ABUSE TRACKER

OREGON
The Newberg Graphic

17 February 2016

Written by Seth Gordon

Case currently proceeding through discovery; trial readiness hearing not expected until spring
Although a trial date is not expected until this summer at the earliest, work on the child sex abuse lawsuit filed last year against Newberg Friends Church and the Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends is well under way.

Attorneys for the plaintiff, referred to by his initials “A.J.” in the suit filed in Multnomah County in July, and for the five defendants are in the process of discovery.

There are no pending court dates, but Adam Kiel, an attorney with Portland firm Kafoury & McDougal representing A.J. in the case, said he expects a trial readiness conference, typically when a trial date will be set, to occur sometime in the spring.

Five of the defendants have retained counsel and filed answers to the charges, while a sixth, the Evangelical Friends Church of North America, was dismissed by Presiding Judge Nan Walker on Dec. 18.

Four of the defendants — Newberg Friends Church, the Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends Church, the Friends Church Extension Fund and the Northwest Yearly Meeting of Friends Foundation — have retained Portland attorney Karen Vickers. The fifth, the Evangelical Friends Church International Council, has hired Portland attorney Jay Chock.

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BOSTON (MA)
The Gavel – Boston College

FEBRUARY 16, 2016

BY ELLA JENAK

It was the winter of 1993, and Phil Saviano was scouring microfilm in Boston College’s O’Neill Library, feeding reel after reel into the reader, copying and printing articles that would prove especially useful in his investigation.

He began his search at the Boston Public Library, but BC’s extensive collection of Catholic publications and its copies of the Catholic directories proved to be the most revealing, both for Saviano’s research and later, for the investigations of The Boston Globe’s ‘Spotlight’ team.

“If the people who run this library knew what I was looking for,” he says, “they wouldn’t approve and they’d probably ban me from the library.”

Saviano’s eyes were scanning indexes that listed hundreds, thousands of articles, looking for a few key words: clergy abuse, sex abuse—the phrasing varied, but the story was the same. Priests in parishes across the country were abusing children with remarkable frequency. The mystery to Saviano was, “How could this be and why wasn’t anybody doing anything about it?”

“I was investigating, and trying to sort things out and get to the bottom of what I thought was a really big story,” he says. “It was as if I was one of those Spotlight team reporters.”

The back and forth rapport between Saviano’s own probing and that of The Boston Globe began when Saviano saw an article published in the paper on December 17, 1992—just a month before he began researching at Boston College—which reported that former Massachusetts priest David Holley had been arrested in New Mexico on charges of child molestation.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 17 February 2016 (VIS) – The Holy Father has:

– appointed Bishop John D. Deshotel, auxiliary of Dallas, U.S.A., as bishop of Lafayette (area 14,962, population 634,000, Catholics 332,000, priests 213, permanent deacons 94, religious 217), U.S.A. He succeeds Bishop Charles M. Jarrell, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese upon reaching the age limit was accepted by the Holy Father.

– appointed Fr. Ricardo Hoepers as bishop of Rio Grande (area 12,270, population 300,000, Catholics 211,000, priests 29, permanent deacons 29, religious 72), Brazil. The bishop-elect was born in Curitiba, Brazil in 1970 and ordained a priest in 1999. He holds a doctorate in theology and has served as lecturer in the faculty of philosophy and rector of the Bom Pastor seminary, professor, parish priest, diocesan coordinator for the clergy, member of the presbyterium and member of the ethical committee of the Federal University of Paran and the Brazilian Society of Moral Theology. He succeeds Msgr. Jose Mario Stroeher, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese was accepted upon reaching the age limit.

– appointed Fr. Richard Kuuia Baawobr, M.Afr., as bishop of Wa (area 18,476, population 700,000, Catholics 341,000, priests 104, religious 186), Ghana. The bishop-elect was born in Tom-Zendagangn, Ghana in 1959, gave his religious vows in 1981 and was ordained a priest in 1987. He has served in a number of roles within his order, as well as deputy Grand Chancellor of the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies, and member of the Synod on the family, and is currently superior general of his order. He succeeds Bishop Paul Bemile, whose resignation from the pastoral care of the same diocese upon reaching the age limit was accepted by the Holy Father.

– appointed Fr. Carlos Alberto Breis Pereira, O.F.M., as coadjutor bishop of Juazeiro (area 58,397, population 515,900, Catholics 413,100, priests 26, religious 14), Brazil. The bishop-elect was born in San Francisco do Sul, Brazil in 1965, gave his religious vows in 1987 and was ordained a priest in 1994. He holds a licentiate in theology, has served as parish priest and has held numerous roles within his order. He is currently provincial minister of his order in Recife, Brazil.

– accepted the resignation of Bishop Dieter Bernd Scholz, S.J., from the pastoral care of the diocese of Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe, upon reaching the age limit.

– appointed Archbishop Robert Christopher Ndlovu of Harare, Zimbabwe, as apostolic administrator sede vacante of the diocese of Chinhoyi, Zimbabwe.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

A Sydney judge has released the name of a former Catholic priest, John Joseph Farrell (sometimes known as ‘Father F’), who will be sentenced for 50 sexual crimes against children in northern New South Wales. Farrell, now aged 61, has previously pleaded guilty to 40 of these offences. On 16 February 2016 a jury found him guilty of ten additional offences.

Farrell was tried for 17 offences he was accused of committing against three boys, aged 11 and 12, between 1980 and 1984. After two-and-a-half days of deliberations, a jury found Farrell guilty on 10 counts and not guilty on seven other charges.

After the jury’s verdict, Judge Peter Zahra lifted a suppression order, which had covered his Farrell’s for more than two-and-a-half years.

The court was told that Farrell has already pleaded guilty to 40 other child sex offences and is already in custody, awaiting sentencing for those crimes.

During the February 2016 trial at Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court, Crown prosecutor Bryan Rowe outlined a series of alleged incidents in which Farrell groped, molested, raped or forced oral sex on the boys.

He said one of the boys was the victim of 11 separate offences, including repeated indecent assaults during trips to a local swimming pool. Farrell contested all of these charges.

Farrell was tried on 17 charges when the trial began in Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court on February 2. After several days of evidence, Judge Zahra directed the 12- member jury to find the accused man not guilty on two counts on the indictment before the court.

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AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites

By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 15 January 2016)

Research by Broken Rites has demonstrated how Catholic Church leaders kept quiet about a certain Australian priest, “Father F” (from Moree and Armidale in northern New South Wales), for THIRTY years. And in 2002, after George Pell became the new archbishop of Sydney, he too learned about Father F. The matter of Father F was finally revealed by Broken Rites and the media (not by the church) in 2012. Broken Rites (but not the church leaders) advised the victims to contact the Sex Crime Squad detectives of the NSW Police. The church leaders now need to explain why they remained silent for so long.

According to a church document, Father F admitted to church authorities in 1992 that, during the previous ten years, he had committed sexual offences against altar boys. These boys were 10 and 11 years old at the time of the offences. The church document quoted Father F as admitting that he began doing these things to the boys in his very first parish in the early 1980s.

According to this 1992 document, the church authorities feared that “one or some of the boys involved may bring criminal charges against [Father F] with subsequent grave harm to the priesthood and the Church.”

That is, according to this document, the church’s priority was to protect the church’s public image, rather than to protect the children. Indeed, the document made no mention of the welfare of the children. Thus, the church authorities did not help Father F’s former altar boys to consult the state’s child-protection police about Father F’s actions. So the church’s public image was protected — until 2012, when the media revealed the church’s “Father F” cover-up.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

February 17, 2016

Andrew Bolt
Herald Sun

CARDINAL George Pell is the victim of one of the most vicious witch hunts to disgrace this country. It is shameful. Disgusting. Frightening.

People pretending to be moral have competed with each other to slime Pell as the defender of paedophiles, if not a paedophile himself.

There is no mercy and no attention to the facts. There is just the joy of hatred. Check the snarling glee on the face of comedian Tim Minchin as he sang a hymn of hatred to Pell on Channel 10’s The Project on Tuesday.

“Scum,” he called Pell, who is too ill to fly from Rome to give evidence (for the third time) to our royal commission into child sex abuse.

“Coward,” he jeered, vilifying Pell for more than four minutes of prime-time television, falsely portraying him as a defender — even a friend — of paedophile priests.

(Note to Project host Waleed Aly: would you have screened four minutes of unbridled hatred for a Muslim cleric?)

Meanwhile, the ABC promoted a crowd-funding effort by Project presenters to raise the money to send former victims to Rome to “confront” the cardinal with “face-to-face contact”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Smashing Life

Lord Lawson, who has the pedigree of being Margaret Thatcher’s chancellor in the 80s made the comments on the BBC’s ‘Andrew Marr Show’ on Sunday.

He said, “Security is essential. It’s vital. But I think the police are complaining a little bit too much. Look at how much the police is spending now on chasing up often unsubstantiated accusations of historic sex abuse. That’s got nothing to do with security. Those resources should be put where the need is.”

The comments were made in reference to UK police complaints regarding a lack of resources for national security work. Lord Lawson said that police should not complain about a lack of resources while they are putting so much effort into probes investigating historic child sex abuse cases.

Reports that have surfaced have estimated that the cost of the paedophile ring investigations total around 4% of the £8.2Bn central police budget, around £3.4m.

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FRANCE
Normandici

[Currently in theaters, Spotlight tells the story of American journalists who investigate pedophilia within the Catholic Church. In France, a case is mentioned in Calvados.]

by CaroNormandici
février 17, 2016

Actuellement en salle, Spotlight raconte l’enquête de journalistes américains sur la pédophilie au sein de l’Église catholique. En France, un cas est mentionné, dans le Calvados.

Actuellement sur les écrans, le film, Spotlight, inspiré de faits réels, suit l’enquête d’investigation menée par des journalistes du Boston Globe, l’un des plus célèbres journaux du Massachussets. Spotlight est le nom de l’équipe de journalistes qui a révélé au monde entier l’autre visage de l’Église catholique. À la fin du générique, les faits similaires qui se sont produits dans le monde sont recensés. Parmi eux, le cas du Père Pican, qui, évêque de Bayeux et Lisieux (Calvados), avait été condamné à trois mois de prison avec sursis pour « non-dénonciation des agissements pédophiles » d’un prêtre de son diocèse, le Père René Bissey, qui avait été condamné à 18 ans de réclusion.Spotlight entre malheureusement en résonance avec l’actualité : une plainte contre Monseigneur Barbarin pour non-dénonciation d’infraction sexuelle sur mineur devrait être déposée prochainement contre l’archevêque de Lyon (Rhône).

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MEXICO
El Economista

[The visit of Pope Francis to Mexico did not address the issue of victims of clerical pedophilia because that episode is part of a past history of the church whose authorities have faced the issue, according to Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi.]

La visita del papa Francisco a México no abordó el tema de las víctimas de pederastia clerical debido a que ese episodio forma parte de una historia pasada de la Iglesia cuyas autoridades han enfrentado, informó el vocero del Vaticano, Federico Lombardi.

En conferencia de prensa celebrada en el marco de la visita del jefe de la Ciudad del Vaticano al país, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a Morelia, Michoacán, el portavoz puntualizó que los casos de abuso sexual a menores por parte de sacerdotes católicos son significativos e importantes para el clero; sin embargo, “es parte de nuestra historia, pero no hay necesidad de continuar con toda la historia futura hablando de los problemas que hemos confrontado”.

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ITALIA
Brindisi Report

[The pastor told a youth he had to perform sexual acts in the sacristy in order to be an altar boy.]

di Stefania De Cristofaro
16 febbraio 2016“

BRINDISI – “Quel parroco, il prete della chiesa di Bozzano, mi obbligava a fare atti sessuali: succedeva anche in sacrestia, qualche volta mi ha dato spintoni e mi ha minacciato dicendo che se avessi parlato avrebbe fatto licenziare mio padre o fatto vendere la casa”.

Questa mattina ha fornito la sua versione dei fatti, il ragazzino brindisino ritenuto parte offesa nell’inchiesta per atti sessuali su minore in cui è indagato a piede libero don Francesco Caramia, ex parroco della chiesa San Giustino de’ Jacobis, al quartiere Bozzano di Brindisi.

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ITALIA
Farodi Roma

[The former Palermo bishop said it was not his job to report priest Roberto Elice for abusing a minor. He said he contacted the child’s mother and said it was her responsibility. He knew about the abuse for three years.]

Errori su errori hanno contraddistinto la carriera sacerdotale dell’ex arcivescovo Romeo, un uomo che ha sempre visto la carriera come fine ultimo e non si è mai dato apertamente agli altri cercando anzi di bloccare i bravi sacerdoti che con onestà portavano avanti il loro lavoro favorendo chi invece non lo meritava affatto. Il cardinale Romeo però ha compiuto un gesto ancor più grave, non ha denunciato don Roberto Elice, arrestato recentemente per pedofilia. L’ex arcivescovo di Palermo era da tempo a conoscenza degli abusi nei confronti di tre minori. La difesa sulle pagine di Repubblica è sterile: “Abbiamo informato la madre del suo diritto-dovere di sporgere denuncia. Non spettava a me denunciare don Roberto”. Solo scuse che offendono chi crede veramente nei valori della Chiesa che spinge all’aiuto verso il prossimo, e che vanno in netta controtendenza anche con le parole di Papa Francesco che ha sempre sostenuto che chi commette azioni penali va consegnato all’autorità giudiziaria e processato.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Freitag

[Covering up abuse rather than being open about it is not a Catholic specialty and always backfires.]

Domspatzen Missbrauch zu vertuschen statt aufzuklären, ist keine katholische Besonderheit. Wie immer geht das nach hinten los

Der Faktor liegt bei zehn. Jede Institution, die in Missbrauchsverdacht gerät, sollte sich diese Zahl vor Augen halten. Wer sexuelle Gewalt gegen Kinder nicht aufklärt, der wird mit zehnfacher Wucht von den Spätfolgen bestraft. Als vor einigen Jahren bekannt wurde, dass es bei den berühmten Regensburger Domspatzen zu Schlägen und sexuellen Übergriffen im Namen des Herrn gekommen war, da reagierte die Kirche, wie sie halt reagiert. Sie ließ sich missmutig auf eine interne Revision der Fälle ein. Nach einem Jahr Suche fand sie 78 Betroffene und eine Handvoll Täter. Zur Veröffentlichung des Berichts lud sie nur ausgewählte Presseleute ein. Und die Uhr begann zu ticken.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Regensburg Digital

Um Gewalt und Missbrauch bei den Domspatzen angemessen aufzuarbeiten, wurde nun ein eigenes Gremium ins Leben gerufen. Vor wenigen Tagen trafen sich die sechs Vertreter zum ersten Mal. Derweil versuchen andere, Vorfälle zu verharmlosen und umzudrehen. Diese Leute haben nichts dazugelernt. Sie sind Verhinderer.

„Wer aufklären will, muss einen Preis zahlen. Wer diesen Preis nicht zahlen will, behindert Aufklärung.“

Knapp neun Monate ist es her, seit Pater Klaus Mertes im Juni 2015 seine Erfahrungen als Leiter des Canisius-Kollegs einem Regensburger Publikum schilderte. 2010 hatten sich ehemalige Schüler gegenüber Mertes als Opfer körperlicher, psychischer und sexueller Gewalt geoutet. Er reagierte, schrieb einen Brief an etwa 600 ehemalige Schüler der Berliner Jesuiten-Schule und trat damit eine Welle des Aufdeckens von Missbrauchsfällen an schulischen Einrichtungen in ganz Deutschland los.

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FRANCE
20 Minutes

[By creating their association The Liberated Word (La Parole Liberee), alleged victims of Father Bernard Preynat wanted to get to the truth and break the code of silence around these alleged acts of pedophilia, that remained silent for over 25 years. Some weeks later, their case is widely publicized and relayed on social networks. The Lyon church has been plunted into turmoil.]

Elisa Frisullo
Publié le 16.02.2016

En créant leur association La Parole Libérée, les victimes présumées du père Bernard Preynat voulaient faire éclater la vérité et briser l’omerta autour de ces faits présumés de pédophilie, tus pendant plus de 25 ans. Quelques semaines plus tard, leur affaire, largement médiatisée et relayée sur les réseaux sociaux, a plongé l’église lyonnaise en pleine tourmente.

Un grand malaise qui n’épargne pas l’archevêque de Lyon, Philippe Barbarin, dont la stratégie de communication bien périlleuse de ces dernières semaines démontre tout l’embarras du diocèse sur ce sujet. A tel point qu’une proche du Primat des Gaules évoque même aujourd’hui une éventuelle démission…

Une affaire révélée par le diocèse de Lyon

En octobre dernier, c’est le diocèse de Lyon lui-même qui a médiatisé cette affaire, après l’ouverture d’une enquête préliminaire sur des faits présumés d’agressions sexuelles reprochés par d’anciens scouts du groupe Saint-Luc de Sainte-Foy-les Lyon au prêtre Bernard Preynat, 70 ans. L’archevêque de Lyon avait alors vivement condamné « des actes qui ont atteint des jeunes dans leur vie intime ».

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FRANCE
Le Progres

[Pedophilia in the Church: the Preynat case continues to swell. The Lyon archdiocese said Cardinal Phillippe Barbarin will not resign.]

Des victimes du père Bernard Preynat porteront plainte dans les jours qui viennent contre le cardinal Barbarin dont la démission n’est pas à l’ordre du jour selon l’archevêché.

L’association «La Parole Libérée», qui regroupe des victimes du père Preynat, déposera plainte dans les jours qui viennent contre le cardinal Barbarin pour «non dénonciation d’atteintes sexuelles sur mineurs», s’agissant d’abus sexuels commis sur des scouts du groupe Saint-Luc à Sainte-Foy-llès-Lyon, avant 1991.

D’autres personnes, dont Régine Maire, ancien membre du conseil épiscopal, sont visées par cette démarche judiciaire. «Le Progrès» consacre une enquête de deux pages à ce dossier, dans lequel s’expriment les principales personnes concernées, ainsi que de nombreux prêtres, qui rejettent les appels à la démission du cardinal Barbarin, tout en estimant qu’il y a eu des «failles évidentes qu’il faut analyser».

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FRANCE
Le Huffington Post

[Philippe Barbarin is in turmoil. In an interview with La Croix published Wednesday, February 10, the cardinal admitted being aware of the “behavior” of a Lyons priest indicted for sexual assault on young scouts yet he chose to keep him in his ministry until 2015. A person who grew up in Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon told the cardinal about the behavior of Father Preynat in 2007-2008. He then made an appointment with the priest to ask if since 1991 he had done anything and he then assured me him “absolutely nothing,” said the Cardinal Archbishop of Lyon.]

RELIGION – Philippe Barbarin est dans la tourmente. Dans un entretien à La Croix paru mercredi 10 février, le cardinal a reconnu avoir été mis au courant des “comportements” d’un prêtre lyonnais, mis en examen pour des agressions sexuelles sur de jeunes scouts entre 1986 et 1991, “vers 2007-2008”. Il a pourtant choisi de le conserver dans son ministère jusqu’en 2015.

“Une personne qui avait grandi à Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon m’a parlé des comportements du Père Preynat, vers 2007-2008. J’ai alors pris rendez-vous avec lui pour lui demander si, depuis 1991, il s’était passé la moindre chose. Lui m’a alors assuré : ‘Absolument rien, j’ai été complètement ébouillanté par cette affaire'”, raconte l’archevêque de Lyon et primat des Gaules à propos de ce religieux, qu’il dit avoir “cru”.

Des faits connus par les autorités ecclésiastiques dès 1991?

Mais selon son avocat, le père Bernard Preynat a déclaré “que les faits étaient connus par les autorités ecclésiastiques depuis 1991”. Résultat, La Parole Libérée, association de victimes du Père Preynat, veut attaquer Philippe Barbarin pour “non dénonciation de faits d’agressions sexuelles”. La démission du cardinal est même désormais évoquée par son entourage selon Lyon Mag.

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AUSTRALIA
Northern Daily Leader

By Emma Partridge
Feb. 16, 2016

A FORMER Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing three young altar boys in regional NSW in the 1980s has been found guilty of 10 child sex offences in a Sydney court.

John Joseph Farrell, also known as “Father F”, was tried for 17 offences he was accused of committing against the boys, aged 11 and 12, between 1980 and 1984.

Fairfax Media can reveal his identity after Judge Peter Zahra lifted a suppression order late yesterday, which had covered his name for more than two-and-a-half years.

Late yesterday, after two-and-a-half days of deliberations, a jury found Farrell guilty on 10 counts and not guilty on the other seven charges.

The court heard Farrell, who is no longer a priest, has already pleaded guilty to 40 other child sex offences and is awaiting sentencing for those crimes.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

The Catholic Church in Australia could face a barrage of lawsuits from clergy abuse victims amounting to billions of dollars in compensation, a victims’ advocate says.

Cardinal George Pell and a former Victorian bishop’s appearances before the child abuse royal commission this month could get further key evidence on the public record to be used in class action lawsuits, victims’ advocacy group Broken Rites spokesman Wayne Chamley says.

The 1971-1997 Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns has terminal cancer and Dr Chamley says he has nothing to lose by telling the truth to the commission when he appears next week.

“He’s actually got everything to gain by telling them how much he did know and telling them if he spread the knowledge, and it’s beyond belief that he didn’t spread the knowledge,” Dr Chamley told AAP.

The commission has heard Bishop Mulkearns knew in 1975 that Australia’s worst pedophile priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale had abused boys but moved him between parishes.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

WHAT CARDINAL GEORGE PELL HAS TO ANSWER BEFORE CHILD ABUSE ROYAL COMMISSION

WHY HE’S APPEARING AGAIN

Now the Vatican’s finance chief, the former Melbourne and Sydney archbishop and Ballarat priest will give evidence about abuse in the Ballarat diocese and Melbourne archdiocese.

Between 1973 and 1984 Pell was a Ballarat East priest, Episcopal Vicar for Education in the Ballarat diocese and an adviser to the Ballarat bishop.

Pell presided over St Alipius primary school where four Christian Brothers were pedophiles. He and another priest lived in a presbytery with Australia’s worst pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale in 1973.

Pell was Melbourne auxiliary bishop (1987-1996), responsible for a region including Doveton which had a succession of pedophile priests, and then Melbourne archbishop (1996-2001).

CLAIM HE ATTEMPTED TO BRIBE A VICTIM

David Ridsdale claims when he told Pell in 1993 he had been abused by his uncle Gerald Ridsdale, Pell said: “I want to know what it will take to keep you quiet.”

Pell denies the allegation.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Tablet

17 February 2016 | by Clifford Longley

Church of England compensates alleged victim despite Bishop George Bell dying in 1958

Has believing the victim policy sullied the name of a much-admired bishop?

Has Bishop George Bell – the Anglican Bishop of Chichester from 1929 to 1958, and one of the Church of England’s greatest figures – become a victim of the rule that people who complain of sexual abuse must always be believed? This principle was applied by police forces across the country in the wake of the Jimmy Savile affair, and has caused no end of problems. Now it has caused a major problem for the Church of England too, which has been accused of rubbishing the reputation of a good man and ignoring the presumption that someone accused of crime is innocent until proved guilty. Innocent may not be quite the right word, as the bishop is dead. But there is such a thing as the benefit of the doubt, and he should be given it.

On the basis of one complaint last autumn – about an alleged series of abusive episodes in the 1940s – the Church has formally apologised and paid compensation. In a statement, it implied not only that there were no reasons to disbelieve the victim, but that the allegations were actually true. It did not say why it thought so, and no further evidence has come to light.

Bishop Bell died in 1958, and has since become an iconic figure for his many brave interventions in public affairs not least for standing up to Winston Churchill to protest at the devastating bombing of German cities. He was also a key link with the plotters who tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1944. If he really was a paedophile, as a headline in the
Daily Telegraph

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

February 17, 2016

Timna Jacks
Education Reporter

A Mentone pastor has supported local families in their call for Father John Walshe’s resignation, stating that church leaders must always be held “accountable” for their actions.

Senior minister at Mentone Baptist Church, Murray Campbell, has hit out at a decision to allow Father Walshe to retain his position as the Catholic Mentone-Parkdale parish priest in a blog post.

The parish services two local schools – St Patrick’s School in Mentone and St John Vianney’s school in Parkdale.

Dozens of parents from both schools boycotted Mass in recent weeks, in protest against Father Walshe, who abused an 18-year-old seminarian shortly after he was ordained.

Despite the protests, Father Walshe has retained his position. Pastor Campbell described the church’s silence as “helpful as clanging cymbals being hit half a beat behind the rest of the band”.

The Catholic Church paid $75,000 compensation to John Roach in 2012, after the Catholic archdiocese of Melbourne accepted he had been sexually abused by Father John Walshe in 1982.

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AUSTRALIA
PerthNow

AMY MARTIN
Entertainment Reporter
PerthNow

PERTH comedian-musician Tim Minchin’s latest song has taken aim at Cardinal George Pell, calling him a “pompous buffoon”, “a coward” and “scum”.

Come Home (Cardinal Pell) first aired on Channel 10’s The Project on Tuesday night and caused a swell of support on social media, despite outrage from the show’s co-host Steve Price.

Currently working in the Vatican, Cardinal Pell — the highest-ranking cleric in the Australian Catholic Church — was asked to return to Australia by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in the 1970s and 1980s.

The cardinal replied with a doctor’s certificate that said he was too unwell to fly back to Australia to give evidence on the case.

An arrangement has been made for him to give evidence via video link to the Royal Commission.

This prompted Minchin to write the musical attack, which went as far to say that if moral duty hadn’t compelled Cardinal Pell to return to Australia, then the opportunity to sue the singer for his song might.

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AUSTRALIA
Courier Mail

February 16, 2016

Wendy Tuohy
Herald Sun

IF people’s willingness to put their hand in their pocket to help fund something that makes them furious counts, then Cardinal George Pell’s abstention from coming home to face the child sex abuse royal commission is making him one unpopular guy right now.

People *really* want him to look child sex abuse victims in the eye, so much so in just 15 hours more than 75,000 have clicked on the scathing new song Come Home Cardinal Pell by hit Aussie comedian Tim Minchin, who released it to demand Pell speak face to face with the church’s victims.

A massive groundswell of protest about the Cardinal’s absence from the hearings of the Royal Commission into institutional child sex abuse (of which complaints against clergy make up the bulk of submissions) is peaking today as people put money and shares behind a campaign to get the churchman home.

To mangle the famous line from Hemingway’s For Whom The Bell Tolls, the priest is getting the message ‘Ask not for whom the Pell tolls, it tolls for thee’.

And isn’t it heartening to see how much the wider community cares about what happened to innocent little boys whose childhoods were stolen by paedophiles.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Tuesday 16 February 2016

Child sexual abuse survivors and their supporters have raised more than $90,000 to send a small group of their representatives to Rome to witness Cardinal George Pell, Australia’s most senior Catholic, give evidence before a child sexual abuse royal commission.

After lawyers for Pell tendered medical documents to the royal commission into institutional responses into child sexual abuse this month, the commission chair, Justice McClellan, agreed to allow Pell to give evidence via video link from Rome rather than in person.

It prompted the radio personality Meshel Laurie and the television presenter Gorgi Coghlan to launch a gofundme campaign to send survivors and a support network of psychologists and counsellors to Rome, where Pell is the Vatican’s financial head.

The target of $55,000 was far exceeded in just one day, with the campaign also supported by Loud Fence, a group for survivors of child sexual abuse in Ballarat religious institutions who are putting together a group of people ready to fly.

One anonymous person donated $10,000 to the cause, while other supporters have donated whatever they could afford, even if only a few dollars.

“After caring for victims of child abuse over the years I have seen the immense damage it has had on their lives,” one donator, Noelene Plummer, wrote. “I hope they can find some healing.”

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AUSTRALIA
Digital Journal

AFP

A crowdfunding campaign to send victims of child sex abuse to Rome to hear Vatican finance chief George Pell give evidence to an Australian inquiry has been overwhelmed by support, doubling its target in two days.

Cardinal Pell, formerly the top Catholic official in Australia, is too ill to travel to the Victorian state town of Ballarat to appear in person at a Royal Commission and is expected to give evidence via video-link from Rome later this month.

“The survivors of Ballarat and District child abuse feel the face-to-face hearing was important for healing and understanding,” campaigners wrote on their gofundme page.

“With the news that Cardinal Pell could not come here, it seems appropriate to get the survivors to Rome to sit in front of Pell as he gives evidence.”

Pell has always denied knowing of any child abuse occurring in Ballarat, including by paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale who abused dozens of children over two decades.

The survivors group had hoped to raise Aus$55,000 (US$39,110) to send 15 people to Rome when they launched their campaign this week, but by Wednesday had raised more than Aus$111,000 with donations still coming in.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Abuse survivors who are travelling to Rome after a successful crowdfunding campaign call on the royal commission into child sexual abuse to “flex a bit of muscle” and make sure they can be in the room when Cardinal George Pell gives evidence.

A GoFundMe page to send 15 people, including representatives from the City of Ballarat, survivors and support people, to the hearing has surpassed its target of $55,000, reaching $117,000 by Wednesday afternoon.

But the royal commission must give its approval for those travelling to Rome to watch the evidence in person, abuse survivor Stephen Woods said.

“We are still waiting for the royal commission to flex a bit of muscle, as we’re saying amongst survivors, so say that the population of Australia is really behind them, they need to hold the clergy to account,” Mr Woods said.

“There’s nothing like a presence of people showing those who have had power for literally centuries, to show the people will rise up and hold them accountable.”

Cardinal Pell, 74, will appear via video link from Rome after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse accepted a doctor’s report that said he would risk heart failure if he flew to Australia to testify.

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UNITED STATES
Hollywood Reporter

FEBRUARY 16, 2016 by Peter Saunders

Peter Saunders, who is on an involuntary “leave of absence” from the Vatican commission to which he was appointed by the Pope, tells THR, “All Catholics and all thinking people should watch this film.”

It’s been an overwhelming few days, but also a really encouraging few days because so many people are coming forward and so many people are offering support,” Peter Saunders told me when we spoke by phone Tuesday morning.

Saunders is well aware of the Oscar race in which Spotlight now finds itself. “All Catholics and all thinking people should watch this film for an education,” he says. “It would get my vote. It is a superb piece of film and makes a superb comment on the reality of our culture.” He subsequently sent THR the following remarks about the film.

* * *
It’s not often that a Hollywood film connects to my own life profoundly, but as a survivor of abuse from a Catholic priest, I relate to Spotlight on a visceral level.

I admire the work of the Boston Globe reporters who didn’t cower before the church’s threats. (After all, the church uses its power to perpetuate the secrets, the cover-up, the obscurity. Keeping secrets is second-nature for the church, and keeping secrets is what has allowed — and continues to allow — pedophile priests to abuse children.) And I identify with the survivors who demand to be heard, who refuse to be quiet, because we cannot afford to be silent. I learn this every day in working with millions of survivors through my nonprofit, the National Association for People Abused in Childhood. To be blunt: The safety of Catholic children around the world is at stake.

Spotlight has brought this discussion back to the forefront in a way that’s making it difficult for the Vatican to ignore. It’s no longer possible to hide this systemic lesion when audiences see the film and begin to understand that reform is imperative. This film really does have the power to create demonstrable change that will protect our most vulnerable.

I spent a portion of my life hiding what happened to me; as an adult, I am empowered by the truth. I will remain loud until the Vatican takes concrete steps to ensure that abuse is ended once and for all, and I will not be patient about demanding this reform. Protecting children cannot happen at a glacial pace.

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INDIA
The Citizen

SHOMA A.CHATTERJI

Wednesday, February 17,2016

Paying a tribute to a real life story on investigative journalism for a commercial Hollywood flick is not a common occurrence. Especially with reference to a story that is an expose on the Catholic Church and tackles the extremely fragile subject of child abuse. But it has happened and the film Spotlight (2015) will release across the country on Friday.

Directed by Academy-Award nominee Tom McCarthy, Spotlight is a taut, edge-of-the-seat thriller. Spotlight zeroes in on the Boston Globe investigations by its own Spotlight team of reporters and the series of stories published over one year on this fragile subject won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2003. The story investigated into allegations of abuse in the Catholic Church that revealed not only the abuse but more shocking was the decades-long cover-up at the highest levels of Boston’s religious, legal and government establishments that went to great lengths to see that the story did not get out and reach the public. The waves shook the entire world at the time. After the Spotlight team published its work, the team created a book about the events. Sacha Pfeiffer, one of the leading members of the team is a co-author of Betrayal: The Crisis of the Catholic Church. The consequences of this massive reveal rocked the world and had a ripple effect across the many major religious institutions.

In 2002, the Spotlight team published nearly 600 stories about sex abuse of children by more than 70 priests whose actions were concealed by the Catholic Church. In December 2002, Cardinal Law resigned from the Boston Archdiocese and was re-assigned to the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. 249 priests have been publicly accused of sexual abuse within the Boston Archdiocese. As of 2008, 1,476 victims survived priest abuse in the Boston area. Nationwide 6,427 priests have been accused of sexually abusing 17,259 victims. In the years since Spotlight’s report, sexual abuse by Catholic Church priests has been uncovered in 105 American cities and 102 dioceses world wide. (Source: www.bishop-accountability.org, a database compiled by Terry McKiernan)

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INDIA
Zee News

New Delhi: Children`s activists in India on Wednesday criticised the Vatican for revoking the suspension of a Catholic priest who was convicted by a US court of sexually abusing a minor.

Indian priest Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, 61, was suspended by his local diocese in India five years ago after being accused of sexually abusing two girls during a posting to Minnesota.

He was later convicted of assaulting one of them, a 16-year-old, and served time in jail.

But the Vatican lifted his suspension in January following a recommendation by an Indian bishop.

“The lifting of the suspension amounts to the Church condoning his actions,” Ranjana Kumari, director of the Centre for Social Research, an NGO working on women`s and girls` rights, told AFP.

The decision was “totally unacceptable”, coming as the Vatican undertook to root out sexual abuse by the Church, she said.

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AUSTRALIA
Newsweek

BY MIRREN GIDDA ON 2/17/16

Fifteen Australian abuse survivors have raised over $85,000 through crowdfunding to travel to Rome. The group, who were sexually abused by priests as children, want to hear testimony in person from Australian-born Cardinal George Pell.

The cardinal, who was once tipped to become pope, will speak to the Australian court on February 29 via video-link from the Vatican, after his lawyers said health concerns prevent him from traveling to attend the hearing.

Pell, who is the Vatican’s financial controller, will be giving evidence about instances of child abuse that took place in his diocese. Last year, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard testimony that while Pell was assistant priest for Ballarat East, priests suspected of abuse were shunted between parishes or put in church-appointed rehabilitation. He also lived with former priest Gerald Ridsdale in the 1970s, The Guardian reports. Ridsdale has been accused of multiple counts of child abuse, though Pell denies having any knowledge of it.

Pell’s decision not to attend the hearing in person angered abuse survivors. So, on February 14, they launched an online campaign to raise the money they needed to go to the Vatican and see his testimony for themselves. Australian comedian Tim Minchin released a satirical song about Pell’s no-show, Reuters reports. The track includes the lines: “You’re a coward Georgy / Come and face the music Georgy / You owe it to the victims Georgy.” Minchin donated the proceeds from the song to the crowdfunding campaign.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

A Jesuit priest and human rights lawyer has accused Tim Minchin of endangering the integrity of the royal commission into sexual abuse after the comedian penned a song describing George Pell as “scum” and inviting the Cardinal to “come home and frickin’ sue [me]”.

Father Frank Brennan has warned that turning the commission into a “laughing stock” runs the risk of derailing proceedings.

“I don’t think it’s altogether helped by having songs about a key witness, calling him scum, and a buffoon, and a coward and that sort of thing before the commission does its task,” Father Brennan told ABC’s the Drum program.

“Because if we turn it into a laughing stock, then the big losers … will be the victims themselves.”

But some survivors have already expressed anger at the royal commission for allowing the Cardinal to give evidence from Rome, rather than returning to Australia.

Minchin is donating the proceeds of the song, called Come Home (Cardinal Pell) to a GoFundMe page set up to send 15 representatives, including survivors, to Rome to witness Pell’s testimony in person.

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HAWAII
The Worthy Adversary

February 16, 2016 Joelle Casteix

Hawai’i’s adult victims of child sexual abuse only have until the end of April to come forward and use the civil courts.

The civil window, which was renewed in 2014, was an extension of a 2012 bill that gave victims of child sexual abuse the right to use the civil courts to expose their abuse and seek justice. The law, which applies to both public and non-public entities (including the Honolulu Diocese and the Kamehameha Schools), has resulted in upwards of 80 lawsuits, although an exact number is not available at this time.

Despite all of this, to date, the Diocese of Honolulu refuses to release a list of credibly accused clerics, like more than 30 other dioceses have done. But considering they would have to include a former bishop and a well-loved Kailua priest, it’s no shock why they are keeping names close to the vest. And those are just the deceased ones. The living? We don’t know who they are, where they are, or what they are doing.

If you or someone you love were sexually abused as a child in Hawaii, don’t wait. You owe it to yourself and to other current and potential victims to come forward and let your voice be heard.

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MARYLAND
Time

Elizabeth Dias @elizabethjdias

Child sex abuse in the Catholic Church is now widely known—Spotlight, a film about the Boston Globe journalists who documented the massive child molestation scandal and cover-up in the Catholic Church, is up for Best Picture at this year’s Oscars—but similar abuses in evangelical communities have not received the same public scrutiny.

The February issue of Washingtonian Magazine featured an exposé of long-buried sexual abuse of children in a prominent evangelical church network, Sovereign Grace Ministries. Freelance journalist Tiffany Stanley, a 2015 National Magazine Award finalist, spent 10 months uncovering reports of child rape and molestation in Sovereign Grace churches over the last three decades, particularly at the then-flagship Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

Her investigation, “The Sex Scandal that Devastated a Suburban Megachurch,” chronicles the inside story of crimes against children in D.C.-area Sovereign Grace churches, explores how church leaders including founder C.J. Mahaney did and did not respond, and recounts how victims’ mothers joined forces to seek justice.

Unlike the hierarchical Catholic Church, evangelical churches often function independently. But their influence is widespread—as Stanley points out, Wayne Grudem, an evangelical theologian at Phoenix Seminary, once described Sovereign Grace Ministries “as an example of the way churches ought to work.”

Stanley shares some insights from her investigation with TIME. Her reporting was subsidized in part by a Fund for Investigative Journalism grant.

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CANADA
Ottawa Citizen

SHAAMINI YOGARETNAM, OTTAWA CITIZEN

A former Sunday school teacher and husband of a children’s pastor has been charged by Ottawa police with human trafficking.

Matthew Valentini, 34, is charged with trafficking of a person under the age of 18, drug possession and driving with a suspended license. He was arrested last Friday for “offences relating to the sexual exploitation of a 15-year-old female over a period of time between 2013 and 2014,” police said on Tuesday.

Valentini is a former computer consultant who lived in Fredericton, N.B. before returning to Ottawa in 2011, according to his wife Miranda Valentini’s staff profile on the Sunnyside Wesleyan Church website. Miranda Valentini is the children’s pastor at the Ottawa church. A fall teaching schedule from 2011 lists Matthew Valentini as a Grade 5 Sunday school teacher. The schedule for this year’s Sunday school session appeared to have been removed from the church website by Tuesday morning.

The police allegations against Matthew Valentini do not relate to his role as a Sunday school teacher at the church, located on Grosvenor Avenue. The mission of the church, according to its website, is “to be one church of missional congregations of faithful followers of Jesus Christ scattered around the neighbourhoods of the National Capital Region.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

February 17, 2016 –

Emma Partrdige

A former Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing three young altar boys in regional NSW in the 1980s has been found guilty in a Sydney court of 10 child sex offences.

John Joseph Farrell, also known as “Father F”, was tried in the Downing Centre District Court for 17 offences he was accused of committing against the boys, aged 11 and 12, between 1980 and 1984.

Fairfax Media can reveal his identity after Judge Peter Zahra late on Tuesday lifted a suppression order that had covered his name for more than 2½ years.

Late on Tuesday, after 2½ days of deliberations, the jury found Farrell guilty on 10 counts and not guilty on the other seven.

The court heard Farrell, who is no longer a priest, has already pleaded guilty to 40 other child sex offences and is awaiting sentencing for those crimes.

Farrell was remanded into custody by a Supreme Court judge last year, when he was denied bail. He remains in custody after Tuesday’s verdict.

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VATICAN CITY
Religion News Service

Rosie Scammell | February 16, 2016

VATICAN CITY (RNS) Catholic clergy have a “moral and ethical responsibility” to report sexual abuse, the cardinal tasked with reforming the Vatican’s approach to sexual crimes said after criticism of the Holy See.

Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley sought to reaffirm the church’s position on reporting abuse in his role as head of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, which Pope Francis set up in 2014.

“Our obligations under civil law must certainly be followed, but even beyond these civil requirements, we all have a moral and ethical responsibility to report suspected abuse to the civil authorities who are charged with protecting our society,” O’Malley said in a statement Monday (Feb. 15).

O’Malley’s comments followed a report that a French priest told new bishops they were under no duty to report abuse allegations to the police.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Charlotte King

A Catholic bishop in regional Victoria has agreed to be sued for sex abuse claims dating back to the 1960s, standing in the place of his long-dead predecessor.

His stance means victims can bring the Ballarat diocese to court over the actions of the previous bishop who is alleged to have presided over child sex abuse.

On January 1 a new set of guidelines came into effect, agreed to by the nation’s 33 Catholic dioceses, and hundreds of religious orders.

They oblige all Church authorities to provide an entity for victims to sue, such as a trustee, even where the person responsible for overseeing the alleged abuse has since died.

In Ballarat, current bishop Paul Bird has volunteered to put himself forward as the defendant.

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INDIA
The New Indian Express

COIMBATORE: A 61-year-old priest, who had faced two accusations of child sexual abuse in the USA, now roams free in Udhagamandalam, where the Catholic Church chose to remain blind to the excesses of Fr Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul.

On May 22, 2015, Jeyapaul had pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 16-year-old girl while serving in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Crookston, Minnesota.

The Roseau County District Court convicted him in June, but had to serve no time in prison beyond what he had done while waiting for court proceedings in the plea deal. He was then deported to India.

There was no conviction in the second case involving a 14-year-old girl in which Jeyapaul faced two counts of first-degree criminal sexual misconduct. The alleged misconduct was in 2004 and 2005.

Jeyapaul’s suspension from priestly duties, imposed in 2010, was lifted recently after consultations between the Ootacamund Diocese and the Vatican, church officials said.

Meanwhile, Jeyapaul is still “on leave” and travelling across the country, Ooty Diocese PRO Fr Sebastian Selvanathan told Express. “We will ask him to speak to you once he returns,” he added.

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MICHIGAN
Central Michigan Life

By Sydney Smith | Published 02/15/16

Before Father Denis Heames was removed from St. Mary’s University Parish, the Central Michigan University student he was having an affair with told a faculty member about their relationship.

That conversation launched a sexual harassment investigation through the Office of Civil Rights and Institutional Equity (OCRIE).

Though the office states it “endeavors to issue a determination” within 60 days of formally launching an investigation, its look into Heames’ behavior began in August 2015 and was completed last month.

Heames was named in a lawsuit filed Jan. 14 in Isabella County Court. Heames, along with St. Mary’s, the Diocese of Saginaw and his spiritual director, Trudy McCaffrey, are accused of battery, defamation, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, intentional infliction of emotional distress, fraud and negligent supervision and retention.

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ROME
Addicting Info

February 16, 2016

The Catholic Church has a decades long — and likely even longer than that — history of covering up child sexual abuse. They even looked the other way when child pornography was found within the walls of the Vatican itself. And now, despite Pope Francis’s declarations that he would put a stop to this, recent actions and statements by the Church strongly contradict that.

Times Live reports that a set of guidelines drawn up to train newly ordained bishops says the following:

“According to the state of civil laws of each country where reporting is obligatory, it is not necessarily the duty of the bishop to report suspects to authorities, the police or state prosecutors in the moment when they are made aware of crimes or sinful deeds.”

So, in other words, these people are telling their new bishops that they don’t have to go to the cops if they find out someone in their charge is molesting kids. That is in sharp contrast to Pope Francis’s earlier statement, which said:

“Everything possible must be done to rid the church of the scourge of the sexual abuse.”

Well, your words are high-minded, Pope Francis, but the guidelines regarding this issue are not. Nothing has changed. You people might be pretending to be concerned about the continued victimization of the children within your parishes and under the charge of your priests and bishops, but you aren’t, really. All you care about is the church’s image, and getting butts in the pews and cash in the collection plates.

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OREGON
Catholic Sentinel

An employee working with the outdoor education program that is a rite of passage for Portland sixth graders has been indicted on 54 counts of child sex abuse.

Jared White worked in the Outdoor School program from March 2014 through Oct. 22, 2015. He was a volunteer at Namanu, Sandy River and Arrah Wanna Outdoor School sites between September 2011 and April 2013. In addition, he was a student leader at the Adams Outdoor School site between September 2008 and May 2011.

He never worked at Camp Howard, the Catholic camp that also hosts Outdoor School.

Sixth graders from Catholic schools are part of the Outdoor School program.

The victims in the indictment were acquaintances and not students who attended Outdoor School. But authorities think there may be more victims.

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AUSTRALIA
The Chronicle

BALLARAT survivors of sexual abuse plan to travel to Rome to hear Cardinal George Pell give evidence to the royal commission into child sex abuse, as a result of a crowdfunding campaign.

Cardinal Pell will remain in Rome after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse accepted a doctor’s report that said he was too sick to return to testify in Australia.

Comedian Meshel Laurie and television presenter Gorgi Coghlan started a GoFundMe page to send 15 people, including representatives from the City of Ballarat, survivors and support people to Rome for the hearing.

The campaign exceeded its target of $55,000 after the fundraising page was shared more than 3,100 times on Facebook and Twitter.

On Wednesday morning it was nearing $75,000, including an anonymous donation of $10,000.

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CHILE
Bio Bio

[Police in a progress report said priest John O’Reilly continues to deny abusing a minor. He was sentenced to four years probation.]

Este martes se dio a conocer un informe evolutivo realizado al sacerdote John O’Reilly, quien fue condenado a cuatro años de libertad vigilada por abuso sexual reiterado contra una menor cuando ésta era alumna del Colegio Cumbres.

Según publica Emol, Gendarmería concluyó que el sacerdote “mantiene la negación de la ejecución de las conductas ilícitas por las cuales fue condenado“.

El informe corresponde a la observación del condenado entre julio y diciembre del año pasado, documento que fue enviado el mes pasado al Cuarto Juzgado de Garantía de Santiago. Allí se señala que O’Reilly ha manifestado “apertura a trabajar los contenidos que han sido planteados y que están orientados a identificar y evaluar los factores de riesgo asociados a conductas de transgresión”.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue points out that some in the media are still misreporting the Vatican’s policy on priestly sexual abuse:

Last week, several media outlets reported that the Vatican had adopted a new policy on sexual abuse, attributing the new position to Msgr. Tony Anatrella. The French priest was accurately quoted as saying that the clergy were not required to report suspected abuse cases to the authorities, but the media erred by not stating that this was simply his opinion. It was not, and is not, Vatican policy.

On February 11, we listed four media sources as misreporting this story: Newsweek, Time, UPI, and the Guardian (UK). We are happy to say that Newsweek quickly corrected its story.

Time and UPI have not printed a correction, even though Cardinal Sean O’Malley, president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, subsequently issued a statement insisting on the “moral and the ethical responsibility” of all clergymen to report suspected abuse cases to the civil authorities.

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MICHIGAN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016

Statement by Judy Jones, Midwest Associate Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priest 636-433-2511, SNAPJudy@gmail.com

Kalamazoo Catholic officials kept silent for weeks about the passing of an accused predator priest and made no mention of his alleged crimes in the very short obituary published in the diocesan newspaper.

In 1985, Fr. Carl Anthony Peltz was accused of forcing a 12 year old to drink whiskey and raping him.

In 1991, Fr. Peltz was sent to a treatment center for predator priests in Missouri.

In 1993, diocesan officials reached a $25,000 settlement with the alleged victim.

In 1997, Fr. Peltz was transferred to the Kalamazoo Diocese where he worked as recently as 2009 in at least eight towns (Parchment, Delton, Lacey, Berrien Springs, Decatur, Buchanan, Portage and Niles).
www.BishopAccountability.org

According to Fr. Peltz’s obituary, he died on Dec. 26 last year and was buried at St. Augustine Cathedral in Kalamazoo. But as best we can tell, Kalamazoo Bishop Paul J. Bradley told no one (except for a tiny, 21 word funeral mass notice on the diocesan website). Even if he had put notices in church publications, in the interest of transparency and healing, he should have notified the mainstream media of Fr. Peltz’ passing.

Steubenville Bishop Jeffrey Montforton waited to make Fr. Peltz’ death public until Feb 11 (at the bottom of page 11 in a 12 page publication). http://www.lifestorynet.com/obituaries/fr-carl-f-peltz.110175

(Fr. Peltz had originally been ordained in Steubenville.)

We hope anyone who has seen, suspected or suffered, Fr. Peltz’ crimes, or cover ups by his church colleagues or supervisors, will call police, expose wrongdoers, protect kids and start healing.

And we hope that, in the future, church officials in Kalamazoo will be more honest with police, prosecutors, parents, parishioners and the public about accused child molesting clerics.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2016

Statement by Joelle Casteix of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests 949 322 7434, jcasteix@gmail.com

We agree with the Vatican on one key fact: the recent disclosure that new bishops are told they need not call police about abuse reports is nothing new.

[The Guardian]

(Exact language: “The Vatican has emphasized that Anatrella’s involvement in the teaching of new bishops did not represent a departure on policy,” according to the Guardian.)

And let no one be misled by Catholic officials who substitute the word “cooperate” for “report.”

In our experience, when church bureaucrats are subpoenaed, and they respond, they call this “cooperation.” That happens sometimes.

But “reporting” is different. “Reporting is when church officials take the initiative and give abuse reports to police and prosecutors. That rarely happens. And that’s far more important.

Again, from the Guardian: “The Vatican has said since 2011 that it was ‘important’ to cooperate with civil authorities. But it still does not support across-the-board reporting of abuse in countries where such notification is not mandatory.”

Finally, Newsweek notes that “An unnamed Vatican source (said) that it was difficult to report abuse in some countries because of a ‘hostile’ relationship between church and state and places with corrupt police forces that did not ensure the presumption of innocence.”

Our message to Vatican officials: “Put up or shut up. Produce the list of those nations and we strongly suspect that victims and Catholics in those countries will be more understanding of church secrecy in child sex abuse and cover up cases. Until you do, this excuse will continue to ring hollow.”

(Laws about asking for donations also vary among nations. Are there countries in which Catholic officials don’t seek contributions? We don’t think so.)

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MINNESOTA
Bring Me The News

Victims of historic sexual abuse have 100 days left to come forward and file an action for damages before the claim window closes in Minnesota.

In 2013, the state lifted the statute of limitations for child sex abuse through the Minnesota Child Victims Act, giving victims a three-year window to file a civil lawsuit seeking damages for abuse that may have happened decades ago.

Previously, a victim of child abuse had to file a lawsuit by the time they were 24 years old, but a temporary window for people aged over 24 was opened after advocates argued it could take many years for victims to come to terms with their abuse.

This window for lawsuits will close on May 25.

The exception is claims against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the deadline for which was moved up to Aug. 3, 2015, by a bankruptcy judge in order to speed up the archdiocese’s financial reorganization.

Victims of sexual abuse from any other Catholic diocese or other institutions in Minnesota still have until May 25 to file.

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ROME
DFW Catholic

Rome, Italy, Feb 16, 2016 / 09:45 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After recent media reports suggested the Vatican is telling bishops to cover up sexual abuse, the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors has said that reporting abuse is not just a civil responsibility, but a moral one.

“The crimes and sins of the sexual abuse of children must not be kept secret for any longer. I pledge the zealous vigilance of the Church to protect children and the promise of accountability for all,” Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, president of the commission, said in a Feb. 15 statement, quoting Pope Francis.

On behalf of himself and the other members of the commission, the cardinal affirmed that “our obligations under civil law must certainly be followed.”

Even beyond these civil requirements, “we all have a moral and ethical responsibility to report suspected abuse to the civil authorities who are charged with protecting our society,” he said.

Cardinal O’Malley’s statement comes less than a week after some media reports falsely suggested that the Vatican is telling new bishops that they don’t have to report sexual abuse.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

The Vatican’s commission for the protection of minors has issued a strongly worded statement emphasising that there is a “moral and ethical responsibility” on relevant church authorities and others to report all suspected cases of child sexual abuse to civil authorities.

Commission President Cardinal Seán O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston, said: “As Pope Francis has so clearly stated: ‘The crimes and sins of the sexual abuse of children must not be kept secret for any longer. I pledge the zealous vigilance of the church to protect children and the promise of accountability for all’.”

The Cardinal continued “we, the president and the members of the commission, wish to affirm that our obligations under civil law must certainly be followed, but even beyond these civil requirements, we all have a moral and ethical responsibility to report suspected abuse to the civil authorities who are charged with protecting our society.”

He also said that “as the Holy Father’s advisory commission for the protection of minors, we recently shared with Pope Francis an overview of the commission’s extensive education efforts in local churches over the past two years and reiterated the members’ willingness to provide this material at courses offered in Rome, including to the annual training programme for new bishops and to the offices of the Roman Curia for their use in their own child protection efforts.”

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ROME/IRELAND
Irish Times

Paddy Agnew, Patsy McGarry

The Vatican has denied any change to its policy over the mandatory reporting of sex-abuse cases to civil authorities, after reports last week of a Vatican training document that advised newly appointed bishops it was “not necessarily” their duty to do so.

Responding to media reports that a Vatican consultant, Paris-based Msgr Tony Anatrella, had made the suggestion to a bishops seminar, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, the president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, said the church had a “moral and ethical responsibility” to report abuse.

“We, the president and the members of the commission, wish to affirm that our obligations under civil law must certainly be followed, but even beyond these civil requirements, we all have a moral and ethical responsibility to report suspected abuse to the civil authorities who are charged with protecting our society,” he said.

The 2010 Guide to Understanding Basic Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Procedures Concerning Sexual Abuse Allegations states that “civil law concerning the reporting of crimes to the appropriate authorities should always be followed”. Cardinal O’Malley’s statement basically reaffirms this position.

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ROME
New York Times

Associated Press

MEXICO CITY — Pope Francis’ top adviser on clerical sex abuse says bishops have a “moral and ethical responsibility” to report all cases of suspected rape, molestation and other abuse to police — even where local laws don’t require it.

A statement released by Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley goes beyond the Vatican’s current guidelines for bishops. Those 2010 guidelines say bishops and superiors must report suspected cases where civil reporting laws require it.

O’Malley, who heads the pope’s abuse advisory commission, issued the statement after a recent course for new Catholic bishops on handling abuse cases featured a French monsignor who reportedly said bishops don’t have to report cases. He said it is up to families and victims to do so.

The failure of bishops to turn suspected and known pedophiles over to police is one of the main reasons that the church’s abuse scandal grew to the extent it did, since bishops for decades moved rapists from parish to parish rather than hand them over to law enforcement.

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INDIA
The News Minute

Isn’t it a moral travesty?

Dhanya Rajendran| Tuesday, February 16, 2016

On August 24, 2005, the diocese of Crookton in Minnesota received an anonymous complaint stating that an Indian priest, Father Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, working at the church had sexually assaulted a minor.

A second victim later came forward. Another young girl who had wanted to become a nun had been sexually assaulted by Father Jeyapaul.

The man hailing from Tamil Nadu rushed back to India and after almost a decade of legal wrangles, he was convicted by the Minnesota court and sentenced to a year in prison in 2015.

After serving a shorter prison term, Jeyapaul returned to India a few months ago. And in a move that has shocked child right activists in the state; the Roman Catholic Church of Southern India has now lifted the suspension against him.

He was sentenced a shorter term in jail based on a plea bargain, with the condition that he does not get back to ministerial duties or get in contact with children.

While the international media had first reported on the lifting of the suspension, the Ootacamund Diocese in Tamil Nadu confirmed to The News Minute that the church was not averse to allotting a role to Father Jeyapaul in the church ministry.

Sebastian Selvanathan, Spokesperson, Ooty Diocese told TNM, “He was released from the prison in USA through a court order. His case was then referred to the Doctrine of Faith in Rome. According to the direction from there, the suspension was lifted. He has not been given ministry now, if he is given, it will be given with certain restrictions.”

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VATIKAN
Radio Vatikan

[Cardinal O’Malley reiterates responsibility to report sex abuse – Vatican Radio]

Sexuelle Vergehen an Kindern durch Kleriker müssen nicht nur innerkirchlich angezeigt werden, sondern auch den zuständigen staatlichen Autoritäten gemeldet werden. Das hat an diesem Dienstag Kardinal Sean O´ Malley, Präsident der von Papst Franziskus eingerichteten päpstlichen Kinderschutzkommission, in einer Aussendung nochmals unterstrichen.

Wörtlich betont Kardinal O´Malley: „Wie Papst Franziskus so klar gesagt hat: ,Die Verbrechen und Sünden des sexuellen Missbrauchs von Minderjährigen dürfen nicht länger geheim gehalten werden.`Wir, Präsident und Mitglieder der Kinderschutzkommission, möchten nochmals darauf hinweisen, dass wir unseren durchs Zivilgesetz geregelten Pflichten nachkommen müssen, doch über diese Verpflichtungen hinaus tragen wir die moralische und ethische Verantwortung dafür, Verdachtsfälle von Kindesmissbrauch den zivilen Behörden zu melden, die mit dem Schutz unserer Gesellschaft betraut sind.“

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ROME
The Tablet (UK)

16 February 2016

The statement is in response to allegations in the media about a Vatican training course for new bishops

President of papal commission on sex abuse reminds clergy of obligation to report crimes
The president of the commission established by Pope Francis to advise him on child sex abuse in the Church has released a statement stressing the “moral and ethical responsibility” of clergy to report all suspected cases of abuse to the police.

The statement issued on Monday on behalf of the commission and all its members came in response to media allegations that a Vatican training course for new Catholic bishops featured a speech informing clergy they had no such obligation.

A French Monsignor and psychologist, Fr Tony Anatrella, allegedly told newly-ordained bishops in September 2015 that under Church law they were not required to report sex abuse of minors to public authorities, and that it was the decision of victims and their families.

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ROME
The Guardian

Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Rome
Tuesday 16 February 2016

A battle is being waged within the Vatican over how senior clergy ought to handle accusations of sexual abuse amid signs that a special commission created by Pope Francis to handle the issue is being sidelined by senior church officials in Rome.

The rift was exposed following a report in the Guardian about a training course that was offered to new bishops last year in which a controversial French monsignor instructed new bishops that it was “not necessarily” their duty to report accusations of abuse to law enforcement authorities if local laws did not require it.

That stance was rejected this week by Pope Francis’s point man on abuse issues, Boston cardinal Seán O’Malley, who heads a special pontifical commission to protect minors.

“We, the president and the members of the commission, wish to affirm that our obligations under civil law must certainly be followed, but even beyond these civil requirements, we all have a moral and ethical responsibility to report suspected abuse to the civil authorities who are charged with protecting our society,” he said in a statement on Monday.

O’Malley also said that the special commission was committed to “extensive education efforts” within local churches since its founding two years ago, and that its members had reiterated their “willingness to provide this material at courses offered in Rome”, including at the training courses for new bishops and the offices of the Roman Curia – or bureaucracy.

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DEUTSCHLAND
SWR
[The Trier diocese has so far paid out 400,000 Euro to victims of sexual abuse.]

Das Bistum Trier hat bislang mehr als 400.000 Euro an Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs durch Priester gezahlt. Das teilte ein Sprecher auf SWR-Anfrage mit. 90 Opfer hatten bis Ende des vergangenen Jahres Entschädigungsanträge gestellt, der größte Teil wurde laut Bistum bewilligt. Einige wenige seien noch in der Bearbeitung. Im Durchschnitt erhielten die Opfer 5.000 Euro, in Einzelfällen auch mehr. Seit Bekanntwerden der Missbrauchsvorwürfe haben sich insgesamt 125 Opfer beim Bistum gemeldet.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

[with video]

February 17, 2016

Neelima Choahan

Comedian Tim Minchin wants Cardinal George Pell to “come home” and face the victims of sexual abuse in Ballarat.

And he doesn’t care if that visit comes even at the cost of getting sued by Australia’s most prominent Catholic.

On Tuesday, Minchin launched a new charity single, Come Home urging Cardinal Pell to “just get on a plane” and head on down to the inquiry into child sexual abuse.

Played on Tuesday on Network Ten’s The Project, the song begins quite innocuously.

“It’s lovely day in Ballarat, I am kicking back, thinking of you,” the song goes.

“I hear that you have been poorly, I am sorry that you are feeling blue.

Australian musical comedian Tim Minchin new charity song urging George Pell to Come Home has drawn strong reactions from …

“…But a lot of people here really miss you Georgy, we really think you ought to just get on a plane. I am sure they will make you feel welcome at the pub in ballart, they just want a beer and a chat.”

But then Minchin tells the Cardinal that he is not a “fan” of his religion, and believes that the clergyman is just being a “god-damn coward”.

“I mean with all due respect dude, I think you are scum and I reckon you should come home,” Minchin sings.

“You pompous buffoon, and I suggest you do it soon.”

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

By CINDY TRAN FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

Conservative TV personality Steve Price has come under fire for defending Cardinal George Pell, who is due to testify at the Royal Commission into the child sex abuse.

Appearing on Channel Ten’s The Project on Tuesday night, the radio host slammed comedian and musician Tim Minchin over his new expletive-filled song titled ‘Come Home, Cardinal Pell‘.

In the charity single, Mr Minchin labels Australia’s most senior Catholic ‘scum’ and a ‘god damn coward’ for not attending the hearing as it ‘stinks to the high heaven’.

However, Mr Price – who appeared on the panel alongside hosts Carrie Bickmore, Peter Helliar and Waleed Aly – criticised the tune as an ‘insult’ after it debuted on the Network Ten program.

‘Look, obviously, Tim Minchin feels really strongly about that but I just think it’s really disgusting the way he resorted to personal abuse there of George Pell,’ Mr Price said.
‘To write a song like that and use your talent to just simply abuse someone from a distance, I think is just pathetic.’

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

Associated Press FEBRUARY 16, 2016

DULUTH, Minn. — The Diocese of Duluth and victims of clergy abuse have agreed to mediation.

The diocese filed for bankruptcy in December, saying it needed to protect assets and pay the victims of abuse. Judge Robert Kressel encouraged the parties to work with a mediator and is expected to approve the appointment of Gregg Zive, a federal judge with experience in diocesan bankruptcy cases.

WDIO-TV (http://bit.ly/20XS04v ) reports a diocese official has testified the district has assets of more than $5 million and liabilities of more than $12 million. Mediation is expected to begin May 1 in Minneapolis if neither side objects to the appointment of Zire as mediator.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Breitbart

On Monday, the BBC aired a “documentary” called The Secret Letters of Pope John Paul II, suggesting a possible lack of propriety in the revered late pontiff’s friendships with women over the years, and especially with a married colleague, the Polish philosopher Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka.

The documentary by Edward Stourton, loosely based on a cache of letters from John Paul to Tymieniecka that convey a deep friendship but nothing even remotely sexual, has sparked a flurry of prurient speculation about the Pope, with steamy titles like “Did John Paul II Fall in Love with Married American Academic? BBC to Investigate” and “Did Pope John Paul II Have a Secret Lover?”

Despite talk of the late pope’s “secret relationships with women,” there is nothing in the documentary that is either new or secret, according to papal biographer George Weigel, who has called the frenzy spawned by the BBC a “tempest in a teapot.”

Weigel, who wrote the best-selling biography of John Paul, Witness to Hope, says that the BBC documentary reveals nothing really new about John Paul, but “it does tell us a something about the decline of the BBC as a source of serious television reporting.”

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TEXAS
The Monitor

Posted: Monday, February 15, 2016
KRISTIAN HERNANDEZ | STAFF WRITER

Fomer Catholic preist Dale Tacheny talks about the murder of Irene Garza at the Echo Motel February 28, 2014 in Edinburg. Tacheny claims former priest John Feit told him he killed Irene Garza. photo by joel martinez/ jmartinez@themonitor.com

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

February 16, 2016

Sean Nicholls
Sydney Morning Herald State Political Editor

NSW will scrap the time limit for civil claims by survivors of child sexual abuse against their abusers.

Attorney-general Gabrielle Upton will introduce legislation to the NSW Parliament on Tuesday which will allow survivors of child abuse claim for damages regardless of when it occurred.

There is currently a three-year limit on bringing civil actions against perpetrators or, if the person was a child at the time, three years after they turn 18.

Victoria scrapped the statute of limitations for civil action by child sexual abuse survivors a year ago.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

AAP

The scrapping of time limits on child abuse compensation claims in NSW are long overdue, says a lawyer who was involved in the notorious Fairbridge school case.

The NSW government has announced new legislation which will remove the limitation period in civil claims, and let child abuse survivors claim for damages regardless of the date of the alleged abuse.

The change is one part of the government’s response to the child sex abuse royal commission’s recommendations.

Slater and Gordon lawyer Roop Sandhu acted for former residents of the Fairbridge Farm School at Molong in country NSW and says the move is a step in the right direction.

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AUSTRALIA
timminchin.com

[with music video]

Hi,
I do hope you enjoy my new song.

Proceeds from its sale will go into this fund: GoFundMe – Send Ballarat Survivors To Rome

You can buy it worldwide now on iTunes and you can
stream it here.

It will soon be up on various other digital music outlets.

It might be rather confusing for non-Australians. I’ll put some info below for yez.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Tim Healy
PUBLISHED
16/02/2016

Three people sexually abused by paedophile priest Brendan Smyth want the Supreme Court to permit them to sue a Catholic bishop.

The case is over the Church’s alleged failure to act to prevent Smyth abusing children.

Michael Counihan, SC for the three, argued it is of significant public importance if the Church had kept “under wraps” facts that would have identified Smyth as being an abuser.

Last November the Court of Appeal granted Bishop Leo O’Reilly orders halting the three actions brought against him in his capacity as representative of the Kilmore diocese, over the Church’s alleged failure to move to stop Smyth’s abuse.

The three – a man, his sister and a cousin – settled Northern Ireland court actions over being sexually abused for years as children by Smyth for £25,000 damages each in 1998. Those cases were against Smyth himself, the Norbertine order and then Cardinal Cathal Daly as representative of the Catholic Church. The £25,000 payments were made by the Norbertines.

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AUSTRALIA
Perth Now

THE former head of the Catholic Church’s defence force diocese is contemplating his future after being acquitted of child sex offences in Perth.

Bishop Max Leroy Davis, 70, went on trial in the West Australian District Court last week, charged with six counts of being grossly indecent with five boys under the age of 15 between 1969 and 1972 at St Benedict’s College in New Norcia.

After several hours of deliberations, the jury returned a not guilty verdict late on Monday.

The Catholic Diocese of the Australian Defence Force said in a statement on Tuesday that Davis, who stood aside while the matter was dealt with by the courts, would “take some time to decide whether to return to public ministry”.

“The Catholic Diocese of the Australian Defence Force strongly encourages any victim of abuse by clergy or staff within the Catholic Church, or any other agency or person, to report the matter to the police and to seek assistance through the dedicated legal and support services.” Davis, a Member of the Order of Australia, testified during the trial that he never thought of children sexually or committed a child sex offence, describing it as wrong and inappropriate. Defence counsel Seamus Rafferty suggested two alternative suspects, who are now dead, including Father Justin, who Davis had a role in removing as rector for inappropriate behaviour.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

The former head of the Catholic Church’s defence force diocese is contemplating his future after being acquitted of child sex offences in Perth.

Bishop Max Leroy Davis, 70, went on trial in the West Australian District Court last week, charged with six counts of being grossly indecent with five boys under the age of 15 between 1969 and 1972 at St Benedict’s College in New Norcia.

After several hours of deliberations, the jury returned a not guilty verdict late on Monday.

The Catholic Diocese of the Australian Defence Force said in a statement on Tuesday that Davis, who stood aside while the matter was dealt with by the courts, would “take some time to decide whether to return to public ministry”.

“The Catholic Diocese of the Australian Defence Force strongly encourages any victim of abuse by clergy or staff within the Catholic Church, or any other agency or person, to report the matter to the police and to seek assistance through the dedicated legal and support services.”

Davis, a Member of the Order of Australia, testified during the trial that he never thought of children sexually or committed a child sex offence, describing it as wrong and inappropriate.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By David Weber

The former head of the Australian Defence Force’s Catholic diocese is yet to decide if he will resume his role in the military, after being cleared of child sex allegations.

Bishop Max Davis was on trial last week charged with six counts of being grossly indecent with boys at St Benedict’s College in New Norcia between 1969 and 1972.

A jury found the 70-year-old not guilty on all charges, after about four hours of deliberation.

Bishop Davis was a dormitory master at St Benedict’s College.

He had always denied any wrongdoing and denied ever having a sexual interest in children.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

By Justin Wm. Moyer February 16

Saint Pope John Paul II was the 20th century’s towering super-pontiff. He survived the Nazi occupation of Poland and an assassination attempt. He helped end communism in Europe and, even when plagued by severe health problems, left his mark on the Catholic Church in a papacy that stretched over much of three decades. Metaphorically and physically, he climbed mountains.

This week, however, an unexpected glimpse of the man beneath the white hat came from the BBC. In a new report, the network has shined a light on “secret letters” from John Paul II to a married woman that show an intense, if not necessarily inappropriate, friendship.

The lasting connection between the man once known only as Cardinal Karol Wojtyla and Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, a Polish philosopher with three children, began in the 1970s. John Paul II died in 2005; Tymieniecka sold letters from him to her — letters not made public until now — to the National Library of Poland in 2008, and died in 2014.

And, whatever the nature of their acquaintance, John Paul II was extremely devoted to a woman he called “a gift from God.”

In 1976, he wrote to Tymieniecka: “God gave you to me and made you my vocation.” And: “You write about being torn apart … I could find no answer to these words.” And: “If I didn’t have this conviction, some moral certainty of grace, and of acting in obedience to it, I would not dare act like this.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

February 16, 2016

Christopher Knaus
Reporter for The Canberra Times.

Former Marist students have urged the school to rename a student house that honours a brother who helped move and protect a known child sex offender in the late 1960s.

Marist College Canberra has faced private calls to change the name of Othmar House, a student house body that honours the former Marist Brother Othmar Weldon, who held the senior position of provincial leader within the organisation in the 1960s and 1970s.

Brother Weldon’s actions came under close scrutiny in the Canberra hearings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse last year.

Damian De Marco, a victim of Brother Kostka, who was named ACT Local Hero of the Year in 2015 for campaigning to prevent child abuse Photo: Jamila Toderas

The royal commission found Brother Weldon had learnt of complaints that Brother John William Chute, also known as Brother Kostka, sexually abused a boy at a school in Lismore.
Brother Kostka admitted molesting the child, but the provincial council, chaired by Brother Weldon, simply issued him a “canonical warning”. He was then shifted to another school, where, disturbingly, he was promoted to principal.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

February 16, 2016

Shannon Deery
Herald Sun

CROWDFUNDING has raised more than $55,000 to send victims of sexual abuse to Rome to watch George Pell give evidence to the child abuse royal commission.

But the Royal Commision into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has refused to comment on whether it will force Cardinal Pell to testify in public.

Members of the Ballarat and District Child Abuse Survivors group have called for the commission to ensure the Cardinal is forced to testify publicly, and want to be in Rome to witness it.

Donors have already contributed more than $22,800 just a day after a Go Fund Me site was set up by TV personalities Gorgi Coghlan and Meshel Laurie.

In just 24 hours, more than 340 people had donated to the fund, which is hoped will raise $55,000 to send 15 people to Rome.

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VATICAN CITY
UCA News

February 16, 2016

Cardinal Sean O’Malley, president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors issued a statement stressing the “moral and ethical responsibility” to report all suspected cases of sexual abuse to the civil authorities.

“The crimes and sins of the sexual abuse of children must not be kept secret for any longer. I pledge the zealous vigilance of the church to protect children and the promise of accountability for all,” the cardinal said in a Feb. 15 statement, Vatican Radio reported.

The statement also stressed the commission’s “extensive education efforts” within local churches over the past two years and reiterated the members’ willingness to provide this material at courses offered in Rome, “including to the annual training program for new bishops and to the offices of the Roman Curia for their use in their own child protection efforts.”

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ROME
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) The Pontifical Gregorian University on Monday began its first Diploma Program on the Safeguarding of Minors.

The one-semester course is conducted under auspices of the Centre for Child Protection, as a unit of the University’s Institute of Psychology.

In a speech to the first class of the programme, the Rector of the Gregorian University Father François-Xavier Dumortier, S.J., said it was a “relevant part” of the academic structure of the Pontifical Gregorian University.

“Since 2011-2012, we did our best to confront the sad phenomenon of the sexual abuse of minors – especially within the Church,” Fr. Dumortier said. “Responding to Pope Benedict XVI’s and to Pope Francis’ call to root out this evil, we set up this Centre for Child Protection … In the face of situations and facts that wounded, so deeply, many people but also damaged the Church’s witness and credibility, there was a crucial need to address this challenge.”

The diploma course is designed for those presently working in the field of safeguarding, or who will be doing so in the future. This would include child protection officers for dioceses, religious congregations, and other institutions; as well as those who advise or offer training on the issue in educational institutions such as seminaries, formation houses, and schools.

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MISSISSIPPI
Sun Herald

BY ROBIN FITZGERALD
rfitzgerald@sunherald.com Twitter: robincrimenews

GULFPORT — A former Stone County preacher is going to prison for 22 full years for molesting a girl over a three-year period, starting when she was 11 years old.

Carlos Smith, 55, of Saucier, was sentenced Monday in Harrison County Circuit Court in Gulfport.

Smith sexually abused the girl in church and in a family member’s home, according to testimony at his recent trial.

Judge Roger Clark ordered Smith to serve his prison term day for day without eligibility for probation or parole. Clark also ordered lifetime registration as a sex offender.

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AUSTRALIA
Bendigo Advertiser

By Shane Worrell
Feb. 16, 2016

BENDIGO Bishop Andrew Curnow says he feels a “great sense of shame” about incidents of child sexual abuse in the Anglican Church and believes it faces a tough battle regaining credibility.

Bishop Curnow, head of the Anglican Diocese of Bendigo, said the actions of clergymen across the country and the response from bishops aware of abuse had severely damaged the public’s view of the church.

Such actions have been recounted at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse in recent weeks.

“I felt a great sense of shame to sit there and look at the way our church behaved,” he said.

“Not only the way it behaved but what appeared to me … to be the inability of the church to deal with it – the absolute mishmash the bishops at the time made of it by not acting decidedly and appropriately.

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

AUSTRALIA
Daily Review

Tim Minchin has penned a song in his ever so polite, succinct, and yet jaunty way imploring Cardinal George Pell to return to Australia to give evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Cardinal Pell is apparently too poorly to fly and can’t make it home to give evidence about what he knew, or otherwise, about sexual abuse in the 1980s by priests in the Ballarat diocese.

Minchin said Pell’s excuse to not attend the hearing “stinks to high heaven” and in his single Come Home (Cardinal Pell) asks one of the most powerful priests in the world to: “Come and face the music, Georgie/You owe it to the victims, Georgie”.

Proceeds from the sale of the the single will go to a gofundme.com campaign to help abuse survivors from Ballarat travel to Rome to observe Pell give video evidence to the Commission on February 29.

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NEW MEXICO
Albuquerque Journal

By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writer
Published: Tuesday, February 16th, 2016

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A financial consultant who had complained about a lack of transparency by a church-owned insurance group resigned last week from his role in the Diocese of Gallup’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case.

Settlement talks in the 26-month-old bankruptcy case stalled last month after Catholic Mutual Relief Society of America, a church-owned nonprofit, declined to turn over extensive financial records demanded by the consultant, Michael P. Murphy, the managing director of Michigan-based AlixPartners LLP.

Murphy was hired last year to represent the interests of sexual abuse victims who may file claims in the future.

Earlier this month, Murphy told U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David T. Thuma of Albuquerque that he would view Catholic Mutual’s financial statement, then give the judge a “thumbs up or thumbs down” decision whether to oversee a future-claims trust fund to distribute money paid by Catholic Mutual.

Murphy gave Thuma a “thumbs down” last week and asked to be relieved as the future-claims representative.

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MINNESOTA
WDAY

By Dan Romano

The Diocese of Duluth and attorneys representing child sexual abuse victims have agreed to enter mediation for victim claims.

The Diocese of Duluth filed for bankruptcy in December, saying the move will allow them to protect assets and pay out what is due to victims. However, Judge Robert Kressel encouraged the Diocese and all parties involved to work with a mediator.

Gregg Zive, a federal judge with experience in diocesan bankruptcy cases, is expected to approved as mediator by Judge Kressel.

“He’s a federal bankruptcy judge out of Nevada, and he has mediated a number of cases like this in Catholic abuse cases across the country where the diocese or religious organization was in bankruptcy. He’s been very successful at that,” said Mike Finnegan, attorney from Jeff Anderson & Associates, the law firm representing a number of the victims in this case.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Tuesday 16 February 2016

Survivors of child sexual abuse are crowdfunding to send representatives to Rome to hear Australia’s most senior Catholic, cardinal George Pell, give evidence before a child sex abuse royal commission via video link from 29 February.

Earlier this month Pell was cleared to give evidence about child sex abuse that occurred within Ballarat parishes while he was an assistant priest at Ballarat East via video rather than in person. The chair of the royal commission into institutional responses into child sexual abuse, justice Peter McClellan, made the ruling.

Pell suffers from medical conditions related to hypertension and heart disease, which meant flying could be potentially dangerous, the commission heard.

The decision prompted the comedian and radio and television personality Meshel Laurie, who has spoken to survivors of child sexual abuse and their supporters, to launch a crowdfunding campaign.

She did so with support from Loud Fence, a support group for survivors of child sexual abuse in Ballarat religious institutions.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Ballarat survivors of sexual abuse plan to travel to Rome to hear Cardinal George Pell give evidence to the royal commission into child sex abuse, as a result of a crowdfunding campaign.

Cardinal Pell will remain in Rome after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse accepted a doctor’s report that said he was too sick to return to testify in Australia.

Comedian Meshel Laurie and television presenter Gorgi Coghlan started a GoFundMe page to send 15 representatives from the City of Ballarat, survivors and support people to Rome for the hearing.

The campaign exceeded its target of $55,000 after the fundraising page was shared more than 3,100 times on Facebook and Twitter.

The campaign aimed to raise the funds before the hearing on February 29 and says “the opportunity to face Cardinal Pell is the least our community can do for these brave people who have bared their souls to ensure the world is a safer place for all children”.

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RUSSIA/ISRAEL
RAPSI

MOSCOW, February 16 (RAPSI) – The Supreme Court of Israel has ordered the extradition to Russia of Gleb Grozovsky, a priest from St. Petersburg who stands charged with sexual abuse of children, his lawyer Haim Azencott told RAPSI on Tuesday.

According to Russian investigators, Grozovsky committed sex crimes against several minors in 2011 and 2013.

In 2013, he fled to Israel where he applied for citizenship. However, his application was dismissed.

In April 2014, Grozovsky was put on the international wanted list. Israeli police arrested him in September. In January 2015, a court in Jerusalem ruled that the priest should be extradited to Russia pursuant to the European Convention on Extradition.

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AUSTRALIA
Church Militant

by Bradley Eli, M.Div., MA.Th. • ChurchMilitant.com • February 15, 2016

Australian Bishop Max Davis found not guilty of child abuse dating back to 1969

PERTH, Western Australia (ChurchMilitant.com) – Bishop of the Australian Defence Force (ADF) Max Davis, accused of molesting boys almost 50 years ago, was exonerated Monday in the Perth District Court.

Davis, 70, stepped down from his duties as Catholic bishop of the ADF two years ago, when he was charged with six counts of indecent dealing with five male children dating back to events occurring between 1969 and 1972. At that time Davis was dormitory master at St. Benedict’s College in New Norcia, northeast of Perth in Western Australia.

The prosecution alleged that Davis, as dorm master, molested five boys aged 13 to 15 in residence at the college. One former student testified that he was sexually abused while being examined in the college’s first-aid room for a groin injury sustained while playing football. Another man testified he was abused while ill when he stayed in the dorm master’s bed and thought it was part of a medical examination.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release, February 15, 2016

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, outreach director for SNAP (314 503 0003, bdorris@SNAPnetwork.org)

A second member of a papal abuse panel is blasting Vatican officials for “great resistance” to child abuse reforms.

Marie Collins of Ireland said she was “horrified, absolutely horrified” to hear that new bishops were told they need not report known or suspected abuse to secular authorities. “It couldn’t be further from best practice if you tried to,” she told the Irish Times in a new interview.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/roman-curia-not-co-operating-with-child-abuse-commission-1.2534608

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2016/02/15/abuse-survivor-on-vatican-committee-accuses-roman-curia-of-blocking-reforms/

Another panel member, Peter Saunders of the UK, is also critical of the Vatican.

http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/208717/%E2%80%98on-child-abuse-there-is-no-sincerity-on-francis%E2%80%99-side%E2%80%99

Francis’ handling of the abuse crisis is coming under fire from others too:

—The Global Post: http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/208717/%E2%80%98on-child-abuse-there-is-no-sincerity-on-francis%E2%80%99-side%E2%80%99

—The New York Times editorial board: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/11/opinion/tracing-the-bishops-culpability-in-the-child-abuse-scandal.html?_r=0

—John Allen of Crux: http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2016/02/07/what-new-catholic-bishops-are-and-arent-being-told-on-sex-abuse/

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

Christina Tatu
Of The Morning Call

Marty Baron, executive editor of the Washington Post and a graduate of Lehigh University, will return to his alma-mater Thursday for a free screening and discussion of “Spotlight,” the Oscar Best Picture contender dramatizing the Boston Globe’s investigation into child sexual abuse by the Catholic priests.

As the Globe’s editor, Baron, 61, oversaw the paper’s 2002 investigation exposing the depth of child sexual abuse an and massive cover-up in the Boston Archdiocese.

The investigation earned a Pulitzer Prize, and the digging by the paper’s investigative Spotlight team – for which the movie is named – sparked similar investigations and shocking revelations in archdioceses all over the country.

Baron, whose career included stints at The Miami Herald, New York Times and Los Angeles Times, recently answered questions about the investigation, movie and his time at Lehigh. …

Q. What did you think about the movie’s portrayal of events?

A. I was very pleased with how the movie portrayed things. It was the overall outline of how the investigation unfolded…I think it’s important to recognize it is a movie and not a documentary, so there is some dramatic license.

Q. How much time did producers spend researching for the movie and how much were you involved in that research?

A. (Director Tom McCarthy and writer Josh Singer) interviewed all the journalists who are the central characters. They interviewed us for ‘hours on end,’ they looked at e-mails people had saved and every legal document that was available – and that’s lots and lots of them.

Liev Schreiber (the actor who portrays Baron) came to my office at The Washington Post and we talked for a bit less than two hours. I was able to review the screenplay a couple times and provide my commentary on it, and my colleagues in Boston were also able to review the movie.

Q. What did you think when you learned they wanted to make a movie about the Spotlight team?

A. I never went into this business with the expectation I would be portrayed in a movie, and frankly, I never expected this movie to be made…Even when I read the screenplay, I wasn’t sure it would get made. It was a very difficult movie to finance.

One, it deals with a very sensitive subject and a controversial subject. It doesn’t have any special effects or car chases, and there are no cartoons, none of the stuff that generally draws people to movies today…

Finally, it was at a time when the world got a new pope…The church finally acquired a new pope who was popular with the public, and I thought for sure that would kill off the movie…

Q. What did you think when you first saw the movie?

A. I first saw it at the Toronto International Film Festival (in September 2015). I had not seen it on the big screen until that point. It was a very emotional moment. There were 2,000 people in a gigantic theater (Princess of Wales Theatre). To see and hear the reaction of the audience affected me a lot.

It finally dawned on me that the whole world would know this story…

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UNTIED STATES
South China Morning Post

James Mottram
life@scmp.com

There are many shocking things about Spotlight, Tom McCarthy’s new film about the discovery of widespread sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, but perhaps the most shocking thing of all comes at the end.

Fear not, this is not a spoiler. Before the credits roll on this Boston-set story, a caption lists hundreds of cities around the world where such crimes were subsequently uncovered. It will make you gasp with disbelief.

“It’s astounding!” admits Stanley Tucci, one of the stars of Spotlight. “But if you know it’s happening in Boston, you know it’s happening all over the place. If it’s that systemic in one city … the Catholic Church, it’s all connected. It’s all connected!”

He breaks off, aware that he’s beginning to sound like his character, eccentric lawyer Mitchell Garabedian. “It’s not like this is a new thing. It’s appalling. It’s disgusting.”

Spotlight doesn’t just examine how priests targeted children in their parishes. Set in the early 2000s, it showcases how the four-strong investigative team at The Boston Globe uncovered a widespread cover-up within the Catholic Church, as predatory priests were simply removed from one diocese, sent to a treatment centre and quietly reintegrated into another parish “where the abuse would continue”, as McCarthy puts it.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) Cardinal Seán O’Malley, President of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors on Monday issued a statement stressing the “moral and ethical responsibility” to report all suspected cases of sexual abuse to the civil authorities.

Speaking on behalf of all the Commission members, the cardinal said: “The crimes and sins of the sexual abuse of children must not be kept secret for any longer. I pledge the zealous vigilance of the Church to protect children and the promise of accountability for all”.

The statement also stressed the Commission’s “extensive education efforts” within local Churches over the past two years and reiterated the members’ willingness to provide this material at courses offered in Rome, “including to the annual training program for new bishops and to the offices of the Roman Curia for their use in their own child protection efforts”.

Please see below the full statement from Cardinal Seán O’Malley, President of the the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors

Cardinal Seán O’Malley, OFM Cap., president of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, together with all the Commission Members, issued today the following statement on the obligation to report suspected sexual abuse to civil authorities:

“As Pope Francis has so clearly stated: ‘The crimes and sins of the sexual abuse of children must not be kept secret for any longer. I pledge the zealous vigilance of the Church to protect children and the promise of accountability for all’. We, the President and the Members of the Commission, wish to affirm that our obligations under civil law must certainly be followed, but even beyond these civil requirements, we all have a moral and ethical responsibility to report suspected abuse to the civil authorities who are charged with protecting our society”.

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TEXAS
The Monitor

Irene Garza’s family said they are overwhelmed with the news of John Feit’s arrest last week in connection with the rape and murder of their 25-year-old cousin in 1960.

Garza’s first cousin, Lynda de la Viña, broke the family’s silence Sunday with their first official statement. Below is the statement in it’s entirety:

STATEMENT OF IRENE GARZA FAMILY

Statement by Dr. Lynda Y. de la Viña, first cousin of Irene Garza on behalf of the Garza and Cisneros Families (Josie Cavazos, sister; and Nick and Ciro Cavazos, nephews; John de la Viña, first cousin; and the Cisneros first cousins):

“We were overwhelmed with the news of John Feit’s arrest and we continue to stand united after 56 years in the pursuit of justice for Irene. Proverbs 25:2 (King James Bible) says It is the Glory of God to conceal a thing, but the honour of kings is to search out a matter. In other words, nothing can be hidden from God, but it is the honour of rulers, to bring to light hidden works of darkness. We express our deep appreciation to the McAllen Police Department, The Texas Rangers, and the District Attorney’s office for their focused and relentless pursuit of justice for Irene.”

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IRELAND
Irish Times

When abuse victim Marie Collins claims the Roman Curia is frustrating efforts to implement decisions which will make the church a safer place for children, we must take notice

A feature of the clerical child abuse scandals that emerged in Ireland over recent decades has been the central role women played in bringing them to light. As pertinent has been the male-determined legalistic mindset they’ve had to deal with in response. The latter has consistently favoured structure over the suffering of children and its prevention.

Next Monday will mark the 20th anniversary of the broadcasting by RTÉ of Dear Daughter, the documentary wherein the late Christine Buckley and other women detailed their experiences as children in Dublin’s Goldenbridge orphanage. What was intended as a feel-good story of orphan girl meeting long-lost father became something more explosive at the insistence of Ms Buckley; then also lobbying politicians to help all who had been in such institutions as children.

Then too the late Mary Raftery, with Sheila Ahern, was at work on her ground-breaking States of Fear series which recounted the horrors of what had been going on in those same residential institutions for children. In 2002 her Cardinal Secrets programme exposed the handling of clerical child sex abuse allegations in Dublin’s Catholic archdiocese.

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MISSOURI
KMOX

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) – An ex priest, John Feit faces murder charges from a 1960 Texas case, and he has ties to St. Louis.

Last week, Feit was charged with killing Irene Garza. Evidence linked him to the case years ago, but the Survivors’ Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP’s David Clohessy, says he was moved to St. Louis and Ava Missouri.

Clohessy says “It’s going to be tough for prosecutors to resolve a 56 year old murder case. Every single victim, or witness, or whistleblower, or anybody who was hurt by Father Feit or who might have information about his crimes really needs to come forward. It’s possible that Father Feit might have hurt a woman while he was here in St. Louis.”

Feit also pleaded no contest to assaulting another young woman in Texas, just days before Irene Garza was killed.

A former monk, says Feit confessed to the murder during counseling sessions in the 1960’s, after being sent to an Ava Missouri Monastery, following the murder.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

By Ed Stourton
BBC News

Pope John Paul II was one of the most influential figures of the 20th Century, revered by millions and made a saint in record time, just nine years after he died. The BBC has seen letters he wrote to a married woman, the Polish-born philosopher Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, that shed new light on his emotional life.

Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka was a great hoarder, and she seems to have kept everything relating to her 32-year friendship with Saint John Paul. After her death, a huge cache of photographs was found among her possessions. We are used to seeing John Paul in formal papal clothing amid the grandeur of the Vatican, and yet here he is on the ski slopes, wearing shorts on a lake-side camping trip, and, in old age, entertaining privately in his rather sparse-looking living quarters.

Even more revealing is the archive of letters that Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka sold to the National Library of Poland in 2008. These were kept away from public view until they were shown to the BBC.

When the two met in 1973, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla – as he then was – was the Archbishop of Krakow. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka was Polish by birth, and, like him, had endured the searing experience of the Nazi occupation during World War Two. After the war she left to study abroad and eventually pursued an academic career as a philosopher in the United States, where she married and had three children.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

[The Secret Letters of Pope John Paul II – video which can only be seen in the UK.]

Hundreds of letters and photographs that tell the story of Pope John Paul II’s close relationship with a married woman, which lasted more than 30 years, have been shown to the BBC.

The letters to Polish-born American philosopher Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka had been kept away from public view in the National Library of Poland for years.

The documents reveal a rarely seen side of the pontiff, who died in 2005.

There is no suggestion the Pope broke his vow of celibacy.

The friendship began in 1973 when Ms Tymieniecka contacted the future Pope, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, then Archbishop of Krakow, about a book on philosophy that he had written.

The then 50-year-old travelled from the US to Poland to discuss the work.

Shortly afterwards, the pair began to correspond. At first the cardinal’s letters were formal, but as their friendship grew, they become more intimate.

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UNITED STATES
Deadline

EXCLUSIVE: Open Road just got this testimonial for Spotlight from Carl Bernstein, who with Spotlight posterBob Woodward led the Washington Post investigation that traced the Watergate burglary all the way to the Nixon White House and was immortalized in All The President’s Men. They’d been trying to get him to see the movie, and finally he rang up producer Michael Sugar with this quote: “Spotlight is a film that demonstrates finally, in the era of Twitter, why we need great reporting: more than ever—and shows how real journalism is done, with all its difficulty and complexity and, especially, the moral ambiguities and choices a truly free press must deal with. Ultimately, as Spotlight makes clear, the press remains our last chance at holding institutions accountable through the best obtainable version of the truth.”

What is intriguing about this endorsement during the Best Picture voting week is that, the whole time director Tom McCarthy, his co-writer Josh Singer and the entire cast were out promoting Spotlight, they assiduously steered clear of trying to compare themselves to All The President’s Men, the 1976 Alan J. Pakula-directed film about the Woodward-Bernstein Washington Post triumph that led to Richard Nixon’s resignation. That reticence is understandable, given that All The President’s Men is considered one of the best American pictures ever made. But there are valid grounds for comparisons: Both are journalistic procedural story lines; Watergate was a local story for the Washington Post, just the way that the Catholic Church pedophile-priest scandal was a local story for the Boston Globe‘s Spotlight team. In both cases, taking on a dominant institution in town — the White House and the Catholic Church — would have ended careers had the reporters not nailed each story to the tree and forced historic reforms.

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Monday, Feb. 15, 2016

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

An ex-priest who was just charged with raping and murdering a beauty queen spent time in St. Louis, a daily newspaper disclosed yesterday. We fear he may have hurt a woman in here too.

[The Monitor]

We urge Missouri Catholic officials, especially St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson, to

— disclose where in St. Louis Feit was, and

— aggressively beg victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to come forward to law enforcement so the full truth about this heinous crime can be uncovered.

Last week, John Feit was arrested in Phoenix for killing a 25 year old parishioner in McAllen, Texas in 1960. Two years later, he pled “no contest” to assaulting another young woman.

[The Monitor]

After Irene Garza’s murder, Catholic officials quietly moved Feit several places including St. Louis and Ava Missouri, according to The McAllen Monitor. In Ava, he reportedly admitted, in detail, several times, how he killed Garza.

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IRELAND
Catholic Herald (UK)

by David V Barrett posted Monday, 15 Feb 2016

Marie Collins said the Curia has shown ‘great resistance’ to proposals made by the the Vatican’s Commission for the Protection of Minors

The Curia is blocking improvements in the handling of abuse cases, according to a member of the Vatican’s Commission for the Protection of Minors.

Marie Collins, who was abused when she was 13 by the chaplain at Dublin’s Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin in 1960, has been a member of the abuse commission for two years.

In an interview with the Irish Times, she has expressed her frustration that little is being done by the Curia to push through proposals made by the commission, despite Pope Francis’s support for action.

A Vatican tribunal was set up last year to hold bishops to account on the handling of abuse cases, but Collins says it’s implementation has been slow to materialise.

“We as a commission put forward the proposal. It went to the Council of Cardinals, they approved it. It went forward to the Pope. He approved it. It was announced in the press, then it went to be implemented and that’s where the brick wall is. The implementation is the problem,” Collins said.

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FRANCE
Le Figaro

L’association “La parole libérée”, qui regroupe les victimes du prêtre Bernard Preynat, accusé de pédophilie sur des scouts mineurs qu’il avait en charge entre 1986 et 1991 dans la région lyonnaise, a décidé de porter plainte contre l’Archévêque de Lyon, annonce aujourd’hui FranceTVinfo.

L’association met en cause directement Monseigneur Barbarin pour n’avoir pas dénoncé à la justice les actes de pédophilie dont il a eu connaissance “vers 2007-2008”, selon ses dires sans La Croix la semaine dernière.

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FRANCE
Europe 1

[The association called La parole liberee (liberated speech), which includes victims of Bernard Preynat, criticized the Cardinal Archbishop of Lyon for not acting when he learned the crimes of pedophile priest. The associated said it intends to file a complaint against Philippe Barbarin, archbishop of Lyon.]

L’association “La parole libérée“, qui regroupe les victimes de Bernard Preynat, reproche à l’archevêque de Lyon de ne pas avoir agi lorsqu’il a appris les crimes du prêtre pédophile.

Cette fois, c’est l’institution qui est en cause. L’association “La parole libérée”, qui regroupe les victimes du prêtre auteur d’actes pédophiles Bernard Preynat, a manifesté son intention de déposer une plainte contre l’archevêque de Lyon, Philippe Barbarin. Le prélat se voit reprocher de ne pas avoir alerté la justice des exactions de l’ancien prêtre du diocèse de Lyon, mis en examen depuis fin janvier pour “agressions sexuelles sur mineurs de moins de 15 ans par personne ayant autorité”.

“Des faits anciens pour lesquels il n’y avait jamais eu de plainte”. Dans un entretien accordé à La Croix, le cardinal Barbarin dit avoir été mis au courant des crimes du père Preynat “vers 2007-2008”. Il explique s’être alors expliqué avec le prêtre pédophile, qui le convainc de son innocence. “Il s’agissait de faits anciens pour lesquels il n’y avait jamais eu de plainte, ni aucun indice de récidive”, ajoute-t-il, précisant avoir recueilli en 2014 un premier témoignage de victime. “Ma seule préoccupation est qu’aucun mal ne soit plus jamais commis.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Freethinker

The Roman Catholic church has lifted the suspension of a Tamil Nadu priest convicted last year of sexually assaulting a 14 year-old girl in the US more than a decade ago.

The suspension of Rev Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul, above, was lifted after the bishop of the Ootacamund Diocese in Tamil Nadu consulted with church authorities at the Vatican, said Rev Sebastian Selvanathan, a spokesman for the diocese.

Bishop Arulappan Amalraj of Ootacamund (Ooty) had referred Jeyapaul’s case to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and the suspension was lifted on the church body’s advice, he added.

The Vatican declined immediate comment.

Jeyapaul was sent to Minnesota in 2004. He was suspended in 2010 after being charged with sexually assaulting two girls who were both 14 at the time.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Stephen Moss
@StephenMossGdn
Monday 15 February 2016

‘More smoke than fire,” says the Vatican of Panorama’s programme about The Secret Letters of Pope John Paul II. For once, it’s hard not to agree with the cardinals. For more than three decades, Pope John Paul – the Polish pontiff who oversaw the Catholic world for 27 years and is being fast-tracked to sainthood – carried on an intense correspondence with Polish-born American philosopher Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka. They met frequently, collaborated on books, wrote each other what were to all intents and purposes love letters, but it seems they never … how can I put this … actually did it. John Paul’s vow of celibacy remained intact – as far as we know, anyway.

If that is the case, it would seem to strengthen the case for sainthood, rather than weaken it. Clearly, they loved each other; they had plenty of opportunity – numerous meetings à deux, not least while Tymieniecka was translating John Paul’s book The Acting Person (her translation is controversial and the real story may be that she screwed up the book). But we are led to believe that nothing ever happened. Certainly, Panorama could find no evidence. It’s a miracle.

The personal lives of modern popes are largely dull – hence the interest in these letters. If a cardinal had a love child, the rest of the conclave would almost certainly know about it and his chances of election would be minimal. More fire than smoke. The Vatican may be secretive, but it’s not stupid, and papal candidates are expected not to have too much personal baggage.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Derry Now

Monday 15th of February 2016

An Executive agreement to set up a working group to make recommendations on a proposed inquiry into Mother and Baby Homes/Magdalene Laundries has been welcomed by Sinn Fein MLA Maeve McLaughlin.

An inter-departmental working group led by the Department of Health has been set up to make recommendations on the scope of any proposed inquiry into Mother and Baby Homes and Magdalene laundries.

The working group will bring its recommendations to the Executive within six months.

Welcoming the announcement, Miss McLaughlin (pictured), the chairperson of the Stormont Health Committee, said the move was a “step forward” for all those who had suffered “greatly” in such homes.

She added: “Last week my party colleague Jennifer McCann met with a number of individuals and groups who were directly affected by the abuse they suffered in Mother and Baby Homes and listened to their experiences.

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