intent of the benefactor, which was unfortunately twisted by some people. The Sisters tried hard to tolerate it and to remain silent as much as possible. I personally knew of their suffering because as a Secretary working in the Holy See I was able to read those correspondences mentioned by the Mother Prioress and I respect their willingness to suffer in silence. However, silence in this case did not suffice, because things were getting worse to a point that the reputation of their community was at stake. I am glad that before her departure this week Mother Dawn Marie was able to reveal the truth in a limpid way,” Archbishop Hon stated in a press release.

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CONNECTICUT
National Catholic Reporter

Peter Feuerherd | Nov. 17, 2016

If the late comic Rodney Dangerfield were a state, he might be Connecticut.

It doesn’t get a lot of respect. Small in size (number 48 out of 50); with a name difficult to spell, it suffers from an identity crisis: is it a New York City suburb? Or a slice of New England with leanings towards Boston? Its baseball sympathies includes a mythical dividing line between Red Sox Nation and New York Yankeedom.

The state does lead the nation in per capita personal income. At the same time, its combination of affluent suburban towns mixed with struggling cities like Bridgeport and Hartford makes it number two in income inequality.

Now Connecticut can add another number one to its list: it is tops, according to a 2015 Pew study, in the percentage of baptized Catholics who no longer consider themselves Catholics (see page 143 of this study appendix).

According to Pew, the number of nones — those who respond that they do not consider themselves part of any religious tradition — is growing. Many of the nones are former Catholics. Nationwide, over a seven-year period from 2007 to 2014, self-identifying Catholics in the U.S. population fell from 23 to 20 percent. Connecticut leads with a 10 percent drop.

What’s up with the Nutmeg State?

NCR asked prominent Connecticut Catholics and Mark Silk, a non-Catholic religion scholar and writer, to address reasons and suggest solutions.

First, the possible reasons:

The Pew study indicates that Catholics in Massachusetts, just behind Connecticut in this category, were hit hard by the Boston Archdiocese sex abuse scandals.

The fallout may well have infected bordering states as well. Boston is a media link for much of Connecticut.

Connecticut’s three dioceses were not immune. When then Bridgeport Bishop Edward Egan’s testimony in a priest sex abuse case was made public, many Catholics were outraged as he distanced himself from priest sex abusers, calling them independent contractors whom the church had little control over.

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GUAM
Guam Daily Post

John O’Connor | Post News Staff

On the heels of the relocation of the Order of the Discalced Carmelites from Guam to California, Archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai – the apostolic administrator for the Archdiocese of Agana – has issued a statement expressing gratitude and apologizing to members of the sisterhood. Prior to her leaving, The Mother Superior Dawn Marie called for a press conference to explain the reason for the departure.

According to Marie, the decision to relocate came after a series of events that resulted in what she called a “toxic environment” that made it difficult for the nuns to continue in their way of life. Those events, she said, stemmed from the archdiocese’s acquisition of the former Hotel Accion property in Yona and the subsequent establishment of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary and the formation of the Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores Theological Institute (BDTI).

Marie revealed that she was the one who was able to secure about $2 million from another Carmelite monastery to purchase the Yona property, but that Archbishop Anthony Apuron violated her trust by asking the sisterhood to lie about the original purpose of the money.

Marie indicated that it was never her or the donor’s desire that the property be used specifically for RMS, nor was it their wish that it be used for the establishment of BDTI and that, even as the issue grew in its controversy, she remained silent.

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VIRGINIA
Augusta Free Press

Capping a month-long series of events around the topic of healthy sexuality and sexual violence, EMU welcomed Father Tom Doyle, a Roman Catholic sexual abuse victim advocate, to campus Monday, Nov. 7. Doyle, a priest who has worked with abuse victims for more than three decades, was the keynote speaker and panel presenter for a symposium for EMU faculty and staff on institutional harms and healing in response to sexual violence. He also gave an evening lecture, open to the public, on the spiritual impact of sexual abuse in religious contexts, and gave a sermon at an Eastern Mennonite Seminary worship service.

The symposium and public lecture were organized and facilitated by Professor Carolyn Stauffer as part of her multi-year “Silent Violence” project. Her research, which began in 2015 with a grant from The JustPax Fund, has focused on how abused individuals in marginalized communities employ resilient strategies to survive, endure and sometimes escape their situations.

While the first year of the project focused on surfacing individual stories and the second year on community services, the third year has emphasized the role of institutions. In March 2016, Stauffer organized a community education forum with both preventative goals and healing through arts-based approaches. One of Stauffer’s research questions, which widened the investigative scope to communities and institutions, was “How are our ideologies or institutions complicit?”

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KENTUCKY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Nov. 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)

Lexington Catholic officials are being callous and secretive about the death of a predator priest. We hope they will reverse course and tell the public about his passing. And we hope his death will prompt others who may have seen, suspected or suffered his crimes – or crimes by other clerics- to come forward.

Fr. John B. Modica passed away a year ago. http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nky/obituary.aspx?pid=176300773

As best we can tell, Kentucky Catholic officials did little or nothing to publicize this fact, putting their own comfort and convenience ahead of the pain of Fr. Modica’s victims. Shame on them.
We learned this news from an ex-nun in Kentucky (We also confirmed it on-line). That’s sad. Parents, parishioners and the public should have learned this from Lexington Bishop John Stowe. Why? Because a caring shepherd would do. And because that’s what the official US church abuse policy purportedly requires: “openness and transparency” in clergy sex abuse cases.

We are glad that Fr. Modica can no longer hurt kids. We’re glad too that his victims can hopefully sleep better at night knowing that he can’t assault any more children. More of them could sleep better, and could have done so months ago, had Bishop Stowe and his staff been honest.
We hope that all of Fr. Modica’s victims – whether hurt long ago or more recently – find the strength and courage to step forward, get help, expose wrongdoing and start healing. And we hope they find consolation.

Now that he’s passed on, we hope all Lexington Catholic officials will be more forthcoming about Fr. Modica’s crimes and about those who ignored, concealed and enabled them.

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UTAH
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Nov. 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)

A Utah judge is letting an alleged abuse victim have his day in court in a Mormon-related child sex abuse and cover up case. We are relieved and thrilled. Now, we hope church officials will now cooperate fully and quickly so the full truth can be revealed about a troubling church program which involved tens of thousands of kids over more than a half century. http://www.sltrib.com/news/4596141-155/abuse-case-against-mormon-church-to

For the safety of kids and the healing of victims, they must resist the temptation to delay justice by trying to evade discovery, block depositions and exploit legal technicalities to keep the truth concealed while discouraging other victims from coming forward and exposing those who commit and conceal sexual violence.

We especially hope Thomas S. Monson, the high-ranking Mormon official, won’t fight his deposition. Monson is old and victims are hurting. Moving quickly to shed light on the Indian Student Placement Program may embarrass some Mormon staff. But it will also go far to deter future wrongdoing and console suffering victims.

We applaud Judge U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby for this common sense ruling. We especially applaud the four wounded individuals who have found the strength to hopefully turn something horrific into something positive. They are working to use their suffering to expose crimes and cover ups so that more crimes and cover ups can be prevented. For that, they deserve the gratitude of police, prosecutors, parents and the public in both Utah and Arizona.

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SCOTLAND
Holyrood

Written by Tom Freeman on 17 November 2016

The Scottish child abuse inquiry will not widen its remit to include non-residential incidents of abuse, Deputy First Minister John Swinney has announced.

In a statement to the Scottish Parliament, Swinney said he had informed the chair Lady Anne Smith the only change to the remit would be to take into account abuse of children in care “wherever it occurred”.

The decision comes after survivor groups had called for children’s’ organisations, clubs and local parish churches to be included in the investigation.

However, Swinney said: “To set a remit which would in practice take many more years to conclude, we would be failing to respond to those survivors of in-care abuse who have taken us at our word – in Government and in Parliament – that we will learn from their experience and, by addressing the systematic failures that existed, ensure it can never happen again.”

He also announced the Scottish Government’s first legislation of the new parliamentary term, which will remove the three-year time limit that prevents childhood abuse survivors from seeking civil damages in court.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Telegram & Gazette

By Scott O’Connell
Telegram & Gazette Staff

WORCESTER – A retired Catholic priest pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to a money laundering charge stemming from his involvement in an overseas scheme that allegedly defrauded women seeking companionship online.

The Rev. Thomas B. Fleming originally pleaded not guilty to 12 counts of money laundering included in an indictment against him last year. He signed a plea agreement with U.S. prosecutors on Monday, he told U.S. District Court Judge Timothy S. Hillman at his plea change hearing in U.S. District Court Wednesday.

According to an online record of the plea agreement, the recommendation is for the Rev. Fleming to be incarcerated for a period of time served, and pay $90,105 in restitution to five victims. The Rev. Fleming was held in custody for roughly three weeks following his arrest in Florida last July.

Rev. Fleming, 67, of Worcester, could have faced up to 20 years in prison and a $500,000 fine for each of the counts against him; per his plea agreement, he only pleaded guilty to the first count. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for Feb. 8.

According to Assistant U.S. Attorney David G. Tobin, Rev. Fleming helped orchestrate an online dating scheme for a person who identified himself to Rev. Fleming as a serviceman overseas. U.S. investigators believe that person was using a false identity, and was actually operating a scam in Nigeria.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Herald

Associated Press Thursday, November 17, 2016

WORCESTER, Mass. — A retired Roman Catholic priest has pleaded guilty to his role in an international online dating scam.

The Telegram & Gazette (http://bit.ly/2fYTwPm ) reports that the Rev. Thomas Fleming reached a deal with federal authorities in which he agreed to plead guilty to one count of money laundering.

Prosecutors say the 67-year-old Fleming helped orchestrate the scheme for a person who identified himself as a serviceman overseas. Investigators say that person was using a false identity.

Women who responded to the online ads were asked to send money, which prosecutors say moved through two bank accounts belonging to Fleming.

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UNITED STATES
YouTube

Published on Nov 16, 2016

The Center for Study of Responsive Law held its second four-day conference on securing long-overdue democratic solutions in Washington, D.C. from September 26-28, 2016

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Who Gave You Permission?

MANNY WAKS WITH MICHAEL VISONTAY

SCRIBE, $35

When Manny Waks told the leaders of his ultra-orthodox Jewish community in Melbourne about his experience of child sexual abuse by some of its members, he was shunned and ostracised. When his father stood up for him, Waks’ family were cast out of the only world they had ever known. As a result, his parents now live in Israel and Waks and his family have fled to France. It is an extreme case of a story that has become familiar from the testimonies of those at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse where the initial abuse is compounded by the failure of those in authority to acknowledge the problem. In this absorbing memoir, Waks tells how he became a “reluctant troublemaker”, speaking out on behalf of those who fear to do so, and of the renewed sense of purpose this role has given him.

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CANADA
VOCM

Eighteen claims of abuse involving former residents of Mount Cashel orphanage remain outstanding.

The news comes following a recent $750,000 dollar settlement reached between the provincial government and a former resident who, as a young child, reported alleged abuse to police back in 1975. The subsequent investigation helped to form the basis of the Hughes Inquiry.

The man’s lawyer, Will Hiscock of Budden and Associates says more claims remain outstanding.

The recent settlement, which took six years to reach, came to light through a provincial government Order in Council.

The provincial government says there have been approximately 130 settlements involving allegations of abuse suffered at Mount Cashel, resulting in a total of about $29.2 million dollars.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

By Conall Ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner Reporter

Since around 1997, investigators have been trying to get to the bottom of vaccine trials, writes Conall Ó Fátharta

THE current commission of investigation into mother-and-baby homes is the second State inquiry that will attempt to examine the issue of vaccine trials carried out on children in the homes.

Further revelations in the Irish Examiner this week showed that the files of vaccine trial victims in Bessborough mother-and-baby home were altered in 2002 — just weeks after the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse sought discovery of records from the order running the home. The revelation will no doubt be examined as part of the latest inquiry.

The history of how and why large-scale vaccine trials were carried out on children in care in Ireland is still emerging, usually through media exposés.

The fact vaccine trials were carried out on children in mother-and-baby homes and other institutional settings first hit the headlines in the early 1990s.

Questions were raised in the Dáil on the subject but it wasn’t until 1997 that then health minister Brian Cowen gave assurances the matter would be examined.

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INDIANA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, November 16, 2015

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

The Indiana Supreme Court has ruled that the University of Notre Dame’s campus police department is not a “public agency” under Indiana law. The decision means that the school does not have to release information about investigations requested by sports media company ESPN.

[South Bend Tribune]

We here at SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, are concerned that this ruling will make it harder, not easier, to expose sex crimes committed on the campuses of private universities, and we hope that Indiana lawmakers will immediately get to work to close this loophole in the Access to Public Records law. College students will be safer if private schools cannot hide information about campus police investigations from the public.

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TENNESSEE
Local Memphis

[with video]

By Maria Hallas | mhallas@localmemphis.com

MEMPHIS, TN

New information in an a case of sex-abuse allegations at a local church against a man who now works for the Memphis city library. The victims say the abuse happened decades ago.

The three victims, Kenny Stubblefield, Michael Hansen, and Brooks Hansen, who came forward on camera Monday, say they’ve heard from eight people claiming Chris Carwile sexually assaulted them. Of those, six claim abuse while Carwile attended Cherokee Baptist Church.

“Since the story has been told on Channel 24 and on Facebook social media, things like that, we have had people reach out to us and say that, yes, they were abused by Chris Carwile after our abuse story,” said Stubblefield.

Stubblefield claims eight people contacted him or brothers Michael and Brooks Hansen to claim Chris Carwile also abused them. Six of those victims say they were abused while Carwile attended Cherokee Baptist Church. The most recent allegation was in 2003. Stubblefield says none are ready to go on camera.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

17 November, 2016

The Royal Commission will hold a public hearing in Sydney commencing on Monday, 28 November 2016.

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

1. Issues raised in the Royal Commission’s Consultation Paper on Criminal Justice.

2. The experience of a survivor of child sexual abuse in an institutional context in the criminal justice system in a recently concluded prosecution in New South Wales.

3. Any related matters.

The Royal Commission may invite selected individuals or organisations to speak to, or give evidence about, the submissions they have provided, however it is not proposed that leave to appear will be granted to these individuals or organisations, on the basis that they are speaking or giving evidence in this capacity.

It is not essential for others who give evidence in a hearing to apply for leave to appear – witnesses may give evidence without applying for leave.

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SCOTLAND
BBC News

John Swinney is to update MSPs on issues relating to the independent inquiry into child abuse in Scotland.

A ministerial statement has been scheduled at Holyrood for the education secretary to address the chamber.

Mr Swinney recently told MSPs he had spoken to inquiry chairwoman Lady Smith about potentially expanding the remit of the inquiry.

A bill has been introduced at Holyrood removing any time bar on people seeking damages over childhood abuse.

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

Written by Janela Carrera

Two of the claimants say former Guam priest, Father Louis Brouillard, forced the altar boys to perform “oral copulation.”

Guam – More lawsuits have been filed against the Archdiocese of Agana for civil claims of sexual abuse, two of which involve “oral copulation.”

This afternoon, Attorney David Lujan filed an additional three new complaints on behalf of his clients. The three are Bruce Diaz, Vicente Guerrero Perez and the Estate of Joseph Anthony Quinata. There are now a total of seven lawsuits filed against the church since the civil statute of limitations for filing sexual abuse claims was lifted.

Diaz and Perez both allege that they were sexually abused by former Guam priest Father Louis Brouillard while Quinata’s mother claimed that her late son had revealed on his deathbed 11 years ago that Archbishop Anthony Apuron sexually molested him in the 1970s.

Three of the first four lawsuits were also filed against Apuron by Roland Sondia, Roy Quintanilla and Walter Denton, while the fourth lawsuit was filed by Leo Tudela against Brouillard.

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com November 17, 2016

When Coadjutor Archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes signed documents to regain full control of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary property in Yona, he also cut the seminary’s ties to the Neocatechumenal Way by, among other things, making sure the seminarians will be prepared for priesthood in accordance with the precepts of the Holy Roman Catholic faith.

Byrnes used his authority to take back control of the multimillion property that hosts the RMS and the Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores Catholic Theological Institute for Oceania, both controlled by the Neocatechumenal Way.

The Neocatechumenal Way is an organization within the Catholic Church founded by Kiko Arguello in Spain in 1964 but its beliefs and practices conflict with Guam’s Catholic faithful.

The Way, as it is also called, came to Guam in 1996 and Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron became one of its members.

“I guess you could say this is the start of the dismantling of the Neocatechumenal Way on Guam,” Concerned Catholics of Guam President David Sablan said Thursday. The group has opposed actions taken by Apuron in recent years, including his decision to deed the seminary to The Way, and has called for his removal. “One can see how the NCW has influenced Apuron and he allowed himself, as archbishop of Agana, to do the bidding of the hierarchy of the Neocatechumenal Way — Pius Sammut, the Gennarinis, Arguello. They destroyed the fabric of our church by creating a division between them and the rest of the Catholics.”

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com November 17, 2016

Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron and former priest Louis Brouillard, along with the Archdiocese of Agana, face three new lawsuits alleging child sex abuse, which were filed Thursday afternoon by two former altar boys and by the estate of a deceased former altar boy.

The lawsuits are possible because of a recently passed Guam law that lifts the civil statute of limitations for those accused of abusing children, as well as the institutions that supported them.

Vicente Guerrero Perez, 51, and Bruce A. Diaz, 47, in their separate complaints, said Brouillard sexually abused them for about four years each, from 1976 to 1980, when they served as altar boys and as members of the Boy Scouts of America.

Brouillard, now 95 and living in Minnesota, also served as scoutmaster in the Guam chapter of the Boy Scouts. He was a priest on Guam from the late 1940s to 1981.

The late Joseph “Sonny” Quinata, through his estate administrator Mary Jane Quinata Cruz, also filed a separate lawsuit against Apuron, the archdiocese and up to 50 others.

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GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Nov 17, 2016

By Sabrina Salas Matanane

Three more cases have been filed in the Superior Court of Guam related to child sex abuse allegations involving local clergy.

The total now stands at seven complaints for damages involving allegations of child sex abuse in the local catholic church filed by attorney David Lujan. Late Thursday afternoon Lujan filed three more cases.

Bruce Diaz alleges he was 8 years old when he was sexually molested multiple times by Fr. Louis Brouillard. Diaz alleges the abuse occurred while he was an altar boy at the catholic church in Barrigada and while he was a boy scout, where Broiullard was scout master. The abuse he alleged occurred over a four year period beginning in 1976.

Vicente Guerrero Perez is next to come forward. He alleges that when he was 11 years old he was sexually molested multiple times by Fr. Brouillard in the 1970’s when he was an altar boy at the Barrigada Catholic Church and as a Boy scout. Additionally he alleges he had made an appointment with Archbishop Anthony Apruon in 2000 and told him about his years of abuse, but nothing was ever done.

As we reported Broiullard in October recorded a video confessing he abused dozens of boys on Guam when he served as a priest here from 1940’s through the 1970’s. Court documents stated he said he even told the head of the Catholic Church at the time about the abuse, but Bishop Apollinaris Baumgartner didn’t do anything except tell him to do “prayers as penance”.

As for the third case it was filed on behalf of Joseph “Sonny'” Quinata. Although he is deceased the plaintiff is identified as Mary Jane Quinata Cruz– the administrator for his estate.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Sandra Laville

A public hearing into allegations of child abuse against the late Lord Janner is to be put back to an undisclosed date, the national inquiry into institutional abuse has said.

The first public hearing to be held by the national abuse investigation was to be held in March next year and focus on the institutional responses to allegations made against Janner. But the chair, Prof Alexis Jay, having looked again at the case, and the pace of ongoing investigations by the police and the IPCC, decided the hearing had to be delayed to avoid prejudicing these inquiries.

The development came after news that another lawyer had left the national inquiry, which was set up in 2014 to examine institutional failings to investigate child abuse. Aileen McColgan, who was leading the inquiry’s investigation into abuse in the Anglican and Catholic churches, quit over concerns about the inquiry’s leadership, according to BBC Newsnight.

The latest departure led Yvette Cooper, the chair of the Commons home affairs select committee, to urge the inquiry to be more transparent, and said her committee would seek evidence from McColgan and other lawyers who have quit.

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ALASKA
KTVA

ANCHORAGE — An Anchorage man has been arrested for sexually abusing two young victims and possessing child pornography, according to the Anchorage Police Department.

Police announced the arrest of 56-year-old Bernard Droege on Wednesday. He faces 28 charges — eight counts of second-degree sexual abuse of a minor, 10 counts of unlawful exploitation of a minor and 10 counts of child pornography possession.

Police spokeswoman Renee Oistad said in a statement that the investigation into Droege began after the parent of one of the victims contacted the Office of Children’s Services to report a sexual assault in June. OCS then contacted police.

Droege volunteered as a volleyball coach at the Boys and Girls Club of Anchorage and worked weekends at the Holy Rosary Academy for maintenance and lawn care, according to Oistad.

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UTAH
The Salt Lake Journal

By TOM HARVEY | The Salt Lake Tribune

Attorneys for four Navajos suing the LDS Church over alleged sexual abuse said Wednesday they intend to subpoena the faith’s president, Thomas S. Monson, to testify about the former program that placed children in Mormon homes off the reservation during the school year.

The remarks came after a federal judge in Salt Lake City rejected a church argument that Navajo tribal courts do not have jurisdiction over three lawsuits alleging that the Utah-based religion is liable for damages resulting from sexual abuse to tribal members while they participated in the church’s Indian Student Placement Program between 1965 and 1983.

U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby ruled that there was insufficient evidence to determine whether the tribal court was exercising proper jurisdiction over the lawsuits.

That ruling may clear the way for attorneys to subpoena Monson, the increasingly frail 89-year-old leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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UTAH
Arizona Daily Sun

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday denied a Mormon church push to move a lawsuit claiming sexual abuse of Navajo children in a church-run foster program out of tribal court.

U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby ruled the church hasn’t shown any compelling reasons why Navajo Nation courts should be blocked from considering the suit filed by four people who say the church didn’t do enough to protect them from abuse when they were children.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints wanted the case moved to federal court in Salt Lake City because the allegations do not involve any abuse on tribal land.

Church officials didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs contended the case should stay in the Window Rock, Arizona-based court because decisions about where to put children in the now-defunct program had occurred on tribal land as did failures to act on reports of abuse.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

As more individuals step forward with allegations of clergy sex abuse, and the possibility there may be others, we urge the Archdiocese of Agana to adopt a sensible plan to address the claims.

Church officials should consider the seven-point plan recommended by the Concerned Catholics of Guam.

The plan states:

* Petition the Guam Bar Association president to establish a lawyer referral service practice area for child sex abuse.

* Petition the Victims Advocate Reaching Out, Child Protective Services and the Healing Hearts Crisis Center to establish user-friendly procedures to provide help to child sexual abuse victims.

* Petition the Guam Legal Services Corp. to establish a victims of child sexual abuse contact office, which will be a central source for provision of information services available to victims.

* Establish a nonprofit foundation, whose board of directors shall be comprised of Catholic laymen with no interests in any of the Archdiocese of Agana’s affairs, and who are professionals in the area of financial trust management. The foundation would solicit, maintain, and disburse funds pursuant to its rules, to help victims achieve closure for their past ordeals.

* Petition the Guam Crime Stoppers to establish specific procedures to deal with child sexual abuse victims.

* Establish a board of visitors comprised of Catholic laymen having no financial interest in archdiocesan affairs. The board shall conduct inquiries into archdiocesan matters as are appropriate to ensure implementation of plans, agreements and compliance with the provisions of recommendations one through five.

* Commit funds collected through the Archdiocesan Annual Appeal to be allocated to the activities set forth in recommendations one through five.

The plan would go a long way toward preventing and detecting abuse as well as helping victims heal.

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CANADA
Huffington Post

By Aly Thomson, The Canadian Press

KENTVILLE, N.S. — His face streaked with tears, the middle-aged man put his head in his hands and breathed heavily.

Testifying about an alleged sexual encounter with Brent Hawkes as a teen more than 40 years ago, his face was red with emotion. The man declined suggestions, however, that he should take a break from the witness stand.

“I think this is as good as it’s going to get,” the man quietly said of his emotional state Tuesday.

It was his first day of testimony at the well-known Toronto pastor’s trial on charges of indecent assault and gross indecency. The man, the complainant in the case, will return to the stand Thursday after an off-day Wednesday.

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NIGERIA
Nigeria Today

A 48-year-old pastor identified as Micheal Adeniran, has been ordered to be remanded in prison custody by an Abeokuta Chief Magistrates’ Court sitting on Wednesday for allegedly impregnating a 17-year-old girl.

According to a report by Vanguard, Inspector Kayode Emnmanuel, who is the prosecutor, told the court that the accused committed the offence in June at El-Bethel Church, Ita Aka, in Abeokuta, Ogun.

The prosecutor who disclosed further that the accused, a pastor at El- Bethel Church, sexually abused a teenage girl, which resulted into pregnancy, added that the pastor failed to take responsibility of the girl in the last six months of his impregnating her.

Emmanuel who revealed that the pastor who is facing a charge of sexual abuse, added that that the offence contravened Section 32 of the Child Rights Law of Ogun, 2006.

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NIGERIA
Information Nigeria

A 48-year old Pastor identified as Michael Adeniran has been arrested in Abeokuta for impregnating a 17- year old girl. The Pastor who heads the El- Bethel Church is facing a charge of sexual abuse has pleaded not guilty to the offence.

The magistrate presiding over his case ordered that he be remanded in Police custody while the case was adjourned to November 30, 2016.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

By Rebekah Ison, AAP Updated November 17, 2016

A former Newcastle bishop says the Anglican Church’s morality has been compromised by child sex scandals and it should play no part in decisions to defrock priests.

Bishop Brian Farran on Thursday testified that he thought the church’s professional standards process was too “in-house”” and that decisions would be better made by an independent statutory body.

“I think really the morality of the church has been compromised,” he told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

“There has to be absolute transparency and it needs to move out … of the church and into a body like that.”

Bishop Farran has told the royal commission he felt that a group of influential parishioners were out to get him during the professional standards process that led to the defrocking of influential priest Graeme Lawrence in 2012.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By David Marchese

A former Anglican bishop has told the child abuse royal commission the power to discipline clergy needs to be removed from the church because its morality “has been compromised”.

Brian Farran held the position of bishop of Newcastle from 2005 until his retirement in 2012, and has been questioned about widespread abuse carried out in the diocese over several decades.

Bishop Farran told the commission of how he “agonised” over whether he should defrock his long time friend, the former Dean of Newcastle, Graeme Lawrence.

Mr Lawrence was ultimately defrocked in 2012, along with reverends Bruce Hoare and Andrew Duncan over what were described as “disturbing” allegations of abuse that allegedly occurred in the 1970s and 1980s.

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INDIA
First Post

By Maya Palit

“If it comes out, it will be like a tsunami,” the nun Manju Kulapuram said, earlier this year, about the rampant sexual abuse of women by the men of the Catholic church in India. Evidently, Kulapuram was onto something — and it’s across denominations, nor confined just to the Catholic church. Unlike other work places, which in theory are meant to have set up mandatory internal complaints committees, there is no formal institution in place that addresses sexual abuse inflicted by members of the clergy.

On 14 November, a woman based in Kozhikode registered a police complaint about a parish priest in Nadakkavu St Mary’s English Church. She alleged that he sexually harassed her over email and messages after she contacted him with a request to pray for her daughter on her birthday in August. She complained to the bishop at the Malabar Diocese of the Church of South India, even showing him copies of the interactions with the priest, but was not taken seriously: the bishop said there were plenty of other churches in Kozhikode that she could attend. Although the priest was briefly transferred to Nilambur in September, he was back at Nadakkavu in just over a month. It was only after she contacted the police through Anweshi, a women’s counselling centre that a case was registered and the priest was charged under Section 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman).

Numerous cases have not made it that far. A 2016 report suggested that when higher-ups of the church are alerted to these incidents, they often choose to either ignore them or, at the most, transfer the perpetrator. Sr. Kulapuram says that a fellow nun was videotaped while bathing, by a seminarian, while they were both attending a seminar away from home; she was dissuaded from pursuing the legal route and told that she’d get justice from the church. This never materialised — the priest was sent to Rome to continue his theological studies, and the victim abandoned religious life altogether. A version of the familiar promotion-for-accused and demotion-for-victim model.

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CANADA
CBC News

By Katie Nicholson, CBC News Posted: Nov 16, 2016

A priest convicted of sexual assault is seeking bail following his October arrest on eight new charges involving the alleged sexual abuse of four men.

Ron Léger had just been granted day parole when Winnipeg police took him into custody Oct. 19.

Léger was sentenced to two years in jail in February 2016 for sexually assaulting three men who were youths at the time the abuse began.

The new charges were laid after four more men came forward to police with similar allegations that they were abused after meeting the priest at a youth centre. Léger ran a number of teen drop-in centres from the 1970s to the mid-90s, including Teen Stop Jeunesse and Ron’s Drop-in Centre.

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GUAM
Guam Daily Post

John O’Connor | Post News Staff

While Archbishop Anthony Apuron has been implicated in civil suits filed by victims of alleged sexual abuse, it appears the Superior Court of Guam has been unable to actually serve him the summons to defend against the complaints.

According to documents provided to the Post, when a process server attempted to provide the summons to Apuron at his last known residence – the Episcopal Residence – he was simply met with a sign that stated Apuron vacated the premises. Documents stated that the archbishop was unable to be located and has not been served.

James Brooks, senior paralegal at Law Guam, told the Post that attorney David Lujan “will file a motion with (the) Superior Court for authorization to serve Apuron by publication.”

Meanwhile, Rev. Jeffrey San Nicolas was able to accept service for the Archdiocese of Agana, which is implicated in civil suits filed by Roland Sondia, Walter Denton, Roy Quintanilla and Leo Tudela – all victims of alleged sexual abuse. Three of the men have named Apuron specifically but all four are represented by Lujan, who has indicated that additional suits from other victims will be coming in the following weeks.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Daily Herald

Daily Herald report

The Archdiocese of Chicago has appointed William R. Kunkel as its general counsel.

Kunkel previously served as executive vice president-legal and general counsel of American Equity Investment Life Holding Company and as a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP. He also serves on the board of directors of American Equity and as chairman of the board’s Risk Committee.

“Bill’s impressive background and reputation in the corporate sector is but one of his many assets; he is also a product of Catholic education in Chicago and has carried this foundation through his family life and considerable service to the community.” Archbishop Blase J. Cupich said in a news release.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry in Athlone

The diocesan priest in Ireland today was “often pitied, patronised, reviled, insulted, disrespected, ignored and resented,” Fr Brendan Hoban said at the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) annual meeting in Athlone on Wednesday.

“A gale-force wind is now in our faces, it’s the middle of the second half and we’re 6-0 down,” said Fr Hoban, a co-founder of the association.

Priests were “the equivalent of Plymouth Argyle, struggling to stay in the third division.”

They were being bullied and were prone to depression with an increase in suicide rates over recent years, he added.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

Many priests at the well-attended annual general meeting of the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) in Athlone on Wednesday expressed dissatisfaction with the response of the bishops to a meeting last May with a delegation from the association. The bishops were accused of “trying to fob us off”.

Fr Kevin Hegarty of Killala diocese said a letter sent to the ACP last month was “a marvellous illumination of the Seamus Heaney line ‘whatever you say, say nothing’.”

Mill Hill priest Fr Kevin Reynolds, now of Elphin diocese, said “the bishops do not and will not recognise the ACP as an existing reality. They don’t want their exclusive clerical club changed by an association representing 1,000 priests. They least they could do is respect us, acknowledge we exist and that we have something to say.”

Fr Tim Murphy of the Dublin archdiocese warned against a scattergun approach in dealing with the bishops and suggested that “we should go bald-headed for a synod of the Irish church.”

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INDIANA
South Bend Tribune

By Margaret Fosmoe South Bend Tribune

The University of Notre Dame’s campus police department is not a “public agency” under Indiana law and does not have to release information about investigations requested by sports media company ESPN, the Indiana Supreme Court has ruled in a widely watched case.

The ruling was released Wednesday afternoon.

The decision means Notre Dame and other private colleges in Indiana with professional police forces have no obligation to provide details of campus police reports and investigations.

City, county and other professional police forces must make such information available to the public under Indiana’s Access to Public Records law.

ESPN in 2014 sought campus police records from Notre Dame Security Police for cases involving a list of student athletes. The university refused the request, citing its status as a private university, and the sports media company sued.

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CANADA
CBC News

By Rob Antle, CBC News Posted: Nov 16, 2016

The Newfoundland and Labrador government has agreed to pay $750,000 to settle a lawsuit related to the Mount Cashel orphanage, in the latest chapter of a grim story that began decades ago, but continues to have an impact today.

The province confirmed Wednesday morning it is the highest settlement to date for a case related to Mount Cashel.

The plaintiff, named only as John Doe in court documents, had accused the government of negligence.

John Doe alleged that he was sexually abused at the Christian Brothers-run orphanage, beginning more than four decades ago.

“His experiences, they were truly horrific,” said John Doe’s lawyer, Will Hiscock.

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