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.

February 10, 2018

Did Pope Francis Receive a 2015 Letter With Detailed Allegations Against Bishop Barros?

VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Register/Catholic News Agency/EWTN

February 6, 2018

A Chilean survivor of sexual abuse says that he wrote to the Holy Father and that the pontiff failed to act on the information.

A Chilean survivor of sexual abuse says that he wrote a letter to Pope Francis in 2015 claiming that Bishop Juan Barros of Chile witnessed abuse perpetrated by his friend Father Fernando Karadima and that the Pope failed to act on the letter.

In April 2015, Marie Collins, then a member of the Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for Minors, along with three other members of the commission, met with Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the Pope’s top advisor on sex abuse, giving him a letter from a victim of Father Karadima to deliver to the Pope, according to a Feb. 5 report from The Associated Press.

The meeting followed Francis’ controversial appointment of Bishop Barros to lead the Diocese of Osorno, Chile, in January 2015.

Collins told the AP that Cardinal O’Malley said he would deliver the letter to Pope Francis. The letter’s author, Juan Carlos Cruz, now living and working in Philadelphia, told the AP that Cardinal O’Malley told him in 2015 that the letter had been delivered to Francis.

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.

Chilean victim of sexual abuse demands thorough Vatican investigation

ROME (ITALY)
Reuters

February 9, 2018

By Philip Pullella

A Chilean victim of clerical sexual abuse who is the key witness in the case of a bishop accused of covering it up says a Vatican investigation must be rigorous and fair if the church is to salvage its reputation on the issue.

In a telephone interview with Reuters from his home in the United States on Thursday night, Juan Carlos Cruz said Pope Francis had “set the clock back years and years” with his recent comments casting doubt on the credibility of victims of abuse.

On Jan. 30, the Vatican said the pope had appointed the church’s most experienced sexual abuse investigator to look into accusations that Bishop Juan Barros of the diocese of Osorno in Chile had covered up crimes against minors.

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.

The Bishop Barros crisis: how bad is it?

LONDON (ENGLAND)
Catholic Herald

February 10, 2018

By Christopher Altieri

At this point, there are only four possible explanations for what happened to a crucial letter

“How bad is it?” That was the question a friend put to me, à propos the leadership crisis in the Catholic Church. Pope Francis precipitated the crisis by levelling repeated accusations of calumny against survivors of sexual abuse perpetrated by a prominent Chilean cleric, Fernando Karadima, who was convicted of his crimes by a Vatican court in 2011. Karadima’s victims claim one of their abuser’s protégés, Juan Barros – ordained bishop in 1995 and appointed by Pope Francis to head the diocese of Osorno, Chile, in 2015 – witnessed the abuse they suffered at Karadima’s hands, covered for his mentor and enabled his abusive behaviour. Put just like that, it is bad enough.

It gets worse.

Pope Francis first accused the victims of calumny in a heat-of-the-moment exchange with a reporter in a press gaggle at the gate of the Iquique venue where he was heading to say Mass on the last day of his recent visit to Chile. News of the Pope’s “hot takes” overshadowed the final, Peruvian leg of his South American tour. The Pope then used his in-flight press conference – days later – on the return trip to Rome, to double down on his accusations of calumny, saying he has not received any evidence of Barros’ alleged wrongdoing, and that the victims had never brought their case to him. “You [reporters], in all good will, tell me that there are victims, but I haven’t seen any, because they haven’t come forward,” Pope Francis 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.

‘Archangel’ charged with sex abuse freed from pre-trial detention

ROME (ITALY)
Crux

February 10, 2018

By Claire Giangravè

After six months in a Sicilian prison, the leader of a lay Catholic association charged with having sexually abused at least six underage girls has been released and allowed to await trial under house arrest.

In previous reporting, Crux has followed the story of Piero Alfio Capuana, a banker turner charismatic religious leader of the “Catholic Culture and Environment Association,” or ACCA, a lay association not officially recognized by the Church, that counted more than 5,000 members in the highly devout Sicilian inland near Catania.

Over the span of 25 years, Capuana, 73, who was regarded as an incarnation of the Archangel Gabriel by his followers, now stands charged with sexually abusing young girls between the ages of 11 and 16 with the help of three of his “Apostles,” meaning aides, who allegedly coaxed victims into interpreting his sexual advances as “pure love” and “love from above.”

In August of last year, an investigation conducted by the Italian police led to the arrest of Capuana, who was kept in isolation inside the Cavadonna prison in Syracuse until a review court found Feb. 8 that there are insufficient requirements for his remaining behind bars awaiting trial.

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.

Church’s legal procedures for abuse cases need changing, expert says

ROME (ITALY)
Catholic News Service via National Catholic Reporter

February 9, 2018

By Carol Glatz

Even though the Catholic Church has all the necessary norms and laws in place to safeguard minors from abuse by clergy, the problem continues to be a lack in understanding or caring about those rules and guidelines and applying them effectively, said one Jesuit expert.

But what must change, “without a doubt,” are church procedures for handling accusations of abuse, said Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, head of the Pontifical Gregorian University’s Center for Child Protection.

Joy-of-the-Family-Guide.jpgExplore Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation on the family. Download our free study guide.

The legal process “must be more transparent and more transparent for everyone,” including the victims, the accused and his or her superiors, Zollner told reporters Feb. 9 at a ceremony awarding 18 people — religious and laity — diplomas for completing a specialization course in safeguarding minors.

Victims receive no information during the process and the accused are left “in limbo” for what may be five years or more not knowing if they will be sentenced or even found guilty, he said. Not even the bishop or religious superior of the accused receives information about what’s happening, he added.

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.

Aurora priest charged with child abuse, facing deportation won’t have to register as sex offender in plea deal

CHICAGO (IL)
Beacon News and Chicago Tribune

February 9, 2018

By Hannah Leone

An Aurora priest who was charged with sexually abusing two young girls pleaded guilty Friday to a misdemeanor that does not require him to register as a sex offender.

Even if it did, he’d still face deportation to his native Colombia — one of the reasons his trial had been rescheduled so many times. Set for Feb. 20, the trial was likely about to be pushed again, according to a recent court order and the priest’s lawyer.

Alfredo Pedraza Arias was sentenced to 205 days in county jail with credit for time served after his guilty plea. With credit for time already spent in jail, Arias was set to be released Saturday morning, Attorney David Camic 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.

John Sarro, former Delaware priest accused of child rape, pleads not guilty

WILMINGTON (DE)
News Journal

February 9, 2018

By Xerxes Wilson

John Sarro, a former priest with the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington, on Friday pleaded not guilty to charges that he raped a pre-teen girl in the ’90s.

Sarro, 76, is charged with first-degree unlawful sexual intercourse and second-degree unlawful sexual contact. He is accused of fondling and raping a girl who court documents said was less than 16 years old between 1991 and 1994 when the abuse is said to have occurred. He was a pastor at St. Helena Parish in Bellefonte at the time.

On Friday, his first court appearance in Delaware, he spoke briefly from a wheelchair only to tell the judge that he has to tell the management of his assisted living home when he is coming or going. After entering his plea, he was assigned a public defender and allowed to leave.

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.

Marists in Chile begin probe into sex abuse allegations

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Associated Press via Yahoo News

February 9, 2018

The Marist Brothers in Chile opened a canonical investigation Friday into the sexual abuse accusations shaking their order with the first testimony from one of the alleged victims.

Isaac Givovich Contador testified for more than three hours to the Salesian priest in charge of the investigation, David Albornoz. When he left, a visibly affected Givovich was unable to talk to reporters at a news conference even though he was to speak on behalf of four other victims.

“What Isaac has just gone through in this place is part of a tremendously traumatic and re-victimizing process,” said Jose Andres Murillo, one of the victims of Chilean priest Fernando Karadima, the most visible face of sexual abuse in the South American country. Karadima’s case is not related to the Marists.

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.

Update: Church says it will evict Boise priest following child porn, drug charges

BOISE (ID)
Idaho Statesman

Updated February 9, 2018

By Michael Katz, Ruth Brown, and Katy Moeller

Church spokesman Gene Fadness says Rev. W. Thomas Faucher will be served an eviction notice Friday afternoon. A certified letter regarding the eviction will also be sent to Faucher.

Faucher pays to rent his home from the Diocese of Boise. Fadness earlier this week told the Statesman that Faucher’s lease agreement prevented the church from evicting Faucher following recent charges of child porn and drug possession.

Friday, Fadness said the church does have options regarding the lease that he was previously unaware of. Friday’s action by the church would start the process laid out in Idaho law for an eviction.

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.

February 9, 2018

What We Must Do to End Child Sexual Abuse in Organizations

NEW YORK (NY)
Psychology Today

February 8, 2018

By Elizabeth Letourneau, Ph.D.

Why must we wait for hundreds of victims to come forward before we act?

Last week after days of emotional testimony by victims, Judge Rosemarie Aquilina sentenced Dr. Larry Nassar, the doctor who assaulted at least 150 girls while working as a doctor for USA Gymnastics, to 40 to 175 years in prison. On February 5, a Michigan judge sentenced Nassar to an additional 40 to 125 year sentence, which brought the criminal proceedings against Nassar to a close. Nassar’s previous sentence is a 60 year federal term for child pornograghy crimes.

What makes this case and other similar cases deeply upsetting is how many victims Nassar harmed while acting in the role of a trusted adult and caretaker. Many victims tried to come forward over the years, but their allegations were not believed.

In the United States, 25 percent of girls and 8 percent of boys are sexually abused before they turn 18. It’s incredible then that with a staggering number of victims, it often takes a critical mass—and time—before we’re willing to acknowledge that people we admire or trust are capable of sexually abusing children. People who abuse children often appear to be regular, normal folks, and we often don’t recognize that child sexual abuse is occurring because it is committed by people we know.

What can we do to make sure there are fewer victims and abusers? We desperately need to change the way we think about and react to child sexual abuse in our country. The days of waiting until abuse is detected is untenable.

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.

Diocese again pushes back deadline to file clergy sexual abuse claims

ROCKVILLE CENTRE (NY)
LI Herald

February 8, 2018

By Ben Strack

Phase Two of Reconciliation and Compensation Program begins

The second phase of the Diocese of Rockville Centre’s Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program has begun, and will allow more survivors of sexual abuse by clergy members to seek financial compensation.

Victims who had previously notified the diocese that they had suffered abuse by a member of the clergy were invited to participate in Phase One of the program. Phase Two was set up to allow those who had never reported abuse to apply. To receive monetary compensation, victims must agree that they will not pursue legal action against the church in the future.

“…While no amount of monetary compensation could ever erase or undo the unimaginable harm suffered by victims of child abuse,” states a letter by Mary McMahon, director of the diocese’s Office for the Protection of Children and Young People, which was sent to survivors last year, “it is the sincere hope of the [Diocese of Rockville Centre] that those who have been alienated and distanced from the Church as a result of any abuse committed by [diocese] clergy will be empowered to begin the journey toward reconciliation with us.”

Any person wishing to file a new claim alleging sexual abuse not previously reported to the diocese should visit www.rockvillecentredioceseircp.com to register and receive the claim form and other documents needed to file a Phase Two Claim. The information will be turned over to the appropriate District Attorney’s office and be investigated fully.

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.

How to give bread, not stones

LONDON (ENGLAND)
Church Times

February 9, 2018

By Andrew Graystone

Andrew Graystone asked abuse victims how the Church could better help them

OVER the past two years, I have come to know a great many abuse victims as friends. Some remain faithful members of their Church. Others, understandably, never want to enter a church or meet a priest again. Some do not wish to revisit their abusive experiences. Others cannot get through an hour of the day or night without reliving their personal horror.

I have wanted the leaders of the Church to take on board some of the insights I have been given into the experience of victims. So I asked a number of people who have been abused within a church context to answer my questions about the ways in which the Church had responded to them. Their verbatim replies are contained in a booklet, Stones Not Bread, which will be presented to all members of the General Synod as they meet this week. Below is an extract from the booklet.

They come from nine different individuals who were abused. Most of them do not know each other, and they answered individually. All of them have been physically or sexually abused in situations where the Church has accepted some responsibility. They represent at least eight otherwise unrelated instances of church abuse. All of them are “recent”, in that they have been dealing with the Church’s safeguarding procedures in the past few months and years, even if in some cases the abuse is non-recent.

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.

‘Spiritual abuse’ term ‘unworkable’ and ‘damaging’ to interfaith relations, say Evangelical Alliance

LONDON (ENGLAND)
Church Times

February 9, 2018

By Hattie Williams

The term “spiritual abuse” should not be written into safeguarding policies or law because it is “unworkable” and “potentially discriminatory” towards religious communities, the Evangelical Alliance (EA) has said.

In a report, Reviewing the Discourse of “Spiritual Abuse”: logical problems and unintended consequences, published on Monday, the theology advisory group of the EA said that recent attempts to categorise “emotional and psychological abuse in religious contexts” as “spiritual” were also damaging to interfaith relations.

In the foreword, the chairman of the group, the Revd Dr David Hilborn, and the general director of Evangelical Alliance UK, Steve Clifford, wrote: “[Spiritual abuse] is a seriously problematic term partly because of its own inherent ambiguity, and also because attempts by some to embed it within statutory safeguarding discourse and secular law would be unworkable in practice, potentially discriminatory towards religious communities, and damaging to interfaith relations.”

While the report “in no way downplays” the harm that spiritual abuse caused, they said, more “precise, well-founded, workable definitions of abuse” were needed to help survivors.

The report comes after the Churches’ Child Protection Advisory Service (CCPAS) conducted a survey last month of more than 1500 Christians, two-thirds of whom said that they had been victims of spiritual abuse (News, 12 January). The study acknowledges that definitions of spiritual abuse are not clear cut, and suggests that this lack of clarity may be a significant barrier to responding appropriately to its victims within the Church.

The EA report states that its members had met the CCPAS to discuss spiritual abuse, but concluded that the term was “not a legally recognised category of abuse”, and that they had become “increasingly uneasy” about its application.

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Man testifies in suit alleging Mormons overlooked sex abuse

MARTINSBURG (WV)
The Associated Press

February 8, 2018

A man accused in a West Virginia lawsuit along with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of covering up years of child sexual abuse testified he was unaware of the allegations that led to his son’s conviction until he was charged.

The Journal reports Chris Jensen testified Tuesday in Berkeley County Circuit Court in the trial of a lawsuit filed by plaintiffs on behalf of nine families.

Plaintiffs contend the Mormon church and others knew about 26-year-old member Christopher Michael Jensen’s sexual abuse convictions and allegations but “did nothing to warn and protect” their children.

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Letter: ‘I am a mom who was in room while Larry Nassar treated my daughter’

UNITED STATES
USA Today Network

February 9, 2018

By Kristen Chatman

I am a mom who was in the exam room while Dr. Larry Nassar treated my daughter.

She had extreme back pain — to the point that it was difficult to walk. So of course, we called Larry. There was no other option in our minds. He was world-renowned. THE gymnastics doctor. Simply the best. No question. You see, we had been his patients at that point for nearly three years. So, we trusted him implicitly.

Frankly, I had been a bit skeptical of those in the medical profession — for a lot of reasons. We had seen numerous doctors on numerous occasions with the same outcome. No help. From inaccurate diagnoses to no diagnosis at all, our experiences jaded me. I was untrusting. Even cynical. Until I met Larry.

On our very first visit, he gave us an accurate diagnosis and charted a course of action as well. And it worked. And then, when another issue arose, we called Larry again. True to form, he helped solve the problem and put my daughter on the road to healing. This happened off and on for years. No problems. No questions.

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Mormon bishops told ex-wives of former Hatch, White House staffer to consider his ‘career ambitions’ when they reported his physical abuse, they say

SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
The Salt Lake Tribune

February 8, 2018

By Thomas Burr

The LDS Church declared Thursday that it has “zero tolerance” for abuse of any kind but couldn’t speak directly to allegations by the ex-wives of a former White House official who reported they received no help from their Mormon clergy when they were being abused.

Jennifer Willoughby and Colbie Holderness — former wives of Rob Porter, who resigned as White House staff secretary this week — said their LDS bishops either didn’t believe them or didn’t step in to help when they alleged Porter had physically abused them.

Porter has denied the charges.

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Sexual Harassment in the Children’s Book Industry

UNITED STATES
Medium

February 7, 2018

By Anne Ursu

Sometimes, it’s in the form of inappropriate comments.

An author wrote, “An editor who was considering my work commented very thoroughly on my body type as a possible personal advantage of working with me.” For her now, “it makes submissions feel like a minefield.”

For an author/illustrator, it was at a book party with a famous illustrator; “I introduce myself to him,” she writes, “and he makes a crack about my breasts.” After enough incidents like these she’s “completely stopped socializing in this business because each time it becomes another abuse story.”

Sometimes the comments are more pointed, like for the publicist who says her supervisor told her he had a crush on her and if he wasn’t married and twice her age he would ask her out. Or a writer’s conference attendee who says that a faculty member asked her if she was “kinky” at the opening mixer. Or the aspiring illustrator who won a mentorship contest, and at the end of her meeting with the mentor she said she had to go get a drink of water because she was hot. According to her, “he said ‘Yes, you are.’ And squeezed my arm. And raised his eyebrows in a suggestive way.”

These are the sort of events we’re told to brush off — they’re jokes, they’re flattering, no big deal. But when you believe you are a professional and someone informs you they see you as a sex object, it can shatter your sense of self and your sense of safety.

Sometimes, it’s inappropriate touching and groping: as in “a senior editor of a division I don’t work in being a tad too handsy;” or the author who says another author groped her while taking pictures at a conference; or an agent who says she was sitting in the backseat with a bestselling author during a conference, and as he pretended to be searching for his seatbelt, he fondled her.

Sometimes, it’s stories of women being invited to a networking opportunity only to get propositioned; or of male conference faculty and staff acting like all female paying attendees are potential and willing conquests; or of powerful men trying to ruin the reputations of women who won’t sleep with them.

And sometimes, the stories reveal serial predators unchecked by an industry that does not want to acknowledge such things could be possible of its men.

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Priest who served in Modesto, throughout area, accused of sexual misconduct with minor

MODESTO (CA)
The Modesto Bee

February 8, 2018

By John Holland

A priest who served in Modesto and throughout Stanislaus County has been accused of sexual misconduct with a child.

Father Eduardo De Jesus Perez Torrez is the focus of a review by Diocesan Review Board, the Diocese of Stockton wrote in a statement on Thursday afternoon.

The alleged incident apparently took place in 1999.

“In accord with the diocesan policy, the Modesto Police Department was notified,” the statement said. “The Diocese will continue to fully cooperate with law enforcement.”

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How do you rate Pope Francis’ handling of sex abuse in the church?

UNITED STATES
America: The Jesuit Review

February 8, 2018

In response to the question above, asked on social media and in our email newsletter, America readers gave mostly lukewarm responses. Thirty-one percent of readers rated Pope Francis’ handling of sex abuse in the church as “somewhat positive,” while 30 percent of readers told us it was “somewhat negative.”

On the whole, respondents who answered either “very positive” (14 percent) or “somewhat positive” (31 percent) highlighted how Pope Francis is listening to victims of abuse. “Pope Francis has been a very heartfelt contributor to those families who are still suffering from the effects of sex abuse at the hands of clergy,” wrote Rylee Hartwell of Joplin, Mo.

Most of those in the “somewhat positive” camp expressed a desire for Pope Francis to do more to prevent and address sex abuse in the church. Chris Carroll of Philadelphia alluded to Pope Francis’ defense of Bishop Juan Barros, who has been accused of being present during instances of sex abuse by the notorious Chilean predator, the Rev. Fernando Karadima. “The pope has not gone as far as I would like,” said Mr. Carroll. “The church is still protecting some clergy.”

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Seeking a Confession Part 5: Jim Graham goes public

BUFFALO (NY)
WGRZ

February 8, 2018

By Steve Brown and Dave Harrington

2 On Your Side’s Steve Brown has been sharing his “Seeking a Confession” series all week about how a man, born in Buffalo in 1945, wants the Catholic Church to admit a priest is his biological father. You can watch the entire series here.

PART 5 GOING PUBLIC

Jim Graham had a story and he wanted the world to know it.

Among the artifacts and documents Jim Graham has dug up, one item is most prized.

It is a large, heavy crucifix. It belonged to Father Thomas P. Sullivan.

Graham claimed it at the Oblate Mission national headquarters in Washington. He told a priest there that he was a relative.

“It’s a piece of him. I knew this was bouncing off his chest for 59 years. It makes me feel close to him” says Graham.

But the accumulated treasures from almost a quarter-century of searching left him short of his goal: to get the Catholic Church to admit Father Sullivan was his parent.

Then, Graham saw the movie “Spotlight”, which told the story of the Boston Globe’s Pulitzer Prize winning investigation into widespread sexual abuse committed by priests. It gave Graham an idea.

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.

Senators to investigate USA Gymnastics and Olympic committee after Larry Nasser sex abuse conviction

UNITED STATES
The Independent

February 7, 2018

By Mythili Sampathkumar

The US Olympic Committee may have known about his crimes as far back as 2015

A bipartisan group of Senators has called for an investigation into the US Olympic Committee and USA Gymnastics after former team doctor Larry Nasser was convicted of several counts of sex abuse.

A special committee is set to be established to carry out the investigation after allegations from young and aspiring athletes that the groups knew about the abuse but ignored it.

Senator Joni Ernst said the time has come to “put an end to this type of outrageous abuse” and “stand up for athletes.”

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Raisman says former coach Geddert may have known of Nassar’s abuse: CNN

UNITED STATES
Reuters

February 8, 2018

(Reuters) – Three-time Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman told CNN that her former coach, John Geddert, might have known about sexual abuse by former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar as early as 2011.

“We would talk about it amongst ourselves,” she said in an interview that aired on Thursday. “And one of my teammates described in graphic detail what Nassar had done to her the night before. And John Geddert was in the car with us and he just didn’t say anything.”

Raisman, who previously said Nassar abused her, told CNN that conversation occurred in 2011, five years before Nassar was exposed.

Neither Geddert nor his attorney, Cameron Getto, could immediately be reached to comment.

Geddert, who worked with Nassar at his Lansing, Michigan-area gymnastics center Twistars, was suspended in January by USA Gymnastics (USAG), the sport’s governing body, and subsequently retired.

The Eaton County Sheriff’s Office in Michigan on Tuesday said it was investigating complaints against Geddert, but did not provide further details.

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Man accuses California #MeToo leader of sexual misconduct

SACRAMENTO (CA)
The Associated Press

February 8, 2018

By Kathleen Ronayne

California Democratic Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia, the head of the Legislative Women’s Caucus and a leading figure in the state’s anti-sexual harassment movement, is accused of groping a male staffer from another lawmaker’s office.

Daniel Fierro told The Associated Press on Thursday that Garcia stroked his back, squeezed his buttocks and attempted to touch his crotch in a dugout after a legislative softball game in 2014.

Fierro didn’t report it at the time but in January told his former boss, Democratic Assemblyman Ian Calderon, who reported it to Assembly leaders. The Assembly is now investigating Garcia.

Politico first reported Fierro’s accusation.

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Cardinal reiterates commitment to healing at Mass of Prayer and Penance

LOWELL (MA)
The Boston Pilot

February 9, 2018

By Mark Labbe

During a Mass of Prayer and Penance at St. Michael Church in Lowell, Feb. 4, Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley reiterated the Church’s commitment to work for healing and reconciliation for all those affected by clergy sexual abuse.

“I am here today aware that many parishioners in this community were seriously affected. I wish once again to ask pardon and assure you of our commitment to work for healing and reconciliation,” said the cardinal in his homily.

In the Church, the “work of healing and child protection is an ongoing task, a sacred one,” he said.

The Mass was held in response to a call last year from Pope Francis for all episcopal conferences across the world to have a Day of Prayer and Penance in recognition of harm done by clergy sexual abuse within the Church. At the request of Cardinal O’Malley, all Masses held in the Archdiocese of Boston for Sunday, Feb. 4 were offered for Prayer and Penance.

In his homily, the cardinal requested prayers “for forgiveness of the Church, and healing for those who were harmed, “as well as for “those who have died from suicide and substance abuse because of what happened to them.”

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APNewsBreak: Sexual assault reports doubled at West Point

WASHINGTON (DC)
The Associated Press

February 8, 2018

By Lolita C. Baldor

The number of sexual assaults reported at the U.S. Military Academy roughly doubled during the last school year, according to data reviewed by The Associated Press, in the latest example of the armed forces’ persistent struggle to root out such misconduct.

It’s the fourth year in a row that sexual assault reports increased at the school in West Point, New York. There were 50 cases in the school year that ended last summer, compared with 26 made during the 2015-2016 school year. By comparison, the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, saw only slight increases.

Defense Department and West Point officials said the big jump at the Military Academy resulted from a concerted effort to encourage victims to come forward. But the dramatic and consistent increases may suggest more assaults are happening.

“I’m very encouraged by the reporting,” Lt. Gen. Robert Caslen, superintendent at West Point, told the AP in an interview. “I recognize that people are not going to understand” the desire for increased reporting, he said. But, he added, “I’ve got the steel stomach to take the criticism.”

The annual report on sexual assaults at the three military academies is due out this month. The Naval Academy’s reports increased to 29 last year from 28. The Air Force Academy’s edged up by one, to 33.

About 12,000 students are enrolled across all three institutions. The AP reviewed the data ahead of its public release.

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Safed rabbi sentenced to 7.5 years in jail for sexual assault

SAFED (ISRAEL)
The Times of Israel

February 6, 2018

By Raoul Wootliff

Ezra Sheinberg, ex-yeshiva head, confessed to using his position as spiritual leader to take advantage of 8 women

A well-known rabbi and yeshiva head from the northern city of Safed was sentenced Tuesday to seven and a half years in prison for committing a slew of sexual crimes against eight women, including multiple counts of sexual assault.

Rabbi Ezra Sheinberg, 49, was convicted last July in Nazareth District Court as part of a plea deal over a series of crimes committed against women who came to him for advice and counseling.

The specific charges were not publicized by the court. The criminal proceedings were under a gag order preventing publication of any details of the incidents due to the “egregious nature” of the crimes and to protect the privacy of the victims.

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‘I am on a pilgrimage toward Home’: Pope Benedict XVI writes frankly of his nearing death

WASHINGTON (DC)
The Washington Post

February 8, 2018

By Julie Zauzmer

Benedict XVI spent almost eight years as pope, and the past five years as something no man has been since the 15th century — pope emeritus.

Now, the pontiff who stunned the Vatican by retiring from the position in February 2013 says he is headed toward his next step: “I am on a pilgrimage toward Home.”

Writing in the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera, he capitalized the word “Casa” to refer to his heavenly home.

Now 90 years old, Benedict says he has heard from many well-wishers, including readers of the Italian paper, who “want to know how I am experiencing this last period of my life.”

According to widely published translations of Benedict’s short letter, he said that his physical strength is diminishing. “It is a great grace in this last, sometimes tiring stage of my journey, to be surrounded by a love and kindness that I never could have imagined,” he wrote.

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List of alleged sexual abuse-assault victims at San Jose Presentation H.S. grows

SAN JOSE (CA)
KTVU

February 7, 2018

By Jesse Gary

The list of alleged abuse victims at a prestigious San Jose all-girl’s high school continues to grow. Now, 20 former students say they were sexually abused or assaulted while attending Presentation High School.

“I can not understand how they can be a catholic school and respond to victims like this. I can’t. I can’t wrap my head around it,” said Cheryl Hodgin Marshall, who attended the school from 1987-1991.

20 accusers have now come forward, targeting Presentation High School for an internal investigation and sweeping change. This comes after multiple victims who attended the all-girl’s school say administrators did not report instances of sexual abuse and assault by at least eight teachers and coaches – stretching back three decades..

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Priest warned abuse victim he would be ‘ruined’ if he spoke out

NORTHERN IRELAND
The Irish News

February 9, 2018

A MAN who was sexually abused by a priest as a child said the cleric warned it would “ruin” his life if he spoke out.

Sean Faloon from Hilltown was a 10-year-old altar boy when he was first abused by Fr Malachy Finnegan.

Fr Finnegan, who died in 2002, also abused boys at St Colman’s College in Newry.

He taught at the school from 1973 to 1976 and was school president between 1976 and 1987.

The first of 12 abuse allegations was reported to the Diocese of Dromore in 1994.

The diocese has settled a claim with one of the victims.

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Stockton priest accused of sexual misconduct with minor

STOCKTON (CA)
KCRA

February 8, 2018

By Jonathan Ayestas

Diocese of Stockton reported allegations to Modesto police

A priest is being accused of sexual misconduct with a minor, the Diocese of Stockton said.

The district reported the accusation against Father Eduardo De Jesus Perez Torrez from 1999 to the Modesto Police Department. Perez worked in the Diocese of Stockton from 1999 to 2014.

The allegation is also being reviewed by the Diocesan Review Board.

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Aly Raisman skeptical US Olympics investigation will be independent or comprehensive [with video]

Washington (DC)
CNN

February 8, 2018

By Saba Hamedy

Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman is calling for a thorough, publicly-released investigation into the sexual abuse of gymnasts, expressing doubt that current probes launched in the wake of the Larry Nassar scandal go far enough.

Raisman is among more than 200 women who have publicly come forward with stories of abuse at the hands of Nassar, a former team physician. The disgraced doctor was sentenced Monday in Michigan to 40 to 125 years in prison.

“If we were that successful while we were being molested, wouldn’t we have been more successful if we had the right doctor that actually helped heal our injuries, that didn’t traumatize us? If we had people around us that genuinely wanted to help us?” she told CNN’s Jake Tapper in an interview that aired Thursday on “The Lead.”

The interview aired the day before the start of the 2018 Winter Olympics amid uproar around the way the US Olympic Committee and USA Gymnastics handled the Nassar matter.

“I met a lot of incredible women and young girls … it was just really incredible how even though we didn’t know each other, we just felt an instant connection to each other because we’ve all been through something so horrible,” Raisman said, recalling her experience testifying in the courtroom against Nassar. “And we all feel let down by the organization … I think we all deserve to have answers. We’ve already all been through enough.”

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Number of sex assaults at West Point nearly doubled last year

NEW YORK (NY)
The New York Post

February 7, 2018

By Mark Moore

​The ​number of sexual assaults at West Point nearly doubled in the last school year, ​the fourth straight year the military academy recorded an increase, a report said Wednesday.

The school in upstate New York had 50 cases in the school year that ended last summer, compared with the 26 during the 2015-2016 school year, the Associated Press reported after reviewing data from the Defense Department.

That rate outpaces sexual assaults at the Naval Academy, which showed an increase from 28 to 29, and the Air Force Academy, which edged up one to 33, over the same period​, the wire service reported.

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Neighbors want retired Boise priest facing child sexual exploitation charges evicted from his home

BOISE (ID)
7KTVB

February 8, 2018

By Dean Johnson

Some neighbors are calling on St. Mary’s Parish to evict Father W. Thomas Faucher, who’s facing multiple felony counts of sexual exploitation of a child.

BOISE – A retired Boise priest facing multiple felony counts of sexual exploitation of a child bonded out of the Ada County Jail Tuesday night, the Ada County Sheriff’s Office confirmed.

Sheriff’s office spokesman Patrick Orr said Father W. Thomas Faucher – a retired priest at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Boise – bonded out at around 6 p.m. His bond was set at $250,000.

Some neighbors are now calling on his landlord, Saint Mary’s Parish, to evict him.

Those neighbors are aware of an Idaho law that says, if a landlord has reasonable grounds to believe any person is or has been engaged in the unlawful delivery, production or use of a controlled substance on the leased premises, the landlord can move to evict that tenant.

Father Faucher was also charged with possession of marijuana and ecstasy, which some of Faucher’s neighbors say gives the church grounds to evict him.

“Shock and surprise and fear are always the first feelings I think you have,” Wendy Wong said.

Wong has lived just a few doors down from Father Faucher for more than a decade.

“There’s not a ton that we can do as a neighborhood,” Wong said.

Wong feels St. Mary’s, the church Faucher has a rental lease agreement with, should evict him. She cites the fact that they live just a couple of blocks away from Cynthia Mann Elementary School in northwest Boise. Wong also claims the charges of possession of marijuana and ecstasy warrant an eviction.

“I think it is unfair of the landlord to say because he pays rent he can stay. I know there are other ways to get a tenant out that have nothing to do with rent and I would like to make sure that we’re at least exploring all of those options before we decide that this is where he needs to be,” Wong said.

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VIDEO: More allegations of sexual abuse at San Jose Catholic high school

SAN JOSE (CA)
KRON

February 8, 2018

By Rob Fladeboe

SAN JOSE (KRON) — A 1991 Presentation High School graduate says she was sexually abused by a teacher, who is now dead, and more accusers have come forward.

Since Kathryn Leehane and a classmate went public with their stories, 18 other former students have also come forward, implicating at least eight teachers and staff members from the Catholic high school.

“My incident was in the 1990s, but we have incidents going right up to 2017,” Leehane said.

“I was not surprised by the additional victims by my abuser, but to find out that there are additional abusers and violations of the law has been shocking and horrifying,” Leehane added.

Last fall, Leehane went public with her story about how she was sexually abused by a teacher, who is now deceased, and how the administration failed to fully investigate.

“The teacher had me in his office, and he put his arm around me…and, and was intimate with me and kissed my hand and later showed me a picture of a naked woman,” Leehane said.

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Priest warned abuse victim he would be ‘ruined’ if he spoke out

BELFAST (NORTHERN IRELAND)
Irish News

February 9, 2018

A man who was sexually abused by a priest as a child said the cleric warned it would “ruin” his life if he spoke out.

Sean Faloon from Hilltown was a 10-year-old altar boy when he was first abused by Fr Malachy Finnegan.

Fr Finnegan, who died in 2002, also abused boys at St Colman’s College in Newry.

He taught at the school from 1973 to 1976 and was school president between 1976 and 1987.

The first of 12 abuse allegations was reported to the Diocese of Dromore in 1994.

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Maybe someday the scales will fall from their eyes

BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

February 8, 2018

By Kevin Cullen

Last month, after I had the temerity to criticize Pope Francis because he smeared survivors of clerical sexual abuse in Chile, I got a phone call at my desk at the Globe.

* * *

“Is this Mr. Cullen?” a raspy voice asked.

For a fleeting moment, I thought it was one of my favorite aunts, Aunt Junie, who looked like my dad, but then I quickly remembered that my Aunt Junie died some years ago.

“Yes, this is me,” I answered.

“Mr. Cullen,” the woman on the other end of the line said, “I just want to let you know that you are going to hell.”

* * *

I got thinking about the Church Lady who condemned me to eternal fire the other day as I was reading a story about how, despite the pope’s denials, he was, in fact, told about how his protege, a Chilean bishop named Juan Barros, was credibly accused of having ignored the crimes of a priest whom the Vatican later found guilty of sexually abusing young people.

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Why is the Church still so slow to tackle cases of clerical sex abuse?

BELFAST (NORTHERN IRELAND)
Belfast Telegraph

February 9, 2018

By Malachi O’Doherty

Bishop John McAreavey’s apology over paedophile priest Malachy Finnegan was welcome but long overdue, writes Malachi O’Doherty

Malachy Finnegan was escorted to his grave by people who revered and respected him. We don’t all get a bishop to officiate in the ceremony.

He met his end in the knowledge and confidence that he was thought well of, that he had not been found out, that the young people he had molested and abused – physically, sexually and emotionally – had not ratted on him.

We don’t know the state of his conscience then, whether he was ashamed of himself, whether he trusted in God’s forgiveness, or if, harbouring his horrid secrets and believing in the teaching of his Church, he stared Hell in the face.

One of the questions over paedophile priests is whether they were believers at all, or just opportunistic hypocrites.

If you were cynical enough and wanted work that would give you access to children, the priesthood and the religious orders were your natural refuge.

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Pope Francis Needs to Come Clean on Chilean Sex Abuse

BOSTON (MA)
WBUR

February 9, 2018

By Rich Barlow

As a Catholic, I’ve disagreed with critics of Pope Francis from both ends of the spectrum.

Right-wing whining (he’s for the poor and the environment? Marxism!) is just daft; leftist grousing (he’s all style and no substance, as when declining to condemn gays while upholding church teaching on the sinfulness of homosexual acts) ignores the effect of personal example on a conservative culture. Airing out a musty attic makes breathing easier, even if the attic still needs some cleaning.

But now comes news that Francis personally received a letter two years ago from a man who claimed Chilean Bishop Juan Barros stood by and watched a priest abuse the letter writer. Yet just last month, the pope dissed accusations against Barros as “calumny” (derived from the Latin that the church is fond of, that’s “lies” in the King’s English).

There’s no defending the pope here. Catholics, especially victims of abuse in Chile and everywhere, need an explanation and probably an apology from the pontiff. Sooner, not later.

If that sounds impertinent, I cite both Francis’s admirable humility — the pope is not God — and the fact that the sin of sexual abuse, and the church’s cover-up thereof, have always been sui generis. No crisis since the Reformation so rocked Catholicism; selling indulgences seems penny-ante by comparison.

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Fr Finnegan: Survivor speaks of sex abuse ‘secret’

BELFAST (NORTHERN IRELAND)
BBC

February 8, 2018

[Note from BishopAccountability.org: Includes brief video of interview with a Finnegan survivor.]

A County Down man who was sexually abused by a priest as a child said he did not speak out as he was told it would “ruin” the rest of his life.

Sean Faloon from Hilltown was first abused as an altar boy from the age of 10 by Fr Malachy Finnegan.

Fr Finnegan, who died in 2002, also abused boys at St Colman’s College in Newry, where he taught from 1967 to 1976.

Twelve victims have come forward to the Catholic Diocese of Dromore.

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February 8, 2018

Presentation High: 20 students, alums now allege sex abuse involving 8 teachers, staff

SAN JOSE (CA)
The Mercury News

February 7, 2018

By John Woolfolk

The number of women claiming they were sexually abused as students at a prestigious San Jose Catholic girls high school has swelled to 20 while the number of accused staff has grown to eight. The mounting accusations surfaced as nearly 5,000 former students and their supporters have signed a petition demanding an independent investigation of how the administration handled reported abuse.

But even amid a global “#MeToo” reckoning of sexual abuse, the accusers say, Presentation High School officials are ignoring their demands, and the former students are urging alumnae to withhold financial support until school officials call for an independent investigation.

“It sounds like they’re hoping we’ll go away,” said Kathryn Leehane, who wrote Oct. 20 in the Washington Post about how she and a classmate complained decades ago about abuse by a former Presentation teacher to no avail. The teacher remained on the job and has since died.

Since her article, 18 other students and graduates have come forward with similar stories involving eight Presentation teachers or other staff, according to “#PresentationToo,” a group of alumnae, students, parents and others.

“It’s definitely gotten much bigger,” Leehane said. “I had no idea the can of worms I was opening. But once I heard from so many young women, I couldn’t turn my back. That’s not what Presentation taught me. They taught me to fight for the unrepresented.”

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Editorial: Important to confront the dark secrets of child abuse

AUSTRALIA
Gulf News

February 8, 2018

Australia’s decision to issue a sincere apology to childhood victims of violation deserves praise

Like in so many other nations, children in Australia have suffered at the hands of men in positions of moral, educational and administrative authority, subjected to systemic sexual, emotional and physical abuse by dark figures in the Roman Catholic church and its hierarchy.

The pattern of abuse is similar, whether it be in schools in Australia, residential institutions for First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, in parishes across Ireland, or where depraved and criminal minds were able to carry out their dark deeds under the veneer of doing charitable or spiritual work.

The issue of child abuse is something that impacts societies around the world.

In India, for instance, a child is sexually abused every 15 minutes, according to the latest government figures.

The systemic abuse that occurs to young and vulnerable children is a crisis that has yet to be fully addressed. Indeed, there are those still in the corridors of power who would prefer if those who suffered abuse at the hands of priests, simply went away. But the violations, scars and trauma inflicted by the abusers on the young remain and rarely ever go away.

A recent royal commission in Australia into the abuse of children placed in the care of institutions in which the church had control contains a litany of abuses that, in its very own words, “has shaken Australia to its core”.

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Olympic Swimmer Says Former USA Swimming Coach Sexually Abused Her For Years

UNITED STATES
The Huffington Post

February 8, 2018

By Alanna Vagianos

Ariana Kukors says her longtime coach Sean Hutchison began “grooming” her when she was 13.

Olympic swimmer Ariana Kukors says former U.S. Olympic swimming coach Sean Hutchison began sexually abusing her when she was 16.

Kukors, now 28, said in a statement late Wednesday night that Hutchison began “grooming” her when she was 13 years old after he became her coach at King Aquatic swimming club in Seattle.

“I never thought I would share my story because, in so many ways, just surviving was enough,” Kukors said in a statement. “I was able to leave a horrible monster and build a life I could have never imagined for myself. But in time, I’ve realized that stories like my own are too important to go unwritten.”

Kukors is the 2009 world champion in the 200-meter individual medley and placed fifth in the 200-meter individual medley in the 2012 Summer Olympics. Hutchison was an assistant USA Swimming Olympic coach in 2008, but resigned from the position in 2010 amid rumors that he was having a sexual relationship with one of his swimmers. He still coaches swimmers in Seattle and is still listed as the owner of King Aquatic.

The former swimmer said she only recently realized Hutchison abused her. Delayed reporting is somewhat common for victims of child sexual abuse.

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Sex harassment can make victims physically sick, studies reveal

WASHINGTON (DC)
The Washington Post

February 8, 2018

By William Wan

When Rebecca Thurston read the accounts of 150 women and girls sexually abused by a Michigan athletic doctor, one of the first things she worried about was their health — not the psychological effect of the abuse, but the long-term physical toll it could take on their bodies.

An epidemiologist, Thurston has spent the past four years studying women who have suffered sexual abuse and harassment. Over time, she discovered, sexual harassment can work like a poison, stiffening women’s blood vessels, worsening blood flow and harming the inner lining of their hearts.

“People need to understand that trauma is not just something that happens in the mind,” said Thurston, who published her cardiovascular findings this winter in the scientific journal Menopause. “It has real implications on the body.”

After being dismissed for decades, denied funding and greeted with skepticism, researchers studying sexual harassment say their field is undergoing a renaissance — injected with newfound energy and relevance amid the growing #MeToo movement.

In particular, recent studies like Thurston’s research on cardiovascular health have begun to quantify the vast toll of harassment, which detractors — often men — have tried to play down for decades.

“The field suddenly feels alive and vibrant,” said Louise Fitzgerald, who pioneered much of the earliest work in the field.

In more than a dozen other studies over the past decade, researchers have documented other physical symptoms caused by sexual harassment, such as headaches, gastrointestinal problems and disrupted sleep.

“People often think of harassment as a single event, but much more commonly, it’s a process that happens over time. You keep going to work day after day while this stuff keeps happening,” said Fitzgerald, who has studied harassment in utility workers, office settings and factories. “It’s that prolonged exposure to stress that turns into a physiological reaction.”

In her most recent work, Thurston and a team of researchers at University of Pittsburgh’s School of Medicine measured the cardiovascular health of 272 women who also completed detailed surveys about trauma they had experienced in their lifetimes, including car crashes, natural disaster and the death of a child.

Most women, roughly 60 percent, reported experiencing some form of trauma. The most common, reported by 22 percent of the women, was unwanted sexual contact. Roughly 20 percent had experienced sexual harassment, with some overlap between the two groups.

Healthy blood vessels are able to expand and contract to transport the right amount of blood. But women who experienced trauma, Thurston found, had decreased flexibility in their blood vessels. The more trauma each woman experienced, the more impaired their blood vessels were.

This held true even after her team accounted for other factors like diet, exercise, cholesterol, depression and anxiety. “We kept looking at other explanations. Is what we’re seeing due to education, race, ethnicity? There was very clear link to trauma,” Thurston said.

Thurston and others have replicated the cardiovascular findings in three large surveys, including two national studies. She and others are now doing more research to try to pinpoint how and why trauma has this effect.

She suspects sleep may play a pivotal role. In her team’s studies, women who slept more than six hours a night seemed to create a buffer of sorts against the cardiovascular harm of trauma. “We need to help women cope with this trauma and protect their health because this is happening on such a wide scale,” Thurston said.

Sexual harassment often lasts for longer than six months in more than a quarter of cases, according to surveys of harassment in the military, which are required by law and therefore among the most comprehensive.

During that period, researchers say, a woman’s body reacts as if to high stress: Immune systems function more poorly. Inflammation increases. The body begins secreting higher levels of the hormone cortisol, which contributes to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, weight gain, impaired memory function and depression. The negative effects can linger for years.

One of the most comprehensive studies tracked 1,654 employees at an unnamed Midwestern university over the course of six years. The 2005 study, published in the Journal of Business and Psychology, found that those who experienced sexual harassment were more prone to sickness, illness and accident, and not just around the time they experienced the harassment. When researchers surveyed the group again years later, the harassment continued to have an enduring effect on their rates of illness, injury and accident.

The mental strain of harassment also often leads to depression, anxiety and other disorders. In recent years, studies have shown sexual harassment makes women more likely to drink as a way of coping. Harassed women are also more likely to develop eating disorders. Researchers have shown the harmful effects even trickle down to co-workers who witness or hear of the harassment, a phenomenon analogous to secondhand smoke.

Among the most debilitating effects is post-traumatic stress disorder. A 2015 study found that 20 percent of female veterans of the Vietnam War suffered from PTSD — not because of the war itself but largely due to sexual harassment they suffered from their male counterparts.

The study — commissioned by the Department of Veterans Affairs — shocked military researchers because a similar study of male Vietnam veterans had shown a PTSD incidence of just 17 percent — a rate already considered high.

“The numbers for the women were mind-boggling. We couldn’t understand why,” said Kathryn Magruder, the epidemiologist who led both surveys for VA. Among female veterans, nearly 16 percent were still suffering from PTSD some 50 years after the war.

Because most of the female veterans had served as nurses, researchers at first assumed the PTSD was caused by exposure to gruesome injuries or danger. But after surveying the experiences of more than 4,219 women, they found that sexual harassment and gender discrimination were the leading causes.

“For the most part, these were not necessarily major traumas like rape. It was touching and fondling, snide remarks, constant comments, pressure to fraternize,” said Magruder, who has since retired as a researcher for VA.

“The awful thing is that we often think of the horrors of war as unavoidable,” Magruder said. “But this PTSD came from something that’s completely avoidable, and it was troops from our own side doing it.”

Harassment researchers have had to overcome a lot of obstacles. When Louise Fitzgerald began her first study on the topic in 1983, she knew of only one other researcher working on the issue. Many in America weren’t even familiar with the term “sexual harassment.”

Now a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Fitzgerald said that when she focused her research on sex harassment among students, professors and employees earlier in her career at two other institutions, administrators tried to shut her work down.

Men in her department, she said, spread rumors that she was making up data. And almost every company and workplace she approached refused to cooperate.

“In the early days, people either didn’t take it seriously or they took it as a threat,” said Fitzgerald, who said she witnessed two female colleagues studying campus harassment and assault be pushed out of research positions.

When the Clarence Thomas hearings captured national attention in 1991, it looked like a turning point for the field at large and for Fitzgerald, who was retained as a consultant by Anita Hill’s legal team.

“I remember thinking that the cultural moment had come and everything would change,” she said. “But here we are, 20-some years later when people are suddenly rediscovering yet again that sexual harassment exists.”

To seize this cultural moment, Fitzgerald said, society needs to support more comprehensive research to understand its roots, its perpetrators, its victims and its effects.

After three decades of work, she notes, researchers still have not answered one of the most basic questions: How prevalent is sexual harassment in America?

In 2016, a federal task force on harassment concluded that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission should work with the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Census Bureau and private partners to create a national survey of sexual harassment. So far, however, nothing has happened.

“If you want to fight harassment, you need to know if it’s increasing or decreasing. We don’t even have the basic measurement to use as a benchmark,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s like trying to treat a fever when you don’t have the thermometer.”

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Australia to apologise to institutional child sex abuse victims

SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
AFP

February 8, 2018

Australia will apologise to survivors of institutional child sex abuse by the end of the year, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Thursday (Feb 8) after a five-year inquiry detailed harrowing stories from victims.

A royal commission established in 2012 to investigate abuse was contacted by more than 15,000 survivors with claims – some decades-old – involving churches, orphanages, sporting clubs, youth groups and schools.

Turnbull told parliament he would consult with survivors before making the apology on behalf of the nation “before the end of the year”.

“As a nation, we must mark this occasion in a form that reflects the wishes of survivors and affords them the dignity to which they were entitled as children, but which was denied to them by the very people who were tasked with their care,” he said.

“Reading some of the witness statements, it’s clear that being heard and being believed means so much to the survivors … Three words: ‘I believe you,’ coming after years, often decades, of authorities’ denial of responsibility.”

The royal commission released its final report in December and said more than 4,000 institutions were accused of abuse, with many of them Catholic-managed facilities.

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Australian Prime Minister To Issue National Apology For Child Sexual Abuse

AUSTRALIA
NPR

February 8, 2018

By James Doubek

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says he will offer a national apology to victims of institutional child sexual abuse before the end of the year.

It comes after a five-year investigation by a government commission found that 7 percent of Catholic priests allegedly sexually abused children between 1950 and 2010.

“We owe it to the survivors not to waste this moment and we must continue to be guided by their wishes,” Turnbull told Australia’s House of Representatives Thursday. He said a “survivor-focused reference group” would help to write the apology.

The Royal Commission into the Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which issued its final report in December, heard from more than 8,000 people about abuse in more than 4,000 institutions.

The report said people “in religious ministry and teachers were the perpetrators we heard about most commonly,” though abuse was reported at childcare centers, youth detention facilities, health service centers, in home care, youth clubs, at jobs, sports events and the armed forces.

“Now that those stories have been told, now that they are on the record, we must do everything within our power to honor those stories and to act,” Turnbull said. “I am committed and my government is committed to doing everything possible to make sure that this national tragedy is never repeated.”

The commission’s report made 409 recommendations, including a lifting of celibacy requirements for Catholic clergy and a requirement to report abuse mentioned in confessions.

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‘He punched me in the face’: The shocking allegations of abuse against the top White House staffer who just resigned

WASHINGTON (DC)
Business Insider

February 7, 2018

By Eliza Relman

– White House staff secretary Rob Porter resigned Wednesday after his two ex-wives publicly alleged years of physical and emotional abuse.
– Both women told the FBI about the alleged abuse in interviews conducted last year as part of Porter’s application for a security clearance.
– Porter called the allegations a “coordinated smear campaign” on Wednesday.

White House staff secretary Rob Porter, an integral part of President Donald Trump’s inner circle, resigned Wednesday after both of his ex-wives came forward to allege years of physical and mental abuse.

Colbie Holderness and Jennifer Willoughby alleged that Porter physically and mentally abused them during their marriages. Holderness, married to Porter from 2003 to 2008, provided photos of a black eye she claimed she suffered from Porter. Willoughby, married to Porter from 2009 to 2013, provided a copy of a 2010 restraining order she filed against Porter.

The Daily Mail reported last week that Porter is romantically involved with White House communications director Hope Hicks.

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SC coaches, church volunteers, Scout leaders would be required to report child abuse

COLUMBIA (SC)
The State

February 7, 2018

By John Monk

A bill aimed at expanding child-safety protections against molesters and other abusers took a small but significant step forward Wednesday.

The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Bruce Bannister, R-Greenville, would add coaches, camp counselors, Scout leaders, firefighters, school and college administrators, as well as “clerical or nonclerical religious counselors” to those who are required by law to report cases of suspected child abuse or neglect.

A “mandated reporter” is a person who the law requires to report suspected abuse to either law enforcement or the S.C. Department of Social Services. Already, nurses, doctors, members of the clergy, teachers, principals, mental health professionals, social workers and judges are required to report suspected abuse.

Bannister, chair of the subcommittee that on Wednesday sent the bill to the full House Judiciary Committee, told his panel that he was proposing the change because there is a growing religious group in Greenville whose members “are holding themselves out as counselors” but who are not part of any organized church.

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I-Team Followup: Church raided after alleged child sex abuse

HUNLOCK CREEK (PA)
WBRE/WYOU

February 7, 2018

By Chelsea Titlow

The search warrant was sealed until Wednesday.

HUNLOCK CREEK, LUZERNE COUNTY (WBRE/WYOU)- Back in December, there was a lot of police activity at a Luzerne County church.

Eyewitness News confirmed there was a state police raid, but at the time, no one would say why troopers were there. But now, we have the court documents explaining what led up to the raid.

Troopers are investigating allegations that the pastor of the church had sexual contact with a young man at the church.

The search warrant served on the pastor had been sealed by court order until Wednesday. The warrant contains details, allegations only at this time, of child sex abuse at the church.

In early December, state police could be scene removing boxes of documents and computers from inside Roaring Brook Baptist Church in Hunlock Creek.

The search warrant used at the time of the raid indicates troopers are investigating allegations that Pastor Dan Brubaker had sexual contact with a young boy at the church.

The young boy was taking part in a youth group class when, according to the warrant, Brubaker called him out of the class, took him to a basement room, and allegedly forced the boy to perform a sex act on him. According to the search warrant Brubaker told him, “God would want you to do this.”

The day of the raid, Brubaker told Eyewitness New he wasn’t going to answer any questions.

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Fatima Shrine Priest Removed in Harassment Case

LEWISTON (NY)
WGRZ

February 7, 2018

By Ron Plants

The Buffalo Catholic Diocese says a priest who is a member of the Barnabite Order at Our Lady of Fatima Shrine in Lewiston was removed from active ministry as part of a harassment investigation.

Lewiston, NY — A priest who served at a shrine in Niagara County is now accused of sexual harassment. It’s a difficult situation for a religious order at the Our Lady of Fatima Shrine.

It was a quiet winter afternoon at the Our Lady of Fatima Shrine in Lewiston, but for the staff and members of the Barnabite Fathers, religious order has been a trying time as they found out that one of their fathers was accused of sexual harassment.

A source confirmed to 2 On Your Side a report that a woman filed the complaint against Rev. John Paul Bahati. The 48-year old priest was featured in a spring 2015 article of the Barnabite Messenger newsletter as a new arrival at the shrine and he is said to be from the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa. He studied in Rome and became involved with a religious radio program and as a spiritual leader in his home country.

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Retired Boise priest facing child sexual exploitation charges out on bond

BOISE (ID)
KTVB

February 7, 2018

Father W. Thomas Faucher faces 12 counts of sexual exploitation of a child, as well as additional charges for possession of marijuana and ecstasy.

BOISE – A retired Boise priest facing multiple felony counts of sexual exploitation of a child bonded out of the Ada County Jail Tuesday night, the Ada County Sheriff’s Office has confirmed.

Sheriff’s office spokesman Patrick Orr said Father W. Thomas Faucher – a retired priest at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Boise – bonded out at around 6 p.m. His bond was set at $250,000.

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Retired Boise priest accused of sex crimes out on bond

BOISE (ID)
Idaho Press-Tribune

February 7, 2018

BOISE — A retired Boise priest accused of possessing child pornography and drugs is no longer in custody at the jail, according to the Ada County Jail.

Former St. Mary’s Catholic Church priest W. Thomas Faucher posted a bond of $250,000 around 6 p.m. Tuesday night, said Patrick Orr, Ada County Sheriff’s Office spokesman.

Faucher is charged with 10 counts of sexual exploitation of children, two counts of distributing sexually exploitative material involving minors and two charges of possessing a controlled substance.

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Timeline of institutional child sex abuse cases

AUSTRALIA
Gulf News

February 8, 2018

In many parts of the world, institutional child abuse cases are an endemic problem

January 24, 2018
Dr Lawrence G. Nassar, former doctor for American gymnastics team, sentenced to 40 to 175 years for multiple sex crimes. Nassar accused of molesting girls for years under the guise of giving them examinations or medical treatment. Some were as young as 6. Many of them were Olympic gymnasts.

January 2017
Ireland’s Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) studies allegations of child abuse in 22 homes and residential institutions between 1922 to 1995.

November 23, 2017
Chinese police investigate claims of sexual molestation and needle marks on children at a Beijing kindergarten, a booming childcare industry.

September 21, 2017
Pope Francis promised to respond with the “firmest measures possible” against priests who rape and molest children, and said bishops and religious superiors who cover up for them will be held accountable.

February 27, 2017
Britain’s inquiry into historical child sex abuse finally begin holding first public hearings.

February 16, 2017

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MPs face tougher sanctions for sexual harassment and bullying

ENGLAND
BBC News

February 8, 2018

MPs found to have bullied or harassed their staff will have to write a letter of apology and undergo training, under new proposals.

In more serious cases, they could be suspended or forced to face a public vote on their future.

The plans were drawn up by a cross-party committee after widespread allegations of sexual harassment.

At the moment, MPs don’t have any formal disciplinary procedures.

Discipline is handled by their parties and there are no independent channels for staff to raise complaints about their behaviour.

Commons Leader Andrea Leadsom, who chaired the committee, said: “This is a major step in bringing about the culture change that Parliament needs.”

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Australia child sex abuse: Victims to receive national apology

AUSTRALIA
BBC News

February 8, 2018

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has said he will deliver a national apology to victims of child sexual abuse.

Mr Turnbull’s pledge follows the conclusion of a four-year inquiry that found tens of thousands of children had been abused in Australian institutions.

The crimes, over decades, took place in institutions including churches, schools and sports clubs.

The apology would be given later this year, Mr Turnbull said.

“As a nation, we must mark this occasion in a form that reflects the wishes of survivors and affords them the dignity to which they were entitled as children, but which was denied to them by the very people who were tasked with their care,” he told parliament on Thursday.

The royal commission inquiry, which concluded in December, made more than 400 recommendations, including calling on the Catholic Church to overhaul its celibacy rules.

“It is not a case of a few ‘rotten apples’. Society’s major institutions have seriously failed,” it said.

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Fr Malachy Finnegan was ‘accused of 12 abuse cases’

IRELAND
BBC News

February 7, 2018

A Catholic diocese has settled a claim for sex abuse by a priest accused of abusing pupils at a County Down school, it has emerged.

The late Fr Malachy Finnegan, a former teacher, worked in St Colman’s College in Newry from 1967 to 1976.

Bishop of Dromore, John McAreavey, said the abuse was “abhorrent” and admitted he made an “error” by officiating at Fr Finnegan’s funeral in 2002.

The school began to remove the priest’s image from its photographs last year.

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PM Turnbull to address abuse report

AUSTRALIA
AAP

February 7, 2018

Federal parliament is set to receive an update from the prime minister on the progress of responses to the abuse royal commission.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will use a speech to federal parliament on Thursday to provide an update on how the government is responding to the royal commission into child sexual abuse.

Mr Turnbull wants all states, territories and churches to sign up to a national redress scheme, for which the government has already provided $52.1 million for administration and initial counselling costs.

A task force is examining the recommendations of the $500 million royal commission, and a parliamentary committee will oversee the national response.

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Turnbull scolds resisters in child sex abuse settlement

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

February 9, 2018

By John Ferguson, Greg Brown

Malcolm Turnbull is facing an acrimonious standoff with some states and churches over the $4 billion child sex abuse redress scheme as he prepares to make a national apology to victims.

The Prime Minister and a senior cabinet colleague yesterday urged the states and institutions to sign up to the scheme but the affected parties are still battling with the scope of the proposed compensation arrangements, which include payments of up to $150,000 each for victims.

Attorney-General Christian Porter effectively accused the states and institutions of using debate over what he said were minor policy details to delay the scheme’s implementation.

Mr Turnbull said a taskforce in the Attorney-General’s Department was examining how to implement the findings of last year’s royal commission into sex abuse of children. The Prime Minister, with Labor’s backing, said a national apology to victims was being planned.

“As a nation, we must mark this occasion in a form that reflects the wishes of survivors and affords them the dignity to which they were entitled as children, but which was denied to them by the very people who were tasked with their care,” Mr Turnbull said.

While the apology will have cross-party support, the Council of Australian Governments is expected to discuss the fallout from the royal commission today.

Mr Turnbull urged all governments and non-government institutions such as churches to sign up to the redress scheme.

Privately, there are considerable concerns about the way the redress legislation has been drafted, the amount of compensation that institutions will have to pay and the potential for third parties to be affected by legal action.

Victoria and NSW are the states most likely to sign on to the scheme first. The Catholic Church will join the scheme, it re­iterated yesterday. However, officials said government pressure did not reflect the fact there was no legislative mechanism to join any scheme, with state and federal legislation needed to make a uniform system possible.

Mr Turnbull said: “I am committed, and my government is committed, to doing everything possible to make sure that this national tragedy is never repeated.’’

He added: “I urge all Australian governments and the non-government sector — churches, charities, other institutions — to respond to the report by June, as was recommended by the royal commission.’’

Adding pressure on them to join the redress scheme, Mr Turnbull said: “The scheme will fulfil its promise of justice only if we have maximum participation across all jurisdictions.”

Mr Porter savaged groups unwilling or reluctant to sign up. “Reasons for delay are now starting to look, for any independent observer, as if minor details are being manifestly and deliberately used as excuses for needless delay,” he said.

The chief executive of the Catholic Church’s Truth Justice and Healing Council, Francis Sullivan, said: “Survivors of abuse have been waiting too long for the scheme to get up and running.’’

Bill Shorten suggested an event at Parliament House to thank and recognise survivors.

“I say to the institutions and, indeed, the states: the time for lawyers is over, the time for justice is here,’’ he said.

“As of today, not a single dollar has come from any of the states or the institutions whose names and deeds fill the pages of this report.’’

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Church of England dealing with thousands of sex abuse allegations

ENGLAND
The Times

February 8, 2018

By Kaya Burgess

The Church of England is dealing with more than 3,000 reports of sexual abuse within its parishes.

The most recent figures for 2016 show that dioceses were dealing with 3,300 “concerns or allegations”, the vast majority related to “children, young people and vulnerable adults within church communities”.

About a fifth of the reports were made against clergy and other church officials, with the rest relating to other members of the congregation who perform unofficial roles or volunteer within the church. The 3,300 figure related to both open cases and those newly reported that year. It is not known how many involved active claims against the church for compensation.

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Church of England is facing more than 3,000 complaints over sexual abuse…which could see it having to pay millions in compensation

ENGLAND
Daily Mail

February 7, 2018

By Steve Doughty

– The Church paid out £15,000 in compensation over unproven allegations
– The compensation related to claims against the long-dead bishop George Bell
– It is feared that similar payments could end up costing the church some £50m

The Church of England is facing more than 3,000 complaints over sex abuse. The total number of ‘concerns or allegations’ had reached 3,300 by 2016.

The figures do not distinguish new complaints from longstanding ones, but almost all involved the treatment of children, young people or vulnerable adults. If even a proportion were upheld the Church would have to pay millions in compensation.

One recent compensation payment in an unproven and heavily-disputed case of abuse alleged against long-dead Bishop of Chichester George Bell amounted to £15,000. Matching that sum in every complaint now facing the Church would cost almost £50million.

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School governors ‘regret and horror’ over paedophile priest as compensation cases settled

ARMAGH (NORTHERN IRELAND)
Armagh I

February 7, 2018

Governors at a Newry school have expressed “absolute regret and sorrow” at the abuse of pupils by a former priest after it was revealed compensation payments had been made to some of his victims.

And photographs of Malachy Finnegan – who was employed at St Colman’s College 30 years ago – have been taken down.

The Board of Governors released a statement after confirmation payments had been made to some of the boys sexually abused by the paedophile priest, who died in 2002.

Finnegan’s association with St Colman’s spanned 20 years, from 1967 until 1987. He had taught at the college and was also President for the last 11 years of that period.

It later emerged that he had abused a dozen pupils – 10 of them only coming forward after Finnegan’s death.

Now the Diocese of Dromore has informed the Board of Governors of St Colman’s College that it has recently settled a claim in relation to the “sexual abuse of former pupils by Fr Malachy Finnegan (deceased)”.

Agreement has been made in terms of compensation for some of the victims and other cases are still ongoing.

The first of the allegations was made in 1994 and the remainder came to light in the intervening years, the most recent in 2016.

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St Colman’s College, Newry ‘devastated’ at sexual abuse of former pupils by priest

IRELAND
The Irish News

February 8, 2018

By Brendan Hughes

A leading Catholic grammar school has said it is “devastated” at the sexual abuse of former pupils by a priest more than 30 years ago.

St Colman’s College in Newry said it has removed former school president Malachy Finnegan’s image from photographs after a claim was settled by the diocese.

Bishop of Dromore Dr John McAreavey has also spoken of his regret at officiating at the priest’s funeral, describing it as an “error of judgement”.

Fr Finnegan, who died in 2002, taught at St Colman’s from 1973-76 and was head of the college from 1976 to 1987.

The first allegation against him came to light in 1994, with the then Fr McAreavey provided pastoral support to the victim.

He described the former teacher’s actions as “abhorrent, inexcusable and indefensible”.

“From 1994 to 2016 there have been a total of 12 allegations of abuse against him. He has caused hurt, which in some cases may never be healed. He has devastated families, including his own, and his former colleagues also feel betrayed by his behaviour.”

Dr McAreavey, who became bishop in 1999, said his decision to say the funeral Mass of the priest, who was never prosecuted for sexual abuse, was “wrong”.

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Parents of Larry Nassar sexual abuse survivors demand accountability

UNITED STATES
CBS News

February 7, 2018

By Jean Song

Some frustrated parents of athletes who survived sexual abuse by Larry Nassar say they don’t care what happens to the former doctor, who was employed by the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC), USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University. They want the institutions and the people who enabled him held accountable.

In a candid and at times emotional conversation with “CBS This Morning” co-host Norah O’Donnell, the parents — Kyle Keiser, Julie and Doug Powell, Gina and John Nichols, Lisa Lorincz and Christy Lemke-Akeo — applauded Senate lawmakers’ call for a special investigation into the USOC and USA Gymnastics.

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Charles in Charge’s Alexander Polinsky Accuses Scott Baio of Physical Assault & Mental Abuse

UNITED STATES
People

February 07, 2018

By Alexia Fernandez

New allegations against Scott Baio surfaced Wednesday from another one of his Charles in Charge costars: Alexander Polinsky.

Polinsky, 43, provided a statement to The Talk which was read out while Nicole Eggert was on the show to talk about her sexual abuse allegations against the actor.

Eggert said on the show that Polinsky, who played Adam Powell on Charles in Charge, went with her to file to the police station when she filed a report against Baio and Polinsky also made his own police report supporting her allegations.

In addition to supporting the actress’ claims, Polinsky alleged he was physically abused by Baio, 57.

His longtime friend and The Talk host Sara Gilbert became emotional reading his statement on his behalf, explaining, “He’s actually a dear friend of mine.”

“Working on the set of Charles in Charge from age 11 to 15 was no picnic, it was a toxic environment,” Polinsky said in the statement. “I witnessed Scott Baio acting inappropriately towards Nicole Eggert during my first year of working on the show. I walked in on them together behind the set. Nicole was on Scott’s lap and he did not appreciate my intrusion. He yelled at me and called me various homophobic slurs.”

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Nicole Eggert Says She Contemplated Suicide During Alleged Abuse From Scott Baio

UNITED STATES
ET

February 7, 2018

Nicole Eggert is opening up about a painful period in her life.

The actress filed a police report against her former Charles in Charge co-star, Scott Baio, on Tuesday, after publicly alleging that Baio sexually abused her for years, starting when she was 14 years old. Baio has previously denied Eggert’s sexual abuse allegations, saying she is “provably wrong” and “deliberately lying.” While Baio denied having a sexual relationship with Eggert when she was underage, he did say that the two had consensual sex “well after she turned 18.”

ET spoke to Eggert on Wednesday in Los Angeles, where she alleged that their first sexual encounter happened when she was 14 years old, while Baio would have been 25.

“What’s going through my mind is that it’s my first sexual experience,” she tells ET’s Kevin Frazier. “I don’t know what’s going through everyone’s minds. Like, ‘Oh, is this strange? Whoa, what is that? Maybe this doesn’t feel so bad?’ And the thing is, for so long I hid it because I thought because I didn’t fight back, and because he wasn’t holding me down, that it made it OK — that I was to blame as well.”

“I think that’s a message people really need to understand,” she continues. “It’s that he should have known better. He was the adult, I was the child. I had never been with a boy before. I had never been touched that way — by anybody. And he played on my emotions, my hormones — all of it.”

Eggert says that when she was 15 years old, she contemplated killing herself.

“In those days I had moments of being so hurt and so upset, and even thoughts of ending my life,” she says.

She describes what she calls a particularly low moment.

“I was 15 years old standing on the bridge over the L.A. River at Ventura and Vineland in Studio City, and I looked down at that dry river bed and I’m sobbing, I’m sobbing,” she tells ET. “I’m sobbing and I looked at it, and I said to myself, ‘It’s not a legit bridge, you’re not going to die, you’re going to break a lot of bones and you’re not even going to kill yourself. Get home.’ You know, crying even harder, because, like, ‘You idiot, what were you just thinking?’ But you are lost, and hormones are going and raging, and just sexual hormones, you know? Growing hormones.”

Eggert also claims that Baio began physically abusing her after she told him she wanted to date boys her own age.

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Church settles abuse claims over paedophile priest who taught in Newry

BELFAST (IRELAND)
Belfast Telegraph

February 8, 2018

By Allan Preston

The Catholic Church has settled sexual abuse claims with victims of a priest who taught in a Newry school.

A total of 12 allegations were made against the late Fr Malachy Finnegan, who worked at St Colman’s College from 1967 to 1987.

The Diocese of Dromore reached the settlement with victims in October 2017, although details have only just emerged.

A joint statement from the St Colman’s board of governors yesterday condemned the abuse inflicted on pupils by Finnegan.

The school has since ordered all images of Finnegan to be removed.

Bishop of Dromore Dr John McAreavey said Finnegan’s actions were “abhorrent, inexcusable and indefensible”.

The disgraced cleric was college president at St Colman’s for 11 years before being transferred to Clonduff as parish priest in January 1988.

Bishop McAreavey said the first allegations against him came in 1994, a year before his retirement.

A second allegation emerged in 1998, but was not related to his time in St Colman’s. All other complaints emerged after his death in January 2002.

“The abuse of any child by a priest is a violation of that child and betrayal of trust,” said Bishop McAreavey.

“The history of the Catholic Church in Ireland in dealing with allegations of sexual abuse has been a tragic one of failure and letdown.”

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Child sexual abuse survivors to receive formal apology; PM urges states to stop holding out on redress scheme

AUSTRALIA
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

February 8, 2018

By Louise Yaxley

Malcolm Turnbull will deliver an apology to survivors of child sexual abuse by the end of this year, and is urging states to join a redress scheme recommended by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The Prime Minister announced to Parliament this morning that abuse survivors would be consulted to ensure they were comfortable with the way the apology process is handled.

The royal commission’s report was released late last year after a four-year inquiry, and found tens of thousands of children had been sexually abused.

It found the abuse happened in almost every type of institution, including church-run bodies, as well as schools and places run by sporting and cultural groups.

Mr Turnbull said the survivors had relived the worst moments of their lives when they gave evidence — often telling their stories for the first time — so that the abuse would “never be allowed to happen again”.

“Now that those stories have been told, now that they are on the record, we must do everything within our power to honour them,” he said.

“As a nation, we must mark this occasion in a form that reflects the wishes of survivors and affords them the dignity to which they were entitled as children, but which was denied to them by the very people who were tasked with their care,” Mr Turnbull said.

Attorney-General Christian Porter said the apology would be a milestone healing event for survivors.

“The horrific circumstances that we are now dealing with came to be because of excuses, excusing the monstrous conduct of individuals, excusing the failures and outrageous wilful blindness of institutions,” Mr Porter said.

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Listen to abuse survivors and advocates to clear the way to a national redress scheme

AUSTRALIA
The Conversation

February 7, 2018

By Kathleen Daly

The recently completed Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is recognised as a world exemplar in its mode and scope.

However, there are considerable political and policy hurdles facing the federal government if it is to lead the states and territories and move Australia toward a national redress scheme for victims of child sexual abuse, as recommended by the royal commission.

Current hurdles

Establishing a national scheme is difficult because the Commonwealth alone cannot legislate it. Rather, states must refer powers to the Commonwealth, which then permits their non-government institutions (like churches, charities and secular organisations) to opt in.

A bill currently before parliament is a first step. Passage will affect Commonwealth survivors and permit the territories and associated non-government institutions to opt in. The Commonwealth has 1,000 of a national total of 60,000 eligible survivors.

Despite many meetings over the past two years, the federal government has not been able to persuade the states to refer powers and opt in. This significant hurdle can be traced to who will pay and how much, scheme details, and state-federal politics.

One major concern with the current bill is that core elements of the redress scheme – among them who will be eligible and how the monetary payment will be determined – are not in the legislation. Rather, they are in delegated legislation (the rules, not regulations), which gives the scheme operator (the social service minister) considerable discretion in implementing the legislation.

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White House aide Rob Porter resigning amid abuse allegations

WASHINGTON (DC)
CBS News

February 7, 2018

Top White House aide Rob Porter is resigning, after abuse allegations from his two ex-wives were made public. The White House was made aware of the allegations in November and allowed him to work without a full security clearance, CBS News’ chief White House correspondent Major Garrett reports.

White House communications director Hope Hicks, who is dating Porter, helped craft his public statement, Garrett confirmed.

“My commitment to public service speaks for itself,” Porter, who has denied the allegations, told reporters in a statement. “I have always put duty to country first and treated others with respect. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to have served in the Trump administration and will seek to ensure a smooth transition when I leave the White House.”

A federal law enforcement source confirmed to CBS News’ Jeff Pegues that the FBI conducted a background check on Porter and knew of the allegations levied against him by his two-ex wives. That information was passed on to the White House. The White House staff secretary — who has access to and reviews presidential correspondence — never received full security clearance, and the allegations were the main reason why, two sources tell Garrett.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, who refused to comment on Porter’s security clearance status to Garrett from the briefing room podium Wednesday, said Porter would not be leaving immediately to ensure a smooth transition. Sanders claimed she has not asked the president’s opinion of the allegations against his staff secretary. Porter, according to White House salary disclosures, earns the highest salary level in the White House — $179,700. Porter is dating White House communications director Hope Hicks, CBS News has confirmed.

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Vatican abuse investigator to meet with Chilean victim in U.S.

VATICAN CITY
CNA/EWTN News

February 7, 2018

The delegate appointed by Pope Francis to hear testimony from abuse victims in Chile will also travel to the United States for a meeting with a man alleging that Bishop Juan Barros witnessed sexual abuse but did nothing.

According to The Associated Press, Juan Carlos Cruz said that Archbishop Charles J. Scicluna of Malta asked Feb. 6 to meet with Cruz in person, instead of speaking via Skype, as previously planned.

Cruz is the author of a 2015 letter to Pope Francis, which said that Bishop Juan Barros had personally witnessed sexual abuse committed by Fr. Fernando Karadima, and engaged in homosexual acts with the priest.

On Jan. 30, Pope Francis appointed Archbishop Scicluna, widely regarded as an expert in the canonical norms governing allegations of sexual abuse, as a Vatican delegate to examine accusations against Barros.

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Malcolm Turnbull to deliver national apology to child sexual abuse victims

AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

February 7, 2018

By Katharine Murphy

Prime minister says ‘survivor-focused’ group will be appointed to help craft the apology

Malcolm Turnbull will make a national apology before the end of the year to victims of institutional abuse in the wake of the royal commission into child sexual abuse.

The prime minister confirmed the government’s intentions in a statement to parliament on Thursday.

“We owe it to survivors not to waste this moment and we must continue to be guided by their wishes,” Turnbull said. “As a nation, we must mark this occasion in a form that reflects the wishes of survivors and that affords them the dignity to which they were entitled as children – but which was denied to them by the very people who were tasked with their care.”

He said a “survivor-focused reference group” would be appointed to help craft the apology, which would be delivered by the end of the parliamentary year.

The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, said the final report of the royal commission contained words “that shake us to our core”.

“The child with disability, abused daily, who couldn’t get a disinterested police officer to take any notice of their plea for help,” he said. “The good Catholic boy, who, after each time he was abused sexually by his priest, had to go to confession and confess his sin of impurity – to his abuser. And then this boy, this child being preyed upon by this monster, would be asked if he was sorry. And told to do three Hail Marys for his penance.

“They were children, seen and not heard. They could not find a counsellor to listen to their story, they could not find justice in the criminal court or compensation in the civil.

“These institutions failed our fellow Australians – and then our nation did.”

Shorten also told parliament his mother had spared him proximity to the paedophile priest Kevin O’Donnell by stopping him from becoming an altar boy in his parish.

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Former Las Cruces priest sued for sexual abuse

LAS CRUCES (NM)
El Paso Proud

February 7, 2018

By Natassia Paloma

A woman who used to live in Hobbs, New Mexico is suing a former Las Cruces priest and the Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces over alleged sexual abuse.

The Las Cruces Sun-News reported it happened while Father Ricardo Bauza was pastor at St. Helena Catholic Church.

The woman claims sexual battery took place in the rectory of the Hobbs Parish. She accuses the diocese of facilitating the priest’s abuses and helping him leave New Mexico.

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February 7, 2018

Is There a Smarter Way to Think About Sexual Assault on Campus?

NEW YORK (NY)
The New Yorker

February 12 & 19, 2018 Issue

By Jia Tolentino

A team of researchers at Columbia believes that small changes to college life could make campuses safer.

If I were asked by a survey to describe my experience with sexual assault in college, I would pinpoint two incidents, both of which occurred at or after parties in my freshman year. In the first case, the guy went after me with sniper accuracy, magnanimously giving me a drink he’d poured upstairs. In the second case, I’m sure the guy had no idea that he was doing something wrong. I had joined a sorority, and all my social circles were as sloppy, intense, and tribal as the Greek system—the groups that made these incidents possible are the same ones that made my life at the time so good. In college, everything is Janus-faced: what you interpret as refuge can lead to danger, and vice versa. One of the most highly valorized social activities, blacking out and hooking up, holds the potential for trauma within it like a seed.

I got to thinking about this—and picturing my college self as a sort of avatar in an extended risk simulation—after talking with Jennifer Hirsch and Claude Ann Mellins, at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, in Washington Heights, on a biting, windy day last December. Hirsch, an anthropologist, and Mellins, a clinical psychologist, are Columbia professors. Both women are in their fifties, have shoulder-length brown hair, and grew up in Jewish families in Manhattan. They share a sharp, maternal pragmatism—between them, they have five sons, ranging in age from fifteen to twenty-three. For the past three years, they have been leading a $2.2-million research project on the sexual behavior of Columbia undergraduates. The project is called shift, which stands for the Sexual Health Initiative to Foster Transformation.

The problem of campus sexual assault can seem unfathomable and intractable. We generally think of it as a matter of individual misbehavior, which, various studies have shown, most prevention programs do little to change. But Hirsch and Mellins think about sexual assault socio-ecologically: as a matter of how people act within a particular environment. They are doggedly optimistic that there is, if not a single fix, a series of new solutions.

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Pope Francis’s Failure to Address Abuse Allegations Jeopardizes His Papacy

VATICAN CITY
TIME

February 6, 2018

By Christopher J. Hale

This week it came to light that Pope Francis received an eight-page letter from a Chilean man in 2015 that detailed how a priest sexually abused him, and how other priests ignored and concealed the crime, including then-Father Juan Barros, a man Francis had just months earlier appointed to be the bishop of Osorno, Chile.

This revelation comes weeks after Pope Francis called accusations against Bishop Barros “calumny” and said he had received no credible evidence that Barros had covered up abuse. Francis eventually walked back his claims of calumny and sent a Vatican special prosecutor to Chile to investigate the claims of coverup. But the fact that Francis received the letter by hand by from Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, one of the Church’s top-ranking officials, and either did not read the letter or did not act on it, is a stunning development that represents the biggest crisis of Francis’s nearly five year papacy.

Francis’s surprise March 2013 election as the universal leader of the Catholic Church came on the heels of a four-minute speech he gave at the conclave where he derided Church’s self-obsession. In what many have described as Francis’s Gettysburg Address, the future pope said that “when the Church is self-referential, inadvertently, she believes she has her own light.” Francis called this oversized self-importance that “worst evil” which could befall the Church.

His election was seen as a rebuke of that self-referentialism and he was expected to operate an agenda of reform. In countless ways, he has furthered that agenda. The Catholic Church of 2018 looks very different from the one he inherited nearly five years ago. From everything from the new focus on the environment and the poor to an emphasis on simplicity and sobriety among the clergy, Francis has reformed nearly every corner of the Catholic Church in his image.

But all that is for naught if Francis doesn’t finally address the sexual abuse scandal head-on. I’ve been one of the Pope’s biggest cheerleaders in American and global media the past five years, but I can say with conviction that if Francis doesn’t transform his focus and practice on ending the systematic cover-up of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, his papacy will be a tragic failure. Sadly, his record on this issue is worse than his immediate predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, who despite his many shortcomings on the issue, was the first pope to take the cover-up scandal seriously.

Pope Francis’s legacy is at stake, but more importantly, the viability of the Catholic Church itself and its gospel mission is as at stake. To put it simply, a Church that systematically covers up the abuse of children by its ministers is a Church without a future. It was that way in 2002 when this scandal first exploded. It’s even more so the case in 2018, when the Church’s popular reformist pope has failed to accurately assess the gravity and effectively address this issue.

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It’s Now the Pope’s Scandal

VATICAN CITY
National Review

February 6, 2018

By Michael Brendan Dougherty

What are we to make of news that Pope Francis was confronted with — and did not address — evidence of sex abuse in the Chilean Church?

Well, it’s now happened. The great scandal of the modern Catholic Church — its tolerance for clergy who abuse children, and its laxity when dealing with bishops who themselves tolerated or enabled priest-abusers — now touches directly on the pope himself.

It’s worth laying out the timeline clearly. In 2015, Pope Francis appointed Juan Barros Madrid to the bishopric of Osorno, Chile. The appointment was met with local protests, among Catholics and non-Catholics who believed that Barros was implicated in the crimes of child sexual abuse committed by his friend Father Fernando Karadima, a prominent Chilean churchman who habitually kissed and fondled boys. In the days after the installation of Barros at Osono, Pope Francis told an archbishop that there was “no objective reason at all” to oppose the appointment. The Vatican’s own department governing these matters, the Congregation for Bishops, released a statement saying they had “carefully examined the prelate’s candidature and did not find objective reasons to preclude the appointment.”

In the months following the appointment, Pope Francis became extremely dismissive of complaints. “Osorno suffers, yes, for silliness,” the pope said of the outrage in the media. “Think with your head, and do not be carried away by the noses of the leftists, who are the ones who put this thing together,” he added.

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Catholic Sunday school teacher pleads guilty to child porn, sexual battery charges

STAUNTON (VA)
News Leader

February 6, 2018

By Laura Peters

STAUNTON — William L. Kerr is facing years in prison after he pleaded guilty to seven charges involving possession of child pornography and aggravated sexual battery.

Kerr, 75, appeared in Staunton Circuit Court on Tuesday afternoon.

The Staunton man pleaded guilty to one count of possession of child pornography and six counts of aggravated sexual battery. He faces up to 125 years in prison.

Nearly 45 other charges, including forcible sodomy, possession of child pornography and aggravated sexual battery, were not prosecuted.

According to evidence presented by Anne Reed, the chief deputy commonwealth’s attorney for Staunton, between 1990 and 2004, Kerr invited several young girls ranging in ages 7 to 11 back to his Staunton home.

“Kerr would frequently invite children over to his house,” Reed said. “The defendant would get the girls alone.”

But, to these children, he served as an authority figure and their Sunday school teacher at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Parish in Staunton. During Reed’s stipulation, she said many of the girls were fearful to come forward and tell someone about the abuse.

Reed said the abused children, now adults, attended St. Francis with their families.

“The defendant was trusted by her parents, who worked in the church,” Reed said of one of the victims. “At the age of 9 years old, the defendant started to sexually abuse her while she was at his residence.

“She was afraid to say anything that was happening to her out of fear of hurting the defendant’s wife, whom she cared for very much as well as concern of upsetting her parents,” Reed continued. “It was not until several years later that she was able to disclose what had happened and seek counseling.”

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The abuse victim who has protested in the same spot for 20 years

WASHINGTON (DC)
BBC

February 6, 2018

By Owen Amos

John Wojnowski was abused by a priest during a Latin lesson 60 years ago. He has spent the past two decades protesting outside the Vatican Embassy in Washington DC. What keeps him going?

The most surprising thing about this protester is – he doesn’t want to protest.

He doesn’t want to spend eight hours a day on public transport, waiting for buses and trains, getting to and from Embassy Row in Washington DC.

He doesn’t want to hold his sign in the cold, and the dark, and the snow, and the rain.

He doesn’t want his face to freeze, his knees to ache, his fingers to turn numb.

He was 54 when the protest started; he turns 75 in April. He has spent almost a third of his life here, on his own, holding a sign outside the Vatican Embassy.

“Of course I want to stop,” he says. “But they made it personal.”

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Catholic Church: Priest accused of abuse in Ireland sent by church to Malawi

MALAWI (SOUTH AFRICA)
Ama Bhungane

February 7, 2018

By Michael O’Farrell and Collins Mtika

The Catholic Church’s St John of God order moved an Irish school principal accused of child abuse to Malawi, where he continued working with vulnerable children for almost 20 years, an investigation by the Centre for Investigative Journalism Malawi (CIJM) and Irish newspaper the Mail on Sunday has revealed.

The investigation also suggests that amid mounting allegations in Ireland, the order covered up Brother Aidan Clohessy’s continued involvement with children in Malawi, where he worked between 1993 and 2012.

The first serious allegation of child abuse was levelled against Clohessy in 1985, while he was the principal of St Augustine’s, a school for special needs boys in Dublin.

By the time the order withdrew him from public ministry in Malawi in 2012 and returned to Ireland, 14 allegations of abuse had been made against him relating to his tenure at St Augustine’s.

The Mail on Sunday reported that while he was in Malawi, a number of his alleged Irish victims received compensation under the “no-fault” compensation scheme run by the Redress Board set up by the Irish government.

More than a week ago, the newspaper reported that two new allegations of child abuse against Clohessy had been referred for investigation to gardaí (Irish police) and child and family agency Tusla.

Despite this, the 10-month media investigation heard that the brother, who was in charge of all the order’s operations in Malawi, continued to be involved with children during his years there.

The CIJM heard no allegations of direct physical abuse against him in Malawi. However, he is alleged to have converted a garage at his home where boys collected from the streets were housed.

It is also alleged that he required the boys to shower while he supervised them.

In an interview, Clohessy denied all the allegations and said he had not taken street children to his home or supervised them while they were showering.

Harrison Chilale, the order’s clinical director in Malawi, said “there was not even a single rumour (of abuse)”.

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Church: ‘No excuses’ for behavior described in priest’s child porn charges

BOISE (ID)
Idaho Statesman

February 6, 2018

By Ruth Brown

Catholic officials in Boise said Tuesday that they had never received complaints of sexual misconduct by the Rev. W. Thomas Faucher prior to his arrest Friday on child pornography and drug charges.

In a midafternoon news release from the Diocese of Boise, Bishop Peter F. Christensen said the allegations against Faucher, if true, “are a betrayal of the trust we place in all ministers.”

Prosecutors say hundreds of images of child pornography and drugs such as marijuana, ecstasy and LSD were found in the retired priest’s home. Some of the images allegedly involved infants and toddlers. And Faucher, 72, allegedly wrote in an online chatroom that he “desires to rape and kill children,” Ada County Deputy Prosecutor Cathy Guzman said during a probable cause hearing Monday.

Faucher, (pronounced foh-SHAY), is charged with 10 counts of sexual exploitation of a child, two counts of distributing sexually exploitative material involving children and two counts of drug possession. All of the charges, except one of the drug counts, are felonies. If convicted, he faces a lifetime in prison.

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US charges priest with sex abuse 12 years after bombshell drops

WILMINGTON (DE)
La Croix International

February 7, 2018

While some of the victims were outraged at having to wait over a decade for some sort of closure others applauded the grand jury’s indictment

A Catholic former priest who faces allegations of sexual abuse dating back to Papua New Guinea in the 1980s is now being prosecuted in the small mid-Atlantic US state of Delaware for molesting a teenage girl over 14 years ago.

The case is being heralded as a landmark because it represents the first lawsuit against a priest in the diocese since church authorities revealed in 2006 that allegations of abuse and molestation against minors had surfaced against a handful of clergy.

While some of the victims were outraged at having to wait over a decade for some sort of closure others applauded the grand jury’s indictment of John A. Sarro on Jan. 29.

He was charged with first-degree sexual intercourse and second-degree unlawful sexual contact for fondling and engaging a young teenage girl in oral sex on several occasions from 1992-1994, The Associated Press reported.

The statute of limitations does not apply in this case as Delaware’s criminal code of conduct makes exceptions for particular sexual crimes, The Western Journal said.

The Catholic Diocese of Wilmington in Delaware reported a list of complaints against living and deceased priests in 2006 but none have been prosecuted until now.

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Father testifies in trial against Mormon Church

MARTINSBURG (WV)
The Journal

February 7, 2018

By Kelsie LeRose

MARTINSBURG — On Tuesday, Chris Jensen, a defendant in the lawsuit alleging The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints covered up allegations that Michael Jensen sexually abused several children over a period of more than five years, continued to dispute the timeline of when he learned of the abuse.

The church contests allegations that leaders in the Martinsburg Stake were aware of Jensen’s crimes for as long as five years and did not report the suspected abuse to police.

Entering week four of the trial, the jury continued to hear the testimony of Chris Jensen, the father of Michael Jensen. Michael Jensen is currently serving 35 to 75 years in prison for sexually abusing two minors at the ages of 4 and 3.

Chris Jensen maintained that no one told him about the allegations that convicted Michael until the August 2012 hearing when his son was charged with child abuse.

For a majority of the time that the abuse occurred, Chris Jensen was often deployed with the military, having served for 30 years in the Army.

One large focus of Tuesday morning’s testimony involved a 2010 incident when Michael Jensen allegedly assaulted a family member, after which his father kicked him out of the house. He was 18 at the time.

Sandra Lee Jensen, Michael Jensen’s mother, testified earlier in the case that the incident was not the only reason they had kicked him out. She said it was the “accumulation” of his behavior and a “line was crossed.”

Chris Jensen said Tuesday that they kicked their son out due to years of “all kinds of stuff” and this incident was “the last straw, so to speak.”

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South Carolina Church To Pay $300,000 And Apologize In Child Sex Abuse Case

COLUMBIA (SC)
The Daily Caller

February 6, 2018

By Joshua Gill

A Baptist church in South Carolina settled a child sexual abuse lawsuit, agreeing to issue an apology, admit liability, and to pay $300,000 to the plaintiff.

Bryan Barnes, spokesman for First Baptist Church of Columbia, S.C., said that church leadership issued the apology and explained the terms of the settlement before the congregation on Sunday, according to the Baptist Press. The case involved a boy identified only as “Joel Doe” who alleged that Andrew McCraw, a volunteer in the church’s youth ministry, engaged in sexually inappropriate behavior with him when he was between the ages of 11 and 16.

“Today, we want to offer an apology for the inappropriate and unacceptable conduct this young man endured and express regret for what we failed to do to prevent it,” church leaders said, according to the outlet.

“No student should have to experience what this young man endured,” the church’s statement added.

Doe filed the lawsuit in October 2017 through his parents against First Baptist Church Senior Pastor Wendell Estep, and McCraw. The lawsuit alleged that McCraw initiated a relationship with Doe as a young adult mentor in a church youth program, but the relationship progressed in intimacy to inappropriate touching and sleepovers at McCraw’s house with no other adults or youths present.

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Columbus bishop accused of sexually abusing and harassing several followers

COLUMBUS (OH)
The Columbus Dispatch

February 6, 2018

By Danae King

A property dispute has brought to light sexual-assault allegations against a Columbus bishop who founded a group of Pentecostal churches around the world.

The allegations against Bishop Joseph White, 81, founder and presiding bishop emeritus of the Church of the Living God International (CLGI), which is headquartered in Columbus and has 102 locations worldwide, were formally made to church leaders in June 2017. The allegations were then investigated by the church’s board of directors — two of whom are White’s sisters — in August, but the results have not been disclosed.

In a lawsuit filed in a Virginia court in December, five of White’s followers — one from Reynoldsburg — accuse him of sexual abuse and harassment over more than 20 years.

That same month, White retired from the church.

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CRITICS: POPE LOSING CREDIBILITY IN ABUSE CASES

VATICAN CITY
Church Militant

February 6, 2018

By Rodney Pelletier

Chilean sex abuse victim asserts the Pope heard from him

VATICAN CITY (ChurchMilitant.com) – Critics are claiming Pope Francis has lost credibility after reports revealed he received a letter from a Chilean sex abuse victim asking for help in 2015. The recent revelation comes only weeks after the Holy Father claimed no victims had come forward to him.

Doctor Kurt Martens, a professor of canon law at Catholic University of America (CUA), commented, “‘Houston, we have a problem.’ If the Pope indeed received a report detailing the abuse suffered by [Dr. Fernando] Karadima victims and the cover-up, then there is a huge problem, and it can be summarized with one word: credibility. Or lack thereof.”

Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, is claiming Pope Francis most likely “lied” when he said he had never heard from any of Karadima’s victims.

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FURTNEY SEEKS NAME CHANGE

SANDPOINT (ID)
Priest River Times

February 7, 2018

By Keith Kinnaird

A Priest River man awaiting trial on ritualized and sexual abuse charges is petitioning to have his named changed.

Dana Andrew Furtney seeks to change his name to Benaiah Joy Moses, according to a petition filed in Bonner County Magistrate Court.

Furtney said in the petition that he is pursuing the name change for “prophetic and spiritual reasons.” He cites two biblical passages — Revelations 2:17 and John 3:5-8. The latter passage refers to Jesus’ stating that no one can enter the kingdom of God unless “they are born of water and spirit.”

Furtney explains in the petition that he was “born again of water and in the spirit” at 7:37 a.m. on Dec. 1, 2017, in Pod 500 of the Bonner County Jail. It appears to have occurred in the hours leading up to his arraignment in 1st District Court on 14 felony charges ranging from ritualized abuse, sexual abuse of a child, felony injury to a child and domestic battery. Furtney entered pleas of not guilty during the hearing.

Furtney, 49, was arrested after the alleged victims reported the ongoing abuse to authorities in Toledo, Ohio.

Furtney was originally arrested on a fraction of the offenses in October of last year. The case expanded significantly as a result of grand jury proceedings that were conducted in December.

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Former Catholic priest Vincent Gerard Ryan to face trial

NEWCASTLE (AUSTRALIA)
The Newcastle Herald

February 7 2018

By Sam Rigney

A FORMER Hunter Catholic priest accused of sexually and indecently assaulting three young boys while he was the parish priest at St Joseph’s at The Junction and Cessnock between 1973 and 1991 will face a trial in Newcastle District Court.

Vincent Gerard Ryan, 79, of Ryde, appeared in Newcastle Local Court on Wednesday via audio visual link from a suite in the Sydney Downing Centre court complex where he was committed to face a trial on six charges, including three counts of indecent assault, two counts of sexual assault and attempted sexual intercourse of a child.

Three other charges, which related to alleged offences against a young boy at Cessnock between 1987 and 1991, were withdrawn by Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) solicitor Fiona Irwin.

Mr Ryan is alleged to have given one boy, aged 10 or 11 in 1973 or 1974, a full glass of wine in the sacristy at St Joseph’s, The Junction, while explaining the role of church altar boy, according to a brief of evidence tendered in court on Wednesday.

Mr Ryan allegedly told the boy that the wine was “the blood of Christ” before introducing the boy to his “tickling games”.

Mr Ryan is then accused of indecently assaulting the boy and masturbating himself before telling the boy “you can see how much fun it can be being an altar boy”, court documents state.

A week after the alleged assault, the boy was allegedly summoned to the sacristy for altar boy training, according to court documents.

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Pope was informed about accused paedophile priest

VATICAN CITY
AFP

February 7, 2018

A former member of the Vatican’s child protection panel said Tuesday that she sent Pope Francis a letter warning him about a Chilean bishop accused of covering up for a paedophile priest, contradicting the pontiff’s previous remarks.

During a trip to Chile in January marred by controversy after Francis hugged Bishop Juan Barros, the pope indicated that he had not heard from victims in the case.

But Irish survivor of abuse Marie Collins, who quit the pope’s commission on the protection of minors last year, said she travelled to Rome in 2015 with a letter written by Juan Carlos Cruz, a victim of disgraced paedophile priest Fernando Karadima.

In 2015, Francis appointed Barros the head of the diocese of Osorno in southern Chile despite accusations the prelate covered up for Karadima.

“The day they bring me proof against Bishop Barros, then I will speak. There is not a single piece of proof against him. Everything is slander,” the pope had said in Chile.

“You tell me that there are victims, but I did not see them,” he said.

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Civil suit filed against Hobbs priest accused of sex assault

LAS CRUCES (NM)
KRQE News 13

February 6, 2018

A Hobbs priest facing sex assault charges has now been hit with a civil suit.

The plaintiff, only identified as “John Doe,” says Father Ricardo Bauza touched him in a sexual way.

Bauza is already facing charges for allegedly touching a man in the shower at his rectory.

The suit also names the St. Helena Parish where Bauza worked and the Las Cruces Diocese, claiming they knowingly allow clerics with a history of sexual abuse to stay in their positions.

The suit not only calls for monetary damages, but also for Bauza to admit to wrongdoing and apologize.

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February 6, 2018

One woman’s crusade to address India’s child sexual abuse epidemic

NEW DELHI (INDIA)
The Age

February 5, 2018

By Amrit Dhillon

New Delhi: One Indian woman who was abused as a child, and her inability to forget what happened 47 years ago, has forced the Indian government rethink the law on sexual abuse.

Under the law as it stands, an adult survivor of sex abuse cannot report a crime. But after meeting Purnima Govindarajulu, a 53 year old conservation biologist who grew up in India but lives in Victoria, Canada, the minister of Women and Child Welfare, Maneka Gandhi, said last week that the law needs to be changed.

Govindarajalu met Gandhi on a recent visit to India because the purpose of her visit – to report the male relative who had abused her – had been thwarted. Mrs Gandhi was prompted to order the review after meeting.

When Govindarajalu had told Chennai police that she wanted to report the crime, they said there was no specific provision under the law which allowed them to file a report on a crime committed so long ago.

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Retired priest arrested on charges of sexual exploitation of a child

BOISE (ID)
Idaho Press-Tribune

February 2, 2018

A retired Boise priest from St. Mary’s Catholic Church was arrested Friday on a charge of sexual exploitation of a child.

Attorney General Lawrence Wasden announced in a press release that 72-year-old W. Thomas Faucher was transported to the Ada County Jail Friday, following an investigation and arrest by the Idaho Internet Crimes Against Children unit.

Rev. John Worster, pastor at St. Mary’s, confirmed to the Idaho Press-Tribune that Faucher was on staff at St. Mary’s and retired in 2015. Worster said Faucher was still preaching intermittently, by invitation.

Worster confirmed that law enforcement searched Faucher’s residence, which is owned by St. Mary’s. Worster said it’s not uncommon for church staff to rent apartments owned by the church.

Investigators obtained a search warrant for Faucher’s Boise residence and executed the warrant Friday afternoon, according to the press release from the Attorney General’s Office. The investigation began with a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, according to the release.

“I was aware this afternoon that the search warrant was being investigated,” Worster told the Idaho Press-Tribune in a phone call. “I found professional staff there (at the residence). Police officers were doing their jobs.”

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Assignment History – Msgr. Maurice Souza

UNITED STATES
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Maurice Souza was ordained for the Diocese of Fall River in 1939. He was a parish priest, assisting in New Bedford, East Falmouth and Taunton before being named administrator in 1956 of Our Lady of Health in Fall River. From there he pastored St. Anthony’s in Taunton (1962-1977) followed by St. Anthony’s in East Falmouth (1977-1986). Souza held several leadership positions in the diocese and was elevated to Monsignor status in 1969. He retired in 1986 and died August 17, 1996.

In 2012 the Fall River diocese was notified of allegations that Souza had sexually abused two altar boys from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s, when Souza was pastor of St. Anthony’s in East Falmouth and the boys were ages 9 and 10 to age 17. The abuse was said to have occurred in Massachusetts, Connecticut and elsewhere during trips for athletic events and other activities. Souza allegedly would have the boys sleep over with him in hotel rooms, a church rectory and in Souza’s Taunton residence, and he would both reward and threaten them.

Investigators for the diocese determined that there wasn’t enough support for “some of the more serious allegations.” Attempts at mediation failed, and the men filed suit in January 2014.

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Investigation reveals secret life of pedophile priest James Brzyski

DALLAS (TX)
CBS News

February 6, 2018

DALLAS – A former Catholic priest suspected of sexually abusing as many as 100 boys in the late 70s and 80s, spent his last seven years in the Dallas-Fort Worth area where he used an alias on social media to meet young men. CBS DFW reports that James Brzyski, considered one of the worst abusers in the history of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, was found dead in September in a Fort Worth motel room.

An autopsy revealed Brzyski suffered from heart disease and was full of vodka and anti-depressants at the time of his death.

Records, obtained through the Texas Public Information Act, show that police recovered a laptop, thumb drives and a cell phone from Brzyski’s room. Fort Worth Police detectives, however, said they found nothing further to investigate.

But while Brzyski’s death may have been an accident, the CBS DFW found the life he led, to his very last days, is worth investigating.

“This man was a monster,” said John Delaney, who was raped by Brzyski in the early 1980s at Saint Cecilia Parish in Philadelphia.

“As bad as you could possibly imagine it could be, that’s what happened,” said Delaney, who was 11-years-old when the assaults began. “It broke me as a kid.”

Decades later, when the Catholic Church sex scandal began to unfold, a grand jury investigation revealed Brzyski sexually abused at least 17 victims and noted that he may have abused as many as 100 boys. The 2005 report released by the grand jury called Brzyski one of the “most brutal abusers” in the Philadelphia archdiocese.

Brzyski was kicked out of the church, but eluded prosecution due to the statute of limitations.

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Sacred Heart Mission’s Father Ernie Smith stood down over sexual abuse claims

VICTORIA (AUSTRALIA)
The Age

February 6, 2018

By Farrah Tomazin and Tammy Mills

Shockwaves are reverberating across Melbourne’s charity sector after Sacred Heart Mission founder Ernie Smith was stood down from all priesthood duties over sexual abuse allegations.

Volunteers were notified last week that the Archdiocese of Melbourne had investigated what is understood to be historical sexual abuse accusations relating to three women, one who was 17 years old at the time of the alleged offence, when Father Smith was a priest.

Two of the complaints were made to the church in 2005 and 2006, but the priest, who retired in 2007, was not barred from public duties until another allegation emerged in November last year.

The archdiocese says that while Father Smith is still technically a priest entitled to be called Father, they have adopted legal advice that he “no longer be considered a priest in good standing and his faculties to exercise public ministry be withdrawn”.

Father Smith founded Sacred Heart Mission, which provides assistance to Melbourne’s homeless and vulnerable, more than three decades ago when he was the parish priest at St Kilda West.

The Age has been told the alleged abuse occurred before he started the not-for-profit group and the complainants were not clients, employees or volunteers at Sacred Heart Mission.

The accusations were investigated under the Melbourne Response, which is the Catholic Church’s internal complaints system that handles accusations of sexual abuse by priests.

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DID POPE FRANCIS HELP COVER UP A SEX SCANDAL? LETTER REVEALS THE POPE KNEW ABOUT HEINOUS PEDOPHILIA CASE

CHILE
Newsweek

February 5, 2018

By Cristina Maza

Pope Francis knew that a Chilean bishop had allegedly helped cover up heinous incidents of sexual abuse when he promoted him to a prestigious role in the Catholic Church, according to one report.

The Pope came under fire during a recent trip to Chile, when victims of sexual abuse protested his decision to promote Bishop Juan Barros, a man widely accused of helping his mentor conceal the sexual abuse of children. Pope Francis has regularly defended Barros and called the allegations against him slanderous. But a letter viewed by the Associated Press reveals that the Pope was contacted by a victim of sexual abuse in 2015. Members of the Pope’s sex-abuse commission said the Pope had received the eight-page document outlining how a Chilean reverend had kissed and fondled the victim while Barros watched.

The scandal centers on Father Fernando Karadima, a man long considered the preacher for Chile’s Catholic elites. Karadima was accused of having abused minors for years, and in 2011 a Vatican commission found him guilty of sexual abuse. He was defrocked and ordered to spend the rest of his life in prayer and penitence.

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Former Boise priest accused of possessing, distributing child pornography

BOISE (ID)
KIVITV

February 5, 2018

By Karen Lehr

BOISE – Former Boise priest W. Thomas Faucher appeared in Ada County Court via video conference Monday evening, facing a long list of felony charges for child sex-related crimes.

Faucher is charged with 10 felony counts of Sexual Exploitation of a Minor, and two additional felonies for knowingly distributing by any means materials involving sexually exploitive material of a child. Faucher is also charged with possession of a controlled substance.

In court Monday, the state argued investigators found hundreds of images of child pornography on Faucher’s computer, some of which he sent to another individual.

While investigators searched his home they reportedly found an open electronic chat with another individual that “appeared to have been going on for quite some time”. In that conversation, prosecuting attorneys say Faucher expressed his desire for sexual relations with children and the desire to physically harm children.

The hundreds of alleged pornographic images contain children as young as infants and toddlers “being subjected to different acts of abuse and torture”.

Investigators also reportedly found marijuana, LSD and ecstasy/MDMA in Faucher’s home.

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Apology, $300K payout in church sex abuse settlement

COLUMBIA (SC)
Baptist Press

February 5, 2018

By Diana Chandler

COLUMBIA, S.C. (BP) — An apology, admission of liability and a $300,000 payout are among the terms First Baptist Church of Columbia, S.C., reached to settle a case involving a child who was reportedly sexually abused by a former church volunteer.
Confessing “a broken and contrite heart,” the church apologized and read an explanatory statement including the full terms of the settlement to its congregation in its Sunday morning service Feb. 4, church spokesman Bryan Barnes told Baptist Press.

“Today, we want to offer an apology for the inappropriate and unacceptable conduct this young man endured and express regret for what we failed to do to prevent it,” the church said, according to a near 1,400-word document Barnes gave BP. “We are sorry that this young man was wronged and that our policies and procedures as well as our enforcement of those policies and procedures were insufficient to protect him.

“No student should have to experience what this young man endured,” the statement reads. A teenager identified in the October, 2017 lawsuit as “Joel Doe” reportedly suffered abuse, which included inappropriate text messages, at some point between the ages of 11 and 16 from former youth volunteer Andrew McCraw.

“[Joel Doe] and his family deserved our best efforts, as does every family who entrusts their child to the programs and activities of our church,” the statement reads. “We are grateful this student alerted his parents to the wrong actions of this trusted volunteer. … The young man (student) did the right thing. The legal matter with this young man has been resolved and First Baptist Church is taking steps to better protect the youth of this church.”

In a statement to Baptist Press and other news services, Barnes said the church regrets that it did not have a policy specifically regarding texting in place to prevent such abuse.

“First Baptist has accepted responsibility for this even though we had strong policies in place and performed a background check on the volunteer which revealed no issues,” Barnes said in the press statement. “What we did not have at the time was a policy specifically forbidding texting between an adult and a student without copying another adult. Such a policy, if followed, could have prevented these messages.”

The settlement did not require First Baptist of Columbia to admit to what the lawsuit claimed was a long-held practice of concealing sexual abuse, a claim the church continues to deny. In alleging a conspiracy, the lawsuit pointed to a 2002 criminal case involving former First Baptist deacon John Hubner, currently serving a 36-year prison term for sexually abusing a teenager girl who attended the church.

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Church of the Living God International: Allegations of sexual abuse plague Columbus-based reverend

CLEVELAND (OH)
WKYC3

February 5, 2018

By Stephanie Metzger, Chris Cantergiani, and Thomas Meyer

He should be praying for his followers. Instead, he’s preyed on them.

Bishop Joseph White has led the Church of the Living God International for more than 20 years. His followers venerate him as a holy man free of sin. His sermons claim he’s above the law, but a group of men claims he has abused his power and influence to abuse them.

White is aware of the allegations against him. He was ousted from his former church amid accusations he did not deny. Victims have emerged to tell their stories, many of which depict similar events.

But instead of facing the law, White has maintained his influence over thousands of people across the world and with it, access to the young men he’s accused of abusing.

WKYC is airing this story in two parts beginning Monday at 11 p.m. Part two will air Tuesday at 11 p.m.

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Key dates in pope defending bishop accused of abuse cover-up

VATICAN CITY
The Associated Press

February 5, 2018

By Nicole Winfield

Pope Francis’ appointment of Bishop Juan Barros to head the small diocese of Osorno, Chile encountered opposition when it was announced three years ago and has contributed to a credibility crisis for the Chilean Catholic Church in the time since.

Barros was a protege of the Rev. Fernando Karadima, a charismatic priest who was sanctioned by the Vatican in 2011 for sexually abusing minors. Some of the victims allege that Barros witnessed the abuse, placing him at the scene when Karadima kissed and fondled minors. Barros has denied knowing of the abuse or covering up for Karadima.

Francis created an uproar while visiting Chile in January, when he called the accusations against Barros “slander.” The pope further insisted he never knew that any of Karadima’s victims had come forward. The Associated Press reported Monday that Francis received an eight-page letter in April 2015 that laid out in detail why abuse victim Juan Carlos Cruz thought Barros was unfit to lead a diocese.

Some key dates in the Barros affair:

———

Jan. 10, 2015

Pope names Barros, then Chile’s military chaplain, as bishop of Osorno, over the objections of some members of the Chilean bishops’ conference. They were concerned about the fallout from the Karadima affair.

———

Jan. 31, 2015

Francis acknowledged the bishops’ concerns in a letter, which the AP obtained last month. The letter revealed a plan to have Barros and two other Karadima-trained bishops resign and take yearlong sabbaticals, but Francis wrote that it fell apart because the nuncio revealed it. The pope later acknowledged that he had blocked the plan himself because there was no “evidence” Barros was guilty of any cover-up.

———
February 2015

Fifty Chilean lawmakers and priests, deacons and more than 1,000 laity in the Osorno diocese sign petitions protesting Barros’ appointment and urging Francis revoke it.

———

Feb. 3, 2015

Juan Carlos Cruz writes an eight-page letter to the Vatican’s ambassador in Santiago, Monsignor Ivo Scapolo, accusing Barros of watching the sex abuse he experienced and doing nothing to stop it. The letter, which Cruz said should be considered a formal complaint, would form the basis of a subsequent letter to the pope.

———

March 21, 2015

The Mass installing Barros as bishop of Osorno is marred by violent protests. Black-clad demonstrators storm the church with signs that read, “No to Karadima’s accomplice.” Ten days later, the Vatican publicly defends Barros, saying it “carefully examined the prelate’s candidature and did not find objective reasons to preclude the appointment.”

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Blenheim priest Michael Van Wijk defrocked for of “non-consensual sexual conduct”

NEW ZEALAND
NZ Herald

February 6, 2018

By Kurt Bayer

A New Zealand priest has been defrocked after allegations of “non-consensual sexual conduct” with a female parishioner more than a decade ago.

Michael Van Wijk, former reverend of the Nativity Anglican Church in Blenheim, has had his ordination revoked following the 2005 sexual misconduct allegations.

The local church announced the move to its parishioners last month.

It came after the Anglican Church’s appeal tribunal decision was released in October last year which found that Van Wijk “knowingly engaged in sexual conduct with the complainant when she did not truly consent”.

“In doing so he engaged in misconduct by acting in a manner inappropriate or unbecoming to the office and work of a minister including, an act of corruption or immorality; and an act of sexual harassment or disregard for responsible personal relations,” the tribunal concluded.

The allegations were initially investigated by police in 2005 but no charges were laid.

The woman again complained to the church in 2016 and a tribunal was convened.

A decision to depose Van Wijk was made in December 2016 but it was appealed and eventually upheld.

Now, police have confirmed to The Marlborough Express newspaper that the investigation is now being independently reviewed.

Senior Sergeant Ciaran Sloan was unavailable to comment today.

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Advocates: priest prosecution should empower victims

WILMINGTON (DE)
The News Journal

February 6, 2018

By Xerxes Wilson

Sex abuse victims’ advocates think the unprecedented indictment of a former Delaware Catholic priest in a decades-old child rape case could embolden more victims to seek justice.

John A. Sarro, 76, a former priest with the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington, was indicted last week by a New Castle County grand jury on charges of first-degree unlawful sexual intercourse and second-degree unlawful sexual contact, according to court records.

It’s a rare instance where prosecution of a sex crime comes decades after the alleged abuse, but the Delaware Supreme Court has upheld similar convictions as recently as 2010.

Sarro is accused of fondling and raping a girl who was less than 16 years old between 1991 and 1994 when the abuse allegedly occurred during his time at St. Helena Parish in Bellefonte.

He is set to be arraigned later this week and characterized the incident that led to the charges as “an accident” in a brief interview with The News Journal last week.

His indictment is the first time the state has brought criminal charges against any of dozens of local priests who were accused of molesting children.

Judy Miller heads the Delaware chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, and said the victim’s courage to seek prosecution may push others to reach for justice.

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Pope accused of being ‘deliberately deceptive’ over Chilean abuse case

CHILE
The Irish Times

February 6, 2018

By Patsy McGarry

February 16th ‘ Worldwide Day of Prayer for Survivors and Victims of sexual abuse’

Pope Francis has been accused of “inexcusable dysfunction at best and wilful deception at worst” following reports on Monday that he received a victim’s letter in 2015 which detailed how a priest sexually abused him and how this was ignored by Chilean clergy.

It contradicted the Pope’s insistence on a recent visit to Chile that no victims had come forward to denounce the cover up in relation to the accused priest Fr Fernando Karadima. He said he had never heard of any victims’ complaints against Bishop Juan Barros, accused of witnessing the abuse by Fr Karadima.

“The most charitable interpretation is that Pope Francis is guilty of either forgetfulness or dysfunction,” said Anne Barrett Doyle of the US -based BishopAccountability.org

She found either “implausible, given the Pope’s demonstrated interest in directly managing the scandal around Barros.” The more likely explanation was that the Pope “was being deliberately deceptive in Chile …when he said he had seen no evidence of Barros’ complicity.”

This latest news was “evidence that the cover-up by the Catholic church continues and that it still begins at the top,” she said.

The Associated Press disclosed on Monday that Francis received the eight-page letter from abuse survivor Juan Carlos Cruz through Cardinal Seán O’Malley in April 2015.

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