ABUSE TRACKER

ALBANY (NY)
The Media Project/WAMC

October 23, 2018

By Clemente Lisi

This is the time of year when Catholic children who go to public schools also have to attend classes on Sundays.

What most Christians call “Sunday school,” Catholics refer to as “religious formation.” It is required of all Catholics — baptized children and adults who have converted or returned to the faith — in order to prepare for the receiving of sacraments such as Holy Communion and Confirmation.

Many Catholic parents have been concerned, obviously, after the revelations of this past summer involving ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick and the hundreds of Pennsylvania priests accused of molesting children and teens dating back decades made public in a grand jury report. The abuse of minors and sexual harassment of adults in the church has triggered plenty of doubt among the faithful regarding the church’s hierarchy.

This can impact church life in many ways. Here is one Sunday-morning angle that reporters need to think about.

The conversations in the pews and outside churches in the past few weeks have revolved around their child’s safety, revealing a crisis of faith that is very real. Should their son or daughter attend religious formation this year? Can they trust a priest or church volunteer to be alone with their child? Have any safety procedures been put into place?

There are 17,156 local parishes in the United States with an estimated 70 million Catholics. A much smaller number, however, remains active in the church. For example, only 42 percent of families send their children to religious formation, according to research in 2015 (click here for .pdf) by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

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

SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
ABC 7 News

October 23, 2018

A scathing new report just released the names of 263 Catholic clergy accused of sexual misconduct in the Bay Area.

It includes 135 accused offenders in the Archdiocese of San Francisco, 95 in the Diocese of Oakland and 33 in the Diocese of San Jose.

On Tuesday, an abuse survivor is expected to speak publicly about a lawsuit filed against all California bishops.

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

SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
KTVU Fox 2

October 23, 2018

As dioceses around the country are disclosing names of priests accused of misconduct, a law firm on Tuesday released a report containing the names of 263 Catholic Clergy members accused of sexual misconduct in the Bay Area.

The report, compiled by lawyers from Jeff Anderson and Associates based in St. Paul, Minn., accuses 135 offenders from the Archdiocese of San Francisco, 95 from the Diocese of Oakland and 33 from the Diocese of San Jose.

The lawyers are seeking to compel Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, Bishop Patrick McGrath and Bishop Michael Barber to release the names of all clergy accused of sexual misconduct in all three dioceses and request the federal court to release files that show the participation and complicity of top church officials in the handling of clergy sexual abuse cases.

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

ROME (ITALY)
Associated Press

October 23, 2018

By Nicole Winfield

As the Vatican copes with the growing clergy sex abuse scandal and declining number of priests worldwide, it is laying the groundwork to open formal debate on an issue that has long been taboo: opening up the priesthood to married men in parts of the world where clergy are scarce.

Pope Francis has convened a meeting of South American bishops next year focusing on the plight of the church in the Amazon, a vast territory served by far too few priests. During that synod, the question of ordaining married men of proven virtue — so-called “viri probati” — is expected to figure on the agenda.

This week, a two-hour documentary on Italian television is likely to contribute to the conversation. “The Choice: Priests and Love” profiles more than a dozen men in four European countries who are either living clandestinely with women, have created their own unsanctioned church communities where married priests preside at Mass, or left the Catholic priesthood altogether to marry.

The documentary, to be aired Wednesday on Discovery Italia and previewed to The Associated Press, makes the case that many of these men would gladly return to the priesthood and offer their pastoral services.

Their plight has found a sympathetic ear in Francis, who has long expressed a willingness to consider “viri probati” to address pastoral needs in the Amazon. He has also expressed sympathy for priests who have made the anguished choice to leave.

Vocatio, an Italian association of these “married priests,” wrote Francis earlier this month pledging their solidarity as he copes with the global fallout of the sex abuse scandal, and once again offering their services in ministry.

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.

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

October 23, 2018

by Peter Feuerherd

It was a clear mimicking of the Protestant reformer’s 1517 posting of 95 theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. The Erie document is addressed to Pope Francis and written on behalf of the Catholic laity.

The style of the author is more literary than dogmatic.

The first thesis states a quote often attributed to playwright Oscar Wilde: “Everything in the world is about sex, except sex is about power.”

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.

IRELAND
RTE

October 23, 2018

The Government has approved the forensic excavation of the site of the former mother-and-baby home in Tuam, Co Galway.

Significant quantities of human remains were discovered at the site last year.

The Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation began test excavations at the site of the children’s burial ground at the Dublin Road housing estate in Tuam in October 2016.

The commission was established following allegations about the deaths of 800 babies in Tuam over a number of decades and the manner in which they were buried.

The commission said significant quantities of human remains were discovered in at least 17 of 20 underground chambers that were examined last year.

The mother-and-baby home operated from 1925 to 1961.

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.

WASHINGTON (DC)
Daily Caller

October 23, 2018

By Joshua Gill

A French priest killed himself after authorities questioned him about allegations of child sexual abuse, becoming the second priest in a month to do so.

Catholic officials said that Father Pierre-Yves Fumery hanged himself in his presbytery in the French town of Gien after authorities questioned but did not charge him concerning allegations that he sexually assaulted a child under the age of 15. Fumery, 38, joined the ranks of fellow Priest Jean-Baptiste Sebe, also 38, who committed suicide on Sept. 19 after a mother accused him of committing “indecent behavior and sexual assault” against her daughter.

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.

ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

October 22, 2018

Last week, an Australian Parliament struck down an archaic legal defense that presented a major barrier to survivors seeking accountability and justice.

The New South Wales Parliament formally abolished the “Ellis Defence,” a legal stance that allowed the catholic church to hide behind an archaic and arcane designation of “non-entity.” In practice, this meant that survivors could not formally sue Catholic dioceses in court, regardless of the legitimacy of the claims, helping to ensure that cover-ups stayed covered-up and that accountability would be out of reach.

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.

[Jorge Laplagne reiterates his innocence in a statement to the prosecutor for sex abuse]

CHILE
El Mostrador

October 22, 2018

Al salir de la Fiscalía, Laplagne dijo estar “tranquilo” y afirmó que se trata de un proceso “doloroso para la Iglesia”. Además enfatizó que “cuando esto termine (la investigación) yo voy a dar mi declaración”.

Este lunes, el sacerdote Jorge Laplagne declaró por cuatro horas en el Ministerio Público de O’Higgins en calidad de imputado por el caso de abuso sexual en contra de un menor de edad, oportunidad en la que reiteró su inocencia.

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.

[Reconciliation in “Karadima case:” possible scenario after confusion over compensation ruling]

CHILE
El Mostrador

October 23, 2018

By Alejandra Carmona López

Desde ayer se instaló un abierto temor entre quienes respaldan la entrega de una indemnización de la Iglesia católica a las víctimas de abusos sexuales, les preocupa que el lobby y las presiones en torno a los jueces tengan efectos negativos en la Corte y vaya en contra de lo que habría sido la decisión inicial del tribunal de alzada en esta causa. Dicha preocupación se sustenta en el hecho de que, si bien la ministra Dobra Lusic señaló que no había fallo, lo cierto es que, según la descripción de la tabla de dicho tribunal sobre la causa, esta no se halla en estudio –como dijo el juez Vázquez– sino “en acuerdo”.

“Un medio de comunicación afirmó ayer que la Corte de Apelaciones había condenado a la Iglesia por negligencia en el caso Karadima. Hoy otro medio dice que aún no ha fallado. No sabemos lo que está ocurriendo, pero con lo que está en juego y los poderes que involucra, nada nos sorprende a estas alturas. Esperamos que la Corte resuelva pronto. Entonces, con esa certeza podremos hablar”, escribió ayer –en su cuenta de Twitter– Carlos Cruz, una de las víctimas del otrora poderoso párroco de El Bosque, Fernando Karadima.

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.

ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

October 22, 2018

The Diocese of San Jose today released a statement regarding the news that one of the men on their list of “credibly accused” clergy was in jail on new charges.

In the statement Bishop Patrick McGrath said, “Prior to the Dallas Charter … these cases were handled differently based on the clinical psychological standards at the time of their convictions.” We believe it is disingenuous for the Bishop to claim that the Church did not understand the danger of returning men who abuse children to ministry.

As early as the mid-1950s, Father Gerald Fitzgerald, founder of the Servants of the Paracletes, an order established to deal with problem priests, wrote regularly to Bishops in the United States and to Vatican officials that clergy who abused children should be laicized immediately. Father Thomas Doyle and attorney Ray Mouton warned the Bishops again in 1985.

Bishops who now claim they just “didn’t understand” child sex abuse prior to 2002 are just making excuses for decades of cover-ups. Does anyone really believe that these well-educated men honestly thought that prayer would cure pedophilia?

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.

ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

October 22, 2018

Today, the U.S. Attorney’s office for Washington D.C. has announced that they are opening an hotline and email address that survivors of clergy sex abuse and those that have knowledge of abuse can use to report their experiences.

The opening of this line of communication – directly between survivors of sexual abuse and criminal investigators – is an excellent step taken by U.S. Attorney Jessie K. Liu. Creating this confidential avenue for survivors to report what they may have seen, suspected or suffered in Washington D.C. area gives survivors a new chance to come forward with their experiences and may potentially lead to the justice that is so often elusive for survivors of institutional sexual abuse. Given how important holding perpetrators accountable can be, both for survivors’ healing and the prevention of future cases, we hope that today’s announcement is the first step towards an independent investigation into the Archdiocese of Washington D.C.

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

ROME (ITALY)
Crux

Oct 23, 2018

Bishop Frank Caggiano of Bridgeport, Connecticut, has become one of the most closely watched American prelates at a time when the Church in the United States is in full crisis mode, making it perhaps unsurprising that he was the first bishop to raise the issue of clerical sex abuse during this month’s Vatican summit on young people.

His name is now often rumored as a potential replacement for Cardinal Donald Wuerl in Washington, D.C. or for Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia when he reaches retirement age next year.

Even so, Caggiano brushes off such rumors, insisting that he’s focused solely on his diocese and, particularly, building on the energy and ideas coming out of the Synod of Bishops on “Young People, the Faith, and Vocational Discernment,” where he has joined nearly 300 bishops around the world for his first go at a synod.

Among the topics he discussed in an interview with Crux last week are:

The upcoming meeting of U.S. bishops next month where he insists that the issue of accountability of bishops must be settled.

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.

[Court has not yet settled suit against the Church, victims of Karadima continue to wait]

CHILE
BioBioChile

October 23, 2018

By Alberto González and Erik López (Agence France-Presse)

La justicia informó este lunes que aún no ha ordenado el pago de una millonaria indemnización que la Iglesia tendría que pagar a tres víctimas del exsacerdote Fernando Karadima, tal como publicó el diario La Tercera y que fue confirmado por los beneficiados. Según publicó el matutino, el tribunal había revocado una sentencia anterior y decidió otorgarle una indemnización de 450 millones de pesos a Juan Carlos Cruz, José Andrés Murillo y James Hamilton, quienes demandaron a la Iglesia Católica por su negligencia y por haber encubierto las denuncias de abuso sexual sufridas a manos de Karadima.

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.

[Ex-bishop refuses to testify in court but acknowledges Church concealment]

CHILE
BioBioChile

October 23, 2018

By Alejandra Soto

En la región de O’Higgins fue citado a declarar el exobispo porteño, Gonzalo Duarte, en calidad de imputado por el delito de encubrimiento. “Hice todo lo que tenía que hacer” aseguró Duarte en el marco de las investigaciones por abusos sexuales a menores. Según El Mercurio de Valparaíso, la comparecencia del obispo emérito estuvo relacionada por una pesquisa que involucra al excapellán de la Fuerza Aérea de Chile (FACh) en Iquique, Pedro Quiroz Fernández.

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

[Victims of Karadima urge Court to quickly resolve claim against Archdiocese]

SANTIAGO, CHILE
Emol

October 22, 2018

By Juan Peña

Juan Carlos Cruz, James Hamilton y José Andrés Murillo salieron a enfrentar las versiones encontradas que surgieron en los últimos días sobre la acción judicial que busca una millonaria indemnización por presunto encubrimiento.

“Con lo que está en juego y poderes que involucra, nada nos sorprende”. Esta es una de las frases del breve comunicado que las víctimas de Fernando Karadima salieron al paso de las versiones encontradas que surgieron sobre el fallo de la Corte de Apelaciones por la demanda que presentaron contra el Arzobispado de Santiago.

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.

[Eugenio de la Fuente, priest and victim of Karadima: “Errázuriz should take a step to the side”]

CHILE
La Tercera

October 22, 2018

By María José Navarrete

El sacerdote de la Iglesia de Santiago y exsacristán de El Bosque, Eugenio de la Fuente, sufrió durante años abusos de conciencia por parte de Fernando Karadima.

El sacerdote de la Iglesia de Santiago y exsacristán de El Bosque, Eugenio de la Fuente, sufrió durante años abusos de conciencia por parte de Fernando Karadima. En junio de este año viajó con el segundo grupo de víctimas que se reunió con el Papa Francisco en el Vaticano y, tras conocerse el fallo de la Corte de Apelaciones de Santiago ayer, conversó con La Tercera al respecto.

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.

[Appeals Court says “There is no ruling” on compensation for Karadima victims]

CHILE
La Tercera

October 22, 2018

By Leslie Ayala C.

En el portal del Poder Judicial la causa aparece en “estado de acuerdo”.

Cuando aún no terminaba el pleno semanal de la Corte de Apelaciones de Santiago, la presidenta del tribunal, Dobra Lusic, salió hoy a enfrentar el trascendido respecto de la decisión de la Novena Sala de revocar el fallo de primera instancia y acoger la demanda indemnizatoria presentada por las víctimas del sacerdote Fernando Karadima en contra del Arzobispado de Santiago.

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.

[Accusations against Korean priest in Chile may point to two bishops]

CHILE
La Tercera

October 22, 2018

By L. Zapata and P. Moreno

La fiscalía presentó antecedentes a la Corte de Rancagua para justificar el allanamiento al Obispado de Valparaíso. Hoy, en tanto, declaró obispo emérito Gonzalo Duarte.

Fue durante los allanamientos al Arzobispado de Santiago, en junio y agosto pasado, cuando el fiscal regional de O’Higgins, Emiliano Arias, incautó una carpeta con denuncias de eventuales abusos sexuales que involucran al sacerdote coreano Pablo Park, de la orden de los San Columbanos. Estos antecedentes fueron los que el persecutor puso a disposición de la Corte de Apelaciones de esa ciudad para justificar el allanamiento al Obispado de Valparaíso, efectuado el 13 de septiembre, con miras a los alegatos de este martes, donde se analizará el recurso de protección interpuesto por esa diócesis, reclamando por la legalidad de la diligencia.

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.

WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

October 23, 2018

By Peter Jamison and Michelle Boorstein

District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine said Tuesday that his office has launched an investigation into sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in the Archdiocese of Washington, the latest in a string of state-level law enforcement officials now probing the Catholic Church’s handling of abuse complaints.

The investigation, announced by Racine at a regularly scheduled breakfast among Washington’s elected officials, will bring scrutiny to Catholic leaders who have come under intense criticism in recent months.

Washington’s archbishop, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, resigned this month amid uproar over a Pennsylvania grand jury report that depicted systemic abuse across the state’s Catholic Church, including in Pittsburgh, where he had previously been a bishop.

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.

KOCHI (INDIA)
Catholic News Agency

October 23, 2018

A priest who had been a key witness in the charge of rape against Bishop Franco Mulakkal of Jullundur died Monday, prompting a police investigation into his death.

Father Kuriakose Kattuthara, 62, was found unconscious in his room on Oct. 22 at St Mary’s Church in Dasuya in Punjab, India. He had no visible signs of injury.

He was declared dead after being transported to a local hospital.

Kattuthara’s brother, Jose Kurian, expressed doubt about police reports that the priest might have succumbed to cardiac arrest.

“My brother had talked to me a week before the death. He had expressed fear that something may happen to him. We can’t believe the Punjab Police version that my brother had died due to cardiac arrest. He had no history of heart ailments,” Kurian told Firstpost.

The priest’s family petitioned for an autopsy and investigation. It was filed with the Alappuzha district superintendent of police, who forwarded it to Pinarayi Vijayan, Chief Minister.

The priest had testified against Bishop Mulakkal, who was been arrested on Sept. 21 for allegedly raping a nun for over a course of two years. The nun, who is a member of the Missionaries of Jesus, brought the accusation forward in June.

The priest provided testimony to police about the case several weeks ago. Local Catholics say that others who have testified against the bishop have faced threats of retaliation.

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.

KANSAS CITY (MO)
Kansas City Star

October 22, 2018

We have known for some time that sex abuse wrecks lives, and families. The damage done doesn’t dissipate over time, either, but stretches across generations.

So it’s a bigger deal than it should be that Catholic Bishop Steven Biegler of the Diocese of Cheyenne is trying something new: He’s forced both a police and Vatican reexamination of credible abuse allegations against one of his predecessors, 87-year-old Bishop Joseph Hart, who is from Kansas City and worked in several parishes and the chancery here. Unfortunately, this is unheard of.

Over the years, the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph settled 10 such claims against Hart. Now, the retired bishop stands accused of multiple acts of sexual abuse deemed credible by both the Missouri and Wyoming dioceses where he spent his career.

If you’re wondering what good could possibly come of investigating an old man, plenty of good already has come of it, as The Star detailed in a story.

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.

PITTSBURGH (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

October 22, 2018

By Peter Smith

More than two months after a landmark state grand jury report told a devastating history of sexual abuse by priests, more than 200 Catholics gathered at Greensburg’s cathedral to report back.

In short, they were angry at the reports of sexual abuse by priests and the cover-ups that followed.

At the first of a series of listening sessions being held throughout the Diocese of Greensburg in the coming weeks, Bishop Edward Malesic paced the center aisle of Blessed Sacrament Cathedral in Greensburg, listening as the microphone passed from one person to another, each angered over the reports of abuse, but often for different reasons.

“When we look at our history as a family and (wonder) how could that happen, I know there are feelings of confusion and anger and disappointment,” Bishop Malesic said. “So I wanted to have a gathering as family so we could dialogue.”

Beyond the revulsion expressed toward the sexual abuse, described in gruesome detail in the grand jury report, there was no common thread in the comments, which several people read from notes that shook in their hands.

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.

PITTSBURGH (PA)
Tribune Review

October 22, 2018

By Jeff Himler

Monday evening’s listening session inside Greensburg’s Blessed Sacrament Cathedral was a start in the Greensburg Catholic diocese’s attempt to move forward in the wake of accusations of sexual abuse by diocese priests in a state grand jury report released in August.

Referring to one parishioner’s call for a culture change in the diocese and its leadership, Tom Severin of Connellsville said after the session, “That’s really the direction we have to go as far as dealing with the pedophile scandal. It’s not just making rules — it’s actually changing.”

The first of seven planned two-hour listening sessions drew more than 260 people to the Greensburg church to ask questions of and make suggestions to Bishop Edward C. Malesic and a Safe Environment Advisory Council of Catholic and non-Catholic members, formed to advise the church on how best to protect children.

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.

HARRISBURG (PA)
Patriot News

October 23, 2018

By David Clohessy

Backers of the much-debated civil window for abuse and cover up lawsuits just won’t compromise.

So says Pennsylvania state Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati.

But, Scarnati, R-Jefferson, couldn’t be more wrong.

Here’s what he apparently doesn’t understand: Thousands of Pennsylvania citizens including hundreds in his own district, are already leading severely compromised lives because of horrific child sex crimes that are, even now, mostly being concealed by other allegedly “responsible” adults.

Thousands who were sexually abused as kids, have compromised sexualities and severely compromised self-confidence. They are the extremely common after-effects of having been used and abused by adults who purportedly love or value us.

Thousands more have compromised careers, having dropped out of school early or avoided college or gravitated toward jobs where frail self-esteems are less challenged.

Thousands have compromised relationships with family and friends, by whom we feel betrayed or unsupported or who we just can’t bring ourselves to trust others because our perpetrators so stunningly violated our trust at young and vulnerable ages.

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health estimate that we “spend an average $9.3 billion per year in the U.S. due to the victimization-related costs associated with health care, child welfare, violence and crime, and a number of other expenditures, as well as productivity losses.”

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

PHOENIX (AZ)
Phoenix New Times

October 23, 2018

By Lynn Trimble

Recently, news broke that the federal government is investigating allegations of sexual abuse by several Catholic priests in Pennsylvania. It’s the latest development in a story that spans several decades and countries, including Ireland.

That’s where Pope Francis addressed the issue in August. And it’s where Trina McKillen, a California-based artist with Irish roots, found inspiration for her “Confess” exhibition, which continues through Thursday, October 25, at Lisa Sette Gallery.

The exhibition calls the Catholic Church to account for its sins, while elevating the innocence of the children who fell prey to pedophile priests. It comprises three components, including a life-size confessional, with roles reversed so priests are the confessors.

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.

KENT (OH)
Statehouse News Bureau

October 23, 2018

By Karen Kasler

The attorney general is the state’s top cop, protecting Ohioans against shady business practices and against crime on the streets. And the new AG will be among the five new statewide executive officeholders who will take over in January.

The Attorney General candidates:
Republican Dave Yost and Democrat Steve Dettelbach are both attorneys. And they both have a way with words – peppering their comments with colorful statements like:

“I don’t think that dog hunts.”

“It just doesn’t hold water.”

“Well, that’s just horsefeathers.”

“Malarkey.”

The Republican state auditor and the Democratic former US Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio disagree strongly on several issues – most notably, on what Yost could have done involving the Electronic Classroom of Tomorrow.

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.

ERIE (PA)
GoErie.com

October 21, 2018

The head honcho of the Pennsylvania Senate cast it as a matter of constitutional principle.

Until it wasn’t.

Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati had maintained that giving victims of predator Catholic priests a path to some semblance of justice — via a two-year window to sue in civil court outside the statute of limitations — doesn’t pass muster with the Pennsylvania constitution. That was the rationale in 2016 when he oversaw the death of that measure in the Senate, though it had passed overwhelmingly in the house.

It wasn’t the lobbying by the Catholic Church and the insurance industry. It was the constitution. And absent some revolt in the ranks, Scarnati’s judgment rules because he controls the flow of legislation to the Senate floor.

Scarnati’s holding action got tougher in August with the release of the grand jury report that documented the abuse of more than 1,000 children by 301 predator priests over decades and how it was systematically enabled and covered up by the church hierarchy. Now the push to give victims a long-denied day in open court became a moral imperative given voice by the grand jurors.

In addition to the horror stories it exposed, the grand jury delivered four recommendations for reform. They included a two-year window for abuse survivors to sue retroactively in civil court.

The House in September again passed the provision, this time by a 173-21 vote. All of the members of the Erie-area House delegation supported it.

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.

WASHINGTON (DC)
Get Religion

October 22, 2018

By Terry Mattingly

For millions of Roman Catholics, the world began changing in the 1980s — with waves of headlines about clergy sexual abuse cases that eventually led to reporter Jason Berry’s cathartic 1992 book “Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children.”

The National Catholic Reporter wrote article after article about the scandals. A crucial moment came in 1985, when The New York Times published a brutal article about the Rev. Gilbert Gauthe, who admitted that he abused dozens of children in parishes in rural, southwest Louisiana. HBO eventually made a movie — “Judgement” — about the Gauthe case.

Mainstream news reporters, including me, covered stories linked to the emerging scandal all through the 1980s, as the U.S. Catholic bishops met behind closed doors to discuss how to solve this hellish puzzle.

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.

ALLENTOWN (PA)
The Morning Call

October 22, 2018

By Bill White

To paraphrase journalist and social critic H.L. Mencken, no one ever went broke underestimating the cowardice, dysfunction and bad priorities of our state Legislature.

So I can’t say I was shocked to see our state Senate head home last week without taking action on a bill that would reform statutes of limitations for victims of child sex abuse.

In fact, the Senate leader who played the biggest role in blocking Senate Bill 261 from a vote, Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, claimed he was doing the responsible thing by trying to remove the piece of the bill most important to many survivors of abuse and that has been called for in grand jury findings on child sex abuse in various Pennsylvania dioceses.

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.

AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

October 9, 2018

By Royce Millar and Ben Schneiders

All Australian churches should be made to open their books to account more thoroughly for their billions of dollars in assets and revenue, a member of the child abuse royal commission has said.

Robert Fitzgerald AM, one of the six commissioners who oversaw the five-year royal commission, will call on Wednesday for the scrapping of special exemptions that have until now allowed half of church charities, including much of the Catholic and Anglican church networks, to avoid financial reporting to the charities watchdog, the Australian Charities and Not-for-Profits Commission.

In an address celebrating the 10th anniversary of the not-for-profit law program of community legal group Justice Connect, Mr Fitzgerald will publicly declare for the first time that the arguments for the exemptions for “basic religious charities” do not hold up.

Mr Fitzgerald will explain how the exemptions had sent a “poor signal” to the wider community that some charities deserved special treatment simply because of their religious status.

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.

WASHINGTON (DC)
Daily Caller

October 22, 2018

By Joshua Gill

The Catholic Diocese of San Jose in California publicly named 15 priests credibly accused of sexual misconduct, but failed to mention current allegations against one living offender.

Hernan Toro is one of six priests who are still alive out of the 15 that the Diocese of San Jose publicly named on Oct. 18 as having been credibly accused of sexual misconduct. Diocesan records show that Toro was convicted of sexually abusing a child in 1983, forced to register as a sex offender, and continued to serve as a priest for seven years afterward until he was permanently banned from ministry in 1990. The report failed to mention, however, that Toro has been in jail since October 2017 and currently faces six charges for allegedly molesting two girls between 2011 and 2015.

Liz Sullivan, spokeswoman for the diocese, said that the diocese was unaware of the current allegations against Toro and did not provide details as to how the diocese collected information on the 15 priests they named, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

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

VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

October 22, 2018

By Cindy Wooden

While the clerical sexual abuse crisis did not dominate discussions at the Synod of Bishops, Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston said it was discussed, and everyone in the room clearly believed the crisis has to be dealt with.

Cardinal DiNardo, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, spoke to Catholic News Service Oct. 22 as the synod was winding down and preparations for the U.S. bishops’ November general meeting moved into high gear.

The agenda for the November meeting will include multiple items for dealing with the abuse crisis and, particularly, the issue of bishops’ behavior and accountability, Cardinal DiNardo said.

One suggestion the bishops will examine, he said, is to draw up “a code of conduct for bishops,” similar to those that most dioceses have for priests and for lay employees. Another would be to establish a “third-party reporting system” that would allow someone with an abuse complaint against a bishop to report him to someone not connected with his diocese or the bishops’ conference.

“All of these involve issues that we are going to have to discern,” the cardinal said. “We want to do something that will help intensify our commitment to change.”

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.

WASHINGTON (DC)
The Hill

October 22, 2018

By Megan Keller

The District of Columbia U.S. Attorney’s Office Victim Witness Assistance Unit and the D.C. Superior Court Division’s Sex Offense and Domestic Violence Section are launching a hotline and email for survivors of child sexual abuse by clergy to report the crimes.

U.S. Attorney Jessie Liu on Monday announced that victims or people with knowledge of incidents involving sexual abuse by clergy can contact the newly formed Clergy Abuse Reporting Line at 202-252-7008 or email USADC.ReportClergyAbuse@usdog.gov.

A group of criminal investigators, prosecutors and victim advocates from the Superior Court Division of the U.S. Attorney’s Office will review any information provided and decide if the provider can be given victim services or criminal charges can be issued.

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.

[Steve Bannon received Gloria and Cardinal Müller]

BAVARIA (GERMANY)
Br.de

October 22, 2018

Der ehemalige Chefstratege von US-Präsident Trump, Steve Bannon, will eine rechte Sammlungsbewegung gründen. Gloria von Thurn und Taxis und Kardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller standen dabei auf seiner Gästeliste, berichtet der “Spiegel”.

Die Regensburger Unternehmerin Gloria von Thurn und Taxis und der frühere Regensburger Bischof und Chef der vatikanischen Glaubenskongregation, Kardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, haben sich einem Bericht des Nachrichtenmagazins “Der Spiegel” zufolge mit dem früheren US-Präsidentenberater Steve Bannon getroffen. Der Rechtspopulist Bannon habe in der US-Hauptstadt Washington im September ein Abendessen für konservative Katholiken organisiert.

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.

WASHINGTON D.C.
The Washington Post

October 21, 2018

By Marisa Iati

In a yellow townhouse just steps from Georgetown University on a recent evening, members of the campus group Catholic Women at Georgetown talked about how the Virgin Mary strengthens them in hard times as they shared a dinner of Domino’s pizza.

In between swapping thoughts on homesickness and avoiding sin, the conversation turned to new allegations of sexual abuse by clergy in a church under siege.

The group’s president, Erica Lizza, asked the dozen students seated in a circle how they lean on Mary as the faith they’ve relied on for spiritual sustenance faces a crisis.

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.

PHILADELPHIA
Philly.com

October 22, 2018

By John Baer

In case you’re wondering (and you should be) how your legislature does, or doesn’t do, whatever it wants, allow me to refresh your memory.

It’s because its leaders maintain a culture to keep you out and keep them in.

It’s because this culture puts their interests and special interests ahead of public interests.

The latest example is the state Senate last week walking away from victims of child sex abuse.

This on the final scheduled voting day of the year.

This after a Pennsylvania grand jury in August released the nation’s most comprehensive report on decades of abuse and cover-up by Catholic clergy.

And this after that report triggered investigations in other states and a federal probe by the U.S. Department of Justice.

There are complexities in helping victims. Should private entities such as the Catholic Church be treated differently from public entities such as a school district? Does a compensation fund make more sense than open litigation?

But how did lawmakers resolve these complexities?

They walked away. Because they can.

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

[Church of Santiago contributions grow by 1% while the number of donors decreases]

CHILE
La Tercera

October 22, 2018

By L. Zapata and S. Rodríguez

Cercanos al catolicismo aseguran que, de acuerdo con las cifras 2010-2017 entregadas por el Arzobispado, la caída de personas que aportan dinero estaría relacionada con los casos de abuso en el clero, chileno y mundial.

El 15 de enero pasado el Papa Francisco pisó suelo chileno. Después de 30 años un Pontífice regresaba al país, con una tarea titánica: reencantar al aparentemente alicaído catolicismo criollo. La visita generó expectativas en la Iglesia local, que no terminaba de sacudirse del impacto provocado por el caso Karadima y sus abusos en El Bosque, el cual se venía arrastrando desde 2011, además de otros episodios que tibiamente comenzaban a aparecer en el horizonte.

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.

[Court of Appeals President says there is still no ruling drafted in the Karadima victims’ lawsuit]

CHILE
La Tercera

October 22, 2018

En los próximos días la Novena Sala de la Corte de Apelaciones debería dar a conocer la resolución sobre el caso. Al ser consultada sobre si se había alcanzado a votar, Dobra Lusic señaló que “eso ya es reservado, forma parte del acuerdo”.

Dobra Lusic, presidenta de la Corte de Apelaciones, indicó esta tarde que aún no hay un fallo redactado con respecto a la demanda presentada por las víctimas de Fernando Karadima, en contra del Arzobispado de Santiago.

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

[Former Bishop Duarte says “I did everything I had to do” in going to O’Higgins office for cover-up investigation]

CHILE
La Tercera

October 22, 2018

El religioso dijo que no sabía por qué estaba citado y que acordó con los fiscales reagendar la diligencia para noviembre.

“Hice todo lo que tenía que hacer”. Con estas palabras el obispo emérito de Valparaíso, Gonzalo Duarte, se refirió a las consultas de la prensa tras acudir a la fiscalía de O’Higgins en medio de las investigaciones por presunto encubrimiento en el caso del excapellán de la Fuerza Aérea, Pedro Quiroz.

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.

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

October 22, 2018

By Fr. Peter Daly

Two months into the sex abuse scandal that forced Theodore McCarrick to renounce his cardinal’s red hat and withdraw to a Capuchin friary in Kansas, Catholics are still asking, “How did this happen?” How does someone like McCarrick advance to the pinnacle of Catholic power and stay there for so long when he carries so much baggage of crime and sin? Was there no vetting? Were there no background checks? Was someone protecting him?

If there is any “malpractice” in this scandal, it belongs to the various papal nuncios (Vatican ambassadors) and the members of the Congregation for Bishops in Rome, who are responsible for checking the backgrounds of candidates for the episcopacy. They did not do their jobs. It also belongs to McCarrick’s patrons and promoters in America and in Rome, including Cardinals Francis Spellman (archbishop of New York 1939-67) and Terence Cooke (archbishop of New York 1968-83) and Pope John Paul II. All three were enchanted by McCarrick’s fundraising skills.

In his August letter to the church, Pope Francis said that the explanation for the abuse crisis is “clericalism.” I agree if we define clericalism as the view that priests and bishops are set apart from and above other people. They feel they are accountable only to their religious superiors. Certainly not to the laity and often not even to the civil authorities.

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.

AUSTRALIA
New Matilda

October 22, 2018

By Liana Buchanan

Later today, our Parliament will deliver a formal National Apology to the victims of child abuse perpetrated at the hands of Australian institutions. Words have power, but action means a lot more, writes Liana Buchanan.

Today, Prime Minister Scott Morrison makes a national apology to victims and survivors of institutional child sexual abuse. Around 400 balloted tickets have been made available to attend the ceremony in Canberra, while another 400 organisational representatives will also attend and local ceremonies will see hundreds of others come together around Australia to witness the apology.

This historic event marks the rightful acknowledgement of decades of abuse that has been, until recently, hidden. It follows the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which exposed thousands of allegations, and made more than 2,500 referrals to police.

The abuse disclosed has, in many cases, led to catastrophic impacts on the lives of victims who survived, and their families and loved ones. For too many others, their lives have ended as a direct result of childhoods destroyed through abuse.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

October 21, 2018

By Katharine Murphy

More than 1,000 people expected for apology following royal commission’s horrific findings

Scott Morrison will commit to a new museum to raise awareness and understanding of the impacts of child sexual abuse as the centrepiece of what will be an emotional national apology to the survivors of institutional abuse in federal parliament on Monday.

More than 1,000 people are expected to be in Canberra for the apology, a symbolic gesture that follows the horrific findings of the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse. Julia Gillard, the prime minister who set the royal commission in train, is expected to attend.

The prime minister will commit in Monday’s speech to a museum that will be a place of remembrance and reflection, as well as a place cataloguing the events leading up to the royal commission and the national apology, with the scope of the project to be worked out in consultation with survivors.

Morrison will also commit to reporting to parliament each year for the next five years on the progress being made implementing the recommendations of the royal commission.

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.

LOS ANGELES (CA)
Glamour

October 20, 2018

By Julyssa Lopez

The University of Southern California continues to reckon with sexual assault allegations leveled against its former campus gynecologist George Tyndall. On Thursday, two new lawsuits were filed on behalf of 93 additional women who claim the university purposefully concealed the abuse—which brings the total number of Tyndall’s accusers to about 500.

The new claims come after 51 women came forward back in July. They joined six women who had alleged in a lawsuit filed in May that USC had failed to protect them from Tyndall’s abuse and mishandled complaints about his behavior, as well as dozens of others, bringing the total number of accusers at that point to more than 200. Following backlash, USC’s former president C.L. Max Nikias announced he would step down.

Tyndall is now retired after working at the university for almost three decades. According to CNN, accusations of misconduct against him date back to 1990 and include allegations from women who say he abused or harassed them under the guide of medical treatment at the university’s student health center. The AP reported that Tyndall’s license was suspended in August.

A group of approximately 20 women announced the two new lawsuits at a press conference on Thursday, and some of them spoke publicly about their experiences.

“I am part of an accidental sisterhood of hundreds of women because the university we love betrayed our trust,” Dana Loewy, a woman who alleges that Tyndall assaulted her in 1983, was quoted as saying in Time.

Following the press conference, USC announced their agreement to a tentative settlement of $215 million on Friday, which, according to NPR, could make anyone who received treatment from Tyndall eligible to receive a minimum of $2,500 (victims who allege Tyndall abuse them could receive up to $250,000, the Los Angeles Times reports.) USC’s interim president, Wanda Austin, said in a public statement that its Board of Trustees supported the settlement.

“By doing so, we hope that we can help our community move collectively toward reconciliation,” Austin said. “I regret that any student ever felt uncomfortable, unsafe, or mistreated in any way as a result of the actions of a university employee.”

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.

AUSTRALIA
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

October 22, 2018

A year ago, several women walked into the annual Synod of the Sydney Anglican Diocese, shuffled through the rows of the public gallery in Pitt Street’s Wesley Theatre, and sat down nervously.

All of them were victims of domestic abuse, there to listen as the Diocese’s domestic violence taskforce presented its draft policy for responding to abuse in the church which, as ABC News would only weeks later reveal, was being perpetrated not just against parishioners, but against the wives of clergy — including me.

It’s been quite a year.

Last week, several hundred Sydney Anglicans returned to the same spot for the taskforce’s unveiling of the final version of the policy, having spent months consulting with experts and survivors.

I had been looking forward to seeing the finished product, and was hopeful it would reflect the voices of victims who’d shared their disturbing experiences of abuse by church workers, and desires to see leaders respond better.

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.

MALTA
Times of Malta

October 20, 2018

Over the last two decades, the Catholic Church has been rocked to its foundations by accusations of sex abuse of children by the clergy. Pope Francis apologised unreservedly to victims for the extent of the abuse and the cover-ups committed by senior churchmen across the world.

After a rocky period when secrecy was the order of the day, it has been encouraging to see the transformation in the way the Church in Malta and Gozo realised that the fundamental key to getting a grip on the culture and the causes that underlie clerical sex abuse lies through positive action.

The head of the Church Safeguarding Commission, Andrew Azzopardi, has just presented the annual report, in itself an act of transparency and accountability which demonstrates the Diocese’s readiness to face the issue head-on. Its publication shows unequivocally the Church is in earnest about rooting out a scourge that would otherwise threaten its moral authority, as it has done in so many other parts of the world.

In presenting the report, Mr Azzopardi said that last year three substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of minors had been referred to the police by the commission, thus ensuring that such appalling crimes would be dealt with by the criminal justice system under Maltese law, not the Church authorities. In all three cases, the commission had imposed restrictions on the pastoral activities that could be carried out by the perpetrators – two priests and a lay person – as a precautionary measure pending police action.

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.

AUSTRALIA
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

October 22, 2018

Dr Judy Courtin is a lawyer and advocate who represents survivors of institutional child sexual abuse.

Duration: 9 minutes 31 seconds

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

SAN JOSE (CA)
KRON

October 22, 2018

By Alexa Mae Asperin

Diocese of San Jose Bishop Patrick McGrath is speaking out after new charges were announced against former priest Hernan Toro.

90-year-old Toro is currently jailed on accusations of molesting two girls between 2011 and 2015.

He is one of 15 former priests within the Diocese of San Jose who have been found credibly accused of sexually abusing children.

The statement from the Diocese of San Jose is as follows:

“Bishop McGrath is saddened and infuriated that additional innocent children are the recent victims of horrific acts by Hernan Toro, who was permanently banned from ministry in 1990. Bishop is relieved that the parents had the courage to notify law enforcement and that the authorities have arrested Toro.

Diocese was notified of the additional charges and Toro’s location Friday afternoon.

Prior to the Dallas Charter (more about The Charter can be found in FAQ #8), these cases were handled differently based on the clinical psychological standards at the time of their convictions. We now know, based on the current psychological best practices, that returning these men to ministry was a misguided attempt at rehabilitation and the Diocese has abolished this practice as part of Zero Tolerance established by the Dallas Charter of 2002. …”

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.

ROCKINGHAM (NC)
Rockingham Now

October 21, 2018

By Susie C. Spear

EDEN – A former Eden resident who alleges a past Catholic priest at St. Joseph of the Hills Catholic Church sexually abused him and his brother some 80 years ago, has asked city officials to change the municipal street that bears the disgraced priest’s name.

Father William J. Kuder, who allegedly committed crimes against the unnamed man and his brother, served as a priest at the church during the late 1930s and early 1940s, city officials said.

Kuder allegedly went on to abuse at least 10 children of an Asheville parish before his death in 1960. And he is known to the state’s Catholic leaders, who say they have no problem with a street name change.

While the church stands at 316 Boone Road, Kuder Street intersects with Boone Road just a few yards north. A dead end, the lane is home to one house and a city pump station.

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.

TOLEDO (OH)
Toledo Blade

October 20, 2018

When Toledo Catholic officials admitted that the Rev. Nelson Beaver has been accused of child sexual abuse, they took great pains to mention the alleged offense happened 25 years ago. But they refused to disclose a more important date (”Diocese places priest on leave to investigate sex abuse allegation,” Oct. 13).

The self-serving and carefully-orchestrated news release prepared by Bishop Daniel Thomas’ public relations team said nothing about when church staff received the accusation.

Parents, police, prosecutors, parishioners, and the public deserve to know whether Bishop Thomas and his colleagues acted within days or years after being told that Father Beaver allegedly assaulted a child .

DAVID CLOHESSY
St. Louis, Mo.
The writer is the former national director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

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.

IOWA CITY (IA)
Little Village Magazine

October 22, 2018

Americans in the Trump age are accustomed to atrocities flashing across editorial space and vanishing into the next outrage, but there are exceptions in longevity. Critics and accusers of the Catholic Church, while it remains a viable institution, must wrestle with the demon of pedophilia. Cardinal Wuerl, archbishop of D.C., recently resigned from some of his exalted church offices, facing grand jury findings that he presided over cover-ups for pedophilic priests.

Defending him in public interviews, his friend, John Carr, a big churcher and listed by Georgetown University as “adjunct professor in the Department of Theology,” reports that Wuerl was “better than most on sexual abuse…” but acknowledges that the Cardinal’s version of “better” still compels him to resign and the Pope to accept his resignation. Carr expresses his own regret but not any injustice. And to the credentials of this spokesman, we must add one more: he himself, when young, was a victim of clergical perverts and of the system that protected them

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.

UNITED STATES
Patheos

October 20, 2018

By Rebecca Hamilton

It appears that the he said/he said back and forth between Archbishop Vigano and the Vatican is still chugging down the road. The latest installment is Archbishop Vigano’s statement that the clergy sex abuse scandal is caused by “the scourge of homosexuality.”

While it’s true that 80% of the victims of sex abuse by Catholic clergy are young men and boys, that number flips over almost exactly in the larger population where slightly over 70% of the victims of abuse are female.

Sexual abuse, assault and rape are not homosexual problems. They are, primarily, a male problem. Notice, I said “primarily.” While it’s true that 96% of the perpetrators of sexual assault, abuse and rape are male, 4% are female.

Does this mean that there’s something “wrong” with the Y chromosome? Does it have a sexual aberration gene on it that makes it unsafe to let men walk the streets without a jailor? Absolutely not.

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

ROME (ITALY)
Crux

Oct 22, 2018

While Ireland has long enjoyed a privileged place on the global Catholic map, the past few months have been particularly demanding for Archbishop Eamon Martin of Armagh -largely due to the fact that the successor of Saint Patrick has been spending a lot of time with the successor of Saint Peter.

In August, Ireland played host to the Vatican-organized World Meeting of Families, which drew over 30,000 pilgrims to Dublin for its Congress of Families, and hundreds of thousands more for events with Pope Francis. Now, Martin is in Rome for almost the entire month of October as a delegate at the Synod of Bishops on Young People, Faith, and Vocational Discernment.

Martin, whose official title is Primate of All Ireland, may speak at times with a soft and gentle voice, but his passion for young people and the family is hardly understated.

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.

WASHINGTON D.C.
The Washington Post

October 22, 2018

By Patricia Lawler Kenet

I worried about hell a lot when I was 11 years old. My older brother once coaxed me into saying the first syllable of “helicopter” aloud. I panicked and cried hysterically for an hour, certain I was destined to suffer for eternity for uttering a blasphemy. I spent afternoons in my bedroom closet pawing glow-in-the-dark rosaries as I sought atonement for my perceived misdeeds.

When I turned 12 in 1971 and could barely be coaxed out of bed, sick with worry about the state of my sin-soaked soul, my mother took me to a doctor who told her that I was suffering from “acute scrupulosity.” He explained that acute scrupulosity is a mental condition, a sub-variant of obsessive-compulsive disorder, in which a person suffers a pathological degree of moral fastidiousness often based on the fear of committing a mortal sin. The illness is well documented in the psychological community as well as in the Church. Catholic leaders recognize the danger of this condition; even Saint Ignatius declared that acute scrupulosity was a “dangerous trap laid by the devil to keep the soul enslaved.” It has also been described as a “widespread pernicious ailment” by early popes.

I later learned that the onset of puberty combined with a tendency toward scrupulosity can land a one-two punch in the vulnerable psyche. It certainly did with me. Every sexual feeling or impulse, every fleeting jealous thought, every unkind word sent me into a spiral of worry, fear and anxiety. I wandered around in a daze, disassociated (Am I even real? Is the world real?) weepy, weak and feeling worthless. I tried to play the part of a free-spirited teen, but I lived in fear of missing Mass on Sunday.

Though I didn’t physically harm myself, my mind turned against me with constant accusations about what wrongs I committed. When I accidentally walked out of a Chinese restaurant holding onto the cloth napkin provided during dinner, I insisted on walking 10 blocks back to return it. If my mother became upset by something done by my brother, who was addicted to drugs, I scoured my conscience to glean whether there was something I had done or not done to cause her unhappiness. The internal verdict was always “guilty.”

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.

WOODLAWN PARK (NJ)
North Jersey Record

October 21, 2018

By Deena Yellin

As the pastor of one of the largest Catholic churches in New Jersey, the Rev. Robert Stagg ought to be on top of the world: His church membership is at 4,500 families, his Masses are packed and the church facility is undergoing expansion.

Yet the leader of the Church of the Presentation in Upper Saddle River is hurting.

“I read the news about all these abuse cases and it makes me want to throw up,” Stagg said. “It’s a terrible thing.”

Stagg wants people to know that the predators don’t represent all priests.

“There’s a percentage of the population that are abusers, and that’s awful,” Stagg said. “But … we all have to be vigilant — it happens in every country in the world with all kinds of occupations.”

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.

WASHINGTON (DC)
NPR

October 21, 2018

NPR’s Michel Martin speaks with Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Maria Panaritis about the church sex abuse scandal that’s roiling Pennsylvania.

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.

PITTSBURGH (PA)
Post Gazette

October 21, 2018 1

Now that Pope Francis has reluctantly accepted Cardinal Donald Wuerl’s resignation as Archbishop of Washington, the time is ripe to begin dismantling the gerontocratic oligarchy that impedes repairing the damage clerical sexual abuse has inflicted on Mother Church.

The high-ranking antediluvian ecclesiastical cabalists who oppose needed reforms and doctrinal modernizations that would preclude the ordination and enabling of predator priests will only be neutralized by the fresh theology and thinking of youth. How? By fighting Methuselahs with a Methuselah-Pope Francis.

The current Vicar of Christ needs to replace Cardinal Wuerl with a successor who was ordained in the third millennium, long after the not-so-golden age of clerical sexual abuse had climaxed in the late twentieth century.

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.

SWARTHMORE (PA)
Delaware County Daily Times

October 22, 2018

By Mark Rozzi, Times Guest Columnist

And they call themselves leaders? What cowardice that state Sens. Joe Scarnati and Jake Corman couldn’t bring the statute of limitation reform bill up for a vote!

The Senate needed to do its job. And it didn’t.

I know this will not be lost on their constituents.

What did the Senate leaders not get about the statewide grand jury report? Did the leaders not comprehend that when predators harm children and their employers knowingly covered up the crimes, they violated the law and therefore subjected themselves to liability?

The Senate leadership demonstrated once again they are hell-bent on carrying the water for the Catholic Church and by extension, all the other organizations that have gotten away with raping children because of ridiculous statutes of limitation.

Sen. Scarnati accused me of not being willing to compromise on SB 261, which overwhelmingly passed the House 173 to 21 in September. He claimed that no one from the other side was willing to negotiate and that he was negotiating with himself. He claimed that no counter solutions were offered.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

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

ROME (ITALY)
Crux

October 22, 2018

By Inés San Martín

In a decision being hailed as historic, three Chilean survivors of the country’s most infamous pedophile priest reportedly have won a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Santiago. The court found two Catholic cardinals guilty of covering up for Fernando Karadima.

The court’s decision hasn’t yet been made official, but it was published on Sunday by local newspaper La Tercera, and the three survivors who were suing the archdiocese quickly released a statement celebrating the decision.

Assuming the report is correct, the Church either will have to pay the survivors US$600,000 or appeal the decision, which would bring the case to Chile’s Supreme Court. The survivors had previously lost before a lower court, but appealed the ruling citing new evidence discovered by a prosecutor during a raid on the archives of the Archdiocese of Santiago.

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

GUAM
Pacific Daily News

October 22, 2018

By Haidee V Eugenio

Almost two weeks after his death, retired Guam priest Louis Brouillard continues to be a subject of clergy sex abuse allegations.

A plaintiff identified in court documents only as V.P., to protect his privacy, filed a $10 million lawsuit on Monday in federal court, alleging that Brouillard sexually molested and abused him when he was a 12- or 13-year-old member of the Yona Boy Scout Troop around 1973 or 1974.

V.P., represented by Attorney David Lujan, said in his lawsuit that Brouillard would pick him up and other boys for weekly outings in the guise of earning Boy Scouts merit badges but would abuse them while swimming.

“While swimming, Brouillard would swim completely naked and routinely instructed V.P. and the other boys to remove their clothes, and Brouillard would grope and touch their private parts,” the lawsuit said.

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

PITTSBURGH (PA)
KDKA

October 19, 2018

News broke yesterday that the US Justice Department will be investigating the clergy sex abuse in the Catholic Church in Pennsylvania.

Former US attorney David Hickton tells the KDKA Radio Afternoon News what the federal government will be able to do that the state prosecutors couldn’t.

Hickton says, “The abuse is not confirmed in only Pennsylvania, so obviously the federal sources which are nationwide and with other components can go worldwide; expanding the width and breathe of the investigation.”

“There are also a range of several crimes that are not on the book with the state, that could pertain here and so I think this is welcome news, I think for the victims it is good news, and for Catholics and the Catholic Church it is good news.”

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.

GREENSBURG (PA)
KDKA

October 20, 2018

The Diocese of Greensburg announced on Saturday that Father James W. Clark will not be returning to active ministry after an allegation against him was “found to be both credible and substantiated.”

The diocese made the announcement to all of its Uniontown parishes this weekend before releasing the information to the press.

“Because this allegation has been substantiated, Father Clark will not be permitted to return to ministry in the Diocese of Greensburg or in any other diocese. That means he will not be allowed to present himself as a priest, nor function publicly in ministry,” the Diocese of Greensburg said in a release on Saturday.

A credible allegation is one that has a believable narrative that fits the details of person, place, date and time. Substantiated means the allegation was proven to be supported by either an admission by the individual to the abuse, evidence or through a comprehensive canonical, civil or criminal investigation.

Father Clark was originally removed from ministry on June 29 after an allegation from almost 50 years ago came to light. The allegation stems from prior to Clark’s entrance into the seminary and ordination as a priest while he was working as a janitor at the former St. James School in Apollo, Pa.

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

NEW YORK (NY)
National Review

October 21, 2018

In this time of turmoil, the editors of National Review asked five Catholic writers to weigh in.

In the most recent issue of National Review (“The Case against Pope Francis,” October 29, 2018), NR senior writer Michael Brendan Dougherty wrote, “The Francis pontificate was to be an era of mercy for sinners at the peripheries and accountability for malefactors at the Vatican. Instead, almost the opposite has taken place.” According to Dougherty, the Roman Catholic Church’s “twin scandals” — the calamitous handling and coverup of clerical sexual abuse, and the the pope’s efforts to foment a “Theological Revolution” on sex, marriage, and the sacraments — have exposed deep divisions within the Church. In this time of turmoil, the editors of National Review asked five eminent thinkers to weigh in.

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.

OAKLAND (CA)
KGO TV

October 21, 2018

By Dan Noyes

The ABC7 News I-Team has learned the California Attorney General’s Office is looking into the issue of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Since Pennsylvania announced the results of its massive grand jury investigation in August, the question’s been — when will California take action?

We contacted the AG’s Office back in August, to find out if they are investigating clergy sexual abuse. Their answer? “We can’t comment on, even to confirm or deny, a potential or ongoing investigation.” But now, we have details on some steps they’re taking to tackle the issue.

Wednesday, September 26th, 2pm, on the 20th floor of the state office building in Oakland. High-level staff of California Attorney General Xavier Becerra met to consider how to investigate child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

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.

[Mauritius: Church punishes priest for sexual abuse]

PORT LOUIS, MAURITIUS
cath.ch (Catholic news site in Switzerland)

October 19, 2018

By Ibrahima Cissé, Correspondent in Africa of cath.ch

En raison d’abus sexuel sur mineur, la Congrégation pour la Doctrine de la Foi (CDF) à Rome a imposé au Père Joseph-Marie Moctee, prêtre du diocèse de Port-Louis, sur l’Ile Maurice, “la peine perpétuelle de la défense de tout ministère et de tout contact avec des mineurs”. La CDF l’a informé que toute transgression de sa part comportera l’application de l’article 1393 du Code de droit canonique (CIC).

[Due to sexual abuse of a minor, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in Rome imposed on Father Joseph-Marie Moctee, priest of the Diocese of Port Louis, Mauritius, “the life sentence of the defense of any ministry and any contact with minors “. The CDF informed him that any transgression on his part will involve the application of Article 1393 of the Code of Canon Law (CIC).]

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

[Vatican: Mission burdened by the loss of faith]

VATICAN CITY
katholisch.de

October 20, 2018

Spendenbereitschaft lasse wegen Säkularisierung nach

[Donation readiness diminishes because of secularization]

Zur Finanzierung der Mission benötigt die Kirche Spenden. Doch gerade in Europa und Nordamerika würden weniger Menschen Geld geben wollen, beklagt der Vatikan. Schuld seien die immer säkulareren Gesellschaften.

[The church needs donations to fund the mission. But especially in Europe and North America fewer people want to give money, complains the Vatican. Increasingly secular societies are to blame.]

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

SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
BBC News

October 19, 2018

By Frances Mao

On Monday, thousands of child sexual abuse survivors are expected to gather in Australia’s capital to hear a national apology.

The apology, to be given by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, follows a harrowing five-year inquiry which found tens of thousands of children had been abused in schools, churches, orphanages and other institutions.

For many survivors and their families, the apology in Canberra will mark a hard-fought moment of recognition. But for others it will feel hollow.

The BBC has spoken to several survivors who feel conflicted about the occasion.

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.

LEWISTON (PA)
The Sentinel

October 22, 2018

The Roman Catholic Church, so much at the center of bad news over the past couple of years due to the child sex-abuse scandal involving hundreds of priests over much of the past half-century, experienced a happy, proud and prayerful day last Sunday as Pope Francis elevated to sainthood a former pope and a martyred Salvadoran church leader.

The new saints are Pope Paul VI, who served as pontiff from 1963 to 1978, presiding over the modernizing church reforms of the 1960s, and Archbishop Oscar Romero, who voiced fearless denunciations of the military oppression at the start of El Salvador’s 1980-92 civil war and who was murdered as he celebrated Mass on March 24, 1980, in a hospital chapel.

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.

[In Karadima case, Errázuriz denies cover-up, says he reopened abuse investigation in the face of new circumstances]

CHILE
Emol

October 19, 2018

By Juan Peña

El ex arzobispo de Santiago defendió la investigación contra el ex párroco de El Bosque, tras la carta que las víctimas presentaron y en la que el religioso reconoce que la cerró sin interrogarlo.

“En uno de los párrafos se señala que en su momento se cerró la causa, lo que efectivamente ocurrió, con el mérito de los antecedentes que existían en ese momento. Pero es necesario aclarar que poco tiempo después procedí a reabrir el proceso, con nuevos antecedentes, y que fue remitido a la Santa Sede”.

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.

[Conflict continues among Osorno laity after Bishop Barros leaves: “There is no healing yet”]

CHILE
BioBioChile

October 21, 2018

By Nicole Briones

Frente a la crisis que atraviesa la diócesis en nuestro país, las agrupaciones aseguran que es nula la posibilidad que exista la reconciliación entre laicos y adherentes del exobispo de Osorno, Juan Barros, inculpado como presunto encubridor en casos de abusos al interior de la Iglesia Católica.

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

[Former acolyte of Márquez supports accusations of improper touching]

CHILE
BioBioChile

October 19, 2018

By Yerko Roa and Tatiana Risso

Una nueva denuncia contra el sacerdote Hugo Márquez recibió el Arzobispado de Concepción. Se trata de un testimonio que confirma el caso del joven Jonathan Garrido, cuya familia asegura que reveló abusos del cura antes de suicidarse el año pasado. El segundo denunciante afirma que también fue víctima de conductas impropias del conocido sacerdote.

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.

[“Total impunity:” Victims of Marist sexual abuse criticize the congregation’s response]

CHILE
El Mostrador

October 19, 2018

A través de una carta, el provincial de la orden de los Maristas, Saturnino Alonso Arteaga, dio respuesta a un grupo de víctimas que exige expulsar a los sacerdotes implicados en los delitos de abusos sexuales. Respecto a la solicitud, la orden aseguró que en algunos casos “han surgido dudas e interrogantes, motivo por el cual hemos solicitado algunas asesorías especializadas”, y de paso negó que exista una “cultura de encubrimiento en nuestra institución”.

Jaime Concha, uno de los denunciantes de los abusos sexuales cometidos en la congregación Marista, acusó que esta organización sacerdotal busca instaurar una “total impunidad”.

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.

[Two priests acquitted in “La Cofradía” case are returning to parishes]

SANTIAGO, CHILE
Emol

October 20, 2018

De esta manera volverán a ejercer a las parroquias de Pumanque y La Compañía de Graneros. Además el administrador apostólico de Rancagua, monseñor Fernando Ramos, insistió en que el grupo “no existe”.

Los sacerdotes de la Diócesis de Rancagua, Aquiles Correa Reyes y Gino Bonomo Ugarte, ambos sobreseídos el pasado 27 de septiembre por el Juzgado de Garantía de Pichilemu en la investigación desformalizada que el Ministerio Público desarrolla en torno a la presunta existencia de una asociación ilícita denominada “La Cofradía”, reasumieron sus funciones sacerdotales en sus respectivas parroquias.

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.

[Prosecutor confirms that Valparaíso church lied to him: he found “other” files about hidden abuses]

CHILE
BioBio Chile

October 19, 2018

By Nicolás Parra and Nicole Martínez

El Obispado de Valparaíso mintió al fiscal Sergio Pérez, quien lideró el allanamiento a las dependencias de la iglesia porteña, en el marco de la investigación por delitos sexuales que involucran a clero nacional. Al menos así quedó en evidencia en un informe firmado por el propio persecutor, ratificando lo dado a conocer por Radio Bío Bío.

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.

[Spain’s government avoids criticizing the Church for pedophilia]

MADRID, SPAIN
El País

October 19, 2018

By Carlos E. Cué

El Ejecutivo mantiene una prudencia extrema antes del viaje de la vicepresidenta al Vaticano

Por primera vez desde que EL PAÍS empezó a publicar las informaciones que muestran la opacidad de la Iglesia española con los casos de pederastia y abusos sexuales sufridos en su seno, el Gobierno no tuvo más remedio que emitir una opinión en la rueda de prensa tras el Consejo de Ministros. Pero el Ejecutivo evitó cualquier reproche a la Iglesia por ese silencio de décadas y no mostró ninguna intención de entrar en el asunto creando algún tipo de comisión, preparando algún informe o replanteándose el Concordato, que exime a los sacerdotes de dar cuenta de las agresiones sexuales que conozcan en el ejercicio de su ministerio.

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.

SANTIAGO, CHILE
Reuters

October 21, 2018

By Aislinn Laing

Chile’s Court of Appeal has ordered the office of Santiago’s Archbishop to pay $450 million pesos ($650,000) to three men who alleged they were sexually abused for decades by Chilean priest Fernando Karadima, a local newspaper said on Sunday.

Citing a copy of a leaked judgment, La Tercera said the three judges who heard the case on Thursday found in favor of an appeal for “moral damages” against the church for allegedly covering up the crimes. The case was previously rejected by a lower court for lack of evidence.

Reuters could not independently confirm the report. The Santiago Archbishopric, which could appeal to Chile’s Supreme Court, said it would not comment on La Tercera’s account.

If confirmed by the court on Monday, it would be the first damages order to have been leveled against Chile’s powerful Roman Catholic Church for a scandal of sex abuse and cover-up that prompted Pope Francis to apologize to its faithful.

Legal experts have said it could pave the way for more claims amid a new climate of discovery which has seen hundreds of people come forward to allege they were abused and criminal prosecutors launch scores of new investigations.

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.

[Karadima victims react to ruling against Archdiocese of Santiago: “Should mark the end of impunity in clerical sexual abuse cases”]

CHILE
La Tercera

October 21, 2018

La Corte de Santiago falló a favor de la demanda por $ 450 millones presentada por las víctimas de Fernando Karadima, Juan Carlos Cruz, James Hamilton y José Murillo, quienes reaccionaron hoy a través de un comunicado. “La justicia chilena y el Vaticano están en la misma línea por acabar con la cultura del abuso y el encubrimiento, cultura de la que los Cardenales son fieles representantes”, señalan.

El jueves 18, en un fallo unánime, los ministros Miguel Vásquez, Javier Moya y el abogado integrante Jaime Guerrero decidieron dar curso a la demanda de indemnización con la que el Arzobispado de Santiago deberá pagar $ 450 millones a las víctimas de Karadima por el perjuicio que les significó haber encubierto las denuncias contra el expárroco de El Bosque.

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.

[Santiago Archdiocese will wait for ruling before determining next steps]

CHILE
La Tercera

October 21, 2018

By Angélica Vera

El revés judicial se dio debido a nuevos antecedentes en el marco de la investigación del llamado caso Karadima. Esta es la compensación más alta que ha debido dar la Iglesia hasta ahora.

El Arzobispado de Santiago se refirió a través de corta declaración pública al fallo a favor de la demanda de las víctimas del ex párroco del Bosque, Fernando Karadima y que obliga a la institución el pago de $ 450 millones a los denunciantes por el perjuicio que les significó haber encubierto las denuncias.

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.

HARRISBURG (PA)
PennLive.com

October 20, 2018

By Ivey DeJesus

The Catholic Church has historically responded to the crisis of the sexual abuse of children by priests as a pastoral challenge.

Victim after victim has been offered counseling and therapeutic services. Priests too were sent off to counseling and, in time, returned to ministry.

To this day, hundreds of victims have letters from bishops expressing regrets over the moral failings of priests. Indeed, few clerics or church officials in the U.S. Catholic Church have met with adjudication or criminal convictions.

Much has changed.

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

[The other victory for Karadima’s victims: Court orders Church to pay out millions]

CHILE
La Tercera

October 21, 2018

La Corte de Santiago falló a favor de la demanda por $450 millones presentada por las víctimas de Fernando Karadima tras la entrega de nuevos antecedentes en los que se comprobarían actos de encubrimiento de la jerarquía eclesiástica.

“La verdad es esta: era necesario pedir la intervención del promotor de justicia, conforme al acuerdo de la Conferencia Episcopal. La presentación de las denuncias ante el promotor normalmente calma la agresividad de los acusantes. Por respeto al P. Karadima no le pedí al promotor que lo interrogara; solo le pedí a mons. Andrés Arteaga su parecer. Él consideró que todo era absolutamente inverosímil. Como se trataba de hechos prescritos, cerré la investigación. Así quise protegerlos, consciente de que mi manera de proceder, si los acusadores llevasen algún día el caso a la prensa, se volcaría en contra de mí”.

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.

WASHINGTON (PA)
Observer-Reporter

October 21, 2018

We’ve become rather accustomed, unfortunately, to our state lawmakers failing to successfully tackle major issues, whether it be properly funding our public schools or reducing the size of our obscenely expensive Legislature. Now we can add aiding victims of the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal to that list.

Members of the state Senate packed up and left town Wednesday, presumably for the last time in this session, without acting on a House bill, or a substitute measure more to its liking, aimed at helping those who were abused by pedophile priests. There are re-election campaigns to be run, don’t you know.

The House bill would have provided a window for abuse victims to sue the church for its systemic failure to protect children from predatory priests, as outlined in the report issued by the grand jury called by state Attorney General Josh Shapiro to look into clergy abuse in six of the state’s eight Catholic dioceses. But state Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, proved to be an unmovable obstruction.

Scarnati was fine with granting a reprieve from the statute of limitations and providing a window for sex-abuse victims to sue, but he wanted to allow these victims to sue only those who assaulted them, and not the church institutions that stand accused of covering up abuse.

In a story by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Shapiro called that approach “disgraceful.”

“A priest earns about $25,000 a year and will have no ability to pay for the mental-health counseling and the drug and alcohol counseling, the services that these victims need,” said Shapiro. “The only entity that can help support these victims, ironically, is the institution that enabled the abuse, and they are exempt.”

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.

BURLINGTON (VT)
VTDigger

By Kevin O’Connor

October 21 2018

Before Vermont Catholic Bishop Christopher Coyne invited questions at a recent press conference pledging cooperation with a current local and state investigation of past church-related misconduct, he turned to reporters with his own inquiry.

“Want me to mike up?” he asked. “Any problem with the sound?”

Longtime observers of the statewide Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington couldn’t believe what they were hearing. They remember the church’s muzzling response regarding the late priest Michael Madden, who was charged with sexual improprieties during a 20-year career at five parishes and the local St. Joseph’s Orphanage — the latter the subject of a recent BuzzFeed story that sparked the new probe.

In the 1980s, a county state’s attorney tried to subpoena then-Bishop John Marshall, who served from 1972 to 1992, to testify in court. The diocese, citing the Bible and the U.S. Constitution, argued its leader was immune from such calls.

“In order for the church, its priests and bishops … to enjoy the constitutional right to freely exercise their ecclesiastical or religious functions,” one of its lawyers argued, “it is essential that they have independence from state authority.”

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.

KANSAS CITY (MO)
Kansas City Star

October 21, 2018

By Judy L. Thomas

The call last year from Pope Francis’ representative in Washington took the Rev. Steven Biegler by surprise.

A priest in South Dakota, Biegler learned he was the choice to become the ninth bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Cheyenne, Wyo., leading the state’s 55,000 Catholics.

Though sad to leave his parishioners in Rapid City, Biegler was eager to begin ministering to a diocese that encompasses the entire state of Wyoming and covers nearly 100,000 square miles.

Biegler said he was excited to be continuing his journey “of saying yes to the Lord.”

But as it turned out, one of his first major decisions upon arriving in Cheyenne involved saying no.

No to a man who for nearly a quarter century had run the diocese he was now going to lead. A man who spent his first two decades as a beloved priest in Kansas City. And a man who — in large part because of Biegler’s persistence — could become the first Roman Catholic bishop in the country to be prosecuted for sexual abuse of a minor.

Bishop Joseph Hart, 87, stands accused of multiple acts of sexual abuse now deemed credible by both the Missouri and Wyoming dioceses that he served. And though the allegations involve incidents from decades ago, Wyoming stands out from most states when it comes to criminal prosecutions. It has no statute of limitations on criminal cases.

Biegler learned about the complaints against Hart from outgoing Bishop Paul Etienne on his initial visit to Cheyenne.

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.

KANSAS CITY (MO)
Kansas City Star

October 21, 2018

BY Jill Toyoshiba

Susie McClernon is still dealing with the trauma of the sexual abuse her youngest brother, Kevin Hunter, suffered years ago. Hunter died in 1989.

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.

SPAIN
EuroWeekly

October 20, 2018

By Tara Rippin

A SPANISH bishop accused of covering up sexual abuse is to lead a commission against paedophilia in the church.

Juan Antonio Menendez has proposed to update its protocols for action against these crimes.

The Bishop of Astorga is reported as saying it will be ‘a matter of recovering and bringing back everything that the civil and canonical regulations have been issuing these years’.

The Spanish Episcopal Conference intends to outline its actions, up to now governed by agreements signed between Spain and the Vatican in 1979, and the Protocol of Action Against Abuses the institute activated in 2010, before many of the documented cases became public.

It comes after Pope Francis declared he wants to open an ‘internal debate’ at a meeting scheduled for February 2019, to which all presidents of the conferences are expected to attend.

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.

ALTOONA (PA)
Altoona Mirror

October 21, 2018

The Roman Catholic Church, so much at the center of bad news over the past couple of years due to the child sex-abuse scandal involving hundreds of priests over much of the past half-century, experienced a happy, proud and prayerful day last Sunday as Pope Francis elevated to sainthood a former pope and a martyred Salvadoran church leader.

The new saints are Pope Paul VI, who served as pontiff from 1963 to 1978, presiding over the modernizing church reforms of the 1960s, and Archbishop Oscar Romero, who voiced fearless denunciations of the military oppression at the start of El Salvador’s 1980-92 civil war and who was murdered as he celebrated Mass on March 24, 1980, in a hospital chapel.

Many Latin Americans used the words “historic day” in referring to the canonization and the fact that Francis, the first Latin American pope, presided over the important canonization ceremony.

But despite the joy that last Sunday brought to Catholics around the world, the stain on the church stemming from the sex-abuse scandal remains imprinted now and is destined not to be forgotten.

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.

LEHIGH VALLEY (PA)
Lehigh Valley Live

October 21, 2018

By Express-Times opinion staff

The timing was probably coincidental.

Late Wednesday, the Pennsylvania Senate adjourned without acting on a bill to give adult victims of child sexual abuse their day in court.

On Thursday, the Associated Press broke the news that a U.S. attorney in Philadelphia has launched a federal investigation into the Catholic Church’s child abuse scandal, following up on a state grand jury report that ripped open long-held secrets.

The state investigation showed more than 1,000 children had been abused by 300-some priests in six dioceses, including Allentown. It detailed the lengths to which church authorities went to ignore or cover up the crimes.

Prosecutors in other states are opening investigations. The federal probe will examine the extent that children were exploited, determine whether federal laws were broken — and see whether efforts to hide evidence and subvert justice within the church rise to the level of racketeering.

This is a welcome follow-up to the grand jury findings. Have at it.

The state Senate, however, still doesn’t get it.

Instead of adopting a House-passed bill that would open a two-year window for older survivors to sue their alleged abusers and the institutions that protected them, the Senate punted. Senate President Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, offered a compromise — allowing adult victims a limited period to sue their abusers, but not the church. As an alternative, he supports a church-backed fund to make out-of-court settlements to victims.

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.

ERIE (PA)
Outside the Beltway

October 21, 2018

By Doug Mataconis

Based in no small part on the recent Pennsylvania Grand Jury report that uncovered thousands of child victims of sexual abuse by Catholic Priests that was covered up by Catholic authorities in power at the time, the Justice Department is opening its own investigation:

The Justice Department has opened an investigation into Roman Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania accused of covering up sex abuse for decades, a significant escalation in scrutiny of the church.

The inquiry is believed to be the first statewide investigation by the federal government of the church’s sex abuse problems. And it comes two months after the Pennsylvania attorney general’s office released an explosive grand jury report charging that bishops and other church leaders had covered up the abuse of more than 1,000 people over a period of more than 70 years.

Seven of the eight dioceses in the state, Philadelphia, Erie, Harrisburg, Scranton, Pittsburgh, Greensburg and Allentown all said they had received federal grand jury subpoenas from the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania requesting documents. The eighth, Altoona-Johnstown, did not respond to a request for comment.

“This subpoena is no surprise considering the horrific misconduct detailed in the statewide grand jury report,” said the Diocese of Greensburg in a statement. “Survivors, parishioners and the public want to see proof that every diocese has taken sweeping, decisive and impactful action to make children safer.”

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.

QATAR
Al Jazeera

October 20, 2018

by Heidi Zhou-Castro

The US Justice Department has opened an investigation into child sex abuse by priests in Pennsylvania.

At least one sexual abuse survivor discovered that the very church official to whom he had reported abuse now faces sexual abuse accusations of his own.

The survivor, who now leads a group of clerical abuse survivors that is demanding reform and justice from the Catholic Church, spoke with Al Jazeera.

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.

CANADA
Yahoo News

October 18, 2018

This story is based on a report by Anne Panasuk of the investigative program, Enquête. Watch Enquête’s full report here, in French.

“He’d let us drive. He knew how to do everything. We were impressed to see a priest act that way,” recalls Jason Petiquay.

Petiquay was 11 when he was sexually abused by Raynald Couture, an Oblate missionary who worked in Wemotaci, Que., from 1981 to 1991.

The Atikamekw community 285 kilometres north of Trois-Rivières was one of many remote First Nations communities in Quebec where priests belonging to the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) were spiritual leaders and authority figures for generations.

Petiquay described how Couture would lure young boys to his cabin by inviting them for a ride on his all-terrain vehicle or in his pick-up truck.

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.

ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

October 19, 2018

Even when stressing the importance of reporting abuse, Pope Francis manages to miss the mark.

Last weekend, while addressing seminarians who were visiting The Vatican, the Pope told the visitors to report any suspicions of abuse to their bishops instead of local law enforcement.

Despite decades of evidence that institutions are incapable of properly handling these kind of suspicions or investigations, Pope Francis is essentially endorsing the church’s centuries-old practice of trying to handle crimes internally. By giving this bad advice to prospective priests, he’s endangering kids.

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.

ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

October 19, 2018

Yesterday we learned about a sweeping investigation by the Department of Justice into Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania. Today we have learned that the investigation is wider than we thought.

The news that the DOJ investigation has spread to the Diocese of Buffalo shows that this investigation is deeper and more encompassing than we had previously imagined. It is also not surprising.

In March, Bishop Malone made news by releasing a list of 42 names of priests “credibly accused” of abuse. In September, he made news again when CNN revealed that the list was incomplete and that dozens of priests had gone unreported due to their inclusion in “secret archives” kept by the Diocese. It was clear then as it is clear now that institutions cannot be relied on to police themselves. For that reason, we are glad that the Department of Justice has decided to do it for them.

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.

NEWCASTLE (AUSTRALIA)
Newcastle Herald

October 18, 2018

By Joanne McCarthy

NSW Parliament has abolished the “vile and unjust” legal defence that allowed the Catholic Church to hide behind property trusts and deny child sexual abuse survivors fair compensation.

The abolition of the “Ellis Defence”, named after the survivor who tried to sue the Sydney Archdiocese and lost because there was no entity to sue, ends more than a decade of survivors accepting settlements after advice they would not win in court while the defence was available to the church.

Greens MP and justice spokesperson David Shoebridge, a barrister who played a key role in the 2012 campaign for a child sexual abuse royal commission, welcomed the legislative reform which was passed in the NSW Parliament late on Wednesday night, but said it should have happened years earlier.

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.

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
KYW Newsradio

October 19, 2018

By Steve Tawa

While U.S. Justice Department follows up on subpoenas it issued to eight Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania in the priest sex abuse scandal, seeking private files and records, victim advocates point to what they call a culture of silence and coverup. There is some speculation as to whether a tool used to take down mobsters could come into play.

Former prosecutors and defense lawyers involved in famous Philadelphia mob cases in the 1980s, mostly centering on Nicodemo Scarfo, the former crime family boss, shared some thoughts on whether the feds will employ the federal RICO statute. The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, was originally passed to bring down the Mafia.

Most agree that it would be “interesting if the feds employ the RICO tool, to go after the upper hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church.” To prove a RICO violation, prosecutors must prove a pattern of criminal activity in two or more predicate acts connected to the enterprise. While there may be a statute of limitations dating back just ten years, a former leading prosecutor says if one of them is within the time frame, the others can date back to infinity. He adds the “Roman Catholic Church is as much an enterprise as the mob.”

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.

DE PERE (WI)
WLUK

October 19, 2018

By Ben Krumholz

FOX 11 has learned that St. Norbert College has hired a third-party investigator to look into allegations that an administrator mishandled reports of sexual assaults on campus.

St. Norbert President Brian Bruess confirms the investigation into Rev. Jay Fostner is in response to a request from hundreds of alumni.

Fostner is the Vice President for Mission and Student Affairs as well as an assistant professor of psychology.

Margaret Uselman, a 2017 graduate of St. Norbert, wrote a lengthy social media post in September outlining incidents involving Fostner. She accused Fostner of, “gaslighting, manipulating, and blaming students, using his volatile temper in a manner that kept students in a state of dis-ease, and covering up for abusers on campus.”

Uselman’s post led to a letter to St. Norbert President Brian Bruess, which has now been signed by more than 300 graduates. The letter asks Bruess for a transparent investigation of Fostner. It states among the stories of survivors being shared regarding Fostner, “there is a consistent pattern of covering up sexual misconduct, disregard for the Title IX process, and placing survivors under duress with the goal of silencing them.”

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.

WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service via Crux

October 20, 2018

By Dennis Sadowski

The firestorm surrounding the clergy sex abuse crisis and the way some bishops handled allegations of abuse against priests will be an important part of the agenda of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ fall general assembly.

The bishops have had to deal with seemingly endless revelations of allegations of abusive clergy since June, most of which referred to long-past incidents. New reports from media outlets also were expected as the Nov. 12-14 assembly in Baltimore approaches.

Bishops nationwide also are facing new challenges as several state attorneys general have opened investigations into the handling of abuse allegations. The investigations follow the release of a Pennsylvania grand jury report in August that linked more than 300 priests and church workers to abuse claims and identified more than 1,000 victims over a 70-year period dating from 1947.

The USCCB has not directly addressed the investigations and has not offered any indication that it will advise bishops on how to respond.

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.

PITTSBURGH (PA)
Tribune Review

October 19, 2018

By Jacob Tierney

Bishop Edward Malesic will visit seven parishes in the Greensburg Diocese starting next week to listen to concerns and questions regarding the wide-ranging accusations of sexual abuse and cover-ups included in a grand jury report released in August.

The diocese created a Safe Environment Advisory Council that will attend the sessions and advise the church on how to best protect children. The council is composed of both Catholics and non-Catholics, including an abuse survivor, a psychologist and a retired state trooper.

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

SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
San Francisco Chronicle

October 19, 2018

By Megan Cassidy

One of 15 former priests named by the Diocese of San Jose this week as credibly accused child sex abusers is facing new allegations of molesting young girls in Santa Clara County.

The diocese report made public Thursday states that 90-year-old Hernan Toro was convicted of sexual misconduct with a child 35 years ago while in Santa Clara. He went on to spend seven more years working in South Bay and Peninsula churches before being permanently banned from the ministry in 1990, church officials said.

But the report makes no note of the current allegations against Toro, who is now in jail and accused of molesting two girls between 2011 and 2015.

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

SANTA CLARA (CA)
National Catholic Reporter

October 20, 2018

By Dan Morris-Young

Priest, abuse survivor stresses importance of listening to victims

Calls for radical structural reform, a more pastoral understanding of clerical sex abuse, and an informed-rather-than-emotional approach to the church’s sex abuse and authority crises were issued by panelists during an Oct. 9 public discussion at Santa Clara University.

Titled “The Catholic Church and the Catastrophe of Clergy Sexual Abuse,” the livestreamed event packed the auditorium of the Jesuit university’s de Saisset Museum with a cross-section of students and community members and drew significant Bay Area media attention.

Fr. Brendan McGuire, first of the four panelists to present, recounted his own sexual abuse at the age of 18 nearly 35 years ago by a priest he knew well.

McGuire, who is pastor of San Jose’s Holy Spirit Parish and the San Jose Diocese’s vicar general for special projects, traced how he had been “groomed” by the cleric for nearly four years until he was 18 when the now-deceased abuser forced his “final play” on McGuire, by then legally an adult

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

SAN JOSE (CA)
KRON

October 19, 2018

By Haaziq Madyun

The Catholic Diocese of San Jose has released 15 names of priests with credible allegations of sexual abuse of children.

The church says it attempted to make this list as accurate and complete as possible. The list includes the names of priests, the allegations, the year the abuse allegedly occurred, the year it was reported to the Diocese of San Jose, the current status of the priest, and if they are either permanently banned from the ministry, retired, or no longer living–and a history of their assignments.

There is only one priest on the list with a report made in 2018, Father Phil Sunseri. He has a previous report of abuse in 1987.

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.