ABUSE TRACKER

LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

March 18, 2018

By Teresa Watanbe

Kristen Glasgow was tenacious even after a $110,000 settlement. Last week, just over a decade after her first encounter with the teacher, she learned that he finally had lost his job

UCLA graduate student Kristen Glasgow says she first met Gabriel Piterberg, a history professor, in 2008. They had coffee together and then, she alleged, he walked her to her car, pushed her against it and forced his tongue into her mouth.

Glasgow detailed this and other claims of Piterberg’s sexual misconduct over five years in a lawsuit she filed against the University of California in 2015.

The lawsuit said that UCLA essentially ignored her complaints when she tried to go through the Title IX complaint process. It led to a settlement in which the university gave her $110,000 and a fellowship to support her work on her doctoral dissertation.

But even after that validation, UCLA’s initial response to her charges still gnawed at Glasgow — as did the fact that Piterberg still had his job. When UCLA hired a new Title IX coordinator, Glasgow filed a complaint again, in 2016. This time, she won.

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.

AMSTERDAM (THE NETHERLANDS)
Jewish Community Watch

March 17, 2018

The organization representing the Jewish community in Amsterdam has severed ties with Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs because of the Chief Rabbi’s involvement in covering up child sexual abuse.

This is according to a letter by David Brilleslijper, Chairman of the Jewish community of Amsterdam (NIHS), which was obtained by The Parool. (A leading Dutch newspaper.)

These actions mark the first time that a Jewish organization has distanced itself from the Chief Rabbi, after years of allegations of his involvement in several abuse cases.

Jacobs is chief rabbi of all Jewish communities in The Netherlands, except for the capitol Amsterdam, the Hague and Rotterdam.

Several parents came forward and testified that Jacobs urged them in 2012 to not report to the authorities, the sexual abuse suffered by their children at the hands of a teacher employed at the Cheider.

Jacobs warned them of “severe penalties” of falsely reporting crimes, and that their children, the abuse victims, would not be able to find suitable marriage candidates within the Jewish community.

Because of the delay in reporting to the police, the teacher suspected of sexual abuse, Ephraim S, was able to flee to Israel where he became a citizen.

After lengthy legal battles, he was extradited in 2016. On Wednesday he will appear in front of a judge for the initial hearing of the case.

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

DETROIT (MI)
Detroit Free Press

March 18, 2018

By Tresa Baldas

Amber Sawyer was just 8 years old when it happened.

She was watching cartoons on the living room floor of her Mississippi home when she heard the bang.

She went to investigate and found her 21-year-old sister, Donna, dead in her bed. She had shot herself in the heart with their father’s hunting rifle weeks after being excommunicated by their church for getting engaged to a non-Jehovah’s Witness.

For Sawyer — who sat on the bedroom floor near her sister’s body for hours that day, waiting for her mother to come home from her door-to-door missionary work — it was the beginning of a long, painful journey that would one day tear her family apart.

Years later, Sawyer got excommunicated, too, after seeking a divorce from an abusive husband. She ended up leaving the husband — and the faith. Her family cut all ties.

“Jehovah’s Witness kids grow up knowing that if they ever mess up, their parents will leave them — and that’s scary,” Sawyer, now 38, said in a recent interview from her home in Pascagoula, Miss. “The shunning is supposed to make us miss them so much that we’ll come back. … It didn’t work.”

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.

SAGINAW (MI)
Diocese of Saginaw

March 17, 2018

A senior priest of the Diocese of Saginaw, Father Ronald J. Dombrowski, 72, has been suspended from priestly ministry by the Most Rev. Joseph R. Cistone, Bishop of Saginaw, as an allegation of sexual abuse against Father Dombrowski is being investigated. A self-identified victim, who was a minor at the time and is no longer a minor, was in contact with the Diocese on Thursday, March 15. The diocese shared this information with law enforcement.

Although nothing has yet been determined, as a precautionary measure, Father Dombrowski was immediately suspended from priestly ministry. He is to have no contact with individuals under 21. This prohibits Father Dombrowski from going on school properties and participating in school and parish activities and functions. In addition, Bishop Cistone has informed Father Dombrowski that he must refrain from wearing clerical garb, refrain from the exercise of public ministry, and may not present himself publicly as a priest while the allegation is being investigated.

Father Dombrowski most recently served as sacramental minister at Holy Family Parish in Saginaw, 1525 S. Washington Ave., Saginaw, 48601, where he celebrated Mass and the sacraments.

Father Dombrowski was ordained to the priesthood on January 22, 1972. Prior to ordination to the priesthood, he served as a deacon at St. Josaphat Parish, Carrollton, from May 1970 to September 1970; St. Joseph Parish, Auburn, from September 1970 to June 1971; and Sacred Heart Parish, Caro, from June 1971 to January 1972.

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.

LANSING (MI)
FOX News

March 18, 2018

A former Republican governor of Michigan took ESPN to task Saturday during a fiery exchange with a reporter for the sports network over recent sexual misconduct allegations involving Michigan State University.

Michigan State coach Tom Izzo was set to speak about his team’s win Friday over Bucknell when ESPN reporter Dan Murphy asked former Gov. John Engler: “Do you not think Michigan State is one of the worst offenders of sexual assault right now?” the Detroit Free Press reported.

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.

BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

March 18, 2018

By Jane Kwiatkowski Radlich

A nationally known recovery group for sexual abuse victims increased the pressure Sunday on the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo to release the names of all clergy involved in the growing number of sexual abuse cases in Western New York.

“Bishop Richard Malone told the media recently that he inherited a policy of secrecy regarding the names of sexually abusive clergy in the Diocese of Buffalo, yet he has done nothing to change that policy for five and a half years,” said Robert M. Hoatson, president of Road to Recovery Inc., a nonsectarian organization that works with survivors of sexual abuse.

“In the interest of full transparency, validation and the safety of children, Bishop Malone must release the names of sexually abusive clergymen in the Diocese of Buffalo and the documents surrounding each and every case,” said Hoatson. “The secrecy must end.”

The pronouncement came Sunday morning during a press conference called by Hoatson on Franklin Street, one block from St. Joseph’s Cathedral, where Malone was celebrating Mass. Hoatson was accompanied by a priest who came forward Sunday morning to identify himself publicly as the victim of sexual abuse by a Roman Catholic priest in the Diocese of Erie, Pa.

“I was molested by my priest in Erie from the time I was 16 to 19, and I ended up actually becoming a priest myself,” said James Faluszczak, 48, who lives here now and also called on Malone to release the names of priests accused of abuse.

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

MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
Associated Press

March 15, 2018

A father testified in an Australian court Thursday that his son said he was sexually abused by Vatican Cardinal George Pell during a waterskiing outing years ago. When a defense lawyer accused him of lying, the father told the court it was an insult.

The testimony in the Melbourne Magistrate Court came at a hearing to determine whether prosecutors have sufficient evidence to put Pell on trial.

Pope Francis’ former finance minister was charged in June with sexually abusing multiple people in his Australian home state of Victoria. The details of the allegations have yet to be released to the public, though police have described the charges as “historical,” meaning they allegedly occurred decades ago.

Pell, 76, has said he will plead not guilty if the magistrate rules a jury trial is warranted.

The father of one of the alleged victims, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, testified via a video link that he first learned of the alleged abuse in 2015 and that his son struggled to talk about it.

Defense lawyer Robert Richter said the father did not name Pell in a statement he made to police then. “Do you have any explanation as to how it is there is no mention of Pell there, as having done anything wrong at the lake?” Richter asked.

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.

ROME (ITALY)
National Catholic Register

March 17, 2018 (and earlier reports)

By Edward Pentin

[Includes an English translation of the entire letter. See also the letter as released by the Vatican and also a PDF of the letter.]

The Vatican released on Saturday the full text of Benedict XVI’s letter to Msgr. Vigano showing that two paragraphs were concealed. The Vatican said it had no intention to censor the letter but chose to leave out parts of it as the letter was confidential. The story as it developed.

* * *

The letter in full:

Benedictus XVI
Pope Emeritus
Most Reverend Msgr. Dario Edoardo Viganò
Prefect of the Secretariat for Communications
Vatican City
February 7, 2018

Most Reverend Monsignor,

Thank you for your kind letter of 12 January and the attached gift of the eleven small volumes edited by Roberto Repole.

I applaud this initiative that wants to oppose and react to the foolish prejudice in which Pope Francis is just a practical man without particular theological or philosophical formation, while I have been only a theorist of theology with little understanding of the concrete life of a Christian today.

The small volumes show, rightly, that Pope Francis is a man of profound philosophical and theological formation, and they therefore help to see the inner continuity between the two pontificates, despite all the differences of style and temperament.

However, I don’t feel like writing a short and dense theological passage on them because throughout my life it has always been clear that I would write and express myself only on books I had read really well. Unfortunately, if only for physical reasons, I am unable to read the eleven volumes in the near future, especially as other commitments await me that I have already made.

Only as an aside, I would like to note my surprise at the fact that among the authors is also Professor Hünermann, who during my pontificate had distinguished himself by leading anti-papal initiatives. He played a major part in the release of the “Kölner Erklärung”, which, in relation to the encyclical “Veritatis splendour”, virulently attacked the magisterial authority of the Pope, especially on questions of moral theology. Also the “Europaische Theologengesellschaft”, which he founded, was initially conceived by him as an organization in opposition to the papal magisterium. Later, the ecclesial sentiment of many theologians prevented this orientation, allowing that organization to become a normal instrument of encounter among theologians.

I am sure you will understand my refusal and I offer you cordial greetings.

Yours,

Benedict XVI

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.

VATICAN CITY
Reuters

March 17, 2018

By Philip Pullella

[See also the letter as released by the Vatican and also a PDF of the letter.]

The Vatican “Lettergate” scandal came to a head on Saturday when the Holy See, under pressure from the media and conservatives, released a full text by former Pope Benedict that before was cited only selectively.

The Vatican Secretariat for Communication, which had come under sharp criticism all week for blurring part of a photograph of the letter and for withholding another section, said in a statement there had been “no intent of censorship”.

It said the letter, written for the presentation of a Vatican-published 11-booklet series on the theology of Pope Francis, was private and therefore officials had cited only the “opportune and relative” parts.

But the episode, which has cast a shadow over the Vatican for a week, has proven to be a public relations fiasco, particularly for its communications chief, Monsignor Dario Vigano.

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.

VATICAN CITY
Associated Press

March 17, 2018

By Nicole Winfield

[See also the letter as released by the Vatican and also a PDF of the letter.]

Stung by accusations of spreading “fake news,” the Vatican on Saturday released the complete letter by Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI about Pope Francis after coming under blistering criticism for selectively citing it in a press release and digitally manipulating a photograph of it.

The previously hidden part of the letter provides the full explanation why Benedict refused to write a commentary on a new Vatican-published compilation of books about Francis’ theological and philosophical background that was released to mark his fifth anniversary as pope.

In addition to saying he didn’t have time, Benedict noted that one of the authors involved in the project had launched “virulent,” ″anti-papist” attacks against his teaching and that of St. John Paul II. He said he was “surprised” the Vatican had chosen the theologian to be included in the 11-volume “The Theology of Pope Francis.”

“I’m certain you can understand why I’m declining,” Benedict wrote.

The Vatican’s Secretariat for Communications said Saturday it was releasing the full text of the letter due to the controversy over the “presumed manipulation” of information when the volume was launched Monday with great fanfare on the eve of Francis’ anniversary.

It said its decision to withhold part of the letter at the time was based on its desire for reserve, “not because of any desire to censor.”

The so-called “Lettergate” scandal has embarrassed the Vatican’s communications operations and fueled the growing chasm between supporters of Francis’ pastoral-focused papacy and conservatives who long for the doctrine-minded tenure of Benedict.

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.

SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
The Australian

March 15, 2018

By Tessa Akerman

Cardinal George Pell allegedly abused one of his victims at a lake in the 1970s, a court has heard.

The Melbourne Magistrates Court this morning heard evidence from the father of an alleged victim that he initially heard about the abuse in 2015 from his other son.

“He could not talk to his father about it and he still cannot,” the man, who cannot be identified, said.

Cardinal Pell is appearing in a committal hearing charged with historical sexual offences in relation to multiple complainants.

The hearing will determine whether the cardinal will stand trial over the allegations.

Today the court heard the offending allegedly occurred when then Father Pell visited the lake with another priest while the father and his family were there.

The man said none of his family told him about improper, sexual or inappropriate behaviour while they were at the lake.

Robert Richter QC, representing Cardinal Pell, said the man was proud that he had given Cardinal Pell a water ski ride.

“I was proud because he was such a big man as to challenge a man driving a ski boat,” the father said.

The court heard the father did not name Cardinal Pell in his 2015 police statement as one of the men who allegedly committed offences against his son.

Mr Richter questioned the man about his statement.

“You say your omission from the statement was just ‘you forgot’,” Mr Richter said.

“That’s an invention of yours since July 2015. You just made that up after you made your statement.”

The father said Mr Richter had insulted him.

“Yes, that may be an insult but it’s true is it not,” Mr Richter said.

“Absolutely not,” the father said.

The man said when he spoke to the alleged victim his son did not go into detail and only said he was abused.

“I cannot remember the details, I was more concerned about the fact that he had been abused by priests.”

The father said he did not ask his son which priests allegedly committed offences against him.

Mr Richter said it was a “huge stretch” that the father did not mention Cardinal Pell when he was questioned by police.

The court heard the father had no idea there was an allegation against Cardinal Pell before his sons spoke to him in 2015.

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.

SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
The Australian

March 19, 2018

By Emily Ritchie

[See also a description of the council and the council’s mandate.]

Dealing with the fallout from the royal commission into sex abuse is on the agenda at the first Catholic Church national plenary council to be held in more than 80 years.

The significant opportunity, which will be revealed today after Pope Francis gave it his blessing, will involve community consultations from this Easter before two meetings of more than 40 bishops in October 2020 and May 2021.

The event, not held in Australia since 1937, aims to engage the Catholic community in dialogue about the role of the church in the future and redefining Australia’s place in that future.

The process has the potential to initiate landmark changes to the Catholic Church’s code of canon law, with approval from Rome.

“The council will be an opportunity for people to come together and listen to God, and in particular by listening to one another as ­together we discern what God is asking of us at this time — a time when the church in Australia is facing significant challenges,” said Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge, chair of the Bishops Commission for the Plenary Council.

“We sincerely hope the preparation and celebration of the Plenary Council is a time when all parts of the church listen to and talk to one another as we explore together how we might answer the question: ‘What do you think God is asking of us in Australia?’”

A post on the plenary council website says: “There are many reasons for having a plenary council for the Catholic Church in Australia: Pope Francis has invited local church to dialogue; the contemporary society of Australia has changed significantly; and the Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse has been a significant and influential event that requires deep consideration and response.”

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.

BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

March 18, 2018

By Jay Tokasz

[See also this article on the front page of the Sunday Buffalo News.]

The Catholic Diocese of Buffalo quietly paid $1.5 million in 2016 to a man who alleged a priest sexually abused him when he was a teenager more than three decades ago.

It was the diocese’s second financial settlement of a lawsuit alleging abuse by James A. Spielman, a former diocesan priest who served in at least six Western New York parishes and taught religion at Archbishop Walsh High School in Olean.

The settlement is the largest that has come to light so far in the Buffalo diocese for a clergy sex abuse case.

The News found the case in a recent search of federal court records from Hawaii, where the lawsuit was filed.

The massive settlement added to questions about whether diocesan officials have disclosed the full extent of clergy sex abuse in Western New York.

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.

SAGINAW (MI)
Michigan Live

March 17, 2018

Another longtime priest in the Catholic Diocese of Saginaw has been suspended amid sexual abuse allegations, according to a statement from the diocese.

The Rev. Ronald J. Dombrowski, 72, was recently suspended as a “precautionary measure” after a person told the diocese on Thursday, March 15, that Dombrowski allegedly sexually abused them when they were a minor, according to the statement.

The diocese forwarded the complaint to law enforcement. Saginaw County Assistant Prosecutor Mark Gaertner said Saturday that no charges have been filed against Dombrowski.

The Rev. Joseph R. Cistone, bishop of Saginaw, ordered Dombrowski not to wear his clerical attire, present himself as a priest in public or perform ministry while the allegation is investigated.

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.

CAPE TOWN (SOUTH AFRICA)
Cape Argus

March 18, 2018

By Bulelwa Payi

The Anglican Church has been rocked by another disclosure of sexual abuse, a few weeks after a well-known author broke a 40-year silence on his own experience.
This week, David Fields (not his real name) recalled how the abuse lasted from the late 1970s until the early 1980s when he was 13 years old.

“As a young boy I grew up in church. Our parents wanted us to attend church and priests were looked up to in the community as people with authority and power.

“The priest and another one in the parish started taking an interest in me, but at the time I didn’t know why nor could I understand what the interest was all about. Then the abuse started with touching and led to sexual activity.

“The other priest stopped pursuing me. But one continued. He would come to our home, telling my parents he was taking me to church events. This continued for about four years. And suddenly he was moved about 150km from Cape Town.

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

NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

March 16, 2018; print edition, Week in Review, March 18, 2018

By Ross Douthat

The conversation has become predictable. A friendly acquaintance — a neighbor, a fellow parent, our real estate agent — asks about my work. I say I’ve been writing a book about the pope, and the acquaintance smiles and nods and says “Isn’t he so wonderful?” or, “That must be an inspiring thing,” or, “I have a friend who would love to read it.” And then eventually I find myself saying, uncomfortably, “Well, they should know that it’s not entirely favorable.”

A pause, puzzled and slightly crestfallen. “But you’re writing about the nice pope?”

The consistency of these exchanges is a testament to the great achievement of Pope Francis’ five years on the papal throne. He leads a church that spent the prior decade embroiled in a grisly sex abuse scandal, occupies an office often regarded as a medieval relic, and operates in a media environment in which traditional religion generally, and Roman Catholicism especially, are often covered with a mix of cluelessness and malice.

And yet in a remarkably short amount of time — from the first days after his election, really — the former Jorge Bergoglio has made his pontificate a vessel for religious hopes that many of his admirers didn’t realize or remember that they had.

* * *

Meanwhile, the pope’s response to the sex abuse scandal, initially energetic, now seems compromised by his own partiality and by corruption among his intimates. The last few months have been particularly ugly: Francis just spent a recent visit to Chile vehemently defending a bishop accused of turning a blind eye to sex abuse, while one of his chief advisers, the Honduran Cardinal Óscar Maradiaga, is accused of protecting a bishop charged with abusing seminarians even as the cardinal himself faces accusations of financial chicanery.

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.

BELFAST (NORTHERN IRELAND)
Belfast Telegraph

March 17, 2018

By Alf McCreary

This is St Patrick’s Day, and one hopes that people will celebrate wisely rather than too well. It is a sad irony that some of the greatest drunkenness and disorder from students takes place in what we call the “Holy Land” area of Belfast.

There is nothing holy about such self-indulgent behaviour, or about the blatantly sectarian way in which St Patrick has been hijacked by some die-hard republicans on the edges of the various parades.

St Patrick is the patron saint of Protestants as well, and hard-line republicans who use the Irish flag in the name of St Patrick ought to remember that. So much for Sinn Fein’s hollow mantra about “respect.”

St Patrick, that austere, godly and lovable fifth-century saint, would be distressed by the deep divisions in our society today, and he would be particularly saddened by the shadow which hangs over one major denomination of the Christian Church he established in Ireland so long ago.

He might also be distressed by the secularisation of society, but he would be most deeply hurt by the continued scandal of clerical child sex abuse in the Catholic Church.

This has surfaced again recently with the revelations of the evil and heinous abuse by the paedophile Newry priest Fr Malachy Finnegan on Church premises in the Dromore Diocese and in St Colman’s College where he had been a teacher and, for 11 years, the President.

This scandal only became public recently after it emerged that the diocese had paid a six-figure sum in compensation to one of the abuse victims.

One bizarre aspect was that the tombstone of Fr Finnegan, who died in 2002, was removed from the graveyard under the cover of darkness. This reads like something out of a lurid Dracula novel rather than as disturbing and real facts of only a couple of months ago.

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.

DUBLIN (IRELAND)
Irish Times

March 17, 2018

By Patsy McGarry

During therapy sessions for sex offenders, Finnegan insisted: ‘I’ve done nothing wrong’

A former Catholic priest remembers Fr Malachy Finnegan when he was at the Stroud treatment centre for sex offenders in Gloucestershire, England. It was 1995, and the former priest had himself been sent there because he was gay and was considered a sex addict by church authorities.

He recalls Finnegan during group therapy sessions when everyone was expected to be open and honest about their activities as part of their treatment “He never opened his mouth for the four months he was there [at the sessions] except to say, with resolute stubbornness, ‘I’ve done nothing wrong’.”

If “he had admitted anything he would never have returned to ministry”, the former priest said. “Everything he would have said and done would have been reported back [to his bishop].”

Away from the therapy sessions he and Finnegan became friendly. It was how the former priest discovered Finnegan has spent some time in the South at a parish in Co Laois, and how he had claimed that he and the then bishop of Dromore diocese Francis Brooks had been classmates.

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.

SAN JOSE (CA)
Mercury News

March 15, 2018

By John Woolfork

Despite allegations that administrators ignored sexual harassment and abuse complaints at a San Jose Catholic girls school, donors outraged by the accuser’s tactics have more than doubled their contributions.

Presentation High School reported Thursday that the school raised more than $126,000 in its crowdfunding campaign this week even as critics wrote school supporters urging them to withhold donations to pressure the school to investigate the allegations. That was more than twice last year’s $59,000 haul.

“It’s nice to see these misleading claims not only haven’t made a dent in our reputation, they have encouraged people to stand up and fight the falsehoods by voting their consciences with their wallets,” Kristin Cooke Schneider, the school’s alumnae director, said in a statement. She said money raised will fund scholarships and other student programs at the prestigious school, where tuition is nearly $20,000 a year.

But news of the surging donations came as critics leveled new charges Thursday that Presentation ignored “numerous sexual abuse allegations” about a former performing arts instructor who left in 2004.

The instructor was convicted on child molestation and pornography charges in 2014 while teaching at a private San Mateo school for children with learning disabilities. He is now a registered sex offender. The critics allege that Presentation never reported that instructor to authorities even “after his own admission” to Principal Mary Miller “that he had inappropriately fondled an underage student,” when he was teaching at Presentation High.

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.

MEXICO CITY (MEXICO)
Catholic News Agency / ACI Prensa

March 15, 2018

The Archdiocese of Mexico reaffirmed its commitment to fighting sexual abuse and expressed its support for the 62-year jail sentence for a priest found guilty of abuse.

The archdiocesan communications office issued a statement March 13 on the sentence imposed on the priest Carlos Lopez Valdés, who was found guilty of molesting Jesús Romero Colín several times between 1994 and 1998.

Lopez Valdés, who is now 72, served at San Agustín de las Cuevas parish in Tlapan, south of Mexico City. Romero was his altar boy, and was abused between the ages of 7 and 11.

Romero filed a complaint against the priest in 2007 and the Archdiocese of Mexico then opened an ecclesiastical trial, which found the priest guilty and dismissed him from the clerical state.

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

CORK (IRELAND)
Evening Echo

March 17, 2018

By Liam Heylin

A West Cork priest sexually assaulted a little girl throughout her First Confession, and yesterday the 79-year-old got a suspended jail term.

Judge Sean Ó Donnabháin noted that the accused had served two previous jail sentences for similar crimes at this time and said that there was no point in re-committing him to jail at this point in his life.

John Calnan who is now living at The Presbytery, Roman Street, Cork, pleaded guilty to carrying out the indecent assault on the communion girl in the late 1980s.

The victim said yesterday at Cork Circuit Criminal Court: “I did inform my teacher and parents about the incident at the time but I am not sure they believed me. On the day of the abuse, I knew before ever entering the room for this man to hear my confession that something bad was going to happen. I went through my life never feeling believed.”

On the day she was wearing a little badge. The priest told her to come close to him so that he could see the badge and he then put his hand up her pinafore and put his fingers in her vagina.

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.

CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Daily Law Bulletin

A Cook County judge ordered more than $60,000 in sanctions Wednesday against a man accused of making false sex abuse claims against ex-priest Daniel McCormack. The Archdiocese of Chicago filed a motion in July requesting Supreme Court Rule 137 sanctions against John J. Doe one month after he voluntarily dismissed his suit against McCormack.

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.

BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

March 16, 2018

By Dan Herbeck and Jay Tokasz

Three men have told The Buffalo News they were sexually abused as boys by the Rev. Donald W. Becker, a Catholic priest removed from the ministry in 2003.

On Friday, a spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo told The News that Becker was barred from performing priestly duties then because of sexual abuse allegations against him.

Bishop Richard J. Malone made a similar statement Friday to a reporter from WKBW television news station.

But Becker, now 75 and living in Florida, denied the allegations.

“No, I did not,” Becker told The News, when asked if he had ever molested children. “Certainly not sexual…This is quite shocking.”

Becker’s three accusers said the priest molested them after getting them drunk. Two of the men told The News they were in their teens when they were molested, and the third said he was 10 or 11 years old. One said he recently received a financial settlement from the diocese. Another said the diocese agreed to pay for his psychological counseling, his medical care and his medications after he made a complaint against Becker more than a year ago.

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.

BUFFALO (NY)
WKBW ABC 7

March 16, 2018

By Charlie Specht

Rev. Donald Becker denies multiple abuse claims

A longtime priest in the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo was forced out of service and put on “medical leave” in 2002 after allegations of child sexual abuse came to light, the 7 Eyewitness News I-Team has learned.

Until now, the Rev. Donald W. Becker has never been named publicly as an alleged child sex abuser even though victims have come forward with stories of abuse and the reverend has long had a poor reputation among some diocesan priests.

The timing of Becker’s forced retirement — he was given a “medical leave of absence” soon after the Catholic sex abuse scandal first broke in Boston in 2002 — looks especially suspect in hindsight, clerical sexual abuse experts said.

Since he was ordained in 1967, Becker has served at multiple parishes — mostly in the Southtowns and in rural areas — including St. Bonaventure in West Seneca, Nativity in Orchard Park, SS. Peter & Paul in Hamburg, St. Agatha’s in South Buffalo and St. Mary’s in Batavia.

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CANBERRA (AUSTRALIA)
The Canberra Times

March 16, 2018

By Emily Baker

A 79-year-old man has been charged with child sex offences linked to incidents alleged to have happened while he was an employee of the Catholic Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn almost three decades ago.

NSW Police will allege the man was performing an administrative role within the archdiocese when he met the 15-year-old alleged victim.

The offences are alleged to have occurred in 1989 during a work-related trip to Batemans Bay and Huskisson.

Police investigated the alleged incidents after receiving a referral from the archdiocese’s Institute for Professional Standards and Safeguarding last year.

The man was arrested in Brisbane on Tuesday and charged with five counts of gross indecency by male with male under 18 years.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

March 16, 2018

By Haidee V. Eugenio

A woman from Saipan has asked the court to dismiss a recent counter-claim filed by a former Guam priest who denied allegations that he sexually abused her when she was about 12 years old, around 1963.

Former priest Andrew San Agustin, now known as Joe R. San Agustin, told the court he’s been harmed by the accusations against him and asked the federal court to award damages for pain and suffering.

A woman identified in court documents only as B.T. to protect her privacy, on March 14 filed a motion to dismiss San Agustin’s counter-claim.

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BUFFALO (NY)
The Buffalo News

March 16, 2018

Catholic Church needs to atone for terrible sins

I am replying to the March 7 News editorial, “Is it time for a change?” Just as it focused on the topic of celibacy not always being in existence, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church also wants the laity to believe that women priests never existed in the church’s past history, which is certainly not the truth.

The Vatican has even likened the grave offense of pedophilia to ordaining women priests. As underhanded as that pronouncement is, certainly more despicable and as low as you can possibly get were these so-called men of God and their reprehensible actions. The specific bishops who gave orders of transfer to offending priests were indeed looking out solely for themselves.

With this deed now done, those priests were out of their sight. But how in any universe could they ever erase from their mind the victims, the actual children and young men and women whose lives were forever shattered?

While the hierarchy of the church was only concerned with keeping this hidden, the bishops were only concerned with their own ladder climbing to move up the rung career wise, even if that meant basically stepping over all of these victims while at the same time offering no help or compassion – absolutely nothing other than looking the other way.

Yes, indeed, the hierarchy needs to go over its current centuries-old policies. Cardinal Bernard Law, who was constantly moving offending priests from one area to another, was rewarded by the hierarchy by being transferred from Boston to Rome. Recently a woman sex abuse victim resigned from a papal commission. She was fed up with the public stance the hierarchy presents, but would not actually act on behind closed doors. When an institution still does not seem to get it completely, that needed change will be sorely missing.

Peg O’Connor

Buffalo

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

March 16, 2018

By Carol Glatz

A Vatican tribunal found Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron of Agana, Guam, guilty of some of the accusations made against him, accusations which included the sexual abuse of minors.

After a canonical trial conducted by the apostolic tribunal of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Vatican judges imposed the following sanctions on the 72-year-old archbishop: the removal from office and a prohibition from residing in Guam. The archbishop can appeal the sentence.

Archbishop Apuron is among the highest-ranking church leaders to have been tried by the Vatican for sexual offenses.

In a press statement released March 16, the tribunal said, “The canonical trial in the matter of accusations, including accusations of sexual abuse of minors, brought against the Most Reverend Anthony Sablan Apuron, O.F.M.Cap., Archbishop of Agana, Guam, has been concluded.”

“The apostolic tribunal of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, composed of five judges, has issued its sentence of first instance, finding the accused guilty of certain of the accusations and imposing upon the accused the penalties of privation of office and prohibition of residence in the Archdiocese of Guam.” U.S. Cardinal Raymond L. Burke, a noted canon lawyer, was the presiding judge in the canonical investigation of Archbishop Apuron.

“The sentence remains subject to possible appeal,” the Vatican statement said. “In the absence of an appeal, the sentence becomes final and effective. In the case of an appeal, the imposed penalties are suspended until final resolution.”

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

March 16, 2018

By Haidee V. Eugenio and Dana M. Williams

A Vatican tribunal found Archbishop Anthony Apuron guilty of sexually abusing minors, removing him from office and exiling him from the island.

The Vatican said in a statement that Apuron’s trial has concluded, and the tribunal “has issued its sentence of first instance, finding the accused guilty of certain accusations and imposing upon the accused the penalties of privation of office and prohibition of residence in the Archdiocese of Guam.”

The announcement said the sentence remains subject to possible appeal.

“In the absence of an appeal, the sentence becomes final and effective,” the Vatican said. “In the case of an appeal, the imposed penalties are suspended until final resolution.”

Apuron was suspended as archbishop in June 2016 following public allegations that he had sexually abused altar boys when he was the parish priest in Agat in the 1970s. He denied the accusations and threatened to sue his accusers.

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SAN JOSE (CA)
The Mercury News

March 15, 2018

By John Woolfolk

Despite allegations that administrators ignored sexual harassment and abuse complaints at a San Jose Catholic girls school, donors outraged by the accuser’s tactics have more than doubled their contributions.

Presentation High School reported Thursday that the school raised more than $126,000 in its crowdfunding campaign this week even as critics wrote school supporters urging them to withhold donations to pressure the school to investigate the allegations. That was more than twice last year’s $59,000 haul.

“It’s nice to see these misleading claims not only haven’t made a dent in our reputation, they have encouraged people to stand up and fight the falsehoods by voting their consciences with their wallets,” Kristin Cooke Schneider, the school’s alumnae director, said in a statement. She said money raised will fund scholarships and other student programs at the prestigious school, where tuition is nearly $20,000 a year.

But news of the surging donations came as critics leveled new charges Thursday that Presentation ignored “numerous sexual abuse allegations” about a former performing arts instructor who left in 2004.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
BBC News

March 16, 2018

A second priest has been connected to sexual abuse in Catholic schools in Newry during the 1960s.

Fr Seamus Reid, who died in 2001, was not a teacher at St Colman’s College but was known to visit the school.

In 2015 the Catholic Church confirmed a catalogue of allegations had been made against the priest.

In February, it came to light that Fr Malachy Finegan, who taught at St Colman’s from 1967 to 1976, had sexually abused pupils.

He died in 2002.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Christian Daily

March 15, 2018

By Rachel Cruz

A parish priest at the County Down in Northern Ireland told parishioners during Sunday Mass that he had received and reported an abusive and threatening letter to authorities.

Father Charles Byrne of the Clonduff parish did not exactly clarify what was in the letter but he described the contents as being “abusive.” The letter also called for him to “get out of town” for he had apparently failed to properly handle an abuse scandal involving his predecessor, Father Malachy Finnegan.

Byrne also told his parishioners that there had been a “very hurtful” social media post that defamed his character. He has referred this matter to a legal counsel.

During the 1980s, Finnegan, who was once the parish priest of Clonduff, allegedly sexually and physically abused over a dozen young boys from the St. Colman’s College at the parochial house for decades. He had taught in the school and was later on assigned to be the school’s president.

Finnegan reportedly used to bring students into his bedroom at the parochial house when overnights were still allowed. Not one of the reported abuses, however, resulted in a prosecution. Clerics were then not permited to use the parochial house for overnight stays when the abuse reports surfaced.

Byrne, who became the parish priest in late 2017, on the other hand, has not used the parochial house after members of the community refused to set foot in the building. When they learned that Finnegan had abused the children on the site, parishioners stopped attending community meetings and other activities.

Finnegan died in 2002. Father John McAreavey, who became the appointed Bishop of Dromore in 1999, officiated his Requiem Mass even though he knew of the allegations.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
The Belfast Telegraph

March 16, 2018

It has been alleged that a second paedophile priest was operating in the Newry area at the same time as Fr Malachy Finnegan.

The allegation came to light on BBC Radio Ulster’s Stephen Nolan Show on Friday, March 16.

An anonymous caller to the show alleged that he and a number of other boys were abused by a second priest at St Joseph’s Boys’ High School and St Colman’s College, Newry.

The caller said that the abuse was carried out by Fr Seamus Reid.

Fr Reid allegedly carried out abuse at St Joseph’s and St Colman’s under the guise of conducting confession.

He was also involved with the local Boys Scouts.

In 2015 the Catholic Church confirmed that 11 allegations have been made against Fr Seamus Reid since 1997.

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GLASGOW (SCOTLAND)
STV

March 14, 2018

A retired priest has been convicted of the historical sexual abuse of three young boys and a trainee priest.

Father Francis Moore, 82, was told by a judge he had abused his position as a parish priest and caused “immeasurable damage” to his victims.

The High Court in Glasgow heard that the allegations against Father Moore, also known as Father Paul, were first raised in 1996, but it was not until 2015 that a major police investigation was launched.

The court heard that the priest groomed some of his victims by taking them swimming or out for meals before sexually abusing them.

His youngest victim was just five when the priest abused him in his primary school.

The man, now aged 46, told the court he was abused by Father Moore on four or five occasions over a six-month period.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

March 14, 2018

The diocese of Chichester had a “major issue” with priests carrying out abuse, an inquiry has heard.

Bishop of Chichester, the Rt Rev Martin Warner, made the claim when giving evidence to the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse.

Dr Warner said there had been a “breakdown of trust” between the Church of England and the local council.

He also said he was warned by a senior Church of England official that the area was considered “a basket case”.

The bishop claimed Caroline Boddington, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury’s appointments secretary, made the remark when he was appointed in 2012.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Associated Press

March 16, 2018

By Daniel McCulloch

Police have arrested a former employee of the Catholic Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn over historical child abuse allegations.

A former employee of the Catholic Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn has been arrested on child abuse charges.

The charges related to offences alleged to have occurred when the 79-year-old held an administrative position with the archdiocese in 1989.

“Police will allege the male offender was performing an administrative role within the archdiocese at the time he met the victim who was then aged 15,” NSW Police said in a statement on Friday.

“The offences are alleged to have occurred in 1989 during a ‘work related’ trip to Batemans Bay and Huskisson.”

The 79-year-old was arrested in the Brisbane suburb of Mitchelton on Tuesday and charged with five counts of gross indecency with an underage male.

The archdiocese referred the complaint to police in 2017 and promised to cooperate with the investigation.

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UNITED STATES
Good Morning America (ABC News)

March 16, 2018

By Catherine Thorbecke and Sabina Ghebremedhin

An Alaska Airlines pilot who is suing her employer, claiming that she was drugged and raped by her co-pilot during a layover, said she believes that what happened to her is an industry-wide issue that is often “swept under the rug.”

“I believe that this is an under-reported, swept-under-the-rug, not-dealt-with issue in our industry,” Betty Pina, an Alaska Airlines first officer and former military pilot, told ABC News. “It’s not just our airline.”

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CAPE TOWN (SOUTH AFRICA)
Mail & Guardian

March 16, 2018

By Carl Collison

On a wintry Sunday afternoon last year, in Cape Town’s St George’s Cathedral, Gavin Hendricks* sat across from the priest who, he says, had sexually abused him for years as a child. Although the years of abuse ended more than three decades ago, the prospect of sitting face to face with his abuser filled Hendricks with dread.

“I was very anxious, but I had gotten to a place a few months ago where I just thought: ‘I need to approach this guy.’ You see, what happened then played a critical role in my life. I see the devastation that the abuse brought to my life, to my former marriage and also to relationships after that. At 52, I still struggle to form relationships with people,” says Hendricks today.

His anxiety was somewhat quelled by the presence of two people he refers to as his “safety net”: his brother and the dean of St George’s Cathedral, Michael Weeder.

Weeder, who had been providing Hendricks with counselling to better deal with the years of trauma, facilitated the meeting between Hendricks and the former priest whom he accuses of sexual abuse while heading the Cape Flats-based parish.

Weeder says that his role “was not so much counselling [Hendricks] as it was guiding him to the point of meeting [his abuser]”.

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VATICAN CITY
The Associated Press

March 16, 2018

By Nicole Winfield

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican on Friday removed the suspended Guam archbishop from office and ordered him not to return to the Pacific island after convicting him of some charges in a sex abuse trial.

The Vatican didn’t say what exactly Archbishop Anthony Apuron had been convicted of, and the sentence was far lighter than those given high-profile elderly prelates found guilty of molesting minors. It amounts to an early retirement anywhere in the world but Guam, a remote U.S. Pacific territory.

Apuron is 72, while the Vatican retirement age is 75.

The Vatican spokesman declined to comment. Calls placed to the tribunal judge weren’t answered. Apuron’s whereabouts weren’t immediately known.

Pope Francis named a temporary administrator for Guam in 2016 after Apuron was accused by former altar boys of sexually abusing them when he was a priest. Dozens of cases involving other priests on the island have since come to light, and the archdiocese is facing more than $115 million in civil lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse by priests.

Apuron strongly denied the charges and said he was a victim of a “calumny” campaign. He wasn’t criminally charged. The statute of limitations had expired.

A statement from the tribunal in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which handles sex abuse cases, said Apuron had been convicted of some of the accusations against him. It said he had been ordered removed from office and could no longer live in the archdiocese of Guam.

The conviction and sentence can be appealed. If Apuron appeals, the penalties are suspended until the case is resolved.

In the past, when an elderly or infirm priest has been convicted by the Vatican of sexually abusing minors, he has often been removed from ministry and sentenced to a lifetime of “penance and prayer.” Younger priests convicted of abuse have been defrocked, removed from ministry or forbidden from presenting themselves as priests.

Francis, however, has intervened in a handful of cases to lower sentences, and several high-ranking Vatican prelates oppose defrocking convicted molesters and have long lobbied for more lenient sentences.

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UNITED STATES
Vogue

March 16, 2018

By Bridget Read

A judge ruled on Thursday that Bill Cosby will face five additional women who are accusing him of sexual assault at his retrial in April, in a major decision for the case against Cosby. Last year, Cosby’s original trial ended in a hung jury, during which he only faced two accusers, Andrea Constand and Kelly Johnson. Prosecutors asked that they admit testimony from 19 additional women who say Cosby abused them; even the five additional women will aid the prosecution in establishing Cosby as a serial predator, whom they are alleging has exhibited an established pattern of drugging and assaulting victims.

The judge, Steven T. O’Neill, did not readily offer an explanation for why he decided to allow more women to give their accounts this time around. His ruling included a stipulation that the five women who will testify at the retrial be chosen from the eight most recent reported incidents. More than 50 women allege sexual misconduct by Cosby, who maintains his innocence.

Andrea Constand is a former Temple University employee, who testified in court that Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted her at his home near Philadelphia in 2004. In the first trial, the defense questioned Constand, among other aspects of her allegations, about why she took a year to report the incident the police and why she continued to have contact with Cosby after the fact. The testimony from the additional five women will allow prosecutors to establish Cosby’s behavior outside of Constand’s account, possibly bolstering her version of events despite the areas in which the defense previously found weakness.

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ST. PAUL and MINNEAPOLIS (MN)
The Catholic Spirit

March 16, 2018

By Maria Wiering

Leaders of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis said its legal objection filed against the Crosier Fathers and Brothers’ plan for reorganization aims to help victims/survivors of clergy sex abuse, not stymie the Crosiers’ reorganization process.

“The archdiocese is committed to maximizing its resources available to compensate victims and to reach a prompt consensual result in its bankruptcy case through the mediation ordered by Judge Kressel. The availability and value of its insurance is at the heart of these resources,” said Thomas Abood, chairman of the archdiocese’s reorganization task force, in a March 15 statement.

“The archdiocese filed its objection in the related Crosier matter to ensure the preservation of insurance rights for the benefit of the victim creditors in its case,” he added. “The archdiocese fully expects that its filing, as well as the similar filing by the Crosiers in the Archdiocese case, will be resolved in a way that does not delay confirmation of a plan in either case.”

Attorneys for the archdiocese filed the objection with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court March 14 in order to have the plan amended in a way that would preserve the compensation obligations of insurers affected by both the Crosiers’ and archdiocese’s Reorganization efforts. The Crosiers and the archdiocese are among Catholic entities in Minnesota that separately filed for Reorganization following the 2013 lifting of a statute of limitations by the Minnesota State Legislature, which ushered in a wave of historic sexual abuse claims.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
CNA/EWTN News

March 15, 2018

Alleged victims of abuse of Cardinal George Pell gave testimonies this week during a hearing in an Australian court which will determine if he will face a trial.

The committal hearing for the Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy took place at the Melbourne Magistrate Court, and will allow prosecutors to determine whether there is enough evidence for a jury trial. The hearing began last week and is expected to take about a month to complete.

This week, the hearing was closed to media and the public while alleged victims gave testimony to the court through a video link. The courtroom reopened to the public Wednesday afternoon.

The total number of charges brought against Pell are not public, although some of the charges previously brought against Pell date as far back as 1961. In January, a key charge against Pell was dropped after the complainant died of leukemia.

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TORONTO (CANADA)
Toronto Police

March 15, 2018

Sex Crimes
416-808-2922

Case #: 2018-411456

The Toronto Police Service would like to advise the public of an arrest in an ongoing Sexual Assault investigation.

It is alleged that:

– a 51-year-old man sexually assaulted a child at an address in the Bathurst Street and Lawrence Avenue West area.

– this man is employed in Toronto as a psychotherapist with a focus on family counselling and corporate mediation

On Tuesday, March 13, 2018, Phillip Kravetsky, 51, of Toronto, was arrested by Child & Youth Advocacy Centre members. He is charged with:

1) Sexual Assault
2) Sexual Interference

He is scheduled to appear in court at 1000 Finch Avenue West on Friday, April 27, 2018.

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SYRACUSE (NY)
WRVO

March 15, 2018

By Ellen Abbott

An attorney representing some survivors of clergy sexual abuse is calling on both the Catholic Diocese of Syracuse and Ogdensburg to release names of all priests accused of abuse.

Attorney Mike Reck works for a Minnesota law firm that has represented victims of clergy sexual abuse across the country, including central New York and the North Country. After presenting a list of publicly known priests who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse in those dioceses, he called on bishops to release the names of all clergy who’ve been credibly accused in the past.

“We believe the disclosure of this information is vital for the sake of public safety, and for the sake of the survivors who need this in order to begin their healing process,” Reck said.

Reck contends the church knows about dozens of priests who have been accused, but not publicly named.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

March 15, 2018

By Joanna Menagh

A former Kalgoorlie Catholic schoolboy who says he was sexually abused by a Christian Brother more than 50 years ago has expressed his relief that his long battle for justice has finally led to the man responsible admitting what he did.

James Brian Hamilton, who was a teacher at the Christian Brothers College in Kalgoorlie, has pleaded guilty to a charge of indecently and unlawfully dealing with a child under 14 — an offence that happened in 1964.

Hamilton, who is now in his 80s, appeared in Perth’s District Court via video link from Melbourne, where it is believed he has lived for the past few decades.

A second charge was discontinued by the prosecutor, who told the court the decision to drop that count was made on “public interest grounds”.

Watching on from the public gallery was Hamilton’s victim, who cannot be identified and is now in his 60s, but who was only aged about 13 when the abuse happened.

After the brief hearing, he spoke outside the court about his 50-year fight to bring Hamilton to justice and the effect the abuse has had on him.

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UNITED STATES
The Dallas News

March 15, 2018

By Conor Shine

It was shortly before 10 p.m. on June 16 when Aubrey Lane boarded American Airlines Flight 1280 at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, eager to meet up with family in New York for what she described as a bucket-list trip.

Several hours into the red-eye flight, she got up to use the bathroom.

There, Lane said she was trapped in the lavatory and raped by a noticeably intoxicated man who’d been sitting next to her during the flight.

The following hours were a blur of trauma and confusion, Lane said, as she was moved to a seat toward the back of the plane, met by police officers when she got off the plane at JFK International Airport and then transported to a nearby hospital.

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UNITED STATES
Business Insider

March 14, 2018

By Benjamin Zhang

– Alaska Airlines pilot Betty Pina is suing the airline.
– The first officer claims she was drugged and raped during a layover by the captain in charge of her flight.
– She claims Alaska Airlines is responsible for the captain’s behavior.
– The pilot also claims Alaska Airline’s response to the incident was lacking.

An Alaska Airlines pilot has filed a lawsuit against the airline claiming that she was drugged and raped while on the job. Betty Pina, a 39-year-old first officer who has been flying commercially with Alaska Airlines since 2016, alleges that she was drugged and raped at a hotel during a layover in Minneapolis, Minnesota by the Captain in charge of her flight.

(Pina’s name is being used because she has given on the record interviews with media outlets. The identity of the captain named in Pina’s suit is being withheld because he has not been charged with a criminal offense.)

In the lawsuit filed on Wednesday at Washington State Superior Court, the 39-year-old former Army helicopter pilot claims Alaska Airlines should be liable for the alleged actions of employees, including the Captain accused of the offenses. In addition, Pina claims the airline’s response to the incident was inadequate and “unlawfully retaliatory.”

“This is an open and active investigation and we aren’t going to comment,” an Alaska Airlines spokesman said in a statement to Business Insider. “What we can say is that we are taking this matter seriously. The safety and well-being of our employees and guests is a top priority.”

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VATICAN CITY
Holy See

March 16, 2018

The canonical trial in the matter of accusations, including accusations of sexual abuse of minors, brought against the Most Reverend Anthony Sablan APURON, O.F.M.Cap., Archbishop of Agaña, Guam, has been concluded.

The Apostolic Tribunal of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, composed of five judges, has issued its sentence of first instance, finding the accused guilty of certain of the accusations and imposing upon the accused the penalties of privation of office and prohibition of residence in the Archdiocese of Guam.

The sentence remains subject to possible appeal. In the absence of an appeal, the sentence becomes final and effective. In the case of an appeal, the imposed penalties are suspended until final resolution.

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AUSTRALIA
Illawarra Mercury

March 15, 2018

By Joanne McCarthy

AUSTRALIAN Catholic bishops face “make or break time”, say prominent Catholics urging the church to make public its first formal analysis of damning child sexual abuse royal commission findings.

Reform group Catholics for Renewal and prominent Catholic author Paul Collins say public release of the Truth Justice and Healing Council’s royal commission assessment report, delivered to bishops last week, is a test of whether Australia’s bishops have learnt the lessons of the royal commission and are prepared to include lay Catholics in decision-making.

Former priest and Catholics for Renewal president Dr Peter Wilkinson and vice president Peter Johnstone said their group had asked bishops and leaders of Catholic orders to regard the TJH Council analysis of royal commission recommendations as a church “white paper” for reform.

They called on bishops to release the report to Catholics and the broader community for comment and consider those responses before preparing the church’s formal response to royal commission recommendations to the Federal Government.

“Not to make that document available is just another sign of continuing secrecy by the bishops,” said Dr Wilkinson, who co-authored a five-year study into systemic reasons for child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.

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SEOUL (SOUTH KOREA)
UCA News

March 15, 2018

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Korea (CBCK) will set up a special bishops’ committee in a bid to prevent sexual abuse by priests as more incidences of misconduct are exposed.

Korean bishops held a spring plenary session from March 5-9 and discussed setting up the Special Committee to Prevent Priests’ Sexual Abuse panel under the CBCK.

“A bond has developed among our bishops [who believe] the recent cases of sexual abuse by priests serve as a last warning from God to the church in Korea,” said Archbishop Hyginus Kim Hee-joong of Kwangju, a city in the center of South Korea.

“With this momentum, the church in Korea should repent and prepare a path toward renewal and change,” he said.

“The special committee will work to spread a culture that priests must both respect and care for the faithful.”

In addition to the committee, each diocese will install a window to receive reports of sexual abuse inside the church. Bishops will directly handle such cases.

According to the CBCK, the special committee will consider remedies to prevent human rights abuses and support victims of sexual abuse.

It will also come up with a formal process to punish priests who commit such abuse and integrate an anti-abuse campaign into priestly training.

The committee also plans to research the causes of sexual abuse by priests and sexual discrimination in the church in general, after which it will produce guidelines to help eradicate these.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

March 14, 2018

By Catherine Graue

As debate continues about the Catholic Church’s approach to the national redress scheme for Australian victims of child sexual abuse, the church is now being challenged to take responsibility and deal with crimes carried out by church officials overseas, in developing countries that include Papua New Guinea and the Philippines.

The call, from the chief executive officer of the Church’s Truth, Justice and Healing Council, comes as police in PNG wrap up their investigations into allegations an Australian priest, still working with children, inappropriately touched students.

Francis Sullivan said it was clear that priests with child sex allegations made against them had been sent overseas, although he is not prepared to concede that those actions were deliberate.

But he said the church needed to treat overseas survivors exactly as they would those in Australia, and ensure they get justice.

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UNITED STATES
The Associated Press

March 15, 2018

By Reese Dunklin and Justin Pritchard

The three military fathers sat at the commander’s conference table on the U.S. Army base in Germany, pleading for help.

They told the commander that their daughters were among a half-dozen girls sexually assaulted by a boy in their first-grade class at the base school. The principal had known about the boy’s behavior for months, they said, but the abuse continued.

The girls’ parents had already turned to Army police, military child-abuse authorities and sex-assault specialists. The response throughout the U.S. military’s vast support structure was always the same, they said: Sorry this has happened; there’s nothing we can do.

“It gives us a sense of hopelessness,” one of the fathers, a soldier, said. “We can only do so much as parents.”

Tens of thousands of children and teenagers live and attend school on U.S. military bases while their parents serve the country. Yet if they are sexually violated by a classmate, a neighborhood kid or a sibling, they often get lost in a legal and bureaucratic netherworld . That’s because military law doesn’t apply to civilians, and the federal legal system that typically handles civilian crimes on base isn’t equipped or inclined to prosecute juveniles.

The Pentagon’s response to addressing this problem stands in contrast to how it cracked down on sexual assault in the ranks following congressional scrutiny more than a decade ago.

“If this would have been a soldier, things would have happened much differently,” the soldier’s wife said.

The Office of the Secretary of Defense said it “takes seriously any incident impacting the well-being” of soldiers and families and promised, without elaboration, “appropriate actions.”

The military’s school system — the Department of Defense Education Activity, or DoDEA — said it had “zero tolerance for sexual assault” and that an investigation of what happened at the German base school showed staff “took the appropriate actions to best meet the needs of all students involved.”

Yet, in a military that prizes procedure and protocol, the Pentagon’s school system has no specific policy to respond to student-on-student sexual violence. It doesn’t accurately track the incidents and affords students fewer protections than those assaulted in U.S. public schools, an Associated Press investigation found.

Three sets of parents interviewed for this story spoke on the record. But AP does not name victims of sexual assault without consent and, to protect their daughters’ identities, extended that anonymity to their parents.

“The one place you can feel safe with your child going is school,” said another mother whose daughter was among those who reported being attacked, “and then you can’t even trust school.”

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POTSDAM (NY)
North Country Now

March 14, 2018

A report from a Minnesota law firm specializing in representing sexually abused children has released a report identifying eight priests who were assigned to St. Lawrence County churches that have been publicly accused of molesting children.

The report comes from the Jeff Anderson and Associates firm out of St. Paul, Minn.
The priests include fathers John J. Fallon, Theodore M. Gillette, John Hunt, Liam O’Doherty, Robert M. Shurtleff, Clark S. White, David E. Wisniewski and Paul F. Worczak.

The firm says the vast majority of the accusations have not gone to court, and the statute of limitations has expired on many of them.

It is believed that the Diocese of Ogdensburg does not make available to the public the full history, knowledge and context of the sexually abusive clerics,” the report says. “The Diocese of Ogdensburg can be viewed as a microcosm of the national problem of priests sexually assaulting minors because the diocese fails to fully disclose its knowledge of sexually abusive priests. Upon instituting a zero tolerance policy in 2002, half of the eight publically known perpetrators were removed (Fathers Gillette, Shurtleff, White & Wisniewski).”

In 2002, Diocesan Administrator Monsignor Richard Lawler said that since 1950, 56 people, 37 of whom were minors at the time, have made sexual-abuse allegations against 35 clergymen. The diocese determined that the allegations against 23 of the priests were credible, according to the report.

The identities of all 35 priests have not been disclosed to the public.

“In the interest of public safety the identities and the histories should be disclosed,” the report says.

The Ogdensburg diocese has created the Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program, which is a third-party-administered fund that compensates some victims of childhood sex abuse by priests. There is a May 31 deadline for those who qualify.

“Currently, the IRCP is available only for survivors who previously reported their abuse. It is possible the program will be made available in the future to survivors of abuse who have not yet reported their abuse,” the report says. “While the IRCP does provide some measure of justice and accountability, it is also complex and requires a survivor to waive his/her future rights if a settlement is received.”

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ENGLAND
The Guardian

March 14, 2018

By Harriet Sherwood

Former archbishop tells child sexual abuse inquiry ‘there was perhaps overcompensation’ for repressive views

The Church of England may have “overcompensated” for earlier repressive attitudes to gay clergy with a reluctance to deal rigorously with priests who sexually abused children, Rowan Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury, has said.

Giving evidence to the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, Williams said an “awkwardness” about the church’s views on homosexuality 30 or 40 years ago may have led to a desire not to be “judgmental about people’s sexual activities”.

In recent years, “more and more people [are] coming out of the closet. The question of clergy sexuality has been more openly discussed. The change in climate has been quite striking … I think there has been a sea change.”

He went on: “At a time when people were beginning to feel awkward about traditional closeted attitudes, there was perhaps an overcompensation, [people] saying, ‘Well, we don’t want to be to be judgmental about people’s sexual activities … We must therefore give people a second chance and understand the pressures,’ and so on.”

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DETROIT (MI)
Detroit Free Press

March 15, 2018

By David Jesse

State senators will grill Michigan State University President John Engler Thursday during a higher education subcommittee meeting. The testimony is set to begin at 1:45 p.m.

Senators hope to hear answers about how MSU failed in itshandling of complaints raised against Larry Nassar, the MSU doctor accused of sexually assaulting dozens of female athletes on campus, and solutions from Engler about how the school is making sure it doesn’t happen again.

Some of those questions will focus on which sexual assault cases make it up to the attention of MSU’s top leaders and board, said Tonya Schuitmaker, the chairwoman of the committee.

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ENGLAND
The Tablet

March 15, 2018

By Rose Gamble

Former Archbishop of Canterbury says it took ‘unconscionably long’ to focus on needs of abuse complainants

The Church of England was “naive and uncritical” when in came to abuses of power by clergy, former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams told the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse.

On day eight of a three-week hearing on the Anglican church as part of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), Lord Williams of Oystermouth said that a mindset in which the authority of an ordained minister was thought to be “beyond criticism” was a “definitely a problem” when it came to preventing abuse.

“So much of this turns on how we understand the exercise of power in the Church, in which we have often been in the past — myself included — naïve and uncritical,” he admitted. “It did take us an unconscionably long time for us to really focus on the need of the complainant and the proper care,” he told the inquiry.

He added that this “top down model of authority” leaves “little mental or spiritual space for a victim to speak out in the confidence that they will be heard”.

Even when the Church did begin to act, such as in a review of past cases a decade ago, it only “skimmed the surface”, and failed to do justice to the perspective of victims, he said.

Lord Williams was also questioned on the particular problems in the diocese of Chichester, which is the focus of this strand of the inquiry.

Conservatism along with clericalism was a problem in the diocese, Lord Williams said.

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GLASGOW (SCOTLAND)
BBC News

March 14, 2018

An 82-year-old Catholic priest has been convicted of sexually abusing three children and a student priest in crimes spanning more than 20 years.

Father Paul Moore committed the crimes in various locations in Ayrshire between 1977 and 1996.

The court heard how he abused one boy at a school, another at a leisure centre and a third on the beach at Irvine in the 1970s.

He was also found guilty of indecently assaulting a student priest in 1995.

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ENGLAND
The Telegraph

March 14, 2018

By Olivia Rudgard

The Church of England may have overlooked abuse by paedophile bishop Peter Ball because he was gay, a former Archbishop of Canterbury has suggested.

Baron Rowan Williams told the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse that “overcompensation” by colleagues who felt “awkward about the traditional closeted attitude” of the Church of England might have allowed Ball “second chances”.

Asked by Fiona Scolding QC, lead counsel to the Anglican investigation, whether attitudes towards homosexuality affected the way Ball was treated, he said that church figures didn’t want to be “seen to be judgmental about people’s sexual activities”.

He said Ball’s colleagues felt that while “we may formally in a disciplinary way disapprove, we may treat them according to the protocols, but we mustn’t be seen to be, or we mustn’t be judgmental, we must therefore give people second chances and understand the pressures and so on.

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ENGLAND
Christian Today

March 15, 2018

By Harry Farley

Rowan Williams’ former spin doctor today admitted the Church of England’s policy was to ‘stonewall’ abuse victims.

A former official for Lord Williams in his time as archbishop of Canterbury said Lambeth Palace’s approach was ‘to do and say nothing’ in the face of allegations of child sexual abuse in 2010.

George Pitcher, William’s former public affairs secretary, insisted the Church should not see him as ‘the bad boy of its communications’ after he was criticised during hearings into whether the CofE, colluded in, covered up or facilitated abuse.

The inquiry into child sex abuse heard the extent to which Pitcher and other Lambeth Palace officials were desperate to shield Lord Williams from the abuse allegations.

In an internal email from Pitcher to other senior officials he said the ‘real danger here is that these stories are used to suggest the CofE is as bad as Rome, both in abuse and cover-up’.

He went on to suggest the then bishop of Chichester, John Hind, ‘may have to be thrown to the press as a sacrifice’ as allegations of child abuse in east Sussex emerged.

‘The aim must be to distance the current ABC [archbishop of Canterbury] from it as much as poss [sic]. All actions must serve that purpose in my view.’

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HENRIETTA (NY)
Democrat & Chronicle

March 15, 2018

By Victoria E. Freile

A former Henrietta pastor known for running a fight club in his church pleaded guilty to sexual abuse charges Wednesday in Henrietta Town Court.

Paul Burress, 43, who was accused of groping three women in his Henrietta home, was charged last fall with four counts of forcible touching, a misdemeanor. On Wednesday, he pleaded guilty to third-degree sexual abuse, a misdemeanor, according to the Monroe County District Attorney’s Office.

Burress was a charismatic pastor at Victory Church in Henrietta, a large non-denominational church, for a number of years.

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GLASGOW (SCOTLAND)
Irvine Times

March 14, 2018

A DISGRACED retired priest has been convicted of the appalling historic sexual abuse of three young boys and a trainee priest.

Eighty-two-year-old Father Francis Moore was told by judge Rita Rae that he had abused his position as a parish priest.

Moore who was also known as Father Paul, was found guilty after trial at the High Court in Glasgow.

Some of the jurors were openly weeping as they delivered their verdicts.

Judge Lady Rae told the priest: “Mr Moore you have abused your position as a priest in the most horrible manner. You have been convicted of , particularly in relation to the young children, appalling abuse.

“The damage such conduct does to young people is immeasurable.”

First offender Moore will be sentenced next month.

He showed no emotion as he was remanded in custody and led away to the cells.

The court heard that the allegations against Father Moore were first raised in 1996, but it was not until 2015 that a major police investigation was launched after former top cop and Labour MSP Graeme Pearson raised the matter in the Scottish Parliament.

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IRELAND
RTÉ News

March 14, 2018

By Joe Little

The Catholic Church has said that paedophile priest, the late Malachy Finegan, ministered for three years in the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin.

Responding to a query from RTÉ News, a spokesman for the diocese said the disgraced cleric, who is known by his own northern Diocese of Dromore to have sexually abused minors, worked as a curate in Rosenallis, Co Laois from 1953 to 1956.

The spokesman added that the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin had “no knowledge or record of any complaint or allegation concerning Fr Finegan”.

Earlier this week the former President Mary McAleese called on the civil authorities in Northern Ireland to launch a public inquiry into the Diocese of Dromore’s response to complaints about Finegan’s abuse which, she said, stretch back as far as the early 1970s.

On 1 March Dr John McAreavey announced his resignation as Bishop of Dromore in the wake of revelations by some of Finegan’s victims that, in 2000, he had concelebrated mass in public with Finegan in spite of the church’s ban on the paedophile ministering in public.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Belfast Telegraph

March 14, 2018

Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams addressed the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.

A sexist and misogynist culture in the Anglican Church may have contributed to failings in tackling child sex abuse, the former Archbishop of Canterbury told an inquiry.

Lord Rowan Williams, who held the post from 2002 to 2012, said the Church still has a “mindset”, but not a “dominant ethos”, of being a “close-knit male body of clergy protective of their dignity and authority”.

He made the comments while giving evidence in London on Wednesday afternoon to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.

Fiona Scolding QC, the lead lawyer for the Anglican strand of the inquiry, is examining how the Church of England handled allegations of sexual misconduct stretching back to the 1950s, first focusing on the Diocese of Chichester.

She questioned Lord Williams after reading a statement from retired judge Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss who described how she found there was a “culture of denial” about child abuse among police and clergy in Sussex and said the diocese had an “anti-woman culture”.

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SYRACUSE (NY)
CNY CENTRAL

March 14, 2018

By Daniel Messineo

It is a call for clarity aimed at the Syracuse Catholic Diocese.

A lawyer representing alleged victims of clergy sexual abuse is pushing for the diocese to release all of the names of credibly accused priests.

“The disclosure of this information is vital for the sake of public safety and for the sake of the survivors who need this to begin their healing process,” Mike Reck, attorney with Jeff Anderson and Associates, said.

Reck said the release of names, and where and when the credibly accused priest served in the diocese, would go a long way in helping survivors heal.

“We view this as an opportunity and a call to action for the bishops of each of the diocese to disclose what they knew, when they knew it and make this information available to the public,” Reck said.

Patrick Wall is a victim advocate that works with Reck.

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BILLINGS (MT)
Billings Gazette

March 14, 2018

By Phoebe Tollefson

For the first time ever, a U.S. Catholic diocese is trying to back out of bankruptcy court due to its failure to reach a settlement with victims of clergy sex abuse.

In a motion filed Tuesday, the Great Falls-Billings Diocese said negotiations with the abuse victims had broken down and that continuing through bankruptcy court would only add to litigation costs and diminish the funds that will eventually be used to compensate victims.

The diocese filed for bankruptcy a year ago as part of its plan to settle complaints by 72 people claiming sex abuse by Eastern Montana clergy. Later more victims came forward and there are now 86.

The diocese is required to pay for all litigation costs, including the work of the victims’ attorneys, under bankruptcy court rules. That tab is likely to run into millions of dollars, the diocese said in a press release issued Wednesday by Chancellor Darren Eultgen.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
Reuters

March 14, 2018

By Sonali Paul

The pre-trial hearing examining charges against Vatican treasurer Cardinal George Pell of historical sexual offences re-opened to the public and media on Wednesday following a week of closed evidence from complainants.

Pell, 76, a top adviser to Pope Francis, sat quietly next to his lawyers during the open session at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court.

The hearing, scheduled to last four weeks, started on March 5 to determine if prosecutors have enough evidence for a case to be committed to a full trial.

In the open session, Pell’s lawyers called as a witness the father of an alleged victim. The father, who can’t be named under Australian law in case it identifies the alleged victim, told the court he had no reason to suspect his son had been sexually assaulted. The allegation only arose after his son died of what he said was an accidental heroin overdose in 2014.

“I never saw, he never hinted that there was something going on,” the father, who described himself as a practicing Catholic, said via a video link to the court.

He said his son had been in and out of drug rehabilitation centers seven or eight times. The father said his son had said he got hooked on heroin because he enjoyed the drug and had never hinted that he had turned to drugs as a result of sexual abuse.

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FREELAND (MI)
WJRT

March 14, 2018

The name of a new street in Freeland will most likely be changed as fallout from a sex abuse case involving a priest continues.

A new subdivision north of St. Agnes Catholic Church in Freeland has a road called DeLand Drive.

It was named for Robert DeLand, the pastor of the church since 2011. But he now faces sex assault charges and a federal civil lawsuit from one of his alleged victims.

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SOUTHFIELD (MI)
WJBK

March 14, 2018

A Michigan priest has been charged with sexual assault after a teenager said the priest fondled him, provided cash, and requested that they ‘party together’ with drugs. It started with two victims but police in Saginaw fear many more are out there.

Robert Deland, 71, went from the cloth to the jail jumpsuit. Known as Father Bob, he’s accused of preying on young men while a priest at St. Agnes Catholic Church in Freeland, near Saginaw. The charges involve a 21-year-old man and a 17-year-old, who worked undercover to make the arrest.

Todd Weglarz with Fieger Law is representing the 17-year-old, who first met DeLand when he was 16 at his friend’s funeral after that friend committed suicide last May. The teen had been in legal trouble and it’s alleged the priest invited him to do community service at his church.

“It’s a progressive, gaining your trust-type thing, and then he starts moving in: Let’s start getting drugs, let’s party, I have a special bedroom for you.Then the assaults. Yes, this is very well calculated,” Weglarz said.

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AUSTRALIA
The New Daily

March 15, 2018

By Lucie Morris-Marr

Cardinal George Pell has been accused in court of alleged abuse during a water skiing trip in rural Victoria.

The Vatican treasurer, 76, whose committal hearing for multiple allegations of historic sexual abuse continued at Melbourne Magistrates Court on Thursday, was alleged to have been invited to join a Catholic family for an afternoon when he was working as an assistant priest.

A family member said Cardinal Pell arrived with another priest at a lake in regional Victoria just after lunch and enjoyed a trip on skis behind the family speedboat before joining them for afternoon tea. His visit apparently lasted about two hours.

However, Robert Richter, Cardinal Pell’s lead barrister, questioned the father of the alleged male victim about why he did not mention Cardinal Pell’s name in a statement to Sano Task Force in 2015.

In heated exchanges, Mr Richter told the witness, who cannot be named, that the reason Cardinal Pell was not mentioned was because he did “nothing wrong”.

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GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

March 15, 2018

By Mindy Aguon

A former altar boy and Boy Scout alleges he was forced to engage in oral sex with a priest and was told that by doing so he was “one to one with God,” states a lawsuit filed Thursday in the Superior Court.

J.G., 49, who used his initials to protect his identity, filed a civil complaint against the Archdiocese of Agana, the Boy Scouts of America and retired priest Louis Brouillard.

The plaintiff alleges the sexual abuse began when he was 9 and served as an altar boy at San Vicente Ferrer-San Roke Catholic Church in Barrigada where Brouillard served as parish priest and scoutmaster.

The lawsuit states Brouillard would walk around before Mass exposing himself to the altar boys and while in his room would sexually abuse J.G. by rubbing his private parts over his clothing in a sexually suggestive manner and fondle the boy.

The abuse also occurred during outings at the Lonfit River where Brouillard allegedly instructed the boys to swim naked, the lawsuit states. The priest allegedly groped J.G. and others and took pictures of them naked. The lawsuit states Brouillard told the boys they “needed” to do these things to obtain their merit badges.

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DETROIT (MI)
The Detroit News

March 14, 2018

Lawmakers are in a hurry to come to the aid of the women who suffered abuse from Larry Nassar while he was employed by Michigan State University. And while the victims deserve justice, the dramatic changes proposed to the state’s statute of limitations deserve much more debate.

Sen. Margaret O’Brien, R-Portage, who spearheaded the package of bipartisan bills, has said she wants the legislation to “put fear into the heart” of sexual perpetrators — especially those who would harm children. But some of the bills, which have now passed the full Senate, are also striking fear into the hearts of university, business and local government leaders.

Republicans heard Tuesday from a plethora of groups concerned with extending the statute of limitations for decades and eliminating governmental immunity in cases of sexual abuse.

Top legal voices statewide and nationally are also cautioning against having such a wide window for civil lawsuits, as proposed.

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GLASGOW (SCOTLAND)
The Daily Record

March 15, 2018

By Irvine Herald

Father Paul Moore now faces a lengthy prison term, writes Wilma Riley.

A disgraced retired priest has been convicted of the appalling historic sexual abuse of three young boys and a trainee priest.

Eighty-two-year-old Father Francis Moore was told by judge Rita Rae that he had abused his position as a parish priest.

Moore who was also known as Father Paul, was found guilty on Wednesday after trial at the High Court in Glasgow. Some of the jurors were openly weeping as they delivered their verdicts.

Judge Lady Rae told the priest: “Mr Moore you have abused your position as a priest in the most horrible manner. You have been convicted of , particularly in relation to the young children, appalling abuse.

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LANSING (MI)
The Associated Press

March 14, 2018

By David Eggert

The Michigan Senate on Wednesday passed bills inspired by the Larry Nassar sexual abuse case, voting to retroactively give the imprisoned sports doctor’s victims more time to sue, restrict governments’ ability to claim immunity from such lawsuits and require more people to report suspected abuse to authorities.

The fast-tracked legislation was sent to the House for further consideration more than two weeks after Nassar victims helped unveil it at the Capitol. Measures that would extend the statute of limitations and strip the immunity defense in certain cases had received pushback from universities, schools, local governments, businesses and the Catholic Church over the broader financial implications of facing an unknown number of suits for old claims.

“This package of bills delivers justice, justice for the children who were sexually assaulted,” said a lead sponsor, Republican Sen. Margaret O’Brien of Portage.

Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics, where Nassar worked for decades, have been sued by more than 250 girls and women. Among the school’s arguments in federal court are that many accusers took too long to sue and that it has immunity.

People sexually abused as children in Michigan generally have until their 19th birthdays to sue, which critics argue is inadequate because victims often wait to report the abuse due to fear. Under a bill approved 28-7, those abused as children in 1997 or later would have a one-year window in which to file suit retroactively — but not those abused as adults.

Prospectively, victims abused in childhood would have until their 48th birthdays to sue. For others, the three-year time limit would rise to 10 years.

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GUAM
Pacific Daily News

March 15, 2018

By Haidee V. Eugenio

A priest would often tell an altar boy he was “one to one with God” when the priest was sexually abusing him around 1979 or 1980, according to a $10 million lawsuit filed Thursday in local court.

The lawsuit says Father Louis Brouillard, now a retired priest and former scoutmaster living in Minnesota, sexually abused a Barrigada parish altar boy, who also was a Boy Scout and around 9 or 10 years old at the time.

The plaintiff, identified in court documents only as J.G. to protect his privacy, said in his lawsuit that Brouillard would sexually abuse the boy in the priest’s room by rubbing his private parts over his clothing and would place the boy’s hands on the priest’s private parts.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Times

March 15 2018

By Wilma Riley

A retired priest has been convicted of the sexual abuse of three boys and a trainee cleric.

The offences were committed between 1977 and 1996 but the High Court in Glasgow was told that when the Catholic church was informed about allegations, Father Paul Moore, a priest in Ayrshire, was sent for treatment in Canada rather than being reported to the authorities.

Judge Lady Rae told the priest, who had denied the offences: “Mr Moore you have abused your position as a priest in the most horrible manner. You have been convicted of, particularly in relation to the young children, appalling abuse. The damage such conduct does to young people is immeasurable.”

The allegations against Moore, 82, who will be sentenced next month, were first raised in 1996 but it was not until 2015 that a major police investigation got under way after Graeme Pearson, a former senior policeman and Labour MSP, raised the matter in the Scottish parliament.

Bishop Maurice Taylor, 91, the bishop of Galloway between 1981 and 2004, told the court that in 1996 Moore admitted he had an attraction to young boys and had “a desire to abuse minors”. As a result, he was sent to a specialist clinic in Toronto for his problem. When he returned he was told he could no longer be a parish priest.

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DUBLIN (IRELAND)
Independent

March 15, 2018

By Ian Begley

A priest who sexually abused children in Northern Ireland is said to have worked in a parish in Co Laois.

Fr Malachy Finnegan worked as a curate for three years in Rosenallis in the Slieve Bloom mountains from 1953 to 1956.

A spokesman from the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin confirmed to RTÉ it had “no knowledge or record of any complaint or allegation concerning Fr Finnegan”.

Finnegan later moved to the Diocese of Dromore where he is known to have abused children at St Colman’s College in Newry.

Earlier this week, former president Mary McAleese called on the authorities in Northern Ireland to launch a public inquiry into the Diocese of Dromore’s response to abuse complaints, which stretch back to the early 1970s.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
Reuters

By Sonali Paul

Lawyers for Vatican treasurer Cardinal George Pell questioned family members of two of his accusers during a second day of open testimony in a pre-trial hearing into charges of historical sexual offences in an Australian court on Thursday.

Australian-born Pell, 76, a top adviser to Pope Francis, was summoned by police last year and is the most senior Catholic official to face such charges. Details of the charges have not been made public.

Pell’s lawyers have said at previous administrative hearings he will plead not guilty to all charges. Pell is not required to enter a formal plea unless a magistrate determines there is cause for a full trial.

His lawyer, Robert Richter, questioned the fathers and a brother of two of his accusers about statements they had given to police about when and where certain events were alleged to have taken place and when they became aware of them.

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DUBLIN (IRELAND)
Irish Times

March 14, 2018

By Patsy McGarry

‘I’m still shaking today when I think of that monster’

Donal remembers vividly one particularly beating by the late president of St Colman’s College, Newry, Fr Malachy Finnegan, mainly because the priest insisted his mother should witness it.

He was about 15 or 16 then and in 4th year at the time.

There was a rumpus in the class and Fr Finnegan was passing on the corridor outside. “He came in and grabbed me and two or three others and brought us into the corridor. He caught me by the throat and lifted me by the collar two or three feet off the ground and he said ‘go home and you won’t be allowed back until one of your parents comes in’.”

Donal was “shaking”.

He went home and told his mother. She came back to St Colman’s with him to meet Fr Finnegan. “He brought us to his office and asked her “What kind of Catholic have you reared?”

She was told she was there to witness Donal’s punishment. The priest explained it was the only way, or Donal would not be let back to the college.

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CANTON (NY)
North Country Public Radio

March 15, 2018

By Brian Mann

Westport NY – A law firm that represents victims of sexual abuse by clergy is urging the North Country’s Roman Catholic diocese to release the names of priests suspected of committing sexual crimes.

At a press conference yesterday, the firm Jeff Anderson and Associates published the names of eight priests suspected of molesting children.

They say Church officials have other names which haven’t been made public, a claim the Diocese of Ogdensburg confirms.

“Many many survivors still think that they are alone,” said Attorney Mike Reck, speaking yesterday in Syracuse, calling on the Diocese of Ogdensburg to release names of priests who face credible claims of sexual abuse. “The time for thinking about what’s right is done. It’s time to take action. It’s time to actually do the right thing.”

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MEXICO CITY (MEXICO)
Mexico News Daily

March 14, 2018

It marks the first time in Mexican history that a priest has been jailed for pedophilia

For the first time in the history of the Mexican justice system a pedophile Catholic priest has been sentenced to jail, a decision deemed a “milestone” by the victim’s lawyer.

Carlos López Valdez will serve 63 years for the sexual abuse of Jesús Romero Colín over a four-year period after Romero, then a minor, agreed to live with López in the hope of one day becoming a priest himself.

López, now 72, was sentenced yesterday in Mexico City. He was also ordered to pay 75,000 pesos (US $4,000) in reparation.

The victim’s lawyer told the newspaper El Universal that the sentence was “a milestone with regard to clerical pedophile cases.”

At least two high-ranking members of the Catholic church, Jonás Guerrero Corona and Marcelino Hernández Rodríguez, the bishops of Culiacán and Colima, respectively, were aware of the abuse “but they did nothing,” said the lawyer for an advocacy group.

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MEXICO CITY (MEXICO)
Associated Press via Fox News

March 15, 2018

A Mexican human rights group says a Roman Catholic priest has been sentenced to 63 years in prison for abusing a boy.

The Action Group for Human Rights and Social Justice said Tuesdays the conviction and prison sentence for Carlos Lopez Valdes is the first against a priest in Mexico City. He would only have to serve 40 years, the maximum sentence applicable in Mexico City.

The Mexico City court system and prosecutors’ office do not normally announce or confirm such sentences.

The 72-year-old priest had been arrested about 1 ½ years ago. The man who filed the abuse complaint said it took years to convince prosecutors to file charges and ask for an arrest warrant.

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DUBLIN (IRELAND)
RTÉ

March 12, 2018

Sean, look, 1988, when John Paul wrote a letter, Mulieris Dignitatem, in which he set out the reasons why women couldn’t be ordained. That was 1988. And I wrote to the Pope at the time and said, look, I have great difficulty, I can’t believe this, I can’t accept it, I can’t teach my children it. I don’t want to be out of communion with my church – tell me, am I out of communion with my church? And he wrote back, through an intermediary, of course, saying, absolutely not, that’s fine, you know. And I accept, I absolutely accept the authority of the Pope. Do I believe absolutely everything the Pope says? I don’t have to, no, because only very occasionally does he speak with what we call infallible authority; a lot of the time he doesn’t. Let me just take very recently, a month ago he spoke in Chile, to victims of sexual abuse, and what he said was dreadful, hurtful, and also deeply inaccurate, very flawed. Do I have to accept that? Of course I don’t. I’m perfectly correct to say that that was hurtful to a lot of people. He himself had to apologise.

* * *

They are legion; they are legion, the silent sufferers. And they carry it with them through their lives and it remains unresolved and it causes dysfunction and it causes difficulties, and we know that story, because it’s the story of Ryan, of Murphy, of Cloyne, of Hart, of all these [reports]. And the sad thing for me is, that here we are, you know, and it’s 20 years after the new Guidelines were introduced and everything, and we were supposed to have diocesan audits, and we were supposed to be told, all the secrets were supposed to be out there, there were supposed to be no more secrets, and yet here we are, and there is a mountain of them, and a mountain of hurt.

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NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

March 14, 2018

By Adam Baidawi

Melbourne, Australia – A judge allowed reporters into an Australian courtroom on Wednesday to hear witness testimony during a pretrial hearing for Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s third-highest-ranking priest, in a high-profile sexual abuse case that has largely unfolded behind closed doors.

Cardinal Pell has been accused of “historical sexual offenses,” meaning they took place decades ago, but the details of the criminal complaint have not been made public. For the past 10 days the court has been closed to the public as those accusing Cardinal Pell were questioned via video conference.

In general, Australian law tends to be more favorable to defendants, and proceedings more secretive, than in the United States. Such cases are often subject to the country’s contempt standards, and other legal restrictions, which prohibit journalists from reporting on details of criminal allegations.

The hearing, which is expected to run for at least another week, will determine if Cardinal Pell, the most senior member of the Catholic Church to face such accusations, will stand trial.

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VATICAN CITY
The Guardian

March 12, 2018

By Catherine Pepinster

The pontiff’s efforts at church reform have stalled, letting down liberal Catholics on issues such as child abuse and the role of women

If there is something the Roman Catholic church does supremely well, it is the spectacle of an election. From the cardinals in the Sistine Chapel voting and the white plumes announcing the election of a new pope, to the new man stepping onto the balcony of St Peter’s to greet the crowds, it is one moment of high drama after another.

Now such a huge global figure, it is hard to believe that when Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Buenos Aires first greeted the crowds on 13 March 2013, and announced he would be called Pope Francis, most of the world – including Catholics – asked, “Who’s this?”

As Francis quipped on the day, the cardinals went to the ends of the earth to find a new pope. They made their decision based partly on the troubles the Catholic church faced, troubles that had so overwhelmed Benedict XVI that he had resigned. These troubles included the decline in Catholic numbers in the west, the mess of the church’s finances and evidence of money-laundering and corruption, the Vatican’s bureaucracy, the child sexual abuse scandals and the fading influence of Catholic sexual morality in the face of more secular influence.

And just as Francis had pleased the cardinals, he quickly won over the world. His modest lifestyle, his ready engagement with ordinary people, his desire for reform of the church’s structures and more compassionate attitudes to divorced, remarried and gay people, made him hugely popular. At the Vatican, he quickly took action, setting up a group of progressive cardinals to investigate how to reform it.

Five years on, Francis’s efforts at reforms have got stuck. The pope recognises the problems of overhauling the unwieldy structure of the Vatican bureaucracy: he has likened it to cleaning the Egyptian sphinx with a toothbrush. Then there is his calling of synods to discuss the family, especially the treatment of divorced and remarried Catholics. They have won him huge support among millions of people in the pews, but have led to open hostility from conservative prelates.

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DETROIT (MI)
Detroit Free Press

March 14, 2018

By Kristen Jordan Shamus

The steamroller of sexual assault and harassment claims have left no industry untouched in the #MeToo era.

Allegations of sexual misconduct took down media giant Matt Lauer, Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and dozens of others. In Detroit last week, WXYZ-TV anchor Malcom Maddox was temporarily taken off the air when his former colleague Tara Edwards sued the station in federal court, seeking $100 million in a civil rights case claiming years of harassment.

Edwards said it’s the stories of others who’ve been empowered to talk about sexual harassment and abuse in the workplace that gave her “the courage to speak out. … I used to think no one would ever believe my story.”

The societal crescendo of truth telling has had another kind of ripple effect. It’s given a boost to human resources companies that investigate claims of sexual harassment and offer training to workers and their bosses about what is and what isn’t appropriate behavior.

“This is an important movement that is happening right now, and it is serious,” said Kristen Baker, vice president of Detroit-based HR Advantage Advisory. “From any company’s perspective, the need for training and proper reporting protocol is critical, not only to protect yourself but to educate employees and supervisors.”

She said her company has seen a 60% to 75% uptick in the number of requests for online or in-person anti-sexual harassment training in the months since news of the Weinstein scandal broke, as well as companies requesting help from an outside entity to conduct independent sexual harassment investigations.

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UNITED KINGDOM
BBC News

March 13, 2018

A founder of a sexual abuse charity is calling for an inquiry into the Jehovah’s Witnesses organisation.

Peter Saunders said there should be a “broad” investigation into the religious group which he says has serious questions to answer.

An independent abuse watchdog has said it will carefully consider investigating.

The religious organisation said it did not “shield” abusers and suggestions of a cover-up were “absolutely false”.

The plea follows a BBC Hereford and Worcester investigation last year which uncovered claims of child abuse within the organisation.

Mr Saunders, 61, who suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a family member, teacher and two Catholic priests, is the founder of the National Association for People Abused in Childhood (NAPAC) and is currently participating in the Independent Inquiry into Sexual Abuse (IICSA) victims and survivors consultative panel.

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SYRACUSE (NY)
Syracuse.com

Mar 12, 2018

By Patrick Lohmann

In announcing a program to compensate victims of clergy sexual abuse, Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse officials said payments to victims would not come from parishioners’ donations.

Instead, they said, the money would come from the diocese’s general liability insurance fund.

In reality, however, money collected from church members each Sunday will be used to help pay the victims.

That’s because the diocese is self-insured. It doesn’t buy insurance from a third party like an insurance company.

That means the diocese acts as its own insurance company, taking some of the money collected at each church and putting it aside into a fund to cover costs that normally would be paid by an insurance company, said spokeswoman Danielle Cummings.

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IRELAND
RTÉ News

March 14, 2018

By Joe Little

The Catholic bishops have said they will fully cooperate with any statutory inquiry into clerical child sexual abuse, following former President Mary McAleese’s call for a public inquiry into the Church’s response to child abuse allegations against Father Malachy Finegan.

Responding to the call by former President McAleese for a public inquiry into the Church’s response to child abuse allegations against Finegan in the northern diocese of Dromore, a spokesman re-issued the bishop’s statement on child safeguarding published following last week’s regular Spring meeting of the hierarchy.

It recalled that the bishops met John Morgan and Teresa Devlin, the chair and CEO of the church-established National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland (NBSCCCI).

It continued: “Irrespective of improved standards, vigilance and greater awareness, bishops agreed that the Church can never become complacent concerning the safeguarding of children.

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UNITED States
RT News

March 13, 2018

The Catholic Church is opposing new child sex abuse legislation in both Georgia and New York. One archbishop described proposed statute of limitations extensions for survivors to come forward as “extraordinarily unfair.”

A legislative proposal known as the “Hidden Predator Act” (House Bill 605), to extend the statute of limitations for adult survivors of child sex abuse, has been decried by the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) in Georgia as a step too far. A lobbyist for the RCC’s Archdiocese of Atlanta is attempting to gut the bill, which would afford survivors more time to file lawsuits against groups, entities or organizations that harbored pedophiles in the past. The proposed rule change would extend the statute of limitations for child sex abuse cases from age 23 to 38. It would also afford survivors additional recourse beyond that upper limit.

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ATLANTA (GA)
CNA/EWTN News

March 12, 2018

The Archbishop of Atlanta released a statement Friday announcing his opposition to a bill in the Georgia legislature that would discriminate between government and private entities in past cases of sex abuse.

House Bill 605, which is currently under session at the Georgia General Assembly, would extend the time limits for child abuse victims to sue their perpetrators, changing the age from 23 to 38, and potentially longer.

“In our Archdiocese of Atlanta, the Office of Child and Youth Protection helps us carry on our ‘Promise to Protect and Pledge to Heal’ by creating and maintaining safe environments and walking alongside survivors of sexual abuse on their journey to healing,” said Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta in a March 9 letter.

“With this commitment to safety and healing in mind, I write to inform you of an extraordinarily unfair bill currently pending in our state legislature,” Archbishop Gregory continued, referencing House Bill 605.

“All governmental agencies – park districts, public school districts, care facilities, and so forth – are inexplicably immune from the potential devastating effects of these lawsuits,” he wrote. “Churches, religious and private schools, non-profits and businesses are affected.”

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SAGINAW (MI)
WJRT

March 12, 2018

By Terry Camp

Sexual abuse allegations in the Catholic Diocese of Saginaw may extend beyond the Rev. Robert DeLand.

The 71-year-old DeLand is accused in two sexual abuse complaints brought by a 17-year-old from Tittabawassee Township and a 22-year-old from Saginaw Township. He was arrested Feb. 25.

Since the arrest, authorities have received 20 to 30 more credible allegations of sexual abuse involving DeLand and possibly other Catholic church officials, said Saginaw County Assistant Prosecutor Mark Gaertner.

He did not name any of the clergy from the Catholic Diocese of Saginaw named in the other complaints.

DeLand appeared in court Monday for a conference to see whether he and his attorney are ready for a preliminary hearing later this month. They asked for and received a delay.

“He needs to receive substantial discovery materials, reports, audio/video discs and the like,” Gaertner said.

The preliminary hearing will be set for another date.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Church Times

March 13, 2018

By Hattie Williams

A SURVIVOR of clerical abuse, Professor Julie Macfarlane, who brought a civil suit against the diocese in which she was abused, has said that an article she wrote in the Church Times “galvanised” the Ecclesiastical Insurance Group (EIG) into meeting to discuss settlement and change their civil-claims policy.

Professor Macfarlane of the University of Windsor, Ontario, in Canada, was giving evidence on Tuesday to the public hearing conducted by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse (IICSA), in London, on the extent to which the Anglican Church has failed to protect children from sexual abuse.

In an article published in this paper in 2015, she spoke of how she had been abused for more than a year at the age of 16 by the rector of the church she attended at that time, and to whom she had gone for spiritual counselling after experiencing some doubts about her Christian faith (Comment, 11 December 2015).

She wrote: “He told me that God wanted me to kneel and perform oral sex on him. This was the start of more than 12 months of constant sexual abuse by the priest. He continued to make me perform fellatio on him, and masturbated on me, in multiple locations. He waited for me in dark alleyways as I walked home from the restaurant where I worked as a dishwasher in the evenings.”

She told no one about the abuse until she was in her 20s, and did not bring her civil claim against the Church, and a subsequent complaint to Sussex Police, until 1999 and 2014 respectively. The rector was not identified in the article, and was referred to in the hearing only as “F12” due to the ongoing police complaint against him.

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BUFFALO (NY)
The Buffalo News

March 13, 2018

By Mike McAndrew

The names of three more priests in the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo publicly accused of sexual abuse – including one who was arrested – have emerged in recent days.

These new names are in addition to a Buffalo News list of 19 priests who worked in the diocese and were accused of sexual improprieties.

There has been a flurry of allegations against priests from the Buffalo area since the Rev. Norbert Orsolits admitted Feb. 27 to The Buffalo News that he sexually abused “probably dozens” of teenaged boys while serving as a priest.

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LANSING (MI)
The Detroit Free Press

March 14, 2018

By Brian Calley

Leadership at Michigan State University needs to abandon its adversarial legal approach toward survivors of Larry Nassar and the culture that allowed him to hurt people for so long. Though Interim President John Engler has made some changes, the university’s legal approach has not changed. The current path won’t work — not for MSU and certainly not for the survivors who shouldn’t be dragged through years of litigation.

MSU’s reputation can never be fully restored, but the university can help write the last chapter in this tragedy with a bold change in their legal strategy. Doing so requires breaking the conventional rules and placing the victims’ interests ahead of its own. Hammering survivors in court is wrong. There is another way.

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MEXICO CITY
IOL

March 14, 2018

By Andrea Sosa Cabrio and Sinikka Tarvainen

Mexico City – A Mexican judge on Tuesday sentenced a Catholic priest to 63 years in prison for sexually abusing a boy between 1994 and 1998, the victim and his lawyer said.

Carlos Lopez Valdes, 72, was also ordered to pay 4 000 dollars in damages to Jesus Romero Colin.

Lopez was found guilty of abusing Romero while he was between 11 and 16 years old. The boy was assisting the priest at a Mexico City church.

Romero’s lawyer David Pena described the case as a “watershed” for being the first guilty verdict of a Catholic priest in a sex abuse case in Mexico City, one of the world’s largest Catholic dioceses, though there have been guilty verdicts elsewhere in the country.

Romero said he had reported Lopez for abuse already a decade ago, but both church and civilian authorities tried to shelve the case while the priest continued celebrating Mass.

Church authorities “argued that I wanted money, that I was lying, that I wanted to attack the church,” Romero said.

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AUSTRALIA
The West Australian

March 12, 2018

By Phoebe Wearne

About 3000 Commonwealth child migrants settled in WA after World War II are at the centre of an intensifying row between the State and Federal governments over redress for child sexual abuse victims.

With thousands of survivors expecting to be able to apply for redress across Australia from July 1, the Commonwealth is ramping up pressure on States, churches and institutions to join its national redress scheme, warning those who do not “will be judged harshly”.

Federal Attorney-General Christian Porter yesterday took aim at the WA Government over its reluctance to opt in until it receives more information.

But the criticism hit a nerve, with WA Attorney-General John Quigley questioning why Social Services Minister Dan Tehan is yet to respond to a December letter seeking clarification on key issues such as whether WA will be wholly responsible for compensating victims among the 2941 Commonwealth child migrants brought to WA.

“The Commonwealth brought thousands of child migrants to Australia after World War II, dumped most of them in WA and now washes its hands of all liability and says, ‘WA, you pay for those by yourself,” Mr Quigley said.

Mr Quigley also blasted Mr Porter’s role in handling a previous State-run redress scheme for victims of abuse in 2009.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
The Associated Press

March 14, 2018

The alleged victims of the most senior Vatican official charged in the Catholic Church sex abuse crisis finished testifying to an Australian court Wednesday.

A hearing began last week in the Melbourne Magistrate Court to determine whether prosecutors have sufficient evidence to put Australian Cardinal George Pell on trial.

Pope Francis’ former finance minister was charged in June with sexually abusing multiple people in his Australian home state of Victoria. The details of the allegations against the 76-year-old cardinal have yet to be released to the public, though police have described the charges as “historical” sexual assault offenses — meaning the events are alleged to have occurred decades ago.

The courtroom had been closed to the public and media while alleged victims testified by a video link from an undisclosed location but was reopened Wednesday afternoon after the final alleged victim gave evidence.

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