ABUSE TRACKER

TEXAS
WRCB

By JUAN A. LOZANO
Associated Press

HOUSTON (AP) – Prosecutors face a tough road in their case against a former priest accused this week in the killing of a young Texas teacher and beauty queen nearly 56 years ago, according to legal experts.

John Bernard Feit, 83, remained in custody Friday in Phoenix following his indictment in South Texas’ Hidalgo County for the murder of 25-year-old Irene Garza.

Feit had been considered a suspect in the past, and two fellow priests told authorities he confessed to them. But like many cold cases, this one will pose special difficulties stemming from decades-old evidence, a lack of DNA and the long delay in bringing charges.

“These are challenges that are not unsurmountable, but they are going to be looked at very carefully by the defense,” said Philip Hilder, a Houston criminal defense attorney and former federal prosecutor.

Authorities allege the then-27-year-old Feit killed Garza on April 16, 1960, after hearing her confession at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen, where he was a priest.

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MARYLAND
Roman Catholic Diocese of Baltimore – The Catholic Review

February 12, 2016

The Archdiocese of Baltimore released the following statement Feb. 12.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore has learned of an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor against Father Jorge Antonio Velez-Lopez, T.C., 60, a member of the religious order known as the Tertiary Capuchins, who last served in the archdiocese in 2010. The alleged abuse began approximately in 2007 while Father Velez was assigned to St. John the Evangelist Parish in Columbia. The alleged victim was a parishioner at Church of the Resurrection in Laurel.

The allegation was immediately reported to civil authorities in Howard County, to the superior of Father Velez’s religious order, and to the Diocese of Alexandria, La., where Father Velez has most recently been serving.

After receiving permission from civil authorities, a representative of the archdiocese traveled to the Diocese of Alexandria to meet with Father Velez to discuss the allegations. At the meeting Feb. 11, Father Velez admitted to the allegations. The Archdiocese of Baltimore reminded Father Velez that he is not permitted to function as a priest or to minister in any capacity in the archdiocese. His authority to act as a priest in the archdiocese ended when he left service here in 2010. In accordance with archdiocesan policy, counseling assistance has been offered to all those affected.

Father Velez began working in the Archdiocese of Baltimore in July 2002 and served at St. John from 2003 to 2010. During this time he also ministered to members of the Spanish-speaking community in several other parishes, including Church of the Resurrection in Laurel, Holy Trinity in Glen Burnie, St. John the Evangelist Church in Frederick, Sacred Heart Church in Glyndon, and St. Joseph Church in Cockeysville

The Archdiocese of Baltimore is committed to protecting children and helping to heal victims of abuse. We urge anyone who has any knowledge of any child sexual abuse to come forward, and to report it immediately to civil authorities. If clergy or other church personnel are suspected of committing the abuse, we ask that you also call the Archdiocesan Office of Child and Youth Protection Hotline at 1-866-417-7469. If you have any other information relevant to this matter, please contact the Archdiocese Office of Child and Youth Protection at 410-547-5599.

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ILLINOIS
Daily Herald

Harry Hitzeman

A Kane County judge set bail Friday at $50,000 for Rev. Alfredo Pedraza-Arias, a 49-year-old from Colombia accused of sexually abusing two girls younger than 13.

Pedraza-Arias was arrested at his Rockford home Thursday night. He faces two felony counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a minor younger than 13. If convicted on both charges, he faces up to 14 years in prison, along with registering as a sex offender.

Pedraza is accused of abusing a girl at her Aurora home and another in an office at Sacred Heart Church in Aurora. According to court records, the abuse occurred between January 2009 and November 2014.

Kane County Judge Elizabeth Flood Friday read a synopsis of the allegations, saying authorities were told Pedraza-Arias abused the girls in the two locations. The police report, read by Flood, said he declined to be interviewed at the Kane County Child Advocacy Center, which investigates crimes against children.

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VATICAN CITY
Latin Times

By Cedar Attanasio | Feb 12 2016

The Vatican is denying reports that it trains bishops to hide sexual abuse allegations, according to the Catholic News Agency. Trainings for new bishops omit best practices on combating sexual abuse, Crux reports. In one training material, reporting sexual abuse to the police is described as “not necessarily the duty of the bishop,” according to the Guardian. The Vatican says the message is in no way a discouragement for Church officials to dodge civil authorities, and not a blanket Vatican policy.

“[The reported training content is] not in any way – as someone has mistakenly interpreted – a new Vatican document or a new instruction or new ‘guidelines’ for bishops,” Holy See spokesman Father Federico Lombardi tells CNA.

The reports mark the latest shortcoming on failed promises by higher authorities of the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Francis created the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors to identify “best practices” for dealing with sexual abuse. Yet the Crux report argues these practices aren’t being shared with decision makers.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Giselle Wakatama

Another woman, allegedly abused by a now dead Hunter Valley priest, has become the second alleged abuse survivor to seek damages from the estate of a late bishop and the Catholic church.

Earlier this week, the ABC revealed a woman known as LG was suing the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic Diocese and the estate of the late Bishop Leo Clarke for abuse she allegedly suffered as a five-year-old in the 1970s and 80s.

A special commission of inquiry heard her alleged abuser Denis McAlinden was a prolific paedophile priest.

The same inquiry found Bishop Clarke’s inaction in relation to McAlinden was inexcusable.

The diocese rejects that the alleged abuse happened, and argues it had no supervisory role of McAlinden.

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IRELAND
RTE News

The prominent child abuse survivor Marie Collins has said senior Vatican bureaucrats frustrated Pope Francis’ plans to have his Commission for the Protection of Minors train bishops in child protection.

Ms Collins, who is the only survivor-member of the Commission, revealed the Commission’s difficulties following the publication in Rome of instructions to new bishops that they are not obliged to report allegations of clerical child abuse to their local police authorities.

Earlier this month the head of the Vatican’s Congregation for Bishops published documents including the text of a lecture to recently appointed bishops who were attending a training course in Rome.

The speaker, the French Monsignor Tony Anatrella, stated that bishops have no duty to report allegations of clerical child sexual abuse to the police the moment they receive them.

He said reporting is a matter for victims and their families instead. He also said bishops also had to be mindful of mandatory reporting laws in their own countries.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic Philly

BY CAROL GLATZ
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A talk given to new bishops during a Vatican-sponsored course does not represent new guidelines on the church’s response to abuse against minors by religious, a Vatican spokesman said.

A 44-page report authored by French Msgr. Tony Anatrella and just published by the Vatican publishing house “is not in any way — as someone erroneously interpreted — a new Vatican document or a new instruction or new guidelines for bishops,” Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi said in a written statement released late Feb. 11.

The talk was part of a conference of experts given in September and was “published together with other (talks) on different subjects,” Father Lombardi wrote.

Msgr. Anatrella’s talk addressed emotional maturity and deviant behaviors in the priesthood as well as church procedures for dealing with accusations of the abuse of children by clergy.

The monsignor, a psychoanalyst and a consultant to the pontifical councils for the family and for health care ministry, “does not say anything new or different from what has been said up until now by relevant church institutions,” Father Lombardi said.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

This week, as Carnival was in full swing in many Catholic regions of the world and as the body of Padre Pio was paraded in Rome in a glass coffin, things appear to have gone from bad to worse in news of the response of Catholic officials to the abuse crisis. Patricia Miller sums up the response of many thinking Catholics (and non-Catholic observers) to the papal abuse commission’s recent silencing of Peter Saunders by noting that “[f]or abuse survivors, the move to silence Saunders confirms their fears that the commission was largely a PR tactic.”

In an editorial statement yesterday, the New York Times took note of Saunders’s sacking by the abuse commission (and of Pope Francis’s failure to attend the recent Vatican screening of “Spotlight,” something Saunders made public right before he was voted off the commission). The Times notes that the Vatican could learn a valuable lesson about accountability from “Spotlight.”

Then it adds:

Hierarchical accountability remains a pressing issue that the Vatican has not fully confronted in the numerous dioceses of the world where the scandal was suppressed. The pope’s 17-member commission presented fresh evidence of this failing when one of its two abuse-victim members, who had gone to the news media to criticize the slow pace of its work, was suddenly suspended on Saturday in a commission vote of no confidence.

For the Daily Beast, Barbie Latza Nadeau cites the response of SNAP leader David Clohessy to what has just happened to Saunders:

“The Pope’s abuse panel will issue recommendations. The Pope will adopt them. And nothing will improve. Why? Because there will be no enforcement,” says David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused By Priests, called SNAP. “Why? Because the church hierarchy is an entitled, rigid, secretive, all-male monarchy. No new protocols or policies or procedures will radically undo a centuries-old self-serving structure that rewards clerics who keep a tight lid on child sex crimes and cover-ups.”

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MARYLAND
The New York Times

by MIKE McPHATEFEB. 10, 2016

When student reporters at Mount St. Mary’s University, a small Catholic institution in Maryland, published an article in January that quoted the university’s president likening struggling freshmen to bunnies that should be drowned, they knew it might get a big reaction.

It finally came this week, it appears — in the form of a pink slip for the faculty adviser of the campus newspaper.

The university informed the adviser, Ed Egan, that he had been disloyal and was now fired, a move seen by many on the campus in Emmitsburg as a retaliatory strike.

The decision, along with other recent punishments of faculty members at Mount St. Mary’s, has triggered outrage well beyond its rural campus in northern Maryland, earning condemnation from thousands of academics across the country as well as national monitors of academic and journalistic freedom.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

By David Clohessy

2010:

Indian Catholic Bishops Draft ‘Zero Tolerance’ Abuses Policy

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/30/indian-catholic-bishops-d_n_559299.html

2016:

Indian bishop lifts convicted priest’s suspension

http://www.ucanews.com/news/indian-bishop-lifts-convicted-priests-suspension/75204

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MEXICO
Sin Embargo

[CLERICAL PEDOPHILIA IN MEXICO: THE MAP OF IMPUNITY]

Por Shaila Rosagel febrero 12, 2016

Las víctimas de los sacerdotes pederastas en México relatan la pérdida de evidencias por parte de la justicia civil y el ocultamiento de información, en total impunidad, por parte de la Iglesia Católica. ¡Justicia!, es su demanda al Papa Francisco I.

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SCHWEIZ
kath.ch

Freiburg, 11.2.16 (kath.ch) Der Westschweizer Bischof, Charles Morerod, erklärt in einer Medienmitteilung vom Donnerstag, 11. Februar, weshalb er der Tageszeitung «La Liberté» keine Auskunft über einen Priester geben wollte, der des Missbrauchs verdächtigt wird. Das wäre Diffamierung gewesen, schreibt er.

«Das Gesetz gilt auch für mich», schreibt Morerod in seiner Mitteilung. «Wenn ich präzis sage, dass diese Person jenes Delikt begangen hat, während diese Person nicht verurteilt worden ist (wegen Verjährung oder nicht beendetes Verfahrens), dann ist das Diffamierung».

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RHODE ISLAND
NBC 10

[with video]

BY PARKER GAVIGAN, NBC 10 NEWS THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11TH 2016

MIDDLETOWN, R.I. — St. George’s School oceanfront campus in Middletown is picturesque. The student body comes from some of the wealthiest families in America. Tuition is close to $60,000 a year.

Tradition was tainted around the New Year, when several alumni came forward, claiming rape and sexual misconduct on the part of teachers from decades ago, in the 1970s and 1980s.

“It hurts. My parents didn’t believe me, the school didn’t believe, and nothing was done,” said Katie Wales, class of 1980, at a press conference in January.

Questions circled around what school officials knew and when they knew it. Did they report the allegations to Rhode Island’s social services? Lawyers for the alleged victims have shown evidence that the answer is no.

Working on a tip, the NBC 10 I-Team discovered a newer complaint against St. George’s, this one from May 2005.

A former student, who NBC 10 News has decided not to name, was expelled for smoking marijuana. He was back on campus and told to leave or else the police would be called. That’s when he said he had a story to tell.

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CANADA
The Globe and Mail

GLORIA GALLOWAY
OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail
Published Thursday, Feb. 11, 2016

The man who oversees the process established to compensate people who were abused at one of Canada’s Indian residential schools has put a hold on all undecided claims in which a technical argument called the “administrative split” is being used to deny a payout.

The Globe and Mail reported last week that as many as 3,000 former students who were abused at schools listed in the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement involving the government, the survivors and the churches that ran the institutions have been denied compensation as a result of the legal strategy by Justice Department lawyers.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett has asked her department to conduct an “urgent” review to find out why the claims were denied. The government is not speculating about when that investigation will be complete.

Daniel Shapiro, the chief adjudicator of the Independent Assessment Process (IAP), which was created to allow former students who suffered serious physical or sexual abuse to obtain quick redress without going to court, issued a bulletin to all of his adjudicators saying they should not proceed with cases that could be affected.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Feb. 12, 2016

Statement by Verne Wagner of Duluth, Northeast MN SNAP director (218- 340-1277, lwagsmn@yahoo.com)

Dozens of northern Minnesota Catholic church staff members have a chance to protect kids in from a proven predator priest. And since Vatican officials are knowingly putting these kids in harm’s way, Duluth area church employees and parishioners must take action to safeguard the vulnerable.

Church bureaucrats in Rome have told a bishop that he can lift the suspension of convicted cleric who molested at least two Crookston area girls.

[UCA News]

That means this priest, Fr. Joseph Jeyapaul, can be put back to work, even though he was

–extradited to Minnesota from India by governmental authorities there and in the US,

–found criminally guilty of sexually assaulting one Minnesota girl,

–accused of sexually assaulting a second Minnesota girl,

–deported back to India, and

–sued by one Minnesota victim (and church officials settled that suit),

Why must Minnesota Catholics act now? Because their efforts might result in Fr. Jeyapaul being convicted, extradited and jailed again. And because their spiritual “leaders” brought Fr. Jeyapaul here and gave him access to Minnesota kids, some of whom he molested.

What must Minnesota Catholics do now? They must beat the bushes, spread the word, and ask every current church member and worker “Did you see, suspect or suffer crimes by Fr. Jeyapaul?” And if the answer is “yes,” they should gently but firmly be prodded to call police. It’s just that simple.

Fr. Jeyapaul’s bishop won’t protect these kids. He’s lifting Fr. Jeyapaul’s suspension.

Pope Francis won’t protect these kids. He’s letting Fr. Jeyapaul’s suspension be lifted.

Only the justice system can protect them, and only if others with information or suspicions about him call law enforcement. That’s most likely to happen if caring Catholics use word-of-mouth and social media and if Catholic employees use parish bulletins and church websites to sound the alarm and beg – literally beg – others to come forward.

Five months ago in Philadelphia, Pope Francis told US bishops and Catholics “I commit myself to the zealous watchfulness of the church to protect minors, and I promise that all those responsible will be held accountable.”

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MARYLAND
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Feb. 11, 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)

A priest who worked in Baltimore for a decade is accused of molesting a girl. We urge Baltimore Catholic employees to aggressively seek out any one else he may have hurt and beg them to call police.

[The Town Talk]

Church officials in Alexandria Louisiana have suspended Fr. Antonio Jorge Velez and “prohibited (him) from living within the diocese” because of child sex abuse reports stemming from his time in Baltimore.

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

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IOWA
KCCI

[with video]

Kim St. Onge

DES MOINES, Iowa —A new Iowa law being proposed by lawmakers would remove the statute of limitations for victims filing criminal charges in sexual abuse cases.

Right now, the statute of limitations for pressing charges is 10-years after the victim’s 18th birthday. After that point, you can’t file criminal charges.

Jessica Henderson said she was sexually abused by a family member for nine years from age 6 to 14. Right now, Iowa law prevents her from pressing charges in the case.

“I believe everything that has destroyed my life and made me feel like this, made me feel like nothing is from the abuse,” said Henderson.

She now suffers from depression, chronic anxiety, PTSD and was diagnosed with HPV, a sexually transmitted virus.

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SWITZERLAND
National Catholic Reporter

Christa Pongratz-Lippitt | Feb. 11, 2016

Twelve Catholic reform groups have accused the papal nuncio in Switzerland, U.S. Archbishop Thomas Gullickson, of publicly criticizing Pope Francis and have called on the Swiss bishops’ conference to proclaim that the Swiss church is fully committed to the Second Vatican Council.

The reform groups have formed an alliance entitled “Enough is Enough,” and have warned the Swiss bishops that religious peace in Switzerland is endangered. “We are seriously concerned that the nuncio is splitting the Swiss church,” the alliance says in its letter to the bishops.

Alliance member Markus Arnold, the head of the Religious Education Department at Lucerne University, has also written to Swiss President Johann Schneider-Ammann asking the president “not to allow Gullickson to have a long-term, poisonous effect on the climate in Switzerland. We have enough problems with religious fanaticism as it is. We do not need a nuncio who wants to revive this fanaticism in the Catholic church.” …

Gullickson, 65, is a keen blogger and Twitter-user and is not shy about openly expressing his opinions in the social media. He calls himself an “ultramontanist — and proud to be one” and makes no secret of the fact that he sympathizes with the schismatic Society of St. Pius X. In several tweets, he has praised the elitism of St. Pius X priests.

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NEW MEXICO
Albuquerque Journal

By Albuquerque Journal Editorial Board
Friday, February 12th, 2016

Recent contentions from five students at Santo Niño Regional Catholic School in Santa Fe that a teacher had put his hand on their bodies in places where it didn’t belong unfortunately reminds us that our children can’t be perfectly safe anywhere.

That’s a shame. In an ideal world, no child would be touched in any way that isn’t loving, supportive and completely non-sexual. They should be handled as the precious treasures that they are.

At this point, no conclusion has been reached about the truth of the accusations. So far, teacher Aaron Dean Chavez has been charged with five counts of criminal sexual contact with a minor. On behalf of his client, Chavez’s attorney has denied all of the allegations. It will take some time for this matter to work its way through the court system and reach a resolution. That is as it should be, with a presumption of innocence before proven guilty.

A somewhat disturbing aspect of this case, though, arises from revelations that two girls alerted the school’s principal in 2012 that Chavez had allegedly touched them on their buttocks while he bounced them in his lap when they were first-graders.

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SCOTLAND
Evening Times

Victims say they will continue to press Education Secretary Angela Constance to increase the scope of an independent inquiry into childhood abuse.

Andi Lavery, who founded the support charity White Flowers Alba, said there had been “no movement whatsoever” from the Scottish Government during a meeting with Ms Constance.

The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, which is being chaired by Susan O’Brien QC, is not fit for purpose, he claimed, saying it would only look at a “small proportion” of abuse cases.

Campaigners at both White Flowers Alba and the In Care Abuse Survivors (Incas) group want the remit of the inquiry to be extended to include abuse at religious organisations and children’s groups such as the Boy Scouts.

The Scottish inquiry, which could take four years, will focus on allegations of abuse in formal institutional care settings, such as children’s homes and secure care, care, long-term hospital care and boarding schools.

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ROME
The Tablet (UK)

11 February 2016 | by Christopher Lamb

It looks bad. An outspoken abuse survivor and victims’ advocate leaves the Vatican’s child safeguarding commission. Peter Saunders, the founder of the National Association of People Abused in Childhood, had been growing increasingly frustrated with the slow pace of change. Why, he asked, had a tribunal for bishops accused of covering up abuse still not been set up when it was announced last June? His fellow members on the commission were unhappy with his frequent comments to the media, which included criticism of Pope Francis for appointing Bishop Juan Barros to Osorno, Chile. Bishop Barros has been accused of covering up abuse.

Speaking at his hotel in Rome on Monday, Saunders said that on Saturday members of the commission expressed their displeasure with his views after presenting him with a set of press cuttings that quoted him. A vote of no confidence was taken with 15 out of the 17 members in favour of him taking leave of absence. The commission has been clear that its raison d’être is to propose initiatives to the Pope and not to comment on individual cases (See Sheila Hollins, page 8).

“I suppose there was a misunderstanding there because I actually thought we were going to get cracking with child protection,” Saunders told me. But his removal from the commission begs a more pressing question: does Rome “get it” when it comes to clerical sexual abuse?

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Friday, February 12, 2016

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has insisted that every allegation of clerical abuse must be reported to gardaí.

He was responding after groups representing the victims of paedophile priests reacted angrily to a Catholic Church edict to newly appointed bishops that they are “not necessarily” responsible for reporting allegations of child abuse to the police.

The instruction, in a new Vatican training manual advising senior clergy on how to respond to allegations of abuse, states that only victims or their families should decide whether to report to authorities, but bishops should be aware of local legal requirements.

“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,” states the training document.

Archbishop Martin said: “The norms in Ireland are very clear — all allegations must and are reported to the gardaí.

“Gardaí have the ability and the expertise to investigate matters that diocesan personnel would not.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

All allegations of clerical child sexual abuse on the island of Ireland must be reported to civil authorities, said Catholic Church representatives.

Maynooth-based director of safeguarding for the church Teresa Devlin said it was mandatory within the Catholic Church in Ireland to report allegations of child abuse and that has not changed.

“The national board delivers training to bishops and provincials which sets this out clearly following their appointment,” she said.

Ms Devlin was responding to reports of a Vatican training document for new bishops which said that, though bishops must be aware of local laws, their only duty was to address allegations internally.

“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,” the document states.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Science Monitor

By Molly Jackson, Staff FEBRUARY 11, 2016

Survivors of clergy sex abuse and their advocates are dismayed by a document for new Catholic bishops which suggests they do not need to report abuse to legal authorities, released this month after being used at a September training session for new church leaders.

“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,” the guidelines say, according to the Guardian.

Criticism of the document was first launched by the Crux, a Catholic-news website.

Recommended: How much do you know about the Catholic Church? Take our quiz!
Associate editor John L. Allen, Jr. also questioned why prevention strategies – drafted by Pope Francis’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors in response to a sex abuse crisis that has shaken the Church over the past two decades – were not part of new bishops’ training.

Although there are no exact numbers of victims and abusive priests worldwide, the Vatican investigated about 3,000 claims of priestly abuse between 2001 and 2010. According to Crux, American bishops have spent more than $260 million since 2002 to prevent abuse.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Tablet

by Clifford Longley

Are the Churches doing any better than the police in handling domestic abuse?

One in six of all violent incidents reported to the police concerns domestic violence – an attack by someone with whom the person concerned is in a close relationship. It accounts for a third of all murders where the victim is female. Yet despite these truly horrendous statistics, a recent investigation by the Police Foundation declared that “domestic abuse is a difficult issue for the police to handle; one which they have historically dealt with reluctantly and, on the whole, ineffectively”. This prompts the question: are the Churches doing any better, or are they also ineffective in dealing with a major scourge of society?

The evidence may be incomplete and largely anecdotal, but it is not reassuring. There are parallels with the way the institutional Church failed to appreciate the situation regarding sexual abuse of children by priests. An assault was seen as a one-off lapse calling for repentance and forgiveness. There was a failure to see the lasting damage to the victim; and to realise that the abuser – for all the protestations to the contrary – was very likely to repeat the behaviour. Child abusers are often manipulative, as are perpetrators of domestic violence. “Victim blaming” is common to both.

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CANADA
The Telegram

One step forward, two steps back.

Child sexual abuse by the clergy is not a problem that Pope Francis created, but it is one he promised to address.

It’s a shame then that not everyone in the church seems to be getting the message.

Tuesday, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported on details that had been discovered by Cruxnow.com’s John Allen about a training manual for Catholic bishops — most importantly, about how they should handle the discovery of child sexual abuse by clergy.

And the manual is anything but heartening.

In fact, it says that it’s “not necessarily” the job of bishops to inform police of the abuse of children.

“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,” the training document states.

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WASHINGTON/HAWAII
Los Angeles Times

Rick Anderson

When the Archdiocese of Seattle recently released the names of 77 priests, brothers, deacons and a nun reported to have sexually abused children over an 85-year-period, the list included a short entry near the bottom:

“Courtney, Edward CFC, Unknown,” with the names of three schools.

What readers learned was that Courtney had been a member of the Congregation of Christian Brothers (the Latin version of the name is abbreviated as CFC), and once taught at the three schools.

That was about it.

Though Roman Catholic Church investigators had spent 1,000 hours compiling the offender list and were aided by a former FBI agent, they were unable to determine Courtney’s whereabouts, or even whether he was dead or alive.

But Courtney, who would now be 81, hasn’t exactly disappeared. He sold his Seattle-area home in 2013 and signed a sales document notarized in Honolulu. His phone number and address are listed in the Honolulu phone book.

At the number this week, a recorded voice of an older man told callers to leave a message. Requests for comment left by The Times drew no response. An operator who intercepted messages the next day said the customer was no longer accepting calls.

Also missing from the nine-page Seattle disclosure list was any mention of what Courtney and the 76 others were accused of doing to earn their sex-offender status.

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.

IDAHO
CDA Press

JEFF SELLE/Staff Writer

COEUR d’ALENE — A lawsuit filed Wednesday claims a child was sexually abused by his father, while leaders of a Mennonite church in Bonners Ferry failed to protect the boy.

The lawsuit was filed late Wednesday by attorneys with the Coeur d’Alene firm of James, Vernon and Weeks. It states Clayton Peaster was 11 when the alleged molestation occurred. He is now 27.

The defendants named in the suit are Mt. View Mennonite Church, Inc., the National Church of God in Christ, Mennonite, and Clayton’s adoptive parents, David Peaster and his wife, Cynthia Peaster.

During a press conference held Thursday at the firm’s office, Clayton’s attorney, Craig Vernon, said the child was adopted by the Peasters who both belonged to Mt. View Mennonite Church. The Kansas-based Church of God in Christ Mennonite, commonly known as the Holdeman Mennonites, is the parent organization of Mt. View.

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TEXAS
The Courier

By Jay R. Jordan

A Montgomery County pastor accused of sexually abusing his young niece pleaded guilty to the actions Monday.

Delso Erazo, who pastored Iglesia Cristiana La Nueva Jerusalen off FM 2920 in Spring, will spend 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to two second-degree felony counts of indecency with a child. Erazo, 70, will also have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life upon his release from prison.

“Prison time was an excellent resolution in this case,” Prosecutor Laura Bond said. “It was a case that’s even bigger to us even now based on his position in authority in the church in the community.”

Erazo pleaded guilty to sexually contacting his niece for almost 10 years starting when she was six years old, according to court records. The abuse would occur in a residence in the 100 block of North Burberry Park Circle in Spring.

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MASSACHUSETTS
The Berkshire Eagle

The humble, open approach to Catholic Church issues by the head of the Diocese of Springfield is welcome. A similar attitude in recent years could have helped the church here and elsewhere avoid loss and anguish.

In a pastoral letter issued on Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent, Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski apologized to Western Massachusetts Catholics for the clergy sex abuse scandal and the pain caused by church closings. Echoing Pope Francis, he urged diocesan priests to get out among parishioners to bridge whatever divides had emerged. (Eagle, February 10).

The clergy sexual abuse scandal that damaged the Springfield diocese as well as the church worldwide, was magnified dramatically by the determination of the Catholic Church hierarchy to cover it up, discredit those who were abused and blame the media for investigating the scandal. A more open approach could have spared the church losses of credibility and finances.

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ALABAMA
AL.com

By Greg Garrison | ggarrison@al.com
on February 12, 2016

A group of leaders from St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Vestavia Hills recently asked the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama to investigate allegations of sexual misconduct at diocesan headquarters that happened 25 years ago.

The diocese has responded by having a law firm conduct an investigation, led by lawyer Augusta Dowd.

The diocese is investigating allegations by former employee Tyrone Lucas, who now goes by the name Titus Battle.

Battle says a male administrator — who died in 1990 at age 56 after working for the diocese since 1971 — forced him to submit to sexual acts, threatening to withhold his pay as an office worker and revoke his college scholarship paid by the diocese.

Dowd engaged a former FBI agent and a former police chief to investigate the claims. The investigation “has been quite comprehensive and at this time is still ongoing,” Dowd said.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Brisbane Grammar School (BGS) says it will not refund the school fees of former students sexually abused by paedophile counsellor Kevin Lynch in the 1970s and 1980s.

Many of the abused students gave evidence at Brisbane hearings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse last November.

In the wake of evidence given to the royal commission, the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane agreed to refund fees to its former students who were abused, after numerous complaints emerged from Lynch’s time at the Anglican-run St Paul’s School in northern Brisbane.

Lynch worked at St Paul’s after his time at BGS.

BGS also agreed to consider the option of refunds, but revealed late on Friday it had decided against refunding fees.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbana Times

February 12, 2016

Jorge Branco
Journalist

Victims of sexual abuse at the hands of a notorious paedophile allowed to abuse students at one of Queensland’s most prestigious schools throughout the 1980s will not have their school fees repaid.

Brisbane Grammar School announced on Friday afternoon it would not follow the lead of the Anglican Church in refunding fees.

The Anglican Diocese of Brisbane announced its proactive fee refund policy in the wake of child sex abuse hearing royal commission hearings in November, which laid out the crimes of systematic child abuser Kevin Lynch in horrific detail.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson has failed in his bid to stop proceedings on a charge of concealing child sex abuse.

Wilson had applied to Newcastle Local Court for a permanent stay on the case.

Wilson has pleaded not guilty to concealing the serious indictable offence of the now-dead paedophile priest James Fletcher in the 1970s.

He is the most senior Catholic clergyman in the world charged with concealing child sexual abuse.

During the hearing, the court was told the child sexual abuse cover-up charge laid against Wilson was invalid as there was no evidence the offence he is accused of concealing ever happened.

The crown asked to admit tendency evidence in a bid to show Wilson’s alleged actions were not isolated.

Prosecutor Gareth Harrison alleged Wilson was involved in paying a woman an amount of money so an allegation of indecent assault would go away.

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ILLINOIS
Daily Herald

A priest with ties to Aurora-area churches was arrested Thursday and charged with sexually assaulting a minor under the age of 13, officials said.

The Rev. Alfredo Pedraza was arrested at his home in Rockford, the Rockford Diocese said in a statement. Pedraza has been out of ministry since October 2014 while the allegations were being investigated.

Pedraza came to the diocese from Colombia in 2013. He worked in Hispanic Ministry in the DeKalb Deanery and assisted at Sacred Heart Parish in Aurora and Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish in Aurora.

He’s charged in Kane County with two counts aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a minor under the age of 13.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Northern Echo

Exclusive by Joe Willis, Regional Chief Reporter

A CATHOLIC priest suspended from his post at a Darlington church has been charged with abusing two schoolboys, The Northern Echo can reveal.

Father Michael Higginbottom will appear in court next month to face allegations that he assaulted the boys while working at St Joseph’s College, in Upholland, near Wigan, in the late 1970s.

Lancashire Constabulary said in a statement issued to the Echo last night: “Following consultation with the Crown Prosecution Service, Michael Higginbottom, 72, of West Farm Road, Newcastle, was charged on Monday, February 8 with six offences relating to non-recent sexual abuse.

“The offences were allegedly committed while Mr Higginbottom was working as a Catholic priest at St Joseph’s College in Upholland in the late 1970s.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Christine Kearney

Newly appointed bishops have been advised by the Vatican that it’s “not necessarily” their duty to report suspects of clerical child abuse to authorities.

The unofficial advice given to senior clergy at an annual global training course held last year was that only victims or their families should make the decision to report abuse to police.

Victims of the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandal are reacting angrily to the revelations.

The Australian Catholic Church said it agreed with victims, calling for an Australian federal law requiring the reporting of all abuse victims to police.

The papers were presented at what was described as an annual ‘Vatican crash course’ for about 185 newly named bishops around the world.

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ILLINOIS
WIFR

STATELINE (WIFR) – A priest in the Rockford Diocese has been charged with two counts of sexually abusing a child.

According to a press release from the Diocese, Father Alfredo Pedraza has been under investigation for two allegations in Kane County reported back in 2014.

Father Pedraza was arrested, Thursday, February 11 in his Rockford home. He came to the Diocese from Columbia, South America in 2013. The Diocese says he has been out of all ministry since the allegations surfaced in October 2014.

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ILLINOIS
Chicago Tribune

Gloria Casas
Elgin Courier-News

A priest who has been affiliated with two Aurora parishes was arrested Thursday on two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a minor, a Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockford press release stated.

Kane County Sheriff’s deputies and the U.S. Marshal’s office took the Rev. Alfredo Pedraza into custody on a warrant at his Rockford residence, said Patrick Gengler, director of administration for the sheriff’s office. Pedraza is charged with two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a minor under the age of 13, the release stated.

Each count is a felony, Kane County prosecutors said. Pedraza is expected at bond call Friday morning at the Kane County Judicial Center.

The Kane County Child Advocacy Center conducted the investigation, but the Kane County State’s Attorney has not released further information.

Authorities launched an investigation into Pedraza after receiving two reports of alleged abuse in 2014, according to the release. Pedraza was asked to remove himself from all ministries including the Hispanic Ministry in the DeKalb County Deanery, the release stated. He has not been active in any ministries since October 2014, the release stated.

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MEXICO
Telesur

[Former Mexican priest Alberto Athie Gallo said Mexico has the worst cases of pedophilia and child abuse within the Catholic Church.]

El ex sacerdote mexicano Alberto Athié Gallo reveló que México tiene los peores casos de pederastia y abuso a menores dentro de la Iglesia Católica.

Ante la inminente llegada del papa Francisco a México, vuelve a cobrar notoriedad los casos de pederastia en la iglesia católica y que han sido ocultados por la jerarquía de la santa sede.

Desde 1994 el ex sacerdote de la Arquidiócesis de México, Alberto Athié Gallo, no cesa en su lucha contra de la pederastia en la Iglesia Católica, cuando una víctima del fundador de los Legionarios de Cristo, Marcial Maciel Degollado, le contó su historia.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Daily Hampshire Gazette

Thursday, February 11, 2016

As an inspiring Pope lifts Catholic hopes worldwide with his call for inclusion and justice, the leader of the Springfield Diocese is using a Lenten tradition to reach out to disaffected Catholics. He is calling for the spirit of renewal, and forgiveness, to permeate the church in western Massachusetts.

Whether he succeeds depends on follow-through.

In a remarkable pastoral letter distributed this week, Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski apologizes for a lot of things. Most notably, he says that pain “still echoes” over clergy sexual abuse, an injury that may feel fresh again because of “Spotlight,” the movie about the Boston Globe’s discovery that the church systematically concealed the truth about molestation and shuffled abusive priests to unsuspecting parishes.

Bishop Rozanski’s institutional mea culpa, expressed in a 2,300-word letter called “The Wideness of God’s Mercy,” seems heartfelt. He asks forgiveness from victims of clergy abuse, their families and friends “and all those scandalized by the Church’s failure to protect our young people and for any lack of diligence in responding.” While the bishop goes on to list several reasons people have distanced themselves from the church, the top complaint, no doubt, is clergy abuse. “There are many people hurting in our Catholic community from the pain caused by our past failures as a diocese, as well as the grievous actions of some who ministered in our church,” the bishop says in the letter, made public Wednesday.

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ILLINOIS
Roman Catholic Diocese of Rockford

[en espanol]

ROCKFORD, Ill– The Rockford Diocese has been informed by the Kane County Sheriff and the U.S. Marshall’s Office that Father Alfredo Pedraza was arrested today, Thursday, Feb. 11, 2016, at his residence in Rockford, Illinois.

Father Pedraza is being charged in Kane County with two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a minor under the age of 13 years.

Father Pedraza has been under investigation for two allegations reported to authorities and the Diocese of Rockford in 2014. Immediately after the first allegation was reported, Father Pedraza was asked to remove himself from all priestly ministry and from all Hispanic Ministry duties in the DeKalb County Deanery to which he was assigned at the time the first allegation was received and while the allegation was being investigated. He has been out of all ministry since October 30, 2014.

As we have during the investigation process, the Rockford Diocese remains in full cooperation with authorities.

Father Pedraza came to the Rockford Diocese from Colombia, South America in 2013. During his time with the diocese, he worked in Hispanic Ministry in the DeKalb Deanery and assisted at Sacred Heart Parish in Aurora and Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish in Aurora.

While everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty, the Rockford Diocese takes allegations of misconduct in any form very seriously and must act accordingly to insure the safety and security of all our Catholic people as we conduct our worship and ministries together.

As always the policy of the Diocese of Rockford is that anyone who might be, or knows someone that has been, a victim of sexual abuse by a member of the diocesan clergy, religious, church employee or volunteer should first call police, then call the diocesan hotline at 815-293-7540.

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ILLINOIS
Rockford Register Star

By Chris Green
Staff writer

Posted Feb. 11, 2016

ROCKFORD — A priest residing in Rockford was arrested on child sex charges today at his home.

The Rev. Alfredo Pedraza, 50, was charged in Kane County with two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a minor under the age of 13. He is being held in the Kane County Jail on $50,000 bond.

The Rockford Diocese issued a news release today stating they were informed by the Kane County Sheriff and the U.S. Marshall’s Office that the Rev. Alfredo Pedraza was arrested at his residence in Rockford.

According to the release, Pedraza had been under investigation for two allegations reported to authorities and the Diocese of Rockford in 2014. Immediately after the first allegation was reported, Pedraza was asked to remove himself from all priestly ministry and from all Hispanic Ministry duties in the DeKalb County Deanery to which he was assigned at the time of the first allegation. He has been out of the ministry since Oct. 30, 2014, the release said.

Pedraza came to the Rockford Diocese in 2013 from Colombia, South America. During his time with the Rockford Diocese, he worked in Hispanic Ministry in the DeKalb Deanery and assisted at Sacred Heart Parish in Aurora and Our Lady of Good Counsel Parish in Aurora.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2016

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

New Catholic bishops are NOT told to call law enforcement when abuse reports are made, according to a veteran Vatican reporter.

[Crux]

John Allen of Crux (formerly with the National Catholic Reporter) writes that the Vatican official who’s in charge of training new bishops

–“argued that bishops have no duty to report allegations to the police,” and

–“devoted just a few paragraphs” in a “long presentation” to “abuse prevention, using abstract language without concrete examples.”

Just troubling were the comments Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, who’s on the board of the Rome-based Gregorian University’s Centre for Child Protection. When asked “What should new bishops be told about sexual abuse?” Rossetti also made no mention of the need for church officials to call secular authorities.

In one sense, this isn’t surprising. As BishopAccountability.org has pointed out, “zero tolerance,” while often uttered by Catholic officials, isn’t even the official policy of the global church.

But it’s infuriating – and dangerous – that so many believe the myth that bishops are changing how they deal with abuse and that so little attention is paid when evidence to the contrary – like this disclosure by Allen – emerges.

(NOTE – the Vatican new bishops training was led by Paris-based Msgr. Tony Anatrella of the Pontifical Council for the Family and the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, who Allen acknowledges is “a psychotherapist controversial for his views on homosexuality and “gender theory.”)

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MISSOURI
News-Leader

Steve Pokin, SPOKIN@NEWS-LEADER.COM February 11, 2016

A former priest who reportedly confessed decades ago to a monk at the Assumption Abbey in Ava has been arrested in Arizona in connection with the 1960 slaying of a 25-year-old Texas schoolteacher.

The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department (in Arizona) on Tuesday arrested 83-year-old John Feit. He faces a murder charge in the death of Irene Garza in McAllen, Texas. He is awaiting extradition to that state, according to the Associated Press.

For more than 50 years, police in McAllen, Texas, have suspected the former priest in the killing. The case was the subject of a 2014 “48 Hours” episode on CBS.

Authorities say Garza visited Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen, where Feit was a 27-year-old priest, on April 16, 1960, the day before Easter. Garza was Miss All South Texas Sweetheart in 1958 and was the first college graduate in her family.

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TEXAS/MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

for immediate release: Thursday, Feb. 11, 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 just arrested for murder reportedly admitted his crimes to at least one colleague in Ava. We call on Springfield Catholic officials to aggressively reach out to anyone in southwest Missouri who may have seen, suspected or suffered crimes by this former cleric.

[News-Leader]

More than 50 years after the rape and murder of young Irene Garza in Texas, John Feit has been charged with the crime. After her death, Catholic officials did what they’ve done for decades with known and suspected criminal clerics: they quickly and quietly sent Feit away, to a monastery in Ava.

While there, Feit reportedly admitted the murder to a monk named Dale Tacheny who now lives in Oklahoma City.

If the alleged murderer confided in one person at Ava, he may have confided in others. No matter how slim this chance may seem, if justice is to be served and the innocent are to be protected, it’s crucial that church officials take action.

Or another person in Ava may have seen or suspected or overheard some conversation or noticed some evidence that might make a difference.

It will be tough to resolve a case so old. But Catholic staff owe it to themselves and their flocks – and to Irene Garza’s still-grieving family – to help police and prosecutors learn the full truth of this horror.

Specifically, we urge every Springfield area Catholic employee – from custodian to chancellor – to spread the word, beat the bushes, and seek out anyone with information or suspicions about Feit’s crimes, using church bulletins, pulpit announcements, church websites and word-of-mouth.

Specifically, we urge the “College of Consultors” to act. They govern the Springfield diocese temporarily since there’s currently no bishop. These priests are Msgr. Thomas Reidy, chancellor, Fr. David Dohogne, Fr. J. Friedel, Fr. Hank Grodecki, CM, Fr. David Hulshof, Fr. Tom Kiefer, and Fr. Allan Saunders.

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TEXAS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2016

Statement by Amy Smith, Dallas co-leader of SNAP (281-748-4050, watchkeepamy@gmail.com)

A convicted Austin child molester who was openly supported by several churches has lost his appeal. We are grateful that he’ll stay behind bars and hope he’ll stop appealing. And we hope that the clerics and congregants who publicly rallied for him will now apologize to his victims.

[Statesman]

In 2014, Greg Kelley was found guilty of sexually abusing a four year old. Before sentencing, Kelley voluntarily accepted a plea deal in which he admitted guilt. Two young boys testified against him. One mom testified that her son told her Kelley had molested him.

Still, officials and members at Generations Church in Leander held rallies for Kelley, a move which we believe was immoral, callous and which likely deterred other victims of other predators from coming forward.

It’s time for these misguided church staff and congregants to apologize for their insensitivity. To hold rallies for a convicted and admitted predator endangers kids by making it harder for those who see, suspect and suffer child sex crimes from speaking up.

Those who believe Kelley is innocent should visit him, pray for him, write to him and help his family. But they should do so in ways that do not scare other victims of other predators into staying silent.

By mounting public displays of support for a convicted and admitted predator, these misguided individuals are rubbing even more salt into the already – deep and still – fresh wounds of abuse victims and making it harder for police, prosecutors and employers to catch and oust child molesters.

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UNITED STATES
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Feb. 11, 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)

A bishop says that Vatican officials have approve his lifting of the suspension of a convicted predator priest. If this is true, this is an act of breath-taking recklessness and callousness.

Our heart ache for betrayed families in Minnesota and vulnerable families in India. Most of all, however, our hearts ache for one of the bravest victims we’ve ever met, Megan Peterson, whose courage helped get Fr. Joseph Jeyapaul charged, extradited, and convicted of child sex crimes in Crookston MN.

[UCA News]

Bishop Arulappan Amalraj of Ootacamund said Fr. Jeyapaul’s suspension ended last month after consultations with the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Last year, Francis promoted and defended a complicit bishop in Chile while calling “dumb” the parishioners who expressed concern for the move.

This year, Francis lets a convicted predator priest go back to work, lets a papal panel oust an abuse survivor, and lets new bishops be taught that they don’t have to call police when abuse reports surface.

And some wonder why abuse victims “never seem satisfied.” The pope’s “Year of Mercy” is increasingly seeming like a “Year of Mercy for Corrupt Clergy.”

We hope this outrage will prod Catholics in India, Minnesota and elsewhere to condemn this callous church hierarchy, donate elsewhere and share what they know or suspect about clergy sex crimes and cover ups with secular authorities. And we hope that, once and for all, parishioners will give up on the comforting but obviously dead-wrong notion that Catholic officials will handle predators and abuse reports properly.

We also hope this dangerous injustice will prompt many more who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes and cover ups to speak up, expose wrongdoers, protect kids and start healing.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on media distortions of Vatican policy on abuse reporting:

A statement by one French monsignor during a training course for new bishops is being interpreted by some major media outlets as if it were an official Vatican document. It is nothing of the sort. In a presentation that he made to some bishops, he contended that the clergy were not required to report suspected abuse cases to the authorities. That, however, was his opinion, and nothing more.

Most of these erroneous reports cited Crux journalist John Allen as their source. He wrote a splendid piece about Msgr. Tony Anatrella’s words to the new bishops. Nowhere, however, did Allen claim that Anatrella’s words amounted to a new Vatican policy or a “Vatican document.”

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UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

February 11, 2016 Joelle Casteix

Oh, Pope Francis. He’s got a good racket going.

Pope Francis’ fan base is huge. Recent trips to the U.S. and now Mexico show that people really like this seemingly humble and devout man. I mean, they “like him” like him.

But a pioneer in the prevention, prosecution, and exposure of child sex abuse? Not so much.

So, the next time your friend says, “Oh quit being such a pessimist. Pope Francis is changing things,” show them this:

Less than a week after a prominent child sex abuse victim appointed to Francis’ commission to prevent child sexual abuse was given a vote of no confidence (for the crime of actually trying to prevent child sex abuse):

* This morning, an Indian news outlet reported that a Catholic bishop there reinstated a priest who was recently convicted of child sexual abuse in Minnesota. The crimes were so bad that Interpol arrested the priest in 2012 and brought him back to the US to face charges. The bishop said that his decision was “not personal,” but was instead made with the full consultation and support of the Vatican.

* On February 7, leading Vatican observer John Allen reported that in the most recent training program for new Catholic bishops, the new prelates were told that they “have no duty to report allegations to the police.” Unless of course, they are required by local law (and, well, who’s more important: some cop … or the Holy Father?).

* In the same report, the new bishops were given no training on how to identify or prevent child sexual abuse.

That papal commission I mentioned earlier? They had no role or voice in the training. Looks like Pope Francis wants to control the message.

BUT

The commission did try to “ask” Pope Francis to remind bishops to return victims’ phone calls and to create a “Universal Day of Prayer.”

Yeah, that’s effective.

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VATICAN CITY
Yahoo! News

Molly Jackson
February 11, 2016

Survivors of clergy sex abuse and their advocates are dismayed by a document for new Catholic bishops which suggests they do not need to report abuse to legal authorities, released this month after being used at a September training session for new church leaders.

“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,” the guidelines say, according to the Guardian.

Criticism of the document was first launched by the Crux, a Catholic-news website.

Associate editor John L. Allen, Jr. also questioned why prevention strategies – drafted by Pope Francis’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors in response to a sex abuse crisis that has shaken the Church over the past two decades – were not part of new bishops’ training.

Although there are no exact numbers of victims and abusive priests worldwide, the Vatican investigated about 3,000 claims of priestly abuse between 2001 and 2010. According to Crux, American bishops have spent more than $260 million since 2002 to prevent abuse.

For those who had hoped Francis’s popular empathy and “human touch” would bring new healing between Church leaders and laity, the guidelines reopened feelings of betrayal. The Pope had promised to bring a “zero tolerance” attitude to sex abuse claims

“It’s infuriating, and dangerous, that so many believe the myth that bishops are changing how they deal with abuse and that so little attention is paid when evidence to the contrary … emerges,” said a statement from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

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LOUISIANA
The Town Talk

Melissa Gregory, mgregory@thetowntalk.com, (318) 792-1807

A priest who worked in the LaSalle and Grant parishes area has been dismissed after being accused of sexual misconduct with a girl in the Baltimore area, according to a release.

A release from the Diocese of Alexandria on Thursday states that the Rev. Antonio Jorge Velez, a member of the Tertiary Capuchins, has been dismissed and prohibited from living within the diocese. The action was taken by the Most Rev. Ronald P. Herzog, bishop of Alexandria.

Herzog made the decision “after the Diocese of Alexandria was made aware of these allegations resulting from a time when Velez was stationed in the Archdiocese of Baltimore for some 10 years and was accused of inappropriate behavior with a female minor,” reads the release.

The release states that the Archdiocese of Baltimore has notified police and also will be conducting their own investigation. The Holy See also is being notified of the decision.

Velez holds citizenship in the U.S. and Colombia. According to the Diocese of Alexandria, Velez has served in Baltimore, Alexandria and “in numerous assignments in Colombia.” In the Diocese of Alexandria, Velez was the pastoral administrator of St. Mary Church in Jena and St. Edward in Fishville, reads the release.

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UNITED STATES/INDIA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

Kochi, India/Crookston, MN) – Bishop Amalraj of the Diocese of Ootacamund, India, announced today that he has lifted the suspension of convicted predator priest, Father Joseph Jeyapaul. Jeyapaul’s suspension was lifted on January 16, 2016 after the Bishop consulted with the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Statement of Jeff Anderson

On behalf of two survivors we have represented, and no doubt countless others Jeyapaul has abused, we are appalled that the Vatican and Bishop Amalraj lifted the suspension of convicted predator priest, Joseph Jeyapaul. It took years to reveal the truth of this predator’s history in Minnesota and as a result, he was criminally convicted.

The Vatican and Bishop have made a conscious choice to endanger children and time and time again they have chosen to protect the predator priests at the peril of children. There is no excuse for the indifference they have shown to the safety of kids in India. This is an outrage and again demonstrates the cavalier attitude of the Bishop and the Vatican that they can do what they want, when they want, at the grave peril to kids.

The two survivors we worked with, Megan Peterson who has previously publicly identified herself, and Jane Doe, courageously revealed the actions of Jeyapaul while he was working in the Diocese of Crookston. Jeyapaul repeatedly engaged in criminal sexual conduct with both survivors and we suspect he abused others as well.

This is a pattern, practice and every action belies the promises they made that they’re doing better. Bishop Amalraj stated the decision was “inspired by the year of mercy,” that began at the direction of Pope Francis. When will there be a year for justice, truth and child safety?

Contact Jeff Anderson: Office: 651.538.5049 Mobile: 612.817.8665
Contact Mike Finnegan: Office: 651.538.5049 Mobile: 612-205-5531

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SCOTLAND
STV

Victims of childhood abuse have vowed to put further pressure on Scotland’s education secretary to increase the scope of an independent inquiry.

Andi Lavery, who founded the support charity White Flowers Alba, said there had been “no movement whatsoever” from the Scottish Government during a meeting with Angela Constance in Edinburgh on Thursday.

The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, which is being chaired by Susan O’Brien QC, is not fit for purpose, he claimed, saying it would only look at a “small proportion” of abuse cases.

Campaigners at both White Flowers Alba and the In Care Abuse Survivors (Incas) group want the remit of the inquiry to be extended to include abuse at religious organisations and children’s groups such as the Boy Scouts.

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MEXICO
Los Angeles Times

Laura Tillman

As Mexico prepares for the Friday arrival of Pope Francis, not everyone is looking forward to the visit.

How much the trip is costing — and whether that money would be better spent combating poverty, disease, unemployment and other problems the Pope himself has championed — has become a vibrant debate in a country where more than 80% of the population is Catholic.

One newspaper, Milenio, estimated that state and municipal governments will have spent nearly $10 million by the end of the six-day visit.

One Twitter user, Luisa Grisales, cited that estimate in a tweet, saying it would be better spent on education, health and creating jobs. …

Other critics of the trip wanted to know: Why won’t Pope Francis be meeting with victims of sexual abuse by clergy? Will the visit draw much-needed attention to the country’s problems, or is it just a diversion from poverty and other problems?

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ROME
The Daily Beast

Barbie Latza Nadeau

ROME — One might think that a commission designed to rid the Catholic Church of its predator priests and try to heal decades of suffering by sex abuse victims might actually be involved in, well, doing just that.

On the contrary, it would seem that Pope Francis’s special Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors that he created in 2014 is not exactly getting its hands dirty when it comes to actually teaching bishops how to deal with the problems it has been tasked to deal with.

Writing in The Boston Globe’s Crux website, Vatican expert John Allen points an accusatory finger at the commission, led by a prominent Boston cardinal.

“What’s the point of creating a commission to promote best practices, and putting one of the Church’s most credible leaders on the abuse issue, Boston Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, in charge of it, and yet not having it address the new leaders who will have to implement those practices?”

Allen asks on the heels of the commission’s third meeting in Rome that wrapped up last weekend.

During the conference, as Allen first reported, a French Monsignor with controversial views on homosexuality argued that bishops should have no obligation to report abuse of minors and that the onus should fall on victims and their families.

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MICHIGAN
MLive

By Andy Hoag | ahoag@mlive.com
on February 11, 2016

MOUNT PLEASANT, MI — A Central Michigan University student has filed a lawsuit regarding a sexual relationship she says she had with a now-former priest from the parish serving the school.

Megan Winans, through her Lansing attorney James Heos, filed the lawsuit in January in Isabella County Circuit Court, alleging the Rev. Denis Heames asked her to keep their sexual relationship a secret.

Winans is a senior at CMU, according to CM Life, the student newspaper at CMU.

Heames, 43, served as parochial administrator for St. Mary University Parish in Mount Pleasant until July, when he first was placed on administrative leave and then removed from his position for what the Catholic Diocese of Saginaw called “boundary violations.”

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LOUISIANA
KALB

Feb 11, 2016

ALEXANDRIA, La. (KALB) – The Bishop of Alexandria has announced the dismissal of Reverend Antonio Jorge Velez following allegations of sexual misconduct with a female minor made by the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

Rev. Velez served at St. Mary in Jena and St. Edward in Fishville.

The decision to remove Velez comes after the Diocese of Alexandria was made aware of the allegations resulting from a time when Velez was stationed in Baltimore for about 10 years and was accused of inappropriate behavior with a female minor. An investigation is currently being conducted in Maryland.

Bishop Ronald Herzog has released the following statement: “During this difficult time, I ask for your prayers for all who are affected by these accusations: victims, their families, the Church here and in Baltimore, his religious order and the accused. I urge any victim of clerical sexual misconduct to allow us the opportunity to help heal the wounds inflicted through such actions, and I invite any victims to come forward in order that healing may begin and justice can be served.”

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TEXAS
KFOR

[with video]

HIDALGO COUNTY, Texas – A former Catholic priest faces a first-degree murder charge for allegedly killing a onetime beauty queen who was last seen alive the night he heard her confession.

John Feit, 83, had long been the main suspect in the 1960 death of schoolteacher Irene Garza, but he wasn’t arrested until Tuesday in Scottsdale, Arizona.

According to an indictment unsealed Wednesday, a grand jury in Hidalgo County, Texas, decided there was enough evidence to charge that Feit, “with malice aforethought, (caused) the death of Irene Garza by asphyxiation in a manner and means unknown to the grand jury.”

Garza was last seen alive the night before Easter 1960, when Feit heard her confession at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen, Texas. Five days later, searchers found the body of the 25-year-old former Miss South Texas facedown in a canal.

In 2004, a grand jury heard the case but decided not to indict Feit. Authorities haven’t released details about what’s changed since then.

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TEXAS
Valley Central

[with video]

BY ANALISE ORTIZ THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 11TH 2016

When Noemi Siegler heard a Hidalgo County grand jury had finally indicted former priest John Feit — long suspected of killing her cousin, McAllen beauty queen Irene Garza — she started weeping uncontrollably.

“I was flooded with emotion, it completely took me off my feet,” said Siegler, who spent decades pushing county prosecutors for justice. “I cried at least six hours. I cried until I lost my voice.”

Seigler spoke exclusively with 48 Hours about her cousin’s murder.

On April 16, 1960, the 25-year-old teacher went to confession at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in McAllen. Five days later, investigators pulled her body from an irrigation canal.

Police suspected that John Feit, the priest who heard Garza’s confession, killed her. Prosecutors, though, didn’t indict him.

“I started losing faith, a little bit, in the legal system,” Siegler said.

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, N.M., Feb. 10, 2016

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

ALBUQUERQUE – The Diocese of Gallup’s bankruptcy case is moving forward again, but without its future claims representative.

On Tuesday, about 40 minutes before U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David T. Thuma began another continued status hearing, attorneys for the Gallup Diocese filed a motion requesting Thuma authorize the resignation of Michael P. Murphy, the current future claims representative, also referred to as the unknown claims representative. Thuma was also asked to approve Michael R. Hogan, a retired U.S. District Court judge, as Murphy’s replacement.

“There’s been quite a bit of discussion this week with respect to the unknown claims representative,” diocesan attorney Thomas Walker told Thuma. “Mr. Murphy decided to resign.”

No explanation was given for Murphy’s resignation, either in the motion or in the court hearing, nor did Thuma request the information.

Attorneys for the Gallup Diocese nominated Murphy for the position in February 2015. As the appointed future claims representative, Murphy was an independent fiduciary authorized to act on behalf of any future abuse claimants.

Catholic Mutual conflict

In recent weeks, however, Murphy came into conflict with attorneys for Catholic Mutual, which provides liability coverage for the diocese. According to statements made in court last week, Catholic Mutual had agreed to finance the future claims fund.

Catholic Mutual and Murphy disagreed over how much of an inquiry Murphy could conduct into Catholic Mutual’s financial condition. David Spector, an attorney for Catholic Mutual, vehemently objected to the scope of Murphy’s possible inquiry. According to Spector, Murphy would only be allowed to view a financial balance sheet, and Murphy would first have to sign an “ironclad protective order” that would protect the confidential nature of Catholic Mutual’s financial information. Spector threatened to withdraw financing for the future claims fund if Murphy wouldn’t agree to those conditions.

Thuma then brokered a tentative compromise whereby Murphy agreed to cooperate with Catholic Mutual by signing the protective order and then reviewing the financial balance sheet. If the balance sheet convinced Murphy of Catholic Mutual’s financial well-being, he would give the court a “thumbs up” and not request any further financial information. If Murphy believed the balance sheet provided inadequate information, Murphy would give the court a “thumbs down,” and the dispute was likely to resume.

Whether Murphy ever reviewed Catholic Mutual’s balance sheet or even signed the protective order was not discussed during Tuesday’s court hearing. Instead, the diocese’s motion extended “appreciation and gratitude” to Murphy “for his service in this matter” and moved on to request approval for Hogan’s employment.

‘Perfect substitute’

Hogan served as a U.S. District Court judge for the District of Oregon from 1991 to 2012, and he previously served as a U.S. magistrate judge and a U.S. bankruptcy judge. After his retirement in 2012, Hogan established a mediation firm.

According to Hogan’s statement submitted to the court, he is currently serving as the future claims representative in the Diocese of Helena’s bankruptcy case and as the future claims adjudicator in the Diocese of Spokane’s case. Prior to that, Hogan mediated several dozen future claim matters pending against the Diocese of Spokane, and he was also involved in resolving a number of tort claims against the Archdiocese of Portland.

Susan Boswell, the diocese’s lead bankruptcy attorney, called Hogan “a perfect substitute” and said he comes to the Gallup bankruptcy case “with a greater level of information than perhaps somebody else might have,” allowing the case to proceed without losing much time.

Hogan has been in the news recently for his role in sentencing Oregon ranchers Dwight Hammond Jr. and his son Steven for less than the mandatory minimum time after they were convicted of committing arson on public land. An armed group of anti- government protesters took over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in January after the federal government won its appeal of Hogan’s sentences and the Hammonds were ordered back to prison.

In the Diocese of Gallup bankruptcy, Hogan is requesting to be compensated at the rate of $550 per hour plus expenses. In addition, he is asking the diocese to reimburse him for reasonable out-of-pocket expenses.

Murphy’s agreement had called for him to receive a flat fee of $50,000 plus expenses, payable upon the effective date of any plan of reorganization.

Objections to Hogan’s employment must be filed by Thursday. If no objections are filed, the next continued status hearing will be held Feb. 19.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

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

The New York Times slammed the Vatican today for not doing enough about priestly sexual abuse. It offers not one piece of evidence that the Church has turned its back on victims, nor does it provide data that this problem—which occurred mostly between 1965 and 1985—is ongoing today. The best it can do is say that a recently appointed bishop from Chile was “a close associate” of a guilty priest. Isn’t that what this newspaper calls “McCarthyism”? By this measure, everyone in Hollywood who worked with Michael Jackson should be condemned.

The editorial criticizes the removal of Peter Saunders, an alleged victim of priestly molestation, from a Vatican commission on sexual abuse. As I pointed out this week (click here), Saunders is not a credible source: his account has changed many times, raising serious questions about his veracity. If anything, he should never have been selected for this panel in the first place.

The Times really steps in it when it calls for “hierarchical accountability.” The editors should take some of its own medicine and commence an investigation of Mark Thompson, president of the New York Times Company. He headed the BBC at a time when child rapist Jimmy Savile was savaging kids in the “corridors, staircases and canteens” of the BBC’s headquarters (the venues are cited in the draft of an upcoming report on this subject). Yet Thompson claims ignorance.

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UNTIED STATES
Variety

Jenelle Riley
Deputy Awards and Features Editor
@JenelleRiley

Josh Singer earned his first Oscar nomination for original screenplay (with director Tom McCarthy) of “Spotlight.” The pair spent countless hours of research to craft the story of the Boston Globe journalists who investigated the cover-up of child sex abuse within the Catholic church. Singer, who is also favored to win the WGA Award this weekend, spoke to Variety at this week’s Oscar luncheon about the worldwide effect their film is having.

How did you find out about the Oscar nominations?

I won’t lie, my wife and I got up early. I was obviously nervous about screenwriting but wanted to see how we would do across the board. I was thinking if we got five it would be a pretty good morning. And we got six.

You share writing with Tom McCarthy, but he didn’t intend on being a co-writer at first?
Right, originally Tom wasn’t going to be a co-writer and we started going to Boston together for research. I love collaborating. Tom’s a great writer and a great guy so I’ll always enjoy spending time with him. Three or four months in he said, “Do you have any interest in writing this with me?” And I said, “We basically already are!”

The film is being seen everywhere; it screened last week for a Vatican commission on clerical sex abuse.

There’s been some interesting developments there. Pope Francis had created this commission in 2014, the Papal Commission for the Protection of Minors. He created it in 2014 and put two survivors on the commission; Peter Saunders is one of them. They screened our film at the top of the session on Thursday, which was terrific. Less terrific is that Peter Saunders has been pushed out of the commission because he was agitating for too much change. I think he was pushing the Pope to do more. One can read this several different ways but I have a real concern that this commission is a bit of a straw dog — it’s not actually affecting change, it’s just there for show. I think we all need to bring more pressure on the church to do more because I think they have not done nearly enough to protect children.

Did they give a reason for pushing him out?

They said he was perhaps more comfortable as an advocate as opposed to an adviser. And I understand it’s an advisory committee. But things he was advocating are things we all should want. The Pope announced there was going to be this tribunal to hold bishops accountable and yet hasn’t actually created the tribunal. Peter Saunders asked why. The Pope elevated a bishop in Chile and there are allegations he was involved in enabling and actually participating in a child abuse scandal involving a priest named Karadima. And the Pope has made some not-so-great comments about this when people have protested, calling people leftist and dumb. Peter Saunders asked why hasn’t he said more and why has this bishop been allowed to maintain this position? These are both good questions, I think. I was deeply disheartened to see Saunders pushed off that commission. If we don’t have our survivors speaking for other survivors and children, I think that’s a problem.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency

Vatican City, Feb 11, 2016 / 12:42 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Media reports are wrong to claim that the Vatican is telling new bishops that they don’t have to report sexual abuse, Holy See spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said.

A reported comment from a Vatican consultant is “not in any way – as someone has mistakenly interpreted – a new Vatican document or a new instruction or new ‘guidelines’ for bishops,” Fr. Lombardi said Feb. 11.

The news reports concerned a statement from French Monsignor Tony Anatrella, who contributed to a 2015 formation course for new bishops organized by the Congregation for Bishops.

Msgr. Anatrella, a consultant to the Pontifical Council for the Family and the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, wrote a document with a section reflecting on countries’ civil laws that mandate abuse reporting.

The document said “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.” Msgr. Anatrella said that decision is up to victims and their families.

Some media reports depicted the monsignor’s statements as an encouragement to cover up sexual abuse or as a claim that it is “not necessarily” a bishop’s duty to report sexual abuse in cases where laws require it.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Michael Sean Winters | Feb. 11, 2016 D

Reading Marie Collins’ statement, published here at NCR yesterday, you could almost feel her pain coming through the screen of the computer. All the current issues and frustrations that attend her membership on the papal commission charged with child protection were palpable, and you could tell that they must reawaken very painful memories for her.

Empathy has its limits. I cannot imagine what it feels like to have been sexually abused as a child, especially by a priest. We all have had secrets, some more dark than others, that we would not like to shine a light on, but to have one’s personhood violated by someone whose vocation is to care with the love of Jesus Christ for his parishioners, well, that is a pain that I cannot even imagine.

Nor can I imagine the courage to continue fighting for the protection of children, knowing that every case you hear about, every obstacle you face in your attempts to reform the Church and to root out this sin, every interview you give to the press, will reanimate those dark memories of abuse. This residual pain is evident when Collins writes, “I have been asked about the Commission discussion and vote last Saturday at our Plenary. Why the silence and why have I not walked away? I have fought for transparency in the Church and in this case we must have transparency also, it is only fair to all those who feel they have once more been betrayed but the Church.” Even being at the Vatican, surrounded by so many clergy, must be an emotional challenge.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

CHRIS MARSHALL
Thursday 11 February 2016

A Catholic priest has attacked the Scottish Government for its “shameful” decision to exclude some child abuse survivors from a public inquiry into the issue.

Father Gerry Magee, chair of the campaign group White Flowers Alba, spoke out following a meeting with education secretary Angela Constance at Holyrood earlier.

Survivors want the Scottish Government to extend the remit of the inquiry so that it includes all of those abused by organisations such as the Catholic Church, not just those who were abused while in care.

Father Magee, a parish priest in Kilwinning, North Ayrshire, said there was “shameful lack of equality” across the UK, as separate inquiries in England and Northern Ireland are investigating abuse carried out by religious groups.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Civil Society

Emily Corfe

The Charity Commission has defended its inquiry into the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Britain, following the Jehovah’s Witness charity’s fourth appeal against what it describes as an “unlawful investigation”.

The charity became subject to a Charity Commission statutory inquiry after revelations emerged that a man accused of child abuse was allowed to question his accusers as part of a “disfellowship” process to decide whether he should remain a member of the congregation.

The statutory inquiry into the charity’s safeguarding procedures has been the subject of a long-running legal case, with the Charity Commission attempting to access Watch Tower’s records since 2014 and the charity in turn accusing the regulator of conducting an unlawful investigation.

Watch Tower has launched a total of four appeals since 2014, against decisions by the High Court and Charity Tribunal which ruled in favour of the Charity Commission. The charity is seeking permission to challenge the statutory inquiry, but following yesterday’s hearing at the Court of Appeal, no decision was reached.

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CANADA
Kamloops This Week

IN THE PHOTO: James Cruickshank was known as Bishop Jim to those in the church. He paved the way to hearing stories and apologizing to people in the Lytton area after sexual and physical abuse at the former St. George’s residential school. Cruickshank died on Dec. 30, 2015, at age 79. Anglican Journal photo

Kamloops’ Anglican community will come together tomorrow to celebrate the life of the last bishop to lead a diocese that once stretched from Lytton to Valemount.

James Cruickshank — Bishop Jim to those in the church — died on Dec. 30, 2015 at the age of 79.

Elected bishop of Cariboo in 1992, Cruickshank was the last to hold the post before the diocese shut down in 2001 after lawsuits over sexual and physical abuses at the former St. George’s residential school in Lytton left it bankrupt. He’d previously served as Canon of St. Paul’s Cathedral in Kamloops.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on media bias in stories about an ex-priest:

John Feit was arrested this week for killing a young woman in 1960. The only newsworthy aspect of this story is that he is an ex-priest.

AP, CNN, NBC, as well as many other media outlets, accurately referred to Feit as an ex-priest. But not all were fair, the most prominent of which was the Washington Post. Its headline read, “Break in ‘Unholy’ Cold Case: Police Arrest Former Beauty Queen’s Priest in Her 1960 Killing.”

Notice that the victim is a former beauty queen, but her alleged victimizer is not a former priest. Indeed, the reader doesn’t learn of Feit’s former status until several paragraphs later.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

[photos]

These are the haunting pictures from inside of an abandoned catholic seminary which was deserted more than twenty years ago and rocked by historic sexual abuse allegations.

St Joseph’s Seminary in Upholland, Lancashire, saw its last batch of pupils leave in 1992 and now the vast halls and dormitories hold just a few stark remnants of the hundreds of pupils that once flooded the halls and chapels.

A loan, rusty record player which would once brought music to entire classes of animated youngsters lies in the centre of a huge empty hall which is now blanketed in a thick layer of dust.

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ARIZONA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2016

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

An ex-priest who worked in New Mexico and lives in Arizona has been arrested for murdering a Texas girl. We are deeply grateful that John Feit has finally been charged. Now, Catholic officials in all three states have a moral and civic duty to prod other witnesses to step forward.

[Monitor]

In the 1960s, Feit worked at the Jemez Springs-based Servants of the Paraclete, a Catholic facility where predator priests were housed and purportedly “treated.” That was “after his criminal problems in South Texas prompted his bosses to remove him from parish work” and he “had been convicted in a young woman’s sexual assault,” according to the Dallas Morning News.

[BishopAccountability.org]

We fear he may have hurt young women in New Mexico too.

We hope that this news brings some hope to Irene Garza’s brave and devoted family. We applaud them for their persistence and patience. And we hope that anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered clergy crimes or misdeeds by Feit – or cover ups by his church supervisors will call police, expose wrongdoers, protect others and start healing.

We also hope that Santa Fe Archbishop John Wester, Phoenix Bishop Thomas Olmsted and Brownsville Bishop Daniel Flores will use personal appeals, parish bulletins, church websites and pulpit announcements to beg others with information or suspicions about Feit to call law enforcement immediately. Now is no time for Catholic officials to act powerless or for citizens to be complacent. Every shred of evidence – no matter how small, old or seemingly insignificant – should be withheld from police and prosecutors.

Three months ago, we wrote to Hildalgo County prosecutor Ricardo Rodriguez about this case. We are certain, however, that the diligence of the Garza family that made the difference here. Again, we are grateful to them for the courage and compassion they have shown throughout this ordeal.

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ARIZONA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, Feb. 11, 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 accused murderer and ex-priest was “a regular church volunteer” in Phoenix, the Washington Post reports. In light of this revelation, it’s crucial that Bishop Thomas Olmsted break his silence, take decisive action and help prosecutors pursue Feit.

[Washington Post]

[The Monitor]

We call on Olmsted to disclose which local parish Feit volunteered at and who brought Feit to Phoenix and hired him at the St. Vincent de Paul Society. At the very least, this information will deter future recklessness.

We also call on Olmsted – and every Phoenix diocesan or parish employee – to beat the bushes, spread the word and seek out others who may have seen, suspected or suffered his crimes, and urge them to call 911.

With minimal effort, using cheap but effective communications tools like church websites, parish bulletins and pulpit announcements, Olmsted and church staff might turn up one more wounded person who is suffering in shame, silence and self-blame. Or they may find one victim or witness or whistleblower who could be the difference between success or failure in the criminal case against Feit.

This is what Jesus told us to do in the parable of the Good Shepherd: to go out into the cold, the dark and the rain to find that one lost, wounded sheep.

Feit was sent to New Mexico long before Olmsted was. So it’s no skin off Olmsted’s teeth to do this outreach. Even if it produced no results, the effort alone would burnish Olmstead’s image. There’s really little reason, besides timidity and tradition, for Olmsted to be passive and silent here, unless he’s afraid that a public plea will bring even more still-hidden clergy crimes or cover ups to the surface.

Olmsted isn’t the only bishop with an obligation for outreach here. Prelates in New Mexico, Texas and Missouri, where Feit also spent time, have this duty too.

Regardless of what Catholic workers do or don’t do, we in SNAP beg every single person who has any information or suspicions about Feit – no matter how small, old, vague or seemingly meaningless it might seem – to call police. That’s the least we can and should do to protect the vulnerable, heal the wounded and expose the truth.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A doctor who led an inquiry into the Jimmy Savile scandal is to chair a review of a former care home where it is claimed children were drugged.

Dr Sue Proctor is to chair a panel looking into the treatment of former residents at the Church of England’s Kendall House in Gravesend.

A 2009 BBC investigation found an ex-resident who said she was given drugs more than 1,200 times at the Kent home.

Dr Proctor led inquiries into sex abuse by Savile at Leeds General Infirmary.

Her report in 2014 found 60 people said they were abused at the Leeds hospital by the Ex-BBC DJ, between 1962 and 2009.

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UNITED KINGDOM
National Secular Society

Posted: Thu, 11 Feb 2016

The National Secular Society has expressed its concern over guidelines for newly appointed bishops published by the Vatican which state that bishops do not always need to report clerical sex abuse to the authorities.

The guidance reportedly states that “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”.

The NSS, which has campaigned for ten years, including at the United Nations, to expose clerical abuse and the rape and sexual abuse of minors, strongly criticised the guidance for flouting secular law and the recommendations of the United Nations.

Keith Porteous Wood, NSS executive director, commented: “It is unfortunately no surprise that these guidelines encourage bishops not to report suspected abuse, rather than obligating them to do so as the UN recommended specifically to the Vatican in 2014.”

In 2014 the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended to the Holy See that the Vatican “Establish clear rules, mechanisms and procedures for the mandatory reporting of all suspected cases of child sexual abuse and exploitation to law enforcement authorities.”

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MASSACHUSETTS
MassLive

By Dan Glaun | dglaun@masslive.com
on February 11, 2016

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, the victims advocacy group that has long clashed with the Catholic Church over its clergy sexual abuse scandal, is not accepting the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield’s apology.

In a pastoral letter released on Ash Wednesday, the Most. Rev. Mitchell T. Rozanski sought to welcome Catholics distanced or disillusioned with the Church back into the fold. The letter included a direct apology for the Diocese’s role in the sexual abuse scandal, which led to more than $12 million in settlements to dozens of victims.

“First and foremost, I apologize to the victims of clergy sexual abuse, their families and friends, and all those scandalized by the Church’s failure to protect our young people and for any lack of diligence in responding,” Rozanski wrote.

In his pastoral letter issued on Ash Wednesday, Bishop Mitchell Rozanski wrote that the church, inspired by the approachable tenor of Pope Francis’ approach to the papacy, is rededicating itself to evangelism.

“Springfield’s bishop is issuing an apology when he should be protecting kids, exposing predators, punishing enablers and releasing abuse records,” wrote Barbara Dorris, SNAP’s outreach director. “Tangible steps will do more to protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded that all the words, gestures and apologies.”

Allegations of sexual abuse in Springfield stretched to the top of the diocese; former bishop Thomas Dupre, who oversaw the first round of discipline against abusive priests when the scandal broke in the early 2000s, was himself accused of child molestation in 2004. Dupre resigned from the diocese and was criminally indicted, but those charges were later dropped due to the statute of limitations on the allegations.

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IRELAND
Newstalk

A Vatican document for new bishops states it is “not necessarily” their duty to report claims of clerical abuse.

The Vatican recently released the guidelines, and are seeking feedback on them.

It did state that clergy must be aware of laws in the area they minister.

“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,” the training document states.

The Guardian reports that the training guidelines were written by French monsignor and psychotherapist, Tony Anatrella.

He also serves as a consultant to the Pontifical Council for the Family.

Maeve Lewis is the executive director of One in Four. She says she is deeply shocked by the news.

“Given the history of clerical abuse in this country, we all know the sort of culture that that can create – and the very dangerous position it leaves vulnerable children in”, she told Newstalk Breakfast.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has said all allegations of clerical abuse in Ireland must be reported to gardaí, responding to a new Vatican document saying bishops had discretion on reporting abuse to authorities.

“The norms in Ireland are very clear – all allegations must and are reported to the gardaí,” he said.
He added that co-operation with the gardaí has been very productive from the perspective of the Archdiocese.

“Gardaí have the ability and the expertise to investigate matters that diocesan personnel would not.

“Over the years, we have established very good working relationships with the Gardai which has been helpful to both sides.”

Earlier on Thursday the One in Four organisation expressed shock at the implications of the new Vatican document.

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UNITED STATES
American Thinker

By Rick Moran

Two decades of scandals involving Catholic dioceses covering up allegations of sexual abuse of minors by clergy apparently hasn’t made much of an impression on the Vatican.

The coverups have come close to destroying the Roman Catholic Church. And yet, a new policy guideline for bishops released this month state that it is “not necessarily” the duty of bishops to report accusations of clerical child abuse and that only victims or their families should make the decision to report abuse to police.

Guardian:

A document that spells out how senior clergy members ought to deal with allegations of abuse, which was recently released by the Vatican, emphasised that, though they must be aware of local laws, bishops’ only duty was to address such allegations internally.

“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,” the training document states.

The training guidelines were written by a controversial French monsignor and psychotherapist, Tony Anatrella, who serves as a consultant to the Pontifical Council for the Family. The Vatican released the guidelines – which are part of a broader training programme for newly named bishops – at a press conference earlier this month and is now seeking feedback. …

It’s possible to read too much into these guidelines, but as a matter of public relations, it’s a disaster. If a bishop is made aware of a specific case involving clergy and the molestation of a child, urging the family to report the crime to police simply isn’t enough. That’s been the problem in the past – that the church basically looked away while predator priests were allowed to continue their attacks – usually in another parish. Pressure was placed on families by the church hierarchy to let the diocese handle the problem.

The guidelines suggest some sort of internal investigation before going to police. It appears that the Vatican is trying to strike some kind of balance between the rights of clergy not to be falsely accused and the rights of victims. On paper, that may be acceptable. But in practice, it still looks like a coverup – especially given recent history.

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ARIZONA/TEXAS
KRIS

[with video]

PHOENIX (AP) – The Latest on the arrest in Arizona of a former priest in the 1960 killing of a Texas schoolteacher (all times local):

4:10 p.m.

A man who told authorities that a former priest confessed to killing a Texas schoolteacher in 1960 says he’s relieved that the man has been charged in the case.

Former priest John Bernard Feit (fyt) was arrested Tuesday in Arizona after being indicted by a grand jury in Texas in the death of Irene Garza.

Dale Tacheny says he also is a former priest and was working at a Missouri monastery where Feit applied to live in 1963. Tacheny says Feit told him he’d killed a young woman as the two men talked during an evaluation process to determine whether Feit would be accepted to stay at the monastery.

Tacheny says he told a superior about the conversation, but the only result was that Fiet wasn’t invited to live at the monastery.

Tacheny says he continued thinking about the conversation over the years, but he didn’t learn until years later that the woman was Garza. Tacheny went to law enforcement in 2002.

Tacheny called Feit’s indictment “the right thing.”

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ITALY
Vanguard

Rome, Italy – A priest, a junior football coach and an HIV-positive man were among 11 people arrested in northern Italy on charges of paying for sex with minors, police said Thursday.

The arrests in the Lombardy and Emilia-Romagna regions follow a six-month investigation led by detectives in Brescia into a prostitution network which used social media to put the minors in contact with potential clients.

The investigation was triggered after a mother found suspicious text messages on the phone of her 16-year-old daughter.

The accused priest was named by his diocese as Diego Rota, 45, a parish priest in the village of Solza near the city of Bergamo.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Regensburger Nachrichten

[A victim of abuse at the Regensburg cathedral choir speaks about what happened there.]

Sie wurden geprügelt, sexuell missbraucht und gedemütigt. „Ich bin in die Finsternis gekommen. Es war ein Gefängnis mit Schlägen, Tritten und noch viel Schlimmerem“, erzählt Karsten G. (Name von der Redaktion geändert) von seinen traumatischen Erinnerungen an die Regensburger Domspatzen. Vor sechs Jahren wurden die ersten Missbrauchsfälle in dem berühmtesten Knabenchor Deutschlands bekannt, mittlerweile weiß man von mehr als 230 Fällen. Die Entschädigung? 2.500 Euro Schmerzensgeld, vielleicht – falls der Antrag vom Bistum nicht abgelehnt wird.

„Wenn die Erzieher, die sogenannten Präfekten, nachts ein Flüstern hörten, wurde man aus dem Bett geholt und in das Präfektenzimmer gebracht. Ich musste meinen Kopf zwischen seine Schenkel stecken. Bei jedem Schlag auf den Po rieb er sein Glied an meinem Hinterkopf.“ Karsten G. ist noch Jahrzehnte nach diesen Vorkommnissen schockiert, in seinen Augen stehen Tränen. „Es gab kein Entrinnen.“ Der 46-Jährige schwieg jahrelang, sprach mit niemandem darüber. Seit den 50er Jahren leben die Schüler in dem katholischen Internat der Regensburger Domspatzen, die Regeln waren streng. Erstmals 2010 brach der ehemalige Domspatz Alexander Probst das große Schweigen, er wollte eine Aufklärung und hoffte, damit endlich Frieden zu finden.

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CHILE
Cooperativa

[Juan Carlos Cruz: The Catholic Church does nothing specifically against sexual abuse.]

Juan Carlos Cruz, denunciante del caso Karadima, relató en Lo que Queda del Día la expulsión del abogado Peter Saunders de la comisión vaticana que aborda los casos de abuso sexual, donde él mismo fue vetado de una reunión donde expondría el caso del obispo Juan Barros. Calificó como “una vergüenza y una burla” lo que está pasando.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

11 February, 2016

The Royal Commission will hold a public hearing commencing Monday 22 February 2016 at the Ballarat Magistrates Court.

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

The response of the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat and other Catholic Church authorities in Ballarat to allegations of child sexual abuse against clergy or religious.

The response of the Congregation of the Christian Brothers in St Patrick’s Province, Australia, to allegations of child sexual abuse against Christian Brothers.

Any related matters.

Cardinal George Pell will give evidence from 29 February 2016 by video link from Rome concerning Case Study 35: Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne and Case Study 28: Catholic Church authorities in Ballarat. The Royal Commission will sit in Sydney and, in accordance with a request from Cardinal Pell, the hearing will commence at 08:00am AEDT.

The Trench Room at Ballarat Town Hall will be made available for members of the community during the public hearing, including Cardinal Pell’s evidence.

For more information on Case Study 28 into the Catholic Church authorities in Ballarat please visit the Case Study 28 webpage

Date: Monday 22 February 2016
Time: 10.00am AEDT start
Location: Ballarat Magistrates Court, 100 Grenville St S, Ballarat VIC 3350

Any person or institution who believes that they have a direct and substantial interest in the scope and purpose of the public hearing is invited to lodge a written application for leave to appear at the public hearing by 15 February 2016.

Applications for leave to appear should be made using the form available on the Royal Commission website.

Parties who were granted leave to appear in the first or second part of the public hearing of Case Study 28 or Case Study 35 do not need to reapply.

Leave to appear will generally be granted when an applicant:

a. has been summoned to give evidence
b. is an institution, or is a representative of an institution, that is subject to the
inquiry to be undertaken
c. may be the subject of an adverse allegation.

It is not essential for a person who will appear as a witness in a hearing to apply for leave to appear – witnesses may appear and give evidence without applying for leave.

The form should be lodged with the Royal Commission via: Email: solicitor@childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au; or Mail: GPO Box 5283, Sydney NSW 2001

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

The Bishop of Rochester – The Right Reverend James Langstaff – first announced the review of Kendall House in January last year.

He commissioned the independent panel on behalf of the dioceses of Rochester and Canterbury.

Former residents of the now-closed home say that they were heavily sedated with tranquilisers up to ten times the recommended dose.

The review will not however look at allegations that this led to birth defects in their own children.

The Bishop said the Church of England is not in a position to act as Judge and Jury in the absence of any birth defect related claims being made.

The Kendall House Review panel comprises of:

Sue Proctor led the major independent investigation into matters relating to Jimmy Savile, and chaired the NHS Savile Legacy Unit.

Samantha Cohen is a part time judge with some twenty years of experience as an independent barrister. She specialises in cases involving allegations of sexual abuse and

Ray Galloway retired from the police service in 2013 as a Detective Superintendent. Ray was the Director of the independent investigation into the activities of Jimmy Savile.

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CALIFORNIA
Orange County Weekly

BY GUSTAVO ARELLANO

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2016

People have compiled histories of baseball in Orange County, of our long-gone walnut growers, of films shot here before the advent of talking movies. Chronicles about the Huntington Beach Fourth of July parade, about the Hippie Mafia, about a guy’s visit to the Santa Ana Valley in the 1860s. Tomes devoted to old railroads, orange-crate labels, even Aliso Viejo, where nothing remarkable has ever happened—ever.

But nowhere in OC’s many history books will you find much info on our most unsung industry: sex scandals. Few other places in the U.S. can boast such a hypocritical mix of prudish mores and a libido that matches any Tushy.com ingénue, which usually translates to shocking, sometimes hilarious incidents that no proper history ever bothered to jot down. Thankfully, we ain’t proper, so consider us the Herodotus of smut—but you knew that already, right?

The following is just a sampling of all the nasty, disturbing, crazy, insane or just plain embarrassing sex scandals that Orange County has seen through the ages, ones that sent tongues clucking and authorities scrambling to cover up the dirty deeds. Special attention was given to incidents involving people abusing their positions of power. We mostly excluded hot-for-teacher cases (save the most infamous one) because that deserves a whole volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica. We’re a bit light on stuff before the 1980s, but we’ll keep digging. …

1975: The Orange County district attorney’s office (OCDA) tells the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to start psychological care for Eleuterio Ramos, a priest at St. Joseph Church in Placentia, citing “a recent incident.” Ramos would go on to become the most prolific pedophile priest in Orange County history, molesting at least 25 boys and never serving a day in jail.

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MEXICO
NSS Oaxca

[Pope Francis rebuffs victims of sexual abuse in the church during his visit to Mexico.]

Fueron las palabras de Jesús Cabrero Romero, arzobispo de San Luis Potosí, las que dieron esperanza a las víctimas de abuso sexual de la Iglesia en México al asegurar que Francisco se reuniría con ellas como lo hizo en su visita a Estados Unidos, el año pasado. “El Papa traerá para ellos un mensaje y a nosotros una línea para poder responder a todas estas víctimas”, dijo el religioso en diciembre de 2015, cuando se organizaban los detalles de la primera visita de Francisco al país, que comienza este viernes. El Vaticano, sin embargo, ha revelado que no existirá tal encuentro. “Lo que hay que hacer es callar porque lo que han hecho aquí es proteger y encubrir”, señala la madre de un joven violado por el sacerdote Eduardo Córdova, uno de los mayores depredadores sexuales de la Iglesia en México.

El desaire de Francisco ha sido mal recibido en San Luis Potosí, a 350 kilómetros de la Ciudad de México. La capital del Estado de 2.4 millones de habitantes sufrió las vejaciones del padre Córdova. En abril de 2004, la madre de una de sus víctimas envió una carta al arzobispo Luis Morales. “Mi hijo fue violado en su persona, en su vida, en su respeto, en su integridad y sobre todo, en su fe”, escribió. “¿Cómo un sacerdote puede llegar a hacer tanto daño?” A esa carta siguieron varias más, de otros afectados, hasta noviembre de 2006. El arzobispo respondió que la información había sido enviada a Roma el 29 de junio de 2004 para pedir “indicaciones a seguir en el caso”.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

CHRIS MARSHALL

Survivors of historical child abuse have “no prospect” of obtaining justice from a national inquiry unless its remit is widened, it has been claimed.

Campaigners will meet education secretary Angela Constance tomorrow to press for the scope of the inquiry to be widened to include paedophile priests who abused children outwith residential care.

The inquiry, which officially opened in October under the leadership of Susan O’Brien QC, is investigating the physical and sexual abuse of children in care up until December 2014.

But survivors’ groups have complained that by focussing on the abuse of children in care, the scope of the inquiry is not wide enough and will exclude those abused by members of the Catholic Church.

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IRELAND
The Irish Catholic

By Greg Daly
February 11, 2016

Marie Collins, the Irish clerical abuse survivor who has been a member of Pope Francis’ child protection advisory panel since its foundation, has said she did not vote for the suspension of her colleague and fellow survivor Peter Saunders.

Following a February 6 discussion about the “direction and purpose” of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors “it was decided that Mr Peter Saunders would take a leave of absence from his membership to consider how he might best support the commission’s work”, according to a statement.

Mr Saunders, founder of the UK-based National Association for People Abused in Childhood, said 15 committee members voted for his suspension, with one member being absent and another abstaining. Asked on Twitter whether she had voted for Mr Saunders’ suspension, Mrs Collins said she had not done so.

In a later statement, Mr Saunders, who has been outspoken on individual cases including allegations about Chile’s Bishop Juan Barros and Vatican finance chief Cardinal George Pell, said concerns had been raised about his speaking too much to the press and seeing himself as a campaigner. He insisted that he has not, however, left the panel, saying “I was appointed by Pope Francis, and I will only talk to him about my position on the commission”.

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MEXICO
Sin Embargo

[Former priest Alberto Athie Gallo, a former priest of the Archdiocese of Mexico, continues to fight against pedophilia in the Catholic Church which he has been doing since 1994 when a victim of the founder of the Legionaries of Christ – Marcial Maciel Degollado – told her story. In his opinion Mexico has the most curel pedophile church. In Mexico more than 500 cases of children raped by Catholic priests are known to date and there is a suspected cover-up involving the church and the Mexican justice system.]

Por Shaila Rosagel febrero 11, 2016

Ciudad de México a 11 de febrero (SinEmbargo).- Alberto Athié Gallo, ex sacerdote de la Arquidiócesis de México, no deja de luchar en contra de la pederastia en la Iglesia Católica desde 1994, cuando una víctima del fundador de los Legionarios de Cristo, Marcial Maciel Degollado, le contó su historia.

Rechazó ser Obispo a cambio de callarse y sorteó las presiones que, asegura, tuvo del Arzobispo Primado de México Norberto Rivera Carrera.

Exiliado en Estados Unidos, vivió de cerca el escándalo de los sacerdotes pederastas de Boston, Massachusetts, y el encubrimiento de la cúpula de la Iglesia Católica en esa zona. Luego de mucho andar y de conocer casos a nivel mundial, asegura en entrevista con SinEmbargo que México tiene a los pederastas más crueles e importantes de la Iglesia. Todos impunes y libres, “gracias a un mecanismo protector, diseñado desde la Santa Sede, que les permite encontrar en el clero, el lugar perfecto para violar niños”.

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MEXICO
IOL

By: Michael Day

Rome – Pope Francis begins a high-profile visit to Latin America on Friday in what should be a series of celebrations for the Argentinian pontiff.

Attention instead looks set to be fixed again on arguably the single most shocking case of multiple child abuse, cover-ups and conspiracy in a series of worldwide clerical paedophilia cases.

Even before Francis touches down in Mexico city, victims of serial abuser Marcial Maciel, the close friend of Pope John Paul II, and head of the Legionaries of Christ, are dismayed that Pope Francis will not find time to meet them despite him spending a whole week in Mexico.

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TEXAS
The Dallas Morning News

McALLEN — For more than half a century, the unsolved killing of a young schoolteacher and beauty queen who was last seen at church haunted this South Texas city.

But now, nearly 56 years after the bludgeoned body of 25-year-old Irene Garza was pulled from an irrigation canal, police have arrested the man long suspected in her slaying: the priest who apparently heard her final confession.

Using a walker, a frail-looking John Bernard Feit, 83, appeared in court Wednesday in Phoenix after being arrested a day earlier at his home in Scottsdale, Ariz., on a murder charge. He was jailed on $750,000 bail while he awaits transfer back to Texas.

“This whole thing makes no sense to me because the crime in question took place in 1960,” Feit said, adding that he plans to fight extradition to Texas.

Feit’s arrest followed other investigations over the years, including a grand jury probe in 2004 that concluded there was insufficient evidence to charge him.

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ARIZONA/TEXAS
Arizona Republic

[with video]

Megan Cassidy and Garrett Mitchell, The Republic

A connection to a slain beauty queen was John Feit’s worst-kept secret in the decade leading up to his arrest.

The 1960 killing of Irene Garza, a young schoolteacher, continued to dog the otherwise quiet life of Feit, an elderly Scottsdale resident and former priest known for helping the poor and the homeless in metro Phoenix for more than a quarter-century.

Since nearly a lifetime ago, Feit, 83, had been the sole occupant on detectives’ list of suspects, although he never had been arrested or charged.

Garza’s grisly slaying in the Rio Grande Valley in the southern tip of Texas inspired national crime documentaries and haunted investigators. It served as a political platform for the recent campaign of Hidalgo County Prosecutor Ricardo Rodriguez, who was asked by Garza’s family to examine the case once again.

No charges were brought after the initial investigation in 1960, conducted after Garza was found face down in an irrigation canal, five days after she was last seen heading to confession at a Catholic Church where Feit was a priest. A grand jury re-examined the case in 2004 but did not indict him. Last week, another grand jury did.

In a brief and unexpected 2014 interview with “48 Hours’ “Richard Schlesinger, Feit expressed disgust with the allegations. For the umpteenth time, Feit denied killing Garza.

“Get lost, brother!” he snarled, before slamming the door in the reporter’s face.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

AAP

The former head of the Catholic Church’s defence force diocese has denied he inappropriately touched boys and has blamed another priest and a brother for assaults at a college more than 40 years ago.

Bishop Max Leroy Davis is 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, northeast of Perth.

Davis, 70, testified in the West Australian District Court on Thursday that he never thought of children sexually or committed a child sex offence, describing it as wrong and inappropriate.

Defence counsel Seamus Rafferty has previously suggested two alternative suspects, who are now dead, including a Father Justin, who Davis had a role in removing as rector.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Joanna Menagh

The Catholic Bishop of the Australian Defence Force has taken the stand and denied, under oath, that he ever sexually abused teenage boys 45 years ago.

Max Davis, 70, was on trial in Perth accused of abusing five boarders when he was a dormitory master at Saint Benedict’s College at New Norcia, north of Perth, between 1969 and 1972.

Davis, who voluntarily stood aside from his role as Catholic Bishop of the ADF when he was charged, was a teacher and dormitory master at the school and it is alleged he molested the boys on five separate occasions when they were aged about 13 or 14.

In his evidence Davis said he had no “independent recollection” of any of the complainants, and repeatedly denied that he had ever abused any of them.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

February 10, 2016

Nino Bucci
Crime reporter for The Age

The Archdiocese of Melbourne did not know a paedophile priest, who the church had put on paid leave, had left Australia.

The Age revealed on Wednesday that Father Peter Grasby, who was put on administrative leave in 2012, had left Melbourne for Malaysia and was seeking the company of “younger Asian men” using gay dating websites.

The church confirmed that the complaint against Father Grasby, which related to abuse at St Joseph’s in West Brunswick against a boy aged as young as 10, had been upheld in 2013.

The church said the complaint had also been referred to police, despite saying at the time that the victim had declined to report to the force.

Father Grasby was assistant priest at the time of the sexual abuse, which started in the late 1970s and may have continued until the early 1980s.

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FLORIDA
News-Journal

By Frank Fernandez
frank.fernandez@news-jrnl.com
Published: Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Edgewater Alliance Church and Warner Christian Academy were negligent in their hiring and supervision of Matthew Graziotti, according to the latest lawsuit filed in the case of the former teacher and summer camp director convicted for sexually preying on young boys.

The suit was filed Monday in Circuit Court by the parent of a child identified only as John Doe who lives in Volusia County. The family is represented by Morgan and Morgan, and one of the firm’s attorneys working on the case is Belvin Perry Jr., the judge who presided over the Casey Anthony case and retired from the bench in 2014.

Graziotti was sentenced on Jan. 26, 2015, to 210 years in federal prison. A federal prosecutor described him as a “skilled sexual predator” and said Graziotti sexually abused 29 children under the age of 12, some as young as 6.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

February 11, 2016

Liam Mannix
Reporter

Call them the ‘Physicians for the comfort of George Pell’.

Dr Richard Sallie, a West Australian doctor, has been taking volunteers for a small medical team.
Their offer: a praetorian guard of personal physicians who could safely see Cardinal George Pell through the flight from Rome to appear before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Cardinal Pell, 74, has been granted permission by the Commission to appear by video link in lieu of a personal appearance, because he is too sick to fly.

In a letter published in Fairfax Media newspapers Dr Sallie offered his expertise to help the Cardinal get home.

Reached in Western Australia, Dr Sallie admitted he was something of a veteran newspaper letter writer – his own mother even receives death threats, presumably meant for him, from time to time.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Argus

Jean Calder / Wednesday 10 February 2016

I’VE been saddened to see so many people rush to defend the reputation of Bishop George Bell – and by implication suggest the elderly woman who accused him of child sexual abuse is a liar.

The Church of England has accepted that the abuse took place and given its previous determination to keep abuse by its clergy under wraps, I suspect the evidence is compelling. I was pleased that Bishop Martin Warner apologised and defended the alleged victim from criticism.

In respect of prominent abusers, the modern Church of England has done better than the Church of Rome. Eric Gill, the famous artist and Roman Catholic adult convert was the son of a Church of England clergyman, also from Chichester.

Over many years, Gill sexually abused his sisters, servants and then his daughters, socially isolating the girls while using them as models for semi-erotic religious art. The abuse is catalogued in his own diaries but if you visit the Roman Catholic Westminster Cathedral, where his famous Stations of the Cross take pride of place and are publicised in the cathedral shop, there’s no mention of his history or his victims’ exploitation.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

The One in Four organisation has expressed shock at the implications of a new Vatican document on the reporting of claims of clerical abuse.

Maeve Lewis, executive director of One in Four, said she was shocked at the implication that bishops had discretion whether or not to report incidents of clerical abuse to the civil authorities.

She was speaking on the recently released the guidelines in a Vatican document for new bishops which states it is “not necessarily” their duty to report claims of clerical abuse in states where reporting was obligatory.

The guidelines did state that clergy must be aware of laws in the area they minister.

She told Newstalk Radio: “Given the history in this country we all know the dangers and what sort of culture that can create and the dangers to vulnerable children. It must be unbelievable to people like Bishop Diarmuid Martin who showed such leadership on this issue in this country.

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VATICAN CITY
Time

Rishi Iyengar @Iyengarish

Report says the church has told prelates that decision should be made by the victims and their families

The Catholic Church is allegedly telling newly ordained bishops that they have no obligation to report child-sexual-abuse allegations to law-enforcement officials, saying instead that the decision to take such claims to the authorities should be left to victims and their families.

The policy was first reported by a veteran Vatican journalist at Catholic news website Crux, who cited a presentation given by French Monsignor Tony Anatrella.

Anatrella, a consultant to the Pontifical Council for the Family and the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers, also authored a training document for new bishops released by Church authorities last week, in which similar guidelines are laid out.

“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,” his document states, according to a citation in the Guardian.

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