ABUSE TRACKER

A digest of links to media coverage of clergy abuse. For recent coverage listed in this blog, read the full article in the newspaper or other media source by clicking “Read original article.” For earlier coverage, click the title to read the original article.

August 5, 2017

Anmerkungen zum Domspatzen-Abschlussbericht

DEUTSCHLAND
Regensburg Digital

[Notes on the Domspatzen final report: Over two years after lawyer Ulrich Weber jumped into a basin, the depth of which he did not know, he came up with an outstanding final report. Its importance is to be assessed all the more highly, since its diocesan clients, with their temporal, local, and personnel restrictions relative to the Domspatzen institutions, apparently did not strive for a comprehensive explanation, but rather strove for an act of liberation and probably a tactical pacification of the publicly affected victims.]

Von Robert Werner

Über zwei Jahren nachdem Rechtsanwalt Ulrich Weber in ein Becken sprang, dessen Tiefe er nicht kannte, ist er mit einem herausragenden Abschlussbericht aufgetaucht. Seine Bedeutung ist umso höher zu bewerten, da seine diözesanen Auftraggeber mit ihren zeitlichen, örtlichen und personellen Einschränkungen bezogen auf die Domspatzen-Einrichtungen offenbar keine umfassende Aufklärung angestrebt, sondern eher einen Befreiungsschlag und wohl eine taktische Befriedung der öffentlich aufgetretenen Betroffenen angestrebt haben. Eine kritische Auseinandersetzung.

Der neulich veröffentlichte Abschlussbericht von Rechtsanwalt Ulrich Weber („Vorfälle von Gewaltausübung an Schutzbefohlenen bei den Regensburger Domspatzen“) hat die Debattenlage in Regensburg wesentlich verändert. Seine sehr reichhaltige Materialfülle und wichtigen Ergebnisse sind von wegweisender Bedeutung und dürften das diffamierende Gerede, die öffentliche auftretende Betroffenen seien vor allem Kirchenfeinde, geldgierige Figuren und oder Trittbrettfahrer, zumindest eindämmen.

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

Guam clergy story reaches national audience

GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Guam’s clergy abuse scandal reaches a national audience Saturday in a story published by USA TODAY.

The story, available at usatoday.com, will also be published in the print edition of the newspaper next week.

Guam residents are familiar with the allegations of clergy sex abuse, which have made headlines for more than a year on island, and which started with accusations against Archbishop Anthony Apuron.

Nearly 100 lawsuits have been filed in federal and local court, accusing clergy members or others associated with the Catholic Church on Guam of sexually abusing children decades ago.

The USA TODAY story summarizes the issue for a national audience, including interviews with church experts and Guam residents.

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

Victims’ Plea: Place Rapist Ex-Priest in a Secured Treatment Center

MASSACHUSETTS
Care 2 Petitions

On Friday, July the 28th, Mr. Paul Shanley, one of the most notorious figures in the Boston Archdiocese sex abuse scandal, has been released from prison. He will not be ordered to wear a GPS bracelet, and will not be staying in a secure treatment facility.

The Catholic Church has many treatment facilities for clergy and former clergy with sexual issues. Please sign this petition to urge the Boston Archdiocese and the State of Boston to insist Shanley live in a facility where he can receive treatment and where he will have no access to children.

Many survivors of priest sexual abuse around the world are very disturbed by this news. Age and prison time do not cure pedophilia. Mr. Shanley has a long history of rampant child sexual abuse, much of which was covered up by the Church. Pedophile priests are a very real danger, a threat to women, men and children, especially young boys. Hurting a child like that scars them forever.Research and experience teach us that age does not cure pedophilia. Often age gives predators an advantage. People may see an old man and assume he is harmless. That is not the case.

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

13K Want Newton Priest Paul Shanley In Secure Treatment Facility

MASSACHUSETTS
Patch

[the petition]

By Jenna Fisher (Patch Staff) – Updated August 4, 2017

NEWTON, MA — Now that he’s out of prison, more than 13,000 people want the 86-year old former priest convicted of raping a small boy while he was a pastor at Newton’s St. Jean L’Evangeliste church to get special treatment.

Thousands of people from near and far have signed a Care2 petition asking the state and the Boston Archdiocese put the former priest, Paul Shanley, who was released after serving 12 years in prison for raping a boy while he was head of a Newton church, in a secure treatment center.

He will now begin 10 years of supervised probation, but Matan Uziel who started the petition says it’s not enough. (( Follow the Newton Patch for all the latest news on Newton))

Uziel, founder of Real Women, Real Stories, a video project that seeks to promote awareness of the hardships women face, says he is concerned because prison does not treat pedophilia, and because Shanley will not be ordered to wear a GPS bracelet.

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

Another Russian Connection: The Pope and Putin

UNITED STATES
The Open Tabernacle: Here Comes Everybody

August 5, 2017 by Betty Clermont

The most powerful man in the Vatican after Pope Francis, Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, will make an “historic visit” to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the end of August “with the aim of improving Holy See relations both with the Kremlin and the Russian Orthodox Church.” The trip “will also pave the way for a potential visit by Pope Francis which some believe could happen as early as next year,” according to Vatican reporter Edward Pentin.

Pope Francis has met Putin twice at the Vatican in November 2013 and June 2015.
In February 2016, the pope made a stop at the José Martí airport in Havana on his way to Mexico for a meeting with Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill. That meeting would not have happened “without a green light from Putin.”

Pope Francis said that Metropolitan Archbishop Hilarion, foreign minister of the Russian Orthodox Church, “has come many times to speak with me.”

“One of the most skilled and experienced Vatican diplomats,” Archbishop Celestino Migliore, was appointed as the pope’s ambassador to Russia in May 2016 after serving as his ambassador to the United Nations, reported Vatican expert Andrea Gagliarducci.

Migliore’s predecessor in Moscow, Archbishop Ivan Jurkovic, was then assigned as ambassador to the UN in Geneva. The “widespread saying among Vatican diplomats” is that “Geneva is where the UN headquarters’ decisions are prepared” and Jurkovic “knows very well the Russian world and its sensitivities,” Gagliarducci attested.

Before Jurkovic, Archbishop Antonio Mennini was the papal representative to Moscow from 2002 to 2010. (The Vatican and Russia established full diplomatic relations in 2009.) Mennini was made an official in the Vatican Secretariat of State in January 2017.

Within two months of Pope Francis’ election, Putin appointed Alexander Avdeev as his ambassador to the Vatican. Avdeev was Russia’s deputy Foreign Affairs minister from 1998 to 2002, special ambassador and plenipotentiary of the Russian Federation to Paris until 2008 and then the Kremlin Minister of Culture until his appointment to the Vatican.

In view of the above, it would be safe to say that the Vatican is closer to Russia than any other country and the Russian Orthodox Church more than any other religion.

TRADITIONAL VALUES

Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor at Reuters, explained the alliance between Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church. “With strong financial backing from oligarchs, [the Russian Orthodox Church’s] global reach amounts to a network of the new Russian presence around the world, parallel to Moscow’s embassies and trade missions.”

Under Putin, “the Church has developed into a thriving institution that works closely with the Kremlin to promote common interests.”

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

Prosecutors seek to move up former priest’s trial date

ILLINOIS
The Beacon-News

Dan Campana
Aurora Beacon-News

With custody issues seemingly settled at the moment for Alfredo Pedraza-Arias, the former Aurora priest accused of sexually abusing two young girls, Kane County prosecutors plan to go to before a judge Monday to ask for an earlier trial date than scheduled, court records show.

Recently, Kane County Judge Linda Abrahamson ordered Arias to stand trial beginning Sept. 18 on multiple counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse involving two girls who were under the age of 6 when, according to prosecutors, Arias fondled them at Sacred Heart Church in Aurora between 2012 and 2014. He was charged in February 2016.

The case took a turn in May when, while free on bond, Arias was taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials. A few weeks later, a federal judge ordered Arias to be deported to his native Colombia. That move prompted prosecutors to ask Abrahamson to revoke or increase Arias’ bail, which she did by $100,000 in July.

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

Former Ararat priest Ryan fails to appear in court over rape charges

AUSTRALIA
Ararat Advertiser

A former Ararat Catholic parish priest accused of historic child sexual abuse in regional and suburban Victoria has not appeared in court for health reasons.

Paul David Ryan, 68, was summoned to appear in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Friday on seven charges including rape and indecent assault at Warrnambool and the Melbourne suburb of Lower Plenty in the 1980s.

At least some of the allegations relate to a victim aged 16 and 17 at the time.

The court was told Ryan, now living in Western Australia, has prostate cancer and could not be in court for health reasons.

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

Push on to let older sex abuse victims sue institutions

GEORGIA
Joplin Globe

By Jill Nolin | CNHI State Reporter Aug 4, 2017

ATLANTA – Victims of child sexual abuse will have more time to pursue legal action against their abuser and, in some cases, the institutions that failed to protect them as children, under a bill that awaits state lawmakers.

The proposal, sponsored by Rep. Jason Spencer, R-Woodbine, seeks to build on a 2015 measure that temporarily lifted the statute of limitations and allowed older victims to come forward and take their abuser to civil court.

State law gives victims until they 23 years old to file a civil lawsuit. That age cut-off was suspended for two years, during which time 13 cases were filed all across the state, Spencer said.

But Spencer said those cases have revealed a major flaw in the 2015 bill, known as the Hidden Predator Act: These older victims could not go after the institutions that may have covered up the abuse.

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

August 4, 2017

Uncovered allegations a ‘violation’ of trust in church

GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

Mindy Aguon | The Guam Daily Post

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests is outraged to learn the note-taker of the Vatican tribunal involved in the canonical trial of suspended Archbishop Anthony Apuron had been accused of sexual harassment in 2014 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Rev. Justin Wachs is accused of sexually harassing a female employee of the Sioux Falls Diocese in 2014.

“The presence of Father Wachs, without his disclosing the accusations against him to the survivors, their attorneys and the Catholic faithful – was a complete violation of that trust,” said SNAP Western Regional Leader Joelle Casteix.

Keloland Investigates, a television program in Sioux Falls, uncovered the allegations and interviewed the parish employee. The woman accused Wachs of inappropriately touching and speaking with her on multiple occasions, and said the priest resigned and sought medical treatment after certain parameters had been set for his contact with her.

“We believe this violation proves once again that neither the Vatican nor its representatives take Apuron’s alleged sexual abuse of children seriously,” Casteix said.

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

Catholic Church Embroiled In Nearly 100 Lawsuits Over Sexual Abuse In Guam

UNITED STATES
The Daily Caller

JOSHUA GILL

Nearly 100 lawsuits alleging sexual abuses over four decades were filed against the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts of America in Guam, beginning in 2016.

Ninety-six lawsuits named the Archdiocese of Agana as a defendant, while 52 lawsuits named the Boy Scouts of America as a codefendant for enabling the priests to continue their abuse, according to a Friday report from USA Today’s Pacific Daily News (PDF). The allegations of sexual abuse span from 1955 to 1994, and involve an archbishop, 13 priest (one of whom was also a Boy Scout leader), and a janitor and a teacher from a Catholic school.

The population of Guam, a U.S. island territory, is 85 percent Catholic, with a total of 26 parishes on the island. The ongoing legal battle bears echoes of the Boston sex abuse scandal uncovered in 2002 by the Boston Globe, but Guam’s scandal goes deeper. Guam has a population of fewer than 163,000, with 59 lawsuits per 100,000 people in this case, compared to 12 lawsuits per 100,000 in the Boston scandal. The Catholic church’s influence in Guam goes far beyond the walls of the cathedrals, as certain priests allegedly wield political power rivaled only by the local military.

Many of the instances of sexual abuse alleged in these lawsuits previously went unreported, as the defendants allegedly used their positions as figures of spiritual and political authority to prey on vulnerable children. Those allegedly abused said the piety of the local population and the threat of retribution from their local church authorities discouraged them from telling anyone.

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

Former pastor back for court

ARKANSAS
Harrison Daily

Friday, August 4, 2017

By JAMES L. WHITE jamesw@harrisondaily.com

Larry Berkley, the former Harrison pastor facing numerous charges regarding abuse of juveniles, was booked back into the Boone County Jail late Wednesday on those charges.

A Harrison Police daily log of activity shows Boone County authorities contacted the HPD about 9:30 p.m. Wednesday for warrant confirmation on Berkley, 38, for sexual solicitation, four counts of first-degree sexual assault, seven counts of second-degree sexual assault, six counts of knowingly furnishing alcohol to a minor, four counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and two counts of loaning pornography to minors.

The log said the warrant was confirmed valid and he remained incarcerated with a hold for the HPD.

Berkley is accused of allowing minors and juveniles go to his house to smoke marijuana and drink alcohol. In addition, he is accused of sexually assaulting young males, all over 14 but under 18, and allowing them to watch pornography.

One of the victims told police Berkley had taken him to the funeral home where he worked part time and showed him a dead body. The victim said Berkley had stored marijuana in a very expensive casket he didn’t think people could afford to buy.

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

Pastor accused of rape liked to show kids dead bodies – and had casket full of weed: police

ARKANSAS
Raw Story

BOB BRIGHAM
04 AUG 2017

A Baptist pastor who has been charged for child rape in multiple states is back in jail in Arkansas.

The Boone County Arkansas Sheriff’s Office booked Pastor Larry Berkley on charges of failure to appear, the latest in a three year legal battle against the former pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Harrison, AR.

“A Harrison Police daily log of activity shows Boone County authorities contacted the HPD about 9:30 p.m. Wednesday for warrant confirmation on Berkley, 38, for sexual solicitation, four counts of first-degree sexual assault, seven counts of second-degree sexual assault, six counts of knowingly furnishing alcohol to a minor, four counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and two counts of loaning pornography to minors,” the Harrison Daily reports.

Berkley is accused of furnishing drugs and alcohol to teenage boys that he sexually assaulted.

After posting bond in Arkansas, Pastor Berkley was indicted by a Lauderdale County, Tennessee grand jury on two counts of rape, four counts of aggravated statutory rape, sexual battery by an authority figure and statutory rape by an authority figure. The charges date to the time Berkley worked as a pastor at Victory Baptist Church in Henning, Tennessee.

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

Phoenix Bishop Thomas O’Brien accused of sexual abuse

ARIZONA
12 News

William Pitts, KPNX August 04, 2017

PHOENIX – A Tucson man alleges Bishop Emeritus Thomas J. O’Brien sexually abused him more than 35 years ago.

O’Brien has already admitted to helping cover up suspected pedophile priest, but this is the first lawsuit to allege O’Brien was personally responsible for abuse. O’Brien stepped down as bishop in 2003.

The lawsuit, filed by a Tucson man going only by “Joseph W.”, alleges O’Brien molested him between 1977 and 1982, when the boy was in second to fifth grades. The lawsuit was filed in September of 2016.

“The abuse often took place before or during church services attended by Joseph W. and his family,” the lawsuit claims, “and under the guise of Bishop O’Brien showing Joseph W. how to assist with some aspect of the ceremony.”

The lawsuit alleges the abuse happened at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic School and St. Vincent de Paul Catholic School.4, 2017

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

Priest accused of child sex crimes bonds out of jail

KANSAS
KSHB

[with video]

KANSAS CITY, Kans. –
A local priest accused of child sex crimes is back in Kansas after his recent arrest in Maryland.

Father Scott Kallal was in Maryland for counseling, but he was accused of inappropriately touching a young girl while serving at Saint Patrick Church in Kansas City, Kansas.

He has been charged with two counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child.

Thursday night, Kallal was booked into the Wyandotte county jail on $250,000 bond. Friday, though, Kallal had his first appearance and a judge reduced his bond to $50,000.

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

Catholic priest facing child sex charges returns to Kansas City area

KANSAS
The Kansas City Star

BY TONY RIZZO
trizzo@kcstar.com

AUGUST 04, 2017

A Catholic priest charged in Wyandotte County in a child sex case has been returned from Maryland where he was arrested last month.

The Rev. Scott Kallal, 35, was booked into the Wyandotte County Detention Center Thursday night and is being held on a bond of $250,000.

Kallal is charged in Wyandotte County District Court with two felony counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child. The incidents allegedly occurred in 2015, according to prosecutors.

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

Abuse victim says the law protects paedophiles and needs to change

UNITED KINGDOM
Hull Daily Mail

BY DAVID SPEREALL
4 AUG 2017

A man who was sexually abused by Catholic priests in an East Yorkshire children’s home is marching to Downing Street to campaign for a change in the law in how alleged victims are treated by the courts.

Darren Furness, 52, was one of a number of children to have suffered abuse at St William’s Catholic School in Market Weighton in the 1970s and 1980s.

Former headmaster James Carragher and the school’s then chaplain Anthony McCallen were jailed for a total of 24 years when the cases of 18 victims were brought to Leeds Crown Court in January 2016.

It came after the biggest child abuse investigation ever undertaken by Humberside Police.

Now Mr Furness is marching to the Prime Minister’s official residence to ask for a public inquiry into the crimes.

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

‘Molest me, Father, for I have sinned’

PHILIPPINES
The Manila Times

BY ANTONIO P. CONTRERAS ON AUGUST 5, 2017

OF the figures in the Catholic Church, it is the parish priest who works at the grassroots. He is tasked to counsel those who are lost and those who are last. He is the representative of Rome with the people. He receives confessions from the sinners and gives communion to the faithful. He directly touches and ministers to his flock. His position embodies not only one that is holy, but also one that is trusted.

Thus, it is utterly offensive that a priest should be the one who should break that trust, and undermine his representation of the sacred.

This is the sin of that priest who now stands accused of violating the Anti-Human Trafficking in Persons Act, after he was arrested for allegedly procuring the services of a 13-year-old sex worker whom he was caught taking to a motel.,

That the girl was a minor, and that her pimp was also a minor, only affirm what is fairly known. Child prostitution is already pervasive, where boys and girls render sexual services for as low as the cost of a mobile phone loads.

These are loud indictments of moral decadence, things which adults, more so spiritual leaders like priests, must address.

And this is where the crime of this priest becomes more repugnant.

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

Difunden que el cardenal Norberto Rivera compareció ante la PGR

MEXICO
e-Consulta

[Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera appeared last week before the Special Prosecutor for Violence Against Women and Trafficking in Persons (Fevimtra) of the PGR. Armando Martínez Gómez , president of the Association of Catholic Lawyers, said Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera attended a judicial proceeding because former priest Alberto Athié denounced him for covering up 15 priests accused of pedophilia.]

El cardenal Norberto Rivera Carrera compareció la semana pasada ante la Fiscalía Especial para los Delitos de Violencia contra las Mujeres y Trata de Personas (Fevimtra) de la PGR.

Armando Martínez Gómez, presidente del Colegio de Abogados Católicos, afirmó que el cardenal Norberto Rivera Carrera asistió a una diligencia judicial, debido a que el ex sacerdote Alberto Athié lo denunció por encubrir a 15 sacerdotes acusados de pederastia.

El presidente del Colegio de Abogados Católicos le dijo al portal Noticias MVS que el cardenal compareció en calidad de persona investigada, no como imputado, y que su declaración la realizó en su oficina, debido a que es una persona de la tercera edad.

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

Insurance firm denies it advised Church to cut ties with sex abuse victims

UNITED KINGDOM
Gloucestershire Live

BY ANDREW MERRELL
4 AUG 2017

Ecclesiastical Insurance has vehemently denied it advised the Church of England to sever ties with sex abuse victims after compensation has been paid and stressed its independence.

The Church withdrew support for victims of abuse on the advice of its insurers, Ecclesiastical, according to an independent report by child safeguarding specialist Ian Elliot.

Mr Elliot’s independent review into the case said the insurance firm’s advice has “directly conflicted” with the pastoral and compassionate duties of the church and “financial interests were allowed to impact practice”.

One victim who was paid £35,000 compensation after being raped by a member of the clergy in the 1970s blamed the Gloucester-headquartered insurer for the church cutting ties with him.

Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury – the most senior bishop of the Church of England – is said to have accepted in full the findings of the review.

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

Bilder und Videos mit Kinderpornografie Pädophiler Pfarrer aus Braunsbedra verurteilt

DEUTSCHLAND
Mitteldeutsche Zeitung

[Pictures and videos with child pornography: Pedophile priest from Braunsbedra, diocese Magdeburg is condemned.]

Von Diana Dünschel

Braunsbedra –
Der ehemalige katholische Pfarrer von Braunsbedra ist wegen des Besitzes kinderpornografischer Schriften zu einer Freiheitsstrafe von einem Jahr auf Bewährung verurteilt worden. Der Strafbefehl des Amtsgerichtes Merseburg ist rechtskräftig. Außerdem wurde gegen den Mann ein Ausbildungs- und Beschäftigungsverbot von Jugendlichen ausgesprochen. Er darf damit Kindern und Jugendlichen zum Beispiel keine Anweisungen mehr erteilen oder sie unterrichten. Das teilte Staatsanwalt Dennis Cernota auf Nachfrage der MZ mit.

Die Ermittlungen der Staatsanwaltschaft hatten aufgrund des umfangreichen Materials an Daten, die bei dem Pfarrer gefunden wurden, sehr lange gedauert. USB-Sticks, Festplatten und Digitalkameras mussten ausgewertet werden. Die beschlagnahmte Technik umfasste insgesamt 46 Terrabyte, das entspricht zirka 46.000 Gigabytes oder einer Speicherkapazität von mehr 9,6 Millionen Musiktiteln. „Eine überwältigende Menge“, wie Dennis Cernota sagte. Letztlich verurteilt wurde der Angeklagte aufgrund des Besitzes von mindestens 30.000 Bilddateien und knapp 300 Videodateien mit Kinderpornografie.

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

Kirche braucht auch künftig Druck der Öffentlichkeit

OSTERREICH
Katholisch

[Christian churches also need the media public as a “critical corrective” seven years after the exposure of the abuse crisis. This was underscored by Marianne Heimbach-Steins, a social ethics professor from Münster, during a lecture at the “Salzburg University Week”.]

Die christlichen Kirchen brauchen auch sieben Jahre nach der Aufdeckung der Missbrauchskrise weiterhin die mediale Öffentlichkeit als “kritisches Korrektiv”: Das hat die Münsteraner Sozialethikerin Marianne Heimbach-Steins bei einem Vortrag im Rahmen der “Salzburger Hochschulwochen” unterstrichen. So wie die jahrzehntelange kirchliche Praxis der Vertuschung und des Herunterspielens der Missbrauchsfälle nur durch eine öffentliche Aufdeckung durchbrochen werden konnte, so brauche es weiterhin das wache Auge der Medien und einer kritischen Öffentlichkeit: “Kirche ist auf das kritische Potenzial der Öffentlichkeit angewiesen, um Strukturen der Sünde in ihr aufzudecken und zu überwinden”, so die Theologin.

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

Priester (55) hatte Sex mit 13-Jähriger – Festnahme

PHILIPPINEN
Heute

Priest (55) had sex with 13-year-olds: A Catholic priest has been arrested in the Philippines for sexual abuse of a child. His victim is only 13 years old.]

Der Priester soll das Mädchen bereits mehrere Male über einen Zuhälter bestellt haben, teilte die Polizei am Dienstag mit. Die Mutter des Kindes meldete den Zuhälter bei den Beamten und erstattete Anzeige.

Die Festnahme des 55-Jährigen ereignete sich bereits am Freitag im Zuge einer Polizeiaktion. Der Priester brachte das kleine Mädchen gerade in ein Motel, vermutlich um mit ihr Geschlechtsverkehr zu haben.

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

Der jahrelange Kampf um Gerechtigkeit

DEUTSCHLAND
Heute

[Abuse in the Protestant Church: The struggle for justice for many years. Not only the incidents at the Domspatzen show how important the elucidation of abuse and sexual abuse within the church is. But what does it mean for the victims to go public with their accusations?]

von Sandra Theiß, Magdeburg

Nicht nur die Vorfälle bei den Domspatzen zeigen, wie wichtig die Aufklärung von Misshandlungen und sexuellem Missbrauch innerhalb der Kirche ist. Doch was heißt es für die Opfer, mit ihren Vorwürfen an die Öffentlichkeit zu gehen?

“Unterdrückt keuchend, stark schwitzend und penetrant stinkend presst sich der alte Mann an meinen jungen Körper. Die wollüstigen Grunzlaute, die er kurzatmig ausstößt, sind leise, klingen aber dennoch laut in meinen Ohren.” Mit diesen Worten beschreibt Joachim Schwarze in seinem Tagebuchroman “Der Trümmermann”, was der Pfarrer ihm angetan hat. Die Übergriffe liegen mehr als 40 Jahre zurück, sie ereigneten sich in Bad Lauchstädt, einer Kleinstadt in Sachsen-Anhalt.

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

S*X STATT SEGEN – WENN PRIESTER KINDER MISSBRAUCHEN UND DIE KIRCHE ES VERTUSCHT

DEUTSCHLAND
Bash

[S * x instead of blessings – When priests abused children and the church hushed it up. The German Basic Law allows the church to have its own legal system and to sort out cases of any kind internally so that they do not penetrate the outside world. Sexual assaults on children are omnipresent in the Catholic Church.]

Ich war sein kleiner Liebling. Jeden Abend schlich er sich leise in den großen Schlafsaal des katholischen Jungeninternats, setzte sich auf mein Bett und strich mir zärtlich über die Wange. Dann küsste er mich, legte sich zu mir und schob langsam seine Hand in meine Hose. Er begann mich zu berühren und ich spürte ihn an meiner Hüfte hart werden. Dann nahm er meine Hand und zwang mich, ihn anzufassen. So lange, bis er gekommen war. Dann ging er und ich schwieg. Jahrelang. Damals verstand ich nicht, wieso alle um mich herum behaupteten, dass er ein guter Mensch sei. Tun gute Menschen so etwas? Oder sind sie nur gut, weil sie Priester sind, egal was sie uns wirklich antun? Und wie kann es sein, dass so viel vertuscht wird?!

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

Missbrauchsermittlungen gegen Sekte in Sizilien

ITALIEN
Katholisch

[In Sicily, an allegedly Catholic organization is investigeated. The head of the association is called “archangel” and is said to have forced minors to engage in sexual acts.]

In Sizilien wird gegen eine vorgeblich katholische Organisation ermittelt. Der Leiter der Vereinigung bezeichnet sich als “Erzengel” und soll Minderjährige zu sexuellen Handlungen gezwungen haben.

Missbrauch | Catania – 04.08.2017

Vier Mitglieder der Organisation “Associazione Cattolica Cultura ed ambiente” (“Katholische Vereinigung für Kultur und Umwelt”), darunter ihr Vorsitzender, wurden in Sizilien wegen des Verdachts auf sexuellen Missbrauch Minderjähriger verhaftet. Die Festnahme fand italienischen Medien zufolge bereits am Montag im sizilianischen Aci Bonaccorsi statt. Der Leiter, Pietro C., bezeichnet sich Medienberichten zufolge selbst als “Erzengel” und habe der Organisation eine sektenartige Struktur gegeben. Dem Laien wird vorgeworfen, mindestens sechs weibliche minderjährige Mitglieder seiner Organisation zu sexuellen Handlungen gezwungen zu haben.

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Law Enforcement Officials in Maryland Are Now Studying Six Unsolved Murders with “Possible Links” To Sex Abuse At a Former Girls’ Catholic High School in Baltimore City

MARYLAND
Inside Baltimore

—All six of the still-unsolved killings may be connected
to rapes by two “serial abuser-priests” at former Archbishop Keough High School, investigators say.

“That’s beyond coincidence – something’s going on.”
–A Top Maryland Law Enforcement Official, July 2017

By Tom Nugent

BALTIMORE – More than four decades after the still-unsolved murder of a Baltimore nun who was reportedly killed while attempting to blow the whistle on widespread sexual abuse at her Catholic girls’ high school, law enforcement officials in Maryland say they’re concerned about new findings that may link six different unsolved murders to two priests who were involved in the abuse during the late 1960s and much of the 1970s.

“This [new information] is deeply troubling and it absolutely should be checked out,” said one former high-ranking law enforcement investigator in Maryland recently, after reviewing the new findings by Inside Baltimore. Added the now-retired officer: “As a former investigator, I’m concerned that there may be a pattern here which points to involvement by the abusing priests.”

Another top law enforcement official in Maryland said after learning about new information related to the cold cases: “That’s beyond coincidence – something’s going on and these unsolved murders should be reviewed carefully.”

Three of the unsolved murder victims were teenaged girls and another was a 14-year-old boy. The nun was 26 at the time of her death, and Joyce Malecki was only 20 years old when she died. Malecki’s still-unsolved murder took place only a few days after the disappearance of Sister Catherine Ann Cesnik in November of 1969.

All but one of the killings, which occurred between 1969 and 1981, involved victims with alleged ties to two priests involved in the abuse – Father A. Joseph Maskell and Father Edward Neil Magnus, both of whom taught at the former Archbishop Keough High School in southwest Baltimore – or to two Catholic Baltimore-area parishes (St. Clement in Lansdowne and Our Lady of Victory in Catonsville) where Maskell served or lived frequently for many of the years during the 11-year period of the unsolved murders.

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Lawsuit by victim of Catholic priest should have a trial date soon

CANADA
Sudbury.com

by: Darren MacDonald

A $5 million lawsuit by one of the molestation victims of a Catholic priest in Sudbury will be back in court this fall to set a trial date.

The victim, now 61, was just 12 years old when he attended St. Charles College in the late 1960s, where Fr. William Hodgson Marshall was a teacher and sports coach. The sexual assaults lasted for more than a year, and, in the statement of claim, the victim says he was expelled from the school for reporting the abuse to school officials.

Marshall was convicted in 2011 of indecent assault of 15 boys and one girl, and of sexually assaulting another boy. Six of his victims are from Sudbury, while most of the others are from Toronto or Windsor. He died in 2014.

Named in the lawsuit are Marshall, the Sudbury Catholic District School Board, the Basilian Fathers, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie and Bishop Ronald Fabbro, a former head of the Basilians.

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Clonkeen College to take legal action against Christian Brothers over land dispute

IRELAND
Breaking News

03/08/2017

The board of a south side school is taking a case against the Christian Brothers in a row over its playing fields.

7 and a half acres of land at Clonkeen College in Deansgrange is being sold, in a deal reportedly worth €18m.

The religious congregation owes money to a redress scheme for survivors of clerical abuse.

But principal Edward Melly has said the sale has not closed and they are taking legal action to block it.

The case will be filed based on an agreement made with the Brothers in 2006 which guaranteed the land for the schools use.

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US CHURCH DENIES FORMER MEMBERS’ ALLEGATIONS OF FORCED LABOR

NORTH CAROLINA
Associated Press

BY MITCH WEISS
ASSOCIATED PRESS

SPINDALE, N.C. (AP) — An evangelical North Carolina sect that is the focus of an ongoing Associated Press investigation has issued a statement denying former members’ allegations that they were brought to the U.S. from congregations in Brazil and forced to work for little or no pay.

The statement, issued by Word of Faith Fellowship attorney Josh Farmer, comes a week after the AP published reports about what dozens of former members described as a human pipeline from two churches in Brazil to the sect’s headquarters in rural Spindale, North Carolina.

“We are appalled to learn of the allegations published by the Associated Press regarding foreign members of our church being ‘enslaved,'” the statement read. “Many of these allegations are obviously preposterous on their face and they are all false. It is ludicrous that people now claim they were in an abusive environment at our church but admit that they traveled from Brazil to the United States many different times, returning repeatedly to their place of alleged enslavement.”

Word of Faith Fellowship and both churches in Brazil had not responded to numerous requests for comment before publication of the AP’s stories.

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No jail for pervy priest who filmed men in toilets

UNITED KINGDOM
Sunday World

A “well-regarded” clergyman who filmed men using a public toilet in a shopping centre has been sentenced to a suspended four-month jail term.

The Very Rev Martin Thrower admitted two counts of voyeurism at an earlier hearing at Norwich Crown Court.

William Carter, prosecuting, said the 56-year-old rector was caught when a 17-year-old heard a noise above him as he sat on the toilet at the Buttermarket shopping centre in Ipswich, Suffolk.

The teenager saw someone’s hand holding a mobile phone that was filming him over the cubicle partition. He grabbed the phone and Thrower was arrested.

Judge Katharine Moore, sentencing on Thursday, told Thrower he had been “well-regarded” by those he helped, adding he had been a listening ear “in times of great sadness and some in happier times”.

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Abuse survivors tell C of E: Insurer Ecclesiastical must lose say

UNITED KINGDOM
Church Times

by TIM WYATT 28 JULY 2017

TWO survivors of sexual abuse in the Church of England have demanded that the Church overhaul its process for handling abuse claims, and have criticised its relationship with its insurer, Ecclesiastical.

The survivors say that they were treated poorly, and that their pastoral care and counselling were cut off, because of an overly defensive approach and legal advice from Ecclesiastical.

The survivors are: Gilo, a man who was sexually assaulted by the late Garth Moore, a former diocesan chancellor (News, 4 December 2015); and Teresa Cooper, who blew the whistle on the decades of abuse at a C of E-run children’s home, Kendall House, in Kent (News, 15 July 2016).

Gilo does not want his surname published, to protect his identity, and was previously known only by the pseudonym “Joe”.

After he made a compensation claim against the Church, having tried for years to report his ordeal, with little response, the pastoral support finally being offered to him was temporarily cut off. An independent review of the case concluded that this was because of incorrect advice from Ecclesiastical (News, 18 March 2016).

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Putting abuse survivors first

UNITED KINGDOM
Church Times

04 AUGUST 2017

John Titchener responds to recent criticism of Ecclesiastical’s handling of claims

THERE has been much recent discussion in the media about Ecclesiastical’s handling of abuse claims brought against the Church of England, with particular focus on the experience of one survivor at the centre of the Church of England’s Elliott review (News, 28 July).

As the only insurer to publish our approach on handling abuse claims, we believe in making the claims-handling process transparent and understandable. Recent media discussion has misrepresented our claims process to such an extent that we feel we must put the record straight.

Child abuse is reprehensible and traumatising. We agree with the broad thrust of the Elliott review in promoting the needs of survivors and the importance of listening to them. But its assertion that Ecclesiastical instructed the Church of England to deny a survivor pastoral care is untrue. Unfortunately, we were not asked to participate in the review, and so had no opportunity to provide the evidence that showed this. On the contrary, we have always been clear that pastoral care and counselling can and should continue in parallel with an insurance claim.

This inaccuracy has led to broader misperceptions among victims and survivors about what actually happened, about how abuse claims are managed, about our own claims-handling record, the nature of our business, and our independence.

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Former Santa Barbara altar boy alleges abuse

GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

Mindy Aguon | The Guam Daily Post Aug 3, 2017

A former altar boy at Santa Barbara Catholic Church has filed a civil lawsuit alleging he was sexually abused when he was 10. He filed the lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Agana and former priest Raymond Cepeda.

A.C.J., who filed using initials to protect his identity, alleges Cepeda sexually molested and abused him while he served as an altar boy at the Dededo parish in 1980.

Cepeda was the priest at Santa Barbara Church in the early ’80s and resided at the rectory.

The plaintiff, who is represented by attorney David Lujan, alleges that one day after Mass and cleaning the church, Cepeda instructed the boy to follow him to the sacristy.

Cepeda allegedly fondled and raped the boy.

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Youth pastor accused of molesting child in ministry

FLORIDA
ABC Action News

HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. – Hillsborough County deputies arrested a youth pastor accused of molesting a 13-year-old girl who knew him through his ministry that he runs out of his home.

Court documents say the girl was spending the weekend at 43-year-old Timothy Peterkin’s home. After playing outside with some neighborhood children, she asked Peterkin for some medicinal cream for an allergic reaction on her legs. The report says Peterkin took the girl into his bathroom, applied the ointment and asked her to take her shorts off to see if the reaction was on other parts of her body. The pastor is then accused of placing the child on his lap and putting his hands in her underwear.

Peterkin didn’t wish to speak with ABC Action News on camera or in detail about the accusations, saying he would be willing to talk after the legal process is handled. However, Peterkin did deny the allegations, saying he believes someone has a vendetta against him.

The Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office says, due to his position as a youth pastor, they are looking into the possibility of more victims.

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Disgraced priest Yvon Arsenault will plead not guilty to new sex charge

CANADA
CBC News

By Gabrielle Fahmy, CBC News Posted: Aug 03, 2017

Disgraced catholic priest Yvon Arsenault will pleading not guilty to a new charge of indecent assault.

Arsenault is already serving four years behind bars. He was sentenced in February after he pleaded guilty to molesting nine young boys in the seventies, when he was priest around Shediac and Collette.

The boys were all between nine and 17 years-old.

Arsenault was almost unrecognizable as he appeared in Moncton provincial court Thursday to elect a mode of trial in front of judge Troy Sweet.

He looked around the courtroom appearing confused after being brought in to the prisoner’s box by a sheriff.

He was wearing a blue T-shirt, had grown a beard and appeared heavier since going to prison.

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Anglican vicar arrested at Sunshine church faces court on child porn charges

AUSTRALIA
The Age

Emily Woods

An Anglican vicar who enjoys acting and writing in his spare time has appeared in court on child pornography charges, after he was arrested at his church in suburban Melbourne during a police raid.

Father Philip John Murphy, 52, faced Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday, charged with 10 offences allegedly committed in East Burwood over five months, from September last year to February this year.

Detectives searched the Holy Apostles’ Anglican Church, on Anderson Road in Sunshine West, on Thursday morning and arrested Father Murphy.

Police said the arrest was part of a 12-month investigation into online child exploitation, by the joint anti-child exploitation team.

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‘Miracle babies’ pastor Gilbert Deya extradited to Kenya, to face child trafficking charges

KENYA
The Star

Controversial preacher Gilbert Deya, 65, has been extradited to Kenya to face child trafficking charges.

Deya arrived at 5 am on Friday aboard a KQ flight.

This is after his appeal over the extradition request was rejected by a UK court.

The preacher runs an evangelical church in Peckham, south-east London.

He has been on the list of most wanted persons for human trafficking since 2004.

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Adass: Kluwgant not principal

AUSTRALIA
The Austrlaian Jewish News

The Adass Israel School appears to have backflipped on its appointment of Rabbi Meir Shlomo Kluwgant as principal.

In June, Abe Weiszberger, Adass board secretary wrote to all staff informing them that Rabbi Kluwgant would assume the role of principal and CEO next year. Several victims of child sexual abuse were outraged at the appointment. While there has never been any claim or implication that Rabbi Kluwgant acted inappropriately with children himself, concerns were raised over how he had previously handled issues related to child sexual abuse.

Dassi Erlich, an abuse victim of former Adass principal Malka Leifer, met with the board last week and was informed that Rabbi Kluwgant’s position is not secure.

Weiszberger told Erlich, who was accompanied by former Victoria Premier Ted Baillieu that Rabbi Kluwgant is currently “a consultant” and that he would only take over as principal if victims’ advocacy group Tzedek gave Adass “the go ahead”.

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Ex-priest not in Vic court due to health

AUSTRALIA
9 News

A former Catholic priest accused of historic child sexual abuse in regional and suburban Victoria has not appeared in court for health reasons.

Paul David Ryan, 68, was summonsed to appear in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Friday on seven charges including rape and indecent assault at Warrnambool and the Melbourne suburb of Lower Plenty in the 1980s.

At least some of the allegations relate to a victim aged 16 and 17 at the time.

The court was told Ryan, now living in Western Australia, has prostate cancer and could not be in court for health reasons.

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Tables have turned: priest involved in investigating Apuron now accused of sexual harassment

GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Aug 04, 2017

By Krystal Paco

One of the priests charged with investigating Guam’s Archbishop Anthony Apuron now faces accusations of sexual harassment himself. Could this compromise Apuron’s ongoing canonical trial? It depends on who you ask, as this now has two leading clergy sex abuse victim advocates at odds with one another.

Archbishop Anthony Apuron may be undergoing a canonical trial in Rome, but its Father Justin Wachs, one of the men involved in investigating Apuron, who’s now in the spotlight. On Friday, Survivors Network for Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) Western Regional Leader Joelle Casteix firing at the Vatican for failing to put victims first.

According to South Dakota’s Keloland TV, Father Wachs is subject to allegations of sexual harassment. His accuser alleges that in 2014 the priest touched her in ways that made her feel uncomfortable and sent suggestive texts. Wachs then resigned and was assigned to Rome.

Among his duties – serving as notary for the Tribunal – the group tasked with investigating Apuron in light of four allegations of clergy sex abuse.

Wachs, and other Vatican officials met one by one with Apuron’s accusers in closed door meetings earlier this year.

“We were horribly dismayed to find this out,” said Casteix. “This is a horrible breach of trust. We believe that this puts the entire canonical trial in some state of limbo. How can we trust the process if these are the men they put in charge?” She added, “Those victims were not notified. They were not told that Wachs had these allegations against him. The victims were not allowed to have their attorneys present – they were told that the men in the interview were trustworthy.”

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Priest on Apuron investigation accused of sexual harassment

GUAM
Pacific News Center

By Janela Carrera – August 4, 2017

“The Vatican is full of notaries. They could’ve chosen a million other ones to go to Guam. They didn’t have to choose Justin Wachs.” — Joelle Casteix, SNAP Western Regional Director.

Guam – An alarming twist has surfaced in the canonical trial of Archbishop Anthony Apuron–Father Justin Wachs, one of the investigators from the Vatican who worked on Apuron’s sex abuse case, has been previously accused of sexual harassment but this was never disclosed before Father Wachs paid the Archdiocese of Agana a visit back in February.

Father Wachs was among three Vatican officials who visited Guam back in February with the goal of taking depositions from the alleged victims of ousted Archbishop Anthony Apuron. His role was as a notary—essentially, a note taker.

While no statements were taken during that trip, the tribunal eventually took depositions from other Apuron accusers in the mainland and Hawaii. As it turns out, Father Wachs is no stranger to allegations of sexual misconduct himself. Back in 2014, Wachs was accused of sexual harassment by a parish employee in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

“We have copies of the letters he wrote the woman. We have memos of the meetings where guidelines were set. We have all kinds of stuff that was laid out. We have the alleged victim’s recorded–these meetings,” said Joelle Casteix, western regional director of SNAP or Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

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96th lawsuit against church alleges rape

GUAM
Pacific News Center

By Jolene Toves – August 4, 2017

A.C.J. was only 10 or 11 years old at the time he says he was raped by Raymond Cepeda.

Guam – The Archdiocese of Agana and its agents, “priests,” are charged with the protecting children who are under their care and supervision but according to the latest lawsuit filed in District Court on Thursday, this was not the case.

The latest lawsuit was filed by A.C.J. who was about 10 or 11 years old when he alleges that now-defrocked priest Raymond Cepeda sexually molested and abused him. According to court documents, A.C.J. was an altar server at Santa Barbara Catholic Church in Dededo when Cepeda took him to the sacristy, began touching and rubbing his private area before raping him.

The complaint further states that the Archdiocese knew that Cepeda had sexually abused and molested A.C.J. and other minor children for years, alleging that the Archdiocese did nothing to prevent Cepeda from engaging in additional instances of sexual abuse.

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Netflix’s ‘Keepers’ stars keep fighting for abuse survivors

UNITED STATES
Ocean City Today

By Greg Ellison | Aug 03, 2017

(Aug. 4, 2017) Since the Emmy-nominated Netflix documentary series, “The Keepers,” debuted in May, Ocean City residents Gemma Hoskins and Abbie Schaub’s campaign to solve a nearly half-century-old murder and sexual abuse scandal has gained a global audience.

The seven-part series delves into the November 1969 murder of Sister Cathy Cesnik an instructor at Archbishop Keough High School, a private all-girls Roman Catholic school in Southwest Baltimore. Two months later on Jan. 3, 1970, her body was discovered in a nearby wooded area.

Although still unsolved, former Keough alumni, including Hoskins and Schaub, have connected the Cesnik’s murder to alleged sexual abuse by Father Joseph Maskell.

Victims and others have theorized that Maskell killed Cesnik because she was about to reveal information about the abuse. He was removed from the ministry in 1994 and went to his grave in 2001 denying having any knowledge of abuse at the school. Keough was officially closed this June.

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Shattered faith: Nearly 100 sex abuse suits against Catholic priests rock island of Guam

GUAM
USA Today

Haidee V Eugenio, Steve Limtiaco and Dana M Williams, Pacific Daily News Aug. 4, 2017

Editor’s note: Some details in this report, while important to the understanding of the story, are graphic. Also, the USA TODAY Network does not identify alleged sexual abuse victims who do not wish to come forward.

HAGÅTÑA, Guam — It started off innocently: a 15-year-old boy helping out at San Miguel, a local church named for Archangel Michael, the leader of all angels.

There was yardwork and cleaning, followed by invitations to the rectory to eat and watch TV. Soon, there were offers to drink sacramental wine and watch X-rated movies. Then sexual assault.

More than 50 times over three years.

By the parish priest.

Those jarring allegations come from a recent lawsuit claiming assault from 1985 to 1988. It is one of nearly 100 lawsuits that describe rampant child sexual abuse by some of Guam’s most revered men: the Catholic clergy.

An investigation by the USA TODAY Network’s Pacific Daily News unearthed allegations of decades of assault, manipulation and intimidation of children reared on this remote, predominantly Catholic U.S. territory. Among the accusations: a boy fondled on the way to his grandmother’s burial, and another molested for the first time on his seventh birthday, then raped or assaulted 100 more times.

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Da Capuana a Rotella, i segreti del “gruppo di Lavina” fra santoni e santini (elettorali)

ITALIA
La Sicilia

03/08/2017

di Mario Barresi

Ascesa e (recente) oblìo degli “acchiappavoti”, ben radicati nel cenacolo, dove oggi – dopo l’inchiesta sugli abusi sessuali mascherati da riti religiosi – in molti si chiedono: «Ma dove siamo stati in tutti questi anni?».

ACI BONACCORSI – Il risveglio è un pugno nello stomaco. E una ferita nell’anima, di quelle difficili da far rimarginare. Il chiacchiericcio assurge a cronaca (nera), il pettegolezzo riposto con distratto fastidio in un armadio diventa un rimorso di coscienza. «Ma dove siamo stati in tutti questi anni?».

La domanda rimbalza fra centinaia di persone – tutte perbene – che non riescono a darsi pace. Circa cinquemila, di tutto il Catanese, i frequentatori della “Associazione cattolica cultura e ambiente” con sede ad Aci Bonaccorsi in via Roma 51. Ovvero in quella che era la casa di don Stefano Cavalli, 97 anni, parroco della chiesa di Lavina, frazione di Aci Bonaccorsi. Il sacerdote, morto a 97 anni nell’ottobre del 2015, fu il primo parroco e rettore del Santuario di Maria Ss. Ritornata. Qui tutti lo ricordano, «padre Cavalli».

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L’arcangelo Capuana violentava minorenni e guidava una comunità laica ad Aci Bonaccorsi. Arrestati in quattro VIDEO

ITALIA
Gazzettino

Il rapporto sessuale non come atto fisico, ma come ‘amore pulito, purificatore’. Era il plagio a cui sei minorenni, tre delle quali intanto diventate adulte, sarebbero state sottoposte da Piero Alfio Capuana, bancario di 75 anni in pensione, da 25 anni alla guida di una comunità laica di ispirazione cattolica che, secondo l’accusa, avrebbe violentato ragazzine di età compresa tra i 13 e 15 anni, anche con la complicità delle madri delle vittime.

E’ il quadro che emerge dall’inchiesta ’12 apostoli’ della Procura di Catania che ha portato all’arresto dell’uomo, finito in carcere, e di tre donne poste agli arresti domiciliari: Katia Concetta Scarpignato, di 57 anni, Fabiola Raciti, di 55, e Rosaria Giuffrida, di 57.

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Self-proclaimed ‘Archangel’ arrested for sex abuse in Sicily

ITALY
Crux

Claire Giangravè
EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

The leader of a Catholic lay organization in Sicily, who proclaimed himself to be an Archangel, was arrested August 1 for sexually abusing at least six underage girls with the help of three female accomplices. The association was founded by renowned exorcist and ‘spiritual son’ of Padre Pio, Father Stefano Cavalli, who died in 2015.

ROME – Sexual abuse scandals have dogged the Catholic Church this summer from Australia to Germany, with the latest coming in the small Italian town of Aci Bonaccorsi on the island of Sicily, where four members of a lay movement were arrested August 1 for conspiring to sexually abuse minors.

The lay movement in question was founded by a legendary local priest, Father Stefano Cavalli, who was a spiritual heir of Padre Pio, the famed 20th century Capuchin stigmatic and healer. So revered is Cavalli in Aci Bonaccorsi that the town’s central square is named for him.

According to the allegations, at least six young female members of the ‘Culture and Environment Catholic Association’ were coaxed into performing personal and sexual favors to its leader and Cavalli’s successor, layman Pietro Alfio Capuana, who claims to be the physical manifestation of an Archangel.

Investigations began after a concerned mother found compromising text messages sent by her 15-year-old daughter to a friend discussing the instances of abuse and later warned local authorities.

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Lawsuit Accuses Former Phoenix Bishop of Sexually Abusing Boy

ARIZONA
The New York Times

By MATT STEVENS
AUG. 4, 2017

A Roman Catholic bishop who once led the Diocese of Phoenix has been accused of repeatedly sexually abusing a boy decades ago, according to a lawsuit filed in Arizona Superior Court.

The lawsuit alleges that in the late 1970s and early ’80s, the bishop, Thomas J. O’Brien, placed his hands on the boy’s thighs, kissed him on the lips and performed oral sex on him. A hearing connected to the case was held this week, drawing additional attention to the lawsuit, which was filed last year.

In a telephone interview late Thursday, Tim Hale, the lawyer for the unidentified plaintiff, said the bishop’s acts caused his client to suffer from anxiety, panic attacks and emotional distress.

The abuse, a court document said, also caused the man to repress “all memory” of what had happened.

Mr. Hale said Arizona case law allows victims of childhood sexual abuse to file claims within two years of recovering those memories, regardless of when the crimes may have occurred.

“Recovering these memories has turned his world on its head,” Mr. Hale said of his client. “He’s really concerned about his ability to provide for his family.”

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August 3, 2017

Priest investigating Apuron accused of sexual harassment

GUAM
KUAM

Updated: Aug 03, 2017

By Krystal Paco

A Vatican official recently on Guam and charged with investigating Archbishop Anthony Apuron stands accused of sexual harassment.

Father Justin Wachs previously worked in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. According to Keloland TV, the alleged incidents occurred in 2014 and his accuser is a woman who worked at the parish. The woman alleges the priest would hug her daily, hold her hand, touch her leg, and touch her neck and back down to her waist. The priest also allegedly sent romantic texts during his trips away from the parish.

Wachs, however would be re-assigned to the Vatican. Among his new duties was to investigate the allegations made against Apuron.

In February, Wachs joined Cardinal Raymond L. Burke and Father James Conn on Guam for Apuron’s canonical trial. Though the group attempted to meet with Apuron’s accusers here, they were unsuccessful. They would eventually meet with accusers in the states over the next few months. The canonical trial is near complete, as confirmed by the Archdiocese of Agana who reported a decision should be out any day now.

The matter is unsettling for SNAP’s Joelle Casteix who issued a statement.

“Fr. Justin Wachs, the Notary in Archbishop Anthony Apuron’s Canonical Trial, was presented to these brave survivors and the public as a trustworthy person who, survivors assumed, had never been accused of sexual misconduct. The brave men told Wachs their deeply personal stories of sexual abuse and betrayal. They trusted the Vatican and its representatives so much, that they agreed to speak without their attorneys in the room. The presence of Fr. Wachs—without his disclosing the accusations against him to the survivors, their attorneys, and the Catholic faithful—was a complete violation of that trust.”

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Ex-Catholic bishop of Phoenix accused of sex abuse of boy

ARIZONA
Star Tribune

By JACQUES BILLEAUD Associated Press AUGUST 3, 2017

PHOENIX — A former bishop who led the Roman Catholic church in metro Phoenix during a worldwide child sexual abuse scandal has been accused of molesting a young boy 35 years ago.

Retired Bishop Thomas O’Brien is accused in a lawsuit of sexually abusing the boy on several occasions at parishes in Phoenix and Goodyear from 1977 to 1982. The Diocese of Phoenix says O’Brien denies the allegation.

O’Brien, now 81, led the diocese in Phoenix as it became embroiled in a global scandal that rocked the Catholic Church after allegations surfaced in Boston about pedophile priests going unpunished.

The bishop acknowledged in a 2003 immunity deal that he let church employees accused of sex abuse continue to have contact with children. Weeks after the deal, O’Brien resigned as bishop after he was arrested in the hit-and-run death of a pedestrian.

O’Brien’s accuser says the clergyman sexually abused him when he was a child and he had suppressed his memories of it, said Tim Hale, his lawyer.

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Lawsuit accuses former Phoenix Bishop Thomas O’Brien of abusing boy more than 35 years ago

ARIZONA
The Arizona Republic

Jerod MacDonald-Evoy and Michael Kiefer, The Republic | azcentral.com
Aug. 3, 2017

The former bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, who stepped aside in 2003 after acknowledging he had protected suspected pedophile priests, faces personal accusations of child sexual abuse in a lawsuit filed in Maricopa County Superior Court.

The lawsuit names Bishop Emeritus Thomas O’Brien, the Diocese of Phoenix and three Catholic churches, alleging the plaintiff was the victim of childhood sexual abuse, sexual battery, negligence and fraud.

Filed in September 2016, it accuses O’Brien, now 81, of sexually abusing the plaintiff from 1977 through 1982, when the plaintiff was a boy.

Attempts to reach O’Brien for comment were unsuccessful. No one answered the door at his residence in Phoenix, and phone calls were not returned.

The diocese released a statement from spokesman Robert DeFrancesco.

“Bishop O’Brien was never assigned to any of the parishes or schools identified in the lawsuit,” it said. “Bishop O’Brien categorically denies the allegations.”

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Kin of girl ‘trafficked’ by priest moved to safehouse

PHILIPPINES
Inquirer

By: Jodee A. Agoncillo – Reporter / @jagoncilloINQ
August 04, 2017

The family of a 13-year-old girl who accused a priest of paying her for sex has been moved by the Marikina City government to another house for their own protection.

Marikina Mayor Marcelino Teodoro told the Inquirer on Thursday that they decided to transfer the girl’s family to an undisclosed location after her mother reported receiving threatening phone calls from strangers.

One of the callers identified himself as a Major Rosales from Mandaluyong City who claimed he was the girl’s uncle.

According to the girl’s mother, he angrily demanded to speak to the minor and when she refused, he hinted that it would be better for them to drop the case against Msgr. Arnel Lagarejos.

Another caller also made the same request, asking the mother to not file charges “kung maaari” (if possible) against the 55-year-old parish priest of St. John the Baptist in Taytay, Rizal.

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Vatican tribunal note-taker accused of sexual harassment

GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

Mindy Aguon | The Guam Daily Post Aug 3, 2017

The note-taker for the Vatican tribunal who came to Guam to investigate child sex abuse allegations against Archbishop Anthony Apuron was accused of sexual harassment in his home parish in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Rev. Justin Wachs, the notary and recorder for the tribunal, has faced allegations of sexual harassment filed by a former employee of the Sioux Falls Diocese, according to Keloland Investigation in South Dakota. The woman alleged Wachs inappropriately touched her and interacted with her in 2014.

According to the Keloland report, Wachs and the diocese tried to save the working relationship and establish professional boundaries between the woman and Wachs, but months later, he resigned from the parish and went on medical leave.

The Sioux Falls Diocese has paid nearly $2,000 in co-pays for the victim’s counseling and medical bills as a result of the alleged harassment that Wachs, through a statement from his attorney, disputed.

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Consumer Watchdog Warns Big Tech Is Trying to Pull End Run Around New Bipartisan Congressional Efforts to Hold Backpage.com Accountable

UNITED STATES
Consumer Watchdog

SANTA MONICA, CA – Consumer Watchdog today warned that the tech industry is pressing the Trump Administration to adopt language in a new North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) deal that would protect websites like the notorious Backpage.com that facilitate child sex-trafficking.

The tech industry efforts come as Congress is taking bipartisan steps so websites like Backpage.com can be held accountable by victims and their families. Twenty-one Senators introduced a bill Tuesday, endorsed by Consumer Watchdog, amending a key Internet law to combat such abuses. A similar House bill has 101 co-sponsors.

Tech giants like Google, Facebook and Twitter say that law, Sec. 230 of the Communications Decency Act, protects Internet Freedom and are pushing for similar language in a new NAFTA deal.

“Internet freedom must not come at the expense of children who are sex trafficked,” said John M. Simpson, Consumer Watchdog Privacy Project Director. “Just as the First Amendment does not allow you to shout fire in a crowded movie house, or to assist hit men and drug dealers in their criminal activity, CDA Section 230 must not be allowed to protect an exploitative business that is built on child sex-trafficking. Such language cannot be included in trade agreements.”

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A Vatican Shot Across the Bow for Hard-Line U.S. Catholics

VATICAN CITY
The New York Times

By JASON HOROWITZ
AUG. 2, 2017

VATICAN CITY — Two close associates of Pope Francis have accused American Catholic ultraconservatives of making an alliance of “hate” with evangelical Christians to back President Trump, further alienating a group already out of the Vatican’s good graces.

The authors, writing in a Vatican-vetted journal, singled out Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, as a “supporter of an apocalyptic geopolitics” that has stymied action against climate change and exploited fears of migrants and Muslims with calls for “walls and purifying deportations.”

The article warns that conservative American Catholics have strayed dangerously into the deepening political polarization in the United States. The writers even declare that the worldview of American evangelical and hard-line Catholics, which is based on a literal interpretation of the Bible, is “not too far apart’’ from jihadists.

It is not clear if the article, appearing in La Civiltà Cattolica, received the pope’s direct blessing, but it was extraordinary coming from a journal that carries the Holy See’s seal of approval. There has apparently been no reprimand from the pope, who is not shy about disciplining dissenters, and La Civiltà Cattolica’s editor has promoted the article nearly every day since it was published in July. …

Not long after Francis’ election, Vatican ambassadors briefed the pontiff about various situations around the world and suggested that he be especially careful when appointing bishops and cardinals in the United States.

“I know that already,” the pope interrupted, according to a high-ranking Vatican official familiar with the details of the conversation, who asked that his name not be used while discussing internal Vatican deliberations. “That’s where the opposition is coming from.” …

Massimo Faggioli, a professor of historical theology at Villanova University and a contributor to liberal Catholic journals, said the Civiltà Cattolica article would “be remembered in church history as one of the most important to understand the Vatican of Francis and the United States and American Catholicism.”

American Catholicism, he argued, echoing the article’s thesis, “has become different than mainstream European Catholicism and mainstream Latin American Catholicism,” and has fallen “into the hands of the religious right.” …

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia, a standard-bearer for conservatism in America, likened the Civiltà Cattolica authors in his weekly newsletter to the “useful idiots” who supported the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. He called the article “an exercise in dumbing down and inadequately presenting the nature of Catholic/evangelical cooperation on religious freedom and other key issues.”

If Archbishop Chaput’s own thwarted ambitions are any indication, Francis might not agree. The pope has vexed conservatives by repeatedly declining to elevate Archbishop Chaput to the rank of cardinal, a requirement for entrance into the conclave that will choose the pontiff’s successor.

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Apuron’s victims: Locked in a room with a priest on a run

UNITED STATES
The Worthy Adversary

August 3, 2017 Joelle Casteix

Fr. Justin Wachs was hiding out. After getting caught sexually harassing a parishioner in 2014—touching her without permission and leaving her suggestive notes— he quit his job as pastor in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Church officials thought the “geographic solution” would be best: get him as far away from Sioux Falls as possible. They even had a job for him: investigate allegations of sexual abuse.

Where did he end up? Guam and Hawaii. Locked in rooms with the victims of Archbishop Anthony Apuron … rooms where their attorney, David Lujan, was not allowed.

I have been very vocal in my criticism of the Canonical Trial of suspended Guam Archbishop Anthony Apuron.

For those of you just catching up, Apuron has been accused of child sexual abuse by at least four boys. He’s out of the office for now, replaced by Detroit native Coadjutor Archbishop Michael Byrnes.

The trial process, which will take months—if not years—to complete, is not a criminal process like you or I know it. It is not public, there is no jury, there is no prison sentence.

In fact, I believe that in the end, the decision will be to allow Apuron to live a life of “prayer and penance” on the mainland. And I am betting that the decision will be kept secret.

What does that mean? Whatever Apuron wants it to mean.

Remember: this is not a criminal proceeding. No one is going to drag him off in handcuffs. Most likely, he will collect his retirement and frolic around the mainland, untouched.

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Vic priest charged over child pornography

AUSTRALIA
news.com.au

AUGUST 3, 2017

Christopher Talbot
Australian Associated Press

An Anglican priest has been charged with child pornography offences following police searches at a Melbourne church and home.

The 52-year-old was arrested on Thursday when officers visited a church at suburban Sunshine and a nearby residence, following a 12-month police investigation.

A spokesman for the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne confirmed the man was a priest and said he has been “stood down by the archbishop with immediate effect.”

The church will cooperate fully with the investigation, the spokesman added.

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Storia tra prete e donna sposata: marito risarcito, per la Chiesa sacerdote “riabilitato”

ITALIA
Giornale di Sicilia

01 Agosto 2017

L’AQUILA. Per la love story tra un sacerdote e sua moglie, un marito ha ottenuto dal Tribunale di Roma un risarcimento di 15 mila euro per la depressione in cui era piombato dopo la scoperta del tradimento: i giudici, al termine di un processo durato cinque anni, hanno però condannato solo la donna e non il prelato. Ma c’è di più: il Tribunale, nella sentenza di un anno fa passata in giudicato da sei mesi, ha respinto l’istanza risarcitoria contro il bergamasco don Vito Isacchi, che da anni si è trasferito da Roma all’Aquila, condannando il marito tradito a corrispondere all’adultero in paramenti sacri la somma di 3.200 euro.

E mentre i legali dell’uomo chiedevano alla Chiesa di adottare provvedimenti contro il prete, che secondo loro avrebbe violato il diritto canonico, considerando che nella sentenza veniva certificata, con tanto di prove fornite da un investigatore privato, la relazione extraconiugale, si scopre addirittura che per le autorità ecclesiastiche don Vito è un sacerdote “recuperato”, quindi riabilitato a tutti gli effetti.

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Italian man awarded 15,000 euros after affair between wife and Catholic priest

ITALY
Telegraph (UK)

Josephine McKenna, in Rome
2 AUGUST 2017

An Italian priest has been forced to resign after a Rome court ordered his alleged lover to pay her estranged husband 15,000 euros (£13,400) for depression he suffered over their affair.

The court ruling came at the end of a five-year trial and is the latest in a string of sex scandals to rock the Catholic Church in Italy.

Father Vito Isacchi, the priest named in the court case, tendered his resignation in the archdiocese of L’Aquila on Tuesday after news of the court ruling was made public.

The woman, who has not been named, was ordered to pay thousands of euros, 45-year-old Father Isacchi, known as ‘Don Vito’, was excused from paying any compensation as the court found him “irrelevant” to any violation of the marriage.

In a surprise ruling, the court ordered the cuckolded husband to pay 3,200 euros as a contribution towards the priest’s sacred vestments.

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In solidarity with Msgr. Lagarejos

PHILIPPINES
Manila Bulletin

By Fr. Bel R. San Luis, SVD

I and some SVD confreres who know Monsignor Arnel Lagarejos, a friend of mine, are shocked by the alleged accusation against him.

We deeply sympathize with him and are in deep pain and solidarity over the harrowing experience he is going through now.

* * *

As the official statement of the Diocese of Antipolo rightly puts it: “Let us refrain from issuing unnecessarily comments that might worsen the situation.”

The statement adds that the diocese assures the public “that we respect the necessary procedures as provided by law in order to further investigate the matter.”

* * *

Let us pray that the truth will come out and pray, too, that Msgr. Lagarejos will overcome this most difficult test and tribulation he is going through.

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Family of girl ‘booked’ by priest gets death threats

PHILIPPINES
Inquirer

By: Jodee A. Agoncillo – Reporter / @jagoncilloINQPhilippine Daily Inquirer
August 03, 2017

The family of the 13-year-old girl who was allegedly pimped out by her friend to a priest has sought help from police after receiving death threats and phone calls from suspicious people.

Eastern Police District director, Chief Supt. Romulo Sapitula, on Wednesday said he had ordered the Marikina police to provide protection to the girl and her family.

The threats and suspicious phone calls were reported to authorities by the victim’s mother, he added.

On July 28, Msgr. Arnel Lagarejos, parish priest of St. John the Baptist in Taytay, Rizal, was arrested in Marikina as he was bringing the girl to a motel. According to the minor, the priest had “booked” her twice before through her 16-year-old friend.

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‘Not even one centavo’ for bail of priest charged with trafficking — CBCP official

PHILIPPINES
GMA News

A high-ranking church official said the Catholic Church did not pay for the bail of the priest, who allegedly solicited sex with a 13 year-old girl, according to a post on the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) website.

“Not even one centavo,” Archbishop Oscar Cruz was quoted as saying.

Cruz, the head of the Church’s clergy dispensation office, was referring to 55-year-old Msgr. Arnel Lagarejos, who was arrested on Friday night in an entrapment operation while he was about to enter a motel with the girl.

Lagarejos, who is facing criminal charges for violating RA 9208 or the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act, posted a bail bond of P120,000 on Tuesday.

Cruz said priests accused of any criminal offense are responsible for their own legal expenses.

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Cardinal George Pell Is on Trial, and So Is Australia

UNITED STATES
These Stone Walls

POSTED BY FR. GORDON J. MACRAE ON AUGUST 2, 2017

The trial of Cardinal George Pell for “historic” sexual abuse claims is underway in Australia, but the state of Australian justice also has the world’s attention.

“Trial by Media.” The ominous term has already been a part of the public record in regard to Australia’s Cardinal George Pell. I used the term myself in a post two years ago entitled, “Peter Saunders and Cardinal Pell: A Trial by Media.”

The concern for the poisoning of justice through leaks to a toxic and predatory news media is nothing new, but “Trial by Media” hangs like the burial shroud of justice itself over the trial of Cardinal Pell on 40-year-old claims of sexual abuse.

Lest anyone doubt the power of the media to both generate such claims and shape justice and due process in a case like this, consider a recent issue of The Week, a popular weekly news magazine. The Week presents itself as “The Best of the U.S. and International Media.” It selects excerpts from online media and newspapers throughout the world and presents them as the best written accounts of the week’s top stories.

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Mom of alleged teen abuse victim sues San Gabriel Mission High School, former athletic director

CALIFORNIA
Pasadena Star-News

By City News Service
POSTED: 08/02/17

LOS ANGELES >> The mother of a teenager who was allegedly seduced and taken to Nevada by the then-athletic director of San Gabriel Mission High School filed a lawsuit on behalf of her daughter against the school, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the coach, court papers obtained today show.

The Pico Rivera teen is identified only as Jane Doe in the Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit filed Tuesday. Her alleged abuser, Ivan Barajas, was criminally prosecuted in Nevada, according to the suit, which alleges sexual abuse of a minor, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligent hiring, supervision and retention, and breach of a required duty to report suspected child abuse.

Before Barajas allegedly began abusing the plaintiff, another coach at the school and a parent both expressed concern that he was having inappropriate relationships with underage female students, the suit states.

Despite having such knowledge, the archdiocese and the school administrators did not investigate the claims and allowed Barajas to continue working, according to the lawsuit, which seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

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Christian Brothers are ‘disappointed’ by school’s legal action

IRELAND
Irish Times

Colm Keena

The Christian Brothers have expressed their “enormous disappointment” at the decision of the board of management of Clonkeen College in south Dublin to take legal action over the sale of its playing fields.

The board lodged legal proceedings in the High Court last month and has secured a lis pendens, or notice of the existence of a legal dispute, in relation to the disputed property.

The congregation said it was “enormously disappointed that the board of management has sought to take legal action against its most consistent and significant benefactor”.

It said that, as the matter was now before the courts, it would not be appropriate for it to comment further. It is understood the Brothers now want the case to proceed to hearing as soon as possible.

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Abuse redress scheme heads to parliament

AUSTRALIA
SBS

AAP

Laws to provide money, counselling and personal responses to survivors of institutional child sexual abuse will go to federal parliament in the spring sittings.

A national scheme with states, territories and non-government institutions able to join on a “‘responsible entity pays” basis was a key recommendation of the royal commission.

Redress under the scheme will have three parts: a payment of up to $150,000, psychological counselling and a direct personal response and acknowledgement from the responsible institution.

The 2017/18 budget committed $33.4 million to set up the scheme and confirmed funding for support services.

A dedicated telephone helpline and website is expected to be operating in early 2018 to provide information to survivors and their families about the scheme.

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Abused as children, victims may get more time to sue

GEORGIA
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

By Alan Judd – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Christopher Gaba thought he was the only one.

He could not imagine that others who attended the Darlington School in Rome, Georgia, also had been sexually abused. He certainly had no idea that others had accused the same teacher who molested him.

So he said nothing. The statute of limitations for a civil case passed years ago. But this summer, other Darlington alumni went public with allegations of decades-old abuse. “After more than 30 years,” Gaba said, “I realized I wasn’t alone.”

Gaba exemplifies the need for new laws governing civil cases by adults who were abused as children, state legislators and attorneys said at a news conference Wednesday in the Georgia Capitol.

Current laws “protect child predators and deny justice to abuse survivors,” said state Rep. Jason Spencer (R-Woodbine). Spencer is sponsoring House Bill 605, which would allow victims to sue not only abusers but also institutions that sheltered them.

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Sex abuse litigation prompted effort to update state law regarding statute of limitations

GEORGIA
Gainesville Times

By Nick Watson
nwatson@gainesvilletimes.com
@NickWatsonTimes
POSTED: August 2, 2017

The sponsor of 2015 Georgia General Assembly legislation that extended the statute of limitations on childhood sexual abuse civil lawsuits is now supporting a tougher bill.

State Rep. Jason Spencer, R-Woodbine, held a press conference at the Capitol Wednesday morning surrounded by victims’ advocates and those who have filed litigation under the Hidden Predator Act.

The act allowed for a two-year civil suit window that expired July 1, and a number of cases were filed before the expiration date.

One includes Robert William Lawson III, who filed a suit last year involving former Gainesville scoutmaster Royal Fleming Weaver Jr. and the First Baptist Church of Gainesville. The case is still pending in Cobb County Superior Court.

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Church didn’t pay for arrested priest’s bail—archbishop

PHILIPPINES
Inquirer

By: Pathricia Ann V. Roxas – @inquirerdotnet

Archbishop Emeritus Oscar Cruz said the Church did not pay for the bail of a Taytay priest who was arrested for “booking” a 13-year-old girl for sex.

“Not even one centavo,” Cruz said in a statement posted on the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) website Wednesday.

This is following the release of suspended Catholic priest Monsignor Arnel Lagarejos of the Diocese of Antipolo after posting bail worth P120,000 on Tuesday.

Lagarejos, parish priest of St. John the Baptist in Taytay, Rizal, was accused of violating the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act for bringing a minor in a motel in Marikina City on July 28.

“Priests accused of any criminal offence are responsible for their own legal costs,” said Cruz, the Church’s lead investigator in Lagarejos’ case.

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Jack the Insider: jail those who cover up sex abuse

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

August 3, 2017

JACK THE INSIDER
ColumnistCanberra
@JacktheInsider

From hippy spiritual groups to the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, the Salvation Army, Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Uniting Church, Yeshiva schools in Melbourne and Sydney, Scouts Australia, disability service providers, the Australian Defence Force, the YMCA, hospitals, orphanages, sporting and artistic organisations, government and non-government schools have all been in the gun over the last four years.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse established in 2013 has ceased its public hearings. Its final report will be presented to the federal government in December.

We have lost a great deal of focus as events have unfolded. The media reporting has caused many of the problems, rattling the skeletons of an old unloved and unlovable sectarian Australia and obsessed with gotcha moments as if victims’ pain can only find some expression when a big name comes to grief in a public hearing.

In the wake of the Commission’s investigations, offenders certainly should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and those who have covered up, moving the offenders on to new groups of unsuspecting children, should be publicly shamed.

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Former Dededo altar boy

GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

Mindy Aguon | mindy@postguam

A former altar boy at Santa Barbara Catholic Church has filed a civil lawsuit alleging he was sexually abused when he was 10. He filed the lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Agana and former priest Raymond Cepeda.

ACJ, who filed using his initials to protect his identity, alleges Cepeda sexually molested and abused him while he served as an altar boy at the Dededo parish in 1980.

Cepeda was the priest at Santa Barbara Church in the early 80s and resided at the rectory.

The plaintiff, who is represented by Attorney David Lujan, alleges that one day after Mass and cleaning the church, Cepeda instructed the boy to follow him to the sacristy.

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Lawsuit alleges priest raped boy waiting to be picked up after Mass

GUAM
Pacific Daily News

Steve Limtiaco, Pacific Daily News Aug. 3, 2017

A former Dededo altar boy has sued the Archdiocese of Agana and former priest Raymond Cepeda for $5 million, accusing Cepeda of molesting and raping him in the early 1980s while he was waiting for his parents to pick him up after Mass.

The federal lawsuit, by a plaintiff identified with the initials A.J.C., is the 96th lawsuit filed in federal or local court accusing clergy members or other people associated with the church of sexually abusing children. Dozens of those cases have been put on hold in federal court in anticipation of a mediation process later this year.

It’s the 10th lawsuit accusing Cepeda of abusing children. He was defrocked by the church around 2010 following allegations of sexual abuse.

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August 2, 2017

PGR investiga denuncias de abuso contra menores de dos albergues

LEóN (MEXICO)
Diario de Morelos [Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico]

August 2, 2017

Read original article

La instancia federal informó que se abrió una carpeta de investigación para esclarecer las denuncias que surgieron en los albergues ‘Ciudad de los Niños’ y ‘Ciudad Juvenil’

La Procuraduría General de la República (PGR), inició una carpeta de investigación por abusos en contra de menores que se encontraban en los albergues “Ciudad de los Niños” y “Ciudad Juvenil” de Guanajuato y Michoacán.

El gobierno federal explicó que la investigación fue abierta en coordinación con la Fiscalía Especial para los Delitos de Violencia contra las Mujeres y Trata de Personas (FEVIMTRA), en términos de la Ley General para Prevenir Sancionar y erradicar los Delitos en Materia de Trata de Personas y para la protección y Asistencia a las Víctimas de esos delitos, en agravio de niñas, niños y adolescentes.

Al informar sobre el inició de la investigación, la PGR comentó que mientras se llevan a cabo las indagatorias, la atención a las niñas, niños y adolescentes, que aún se encuentran albergados en estos centros asistenciales, es supervisada por el Sistema Estatal para el Desarrollo Integral de la Familia (DIF) de Guanajuato, en coordinación con el Sistema Estatal de Protección a Niñas Niños y Adolescentes (SIPINNA) del mismo estado.

La PGR puso el número telefónico 01800 00 854 00 y 0155 53462516, así como el correo electrónico fevimtra@pgr.gob.mx para que las personas que fueron víctimas de algún delito en los albergues, denuncien, ofreciendo las garantías de reserva y protección en términos de las leyes aplicables.

Los abusos en contra de los menores fueron dados a conocer hace dos semanas, luego de que una jueza federal ordenó reubicar a 134 niños y 80 jóvenes de la Ciudad de los Niños Salamanca, por abusos físicos y sexuales. Otra de las irregularidades, fue que el sacerdote Pedro Gutiérrez, director del plantel, registró irregularmente como sus hijos a los menores.

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Court system is unfair and traumatic for child sexual abuse victims, inquiry chair says

AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

Calla Wahlquist
Wednesday 2 August 2017

The court process is unfair and often traumatic for child victims of sexual abuse, the chair of the royal commission into institutional child sexual abuse has said.

In a speech delivered at a conference in Sydney on Wednesday, Justice Peter McClellan said that reliance on cross examination in criminal trials, which was intended to help juries determine the truth of any particular witnesses’ claim, was damaging to vulnerable witnesses like children or victims of sexual abuse.

The royal commission is expected to recommend changes to the trial process when it hands down its final report on 15 December. Among the options being considered, McClellan said, are introducing to all states and territories the Queensland crime of persistent sexual offences, which does not require the victim to recall the details of specific incidents.

Other options under consideration are providing a standard document to all complainants and witnesses explaining the process of giving evidence; introducing victim intermediary schemes; and recommending the further use of special hearings that would allow complainants to give evidence and be cross-examined several months before the jury is empanelled.

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Retired Judge Behind P120K Bail Approval for Priest Who Was Arrested for Trafficking 13-Year Old Girl?

PHILIPPINES
Philippine News Courier

Rev. Msgr. Arnel Lagarejos, the Catholic priest who was arrested in Markina City last Friday night for allegedly trying to sexually abuse a 13-year old girl is now a free man. The suspect priest was released Tuesday afternoon, August 1 after he was allowed to post a P120,000-bail. Apparently, a retired judge was believed to have influenced the decision.

“All along when I go to sleep Monday my gut feeling was that the priest would be denied bail. But when I woke up this morning I was surprised that it was the pimp who was denied bail,” Marikina Mayor Marcelino Teodoro told reporters Tuesday, as he expressed his dismay over the decision to free Fr. Arnel Lagarejos for his human trafficking case.

Mayor Teodoro added that he has received reports that a retired judge was behind the bail recommendation for Fr. Arnel Lagarejos. And although he did not reveal further details, the city mayor said he will be looking into it very closely. Nevertheless, he noted that the prosecutor’s decisions were based on the gravity of the documents provided by the police.

Based on the documents, Fr. Arnel Lagarejos, the parish priest of St. John the Baptist Parish in Taytay, Rizal when he arrested, only “used” a trafficked person while the pimp was the one trafficking the 13-year old girl. Apparently, this is the reason why the suspect priest was only charged for violating Republic Act 9208, of the anti-human trafficking law.

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Sons of murdered mum Maria James want priest’s body exhumed as cold case evidence bungle reveale

AUSTRALIA
9 News – A Current Affair

The sons of a woman brutally stabbed to death in Melbourne’s north in 1980 have called for the exhumation of a Catholic priest’s body for DNA testing as an evidence bungle comes to light.

Victoria Police have admitted an exhibit from the murder scene of Maria James – one that had been used to eliminate suspects – was in fact from another case.

A Current Affair can also reveal the quilt cover police took from Mrs James’ home as an exhibit in the investigation, is now missing.

Nearly 40 years ago, the mother of two was stabbed 68 times while on the phone to her ex-husband, in the Thornbury bookstore that was her home and workplace.

Her ex-husband, John James, grew concerned after claiming to hear screaming over the phone, and went to the store to investigate.

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Provisional, suspensión de Tomás Herrera

MEXICO
Dossier Politico

El arzobispo de Hermosillo, Ruy Rendón Sánchez, quien dijo estar fuera de la ciudad tomándose unos días de descanso, expresó que en esta semana platicará el padre Tomás para seguir analizando lo sucedido…

César Fraijo Dossier Politico
Dia de publicación: 2017-08-01

Hermosillo, Sonora (DP).- Queda suspendido el “nombramiento verbal” de Administrador de la Parroquia San Pedro Apostal al padre Tomas Herrera Seco, luego de que éste último evidenciara su vida sexual en un medio de comunicación.

El arzobispo de Hermosillo, Ruy Rendón Sánchez, quien dijo estar fuera de la ciudad tomándose unos días de descanso, expresó que en esta semana platicará el padre Tomás para seguir analizando lo sucedido.

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Condom-carrying Mexican priest under investigation

MEXICO
Crux

Inés San Martín
VATICAN CORRESPONDENT

After Father Tomás Herrera Seco said in a video interview that he always carries a condom because “he might need it,” and that sexual flings are a good thing because “affection is a gift, a wonder,” he’s been placed under investigation by his bishop and barred from the parish where he had been serving. Herrera also asked his brother priests not to condemn him.

A Mexican priest who said during a recent media interview that he always carries a condom because “he might need it,” is being investigated by his diocese and, pending further notice, has been banned from the parish where he’s been informally serving.

“I always carry my condom ready if necessary, because having a fling is never disagreeable to anyone, and gives one emotional stability,” said Father Tomás Herrera Seco in a video interview with an online news site called Proyecto Puente (Project Bridge).

“The condom is just in case I need to use it. I lead a chaste sexual life, if I carry it is to use it if it’s needed. I haven’t needed it so far, but never say ‘I shall not drink from this water’,” he said on July 20.

In truth, Herrera actually hasn’t worked as a priest for years. He was a state employee during the administration of former governor Guillermo Perez (2009-2015), and served as the main counselor on ethics and morals for public employees in the state of Sonora, which shares the U.S.-Mexico border with the states of Arizona and New Mexico. According to news-site El Universal, he trained 3,300 public employees in his job.

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Former Tallahassee youth pastor facing additional charges

FLORIDA
WTXL

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) – A former Tallahassee youth pastor is facing five additional charges for lewd and lascivious acts with victims ranging from 11 to 15 years in age.

The Leon County Sheriff’s Office says that five additional warrants were issued for Roshad Thomas.

Thomas’ new charges are as follows: Lewd and Lascivious Acts on Child Older than 12 (3), Lewd and Lascivious Acts on Child Younger than 12 (1), Lewd and Lascivious Exhibitionism on Child Older than 12 (1).

On July 17, 41-year-old Thomas was arrested on six counts of sex offense against a child.

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Youth pastor facing more child sex charges

FLORIDA
Tallahassee Democrat

Karl Etters, Democrat staff writer Aug. 1, 2017

A youth pastor who in July was charged with six counts of child fondling is facing additional charges.

Warrants for three counts of lewd and lascivious acts or exhibitionism with children were issued against Roshad Thomas Tuesday.

Thomas, 41, is being held in the Leon County Jail on $215,000 bond after his arrest July 17.

According to the Leon County Sheriff’s Office, the victims related to the new charges were between 11 and 15 years old at the time of the incidents.

Investigators did not detail how the new charges came about.

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Priest caught with young girl freed on P120,000 bail

PHILIPPINES
The Manila Times

BY NEIL ALCOBER, TMT ON AUGUST 1, 2017

THE Marikina City Prosecutor’s Office allowed Msgr. Arnel Lagarejos, the priest caught with a 13-year-old girl while on the way to a motel over the weekend, to post bail and was released from detention at 2:49 p.m. on Tuesday.

In a resolution, Prosecutors Nikolai Salinas, Ricardo Paet Jr. and Linda Adame-Conos granted Lagarejos’ petition and was allowed to post bail of P120,000.

Lagarejos is facing a complaint for violation of Republic Act 9208 or the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act.

The Prosecutors, however, did not recommend bail for the 16-year-old gay who allegedly pimped the 13-year-old girl to Lagarejos.

The alleged pimp, being a minor, is now under the custody of the Department of Social Welfare and Development.

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Catholic priest caught taking 13-year-old girl to hotel faces Vatican investigation

PHILIPPINES
International Business Times

By Jordan Bhatt
August 2, 2017

A priest in the Philippines has been stripped of his post after he was caught driving with a 13-year-old girl to a hotel.

Arnel Fuentes Lagarejos, a parish priest at St John the Baptist Parish in Marikina, to the east of Manila, and president of Cainta Catholic College, is now facing allegations of child abuse.

He paid the girl 500 Philippine Pesos (£7.49) to meet her at a shopping centre and take her away.

The former priest was caught as part of an entrapment sting which had been called for by the girl’s mother.

Concerns were raised when the girl informed social workers about the abuse and the mother called the authorities.

He now faces charges for violating the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act.

Officials used the girl’s social media to find out that the person selling her to the priest was a 16-year-old.

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Church of England vicar, 60, dies ‘after setting fire to himself at Hampshire rectory’ while being investigated by police

UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

A senior Church of England vicar who was being investigated by police has died after unconfirmed reports that he set fire to himself.

The Rev Martyn Neale, 60, a member of the General Synod, was found dead at his rectory in the village of Hawley, Hampshire, on Tuesday. Friends described Father Neale, who was not married and lived alone, as a ‘quietly-spoken but caring’ priest who had worked as the vicar for Hawley, in the Diocese of Guildford, for 20 years.

The diocese said he had been suspended ‘as a consequence of an ongoing police investigation’.

Father Neale became a member of the Church’s ‘parliament’, the General Synod, earlier this year and recently attended his first meeting in York. A prominent traditionalist, he was a council member of the pressure group Forward in Faith, which opposes women priests.

Two weeks ago his congregation at Holy Trinity was told that he had been suspended pending the outcome of the police inquiry, but no details were given.

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FATHER TRAGEDY ‘Quietly spoken’ vicar, 60, died after ‘setting himself on fire at his village rectory

UNITED KINGDOM
The Sun

By Guy Birchall
30th July 2017

A SENIOR vicar in the Church of England who was under investigation by police has died after reportedly ‘setting fire to himself’.

The Rev Martyn Neale was found dead at his village rectory in Hawley, Hampshire on Tuesday.

Pals described the 60-year-old General Synod member as a “quietly spoken but caring” clergyman who had worked in the village for 20 years.

The Mail on Sunday reports that the Diocese of Guildford said that Rev Neale had been suspended “as a consequence of an ongoing police investigation”.

Earlier this year he became a part of the C of E’s legislative body, the General Synod, attending his first meeting in York.

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Vicar who set fire to himself in rectory had been suspended from church after ‘ongoing police investigation’

UNITED KINGDOM
Mirror

ANNA SLATER

A senior church vicar set fire to himself at his rectory after he was suspended as part of an “ongoing police investigation.”

The Rev Martyn Neale died in dramatic circumstances on Tuesday – two weeks after the Diocese of Guildford temporarily removed him from his role.

No details about the nature of the investigation have been given.

The 60-year-old had been a member of the General Synod and a Church of England vicar for Hawley for 20 years.ER

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August 1, 2017

Child sex abuse royal commission chair calls for change as cases double but conviction rates fall

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Jean Kennedy

The chair of the royal commission into child sex abuse is calling for legal changes to help victims, saying in a speech to be delivered today that while the number of cases before the courts has almost doubled in recent years, conviction rates are down and the number of acquittals has risen.

Justice Peter McClellan is calling for changes to legal processes and the rules of evidence to ensure victims are given the best chance of receiving justice.

In a speech to be delivered to a conference in Sydney today, Justice McClellan said the work of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse had seen many more victims coming forward to police.

But official data shows conviction rates are down and the chances of an offender being acquitted have risen rather than fallen.

Justice McClellan said some victims who had been through the process of a criminal trial had spoken of the trauma involved in giving evidence, with some characterising it as “as bad as the abuse itself”.

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Criminal Justice Issues for the Royal Commission

AUSTRALIA
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

Wednesday 2 August, 2017

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

In our system of criminal justice the victim of an offence is not given a central role. This was not always the case.

Historically the role of the state in the criminal trial process was very limited. Criminal disputes were considered private matters. Until the start of the 1400s, the laying of charges and the conduct of the prosecution was performed almost exclusively by the victim or their family.[1]

Over the next three centuries the royal courts and officers of royal justice would exercise increasing influence in the criminal justice process, conducting both investigations and prosecutions.[2] However, victims remained, in many cases, responsible for apprehending the offender, filing charges, collecting evidence and running the trial.[3]

With the coming of the Industrial Revolution, and as cities became more densely populated, the criminal justice process began to change and ultimately became the modern adversarial trial.[4] The rise in crime associated with increasingly dense populations led government to offer incentives for the apprehension of criminals.[5] Miscarriages of justice resulted from increases in false evidence.[6] Accused were regularly imprisoned before trial and, accordingly, faced difficulties in preparing a defence. The evidence against an accused was not disclosed before trial. They could not subpoena witnesses.[7]

The disadvantaged position of the accused ultimately led to changes in the criminal trial process. The most significant change was to allow the accused to be legally represented.[8] The presence of defence counsel encouraged the development of rules of evidence and the modern style of cross-examination. The core elements of the modern adversarial trial began to appear: the judge as neutral arbiter, the jury as passive observer, and defence counsel advising their clients to remain silent and put the prosecution to proof.[9]

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Priest in trafficking of minor case posts bail

PHILIPPINES
Inquirer

By: Jodee A. Agoncillo, Tina G. Santos – @inquirerdotnet

Msgr. Arnel Lagarejos, a 55-year-old priest who was arrested while taking a 13-year-old girl to a motel, was released late Tuesday afternoon after posting bail worth P120,000, according to Chief Supt. Romulo Sapitula, Eastern Police District director.

Marikina City Prosecutor Ricardo Paet Jr. recommended the bail.

Accompanied by his lawyer, Lagarejos came out of the Marikina City Police Station around 3 p.m.

Lagarejos, parish priest of the Parish of St. John the Baptist in Taytay, Rizal , was accused of violating the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act.

He underwent inquest proceedings on Saturday afternoon, July 28, following his arrest around 6:30 p.m. near Blue Wave Mall on Sumulong Highway in Barangay Sto. Niño in Marikina.

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Diocese in Philippines will “fully cooperate” after priest arrested for child prostitution

PHILIPPINES
Crux

After the arrest of a priest for hiring a child prostitute, the Diocese of Antipolo in the Philippines issued a statement saying it “condemns in the strongest terms possible the trafficking in persons,” adding that “history will prove the claim that the Church, at various times in its history, has been the liberation of trafficked persons.”

A diocese in the Philippines said it “will not condone trafficking in persons” after a priest was arrested in a child prostitution sting conducted by local police, adding that it will “fully cooperate” with the investigation.

Monsignor Arnel Lagarejos, 55, was arrested on July 28 after arranging a meeting with a 13-year-old prostitute through her pimp in Marikina City, which is in the greater Manila region.

Police said the priest already had two previous encounters with the same girl.

Marikina police official Roger Quesada told The Inquirer, a local newspaper, that the girl did not know he was a priest.

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Mother sues Dallas JCC alleging employee raped her 14-year-old daughter

TEXAS
JTA

(JTA) — A mother has sued the Aaron Family JCC of Dallas alleging that a fitness center employee molested and raped her then-14-year-old daughter.

The lawsuit, which was filed earlier in July, also names the Jewish community center’s CEO, Artie Allan, and the Jewish Community Center Association of North America, the Dallas Morning News reported.

The mother and daughter are not named in the lawsuit, according to the newspaper.

The suit alleges that when the mother tried to talk to Allen about the fact that the employee was harassing her daughter and rumors they may be dating — before she knew about the molesting and rape. Allen allegedly responded that “it takes two to tango.”

According to the lawsuit, the assaults began in 2014, when the unnamed employee began stalking the girl, who is now an adult, when he trained her at the JCC gym. The lawsuit charged that the employee also molested, sexually assaulted, threatened and raped her at the center and off-site.

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Teen repeatedly raped by fitness trainer at Dallas Jewish community center, lawsuit alleges

TEXAS
The Dallas Morning News

Claire Ballor, Breaking news reporter

A woman is suing the Aaron Family Jewish Community Center of Dallas, alleging that her 14-year-old daughter was molested and raped repeatedly by a fitness center employee.

The mother, who is not named in the lawsuit, says she only knew that the man was harassing her daughter when she complained several times to the center’s staff.

She alleges that when she confronted CEO Artie Allen about the employee’s behavior and rumors that her daughter was dating the 24-year-old, Allen told her, “It takes two to tango.”

Allen, who is also being sued, along with the Jewish Community Center Association of North America, declined to comment.

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Sex abuse survivors push for ex-GG to lose pension

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

August 2, 2017

HEDLEY THOMAS
National Chief Correspondent
Brisbane

Peter Hollingworth’s “misleading” evidence to a child sexual abuse inquiry when he was governor-general should cost him his vice-regal pension and other ­public benefits totalling $500,000 a year, according to survivors of abuse in the Diocese of Brisbane.

They say fresh adverse findings in February against Dr Hollingworth, the Anglican Church’s former archbishop of Brisbane, by the current Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse have not been well understood or scrutinised at a time of high interest in the Catholic Church and Cardinal George Pell.

The findings include that he misled a formal child sexual abuse investigation, called the Brisbane Inquiry, in December 2002 when he was governor-­general and under pressure to explain his handling of serious cases of pedophilia in the diocese during his 12 years as archbishop.

He misled the Brisbane inquiry in 2002 about his contact with people, including victims who had brought the molestation to his personal attention early in the piece in the 1990s.

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Turning a blind eye to child sexual abuse

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

August 2, 2017

HEDLEY THOMAS
National Chief Correspondent
Brisbane

When Australia’s ongoing $500 million Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse makes a legally binding finding that a governor-general, Peter Hollingworth, misled an earlier child sexual abuse inquiry about his ­direct knowledge and handling of a priest’s pedophilia, should anything happen?

Can taxpayer-funded entitlements of more than $500,000 a year for a vice-regal pension and other perks be withheld from someone found this year to have misled an inquiry at the time he held the country’s highest public office 15 years ago?

These are questions Malcolm Turnbull has been asked to consider for child sexual abuse sur­vivors. They are perplexed that the commission’s adverse findings in February this year went largely under the public radar but say Hollingworth should nevertheless be parted from a public purse that has paid out more than $6m for his pension and expenses since he resigned as Australia’s 23rd governor-general.

The historical context is key. During a term as governor-general that lasted just 23 months until he quit amid public opprobrium in May 2003, Hollingworth, the former Anglican archbishop of Brisbane, faced grave accusations about his role in an alarming series of child sexual abuse cases in the diocese. The perpetrators were clergy and teachers in the Anglican churches and schools while he was in charge for 12 years until 2001.

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Former governor-general Peter Hollingworth slammed for sex abuse evidence to Brisbane Inquiry

AUSTRALIA
The Courier-Mail

Staff writers, News Corp Australia Network

SEX abuse survivors want former governor-general Peter Hollingworth to lose his $500,000-a-year pension for “misleading” a sex abuse inquiry.

The Australian reports that sex abuse survivors believe findings announced in February by the current Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse have been brushed over.

Those findings include that he misled the Brisbane Inquiry into sexual abuse back in December 2002 when he was governor-general.

Dr Hollingworth, the Anglican Church’s former archbishop of Brisbane, is said to have misled the inquiry about his contact with those who had brought the molestation claims to his attention in the 1990s.

He had knowledge of the chances of further abuse by serial-offending priest, John Elliot, but let him continue in the parish and retire with benefits.

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Lawyer said evidence exists to press charges over John Mountford St Peter’s College abuse case

AUSTRALIA
The Advertiser

Exclusive — Nigel Hunt, The Advertiser

A SENIOR Adelaide criminal barrister believes there is enough evidence to press charges over the John Mountford St Peter’s College abuse controversy.

In a lengthy legal opinion, barrister Michael Woods’ view is that it was “abundantly clear’’ the three individuals who dealt with Mountford the day he admitted to abusing a Year 10 St Peter’s College student should have immediately reported it to police.

The trio were former archbishop Dr Ian George, former St Peter’s College headmaster Richard Burchnall and his deputy Ray Stanley.

“They were obliged to report it to Family and Community Services and to the police,’’ Mr Woods states in his legal opinion, obtained by The Advertiser.

“In our view, the headmaster and deputy headmaster had a clear duty of care to other students at the school to launch a proper investigation in order to establish whether this was an isolated incident or a wider course of conduct.’’

The legal opinion was commissioned by the mother of one of Mountford’s abuse victims, David, who has fought for justice for her son since learning of his abuse in 1992.

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Former Vic priest faces 1970s sex offences

AUSTRALIA
9 News

A former Catholic priest has appeared briefly in a Melbourne court via video link facing historical sex charges dating back to the 1970s.

Frank Klep, 74, is facing four charges of indecent assault against a male, with the alleged offences occurring between 1976 and 1982 while he was a priest and teacher at Salesian College Rupertswood at Sunbury.

The matter was adjourned in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on Monday, with Klep due to reappear via video link on August 25.

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Netflix’s ‘The Keepers’: Agenda-Driven Filmmaking Exploits a Nun’s Murder

UNITED STATES
TheMediaReport

The 1969 unsolved disappearance and murder of a Baltimore nun, Sister Catherine Cesnik, certainly has all the makings of a compelling whodunnit. “Who killed Sister Cathy?” the trailer asks.

However, The Keepers, a multi-part “documentary” about the case airing on Netflix, is nothing but a bleary-eyed scavenger hunt trafficking in speculation, innuendo, rumor, discredited science, and a healthy heap of anti-Catholic bigotry. Anyone looking for an honest and clear-thinking analysis of this case will not find it here.

How can anyone believe this?

The central thesis of The Keepers is that an alleged abusive priest, the now-deceased Rev. Joseph Maskell, can be tied to the disappearance and murder of Sr. Cathy. However, some of the central accusers in all of this, who claim that Maskell sexually abused them when they were young girls, have quite a bit of explaining to do.

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PHIL MCLAUGHLIN, COUNSELOR, MENTOR & FORMER N.H. ATTORNEY GENERAL, TO RETIRE

NEW HAMPSHIRE
Laconia Daily Sun

LACONIA — “It was a job,” said attorney Philip McLaughlin, reflecting on his career at the bar in anticipation of closing his practice by the end of the year. “You follow the facts, do your job and be loyal to your client. Just do your job and the rest will take care of itself.”

The son of a Nashua police officer, McLaughlin graduated from the College of the Holy Cross, served four years as a deck officer in the United States Navy and earned his law degree at Boston College in 1974. He explained that he learned not to give orders in the Navy, where seamen were more likely to respect officers who asked rather than commanded. At law school he discovered his academic limits in a class on trusts and estates, when instead of preparing the required estate plan he photocopied a model plan, attributed it to its author and confessed to the puzzled instructor he could not improve on it. …

When allegations of sexual abuse of children by members of the priesthood came to light, he negotiated an agreement by which the Catholic Diocese of Manchester acknowledged its failures and agreed to cooperate with the state. The diocese released 10,000 documents which after a ten month investigation supported a 154-page report. “The state was prepared to prove,” the report read, “that the diocese consciously chose to protect itself and its priests from scandal, lawsuits, and criminal charges, instead of protecting minor parishioners under its care from continual sexual abuse by priests.”

Jim Rosenberg, who with Will Delker, the head of the criminal division, undertook the inquiry, said that McLaughlin was the architect of the approach that eschewed criminal proceedings against the church hierarchy in favor of full disclosure and a commitment to cooperate with law enforcement. Rosenberg said that the outcome was preferable to what could have been expected from criminal proceedings. Noting that McLaughlin assembled a coalition of victim advocates and law enforcement officials, he stressed that “creative remedies were achieved by Phil’s leadership.”

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East Columbus pastor charged with sexually assaulting three young girls

OHIO
NBC 4i

[with video]

By Ted Hart
Published: July 31, 2017

COLUMBUS (WCMH) – An east side pastor is jailed, accused of sexually assaulting three young girls in his church office.

Pastor Guillermo Quintanilla, from The El Shadai Church of God on South Hamilton Rd. is charged with rape, sexual battery and two counts of gross sexual imposition.

According to court documents, the first accusation emerged in June when a mother told police Quintanilla had molested her daughter approximately two times a week over a four-year span, beginning when the girl was 8-years-old.

The police complaint also details allegations of Quintanilla pushing one of the victims to the floor of his office, “smacking her in the face numerous times, threatening to rape her, threatening to kill her and her mom” if she told anyone.

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Pastor of east Columbus church charged with sexually assaulting young girls

OHIO
ABC 6

COLUMBUS, Ohio —
Pastor Guillermo Quintanilla is behind bars, facing charges of sexually assaulting three young girls in the church.

Quintanilla, 47, is a pastor at El Shadai Church of God on South Hamilton Road. He was charged with rape, sexual battery, and two counts of gross sexual imposition.

According to court documents, investigators say a mom reported in June Quintanilla had molested her daughter. She told them it happened a couple of times a week over a four year time span, starting when the girl was just eight years old.

Police say when they began investigating, two other victims came forward accusing Quintanilla. Court documents show the girls said the assaults started when they were as young as six and eight years old. All of the girls attend the church.

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