ABUSE TRACKER

NEWCASTLE (AUSTRALIA)
Newcastle Herald

June 23, 2018

By Joanne McCarthy

Glen Walsh was the whistleblower Catholic priest who died alone in a Newcastle church building in November, only weeks before he was due to give damning evidence at the trial of Archbishop Philip Wilson.

He took his own life, aged 55 – a priest who paid a devastating price for reporting Hunter paedophile priest Jim Fletcher to police in 2004, while the archbishop kept silent about what he knew.

“The church turned its back on Glen,” said his brother, John, only weeks after Wilson was convicted in Newcastle for concealing Fletcher’s crimes, in a case that made headlines around the world.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters via The Guardian

June 23, 2018

Monsignor Carlo Alberto Capella tells court he developed ‘morbid’ desire

A Catholic priest who worked as a diplomat at the Vatican’s embassy in Washington has admitted at the start of his trial that he had possessed images of child sexual abuse while based in the US.

Monsignor Carlo Alberto Capella, who was arrested in the Vatican in April after he had been recalled, told the court in the Vatican that he had developed a “morbid” desire after he arrived in the US to take up the diplomatic post in 2016. “It was never part of my priestly life before,” he told the court, adding that he was unhappy at the embassy in Washington.

In August 2017, the US state department notified the Holy See of a possible violation of laws relating to images of sexual abuse of children by a member of the diplomatic corps of the Holy See accredited to Washington.

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NEW SOUTH WALES (AUSTRALIA)
ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) Radio

June 23, 2018

By Emily Bourke on AM

[AUDIO]

The New South Wales government has created new laws around sentencing and the criminal justice process in cases of child sexual abuse.

There will be tougher penalties for those who fail to report or protect against child abuse, and possible life sentences for abusers.

And legal loopholes that have made it hard for survivors to sue institutions will be closed off.

But the government is not moving on the vexed issue of breaking the Catholic seal of the confessional, saying it requires a national response.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Catholic News Agency/EWTN

June 22, 2018

By Mary Rezac

The release of a Grand Jury report detailing cases of clerical sex abuse in six of the eight Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania has been blocked by the state’s Supreme Court for unspecified reasons.

The court released the unsigned order June 20, but did not state which individuals or groups had applied for the stay or the reason behind the application. It also does not state for how long the stay applies or when the report could be published in the future.

“And now, this 20th day of June, 2018, the Applications for Stay are granted. The Honorable Norman A. Krumenacker, III, and the Office of the Attorney General are enjoined from releasing Report No. 1 of the 40th Statewide Investigating Grand Jury pending further order of this Court,” the order, issued by the state’s Supreme Court, reads. Krumenacker is a Cambria County judge who has overseen the Grand Jury proceedings.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
WDSU-TV

June 22, 2018

By Travers Mackel

[VIDEO]

A victim of alleged sexual abuse by a member of the clergy is speaking out to WDSU Investigates.

His comments come after the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans gave him a high six-figure settlement. The man’s lawyer said there could be more victims.

The victim and his lawyer now want the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office to look into a criminal prosecution.

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NEW DELHI (INDIA)
UCANews.com via La Croix International

June 23, 2018

Guide produced in 2015 with Vatican approval was circulated only among bishops and major superiors of religious congregations

The Indian Church’s effort to deal with clergy sexual abuse cases continues to be entangled in confusion and obscurity as guidelines bishops produced three years ago remain out of reach to Catholics.

Archbishop Leo Cornelio of Bhopal confirmed that the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India had produced a guide to dealing with allegations of clergy abusing children.

“It is not meant for public consumption. It is for bishops to address the exceptional aberration of sexual abuse of children by a member of the clergy,” said the archbishop.

The bishops’ conference published a guide on sexual harassment in the workplace in September 2017 after it was drawn up two years earlier. It reiterated the church’s policy to maintain “zero tolerance” of sexual abuse of children and women.

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EAST LANSING (MI)
The Associated Press

June 22, 2018

The Latest from a meeting of Michigan State University’s governing board on how it will handle a $500 million settlement with victims of sports doctor Larry Nassar (all times local):

10:45 a.m.

Michigan State University will sell bonds to pay for a $500 million settlement with hundreds of women and girls who said they were sexually assaulted by former sports doctor Larry Nassar.

Trustees approved the plan Friday after rejecting calls to fire interim President John Engler for unflattering emails that disparaged victims and their lawyers. Engler apologized Thursday for suggesting Rachael Denhollander was getting a kickback from her attorney for her steady criticism of the school.

Michigan State is freezing salaries for top administrative and leadership roles and raising faculty salaries by 1.5 percent instead of the typical 2.5 percent. Engler also is counting on payments from insurance companies.

Tuition will be higher for most students in fall, but Engler says the new revenue won’t help cover the Nassar settlement.

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NEW DELHI (INDIA)
CNN

June 22, 2018

By Manveena Suri

Five female anti-trafficking activists were gang-raped in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand, police said Friday, the same region where two teens were raped and then set on fire last month.

The latest incident took place on Tuesday afternoon in Kochang village in Khunti district, a tribal area in the state, according to Amol Homkar, deputy inspector general of police in Jharkhand’s capital, Ranchi.
The five women and three men were performing a street play on the issue of human trafficking when a group of armed men on bikes disrupted the performance.

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NEW DELHI (INDIA)
CBS NEWS

June 22, 2018

By Arshad R. Zargar

Five female activists working for an organization backed by a Christian missionary group were gang-raped at gunpoint in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand this week, police said on Friday. The women were accompanied by four men and two nuns as they performed a street play to raise awareness of human trafficking in the Khunti district on Tuesday when at least six armed men attacked them.

They attackers beat the male members of the team and forced the five women into a car, took them to a nearby forest and raped them for three hours before releasing them, police officials have told CBS News.

“We have taken the statement of the victims,” Homkar Amol Venukant, Deputy Inspector General of Police in Ranchi, the state capital of Jarkhand, told CBS News on Friday. The victims told officers that the attackers “filmed the act on their mobile phones,” and threatened to publish the videos on the internet if the crime was reported.

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MADISON (WI)
The Associated Press

June 21, 2018

A judge on Thursday sentenced a former University of Wisconsin-Madison student to three years in prison for sexually assaulting three female students and choking or stalking two others.

Dane County Circuit Judge Stephen Ehlke also sentenced Alec Cook, 22, of Minnesota to eight years of extended supervision once he’s released from prison. Cook pleaded guilty to the charges in February.

Prosecutors were seeking 19 years behind bars, while defense attorneys sought probation with the possibility of jail time.

Ehlke said he had to give Cook credit for having no criminal record, no bail violations and sparing the victims a trial. The judge said he hoped that the end of criminal proceedings against Cook would “give closure” to the victims, the Wisconsin State Journal reported .

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ERIE (PA)
Erie News Now

June 21, 2018

Victims react to court ruling delaying public release of grand jury report on clergy sex abuse.

Abuse victims today reacting to yesterday’s court ruling delaying the release of that grand jury report into clergy sex abuse.

The panel investigated Erie and five other Catholic Dioceses around the state.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro launched the investigating in 2016 and had planned to make the results public next week.

The court ruling blocked that release.

Victims today told us they are confident Shapiro will keep fighting to make the massive report public.

And they think ultimately the public will learn about the abuse they suffered.

But in the meantime, the decision has been difficult to accept.

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EL PASO (TX)
Oxygen

June 22, 2018

By Jon Silman

Former Priest Miguel Luna allegedly molested an 8-year-old girl during confession, telling her not to say anything because what happens in confession, stays there.

A former Texas priest has been accused of molesting and raping a female altar server for years — with the alleged abuse starting in confession.

Miguel Luna, 68, was arrested June 11 on charges of aggravated sexual abuse of a child, according to court documents cited by KVIA-TV in El Paso.

Luna was arrested after the victim, now 34, decided to come forward. The abuse allegedly began when the victim was 8. Luna was taking a confessional with the victim and then start “kissing her passionately,” court documents said.

He would tell the little girl “remember this is confession, so whatever happens here stays in here,” according to the complaint.

By the time the girl turned 10, he was touching her breasts, according to KVIA-TV. When she turned 12, he allegedly raped her. The girl said she felt pain and bled after it happened, according to court documents.

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KANSAS CITY (KS)
The Associated Press

June 21, 2018

A Kansas priest has been revoked of his rank years after an investigation into multiple child sexual abuse allegations against him.

The Kansas City Star reports that Archbishop Joseph Naumann issued a decree in December removing the Reverand John Wisner from the clergy. The decree was announced May 25th.

The Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas says it suspended Wisner from active ministry in 2012 after receiving many allegations he sexually abused minors decades ago. The archdiocese says an internal investigation found the allegations credible.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Philadelphia Tribune

June 22, 208

By Tim Darragh

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Wednesday blocked the expected release of a massive report examining sexual abuse and misconduct by priests in six Pennsylvania dioceses, including Scranton and Allentown.

The state’s high court issued an order barring Cambria County Judge Norman Krumenacker, who supervised the grand jury that heard testimony over two years, and Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro from releasing the report until further order.

The court’s order does not indicate who sought to block release of the report, but it indicates the court received more than one application for a stay.

Representatives from both the Diocese of Scranton and Diocese of Allentown said those institutions were not among petitioners who moved to block the report.

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KANSAS CITY (KS)
The Associated Press

June 22, 2018

A Kansas priest has been revoked of his rank years after an investigation into multiple child sexual abuse allegations against him.

The Kansas City Star reports that Archbishop Joseph Naumann issued a decree in December removing the Rev. John Wisner from the clergy. The decree was announced May 25.

The Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas says it suspended Wisner from active ministry in 2012 after receiving many allegations he sexually abused minors decades ago. The archdiocese says an internal investigation found the allegations credible.

Wisner has denied the allegations. The archdiocese says it notified law enforcement, but Wisner was never criminally charged in relation to the allegations.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests criticized the archdiocese on Wednesday for taking so long to announce Wisner’s defrocking.

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ENGLAND
Church Times

June 22, 2018

By Hattie Williams

ALL Church of England clergy will be required by canon law to submit their name and ministerial authority to a new national register, assuming that the General Synod follows the recommendations of the National Safeguarding Steering Group (NSSG).

The group’s report, published on Friday, will be debated by the Synod when it meets in York next month.

The report also calls for a new policy on granting and renewing Permission To Officiate (PTO), a review of the Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM), and new requirements to “strengthen suitability and selection” of candidates for all forms of ministry.

The report has been produced by the NSSG in response to safeguarding failures, concerns, and recommendations highlighted during the public hearing conducted by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse (ICSA) in March. The hearing used the diocese of Chichester as a case-study to investigate the extent to which the Anglican Church had failed to protect children from sexual abuse.

The inquiry established that there is no public national database for the clergy besides Crockford’s Clerical Directory, which is incomplete since clerics can elect not to appear in it. Also, records of clerics with current or expired PTO, criminal records, and other concerns kept on file by dioceses tend to be incomplete, lost, ignored, or blighted by poor record-keeping.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Associated Press

June 21, 2018

By Tom Rabe

New laws that could see people jailed for failing to report child sex abuse have passed NSW parliament but religious clergy remain exempt.

The bill passed the NSW upper house late on Wednesday night strengthening state laws surrounding child sex abuse – but Greens MP David Shoebridge said the legislation doesn’t go far enough.

The new laws provide an exemption for lawyers, health professionals and religious clergy, unless the attorney-general provides special permission to prosecute.

Mr Shoebridge moved an amendment in the Legislative Council to scrap exemptions for church figures but neither the coalition nor Labor supported it.

“When it comes to the confessional the coalition and Labor both put the interests of the church ahead of the safety of children,” Mr Shoebridge said in a statement after the bill was passed.

Despite upper house Nationals not voting for Mr Shoebridge’s amendment, their party voted last week to introduce such measures at its annual general conference in Cowra.

Police minister and former Nationals leader Troy Grant said he thought the amendment to expose priests to the laws could garner support from his colleagues.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Penn Live

June 21, 2018

By Ivey DeJesus

This report has been updated to clarify information on the unidentified and unindicted individuals.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court was clear and succinct on Wednesday when it barred the release of a long-awaited statewide grand jury report into clergy sex abuse.

The court’s four-sentence order offered no explanation as to why the court made the decision; what, if any, vote count was taken; nor did it give indication as to whether the order signals that the court will hear future arguments on the matter.

The seemingly abridged order simply blocked the Office of the Attorney General and the Cambria County Court of Common Pleas judge overseeing the grand jury from releasing the findings of the probe. The order may have been blunt, but it was within the strictest bounds of the law.

“The mantra here is that grand juries are secret and that’s the problem,” said Nicholas Ressetar, chief law clerk with the Harrisburg-based law firm Costopoulos, Foster & Fields. “Their dilemma is, ‘How could we become more transparent without giving up the names of the individuals or institutions making these claims?’ It’s a dilemma really.”

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ALLENTOWN (PA)
Penn Live

June 20, 2018

By Ivey DeJesus

Rep. Mark Rozzi on Wednesday expressed concern for the safety and welfare of victims after a state high court blocked the release of a report that would have exposed predators across six Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania.

Rozzi, who himself at 13 was sexually molested by his priest, said he was deeply troubled that victims would be devastated by the news and act out that desperation.

“We must make sure they are protected and that they are not going to hurt themselves,” said Rozzi, who minutes after news broke about the court order received text messages and phone calls from victims. “I want them to know this fight is not over by any means and I will use every resource available to continue to fight to seek justice.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Sydney Morning Herald

June 23, 2018

By Lisa Visentin

The NSW government will pursue extensive reforms as it adopts hundreds of recommendations from the royal commission into child sex abuse, but it has not endorsed new laws to force priests to break the confessional seal.

In a lengthy report released on Saturday, the NSW government formally responded to every recommendation made by the commission, accepting 336 recommendations outright or in principle, and leaving 14 “subject to further consideration”.

In the report, the NSW government acknowledged the survivors of institutional abuse “and the impact of past failures of governments to protect them”.

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ALLENTOWN (PA)
Of The Morning Call

June 21, 2018

By Steve Esack and Tim Darragh

Two paragraphs, 63 words.

That’s all it took for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to halt the pending publication of a lengthy grand jury report detailing decades of child sex abuse claims and possible cover-ups in six Catholic dioceses.

The high court’s majority decision, issued Wednesday, could be unprecedented under the state’s grand jury law, which is revered by prosecutors for its investigative power, decried by some defense lawyers as unconstitutional overreach and the subject of separate judicial and legislative reviews.

But the reasoning behind the justices’ decision is unknown.

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GUAM
KUAM News

June 22, 2018

By Krystal Paco

He’s not your typical man on the run…he’s a priest. Father Adrian Cristobal was given a deadline to report back to Guam last Friday in light of clergy sexual abuse allegations against him. Though he’s been sanctioned by the Archdiocese of Agana and forbidden from acting as a priest in public, is this a strong enough message?

Apparently he’s in no hurry home. “It’s no different from any criminal mind. People don’t generally want to face the music for the crimes they have committed,” said advocate, former priest, and canonist Patrick J. Wall, referring to Father Cristobal. Wall is no stranger to the scenario, having been part of investigations involving priests who abandoned their posts, some as a result of clergy sexual abuse allegations.

“We had a abbot in England who was actually charged with child sexual abuse and he just failed to report to his hearing. And so he was on the run for almost six years. INTERPOL finally found him in Kosovo,” he explained. And so then he was just recently convicted this past year for child sexual abuse., so it does happen.”

Since April, Father Adrian has been named in three clergy sexual abuse lawsuits in the District Court of Guam. The former Barrigada altar boys are only identified by their initials to protect their privacy. L.J.C., J.C.C., and J.E. all allege they were sexually molested by the priest in the 1990s. J.C.C., however, alleges the abuse spanned over a 15-year period – and only came to an end in 2013.

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ALLENTOWN (PA)
The Daily Beast

June 22, 2018

By Victoria Albert

A court just muzzled the ‘damaging’ findings on decades of Catholic clerical abuse. But it’s not over. ‘We are coming for them,’ says a state rep who was raped by a priest at 13.

Mark Rozzi thought he was days away from justice, or at least the beginning of it.

It started when he was 13, and a priest at his school in Hyde Park, Pennsylvania, started grooming him. For months, the Rev. Edward Graff talked with Rozzi about sex, gave him alcohol, and showed him pornography. Then, one fateful day, he raped him in a rectory shower.

Rozzi didn’t report his abuse for 26 years. But he later learned that during that period, Graff was transferred multiple times between parishes, and allegedly abused children in Texas, too. In 2002, Graff was arrested on child-abuse charges after facing dozens of accusations, The Washington Post reports. He later died in jail.

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CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago-Times

June 22, 2018

By Maudlyne Ihejirika

The Rev. Larry Dowling still remembers when he got the call from Cardinal Francis George asking him to consider serving as pastor of St. Agatha’s Church in North Lawndale.

It was 2007, and St. Agatha’s was in agony. The church at 3151 W. Douglas was at the center of the clergy sex abuse scandal rocking the Chicago Archdiocese, with its former pastor, the Rev. Daniel J. McCormack, accused — and later convicted — of abusing five boys.

“When I got off the phone, the scripture that came to mind was Jesus on the seashore with Peter, saying, ‘Do you love me?’ And Peter saying, ‘Yes. Yes. Yes.’ Jesus said, ‘Well if you really love me, I may take you where you don’t really want to go,’” said Dowling, who was then in his 10th year as pastor at St. Denis Church in Ashburn.

“I said, ‘But I still have some things I can accomplish here. I’m comfortable.’ What I heard back was, ‘I didn’t call you to be comfortable.’”

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WILKES-BARRE (PA)
Times Leader

June 21, 2018

We respect the sanctity of the American judicial system, including the necessary secrecy of grand jury proceedings.

That doesn’t prevent us from feeling grossly disappointed in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s order Wednesday indefinitely holding up the release of a grand jury report into the handling of sexual abuse claims involving six of the eight Roman Catholic dioceses across the state, including the Scranton Diocese.

The report is expected to reveal details of widespread abuse and efforts to conceal it and protect clergy by officials within and outside the church.

The court’s two-paragraph order did not reveal who had filed petitions blocking release of the report, only that those petitions had been granted.

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NEW ZEALAND
Stuff.co.nz

June 22, 2018

By Joel Ineson

Darryl Smith says the abuse started on his first night at Marylands – a Christchurch school for children with learning difficulties – in 1971.

Woken from his sleep, the 6 year old was called to a Order of St John of God brother’s office late in the evening and told one of the men responsible for his care wanted to speak about his grandmother. Instead, the man raped him.

The abuse continued over the course of a year and came from other members of the order and older students, Smith said. He eventually told his parents what happened.

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FRANCE
La Croix

June 22, 2018

What resolves things is acceptance, study, prudence, says Francis

Pope Francis in a new one-on-one interview with Philip Pullella, head of Reuters’ Rome bureau has spoken on various issues such as the Holy See’s talks with China, the position of women within the church, migration, populism, Chile’s clerical sex abuse crisis and reform of the Roman Curia.

On talks with China

Pope Francis said he was optimistic about the outcome of normalization talks with the Chinese authorities while at the same time acknowledging that dialogue “is a risk” but still preferred it to “the certain defeat” of not dialoguing with Beijing.

Here is some of what Francis said on the subject.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
WHTM

June 21, 2018

By Priscilla Liguori

Victim advocates and lawyers are outraged after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court blocked the release of a clergy sexual abuse report.

State Rep. Mark Rozzi says he felt like he was punched in the gut after hearing the announcement.

Rozzi was abused by a priest when he was a child and says he wants both the church and victims to know that the fight for transparency isn’t over.

“The abuse is still being covered up, and their lawyers are still fighting their dirty battles for them,” said Rozzi.

Money and power are the reasons Rozzi believes the court indefinitely blocked the report. The court said it was granting anonymous requests.

“When you have all the bishops in this investigation come out and say they support the release of the grand jury but there’s somebody else standing behind them … it draws grave concern,” said Rozzi.

The report was supposed to examine decades of abuse in six Roman Catholic dioceses.

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LOUISVILLE (KY)
SBTS Communications

June 21, 2018

Southern Baptists should not “circle the wagons” amid recent controversies, but instead must become “the first refuge for anyone who is seeking help,” argued R. Albert Mohler Jr. during a recent discussion about the future of the Southern Baptist Convention. He referenced a months-long slew of firings and resignations within Southern Baptist entities, most for reasons of moral or ethical failure.

Mohler said the way forward for the denomination is to lean into the truth and not try to hide or bury these “humiliations.”

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ENGLAND
BBC News

June 22, 2018

The Church of England should take preventative measures to ensure “unsuitable” people do not get into positions of trust, according to Sir Roger Singleton.

Singleton, who carried out a review into how abuse allegations were reported, told Today that the Church needs “improved guidance” on reporting allegations.

His report is due next month and is expected to be highly critical of how the Church recorded past allegations of abuse.

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LANSING (MI)
Detroit Free Press

June 21, 2018

By David Jesse

Michigan State University President John Engler has issued a statement apologizing for an April email in which he attacked a Larry Nassar survivor.

In the email, Engler said Rachael Denhollander, the first person to publicly accuse Nassar of sexual assault, was taking kickbacks from the trial attorneys involved in suing MSU.

Michigan State’s board of trustees will address a plan Friday to pay a $500 million settlement to Nassar’s victims, a meeting that comes amid calls for the school’s interim president to resign over recent comments about some of the women and girls the former sports doctor sexually assaulted.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail Australia

June 20, 2018

By Ekin Karasin

Charlie Pickering has criticised the Catholic Church for refusing to adhere to a new law requiring priests to report confessions of child sex abuse.

Adelaide’s acting Archbishop Greg O’Kelly said last week that confessionals are ‘sacred’ and this cannot be changed.

Charlie hit back at the controversial decision on his ABC show The Weekly on Wednesday, claiming the church was ‘protecting predators in God’s name’.

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ABILENE (TX)
KTAB/KRBC

June 21, 2018

By Erica Garner

An Abilene church daycare worker accused of sexually assaulting multiple children has been indicted.

Benjamin Roberts, 25, was indicted for Continuous Sexual Abuse of a Child Thursday after at least 8 child victims were identified during an investigation that began when child pornography was found at Roberts’ home in April.

Roberts was employed at the Wylie Baptist Church Early Childhood Development Center when he was initially arrested for Indecency with a Child and Possession of Child Pornography and was terminated once he was formally charged.

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LANSING (MI)
The Associated Press

June 22, 2018

By Alice Yin

Michigan State’s board of trustees will address a plan Friday to pay a $500 million settlement to Larry Nassar’s victims, a meeting that comes amid calls for the school’s interim president to resign over recent comments about some of the women and girls the former sports doctor sexually assaulted.

Although the board appears to lack the votes to oust John Engler from his interim perch, the public meeting likely will be heavily attended by people who are fed up with Engler and want him gone. The primary focus of the meeting is the school’s budget, along with the settlement plan.

Some 150 of Nassar’s victims have joined a public crusade to force Engler out of the interim job. Last week, two university trustees also signaled they could call a vote during a board meeting Friday on whether to fire him.

Engler apologized Thursday for his April email exchange suggesting gymnast Rachael Denhollander probably received a “kickback” from her plaintiff’s attorney.

“I didn’t give it the consideration it warranted,” Engler said in a statement. “That was a big mistake. I was wrong. I apologize.”

Trustee board chairman Brian Breslin called Engler’s apology “appropriate and appreciated by a majority of the board.” One of the two trustees who turned on Engler, Dianne Byrum, said she is glad he apologized and hopes he learned from it. But Brian Mosallam, the first trustee to demand that Engler step down, said in a tweet Thursday that the apology “is too little too late.”

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LANSING (MI)
The Associated Press

June 21, 2018

By Alice Yin

Michigan State University’s interim president apologized Thursday for an email remark about one of the gymnasts sexually abused by ex-sports doctor Larry Nassar, the latest sign of turbulence for the former governor tasked with steering the school out of the burgeoning scandal.

John Engler’s apology came more than a week after the public disclosure of his email exchange from April suggesting Rachael Denhollander probably received a “kickback” from her plaintiff’s attorney.

“I didn’t give it the consideration it warranted,” Engler said in a statement Thursday. “That was a big mistake. I was wrong. I apologize.”

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SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
FOX13

June 20, 2018

By David Wells and Kiersten Nunez

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will begin using new guidelines for bishops and other leaders in interviewing youth members.

The guidelines issued Wednesday to LDS church bishops, branch presidents and counselors in bishoprics and branch presidencies include a “Protecting Against Misunderstandings” section, in which interviews with children, youth and women are addressed.

“When a member of a bishopric or stake presidency or another assigned leader meets with a child, youth, or woman, he or she should ask a parent or another adult to be in an adjoining room, foyer, or hall. If the person being interviewed desires, another adult may be invited to be present during the interview. Leaders should avoid all circumstances that could be misunderstood,” the “Protecting Against Misunderstandings” guideline says.

The guidelines also outline the key matters for discussion in interviews with youth, including priesthood ordination, seminary, missionary service and temple-related topics.

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LANSING (MI)
Lansing State Journal

June 20, 2018

By Matt Mencarini

The special prosecutor investigating sexual misconduct at Michigan State University in the wake of the Larry Nassar scandal has accused MSU’s lawyers of interfering with his investigation by withholding documents and last week told the university he will seek a search warrant.

The move followed two months of increasingly terse letters between William Forsyth, who is leading the investigation for the Michigan Attorney General’s Office, and Robert Young Jr., the university’s new general counsel and former Michigan Supreme Court Justice.

Forsyth told Young in a June 15 letter that he also will request a judge or an appointed third party to review the documents and determine what is protected by attorney client privilege and work product doctrine.

MSU’s Board of Trustees requested the AG’s investigation in late January, amid two sentencing hearings for Nassar, the former MSU and USA Gymnastics doctor who sexually abused hundreds of women and girls. Attorney General Bill Schuette then announced that Forsyth, a retired Kent County prosecutor, would lead the investigation. Although the board sought an independent inquiry into the handling of the Nassar matter, Schuette’s office said it would investigate sexual misconduct at the university.

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ENGLAND
The Guardian

June 22, 2018

Negative aspects downplayed to limit reputational damage, former Barnado’s chief finds

The Church of England “botched” an inquiry into historical allegations of sexual abuse, the former head of a children’s charity has found.

Sir Roger Singleton, the former chief executive of Barnado’s, reviewed the church’s own Past Cases Review from 2010. He said the report did not give a comprehensive picture of the problem and that those conducting the inquiry had refused to speak to some survivors.

Singleton said the church “downplayed negative aspects” of the PCR’s findings in public statements to avoid damaging the reputation of the institution and the then archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

But Singleton, whose report will be published in the coming weeks, said he found no evidence of a deliberate attempt to mislead or that anyone broke the law.

The PCR examined more than 40,000 case files relating to allegations of abuse dating back to the 1950s and concluded that just 13 cases of alleged child sexual abuse required formal action.

After survivors complained that the report was inadequate, Singleton was commissioned to carry out an independent review of how it was conducted. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that it had been “botched in three ways”.

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ENGLAND
BBC News
June 22, 2018

By Donna Birrell & Alex Strangwayes-Booth & Steve Swann

The Church of England “botched” its investigation into alleged cases of abuse, a report’s author has said.

Sir Roger Singleton, who reviewed the Church’s “flawed” 2010 investigation, said it “failed to give a complete picture” of the abuse.

But Sir Roger, whose report is due out next month, said he found “no evidence of a planned deliberate attempt to mislead”.

The Church has outlined four steps for improvement.

They include the creation of an independently-chaired panel featuring survivors which will look at options to redress past cases, an independent ombudsman to review how complaints are handled and a strengthening of the clergy recruitment process.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
NBC Nightly News

June 20, 2018

McCarrick was suspended after an allegation that he abused a teenager 47 years ago was found to be credible and substantiated. Church officials also revealed two past sexual misconduct settlements involving McCarrick.

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PROVIDENCE (RI)
Pension & Investments

June 20, 2018

By Hazel Bradford

Class-action lawsuits on behalf of participants in the insolvent St. Joseph Health Services of Rhode Island Retirement Plan were filed in state and federal courts in Rhode Island.

The 2,700 participants in the plan learned in August 2017 when it was placed into receivership that the plan had been inadequately funded for years, according to the lawsuit filed on behalf of Stephen Del Sesto, the receiver for the pension fund.

At the time, plan administrators asked the Rhode Island Supreme Court to approve immediate 40% across-the-board benefit cuts. The cuts have not yet been approved.

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LAS CRUCES (NM)
Sun-News

June 20, 2018

The Diocese of Las Cruces responded on Wednesday to a lawsuit filed against the Diocese of El Paso alleging sexual abuse of a minor 40 years ago by Father Joaquin Resma when he was a priest at Our Lady of Health parish in Las Cruces. Resma died in 1983.

Until the creation of the Diocese of Las Cruces in 1982, the church was under the jurisdiction of the El Paso diocese. Both the diocese and the church are named in the lawsuit, filed by a Las Cruces man who is not named in the lawsuit in order to protect the accuser.

The Diocese of Las Cruces, serving Catholics in 10 New Mexico counties, is not named in the lawsuit. However, in a media release on Wednesday, Bishop Oscar Cantú pledged that “the diocese will cooperate with the legal process as needed,” adding, “We hold all victims of abuse in our prayers, that they might find healing and peace.”

The diocese also encouraged victims who have not yet reported their abuse to contact the diocese victims’ assistance coordinator Margarita Williams at 575-523-7577 or by email at MWilliams@RCDLC.org. It stated that victims may report confidentially or have their case reported to law enforcement.

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PROVIDENCE (RI)
GoLocalProv

June 21, 2018

The very idea that the Diocese of Providence could file for bankruptcy seems absurd as it historically has been one of the most influential and wealthy institutions in Rhode Island. If it did file for bankruptcy it would not be the first Diocese in the United States to file for bankruptcy to avoid financial claims.

Today, the Diocese of Providence is facing a massive lawsuit by the receiver for the St. Joseph pension fund — a lawsuit that alleges, in part, that Bishop Thomas Tobin and other top Diocesan leaders perpetrated a massive fraud. If the lawsuit is proven to be true then the Catholic Church will have major exposure. The pension fund is underfunded by an estimated $118 million and the 2,700 plus plan members face an uncertain financial future and the potential of as much as 40 percent cuts to their benefits.

The lawsuit crafted by Max Wistow, the attorney who recovered more than $60 million in the 38 Studios case, names not just the Diocese of Providence, but 15 other defendants as well.

Tobin did not respond to questions for this article.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
GetReligion

June 21, 2018

By Julia Duin

On Election Day 2008, I was not following the historic election of Barack Obama to the presidency.

Instead, I was meeting up with a priest. At the time, I was religion editor for the Washington Times.

The documents he gave me were sensational. At first I thought it was about a priest who’d been forced out of the priesthood because he’d been caught fondling two teen-aged boys. Then I read why the priest had done this. In layman’s terms: He said he was an emotional and spiritual mess after having been sexually assaulted in 1987 by none less than then-Newark Archbishop Theodore McCarrick.

Now, perhaps many of you have read yesterday’s news about McCarrick, who went on to become cardinal for the see of Washington, D.C., a most prestigious post. This UPI story describes the bare-bones of the matter:

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WASHINGTON (DC)
NBC News

June 20, 2018

By Elizabeth Chuck and Tracy Connor

Church officials also reveal past allegations of sexual misconduct with adults.

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former head of the Archdiocese of Washington, has been removed from public ministry by the Vatican following a “credible and substantiated” allegation of sexual abuse involving a teenager from nearly 50 years ago.

As the move was announced, Roman Catholic Church officials in New Jersey revealed that McCarrick, 87, also had been accused of sexual misconduct by adults three times in the past. Two of those accusations resulted in secret settlements, officials said.

In a written statement, McCarrick said he was “shocked” when he learned of the allegation involving a minor some months ago and supported a thorough investigation by the police and the Archdiocese of New York, where he was working as a priest when the abuse allegedly occurred.

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MANILA (PHILIPPINES)
ABS-CBN News

June 20 2018

By Dharel Placido

President Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday insisted that he respects the Catholic Church and its leaders, even as he continued linking some clergy members to alleged illicit affairs.

Critics have been saying that Duterte’s tirades against priests and the Catholic Church have emboldened killers of 3 Catholic priests slain in the last 6 months.

The President has denied persecuting the clergy and said he cannot order their killings.

“Wala kaming policy na galit kami sa pari, nothing of the sort. As a matter of fact, nirerespeto ko ang Simbahan,” he said in a speech in Mandurriao district, Iloilo City.

“Sa totoo lang hindi ko kayang magpatay ng pari, pati na babae at bata.”

(We don’t have a policy against priests, nothing of the sort. As a matter of fact, I respect the Church. The truth is, I cannot order the killing of priests, women and children.)

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NEW YORK (NY)
TIME

June 20, 2018

By Michael R. Sisak

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the retired Roman Catholic archbishop of Washington, D.C., has been removed from public ministry and faces further punishment over “credible” allegations that he sexually abused a teenager while a priest in New York more than 40 years ago, the church announced Wednesday.

Pope Francis ordered the 87-year-old cardinal’s removal pending further action that could end in his expulsion from the priesthood. A church panel determined that a former altar boy’s allegations that McCarrick fondled him during preparations for Christmas Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 1971 and 1972 were “credible and substantiated.”

McCarrick, the Washington archbishop from 2000 to 2006, is one of the highest-ranking U.S. church officials accused in a sexual abuse scandal that has seen thousands of priests implicated. The church also acknowledged that it had made previously undisclosed legal settlements with adults who accused McCarrick of sexual misconduct decades ago.

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EL PASO (TX)
New York Daily News

June 21, 2018

By David Boroff

A former priest in Texas accused of sexually abusing and raping a girl for years started by molesting her during confession, authorities say.

Miguel Luna, who served at 12 different locations in El Paso, started abusing the alter server when she was 8 by “kissing her passionately” when she was supposed to be privately admitting her sins, according to the El Paso Times.

“The victim recalled the defendant (Luna) telling her ‘remember this is confession, so whatever happens here stays in here,'” according to the complaint obtained by the newspaper.

The 68-year-old Luna was arrested earlier this month for aggravated sexual assault of a child.

The church was not named in the charges, but Luna was with 12 different parishes after being ordained in 1982, according to KVIA.

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BUFFALO (NY)
WIVB

June 20, 2018

By Evan Anstey

It’s not clear who it is, but the Erie County District Attorney’s Office says a priest accused of improper behavior will not face charges.

According to the DA’s office, a priest within the Diocese of Buffalo had been under investigation. He was accused of inappropriate behavior within the past year.

“The alleged actions by the priest, whose identity will not be disclosed, did not rise to the level of criminal conduct,” the DA’s office wrote.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
WITF

June 20, 2018

By Lindsay Lazarski

Later this month, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro is expected to release findings from a two-year grand jury investigation into widespread sexual abuse and cover-up within six Catholic dioceses across the state.

In anticipation of this report, state Rep. Mark Rozzi, D-Berks, is pushing to end the statute of limitations on child sex abuse cases and give victims abused long ago another chance to file a claim against their perpetrators.

Under current state law, victims of child sexual abuse have until they are 30 years old to file a civil case, and until they are 50 years old to file a criminal case. Rozzi says that’s not enough time.

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SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Catholic News Agency

June 20, 2018

The Chilean province of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary reported Monday that a preliminary investigation is underway on Father Juan Andrés Peretiatkowicz Valdés, accused of sexual abuse and the abuse of power.

According to a June 18 statement, the case involves accusations of acts which “allegedly began at the end of the 1980s.” According to the congregation the priest has had no pastoral responsibilities for five years for health reasons.

“We express our will and commitment to thoroughly and rigorously investigate these acts and resolutely fight against the culture of abuse and cover up,” the congregation stated.

Provincial Superior René Cabezón Yáñez received the information in early May and “immediately began a preliminary investigation.”

The congregation welcomes this investigation “as a desperate cry in search of truth and justice which obliges us as Church to leave behind the poor and overdue job of listening. We believe this is the only way of reparation for those who have been violated or abused.”

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ROME
CRUX

June 20, 2018

By Inés San Martín

In a wide-ranging interview in which he spoke about the ongoing migrant crisis in the United States, Pope Francis also touched on issues such as female ordination, the ongoing Vatican talks with China and the clerical sexual abuse scandals in Chile.

The conversation between Francis and a journalist from British news agency Reuters took place on Sunday afternoon, and sections of it were published on Wednesday. Reuters also provided a transcript of portions of the interview to Vatican journalists.

Clerical sexual abuse scandals and the Chilean case

“I don’t like talking about this now, but I must say this,” Francis told journalist Philip Pullela. “Go to the statistics. The great majority of the abuses take place in the family environment and in the neighborhoods, the neighbors, the families, then in the gym, the pools, the schools and also in the Church, but some can say the [priests] are few, but even if it was only one [priest] it’d be tragic because that priest has the duty to take that person to God and has destroyed the path to God.”

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HARRISBURG (PA)
WNEP

June 20, 2018

By Bill Michlowski

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has blocked the planned release of a report by the state attorney general allegedly detailing decades of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

The two-year investigation by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro included hundreds of cases from six Catholic dioceses, including Allentown and Scranton.

The report was set to be released this week, but the state Supreme Court issued a stay on the release Wednesday in order to consider legal challenges to releasing the report.

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UNITED STATES
Yahoo Celebrity

June 20, 2018

By Taryn Ryder

Olivia Munn has no regrets about publicly taking on Brett Ratner. Last fall, she was one of six women to come forward to accuse the director of sexual harassment or misconduct in a report by the Los Angeles Times. (Ratner has denied all allegations.)

“Initially, I didn’t publicly call [Brett] out. I wrote a book where I discussed him anonymously,” she reflected in an interview in the Spring/Summer ’18 issue of Rogue magazine. In her 2010 book Suck It, Wonder Woman! The Misadventures of a Hollywood Geek, Munn told a story about an unnamed director who masturbated in front of her on the set of a film in 2004.

The Six star continued, “A year later, [Brett] named himself and went on to lie about me. A few days after that, he was on the Howard Stern show publicly apologizing for lying, saying he was sorry. Yet, two years after that moment, he gets a $450 million licensing deal with Warner Bros.”

Munn’s memory is correct. In 2011, Ratner went on Attack of the Show! and alleged that the two had slept together. “I used to date Olivia Munn, I will be honest with everybody here,” he boasted. “I banged her a few times … but I forgot her … I get it. She’s bitter.” A few days later, Ratner apologized on The Howard Stern Show, saying he “felt horrible” for lying because they were friendly and he had made the actress look like “a whore.”

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UNITED STATES
Daily Mail

June 20, 2018

Last November, she was one of six women who came forward to accuse director Brett Ratner of sexual harassment.

And in a new interview with Rogue magazine, actress Olivia Munn says she has no regrets about speaking out publicly.

‘Where is the line? If you don’t draw a line in the sand and say, ‘I’m not gonna work with these people,’ then it’s going to continue,’ she said.

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BOSTON (MA)
The Associated Press

June 20, 2018

By Steve LeBlanc

A civil lawsuit is alleging former Senate President Stan Rosenberg knew his estranged husband Bryon Hefner posed a risk to individuals at the Massachusetts Statehouse and Rosenberg and Hefner had an agreement or understanding allowing Hefner access to those individuals.

The lawsuit, which names both men, was filed in Suffolk Superior Court on Friday on behalf of an unnamed plaintiff who said Hefner grabbed his genitals without consent on more than one occasion.

The suit alleges the plaintiff suffered ongoing emotional distress and physical harm, including “depression, anxiety, muscle tension, gastrointestinal distress and impaired sleep.”

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WASHINGTON (DC)
The American Conservative

June 20, 2018

By Rod Dreher

This has been a very long time coming:

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the Archbishop Emeritus of Washington, D.C., has been removed from public ministry after a credible allegation he abused a teen 50 years ago while serving as a priest in New York Archdiocese.

Innocence? I believe McCarrick is lying, and that he knows he is lying. I have been waiting for this story to break since 2002.

Back then, I received a tip from a priest who had gone on his own dime to Rome, along with a group of prominent US Catholic laymen, to meet with an official for the Roman Curial congregation that names bishops. It had been rumored at the time that Theodore McCarrick, the Archbishop of Newark, was going to be moved to Washington, DC, and to be made a cardinal. This group traveled to Rome to warn the Vatican that McCarrick was a sexual harrasser of seminarians. The story this priest shared with me was that McCarrick had a habit of compelling seminarians to share his bed for cuddling. These allegations did not involve sexual molestation, but were clearly about unwanted sexual harassment. To refuse the archbishop’s bedtime entreaties would be to risk your future as a priest, I was told.

Rome was informed by these laymen — whose number included professionally distinguished Catholics in a position to understand the kind of harm this would cause –that McCarrick was sexually exploiting these seminarians, but it did no good. McCarrick received his appointment to the Washington archdiocese in 2000.

In early 2002, though, the priest who tipped me off wouldn’t go on the record. It would have meant the end of his priesthood, quite possibly. He gave me the name of a couple of medical figures who had been on the same journey. I called one, who confirmed it, but wouldn’t go on the record. I called the other, who gasped when I said it out loud, and who said, “If that were true, then I wouldn’t confirm it for the same reason Noah’s sons covered their father in his drunkenness.”

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HARRISBURG (PA)
WPXI

June 20, 2018

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court is holding up the public release of a major grand jury report on priest abuse in six Roman Catholic dioceses across the state..

“Just moments ago, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania accepted legal challenges to the issuing of a grand jury report detailing widespread sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. In an unsealed order, the Supreme Court has issued a stay of proceedings to review and decide those challenges,” Attorney General Josh Shapiro said. “My legal team and I will continue fighting tirelessly to make sure the victims of this abuse are able to tell their stories and the findings of this investigation are made public to the people of Pennsylvania.”

The Supreme Court agreed to hear challenges to releasing the grand jury report, which is what is putting the public release on hold.

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DALLAS (TX)
Baptist Standard

June 20, 2018

By Isa Torres

The #MeToo Movement brought to light issues of sexual abuse the church should have addressed long ago, the leader of a workshop at the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship general assembly insisted.

“Hollywood has done a better job confronting abuse than the church,” said Pam Durso, executive director of Baptist Women in Ministry.

The #MeToo Movement—started in 2006 by Tarana Burke—only recently was expanded to include #ChurchToo. Durso pointed to that long delay as evidence of churches’ inattention to sexual abuse, when they should have taken the lead.

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MANILA (PHILIPPINES)
UCA News

June 21, 2018

Philippine president’s tirades against clergy prompted series of clerymen murders, critics say

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has hit back at critics and claimed he respects the Catholic Church despite his tirades against bishops and priests whom he has repeatedly accused of corruption and illicit affairs with women.

Rights activists and church groups say the president’s verbal attacks against church leaders have emboldened some people to attack members of the clergy in recent months.

Duterte denied persecuting priests this week, saying that his administration “does not have a policy against priests” and he could not order the killing of church leaders.

“As a matter of fact, I respect the church,” the president said in a speech in Iloilo province on June 20. “The truth is, I cannot order the killing of priests, women, and children,” he said.

While the president was speaking in the town of Cabatuan, church bells tolled as part of a daily symbolic protest against drug-related killings in the country.

Hearing the bells, Duterte stopped talking and waited for the ringing to stop.

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BUFFALO (NY)
WKBW

June 20, 2018

By Charlie Specht

Will recommend diocese keep him away from kids

Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn Jr. said Wednesday that a Buffalo priest acted “creepy” in touching a young girl in January.

But Flynn said the behavior of the priest does not rise to the level of criminality and so the priest — who he refused to identify — will not face criminal charges.

“While his conduct wasn’t criminal, I would say that to me his conduct is creepy,” Flynn said, adding that he believed the priest was retired but still saying Mass in various parishes.

The alleged victim told someone at her school about the priest’s contact, which Flynn said was alleged to have involved “some sort of touching,” he said.

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KERALA (INDIA)
Gulf Times

June 20 2018

By Ashraf Padanna/Thiruvananthapuram

A court in Kerala yesterday remanded in custody a Catholic priest accused of cheating farmers availing of bank loans.

The police arrested Fr Thomas Peelianickal on Tuesday on complaints by six farmers who claimed he and other officials of the NGO he heads cheated them of their money disbursed by banks.

The priest is the executive director of the Kuttanad Vikasana Samithy (KVS) or the society for the development of Kuttanad, under the Changanassery archdiocese.

The police accuse them of forging signatures of farmers to avail loans for collective farming. It was claimed that the farmers only became aware of the fraud after they started receiving repayment default notices.

Others linked to the fraud, including Rojo Joseph, a leader of the ruling coalition partner Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), are absconding since the police booked them three months ago.

For the past many years, the KVS has been working among the farmers of Kuttanad, an area that witnessed many suicides after the agrarian crisis, promoting self-help initiatives and environmental conservation.

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KERALA (INDIA)
The News Minute

June 20, 2018

Peelianickal is accused in six cases of loan fraud out of which Kerala HC had earlier granted him anticipatory bail in two cases.

Father Thomas Peelianickal who is the executive director of the Kuttanad Vikasana Samithi (KVS) office in Alappuzha, was arrested on Tuesday in connection with an agriculture loan scam in Kuttanad.

The District crime branch team led by Dy SP Vijayakumaran Nair arrested him.

Police said that as per complaints received by them, Peelianickal had availed loans on behalf of farmers’ self-help groups by allegedly forging documents of several farmers.

He is accused in six cases of loan fraud out of which Kerala High Court had earlier granted him anticipatory bail in two cases.

Peelianickal’s arrest was recorded at the CB office in Alappuzha on Tuesday evening and he will be produced before Ramankari Judicial First Class Magistrate Court on Wednesday.

Nair told The Times of India that 14 cases have been registered related to agriculture loan fraud. “As per the evidence we collected, Peelianickal is now accused in only six cases. The investigation is progressing and Peelianickal may become accused in more cases in coming days,” the investigation team said.

Veliyanad Block panchayat member and NCP leader Rojo Joseph is the main accused in the case but he is absconding.

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NEWCASTLE (AUSTRALIA)
Church Militant

June 20, 2018

By David Nussman

Australia’s Abp. Philip Wilson may be world’s highest-ranking cleric to be jailed for failing to report abuse

An archbishop in Australia will likely be facing prison time after a judge found him guilty of covering up child sex abuse, making him the world’s highest-ranking Catholic clergy to be sentenced over abuse allegations.

Archbishop Philip Wilson of Adelaide was brought to trial for allegations of failing to report a sexually abusive priest in the late 1970s. He was found guilty in a Newcastle court on May 22. In a hearing Tuesday, Newcastle Magistrate Robert Stone announced he would sentence Abp. Wilson on July 3.

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SOUTH AFRICA
The Daily Vox

June 21, 2018

By Lizeka Maduna

Following a public outcry over violence and femicide, KwaZulu-Natal churches have called on all communities to stand together and say no to the scourge and other persistent social ills including substance abuse.

EThekwini Community Church’s Bishop Vusi Dube said that religious groups believed that unity and prayers could help overcome the societal ills.

“As the church, we strongly believe that prayer is an invitation for divine intervention as our society battles social ills including rampant abuse of substances; all forms of violence in communities, random murders of women and children, as well as the raping of women and children,” he said.

EThekwini Community Church through a campaign,called ‘One Nation One Voice’ which is set to be launched in September, has worked with Isolezwe Newspaper in a campaign called ‘Sekwanele’.

This new campaign came in the wake of Zolile Khumalo’s death, a twenty-one-year old student from Mangosuthu University of Technology who was shot death at a residence; where numerous women who died through femicide were remembered.

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PHOENIX (AZ)
Arizona Republic

June 19, 2018

By Jerod MacDonald-Evoy

Arizona Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said he has long been aware that his wife was abused by a Catholic priest as a child in the 1990s and is “insanely proud of her for stepping up and telling her story.”

Kristen Lovullo’s claims of abuse first appeared in a report this week by the Buffalo News. After other misconduct claims about the Rev. Dennis Fronczak surfaced, she contacted the outlet and said she was repeatedly fondled by the priest in New York decades ago, when she was 9 to 12 years old.

Torey Lovullo told The Arizona Republic: “Those are hard things to do (coming forward). I’m walking on this side of it with her and I see the challenges that victims go through.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
The Kansas City Star

June 20, 2018

By Judy L. Thomas

A priest in the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas has been defrocked years after an investigation into multiple allegations of sexual abuse.

The Rev. John H. Wisner was returned to the lay state, or laicized, by a decree issued by Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann, according to an announcement published May 25 in The Leaven, the archdiocesan newspaper. Naumann issued the decree on Dec. 21, the announcement said, and it was affirmed by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on March 2.

The archdiocese said it had received multiple allegations of sexual abuse of minors against Wisner starting in May 2012. He was immediately suspended from active ministry and law enforcement was notified, the archdiocese said. An investigation by the archdiocese found the allegations to be credible, it said, and in November 2012, archdiocesan officials sent the results to the Vatican.

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EL PASO (TX)
KTSM

June 20, 2018

By Andra Litton

The criminal complaint affidavit against a former Catholic Priest accused of sexually assaulting an underage parishioner for seven years was released to KTSM on Wednesday.

Miguel Luna, 68, is charged with one count of Aggravated Sexual Assault of a Child. According to court documents, the alleged victim was interviewed by El Paso Police on October 20, 2017 in reference to the allegations against Father Luna.

The victim, now 36, served as an altar-server at local churches in El Paso when she met Luna. She told investigators that Luna began kissing and sexually abusing her at age 8 during confessions.

She recalled Luna telling her “remember this confession, so whatever happens in here stays in here,” according to court documents.

The affidavit goes on to say that when the girl turned 12, Luna’s sexual abuse escalated. The victim in the case reported to police that the abuse continued until she turned 17.

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BUFFALO (NY)
The Buffalo News

June 20, 2018

By Jay Tokasz

Only five of the more than 60 priests who served in the Diocese of Buffalo and have been linked to allegations of sex crimes involving children have actually been charged with crimes.

Prosecuted were:

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HARRISBURG (PA)
The Inquirer

June 20, 2018

By Angela Couloumbis & Liz Navratil

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has agreed to indefinitely block the release of a grand jury report detailing decades of clergy sex abuse in six of the state’s eight Roman Catholic dioceses.

In a two-paragraph order made public Wednesday, the state’s highest court said it granted requests from unnamed individuals or institutions to prevent the public release of the much-anticipated report.

“The Honorable Norman A. Krumenacker, III, and the Office of the Attorney General are enjoined from releasing Report No. 1 of the 40th Statewide Investigating Grand Jury pending further order of this Court,” it read, citing the Cambria County judge who has overseen the panel’s work.

The order — unsigned and released in the name of the entire court — throws into question the results of a sweeping probe that spanned at least two years and could implicate hundreds of clergy and other officials across the state.

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HARRISBURG (NJ)
The Herald

June 20, 2018

By Melissa Klaric

The grand jury report on sexual abuse within the Catholic Church will not be made public as soon as expected.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued a court order about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday delaying the public release of the 900-page-plus report expected to reveal detailed testimony from victims.

The Most Rev. Lawrence T. Persico, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Erie, said neither he nor any diocesan official sought a stay of the publication of the grand jury report.

“And thus, (we) cannot comment on the merits of the legal arguments of others,” Persico said. “As demonstrated from the recent revisions to our Policy for the Protection of Children, we are committed to transparency.”

Furthermore, Bishop Persico said the diocese anxiously awaits the Supreme Court’s decision on the matter.

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KHARTOUM (SUDAN)
CNN

June 21, 2018

By Nima Elbagir and Eliza Mackintosh

Editors Note: CNN is committed to covering gender inequality wherever it occurs in the world. This story is part of As Equals, a year-long series.

Amal is 11 years old and seeking a divorce.

The young Sudanese girl was in elementary school when a 38-year-old man asked for her hand in marriage.

Her father accepted the proposal, and Amal (not her real name) was immediately wed.

In Sudan, child marriage has been woven into the fabric of the country’s culture, driven by tradition and poverty. More than a third of girls there are married before their 18th birthday, according to a 2017 UNICEF report, and 12% are wed before they reach 15. Under the country’s 1991 Personal Status Law of Muslims, children can marry when they reach “maturity,” which is only 10 years old. It’s the lowest legal age of marriage in Africa.

Noura in her own words: Teen who killed rapist husband shares her story

The recent case of Sudanese teenager Noura Hussein, sentenced to death earlier this year for killing her husband as he tried to rape her, has focused attention on child marriage in Sudan. Now 19, Noura was just 15 when she was forced to marry a man more than twice her age.

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SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
The Associated Press

June 20, 2018

By Brady Mccombs

The Mormon church for the first time Wednesday posted the list of questions lay leaders are supposed to ask youth during closed door, one-on-one interviews that have come under scrutiny because sexual questions sometimes arise.

Only one of the questions seems directed at finding out about a young Mormon’s sex life: “Do you live the law of chastity?”

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints posted the 13 questions that were previously only sent to local leaders along with updated guidelines and a letter from church President Russell M. Nelson encouraging the leaders to share the questions with children and parents before the interviews.

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COLUMBUS (OH)
The Associated Press

June 21, 2018

By Kantele Franko and Collin Binkley

A now-dead doctor accused of sexual misconduct by former student athletes at Ohio State University said he acted as a team physician at other universities, most of which won’t say if they are reviewing those connections or whether any concerns were raised about him.

Ohio State employment records reviewed by The Associated Press indicate Richard Strauss worked at five schools in the decade between leaving the Navy as a submarine medicine instructor and joining the university in Columbus in 1978.

Strauss researched, taught or practiced medicine at Harvard University, Rutgers University, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Washington and the University of Hawaii, according to his resume.

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ALLENTOWN (PA)
The Morning Call

June 20, 2018

By Tim Darragh and Steve Esack

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Wednesday blocked the expected release of a massive report examining sexual abuse and misconduct by priests in six Pennsylvania dioceses, including Allentown.

The state’s high court issued an order barring Cambria County Judge Norman Krumenacker, who supervised the grand jury that heard testimony over two years, and Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro from releasing the report until further order.

The court’s order does not indicate who sought to block release of the report but it indicates the court received more than one application for a stay.

Matt Kerr, spokesman for the Allentown Diocese, said the diocese was not one of the petitioners that moved to block the report.

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ERIE (PA)
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Robert F. Bower was ordained in 1959 for the Diocese of Erie. He was chaplain at Gannon College and at a monastery for women religious in Erie for several years, followed by many years in campus ministry at Edinboro State College as chaplain, Associate Director and then Director. During 1992-1997 Gannon was Administrator of St. Anthony’s parish in Cambridge Springs.

In March 1999 Bowers was arrested on charges of possession of child pornography. Police were alerted by a computer repair shop employee who discovered them while working on Bower’s computer. The pornography was allegedly downloaded between June 1996 and December 1998, and included images of a man sodomizing a five-year-old boy. Bower was placed on leave by the diocese, sent to counseling, then allowed limited ministry during the investigation. Bishop Trautman said he believed Bower’s explanation that he had received the images accidentally; state police said that Bower admitted to obtaining them. The charges were dropped in 2001 on a technicality. Bower resumed full ministry, including at the Edinboro Newman Center and as a supply priest for the diocese.

In April 2002, after the Erie Times-News published a report about his 1999 arrest, Bower resigned. Per the article, in 1982 a secretary at the Newman Center in Edinboro and two other women went to Bishop Murphy with concerns that Bower was receiving gay pornography in the mail. The former secretary said she was fired two days later. Trautman wrote in a letter to the editor that the women’s claims were “outrageous” and lacked proof. The three filed a defamation lawsuit against the diocese and bishops Trautman and Murphy in May 2003.

Bower’s name was included on the diocese’s April 6, 2018 list of credibly accused priests, lay employees and volunteers. It noted that Bower was ‘forbiddn to function as a priest.’

Ordained: 1959

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PORTLAND (OR)
ThinkProgress

June 19, 2018

By Elham Khatami

“It is so difficult walking around, knowing there’s somebody out there who … violated you that deeply.”

Five months after she first reported her sexual abuse to Portland State University’s Office of the Dean of Student Life, Tess Carter says she has not yet heard anything about possible action the school will take against the student and fellow member of the school’s International Socialist Organization who allegedly assaulted her.

According to the Oregonian, Carter and dozens of other PSU students have been protesting the university’s silence for weeks, demanding that the university discipline the student who has been accused by multiple women of emotional abuse and sexual assault over the past year and a half. In the latest protest, which took place last week, the group presented a petition with close to 3,500 signatures to the university’s vice president of enrollment management and student affairs, Jim Fraire.

“It is so difficult walking around, knowing there’s somebody out there who would be so violent to you and violated you that deeply,” Carter, who is not a PSU student, but is a member of PSU’s International Socialist Organization, told The Portland Mercury last week.

PSU’s Office of the Dean of Student Life informed Carter in January 2018 that they would respond within 60 days, but she said she did not receive a formal response when the 60-day timeframe came to an end. According to the Mercury, campus officials cited the Education Department’s loose restrictions when it comes to responding to sexual assault allegations. The Department last year rescinded Obama-era guidance that suggested a 60-day timeframe for a prompt sexual assault investigation, replacing it with “no fixed time frame.”

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COLLEGE STATION (TX)
Sports Day

June 20, 2018

By Ben Baby

A Texas A&M men’s swimmer found responsible for sexual assault by the university has filed a Title IX lawsuit against the school, according to a report.

Austin Van Overdam submitted a federal lawsuit against the university, citing “disparate treatment based on sex,” according to court records. The suit, which was filed in the Southern District of Texas, states that Van Overdam is requesting a jury trial.

The news was first reported by the Bryan College-Station Eagle.

In June 2017, Van Overdam was found responsible of sexual misconduct by A&M’s conduct panel, according to documents the accuser shared on her Twitter account. Van Overdam, who graduated from Houston Langham Creek before swimming at Arizona during his freshman year, redshirted the 2016-17 season, according to the school’s website.

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COLUMBUS (OH)
The Columbus Dispatch

June 19, 2018

By Jennifer Smola

Ohio State University will permanently close its Sexual Civility and Empowerment unit amid concerns that it failed to properly report students’ sexual-assault complaints and that some victims were told they were lying or suffering from delusions.

The university also is eliminating four positions that fell under the unit, known as SCE, and terminating those employees.

A team of independent auditors is helping to review SCE files to ensure Ohio State has fulfilled its obligations to report certain offenses to law enforcement, federal regulators and other authorities, according to the university.

Documents obtained by The Dispatch through a public records request detail a variety of complaints about Ohio State’s SCE and its leadership.

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LANSING (MI)
USA TODAY

June 20, 2018

By Nancy Armour

Michigan State still doesn’t get it.

A university that aided and abetted Larry Nassar and his horrific crimes for the better part of two decades doesn’t get to be indignant or question the women whose lives were shattered. It doesn’t get to play the aggrieved party, be it in public statements or private emails.

And it sure as hell doesn’t get to defend and protect a leader who has dragged the school even further into the abyss when his sole job was to find a way out of it.

More than 130 survivors sent Michigan State’s governing board a letter Tuesday calling for the ouster – voluntary or otherwise – of interim President John Engler. They shouldn’t have had to ask.

Criticism of Engler has grown since last week, when The Chronicle of Higher Education published an email in which the former governor of Michigan suggested that Rachael Denhollander was getting “kickbacks” from trial attorneys. Denhollander was the first woman to publicly accuse Nassar of abuse, telling her story to The Indianapolis Star in the fall of 2016.

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UNITED STATES
The Wrap

June 19, 2018

By Reid Nakamura and Jon Levine

When Chris Hardwick was accused of controlling behavior, emotional manipulation and sexual abuse by his ex-girlfriend Chloe Dykstra last week, the silence from those in his orbit was deafening.

Dykstra described a man who could be controlling and manipulative as he gained more and more success as the host of AMC shows and Comic-Con panels, as well as his own multimedia empire, Nerdist. One former employee said her accusations rang true, and that Hardwick was prone to loud confrontations with employees.

“Nobody’s surprised. Everyone can think back to incidents with Chris that line up with something in that story,” the former employee said. “You don’t see anybody saying ‘That’s not the Chris Hardwick I know,’ because that is the Chris Hardwick most people know.”

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Reuters

June 20, 2018

The Vatican has asked retired Washington, D.C., Archbishop Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, to cease public ministry after finding he was credibly accused of sexually abusing a teenager almost 50 years ago, the archdiocese and McCarrick said on Wednesday.

McCarrick is among the highest-ranking of the more than 6,700 U.S. Roman Catholic clerics to be accused of sexually abusing children since the church’s sex abuse scandal broke in 2002, according to BishopAccountability.org, a private group that tracks the allegations.

McCarrick, 87, was accused of sexually abusing a teenager when he was a priest in New York, he said in a statement. He said he was innocent, but an investigation by the Church found the allegations to be credible and substantiated, the archdiocese said in a statement.

“The Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, at the direction of our Holy Father, Pope Francis, has instructed Cardinal McCarrick that he is to refrain from any public ministry or activity until a definite decision is made,” the archdiocese said. McCarrick said he would follow the Vatican’s instruction.

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BOSTON (MA)
The Associated Press

June 19, 2018

By Steve LeBlanc

A civil lawsuit is alleging former Senate President Stan Rosenberg knew his estranged husband Bryon Hefner posed a risk to individuals at the Massachusetts Statehouse and Rosenberg and Hefner had an agreement or understanding allowing Hefner access to those individuals.

The lawsuit, which names both men, was filed in Suffolk Superior Court on Friday on behalf of an unnamed plaintiff who said Hefner grabbed his genitals without consent on more than one occasion.

The suit alleges the plaintiff suffered ongoing emotional distress and physical harm, including “depression, anxiety, muscle tension, gastrointestinal distress and impaired sleep.”

Attempts to reach Rosenberg, a Democrat who resigned from the Legislature in May, were unsuccessful on Tuesday. Hefner’s lawyer didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

In one case, the plaintiff said that during a ride in Rosenberg’s car in April 2016, Hefner grabbed his genitals over his clothes as Rosenberg rode in the front passenger seat and the two rode in the back seat.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald

June 20, 2018

By Laurel J. Sweet

Ex-Senate President Stanley C. Rosenberg and his estranged husband are being targeted for damages in a civil lawsuit by a former Beacon Hill legislative aide who says Bryon Hefner sexually abused him — twice in Rosenberg’s presence, and once at the couple’s North End condo.

The explosive 16-page lawsuit was filed in Suffolk Superior Court by attorney Mitchell Garabedian on behalf of “John Doe.”

Doe’s true identity was immediately impounded by Judge Debra A. Squires-Lee. He is identified only as a resident of Middlesex County who worked as a legislative aide for the House of Representatives.

“The court finds that irreparable and immediate harm may result absent an ex-parte order of impoundment,” Squires-Lee ruled. The seal could be lifted Monday depending on the outcome of a hearing today on whether it warrants extension.

The allegations against Hefner in the civil suit mirror those of one of four men who’ve criminally accused Hefner of sexual abuse. Garabedian declined to say yesterday if it’s the same person.

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UNITED STATES
Good Morning America

June 20, 2018

By Nicole Pelletiere

A year after survivors catapulted #MeToo into a global movement by sharing personal accounts of sexual assault, men are now reflecting on the movement and what it means to them.

In a recent SurveyMonkey poll, FiveThirtyEight, a site that focuses on opinion poll analysis, politics, economics, and sports blogging, surveyed 1,615 adult males. The outlet collaborated with Death, Sex & Money from WNYC Studios– a podcast that features intimate conversations with celebrities and listeners about money, relationships, family, and career.

The participants of the survey were asked how they felt about #MeToo as well as the subject of masculinity.

Here’s what they said.

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SAGINAW (MI)
ChurchMilitant.com

June 17, 2018

By Christine Niles, M.St. (Oxon.), J.D.

Fr. James Bessert alleged to be active homosexual

Only weeks after the abrupt suspension of a deacon over an alleged complaint of sex abuse, sources confirm the diocese of Saginaw, Michigan is removing the director of liturgy from his post — a reported homosexual accused of covering up sexual assault.

Although the diocese has kept the news quiet, multiple reliable sources have confirmed that Fr. James Bessert, director of liturgy in Saginaw, is being removed from his post, making way for Sr. Esther Mary Nickel, RSM, who will replace him.

Bessert, a prominent chancery official, has had his name taken off of the online staff directory for the Office of Liturgy. Church Militant also received news that the Vatican has been involved behind the scenes, and that high-ranking officials in Rome are aware of the ongoing scandals in Saginaw and have placed pressure on Bp. Joseph Cistone to remove various priests.

Bessert has claimed he is “on vacation,” although still in Saginaw.

Bessert is linked to Deacon Jerome Green, abruptly suspended in May only days before his priestly ordination. Inside sources confirm it’s an “open secret” that Bessert and Green have been in a homosexual relationship for years. Neither has publicly addressed the allegations, nor have they responded to Church Militant’s queries.

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NEWARK (NJ)
UPI

June 20, 2018

By Sara Shayanian

Retired Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C., announced he was stepping down from the ministry Wednesday amid allegations of sexual abuse.

In a statement, the Archdiocese of New York said the Vatican secretary of state, at the direction of Pope Francis, asked McCarrick to step down from the ministry.

The allegations against McCarrick stem from the abuse of a teenager nearly 50 years ago, while the former archbishop was a priest of the Archdiocese of New York.

“This archdiocese, while saddened and shocked, asks prayers for all involved, and renews its apology to all victims abused by priests,” the archdiocese said.

Although McCarrick said he has “no recollection” of the case and was “shocked” by the report, he accepted the pope’s request to no longer publicly exercise his priestly ministry.

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AUSTRALIA
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

June 19, 2018

By Nancy Notzon

Catholic Archbishop Philip Wilson will be sentenced next month for concealing historical child sex abuse after a magistrate reserved his decision at a hearing today.

The Adelaide Archbishop’s lawyers presented several reports from various doctors detailing his medical conditions including diabetes, heart disease and a mild neurological cognitive disorder, which could possibly be Alzheimer’s.

They told the Newcastle Local Court that prison time would exacerbate his deteriorating health and that he could be targeted in prison.

Quoting a report from endocrinologist Dr David Torpy, Mr Temby said incarceration would have a major effect on Wilson’s health and “may even threaten his survival”.

In a landmark magistrate-only trial in May, Wilson was found guilty of covering up abuse by priest James Fletcher in the New South Wales Hunter region in the 1970s.

He is the world’s most senior Catholic to be convicted of the offence.

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COLUMBUS (OH)
Reuters

June 20, 2018

By Gina Cherelus

Ohio State University this week shut down its center dedicated to handling complaints of sexual assault after officials discovered that the service was not properly managing victim reports, school officials said.

The university launched its comprehensive prevention effort to combat sexual misconduct in 2015, at a time of intense public focus on sex assault on U.S. college campuses. Its move to shut down the program comes as the #MeToo movement has intensified focus on sexual harassment and assault in many spheres of American life.

A review conducted by an external law firm revealed that the campus Sexual Civility and Empowerment unit did not properly document and report information about some sexual assault complaints by students, Chris Davey, a spokesman for the university, said in a statement on Tuesday.

A representative for the university did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment on Wednesday.

The program had received national attention in 2015, when then-Vice President Joe Biden visited the school to highlight responses to what the White House termed an epidemic of sex assault on U.S. college campuses.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
CNN

June 20, 2018

By Daniel Burke

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who led the Archdiocese of Washington and was a political force in the nation’s capital, said on Wednesday that he has been removed from public ministry by the Vatican because of a decades-old allegation of sexual abuse.

As a cardinal, McCarrick is one of the highest-ranking American leaders in the Catholic Church to be removed from ministry because of sex abuse charges. He maintains his innocence.

“While I have absolutely no recollection of this reported abuse, and believe in my innocence, I am sorry for the pain the person who brought the charges has gone through, as well as for the scandal such charges cause our people,” McCarrick said in a statement.

The Archdiocese of New York, which led the investigation, said it would not release specific details about the allegation to protect the victim’s privacy. But the archdiocese said a review board composed of jurists, law enforcement experts, parents, psychologists, a priest, and a religious sister found the allegations against McCarrick to be “credible and substantiated.”

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NEWARK (NJ)
Newark Patch

June 20, 2018

By Tom Davis

The sexual misconduct alleged against Cardinal Theodore McCarrick resulted in settlements involving a teen.

A former Catholic church leader in New Jersey has been removed from the ministry in the wake of sexual abuse allegations involving a teen.

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former Archbishop of Newark, the founding Bishop of Metuchen and Archbishop Emeritus of Washington, D.C., has been removed from the ministry after allegations that he abused a teen 50 years ago came to light, church leaders announced Wednesday. The alleged sexual misconduct resulted in settlements.

McCarrick, 87, said in his statement that he doesn’t recall the abuse but he accepted his removal: “While I have absolutely no recollection of this reported abuse, and believe in my innocence, I am sorry for the pain the person who brought the charges has gone through, as well as for the scandal such charges cause our people,” he said.

McCarrick said he was advised by the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, that an allegation of sexual abuse of a teenager from 47 years ago had been made against him. At that time, he was a priest of the Archdiocese of New York.

“While shocked by the report, and while maintaining my innocence, I considered it essential that the charges be reported to the police, thoroughly investigated by an independent agency, and given to the Review Board of the Archdiocese of New York. I fully cooperated in the process,” he said.

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NEWARK (NJ)
NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

June 20, 2018

By Kelly Heyboer and Ted Sherman

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former Archbishop of Newark and Archbishop Emeritus of Washington, D.C., has been removed from public ministry in the wake of allegations that he abused a teen 50 years ago while serving as a priest in the New York Archdiocese.

McCarrick, who accepted the decision, is one of the highest-ranking American leaders in the Catholic Church to be removed from ministry over sex abuse charges.

The allegations against him have been deemed “credible and substantiated” by Vatican officials, McCarrick acknowledged in a statement. However, the veteran cardinal said he does not remember the incident from a half-century ago, and believes he is innocent.

News of McCarrick’s removal came as church officials in New Jersey separately revealed for the first time that the cardinal had previously been accused of sexual misconduct with three adults during his time in the state.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Reuters

June 20, 2018

The Vatican has asked the retired archbishop of Washington, D.C., Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, to cease public ministry after finding he was credibly accused of sexually abusing a teenager almost 50 years ago, the archdiocese and McCarrick said Wednesday.

McCarrick is among the highest-ranking of the more than 6,700 U.S. Roman Catholic clerics to be accused of sexually abusing children since the church’s sex abuse scandal broke in 2002, according to BishopAccountability.org, a private group that tracks the allegations.

McCarrick, 87, was accused of sexually abusing a teenager when he was a priest in New York, he said in a statement. He said that he was innocent, but an investigation by the Church found the allegations to be credible and substantiated, the archdiocese said in a statement.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

June 20, 2018

By Philip Pullella

Pope Francis has said he could accept the resignations of more Chilean bishops following a sexual abuse scandal that has shattered the credibility of the Roman Catholic Church in the South American country.

The pope has already accepted the resignations of three bishops, and all Chile’s remaining bishops have offered to resign after allegations that the abuse, including of children, was covered up.

The scandal was “the work of the spirit of evil,” the pope told Reuters in an interview at his residence in the Vatican.

Asked whether he would accept more resignations, the pontiff said: “Maybe some.”

“I still have to accept the resignations of two (bishops) who have exceeded the age limit. But maybe there’s someone else whose resignation I will accept. In one case, I asked that he be given the accusations in order to give him the possibility to defend himself against the accusations and then we will see,” he said.

Chilean Cardinal Francisco Javier Errázuriz Ossa, one of nine cardinals from around the world appointed by the pope to serve as his special advisers, has been accused by abuse survivors of discrediting victims and not investigating their cases. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Asked whether Errázuriz’s position was at risk on the C-9, the pope said: “The C-9 is not an honor, it’s a job. I do not want to get into the game of cutting heads and seeking scapegoats.”

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NEWARK (NJ)
Archdiocese of Newark

June 20, 2018

By Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin

I recognize that the people of our Archdiocese meet the announcement by the Archdiocese of New York of a credible and substantiated claim of abuse of a minor by Cardinal McCarrick with a range of emotions. I am thinking particularly of those who have experienced the trauma of sexual abuse by clergy – whose lives have been impacted tragically by abuse. To those survivors, their families and loved ones, I offer my sincere apologies and my commitment of prayer and action to support you in your healing.

The Archdiocese of Newark has never received an accusation that Cardinal McCarrick abused a minor. In the past, there have been allegations that he engaged in sexual behavior with adults. This Archdiocese and the Diocese of Metuchen received three allegations of sexual misconduct with adults decades ago; two of these allegations resulted in settlements.

Cardinal McCarrick served this Archdiocese for almost fifteen years. No doubt many of you developed strong relationships with him and appreciate the impact of his service. Those feelings are likely hard to reconcile with the news of a credible and substantiated claim of abuse of a minor. While Cardinal McCarrick maintains his innocence and the canonical process continues, we must put first the serious nature of this matter with respect and support for the process aimed at hearing victims and finding truth.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Archdiocese of Washington

June 20, 2018

[Includes biography of Cardinal McCarrick.]

Statement by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick

Some months ago, I was advised by the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, that an allegation of sexual abuse of a teenager from almost fifty-years ago had been made against me. At that time I was a priest of the Archdiocese of New York.

While shocked by the report, and while maintaining my innocence, I considered it essential that the charges be reported to the police, thoroughly investigated by an independent agency, and given to the Review Board of the Archdiocese of New York. I fully cooperated in the process.

My sadness was deepened when I was informed that the allegations had been determined credible and substantiated.

In obedience I accept the decision of The Holy See, that I no longer exercise any public ministry.

I realize this painful development will shock my many friends, family members, and people I have been honored to serve in my sixty-years as a priest.

While I have absolutely no recollection of this reported abuse, and believe in my innocence, I am sorry for the pain the person who brought the charges has gone through, as well as for the scandal such charges cause our people.

Statement by the Archdiocese of Washington

Sometime ago, an allegation that falls under the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People was made against Cardinal McCarrick when he served as a priest in the Archdiocese of New York.

The Holy See, which has exclusive authority in the oversight of a cardinal, delegated Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York to investigate the allegation, engaging the review board of the Archdiocese of New York.

In the end the review board found the allegations credible and substantiated.

The Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, at the direction of our Holy Father, Pope Francis, has instructed Cardinal McCarrick that he is to refrain from any public ministry or activity until a definite decision is made.

Cardinal McCarrick, while maintaining his innocence, has accepted the decision.

While saddened and shocked, this archdiocese awaits the final outcome of the canonical process and in the meantime asks for prayers for all involved.

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 CITY (NY)
Archdiocese of New York

June 20, 2018

By Cardinal Timothy Dolan

The Archdiocese of New York, along with every other diocese in the country, has long encouraged those who as minors suffered sexual abuse by a priest to come forward with such reports.

As he himself announced earlier this morning, a report has come to the archdiocese alleging abuse from almost forty-five years ago by the now retired Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who, at the time of the reported offense was a priest here in the Archdiocese of New York. This was the first such report of a violation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People ever made against him of which the archdiocese was aware.

Carefully following the process detailed by the Charter of the American bishops, this allegation was turned over to law enforcement officials, and was then thoroughly investigated by an independent forensic agency. Cardinal McCarrick was advised of the charge, and, while maintaining his innocence, fully cooperated in the investigation. The Holy See was alerted as well, and encouraged us to continue the process.

Again according to our public protocol, the results of the investigation were then given to the Archdiocesan Review Board, a seasoned group of professionals including jurists, law enforcement experts, parents, psychologists, a priest, and a religious sister.

The review board found the allegations credible and substantiated.

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.

BRIDGEWATER (NJ)
Courier News/My Central New Jersey

June 20, 2018

By Paul C. Grzella

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the retired archbishop of Washington who also served as the Archbishop of Newark and the founding Bishop of Metuchen, is alleged to have sexually abused a minor 47 years ago when he was a priest in the Archdiocese of New York, church officials announced this morning.

As a result of the allegations, called “credible and substantiated” by church officials, the cardinal is stepping down from active ministry.

“While I have absolutely no recollection of this reported abuse, and believe in my innocence, I am sorry for the pain the person who brought the charges has gone through, as well as for the scandal such charges cause our people,” McCarrick said in a statement this morning.

He is the believed to be the first cardinal to step down from active ministry for sexually abusing a minor.

According to a statement from the Archdiocese of New York, the allegations were reviewed by an independent board and were found to be credible and substantiated. The Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, at the direction of Pope Francis, has instructed McCarrick, the now retired Archbishop of Washington, that he is no longer to exercise publicly his priestly ministry, according to the statement.

“Cardinal McCarrick, while maintaining his innocence, has accepted the decision,” Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York, said in the statement.

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SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Reuters

June 19, 2018

By Aislinn Laing and Dave Sherwood

Chilean prosecutors said on Tuesday they questioned the Vatican’s top sex abuse investigator as he prepared to fly out of the country following a fact-finding and reconciliation mission ordered by the Pope.

Raúl Guzmán, a prosecutor based in the capital Santiago, said he “interrogated” Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta in the police station at Santiago airport in relation to an abuse case involving 25 Marist brothers and 30 alleged victims.

“We arranged an interview with Charles Scicluna that took place in the offices of the investigative police in the airport before his flight,” he told journalists.

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TEWKSBURY (MA)
The Boston Globe

June 19, 2018

By Michael Rezendes

For 25 years, Jim Graham has tried to prove he is the son of a deceased Catholic priest who grew up in Lowell and graduated from Boston College.

He pulled old adoption records that mention his “alleged father.” He leaned on leaked documents from a friendly priest and petitioned Catholic leaders all the way to Rome, to no avail.

The quest continued Monday afternoon in a Catholic cemetery in Tewksbury, as a backhoe turned up earth on the Rev. Thomas Sullivan’s grave and promised to provide answers once and for all.

“We missed a lot, the two of us,” Graham said, fighting back tears after the exhumation. “Didn’t have much opportunity for father and son.”

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