ABUSE TRACKER

UNITED STATES
Crux

By John L. Allen Jr.
Associate editor March 4, 2016

After a bruising week of testimony by Cardinal George Pell before an Australian Royal Commission examining his record on child sexual abuse cases, the 74-year-old prelate may have given Pope Francis enough reason to justify keeping him around in the Vatican, both because of the lack of any new “smoking gun” revelation and also by pledging his support for anti-abuse efforts.

If so, the urgent question will be whether Pell’s past will trump his present — meaning whether he’ll still have the papal backing he needs to finish the work of bringing transparency, accountability, and integrity to Vatican finances, which is the central reason Francis brought him to Rome two years ago.

Pell, the Vatican’s top financial officer, was giving testimony about his response to abuse cases in the city of Ballarat, where his priestly career began and which has been an epicenter of Australia’s abuse scandals, and also about his time as archbishop of Melbourne from 1996 to 2001. He appeared via a video link from Rome, after a heart condition made the long flight home inadvisable.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Christian Alexandersen | calexandersen@pennlive.com

Communities are still reeling after a report detailed the rape of hundreds of children by more than 50 priests from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown.

State Attorney General Kathleen Kane announced this week that a statewide grand jury had found sexual abuse taking place within the diocese for the last 40 years. The report included graphic descriptions of children being abused by priests and religious leaders.

The grand jury, which had been investigating the issue for two years, gathered evidence that revealed a history of diocesan officials taking action to conceal child abuse as part of an effort to protect the institution’s image. Through its investigation, more than 115,000 documents were uncovered.

Also uncovered was the existence of a “secret archive,” with documents showing that Diocese bishops James Hogan and Joseph Adamec were at the forefront of a child-abuse cover-up.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

By Phil Lawler Mar 04, 2016

In four days of hostile questioning, an Australian investigating commission produced no evidence that Cardinal George Pell had covered up sexual abuse. Could he have been more diligent in following up on complaints? Absolutely; he admitted that himself. But among the many bishops who mishandled the sex-abuse problem, Cardinal Pell barely merits a mention. He may have been negligent, but he was not complicit.

Cardinal Pell did not knowingly transfer a abusive priest to new parish assignments, to keep him out of trouble. He did not lie to parents of molested children, telling them that their complaint was ludicrous. Sad to say, dozens of bishops have been demonstrably guilty of these greater offenses.

Yet in Australia, and now in Rome, there is a chorus of calls for Cardinal Pell’s resignation. Why? Isn’t it obvious to a dispassionate observer that liberal media mavens, who have despised Pell for years because of his rock-ribbed defense of Catholic orthodoxy, are pouncing on an opportunity to bring him down? The wisps of evidence of negligence on the part of Cardinal Pell are insignificant in comparison with the thick dossier of evidence against Cardinal Godfried Danneels. But there were few howls of outrage when that Belgian cardinal came out of retirement to play an active role in last year’s Synod of Bishops. Why not? Because Cardinal Danneels has long been a darling of the liberal press? Is there any other plausible explanation?

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ROME
Reuters

ROME | BY PHILIP PULLELLA

Australian victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests said on Friday they were disappointed they could not talk to Pope Francis and contested the Vatican’s assertion that they did not go through the proper channels for a meeting.

The group of about 15 were in Rome for a week to watch Cardinal George Pell give evidence via video link to an Australian government commission about sexual abuse in Australia when he was a priest and bishop there in the 1970s and 1980s. He is now the Vatican’s treasurer.

“We would have wanted to talk to him (the pope) about our story,” said David Ridsdale, who as a boy was abused by his uncle, a priest at the time.

“We would have wanted to know how the pope could have assisted us by vocalizing his support and acknowledging the mistakes of the past.”

On Monday the victims announced they had sent a fax asking for a meeting to the pontifical household, the office that organizes the pope’s schedule, to a number they said was provided by Pell’s office.

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AUSTRALIA
Coffs Coast Advocate

Sherele Moody | 5th Mar 2016

ANTHONY Foster was there when victims of clergy child sex abuse met Cardinal George Pell for an hour in Rome yesterday.

Two of Mr Foster’s three daughters, Emma and Katie, were both assaulted by a Melbourne priest.

Emma later took her own life.

The group of survivors and victims’ relatives said they were happy with their emotional and exhaustive session of sharing personal stories of loss and betrayal with Cardinal Pell.

Afterwards, the Cardinal said he would look into setting up a research centre in Ballarat to be “an effective centre for the example of practical help for all those wounded by the scourge of sexual abuse”.

He would also work to better protect children and young people.

Cardinal Pell copped widespread criticism this week for consistently denying before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that he knew children were being abused while he worked in the Ballarat Diocese.

NATIONAL 24/7 CRISIS SERVICES

Lifeline: 13 11 14
Suicide Call Back Service: 1300 659 467
MensLine Australia: 1300 78 99 78
beyondblue: 1300 22 46 36
Kids Helpline: 1800 55 1800

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UNITED STATES
Frum Follies

The Catholic Church is none too happy about the bad publicity it is getting from the Academy-Award-Winning movie, Spotlight, and from the Australian Royal Commission’s Grilling of Cardinal George Pell. Now the #3 in the Vatican, he presided over horrendous cover-ups when he was in Australia. So they issued a long winded press release.

I often say that Haredi and Catholic sex abuse coveru-ps have a great deal in common even though some are done in Yiddish and others in Latin. Granted, Catholics have it fully centralized and leave paper trails. Granted Haredim go further in protecting almost every last molester, not just priests, monks and nuns. Nevertheless the mentality and the spin have a lot in common.

Read and laugh or weep, as is your bent. But also share your thoughts about how this could be turned into frum-speak. Choice comments will be moved up into the body of this post or perhaps be turned into new posts.

Declaration by the Director of the Holy See Press Office:
Protecting minors

Vatican City, 4 March 2016 – The director of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., today issued the following note regarding the protection of minors from sexual abuse:
“The depositions of Cardinal Pell before the Royal Commission as part of its inquiry carried out by live connection between Australia and Rome, and the contemporary presentation of the Oscar award for best film to ‘Spotlight’, on the role of the Boston Globe in denouncing the cover-up of crimes by numerous paedophile priests in Boston (especially during the years 1960 to 1980) have been accompanied by a new wave of attention from the media and public opinion on the dramatic issue of sexual abuse of minors, especially by members of the clergy.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Catholics4Change

MARCH 4, 2016 BY SUSAN MATTHEWS

Those who have followed Catholics4Change over the past few years are aware of my efforts concerning child safety and the St John Vianney Treatment Center located in Downingtown, Pa. In December 2012, I sat in my car in the Bishop Shanahan parking lot while school was in session, waiting for my then 13-year-old daughter to exit the building. I noticed a man come from the side of the school building, walk near the front doors of the school and then make his way past my car. His presence alarmed me and I followed him and watched him cross the street and return to Vianney. A patient from the treatment center found on the property of a school.

Some of the most notorious abusers from the Philadelphia Archdiocese and throughout the U.S., have cycled through this treatment center. A quick Google search in 2012 and I found that a priest who was awaiting a criminal trial for 338 counts of child porn possession had recently stayed at the facility. I had phone conversations and meetings with staff from the facility and was assured that Vianney no longer accepted patients as they did in the past who were danger to children. I was told that the facility treats addiction, mental health, dual diagnosis, porn addictions as well as other programs such as weight loss…but long gone were the days of child predators staying at the facility. To me, a patient charged with child porn is a predator, but in this case it was referencing patients who had assaulted children.

Fast forward to this past week when the Pa Attorney General’s Office released the Grand Jury report of the clergy abuse in the Altoona/Johnstown Diocese. The document identifies St John Vianney as one of the treatment facilities that abusive priests were sent to through the years, no surprise there. What was a shock though was seeing a priest listed as having stayed at Vianney in September/October 2012 who has harmed children? Father George Koharchick is described in the report by the FBI as a preferential child sex offendor who was able to use trust and authority of the priesthood to secretly engage in molestation, digital penetration, and anal sex with children. Maybe there was some confusion in the questions I asked the staff because this certainly does not match up with what I was told back in 2012. Who knows maybe Koharchick was at Vianney to try out their new weight loss program and the Altoona Diocese forgot to disclose the child rape problem? Maybe I was lied to?

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IRELAND
Herald

These images show some of the remaining items from a Dubin 4 Magdalene laundry, including baskets destined for Aras an Uachtarain.

Religious statues, old machinery and trunks used to transport fresh laundry are all still stored at the facility, which also operated as a commercial laundry from 1992 to 2006.

Mr Flynn has called for the items to be protected as “important reminders” of Ireland’s industrial heritage.

He said he does not want to see a museum documenting the history of the laundries, but said history must be preserved all the same.

“These items need to be stored by people who understand them,” said Mr Flynn (below).

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IRELAND
Limerick Leader

Nick Rabbitts

4 Mar 2016

A CEREMONY will take place in Mount St Lawrence Cemetery this Sunday to commemorate women who lived and died in the Magadalene laundries.

From 3pm this Mother’s day, Sunday, March 6, at the Mulgrave Street graveyard, the names of Magdalene laundries women buried in the cemetery will be read out and remembered.

The event is being organised by Justice for Magdalenes Research, who are calling on members of the public to visit graves and lay a flower to honour these women.

There are two grave sites in Limerick designed for Magdalene women in Limerick: one in Mount St Lawrence, the other in Mount St Oliver.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

Members of the public are invited to visit graves of Magdalene women around Ireland on Sunday.
March 6th will mark the the fifth annual Flowers for Magdalenes event in all cities and towns where there were Magdalene laundries. The Justice for Magdalenes Research (JFMR) has called on people to visit Magdalene graves on the day and to place flower to honour the women who lived and died behind convent walls.

It is estimated that at least 1,663 former Magdalene women are buried in cemeteries across Ireland, many of them in unmarked graves. Flowers for Magdalenes is a family event and children are welcome.

The event will be marked in Dublin at Glasnevin Cemetery, beginning at 11.30am; at 11.30am in St Joseph’s graveyard, Tory Top Road in Cork; at 3pm in Bohermore cemetery in Galway; at 3pm in Mount St Lawrence cemetery in Limerick; at 2pm in St Stephen’s cemetery in New Ross; and at 2pm in Ballygunner cemetery in Waterford.

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CANADA
Hamilton Spectator

By Carmela Fragomeni

A priest connected to a private refugee sponsorship program overseen by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Hamilton has been suspended amid allegations of financial misappropriation of funds.

The priest, Father Amer Saka, is a Chaldean Catholic and was most recently the parish priest at St. Joseph Chaldean Church in London, Ont. The Chaldean church represents Catholics from Iraq and neighbouring countries.

Saka’s connection to the Hamilton Roman Catholic diocese is through its refugee sponsorship program, where he privately sponsored Iraqi refugees, said spokesperson Monsignor Murray Kroetsch.

Efforts to reach Saka were unsuccessful.

London police spokesperson Const. Ken Steeves said the Hamilton diocese has contacted his service and they are awaiting more information.

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TEXAS
HoustonPress

BY MEAGAN FLYNN
FRIDAY, MARCH 4, 2016

Spring-based developer Robert Pinard had thought he was being charitable when he agreed to purchase some land from Northwoods Catholic School.

The school claimed it was struggling financially and needed to unload some assets to get out of the hole, says Pinard’s attorney, Cris Feldman. Pinard’s daughter attended the school, and he had made donations to the school in the past. So when a priest who was an administrator at the school approached him about buying 1.4 acres of their land, Pinard agreed to buy it for $2.5 million, according to Feldman; he planned to build a strip mall that included a medical supplies facility.

But nothing was ever built, even though Pinard had already begun clearing the land and surveying it. And now, he’s suing Northwoods Educational Foundation and the priest he had been negotiating with all along, Father Daniel Massick, claiming that, on top of never paying him for the work he did, Massick tried to extort him out of $94,000 by threatening his daughter.

According to the lawsuit, just as they were finalizing paperwork for the sale, Massick dropped Pinard entirely after Pinard refused to fork over an additional $94,000 donation to the school. In a text message, Massick said he couldn’t finalize the paperwork until Pinard paid up, but Pinard objected, saying it was never part of the deal. In a phone call that followed, according to the lawsuit, Massick told him, “I hope nothing happens to your daughter.”

“My client attempted to help the church, and instead, he was subject to a shakedown,” Feldman said.

But according to the counter claims the Catholic school filed against Pinard, they were the victims in this—and Pinard was nothing but a savvy real estate developer who is trying to dupe the church into falling for a “land-grab scheme.” In fact, lawyers for the school allege, Pinard was the one making threats.

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UNITED STATES
Business Ethics

by Gael O’Brien

Founder CEOs of brands that become iconic often think so far outside the box, they create new paradigms — think Richard Branson (Virgin ), Anita Roddick (Body Shop) and John H. Johnson (Johnson Publishing) to name a few. Unconventional thinkers, they earn recognition as visionary risk takers in pursuit of a dream. John Mackey is in this club as co-founder of Whole Foods Market (WFM) and the Conscious Capitalism movement he’s described as creating a new paradigm for business.

However, recent negative publicity about the ethical behavior of one of Mackey’s thought partners raises a question about whether aligning with him will undermine credibility in the evolving work Mackey and others are undertaking.

Marc Gafni, a former rabbi, self-describes as a visionary thinker, philosopher, wisdom teacher and provocateur. Longstanding accusations of plagiarism and sexual misconduct (including sexually exploiting two minors and affairs with women followers) were chronicled — and made far more public — in a recent New York Times column, “A Spiritual Leader Gains Stature, Trailed by a Troubled Past.” Mackey came into the story through his role as executive board chairman of Gafni’s think tank, The Center for Integral Wisdom, and a seven-part video series of conversations between Mackey and Gafni posted on the WFM website.

Although stories about Gafni’s past (and denied by him) appeared over the years in Jewish publications, the Times column galvanized critics into action. The WFM board received a letter petition now signed by 100 rabbis calling for “those who support Marc Gafni to cut all financial and institutional ties.” The petition has over 3,400 signatures so far. Mackey put a statement on the WFM website: “My involvement with Marc Gafni and the Center for Integral Wisdom is conducted strictly in my personal life and does not represent an endorsement or support for either Mr. Gafni or the Center for Integral Wisdom by Whole Foods Market.” In keeping with that position, Mackey said, the videos (discussing what it means to be a “unique company” and a “unique self” within the WFM environment) were removed from the WFM site and are available only on the think tank’s site.

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PENNSYLVANIA
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Mar. 3, 2016

Following the release of a scathing grand jury report Tuesday, the bishop of Altoona-Johnstown, Pa., pledged to publish a list of credibly accused priests as part of “a significant commitment to transparency, past and future.”

Bishop Mark Bartchak made the announcement Thursday afternoon at a press conference, where he began by offering “my heartfelt and sincere apology” to victims of clergy sexual abuse, in addition to their families, the people and priests of the diocese, and the public.

The press conference was prompted by a statewide grand jury report released Tuesday by Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane. The report found hundreds of children were sexually abused by at least 50 priests and religious leaders in the south-central Pennsylvania diocese over decades, with the earliest referenced incident occurring in 1940.

Despite the litany of allegations, Kane said the cases could not face charges because many of the accused are dead, some of the alleged victims are reluctant to testify and statutes of limitations have expired. She stressed the investigation, which began in April 2014, is ongoing. The grand jury recommended the state statute of limitations for sexual offenses against minors be dropped, as well as a window opened for the filing of civil charges. It also recommended victims report accusations directly to law enforcement.

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PENNSYLVANIA
National Catholic Reporter

Brian Roewe | Mar. 4, 2016

One of the Altoona-Johnstown, Pa., bishops singled out by a grand jury report for his “abysmal” record on sexually abusive priests responded in turn hours after its release, defending his handling of allegations as adhering to a strict review process and following advice of psychiatric experts.

In a 10-page statement filed with the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas in Pittsburgh, Bishop Joseph Adamec argued the grand jury wasn’t given “a full and balanced set of facts” as it related to his tenure as head of the diocese (1987-2011), and as a result, the criticism raised against him in the stinging report is “unfounded.”

On Tuesday, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane presented the 147-page grand jury report, developed from an investigation of nearly two years and built from thousands of pages of transcribed witness testimony and more than 115,000 documents seized from the diocese’s secret archives as part of a search warrant in August 2015.

The report presented an image of the diocese as “rampant with child molestation for decades” — all told, hundreds of children abused by at least 50 priests and religious leaders — while bishops, including Adamec and his predecessor Bishop James Hogan, enabled and concealed the problem, at times with lax law enforcement aware of allegations.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Former priest and serial child abuser has been granted an extension of time to file an appeal against his latest conviction.

Tony Walsh, who was known as the “Singing Priest” for his role in a travelling all-priest vocal group before he was defrocked, was sentenced at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in January to two years imprisonment with the final year suspended for indecent assault.

Walsh (61), formerly of North Circular Road, Dublin had pleaded not guilty to indecently assaulting the young girl at St Luke’s, Kilbarron Park, Kilmore, Dublin on an unknown date between April 17th, 1973 and September 9th, 1976.

The victim was aged between seven and 10 at the time when Walsh locked her into a room and abused her.

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VATICAN CITY
ANSA

(ANSA) – Vatican City, March 4 – Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi on Friday hailed movies such as Spotlight and mobilization by pedophilia victims’ right organizations in what he called “the long march in the fight against abuses against minors in the universal Catholic Church”.

“May they be welcome… if they contribute to sustain and intensify” the fight against child sexual abuse by priests, Lombardi said in a statement to Vatican Radio. The spokesman said “abuse cases have become very rare and…the majority of those being talked about today and that keep coming to light belong to a relatively distant past”.

“Much remains to be done in other countries due to very different cultural situations… but the path that needs to be taken has become clearer,” Lombardi said. Victims’ groups have been calling for the resignation of the head of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy, Australian Archbishop George Pell, who has testified this week before an Australian commission investigating child sexual abuse by predator priests.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Srvice

Vatican City, 4 March 2016 – The director of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., today issued the following note regarding the protection of minors from sexual abuse:

“The depositions of Cardinal Pell before the Royal Commission as part of its inquiry carried out by live connection between Australia and Rome, and the contemporary presentation of the Oscar award for best film to ‘Spotlight’, on the role of the Boston Globe in denouncing the cover-up of crimes by numerous paedophile priests in Boston (especially during the years 1960 to 1980) have been accompanied by a new wave of attention from the media and public opinion on the dramatic issue of sexual abuse of minors, especially by members of the 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. Objective consideration shows that this is not the case. The previous archbishop of Boston resigned in 2002 following the events considered in “Spotlight” (and after a famous meeting of American cardinals convoked in Rome by Pope John Paul II in April 2002), and since 2003 (that is, for 13 years) the archdiocese has been governed by Cardinal Sean O’Malley, universally known for his rigour and wisdom in confronting the issue of sexual abuse, to the extent of being appointed by the Pope as one of his advisers and as president of the Commission instituted by the Holy Father for the protection of minors.

The tragic events of sexual abuse in Australia, too, have been the subject of inquiries and legal and canonical procedures for many years. When Pope Benedict XVI visited Sydney for World Youth Day in 2008 (eight years ago), he met with a small group of victims at the seat of the archdiocese governed by Cardinal Pell, since the issue was also of great importance at the time and the archbishop considered a meeting of this type to be very timely.

Merely to offer an idea of the attention with which these problems have been followed, the section of the Vatican website dedicated to ‘Abuse of minors: the Church’s response’, established around ten years ago, contains over 60 documents and interventions.

The courageous commitment of the Popes to facing the crises that subsequently emerged in various situations and countries – such as the United States, Ireland, Germany, Belgium and Holland, and in the Legionaries of Christ – has been neither limited nor indifferent. The universal procedures and canonical norms have been renewed; guidelines have been required and drawn up by the Episcopal Conferences, not only to respond to abuses committed but also to ensure adequate prevention measures; apostolic visitations have taken place to intervene in the most serious situations; and the Congregation of the Legionaries has been radically reformed. These are all actions intended to respond fully and with far-sightedness to a wound that has manifested itself with surprising and devastating gravity, especially in certain regions and certain periods. Benedict XVI’s Letter to the Irish faithful in March 2010 probably remains the most eloquent document of reference, relevant beyond Ireland, for understanding the attitude and the legal, pastoral and spiritual response of the Popes to these upheavals in the Church in our time; recognition of the grave errors committed and a request for forgiveness, priority action and justice for victims, conversion and purification, commitment to prevention and renewed human and spiritual formation.

The encounters held by Benedict XVI and Francis with groups of victims have accompanied this by now long road with the example of listening, the request for forgiveness, consolation and the direct involvement of the Popes.

In many countries the results of this commitment to renewal are comforting; cases of abuse have become very rare and therefore the majority of those considered nowadays and which continue to come to light belong to a relatively distant past of several decades ago. In other countries, usually due to very different cultural contexts that are still characterised by silence, much remains to be done and there is no lack of resistance and difficulties, but the road to follow has become clearer.

The constitution of the Commission for the protection of minors announced by Pope Francis in December 2013, made up of members from every continent, indicates how the path of the Catholic Church has matured. After establishing and developing internally a decisive response to the problems of sexual abuse of minors (by priests or other ecclesial workers), it is necessary to face systematically the problem of how to respond not only to the problem in every part of the Church, but also more broadly how to help the society in which the Church lives to face the problems of abuse of minors, given that – as we should all be aware, even though there is still a significant reluctance to admit this – in every part of the world the overwhelming majority of cases of abuse take place not in ecclesiastical contexts, but rather outside them (in Asia, for instance, tens of millions of minors are abused, certainly not in a Catholic context).

In summary, the Church, wounded and humiliated by the wound of abuse, intends to react not only to heal herself, but also to make her difficult experience in this field available to others, to enrich her educational and pastoral service to society as a whole, which generally still has a long path to take to realise the seriousness of these problems and to deal with them.

From this perspective the events in Rome of the last few days may be interpreted in a positive light. Cardinal Pell must be accorded the appropriate acknowledgement 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. This is certainly useful with a view to a common ‘purification of memory’.

Recognition is also due to many members of the group of victims who came from Australia for demonstrating their willingness to establish constructive dialogue with Cardinal Pell and with the representative of the Commission for the protection of minors, Fr. Hans Zollner S.J., of the Pontifical Gregorian University, with whom they further developed prospects for effective commitment to the prevention of abuse.

If the appeals subsequent to ‘Spotlight’ and the mobilisation of victims and organisations on the occasion of the depositions of Cardinal Pell are able to contribute to supporting and intensifying the long march in the battle against abuse of minors in the universal Catholic Church and in today’s world (where the dimensions of these tragedies are endless), then they are welcome.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service

Vatican City, 4 March 2016 – The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors today issued the following press statement:

“Over the past two days, Fr. Hans Zollner SJ, a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, met in two occasions with David Ridsdale, Andrew Collins and Peter Blenkiron, victims/survivors of clergy sexual abuse from Ballarat, Australia, who have come to Rome for Cardinal George Pell’s hearing by the Royal Commission. Cardinal Pell had asked to arrange this meeting after these gentlemen requested to meet with a member of the Pontifical Commission. These gentlemen explained the reason for wanting to meet with a member of the Pontifical Commission is that, ‘We would like to discuss ideas we have had about healing and the future to protect children from institutional abuse. We know this problem had been wider than the Catholic Church but our experiences have been in this environment. We are keen to develop links with your group as it is a world-wide issue’.

The victims/survivors spoke of models of educating children, parents and teachers so as to effect structural change within the Church and society concerning the effective safeguarding of children and adolescents. This discussion comes at a time when the Pontifical Commission decided at their 2016 February Plenary Assembly to have one strategic focus on safeguarding of minors in Catholic schools at their September 2016 Assembly.

Fr. Hans appreciated very much the victims’/survivors’ concerns and their proposals for preventive measures, and he will report back to the other members of the Pontifical Commission, so that all can learn from the victims’/survivors’ experience to improve the Commission’s work in healing in the present, and better understand how to prevent sexual abuse by those in service to the Church from happening again in the future.

During the meeting, Fr. Hans explained to the victims/survivors the purpose of the Commission and also talked, in particular, about his work and initiatives in prevention from abuse within and outside the Church as President of the ‘Centre for Child Protection’ of the Institute of Psychology of the Pontifical Gregorian University. The Ballarat survivors met also with some of the students of the Diploma-programme in Safeguarding of Minors, offered at the Gregorian University.

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors was created by Pope Francis in March of 2014. The Chirograph of His Holiness Pope Francis states specifically, ‘The Commission’s specific task is to propose to me the most opportune initiatives for protecting minors and vulnerable adults, in order that we may do everything possible to ensure that crimes such as those which have occurred are no longer repeated in the Church. The Commission is to promote local responsibility in the particular Churches, uniting their efforts to those of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, for the protection of all children and vulnerable adults'”.

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VATICAN CITY
The Local

The Vatican on Friday defended the Catholic Church’s action on paedophile priests, saying popes Francis and Benedict XVI had “courageously” tackled the issue but admitted there was still much to be done in many countries.

Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said “sensationalism” surrounding the Oscar-winning film “Spotlight” and hearings into an alleged cover-up of abuse by Cardinal George Pell in Rome had given the public the wrong impression.

The media furore surrounding both events “meant that most people, particularly those less well informed or with a short memory, think the Church has done nothing or very little to answer to these horrible tragedies”.

“An objective consideration shows it is not true,” he said in a statement, listing steps taken by the Church to meet with victims, draw up guidelines for bishops and update canonical procedures and laws.

Both Francis and his predecessor Benedict have shown a “courageous commitment… to tackling the crisis in several countries, such as the United States, Ireland, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands,” he said in a statement.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Tagesspiegel

[The Hildesheim diocese has announced appointment if an independent assessor to investigate sexual abuse in the diocese.]

Das Bistum Hildesheim will jetzt auch die Missbrauchsvorwürfe gegen den verstorbenen Hildesheimer Bischof Heinrich Maria Janssen (1907-1988) von einem unabhängigen Gutachter aufarbeiten lassen. Das erklärte das Bistum am Donnerstag auf Anfrage der Katholischen Nachrichten-Agentur (KNA). Ende Januar hatte das Bistum bereits erklärt, den Missbrauch durch den ehemaligen Pfarrer und verurteilten Missbrauchstäter Peter R. von einem unabhängigen Gutachter untersuchen zu lassen. Nach Bistumsangaben steht noch nicht fest, wer die Aufklärungsarbeit übernehmen wird.

Der Missbrauchsbeauftragte der Bundesregierung, Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig, hatte dem Bistum empfohlen, einen unabhängigen Ermittler zur Aufklärung von Fällen sexuellen Missbrauchs einzusetzen. Opfer meldeten sich nur, wenn sie „Vertrauen in die Institution haben“. Dieses Vertrauen habe das Bistum bisher offenbar nicht aufbauen können.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Regensburg Digital

Eine Podiumsdiskussion zu den Regensburger Domspatzen zeigt: Es fehlt weiter an der Fähigkeit oder am Willen, Fehler und Verantwortliche klar zu benennen – auch im Regensburger Presseclub.

„Und der Meier war eine…ich sag das jetzt nicht“, erklärt Ludwig Faust vom Podium aus. Aber bevor er zu Ende sprechen kann, wird aus dem Publikum bereits mehrfach das Wort „Drecksau“ ergänzt. Gerade wird über Johann Meier gesprochen, den exzessiven Gewalttäter, der bis 1992 die Domspatzen-Vorschule in Etterzhausen und Pielenhofen leitete und von dem sich die Domspatzen erst kürzlich distanziert und ihm die Ehrenmitgliedschaft aberkannt haben. Der international bekannte Chor kämpft um sein Image, Gymnasium und Internat mit stetig sinkenden Schülerzahlen. Und am Donnerstag sitzt man nun zusammen im Regensburger Presseclub, um, wie es in der Einladung heißt, Antworten auf die Frage zu finden, „warum die Ereignisse von damals die Gegenwart so massiv überlagern“.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Katholisch

[Six years have passed since the abuse scandal in the Catholic Church came to light in Germany. Six years in which the Church has also endeavored to clarify the abuses of the past and to prevent new ones. This is not always successful as has been recently shown in cases at the Regensburger Domspatzen and the diocese of Hildesheim.]

Köln – 03.03.2016

Sechs Jahre sind vergangen, seitdem der Missbrauchsskandal in der katholischen Kirche in Deutschland ans Licht kam. Sechs Jahre, in denen sich die Kirche aber auch darum bemüht hat, die Missbräuche der Vergangenheit aufzuklären und neue zu verhindern. Das gelingt nicht immer lücken- und problemlos, wie kürzlich Fälle bei den Regensburger Domspatzen und im Bistum Hildesheim gezeigt haben.

Aber die Kirche ist auf einem guten Weg. Sie hat ihre Leitlinien zum Vorgehen bei sexuellem Missbrauch Minderjähriger innerhalb der Kirche überarbeitet und die Rahmenordnung zur Prävention mehrfach aktualisiert. Es gibt Beratungs- und Hilfsangebote sowie einheitliche Antragsformulare für materielle Entschädigungen. Zahlreiche Präventionsprojekte in Pfarreien, Schulen oder Kinderheimen sollen direkt an der Basis helfen, das Risiko von Missbrauchsfällen künftig zu minimieren. Die Deutsche Bischofskonferenz hat außerdem eine neue Missbrauchsstudie in Auftrag gegeben.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Domradio

Bischof Ackermann über die Aufarbeitung des Missbrauchsskandals

Vor sechs Jahren begann die Aufdeckung des Missbrauchsskandals in der katholischen Kirche. Über den Stand der Aufarbeitung, den Dialog mit den Opfern und den Film “Spotlight” spricht Bischof Stephan Ackermann im Interview.

KNA: Bischof Ackermann, wo steht die katholische Kirche bei der Aufarbeitung des Missbrauchsskandals?

Bischof Stephan Ackermann (Missbrauchsbeauftragter der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz): Ich glaube, dass wir an einem Punkt sind, an dem es eine gewisse Zäsur gibt. Wir haben in den letzten Jahren sehr stark an der Aufklärung konkreter Fälle gearbeitet und an der Aufarbeitung insgesamt. Diese Jahre waren zunächst stark vom Blick zurück geprägt – was auch weiter wichtig bleibt! Es gibt Betroffene, die nun erst den Mut fassen, darüber zu sprechen und sich an beauftragte Personen innerhalb der Kirche zu wenden. Wir haben Ordnungen überarbeitet oder neu erstellt, wie zum Beispiel die Präventionsrahmenordnung. Es war klar: Wir geben den Startschuss, systematisch an der Verhinderung sexueller Gewalt zu arbeiten.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) — A Pennsylvania grand jury report on clergy sexual abuse of hundreds of children over several decades and an Oscar win for “Spotlight,” about the Boston abuse scandal, “brought painful, but important, reminders that we must remain vigilant in our efforts to protect children from the scourge of abuse,” said Bishop Edward J. Burns of Juneau, Alaska.

The bishop made the comments in a March 3 statement as chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People.

“We must never lose sight of the fact that every victim/survivor has personally experienced profound injury, suffering and betrayal,” Bishop Burns said.

He referred to the report released March 1 by Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane, which says that at least 50 priests or religious leaders in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, Pennsylvania, were involved in the abuse and diocesan leaders systematically concealed the abuse to protect the church’s image.

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MARYLAND
Daily Record

Lauren Kirkwood Daily Record Legal Affairs Writer March 4, 2016

A former school librarian’s lawsuit alleging a Baltimore Catholic high school fired her because she reported allegations of a teacher’s sexual abuse of a student can move forward, a federal judge has ruled.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Washington Post

By Michelle Boorstein and Julie Zauzmer March 3

A Catholic diocese in Pennsylvania announced Thursday that it will post the names online of priests credibly accused of sexually abusing children, a decision that came two days after a dramatic grand jury report alleged a decades-long cover-up.

Advocates hope that the grand jury report, which was announced just two days after the movie “Spotlight” focused national attention on child sexual abuse by winning the Oscar for Best Picture, will lead to new legislation permitting more prosecutions of abusive priests and those who supervised them.

The report relied on a secret archive at the Altoona-Johnstown diocese, which dates back to the 1950s and was opened up this summer when authorities obtained a search warrant. The grand jury interviewed surviving priests and their alleged victims, and compiled a 147-page account detailing accusations against more than 50 religious leaders including priests and teachers.

“These findings are both staggering and sobering. Over many years hundreds of children have fallen victim to child predators wrapped in the authority and integrity of an honorable faith,” the grand jury wrote.

As dramatic as the report’s allegations are, however, it does not recommend criminal charges, mainly because the statute of limitations has expired. The same is true for potential civil cases.

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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

March 4, 2016

Nick Miller
Europe Correspondent

Rome: A controversial figure at the centre of Rome’s “Vatileaks 2.0” scandal claims Cardinal George Pell influenced and hurried the work of a Vatican reform commission to secure himself a job in the Holy See, far from the royal commission dogging the church in Australia.

However the cardinal has denied that he sought the job in order to insulate himself from fallout of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

A spokesperson said Cardinal Pell’s “strong record of tackling incompetence, corruption and cover-up in Church life in Australia is precisely the reason he was asked to come to Rome to implement the Holy Father’s reforms”.

Francesca Chaouqui​, who currently faces trial over the leaking of secret documents revealing mismanagement, waste and power struggles at the Vatican, spoke exclusively to Fairfax Media this week, while the cardinal faced royal commission questioning over the protection of paedophile Catholic priests in Victoria.

Ms Chaouqui – dubbed “the Pope’s lobbyist” and attacked as “the sexy bombshell that embarrasses the Vatican” in the Italian press – was a member of the Vatican reform commission COSEA, established by Pope Francis in mid-2013.

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ROME/AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

March 4, 2016

Andrew Bolt
Herald Sun

CARDINAL George Pell’s startling revelations of huge corruption in the Vatican is another blow to the reputation of his church.

Pell’s critics will say he made his claims just to distract attention from his much-criticised appearance in the witness box this week at the royal commission into child sex abuse.

But Pell’s revelations in his interview with me tonight are a direct challenge to one of the deadliest accusations against him — that he is a company man who covers up corruption.

Pell denies he was part of the scandalous cover-up of paedophile priests in Ballarat and then in Melbourne.

He argues that he actually cleaned up the church, creating a compensation fund and making sure paedophiles would never again be protected.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

March 5, 2016

Barney Zwartz

The pressure is now on Pope Francis to do more to rid the Catholic church of the stain of child sex abuse.

The penitential prayer with which Catholics begin their Mass, and which Cardinal George Pell would have recited thousands of times, asks God’s forgiveness for what they have done and for what they have failed to do.

Few people could have failed to do what they should have done more devastatingly than the cardinal. That is perhaps the most shocking, and damaging, revelation of his four days of testimony to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, given by video link from Rome this week.

The royal commission revealed to the wider world the man many Catholics already knew: an ambitious, determined and politically astute cleric with many strengths, a champion of the institutional church – but one who made sure never to know too much.

Time and time again he said it wasn’t his job, it was someone else’s, or he might have done something but no explicit request was made so he did nothing.

Watching Pell give evidence, I wondered whether he was handicapped by his unfortunate demeanour: his slow, heavy delivery and unemotional expression can seem pompous, overbearing and unfeeling.

But the longer it went on, the more watchers would have been convinced this was the real Pell being slowly revealed. It wasn’t just the style, it was the content: a pattern of denial, evasion, defensiveness, then blaming others – especially the dead and the demented.

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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

March 5, 2016

Nick Miller
Europe Correspondent

“Did you meet with the Pope today? What did the Pope say?” asked a TV journalist, as Cardinal George Pell brushed past him with a little wave to the cameras, stepping into Rome’s Hotel Quirinale.

“I’ve got the full backing of the Pope,” Pell replied.

It was an odd reply: not quite an answer to the question posed. Of all the things the Pope may have said about an inquiry into historical abuse by Catholic priests in Australia, or the finances of the Vatican, this comment came first to the cardinal’s mind.

It spoke volumes.

And it was the first sign that on this, the second of four gruelling night-owl sessions of examination over video by Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Pell would be playing some bad defence. …

Following Pell’s at times excruciating testimony, along with millions of other Catholics, was a young woman in Rome, Francesca Chaouqui.

Chaouqui, a controversial Vatican insider, had worked closely with Pell on reforming the Vatican’s opaque finances and she was appalled at what she was now seeing.

The only time the cardinal seemed comfortable was when the counsel assisting the commissioner was drawn into a philosophical discussion on the nature of group responsibility.

His prickly, hair-splitting, eyes-front demeanour relaxed, and there was a hint of the younger George Pell – an ambitious, whip-smart, academically minded and athletically talented Ballarat priest being groomed for the highest levels of Catholic power – while around him, to his claimed complete incomprehension, young boys were being groomed for abuse by a succession of evil clerics.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Mar. 4, 2016

VATICAN CITY
Pope Francis has not received a formal request for a meeting with Australian survivors of clergy sexual abuse while they are in Rome for a series of extraordinary government hearings with Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s chief spokesman said Friday.

Jesuit Fr. Federico Lombardi told reporters in a short briefing that both the Vatican’s Secretariat of State and one of the pope’s secretaries had told him they had not received any sort of request from Australian survivors.

About 15 survivors of clergy sexual abuse came to Rome from Australia this week to witness Pell, an Australian who serves as the head of the Vatican’s treasury, testify via video link Sunday-Wednesday to their country’s Royal Commission Into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse.

Several of the survivors told reporters that they had made a request for a meeting with the pope on Monday, asking that any encounter be held before Friday, when they were flying home. The survivors provided a copy of a handwritten note they said they had faxed to the Vatican’s Prefecture of the Papal Household.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency

Analysis by Andrea Gagliarducci

Vatican City, Mar 4, 2016 / 06:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The movie Spotlight’s Best Picture win at the Academy Awards has brought renewed attention to the Catholic sex abuse scandals that broke in 2002. But while the Church’s failures are well-known, it is also true that the Catholic Church has made more progress than any other body on this issue.

There are several marks of progress: the removal and canonical punishment of clergy who commit sex abuse, especially high-level churchmen and leaders of religious movements; papal meetings with victims; reform of church law; and the creation of new church structures.

The Church has always been concerned about what canon law calls “the most serious crimes.” Under the 1917 Code of Canon Law and a 1922 instruction from the Vatican, sexual abuse of minors was treated as “the worst crime,” a “crimen pessimum,” which was to be reported to the Holy Office – later known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

After the Second Vatican Council, the Church moved to decentralize the judgment of these cases and to value the authority and judgment of local bishops.

In some cases, the canon law process was dismissed as anachronistic in favor of a so-called “pastoral approach.” This meant from 1962 to 2001 only a few cases of abuse – those in which the priest abused the Sacrament of Penance – would go to the Holy Office.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

4 March, 2016

The Royal Commission has released three papers on the criminal justice system ahead of a national two week public hearing commencing on 15 March.

The papers, relating to tendency, coincidence and joint trials in the Australian context as well as admissibility and use in foreign jurisdictions, are among a suite of papers the Royal Commission has released today as part of its larger program of work in the criminal justice area.

Royal Commission CEO Phillip Reed says the papers, comprising primary research, internal background papers, legal advice and literature reviews, will inform the Royal Commission’s ongoing criminal justice work.

“These papers into criminal justice issues will assist relevant stakeholders, be they prosecution, defence, police or survivors, to understand and navigate the complexities involved when considering child sexual abuse in institutional contexts,” Mr Reed said.

“In particular, the advice provided by Tim Game SC, the research provided by Associate Professor David Hamer and the background paper prepared by Royal Commission staff on similar fact and propensity evidence and joint trials, will be of immediate interest to those attending the forthcoming public hearing.”

The Royal Commission has released the following papers as part of its criminal justice program of work:

* “The admissibility, and use of tendency, coincidence and relationship evidence in child sexual assault prosecutions in a selection of foreign jurisdictions”, by Associate Professor David Hamer

* “Tendency, coincidence and joint trials”, Advice prepared for the Royal Commission by Tim Game SC, Julia Roy and Georgia Huxley

* “Specialist Prosecution Units and Courts: A review of the literature”, by Patrick Parkinson

* “A systematic review of the efficacy of specialist police investigative units in responding to child sexual abuse”, by Nina Westera

* “The use and effectiveness of restorative justice in criminal justice systems following child sexual abuse or comparable harms”, by Dr Jane Bolitho

* “Brief review of contemporary sexual offence and child sexual abuse legislation in Australia: 2015 update”, by Hayley Boxal and Georgina Fuller of the Australian Institute of Criminology

* “A statistical analysis of sentencing for child sexual abuse in institutional contexts”, by Dr Karen Gelb

* “Internal Background Paper- Similar Fact and Propensity Evidence and Joint Trials in Australian Jurisdictions” prepared by Royal Commission staff.

The public hearing into criminal justice issues will be held over two weeks from 15 March – 24 March.

The first week of the public hearing will inquire into the experiences of survivors of child sexual abuse in the criminal justice system where the accused was the subject of allegations by more than one complainant.

The second week will examine how victims with communication difficulties, such as very young children and people with disability, can be assisted in the criminal justice system.

Recent cases involving child sexual abuse in institutions will also be examined during the hearing.

The research reports can be found here.

The Advice and the Background Paper can be found here.

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UNITED STATES
Loudoun Times-Mirror

There’s a vision of heroism in the movie “Spotlight” that brings a knowing nod to those in the profession of journalism. It’s about showing up every day and doing the job.

“Spotlight” is the riveting story of a Boston Globe investigation that would rock Boston and cause a crisis in one of the world’s oldest and most trusted institutions. When the newspaper’s tenacious ‘Spotlight’ team of reporters delves into allegations of abuse in the Catholic Church, their year-long investigation uncovers a decades-long cover-up at the highest levels of the city’s religious, legal and government establishment, touching off a wave of revelations around the world.

It’s a movie about speaking truth to power. In a key scene, Cardinal Bernard Law instructs Marty Baron, the newly arrived editor of The Globe (and current editor of The Washington Post), on how Boston works. “The city flourishes when its great institutions work together,” says the cardinal. The conversation sets up the film’s central conflict: the way power operates in the absence of accountability. Challenging power or respected authority can be very intimidating.

Recent events close to home remind us why we show up every day and do the job.

Our story last week about Mehdi Pahlavani, an Ashburn man who’s seeking simple notification from the state about when VDOT plans to bulldoze his property, was picked up by news outlets and citizens throughout Virginia. Next to exposing abuse by the Catholic church, Pahlavani’s story may pale by comparison. But in a small way, the disclosure of his plight holds accountable public officials in Loudoun and Virginia for actions that harm citizens and violate their rights.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By David Marchese

A court has heard Adelaide’s Catholic Archbishop Philip Wilson is launching another bid to have a charge of concealing child sexual abuse thrown out.

Wilson is the most senior Catholic clergyman in the world charged with covering up child sexual abuse.

He has pleaded not guilty to concealing the serious indictable offence of another person.

The charge relates to when Wilson was an assistant parish priest in East Maitland in the Hunter Valley in the 1970s, and worked with the now-dead paedophile priest James Fletcher.

In March 2015, Wilson issued a statement denying the allegation.

“The suggestion appears to be that I failed to bring to the attention of police a conversation I am alleged to have had in 1976, when I was a junior priest, that a now-deceased priest had abused a child,” Wilson said.

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PENNSYLVANIA
We Are Central PA

[with video]

Newry, Blair County, Pa.

There are a total of 27 schools that are part of the Altoona Johnstown Diocese.

Parents at Saint Patrick’s School in Newry were shocked to hear the allegations of sex abuse in the Altoona Johnstown Diocese.

Maureen Smith spent her school days at Saint Patrick’s which is where she now sends her grandsons Kealan and Kenny.

When she was in school, there were rumors of sex abuse and inappropriate activities.

“I kind of had suspicions about the one when I was in school because I heard some other children talking about it, but no one would believe them because he was the monsignor, the pastor of the parish,” remembered Maureen.

One of the fifty church officials, Monsignor Little, worked at Saint Patrick’s School but was removed in 2013 after he was accused of sexually abusing a young boy.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Editorial

March 4, 2016

The Cardinal’s testimony has left it open for the royal commission to reject his denials and to find his explanations for ignorance of disgusting events implausible.

Cardinal George Pell showed a little more compassion this week for the survivors of abuse by Catholic priests and teachers. We welcome, too, his meeting with some of the victims in Rome.

We need to be grateful for such small mercies because the Cardinal’s testimony to the royal commission into child sexual abuse was littered with denials that beggared belief.

It was filled with the blaming of others; with qualified regret often in hindsight, rather than any admission that mistakes were made in the 1970s, 80s and 90s; and with words that betrayed a calculated attempt to avoid any concession that he did, indeed, fall short of what the community than and now would regard as caring for the wellbeing of children.

The Herald believes Cardinal Pell’s testimony has left it open for the royal commission to reject his denials of knowledge about the abuses in his midst. It is also open to the commission to find him an unreliable witness and that his explanations for ignorance of disgusting events and criminal actions are implausible. The commissioners, we believe, are without doubt entitled to find that even if he did not know he should have known and done more to protect children.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Premier

Thu 03 Mar 2016
By Alex Williams

Approximately 50 victims of historical abuse in Northern Ireland have died in the eight years since a campaign for truth and remedy started, an advocate has claimed.

Margaret McGuckin from the Survivors and Victims of Institutional Abuse (Savia) charity has criticised the Northern Ireland government for failing to provide interim compensation to victims before an ongoing inquiry had finished.

The Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry, being led by retired judge Sir Anthony Hart, is the UK’s largest inquiry into physical, emotional and sex abuse suffered by children at church, voluntary organisation and state-run children’s homes.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Londonderry Sentinel

The former Good Shepherd ‘Magdalene laundry’ in the Waterside will come under the spotlight at the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry at Banbridge on Monday, March 7.

Module 12 will consider evidence in respect of a number of institutions run by the Good Shepherd Sisters.

The institutions were located in Belfast, Londonderry and Newry.

The proceedings will commence with a brief opening address from the Inquiry’s Chairman, Sir Anthony Hart. Counsel to the Inquiry, Joseph Aiken, will provide an overview of matters relating to those institutions run by the Good Shepherd Sisters. The module is expected to last two weeks.

The Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry was formally established in January 2013 by the Northern Ireland Executive. It has a remit to investigate child abuse that occurred in residential institutions in Northern Ireland over a 73-year period from 1922 to 1995.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – The Drum

OPINION
By Noel Debien

Understanding the terminology used by the church, how its factions work, and the processes they have in place will help you make sense of Cardinal George Pell’s testimony to the child abuse royal commission this week, writes Noel Debien.

Watching the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse can be frustrating.

Over the last week, establishing when Cardinal George Pell actually knew about paedophile offences committed by Gerald Ridsdale involves going back to the mentality and the language of the 1980s. In particular to the language and mentality of the Catholic church. And it helps to understand the factionalism of the Church and how the so-called anti-Catholic “culture wars” further complicated the issue.

The terminology

Though the Cardinal testified it was 1972 when he first heard about clergy sex abuse in the Mildura parish, he firmly denied he knew about it (as a consultor) in regard to Gerald Ridsdale at the time.

Cardinal Pell testified “paedophilia” was not discussed with him in regard to Ridsdale. At least, not by anyone in time to prevent the damage.

Paedophilia would have been an odd word to be throwing around in the 1970s and ’80s. It wasn’t used in ordinary conversation, and certainly not in Catholic households. Ballarat ex-Bishop Mulkearns’ testimony concerning the criminal Paul David Ryan showed he was having Ryan treated for “homosexuality”. Mulkearns admitted he knew Ryan was offending against boys.

“Interfering with kids” has been another term used in testimony. I do not for a moment wish to confuse same-sex attraction with paedophilia, but I do want to point out there is a serious disconnect that arises from this differing language.

Church v state

Royal Commission hearings expose a very real confusion between the places and roles of religion, psychiatry and law, sexual orientation, gender, sin, crime, virtue, prayer, canon law and the police during the 1980s. And all this went into the Ballarat 1980s mixmaster.

The Australian church of the 1980s was wary of the state. Its seminaries and schools reminded Catholic students of historic state persecution, and British anti-Catholic penal laws that operated in early Australia.

And after the 1970s, the so-called Catholic “culture wars” added further complication.

There were (and are) progressive and conservative factions among Australia’s bishops, priests and people.

Cardinal Pell has testified his fellow clergy, like Bishop Mulkearns and Archbishop Frank Little, deceived him or lied to him over many sexual abuse matters.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Konrad Marshall
Senior writer

The messages arrived quickly, mere moments after the first news stories went up this week about Cardinal George Pell.

Were do i get help mate, wrote the anonymous man.
i was abused by all of them
aĺl the brothers
im 47 and i have been silent.

For this one survivor among many, the royal commission hearings this week were too much. The denials. The foggy memories. The feeling of helplessness took him back to that time when he was tied to a chair, sexually abused and belted with canes.

The man was referred to the Centre Against Sexual Assault, the peak organisation for sexual assault counselling in Victoria.

Carolyn Worth, spokesperson for the CASA Forum, said the demand for help of this kind has spiked dramatically since Cardinal Pell took the stand, with serious inquiries jumping almost 15 per cent in one week.

Ms Worth spoke to one front line operator who could not recall a worst shift on the job than Monday’s.

“She did 13 intakes, perhaps 30 minutes each, talking to desperate people who wanted to make an appointment for counselling,” Ms Worth said. “We used to think one month was an unreasonable wait time. But now in a number of locations around the state we have wait times of two and three months, and others with wait times of five months. It just doesn’t stop.”

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AUSTRALIA/ROME
Daily Mail

By AAP and HARRY PEARL FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

Australia’s most notorious pedophile priest was a tense and unusual man but not someone Cardinal George Pell came to know well despite sharing a house with him.

‘I didn’t warm to him but we never clashed,’ Cardinal Pell told Sky News on Friday, speaking of the 10 months he lived with Gerald Ridsdale at the Ballarat East presbytery where Ridsdale molested an 11-year-old girl in the 1970s.

The country’s now most-senior Catholic said Ridsdale in essence was ‘a mystery man’.

Cardinal Pell said Ridsdale was undoubtedly a capable man and was not someone people complained about to him at the time, even though they might have about other priests.

‘I once celebrated mass after him and I remember his vestments were there and they were sopping wet from some tension or something like that, and I remember noticing that at the time, and I thought him a very tense man,’ he said.

‘But that’s the only particular characteristic [of Ridsdale’s] that I can remember.’

Cardinal Pell also revealed during a lengthy interview with Sky that he later learned a psychiatrist treating Ridsdale in 1975 was contacted by police who said they had held concerns about him but were pleased something was finally being done about him.

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ITALY
The Local

[with maps]

An Italian organization seeking to bring paedophile Catholic priests in Italy to justice has developed a detailed map showing all reported cases from the last 10 years.

The map of Italy below paints a highly disturbing picture.

In the last decade alone, there have been 120 definitive convictions, marked on the map by red pins, against child abusers among the clergy.

Yellow pins mark instances of abuse that have been confirmed by a court, but the perpetrator has not been sentenced, most commonly due to court cases expiring under the statute of limitations.

Black pins mark cases in which foreign priests in Italy, who are under investigation abroad, are being protected by the Vatican.

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ROME
SBS

Cardinal George Pell has made his final appearance before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse via video link from Rome.

Survivors of child sexual abuse who were in Rome to watch him testify will soon get the chance to ask questions of their own.

Cardinal Pell has scheduled a meeting with them for tomorrow morning.

It is the key question that remains unanswered in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse:

How could so many paedophile priests come to be working in the same town at the same time?

On his last day of giving evidence to the commission, Cardinal Pell has been asked for an explanation.

(Lawyer:) “Cardinal, what in your view were the reasons behind so many child sexual abusers aggregating in Ballarat East in the 1970s?”

(Pell:) “I think that was a disastrous coincidence.”

(Lawyer:) “At the time, there were approximately four or five persons with very similar predilections, specifically a sexual attraction to boys of a similar age, in the same suburb. You believe that’s a coincidence?”

(Pell:) “Um, yes, I do.”

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OHIO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, March 3, 2016

Statement by Judy Jones, Associate Midwest Director of SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (636-433-2511, SNAPJudy@gmail.com)

At least one of the 50+ wrongdoers just exposed by Pennsylvania authorities attended a Columbus Catholic seminary (the same one recently-arrested seminarian Joel Wright attended). We urge Bishop Frederick Campbell to tell his flock about the predator and actively seek out and help anyone he may have hurt in Ohio.

The child molesting cleric is Msgr. Harold J. Burkhardt of the Altoona PA diocese. He worked at the Pontifical College of Josephinum in Columbus for almost a quarter century (between 1947 and 1971).

On Tuesday, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane released a scathing 147 page grand jury report that detailed decades of abuse involving hundreds of children by Catholic officials. It exposed Msgr. Burkhardt as a predator for the first time. (Catholic officials knew of or suspected his crime long ago, however.)

That report says Msgr. Burkhardt “perpetrated sexual child abuse on a 9 year old boy.” The victim also recalled “being fondled through his clothes and being forced to suck Burkhardt’s penis.” Also, “Burkhardt would pull down the victim’s pants and insert a finger into his anus.”

The victim reported to the diocese in 2005. The diocese responded by hiring detectives to investigate the victim and did not take the matter to police.

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UNITED STATES
Complex

BY CLAIRE LANDSBAUM

As anyone who’s seen Spotlight is well aware, the Catholic church doesn’t have the best reputation when it comes to child abuse. Over the years hundreds of allegations of sexual abuse have been leveled at priests, pastors, and even Cardinals as ever more survivors have come forward. However, as an in-depth investigation published in Newsweek today reveals, the problem isn’t limited to organized Catholicism. It also exists—and to an equally severe degree—in the Hasidic Jewish community, and ultra-orthodox sect of Judaism whose members are raised in a rigidly traditional setting.

That setting is in part to blame for the rampancy of abuse, writes Newsweek editor Elijah Wolfson. Boys and girls are separated from a young age, and all talk of sexuality, and even of their own bodies, is taboo. Thus they don’t know when an interaction with an older mentor crosses the line between casual and sexually charged. Wolfson spoke to Ozer Simon, who was abused by his Rabbi; Manny Vogel, who was abused by an older classmate; Chaim Levin, who was abused by an older cousin; and Schneur Borenstein, who was molested by a Rabbi. He also interviewed Mendy Raymond, who was physically abused by a teacher.

In all of these cases, the abusers were protected. Even when victims, who were anywhere from grade school students to pre-teens at the time, told their parents or a trusted friend what had happened, their abusers were swept under the rug until the drama blew over. No abuse — either sexual or physical — was ever reported to the police. The silence is mostly due to outdated customs in the Hasidic community. As Wolfson writes:

There’s widespread belief that reporting abuse to secular authorities constitutes heresy. Traditional religious law prohibits mesirah, or “handing over”—a Jew may not snitch on another Jew to a secular government. Mesirah arose in the Middle Ages, when a European Jew charged with a crime would not get a fair trial—it was a prohibition designed, essentially, to protect against institutionalized anti-Semitism.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Jared Owens
Reporter
Canberra

Anthony Albanese has urged the Catholic Church to “show a lot more humility” about its handling of child sexual abuse, after his former school principal this week pleaded guilty to abusing 18 children.

The opposition frontbencher’s comments came after Bill Shorten this week shared “very personal” feelings about child abuse, noting his childhood priest allegedly abused 56 youngsters and was in jail.

Mr Albanese told the Nine Network: “It’s very obvious that for so many years, senior people in the Church put what they saw as the institutional interests of the Church before the actual parishioners and when you are talking about young kids it is very disturbing.

“The Catholic Church needs to come out and just say sorry, and make recompense and show a lot more humility than we have seen up to this point.”

Mr Albanese said his former principal at St Mary’s Cathedral College in Sydney, Brother David Standen, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to routinely sexually abusing boys in his care under the guise of tuition or discipline.

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AUSTRALIA
Geelong Advertiser

March 3, 2016

Fr Kevin Dillon
Geelong Advertiser

LAST Monday, events in three cities, thousands of kilometres apart, shared a common link.

In Sydney, members of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse assembled to hear evidence from Cardinal George Pell. The focus was his time in Ballarat as a member of the Bishop’s senior Advisory Committee, the diocesan “Consultors”.

In the Hotel Quirinale in Rome, Cardinal Pell faced cameras and microphones that took his evidence to the royal commission, and to innumerable internet viewers and listeners around the world.

In the same room were around 20 Catholic Church-related sexual abuse victims. Most were from Ballarat. They had travelled there, along with families and supporters, intent on providing an “authentic” backdrop to the cardinal’s interview.

And in Los Angeles, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences gathered for the Oscars.

In recent years, movies based on true events have featured strongly in the Best Picture category, either winning or being one of the nominees. Argo, Bridge of Spies, Captain Phillips, Selma, The Theory of Everything and The Imitation Game all originate from true-life stories, and most are reasonably accurate re-creations of the original events they depict.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Square News

Patrick Seaman, Staff Writer
March 4, 2016

It’s a wacky world we live in. Donald Trump is the Republican frontrunner in the 2016 presidential election, Leonardo DiCaprio won an Oscar for the first time in his career and Cuba and the U.S. have finally buried the hatchet. However, in light of Cardinal George Pell, one of Pope Francis’ top advisers, testifying on Monday that the Catholic Church made a massive error in allowing the abuse and molestation of children within the Church to continue for centuries, there’s a clear winner in this year’s Crazy Olympics.

One might think that the most insane part is that the Catholic Church, an organization known for sticking to its guns even when astronomical evidence has been compiled to prove it wrong, admitted its mistakes, but that’s not it. The real craziness, to me at least, is that the apology is coming so late. As a former Catholic, for whom the revelations of child abuse within the Church was the breaking point, I’m frankly appalled at the weakness of the statement released by Cardinal Pell.

The Church does not have a good track record when it comes to their handling of child abuse cases throughout history, and it seems as though the Vatican, under the direction of Pope Francis, is unwilling to rectify the egregious errors they have made in their dealings with sexual abuse scandal. The Holy See has ultimate authority over the Catholic Church, and as the leader of the Church, Pope Francis needs to personally apologize and address the issue of child abuse within the Church. The lack of transparency in the Vatican’s investigations into those responsible for child abuse, as well as the apparent failure to prevent further abuse cases, is a blemish on the Church’s already precarious reputation.

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SCOTLAND
Daily Record

There are times when saying sorry is completely, utterly and entirely inadequate.

The “profound apology” for the many instances of clerical abuse of children and vulnerable persons from the Catholic Church is one of them.

It’s been a remarkable week of sympathy for sexual abuse sufferers following widespread publicity surrounding the publication of former Dumbarton social work chief executive Alexis Jay’s report on the scandal in Rotherham.

That report has led to the jailing of six people, including three brothers and their uncle, who have been convicted of the “systematic” sexual abuse of teenage girls.

There is more to come.

One can only hope that the Catholic Church is listening and that this news has sent shivers down the spine of the hierarchy.

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ROME/AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

[with video]

March 4, 2016

Marika Dobbin
Reporter for The Age

Cardinal George Pell has welled up in a live interview from Rome when talking about a victim of sexual abuse by a paedophile priest, but said he would not resign over the issue.

In the first display of raw emotion from Australia’s most powerful Catholic, Pell choked up and stopped talking momentarily when speaking about a meeting with victims that followed his testimony to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Pell responded during the TV interview with News Corp Australia columnist Andrew Bolt to claims that he appears unmoved or unsympathetic to victims.

“The fact that somebody seems a bit wooden doesn’t mean they aren’t feeling anything inside,” he said. “I found the meeting emotional, but I am a bit buttoned up. That was how I was trained.”

Pell spoke about his “deeply moving” reconciliation with David Ridsdale, the nephew of notorious paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale, who has accused Pell of bribing him not to go to police.

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AUSTRALIA/ROME
The Guardian

Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Friday 4 March 2016

Australia’s most senior Catholic, Cardinal George Pell, has said he will not resign from his position as the chief financial controller of the Vatican, because to do so would be “an admission of guilt” that he failed to respond to child sexual abuse.

He also said he has reconciled with one of the most vocal critics of the church and abuse survivor, David Ridsdale, describing their meeting on Thursday as “deeply moving”.

In an exclusive interview with conservative media commentator Andrew Bolt for Sky News, Pell was questioned for an hour about his past four days of evidence before Australia’s child sex abuse royal commission.

Pell’s answers to Bolt were similar to those he gave to the commission, but were more relaxed and in a few moments, less dispassionate and, according to Bolt, less “wooden”.

“Cardinal George Pell is the most hated man in Australia, if you believe the media,” opened Bolt in the interview that aired live at 9am Rome time Friday.

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UNITED STATES
Vanity Fair

“We continue to seek the forgiveness of all who have been harmed by the tragedy of clergy sexual abuse.”

BY JULIE MILLER

Upon winning best picture at the Oscars on Sunday, Spotlight producer Michael Sugar used the stage to send a message to the Vatican. Speaking about the drama, which chronicles The Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize–winning investigation into the Catholic Church’s sex-abuse cover-up, Sugar said, “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.” Appealing to the church’s leader, he added, “Pope Francis, it’s time to protect the children and restore the faith.”

Spotlight specifically addresses the archdiocese of Boston’s elaborate cover-up of sexual abuse. And in the hours after the film’s best-picture win, Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley, Boston’s current archbishop, released a lengthy statement acknowledging the film’s importance, crediting it for helping the Church confront its failings, and describing how the archdiocese has implemented policies and procedures to prevent those tragedies from happening again.

The complete statement ahead, per The Pilot:

Spotlight is an important film for all impacted by the tragedy of clergy sexual abuse. By providing in-depth reporting on the history of the clergy sexual abuse crisis, the media led the Church to acknowledge the crimes and sins of its personnel and to begin to address its failings, the harm done to victims and their families and the needs of survivors. In a democracy such as ours, journalism is essential to our way of life. The media’s role in revealing the sexual abuse crisis opened a door through which the Church has walked in responding to the needs of survivors.

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MASSACHUSETTS
East Boston Times-Free Press

By John Lynds

Michael Rezendes, who Mark Ruffalo plays in the Oscar Award winning drama about the Boston Globe’s investigative reports into the widespread Archdiocese clergy sexual abuse scandal during the early 2000s, shared a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the subject.

Spotlight, which won Best Picture Sunday night at the 88th Annual Academy Awards, has resuscitated the importance of investigative journalism in the U.S. and Rezendes has emerged as a national figure in that endeavor. Ruffalo got a Best Supporting Actor nod from the Academy for playing Rezendes.

However, some here might not know the award winning journalist got his start in Eastie first writing and later as editor of the former East Boston Community News. There is even one scene in Spotlight were Rezendes (Ruffalo) and Ben Bradlee Jr. (John Slattery) share a box of Santarpio Pizza–one of the real life Rezendes favorite haunts. Story is Rezendes brought Spotlight writers Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer to ‘Tarp’s and they loved it so much they snuck the pizza into the movie for a little more Boston authenticity.

Rezendes attended Sunday’s Academy Awards, was shown on television several times throughout the evening and even got a shout out from host Chris Rock.

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UNITED STATES
America

Kevin Clarke | Mar 3 2016

It has been a grim couple of days reading about and listening to testimony related to past abuse of children by Catholic priests, revelations from reports and documents that have been moldering in diocesan archives for decades. On March 1, as Cardinal Pell began his extraordinary testimony in Rome regarding acts of sexual assault over decades in Australia that led to scores of suicides, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane, who had forced open the files of the Diocese of Altoona-Johnston, released yet another grand jury report on clerical abuse.

Though elements of the story of abuse in Altoona-Johnston were already known because of press reports, this grand jury report marked the first, detailed and gruesome accounting of decades of criminal acts by at least 50 priests or religious leaders and attempts to obscure those crimes and hide away those offenders by diocesan officials.

Today, Altoona-Johnston’s current leader Bishop Mark Bartchak, acknowledging the report and its indictment of past episcopal leadership in the diocese, made a renewed commitment to respond to past clerical abuse of children and to efforts to prevent such acts in the present.

After extending his “heartfelt and sincere apology… to the victims, to their families, to the faithful people of our diocese, to the good priests of our Diocese, and to the public,” Bartchak pledged “to do more” to protect the children of Altoona-Johnston. “Let me start with a significant commitment to transparency, past and future.”

A list of “all priests who have been the subject of credible allegations, along with each priest’s current status” will be posted to the diocesan website, he said.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WTAE

By Jackie Cain

Brian Gergely says he has vivid memories of the sexual abuse he says he endured as a young boy inside Holy Name Catholic Church in Ebensburg.

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ROME
News Weekly

I accuse! A travesty of justice

by Peter Westmore

ROME: Over four long nights, I have sat through many hours of accusations by counsel assisting the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse, Gail Furness SC, that Cardinal George Pell was complicit in or covered up the disgusting sexual abuse of children in Ballarat where he served for many years as a priest, then in Melbourne as an auxiliary to Archbishop Frank Little from 1987.

Cardinal Pell was directly and repeatedly accused of lying to the commission, of covering up evidence of sexual abuse of children, and of blame-shifting to exonerate himself.

These allegations were broadcast live on television and online to Australia, were featured in press, radio and TV coverage, and formed the basis of the most damaging allegations of criminal activity and impropriety against a religious leader that I have heard in my life.

Cardinal Pell’s repeated denials were mocked and ridiculed. He was subject to vicious character assassination arising from these allegations in the Australian media, particularly social media.

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INDIA
The News Minute

Chintha Mary Anil| Friday, March 4, 2016

In one of his interviews, Pope Francis is heard joking about how egocentric Argentians are: “Do you know how an Argentinian kills himself? By climbing over his own ego and jumping!”

And that aptly captures the Roman Catholic Church’s megalomaniac obsession with its existential worldly grandeur thereby plunging itself into a downward spiritual spiral of its own making.

Christians believe that Christ came into the world to reconcile humans with their Creator by shedding His Blood on the Cross. Yet the Catholic Church seems hell-bent in converting itself into a white-washed tomb –the exact phrase Christ used to describe the self-righteous moralists of his day.

The expediency with which the Roman Catholic Church has sought to sustain the church’s divine status in the eyes of her believers at the expense of a massive cover-up of sexual abuse by its clergy is mind-boggling.

Right from the 1980s when the first case of sexual abuse was reported till recently, the Church purposely chose to look the other way whenever any such case was reported.

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AUSTRALIA/ROME
Sky News

[with video]

Sky News contributor Andrew Bolt sat down with Cardinal George Pell , the only one on one interview given by Australia’s most senior Catholic.

Cardinal Pell has just finished giving four days of testimony to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Pell gave the evidence via video link from the Vatican in Rome where he is now stationed.

He was unable to travel to Australia on the grounds of ill health.

Pell’s testimony covered what he was told about a number of peadophile priests operating in dioceses throughout Victoria.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC Radio

audio presentation

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AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

A SYDNEY priest of 30 years has slammed Cardinal George Pell’s “appalling” performance while facing the royal commission in to child sex abuse in a damning radio interview.

Father Michael Kelly, a well-known Jesuit priest, took to the ABC airwaves to say what he really thought about the Australian cardinal who he has known for more than 30 years.

“He’s one of the best developed narcissists I’ve ever met in my life,” he told interviewer Wendy Harmer.

“He’s astonishing at the way in which he can deploy his insensitivity; he seems just impervious to human experience.”

The Catholic priest, who conceded at one point he was sacked by Pell, was very critical of Pell’s four days on the stand at the commission, where he gave evidence and was interrogated over his knowledge of systemic sex abuse within the church. But Father Kelly said he wasn’t surprised.

“I think I share the dismay and disgust of a great many people, Catholic and others, with the Cardinal’s display, and the interesting thing about it of course is it’s just made plain to the world who he is and what he’s like. This is something of international reach, but I must say I’m not surprised,” he said.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Christian Alexandersen | calexandersen@pennlive.com

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg does not plan to discuss a grand jury report at mass this weekend that found hundreds of children were raped by priests at another diocese.

The report uncovered evidence that more than 50 religious leaders with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown had sexually abused children over 40 years. Altoona-Johnstown Diocese spokesman Tony DeGol said Bishop Joseph Adamec has asked all the priests to read a message regarding the report at this weekend’s masses.

In Harrisburg, however, no message will be read.

The reason, according to Harrisburg Diocese spokesman Joseph Aponick, is because the diocese religious leaders read a message in January that covered the issue of sexual abuse at the hands of priests.

The message was that the Harrisburg Diocese was in compliance with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ charter to protect children. It’s an area the diocese is audited on every year.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

BY LAUREN HENSLEY THURSDAY, MARCH 3RD 2016

ALTOONA, Pa.– The bishop of the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese broke his silence Thursday. Two days after a grand jury report into the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese was made public, Bishop Mark Bartchak, who spoke with the medi, broke his silence with an apology.

“I apologize to the victims, to their families, to the faithful people of our diocese to the good priest of our diocese and to the public,” Bartchak said.

During Attorney General Kathleen Kane’s press conference Tuesday, she said the grand jury commended Bartchak for removing accused priests during his five years as bishop and called his action positive steps to help protect children.

But the grand jury report condemned deceased Bishop James Hogan and retried Bishop Joseph Adamec. The report said the two covered up the sex abuse allegations. Adamec remains a fixture in the Blair County community, but that is changing.

“He said that he would not be celebrating mass at this time and anything that would happen further would not be for me to say because Bishops are subject to disciple from our superior who is the Pope,” Bartchak said.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Ivey DeJesus | idejesus@pennlive.com

The volume of calls to the hotline set up to field calls regarding the investigation into child sexual abuse by priests and religious leaders in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona‑Johnstown has been so high, authorities have set up another line.

State Attorney General Kathleen Kane on Thursday said the hotline had, within 24 hours of being established, received approximately 80 calls, and that the call volume was increasing so rapidly, another dedicated line was opened.

“The information is coming in as we expected it to,” Kane said on Thursday.

The hotline – 888-538-8541 – was established amid the release of a grand jury report documenting the rape of hundreds of children by diocese leaders over 40 years. The report, released Monday, found that more than 50 priests and leaders from the eight-county diocese had for decades molested children, the youngest of them six years old. The report found that, in some cases, law enforcement authorities had given the diocese on pass and opted not to investigate further.

The investigation is ongoing, and officials from Kane’s office have indicated that one phone call could change everything. The statute of limitation has expired for all the cases detailed in the grand jury report, Kane said. Richard Serbin, an Altoona attorney who has handled hundreds of cases involving victims of sexual abuse from the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese told PennLive on Wednesday that he knows of scores of cases involving priests who are not named in the grand jury report and for whom, the law could still be applicable.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

By DANIEL PIOTROWSKI FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

A priest who has known Cardinal George Pell for 30 years has launched a scathing attack on the Catholic leader, describing him as a ‘bully’ and ‘the best developed narcissist’ he knows.

Father Michael Kelly, a Jesuit priest and journalist, told ABC Radio he has been dismayed and disgusted with Pell’s appearance at the child abuse Royal Commission this week.

‘It’s now made plain to the world just who he is and what he’s like… But I must say I’m not surprised,’ he said.

‘I’ve known Cardinal Pell for over 30 years. And I really think he’s one of the best developed narcissists I’ve ever met in my life,’ he continued.

‘He’s astonishing at the way in which he can deploy his insensitivity.

‘He seems just impervious to human experience’.

Fr Kelly – who claimed Pell had ‘got me the sack’ from a publishing organisation once before – said of the embattled Vatican number 3: ‘He’s a bully, he’s just a bully.’

‘He gets exactly what he wants by standing over people.

‘As one priest in Melbourne said to me recently, he’s lived by the sword, he’s gonna die by the sword’.

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AUSTRALIA
Business Insider

SIMON THOMSEN

It was 1993 when Gerard Ridsdale, Australia’s most notorious paedophile priest, was first convicted of child sexual abuse, the beginning of an avalanche of charges over the next 20 years involving more than 50 children, including his nephew, David. As the Ballarat priest headed to court dressed in civilian clothes, wearing dark glasses, he was accompanied by a colleague, George Pell, in the black robes of a priest. The two men once shared a house together in the diocese during the 1970s.

Just three months earlier, David Ridsdale attempted to alert Pell about the abuse he suffered at the hands of his uncle. Pell denies knowing anything about father Ridsdale’s abuse until that point. The cardinal also disputes David Ridsdale’s recollection of their discussions.

Gerard Ridsdale’s first 18-year imprisonment occurred the same year Forrest Gump was released. With apologies to the creators of the much-loved movie, we have learned in recent days that Pell is, a lot like the central character in Forrest Gump: his life is strewn with inflection points of historical and moral import; times that reasonable observers look back on now and see, at many points, opportunities to intervene.

But the man at the centre of it all had no idea what was happening around him.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

By Phil Lawler

Mar 03, 2016

For nearly 15 years, I have been waiting for a Catholic bishop to say, for the record, that another bishop’s handling of the sex-abuse scandal had been negligent. This week it finally happened.

Think about that. Heaven knows there has been plenty of evidence of negligence. Some bishops have resigned; others have cut deals with prosecutors. Scores of bishops have acknowledged that the crisis has been handled badly, and in many cases one could read between the lines and recognize implicit criticism of an individual. But I cannot recall a single instance in which Bishop A said that Bishop B had proven himself unfit for his post.

There was a time, back in 2002, when the leaders of the American bishops’ conference were summoned to Rome to discuss the crisis, and one prelate—speaking under condition of anonymity—suggested to reporters that Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law should resign. But anonymous quotes and implicit criticisms are not the same as forthright statements.

The issue is, and always has been, accountability. Priests should be held responsible for their conduct. Bishops should be held responsible for their handling of priests under their charge. If a bishop is clearly negligent, then he should be held responsible by his brother bishops.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Fox 43

[with video]

BY CAITLIN SINETT

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Pennsylvania Rep. Mark Rozzi spoke out about the child sex abuse scandal in Altoona-Johnstown.

Two bishops from that diocese are accused of allowing priests to sexually abuse hundreds of children.

For Rozzi, it’s personal.

“At first I was definitely appalled, outraged, here we go again,” he said.

He was abused sexually by a priest when he was a child and had friends who were sexually abused at a young age.

“I had three childhood friends who have committed suicide, the recent one just on Good Friday of this past year. So when people say, ‘Is it personal?’, you better believe it is,” he said.

He said victims of sexual abuse sometimes blame themselves, and it’s difficult for them to face their abuser.

“I didn’t do anything then, but I can do something now. I can stand up for the voiceless and give all these victims out there that are struggling with alcohol, drugs, that have committed suicide, I can be their voice here in the Capitol.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

Kate Giammarise
Of The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (TNS)

PITTSBURGH — A 147-page grand jury report that outlines decades of child sexual abuse in excruciating detail in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown has revived calls for Pennsylvania to eliminate its statute of limitations for that crime.

A statewide grand jury report made public this week by the attorney general’s office detailed how hundreds of children were sexually abused over a period of at least 40 years by priests or other religious leaders in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown. No one was charged because some of the perpetrators have died, and because the statute of limitations has run out on the crimes, some of which dated to the 1940s.

Statutes of limitations are laws that set a time limit on how long after a crime it can be prosecuted. The main rationale for such laws is that the longer it takes to prosecute alleged wrongdoing, the more stale the evidence gets and the less reliable it is. Witnesses may have forgotten the events or have died, and it may be impossible to get physical evidence. Another reason for time limits is that plaintiffs have a responsibility to pursue their claims in a timely manner, and that it is unfair for them to hold out the possibility of prosecution for an extended period.

Advocates say the grand jury’s report — coupled with the fact that victims of child abuse often take decades to report it — highlights why the law needs to change.

“We know that delayed disclosure is the norm in cases of sexual violence, so we need to have laws that provide safety, healing and path to justice when victims do come forward,” said Jennifer Storm, victim advocate for the commonwealth.

“Child sex crimes are just different than other crimes,” said Barbara Dorris, outreach director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP). “Most kids don’t have the words to report the crime nor the emotional ability to report the crime,” she said.

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

MINNESOTA
Sun-Current

Published March 3, 2016

After multiple calls to Edina Police throughout the past few years, Edina Police executed a search warrant Feb. 18 for possible possession of child pornography at a Fridley priest’s Edina apartment.

The priest, who has not been charged with any crime, is not being named by the Sun Current at this time. Edina Police searched his home among allegations of child pornography possession.

Neighbors in his Edina apartment complex reportedly called police several times over the past four years to report noises of a child who seemed to be crying or in distress, according to the Police Department’s search warrant. Each of the calls found there to be no children present in the apartment.

The priest, who serves as a pastor at Church of St. William in Fridley, took a voluntary leave of absence following the search, according to a statement from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis on Feb. 19.

“The Archdiocesan Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment has cooperated, and continues to cooperate, with the Edina Police Department,” according to the statement.

The statement said the priest was cooperating with the police department and would remain on leave of absence pending the results of the investigation.

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
WFMZ

ALTOONA, Pa. – The bishop of a central Pennsylvania diocese has apologized and promised reforms after the state attorney general released a scathing report on clergy sex abuse of children and created a hotline seeking more accusations.

Officials said the hotline has fielded more than 100 calls since Attorney General Kathleen Kane said Tuesday that two former bishops either covered up or didn’t do enough to respond to hundreds of abuse allegations by more than 50 priests in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese from 1966 to 2011.

Bishop Mark Bartchak called a news conference on Thursday to apologize and promise to reform the diocese’s training and background check program and the review board that vets allegations of clergy abuse.

“I have been bishop for five years,” Bartchak said. “During this time, we have re-examined allegations, removed clergy from ministry, reported allegations to civil authorities, and strengthened our training program. I am committed to doing even more to protect children.”

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
Washington Times

By The Associated Press
Thursday, March 3, 2016

ALTOONA, Pa. (AP) – The bishop of a Pennsylvania Catholic diocese apologized Thursday and promised reforms two days after the attorney general released a scathing report on clergy sex abuse of children involving allegations against dozens of priests.

“I acknowledge there are a number of recommendations made in this report involving how we respond to allegations of abuse. I take them seriously,” Bishop Mark Bartchak said from a prepared statement at a news conference.

Bartchak heads the Altoona-Johnstown diocese, home to more than 90,000 Roman Catholics in eight counties in central Pennsylvania.

A hotline Attorney General Kathleen Kane created to solicit information about additional victims has gotten more than 100 calls since she issued her 147-report based on secret diocesan archives and other sources on Tuesday.

Among other things, Bartchak promised to publish a list of all priests who are the subject of credible abuse allegations on the diocesan website, as well as their ministerial status. The bishop also promised a “full review of our diocesan policies and procedures regarding child protection and will make all changes that should be made.”

The diocese will review its training, background checks and procedures for reporting of abuse allegations to law enforcement. It will also examine the diocesan review board, whose members appointed by the bishop vet abuse allegations.

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
Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown

Bishop Mark Bartchak, in response to grand jury report, issues heartfelt apology and lays out plan for the future

March 3, 2016

As Bishop of the diocese, I extend my most heartfelt and sincere apology. I apologize to the victims, to their families, to the faithful people of our diocese, to the good priests of our Diocese, and to the public.

I acknowledge there are a number of recommendations made in this report involving how we respond to allegations of abuse. I take them seriously.

I appreciate the grand jury’s recognition of the progress we have made. I have been bishop for five years. During this time, we have re-examined allegations, removed clergy from ministry, reported allegations to civil authorities, and strengthened our training program. I am committed to doing even more to protect children.

In addition to reporting allegations, I have met with victim-survivors. Their words and their pain have deeply affected me. I pledge to them and to all families to do all that I can to ensure children are safe.

Someone recently shared the expression, “when you know more, you can do more.” With the grand jury report, we know more, and we will do more. Let me start with a significant commitment to transparency, past and future.

I will publish a list of all priests who have been the subject of credible allegations, along with each priest’s current status. The list will be posted on our website.

This Diocese will continue to report to law enforcement, in writing, all allegations it receives of any type of sexual misconduct involving a minor by any clergy or religious (living or deceased), regardless of when the conduct occurred, whether or not the victim is now a minor and whether or not the victim or another person already has made the report.

In addition, I will undertake a full review of our diocesan policies and procedures regarding child protection and will make all changes that should be made. This review will be comprehensive and will include our training and background check programs, the diocesan review board, and communication on reporting requirements.

I urge anyone who has information about suspected abuse to call the Attorney General’s hotline, 888-538-8541. In addition, the diocesan victim assistance coordinator, Jean Johnstone, may be contacted at 814-944-9388, for additional support.

We are people of faith. I will share a message with the people of our Diocese this weekend through their pastors, and plans are being made for special Prayer Services for Mercy in the coming weeks.

Finally, I ask that we turn to our Lord for comfort and healing from these wounds as we pray for those who have been harmed, for all who have been affected, and for the many priests in our Diocese who have been faithful to their vocation and to the people they serve.

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
Catholic News Service

HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. (CNS) — Bishop Mark L. Bartchak of Altoona-Johnstown committed the Pennsylvania diocese to be transparent in its efforts related to the sexual abuse of minors by clergy and to make public the names of all priests found to have a credible allegation of abuse against them and the status of each man within the diocese.

The pledge came during an afternoon news conference March 3 at diocesan offices in Hollidaysburg, two days after a state grand jury issued a report saying that at least 50 priests or religious leaders were involved in the sexual abuse of hundreds of children over several decades and that diocesan leaders systematically concealed the abuse to protect the church’s image.

The list of priests accused of abuse will be published on the diocesan website, www.ajdiocese.org, Bishop Bartchak said.

The diocese made a copy of the statement Bishop Bartchak read to the media available online.
The bishop apologized to abuse victims, their families, people of the diocese and priests.

Bishop Bartchak also said that the diocese will continue sending to law enforcement authorities written reports of allegations it receives of “any type of sexual misconduct involving a minor” by a living or deceased clergyman or religious, “whether or not the victim is now a minor and whether or not the victim or another person already has made the report.”

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service

Cathy Lynn Grossman | Mar 3, 2016

We’ve all seen some sad spectacle about the Catholic Church this week.

“Spotlight” – portraying Boston Globe’s shattering expose of Cardinal Bernard Law’s archdiocese sheltering, promoting and protecting sex-abusive priests – won the Academy Award for Best Picture prize.

The next day, Australian Cardinal George Pell testified to a Vatican commission that he cared little or nothing about the victims of sex abuse – even as he called such neglect “indefensible.”

Thursday (March 3) , he met with Australian abuse victims and pledged to work with them on care and compensation for people who had experienced abuse.

Is that enough?

Between Law and Pell, two princes of the church, we have witnessed decades of the church staggering to recognize and apologize for its failure to protect uncountable numbers of victims.

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UNITED STATES
Emes Ve-Emunah

Everything you ever wanted to know about abuse in the Chasidic world is in Newsweek. In what has to be the most comprehensive story ever published in the non Jewish media, Newsweek discusses cases of physical abuse and mostly sex abuse where survivors were victims of rabbis, teachers and others.

While the article focuses on Chabad, they are not alone in how poorly abuse has been dealt with. It is not limited to Chabad or other Chasidim. It happens in similar ways in the non Chasidic world of Yeshivos too. Modern Orthodoxy is not exempt from this either.

In all cases, there have been attempts to cover up sex abuse at the expense of the victims. Some more egregious than others but cover-ups at one level or another seems to be a universal response by religious institutions of any hashkafa (or any religion – as the move ‘Spotlight’ showed about the Catholic Church for example). Religious institutions simply do not want to damage their reputations. After all, they represent God. That there was sex abuse going on at their religious institutions is the antithesis of being Godly.

The problem with that of course is that keeping things like this quiet ends up increasing the frequency of its occurrence. Abusers don’t get punished and are merely kicked out of the institution and maybe the city they were caught doing it – only to find another one to do it, where nobody knows who they are or what they did.

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

PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, March 3, 2016

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

No one with a bit of sense should believe Altoona bishop when he, once again, pledges reform about child sex crimes and cover ups.

[WPXI]

For centuries, Catholic officials have dealt with abuse reports. In the US, for more than 30 years, these scandals have surfaced publicly. The first Altoona priest was sued in the mid-1980s. Bishop Mark Bartchak and his predecessors have had years to “reform.” But they haven’t and they won’t.

We’re glad he says he’ll post predators’ names on his website. But he should put them on parish websites too, and post them prominently, permanently and promptly. He should also include ALL predators – living or deceased, diocesan or religious order, and regardless of whether they are priests, nuns, brothers, seminarians, bishops or other church employees. He should have done this years ago. And he should include their photos, whereabouts and work histories.

Bartchak’s pledge to reform internal church policies is worthless. Bishops rarely follow their own policies. They are secretive monarchs. There are no checks and balances on a king. So Bartchak and his staff can promise anything. But there’s no way anyone will know if he keeps these promises. And when he breaks them, there will be no punishment. So church abuse protocols, policies and procedures are meaningless.

The solution lies in the secular sphere. Victims, witnesses and whistleblowers must call law enforcement. Police and prosecutors must investigate, charge and convict those who commit and conceal clergy sex crimes. Lawmakers must reform predator-friendly statutes of limitations. Parents, parishioners and the public must pressure Catholic officials to take tangible steps to protect the vulnerable and expose the truth – not empty gestures like “healing services.”

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MAINE
Roman Catholic Dicoese of Portland

PORTLAND—Bishop Robert P. Deeley has designated Friday, March 4, as a diocesan-wide Day of Prayer and Penance to seek forgiveness for past harm while offering prayers for the healing of victims/survivors of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. The day will also reaffirm the Diocese of Portland’s continuing pledge to provide a safe and peaceful environment for children.

Bishop Deeley will celebrate Mass on the Day of Prayer and Penance at 12:15 p.m. at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland.

On March 4, priests throughout the diocese will be encouraged to observe the Day of Prayer and Penance by offering Masses that include prayers for victims/survivors of abuse for their healing; for perpetrators of abuse to seek and find repentance and justice; for diocesan clergy, employees and volunteers to serve with a spirit of respect and humility; and for families to create a safe, loving, and peaceful environment for their children.

In 2002, the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People was implemented by the Catholic Church in the United States, mandating that any representative of the Church who sexually abuses a minor will be permanently removed from ministry. The Charter, which is reviewed every two years, also calls for the reporting of all complaints to civil authorities, thorough investigations of all complaints, and reimbursement for therapy to victims/survivors. Since the implementation of the charter, over 14,000 Church employees and volunteers (including all priests and educators) in Maine who work with children have been trained in a safe environment program and have gone through mandated background checks. An independent, on-site audit of safe environment procedures found the Diocese of Portland in full compliance with the Charter for the 2014/2015 audit period.

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MAINE
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Thursday, March 3, 2016

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

Maine Catholic officials have scheduled a “healing mass” for abuse victims. At worst, this is a cynical public relations move. At best, it misses the mark. (See details below.)

[Portland diocese]

Bishop Robert Deeley’s focus should be on real reforms that actually make kids safer, not symbolic gestures that make him seem nicer or that make a few adults temporarily feel better. And events like this imply that the crisis is past when in fact it’s not. By focusing on “healing,” Deeley wants us all to believe that prevention is no longer needed. That’s backwards. Only when every cleric who has committed or concealed child sex crimes are identified, punished and kept away from kids should bishops concentrate on healing.

Deeley’s first job should be protecting the vulnerable. And much remains to be done on this front. There are 49 publicly accused Maine predator priests. Where are they now?

Deeley should permanently and prominently post – on parish websites – the names, photos, whereabouts and work histories of these proven, admitted and credibly accused clerics. (About 30 US bishops have done this.)

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VIRGINIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

PRESS STATEMENT March 3, 2016, For immediate release

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

After a Mennonite university official was accused of soliciting prostitution, our group urged anyone who might have seen, suspected or suffered any misdeeds by him to come forward. We have since heard from others who he hurt.

He is Luke Hartman, a former Vice President at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, VA. In January, he was arrested and he resigned his post. Days later, the Anabaptist-Mennonite Chapter of SNAP responded with a public statement urging anyone with more information to speak up.

We thank The Mennonite and other news outlets for posting our appeal. We thank those concerned persons who have come forward to us via our confidential email at mennonite@snapnetwork.org and by word of mouth.

Hartman has reportedly harmed vulnerable women in the church before he was caught in a sting operation by Harrisonburg Police Department and Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office. We believe Eastern Mennonite University, Mennonite Church USA, and Virginia Mennonite Conference officials may have withheld information concerning possible criminal behavior of Hartman. The pieces of the puzzle we have received put together a picture of a sexually coercive, exploitative, and abusive church employee whose superiors gave him continued access to vulnerable students, staff and church members.

Today we repeat our invitation. If anyone has seen, suspected, or suffered misconduct at the hands of Luke Hartman or any other Mennonite church official, we urge them to report to local law enforcement professionals, a civil attorney, a therapist or crisis counselor trained in sexual abuse, or an independent survivors’ group like SNAP. All information SNAP receives is confidential. Due to potential conflicts of interest, we do not recommend reporting to employees or appointees of the Mennonite church or its institutions or agencies.

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UNITED STATES
Washington Post

Michelle Boorstein March 3

For advocates of child sex abuse survivors, this has been a dramatic week: On Sunday, the movie “Spotlight” won an Oscar for its depiction of the uncovering of Boston’s clergy abuse scandal, and two days later, a Pennsylvania grand jury report came out alleging a dramatic 40-year cover-up involving dozens of priests and bishops in a small Catholic diocese.

The report, announced Tuesday by Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane, relied upon a secret diocesan archive opened this summer and alleges that more than 50 religious leaders abused or moved around or covered up abuse in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese.

As dramatic as the report’s allegations are, however, it does not recommend criminal charges, mainly because the statute of limitations has expired. The same is true for potential civil cases. The contrast between the misdeeds alleged in the report and in “Spotlight” and the lack of charges highlights the ongoing battle over statutes of limitations, which bar cases from going forward after a set time. Survivors and their advocates say the laws are deeply unfair to victims of sex crimes, who often need decades to voice their experience.

Marci Hamilton, a constitutional law scholar at Yeshiva University and prominent attorney for child sex abuse survivors, said advocates are hopeful that lawmakers will see this past week’s as more reason to ease the statutes. State laws vary widely, but in Pennsylvania they ban criminal charges after the victim turns 50, and civil litigation after they turn 30.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Dunstable Today

Adam Parris-Long
adam.parrislong@jpress.co.uk

Though nearly five decades have gone by, the horrors of the Magdalene asylums are still fresh in the memory of Mary Currington.

After being raised by nuns in her native New Ross, County Wexford, she worked on a farm and then from the age of 18 she toiled in the sewing room of a complex in Cork.

On her first day in the Magdelene asylum in 1963 Mary had her possessions seized, her hair cut and her name changed.

She told the Luton News/Dunstable Gazette: “I was given their shoes, their clothes and their haircuts. I earned pots of money for them every day without seeing any of it.

“We never even thought to ask and they never paid a stamp for us, I worked my fingers to the bone.”

Prior to her arrival in Cork, Mary, now aged 70 and living in Houghton Regis, endured a difficult upbringing in a convent after she was taken from her unmarried mother.

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ROME
Rome Reports

[with video]

2016-03-03

Cardinal George Pell met in Rome with victims abused by priests.

They have traveled from Australia to Rome to witness their responses in the interrogation of the Australian commission investigating how the country’s institutions responded to allegations of abuse.

“We’ve just had an extremely emotional meeting with cardinal Pell. We met on a level playing field, we met as people from Ballarat, and cardinal Pell has agreed to make a public statement.”

CARD. GEORGE PELL

MEETING WITH ABUSED VICTIMS

“It was hard; an honest and occasionally emotional meeting. I am committed to working with these people from Ballarat and surrounding areas.”

COLLABORATION

“We all want to try to make things better actually and on the ground especially for the survivors and their families and I undertake to continue to help the group work”. “The church-going people of Ballarat diocese are known for their loyalty and for their charity. And I urge them to continue to cooperate with the survivors to improve the situation.”

TAKING ACTION TO STOP SUICIDES

“One suicide is too many. And there have been many such tragic suicides. I commit myself to working with the group to try to stop this so that suicide is not seen as an option for those who are suffering.”

Cardinal Pell was not questioned as a defendant. He offered to testify before the Australian Commission investigating the country’s institutions such as churches, schools or sports clubs for allegations of child abuse.

He was the adviser to the Bishop of Ballarat in the years in which several priests were accused of abusing minors. Others priests were also committing several crimes in his diocese when he was the auxiliary Bishop of Melbourne.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WPXI

The Associated Press

ALTOONA, Pa. — The bishop of a central Pennsylvania diocese has apologized and promised reforms after the state attorney general released a scathing report on clergy sex abuse of children and created a hotline seeking more accusations.

The hotline has fielded more than 100 calls since Attorney General Kathleen Kane on Tuesday said two former bishops either covered up or didn’t do enough to respond to hundreds of abuse allegations in the by more than 50 priests in the Altoona-Johnstown diocese from 1966 to 2011.

Bishop Mark Bartchak called a Thursday news conference to apologize and promise to reform the diocese’s training and background check program and the review board that vets allegations of clergy abuse.

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AUSTRALIA
BBC News

By Trevor Marshallsea
Sydney

An accused paedophile priest, who threatened a girl with a knife and killed a bird with a screwdriver in front of children, has again been the subject of horrific claims at an Australian inquiry.

(Some readers may find the contents of this article disturbing)

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse has heard many allegations in its two-year history, but none more disturbing than those against Catholic priest Peter Searson.

Apart from allegations of repeated child sex abuse, the late Searson is said to have made children kneel between his legs during confession, tape-recorded confessions he found titillating, killed a cat by swinging it over a fence by its tail, showed children a dead body, shoplifted and misappropriated parish money.

Not for the first time, Searson’s name was brought up at the commission on Wednesday when Australia’s most senior Catholic, Cardinal George Pell, continued giving evidence.

As the commission heard that the Church failed to act against Searson despite multiple claims of child abuse, Cardinal Pell described him as “one of the most unpleasant priests I have ever met”.

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ROME
Voice of Americai

March 3, 2016.

Sharee Devose

A top Vatican official vowed Thursday to work to better protect children in his Australian hometown acknowledging he failed to act on an allegation of clergy sexual abuse decades ago.

Pope Francis’ top financial adviser Cardinal George Pell met with victims of abuse who traveled from Australia to Rome to witness his four days of testimony delivered to Australia’s Royal Commission via satellite.

The commission is investigating how the Catholic Church, as well as other institutions, handled cases of sex abuse of children over a span of decades.

Pell was called to testify each night from around 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. about his time as a priest in Ballarat and an auxiliary bishop in Melbourne. The 74-year-old cardinal said that he was a junior priest at the time that an unnamed student at St. Patrick’s College reported that Christian Brothers teacher Edward Dowlan was “misbehaving with boys.”

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ROME
news.com.au

IT WAS a big week at the Royal Commission for Cardinal Pell.

With nearly 20 hours of testimony given over four nights covering four decades in country Victoria, there was a lot to get through.

As the evidence flowed thick and fast containing some extraordinary admissions, here are the crucial points you might have missed:

A BOY COMPLAINED TO PELL AND HE DID NOTHING

While much of the testimony centred around what Pell indirectly knew or didn’t know, there was a crucial moment in which Pell admitted a boy complained directly to him about Father Edward Dowlan “misbehaving with boys” and he did not follow it up.

“I didn’t do anything about it,” Pell told the Royal Commission adding that he eventually “enquired of the school chaplain.”

“With the experience of 40 years later I certainly agree I should have done more,” he said. When asked why he needed 40 years hindsight to have realised he should have done something he trotted out a now familiar line of “people had different attitudes then.”

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

A senior federal government minister hopes Ballarat child sexual abuse survivors get an audience with the Pope, after they met with Cardinal George Pell in Rome.

Frontbencher Christopher Pyne has praised the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, set up by the Gillard Labor government, for putting the suffering of survivors on the national agenda.

‘I hope they get an audience with the Pope,’ Mr Pyne told Nine Network on Friday.

‘This is a very awful part of our society, which we have to face up to, and I think it’s good the royal commission has put these issues on the agenda.’

Cardinal George Pell emerged from a meeting with Ballarat victims of paedophile priests on Thursday , saying he is committed to working with them to combat the ‘scourge of sexual abuse’.

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ROME
ABC News

By Europe correspondent Lisa Millar

Cardinal George Pell has held what he called a “hard and honest” meeting with Australian survivors of clergy sex abuse in Rome.

The meeting came just hours after Cardinal Pell finished testifying before the royal commission, admitting he had once ignored a child’s warning about an abusive priest.

Reading from a handwritten statement, he said he was committed to working with Ballarat to try to help those suffering.

“I heard each of their stories and of their suffering,” Cardinal Pell said.

“It was hard. An honest and occasionally emotional meeting.”

He said he was committed to working with survivors from Ballarat and surrounding areas.

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ROME
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) Cardinal George Pell on Thursday met for nearly two hours with about a dozen victims of sexual abuse from the Australian Diocese of Ballarat at the Quirinale hotel in Rome.

Cardinal Pell has been giving testimony this week to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses into Child Sexual Abuse, which looking into sexual abuse at different institutions in Australia.

The Diocese of Ballarat, located in the State of Victoria, has had several clerics and religious accused of abuse during a 30-year period from the 1960’s, and over a dozen suicides have been attributed to the abuse. Cardinal Pell was ordained for the Diocese of Ballarat in 1966.

After the meeting, Cardinal Pell called the encounter “honest and occasionally emotional,” and acknowledged “the evil that was done.”

“We all want to try to make things better actually and on the ground especially for the survivors and their families and I undertake to continue to help the group work effectively with the committees and agencies that we have here in the Church in Rome and especially the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors,” Cardinal Pell said.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

Konrad Marshall
Senior writer

A school principal who blew the whistle on abusive priest Peter Searson – and was then exiled from the Catholic education system – says he feels “vindicated” by the testimony of Cardinal George Pell this week.

Graeme Sleeman was principal at the Doveton Holy Family school when the notorious Searson arrived in 1984 and began abusing children. It was a school where children lived in fear of the unhinged priest: altar boys did not want to serve, and everyone feared the confessional, where Searson spent far too much time (and he liked children to kneel between his legs), Mr Sleeman resigned in 1986.

He had hoped to force the hand of the church and the Catholic Education Office to remove the paedophile priest. Instead Mr Sleeman lost his career, health and financial security, as the church preferred to keep the now disgraced Searson in Doveton, at one of the most disadvantaged parishes in Melbourne. Mr Sleeman never fully regained his career trajectory.

“I was more than shocked – I was totally disillusioned,” Sleeman said of the episode. “In many ways I had a naivety about the church. But boy oh boy, was my faith tested beyond belief.”
On Thursday, though, Mr Sleeman said he was pleased that his own role in trying to stop Searson was noted.

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ROME
The Guardian

David Marr
Thursday 3 March 2016

Pity poor George Pell. He was such a sensitive young priest that even reading about child abuse caused him pain. He did it as little as he could.

“I have never enjoyed reading the accounts of these sufferings,” he confessed on Thursday. “I tried to do that only when it was professionally absolutely appropriate because the behaviour is abhorrent and painful to read about.”

Pell’s pain …

That he said this to a roomful of survivors gathered in the Albergo Quirinale in Rome defies belief. And just as incredible is the fact that Pell offered this line to clarify his earlier “very poor” words about paedophilia in Ballarat being a “sad story” that didn’t interest him much.

Was there no one to tell the cardinal what a terrible idea it was to appeal for sympathy in the face of such pain? Where were his advisers? Are they the same crew that let him argue last year that paedophile priests and their victims are like truck drivers and hitchhikers?

Character is the great subject of cross-examination. Pell has emerged from four days harshly exposed. There is so much missing.

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ROME
Sky News

Cardinal Pell has met with a group of men in Rome, who were abused as children by paedophile priests in Victoria.

‘We’ve just had an extremely emotional meeting with Cardinal Pell, we met on a level playing field, we met as people form Ballarat and Cardinal Pell has agreed to make a public statement,’ survivor David Ridsdale told media in Rome.

Pell addressed media after the meeting.

”I’ve heard each of their stories and of their suffering. It was hard and honest and occasionally emotional meeting,’ he said.

I owe a lot to the people and community of Ballarat, I acknowledge that with deep gratitude.’

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ROME
The Australian

[with video]

Jacquelin Magnay
European correspondent

Cardinal George Pell stood in a busy Rome street vowing to help Ballarat survivors establish a national research centre to advance healing and improve protection of survivors.

The cardinal made the commitment after meeting a group of survivors who had travelled to Rome to hear him give evidence to the child abuse royal commission.

Cardinal Pell said it had been a sometimes emotional meeting and it was agreed to explore the possibility of establishing a research centre in Ballarat to “enhance healing and improve protection”.

“I am committed to working with these people from Ballarat and surrounding areas,” he said. “I know many of their families and I know the goodness of so many people of Catholic Ballarat; the goodness that is not extinguished by the evil that was done.”

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ROME
9 News

Cardinal George Pell has committed himself to work with child sex abuse survivors to protect children from sexual abuse in the Victorian town of Ballarat.

The cardinal made the commitment on Thursday after meeting with a group of survivors who had travelled to Rome to hear him give evidence to the child abuse royal commission.

The cardinal said it had been a sometimes emotional meeting and it was agreed to explore the possibility of establishing a research centre in Ballarat to “enhance healing and improve protection”.

Ballarat became a hotbed of pedophile activity in the 1970s and 80s including members of the Christian Brothers and Australia’s worst pedophile priest, Gerald Ridsdale.

Cardinal Pell, who held senior roles in the church in the Ballarat diocese at the time has been accused of turning a blind eye to pedophile offending, accusations he denies.

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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

[with video]

March 4, 2016

Nick Miller and Melissa Cunningham

Cardinal George Pell has pledged to help those “wounded by the scourge of sexual abuse”, in the final act of his appearance at the child sex abuse Royal Commission.

“One suicide is too many, and there have been many such tragic suicides,” the cardinal said on the doorstep of the Rome hotel where over four nights he was grilled about what he knew of paedophile priests in Melbourne and Ballarat in the 1970s and 1980s.

“I commit myself to working … to try to stop this so that suicide is not seen as an option for those who are suffering,” the cardinal said.

The statement, handwritten on hotel notepaper, was the product of an hour-long meeting he held with a group of survivors who had travelled to Rome to watch the cardinal give video evidence to the Commission.

Cardinal Pell said he had heard each of their stories and of their suffering.

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ROME
The Globe and Mail (Canada)

PHILIP PULLELLA AND JANE WARDELL
Rome and Sydney — Reuters
Published Thursday, Mar. 03, 2016

Cardinal George Pell, under fire for his handling of sexual abuse of children by priests in Australia, on Thursday acknowledged “the evil that was done” and vowed to work with survivors to enact better protection measures.

Pell, who gave four days of evidence via video link to an Australian government commission, made the comments after a nearly two-hour meeting in a Rome hotel with about a dozen Australian survivors who had flown to Rome for the hearings.

Pell, now the Vatican’s treasurer, and the survivors met for nearly four times as long as scheduled. Both the cardinal and a spokesman for the survivors said it was highly emotional.

David Ridsdale, a survivor who alleges that in 1993 Pell tried to bribe him to keep quiet about abuse by Ridsdale’s now jailed priest uncle, said survivors were satisfied that the encounter took place on “a level playing field”.

Pell, who has denied the bribery accusation, told reporters that the goodness of the people of Ballarat, where much of the abuse took place in the 1970s when Pell was a priest there, “was not extinguished by the evil that was done”.

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ROME
Newsday

Associated Press

CANBERRA, Australia – A top Vatican official has vowed to work to put an end to the rash of suicides in his Australian hometown over the church sex abuse scandal after meeting with victims and acknowledging that he failed to act on an allegation decades ago.

Cardinal George Pell met with some Australian abuse victims who had travelled to Rome to witness his four days of remote, video-link testimony to Australia’s Royal Commission. The commission is investigating how the Catholic Church and other institutions responded to sexual abuse of children over decades.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Verdict

3 MAR 2016

MARCI A. HAMILTON

The Attorney General of Pennsylvania has issued yet another grand jury report on orchestrated sex abuse and adults not paying attention. First, there was the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office investigating the Philadelphia Archdiocese. Three times. Then there was the Attorney General’s Penn State-Sandusky grand jury report. Now there is the AG’s Report on abuse in the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese. (And many are waiting for the Bucks County grand jury report on long-term abuse in the Solebury School.) It is crystal clear now that the plague of child sex abuse and cover up spans the state (and the country). The only question left to ask in Pennsylvania is: who is investigating the Pittsburgh and Harrisburg dioceses?

The Altoona Report introduces new perpetrators and, tragically, many victims to our collective consciousness, but the paradigm is the same: heartless and callous adults trivialize and ignore unmistakable evidence of deep child suffering. Honestly, if you want to understand it at a deep level, see the Oscar Best Picture winner: Spotlight.

True, the motion picture is about Boston, but the pattern is always the same. First, arrogant, powerful adults fail to protect children. Second, child victims (those who survive the all-too-strong temptation of suicide) struggle as adults. Third, their families suffer when they learn about it. Fourth, it’s not over, which Spotlight brilliantly captures with a running list of dioceses worldwide with the “Boston problem.” It leaves audiences stunned and silent. I do not remember a motion picture that triggers the same level of quiet shock since the Deer Hunter.

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