ABUSE TRACKER

VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | Mar. 1, 2017

VATICAN CITY

The only active member of Pope Francis’ new commission on clergy sexual abuse who is an abuse survivor has resigned from the group due to frustration with Vatican officials’ reluctance to cooperate with its work to protect children.

Marie Collins, an Irishwoman who has served on the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors since March 2014, announced her resignation in a press statement Wednesday.

In a separate exclusive statement for NCR explaining her choice, Collins says she decided to leave the commission after losing hope that Vatican officials would cooperate with its work following a failure to implement a series of recommendations.

Collins says her decision to resign was immediately precipitated by one Vatican office’s refusal to comply with a request from the commission, approved by the pope, that all letters sent to the Vatican by abuse survivors receive a response.

“I find it impossible to listen to public statements about the deep concern in the church for the care of those whose lives have been blighted by abuse, yet to watch privately as a congregation in the Vatican refuses to even acknowledge their letters!” Collins writes in the statement.

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VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter

Marie Collins | Mar. 1, 2017

Editor’s Note: Marie Collins of Ireland was appointed in 2014 as one of two survivors of clergy sex abuse to serve on Pope Francis’ Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. She is resigning that position today. She wrote the following statement for NCR about her decision.

The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors has had difficulties to overcome in its three years of existence.

Obviously I intend to respect the confidentiality of my former colleagues on the Commission and the work they are doing, but some of the main stumbling blocks that I can mention have already been detailed by Commission members who gave testimony Feb. 23 to Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

These stumbling blocks include: lack of resources, inadequate structures around support staff, slowness of forward movement and cultural resistance. The most significant problem has been reluctance of some members of the Vatican Curia to implement the recommendations of the Commission despite their approval by the pope.

In her testimony, Kathleen McCormack, the Commission’s Australian member, summed up the struggles and emphasized the need to keep hope. “Like water on a rock,” she said, “we’ve just got to keep at it.”

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VATICAN CITY
Crux

Inés San Martín March 1, 2017
VATICAN CORRESPONDENT

The lone abuse survivor currently serving as an active member of Pope Francis’s commission to fight clerical sexual abuse has quit, citing resistance to the commission’s efforts within the Roman Curia — not over the issue of child protection, she says, but rather the machinations of ‘Vatican politics.’

ROME-Irish laywoman Marie Collins, the lone clerical sex abuse survivor currently serving as an active member of Pope Francis’ Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, is stepping down because she says the group’s work is being “hindered and blocked by members of the Curia.”

“The reason for me leaving the Commission is completely down to the fact that the work we’re trying to do is being hindered and blocked by members of the curia,” Collins told Crux in a phone interview. “The commission itself has been really working really hard and trying to put forth the mission given to us by the Holy Father.”

Her decision to step down was announced by the commission through a statement on Wednesday. Collins has agreed, however, to continue working with the Church to deliver anti-abuse training to clergy, including newly ordained bishops.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors [PCPM] has issued the following statement after the resignation of abuse survivor, Mrs. Marie Collins.

On Monday, February 13, 2017, Mrs. Marie Collins, a Member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors [PCPM] advised Cardinal Sean O’Malley, President of the PCPM, of her intent to resign from the Commission effective March 1, 2017.

Mrs. Collins, a Member of the Pontifical Commission since its inception in 2014 is a survivor of clerical abuse, and consistently and tirelessly championed for the voices of the victims/survivors to be heard, and for the healing of victims/survivors to be a priority of the Church. In discussing with the Cardinal, and in her resignation letter to the Holy Father, Mrs. Collins cited her frustration at the lack of cooperation with the Commission by other offices in the Roman Curia.

Mrs. Collins accepted an invitation from Cardinal O’Malley to continue to work with the Commission in an educational role in recognition of her exceptional teaching skills and impact of her testimony as a survivor.

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INDIA
The New Indian Express

By Babu K Peter | Express News Service | Published: 01st March 2017

KOCHI: Despite attempts by the Church to rein in clerical sex abuse, incidents of exploitation of minors, both female and male, involving priests are on the rise casting a shadow on the Church in Kerala.

Concerned over the increase in incidents of priests sexually abusing minors, the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (KCBC) is considering a protocol for priests and nuns who interact with students.

“It is unfortunate such cases are being reported frequently. If this is the situation, the Church will have to think of framing a protocol for priests and nuns who interact with children,” said Fr Varghese Vallikkatt, KCBC deputy secretary and spokesperson.

At least five major incidents of child abuse involving priests have been reported in Kerala during the last two years. Only one among the accused in these cases has been convicted.

It was just two months ago Fr Edwin Figarez, who was the parish priest at Puthenvelikkara, was awarded double life term for raping a 14-year-old girl. In October 2016, Fr James Thekemuriyil, the rector of a seminary in Kannur district, was arrested by the police for alleged sexual assault on a 21-year-old seminarian who was undergoing training under him at the institution. Fr Raju Kokkan, parish priest of St Paul’s Church at Thaikkattusery was arrested for abusing a 10-year-old girl. He allegedly abused the girl after inviting her to the parsonage. He had offered a new set of dress for her first holy communion ceremony.

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AUSTRALIA
Eureka Street

Frank Brennan | 28 February 2017

Homily, Holy Trinity Church, Curtin, Transfiguration Parish, North Woden, Canberra, 26 February 2017

Jesus has told his disciples: ‘No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot be the slave both of God and of money.’

We have just emerged from what the media calls ‘the Catholic wrap up’ at the Royal Commission. This three-week hearing culminated in the joint appearance of the five most senior bishops in our Australian Church. They apologised not just for the sins of those church personnel who violated children, the most vulnerable members of our church community. They apologised and acknowledged also the gross failures of their predecessors and other church authorities who failed to act resolutely and compassionately in relation to the perpetrators and the victims, labelling their responses as ‘scandalously insufficient, hopelessly inadequate, scandalously inefficient’, as ‘a kind of criminal negligence’, ‘totally, totally inadequate. Just totally wrong’. Some ‘were just like rabbits in the headlights. They just had no idea what to do, and their performance was appalling.’

Here were our most senior church leaders admitting that in the past there were church authorities seeking to serve two masters, and failing completely. No doubt those past church authorities were professing their faith in, commitment to and discipleship with Jesus who said, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them! For the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.’ (Mt 19:4) But in the past, these spiritual leaders were also professing their commitment to an institution which commanded their hierarchical obedience and clerical acquiescence in protecting the institution’s public reputation and its coffers. We are now left in no doubt: ‘No one can serve two masters. He will either hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot be the slave both of God and of money.’

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INDIA
First Post

TK Devasia Mar, 01 2017

An anonymous letter received by a child-line in Kerala has brought to light a major operation to cover up the rape of a minor girl by a Catholic priest in the state with 18 percent Christian population.

The police foiled the operation by detaining Fr Robin Vadakkumchery, vicar of St. Sebastians Church at Kottiyoor in the state’s northern district of Kannur, while he tried to escape to Canada on 27 February.

The police recorded the arrest of the 48-year-old priest, who allegedly raped and impregnated the 16-year-old girl, on Monday and a case slapped against him under section 376 of Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (Pocso) Act.

The priest, who belongs to the Mananthavady diocese of Syro-Malabar Church, one of the three Catholic rites in Kerala, had tried to cover up the incident by taking the girl to a Church-run hospital for delivery and thereafter shifting both the mother and the new-born baby to an orphanage under the diocese.

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INDIA
Yahoo! News

A 48-year-old Christian priest in Kerala, who was arrested on Monday evening for allegedly raping a minor girl, has confessed to the crime, say police.

After successfully managing to hide the crime for months, the police say that Father Robin Vadakkanchery has finally confessed to raping the 16-year-old girl and subsequently impregnating her.

After the police filed a case against him on Saturday, Father Robin was on the run and was arrested from Chalakkudy in Thrissur district.

“During the process of questioning, the priest has confessed to the crime. A case has been filed against Father Robin under various provisions of POCSO including Section 5 (n), 6 and 7. Depending on what the investigations reveal, more sections will be added if necessary,” Peravoor Circle Inspector Sunil Kumar told The News Minute. He will be produced before Thalassery sessions court on Tuesday.

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ROME
Crux

John L. Allen Jr. March 1, 2017
EDITOR

Although the optics of the exit of the lone survivor serving as an active member of Pope Francis’s anti-sex abuse commission aren’t good, the reality is that naming survivors as members puts them in an extremely awkward spot, trapped between their loyalties to the Vatican and to fellow survivors.

In terms of the optics of the situation, there’s just no way in which the departure of Marie Collins, the only abuse survivor who was also an active member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, looks good for Pope Francis.

Citing frustrations with resistance to the commission’s work from within the Roman Curia, Collins announced today that she’s stepping down, though she’ll continue to work with the group in delivering anti-abuse training to clergy. Her exit comes at a time when Francis’s standing with survivors was already taking hits, in part because of revelations that he’s lightened the punishments imposed on several abuser priests in what the pontiff sees as a spirit of mercy, but what critics regard as a breakdown in accountability.

Certainly, the bureaucratic inertia and power games described by Collins raise legitimate questions about how serious the Vatican may be in terms of its commitment to reform. However, if one looks at the situation dispassionately, there’s also a case to be made that Collins’s resignation, along with the inactive status of the only other survivor on the commission, Peter Saunders of the UK, was both inevitable and arguably for the best.

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TEXAS
Waco Tribune

By PHILLIP ERICKSEN pericksen@wacotrib.com and KRISTIN Hoppa khoppa@wacotrib.com

A Hillsboro pastor and student at Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary was arrested Monday, accused of sexually assaulting a child after a mother allegedly caught him with her daughter in a car.

Benjamin Nelson, 27, was booked into Hill County Jail after Whitney police found him at his home in Waco.

Nelson was charged with two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child and one charge of deadly conduct, which came because Nelson allegedly drove recklessly near the child’s mother while leaving the scene in a Whitney shopping center, according to Whitney police.

According to his Facebook page, Nelson is pastor of Peoria Baptist Church and a student at Truett Seminary.

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SCOTLAND
STV

[with video]

David Cowan

Police said they found no evidence of foul play in Sammy Carr’s death.

A boy was killed by a nun at a Scottish orphanage, a former resident has claimed.

Sammy Carr died in 1964 while under the care of the Smyllum Park in Lanark, South Lanarkshire.

Police Scotland investigated the claims made by a former resident and said they found no evidence of criminality.

But the sisters of six-year-old Sammy are now convinced he was attacked before he died.

Symllum Park has long been the subject of allegations that some of its young residents suffered physical and psychological abuse. The orphanage was run by the Poor Sisters of Charity, now known as the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent De Paul.

The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry is investigating the facility and four other residential care establishments run by the same order.

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SCOTLAND
Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry

A new factsheet has been added to the website, providing clarification on when the Inquiry may share an applicant’s name with the organisation or person named as an abuser or their legal representatives.

The Inquiry must be fair to everyone involved with the Inquiry. This is a legal requirement. Sometimes the need for fairness will mean that the Inquiry must share the applicant’s name with the organisation or person named as an abuser. Not every organisation or person named as an abuser will be told the name of the applicant. This will only happen when the Inquiry must do so to be fair.

You can read more about this in the new factsheet. A link to the factsheet is at the bottom of this page.

Related documents
Factsheet – Disclosing allegations

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

YOU might think it would be axiomatic that the identities of abuse survivors, testifying at a judge-led inquiry about personal suffering, would be given the utmost protection.

Many will have borne their burden for years, alone: it takes considerable courage to even think about giving evidence to a senior judge, far more to actually do so.

But now, in what appears to be a startling volte face, the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has said that anyone accused of abuse, or any institution alleged to have overseen abuse, will be told the name of the person making the allegations, unless their guilt has been confirmed.

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

by Stephen Naysmith, Social affairs correspondent

ABUSE survivors are threatening to abandon a public inquiry into historic sexual crimes in the Scottish care system after it emerged their identities would be revealed to the alleged perpetrators.

Lady Smith, head of the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry, has said anyone accused of abuse, or any institution alleged to have overseen abuse, will be told the name of the person making the allegations “in the interests of fairness”.

Previously the inquiry’s rules appeared to suggest this was only a possibility and identification would only occur if it was in the interests of its work.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Culture

By Phil Lawler
Feb 28, 2017

Talk about burying the lede! Credit the indispensable Terry Mattingly with noticing that in yesterday’s story about the Pope’s willingness to ease penalties on pedophile priests, AP put the most remarkable information in the last paragraph. So the biggest news was trimmed out of the story by most of the media outlets that carried it (including, sad to say, the story to which CWN linked in our News Brief).

That stunning paragraph focuses on the Pope’s special commission on sexual abuse, the initiatives that it has taken, and the net results:

Francis scrapped the commission’s proposed tribunal for bishops who botch abuse cases following legal objections from the congregation. The commission’s other major initiative — a guideline template to help dioceses develop policies to fight abuse and safeguard children — is gathering dust. The Vatican never sent the template to bishops’ conferences, as the commission had sought, or even linked it to its main abuse-resource website.

We already knew that the papal commission was languishing, because of a lack of funding, shortage of staff, and failure to hold regular meetings. But this news—inexplicably buried in the AP report—is far more damaging. The commission has launched two important projects, and neither has been implemented.

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INDIA
Web India 123

Member of Parliament and AIDWA national leader PK Sreemathy today demanded a probe against the arrested priest of St Sebastian Church for impregnating a 16-year-old girl, who gave recently birth to a baby.Ms Sreemathy visited the family of the girl at Kottiyoor in the morning and said the incident was a disgrace to Kerala. She demanded that the police examine the computer and laptop of the priest and take strong action against him. This is not an isolated incident related to Priest Robin, who was allegedly trafficking poor girls of Kannur in the name of job opportunities, to different parts of India and overseas.Talking to the newspersons at a press conference here, Ms Sreemathy said the allegations of human trafficking were reported after the arrest of Priest Robin. Around 600 teenage girls have been sent to Canada, Gujarat and Bangalore by the priest-led team, on the promise of job. He also regularly visited Canada and other parts of the country.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Altoona Mirror

Editorial

A year ago today — March 1, 2016 — Catholics of the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese experienced a tidal wave of shock, sadness, anger and feelings of betrayal in response to a state grand jury report alleging that hundreds of children had been sexually abused by about 50 priests over more than 40 years in the local diocese.

The grand jury report, delivered in Altoona by then-Attorney General Kathleen Kane, also exposed the horrific finding that two former diocesan leaders — Bishops James Hogan and Joseph Adamec — had covered up priests’ wrongdoing or warded off inquiries about that wrongdoing.

While, 12 months later, the blockbuster revelations no longer are a topic of daily conversation and news reports, what the grand jury uncovered remains planted firmly in Catholics’ feelings and emotions, and many of those Catholics remain troubled about what might come next.

During her presentation, Kane described the report as providing a “day of reckoning” for those whose wrongdoing the report detailed. Looking ahead, the biggest question mark centers on whether similar days of reckoning might be forthcoming for the Dioceses of Allentown, Erie, Greensburg, Harrisburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Sandra Laville
Wednesday 1 March 2017

Lawyers have called for more transparency from the national child abuse inquiry over the naming of the perpetrators after their identities were withheld from the public hearings.

Aswini Weereratne QC, who represents the Child Migrant Trust, said she was unhappy about the ciphering of the names of abusers at the public hearing particularly as many of them are now dead.

“I want to put it on the record,” she said. “Really it is about the naming of abusers. It is really an issue of open justice that they should be heard.” Weereratne was speaking on the second day of the inquiry’s first public hearings. She indicated she may challenge the whole basis on which the redaction of abusers’ names was being applied.

She told the hearing that the trust was trying to help by providing information to the inquiry about which perpetrators might be dead. “We consider it a matter of the principle of open justice that there should be as much openness about the naming of the perpetrators,” she said.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Derry Journal

A Derry woman who was just seven years old when she was sent to Australia as part of the controversial “child migrant scheme” says she’s worried she may not live long enough to see justice done.

Peggy Gibson, who is now aged 77, was separated from her family and transported to Australia in 1948 where, she says, she suffered horrific abuse.

Originally from Quarry Street in the Brandywell but now living in Melbourne, Peggy says it’s important that her abuse is acknowledged during her lifetime.

Her lawyers have written to the Northern Ireland Executive asking it to ensure that a redress scheme recommended recently by the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) is implemented with “special priority” given to elderly claimants.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Altoona Mirror

MAR 1, 2017

RUSS O’REILLY
Staff Writer
roreilly@altoonamirror.com

A year after a statewide grand jury revealed the scope of child molestation among the ranks of Roman Catholic clergy in Altoona and stressed that allegations were mishandled by former church leadership, diocese spokesman Tony DeGol said Bishop Mark Bartchak will soon announce his plans for turning the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese into a leader in youth protection.

“Over the past year, Bishop Bartchak has devoted much of his time to collaborating with a diverse group of stakeholders to develop a new comprehensive approach that will help to make the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown a leader in the field of youth protection. We will be announcing the product of these efforts in the near future,” DeGol wrote in an email.

“The release of the grand jury report was heartbreaking for all Catholics, and it was especially painful for the survivors of sexual abuse and their loved ones. Our thoughts and prayers are with them today and always,” DeGol wrote.

The report issued on this date last year named dozens of clergy who went virtually unpunished or uninvestigated by police.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Reading Eagle

Staff and wire reports

Several individuals who deal with the issue of child sexual abuse have said the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General is investigating the statewide Catholic Church.

The process is apparently similar to the grand jury probe that was convened against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown that concluded with a report released one year ago accusing the diocese of carrying out a decadeslong cover-up to protect pre-dator priests.

The AG’s office will neither confirm nor deny the existence of any grand jury.

State Rep. Mark Rozzi, a Muhlenberg Township Democrat, said he has talked to victims, nuns and priests who have testified before state investigators.

Rozzi does not know when the investigation will conclude, but, in his opinion, “This report is going to be one of the most damning grand jury reports.”

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AUSTRALIA
Canberra Times

Katie Burgess

Bravehearts founder Hetty Johnson has called for Catholic Archbishop Christopher Prowse to resign, after revelations he moved a priest he’d stood down over inappropriately touching a child, next to two Canberra primary schools.

“If this is the man we’re looking to in this region to protect children, then we’re looking in the wrong direction,” Ms Johnson said.

“No one should have any faith within that establishment with their children’s safety and wellbeing any longer. If that man was to live in that house for a nanosecond it would be too long, let alone two years. I think the archbishop needs to resign. He clearly doesn’t get it and he never will.”

Her call comes after Archbishop Prowse admitted it was a “mistake” not to tell the principal of a Canberra special needs school about the past of a retired priest he moved in next door.

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