ABUSE TRACKER

PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

Standing inside Our Mother of Sorrows’ stained glass doors before Sunday mass, Rick Messina had no trouble finding words to describe his reaction to new details released last week regarding decades of years-old child abuse by local Roman Catholic clergy.

The parishioner called it a striking reminder that “horrible and disgusting” things happened for far too long in churches like his. As hard as it was to hear, it was also a necessary reminder, he said.

“It’s sad that things that happened so many years ago are taking away from the beautiful things that are happening in this church,” Messina said. “But it’s happening right now because it needs to. This has to be out in the open so we can learn from it and people can heal.”

He was among parishioners Sunday who said the both decades-long and decades-old scandal has hung over the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona–Johnstown and its parishes for too long – but has done so because it was hushed rather than healed.

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OHIO
Vindicator

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

The leader of a national support group for victims of sexual abuse by priests and other Catholic Church clergy today called upon county prosecutors in Mahoning and Trumbull counties to urge Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine to launch an aggressive investigation into sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Youngstown.

At a press conference this morning outside the headquarters of the diocese, Robert Hoatson, president of the New Jersey-based Road to Recovery, “We want the same type of investigation as was done in Altoona {Pa.].”

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane last week released findings of an investigation of the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese. It revealed that former bishops either covered up or didn’t do enough to respond to hundreds of abuse allegations in the diocese by more than 50 priests from 1966 to 2011.

“We want state officials to raid that building,” Hoatson said, referring to the West Wood Street headquarters of the Youngstown Diocese.

“In that building, I guarantee you are the same types of files found in Altoona,” Hoatson said. He added his group recommends the state review records of all priests that have served in the diocese over the past 60 years or so.

Also speaking at the press conference today were Barbara Aponte, mother of a former student at Warren John F. Kennedy High School who says her son committed suicide due to the shame of abuse he suffered at the school; her husband Felix Aponte and “John Doe,” a former JFK student who described the long-term impact of abuse he said he suffered also at JFK in the 1980s.

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IRELAND
Galway Bay FM

Galway Bay fm newsroom – Around 50 people attended a flower laying ceremony at the Magdalene graves in Bohermore cemetery this afternoon.

The event is part of the national ‘Flowers for Magdalenes’ event which saw flowers laid on Magdalene graves in cities and towns that had Magdalene Laundries.

The Galway event was sponsored by Galway City Community Network – the network of community, voluntary and environmental groups in the city.

The ceremony saw the womens’ names read out, while the crowd also heard some poems and a song, dedicated to the Magdalene women buried at Bohermore.

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IRELAND
RTE News

Flowers were laid at five separate plots in Glasnevin Cemetery, in memory of the women who died in Magdalene laundries.

A special ceremony in honour of the women was held at the graveyard.

Several hundred people came to the event, which was organised by the Justice for Magdalenes Research group.

Spokesperson Claire McGettrick said there are seven known plots in Glasnevin where Magdalene women are buried.

She said it is estimated that the remains of up to 400 women were buried in the graveyard, but many of their identities remain unknown.

The women were from laundries in High Park, Drumcondra and Sean MacDermott Street in Dublin.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Michael Bodey
The Australian
March 7, 2016

Andrew Bolt has hit back strongly at the implication he changed his view of Cardinal George Pell’s testimony to the Royal Commission into child abuse.

Within hours of confirmation the News Corp Australia columnist had secured an exclusive interview with Cardinal Pell in Rome last week, Bolt turned on the Cardinal, saying his testimony that a particular case “wasn’t of much interest to me” was “disastrous” and “will be hung around his neck for the rest of his career”. The following morning, Bolt tempered his criticism, noting he felt “embarrassed because I think I’ve joined the pack attacking Pell” and joked “for the first time in my life I’m trending positive on Twitter as a result”.

He told The Australian he was offended by the implication he would be so “craven” as to change his opinion in order to curry favour with anyone.

“Even when I attacked Pell this week there was no suggestion that the interview would not proceed, or that some extra conditions would be imposed,” he said.

“I note that (ABC 7.30 host) Leigh Sales thought there was now such a good chance of my interview being cancelled that she offered to take over instead.”

Indeed, discussions between Bolt and Pell’s communications adviser at the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney, Katrina Lee, began before Christmas, in a chance encounter in Sydney.

Bolt told Lee he believed Pell’s public responses had been poor and the public, and parishioners, needed to hear ­directly from him to “see if he really got it”.

Ms Lee made no promises but the Cardinal later agreed, with the only caveat being his health and that the interview take place after his testimony.

Cardinal Pell, the Vatican’s third highest-ranking official, is understood not to have sought counsel or permission from the Vatican or imposed any conditions for the interview. Bolt’s request that the interview be long enough to cover topics beyond the royal commission, and unedited, was amenable to the Cardinal. The only conditions placed on the interview, Bolt said, were his own: that he retain editorial control and that it run for an hour.

Bolt secured the interview without a broadcaster or producer, although he told the church he would be in Rome for the week covering the Cardinal’s testimony.

Bolt asked Simon Nasht, the producer of a documentary about indigenous constitutional recognition he is filming for the ABC, I Can Change Your Mind About Recognition, to produce the interview.
The documentary outfit Nasht formed with philanthropist Dick Smith, Smith & Nasht, is also producing the political two-parter, Howard on Menzies, for the ABC.

Nasht is understood to have shopped the Pell interview to commercial networks, at least one of which turned it down due to the inability to execute, repackage or edit the material.

Sky News Australia — for whom Bolt worked as a “contributor” in Rome during Pell’s testimony, ahead of what is expected to be a more substantial role this year (possibly making The Bolt Report a nightly program), could accommodate the one-hour, live broadcast, which aired on Friday night.

That format and broadcaster was also to Cardinal Pell’s liking; his advisers chose the venue in Rome.

Bolt said any implication he was a friend of Pell’s is incorrect. He, and sources at the church, say they’ve met less than a handful of times, and only once in private. Even so, the issues surrounding the Catholic Church’s behaviour, and its coverage in the Australian media, have been some of Bolt’s most wrenching topics.

Sources close to Bolt told Media they had not seen, in almost two decades’ writing, the normally forthright opinion-maker for the Herald Sun as torn and contemplative about his feelings on the matter. Previously, Bolt had described the media coverage of Cardinal Pell as a “witch-hunt” and he was furious his home paper, the Herald Sun, led two weeks ago with the story that the Victoria Police was investigating the Cardinal on separate matters to the royal commission. Yet he has also been disappointed at Cardinal Pell’s public attitude. Bolt’s about face on Wednesday was typical of his conflict.

But that’s off screen. “In the end, it is just another interview,” Bolt told Media.

“I asked. He accepted.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

March 5, 2016

Martin Flanagan
Columnist for The Age

Two faces of Australian Catholicism were on display this week. One was Cardinal George Pell’s testimony before the royal commission on child sexual abuse.

Pell could have been discussing the internal workings of a department store. He had his job, others had theirs, he didn’t “indulge rumours” and had “no interest” in tracking those rumours down even though they concerned the welfare of the youngest and most vulnerable members of what once would have been called his flock. What his testimony lacked was moral imagination.

Patrick Dodson has moral imagination and courage to match.

I do not equate religion with spirituality, but it is genuinely spiritual people who make religion meaningful by investing it with humility and compassion. Without those qualities, religion is no more than a series of empty rituals encased, in the case of the Catholic Church, in a medieval pomp which is supposed to embody a Jewish rebel who sided with social outcasts and was openly contemptuous of the religious authorities of his day for their double standards.

Also this week, Patrick Dodson was named as Bill Shorten’s pick to replace WA Labor senator Joe Bullock. If there’s a person whose vision contrasts with Pell’s, it is Dodson.

Dodson was sent to Monivae College in Hamilton as an Aboriginal kid from the Northern Territory at a time when Aboriginal people were still not counted in the census. Within three years, he was school captain. That achievement alone marks him as an extraordinary person.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Catholic4Change

MARCH 6, 2016 BY SUSAN MATTHEWS

Click here to read: “Law officers, clergy forged ties stymieing prosecutions,” by Caitlin McCabe and Maria Panaritis, The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 6, 2016

Having faith and holding leadership accountable should not be mutually exclusive. We can have faith in God and send Bishops to jail. We can be Catholic and not tolerate the cover up of clergy child sex abuse. How many Saints died for their faith? The least we can do is speak up to protect our Catholic faith from its morally and criminally corrupt leaders. Or, we can sit in Church and put our blinders on. After all, everyone makes mistakes. Just so long as a priest doesn’t make a child rape “mistake” with their own grandson or granddaughter.

This is where I’d like to insert a string of expletives but I’ll continue to use the vocabulary the Immaculate Heart Sisters taught me. Pope Francis is a breath of fresh air but the Church needs a hurricane now. It needs every Catholic voice to say, “We will not tolerate this.”

If you can’t get angry about child rape then maybe muster up some irritation at the amount of money going to victim settlements that could have been avoided if predators had been stopped when they were first discovered. That money should have gone to feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless or keeping your parish open. How much have you put into the collection basket over a lifetime? How much did your parents? Keep it coming.

According to the US Bishops Conference, the Catholic Church spent almost $3 billion on settlements, therapy for victims, support for offenders, attorneys’ fees and other costs in the United States from 2004 until 2013. Restitution to victims is fair and right. But I’m sure victims wouldn’t have traded their childhoods for it. Wouldn’t it have been better to shut the abuse down in its tracks before the numbers grew? Instead they covered it up and caused immeasurable emotional damage and still growing financial burdens.

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AUSTRALIA
Courier

By MELISSA CUNNINGHAM
March 6, 2016

Their extraordinary bond was formed under the most harrowing of circumstances.

They call each other “brothers.” They call themselves survivors.

They’re the the men who form Ballarat’s Centre Against Sexual Assault mens’ survivor group.

All have survived sexual abuse in some form but many suffered it at the hands of Ballarat clergy.

Since it was established in 2013 in response to the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse the highly successful CASA men’s group has grown to more than a 100 members.

Behind the scenes, CASA senior counsellor Andrea Lockhart has worked tirelessly for years, directly with the men to rebuild their shattered lives.

Many of the men credit her with bringing them “back from the brink”.

Last week, Ms Lockhart was right beside them on arguably their biggest step in their a journey so far: A trip to Rome to bear witness to Cardinal George Pell’s evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

March 7, 2016

Phil Cleary

Church leaders were not doing anything that unusual when they covered for Ridsdale and his ilk.

Was anyone not moved to despair, or maybe even outrage, watching Cardinal George Pell’s evidence at the royal commission on child sexual abuse? Even if Pell didn’t know, as implausible as it looks, that Father Gerald Ridsdale and a cabal of priests and brothers was systematically raping children in the 1970s and ’80s, his church’s guilt is palpable.

Why was Pell, a big strong outspoken man in his younger years, so timid when a generation of children was being terrorised by cowardly, sadistic brothers and priests? If he’d been a reserved, retiring kind of man we might have imagined he didn’t have the nerve to confront those who covered for Ridsdale and his like. But Pell is not that kind of man. He’s never flinched in a public debate about Catholic doctrine or the failings of sinners. A man of the old world, George Pell was never one to mince his words.

Yet when acting as a “consultor” to Bishop Ronald Mulkearns it seems he never asked one forthright question about why a known sadistic “sinner”, Ridsdale, was being moved from parish to parish. All the while, says Pell, those with knowledge of these crimes either lied to or failed to confide in him. Whatever the truth of what he knew, there can be no mistaking his indifference to the lives of young boys at Catholic schools. While some men in his predicament might have shed a tear for those who have suffered, the cardinal from Ballarat is made of sterner stuff. His testimony was all about survival and proving that, because he was ignorant of the crimes, he had no moral culpability.

Now that we’ve established the church’s culpability, we need to answer other, very serious questions. Why could men supposedly called to God act so sadistically? Were there reasons, other than the protection of the church’s name, that induced its leaders to protect those men engaged in a brutal misuse of power? Were some church elders burdened by what they believed were their own guilty secrets?

Just as importantly, we must ask what part notions of male entitlement played in the crimes about which Pell has been interrogated. It’s all too convenient to reduce these crimes to the acts of “evil paedophiles”, as if men weren’t committing the same crimes against women and children with impunity in the broader society.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

It’s my honor to share with you today an important essay by Ruth Krall responding to a recent report published by National Catholic Reporter regarding the discussion of the legacy of John Howard Yoder in the Mennonite Church. As I’ve noted repeatedly on this blog,* the work of Ruth Krall, a Mennonite peace-and-justice scholar, and of other Mennonite women has been critically important in making the Yoder story known to the public, and in forcing Mennonite institutions to come to terms with Yoder’s legacy of serial sexual violence towards female students and women he counseled pastorally, even as he represented the church in the public square as its most well-known advocate of non-violence.

And so, as Ruth herself is, I was dumbfounded to read the recent NCR article by two (male) scholars reporting on the discussion of Yoder’s legacy and not in any way referring to the ground-breaking work Ruth has done in this field. Here’s Ruth’s response to this article:

A Considered Response to Lambelet and Hamilton:
Vis-à-vis the topic of being made invisible…one more time

Lambelet, K. and Hamilton, B. (February 29, 2016). Viewpoint: Engage Survivors More, and Yoder Less (p. 1). National Catholic Reporter Online.

Ruth E. Krall, MSN, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus and Program Director Emeritus
Goshen College
Goshen, IN

Thesis: When male Yoderian scholars seek to bury me and my academic scholarly work about John’s life and his patterns of victimization in silence, they simultaneously also bury the story of Yoder’s victims in the very same breath. These are the voices the Yoderians now claim they want to hear. They cannot have it both ways. Either the narrative, including my contributions to this narrative, is allowed to stand on its own and be recognized for what it is, or the narrative is skewed and we can learn nothing from it of value. When the narrative is manipulated and skewed, the victims’ voices are once more buried inside a dominant male prerogative to define reality.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Chronicle

A shamed vicar has pleaded guilty to four counts of indecent assault against a boy in the 1970s.

Leonard Skinner, 79, of North Tyneside , is now facing a possible jail sentence after pleading guilty to the four offences.

Skinner, of Brighton Grove, Whitley Bay, pleaded guilty to two counts of indecent assault on a boy aged under 14 and two counts of indecent assault on a boy aged under 16 at Highbury Magistrates’ Court.

The offences are understood to relate to when Skinner lived in the south of the UK. He moved to the region following his retirement in 2001 where he has performed “stand-in” duties at local parishes.

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AUSTRALIA
Manny Waks

He only recently learned of his full name, Gordon Hill, and his date of birth. He used to be called Number 29.

You see Hilly was placed in the Catholic St Joseph’s orphanage in Ballarat when he was very young. He was just a number to them. And when, in his early teens, they needed to make room for the new-comers, they heartlessly kicked him out. Number 29 was around 14yo at the time, all alone in this world, left to fend for himself. St Joseph’s gave him the meagre sum of two shillings and nine pence, enough money to pay to return by post the suitcase they lent him. Because he couldn’t read, he didn’t realise he was meant to return it. So he kept it. He still proudly has the suitcase.

During his years at the orphanage, he was treated with brutal inhumanity, ostensibly by religious people. Individuals who pray regularly to their God, people who believed the rest of us were going to pay gravely for our sins, unless, of course, we joined them.

He was deprived of his dignity and basic human rights; no education, food deprivation, mental abuse, brutal physical and sexual assaults, and the like. The nuns used to force him and his peers to cut the whips from the trees with which they would brutally assault them. They even pulled out his teeth with pliers; he was caught eating a carrot he found while working because he was starving. While as an adult he received false teeth, they no longer fit in his mouth due to the damage they caused to his cheek bones when the brutes pulled out his teeth. As you can imagine, Hilly has scars all over his body – not to mention his emotional scars. As he tearfully told me, he never even got a hug. Listening to his harrowing ordeal, I had to wipe away my tears, too.

Hilly was constantly on the run. He pretty much ran as far as he could within Australia; from Ballarat (Victoria – Australia’s East) to Western Australia.

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FRANCE
L’Express

[Cardinal Barbarin never covered up pedophilia, according to the bishops conference in France.]

La Conférence des évêques de France a rappelé samedi sa “politique de fermeté” menée contre les actes de pédophilie commis par des prêtres, après les accusations de “non dénonciation de crime” contre des responsables du diocèse de Lyon, dont le cardinal Barbarin.

Dans un communiqué diffusé ce samedi, “la Conférence des évêques de France tient d’abord à redire sa profonde compassion et son soutien aux victimes” d’actes pédophiles. Une réaction après des accusations portée contre les responsables du diocèse de Lyon pour “non dénonciation de crime”.

Les évêques tiennent à réaffirmer “la politique de fermeté menée depuis plus 15 ans sur ces questions de pédophilie”, poursuit le texte, en répétant la “volonté de coopération complète avec la justice” et en assurant le cardinal Barbarin “de son soutien et de ses prières”.

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FRANCE
Liberation

[A complaint against Cardinal Barbarin and the Vatican.]

Par Bernadette Sauvaget — 4 mars 2016

Après l’ouverture d’une enquête préliminaire par le parquet de Lyon, une victime présumée du père Bernard P. porte plainte contre Philippe Barbarin et un puissant membre de la curie romaine.

Le ciel s’assombrit singulièrement au-dessus de l’évêché de Lyon. Une première victime présumée d’un prêtre pédophile, a déposé plainte, vendredi contre Philippe Barbarin, cardinal-archevêque de Lyon et un des hauts responsables du Vatican, le cardinal Ludwig Muller pour «non-dénonciation d’agressions sexuelles sur mineurs de quinze ans». Président de l’association La Parole Libérée, qui regroupe les victimes présumées du père Bernard P., mis en examen le 27 janvier, François Devaux a indiqué à Libération, que cette plainte concernait également le directeur de cabinet de Barbarin, Pierre Durieux et une bénévole du diocèse, Régine Maire. Cette dernière avait organisé, le 11 octobre 2014, une rencontre entre le père Bernard P. et l’une de ses anciennes victimes présumées.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Religions Philosophischer Salon

[Spotlight – the film. And about the lack of investigative journalism to topics Church in Germany.]

SPOTLIGHT: Der Film.

Über die gute Macht der kritischen Presse und das Fehlen des Recherche-Journalismus in Deutschland….

Ein Hinweis von Christian Modehn

Der große Spielfilm SPOTLIGHT (eigentlich auch ein „gespielter Dokumentarfilm“) beweist: Wenn der politische, der demokratische Wille bei Journalisten geweckt und dann tatsächlich auch gelebt wird, kann durch journalistische Recherche unglaublich Wichtiges und Wertvolles geleistet werden. Das Investigativ-Team der Zeitung „Boston Globe“ (USA) hat allen Einschüchterungen und Angstmachereien der „großen Herren“ ,vor allem in der römischen Kirche von Boston, widerstanden; die Journalisten haben in diesem Umfang sicher als die ersten (2002) der Welt gezeigt: Es gibt einen weit verbreiteten Missbrauch von Kindern durch Priester im Erzbistum Boston. So wurde die Wahrheit frei gelegt, die mit aller Macht zugedeckt und verschwiegen wurde von den Vorgesetzten, also den kirchlichen Bürokraten an der Spitze. Sie werden ja oft „Verantwortliche“ und „Elite“ genannt, ein seltsamer Titel angesichts ihrer Kumpanei, die eigenen Leute, die Kleriker, unter allen Umständen zu schützen. Diese Tatsache erschüttert genauso wie das Leiden der Opfer Mitgefühl weckt und Schmerz.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Publik-Forum

[Cardinal Pell abused his church]

von Thomas Seiterich 05.03.2016

Als Rambo hat George Pell gewirkt, seit ihn Papst Johannes Paul II. zum Erzbischof in der aufgeschlossenen australischen Metropole Melbourne und später in der liberal progressiven Millionenstadt Sydney machte. Auch als Kurienkardinal in Rom tritt der konservative Pell heute gern mächtig auf. Doch nun wendet sich das Blatt. Denn Pell hat offenbar sexuelle Gewalttaten von Priestern in Australien vertuscht

Die bösesten Seiten dieser Geschichte von sexueller Gewalt durch katholische Priester spielen in der australischen Provinz. Dort, wo es heiß, trocken und zumeist langweilig ist, im Städtchen Ballarat im Norden des Bundesstaates Victoria im Südosten des fünften Kontinents. George Pell wird dort geboren, im Weltkriegsjahr 1941. Später ist er – ein Hüne von Mann, ein erfolgreicher Football-Spieler und Priester – Weihbischof in der kleinen Diözese Ballarat.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Vicky Allan, Senior features writer / Saturday 5 March 2016

SURVIVORS are growing so despondent at the progress of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry that many say they feel like they are being abused all over again.

Survivors say the Scottish government is failing them, and feel the slow progress and limited remit of the inquiry is adding insult to the already very grievous injuries they have suffered, and believe they will never see the justice they deserve.

Andi Lavery, of Catholic survivor group White Flowers Alba, has even declared that he no longer wants to testify at the inquiry. “They offer us only further trauma and intrusion upon our continued suffering,” he said. Alan Draper of survivor organisation In Care Abuse Survivors (INCAS) has also said that survivors have “lost all faith in the Scottish Government’s ability to help them to achieve justice, accountability and redress”.

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VATICAN CITY
The Sunday Times (UK)

Christopher Lamb Published: 6 March 2016

A VATICAN trial of a pregnant public relations consultant has been quietly shelved as Pope Francis fights to salvage a reform agenda overshadowed by scandal.

Francesca Chaouqui, a 34-year-old PR, is accused of leaking secret Holy See papers while Francis is beset by calls for the resignation of some of his closest allies.

Chaouqui told The Sunday Times last week that “proceedings are at a standstill ”, adding that she did “not know if it [the trial] will resume”.

It had been adjourned on December 7 but failed to restart on schedule at the end of February. A Holy See spokesman said no new date had been set.

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AUSTRALIA
The Courier-Mail

Karen Brooks
The Courier-Mail

AS THE Academy Awards were presented and Spotlight, (the film about the Boston Globe exposé on the clergy and child sex abuse) won the Oscar for Best Picture, Cardinal George Pell began giving evidence at the child abuse royal commission from the Hotel Quirinale in Rome.

Ironic really, as Pell’s adamant stance he “knew nothing”, “was deceived” and his consistent use of the “hierarchical defence” (it was someone else’s responsibility) was a performance in itself.

From confident and articulate to almost bumbling and vague, what became very clear over the four days of questioning was that, regardless of Pell’s protestations of innocence and/or ignorance, he never once asserted himself on any victim’s account, nor went out of his way to prevent what was clearly happening from continuing.

On the contrary, Pell did the minimum required at all times and then, it appears, dismissed it from his mind.

Like the stories of Father Gerald Ridsdale’s abuses, they were sad stories “and of not much interest to me”.

But, after all, Cardinal Pell had a career to shore up. Is it a coincidence that the more he “didn’t know” and act upon the harrowing tales of sexual abuse of children, the higher up the Catholic ladder he climbed?

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PENNSYLVANIA
Lancaster Online

Maureen Powers | Special to LNP

They say timing is everything.

In view of “Spotlight” just receiving an Academy Award for best picture, last week’s grand jury report on two Catholic bishops’ cover-up of rampant child sexual abuse by 50-plus priests over 40 years in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese couldn’t be more timely.

(“Spotlight” is the story of The Boston Globe’s investigation of massive child sexual abuse and its cover-up by Cardinal Law in the Archdiocese of Boston.)

I grew up in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese, and I can say unequivocally from personal experience that child sexual abuse by clergy existed more than 50 years ago. I was sexually molested by a prominent priest of that diocese between the ages of 12 and 14, and I can shed light on some ways in which these acts are kept secret from a victim/survivor’s standpoint.

Of course, there was the grooming of both me and my family. I played the organ in church from the time I was 12, and also volunteered in the church office. I accompanied my abuser on various overnight trips, one of which included my sister and parents.

This man was a real go-getter, universally admired and trusted. To be honest, I loved him and was flattered by his attention. He couched some of his actions as “research,” some as “educating” me, and some as “friendship.” When things got to a point that I drew the line — this was witnessed by a friend of mine — the behavior stopped.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By JONATHAN PETRE FOR THE MAIL ON SUNDAY

The former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey has lambasted the Church of England for destroying the reputation of a celebrated bishop over unproven child abuse claims.

In a fierce attack on the church he once led, Lord Carey said he was ‘appalled’ at the way it handled the accusations against Bishop George Bell – whom he said had been judged guilty without a fair hearing.

Bishop Bell, who served in Chichester for 30 years until his death in 1958, was renowned during the Second World War as a peacemaker and almost certainly would have been Archbishop of Canterbury but for his denunciation of the Allied bombing of Dresden.

But last year an unnamed woman alleged that he had sexually abused her in the 1940s. The diocese gave credence to the claims, issuing an apology and paying compensation.

Chichester cathedral has now renamed its education centre –previously called Bishop George Bell House – and plans to change its prominent memorial to the bishop.

But in a move that will embarrass his former colleagues, Lord Carey has added his weight to protests that the diocese’s investigation into the claims had been flawed and unjust, saying an individual had been crushed by a ‘powerful organisation’.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Premier

Sun 06 Mar 2016
By Antony Bushfield

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey has criticised the Church of England for the way it responded to allegations of abuse against Bishop George Bell.

He said he was “frankly appalled by the way the Church authorities have treated his memory”.

In October 2015 the Church of England released a statement apologising to a woman who claimed she was abused by the respected Bishop Bell in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

It also paid compensation to the woman who cannot be named for legal reasons.

Sussex Police has revealed it would have arrested Bishop Bell and interviewed him on suspicion of serious sexual offences had he still been alive.

In a letter to Bishop Bell’s niece Lord Carey is highly critical of the Church’s response to the allegations.

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UNITED STATES
NJ.com

By Mark Crawford

Last Sunday night at the Academy Awards, in many ways, was an event to remember. Not just because of the controversy so boldly acknowledged by the show’s host, Chris Rock regarding the lack of diversity among those nominated for awards, but also because it shined a light on the issue of sexual assault and abuse — an issue which, for much too long, has been one that we as a society would rather not talk about.

A highlight was the appearance of Vice President Joe Biden, who challenged those watching to “pledge to intervene on behalf of those woman and men sexually abused, who did not or cannot consent.”

He acknowledged sexual assaults happen to women and men at staggering proportions on college campuses. He then introduced pop star Lady Gaga — herself a sexual assault survivor — who performed a sobering rendition “Til it Happens to You” to the backdrop of a stage filled with sexual abuse survivors.

Finally, from the awarding of the first Oscar to the last — when the Academy chose to honor the movie “Spotlight” as Best Picture, a movie about the importance of investigative journalism and its responsibility to shine a light on issues that must be exposed in an effort to protect and maintain a healthy and safe society.

When “Spotlight” was named best picture, it also gave a voice to the countless victims of sexual abuse — I among them — who hoped this real life story would continue to shine a light on the long-held dark secrets of a powerful institution. It gave us a glimpse of the suffering of those sexually abused as children and the walls that were built to ensure the protection of the powerful, so their secrets remained hidden and victims suffered in silence.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

March 6, 2016

Stephanie Wood
Senior Writer

As Monsignor William Mullins led Sunday mass at St Mary’s Cathedral, some flapped the order of service booklets before their faces to keep cool; others absorbed the words on the pages in their hands.

If they’d started on the first page, they would have read an attention-grabbing introductory missive from St Mary’s Dean, Father Don Richardson. “I prayed six exorcisms last week,” the dean wrote.

It wasn’t just Cardinal Pell’s testimony that put the Catholic Church in the headlines last week: according to an ABC news report, the Psychology Council of New South Wales is investigating a Wollongong psychologist and priest for comments about exorcism he made to triple j broadcaster John Safran.

It was, thought Father Richardson, “an opportune teaching moment”.

What he was talking about and what he had prayed were “minor exorcisms”, the type performed at the celebration of Baptism – simply, prayers “that the candidates be kept safe from Satan”.

“My advice is not to give Satan a foothold … Try to have a healthy spiritual, mental and physical lifestyle. Don’t be complacent about sin and evil.”

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

SURVIVORS of clerical sex abuse have called on the federal government to adopt a national redress scheme after returning from Rome.

The Ballarat survivors were welcomed by family at Melbourne Airport yesterday after returning from hearing Cardinal George Pell give evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

“We call on the Turnbull government to put into place the redress scheme that the royal commission has put forward,” survivor Andrew Collins said.

“All we need is Malcolm Turnbull to stand up and say he’ll do it. The more he holds off, the more people will die.”

The commission recommended in September last year a national redress scheme to cost $4.3 billion over 10 years. The scheme would be largely funded by institutions where the abuse occurred, with an est­imated 60,000 abuse survivors able to receive payments of $10,000 to $200,000.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

David Kearns
PUBLISHED
06/03/2016

To mark Mother’s Day members of the public are being asked to place flowers on the graves of Magdalene women.

A number of events are taking place today to honour the thousands of women who died in Magdalene Laundries, and Justice for Magdalenes Research (JFMR) is calling on the public to visit these graves and “lay a flower for those who lived and died behind convent walls”.

The Magdalene laundries, also known as Magdalene asylums, were institutions, generally run by the Catholic Church, that ostensibly housed “fallen women”.

Continuing to operate well into the late 20th century, an estimated 30,000 women are believed to have been confined in these institutions.

At least 1,663 former Magdalene women are buried in cemeteries across Ireland, many interred in unmarked graves.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Daily Times

One week ago, “Spotlight” captured the Academy Award for Best Picture, detailing the gritty investigative journalism at the Boston Globe that blew the roof off the rampant problem of the sexual abuse of children by priests in the Boston Archdiocese.

In a sad bit of irony, just two days later Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane was shining another “spotlight” on the same problem, this time much closer to home.

In a horrifying 147-page grand jury report, Kane laid out the sordid details behind decades of predator priests who preyed on children in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese.

The saga was hauntingly familiar, especially here in the Philadelphia region, and not just because of the Oscar-winning film.

The grand jury report into the depravity in Altoona mimicked the findings of a grand jury report issued a decade ago detailing similar issues in the Philadelphia Archdiocese.

The Altoona report cites dozens of priests abusing hundreds of innocent children over a period of nearly a half-century. Even more damning, once again the grand jury found the leaders of the archdiocese seeming more concerned with their reputation and that of the church, as opposed to the kids who were routinely being molested.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

March 6, 2016

Carolyn Webb

A Catholic priest whose parish is at the centre of historical sexual abuse allegations has spoken of the burden of living in a possible “crime scene”.

Father Michael Shadbolt, parish priest of Holy Family church in Doveton for 17 years, said he was horrified by allegations that some of his predecessor priests had committed sexual and other assaults on parishioners.

He said he knew Peter Searson in 1996 when both were priests in the area, but he had not known he was a paedophile. “In a way I’m horrified,” Father Shadbolt said. “But I guess also in a sense I’m not surprised because he did seem a very strange personality.”

“I’m possibly living in a crime scene,” he told Fairfax Media before 9.30 Mass on Sunday. “It’s quite sad. Perhaps the presbytery is where some of the crimes were done, I don’t know for sure.”
“I like the house, but since this stuff has come up in the last couple of years, you can’t help have some feelings, that it’s my home but it also has a dark history.”

Searson, a priest at Doveton for 13 years, was stood down in 1997, after being charged with physical assault of two altar boys. He died in 2009.

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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

March 6, 2016

Christopher Lamb

For years he has been one of the big beasts of the Catholic Church.

When in Sydney, Cardinal George Pell would regularly make the gruelling 22-hour flight to Rome so he could keep his Vatican contacts warm and his ear close to the ground.

He impressed popes and fellow cardinals with his forthright, no-nonsense defence of Catholic teaching and, it is understood, would regularly send church leaders press cuttings of articles where he had been criticised in the Australian media for standing up for the faith.

But after four days of forensic cross-examination by the royal commission, where he repeatedly pleaded ignorance about clerical sexual abuse, the cardinal’s stock is no longer rising.

Senior figures in the Vatican were closely monitoring the video-link testimony at the Albergo Quirinale and will no doubt have noted the remark by Gail Furness, counsel assisting the commission, that she found Pell’s denials “implausible”.

Here in Rome the cardinal has a critical role in trying to clean up the Holy See’s finances – that in turn has made him enemies in a culture where accountability and transparency are in short supply. Even his staunchest defenders now accept that Pell is an embattled figure seemingly under attack from all sides.

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AUSTRALIA
Otago Daily Times

Child sex abuse survivors have called on Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to commit to a national redress scheme.

The group from ballarat in Victoria arrived home today after a crowd-funded trip to Rome to witness Australia’s Cardinal George Pell give evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

“A lot of people might think this is the end of our journey. It’s not,” abuse survivor Andrew Collins told reporters at Melbourne Airport.

He said clerical abuse in Ballarat – including that by Australia’s worst pedophile priest, Gerard Ridsdale – and its long-term effects on victims highlighted the importance of supporting survivors.

“We call on the Turnbull government to put into place the redress scheme that the royal commission has put forward,” Mr Collins said.

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CALIFORNIA
KEYT

Tracy Lehr, KEYT – KCOY – KKFX Reporter, tracy@keyt.com

FILLMORE, Calif. –
Spotlight won two Oscars and the publicity has been followed by more cases of abuse.

One day after the Academy Awards Ceremony officers arrested Vidal Morales, 55 of Ventura. The longtime youth coordinator at St. Francis of Assisi Church in Fillmore is accused of committing lewd acts with a girl. The Ventura County Sheriff’s Department said Morales posted bail early Saturday. They also said other alleged victims have been identified.

Manny Vega is not surprised. “With this prestigious recognition of Spotlight, more folks understand what took place and the incredible power the church has. It is disheartening to hear of another case of childhood sexual abuse by a church member in our community. The absolute betrayal and abuse of power again proved to be an ongoing systemic problem within the Catholic Church. My hopes are that the church will fully cooperate with law enforcement and be as transparent as they say they are. However my experience and fear are more child victims and deception and delays by the church,” said Vega via text message.

Vega described it as a David and Goliath struggle that survivors have been engaged in with the church.

The former Oxnard Police Officer and Marine has been one of the most outspoken victims of the Catholic church priest abuse case that led to a multi-million dollar settlement.

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UNITED STATES
Casper Star-Tribune

By Michael Reagan

If you’ve seen the excellent movie “Spotlight,” you know what it takes for a newspaper to expose the sexual abuse of children by priests in the Catholic Church.

“Spotlight,” which recently won the Academy Award for best picture, is the true story of how the Boston Globe’s investigative Spotlight team uncovered the massive scandal of child molestation and cover-up within the Boston Archdiocese.

Challenging one of the most powerful institutions in Boston, digging up the ugly truth and detailing it on Page 1 took a strong mix of principle and guts by the Globe’s editor, Marty Baron.

Many journalists around the country before him had heard similar charges about priests repeatedly molesting children in their cities and towns, but they had done nothing.

The Globe’s in-depth investigation, which began in 2001, made headlines around the world, shamed the Boston Archdiocese and shook the entire Catholic Church to its core.

It set off a series of exposes in other cities that proved that the problem the Catholic Church — my church — was having with serial pedophiles was nothing new or restricted to Boston.

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UNITED KINGDOM
ITV

A former Whitley Bay vicar is facing a possible jail sentence after pleading guilty to four counts of sexual abuse against two boys in the 1970s.

Reverend Leonard Harold Skinner, 79, of Whitley Bay has pleaded guilty to the offences, which took place while he was serving as a vicar in London.

The Archdeacon of Northumberland, the Venerable Geoff Miller, has offered an ‘unreserved apology’ to the victims.

We offer an unreserved apology to the survivors of the appalling abuse by the Reverend Leonard Skinner and acknowledge their courage in coming forward.

The Diocese of Newcastle treats all allegations of sexual abuse with the utmost seriousness and expects the highest standards from its clergy, including in retirement. As soon as the diocese was told that Leonard Skinner was under investigation by the Metropolitan Police, he was immediately prevented from carrying out any further duties in church.

Leonard Skinner moved to North Tyneside after he retired from his last post as Priest-in-Charge of a parish in 2001.

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PENNSYLVANIA
York Daily Record

Rick Lee, rlee@ydr.com March 5, 2016

While “profoundly” and “deeply” saddened by the child abuse allegations leveled by a grand jury against the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese last week, reverends at two York County parishes said there have been no repercussions here.

After mass on Saturday, both the Rev. Keith Carroll, of St. Patrick Catholic Church, and the Rev. Daniel Mitzel, of St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, invoked the name of Bishop Nicholas C. Dattilo, the head of the Harrisburg diocese from 1990 to 2004, as the origin of the diocese’s youth protection policy concerning child abuse by the Catholic clergy or church employees.

Last week, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane released the findings of a grand jury that determined two bishops who led the Altoona- Johnstown Diocese for 40 years were instrumental in covering up the sexual abuse of hundreds of children by over 50 priests or religious leaders.

Rev. Carroll and Rev. Mitzel said that none of their parishioners have approached them with questions or concerns about the allegations in the neighboring diocese. They have not, therefore, found it necessary to address it from the pulpit, they said.

“No one has approached me about it,” said Rev. Mitzel after Saturday’s evening Mass. “We do remind our congregation twice a year to be aware of and report anything of that nature.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Michael Short
Journalist

In this column two weeks ago, I wrote about the experience of being painfully hit a few months earlier by flashback visions of a paedophile priest’s genitals.

The memory, which I had suppressed for about 35 years, was triggered by a joint email from the then headmaster (who retired at the end of last year) and the chairman of Ballarat and Queen’s Anglican Grammar School, seeking information about past abuse at the school, which I attended for the final five years of my secondary education.

I was, and remain, critical of that email – which, because of the school’s incomplete database, went only to a limited number of former students – as it seemed designed to keep things quiet, rather than exposing these crimes. Instead of urging victims to contact the police and the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the authors claimed it was not prompted by the royal commission and asked people to contact the school, which would treat the information confidentially, or to contact the Anglican Church.

It is self-evident that institutions, I wrote then and repeat now, can not conduct independent inquiries into themselves.

That column triggered a community response that has left me drained and dismayed. I received many kind and gentle messages of support, which buoyed me, but I was saddened by the messages from people who shared harrowing tales of the sexual and physical abuse they suffered at the school.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Review

BY JASON CATO | Saturday, March 5, 2016

Decades of silence by the Roman Catholic Church regarding child sexual abuse by priests has given way to an era of atonement, as public apologies and condemnation come from local dioceses up to the Vatican.

But that isn’t enough for some. The church needs to name priests suspected of abuse, like those outed last week in a 147-page grand jury report about the Altoona-Johnstown diocese, so more go to prison, said David Clohessy, national director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

“More words, clearer words, sadder words — it’s all words, and words protect no one. Decisive actions protect kids,” said Clohessy, expressing a desire for local dioceses to post online the names of priests accused of sexually abusing children. “They often are fixated on PR, policies, panels and protocols that look terrific on paper but essentially are worthless.

“Sincerity must be judged by actions, not words.”

Leaders of the Catholic Church in Pittsburgh and Greensburg said they are committed to stopping sexual abuse and righting decades of wrongs.

“I would hope in every diocese we realize we can never do enough to keep this horror from occurring,” said Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik, who will host a special “Service of Apology” March 21 in St. Paul Cathedral in Oakland.

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IOWA
WHO

BY REID CHANDLER

DES MOINES, Iowa – It’s Saturday morning, and Smokey Row Cafe is full the sounds of footsteps and coffee cups clanking down on ceramic plates. It’s a busy atmosphere, but in the noise, a small group of survivors are huddled in a back corner, hoping to meet some new faces.

The Iowa SNAP (Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests) group isn’t a large organization, but it’s a resource of support for anyone who needs it. People like John Chambers, who says he was abused by a priest while attending Dowling Catholic High School in the 1960s, joined SNAP only after the group was highlighted by a Boston Globe investigative report in 2002, uncovering a massive scandal within the Boston Archdiocese to cover up sexual abuse claims.

It’s that same group that’s highlighted in the Oscar Award-winning film, “Spotlight.” The 2015 film documents the true story of the Boston Globe’s uphill battle to uncover the truth. In the movie, a member of SNAP talks with Globe reporters about his experiences being abused in the church as a child. With the film’s success, local SNAP members are hoping more abused Iowans will come out of the shadows.

“If you need a therapist, if you need an attorney, if you need just a support group of other survivors that you want to meet with – any of these things, to recognize that there’s a community already out there that knows what you went through,” said Bill LaHay with Iowa SNAP. “A community out there that isn’t going to say, ‘Get over it.’ Or isn’t going to tell you, ‘No it didn’t happen.’ Isn’t going to do the stuff that non-survivors just can’t know.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Reading Eagle

By Karen Shuey

Two Roman Catholic bishops who led a Pennsylvania diocese helped conceal the sexual abuse of hundreds of children by more than 50 priests and other religious leaders over a period of at least 40 years, according to a grand jury report made public this week.

The 147-page report unveiled by Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane outlines how the two bishops filed away allegations from children in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese as part of an effort to avoid public scandal. And worst of all, Kane announced at a press conference, no criminal charges will be filed because some abusers have died, the statute of limitations has expired or victims are too traumatized to testify.

Corey Harris and Gerald Vigna, theology professors at Alvernia University, said the report contains tragic and horrific revelations. But they agreed the discovery of these crimes is not necessarily surprising given the dark cloud of abuse that still hangs over the church.

“The sad thing is that at this point I don’t feel much of anything because it happened with such frequency for such an extended period of time,” Harris said. “It doesn’t cause as much of a reaction as it once did. And that’s really upsetting.”

Especially since Harris grew up in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese.

“The fact that I didn’t even get a call from my mother when the news broke about this tells me that no one is really shocked by these horrible reports anymore,” he said. “It’s become a part of our history.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Philly.com

by Caitlin McCabe and Maria Panaritis, STAFF WRITERS.

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – In January, a deputy attorney general and two agents walked into a judge’s chambers here with questions. They wanted to discuss a meeting decades earlier that had ended with a “monster” priest being allowed to go free.

This undated photo shows Bishop James Hogan, right, and Pope John Paul II in Rome. Hogan and Joseph Adamec, two Roman Catholic bishops who led a Pennsylvania diocese, helped cover up the sexual abuse of hundreds of children by over 50 priests or religious leaders over a 40-year period.

Back in 1985, Cambria County Judge Patrick T. Kiniry had been a local prosecutor, and met with Bishop James Hogan to discuss a priest suspected of sexually abusing children. As leader of the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese, the bishop had outsize influence in the area. Kiniry, a former altar boy, had been excited to meet him.

Hogan didn’t dispute the claims about the Rev. Francis McCaa that day.

But nothing happened.

McCaa, suspected of abusing at least 15 boys, some as young as 8, lived another two decades without ever being charged.

“You have to understand: This is an extremely Catholic county,” Kiniry allegedly explained this year when Deputy Attorney General Daniel J. Dye and two agents came to talk to him about the case.

Such cozy alliances between law enforcement and church officials were pervasive and a central theme in a 147-page grand-jury report last week on decades of clergy sex abuse in the central Pennsylvania diocese.

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MAINE
Portland Press Herald

BY ERIC RUSSELL STAFF WRITER
erussell@pressherald.com | @PPHEricRussell | 207-791-6344

For 40 years, Neal Gumpel kept the details locked away in a dark corner of his memory.

Details about the night he met the Rev. Roy Drake while visiting his brother at Maine Maritime Academy. The night Drake violently molested him. The night everything changed.

Though he kept it hidden, the encounter shaped his entire life. It led to alcohol and drug abuse, helped ruin his first marriage, kept him awake nights and even affected his health.

“It sounds dire, but I felt like I was at a point where I had to come forward or I was going to kill myself,” Gumpel said.

At the urging of his wife, Helen, who feared she was losing her husband, Gumpel contacted Mitchell Garabedian, the Boston lawyer who has represented hundreds of victims of sexual abuse by clergy and helped expose a massive cover-up of pedophile priests by the Catholic Church.

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WEST VIRGINIA
Bluefield Daily Telegraph

By SAMANTHA PERRY Bluefield Daily Telegraph

PRINCETON — The mother of a boy who was allegedly sexually abused by a church youth volunteer is losing faith in the justice system after the case has dragged on in the courts for more than two years.

The woman, who was interviewed by the Daily Telegraph on the condition of anonymity, is the mother of one of nine victims allegedly molested by Timothy Probert, a former volunteer at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Bluefield and mentor for the Working to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect (WE CAN) program in Mercer County.

“It keeps the wounds open and prevents us from healing like we need to be able to do,” the mother said. “How unfair is it that the victims have almost no say in any part of the process? We just have to wait for someone else to decide when this terrible time in our lives can come to an end.”

•••

Probert, 57, of Mercer County, is facing 50 charges relating to alleged sexual abuse of children.

Arrested in December 2013 on 38 counts of child sexual abuse related charges, Probert’s grand jury indictment in February 2015 included 12 new charges that stemmed from another victim coming forward and additional charges being added in other cases, Sgt. M.D. Clemons, with the Crimes Against Children Unit of the West Virginia State Police, said in a previous report.

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NEW YORK
PIX 11

WOODSIDE, Queens — The spotlight is still on “Spotlight” and the clergy sex abuse scandal.

Megan Peterson, 26, is a painter and a leader in the New York City branch of SNAP, the survivors network of those abused by priests.

When the movie, “Spotlight,” detailing the Boston Globe’s investigation into the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal won best picture, Paterson’s phone started ringing with more alleged victims coming forward.

“I think my phone started ringing an hour after,” Peterson told PIX11 News, “with new survivors and whistleblowers.”

“More victims are coming forward every day,” Peterson said.

Peterson herself said she was a victim herself. She was allegedly raped by her parish priest in Minnesota 12 years ago.

Peterson said Father Joseph Jeyapaul was convicted of sexual assault, served some time, but is now about to work as a priest again in a parish in his native India.

“There are children who, without a doubt, are going to be hurt,” Peterson said, fighting back tears. It’s because of “the Vatican’s decision to reinstate him,” she added.

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PENNSYLVANIA
We Are Central PA

[with video]

By Karina Cheung | kcheung@wtajtv.com
Published 03/05 2016

Altoona, Blair County, Pa.

The victims of sexual abuse are seeing support from people outside of our state.

An advocate from New Jersey protested outside of the Blessed Sacrament Cathedral in Altoona Saturday.

Robert Hoatson is a former priest and now an abuse victim advocate.

He wants justice for the victims that suffered sexual abuse by church officials.

That’s why he traveled to Altoona from New Jersey to pass out leaflets calling for justice.

“We’re here today to call for finally the resignation of one of the men who lead the cover up,” explained Hoatson, “who is the reason why much of this has been covered up.”

Bishop Adamec and Bishop Hogan are cited in the Attorney General’s grand jury report for covering up sexual abuse crimes dating back to the 1940’s.

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WASHINGTON
Seattle Times

[with map and documents]

The secret files on the Rev. Michael Cody show how the Seattle Catholic Archdiocese moved him from parish to parish, even after knowing he was a sick and dangerous pedophile.

By Lewis Kamb
Seattle Times staff reporter

They described his “deviant behavior,” recorded his “abnormal attraction toward young girls,” even warned “he will either blow his brains out or cause a major scandal in the parish.”

In letter after letter, supervising priests, the auxiliary bishop, even a noted psychiatrist alerted Seattle Archbishop Thomas Connolly that the Rev. Michael Cody was a sick and dangerous pedophile who posed grave threats to children and others in the Western Washington parishes he served during the 1960s.

“It is my diagnosis that he is suffering from a form of sexual deviation (Pedophilia) …,” Dr. Albert Hurley wrote in a letter to Connolly in March 1962. “It is my recommendation that he be removed from parish work as soon as possible.”

But instead of notifying police or removing Cody from his duties, Connolly’s response largely was to move him to unsuspecting parishes. First, within Seattle. Then, to Auburn. And finally, to Skagit and Whatcom counties, where Cody oversaw four different churches and a school into the mid-1970s.

When it placed him in Skagit County, the archdiocese provided Cody an isolated home where the unsupervised priest regularly brought youngsters, records and interviews show. All the while, he continued to prey on children.

The disturbing details about the archdiocese’s facilitation of the priest’s pedophilia are documented in internal correspondence, performance reviews and other records contained within what’s known as Cody’s “secret file.”

Portions of his decades-old file surfaced publicly last year in case filings for a lawsuit brought against the archdiocese by a Sedro-Woolley woman who, as a teenager, was sexually abused by Cody for two years.

Based on a consultant’s review of such secret files, the Seattle Archdiocese in January published a list identifying 77 clergy members who lived or worked in Western Washington and are known or believed to have sexually abused children.

When publicizing the list, Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain said in a statement he took the action “in the interest of further transparency and accountability,” but church officials offered no details about abuse incidents.

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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

March 6, 2016

Melissa Cunningham

Cardinal George Pell says he grieves for Ballarat and prays daily for victims whose lives have been shattered by the Catholic Church’s scourge of sexual abuse.

In a his bid to try and set the record straight in his hometown, Australia’s most senior cleric spoke directly with Fairfax Media’s Ballarat Courier in Rome on Saturday. After numerous requests for an interview, the Cardinal phoned from a car on his way to a religious retreat outside of Rome.
He accepted some victims may never be healed and others would never be willing to accept any help from an institution that failed to protect them.

During the rare interview, the Cardinal refused to answer questions relating directly to church’s handling of child sexual abuse allegations inflicted on children by clergy he work alongside for years.

“I spent nineteen and half hours refusing to defend the indefensible, I am not about to try and do that again,” he said. “The Catholic Church has made enormous mistakes and I accept that.”

But he pledged to help those wounded by the scourge of sexual abuse and push to end Ballarat’s hidden death toll made up of suicides and premature deaths of so many abused whose pain was too much to bear.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Australian Associated Press
Saturday 5 March 2016

Child sexual abuse survivors from Ballarat who flew to Rome to watch Cardinal George Pell give evidence say it’s the pope’s loss he didn’t meet with them at the Vatican.

The group of survivors arrived back in Melbourne on Sunday morning after a crowdfunding campaign made it possible for them to fly to Rome to witness Pell give evidence at the royal commission into institutional child sexual abuse.

“It’s been a whirlwind trip, nothing like we expected,” David Ridsdale told reporters at Melbourne airport.

Ridsdale – who was abused by his uncle and Australia’s worst pedophile priest, Gerard Ridsdale – says the group is disappointed it did not get a chance to meet with Pope Francis.

The Vatican said it did not receive a request for a meeting, even though the group followed Vatican protocol and faxed the application.

“The whole nonsense with the pope … the simple fact is it’s the pope’s loss,” Ridsdale said. “He misses out. It’s not our loss.”

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
Washington Post

By Bob Smietana
March 3

Last night I sat on the couch, turned on a rented copy of “Spotlight” and thought of my Uncle Jimmy.

Wish he’d been there to watch with me.

We didn’t talk much about religion at family gatherings when I was growing up. But when we did, it was loud.

The debate I remember most: the one about the case of the Rev. James Porter.

Porter, who died in 2005, spent more than decade in jail for abusing dozens of children. He admitted abusing as many as 100 kids, most from the diocese of Fall River, about an hour south of Boston.

In the early 1990s, however, Porter’s case was dismissed as “aberrant,” as Cardinal Bernard Law told the Boston Globe in 1992.

Not long after news of Porter’s misdeeds broke in the early 1990s, I sat at the table in my grandmother’s house, listening to an angry debate over the story. My uncle claimed that all the accusations against Porter were exaggerations.

It’s all lies, my uncle told us. The bishop said so.

Some of my other relatives were skeptical. My uncle believed that the church would never lie to him. But his faith in the church and the bishop was betrayed.

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.

FRANCE
ABC News (US)

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PARIS — Mar 5, 2016

One of France’s best-known cardinals must defend charges that he failed to denounce a priest allowed to keep his job despite admitting to acts of pedophilia.

The Conference of Bishops of France said on Saturday that there would be “complete cooperation” by Cardinal Philippe Barbarin.

Barbarin and five others were handed preliminary charges last week by the Lyon prosecutor’s office for failure to denounce a crime and endangering others over a case that dated to 1991 — before Barbarin was named cardinal of Lyon. He has said he was convinced the priest had reformed in 2007-2008, when they met, and allowed him to stay on. The priest was removed last year after victims, now adults, stepped forward.

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
We Are Central PA

Altoona, Blair County, Pa

Catholics in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese are still reeling over the findings of the alleged sex abuse cover-up. During the church’s holiest time of the year there are feelings of disbelief, sadness, and anger.

On Saturday, members of Road to Recovery, Inc., a non-profit charity based in New Jersey, which assists victims of sexual abuse and their families will be holding demonstrations at churches in Altoona and Johnstown.

The group’s co-founder and president, Robert M. Hoatson, a former priest, has been assisting victims of clergy sexual abuse. He will be calling for the removal of Bishop Joseph Adamec as a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church and the removal and resignation of anyone in the Diocese who covered up childhood sexual abuse.

At least 50 priests are accused of abusing hundreds of children over a four decade period. Many of those men have died and because the statute of limitations have passed, no criminal charges will be filed.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

By Dave Sutor
dsutor@tribdem.com

EBENSBURG – With a thunderous voice – reminiscent of an old-time preacher trying to stir souls – state Rep. Mark Rozzi cried out: “Legislators have failed to act, and that’s a fact.”

His last word literally echoed throughout the Cambria County Courthouse’s stone-wall-lined hallways.

Rozzi, a Democrat from Berks County, was speaking Friday about his work to have Pennsylvania eliminate all statutes of limitations for individuals accused of sexually abusing children. The laws came to the forefront this week when Attorney General Kathleen Kane released a grand jury report detailing allegations against more than 50 priests and other religious leaders within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona–Johnstown.

Kane said charges cannot be brought at this time because the alleged acts occurred beyond the statutes of limitations.

Currently, sexual assault victims who were under the age of 18 when the abuse occurred can file civil charges until age 30. Criminal charges can be filed until age 30 if he or she was born before Aug. 27, 2002. That limit increases to age 50 for individuals born after Aug. 27, 2002.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

BY LAUREN HENSLEY FRIDAY, MARCH 4TH 2016

EBENSBURG, Pa.- Local lawmakers rallied at the Ebensburg courthouse Friday, asking for change. They want to abolish the statute of limitations on sex abuse charges. This is following a grand jury report uncovered widespread sex abuse and its cover up across the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown.

“These laws could have been passed 15 years ago;And we might not be in this position we are today. We could have saved hundreds of lives. Legislators have failed to act, and that is a fact,” said Rep. Mark Rozzi, (D)-126th District Berks Co.

Rozzi said this mission is personal. The 147-page grand jury report brought him back to his own nightmare. He was sexual abused repeatedly at the hands of a priest in 1983.

“I was never the same again,” Rozzi said.

By the time Rozzi came to terms with his abuse, he was out of time to pursue criminal charges or a civil suit. The statute of limitations ran out for Rozzi, and it’s run out for most of the victims in the grand jury report, which why he is taking a stand.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

Child sexual abuse survivors from Ballarat are due back in Melbourne after flying to Rome to watch Cardinal George Pell give evidence.

The group of survivors used a crowd-funding campaign to get to Rome after Cardinal Pell was ruled too ill to travel to Australia to give evidence to the child abuse royal commission.

Cardinal Pell met with the survivors for two hours in Rome after giving four days of evidence via video link to the commission.

The group is due to land back in Melbourne at 6.30am on Sunday.

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PENNSYLVANIA
York Daily Record

Brandie Kessler, bkessler@ydr.com March 5, 2016

When a grand jury last week issued a report alleging child sexual abuse over four decades by more than 50 priests in the Altoona-Johnstown diocese, the grand jury said Pennsylvania’s statutes of limitations for child sex crimes needs to change.

Although the abuse alleged in the grand jury report included rape of a child and other alleged acts by priests, a news release from the attorney general’s office said none of the criminal acts can be prosecuted, in part because the statute of limitations has passed.

In Pennsylvania, the statute of limitations for criminal and civil charges vary. For criminal charges, a victim of child sexual abuse who turned 18 years old after Aug. 27, 2002, has until their 50th birthday to report the abuse. The statute of limitations for anyone who had their 18th birthday on or before Aug. 27, 2002, has already expired, since the law allows them to report only until their 30th birthday.

For civil charges, child victims have only until their 30th birthday to file, regardless of when the abuse occurred.

Advocates say that’s a problem for a number of reasons.

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UNITED STATES
YouTube

Published on Mar 5, 2016

“We decided to keep it quiet because it was better that way.”

Follow all your BuzzFeed favorites in one app! Get the BuzzFeed Video app here: http://video.bzfd.it/jVwh/0sP9ew5bcr

WAYS TO GET HELP:

SNAP: http://www.snapnetwork.org/
1-877-SNAP-HEALS (1-877-762-7432)

Rape and Incest National Network
https://rainn.org/
800- 656-hope

Child Help – National Child Abuse Hotline
1-800-4-a-child
https://www.childhelp.org/

National Center for Victims of Crime

Home

855-4-VICTIM
VictimConnect.org

The Office for Victims of Crime
http://www.ovc.gov/

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UNITED STATES
Eastern Mennonite University

When Jerry Holsopple entered his sabbatical at Wesley Theological Seminary’s Luce Center for Art and Religion last year, he wasn’t sure where it would take him. It ended up being a journey through new ground and some rather dark valleys.

Holsopple, professor of visual and communication arts at Eastern Mennonite University, heard about the Luce Center’s Artist-in-Residence Program from a friend. It fit what Holsopple was looking for: a place where he could just focus on art, away from research and syllabi. The program provided a small stipend and an apartment on campus near a large and quiet studio space.

“Why don’t you apply?” his friend asked. And so he did.

Best known as a videographer and photographer, Holsopple instead spent his fall semester sabbatical in Washington D.C. engaging in a newer pursuit: painting. He says he “took the risk to learn how to paint” during his last sabbatical, a 2009-2010 Fulbright trip to Lithuania.

On that sabbatical, he learned the art of creating or “writing” icons in the Orthodox tradition. This time, he explored some darker places: stories of sexual abuse and the culpability of the church in some of those stories, particularly the revelations of sexual abuse by Mennonite theologian and church leader John Howard Yoder.

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UNITED STATES
Suffolk Times

by Grant Parpan | 03/05/2016

There’s a scene late in the Academy Award-winning film “Spotlight” in which a reporter visits a courthouse to secure a document sure to break open The Boston Globe’s investigation into the Catholic Church’s cover-up of allegations that priests had molested children.

Before he eventually obtains the information he is seeking, reporter Michael Rezendes, portrayed in the film by actor Mark Ruffalo, is stonewalled by what seems like every bureaucrat in the building.

The often menial task of acquiring court documents crucial to the telling of a news story is something that plays out every day in newsrooms and courthouses across this country. The lack of enthusiasm from the government worker on the other side of the transaction is something familiar to journalists who have flocked to see the film, which took home Best Picture honors at Sunday’s Oscars.

In the movie, where the stakes are so high and the tension has built for nearly 90 minutes, the scene manages to send a rush of adrenaline through audience members, even those who might not otherwise care about the type of work done by reporters at local newspapers.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Liberal

St Patrick’s Church and St Mary’s Catholic School have become one of the first organisations outside Ballarat to join The Loud Fence Movement.

Parish priest Carl Mackander said he was inspired to begin a local chapter of the movement following the wave of criticism over Cardinal George Pell’s comments at the Australian Royal Commission.

“Cardinal Pell appears to have softened his stance and met with the victims in Rome, and he is appearing more compassionate towards them. He seems to have retracted his earlier comments which were insensitive and showed a real lack of compassion,” Father Mackander said.

Wellington’s parish priest said he, like many, was shocked by Cardinal Pell’s words.

Father Mackander said the movement which began in Ballarat should bring people together.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Peter FitzSimons
Columnist

The Cardinal’s sins means he is finished

Staggeringly, even after all the testimony of Cardinal Pell this week at the royal commission, there is still a scattered band of supporters who refuse to accept the obvious: it is over, and he is finished. The absolute best case that can be made in his defence is that, instead of wilfully ignoring atrocities going on all around him, he just didn’t get that it was his duty to do something, to act for the children. This line of defence has it that he didn’t get it because that was the way things were done in those times, or, more to the point, not done. Now, even if you accept that – and I don’t – how obvious is it that the times have completely passed him by? The Catholic Church sits atop a crisis of its own making. For centuries it has made the sexual starvation of its employees a specific condition of their employment, even while placing many of them around vulnerable children. Notwithstanding the many great priests and nuns who have done wonderful work, such a policy has both attracted and helped to create deviants of indescribable evil, and has demonstrably done so around the world, for centuries. This royal commission is just one example of light currently being shone, globally, upon the horror. Now, in the wake of Cardinal Pell’s testimony, who thinks he is the man who should be in the vanguard of leading the church to the light? Please. “Still,” the supporters cry, “what about the Melbourne Response, that Pell pioneered?” Exactly. You only need to know one thing about the Melbourne Response. Beyond putting a cap on damages paid to victims, it did not result in a single call being made to police. Not one! As victims came forward, deals were done, and money paid, but not a call. Now, who still defends it? Yes, yes, yes, but apart from you, I mean, Gerard.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Gerry Braiden, Local Government Correspondent / Friday 4 March 2016

VISITORS to the web page of Scotland’s largest Catholic congregation have been directed to a pornographic site, as it emerges the church has been the victim of a series of cyber attacks.

The Archdiocese of Glasgow said its website had been hacked by a group from Malaysia which had previously targeted HSBC and the Canadian military.

A spokesman for the Archdiocese said the church was now taking additional security precautions to guard against future attacks.

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ILLINOIS/WISCONSIN
Chicago Tribune

Robert McCoppin
Chicago Tribune

A priest who admitted to stealing more than $100,000 from a Greek Orthodox church has been relieved of his duties pending a final disciplinary decision, officials said.

The Rev. James Dokos, former pastor of Sts. Peter and Paul Church in Glenview, pleaded guilty to felony theft Feb. 22.

The Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Chicago, which oversees dozens of member churches in the Midwest, announced late Friday that the Spiritual Court of First Instance, a body that considers disciplinary actions against clergy members, has submitted a report on Dokos to the Eparchial Synod of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, which will make a final determination.

Dokos admitted in court to stealing the money from a trust fund he controlled at his former parish, Annunciation Church in Milwaukee.

Under the terms of a plea agreement, Dokos repaid the money, and if he stays out of trouble for a year and performs 40 hours of community service, the felony theft charge will be reduced to a misdemeanor.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Herald

Brian Dowling Friday, March 04, 2016

Parishioners occupying St. Frances X. Cabrini Catholic Church in Scituate are making their last stand — petitioning the U.S. Supreme Court to let them stay in their beloved church, which the Archdiocese of Boston has sought to close for more than a decade.

“We made a promise from Day 1 that we would exhaust every avenue of appeal, and this filing to the U.S. Supreme Court completes that promise,” said Jon Rogers, spokesman for the churchgoers, who have held vigil at the church since October 2004. “If they take this, I believe we will win.”

A Norfolk Superior Court judge ruled last May that the people holding vigil at the church were “trespassing,” siding with the archdiocese’s request to evict the parishioners. In October, the state Appeals Court upheld that decision, and the Supreme Judicial Court declined to review the case.

A deal between the parishioners and the archdiocese struck in December allows those holding vigil to stay in the church until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the petition for review — with the understanding that they would leave if the country’s highest court takes a pass on the case.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Columbia Daily Tribune

ST. LOUIS (AP) — The Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri has raised a record amount of money at its annual fundraiser, a week after the Archdiocese of St. Louis suggested local troops shouldn’t be a part of its parishes.

Girl Scouts spokeswoman Aurrice Duke-Rollings said the organization’s event in St. Louis netted more than $350,000 from 500 guests as they enjoyed a variety of desserts inspired by Girl Scouts cookies.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports the event was planned far in advance of St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson’s unexpected announcement urging priests to sever ties with the Girl Scouts. He said the organization promotes values that are “incompatible” with Catholic teachings.

“We must stop and ask ourselves — is Girl Scouts concerned with the total well-being of our young women?” Carlson wrote in the letter. “Does it do a good job forming the spiritual, emotional, and personal well-being of Catholic girls?”

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AUSTRALIA
PerthNow

JOE SPAGNOLO
Political Editor
PerthNow

I AM embarrassed to be a Catholic. It is with a heavy heart that I feel moved to say that. I’ve worn a crucifix around my neck for most of my 51 years — a gift from my devout Catholic Italian grandparents when I was born.

I was baptised Catholic, attended a Catholic primary school at Brunswick Junction, I was an altar boy, and was married in a Catholic Church. My children were baptised Catholic.

But this week, as the eyes of the world focused on Australia’s most senior Catholic, Cardinal George Pell — as he gave evidence to Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse via video link from Rome — I was underwhelmed by his actions, his words and his attitudes towards victims of crime.

I just wanted to see some sympathy from Pell. I wanted to see some empathy.

Instead, all I saw was a church leader who was quick to blame others, and quick to blame ignorance, for the atrocities committed against Catholics by the very men who were supposed to protect them — priests.

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MAINE
Portland Press Herald

BY SCOTT DOLAN STAFF WRITER
sdolan@pressherald.com | @scottddolan | 207-791-6304

While Freeport resident Paul Kendrick appeals a $14.5 million verdict against him in a complex defamation case, a federal judge held an unusual hearing Friday in which he encouraged the two sides to reach an out-of-court settlement instead.

Kendrick lost at trial in U.S. District Court in Portland last summer, but an appellate court in Boston issued a ruling last month that put the entire case in question by asking whether it ever belonged in federal court at all.

The appellate ruling raised so many new questions that Judge John A. Woodcock Jr., who presided over the trial, ordered all parties in the case to appear before him again on Friday.

Kendrick was accused of defamation after he began a widely broadcast email campaign in January 2011 in which he accused the American founder of an orphanage in Haiti of sexually abusing the boys in his care. Kendrick widened the campaign against the founder, Michael Geilenfeld, to include Hearts with Haiti, the North Carolina charity that raises donations to fund his orphanage.

The Portland jury did not believe the trial testimony by seven former orphans in Haiti about sexual abuse and found that Kendrick was reckless and negligent in making the accusations. It awarded actual damages of $7.5 million to Hearts with Haiti, and $7 million to Geilenfeld.

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is still considering Kendrick’s appeal of the verdict, but it sent the unanswered question of whether federal court was the correct venue back to Woodcock to decide. If Woodcock decides the venue was correct, the appellate court would resume its review of the case.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Road to Recovery

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s release on March 1, 2016, of the Grand Jury Report that investigated childhood sexual abuse in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, Pennsylvania, indicates that hundreds of children were sexually abused in that diocese since the 1940s by many clergy members, and the sexual abuse of children was enabled, covered up, and mismanaged by at least two (2) Bishops of the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown

Since the hotline set up by the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office has already uncovered approximately one hundred more childhood sexual abuse victims, it is clear that many more children were sexually abused by clergy and other religious persons in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, Pennsylvania

WHAT
A demonstration and leafleting requesting parishioners attending Mass in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown to alert their children, grandchildren, relatives, neighbors, fellow parishioners, and friends that hundreds of children were sexually abused by dozens of priests and other religious persons throughout the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown and that children continue to be at risk of sexual abuse in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, Pennsylvania

WHEN and WHERE
Saturday, March 5, 2016, from 11:30 am to 1:00 pm outside the Noon Mass at Blessed Sacrament Cathedral, One Cathedral Square, Altoona, PA 16601

Saturday, March 5, 2016 from 4:30 PM until 6:30 pm outside the 5:00 pm Mass at St. John Gualbert Cathedral, 117 Clinton Street, Johnstown, PA 15907

WHO
Members of Road to Recovery, Inc., a non-profit charity based in New Jersey, which assists victims of sexual abuse and their families, including its co-founder and President, Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., a former priest, who is assisting victims of clergy sexual abuse in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and Jerry Sypek, a Boston clergy sexual abuse victim/survivor who lives in Williamsport, Pennsylvania

WHY
It is clear from the Grand Jury Report released by Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane on March 1, 2016, that children were, have been, and are at serious risk of sexual abuse by clergy and religious persons in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Sexual abuse in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown is rampant and must be stopped. Demonstrators will call on Catholics to demand the removal of Bishop Joseph Adamec as a bishop of the Roman Catholic Church and the removal and resignation of anyone in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown who covered up childhood sexual abuse.

Courageous victims should come forward and be proud of themselves for confronting the evils of sexual abuse.

CONTACTS
Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D. – Road to Recovery, Inc.
Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, Boston, MA – 617-523-6250

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ILLINOIS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priest

Victims to leaflet at prominent church
It’s letting accused child molester preach
SNAP: “You’re intimidating abused children”
Group wants pastor disinvited from upcoming event
He’s been in leadership posts with national Baptist organization
“Kids suffer when clerics back other accused clerics,” victims say

WHAT
After a church service, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will pass out leaflets to congregants urging church officials to

–disinvite an accused, arrested predatory pastor who is set to speak later in the week, and
–apologize for their “callousness and hurtful behavior” for inviting him in the first place.

The victims will also

–beg anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered child sex crimes to contact secular authorities, not church figures, and
–praise the three individuals who have reported being assaulted by the minister to law enforcement officials.

WHEN
Sunday, March 6 at 12:30 pm – 1:15 pm

WHERE
Outside Friendship Baptist Church of Chicago, 5200 W. Jackson Blvd. (corner of Laramie) in Chicago

WHO
Two-three members of a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, including a Chicago woman who is the organization’s founder and long-time president

WHY
Despite being arrested and charged with child sex crimes – and facing three accusers, a South Side pastor is set to preach next week at a historic African American church. Child sex abuse victims want him disinvited. They also want church officials who invited the controversial cleric to apologize for their decision.

Three month ago, Rev. George W. Waddles, Sr., was arraigned on charges that he molested a then-13 year old girl during counseling sessions in his office in 2011, according to Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney Tara Pease-Harkin.

Waddles is the minister at Zion Hill Missionary Baptist Church on the Southside. Despite Waddles admission and arrest, he remains in the pulpit.

At least two other church members have reported that Waddles also attacked them.

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ROME
The Advertiser

Charles Miranda in Rome

AS HE lined up to join a guided tour of the Colosseum in central Rome, Paul Levey got to talking with the ticket seller about tattoos.

They compared their inks, shared a laugh then spoke of the stories behind them.

Paul’s yarns were dark, darker than the skies threatening to erupt overhead.

They spoke of unimaginable childhood horrors of abuse at the hands of the clergy in full view of others who actively chose to turn their backs; the physical trauma lasted years but the mental heartache much longer.

“No more silence,” one tattoo says, on the need to speak out about child sex abuses that have gone on within the Catholic Church in Australia.

On this particular stormy day Paul confined his description of them to just a few sentences along the lines of why he and partner Michele East were in Rome.

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VATICAN CITY
9 News

AAP

The Vatican has praised Cardinal George Pell and a group of child sex abuse survivors who flew to Rome to hear him give evidence by video link to a royal commission sitting in Sydney.

But Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said in a statement the “sensationalist” media coverage of Cardinal Pell’s testimony gave the impression the Catholic Church had done little or nothing to address the issue of clergy sex abuse, when that was not the case.

The head of the Holy See press office also said the recent awarding of a best picture Oscar to the film Spotlight about the uncovering of clergy sex abuse in Boston, had a similar sensationalist effect.

Cardinal Pell gave evidence for four nights from Rome’s Quirinale Hotel, admitting the church had made “enormous mistakes” and saying he regretted at times putting the church before victims.

But abuse survivors in the audience were unimpressed with his denials that he was aware of offending by pedophile priests when he served in the Ballarat diocese in Victoria and his shifting of blame to other clergy for cover-ups and scandals.

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AUSTRALIA/ROME
news.com.au

WHEN the Ballarat survivor group arrive at Melbourne Airport, there is one person they want to see waiting for them.

“In all honesty I would like to see Malcolm Turnbull waiting for us at the airport,” said David Ridsdale, who has led the group tirelessly throughout the week of Royal Commission hearings in Rome.

“I’m sorry, too long we’ve been fighting and it shouldn’t be us fixing this. It is an Australia-wide problem. It is everywhere and everybody knew.”

The Australian group have become the focus of international media throughout their time in the country and are hoping to use the attention to secure real changes at home.

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AUSTRALIA/ROME
9 News

AAP

Cardinal George Pell was just a “bloke from Ballarat” when he sat down with child sex abuse survivors in a Rome hotel to discuss their concerns, survivors spokesman David Ridsdale says.

And he says the cardinal is starting to deliver a little action rather than just words to help survivors, with an offer on Friday of the resources of the Australian Catholic University.

But Mr Ridsdale, whose pedophile priest uncle Gerald Ridsdale abused him as a boy in the Ballarat diocese in Victoria, says there’s a long way to go before survivors will be prepared to stand united with the cardinal.

The survivors’ group flew to Rome to see Australia’s senior Catholic cleric give evidence by videolink to the child abuse royal commission sitting in Sydney.

The group wants to see change in the church to improve redress for survivors of clergy abuse and implement systems to ensure such abuse can’t happen again.

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VATICAN CITY
The Age

March 5, 2016

Goya Dmytryshchak

The Vatican has issued a statement praising Cardinal George Pell for his testimony at the royal commission and rejecting claims the Catholic Church had done nothing, or very little, to respond to child sex abuse.

The statement comes after Australian child sex abuse survivors who flew to Rome to watch Cardinal Pell give evidence, said they were unimpressed he told the inquiry he had no knowledge of offending by paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale in Ballarat in the 1970s and 1980s.

It also comes as survivors were informed on Friday that their request to meet Pope Francis was never received.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi​ said Cardinal Pell’s appearance at the live inquiry and the presentation of a Best Picture Oscar to Spotlight – a film about The Boston Globe’s investigation into Catholic Church sex abuse cover up there – had brought a new wave of attention from the media and public to the issue of child sex abuse by clergy.

“The sensationalist presentation of these two events has ensured that, for a significant part of the public, especially those who are least informed or have a short memory, it is thought that the Church has done nothing, or very little, to respond to these terrible problems, and that it is necessary to start anew,” Father Lombardi wrote.

“Objective consideration shows that this is not the case.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Advertiser

March 5, 2016

David PenberthySunday Mail (SA)

When the Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia ran aground in 2012, captain Francesco Schettino became a pin-up for the modern art of evading responsibility.

Not only had he been distracted by big-noting himself in the cabin with a couple of good sorts when the ship hit the rocks, the cowardly captain was one of the first to don a lifejacket and leap into a dinghy. Rather than going down with the ship, the bloke couldn’t get off quickly enough.

The blunt exchange between Schettino and the coast guard — “Just do your job!” – was such an emblem for the times that the Italians even printed it as a slogan on T-shirts.

I was reminded of Captain Schottino during the week while watching another slow-moving catastrophe in Italy — the four gruelling days of evidence by Cardinal George Pell, via video link to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse.

A couple of qualifiers at the start. I agree with conservatives such as John Howard that there has been a “Get Pell” aspect to the discussion of the Cardinal’s role in this affair.

There are some who hate Pell for reasons of politics and ideology. The contribution from the comedian Tim Minchin was juvenile in the extreme. Also, there are some survivors of child abuse who abhor Pell — in their case understandably — because they have succumbed to the human tendency towards focusing their anger on the one convenient hate figure.

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UNITED STATES
The Open Tabernacle: Here Comes Everybody

Posted on March 5, 2016 by Betty Clermont

In accepting the Academy Award for Best Picture, producer Michael Sugar told the world: “This film gave a voice to survivors, and this Oscar amplifies that voice, which we hope will become a choir that will resonate all the way to the Vatican. Pope Francis, it’s time to protect the children and restore the faith.”

Earlier that day, Spotlight’s Mark Ruffalo, nominated for Best Supporting Actor, as well as Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer, who together won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, attended a protest outside the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels in downtown Los Angeles. They were there to support members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

‘What better way to start the day?’” said McCarthy who called up Ruffalo and Singer that morning to join him. Singer added: “We’re trying to put a little more pressure on the Church to hold bishops accountable, have a little more transparency and do a better job protecting kids.”
Later on the red carpet, Ruffalo told Reuters they were “protesting the continued lack of transparency of the Roman Catholic Church and the Vatican and most of the archdioceses here in the United States on sexual abuse. There are 2,800 priests who they know are absolute sexual predators whose names have still not been released here in the United States. [There are] thousands more throughout the United States and the Vatican today is still dragging its feet on making any real reforms. So we were there today to try to bring justice closer to the hands of these poor people, this horrible thing that’s happened to these people.

Pope Francis has provided only lip-service, a promise of a still-non-existent tribunal, and a commission to solve problems someday in the future which have already been addressed and remedied by the survivors, their advocates and civil authorities. The only action taken so far by the commission has been to boot out survivor Peter Saunders for being too vocal.

“On child abuse, there is no sincerity on Francis’ side,” Saunders said later.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Star-Beacon

The Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse case launched an outcry for changes to Pennsylvania’s law to remove the statute of limitations for victims to come forward.

The state’s laws remain unchanged. And this week’s news from our eastern neighbor was a good reminder why that momentum has, and needs, to return across the country.

Tuesday, in releasing a gut-wrenching report of abuse across the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown reported on extensively by our sister paper the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane revived the call for a change in the law.

We urge lawmakers not just in Pennsylvania but in Ohio and across the nation to seize the moment and eliminate any statute of limitations on sexual assault and abuse — particularly when it involves a minor. In Ohio, that statute of limitations is just 25 years for all sexual assault cases, whether the victim is a minor or adult.

In Pennsylvania, victims of sexual assault who are younger than 18 and were born before Aug. 27, 2002, have 12 years after their 18th birthdays to file charges. Victims younger than 18 and born after that date have 32 years after their 18th birthdays to file against their abusers.

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AUSTRALIA
The AIM Network

Written by: John Lord

1 Cardinal Pell in giving evidence to the Royal Commission into the abuse of children uttered two of the most debauched sentences ever spoken by an Australian cleric.

“I didn’t know whether it was common knowledge or whether it wasn’t,” he said. “It’s a sad story and it wasn’t of much interest to me.” “The suffering, of course, was real and I very much regret that but I had no reason to turn my mind to the extent of the evil that Ridsdale had perpetrated.”

The audible grasp from those listening summed up the pent-up vacuum of abhorrence the victims feel for this man.

He evoked the ‘I didn’t know, I wasn’t told’ defence that sounded as hollow as a burnt out log in hell. It beggars belief that he didn’t know what was going on.

The good and faithful of the church must be greatly offended by the leadership that represents them.

It seems the words compassion, contrition and empathy have been lost on this priest who purports to represent the word of God.

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VATICAN CITY
Herald Sun

THE Vatican has praised Cardinal George Pell for his testimony at the royal commission into child sexual abuse, and rejected claims the Catholic Church has done little to help survivors.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the Cardinal “must be accorded the appropriate acknowledgment for his dignified and coherent personal testimony (twenty hours of dialogue with the Royal Commission), from which yet again there emerges an objective and lucid picture of the errors committed in many ecclesial environments (this time in Australia) during the past decades”.

The statement comes after Australian child sex abuse survivors who flew to Rome to watch the Cardinal give evidence, said they were disappointed he told the inquiry he had no knowledge of offending by paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale in Ballarat in the 1970s and 1980s.

Fr Lombardi said the inquiry and the Oscar award winning movie Spotlight — a film about The Boston Globe’s investigation into Catholic Church sex abuse — had been “accompanied by a new wave of attention” into the sexual abuse of minors, especially by members of the clergy.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Andy Polhamus | For NJ.com

WOODBURY — Prosecutors have dropped charges against a Franklin Township pastor who was accused of sexually assaulting a teenager.

James E. Simmons, Jr., pastor of New Life In Christ Ministries, was 64 when he was accused last April of sexually assaulting a teenage girl. The alleged victim was 21 at the time of Simmons’ arrest, and told Franklin police that the abuse had begun when she was 17.

Simmons turned himself in, and was charged with multiple counts of second-degree sex assault, criminal sexual contact and endangering the welfare of a child. He was released upon posting $150,000 bail.

Last month, however, the accuser recanted her statement, said Bernie Weisenfeld of the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office. Authorities dropped the charges shortly afterward.

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NEBRASKA
Omaha World-Herald

World-Herald News Service

SIDNEY — A Fremont County jury has found the former pastor of Sidney’s Cowboy Church guilty of sexual abuse and lascivious acts.

The verdict against Roger Craig Kissel, 67, came after a four-day trial that included testimony from a girl who was 5 when she told her mother about the sexual contact.

Defense Attorney Michael Murphy said Kissel had been set up for a sexual abuse charge. He told the jury that the mother claims the girl told her of sexual contact in July 2013, but she allowed Kissel to continue to have contact with the girl and did not report abuse to authorities until September.

In her closing statement, Assistant Attorney General Denise Timmons told the jury that if there are conflicts in evidence, it came from the adults.

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NEBRASKA
KWBE

SIDNEY – A Fremont County jury has found the former pastor of Sidney’s Cowboy Church guilty of sexual abuse and lascivious acts.

The verdict against Roger Craig Kissel, 67, comes after a four-day trial that included testimony of
Defense Attorney Michael Murphy said Kissel had been set up for a sexual abuse charge. He told the jury the girl told her mother in July of 2013, but the mother did not report it to police until late in September.

Those testifying included Kissel and his wife and the girl’s mother.

In her closing statement, Assistant Attorney General Denise Timmons told the jury that if there are conflicts in evidence, it comes from the adults. “The most credible person is that girl,” she said. “ She was a five-year-old girl who wanted the abuse to stop.”

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Editorial

It has been a good week for survivors of clerical child sex abuse in the Catholic Church. The success of the film Spotlight in winning the Oscar for best picture set a tone. About the 2001 Boston Globe investigation into the handling of clerical child sex abuse allegations in that city’s archdiocese, it was welcomed by Archbishop of Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley. A member of Pope Francis’s Council of Cardinals and president of the Vatican’s Commission for the Protection of Minors, he described it as “an important film for all impacted by the tragedy of clergy sexual abuse”.

On Monday one of the most powerful figures at the Vatican began giving evidence about his handling of clerical child sex abuse allegations in Australia. Cardinal George Pell was questioned until Thursday by Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse via video link, as he couldn’t travel for health reasons. That a civil institution could hold him to account – and in Rome – says a lot about progress on this fraught issue.

Lest there be complacency, there was also Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. His response to Spotlight was familiar. Few priests had been proven guilty of abusing minors, he said, while he had problems with the phrase “hush up” being used “far too lightly” with reference to bishops and such cases. He told German daily Kölner Stadt Anzeiger “for me hushing something up means deliberately preventing a recognised criminal offence from being punished or not preventing a further offence from occurring”. Quite. And he resorted to the well worn “learning curve” argument, despite the fact that it has always been a crime to rape a child.

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NEW YORK
Church Militant

[with video]

High-level source inside New York archdiocese exposes corrupt, powerful homosexual network

TRANSCRIPT

Michael Voris: OK, there’s really two sort of major areas. One is the money, and the other is the sexual. They have a sort of overlap, but let’s speak of each one individually at first. So first the money. Tell us what you know and how you know it about the accusation embezzlement of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Bob: The embezzlement aspect of the scandal that has taken place in the archdiocese of New York comes from both parishes, and the reason I know this is because I’ve been privy to be at meetings where this scandal has been discussed. This is not the first time that this priest has been accused of stealing money. In fact, there have been numerous occasions where people have reported him for stealing money and for misappropriating funds from different parishes, in particular both parishes, the one in Manhattan and the one in the Bronx. The information that is being portrayed by the archdiocese as far as they don’t know or have any direct evidence is because this is a cash business. The church is a cash business, and the times that he has been reported for stealing money has all involved cash. He is also someone who is being coached by officials within the archdiocese of New York, someone who is very high up in the archdiocese, who is very high up and who, in fact, is very experienced in the field of economy. He’s an economist himself, also an attorney, and that person is Msgr. Gregory Mustaciuolo.

Michael: Now, you know this how?

Bob: I know this because I’ve overheard conversations that both Peter Miqueli and Gregory Mustaciuolo have had in the past. I was present at conversations that they had. I was also present at meetings where Gregory Mustaciuolo handpicked information and gave different bits and pieces of information to the cardinal of the archdiocese regarding the issues that were taking place with Peter Miqueli, particularly when it all began at the parish in Manhattan, St. Frances Cabrini.

Michael: Is there a cover-up going on here?

Bob: There is a cover-up with respect to what’s happening. I think that the archdiocese needs to come forward with all of the truth. I think the truth will set everyone free. The cover-up — it’s not a problem that Cdl. Dolan, I believe, should be held directly accountable for everything that has taken place. I think it’s a problem that he has inherited from his predecessors.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Express

March 5, 2016

By PAUL GARRETT
For The Express

With stories of hundreds of children being sexually abused by priests in the news this week, one man from our area contacted The Express to tell his story of what happened to him over 40 years ago at the hands of a Renovo priest, Fr. Joseph Bender, who was named as one of the sexual offenders in the grand jury report.

His main reason for doing so is to applaud state Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s effort to change the statute of limitation law regarding sexual predators of children.

The man, now in his 50s, married and with children, would like to remain anonymous, so in keeping with his wishes, he will be referred to as John.

“It all started because we went to St. Joe’s Church school in Renovo. We were all altar boys and members of a choir group called St. Joe’s Little Singers. Fr. Bender was the leader of the choir,” explained John.

John said Fr. Bender had a cabin up on Hyner Mountain, where he would take a select group of boys ages 7 to 13 for weekend trips in the winter and longer week-long trips in the summer.

“He had everything a kid would want back in the 60s … snowmobiles, trampolines, quads, everything that would attract a little kid. He knew what he was doing,” said John.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

March 5, 2016

John Elder

Pope Francis has talked about the Church as a field hospital for the wounded. It’s a message with conflicting and complex resonance, not only in this time of reckoning in the paedophilia scandals – during which the clerical collar and lighted candle has become a staple of TV parody – but for an institution that has suffered through many a dark history.

Throughout that history, there have been the good priests, and the people who love them. The idea of the field hospital, says Father Michael Casey, 72, is a fitting way to describe parish life. “We have to expect the unexpected; the doorbell, the phone call, it can come at any time,” he says.

Father Michael has been the parish priest at St Ambrose in Brunswick since 1997. He was ordained at 25. Years ago, to maintain a personal prayer life among the demands of running outreach programs, saying mass, attending to all manner of crises, baptisms, marriages and funerals – plus endless book work – he decided to start each day 5.45am, just to fit it all in. Three years away from official retirement age – although the option to keep going may be afforded him – Casey finds that 9.30pm is when his energy runs out, when he hopes to knock off if possible.

And yet he’s busier than ever. There’s the food bank, the soup kitchen, the Iranian asylum seekers with whom he shares his home, and the female asylum seekers living in a parish home. And never too far away, somebody in acute pain. Just this week, two victims of child sexual abuse came to talk. And last Sunday, well aware that his parishioners are suffering with the shame and sadness of so many children being abused by so many priests, Casey spoke at Mass. “I talked about having to face our wounded past and hopefully we will grow through the pain that we are all feeling.”

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

PATRICK CARLYON
Sunday Herald Sun

CARDINAL George Pell last week blamed Bishop Ronald Mulkearns for the paedophile priest scandals in Ballarat. Archbishop Frank Little was at fault in Melboune. Errant individuals in a system, went the argument.

Pell cast himself as a bystander. Passive, perhaps, but unwitting. He may have been blinded by ambition. Here, by his own reckoning, sat the most hopelessly incurious scholar in Oxford history. Legalistic. Cold.

Pell sounded at times like an ageing accountant being quizzed on tax reform. An observer coined a new word — “apellogy”. Those seeking evidence of the enduring blind spot in the Catholic patriarchy once again had their Exhibit A: the absence of understanding of the bond between parent and child.

After an hour last Monday, sex abuse victims started trailling out of the Verdi Room of Rome’s Hotel Quirinale, in search of a bathroom or a smoke. They had seen this show before. If the stakes had risen, so had their roles. They were barbarians buzzing at the papal gates, laden with messages that international news outlets, such as the BBC and the New York Times, itched to receive.

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FRANCE
RFI

By RFI

A French judge has opened a preliminary investigation into “failure to report a crime” after the alleged victims of a paedophile priest said top Catholic officials covered up for him, according to the Ministry of Justice.

The victims alleged that senior figures in the diocese of Lyon, in eastern France, including Archbishop Philippe Barbarin failed to report the priest, who has been charged with sexually abusing minors between 1986 and 1991, to police.

A formal investigation was opened on January 27 after Bernard Preynat, the priest, admitted he sexually abused young Scouts over 25 years ago.

His lawyer, Federic Doyez, said Preynat told the judge that “the facts had been known by the church authorities since 1991”, when he was expelled from the independent Scouts group he had led for nearly 20 years.

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MARYLAND
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

At 1:00 p.m. Tuesday, March 8th, the Maryland Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee will hear testimony about proposed legislation to extend the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse. Senator Robert Young, supported by victim advocacy organizations, such as SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests and Pastors, SNAPnetwork.org) is working again to relax the civil statute of limitations (SOL).

Currently, in most Maryland cases, the civil SOLs are three years after a victim turns 18. As a mother of a sexual abuse victim, I know that is not enough time for survivors to expose predators, protect kids and receive justice. The primary force lobbying AGAINST this sorely needed reform is the Catholic church hierarchy. (Wonder why?? Watch the 2016 Academy Award’s Best Picture “Spotlight.”)

Victims are often not able come forward about their trauma into their adulthood – as seen in the recent criminal conviction of Nate Morales, the former worship and youth leader of CLC formerly of SGM (now SGC) His victims did not come forward until their late 30s and early 40s. If they had not been able to receive a criminal conviction in this case, they would not have been able to sue in a civil court either given Maryland’s current predator-friendly statutes.

Criminal and civil laws are like the two bookends that hold up our judicial system to enable justice for victims and protect the society. Come join me in testifying for the extending of Maryland’s civil SOLs on child sexual abuse.

Thank you.

Pam Palmer, palmerp@live.com

Text of proposed bill, MD-SB69: https://legiscan.com/MD/bill/SB69/2016

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

Olivia Lambert
news.com.au

THE church was the one place where children should have been protected.

But behind cold, stone walls in Mortlake, there were shocking secrets and the most wicked crimes lurked in the shadows. Even today, a heavy energy exists over the town decades after some of the worst sexual crimes imaginable upon its residents.

It’s unclear just how many children were abused behind doors at the Mortlake parish but there were dozens who were violated by a paedophile priest. So deep was his obsession with young boys that no one was safe, an entire community and almost every family touched by his disturbing behaviour.
Mortlake is about a 2.5-hour drive from Melbourne, roughly 50km northeast of coastal town Warrnambool.

It’s population is just a touch more than 1000 and it continues to grow slowly, despite the horrors of its church in the 80s.

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PENNSYLVANIA
CBS Pittsburgh

By Andy Sheehan

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Outraged over the sex abuse scandal in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese, state lawmakers are calling for justice for the alleged victims.

The alleged crimes against children are as sickening as they are hard to hear, but in announcing the grand jury findings this week, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane made a point to list them.

“Children reported having their genitals fondled, being forced to participate, watch or permit masturbation, being force to perform or receive oral sex from/or for priests and being anally raped,” Kane said.

The grand jury found that over a 40-year period, 50 diocesan priests and religious leaders sexually abused hundreds of child victims.

In the report, late Bishop James Hogan and retired Bishop Joseph Adamec are alleged to have warded off law enforcement while they shuffled predatory priests around the diocese.

But since the statute of limitations has run out, neither Adamec nor any priests still living can be criminally charged or prosecuted. The victims also cannot seek civil compensation.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC

Wednesday 2 March 2016

If the media coverage – from left and right – is any sign, Cardinal George Pell angered many people with his evidence this week to the royal commission into institutional child sexual abuse.

Cardinal Pell has been testifying via video link from Rome into what he knew about paedophile priests in the Ballarat diocese in the 1970s and 1980s, when he was a young clergyman.

When asked about serial offender Gerard Ridsdale, with whom he shared a house for a while, the cardinal said he wasn’t interested at the time in stories of his crimes.

This obviously raises questions about the culture that encourages such attitudes. But are there also church laws that encourage the culture of denial or avoidance?

Kieran Tapsell is a lawyer and former acting judge in New South Wales. He’s also the author of Potiphar’s Wife: The Vatican’s Secret and Child Sexual Abuse. .

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AUSTRALIA
ABC

Wednesday 2 March 2016

What happens when people who’ve loved and trusted a church stop listening?

John Haldane is one of the world’s leading moral philosophers. He’s the author of many books including The Church and the World. He also served on the UK Victim Support Working Party on Compensation.

He’s a professor at St Andrew’s University in Scotland and Baylor University in Texas. He’s in Australia to deliver several public lectures beginning this month at the University of Notre Dame. What does John Haldane think has happened to the church’s moral authority?

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ROME
Huffington Post

Mauro Bazzucchi
HuffPost Italy

ROME — U.S. bishops living in Italy enjoy luxurious new renovations to their living quarters, despite Pope Francis’ edict that church officials ought to live more humbly.

Upon his election in 2013, Pope Francis said that he wanted a church “that is poor and is for the poor.” He arrived with a plan to reform the priorities of the Catholic church, left embattled after Benedict XVI’s often luxurious reign. In particular, Francis sought to put an end to the Vatican’s lavish spending, even on a personal level. Francis broke with century-old tradition when he refused to move into the Apostolic Palace and opted for a two-bedroom apartment in a communal residence in the Vatican.

Despite the pontiff’s efforts, controversy has continued to unfold. Two books released last year have described gross mismanagement of Vatican finances. Allegations against senior Vatican leaders have appeared in the media; one report claimed last year that the Vatican’s former secretary of state used funds earmarked for charity to renovate his home.

The latest refurbishment of Villa Stritch, the Vatican’s living quarters for U.S. priests, is yet another example of Vatican spending. As HuffPost Italy uncovered, approximately three years ago, Villa Stritch’s manager, Nebraskan Rev. Monsignor Thomas Fucinaro, undersecretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, launched a renovation project worth an estimated 650,000 euros (about $715,000 at current exchange rates).

The complex, located a few miles south of the Vatican, is owned by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and acts as a home to priests from the U.S. living in Rome. The complex includes two buildings and more than 20 apartments.

Fucinaro spent roughly $300,000 on the villa’s relatively small reception hall alone, documents obtained by HuffPost Italy reveal.

Villa Stritch now has approximately $10,000 worth of professional-level draft beer equipment, complete with five draft taps, according to the invoices. A fireplace that supports both wood and electric fires was built at a cost of approximately $30,000. Another $30,000 was used to tile the reception hall floor with Sicilian marble, a hefty sum magnified by the stone’s treatment and care. It required a special application of resin (to make the duller-than-expected marble shine) that ran an additional $18,000. Throw in a grand, custom-built iron gate costing more than $8,000 and an additional $2,000 for the reception hall’s new light switch and wall plates.

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ALASKA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, March 4, 2016

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

An Alaska bishop is posturing on children’s safety instead of preserving children’s safety We urge him to stop making promises and start making progress toward exposing and punishing Catholic clerics who commit and conceal child sex crimes.

http://www.usccb.org/news/2016/16-026.cfm

Juneau Bishop Edward Burns claims it’s “shocking to hear of the (Altoona) grand jury report about more than 50 priests assaulting hundreds of kids in central Pennsylvania. That’s baloney.

More than two dozen similar reports and governmental inquiries across the globe (at least eight here in the US) have documented the very same patterns: across continents and decades: many priests abusing many kids, many church supervisors and colleagues ignoring and concealing those crimes, many priests eventually getting exposed as predators through civil suits and criminal probes, and many bishops promising to “do better” but refusing to do anything more than promulgate more meaningless and rarely enforced internal church policies.

If Burns has paid any attention to this crisis, he can’t be “shocked” by what has happened and is happening in Altoona. If he’s “shocked” by Altoona, let’s see him act to remedy it. He’s the head of the US bishops sex abuse committee. He has an enormous bully pulpit. He can use it to exhort church staff to act responsibly. Instead, he postures.

And he controls his own diocese. But he’s done nothing more than the bare minimum that’s required of him regarding abuse.

About 30 US bishops have posted predators’ names on their website. Burns refuses to do so.

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AUSTRALIA
Courier

By MELISSA CUNNINGHAM
March 4, 2016

Ballarat’s deputy mayor Belinda Coates’s understanding of the complexities of child sexual abuse is more intricate than many would know.

For years, before she embarked on a career change into local government Cr Coates was a senior counsellor at the Centre Against Sexual Assault in Ballarat.

She said many people who had been sexually abused suffered post trauma responses often mirroring the symptoms of somebody who had experienced the horror of a war.

“When it is a physical trauma you can see it, but when it’s an emotional or psychological trauma it’s hidden away and very invisible,” she said. “A lot of people in the community wouldn’t realise that and how common of a response that is and the devastating impact it can have on peoples’ lives.”

Cr Coates said representing the City of Ballarat and supporting survivors on their trip to Rome to bear witness to Cardinal George Pells evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse had been an extraordinarily humble feat.

“What has been incredible is all the support from home that has been flowing in for me to pass onto the survivors,” Cr Coates said. “The survivors are incredibly courageous but it has certainly been so hard for them. They have felt the weight of it all on their shoulders and they have felt all the bigger issues, like protecting children of the present and future.That’s a big responsibility for anyone.”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Historical Insitutional Abuse Inquiry

Updated: 4th March 2016

Commencing on Monday 7th March 2016, the Inquiry will devote the next 2 sitting weeks to the investigation of institutions, which provided residential accommodation for children, run by the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd (the “Good Shepherd Sisters”). These institutions were based in Belfast, Derry/Londonderry and Newry.

A provisional hearing schedule for this module is provided below. This schedule may be subject to change so you are advised to check the Inquiry’s website on a regular basis. A link to the detailed timetable, witness statements, documents and transcripts has been provided.

Please note that there will be no admission for either the public or the media if and when the Inquiry is sitting in Closed Session.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

A long-running child abuse public inquiry will focus on alleged wrongdoing at institutions run by the Good Shepherd Sisters when it reconvenes next week.

Former residents of facilities in Belfast, Londonderry and Newry are expected to give evidence during the next two weeks of public hearings at Banbridge Courthouse in Co Down.

Proceedings will begin on Monday with a short opening from inquiry chairman Sir Athony Hart, a retired High Court judge.

Barrister and counsel to the inquiry Joseph Aiken will then provide an overview of matters relating to the institutions run by the Good Shepherd Sisters.

The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry was set up by the Northern Ireland Executive in 2013 to examine harrowing allegations of physical, emotional and sexual abuse at state and church run residential institutions between 1922 and 1995.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Review

BY BRAD BUMSTED | Friday, March 4, 2016

Attorney General Kathleen Kane was told about sexual abuse allegedly committed by a Johnstown-area priest shortly after she took office in January 2013 – about 14 months before her office began a grand jury investigation of abuse in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, a top aide confirmed Friday.

But the case was a dead end because “one victim didn’t cooperate and the statute of limitations already expired,” said Executive Deputy Attorney General Lawrence Cherba. “It was one case. It didn’t lead us any place.”

The case Kane knew about in 2013 concerned George Koharchik, who was later called a “child predator” in the grand jury report released Tuesday. He would grope children in the car after playing Bill Cosby tapes in which the word “penis” was discussed to de-sensitize boys to sexual language, his victims alleged. He admitted to sleeping, showering, wrestling and having kids sit on his lap, the report said.

He denied “predatory” activity, but admitted obtaining sexual gratification from some touching of victims’ “intimate parts,” the grand jury said. He’s listed as suspended from active ministry.

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ISRAEL
YNet News

Itay Blumenthal, Tova Tzimuki
Published: 03.04.16

A Dutch Jewish teacher suspected of sexually abusing children has been arrested in Tel Aviv earlier this week, two years after the Netherlands asked for his extradition, the Dutch Telegraaf

The teacher, 28, has been in Israel for three years. He was arrested on Monday and was brought to a remand extension hearing at the Jerusalem District Court the next day.

According to reports in the Netherlands, the suspect was born to a Reformist family in Amsterdam and became more observant a few years ago. He attended a yeshiva in Jerusalem, while teaching at a private school of languages in central Israel. In 2010, the suspect returned to the Netherlands, where he started working at the Cheider School in Amsterdam – a prestigious ultra-Orthodox institution that includes a kindergarten, a primary school and a high school.

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FRANCE
Yahoo! News

Lyon (AFP) – A French judge has opened a preliminary investigation into “failure to report a crime” after the alleged victims of a paedophile priest said top Catholic officials covered up for him, judicial sources said Friday.

The victims alleged that senior figures in the diocese of Lyon, in eastern France, including Archbishop Philippe Barbarin failed to report the priest, who has been charged with sexually abusing minors between 1986 and 1991, to police.

A formal investigation was opened on January 27 after Bernard Preynat, the priest, admitted he sexually abused young Scouts over 25 years ago.

His lawyer, Federic Doyez, said Preynat told the judge that “the facts had been known by the church authorities since 1991”, when he was expelled from the independent Scouts group he had led for nearly 20 years.

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OHIO
10TV

A former central Ohio teacher who admitted to sexually assaulting a 15-year-old student has pleaded guilty to one count of producing child pornography.

According to a federal criminal complaint released in October, former Bishop Watterson music teacher Brian Sze admitted to having sexual contact with a 15-year-old student on approximately 15 occasions.

Investigators say a search of electronics seized from Sze’s home also turned up a video of a minor engaged in a sex act with him.

The complaint says Sze admitted giving the teen his phone with instructions “to record him (in a sex act) at Sze’s residence in Lewis Center.”

It says “Sze also admitted to engaging in inappropriate sexually-oriented electronic communications with other students.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Charles Thompson | cthompson@pennlive.com

Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams was hailed five years ago for bringing criminal charges against a Roman Catholic Church official whom, a grand jury report stated, had ignored credible warning signs about a priest who later sexually assaulted a 10-year-old altar boy.

That official, Msgr. William Lynn, was convicted in 2012 of one count of child endangerment for his actions in permitting that priest to live in a parish rectory where he could continue to prey on kids.

Lynn’s conviction was overturned once, reinstated by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and then overturned a second time for evidentiary issues that are still being fought in state appellate courts.

There are some striking similarities between Lynn’s role and that of officials who supervised rogue priests in the Altoona-Johnstown Roman Catholic Diocese that were highlighted in a state grand jury report released this week.

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