ABUSE TRACKER

IRELAND
Sunday World

A FORMER priest who raped and assaulted a child he had paid to do his gardening has received an eight-year prison sentence.

Denis Nolan (64), formerly of The Presbytery, Rathnew, Co Wicklow, is already serving a sentence for sexually abusing a different child six years ago and has since been defrocked.

Last March, a jury at the Central Criminal Court convicted him of six counts of oral rape, defilement and sexual assault in his home between 2005 and 2006.

The victim was aged between 10 and 11 at the time.

Nolan, who was a parish priest in Co Wicklow and served on the board of management of a local school, had denied the charges.

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

AUSTRALIA
Sky News

Making institutions criminally liable for failing to report child sexual abuse is likely to encourage reporting, the head of the child abuse royal commission says.

The royal commission is considering whether other states and territories should follow the lead of NSW and Victoria in having an offence relating to failure to report.

The issue of abuse being known to a responsible person in an institution but not reported to the authorities has been raised in number of its public hearings.

The criminal law does not generally impose a positive duty requiring a person to act, commission chair Justice Peter McClellan says.

‘Failure to report abuse to the authorities may leave a child, or perhaps a number of children, exposed to abuse,’ he said in a speech to be screened at a National Council of Churches conference in Melbourne on Tuesday.

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

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Paul Kennedy

Every major Australian church has been cautioned to better protect children or risk illegitimacy.

In a speech to the National Council of Churches, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse chairman Justice Peter McClellan urged religious leaders to act on his recommendations.

“What we can be certain of is that any institution which does not acknowledge past wrongs and the need for change will lose the confidence of Australians,” he said via a recorded video.

“The community will not accept the legitimacy of any institution which does not give priority to the safety and wellbeing of the children for which it has responsibility.”

Justice McClellan detailed the exhaustive work of Australia’s largest royal commission, which has examined 1.2 million documents and heard evidence from more than 1,200 witnesses over 440 sitting days.

They have wide-ranging powers to cross-examine, obtain evidence, and protect witnesses
Fifty-nine per cent of abuse reported to the royal commission has come from within religious institutions.

Justice McClellan revealed the commission had referred 2,025 cases to police and other authorities but only 127 have been acted upon.

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

AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

[with video]

Tuesday, 16 May 2017

The Hon Justice Peter McClellan AM
Chair, Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

National Council of Churches
Safe as churches? Conference

Thank you for inviting me to address your conference today. I am sorry that I am unable to deliver this address in person. Unfortunately the other demands on my time have made that impossible.

I last spoke to you in September 2015. Since that time the Royal Commission had held a further 25 public hearings. That brings the total number of public hearings to 57. Our public hearing program concluded in March this year with a discussion of the nature, cause and impact of child sexual abuse.

Our public hearing program was extensive. We examined more than 1.2 million documents. We heard evidence from more than 1,200 witnesses. The Commissioners sat for more than 440 days. Hearings have been held in every state and territory and in a number of regional centres and towns.

In addition to the hearings in which we sought to understand the conduct of individuals and institutions, the Commission has conducted public hearings with a policy focus. These include Case study 24 – Out of Home Care and Case studies 38 and 46 into Criminal Justice issues.

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

IRELAND
Irish Independent

Kevin Doyle
May 16 2017

International experts are to be brought in to provide advice on the potential mass exhumation of bodies from the Tuam Mother and Baby Home site.

The Government will today consider the ‘next steps’ for the site, where it is believed hundreds of dead babies were buried by nuns between 1925 and 1961.

Among the decisions to be taken in the coming months is whether officials believe it will be possible to ID any of the remains.

Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone will update the Cabinet on developments at the site since it was revealed in March that “significant quantities” of human remains were found.

Ms Zappone’s office declined to comment ahead of her Cabinet briefing, but it is understood she will tell colleagues decisions need to be taken quickly.

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

OKLAHOMA
News 9

BY JESSI MITCHELL, NEWS 9

OKLAHOMA CITY – Gov. Mary Fallin signed a bill into law last week, giving child sex abuse victims longer to come forward, but critics say an amendment to the bill may actually be detrimental to some of the victims.

HB1470 was part of the Hidden Predator Act, meant to increase protections to child sex abuse victims. A paragraph was added, however, that protects the employer of the abuser, and some attorneys fear that clause is unconstitutional.

In March, Rep. Kevin McDugle (R-Tulsa) opened up for the first time about being molested by his youth minister. McDugle shared how hard it was to talk about the incident for decades and urged his colleagues to allow victims up to the age of 45 to come forward.

“That one night, for me, took me 35 years to get to a point that I could actually openly talk about it,” McDugle said. “I’m a Marine Corps veteran, a drill instructor, so it’s not a story that I wanted to tell.”
When the act passed through the legislature the bill’s author Rep. Carol Bush (R-Tulsa) commended voters in support of the bill in a letter, stating, “The Legislature has done right by the victims of these crimes, and I’m humbled to have played a part in extending the statute of limitations.”

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

KANSAS
KOAM

[with video]

May 15, 2017
By Mike Mahoney

PITTSBURG, KANSAS –
Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt congratulated state lawmakers Monday for making the state a better place for victims of sexual assault and domestic violence. Governor Sam Brownback recently signed a couple of bills that will aid those victims.

One bill extends the statute of limitations for sexual assault victims. The other elevates domestic assaults from simple battery to aggravated battery.

Brooke Powell is a program director at Safehouse, a program with a Pittsburg office that aids victims. She’s thrilled the statute of limitations are being extended to aid victims of sexual assault. It will mean her clients can receive crime victim’s assistance even if the sexual assault happened more than two years ago.

The bill sets the two year statute of limitations to the day a victim is notified that DNA testing has identified a suspect’s genetic profile.

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

NEW JERSEY
Road to Recovery

Newark Archbishop Cardinal Joseph Tobin to hold Town Meeting at Holy Family Parish, Nutley, New Jersey, to “meet and greet” Catholics of the Archdiocese of Newark

Since Cardinal Joseph Tobin became the Archbishop of Newark, he has “dragged his feet” in settling credible cases of sexual abuse by Archdiocesan clergy, thus acting contrary to the statements of Pope Francis

It is time for Cardinal Joseph Tobin to justly and fairly settle cases of sexual abuse by Newark Archdiocesan clergy in a timely manner so the victims can try to heal and gain a degree of closure through validation

What
A press conference and demonstration calling on Cardinal Joseph Tobin, the new Archbishop of Newark, to settle cases of childhood sexual abuse by Catholic clergy and other religious persons that have stalled, thus re-victimizing childhood clergy sexual abuse victims

When
Tuesday, May 16, 2017 from 6:30 PM until 8:00 PM

Where
On the public sidewalk outside Holy Family Parish, 28 Brookline Avenue, Nutley, New Jersey 07110

Who
Members of Road to Recovery, Inc., a non-profit charity based in New Jersey that assists victims of sexual abuse and their families, including its co-founder and President, Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D.

Why
Since Cardinal Joseph Tobin became the Archbishop of Newark several months ago, the Archdiocese of Newark has stalled settling cases, thus causing further harm to and re-victimization of victims. The stalling has prevented victims from trying to heal and gain a degree of closure through validation. Contrary to the statements of Pope Francis, the Archdiocese of Newark has ignored the claims of childhood sexual abuse victims through the tactic of stalling. Demonstrators will call on Cardinal Joseph Tobin to settle childhood sexual abuse claims in a timely manner so that victims are treated fairly and justly, thus allowing them to try to heal and gain a degree of closure through validation.

Contact
Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., Road to Recovery, Inc., 862-368-2800 – roberthoatson@gmail.com
Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, Boston, MA – 617-523-6250 – garabedianlaw@msn.com

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

AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Melissa Davey
@MelissaLDavey
Monday 15 May 2017

The head of the royal commission into child sexual abuse, Justice Peter McClellan, has referred 2,025 incidents of abuse to authorities since 2013, provoking 127 prosecutions to date.

McClellan will share the figures at the National Council of Churches conference in Melbourne on Tuesday via a video address. He will tell the conference the volume of referrals was so great that there may be further prosecutions once they had been fully assessed by police.

The commissioners have held more than 6,700 private sessions for survivors of institutional abuse. While some survivors gave evidence during the commission’s public hearings throughout the country, many more chose to give evidence to the six commissioners in private.

To date, the commission has analysed the information from 6,302 of those private sessions, and McClellan will for the first time reveal the breakdown of institutions in which those survivors were abused.

Thirty-two per cent of survivors who attended a private session reported abuse in a government institution, while 10% reported abuse in a secular institution. Religious institutions comprised 59% of reported abuse.

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

VIRGINIA
The News & Advance

Christopher Cole

A home-school Christian ministry leader in Campbell County has filed a nearly $1 million defamation suit against a Lynchburg woman, her husband and a law professor over an internet blog post alleging he made inappropriate contact with her years ago.

Rickey G. Boyer also seeks millions of dollars in damages for alleged conspiracy against his home-school business Character Concepts by the woman, Ashley Easter, along with Robert William Easter.

The defamation claim names a Liberty University professor, Basyle Tchividjian, as one of the defendants.

Boyer filed the suit April 14 in Lynchburg Circuit Court, but the complaint had not been served on the three defendants as of Monday. Once served, they will have 21 days to respond.

According to the lawsuit, Ashley Easter defamed him by publishing a blog article titled “Rick Boyer Sr. and Sexual Boundary Crossing: My Story,” which she put on her blog in April 2016.

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

IOWA
The Daily Reporter

Monday, May 15, 2017
Russ Mitchell, Northwest Iowa Publishing

Kevin Grimes, the former DaySpring Assembly of God pastor and director of the nonprofit Spencer Dream Center had to make at times tearful admissions Monday as part of a plea agreement surrounding allegations of sexual abuse.

Grimes confirmed that he sent “inappropriate text messages” and images to young men who attended his church and arranged meetings to “engage in sexual activity,” with other male victims.

“I accept full responsibility for what I’ve done,” Grimes told told District Court Judge Don Courtney.

The sexual advances are illegal and led to six criminal charges — Grimes isn’t allowed to use his position as counselor to take advantage of vulnerable people under his care. Altogether, four men came forward with enough information to warrant a criminal complaint.

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

IRELAND
Crux

John Allen, Inés San Martín and Claire Giangravè
May 16, 2017

On Saturday, Pope Francis called Marie Collins, an abuse survivor who recently quit his Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors citing Vatican resistance to reform, a “great woman” and said she’s “right on some things.” In a Crux interview, Collins expressed gratitude but also said that the Church still needs uniform global standards and a way to hold bishops accountable.

A survivor of clerical sexual abuse and a former member of a panel created by Pope Francis to lead the reform effort said Monday that while she’s grateful for positive things the pope said about her over the weekend, she also wants the commission to push back against perceived Vatican resistance to reform that she insists led her to resign.

Marie Collins, an Irish lay woman, told “The Crux of the Matter” on the Catholic Channel, carried by Sirius XM, “If resistance continues, then the commission itself should speak. It shouldn’t be up to one member having to resign to make it public.

“If there is resistance, it’s got to be overcome, because there’s no place for resistance to change when it comes to child protection,” Collins said.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Tablet (UK)

16 May 2017 | by Mark Brolly

Pell’s Rome office has accused the book’s publisher of “interfering with the course of justice”

Cardinal George Pell’s Rome office says he will not seek to respond to allegations against him in a new biography released on Monday, “other than to restate that any allegations of child abuse made against him are completely false”.

Fairfax Media reported on 13 May that ‘Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell’, by Australian Broadcasting Corporation journalist Louise Milligan, contains allegations of abuse involving two choirboys at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne in the late 1990s while then Archbishop Pell was Archbishop of Melbourne.

Fairfax, publisher of The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne’s The Age newspapers, said the book records the testimony of one alleged victim, a man now aged in his 30s, and the family of a second alleged victim, who died from a drug overdose in 2014. Soon after the alleged abuse took place, both boys asked to leave the choir, the book says.

The newspaper group also reported that the book contains new information about the child abuse cover-up within the Catholic Church in Australia, including allegations that Cardinal Pell – Prefect of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy since 2014 and before that Archbishop of Melbourne from 1996-2001 and Archbishop of Sydney from 2001-14 – knew about paedophile priests earlier than he claimed.

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

IRELAND
The Irish Sun

By Eavan Murray
15th May 2017,

SERIAL paedophile Fr Denis Nolan has been sentenced to eight years for the rape and sexual assault of a young boy.

The disgraced Wicklow-based former priest, described in court as “cold and calculating”, is already serving time for sickening abuse of another teenage lad.

The 64-year-old fiend denied two counts of rape and four of sexually assaulting the boy in Co Wicklow between January 2005 and September 2006.

The court heard Nolan’s horrific crimes left his victim feeling that he would be better off dead.

In sentencing Judge Patrick McCarthy said the accused engaged in a concentrated effort to groom his victim who was “a child of great innocence”.

The victim was aged 13 when the abuse began after Nolan gave him a chance to work in his garden.

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

NEW YORK
New York Times

By SAM ROBERTS
MAY 15, 2017

Thomas V. Daily, the bishop emeritus of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, who raised tens of millions of dollars to repair schools and churches but whose last years were marred by criticism of how he had handled the church’s sexual abuse scandals in Boston and Brooklyn, died early Monday in Queens. He was 89.

A diocesan spokeswoman announced his death, at the Immaculate Conception Center in Douglaston, where he lived at the Bishop Mugavero Residence, named after his predecessor, Francis J. Mugavero. …

But the bishop’s legacy was clouded by criticism, coupled with his own second thoughts, about his response to lawsuits by people alleging that they were abused as minors by priests in Brooklyn and especially in Boston. Bishop Daily had been chancellor and vicar general in the Diocese of Boston under two former archbishops, Cardinal Humberto Medeiros and, briefly, Cardinal Medeiros’s successor, Cardinal Bernard F. Law.

It was Bishop Daily who allowed the Rev. John J. Geoghan on a planned two-month sabbatical to Italy before placing him back in the same parish near a family whom Father Geoghan had traumatized. Bishop Daily informed neither law enforcement nor the parish priest of the allegations against Father Geoghan, who became the country’s most notorious example of a predatory priest.

Bishop Daily was named as a defendant in dozens of suits filed by people who claimed that Father Geoghan, who was later defrocked, had molested them in his three decades as a priest. In 2002, the Boston archdiocese settled the Geoghan lawsuits for millions of dollars.

Father Geoghan, who was accused of molesting almost 150 boys, was convicted of groping a 10-year-old boy and was serving a sentence of nine to 10 years in a Massachusetts state prison when he was strangled by another inmate in 2003.

Asked in a deposition why he never investigated whether Father Geoghan had molested children beyond those of a family he had met with in 1982, Bishop Daily replied: “I’m not a policeman. I am a shepherd. I am a pastor who has to go after the Lord’s sheep and find them and bring them back to the fold and give them the kind of guidance and discipline them in such a way that they will come back.”

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

AUSTRALIA
Starts at 60

Cardinal George Pell has slammed allegations made about him in a new book, describing it as “character assassination” and an “interference with the course of justice”.

Lawyers representing the cardinal have demanded an apology and retraction from media outlets Fairfax and The Guardian over articles detailing the child sexual abuse claims made in ABC journalist Louise Milligan’s book Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell.

Published by Melbourne University Press, the book was released on Monday and includes unsubstantiated allegations against Cardinal Pell over his role in the sex abuse scandal surrounding the Catholic Church.

Last year Milligan interviewed two men who claimed Pell abused them in the 1970s when he was a priest at Ballarat.

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

NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY
DALE W. EISINGER
STEPHEN REX BROWN
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, May 15, 2017

Victims of sexual abuse by priests urged fellow survivors Monday to enroll in a compensation program founded by Timothy Cardinal Dolan.

Phase II of the Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program is open to anyone who has not previously reported a complaint of abuse to the Archdiocese.

Only victims abused by a deacon or priest in the Archdiocese of New York are eligible.

Applicants face a July 31 deadline.

“Your window of opportunity is only open until the end of July,” said Shaun Dougherty, 47, who was abused as a child by a priest in Pennsylvania.

“Protect future generations of children from having to live the nightmare that we lived again.”

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

MICHIGAN
The Alpena News

MAY 16, 2017

JORDAN SPENCE
jspence@thealpenanews.com

ALPENA — The second alleged victim in the case against Sylvestre Obwaka, who is accused of accused of raping another priest, will not be allowed to testify over the phone.

The second victim’s possible testimony was discussed during a hearing Monday in 53rd Circuit Court.

“For the record my position is that testimony telephonically would not be permitted,” Judge Scott Pavlich said. “He would have to appear and give testimony.”

Pavlich said if the prosecution wants to have this person testify — the victim is male and alleged a sexual assault took place sometime around 2003 — they would have to provide more details.

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

GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

Neil Pang | The Guam Daily Post May 15, 2017

“We extend our prayers to the claimant, known by the initials of B.W.J., and his family.” – Archdiocese of Agana

The same day news of a new lawsuit alleging child sexual abuse at the hands of a Catholic school teacher became public, the Archdiocese of Agana issued a response apologizing to the newest victim as well as those recently named in several other lawsuits.

“The Archdiocese of Agana acknowledges the latest lawsuit and allegation of child sexual abuse filed involving Ray Caluag, a former music teacher at Saint Anthony Catholic School in Tamuning in the 1990s,” the Archdiocese of Agana stated. “We extend our prayers to the claimant, known by the initials of B.W.J., and his family.”

According to Post files, B.W.J.’s suit filed Sunday names Ray Caluag, a former music teacher at Saint Anthony Catholic School, who also may have taught for a few years at St. John’s School, as his alleged abuser.

The plaintiff is a former Saint Anthony Catholic School student who alleges in the case he was sexually molested and abused by Caluag, who was his music teacher in the early 1990s. According to court documents, B.W.J. alleged he was abused by Caluag in 1993 after he got a ride home with his former music teacher following a rehearsal for a school Christmas play.

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

NEW YORK
QNS

By Robert Pozarycki / rpozarycki@qns.com / Monday, May 15, 2017

Retired Bishop Thomas V. Daily, who led the Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens for 13 years until becoming ensnared in the global Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, died early on Monday morning, May 15, at his Douglaston residence at the age of 89.

Daily became the sixth Bishop of Brooklyn in 1990 after previously serving as the first Bishop of Palm Beach, FL. A native of Massachusetts, he was ordained a priest by the Archdiocese of Boston in 1952 and would serve the first eight years of his ministry at St. Ann’s Church in the Boston suburb of Quincy.

In 1960, Daily left St. Ann’s for five years and headed to Lima, Peru as part of the Missionary Society of St. James the Apostle, working with the poor in the South American nation. He would return to St. Ann’s in 1965 as its assistant pastor until 1971, when he was appointed by Boston Cardinal Humberto Sousa Medeiros as his secretary and, later vicar for temporalities.

Daily was named an auxiliary bishop in 1975 and appointed the following year as vicar general for the Archdiocese of Boston. After his stint in Palm Beach, he arrived in Brooklyn in 1990 at a time when the entire diocese was undergoing financial hardship.

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

AUSTRALIA
9 News

AAP

Allegations aired in a new book of sexual abuse by Australia’s highest ranking Catholic official, George Pell, are nothing but “character assassination” says the cardinal.

The book, Cardinal: The rise and fall of George Pell, by ABC journalist Louise Milligan was released by Melbourne University Press on Monday.

“Each and every allegation of abuse and cover up against him is false. The book is an exercise in character assassination,” a statement from Cardinal Pell’s office issued on Monday night reads.

“The decision by MUP to bring forward the publication of the book prior to any findings by the Royal Commission and while allegations are still under consideration by the Victorian Office of Public Prosecutions is a blatant attempt to interfere in the course of justice.

“Unlike MUP, the Cardinal will not interfere with the course of justice. He will await the outcome of due process before launching defamation action.”

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

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

May 15, 2017

Allegations aired in a new book of sexual abuse by Australia’s highest ranking Catholic official, George Pell, are nothing but “character assassination” says the cardinal.

The book, Cardinal: The rise and fall of George Pell, by ABC journalist Louise Milligan was released by Melbourne University Press on Monday.

“Each and every allegation of abuse and cover up against him is false. The book is an exercise in character assassination,” a statement from Cardinal Pell’s office issued on Monday night reads.

“The decision by MUP to bring forward the publication of the book prior to any findings by the Royal Commission and while allegations are still under consideration by the Victorian Office of Public Prosecutions is a blatant attempt to interfere in the course of justice.

“Unlike MUP, the Cardinal will not interfere with the course of justice. He will await the outcome of due process before launching defamation action.”

Milligan has covered the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse and last year interviewed two men who claimed they were abused by Pell in the 1970s, when he was a priest at Ballarat.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

May 16, 2017

TESSA AKERMAN
ReporterMelbourne
@TessaAkerman

Lawyers representing George Pell have demanded an apology and retraction from Fairfax and The Guardian over articles ­repeating child sexual abuse alle­gations made in a new book ­described by the cardinal as a “character assassination”.

The legal demands were sent to the media outlets at the weekend after a book made a series of allegations against Cardinal Pell over his role in the sex abuse scandal engulfing the Catholic Church.

They include unsubstantiated claims of wrongdoing by Cardinal Pell, who has stridently rejected any misconduct.

The articles published at the weekend reported allegations made in ABC journalist Louise Milligan’s book Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell, published by MUP.

In a statement to The Australian last night, a spokesman for the cardinal responded by saying: “Each and every allegation of abuse and cover up against him is false. The book is an exercise in character assassination.

“The decision by MUP to bring forward the publication of the book prior to any findings by the royal commission and while allegations are still under consideration by the Victorian Office of Public Prosecutions is a blatant attempt to interfere in the course of justice.

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

RHODE ISLAND/MASSACHUSETTS
Providence Journal

By Jacqueline Tempera
Journal Staff Writer

BOSTON — Former priest Howard W. White pleaded guilty to five counts of assault and battery for his abuse of a student with whom he twice traveled from St. George’s School in Middletown, R.I., to Boston in the 1970s.

TIMELINE:

White, 75, is one of six named perpetrators in the sex-abuse scandal that has consumed the Episcopal prep school since 2015. He was the subject of a Journal investigation that showed White has left a trail of sex-abuse allegations spanning more than four decades.

The Boston abuse happened when White befriended a male student, who 15 or 16 years old during his time at St. George’s School, according to Jake Wark, a spokesman for Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley. The victim, who chooses to remain unnamed, says White lured him with fancy dinners, movies, and his Porsche.

White raped the boy in Boston hotel rooms, prosecutors said. When the boy confronted White, then an assistant chaplain, asking him to stop, White said: “I’ll tell you what. It’s not going to stop. If you try to stop, I’ll make your life difficult,” according to prosecutors.

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

MICHIGAN
WLNS

OKEMOS, Mich. (WLNS) – A 66-year-old Okemos priest was arrested over the weekend and charged Monday afternoon with embezzlement of $100,000 or more. He was charged in the 55th District Court.

Rev. Jonathan Wehrle was a pastor at St. Martha Parish.

He was released on a $5,000 bond earlier today. Wehrle’s next court date is set for May 25.

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

NEW YORK
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

By Rob Abruzzese, Legal Editor
Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Ama Dwimoh, a candidate in Brooklyn’s district attorney race in the fall, held a press conference near the steps of Borough Hall on Friday afternoon to call upon New York lawmakers and Gov. Andrew Cuomo to pass the Child Victims Act (CVA).

“We are here to demand that the state Legislature pass the Child Victims Act so that thousands of brave men and women who are survivors of child sexual abuse can finally get their justice,” said Dwimoh, who created the Crimes Against Children Bureau at the Brooklyn DA’s Office.

The CVA would give survivors of child sexual abuse older than 23 a one-year window to file civil charges against their abusers, and it would eliminate the statute of limitations for any future cases in both criminal and civil court. It would also remove a 90-day notice of claim for public institutions that help to shield them from liability.

“One in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused as children in New York state,” Dwimoh said. “That’s a problem. More than half of the sexually abused children live in the same household as their abusers, and many are financially dependent on their abusers well into their 20s.

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

NEW YORK
Troy Record

By Sarah J. Burger
For Digital First Media

Nearly one year ago I published an article titled “Call to Action: Protect our children, not predators.” Unfortunately, in 2016 New York again chose predators by failing to pass the Child Victims Act. With just over one month remaining in the current legislative session, the state legislature needs to choose our children.

Presently, there are bills pending in the Assembly and Senate to eliminate the time restrictions in criminal and civil actions to prosecute certain sex offenses committed against a child less than 18 years of age. Under current law a victim of child sex abuse has only until age 23 to bring a case against their perpetrator. Since victims of childhood sex abuse do not come to terms with their abuse until well into adulthood this protects the predator and leaves many victims without recourse.

The proposed bills eliminate the time limit or statute of limitations to commence childhood sex abuse cases for future cases and allows a one year retrospective window to lift the statute of limitations on past cases to allow adult survivors to seek civil damages. New York remains one of a few states nationwide to have not enacted similar legislation. The most powerful lobby against the Child Victims Act is the Catholic Church who historically had covered up child sex abuse by shuffling the clergy predator from parish to parish. In the fall of 2016, the Archdiocese of New York announced an “independent program” to investigate sex abuse claims and compensate sex abuse victims in exchange for their silence and release of all claims against the Church. The timing is not a coincidence because the Catholic Church has initiated similar programs in other States whenever statute of limitations reform makes significant progress.

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

NEW YORK
Newsday

Updated May 15, 2017

By Marci A. Hamilton and Kathryn Robb

THE BOTTOM LINE
* New York State needs to extend its too-short statutes of limitations.

New York is among the worst states in the United States for justice for child sex-abuse victims. That is because its statutes of limitations are prohibitively short.

While much of the country was expanding statutes of limitations in the past 25 years, New York has stood still. Victims must sue the perpetrator by age 23 and a responsible institution by age 21. There is no limit for the victim who seeks to press charges for rape but for most other child sex crimes, the victim has until the age of 23. These time periods are too short.

New York’s statute creates groups of victims:

Group 1: This includes those whose claims have expired — the vast majority of the state’s victims.

Group 2: This includes children who are being sexually assaulted now, so their claims are still live, but odds are that they will be unable to press charges or sue before the statute expires. It takes most victims into their 30s, 40s and 50s before they are ready to come forward. Some never do.

Group 3: This is the largest, and it includes the New York public, which knows less about existing child predators than most every other state in the country. Only Alabama, Michigan, and Mississippi statute of limitations laws are as bad.

The average citizen may ask, quite fairly, what takes these victims so long to come forward? The answer: It is the way the brain processes trauma, or, rather, what happens when it can’t. It’s no good blaming a victim for not coming forward when he or she can’t; the predator has paralyzed the voice of the victim.

Simply, sexual predators cause harm that leads to silence and confusion — and New York law punishes the victims for the silence and trauma predators caused, and that leads to more harm. This is a vicious cycle in which predators are the only winners.

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

CONNECTICUT
New Haven Independent

by CHRISTOPHER PEAK | May 15, 2017

Hartford — Defense attorneys for Rabbi Daniel Greer tried to prohibit a blogger who has intensely chronicled Greer’s sexual abuse case from entering a courtroom here — by misrepresenting a legal document.

William Ward, a Litchfield attorney, told a judge here that the rabbi’s legal team had obtained a restraining order against Lawrence S. Dressler, the author of at least 185 online posts about Greer.

In fact, the lawyers had only recently turned in their application for a protective order; a hearing on the matter was still 11 days away.

“Next time, read it more carefully,” Michael P. Shea, the presiding U.S. District Court judge, admonished Ward, shaking his head in noticeable frustration.

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

RHODE ISLAND
Daily Mail (UK)

By Associated Press and Ariel Zilber For Dailymail.com

A former Episcopal priest who worked at an elite Rhode Island boarding school has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a student during trips to Boston in 1973.

Prosecutors say Howard White Jr., who was stripped of his priesthood by the Episcopal Church, received an 18-month sentence.

Prosecutors say the now 75-year-old White assaulted the boy during two overnight trips to Boston when the boy was 15 and 16, and White worked at St. George’s School in Middletown, Rhode Island.

White, of Bedford, Pennsylvania, was freed on personal recognizance after pleading not guilty in December.

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

UNITED STATES
Legal Examiner

Posted by Mark Bello
May 15, 2017

Many of my readers know that I recently wrote the book, “Betrayal of Faith“. Some of you may have already read it; thank you and I hope you enjoyed it. For those that are not familiar with the book, “Betrayal of Faith” is a fictional account of two teenage clergy abuse victims and their mother who hire a lawyer, file a lawsuit and begin a “David vs. Goliath” legal battle, seeking justice against a corrupt church. The book is based loosely on an actual case I handled toward the end of the 20th Century. In this legal thriller, the Church defends the case vigorously and dispatches “The Coalition”, a clandestine internal organization within the church. “The Coalition” and its mysterious leader orchestrate a conspiracy to cover-up the priest’s prior misconduct and thwart, by any means necessary, all attempts at holding the church accountable in a court of law. In the book, The Coalition will stop at nothing, even criminal activity.

Fast forward to today, a typical day in Minnesota in the 21st century. Such cases of clerical abuse still occur, but now there is an additional problem on the rise – a real-life “Coalition” is trying to cover up transgressions of the past. As I read the following case I wondered, does fact mimic fiction in our 21st century courtrooms?

A man on the verge of being ordained a Church deacon has filed a lawsuit against a Minnesota bishop and diocese on the grounds of blackmail and coercion. The case represents the first time that a U.S. bishop has been individually sued for coercion by a victim.

In 2010, the victim visited with the bishop in question to explore how he would go about becoming a deacon. At that time, he told the Bishop about having been molested by a priest at the age of 16. According to the current lawsuit, the Bishop advised him to tell no one, suggesting that the truth would damage that priest’s reputation. This intimidation led to silence, while the mane continued with his deaconate program. Consequently during this time, his son was ordained a priest.

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

SCOTLAND
Irvine Times

A retired priest is to stand trial accused of historical sex abuse.

Francis Moore, 81, faced the allegations during a hearing at the High Court in Glasgow last week.

One boy is said to have been attacked at a primary school in North Ayrshire while a second was allegedly abused at a leisure centre.

It is claimed a third boy was a victim at Irvine Beach.

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

MASSACHUSETTS
Associated Press

BOSTON (AP) — A former Episcopal priest who worked at an elite Rhode Island boarding school has pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a student during trips to Boston in 1973.

Prosecutors say Howard White Jr., who was stripped of his priesthood by the Episcopal Church, received an 18-month sentence.

Prosecutors say the now 75-year-old White assaulted the boy during two overnight trips to Boston when the boy was 15 and 16, and White worked at St. George’s School in Middletown, Rhode Island.

White, of Bedford, Pennsylvania, was freed on personal recognizance after pleading not guilty in December.

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

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Tom Roberts | May. 15, 2017

The Knights of Columbus refused to answer specific questions about data on its Form 990 tax filings and turned down an invitation to have the organization’s leader address issues raised by the documents. But a spokesman issued a lengthy, seven-point justification for the organization’s activity as well as an assessment of NCR’s journalistic intentions and how our reporters might better spend their time.

In preparing the story, NCR submitted to the Knights a list of questions seeking more details about entries lacking description on the Form 990 filings and other details regarding the filings. The Knights of Columbus was also asked to provide some further details about the compensation of Supreme Knight Carl Anderson, as detailed in the main story. Spokesman Joseph Cullen responded with a terse line or two saying the organization followed the law and that it did not discuss tax filings.

The much longer email response came when NCR sought an interview with Anderson through Cullen and sent an email describing the comments about the Knights by Catholic historians Massimo Faggioli of Villanova University and David O’Brien, long-time historian and social analyst, retired from College of the Holy Cross. Because they were not named in the email, Cullen presumed they were anonymously cited.

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

UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

Tom Roberts | May. 15, 2017

WASHINGTON
The Irish Catholics who poured into the United States by the hundreds of thousands in the mid-19th century, hoping to escape famine and professing a faith that was despised by many, strained to gain a toehold in a hostile culture.

The Knights of Columbus was born out of that struggle, one of a spate of fraternal and beneficial organizations to emerge in Catholic circles in an effort to provide protection and a path to assimilation into a new country. Founded in 1882, the Knights’ original mission was to save women and children from poverty through an insurance program.

But today, one wonders what Fr. Michael McGivney, the charismatic young priest who founded the Knights of Columbus in a church basement in New Haven, Connecticut, would make of his organization. Almost 2 million men call themselves Knights of Columbus, and the organization reported revenues of more than $2.2 billion in 2015, the latest year such information is available. Moreover, in the past decade, the organization has donated $1.55 billion to charity, according to the Knights.

Much of the Knights’ influence occurs behind the scenes, but it’s not hidden. Most of it is contained on tax forms that are public and that nonprofits are required to file annually. The data in this report is largely contained in Knights of Columbus’ 990 tax forms filed for the years 2013, 2014 and 2015, as well as from news releases and other statements contained on the organization’s website. While no simple means exists to measure the effect of the Knights’ spending, there is hardly a corner of the Catholic world where the resources of this international force have not left an impression.

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

UNITED STATES
Roman Catholic Diocese of Raleigh

This morning, it was announced that Father Bernard E. Shlesinger, III, a priest of the Diocese of Raleigh, will be ordained a bishop and will serve as Auxiliary Bishop for the Archdiocese of Atlanta.

Below is the public announcement released by Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory of the Archdiocese of Atlanta:

With deep gratitude, I want to thank His Holiness Pope Francis for the appointment of The Reverend Bernard E. Shlesinger, III, a Priest of the Diocese of Raleigh as an Auxiliary Bishop of Atlanta. Bishop-Elect Shlesinger [Ned] comes to us from a diocese within the Ecclesiastical Province of Atlanta where he has longed enjoyed the endorsement of the bishops of our Province and the well-deserved respect, admiration, and affection of the clergy, religious, and faithful of the Diocese of Raleigh. I warmly welcome him to the Archdiocese of Atlanta and I look forward to working with him in service to this local Church.

Ned is a man of prayer, prudence, and apostolic zeal. He has served in many different capacities within the Diocese of Raleigh as a Pastor, Vocation Director, Member of the Presbyteral Council, and recently as Director of Spiritual Formation for Saint Charles Borromeo Theologate in Philadelphia. He is eminently qualified to assume these new responsibilities as Auxiliary Bishop in Atlanta and I welcome him with an enthusiastic and jubilant heart. I am certain that we all will come to know and love him and discover how truly fortunate we are to have been sent this man of faith and pastoral skill.

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

WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Pope Francis has appointed Father Bernard E. Shlesinger III, a priest of the Diocese of Raleigh, North Carolina, to be an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Atlanta.

Bishop-designate Shlesinger, 56, is currently the director of spiritual formation at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia.

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

UNITED STATES/IRELAND
Irish Independent

Aoife Kelly
May 15 2017

A priest who moved to Ireland from the US in the mid 1990s has been linked to the murder of a nun in Netflix’s new documentary The Keepers.

The seven part series, which debuts on the streaming site on Friday, examines the unsolved murder of Catholic nun Sister Cathy Cesnik, in Baltimore in 1969.

Nobody has ever been charged despite a lead emerging in the 1990s when one of her former students at Keough High School came forward to claim she was sexually abused by the high school’s chaplain Father Joseph Maskell.

She also revealed that she was taken to see Sister Cathy’s undiscovered body and was told, ‘See what happens when you say bad things about people.’

Police believe she was murdered to prevent her revealing abuse at the school.

In The Keepers director Ryan White goes beyond the murder and uncovers clergy abuse, repressed memories and government and religious institutions that he says “at best, dropped the ball over the last 45 years – and, at worst, covered it up.”

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

AUSTRALIA
thereelbits.com

Summary
4.0 stars

A deeply thoughtful examination of the persistence of truth and the way the legal system puts the victim on trial in this moving and impeccably cast drama.

While 2015’s Oscar winning Spotlight explored the journalistic investigation into child sex abuse in the Boston area by numerous Roman Catholic priests, Australia’s own disgraces had only recently been brought to light. The 2013 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard hundreds of tales of systemic cover ups of the crimes of child abusers.

Over a decade before, lawyer Stephen Roche represented a young woman who was abused while in the care of an Anglican preparatory school. This landmark case formed the basis of his subsequent book, and the inspiration for director Tori Garrett’s debut feature DON’T TELL. Following the suicide death of a former client, Roche (Aden Young) is initially reluctant to involve himself in the case of the troubled Lyndal (Sara West), but together they doggedly take on the Church in a quest for justice.

Earnestly told, the strength of DON’T TELL is in its unwavering commitment to the notion of truth. A few bits of legal terminology notwithstanding, the story is told through the accurate lens of a legal procedural. Like an extended episode of Law & Order: SVU, albeit told in a far less formulaic manner, the reality of the adversarial system and unreliable witnesses play an important role in the pursuit of justice. Yet the structure of the film never allows the Chruch’s defence barrister (Jacqueline McKenzie) to become the villain of the piece, with that role falling on the administrators of Lyndal’s school and perhaps more broadly on the system at large.

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

GUAM
Pacific News Center

Written by Donna De Jesus

Former St. Anthony Catholic School music teacher, Ray Caluag, is the latest offender named in the recent complaint.

Guam – After 65 reported lawsuits against the church, the 66th is the first to file a child sex abuse complaint against a Catholic school and a former teacher.

There’s strength in numbers, and more abuse victims are finding the courage to speak out about the once-unspeakable acts that were committed against them when they were innocent children frozen into silence.

Last week saw a total of 65 child sex abuse lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Agana and former clergymen. Yesterday, another complaint was filed, but this time, a former Catholic school teacher was named as the offender.

Ray Caluag was a music, drama, and religion teacher at St. Anthony Catholic School, an Archdiocese of Agana-run elementary and middle school supervised by the Sisters of Mercy.

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

NEW MEXICO
Albuquerque Journal

By Olivier Uyttebrouck / Journal Staff Writer
Monday, May 15th, 2017

A Bernalillo County man alleges in a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Santa Fe that he was sexually abused as a boy by two priests in the late 1980s at a South Valley church.

The lawsuit alleges that the Rev. Edward Donelan and the Rev. Laurier Labreche abused him while he served as an altar boy at Church of the Ascension Parish in Albuquerque.

The alleged abuse began in 1989 when the man, identified only as John Doe 66, began serving as an altar boy and continued until he was 13, according to the lawsuit, which was filed last month in 2nd Judicial District Court in Albuquerque.

It is the latest of 66 lawsuits filed by Albuquerque attorney Brad Hall against the archdiocese alleging clergy sexual abuse.

Attempts by the Journal to contact Labreche were unsuccessful. Public records list Labreche as an Albuquerque resident, but no one answered the door at the listed residence this week. Nor did anyone respond to a written message left at the house.

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

IRELAND/UNITED STATES
The Times (UK)

Sean O’Driscoll
May 15 2017
The Times

A defrocked priest who fled from the United States to Ireland to escape murder and sexual abuse allegations worked as a psychologist in Co Wexford, the Ferns diocese has said.

A file compiled by the diocese on Joseph Maskell shows that he had a contract with the local health board to provide counselling services, according to Father Joseph Carroll, a spokesman for the Ferns diocese.

He also posed a priest and said Mass in Wexford, even though he had been stripped of his ministry.

The archdiocese of Baltimore, Maryland, last year paid out compensation to 11 women who said that Maskell sexually abused them while he was offering psychological and career counselling at their high school. In 1994, Maryland police found a box of the girls’ psychological reports that Maskell buried in the grounds in a Catholic cemetery, after a tip off from the cemetery groundskeeper. The Baltimore archdiocese stripped him of his ministry as a result.

Maskell, who fled to Ireland in 1995, is a suspect in the murder of Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik, whose body was found in Maryland in 1970.

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

IRELAND/UNITED STATES
Irish Mirror

A priest based in Ireland in the 90s is the subject of a new Netflix documentary linking him to a nun’s murder.

The late Father Joseph Maskell arrived here in 1994 after fleeing the US as he was about to be arrested on child abuse charges.

Police investigating the 1969 slaying of Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik in Baltimore exhumed his body in February with DNA results expected this summer.

The Keepers, which will premiere on Friday, was directed by Ryan White and he claims both government and religious institutions “at best dropped the ball over the last 45 years – and, at worst, covered it up”.

He also said it was “chilling” to think Fr Maskell could have been around children in Ireland.

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

GUAM
KUAM

Updated: May 15, 2017

By Krystal Paco

A 64th victim files suit against the Church for child sex abuse – not against a priest, but a teacher.

And a teacher who reportedly still works with children, just not in Guam. Filed in the District Court of Guam on Sunday night, 35-year-old B.W.J. alleges it was in December of 1993 when he was sexually molested by St. Anthony School music and religion teacher Ray Caluag.

According to the complaint, B.W.J. was only 11-years-old when the teacher was supposed to drop him home from an after school rehearsal. Instead of going straight home, they made a stop at the teacher’s house. Inside the room, the boy was instructed to lay on the bed where the teacher allegedly spooned, caressed, and groped and fondled him before masturbating and digitally penetrating the seventh grader.

The teacher told him not to tell anyone because “parents and others wouldn’t understand the type of love I have for my students.” After the incident, B.W.J. distanced himself from the teacher and went to a new school the following year.

The complaint lists the Archdiocese of Agana, St. Anthony Catholic School, and Ray Caluag as defendants. Represented by attorney David Lujan, B.W.J. is suing for $5 million.

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

GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

Mindy Aguon | For The Guam Daily Post May 15, 2017

“Parents and others wouldn’t understand the type of love I have for my students.” – Ray Caluag, quoted in a recently filed sex-abuse lawsuit

After more than 60 sex-abuse lawsuits named former priests as alleged perpetrators, a new lawsuit accuses a former Guam Catholic school teacher for the first time in recent years.

And unlike the previously filed cases, in which the former priests no longer hold positions in the church that directly involve children, the newly accused still teaches music to youth, but he’s no longer in Guam.

This latest Guam case was filed yesterday by a 35-year-old man against former St. Anthony Catholic School teacher Ray Caluag, the school, and the Archdiocese of Agana, which has jurisdiction over the Catholic school.

The plaintiff, identified through his initials, B.W.J., filed the lawsuit electronically in the District Court of Guam.

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

MAINE
Morning Sentinel

BY KATE MCCORMICK
MORNING SENTINEL

WATERVILLE — A week after the sudden removal of Rev. Larry Jensen, longtime priest at St. Joseph Maronite Catholic Church on Appleton Street, parishioners struggle to reconcile the allegations that led to his ouster with the man they came to know over the last decade.

Jensen, 62, was relieved of his duties last week following a “substantiated” allegation of sexual abuse of a minor 15 years ago in Connecticut, according to Michael Thomas, vicar general of the Eparchy of Saint Maron of Brooklyn, New York. On a cold, rainy Sunday, members of the St. Joseph’s congregation expressed shock and sadness over Jensen’s abrupt departure.

“He wasn’t just a standoffish priest,” said Margaret May Lambert, who, along with her mother, has attended St. Joseph’s since 2013. “He was family to a lot of us.”

Little is known about the accusations against Jensen except that the alleged male victim was 17 years old at the time of the incident and did not attend the St. Anthony Maronite Catholic Church in Danbury, Conn., where Jensen served for eight years before coming to Waterville, according to Thomas. When confronted about the alleged abuse, Jensen neither admitted nor denied it, though he did say this was an isolated incident. As of last week, Thomas said he had received no additional sexual abuse complaints regarding Jensen.

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

RHODE ISLAND/MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

By Cristela Guerra GLOBE STAFF MAY 15, 2017

A former associate chaplain at St. George’s School in Rhode Island has pleaded guilty to molesting a student during trips to Boston in 1973. Howard White Jr., who was also accused of sexual abuse in three other states and stripped of his priesthood by the Episcopal Church, received an 18-month sentence, according to Jake Wark, spokesman for the Suffolk County district attorney’s office.

Officials in the Suffolk District Attorney’s Office said last year that the charges against White grew out of a Rhode Island State Police investigation into allegations of sexual assault and sexual misconduct by former faculty and students at the elite prep school in Middletown, R.I., going back to 1970. He was arraigned in Suffolk Superior Court last December.

“The parties came to an agreement on a plea and sentence that we thought was fair,” said David Duncan, White’s defense attorney.

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

AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail (UK)

AFP

Vatican finance chief George Pell accused sections of the Australian media of interfering in the course of justice Monday as he denied new child sex abuse allegations.

Pell, Australia’s most senior Catholic cleric, was interviewed in Rome by Australian police last October over historical sex assault claims against him. No charges have yet been laid.

It coincided with the final stages of a long-running national inquiry into institutional responses to child sex abuse. Pell has appeared before the royal commission three times, once in person and twice via video-link.

During his evidence, he admitted he “mucked up” in dealing with paedophile priests in Victoria state in the 1970s.

A book by investigative journalist Louise Milligan, “Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell”, now includes fresh details on allegations against him, and new information claiming a cover-up within the Catholic Church.

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

GUAM
KUAM

Updated: May 15, 2017

By Krystal Paco

Rain or shine, there’s no stopping the picket line. Dozens of protestors continued their march to have now suspended Archbishop Anthony Apuron defrocked. Sunday’s picket marks the 46th week of Sunday protests outside the Hagatna Cathedral. Laity Forward Movement’s Therese Tayama has been with the group since its inception.

“I’m still here because a little over a year ago there was just a group of us with one purpose in mind, and that was to bring change and progress to our church, and those changes are happening now and we must continue on because we can see that this is going to be, this is going to bring about what is much needed and that’s why I’m here,” said Tayama.

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

SCOTLAND
Sunday Post

Written by Gordon Blackstock, 15 May 2017

VICTIMS who claim they suffered horrific sexual abuse at a Scots school have been snubbed by an official inquiry – despite being backed by the PM who said they helped set it up.

When she was Home Secretary, Theresa May wrote to a former pupil of Fort Augustus Abbey school to thank him for his “invaluable” help setting up the English Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in 2015.

But the evidence of former Scottish pupils like him who attended that infamous boarding school is now unlikely to be heard at the powerful inquiry in London.

Last week, Fort Augustus Abbey was left off the list of schools to be examined by the IICSA later this year.

The snub has prompted fury among those who claim their lives were ruined by what they experienced at the boarding school.

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

ITALIA
Rete L’Abuso

[PALERMO. Trial begins Wednesday of Father Salvatore Ring Cappuccini , known as a healer and exorcist, and an army officer, Colonel Salvatore Muratore, one of the most active leaders of the Renewal in the community Holy Spirit of Palermo. They are charged with sexual assault.]

PALERMO. Comincerà mercoledì prossimo, davanti alla seconda sezione del Tribunale di Palermo, il processo a padre dei Cappuccini Salvatore Anello, conosciuto come guaritore ed esorcista, e un ufficiale dell’esercito, il colonnello Salvatore Muratore, uno degli animatori più attivi della comunità del Rinnovamento nello Spirito Santo di Palermo.

I due, arrestati a ottobre scorso, sono accusati di violenza sessuale. Il sacerdote, che faceva anche da cappellano all’ospedale Civico, è accusato in particolare di aver palpeggiato due donne e tre minorenni che si erano rivolte a lui per essere aiutate. Fra riti e benedizioni avrebbe commesso violenze. Poi, il racconto di una vittima ha infranto il muro dell’omertà.
Secondo la ricostruzione del sostituto procuratore Giorgia Righi e del procuratore aggiunto Salvatore De Luca, il carabiniere avrebbe invece approfittato di quattro donne e di una minorenne che si trovavano in uno stato di fragilità psicologica. “Io faccio preghiere di guarigione”, avrebbe detto. Le violenze sarebbero avvenute nelle abitazioni delle vittime.

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

NEW YORK
New York Times

By GINIA BELLAFANTE MAY 11, 2017

Beginning in 1997, and then for the next 13 years, Ama Dwimoh ran the Crimes Against Children Bureau in the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, observing a theater of atrocities. Early in her tenure, Ms. Dwimoh told me recently, she handled a case involving a young man who had been sexually molested by his family’s landlord for a decade, starting when he was 5.

The abuse had come to her attention through a photo developer, who had contacted the police when he noticed unseemly images in a roll of film brought in for processing. With a picture of someone who appeared to be the victim of various predations in hand, law enforcers went in search of the boy. When they found him and knocked on his door, Ms. Dwimoh recalled, he appeared to feel he was being outed; he got sick and vomited. He knew that what had happened to him was wrong, but he had also experienced his abuser in less monstrous moments. How was the child, or even the young adult he would become, to make sense of all this, of such horrors entwined with the semblance of affection?

A search of the perpetrator’s home revealed a trove of old photographs of many other children, indicating he had been a pedophile for years. Ms. Dwimoh, who is running to become the Brooklyn district attorney, realized that if the police had never knocked, it was unclear whether the boy would have come forward soon, or ever, and if he hadn’t, how many more children would have been imperiled?

Under New York State statute as it is currently written, someone sexually exploited as a child, with rare exceptions, has only until the age of 23 to bring criminal or civil proceedings against an abuser. This is in spite of the fact that the mental-health professions, as well as the news — witness the recent accounts of abuse at Choate Rosemary Hall, the Connecticut boarding school, or at the Horace Mann School in the Bronx, that transpired decades ago — repeatedly tell us that it can take many agonizing years, often signified by anxiety, depression, addiction and other destabilizing conditions, for victims to understand what had happened to them and come forward.

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

AUSTRALIA
Moree Champion

Tom McIlroy
14 May 2017

Survivors of abuse in Australian children’s homes and orphanages have called for a new national strategy to secure the release of their own historic personal records held by churches and charities.

As the landmark royal commission into institutional child sexual abuse prepares to hand its report to the federal government by Christmas, a national summit has discussed how to give a voice to adults whose lives have been impacted by failings of record keeping and archiving systems in institutions around the country.

Care Leavers Australasia Network chief executive Leonie Sheedy said many survivors, including those who have given evidence to the royal commission process, have spent years trying to track down records about their time in institutional care.

Even current record keeping processes could be important in instances of historic abuse.

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

MARYLAND
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

BRIAN O’NEILL
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
boneill@post-gazette.com
MAY 14, 2017

Catherine Cesnik was the valedictorian of her Catholic high school class in Lawrenceville in 1960, where she’d also been the May Queen and the president of the senior class and student council.

Nine years later, Sister Cathy was brutally murdered in Baltimore. Nearly 48 years have passed and the killer has yet to be named, but Baltimore County Police haven’t given up.

The body of a priest was exhumed in February in hopes of finding DNA evidence that could be linked to an item found near the body.

The murder and possibility of a decades-long coverup are the subject of a Netflix documentary, “The Keepers,” set to begin streaming May 19 in seven one-hour episodes. It’s filled with the testimony of the students of Sister Cathy, who taught English at Archbishop Keough High, an all-girls Catholic school in Baltimore.

Many of them believe that Father John Maskell, the priest whose body was exhumed, was either the killer or an accomplice. He was the school chaplain and guidance counselor, and several of these women say he sexually molested them. At least three women say uniformed police officers also participated in the abuse; Maskell was also the Baltimore County police chaplain and the brother of a police officer.

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

PENNSYLVANIA
Lancaster Online

MEAGEN FINNERTY | Website Producer

An Amish bishop in Dauphin County is facing charges after being accused of failing to report two cases of alleged sexual abuse of children.

Christ M. Stoltfus, 69, is charged with two misdemeanor counts of failure to report, according to court documents.

Clergymen are legally required to report suspected child abuse.

A church member told Stoltfus, of Elizabethville, about two cases both involving Daniel Ray Fisher, 44, that occurred in 2011. Stoltfus reportedly told state police that he’d been told the abuse “wasn’t really that bad.”

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

UNITED STATES/IRELAND
The Sunday Times (UK)

Pavel Barter
May 14 2017
The Sunday Times

A priest who fled the United States to live in Co Wexford during the 1990s following child abuse and murder allegations is the subject of a new Netflix documentary.

Fr Joseph Maskell is the subject of The Keepers, a documentary series released this week, in which it is alleged he killed a nun in Baltimore in the 1960s.

Baltimore county police recently exhumed the priest’s body in the US as part of an investigation into the killing of Sr Catherine Ann Cesnik.

It is understood Maskell, whose father was from Limerick, travelled to Wexford in 1994 after two women — Jean Wehner and Teresa Lancaster, known at the time as Jane Doe and Jane Roe — filed a $40m (€36.5m) civil lawsuit against him, ­alleging child abuse at Keough High School in Baltimore, where he had served as chaplain from 1967 to 1975.

“There was an attempted arrest,” said Tom Nugent, a former reporter for The Baltimore Sun.

“A policeman in the sex crimes unit went in the front door. Maskell went out the back door, got in a car, raced to the airport, and went to Ireland.”

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

AUSTRALIA
The Courier

Melissa Cunningham and Beau Donelly
14 May 2017

UPDATE

Ballarat’s Cardinal George Pell has hit back at media outlets which have aired allegations against him prior to the release of a new book.

The new claims of sexual abuse against Cardinal Pell during his time as Melbourne’s Archbishop in the 1990’s have been made in a soon-to-be released book by ABC journalist Louise Milligan.

The excerpts published in Fairfax newspapers on Saturday, will maximise publicity for the book, to be released next week, but Cardinal Pell’s office has accused the outlets and publisher Melbourne University Publishing of interfering in the proper course of justice.

The statement issued late on Saturday, said the Cardinal would not seek to interfere in the course of justice by responding to the allegations other than to restate “any allegations of child abuse made against him were completely false”.

His office said there had been no further updates from the Victorian Office of Public Prosecutions or Victoria Police in regard to investigations over incidents alleged to have occurred at Eureka Pool in 1970’s and which have been underway since at least February 2016.

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

NEW JERSEY
The Jersey Journal

By Patrick Villanova | The Jersey Journal

The long-delayed sentencing of a North Bergen pastor convicted of child molestation has been adjourned until this summer.

Gregorio Martinez, who in 2015 was found guilty of sexually assaulting a teenage boy and left the country before being sentenced for his crime, was set to learn his fate this morning. However, the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office said the sentencing has been postponed until July 7.

In February 2015, Martinez was convicted of touching a 13-year-old’s genital area and kissing him on the lips inside a minivan in 2012. Martinez, who was out on bail during his trial, remained a free man until his sentencing but was nowhere to be found when that day came.

NJ Advance Media tracked Martinez to Nicaragua in early 2016 and he was arrested in neighboring Honduras in late August. He was swiftly transferred to a detention facility in Miami and fought extradition to New Jersey, but was returned to Hudson County in December.

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

America

Gerard O’Connell
May 13, 2017

“I never judge someone without listening to him,” Pope Francis said tonight when asked about the policies of U.S. president Donald J. Trump that are diametrically opposed to his own views on the questions of building walls, welcoming immigrants and tackling climate change, and what he expects from the meeting with Mr. Trump on May 24.

In a press conference that lasted more than 30 minutes on the return from Fatima to Rome, a relaxed Pope Francis responded to all 10 questions presented to him, including one relating to the resignation of abuse-survivor Marie Collins from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, and others relating to Medjugorie, Fatima and the future of the dialogue with the Lutherans. …

Speaking about Marie Collins’s resignation from the papal commission, Francis began by praising her as “a good woman, a brave woman” who had “explained everything” to him. He said she had “made accusations which have some reason” because “there are many cases” and there is “a delay in dealing [with them].” He explained that some of the problems have to do with “legislation” at the diocesan level, but much progress has been made there. Another problem is that “there are few people” in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to deal with the outstanding cases—around 2,000. “We need more people,” the pope said, and two or three have already been added. He said that the head of the section for discipline has been changed and replaced by “a good, efficient, fine person,” Father John Joseph Kennedy.

He said another problem is that bishops sometimes send dossiers on abuse cases to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that are incomplete and have to be sent back to be properly done. He revealed that the possibility of having continental tribunals (such as in Latin America) to enable the local churches to deal with abuse cases in a more effective way.

Furthermore, he said, there are situations where an accused priest lodges an appeal after a negative judgment has been made against him. Francis said he has a right to such an appeal and to have a lawyer to assist him; to ensure that accused priests are given fair trials. Francis said, he has set up a second tribunal to hear the appeals. He explained that this second tribunal is separate from the ones that first judged accused priests and said that he has appointed as its president Archbishop Charles Scicluna, whom he described “an indisputable authority in combatting abuse.”

Reports have circulated in the media and other circles in recent months claiming that Pope Francis is “soft” toward some priest who have been judged guilty of sexual abuse by competent church tribunals. Some have alleged that he reversed judgments against such priests. Francis tonight left no doubt on this important question, emphasizing, “I have never signed a pardon.”

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

Breaking News (Ireland)

The Vatican has a 2,000-case backlog in processing clerical sex abuse cases, and criticism of the slow pace is justified, Pope Francis has said.

But he said Saturday that more staff were being added and insisted the Vatican is “on the right path”.

Francis was making his first comments about the criticism levelled at the Vatican’s handling of sex abuse cases by Marie Collins, an Irish abuse survivor who resigned from Francis’ sex abuse advisory commission in March.

Ms Collins quit because of what she said was the “unacceptable” level of resistance within the Vatican to implementing the group’s proposals to better care for victims and protect children from priests who rape and molest them.

Speaking to reporters while flying home from a trip to Portugal, Francis called Ms Collins “a great woman” and said she was “a bit right” to complain about the slow pace in processing cases.

“Marie Collins was right on that point. But we are on the right path, as there were 2,000 cases backlogged,” he said.

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

National Catholic Reporter

Joshua J. McElwee | May. 13, 2017

ABOARD THE PAPAL FLIGHT FROM PORTUGAL Pope Francis has said he will focus in his upcoming meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump on finding even little openings where the two might have common interests and can work together.

In a half-hour press conference aboard the papal flight from Portugal Saturday, May 13, the pontiff also praised clergy abuse survivor Marie Collins. He said Collins, who resigned from the papal sexual abuse commission in March, was “right” in critiquing Vatican officials’ resistance in fighting abuse. …

Marie Collins ‘right’ and ‘capable’

On clergy abuse, the pope was asked about Marie Collins’ resignation from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. Collins, a survivor of abuse, left the group in March due to frustration with Vatican officials’ reluctance to cooperate with its work to protect children.

Francis said he has spoken to Collins and she was “right” in the frustration she expressed at the time of her resignation.

“Marie Collins has explained things to me very well,” said the pontiff. “She is a capable woman who wants to work.”

“She is a bit right,” the pope continued. “There are many cases in which we are behind.”

But Francis also praised steps the global church has taken in recent years to protect children. He cited the fact that most dioceses around the world now have policies in place about how to treat priests accused of abuse, calling that “great progress.”

The pontiff suggested that the Vatican could decentralize some of its authority to judge priests accused of abuse by creating regional or continental tribunals, saying implementing such an idea is “in the planning stages.”

Francis also said he respects all decisions made by Vatican tribunals about priests accused of abuse and has never issued a pardon for a priest found guilty, known in Italian as issuing a letter of grazia.

“I have never signed a grazia,” the pontiff said bluntly.

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

Associated Press

BY NICOLE WINFIELD
ASSOCIATED PRESS

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (AP) — Pope Francis acknowledged Saturday that the Vatican has a 2,000-case backlog in processing clerical sex abuse cases and says criticism of the slow pace was justified. But he says more staff are being added and insists the Vatican is “on the right path.”

Francis was making his first comments about the criticism leveled at the Vatican’s handling of sex abuse cases by Marie Collins, an Irish abuse survivor who resigned from Francis’ sex abuse advisory commission in March. Collins quit because of what she said was the “unacceptable” level of resistance within the Vatican to implementing the group’s proposals to better care for victims and protect children from priests who rape and molest them.

Speaking to reporters while flying home Saturday from a trip to Portugal, Francis called Collins “a great woman” and said she was “a bit right” to complain about the slow pace in processing cases.

“Marie Collins was right on that point. But we are on the right path, as there were 2,000 cases backlogged,” he said.

Francis didn’t respond to the other issues raised by Collins, including the refusal of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – which handles abuse cases – to create a tribunal to judge bishops who covered up for pedophile priests. Instead, he focused on explaining why cases can take so long to process.

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

CRUX

Inés San Martín May 13, 2017
VATICAN CORRESPONDENT

ope Francis on Saturday praised an abuse survivor who quit his own reform commission citing Vatican resistance, saying she was “right on some issues,” but also defended the Church’s record in recovering from the abuse scandals. He also talked about his looming May 24 meeting with Donald Trump, the traditionalist Society of St. Pius X, and Medjugorje.

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE – Pope Francis on Saturday said a former member of his reform commission on sex abuse who quit citing Vatican resistance “was right on some issues,” and that when he meets President Donald Trump on May 24, he’ll be looking to find doors that “aren’t closed” to cooperation between the Vatican and the White House. …

Clerical sexual abuse and the Collins resignation

English-speaking journalists also asked Pope Francis about the recent decision by Irish lay woman Marie Collins, a survivor of clerical sexual abuse herself, to resign from the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors which he instituted at the beginning of his papacy.
When she announced her resignation, Collins said in various interviews that resistance within the Roman Curia, meaning the Vatican’s governing body, drove her decision.

“Marie Collins explained the situation to me, I spoke with her. She’s a great woman,” the pope said, adding that she’ll continue to work with the Vatican in the formation of priests in the fight against the clerical sexual abuse.

“She’s right on some things,” he acknowledged, saying “there are too many delayed cases … backed up here,” referring to the Vatican.

He added, however, that several steps have been taken to advance the Church’s promise of fighting clerical sexual abuse.

Among the things the pope said still need attention is the shortage of personnel capable of dealing with these cases, so both the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and the chief of the doctrinal office, which handles abuse cases, German Cardinal Gerhard Muller, are looking for more people.

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

GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

Gaynor D. Daleno | The Guam Daily Post

Claims from victims of decades-old sex abuse at the hands of former Guam priests have recently been resolved, but the outcome, including whether money was paid, and how much money was paid, won’t become publicly known.

Mike Caspino, director of the Hope and Healing program, which was recently established at the request of the Archdiocese of Agana, said victims in the recently resolved claims reached out to the nonprofit directly and are not represented by lawyers.

Additional victims are in the process of getting their claims resolved through Hope and Healing, he said.

Caspino said the victims who have resolved their cases don’t want their identities or the details of the resolution known to the public.

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

IRELAND
Irish Times

Colm Keena

The Department of Education is considering a proposal from the Christian Brothers concerning the transfer of lands worth approximately €100 million which, the department said, resembles a proposal first made by it in 2013.

Following contacts between the two sides over recent weeks, Minister for Education Richard Bruton received a letter from the Brothers in which they made an offer “very similar to the proposal originally made by former minister Ruairí Quinn”, a spokeswoman said.

Mr Quinn’s proposal was made in 2013 and would have seen approximately 200 acres, mostly playing fields associated with schools, being transferred to the Edmund Rice Schools Trust but with a proviso that half of any future sales proceeds would go to the State.

A spokeswoman for the Minister said that in March he had expressed “frustration and disappointment at the lack of progress by the religious congregations in meeting the costs of compensating victims of residential institutional child abuse.

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

ARGENTINA
La Izquierda Diario

[Bishop Buenanueva recognizes that the church protects abusive priests.]

El Obispo de San Francisco y presidente de la comisión de Ministerios de la Conferencia Episcopal Argentina, Sergio Osvaldo Buenanueva, realizó declaraciones a Télam, a raíz de las innumerables denuncias de abusos que vienen saliendo a la luz, contra la Iglesia Católica.

“La Iglesia no debe proteger al cura abusador, ese fue uno de nuestros grandes errores. Lo peor que nos pasó como institución es que perdimos la sensibilidad por tutelar el buen nombre o la reputación de la Iglesia”, confesó el Obispo.

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

ARGENTINA
La Izquierda Diario

Los abogados Sergio Salinas y Oscar Barrera, representantes de niños y niñas víctimas de abuso en el Instituto Provolo de Mendoza, denunciaron que las autoridades eclesiásticas, a través de su abogado Héctor Cuervo, accedieron a uno de los cuerpos de la causa.

De esta manera, el arzobispo accedió a la trascripción de las declaraciones testimoniales de 11 denunciantes, la de un testigo de identidad reservada, tres informes del Cuerpo Médico Forense y las imputaciones contra los 5 detenidos que había hasta ese momento (la monja Kumiko, la sexta detenida en la causa, se entregó a la justicia hace pocas semanas luego de haber estado un mes prófuga). Los abogados querellantes denunciaron que la decisión del fiscal de permitir el acceso a la causa a la Iglesia atenta contra tratados internacionales, en especial las convenciones internacionales sobre los Derechos del Niño y de las Personas con Discapacidad.

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

ARGENTINA
Infobae

[includes a list of accused priests]

[The cases of denunciations against members of the Catholic Church were known from the scandal of Father Julio César Grassi in 2002.]

Abusos, silencio, protección. Este entramado se repite en muchos de los 62 casos denunciados en la Argentina desde 2002, luego de que estallara el escándalo del padre Julio César Grassi.

Una investigación de la Agencia Télam –de las periodistas Lucía Toninello y Mariana García–, deja al descubierto que la denuncia contra Grassi no es un hecho aislado: desde entonces cuatro nuevas denuncias se sumaron por año y sólo tres casos fueron sancionados con la máxima pena prevista por el derecho canónico: la expulsión del sacerdocio.

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

ARGENTINA
El Dia

[A priest is recorded on a hidden camera as saying that priests accused to abusing students at a Provolo school for the deaf in Italy were transferred to Argentina.]

El video corresponde a una cámara oculta que un periodista italiano le hizo a un cura del instituto Próvolo de Verona acusado de abusos contra alumnos de esa institución, haciéndose pasar por un ex interno. Y aunque está desde febrero subido a YouTube, sólo en las últimas horas se difundió provocando una gran conmoción, ya que en él, el entrevistado reconoce que al menos diez sacerdotes abusaban de los menores en el instituto y que, cuando eran descubiertos, inmediatamente se los trasladaba a la Argentina.

El contenido del video se conoce en momentos en que se investigan abusos cometidos en las sedes argentinas del Instituto Próvolo. En el marco de esa investigación ya suman seis los detenidos: a la monja japonesa Kumiko Kosaka imputada del delito de abuso sexual gravemente ultrajante cometido contra un menor se suman los sacerdotes Horacio Corbacho, de 55 años; el italiano Nicolás Corradi (82), quien tenía acusaciones similares en Verona, Italia, en los años 80 y fue trasladado a Mendoza; el monaguillo Jorge Bordón (55); el ex empleado del instituto, José Luis Ojeda (41), quien también es sordo, y el jardinero Armando Gómez (46).

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

ARGENTINA
89.9 FM

[Of 62 priests reported for sexual abuse in Argentina, 4 are Salteños.]

12/05/2017. Entre Los casos de denuncias contra integrantes de la Iglesia católica que se conocieron a partir del escándalo del padre Julio César Grassi en 2002.

“Donde sobreabundó el pecado, sobreabunda la gracia de Dios”, les respondió monseñor Edgardo Gabriel Storni, arzobispo de Santa Fe, a los angustiados padres de un adolescente quien confesó entre lágrimas que había sido abusado por el cura Luis Brizzio durante un encuentro de jóvenes de la Acción Católica en el pueblo de Gálvez.

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

AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Louise Milligan

Broadly speaking, my aim in introducing the Melbourne Response was to make it easier for victims to achieve justice, and to seek financial compensation and counselling, without needing to establish legal liability. I believe that it was the first scheme of its kind implemented anywhere in the world to respond to victims of child sexual abuse. I was, and remain, proud of its establishment and the assistance it has provided to victims since 1996. Statement of Cardinal George Pell, August 2014

It was 1996 and the media was going after the issue percolating child abuse crisis in a big way. The victims were becoming emboldened. It was becoming a dominant narrative: terrible PR for a Church whose mass attendance numbers were already in freefall. It was also potentially costly in terms of compensation payouts. And it was unclear just how many priests Pell as archbishop might lose to criminal prosecutions, but suffice to say they were falling over like dominoes.

Melbourne had more paedophile priests than any other place in the country. And most of them operated during George Pell’s time in Victoria as priest or bishop. The Cardinal is proud of his record in being the first Australian bishop to respond to the child abuse crisis. He consistently cites it when he is being scrutinised in the media and points out that he was probably the first in the world, let alone here in Australia, to boldly go where no other bishop had dared to tread.

In 2016, he said: “When I became Archbishop, I turned the situation right around so that the Melbourne Response procedures were light years ahead of all this obfuscation and prevarication and deception.”

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

AUSTRALIA
The Courier

Beau Donelly
14 May 2017

Senior figures in the Catholic Church have accused Cardinal George Pell of hijacking the national compensation scheme for clergy sex abuse victims by swooping in at the last minute to announce his own initiative.

Cardinal Pell, one of the most powerful men in the Vatican, launched the Melbourne Response in 1996 when he was Archbishop of Melbourne.

The controversial scheme was set up as an alternative to civil litigation, with victims of paedophile priests given access to counselling and compensation. Cardinal Pell has long said he was the first bishop to develop a program responding to the scourge of child sex abuse in the church.

But accounts from officials present at an Australian Catholic Bishops Conference shortly after Cardinal Pell announced his scheme have challenged his decades-old account, and strongly suggest he undermined the church’s plan to present a unified front in dealing with the crisis.

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

AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun
May 12, 2017

So many allegations against Cardinal George Pell have been dropped and disproved, and police are still unable after a year to prosecute Pell over shaky claims aired on the ABC.

But now one of the ABC reporters responsible for that report tries again:

A soon-to-be-released book about Cardinal Pell contains detailed claims that he sexually abused two choirboys at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne in the late 1990s….

The boys, who were both students at St Kevin’s College in Toorak and sung in the choir at St Patrick’s Cathedral in East Melbourne, were allegedly abused in a back room of the church.

Of course, I don’t know whether the allegations are true or false.

But the timing of the alleged abuse – which Pell denies – is very odd. Is it really likely that Pell, having been under fiercely hostile scrutiny by the media over his conservatism and his attempts to clean out pedophiles in his church and compensate victims, would then risk everything by abusing boys himself?

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

AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Melissa Cunningham

Cardinal George Pell flew from Rome to London as explosive new details of alleged child sex abuse were levelled against Australia’s most senior Catholic.

Lawyers for Cardinal Pell last night strongly denied the allegations and said they were false, “unjustifiable, scandalous, deliberate and calculated to cause the most shocking damage imaginable to Cardinal Pell”.

The legal letter also claimed the publication of the book’s allegations were a “deliberate attempt to influence the public opinion in a manner that would make it impossible for our client to receive a fair hearing in court should he be charged”.

A soon-to-be-released book, Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell, by ABC reporter Louise Milligan, contains detailed claims that he sexually abused two choirboys at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne in the late 1990s.

The alleged abuse is said to have occurred after the introduction of the Melbourne Response, the compensation scheme for victims of clerical sexual abuse that Cardinal Pell established in 1996 after breaking ranks with the rest of Australia’s bishops who had been working on a national scheme called Towards Healing.

A separate statement last night from his Rome office, in response to a request for comment on the allegations, accused the book’s publisher, Melbourne University Press, and media organisations including Fairfax Media of “interfering with the course of justice”.

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

UNITED KINGDOM
The Herald

By Carl_Eve | Posted: May 12, 2017

A wide-ranging inquiry into the sexual abuse of children in the South West needs victims and survivors to come forward and tell of their experiences.

A number of organisations attended a workshop earlier this week where staff from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) urged them to reach out to their clients and urge them to take park in the inquiry’s Truth Project.

Groups like the Devon Rape Crisis and Sexual Abuse Services, Intercom Trust and North Devon Against Domestic Abuse were asked to help inform survivors who stories and experiences will hopefully inform recommendations to government in an effort to improve upon past failures by the authorities.

David Poole, head of the South West Inquiry office said the meeting included more than a dozen different organisations where they discussed how to work together to encourage victims and survivors to speak out and have their voices heard.

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

MAINE
Portland Press Herald

BY EDWARD D. MURPHY
STAFF WRITER

The founder of a Haitian orphanage is appealing a court ruling that affirmed a decision to toss out his defamation suit against a Freeport man.

Michael Geilenfeld, the orphanage founder, had sued Paul Kendrick over an email campaign that began in 2011 in which Kendrick accused Geilenfeld of sexually abusing boys in his care. Later, Kendrick expanded his campaign to include Hearts with Haiti, a North Carolina charity that raised funds for the orphanage.

Geilenfeld won his suit in 2015 and a federal jury awarded $14.5 million in damages, roughly split between the charity and Geilenfeld. But last summer, a federal judge in Maine threw out the case and the award, determining that Geilenfeld hadn’t lived in the U.S. for years and therefore lacked standing to bring the suit in an American court.

Geilenfeld, a native of Iowa, has been living in Haiti and, more recently, the Dominican Republic, for decades.

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

IRELAND
Irish Times

Colm Keena

The Department of Education is considering a proposal from the Christian Brothers concerning the transfer of lands worth approximately €100 million which, the department said, resembles a proposal first made by it in 2013.

Following contacts between the two sides over recent weeks, Minister for Education Richard Bruton received a letter from the Brothers in which they made an offer “very similar to the proposal originally made by former minister Ruairí Quinn”, a spokeswoman said.

Mr Quinn’s proposal was made in 2013 and would have seen approximately 200 acres, mostly playing fields associated with schools, being transferred to the Edmund Rice Schools Trust but with a proviso that half of any future sales proceeds would go to the State.

A spokeswoman for the Minister said that in March he had expressed “frustration and disappointment at the lack of progress by the religious congregations in meeting the costs of compensating victims of residential institutional child abuse.

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

CONNECTICUT
Patch

By Rich Scinto (Patch Staff) – May 12, 2017

NEW HAVEN, CT — Prominent city Rabbi Daniel Greer took the Fifth Amendment multiple times in a civil trial after he was accused of sexually molesting a former student on multiple occasions.

Greer denied having sex with plaintiff Eli Mirlis on a parcel of land in Hamden, the only time during testimony he flat out denied a sex abuse allegation, according to the New Haven Independent.

Greer, leader of Yeshiva of New Haven, Inc. and The Gan School, Inc., was sued by a former student in federal court. Mirlis alleged in a lawsuit that Greer sexually assaulted him beginning in 2002 when he was 15-years-old.

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

SCOTLAND
STV

A retired priest is to stand trial accused of historical sex abuse.

Francis Moore faced the allegations during a hearing at the High Court in Glasgow on Friday.

One boy is said to have been attacked at a primary school in North Ayrshire while a second was allegedly abused at a leisure centre.

It is claimed a third boy was a victim at Irvine beach in North Ayrshire.

The offences allegedly occurred between 1977 and 1981. The trio were aged between five to 13 at the time.

Moore is further accused of indecently assaulting a student priest and a separate breach of the peace allegation between 1995 and 1996.

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

MARYLAND
The Baltimore Sun

Alison Knezevich
The Baltimore Sun

Donna Von Den Bosch climbed to the attic of her home so she could watch the footage alone.

The images flashed on her computer screen: the police car, the churches, the priests.

Her heart raced.

“I’m 60,” she told herself, again and again. “I’m not 15 anymore.”

Von Den Bosch was watching the trailer of the upcoming Netflix documentary “The Keepers.” The seven-part series focuses on sexual abuse in the 1960s and ’70s at Archbishop Keough High School and the unsolved 1969 disappearance and death of Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik, an English teacher at the Catholic school in Southwest Baltimore.

Von Den Bosch, who has received a settlement from the Archdiocese of Baltimore for abuse she suffered at Keough, is featured in the series. She is among the many across the region who are bracing for its release Friday.

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

MARYLAND
The Baltimore Sun

Alison Knezevich
The Baltimore Sun

The president of Seton Keough High School in southwest Baltimore wrote to parents this week about the upcoming Netflix series “The Keepers,” which focuses on sexual abuse and the unsolved killing of a nun who taught there decades ago.

The documentary series tells the story of Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik, a teacher at Archbishop Keough High School in the 1960s. She was found slain, but no arrests were ever made. The series explores the theory of whether Cesnik, 26, may have been killed because she knew about sexual abuse allegedly committed by the Rev. A. Joseph Maskell, then a school chaplain and counselor.

Archbishop Keough and Seton high schools merged in 1988.

“We expect that the contents of this series will include adult themes and graphic descriptions, so we wanted to provide you with this information and suggest that you talk with your daughter about this series and consider watching it with her if she is going to watch it,” school President Donna Bridickas wrote in the email sent to parents Thursday.

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

AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail

By Bryant Hevesi For Daily Mail Australia

An explosive new book by an investigative journalist has detailed sexual abuse allegations against Cardinal George Pell, Australia’s most prominent Catholic.

Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell was written by ABC Four Corners and 7.30 reporter Louise Milligan and is set to hit book shelves on Monday.

In the book, Ms Milligan reveals new details surrounding accusations Cardinal Pell, 75, sexually abused a choirboy, The Age reported.

The alleged abuse was said to have taken place in the back room of Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral in the late 1990s, with the choirboy then asking to leave the choir, the book alleges.
Cardinal Pell has strenuously denied abuse allegations levelled against him.

There is no suggestion Cardinal Pell is guilty of any allegations of child sex abuse, only that they have been investigated by police.

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

AUSTRALIA
Starts at 60

A new book makes some explosive allegations about Cardinal George Pell, Australia’s highest-ranking Catholic official.

Cardinal: The Rise And Fall of George Pell, written by well-regarded ABC journalise Louise Milligan, claims that Pell sexually abused two choirboys in the late 1990s.

Fairfax News reports that the book contains detailed claims that the abuse occurred at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne, it alleges, after Pell established the church’s compensation scheme for sexual abuse victims in 1996. The boys were in the choice and abused in a back room at the church, Fairfax said, citing the book.

The book also alleges that Pell, who has been criticised last year for his refusal to return to Australia to give further evidence to the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse within the Catholic church, knew about the activities of paedophile priests earlier than he claims to have known. At the time, Pell cited illness for his inability to travel from Rome in Italy to Australia for the hearings.

The book, due to be released next week, doesn’t suggest that Pell is guilty of the allegations. He has always denied any allegations of abuse, which started emerging as early as 2002.

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

NEW YORK
Newsday

Updated May 12, 2017

By Joye Brown joye.brown@newsday.com

Early on, in his decade and a half as Suffolk’s district attorney, Thomas Spota earned a reputation as a reformer, and at one point, as Long Island’s most aggressive fighter of public corruption. But with his low-key — and not unexpected — announcement to staff Friday that he would not seek a fifth term, Spota will leave that office under a cloud.

“I will end the constant controversies and political vendettas that for years characterized the district attorney’s office,” Spota said during his 2002 swearing-in, after winning a decisive victory over opponent James M. Catterson Jr.

During the campaign, Spota claimed that Catterson had abused the district attorney’s office by pursuing vindictive, politically motivated prosecutions. “I envision an office that’s going to be guided not by politics but by principles,” Spota promised.

And, indeed, the new district attorney started off with a bang — impaneling grand juries to delve into allegations of child sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests and, later, allegations of political corruption. Spota investigated allegations of Medicaid fraud and at one point subpoenaed hundreds of thousands of documents to dig into allegations of fiscal improprieties in Suffolk school districts.

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

NEW YORK
Newsday

Updated May 12, 2017

By Paul LaRocco paul.larocco@newsday.com

* 1971-1982: Serves as an assistant district attorney for Suffolk County. Includes stint as chief of homicide bureau, where he prosecuted high-profile cases, including the murder of 13-year-old John Pius in Smithtown. That case featured teenage witness and later Spota protégé James Burke, who would go on to work as Spota’s chief investigator before becoming Suffolk police’s chief of department in 2012.

* 1982-2001: Works in private practice. Gains political prominence representing county law enforcement unions.

* 2001: Switches party affiliation from Republican to Democrat to run for Suffolk district attorney against longtime Republican DA James Catterson. After bruising campaign, Spota wins by a large margin.

* 2003: Releases grand jury report on sexual abuse by 58 priests in the Diocese of Rockville Centre dating back decades. Wins national attention for issuing one of the first such reports in the country.

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

NEW YORK
DNA Info

By Jeanmarie Evelly | May 12, 2017
@jeanmarieevelly

LONG ISLAND CITY — In the state of New York, victims of childhood sexual abuse have only until their 23rd birthdays to seek justice against their abusers — though the effects of abuse often last much longer, survivors say.

“I can tell you this is a lifelong problem,” said Shaun Dougherty, 47, a Queens restaurant owner who was molested by a priest and teacher at his Pennsylvania Catholic school starting at the age of 10.

“I’ve met 81-year-olds that cry at the drop of a hat, because they remember,” he said. “I have heard the most horrific acts done to children that you can imagine, and 78-year-old people recalling it like it happened this morning.”

Dougherty, who now runs Crescent Grill, a successful farm-to-table eatery in Long Island City, is among a group of abuse survivors fighting to change New York’s statute of limitations for sex crimes committed against children.

He and other advocates are pushing for passage of the Child Victims Act, urging lawmakers to vote on the bill — which has been languishing in the State Senate’s judiciary committee since January — before the current legislative session ends this spring.

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

MARYLAND
The Baltimore Sun

David Zurawik
The Baltimore Sun

It is hard to imagine a true-crime docu-series that has more winning story elements than “The Keepers.”

More elements than Netflix’s “Making a Murderer,” HBO’s “The Jinx” or even the “Serial” podcast that dealt with young love, death and a Muslim man who is still in a Maryland prison for a crime he might not have committed.

The seven-part production that arrives Friday on Netflix features a decades-old unsolved murder involving a beloved 26-year-old Baltimore nun, Sister Catherine Cesnik, who went shopping at a local mall on a Friday night in 1969 and never returned to her apartment.

Alongside that core narrative is the allegation of a horrifying sexual abuse ring that preyed upon high school girls at the school where the nun taught. And at the center of the ring is a priest who served as guidance counselor, a clergyman whom survivors describe as a monster, the Rev. A. Joseph Maskell.

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

SOUTH CAROLINA
The Post and Courier

By Gregory Yee gyee@postandcourier.com

After nearly a decade, legal wrangling continues over a $12 million settlement paid to victims who were sexually abused by Catholic priests in the Charleston area more than 30 years ago.

A lawsuit on behalf of one of the victims, identified only as John Doe 10, was filed in September 2010, according to court documents. The plaintiff was molested at his church school and parish beginning in 1983 according to the suit.

“The priest involved, Frederick Hopwood, had an extensive history of molesting children that covered the decades before 1983,” the documents said.

Hopwood pleaded guilty on March 21, 1994, to one count of a lewd act upon a minor. As part of his plea agreement, the 9th Circuit Solicitor’s Office gave Hopwood statewide immunity from further prosecution.

The case is scheduled to move forward on Monday and stems from fallout over the settlement.

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

CALIFORNIA
ABC 30

By Nathalie Granda

LOS BANOS, Calif. (KFSN) — Robert Gamel’s appearance in court was brief Friday, but during that time he pleaded not guilty after being found with child porn again.

“The allegations do include possession of illicit material again in that new complaint as well,” prosecuting attorney Travis Colby told the court.

Gamel was arrested back in April for violating his probation. He faces a charge of possession of child pornography with a prior conviction. He was a priest at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Los Banos.

Gamel was arrested for having images of an underage parishioner in 2014 and then sentenced for the crime last year in March. According to the report from the probation department, officers found a single large envelope with three images of a young male fully nude.

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

SOUTH AFRICA
eNCA

PORT ELIZABETH – A Nigerian pastor charged with human trafficking and sexual assault was found to have been living in South Africa “illegally” after it was discovered that at least one of his permits were “issued fraudulently”, it emerged in the Port Elizabeth Magistrate’s Court on Friday.

Testifying in the pastor’s bail application, senior immigration officer, Ivan Klaasen, said that he had also discovered that the pastor had six passports, and not four as the the court was previously told.

Klaasen said that he had conducted investigations on the department’s movement control system which picked up that the pastor had travelled in and out of South Africa three times during the year 2000 without a relevant visa.

“He was issued with a temporary residence not a visa, as per the regulations a Nigerian national must be in possession of a visa, so there is a contravention of the Act here. He was not allowed to enter South Africa without a visa, he was issued a single entry only and came into South Africa without a relevant visa,” said Klaasen adding that he had no idea how this could happen at various ports of entry.

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

CONNECTICUT
New Haven Independent

by CHRISTOPHER PEAK | May 12, 2017

Hartford — Speaking publicly for the first time about sexual abuse allegations that have ripped apart the Orthodox Jewish community he built in New Haven, Rabbi Daniel Greer denied under oath ever having counseled a teenaged yeshiva student named Eliyahu Mirlis about spiritual matters, let alone having repeatedly assaulted him.

Then, under further questioning, Greer refused to say whether he took Mirlis to motels overnight, showed him porn, plied him with alcohol, molested him in the bedroom where he sleeps with his wife and fondled him at several other rental properties he controls throughout the Edgewood neighborhood.

“Did you force Eli Mirlis to have sex with you when he was a child?” Antonio Ponvert, Mirlis’s attorney, questioned after Greer took the stand here Thursday in a civil lawsuit here in U.S. District Court.

“I advise Mr. Greer to invoke his privilege” — the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination — David Grudberg, one of the rabbi’s three defense attorneys, interrupted.

“I invoke the right to privilege,” Greer said. Ponvert moved on to the next allegation.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)

David Marr
Friday 12 May 2017

New allegations of child abuse are being levelled against Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s financial chief and the most senior figure in the Australian Catholic church.

Fairfax Media has reported claims contained in a new book, Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell, that he sexually abused two choirboys at St Patrick’s cathedral after becoming archbishop of Melbourne in the 1990s.

The author Louise Milligan first flagged these claims on the ABC’s 7.30 Report in July last year. But according to Fairfax Milligan’s book, to be released on Monday, contains details of the accusations that have not been made public before.

After the 7.30 Report Pell accused the ABC of conducting a “scandalous smear campaign.”

The boys, students at St Kevin’s College, sang in the cathedral choir and were allegedly abused by the archbishop in a room somewhere in the precincts of the cathedral. They left the choir and the school shortly afterwards.

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

PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive

By Joe Elias | jelias@pennlive.com

An Amish bishop in Dauphin County has been charged with failing to report two cases of child sexual abuse.

Christ M. Stoltzfus, 69, of Roller Road in Mifflin Township, told investigators that he was informed that one of the incidents “wasn’t really that bad” during an interview in February, according to state police.

State police said that under the law clergymen are required to inform law enforcement about cases of child sexual abuse.

In January, a member of Stoltzfus’ church told troopers he informed the bishop of the cases of child sexual abuse that occurred in 2011.

Both cases involved Daniel Ray Fisher, 44, of Weaver Road in Mifflin Township, records state.

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

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Sue Peacock

Thousands of photographs captured on a smartphone are at the centre of a new exhibition in Ballarat documenting one child abuse survivor’s path to healing.

Peter Blenkiron’s photographs are on show at the Art Gallery of Ballarat alongside video diaries and a documentary film about his story of abuse at the hands of Christian Brothers.

Blenkiron is seeking healing from the debilitating legacy of abuse that was inflicted on him as an 11-year-old by a St Patrick’s College Christian Brother.

He says he wants the exhibition to inspire hope in other abuse survivors.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Weekend Australian

AMANDA GEARING
The Australian
May 13, 2017

The story of the Queensland girl whose fight for justice sparked a revolution in child protection in Australia — and brought down a governor-general — will be ­released in cinemas next week.

Don’t Tell is based on the book by Stephen Roche, the lawyer who represented Lyndal, a 22-year-old who brought action in 2001 against the Anglican Church over sexual assaults at the prestigious Toowoomba Preparatory School. Lyndal had been a 12-year-old boarder at the time of the abuse in 1990.

It was a landmark case, securing a record $815,000 in damages and exposing a cover-up by the Anglican Church that was found to have involved the alleged abuse of at least 20 girls by predatory housemaster Kevin Guy. The scandal eventually ensnared the then governor-general, Peter Hollingworth, who had been the Anglican archbishop of Brisbane at the time of the abuse.

It was the Toowomba case that first prompted calls for a royal commission into child sex abuse in institutions, finally ordered by Julia Gillard as prime minister in 2012.

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

LOUISIANA
The Times-Picayune

By Ken Daley, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

Kenneth “Kenny” Klein, the New Orleans Wiccan priest and folk singer convicted last month on 20 counts of child pornography charges, was sentenced Friday (May 12) to serve 20 years in prison.

Criminal District Judge Byron C. Williams imposed the sentence after first denying Klein’s motion for a new trial. The judge said he had never before received so many letters both in support of and opposed to leniency for a defendant before a sentencing decision.

“Your partner talks about your kindness and others say you don’t pose a threat to society,” Williams said. “But just as many have negative things to say about you, calling you an objectionable human being, and a lot of people contend you are a monster.

“Healing and redemption are available to you right now, but will have to begin in the custody of the Department of Corrections. The unsuspecting victims of juvenile pornography also must be able to heal.”

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

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

May 13, 2017

VICTORIA LAURIE
Reporter Perth

This week, the deep silence that has hung for 50 years over Western Australia’s now-crumbling and derelict missions ended in two short police statements.

The WA child abuse squad announced it had charged two men with a string of sex offences dating back to their duties, as Catholic priest and former teacher respectively, at the isolated Wandering Mission. The charges include rape and indecent assault of several girls aged between eight and 15.

A day later, another media release: a second teacher was charged with sexually abusing five girls aged nine to 13 across a period that began when he was at Wandering Mission in 1959 and continued until 2003.

Although a court will have to determine guilt or innocence, three old men — retired priest Allan Mithen, 78, teachers Michael Moran, 82, and Keith Chesson, 83, all non-Aboriginal — face charges dating back more than 50 years. This hints at the stifling silence that has long enveloped 50 or more Aboriginal missions and children’s homes that once oper­ated across the state.

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