ABUSE TRACKER

PENNSYLVANIA
Sharon Herald

By DAVE SUTOR | CNHI News Service

ALTOONA – At least 50 priests and religious leaders from the Altoona-Johnstown Roman Catholic Diocese in western Pennsylvania sexually abused hundreds of children since the 1950s, a state grand jury report has concluded.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane released the 147-page report Tuesday at a news conference. She described the findings as “heinous crimes” that were “absolutely unconscionable.”

The grand jury investigated sexual abuse in the diocese for two years in response to complaints. It said the inquiry concluded the findings were “both staggering and sobering,” disclosing a “dark and disturbing history.”

The diocese covers eight counties and 89 parishes. They serve more than 94,000 Catholics in the region.

The Pennsylvania grand jury report comes 12 years after the Boston Globe disclosed widespread abuse by pedophile priests in the Boston Roman Catholic Archdiocese. The scandal, which spread to many Catholic parishes in the U.S. and elsewhere, was portrayed in the recent popular movie “Spotlight,” a winner on Sunday of Academy Awards for best picture and best original screenplay.

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PENNSYLVANIA
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ALTOONA, Pa. (AP) — The Latest on a clergy abuse scandal in Pennsylvania (all times local):

12:10 p.m.

The bishop of a Roman Catholic diocese in central Pennsylvania says it’s a painful time for the church following revelations of 40 years of sexual abuse by diocesan priests and other religious leaders.

A grand jury report issued Tuesday claims two previous bishops in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese helped cover up the sexual abuse of hundreds of children going back to the 1960s.

The current bishop, Mark Bartchak, issued a statement saying he deeply regrets “any harm that has come to children.”

He says the diocese will continue cooperating with authorities.

He did not comment specifically on the report’s findings. He says the diocese is reviewing it.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests says one of the grand jury’s most significant findings was that a diocesan review board was not focused on helping victims.

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PENNSYLVANIA
news.com.au (Australia)

TWO Roman Catholic bishops who led a Pennsylvania diocese helped cover up the sexual abuse of hundreds of children by over 50 priests or religious leaders over a 40-year period, according to a grand jury report issued Tuesday.

The report on the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese was based partly on evidence from a secret diocesan archive uncovered through a search warrant executed last year, said Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane.

“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 in a statement.

No criminal charges are being filed because some abusers have died, the statute of limitations has expired and, in some cases, victims are too traumatised to testify, she said.

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UNITED STATES
Chicago Tribune

Christopher Palmeri
2016, Bloomberg

The newspaper drama “Spotlight” pulled off a surprise win over frontier saga “The Revenant” for best picture honors at the Academy Awards Sunday night. The bigger plot twist, though, may be that the film ever made it into theaters in the first place.

The back story of how the movie got done shows the perilous and often winding road films without obvious commercial appeal face and the crucial role independent financiers can play in keeping such projects going forward. “Spotlight” had the added challenge about covering a topic that could make audiences squeamish — the cover-up of a pedophilia scandal in the Catholic church.

“It wasn’t ever going to be a movie for the big studios,” said Jonathan King, an executive at Participant Media, which backed the film. “Major studios are interested in ‘Deadpool,'” he said, referring to the 21st Century Fox Inc. superhero film that has led the U.S. box office for the past three weekends. “That’s their business model.”

A critically acclaimed film like “Spotlight,” which had already won several honors before its victory on Oscar night, can produce returns for its investors. The movie. which cost $20 million to make, has taken in $61.8 million worldwide since its release in November, according to Box Office Mojo. Last year’s winner “Birdman” cost $18 million to make and ended up with $103 million in box office returns. Box office receipts must be split with theaters, and movie budgets don’t include expenses for marketing.

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VERMONT
Times-Argus

Editorial

The movies have been paying attention to the news business lately, and now the Best Picture Oscar has gone to “Spotlight,” which chronicles The Boston Globe’s successful efforts to report on widespread sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests and the pervasive cover-up by high officials of the church, including Cardinal Bernard Law.

It is one of the best newspaper movies in recent years, underscoring the importance of aggressive and thorough investigative reporting as a means of holding to account people in power who are guilty of crimes and other abuses. Journalists everywhere ought to enjoy a morale boost from the movie, but also by the success of the Globe in pursuing its series back in the early 2000s.

These are not easy days for the media. The Republican primary has become a noxious swamp, and yet it is the press’s job to report the lies, bigoted statements, scapegoating, mudslinging and playground provocations that have become the norm for Republican candidates. The media are tainted by association.

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PHILIPPINES
Inquirer

By: Boying Pimentel
@inquirerdotnet

The movie “Spotlight,” which just won this year’s Oscar for best picture, had a short run and did not get much attention in Manila, according to a friend.

That’s unfortunate.

“Spotlight” is a powerful, engrossing film that’s so relevant to Filipinos, on two levels.
The movie dramatizes how a team of Boston Globe reporters exposed the way the Catholic Church systematically covered up the way hundreds of priests abused children.

The investigative report had a global impact as the movie noted at the end. Before the final credits roll, the film lists the cities, towns and countries where priests were later exposed for abusing children. The Philippines is one of them.

This isn’t news.

When the Boston Globe broke the story in 2002, it quickly triggered investigations in other countries, including the Philippines. That year, the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines acknowledged that hundreds of its priest may have been guilty of “sexual misconduct,” including child abuse, over the past 20 years.

The controversy just kept getting bigger.

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UNITED STATES
ABC News

By MICHAEL ROTHMAN
Mar 1, 2016

After “Spotlight” took home the Oscar for Best Picture on Sunday night, Cardinal Sean Patrick O’Malley, who currently serves as the Archbishop of Boston, addressed the impact he believes the film and its real-life investigation have had on the Catholic Church and the victims of abuse.

O’Malley called “Spotlight” an important film “for all impacted by the tragedy of clergy sexual abuse.”

He then addressed the real story behind the movie, the investigation by the Boston Globe’s Spotlight team and the articles that were published, starting in 2002, that broke the story wide open and raised awareness about the abuse all over the world. In the film, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton and others portray the Spotlight team and show how the team was able to expose what Cardinal O’Malley admits were “crimes” against children.

“By providing in-depth reporting on the history of the clergy sexual abuse crisis, the media led the Church to acknowledge the crimes and sins of its personnel and to begin to address its failings, the harm done to victims and their families and the needs of survivors,” the Cardinal said in a statement to ABC News. “In a democracy such as ours, journalism is essential to our way of life. The media’s role in revealing the sexual abuse crisis opened a door through which the Church has walked in responding to the needs of survivors.”

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MASSACHUSETTS
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston

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

Protecting children and providing support for survivors and their families must be a priority in all aspects of the life of the Church.

We are committed to vigilant implementation of policies and procedures for preventing the recurrence of the tragedy of the abuse of children. These include comprehensive child safety education programs, mandatory background checks and safe environments training, mandatory reporting to and cooperating with civil authorities with regard to allegations of abuse, and caring for survivors and their families through the Office of Pastoral Support and Outreach. The Archdiocese consistently provides counselling and medical services for survivors and family members who seek our help and we remain steadfast in that commitment. We continue to seek the forgiveness of all who have been harmed by the tragedy of clergy sexual abuse and pray that each day the Lord may guide us on the path toward healing and renewal.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston.com

By Dialynn Dwyer @dia_dwyer
Boston.com Staff | 03.01.16

Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley praised the media for its role in leading the church to acknowledge systemic sexual abuse by priests in a statement released Tuesday on the importance of the film Spotlight. The film, which won Best Picture at the Academy Awards on Sunday, chronicles the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation by reporters for The Boston Globe that ultimately exposed the abuse crisis within the Roman Catholic Church.

The archbishop of Boston didn’t mention the paper by name or reference the film’s awards in the statement posted to the Archdiocese website:

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

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PENNSYLVANIA
Centre Daily Times

BY LORI FALCE
lfalce@centredaily.com

Forty years of abuse was brought to light Tuesday as Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane gave a news conference to announce the results of “major investigation” of the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown.

Kane released the results of the 37th statewide investigating grand jury, a report that showed a pattern of not just abuse but the cover-up of actions by more than 50 priests and other religious leaders.

Among those was the Rev. Martin Cingle, a former priest at Our Lady of Victory in State College, the Rev. Robert Kelly, last posted to Philipsburg’s Sts. Peter and Paul Parish and others.

“Today is not the day that I stand up here and announce that charges have been filed against individuals who have committed the worst sins against children … Today is not the day that the victims get to go into a courtroom into a public courtroom and tell the story … Today is not that day. Today is the day of reckoning though,” Kane said.

“Today is the day the Office of the Attorney General steps in and tells the stories the victims of abuse cannot tell themselves,” she said. “Today is the day we tell exactly what happened in Pennsylvania.”

The released grand jury information detailed a long list of priests and others committing acts from fondling to oral sex to anal rape on boys and girls, as well as other behavior like providing alcohol.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WPSU

By MARY WILSON

A statewide grand jury has found that the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown concealed the sexual abuse of hundreds of children at the hands of priests and religious leaders for decades, giving known child molesters the chance to prey on additional victims.

In a presentment released by the state attorney general’s office Tuesday, the grand jury indicated two former bishops, the late James Hogan and retired bishop Joseph Adamec, as being “at the forefront” of a cover-up of abuse allegations. However, the grand jury says the crimes discovered cannot be prosecuted due to a combination of factors: the alleged abusers have died, the statute of limitations for the sexual abuse crimes has expired, and victims are unable to testify.

The grand jury is calling for state lawmakers to scrub the statute of limitations on child sex abuse offenses and to suspend the statute of limitations for civil sexual abuse claims.

The Altoona-Johnstown diocese did not immediately have a comment in response to the grand jury’s findings.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

Steve Esack
Call Harrisburg Bureau

Pennsylvania Catholic diocese covered up decades worth of child abuse, grand jury report finds.
Two bishops who ran a Catholic diocese in western Pennsylvania systematically covered up decades worth of child abuse committed by priests and other religious leaders they supervised, according to a grand jury report released Tuesday by the state attorney general’s office.

The statewide grand jury investigation, which started in 2014 with a referral from the Cambria County District Attorney’s office, discovered the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown kept a secret archive detailing hundreds of abuse claims against 50 priests and other religious leaders since the mid-1960s, the attorney general says.

The archive stretched from the mid-1960s to 2011 and included Bishop James Hogan’s notes on the abuse claims and letters and other documents sent to Bishop Joseph Adamec. Both bishops also intervened to stop law enforcement investigations over the years, the grand jury report found.

But no criminal charges can be filed against anyone, Attorney General Kathleen Kane said at a news conference, because the statute of limitations has run out, abusers have died and victims are fearful of testifying in open court.

The grand jury report, Kane said, recommends the state Legislature lift the statute of limitations on when child abuse claims can be filed.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PA Homepage

ALTOONA, BLAIR COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU) PA Attorney General Kathleen Kane is revealing details on a case she says goes back forty years involving priests sexually abusing children, and the church covering it up…

Kane called this a day of reckoning.

She says more than 50 priests in the diocese of Altoona-Johnstown committed what she calls horrendous acts on hundreds of children.

Kane also says the diocese leadership failed to protect children.

Officials allege bishops tried to cover up the sexual assaults that happened in camp sites, foster homes, orphanages even a cathedral.

We are following this story and will have much more on upcoming editions of Eyewitness News.

Attorney General Kane: Press Release- NOTE: Graphic Content

ALTOONA — A statewide investigating grand jury has determined 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 G. Kane’s office announced today.

The widespread abuse involved at least 50 priests or religious leaders. Evidence and testimony reviewed by the grand jury also revealed a troubling history of superiors within the Diocese taking action to conceal the child abuse as part of an effort to protect the institution’s image. The grand jury, in a 147-page report made public today, stressed this conduct endangered thousands of children and allowed proven child predators to abuse additional victims.

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

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
PennLive

By Christian Alexandersen | calexandersen@pennlive.com

ALTOONA — A two-year grand jury investigation has revealed the depths reached by leaders in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown to cover up the rape and sexual abuse of hundreds of children.

Pa. Attorney General Kathleen Kane announced the findings of the grand jury investigation Tuesday in Altoona. The investigation found that dozens priests and religious leaders with the diocese sexually abused or raped hundreds of children.

The results of a state grand jury investigation released Tuesday found that hundreds of children were sexually abused and raped by diocese priests and religious leaders over the past 40 years.

While PennLive digs deeper into the 147-page grand jury report, here are some highlights:

* More than 50 priests and religious leaders within the diocese were involved in the rapes and sexual assaults.
* The earliest abuse case took place 40 years ago.
* The bishop kept a “secret archive” of files on abuse incidents.
* Diocese officials used their power and influence to keep incidents of abuse from being investigated.
* Diocese officials claim to have used their power to handpick public officials — including mayors and police chiefs.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

By Kathy McCabe GLOBE STAFF MARCH 01, 2016

Boston Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley praised the Academy Award-winning film “Spotlight” for showing the critical role investigative journalism played in exposing the clergy sex abuse crisis that shook the Roman Catholic church to its core.

“Spotlight is an important film for all impacted by the tragedy of clergy sexual abuse,” O’Malley said in a statement released Tuesday, two days after the movie about The Boston Globe’s groundbreaking coverage of the clergy sex abuse crisis won the Oscar for Best Picture. “By providing in-depth reporting on the history of the clergy sexual abuse crisis, the media led the Church to acknowledge the crimes and sins of its personnel and to begin to address its failings, the harm done to victims and their families and the needs of survivors.”

O’Malley did not mention the Globe in his statement, nor did he acknowledge the film winning the top prize at Sunday’s Oscar ceremony in Hollywood.

He added, “In a democracy such as ours, journalism is essential to our way of life. The media’s role in revealing the sexual abuse crisis opened a door through which the Church has walked in responding to the needs of survivors.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
WNEP

MARCH 1, 2016, BY DAVE BOHMAN

ALTOONA — A grand jury investigation found that hundreds of children were abused by priests in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnston, Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane said Tuesday.

Some of the alleged abuse took place in parishes in Clinton and Centre Counties, the report from the attorney general said.

Thousands of pages of documents and hand-written reports were seized from the diocese during the investigation.

Kane is urging lawmakers to suspend the statute of limitations in order to prosecute some of the alleged crimes.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Review

BY BRAD BUMSTED AND DEBRA ERDLEY | Tuesday, March 1, 2016

ALTOONA – Hundreds of children were sexually abused over four decades by at least 50 priests or religious leaders of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, according to a statewide investigative grand jury report released Tuesday morning.

Clergy leaders allowed the abuse to continue by concealing it to protect the institution’s image, the grand jury alleged.

But none of the priests or supervisors were charged by the attorney general’s office, which supervised the two-year investigation. They could not be prosecuted because the statute of limitations for the crimes expired, some of the priests died and some victims are too “deeply traumatized” to testify, the attorney general’s office said.

“As wolves disguised as the shepherds themselves – these men stole the innocence of children by sexually preying upon the most innocent and vulnerable members of our society and of the Catholic faith,” the grand jury report said.

Decrying “a cover up perpetrated by clergy leaders” Attorney General Kathleen Kane said the investigation is ongoing. “This is by no means the end of our investigation. We will continue to look at this matter and consider charges where appropriate, which is why it is important for those with information to come forward.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Christian Alexandersen | calexandersen@pennlive.com

Allegations of rape, abuse and coverups have trickled out of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown for decades.

On Tuesday, state Attorney General Kathleen Kane announced that a statewide investigating grand jury has determined that hundreds of children were sexually abused over a period of 40 years. At least 50 priests or religious leaders had been involved in sexual abuses, she said.

Evidence and testimony gathered by the grand jury revealed a history of diocese superiors taking action to conceal the child abuse as part of an effort to protect the institution’s image.

Bishop-Accountability.org collects news reports of priests and religious leaders that have been suspended from duty, named in a lawsuit or investigated on allegations of sexual abuse.

The nonprofit organization has a list of dozens of priests and religious leaders in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown that have been named in media reports as being accused of sexually abusing children.

Here are 28 priests named on the website against whom claims or successful lawsuits were filed, according to media reports. The inclusion of the priests in the list below does not necessarily mean they were found guilty of criminal charges.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Metro

After a two year investigation, attorney general Kathleen Kane announced that she discovered caes of hundreds of young victims being abused by priests in the Altoona-Johsntown diocese — but cannot bring criminal charges against any of the alleged predators.

The conduct by priests that Kane’s office discovered was “monstrous,” she said at a Tuesday morning press conference, where Kane announced at a press conference that her office discovered church leadership labored to protect abusive priests from consequences for their actions for years.

Allegations range from anal rape of teenage boys inside the rectory at St. Agnes Church in Lock Haven to a 16-year-old girl in foster care being sexually abused by a priest — and then being blamed for seducing the priest.

“Hundreds of children have fallen victim to child predators wrapped in the authority and the faith of those that they served,” Kane said Tuesday. “This abuse lasted for four decades. Not only was it covered up, priests were moved around … to avoid further scandal.”

None of the allegations will lead to criminal charges, Kane said.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Christian Alexandersen | calexandersen@pennlive.com

The legacy of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown now will include countless stories of child sexual abuse, broken trust and millions of dollars paid for the sins of religious leaders.

The results of a state grand jury investigation released Tuesday found that hundreds of children were sexually abused and raped by diocese priests and religious leaders over the past 40 years. The widespread acts of abuse were perpetrated by more than 50 priests and religious leaders.

“The heinous crimes these children endured are absolutely unconscionable,” said Pa. Attorney General Kathleen Kane on Tuesday in Blair County.

“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
Fox 43

MARCH 1, 2016, BY VALERIE WALTZ

ALTOONA, Pa. — A statewide investigating grand jury has determined 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 G. Kane’s office announced today.

The widespread abuse involved at least 50 priests or religious leaders. Evidence and testimony reviewed by the grand jury also revealed a troubling history of superiors within the Diocese taking action to conceal the child abuse as part of an effort to protect the institution’s image. The grand jury, in a 147-page report made public today, stressed this conduct endangered thousands of children and allowed proven child predators to abuse additional victims.

“The heinous crimes these children endured are absolutely unconscionable,” said Kane, who addressed the media this morning at a news conference at the Blair County Convention Center.
“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
NBC 10

By Joe Mandak

Two Roman Catholic bishops who led 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, according to a grand jury report issued Tuesday.

The 147-page report on sexual abuse in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese was based partly on evidence from a secret diocesan archive uncovered through a search warrant executed in August, said Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane, who announced the findings.

“These predators desecrated a sacred trust and preyed upon their victims in the very places where they should have felt most safe,” Kane said in a statement. “Just as troubling is the cover-up perpetrated by clergy leaders that allowed this abuse to continue for decades.”

No criminal charges are being filed in the case because some abusers have died, the statute of limitations has expired and, in some cases, victims are too traumatized to testify, she said.

The report is especially critical of Bishops James Hogan and Joseph Adamec. Hogan, who headed the diocese from 1966 to 1986, died in 2005. Adamec, who succeeded him, retired in 2011.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Attorney General Kathleen G. Kane

3/1/2016

Editor’s note : The following news release contains graphic content related to the sexual abuse of children.

ALTOONA — A statewide investigating grand jury has determined 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 G. Kane’s office announced today.

The widespread abuse involved at least 50 priests or religious leaders. Evidence and testimony reviewed by the grand jury also revealed a troubling history of superiors within the Diocese taking action to conceal the child abuse as part of an effort to protect the institution’s image. The grand jury, in a 147-page report made public today, stressed this conduct endangered thousands of children and allowed proven child predators to abuse additional victims.

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

“Just as troubling is the cover-up perpetrated by clergy leaders that allowed this abuse to continue for decades,” Kane added. “They failed in our society’s most important task of protecting our children.”

The grand jury’s findings followed two years of exhaustive investigation by the Office of Attorney General, which brought this matter to the grand jury in April 2014. While Attorney General Kane stressed the investigation is ongoing, none of the criminal acts detailed in the grand jury report can be prosecuted. This is due to the deaths of alleged abusers, deeply traumatized victims being unable to testify in a court of law and the statute of limitations for the crimes being exhausted.

As a result, the grand jury in its report made a series of recommendations, 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.

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PENNSYLVANIA
ABC News

By JOE MANDAK, ASSOCIATED PRESS
ALTOONA, Pa. — Mar 1, 2016

Two Roman Catholic bishops who led 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, according to a grand jury report issued Tuesday.

The 147-page report on sexual abuse in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese was based partly on evidence from a secret diocesan archive uncovered through a search warrant executed in August, said Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane, who announced the findings.

“These predators desecrated a sacred trust and preyed upon their victims in the very places where they should have felt most safe,” Kane said in a statement. “Just as troubling is the cover-up perpetrated by clergy leaders that allowed this abuse to continue for decades.”

No criminal charges are being filed in the case because some abusers have died, the statute of limitations has expired and, in some cases, victims are too traumatized to testify, she said.

The report is especially critical of Bishops James Hogan and Joseph Adamec. Hogan, who headed the diocese from 1966 to 1986, died in 2005. Adamec, who succeeded him, retired in 2011.

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ROME
Herald Sun

March 1, 2016

Andrew Bolt
Herald Sun

CARDINAL George Pell ­on Tuesday uttered words that will stain his reputation forever.

Referring to notorious paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale, Pell fatefully declared: “It’s a sad story and it wasn’t of much interest to me.”

Here is the question now for the royal commission into sex abuse of children: is the Vatican’s third-most powerful leader a liar when he says he never knew what Ridsdale, his colleague, was doing in Ballarat?

Or was he just dangerously indifferent to his responsibilities and to the warning signs that children were being raped?

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AUSTRALIA/ROME
The Australian

MARCH 1, 2016

Michael Bodey
Film editor/media journalist
Sydney

Columnist and broadcaster Andrew Bolt has secured an exclusive interview with Cardinal George Pell at the conclusion of his evidence to the Royal Commission into child abuse.

The columnist for News Corp Australia newspapers is in Rome covering the Cardinal’s evidence as a special contributor for the Sky News channel.

Bolt has secured a one-hour interview with the Cardinal to be broadcast live-to-air to Australia on Thursday morning, directly after his final day giving evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The Catholic Church is understood to have agreed to the interview with Bolt, who has defended the Cardinal in his writings, even deriding his own paper, the Herald Sun’s exclusive reporting of Victoria Police investigations into the Cardinal.

But Bolt turned after the second day of evidence from Rome, when the Cardinal denied having knowledge of the activities of notorious paedophile priest Father Gerard Ridsdale and dismissing it as a “sad story” that “wasn’t of much interest to me”.

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ROME
Daily Mail

By LUCY THACKRAY FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA and AAP

Sky News is being slammed for sending controversial commentator Andrew Bolt to report on the royal commission into sex abuse in Rome, as Bolt has previously referred to Cardinal George Pell as ‘the victim of a witch hunt.’

Social media users have voiced their shock after seeing the columnist reporting from Rome, where Cardinal George Pell is appearing before the Royal Commission into Insitutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Pell is being questioned about his knowledge of the abuse of children by members of the Roman Catholic church in Australia in the 1970s and 1980s.

Assuming the role of ‘Sky News contributor’, Bolt has spent much of his time on air defending Pell and speaking about ‘the enormous hate campaign’ against the cardinal.

Last month Bolt wrote a column for News Corp proclaiming: ‘Cardinal George Pell is the victim of one of the most vicious witch hunts to disgrace this country. It is shameful. Disgusting. Frightening.’

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

TESS LIVINGSTONETHE AUSTRALIAN
MARCH 2, 2016

Former NSW premier Kristina Keneally and child abuse victim David Ridsdale say George Pell threw his former boss, retired Ballarat bishop Ronald Mulkearns, under a bus in evidence yesterday.

If only someone could have done the same thing 40 years ago — preferably reporting Mulkearns to the papal nuncio (ambassador) in Canberra — dozens of innocent people’s lives would not have been wrecked by Gerald Ridsdale and other criminal priests who were answerable to Mulkearns.

The former bishop’s leadership, as Pell said yesterday, was a “gigantic’’ failure: “I would have to say that I can’t nominate another bishop whose actions are so grave and inexplicable. There might be some, but they don’t come to mind. His repeated refusal to act is absolutely extraordinary.’’

Pell did not emulate that pattern: when he became archbishop of Melbourne in 1996, he did not hesitate to suspend errant priests when warranted.

Yesterday, Pell agreed with commissioner Peter McClellan that those who had known of Ridsdale’s “dreadful story’’ but did nothing were culpable. Pell, however, insisted he was not privy to what the bishop knew and at the time had not heard rumours about Ridsdale.

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WISCONSIN
WHBY

In the 4:00 hour of the show today I am going to talk about something some might find controversial, but that’s exactly why I want people to hear the story.

I’ve eluded to it on the air in the past, but after the movie “Spotlight” won best picture at the Oscars it got me thinking about a couple of things.

1) I need to go see that movie now
2) I have a connection to that movie whether I want it or not. And now, I think I have an obligation to talk about it as well.

Just seeing his picture brings back a lot of memories, shoved somewhere deep in the back of my brain.

But events like learning about this movie remind me that those memories will always be there somewhere, as is the anger.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on the sexual abuse of minors:

Most Americans are truly outraged over the sexual abuse of minors, but there are many who feign anger. Take Mark Ruffalo, star of “Spotlight”: he held a protest outside a Cathedral—almost no one showed up—before the Oscars. Upon receiving his award, the movie’s screenwriter, Josh Singer, took the occasion to lecture Pope Francis. He’s a little late: most of the homosexual abuse in the Church took place between 1965 and 1985. If these people were sincere, they would focus on all abusers, not just priests. For example, the following recent cases elicited no protests.

* In January, a Saint Paul, Minnesota man was sentenced to 270 days in jail for molesting two girls under the age of 15
* In January, a Schenectady, New York man who had previously raped a disabled woman was sentenced to six months in jail for abusing two girls: one was 7 and the other was 9
* In January, a rabbi from East Brunswick, New Jersey was convicted of indecent assault of a child under the age of 13; he was sentenced to 11-23 months

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: A native of Lyons, France, Baud was ordained in 1932 for the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in California. He spent the better part of three decades stationed in Nulato AK at St. Peter Claver’s Mission, later renamed Our Lady of the Snows. He was a teacher, artist and musician, and is said to have had “a special concern” for children and youth. In 1962, when the Diocese of Fairbanks was established, Baud was moved to Copper Valley School in Glenallen AK. He later served briefly in St. Mary’s, then as a hospital chaplain in Kodiak and Ketchikan, in the Archdiocese of Anchorage and the Diocese of Juneau. He died in 1968. Baud’s name is included on the Fairbanks diocese’s list of “admitted, proven or credibly accused perpetrators of sexual abuse.” He is noted in February 2016 to have had one complaint against him.

Born: August 11, 1897
Ordained: June 20, 1932
Died: December 6, 1968

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Whistleblowers

Catholic Whistleblowers Steering Committee – 862-368-2800

Catholic Whistleblowers, a national organization of lay men and women, religious sisters, priests, former religious brothers, and former priests which advocates for and supports victim/survivors of sexual abuse by clergy and other religious persons, was thrilled with the Academy of Motion Pictures’ selection of the movie “Spotlight” as Best Picture of 2016. We extend our congratulations to the producers, directors, cast, and crew of the movie for their excellent depiction of the clergy sexual abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston.

We also wish to thank the members of the Boston Globe “Spotlight” team and Boston Globe editor Marty Baron for their pursuit of the facts and evidence of sexual abuse of children in the Archdiocese of Boston and the cover-up by Boston Archdiocesan leaders that eventually led to the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law. As actor Stanley Tucci, who portrays Attorney Mitchell Garabedian in the movie, said so well, “It takes a village to abuse a child,” and Catholic Whistleblowers concurs wholeheartedly.

We, Catholic Whistleblowers, are particularly grateful to and affirming of the courageous victim/survivors who were part of the film and all victim/survivors. We are heartbroken that Patrick Mc Sorley, one of the early heroes of the Archdiocese of Boston scandal, and who is portrayed in the movie, is no longer with us to share in the fruits of his and many others’ labors. Fortunately, Phil Saviano is still with us and we celebrate with Phil his quarter-century of determined, relentless advocacy on behalf of all victim/survivors and principal role in the production of “Spotlight.” To victim survivors Joe Crowley, Jim Scanlan, and all other victim/survivors who were characterized or referenced in the movie – thank you for your contribution.

“Spotlight” dramatizes so beautifully for Catholics and the general public the deleterious effects of sexual abuse in a family, organization, church, institution, and society. It also demonstrates what happens when a family, organization, church, institution, or society covers up that sexual abuse. Nothing good comes from sexual abuse and its cover-up. Catholic Whistleblowers recommends openness, honesty, transparency, and just resolution in all cases of childhood sexual abuse.

Finally, Catholic Whistleblowers extends an open invitation to the members of the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church; in particular, Pope Francis, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston and head of the Papal Commission on Child and Youth Protection, and especially members of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, to dialogue with us regarding the scandal of childhood sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church so that, together, we may put an end to childhood sexual abuse, help heal victim/survivors, and restore all to life in Jesus Christ.

Signed by some members of the Catholic Whistleblowers Steering Committee:

Rev. James E. Connell, J.C.D., Milwaukee, WI
Rev. Ronald D. Lemmert, Peekskill, NY
Rev. Patrick W. Collins, Ph.D., Douglas, MI
Mrs. Helen Rainforth, Lincoln, IL
Sr. Sally Butler, OP, Brooklyn, NY
Sr. Claire Smith, OSU, Bronx, NY
Sr. Maureen Paul Turlish, SNDdeN, New Castle, DE
Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., West Orange, NJ
Rev. Bruce Teague, Sheffield, MA
Rev. Thomas P. Doyle, OP, J.C.D., Vienna, VA
Msgr. Kenneth E. Lasch, J.C.D., Pompton Plains, NJ

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ISRAEL
Haaretz

Recent cases of rabbinical and other leaders’ physical and mental exploitation of female believers sparked legislation initiated by Meretz MK.

Sharon Pulwer Mar 01, 2016

Israeli lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are moving forward with legislation that would outlaw sex between a religious or spiritual leader and one of his believers, comparing that situation to sexual relations between a therapist and a client, which is a criminal offense.

The Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee will soon discuss the bill, which was initiated by MK Michal Rozin (Meretz) and passed its preliminary reading in January. Legislators from Habayit Hayehudi, Kulanu, Yesh Atid, the Joint Arab List and Zionist Union all support the legislation, part of a broader effort to address the phenomenon of cults and the role of rabbinic leaders in the country.

According to the proposal, sexual relations would be deemed a criminal offense if they take place as part of a relationship in which “ongoing advice or guidance is passed on through face-to-face meetings,” and if the sex acts are carried out “during or right after a period in which guidance or advice is given, exploiting palpable emotional dependence that results from the advice or guidance.”

The legislative effort derives, among other things, from Israel Police and state prosecution efforts to indict cult leader Goel Ratzon, who lived in Tel Aviv and had multiple wives and dozens of children, for sexual offenses and enslavement. It took years of unsuccessful investigations before he was finally arrested, in 2010, and charged.

For its part, the state tried to create a legal precedent that determined that Ratzon held his wives in what was called “spiritual slavery.” The prosecution argued that he emotionally controlled 21 adult women with whom he had sex, taking away their freedom of choice and making them enslaved to him. The Tel Aviv District Court convicted Ratzon on rape and sexual offenses counts, but acquitted him of the enslavement charges, rejecting the prosecution’s broader interpretation of the offense.

Prosecutors have tried to equate such relations to sexual ties between psychologists or psychiatrists and their clients, as in the case involving Ofakim resident Shimon Amar. Amar was indicted last October for having sex with women and girls during personal consultations while posing as a rabbi.

Other cases, such as that of Rabbi Ezra Sheinberg, head of the Orot Ha’ari yeshiva in Safed, involve rape resulting from fraudulent behavior – i.e., a situation in which the perpetrator uses deceit to obtain consensual sex. Sheinberg was charged last July for having sex with 12 women after “exploiting the fact that he is considered to be a righteous person with special powers, that they had unconditional faith in him, and that they saw what he said to be the words of a living god.”

“We’re talking about emotional dependence just like that existing between a therapist and a client,” says MK Rozin. “It’s the legislator’s place to determine that sexual relations through such dependence cannot be legal and needs to be outlawed as a crime.”

Attorney Liat Klein, legal adviser of the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, which was a partner in formulating the bill, asserts that the number of instances in which such relations occurs is significant.

“Rabbis and people with spiritual powers create great dependence among those who turn to them, mostly at times of distress and crisis,” Klein explains. “It is extremely difficult for people to report such incidents, so it is important to encourage such complaints so that those same religious leaders who exploit their authority to hurt their believers will be punished and justice will be served.”

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UNITED STATES
The Guardian

Alicia Shepard

Most people don’t know a journalist. They only know journalists are rated at the bottom of trust polls along with used car salesmen. They only hear presidential candidates trashing reporters daily from the stump.

Spotlight, which just won the Oscar for best picture, allows viewers to peek behind the byline, authentically portraying the tediousness of strong investigative reporting, the fierce determination of reporters, the bravery of top editors and how persistence can bring about real change – as long as management has your back.

That’s why it’s a great thing for journalism that Spotlight won the Oscar for best picture. Highlighting the Boston Globe’s 2002 expose of the Catholic Church’s systemic cover up of priest molestation, Spotlight is this generation’s version of the 1976 movie All the President’s Men.

The win should do wonders for the news business, the public’s understanding of journalism and those of us who believe passionately in journalism’s mission to ultimately inform and do good.

“Mom, I feel like I finally get what you and Dad do now that I’ve seen Spotlight,” said my son, the offspring of two journalists. I’m not alone. Globe Spotlight reporter Sacha Pfeiffer told CNN, “Family members have said to some of us, ‘Oh, now I understand what you do.’”

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish News

Brendan Hughes
01 March, 2016

THE PSNI is making inquiries about video footage of a Catholic priest apparently snorting cocaine in a room with Nazi memorabilia at his Co Down parochial house.

Fr Stephen Crossan can be seen sniffing a white substance through a bank note during a night of drinking at the house beside St Patrick’s Church, Banbridge.

The 37-year-old places a cigarette in an ashtray and seems to say “I shouldn’t” before snorting the powder off a plate, The Sun on Sunday reported.

In a statement yesterday, Bishop of Dromore John McAreavey said Fr Crossan has taken an “extended leave of absence”.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Magazine

Kristen Lombardi of the Phoenix connected the dots in 2001. The Globe’s Spotlight Team debuted their series in 2002. Where’s the confusion?

By Kyle Clauss | Boston Daily | October 30, 2015

People forgo plenty of things in order to become journalists, chief among them sleep and independence from caffeine. What journos do fuss over, and with great fervor, is credit for their work. With the release of Spotlight, the star-studded early Oscar favorite chronicling the Boston Globe‘s award-winning investigation into sex abuse and subsequent coverups inside the Catholic Church, a 13-year-old debate over who deserves credit for breaking the story first has arisen again.

Kristen Lombardi, a BU alum, arrived at the Boston Phoenix in 2000 as a news and features reporter, following stints at the Brookline and Newton Tabs and the Phoenix’s sister publication in Worcester. In January 2001, Cardinal Bernard Law, the Archbishop of Boston, was named a defendant in a number of ongoing, under-the-radar cases involving pedophile priests, including one involving Father John Geoghan. Figuring the judge’s decision likely meant the victims had enough evidence to prove that knowledge of Geoghan’s abuse had stretched far enough up the Church hierarchy to implicate Cardinal Law, Phoenix editor Susan Ryan-Vollmar told Lombardi to start digging.

“[My editors] were convinced that the Globe or the Herald would do something with that,” Lombardi says. “But they didn’t. I did.”

She pored through court documents and spoke with victims, receiving ample pushback from the Church along the way. She looked at other sexual abuse cases involving Catholic priests across the country, and developed relationships with attorneys who specialized in such cases. Her first-ever investigative piece for the Phoenix, “Cardinal Sin,” ran in March 2001. The findings were damning, and the lede, a punch to the gut:

ASK MARK KEANE who orally raped him when he was a teenage boy, and he’ll answer: Father John Geoghan. Ask him who should bear the cross for this heinous act, and he’ll answer: Cardinal Bernard Law.

Law, Keane believes, had direct knowledge that Geoghan, who worked in the Archdiocese of Boston from 1962 to 1993, was molesting children. And Law, Keane alleges, didn’t just let the priest keep working; he allowed Geoghan to stay at parishes where he enjoyed daily contact with children — one of whom was Keane.

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CHICAGO (IL)
DNAinfo

By Joe Ward | March 1, 2016

CHICAGO — With its Oscar win Sunday, “Spotlight” not only honored the Boston Globe reporters who uncovered the sex abuse scandal plaguing the Catholic Church but it also shined a light on a Chicago-based group that has been fighting for victims of priest abuse for decades.

The film shows how SNAP (Survivors Network of Those Abused By Priests) helped Globe reporters find victims and track down pedophile priests in Boston. While that was happening, SNAP leader Barbara Blaine was in Chicago trying to make it very clear that this issue went much further than Boston’s Irish Catholic enclave.

“This movie is vindication,” Blaine said Monday. “It says what we’ve been wanting to say for a long time.”

Before the film won Best Picture, “Spotlight” actor Mark Ruffalo joined the film’s writers and director to attend Blaine’s rally in Los Angeles. Their message? The film was a victory, but there must be more accountability in the Catholic Church’s handling of its sex abuse scandal.

Blaine, a River North resident, said her group is working to capitalize on the buzz surrounding “Spotlight,” which shows how reporters exposed pedophile priests who had abused hundreds of children in Boston.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane will hold a press conference at the Blair County Convention Center on Tuesday.

Her office would not confirm the subject matter.

However, it is believed the department has been conducting a grand jury investigation into alleged cases of child molestation in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona–Johnstown.

Reports about the grand jury being convened surfaced shortly after molestation accusations were made against Brother Stephen Baker, a former athletic trainer at what was then called Bishop McCort High School.

“There is a Pennsylvania grand jury that has been hearing testimony,” said Richard Serbin, an Altoona lawyer who has represented some of Baker’s reported victims. “Of course, that testimony is not public.”

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MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio

Martin Moylan Feb 29, 2016

Employees of the bankrupt Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis are getting a new home on St. Paul’s East Side.

The staffers will be moving to 777 Forest Street, once the corporate headquarters of 3M. The archdiocese will lease space in the building, and it hopes to be moved in by early fall. Terms of the deal were not available.

The lease will be subject to approval by the federal judge overseeing the church’s bankruptcy reorganization. Most of the 120 employees of the archdiocese are now at the Hayden Center, not far from the St. Paul Cathedral. The Hayden Center is being sold to the Minnesota Historical Society for $4.5 million.

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MISSOURI
Raw Story

ARTURO GARCIA
01 MAR 2016

Samantha Bee put her money where her Thin Mints were on Monday as she offered support to the Girl Scouts of Eastern Missouri against St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson.

“You have underestimated our love of girl power — and our love of cookies,” Bee said to Carlson before revealing that the program bought a “sh*t-ton” of Girl Scout cookies to give to her audience. She also directed viewers to her website, which is encouraging them to “ruin an awful archbishop’s day” by either buying cookies or donating to the Girl Scouts directly.

Carlson drew Bee’s ire after he contacted local parishes and urged them to cut ties with the Scouts, saying they were “becoming increasingly incompatible with our Catholic values.”

Among the behaviors troubling Carlson, Bee noted, was the fact that the Scouts were working with Amnesty International.

“I guess trying to stop the beheading of political prisoners doesn’t count as ‘pro-life’ enough for him,” she quipped.

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UNITED STATES
Reveal: The Center for Investigative Reporting

By Trey Bundy / February 29, 2016

Jehovah’s Witnesses leaders are fighting on multiple fronts to hide what they know about child sexual abusers in their religion.

Facing more than a dozen civil lawsuits in the United States and a government investigation in the United Kingdom, the Witnesses are continuing to withhold court-ordered documents from authorities. In England this month, the religious organization went to court for a fourth time attempting to block investigators from looking at their child abuse records.

It’s been just over a year since Reveal began publishing and broadcasting stories about Jehovah’s Witnesses covering up child sexual abuse. Since our first story aired, hundreds of Witnesses and ex-Witnesses have contacted us, mostly to share their stories.

We’re continuing to report on the issue, but in the meantime, here’s a quick rundown of nine major findings so far:

1. For more than 25 years, the global leadership of the Jehovah’s Witnesses has instructed elders to keep cases of child sexual abuse secret from law enforcement and members of their own congregations.

2. The Witnesses’ parent corporation, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, issued the directives in a series of confidential memos dating back to 1989. The child abuse memos were approved by the Watchtower’s governing body, a group of men who are the spiritual leaders of the religion, like the Pope in the Catholic Church.

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UNITED STATES
Deseret News

Compiled by Kelsey Dallas, Deseret News

“Spotlight” took home the top prize at Sunday’s Oscar ceremony, earning “Best Picture” honors for its depiction of The Boston Globe reporting team who exposed years of clergy sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

Catholic leaders joined journalists, moviegoers and advocates for sexual abuse victims in celebrating the win, sharing their gratitude for the reporters whose work resulted in a global call for the church to address the problem.

“The priestly abuse of children (and) cover up by bishops is one of the most heinous scandals in history. Thank God journalists discovered it,” tweeted Christopher Hale, executive director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good.

Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, who is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and leads the Diocese of Louisville, retweeted his November reflection on “Spotlight” in the wake of the Oscar win.

“We can only be healthy as a Church and as a society if we honestly confront the sexual abuse of children and rebuild relationships one at a time,” he wrote on his blog around the time of the film’s release.

“Spotlight” has had a similar impact on the Catholic community as the original reporting, leading sexual abuse survivors to step forward, talk about their experiences and, in some cases, join lawsuits against church leaders, The Boston Globe reported after Sunday’s ceremony.

“I’m happy and I’m proud of the filmmakers and the actors,” David O’Regan, the Boston-Worcester director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, told the Globe.

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UNITED STATES
San Francisco Chronicle

Editorial

If Rome won’t, maybe Hollywood will. That would be getting the Catholic Church moving on clerical sex abuse, a scandal more than a decade old that’s drawing pledges to reform but pathetically thin results.

The movie “Spotlight,” which depicts the Boston Globe’s disclosures of pedophile priests and an archdiocese that hid the problem, should galvanize a global public that is impatient with Vatican foot-dragging. Determined digging by the paper overcame an evasive and insulated church that masked the scandal of dozens of clerics who preyed on children. The movie underscores the timely and focused worth of serious journalism up against a powerful interest.

An Oscar should come in handy for another reason. The church is essentially rolling with the punch of this scandal. It’s hearing out critics and abuse victims and paying out enormous settlements in some cases. But Rome has stopped short of adopting the sweeping household rules that will prevent a recurrence and put church higher-ups on notice that they are responsible.

The infuriating stories spread far beyond Boston with church leaders in Los Angeles and Minneapolis shown as cover-up organizers. The church has been all too forgiving of itself. Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law was kicked upstairs to a sinecure in Rome and never faced criminal charges or defrocking for his negligence.

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ROME
news.com.au

[with video]

MARCH 1, 2016

CARDINAL George Pell has formally declined an appeal to make available church funds in restitution to victims of Catholic Church abuse, conceding he had no sway in the Vatican.

Despite being the effective treasurer of the Holy See the cardinal said there was nothing available for Melbourne Response — a program he set up himself in 1996 when he was the archbishop of Melbourne.

Anthony Foster, the father of two girls sexual abused by the clergy who had travelled to Rome for answers, said after his impromptu meeting with Cardinal Pell it was clear he had washed his hands of the program.

The father of Emma and Katie, abused by Father Kevin O’Donnell in the 1980s, said the Cardinal had previously told him in a meeting in Sydney he could lift funds available to victims to somewhere near to $100 million.

Mr Foster had just finished a TV interview when he inadvertently bumped into the cardinal sometime after the second day of his testimony to the child abuse royal commission hearing.

“I offered my hand to him which he shook, it was pretty tough,” said an emotional Mr Foster who added he had been in contact with the cardinal over many years and always had a cordial association.

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ROME
ABC News

A man whose two daughters were raped by a priest has confronted George Pell, telling him “I am a broken man” after the Cardinal’s second day of testimony via video link to the child abuse royal commission.

Cardinal Pell faced the commission from a Rome hotel, drawing gasps from survivors as he declared the crimes of notorious paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale were a “sad story” but “not of much interest” to him at the time.

Anthony Foster’s daughters Emma and Katie were raped by Melbourne priest Father Kevin O’Donnell when they were in primary school in the 1980s.

Mr Foster confronted Cardinal Pell outside the hearing at the Hotel Quirinale, saying he had given up hope the Cardinal would fix the church’s so-called Melbourne Response to the abuse scandal.

“He held my hand for the whole duration of the chat that we had and I expressed to him that he was holding the hand of a broken man, and he put his other hand on me and tried to I suppose connect in some way, but I didn’t feel it,” Mr Foster said.

“Quest over. It was the smooth Cardinal Pell, not the Cardinal Pell we saw on the stand.”

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Advertiser

A victim who was raped daily while living with notorious paedophile Gerald Ridsdale at a presbytery in Mortlake says he finds it unfathomable that Cardinal George Pell didn’t know he was being sexually abused.

Paul Levey was sent to live with Ridsdale in the Mortlake presbytery after his parents separated when he was 14 in 1982.

In a harrowing statement presented to the hearing Mr Levey said he was “sexually abused all the time just about every day”.

“I had my own bedroom at the presbytery but that was just a front. I always slept in Ridsdale’s room where there were two beds. No-one else lived in the presbytery,” it read.

Australia’s most senior Catholic accepted no responsibility for Ridsdale’s offending telling the inquiry he had no knowledge of his crimes.

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ROME
The Guardian

David Marr

Tuesday 1 March 2016

Here’s my theory. George Pell returned to Ballarat as a young priest with big plans. And why not? He’d gone from Rome to Oxford, where he reckons he was the first Catholic priest to earn a doctorate of philosophy since the Reformation.

Big things were expected of him back in Australia. He expected big things of himself. But for the next 25 years he found himself serving bishops whose record of handling paedophile priests was (in Ballarat) appalling and (in Melbourne) seriously flawed.

Pell is seeing out his career as cardinal in charge of the Vatican’s finances. But what would have happened to his mighty career if early on he had crossed those bishops?

Had young Pell made it his business to find why the paedophile Father Gerald Ridsdale was being shifted from parish to parish in the 1970s – in later years by a committee on which he himself sat – he might well be living the twilight years of his career not in Rome but the seaside parish of Warrnambool.

From Pell’s evidence on the second day of his Roman cross-examination there emerged a picture of an ambitious and capable young priest who decided, early on, to steer clear of this dangerous issue.

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UNITED STATES
Crux

By Sarah Kaplan
The Washington Post February 29, 2016

“I’m not here to defend the indefensible,” Cardinal George Pell told an Australian courtroom Sunday.

What he did was attempt to explain: how one of the most notorious pedophilia rings in the country could have taken place on his watch, how he could have heard about priests who engaged in “misbehavior” — kissing boys, swimming naked with students — and not reported it, how thousands of children were raped and molested by priests in Australia and elsewhere while the Church did nothing.

“The Church has made enormous mistakes and is working to remedy those,” he said via video conference from Rome. “But the Church in many places, certainly Australia, has mucked things up . . . has let people down.”

The investigation into the widespread sexual abuse of children in the city of Ballarat, where Pell was a priest, has brought allegations of exploitation and cover-up extraordinarily far up the Catholic Church’s chain of command; Pell is the Church’s secretary for the economy, a position described as the second most powerful in Rome, and he spoke from a hotel that was just blocks from the Vatican.

The hearings before Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse also come at a time when the Catholic Church’s handling of child abuse is more generally under scrutiny. The film “Spotlight,” which depicts the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation into serially abusive priests, won the Oscar for best picture just hours after Pell concluded his testimony.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

By David Filipov GLOBE STAFF FEBRUARY 29, 2016

The phones of clergy sex abuse survivors and their advocates were lighting up Monday, a day after “Spotlight,” the movie that tells their story, was awarded Oscars for best picture and best original screenplay. Most of the calls expressed a renewed sense of validation among those who first spoke up against a sweeping conspiracy in the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy.

But some of the calls reflected the reality that many victims have yet to tell their stories, their secrets still cloaked in guilt and shame that never should have been theirs.

“Very early this morning a person called me who is a survivor who had not come forward previously,” said Mitchell Garabedian, the Boston attorney who represented many of the victims in the scandal and is one of the heroes of the film, played by Stanley Tucci. “Because of ‘Spotlight,’ that survivor has regained lost dignity that was stolen by clergy sexual abuse.”

Garabedian, his voice still hoarse from cheering while watching the Academy Awards, said he still has 500 clergy sex abuse cases in which he has either filed a lawsuit or sought claims on behalf of his clients. Because of “Spotlight,” Garabedian said, he has been contacted by survivors from “Cambodia, Turkey, Australia, many, many countries.”

His hope, he said, is that the attention provided by the movie, which documents The Boston Globe’s investigation starting in 2001 into the abuse and the coverup by church officials, will empower other survivors to come forward.

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

March 1, 2016

Beau Donelly, Jane Lee

As Cardinal Pell appears before the royal commision to answer questions about his role in the Catholic Church’s child abuse scandal, just who are some of the worst offenders in Victoria?

Father Gerald Francis Ridsdale

One Australia’s worst paedophiles, former Ballarat priest Gerald Ridsdale has been convicted of 138 sex offences against children – some as young as four – involving more than 50 victims.

Ridsdale was ordained at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Ballarat in 1961. The first complaint about his behaviour towards children was received by the church that same year. Ridsdale would continue to abuse children over the next three decades.

Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns moved Ridsdale to a number of parishes around Victoria and Sydney amid abuse allegations against him over many years before Ridsdale asked him for leave in 1988 “so that I may be removed from the kind of work that has proved to be a temptation and a difficulty to me”.

Cardinal Pell said he accepts no responsibility for Ridsdale’s movements when he was a member of the College of Consultors, which advised the Bishop on movements of parish priests.

Cardinal Pell said he was never told about Ridsdale’s offending while he was in Ballarat, including as an adviser to Bishop Mulkearns from 1977.

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ROME
ABC News (US)

By ROD MCGUIRK, ASSOCIATED PRESS CANBERRA, Australia — Feb 29, 2016

Interrupted by jeers from observers, one of Pope Francis’ top advisers on Tuesday denied an accusation that his testimony to an inquiry into child sex abuse was an attempt to deflect blame for the Catholic Church transferring Australia’s worst pedophile priest from parish to parish.

Australian Cardinal George Pell was a priest in the 1970s in the town of Ballarat where he advised Bishop Ronald Mulkearns about the placement of priests within the diocese.

Pell, now the pope’s top financial adviser, told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that he had no idea that priest Gerald Ridsdale was repeatedly transferred by the bishop for more than a decade because of pedophile accusations.

Pell rejected an accusation made by the lead counsel assisting the commission, Gail Furness, that his answers were designed to remove his own responsibility for Ridsdale’s crimes.

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CALIFORNIA
CBS SF Bay Area

OAKLAND (KCBS) – After the movie “Spotlight” won the Academy Award for Best Picture, advocates for victims of clergy sexual abuse are renewing their call for local Catholic bishops to release the names of accused priests.

Tim Lennon of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) said there’s no reason the Archdiocese of San Francisco, the Diocese of Oakland and the Diocese of San Jose should not release the names of those accused.

“What I’m saying is the church has a responsibility, not only to help survivors like me, but they have a responsibility to reach out to those children that are harmed, that are suffering in the dark,” said Lennon, who said he was raped by a priest at the age of 12.

Melanie Sakoda of SNAP said the crisis is not over. She told KCBS of another member’s experience.

“Her abuser was convicted in Minnesota of raping her, and he also abused another girl. And the Vatican just freed him up to return to ministry in India,” Sakoda said.

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VATICAN CITY
Eyewitness News (South Africa)

Reuters

VATICAN CITY – The Vatican newspaper on Monday lauded the film Spotlight, which took home this year’s Oscar for best picture, for giving voice to the pain of the victims of sexual abuse by the clergy.

The film tells the story of how the Boston Globe uncovered a massive scandal of child molestation in the city’s archdiocese.

The Osservatore Romano said the film did not take a hostile position against the Church.

It gives “a voice to the shock and profound pain of the faithful who confront the discovery of this horrible reality”, said an opinion piece by columnist Lucetta Scaraffia.

“It’s by now clear that in the Church too many were worried about the image of the institution and not the gravity of the act.”

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ROME
The Advertiser

Cardinal George Pell said he did not know that notorious pedophile Gerald Ridsdale had a 14-year-old boy living with him in the presbytery in 1980s – despite widespread rumours about the priest’s abuse of children.

Paul Levey has previously told the royal commission into child sexual abuse that in Easter 1982, when he was 14, he was sent to live at the presbytery at Mortlake with Ridsdale for about six months.

He slept in the same room as the priest and was abused all the time.

Mr Levey said it was common knowledge he was living there.

Cardinal George Pell on Tuesday – his second day of evidence to the child abuse royal commission – said he did not know about it even though by then he was privy to the “scandalous” rumours about Ridsdale when he was in Ballarat in the 70s.

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UNITED STATES
Royal Gazette (Bermuda)

Christopher White

A new film serves as a painful reminder of one of the darkest periods in Roman Catholic Church history, where more than 200 priests and religious were accused of abusing minors and were reassigned in a cover-up.

Spotlight, which won Best Picture at the Oscars on Sunday night, chronicles The Boston Globe’s groundbreaking coverage of the clergy sexual abuse crisis in the Archdiocese of Boston that would go on to win the paper a Pulitzer Prize in 2003.

Reflecting on the ten-year anniversary of the Globe’s revelations, Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley said that “the media helped make our Church safer for children by raising up the issue of clergy sexual abuse and forcing us to deal with it.”

And as New York Times columnist Ross Douthat observed in 2010: “The Catholic Church has always had enemies. … but Catholics — and especially Catholic leaders, from the Vatican to the most far-flung diocese — should welcome it, both as a spur to virtue and as a sign that their faith still matters, that their church still looms large over the affairs of men, and that the world still cares enough about Christianity to demand that Catholics live up to their own exacting standards.”

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ROME
BBC News

Cardinal George Pell says he was deceived by a senior clergyman over the activities of a paedophile priest.

Australia’s most senior Catholic is presenting evidence from Rome via video link over several days to an Australian Royal Commission into child sex abuse.

On Tuesday Cardinal Pell was questioned about paedophile Gerald Ridsdale, a priest who was repeatedly moved between parishes in the 1970s and 80s.

He accepted no responsibility for the failure to report Ridsdale’s abuse.

Survivors have flown to Rome to see the cardinal testify after he was excused from returning home due to ill health.

‘Implausible’

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CANADA
Metro News

By: Rosemary Westwood Metro Published on Mon Feb 29 2016

One well trodden story, about good people whose inaction clears a path for evil, won an Oscar on Sunday night.

Spotlight, the tale of how Boston Globe reporters broke a Catholic-priest sexual-abuse scandal, took home the best picture award, highlighting the need for such costly reportage just as media companies cut jobs.

The film charts the journalists’ triumphs, but also underscores how many people looked the other way for so long. Priests, cardinals, the Vatican; members of Boston’s Catholic community, lawyers, judges; even Globe journalists, who had been sitting on stories of priest abuse for years without much follow-up.

It’s particularly ironic, then, that when I went to see Spotlight, it was by accident. I was even dreading it. We wanted light fun, but we arrived too late. As a Catholic, I shrunk from yet another story of horrific abuse and the institution that, in effect, condoned it.

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MISSOURI
Fox 2

[with video]

(KTVI) – Spotlight was the surprise winner at the Oscars, but the investigative work done by the real life spotlight team was no surprise to one St. Louisan.

‘We were in touch with the Boston Globe investigative team before they wrote their first story and certainly throughout 2002 and 2003 when they ran almost 800 stories about predator priests,’ says David Clohessy, Director Snapnetwork.org.

The story of the Boston globe’s investigation into clergy sexual abuse in the Boston Archdiocese was turned into an Oscar-winning movie.

But for David Clohessy it’s not the closing of a chapter, but instead more work that still needs to be done.

‘The only thing that makes the Boston Archdiocese different if you will than the St. Louis Archdiocese is that there’s just been greater scrutiny,’ says Clohessy.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Telegraph

Wendy Tuohy

He speaks in a monotone about issues that destroyed untold numbers of lives, he avoids eye contact with survivors of child sexual abuse (according to eyewitness reports from journalists), he dodges and weaves as well as Muhammad Ali ever did.

All that aside, some of Cardinal George Pell’s words to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse have been breathtakingly callous.

Yes, yesterday the world’s third most powerful Catholic official did concede the Church’s handling of allegations of child sexual abuse by paedophile priests had been “catastrophic” and that he was not there to “defend the indefensible”.

Yet today he stunned people sitting in front of him who survived childhood assaults by those very priests and was able to describe the revolting serial abuse of 53 children by Father Gerald Ridsdale as “a sad story (that) wasn’t of much interest to me”.

The gasps of onlookers were audible and understandable.

Does this man still not get the pain, hurt, grief and anger still fresh in the hearts of victims, their families and supporters — a whole town — as a result of such insidious violations?

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ROME
news.com.au

A FATHER of two girls who were raped by a priest while in primary school said it was “the smooth Cardinal Pell” testifying to the child abuse Royal Commission from Rome.

Anthony Foster, whose daughters Emma and Katie were both assaulted by Melbourne priest Father Kevin O’Donnell, said he had “given up hope” that George Pell would fix the Church’s response to institutional paedophilia.

“Quest over,” said Mr Foster, according to the ABC. “It was the smooth Cardinal Pell, not the Cardinal Pell, we saw on the stand.”

The husband and father confronted Pell outside the hearing at the Hotel Quirinale after the Cardinal’s second day of testimony via video link, telling him “he was holding the hand of a broken man”.

After two of Mr Foster’s three daughters were raped, Emma became addicted to drugs, had eating disorders and self-harmed before overdosing on medication at 26. Katie was hit by a car after a drinking binge in 1999, leaving her brain damaged.

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ROME
9 News

AAP

George Pell says it would be hard to find another bishop whose actions were as “grave and inexplicable” as those of Ronald Mulkearns who knew about the crimes of pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale but kept moving him from one parish to another.

In an extraordinary day of evidence to the sex abuse royal commission on Tuesday, Cardinal Pell squarely laid the blame on Bishop Mulkearns – his former mentor – for decades of cover-up which put hundreds of children at risk from Ridsdale.

As Bishop of Ballarat between 1971 and 1997, Mulkearns presided over decisions to move priests, including Ridsdale, between parishes rather than deal with child sexual abuse allegations.

Cardinal Pell told the royal commission Bishop Mulkearns deceived him, lied to him and described his former boss’s actions as “reprehensible” and “absolutely extraordinary.”

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ROME
9 News

AAP

Australian child sex abuse survivors danced “as if they won the Oscar” in a Rome hotel when a movie about exposing pedophile priests won best film at the Academy Awards.

But the survivors’ group who travelled to Rome to hear Cardinal George Pell give evidence by videolink to the child abuse royal commission sitting in Sydney were brought back down to earth on Tuesday by his testimony of denial and sheeting home blame to others.

The previous day they had detected a conciliatory tone in the cleric’s evidence, noting he had backed off blanket denials that he knew nothing of pedophile priests offending in the Ballarat diocese and Melbourne when he served there in the 1970s and 1980s.

After that day of evidence, members of the survivors’ group left the plush Quirinale Hotel where the cardinal’s evidence is being heard and went on to watch the Oscars in their hotel and be thrilled when best film was won by Spotlight.

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ROME
The Guardian

Ben Doherty and Melissa Davey
Monday 29 February 2016

Cardinal George Pell’s repeated insistence he knew nothing of paedophile priests being shielded by the church in the 1970s and 80s was “implausible”, the royal commission into child sex abuse has heard.

On Tuesday the most senior Australian Catholic was warned he would be “culpable too” if the commission decided he did know of abuse being covered up.

In a combative appearance, Pell resolutely defended his position that while he was a priest in Ballarat he was unaware paedophile priests were being moved between parishes to escape prosecution, and to protect the reputation of the church.

Pell claimed he knew nothing of the offending of priests, and that he was lied to and deceived by more senior church members who hid from him the activities of paedophiles in the clergy.

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CALIFORNIA
KEYT

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. –
Moviegoers will see Santa Barbara and other cities where priest sexual abuse occurred mentioned in the credits at the end of the film “Spotlight.”

“The Spotlight story really is a microcosm of a much larger story that has taken place in nearly every major city in this country, including here in Santa Barbara where we have seen the scandal at the Mission, at St. Anthony’s Seminary, at Our Lady of Guadalupe at nearly every Catholic church around town,” said attorney, Tim Hale.

Hale said awareness makes it easier for people to come forward and speak out about what they have been through. “Don’t look to institutions to change their ways. The way to make children safer is to empower people to come forward and report to law enforcement,” Hale said.

Hale is already working on a similar case involving the Presbyterian church. He said a hearing is scheduled for next Monday.

Hale represents victims of abuse on the central coast including the son of Ray Higgins.

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ROME
Daily Mail

By LUCY MAE BEERS FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA and AAP

A father whose two daughters suffered horrific sexual abuse at the hands of a priest has confronted Cardinal George Pell, telling him he is a ‘broken man.’

Anthony Foster cornered the former Archbishop of Melbourne outside his Rome hotel room after his second day of testimony via video link to the child abuse royal commission, but said the man he spoke to was the ‘smooth Cardinal Pell, not the Cardinal Pell [he] saw on the stand,’ The ABC reported.

Mr Foster’s daughter Emma was raped by Melbourne priest Kevin O’Donnell in the 1980s and she died in 2008 the age of 26 from a drug overdose and years of battling eating disorders, self harm and addiction.

His other daughter Katie, who was also raped by Father O’Donnell, became a binge drinker and requires round the clock care after being left disabled from a car accident in 1999.

Mr Foster said they held hands as they spoke, but admitted he felt no connection and instead said the Cardinal was ‘holding the hand of a broken man.’

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ROME
NBC News

by ALASTAIR JAMIESON

There were audible gasps Tuesday when Vatican treasurer George Pell said a notorious Roman Catholic Church sex-abuse case “wasn’t of much interest” to him.

The Australian cardinal — the highest-ranking Vatican official to testify on systemic sexual abuse of children by clergy — said senior clergy lied to him to cover up abuse in the 1970s.

He insisted there was no reason for him to know the extent of the abuse carried out by his one-time roommate — pedophile priest Father Gerald Ridsdale — who was later convicted of 138 offences against more than 50 children.

Pell denied there was any discussion of Ridsdale being a pedophile at a meeting he attended in 1982 where it was discussed that Ridsdale should be moved to another parish.

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INDIA
Hindustan Times

Paramita Ghosh, Hindustan Times, New Delhi | Updated: Mar 01, 2016

For Roman Catholics, February has not been a good month to be Christian. Pictures of one of its latest saints, the much-revered Pope John Paul II, surfaced, showing the late pope in the company of a married woman; one photograph is of them skiing. An exchange of letters also came to light that suggested a relationship of ‘more-than-friends-and-less-than-lovers’.

March, the month that did Macbeth in, seems to be no better. The 2016 Oscars, in which the journalism drama Spotlight won Best Picture , brought focus back on sex abuse by priests, a reality that intermittently stalks the Catholic Church and undermines the institution – mainly for its culture of cover-up.

Mitchell Garabedian, the Boston attorney for many victims who is also portrayed in Spotlight, said the film restored to survivors the “lost dignity that was stolen by clergy sexual abuse”.

Paedophilia and other instances of sexual coercion have blown up in the face of the church at a time when it is being forced to re-think many of its rigid controls. Some priests are demanding the right to marry while women are demanding the right to be priests. Celibacy, some say, is the Reformation moment of the Catholic church in this century. It is certainly a big challenge.

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ROME
TH Online

Tuesday, March 1, 2016
Associated Press

CANBERRA, Australia — One of Pope Francis’ top advisers told an Australian inquiry into child sex abuse on Tuesday that an Australian bishop had deceived him about the reason a pedophile priest was repeatedly transferred from parish to parish.

Australian Cardinal George Pell was a priest in the town of Ballarat in 1970s who advised Bishop Ronald Mulkearns about the placement of priests within the diocese.

Pell, now the pope’s top financial adviser, told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that while Mulkearns and another priest at the regular committee meetings, Monsignor Leo Fiscalini, both knew about serious sexual assault allegations against notorious pedophile Gerald Ridsdale, neither mentioned them.

“It probably would be possible to imagine a greater deception, but it’s a gross deception,” Pell told the Sydney inquiry via videolink from a Rome hotel.

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WASHINGTON
KUOW

By BILL RADKE & MATT MARTIN

Bill Radke talks with Mary Dispenza, director of SNAP (Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests) in Seattle, about her reaction to “Spotlight” winning Best Picture at the Oscars Sunday night. The movie tells the story of how Boston Globe reporters uncovered a massive child abuse cover-up by the Catholic Church.

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ROME
Newsday

By ROD McGUIRK (Associated Press)

CANBERRA, Australia – (AP) — One of Pope Francis’ top advisers told an Australian inquiry into child sex abuse on Tuesday that an Australian bishop had deceived him about the reason a pedophile priest was repeatedly transferred from parish to parish.

Australian Cardinal George Pell was a priest in the town of Ballarat in 1970s who advised Bishop Ronald Mulkearns about the placement of priests within the diocese.

Pell, now the pope’s top financial adviser, told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that while Mulkearns and another priest at the regular committee meetings, Monsignor Leo Fiscalini, both knew about serious sexual assault allegations against notorious pedophile Gerald Ridsdale, neither mentioned them.

“It probably would be possible to imagine a greater deception, but it’s a gross deception,” Pell told the Sydney inquiry via videolink from a Rome hotel.

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ROME
news.com.au

Cardinal George Pell says the Catholic Church leadership failed to protect children in a Victorian diocese but he accepts no responsibility for moving a pedophile priest.

Cardinal Pell said it was improper to assign responsibility to those like himself who were ignorant of the offending by priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale in the Diocese of Ballarat in the 1970s and 1980s.

“In the diocese of Ballarat certainly there was a gigantic failure of leadership,” Cardinal Pell told the child abuse royal commission from Rome.

Cardinal Pell, who was an adviser to the Ballarat bishop Ronald Mulkearns between 1977 and 1984, did not agree the church collectively failed to protect children in the diocese during the 1970s and 1980s.

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ROME
SBS

AAP

Child sex abuse survivors say it’s unbelievable a man of Cardinal George Pell’s intelligence was unaware of a pedophile priest’s offending when two Victorian communities and local clergy knew about it.

The cardinal told the child abuse royal commission on Monday night that while he was on a Ballarat diocese committee that advised on the transfers of priests he was never told of the offending of pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale in the 1970s.

By videolink from Hotel Quirinale in Rome he told the commission sitting in Sydney that then Ballarat bishop Ronald Mulkearns and his advisor Monsignor Fiscalini had deceived him by not telling him Ridsdale was moved between parishes because of his offending.

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ROME
SBS

AAP

Cardinal George Pell has told the child sex abuse inquiry that the responsibility for the protection of children is not equal for all ordained clergy.

The cardinal was explaining why the shocking story of pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale abusing children in the Victorian parish of Ballarat was not of much interest to him at the time.

In the second day of a hearing in which Cardinal Pell is giving evidence by video link from Rome, the counsel for the child sex abuse Royal commission Gail Furness SC pressed him of how it was that Ridsdale’s offences were common knowledge in at least two parishes but escaped his notice.

Ms Furness: “What was not of much interest to you?”

Cardinal Pell: “The suffering of course was real and I very much regret that, but I have no reason to turn my mind to the extent of the evils that Ridsdale had perpetrated.”

He was asked if it was not necessary to avoid repeat offences to fully understand the circumstances of cases like Ridsdale.

The cardinal said that everyone in the church approached the task differently according to their level of responsibility.

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ROMA
Vatican Insider

ANDREA TORNIELLI
ROMA

È stata la prima di tre o quattro audizioni, che si svolgeranno stanotte e nei giorni successivi: il cardinale George Pell, Prefetto della Segreteria per l’Economia e membro del consiglio di cardinali che collabora con il Papa per la riforma della Curia è comparso di fronte alla Commissione governativa australiana che indaga sugli abusi sui minori commessi da sacerdoti, religiosi o persone collegate alla Chiesa. Com’è noto, a causa delle sue condizioni di salute che non gli permettono di affrontare il lungo viaggio transoceanico, il porporato ha chiesto e ottenuto di fornire la sua testimonianza in videoconferenza, dall’hotel Quirinale di Roma. La prima audizione è iniziata poco dopo le 22 e si è conclusa alle 2.30 di questa mattina. Erano presenti dei seminaristi australiani e una rappresentanza delle vittime degli abusi, che hanno organizzato una raccolta di fondi per essere presenti dal vivo di fronte a Pell.

Finora dalla vicenda australiana è emerso un quadro non dissimile da quelli riferibili ad altri Paesi e ad altre situazioni: preti pedofili che invece di essere fermati e processati, sono stati dai loro vescovi semplicemente spostati di parrocchia, potendo così continuare a compiere le loro immonde azioni da un’altra parte. Le vittime e i loro familiari che, invece di essere accolte, sostenute, protette, accompagnate e risarcite, sono state tenute lontane, non credute e trattate come una minaccia al buon nome della Chiesa.

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CITTA’ DEL VATICANO
Corriere della Sera

Gian Guido Vecchi

CITTÀ DEL VATICANO – La Chiesa cattolica «ha commesso enormi errori, ma sta lavorando per rimediare. Ha causato gravi danni in molti luoghi, ha deluso i fedeli». Lo ha ammesso il cardinale George Pell, già arcivescovo di Melbourne e poi di Sydney e ora prefetto degli Affari economici del Vaticano, testimoniando in videoconferenza dall’Hotel Quirinale a Roma davanti alla Commissione d’inchiesta sulle risposte delle istituzioni agli abusi sessuali a minori negli anni 1970 e 1980. «Non sono qui a difendere l’indifendibile», ha aggiunto. In quei giorni la Chiesa era «fortemente propensa» ad accettare smentite degli abusi da parte di chi ne era accusato. L’istinto allora era più di «proteggere dalla vergogna l’istituzione, la comunità della Chiesa», ha detto fra l’altro il prelato, che ha tuttavia negato di aver avuto alcuna conoscenza delle malefatte dei preti pedofili che operavano nella diocesi di Ballarat in cui era viceparroco e assistente al vescovo Ronald Mulkearns.

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ROMA
CDN

ROMA, Sidney.- El cardenal australiano George Pell, el funcionario del Vaticano de más alto rango que ha testificado sobre casos de abusos sexuales cometidos por sacerdotes católicos, dijo el domingo que la Iglesia cometió “enormes errores” y “ha decepcionado a las personas” en el manejo del escándalo.

Ofreciendo su testimonio a víctimas de abusos desde una habitación de un hotel en Roma, Pell dijo a la Comisión Real de Australia sobre Respuestas Institucionales al Abuso Sexual Infantil que a los niños a menudo no se les creía y a los sacerdotes se los traspasaba de parroquia en parroquia.

“La Iglesia cometió enormes errores y está trabajando para remediarlos, pero la Iglesia en muchos lugares, sobre todo en Australia, estropeó las cosas, ha decepcionado a las personas”, dijo Pell través de una videoconferencia con la comisión en Sídney. “No estoy aquí para defender lo indefendible”, agregó.

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ROMA
Info Catolica

Ante la Comisión Real australiana para una Respuesta Institucional al Abuso Sexual de Menores, a través de una videoconferencia, Pell ha prometido que no iba a «defender lo indefendible» y ha declarado que la iglesia incurrió históricamente en errores graves al no abordar adecuadamente el problema y que ahora está trabajando para remediarlo.

«La Iglesia en muchos lugares, y ciertamente en Australia, ha estropeado las cosas y ha decepcionado a la gente», ha reconocido.

(EP) Sin embargo, el cardenal australiano ha negado que la propia institución sea la culpable de la gestión de los casos de sacerdotes que abusaron de niños aunque ha admitido que en el pasado la actitud general de la Iglesia hacia el abuso fue que «el niño lo tenía mucho, mucho más difícil para que se le creyera».

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ROME
3AW

Neil Mitchell has taken issue with part of Cardinal George Pell’s testimony at the child abuse Royal Commission.

Cardinal Pell was asked if he knew it was common knowledge in Inglewood that Ridsdale was interfering with children.

“It’s a sad story and it wasn’t of much interest to me,” he responded.

And with that there were gasps of incredulity from those watching on in Australia.

“That’s the whole essence of the problem,” Neil said.

“You’re a man of God, pledging to care for people, and you hear stories that the local priest is molesting children, and it’s not of much bloody interest to you?

“I’m not surprised that they’re angry.

“We’ve got to be fair to George Pell, but he hasn’t impressed me so far.

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ROME
news.com.au

Cardinal George Pell has faced an ominous warning from the head of the child abuse royal commission, being told he would be culpable if it was found he knew about the acts of a pedophile priest in Ballarat in the 1970s.

Cardinal Pell has told the royal commission he knew nothing of offences committed by pedophile Father Gerald Ridsdale, who was repeatedly moved to new parishes by Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns, where he continued abusing children.

Cardinal Pell was a consultor to the bishop but said he was deceived and lied to by the bishop and other priests who knew of complaints against Ridsdale.

Commissioner Peter McClellan said the inquiry had to determine a very serious issue.

“You see, you speak of the bishop’s culpability,” Commissioner McClellan said.

“If we were to come to the view that you did know, you would be culpable too, wouldn’t you?”

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ROME
Sydney Morning Herald

[with video]

Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter

Complaints about a paedophile priest were “common knowledge” in the Catholic community and among two senior clergy members but Cardinal George Pell did not have “much interest” in them, he told a royal commission.

In his second day of questioning about what he knew of sexual offending by priests when he was in Victoria, Cardinal Pell’s admission drew an audible gasp from those listening to his testimony.

Giving his evidence via video-link from Rome, Australia’s most senior Catholic agreed that some people knew there had been complaints about Gerald Ridsdale in the 1970s, a former priest now serving a prison sentence for multiple child sex offences.

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ROME
The Guardian

Cardinal George Pell, giving evidence in Rome to Australia’s royal commission on institutional responses to child sexual abuse, says he did not know whether paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale’s offending was common knowledge in the parish of Inglewood. Pell’s comment that, “It’s a sad story and it wasn’t of much interest to me”, drew an audible gasp from those listening to the videolink in Sydney. Pell added: “The suffering, of course, was real and I very much regret that, but I had no reason to turn my mind to the extent of the evils that Ridsdale had perpetrated.”

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NEW JERSEY
MyCentralJersey

WOODBRIDGE – The Hunterdon County priest who was serving a 33-year sentence for sexually assaulting an altar boy died Monday at the state’s Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center.

John Banko, 69, was pronounced dead at 9:29 a.m. Monday, said Matt Schuman, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections.

No foul play is suspected in Banko’s death, Schuman said, adding he can not give any circumstances because of federal HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) regulations.

Banko, a former pastor at St. Edward the Confessor in Milford , was convicted twice of sexual abuse during his tenure at the church. Known to parishioners as “Father Jack,” Banko was convicted in December 2002 of molesting a former altar boy on two consecutive Sundays after Mass at the Milford church from September 1993 to September 1994.

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ARKANSAS
Democrat-Gazette

Story by Tracy Neal
Monday, February 29, 2016

BENTONVILLE — A teacher at Life Way Christian School was arrested Saturday in connection with sexually assaulting a student, according to court documents.

Richard Thomas Riley, 34, of Centerton was arrested on charges of sexual assault in the first degree, a Class A felony, and distributing, possessing or viewing matter depicting sexually explicit conduct involving a child, a Class C felony.

Riley’s bond was set at $50,000.

Life Way Christian School fired Riley on Saturday, according to administrator Luke Bowers.
Riley had worked for the school since 2013 teaching physical science and world history, primarily to ninth- and 10th-graders. He had served in the U.S. military before joining Life Way and has a master’s degree in education, Bowers said.

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ROME
New York Times

By ELISABETTA POVOLEDO
FEB. 29, 2016

ROME — When Pope Francis was chosen to lead the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics three years ago, he pledged to reform antiquated and troubled Vatican institutions.

He formed an inner circle of nine cardinals as his closest advisers, appointed a commission to deal with sexual abuse of children by the clergy, and another to reform the Vatican’s tangled finances. To pilot the financial reform and serve in his inner circle, Francis chose Cardinal George Pell.

So it was a matter of no small discomfort to the Vatican, and fascination to the world’s media, to see Cardinal Pell testify late Sunday — via video link from a hotel in Rome — before an Australian Royal Commission looking into institutional responses to child sexual abuse.

The questioning centered on how much the cardinal knew about a number of priests and brothers accused of pedophilia during the 40 years in which he rose through the ranks of Australia’s clerical hierarchy, and whether he failed to act on the abuses. Many of the accused offenders have been convicted.

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ROME
Daily Mail

AAP

Cardinal George Pell says Gerald Francis Ridsdale’s sexual abuse of children at a Victorian parish in the 1970’s was a ‘sad story’ that ‘wasn’t of much interest to me’ and that he was not told the priest was being moved because he was a pedophile.

Cardinal Pell, who was then a Ballarat priest, says he did not know that Ridsdale’s offending was common knowledge in the Victorian parish of Inglewood in 1975 and did not know about the allegations.

‘It’s a sad story and it wasn’t of much interest to me,’ he told the child abuse royal commission from Rome on Tuesday.

His comment drew gasps from some observers in the room, many of whom were victims of child abuse who had travelled to Rome to hear his testimony.

‘The suffering, of course, was real and I very much regret that, but I had no reason to turn my mind to the extent of the evils that Ridsdale had perpetrated,’ he later continued.

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MASSACHUSETTS
NECN

By Justin Michaels

It was a huge and surprising win for a movie that has its foundation at the Boston Globe.
Spotlight won Best Picture at the Academy Awards, and for the real people behind the movie characters, the win means much more than a gold statue.

Winning best picture at the Academy Awards, the film Spotlight shined a bright light on an issue sex abuse victim Alexa MacPherson knows intimately. She faced abuse from her priest, but as exciting as this moment was, it didn’t offer her something she longs for more than anything.

“Not a sense of closure, at least not for me,” said MacPherson, “It’s a sense of being understood. And not being called a liar.”

The movie is about the Boston Globe’s Spotlight investigation into the child sex abuse scandal in the Boston Catholic Church.

NECN spoke with Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Walter Robinson, who was part of the spotlight team that exposed the sex abuse scandal involving clergy. In spotlight, Robinson is played by actor Michael Keaton.

Robinson hopes with Spotlight’s now global fame, swift action will be taken in the Catholic Church.

“Perhaps it will move the church to move more quickly to Institute the reforms to make sure that this kind of Wholesale abuse of children doesn’t happen again,” said Robinson.

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UNITED STATES
Wear Your Voice

by Nancy Levine

The movie Spotlight won Oscar awards for best picture and best original screenplay at Sunday evening’s 82nd annual Academy Award presentation.

On the red carpet before the Oscar telecast, actor Mark Ruffalo, who played Boston Globe reporter Mike Rezendes in the movie, told ABC’s Robin Roberts:

“It’s still happening today. I was at a protest today in Los Angeles at the Cathedral with the SNAP group, with the survivors of priest sexual abuse. They were telling me that every day they have more and more people coming out of the darkness to tell their stories of sexual abuse by priests. And the more that happens, the closer we get to actually healing this wound, I think.”

Indeed, those stories continue to come forward. On December 25, 2015, The New York Times reported former rabbi Marc Gafni’s admission of sexual engagement with a minor, and Whole Foods CEO John Mackey’s position on Gafni’s nonprofit board of directors:

“He [Gafni] added, ‘She was 14 going on 35 … ‘”

“A co-founder of Whole Foods, John Mackey … is a chairman of the executive board of Mr. Gafni’s center … “

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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, said on Monday that he has the full backing of Pope Francis.

Pell on Sunday told Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse that the church made “enormous mistakes” and “catastrophic” choices by attempting to cover up abuses in the 1970s.

Pell’s testimony has received global coverage. Because of his high position in the Vatican, the Australian inquiry into sexual abuse cases that occurred decades ago has taken on wider implications about the accountability of church leaders.

Pell, 74, has become the focal point for victims’ frustration over what they say has been an inadequate response from church leaders. Pell himself is not accused of sexual abuse and has twice apologized for the Church’s slow response.

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ROME
7 News

AAP

Cardinal George Pell says he was lied to and deceived by a bishop and priests who knew about the child sexual abuse crimes of a fellow clergyman, who was repeatedly moved to new parishes where he continued to offend.

Cardinal Pell told the child abuse royal commission that while he didn’t know why Father Gerald Ridsdale was moved on to new parishes in the Victorian diocese of Ballarat in the 1970s, Bishop Ronald Mulkearns and other priests knew of repeated paedophilia allegations.

Commissioner Justice Peter McClellan asked: “You say the bishop deceived you, is that right?”

Cardinal Pell replied: “Unfortunately, correct.”

An advisor to the bishop, Monsignor Fiscalini, deceived him as well, Cardinal Pell said.

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CALIFORNIA
Ventura County Star

By Tom Kisken of the Ventura County Star

Lee Bashforth wishes Oscar-winning “Spotlight” was made before he was molested at age 6 by a Catholic priest in the Conejo Valley.

“If this movie had been made 40 years ago, what happened to me would never have happened,” he said. “It’s that big of deal.”

The movie about The Boston Globe’s investigation of pedophile priests won best picture at the Academy Awards Sunday. Survivors said Monday the surprise victory helps their fight against clergy abuse.

“No pun intended but it puts our story back in the spotlight,” said Bashforth. He said he and his brother were molested by the Rev. Michael Wempe when the priest served at St. Jude Catholic Church in Westlake Village.

Wempe also served at other local parishes including St. Rose of Lima Church in Simi Valley, Sacred Heart Church in Ventura and St. Sebastian Church in Santa Paula. According to personnel records from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, he admitted molesting 13 boys in the 1970s and 1980s.

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MINNESOTA
The Catholic Spirit

Maria Wiering | February 29, 2016

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis plans to move is central corporation offices to the 3M Company’s former headquarters in St. Paul. The archdiocese signed a lease Feb. 29 for the 75,000 square foot building in the Dayton’s Bluff neighborhood, northeast of downtown.

Built in 1939, the building at 777 Forest St. N. served as 3M’s headquarters from 1940-1962. It is part of the Beacon Bluff Business Park, which is under development by the St. Paul Port Authority. The St. Paul-based developer Exeter Group owns the building. The lease is subject to bankruptcy court approval, and its terms with renovation costs are also subject to archdiocesan and landlord approval. The archdiocese, which has 140 employees, does not expect to finalize anticipated renovation costs until mid-May.

In an email to archdiocesan employees, Father Charles Lachowitzer, the archdiocese’s moderator of the curia, said he expects the central corporation will move to its new offices in late fall. Archdiocesan leaders have been searching for new offices for more than a year.

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ROME
9 News

By Nick Alexander

Cardinal George Pell has drawn gasps from the survivors watching his testimony in a Rome hotel room, saying that the crimes of convicted pedophile Gerard Ridsdale were “a sad story and it wasn’t of much interest to me”.

Early on in the second day of his video testimony before a Royal Commission, Cardinal Pell was questioned about whether he knew of the dozens of sexual crimes committed by Ridsdale against children in Inglewood during the 1970s.

Gail Furness SC had put it to Cardinal Pell that his superior, Bishop Mulkearns, had been informed by a police officer, a Detective Sergeant Mooney, that Ridsdale was under investigation for interfering with children.

The abuse, DS Mooney was quoted as saying, was “pretty common knowledge all through the congregation. Pretty much everyone you would speak to knew about it.”

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TEXAS
The Dallas Morning News

Julieta Chiquillo

Before a 2002 Boston Globe investigation rocked the Catholic Church and inspired an Oscar-winning movie, Dallas reporter Brooks Egerton was unveiling the church’s systemic cover-up of pedophile priests.

Egerton was an editor at The Dallas Morning News in the early 1990s when Rudolph “Rudy” Kos was accused of molesting boys at several Dallas-area churches. The newspaper was covering the priest’s civil trial, but Egerton pushed for reporting that went beyond the courtroom.

He was aware of sexual abuse scandals involving priests across the country — most notably in Louisiana, where priest Gilbert Gauthe admitted he abused dozens of children — and saw a story much larger than one bad priest.

“The details of the South Louisiana stuff were just shocking, and to think that it could have happened anywhere, much less in multiple places, was kind of shocking,” Egerton said Monday.

Four years after the first suit was filed against Kos, Egerton — who by then was working as a reporter again — flew to San Diego to track down the suspended priest. The church was not defending Kos, who was attempting to keep a low profile as a paralegal in his new home.

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ROME
9 News

AAP

Children were put at risk when a Victorian bishop moved a priest after a child abuse complaint, Cardinal George Pell says.

Cardinal Pell said it was unacceptable that Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns moved pedophile Gerald Francis Ridsdale between parishes, including to Inglewood in 1975, after receiving a victim’s complaint.

“It’s unacceptable because of the risk it presented to children in Inglewood and that was exacerbated by the fact it doesn’t seem as though any effort was made to withdraw Ridsdale, at least for a period, for counselling or advice or help,” he said.

The commission has heard another complaint about Ridsdale was made in Inglewood and his offending was common knowledge in the parish, but Cardinal Pell said he did not know himself.

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ROME
BBC News

Cardinal George Pell has said he has the Pope’s “full backing”, as he testifies for a second day at a hearing into child sex abuse.

The Australian’s remarks came before he entered a Rome hotel where he is answering questions by video link.

Survivors have flown to Rome to see the cardinal testify after he was excused from returning home due to ill health.

The Vatican treasurer is being asked whether he knew if paedophiles were active in churches under his watch.

On the first day of the Royal Commission hearing, the cardinal said that the Catholic Church had made “enormous mistakes” in dealing with claims of sexual abuse.

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ROME
ABC News

By Europe correspondent Lisa Millar in Rome, staff

Cardinal George Pell has declared he has the Pope’s “full backing”, as he prepares for a second day of testimony in front of the child abuse royal commission.

Australia’s highest-ranking Catholic arrived at Rome’s Hotel Quirinale this morning ahead of another session giving video evidence to the commission on what he knew about abuse committed by Catholic priests.

The cardinal met Pope Francis yesterday, after his first four-hour session of giving evidence.

“I have the full backing of the Pope,” he told reporters outside the hotel.

Cardinal Pell’s office said the regularly scheduled meeting was in regard to his work as head of the Vatican Treasury.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
9 News (Australia)

An Irish clergyman is on indefinite leave from the Catholic Church after being caught snorting cocaine in a room full of Nazi memorabilia in his parish house.

Caught dead-to-rights on camera, Father Stephen Crossan, of County Downs in Northern Ireland, admitted imbibing the class-A drug after a party last year, but denied that he is a supporter of National Socialism.

“It was just the one night and that was it. I do not have an issue with drugs,” Fr Crossan told The Sun, adding that he collects relics from “all over the world”, and not just Nazi Germany.

“I know what they stand for, but I’m no Nazi. I collect historical stuff,” Father Crossan, who was on sick leave at the time.

One of his guests told the British tabloid, however, that the 37-year-old priest had given a Sieg Heil Nazi salute at the party.

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CALIFORNIA
Boston Globe

By Meredith Goldstein GLOBE STAFF FEBRUARY 29, 2016

Nicole Rocklin’s mom tried to be patient as she waited for her daughter to arrive at trendy Palihouse in West Hollywood on Sunday night.

“I just want to give her a hug,” she said, of her producer daughter, who with producer Blye Faust, started the film project that would eventually become “Spotlight.”

In 2009, Rocklin and Faust began optioning the life rights of the Boston Globe journalists who uncovered sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Seven years later, the film won the best picture prize at the Oscars Sunday night.

Rocklin was one of the VIPs who got hugs – and big cheers – when she entered the “Spotlight” after-party, which was packed by 11 p.m. Party guests were the loudest when director and co-writer Tom McCarthy arrived at the bar. McCarthy immediately thanked production company Anonymous Content, which joined with Rocklin and Faust to get the movie made, and Open Road Films, which handled distribution.

Party guests included “Spotlight” stars such as Michael Keaton and Brian d’Arcy James, who play Boston Globe reporters Walter Robinson and Matt Carroll. Also making rounds was Michael Cyril Creighton, who plays sexual assault survivor Joe Crowley in the film. Creighton was spotted chatting with real-life Globe reporter Sacha Pfeiffer, who’s played in the movie by Rachel McAdams.

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