ABUSE TRACKER

AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Ian Kirkwood

A former provincial of the Marist Brothers, Michael Hill, has told the Royal Commission on Wednesday about an evolution in his thinking about “potentially inappropriate behaviour” by members of his order.

Brother Michael said he was of the belief that abuse was widespread in the order and not just a “temporary hiccup” by about 1997.

He said he was now embarrassed that in 1999 he had taken the subsequently disgraced Brother Romuald – Francis William Cable – at his word when he said he had been wrongly accused.

He said he had been “naive” to have believed Brother Romuald.

Counsel assisting the commission, Stephen Free, said to Brother Michael: “So you simply took him at his word, is that . . . ”

Brother Hill: “That’s right.”

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

SEPTEMBER 7, 2016

By Rebekah Ison
Australian Associated Press

When a senior Marist Brother emailed a lawyer about complaints of child sexual abuse in 2001, he started the message with a tagline from Jaws 2.

“As the famous movie line said: just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…!,” Brother Michael Hill said in an email shown to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Wednesday.

“After a fairly mild couple of months all hell has broken loose over the past couple of weeks on the abuse front.”

The message from Brother Hill, who was the then-provincial for parts of the country’s east, was sent after a Brisbane student made a complaint about a man known as Brother Patrick touching his groin.

A public hearing has heard boys were groped in classrooms, abused in the chapel and raped in an office of the Newcastle Marist Brothers High School where Brother Patrick taught alongside fellow pedophiles Brother Romuald and Brother Dominic in the 1970s.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By David Marchese

The former principal of a Marist Brothers high school in Newcastle has told the child abuse royal commission a notorious paedophile admitted to him he had abused children 40 years before he was charged.

After a week of evidence, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse hearing into the Hunter region’s Catholic Church is now examining the response of the Marist Brothers to allegations of child sexual abuse.

Former principal of the Marist Brothers’ Hamilton school, Christopher Wade, admitted he should have done more to follow up child sexual abuse allegations levelled at teacher Francis Cable, known as Brother Romuald.

Brother Romuald was sentenced to 16 years’ jail last year after being convicted of dozens of child abuse charges.

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CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles Times

REPORTING FROM SACRAMENTO
Sophia Bollag

Flanked by alleged sexual assault victims and their supporters, state Sen. Connie Leyva (D-Chino) urged Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday to end California’s statute of limitations for rape.

The Legislature sent Leyva’s bill, SB 813, to Brown last week. He has until Sept 30 to sign the bill, which would end the time limit in California for prosecuting rape, child sexual abuse and other felony sex crimes.

“This bill does not abolish the very high burden-of-proof standard,” Leyva said at a state Capitol news conference. “[SB] 813 simply ensures that the door does not slam in the face of victims.”

Several of those who spoke in support of the bill said they were sexually assaulted. They were joined by attorney Gloria Allred, who said she met with representatives from the governor’s office Tuesday morning. Allred is representing more than 30 women who say comedian Bill Cosby sexually assaulted them.

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OHIO
WKBN

By Molly Reed
Published: September 6, 2016

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) – The Catholic Diocese of Youngstown is joining other diocese across the country in implementing new programs to prevent child abuse.

VIRTUS is a nationally recognized group of programs that promote “rightdoing” within religious organizations.

In 1994, the Youngstown Diocese started using the policy “Treasures Gift from God” to protect children. Now that it’s moving toward VIRTUS, the protection it wants to provide for kids who may victims of abuse will be enhanced.

Former Youngstown Police Det. Delphine Baldwin-Casey is joining forces with the Youngstown Diocese and Monseigneur John Zuraw to bring in VIRTUS. As the Victim Assistance Coordinator, Baldwin-Casey is the first point of contact for people who claim to have been sexually abused by clergy, religious or church personnel, or volunteers.

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AUSTRALIA
MN News Today

In my five years as Bishop of the Diocese, this is the second commission of inquiry before which I have appeared. There is a very considerable difference in scope between the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (‘Royal Commission’) and the Special Commission of Inquiry into matters relating to the police investigation of certain child sexual abuse allegations in the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle.

BISHOP BILL WRIGHT PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 07, 2016

Nevertheless there are haunting similarities for me, inasmuch as I am once again called upon to bear witness to a terrible and shameful chapter in the history of this Diocese. I am called to account for how the Diocese meets its obligations to provide support to those who remain affected today by their abuse, and called to demonstrate how we are committed to ensuring that what happened in the past cannot happen again today.

To bear witness to this sad and terrible history I must first acknowledge the facts as I know them. I acknowledge that:

* Ryan is a priest incardinated to the Diocese who committed multiple acts of sexual abuse against innocent boys beginning as early as 1972;

* Ryan was a sexual predator who used his status as a priest and the power that gave him to gain access to boys, to convince their parents and other responsible adults that he was safe, and to conceal his abuse;

* As early as 1974 deceased priest Mons. Cotter was told something of Ryan’s abusing and he abjectly failed to do anything meaningful to protect the children who should have been his primary concern;

* In 1975, Mons. Cotter responded to a further report and promptly removed Ryan from ministry and sent him for treatment, but these acts were vitiated by subsequent failures to monitor or check whether Ryan had received any meaningful treatment;

* There is some evidence that deceased priest Vincent Casey was told something of Ryan’s prior abusing. There is also evidence suggesting that Bishop Leo Clarke may have known of Ryan’s abuse. Before his death, Bishop Clarke denied knowledge of Ryan’s history, but if he were aware of what had occurred, then he failed to make further enquiries and subsequently placed Ryan in positions of responsibility, with access to children, across the Diocese for a further two decades;

* Some of those men who were harmed as boys have managed to live stable and fulfilling lives, others have struggled to simply remain alive and continue to battle their demons on a daily basis. We also acknowledge that some of those who were abused have also taken their own lives;

* The attitudes held by some in the Diocese put the perceived good of the Church before the safety of a child and this was fundamental to Ryan’s being able to continue to abuse for over 20 years; and

* The harm inflicted by Ryan may have been aggravated by the Diocese when certain victims sought redress for their harm through a contested court process.

As Bishop I humbly offer an unreserved apology on behalf of the Diocese to all those men who have suffered and continue to suffer as a consequence of Ryan’s abuse and the actions and omissions of members of the Diocese. Through those failures and omissions, the Diocese failed to act according to the Gospel. I apologise to the parents and siblings of those boys whose innocence was stolen by an evil presence who was allowed to remain amongst us by flawed and failed leaders. I apologise to the spouses and children of those men for any shadows that reach out from the past to affect your lives together today.

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CANADA
Ottawa Citizen

ANDREW DUFFY, OTTAWA CITIZEN

The estate of a late Ottawa man has launched a $2-million lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Ottawa for sexual abuse he allegedly suffered as a child in the 1960s.

The unusual statement of claim was filed last month on behalf of the man, whom the Citizen will identify only as John Doe. He died at the age of 63 in November 2014.

According to the claim, Doe was a victim of Rev. Jean Gravel, a Catholic priest at Ottawa’s Saint-Rémi Parish.

Gravel pleaded guilty in September 1967 to charges of gross indecency involving two teenaged boys and resisting arrest.

The new court document contends that Doe was one of those teenaged victims.

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KENTUCKY
WLKY

LOUISVILLE, Ky. —Jury selection got underway Tuesday afternoon in one of three sexual abuse cases against a former Catholic school teacher.

A former St. Raphael Catholic School teacher and Trinity football coach is now facing sex abuse charges.

According to court records, Philip Dale Anderson had sex with a teenager between 1981 and 1983.

Police said the victim was between 11 and 14 years old.

He was a teacher at St. Raphael School at the time.

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FLORIDA
Florida Today

J.D. Gallop, FLORIDA TODAY September 6, 2016

Police say a Rockledge priest took widow’s money, spent thousands on everything from car payments to gourmet chocolate

It began with a simple question from a widow about her bank account and ended with Rockledge detectives and Orlando Diocese accountants poring over financial statements, looking into the spending habits of a longtime priest, 73-year-old Father Nicholas King.

What detectives say they uncovered, according to court documents, was a priest who funneled money into his own private account with expenses that ranged from several hundred dollars in restaurant meals, a $9,000 down payment on a car, $6,000 to his sister, and $700 in spending at a gourmet chocolate shop.

Last week, Father King of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Rockledge, was arrested on charges of grand theft from a person older than 65 years of age in excess of $50,000 and organized fraud involving funds over $50,000, records show. No court date has been set.

Rockledge police began investigating the case August 24 after a 79-year-old widow notified church authorities that her money market account set aside for assisting the church was overdrawn, records show. Police said King was “surprised” by the investigation and denied any wrongdoing.

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CONNECTICUT
New Haven Register

By The Associated Press
POSTED: 09/06/16

NEW HAVEN >> An insurance company has appealed an order by a federal judge in Connecticut to reimburse the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford $945,000 for payments church officials made to settle sexual misconduct cases involving priests.

Judge Janet Bond Arterton in New Haven ruled in July that Chicago-based Interstate Fire & Casualty breached a contract when it refused to reimburse the archdiocese for more than $1 million in payments made in four abuse cases involving minors.

The company had reimbursed the archdiocese for previous settlements in priest abuse cases, but joined other insurers across the country that have balked at paying legal settlements in such cases.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

Nick Butterly – The West Australian on September 7, 2016

The peak body of the Anglican Church says another bishop would have to make a complaint to force Perth Archbishop Roger Herft from his job.

But the Church’s special internal tribunal is yet to get an official complaint about the Archbishop.

The details come amid expectations in some parts of the Church that Archbishop Herft is preparing to stand down after admitting to a royal commission that he let down survivors of child sexual abuse.

Should he resign, Archbishop Herft would be the highest ranking casualty of the long-running Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

A spokesman for Melbourne Archbishop Philip Freier, who is the head of the Anglican Church in Australia, toldThe West Australian that any administrative action against Archbishop Herft would have to be brought on by another senior Church figure.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

GRAHAM RAYMAN
THOMAS TRACY
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Tuesday, September 6, 2016

The Archdiocese of New York has suspended a Catholic priest, who once worked in the Bronx, from performing his religious duties after allegations surfaced that he molested a 15-year-old parishioner about 30 years ago — a crime that may forever go unpunished, the Daily News has learned.

Father Anthony Giuliano was serving as a pastor in a Dutchess County parish about 85 miles from Manhattan when the accusation was made on Aug. 16, decades after the incident allegedly occurred, police sources said.

As the investigation continues, Father Giuliano has been removed from the parish and “is not permitted to function as a priest until the matter is resolved,” according to the Most Reverend Gerald Walsh, the Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of New York.

The victim, now 43, told police that he worked in a church rectory in the Bronx neighborhood of Baychester between 1987 and 1988 when Giuliano befriended him.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

The independent inquiry into child sex abuse will continue, but there will be an internal review of it, its new chairwoman Alexis Jay has said.

It comes after ex-chairwoman Dame Lowell Goddard said in a memo to MPs that the inquiry was too big and needed overhauling.

Ex-top prosecutor Lord Macdonald said there was a “real danger” of it “taking years to confirm what we already know”.

But Prime Minister Theresa May said she remained “committed” to the inquiry.

Last month, Dame Lowell became the third chief to quit the inquiry – which was set up to investigate allegations made against local authorities, religious organisations, the armed forces and public and private institutions in England and Wales, as well as people in the public eye – since it was launched in 2014.

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UNITED STATES
Our Stories Untold

by TERRY MCKIERNAN on Sep 6, 2016

This is the third and last post in OSU’s current blog series on SNAP Mennonite’s MAP List (Mennonite Abuse Prevention List) and the broader issue of naming church workers (lay or ordained) who are credibly accused* of perpetrating sexualized violence. Today’s post is offered by Terry McKiernan, President of BishopAccountability.org, an organization focused on preserving a public record of sexual abuse and its cover up in the Catholic Church. He speaks from years of experience and offers the gift of wisdom that comes with a sustained commitment to doing what is needed to offer a voice to survivors and protect the vulnerable. The fact that this is the last post in our series does not mean that the conversation is over. The whole point of a series is to start conversation. If you have a story or perspective or question on the topic that you would like to share, don’t hesitate to be in touch.
— Hilary

***

There is interdenominational precedent and momentum for religious communities to name publicly all church workers, living or dead, who are credibly accused of perpetrating sexual violence. I want to offer, in this piece, some background that sheds light on how Catholics and others have come to the same conclusion that SNAP Mennonite has landed upon, that a public list of the credibly accused must be maintained if church culture is going to change and start making progress toward rooting abuse out of their communities.

THE EXAMPLE OF BERGEN CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL

KobutsuVenerable Kobutsu Malone is a Zen Buddhist priest. He’s worked as a chaplain at Sing Sing Prison in New York, and he’s served as a spiritual advisor for men on death row. He’s also a patent-holding mechanical engineer who’s developed adaptive electronic equipment for handicapped people. And Kobutsu is a survivor of clergy abuse.

Back in 2002, when the Boston Globe broke the Catholic abuse story, Kobutsu was moved to come forward about the sexual abuse that he suffered as 14-year-old Kevin Malone at Bergen Catholic High School in Oradell, New Jersey.

The searing document that he produced about that experience became the portal to a remarkable website, bergencatholicabuse.com. Other students at the school, which is run and staffed by the Irish Christian Brothers, contacted Kobutsu about their experiences, and he began to name and list the accused on his site, providing photographs of the brothers, documents, articles, and testimony from dozens of victims.

Last week it was revealed that the Christian Brothers of Bergen Catholic had paid Kobutsu’s list the ultimate compliment. He had been the first survivor from the school to come forward, and his website had been the catalyst for many other survivors. Now Bergen Catholic offered to include Kobutsu in a $1.9 million group settlement with 21 survivors, but asked that he take his website down. Kobutsu refused.

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NEW JERSEY
Road to Recovery

Starting Location: Morrisville Shopping Center Parking Lot
1 East Trenton Avenue
Morrisville, PA 19067

Meeting in the parking lot at 11:00 AM

Begin Walking at 12:00 Noon

· Left out of the parking lot, at the corner of East Trenton Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue, traveling North on North Pennsylvania Avenue sidewalk towards East Bridge Street.

· Left onto East Bridge Street to the Lower Trenton Bridge.

· Cross the Lower Trenton Bridge via the walkway into Trenton, NJ

· Follow Bridge Street to merge onto South Warren Street

· Continue on South Warren Street to Front Street

· Left onto Front Street to Barrack Street

· Right onto Barrack Street

· Left onto State Street, arriving at the State House 411 State Street, Trenton, NJ

Gathering on the sidewalk in front of the State House for a rally.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

6 September, 2016

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will be holding public hearings in December 2016 into the current policies and procedures of each institution named below in relation to child protection and child-safe standards, including responding to allegations of child sexual abuse.

These hearings will also examine the response of each named institution to the case study report in which its conduct was considered.

The Royal Commission invites submissions from individuals and organisations concerning these matters, that is, the current policies and procedures in place and the response of the institution to the relevant case study reports.

The Royal Commission may invite selected individuals or organisations to speak to their submissions, however, it is not proposed that leave to appear will be granted.

Those institutions are:

* Scouts New South Wales (Case Study 1 held in September 2013);
* YMCA New South Wales (Case Study 2 held in October 2013);
* The Salvation Army (Case Studies 5, 10 and 33 held in January/February 2014, March/April 2014 and October 2015);
* the Australian Christian Churches and affiliated Pentecostal churches (Case Study 18 held in October 2014).

The Royal Commission is tasked with investigating how different institutions currently respond to allegations of child sexual abuse.

The identity of anyone that provides information will be protected and will be kept confidential.

Submissions should be made by 23 September 2016 in writing to GPO Box 5283, Sydney, NSW, 2001 or via email to solicitor@childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au. Submissions can be anonymous.

If individuals have participated in a private session and would like their session to be recognised as a formal, confidential submission, please contact the Royal Commission at solicitor@childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Editorial

The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has had a rocky history. With a huge remit, by June this year it had run up costs of £1.8 million, yet had still to hear from the vast majority of witnesses.

With key appointments concluded last October, by July it had lost two out of its three key panel members. The acrimonious resignation of the Chair Susan O’Brien QC followed within a week that of one of her deputies.

Separately, the Scottish Government has yet to legislate, as it has promised to do, to resolve legal issues that prevent many victims from pursuing civil claims against their abusers.

Despite claims of consultation, there is widespread unhappiness about the Survivor Scotland model being proposed for supporting people who may be traumatised by memories re-awoken during the inquiry process.

The inquiry has to satisfy diverse groups representing adult victims of abuse, many of whom have lasting difficulties as a result of what happened to them at children. It is fair to say that confidence in its ability to do so is at an all time low.

So the revelation that a key official at the heart of arrangements for the inquiry appears to have lost the confidence of many of those due to take part in the inquiry is a major problem. Jennifer McPherson is alleged to have made disparaging comments to some historic abuse victims, and been dismissive of their concerns.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Times

Richard Ford, Home Correspondent
September 6 2016
The Times

The national public inquiry into child sex abuse is too big, unwieldy and under-funded to succeed, and must be overhauled, according to the judge who quit as its chief last month.

Dame Lowell Goddard urged Amber Rudd, the home secretary, to carry out a full review of the inquiry that stretches back more than 60 years and spans institutions including the church, councils, schools and Westminster. It is expected to run for at least a decade at a cost of £100 million.

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By Brendan Cole
UNITED KINGDOM
International Business Times

September 6, 2016

The former chief who quit the national public inquiry into child sex abuse has criticised it as too big to succeed. Dame Lowell Goddard left under controversial circumstances after nearly a year in charge of the probe in which not a word of evidence was heard.

But the New Zealand judge said the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse needs to be “remodelled” as it is too unwieldy and under-funded to succeed.

According to a memo seen by the Times, Goddard has urged home secretary Amber Rudd to review the inquiry which stretches back six decades, is expected to take a 10 years and will cost around £100m.

She said that it should be scaled back to focus on the present and future protection of children and also criticised the inquiry’s staff for being inexperienced.

She wrote: “With the benefit of hindsight, or more realistically the benefit of experience, it is clear there is an inherent problem in the sheer scale and size of the inquiry (which its budget does not match) and therefore in its manageability.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By JAMES TAPSFIELD, POLITICAL EDITOR FOR MAILONLINE

The government’s child sex abuse inquiry is too big to uncover the truth, its former chairman has warned.

Dame Lowell Goddard, who resigned last month, delivered a damning assessment of the probe’s prospect of success.

The New Zealand high court judge is the third chief to quit the inquiry – which was set up amid claims of an establishment cover-up following allegations that a paedophile ring operated in Westminster in the 1980s.

The wide-ranging review was launched in by Theresa May 2014.

Baroness Butler-Sloss and Dame Fiona Woolf had previously stepped aside from the job.

In a letter to the Home Affairs Select Committee, Dame Lowell said: ‘With the benefit of hindsight, or more realistically the benefit of experience, it is clear there is an inherent problem in the sheer scale and size of the inquiry (which its budget does not match) and therefore in its manageability.’

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UNITED KINGDOM
Sky News

The judge who resigned as head of the inquiry into child sex abuse says it is too unwieldy and needs to be completely overhauled.

Dame Lowell Goddard became the third inquiry chief to resign when she quit last month.

She is pressing Home Secretary Amber Rudd to put more focus on current issues and the protection of children in the future.

At the moment its brief stretches back 60 years and covers institutions including the church, schools, councils and Westminster.

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DEUTSCHLAND
NDR

[A priest accused of showing pornographic images to minors has been placed on leave.]

Das Bischöflich Münstersche Offizialat in Vechta hat einen katholischen Priester aus Lohne (Landkreis Vechta) beurlaubt, nachdem Missbrauchsvorwürfe gegen ihn bekannt geworden waren. Nach Angaben des Sprechers des Offizialats, Lutger Heuer, ermittelt die Staatsanwaltschaft Oldenburg gegen den 73-Jährigen, weil er “einigen auswärtigen Kindern und Jugendlichen, die in seinem Haus übernachtet haben, nicht jugendfreies Bildmaterial” gezeigt haben soll.

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DEUTSCHLAND
NWZ

[A 73-year-old priest from the Lohne district of Vechta is suspected of having shown pornographic images to two minors.]

Der Verdacht richtet sich gegen einen 73-Jährigen aus der Stadt Lohne. Die Staatsanwaltschaft Oldenburg ermittelt.

LOHNE Ein 73 Jahre alter Priester aus der Stadt Lohne im Landkreis Vechta steht im Verdacht, zwei Kindern und Jugendlichen pornografische Bilder gezeigt zu haben. Die Staatsanwaltschaft Oldenburg ermittelt wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs, teilte Staatsanwalt Torben Tölle am Montag mit.

Das Bischöflich Münstersche Offizialat in Vechta bestätigte den Vorwurf und gab in einer Pressemitteilung an, unmittelbar nach Bekanntwerden des Vorfalls die Staatsanwaltschaft und die Kriminalpolizei informiert und den Beschuldigten bis auf weiteres beurlaubt zu haben. „Eine Bewertung des Sachverhaltes ist erst möglich, wenn die Kriminalpolizei ihre Ermittlungen abgeschlossen hat“, so Offizialatssprecher Dr. Ludger Heuer. Wann dies der Fall sein wird, ist unklar. Dem Offizialat habe die Polizei mitgeteilt, so Heuer im Gespräch mit der NWZ , dass die Beamten aktuell sehr viel mit anderen Fällen zu tun hätten und es somit unklar sei, wann diese Ermittlungen abgeschlossen werden könnte.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Main Post

[A priest who for any years was active in a parish in the Bad Kissingen area does not need fear prosecution because the alleged incidents of abuse are time-barred, according to the prosecutor in Schweinfurt.]

Siegfried Farkas
05. September 2016

Ein viele Jahre lang in einer Pfarrei im Raum Bad Kissingen tätiger katholischer Priester braucht nicht zu befürchten, dass er sich wegen sexuellen Missbrauchs einer jungen Frau vor Gericht verantworten muss. Wie Ursula Haderlein, die Leiterin der Staatsanwaltschaft Schweinfurt, am Montag auf Anfrage bestätigte, sind die Ermittlungen gegen den Ruhestandspfarrer eingestellt.

Nach Einschätzung der Staatsanwaltschaft sind die mutmaßlichen Taten, die bereits mehr als vier Jahrzehnte zurückliegen, verjährt. Sie sollen sich zwischen Oktober 1968 und Frühjahr 1973 in Polen zugetragen haben, wo der vor einigen Jahren in den Ruhestand verabschiedete Pfarrer damals noch wirkte.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

A list of 154 Marist Brothers who are accused of or proven to have abused children over 25 years, has been handed to the Royal Commission in Newcastle.

The organisation’s former professional standards director, Brother Alexis Turton, noted he was aware that 10 of the people on the list, which was generated from data spanning from 1980 to 2015, had admitted to offences.

He also said he talked to 52 of them over a period of about 17 years as a provincial from 1989 to 2005 and in his professional standards role from 2002 to 2012.

‘There were a few cases of excessive physical abuse,’ he told the Royal Commission into Instiutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Tuesday.

‘But the great majority were sexual abuse.’

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By David Marchese

The mother of a Newcastle teenager who killed himself more than 40 years ago has told the child abuse royal commission she believes a group of Marist Brothers were “looking for evidence” at her home after the death.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse hearing into the Hunter region’s Catholic Church has shifted its focus to the Marist Brothers this week, hearing stories of abuse carried out over decades.

Audrey Nash has given evidence to the commission, describing her son Andrew as a “compliant” boy who initially enjoyed going to school at the Marist Brothers high school in Hamilton.

But in early 1974, Mrs Nash said Andrew’s behaviour changed after he returned from school late one night.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

Helen Velissaris and Luke Costin – AAP on September 6, 2016

The multi-million dollar estate of a former bishop who was blamed for allowing pedophile priests to operate in Victoria will be used to help victims of abuse.

Former Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns, who died in April, left $2.1 million to be used by the current Roman Catholic bishop of Ballarat for the benefit of the diocese “at his absolute discretion”, the Herald Sun reported.

Ballarat Bishop Paul Bird decided the funds will go to help victims.

“Whatever the diocese of Ballarat receives from Bishop Mulkearns’ estate, I intend to set aside for assistance to victims of abuse,” Bishop Bird said in a statement on Tuesday.

“This will continue the support that the diocese has given to abuse victims over many years.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Alan Travis Home affairs editor
Tuesday 6 September 2016

The home secretary, Amber Rudd, is to be questioned about the future of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse after the outgoing chair said its scale and aspirations were impossible to manage in its current form.

Dame Lowell Goddard sent a 10-page critique of the setup of the inquiry to the home affairs select committee, calling for a complete review and remodelling to focus it “more towards current events and thus focusing major attention on the present and future protection of children”.

However, Goddard has declined a request to appear before the committee on Wednesday to discuss her resignation. The New Zealand judge told the MPs she was unavailable, leaving Rudd to answer their questions.

Goddard resigned from the child sexual abuse inquiry on 4 August. Rudd promptly replaced her with Prof Alexis Jay, a distinguished social worker and inquiry member. The home secretary wrote to the committee saying that she could not delay the appointment because it was essential to maintain the confidence of the alleged victims and survivors of abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

Real estate and cash left to the Catholic Church by a bishop blamed for the sexual abuse of hundreds of children in Ballarat, north-west of Melbourne, will be given to victims of abuse.

Ronald Mulkearns left nearly all of his estate, including a Fairhaven property valued at more than $2 million, to the Catholic diocese of Ballarat after his death his April.

He was accused of not properly handling complaints about abuse in his diocese, which he apologised for while testifying before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

In testimony he said he was not sure if he knew child abuse was a crime when he was in charge of the Ballarat diocese but he knew it was wrong.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

The family of a Catholic bishop blamed for allowing the sexual abuse of hundreds of children say they support his decision to leave $2.1m to the church.

Bishop Rodney Mulkearns died in April aged 85 and left almost his entire estate to the Catholic diocese of Ballarat, including a $2m house in Fairhaven.

The Catholic church today confirmed the proceeds of the estate would go to the victims of child sexual abuse.

Bishop Mulkearns’ nephew Paul Mulkearns said the family was happy with his uncle’s decision to pass the estate to the church.

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AUSTRALIA
Premier (UK)

Tue 06 Sep 2016
By Hannah Tooley

Survivors of abuse at the hands of church leaders in Ballarat, in Victoria, Australia, will be given the profits from an estate formally used by a bishop who has been blamed for allowing paedophile priests to operate in the region.

Ronald Mulkearns used the £1.2 million ($2.1m Australian) estate, however, now the money from the sale will now be used to help victims of abuse, according to the diocese.

The bishop died in April and Paul Bird took over.

He told the Herald Sun: “Whatever the diocese of Ballarat receives from Bishop Mulkearns’ estate, I intend to set aside for assistance to victims of abuse.

“This will continue the support that the diocese has given to abuse victims over many years.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Olivia Shying

Ballarat diocese will cement itself as a national leader when it sets aside former Bishop Ronald Mulkearns’ estate to help survivors of sexual abuse.

Survivors of clergy abuse at the hands of Catholic priests in Ballarat have heralded Bishop Paul Bird’s announcement that the rumoured $2.1 million estate left to the church will be set aside for assistance to victims of abuse as an “example that other dioceses in Australia can look up to”.

In March, Cardinal George Pell made an impassioned promise to work with a group of survivors and agencies, especially the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors – whose leader, Father Hans Zollner, came to Ballarat just months ago.

Cardinal Pell’s Rome vision of making Ballarat a healing centre has yet to be realised.

Bishop Bird’s lauded announcement is a continuation of the diocese’s ongoing work with survivors to ensure their welfare is considered after the Royal Commission.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

IAN KIRKWOOD
6 Sep 2016

A BROTHER of a boy who hung himself at the age of 13 has given a bleak account of physical and sexual abuse at Marist Brothers Hamilton in the 1970s.

CQT said he started at Sacred Heart Primary School in 1962 and went to Marist Brothers, Hamilton, from 1969.

He had been an altar boy from the age of 10 in 1967.

He said some of the Sisters at the Sacred Heart were commonly referred to as the sisters without mercy, who would hit with their fists, with rulers and with canes.

“I would describe several of the brothers and lay teachers at the school as vicious and sadistic thugs,” he said.

He described one teacher, Brother Cassian, kicking a stray cat so hard that it died.

“I saw him hold kids up, punch them and let them drop to the floor,” CQT said.

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

RONALD Mulkearns was known as the “keeper of secrets”.

The disgraced bishop was blamed for allowing paedophile priests in Victoria to move around the state and continue working, turning a blind eye to their actions and the victims of their abuse.

Bishop Mulkearns died in April and now it has been revealed his $2.1 million estate has been given to the Ballarat Diocese, which has become a controversial area due to the traumatic abuse that took place there. There have been more than 100 claims of child abuse within the diocese since 1980.

The Herald Sun reports Bishop Mulkearns said the money he left when he died was to be used by the current bishop of Ballarat for the benefit of the diocese “at his absolute discretion”.

Ballarat child abuse victims believe Bishop Mulkearns’ dying wish is a slap in the face.

“His assets should be distributed to victims whose lives have been destroyed and damaged by his actions,” Ballarat abuse survivor Andrew Collins told the Herald Sun.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

After 13-year-old Andrew Nash took his own life, a now-notorious pedophile Marist brother turned up to his house and asked his mother whether the boy had left a note.

More than four decades later, the Newcastle boy’s 90-year-old mother believes the brother had been sexually abusing her son, a royal commission has heard.

Audrey Nash on Tuesday recalled pulling over a taxi driver and telling him to get an ambulance and a priest after finding her son hanging in his bedroom in October, 1974.

Three priests and three Marist brothers, including Andrew’s class master Brother Romuald, turned up, she said.

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GUAM
Guam Daily Post

Neil Pang | Post News Staff

The Concerned Catholics of Guam have called for the resignation of Danny Quichocho from the Archdiocesan Finance Council.

In a statement released to the media yesterday, CCOG stated that Quichocho’s conflict of interest with his positions as an officer and board member of the Redemptoris Mater Serminary corporation make him untenable as a member of the finance council.

Quichocho is currently the treasurer of the RMS Board of Directors and was appointed to the AFC by Archbishop Anthony Apuron after Apuron fired the previous council on grounds that their terms had expired.

“He cannot serve two masters,” said Dave Sablan, president of CCOG.

Sablan referred to a media interview in which Quichocho was seen effectively endorsing claims made by Rev. Pius Sammut, then-secretary of RMS and the Blessed Diego Theological Institute.

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MARYLAND
WTOP

By Jack Moore
September 5, 2016

WASHINGTON — A former St. Mary’s County priest has been indicted on bank fraud charges after authorities say he deposited $76,000 worth of checks that had been donated to the church’s “poor box” into his personal bank account and used the funds to pad his retirement account.

Last week, a federal grand jury indicted John S. Mattingly — a 70-year-old of Charlotte Hall, Maryland — on 20 counts of bank fraud. The indictment was unsealed Sept. 1.

Prosecutors said Mattingly, who served as the pastor of St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Leonardtown, Maryland, fraudulently deposited more than 500 checks totaling $76,000 between 2006 and 2010. The checks were intended to be donations to the church or to the St. Vincent de Paul Society charity, according to the indictment.

Prosecutors also said Mattlingly wrote unauthorized checks from the church’s bank account to himself to deposit into his individual retirement account.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

REUVEN BLAU MICHAEL O’KEEFFE
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Thursday, September 1, 2016

He has held the secret of that summer for more than 40 years.

He was a 13-year-old in 1972, away at Camp Ramah in the foothills of the Taconic Mountains when, he says, a counselor lured him into the woods and forced him to perform oral sex.

The self-loathing smoldered inside, worsening each time a memory came flashing back.

Then earlier this year, the victim — a Westchester businessman and now a John Doe in legal papers — was fishing on the internet. What he found took his breath away.

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VIRGINIA
Christian Today

Czarina Ong 05 September 2016

Youth pastor Jordan Baird, 25, was arrested by the police last week after he allegedly exposed himself to a teenager while inside his father’s church.

Baird, who was mentored by singer Joe Jonas in the CW competition “The Next” back in 2012, is the husband of former Hillsong United singer and songwriter Michelle Fragar. He is the son of senior pastors David and Jo Ann Baird of The Life Church in Virginia, according to The Christian Post.

He was charged with three counts of indecent liberties by the church’s custodian for exposing himself to a teenager back in 2015 while inside his father’s church, which is located in Manassas. It was only this July 7 when detectives from the Special Victims Unit of the Prince William County Police Department in Virginia responded to investigate the inappropriate contact that was carried out by Baird.

The youth involved is a 16-year-old female juvenile, who reportedly received salacious text messages from Baird who also allegedly touched her inappropriately on several ocassions sometime between January and September 2015. Following their investigation, the detectives immediately obtained a warrant on Aug.17 and Baird was “arrested without incident at a residence in Fauquier County later that evening.”

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

The late bishop, Ronald Mulkearns, who was blamed for allowing pedophile priests to continue to operate in Victoria, has reportedly left his $2.1 million estate to the Catholic Church.

The Herald-Sun says Bishop Mulkearns, who died in April, said the money was to be used by the current bishop of Ballarat for the benefit of the diocese “at his absolute discretion”.

“His assets should be distributed to victims whose lives have been destroyed and damaged by his actions,” Ballarat abuse survivor Andrew Collins told the Herald-Sun.

The child abuse royal commission heard Bishop Mulkearns knew pedophile priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale and others were sexually abusing children and moved them between parishes, and he also destroyed documents in Ridsdale’s file.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

IAN KIRKWOOD
5 Sep 2016

BROTHER Romuald stood up, dropped his towel and turned around.

He stood there with a wry smile on his face, or an expression that suggested: “Well boys, have a good look at this.”

As CNV one of two brothers abused at Marist Brothers Hamilton told the Royal Commission on Monday: “Just a normal day.”

CNV’s brother, CNS, gave evidence to the commission before the morning adjournment, and CNV continued with his memories of those times, when the brothers at Catholic high schools were allowed to act and operate with impunity.

“What is really upsetting to me is that i know Andrew Nash committed suicide in 1974,” CNV said.

“A lot of people believe Andrew was sexually abused by Brother Romuald, which led to Andrew’s death. If that is true, I would be disgusted. I know that my brother and my father told the Marist Brothers about Brother Romuald in 1972 and 1973. Action should have been taken against Brother Romuald then. It is devastating to think they did nothing and Brother Romuald went on to abuse other boys because they did nothing. I also feel very, very angry because I, and other kids, were knowingly put in harm’s way.”

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Editorial

September 5, 2016

THE pain suffered by the victims of child sexual abuse while Bishop Ronald Mulkearns was in charge of the Catholic diocese of Ballarat has reached out from beyond the grave, as reported in today’s Herald Sun.

But, this time, the Catholic Church has the opportunity to at least alleviate some of the pain caused by the will of the late Bishop, who has left a rich estate to the church to do with as it pleases.

There were years of silence before Bishop Mulkearns admitted that he shuffled paedophile priests around his parishes, in spite of knowing about their crimes against the most vulnerable members of their flocks.

The bishop, who died in April, left a property estimated at $2.1 million and about $40,000 in cash to be used by current Bishop Paul Bird “for the benefit of the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat at his absolute discretion’’.

The Herald Sun has asked Bishop Bird what he intends to do with the money. We believe it should at the very least be put towards the compensation fund to give some financial recognition of the abuse they have suffered. We are yet to receive a response.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Shannon Deery, Herald Sun
September 5, 2016

THE Catholic bishop blamed over the sexual abuse of hundreds of children has left the church most of his $2.1 million estate.

Former bishop Ronald Mulkearns, who died in April, left nearly all his estate, which includes a Fairhaven property valued at $2.1 million and about $40,000 cash, to the Ballarat diocese he once ran.

Mulkearns said the money was to be used by current bishop Paul Bird “for the benefit of the Catholic diocese of Ballarat at his absolute discretion”.

The Herald Sun contacted the church for comment Monday afternoon. By late Monday night, the church had not replied.

From 1971 to 1997, while Mulkearns was bishop of Ballarat, hundreds of local children were molested by a nest of paedophile clerics. Victims of clerical abuse have now called for his money to be used for compensation and for support programs for those who suffered at paedophile priests’ hands.

Ballarat abuse survivor Andrew Collins said: “Mulkearns moved around clergy who he knew had sexually abused children. By doing so he effectively facilitated the rape of children in the church.

“His assets should be distributed to victims whose lives have been destroyed and damaged by his actions,” Mr Collins said.

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ITALIA
Casteddu Online

[The scandals in the Diocese of Cagliari: Pedophilia and anonymous letters]

Autore: Redazione Casteddu Online il 01/09/2016

Negli scandali che hanno sconvolto, di recente, la Diocesi di Cagliari ormai il “menù” quotidiano propone di tutto: indagini canoniche, procedimenti giudiziari (don Luca Pretta, ex parroco di Gesico), avvisi di garanzia (don Marco Lai, parroco di sant’Eulalia), arresti (don Pascal Manca, ex parroco di Villamar, oggi in libertà e in attesa dell’udienza preliminare dopo la chiusura delle indagini), appartenenza alla massoneria (don Giancarlo Dessì, ex parroco di Villamar e Mandas), rinvio a giudizio (don Massimiliano Pusceddu, ex parroco di Decimoputzu) e così via. Una lunga Via Crucis dove anche il Cireneo avrebbe seri problemi a portare la croce, vista l’entità delle accuse mosse nei confronti di alcuni sacerdoti della Diocesi cagliaritana. Nell’elenco delle stazioni della via dolorosa è importante soffermarsi su una in particolare: il ruolo delle lettere anonime e dei corvi nella vicenda della pedofilia.

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ITALIA
Radio Popolare

[The bishop of the diocese of Imperia and Albenga – Mario Oliveri – was removed from office by the pope.]

di Alessandro Principe
Giovedì 01 settembre 2016

Il vescovo della diocesi di Imperia e Albenga Mario Oliveri è stato rimosso dal suo incarico dal papa. Formalmente, Bergoglio ha accettato oggi, con una bolla papale, le dimissioni presentate dallo stesso Oliveri. Ma si tratta di una procedura che, nella sostanza, prende atto e ratifica le accuse rivolte al monsignore. In particolare, quella di aver coperto, accogliendoli nella propria diocesi, preti accusati e, in alcuni casi, condannati, per pedofilia. La scelta di papa Francesco era arrivata dopo le segnalazioni di numerosi episodi controversi e scandali, tutti raccolti in un dossier che il nunzio apostolico Adriano Bernardini consegnò a papa Francesco dopo una visita alla diocesi di Imperia e Albenga, guidata da Oliveri dal 1990.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Regensburg Digital

Gastautor Alfred Gassner reagiert auf unseren Bericht über den prügelnden Prälaten Paul Mai. Gassner, Jahrgang 1939, war ein Kind mit vielen Kriegs- und Fluchterfahrungen, als er 1950 als Seminarschüler im Studienseminar St. Augustin in Weiden wurde.

Gastbeitrag von Alfred Gassner

Aus einigen meiner sorgsam aufbewahrten Kindheitserinnerungen habe ich nach dem Lesen des Berichtes von Robert Werner eine vergilbte Broschüre ausgegraben, die deutlich macht, wie weit Anspruch und Handlungsweise in der Seminarerziehung der römisch-katholischen Kirche in den 60er Jahren auseinanderfielen.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Regensburg Digital

[The failings of Monsignor May]

Von Robert Werner in Nachrichten, Überregional

Abseits von den Domspatzen spielen die Übergriffe in anderen Einrichtungen der Diözese Regensburg offiziell keine Rolle. Doch tatsächlich lässt das Bischöfliche Ordinariat seit Jahren wegen körperverletzender Übergriffe in Bischöflichen Knabenseminaren recherchieren. Einer der Täter soll der hoch angesehene Prälat Paul Mai sein. Betroffene schildern ihn als hemmungslosen Schläger.

Obwohl sich seit Frühjahr 2010 viele körperlich misshandelte ehemalige Zöglinge diverser Einrichtungen des Bistums Regensburg beim Ordinariat meldeten, blieben sie lange gänzlich unbeachtet. Das Leid, das sie erfahren haben und die oftmals lebenslangen Folgen von körperverletzenden Strafen und sadistischen Übergriffen wurden schnell als bedauerliche Vorfälle, aber zeitbedingte Erscheinungen abgetan. Anfangs sprach man von „pädagogischen Übergriffen“.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

5 September, 2016

The Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse has released a consultation paper on criminal justice issues in child sexual abuse cases.

Royal Commission CEO Philip Reed said it was hoped that the consultation paper, and submissions to it, would identify areas where reform may be necessary to ensure justice is better served in child sexual abuse cases.

“The aim of our policy work in this area is to understand the contemporary response of the criminal justice system to institutional child sexual abuse and to identify ways it can be made more effective,” Mr Reed said.

“Criminal justice responses need to be available to all victims and survivors who are able to seek them. Additionally, survivors need to be properly supported in this process.

“A criminal justice response enables the community to condemn the abuse and punish the perpetrator. The criminal justice system needs to be fair for the complainant, as well as being fair to the accused.”

Mr Reed said survivors should be encouraged to seek a criminal justice response as an important way of increasing the knowledge and awareness in the community at large that such abuse happens, and the circumstances in which it happens.

“A criminal justice response is important to survivors not only in relation to seeking justice on a personal level, but also to encourage reporting of child sexual abuse and prevent child sexual abuse in the future.”

The criminal justice consultation paper draws from the Royal Commission’s Case Study 38 public hearing on criminal justice. During this hearing, participants considered issues such as when a joint trial may be held to determine charges against an accused made by multiple complainants of child sexual abuse, or when other evidence of an accused’s “bad character” should be admissible in court.

The Royal Commission also published a significant study on these issues, after examining how mock juries reason when deliberating on multiple counts of child sexual abuse.

Mr Reed said based on this work by the Royal Commission and other materials it has considered, the Commissioners were now reasonably satisfied that current laws needed reform to allow more cross-admissibility and the Royal Commission remained open to submissions on the issue.

The consultation paper also seeks submissions on matters such as police communication and their response to reporting of child sexual abuse; child sexual abuse offences and third-party offences; prosecution responses and delays; how victims can give evidence in court; and sentencing.

Read the consultation paper here.

All interested parties are encouraged to make written submissions responding to the paper. Written submissions should be made by Monday, 17 October 2016 and can be submitted electronically to criminaljustice@childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au

Interested parties are welcome to make submissions responding to only one or a few issues, or to make submissions responding to all issues.

Feedback on the issues outlined in the consultation paper will help inform recommendations the Royal Commission may make in order to provide better support for survivors of child sexual abuse going through the criminal justice system.

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AUSTRALIA
Canberra Times

Daniel Burdon

A man has told an inquiry how he was sexually abused by three Marist brothers, including a brother who later taught at St Edmund’s in Canberra, over years at a Newcastle school.

The man, known as CNQ, told the inquiry his principal at the Newcastle school put his hands up and said “there’s nothing I can do” when he reported being touched.

The witness said he was first abused by Brother Dominic, whose real name is Darcy O’Sullivan, within a month of starting at Marist Brothers High School at Hamilton in 1977.

The royal commission is examining how Maitland-Newcastle Catholic authorities dealt with allegations levelled at Brother Dominic, Brother Patrick and Brother Romuald, whose real name is Francis Cable.

Cable, who was understood to have molested up to 11 children in Newcastle, later taught at St Edmund’s in Canberra between 1979 and 1989.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

A man who told an inquiry how he was sexually abused by three Marist brothers over years at a Newcastle school says his principal put his hands up and said “there’s nothing I can do” when he reported being touched.

The man, known as CNQ, told the inquiry he was first abused by Brother Dominic, whose real name is Darcy O’Sullivan, within a month of starting at Marist Brothers High School at Hamilton in 1977.

He told the royal commission another brother put his hands in his pyjamas the following year, before Brother Patrick began committing sickening abuse in a classroom and chapel in 1980.

The royal commission heard CNQ punched Brother Patrick in the head on one occasion after being touched in class and later had a meeting with his mother and the school principal, Brother John.

“I told Brother John about Brother Patrick … putting his hand on my crotch and leg,” he told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Monday.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By David Marchese

A child abuse survivor has told a royal commission he punched a Marist Brother “hard in the head” after being subjected to horrific abuse at his Catholic high school.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse hearing into the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic diocese has resumed for its second week.

The hearing is also probing the response of the Marist Brothers to allegations of child sexual abuse made against several Brothers over decades.

Abuse survivor CNQ described traumatic and sustained abuse at the hands of several Brothers while he attended a Marist Brothers high school in the Newcastle suburb of Hamilton in the early 1970s.

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GUAM
Guam Daily Post

Neil Pang | Post News Staff

More than 80 individuals gathered outside the Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral-Basilica in Hagåtña yesterday, Sept. 4. The gathered crowd comprised members of the Concerned Catholics of Guam (CCOG), Laity Forward Movement (LFM) and Silent No More.

Members of the three organizations routinely gather to hold protests airing their grievances with church authority – primarily in calling for the defrocking of Archbishop Anthony Apuron, who has been accused of child sex abuse during his time as pastor of the Agana parish in the 1970s.

Lou Klitzke, a member of LFM, told the Post that protester turnout has been steadily increasing over the past few weeks.

“Everybody keeps coming out,” she said. “We have a very dedicated group of people.”

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GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Sep 05, 2016

By Sabrina Salas Matanane

Amid allegations that Archbishop Anthony Apuron molested children, the Archdiocese of Agana has created a special task force for the protection of minors. The group will help in strengthening the local catholic church’s sexual abuse policy, which has been referred to as flaw.

It’s the latest announcement out of the archdiocese as it works to restore unity and peace.

During a conference held this past weekend by the archdiocese, recently-appointed sexual abuse response coordinator Deacon Len Stohr announced the creation of a new task force for the protection of minors. “We were looking at the current policy,” he summarized. “We were looking at a way to reach out to make it a broader guidance, and what was missing was the lay involvement.”

The task force is comprised of retired deputy attorney general and Guam’s first-ever public guardian Attorney John Weisenberger, former Archdiocesan Review Board member Vince Pereda (a clinical social worker and licensed therapist who’s been practicing for over 30 years), retired police officers Ray and Josephine Fernandez (who combined have over 60 years of experience in law enforcement). Serving as chairperson of the task force is Sarah Thomas Nededog, who is a longtime social worker of 40 years.

“When the archbishop (Hon) spoke with us, I want you to know that we walked away from that interaction feeling very inspired and very supported in this work that we’re going to do. There is a very strong recognition that the archbishop and the archdiocese want to make a very big push toward the protection of our children the most vulnerable people in our community,” said Nededog.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

A NSW survivor of child sexual abuse has recalled wearing a tight belt to school so his maths teacher couldn’t get his hands down his pants, an inquiry has heard.

The survivor, known as CNS, was abused by Brother Patrick, whose real name is Thomas Butler, during maths classes at Marist Brothers High School at Hamilton, near Newcastle, in 1971.

‘Brother Patrick sexually abused me on numerous occasions during that year,’ CNS told the a Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Monday.

‘But I always wore a tight belt so he was never able to get his hand right down inside my pants and onto my genitals.’

The royal commission is examining how Maitlaind-Newcastle Catholic authorities dealt with allegations of abuse against Brother Patrick, as well as men who were known as a Brother Romuald and Brother Dominic.

– See more at: http://www.skynews.com.au/news/national/nsw/2016/09/05/students-abused-during-maths-class.html#sthash.0vFf23o9.dpuf

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – PM

[with audio]

Michael Edwards reported this story on Monday, September 5, 2016

A group of men have described the sexual abuse they received at the hands of Marist Brothers while at a high school run by the order in the New South Wales city of Newcastle.

Several of the abusers have since been jailed but the survivors say the scars of the abuse have stayed with them throughout their lives.

One of the boys thought to have been abused, committed suicide at the age of 14 … the Royal Commission heard a local priest admit that he had described this as a ‘prank gone wrong’.

FEATURED:
Father William Burston – priest

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission intot Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

The Royal Commission will hold a public hearing to inquire into the response of Catholic Church authorities to allegations of child sexual abuse by John Joseph Farrell.

The public hearing will commence on 12 September 2016 in Sydney at the Royal Commission’s hearing rooms in Sydney.

Location
The hearing will be held at Level 17, Governor Macquarie Tower, 1 Farrer Place, Sydney.

The scope and purpose of the public hearing is to inquire into:
1. The responses of the Catholic Diocese of Armidale and the Catholic Diocese of Parramatta to allegations of child sexual abuse made against John Joseph Farrell.
2. The response of the Special Issues Group for the Province of Sydney to allegations of child sexual abuse against John Joseph Farrell.
3. Any related matters.

Any person or institution who believes that they have a direct and substantial interest in the scope and purpose of the public hearing is invited to lodge a written application for leave to appear at the public hearing by 4 August 2016.

Applications for leave to appear should be made using the form available here.

Leave to appear will generally be granted when an applicant:

1. has been summoned to give evidence

2. is an institution, or is a representative of an institution, that is subject to the inquiry to be undertaken

3. may be the subject of an adverse allegation.

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

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

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NIGERIA
The Freethinker

Nigerian pastor Chukwuemeka Nwocha, above, General Overseer of the Tongue of Fire Restoration Ministry in Lagos, Nigeria, is facing a battery of charges relating to 13 girls he allegedly kept as sex slaves.

According to this report, the 36-year-old is a “man of God” known to his congregation, both young and old, as “Daddy”.

When he was paraded before journalists at the Lagos State Police Command Headquarters in Ikeja yesterday, Nwocha explained how he came to came to harbour the girls in his three-bedroomed abode.

He said it all started when the children in his church, who called him, “daddy, daddy” told him they would like to visit him.

I only tried to help the girls.When the first girl came, she said she did not have anywhere to go. I did not know her parents. I am a pastor and I felt pity for her. After spending three days, I told her she needed to go out and bring some of her relations so that they would know where she was. But she did not.

Later, some parents in my church also said they would like to send their chidlren to live with me. Some of them came to spend holidays after their exam.

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UNITED STATES
The Open Tabernacle: Here Comes Everybody

Posted on September 4, 2016 by Betty Clermont

Pope Francis and Xi Jinping came to power at the same time – March 13 and March 14, 2013, respectively.

In every year of Pope Francis’ pontificate, China is identified as a government which has “engaged in or tolerated systematic, ongoing, egregious violations of religious freedom” defined as “including torture, degrading treatment or punishment, prolonged detention without charges, abduction or clandestine detention, or other flagrant denial of the right to life, liberty, or the security of persons,” according to the U.S. State Department’s annual Religious Freedom report.

A case against China, filed in 2013 with an international tribunal, was settled on July 12. “The ruling paints a picture of an environmentally destructive, dangerously aggressive government that has no legal jurisdiction for its actions.”

“In the Chinese imagination, this is not subjugation of neighbors but simply restoration of the normal order … a return to the traditional concept of tianxia, with barbarians benefiting from Chinese civilization.”

Pope Francis told Xi Jinping, “The world looks to this great wisdom of yours.” He repeats that the world looks to China’s wisdom and civilization,” in a February 2016 interview. The pope also “described the excitement he felt when he was about to enter Chinese airspace on the flight from Seoul to Rome in August 2014.”

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FLORIDA
WFTV

BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. – A 73-year-old Rockledge priest was arrested Friday in Cocoa on fraud and larceny charges, the Brevard County Jail said.

Brevard County deputies arrested the Rev. Nicholas King, charging him with larceny under false pretenses and scheme to defraud under false pretenses, jail records said.

The jail’s website alleged that King took more than $50,000 from someone age 65 or older.

Carol Brinati, a spokeswoman for the Catholic Diocese of Orlando, emailed Channel 9 the following statement Saturday:

“We have been informed that Father Nicholas King, former pastor of St. Mary, Rockledge, is the subject of an investigation by the Rockledge Police Department. He is removed from ministry while the investigation is ongoing. The Diocese is cooperating with the investigation. We are saddened by the news of his arrest and ask that people of good will pray for Father King during this difficult time and for all those involved in this investigation. May the gracious care of the Lord our God be ours.”

The diocese’s website said King, who’s originally from Ireland, was ordained 50 years ago in St. Augustine. He’s lived in Central Florida since 1968.

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FLORIDA
Click to Orlando

By Kristin Cason – Assignment editor
September 03, 2016

ROCKLEDGE, Fla. – A pastor in Brevard County was arrested on felony fraud and larceny charges Friday.

Nicholas King, 73, was a former pastor for St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Rockledge, according to the Diocese of Orlando.

King was arrested by Brevard County Sheriff’s Office Friday. He was charged with felony larceny under false pretenses more than $50,000 from a person 65 years of age or older and felony scheme to defraud under false pretenses more than $50,000.

The Diocese sent News 6 a statement on Saturday:

“We have been informed that Father Nicholas King, former pastor of St. Mary, Rockledge, is the subject of an investigation by the Rockledge Police Department. He is removed from ministry while the investigation is ongoing. The Diocese is cooperating with the investigation. We are saddened by the news of his arrest and ask that people of good will pray for Father King during this difficult time and for all those involved in this investigation. May the gracious care of the Lord our God be ours,” said chief operating officer/chancellor, Carol Brinati.

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UNITED KINGDOM
New Zealand Herald

The judge who dramatically quit as chairman of a £100 million (NZ$182 million) child sex abuse inquiry will not meet MPs to explain her resignation.

New Zealander Dame Lowell Goddard will submit a written report after efforts by the Home Affairs Select Committee to make her appear in person failed.

Her departure from the £500,000-a-year (NZ$911,000) role last month, having lost the confidence of senior staff, cast the independent inquiry into chaos.

Asked if she would attend Wednesday’s session of the committee alongside new Home Secretary Amber Rudd, Dame Lowell, 67, said from Wellington, New Zealand: “I don’t anticipate it, no.”

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CHILE
El Vaca Nudo

[About 50 people came to Santiago, Chile, to demand the ouster of Bishop Juan Barros of Osorno. He is an alleged accessory after the fact in the sexual abuse said to have been committed by priest Fernando Karadima. They marched from the Metropolitan Cathedral to the Apostolic Nunciature.]

Hasta Santiago llegaron cerca de 50 personas a protestar contra el obispo de Osorno, Juan Barros, acusado como presunto encubridor de los delitos sexuales de Karadima.

Los manifestantes marcharon desde la catedral metropolitana hasta la Nunciatura Apostólica de la comuna de Providencia, exigiendo la salida del obispo, que recordemos, fue defendido por el propio para Francisco el año 2015, y aseguró que “Osorno sufre por tonta”.

En entrevista con Radio Bio Bio, la vocera del movimiento laico, María Soledad Martínez, sostuvo que “a más de un año y medio, no han obtenido respuesta del caso por lo cual es urgente desarrollar nuevas estrategias para la pronta destitución del prelado”.

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ILLINOIS
Daily Herald

Leaders of the Living Hope Bible Church in Roselle say they are grieving after learning a former deacon faces charges for sexually abusing a young girl.

A statement released Friday by the pastors and elders of the church states that the senior pastor learned about the abuse on Aug. 30, and immediately reported it to police.

On Thursday, 51-year-old Timothy Peltz of Wheaton was charged with four counts of predatory criminal sexual assault after authorities said he repeatedly sexually assaulted a young girl over a 10-year period. Peltz admitted the assaults began when the girl was 3½, officials said.

Leaders said the abuse did not take place on church grounds or during any church activities and was “in no way associated with the church or Mr. Peltz’s position with the church.”

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

CHRIS MARSHALL

Sunday 04 September 2016

A church whose founder was cleared of sexual assault says it is preparing to take legal action after senior members were subjected to “false and malicious allegations”.

Rev Walter Masocha, pastor at Stirling-based Agape Ministries International, returned to work last week after being cleared of allegations made by two women.

A self-styled “prophet”, Masocha was found guilty in a separate case last year of sexually abusing two parishioners – one of them a schoolgirl – but later had his conviction quashed.

The church said more than a dozen members of its congregation have been victims of false allegations, leading to them being suspended or investigated 
by their employers or the police.

A spokesman said: “The church and a number of our members have suffered quite dreadfully due to a clearly orchestrated but malevolent campaign of false, malicious and unfounded claims and allegations which have been made.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Rachel Browne

The sex crimes of Brother Paschal Bartlett were as numerous as they were horrific.

A member of the Franciscan order, he supervised altar boys for almost 50 years in various locations around Australia and New Zealand, exploiting his position of authority to sexually abuse them.

“I genuinely believe there would be thousands of victims out there,” said one former altar boy, who was abused by the friar in Sydney in the 1960s and ’70s. “He had access to altar boys for almost 50 years and it would appear he was never challenged.”

Brother Paschal joined the Order of the Friars Minor in the 1920s, moving through parishes in Victoria, Tasmania, New Zealand and Sydney, where he was at the Waverley parish on and off from the 1940s to the 1990s.

He had two lengthy periods of sick leave in the 1960s before returning to Waverley’s Mary Immaculate Church where students from nearby Waverley College were encouraged to serve as altar boys.

It was there the former altar boy, who has requested anonymity, first encountered the man he describes as “without moral scruples”.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

Robert Mickens | Sep. 2, 2016 A Roman Observer

ROME
All roads lead to Rome.

And one in particular — actually a sky path from Kennedy Airport in New York to the Leonardo da Vinci Airport at Fiumicino — brought me here exactly 30 years ago this week.

It was Aug. 30, 1986.

(And but for a year in Switzerland with a Franciscan-Dominican non-governmental organization at the United Nations and six-month sabbatical in the United States, here I have been ever since.)

The date is easy to remember because on the previous day, when we 36 young American seminarians actually left our native land for the Eternal City, it was the liturgical feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist.

We would sometimes wonder as we went through unexpected moments of ups and downs during those first months here if the date hadn’t been some sort of an omen.

Then later it would become apparent to all of us that, indeed, many people did sometimes lose their heads (at least figuratively speaking) in this ancient city of saints and sinners. We also learned in time that Rome is a place where some lose their faith.

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NEW YORK
The Examiner News

Neal Rentz | Sep 03, 2016 |

A state Senate candidate held an emotional press conference last Wednesday at Mount Kisco Village Hall calling for lawmakers to pass legislation that would ease restrictions on the time childhood sexual abuse victims can report incidents.

Boak, a Pound Ridge Democrat running next week in a primary for the 40th Senate District, said the Child Victims Act would eliminate the statute of limitations for new child sexual abuse incidents and allow victims of past incidents one year to sue the abuser or the facility where the abuse occurred.

The legislation would also place convicted sex offenders on registries and limit their access to children, she said.

Under current state law, victims of childhood sexual abuse must report the abuse or file a lawsuit before they turn 23. Studies have indicated that it takes an average of 21 years for an abuse victim to come forward, Boak said.

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SCHWEIZ
kathpress

[Geneva, 09/03/2016 (KAP) A 75-year-old priest was sentenced in Geneva on Friday to 20 months conditional imprisonment for sexually abused a 17-year-old. The priest confessed.]

Genf, 03.09.2016 (KAP) Ein 75-jähriger Priester wurde in Genf am Freitag zu zwanzig Monaten bedingter Haft verurteilt, weil er einen 17-Jährigen sexuell missbrauchte. Der Priester war geständig. Laut Anklage hat der Kleriker seine Vertrauensposition missbraucht, indem er seinen gefühlsmäßigen, intellektuellen und spirituellen Einfluss auf den jungen Mann ausnützte – eine Einschätzung, der das Gericht folgte. Der Priester muss zudem dem Opfer 10.000 Franken Schmerzensgeld zahlen, berichtete das Schweizer Katholisches Medienzentrum kath.ch am Samstag.

Der Priester war bereits im Ruhestand, half jedoch in mehreren Pfarreien und Heimen bei Gottesdiensten aus – so auch in Onex im Kanton Genf. Dort lernte er im Sommer 2015 den jungen Mann kennen. Der Priester habe ihn zum Mittagessen in ein Restaurant eingeladen und dann zu sich nach Hause genommen. Dort näherte er sich dem jungen Mann in sexueller Absicht. Der 17-Jährige hat laut kath.ch nach dem Übergriff sofort Anzeige erstattet. Der Priester sei am 28. August verhaftet und nach einem Geständnis am 6. November vorläufig wieder auf freien Fuß gesetzt worden. Nach dem Bekanntwerden der Tat wurde der Priester von Bischof Charles Morerod von der Diözese Lausanne-Genf-Freiburg von all seinen Aufgaben entbunden.

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OHIO
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Stanley D. Doerger was ordained for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati in 1958. Following a brief stint as an assistant parish priest, he spent twenty years at St. Rita School for the Deaf, initially as a resident assistant, then as principal. Doerger returned to parish work in 1980, assisting in Troy and Cincinnati, then pastoring parishes in Xenia and Taylor Creek. In 2003 a woman accused Doerger of having abused her when she was a student at St. Rita’s in the 1970s. Doerger denied the accusation. A group of former St. Rita’s students claimed he had physically, sexually and verbally abused up to 275 girls at the school. Doerger was kept in ministry. In March 2005 he was suspended after an independent tribunal awarded his accuser compensation. Doerger died in September 2005.

Born: March 25, 1933
Ordained: 1958
Died: September 10, 2005.

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INDIANA
Catholic World Report

Indianapolis, Ind., Sep 2, 2016 / 04:39 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- An Indiana woman who allegedly beat her 7-year-old with a coat hanger is citing religious freedom as her defense against felony abuse charges, saying her disciplinary tactics were inspired by her Evangelical Christian faith.

But Kellie Fiedorek, who serves as legal counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, rejected the idea that religious liberty can be used to defend abuse. The U.S. has provisions built into federal law to protect against such misuses of religious freedom claims, she said.

The alleged abuse occurred in February, when Thaing hit her son with a plastic coat hanger hard enough to leave multiple bruises. Two days later, a teacher discovered and reported the abuse when she tried to pat the little boy on the back and he flinched. Doctors counted 36 bruises on the boy, according to reports from the Indy Star.

The woman, 30-year-old Kin Park Thaing, is a refugee from Burma (now known as Myanmar) who was granted political asylum in the U.S. In court documents, she quoted Scripture and cited cultural differences as part of her defense.

Thaing quoted verses from Proverbs in her defense, saying that a parent who “spares the rod, spoils the child” and: “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die. If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol.”

Fiedorek told CNA that this is not the first time someone has tried to use religious freedom as a defense for child abuse or domestic abuse.

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ILLINOIS
ABC 13

By Ravi Baichwal
Friday, September 02, 2016

WHEATON, IL — Police have charged a suburban church deacon with sexually assaulting a girl for several years. Authorities said he admitted to abusing the child since she was 3 1/2 years old.

Timothy Peltz, who serves as a deacon at Living Hope Bible Church in Roselle, is charged with four counts of predatory criminal sexual assault, a class X felony. If convicted, he could face 24 to 120 years in prison.

Nobody at Living Hope Bible Church came to the door or returned ABC7’s calls for comment. Attempts to contact umbrella organizations related to the church also came up empty.

There was also no answer at the door of Peltz’s home in a townhouse complex in Wheaton, where neighbors described him as a quiet gentleman. The ABC7 I-Team reports the alleged abuse began shortly after Peltz’ own baby daughter died.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Herald

By WMNDavidWells | Posted: September 02, 2016

A former lay preacher has been jailed for eight years for indecently assaulting a boy he met during his time at a church.

Jeremy Dowling, the former spokesman for the Bishop of Truro, had the eight years added to a seven-year prison term he was already serving for offences against boys.

He has now been found guilty of sexually abusing a boy.

He carried out the assaults on a 10-year-old he met in 1973 at St Michaels Church at Budehaven, Truro Crown Court heard.

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UNITED KINGDOM
West Briton

By Graham Smith

The Bishop of Truro, the Right Reverend Tim Thornton, has issued a statement in reaction to the news that former church spokesman Jeremy Dowling had been convicted of a further six child sex offences.

Dowling had been the official spokesman for the Diocese of Truro for 18 years until his retirement in 2009. The conviction followed a four-day trial at Truro Crown Court and related to Dowling’s time as a lay preacher in North Cornwall in the 1970s.

Here’s Bishop Tim’s statement in full:

“The news that Jeremy Dowling has been found guilty of sexual offences against a boy while he was in a position of trust and responsibility within the Diocese of Truro fills me with sadness and shame.

“I would firstly like to apologise unreservedly to the survivor of his abuse: I am deeply sorry that Jeremy Dowling used a cloak of ecclesiastical respectability to gain trust and access; the church failed in its responsibility when it should have been there as a positive influence.

“I would also like to thank the survivor for coming forward and acknowledge how painful and difficult this must have been. I hope the fact that Jeremy Dowling has been convicted of these offences and will now be subject to a further prison sentence will at least bring some sense of justice.

“This news will come as a further shock to many people Jeremy worked with in his long association with the church, as a Reader, a member of the Diocesan and General Synods, and as the diocesan communications officer.

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MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

By Tony Messenger St. Louis Post-Dispatch

To say that Colleen Coble views the Missouri law that protects the confidentiality of sexual abuse and domestic violence victims as “her baby” is hardly an exaggeration.

Coble, the CEO of the Missouri Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, has been working on passing and strengthening the law since 1989.

“I don’t have children,” Coble says. “I have Chapter 455.”

That is the section of Missouri law that says when a victim goes to a domestic violence shelter or rape crisis center to report a crime or seek help, the workers or volunteers there must keep the victim’s information confidential.

The law also shields the confidential information and crisis center workers or volunteers from disclosure or testimony in court cases.

At least it did until late last month.

That’s when U.S. District Judge Carol E. Jackson of the Eastern District of Missouri ruled against the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, in a lawsuit brought by the Rev. Xiu Hui “Joseph” Jiang.

Jiang, a Catholic priest who was once associate pastor at the Cathedral Basilica in St. Louis, sued SNAP and two of its leaders, David Clohessy and Barbara Dorris, for defamation related to public statements they had made about alleged abuse reported to SNAP by victims. Jiang had faced criminal sexual abuse charges, but the criminal case against him was dropped in 2015.

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LOUISIANA
The Advocate

BY JIM MUSTIAN | JMUSTIAN@THEADVOCATE.COM SEP 2, 2016

A decade after his death, a beloved and eccentric Jesuit priest who taught Zen at Loyola University has been accused of repeatedly raping a young girl on campus more than 30 years ago, allegations that prompted church officials to begin paying the woman’s medical bills after she came forward last year.

A new lawsuit claims the Rev. Benjamin L. Wren, known affectionately to many as “Zen Ben Wren,” sexually assaulted the girl dozens of times beginning in 1978 – when she was just 5 years old – and coerced her silence by warning that her family would be sent to hell if she revealed their “special secret.”

Doctors attributed the woman’s delay in reporting the abuse to “repressed memory, shame, embarrassment and fear,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed Thursday in Orleans Parish Civil District Court. The woman is identified in the lawsuit by the pseudonym Jane Doe.

The lawsuit seeks damages from Loyola, the Archdiocese of New Orleans and the Jesuits of the USA Central and Southern Province, claiming the defendants “had superior knowledge about the risk that Father Wren posed to Jane Doe as a minor child” and failed to report the abuse to the authorities.

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WEST VIRGINIA
Charleston Gazette-Mail

A former Episcopal priest from West Virginia was among those named in a report this week that described how an elite New England boarding school became a kind of “private hell” for dozens of students who were sexually abused in the 1970s and 1980s.

The students at St. George’s in Middletown, Rhode Island, were manipulated and abused by faculty and staff, according to a report issued Thursday by an independent investigator, Boston lawyer Martin Murphy. He was hired by the school and the survivors’ group SGS for Healing.

The most prolific offender was athletic trainer Al Gibbs, who abused at least 31 girls, the report said. Gibbs was fired in 1980 after being caught taking photographs of a naked girl in his office, but the report found that he was paid a $1,200 annual grant for “distinguished service” that continued until he died in 1996. The school acknowledged in December that he abused 17 students.

“For a long time, everybody said I was a liar,” Katie Wales Lovkay, who said Gibbs abused her in 1979, told The Associated Press. “It feels really good to have this investigative report back me up.”

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MEXICO
Cronica des Sociales

[Taking advantage of the trust and guilt in addition to the cover-up by the ecclesiastical hierarchy, sexual crimes of priests are left in the dark. Research realizes this phenomenon in western Mexico and it also involved tolerance of abuse in the Catholic community.]

Aprovechándose de la confianza y la culpabilidad, además del encubrimiento de las jerarquías eclesiásticas, los crímenes sexuales de los sacerdotes quedan en la oscuridad. Investigación da cuenta de este fenómeno en el Occidente de México, revelando además la tolerancia que existe entre la comunidad católica.

Los sacerdotes pederastas cumplen con un patrón que les permite llegar de manera fácil a los menores y convencerlos para consumar un abuso sexual, cobijados no sólo por la secrecía que envuelve a la Iglesia católica, sino a la tolerancia de los fieles católicos y parte de la sociedad.

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SUISSE
Tribune de Geneve

[During his trial, he keeps his hands clasped and eyes closed. Maybe he prays? The priest of 75 years appearing Thursday before the Police Court is accused of sexual abuse of a dependent person.]

Durant son procès, il garde les mains jointes et les yeux fermés. Peut-être qu’il prie? Le prêtre de 75 ans qui comparaît ce jeudi devant le Tribunal de police est accusé d’abus sexuels sur une personne dépendante.

L’été dernier, celui que nous appellerons Luc, un servant de messe de 17 ans, était invité chez lui pour admirer des photos du pape… Le prêtre en a profité pour l’embrasser et le caresser avant de lui prodiguer une fellation. Tétanisé, le garçon a tout de même osé dire: «Ce n’est pas dans l’Evangile!» A cette remarque, l’ecclésiastique a arrêté ses agissements: «Ça m’a réveillé, ça m’a bloqué. J’ai compris que quelque chose ne jouait pas.»

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SUISSE
Cath.ch

[The Freiburg diocese has given its version of the developments reported in a case of sexual abuse of a minor. The statement contradicts the version published in the newspaper “20 Minutes” suggesting that the diocese would have protected the abuser priest.]

02.09.2016 par Bernard Hallet

L’évêché de Fribourg donne sa version du déroulement des faits rapportés dans une affaire d’abus sexuel sur mineur, jugée le 2 septembre 2016 à Genève. Le communiqué contredit la version publiée dans le quotidien “20 Minutes” laissant entendre que le diocèse aurait protégé le prêtre abuseur.

L’article publié dans 20 Minutes, relate le déroulement du procès d’un prêtre jugé pour abus sexuel sur mineur. Le quotidien rapporte, dans un encadré, “‘le rôle trouble joué par l’Eglise catholique’ dans ce dossier souligné par le Parquet”. Selon le quotidien, l’Eglise était au courant des actes du prêtre et ne l’aurait pas dénoncé. Ce dernier aurait été arrêté grâce à une bévue de l’Eglise. Cette version des faits est contraire à leur réalité, réagit Mgr Morerod, évêque du diocèse de Lausanne, Genève et Fribourg (LGF).

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OHIO
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Ronald Cooper was ordained for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati in 1983. He was assigned as an assistant to parishes in Bridgetown, Groesbeck, Dayton and Withamsville before being named pastor in Greenfield. He also pastored parishes in New Vienna and Fayetteville. In late 2003 a man told the archdiocese that Cooper sexually abused him as a boy in the early 1980s while assigned to St. Aloysius Gonzaga in Bridgetown. The man said the abuse happened at the parish and at the Friar’s Club. Cooper acknowledged contact with the boy, but denied “sexual intent.” He was suspended from ministry in January 2004. The case could not be criminally prosecuted due to the statute of limitations. Cooper was laicized in October 2014.

Ordained: 1983
Laicized: 2014

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UNITED STATES
Charles Zeigers

Charles Zeiders, Psy.D.
86 West Eagle Road, Havertown, PA 19083
email: drzeiders@drzeiders.com
phone: 610-653-0151

To illustrate the phenomenon of malignant narcissism in church leadership, this article develops a composite profile of a malignant narcissist. The profile is rendered in the form of an excerpt from a “fictional” psychological autopsy. “Imagined” clinical material, all retrieved from public sources, woven into genuine psychological scholarship, offers a developmental narrative of the pathogenesis of a malignant narcissist embedded in a church culture. Following the “psychological autopsy,” The Journal of Christian Healing interviews the author, discussing pertinent issues. It is hoped that this article will enhance awareness of the manifestations of destructive leadership in religious life.

Click here to enter your comments, reflections and feedback in response to this article.

We appreciate your input.

Introduction

When a narcissistic cleric assumes church leadership, the matter is problematic. But, if the leader’s narcissism is malignant, the matter is catastrophic. Such a destructive cleric will injure not only his detractors but also his followers and himself. He will be charismatic and grandiose. He will offer infectious oratory, and he will gain followers. He will become the adored champion of a disaffected group looking for recognition in a world populated by “enemies.” He will employ convincing theological rationalizations to gratuitously and sadistically injure the enemies of his “divine” agenda. His followers will continue to buy in and love him. His grandiosity will delude him to think that Providence has vouchsafed him to be incapable of mistakes. Wildly overconfident, he will engage in criminal over-reach and demonstrate enraged paranoia when he is called to account. To preserve his legend and avoid accountability, he will blame former allies, run away, or commit suicide. If he commits suicide, he will depict his last destructive act as a kind of victory.

The recent preponderance of church scandals, crimes, cover-ups, and malfeasances necessitate a revisiting of the concept of malignant narcissism. While not listed in the DSM-5 (American Psychiatric Association, 2013), the construct offers utility in understanding the charismatic leader whose attractiveness is predicated on his apparent embodiment of the answer to the deep concerns of a beleaguered group. He grows in fame and influence, only to disappoint with criminal scandals, born of grandiosity and megalomania, run amok. Psychology’s great thinkers have concerned themselves with this characterological disease. After World War Two, the psychoanalyst Eric Fromm (1964) introduced the term “malignant narcissism.” He reserved the diagnosis for grandiose, charismatic leaders whose psychopathology accounts for a broad destructiveness that devours their enemies, their proponents, and even themselves. Online reference material (Malignant narcissism, in Wikipedia, 2016) elaborates that:

… Fromm first coined the term “malignant narcissism” in 1964, describing it as a … severe mental sickness … representing … the quintessence of evil … He characterized the condition as … the root of the most vicious destructiveness and inhumanity …

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MISSOURI
Natonal Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Sep. 2, 2016

After a St. Louis federal judge levied sanctions last week against the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests for resisting a court order to turn over documents containing victim information, the advocacy group says it worries what such pursuits pose to survivor confidentiality going forward.

The sanctions came in the civil rights suit brought by Fr. Xiu Hui “Joseph” Jiang, a Chinese-born priest ordained for the St. Louis archdiocese who has brought conspiracy and defamation charges against SNAP and others in regard to a 2014 criminal charge of child sexual abuse that was eventually dropped. Twice in the last three years, Jiang has been criminally charged with child sexual abuse and twice the charges were dropped. A civil suit remains pending.

Judge Carol Jackson of the U.S. Eastern District Court of Missouri ruled on Aug. 22 that SNAP deliberately and willfully refused to comply with a June 27 court order to turn over documents requested in discovery by Jiang’s attorney. SNAP and its lawyers had contended the documents at issue contained confidential victim information and were protected under Missouri law, but Jackson ruled back in June that federal law didn’t offer those protections in pretrial discovery.

As part of the sanctions, the jury will be instructed to assume as true that SNAP conspired to seek a conviction of Jiang on religious and racial grounds, and that they issued false statements about him. SNAP was also ordered to cover Jiang’s legal fees associated with the efforts to obtain the disputed documents. His attorney filed a motion Thursday reporting $22,770 in related costs.

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NEW YORK
New York Times

By GINIA BELLAFANTE SEPT. 2, 2016

In the mid-1940s, Joel Teitelbaum, an eminent and charismatic rabbi, immigrated to the United States, colonizing a section of Williamsburg in Brooklyn for his Hasidic sect, the Satmar, its name taken from the Hungarian town of Szatmar, where Rabbi Teitelbaum had fought to resist the encroachments of a modernizing society.

Subsequent decades have seen virtually no retrenchment in the sect’s mistrust of the larger world.

Among the Satmar in Brooklyn, use of the internet is condemned and secular education is considered of little use. In recent years, though, it became the fashion among some Satmar women to pursue special-education degrees after high school, typically online or through religious colleges. The women often go to work not in philosophically suspect places like Greenwich Village, but in schools within their community. Now, even that minor advance has been rolled back; some Satmar leaders issued a decree proclaiming that the practice would no longer be tolerated. A letter from the United Talmudical Academy, the governing body for a consortium of schools, meant for girls entering the 12th grade and their parents, stated that they “shouldn’t God forbid take a degree which is according to our sages, dangerous and damaging.” …

A history of pandering to the ultra-Orthodox in Brooklyn goes back at least to the days of Mario M. Cuomo. Politicians who might otherwise feel free to lecture black and Hispanic communities on the importance of grit, self-reliance and the sacred path of higher learning express remarkably little outrage over the habits of a group that essentially enshrines its own dependency on the system. According to a 2011 study by the UJA-Federation of New York, the Jewish philanthropic organization, just 11 percent of Hasidic men and 6 percent of Hasidic women in and around New York City hold bachelor’s degrees, while the poverty rate among Hasidic households stands at 43 percent, nearly twice the figure citywide.

A reliance on public assistance is remarkably common among the Hasidim, explained Lani Santo, the executive director of Footsteps, an organization begun in 2003 to help those who decide to leave the ultra-Orthodox world. “Even if you want to be able to have a community that is maintaining its own traditions,” she told me, “you still need to be able to have the tools and skills to support your family.” Political leaders, beholden to the enormous voting bloc that the Hasidim, and especially the Satmar, provide, remain reluctant to say something so obvious.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Pirate FM

A Bude man has been jailed for an extra eight years after being found guilty of historic child sex abuse.
Jeremy Dowling used to be a teacher before becoming press officer for the Diocese of Truro.

The 78 year old, who abused children for more then ten years, is already serving a seven year sentence.
Now he has been convicted of indecently assaulting another child.

It happened at a church between 1973 and 1977.

The Bishop of Truro, the Reverend Tim Thornton, said: “The news that Jeremy Dowling has been found guilty of sexual offences against a boy while he was in a position of trust and responsibility within the Diocese of Truro fills me with sadness and shame.

“I would firstly like to apologise unreservedly to the survivor of his abuse: I am deeply sorry that Jeremy Dowling used a cloak of ecclesiastical respectability to gain trust and access; the church failed in its responsibility when it should have been there as a positive influence.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V. Eugenio, heugenio@guampdn.com September 3, 2016

The Archdiocese of Agana on Friday announced three new priest appointments, including a priest that Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron removed from a Dededo church in 2013.

Another appointment replaced the rector of a Yona seminary that has once again gained attention after the archdiocese’s temporary archbishop said in a statement that the pope had instructed Apuron more than once to remove a deed restriction on the property on which the seminary sits.

Archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai, who currently oversees Guam’s archdiocese, appointed the Rev. Paul Gofigan as the rector of the Dulce Nombre de Maria Cathedral-Basilica in Hagåtña and Monsignor David C. Quitugua as acting rector of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary in Yona.

The appointments are the latest in an ongoing church reorganization since the Vatican sent Hon to Guam in early June to temporarily administer the local Catholic Church.

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VATICAN CITY
Washington Post

By Associated Press September 2

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of an Italian bishop who welcomed into his diocese priests accused of, and in some cases convicted of, sexual abuse, homicide and other crimes.

The Vatican didn’t say why Bishop Mario Olivieri resigned two years before the regular retirement age of 75. Usually, the Vatican announces early retirements by saying they were due to a “grave” reason that made the bishop unfit for office. In Olivieri’s case, the Vatican didn’t even provide that information Thursday.

Italian newspapers have identified a handful of priests accused or convicted of crimes who were accepted by the tradition-minded Olivieri into his Albenga-Imperia dioceses.

In a letter on the diocesan website Friday, Olivieri said he was pained to leave because he loved the dioceses “and above all its priests.”

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IRELAND
Irish Central

Cahir O’Doherty @randomirish September 02, 2016

To be poor and the child of a single mother were among the most dangerous things that could happen to you in the Ireland of the last century.

So dangerous, in fact, that now we have a Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes, established in February 2015, to find out exactly what happened to the thousands of vulnerable women and children who lived and died in 14 homes between 1922 and 1998.

We need an investigation because we don’t know what happened to so many of them, of course. Irish society fell silent and looked the other way over the seven decades when these mothers and children were disappeared without a word of protest from most of us.

1998 is only 18 years ago, so all of this unfolded within the lifetimes of most people reading these words right now. It’s staggering too think the last Magdalene Laundry only closed its doors in 1996.

News of what happened to the inmates – that’s what they were called – of the Catholic Mother and Baby homes has rightly made international headlines since the Tuam scandal, but the fate of Protestant mothers and babies has garnered fewer column inches, although the statistics are no less alarming.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

Genevieve Gannon – AAP on September 2, 2016

An elderly Christian brother who spent decades teaching in Victorian schools has been charged with 39 offences, including child sex abuse.

Robert Charles Best, 75, of Ararat, is alleged to have committed acts of indecent assault over a 20-year period, according to charge sheets filed with the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Friday.

Police allege Best committed 17 counts of indecent assault, one count of assault and one count of unlawful imprisonment between 1968 and 1973 in Ballarat.

He is also charged with committing an act of buggery with a child under the age of 14, as well as one count of assault and 15 counts of indecent assault in Box Hill between 1975 and 1982.

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ILLINOIS
Nessler & Associates

By: Jonathan T. Nessler

The Law Offices of Frederick W. Nessler & Associates, Ltd. achieved a victory for a victim of sexual abuse, in Horn v. The Catholic Diocese of Peoria, et al. Justice O’Brien delivered the Court’s opinion on August 24, 2016. In the opinion, the appellate court reversed the trial court’s dismissal of that claim.

In Horn, the Plaintiff alleges that he was sexually abused by Reverend Norman Goodman, between 1991 and 1994. Horn v. The Catholic Diocese of Peoria, et al., 2016 IL App 3d 150339, ¶ 4 (3rd Dist. 2016). The Plaintiff alleges he was 13-years old when the abuse began. Id. The Plaintiff alleges the injuries caused by the sexual abuse include “confusion . . . development of symptoms of psychological disorders, such as shame, guilt, self-blame, depression, repressed memory, suppressed memory and disassociation.” Id. The Plaintiff alleges that these psychological conditions occurred before he turned 18, and, because of this, he was long unable to remember the abuse and unable to recognize the connection between his own psychological injury and the abuse by Goodman. Id.

The Plaintiff filed a lawsuit against Reverend Norman Goodman, The Holy Family Catholic Church and The Catholic Diocese of Peoria on July 30, 2012, and subsequently filed an amended complaint including further allegations. Id. at ¶ 3. The Plaintiff alleges in his complaint that Reverend Goodman and the Diocese were aware of the abuse. Id. at ¶ 6. He alleges that Reverend Goodman threatened him with “severe consequences” if the Plaintiff did not remain silent about the abuse, and that the Diocese, through its silence, attempted to convince the Plaintiff that these sexual acts were not abuse, wrong, harmful or injurious. Id. at ¶ 6.

The Diocese asked the trial court to dismiss the complaint, arguing that the statute of limitations barred prosecution of the claim. Id. at ¶ 7. This means, in a nut shell, that the Diocese argued that too much time had passed from when the alleged abuse took place and the filing of the lawsuit. The trial court granted the Diocese’s request, and dismissed the claim. Id.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

2 September, 2016

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has released a consultation paper that addresses records and recordkeeping practices in relation to child sexual abuse in institutional contexts.

The consultation paper, Records and recordkeeping practices, examines the records and recordkeeping practices of both older and contemporary institutions, identifying key areas of concern.

Royal Commission CEO Philip Reed said that the management of accurate records by institutions that care for children is critical to identifying, preventing and responding to child sexual abuse.

“Through private sessions and case studies, we have heard from survivors about the difficulties faced when trying to access their own records, including records regarding experiences of child sexual abuse,” he said.

“Many survivors have spoken to us about the absence of records or lack of detail in records created about them.

“We know that the lack of proper institutional record management can be extremely distressing and traumatic for survivors of child sexual abuse,” Mr Reed said.

The Royal Commission’s consultation paper proposes five key principles to assist institutions to implement and maintain comprehensive record management.

These principles are intended to promote child safety, institutional accountability and just outcomes for victims and survivors of child sexual abuse.

Good recordkeeping practices and accurate records can contribute to better outcomes in complaints handling, redress and criminal proceedings.

All interested parties are invited to make written submissions responding to the consultation paper and the five key principles listed below:

1. Creating and keeping accurate records is in the best interest of children.
2. Accurate records must be created about all decisions and incidents affecting child protection.
3. Records relevant to child sexual abuse must be appropriately maintained.
4. Records relevant to child sexual abuse must only be disposed of subject to law or policy.
5. Individuals’ rights to access and amend records about them can only be restricted in accordance with law.

Submissions are also sought on options for enforcement of the five principles and the need for a records advocacy service.

Written submissions should be made by Monday, 3 October 2016:

Email records@childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au

Mail to GPO Box 5283, Sydney, NSW 2001.
Read consultation paper – Records and recordkeeping practices.

Media enquiries: (02) 8282 3966 or media@childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au

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TEXAS
Brownsville Herald

By LORENZO ZAZUETA-CASTRO Staff Writer

EDINBURG — More than 20,000 pieces of evidence and documents have been made available in the trial of a former priest accused of killing a McAllen beauty queen and schoolteacher.

That was the extent of revelations in a status hearing, which lasted less than 10 minutes, in the case of John Bernard Feit, who faces life in prison in connection with the death of Irene Garza.

Feit, as has been his demeanor during his past two court appearances, was all smiles and joked with deputies and attorneys inside the 92nd District courtroom prior to Judge Luis Singleterry taking the bench.

Hidalgo County Assistant District Attorney Michael Garza, a few months removed from a walkthrough of two of the alleged crime scenes, addressed the court briefly about the status of the case.

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RHODE ISLAND
New York Times

By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
SEPT. 1, 2016

Sexual abuse was so rampant that it created a “private hell” for some students at an elite prep school in Rhode Island in the 1970s and ’80s, investigators reported on Thursday, describing an atmosphere of terror in which at least 61 students were victimized and some staff members committed assaults for years before being forced out.

The investigation found that at least 51 students were abused by employees of St. George’s School, a prestigious private boarding and day school near Newport, and at least 10 others by fellow students — and that the true numbers are probably significantly higher. The inquiry came after years of pressure from victims who said that St. George’s had refused to squarely acknowledge the extent of the problems.

The report — with pages of vivid, painful detail from accusers — follows other revelations about sexual abuse at several prominent prep schools in the same area, but none have matched the sheer scale and pervasiveness of the misconduct discovered at St. George’s.

More victims will come forward, and “when the sun is set on this case, it could be the largest school sex abuse case in history,” said Roderick MacLeish, a lawyer and St. George’s alumnus who has worked with abuse survivors in pressuring the school to conduct the investigation. “It’s in the thousands of years of suffering this caused.”

The abuses that alumni have recounted, often after decades of silence, include forced intercourse, oral sex and digital penetration; one student sodomizing another with a broomstick; sexual groping; harassment; and taking photographs of naked students without their knowledge and showing them to other students.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio, Pacific Daily News September 2, 2016

On the eve of his two-week trip to Rome, Archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai reiterated on Thursday his call for the lifting of a restriction on a Yona property that allows its indefinite use for a seminary and theological institute.

A deed restriction signed by Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron allows the Redemptoris Mater Seminary and the Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores Catholic Theological Institute for Oceania to use the Yona property in perpetuity but Hon said the deed is unusual.

Hon said the pope has instructed Apuron more than once to remove that deed restriction. Apuron said he cannot in his conscience lift the deed restriction.

In a statement on Thursday, Hon said the main points conveyed by former members of the Archdiocesan Finance Council on Wednesday about the property corroborate the Archdiocese of Agana’s position that Hon himself announced on Aug 18.

“The Archdiocese still insists that the community that enjoys the benefits of ‘perpetual use’ of the RMS property should renounce such benefits granted through a deed restriction,” Hon said in a statement on Thursday. “Such an act will help significantly in the Archdiocese’s efforts to restore unity and build harmony between all members of the Church on Guam.”

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

JOANNE MCCARTHY
2 Sep 2016

NEWCASTLE Anglican Bishop Greg Thompson is “the bishop not welcome in his own cathedral” after the royal commission heard extraordinary evidence this week of a complaint against him by a group of senior Anglicans after he revealed he was sexually abused by a bishop.

The Dean of Newcastle Stephen Williams is expected to make a public statement on Sunday after royal commission chair Justice Peter McClellan accused solicitor Robert Caddies of leading “coordinated opposition” to Bishop Thompson.

This followed a complaint about the bishop to the royal commission from a group that included Mr Caddies, former Newcastle Lord Mayor John McNaughton, solicitor and synod member Greg Hansen, synod member Laurie Tabart and church wardens Simon Adam and Andrew Traill.

The complaint included that the bishop potentially exposed “younger members of the diocese” to “danger” because he had not previously disclosed the abuse. But the group was accused of trying to undermine the bishop, with Justice McClellan asking Mr Caddies if he was suggesting the bishop’s credibility needed to be looked at because of the time he had taken to speak in public about it. The commission has heard expert evidence that abuse survivors can take decades to disclose abuse.

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GEORGIA
Patch

By Doug Gross (Patch Staff) – September 1, 2016

DOUGLASVILLE, GA — The King’s Way Baptist Church in Douglasville will pay $25,000 to settle a discrimination lawsuit filed on behalf of a kindergarten teacher who complained the church’s pastor sexually harassed her.

The independent Baptist church, which operates King’s Way Christian School, also will furnish other relief, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced in a news release.

The EEOC filed suit in 2015 on behalf of Marsha Pearson, a kindergarten teacher at the school, who said she was fired after complaining that the pastor, who was also school superintendent, had harassed her.

Former King’s Way pastor The Rev. Bill Wininger was arrested in 2014 on four misdemeanor charges of simple battery against a female employee.

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