ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

DAN PROUDMAN
16 Nov 2016

FORMER Christian radio station boss and evangelical preacher Dr Gary Alexander Forbes has admitted to a court that he abused two brothers more than 20 years after first admitting his “sins” and 50 years after the abuse took place.

Forbes, 73, was committed on Wednesday to face Newcastle District Court for sentencing on three counts of assaulting a male and committing an act of indecency.

Agreed facts tendered during the committal proceedings said Forbes had abused one brother before moving onto his younger sibling when the older boy started in the workforce.

He had met them at a Christian gospel church in suburban Newcastle and had become friendly with the boys’ family.

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GUAM
Guam Daily Post

By Neil Pang | Post News Staff

The Mother Superior Dawn Marie of the Order of the Discalced Carmelites, an order of cloistered nuns dedicated to prayer, held a press briefing yesterday in which she explained why the sisterhood had left Guam.

After 50 years of prayer for the island’s faithful, the Carmelite order celebrated their final mass on June 14 of this year and, the next day, left for their new home in California, Marie said yesterday.

Marie said she decided to hold the briefing in which she explained the reasons behind the move as an act of responsibility to the truth.

“Because we didn’t have a hope for a viable future, that’s the reason we had to move,” she said.

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

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

BY KODY LEIBOWITZ TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 15TH 2016

HOLLIDAYSBURG — It was reported for years that the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown paid for settlements and fees involving alleged clergy abuse through insurance and investment profits.

The Associated Press reported in May 2004 that “the diocese said it will continue discussions with various insurance companies to recover the cost” of a 21-person settlement that cost the diocese millions.

“To provide for immediate payment, however, it will use the surplus from the Mutual Aid Plan, the deposit and loan fund for parish savings accounts,” wrote the AP. “None of the parish deposits [or] interests will be use, just the investment profits that are owned by the diocese, according to the diocese’ news release.”

The release came in 2004 after the diocese settled with 21 people who claimed sexual abuse at the hands of clergy for $3.7 million.

The diocese acknowledged “there were minors who have been harmed and are entitled to be compensated,” in a released statement.

“The settlement,” the statement at the time read reported on by the AP, “reflects our deep desire both to aid the healing of victims of clergy abuse and to not incur the inordinate financial burden of lengthy litigation.”

Since the release of the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown grand jury report in March, 6 News Investigates began digging into past settlements of our local catholic church and looking into how the catholic church covers costs for child sex abuse allegations.

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NEW MEXICO
Santa Fe New Mexican

November 15, 2016

Associated Press |

GALLUP — A new legal dispute has stalled the final resolution of a bankruptcy case prompted by a sexual abuse case involving the Diocese of Gallup, lawyers say.

The dispute involves a new lawsuit filed by attorney Robert E. Pastor against the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, a religious order that founded St. Michael Indian School in Arizona.

The suit claims a Navajo woman was sexually abused at the school by a Franciscan friar, The Gallup Independent reported.

The Gallup Diocese, the Franciscans and St. Michael Mission Church have already reached a settlement agreement with another Navajo woman related to abuse.

That settlement was part of the diocese’s bankruptcy case that was confirmed in June. As a result, the Diocese of Gallup, the Franciscans and St. Michael’s Church are protected parties and not named as defendants in Pastor’s lawsuit.

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AUSTRALIA
Gippsland Times

Tom McIlroy
16 Nov 2016

A national system to compensate victims of child sexual abuse looks to be in doubt as states and territories withhold their support amid questions about the efficacy of an opt-in redress scheme.

The federal government surprised some states with Social Services Minister Christian Porter’s November 4 announcement of a $4.3 billion scheme, following a recommendation of the royal commission into child sexual abuse.

No further details have been provided, leaving states including Western Australia and Victoria seeking answers and the development of some state schemes in limbo.

West Australian Premier Colin Barnett told Fairfax Media he’d had no consultation from the federal government, despite Mr Porter saying it would seek national co-operation and even force the ACT and Northern Territory governments to sign up.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

IAN KIRKWOOD
16 Nov 2016

A Newcastle solicitor and prominent lay member of the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle has defended his role in pushing against the current and former bishops of Newcastle, and justified his support for the defrocked cleric, Graeme Lawrence.

Robert Caddies, a parishioner at Christ Church Cathedral since 1987 and the holder of various lay positions, including diocesan solicitor from 1996 to 2005, was resuming evidence he began when the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was adjourned at the end of August.

At that time, he was questioned about letters that he and others had signed in support of the former dean, who was defrocked in 2012 by the previous bishop of Newcastle, Brian Farran, who retired the same year.

Mr Caddies said evidence given by abuse survivor CKH against Mr Lawrence was “impressive and credible” but he still believed the former dean had been denied natural justice by the church.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

Michael McGirr

FICTION
Crimes of the Father
TOM KENEALLY
VINTAGE, $32.99

There are a growing number of novels prepared to tell the story of paedophilia within various church communities, not least the Catholic Church. Few of them have needed to stray far from the grim facts. Andrew O’Hagan’s Be Near Me and John Boyne’s The Long History of Loneliness are just two examples. Both these books draw the line between good and bad clergy. But they also have solid reason to call into question an entire ecclesiastical culture. They are valuable books but they don’t make comfortable reading.

Tom Keneally’s new novel, Crimes of the Father, is the same but different. One distinction is the undeniable affection Keneally has for Catholicism, evident in the moving final paragraphs of this novel. This affection can be seen in a number of places in Keneally’s work, including his memoir, Homebush Boy, one of the few kindly portrayals of the Christian Brothers in Australian Literature. At the same time, Keneally has visited clerical sexual abuse before, notably in An Angel in Australia.

Crimes of the Father is based in more recent church history. Much of it is set in 1996, an important year in the history of the awareness of sexual abuse in Australia, the year in which the Towards Healing process came into being. Here, a similar process is called In Compassion’s Name.

A key case in Crimes of the Father concerns a Dr Devitt, whom the church seeks to deny access to an open legal process. Parts of this bring to mind the unfortunate case of Dr John Ellis. But this novel would be diminished if it were treated simply as a roman-a-clef. It is a work of grief at least as much as an account of the perversion of justice. Its interests are more profound than the law. The word Keneally uses in his introduction is “mourn”.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

Toni Hassan

“It takes a village…” was perhaps Hillary Clinton’s most memorable line. It was given a macabre twist in the Academy award-winning movie Spotlight, about the cover-up of sexual abuse by Catholic Church clergy in Boston. One of the actors observed that “if it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse one”.

We are about to learn more about the NSW “village” of Newcastle, in which an extraordinary number of respected citizens appear, through action or inaction, to have helped cover up allegations of sexual abuse.

Four years after, Julia Gillard announced the royal commission into institutional responses to abuse, the Anglican Bishop of Newcastle, Greg Thompson, will take the stand on Wednesday in Sydney when the commission reconvenes for case study 42. He has already given evidence privately, as perhaps the most senior clergyman to do so. He grew up in the Hunter Valley and was sexually abused while a student in Newcastle. After serving as a priest in many parts of Australia, including Canberra, he returned to Newcastle as bishop in 2014.

He says he was greeted by senior community figures keen to “groom” him. One legal figure recommended a system of internal reviews; an opportunity for the new bishop to “learn” but also, he realised, be potentially compromised. Thompson went straight to the police.

Within months he issued a formal apology to victims and announced he wouldn’t live in the “house on the hill” traditionally occupied by the bishop, as the stately mansion had come to represent all that was wrong with religious power. It’s since been sold.

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MARYLAND
The Baltimore Sun

[with video]

Alison Knezevich
The Baltimore Sun

The Baltimore Archdiocese has paid a dozen settlements for allegations against a priest at Keough, now dead.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore has paid a series of settlements to people who allege they were sexually abused by a priest who worked at Archbishop Keough High School decades ago.

The payments stem from allegations of abuse by A. Joseph Maskell, who denied an initial accusation before he died in 2001.

Sheldon Jacobs, an attorney representing people who have alleged abuse by Maskell, said about a dozen have reached settlements within the past few months.

“There’s no amount of money that could ever adequately compensate the survivors for what they’ve gone through,” he said.

Sean Caine, a spokesman for the Baltimore archdiocese, confirmed that “settlements with victims of Joseph Maskell have been ongoing since at least 2011.” He said he did not have information Monday on how much has been paid to the victims.

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MARYLAND
CBS Baltimore

[with video]

By Rick Ritter

BALTIMORE (AP) — The Archdiocese of Baltimore paid a series of settlements to people alleging they were abused by a local priest decades ago. The alleged acts took place at Archbishop Keough High School.

For some it has been more than 40 years of hiding in the dark – waiting to come forward with their stories of being sexually abused. Now decades later the healing process can begin.

The stories are monstrous:

“He wanted me to touch her between her legs, he was doing like an anatomy lesson,” said one victim.

“I remember him letting me use his bathroom while he watched,” said another victim.

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CANADA
Montreal Gazette

JOE LOFARO, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN, OTTAWA CITIZEN 11.15.2016

More than a decade before the Archdiocese of Ottawa told Jacques Faucher he could no longer be a priest, it paid tens of thousands of dollars to a former altar boy who had accused the reverend of molesting him.

Faucher was convicted in March of historical sex offences against three other children, but newly obtained documents by the Citizen show the diocese wrote a $50,000 cheque to a former altar boy when he was an adult in 1998, more than a year after he told the church about the alleged sexual abuse.

The payment was made on the condition he keep details of the out-of-court settlement confidential.

The 80-year-old former priest was found guilty of six counts of indecent assault and gross indecency to three of five boys who testified against him.

The cheque and other historical documents were filed as exhibits at Faucher’s criminal trial, and Ontario Superior Court Justice Pierre Roger recently granted the Citizen’s request to access the exhibits.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By David Marchese

A former senior member of Newcastle’s Anglican church has told the child abuse royal commission he has not been actively trying to ‘destroy’ the career of a bishop working to uncover child abuse in the diocese.

A hearing into the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse’s 42nd case study has resumed in Sydney after a two-month break, with two former bishops and the current bishop of Newcastle, Greg Thompson, expected to give evidence.

The commission has previously heard of widespread child sexual abuse within Newcastle’s Anglican Church, spanning several decades.

Former diocesan solicitor Robert Caddies resumed his evidence this morning, where he was questioned about a “bloc” within Newcastle’s cathedral seeking to undermine Bishop Thompson.

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MINNESOTA
Duluth News Tribune

By Tory Cooney, St. Paul Pioneer Press on Nov 15, 2016

ST. PAUL—The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has filed an updated bankruptcy plan with more money for victims of clerical sexual abuse, but critics claim it doesn’t go far enough.

The new plan would raise the proposed trust fund for claimants from $65 million to more than $130 million.

That could amount to nearly $300,000 for each of the 440 victims, archdiocese attorney Charlie Rogers said during a news conference Tuesday in St. Paul.

“Our goal all along has been to promote healing… to express our goodwill in action not words,” Rogers said. “And I hope this is seen as…evidence (of that).”

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

IAN KIRKWOOD
16 Nov 2016

THE Royal Commission has reopened in Sydney with a combative cross-examination of Newcastle solicitor and prominent lay Anglican figure Robert Caddies over letters that he and others signed complaining about the Bishop of Newcastle, Greg Thompson.

One letter was sent to the Royal Commission and others were sent to senior Anglican figures known as the Metropolitan and the Primate.

In the letter to the commission, Mr Caddies had complained that Bishop Thompson had potentially put youth in the church at risk by not reporting an allegation that he had been groomed and sexually abused by Bishop Ian Shevill and another senior priest of the diocese when he was 19 years old.

Under intense questioning from the commission chairman, Peter McClellan, and from counsel assisting, Naomi Sharp, Mr Caddies denied he was trying to “undermine” the bishop, although he agreed he was “drawing attention to” matters he believed were impairing Bishop Thompson’s performance as bishop.

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MARYLAND
ABC 2

[with video]

Dakarai Turner
Nov 15, 2016

BALTIMORE –
For the past several months, the Archdiocese of Baltimore has been holding mediation talks with a group of about a dozen people who said they were sexually abused by the same person.

The abuse is alleged to have stretched over a couple of decades and may have happened some years ago, but the alleged victims are just now beginning to feel what they may call justice.

Before it became what is now Seton Keough High School, during the 1960’s and 70’s it was known by a different name — Archbishop Keough.

Teresa Lancaster, a Baltimore area woman, attended classes at Archbishop Keough in 1970 and endured years of sexual abuse at the hands of Fr. Joseph Maskell who worked there as a chaplain.

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UNITED STATES
Crux

Associated Press
November 15, 2016

BALTIMORE – While one American diocese has paid settlements to end legal challenges related to clerical sexual abuse claims, another currently finds its exit strategy from bankruptcy proceedings stalled in court.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore has paid a series of settlements to people who alleged that they were sexually abused by a priest who worked at a high school decades ago.

The Baltimore Sun reports Tuesday that the payments stem from allegations of abuse by A. Joseph Maskell, who denied an initial allegation before his 2001 death.

Attorney Sheldon Jacobs says about a dozen people, mostly women, have reached out-of-court settlements in recent months. He declined to say how large the settlements are.

Maskell is included on the public archdiocese list of what it calls credibly accused clergymen. Archdiocese spokesman Sean Caine confirmed that “settlements with victims of Joseph Maskell have been ongoing since at least 2011,” but he didn’t have information Monday on how much has been paid.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

IAN KIRKWOOD
16 Nov 2016

THE previous Bishop of Newcastle has told the Royal Commission he had “a terrible time” in the city and only gradually worked out that he had a “significant problem” with child sexual abuse in his diocese.

Brian Farran, who was Bishop of Newcastle from 2005 until 2012, gave about 45 minutes of evidence on Wednesday afternoon before the hearing was adjourned until Thursday.

He said he received no handover from his predecessor, Roger Herft, when he arrived, and said it was only after Michael Elliott, the diocese’s director of professional standards, briefed him and he met some people from the Wallsend parish – where the subsequently disgraced priest Peter Rushton had been – that he realised there must have been “some sort of network”.

Mr Elliott began his job in 2009. Mr Farran said he was “not sure, actually”, if he ever saw the yellow envelopes that contained the misconduct files: he “presumed” some of them contained allegations of child sexual abuse.

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MINNESOTA
Business Insider

By Steve Gorman

(Reuters) – The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has offered to pay $132 million to settle hundreds of child sex abuse claims against its clergy under a revised bankruptcy reorganization plan filed in court on Tuesday.

The archdiocese, one of 15 U.S. Catholic districts and religious orders driven to seek Chapter 11 protection by the church’s sex abuse scandal, said its plan would mark the second-largest such bankruptcy settlement of pedophile priest claims in America.

The sum is more than double the $65 million previously offered by the archdiocese and rejected by plaintiffs.

But lawyers representing the bulk of nearly 450 claims at stake in St. Paul-Minneapolis denounced the latest proposal as still far too small and accused church officials of trying to conceal their ability to pay much more.

The San Diego diocese settled sex abuse claims in 2007 for a total of $198 million after filing for Chapter 11. The Los Angeles archdiocese, the nation’s largest, reached a $660 million civil settlement the same year, though that was not part of a bankruptcy proceeding.

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MINNESOTA
KAAL

November 15, 2016

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has announced an amended plan of reorganization tied to its bankruptcy case.

The case involves financial reorganization and clergy abuse claims.

According to the announcement, the plan raised the proposed trust for claimants from $65 million to more than $130 million.

Court filings indicate most of the new money is coming from settlements with additional insurance carriers. The original plan included settlements with three carriers worth over $33 million. The archdiocese has now reached settlements with 11 of its 13 insurance carrier groups totaling over $92 million. The archdiocese says it still hopes to get “many millions of dollars” from the two remaining carriers that have not settled.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
Catholic Telegraph

Catholic News Service / November 15, 2016

BALTIMORE — Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston was elected president of the U.S. bishops’ conference Nov. 15 for a three-year term to begin at the conclusion of the bishops’ annual fall general assembly in Baltimore.

Cardinal DiNardo collected a majority of votes on the first ballot of voting during the second day of the bishops’ public session. Based on the number of bishops voting, 104 votes were needed for election, and Cardinal DiNardo — the current vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops — received 113.

He will succeed Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky, whose three-year term as president concludes at the end of the meeting.

Elected vice president was Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles. By virtue of his election, Archbishop Gomez will not take over as chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Migration. He was elected last year as chairman-elect of the committee and was to succeed the current outgoing chairman, Auxiliary Bishop Eusebio L. Elizondo of Seattle, at the end of this year’s general assembly.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

By Jean Hopfensperger Star Tribune NOVEMBER 15, 2016

The fund for victims of clergy sex abuse would double from a proposed $65 million to $130 million under an amended bankruptcy reorganization plan filed Tuesday by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

The increase is likely the result of new insurance settlements reached by the archdiocese, which is holding a news conference at 1 p.m. to offer details.

More than 400 individuals have filed claims against the archdiocese in U.S. Bankruptcy Court, alleging its clergy had sexually abused them as children.

In May, the archdiocese filed a reorganization plan which established a $65 million trust fund for victims, a fund that it said would grow as insurance settlements were reached. Victims’ attorneys denounced that amount as inadequate.

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date: Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Source: Tom Halden, Director of Communications

Late this morning, the Archdiocese filed an amended Plan of Reorganization in U.S. Bankruptcy Court. The Plan increases the proposed Trust for claimants from $65 million to more than $130 million. For more information, check www.thecatholicspirit.com and click the links below.

* Amended Plan of Reorganization
* Amended Disclosure Statement

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

November 15, 2016

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has announced an amended plan of reorganization tied to its bankruptcy case.

The case involves financial reorganization and clergy abuse claims.

According to the announcement, the plan raised the proposed trust for claimants from $65 million to more than $130 million.

Court filings indicate most of the new money is coming from settlements with additional insurance carriers. The original plan included settlements with three carriers worth over $33 million. The archdiocese has now reached settlements with 11 of its 13 insurance carrier groups totaling over $92 million. The archdiocese says it still hopes to get “many millions of dollars” from the two remaining carriers that have not settled.

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MINNESOTA
Fox 9

UPDATED:NOV 15 2016

ST. PAUL, Minn. (KMSP) – Lawyers for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis have announced a fund of $130 million is now available for victims of sexual abuse, doubling the previous total.

According to court documents, most of the new money is coming from settlements with additional insurance companies. The archdiocese has now reached settlements with 11 of its 13 insurance companies, and still hopes to get millions more from the companies that haven’t yet settled.

The attorney representing the victims, Jeff Anderson, says the new plan is still in adequate and represents less than one percent of the archdiocese’s assets.

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MINNESOTA
Tommie Media

By Associated Press | Tuesday, November 15, 2016

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has filed an updated bankruptcy plan with more money for victims of clerical sexual abuse.

The archdiocese said in a statement Tuesday the new plan raises the proposed trust fund for claimants from $65 million to more than $130 million.

Court filings indicate most of the new money is coming from settlements with additional insurance carriers. The original plan included settlements with three carriers worth over $33 million. The archdiocese has now reached settlements with 11 of its 13 insurance carrier groups totaling over $92 million. The archdiocese says it still hopes to get “many millions of dollars” from the two remaining carriers that have not settled.

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MINNESOTA
Jeff Anderson & Associates

11/15/2016

Jeff Anderson to Respond to Plan at 2:30PM
Press Conference Today in Minneapolis

The amended plan also lets the Archdiocese’s insurance companies off the hook and significantly undervalues their exposure

Archdiocese First Amended Disclosure Statement
Archdiocese First Amended Plan of Reorganization
Brownell Affidavit
Declaration of Benjamin Gurstelle

WHAT: At a news conference today in Minneapolis, Attorneys Jeff Anderson and Mike Finnegan will:
• Discuss the details of the amended bankruptcy reorganization plan filed today by the Archdiocese of St. Paul & Minneapolis;
• Demand the Archdiocese uphold its pledge made to sexual abuse survivors to be transparent and accountable throughout the bankruptcy proceedings.

WHEN: Tuesday, November 15, 2016 at 2:30PM
WHERE: Outside the United States District Courthouse – Minneapolis
300 South Fourth Street
Minneapolis, MN 55415

Contact Jeff Anderson: Office/651.318.2650 Cell/612.817.8665
Contact Mike Finnegan: Office/651.318.2650 Cell/612.205.5531

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BALTIMORE (MD)
National Catholic Reporter

Dennis Coday | Nov. 15, 2016

BALTIMORE
Electing a president and vice president from regions with high immigrant populations, the U.S. bishops’ conference could be seen to be doubling down on the pledge to stand with immigrants and refugees.

Meeting in Baltimore this morning for the fall annual meeting, the U.S. bishops elected Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, Texas, to serve as president for the next three years and Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles as vice president for a three-year term.

DiNardo’s election was expected. He had been elected vice president three years ago, and by tradition the vice president is elected president. He won with 113 votes, 55 percent of votes cast, on the first ballot.

It took three votes to elect a vice president. Gomez had the plurality of votes in the first two ballots and won with a simple majority on the third ballot with 133 votes. Second place in the three votes was Archbishop Gregory Aymond of New Orleans.

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CANADA
Toronto Star

By ALY THOMSON
The Canadian Press
Mon., Nov. 14, 2016

KENTVILLE, N.S.—Witnesses at the trial of Toronto pastor Rev. Brent Hawkes described the religious leader performing a sexual act on a teenage male and walking down a hallway nude during an alcohol-fuelled party at his Nova Scotia trailer in the 1970s.

One witness said he watched Hawkes perform oral sex on his friend on the floor of his home in the Greenwood, N.S., area during a party sometime in the mid-1970s.

“I couldn’t believe it,” the man testified in Kentville provincial court Monday at the trial of Hawkes, an influential gay rights advocate who officiated at former NDP leader Jack Layton’s state funeral in 2011.

The witness said he knew Hawkes when he was a student and that Hawkes was a basketball coach and teacher at a school in the Annapolis Valley.

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TENNESSEE
Local Memphis

[with video]

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (localmemphis.com)

The City of Memphis is investigating an employee, named Chris Carwile, who works at a Memphis library, and is accused of abusing children while he worked with church youth almost two decades ago.

Three men filed a police report stating Carwile sexually abused them about 20 years ago while he was an associate youth pastor Immanuel Baptist Church in Collierville. Immanuel later changed its name to the Church at Schilling Farms.

The church fired Carwile, but admits it never reported the alleged abuse to law enforcement. Carwile went on to work at another church and is now employed at the city’s main library on Poplar. Last week, a city spokesperson says he was placed on paid administrative leave, pending the outcome of an investigation.

The three men met exclusively with the Local I-Team. They say they are speaking out on social media and in the news now to prevent other children from possibly being victimized. They also say they would like to see changes in the Baptist Church to ensure allegations of child abuse are reported to law enforcement. The Local I-Team has repeatedly attempted to contact Carwile, but he has not responded.

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NEW YORK
Business Insider

Sonam Sheth

Neal Gumpel, a 57-year-old screenwriter, said he was elated when he heard in October that Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York, announced that the church was setting up a fund to compensate sexual-abuse victims. Gumpel said that when he was 16 the Rev. Roy Drake, a Jesuit priest, sexually assaulted him.

The program, called the Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program (IRCP), is intended to “bring a measure of peace and healing to those who have suffered abuse,” Dolan said.

The IRCP has many phases. The first, which spans from October to January, covers only those who had previously filed claims of sexual abuse against the church. The second phase, for which an implementation date has not been announced, will cover new claims filed against clergy members.

“I thought, finally, they’re acknowledging the victims,” Gumpel told Business Insider. “Finally, they’re admitting the pain they’ve caused us, not just by abusing us, but by turning their backs on us when we tried to come forward.”

But then he heard the bad news. Gumpel’s claims would not be covered and he would not receive a public acknowledgement from the church.

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INDIA
Times of India

KOZHIKODE: A central government employee here on Monday demanded action against Nadakavu St Mary’s English Church parish priest Jain T A for making sexual advances towards her through e-mail and chat communication.

The complainant alleged that the Malabar diocese of the Church of South India, instead of protecting the believer, was trying to protect the accused priest.

“The clergy secretary of the bishop even told me “there are so many other churches in Kozhikode” indirectly telling me to move out of St Mary’s Church instead of seeking action against the offender,” said the complainant woman at a news conference.

The complainant is a widow and is working in a central government office in Kolkata. According to her, she contacted the priest on August 16 to request him to pray on the birth day of her daughter.

“He offered special prayer and I thanked him. But he did not stop there; instead he continued chatting with me even though I tried to avoid it. Slowly he started crossing the limit and I warned him many times. It was a real shocker for me to expect such behaviour from a parish priest,” the woman said amid tears.

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INDIA
The News Minute

A woman central government employee of Kozhikode alleged in a press meet conducted on Monday that a parish priest was making sexual advances towards her through email and chat.

The woman said that she had contacted Nadakavu St Mary’s English Church parish priest Jain TA in August to conduct prayers for her daughter’s birthday. “He offered special prayer and I thanked him. But he did not stop there; instead he continued chatting with me even though I tried to avoid it. Slowly he started crossing the limit and I warned him many times. It was a real shocker for me to expect such behaviour from a parish priest,“ she said in the press meet with tears, The Times of India reports.

The complainant said that though she approached the Malabar diocese of Church of South India under which this particular parish comes, the diocese authorities tried to protect the priest.

She alleged that the secretary of the Bishop asked her to move out of St Mary’s Church instead of taking action against the priest. “The clergy secretary of the bishop told me “there are so many other churches in Kozhikode” she said.

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NEW JERSEY
Robert M. Hoatson

[note: This release does not connect to a web site.]

Advocate for victims of sexual abuse, former Newark Archdiocesan priest and West Orange Town Council candidate, and honored educator to announce a run for the Democratic nomination for Governor of New Jersey

Church reformer and whistleblower to bring “reform” agenda to the State of New Jersey

What
A press conference announcing the candidacy of Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., for the Democratic nomination for Governor of New Jersey

When
Tuesday evening, November 15, 2016, from 5:30 pm until 8:30 pm
(Media invited to attend announcement from 6:45 pm until 7:30 pm)

Where
Wilshire Grand Hotel, 350 Pleasant Valley Way, West Orange, NJ, 07052-2918

Who
Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., his family, neighbors, and supporters will gather to announce his run for the Democratic nomination for Governor of New Jersey. Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., a native and current resident of West Orange, NJ, has lived in New Jersey for more than forty (40) years and has resided and/or worked in many New Jersey cities and towns, including Newark, West Orange, Bayonne, Hackensack, Closter, Midland Park, East Orange, South Orange, Jersey City, Glen Rock, Scotch Plains, and Little Ferry. He served as a deacon and/or priest for thousands of Catholics in parishes and schools throughout the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey, and was Principal of three schools; a high school in Newark, and two elementary schools (one in Newark and one in Hackensack). He founded and has served as President of Road to Recovery, Inc., a non-profit charity based in New Jersey, since 2003. Road to Recovery, Inc. assists victims of sexual abuse and their families. Robert Hoatson, Ph.D., has lobbied for years in the New Jersey state legislature for reform of statute of limitations laws regarding sexual abuse of children. He has acted as a whistleblower of numerous cases of sexual abuse against children throughout the State of New Jersey, and was an integral part of the uncovering of facts surrounding the Newark Archdiocesan cover-up of the Fr. Michael Fugee sexual abuse case. In his work with Road to Recovery, Inc., Dr. Hoatson has traveled the State of New Jersey, helping to heal victims of sexual abuse and their families and advocating for justice and fairness for all. Dr. Hoatson’s perseverance in holding the soon-to-be-replaced Archbishop of Newark, John Myers, accountable for his mishandling of cases of clergy sexual abuse was influential in Pope Francis’ appointment of Archbishop Bernard Hebda, as co-adjutor Archbishop of Newark in 2013. Dr. Hoatson will announce his run for the Democratic nomination for Governor and speak about his theories and practices of leadership which will help to restore hope in the leadership of the State of New Jersey.

Contact
Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., 862-368-2800 – roberthoatson@gmail.com

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Tuesday, November 15, 2016

By Conall Ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner Reporter
IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Adoption campaigners have called for an audit of all records in the hands of the State but there has been no willingness at official level to comply, says Conall Ó Fátharta

A DOCUMENT showing that the religious order that operated Bessborough Mother and Baby Home altered records is just one of thousands of records the Commission of Investigation will have to examine in order to get to the bottom of how these institutions operated.

Rumours that records were altered in mother and baby homes have been rife in adoption circles for years. These latest revelations raise more questions about the vast number of records now in State hands.

The document, outlining a number of changes made to records relating to vaccine trials, has been in the possession of the HSE — and now Tusla — since 2011.

The changes were made to files in 2002 — just weeks after a discovery order from the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (CICA). Its examination of the issue was shut down in 2003 following a Supreme Court ruling, but it is being re-examined by the current Mother and Baby Homes Commission.

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.

IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

A call for a commission of inquiry into forced adoptions has been strongly supported by the Coalition of Mother And Baby Home Survivors (CMABS).

The call was made in a letter to Taoiseach Enda Kenny by former assistant national director of child and family services with the Health Service Executive, Phil Garland.

He was also director of child protection in the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin from 2003 to 2009.

There was “undeniable evidence of cases of forced adoption within the mother and baby homes that had been uncovered as a result of the Magdalene inquiry” which published its report in February 2013, he said.

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.

GEORGIA
11 Alive

Joe Henke, WXIA November 14, 2016

ACWORTH, GA. – Members of an Acworth church congregation said their church didn’t tell them one of their youth ministry volunteers had a history of sexual assault.

Two parents said their learned of Mark Greer’s criminal history for themselves after he was charged last year with crimes against their teenage girls and also a third victim.

Greer began volunteering at Harvest Baptist Church several years ago, according to the church’s incoming pastor.

During his volunteer work, court records show Greer was charged last year with sexual battery and sexual molestation against three girls, all under the age of 16. He was arrested in Cherokee County in July of 2015.

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

Written by Janela Carrera

Archbishop Byrnes reversed and canceled the deed of restriction that gave the Yona property away.

Guam – It’s his first move but perhaps will be his boldest–newly appointed Coadjutor Archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes annihilated the Redemptoris Mater Seminary boards and reversed the highly contested deed of restriction that gave the RMS property away.

He hasn’t even stepped foot on the island and already coadjutor Archbishop Michael Byrnes is cleaning house from 7,500 miles away. Today at a last minute press conference, Father Jeff San Nicolas made the stunning, but welcome announcement.

“I am pleased to announce that the Archdiocese of Agana, through Archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes and concurred by Archbishop Savio Hon, with advice and support of both the Archdiocesan Finance Council and Presbyteral Council, has acted to transfer complete and unrestricted control and possession of the Yona property back to the Archdiocese of Agaña,” said San Nicolas.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Updated: Nov 15, 2016

By Jason Salas

Prior to today’s press conference given by the Archdiocese of Agana, another one was held – by an unlikely individual who, by the nature of her work, has spent a majority of her life shielded from the public.

But the mother superior of the Carmelite nuns in Guam is speaking out sharing her story about the Redemptoris Mater Seminar property in Yona. Mother Superior Dawn Marie is the last Carmelite standing in Guam. “The move to go to California was a very difficult one,” she admitted to island media.

One month after celebrating their 50th anniversary locally, in June all the remaining Carmelite nuns that were living here in a large house in Tamuning left, except for their mother superior. She cited the ongoing controversies in the local church as some of the reasons for their departure, saying conditions were, as she said, “Pretty toxic environment for the nuns to live in.”

In a rare press conference, Mother Dawn talked to local media to share her side of the story relating to the RMS property in Yona. You see, after years of speculation about who was the mystery $2 million benefactor that allowed for the archdiocese’s acquisition of the RMS property.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com November 15, 2016

The Archdiocese of Agana regained full control of its seminary property in Yona after Coadjutor Archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes used his authority to cancel deeds signed several years ago by Archbishop Anthony Apuron, according to the church.

Byrnes on Nov. 9 signed a decree, canceling, repealing and rescinding a five-year-old declaration of deed restriction that allowed a seminary and theological institute controlled by the Neocatechumenal Way to use the Yona property indefinitely.

The seminary will continue to operate, church officials said.

The Concerned Catholics of Guam, a group that has been pushing for Apuron’s removal, was poised to file a lawsuit to ensure the archdiocese doesn’t lose ownership and control of the Yona property.

Byrnes, who was appointed by the Vatican as Apuron’s successor, also used his authority to sign documents to replace the Redemptoris Mater Seminary’s board of directors, abolish the RMS Corporation’s board of governors, take personal control of the seminary, and sign all rights to the property back to the archdiocese. These include amending the RMS Corporation’s by-laws.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

[with video]

Haidee V Eugenio, heugenio@guampdn.com November 15, 2016

Carmelite nuns donated the $2 million used by the Archdiocese of Agana to buy a former hotel in Yona, and they considered suing the church after finding out the property was not being used by the archdiocese, but for a seminary operated by the Neocatechumenal Way, said Mother Superior Dawn Marie, of the Carmelite Monastery on Guam.

She said Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron, the Rev. Pius Sammut and others in 2014 tried to get the Carmelites to lie, by saying the Carmelites had purposely earmarked their gift for the use of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary and for the Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores Catholic Theological Institute for Oceania.

The mother superior was the person who got the Carmelite nuns in the United States to donate $2 million to the archdiocese on Guam to buy the Yona property over a decade ago.

She said the identity of the donors at the time was supposed to be anonymous, but Apuron and others violated that agreement from the beginning, she said.

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GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Nov 15, 2016

By Nestor Licanto

The Archdiocese of Agana says it has taken back complete and unrestricted control of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary. Legal documents were filed with the Department of Land Management on behalf of newly-appointed Archbishop Michael Byrnes that repeal a controversial 2011 consent decree by former Archbishop Anthony Apuron that essentially gave control of the multimillion dollar property to a board controlled by the Neocatechumenal Way.

Archdiocese spokesman Father Jeff San Nicolas made the announcement, saying, “The legal filings abolished the RMS Board of Guarantors and replaced the current board of directors with Bishop Byrnes as the sole director, as well as designated him as the chairman, president and secretary of the RMS Corporation.”

The legal authority cited is that Byrnes is now the corporation sole of RMS by virtue of his new appointment as archbishop of Agana. Apuron had used that same power to transfer control to the Neocatechumenal Way-controlled board. And while the seminary is now back with the archdiocese, it has not yet decided what it will do with it.

“While the governance has changed the administration and the day-to-day operation has not changed,” said Father San Nicolas.

But while the church says for now RMS will continue as it has, critics of Apuron and the NCW say the seminary has been used for the formation of off-island priests, not local priests which they believe it was intended for. The seminary is also seen as one of the church’s most valuable assets, with estimates ranging from $40 million to $70 million.

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OREGON
Statesman Journal

Gordon Friedman , Statesman Journal November 14, 2016

Donald Mansell, a former Christian school teacher and athletics coach, will serve 30 days in jail after pleading guilty to two counts of third-degree sexual abuse and two counts of harassment. The misdemeanor convictions stem from incidents where Mansell, 37, fondled two teenage female students and asked them for sex between 2010 and 2013.

Mansell, who worked at Livingston Adventist Academy and who is also the son-in-law of Marion County Judge Vance Day, was sentenced to five years of probation to begin after his release from jail. He’ll also have to register as a sex offender.

The sentencing conditions allow Mansell to have his probation ended two years early if he fully complies with its terms, court documents show. He can also have the convictions erased from his record in time.

The attorneys representing the two victims were not happy with Mansell’s sentence.

Ron Sayer, an attorney representing Mansell’s victims, said the sentence is the “worse miscarriage of justice that occurs in our system.”

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CANADA
Canoe

JOE LOFARO, POSTMEDIA NETWORK
Nov 15, 2016

OTTAWA – More than a decade before the Archdiocese of Ottawa told Jacques Faucher he could no longer be a priest, it paid tens of thousands of dollars to a former altar boy who had accused the reverend of molesting him.

Faucher was convicted in March of historical sex offences against three other children, but newly obtained documents by the Ottawa Sun show the diocese wrote a $50,000 cheque to a former altar boy when he was an adult in 1998, more than a year after he told the church about the alleged sexual abuse.

The payment was made on the condition he keep details of the out-of-court settlement confidential.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

JOANNE MCCARTHY
14 Nov 2016

NEWCASTLE District Court Judge Ralph Coolahan slammed the charging of an Anglican priest with child sex offences as a “disgrace”, and described the priest’s alleged victims as “ridiculous”, in a controversial 2001 court case under renewed investigation by NSW Police and the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

A transcript of the court case under consideration by the royal commission shows the late Judge Coolahan questioned the laying of charges against the priest and told a 2001 Newcastle court hearing: “The fact that someone is brought to trial, 26 years after an alleged offence, is in itself a disgrace.”

Judge Coolahan questioned how old the two alleged victims were, noted that “when people turn 18 the law places upon them enormous responsibilities”, and criticised the 20-year delay between when they turned 18, and when they reported the alleged sexual abuse to police.

“So they’ve waited 20 years since they attained their majority? Well that’s just ridiculous. It is truly ridiculous,” Judge Coolahan told the court.

He criticised the handling of the case by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, describing aspects of it as a “disgrace”, a “complete disgrace”, and a “farce”.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Tuesday, November 15, 2016

Liam Heylin

An elderly priest on trial for the alleged sexual assault of a schoolboy during sex education in a school office was found not guilty yesterday.

Judge Gerard O’Brien thanked the jury at Cork Circuit Criminal Court and discharged them from further jury service for a period of two years ,stating that it had been a difficult case.

The priest said during the three-day trial in Cork: “I never touched him sexually, improperly — never.”

The complainant said he was in third year in school when he was called to the priest’s office for sex education. He said the priest masturbated him.

He said: “I can clearly remember one of the questions — when a man gets an erection what caused it?”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Kerrin Thomas and Caitlin Furlong

Plans to set up a memorial for survivors and victims of child sexual abuse at a church in Armidale, in northern New South Wales, are being criticised by a support group.

The Catholic Diocese of Armidale is one of a number of organisations to have come before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, with the findings of a case study relating to a former priest yet to be handed down.

Bishop Michael Kennedy said the planned memorial on church grounds would replace a “temporary” memorial made up of ribbons tied to the cathedral’s fence and was an indication that the survivors and victims of child sexual abuse would not be forgotten.

“We do need something that will ensure there isn’t a continued silence on child abuse which unfortunately did occur for some years,” he said.

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UNITED STATES
Crux

Inés San Martín November 14, 2016
VATICAN CORRESPONDENT

Today the U.S. bishops gathered in Baltimore will elect new leaders, in a ballot likely to be taken as a referendum both on what they think of Pope Francis and also how they want to react to the presidency of Donald Trump. Here are sketches of the ten candidates.

For the second time in a month, Americans are going to the polls, although this time it’s only the few hundred bishops who compose the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in the U.S. who’ll be casting a vote.

As they do every three years, the American bishops will be electing their leadership, including their president and vice president.

Beyond electing new leaders, during their Nov. 14-16 fall general assembly, taking place in Baltimore, the American bishops also will discuss ways to promote peace in U.S. communities torn apart by violence, and will vote on an action plan to support the priorities they approved last year.

The list of ten nominees to replace Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville, Kentucky and Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston in their respective roles as president and vice-president was released late October. The bishops will elect the president first from this set of ten names, and then will select a number two from whoever’s left.

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KANSAS
WIBW

TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) – A former priest in Osage County is accused of engaging in unprofessional conduct with an adult.

The Leaven, a Catholic-based newspaper, reported Rev. Anthony Kiplagat, a priest from the Dioceses of Eldoret in Kenya, was on assignment in the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas and the Saint Patrick Catholic Church of Osage City.

The woman who lodged the complaint was not a member of either parish.

Johnson County Court records show an order of protection from stalking was granted to a woman in February. The woman claimed Kiplagat sexually assaulted her and threatened to kill her and harm her family if she told the church what happened.

The Leaven reports the woman went to Overland Park Police in January, and the Archdiocese immediately launched an investigation.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

IT IS more than 15 years since the late Newcastle District Court Judge Ralph Coolahan had a heated exchange with a lawyer from the Director of Public Prosecutions in a case involving a Newcastle Anglican priest.

The charges were child sex allegations against the priest dating back 26 years. The alleged victims – two brothers aged 38 and 36 – were in the court.

Judge Coolahan lashed the DPP’s handling of aspects of the case as a “disgrace”, a “complete disgrace” and a “farce”, and said it was “just ridiculous” the brothers had “waited 20 years” after they turned 18 before reporting allegations to police.

His comments make disturbing reading given what we know after more than three years of evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual abuse. They are also disturbing given what judges should, and would, have known about disclosures by alleged victims even back in 2001, when the Newcastle Anglican priest case was heard by Judge Coolahan, and eventually dropped.

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BELGIEN
De Redactie

Hanne Decré, Sofie Demeyer

De paters Augustijnen worden verdacht van sociale fraude, mensenhandel en schriftvervalsing. Onder het mom van een priesteropleiding zouden de paters Augustijnen een twintigtal jongemannen uit Afrika en Vietnam naar België hebben gehaald, waar de mannen gratis moesten werken. Volgens hun advocaten worden de leidinggevenden echter veroordeeld voor praktijken die behoren tot de traditie van de kloosterorde.

Het Openbaar Ministerie wil vzw paters Augustijnen, drie leidinggevende kloosterlingen waaronder de abt, en vzw Thagaste Trefpunt Augustijnen voor de rechter brengen. Ze worden verdacht van sociale fraude, mensenhandel en valsheid in geschrifte.

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BELGIE
De Morgen

[The court in Belgium will prosecute the Augustinian Fathers of Ghent for trafficking and forgery. Investigation revealed that three senior monks provided false documents for at least 19 people. It is alleged they had African men working illegally with promise to obtain a residency visa. The men were not paid and were not allowed to freely leave the monastery, according to the investigators.]

Het gerecht wil de Paters Augustijnen van Gent vervolgen voor mensenhandel, zwartwerk en schrift­vervalsing. Onderzoek bracht aan het licht dat drie leidinggevende kloosterlingen voor minstens 19 personen valse documenten hebben opgesteld. Ze zetten vooral Afrikaanse mannen illegaal aan het werk met als doel een verblijfsvisum te bekomen. Dat meldt het Gentse arbeidsauditoraat.

De Paters Augustijnen zouden vooral jonge Afrikanen onder het mom van een opleiding in het klooster aan het werk hebben gezet, zonder hen te betalen. Ook mochten de mannen het klooster niet vrij verlaten.

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UNITED STATES
Forward

Sara Kabakov
November 14, 2016

Editor’s note: Earlier this month, the Forward published Marc Gafni’s own words defending himself against accusations that he sexually abused Sara Kabakov when she was 13 and he was 19. Here is Kabakov’s response.

I struggle with the impulse to respond to Marc Gafni’s letter regarding my January 2016 article about him sexually abusing me. Should a survivor even dignify her abuser with any response at all?

I wrote my account of sexual assault not as part of an “orchestrated smear campaign”, as he claims, but as a personal description of an experience that impacted my life in profound and immutable ways. I have no vendetta against Gafni and don’t spend time thinking about his career or reputation.

I do, however, care about girls and women and protecting them from sexual predators. I care about the way so many predators make excuses for sexually criminal behavior. I care about the way the term “youthful mistake,” is used to explain away deplorable actions that can turn a survivor’s life into a nightmare. I care about the New York State legal system, with its outdated statute of limitations for child sexual abuse, which protects alleged abusers and prolongs their access to more children. Indeed, if a sexual predator is stopped when a victim comes forward, whenever that may be, many souls could be saved from his subsequent actionable behaviors.

Gafni’s use of the words, “romance” and “dating”, when describing our association, leaves me speechless. Seriously? Is it romantic when someone creeps into a girl’s room at night, wakes her up, and sexually assaults her? Is it romantic when a man forces his hands and fingers on, and in, a girl’s body, against her will? Is it romance, when she says “No!” unheeded, while repeatedly pushing him away? Perhaps it is the selective memory, or fantasy of a predator that can spin this horrific scenario into a normal, consenting relationship.

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CANADA
CTV

Sheryl Ubelacker, The Canadian Press
Published Monday, November 14, 2016

Miykhaela reaches back in her memory to the summer day when it all began. Her older brother had taken her into the bush on their northern Ontario reserve to join a few of their cousins, young teenaged boys like her sibling who had all been attending residential school together for several years.

They gang-raped her.

She was five or six years old.

As a mother years later, Miykhaela had to confront the ugly reality of familial sex abuse once again — but this time it was her daughter, who one day confessed that her teenaged half-brother had raped her a couple of years earlier.

She was 10 or 11 years old.

Miykhaela and her daughter are just two of the faces of intergenerational sexual abuse, a dark legacy connected to almost 120 years of government-sanctioned, church-operated residential schools, where aboriginal leaders say many First Nations, Metis and Inuit children were physically and sexually molested by clergy and other staff, spawning a cycle of mimicked behaviour in generations to come.

Extensive interviews with social scientists, indigenous leaders and victims undertaken over the past few months by The Canadian Press suggest child sexual abuse is an open secret in many aboriginal communities — and its prevalence in some is shockingly high.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com November 14, 2016

Preparations are underway for a series of events to welcome Guam’s next archbishop on Nov. 28, including a Nov. 30 gathering in which all the island’s faithful will have the opportunity to see and hear him.

Upon his arrival, Coadjutor Archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes will be welcomed by Archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai and other clergy members, the Archdiocese of Agana said.

As coadjutor archbishop, Byrnes, 58, has the right to succeed Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron if Apuron, 71, resigns, retires or is removed. Under church law, bishops are required to resign at 75.

Apuron, Guam’s highest Catholic leader for 30 years, is facing a canonical trial in Rome over multiple allegations of sex abuse of altar boys in the 1970s. Prior to Pope Francis’ decision to appoint him on Oct. 31, Byrnes was auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of Detroit.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

14 November, 2016

The Royal Commission will hold a series of public hearings in Sydney to inquire into the current policies and procedures of the following institutions in relation to child protection and child-safe standards, including responding to allegations of child sexual abuse:

Case Study 47 YMCA New South Wales

Case Study 48 Scouts New South Wales

Case Study 49 The Salvation Army

Case Study 50 Catholic Church authorities in Australia

Case Study 51 Commonwealth and the State and Territory governments

Case Study 52 Anglican Church authorities in Australia

Case Study 53 Yeshivah Melbourne and Yeshiva Bondi

Case Study 54 Jehovah’s Witnesses and Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Australia Ltd

Case Study 55 Australian Christian Churches and affiliated Pentecostal churches

Case Study 56 Uniting Church in Australia.

The public hearing into YMCA New South Wales, Scouts New South Wales and The Salvation Army will commence on 5 December 2016 and is expected to end on 9 December 2016.

The public hearing into Catholic Church authorities in Australia will commence on 6 February 2017 and is expected to end on 24 February 2017.

The public hearing into Commonwealth, State and Territory governments will commence on 6 March 2017 and is expected to end on 10 March 2017.

The public hearing into Anglican Church authorities in Australia, Yeshivah Melbourne and Yeshiva Bondi, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of Australia Ltd, Australian Christian Churches and affiliated Pentecostal churches, and the Uniting Church in Australia will commence on 20 March 2017 and is expected to end on 24 March 2017.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

TOM PETERKIN

Friday 11 November 2016

Abuse survivors have accused the Scottish Government of failing to do enough to investigate crimes against children carried out within the Catholic Church.

Those campaigning for justice for survivors believe the Scottish Government’s inquiry into historical abuse will not have a broad enough remit to uncover the full extent of the crimes committed against youngsters in the care of the Church.

The investigation is looking at the treatment of children who were in residential care, those who had long-term stays in hospital, boarding schools and those under foster care.

Incas (In Care Survivors) want to extend the scope of the inquiry so that it includes all those who had a duty of care towards children.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

Taoiseach Enda Kenny has been warned that unless he establishes a commission of inquiry into forced adoptions by the end of this month, the matter will be reported to the Garda.

In a letter to the Taoiseach last week, the former assistant national director of child and family services with the Health Service Executive, Phil Garland, said that in October 2012 he notified statutory authorities and the then inquiry into Magdalene laundries about “the high rate of infant death in mother-and-baby homes and the possibility of forced adoption of children from within the State”.

There was “undeniable evidence of cases of forced adoption within the mother-and-baby homes that had been uncovered as a result of the Magdalene inquiry” which published its report in February 2013, he said. Such evidence was also available in the 2009 Ryan report, which investigated the abuse of children in orphanages, industrial schools, and reformatories, he said.

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AUSTRALIA
J-Wire

November 14, 2016 by J-Wire Staff

The Royal Commission will hold a series of public hearings in Sydney to inquire into the current policies and procedures of the Jewish institutions in relation to child protection and child-safe standards, including responding to allegations of child sexual abuse.

Case Study 53 Yeshivah Melbourne and Yeshiva Bondi

The public hearing into Yeshivah Melbourne and Yeshiva Bondi, will commence on 20 March 2017 and is expected to end on 24 March 2017. Other institutions will appear during these hearing.

The scope and purpose of the public hearings is to consider:

1. The current policies and procedures of each named institution in relation to child protection and child-safe standards, including responding to allegations of child sexual abuse.
2. Factors that may have contributed to the occurrence of child sexual abuse in each named institution.
3. Factors that may have affected the institutional response of each named institution to child sexual abuse.
4. The responses of each named institution to relevant case study report(s) and other Royal Commission reports.
5. Data relating to the extent of claims of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Australia.
6. Data relating to the extent of claims of child sexual abuse in the Anglican Church in Australia.
7. Any related matters.

The purpose of these public hearings is not to inquire into individual sets of facts or particular events as has occurred in previous Royal Commission case studies.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Big Issue North

NOV 14 2016

The largest ever inquiry into the sexual abuse of children in England and Wales is battling claims it is unmanageably large and already failing in its remit, two years after Theresa May, then home secretary, set it up to examine the failures of institutions to recognise and address child sexual abuse going back decades.

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) was launched after the Jimmy Savile abuse scandal came to light in 2012 and revealed widespread exploitation by prominent media and political figures over a long period, as well as the inability of institutions and organisations to safeguard vulnerable children.

“There has not been anything of its kind in UK history, in terms of scope and size,” says IICSA panel member Ivor Frank, a human rights barrister with more than 30 years experience. A public inquiry, he admits, is usually about a single issue over a relatively contained period.

Frank says there are a lot of “vested interests in not allowing the inquiry to succeed”

“We’re an inquiry about multiple institutions over decades. That makes it different, but it doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

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GUAM
Guam Daily Post

Neil Pang | Post News Staff

Despite the strides taken by the Catholic Church to address a concerned laity, the weekly protests outside the Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral-Basilica continued yesterday with the clockwork-like precision that all have come to expect from them.

According to Laity Forward Movement spokeswoman Lou Klitzkie, the protests will continue until their demands are met – namely, the removal of Archbishop Anthony Apuron as the Ordinary of the Archdiocese and the return of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary to church patrimony.

While Apuron’s exact status remains tenuous, pending a canonical trial in Rome that is supposed to be ongoing, the appointment of coadjutor archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes at least suggests that a clear line of succession is now in place in the eventuality that Apuron is removed.

According to Concerned Catholics of Guam president Dave Sablan, Apuron’s removal is a foregone conclusion – especially with the filing of the suits against him by child sex abuse survivors Roland Sondia, Walter Denton, Roy Quintanilla and Leo Tudela.

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NEW ZEALAND
NZ Catholic

November 14, 2016

by Michael Pender

Recently Bishop Patrick Dunn has made presentations around the Auckland diocese telling of some of the challenges he perceives our Church to be facing. One theme he developed was to do with the numbers of people in our congregations. He explained that if one looks at census returns then it seems that Catholic numbers are holding up rather than declining as is happening for some other denominations. However, it appears that we in the Auckland diocese are being misled simply because the number of Catholic immigrants gives the impression that our churches are just as full as they have ever been.

Bishop Dunn went on to explain that the phenomenon of people leaving the Church occurs right across the western world; he even used the phrase “collapse of Christendom”. In the United States the decline has been such that the largest denomination is now former Catholic! Pope Benedict spoke on many occasions about decline of belief in Europe. In 2001, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, when he was the Archbishop of the London diocese of Westminster, commented about the diminishing influence of Christian belief in Britain.

In recent issues of NZ Catholic, the bishop’s remarks have been well reported; they have also drawn responses from letter writers.

Why have people departed from the pews? There is probably no simple answer as many factors are likely to have contributed: marriage problems, the scandal of sexual abuse, the way in which a very large organisation can sometimes seem to be cold and unwelcoming, personality clashes, the seeming irrelevance of religious belief in a materialistic consumer society . . . . But are these issues sufficient cause?

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NEW YORK
Evening Tribune

By Stephen Borgna sborgna@the-leader.com

CORNING | A former Corning resident has reached a settlement for sexual abuse he says he received at St. Mary’s Church in Corning in the 1960s.

Thomas Mclaughlin, who lived on West 6th Street at the time and now lives near Wilmington, North Carolina, settled for an undisclosed sum with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester for abuse he allegedly received from former priest John Gormley.

Gormley is no longer affiliated with the church. He left the priesthood in 1971. The Diocese of Rochester confirmed that Gormley was with St. Mary’s Church in Corning from 1962-1965 as an assisting priest.

Mclaughlin said he was a 10-year-old altar boy at the time. He said the abuse took place for one summer.

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NEW JERSEY
New York Times

By JAMES BARRON
NOV. 13, 2016

NEWARK — Bishop Manuel A. Cruz opened with a head count. “Four,” he said, looking out at the four parishioners in a small chapel behind the soaring Gothic sanctuary of the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart here. “The perfect number, because it is the number we are here.”

Then Bishop Cruz said the evening Mass — the nightly service in English. Of the four worshipers, one was a lay reader, Edna Tan, who came to the United States from the Philippines 27 years ago. Also at the service was the cathedral’s head sacristan, Sister Ana Julia Frias, a nun from the Dominican Republic. The third worshiper was black, the fourth white.

Ninety minutes later in the same chapel, another Mass began, the weekly evening service in Spanish. The pews were full, about 50 people in all.

The difference in attendance illustrates one of the main challenges facing the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark as it prepares for the arrival of a new leader, Archbishop Joseph W. Tobin, currently the archbishop of Indianapolis. The cathedral is the seat of a troubled archdiocese stretching across four counties in northern New Jersey. It encompasses some of the state’s wealthiest communities, and some of its poorest.

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GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Nov 14, 2016

By Sabrina Salas Matanane

Even with a new bishop heading to Guam it’s not enough to quiet the protests every Sunday at the Hagatna Cathedral. Additionally just today new documents have been filed in the defamation lawsuit filed against the local Catholic Church and Archbishop Anthony Apuron.

On any given Sunday, you’ll find them in front of the cathedral. Concerned Catholics and members of the Laity Forward Movement have been protesting for several months and according to Gerry Taitano they’re not going to stop. “We don’t want to hear his name during the masses Thanksgiving prayer, God bless Apuron, Archbishop Apuron we just want him out,” he explained.

But Archbishop Apuron isn’t out officially despite allegations of sexual molestation and questions as to whether the Redemptoris Mater Seaminary property in Yona still belongs to the local archdiocese. Currently Archbishop Apuron along with the archdiocese are being sued for defamation and most recently a complaint for damages was filed by four victims of alleged clergy sexual abuse. Documents filed with the court even indicate accused pedophile priest Father Louis Brouillard confessed to abusing boys when he was a priest and a teacher of sex education on Guam in the 1940’s through the 1970’s.

Father. Brouillard also admitted on video that he told the church’s higher-ups who responded to pray about it. Weekly protestor CCOG’s Andrew Camacho said, “So that’s a scary thought that abusive priests were known about and nothing concrete was done about it, so that means young people were at risk for many, many years.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

The Archbishop of the Canberra-Goulburn region has responded to criticism over his absence at an abuse healing service at Marist College earlier this week.

Advocates for victims of child abuse hit out at Archbishop Christopher Prowse, labelling his decision not to attend “appalling”.

In a statement, Archbishop Prowse said “some victims of child abuse have been offended by my non-attendance at the recent Liturgy of Lament at Marist College, Canberra”.

“In hindsight, I believe they are correct,” he said.

The all-boys Catholic school in Canberra’s south held a liturgy for abuse survivors on Thursday, at which its headmaster and the Provincial of the Marist Brothers apologised for abuse that took place at the school, and subsequent failures to deal with it effectively.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Christopher Knaus

The Catholic archbishop for Canberra says he regrets his decision not to attend a healing ceremony for Marist abuse victims, asking “sincerely for forgiveness from those whom I have offended”.

Archbishop Christopher Prowse was invited to Marist’s healing ceremony on Thursday night, but declined to attend.

A spokeswoman said on Friday that the Catholic church’s leader in Canberra and Goulburn had viewed it as a “Marist-specific” event, and that he’d wanted to wait for the royal commission to end so the archdiocese could hold its own.

The decision angered abuse survivors, who viewed his absence as a continuing sign of a flawed attitude on the abuse crisis from the Catholic Church.

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ISRAEL
The Daily Beast

ADRIENNE SANDERS
11.13.16

One would think that a convicted sex offender might want to stay out of the courts in his new country of residence.

Not so with Yona Weinberg.

The Brooklyn sex offender who moved to Israel in 2014 the day after police knocked on his door over new charges, is suing a New York rabbi for defamation after the rabbi, Yakov Horowitz, tweeted Weinberg’s whereabouts in Jerusalem. Israel does not have a public sex offender registry so the rabbi, a child advocate, warned residents via Twitter that Weinberg was a dangerous presence in their midst.

Weinberg’s Brooklyn-based lawyer Samuel Karliner, who helped him manage sex-offender registry requirements while he was in the United States, said his client did not flee to Israel, as Horowitz’s tweets contended, and that he had been planning to move there with his family for some time.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

Ian Kirkwood
13 Nov 2016

CLERGY abuse survivors say a prominent Newcastle Anglican at the subject of this week’s Royal Commission hearings should be stripped of his Order of Australia Medal and his position as a Freeman of the City of Newcastle.

Graeme Lawrence, who was rector of Christ Church Cathedral and dean of Newcastle from 1984 to 2008, is one of the people at the heart of the Royal Commission’s investigations into “the experiences of child sexual abuse perpetrated by clergy and lay people involved in or associated with the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle”.

He is one of eight Anglicans named in the terms of reference for case study 42, which ran for 11 days in August and which reconvenes on Wednesday for a scheduled five further days.

The commission is looking at Mr Lawrence’s own sexual behaviour and at the way he is alleged to have used his office to help protect himself and others.

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NEW YORK
Church Militant

by Stefan Farrar • ChurchMilitant.com • November 12, 2016

Critics claim it’s the archdiocese’s attempt to circumvent Child Victims Act

NEW YORK (ChurchMilitant.com) – The New York archdiocese is implementing a program to compensate victims of sexual abuse, as long as they promise never to sue the archdiocese. The program is receiving backlash from all quarters.

The Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program will allow victims with credible allegations of abuse to apply for compensation, with payment handed out within 60 days of the claim. Victims must also sign a confidentiality agreement as well as a release freeing the archdiocese of any litigation over related claims in the future.

“I wish I would have done this quite a while ago,” said Cdl. Timothy Dolan in early October. “I just finally thought: ‘Darn it, let’s do it. I’m tired of putting it off.” Dolan claimed it was Pope Francis’ announcement of the Year of Mercy that inspired him to launch the compensation fund.

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WASHINGTON
Yakima Herald

By Jane Gargas
jgargas@yakimaherald.com

Bishop Joseph Tyson of the Yakima Catholic Diocese is one of two bishops nominated to head the Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“Tyson is honored to be nominated,” said Monsignor Robert Siler, chancellor of the Yakima Diocese. “He does not view the other candidate as an opponent but a fellow bishop who is dedicated to the protection of children and youth, as is he.”

The other nominee is Bishop Timothy Doherty of Lafayette, Ind.

Not everyone is pleased with Tyson’s nomination, however.

The world’s largest group of clergy sex abuse victims, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, is calling for Tyson to withdraw.

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TEXAS
TXK Today

By Field Walsh – November 12, 2016

A Texarkana pastor accused of sexually abusing two girls has been formally charged with nine felonies and a misdemeanor by the Miller County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office.

David Wayne Farren, 41, was arrested twice in August for allegedly abusing two girls who had participated in church youth groups where Farren worked as a member of the clergy. He is currently free on a total of $40,000 bond.

This week a criminal information was signed by Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Connie Mitchell charging Farren with nine felonies and one misdemeanor. Counts one through seven allege Farren had sex with a minor, “and was in a position of trust or authority over the victim and used the position of trust or authority to engage in sexual intercourse or deviate sexual activity,” with the girl. All seven counts of first-degree sexual assault allegedly occurred beginning in April 2013 and continuing through August 2013. Count eight alleges Farren engaged in sexual contact with the same girl beginning in April 2012 and continuing through August 2013.

Count nine accuses Farren of engaging in sexual contact with a second girl in 2007. The tenth count alleges Farren violated a law which requires him as a member of the clergy to report child abuse. Farren is accused of knowing a child had been abused in 2012 and failed to notify authorities.

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NEW MEXICO
Albuquerque Journal

By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writer
Saturday, November 12th, 2016

A new lawsuit alleges that the Archdiocese of Santa Fe has transferred “virtually all” its parishes and real property into a trust since 2012 to shield the assets from possible creditors, including survivors of clerical sexual abuse.

The allegations are included in one of two lawsuits filed this week by two New Mexico men who allege they were abused as children by former priests in the archdiocese.

Albuquerque attorney Brad Hall is asking a 2nd Judicial District judge to rule that the properties transferred into trust remain available to help pay court judgments against the archdiocese.

Hall has filed more than 60 clerical abuse lawsuits against the archdiocese since 2012, most of which have since been settled for undisclosed amounts.

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NEW YORK
Hudson Valley News Network

Posted on: November 11, 2016.

Jay Behrke

MIDDLETOWN – In this extension of Thursday’s breaking story, Lex Filipowski – abused at the hands of his childhood priest at Holy Cross Church in South Centerville – goes into more detail on the issues troubling him since he was too young to fully comprehend them.

“I have been attempting to get justice for what happened to me from the Catholic Church for 25 years,” said Filipowski, 52, who says he was abused by Father George Boxelaar from 1971-1974. “And I’ve been dismissed for the last 25 years by some of the most arrogant and self-righteous people that have no care for what happened to me, or thousands and thousands of other children who were sexually abused by priests.”

Father Michael Kissane, Prior Provincial of the Carmelites in Middletown, acknowledged that there were several credible accusations of abuse against Boxelaar that were made public in the early 1980s; and that Boxelaar was “removed from ministry” at that time, moving back to his native country, the Netherlands, where he died in the early 1990s.

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WASHINGTON
National Catholic Reporter

Dan Morris-Young | Nov. 11, 2016

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests have asked Yakima Bishop Joseph Tyson in a Nov. 10 letter to remove himself from “his race for chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People.”

SNAP charged that Tyson had “done virtually nothing to undo the damage” done by past clerical sex abusers in the Yakima diocese and those who shielded them. A diocesan official on Nov. 11 responded that “almost without exception, our people express gratitude for the increased awareness they have gained, information that most are not receiving anywhere else” on sex abuse.

In an email to NCR, Msgr. Robert Siler, Yakima chancellor and moderator of the curia, wrote: “We have beefed up our training program this past year, introducing live Virtus abuse prevention trainings in English and Spanish that take 2-1/2 to 3 hours. We have trained more than 1,000 employees and volunteers. I have personally conducted 80 percent of those trainings.”

In a news release, SNAP says that when Tyson was installed in 2011 it “publicly expressed hopes that he would ‘take immediate steps to warn Mexican families and officials about [Deacon] Aaron Ramirez and tell the full truth about allegations against Fr. [Darell] Mitchell.'”

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LOUISIANA
New Orleans Advocate

BY DELLA HASSELLE | DHASSELLE@THEADVOCATE.COM NOV 10, 2016

The pastor of Second Zion Baptist Church in Central City was arrested Wednesday after two young girls and two women accused him of sexually abusing them in the church, according to the New Orleans Police Department.

Police arrested 59-year-old Gary Lee Curtis and booked him on five counts of sexual battery after investigating a case that was first brought to the department on Sept. 21, according to arrest records.

The NOPD’s Special Victims Section began investigating after a woman reported a single incident of sexual abuse involving a 12-year-old girl, the police report said.

The report said NOPD Detective Bianca DeIrish then met with another person described in the report as a “concerned elder,” who told her that the pastor touched young girls “on their buttocks” while they were at the church at 2929 Second St.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Wayne Independent

By Kevin Kearneykkearney@wayneindependent.com

HAWLEY – A Roman Catholic priest has been extradited from New Jersey to face 40 felony counts of sexual abuse of children in Wayne County, District Attorney Janine Edwards said yesterday.

The Rev. Kevin Gugliotta, 54, of Mahwah, was arraigned before Magisterial District Judge Bonnie Carney in Hawley and placed in county jail on $1 million cash bail.

The defendant faces 20 counts of dissemination of child pornography and 20 counts of possessing the pornography related to illegal computer activity at his part-time residence in Gouldsboro.

Gugliotta is scheduled to appear in Central Court in Honesdale at 9 a.m. Wednesday.

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Saturday, November 12, 2016
IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Liam Heylin

An elderly priest on trial for the alleged sexual assault on a schoolboy during sex education instruction in a school office testified yesterday, “I never touched him sexually, improperly — never.”

The complaint said he was in third year in school, in the mid-1970s, when he was called to the priest’s office for sex education. He said the priest masturbated him.

The defendant, who is not named for legal reasons, told Judge Gerard O’Brien and the jury at Cork Circuit Criminal Court it did not happen.

Tom Creed, defending, said, “You have heard the allegations that you sexually molested him.” He replied, “I never molested Mr (name)”.

Mr Creed put it to the defendant about where the complainant said the office was located. The defendant said the room had another name and was for storage of mattresses and sports gear. “That room was never dignified with the name of office,” he said.

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SOUTH DAKOTA
Roman Catholic Diocese of Sioux Falls

November 10, 2016
Memorial of Saint Leo the Great

Regarding the Reinstatement of Reverend Joseph T. Forcelle to Public Ministry

On September 21, 2016, Reverend Joseph T. Forcelle was placed on leave after the Diocese of Sioux Falls received notice from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis that an allegation of child sexual abuse had been made against him. The alleged abuse took place while Father Forcelle was ministering in the Archdiocese. In accord with the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young Persons, Father Forcelle’s leave was standard procedure and is threefold in its purpose: to ensure the safety of all children, to allow for an impartial investigation to be undertaken, and to protect the rights of Father Forcelle as defined in both civil and Church law.

Since his arrival to the Diocese in 1984, no prior accusations of child sexual abuse involving Father Forcelle had been received by the Diocese. In addition, there have been no allegations received since public announcement of his leave from public ministry was made.Subsequent to being notified of the accusation, law enforcement in Minnesota indicated that a criminal investigation would not be initiated. Therefore, a private investigator was appointed to conduct an investigation. In the Diocese’s effort to seek the truth, the investigator was charged to search for facts that would support the accusation.

After having been presented the findings of the investigation, the Diocesan Review Board concluded that the facts asserted do not substantiate this allegation. I accept the counsel of the Diocesan Review Board. Therefore, I have restored Father Joseph Forcelle’s faculties and reinstated him to public ministry with the fullest confidence in him as priest and minister of the Church. His pastoral ministry at Saint Leo the Great Parish, Tyndall and Saint Vincent de Paul Parish, Springfield will resume on November 15, 2016.

As bishop and on behalf of the Church, I renew my encouragement of all victims of child sexual abuse to come forward to local authorities or to the Diocese so that they might be offered assistance.

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SOUTH DAKOTA
Press & Dakotan

Posted: Friday, November 11, 2016

BY RANDY DOCKENDORF randy.dockendorf@yankton.net

A Catholic priest serving two Bon Homme County parishes has been exonerated from a decades-old child sexual abuse allegation in Minnesota and will resume his ministry next week.

Next Tuesday, the Rev. Joe Forcelle will return to his pastoral ministry at Saint Leo Church in Tyndall and Saint Vincent Church in Springfield.

Bishop Paul Swain of the Diocese of Sioux Falls announced Forcelle’s full reinstatement in a statement posted Thursday on the diocesan website.

Swain placed the priest on administrative leave Sept. 21 as standard procedure following an allegation that came forward through legal proceedings involving the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com November 11, 2016

Clergy with the Guam Catholic Church this week sent letters to Pope Francis to thank him for appointing during a “difficult time” a coadjutor archbishop — the Rev. Michael Jude Byrnes, who has rights to succeed the embattled Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron.

Apuron, 71, is facing a canonical trial at the Vatican over multiple allegations of sex abuse of altar boys in Agat during the 1970s.

The Archdiocese of Agana, in a statement Friday afternoon, said priests and deacons joined Archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai in a gesture of appreciation and support to the pope and Byrnes. They wrote a letter after meeting last week.

“On behalf of the people of God on Guam, we would like to express to you our sincerest gratitude for sending to us Coadjutor Archbishop Michael Byrnes in a difficult time,” the clergy wrote to Pope Francis. “We are tracing in trials and tribulations the path Christ trod in His lifetime, where divisions and hurts were widespread.”

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NEW YORK
The Legislative Gazette

By TOM READ, Gazette staff writer on November 11, 2016

Sen. Brad Hoylman, prime sponsor of the Child Victims Act (S.7296), is responding with skepticism to a recent announcement that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York will create a child sexual abuse compensation fund.

“I’m glad the Archdiocese of New York is taking responsibility for the untold number of crimes against New York City children committed by its clergy,” Hoylman said. “It should also be acknowledged that this is a canny legal strategy devised to reduce the Archdiocese’s liability for decades of crimes and cover-ups.”

The Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program was introduced by the Archdiocese of New York last month. The funds will go to individuals who were sexually abused as minors by clergy members working for the Archdiocese.

It will be headed by nationally recognized mediator Kenneth Feinberg and will have an oversight committee, whose members include former New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.

While other dioceses have instituted similar programs to compensate victims of abuse, Cardinal Timothy Dolan said, “It is unique in that we’re asking an outside, independent acclaimed source to do it.”

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GUAM
Guam Daily Post

Neil Pang | Post News Staff

At least one of the civil lawsuits filed in the Superior Court of Guam last week on Nov. 1 by abuse victims Roland Sondia, Roy Quintanilla, Walter Denton and Leo Tudela included written testimony from an abuser and former priest of Guam that states that archdiocesan officials knew about child sex abuse being committed by priests and did little to address it.

Of the four complainants, Sondia, Quintanilla and Denton have accused Archbishop Anthony Apuron of sexually abusing them as children when they served as altar boys at the Agat parish that Apuron ministered in the 1970s.

Tudela, 73, came forward in August of this year to give oral testimony in favor of Bill 323-33, which would remove the statute of limitations for civil litigation for cases involving child sex abuse, and disclosed details of abuse that he endured as a child while attending Catholic school on Guam in the 1950s. He named two individuals, Fr. Louis Brouillard and a “Brother Mariano” as church officials who ministered at parishes of the Archdiocese of Agana, as his abusers.

Bill 363-33 was signed into Public Law 33-187 on Sept. 24 by Gov. Eddie Calvo, opening the door for civil litigation against individuals, organizations and aiders and abettors who permitted the sexual abuse of children. Last week’s filing marks the first such suits to make use of the provisions of the new law.

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INDIA
National Catholic Reporter – Global Sisters Report

by Jose Kavi Nov. 10, 2016 in Equality

First-hand perspective from the meeting:

• The power of religion over women in India

Hyderabad, India

After efforts to persuade the Catholic church in India to deal with sexual abuse of women by clergy, and upset over the church’s slow progress, a group of Christian women, mostly Catholics, announced steps for addressing the issue on their own.

“We should move outside the church to seek answers to abuse cases. We should treat this problem as a crime and take recourse to the law,” said Astrid Lobo Gajiwala, a lay woman theologian.

Gajiwala, who heads the women’s collective Satyashodak (meaning “seekers of truth”), made these remarks at a recent national seminar that studied the impact of religion and culture on the empowerment of women from an Indian perspective.

About 50 people, including a few men, attended the Sept. 23-26 meeting in Hyderabad, the capital of the southern Indian state of Telangana. The meeting was organized by Streevani (“voice of women”), an NGO managed by the Holy Spirit nuns, along with Satyashodak and three other groups engaged in women’s empowerment.

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MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

By Joel Currier St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS • Pat and Dan Harkins, who say their 21-year-old son killed himself in 2009 because of sexual abuse by a St. Louis priest years before, told reporters Thursday they hope his story inspires others to find help before it’s too late.

As for the Catholic church, the Harkins believe there’s little left to say.

“I still believe in God,” Pat Harkins said. “I don’t believe in the Catholic church. How could I?”

Outside Rosati-Kain High School in St. Louis, the Florissant couple were joined by officials from Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests to speak out about the settlement of their lawsuit against the St. Louis Archdiocese.

The amount of the settlement, reached in September, is confidential.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Advocates for victims of child abuse have hit out at the Archbishop of the Canberra-Goulburn region over his absence at a healing service at Marist College, labelling his decision “appalling”.

Last night, the all-boys Catholic school in Canberra’s south held a liturgy for abuse survivors, at which its headmaster and the Provincial of the Marist Brothers apologised for abuse that took place at the school, and subsequent failures to deal with it effectively.

Many instances of abuse committed by Marist staff in the 1970s and 1980s were examined during hearings at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse.

“The fact that the Archbishop had better things to do last night is appalling,” anti-child abuse advocate and former Marist student Damian De Marco said.

“He is in charge of the safety of every child in his archdiocese, he is responsible for the Institute of Safeguarding.”

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MISSOURI
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Wrongful death suit vs. archdiocese settles
Parents of young man who died by suicide to speak for 1st time
His death led to first “assisted suicide” trial in MO in 100 years
Abusive cleric was convicted of molesting another boy & did jail time
Now defrocked, he lives in St. Charles Co. and is reportedly married

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, parents of a young St. Louis man who died by suicide will speak for the first time about

–his tragic death and
–their recent settlement of a wrongful death lawsuit against the St. Louis archdiocese that employed the priest who molested the boy.

They’ll be joined by a few clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters. The group will urge anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered the priest’s crimes to get help and call police

WHEN
Thursday, Nov. 10, 2016 11:15 a.m.

WHERE
Outside Rosati-Kain High School, 4389 Lindell (corner of Newstead) in the Central West End, St. Louis

WHO
The parents, Dan and Pat Harkins of Florissant, and two-three child sex abuse victims who belong to a self-help group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org)

WHY
An unusual civil lawsuit has been settled. In it, a St. Louis couple charged that a now-convicted priest – who still lives and works in the St. Louis area – raped their 13 year old son and that archdiocesan officials are responsible for their son’s 2009 death by suicide.

In 2009, the boy, Alex Harkins (then 21), made a suicide pact with a friend, Jacob Runge (then 22) of St. Peters. In May of that year, Harkins shot himself at St. Stanislaus Park in Hazelwood. Runge, however, did not follow through. Days later, Runge led Harkins’ parents to Alex’s body, and in June 2009, Runge was charged with “assisted suicide,” the first such case in Missouri in 100 years. He was acquitted.

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ITALY
Chiesa

The followers of other religious confessions are on the rise in the country where the pope resides. But the most numerous are not the Muslims. They are the Orthodox and Protestants. And there are those who are turning Buddhist

by Sandro Magister

ROME, November 11, 2016 – In addition to being bishop of Rome, Jorge Mario Bergoglio is also primate of Italy. And in spite of the very small number of pastoral visits that he makes to Roman parishes and Italian dioceses, the Church that is in Italy and Italy itself have become his natural habitat.

Not only that. The social phenomenon that lies closest to Pope Francis’s heart is undoubtedly that of migration, to such an extent that he has reserved for himself – and for himself alone – the management of the office in the curia that deals with it, within the newly constituted dicastery “for integral human development.”

Well then, it is precisely migration that is notably changing the human and religious landscape in Italy.

In the religious field, the Catholic Church no longer has that uncontested monopoly which it had for centuries, until a few years ago.

Catholicism remains by far the dominant religion in Italy. But alongside it are growing other Christian confessions and other faiths. Not only on account of immigration, but also, to a lesser extent, through conversion.

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MINNESOTA
KARE

MINNEAPOLIS – The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis is adding more money to its compensation plan for clergy abuse victims.

Our partners at Minnesota Public Radio News report the compensation fund will jump from the original $65 million dollars to more than $100 million.

MPR reports Archdiocese attorneys say settlements with insurers and creditors are making more money available for the fund, with settlements have been reached with all but two insurers.

Attorneys for the victims have long said the insurers and the church could afford to contribute more money to the fund.

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GHANA
Graphic

EMMANUEL EBO HAWKSON 11 NOVEMBER 2016

The Leader of the International God’s Way Church (IGWC), Bishop Daniel Obinim, and two of his pastors were yesterday granted bail by the Accra Circuit Court for allegedly abusing two teenagers during a church service.

Bishop Obinim, Pastor Kingsley Baah and Pastor Solomon Abraham were each granted bail in the sum of GH¢10,000, with one surety, by the court, presided over by Mrs Abena Oppong Adjin-Doku.

The case has been adjourned to November 24, 2016.

Bishop Obinim has been charged with physical abuse contrary to the Domestic Violence Act (732), while the two pastors have been charged with abetment of crime.

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CANADA
Peterborough Examiner

By Joelle Kovach
Friday, November 11, 2016

A Peterborough Catholic priest who is under police investigation for sexual misconduct has been suspended from his pastoral role at three local schools, said the director of education.

Rev. Bill Moloney is on administrative leave from his job as priest at Immaculate Conception Church on Rogers St. in Peterborough.

He’s under OPP investigation over allegations of sexual misconduct going back to the 1980s at Camp Northern Lights, where he was the long-time director.

Because Moloney is not currently the priest at Immaculate Conception Church, he’s not attending to pastoral duties at area schools, either.

Michael Nasello, the director of education at the Peterborough Victoria Northumberland and Clarington Catholic District School Board, said Moloney used to help with tasks such as leading in-school religious services at St. Peter Secondary School, Immaculate Conception School and Monsignor O’Donoghue School.

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OKLAHOMA
Fox 23

Hector Mejia
Updated: Nov 10, 2016

A jury has reached a verdict in the trial of a man accused of sexual abuse while working as a youth mentor through a local church.

They found Timothy Cato guilty of 11 counts of child sex abuse. They found him not guilty in one count of child sex abuse and one count of possession of child pornography.

The jury recommended 215 years in prison.

During closing arguments, Cato’s defense said the state demonized him by painting him as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” They said that he should be punished for only one count, but given the chance for redemption.

However, prosecutors said Cato built his reputation as a caretaker and church youth mentor to prey on children, who were either from a shelter or didn’t have a father figure. They claimed Cato groomed the five boys to believe it was okay for him to watch them shower and later cuddle with them during sleepovers.

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IRELAND
Herald

Sonya McLean and Fiona Ferguson – 11 November 2016

A former lay worker with the Church of Ireland has been jailed for 13 years for the rape and molestation of 14 young boys over the course of 40 years.

Patrick O’Brien (76) pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to 48 sample counts of indecent assault and three of sexual assault of the boys.

O’Brien, of Knocklyon Road, Templeogue, Dublin, received a one-year suspended sentence in 1989 for sexually assaulting a 10-year-old boy, leaving him free to continue a litany of horror crimes for another 24 years.

The offending took place between 1974 and 2013 at numerous locations, including Kildare, Westmeath, and at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, where he worked as a volunteer.

He would abuse his victims in various locations, including:

* Bringing boys to his yacht.
* Taking them for driving lessons or to the office where he worked.
* He abused one boy once a week in a car wash after they were hidden from view when the vehicle was covered in foam.
* He organised games of hide and seek to be alone with a victim.
* He abused a boy in a kitchen while the child’s parents and grandmother were in the sitting room.
* Another boy was abused in the electrical room of St Patrick’s Cathedral while people were in the body of the church.

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MISSOURI
KSDK

Christina Coleman, KSDK November 10, 2016

FLORISSANT, MO. – A Florissant couple who lost their son to suicide after alleged abuse by a priest reached a settlement with the St. Louis Archdiocese.

Dan and Pat Harkins said their son, Alex, was sexually abused at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary between the ages of 12 and 14.

Alex’s parents say he changed dramatically after church camp.

Initially, he was very spiritual and wanted to be come a priest. However, after the camp he was depressed and attempted suicide six times.

He didn’t tell his parents about the alleged sex abuse until he was 20-years-old. He took his life in May of 2009 when he was 21-years-old. His parents filed a wrongful death lawsuit in October of 2013.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

Christopher Knaus

Canberra’s Catholic archbishop did not attend a healing ceremony for Marist child sexual abuse survivors because it was “Marist-specific”, and because he wanted to wait for the royal commission to conclude so the archdiocese could hold its own event.

Marist College Canberra apologised to former students who were abused by its staff on Thursday night, conducting a ceremony and unveiling a plaque that will stand as a permanent reminder of the school’s abuse crisis.

On Friday, it emerged that Archbishop for the Canberra-Goulburn region, Archdiocese Christopher Prowse, had been invited to the healing ceremony, but had not attended.

A spokeswoman said on Friday that the archbishop had wanted to wait for the royal commission to conclude.

She said the event was more “Marist-specific”, and that the Catholic church would hold its own healing ceremony at the conclusion of the commission.

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GUAM
Radio New Zealand

A retired priest in Guam says the island’s Catholic Church leadership has known for decades about sex abuses committed by clergy since the 1950s.

Louis Brouillard, who is a confessed abuser, made his comment in a statement released in connection with civil lawsuits filed by several former altar boys, who allege sexual abuse at the hands of Guam priests decades ago.

Pacific Daily News reports Mr Brouillard saying his only form of punishment for molesting at least 20 boys at the time was to say prayers – as instructed by the then Archbishop Apollinaris Baumgartner.

Mr Brouillard, who is now 95 and living in Minnesota, said his sexual contact with children was known to other priests, including the Archbishop Baumgartner, who led the church on Guam for 25 years from 1945.

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MISSOURI
KMOX

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) – A wrongful death lawsuit filed against the St. Louis Archdiocese is settled out of court for an undisclosed amount.

David Clohessy with the survivors group SNAP, says the suit was filed by the parents of a Florissant man who committed suicide years after he was allegedly abused by a Catholic priest.

“I think the very last thing in the world Archbishop Carlson wants or needs at this point, is to have a grieving couple in open court, explain how much was known about Father Kuchar and how little was done to protect kids from him,” Clohessey says.

Father Bryan Kuchar was found guilty in 2003 of sexually assaulting another boy in 1995 at Assumption Catholic Church in south St. Louis County.

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NEW YORK
NBC 4

By Chris Glorioso and Evan Stulberger

When Cardinal Timothy Dolan unveiled a plan to pay settlements to victims of priest sexual abuse, he touted the new victim compensation fund as a way to seek reconciliation with those who have been harmed by the church.

For at least one survivor of priest sexual abuse, the settlement fund has had the opposite effect.

“I felt victimized once again, extremely angry,” said Lex Filipowski, a former altar boy at Holy Cross Church in South Centerville, New York.

In his first interview using his real name, Filipowski says he called the New York Archdiocese to inquire about the victim compensation fund, only to learn he was ineligible because his abuser was a priest of a religious order – the Carmelites.

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FLORIDA
WFTV

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – A youth pastor was arrested Tuesday on charges of raping a girl under the age of 12, and the Orange County Sheriff’s Office is concerned that she might not be the only victim.

Arrest records said Samuel Pierre, 35, abused the child while he was supposed to be taking her to a youth group event.

Pierre faced a judge Wednesday on charges of sexual battery against a child and kidnapping.

An arrest report said Pierre picked up a young girl in August to take her to a youth group gathering for Tabernacle Prayer and Miracles International church.

The girl told investigators that he drove her to a home, where she fell asleep after drinking a glass of water that Pierre gave her.

“We’re dealing with children here. They’re the most vulnerable in our community,” said sheriff’s office Detective Michael Kleinfelt. “He assumed a role of responsibility or a role of somebody that a child would look up to, and he took advantage of that.”

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FLORIDA
Orlando Sentinel

Gal Tziperman Lotan
Orlando Sentinel

A youth pastor accused of kidnapping and raping a girl from his church had been arrested on charges of lewd or lascivious battery in 2009, records show.

Prosecutors ended up dropping the charges against Samuel Pierre in 2012.

The case was similar to the one brought against Pierre this week: Both involved girls of similar ages he knew through a church. In both cases, the girls thought that Pierre was taking them to meet other friends, but ended up alone with him, records show. Both girls said Pierre told them not to tell anyone.

The 2009 case was dropped because of witness statements, state attorney spokeswoman Angela Starke said. She did not immediately know what the statements were because the related files were in a warehouse.

Orange County deputies arrested Pierre, a youth pastor at the Prayer and Miracles International church on South Rio Grande Avenue, on Tuesday. They believe there could be other victims, Det. Michael Kleinfelt said during a press conference on Thursday.

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