ABUSE TRACKER

ILLINOIS
Herald & Review

THERESA CHURCHILL H&R Senior Writer

“Spotlight” may have been the best picture of 2015 according to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, but you wouldn’t know it by the amount of buzz the film generated in Decatur.

It never played here, as far as I know, except for the special showing the Avon Theatre gave to Herald & Review employees and their families earlier this month.

Sad to say, the audience for a movie about public service journalism is dwindling, especially if you’re counting the number of print journalists working these days.

I admired the tenacity of the Boston Globe’s investigative reporters, as depicted in the film, as they worked long hours to uncover the systematic child sexual abuse committed by Roman Catholic priests in the Boston Archdiocese.

Their series of reports won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003.

More importantly, the story caused hundreds of other victims around the country to come forward about similar crimes committed against them, often while they served the church as altar boys.

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WASHINGTON
Q13 Fox

MARCH 25, 2016, BY JAMIE TOMPKINS

SEATTLE — A Burlington woman is speaking out, no longer afraid to share a painful childhood secret of sexual abuse.

Mary Lynch says a priest named Father Michael Cody sexually molested her when she was 8 years old. She never told a soul, until a Sedro-Woolley woman came forward in May of 2015, accusing Cody of sexual abuse. The Archiodecese payed her $1.2 million to settle.

“I didn’t think anybody else had been victimized by him because I’d never heard his name before,” says Mary.

With the help of her attorney, Michael Pfau, Mary, along with 7 other women, were awarded a settlement of over $9 million from the Seattle Archidiocese.

The archdiocese says Michael Cody abused all 8 girls between 1968 and 1974 at churches in Burlington, La Conner, Swinomish and Bellingham.

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CHICAGO (IL)
CBS Chicago

(STMW) — A new lawsuit was filed Friday alleging sexual abuse by convicted child molester and defrocked priest Daniel McCormack and the Archdiocese of Chicago.

The plaintiff — a man identified only as John J. Doe — filed the suit Friday in Cook County Circuit Court against the Archdiocese of Chicago.

The man claims in the suit that McCormack engaged him in sexual and abusive relationships from 2003 to 2004 while the priest was a basketball coach at St. Agatha’s Parish on the West Side.

McCormack was removed from the priesthood in November 2007 and pleaded guilty that year to abusing five other children at St. Agatha’s. He was sentenced to five years in prison and has been staying at a state-run mental health facility since his release from prison in 2009.

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TEXAS
San Antonio Express-News

These remarks were delivered March 19 at a memorial Mass at St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church for Father Virgilio Elizondo, who died March 14. The Bexar County medical examiner listed the cause of death as suicide by self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The large crowd gathered here this morning is only a fraction of the thousands and thousands of people whose lives were touched by Father Virgil, our brother. On behalf of his family, I thank all of you here and everyone who is mourning his loss with us — including his many friends and colleagues at the University of Notre Dame and the people he served at his various priestly assignments, including this parish community, whom he served for 20 years.

I thank Father Juan Alfaro, Father Jorge Campos and the parishioners of Santa Rosa de Lima. I also thank his family for sharing “Uncle V” with us.

Since Monday, many people — especially my brother priests and bishops — have been sharing stories about him with me. While there are not words enough to memorialize him now, three characteristics stand out in these stories.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Manchester Evening News

26 MAR 2016

BY NEAL KEELING

Legal action brought by Former students of St Bede’s College was stopped without reaching any conclusions, out of court settlement or apologies

Legal action against Salford Diocese by alleged victims of sexual abuse has been dropped.

Former students of St Bede’s College in Whalley Range, Manchester, were suing church bosses over claims they were sexually abused by Catholic priests.

But the court process has now been discontinued without any out of court settlement or apology.

Although a lawyer for the former pupils says she is in the process of negotiating a formal apology.

The decision to stop the legal case comes despite three ex-pupils waiving their right to anonymity in January to talk publicly about their suffering at the hands of senior staff.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Telegram & Gazette

By Brian Lee
Telegram & Gazette Staff

Posted Mar. 25, 2016

WORCESTER – A former church elder who took about $3.4 million from about 25 people in a Ponzi scheme from 2010 to 2014 entered a plea deal this week with a federal prosecutor that calls for 24 to 41 months in prison and more than $1.6 million restitution.

Charles L. Erickson of Uxbridge waived the indictment and pleaded guilty to wire fraud Thursday in U.S. District Court.

Mr. Erickson, who will be sentenced June 28, faced up to 20 years’ incarceration. He is also subject to 36 months of supervised release, according to terms of the plea agreement in the court.

The criminal complaint by FBI Special Agent Bryan McKay in September said Mr. Erickson began collecting money around 2010 from investors for trading futures contracts. Those are contracts between two parties to buy or sell an asset for a price agreed upon today, with delivery and payment occurring at a future point, the delivery date.

Mr. Erickson recruited investors, many from Connect Community Church in Ashland, where he was a church elder. He said he believed the Holy Spirit gave him a proprietary system for day trading a particularly volatile futures contract on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

[U.S. District Attorneys File Motion to Restrain Assets of Fr. Joseph Maurizio]

JOHNSTOWN — Federal prosecutors want a judge to freeze the assets of Central City priest who owes $70,000 in fines and restitution after he was convicted of sexually assaulting poor street children during missionary trips to Honduras.

According to documents filed Friday, prosecutors say Joseph Maurizio transferred 42 acres of land to his niece in November, after he was convicted, and has continued trying to transfer his assets to her in a phone call from jail since his March 2 sentencing. Maurizio was also ordered to spend more than 17 years in prison.

The judge has not ruled on this motion.

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PENNSYLVANIA
KSN

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Federal prosecutors want a judge to freeze the assets of a Pennsylvania priest who owes $70,000 in fines and restitution after he was convicted of sexually assaulting poor street children during missionary trips to Honduras.

The Rev. Joseph Maurizio Jr., 71, transferred 42 acres of land and his home for $1 to his niece in November, after he was convicted, and has continued trying to transfer money from his financial accounts to her since his March 2 sentencing, according to the motion filed Friday by Assistant U.S. Attorney Christine Haines.

But defense attorney Thomas Farrell said in an email that Friday’s motion “shows a lack of common courtesy” because the transfers are being made so the niece — who is the priest’s power of attorney — can pay the penalties.

Farrell, one of two attorneys representing the priest on appeal, said the attorneys are to blame for not providing clearer instructions to the niece “on when and how the payments should be made” and said she has been making arrangements to pay the penalties.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, March 25, 2016

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, 314 645 5915 home, davidgclohessy@gmail.com)

We applaud prosecutors who are trying to keep a convicted predator priest from illegally protecting his wealth. We hope they succeed.

[Tribune-Review]

According to the Tribune-Review, “The U.S. Attorney’s office asked a federal judge in Johnstown Friday to freeze the assets of Fr. Joseph D. Maurizio Jr. who was sentenced to 17 years in prison for molesting boys at a Honduran orphanage, alleging he is transferring his property to relatives.

Shame on Fr. Maurizio’s niece, Christine Shaulis, for her selfish and deceitful involvement in these illegal financial transfers. And shame on Fr. Maurizio’s Catholic supervisors for letting him create a self-run “charity” in the first place.

Sadly, bishops let many priests set up their own unaccountable ‘charities’ and then act surprised when the priests are exposed as predators who commit both sexual and financial crimes. Altoona Catholic officials owe their flock explanations, apologies and real reforms to prevent priests from amassing private wealth they can use to attract victims and conceal crimes.

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ITALY
GlobalPost

AFP

Tens of thousands of faithful bearing candles prayed at an Easter ritual at Rome’s ancient Colosseum on Friday, where they and Pope Francis were told of the suffering of rejected migrants, sexually abused children and slaves.

Security was tight at the former gladiator battle ground, where a small group of believers carried a cross between 14 “stations” evoking the last hours of Jesus’s life during the traditional Via Crucis (Way of the Cross) procession.

Francis, 79, sat under a red canopy next to a large cross as he listened gravely to a lengthy meditation written by Italian Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti. …

The archbishop also denounced “the wounds of children desecrated in their intimacy” through paedophilia, and the fate of women who become “objects of exploitation”.

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AUSTRALIA
Latin American Herald Tribune

SYDNEY – Australian former bishop Geoffrey Robinson said on Friday the Catholic Church has lost “almost all credibility” due to the cases of pedophilia and called on Pope Francis to demand the resignation of every bishop who failed to properly address child abuse cases.

“Every bishop who has ever been responsible for the abuse of a child, because he did not do what he should have done, should be asked to resign,” said the author of books like “Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church” in an interview with Australian ABC Radio.

Robinson, who was a key player in the Australian Catholic Church’s response to child sexual abuse cases by members of clergy between 1994 and 2003, stressed the need of “death and resurrection” in the Church during Easter.

He also added that the church needs to “get rid of obligatory celibacy” and demanded a role for women in the church. Catholic teaching must rethink about their teachings on sexuality, which should include a new look on homosexuality and “the concept of what is natural.”

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DEUTSCHLAND
Sexueller Missbrauch durch Angehörige der katholischen Kirche im Bistum Trier
– ein Blog von Claudia Adams

Werter Bischof Ackermann,
werter Beauftragter der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz für Fragen sexuellenMissbrauchs Minderjähriger im kirchlichen Bereich,

Als sich am 29.01.2016 die Betroffene aus dem Bistum Würzburg an mich wandte, wusste ich noch nicht, dass es sich hierbei um einen Skandal handeln sollte, der die von Ihnen versprochene „Aufklärung“ sexuellen Missbrauchs durch Angehörige der katholischen Kirche auf einzigartige Weise widerlegen würde.

Erst im Laufe der Recherche wurde die Dimension einer absolut heuchlerischen Vorgehensweise der Katholischen Kirche offensichtlich. Kircheninterne Akten, die belegen, was die Katholische Kirche unter dem Begriff „Aufklärung“ versteht.

Der SPIEGEL enthüllt in der heutigen Ausgabe das, was dem Leser zugemutet werden kann.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Spiegel

[Chronologie – Wurtsburg diozese]

[A woman has accused the former abuse officer of the Wurtzburg diocese of sexual abuse when she was a teenager.]

Eine Frau beschuldigt ausgerechnet einen ehemaligen Missbrauchsbeauftragten als Missbrauchstäter. Interne Akten der Kirche zeigen, wie der Mann geschont wurde.

Ein Spät­som­mer­tag im al­ten Zis­ter­zi­en­ser­klos­ter Him­mels­pfor­ten. Das Bis­tum Würz­burg hat ka­tho­li­sche Fa­mi­li­en am Wo­chen­en­de zu Kur­sen und ge­müt­li­chem Bei­sam­men­sein ein­ge­la­den. Auch Alex­an­dra Wolf und ihre El­tern sind ge­kom­men. Die 17-Jäh­ri­ge ging ih­rer Er­in­ne­rung nach ge­ra­de ei­nen Flur des jahr­hun­der­te­al­ten Ge­bäu­des ent­lang, da sprach sie ein Pries­ter an und bat sie in ein Be­spre­chungs­zim­mer. Der Geist­li­che Fried­rich Stein(*) woll­te mit der Ju­gend­li­chen über ihre El­tern re­den, über ih­ren Va­ter vor al­lem, der sich auf die Wei­he zum Dia­kon vor­be­rei­te­te.

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ILLINOIS
Daily Southtown

Erin Gallagher
Daily Southtown

Protecting Roman Catholic children from sexual predators is a full-time job for this Chicago Heights native.

As the newly-appointed Archdiocese of Chicago’s director of the Office for the Protection of Children and Youth, Mary Jane Doerr has a candid, but optimistic view of the challenges she faces.

“We know we are working for the dark side of the church, but we are the ones shining light on it,” Doerr said.

Doerr, 62, oversees three offices within the archdiocese, including the Assistance Ministry Office, which provides support for victims of sexual abuse and their families. She encourages people who have been victims to come forward, because “it’s never too late,” she said.

“The archdiocese wants to hear their stories and support their health and wellness,” Doerr said. “That’s an important part of this ministry.”

Workers in the office have served more than 500 victims and their families and “they are very good at it,” she said. Taking the ministry in a new direction, they are helping victims rejoin the church, a process they call “helping them find a place in the pew.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Review

BY PAUL PEIRCE | Friday, March 25, 2016

The U.S. Attorney’s office asked a federal judge in Johnstown Friday to freeze the assets a Roman Catholic priest from Somerset County who was sentenced to 17 years in prison for molesting boys at a Honduran orphanage, alleging he is transferring his property to relatives.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie L. Haines alleges the Rev. Joseph D. Maurizio Jr., 70, has been liquidating his assets since he was sentenced March 1 by turning over the property to relatives.

In the four-page motion she said the priest already has deeded 42 acres in Paint Township and Windber, Somerset County, to relatives for $1 and has had made plans in telephone discussions with his niece, Christine Shaulis, to transfer his bank accounts, “leaving those accounts with a zero balance.”

The conversations were captured on audio recordings from the Cambria County Prison in Ebensburg where Maurizio is being held, Haines said.

“Accordingly, the United States requests an order restraining the sale, transfer or dissipation of assets for a period of 60 days …,” Haines states.

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VATICAN CITY
America

Vatican Dispatch

April 4-11, 2016 Issue
Gerard O’Connell

Continuing his reform of Vatican finances, Pope Francis issued a decree on March 4 approving new norms relating to the administration of the “goods,” mainly money, of the causes for beatification and canonization of saints in order to ensure full transparency and accountability in this area.

He took this decisive step after the commission he set up in July 2013 concluded that there was little or no oversight on how the considerable sums of money collected for a particular cause were spent. The commission’s report revealed that the system approved by St. John Paul II in 1983 lacked effective oversight and failed to prevent abuses. John Paul II beatified 1,138 persons and declared 482 saints, and it was known in Rome during his pontificate that money had been an important factor in advancing some of them.

In early August 2013, Francis received alarming reports from the commission on this matter, and he immediately ordered the blocking of some 400 accounts of the postulators of the causes of beatification and canonization held at the Institute for the Works of Religion (commonly called the Vatican Bank). That was but the first step; the new norms are the latest.

That there were abuses in the system was long known. It became public knowledge when two Italian journalists, Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi, drawing on the commission’s leaked report, published books that revealed that while hundreds of thousands of euros were collected for a particular cause, there was little or no control over how this money was spent. The average cost for a beatification was around 500,000 euros (US $550,000). Fittipaldi, for example, highlighted the high costs for the cause of Archbishop Fulton Sheen. Most of the 450 postulators are religious, but Nuzzi cited the report as revealing that two lawyers (laypeople, both named) handled a disproportionate share of the 2,500 causes, with 90 cases each. Moreover, the family of one of them was among the three printers given contracts by the congregation to print the position papers (sometimes several volumes) for the causes.

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AUSTRALIA
Gympie Times

Daniel Burdon | 26th Mar 2016

POPE Francis has been urged to ask for the resignation of all Catholic bishops who have failed to properly address child sexual abuse cases.

Australian Roman Catholic Bishop Geoffrey Robinson made the call yesterday in an effort to restore “trust and credibility” in the Church.

Bishop Robinson told ABC Radio National every bishop who was responsible for the abuse of a child “because he did not do what he should have done” should be asked to resign.

If Pope Francis was to act on Bishop Robinson’s urging, hundreds of bishops worldwide could resign.

Bishop Robinson said the church had lost “almost all its credibility” and had to be seen to be confronting the problem.

He also called for more women to be allowed involvement in the Church at senior levels and an end to the Catholic rule of mandatory celibacy for priests.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

March 25, 2016

Beau Donelly

A retired teacher who tried to stop a paedophile priest from assaulting her students has returned to her old school to pay tribute to the victims of clerical sex abuse.

Former Holy Family teacher Carmel Rafferty led a group of people back to the Doveton parish adjoining her old primary school on Friday to tie colourful ribbons to the fence in a mark of respect to survivors.

“The church is paying attention to the suffering of Jesus on Good Friday, but we’re paying attention to the abused,” Ms Rafferty said.

“We’re sending a message of recognition,” she said.

“This is a way we can show our heartfelt concern to the victims, survivors, their families, and to those who have never disclosed their suffering to anyone.”

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ITALY
ANSA

(ANSA) – Milan, March 25 – Milan prosecutors have indicted Father Alberto Paolo Lesmo, accusing him of paying with cash and drugs for sex with a minor, ANSA sources said on Friday.

Prosecutors said that between 2009 and 2011, Lesmo paid a boy aged between 14 and 17 for sex, at times also paying with illegal drugs.

Another person not connected to the Church has also been indicted in the case, and prosecutors said that on one occasion that suspect raped the minor involved.

A preliminary hearing date has not yet been set.

Milan Archbishop Angelo Scola suspended Lesmo on Friday from his duties as parish priest at Santa Marcellina Church in the Milan neighborhood of Muggiano, as well as deacon of the neighboring Baggio district.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Stephen Naysmith / Thursday 24 March 2016

Charities, churches and other institutions where child abuse took place should be required to pay into a fund to help support victims, according to an MSP.

Labour’s Graeme Pearson said institutions in which child abuse is known to have taken place could help provide the fund for survivors of abuse while an inquiry into what happened to them takes place.

The Scottish Government has announced a £13.5m survivor support fund, which will prioritise the needs of older historic child abuse victims, some of whom are not expected to live to see the end of the four year inquiry.

As the Herald reported yesterday, the inquiry has already cost more than £600,000 and the final cost will run into the tens of millions of pounds.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has defended the decision to name former Bishop of Chichester George Bell as an alleged paedophile.

The Church of England settled a civil claim made by a woman who says she was abused by the late Rt Rev Bell in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Archbishop Welby said he was a “great hero” for his wartime actions but the abuse claim apology was “correct”.

Bishop Bell’s supporters have criticised the church’s investigation.

‘Appalling shock’

Bishop Bell was well known for championing the people of Germany during World War Two and made a speech in the House of Lords in February 1944 opposing Churchill’s policy of saturation bombing.

Archbishop Welby told BBC Radio Kent: “He did extraordinary work during the Second World War, and in the run up to the war and in the years after the war, but someone came forward who said that they had been abused by him.

“On the balance of probability, at this distance, it seemed clear to us after very thorough investigation that that was correct and so we paid compensation and gave a profound and deeply felt apology.

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AUSTRALIA
J-Wire

March 25, 2016

This article is written by a female survivor of child sexual abuse in an institutional setting in the Australian Jewish community.

Dr. Michelle Meyer is CEO of Tzedek, an advocacy service for survivors of child sexual abuse, is promoting her voice, both as an opportunity for her to tell her story but also in the hope that it will encourage others to speak up. And whilst this story took place in the Australian Jewish community, it is also an international story.

A victim tells her story:

The Catch 22 of Case 22.

Established in 2013, the work of the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse continues throughout the nation. As it does so, my community struggles to find its feet on the shifting sands.

In the wake of the Royal Commission’s case study #22 – its probe of the the Yeshivah/Beth Rivkah community – rabbis have stood down, boards have been dissolved and reconstituted, committees were appointed and policies and procedures have been revisited and reviewed. New legislation and safeguards have also been implemented.

But as the fallout continues and the school and community hasten to recalibrate, a number of issues have been overlooked, two of which are: the lack of the female voice in the narrative, and the cultural stigma attached to having been sexually abused.

The lack of the female voice in the narrative

With all due respect to the Royal Commission and with high regard to the tight parameters and terms of reference that it must work within, the absence of female witnesses leaves the investigation of events at the Yeshivah-Beth-Rivkah schools incomplete.

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UNITED STATES
The Mennonite

3.24. 2016 Written By: Gordon Houser and Hannah Heinzekehr

In a March 20 letter to congregants, the staff and board of elders of Lindale Mennonite Church, Linville, Va., acknowledged that staff have been aware of reports of an abusive relationship with congregation member Luke Hartman since August 2014.

On Jan. 8, Hartman was charged with solicitation of prostitution. Hartman’s trial was due to start March 15, but, according to WHSV news in Harrisonburg, Va., new information was received from Virginia State Police, and the trial was rescheduled for March 29. Hartman served as Vice President for Enrollment at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, a role he resigned from on Jan. 12. He was also a frequent speaker at Mennonite Church USA conventions.

The Lindale letter states that a member of the congregation responded to a Jan. 11 statement from the Anabaptist-Mennonite chapter of the Survivors Network of Abuse by Priests (SNAP Menno) inviting any individuals who may have experienced abusive behavior from Hartman or others within Mennonite Church USA to report the behavior to police, local crisis centers, civil attorneys or independent survivor groups like SNAP.

“Someone from our congregation contacted SNAP about an abusive relationship that was brought to our attention in August 2014,” said the Lindale letter. The letter states that pastors have been in contact with both the victim and Hartman and that “there were disciplinary measures set in place and professional counseling was provided.” No further details about these measures were provided in the letter.

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MINNESOTA
St. Catherine University

Today is an exciting day for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis! Together with the entire St. Catherine University community, I am delighted to welcome Archbishop Bernard Hebda to his permanent appointment as Archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis! Our excitement and happiness on learning this news must reach all the way from Rome, where St. Catherine students, campus ministry leaders, Chaplain Fr. John Forliti, and I are celebrating Holy Week at the liturgies of our Holy Father, Pope Francis.

We look forward to welcoming Archbishop Hebda to our cities on a permanent basis and to working with him as spiritual leader of our Archdiocesan and University faith communities.

Already encouraged by his intelligent and wise engagement over the past months, the University looks forward to many fruitful years of engagement with our new Archbishop. Since his arrival in our Archdiocese some months ago, Archbishop Hebda has worked tirelessly to address the many challenges we face and has been an enthusiastic, pastoral and thoughtful supporter of our mission at St. Catherine and of my service as president. Notably, Archbishop Hebda has encouraged St. Catherine’s commitment to social justice, and offered me counsel and direction as we work to strengthen our Catholic identity.

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ARIZONA
Fox 13

[with video]

BY MARK GREEN AND LAUREN STEINBRECHER

WINDOW ROCK, Ariz. — Two members of the Navajo Nation have sued The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, alleging the church placed Native American children in Mormon foster homes where they were sexually abused and that LDS leaders did not take adequate steps to protect those children.

The lawsuit, filed in Navajo Nation District Court on March 22, names The Corporation of the President of the LDS Church, The Corporation of the Presiding Bishop of the LDS Church, LDS Family Services and the LDS Church itself.

The allegations stem from a foster care program formerly carried out by the LDS Church and its subsidiaries called the “Indian Placement Program” or the “Lamanite Placement Program” (LPP). The two plaintiffs, a brother and sister, state they and another sibling experienced abuse while in the program in Utah from 1976-1983.

“It was kind of a series of ongoing sexual abuse situations of varying degrees while in this program,” said Craig Vernon, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs.

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ARIZONA
Gephardt Daily

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz., March 24, 2016 (Gephardt Daily) — Two Navajo siblings have filed a lawsuit against the LDS Church alleging they were sexually abused decades ago as children while they were in a church program that placed them with Mormon foster families.

The lawsuit against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints seeks unspecified damages; changes in church polices regarding reports of sexual, including the practice of telling leaders not to testify in cases involving abuse; the creation of a task force to address social and cultural harm to Navajos who were in the Indian Student Placement Program; and a written apology.

The lawsuit was filed Tuesday in Navajo Nation court.

Attorney Billy Keeler said the brother and sister, his clients, told at least two leaders about the abuse, but nothing to protect the children while they were in the program, in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

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MINNESOTA
The Catholic Spirit

Maria Wiering | March 24, 2016

Auxiliary Bishop Cozzens calls appointment ‘an early Easter’

“Brilliant.” “Humble.” “Holy.” The words were used repeatedly by leaders in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to describe Archbishop Bernard Hebda, whom Pope Francis named their archbishop March 24.

Father Charles Lachowitzer, the archdiocese’s moderator of the curia, said the news brought him “great joy.”

“As we were going around doing the listening sessions a few months ago, the archbishop’s relationship with the people and his graciousness, his kindness, his humility, his faith, all of these things were immediately responded to by many of the people, saying ‘Can we keep you here?’” he said. “From those first listening sessions it was obvious that if he were selected by the Holy Father to be our next archbishop, we couldn’t have done any better.”

Since June 2015, Archbishop-designate Hebda has been serving as the archdiocese’s apostolic administrator, a position he assumed was temporary, as he was previously named coadjutor archbishop of Newark and expecting to lead that archdiocese upon the retirement of Archbishop John Myers.

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MINNESOTA
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Mar. 24, 2016

Bernard Hebda woke up Tuesday morning a prelate with two temporary titles — apostolic administrator to the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese and coadjutor archbishop in Newark, N.J. — attached to his name. By the day’s end, a third replaced both: archbishop-designate of St. Paul-Minneapolis.

“I am humbled once again by Pope Francis’ confidence in me in calling me to this local church, which has been so influential and important in the upper Midwest,” he said during a press conference held inside the Cathedral of St. Paul.

The announcement Thursday morning of Hebda’s appointment as the 11th archbishop of the Twin Cities answered one question: Who would succeed Archbishop John Nienstedt who resigned last June under the shadow of an ongoing clergy sexual abuse scandal and related bankruptcy filing and criminal charges. But the announcement raised another: Who will Hebda, no longer just a passerby in the historically important archdiocese, become as a now-rooted resident?

“How will he present himself as an archbishop, now that he’s got the powers of office and permanence?” asked Charles Reid, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis whose said his initial impressions of Hebda have been fairly positive, viewing him as careful and conciliatory. “Will he change now that he’s an archbishop?”

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Times

By Calkins Media

The news couldn’t have been more sickening or disgusting. A grand jury report recently accused two former Altoona-Johnstown Roman Catholic Diocese bishops of covering up or failing to act swiftly enough on sexual abuse claims against more than 50 priests from 1966 until 2011.

The report says the late Bishop James Hogan and former Bishop Joseph Adamec kept filing cabinets with 115,042 secret documents detailing victims’ abuse claims. It tells how church officials transferred the accused priests to other parishes, and intervened when local and state police made inquiries, starting in the mid-1960s.

Three ex-leaders of a Franciscan religious order have been charged in connection with the investigation for allowing a friar who was a known sexual predator to take on jobs, including a position as an athletic trainer at Bishop McCort High School in Johnstown, which enabled him to molest more than 100 children.

The news brought back memories of similar scandals in Boston and Philadelphia, which shocked and outraged Catholics and non-Catholics alike across the country. Catholic Church officials were quick to apologize for the grand jury report, expressing their deep concerns for the victims of abuse.

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FRANCE
Crux

By Amicie Pelissie Du Rausas
Special to Crux March 24, 2016

PARIS – While the French Church does not always live harmoniously with its anti-clerical state and culture, it has been mostly spared the accusations of financial mismanagement and sexual abuse that the Church in other European countries has known.

Our régime of laïcité — a strict separation between Church and state, in which the public square is declared religion-free — has meant, for example, close state supervision over Catholic educational facilities.

Yet as a third case of clerical sex abuse came to light last week in the Archdiocese of Lyon, French Catholics have been wondering if they are not so different after all.

Proceedings opened Jan. 27 against Father Bernard Preynat, charged with “sexual aggression and rape of minors” between 1986 and 1991 at Lyon’s Saint-Luc parish, where he ran a large Catholic Scout group over two decades. (See a French op-ed in La Croix and a report in Le Monde.)

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ILLINOIS
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Gerald “Fr. Jerry” Simonelli was ordained for the Joliet diocese in 1990. He assisted at parishes in West Chicago, Bolingbrook and Glen Ellyn, then pastored parishes in Romeoville, Addison and Bloomingdale. He was removed from ministry in May 2010 after a 21-yr-old man accused him of “inappropriate conduct” that occurred more than two years previously. Bishop Sartain stated Simonelli’s removal was due to “homosexual activity” and that he was “unfaithful to his vows on more than one occasion.”Simonelli’s name appears on the diocese’s June 24, 2015 list of “Diocesan Priests With A Credible Allegation(s) of Sexual Abuse of Minors Made Against Them While Serving in the Joliet Diocese.” The list notes there to be a continuing canonical process.

Ordained: 1990

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Jessica Mazzola | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

NEWARK — News that Archbishop Bernard Hebda has left New Jersey for good has left Catholics in the Garden State wondering who will eventually lead the state’s largest Archdiocese.

“I was devastated,” Fr. Alex Santora of Our Lady of Grace in Hoboken said of how he felt when he learned of Pope Francis’s decision Thursday to appoint Hebda the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.

“I think I can speak for a lot of priests that I’ve talked to who feel that (Hebda) raised the expectations for what could be in our Archdiocese.”

Hebda came to New Jersey in 2013, when Pope Francis named him Coadjutor Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Newark, and successor to current Archbishop John J. Myers, who is expected to retire in July.

Hebda’s personality and style, Santora said, instilled a “sense of excitement” amongst local clergy members about the impending “transition” to Hebda’s leadership. “Now, that has been dashed.”

Last year, while still serving in Newark, Hebda was appointed to also serve as Apostolic Administrator in the Twin Cities. Hebda was brought in amidst a sex scandal in Minnesota that saw the resignation of former Archbishop John Nienstedt. The appointment led to speculation that Hebda would not remain in Newark, though he assured local Catholics that the post was temporary.

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AUSTRALIA
Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal

VCAT REFERENCE NO. J144/2015

CATCHWORDS
Application by Legal Services Commissioner pursuant to s 4.4.13(2) and (3)(a) of the Legal Profession Act 2004; Two charges of professional misconduct pursuant to s 4.4.3(1)(a) or alternatively misconduct at common law pursuant to s 4.4.3(1), Guilty Plea to unsatisfactory professional conduct only, Statement of Agreed Facts. Professional misconduct proven.

APPLICANT
Victorian Legal Services Commissioner

RESPONDENT
Alex Lewenberg

WHERE HELD
Melbourne

BEFORE
Judge Jenkins, Vice President

HEARING TYPE
Hearing

DATE OF HEARING
15 March, 2016

DATE OF ORDER
23 March 2016

CITATION:
Victorian Legal Services Commissioner v Lewenberg (Legal Practice) [2016] VCAT 439
ORDERS

PRELIMINARY ORDER

Pursuant to s 17 of the Open Courts Act 2013, the Tribunal orders that any material or information arising from this proceeding which could reasonably lead to the identification of the name of the Complainant, also referred to as AVB, shall not be published or broadcast or be made available to the public. In making this Order the Tribunal is satisfied that it would be contrary to the public interest for the name of the Complainant to be published.

FINDINGS

The Tribunal finds Alex Lewenberg guilty of Charge 1, namely, that he engaged in professional misconduct within the meaning of s 4.4.4(a) of the Legal Profession Act 2004, in that the conduct of Alex Lewenberg on 6 September 2011 at the Magistrates’ Court of Victoria at Melbourne, namely, uttering certain words to which he admitted, constituted conduct consisting of a contravention of Rule 30 of the Profession Conduct and Practice Rules 2005.

The Tribunal finds Alex Lewenberg guilty of Charge 3, namely, that he engaged in professional misconduct within the meaning of s 4.4.4(a) of the Legal Profession Act 2004, in that the conduct of Alex Lewenberg on 6 October 2011 at 340 Little Lonsdale Street in Melbourne, namely, uttering the words in a telephone conversation, to which he admitted, was conduct consisting of a contravention of Rule 30 of the Profession Conduct and Practice Rules 2005.

The hearing is adjourned to 6 April 2015 to hear submissions in respect of determinations.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

An Australian bishop has called on Pope Francis to request the resignation of every bishop who has failed to properly address cases of child sexual abuse.

Roman Catholic Bishop Geoffrey Robinson said there needed to be “death and resurrection” in the church this Easter to restore trust and credibility.

“Every bishop who has ever been responsible for the abuse of a child, because he did not do what he should have done, should be asked to resign,” Bishop Robinson, now retired, said in an interview with ABC Radio religion specialist Noel Debien.

His suggestion would mean the resignation of hundreds of bishops worldwide.

“The church has lost almost all credibility,” he said.

“It has got to be seen to be confronting anything and everything which has contributed.”

Bishop Robinson also said the church must “get rid of obligatory celibacy” and called for a shift in the role of women in the church.

“Women must be brought into every level of the church in a far, far greater way than they are,” he said.

He also said Catholic teaching on sexuality must be “looked at again from the beginning” — including homosexuality.

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NEW YORK
Shawangunk Journal

Editorial

I finally saw this year’s Oscar-winning Best Picture, Spotlight, all about the Boston Globe’s lengthy and airtight investigation into the predator priest scandals that have racked the Catholic Church, and especially the ways in which dioceses were part of a systemic cover up. One leaves the theater reminded of the continuing importance of journalism as a key tool of not only democracy, but the maintenance of human decency. But also of the difficulties involved in the job.

Three things shone through for me and others I know who are in this business. First, the frustrations involved in getting things right when dealing with truly serious stories. Sometimes you have to hold on to smaller pieces of information, and keep working one’s material to get at something bigger. Other stories happen which force one to put the story dearest to one’s heart on hold. And thirdly, we are all human, and all prone to letting big news connections slip by us because we don’t recognize their importance, or can’t handle them at certain points in our lives. Yet with work and honesty, they do find the light of day, eventually.

In other words, finding and telling truths is an ongoing process. It takes time.

All of this reminds us of some of the bigger stories that have surfaced around here in recent years, as well as some that need the attention of a full investigative team… or at least enough time and smarts to make them work. And how with each of these stories, there are subjects that look forward, as well as those that if followed overturn our shared pasts. And convoluted presents.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Jessica Mazzola | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

NEWARK — A papal appointment to a post halfway across the country has got local Catholics questioning who the next leader of the state’s largest archdiocese will be.

Pope Francis announced Thursday his appointment of Archbishop Bernard Hebda as the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. Hebda had previously served as the Coadjutor Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Newark, and was scheduled to replace Archbishop John J. Myers when he retires.

In a statement released Thursday, Myers said he was surprised by the appointment.

“Our Holy Father Pope Francis has often said that our God is a God of Surprises,” Myers said in a statement. “Today is surely a perfect example of that.”

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GUAM
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Agana

Archdiocese of Agana Statement

The Department of Land Management issued new Certificate of Titles on March 15, 2016, once again confirming that the legal and sole owner of the Redemptoris Mater Seminary of Guam in Yona (former Hotel Accion property) is the Archbishop of Agana.

The Department of Land Management issued Certificates of Title Nos. 136387, 136388, 136389 and 136390 for the purpose of memorializing the Declaration of Deed Restriction recorded on November 22, 2011 to the Redemptoris Mater Missionary Seminary of Guam and the Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores Theological Institute. As part of this formal process, the Director of Land Management and Registrar of Titles, Michael Borja, determined that the proper way to proceed with this memorialization was to cancel the former Certificates of Title Nos. 135922, 135923, 135924 and 135925, which did not include the Declaration of Deed Restriction, and issue new Certificates of Title. The issuance of the new Certificates of Titles did not change the Department of Land Management’s certification of ownership; the Archbishop of Agana is the owner of the property, and the certification is dated March 15, 2016.

While dissenters and opposers of the Archbishop have claimed that the now cancelled certificates of title were “bogus”, the Department of Land Management diligently acted to address the concerns over the memorialization. According to Monsignor David C. Quitugua, Vicar General, “The release of these new certificates did not change the ownership of the Seminary Property, but more accurately describes all the pertinent information recorded; the owner of the Seminary property is the Archbishop of Agana, A Corporation Sole; that has not changed since the day the property was acquired for the seminary.”

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Gaynor Dumat-ol Daleno, gdumat-ol@guampdn.com March 25, 2016

The Department of Land Management’s cancellations and issuance of new certificates of title for a former hotel didn’t change the property’s ownership, according to the Archdiocese of Agana in a recent statement.

The statement was released in connection with the former Accion Hotel, which once was valued at between $40 million and $57 million before it was donated to the Archdiocese of Agana and turned into a seminary.

“While dissenters and opposers of the archbishop have claimed that the now canceled certificates of title were ‘bogus,’ the Department of Land Management diligently acted to address the concerns,” according to the March 18 archdiocesan statement.

“The Archbishop of Agana is the owner of the property, and the certification is dated March 15, 2016,” according to the archdiocesan statement.

The March 18 statement from the archdiocese is in response to recent concerns raised by Robert Klitzkie, a former part-time judge and former two-term island senator.

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WASHINGTON
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

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

The settlement of more clergy sex abuse and cover up cases in Seattle shows how little is changing in the Catholic hierarchy. Deeply-held secrets about clerics who commit and conceal sexual violence are pried loose and made public only when brave victims seek justice in court. Without continuous pressure from determined outsiders, prelates like Archbishop Peter Sartain continue to sit on secrets that could make kids safer, expose the truth and bring real healing.

We hope the courageous women who were sexually assaulted by Fr. Michael Cody feel some long-overdue, sorely-needed and well-deserved comfort for their achievement: pulling back more of the on-going, destructive secrecy that still pervades the Catholic hierarchy. We applaud them for finding the strength to report their suffering and having the wisdom to seek justice in court.

It’s worth noting that Catholic bishops have claimed, in hundreds of horrific cases, that they put predator priests back on the job because therapists told them they could.” The Cody files show that this isn’t always true.

We hope that every single person who saw, suspected or suffered child sex crimes and cover ups in Catholic churches or institutions – especially in Seattle – will protect kids by calling police, get help by calling therapists, expose wrongdoers by calling journalists, get justice by calling attorneys, and get comfort by calling support groups like ours. This is how kids will be safer, adults will recover, criminals will be prosecuted and cover ups will be deterred and the truth will surface.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

By Tim Harlow and Jean Hopfensperger Star Tribune staff writers MARCH 24, 2016

The Rev. Bernard Hebda has been named archbishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, church officials announced Thursday morning.

Hebda has been the acting leader of the archdiocese since June 15, after Archbishop John Nienstedt resigned in the wake of a clergy sex abuse scandal, a series of related lawsuits and investigations, and a bankruptcy filing.

Hebda, 56, was appointed Thursday morning by Pope Francis.

Hebda said he was “humbled by this expression of Pope Francis’s confidence and honored to serve this Archdiocese with its rich history and its long tradition of extraordinary priests, zealous religious and empowered laity, all working to put their faith into action.”

Hedba has been splitting his time between the Twin Cities and Newark, N.J., where he was on track to succeed Archbishop John J. Myers this year. Instead, Hebda will oversee the Twin Cities archdiocese.

In a news conference Thursday morning, Hebda said when he flew into the Twin Cities Tuesday he had no idea he would be named archbishop designate today. “I would have brought a better suit and made sure I had haircut,” he joked.

Archbishop Bernard Hebda greeted parishioners after celebrating his first mass at the St. Paul Cathedral Sunday July 12, 2015 in St. Paul.

Archbishop Bernard Hebda greeted parishioners after celebrating his first mass at the St. Paul Cathedral Sunday July 12, 2015 in St. Paul.

He said his nine months as apostolic administrator of the archdiocese has helped him appreciate the archdiocese’s influence and importance in the Upper Midwest, “as well as a taste of those challenges that have molded its recent history.” …

“This is a disappointing choice for an archdiocese that deserves better and by a pope who knows better,” wrote David Clohessy, director of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests).

“Just weeks ago, Hebda stayed silent and did nothing while [former archbishop Nienstedt] quietly moved out of state and resumed ministry, causing a firestorm of justifiable outrage and controversy.” Nienstedt had been asked to help a parish priest in Michigan, but left after his connection to the Twin Cities abuse scandal was revealed.

“He will do little or nothing to better protect kids and expose those who commit or conceal sex crimes and misconduct in Minnesota,” Clohessy said.

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PITTSBURG (PA)
Tribune-Review

ST. PAUL, Minn. — A Pittsburgh native who has been the interim leader of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has been officially appointed to the position, the Vatican announced Thursday.

Archbishop Bernard Hebda, 56, has been overseeing the archdiocese since Archbishop John Nienstedt resigned last year, after prosecutors filed criminal charges against the archdiocese for failing to protect children from a priest later convicted of molesting two boys. Nienstedt denied wrongdoing in that case and was not charged.

Hebda’s installation Mass is scheduled for May 13.

David Zubik, Bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, said in a statement, “As a native of the church of Pittsburgh, Bernie is much loved and admired by the faithful, the religious, the deacons, and the priests of the diocese. He will lead the Church of St. Paul-Minneapolis with great pastoral zeal and with a huge loving heart.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has been under fire since 2013, when a former church official went public with concerns about its handling of abuse cases. That same year, a state law opened a three-year window for victims of past sex abuse to file lawsuits. The archdiocese has declared bankruptcy and more than 400 victims have come forward.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

“Physical and sexual abuse on an industrial scale… remained unchecked for decades” at children’s homes in south London, a report by victims says.

The report detailing allegations by 600 people will go before the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.

At a preliminary hearing earlier, the Shirley Oaks Survivors Association was given “core participant status”.

Its leader Raymond Stevenson said child abuse in the Lambeth Council-run homes had been a “reversal to the dark ages”.

The abuse had resulted in the “shedding of thousands of tears”, he said, and called it a “shame on the establishment” and “institutionalised evil”.

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MINNESOTA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, March 24

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, 314 645 5915 home, davidgclohessy@gmail.com)

The new Twin Cities archbishop is a slightly friendlier version of the old Twin Cities archbishop.

This is a disappointing choice for an archdiocese that deserves better and by a pope who knows better.

Just weeks ago, Hebda stayed silent and did nothing while his corrupt predecessor quietly moved out of state and resumed ministry, causing a firestorm of justifiable outrage and controversy.

Just three months ago, we urged Hebda to reach out to victims of a predator priest whose conviction was upheld. He ignored us:

[SNAP

And consider these developments from just six months ago in Hebda’s home diocese:

[Star Tribune]

Consider Hebda’s depressing defense of a corrupt colleague’s opulent and expensive home:

[NorthJersey.com]

Consider his obsession with public relations and with promoting complacency:

[SNAP]

Hebda’s the consummate insider, a savvy politician. He’s a typical Francis appointee – a glad-handing milquetoast who toes the party line with a smile instead of a scold. He benefits from being judged by the extraordinarily low bar set by Archbishop John Nienstedt.

But he will do little or nothing to better protect kids and expose those who commit or conceal sex crimes and misconduct in Minnesota.

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FRANCE
Telesur

The Cardinal has been caught up in a scandal over abuses that took place 25 years ago, long before he became archbishop of Lyon in 2002.

A French cardinal accused of covering up the sexual abuse of children by priests apologized to victims during a mass, his diocese said Thursday .

Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, quoting Pope Francis, said Wednesday he was “obliged to assume all the evil committed by some priests and personally apologize for the damage they have caused by sexually abusing children.”

He said he apologized even though he was not in power in the diocese “when the abominable acts took place”.

Barbarin has been caught up in a scandal over abuses that took place 25 years ago, long before he became archbishop of Lyon in 2002.

A priest in his diocese, Bernard Preynat, was charged in January after victims came forward with claims he had sexually abused Scouts between 1986 and 1991.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 23 March 2016 – The director of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., in response to questions from journalists, confirmed this morning that for some time Pope Francis has expressed his intention to open up for consultation the Vatican archives relating to the period of dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1983). This naturally presupposes the cataloguing of the material.

This task is proceeding in a regular fashion and it is expected to be completed during the coming months, after which the times and conditions for consultation may be studied, in agreement with the Argentine Episcopal Conference. So far, Fr. Lombardi explained, the intention is to respond to specific legal questions requested by rogatory or matters of a humanitarian nature.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency

Vatican City, Mar 24, 2016 / 07:48 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis has named Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda as the new head of the Minneapolis-St. Paul archdiocese – a surprise move for the archbishop, who was expected to take over the diocese of Newark in July.

In a March 24 press release, Archbishop Hebda said that he was “humbled by this expression of Pope Francis’s confidence.”

He also said he was honored to serve in a diocese with such a “rich history and its long tradition of extraordinary priests, zealous Religious and empowered laity, all working to put their faith into action.”

Archbishop Hebda has been serving as apostolic administrator for the Minneapolis archdiocese since June 15, 2015, when the former archbishop, John C. Nienstedt, stepped down after the diocese was charged with mishandling cases of child sexual abuse.

On June 5, 2015, the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis was charged with six counts of failing to protect minors, specifically with regard to the actions of the now-former priest Curtis Wehmeyer, who is currently serving a five year prison sentence for sexually abusing two minors and possession of child pornography.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

March 25, 2016

Meredith Doig

Religious groups are not taxable. No wonder there’s no transparency in how their billions of dollars are spent.

Whether or not you are a practising Christian, Easter is a time to think about religious traditions.

The ongoing proceedings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse​ and the cover-ups so long perpetrated within religious institutions are added reason to do so this year. So, too, is the trial at the Vatican of two investigative journalists for accessing secret Vatican documents about financial corruption and incompetence.

There’s a lot to reflect on here, for the religious and the non-religious alike. Right now, we are also embroiled in the politics of the forthcoming federal budget and no issue is more important or more entangled in obfuscation than that of tax reform. The confluence of these things is worth considering, because the tax-exempt status of religious organisations in this country is a much-neglected topic and one which ought finally to be seriously addressed.

I believe in the application of reason to public policy, as distinct from the application of lobbying by special interest groups. But the application of reason requires considerable transparency. Special interests work hard to shield their interests from the public gaze and lobby behind closed doors.

Religious organisations are among such special interest groups. Under Australian law, religious organisations are exempt from taxation. This exempts something of the order of $30 billion a year from taxation. The Catholic Church accounts for half of that. It is bigger than all the others combined, pulling in about $16 billion annually.

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UNITED STATES
Baptist News

OPINION

BILL LEONARD | MARCH 24, 2016

“This was like God showing up.” That’s how one victim of clergy sexual abuse in the Boston archdiocese described his family’s response when a priest came to visit. He added fatefully, “When a priest paid attention to you it was a big deal.” Unfortunately, in this case and hundreds like it, such attention was actually a way of “grooming” Catholic children for abuse.

Those stories come tumbling out in the Oscar-winning motion picture Spotlight, an account of a group of investigative reporters at the Boston Globe who uncovered multiple cases of clergy abuse and the efforts of certain members of the church hierarchy to cover up the practices year after year. It is a lesson in ecclesiastical evil, individual and institutional, with implications for all Christian communions.

Spotlight is the name of the Globe’s four-person research team. Lapsed Catholics all, they were charged by the paper’s new editor, Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) with in-depth research into accounts of clerical abuse surfacing in the Boston area. The reporters, led by Walter (Robby) Robinson (Michael Keaton), initially resisted, suggesting that it was only a case of “a bad apple” priest or two. They warned the new editor that his willingness to sue the archdiocese in order to secure church records would be political suicide in a Catholic town like Boston. And indeed it was. In one of many powerful scenes, Baron visits with Boston prelate Bernard Cardinal Law (Len Cariou), who gives the Jewish editor a copy of the Catechism and tells him: “This city flourishes when its great institutions work together.” To which Baron responds that newspapers are at their best when they “stand alone.”

Ultimately, the Spotlight team digs in, documenting case after case of serial child molestation by multiple priests, most moved from parish to parish, or sent to church-based half-way houses, “protected” by church officials. Small cash settlements were provided, paid after pledges of secrecy from the families. In the end, their Pulitzer Prize winning story was released in 2002, detailing the extent of the abuse and tracing protectionist actions all the way to Cardinal Law. Forced out of his archbishopric, Law was transferred to Rome and installed as Archpriest at the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, an office he holds to this day.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Mar. 24, 2016

VATICAN CITY
Pope Francis has appointed a new leader for a Catholic archdiocese in the American Midwest where mismanagement of clergy sexual abuse cases led to the dual early resignations of the former archbishop and an auxiliary bishop last June.

Archbishop Bernard Hebda will now lead the archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in Minnesota, canceling his former appointment to take over the archdiocese of Newark, N.J., in July.

Hebda, a Pennsylvania native, had been serving as the apostolic administrator of the Minnesota archdiocese since Archbishop John Nienstedt’s resignation in June 2015.

Nienstedt resigned alongside Auxiliary Bishop Lee Piché ten days after prosecutors in his archdiocese brought criminal charges against the archdiocese “for its failure to protect children.”

Hebda’s new appointment comes as a bit of a surprise. He had previously been appointed as the coadjutor archbishop in Newark, meaning he would have automatically replaced current Newark Archbishop John Myers as head of the archdiocese at his retirement, expected to come when he turns 75 in July.

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

Dave Aeikens

Bernard Hebda will stay as the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.

Pope Francis on Thursday morning appointed Hebda, who has been Apostolic Administrator of the archdiocese since June 15, according to a news release from the archdiocese.

Hebda, who had been a Coadjutor Archbishop in New Jersey, came to Minnesota after the resignation of Archbishop John Nienstedt after criticism of how the archdiocese handled allegations of sexual abuse by priests.

Hebda’s installation Mass is planned for 2 p.m. May 13 at the Cathedral of St. Paul.

When Hebda arrived he had to rebuild trust among those he served. He conducted his first mass in July and he met with the priests in Minnesota.

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MINNESOTA
KARE

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Pope Francis announced Thursday morning that Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda has been appointed as Archbishop of the archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Hebda has been serving as Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese since June of 2015, since former Archbishiop John Nienstadt stepped down in the midst of a clergy sex abuse scandal. The appointment was intended to be temporary, but the Vatican apparently believes Hebda is the man

In a news release Hebda said he was “humbled by this expression of Pop Francis’ confidence and honored to serve this Archdiocese with its rich history and its long tradition of extraordinary priests, zealous Religious and empowered laity, all working to put their faith into action.”

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NEW JERSEY
NorthJersey.com

BY STEFANIE DAZIO
STAFF WRITER

The priest who had been expected to take over the archdiocese of Newark has been appointed by the pope to become the next archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis.

Bernard A. Hebda had been appointed coadjutor or assistant archbishop of Newark in late 2013. It was believed he would take over the Newark archdiocese when the current archbishop, John J. Myers, reaches the mandatory retirement age of 75.

Hebda wrote a letter to his new archdiocese, where he had served as apostolic administrator about nine months ago while Pope Francis mulled over the naming of a new archbishop there.

“The Pope and the Holy Spirit evidently had different plans for me than I had anticipated, and I am humbled and honored to be named your shepherd,” Hebda said.

It wasn’t immediately clear who would take over Newark’s archdiocese.

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MINNESOTA
Beaumont Enterprise

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The interim leader of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has been officially appointed to the position, the Vatican announced Thursday.

Archbishop Bernard Hebda, 56, has been overseeing the archdiocese since Archbishop John Nienstedt resigned last year, after prosecutors filed criminal charges against the archdiocese for failing to protect children from a priest later convicted of molesting two boys. Nienstedt denied wrongdoing in that case and was not charged.

Hebda’s installation Mass is scheduled for May 13.

The archdiocese has been under fire since 2013, when a former church official went public with concerns about its handling of abuse cases. That same year, a state law opened a three-year window for victims of past sex abuse to file lawsuits. The archdiocese has declared bankruptcy and more than 400 victims have come forward.

“I know from my nine months in the Archdiocese that there is much work yet to be done to overcome the significant challenges we continue to face, but I am firm in my conviction that the Lord is truly present here, even in our struggles,” Hebda said in a letter to congregants. “The exceptional staff and leadership team at the Archdiocese, along with our strong priests, committed religious (order members), and dynamic lay leaders are all reasons for great hope.”

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MINNESOTA
Canonical Consultation

03/24/2016

Jennifer Haselberger

In announcements sent out early this morning, temporary administrator Bernard Hebda informed the priests and faithful of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis that he has been given the job of Archbishop permanently. The decision of the Holy Father was made while the Archdiocese continues its meanderings through bankruptcy, while the Archdiocese is battling criminal charges against it as a corporation, and in the wake of several concerning decisions by Hebda including his failure to prevent Archbishop Nienstedt from assuming a ministerial position at a parish in Michigan, the delayed removal of a priest under investigation for possible possession of child pornography, his decision to return Reverend Paul Moudry to ministry, and his being caught off guard when criminal charges were filed against the Franciscans.

Here is Archbishop Hebda’s statement to priests:

Dear Brothers,

Please pray for me as I prepare to begin my service as the next Archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. I am humbled by the Holy Father’s confidence in me and pray that I will be able to be a shepherd who imitates the One who “came to serve rather than to be served,” as we will remember at this evening’s Mass of the Lord’s Supper. I particularly hope and pray that I as bishop will be able to be the “father, brother and friend” that Saint John Paul envisioned in Pastores Gregis

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NEW JERSEY
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Newark

Our Holy Father Pope Francis has often said that our God is a God of Surprises.

Today is surely a perfect example of that.

I have been both privileged and blessed to have worked closely with Archbishop Bernard Hebda here in Newark over the last two and a half years. And I also can say that I have been doubly blessed because of our strong personal relationship that began when he was a Seminarian at the Pontifical North American College.

For more than two decades we have shared many common ministries – from service to the seminarians at the Pontifical North American College and on the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts in Rome, to our roles as Shepherds of dioceses and members of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. He is a great Priest, and a great Bishop.

While it may have been difficult for him at times to manage the travel and commitments of serving in two large Archdioceses these past months, he embraced this call from the Holy See willingly and prayerfully. His tireless, positive approach to dealing with the challenges presented him will be one of the graces that he will share with the people of the Twin Cities.

In our many conversations about what we had both assumed would be a temporary assignment in St. Paul-Minneapolis, Archbishop Hebda has always spoken with great affection and admiration for the people of St. Paul-Minneapolis – his new local Church. The parishioners and general community of the Twin Cities have experienced what the people of Newark already have come to know – a happy spiritual leader who loves people, loves priests and Religious, and who loves God and His Church.

The people of this local Church of Newark are truly grateful for all that he has done here since 2013, and he will be missed. At the same time, we pray that God will continue to bless him as he enters this new chapter in a life of service to the Church as the new Shepherd of this local Church of St. Paul-Minneapolis.

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date: Thursday, March 24, 2016

Source: Tom Halden, Director of Communications

Today at 6:00 a.m. local time, Pope Francis formally announced Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda’s appointment as Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. Archbishop Hebda has been serving as Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese since June 15, 2015. During that time, he has also been serving the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey, as Coadjutor Archbishop, and was scheduled to replace Archbishop John J. Myers when he is expected to retire in July.

Upon being told of his appointment, Archbishop Hebda said he was “humbled by this expression of Pope Francis’s confidence and honored to serve this Archdiocese with its rich history and its long tradition of extraordinary priests, zealous Religious and empowered laity, all working to put their faith into action.”

In addition to serving the Archdioceses of Newark and Saint Paul and Minneapolis, Archbishop Hebda was Bishop of the Diocese of Gaylord, Michigan and has served at the Vatican and in parishes in his hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Archbishop Hebda’s Installation Mass is scheduled for 2:00 p.m. on Friday, May 13, the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima, at the Cathedral of Saint Paul.

Because today marks the beginning of the solemn time of the Triduum in the Catholic Church, Archbishop Hebda will hold a brief news conference at 9:00 a.m. at the Cathedral of Saint Paul, located at 239 Selby Avenue.

For more information on Archbishop Hebda’s appointment and background, go to www.archspm.org/newabp and www.thecatholicspirit.com.

Read the Statement of The Most Reverend John J. Myers, Archbishop of Newark, On the Appointment of The Most Reverend Bernard A. Hebda As Ninth Archbishop of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date: Thursday, March 24, 2016

Source: Archbishop Bernard Hebda, Archbishop-Designate

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

When I arrived in Minnesota for the first time last June, I was but a visitor — assigned as Apostolic Administrator to help with the operations of the Archdiocese until Pope Francis named a new Archbishop. In the nine months since then, I have been blessed to witness your deep faith and your commitment to Christ’s Church, His people, and the Eucharist. I consider many of you friends.

That is why it is with joy that I tell you of Pope Francis’ decision to appoint me as the next Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. The Pope and the Holy Spirit evidently had different plans for me than I had anticipated, and I am humbled and honored to be named your shepherd.

I know from my nine months in the Archdiocese that there is much work yet to be done to overcome the significant challenges we continue to face, but I am firm in my conviction that the Lord is truly present here, even in our struggles. The exceptional staff and leadership team at the Archdiocese, along with our strong priests, committed religious, and dynamic lay leaders are all reasons for great hope. You all seem to work tirelessly to serve Christ and His people no matter where they are found and for that I am most grateful.

It has already been an honor serving you and I very much look forward to continuing to serve you and this vibrant community for as long as the Lord sees fit.

Now more than ever, I will be counting on your prayers and support. Be assured of my prayers for you, your families, and this local Church.
Sincerely in Christ,

Most Reverend Bernard A. Hebda
Apostolic Administrator and Archbishop-Designate
Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

By Tim Harlow Star Tribune MARCH 24, 2016

The Rev. Bernard Hebda has been named archbishop of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, church officials announced Thursday morning.

Hebda has been the acting leader of the archdioceses since June 15, 2015 after Archbishop John Nienstedt resigned in the wake of a clergy sex abuse scandal, a series of related lawsuits and investigations, and a bankruptcy filing.

Hebda, 56, was appointed Thursday morning by Pope Francis.

Hebda said he was “humbled by this expression of Pope Francis’s confidence and honored to serve this Archdiocese with its rich history and its long tradition of extraordinary priests, zealous religious and empowered laity, all working to put their faith into action.”

Hedba has been splitting his time between the Twin Cities and Newark, N.J., where he was on track to succeed Archbishop John J. Myers this year. Instead, Hebda will oversee the Twin Cities archdiocese.

Hebda joined priesthood in 1989 when he was ordained at the St. Paul Cathedral in his native Pittsburgh. In 1996, he was appointed to work in the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts in Rome, which is responsible for the interpretation of the church’s laws, especially the Code of Canon Law. He served in that position until 2009 when he was named as the fourth Bishop of the Diocese of Gaylord, Mich., by Pope Benedict XVI.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

[Victorian Legal Services Commissioner v Lewenberg (Legal Practice) [2016] VCAT 439 (23 March 2016)]

March 23, 2016

Shannon Deery Herald Sun

A VETERAN lawyer who told a child sexual abuse victim that Jews shouldn’t help police prosecute other Jews, regardless of their crimes, has been found guilty of professional misconduct.

In a damning judgment handed down by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal yesterday Alex Lewenberg’s conduct was slammed as “truly shocking”.

The finding could lead to career-ending sanctions for the controversial lawyer who has previously had his practising certificate cancelled for unprofessional conduct.

VCAT acting president Judge Pamela Jenkins said comments made by Mr Lewenberg constituted a most serious breach that had no place in 21st century law.

“For (Mr Lewenberg), as a legal practitioner, to suggest that members of the Jewish community or indeed any community or religious affiliation, should close ranks and decline to assist in the prosecution of charges of this nature is truly shocking,” she said.

“If such a position had been adopted by other Jews, it not only would have had the capacity to hamper the prosecution of a child sex offender but, also, previously, to have allowed Mr Cyprys’ offending to continue for longer than it might otherwise have done.

“It is discreditable for (Mr Lewenberg), practising law as he does in a 21st century secular society, to nevertheless proselytise his misguided concept of religious or cultural solidarity, thus effectively allowing such views to take precedence over his professional obligation to uphold the principle of equality before the law.

“I draw the only reasonable inference that (Mr Lewenberg) not only espouses such views but that he practises law in accordance with them.”

Mr Lewenberg admitted two charges of misconduct at common law, but unsuccessfully contested charges of professional misconduct at a VCAT hearing last week.

It took Judge Jenkins just a week to find him guilty of the charges.

On two separate occasions: the first while in court; and the second during a covertly recorded phone conversation, Mr Lewenberg told a child sexual abuse victim that Jews shouldn’t help prosecute each other.

The Jewish victim had helped police in their prosecution of notorious Jewish paedophile David Cyprys, who Mr Lewenberg was representing at a bail application hearing in 2011.

Cyprys was jailed for the abuse of a string of children aged seven to 17 in the 1980s and 1990s.

During the bail hearing, Mr Lewenberg turned to Cyprys’s father and said: “It is most disappointing when a person who has nothing to do with the case and being a fellow Jew does wilfully seek to hinder another Jew in his defence of criminal charges.”

In a subsequent conversation with the victim, Mr Lewenberg, fresh from representing Cyprys, reiterated that: “I am not exactly delighted that another Yid would assist police against an accused, no matter whatever he is accused of. There is a tradition, if not a religious requirement, that you do not assist against (the people of Abraham).”

Mr Lewenberg did not dispute making the comments, but said they were taken out of context.

The matter will return to court next month to hear submissions in relation to appropriate sanctions for Mr Lewenberg.

In 1989, Mr Lewenberg was fined $3000 and his practising certificate was cancelled for unprofessional behaviour.

A Supreme Court judge found while there was no suggestion Mr Lewenberg had gained financially from the behaviour, he could not be trusted in his dealings with other solicitors.

Mr Lewenberg had behaved disgracefully and dishonestly, had shown no remorse, and was unfit to be a solicitor, the judge said.

But on appeal, the cancellation of Mr Lewenberg’s certificate was reduced from three years to two years.

shannon.deery@news.com.au

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WASHINGTON
Washington Post

[with copy of the letter from a psychiatrist]

Justin Wm. Moyer March 24

After being sued by eight women who alleged they were molested by a priest four decades ago, the Seattle Archdiocese has settled for $9.1 million.

The settlement, reported by the Seattle Times, came Wednesday after a damning psychiatrist’s letter, among other documents, surfaced last year reporting Michael Cody, the priest at the center of the suit, was a pedophile who needed to “be removed from parish work as soon as possible.” The letter, part of correspondence among church officials expressing concerns about Cody, was written in 1962; the women were abused between 1968 and 1975.

“He told me that he was suffering from an abnormal sexual attraction toward young girls,” psychiatrist Albert M. Hurley wrote. “… He has molested at least eight girls twelve years of age or younger. As you know, there have been complaints about his hostility and temper in the various parishes where he has served. He also complains of feelings of severe depression, during which time he prays that God will allow him to die rather than continue this behavior.”

Hurley was explicit about his diagnosis, saying Cody was a pedophile who showed “sadistic tendencies” to boys he knew and talked of killing others and himself.

“It is likely that if external controls on his acting out are made, and this cycle of aggression and depression sufficiently interrupted, then he can once again assume a useful and productive life,” the psychiatrist wrote.

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IOWA
KCCI

[with video]

BOONE, Iowa —A Boone pastor has resigned after meeting with church leaders about allegations from a former member of the church’s youth group.

The pastor has not been criminally charged in connection with the case, but Ames police told KCCI that they are actively investigating what was reported to them and looking for him.

Police said that on Monday a 19-year-old woman came forward about her relationship with Grace Community Church’s Youth Pastor Joel Waltz.

“We believe the misconduct happened over a several year time period. We believe the victim was a minor when some of the acts occurred,” said Ames police spokesman Commander Jason Tuttle.

The girl, whose name has not been released, also reportedly described the relationship in detail to church leaders, saying it started when she was in youth group and continued after she graduated.

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SCOTLAND
The National

MARCH 24TH, 2016

JANICE BURNS

SURVIVORS of historical child abuse have been urged to come forward and share their experiences as a four-year investigation into allegations surrounding youngsters in care launches a call for evidence.

Susan O’Brien QC, chair of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, together with other panel members Glenn Houston and Professor Michael Lamb, made the announcement in Glasgow yesterday and outlined how it will take evidence.

They have already heard from a small number of seriously ill or very elderly survivors but the invitation has now been extended to all victims.

Those who suffered abuse as children in residential or foster care and who wish to provide evidence to the inquiry are being urged to make contact by email, post or, from Tuesday March 29, through freephone number, 0800 0929 300.

O’Brien also confirmed that survivors providing evidence in this way would become known as “applicants”, with the first private evidence-gathering meetings taking place from late April. The word “applicants” has been chosen because these are survivors who have applied to assist the inquiry.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

THE public inquiry into child abuse in state care is set to become the biggest and most expensive in Scottish history.

It was revealed yesterday that Scotland’s Child Abuse Inquiry (CAI) had already cost more than £600,000 in just two months and is predicted to dwarf previous high-profile hearings by millions of pounds.

Launching the first official call for evidence for the inquiry, chairwoman Susan O’Brien QC said: “Be clear from the outset that this is a complex inquiry and it will be expensive.”

One of Scotland’s largest inquiries, investigating C. difficile infections in the Vale of Leven Hospital, cost £10.7 million, while the Penrose inquiry into contaminated blood products cost over £12m.

With estimates based on inquiries elsewhere suggesting there may be more than 50 million pages of evidence to sieve through, a source close to the CAI predicted costs during the hearing’s four-year lifespan will eclipse all that have gone before.

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SCOTLAND
Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry

The Chair of the Inquiry today launched the Inquiry’s first formal call for evidence, inviting survivors of abuse to come forward and share their experiences.

Those who suffered abuse as children in residential or foster care and who wish to provide evidence to the Inquiry are being asked to make contact by email, post or, from Tuesday 29 March, through a dedicated Freephone number, 0800 0929 300.

Survivors who provide evidence in this way will be known as “applicants”. The description “applicants” has been chosen because these are survivors who have applied to assist the Inquiry. The first private evidence gathering meetings will take place from late April.

Applicants will initially have the opportunity to have their evidence heard in private and recorded anonymously by experienced and specially trained lawyers. There will also be public hearings and names can be public if applicants want them to. Rules providing for applications for anonymity have also been published on the Inquiry’s website.

The Inquiry expects public hearings to begin in November 2016, with the first looking at the current provision of psychological support for abuse survivors in Scotland.

Ms O’Brien aims to provide an interim report on the first public hearings next year as that may enable the Inquiry to make recommendations that could improve the situation for survivors before publication of the Inquiry’s final report. It is likely that interim reports will be published for subsequent public hearings.

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

BY PAUL WARD

SUSAN O’Brien QC says investigation will address seven decades of abuse of children in faith-based organisations, children’s homes, foster care, long-term hospital care and boarding schools.

THE inquiry into the abuse of children in care is not just to provide answers for survivors but to protect “some Scottish children yet to be born”, its chair said as she launched a call for evidence.

Susan O’Brien QC described the scale of the inquiry as “huge” as it aims to look over seven decades of abuse of children in faith-based organisations, children’s homes, foster care, long-term hospital care and boarding schools.

Some elderly and ill witnesses have started giving evidence to the inquiry team but a formal call for evidence was launched in Glasgow on Wednesday.

Those who wish to provide evidence are being asked to make contact by email, post or through a dedicated freephone number – 0800 0929 300 – from March 29.

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WASHINGTON
KIRO

SEATTLE —
The Archdiocese of Seattle announced Wednesday a settlement has been reached with eight women sexually abused as children by Michael Cody, a priest who served in parishes in Whatcom & Skagit counties between 1968 and 1974.

The eight cases were settled for $9.1 million.

From Archbishop J. Peter Sartain, Archbishop of Seattle >>

“I deeply regret the abuse by Michael Cody against these victims and I hope this monetary settlement, and the counseling we have provided them, will bring healing and give them a measure of closure so they can move forward. It also is my hope that these individuals will accept my offer to meet with me so I can offer them my personal apology.”

Cody, now deceased, was ordained in 1958 and has not served as a priest in the Archdiocese of Seattle since 1979. He was a parish priest throughout Western Washington.

The women who participated in the settlement were abused while Cody served at the following parishes:

St. Charles Parish, Burlington;
Sacred Heart Parish, La Conner;
St. Paul Mission, Swinomish; and,
The Church of the Assumption, Bellingham.

Anyone with knowledge of sexual abuse or misconduct by a member of the clergy is asked to call the hotline at 1-800-446-7762.

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WASHINGTON
KOMO

SEATTLE (AP) – The Seattle Archdiocese will pay just over $9 million to eight women who were sexually abused as children by a former priest in Whatcom and Skagit counties.

The abuse occurred between 1968 and 1974 at churches in Burlington, La Conner, Swinomish and Bellingham, according to a news release from the archdiocese.

Lawyers for the women said in a news release Wednesday they hope the resolution will be part of the healing process.

“I feel privileged to have helped represent these women and to have experienced their courage and determination,” attorney Rand Jack of Bellingham said. “They have stood up for themselves and other victims of sexual abuse.”

Archbishop J. Peter Sartain said in a statement Wednesday he deeply regrets the abuse by Michael Cody, a former priest who died last year.

“Our first priority is the protection of children and healing for past victims,” Sartain said. “It is my firm commitment to build on the good efforts of the past and continue to take steps that will truly help victims of clergy sexual abuse to heal. This $9 million settlement demonstrates our ongoing commitment to acknowledge and address the devastating impact of clergy sexual abuse, and to encourage victims to come forward.”

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UTAH
The Salt Lake Tribune

By ERIN ALBERTY | The Salt Lake Tribune

The Utah Supreme Court on Wednesday said a polygamous sect’s charitable trust can be held liable for Warren Jeffs’ role in forcing a 14-year-old girl to marry.

The ruling sends the case back to a lower court where the former child bride, Elissa Wall, may seek up to $40 million.

“As trustee … Jeffs was called upon to administer the trust in accordance with the doctrines and principles of the FLDS church. Those doctrines and principles, according to [Wall’s] allegations and evidence in the record, included the arrangement of plural, underage marriages,” Wednesday’s ruling states. “Thus, as abhorrent and troubling as this may appear to be, there is a basis in the record for the conclusion that Jeffs’ acts were aimed in part at advancing the interests of the trust as he perceived them.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

March 24, 2016

Cameron Houston and Chris Vedelago

A Bayside church linked to historical clerical abuse and destroyed by an arsonist last year will be rebuilt at an estimated cost of $20 million – almost double the total compensation paid by the Archdiocese of Melbourne to 326 victims of paedophile priests.

The decision to restore St James Church in Gardenvale to its former glory has incensed victims of Father Ronald Pickering, who preyed on more than a dozen boys while he served at the church from 1978 to 1993 before fleeing to Britain.

A property claims manager at Catholic Church Insurance, Effie Valavanis confirmed the restoration of the 123-year-old church was the “largest single property claim in CCI history”.

The project to rebuild the heritage-listed church will include the replacement of the choir loft, organ, stained glass windows and mosaics all destroyed by the deliberately lit fire days before Easter last year.

“It’s disgusting they want to rebuild this place after what happened,” said one of Pickering’s victims, who received an ex gratia payment $50,000 from the Melbourne archdiocese.

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NEVADA
Clay Center Dispatch

HENDERSON, Nev. (AP) — A former Las Vegas-area church pastor already convicted and facing life in prison for sexually assaulting teenage girls in his congregation appeared in court on more charges Wednesday in a similar but new case in Henderson.

Otis Holland remained in custody while Justice of the Peace David Gibson scheduled an April 25 preliminary hearing on 22 felony charges including child sexual assault, lewdness, battery and use of a minor in pornography.

Prosecutor Robert Langford said the new case involves five victims.

Holland, 59, faces sentencing April 6 in Clark County District Court after a jury found him guilty in January of 15 similar charges of child sexual assault and lewdness, but also including conspiracy to destroy evidence and bribing a witness.

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OHIO
Public News Service

March 24, 2016

COLUMBUS, Ohio – An Ohio Supreme Court decision is expected soon that could impact the amount of financial compensation child sexual abuse victims can receive.

Jessica Simpkins was raped at the age of 15 by her church pastor – a man hired by Grace Brethren Church in Sunbury despite the knowledge that he had previously sexually abused two girls.

In a civil suit, a jury awarded Simpkins $3.5 million for pain and suffering, but the amount was reduced to $250,000 due to a state law that caps damages.

She says she’s being re-victimized and took the case to the Ohio Supreme Court.

“I just feel like they’re protecting the church,” she states. “When they had the accusations made against him previous, if they wouldn’t have let him start this church, it would never have happened. ”

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OHIO
Catholic Philly

BY TIM PUET
Catholic News Service

COLUMBUS, Ohio (CNS) — The rector-president of the Pontifical College Josephinum is proposing changes in its admission process in an effort to verify the integrity of applications from those desiring to enter the seminary.

Msgr. Christopher Schreck announced the proposals publicly March 21. He had made the suggestions five days earlier in a memorandum to trustees and officials of the college and to bishops and vocations directors of the many dioceses across the nation who send students to the Josephinum, the only seminary outside of Italy with pontifical status.

The memorandum includes three proposals: creation of a national database for seminary applicants; hiring private investigators to review applications; and two in-person, pre-admission interviews of applicants by college admissions committee members and the college’s director of psychological evaluation and counseling.

The database was proposed several weeks ago by Msgr. Schreck to the executive director of the U.S, Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Clergy, Consecrated life and Vocations. It would track all formal applications to U.S. dioceses, seminaries and religious orders and list the status of such applications as being either admitted, deferred, rejected or withdrawn.

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FRANCE
RFI

A French cardinal accused of covering up the sexual abuse of children by priests apologised to victims during a mass Wednesday, according to the website of his diocese.

Cardinal Philippe Barbarin said he was “obliged to assume all the evil committed by some priests and personally apologise for the damage they have caused by sexually abusing children.”

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – The World Today

ELEANOR HALL: The Melbourne International Comedy Festival kicked off last night, with some traumatic childhood experiences as the subject matter.

Our reporter Rachael Brown was curious about how you could turn this into comedy. She went along to a show about the royal commission into the church to find out.

(Sounds from Cardinal Sins comedy show).

FRANK HAMPSTER: Corporal punishment, he said “you can get a tap on each hand”. You could audibly hear David Ridsdale from the back of the court go, “what about six of the best?” You know?

(Audience laughs)

RACHAEL BROWN: Frank Hampster’s memories from the alter are being laid bare on stage

The former altar boy had never spoken about his sexual assault by a Ballarat priest in the ‘80s, until being called before the royal commission last year.

(Sounds from Cardinal Sins comedy show).

FRANK HAMPSTER (singing): I can’t recall that, that didn’t happen; can you repeat the question once more?

RACHAEL BROWN: How do you find comedy in child sex abuse?

FRANK HAMPSTER: Well comedy was my only means of defence, I was six years old when I was first exposed to, by a person that was a priest in Ballarat.

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WASHINGTON
Seattle Times

By Jessica Lee
Seattle Times staff reporter

Eight women who sued the Seattle Archdiocese alleging sexual abuse by former priest Michael Cody, a known pedophile, have reached a $9.1 million settlement with church officials, the archdiocese announced Wednesday night.

Cody, who died last year, served in various Catholic parishes in Western Washington during the 1960s and into the late 1970s and preyed on children for years, though church officials knew he was sick, according to documents from what’s known as Cody’s “secret file” in the archdiocese.

In a statement released Wednesday night, Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain said he hopes the multimillion-dollar settlement helps bring closure to the women and demonstrates the church’s commitment to address “the devastating impact of clergy sexual abuse, and to encourage victims to come forward.”

Of the eight women, Cody sexually abused six of them while he served at St. Charles Parish in Burlington, Skagit County, from 1968 to 1972. He abused the other two while he was assigned to Assumption Parish in Bellingham from 1972 to 1975, according to a statement from the women’s legal team.

“I deeply regret the abuse by Michael Cody against these victims and I hope this monetary settlement, and the counseling we have provided them, will bring healing and give them a measure of closure so they can move forward,” Sartain said.

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CANADA
The Telegram

Barb Sweet
Published on March 24, 2016

Abuse claims scheduled for month-long trial

Roughly seven decades ago, the Roman Catholic archbishop patted the heads of some boys as he passed them in the hallway. Among them was a St. John’s man who is set to stand up in court in less than two weeks in a case about whether the church had a role in operating the infamous Mount Cashel orphanage.

The Roman Catholic Episcopal Corp. of St. John’s, no longer represented by its longtime local lawyer, is scheduled to head to court April 4 to fight four test cases — representing about 60 claimants of physical and sexual abuse by some members of the Roman Catholic lay order, the Christian Brothers, dating back to the late 1940s, ’50s and mid-1960s.

The second defendant previously named was the New York-based Christian Brothers Institute Inc., but because the organization declared bankruptcy in 2011, that action was discontinued.

The Roman Catholic Church contends it was not involved in the operation of the orphanage.

The St. John’s man’s childhood memory of the archbishop visiting is of that one occasion. But to him, one of the four people testifying about their own alleged abuse at the hands of the Brothers, the role of the archdiocese was clear in the orphanage’s operation. He recalls there was a Roman Catholic parish priest in residence on the property and he held mass every morning and night.

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WASHINGTON
International Business Times

BY VISHAKHA SONAWANE @VISHAKHANS ON 03/24/16

The Seattle Archdiocese will pay $9.1 million to eight women who said they were sexually abused by a former priest as children, according to reports Wednesday. Michael Cody, who died last year, allegedly abused them between 1968 and 1974 at churches in Whatcom and Skagit counties.

Archbishop J. Peter Sartain issued a statement saying he regretted Cody’s actions.

“Our first priority is the protection of children and healing for past victims,” Sartain said in the statement, according to the Associated Press (AP). “It is my firm commitment to build on the good efforts of the past and continue to take steps that will truly help victims of clergy sexual abuse to heal. This $9 million settlement demonstrates our ongoing commitment to acknowledge and address the devastating impact of clergy sexual abuse, and to encourage victims to come forward.”

Cody was named in at least one other lawsuit. Last May, the archdiocese agreed to pay $1.2 million to a woman from Skagit County’s Sedro-Woolley city. She had alleged that Cody molested her in late 1960s and early 1970s. According to the evidence showed during a trial, in 1962 the Seattle archbishop had received a letter from a psychiatrist diagnosing Cody as a pedophile who had sexually abused young girls, the AP reported. Cody was then reportedly transferred from King County to Skagit County.

“The evidence regarding Father Cody is overwhelming, and I don’t think the archdiocese wants more bad publicity,” Michael T. Pfau, a Seattle attorney for the women, reportedly said after the settlement. “The direct involvement of former Archbishop Thomas Connelly in placing this pedophile in parishes with full knowledge of his danger to children is truly disturbing.”

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FRANCE
Yahoo! News

AFP
March 24, 2016

Lyon (AFP) – A French cardinal accused of covering up the sexual abuse of children by priests apologised to victims during a mass on Wednesday, according to the website of his diocese.

Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, quoting Pope Francis, said he was “obliged to assume all the evil committed by some priests and personally apologise for the damage they have caused by sexually abusing children.”

He said he apologised even though he was not in power in the diocese “when the abominable acts took place.”

Barbarin said he met Wednesday with priests, deacons and members of the community in the city of Lyon to discuss a case which even prompted the government to weigh in.

Former victims of a priest accused of sexually abusing them 25 years ago claim Barbarin did not report him or remove him from duty when he learned of his past in 2007.

Barbarin has since faced other accusations of failing to remove two other priests who had histories of sexual abuse.

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NEW MEXICO
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, N.M., March 22, 2016

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

ALBUQUERQUE – After weeks of delays, attorneys for the Diocese of Gallup filed their proposed plan of reorganization in U.S. Bankruptcy Court Monday.

The Gallup Diocese and other participating parties — insurers and Catholic entities — have agreed to contribute more than $21 million to fund the plan, much of which will go to compensate 57 individuals who filed clergy sex abuse claims. Catholic Mutual will also issue an unknown claims certificate for $1.8 million that will insure any abuse claims that may be filed in the future.

Possible additional claims money from an insurance liquidation case may further boost the plan’s total funding to nearly $24 million.

The diocese’s attorneys filed the plan and disclosure statement at 2 a.m. MST Monday, just hours before a hearing in front of U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David T. Thuma. Susan Boswell, the diocese’s lead bankruptcy attorney, had promised Thuma the plan would be on file before Monday’s hearing.

Missing from the proposed plan are any details of the non-monetary terms of the diocese’s settlement agreement with abuse claimants. Non-monetary provisions include commitments by the Diocese of Gallup that can range from public apologies to the public release of abusers’ personnel files.

Boswell, along with James Stang, the legal counsel for the Official Committee of Unsecured Creditors that represents abuse claimants, told Thuma the non-monetary terms were still being negotiated. Both said they hoped the document would be finalized by Friday.

Funding sources

The following is a list of the participating parties and their financial contributions to the plan of reorganization, beginning with the largest funding source.

Catholic Mutual Relief Society of America and Catholic Relief Insurance Company of America, collectively referred to as Catholic Mutual: $11,550,000. Catholic Mutual’s additional $1.8 million Unknown Claims Certificate will have a maximum term of eight years.

Diocese of Gallup: $3,020,000. The diocese sold a number of parcels of real property in two auctions in September. However, according to plan documents, the auction sale of 64 parcels of land that make up La Vega Estates, located near San Rafael, did not close. The loss of that $38,500 sale took a bite out of the diocese’s total auction profits of $160,660.

To raise significant money for its contribution, the Gallup Diocese will obtain a loan from the Catholic Order of Foresters, to be secured by its Gallup Catholic School and Sacred Heart Retreat property. That loan commitment is in the principal amount of at least $2.3 million.

St. John the Baptist Franciscan Province of Cincinnati: $1,850,000. Prior to the mid-1980s, this Franciscan province provided the majority of Franciscan friars to the Gallup Diocese, including some clergy sex abusers.

New Mexico Property and Casualty Insurance Guaranty Association: $1,850,000. The association provides protection to the Gallup Diocese for insurance policies the diocese had with the now insolvent Home Insurance Company.

Catholic Peoples Foundation: $665,000. This nonprofit is a fundraising organization for the Diocese of Gallup.

St. Bonaventure Indian Mission and School: $550,000. This Catholic school and charitable organization became embroiled in a property dispute with the diocese. In exchange for the $550,000 payment, the Gallup Diocese will quit claim the disputed property in Thoreau to St. Bonaventure.

Southwest Indian Foundation: $515,000. This diocesan nonprofit will purchase the Diocese of Gallup’s Catholic Indian Center property and then lease space back to the diocese. According to court documents, the diocese may possibly move all or part of its operations into the CIC property.

Parishes in the Gallup Diocese: $500,000. Local parishes are contributing money to the plan.

Diocese of Phoenix: $300,000. No explanation was provided regarding Phoenix’s participation.

Franciscan Province of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Albuquerque: $300,000. This province has provided Franciscan friars to the diocese since the mid-1980s.

In addition, the diocese’s plan of reorganization may receive money from the Home Insurance Company Liquidation, subject to approval by the New Hampshire court overseeing the liquidation case.

The Diocese of Gallup is seeking approval for its proposed plan from clergy abuse claimants and U.S. Bankruptcy Court. A follow-up hearing has been scheduled for April 26.

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VIRGINIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

Victims’ group discloses a “disturbing letter”
It shows church kept abuse report hidden
Support group blasts Mennonite officials for “secrecy”
SNAP: “Suspected crimes must be reported to police”

WHAT
Holding signs and photos, abuse victims and their supporters will

–disclose a letter showing that church officials hid suspected crimes for a year and a half,
–give a copy of the letter to police, and
–urge anyone who sees, suspects or suffers abusive crimes to tell secular officials, not church officials.

WHEN
Wednesday, March 23 at 1:30 p.m.

WHERE
Outside the Harrisonburg Police Department headquarters, 101 N. Main Street, (corner of W. Elizabeth and N. Main across from the old Post Office), Harrisonburg, VA

WHO
Two members of a support group called SNAP*, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

WHY
On Sunday, officials at Lindale Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg gave congregants a letter about Luke Hartman, a Mennonite church leader and former Eastern Mennonite University vice president who faces charges of soliciting prostitution.

[WHSV]

In the letter, church officials admit that “an abusive relationship . . .was brought to our attention in August 2014” involving a victim “who has been deeply traumatized by Hartman.” They claim they initiated “disciplinary measures” and have been “attempting to hold Luke accountable for his actions.”

Leaders of SNAP believe Lindale pastors and board members “had a civic and moral duty to call police immediately about this report” and “have no business trying to handle alleged crimes quietly and internally.” The group is urging law enforcement to investigate whether church officials broke any laws, especially “their obligation to report suspected violent crimes” to secular officials.

In January, when Hartman was arrested for soliciting prostitution, SNAP urged others who might have seen, suspected or suffered any misdeeds by him to come forward. The group has since heard from others who he hurt. Hartman was caught in a sting operation by Harrisonburg Police Department and Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office.

“We said weeks ago that we believe Eastern Mennonite University, Mennonite Church USA, and Virginia Mennonite Conference officials may have withheld information concerning Hartman’s possible criminal behavior,” said Barbra Graber of Harrisonburg. “Now, tragically, it appears our suspicions may be confirmed. We’re very sad that church superiors apparently gave him continued access to vulnerable students, staff and church members for more than a year.”

“We urge Mennonite church institutions and agencies to use every possible means to aggressively seek out and support victims, witnesses and whistleblowers in reporting to a trained law professional or independent agency what they suspect or know about violent misconduct of any Mennonite church worker, ordained or lay,” said David Clohessy, Executive Director of SNAP. “It’s not enough to prosecute Hartman. Those who conceal reported crimes – as well as those who commit them – must be investigated and, if possible, pursued.”

SNAP is also upset that the Lindale church officials’ letter to congregants made no mention at all of police and prosecutors. “They didn’t call law enforcement officials in 2014 or 2015 and even now, aren’t urging others to call law enforcement,” said Graber. “It’s is incredibly irresponsible, risky and arrogant for Lindale’s pastoral staff and board of elders to try to handle this ‘in house.’ A seminary degree does not train one to conduct criminal investigations.”

*Even though “Priests” is in its title, SNAP, The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org) is open to persons of faith or no faith who were sexually violated by anyone inside or outside a faith community. SNAP is the world’s oldest and largest support group for sexual abuse survivors and their loved ones. It was founded by victims of Catholic priests in 1988 and now has more than 21,000 members in over 79 countries. See the Oscar winning Best Picture, “Spotlight,” about SNAP’s role in helping to uncover the clergy abuse crisis in Boston.

CONTACT: Barbra Graber 540-214-8874, mennonite@SNAPnetwork.org, David Clohessy 314 645 5915 home, 314 566 9790 cell, davidgclohessy@gmail.com, Barbara Dorris 314 503 0003, bdorris@SNAPnetwork.org

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WALES
Anglican Communion News Service

[ACNS] The Church in Wales has joined with other Christian denominations in the country as well as expert and survivor organisations in a new forum to safeguard children and vulnerable adults and to ensure that all churches in Wales are safe places for them.

The Welsh Christian Safeguarding Forum brings together the safeguarding officers from churches throughout Wales and has been established to share and develop best practice and to give Christian organisations a stronger voice on safeguarding issues in Wales.

In addition to the churches’ safeguarding officers, the forum includes representatives from the group Minister and Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors (MASCAS), as well as the Churches Child Protection Advisory Service (CCPAS). A CCPAS Associate, Simon Plant, will chair the new forum.

“The Church in Wales is doing all it can to ensure churches are safe places for children and all vulnerable people and we welcome the Forum as a chance to strengthen our work and share good practice with other denominations – particularly in how we respond to survivors of abuse,” the Church in Wales’ head of safeguarding, Elaine Cloke, said, “All the safeguarding officers have shown enthusiasm and commitment to the Forum and we all hope it will give us a stronger voice to lobby the Welsh Government on those areas of safeguarding which are devolved – the quantity and complexity of which have increased rapidly over the past few years.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
360nobs

The pedophile priest was jailed for thirty-two months last year after he admitted to sexually abusing eighteen teenagers and young men over 15 years.

Peter Ball formerly served as the Bishop of Lewes and Gloucester when he perpetuated the acts. He also duped the congregation he was serving in after impersonating his identical twin brother.

Recent investigations reveal that in 1990’s when he served as a bishop in Cornwall, he might have led services as Michael Ball, a bishop in Cornwall in the 1990’s.

The 83 year-old traveled across the country conducting services under the guise of his identical twin brother Micheal.

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CHILE
Cooperativa

[A year after the arrival of Bishop Juan Barros to Osorno, one of the complainants in the case of priest Fernando Karadima, Juan Carlos Cruz , again criticized the role of the Church during this period. Cruz said the church still does not listen to people although the church produced the problem. He added that the pope is a sadness because he doesn’t care what has happened in Osorno.]

A un año de la llegada del obispo Juan Barros a Osorno, uno de los querellantes del caso Karadima, Juan Carlos Cruz, criticó nuevamente el rol de la Iglesia durante este período.

Cruz manifestó que “me parece tremendo que la Iglesia no escuche, que la Iglesia haya producido este problema y que tengan a un obispo impuesto, encubridor comprobado, liderando a una diócesis que no se lo merece”.

“El papa es una tristeza, porque francamente no le importa. Le dijo tonta, izquierdista o zurda a la gente de Osorno, jamás ha pedido perdón. Entonces en el fondo se ríen de nosotros”, añadió.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

The Catholic Archidiocese of Melbourne have alerted churches linked to paedophile priests to be cautious of potential arson attacks over Easter.

The warnings come after a fire at a Balwyn church earlier this month and three other church fires around the same time last year.

Shane Healy, spokesman of the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne was urged by the Vicar General to issue a wide message to all churches liked to paedophile priests to be vigilant towards possible attacks.

More than half a dozen churches have been attacked by arsonists over the past 13 months, many of them linked to child-abusing priests.

The latest, St Bede’s in Balwyn North two weeks ago, was connected to paedophile Terrence Pidoto, who served as an assistant priest in the early 1970s and was jailed for seven years in 2007 for abusing four boys.

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PENNSYLVANIA
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Robert J. Kelly was ordained for the Altoona-Johnstown PA diocese in 1974. He assisted at parishes in State College, Johnstown, Geistown, Altoona, Bellwood, and Gallitzen, and was pastor in Lockhaven and Philipsburg. He spent several years at the North American College in Rome and, for a short time, was a prison chaplain. In 1993 a man reported to the diocese that Kelly sexually abused him from ages 12 to 14 during 1975-77, when Kelly was assigned to Our Lady of Victory in State College. Kelly’s accuser said the priest offered him alcohol, and that the abuse occurred at the parish, on drives to the mountains, and at a movie theater. Kelly was quietly sent by Bishop Adamec to treatment then given another parish assignment. He was also sent to a Charleston SC convent as chaplain in around 1993-94. Per the PA Attorney General’s March 2016 Grand Jury Report, Kelly also attempted sexual advances on a 14-year-old boy in 1978. The Grand Jury called “horrifying” the fact that Adamec returned Kelly to parish ministry. By 1994 Kelly was the diocese’s Director of the Society for the Propogation of the Faith and Holy Childhood Association and in 1999 he was named pastor of SS Peter and Paul in Philipsburg; he remained in both positions until his removal in February 2015 by Bishop Bartchak during a review of previous allegations.

Ordained: 1974

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MINNESOTA
KSTP

A Twin Cities priest has been removed from the ministry because of a child sex abuse case in Pennsylvania.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis announced Rev. Bradley Baldwin of the Church of St. Gerard in Brooklyn Park is on a leave of absence.

Baldwin hasn’t been charged in the Pennsylvania case, but his name does appear in documents of the investigation.

The church is working to clarify his role in supervising a friar who molested more than 100 kids.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

CHRIS MARSHALL
Tuesday 22 March 2016

SURVIVORS of historical child abuse say they feel “betrayed” by the Scottish Government over plans to support victims of attacks dating back more than 50 years.

Campaigners met with education secretary Angela Constance on Monday to push for compensation for those abused earlier than 1964.

The Scottish Government plans to lift the three-year time bar which currently prevents survivors taking civil actions against their alleged abusers.

But the move would not apply to pre-1964 cases, meaning many older survivors would be unable to receive compensation or justice for what happened to them.

Following Monday’s meeting, the group In-Care Abuse Survivors (Incas) expressed disappointment at a Scottish Government offer to provide discretionary payments from a £13.5 million support fund, which is also funding a number of different initiatives.

Spokesman Alan Draper said the education secretary had “failed miserably” in her promise that pre-1964 survivors would be able to secure compensation equal to those able to take action through the courts.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Stephen Naysmith / Tuesday 22 March 2016

Education secretary Angela Constance has had another ill-tempered meeting with survivors of childhood sexual abuse, as the Scottish Government’s inquiry into historic abuse prepares to take another step forward.

The chair of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, Susan O’ Brien QC will today [Weds] launch her first formal call for evidence.

However the latest step in the inquiry, which will take four years and cost an unknown amount, takes place against an acrimonious backdrop of concerns from some abuse survivors about its scope.

Meanwhile, the unrelated legal issue of whether people can take civil action against the institutions or individuals who abused them is not part of the inquiry but is also causing tension.

Survivor group representatives met with Angela Constance on Monday, calling for the government to honour a commitment to seek an equable solution for any victim who was abused prior to 1964.

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SCOTLAND
BBC Scotland

By Reevel Alderson
BBC Scotland’s social affairs correspondent

The inquiry into historical allegations of child abuse in Scotland is to outline how it will take evidence.

Chaired by QC Susan O’Brien, it will take four years to investigate the extent of abuse of children in care, and identify any systemic failures.

But many survivors have continued to be critical of its terms of reference, which they have said prevents thousand of victims from giving evidence.

The Scottish government said the inquiry was the widest it had set up.

Although the inquiry is due to launch its formal call for evidence, it has already heard from a small number of seriously ill or very elderly survivors.

At the launch in Glasgow, it will invite other victims to come forward.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

By Annette Blackwell – AAP on March 23, 2016

A “one size fits all” approach to cross-examining child sex abuse victims can make their evidence seem unreliable in criminal trials, an inquiry has been told.

The director of the Tasmanian Law Reform Institute, Terese Henning, told the sex abuse royal commission on Wednesday legal requirements of the rules of evidence could impose barriers for child witnesses, including those with disabilities, and mean they are stereotyped as unreliable.

Children can be worn down by cross-examination and might agree with questions when they don’t understand them, Ms Henning said.

“So the nature of the questioning may produce unreliable evidence from them when they are in fact reliable witnesses,” she said.

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NEW YORK
Washington Times

By – Associated Press – Wednesday, March 23, 2016

RHINEBECK, N.Y. (AP) – A longtime priest from the Hudson Valley has been removed from the clergy following an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse from decades ago.

The Archdiocese of New York says allegations of sexual abuse made last year against Peter Kihm have been found to be “credible” by both law enforcement and the Archdiocesan Review Board.

Kihm last served as a priest at the Good Shepherd Church in Rhinebeck. He was suspended and removed as priest there in January 2015.

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DELAWARE
The News Journal

Saranac Hale Spencer, The News Journal

March 22, 2016

Walter Robinson, who led the Boston Globe’s investigative team that broke the story about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, has been getting emails from new victims every week since the movie “Spotlight” came out in November.

He’s learned that movies can sometimes have more impact than the written word, Robinson said in a speech he gave at the University of Delaware’s Mitchell Hall on Tuesday night about the movie that dramatized the paper’s investigation.

That’s a humbling admission for someone who has worked in newspapers his whole life. Robinson, a tall, white-haired man who speaks with a thick New England accent, is 70 and is now an editor-at-large for the Globe.

The reaction to the initial stories was huge, he said, noting the end of the movie depicted what actually happened when the reporters came in to work and were inundated with phone calls from victims who wanted to tell their stories. The Globe heard from 300 victims and they interviewed every one of them.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Australian Associated Press
Tuesday 22 March 2016

The name of a high-profile Melbourne Jesuit is being removed from a sports complex at the prestigious Xavier College after child abuse allegations.

Four former Xavier College students have made complaints about inappropriate touching during interviews with the late Father Patrick “Paddy” Stephenson, the college says.

The school believes the complaints could be based on misunderstandings but college rector Father Chris Middleton said historical abuse at the college meant it was appropriate to rename the Stephenson centre at the Kew campus as the Xavier sports centre.

The school does not believe the complaints against Stephenson have been substantiated but have not dismissed the allegations as wrong, he said in a statement on Wednesday.

“The Jesuits believe that, on the available evidence, there is room for genuine misunderstanding as to his intentions, as is explicitly acknowledged by one complainant.

“This being said, given that abuse has occurred at Xavier, and that many victims of abuse suffered further at the hands of institutions such as the church and the Jesuits by not being believed and/or responded to, we accept that it is appropriate to change the name of the Stephenson centre.”

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UNITED STATES
The Observer

Raymond Ramirez | Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Investigating theft and other irregularities in corporations often starts with an analytical device known as the fraud triangle. This method examines three classic elements of criminal activity: opportunity, pressure/motivation and rationalization. Corporations typically claim that opportunity is the element over which they have the most control. Accordingly, companies focus on limiting opportunities for crime with measures like heightened security.

Businesses often assume pressure and motivation are beyond their control and characterize financial pressures, such as high medical bills, as personal matters. Individual rationalizations may include a bonus that was expected but not received or payback for a poor work environment. In fact, the focus on aggressive short-term earnings targets may create the very pressure that could drive people to consider criminal options.

Companies that operate under realistic market conditions, emphasizing sustainable growth and employee well-being, reduce pressures that skew behavior towards crime. Competent and trusted companies apply lessons learned to detect illegal behaviors, shut them down in their early stages and implement additional controls and structural changes to limit further damage.

The pedophile priest scandals, as detailed in the Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” investigation, and the recent grand jury report on the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, illustrate extreme examples of the fraud triangle run amok. In the Altoona-Johnstown cases, more than 50 priests and other Church employees molested hundreds of children over four decades in the central Pennsylvania diocese. In many cases, their superiors knew of the abuses but did not remove the priests or notify law enforcement.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Maldon Standard

Adam Cornell, Senior Reporter

A MUSIC teacher who downloaded and distributed the most vile and explicit videos of children being sexually abused has avoided jail.

Church organist Peter Dollimore spent his public life performing at concerts, teaching the piano, including to children, and helping at art festivals in north Essex.

In private, former IT engineer Dollimore, 63, used his computer skills to download extreme pornographic movies of girls as young as 10 and share them in paedophile chat rooms.

Dollimore, of Church Road, West Mersea, admitted several counts of downloading images and one count of sharing images and movies and was sentenced at Chelmsford Crown Court yesterday.

Recorder Richard Christie QC said he could have jailed Dollimore but sending him on an internet sex offender treatment programme would be more effective.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WESA

By VIRGINIA ALVINO

The leader of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh said Monday the church is human and wants to apologize for any pain its leaders may have caused.

Bishop David Zubik held a special Service of Apology at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Oakland open to anyone who may have experienced emotional or physical pain from the church.

90.5 WESA’s Virginia Alvino talked to Larkin Page-Jacobs about the service’s message and why some sexual abuse victims find it troubling.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Legal Intelligencer

Gina Passarella, The Legal Intelligencer
March 22, 2016

Monsignor William Lynn, whose conviction for endangering the welfare of children molested by other priests was vacated last year, attacked in court papers Tuesday the Philadelphia District Attorney’s appeal of the reversal as “breathtakingly dishonest.”

Lynn said in his answer in opposition to District Attorney R. Seth Williams’ petition for appeal to the state Supreme Court that the appeal hinged on two “inaccurate” and “unproven” allegations: that one of the abusive priests was diagnosed as a pedophile and that Lynn reassigned that priest as part of scheme of concealment. Lynn argued the record shows the priest in question was never diagnosed as a pedophile and that Lynn had no power to reassign the priest.

Lynn’s conviction was overturned in December in a nonprecedential opinion from the Superior Court that found the trial court abused its discretion by allowing evidence of abusive conduct of 21 priests Lynn had never been involved with. The Superior Court ordered a new trial and the District Attorney’s Office appealed. Lynn said in his filing Tuesday that the District Attorney’s Office was trying to overcome the Superior Court’s ruling on the evidence by painting the case as “high-profile” and based on emotion.

“The level of unprofessionalism is alarming and one can only conclude that petitioner’s efforts are not directed toward seeking a petition consistent with the Rules of Appellate Procedure, but to drive this court to a decision grounded in emotion,” Lynn said in his brief, filed by his attorney, Thomas Bergstrom of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney.

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MINNESOTA
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis

Date: Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Source: Tom Halden, Director of Communications

From Archbishop Bernard Hebda

Since learning one week ago that the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had indicted three former provincial ministers of the Province of the Immaculate Conception of the Third Order Regular of St. Francis (TOR), stemming from their supervision of a Friar in that community who had been accused of committing the sexual abuse of minors, the Archdiocese has been in consultation with the Province. Some of those discussions have focused on Rev. Bradley Baldwin, TOR, a member of that Order and pastor of the Church of Saint Gerard in Brooklyn Park.

Earlier today we were notified that Rev. Bradley Baldwin had accepted his Provincial Superior’s request that he take a leave of absence from ministry (see the following statement from Very Rev. Patrick Quinn, TOR, Minister Provincial) pending further clarification of his level of supervision concerning the Friar in question. While the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had not charged Fr. Baldwin, his name appeared in the documents of the Grand Jury investigation as having played, in a previous assignment, some intermediary role in facilitating communication between Provincial leadership and the Friar in question. It seems to us that the parameters of that role are not clear from the documentation and need to be further clarified and I have asked for a preliminary investigation to be commenced.

Father Baldwin had served in parish ministry in the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis from 1994 to 2000 and then again from 2010 to present. The Archdiocese has no record of any allegations of misconduct against him and I am unaware of anything in his file that would suggest that his ministry here has been anything less than exemplary.

Until the investigation is concluded, a temporary administrator will be appointed to cover administrative duties at Saint Gerard and to assist with finding priests to help with Masses and the sacramental needs of the parish.

Statement from Very Rev. Patrick Quinn, TOR, Minister Provincial

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

By Pamela Miller Star Tribune MARCH 22, 2016

A Franciscan priest who serves a Catholic church in Brooklyn Park has taken a leave pending an investigation in Pennsylvania of an alleged cover-up of sexual abuse of minors by a brother in his order.

The Rev. Bradley Baldwin, priest of the Church of St. Gerard, accepted a request Tuesday to take the leave from his order, the Franciscan Friars, according to a news release from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

The leave will be in effect “pending further clarification of his level of supervision concerning” Brother Stephen Baker, who killed himself in 2013 after news reports that he sexually abused scores of boys in the 1980s, interim Archbishop Bernard Hebda wrote in a notice posted on the St. Gerard’s website.

It’s the second known Minnesota connection to the Baker case. Last week, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office charged the Rev. Anthony Criscitelli, 61, most recently of the Church of St. Bridget in north Minneapolis, with failing to properly supervise Baker despite knowing of the allegations against him. Two other members of the order also were charged with the same counts.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Spectator

Damian Thompson

A feature film about priests who abuse children is being released on 25 March. Which happens to be Good Friday.

Geddit? The sacrifice of the innocents. A conspiracy of religious hierarchs. Hand-washing by the secular authorities. I’m sure I can think of some more analogies if you give me time, but that’s enough to be going on with. Enough, certainly, for the distributors to boast that the movie is ‘controversially slated to be released on Easter [sic] Good Friday’.

As publicity stunts go, this isn’t subtle. But the film is. The Club, directed by the Chilean Pablo Larraín, sets out to perplex us from the first frame until the last.

It’s one of the finest films I’ve seen for years: a masterpiece of ambiguity that dares to suggest that the abuse of children by priests, though always morally repugnant, is psychologically and socially complex. If it wasn’t, the Church would have found a way to extinguish this fire long ago. As it is, nothing seems to work.

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