ABUSE TRACKER

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholics4Change

JUNE 19, 2017 BY SUSAN MATTHEWS

Is there a new transparency issue? Why isn’t Father Louis Kolenkiewicz listed in the online Archdiocesan clergy directory? He is listed in the clerical appointments that went into effect today.

Father Kolenkiewicz is returning from a removal from ministry and his new gig as parochial vicar at the Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul prompted an article in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Given this, you’d think all the i’s wouldn’t have been dotted and t’s crossed. But as of 3pm today – his name does n

The clergy directory omission is important. Both priests and laity have come to rely on the directory as a source of information. For example, a bride may request a specific priest for her wedding. Her pastor may check the clergy list to see if the priest has full faculties. Some priests don’t want to enable those removed to falsely present themselves. They know these guys bring them down and I’m sure they resent the tarnish.

Child safety and victim advocates also routinely check this list to track information.

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AUSTRALIA
JWVictims

BY ALEXANDRA JAMES ON JUNE 19, 2017

During the first day of the Australian Royal Commission Inquiry into Jehovah’s Witnesses, victim “BCB” spoke very bravely of her sexual abuse at the hands of a local elder, Bill Neill. Click this PDF of the Transcript-(Day-147) of the Inquiry, or you can visit the ARC website here, to read her entire testimony; Barrister Stewart’s summary of her story begins on page 15147.

Recently, “BCB” contact me through this website and wanted to share more of her story and viewpoint. This is a very powerful statement of how such abuse can so easily happen in the religion of Jehovah’s Witnesses, one that I hope all readers will share:

*** ***
If you have never been a victim of child sexual abuse then of course you wouldn’t understand how difficult it is to talk about what is happening to you. Long before the abuse starts the perpetrator begins their grooming campaign. For example, the following circumstances were in place to enable an Elder to abuse me:

First, become an Elder in a religion where young children are taught from birth that it is God’s chosen religion, that God has a personal name of Jehovah whom everyone is encouraged to have a personal relationship with, and that the teachings of the religion are referred to by everyone as “the Truth”. Teach them that the Elders are chosen by Jehovah God’s Holy Spirit and must be deferred to in all matters of spirituality and morality.

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VATICAN CITY
Associated Press

BY FRANCES D’EMILIO
ASSOCIATED PRESS

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis will visit Chile and Peru in 2018, the Vatican announced Monday.

The Holy See said Francis will visit Chile from Jan. 15-18, then head to Peru, where he’ll stay until Jan. 21. The cities on the Argentine-born pontiff’s itinerary include Santiago, Temuco and Iquique in Chile and Lima, Puerto Maldonado and Trujillo in Peru, with details of his schedule to be announced later.

Puerto Maldonado is the capital city of Peru’s Madre de Dios region, an epicenter of illegal gold mining, a lucrative business which feeds criminal activity such as sex trafficking, including of minors. Francis in his papacy has repeatedly denounced trafficking and the exploitation of children.

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CANADA
APTN National News

Paul Barnsley
APTN Investigates

Despite being exposed to the worst horrors of the Indian residential schools, Garnet Angeconeb refuses to give in to bitterness or anger.

Born on the Lac Seul First Nation near Sioux Lookout, Ont., he was taken from his family to the nearby Pelican Indian Residential School when he was six years old.

He stayed there from 1963 to 1969.

During that time, Angeconeb and 18 other boys were sexually abused by a dorm supervisor. His abuser was eventually convicted in 1996 and sentenced to four years in prison.

While Angeconeb battled through his “lost years” afterwards, dealing with alcohol problems and living through the criminal trial of his abuser, he managed to graduate from high school and then earn a journalism degree at the University of Western Ontario.

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GUAM
The Worthy Adversary

Fifteen Years After Dallas, A Seven-Part Series: Introduction
Fifteen Years After Dallas, Part One: The Altoona-Johnstown Grand Jury Report
Fifteen Years After Dallas, Part Two: Is There a Crook in the Diocese of Crookston?
Fifteen Years After Dallas, Part Three: A Priest Admits Abusing, Chicago Cardinal Does Nothing
Fifteen Years After Dallas, Part Four: Convicted Priest Deemed “Safe” by Oklahoma City Archbishop, Catholics Rightly Upset
Fifteen Years After Dallas, Part Five: Naughty Nienstedt and the Vatican Shred
Fifteen Years After Dallas, Part Six: A seminarian in Ohio attempts to buy babies. The Bishop? He pretends nothing happened
Fifteen Years After Dallas, Part Seven: Sister Cathy Turns Baltimore into a Troll

June 19, 2017

Joelle Casteix

This would have been Part Eight, except for one little loophole:

Guam/the Archdiocese of Agaña is NOT TECHNICALLY a member of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). The Archdiocese of Agaña is a member of the Episcopal Conference of the Pacific (CE-PAC).

Guam’s disgraced Archbishop Anthony Apuron (pictured above with the pope) used to attend USCCB meetings and the like, but I think he used the “buffet” approach when it came to what window-dressing reforms he would adopt and what he wouldn’t.

Now that the Archdiocese of Agaña is headed by Archbishop Michael Byrnes out of Detroit, I think that the bonds to the USCCB are going to become much stronger.

Onto my story:

The saga of Archbishop Anthony Apuron is long and horrific.

Catholics began protesting his financial mismanagement and mobster tactics, including improper financial dealings with a Catholic sect called the Neo-Catechumenal Way.

Then, multiple alleged child victims—who risked their reputations, their families’ well-being, and their livelihoods by coming forward and saying that Apuron abused them—came forward. They all said that Apuron sexually abused them.

Apuron is now subject of a Vatican tribunal that will do little more than, I believe, give him a slap on the wrist and allow him to live in hiding on the mainland (with a monthly retirement check) for the rest of his life.

Last year, Guam lawmakers passed a civil window that allows child sex abuse victims to use the civil courts to get accountability. Other victims came forward and exposed a web of child sex abuse and cover-up going back decades. This is the same law that that victims in New York are protesting and begging to have.

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AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

19 June, 2017

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has released a new research report that identifies four dimensions of risk of child sexual abuse in institutional settings.

Professors Patrick Parkinson and Judy Cashmore from the University of Sydney were contracted by the Royal Commission to establish a means of differentiating between types of institutions in terms of level of risk of child sexual abuse according to their characteristics and the services they provide.

The research report, Assessing the different dimensions and degrees of risk of child sexual abuse in institutions, proposes situational, vulnerability, propensity and institutional risks as the four main dimensions.

* Situational risk provides potential perpetrators with the opportunity to be alone with a child or form relationships that involve physical contact or emotional closeness. This can lead to grooming and unlawful sexual behaviour. The research suggests that residential institutions of all kinds including juvenile detention, immigration detention centres, residential out-of-home care and boarding schools carry an elevated situational risk.

* Vulnerability risk arises from the characteristics of the children present in the institution. The research suggests that the main factors influencing vulnerability risk are the ages of the children, children with disability, children with prior experience of maltreatment and children with an incentive to remain silent.

* Propensity risk arises from a disproportionate clustering of adults with a propensity to abuse children or children with harmful sexual behaviours.

* Institutional risk takes into consideration characteristics of the institution that may make abuse more likely to occur and less likely to be identified and responded to effectively. The research suggests that these characteristics include institutions placing greater importance on the protection of reputation than on the wellbeing and protection of children. Other characteristics include a culture of not listening to and respecting children.

The report concludes that situational risk is a precondition for sexual abuse while vulnerability risk makes it more likely that a child will be targeted. The research suggests that an institution with a low situational risk can starve even the committed sex offender of opportunity or greatly increase the likelihood of detection.

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NEW YORK
Times Union

State lawmakers should not leave town this week without making a meaningful attempt to rein in the corruption that has plagued government in recent years. …

Child sexual abuse: For all the laws passed on punishing future sexual abuse, lawmakers have yet to let untold numbers of victims of past abuse seek justice. Recognizing that victims sometimes take years to come forward, the Assembly has passed legislation to extend the statute of limitations on civil and criminal cases of child sex abuse. Mr. Cuomo backs a similar measure. Senate Republicans, however, have bowed to pressure, especially from the Catholic church. They need to hear the pleas of victims who simply want their day in court.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Wirral Globe

Lynda Roughley

A former church organist who sexually abused a vulnerable young girl was put behind bars – 40 years after the offences.

Martyn Poole, who assisted at a church in Wallasey, denied molesting the girl, who was aged about 12, but was convicted after a trial.

A judge told 74-year-old Poole, “You befriended her, earning her trust and she came to look up to you as a father figure.

“You betrayed that trust on two occasions, sexually abusing her having invited her to your home when your wife and family were elsewhere.”

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BELIZE
The Reporter

By Marion Ali
Assistant Editor

A teacher at Eden Seventh Day Adventist high school in Santa Elena, Cayo, is under investigation by San Ignacio police and the Ministry of Education, on allegations of sexual misconduct with as many as four of his students.

One of the girls may have had an abortion or two over the last year and a half.

Reporter’s investigations have showed that the teacher, whose name we have withheld until the Ministry and the police have concluded their investigations, has been involved with one of the girls, now an 18-year-old third form student, for the past two years. The others, as we understand, are girls with whom he has had sexual encounters.

This newspaper has learned of the existence of text messages, purportedly exchanged between the student and the teacher, that pertain not only to them having a sexual relationship, but about her having undergone an abortion as well.

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NEW YORK
Times Herald-Record

By Chris McKenna
Times Herald-Record

MOUNT MARION – At age 60, Brian O’Leary is still deeply scarred from the sexual abuse a neighbor inflicted on him more than 40 years ago when he was growing up in Saugerties.

The perpetrator lived across the street and worked at IBM with O’Leary’s father.

For five years, he repeatedly assaulted the boy in his home and his car, a string of violations that began when O’Leary was only 12 and ended when he stopped his tormentor at age 17 – because he realized how badly he wanted to kill himself.

O’Leary was so traumatized that he told no adults about the abuse then and couldn’t bring himself to tell his parents until many years later.

His abuser died in Florida in 1984, unpunished for the crimes he committed and the emotional havoc O’Leary has carried for decades.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY
KENNETH LOVETT
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Updated: Sunday, June 18, 2017

Senate Deputy Majority Leader John DeFrancisco opposes opening a one-year legal window to revive old cases for child sex abuse survivors — yet he supports the concept for other victims.

The powerful Syracuse Republican opposes a bill designed to make it easier for child sex abuse survivors to seek justice, largely because of a provision that would give victims who can no longer sue under current law one year to bring cases.

At the same time, DeFrancisco is pushing legislation that would give patients the ability to bring medical malpractice cases beginning from when they discover the error, not from when the mistake occurred, which is current law. The bill has a provision to open a one-year window to revive old cases that are currently time-barred under current law.

DeFrancisco and other Senate Republicans also have routinely supported legislation every two years to extend the statute of limitations to soldiers exposed to Agent Orange between 1961 and 1975 — cases that would have otherwise been time-barred since 1985.

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AUSTRALIA/ISRAEL
JTA

June 18, 2017

MELBOURNE (JTA) – A Jewish woman who said she had been molested repeatedly by her former principal called on Israel to extradite the woman back to their native Australia.

Dassi Erlich, a 29-year-old mother of one who said that her alleged molestation by Malka Leifer had left her emotionally scarred, made the plea Sunday during a speech before approximately 200 participants of Melbourne’s Limmud conference of Jewish learning.

Leifer, who left Australia for Israel in 2008 shortly after molestation accusations against her surfaced, has skipped several extradition hearings in Israel because she had committed herself to psychiatric institutions for short periods, coinciding with her court dates. Leifer is wanted for questioning in Australia in connection with 74 charges of molestation, including rape, of several teenage girls, the ABC broadcaster reported.

In 2015, Erlich received one of the largest sexual abuse damage payouts in Australia’s history with the Victorian Supreme Court ordering the Adass Israel School pay her more than $750,000 for its failure to prevent the systemic abuse suffered by Erlich since she was 15. During her speech, Erlich said she had witnessed Leifer molest another girl, but “said nothing.”

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GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

Neil Pang | The Guam Daily Post

“The Catholics of Guam cannot trust or have confidence in the Chancery leadership with these clergymen still enjoying some position of authority within our Archdiocese and benefits from our contributions.” – David Sablan, president, Concerned Catholics of Guam

The Concerned Catholics of Guam is calling on the leaders of the Archdiocese of Agana to remove four priests and a deacon from administrative and ministerial duties within the church in order to “restore some trust in the leadership,” according to CCOG president, David Sablan.

Sablan said CCOG is calling for the removal of the following five men: David C. Quitugua, former vicar general; Adrian Cristobal, former chancellor for the Archdiocese of Agana; Alberto Rodriguez Salamanca, former vice chancellor; Edivaldo da Silva Oleveira former spokesman and an aide to Archbishop Anthony Apuron; and Deacon Frank Tenorio.

Sablan told The Guam Daily Post the five were closely involved with Apuron during his tenure as the highest authority within the Archdiocese of Agana.

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MARYLAND
The Worthy Adversary

Fifteen Years After Dallas, A Seven-Part Series: Introduction
Fifteen Years After Dallas, Part One: The Altoona-Johnstown Grand Jury Report
Fifteen Years After Dallas, Part Two: Is There a Crook in the Diocese of Crookston?
Fifteen Years After Dallas, Part Three: A Priest Admits Abusing, Chicago Cardinal Does Nothing
Fifteen Years After Dallas, Part Four: Convicted Priest Deemed “Safe” by Oklahoma City Archbishop, Catholics Rightly Upset
Fifteen Years After Dallas, Part Five: Naughty Nienstedt and the Vatican Shred
Fifteen Years After Dallas, Part Six: A seminarian in Ohio attempts to buy babies. The Bishop? He pretends nothing happened

June 18, 2017

Joelle Casteix

Netflix’s recent documentary, The Keepers, has been a blockbuster for true crime and documentary fans (it was the talk of CrimeCon).

A gripping tale of abuse, cover-up, and murder, the series tells the story of how a group of former students are trying to find justice for their teacher Sister Cathy Cesnik, a murdered nun from Baltimore.

Representatives from the Archdiocese of Baltimore—who play a large role in the series for their part in covering up the child sex abuse of numerous girls at Archbishop Keough High School and throughout the archdiocese—did not appear in the film and only agreed to answer questions in writing in the final episode.

After the film’s release and blockbuster success, the archdiocese, led by Archbishop William Lori, began trolling the filmmakers on social media. They used silly emojis and “spoiler alerts” in posts about Father Maskell, the serial abuser in the film. They even tried to create trending hashtags like #thekeeperstruth.

Then, instead of doing outreach, apologizing, finding new victims, or helping those who are suffering, they trolled the filmmakers on a Reddit AMA.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Haidee V Eugenio, heugenio@guampdn.com June 18, 2017

Superior Court of Guam judges continue to recuse themselves from hearing Catholic clergy sex abuse cases, even as plaintiffs’ lawyers have started exploring the possibility of an out-of-court settlement.

Sixteen clergy sex abuse lawsuits have been filed in local court between March 7 and May 10.

The Archdiocese of Agana is a defendant in each case, along with some priests, the Capuchin Franciscans, or the Boy Scouts of America and its Aloha Council Chamorro District.

Seven local court judges have filed disqualification forms in some of these lawsuits as of early June, based on information from the Judiciary of Guam Administrative Office.

Former altar boy Anthony Flores’ lawsuit, the earliest filed on March 7, still has no scheduled hearing yet as judges cite potential conflicts of interest.

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NEW YORK
New York Post

By Melissa Klein June 17, 2017

A Greek Orthodox priest who enjoyed kinky “cake crush” romps with a parochial school principal may now be in hot holy water over hundreds of thousands of dollars in missing money and murky credit-card expenses.

A forensic audit of St. Spyridon Church in Washington Heights found financial irregularities, according to a preliminary draft of the audit obtained by The Post. The May 19 report labeled “for discussion purposes only” is not final.

Rental income from four church-owned apartment houses allegedly paid for $99,249 in credit-card bills racked up by the Rev. George Passias, but the auditors said they could find no documentation for what the money was spent on.

Passias, 68, was pastor of the church until he was forced to resign in September 2015 over his affair with Ethel Bouzalas, 47, a married parish school principal.

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NEW YORK
The Daily Gazette

Mark Mahoney | June 17, 2017

New York state lawmakers have left a lot of important matters until the last minute before they end this year’s legislative session later this week.

If they do anything, they need to pass the Child Victims Act and give victims of child sex crimes more time to get the justice they deserve.

The Assembly earlier this month passed a bill (A5885/S6722,S6575) that would do just that.

Child sex abusers have long been protected in New York by a relentlessly early statute of limitations that often does not give a traumatized victim enough time as an adult to remember and report the abuse.

Under current law, there is a five-year statute of limitations for bringing criminal charges in certain sex-related felony crimes involving minors.

Right now, the clock on that five years starts when the victim turns 18. The new law would keep the same five-year statute of limitations, but would start the clock when the victim turns 23 years old. That means victims could be 28 years old and still have charges brought. The clock on the 2-year statute of limitations on certain misdemeanor sex crimes would also start at age 23, giving victims another five years —until they reach age 25 — to bring charges.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

By Dave Sutor
dsutor@tribdem.com

Thomas Venditti wants Roman Catholics who are outraged by the cover-up of child sexual abuse in the Diocese of Altoona–Johnstown and elsewhere to unite in an effort to remove pedophiles and their protectors from the institution.

So the Bolivar resident has formed the Faithful Catholics Against Pedophilia.

“We are Catholics who are offended that this has happened within our church,” Venditti said.

“We’re interested in seeing the Catholic Church cleansed of all pedophiles and all those who cover for pedophilia.”

The newly formed group is still small and mostly united through social media, including a Facebook page.

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ITALIA
Rete L’Abuso

[What is really doing the Vatican to eradicate from within violence against children?]

Cosa sta facendo davvero il Vaticano per sradicare dal suo interno la violenza sui bambini? I risultati di un sondaggio online di Rete l’Abuso mettono sotto accusa l’inerzia di Bergoglio, delle istituzioni italiane e della Conferenza episcopale.

di Federico Tulli

Appena eletto, papa Francesco ha messo in cima alla agenda pontificia la lotta contro la pedofilia. Dedicando a questo tema almeno un annuncio a settimana, non mancando mai di farsi fotografare con atteggiamenti affettuosi – a volte ricambiati, a volte no – in mezzo a dei bambini, emanando una serie di decreti volti ad accentrare in Vaticano tutte le indagini e le decisioni sui casi più scabrosi e ad avvicinare le norme della Santa Sede alle indicazioni della Convezione Onu sui diritti dell’infanzia e dell’adolescenza siglata nel 1991 e ratificata nel 2014.

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ITALIA
Il Sussidiario

[A sad story of pedophilia comes from Florence: A former catechist was sentenced to eight years in prison for the sexual abuse of two children who at the time were being prepared for First Communion.]

15 GIUGNO 2017 FABIO BELLI

PEDOFILIA, EX CATECHISTA CONDANNATO – Una triste storia di pedofilia arriva da Firenze: un ex catechista è stato condannato ad otto anni di reclusione per aver compiuto abusi sessuali su due bambine che, all’epoca dei fatti stavano effettuando con lui il corso di preparazione alla Prima Comunione. Inizialmente le piccole non hanno avuto il coraggio di denunciare i fatti, poi col passare degli anni e con le vittime ormai divenute adolescenti anni dopo, il ricordo del catechista che toccava le bambine nelle parti intime durante il periodo della Prima Comunione si è fatta insopportabile. Una delle due piccole si è recata dalle forze dell’ordine ed è successivamente partito un procedimento nei confronti del pedofilo cinquantenne, che è stato condannato a otto anni di reclusione. La sentenza è stata emessa in tribunale in assenza sia dell’uomo, sia della vittima che ha sporto la denuncia, che avrà ora diritto ad un risarcimento.

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ITALIA
Rete L’Abuso

[Milan – Priest accused of abuse: The diocese acted with care and conscience?]

«La diocesi e la parrocchia di Rozzano – si legge in una nota dell’Ufficio comunicazioni sociali della diocesi di Milano – hanno gestito il caso con scrupolo e coscienza, provvedendo cautelativamente a sollevare don Mauro Galli dal ministero e a trasferirlo a Roma per completare i suoi studi. Il trasferimento è avvenuto diversi mesi prima che fosse presentata la denuncia querela da parte del legale del giovane, intervenuta solo nel luglio 2014. Tutto questo in attesa che la giustizia faccia luce con il processo penale».

Curiosa la nota dell’Ufficio comunicazioni sociali della diocesi di Milano che si precipita a precisare che sia la diocesi che la parrocchia di Rozzano hanno gestito il caso “don Mauro Galli” con scrupolo e coscienza.

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IRELAND
The Journal

WHEN ACTRESS AND playwright Noelle Brown was 35, she decided to search for her birth family.

Born in Cork’s Bessborough mother and baby home – or mother and baby institution, as she feels it should be called – Brown was adopted when she was eight weeks old. Her adoptive family was always very open about her past. But when she went looking for her own personal documentation in her mid-30s, she hit a brick wall.

Her experiences as an adopted person in Ireland have led to her play Postscript, which looks at the reality for a person like Brown trying to find their birth family in Ireland.

It’s a tale of secrets, lies, identity, and lingering questions.

Brown tells TheJournal.ie that she believes a stigma exists around adoption and mother and baby homes in Ireland which can affect people throughout their lives. She is also highly critical of forthcoming legislation around adoption in Ireland.

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IRELAND
Irish Independent

Fiction: Crimes of the Father, Thomas Keneally, Sceptre Books, hdbk, 400 pages, €26.59

Andrew Lynch
June 18 2017

Antipodean Booker-winner Thomas Keneally’s new novel tells the story of a liberal priest’s uncovering of paedophilia in the Catholic church during the mid-1990s.

In an early scene from Thomas Keneally’s poignant new novel about clerical sex abuse, a young Australian woman called Maureen Breslin goes searching for her Irish roots on the Donegal coast. She is particularly impressed by an outdoor Mass stone, where fugitive Catholic priests used to hold ceremonies for their followers in defiance of Britain’s Penal Laws.

Thinking about the “barefooted, shawled and huddled poor” quietly praying in stiff Atlantic gales, Maureen feels an overpowering responsibility to honour their memory.

“This stone is my inheritance, I thought. An inheritance of the oppressed, too. How could I let the people who stood here, hungry and ill-clothed, go from my life?”

Shortly afterwards, Maureen’s faith is put to its most severe test yet. She wants to enjoy normal sexual relations with her husband, but the year is 1968 and Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae has dashed any hopes that the church might ease its ban on contraception.

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NEW YORK
Post-Star

Ken Tingley

The stories are horrific.

I know, I’ve heard quite a few of them. Each time I write about the sexual abuse of children, I get another email or phone call from someone wanting to tell their story.

The victims are decades removed from the abuse — many at the hands of the clergy — and are still searching for what has so far been elusive: justice.

In New York, victims of child sexual abuse cannot bring charges after the age of 23. Considering what we know today about victims repressing these crimes, blaming themselves and fearing no one will believe them, the law is a travesty.

What is an equal travesty is that the Legislature in Albany has been unable to deliver that justice for more than a decade, and with time running out in the legislative session, the chances don’t look much better.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Darlington and Stockton Times

Andrew Douglas @EchoADouglas
Deputy News Editor

THE Methodist Church last night apologised to the victims of pervert minister and mentor John Price jailed this week for abusing four boys.

One of the victims reported the then-Reverend for his sexual advances towards him, but was told he was “being silly” and his claims were ignored by bosses.

He said in an impact statement that he bravely read to Teesside Crown Court: “I was sent away with a flea in my ear, and made to feel even more worthless.”

The court heard how the victim – now a middle-aged man, with severe psychological damage – reported the abuse three times before it was taken seriously.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic Standard

By Richard Szczepanowski, Catholic Standard
Friday, June 16, 2017

The Archdiocese of Washington – offering its support to a proposal that would eliminate in the District of Columbia the statute of limitations for prosecuting criminal cases of sexual abuse – has urged a D.C. City Council committee not adopt a companion proposal that would eliminate the statute of limitations in pursuing civil cases of sexual abuse.

“Retroactively eliminating the statute of limitations on civil lawsuits against private institutions does nothing to make a single child in the District of Columbia safer,” Kim Viti Fiorentino, chancellor and general counsel for the Archdiocese of Washington, told the Council’s Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety June 15. “Legislation that mandates comprehensive, ongoing, preventive and transparent child protection procedures and policies would serve our community well.”

Fiorentino was one of more than a dozen people to speak at a public hearing on the two proposals.

Bill 22-0021, the “Sexual Abuse Statute of Limitations Elimination Amendment Act of 2017,” would eliminate the criminal statute of limitations for first, second, third, and fourth degree sexual abuse and for first and second degree sexual abuse of a child. Bill 22-0028, the “Childhood Protection Against Sexual Abuse Amendment Act of 2017,” would eliminate the civil statute of limitations for recovery of damages related to child sex abuse claims and would provide a two-year period for people with previously barred child sex abuse claims due to statute of limitations to bring those claims to court.

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SCOTLAND
Sunday Herald

Peter Swindon @PeterSwindon
Group Investigations Writer

A SCOTTISH priest has been struck off by the Catholic Church after he admitted having a 16-year affair with a “vulnerable” woman who went to him for counselling when he was a parish priest in Australia.

A senior bishop has also issued a “full and sincere apology” to the victim after the priest admitted he “allowed the situation to develop inappropriately” when the woman was feeling “grief, fear and loss of sense of her worth”.

The priest, Alistair Maclellan, now 79, first propositioned Sue Mason in 1999 when she sought “spiritual guidance” after her father was diagnosed with terminal cancer.

They had a long-term sexual relationship which ended when Mason, 63, caught him having late night chats with another woman on Skype. Maclellan has since returned to Scotland.

Despite Mason’s heartbreak she has insisted she still loves her abuser and blames the Catholic Church for enforcing a vow of celibacy which prevents priests from marrying.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

Sex abuse victims have been “utterly marginalised” by an inquiry set up to help them, one of the victims claimed.

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) is examining the extent to which religious groups and local authorities failed children.

Earlier this week a latest victims group – Survivors of Organised and Institutional Abuse (SOIA) – withdrew from the process.

The IICSA said it had “taken on board” a number of issues raised by SOIA.

SOIA said the group had taken the decision to withdraw “with regret” but said the inquiry was “not fit for purpose”.

Set up in 2014, the inquiry has been beset by controversy, with three chairwomen stepping down, lawyers quitting and victims losing faith in the process.

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GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

Neil Pang | The Guam Daily Post

“There is no reason to believe that survivors will stop coming forward and filing civil lawsuits. … If history is a prologue to the future, the litigation will end in a combination of three ways after the Archdiocese of Agana publicly produces the personnel files: private settlements, public trials with jury verdicts and or filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.” – Patrick J. Wall, attorney and former priest

The last few weeks have seen a momentous development in Guam’s clergy sex abuse crisis when the attorney representing more than 80 percent of the alleged victims told a federal court judge he intended to put the cases on hold as he and his clients entered into settlement talks with Hope and Healing Guam.

This brief reprieve was shaken somewhat last week when, during a status conference before U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Joaquin Manibusan, attorney David Lujan told the court he was unable to file his motion for a stay until the Archdiocese of Agana provides him with copies of its insurance policy and audited financial statements stretching back to 2010.

These signals of potential settlement talks come at a time when, since the start of this month, damages being sought by accusers of clergy abuse, as filed in federal and local courts, now exceed half a billion dollars.

As of the latest case filings on June 2, total minimum damages from the 76 pending cases come out to $530 million, and the total does not yet take into account 13 cases pursuing damages in amounts to be proven at trial. With the Archdiocesan Finance Council reporting net book assets at about $132 million, which includes churches and schools under the archdiocese, Guam’s Catholic Church now finds itself facing claims that easily surpass its current assets by more than four times.

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OHIO
The Worthy Adversary

June 17, 2017

Joelle Casteix

Joel Wright (being led away in handcuffs above) was a legally blind seminarian at Columbus, Ohio’s Pontifical College Josephinum in 2016 when he was arrested for attempting to buy a one- and four-year-old child off of Craigslist to rape and molest.

A native of Steubenville, Wright had wanted to be a priest for many years. In fact, Wright’s mother claimed the he had been rejected by 45 other seminaries due to his blindness and other physical handicaps.

Despite what the church calls “rigorous psychological testing” for every candidate going into the seminary, media accounts say that Wright was placing ads on Craigslist as early as 2014, offering parents $150 to watch their children, a “red flag” behavior that was reported to church officials. Although Steubenville police were informed, Wright was allowed to remain in the seminary in Columbus.

Columbus Bishop Frederick Campbell remained silent throughout the entire scandal. No statement. No apology. No promise that he would reach out to the Josephinum to make sure this never happens again.
Although the Josephinum operates only with Campbell’s permission and seminarians must meet his standards, Campbell did not offer any condolences to possible victims, or promise that anything would change to make sure that men like Wright would not be allowed to become priests in Columbus.

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MARYLAND
ABC 2 News

[with video]

Christian Schaffer
May 30, 2017

In addition to the allegations against Father Joseph Maskell, several of the women interviewed in “The Keepers” also say they were abused by a local gynecologist, Dr. Christian Richter.

At one point in episode four of the documentary, Teresa Lancaster — who in 1994 sued Dr. Richter, Father Maskell and the Archdiocese under the name “Jane Roe” — is seen viewing a VHS tape of a news clip from an interview with Dr. Richter.

The story Lancaster was viewing was from WMAR’s news broadcast on August 25, 1994; it focuses on the filing of the lawsuit by Lancaster and Jean Hargadon Wehner, who at the time identified herself only as Jane Doe.

She says Father Maskell took her to the doctor’s office “on several occasions,” and Maskell raped her in the examination room while Dr. Richter was in the room.

In the interview, the doctor admits that he knew Father Maskell. Maskell died in 2001; Richter died in 2006.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

John Boyne

Perhaps the best way for a novelist to portray evil is through detachment, allowing the story and characters to engage the reader at such an elemental level that a deep emotional response is unavoidable. The evil of child abuse within the Catholic Church is, of course, not a phenomenon limited to Ireland. The Oscar-winning film Spotlight depicted atrocities in Boston parishes while Canadian novelist Linden MacIntyre’s The Bishop’s Man took on similar events in Nova Scotia. And now the great Australian writer Thomas Keneally – he of Schindler’s Ark – examines abuse within the Sydney diocese in this compelling novel and inevitably finds the clergy to be more interested in protecting the institution than caring for the child.

Keneally makes the decision to set his novel in 1996, before the truth of the scandals was as widely accepted as today. It’s a wise move for it allows us to witness both the scepticism of parishioners and the cynicism of the church as it employed lawyers to discredit victims to minimize both the financial and reputational damage.

The novel opens with a middle-aged priest, Fr Frank Docherty, returning to his home city of Sydney from Toronto to deliver a lecture on priestly paedophilia to an audience of his peers. By chance, the taxi driver who brings him to his Order’s house is a victim of childhood abuse and, as she drops him off and sees the “nineteenth century mansion… with the Celtic cross at the apex of the façade” her previously calm demeanour vanishes and she orders him from her car in a barrage of profanity, but not before he, upset by her distress, leaves his card in the back seat.

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY
KENNETH LOVETT
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Updated: Friday, June 16, 2017

ALBANY — Gov. Cuomo on Friday said he does not see the Child Victims Act and other big-ticket items passing before the state legislative session ends next week.

Just two days after giving victims hope by introducing his own bill designed to help survivors of child sex abuse seek justice as adults, Cuomo threw a cold dose of reality on them.

The governor said while he supports the Child Victims Act and would be open to working on compromise legislation, he doesn’t see it happening.

“I’m not optimistic about passage of a Child Victims Act, but hope springs eternal,” he said.

The Legislature is scheduled to end its annual session on Wednesday.

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IRELAND
Leinster Leader

Conor McHugh
16 Jun 2017

A new President has been appointed to St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, the national seminary.

Monsignor Hugh Connelly has departed from his position after he completed the usual 10 year term in the role.

He will take up the position of chaplain in the Irish College in Paris. A fluent French speaker, he is reportedly very fond of languages.

Monsignor Connolly was widely popular among students and teaching colleagues on both sides of the campus of Maynooth University.

And he managed to weather some controversy there amid allegations seminarians using a gay dating app.

Meanwhile the Reverend Professor Michael Mullaney has been appointed to replace Monsignor Connolly as President of Saint Patrick’s College, for the next three years, with effect from September 1 next.

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IRELAND
Irish Times

Patsy McGarry

Fr Michael Mullaney has been appointed president of the national seminary, St Patrick’s College in Maynooth, for the next three years as the Catholic bishops announce plans to separate out the seminary from the Pontifical University there. The Pontifical University is a separate entity from NUI Maynooth.

In time, a rector will be appointed to oversee the seminary with a separate office of president appointed to run the associated university.

Last August the college had been at the centre of controversy when it emerged the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, said he was no longer going to send seminarians there because of its “poisonous” atmosphere. He said students were accessing gay dating apps and anonymous letters were being circulated accusing seminarians of misconduct.

In June 2016, Fr David Marsden, vocational growth counsellor at St Patrick’s, resigned unexpectedly due chiefly to concerns about theological formation there.

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SCOTLAND
Scottish Catholic Observer

The Independent Review Group (IRG) established as a result of the McLellan Commission Report into safeguarding within the Catholic Church in Scotland recently held a successful inaugural meeting.

May 27 saw the group meet for the first time, and saw working groups founded, which will develop and assess the future activities of the group.

An autonomous body that works separately from the Church, the IRG will look at the standards of safeguarding and do independent audits at the reccomendation of the McLellan Commission.

“This group has been set up six months ahead of schedule and the experience members bring to this vital role is considerable indeed,” said Helen Liddell (pictured above with Archbishop Tartaglia), who was appointed chair of the IRG by the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland in December last year. “I am very grateful to them for their willingness to serve.

“The IRG is committed to ensuring the safeguarding procedures in the Catholic Church in Scotland meet the highest standards and it will conduct its business with transparency, vigour and compassion,” added the former MP and Secretary of State for Scotland.

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FRANCE
Le Figaro

[Paris: Teacher suspected of sexual abuse of several children.]

Par Alicia.Paulet Mis à jour le 16/06/2017

Une enquête judiciaire a été ouverte mercredi en raison de soupçons d’agressions sexuelles à l’école primaire catholique Sainte-Jeanne-Elisabeth (VIIe arrondissement). Pas moins d’une demi-douzaine de fillettes auraient été victimes d’attouchements.

Une semaine seulement après la fermeture de l’école L’Angélus située à Presly (Cher), une autre école se retrouve au coeur d’un nouveau scandale. Un instituteur du groupe scolaire catholique sous contrat Sainte-Jeanne Elisabeth, situé dans VIIe arrondissement de Paris, aurait abusé sexuellement plusieurs de ses élèves. Une information judiciaire pour «agression sexuelle sur mineur de moins de 15 ans par personne ayant abusé de ses fonctions», confiée à un juge d’instruction, a été ouverte ce mercredi par le parquet de Paris.

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FRANCE
RTL

[Several schoolgirls from a private Catholic school in Paris denounced the behavior of a former teacher. An investigation was opened by the Paris public prosecutor’s office for suspicions of sexual assault.]

Ce sont en tout sept jeunes filles de 6e qui se sont résolues à dénoncer, ensemble, les agissements de leur ancien enseignant. Elles auraient décrit “des câlins, des embrassades sur la joue, de façon régulière, notamment pendant des classes vertes” de l’année précédente, alors qu’elles étaient toujours en classe de CM2.

L’école concernée est Sainte Jeanne-Elisabeth, un établissement privé catholique sous contrat avec l’État situé dans le VIIe arrondissement de Paris. Le chef de l’établissement, qui avait recueilli le témoignage des collégiennes, a fait “un signalement aux autorités” le 31 mars dernier. Une enquête préliminaire a été ouverte pour “agressions sexuelles sur mineurs de 15 ans par personne ayant abusé de ses fonctions”, a indiqué à l’AFP une source judiciaire, confirmant une information du Parisien.

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SCHWEIZ
SRF

[In the 1990s, a teacher at the Gymnasium in Immensee had a love affair with a student and also sexually abused her.The case became known when the victim made the accusation a month ago in an article of the “Tages-Anzeiger” and made it public.The teacher did not deny the relationship. Any sexual actions are punishable by law.]

Das Gymnasium Immensee ist mit einem Missbrauchsfall konfrontiert. Eine Anlaufstelle hilft bei der Aufarbeitung.

In den 1990er-Jahren soll am Gymnasium Immensee ein Lehrer eine Liebschaft mit einer Schülerin unterhalten und sie auch sexuell missbraucht haben.

Der Fall wurde bekannt, als das Opfer vor einem Monat in einem Artikel des «Tages-Anzeigers» Vorwürfe erhoben hatte und diese öffentlich machte.

Der Lehrer stritt die Beziehung nicht ab. Allfällige sexuelle Handlungen sind strafrechtlich verjährt.
Die Schule hat die Stiftung Linda in Aarau als Anlaufstelle beauftragt. Bei ihr können sich allfällige weitere Opfer oder Täter melden.

Die Stiftung Linda ist auf Fälle von sexuellem Missbrauch spezialisiert. Sie setzt sich zum Ziel, Opfern aber auch Tätern zu helfen.

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SCHWEIZ
Aargauer Zeitung

[A reformed pastor has been arrested in the Canton of Aargau for suspected sexual abuse of children. The 68-year-old accused has been in detention since the end of March. He made a partial confession.]

Ein reformierter Pfarrer ist im Kanton Aargau wegen des Verdachts auf sexuellen Missbrauch von Kindern verhaftet worden. Der 68-jährige Beschuldigte sitzt seit Ende März in Untersuchungshaft. Er legte ein Teilgeständnis ab.

Der Verhaftete war in diversen reformierten Kirchgemeinden in den Kantonen Aargau, Solothurn und Schwyz tätig. Das sagte Elisabeth Strebel, Mediensprecherin der Aargauer Staatsanwaltschaft, am Freitag auf Anfrage. Sie bestätigte einen entsprechenden Bericht der Sendung “Schweiz aktuell” von SRF.

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AUSTRALIA
7 News

AAP

A Catholic boys boarding school in NSW’s central west has formally apologised for historic sexual abuse at the school.

St Stanislaus College in Bathurst held an apology service on Friday night for students abused between the 1970s and 1990s.

“We wish to speak directly to the victims first – this is their apology,” the school’s head Dr Anne Wenham said in a statement on the school’s website ahead of the service.

“We cannot come close to ever living the pain and suffering that the victims of sexual abuse at Stannies and their families have experienced and continue to experience.”

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WEST VIRGINIA
The Journal

JUN 17, 2017

DANYEL VANREENEN
Staff Writer
dvanreenen@journal-news.net

MARTINSBURG — The West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals overturned a 2015 Berkeley County Circuit Court on Wednesday, making it possible for the case against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to proceed to trial, according to counsel for the plaintiffs.

The case against the church was initially investigated after a church leader and member was found guilty and sentenced in July 2013 to 35 to 75 years in prison for sexually abusing two minors — 4 and 3 years of age at the time of the abuse.

Christopher Michael Jensen, 25, of Hedgesville, was initially accused of sexually abusing young children in 2004 when he was 13-years-old. Living in Provo, Utah at the time, Jensen was arrested at his middle school and charged with two felony counts of sexual abuse for pinning two 12 and 13 year old females against a wall and fondling them inappropriately and without consent.

Court documents said Jensen’s Sexual Behavior Risk Assessment indicated that he was highly likely to reoffend, but his charges were reduced to two misdemeanor counts of lewdness involving a child. Jensen’s grandfather, a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints leader in Utah, was present for Jensen’s court proceedings, and the church allegedly knew of Jensen’s criminal history.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Manchester Evening News

BY ANDREW BARDSLEY
16 JUN 2017

A judge branded a former trainee church minister who injected teenagers in the genitals for his own ‘twisted’ gratification a ‘sexual monster’.

John Beaumont, 58, was today sentenced to 13-and-a-half years in prison for the sexual abuse, which happened after he convinced his three victims that they may have suffered radiation poisoning following the Chernobyl disaster.

In a victim impact statement, one of the victims said Beaumont can ‘rot in hell’.

After being arrested, Beaumont continued to deny the abuse and branded the victims ‘liars’, saying they lived in ‘fantasy land’.

Beaumont, a former minister in Scotland, told his victims that he was medically trained and had been instructed by the military to carry out medical examinations on them to test for radiation poisoning.

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IOWA
Press-Citizen

Stephen Gruber-Miller, sgrubermil@press-citizen.com June 16, 2017

A former church youth leader is pleading not guilty to multiple accusations of child sexual abuse and related charges.

Benjamin C. Tweedt, 32, of North Liberty on Thursday entered a written plea of not guilty to all charges against him, online court records show.

Police say Tweedt, a former youth leader and mentor at Parkview Church in Iowa City, fondled or had inappropriate sexual interactions with at least four children between the ages of 11 and 13 from 2006 to 2013. He was arrested in April, but was released after posting bond.

The church, which reported the allegations to police in February, says Tweedt was a volunteer but was never an employee.

Police said most of the abuse occurred during one-on-one visits with children in Tweedt’s capacity as a volunteer with the church. North Liberty Police Chief Diane Venenga said the abuse happened in homes and church retreat locations in North Liberty and Coralville.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Nottingham Post

By rod malcolm | Posted: June 16, 2017

A 57-year-old retired teacher has been jailed for life arranging the sexual abuse of children in Philippines over internet.

Paul O’Neill, of Wroxham Drive, Wollaton Vale, pleaded guilty to 30 charges of procuring children as young as four for sex acts, including rape, and will serve 12 years before he can apply for parole.

He was a teacher at The Becket School in West Bridgford. He retired last August after 25 years working at the school. The offences do not relate to The Becket School.

He appeared at Nottingham Crown Court today (Friday, June 16) and followed the proceedings using a hearing aid.

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IOWA
KCRG

NORTH LIBERTY, Iowa (KCRG-TV9) – The North Liberty Police Department were made aware of an incident regarding a youth church leader and mentor at Parkview Church in Iowa City having inappropriate contact with victims.

Upon investigation Benjamin Craig Tweedt, 32, of North Liberty, has been charged with one count of Sexual Abuse Third Degree, two counts of Lascivious Acts with a Child, three counts of Indecent Contact with a Child and two counts of Lascivious Conduct with a Minor.

It is alleged that Tweedt had multiple one-on-one sessions as a mentor/youth church leader with four victims over the past 10 years. The investigation revealed that inappropriate sexual contact was made with the victims during the meetings.

As soon as Parkview Church was made aware of the incident, they immediately removed Tweedt from any further participation with the student ministry.

If anyone has additional information about Tweedt and crimes against children, please contact the North Liberty Police Department Investigations at (319)626-5724.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

16 JUNE 2017

A Sunday school teacher was jailed for life today for a string of sickening child sex offences against girls as young as four in the Philippines – despite being 7,000 miles away.

Married father-of-two Paul O’Neill, 57, who taught maths at a Catholic secondary school, arranged for youngsters to be raped and abused by adults, watching live on a webcam and directing the offences from his home in Wollaton Vale in Nottingham.

At Nottingham Crown Court O’Neill admitted 30 charges, involving 12 girls aged from four to 15, including three child rapes, arranging or facilitating the commission of child sex offences, causing a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity, conspiring to rape a child, and arranging child prostitution.

In a case thought to be the first of its kind in the UK, O’Neill, who was a minister with special responsibilities for children with the New Apostolic Church, was charged despite not being present or physically taking part in the abuse.

Prosecutors described O’Neill as a “virtual sex tourist” with a “very dark secret”, and said he “relished” the financial imbalance between himself and his poverty-stricken victims.

The offences took place between 2008 and 2016, and involved girls between four and 15.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

A former teacher who paid men to abuse children as young as four in the Philippines while he watched online has been jailed for life.

Paul O’Neill, 57, from Nottinghamshire, ordered the abuse in advance, giving specific instructions on what he wanted to see, Nottingham Crown Court heard.

He admitted three counts of rape and a further 27 sexual offences. He was told he would serve a minimum of 12 years.

The CPS said the virtual rape case was thought to be the first of its kind.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By JOE SHEPPARD FOR MAILONLINE

A retired maths teacher who used webcams to direct and record the ‘horrifying and chilling’ rape and sexual abuse of girls as young as four in the Philippines has been jailed for life.

Sunday school teacher Paul O’Neill, 57, from Nottinghamshire was told he must serve a minimum of 12 years but may never be released for the unprecedented crimes committed against at least 12 victims over the internet.

The paedophile – who has now quit his post as ‘minister with special responsibilities for children’ with the New Apostolic Church – pleaded guilty to 30 child sex offences in what is believed to be the first prosecution of its kind.

Nottingham Crown Court heard that the father-of-two preyed on poverty-stricken families from his home, becoming a ‘virtual’ child rapist during years of sickening abuse.

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NEW YORK
Democrat and Chronicle

Gary Craig and Will Cleveland, Democrat and Chronicle June 16, 2017

A regional appellate court has admonished the Monroe County District Attorney’s Office, saying that the appeals court has had to recently reverse several verdicts “based upon prosecutorial misconduct.”

The court did not, however, reverse the conviction in the case at issue: The sexual abuse conviction of former pastor Joe Flowers Jr., who authorities maintained repeatedly sexually abused a boy younger than 13 years old.

In its ruling, the appellate court said the recent cases of concern were mostly cases that “involved charges of sexual abuse against a child” and the same prosecutor.

The prosecutor is not named, but former Assistant District Attorney Kristina “Kitty” Karle, who is now in private practice, confirmed it is her. She is now running for District Attorney in Ontario County.

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MARYLAND
Commonweal

By Peter Jeffery
June 16, 2017

In November 1969, Sister Catherine Cesnik, a popular, twenty-six-year-old teacher at an all-girls Catholic high school in Baltimore, disappeared. Two months later her frozen body was found in a nearby landfill, her skull fractured and her clothes partly removed. No one was ever charged in her murder, which is now the subject of The Keepers, Netflix’s latest foray into true-crime original programming. The Keepers follows a pair of Cesnik’s former students who have devoted their retirement years to pursuing the case. The two women have amassed vast quantities of evidence, apparently more than the police know, but the drama of the documentary lies in the tantalizing possibility that Cesnik was killed just as she was about to expose the most outrageous and bizarre case of clergy sexual abuse I have ever heard of.

If the allegations are true, a gun-toting priest-psychologist, working as a guidance counselor at the school, not only took advantage of the many troubled students who came to see him, but—abetted by a local gynecologist—also pimped them out to a large circle of men, including local politicians, uniformed police officers, other priests, and teaching brothers. The teenage victims, who barely understood what was happening, were bullied into silence: terrified by threats that they might end up like Cesnik, mortified with shame when they were diagnosed with “whore personality,” they were told they had to submit to these acts before God could forgive them. The abuse was accompanied by Latin prayers and signs of the cross to make them seem like rituals. Only decades later, long after the statute of limitations ran out, did the victims begin to come to terms with what had been done to them, recalling horrifying memories they had suppressed and speaking out.

The early episodes of The Keepers seem to build a strong case that Cesnik was killed by the pedophile priest to keep her from telling what she had been hearing from some of the victims. That priest, Fr. A. Joseph Maskell, was also the chaplain of the Baltimore police, where he had a highly placed brother, and where he is alleged to have found clients for his covert procurement operation. Were the police protecting him? Was the Church? The non-Catholic state’s attorney who won’t pursue the case seems unaccountably blasé about the many boxes of evidence that have disappeared.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Gavin Coote

Victims of sexual abuse at Australia’s oldest Catholic boys’ boarding school have welcomed a formal apology, but say there is a long way to go in the healing process.

A formal service was held last night at St Stanislaus College at Bathurst in central west New South Wales to apologise for historic acts of abuse.

At least 160 students were abused by former staff and priests at the school between the 1970s and 1990s.

Dozens of people gathered at the school’s performing arts centre to hear an apology on behalf of the school and the Catholic Church.

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MISSOURI
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Leonard R. Chambers was ordained in 1965 for the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau. He was assigned to more than twenty parishes during his career, assisting and serving as administrator early on, then assigned as pastor for the first time in 1974. Chambers held a number of diocesan positions, serving as president or chair of several.

In August 1982 Bishop Bernard Law placed Chambers on leave after the parents of a teenage boy complained that the priest had molested their son. Chambers admitted to the abuse. He spent ten months at the Servants of the Paraclete’s treatment facility in Jemez Springs, NM, after which he was returned to ministry. In the mid-1990s Springfield-Cape Girardeau bishop Leibrecht placed restrictions on Chambers, prohibiting him from being alone with minors. When Chambers was found alone with a minor in 1998, Leibrecht forced him to retire. Chambers is not indexed in the Official Catholic Directory after 2002. He is last known to have been living in Joplin, MO.

Ordained: 1965

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NEW YORK
Gothamist

BY EMMA WHITFORD IN NEWS ON JUN 16, 2017

Governor Andrew Cuomo alleviated some advocate concerns on Thursday by introducing a Senate bill that would give victims of child abuse a larger window of time to seek justice. The program bill could still face an uphill battle in the Senate, which has been historically hostile towards efforts to expand the statute of limitations for sex abuse victims. But advocates hope the governor’s end-of-session move could push its hand.

Research shows that a majority of childhood victims wait at least five years before speaking. Under current law, most New York victims have only five years after they turn 18 to bring civil or criminal charges against their abusers—thanks to statute of limitations laws that are more prohibitive than most U.S. states, according to the victim abuse network Safe Horizon.

Cuomo’s bill, which mirrors a law passed 139-7 this session in the State Assembly, would extend the statute of limitations to age 28 for victims of felony criminal cases, and age 50 for civil cases. The bill would also create a one-time, one-year “look back” window, in which victims of any age would be permitted to bring civil suits against individuals or institutions.

Cuomo indicated months ago that he would prioritize heightened protections, but advocates noted his silence on the issue in recent weeks, as time ran out in this legislative session.

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NEW YORK
Times Union

By Rick Karlin, Capitol bureau on June 16, 2017

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, on a conference call primarily about Penn-Farley train station plans in New York City, said he wasn’t optimistic about the chances for an extension of mayoral control in the NYC schools, passage of a Child Victims Act or extension of sales tax increases happening by the end of the session.

Cuomo also noted that he’s offered his own Child Victims bill in addition. His bill mirrors that sought by the Assembly but it hasn’t moved in the Senate.

Senate Independent Democratic Conference Leader Jeff Klein has offered a compromise that would include the use of a special commission to review abuse allegations before they went to court.

Despite that, Cuomo expressed doubt that a bill would be passed this session, which is set to end on June 21.

“I’ve put in a bill. There’s been talk about a compromise bill,’’ said Cuomo.
“I’d be open to a compromise. I’m not highly optimistic about passage of the child victims act.’’

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FLORIDA
Palm Beach Post

Ryan DiPentima Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 15, 2017

A Florida minister who was found guilty of traveling to meet an underage boy for sex received his sentence on Tuesday.

David Donald Hoppenjan, 53, will serve 21 months in state prison and will be designated a sexual offender upon release, according to the Pensacola News Journal.

Hoppenjan, who was a pastor at First United Methodist Church of Pace, was arrested in a sting operation conducted by local and state law enforcement officials in September.

He was one of 22 men arrested as a part of Operation Undertow, in which undercover agents posed as teenagers online and set up meetings with them. Hoppenjan went to two locations to meet with who he thought would be a 14-year-old boy, according to the Santa Rosa Press Gazette.

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CONNECTICUT
CT Post

By Daniel Tepfer Wednesday, June 14, 2017

BRIDGEPORT — The pastor of the Fountain of Youth Cathedral won the hearts of his congregation — then stole their church, police said.

Bishop Franklin L. Fountain may eventually have to answer to a higher authority but in the meantime he will face a Superior Court judge.

Fountain is charged with first-degree larceny and second-degree forgery after police said he forged deed documents and sold the Madison Avenue church to himself for $1.

City property records show Fountain is now the owner of the church and property valued at $1.5 million.

“Isn’t this all ridiculous,” Fountain, 55, said Wednesday after being released on a promise to appear in court. “I am the pastor and I deserve respect and I expect that this will all be worked out.”

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GERMANY
DW

A man has admitted in court to sexually abusing seven boys while heading a Buddhist community in southern Germany. The abuse, which took place over a period of 10 years, involved boys aged 4 to 13.

At the start of his trial in the southern German city of Augsburg on Friday, a Zen Buddhist priest fully admitted to sexually abusing a total of seven boys over the course of a decade.

The 62-year-old man is accused of 22 cases of sexual abuse, several of which have been deemed as “severe abuse” by prosecutors. He could face up to 15 years in prison.

The defendant’s lawyer, Hermann Christoph Kühn, read off an explanation of the crimes at the beginning of the trial, which the man later confirmed to be true.

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MINNESOTA
The Worthy Adversary

June 16, 2017

Joelle Casteix

In 2013, Minnesota passed a landmark bill that allowed victims of child sexual abuse to use the civil courts to expose their abuser, no matter when the abuse took place. We are hoping to get one passed in New York right now.

Ensuing lawsuits showed that the Archdiocese under Archbishop John Nienstedt (pictured above) and his predecessors actively covered up the sexual abuse of minors for decades. It was bad. Really bad.

Then, allegations began to swirl about Nienstedt himself—allegations that he lived an openly gay lifestyle, propositioned seminarians, and caused all kinds of problems while he was a priest in Detroit and Rome. His favorite gay bar? The Happy Tap in Windsor, Canada. And he loved to have a good time.

In 2014, an independent law firm was hired by the Archdiocese to investigate numerous allegations against Neinstedt. Ten seminarians came forward providing affidavits saying that if they refused Nienstedt’s sexual advances, he would interfere with their careers. Sound familiar?

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AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Judy Courtin

Never has the fight for justice been so acknowledged and celebrated than at the state funeral on June 7 of Anthony Foster. This remarkable man, who died from a brain haemorrhage on May 28, two days after he collapsed, was only 64. His sudden death is shattering for his beautiful family and it leaves the entire community grieving.

Chrissie and Anthony Foster after a hearing of the parliamentary inquiry. Photo: Justin McManus
For 21 years, Anthony and his beloved wife Chrissie fought for justice, not only for their daughters Emma and Katie but for all victims of institutional child sexual abuse. They could not have predicted in 1996 that they would still be fighting the Catholic Church in 2017.

Throughout those years, Anthony and Chrissie were valiant in their lionhearted fight with what continues to be a legalistic and cold-hearted hierarchy. Denials, obfuscations and the protection of assets and reputations have remained paramount.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Augsburger Allgemeine

[At the trial in Augsburg, a accused Zen priest has confessed to having abused several children. The victims are boys. He also said he made child pornography.]

Beim Prozessauftakt in Augsburg hat der angeklagte Zen-Priester gestanden, mehrere Kinder missbraucht zu haben. Bei den Opfern handelt es sich um Jungen. Von Jörg Heinzle

Er hat alles verloren: Seinen guten Ruf als Zen-Priester, seine Ehefrau, seine Freiheit. Seine leiblichen Kinder haben sich von ihm abgewandt. Außerhalb des Gefängnisses hat er nicht einmal mehr eine Meldeadresse. Seit diesem Freitag steht Genpo D., 62, vor der Jugendkammer des Landgerichts. Der Vorwurf: Er soll mehrere Kinder – in allen Fällen Jungen – sexuell missbraucht haben.

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DEUTSCHLAND
Saarbruecker Zeitung

Freisen. Gläubige in Freisen sind enttäuscht von der vagen Antwort Dr. Stephan Ackermanns auf ihren Brandbrief. Melanie Mai

Der Bischof hat geantwortet. Oder besser gesagt: Domvikar Marco Weber. “Lapidar”, wertet diese Antwort Liane Bonenberger, die stellvertretende Vorsitzende des Pfarreienrates der Pfarrgemeinschaft Freisen-Oberkirchen. Sie hatte im Mai im Namen des Pfarreienrates nicht nur einen offenen Brief vor der Freisener Kirche ausgehängt, sondern auch an Stephan Ackermann persönlich geschrieben. Darin fordert sie mehr Rückendeckung für Pfarrer Hanno Schmitt, der seit den Missbrauchsvorwürfen gegen den ehemaligen Freisener Pfarrer öffentlich angefeindet wird und gar Drohbriefe erhält (wir berichteten).

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AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun

Andrew Bolt, Herald Sun

ABC reporter Louise Milligan has peddled an implausiby lurid claim: that Cardinal George Pell caught two choir boys drinking altar wine after Mass at St patrick’s Cathedral and made them give him oral sex.

Melbourne University Press has even published Milligan’s book claiming detailing this allegation, which police have spent more than a year investigating.

And now a priest who was always with him at Mass at this cathedral says it simply could not have happened.

But first: from the very start this allegation seemed almost literally unbelievable.

Pell, an ambitious man then in his late 50s, would suddenly do something so reckless and criminal – something he’d never been accused of before?

Pell would force two boys to do this, knowing how much higher the risk was of being reported and found guillty?

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MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

By Tom McCarthy JUNE 15, 2017

Editor’s note: When we heard that “Spotlight’’ director Tom McCarthy would be picking up a screenwriting award at the Nantucket Film Festival just days after the Globe had decamped from its longtime Dorchester digs for new quarters in downtown Boston, something clicked. Who better to write about this venerable building, immortalized by his cinematic vision? What had he expected when he first walked into our newsroom a few years ago? What surprised/delighted/vexed him about what he found? And how on Earth had he managed to capture this place and its people so accurately? This is his answer.

I spent the better part of a year wandering the endless maze of hallways and stairways that make up the Boston Globe’s soon–to-be-abandoned headquarters on Morrissey Boulevard. The purpose of my frequent visits was research for my 2015 film, “Spotlight,” which chronicled the investigation by the Globe’s Spotlight team into the Catholic Church’s cover-up of the priest abuse scandal.

My co-writer Josh Singer and I had more luck managing the endless hours of interviews and source material than we did navigating the 800,000-plus square feet of the massive structure we came to refer to as the “SS Globe.” Time and again we found ourselves walking in circles or emerging through the wrong exit or making our way down the up escalator. (In truth, the escalator was often non-operational, so that worked in our favor.)

In our defense, even the Globe’s former editor, Marty Baron, quipped that he communicated with the Spotlight team by e-mail in part because he had a hard time locating the Spotlight offices, which were tucked away on the mezzanine level of the building.

Our saving grace was the generosity of spirit of the good people who worked there. We were constantly being directed, redirected, and even escorted by the industrious crew of that mighty ship. Their contribution was all the more notable because we had been clearly identified not only as snoopy Hollywood screenwriters but also as unrepentant fans of both the Yankees and Phillies.

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NEW YORK
Spectrum News

By Terry Stackhouse
Thursday, June 15, 2017

Advocates for victims of child sexual assault are urging lawmakers to pass the Child Victims Act, which would make it easier for survivors to file lawsuits, before the end of the legislative session next week.

“I know what it is to go through that and every day I still have to tell myself to be strong,” said Gary Greenberg, a survivor of child sexual assault.

The Greene County businessman founded Protect NY Kids, a PAC backing candidates who support legislation ending statutes of limitations on child sexual abuse cases. He supports a bill that would extend the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse cases and create a one-year window for past victims to file civil suits.

At the Capitol Thursday, Senate Democrats held an event to rally support for the Child Victims Act.

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SCOTLAND
Independent Catholic News

June 15th, 2017

Source: SCMO

In December 2016, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference in Scotland announced that Helen Liddell would Chair the Independent Review Group (IRG) set up as a result of the McLellan Commission Report into the current safeguarding policies, procedures and practices within the Church in Scotland.

The IRG is an autonomous body which will function separately from the Church and will review safeguarding standards and carry out independent audits as recommended by the McLellan Commission.

The Group met for the first time on 27 May and established working groups to develop and scope the future activities of the IRG. The current membership of the Group is listed below. Further members may be recruited if requirements for additional expertise are identified by the working groups.

Commenting on the IRG Helen Liddell said: “This Group has been set up six months ahead of schedule and the experience members bring to this vital role is considerable indeed. I am very grateful to them for their willingness to serve.”

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SCOTLAND
Herald Scotland

Brian Donnelly @BrianDonnellyHT
Senior News Reporter

A SENIOR Catholic monk has admitted there was an “alarming failure” by brothers to protect children in care, a public inquiry into child abuse heard.

Brother Laurence Hughes, provincial of the De La Salle Brothers, also accepted there was a “disturbing lack of awareness” of abuse in schools run by the order in Scotland.

He also apologised at the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry in Edinburgh for abuse inflicted by both those who were convicted of offences and other brothers who were not convicted.

As well as Michael Murphy, known as Brother Benedict or Brother Ben to children in his care at St Joseph’s List D School in Tranent, East Lothian, being convicted of 15 charges of assault and indecent assault involving eight boys spanning the decade up to 1981, Brother Hughes accepted it was possible further abuse was carried out against children.

In the order’s report to the inquiry Brother Hughes said wrote: “The congregation acknowledges that abuse may not be confined to those with convictions.”

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NEW YORK
Adirondack Daily Enterprise

ALBANY (AP) — Survivors of child molestation are urging lawmakers in New York to loosen the statute of limitations on lawsuits for past abuse.

A statement released Wednesday and signed by several survivors called on top lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo to hold negotiations on the bill before the legislative session ends next week.

The proposal would eliminate the criminal and civil statute of limitations for several child sexual abuse crimes and create a one-year window for past victims to file civil suits.

Victims now have until they turn 23 to sue, but supporters say it can take years before victims feel comfortable stepping forward to report their abuse.

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NEW YORK
Buffalo News

By Jay Rey
Published Wed, Jun 14, 2017

The young boy who was sexually molested by an older student while on a Buffalo school bus in 2015 was sitting immediately behind the bus driver when it happened, according to a lawsuit filed by the boy’s mother.

The molestation happened not once, but at least five times on the bus over the course of eight days, according to the lawsuit.

And on one of those occasions there also was an aide on the school bus.

Those are some of the new accusations that emerged from a lawsuit filed by the boy’s mother. The suit was filed against First Student Inc., the transportation provider; the Buffalo Public Schools, which contracts with First Student to provide busing to both public and private schools; and the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo and Our Lady of Black Rock School, where both boys attended.

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AUSTRALIA
The Australian

TESS LIVINGSTONE
The Australian
June 16, 2017

A priest who says he accompanied George Pell every time he was at St Patrick’s Cathedral has challenged one of the most salacious allegations against the former archbishop of Melbourne — that he abused two teenage choir boys in a backroom of the Cathedral — in an interview with Victoria Police.

The priest, who was on the then-Archbishop’s staff from September 1996 to January 2001 told police late last year it was “physically impossible for Archbishop Pell to have been alone with anyone in the Cathedral, before, during, or after the celebration of Sunday Mass or on any other occasion’’.

The cathedral abuse allegation, raised on ABC’s 7.30 a year ago, forms one of the most provocative chapters of journalist Louise Milligan’s book Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell, published by Melbourne University Press. In it, Milligan compares Cardinal Pell with an “Easter Island statue of a man, gliding through the cathedral, papering over emotion, lest he snap’’.

The priest, who has refused to become embroiled in a defence-by-media, answered police questions related to an alleged incident after a Sunday Mass at the Cathedral between July and December one year. Cathedral publications and photographs show the building was closed for restoration for most of that year until a Saturday night in November, when a Vigil Mass was held to celebrate Christ the King.

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SCOTLAND
Scottish Catholic Observer

A senior priest has told the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry that the reforms of the Second Vatican Council ­contributed to rare but ‘horrible ­mistakes’ that the Church made in dealing with clergy accused of ­abusing children.

IAN DUNN

A senior priest has told the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry that the reforms of the Second Vatican Council ­contributed to rare but ‘horrible ­mistakes’ that the Church made in dealing with clergy accused of ­abusing children.

Mgr Peter Smith, a priest of Glasgow Archdiocese and former Vatican attache at the United Nations, told the inquiry last week that during the 1970s the Church accepted the standards of the day that ‘it was better to repair the person, to fix them or to redeem them, and that was a huge mistake.’

“The circumstances of the Second ­Vatican Council made a significant ­difference to the whole way that the Church proceeded,” he said. “Prior to that we proceeded fairly legalistically and fairly authoritarian, whereas the Second Vatican Council asked us to proceed ­pastorally and caring for people. And that pastoral care was exercised very strongly towards the priests who had been accused and I think perhaps less strongly towards those who had been on the receiving end of such a vicious thing to do.”

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HAWAII
Honolulu Civil Beat

By James Wright

There are two Roman Catholic Churches when it comes to taking responsibility for child sex abuse cases in Hawaii: the repentant and the defiant.

The repentant is occasionally seen in public statements. A typical example appeared in a Jan. 9, 2004, letter to the Honolulu Advertiser by Patrick Downes as editor of the Diocesan newspaper:

“The Diocese of Honolulu acknowledges the devastating and long-lasting damage caused by the sexual abuse of minors by clergy. It pledges to deal with the problem strongly, openly and consistently in the future.”

Downes is a familiar name locally in connection with clergy sex abuse having more than 30 years of stridently defending the Church and the perpetrators — often by disparaging the victims.

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NEW YORK
Faith Forward

By Rabbi Ari Hart

When victims of child sex abuse come forward to seek justice and stop abusers from harming others, unbelievably they are blocked by New York State law. New York ranks among the worst in the nation — alongside Alabama, Mississippi and Michigan — for how its courts and criminal justice system treat survivors of child sex abuse.

If you think a law doesn’t make much difference, take a moment to consider Sara:

“When I was 13 and 14 years old, I suffered repeated violent sexual assault by a man who was part of my religious community, a family friend who stayed over at our house. He told me that if I told anyone what he was doing, I would bring my family shame and they would blame me. I believed him. When he came to my bedroom at night, I would try to push him away, but he was stronger than me: I was trapped. I did not have words to describe the horror that I was enduring. By the time I healed enough to understand that it was not my fault, that I was a victim and could speak up about the abuse, it was too late. The New York State statue of limitations for sexual abuse was up. Our legal system no longer considered my story valid.

The predator who abused me is still at large, and because of the statute of limitations, I can do nothing to protect his present and future victims.”

As faith leaders, this issue is particularly painful and urgent. Rather than being a source of healing for victims of child sexual abuse, our religious institutions have too often discouraged victims from getting the legal and social help they need; faith leaders have been enablers; and horrifically, they have been perpetrators. Faith communities are beginning to acknowledge and undertake the hard, painful and sometimes disruptive work of confronting the specter of child sex abuse in our communities, develop policies for prevention, and support its victims.

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NEW YORK
Legislative Gazette

Written by THOMAS GIERY PUDNEY, assistant editor on June 15, 2017

Senate Democrats held a press conference today urging Senate Republican Conference to get behind legislation to allow child sex abuse victims more time to take their abuser to court.

Advocates and legislators, including Linda Rosenthal, D-Manhattan, sponsor of the Assembly Child Victims Act (A.5885-a) that passed by a telling bipartisan vote of 139-7 earlier this month, believe that this is the year the CVA makes it to the floor for a vote and, onto the governor’s desk.

“Protecting New York’s children against sexual abuse and rape and giving justice to those that have been harmed in the past is what our duty is as state legislators,” said Rosenthal. “There should be no question, it should not be up for debate.

“Without doing this bill, New York state is protecting predators.”

This most recent push comes after Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced on Wednesday evening a program bill that is the same as the bills passed by Rosenthal in the Assembly and sponsored by Sen. Brad Hoylman in the Senate.

This could signal to the Senate Republicans that depriving victims of the look-back window they have pushed for, or the independent tribunal that determines validity of victim’s claims on a case by case basis, as offered in Sen. Jeff Klein’s compromise bill, are not what the governor considers the best option for New York’s childhood abuse victim’s.

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NEW YORK
Times Union

By Matthew Hamilton on June 15, 2017

Gov. Andrew Cuomo has introduced his own version of the Child Victims Act to the state Legislature, mirroring his proposal on bills that already are being pushed in both the Assembly and the state Senate.

The bill was introduced through the Senate Rules Committee on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, advocates, bill sponsors and Cuomo are continuing to press the Senate to take up the legislation as lawmakers head toward the scheduled end of the legislative session on June 21.

“This is about justice and I urge this measure to be passed before the end of session and allow these victims the ability to hold their abusers accountable — something they’ve wrongly been denied for far too long,” Cuomo said in a statement.

The bill would change when the the five-year statute of limitations clock for felony sexual abuse crimes starts ticking. Under current law it starts when the abuse victim turns 18. Under Child Victims Act, it wouldn’t begin until the victim is 23.

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NEW YORK
News 10

[with video]

By Nick Perreault
Published: June 15, 2017

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) – A bill is headed to the Senate that would help child victims report abuse.

The bill passed the Assembly 139 to seven, but the Senate’s failed to pass similar legislation for over a decade.

“I personally was 15 years old when I was molested by a 33 year-old man,” Bridie Farrell, a victim, said.

Farrell didn’t tell anyone.

“I thought it was really my mistake, I thought it was weird and something that wasn’t supposed to be public, but not necessarily a crime.”

It would take her a decade to realize what happened.

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NEW YORK
WNYT

[with video]

June 15, 2017

ALBANY – Survivors of child sexual abuse and their advocates were at the Capitol Thursday pleading with Senate Republicans to “ease their pain.”

Anna Wagner, a Long Island mother of three, who was abused by a family friend when she was 9, says the emotional scars remain and the nightmares are constant.

“I ask that the Senate take a stand and help conserve children’s rights and help conserve the sweet dreams of children tomorrow,” Wagner said. “When is it going to be a priority to stop the nightmares, when we know these monsters are not haunting other children?”

The Child Victims Act would eliminate the statute of limitations and open up a one-year window so that sex abuse victims can file civil suits.

“There’s nothing more repulsive than the sexual exploitation of children by adults, “said Assembly woman Linda Rosenthal (D – New York City), “Without doing this bill, New York State is protecting predators and allowing current predators to continue their ways.”

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NEW YORK
Newsday

Updated June 15, 2017
By Michael Gormley michael.gormley@newsday.com

ALBANY — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Thursday introduced his own bill to give victims of child sexual abuse more time to accuse, prosecute and sue their abusers in a move that advocates of the effort called a “breakthrough moment.”

“This is about justice and I urge this measure to be passed before the end of session and allow these victims the ability to hold their abusers accountable — something they’ve wrongly been denied for far too long,” Cuomo said.

Despite a decade of opposition by the Senate’s Republican majority, advocates of the bill introduced in the final days of session said Cuomo’s action adds to momentum in what would be a major result in a so-far lackluster end of session.

“We have the momentum, we have every piece,” said Sen. Brad Hoylman (D-Manhattan), who has pushed the bill for years. This year, victims of childhood sexual abuse streamed into the Capitol for months telling their stories and carrying school pictures of themselves. “And we have the governor now,” Hoylman said. “This a breakthrough moment.”

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VIRGINIA
WYFF

BECCA MITCHELL

VIRGINIA BEACH, VA —
A former youth pastor charged with sexual penetration has been found guilty by a Virginia Beach judge.

Jeffrey Bondi, 47, is charged with a crime that allegedly happened 15 years ago while he was working as a youth minister at Galilee Episcopal Church in Virginia Beach.

A woman who was 18-years-old at the time told police that Bondi sexually assaulted her while he was working at her church.

All we know about the victim is that she now lives in California and is a comedian/writer.

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

Joanne McCarthy
16 Jun 2017

RETIRED Newcastle solicitor Lou Pirona lost a son who was sexually abused by a Catholic priest, and whose suicide in 2012 after “too much pain” was the catalyst for a royal commission.

Now Mr Pirona is speaking up for survivors of sexual abuse at his old school, St Stanislaus College, Bathurst, over a controversial apology at the college on Friday and the Vincentian order’s failure to acknowledge the full extent of crimes committed there.

“I just wanted the survivors to know I support them. I wanted them to know I understand a little bit of the impact of these sorts of things, so it really comes from the heart,” Mr Pirona said.

Survivor Damien Sheridan and son Zakarie, survivor Tor Nielsen and mother Carole, St Stanislaus Old Boy Terry Jones and NSW Greens MP and justice spokesman David Shoebridge will hold a vigil outside the college on Friday from noon. They will protest against an apology during a liturgy at the school where the crimes occurred, which a leading survivor group said would be “inherently re-traumatising” for many people.

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UNITED STATES
Christian Post

BY MICHAEL GRYBOSKI , CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER
Jun 15, 2017

Sexual abuse by clergy continues to be a problem within the Roman Catholic Church, according to a recent annual report.

The Church’s National Review Board for the Protection of Children and Young People found in May that between July 1, 2015, and June 30, 2016, there were 1,232 abused individuals who brought forth 1,318 allegations of sexual abuse by clergy.

“These allegations represent reports of abuse between a specific alleged victim and a specific alleged accused, whether the abuse was a single incident or a series of incidents over a period of time,” noted the annual report.

“Compared to 2014 and 2015, the number of allegations has continued to increase. This is due to six dioceses experiencing an influx of allegations during the 2016 audit year. Of the increase in these six dioceses, two were due to bankruptcy proceedings and the other four were due to the state opening the statute of limitations.”

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CURACAO
NL Times

By Janene Pieters on June 15, 2017

A 54-year-old pastor from the Rains of Blessing church on Curacao is standing trial for raping 10 girls. His youngest victim was 11 years old. On Wednesday the Public Prosecutor demanded 18 years in prison against him, and that he be banned from leading any church for 20 years, NOS reports.

The allegations of sexual abuse refer to incidents dating back to 2003. Late in 2015 one girl was brave enough to report what happened. After that, reports started streaming in. More than 20 cases came in, with victims from Curacao and the Netherlands – the church also has branches in Tilburg, The Hague, Rotterdam and Amsterdam. Orlando B. is currently on trial for 10 of those cases.

B. raped girls under the guise of exorcism, according to the broadcaster. He told his victims that they were possessed by demons he put in them, and that he would wake the demons up if they went to the police. He used a lot of violence. Some girls woke up covered in blood.

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MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

By Jean Hopfensperger Star Tribune JUNE 15, 2017

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis was back in bankruptcy court Thursday, as U.S. Judge Robert Kressel heard objections to the competing victim settlement plans.

A key issue was whether the plan put forth by attorneys for the clergy abuse victims complied with Chapter 11 bankruptcy law, which allows an organization to reorganize its debt. The victim’s plan would tap what attorneys say is $1 billion in archdiocese property and assets not accounted for in the archdiocese’s settlement plan.

“Chapter 11 doesn’t expect a body to liquidate its assets,” Kressel told the court. “It doesn’t mean [the archdiocese] is not complying with bankruptcy code.”

Kressel also labeled “inflammatory” some of the language used in court documents filed by victims’ attorneys when describing the archdiocese’s proposed settlement. The archdiocese had filed a motion seeking the removal of the language, which attorneys did.

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DELAWARE
Roman Catholic Diocese of Wilmington

“The Keepers,” the Netflix documentary series that explores sexual abuse at a Baltimore Catholic school for girls, and the murder of a nun in the 1960s, hints that Bishop Malooly may have participated in a cover-up regarding the abuse by A. Joseph Maskell, a Baltimore priest. The abuse apparently took place at the school from 1967 until 1975. Bishop Malooly served in various administrative roles with the Archdiocese beginning nine years later in 1984 and continuing until his appointment as the Ninth Bishop of Wilmington in 2008.

Here is Bishop Malooly’s response to these insinuations:

“In the spirit of truth, I would like to make some clarifications regarding some of the claims and insinuations that were made in ‘The Keepers.’ My intention is to set the record straight, and in no way do I wish to minimize the pain and suffering caused by the abuse perpetrated by Joseph Maskell, or any other priest.

In 1992, while serving as Chancellor and Vicar General for the Archdiocese of Baltimore, I was first made aware of the accusations of sexual abuse of minors by Joseph Maskell. At that time, the adult survivor and her attorney were urged to report the abuse to civil authorities, and the survivor was offered counseling assistance. Maskell was removed from ministry and referred for evaluation and treatment with full disclosure to the facility as to the reason for the treatment. Maskell denied the allegation, and after months of evaluation and treatment, he was returned to ministry in 1993 after the Archdiocese was unable to corroborate the allegation following its extensive investigation.

When additional allegations were made in 1994, Maskell was permanently removed from ministry on July 31, 1994. The Archdiocese of Baltimore publicly stated that it wanted to speak with individuals who had information regarding Maskell. A detective was hired to search for anyone who may have been abused by him. In 1994, a music director at a Catholic church told the Archdiocese that Dr. Charles Franz may have information regarding Maskell, and so we reached out to him and set up a meeting for October 20, 1994.

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DELAWARE
The News Journal

Jessica Masulli Reyes, The News Journal June 15, 2017

The bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington denies allegations in the Netflix documentary “The Keepers” that he tried to cover up sexual abuse by a Baltimore priest decades ago.

The seven-part series released in late May focuses on a priest, Rev. Joseph Maskell, who was accused of sexually abusing students at Baltimore’s Archbishop Keogh High School in the 1960s and 1970s.

The series explores a theory that Sister Catherine Anne Cesnik, a teacher at the school, was killed in 1969 because she suspected Maskell was abusing students. Cesnik’s murder remains unsolved, and Maskell was never criminally charged for the abuse before his death in 2001.

Bishop W. Francis Malooly, who was assigned to the Archdiocese of Baltimore before he became Wilmington’s bishop in 2008, is mentioned only in the final episode of the series. Malooly posted to the Archdiocese of Wilmington’s website a lengthy statement challenging the accusations.

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INDONESIA
Catholic Register

BY CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
June 15, 2017

JAKARTA, Indonesia – Dozens of Indonesian priests have quit their posts after accusing a bishop on the Catholic majority island of Flores of embezzling more than $100,000 of church funds for personal use.

Ucanews.com reported that at least 69 priests from Ruteng Diocese submitted letters of resignation in mid-June, quitting their posts as episcopal vicars and parish priests, and demanded that Bishop Hubertus Leteng heed their calls for a complete overhaul of how the diocese is run.

Bishop Leteng told reporters June 12 that he did not want priests to leave their posts, but stepping down “was their free choice.”

“If you love the church, you must create calm among people,” he said. The bishop refused to comment about the allegations against him.

Father Marthen Chen, spokesman for the priests, said the overhaul is desperately needed “so the church can be truly in line with the guidance of the Holy Spirit.”

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NEW YORK
Frum Follies

Important groups stand in the way of strengthening legislation against child sex abusers in New York State: the Roman Catholic Church and its pipsqueak partner, Agudath Israel of America (aka Agudah).

Both groups decry sexual immorality, preach protection of the weak, and rhapsodize about their children. Yet they both have long, ugly histories of helping their molesters escape prosecution and financial reparations.

In 2010, Governor Andrew Cuomo badly wanted to legalize gay marriage in NYS. As always, the obstacle was the lobbying of the RCC and Agudah. So he cut a deal with them. They would denounce the act but not pressure legislators. In return they got his off-the-record promise not to extend the statute of limitations for child sex abuse. Instead, NYS would continue to have one of the shortest SOL’s in the US, requiring survivors to file criminal and civil complaints before their 23rd birthday.

Most survivors need more time before they are ready to confront their own demons and take on their abusers. He also protected them from what they feared, a window allowing survivors to sue for abuse that happened before the SOL’s were changed. Such windows expose abusers and force culpable individuals and institutions to compensate victims. They are embarrassing and costly for institutions that long covered up abuse, such as yeshivas, camps (e.g., Camp Agudah), and the RCC.

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SCOTLAND
Scotsman

CHRIS MARSHALL
Thursday 15 June 2017

The leader of a religious order has apologised for a “disturbing lack of awareness” which allowed staff to physically and sexually abuse boys at residential schools.

Brother Laurence Hughes, head of the De La Salle Brothers in Great Britain and Ireland, told the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry he would have expected other members of staff to have known what was going on.

Br Hughes said he had already met with survivors abused by the congregation in Northern Ireland and was prepared to do so in Scotland.

The inquiry, before Lady Smith, was told an estimated 9,300 pupils, many with emotional and behavioural difficulties, attended five institutions run by the Brothers between 1914 and 1992.

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CALIFORNIA/OKLAHOMA
The Worthy Adversary

June 15, 2017 Joelle Casteix

Jose Alexis Davila accepted a plea deal for battery against a 20-year-old female parishioner in 2012. The plea agreement came when the victim was too scared to testify. Why? Well, a parishioner ‘lynch mob’ tried to stop her mother from attending prayer group and accosted her brother. They also called her a liar and a slut. Nice.

Then-San Diego Bishop Cirilo Flores did nothing to help the victim or reach out to parishioners and warn them about the harm they were doing.

Prosecutors were able to get a sentence of three years’ probation and community service. Despite this, the Diocese of San Diego tried to reinstate Davila, until local outrage and media attention stopped the move.

Davila disappeared until 2016, when he showed up at a parish in in the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. When parishioners became upset, Oklahoma Archbishop Paul Coakley said that he had all of the information necessary about Davila and considered him “fit for ministry” and safe.

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PENNSYLVANIA
NBC Philadelphia

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

Blair County Judge Jolene Kopriva has set a hearing Wednesday on the defense motions filed by attorneys for Giles Schinelli, Robert D’Aversa and Anthony Criscitelli.

State prosecutors say the friars assigned or supervised Brother Stephen Baker when he served at Bishop McCort Catholic High School in Johnstown in the 1990s. Baker killed himself in 2013, shortly after a settlement was announced that he had molested students at a school in Youngstown, Ohio.

That settlement prompted more than 80 former McCort students to come forward with molestation allegations, that have resulted in more than $8 million in settlements.

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PENNSYLVANIA
WJAC

by Katie O’Toole

HOLLIDAYSBURG — Judge Jolene Grubb Kopriva heard arguments for pretrial motions Wednesday in the case of three Franciscan priest accused of covering up for an alleged child sex abuser.

Brother Stephen Baker, who has since killed himself, was accused of molesting more than 100 children. He did so while at schools where the three priests had allowed him to work.

Giles Schinelli, Robert D’Aversa and Anthony Criscitelli are each charged with endangering the welfare of children, and criminal conspiracy.

The defense asked for a change in venue Wednesday due to the local public opinion and knowledge about the case, but Kopriva suggested that decision would be too premature.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Tribune-Democrat

By Dave Sutor
dsutor@tribdem.com

HOLLIDAYSBURG – Attorneys for three Franciscan friars accused of failing to properly supervise suspected serial child sexual abuser Brother Stephen Baker presented reasons on Wednesday why they believe charges against their clients should be dismissed.

The priests are charged with one count each of conspiracy and endangering the welfare of children.

Lawyers argued a conspiracy did not exist between the Revs. Anthony “Giles” A. Schinelli, Robert J. D’Aversa and Anthony M. Criscitelli and that the statute of limitations has expired on endangerment. Daniel Dye, a prosecutor from the Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General, disagreed with their positions, telling the court: “There was no error in holding this matter for trial.”

Blair County Judge Jolene Kopriva said she will rule on the issues “as quickly as possible.”

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PENNSYLVANIA
Altoona Mirror

JUN 15, 2017

KAY STEPHENS
Staff Writer
kstephens@altoonamirror.com

HOLLIDAYSBURG — Attorneys for three Franciscan friars tried Wednesday to convince a Blair County judge that prosecutors have no case to support the criminal charges filed against their clients.

“There’s zero evidence of a conspiracy. There’s zero evidence of a course of conduct,” attorney Charles Porter told Judge Jolene G. Kopriva on behalf of Anthony “Giles” Schinelli.

Schinelli, Robert J. D’Aversa and Anthony M. Criscitelli previously served as ministers provincial for the Franciscan Friars of the Third Order Regular, Hollidaysburg, starting in 1992. In those roles, they supervised Brother Stephen Baker whose work assignments allegedly put him in a position to sexually abuse male youths.

In criminal charges filed in March 2016, three years after Baker fatally stabbed himself at his monastery residence in Hollidaysburg, the state attorney general accused Baker’s three supervisors of endangering the welfare of children and conspiracy to endanger the welfare of children.

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PENNSYLVANIA
We Are Central PA

Hollidaysburg, Blair County, Pa. – Giles Schinelli, Robert D’Aversa and Anthony Criscitelli appeared in court Wednesday morning for pretrial arguments. The three face conspiracy and child endangerment charges.

Lawyers for the three Friars moved to have the dispute over what their duty entailed as Minister Provisional determined by the judge and not by jury. They say the prosecution’s definition of their duty is too generalized.

The also argued that there is no evidence to suggest that the Friars engaged in a conspiracy. They say there is no documentation of an agreement between them to conspire. The prosecution argued that information about allegations regarding Brother Stephen Baker was available to all three of them and that their course of action indicates a conspiracy.

The defense claims that only Schinelli knew of the allegation against Baker from 1988 that was discovered in 1992. They say that this was never discussed with D’Aversa nor Criscitelli. They say that the evidence suggests that Schinelli took appropriate follow-up action on the allegations and found no further evidence to suggest any wrongdoing by Baker. It’s said that Schinelli then had Baker see a doctor and it was found that there was nothing to suggest that Baker was a pedophile.

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INDIANA
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

Wilton D. Gregory
Archbishop of Atlanta

In the very same chapter of his Gospel in which St. Matthew presents his rendition of the Beatitudes, Jesus tells us that He has not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. Clearly, the Beatitudes are in fact a startling new edition of God’s Law. Jesus is Himself both the new law and the fulfillment of the old law.

He calls us to see with new eyes how to live in a world so continually filled with sorrow, injustice and violence and how important it is to acknowledge our own share in causing or compounding the sorrows, suffering and violence that often seem to surround us.

We bishops have learned a great deal about the sorrow and pain of those we love and serve, even as we have to acknowledge humbly, publicly and pitifully our share in bringing much of that pain to bear. We feel, we see, we live with, as they do in much greater measure, the impact of behaviors, responses and revelations that have no place in Matthew’s Gospel, in the Beatitudes, or in the narrative of Jesus’ promise to fulfill God’s Law.

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UNITED STATES
The Tablet (UK)

15 June 2017

‘The Holy Father has called us respectfully to acknowledge our own share in causing the pain that so many are still enduring,’ said Gregory

Atlanta Archbishop Wilton Gregory said today (14 June) that the US Catholic bishops “can never say that we are sorry enough for the share that we have had in this tragedy of broken fidelity and trust” – the clergy sex abuse crisis.

He made the comments in the homily at an evening Mass said to commemorate a “Day of Prayer and Penance” for victims of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. The liturgy was celebrated at St Peter and Paul Cathedral in Indianapolis at the end of the first day of the bishops’ spring assembly.

“At this Mass, we bishops humbly and sincerely ask for the forgiveness of those who have been harmed, scandalised or dispirited by events that, even if they happened many years ago, remain ongoing sources of anguish for them and for those who love them,” he said.

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CALIFORNIA
ABC 30

By Nathalie Granda
Wednesday, June 14, 2017

LOS BANOS, Calif. (KFSN) — Robert Gamel’s case will now move to trial after law enforcement took the stand Wednesday.

Gamel was arrested back in April for violating his probation after deputies found illicit images in his Merced residence.

“First thing I noticed was a briefcase in the closet,” said Jose Grandanos, Merced County Deputy Probation Officer.

Granados testified in court he was the one who found the briefcase with three sexually explicit images inside.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Irish Times

Kathryn Torney

A warning about the level of infant mortality among illegitimate children in Northern Ireland was sounded in 1945.

The warning on the Church of Ireland home is included in the files on the North’s mother-and-baby homes that are available to view at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (Proni).

Other files have been retained by religious orders.

In a letter to the North’s ministry of finance in 1945, Major David Anderson, the chairman of the committee of Hopedene Hostel for unmarried mothers and their children, raised concern about “the heavy mortality figures among illegitimate children” and ‘illegitimate children are allowed to die’.

He also asked for “sympathetic attention” to be given to his request for financial assistance for the home.

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INDIANA
Catholic Whistleblowers

Organizations dedicated to the protection and safety of children in the Catholic Church; namely, the National Survivor Advocates Coalition, Catholic Whistleblowers, and Road to Recovery, Inc. will call on Pope Francis and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to fulfill a promise made by Pope Francis in 2015 that he would establish a Vatican commission “with teeth” that would hold accountable those bishops who mishandled and covered up cases of childhood sexual abuse by priests and deacons. Pope Francis’ refusal to set up the commission to hold bishops accountable and instead allow members of the Vatican bureaucracy to determine the culpability of fellow bishops is outrageous and unacceptable.

What – A demonstration by advocates for victim/survivors of childhood, teenage, and vulnerable adult sexual abuse protesting Pope Francis’ suspension of the commission he promised to establish in order to hold bishops accountable for their mishandling of sexual abuse cases in their dioceses.

When – Wednesday, June 15, 2017, from Noon until 1:30 PM

Where – On the public sidewalk outside the JW Marriott Hotel, headquarters of the annual meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 10 South West Street, Indianapolis, IN 46204

Who – Members of the National Survivor Advocates Coalition, Catholic Whistleblowers, and Road to Recovery, Inc.

Why – Demonstrators will call on the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and Cardinal Sean O’Malley, President of the Vatican commission on child protection, to support the Catholic Whistleblowers requests of 2015 and 2016, contained in extensive credible documentation, that it act in a timely manner on the removal of four American bishops who were particularly egregious in their handling of childhood sexual abuse cases: Cardinal Raymond Burke (formerly of St. Louis, MO, and La Crosse, WI; Archbishop Justin Rigali (formerly of Philadelphia, PA); and, Archbishop John Myers (formerly of Peoria, IL, and Newark, NJ). Added to this list for the first time is Bishop W. Francis Malooly, currently bishop of Wilmington, DE, who was exposed recently for covering up and mishandling cases in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, MD, including the unsolved murder of a Catholic nun as featured recently in the Netflix seven-episode series, “The Keepers.”

Contacts – Kristine Ward (Ohio), Chairperson, National Survivor Advocates Coalition, 937-272-0308; Ginny Hoehne (Ohio), Member, National Survivor Advocates Coalition, 937-726-9360; Mary Heins (Indianapolis), Member, National Survivor Advocates Coalition, 317-359-7128; and Robert Hoatson (New Jersey), President, Road to Recovery, Inc., and Member, Catholic Whistleblowers

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NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY
KENNETH LOVETT
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, June 14, 2017

ALBANY – With just a week left in the legislative session, Gov. Cuomo on Wednesday introduced for the first time his own Child Victims Act bill.

The bill, obtained by the Daily News, mirrors the one passed by the Assembly last week.

“This is about justice and I urge this measure to be passed before the end of session and allow these victims the ability to hold their abusers accountable — something they’ve wrongly been denied for far too long,” Cuomo said.

The move won praise from many of the victims who have been fighting for the issue for more than a decade.

“I applaud Governor Cuomo’s strong leadership and his commitment to justice and the safety of children,” said Kathryn Robb, who was one of the survivors and advocates who have been working with the governor’s staff in recent months. “He is, to my mind, the justice governor.”

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