ABUSE TRACKER

IRELAND
Irish Independent

Eilish O’Regan
April 21 2017

The future of the new national maternity hospital which is due to be built on the grounds of St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin is in doubt.

The board of St Vincent’s Healthcare Group announced today it is to review its decision to allow the hospital be built on its campus.

It follows days of controversy over the decision to allow the Sisters of Charity, who own St Vincents and the surrounding land, to own the new €300m maternity hospital.

In a statement today the chairman of St Vincents James Menton said: “In view of the controversy and misinformation that has arisen in recent times regarding the project, and the views expressed by the Minister for Health and other members of the Oireachtas, the board of St Vincent’s Healthcare Group will review the status of the project in light of the current situation.”

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IRELAND
Lifesite

April 21, 2017 (SPUC) — The Irish Health Minister has called on an order of nuns to agree on contracts allowing abortion and contraception in the new National Maternity Hospital being built on their land.

Irish Health Minister Simon Harris has intervened in a row about ownership and control of the proposed new National Maternity Hospital in south Dublin where the new 300 million euro facility is planned next to St Vincent’s Hospital.

The decision by the government to “hand over” control of the new hospital to a religious order has caused a furore in the Irish press, and thousands have signed a petition opposing it. The outrage is centred around historic allegations of child abuse by the order, as well as fears that the nuns would prevent abortion and other practices contrary to Catholic teaching taking place on the premises.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Ronan McGreevy

A former resident of a mother and baby home run by the Sisters of Charity has described proposals to hand over ownership of the new National Maternity Hospital to the order as “disgusting and a disgrace”.

Francis Timmons (46), an independent councillor on South Dublin County Council, spent the first three years of his life in Madonna House in Blackrock run by the Sisters of Charity. He was born in 1971 to a single mother before being fostered out.

Cllr Timmons said the news the Sisters of Charity will own the new hospital left him in despair.

“Someone please tell me this is just a nightmare and that I have woken up in 2017 in a modern Republic of Ireland where the grip of the church is a thing of the past,” he said.

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

BY BLANAID MURPHY
APR 2017

A Government minister has claimed that the new National Maternity Hospital needs to be run by the State and not an order of nuns.

Strains within the Cabinet are showing over the decision to hand over full ownership of the new e300million taxpayer-funded facility to the nuns who ran the religious order behind the notorious Magdaline laundries.

But the controversial move has been slammed by Independent TDs and could rock the stability of the coalition.

The Minister of State for Disability Finian McGrath insisted there needs to be a separation of church and Government.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Vivienne Clarke, Paul Cullen

The Government should introduce legislation to allow it to take over lands belonging to religious orders who still owe the State money under the redress scheme, maintains Independent TD and Minister of State John Halligan.

“No religious order should have anything to do with a hospital,” he told RTE’s Today with Sean O’Rourke show.

He was speaking after it emerged that the Department of Health will to give the order sole ownership of the €300 million National Maternity Hospital when it moves from Holles Street to the Elm Park campus, next to St Vincent’s University Hospital.

Mr Halligan said that there had not been any discussion by the Independent Alliance on the issue of the location of the National Maternity Hospital to the St Vincent’s Hospital campus in advance of the agreement.

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IRELAND
The Irish Sun

By Ryan McBride
21st April 2017

PLANS for the National Maternity Hospital are in doubt after it was revealed tonight that the Board of St Vincent’s Healthcare Group will be reviewing the status of the project.

The Sisters of Charity own the area at St Vincent’s Hospital, where the new maternity hospital is set to be built.

They are yet to pay €3million owed to the State as part of the redress scheme following an inquiry into child abuse by the Catholic Church.

The chairperson of St Vincent’s Healthcare Group, Jimmy Menton, broke news of the review in a statement, which read: “On November 21, 2016, following six months of intensive discussions chaired by Mr. Kieran Mulvey (former CEO of the Workplace Relations Commission), St Vincent’s Healthcare Group and the National Maternity Hospital (NMH) signed a comprehensive agreement providing for the corporate and clinical governance arrangements for the future operation of a new maternity hospital, called ‘The National Maternity Hospital at Elm Park DAC’.

“That agreement was publicly endorsed and welcomed by both the Minister for Health, Deputy Simon Harris, and the Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, at a press briefing that evening in Government Buildings.

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IRELAND
RTE News

Uncertainty surrounds plans for the new National Maternity Hospital following controversy over the involvement of the Sisters of Charity.

The Board of St Vincent’s Healthcare Group said this evening it will review the status of the new National Maternity Hospital project in light of the current situation.

The new hospital is to be built on the campus of St Vincent’s University Hospital in south Dublin.

There has been growing opposition after it emerged that the Religious Sisters of Charity will be given ownership of the €300m taxpayer-funded hospital because it owns the land on which it is to be built.

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IRELAND
Today FM

Board of St Vincent’s Hospital to review the status of the project because of growing controversy

The Minister for Health says he remains ‘fully committed’ to the delivery of the new National Maternity Hospital.

It follows an annoucement that the board of St Vincent’s Healthcare group is to meet to review the status of the project, in light of the controversy surrounding the project and the the views expressed by Minister Simon Harris.

The new maternity hospital is due to be built on a site at St Vincent’s Hospital – on lands owned by the Sisters of Charity.

Minister Harris has issued a statement tonight insisting that the ‘clinical, operational and financial independence’ of the new hospital will be copperfastened in the legal arrangements, which he will formally sanction himself.

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IRELAND
The Times (UK)

Ellen Coyne
April 22 2017
The Times

The Catholic healthcare group that is set to own the new National Maternity Hospital has responded to a growing public backlash by suggesting it would pull out of the project.

The St Vincent’s Healthcare Group is owned by the Sisters of Charity, who also own the proposed site for the hospital. St Vincent’s said last night that it was going to re-examine the project at its next board meeting, blaming “controversy and misinformation” and citing comments by Simon Harris, the health minister, and other TDs.

Opposition politicians condemned the group, saying they were threatening the future of the hospital. The minister did not respond directly to the group’s remarks last night but said in a statement that he was still “fully committed” to the new maternity hospital and defended public-private hospital ownership.

Last month, The Times revealed that the Sisters of Charity, which still owes €3 million in child abuse redress, was to be given the new National Maternity Hospital after it is built with €300 million of taxpayers’ money.

The new hospital is to be built on the Elm Park site at St Vincent’s University Hospital in Dublin, a site which is owned by the Sisters of Charity. The Department of Health said that the option of the state buying the land from the religious order “never arose”.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Times

By J.D. Prose jprose@calkins.com

Victims of sexual abuse would have an additional 10 years to pursue civil legal action under a bill introduced in the state Senate while another one would require schools be tested for lead every year.

Senate Bill 643, sponsored by state Sen. John Rafferty Jr., R-Montgomery County, would increase the statute of limitations for sexual abuse victims who were under 18 when they were assaulted. Currently, these victims have 12 years after they turn 18 to file civil suits, but Rafferty’s bill would increase that window to 22 years.

“This legislation would allow the victim to file for damages regardless of whether the individual files a criminal complaint regarding the childhood sexual abuse,” Rafferty told colleagues in a February memo.

Southwest Pennsylvania co-sponsors on the legislation include state Sens. Guy Reschenthaler, R-37, Jefferson Hills, Allegheny County, and Pat Stefano, R-Fayette County.

Rafferty previously introduced his bill in April 2016, but it did not receive a floor vote. Senate Bill 643 was assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee, on which Rafferty serves as vice chairman.

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

BY PAT FLANAGAN
21 APR 2017

Our Government spending €300million of our money to open a Magdalene maternity hospital says all you need to know about Ireland’s attitude towards woman and children.

After the decades of persecution and abuse inflicted on innocent children you’d imagine the last people you would let near women and kids would be the order of nuns which ran the Magdalene Laundries.

Such is the disbelief at the plan to give Sisters of Charity complete ownership of the new National Maternity Hospital that people must be pinching themselves to check it’s not all a bad dream.

It’s not that it’s bad, it’s not that it’s mad – it is one of the most obscene acts ever committed by an Irish government and a total insult to the Magdalene survivors.

It is not surprising a petition calling for this dirty deed to be undone had been signed by almost 70,000 outraged citizens on Thursday night.

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NEW YORK
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Henry Mills was ordained for the Archdiocese of New York in 1988. He was an assistant priest at Christ the King parish in the Bronx for eight years, followed by one year in the same role at St. Joseph of the Holy Family in Harlem.

Mills was removed from St. Joseph’s in 1997 after he was accused in a lawsuit of raping a 17-year-old male parishioner. The abuse was said to have begun in 1992 at Christ the King, when the youth went to Mills for counseling, and to have continued over several years. Mills’ accuser claimed that the priest plied him with alcohol, threatened to say that the boy tried to seduce him if he told, and said that “nobody would ever believe” him. The lawsuit also accused the archdiocese of a cover-up and of breaking a promise to provide psychological help. The archdiocese denied the allegations and said “if anything occurred, it was consensual sex.” Mills countersued his accuser in 1998.

After his removal Mills was sent to a treatment facility in upstate New York, after which he was sent reside at St. Elizabeth parish rectory in Washington Heights. In 2002, despite his “Absent on Leave” status, Mills was discovered by a news reporter to have been actively ministering at the parish and its school. At the time, neither of the lawsuits had been resolved.

Mills’ whereabouts and status in April 2017 are unclear.

Ordained: 1988

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service

“A primary reason why abuse victims are afraid of the church is because of the level of immaturity and ignorance they have experienced in how they are treated or handled by the community and leadership of a church.” – child sexual abuse survivor

Sexual abuse of children within faith communities is an extremely complex topic, and failing to comprehend and address it can have devastating and lifelong consequences. Yet, research shows that only about three percent of seminaries provide any preparation in child abuse prevention and response (according to the National Child Protection Training Center). Church leaders must be educated before-the-job, not on-the-job. Education about child sex abuse must be in tandem with education on studying scripture, preaching, counseling, and administration.

Biblical Theological Seminary (BTS) has teamed up with Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment (GRACE) to offer a first of its kind, 3-credit-hour seminary course that will educate, train, and equip future pastors and church staff members on protecting children from offenders and serving adult survivors of child sexual abuse. GRACE worked with the National Child Protection Training Center and a team of Christian theologians, pastors, counselors, and child protection professionals to craft this historic course.

In describing the need for this course, GRACE’s executive director, Boz Tchividjian, stated, “The on-the-job training of pastors and other faith leaders in preventing and responding to child sexual abuse isn’t working – it is dangerous and all too often has devastating consequences.

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SOUTH AFRICA
East Coast Radio

By Jacaranda FM news

The Christian Association of Nigeria has condemned a pastor who stands accused of sexually exploiting at least 30 girls.

The Nigerian pastor, who lives in Port Elizabeth, was arrested by the Hawks on charges of human trafficking.

The association’s Archbishop Benson Uwha said they are aware that not all of their countrymen necessarily have good intentions, but pointed out that some South African pastors are also accused of exploiting their congregants.

“We do not shy away from the fact that there are a few Nigerians who come into this land in the name of pastors and otherwise and drive undue excesses and despicable acts.

“”We condemn the practices and also appeal to South Africans to let the law take its course.

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SOUTH AFRICA
News 24

Port Elizabeth – The controversial pastor sought in relation to sexual offences in Port Elizabeth will remain in police custody for another 12 days, the Port Elizabeth Magistrate’s Court said on Friday.

The pastor made a brief appearance on Friday and his matter was postponed to May 3.

The 58-year-old was arrested by the Hawks on Thursday and taken to their offices in chains, escorted by police vehicles with howling sirens, Netwerk24 reported at the time.

Wearing sunglasses and a colourful jacket, the pastor was accompanied by police officials from the tactical response team (TRT).

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SOUTH AFRICA
City Press

Nosipiwo Manona
2017-04-21

Hundreds of worshippers from Jesus Domination International church, where Timothy Omotoso is the head pastor and prophet, filled the Port Elizabeth Magistrates’ Court on Friday.

They came in support of Omotoso, who was nabbed dramatically by the Hawks with a heavy contingent of the Tactical Response Team (TRT unit), shortly after he landed at the local airport with his three escorts on Thursday afternoon.

He has been accused of sexually abusing women who worked at the churches he managed in South Africa.

He was investigated after a woman from Port Elizabeth made accusations of sexual abuse against him.

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UNITED STATES
YouTube

Published on Apr 5, 2017

Rabbi Yosef Blau addresses the issues of child sexual abuse in the orthodox community, cover ups, reporting abuse to the police, and supporting survivors.

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CANADA
Yahoo!

VANCOUVER, April 21, 2017 /CNW/ – David McCann will be travelling to Rome the week of May 14 to 21, 2017 to seek a meeting with Pope Francis and his staff to ask him to apologize to Canadians for the abuse suffered by children and others at the hands of Catholic religious orders and clergy.

To date he has received replies from the Archbishops of Ottawa and Vancouver, and the Cardinal Archbishop of Toronto.

He is awaiting confirmation of the meeting from Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State.

Mr. McCann will discuss further details of his trip, and the reasons for going, at a press conference on Tuesday, April 25, 2017 at 9:00 am. Location: Studios 2 and 3, Sandman Hotel, 180 West Georgia Street, Vancouver, BC V6B 4P4.

In November of 1989, Mr. McCann was the first student from St. Joseph’s Training School For Boys in Alfred, Ontario to come forward with allegations of physical, psychological and sexual child abuse against the De La Salle Brothers of the Christian Schools and other staff at the school.

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SCHWEIZ
RRO

[The Swiss bishops’ conference launched a call four and a half months ago for victims of clery abuse to come forward. As a result, seven people have been registered in the diocese of Sitten. The cases reported date back to the years 1950 to 1970. Four of the accused priests were active in the Unterwallis, one in the Oberwallis.]

Sieben Opfer haben sich beim Bistum Sitten aufgrund sexuellen Missbrauchs durch Pfarrer gemeldet. Von den fünf Beschuldigten lebt heute jedoch nur noch einer.

21.04.2017, 07:15

Vor viereinhalb Monaten hat die schweizerische Bischofskonferenz einen Aufruf lanciert. Opfer von sexuellem Missbrauch durch Priester sollten sich mitteilen. Daraufhin haben sich im Bistum Sitten bis heute sieben Personen gemeldet. Die angegebenen Fälle gehen auf die Jahre 1950 bis 1970 zurück. Vier der bezichtigten Priester waren im Unterwallis tätig, einer im Oberwallis.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Network Norwich

The Catholic Church has admitted it should have taken “more robust action” against a former Norwich priest jailed for sexually abusing a vulnerable teenage boy at a children’s home almost 40 years ago.

Anthony McSweeney was jailed for three years in 2015, after he was found guilty of indecently assaulting the youngster while working at Grafton Close Children’s Home in Hounslow, West London, between 1979 and 1981.

Concerns were raised in 1998, when his cleaner discovered pornographic videos at St Peter’s Catholic Church in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex.

But instead of being reported to the police, he was quietly moved to a new parish, St George’s, in Norwich, where he led the Sprowston Road church’s congregation.

Now, the safeguarding commissions of the dioceses of East Anglia and Brentwood have accepted the recommendations made in an independent review following McSweeney’s conviction, and that “there were failings in the way in which the Church managed the situation at the time”.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Wigan Today

CHARLES GRAHAM
Friday 21 April 2017

The victim who came forward to give evidence against a disgraced local priest has been praised for his bravery.

Following the guilty verdict of Father Michael Higginbottom, and his sentencing to 17 years in prison for sexual offences committed against a teenage boy in the 1970s, when the former priest taught at St Joseph’s College, the Crown Prosecution Service has sought to reassure other victims of similar assaults.

Claire Hilton, Senior Crown Prosecutor, Rape and Serious Sexual Offences Unit, said: “The victim in this case showed great courage in coming forward to report the offences committed and giving evidence at his trial.

His courage has enabled the CPS to bring him to justice for his crimes. “Higginbottom abused the significant position of trust he held as a teacher and guardian of the pupils in his care as well as a priest and representative of the Catholic Church.

“His actions have had a devastating impact on the victim from his school days and into his adult life.

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INDIA
Crux

Nirmala Carvalho April 21, 2017
CRUX CONTRIBUTOR

MUMBAI, India – An Archbishop in India and two of his priests may soon appear in court, accused of attempting to poison to another cleric.

The case dates back to February 2013, when Father Anand Muttungal, a priest of the Archdiocese of Bhopal, filed a complaint alleging that the Archbishop of Bhopal, Leo Cornelio, the vicar general Father Mathew VC, and diocesan spokesperson Father Johny PJ were retaliating after Muttungal questioned an alleged misappropriation of funds from the diocesan society. Muttungal had also approached the Madhya Pradesh High Court about the misappropriation case.

The allegations in the complaint were substantiated by Father Philip KP, another priest of the diocese, who submitted an affidavit in the court alleging the archbishop and vicar general had pressured him to administer some poisonous substances to Muttungal in order to make him go crazy, and they had even approached a psychiatrist for help in executing the plot.

Cornelio, however, claimed that the allegations against him were baseless.

“Whatever happened was done in good faith, to help the person,” the archbishop told Crux.

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OKLAHOMA
NewsOK

by Carla Hinton, & Kyle Schwab Published: April 21, 2017

OKLAHOMA CITY – The former director of immigration and legal services of Catholic Charities of Oklahoma City has been accused of stealing money meant for clients’ immigration fees.

Margarita I. Solis, 46, of Norman, was charged Wednesday with three felony counts of embezzlement.

Oklahoma County prosecutors allege Solis, while employed as an attorney by Catholic Charities, was in charge of assisting clients in obtaining permanent residency status and citizenship in the United States.

After receiving money orders from clients to pay immigration fees, Solis would make the orders payable to her and cash them, according to prosecutors.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Dr Peter Boylan

A new national maternity hospital is badly needed to serve the interests of the women and infants of Ireland. There is no argument about this.

Despite clinical outcomes that compare with the best in the world, there are obvious infrastructural deficiencies in the existing building, on Holles Street in Dublin.

The design of the hospital planned for the Elm Park campus, next to St Vincent’s University Hospital, is superb.

Huge credit is due to those who have invested so much time and effort in the project. It is to be hoped that planning permission will soon be granted. …

Modern maternity and gynaecological care encompasses contraception, sterilisation, IVF, gender reassignment surgery and abortion, as well as the usual day-to-day activities of a busy maternity hospital.

Are we seriously expected to believe that if the hospital goes ahead according to the proposed arrangement it will be the only maternity hospital in the world owned by the Catholic Church, and run by a company owned by the Catholic Church, that will allow these procedures? This stretches credibility to breaking point. Indeed it would seem to be naive.

The board of any hospital oversees, in a corporate sense, the clinical work of the hospital.

The proposed structure means that the four directors nominated by St Vincent’s Healthcare Group will have fundamental religious objections to a significant part of the clinical work of the hospital.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Paul Cullen

Minister for Health Simon Harris has promised key protections against possible “religious interference” will be put in place before the move of the National Maternity Hospital (NMH) to St Vincent’s hospital goes ahead.

Mr Harris rejected claims the Sisters of Charity, who will own the new facility through their ownership of St Vincent’s, have been “gifted” the hospital or that they would be running it.

While acknowledging “legitimate questions and opinions” had been voiced since it emerged the order would own the new €300 million hospital, Mr Harris said he was committed to “absolutely protecting” public health policy, taxpayers’ money and the State.

After a day when Opposition politicians mocked the Minister for “hiding behind tweets” on the issue and 200 people protested outside his department’s Hawkins House offices, he issued a statement saying he would seek new safeguards before the project went ahead.

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IRELAND
Breaking News

Update: 10;50am The Chair of the Oireachtas Health Committee says it is not important who owns the new National Maternity Hospital.

Doctor Micheál Harty says what matters is what happens inside.

Tens of thousands of people have signed a petition to block the Sisters of Charity from owning the Dublin hospital when it opens in four years time.

The Health Minister has promised the nuns won’t have any say over medical decisions despite their ability to appoint members of the board.

While Doctor Harty claims the ownership row is unimportant: “For the women who need a termination in the case of a risk to her life, what happens within that hospital, is far more important than who owns it.”

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Philip Ryan
April 21 2017

Health Minister Simon Harris has been accused of “practising hypocrisy” over his stance on the Sisters of Charity’s controversial ownership of the long-awaited National Maternity Hospital.

The charge came as Mr Harris insisted the religious order would not gain financially or have any say over medical procedures or treatment at the new hospital. In an official statement, the minister said it was “not true” to say that the “nuns will be running the hospital”.

However, fresh questions have been raised over the minister’s position on the religious order after it emerged that he previously attacked financial arrangements linked to the charity.

Three years ago, Mr Harris lambasted the St Vincent’s Care Group, which is owned by the under-fire religious order, for using a public hospital as collateral for bank loans to build a private car park and health facility.

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BELGIE
De Redactie

[Mark Vangheluwe, cousin, and for years a victim of former bishop Roger Vangheluwe, has in the book “Letter to the Pope” written down his story about the abuse. The “king of unpunished secret”, he calls his uncle.]

Mark Vangheluwe, neef en jarenlang slachtoffer van gewezen bisschop Roger Vangheluwe, heeft in het boek “Brief aan de paus” voor het eerst zijn verhaal over het misbruik neergeschreven. De “ongestrafte koning van het verborgene”, noemt hij zijn nonkel. “Door te schrijven probeert hij terug meester te worden over zijn lijf”, getuigt jeugdpsychiater Peter Adriaenssens.

22 april 2010. Bijna dag op dag zeven jaar geleden ontploft de Vangheluwebom in de kerk. Op een persconferentie leest de woordvoerder van Vangheluwe een brief voor waarin de bisschop bekent dat hij jarenlang “een jongen uit een bevriende omgeving” seksueel misbruikt heeft. Die jongen, dat is Mark Vangheluwe, zijn neef. Amper vijf was hij toen hij voor de eerste keer misbruikt werd door zijn nonkel en dat misbruik zou bijna 15 jaar aanhouden. Zijn getuigenis in 2010 deed Roger Vangheluwe de das om. Meer nog: wat volgde was een stroom aan getuigenissen over seksueel misbruik binnen de kerk.

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PENNSYLVANIA
NBC 10

Three Franciscan friars have asked a judge to dismiss criminal charges that they didn’t properly supervise a suspected sexual predator accused of molesting more than 100 children, most at a Pennsylvania high school.

Blair County Judge Jolene Kopriva has set an April 27 hearing on the defense motions filed by attorneys for Giles Schinelli, Robert D’Aversa and Anthony Criscitelli, the Altoona Mirror reported Thursday.

D’Aversa, 70, Cristcitelli, 62, and Schinelli, 73, were ordered to stand trial on child endangerment and conspiracy charges following a preliminary hearing last April.

State prosecutors contend the friars either assigned or supervised Brother Stephen Baker when he served at Bishop McCort Catholic High School in Johnstown in the 1990s.

Baker fatally stabbed himself in the heart at the Franciscan’s St. Bernardine monastery near Hollidaysburg, which the defendants led from 1986 to 2010. Baker killed himself days after the Youngstown, Ohio, diocese announced in early 2013 that 11 students had settled claims they were molested by Baker while he worked at John F. Kennedy High School in Warren, Ohio, in the late 1980s.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

A member of the Jehovah Witness congregation will appear in court next month after he was charged with historic child sex offences.

Child Abuse squad detectives charged the 72-year-old over alleged offences against a girl between 1979 and 1982.

It will be alleged the man sexually assaulted the girl, who was 11 at the time of the first offence, in the towns of Narrogin, Windy Harbour and Katanning.

“During this time, the man was an active member of the Katanning Jehovah Witness congregation,” a police spokesperson said.

The man has been charged with a string of child sex offences including indecent dealing, unlawful carnal knowledge of girls under 16 and deprivation of liberty.

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GEORGIA
Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Raisa Habersham
Thursday, April 20, 2017

A man is accused of “abusive sexual contact” after authorities say he inappropriately touched a girl who was visiting Ebenezer Baptist Church with her school.

Herbert Boone Jr. was indicted Tuesday on accusations he “intentionally touched a 13-year-old’s inner thigh and buttocks,” according to a federal indictment.

The teenager was on a field trip with her middle school April 6 at the Martin Luther King Jr. Historic Site when Boone approached some of the students at the church entrance, according to an affidavit.

“Within a few seconds of the students sitting down (in the church sanctuary), the educator heard the victim yell,” National Park Service officer Timothy A. Lopez wrote in the affidavit.

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UTAH
KUTV

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A woman says she plans to file an official complaint against a Utah judge who called a man convicted of sexually assaulting her a “an extraordinarily good man” during sentencing.

Julia Kirby said Thursday that she wants the state Judicial Conduct Commission to know the remarks were “emotionally damaging.”

The panel can recommend the Utah Supreme Court reprimand or remove Judge Thomas Low. She expects to file the complaint Friday.

Low said last week that “great men sometimes do bad things” as he sentenced former Mormon bishop Keith Robert Vallejo to five years to life in prison for forcible sexual abuse and object rape.

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UTAH
Associated Press

BY HALLIE GOLDEN
ASSOCIATED PRESS

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah judge who called a convicted rapist a “good man” during sentencing showed bias for the defendant because he was a former Mormon bishop, according to an official complaint filed Thursday by a gay rights group.

Mark Lawrence of Restore our Humanity said the group sent the complaint to the state Judicial Conduct Commission, which can recommend the Utah Supreme Court reprimand or remove Judge Thomas Low.

Low sentenced Keith Robert Vallejo last week to five years to life in prison after a jury found him guilty of 10 counts of forcible sexual abuse and one count of object rape.

“The court has no doubt that Mr. Vallejo is an extraordinarily good man,” Low said at the hearing. “But great men sometimes do bad things.”

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GEORGIA
Gospel Herald

By LEAH MARIEANN KLETT Apr 20, 2017

A married Baptist pastor and father of ten who was found guilty of molesting two teenage members of his church congregation has said he is “angry with God” over the verdict.

“As a pastor, as a bishop, I am mad with life and I am angry with God,” Bishop Kenneth Adkins, pastor of the Greater Dimensions Christian Fellowship, told reporters. “I did not molest any children. I did not touch anybody, I didn’t have oral sex with anybody. I didn’t allow anybody to have oral sex with me. I did not do those things,” he said.

In a unanimous decision by a Georgia jury, the 57-year-old Brunswick native was found guilty of eight charges of abuse against a teenage boy and girl, the Mail Online reports. Adkins, who will be sentenced April 25, faces a lifetime behind bars if convicted of the five counts of aggravated child molestation; three counts of simple child molestation; two counts of enticing a child for indecent purposes and a single charge of influencing a witness.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com April 21, 2017

Archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes has asked Catholics to join the rest of Guam in observing child abuse prevention month, to help bring hope and healing to victims, including those who are sexual assault survivors.

“Please do not cast a blind eye or a deaf ear to something that you see or hear,” Byrnes said in an April 16 pastoral letter. “Take advantage of the social and legal remedies available to us. And if you know someone who is suffering silently with the shame of having been abused as a minor by a member of the clergy, please give them the number to the Hope and Healing hotline: 1-888-649-5288.”

Byrnes, in his Easter Sunday message, said he is mindful of the many victims of sexual assault and child abuse on island, particularly the victims of child sexual abuse perpetrated by members of the Catholic clergy.

The Archdiocese of Agana faces 54 clergy sex abuse lawsuits filed in local and federal courts as of April 19, including allegations against Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron, who is also undergoing a Vatican canonical penal trial.

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MISSOURI
The Catholic Key

In his homily at the Service of Lament last year, Bishop James V. Johnston, Jr. made five commitments to support the healing of child abuse victims and to advance education and prevention efforts in making safer environments for our children. One of those commitments was to establish an Annual Day of Prayer beginning on April 26, 2017, during Child Abuse Prevention Month.

The Day of Prayer is an opportunity for all in the Diocese to share in praying for the victims and survivors of childhood sexual abuse, particularly those who have been abused by someone in the Catholic Church, and for their families, friends and our entire community. It also is to pray for ongoing efforts in the healing and reconciliation of those who have suffered this abuse, and prevention efforts in making safer environments for our children and educating adults to support awareness.

As part of the Day, the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph invites the faithful to pray at these public events:

Eucharistic Adoration: 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m., in the Chapel of Our Lady of Ephesus at the Catholic Center (20 W. 9th Street, Kansas City, MO)
Day of Prayer Mass with Bishop Johnston: 12:15 p.m. at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception (416 W. 12th Street, Kansas City, MO); parking is limited, so arrive early to find a spot. A map of downtown parking is available at www.visitkc.com.

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NEW YORK
Press Republican

By ROBIN CAUDELL Press-Republican

OGDENSBURG — Anyone hurt by the Catholic Church can get spiritual relief at a special Mass of Healing Sunday afternoon at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Ogdensburg.

The Most Rev. Bishop Terry R. LaValley will preside at this Eucharistic celebration, on Divine Mercy Sunday, which acknowledges the pain and grief of victims and their families and apologizes for the misconduct by pastoral leaders or laity.

This is the first time a Mass of Healing has been offered diocesan-wide.

“Last year, the Holy Father declared it to be a Jubilee Year of Mercy,” LaValley said.

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PENNSYLVANIA
We Are Central PA

[with video]

HOLLIDAYSBURG, BLAIR COUNTY, Pa. – Three Friars accused of covering up child sexual abuse within the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese are asking the Blair County Court to dismiss the charges filed against them.

The Altoona Mirror is reporting that attorneys for the Friars say there is a lack of evidence to support the child endangerment charges brought against the men last year.

Anthony Schinelli, Robert D’Aversa and Anthony Criscitelli are accused of protecting Brother Stephen Baker who was accused of molesting children. The paper also reports that the men are asking for separate jury trials, and out of town juries because of prior publicity.

The next court hearing for the Friars is set for next Thursday.

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MASSACHUSETTS
MassLive

By Kristin LaFratta | kristin.lafratta@masslive.com

The super maximum security prison where Aaron Hernandez took his life in the quiet of night is a rough place — even for a prison.

The Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center holds the worst of the worst. And it has a history of violence since it opened 19 years ago, named after two corrections officers who were killed by inmates. And while most prisons are far from immune to fighting between inmates, the high-tech facility at the border of Lancaster and Shirley and just north of Route 2 seems particularly troubled by the irrepressible felons it collects.

Perhaps the prison’s name forebode the violence that was to come. In July of 1972, James Souza, 29 and Alfred Baranowski, 54, were shot by an inmate whose wife had smuggled in handguns into what was then the Norfolk Prison Colony. Forty-five years later, the state prison named in their honor has seen attacks on its staff, suicides, fighting between inmates and an anarchic riot that could only be stopped by an emergency back-up unit.

The prison on Harvard Road has housed some notable figures, including Aaron Hernandez, Red Sox commentator Jerry Remy’s son and convicted murderer Jared Remy and a defrocked Catholic priest.

John Geoghan, a sexual abuser and former Catholic priest, was murdered in the prison in 2002. Geoghan was strangled and stomped to death by Joseph Druce, who was reportedly in prison for murdering a man who had made sexual advances toward him.

Geoghan had been sentenced to Souza-Baranowski in 2002 on charges of sexual abuse, after it was uncovered that he had molested many young boys in parishes around Boston. Some questioned why, considering their sentences, Geoghan and Druce were placed in the same protective-custody unit at the high-security facility.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

By Kevin Cullen GLOBE STAFF APRIL 20, 2017

Two years ago, as the release of the movie “Spotlight” approached, Monica Crowley worried about the film’s impact on her brother Joe.

Joe Crowley’s character is a featured role in the film about the Boston Globe’s investigation of the coverup of the sexual abuse of minors by Roman Catholic priests.

A criminal in a Roman collar named Paul Shanley raped a 15-year-old Joe Crowley and passed Joe around to others like a cigarette.

As the movie recounting that horrific abuse was about to hit the cinemas, Joe Crowley was recuperating in a nursing home, his health ruined by the tobacco and booze he had used to numb the memories. A priest, Rev. Brian Clary, had been visiting Crowley’s mother in another nursing home for years. Monica Crowley told Father Brian that Joe had been abused by a priest, and asked him to visit Joe.

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

By Lisa Wangsness GLOBE STAFF APRIL 21, 2017

The Archdiocese of Boston has been closing churches in the city for muchof the past 13 years, especially in old ethnic enclaves in South Boston, East Boston, and the South End. On Sunday, it will open a brand new Roman Catholic church in the city for the first time in more than 60 years.

Our Lady of Good Voyage Shrine stands on Seaport Street just over the Evelyn Moakley Bridge from downtown at the gateway of the Seaport District, a neighborhood that best represents the city’s high-tech future.

“We have the best location you can imagine,” said the Rev. James Flavin, episcopal vicar of the archdiocese’s central region. “When you come over the bridge, we’re the first building you see.”

The angular brick structure — which incorporates nautical flourishes as testament to its seaside location — stands as a kind of triumph for the Catholic Church, its profile diminished significantly in recent years because of the priest sexual abuse crisis and an increasingly secular culture. Though dwarfed by the sleek glass and steel buildings nearby, Our Lady of Good Voyage is nevertheless highly visible; the 14-foot thin gold cross on its bell tower seems almost suspended in the air.

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AUSTRALIA
Ararat Advertiser

Rex Martinich
@RexMartinich

21 Apr 2017

FORMER Horsham Catholic parish priest Father Frank Madden has died age 90.

Catholic Diocese of Ballarat Vicar General Justin Driscoll said Fr Madden passed away on Thursday night in Koroit, where he had been living in retirement.

“Fr Madden turned 90 in November last year,” Fr Driscoll said. …

Fr Madden was the priest in charge of Horsham parish when notorious paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale was sent to the Wimmera between July 1986 and June 1988.

Ridsdale has been convicted of dozens of historical child sexual abuse charges against 53 victims in Ballarat and the wider diocese, which covers western Victoria.

Fr Madden appeared at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in 2015.

Fr Madden accepted that he must take some responsibility for reshuffling of Ridsdale between locations and the devastation caused to people.

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NEW YORK
WWNY

[with video]

They’re trying to clean and dress the wounds they caused.

Thousands of cases of sexual abuses by members of Catholic clergy have come to light over the past few decades.

To help heal those wounds, Bishop Terry LaValley of the Diocese of Ogdensburg says he’s taking cues from Pope Francis, who calls for the Catholic Church to be a field hospital for those who are hurting.

“How can this local field hospital, really, tend to the wounds that the church itself has inflicted upon our own?”

One way: Bishop LaValley is presiding over a special “Healing Mass.”

“It’s the Mass, but the Mass with the focus of Divine mercy, and our own sinfulness, and our own failings,” he said.

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IRELAND
The Tablet (UK)

20 April 2017 | by Sarah Mac Donald

Survivor Marie Collins, who resigned from the Vatican’s abuse commission over its slow progress, backs the new appointments at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

Pope Francis’ appointment of Irish priest, Monsignor John Kennedy, as head of the disciplinary section of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has been welcomed by clerical abuse survivor Marie Collins.

The section Kennedy now leads has a number of responsibilities, one of which deals with priests accused of child sexual abuse. “It is an important position within the Congregation,” Collins told The Tablet.

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SOUTH AFRICA
Herald Live

Lee-Anne Butler

The Port Elizabeth legal team representing Durban-based televangelist Timothy Omotoso have brought an urgent application at the Port Elizabeth high court in order to determine the whereabouts of their client.

This comes after Omotoso was arrested by the Hawks Human Trafficking unit in Port Elizabeth this afternoon [20/04/17] on a charge of alleged human trafficking‚ the elite police unit confirmed.

Omotoso is being represented by Port Elizabeth attorney Alwyn Griebenow and Advocate Terry Price SC.

Price said they were drafting papers in order to bring an urgent application before the Port Elizabeth High Court to have Omotoso brought before the courts to discover his whereabouts.

“We want to have him brought before court because they are not telling us where he is. I am his lawyer but I do not even know where he is,” Price said.

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SOUTH AFRICA
IOL

Raahil Sain

Port Elizabeth – A Nigerian pastor who allegedly sexually exploited more than 30 girls played hide-and-seek with police as he arrived at the Port Elizabeth Airport on Thursday where he was to be arrested by the Hawks.

Amidst high drama, the pastor from the Jesus Dominian International Church based in Durban was arrested at the Port Elizabeth Airport on Thursday afternoon on charges of human trafficking.

The controversial pastor also runs churches in Port Elizabeth, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Bloemfontein and in the United Kingdom.

According to an eyewitness, who did not want to be named, police initially ran through arrivals doors looking for the suspect but could not find him. The source told African News Agency (ANA) police then searched the toilets and found him.

The suspect was handcuffed out of the bathroom by police officers. The pastor is being represented by well-known Port Elizabeth attorney Alwyn Griebenow, who was also at the airport.

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SOUTH AFRICA
Times Live

Michael Kimberley And Lee-Anne Butler | 2017-04-20

A controversial Durban-based Nigerian pastor‚ wanted in connection with allegations of sexual assault‚ was arrested at the Port Elizabeth airport on Thursday afternoon.

Hawks spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Netshiunda said the pastor had been arrested shortly after arriving at the Port Elizabeth international airport by the Hawks and members of the South African Police Service’s Tactical Response Team (TRT).

“The 58-year-old pastor allegedly trafficked young women and girls from various branches of his church to a house in uMhlanga‚ Kwazulu-Natal‚ where he allegedly exploited them sexually‚” Netshiunda said.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Associated Press

HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. (AP) — Three Franciscan friars have asked a judge to dismiss criminal charges that they didn’t properly supervise a suspected sexual predator accused of molesting more than 100 children, most at a Pennsylvania high school.

Blair County Judge Jolene Kopriva has set an April 27 hearing on the defense motions filed by attorneys for Giles Schinelli, Robert D’Aversa and Anthony Criscitelli, the Altoona Mirror reported Thursday.

D’Aversa, 70, Cristcitelli, 62, and Schinelli, 73, were ordered to stand trial on child endangerment and conspiracy charges following a preliminary hearing last April.

State prosecutors contend the friars either assigned or supervised Brother Stephen Baker when he served at Bishop McCort Catholic High School in Johnstown in the 1990s.

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IRELAND
Irish Sun

By Ed Carty
20th April 2017

ONE of the country’s most respected consultant obstetricians has said nuns will not be able to stop lawful abortion or contraceptive treatment in the new National Maternity Hospital.

A deal with the Sisters of Charity proposes the new €300million facility will be built on the St Vincent’s Hospital campus in south Dublin, which the religious order owns.

Amid furore over nuns potentially determining clinical care at the hospital, Dr Rhona Mahony, Master of the National Maternity Hospital at Holles Street, said medical care at the new hospital will be entirely independent.

“Can we get real about this,” the leading consultant said.

Ms Mahony said contraceptive treatment or abortions when a woman’s life is at risk will be carried out at the new campus when it opens in about four or five years time.

“At the moment in Holles Street we provide services to women. This includes contraception. We have about five terminations a year, otherwise women would die. This will continue in the new hospital

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Jack Power, Sarah Burns, Mary Minihan

A member of the Sisters of Charity has said the new €300 million national maternity hospital on the St Vincent’s campus in Dublin will “always respect the rights of the mother and the baby”.

Sr Agnes Reynolds, a member of the St Vincent’s Healthcare Group board, said the new maternity hospital would “reach out to all creeds and backgrounds . . . and give a good service to people”.

The Department of Health’s decision to give sole ownership of the State-funded hospital to the Sisters of Charity has provoked controversy, mainly because of the congregation’s failure to meet its financial commitment to a redress scheme for victims of institutional child abuse.

It has paid €2 million of the €5 million it promised to contribute in 2009.

The congregation owns the St Vincent’s campus, which includes one of the country’s largest public hospitals and a private hospital.

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IRELAND
Befast Telegraph

The Health Minister has called on an order of nuns to agree contracts allowing lawful abortion or contraceptive treatment in the new National Maternity Hospital.

Simon Harris issued the demand to the Sisters of Charity, which owns the land in south Dublin where the new 300 million euro facility is planned next to St Vincent’s Hospital.

Amid furore over nuns potentially determining clinical care at the hospital and concerns being raised by a respected consultant obstetrician, it is one of three criteria the minister has asked health chiefs to get formal assurances on.

Questions over whether the Sisters of Charity would have ultimate ownership of the public hospital and could profit from it also provoked anger as the congregation has yet to pay three million euro of redress for victims of institutional child abuse.

Mr Harris said: “I have heard people say that nuns will be running the hospital. Not true.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

The Government must show clearly how the new National Maternity Hospital at St Vincent’s in Dublin will not in any way be under the control of its owners the Sisters of Charity or subject to their ethos, Amnesty International Ireland has said.

The organisation’s executive director, Colm O’Gorman, said the State has a clear obligation under international law to ensure it provides access to healthcare “in a manner which fully protects, respects and fulfils the human rights of people living within the State”.

It must ensure that “access to a full range of health services is not denied to people on the basis of the ideological or religious ethos of any healthcare provider that it chooses to partner with”.

It was not enough “to assure the public that this is the case. Instead it must transparently and fully provide evidence that it is, by disclosing the full detail of the agreement it has entered into with the Sisters of Charity and subjecting it to full and open scrutiny,” he said.

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IRELAND
Newstalk

Updated 21:05

Health Minister Simon Harris says the Sisters of Charity will receive no financial gain from the new National Maternity Hospital.

There have been protests and objections to putting the new facility into the ownership of the religious order.

The Sisters of Charity were party to a €128m redress scheme with the State in 2002 for child abuse, which took place at its industrial schools.

A report from the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) in December 2016 shows that the Sisters of Charity offered €5m towards the redress scheme – but have only paid €2m.

An online petition against the ownership has received more than 65,000 signatures.

There are also calls for a Dáil debate on the issue.

On Newstalk Drive this afternoon Minister Harris said the government will not proceed with the project unless the Department of Health is satisfied that the hospital will be free of religious interference and that the state’s investment will be 100% protected:

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Paul Cullen

I’ve read the State is going to hand ownership of the new €300-million National Maternity Hospital (NMH) to the Sisters of Charity when it is moved from Holles Street to St Vincent’s. What is going on?

The Holles Street building is dilapidated and the maternity hospital urgently needs new premises. So it is moving to St Vincent’s, where it will be run by an independent company. However, this company will be owned by the St Vincent’s Healthcare Group, whose sole shareholders are the Sisters of Charity. So the nuns, who own the land, will also own the new building.

Why is this being done?

It was part of a deal finalised last November to settle a row between the NMH and St Vincent’s over control of the new hospital. While the company set up to run it will be owned by St Vincent’s, the hospital will enjoy clinical and operational independence, both sides agreed at the time.

The existing role of master of the NMH is being retained under the new set-up. The autonomy of the maternity hospital will be underpinned by “reserved powers” that only the Minister for Health can amend, and the Minister will hold a “golden share”. The nominees of the NMH or St Vincent’s will also be able to consult the Minister on any operational matter about which they feel “aggrieved”.

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IRELAND
The Journal

Updated 5:51pm

AS POLITICAL PARTIES began to step up the pressure on the government over the controversy surrounding the new National Maternity Hospital, a protest was held this afternoon outside the Department of Health.

Organised by the Workers’ Party, protesters called on the government to reverse the decision that would see religious order the Sisters of Charity owning the new National Maternity Hospital.

Today, Fianna Fáil, Labour and other parties demanded the government to provide answers surrounding the ownership of the new hospital, which will cost the State €300 million but will be owned by the Sisters of Charity.

In a statement this evening, Health Minister Simon Harris has sought to clarify the government’s position, saying that there was no question of “religious interference” in the new National Maternity Hospital.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Paul Cullen

Minister for Health Simon Harris has promised key protections against possible “religious interference” will be put in place before the move of the National Maternity Hospital to St Vincent’s goes ahead.

Mr Harris rejected claims that the Sisters of Charity, who will own the new facility through their ownership of St Vincent’s, have been “gifted” the hospital or that they will be running it.

The Sisters of Charity will lose out by making “very valuable” land available to the State for free, he pointed out. “In doing so, they have foregone the opportunity to put this land to alternative use.”

While acknowledging “legitimate questions and opinions” have been voiced since it emerged that the Sisters of Charity would own the new €300 million hospital, Mr Harris said he was committed to protecting to “absolutely protecting” public health policy, taxpayers’ money and the State.

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IRELAND
Irish Mirror

BY JOHN PATRICK KIERANS
20 APR 2017

Magdalene Laundry survivors have called for a protest against sole ownership the National Maternity Hospital being given to the Sisters of Charity.

The Magdalene Survivors together group has blasted the Government over the decision and want Health Minister Simon Harris, who is refusing to answer questions on the issue, to overturn it.

The call comes as former Holles Street boss Peter Boylan described the choice as “completely inappropriate”.

Steven O’Riordan, chairman of the survivor’s group, said: “This is not just about the Magdalene women, or the children of the past.

“This is about women and children of tomorrow also.

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IRELAND
The Guardian (UK)

Emer O’Toole

In 2009 the Ryan report into child sexual abuse in state-funded, church-run institutions was published, costing the Irish taxpayer €82m. It uncovered decades of abuse endured by children in the ostensible care of Catholic organisations including the Sisters of Charity. This is the order of nuns that will be given ownership of the €300m state-of-the-art new National Maternity Hospital by the Irish government, They will be the “sole owners” of the taxpayer-funded facility.

The Sisters of Charity were once involved in the operation of five residential schools. I will tell you some of what happened at just one of them.

At St Joseph’s Industrial school in Kilkenny, little girls as young as eight who complained of molestation by male lay staff were ignored, disbelieved or blamed for their abuse. Children were told their mothers were prostitutes. Children were fostered out to paedophiles. On three occasions the nuns hired paedophile lay workers, then failed to act when informed by children and sometimes by concerned adults about what was happening. Children were subject to severe corporal punishment right up until the 1990s.

The Sisters of Charity never issued a general public apology for the abuse suffered by children in their care. They did, however, promise to contribute €5m to the government’s €1.25bn redress scheme for victims of child abuse.

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IRELAND
IrishCentral

A decision by Ireland’s Department of Health to give the Sisters of Mercy the “sole ownership” of the new National Maternity Hospital has left thousands furious.

At the time of writing a petition asking the Government to reconsider the move has been signed by 40,000 and rising.

The Sisters of Charity were previously lambasted in the 2009 Ryan Report into child abuse as one of Ireland’s most culpable institutions; in part they were responsible for the management of the Magdalene Laundries which infamously imprisoned women who gave birth to children out of wedlock.

The petitions says the institution owes €3 million to survivors but is refusing to hand over the cash.

The petition demands, “Show the state we will not allow the abuse of our babies, children, and women to be swept under the rug… Deny them ‘sole’ ownership. Demand they formally apologise and pay redress.”

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ROME
Variety

Nick Vivarelli
International Correspondent
@NickVivarelli

ROME – Italy’s Leone Film Group has acquired rights to a series of books by Italian investigative journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi to develop an English-language TV series based on the so-called Vatileaks scandals that recently exposed rampant corruption and mismanagement at the Vatican.

The books by Nuzzi include “His Holiness: The Secret Papers of Benedict XVI,” based on documents leaked by Pope Benedict’s butler that some say helped precipitate Benedict’s historic resignation, and “Merchants in the Temple,” also based on confidential documents, which describes more recent episodes of cronyism, greed, and moral malaise and the internal attempts to sabotage Pope Francis’ crackdown.

Nuzzi’s reporting has led to the arrests of several of his sources by Vatican authorities. He was put on trial by a Vatican court in the highly publicized “Vatileaks 2” trial, but was acquitted.

“The TV series will take its cue from the events that led to the Vatileaks scandals,” said Raffaella Leone, managing director of Leone Film Group. “The idea is to start with ‘Merchants in the Temple,’ which is about a pool of experts hired by the Vatican to conduct internal investigations and audits for the pope.”

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SCOTLAND
STV

A retired priest who was accused of abusing boys over three decades is unfit to stand trial.

One of the alleged victims, Pat McEwan, has spoken of his frustration at what he feels is a lack of justice.

The 89-year-old priest has been diagnosed with dementia, meaning the accusations will not be tested in court.

The clergyman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was reported to the Crown Office in relation to alleged child abuse in Scotland from the 1950s to the 1980s.

Mr McEwan told STV News he was frustrated at the outcome, which he said has left him without justice.

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GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Apr 20, 2017

By Krystal Paco

While he’s optimistic about settling through the Hope and Healing Guam program, attorney David Lujan says that’s not going to stop his clients from filing lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Agana. To date, over 50 plaintiffs have filed suit, majority of whom are represented by Lujan.

“I expect to get more,” said Lujan. I can tell you I’ve got three St. Anthony School [sic]. I can tell you I have three new priests – one of those names is going to shock the island, because its someone super high up there.”

To date, ten priests stand accused of clergy sex abuse: Archbishop Anthony Apuron, Antonio Cruz, David Anderson, Raymond Cepeda, Thomas Camacho, Andy Mannetta, Sigmund Hafemann, Joe R. San Agustin, Juan Camacho, and Louis Brouillard.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio , heugenio@guampdn.com Published April 20, 2017

The attorney in charge of a new program to resolve dozens of clergy sex abuse cases said he met Thursday with the lawyer representing most of the survivors to discuss victim counseling, treatment and settlement amounts, among other things.

Attorney Michael W. Caspino, executive director of the nonprofit organization Hope and Healing Guam, said his meeting with attorney David Lujan was positive.

“We are moving forward,” Caspino said. “We are both committed to getting his clients healed.”

Without touching on the specifics, Caspino said they talked about the Hope and Healing Guam board membership, which could be announced next week, timing elements, and the funding for both the treatment and settlement, or compensation.

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

Written by Janela Carrera

Executive Director Michael Caspino emphasizes that he has no decision-making role in the program which is a concern raised by Attorney David Lujan.

Guam – While Attorney David Lujan calls the Hope and Healing effort a scam because of the way it is currently set up, its executive director Attorney Michael Caspino seems to paint a different picture of his meetings with Lujan so far.

“The article did come up and I told him that it must mean he really likes me,” Caspino quipped.

“And he got a good laugh out of that.”

It appears as though the two attorneys have gotten over their differences. In an interview with Lujan yesterday, the attorney representing a majority of the clergy sex abuse victims slammed the Hope and Healing program, calling it a scam. Specifically, Lujan did not agree that Caspino, who was hired by the Archdiocese of Agana for this effort, should also serve as the program’s executive director. But Caspino said the matter was never brought up at his meeting with Lujan this morning.

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GUAM
Pacific News Center

[lawsuit]

[lawsuit]

Written by Janela Carrera

Two new lawsuits were filed Wednesday but Attorney David Lujan says he plans to file two more by Monday.

Guam – Attorney David Lujan says more lawsuits will be filed in the coming days including two new ones next week that will name new priests.

He just filed two Wednesday in District Court, marking the 52nd and 53rd lawsuits to be filed in a matter of months. Both lawsuits filed name former Guam priest and Boy Scout master Father Louis Brouillard as the alleged perpetrator.

One is filed on behalf of a man with the initials M.W. who is now 54 years old. His lawsuit says that Brouillard sexually assaulted him over a one year period when he was 10 to 11 years old. M.W.’s lawsuit further accuses the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts of plotting together, saying they “developed and maintained a relationship …. by which pedophilic priests exploited the opportunity to serve as scout masters for the specific purpose of having access to young boys.” …

Meanwhile, Lujan says while the Vatican is named in most of the lawsuits he’s filed, they have not yet been named as defendants.

“There’s been various lawsuits throughout the various archdioceses in the United States and they’ve never done there like what they’re doing in Guam. They’ve never removed archbishops. So our position is Rome does in fact control Guam,” Lujan pointed out. “If we don’t come to settlement I believe that eventually we’ll be amending our complaint to sue the Vatican also, bring them in.”

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MASSACHUSETTS
WBUR

[with audio]

April 18, 2017
By Jamie Bologna and Tonya Mosley

“I was still like a kid with all this resentment and anger and rage and self pity, and it just owned me. And through a series of things, hard work, and people who were there for me in so many areas, so many ways, I learned how to be a survivor.”

That was Joe Crowley, speaking to The Boston Globe, after the release of the movie “Spotlight,” about the paper’s investigation in the Catholic Church’s cover-up of sex abuse by clergy.

Crowley, who passed away on Sunday at 58, was one of the first survivors of clergy sexual abuse to come forward, paving the way for so many more victims of abuse to speak out.

As Sacha Pfeiffer writes in the Globe today about her first meeting with Joe, “He was smart, funny, and articulate, but also nervous, insecure, and still trying to recover emotionally from what had happened to him decades earlier.”

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IRELAND
Irish Central

Niall O’Dowd @niallodowd April 19, 2017

WANTED: Clean-living young men for a long career. Women need not apply. Responsibilities: spiritual guidance, visiting the sick, public relations, marriages (own marriage not permitted).

Hours: on call 24/7.

Salary: basic stipend only.

Such was the way Time magazine a few years back illustrated how the Catholic Church in Ireland needed to regenerate itself. The ads went pretty much unanswered.

At the time Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin said, “If more young priests aren’t found quickly, Ireland’s parishes may not have enough clergy to survive.” …

But even if there were more priests, Mass attendance in Ireland is down sharply, due in part to the string of sex scandals that humiliated the Church. More than one in five people say they are no longer Catholic, a worrying figure for a church that once had close to 95 percent of the population.

We are watching a slow march to oblivion for the Church unless something dramatic changes. It may well be that married priests is the only way to stem the tide.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

Thursday, April 20, 2017

Update 1.15pm: Dr Rhona Mahony, the Master of the National Maternity Hospital, has said she is happy to move her hospital to the grounds of St Vincent’s Hospital under the stipulations of the current deal.

Speaking on Today with Sean O’Rourke, Dr Mahony said there was a triple lock in place to guarantee the NMH’s autonomy and clinical independence remains intact.

“There is a triple lock in place to guarantee absolute autonomy and independence of the clinical services we deliver. If this does not go ahead, and if we’re going to mix this really important critical development for women with redress scheme, are we going to punish women further in this country by actually interfering and getting in the way of building a hospital that is so urgently needed for women.”

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MASSACHUSETTS
KHOU

A.J. Perez , USA TODAY Sports , KHOU

Aaron Hernandez very likely won’t be known as a convicted murderer for much longer.

The death of the former New England Patriots tight end Wednesday will almost certainly lead to the expungement of his 2015 first-degree murder conviction for the slaying of Odin Lloyd since the case was still under appeal in Massachusetts.

“The key here is when a defendant is no longer able to assist with his appeal, the law says the conviction should be vacated,” Massachusetts School of Law Dean and President Michael Coyne told USA TODAY Sports. “In a sense, it goes back to the point where he was only charged.”

The Massachusetts Appeals Court will probably vacate Hernandez’s conviction in the coming months. …

Hernandez, Coyne points out, is hardly the first high-profile case in Massachusetts where a conviction was vacated in this manner.

Defrocked Roman Catholic priest John Geoghan, who was found guilty of child molestation in 1991, was killed in prison in 2003. That led the state’s appeals court to vacate his conviction later that year.

Like Hernandez, Geoghan had appealed the conviction. More than 150 people accused Geoghan of sexual abuse, although the statute of limitation laws at the time hampered prosecutors’ efforts to pursue more charges.

“It’s as though the reporting of father John J. Geoghan’s sexual abuse, his trial, and the jury decision never existed,” attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who represented many of the Geoghan’s alleged victims, told the Associated Press in 2003.

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IRELAND
RTE News

A protest has been held outside the Department of Health in Dublin over the ownership of the new National Maternity Hospital, which is to be built on the campus of St Vincent’s Hospital.

It has emerged that the Religious Sisters of Charity is to be given ownership of the €300m taxpayer-funded hospital because it owns the land on which it is to be built.

It comes as Master of the National Maternity Hospital Dr Rhona Mahony has said she is happy with the deal reached to move the hospital to the grounds of St Vincent’s.

She said: “There is a triple-lock in place to guarantee absolute autonomy and independence of the clinical services we deliver.”

Speaking on RTÉ’s Today with Sean O’Rourke, Dr Mahony said this includes the retention of the mastership system, an entirely independent board dedicated to the provision of maternity, gynaecological and neonatal services, and an independent company to run the facility.

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IRELAND
Dublin Live

BY STEPHEN MCDERMOTT
20 APR 2017

The former master of the National Maternity Hospital on Holles Street has criticised the decision to hand ownership of its new site at St Vincent’s to a religious group as “completely inappropriate”.

Peter Boylan says he believes giving ownership of the new hospital to the Sisters of Charity will lead to implications in the provision of healthcare and other medical procedures down the line.

Last month it was reported that the group, which owns the St Vincent’s site where the new National Maternity Hospital will be built, will be given “sole ownership” of the €300m facility.

The move has been widely criticised this week, with a petition against the move attracting over 50,000 signatures so far and a series of protests planned across the week.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Una Mullally

For a while now, stories about the ownership and governance of the proposed National Maternity Hospital have been bubbling. For a moment, we’ll leave aside the fact that the State is gifting the sole ownership of the €300 million maternity hospital planned for Elm Park near St. Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin to a religious order who have contributed just €2 million of their promised €5 million redress compensation after the publication of the Ryan Report in 2009. The mind boggles that it will be this order – which ran institutions where the abuse of mothers, babies and children occurred – will own our National Maternity Hospital. Talk about GUBU.

It appears that in some ways, the governance issues have been squared off, with all parties involved seemingly satisfied. Rhona Mahony said the hospital will “be clinically and operationally entirely independent in line with national maternity policy”. Minister for Health Simon Harris has echoed this sentiment. Yet the new maternity hospital will have a nine-person board of which four members will be proposed by the St Vincent’s Healthcare Group.

Dr Peter Boylan, the former master of the National Maternity Hospital, has repeatedly queried this arrangement between nuns, hospital, and State. On Thursday on RTE’s Morning Ireland he asked, “The question is why do the Sisters of Charity want to own a maternity hospital?” It’s a valid query. Boylan said that were IVF, sterilisation, abortion and gender reassignment to be carried out at the National Maternity Hospital, it would be the only hospital owned and run by a Catholic order in the world that allowed those procedures. I doubt Ireland is going to blaze a trail of this nature anytime soon

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IRELAND
Newstalk

20 Apr 2017
Stephen McNeice

Protesters opposed to nuns owning the new national maternity hospital have been gathering outside the Department of Health today.

The demonstrations comes as almost 60,000 people have signed a petition in an attempt to block the Sisters of Charity from taking charge of the new facility.

The €300m hospital will be located on the St Vincent’s University Hospital campus in Dublin, and will cater for up to 10,000 births per year.

The Sisters of Charity are the major shareholder in the St Vincent’s Healthcare Group. The Department of Health confirmed earlier this week that that group will be the sole owner of the new hospital.

Campaigners argue that the religious organisation’s failure to compensate abuse victims should prevent their involvement.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Amy Molloy

April 20 2017

THE Government, and specifically health minister Simon Harris, has been heavily criticised since it emerged that ownership of the new National Maternity Hospital – which will be funded to the tune of €300m by the taxpayer – will be handed over to the Sisters of Charity.

A demonstration will take place outside the Department of Health in Dublin at 1pm today and over 50,000 people have signed a petition in a bid to prevent the religious order from becoming owners of the new hospital.

Here is what you need to know about the controversy:

Who are the Sisters of Charity?

The Sisters of Charity are a congregation of religious women founded in Dublin. They are involved in healthcare, education and also carry out work with asylum seekers and homeless people.

However, they were also one of the organisations included in the Ryan Report, which unveiled a vast amount of systematic institutional abuse going back decades.

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IRELAND
The Journal

THE FORMER MASTER of the National Maternity Hospital has said that it is “just not on” that the Sisters of Charity are to be the owners of the new facility.

The National Maternity Hospital at Holles Street in Dublin is moving to a new €300 million facility on the grounds of the current St Vincent’s Hospital.

The site is owned by religious order the Sisters of Charity and the proposed deal will see the order owning the facility as it provides the lands at no cost.

A petition opposing plan has now topped 50,000 signatures with many pointing out that the order owes money to a redress scheme set up for the survivors of religious abuse.

Speaking today on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, former Holles St. master Dr. Peter Boylan said his concerns were based on whether the religious beliefs of the Sisters of Charity would affect medical care at the hospital.

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ISRAEL
Times of Israel

[with video]

Police arrested 28 employees of an ultra-Orthodox newspaper on Tuesday morning on suspicion of extortion and harassment.

In a nationwide sting, police arrested senior staff and editors of the ultra-Orthodox daily newspaper Hapeles, following a six-month investigation.

Police also searched the newspaper’s offices and collected files, following dozens of complaints that over the past year the newspaper allegedly extorted major corporations, including government-owned companies, in order to force them to purchase advertising in the paper.

Some 250 police officers, investigators and other security personnel took part in the raid, arresting suspects in Jerusalem, Bnei Brak, Modiin Illit, Ashdod, and other parts of the country.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews rioted in Bnei Brak as the arrests were taking place.

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SOUTH AFRICA
Herald Live

April 20, 2017 Bongani Mthethwa

Controversial Nigerian pastor Timothy Omotoso has hired prominent Port Elizabeth defence attorney Alwyn Griebenow to represent him in the face of allegations that he sexually molested young girls at his home in Umhlanga‚ Durban.

Griebenow confirmed that he was Omotoso’s attorney and that he and defence advocate Terry Price will be meeting with the Hawks on Thursday afternoon in Port Elizabeth. The Hawks are investigating the allegations against Omotoso.

Omotoso‚ of the Jesus Dominion International Church in Durban‚ is accused of molesting more than 30 young girls on the pretext of rescuing them from drugs.

The Nigerian evangelist came under scrutiny after his church featured on current affairs programme Special Assignment on Sunday. The programme spoke to women who claimed that they were lured into performing sexual favours for the pastor.

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AUSTRALIA
Jerusalem Post

BY TAMARA ZIEVE APRIL 20, 2017

The Australian Federal Police said Tuesday that it is assessing a request by victims of sexual abuse at a Chabadrun institution in Melbourne to investigate allegations that one of its senior officials provided false evidence to the Royal Commission last month regarding the school’s handling of the allegations.

Rabbi Chaim Tsvi Groner had been called to appear before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse’s 53rd case study last month, following an investigation into the Yeshiva Center in East St.

The commission heard from two victims and their relatives that Rabbi Zvi Telsner, as the former head rabbi of Yeshiva Center, had delivered sermons attacking child sexual abuse victims and their families, encouraging other members of the community to ostracize them and discouraging victims from reporting their abuse to the police or media.

During the hearing last month, Groner – a member of the Yeshiva Board as well as Telsner’s brother-in-law – was questioned over Telsner’s current role at the Yeshiva.

Telsner stepped down as head of the Yeshiva in September 2015, stating that his “conduct toward victims and their families did not demonstrate the values or behavior…necessary of a rabbi in my position.”

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IRELAND
Kildare Nationalist

THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 2017

The Government is being accused of showing a total disconnect with Irish women in handing ownership of the new National Maternity Hospital to the Sisters of Charity.

A demonstration will take place outside the Department of Health in Dublin this lunchtime.

An ‘Uplift’ petition has already attracted tens of thousands of signatures in a bid to block the move.

Organisers say they have a clear message for the Minister for Health, that Ireland wants well-funded, State-run public services, that are not owned by the church, big corporations, or anyone else.

Survivors of the Magdalene Laundries say they are “shocked and angered” at the decision to hand over ownership of the new National Maternity Hospital to the religious order as part of a deal for the land at the site.

Millions of euro are still owed by the church in compensation to victims of institutional abuse.

Opposition parties have claimed there could be a conflict between medical decisions, the possibility of new abortion legislation, and the new owners’ Catholic values.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Jewish News

THE Australian Federal Police (AFP) is assessing an allegation that Yeshivah board member Rabbi Chaim Tzvi Groner knowingly gave false or misleading testimony at February’s hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The AJN can exclusively reveal that the AFP spoke to a representative from the Royal Commission this week and then stated in a letter on Tuesday that “as a result of these discussions”, the allegation “has been sent to the relevant area for assessment”.

Rabbi Groner told the Royal Commission that Rabbi Zvi Hirsch Telsner, who resigned as the head rabbi of the Yeshivah Centre in 2015 but is still being paid, does not still occupy a position of leadership within the Yeshivah Centre.

However, a victim of child sexual abuse told the AFP that Rabbi Telsner maintains an office within the synagogue, delivers sermons from the pulpit during weekly services and is waited on by other congregants.

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MARYLAND
Pedestrian TV

[with video]

If religious paraphernalia creeps you out – think white ceramic Virgin Marys and crucifixes – then the first trailer for ‘The Keepers’, a Netflix original docuseries that’s already being tipped as the next ‘Making A Murderer’, will send a big ‘ol tingle down your spine.

A seven-part series, it’ll delve into the mysterious death of 26-year-old Baltimore nun Sister Cathy Cesnik, who went missing during a Friday night shopping trip in November 1969 and whose body was discovered months later, her life snuffed out by blunt force trauma that police believe was caused by either a brick or hammer.

Information from friends, relatives, former colleagues, journalists, sexual abuse survivors, government officials and other crime experts help build on several key theories about her murder (a long-held one is that she was killed to cover-up sexual abuse within the Catholic church) in the Ryan White-doco which, frankly, looks equal parts fascinating and creepy.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Hartlepool Mail

MARK PAYNE
20 April 2017

A former Jehovah’s Witness says church leaders have failed to act on concerns over child safeguarding despite being highlighted by an international report.

Steve Rose, of Rift House, Hartlepool, was a member of the church until 2010 since when he has campaigned for change to policies he and other critics say make it difficult for allegations of child and other sex abuse to be uncovered or acted upon.

The Australian Royal Commission is looking into institutional child abuse in the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Commission has found children are not adequately protected from the risk of child sexual abuse in church and showed a serious lack of understanding of the issue.

It also said the organisation relies on “outdated policies and practices” including the 2,000 year-old two-witness rule, which says any sin must be witnessed by at least two people before action is taken.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Mirror

BY GARETH LIGHTFOOT
20 APR 2017

A child sex offender who raped a young girl after meeting her at church and grooming her with sweets has been jailed for 17 years.

Jason McSorley, 46, is now serving his second prison sentence for sexually abusing the same girl several years ago.

His new 17-year term dwarfs the earlier punishment he received for sexual assaults.

The court heard he befriended families at a Teesside church so he could groom the schoolgirl.

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GHANA
My Joy Online

The President of the Northern Ghana Union of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church has called for a national discourse on the exploitation of the vulnerable in the name of religion.

Pastor Kwame Kwanin Boakye advocates severe punishment for people whose activities breach the laws of the state to serve as a deterrent.

He says the growing tendency for some pastors to hide behind the cassock to amass wealth and perpetrate sexual and other forms of abuse against the citizenry must stop.

According to Pastor Kwanin, the modern self-seeking minister of the gospel has instituted a system which lures and preys on church members into accepting deceit for prophecy.

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SOUTH AFRICA
East Coast Radio

By Puseletso Petersen

The Hawks have launched an intense search for a Durban pastor – accused of molesting congregants, some as young as 14.

Officers have confirmed they’re investigating allegations of human trafficking against the televangelist – who leads a church in Durban.

SABC’s Special Assignment carried an expose on the pastor recently in which several victims spoke of the alleged sexual abuse.

Hawks spokesperson Robert Netshiunda says investigations into the matter are ongoing.

“We are investigating cases of human trafficking with the possibility of more charges against a pastor who allegedly abused some of his congregants as young as 14-years-old. We’ll be making a breakthrough very soon. We will formally lay charges when we formally arrest him,”he said.

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IOWA
Quad-City Times

Deirdre Cox Baker dbaker@qctimes.com Apr 19, 2017

It was a chilly November day in 2006 when Martin Amos got the call from Rome to serve the Catholic Diocese of Davenport.

Two days before his appointment was announced, the diocese declared bankruptcy because of lawsuits filed in the priest sexual abuse scandal. Not only was Amos, 64, taking on a daunting challenge, but he was leaving the area of Cleveland, Ohio, where he had lived his entire life.

He pulled no punches when asked about his upcoming work in Davenport.

“I know I can’t wreck it; that’s a positive,” he said at the time, laughing.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

TESS LIVINGSTONE
The Australian
April 20, 2017

Hundreds of posters were plastered around Rome over Easter, in praise of Pope Francis. That wouldn’t be surprising on its own if it wasn’t for the unusual source sponsoring the bills.

The Global Tolerance Initiative, a group started six months ago by Sheik Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and Ruler of Dubai, where floggings and stonings prevail under sharia law, named Francis as its “Global Champion of Tolerance Easter 2017”.

At least the posters were positive. In early February, Romans woke up to find hundreds of very different posters adorning the city’s walls, featuring a photograph of a stern-looking Pope and asking: “Where’s your mercy?” The posters referred to Francis’ intervention in the Knights of Malta and other actions he has taken against groups and individuals perceived as religiously conservative.

The bitter Knights of Malta row continues, with tolerance in short supply. This week, Francis, the champion of open borders, has “forbidden’’ the former Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, Matthew Festing, whom he sacked in January, to travel to Rome (from England) for the election of his successor.

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UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Richard J. McCormick was a ordained for the Eastern Province of the Salesians of Don Bosco (Province of St. Philip the Apostle) in 1970. Referred to sometimes as “Fr. Dick” or “Fr. Mac,” McCormick served as teacher and director of Salesian high schools, taught at junior seminaries and was rector of one, held leadership positions at Salesian retreat houses and boys’ camps, served briefly as an assistant parish priest and was a Marian Shrine director. During 1985-1991 he was provincial of the Salesian’s Eastern Province. McCormick’s work took him from Boston and Ipswich MA to Cedar Lake IN, Goshen, West Haverstraw, New Rochelle and Stony Point NY, Harvey LA and St. Petersburg FL.

In 2002 McCormick was removed from his position at St. Petersburg Catholic High School after a female student complained that he kissed her when she encountered him in a hallway. Other students defended the priest, saying “Fr. Mac” often greeted them with a kiss on the cheek.

There is a gap of several years in McCormick’s assignments after 2002; there is another, 1975-1976. In August 2009 he was suspended from the Marian Shrine in Stony Point NY, where he had been since at least 2005, after the Salesians agreed to settle with three men who had accused McCormick of sexually abusing them as Junior Seminary students in Goshen NY in the 1970s.

At some point in the 2000s the Salesians settled with a man who said McCormick sexually abused him on a trip to Rome in 1975 when the man was a 14-year-old Salesian Prep student in Cedar Lake IN.

In August 2012 McCormick was arrested for the rape of a boy, ages 9 and 10, at the Salesian camp in Ipswich MA in 1981 and 1982. He was convicted in November 2014 and sentenced to 8 to 10 years in prison, followed by 10 years’ probation. McCormick had been arrested a second time in April 2013 on charges of raping a 6- to 8-year-old boy at the same camp during 1981-1983. He was convicted in that case in August 2015 and given another 8- to 10-year prison sentence, to run concurrently with the sentence he was already serving.

At least 16 people are known to have claimed they were sexually abused as children by McCormick, some as early as 1963.

Ordained: 1970

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Stephanie Corsetti

Victims of child sexual abuse have raised concerns with the Australian Federal Police and the royal commission into child sexual abuse about evidence presented by a senior Melbourne rabbi last month, alleging it may be misleading.

Yeshivah Centre Rabbi Chaim Groner went before the commission last month and was quizzed about the resignation of his colleague, Rabbi Zvi Telsner.

Rabbi Telsner stepped down from his head role in 2015 after he appeared at the inquiry and was asked to explain comments he made in sermons about abuse victims.

Rabbi Groner told the commission Rabbi Telsner no longer had a leadership role at the centre.

Phillip Weinberg, a spokesman for Yeshivah Centre victims, has claimed Rabbi Telsner is still being introduced at public events as the head rabbi of the Yeshivah Centre.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

Joanne McCarthy
20 Apr 2017

A NEWCASTLE Anglican priest was given a three month suspended jail sentence after pleading guilty to indecently assaulting a 12-year-old boy in 1967.

Reverend Bruce Shaw, 72, was working at a spiritual retreat at Stroud in 2016 when he was charged with the offence which occurred when he was sole teacher and principal at a Victorian primary school.

Wangaratta Magistrates Court was told Shaw was 23 when he invited two young family friends to his rural property for the weekend, and insisted the 12-year-old sleep in his bed.

Six years later Shaw completed his training and became an ordained priest.

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NEW YORK
Syracuse.com

By Douglass Dowty | ddowty@syracuse.com

Syracuse, NY — A teacher’s aide at All Saints Elementary School in Syracuse quietly admitted today that she exploited two young girls — one less than a year old — for child pornography at her home and at the school.

Emily Oberst, 24, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and child porn charges in federal court today in exchange for a promised sentence of 60 years in prison. There is no parole in federal prison, so she will not be released early.

Oberst’s voice ranged from quiet to quivering during her half-hour plea proceeding.

Oberst is the second to plead guilty in the child porn case. Her boyfriend, Jason Kopp, 41, pleaded guilty last year and was sentenced to 235 years in prison.

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IRELAND
Irish MIrror

BY STEPHEN MCDERMOTT
19 APR 2017

More than 18,000 people have signed a petition to block the Sisters of Charity from becoming the owners of the new National Maternity Hospital.

There has been public outrage at the Government’s decision to hand the €300million facility to the order which ran the depraved Magdalene laundries.

The Woman’s Council of Ireland (NWCI) became the latest body to hit out at the plan despite the nuns still owing €3million towards the redress fund for abuse survivors.

NWCI spokeswoman Niamh Allen said: “NWCI is still very concerned that no solution was found for the new National Maternity Hospital that would not involve the ownership and close co-operation of a religious order.

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NORTH CAROLINA
WRAL

By Laura Leslie

RALEIGH, N.C. — The state House will likely vote this week on a bill to lengthen the statute of limitations for civil lawsuits by victims of childhood sexual abuse.

House Bill 585 had its first hearing Wednesday morning, passing the House Judiciary IV Committee by a unanimous vote.

According to sponsor Rep. Dennis Riddell, R-Alamance, although there is no statute of limitations on criminal charges for child sexual abuse, state law allows only a three-year window on civil suits. Child victims can bring suit only if they’re 21 or younger.

The measure would raise the cutoff age for civil suits by victims of childhood sexual abuse to 40 years old. Victims who are 40 years old today would have a one-year window.

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NEW YORK
Forward

April 19, 2017 By Daniel J. Solomon

Parents of four Hasidic Jewish children infected with herpes by ritual circumcision will not tell the New York City Department of Health the names of the mohels who did the procedures, according to the agency.

“Unfortunately, some in the community are resistant to sharing the name of the mohels,” Christopher Miller told DNAInfo. “This is a very insular community. This is a very religious ritual.”

Herpes was passed to the infants via a rare form of circumcision in which the mohel applies his mouth to the circumcision wound to suction out the blood.

The Health Department banned two mohels whom families identified as responsible for their children’s herpes infection. But others herpes-infected mohels remain unknown to the city.

Rabbi Nuchem Rosenberg, a Hasidic rabbi who has spoken up against sexual abuse within the community, attributed the family’s silence to pressure from religious authorities. “The only [reason] why they’re not coming forward is because they’re being threatened, ostracized,” he told DNAInfo.

Read more: http://forward.com/fast-forward/369388/hasidic-parents-wont-rat-out-mohels-who-gave-their-kids-herpes/

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service – Bulletin

The Holy Father has appointed as auxiliary bishop of San Diego, United States of America, the Rev. John P. Dolan, of the clergy of the same diocese, currently vicar for the clergy and parish priest of the Saint John parish in San Diego, assigning him the titular see of Uchi Maggiore.

Rev. John P. Dolan

The Reverend John P. DOLAN was born on 8 June 1962 in San Diego, California, in the diocese of the same name. He studied philosophy at the Saint Francis seminary and at the University of San Diego (1981-1985) and theology at the Saint Patrick seminary in Menlo Park (1985-1989).

He was ordained a priest for the diocese of San Diego on 1 July 1989.

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VATICAN CITY
Vatican Information Service – Bulletin

The Holy Father has accepted the resignation from the pastoral care of the diocese of Davenport, United States of America, presented by His Excellency Msgr. Martin J. Amos.

The Holy Father has appointed as bishop of Davenport, United States of America, Msgr. Thomas R. Zinkula, of the clergy of the archdiocese of Dubuque, currently rector of the St. Pius X Seminary in Dubuque.

Msgr. Thomas Robert Zinkula

Msgr. Thomas Robert Zinkula was born on 19 April 1957 in Mount Vernon, Iowa, in the archdiocese of Dubuque. After attending the Mount Vernon High School, Mount Vernon, he obtained a Bachelor’s degree in mathematics, economics and business from Cornell College, Mount Vernon (1979). He graduated in law from the University of Iowa in Iowa City (1983) and for several years worked as a civil lawyer. He subsequently entered the seminary where he carried out his ecclesiastical studies at the Theological College and the Catholic University of America in Washington. He later obtained a licentiate in canon law at the Saint Paul University, Ottawa, Canada (1998).

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UNITED STATES
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Bishop Martin J. Amos of Davenport, Iowa, and named as his successor Msgr. Thomas R. Zinkula, a priest of the Archdiocese of Dubuque, Iowa, who is currently rector of St. Pius X Seminary at Loras College in Dubuque.

The pope also named Father John P. Dolan as an auxiliary bishop of San Diego. He is episcopal vicar for clergy in the diocese and a parish pastor.

The appointments were announced April 19 in Washington by Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

Bishop Amos is 75, the age at which canon law requires bishops to turn in their resignation to the pope. He has headed the Davenport Diocese since 2006.

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MARYLAND
The Baltimore Sun

David Zurawik

Netflix released its first trailer today for “The Keepers,” a docuseries on the unsolved murder of Sister Catherine Cesnik, a 26-year-old Baltimore nun who went missing in 1969. ‘

The seven-part series will launch on May 19 on the streaming service.

Netflix has already made its mark in the true-crime genre with “Making a Murderer,” a highly successful production about a Wisconsin man tried, convicted, freed and then convicted again for murder.

“The Keepers” looks to have all of that and more with some news reports on the Cesnik case suggesting a cover-up of what police investigators found when they looked into her death.

Some believe that cover-up involved a Catholic priest, who was a suspect in her death, and a ring of sexual abuse exploiting working-class Catholic children at the high school where Cesnik taught.

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FRANCE
Le Croix

Loup Besmond de Senneville

In addition to celebrating mass on Holy Wednesday in Lyon on 12 April, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin spoke at length on the situation of Father David Gréa, the emblematic priest of the Saint Blandine parish in central Lyon who had announced a few weeks ago that he wished to get married.

Archbishop Barbarin also addressed matters related to pedophilia.Both issues were discussed for the first time in a letter addressed to all the priests in the diocese.Regarding the situation of Fr Gréa, Cardinal Barbarin said he regretted that Gréa “did not take the time to think things over as [he] had asked him to do”.

The priest has, in fact, announced his intention to get married in a civil ceremony on Saturday the 15th of April, on the same day that the church will be celebrating Holy Saturday. …

The Cardinal defends himself

In addition to the Gréa case, Cardinal Barbarin also spoke on the importance of fighting pedophilia in the diocese.

Three weeks previously the TV station France 2 aired an episode of Cash Investigation in which it was reported that many bishops, including Cardinal Barbarin, had shielded priests accused of pedophilia.

Among other things, the France 2 journalists had gone to meet a priest convicted by a court but still serving in a parish in Lyon.

In the book Church, the mechanics of silence the reporters from Mediapart wrote extensively on many cases covered for years by the Catholic hierarchy in Lyon.

“Today, no priest identified as the perpetrator of a single abuse of a minor would exercise any ministry in the parish,” said the Cardinal. “All the facts reported by the press are known to the law. The families must be able to have faith in the church.”

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GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

Mindy Aguon | For The Guam Daily Post

Two new lawsuits have been filed against former Guam priest Louis Brouillard alleging repeated sexual abuse, and one victim has come forward alleging the former clergy member and Scout Master kept a book with the names of all of the boys he abused and their nude photos.

Thomas A. Cepeda Sr. filed a civil complaint in the District Court of Guam on Wednesday alleging he was sexually abused for three years when Brouillard served as a parish priest at Santa Teresita Catholic Church in Mangilao.

Cepeda, now 71 and residing in Washington, alleges he was repeatedly abused by Brouillard beginning at the age of 13 when he served as an altar boy at the Mangilao parish and was a Boy Scout.

The lawsuit accuses Brouillard of having “one-on-one meetings” with the boys about the development of the body. During one meeting, the priest allegedly instructed Cepeda to remove his pants so the priest could conduct a physical examination that included measuring, groping and examining his private parts.

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