ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED STATES
Daily Times

By Sister Maureen Paul Turlish, Times Guest Columnist

POSTED: 03/13/16

“Spotlight” was awarded an Oscar for the best motion picture of 2016 and it more than deserves such recognition. It brings a whole new level of attention to this outstanding film and the problems it addresses especially the abuse of authority in the Roman Catholic Church.

It is a wake-up call for people in the United States and in countries around the world to recognize the egregious damage done to children and deal with the epidemic, the pandemic really, that childhood sexual abuse is.

“Spotlight” concerns itself with heinous crimes of sexual abuse perpetrated upon innocent children by rogue priests in a powerful religious denomination while it addresses one institution’s corruption played out in Massachusetts by Cardinal Bernard Law, the archbishop of Boston. Law covered up and protected such priests while supposedly “saving the church from scandal.”

Revelations following the Boston Archdiocese’s implosion were catastrophic.

The abuse of power by men in a rigidly structured patriarchal society, the narcissism and the sociopathic behavior of sexual offenders cry out for accountability, transparency, and ultimately, for justice. But lame apologies for criminal actions, euphemistically described as mistakes, and impotent prayer services will not get the job done.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Berliner Morgenpost

[A total of 1,600 victims of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church have reported abuse and submitted applications for recognition and material benefits, according to Bishop Stephan Ackermann.]

1600 Betroffene wollen von der katholischen Kirche entschädigt werden. Ein erster Zwischenbericht wird noch in diesem Jahr erwartet.

Berlin. Bei der Aufarbeitung des sexuellen Missbrauchs in der katholischen Kirche haben sich rund 1600 Betroffene gemeldet und Anträge auf Anerkennung und materielle Leistungen gestellt. Das teilte Bischof Stephan Ackermann in einem Interview mit dem “Tagesspiegel am Sonntag” mit. “Wie viele Täter sich dahinter verbergen, können wir erst mit der Studie sagen”, sagte er.

Der Bischof bekräftigte zudem sein Ziel, dass das Forschungsprojekt der Bischofskonferenz “eine quantitative und qualitative Übersicht” aller Missbrauchsfälle ermittelt. Gegenstand der Studie sei auch die Frage, wie viele Täter aus ihren Ämtern entlassen wurden. Kommendes Jahr werde es Ergebnisse geben, sagte der Trierer Bischof. Vielleicht werde schon dieses Jahr ein Zwischenstand präsentiert, fügte er hinzu. Es ist bereits das zweite Aufarbeitungsvorhaben, nachdem ein erstes Projekt mit dem Hannoveraner Kriminologen Christian Pfeiffer gescheitert war.

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SCHWIEZ
kath.ch

[Theologian: “Sexual assaults were treated as an embarrassing problem”.]

Zürich, 13.3.16 (kath.ch) Inwiefern lassen sich die sexuellen Übergriffe und ihre Vertuschung im kirchlichen Umfeld, wie sie der Film «Spotlight» thematisiert, auf Schweizer Verhältnisse übertragen? Markus Ries, Professor für Kirchengeschichte an der Universität Luzern, hat das Thema der Gewaltanwendung in kirchlich geführten Erziehungseinrichtungen untersucht. Welche Parallelen er zum Film zieht, erzählt er im Interview mit kath.ch.

Sylvia Stam

Sie haben den Film «Spotlight» gesehen. Wie war Ihre spontane Reaktion darauf?

Markus Ries: Es ist eine sehr berührende Geschichte, vor allem, wenn man sie medial vermittelt und künstlerisch aufbereitet bekommt. Die Opferperspektive ist stärker im Hintergrund als beispielweise beim «Verdingbub», aber es packt einen dennoch. Der Hauptakzent liegt in «Spotlight» auf der Institution, die vertuschte. Das wird sehr beklemmend ins Bild gesetzt.

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DEUTSCHLAND
kath.ch

Der ehemalige Limburger Bischof Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst nimmt nach Protesten nun doch nicht am Kongress «Freude am Glauben» im April in Aschaffenburg teil. Das habe der Bischof selber beschlossen, teilte das Forum Deutscher Katholiken als Veranstalter mit.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Exaro News

More than a million pages of documents have been found at just three of the of the Church of England’s 42 dioceses.

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FRANCE
ANSA

(ANSA) – Paris, March 14 – A group of victims of sexual abuse by a Catholic priest in the 1980s have written a letter to Pope Francis requesting a private audience in the Vatican, said French daily Le Parisien on Monday.

The victims are former scouts from the outskirts of Lyon who accused Father Bernard Preynat of abuse through the early 1990s.

The letter asks for an explanation of why Preynat wasn’t suspended until 2015, despite the fact that Lyon archbishop Cardinal Philippe Barbarin was informed of the abuse in 2007.

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FRANCE
Le Point

DE NOTRE CORRESPONDANTE À LYON, CATHERINE LAGRANGE
Publié le 14/03/2016

Les anciennes victimes présumées du père Preynat du diocèse de Lyon s’en remettent au pape François. Dans un courrier daté du 14 mars, et posté le 15 mars, les trois fondateurs de La Parole libérée, association regroupant les anciennes victimes du père Bernard Preynat du diocèse de Lyon, viennent d’écrire au pape François pour lui demander une « audience privée ».
Désarroi

Dans leur long courrier, François Devaux, Bertrand Virieux, et Alexandre Hezez font tout d’abord référence aux déclarations du pape dénonçant à plusieurs reprises les actes pédophiles commis par des membres de l’Église. « Si nous faisons appel à vous, très Saint-Père, c’est car vous avez, dans toutes vos déclarations et communications officielles, montré un attachement indéfectible à la vérité et à la protection des enfants, ainsi qu’une volonté de mettre fin aux pratiques de dissimulations justifiées par le souci de virginité de l’image de l’Église de France », écrivent-ils.

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FRANCE
Le Parisien

[French victims of paedophile priest demand Pope talks]

Des victimes du curé Bernard Preynat envoient aujourd’hui une lettre au pape François et demandent une audience privée. Ils n’ont plus confiance en Mgr Barbarin.

La lettre recommandée part aujourd’hui pour Rome. Trois fers de lance de la Parole libérée, association qui fédère les victimes d’un prêtre soupçonné de pédophilie dans le diocèse de Lyon, ont décidé d’adresser une lettre au pape François.

Les signataires de la missive, qui ont eux-mêmes subi les agressions sexuelles du père Bernard Preynat quand ils étaient scouts dans la banlieue de Lyon, dans les années 1980, demandent au chef de l’Eglise catholique de leur accorder une audience privée au Vatican.

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FRANCE
euronews

[Bertrand Virieux, a cardiologist, is a victim of priest Bernard Preynat who has emerged as a leader of the victims group called La Parole Liberee.]

Bertrand Virieux est le Secrétaire de l’Association La Parole Libérée. Il fut victimes d’attouchements de la part du père Bernard Preynat, lors de ses années de scoutisme, il y a 35 ans. Selon la justice française, son cas est prescrit, mais il mise sur l’effet réparateur de la parole libérée par son association pour les victimes souvent affectés par le silence qui a pesé sur leur passé. Propos recueillis par Valérie Gauriat

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UNITED STATES
Commercial Appeal

By Deborah Fisher, Special to Viewpoint

There’s a great scene about public records in the movie “Spotlight,” which is based on the true story of The Boston Globe’s investigative reporting of child sex abuse by Catholic priests.

Reporter Michael Rezendes rushes to the court clerk’s office to get an exhibit that had been filed as part of a court motion. It contained letters and evidence that showed the Archdiocese of Boston had known about the molestation of children for years, but failed to stop it.

“Those records are sealed,” says the clerk.

“No, that’s a public motion. Those records are public. I work for the Globe,” Rezendes replies.

“Good for you,” the clerk says, unmoved.

Rezendes then goes to the judge’s office.

“These exhibits you are after, Mr. Rezendes, they are very sensitive records,” the judge says.

“With all due respect, your honor, that’s not the question. The records are public,” the reporter says.

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

March 13, 2016

Simon Plant
Herald Sun

TIM Minchin feels “sorry” for Cardinal George Pell and has defended his contentious number about Australia’s highest ranking cleric as a “cheeky little pop song’’.

The comic musician, in Melbourne today for Thursday’s premiere of Matilda The Musical, wrote “Come Home (Cardinal Pell)” in the “language of anger’’, urging the religious leader to fly home to Australia and give evidence into a royal commission into child sexual abuse.

But after hearing Cardinal Pell give evidence in Rome, where the cleric also met with survivors of abuse, Minchin said: “I feel sorry for (Cardinal) Pell in many, many ways but it doesn’t mean there wasn’t room for a cheeky little pop song.

“I’m really, really sad that he couldn’t say, ‘This was terrible, we were wrong, it (child sexual abuse) was systemic and endemic and we’re trying to improve and I was wrong with the Melbourne Response’.

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier

By Melissa Cunningham
March 14, 2016

There was a “loud” message on the streets of Daylesford at the weekend: No more silence on child sexual abuse.

Supporters and suirvours of child sexual abuse victims marched down the streets as part of the ChillOut Festival’s annual street parade.

The crowd erupted in cheers as the group marched clutching a colorful handmade banner with the words “No More Silence” boldly sprawled across it.

Ballarat region resident and sexual abuse survivor Libby O’Brien told The Courier she felt compelled to make the banner with her partner to spread the Loud Fence message to the thousands of people who lined the streets.

“This movement is about all types of child sexual abuse,” Ms O’Brien said.

“We’ve seen victims come forward from Catholic institutions, private schools, state schools. Every single ribbon tied across the world has a face and there has been too much silence surrounding child sexual abuse. It’s connecting everybody. The only way forward is to provide a voice to victims and push to protect future generations of children by ending the cycle of sexual abuse.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
We Are Central PA

By Karina Cheung | kcheung@wtajtv.com
Published 03/13 2016

Altoona, Blair County, Pa.

The Attorney General’s grand jury report on abuse in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese has Pennsylvania abuse advocates, survivors, and lawmakers calling for statute of limitations reform.

An area woman, who is a survivor of abuse, will share her story at a rally in Harrisburg on Monday. She’s speaking in support of two bills currently awaiting house approval.

28 years ago, Brenda Dick’s life changed, forever.

“I was raped from the time I was 5 and touched clear up until I was 12, almost 13,” remembered Brenda.

Now, Brenda is sharing her story with others, hoping for change. She started an online petition to end the statute of limitations for child abuse victims in Pennsylvania.

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VATICAN CITY
New York Times

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MARCH 14, 2016

VATICAN CITY — Sparks may fly this week with the first testimony in the Vatican’s controversial trial over leaks of confidential documents that revealed waste, mismanagement and greed in the Catholic Church’s hierarchy.

Two journalists face up to eight years in prison if convicted of putting pressure on a Vatican monsignor to obtain the documents and publish them. The monsignor and two other people affiliated with a papal reform commission are also on trial, accused of giving the journalists the information.

The trial resumes Monday after a three-month delay to give the defense time to prepare and experts time to go through text message and other evidence. Earlier, the Vatican had come under sharp criticism that it was rushing the trial and that the defendants weren’t getting a fair shake.

During hearings Monday and Tuesday, the first of the five defendants is expected to be questioned by Vatican prosecutors. The testimony may be uncomfortable for the Holy See, given that details are expected about the onetime close friendship between Monsignor Angelo Lucio Vallejo Balda and the lone woman on trial, Francesca Chaouqui, who is now pregnant.

Media rights groups from around the world, meanwhile, have denounced the prosecution of journalists Emiliano Fittipaldi and Gianlugi Nuzzi, who wrote blockbuster books last year detailing the resistance Pope Francis is facing in trying to clean up waste and corruption in the Vatican.

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VATICAN CITY
The Local

Published: 14 Mar 2016

A controversial Vatican trial of journalists and alleged whistleblowers resumes on Monday, in the latest instalment of an image-bruising legal saga.

The spicy courtroom drama has already served up claims of sexually charged scheming, blackmail and computer hacking behind the fortified walls of the secretive city state.

From Monday, lawyers on both sides of a case increasingly seen as a public relations own goal will be able to put some of Pope Francis’s closest aides on the stand.

The trial has been adjourned for three months to enable computer experts to recover deleted email, text and WhatsApp messages between some of the accused, one of whom is basing her defence on a claim that she was working on the pope’s behalf.

Francesca Chaouqui, a pregnant former PR adviser to the Vatican, is one of five people accused of leaking classified documents that revealed out-of-control spending at the top of the Catholic Church and some top clerics’ love of luxury.

She has been granted the right to call as witnesses Vatican number two Cardinal Pietro Parolin and two Francis confidantes, charity supremo Archbishop Konrad Krajewski and Cardinal Santo Abril y Castello, who heads a panel overseeing the scandal-hit Vatican bank.

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ILLINOIS
Herald & Review

Mar 13, 2016

Newspaper people have a special fondness for movies about newspapers, especially when journalists are depicted as heroes.

So, it’s not a big surprise that several Herald & Review staffers enjoyed a special showing of the Academy Award winning move “Spotlight” at the Avon Theater a week ago.

The movie, which won for Best Picture and Best Screenplay, hasn’t been seen widely. It didn’t show in Decatur and has seen a limited run in other theaters in Central Illinois. Although it’s an extremely well-made movie, it doesn’t have the explosions and special effects that are popular in movies these days.

But it’s a movie worth seeing, now that it’s available on DVD and by other methods. It depicts the Boston Globe’s investigation into the Catholic Archdiocese and the cover up and transfers of priests that sexually abused young children.

What’s impressive about the movie is that it honors the reporting process in a compelling way. Much of what journalists do during the day isn’t especially exciting. There is a lot of time spent in meetings, reading documents and talking to sources that either won’t share their stories or don’t have accurate information. “Spotlight” depicts that process accurately. It also deals with how journalists sometimes fail. In this case, the Globe had been warned about the number of priests involved in sexual abuse years earlier, but had ignored the story.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Breitbart

Just 18 months after founding a special website called Crux, dedicated to reporting on the Catholic Church, the Boston Globe has announced that it is withdrawing from the venture, citing financial reasons.

In 2014, Boston Globe owner John Henry tapped veteran Vatican reporter John L. Allen to head up the site in an effort to expand the company’s readership beyond the Boston area to a potential market of more than 1 billion Catholics worldwide.

In disentangling itself from Crux, the Globe has ceded ownership to Allen, who has announced that he plans to keep it going, together with the site’s Vatican correspondent Inés San Martín.

After the movie Spotlight won the Academy Award for best picture, the Globe has been basking in renewed admiration for its 2002 crusade against the Church’s handling of the American sex abuse crisis, which bagged the paper a Pulitzer Prize.

At the time, the paper was fiercely criticized for what was perceived by many as a vicious campaign against the Catholic Church, since the Globe’s investigations into the sexual abuse of minors exclusively targeted Catholic priests, while ignoring the rampant abuse occurring in every organization and institution having dealings with children, whether religious or secular.

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TEXAS
KEYE

BY SARAH NAVOY SUNDAY, MARCH 13TH 2016

AUSTIN, Texas — The Roman Catholic Diocese of Austin is facing a lawsuit alleging it knew of sexual abuse going on in the early seventies.

The man who filed the civil suit, referred to as John Doe 120, said he was an altar boy at the time of his abuse.

Doe claims he was sexually assaulted for about 5 years by the now deceased Reverend Milton Eggerling. According to court documents, Eggerling preached at St. Louis Church and School in the 1970’s.

According to Doe’s attorney Tahira Merritt, Eggerling acted as a mentor to him, took him on trips, and showed him special treatment to lure him in. The lawsuit also alleges the priest gave the boy alcohol.

According to Merritt, teachers, nuns, and priests knew or should have known that Eggerling had an inappropriate relationship with the boy.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Philly.com

Updated: MARCH 14, 2016

“I have greatly sinned … in what I have done and in what I have failed to do.”
– From the Confiteor, a prayer said during the Penitential Act during a Roman Catholic Mass

By Thomas P. Murt

In Western Pennsylvania, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown knowingly protected priests who were known child molesters, according to a grand jury report. The diocese, the report continued, through church connections and pathetic public officials, protected the child-molesting priests from law enforcement and prosecution.

Perhaps the worst crime that officials committed is never taking subsequent action to protect children from these child-molesting priests. In the diocese, when a priest was found to have sexually abused a child, the normal protocol was to simply move him to another parish, offer a cash payment to the family, and/or to send the child-molesting priest on retreat, only to have him returned to ministry in the future.

The grand jury report of child sexual abuse in the diocese is even more graphic, sickening, and disgusting than the grand jury report on the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. If you have the stomach for it, you can find it on the Internet. The link will caution you about the graphic nature of the material.

Make no mistake, as ugly and painful as the latest sex abuse scandal is, this is not the last one we will hear about. While many victims are finding the strength to come forward, no doubt there are thousands of others who are still hiding in shame and humiliation. The true shame and humiliation, however, is not theirs at all. That belongs to Pennsylvania’s legislators, who still collectively refuse to take action to reform the statute of limitations as it relates to child sex abuse.

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FRANCE
The Local

French victims of the paedophile priest Bernard Preynat on Monday sent a letter to Pope Francis, requesting a private audience with the pontiff.

“We wish, Holy Father, that you can be a guiding light in our night and that you take the time to get to know us,” read the letter, sent by three members of the Parole Libérée, a group set up to help members of the Scout group who suffered sexual abuse in the 1980s.

The letter went on to explain that they were not “motivated by any spirit of vengeance” and simply want to “understand” why the priest was able to remain in office until August 2015.

“By retreating into silence, our cardinal has lost all credibility,” Bertrand Virieux, a cardiologist and one of the three signatories, told Le Parisien, referring to Lyon Archbishop Philippe Barbarin, who failed to report the priest despite saying earlier this year that he had been made aware of the priest’s behaviour “around 2007-8”.

Virieux explained: “That’s why today we call on Pope Francis, in whom we trust.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

March 14, 2016

Terry Laidler

Your Honour,

Please could I start by making a statement that I hope will help the royal commission and that I pray will give some solace to so many people I now know to have been traumatised by abuse suffered on an horrendous scale.

I have no wish to put people who say they told me about sexual abuse into a position where their recollections need to be tested in minute detail against mine. They have gone long enough with their voices not being heard by powerful figures in the Catholic Church and in society generally.

I can accept that, despite differences of recollection between me and some of them, there is already enough evidence before the commission that many tried to tell me from the time I was a junior priest in Ballarat and that I seemed to them to be dismissive or lacked compassion or took no action. For that, I apologise to them profusely: I did not do enough and more people were abused by the same priests and brothers complained about.

I must, also, accept my share of the responsibility for the systematic cover-up that occurred when I was a consultor in the diocese of Ballarat. Bishop Ronald Mulkearns acted shamefully, and we were complicit in it. I am not sure why exactly, perhaps it was a misguided wish to protect the church as an institution, or a desire for advancement and the clerical culture that made us loyal to the bishop and to our fellow priests in such a dysfunctional way.

My colleagues and I may have been deceived or kept in the dark, but nonetheless, we lacked the compassion or the courage to ask more questions about things that should have focused our attention acutely. When we knew of crimes committed against children, as loyal advisors we should have demanded that he act. When he did not listen to us, we should have resigned and gone to the police ourselves. I am so sorry for the hurt and damage that not doing so has caused.

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UNITED STATES
Jewish Press

By: Dr. Michael J. Salamon

March 3 marked a turning point. On that day, Newsweek magazine published an article titled Child Abuse Allegations Plague the Hasidic community. (True, there have been other articles in major media outlets about abuse in Orthodox communities but this is the first time the problem was broadly tackled in a major, full-length, comprehensive, well-researched piece in a publication not geared exclusively toward a Jewish readership.)

We can argue about whether the article is a damning indictment of blind obedience or whether or not the root problem is a determination to protect the reputations of institutions and their leaders while ignoring the needs of individuals.

We can debate whether or not those who spoke to Newsweek transgressed the alleged sin of mesirah, a sin that likely does not apply in our day, or worse, that they are all liars with their own sinister agendas.

And we can even worry that the article may cause irreparable harm to our community by casting us in a bad light and thereby providing fodder for anti-Semitism.

I would disagree with most of those presumptions.

I believe the Newsweek article actually improves our standing because it forces us to be more open and honest about the scourge of abuse. It shines a very bright light on a problem that some still want to sweep under the rug. And it destroys the delusions of those who continue to believe that Orthodox Jews do not abuse. Most important, it gives us an opportunity to show we can make a commitment to clean things up.

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NEW YORK
Forward

Sam Kestenbaum
March 13, 2016

The Chabad-Lubavitch movement’s premier yeshiva is seeking to assure parents that no sexual or physical abuse is taking place within its walls following a detailed report on allegations of such abuse in the past.

“I categorically assure you that there is absolutely no abuse taking place in Oholei Torah that we know of,” Rabbi Sholom Rosenfeld, the school’s administrator, wrote parents in a March 8 letter on school letterhead, “neither sexual abuse, nor physical abuse, nor verbal abuse.”

The abuse allegations, which appeared in a March 3 Newsweek article, detailed past instances of alleged misconduct at Oholei Torah, a religious school of about 2,000 male students, kindergarten through high school, in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Crown Heights. In one such case, a student was said to have thrown through a door or window. In other cases, reports of sexual abuse were allegedly ignored.

The school’s letter to the parents, dated March 8 and posted on community websites, neither addressed or denied any specific allegations or complaints, but described “many actions and precautions” that the school has instituted in recent years to prevent abuse. Among other things, the letter stated, Oholei Torah has, in recent years installed “windows on every classroom door” and has invited “numerous speakers” to address “child abuse and bullying.” The school has also held regular training programs for students on how to react to “improper behavior toward them,” according to the letter.

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FRANCE
20 Minutes

[Case Barbarin: “We have confidence in our archbishop,” assure the Catholic faithful, Sunday morning, while an icy wind swept through the place Saint-Jean in Old Lyon, faithful linger a moment on the steps of the cathedral, at the end of the mass. We shake hands, we smile, we take news of each other. Bundled up in their coats, some gather a few moments to discuss the homily the priest gave on sin and mercy. These are two themes that appear for the faithful during the troubled times since the indictment of Father Preynant on suspicion of child abuse. One person said the case has been blown outof proportion by the media. One person was at fault and now the whole church is pointed at, said one woman.]

Elisa Frisullo

Ce dimanche matin, alors qu’un vent glacial s’abat sur la place Saint-Jean dans le Vieux-Lyon, des fidèles s’attardent quelques instants sur le parvis de la cathédrale, à la sortie de la messe. On se serre la main, on se sourit, on prend des nouvelles des uns et des autres.

Emmitouflés dans leurs manteaux, la mine rosie par le froid, certains se regroupent quelques instants pour évoquerl’homélie du prêtre, consacrée, en ce cinquième dimanche du carême, au péché et à la miséricorde. Deux thèmes qui paraissent essentiels, pour les fidèles que 20 Minutes a rencontrés, en ces temps troubles que traverse l’église lyonnaise depuis la mise en examen du père Preynat, soupçonné d’agressions sexuelles sur des scouts.

Une affaire « montée en épingle »

« Cette affaire a été montée en épingle par les journalistes. On s’acharne sur l’église. Un homme a commis une faute et c’est toute l’église qui se retrouve montrée du doigt », estime Véronique, une catholique pratiquante qui, comme beaucoup de fidèles, a suivi l’évolution de l’affaire de pédophilie.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A woman, who the Church of England has accepted was abused by a bishop, has apologised to the family of a former Archbishop of Canterbury.

The victim, known as Carol, claimed she had written to Lord Carey, telling him that she had been abused as a child by Bishop George Bell.

In a statement issued by her solicitor, she accepted that was an error.

“Carol has issued a private apology to the Careys for the genuine mistake she made in good faith,” it said.

The statement continued: “She first made complaints in 1995 to Bishop Kemp of Chichester.

“She was prompted to complain again to Lambeth Palace at the time of the Jimmy Savile revelations, but it was only in 2013 when she wrote again – this time to Archbishop Justin Welby – that the matter was referred to the police.”

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ARGENTINA
TN

[Spotlight: The names of seven Argentine priests, accused of molesting minors. appears at the end of the film.]

Al final del film que ganó el Oscar, se citan abusos sexuales cometidos por sacerdotes o religiosos en el país. Detrás de cada mención hay una historia que te queremos contar.

Domingo 13 de Marzo de 2016

El sacerdote Héctor Pared murió de SIDA en el 2003 después de haber sido condenado a 24 años de prisión por abusos sexuales cometidos contra adolescentes internados en el Hogar Hermano Francisco de Quilmes.

Alojado en el penal de Olmos, el cura seguía oficiando misa, y su estado de salud era mantenido en secreto por sus superiores en la Iglesia y por el Servicio Penitenciario.

Los miembros del tribunal que lo condenó afirmaron que su enfermedad podría haber sido considerada un agravante en el momento del fallo. Sus víctimas revivieron el trauma al ser sometidas a análisis de HIV años después del delito.

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PERU
La Republica

[Since October last year, a journalistic investigation has documented systematic psychological, physical and sexual abuse within the Sodality of Christian Life (SVC), a Catholic movement of Peruvian origin.]

Desde octubre del año pasado, cuando publicamos Mitad monjes, mitad soldados, una investigación periodística que documentó los sistemáticos abusos psicológicos, físicos y sexuales al interior del Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana (SVC), un movimiento católico de origen peruano, poco es lo que se ha avanzado hasta la fecha en cuanto a sanciones y reparación a las víctimas.

La investigación supuso el “primer destape en nuestro país de una estructura cuyo origen fue la práctica religiosa y el compromiso de la fe, pero que además fue usada por sus más altos dirigentes, entre ellos su fundador Luis Fernando Figari, como un pretexto y coartada para el desenfreno, el abuso y la comisión de actos violentos”, como editorializó este diario (22/10/2016).

Ante la denuncia, el Sodalicio respondió con un comunicado de talante defensivo y poco transparente, firmado por su Vicario General, Fernando Vidal Castellanos, que luego tuvo que ser enmendado por uno segundo, debido fundamentalmente a las presiones internas del entonces sacerdote sodálite Jean Pierre Teullet y a la avalancha de reportajes que reproducían los verosímiles y crudos testimonios de las víctimas.

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ESPANA
El Pais

[Reports of child abuse in Barcelona Marist schools is reaching alarming proportions. There are now 30 victims and at least seven teachers from seven different schools.]

XAVIER VIDAL-FOLCH
11 MAR 2016

Las denuncias por pederastia en colegios barceloneses de los Maristas empiezan a apuntar proporciones muy alarmantes. Ya son una treintena y afectan al menos a siete profesores de siete colegios distintos. Sean todas ciertas o no, exageradas o suaves, y relativas a delitos prescritos o vivos, la respuesta oficial es homeopática.

El superior de los Maristas acaba de reprochar el silencio del primer centro afectado en 2011, en torno al primer caso conocido. El Departamento de Enseñanza no se enteró. Fiscalía y Mossos suspendieron las pesquisas cuando la familia retiró las acusaciones para evitar la presión al muchacho abusado. El pleno del Parlament lanzó el 3 de marzo una enfática y unánime resolución condenatoria y admonitoria —sugirió “consecuencias”, sin siquiera concretar “sanciones”—, instó a los centros a cumplir los protocolos y parloteó sobre la formación de los docentes.

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OSTERREICH
Profil

[The first “Spotlight”: The Groer affair in Australia as a historical taboo.]

Vor 20 Jahren outete profil den Wiener Kardinal Hans Hermann Groer als Kinderschänder. Der damalige profil-Chefredakteur Josef Votzi über einen historischen Tabubruch.

Boston, 1976. Erste Szene, eine Rückblende. Ein Geistlicher sitzt in einem Polizeigebäude zur Einvernahme. Dialog zwischen zwei an der Untersuchung beteiligten Männern. Der eine fragt besorgt: „Bei Anklage wird die Presse da sein.“ Der andere: „Welche Anklage?“

Schnitt. Der Priester wird durch den Seitenausgang zu einem wartenden Auto gebracht.

Boston 2001. Das Investigationsteam des „Boston Globe“ hat seinen Arbeitsplatz im Keller des Redaktionsgebäudes. Die vier Reporter frönen aber als Einzige dem Luxus, sich ihr Rechercheprojekt sorgfältig auswählen und ein Jahr lang daran arbeiten zu können.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Domradio

[Opposition to a planned appearance of the former Limburg bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst next month to the Joy of Faith congress is growing in Aschaffenburg and an online petition has been launched.]

Der Widerstand gegen einen geplanten Auftritt des ehemaligen Limburger Bischofs Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst Ende April zum Kongress “Freude am Glauben” in Aschaffenburg wächst. Jetzt soll eine Online-Petition gestartet werden.

Diese richtet sich gegen die Einladung des Bischofs zum Kongress “Freude am Glauben”, wie Thomas Röhrs gegenüber der Katholischen Nachrichten-Agentur (KNA) ankündigte. Zuvor habe der langjährige Vorsitzende der Kolpingfamilie in Alzenau das “Forum Deutscher Katholiken” als Veranstalter gebeten, die Einladung von Tebartz-van Elst zu überdenken. Dieser soll am 24. April in Aschaffenburg sprechen.

Würzburger Bischof Hofmann mit Bedenken

Bedenken gegen den Auftritt hatte zuvor auch der zuständige Würzburger Ortsbischof Friedhelm Hofmann angemeldet. Er halte die Einladung von Tebartz-van Elst “wegen der Reaktionen der Gläubigen für sehr unglücklich”, sagte sein Sprecher Bernhard Schweßinger. Hofmann selbst habe gegenüber dem zurückgetretenen Bischof von Limburg angeregt, die Teilnahme zu überdenken, so der Sprecher weiter. Auch den Organisatoren des Kongresses habe er seine Bedenken mitgeteilt. Von dem geplanten Auftritt habe der Würzburger Bischof “erst durch die Presse Kenntnis bekommen”.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia

Adults have a duty to love and protect children. Yet not a day goes by when we don’t hear a story about children abused by someone they know and trust. Perpetrators cover a very wide spectrum, from parents to coaches to teachers to clergy. But especially bitter for the statewide Catholic community is a March 1 grand jury report detailing abuses that took place in western Pennsylvania’s Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown.

This news brings back ugly feelings for so many within our own Archdiocese, which learned its own lessons about child sexual abuse the hard way. The most important lesson is that the persons who suffer most in these tragedies are the survivors and their families. I’ve met personally with many survivors over the years. Their stories and experiences are intensely painful. I am deeply sorry for all they’ve endured, for the past failures of the Church, and for the role she has played in their suffering.

When I arrived here more than four years ago, we committed the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to do all it can to support survivors on their path toward healing and to create Church and school environments to protect our young people and keep them from harm. My predecessor, Cardinal Rigali, had already started by hiring respected professionals – experts from the victim services and law enforcement communities — to establish and implement best practices. Their charge was based on two simple requirements: Law enforcement authorities must be notified immediately and properly when any allegation of abuse is made; and survivors need to be cared for professionally and with compassion.

We’ve made progress. Today, the Archdiocese has a zero tolerance policy for clergy, lay employees and volunteers who engage in misconduct with children, and it takes immediate action when an accusation is made. Any allegation of abuse must be reported immediately to law enforcement, and any substantiated allegation against a member of the clergy results in immediate removal from ministry.

Every year, our Victim Assistance Program offers substantial support to individuals and families. During the 2014-2015 fiscal year alone, the Archdiocese dedicated more than $1.7 million to underwrite counseling, to provide medication, to eliminate barriers to receiving support such as travel and childcare, and provided other forms of support to survivors and their families.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Domradio

[The Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia has in the past fiscal year spent 1.7 million US dollars – that is 1.5 million euros – in support for victims of sexual abuse.]

Das katholische Erzbistum Philadelphia hat im vergangenen Steuerjahr 1,7 Millionen US-Dollar – sprich 1,5 Millionen Euro – Hilfen für Opfer sexuellen Missbrauchs ausgegeben.

Diese Zahl nannte Erzbischof Charles Chaput in einem Gastbeitrag der Online-Zeitung “Philly Voice” am Freitag. Zugleich kündigte er ein Trainingsprogramm für “gesunde Beziehungen” an kirchlichen Schulen an. Die Kurse richteten sich an Jugendliche ab der neunten Klasse und begännen im Mai.

Missbrauchsbericht in Nachbarbistum

Als “besonders bitter” bezeichnete Chaput einen kürzlich veröffentlichten Missbrauchsbericht aus dem Nachbarbistum Altoona-Johnstown. Die Ergebnisse einer gerichtlichen Kommission dort weckten erneut “hässliche Empfindungen” bei vielen Menschen im eigenen Erzbistum, so Chaput.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 12 March 2016 – The director of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., today informed journalists that this morning in the Vatican City State Tribunal, as part of the current trial for the dissemination of reserved news and documents, the hearing in camera took place, as ordered by the president of the Tribunal following the deposition of the technical report by the two expert witnesses, both ex officio and ex parte. The hearing was attended by the full College, the Promoter of Justice and all the defendants accompanied by their lawyers. The hearing lasted for around one hour. As expected, the next hearing will take place on Monday 14 March at 3.30 p.m.

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FRANCE
Le Progres

[Case Preynat: The bishop of Oran, Jean-Paul Vesco, defends Cardinal Barbarin.]

Il est Lyonnais. Il a été ordonné, par le cardinal Barbarin, évêque en janvier 2013 à Oran (Algérie). Aujourd’hui, il livre son sentiment. Et met en garde sur la facilité qui consisterait à désigner l’archevêque de Lyon comme bouc émissaire dans l’affaire du prêtre Preynat.

Les évêques sortent de leur réserve les uns après les autres pour venir en aide au cardinal Philippe Barbarin. Après Mgr Georges Pontier, président de la Conférence des évêques de France et archevêque de Marseille et Mgr Michel Dubost, évêque d’Évry, c’est au tour de Jean-Paul Vesco, l’évêque d’Oran, lyonnais d’origine de prendre la parole.

« L’ouverture de l’enquête préliminaire pour ‘‘non-dénonciation de crime ’’ visant notamment l’archevêque de Lyon fait grand bruit, comment pourrait-il en être autrement ? Des actes inacceptables et répétés ont été commis à l’encontre d’enfants qui ont été blessés pour toute leur vie d’adulte. Deux circonstances aggravent la réalité de ce scandale, que le temps ne peut décidément pas effacer. La première est que ces actes ont été commis par un prêtre à qui ces enfants avaient été confiés et qui s’étaient confiés à lui dans leur foi naissante.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph

Angela Mollard

There’s a scene in the Oscar-winning movie Spotlight where all the pieces of the puzzle come together. For months the reporters on the Boston Globe have been investigating sexual abuse by priests but the “light bulb” moment occurs when they realise that offending priests are listed in the diocese’s annual directory as “unassigned” or “on leave”.

And so, using rulers and pens, the team goes painstakingly through years of directories, underlining the names of priests who have taken leave of their parishes. They enter the information on a spreadsheet and what was originally believed to be six priests suddenly appears to be 87.

If you’re a journalist watching that moment there’s both recognition and regret: recognition of the meticulous, mind-numbing work but, more potently, regret that investigative journalism is now as endangered as the many institutions it has exposed.

Journalists loathe writing about journalism. We focus on what we produce, not how we produce it. We’re notoriously secret squirrels scrabbling around scrutinising and elucidating on every industry but our own. Even our awards nights are an uncomfortable showcase of bad dressing and neuroticism.

But sometimes we need to turn the pen on ourselves, to advocate, campaign or simply be a journal of record for what’s happening in our world. Sometimes there needs to be a story about the storytellers.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Church Militant

by Joseph Pelletier • ChurchMilitant.com • March 11, 2016

“[T]he focus should be on the victims of abuse”

ALTOONA, Penn. (ChurchMilitant.com) – A Pennsylvania bishop is ordering banners honoring two disgraced bishops to be taken down “indefinitely.”

The decision from Bp. Mark Bartchak of Altoona-Johnstown came last Friday following the release of a grand jury report implicating the diocese’s two previous bishops in a four-decade cover-up of over 50 homosexual priests. The two banners, which hung in the nave of the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Altoona, bore the names of Bp. James Hogan and Bp. Joseph Adamec, along with the title “The Most Reverend” and their respective positions as the sixth and seventh bishops of the Altoona-Johnstown diocese.

ChurchMilitant.com learned from the diocese that in addition to the two banners for Hogan and Adamec, the remaining six honoring Altoona-Johnstown’s other bishops were also removed. Moreover the diocese has taken down featured portraits of all eight prelates.

According to diocesan spokesman Tony DeGol, the bishop “feels this is a time of humility for the diocese and the focus should be on the victims of abuse.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Times Leader

March 13th, 2016

A grand jury’s recent report about alleged sexual abuse of children years ago by clergy in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown provides a disturbing new reminder of a tired and despicable theme.

Too often we read about religious leaders, teachers and other authority figures in Pennsylvania who view children as objects to be preyed upon, not lives to be treated as precious.

In the diocese’s case, the supposed perpetrators won’t face earthly justice. The statute of limitations for criminal prosecution has expired or the accused have since died, according to news reports. That means the alleged victims, including some newly emboldened to speak up since state Attorney General Kathleen Kane this month made public the grand jury’s report, can hope only to achieve some measure of healing by talking freely and getting connected with professional counseling services.

The situation, sobering as it is, no longer shocks. We have heard the story – in Philadelphia – and even seen the movie – of events in Boston – before.

And our sensibilities continue to be assaulted almost monthly, if not more often, by horrid behavior on the part of certain adults in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Public school teachers who engage in consensual sex with students. Molesters who formerly held positions of “trust.” Pedophiles.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

Matt Assad and Peter Hall
Of The Morning Call

Huddled in a law office on Hamilton Street, the district attorneys of the five counties in the Allentown Catholic Diocese spent days poring over files that detailed nearly two dozen allegations that priests had sexually abused children over several decades.

That unprecedented step came in May 2002 after sex-abuse allegations exploded in the Boston Archdiocese, prompting Allentown Bishop Edward P. Cullen to grant the five prosecutors, including Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin and Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli, a rare glimpse into the diocese’s secret archives.

In the wake of the Boston revelations, attorneys and prosecutors across the nation have used lawsuits and criminal investigations to open those secret files to the public. Now victim advocates in Pennsylvania, where the statutes of limitations are short, are calling for legislators to give them that power too, by removing the deadlines that have kept people from suing the Catholic Church.

But some legal experts and the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference, which represents dioceses and bishops statewide, say it would open a Pandora’s box of decades-old allegations that age, fading memories and death would render nearly impossible for the accused to defend against.

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FRANCE
euronews

By Valérie Gauriat

A group of former scouts have broken the silence about the abuse they went through decades ago. They want the highest authorities of the French clergy to face up to their responsibilities.

Victims speak out

Bertrand and Pierre Emmanuel had nothing in common. That was until they discovered a few weeks ago that the same memories had marked their childhood behind the walls of the same church in the suburbs of Lyon in east-central France.

“The priest who officiated here abused a lot of children, dozens and dozens in fact,” says Bertrand Virieux, one of the alleged victims

Several of the alleged victims spoke to euronews journalist Valerie Gauriat about the abuse:

“What shocked me the most was when he tried to put his tongue in my mouth. He stroked my genitals, I couldn’t avoid it,” recalls Pierre-Emmanuel Germain-Thill. “I wanted to run away, and at the same time, I didn’t know what to do, I was afraid that if I left that room, nobody would believe me.”

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FRANCE
The Daily Beast

Barbie Latza Nadeau

One of France’s most prominent cardinals knew about a pedophile priest abusing young Catholic Scouts—and now the alleged cover-up will be tried in secular courts.

ROME—For all those (namely the Vatican press office) who say that the Catholic Church is doing all it can on clerical child sex abuse—namely the Vatican press office—there is yet another reason to doubt those lofty words.

Meet the Archbishop of Lyon, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, who has denied he did anything wrong by hiding the well-known fact that Father Bernard Preynat was sexually abusing as many as 40 Catholic Scouts in France in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Preynat was relieved of his duties in the parish of Roanne in 2015 after admitting to the sex abuse. He was indicted on January 27 on charges of “sexual abuse and rape of minors” and has admitted his crimes to the police.

The 45 Scout victims who lodged the complaint that led to Preynat’s arrest share horrifically similar stories of abuse. “He would say ‘tell me you love me’. And then he would say ‘you’re my little boy,’ ‘it’s our secret, you mustn’t tell anyone,” one of Preynat’s victims said, according to criminal trial reports.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

March 13, 2016

Cameron Houston and Chris Vedelago

Survivors of clergy abuse have accused the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne of stalling and obfuscation by delaying the release of an independent review of its own controversial compensation scheme.

The review of the Melbourne Response was announced by Archbishop Denis Hart in August 2014 following repeated claims at the royal commission that the church was primarily concerned with avoiding litigation and minimising payouts.

Archbishop Hart had vowed the findings by retired Federal Court Judge Donnell Ryan, QC, would be released by November 2014 and were expected to recommend a significant increase, or removal, of the $75,000 cap on compensation.

Fairfax Media can reveal that Mr Ryan submitted the review to Archbishop Hart on September 30, 2015, but that the report and its recommendations are yet to be made public.

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TEXAS
KXAN

AUSTIN (KXAN) — A man is suing the Diocese of Austin claiming that a priest abused him as a child more than 40 years ago.

The man, identified as John Doe in court documents states that Reverend Milton Eggerling of the Saint Louis Catholic Church molested him, provided him with alcohol, and took him on out of state trips over five years in the 1970’s. The lawsuit also states that Father Hames O’Connor, who worked at Saint Louis, also abused John Doe.

John Doe claims in the lawsuit that the Diocese concealed Eggerling’s psycho-sexual disorders and did not report his sexual misconduct.

Eggerling died in 2008 at the age of 87.

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FRANCE
Marianne

[Has Cardinal Philippe Barbarin covered for a pedophile priest? Cardinal Barbarin is supected of having known of actions by a priest in his archdiocese, Bernard Prenat, but he never reported it to justice. A criminal investigation has been opened by the prosecutor in Lyon for failure to report a crime and endangering the livesof others. A complaint was made by a victims assoication called La Parole Liberee.]

Mathias Destal Frédéric Ploquin

Le cardinal Barbarin est soupçonné d’avoir connu les agissements pédophiles d’un prêtre de son diocèse, le curé Preynat, qu’il n’a pourtant jamais signalé à la justice. Il est visé par l’ouverture d’une information judiciaire par le parquet de Lyon pour non-dénonciation de crime et mise en danger de la vie d’autrui, à la suite du dépôt de plainte d’une association de victimes. Retour sur l’affaire.

Il s’entendait merveilleusement avec les enfants, qu’il aimait par-dessus tout prendre sur ses genoux. Surtout les petits garçons. Il manipulait les parents avec l’adresse de celui qui incarne l’autorité, divine qui plus est. La tête de proue des scouts, c’était lui, le «père Bernard» pour les intimes, M. le curé Preynat pour les autres dans la paroisse de Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon. Un prélat qui profitait de son aura pour abuser en douce des enfants qu’on lui confiait. Parfois un parent réagissait mal, retirant promptement en cours d’année son petit des scouts après l’avoir entendu murmurer qu’il avait passé beaucoup de temps contre le ventre du père Bernard. Les autres adultes fermaient les yeux. C’était les années 80-90, où le curé pédophile bénéficiait encore de l’indulgence générale, sous le toit protecteur de l’Eglise.

C’était à une époque où bien peu osaient saisir la justice pour ce genre de faits. Avant Jean Paul II. Avant surtout le pape François qui, venu d’un autre continent, a bousculé la vieille Eglise européenne, engluée dans ses habitudes et soucieuse par-dessus tout d’éviter le scandale. Et bouleversé la règle du jeu. Quand ça commençait à trop jaser autour du bénitier, on éloignait le pervers. C’était sa seule punition. En espérant qu’aucune victime ne se réveille, comme c’est arrivé à François Devaux, un scout désormais adulte, qui est tombé par hasard sur Bernard Preynat et s’est mis en tête de lui demander des comptes. A lui et à l’Eglise…

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Gaynor Dumat-ol Daleno, gdumat-ol@guampdn.com

March 12, 2016

A former part-time judge, who’s also a former senator, wants accountability from a public keeper of certificates of title of all land parcels on the island.

Robert Klitzkie, a former part-time Superior Court judge and a two-time senator, is calling out the office of the Registrar of Titles, under the Department of Land Management, to be accountable and transparent. The integrity of the office is in doubt, Klitzkie said, following what he called the “erroneous” information on certificates of title for four land parcels and buildings that once were valued at tens of millions of dollars.

The former Accion Hotel properties stand at the center of a dispute within Guam’s Catholic Church community. Part of the disagreement between the church leadership and the Concerned Catholics of Guam is whether the prime real estate still is under the control of the Archdiocese of Agana.

Certificates of title for the four parcels, which the church leadership released to the public in late November, are “bogus,” Klitzkie said. The certificates omit the required disclosure of another document called declaration of deed of restriction, Klitzkie contends.

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TEXAS
American-Statesman

By Jazmine Ulloa – American-Statesman Staff

A man has filed a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Austin, alleging the diocese and its bishops had known a priest at a North Austin church abused him when he an altar boy and did nothing to stop it.

The man, identified only as John Doe, said the now deceased Rev. Milton Eggerling, who preached at St. Louis Church and School in the 1970s, acted as his mentor and spiritual father figure, luring him with outings and special treatment before he began sexually abusing him, according to Travis County records obtained by the American-Statesman late Friday.

Doe is seeking unspecified damages and monetary relief of more than $1 million, saying teachers, nuns and other priests at the church and school knew or should have known that Eggerling was psychologically unfit to be a priest. The diocese and its bishops, the lawsuit states, were negligent in assigning him a position of power and privilege that he could use to molest young boys.

The diocese did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The plaintiff’s counsel, Dallas attorney Tahira Khan Merritt, said Eggerling, who preached in Austin until about 1980, was a priest for a long time and likely had more victims. Her client filed the lawsuit, she said, in hopes that they would come forward.

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AUSTRALIA
Brisbane Times

March 12 2016

Rory Callinan

The first official confirmation of a teacher knowing about paedophile behaviour by notorious school counsellor Kevin “Skippy” Lynch at exclusive private school Brisbane Grammar has emerged out of the royal commission investigating child abuse responses.

The shock admission could call into question the multitude of compensation claims and settlements involving Lynch’s more than 100 victims from what was one of the state’s worst ever private school abuse scandals.

The admission is contained in a late statement from a former teacher to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which was investigating Lynch’s abuse of students at two Brisbane private schools in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

Lynch, who killed himself in 1997 after being confronted by police investigating abuse allegations, was alleged to have abused more than 70 students from Brisbane Grammar where he worked as a counsellor in the 1970s and 1980s.

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ILLINOIS
Belleville News-Democrat

BY GEORGE PAWLACZYK
gpawlaczyk@bnd.com

A Belleville Catholic Diocese parish in southeastern Illinois is without a priest following a controversy involving a church laptop computer that was found to have pornography on it, according to a parish leader.

The Rev. Bernardine Nganzi, who is originally from Uganda, has not been at St. Lawrence Catholic Church in Lawrenceville for several months, parishioners said.

The computer was removed from the priest’s office in the church rectory, or living quarters, by local church officials as part of an investigation, according to Larry Pulleyblank, president of the St. Lawrence Catholic Church parish council. Pulleyblank said he was told by a representative of Bishop Edward K. Braxton that the investigation of the computer turned up no child-related sexual images. It was turned over to the diocese and examined by the FBI in October or November.

“There was no child pornography,” said Pulleyblank. He said he personally saw icons on the screen that indicated there was pornography on the computer, but did not view the videos.

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ESPANA
El Pais

[Two nuns are investigated for theft of babies.]

SILVIA R. PONTEVEDRA
Lugo 11 MAR 2016

Carmen Longarela Latas (82 años) y Carmen Vázquez Lamela (88 y en silla de ruedas) son Hermanas Franciscanas del Rebaño de María y están investigadas —junto a su anterior superiora, Isabel Torres, además de funcionarios del Servicio de Menores de la Xunta de Galicia, médicos y trabajadores sociales— por la supuesta retirada irregular de niños a sus padres biológicos para entregarlos en adopción. Pese a su intento de ser declaradas incapaces por la edad y su estado de salud, las dos monjas fueron imputadas en el marco de la conocida como Operación Bebé de Lugo, que reúne una docena de casos de familias presuntamente forzadas o engañadas entre la primera década y la segunda del siglo XXI para despojarlas de sus criaturas.

Las religiosas del Rebaño de María regentan el Hogar Madre Encarnación de Lugo, que mantiene un concierto con la Xunta para acoger a mujeres sin recursos en los últimos meses de embarazo o ya con bebés, y atender también casos de niños declarados en situación de exclusión. Las dos monjas que acudieron este viernes fueron citadas por la anterior magistrada del caso, Sandra Piñeiro, una causa ahora en manos del juez Sergio Orduña, en Instrucción 3 de Lugo. Las dos negaron haber tenido contacto con esos niños a los que sus madres perdieron el rastro y que fueron entregados a otras familias.

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FRANCE
La Croix

[Archbishop George Pontier, president of the French bishops conference, and Bishop Michele Dubost, Bishop of Evry, defend Cardinal Philippe Barbarin over his handling of sexual abuse allegationns by a priest.]

Pierre Wolf-Mandroux (avec AFP), le 11/03/2016

Dans des interviews, le président de la Conférence des évêques de France et l’évêque d’Évry ont soutenu le cardinal Philippe Barbarin. Celui-ci est visé par une enquête préliminaire du parquet pour « non-dénonciation d’agression sexuelle sur mineur ».

Mgr Georges Pontier, président de la Conférence des évêques de France et archevêque de Marseille, a pris la défense du cardinal Philippe Barbarin, jeudi 10 mars. « Tous (les évêques), on est dans la position de fermeté, du respect des victimes et du respect de la justice (sur la question de la pédophilie). Le cardinal Barbarin l’a été pendant son ministère, a affirmé Mgr Pontier à l’AFP, le 10 mars. Je sais très bien, pour le connaître, quand même, comment il est intervenu dans les deux diocèses où il a été (Moulins de 1998 à 2002, Lyon depuis) sur les événements douloureux dont on l’informait. Il a toujours été rigoureux ».

L’archevêque de Marseille a aussi évoqué l’agitation médiatique autour du cardinal : « Là, on est vraiment dans une situation qu’on fait mousser. Quand (cela se passe) en famille, on n’en parle pas à la une des journaux pendant quatre jours ; quand c’est dans l’Éducation nationale, on ne demande pas la démission du ministre ou du recteur ; quand c’est une mutation d’enseignant, on ne fait pas pendant huit ou quinze jours des procès.»

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ESPANA
El Pais

[Victims of abuses by the Marists have asked the pope to investigate.]

El padre que destapó los abusos sexuales cometidos en los Maristas de Sants-Les Corts de Barcelona por el pederasta confeso Joaquim Benítez ha enviado una carta al Papa Francisco en la que le pide que cree una comisión de investigación, impulse una condena pública y que esta orden religiosa se disculpe por haber hecho caso omiso de las primeras denuncias.

En la carta, Manuel B relata al Papa los abusos y denuncia la “opacidad, reserva, medias verdades o incluso mentiras” con las que ha actuado la dirección del centro de los Maristas ante el alud de casos que han salido tras la primera denuncia. El padre que sacó a la luz el escándalo interpela directamente al Papa: “La sociedad pide respuestas de su Santidad y creo que tiene que haber una respuesta contundente al daño realizado y a la ocultación del delito”, remarca el padre en la misiva.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reproter

Jonathan Luxmoore | Mar. 12, 2016

When the British Broadcasting Corp. ran a TV documentary on St. John Paul II’s intimate friendship with a married philosopher, it revealed an intense subplot to his complex and remarkable life.

The mid-February report, “The Secret Letters of Pope John Paul II,” made by Catholic presenter Edward Stourton, touched off debates on the wisdom and propriety of the pope’s conduct. But it also threw light on the realities of clerical celibacy — and on the kind of relationships Catholic clergy can and should have with women.

The then-Cardinal Karol Wojtyla met Polish-born Professor Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka at his see of Krakow, Poland, in summer 1973, after she’d written to congratulate him on his philosophical tract Osoba i Czyn (“Person and Act”). They agreed to collaborate on an English-language edition, which was published in 1979 as The Acting Person after he became pope.

Tymieniecka had studied Polish literature, like Wojtyla, at Krakow’s Jagiellonian University after the wartime Nazi occupation. She went on to obtain degrees from the Paris Sorbonne University and the University of Fribourg in Switzerland.

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CALIFORNIA
Fresno Bee

BY ROB PARSONS
rparsons@mercedsunstar.com

LOS BANOS
A former Catholic priest in Los Banos pleaded guilty Friday to possession of child pornography, the Merced County District Attorney’s Office confirmed.

The Rev. Robert E. Gamel, 65, changed his plea before Judge Harry Jacobs in Merced County Superior Court. He faces up to three years in state prison when he is sentenced May 24, according to Travis Colby, the deputy district attorney who prosecuted the case.

Gamel is the former head of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Los Banos, and was commonly known throughout the city as “Father Bob.” He was head of the church in Los Banos from 2009 until December 2014.

It’s unlikely Gamel would receive the maximum sentence as he has no prior criminal history, prosecutors acknowledged.

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CALIFORNIA
ABC 30

Friday, March 11, 2016

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) — A Catholic priest in Los Banos pleaded no contest Friday to poses sing child pornography.

Reverend Robert Gamel was arrested in June of last year for having a naked photo of a Los Banos teenager. Catholic leaders say a concerned parent reported the inappropriate behavior with their teenage son.

Gamel will be back in court in may for sentencing.

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PENNSYLVANIA
We Are Central PA

By Lauren Handley | lhandley@wtajtv.com
Published 03/11 2016

[with video]

Hollidaysburg, Blair County, Pa.

It has been almost two weeks since the disturbing discovery within the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese. Since then, we’ve heard from victims and state officials.

Now, the Diocese spokesman is addressing concerns.

“Every time he has received allegation involving a priest he has acted swiftly and he will continue to do that. That’s all he can focus on now. He can’t rewrite what happened on the past.”

What does “moving forward” mean?

The plan is to report any new allegations directly to law enforcement, remove those priests, and then post a detailed list of perpetrators to the diocese website, which they said will happen soon.

“There aren’t words that I could say to express the sorrow that we all feel for anyone who’s been harmed in this church,” DeGol said.

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FRANCE
RTL

[Pedophile priest scandal: Two new complaints were filed against Cardinal Barbarin.The Archbishop of Lyon is under investigation for “failing to report a crime” involving sexual abuse of minors bya priest.Other Catholic leaders are concerned by these new complaints.]

PAR NICOLAS LEDAIN , AVEC AFP PUBLIÉ LE 12/03/2016

Ces deux nouvelles plaintes viennent s’ajouter à celles des victimes rassemblées dans l’association La Parole libérée. Ces plaignants disent avoir été la cible d’agressions sexuelles commises par le prêtre Bernard Preynat entre 1986 et 1991, mais au-delà de la mise en examen de celui-ci, ils ont décidé de s’attaquer aux instances de l’Église pour dénoncer l’omerta dont a pu bénéficier l’homme d’église.

Le parquet de Lyon a ouvert une enquête préliminaire pour “non-dénonciation” d’atteintes sexuelles sur mineur de moins de 15 ans et “mise en péril de la vie d’autrui” vendredi 4 mars, mais cette semaine, il a reçu deux nouvelles plaintes. Elles ont été déposées lundi et vendredi par deux hommes qui sont également plaignants dans le premier volet de cette affaire qui concerne les agressions commises par le prêtre Bernard Preynat.

La première plainte vise quatre responsables diocésains dont le cardinal Philippe Barbarin, l’autre cible ces mêmes personnes, mais aussi le Préfet de la Congrégation pour la Doctrine de la Foi et son secrétaire. Ces autorités religieuses avaient déjà toutes été citées dans la plainte déposée le 4 mars.

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TEXAS
Fox San Antonio

[with video]

BY ZACK HEDRICK, FOX SAN ANTONIO FRIDAY, MARCH 11TH 2016

SAN ANTONIO — Some residents of a North Side neighborhood are opposing the construction of five new homes that’ll house 25 priests and missionaries

The president of the North Shearer Hills Neighborhood Association says she’s worried about the safety of children surrounding their history of sexual abuse by priests, adding a majority of the people that live in the area want to keep things in the neighborhood the same.

But there are neighbors on both sides of the fence on this issue.

This project belongs to the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

They plan to demolish four single-family homes to build five, two-story houses at half a million dollars a pop.

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VATICAN CITY
Irish Times

Paddy Agnew in Rome

The potentially embarrassing, so-called Vatileaks 2 trial is scheduled to reconvene in the Vatican on Saturday morning.

This is the Vatican City state trial in which five people stand accused of involvement in a criminal conspiracy which saw them “illegally procuring and successively revealing information and documents concerning the fundamental interests of the Holy See . . .”.

All five people indicted – Spanish monsignor Lucio Angel Vallejo Balda, his Italian lay assistant Nicola Maio, lay consultant Francesca Chaouqui and journalists Gianluigi Nuzzi and Emiliano Fittipaldi – have been charged under section IX of the Vatican’s “crimes against the security of the state” legislation.

This legislation was strengthened by Pope Francis in the wake of the 2012 “Vatileaks 1” case which saw Pope Benedict’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, convicted and eventually pardoned for having stolen confidential documents from the papal apartment.

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VIRGINIA
The Virginian-Pilot

By Jonathan Edwards
The Virginian-Pilot

NORFOLK

A former Navy chaplain and retired rabbi didn’t molest his daughter in the 1960s and ’70s, a judge decided Friday.

Eric Aaron Silver was found not guilty on all three counts of taking indecent liberties with his daughter between the ages of 4 and 16. Norfolk Circuit Judge David Lannetti made the ruling after a two-day bench trial.

“He has his life back. He has a huge weight off his shoulders,” his lawyer James Broccoletti said Friday.

Silver took the stand this morning and testified he never molested his daughter or had any sexual activity with her, Broccoletti said. They had a close, loving – but appropriate – relationship when she was growing up, Silver told the judge. He pointed out that his daughter chose to live with him when she was 12 after he and her mother divorced.

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VIRGINIA
WTKR

A rabbi accused of molesting his daughter leaves court a free man after a judge finds him not guilty.

The judge’s main reason for the verdict has to do with what he calls insufficient evidence and inconsistent statements.

While the judge didn’t say it did not happen, due to those factor he said there was sufficient reasonable doubt and so he acquitted the rabbi on all counts.

72-year-old, Eric Silver was arrested over a year ago.

He was accused by his daughter, Rachel Silver, of molesting her in the late 60s and early 70s in Norfolk.

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VIRGINIA/CONNECTICUT
New Haven Register

By Ed Stannard, New Haven Register

CHESHIRE >> A retired rabbi of Temple Beth David was acquitted Friday of three felony counts of taking indecent liberties with a child, according to a spokeswoman for the Norfolk Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office in Virginia.

Eric A. Silver, 73, was found not guilty by Norfolk Circuit Judge David Lannetti in a trial that began Thursday. The child he was accused of abusing was a female relative, said Amanda Howie, spokeswoman for the Norfolk Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office.

“I think it’s not a surprise,” said Martin Cobern, a past president of Beth David. “I think the whole thing was bogus from the beginning and I’m just sad that it destroyed [a year] of his life and his reputation.”

Silver testified in his own defense, according to the Virginian-Pilot newspaper. His lawyer, James Broccoletti, did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

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PENNSYLVANIA
New Castle News

When I was in high school, my first thought of a career was not priesthood or ministry, but journalism. I wanted to become a writer. I seriously considered going to a university which had a nationally known journalism school.

Obviously, I decided against that path, which is why I am writing in the New Castle News, and not for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel or the Los Angeles Times.

That long-ago ambition came back to me when I went to see “Spotlight.” This movie (released in November) details the work of four investigative reporters for the Boston Globe as they pursue the story of Catholic priests who abused children in the Archdiocese of Boston. We see their initial lack of understanding of the scope of the scandal, their frustration in interviewing victims reluctant to speak out, their editors’ skepticism of the project and their ultimate vindication. Every newspaper review of “Spotlight” that I have read says that director Tom McCarthy and his actors accurately and vividly portray the life of contemporary reporters in gritty detail. “Spotlight” won the Oscar for Best Picture of 2015.

But this is not just a movie about writing newspaper stories. It is also the fact-based retelling of one important part of the largest scandal in the Catholic Church in the past 100 years. Going back decades, some priests harmed children (about 2 to 3 percent of the total number of priests). When they did, and the victims’ parents complained, these priests were moved from parish to parish to avoid scrutiny. Through the intervention of their bishops, most of these priests escaped punishment from the criminal justice system. “Spotlight” focuses on the Archdiocese of Boston in the years 2000-2002.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WFMZ

HARRISBURG, Pa. – Survivors of child sexual abuse and their advocates will converge on Harrisburg next week. They plan to rally at the Capitol on Monday to support efforts to get a pair of statute of limitations bills moved to the full House of Representatives for a vote.

Delilah Rumburg, the CEO of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape, will host the rally and news conference, along with Rep. Mark Rozzi, a Berks County Democrat and survivor of child sexual abuse, who will emcee the event.

It’s set to start at 1:30 p.m. in the main Capitol rotunda.

One of the bills under consideration would eliminate the statute of limitations for criminal and civil cases of child sex abuse; the other would create a two-year window for past victims to have the opportunity to file civil lawsuits.

The rally comes on the heels of a grand jury report released last week by Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane. According to investigators, hundreds of children in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese were sexually abused for at least 40 years, and religious leaders worked to cover it up. The case can not be prosecuted because the statute of limitations expired.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

In an office on Hamilton Street in 2002, the district attorneys of the five counties in the Allentown Catholic Diocese pored over files that contained allegations of sexual abuse by a number of priests. The files came from a secret archive that church law requires every diocese keep. Stored under lock and key, those archives contain accusations of criminal behavior or “moral matters.”

In Pennsylvania, the law works to protect those archives and their secrets. But in some states, such as Minnesota, a brief lifting of the statute of limitations brought those files to light and online.

On Sunday, The Morning Call examines the movement to change Pennsylvania law by extending or eliminating the obstacles that keep people from suing the church for decades-old complaints of sexual abuse. Such a change could unlock the secret archives and, some say, open a Pandora’s Box.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philly.com

by Joseph A. Slobodzian, Staff Writer.

The District Attorney’s Office has asked the state Supreme Court to hear its appeal of the Dec. 22 Superior Court ruling that granted a new trial to Msgr. William J. Lynn, who was convicted for his role in supervising pedophile Catholic priests.

The 37-page petition to the state’s highest court, filed Thursday, contends that the 2-1 ruling by a Superior Court panel “usurps the trial court’s discretion” to let the jury hear historical evidence about how the Archdiocese of Philadelphia handled allegations that priests sexually molested children.

The filing had been expected since Feb. 10, when the entire nine-member Superior Court rejected the district attorney’s request for a review of the three-member panel’s decision.

The historical evidence in question, sometimes called “other bad acts evidence,” has been at the heart of Lynn’s case since 2011, when he was charged with three priests and a parochial school teacher after a local grand jury probe.

Lynn, now 65, was not accused of molesting children. Instead, he was accused of child endangerment because, as the archdiocese’s secretary for clergy from 1992 to 2004, he allegedly reassigned pedophile priests to new parishes, where they preyed on more children.

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UNITED STATES
Huffington Post

Stan Chu Ilo
Research Professor at DePaul University, Chicago; Founder of Canadian Samaritans for Africa

As Pope Francis celebrates three years in office this week, there are mounting challenges confronting him and the church which he leads. His honey moon is now over and there are emerging cracks in the church and uncertainty about the future direction of the Catholic Church. Many Catholics are now hoping that Pope Francis could deliver concrete and lasting reform in the church through changes in some of the laws of the church which should go beyond making strong statements and counter-institutional gestures. There are three challenges among many facing Pope Francis which will define his legacy.

The first is how successful he will be in his ongoing reform of the curia, and the institutional culture of the church’s hierarchical clericalism. The second is how he responds to the call for a more inclusive church for women and LGBTQs. Many Catholics are waiting to know which way he goes with the recommendations made to him from the raucous synod on marriage and family life concluded in October 2015.

The task before him is to find a common ground on a transformative pastoral ministry to LGBTQs without alienating conservatives in the West. At the same time he must take into consideration the strong appeal to traditional definition of marriage by most Catholics in the Global South where the church is witnessing an exponential growth. Whatever decision he takes on this matter carries consequences for the unity and future of the Catholic Church.

The third is that Pope Francis must deal decisively and conclusively with the shameful cases of clerical sexual abuse in the worldwide church. But dealing with the consequences will demand addressing the fundamental roots of the problems, the church’s laws and institutional culture. This last point seems to me to be the most decisive because it undermines the moral high ground and teachings of Catholicism. It also detracts from the mission of the church as a light in the world and in healing the world and being a beacon of hope through concrete acts governed by Gospel values.

Pope Francis must pursue vigorously the reforms of the structure of authority and accountability in all aspects of the life of the Church. Unfortunately, he faces strong opposition from some cardinals, bishops and priests. The schemes and stratagem of some of the Vatican high command who are ganging up against the Francis Revolution have been well documented in the tell-it-all revelations published by the Italian journalist, Gianluigi Nuzzi in the book, Merchants in the Temple: Inside Pope Francis’s Secret Battle Against Corruption in the Vatican.

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LOUISIANA
KPLC

By Theresa Schmidt

Ex-priest Mark Broussard has been sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison

In the words of Judge David Ritchie, Broussard’s punishment comes 30 years late.

The ex-priest convicted of raping and molesting young altar boys is sentenced to two consecutive life sentences on two counts of aggravated rape with 50 years added on for other sexual abuse charges.

First Assistant D.A. Cynthia Killingsworth said part of what made the case so heinous was the level of trust that was betrayed.

“People would just let their kids go over there and let them stay there and certainly had no problem with it; in fact, the moms, whoever were the single moms in this case, were very glad he was mentoring their children,” said Killingsworth.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Nieman Lab

By LAURA HAZARD OWEN @laurahazardowen March 11, 2016

The Boston Globe’s coverage of the Catholic Church is certainly in the news right now, with Spotlight‘s win for Best Picture at the Oscars. But nonetheless, the Globe is shutting down Crux, the standalone Catholic news site it launched in 2014.

Back at the launch, Globe editor Brian McCrory told Nieman Lab that the Globe “saw an opportunity to fill a need” for coverage of Catholic issues, particularly in the light of the appointment of Pope Francis. “There’s a real hunger. We’re at a unique moment.” Crux appeared to have a built-in local audience in Boston’s heavily Catholic population, but — more importantly — a national and global audience of potential readers.

But the site’s content was generally ahead of its business model, which didn’t stretch far beyond advertising. “We simply haven’t been able to develop the financial model of big-ticket, Catholic-based advertisers that was envisioned,” McCrory and Globe managing editor/VP for digital David Skok wrote in a memo obtained by Dan Kennedy. (This afternoon, the two ads on the Crux homepage were for a master’s degree program in church management and a Christian film about a child’s miracle cure.)

The memo, in part:

We want to bring everyone up to date on a couple of digital fronts.

The problem is the business. We simply haven’t been able to develop the financial model of big-ticket, Catholic-based advertisers that was envisioned when we launched Crux back in September 2014.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Crux

By Teresa Hanafin
Editor March 11, 2016

Hello loyal Crux readers,

I have some sad news to impart. The Boston Globe has made the difficult decision to stop supporting Crux as of the end of March, focusing its efforts instead on other initiatives within the company.

But the good news is that John Allen plans to continue the site, with assistance from Inés San Martín, our Vatican correspondent. National reporter Michael O’Loughlin, columnist Margery Eagan, and our stable of freelancers will find other places for their work. I’ll move over to BostonGlobe.com.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

By Hiawatha Bray GLOBE STAFF MARCH 11, 2016

The Boston Globe said Friday that it will shut down Crux , the newspaper’s online publication devoted to news and commentary on the Roman Catholic Church. Crux will halt publication on April 1, and several employees will be laid off.

In a memo sent to Globe employees Friday, Globe editor Brian McGrory wrote “we’re beyond proud of the journalism and the journalists who have produced it, day after day, month over month, for the past year and a half.” But McGrory added, “We simply haven’t been able to develop the financial model of big-ticket, Catholic-based advertisers that was envisioned when we launched Crux back in September 2014.”

McGrory said that the Crux site will be handed over to associate editor and columnist John Allen, a veteran reporter on Catholic affairs. McGrory said that Allen “is exploring the possibility of continuing it in some modified form, absent any contribution from the Globe.” Crux editor Teresa Hanafin will stay in the newsroom, probably at bostonglobe.com, the paper’s online home.

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MASSACHUSETTS
The Atlantic

EMMA GREEN

Eighteen months ago, The Boston Globe announced a radical experiment: The newspaper would launch a vertical specifically dedicated to coverage of the Catholic Church, betting that it could support this coverage with ad sales. Crux was born, led by the veteran reporter John L. Allen Jr. and staffed by a handful of experienced writers and editors. The section consistently broke news related to Pope Francis and the Vatican, but it also ran stories from across the U.S. and around the globe, covering everything from religious-freedom conflicts in the American Midwest to poverty in Africa.

Eighteen months later, The Boston Globe has bailed. In a letter to staffers, the Globe’s editor Brian McGrory announced that the paper is shutting down the vertical on April 1st, a move which will involve two to three editorial layoffs and one business layoff, according to a spokesperson. In an email, McGrory wrote, “I loved Crux. We all did. It was a terrific idea, a noble mission, and very well executed by a small, deeply experienced, hard-working staff. We made the words work, but not the numbers. They simply didn’t add up. So we decided, quite literally, to cut our losses and focus on the core of our business.” In a few weeks, the paper plans to turn the site over to Allen, who says he is “determined to make sure that Crux continues. How exactly we’re going to engineer that remains to be seen.”

From the beginning, the business model the Globe envisioned for Crux seemed tenuous. The pitch was twofold. First, the paper has been a leader in coverage of the Church, which is a huge cultural and political institution in Boston. Fresh off its Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into widespread clergy sex abuse—an effort that was recently featured in the massively popular, Oscar-winning film Spotlight—the Globe anticipated a big local and national readership for in-depth coverage of the Church. Second, it was betting that there was an untapped market for advertisers who would want to be associated with this coverage—from Catholic hospitals and charities to companies that were looking to appeal to a specifically Catholic readership.

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AUSTRALIA
Dubbo Photo News

March 11, 2016

Written by Tony Webber

Surely god has to take some responsibility.

George Pell has been suitably castigated by his interrogators at the Royal Commission into child abuse.

His description of the church’s behaviour towards child rapists within the ranks, and his place in that institutional behaviour, won him few plaudits.

Often his testimony was directly contradictory.

Pell maintained that he was not aware of specific offenders and the complaints made against them.

Yet he also described the times, and one particular diocese in Ballarat, as lousy with “crimes and cover ups.”

How can you know about crimes, and efforts to conceal them, yet be largely ignorant of their existence at the same time?

He variously explained the fact that this crime and cover-up did not come his way because he was not terribly interested in that aspect of daily life, and also because he was an outspoken lion of truth who would have exposed any wrongdoing if it was revealed to him, except that it wasn’t.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Washington Post

By Julie Zauzmer March 11

If a Catholic news website could work anywhere, at any time, it should have been Boston this year.

With a wildly popular and frequently controversial pope who traveled to the United States for the first time this year, plus an Oscar-winning film treatment of the Globe’s own investigation into abuse by Catholic priests, the Boston Globe’s Catholic-focused site Crux had plenty to cover.

But on Friday, just 18 months after launching the site, the Globe announced that it was giving up on it.

Crux will continue, its associate editor John L. Allen Jr. vowed on Friday. The Globe gave Allen the site for free when it announced it was washing its hands of it. He says he will keep it going, along with the site’s Vatican correspondent Inés San Martín. But he hasn’t yet figured out who will fund it. And in the meantime, the site’s journalists — national correspondent Michael O’Loughlin, San Martín and Allen himself, who has covered the Church for almost 20 years — are all out of jobs.

“We lost our sugar daddy. We’re not shutting down. We intend to continue,” Allen said to the Post on Friday afternoon. “Big picture, it’s not really a surprise. I knew going in that it was kind of a novel venture for a mainstream outlet in the United States.”

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LOUISIANA
KATC

A former Calcasieu priest has been sentenced to 250 years in prison for sexually abusing altar boys.

In February, Mark Broussard was found guilty of aggravated rape (two counts), aggravated oral sexual battery and molestation of a juvenile.

On Friday, he was sentenced to two life sentences, one for each count of aggravated rape. He also was sentenced to 20 years for aggravated oral sexual battery; 15 years for oral sexual battery and 15 years for molestation of a juvenile, the District Attorney’s office said.

The sentences are to run consecutive to each other, for a total of 250 years, the DA’s office said.

Broussard has been in jail since his conviction last month.

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CANADA
The News Watch

THUNDER BAY — The inquest into the deaths of seven First Nation students in Thunder Bay heard some shocking statistics on youth suicides Tuesday.

The head of the Sioux Lookout First Nations Health Authority says at least one hundred of those deaths, can be blamed on one sexual predator.

Jim Morris is also a former NAN Grand Chief and was the first witness at the inquest Tuesday morning.

Morris points to convicted serial offender Ralph Rowe, who was an Anglican priest and Boy Scout leader who sexually abused young boys from numerous First Nations communities in the 1970’s.

Morris says the first suicides in the 1990’s involved young men, aged 15-to-21. He adds that it kick-started the youth suicide crisis that continues today.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WNPV

March 11, 2016
by Joseph Lecompte

A recent grand jury that exposed the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese for the sexual abuse of hundreds of children by more than 50 priests over 40 years, has again set in motion a proposed law for abuse victims.

The law would empower victims to take action, even though the statute of limitations expired.

“Many of these victims have not come forward and the reason is, why would they. The statute of limitations has expired, they can’t charge their abuser criminally, they can’t go after the abuser in a civil action. So what do they do, they suffer in silence. They suffer in their own pain and humiliation.”

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TEXAS
Valley Central

Former Priest John Feit will face a judge Monday morning.

State District Judge Luis Singleterry will hold an arraignment hearing for John Bernard Feit, 83, of Scottsdale, Arizona, at 9 a.m. Monday. Feit is charged with murder, a first-degree felony.

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

UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Several days ago, I published an essay here by the distinguished Mennonite scholar and abuse survivors’ advocate Ruth Krall, responding to her erasure from the record of Mennonite scholarship and activism regarding the legacy of John Howard Yoder in a recent National Catholic Reporter article about these matters. Today, I’m delighted to add to this discussion an excellent essay written by a young Mennonite scholar, Stephanie Krehbiel, who strongly defends Ruth and her contribution to the discussion of Yoder’s legacy, noting,

If Krall were some sort of fringe player in the Yoder drama, . . . younger scholars could be forgiven for glancing over her name. But—for the love of the historical evidence, people, please!—Krall has been at the center of the struggle to make people take Yoder’s abuse seriously for almost forty years. There’s no excuse for ignoring her work.

Here’s Stephanie’s essay:

There was something refreshing about reading the opening line of Kyle Lambelet and Brian Hamilton’s recent NCR piece, “Engage Survivors More, and Yoder Less.” Right there at the outset, they write,

Over the course of his acclaimed career, Christian theologian and ethicist John Howard Yoder (1927-97) stalked, harassed and sexually assaulted more than a hundred women.

The language in this sentence is evidence of a feminist victory. For years, survivors’ advocates in the Mennonite church pushed back against the sanitized and indistinct language that people used to talk about what Yoder did to women. “Misconduct.” “Boundary crossing.” There may be times when that kind of non-specific language is necessary, but for the women who knew how violent John Howard Yoder actually was, it added another layer of abuse to the violations already committed.

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

UNITED STATES
The Virginia Gazette

The award-winning movie “Spotlight” follows The Boston Globe ‘Spotlight Team” as they investigate widespread child sex abuse in the Boston area by numerous Catholic priests. Their work brought the issue to the fore, not just in Boston, but around the world. Their diligence as journalists was a major catalyst in bringing about accountability within the church but also on shining a light on the devastation that resulted in the lives of the victims.

The movie is based on a series of stories by the actual Spotlight team that earned the Globe the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. As the movie unfolds we see the factual basis of the ongoing cover-up by the Boston Archdiocese. The team, through persistent, careful research, uncovered many incidents of abuse; the number of priest abusers and victims far greater than even they had originally thought. If these veteran reporters were shocked, and saddened, think of the impact on the general population and especially the millions of Catholic faithful whose faith in their church and its leaders was put into serious question.

The investigative team was well aware that congregations within the church, especially members of a strong lay ministry, would dispute their findings, hence the intense checking and double checking of facts. There were numerous legal documents filed with the court in Boston that the Archdiocese, guided by Cardinal Bernard Francis Law, intercepted to prevent them from becoming public record. Priests who were discovered to be abusive were simply moved to another parish, some many times; unwittingly the church supplied more victims. The public image of the Catholic Church took precedence over the heartache and devastation of the victims.

The Catholic Church would wish us to believe that the issue has been resolved. Certainly they have been forced to pay out millions of dollars in restitution, forced being the operative word, as they still require a signed victim-confidentiality agreement at the time of payment. Anyone who thinks that the number of lives affected by this is minimal needs to revisit the factual findings of this whole disgraceful scandal. Cases continue to be filed, but there remains within the church hierarchy an attitude of concealment and denial. Even “good priests” wishing to comment publicly find themselves relocated to a Mission area, where media exposure is less available. Cardinal Law was forced to resign but was reassigned a comfortable position in Rome, under the protective cloak of the Vatican. A general, blanket statement with regard to the abusing priests being required to undergo counseling was supposed to reassure the faithful that all was under control. No actual facts about consequences for any church individual were released and no follow up for further information was considered. The repercussions for those abused are innumerable. Victims struggle in their lives going forward, trying to recover from the defilement by a person shrouded in a sacred position of trust.

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

PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, March 11, 2016

Statement by David Clohessy, director of SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

With lightning speed, Altoona Bishop Mark Bartchack recently removed a couple of church banners, a nearly-meaningless gesture. But with glacial speed, he talks but won’t move on pressing and practical steps that will protect kids.

[The Morning Call]

In the whole 147 page report, perhaps the most disturbing fact is that the jurors are “concerned the purge of predators is taking too long.”

[Cincinnati.com]

That fact was made public ten days ago. Since then, Bartchak has not exposed or suspended even one predator priest. This is very troubling. He must act now. What could possibly be more important that warning parents, parishioners, police, prosecutors and the public about credibly accused child molesters and getting them out of ministry? Every day a child molester stays hidden gives him more chances to assault kids, destroy evidence, intimidate victims, threaten witnesses, discredit whistleblowers and even flee to evade prosecution.

Bartchak also refuses to

–discipline even a single wrongdoer identified in the grand jury,
–fire a nun who deals with victims and was blasted in the grand jury report,
–replace his review board members who the report called “biased,”
–even oust ONE review board member who refused to answer questions by grand jurors,
–discipline or even denounce a priest who verbally attacked police, prosecutors and jurors,
–alert bishops in Florida, South Carolina, Colorado, West Virginia into whose dioceses Altoona predator priests were quietly sent (and may still be living), or
–aggressively beg victims, witnesses and whistleblowers to call police, using pulpit announcements and church websites and parish bulletins.

And he’s dragging his feet on posting predators’ names on his website, which he’s promised to do. (He could put up a partial list in an hour if he tried.)

We’re reminded of the famous fast food ad of years past that popularized the phrase “Where’s the beef?” In this case, it’s “Where’s the action?” The short answer is: In Altoona, it’s sorely lacking.

The grand jury concluded “Nothing has changed” in the Altoona diocese with respect to abuse reports. And nothing will change unless Altoona citizens and Catholic insist that Barchak stop the words, apologies, promises and excuses and start showing leadership, and begin by speeding up the purge of predators from parishes.

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

MINNESOTA
Advocate Tribune

By Scott Tedrick
News Editor

Posted Mar. 11, 2016

New information has come to light indicating that at least two additional cases of sexual abuses have been perpetrated in Granite Falls by pastors assigned to St. Andrew Catholic Church by the New Ulm Diocese, including one ‘credibly confirmed’ case involving Fr. Gordon Buckley.

Furthermore, the information indicates the New Ulm Diocese was aware of three area cases of abuse prior to at least one of the pastor’s assignments at St. Andrew.

Last month Parishioners of St. Andrew Church received a pair of letters by New Ulm Diocese Bishop John Levoir, dated February 5 and February 11, informing them of two priests with a history of sexual abuse who were placed in the parish during back-to-back assignments in the 60s and 70.

In 2010, the first of the now three cases of reported sexual abuse, was brought to the surface following a CNN Special Report on a report of sexual abuse of a local child perpetrated by Fr. Francis Markey during an approximately three month period in which he was assigned as interim pastor for the church in the spring of 1982.

Markey would die in jail in 2012 while awaiting charges of raping a 15-year old in Ireland over 40 years ago.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Legal Intelligencer

Max Mitchell, The Legal Intelligencer
March 11, 2016

The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office has asked the state Supreme Court to determine whether the Superior Court overstepped its bounds when it overturned the conviction of monsignor William J. Lynn, the first Catholic Church administrative official convicted over conduct by other priests.

The District Attorney’s Office filed an appeal with the justices Friday in Commonwealth v. Lynn, arguing that the front-line appeals court had usurped the trial court’s power when it determined late last year that too much “other-acts” evidence had been allowed at trial. That decision from the Superior Court vacated Lynn’s conviction and ordered a new trial.

However, the appeal, filed by Hugh Burns Jr., chief of the District Attorney’s appeals unit, said the evidence was necessary and properly admitted, and the Superior Court should not have re-weighed it.

“As set forth in the dissenting opinion by Judge (now Justice) [Christine] Donohue, the majority analysis authored by President Judge Emeritus [John] Bender does not identify any abuse of discretion by the trial judge. Rather, it usurps the trial court’s discretion and reweighs the evidence,” the 33-page filing said. “Further review is warranted.”

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

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Newsweek

BY RALPH CIPRIANO ON 3/11/16

I don’t remember.

I really don’t remember.

I honestly don’t remember.

That’s what former Philadelphia altar boy Daniel Gallagher had to say when questioned about the numerous and contradictory allegations of sex abuse he’s made over the years to doctors, drug counselors and social workers. During a confidential deposition over two full days in May and June 2014, Gallagher claimed he couldn’t remember more than 130 times.

The skinny, tattooed, 27-year-old former drug addict and admitted dealer was the Philadelphia district attorney’s star witness at two criminal trials in 2012 and 2013. Gallagher’s testimony about allegedly being repeatedly raped when he was an altar boy sent three priests and a Catholic schoolteacher to jail.

Since then, however, Gallagher’s credibility is unraveling under the scrutiny of expert witnesses, and the criminal convictions resulting from his testimony have been the subject of two successful legal appeals, with more challenges on the way.

In his deposition transcript obtained by Newsweek, Gallagher stated he couldn’t remember telling his doctors and drug counselors he’d been: sexually abused by a friend at age 6; sexually abused by a neighbor at 6; sexually abused by a teacher at age 7; sexually molested at 6 (or 8) by an unknown assailant; sexually molested at 8 (or 9) by a friend; and sexually abused at 9 by a 14-year-old boy.

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

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Newsworks

BY BOBBY ALLYN

Philadelphia’s District Attorney Seth Williams is urging the state’s highest court to consider an appeal of Msgr. William Lynn’s case, arguing that an appeals court decision ordering a new trial was “embarrassingly unjustified” and that the reasoning “simply makes no sense.”

Williams has been on a losing streak in state appeals courts, and the latest filing to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court represents the last chance he has to keep the conviction of Lynn, who was the first Catholic Church official nationwide to be convicted for covering up sexual abuse by clergy.

In December, a three-judge appellate court ordered a new trial for Lynn because of what the majority said was bad evidence presented at trial. In particular, the judges found most of the prosecutors’ 21 examples of the Philadelphia Archdiocese covering up child sex abuse had nothing to do with Lynn. In fact, some of the evidence dated back to the 1940s, decades before Lynn became a church official in charge of priest assignments. Some of the other priests prosecutors cited were not under the direct supervision of Lynn. The court found that he was being unfairly blamed for systemic corruption.

That couldn’t be farther form the truth, Williams wrote in the new filing.

“In no instance did he take any steps to require a relocated sexual predator to be kept separated from children,” Williams and staff in his office wrote.

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

MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Business Journal

Craig Douglas
Managing Editor
Boston Business Journal

The Boston Globe has ended its brief foray as a publisher of the stand-alone Catholic news site Crux.

In a letter to newsroom staff, Globe Editor Brian McGrory said the company made the “deeply difficult decision” to shutter the online news site, effective April 1. The move will include an unspecified number of layoffs. McGrory’s memo also confirmed that another stand-alone news operation, the technology-focused BetaBoston, will be rolled behind the Boston Globe’s online paywall and absorbed into its main news operation.

Crux launched in September 2014 and marked one of the Globe’s first major product innovations following its $70 million acquisition by Boston Red Sox owner John Henry in 2013. The online publication, which aimed to break news and provide analysis that catered to Greater Boston’s Catholics as well as like-minded advertisers, was edited by Teresa Hanafin and included a handful of high-profile columnists such as former Vatican reporter John Allen and one-time Boston Herald opinion writer Margery Eagan.

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

CANADA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release Friday, March 11

Statement by Barbra Graber, Leader, Anabaptist-Mennonite Chapter of SNAP, 540-214-8874, mennonite@SNAPnetwork.org

We are grateful this brave woman has filed a lawsuit alleging the Mennonite church “fostered a climate that aided in the abuse of children.” Brian Douglas Porinsky, a former pastor with the Mennonite Brethren Church of Manitoba pleaded guilty to sexual assault and is serving time in prison.

Children are safer when predators are held accountable for their crimes; but it is vital that those who enable, shield and protect those predators are also held accountable. Too often Mennonite church officials take matters into their own hands and allow the risk of harm to continue, putting the reputation of the institution ahead of the safety of children and vulnerable adults.

[Winnipeg Sun]

When congregants, and especially children, are taught that pastors are chosen representatives of God on earth, a very dangerous situation is created. Time and time again we have seen children sexually groomed and assaulted because they felt they could not say no to a man of God.

We hope this lawsuit will force church officials of all denominations to become more vigilant in their hiring of pastors, to use their resources to educate the congregation about abuse prevention and to work with civil authorities in reporting and prosecuting these crimes.

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

LOUISIANA
American Press

By Crystal Stevenson / American Press

Former Lake Charles priest Mark Broussard, who was convicted in February of five counts of sexual abuse — including two counts of aggravated rape — was sentenced Friday to two life sentences, plus an additional 50 years in prison.

Broussard was convicted of molestation of a juvenile, oral sexual battery, aggravated oral sexual battery and two counts of aggravated rape against two men who both served as altar boys in the late 1980s and early ‘90s. Aggravated rape carries an automatic life sentence without parole.
“Victims hurt for years and years,” said prosecutor Cynthia Killingsworth after Broussard’s conviction. “This was a way to get their story out and … maybe lead to closure.”

During the trial, which was often standing room only, the first victim testified he was an 8-year-old altar boy when the abuse began. He said Broussard molested him in the St. Henry Catholic Church altar boys’ changing room, the confessional and in a car and raped him in the church rectory.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

MARCH 12, 2016

Gerard Henderson
Columnist

The evidence suggests that Justice Peter McClennan QC, AM, chairman of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, has undergone a legal conversion sometime during the past quarter of a century.

In 1991, Peter McClellan QC barrister at law (as he then was) wrote an article titled “ICAC: A Barrister’s Perspective”, in the journal Current Issues in Criminal Justice. This was a critique of the operation of the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption in particular. However, the barrister extended his comments to cover royal commissions in general.

McClellan wrote: “In recent years there has been an increasing trend in government to invoke royal commissions of inquiry to investigate particular problems. The frequency of such inquiries and the sensational reporting which they have attracted has tended to create a belief in some people that this is an appropriate method of handling any matter of public controversy. This is a view expressed by the press.”

While recognising that “royal commissions may affect great community good”, McClellan argued that they might “cause considerable harm to persons unfairly trapped by the blaze of sensationalist publicity which can be created”. He concluded by maintaining that commissions of inquiry should accept “that persons should only be convicted after due process in the relevant court”.

That was 1991. Last week McClellan presided over Cardinal George Pell’s evidence to the royal commission’s case studies into the Catholic diocese of Ballarat and archdiocese of Melbourne.

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CANADA
National Post

Kelly McParland | March 11, 2016

It has been 14 years since the sexual abuse scandal hit the Catholic church, yet the revelations keep coming. While the church maintains it is disgusted and appalled and is working doggedly to make things right, the charges accumulate faster than the apologies can be issued.

In Australia this month, a royal commission has been hearing testimony from Cardinal George Pell, Pope Francis’s finance minister and one of the Vatican’s most powerful figures. Earlier in his career, he was a key figure in a diocese where some of Australia’s most notorious abuse cases occurred.

Pell was ordained a priest in Ballarat, near Melbourne. Dozens of victims have launched charges of abuse against 14 priests from the diocese, from the 1960s to the 1990s. At one time, as many as five priests preyed on children at the same time, a situation Pell dismissed as a “disastrous coincidence.” Several victims committed suicide.

The worst offender was Gerald Ridsdale, accused of more than 100 cases of abuse, including against his own nephew. Pell once shared living quarters with Ridsdale, but says he noticed nothing unusual. He also served as a consultant to Ballarat bishop Ronald Mulkearns, who moved Ridsdale from parish to parish for years. Pell says he remained in the dark about rampant abuse, even as he rose through the ranks to archbishop of Melbourne and later as archbishop of Sydney. Ridsale’s nephew says Pell once told him: “I want to know what it will take to keep you quiet.” Pell denies this.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service – Spiritual Politics

Mark Silk | Mar 11, 2016

A couple of days ago, the AP’s Nicole Winfield reported that Pope Francis’ tribunal to judge bishops who covered up abuse of minors by priests “is going nowhere fast.” It was nine months ago that the pope’s nine-member cardinal advisory board agreed to establish the tribunal as a special disciplinary section within the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Thus far the promised secretary for the tribunal has not been appointed and procedures for handling cases have not been promulgated.

Unless and until the tribunal is up and running, the Vatican cannot claim to have addressed the abuse crisis.

The United State Conference of Catholic Bishops’ “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” adopted in Dallas in 2005 and revised twice since then, promulgates excellent rules for bishops to deal with allegations of sexual abuse of minors. But as the cases of Bishop Robert Finn in Kansas City and Archbishop John Nienstedt in St. Paul have recently demonstrated, excellent rules are meaningless if bishops don’t play by them. And while there can be no ironclad guarantees, the best assurance that they will do so is a judicial process where allegations of episcopal misconduct are brought, investigations conducted, trials conducted, and verdicts rendered.

No doubt there are difficult procedural questions to be resolved. Who will have standing to bring complaints? Will there be a statute of limitations? Can cases be brought against retired bishops? Should there be a range of sanctions? How open will the proceedings be?

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ALTOONA (PA)
PennLive

Written by Attorney Richard M. Serbin to:
– Catherine Miller, Assistant DA of Blair County
– Karen Arnold, Assistant DA of Center County
– David Tulowitzki, DA of Cambria County

Dated September 25, 2002
Released on March 9, 2016

[See also Cambria County judge among senior officials who ignored reports of sex abuse in Altoona diocese, by Ivey DeJesus, PennLive, March 8, 2016; and now-Judge Tulowitzki’s statement.]

Dear Counselors:

You asked that I provide you with additional details regarding information previously provided. A substantial amount of information was obtained in the discovery proceedings and the actual trial of the Hutchison v Luddy, Bishop Hogan and Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown case. As you can imagine, the Luddy file is quite extensive.

The task of finding specific details was made more difficult by the fact that the information that we received in litigation came in a piecemeal fashion. Originally, the record was filed under seal and the Diocese was not required to provide us with the names of any of the victims. As court rulings were made in our favor, the Diocese provided successive responses to multiple sets of discovery. You should be aware that the Blair County Courts limited our discovery of information maintained by the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown regarding pedophile priests to a specific time frame that ended in December of 1984. Therefore, the information we secured directly from the Diocese per Court order is not up to date. Current information regarding the priests identified below and other pedophilic priests should be secured directly from the Diocese.

Additionally, with respect to individuals who have recently contacted us for representation regarding their sexual abuse, their permission to disclose this information had to be secured. That being said, I will try to provide you with those details I was able to garner from my review of both the file and other sources available to me.

As to Monsignor [Francis B.] McCaa, in approximately the mid 1980s, at least five altar boys, ages 13-15 complained of being molested by Monsignor McCaa while he was assigned to Holy Name Church in Ebensburg. I have no real details of these five cases other than that contained in the Cambria County dockets. The files were sealed by the Court. Recently, however, I was contacted by [Redacted] who lives in Pittsburgh. [Redacted] advised that he was molested beginning at age 9, by Monsignor McCaa from approximately 1981-1985, while serving as an altar boy. Monsignor McCaa was transferred by the Diocese of Altoona Johnstown to a position in West Virginia after the above cases were filed.

With regard to Father [Dennis] Coleman, we received information that he had molested a number of boys from as early as 1979 to the mid 1980s. These victims included …

[The letter next discusses Fr. Leonard Inman, Fr. Joseph Gaborek, Fr. Joseph Bender, Fr. William Kovach, Fr. Robert Kelly, Fr. Harold Biller, Fr. Bernard Grattan, and Fr. Francis E. Luddy. See the PDF of the letter.]

Several of the aforesaid priests have left Pennsylvania after complaints were filed. I as well as several of my clients, all of whom are now adults, would be interested in learning whether criminal complaints can still be filed, given their absence from the jurisdiction of Pennsylvania Courts.

It is my hope that this information will assist the District Attorneys’ offices. If you would like to discuss any of these cases further, please feel free to contact me.

Very truly yours,
Richard M. Serbin

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

MARCH 11, 2016

The Boston Globe’s 2001-2002 investigation into sexual abuses by clergy in the Catholic Church resulted in more than 600 stories, with eight Globe reporters playing key roles. The first history-changing report was the work of Spotlight editor Walter V. Robinson, and reporters Sacha Pfeiffer, Michael Rezendes, and Matt Carroll. As the scope of the story widened, four other reporters joined the effort: Stephen Kurkjian, Thomas Farragher, Michael Paulson, and Kevin Cullen.

Here is a sampling of their work:

1. This Globe column by Eileen McNamara got the investigation rolling when new Globe editor Martin Baron read it in July 2001 and asked the Spotlight Team to pursue a wider look at abusive priests and what the church leadership knew.

2. The story that changed everything: The Spotlight Team’s first major report, published Jan. 6, 2002.

3. A few weeks later, the Spotlight Team widened the horrifying picture to include scores of priests.

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

TEXAS
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Mar. 10, 2016

A lawsuit against the Legionnaires of Christ approaching trial in Texas alleges one of its priests attempted to extort, via text message, an additional $94,000 from a Houston-area developer as contingent to closing a land deal between the parties.

The suit, filed in Harris County State District Court, names the Legionnaires of Christ, Legionary Fr. Daniel Massick, former president of Northwoods Catholic School, in Spring, Texas, and Northwoods Educational Foundation as defendants. Robert Pinard, the developer and president/CEO of Pinard Development LLC, is suing for fraud and breach of contract.

At the center of the case is a claim that Massick supposedly texted Pinard that he would need to provide an additional $94,000 donation for an upcoming school gala in order to secure the priest’s signature on the paperwork finalizing an 8.5-acre land deal.

The suit, filed March 3, was the third revision for a case first brought in April 2015. Pinard is seeking an unspecified monetary amount, though the suit claims $3 million in lost profits. A trial is tentatively set for July 25.

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VIRGINIA
WVEC

[with video]

NORFOLK, Va. (WVEC) — A former rabbi is on trial for sex charges that span back decades in Norfolk.

73-year-old Eric Silver is charged with three felony counts of taking indecent liberties with a child.

The victim testified Thursday in court and said the sexual abuse started when she was four years old and living with Silver in Norfolk more than 40 years ago.

She first reported it to a high school guidance counselor when she and Silver were living in Canada, then reported it to Norfolk police in 2014.

The victim stated the abuse lasted until she was about 18-years-old.

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VIRGINIA
The Virginian-Pilot

By Jonathan Edwards
The Virginian-Pilot

NORFOLK

The daughter of a former Navy chaplain and retired rabbi testified Thursday that her father molested her in the 1960s and ’70s and tried to cleanse her by rubbing hydrogen peroxide on her genitals.

Eric Aaron Silver, 73, of Cheshire, Conn., sat through the first day of his trial Thursday as his now 52-year-old daughter told the court he started fondling her at their house in the 5400 block of Barnhollow Road when she was 4.

The abuse continued over the next 12 years, she said, even as their family moved among four states and Canada.

“I was humiliated,” she said. “I thought I was the only girl whose father ever did this.”

The Virginian-Pilot normally does not name alleged victims of sex crimes, but Rachel Silver agreed to be identified.

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UNITED STATES
TakePart

[with video]

MAR 10, 2016

Celeste Hoang is the Film & TV Integration Editor for TakePart.

As Spotlight captures the unraveling of the Catholic Church’s sex-abuse cover-up, survivors and families have come forward to talk about the decades-long scandal.

TakePart is sharing a series of five interviews, including survivors’ reactions to the film and an interview with Boston Globe reporter and survivor advocate Mitch Garabedian. (Disclosure: Spotlight was produced by TakePart’s parent company, Participant Media.)

“I went 40 years without talking about this,” survivor Jim Scanlan says in one of the interviews. “Matter of fact, I went 40 years avoiding this topic. For the first time in my life since the movie came out, I’ve really come out of the shadows.”

The film follows the newspaper’s Spotlight team of investigative reporters as they delve into allegations of abuse in the Catholic Church, eventually revealing a cover-up at the highest levels of the Archdiocese of Boston that touches off a wave of revelations around the world.

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UNITED STATES
New York Times

Nicholas Kristof MARCH 10, 2016

We as a society derided the Roman Catholic Church as an accessory to child sexual abuse, and we lambasted Penn State for similar offenses.

Yet we as a society are complicit or passive in a similar way, by allowing a popular website called Backpage.com to be used to arrange child rape. Consider what happened to a girl I’ll call Natalie, who was trafficked into the sex industry in Seattle at age 15.

“It was every parent’s nightmare,” Natalie’s mother, Nacole, told me. “It can happen to any parent. Fifteen-year-olds don’t make the best choices. I dropped her off at school in the morning, I was expecting to pick her up after track practice in the afternoon, and then I didn’t see her for 108 days.” The girl ran off to a bus station, was found by a pimp, and within days was being sold for sex on Backpage.

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VATICAN CITY
Town Hall

By Philip Pullella and Tom Heneghan

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Three years after the election of Pope Francis, Roman Catholic conservatives are growing increasingly worried that he is quietly unraveling the legacy of his predecessors.

Francis’ popularity with most Catholics, and legions of non-Catholics, has given him the image of a grandfatherly parish priest who understands how difficult it sometimes is to follow Church teachings, particularly those on sexual morality.

Conservatives worry that behind the gentle facade lies a dangerous reformer who is diluting Catholic teaching on moral issues like homosexuality and divorce while focusing on social problems such as climate change and economic inequality.

Interviews with four Vatican officials, including two cardinals and an archbishop, as well as theologians and commentators, highlighted conservative fears that Francis’ words and deeds may eventually rupture the 1.2 billion member Church.

Chatter on conservative blogs regularly accuses the Argentine pontiff of spreading doctrinal confusion and isolating those who see themselves as guardians of the faith.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Handelsblatt

[One problem with the pope’s planned tribunal to discipline bishops who cover-up abuse is that responsibility was given to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which has a questionable past. Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, who heads CDF, as bishop of Regensburg went against norms then in place and put a pedophile priest back into parish work.]

Zuständiger Präfekt setzte selbst Pädophile als Pfarrer ein

Aber solch eine Art der Problemlösung bewirke wenig, um den „Skandal zu beheben und die Gerechtigkeit wieder herzustellen“, meint Martens. Dieses sollte eigentlich das kirchliche Strafsystem eigentlich sichern. „Das ist fast, als könnten sich Schuldige ihre Strafe aussuchen und sind dann aus dem Schneider“, so der Gelehrte.

Dabei sei es nicht immer so leicht, einen Bischof freiwillig zur Amtsaufgabe zu bewegen, merkt der amerikanische Kirchenrechtler Nicholas Cafardi an. In dieser Hinsicht könnte das spezielle Tribunal eingreifen, wenn der Druck aus dem Vatikan nicht ausreiche. „Die Forderung nach einem Rücktritt hat damit mehr Substanz hinter sich. Das ist ein wichtiger Effekt hinter den neuen Maßnahmen, der nicht unterschätzt werden sollte“, so Cafardi in einer E-Mail.

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VATICAN CITY
NDTV

AFP

VATICAN CITY: Many words, little action: three years after Pope Francis’s election, victims of priest sex abuse are bitter and disappointed, accusing the Church of having failed to punish guilty clerics and end a culture of complacency on the issue.

The recent Australian Royal Commission hearings of Vatican number three George Pell and a preliminary criminal probe into accusations that Lyon’s archbishop, Philippe Barbarin, covered up for a paedophile priest has put the question of Church complicity in abuse back at the top of the Vatican agenda.

Francis came to power promising a crackdown on cover-ups and a zero tolerance approach to abuse itself.

But victims still feel they are not been listened to, that bishops are still failing to hand criminal priests over to the appropriate authorities and that a conspiracy of silence remains the order of the day, right up to the top of the Vatican hierarchy.

The growing discontent with Francis’s record on ridding the Church of the taint of paedophilia is in sharp contrast with how he has performed in other areas.

As he prepares to celebrate Sunday’s third anniversary of his election, the Argentinian pontiff boasts genuine star status around the world thanks to his charismatic, simple style, his defence of the world’s poor and efforts to reform the Church and bring it closer to ordinary believers.

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