ABUSE TRACKER

PENNSYLVANIA
Roman Catholic Diocese of Greensburg

Upon hearing about the grand jury report regarding the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown that was released today (March 1), my thoughts and prayers first go to all the victims and their families who have been impacted by the actions described in this report and to the Catholic community of the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown. May the healing mercy of God be with them all.

This is the most recent reminder that the Catholic Church, along with every other civil and social organization in society, must always be diligent in our efforts to protect children and young people and to make those efforts one of our highest priorities. It is in the Diocese of Greensburg.

Our commitment to the protection of children and young people is paramount in all aspects of our ministry and administration. I want to reiterate that we in the Diocese of Greensburg are committed to protecting children and young people and have had policies and procedures in place to ensure this protection for more than 30 years, since 1985. Our policies and procedures to protect children and report suspected child abuse are constantly reviewed and regularly updated.

The most recent update to these policies and procedures occurred in December 2014 when the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania enacted new legislation in the wake of child abuse scandals, revising the Child Protective Services Law regarding mandated reporting of suspected child abuse and background checks. The Diocese of Greensburg has made the broadest interpretation of these new laws, and we have required all of our employees and all of our volunteers, whether or not they work directly with children and teens, to undergo the Pennsylvania-mandated background checks. In addition, any employee or volunteer who has a suspicion that child abuse has occurred is required to immediately report that suspicion to the state child abuse hotline. That is required of every member of the clergy, including me as bishop, all diocesan and parish staff members, and every volunteer working for the diocese, its parishes and its Catholic schools, and all other diocesan entities.

As further evidence of our commitment to protect children and young people, the Diocese of Greensburg has been found to be in compliance with the U.S. Bishops’ “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” and the “Essential Norms” in every one of our independent USCCB audits since 2003. The most recent of these audits was in the fall of 2015.

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ISRAEL
A Mother in Israel

March 2, 2016 By Hannah Katsman

In December, 2014, I posted about the attempt by Rabbi Tully Bryks to start a new seminary. It was one of my most controversial posts ever, as Bryks has many supporters among the English-speaking community here in Israel who feel that an injustice has been done.

Ever since then, my friend Shoshanna has followed the story as new posts supporting him appeared on the internet, disappeared, and then reappeared.

Here is Shoshanna’s analysis, in the form of a guest post. She has requested to withhold her last name.

Someone is desperate to rehabilitate the reputation of Rabbi Tully Bryks. So desperate that they will resort to manipulative and deceptive tactics in order to try to clear his name.

It’s not my goal here to establish what happened in May 2013 in Bar-Ilan, beyond what was reported at the time in the newspaper or by Rabbi Bryks himself. Rather, I intend to expose the inconsistencies, inaccuracies, and dishonest practices of the recent public relations campaign to clear his name.

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Anger’s in the news right now. For Americans, anger’s in the very air we breathe at present. Read articles analyzing the spectacular rise of strongman-cum-carnival barker Donald Trump to the top of the GOP primary, and you’ll encounter the word anger over. And over. Again.

Anger sometimes feels good. I’m angry because I’m right. (And if I’m right, you’re wrong.)

I’m angry because I have a right to be angry. You’ve taken my country away from me. You’re sponging off my hard work through your entitlement programs. A president with dark skin has spent the last eight years doling out lavish handouts to you dark-skinned people. I’m mad as hell and I don’t intend to take it any more.

Anger and self-righteousness go hand in hand like wood and termites. We nurse our anger — we take pride in it — because it demonstrates to us and others that we’re overflowing with righteousness. At times in which the best lack conviction, the worst are full of passionate intensity, and they’re not uncommonly puffed up in those times with passionate intensity demonstrated by passionate anger, which in turn exhibits their claim to a righteousness surpassing your righteousness and mine.

Survivors of abuse at the hands of Catholic religious authority figures are angry at what has been done to them. Sympathetic people, people of good will, who follow the story of the abuse crisis in the Catholic church are also angry — at the abuse of good, innocent fellow human beings, at the betrayal of trust and by and downright cruelty of pastoral leaders, at the lies, sham, dissimulation.

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ROME
kath.ch

Rom/Sydney, 1.3.16 (kath.ch) Kurienkardinal George Pell hat in einem Missbrauchsskandal seinen früheren Vorgesetzten belastet. Der damalige Bischof seines Heimatbistums Ballarat, Ronald Mulkearns, habe ihn über die wahren Gründe für die Versetzung eines übergriffigen Priesters getäuscht, sagte Pell am Dienstag, 1. März, in einer Video-Befragung durch die australische Missbrauchskommission. Pell gehörte 1982 als Priester zu einem Beraterkreis von Bischof Mulkearns zum Umgang mit Fällen sexuellen Missbrauchs.

Drei von vier Mitgliedern der Gruppe seien über die Vorwürfe gegen den später wegen Missbrauchs verurteilten Priester Gerald Ridsdale informiert gewesen, nicht jedoch er selbst, sagte Pell. Als Grund für die häufigen Versetzungen Ridsdales habe der Bischof Vorwürfe sexueller Übergriffe nie erwähnt. Zu dem Einwand, Anschuldigungen gegen Ridsdale seien seit Mitte der 70er Jahre in Umlauf gewesen, sagte Pell: »Ich wusste nicht, ob das allgemein bekannt war oder nicht. Es ist eine traurige Geschichte, und sie hat mich nicht besonders interessiert.»

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DEUTSCHLAND
Domradio

[Father Klaus Mertes, who has campaigned for six years for more transparency about clergy sexual abuse, said there is still need for reform in the church.]

Rund sechs Jahre nach Bekanntwerden des Missbrauchsskandals in Deutschland herrscht für Pater Klaus Mertes noch Reformbedarf. Auch wenn sich viel getan habe, begünstigten die Kirchenstrukturen nach wie vor Schweigekartelle.

domradio.de: Spotlight hat in der Nacht den Oscar für den besten Film gewonnen – der Film beleuchtet, wie die Zeitung The Boston Globe den umfassenden Missbrauch im Erzbistum Boston vor 15 Jahren ans Licht brachte. In den USA war damals eine säkulare Zeitung nötig, um den umfassenden Missbrauch bekannt zu machen. Noch heute ist man entsetzt, dass so etwas möglich war. Warum hat da kirchliche Leitung so versagt?

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DEUTSCHLAND
Presse Portal

[Jesuit priest Klaus Mertes said resignations are overdue of highly placed church officials who did not adequately dead with sexual abuse by clergy and he cited Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Mueller as an example.]

Köln (ots) – Der Jesuitenpater Klaus Mertes, der 2010 die Aufdeckung des Missbrauchsskandals in der katholischen Kirche Deutschlands angestoßen hat, vermisst Konsequenzen der Kirchenführung. Es seien “auf der höchsten Ebene noch einige Rücktritte fällig”, sagte Mertes dem “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger” (Dienstag-Ausgabe). Namentlich nannte der Jesuit den Präfekten der Glaubenskongregation, Gerhard Ludwig Müller. “Welche Konsequenzen hat er aus seinem Versagen als Bischof von Regensburg gezogen, wo er einen übergriffigen Pfarrer wieder zum Dienst zugelassen hat, der sich dann prompt erneut an Kindern vergangen hat? Merkt er nicht, dass er heute als Verantwortlicher für die Strafverfolgung der Täter ein massives Glaubwürdigkeitsproblem hat?” In der Kirche fehle es insgesamt immer noch an der Bereitschaft, “sich den System- und Strukturfragen zu stellen, die vor allem in der Sexualmoral der Kirche und in ihrer Organisation der Machtzuteilung liegen, die nach wie männerbündig und von Intransparenz geprägt ist”. Mertes äußerte sich aus Anlass der Oscarverleihung an den Film “Spotlight”, der die Aufdeckung des Missbrauchsskandals im US-Erzbistum Boston durch Journalisten der Zeitung “Boston Globe”.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Berliner Zeitung

[Cardinal Ludwig Gerhard Mueller said not all priests are abusers and most abuse occurs within the family.]

Von Joachim Frank

Herr Kardinal, noch einmal zurück zum Begriffspaar „Wahrheit und Freiheit“ im Hinblick auf die Kirche. Gerade läuft in den deutschen Kinos der für sechs Oscars nominierte Film „Spotlight“ über die Enthüllung einer systematischen Vertuschung von sexuellem Missbrauch im Erzbistum Boston durch Journalisten des „Boston Globe“. In Deutschland jährt sich die große Erschütterung des Missbrauchsskandals zum fünften Mal. Muss Ihr Plädoyer für die befreiende Kraft der Wahrheit angesichts des kirchlichen Versagens vor dem Anspruch der Wahrheit nicht doppelzüngig klingen?

„Die Kirche“, das sind mehr als eine Milliarde Gläubige, Hunderttausende Priester, Tausende Ordenschristen und Bischöfe. Nicht die Gemeinschaft, sondern Individuen haben sich – und zwar nicht infolge ihres Amtes, sondern einer unreifen oder gestörten Persönlichkeit – des Missbrauchs schuldig gemacht. Aber den allermeisten Geistlichen geschieht durch die Generalisierung bitteres Unrecht. Missbrauch gibt es im Übrigen in allen Bereichen, wo Heranwachsende sind. Die Kriminalstatistik zeigt: Die meisten Täter kommen aus dem familiären Umkreis. Es sind auch die Väter und andere Verwandte der Opfer. Daraus kann man jedoch nicht den Umkehrschluss ziehen: Die meisten Väter sind mögliche oder wirkliche Täter. Im Übrigen habe ich Probleme mit dem leicht dahingesagten Vorwurf der „Vertuschung“.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WTRF

By The Associated Press

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. (AP) – A suspended Pennsylvania priest convicted of sexually assaulting poor street children during missionary trips to Honduras faces sentencing in federal court.

Federal prosecutors in Johnstown are expected to seek a long prison term for 70-year-old Joseph Maurizio Jr., while his attorneys are seeking a lesser term due to his age, charitable works and other factors.

They’ve also said the priest denies wrongdoing and have previously said they may appeal a federal judge’s refusal last month to grant the priest a new trial.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown suspended Maurizio after federal prosecutors filed charges in September 2014.

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UNITED STATES
SNAP Australia

Thomas P. Doyle

March 1, 2016

I have learned over the past 32 years to be skeptical about much that surrounds the constant reality of clergy sex abuse. Much of my skepticism is rooted in the non-stop statements of bishops and popes. Its been mostly hot, foul air created by P.R. consultants and clever writers that bears resemblance to the truth only by default.

I have been overjoyed and grateful that “Spotlight” has been receiving accolades since it came out and was even more so when it was nominated for best picture but I admit that my skepticism got the best of me and I was preparing to be disappointed right up to the moment Morgan Freeman opened the envelope. Then…Whammo! When the “stun” wore off and I realized what had just happened I knew that this crusade so many people have been involved with for over a quarter of a century had just been raised to a whole new level.

My involvement goes way back, eighteen years before the volcanic eruption in Boston on January 6, 2002. I thought of what went on in those intervening years and of all the survivors, attorneys, journalists and supporters who drudged along, many like myself, wondering when or even if the issue of clergy sex abuse would ever get the recognition and attention it demanded. We were up against the institutional Catholic Church. The largest religion in the world and also by no strange coincidence, the largest corporation. It often seemed like we were trying to move Mt. Everest with a bulldozer, and a small one at that.

I thought of Bernard Cardinal Law, thrust into center stage as the arch-villain, overseeing a crew of mini-villains who had been trying to contain the plague that burst forth that Sunday morning.

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NEW YORK
The Jewish Week

Tue, 03/01/2016

Gary Rosenblatt
Editor And Publisher

A brief statement last Wednesday evening from the leadership of the Riverdale Jewish Center, informing members that their embattled rabbi, Jonathan Rosenblatt, “intends to step aside from the senior rabbinate” of the Modern Orthodox congregation, is being scrutinized and parsed in the community this week like a passage from the Talmud.

Raising more questions than answers, the two-sentence message seems to indicate that nine months after published reports described the rabbi’s longtime practice of showering and chatting in the sauna with boys and young men, and six months after he overcame efforts to have him removed from his pulpit, the prominent religious leader will be leaving his post soon in an effort to unify the community. Or will he?

Meyer Koplow, an attorney representing Rabbi Rosenblatt in this issue, told The Jewish Week that the rabbi, eager to leave a positive legacy for his years of service to RJC, initiated this step to help the synagogue community “heal and grow.” Koplow, who offered his services pro bono and is negotiating between the rabbi and the lay leadership, said he expected the issues to be resolved in the next week and then voted on by the congregation.

RJC’s president, Samson Fine, referred a request for comment to the brief statement that was issued.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Whispers in the Loggia

All of 36 hours after the breaking of abuse and coverup in Boston won the Oscar for Best Picture – and as the Vatican’s all-powerful CFO, Cardinal George Pell, testifies from Rome to a national inquiry probing the church’s response in his native Australia – Catholicism’s long, horrid road of scandal has erupted anew in the US, in a development likely to invite fresh scrutiny across the map.

In a blistering 147-page report released this morning, a two-year long Pennsylvania grand jury detailed a sweeping investigation of allegations and neglect over four decades in the diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, which covers eight counties in the state’s central-southern tier. Among other findings, the panel disclosed evidence of the abuse of “hundreds” of minors by “at least 50 priests” during the cited period, alleging that, even into recent times, multiple clerics with known allegations remained in some form of public ministry for years after the Dallas Charter’s zero-tolerance provisions became church law – including one as recently as October 2015 – while the largely rural, 95,000-member diocese’s previous two bishops “wrote their legacy in the tears of children” over years of willingness to squelch public knowledge or consequences on the reported crimes.

Citing the deaths of alleged abusers, expired statutes of limitations on the living and instances of “deeply traumatized victims being unable to testify in a court of law,” no charges could be filed, but Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane stressed that the investigation remains ongoing. Even now, however, today’s filing asserts that “the grand jury is concerned the purge of predators is taking too long,” likewise seeing fit to blast the diocese’s “Allegation Review Board” – normally known as a “Lay Review Board,” the diocesan body mandated by the Charter – as ineffective, terming its mandate only “as real as any bishop may want it to be” and adding that the group’s practices reflect a mission of “fact-finding for litigation, not a victim-service function.” (Emphasis original.)

Built upon a catalogue of the allegations against 34 diocesan priests – a trove collected from testimony and a 2015 state raid of the diocese’s personnel files – beyond the graphic accounts of assaults committed by men the report repeatedly terms “monsters,” the grand jury depicts the late Bishop James Hogan (who led the diocese from 1966-86) and his now-retired successor, Bishop Joseph Adamec (1986-2010), as brazenly driven to avert civil accountability when reports of clerical misconduct would arise.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

By Miranda Forster
March 2, 2016

A Christian Brother used his position to routinely sexually abuse boys in his care under the guise of tuition or discipline, court documents show.

William Peter Standen, also known as David Standen – the former principal of Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral College – pleaded guilty on Wednesday to indecent assaults on seven boys during his time at St Patrick’s College in Goulburn.

The 66-year-old has previously pleaded guilty to indecent assaults or acts on 11 other boys at the school.

They occurred when he was a teacher and dormitory master at St Patrick’s in the late 1970s and early 1980s, according to agreed statements of facts tendered in Sydney’s District Court.

The statements detail a pattern of abuse in which Standen’s victims – mostly boys aged 12 – recalled being summoned to his quarters after “lights out” under the guise of discipline or tuition.

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ROME
SBS

AAP

Child sex abuse survivors in Rome to see Cardinal George Pell give evidence to a royal commission have visited a refuge for Catholic Australian pilgrims to tie ribbons in support of those who suffered abuse.

The survivors, who were sexually abused as children by pedophile priests in the Victorian diocese of Ballarat, tied coloured ribbons to a window of Domus Australia, a guest house and support centre for pilgrims set up with the cardinal’s backing.

The ribbon tying is part of the Loud Fence campaign started by three women in Ballarat to show support for survivors when they went to court to confront and testify against their abusers.

Survivors’ group spokesman David Ridsdale, who was abused by his uncle and serial pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale, said the women “decided it should be loud and there should be no more silence”.

Loud Fence has now become a worldwide movement.

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ROME
CBC News (Canada)

The Associated Press Posted: Mar 01, 2016

The lawyer for an Australian inquiry into child sex abuse suggested on Wednesday that one of Pope Francis’s top advisers was lying when he denied knowledge of criminal allegations swirling around two notorious pedophile priests decades ago.

Australian Cardinal George Pell insisted he was telling the truth, testifying to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that he had changed a culture of “crimes and coverups” within the Catholic Church.

Pell, the pope’s chief financial adviser, told the royal commission in three days of evidence this week that he was deceived twice by church authorities about child abuse allegations against priests Gerald Ridsdale and Peter Searson.

Pell said that as an assistant priest in the Australian city of Ballarat in the 1970s, Bishop Ronald Mulkearns had not told him that Ridsdale was repeatedly moved within the diocese because of pedophilia allegations.

Pell also said that as an auxiliary bishop in Melbourne in the early 1990s, the Catholic Education Office and Archbishop Frank Little had concealed from him accusations of pedophilia against Searson.

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ROME
The New Daily

ROSE DONOHOE Reporter

Survivors “fed up” with listening to Pell and have demanded to meet with the Pope.

Cardinal George Pell has wrapped up his third day of giving evidence in Rome, as survivors say they are “fed up” with him and want to meet with the Pope.

Abuse survivors from Ballarat were to meet with the Cardinal during their time in Rome, but pulled out today when conditions of the meeting were revealed.

Survivors weren’t allowed any family members, media representatives or legal representatives, and conversations were to be “private in nature’.

The group of survivors took this to indicate a gag order, although this has not been confirmed by the church.

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ROME
ABC News

By London bureau chief Lisa Millar

It is a long haul — the hours after midnight.

But Cardinal George Pell appeared engaged until the end.

At 3:00am in Rome, lawyer Kristine Hanscombe, who was in Sydney, asked if he was able to continue for another five minutes.

“Of course,” Cardinal Pell said, as if there was nothing out of the ordinary about this entire event.

The final day will be even longer — six hours — from 9:00pm until 3:00am in Rome.

That should remove the need for a fifth day of hearings.

But it is the sideline issue over who is meeting who that is becoming the focus here in Rome.

The Ballarat group was looking for a meeting with Cardinal Pell by the end of the week, but now they want to meet the Pontiff.

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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

[with video]

March 2, 2016

Melissa Cunningham

Cardinal George Pell has agreed to meet with survivors of clerical sexual abuse but victims say they have lost all faith in Australia’s most senior Catholic cleric and are now pushing to meet Pope Francis instead.

The announcement came as Cardinal Pell concluded a third day of evidence before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses into Child Sexual Abuse.

Ballarat survivor Philip Nagle said victims had grown increasingly frustrated by Cardinal Pell’s failure to accept any responsibility for the sexual abuse of children at the hands of clergy and their preference was to meet the world’s most senior Catholic.

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AUSTRALIA
Sky News

[with video]

Survivors, supporters and victims of abuse have released one hundred white balloons in Ballarat.

They gathered for a ceremony outside the town hall after watching Cardinal George Pell give evidence before the Royal Commission for a third day.

A group of child sex abuse survivors who flew to Rome to see George Pell questioned about paedophile priests have given up on him and now need to “speak to the boss” in the Vatican.

After three days of listening to Cardinal Pell’s testimony to the royal commission, the group is angry he still denies knowledge of offending by pedophile priests in Ballarat and Melbourne when he served there in senior positions in the 1970s and 1980s.

Exasperated, the survivors say they are no longer interested in the cardinal’s offer to meet them, but they want him to help arrange a meeting with Pope Francis.

– See more at: http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2016/03/02/abuse-survivors-release-balloons-in-ballarat.html#sthash.jaR3K4hC.dpuf

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ROME
Courier

By Melissa Cunningham in Rome
March 2, 2016

Cardinal George Pell has agreed to meet with survivors of clergy sexual abuse, but victims say they have lost all faith in Australia’s most senior Catholic cleric and have made an impassioned public plea to meet Pope Francis instead.

The announcement came as Cardinal Pell concluded a third day of evidence before Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses into Child Sexual Abuse.

Ballarat survivor Philip Nagle said victims had grown increasingly frustrated by Cardinal Pell’s failure to accept any responsibility for the sexual abuse of children at the hands of clergy and their preference was to meet the world’s most senior Catholic.

“George (Pell) is still defending the current model of the church, this model is a proven failure in protecting children against sexual abuse by their clergy,” Mr Nagle said.

“He has turned his back on us. We’re getting tired of what George is saying on the stand and we’ve only got two more days left here in Rome and we want to be heard. We want somebody to show that they care about us.”

Mr Nagle said the group of survivors wanted to hold the meeting with Pope Francis to push to implement systems to ensure children are never abused by Catholic clergy again.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

CARDINAL George Pell has to resign and retire from all public positions.

Before the week is out, and on the back of his evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the cardinal must go, and Pope Francis must be involved.

If not, the Catholic Church in Australia is going to bleed numbers indefinitely. The Pope’s statements about child sexual abuse will be seen as nothing but more words from a church whose standing has been trashed on the issue, and shockingly so over the past three days.

Pell has no credibility as a moral leader. Pope Francis’ reputation as the people’s Pope – champion of the poor and powerless – is damaged by association if he fails to act decisively, and immediately.

Pell was appalling in the witness box.

Watching him give evidence felt almost ghoulish at times, like standing across the road from a car crash. How can any thinking, feeling, responsive – Christian for heaven’s sake – human being respond the way Pell did, when questioned about Ballarat priest Peter Searson’s horrifying behaviour with children?

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

[with video]

Joanne McCarthy

If Pope Francis wants to retain his reputation as the people’s Pope he must force Cardinal George Pell to either resign or retire.

Cardinal George Pell has to resign. Before the week is out, and on the back of his evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the cardinal must go, and Pope Francis must be involved.

If not, the Catholic Church in Australia is going to bleed numbers indefinitely. The Pope’s statements about child sexual abuse will be seen as nothing but more words from a church whose standing has been trashed on the issue, and shockingly so over the past three days.

Pell has no credibility as a moral leader. Pope Francis’ reputation as the people’s Pope – champion of the poor and powerless – is damaged by association if he fails to act decisively, and immediately.

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INDIA
DNA

This was done under the POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act) judgement by the Thrissur 1st Additional Sessions Court.

The focus around the world and in India currently is on sexual abuse of minors by priests. In a landmark judgement in Kerala, a pastor received a 40 year rigorous imprisonment for such a crime. On Tuesday, a court in Thrissur sentenced pastor Sanil K James, 35, accused of sexually assaulting a 12-year-old schoolgirl, to 40-year rigorous imprisonment and a fine of Rs 20,000.This was done under the POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act) judgement by the Thrissur 1st Additional Sessions Court.

The New Indian Express states that since he has to undergo two 20-year terms concurrently for his offences under IPC 376(2)(f) and POCSO section 6, he will have to serve a 40-year term in prison. The reports states that the court found him guilty “under POCSO Section 5 which deals with penetrative sexual assaults of very serious nature perpetrated on children below the age of 12 by heads of religious organisations, teachers, parents, relatives, and police force members.”

The daily adds that under the provisions of CrPC 357(a), Rs 3,00,000 will have to be paid to the victim from the Victim Compensation Fund of the state government. POCSO special prosecutor Pious Mathew was quoted as saying that the maximum punishment is meant to be a deterrent against such crimes and this was a unique sentence.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

By BELINDA CLEARY FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA and AND AAP

A Christian Brother used his position to routinely sexually abuse boys in his care under the guise of tuition or discipline, court documents show.

William Peter Standen, also known as David Standen – the former principal of Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral College – pleaded guilty on Wednesday to indecent assaults on seven boys during his time at St Patrick’s College in Goulburn.

The 66-year-old has previously pleaded guilty to indecent assaults or acts on 11 other boys at the school.

They occurred when he was a teacher and dormitory master at St Patrick’s in the late 1970s and early 1980s, according to facts tendered in Sydney’s District Court.

The statements detail a pattern of abuse in which Standen’s victims – mostly boys aged 12 – were summoned to his quarters after ‘lights out’ under the guise of discipline or tuition.

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PENNSYLVANIA
New York Times

[with video]

By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA and LAURIE GOODSTEIN
MARCH 1, 2016

Over four decades, at least 50 priests and other church employees molested hundreds of children in a small Roman Catholic diocese in central Pennsylvania, and in many cases their superiors knew of the abuses but did not remove the priests or notify law enforcement, according to a grand jury report released on Tuesday.

But none of the findings will result in prosecution, according to State Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane, whose office led the investigation, because the statutes of limitations on all alleged crimes have expired.

The report names a dozen priests who admitted — to church officials, to the grand jury or both — that they had molested children, and other cases where church records made clear that their superiors believed they were guilty. None were taken to law enforcement, and in cases where police or prosecutors learned of allegations, the report says, church officials worked to hush them up.

“They placed their desire to avoid public scandal over the well-being of innocent children,” the report says.

The Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown is only the most recent to be the target of an investigation and a report by a grand jury or attorney general for shielding priests who abused children. But the numbers it cites are striking for a diocese that claims fewer than 100,000 Catholics.

There have been public allegations in the past against some of the priests named in the report, including the Rev. Joseph D. Maurizio Jr., who is to be sentenced on Wednesday in a case that drew international attention. Father Maurizio, who raised money for an orphanage in Honduras, was convicted in federal court in September of sexually abusing boys at the orphanage, money laundering and possessing child pornography.

Bishop Joseph Adamec, former leader of the diocese, learned of allegations against Father Maurizio in 2009, according to the grand jury report and the charity that sponsored the orphanage. But Bishop Adamec and his successor, Bishop Mark L. Bartchak, kept Father Maurizio on as pastor at a church in Central City, Pa., until shortly before his arrest in 2014.

Given that record, Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, said she was puzzled that the grand jury report did not hold Bishop Bartchak accountable, as well.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

BY MARIA MILLER TUESDAY, MARCH 1ST 2016

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — A new grand jury report claims two Roman Catholic bishops in a central Pennsylvania diocese helped cover up the sexual abuse of hundreds of children by over 50 priests or religious leaders over a 40-year period.

The 147-page report on sexual abuse in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese was made public Tuesday by Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane.

Kane says none of the alleged criminal acts can be prosecuted because some abusers have died, statutes of limitations have run their course and victims are too traumatized to testify.

The investigation unveiled Tuesday started in Cambria County allegations of sexual abuse stemming from a Catholic high school in Johnstown.

Kane said the Cambria County district attorney was concerned that officials from that school, Bishop McCort Catholic High School, as well as the Johnstown Police Department and the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown failed to report child abuse at the hands of Brother Stephen Baker, a former coach and athletic trainer accused of molesting students in the ’90s.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Catholic Whistleblowers

Catholic Whistleblowers Steering Committee – 862-368-2800

Catholic Whistleblowers Steering Committee applauds Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane for the release of a Grand Jury Report about sexual abuse of children in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, PA, dating back to the 1940s. The findings are horrific, explosive, and not surprising to the Catholic Whistleblowers Steering Committee.

Catholic Whistleblowers Steering Committee, during the past year, has petitioned a number of institutions and organizations to take bold action regarding the sexual abuse of children by clergy and religious persons, and Catholic Whistleblowers Steering Committee challenges those institutions and organizations to act swiftly on the proposals it has made.

On March 1, 2016, a courageous civil servant, the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Kathleen Kane, a Catholic wife, mother, and government official, reported the results of a nearly two-year investigation of sexual abuse allegations in the Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, Pennsylvania. In that relatively small diocese, where there are approximately 90,000 Catholics, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania uncovered secret archives and other documents that indicate a pattern of secrecy, cover-up, and obfuscation on the part of at least two bishops and others in the diocese. Hundreds of children were sexually abused, according to the report.

Catholic Whistleblowers Steering Committee’s principal response to the news from Altoona-Johnstown, PA is the following:

Nothing has changed relative to the Catholic Church’s handling of sexual abuse of children,
and Catholic Whistleblowers Steering Committee reiterates its appeals to officials of the United States government, the Vatican, and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to act decisively and speedily in addressing the epidemic of sexual abuse of children in the Catholic Church. The following actions have been taken by Catholic Whistleblowers Steering Committee in the recent past:

1) Catholic Whistleblowers Steering Committee, in collaboration with approximately thirty (30) organizations committed to the protection of children, has submitted a petition to President Barack Obama to convene a national commission on sexual abuse of children;

2) Catholic Whistleblowers Steering Committee has submitted a petition to Vatican authorities to hold bishops accountable who have been complicit in the cover-up or mismanagement of sexual abuse of children;

3) Catholic Whistleblowers Steering Committee has submitted a petition to the Vatican for an investigation of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops which has consistently violated the “letter” and “spirit” of various documents and decrees regarding the protection of children and youth.

Catholic Whistleblowers Steering Committee is awaiting responses from President Obama and the Vatican regarding its petitions. In light of the March 1, 2016 report from the Pennsylvania Attorney General and the Grand Jury, those responses must not experience further delay.

PLEASE CONTACT “CATHOLIC WHISTLEBLOWERS STEERING COMMITTEE” AT THE PHONE NUMBER ABOVE OR THE EMAIL ADDRESS OF THE SENDER OF THIS MEDIA RELEASE

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Anne Barker

She is the calm but persistent voice who, for two-and-a-half years, has publicly grilled confessed paedophiles, alleged child abusers, countless victims and many others about the magnitude of child sexual abuse in Australia.

Gail Furness SC was appointed as senior counsel assisting the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse when it began in September 2013. Yet until this week she was hardly a household name; instead overshadowed by whichever witness was giving evidence.

Now she is likely to be best remembered for her relentless questioning of Australia’s most senior Catholic, Cardinal George Pell, who for months has resisted pressure to appear before the inquiry to answer questions about what he knew about alleged child abuse within Australia’s Catholic Church.

Several days of evidence have not exhausted her questions or tempered her responses to Cardinal Pell’s evidence. On day three she rejected his claims that he had been deceived by church leaders about abuse in Ballarat and Melbourne.

FURNESS: Cardinal, I have to suggest to you that your evidence in relation to not being briefed properly or adequately by the Catholic Education Office and the reasons for that are completely implausible.
PELL: Counsel, I can only tell you the truth. The whole story of Searson is quite implausible and the cover-up is equally implausible. I can only tell you the way it was as far as I’m concerned.
FURNESS: I suggest, Cardinal, that the evidence you have given has been designed to deflect blame from you on doing nothing in relation to Father Searson that had any real effect after the delegation came to you.

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ROME
Deutsche Welle

In his third day of testimony, a Vatican official has denied knowledge of child sex abuse cases in his native Australia. He says he was simultaneously kept in the dark, but also changed the culture of cover-ups.

An Australian commission investigating pedophilia allegations involving the Catholic Church and other social organizations challenged Cardinal George Pell, who is the pope’s chief financial adviser, over claims he was unaware of at least two cases of serial pedophilia when he was a locally-based clergy.

Speaking via video link from a hotel in Rome, Dell insists church authorities deceived him, not once but twice over child abuse allegations against priests Gerald Ridsdale and Peter Searson.

“Counsel, this was an extraordinary world,” Pell said. “A world of crimes and cover-ups and people did not want the status quo to be disturbed.”

And he further claimed to have changed a culture of “crimes and cover-ups” within the church in the 1990s.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Daily Free Press

March 2, 2016

A grand jury report released Tuesday detailed two bishops’ cover-up of a Pennsylvania sex abuse scandal involving more than 50 priests sexually abusing hundreds of minors over the course of 40 years, The Guardian reported.

One bishop involved in the scandal, Joseph Adamec, threatened abuse victims with excommunication and created a “payout” chart detailing how much the church would have to pay victims to settle their claims, The Guardian reported. The amounts ranged from $10,000 for victims of groping to as much as $175,000 for victims of sexual intercourse.

The grand jury said it was “concerned the purge of predators is taking too long,” according to a statement reported by The Guardian. The grand jury also found “the police and civil authorities would often defer to the diocese” when accusations of abuse would come up.

The clergy involved in the sexual abuse cases cannot be taken to court, either because they are dead or because enough time has passed to have the statute of limitations go into effect.

Cases of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church have surfaced frequently in the past few years, especially in the wake of “Spotlight,” the Academy Award-winning film about the Boston Globe Spotlight Team’s investigation into the Boston Archdiocese’s cover-up of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. The movie documented the lengths to which the investigative team had to go to bring the truth about the scandal to light.

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ROME
The Guardian

David Marr
Wednesday 2 March 2016

George Pell must have a nose for the runaround. These days he’s putting the cleaners through ancient Vatican offices which have never ever been audited. Millions are coming to light. He has enemies everywhere. All reports from the Holy See suggest the cardinal is doing well.

But the same man has a sad story to tell of being hoodwinked decades ago by an archbishop, a bishop, his colleagues and even the Catholic Education Office. Yes, the Catholic Education Office of Melbourne failed to give him “anything like adequate information” that might have saved the children of Doveton from the hideous Father Peter Searson.

“They realised very clearly I was not cut from the same cloth,” the cardinal explained. And what was his evidence for that? “I represented a very different approach to matters which became apparent when I became archbishop.”

Yes, but what did he do when he arrived in Melbourne in the 1980s as an auxiliary bishop? He never asked for the files on Searson. He never confronted Archbishop Frank Little. He didn’t rock the boat. “In retrospect I might have been a bit more pushy with all the parties involved.”

When Pell began to sketch the outlines of a grubby conspiracy by the Catholic Education Office to keep him in the dark in order to protect the inaction of Little, both the chair of the commission, Peter McClellan, and counsel assisting Gail Furness SC expressed frank disbelief.

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CALIFORNIA
KEYT

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. –
A Santa Barbara judge is expected to hand down a decision in a civil lawsuit involving the Presbyterian Church.

Two women and a teenage girl are suing leaders of the Presbytery of Santa Barbara located in Goleta.

They accuse church officials of covering up their sexual abuse at the hands of former Carpinteria youth pastor Louis Bristol in 2012 and 2013.

The victims are not only seeking monetary damages, they want the church to be more transparent.

“My clients want the public to know every instance where a Presbyterian Church leader has learned of a sexual abuse of a child by another church leader but has failed to report it to law enforcement,” Hale said. “Conversely, the Presbyterian Church and their attorney’s are fighting to keep that information secret and out of the public eye.”

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UNITED STATES
Daily Times

Hooray for Hollywood!

The power of Tinseltown – the world’s most effective marketing machine – was on full display at this year’s Academy Awards. Unlike Washington’s partisan bickering that makes people tune out, Hollywood has the unique ability – when not in lazy mode – to shine the world’s biggest spotlight on people and events in a way that engages, endears and sometimes even enrages. People pay attention, and when that occurs, it can lead to monumental change.

Nowhere is that better illustrated than the impact Best Picture winner “Spotlight” is having on the national dialogue. The film follows a crack team of investigative reporters from The Boston Globe in their quest to uncover the pedophilia scandal in the Boston archdiocese.

This riveting true story, which millions will flock to see now that Oscar’s in the picture, has captured the public’s interest for many reasons: How the world’s most benevolent institution could look the other way as pedophile priests preyed upon the youngest among us; the lies of church leaders that the abuse was isolated, despite their knowledge of, and complicity in, the widespread scandal; the reassigning of sex-offender priests to unsuspecting new congregations; and, of course, the never-ending cover-ups.

But perhaps the single-most important factor in why “Spotlight” has grabbed our attention is the pervasive feeling among so many that church leaders still don’t get it. While Pope Francis has been leaps and bounds better than his predecessors in condemning the scandal and cover-up, the same simply cannot be said of many rank-and-file clergy. And, the pontiff’s actions notwithstanding, there is still considerably more he could, and should, be doing.

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GEORGIA
Ledger-News

By Rebecca Johnston and Shaddi Abusaid

A former volunteer leader at a Woodstock church was arrested Friday on charges of sexually assaulting and exploiting a disabled person he was acquainted with, information obtained from the Cherokee Sheriff’s Office shows.

Charles Randy May, 60, of Canton was charged with one count of exploitation and intimidation of a disabled person, one count of aggravated sexual assault, one count of aggravated sodomy and one count of sexual battery, jail records reveal.

May is being held without bond at the Cherokee County Adult Detention Center.

Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Jay Baker said May was arrested following an investigation that began in September 2015. The victim, he said, is a developmentally disabled adult. The name of the victim was not released.

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OKLAHOMA
Texomas Homepage

ALTUS

A former Altus pastor will be spending the next few years behind bars.

He pleaded guilty on Tuesday in connection with sexual assault and molestation of a foster child in his custody.

District Attorney John Wampler says 58-year-old Tommy Lynn Bailey admitted to committing the acts in 2009.

He was originally charged with sexual abuse of a child between 2009 and 2012.

He pleaded to two counts of assault with the intent to commit a felony of lewd molestation.

He received five years in prison and five years on probation.

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PHILIPPINES
UCA News

Mark Saludes, Manila, Philippines March 2, 2016

The Catholic Church in the Philippines is ahead of its time in addressing cases of clergy sex abuse, according to a Filipino bishop.

“We drafted our protocol in handling cases of clergy sexual misconduct years back,” said Bishop Gerardo Alminaza of San Carlos.

The prelate made the statement when asked about his reaction to the movie “Spotlight,” which won best original screenplay and best picture at the Academy Awards in the United States on Feb. 28.

The movie follows an investigation conducted by a group journalists on Catholic priests who were accused of sexually abusing children in Boston.

Several Philippine cities were listed in the movie as places around the world where accused priests in Boston were transferred.

Bishop Alminaza admitted that the church has faced the problem “since more than 10 years ago, not in silence but also not visibly.”

In 2007, the country’s Catholic bishops established a center that hosts programs for the formation of clergy, “including troubled priests.”

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VATICAN CITY
Aleteia

Diane Montagna
March 2, 2016

VATICAN CITY — Cardinal George Pell will meet privately with survivors of sexual abuse in Rome on Thursday, and has offered to assist victims in meeting Pope Francis, according to an official statement issued by his office on Wednesday.

The Australian Prefect of the Vatican Secretariat for the Economy is testifying this week via video link to Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The Royal Commission is questioning the former archbishop of Melbourne and Sydney, via video link at Rome’s Hotel Quirinale, on how much he knew about sexual abusers active in parishes under his watch, and during the time he served as a priest in Ballarat.

As the first hearing began on Sunday, February 29, from 10pm-2am Rome-time, Cardinal Pell stated: “Let me just say this as an initial clarification, I’m not here to defend the indefensible.” Throughout the hearings, the Australian prelate has continued to reiterate that he had no role in the cover-up.

Offering harsh criticism especially to bishops for allowing, and covering up, the sexual abuse of children and adolescents, Pell told the Royal Commission that the Church “has made enormous mistakes” in how it handled sex abuse cases and is working to remedy them.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Colin Deppen | cdeppen@pennlive.com

ALTOONA — Confronted with revelations of widespread child abuse by clergy in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese, church members and residents in this community, described as staunchly religious by some, reacted with shock and disgust, as well as silence and disbelief on Tuesday.

One couple, asked by a PennLive reporter for their reaction to a damning grand jury report released on the matter that morning, said, simply, “We don’t want to talk about that” before hurrying off toward their car located across a downtown Altoona parking lot.

At the St. John’s Catholic School on Lotz Avenue in the city, a man who answered the door declined comment saying, “we’re tight lipped about it.”

Others were more forthcoming in describing a deep-seated internal conflict involving their affiliation with the church and moral aversion to the acts reportedly committed by some of its leaders. Those acts, according to the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General which announced the findings of its grand jury investigation on Tuesday, included hundreds of child victims abused by as many as 50 diocesan priests over a period of 40 years.

Pat Rickabaugh, a practicing Catholic from Altoona, said she was “glad” the abuse had been exposed, adding “Those children suffered enough just to have to talk about it.”

Rickabaugh also chided law enforcement for not acting sooner.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Hope Stephan | hstephan@pennlive.com

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane Tuesday morning released the report from a statewide grand jury investigation into allegations of systemic sexual abuse within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown and a cover-up by church officials.

The report details sexual abuse of hundreds of children by individual priests and religious leaders in the diocese over four decades.

The grand jury found that Bishops James Hogan and Joseph Adamec never reported the allegations of abuse to law enforcement. The bishops also never removed predator priests from their jobs. Rather, investigators found, Hogan and Adamec shielded the priests in order to protect the church and themselves from scandal.

Bishop Adamec released the following response to the report Tuesday evening:

Public Statement of Bishop Joseph Adamec RE: Grand Jury Report

“Bishop Adamec expresses his deepest sympathies to all victims of abuse and deeply regrets any harm that has come to children who were victimized. This is a position, contrary to the tenor of the Grand Jury Report, that he adhered to while in Office and his full, historical record while Bishop of the Diocese reflects it. The Bishop’s full record includes his having suspended a number of priests from public ministry and having requested laicization of others.

“Bishop Adamec’s full record is described in some detail by his Response to the Report and was formulated based on the access he was granted to only pages 106-112 of the Report. He is grateful to Judge Krumenacker for having provided him the opportunity to file such a Response.

Before passing judgment about him based on the Grand Jury’s Report, the Bishop encourages a reading of the Response that he has made and asks observers to keep in mind that he did not have the opportunity to respond to allegations made in the Report other than those on pages 106-112 to which he was granted access.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

Catholic church sex abuse scandal in Altoona-Johnstown Diocese: Quick explainer
A quick summary of the grand jury’s investigation into child sexual abuse by Catholic priests in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese. Photo of Bishop Adamec provided by the Tribune-Democrat in Johnstown.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Tablet (UK)

The report identifies priests and other leaders by name and details incidents going back to the 1970s

Child as young as eight among hundreds abused by clergy in Pennsylvania diocese, Jury finds
Hundreds of children were sexually abused over at least 40 years by priests and other religious leaders in a diocese in Pennsylvania, a state-wide grand jury has found.

At least 50 priests or religious leaders were involved in the abuse and diocesan leaders systematically concealed the abuse to protect the Church’s image in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, according to the grand jury report released 1 March by Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane.

The report identifies priests and other leaders by name and details incidents going back to the 1970s. Kane said that much of the evidence revealed in the report came from secret archives maintained by the diocese that were only available to the bishops who led the diocese over the decades.

Victims testified to the grand jury, after local law enforcement officials and district attorneys of several counties approached Kane’s office with information about the abuse in 2014.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

BY LAUREN HENSLEY TUESDAY, MARCH 1ST 2016

Tuesday, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane announced the findings of a grand jury report. The report said 50 priests and church leaders committed sexual acts on hundreds of children over four decades.

For state Rep. Mark Rozzi of Berks County, it is a story he said he knows all too well. He lived his own childhood nightmare when he was sexually abused at the hands of a priest back in the 1983.

“I couldn’t even speak about it until I was 39, for God’s sake,” said Rozzi.

Under law at that time, Rozzi only had five years to come forward for a criminal case and two years for a civil.

Now, victims have 50 years for a criminal case and 30 years for a civil one. But for the hundreds of alleged victims interviewed by a grand jury, time has run out time. Kane said none of the alleged criminal acts can be prosecuted.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WFMJ

By Mike Gauntner, Online Content Manager

HARRISBURG, Pa. –
A hidden file on a former friar and coach who was accused of sexually abusing 11 students at Warren John F. Kennedy School was one of the first clues that led investigators to evidence that hundreds of children were sexually abused over a period of at least 40 years by priests or religious leaders assigned to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane released a 147-page report on Tuesday outlining the results of a statewide grand jury investigation into alleged widespread abuse involving at least 50 priests or religious leaders.

Evidence and testimony reviewed by the grand jury also revealed a history of superiors within the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese taking action to conceal the child abuse as part of an effort to protect the institution’s image.

The report says that during the two-year investigation, Special Agents from the Office of the Attorney General found a “Secret Archive” in a safe contained in a cabinet in the Altoona-Johnstown Bishop’s office. The safe was under lock in which only the Bishop had the key. The safe contained only one file pertaining to a Franciscan Friar, Brother Stephen Baker.

In 2013, an attorney said that while Baker was working as an athletic trainer at Bishop McCourt High School in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese, he sexually abused several female athletes and cheerleaders at the school.

That same year, it was revealed that 11 students who attended JFK High School between 1986 and 1990, had received the financial settlements for crimes committed against them as children, allegedly by Brother Baker.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

Steve Esack and Laurie Mason Schroeder
Of The Morning Call

Nationwide, grand juries were used to investigate abuse claims against Roman Catholic priests in just seven places. The Lehigh Valley was not one of them.

Instead, Valley prosecutors in 2002 asked the Allentown Diocese for its priest-abuse files after then-Bishop Edward Cullen announced he was removing a few priests from active duty. The diocese serves 270,000 Catholics in Lehigh, Northampton, Carbon, Berks and Schuylkill counties.

In 2002, the diocese turned over to the district attorneys in the five-county area every file it had involving any abuse claim, spokesman Matt Kerr said. At that time, Kerr said, the diocese also promised to report to law enforcement every sex abuse claim, no matter how old.

After his review, Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin said in 2002 that eight abuse claims had occurred in Lehigh County but could not be prosecuted because of deaths or the cases were too old.

“I am satisfied that the Diocese of Allentown has fully cooperated with my request for information,” Martin said then. “I see no necessity to invoke the powers of an investigating grand jury. In my view, there is no need to seek by subpoena that which has already been provided voluntarily.”

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ROME
The Guardian

Ben Doherty
@bendohertycorro
Tuesday 1 March 2016

Cardinal George Pell knew a paedophile teacher was moved to a new school because he was allegedly abusing children but did not tell church authorities or the police because he presumed the teacher would receive “help” to stop him reoffending.

Brother Ted Dowlan, a member of the Christian Brothers order, was removed from St Patrick’s College in 1974 after he admitted abusing boys under his care. He went on to abuse children at at least another four schools over another 14 years. Dowlan has since been jailed twice for abusing children, in 1996 and again last year.

At the time of Dowlan’s offending in the 1970s, Pell was the episcopal vicar for education in the diocese of Ballarat – the bishop’s representative in all areas of education.

Pell told the royal commission into institutional responses into child sexual abuse on Wednesday he knew in 1974 that Dowlan was alleged to have sexually abused children but he did not seek information on the exact nature of Dowlan’s offending, nor did he tell the bishop of the diocese, or the police, of the offending.

“I would say that in light of my present understandings, I would concede I should have done more,” Pell told the commission.

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ROME
Mercury

CARDINAL Pell was accused of “designing” his evidence to deflect blame during the third day of testimony in which the “extraordinary world of crimes and cover ups” within the Catholic Church were exposed.

The Vatican treasurer told the Royal Commission he had been deceived on multiple occasions in different parts of the country over sex offending priests operating in country parishes.

Pell said he was never told the full extent of convicted pedophile Father Peter Searson’s activities in Doveton – a parish in his region as auxiliary bishop – where he was accused of pointing a gun at people, stabbing a bird with a screwdriver, tape recording confessions and forcing a child to kneel between his legs during confession.

The Cardinal claimed he had investigated the claims to the best of his ability but information was deliberately withheld by the Catholic Education Office and Archbishop Frank Little, who had been described as having a “blind spot” when it came to Searson.

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AUSTRALIA
The Age

[with video]

Barney Zwartz

Poor Cardinal Pell, always the victim of such appalling deception and lies by those he should have been able to trust.

If only he had known the truth about goings on in Ballarat and Doveton with abusive priests Gerald Ridsdale and Peter Searson, matters would have been so different.

That was the line Cardinal Pell ran consistently before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Wednesday, and he held it in the face of obvious incredulity by commission chairman Justice Peter McClellan and senior counsel Gail Furness, who frankly told him his evidence was implausible and designed to deflect blame from himself.

Cardinal Pell replied: “Counsel, I can only tell you the truth, the whole story of Searson is implausible and the cover-up is equally implausible. I can only tell you the way it was.”

This alleged conspiracy against Pell was the day’s new development. He has criticised former church leaders but this is the first we have heard of a long-standing pattern of deception.
Mind you, Pell never had a duty to do more in his view, because that duty always belonged to others. At most, he “might have pushed a bit harder”.

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ROME
Telegraph (UK)

An Australian inquiry on Wednesday heard of a gun-toting paedophile priest who made children kneel between his legs during confession as Vatican finance chief Cardinal George Pell admitted a time of “crimes and cover-ups” within the Catholic Church.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney heard evidence from Cardinal Pell, via videolink from Rome, for a third day, with the senior Australian official again facing intense questioning about what he knew.

The inquiry is currently focused on the town of Ballarat and the city of Melbourne in the state of Victoria, where Cardinal Pell grew up and worked, and how the church dealt with complaints, many dating back to the 1970s, against the Catholic clergy.

Gail Furness, the top lawyer leading questioning in the inquiry, centred attention on Wednesday on Doveton parish priest Peter Searson, who Cardinal Pell called “one of the most unpleasant” men he had ever met.

The church failed to act in the 1980s despite mounting evidence of his bizarre behaviour.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Louise Milligan

A victim of a paedophile priest says she believes Cardinal George Pell knew there was abuse going on but will never acknowledge it.

Julie Stewart was sexually abused by Peter Searson when he was a parish priest in Doveton in the mid-1980s.

“I will always believe he knew. Always,” Ms Stewart told 7.30.

“I believe [Pell] did his job well. He did his job by protecting the church’s assets and protecting the church’s name, but I don’t believe he protected the children.

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UNITED STATES
TheMediaReport

We at TheMediaReport.com are not the only ones angered that Hollywood awarded the factually challenged movie Spotlight its Best Picture prize at the Oscars Sunday night.

Veteran left-wing journalist JoAnn Wypijewski – who herself was in Boston during the spring of 2002 reporting on the Catholic sex abuse story – has just unleashed a stinging attack on the Boston Globe, the makers of Spotlight, the media, Church-suing contingency lawyers, and so-called “survivors” in a new piece in the left-wing blog, CounterPunch. This is truly a must-read piece:

“Oscar Hangover Special: Why ‘Spotlight’ Is a Terrible Film”
by JoAnn Wypijewski at CounterPunch

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PENNSYLVANIA
Wall Street Journal

KRIS MAHER

Updated March 1, 2016

Two Roman Catholic bishops helped cover up sexual abuse of hundreds of children by more than 50 priests and religious leaders at a central Pennsylvania diocese over four decades, according to a grand jury report made public Tuesday.

None of the alleged crimes can be prosecuted because either the accused abusers have died or the statute of limitations has run out, said Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane, who released the 147-page report. She said some victims were too traumatized to testify in court.

However, Ms. Kane said the investigation into the diocese, which covers eight counties in the middle of the state and includes Altoona and Johnstown, is active and that charges could be considered in the future.

“These predators desecrated a sacred trust and preyed upon their victims in the very places where they should have felt most safe,” Ms. Kane said. “At the very least we must continue to shine a light on this long period of abuse and despicable conduct.”

The diocese released a statement saying that it is reviewing the report and that it will continue to cooperate with the investigation. It said its youth-protection policy requires that all allegations of abuse by clergy be reported to civil authorities.

“This is a painful and difficult time in our Diocesan Church,” said Bishop Mark L. Bartchak, current bishop of the diocese. “I deeply regret any harm that has come to children, and I urge the faithful to join me in praying for all victims of abuse.”

The diocese, which was established in 1901, contains 89 parishes, 74 active priests and 36 permanent deacons, according to its website. There are more than 90,000 Catholics living in the eight-county area, the attorney general’s office said.

The grand jury found that Bishop James Hogan and his successor, Bishop Joseph Adamec, covered up the alleged abuse, enabling it to continue for decades. Bishop Hogan died in 2005.

David Berardinelli, an attorney for Bishop Adamec, who retired in 2011, said in a statement that the bishop “deeply regrets any harm that has come to children who were victimized.”

A response filed by Bishop Adamec’s attorney called allegations that he tried to cover up abuse unfounded and said the grand jury didn’t review key evidence.

The bishop followed a process in which he confronted accused priests, met with alleged victims whenever possible, and relied on the advice of psychiatric professionals to decide whether to allow priests to remain in active ministry, Mr. Berardinelli wrote. From 1987 to 2002, nine of 14 priests accused of abuse in the diocese were suspended from public ministry or retired and were prohibited from public ministry. There were no future accusations against the other five priests, his lawyer wrote.

“The actual evidence demonstrates that Bishop Adamec consistently placed a high priority on ensuring the protection of children,” Mr. Berardinelli wrote.

Investigators who searched a diocese office last August found what Ms. Kane described as a secret archive in a safe, as well as boxes and filing cabinets full of confidential litigation files and other documents detailing allegations of sexual abuse by priests, including molestation, oral sex and the use of pornography and alcohol.

In one letter to Bishop Adamec in 1991, cited by the grand jury report, a man said he had been abused by a priest roughly 100 times in the 1970s after being brought to the priest’s bedroom when he was an altar boy. The priest was permitted to resign his active duties in 1992, and his actions were never reported to the police, the report said.

According to notes allegedly kept by Bishop Adamec and excerpted in the grand jury report, the priest admitted to the bishop that he had had sexual encounters with boys and felt guilty and considered killing himself. The priest died in 2000.

Bishop Adamec’s response to the grand jury report said that a psychiatric evaluation found that the priest, who was elderly and in ill health by 1992, was not a risk to children but that the bishop had him resign his ministry.

The grand jury found that the bishops didn’t typically remove accused priests from active ministry. Some priests were temporarily put on sick leave and then reassigned to new parishes. The grand jury concluded that the bishops kept matters quiet to shield themselves and the church from scandal.

In September, one priest testified before the grand jury that he might have accidentally fondled a 15-year-old boy’s genitals in 1979 when both were lying in a cot wearing T-shirts and underwear. The alleged victim had brought the matter to Bishop Adamec in 2002. At the time, the priest was sent for treatment for one month and then allowed to return to active ministry.

The priest, now 69, was suspended from his position last year at the insistence of the attorney general’s office, according to the grand jury report.

The report said Bishop Adamec created a chart listing levels of abuse and corresponding payouts to victims. The first level of abuse, “above clothing, genital fondling,” had a range of payment of $10,000 to $25,000. The fourth and highest level of abuse, “sodomy; intercourse,” had a range of payment of $50,000 to $175,000.

A footnote to the chart listed factors to consider within those ranges, such as number of occurrences, age of victim, use of alcohol or drugs and “other aggravating circumstances.”

The grand jury said diocese officials weren’t being generous to victims. “With these payouts came an onslaught of confidentiality agreements or waivers of liability releases,” the grand jury wrote. “They were buying silence and protection from public scrutiny.”

The investigation comes as Pope Francis has attempted to improve the church’s image and efforts to address the sexual abuse of children by clergy, which has been a global scandal.

The pope met with victims of abuse during his visit to Philadelphia last year, but his attempts to improve the church’s response have faced criticism and setbacks.

In 2014 Pope Francis established a commission made up of victims advocates, survivors and church officials to advise the Vatican. But last month an outspoken member of the commission and abuse survivor refused to leave the panel after other members demanded his departure.

Write to Kris Maher at kris.maher@wsj.com

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AUSTRALIA/ROME
Daily Mail

By BELINDA GRANT GEARY and LUCY THACKRAY FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

Commentator Andrew Bolt – who previously referred to Cardinal George Pell as the ‘victim of a vicious witch hunt’ – appears to have changed his tune, slamming the church official for failing to protect vulnerable children who were abused at the hands of a notorious pedophile priest.

Mr Bolt, who was sent to Rome to cover the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, had previously called the coverage on Cardinal Pell ‘shameful, disgusting and frightening’.

But after the Cardinal described the prolific sexual abuse of children at a Victorian parish ‘a sad story’ that ‘wasn’t of much interest’ to him, Bolt proclaimed he had ‘stained his reputation forever’.
‘His fate was sealed. That quote will be hung around Pell’s neck forever. The priest who went by the book, not the heart,’ Bolt wrote in an article published in the Herald Sun on Wednesday.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC – The Drum

OPINION

By Cathy Humphreys

Victims of child sexual abuse have reason to feel disappointed by George Pell’s testimony so far at the Royal Commission, writes Cathy Humphreys.

“It was a sad story and not of much interest to me.”

There are moments in Cardinal George Pell’s testimony when you realise that he is telling the truth.

In the 1970s, Pell was an ambitious young priest who had returned to Australia, fresh from Oxford, wanting to be a man of power and influence in the church.

The lives of vulnerable young people and their families held little interest for him. Inconvenient truths about paedophile brothers and priests were best avoided by a man on the make.

This is not the sort of ‘truth’ that the victims of child sexual abuse in Ballarat at the hands of the priests and brothers who presided over churches, schools and residential children’s homes would be hoping for.

The truth about the things George Pell knew about the abusive brothers he lived and worked with would be high on their agenda. Thus far, they have been disappointed.

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AUSTRALIA
9 News

TODAY co-host Karl Stefanovic has labelled the Catholic Church’s handling of child sex abuse as “pathetic”, as Cardinal George Pell provides evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse from Rome.

Yesterday, Cardinal Pell told the commission he did not know about repeated complaints against the now-imprisoned pedophile Father Gerald Ridsdale because former Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns did not tell him.

He has since today admitted “regret” over not informing a bishop after he heard “rumours” of child sex abuse in the church at the hands of notorious pedophile Edward Dolan.

“There were several other high ranking Catholics in the same area he was living in at the time, including the Bishop, who were all culpable collectively,” Stefanovic began, adding “they are all to blame”.

“There’s an argument that they were different times when families, police, churches – plural – and government were more inclined to cover up something too despicable to expose.

“There might have been some truth to that but it’s pathetic.

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AUSTRALIA
3AW

Neil Mitchell says Cardinal George Pell is finished.

The 3AW Mornings host said the more the royal commission on sex abuse in the Catholic church went on, the angrier he got with how it had all been handled.

“George Pell should resign, quit, retire – I don’t care what you call it – just get out,” Neil Mitchell said on Wednesday.

“He should apologise sincerely, he should admit his failures and should meet personally with the survivors from Ballarat.

“And if Christ could wash the feet of his disciples, then George Pell should throw himself on the floor in front of these people and beg forgiveness – that would be the Christian thing to do.

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ROME
Reuters

ROME/SYDNEY | BY PHILIP PULLELLA AND JANE WARDELL

Australian victims of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic Church clergy on Tuesday called for a meeting with Pope Francis after watching a high-ranking Vatican official testify that senior clergy lied to him to cover up abuse in the 1970s.

Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s treasurer, has told the inquiry that the church made “enormous mistakes” and “catastrophic” choices by refusing to believe abused children, shuffling abusive priests from parish to parish and over-relying on counselling of priests to solve the problem.

Given Pell’s high rank within the church, his testimony to Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse over cases that occurred decades ago has taken on wider implications about the accountability of church leaders.

Pell’s failing memory to questions about what he knew of abuse by clergy and claims that he was deceived by superiors about individual cases in the 1970s has angered many of the 15 abuse victims and supporters who travelled to Rome to see him give evidence.

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ROME
The Guardian

Amanda Meade
Tuesday 1 March 2016

News Corp columnist Andrew Bolt, a staunch defender of Cardinal George Pell, has declared the Catholic cleric’s evidence at the royal commission on Tuesday “disastrous” and the case against him “very damning”.

In a dramatic reversal of his consistent defence of Pell, the Herald Sun commentator now says the Vatican’s finance chief was either lying or “dangerously indifferent” to the fact children were being raped.

On Tuesday afternoon Bolt stunned viewers when he told Sky News Australia that he had just witnessed Pell’s cross-examination in the hearing room in Rome and it was “terrible” and his image was forever damaged.

Under cross-examination by Gail Furness SC, counsel assisting the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse, Pell said he hadn’t asked about Gerald Ridsdale’s crimes: “It was a sad story and of not much interest to me. I had no reason to turn my mind to the evils Ridsdale had perpetrated.”

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ROME
The West Australian

Amanda Banks Legal Affairs Editor and AAP
March 2, 2016

Cardinal George Pell has described an “extraordinary world” of “crimes and cover ups” in which he was repeatedly deceived by fellow clergymen and the Catholic Education Office over the sex abuse of children.

Giving a third day of evidence to the royal commission into child abuse, Australia’s most prominent Catholic again rejected suggestions that his explanation for failing to take appropriate action in response to allegations was implausible.

He has also denied a suggestion by counsel assisting the inquiry, Gail Furness, that his evidence was designed to deflect blame away from himself.

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ROME
SBS

A group of child sex abuse survivors say they’ve given up on Cardinal George Pell after hearing his evidence to a royal commission and have appealed directly to the Pope to ensure children are protected.

The group, many of whom were abused as children by pedophile priests in the Catholic diocese of Ballarat in Victoria, has been in Rome to hear the cardinal give evidence to the child sex abuse royal commission.

But on Wednesday they told journalists they had sent a letter seeking a meeting with Pope Francis and were no longer seeking a meeting with Cardinal Pell.

During a break in the hearing, in which the cardinal is giving evidence by videolink to the commission sitting in Sydney, abuse survivor Phil Nagle read out a letter his group had sent to the Pope.

The letter requested a meeting between the Pope and the Australian survivor group to discuss protecting children so the type of sex abuse children had suffered in the past was never repeated.

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UNITED STATES
Center for Constitutional Rights

The Oscar-winning film brought Church cover-ups of sexual violence to the big screen, now it’s time to put the spotlight on what Pope Francis must do to end the crisis.

February 29, 2016

At the end of Spotlight, a list of hundreds of cities in the U.S. and around the world in which major cases of clergy sexual violence have been uncovered fills up the screen. You can literally hear the audience gasping. What happened in Boston was far was from isolated, and although the film depicts events from 15 years ago, recent reports on continuing Vatican policies – like no mandatory reporting of clerical sexual violence to civil authorities for bishops and allowing convicted sexual abusers to continue to serve as priests – show that this story is far from over.

By some estimates, the number of victims of clergy sexual violence over the past three decades is in the hundreds of thousands and on the rise, as more survivors come forward and civil authorities begin investigations in Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. The Vatican’s own experts have said there are as many as 100,000 cases in the U.S. alone. All of these cases follow the same pattern of cover-up and protection of Church officials, a pattern that continues to this day.

Pope Francis has pledged “zero tolerance” for sexual violence in the Church and spoken about the need for accountability by bishops. So far, however, this rhetoric has not been matched by action. For instance, in 2014, recognizing the gravity of the situation, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the UN Committee Against Torture issued a series of recommendations on what Pope Francis can and must do to end this epidemic of sexual violence, including:

(1) Immediately remove all known and suspected child sexual abusers from assignment and refer the matter to relevant law enforcement authorities for investigation and prosecution;

(2) Hand over files containing details of cases of sexual violence to civil authorities for investigation and prosecution of abusers as well as those who concealed their crimes and knowingly placed offenders in contact with children;

(3) Make reporting to civil authorities mandatory everywhere the Catholic Church operates;

(4) Develop comprehensive procedures for the early identification of child victims of sexual and other forms of abuse;

(5) Ensure accessible, confidential, child-friendly and effective reporting channels for children who are victims or witnesses of sexual abuse, and ensure child victims and witnesses of crimes are provided with unconditional psycho-social support for their rehabilitation and reintegration.

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UNITED STATES
The Investigative Fund

POSTED BY SARAH POSNER
MARCH 1, 2016

Nine additional plaintiffs have joined the lawsuit against disgraced evangelist Bill Gothard and the ministry he founded, the Institute in Basic Life Principles, charging that the organization’s board tolerated and covered up decades of sexual harassment and abuse.

In partnership with Talking Points Memo, the Investigative Fund published an investigation into the Chicago-area ministry last September, documenting decades of charges by women who said Gothard sexually harassed them, told them that rape was a woman’s fault if she dressed immodestly and failed to “cry out to God,” and subjected them to grueling and humiliating physical work at his training centers for little or no pay.

The investigation also detailed how the Duggar family, of 19 Kids and Counting fame, were longtime acolytes of Gothard, and used IBLP’s Advanced Training Institute to homeschool their children. The Learning Channel, which aired their reality television program, canceled the show last summer following the admission of the Duggars’ oldest child, Josh, that he sexually abused five girls, including four of his sisters, as a teenager.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
News Letter

Three women who claimed they were abused while staying at a children’s home in Belfast have settled High Court actions for £15,000 each.

Each of them separately sued the Sisters of Nazareth over their alleged treatment while in care decades ago.

But a judge was told that all three actions have now been resolved.

The plaintiffs are not being identified.

In court it was confirmed that payments are to be made to them, without any public admission of liability.

No further details of the cases were disclosed.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Daily Item

By John Finnerty CNHI Harrisburg Bureau

HARRISBURG — The attorney general wants to lift limits on when charges can be filed in cases of sex crimes committed against children, in light of revelations of abuse involving dozens of priests in western Pennsylvania over decades.

Attorney General Kathleen Kane called on lawmakers to abolish the statute of limitations while detailing allegations that two bishops in the Roman Catholic Dioceses of Altoona-Johnstown had concealed the abuse of children by 35 priests over four decades.

Kane said her office has no plans to charge anyone based on the findings by a special grand jury, in part because of statutes of limitations.

Some victims are unwilling to testify in court, and some accused priests are dead, she said.

Victims now have until the age 50 to report child sex abuse to prosecutors. Until age 30, victims may file civil lawsuits against their abusers and others who may be responsible for allowing the abuse to happen.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WTAE

Two Catholic bishops who led the Altoona-Johnstown diocese helped cover up the abuse of hundreds of children by dozens of priests and religious leaders over several decades, according to a grand jury report Tuesday.

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ROME/AUSTRALIA
Reuters

ROME/SYDNEY | BY PHILIP PULLELLA AND JANE WARDELL

Australian Cardinal George Pell, the highest-ranking Vatican official to testify on systemic sexual abuse of children by clergy in the Roman Catholic Church, on Tuesday said he never notified his superiors in the 1970s about rumors of abuse.

The Vatican’s treasurer told Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse that he had heard reports of sexual abuse by at least one priest who was moved to another parish, but assumed senior clergy were dealing with the problem.

“I would concede I should have done more,” Pell told the inquiry in Sydney as he gave evidence for a third day via videolink from a Rome hotel.

Given Pell’s high rank within the church, his testimony to the Australian inquiry into sexual abuse cases that occurred decades ago has taken on wider implications about the accountability of church leaders.

At one point during a testy exchange early in his evidence, Pell was asked about abuse by one priest who was later convicted of 138 offences against more than 50 children in Australia.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

BY KODY LEIBOWITZ TUESDAY, MARCH 1ST 2016

ALTOONA, Pa. – A 147-page grand jury report shows the in-depth nature of the investigation into allegations of child sexual abuse at the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown.

With the reported abuse came reported payments to victims directly from a Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown bishop, according to the grand jury report.

“Behind closed doors, Bishop [Joseph] Adamec took steps that showed the widespread nature of the problem,” attorney general Kathleen Kane.

According to Kane, Bishop Adamec allegedly created a pay-out chart. The report describes this as “a guide used to direct the judgments of the diocese in the payment of claims in the purchase of silence”.

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ROME
Sky News

Cardinal George Pell says his predecessor as Melbourne archbishop did not act on child abuse when he should have.

Cardinal Pell said he was strongly critical of and deeply disturbed by what came out about the handling of complaints by Frank Little, who was Archbishop of Melbourne from 1974 to 1996.

‘Archbishop Little on some occasions did not act when he should have and certainly did not make appropriate information available to the personnel advisory board on some occasions,’ Cardinal Pell told the commission from Rome.

Cardinal George Pell agreed with Bishop Connors’ assessment that Bishop Little had a ‘blind spot’ when it came to handling complaints about sexual abuse by priests.

The bishop did not reveal there was a long list of complaints about one priest, when Cardinal Pell had sought advice when he was auxiliary bishop in the Melbourne archdiocese in the 1980s.

‘I have to say that I am strongly critical of it,’ he said of Archbishop Little’s handling of complaints about Sunbury parish priest Father Peter Searson.

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ROME
9 News

AAP

A group of child sex abuse survivors say they’ve given up on Cardinal George Pell after hearing his evidence to a royal commission and have appealed directly to the Pope to ensure children are protected.

The group, many of whom were abused as children by pedophile priests in the Catholic diocese of Ballarat in Victoria, has been in Rome to hear the cardinal give evidence to the child sex abuse royal commission.

But on Tuesday night they told journalists they had sent a letter seeking a meeting with Pope Francis and were no longer seeking a meeting with Cardinal Pell.

He is being questioned over what he knew of pedophile priests in the Ballarat and Melbourne dioceses when he held senior church posts there in the 1970s, 80s and 90s.

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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

[with video]

March 2, 2016

Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter

Cardinal George Pell regrets not doing more to protect young boys from a paedophile Christian Brother working at a Catholic school in Ballarat in the 1970s, a royal commission has heard.

In the third day of his testimony, Cardinal Pell admitted he had heard about “problems” at St Patrick’s College from one or two students.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard the “problems” related to Brother Edward Dowlan​, who was later convicted of multiple sexual offences against boys between 1971 and 1986.

Cardinal Pell told the commission he spoke to the school chaplain about Dowlan but took no further action.

“In the light of my present understandings, I concede I should have done more . . . just ensured the matter was properly treated,” he said.

When asked by counsel assisting the royal commission Gail Furness SC, why didn’t make further investigations he replied: “One, I didn’t think of it and when I was told that (the Christian Brothers) were dealing with it, at that time I was quite content.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, March 1, 2016

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

The Altoona abuse and cover up investigation is on-going. It’s key to remember that. Just because there are no criminal charges now doesn’t mean there won’t be any later.

We believe it’s the moral and civic duty of every Altoona area Catholic to actively seek out others who saw or suspected or suffered crimes by these 50 predator priests. We believe Altoona area church staff have the same duty. But we know that virtually none of them will take action, because they’re too timid, whether they’re a bookkeeper or a bishop. And since they won’t, it’s crucial that rank-and-file church members do this outreach.

We beg Catholics and citizens to read carefully the parts of the report that deal with how Catholic officials deal with abuse reports now. It’s worth reading this piece from PennLive.com:

The bishop controlled the Allegation Review Board.

Bishop Adamec created the Allegation Review Board to allegedly determine the credibility of an allegation of abuse.

However, the purpose of creating the board, the grand jury said, was to convince people that the days of a mysterious bishop deciding how to handle a scandalous and heinous report of child molestation were over.

“In reality, the bishop still exclusively makes the decision how or what to do with a report of child molestation,” the grand jury said. “Nothing has changed but the trappings of how a report is procedurally made.”

The grand jury said victims who believed they were reporting to a board of unbiased and neutral observers “would be sadly mistaken.”

Diocese ‘victim advocate’ looked out for the church, not the victims.

The grand jury concluded, upon interviews with victims and reviews of documents, that the diocese “victim advocate” is an advocate for the diocese against the interest of the victims. The victim advocate was identified as Sister Marilyn Welch.

“Where the advocate can shuffle a victim into the Allegation Review Board without the involvement of legal representation for a victim, she does so,” the grand jury reported.

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CONNECTICUT
WTNH

By Macy Corica, WTNH.com Staff

SEYMOUR, Conn. (WTNH) — A Roman Catholic Priest has been arrested for allegedly embezzling money from his church.

On Monday, 50-year-old Father Honore Kombo of Weston turned himself in to Seymour police after learning of a warrant for his arrest. Kombo was a Pastor at the St. Augustine Church, located at 135 Washington Avenue in Seymour.

In April of 2015, police began investigating Kombo after representatives from the Hartford Roman Catholic Diocesan Corporation told them of concerns that Kombo had stolen money left to the church by a deceased parishioner. Police say that parishioner had left the money through a series of monetary annuities. It was believed that four annuities had been left for St. Augustine parish, but detectives found that a fifth annuity had been left, but was never reported to church officials by Kombo.

Police say that Kombo had filed the necessary paperwork requesting the proceeds for the fifth annuity and that on May 6, 2013, Kombo received a check made payable to the St. Augustine Church for the large sum of money. According to police, Kombo then opened a bank account at a local bank, deposited the annuity proceeds into the account, then withdrew a large sum of it and deposited it into his personal bank account.

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CONNECTICUT
Hartford Courant

SEYMOUR – A 50-year-old local Catholic priest is facing charges after police say he embezzled more than $20,000 from St. Augustine Church.

Police charged Honore Kombo, the former pastor of St. Augustine Church on Washington Avenue, with first-degree larceny after they say they were alerted to funds missing from the parish in April of 2015.

The investigation revealed that Kombo deposited an annuity left to the church by a deceased parishioner into a church account but then wrote a check to himself for a “large sum of money” and deposited it into a personal account in his name.

Police said that Kombo also opened a line of credit in October of 2013 under the church’s name and would deposit funds from the line of credit into his personal account.

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ROME
9 News

AAP

A gun-toting Melbourne priest’s behaviour in making children kneel between his legs during confession is “abhorrent”, Cardinal George Pell says.

The church failed to remove Doveton parish priest Peter Searson, whom Cardinal Pell described as a disconcerting man and a difficult customer, despite years of complaints.

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CALIFORNIA
Fox 5

[with video]

BY MISHA DIBONO

SAN DIEGO – “Spotlight” won Hollywood’s highest honor – taking home the Oscar for Best Picture Sunday night. One of the most important players portrayed in the movie lives in San Diego.

The movie tells the true story of how Boston Globe investigative reporters exposed the sex abuse scandal involving priests and children within the Catholic Church.

“You’re fighting Goliath and all you have in your sling is words and truth and you sling it… but the Roman is Goliath – bigger – and is not going to go down easily,” Richard Sipe told FOX 5 Monday.

Sipe, a former Catholic priest who lives in La Jolla resident, has been collecting data on pedophile priests since the 60s.

“In the movie they use my words quoting me directly,” he said.

We only heard his character’s voice in the film by phone as he provides key statistical information to the team investigative reporters in 2001, as they expose the sex abuse scandal in Boston archdioceses. Sipes says there are thousands of these stories.

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NEW JERSEY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, March 1, 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)

New Jersey predator priest has passed away. We hope his death of brings some comfort to the courageous victims who came forward and reported his horrific crimes.

[NJ.com]

He is Fr. John M. Banko. His brave victims overcame their own pain to work with police and prosecutors to have him arrested and convicted. Because of their courage and their wisdom to work with secular authorities rather than church officials other children were spared abuse.

We hope Metuchen Catholic officials will announce his death in the diocesan newspaper, on the diocesan website and in all church bulletins, noting his crimes and conviction. We fear other Fr. Banko victims are still suffering in secrecy and shame and will find some small comfort knowing he cannot hurt anyone else.

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ROME
9 News

By Nick Alexander

George Pell has continued to flounder early on the third day of his testimony before a Royal Commission, following a potentially disastrous performance yesterday, which threatens to turn the cardinal into an international pariah.

A particularly damning headline on one Italian daily screamed “see no evil, hear no evil, stop no evil”, with reports locals are harbouring growing levels of resentment that Cardinal Pell has brought the shame and degradation of endemic clergy abuse in Australia to Rome.

In addition to hostility from the local press, Cardinal Pell was confronted yesterday by survivors of abuse who travelled to Rome to watch Australia’s highest-ranking Catholic face a relentless grilling by the Commission.

Today the Commission’s focus shifts to Cardinal Pell’s time as an auxiliary bishop of Melbourne, an appointment then-Archbishop Sir Frank Little was less than happy with.

Taking up the position in 1987, a year before the church would draft a secret set of protocols for dealing with abuse allegations, Cardinal Pell had responsibility for the “southern region”, where similar claims about his alleged blind-eye to sexual abuse by priests have long fermented.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Atlantic

ADAM CHANDLER

On Tuesday, two days after a film about a massive Catholic sex-abuse scandal in Boston won the Academy Award for Best Picture, Pennsylvania’s attorney general released a grand jury report chronicling “staggering and sobering” accounts of sexual abuse in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnston.

The report alleges that, dating back to the 1970s, “hundreds of children have fallen victim to child predators” in abuse cases that involved over 50 priests and religious leaders in the area:

As wolves disguised as the shepherds themselves—these men stole the innocence of children by sexually preying upon the most innocent and the most vulnerable of our society and of the Catholic faith.

But there at the heart of the report isn’t just the criminal behavior, but criminal callousness in the desire of high-level officials to “avoid public scandal” by keeping abuse quiet and even allowing known predators to remain in commission as members of the clergy.

The information uncovered by the report had previously been kept in files to which only top diocese leaders had access. The documents show that several priests were reprimanded, reassigned, or otherwise briefly sent off to treatment programs or vacations, only to return to serving their original communities or new ones. Others retired and a few were eventually kept from the ministry.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Sys-Con

STATE COLLEGE, Pa., March 1, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — An attorney who represented many of the Penn State child sexual abuse victims says the new Pennsylvania grand jury report on widespread sexual abuse of children in the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic diocese reveals the all-too-common pattern of a powerful institution enabling and empowering child predators at the root of the Penn State-Sandusky and other sex abuse scandals.

Andrew Shubin, a State College child sexual abuse attorney who represented multiple Sandusky Penn State sexual abuse victims, and whose work was recently featured in Happy Valley, a documentary detailing the Penn State abuse scandal, announced that his firm is investigating sexual abuse allegations against priests in the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic diocese. Shubin said he will be working to ensure that predator priests and the indifferent church hierarchy that provided them with access to a stream of children, are held accountable in court for the catastrophic harm they inflicted.

“When the highest and most powerful officials in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese gave pedophile priests access to an unending stream of children, and the time, space and cover to groom and abuse them, they betrayed children, families and a community,” Shubin said. “We give schools, churches and coaches our children and trust and they give pedophiles the ammunition essential to abuse – indifference. How many children could have been saved had diocesan leaders cared more about kids than the church’s reputation?”

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Ivey DeJesus | idejesus@pennlive.com

ALTOONA — Victims interviewed during the investigation into allegations of child sex abuse in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown told investigators their abuse – which in some cases happened decades ago – continues to affect their lives today.

“They said they lost their faith,” said Daniel J. Dye, state Deputy Attorney General. “That is a profound thing to think about. A lot were from very devout Catholic homes and having a priest take interest in them was a status symbol.”

In some cases, Dye said, parents encouraged their children to spend time with the predator priest, not knowing that the priest was molesting their child.

“They found themselves offended on not only by the person they trusted most but the physical representative of God on Earth,” Dye said. “The way they described it to us is the violation was total. They were violated in spirit, mind and body.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Mother Jones

By Grace Wilson | Tue Mar. 1, 2016

After an exhaustive, two-year investigation, a statewide grand jury has determined that hundreds of children were sexually abused by priests and other religious leaders serving the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown in western Pennsylvania over at least 40 years.

The grand jury issued a 147-page report, made public today, that details widespread alleged abuse involving at least 50 priests and religious leaders, and the findings include accounts of how Diocese superiors took action to conceal the accusations in order to protect the Church’s image.

“The heinous crimes these children endured are absolutely unconscionable,” said Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane, who spoke at a news conference today in Altoona, a small city located two hours east of Pittsburgh. “These predators desecrated a sacred trust and preyed upon their victims in the very places where they should have felt most safe.”

In April 2014, the Office of the Attorney General brought the matter to the State Investigating Grand Jury. None of the alleged criminal acts detailed in the report can be prosecuted at this point because many of the alleged abusers have died, the statute of limitations for these crimes has passed, and many of the victims are too “deeply traumatized” to testify in court, according to the Office of the Attorney General.

The news comes comes two days after the movie Spotlight won the Academy Award for Best Picture. The film is about the Boston Globe’s 2001 investigation of the Catholic Church’s long history of sexual abuse, particularly in Boston parishes.

The investigation in Pennsylvania is ongoing, Kane said.

“We will continue to look at this matter and consider charges where appropriate, which is why it is so important for those with information to come forward,” she said. “At the very least we must continue to shine a light on this long period of abuse and despicable conduct.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Steve Marroni | smarroni@pennlive.com

When state Attorney General Kathleen Kane released a grand jury report Tuesday, detailing four decades of sexual abuse among clergy and church leaders in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, the founder of the Pennsylvania-based Foundation to Abolish Child Sex Abuse wondered why it was even news.

“This is what the Catholic church has been doing for decades,” said John Salveson, who has been an activist fighting child abuse since 1980. “I would say it’s unbelievable, but I’ve been doing this for a long time.”

Salveson said the news caused an outcry with every report and every case that made headlines over the years, from clergy abuse cases coming to light to the Jerry Sandusky case.

And every time, talk of the statute of limitations for civil cases and criminal prosecution came up with little or no change, he said.

“I don’t know what it’s going to take for Pennsylvania’s legislators to do something about this,” Salveson said. “What the hell is wrong with these people?”

But as of now, the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference backs a task force recommendation made in 2012 that no changes should be made to the state’s current statute of limitations in sexual abuse cases, which their report says is adequate.

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ROME
7 News

Cardinal George Pell concedes he should have done more when he was told of rumours about a Christian Brother’s activity with children in the 1970s.

Cardinal Pell has said he heard vague and unspecific rumours about Brother Edward Dowlan from about two students and two priests, but was told by the school chaplain at Ballarat’s St Patrick’s College that the Christian Brothers were dealing with it.

“I regret that I didn’t do more at that stage,” he told the child abuse royal commission.

Cardinal Pell said he did not take any further action to determine what the Christian Brothers did about Dowlan after speaking to the chaplain.

“No I didn’t, but I soon became aware that Dowlan was shifted,” he told the inquiry from Rome on the third day of his evidence.

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ROME
SBS

AAP

Cardinal George Pell has resumed giving his testimony to the child sex abuse commission sitting.

Watch the proceedings live by clicking here.

He arrived at the Hotel Quirinale in Rome earlier on Wednesday as plain-clothes state police officers kept journalists back.

Cardinal Pell is being questioned about what he knew of pedophile priests operating in Ballarat and Melbourne when he served there in the 1970s and 1980s.

On Tuesday, he told the commission he did not know about repeated complaints against the now-imprisoned pedophile Father Gerald Ridsdale because former Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns did not tell him.

The former senior Australian Catholic, now the third-most powerful man in the Vatican, shocked abuse survivors who are in Rome to watch him give evidence via video link, when he said on Tuesday Ridsdale’s offences were “a sad story” but had not been of much interest to him when they were happening in the 1970s in regional Victoria.

“I had no reason to turn my mind to the evils that Ridsdale had perpetrated,” the cardinal said from Hotel Quirinale, where he is giving his evidence.

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PENNSYLVANIA
York Daily Record

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg released the following statement Tuesday after the release of a grand jury report that alleged two former Catholic bishops in the Altoona-Johnstown diocese covered up the sexual abuse of hundreds of children.

The grand jury’s report lists parishes in which the accused priests served. No York County parishes are listed.

The diocese’s statement:

“We are deeply saddened and shocked by what the Attorney General has released today. We ask for prayers for all of the victims.

The sexual abuse of minors is an appalling sin and a crime. That is why the Diocese of Harrisburg has made strong and aggressive steps to combat it.

The Diocese of Harrisburg maintains a zero tolerance policy regarding sexual abuse. Any priest or deacon, employee or volunteer, who has committed even a single act of sexual abuse of a minor, whenever it occurred, is permanently removed from ministry.

The Diocese of Harrisburg is ever vigilant to make sure that children are protected. That is why when a report of possible abuse surfaces in the Diocese of Harrisburg we promptly relay it to public authorities fully and transparently.

Our efforts to protect youth go beyond what is required by the State of Pennsylvania. Additionally we have passed yearly audits by an independent firm to be sure that we are complying with standards set forth by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Since 2004 over 31,000 employees and volunteers in the Diocese of Harrisburg have taken and passed an online course that instructs them in how to recognize child abuse and how to report it to the proper public authorities. Each of those individuals has also been screened with multiple background checks.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

BY IVEY DEJESUS & CHRISTIAN ALEXANDERSEN

ALTOONA – The abuse was rampant, horrific, complicit and concealed, and even at times dismissed by law enforcement officials.

Those are some of the highlights that emerged from a grand jury report that found more than 50 priests and religious leaders of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown sexually molested hundreds of children over the course of four decades.

The findings of the two-year investigation, announced Tuesday in Blair County by Attorney General Kathleen Kane, provide a graphic account of the abuse of hundreds of boys and girls – the youngest of them 8 years old – dating to the 1950s.

Some of the most damning (and graphic) evidence included in the grand jury report:

The abuse was rampant.

More than 50 priests and religious leaders, including monsignors, were named and implicated among the reams of evidence culled from victim testimony and documents seized from the diocese.

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ROME
The Guardian

Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Tuesday 1 March 2016

Child sexual abuse survivors in Rome to watch Pell’s evidence have called for a global campaign of tying ribbons to fences and letterboxes to show support for abuse victims.

The campaign, called Loud Fence, began in Ballarat, with survivors and their supporters tying thousands of colourful ribbons tied to the fences surrounding Catholic schools and churches in the town.

Following the last round of gruelling hearings in December, the ribbons began cropping up on fences and people have not stopped adding to them since in a show of support for the survivors.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Reuters

HARRISBURG, PA. | BY DAVID DEKOK

Hundreds of children in western Pennsylvania were sexually assaulted by about 50 Roman Catholic priests over four decades while bishops covered up their actions, according to a state grand jury report released on Tuesday.

The report found that former Altoona-Johnstown Diocese Bishop James Hogan, who died in 2005, and his successor, Joseph Adamec, who retired in 2011, worked to cover pedophile priests’ tracks and that some local law enforcement agencies also avoided investigating abuse allegations, said state Attorney General Kathleen Kane.

“The heinous crimes these children endured are absolutely unconscionable,” Kane told reporters in unveiling the report, based on a two-year investigation. “These predators desecrated a sacred trust and preyed upon their victims in the very places where they should have felt most safe.”

Revelations that some priests had habitually sexually abused children and that bishops had systematically covered up those crimes burst onto the world stage in 2002 when the Boston Globe reported widespread abuse in the Boston Archdiocese.

That report, which won a Pulitzer Prize and was the subject of last year’s Academy Award-winning film “Spotlight,” set off a global wave of investigations that found similar patterns at dioceses around the world. They led to hefty lawsuits and seriously undermined the church’s moral authority.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

for immediate release: Tuesday, March 1, 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)

Another grand jury has found that Catholic officials respond deceitfully to child sex abuse reports. We’re saddened but not the least bit surprised. It proves what we’ve long maintained: that even now, under the guise of “reform,” bishops continue to deceive parishioners and the public about their on-going efforts to hide abuse.

[Post-Gazette]

[Attorney General]

We hope this investigation will prod similar ones across the US.

THE MOST SIGNIFICANT FINDING IN THIS REPORT: The diocesan review board “is a fact-finding (tool) for litigation, not as a victim service function” (p. 124).

“Nothing has changed but the trappings. . .” and “Victims who believe they’re reporting to an unbiased observers (on a church panel) would be sadly mistaken.”

In other words, a purported “reform” move by bishops – an internal “lay review board” – is actually a self-serving move. Ostensibly set up to help wounded victims, it actually helps church officials.

Catholics, citizens, police and prosecutors should be outraged over this.

Other grand juries, notably on Long Island and Philadelphia, have reached similar conclusions.

The Pittsburgh Post Gazette reports that the grand jury found that “as recently as 2005, the Altoona-Johnstown diocese was hiring private investigators to look for ways to undercut the credibility of an alleged abuser.”

THE MOST SIGNIFICANT RECOMMENDATION IN THIS REPORT:

It recommends opening a civil window and abolishing the criminal statute of limitations, so that more victims of child sex crimes can expose and punish those who committed and concealed them and so that more crimes and cover ups can be stopped and deterred in the present and future.

This is a “no-brainer.” Pennsylvania lawmakers should stop being cowed or fooled by slick Catholic lobbyists. For the safety of children, legislators should pass these long-overdue, common sense reforms now.

Other noteworthy facts and findings:

— “the men of God were devils in disguise”

— “Offending priests knew they faced no risk of exposure because Bishop James Hogan and Bishop Joseph Adamec were cover ups” such crimes.

–Bishop Joseph Adamec pled the Fifth when questioned by the grand jury.

— More than 50 child molesting clerics operated in a relatively small diocese in which abuse “was rampant for decades.” (p. 130),

— They were “assisted by priests and bishops who covered up abuse rather than report it.”

— The diocese “sought to protect the image of the institution rather than the children.”

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MASSACHUSETTS
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Tuesday, March 1

Statement by Ann Webb, former co-director of Boston SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (annhaganwebb@gmail.com)

It’s so tiresome watching Cardinal Sean O’Malley posture about clergy sex crime and cover ups

. The latest example: his comments today about Spotlight. By shrewdly using words like “historical” and “forgiveness,” he perpetuates the comforting but irresponsible myth that most of this is “in the past,” when he knows that’s just not true.

[Boston Pilot]

[ABC News]

Months ago, we urged O’Malley to tell all Catholic employees to go see “Spotlight.” As best we can tell, he ignored us. He’d obviously rather posture for the public in meaningless ways rather than advise his parishioners in helpful ways.

No one ever asks “Do teachers still molest kids?” Or day care workers. Or Scout leaders. We know child molesters always have and always will seek out those jobs. It’s the same with priests.

O’Malley knows that last month, Vatican officials lifted the suspension of a priest who pled guilty to molesting a girl last year. (Fr. Joseph Jeyapaul)

O’Malley knows that in January, two US bishops who’d resigned for hiding child sex crimes were quietly put back on the job in different states. (Bishop Robert Finn and Archbishop John Nienstedt)

O’Malley knows that seven year old girls and 12 year old boys don’t ride their bikes downtown to the prosecutors’ office to report current child sex crimes. There always has been and always will be decades of delay between when child sex crimes happen and when they’re reported. So years from now, we’ll hear from the kids being assaulted today by priests. It’s silly to assume otherwise.

O’Malley knows that last month, a high-ranking Catholic official told bishops in Rome they need not report child sex crimes to police.

O’Malley knows that no bishop on earth has been defrocked, demoted or disciplined for enabling child sex crimes.

Yet instead of aggressively prodding his colleagues to reform, and denouncing those who won’t, he insists on repeating platitudes that comfort adults (“Protecting children must be a priority in the Church”) instead of taking action that protects kids.

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NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Craig Turpin | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

John Banko, a former Hunterdon County and Somerset County priest serving 41 years for sexually assaulting two altar boys, died Monday at the New Jersey Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center in the Avenel section of Woodbridge.

Matt Schuman, spokesman for the state Department of Corrections, confirmed to mycentraljersey.com that Banko, 69, was pronounced dead at 9:29 a.m. Monday.

Banko is a former Catholic priest who was convicted in 2008 of sexually assaulting a young boy at St. Edward’s Catholic Church in Milford. He was previously convicted of assaulting another boy at the same church, and was also accused of assaulting boys at other churches dating back to the 1970s, it was previously reported by NJ Advance Media. Banko maintained his innocence throughout the trial and an appeal.

The victim testified when he was between the ages of 9 and 10 he was assaulted several times in the church bathroom and threatened by Banko to tell no one. The boy reported the abuse to his mother in 2005 after suffering depression for years.

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ROME/AUSTRALIA
IOL (South Africa)

By: AFP

Sydney – Evidence is emerging that Australian Cardinal George Pell covered up the sexual abuse of children by priests on his watch, survivors told AFP on Tuesday, on the sidelines of a hearing into the top Vatican official’s culpability.

“We’re starting to see solid evidence that he did cover it up, even though he’ll still deny it,” said Anthony Foster, father to two girls who were abused, one of whom went on to commit suicide while the other ended up in full-time care.

Vatican finance chief Pell has been giving evidence from a hotel in Rome via video-link to Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney, under the watchful gaze of abuse victims.

“We hear stories from victims, and what has happened as the Royal Commission has progressed, those stories have been confirmed with solid evidence,” said Foster, who travelled to Rome with his wife for the four-day hearings.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

March 1, 2016

By Peter Smith / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

ALTOONA, Pa. ­ Hundreds of children were molested, raped and destined to lasting psychological trauma by at least 50 priests and others associated with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown across half a century, a state grand jury has found in denouncing coverups orchestrated by two bishops and enabled by the law enforcement officials they controlled.

The conspiracy amounted to “soul murder,” said the report by the 37th Statewide Investigating Grand Jury, released today nearly two years after the grand jury was impaneled.

At a press conference here this morning, Attorney General Kathleen Kane said that horrendous acts of abuse were committed by priests, and called it a ”day of reckoning.”

The report said no one could be charged for the crimes it detailed, either because they happened too long ago under the statute of limitations for such prosecutions, a time limit that the report recommends be extended, or because of witness trauma.

“These findings are both staggering and sobering,” said the report. “Over many years hundreds of children have fallen victim to child predators wrapped in the authority and integrity of an honorable faith. As wolves disguised as the shepherds themselves ­ these men stole the innocence of children by sexually preying upon the most innocent and vulnerable…. ”

The two previous bishops leading the diocese ­ James Hogan, who served from 1966 to 1986 and died in 2005, and Joseph Adamec, who served from 1987 to 2011 and is now retired ­ “took actions that further endangered children as they placed their desire to avoid public scandal over the wellbeing of innocent children,” the report said. “Priests were returned to ministry with full knowledge they were child predators.”

The Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown issued a statement responding to the report, noting that it had “cooperated fully with authorities throughout the investigation, and will continue to do so as part of our commitment to the safety of all children.”

“This is a painful and difficult time in our Diocesan Church,” said the Most Rev. Mark L. Bartchak, Bishop of the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown. “I deeply regret any harm that has come to children, and I urge the faithful to join me in praying for all victims of abuse.”

The report includes extensive testimony from a key aide to Bishop Hogan, Monsignor Philip Saylor, who said a Blair County president judge, sheriff and other law-enforcement officers deferred to the diocese to let it handle investigations of abusive priests, rather than prosecuting them. And Monsignor Saylor said a mayor of Johnstown sent candidates for police and fire chief to him for interviews, and he would tell the mayor whom to pick. “That happened in Johnstown and Altoona,” he said.

The grand jury report quoted former Altoona Police Chief Peter Starr as crediting his own appointment to such arrangements and saying that the “politicians of Blair County were afraid of Monsignor Saylor” given his role as editor of the diocesan newspaper.

With such influence, “Hogan saw no obligation of faith or law to the children of his parishioners,” the grand jury report said.

The report added that even a diocesan review board, impaneled amid growing public outrage over sexual abuse by priests, often turned into a travesty, with investigations focusing not on the accused but on those reporting abuse by priests. In one case, the review board sought gynecological records of a survivor, the report said.

And in another case, a top diocesan official suggested to an abuse victim, himself now a priest, that he could be excommunicated for suing the church ­ before the official admitted he was reading from an expired canon in church law and that this couldn’t happen. But, the priest said, he felt he was being threatened with hell to intimidate him.

The report excoriated Bishop Adamec for the diocese’s 1992 statement regarding the dismissal of a lawsuit involving the Rev. Francis Luddy, whom the diocese knew molested, sodomized and performed oral sex on at least 10 children.

The diocese called the lawsuit “frivolous” even while Adamec knew “with certainty that Francis Luddy had admitted to molesting the very children for whom the bishop bore the most responsibility.”

The report added: “The grand jury notes that the chilling impact of such a victory lap on the victims of child abuse throughout the diocese is incalculable.”

The grand jury investigation began with a referral by the Cambria County district attorney’s office to the state Office of the Attorney General regarding alleged abuse at Bishop McCort Catholic High School in Johnstown.

The grand jury probe expanded into a sweeping look at abuse dating as far back as the 1940s. A dramatic highlight of the investigation came in August 2015 when investigators executed a search warrant at diocesan offices in Altoona and seized 115,000 documents, many from filing cabinets and safes where the most sensitive church documents were kept.

Reports of many of the alleged abusers have appeared in various media over the past two decades, with the grand jury singling out extensive investigations by Johnstown’s Tribune-Democrat in 2002 and 2003.

Ms. Kane also cited “heroic” whistleblower George Foster, a layman who exposed Altoona-Johnstown priest abuse, during the press conference.

That was in the wake of Boston Globe investigations, recently dramatized in the Oscar-winning movie “Spotlight,” into the shocking levels of abuse and coverup in the Archdiocese of Boston. That investigation led to revelations of similar coverups worldwide and to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Dallas mandating on June 14, 2002 the removal of any priest from ministry who committed even a single act of abuse.

Yet the ink was barely dry on that new policy when Bishop Adamec met with the victim of a Rev. Martin Cingle, who had groped the genitals of the then-15-year-old boy while sleeping next to the boy on a trip he had taken him on. Bishop Adamec then met with Father Cingle, who denied remembering such an event, then sent the priest for what the grand jury said was a travesty of a psychological review. With the review inconclusive, Adamec returned the priest to ministry, where he remained until Cingle admitted to the grand jury under threat of a perjury charge that he had molested the boy.

After that, Deputy Attorney General Daniel Dye wrote to current Bishop Bartchak, who agreed to his request to remove Father Cingle immediately from ministry.

And although the Dallas scandal mandated the creation of review boards, the grand jury report noted that as late as 2005, the Altoona-Johnstown diocese was hiring private investigators to look for ways to undercut the credibility of an alleged accuser.

Ms. Kane called for the abolition of statute of limitations on child sexual abuse for criminal and civil cases, one of the recommendations from the grand jury.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Steve Marroni | smarroni@pennlive.com

It’s difficult for a victim to come forward.

And while it might be the toughest thing in the world for someone to do, reporting the sexual abuse of clergy to the authorities can help prevent other young people from being victimized.

That’s part of the message state Attorney General Kathleen Kane relayed from a grand jury investigation into hundreds of cases of children being sexually abused and raped by more than 50 Roman Catholic priests and religious leaders in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown over 40 years.

And that’s also what an attorney who represented a Jerry Sandusky victim, as well as other children in other clergy sexual abuse cases, had to say following Kane’s announcement on Tuesday in Blair County.

“The advice I would have is to come forward to help prevent this despicable behavior from victimizing other people who are younger or more vulnerable,” said attorney Michael Boni.

And David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, is hoping this will encourage anyone who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes to come forward, as well.

But from working with many victims over the years, both know this is no easy task.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Steve Marroni | smarroni@pennlive.com

As the state attorney general released a grand-jury report detailing four decades of sexual abuse at the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, local church officials say they are “sad and shocked” and are asking for prayers for all of the victims.

“The sexual abuse of minors is an appalling sin and a crime,” Diocese of Harrisburg spokesman Joseph Aponick said Tuesday. “That is why the Diocese of Harrisburg has made strong and aggressive steps to combat it.”

And at the Altoona-Johnstown diocese, church officials are saying they cooperated fully with the investigation and will continue to do their part to protect children.

Hundreds of children were sexually abused over a period of 40 years by priests or church leaders in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese, a grand jury investigation has concluded.

“This is a painful and difficult time in our Diocesan Church,” Bishop Mark L. Bartchak said in a statement released Tuesday. “I deeply regret any harm that has come to children, and I urge the faithful to join me in praying for the victims of abuse.”

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane on Tuesday released a grand jury report containing information about many cases of children being sexually abused and raped by more than 50 Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown priests and religious leaders over 40 years.

The report calls for reforms, such as abolishing the statute of limitations for sexual offenses against minors and urging the state General Assembly to suspend the civil statute of limitations on sexual-abuse claims.

In the press release issued by the Altoona-Johnstown diocese, spokesman Tony DeGol said the diocese’s youth protection policy calls for mandatory reporting for all abuse allegations to civil authorities. It also requires criminal background checks and education for clergy, employees and volunteers who work with children.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Christian Alexandersen | calexandersen@pennlive.com

ALTOONA — If you have information about sexual abuse by a priest or religious leader in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office wants to hear from you.

Attorney General Kathleen Kane announced Tuesday that a new hotline has been created for victims of the sexual abuse and rapes committed by leaders in the diocese. The hotline comes amid the release of a grand jury report documenting the sexual abuse of hundreds of children by diocese priests and religious leaders over 40 years.

Kane said the hotline — 888-538-8541 — will be staffed by attorney general agents or attorneys fluent in the Altoona-Johnstown diocese abuse case.

“We will be able to answer phones until about 9 p.m.,” Kane said. “We know people have jobs, we know that they have families now and we’re trying to accommodate [them at that time] for that reason.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

WRITTEN BY IVEY DEJESUS AND CHRISTIAN ALEXANDERSEN

ALTOONA – The abuse was rampant, horrific, complicit and concealed, and even at times dismissed by law enforcement officials.

Those are some of the highlights that emerged from a grand jury report that found more than 50 priests and religious leaders of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown sexually molested hundreds of children over the course of four decades.

The findings of the two-year investigation, announced Tuesday in Blair County by Attorney General Kathleen Kane, provide a graphic account of the abuse of hundreds of boys and girls – the youngest of them eight years old – dating back to the 1950s.

Below are some of the most damning (and graphic) evidence included in the grand jury report:

The abuse was rampant.

More than 50 priests and religious leaders, including monsignors, were named and implicated among the reams of evidence culled from victim testimony and documents seized from the diocese.

Investigators found that priests molested children in church sacristies, rectories, basements and confessionals; schools, including St. Patrick’s in Newry, orphanages, including St. Mary’s in Cresson; boy’s locker rooms, retreat cabins, hospitals, including the Altoona Hospital; St. Francis Seminary; the children’s homes, cars.

One priest, William Rosensteel, would take the boys on trips to Canada and Pittsburgh. The priest would pick one boy to sleep in his bed and engage in “passionate deep throat tongue kisses” and fondle their genitals, according to the grand jury report.

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
Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane

SECTION VII
CONCLUSIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS

The Grand Jury finds the acts of the predator priests and their enabling Bishops detailed in this rep01i to be criminal. However, they cannot be prosecuted at this time.

The statute of limitations for many of the loathsome and criminal actions detailed in this report has expired. In some limited cases the unnamed victim or victims are too deeply traumatized to testify in a court of law.

There is no applicable legal provision which would apply to religious ministers or church officials to permit the extension of the statute of limitations. Many of the accused are dead; answerable now only to a higher authority.

Pennsylvania law has changed since many of these offenses occurred. Some penalties have increased, some charging periods extended. The Grand Jilly finds additional legislative action is required.

Abolish the statute of limitation for sexual offenses against minors.

The Grand Jury recognizes this recommendation is not new. Victin1 advocates and previous grand juries have recommended such action. However this Grand Jury again recognizes a terrible fact. Child predators will offend on children, consume their innocence and escape justice until there can be no temporal escape from their crimes.

This repo1i detailed an account of a 70-year-old victim who came forward to report the devastating trauma of their youth. The victims of child sexual abuse never escape their victimization; it is inequitable and unjust to allow their victimizers to escape accountability.

Open a window to allow child sexual abuse victims to have their civil actions heard.

The ·Grand Jury recommends that the Pennsylvania legislature suspend the civil statute of limitations on sexual abuse claims for a designated and fmite period of years.

This relief would allow adults who were victims of child sexual abuse to have their cases heard in a court oflaw. The statute oflimitations in effect leaves insufficient time to seek relief for crimes that are inherently undeneported or are delayed in reportin.

The Grand Jury took testimony and reviewed evidence which showed many of the child sexual abuse victims who sought relief from the Allegation Review Board alleged conduct which was beyond the civil statute oflimitations. The lives of child abuse victims are pe1manently altered by their assaults; they deserve to. be made whole.

Organizations which have a history of secrecy in regards to child abuse allegations will consider meaningful refo1m when their failures have financial cost.

Victims deserve the opportunity to seek a full and fair settlement, not as one Church official stated, “settle for what they can get.”

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UNITED STATES
Bilgrimage

William D. Lindsey

Well. This is amazing news to have awakened to this morning. Even as His Eminence Cardinal George Pell was saying the following in Rome after his security guards had strongarmed Australian journalists,*

I can’t remember
I’m struggling to remember
I can’t clearly recall
I have no clear recollection of my knowing
It’s difficult to answer that absolutely
My memory is not infallible,

“Spotlight” was winning the coveted top-picture Oscar, and its producer Michael Sugar was telling the world,

This film gave a voice to survivors, and this Oscar amplifies that voice, which we hope will become a choir that will resonate all the way to the Vatican. Pope Francis, it’s time to protect the children and restore the faith.

Talk about prophetic juxtaposition! As if the Cardinal Pells of the church are precisely what Pope Francis needs to restore the faith from — as if they have so brutally and sinfully betrayed the faith that it can be restored only by removing such men from the center of the church, and building it anew on a sounder basis, one that, can we possibly dream it?, might include women at the center, and which would actively welcome survivors and what they have to tell us about their experience of the church.

Poor Cardinal Pell can’t remember. And yet remembering is front and center in the Christian tradition, since Jesus enjoined his followers to break bread and share cups of wine in memory of him. He enjoined his disciples quite precisely to pass memory on as a living and not a dead thing — not to forget; always to remember; to find him and the entire significance of his life in bread that’s broken and wine that’s poured out.

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PENNSYLVANIA
ABC 27

ALTOONA, Pa. (WHTM) – A grand jury says priests assigned to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown sexually abused hundreds of children for at least 40 years.

Attorney General Kathleen Kane announced the grand jury’s findings on Tuesday. She said the widespread abuse involved at least 50 priests and other religious leaders.

The grand jury’s 147-page report further alleges that two bishops concealed the abuse to protect the church’s image, allowing the crimes to continue for decades.

“The heinous crimes these children endured are absolutely unconscionable,” Kane said at a news conference. “These predators desecrated a sacred trust and preyed upon their victims in the very places where they should have felt most safe.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Catholic Philly

BY CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE

ALTOONA, Pa. (CNS) — Hundreds of children were sexually abused over at least 40 years by priests and other religious leaders in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, a statewide grand jury found.

At least 50 priests or religious leaders were involved in the abuse and diocesan leaders systematically concealed the abuse to protect the church’s image, according to a grand jury report released March 1 by Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane.

The report identifies priests and other leaders by name and details incidents going back to the 1970s. Kane said that much of the evidence revealed in the report came from secret archives maintained by the diocese that was only available to the bishops who led the diocese over the decades.

Victims also testified to the grand jury, which was convened by Kane in early 2014 after local law enforcement officials and district attorneys of several counties approached her office with information about the abuse.

Kane said during a 75-minute press briefing that the investigation was continuing. She said that the actions of law enforcement also are part of the investigation.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Your Erie

Altoona, PA

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane released a scathing grand jury presentment that outlines hundreds of incidents of abuse of children by Catholic priests in the Altoona and Johnstown area over the past 50 years.

That report outlines what was called a conspiracy by priests, two bishops and some members of law enforcement to hide the extent of the damage by at least 50 priests over 50 years. The allegations involve hundreds of children during that time.

Members of the grand jury admit that no charges can be brought in the case because of the time that has lapsed but the report called the abuse both “staggering and sobering.”

Attorney General Kane called the releasing of the report “a day of reckoning.”

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.