ABUSE TRACKER

ROCKVILLE CENTRE (NY)
The Independent

August 21, 2018

By Rick Murphy

BISHOP JOHN BARRES ALLEGEDLY COVERED UP PRIEST PEDOPHILE SCANDAL

The Diocese of Rockville Centre hoped to further distance itself from the pedophile priest scandal that shook the very foundation of the Catholic Church when it when Bishop John Barres was named to replace the retiring Archbishop William Murphy.

Instead, fresh wounds have opened and the church is under the gun again with revelations that Barres, like Murphy, covered up pedophile crimes committed by priests and protected the accused.

Though Barres said August 15 that a grand jury report issued in Allentown, PA contained “factual errors,” Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro countered that the report is true.

Bishop Murphy was a central figure in the Boston church pedophile scandal — the story was told in The Spotlight, which won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2016.

Newsday reported Murphy, as Cardinal Bernard Law’s top deputy in Boston for almost eight years, was involved in almost one-third of the priest sexual abuse cases at the heart of the scandal there. “Not only did Murphy supervise the assignment of priests, he was privy to all confidential records on accusers’ complaints, treatment, and settlements. He also took care of accused priests’ legal bills and helped arrange housing and jobs for them,” Newsday continued.

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AUSTRALIA
Patheos

August 22, 2018

By Rick Snedeker

No matter how appalling you think the ever-worsening scandal is regarding Catholic clergy’s relentless global sexual assaults against children, it’s worse.

Far worse.

On Monday, a reader of my blog named Jim Jones (@Jim_Jones_1) commented on my August 18 post, titled “Outrage Over Latest Catholic Sex Scandal Misses Point.” Contending that the scandal is far more widespread and destructive that most people are aware, he provided a trove of links to priestly pedophilia atrocities just in Australia.

The most jarring fact in the lot were the unnervingly common suicides among abuse victims from a single church-affiliated school.

Philip Nagle, a 1974 student at St. Alipius Primary School in Ballarat, Australia, the epicenter of some of the worse clergy abuse in Australian history, was the first witness to give evidence when the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse began hearings in May 2015. The hearings focused on defining the impact of abuse on survivors, their families and the community of Ballarat.

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HARTFORD (CT)
Hartford Courant

August 23, 2018

Reports that leaders of prominent institutions actively concealed — or failed to address — allegations of sexual abuse serve as a sad reminder of the lengths some people will go to protect the reputations of institutions at the expense of the safety of their members.

The Hotchkiss School in Salisbury released an internal investigation Friday that detailed allegations that seven former faculty and staff members had sexually abused students — and that school officials covered it up.

School administrators “inadequately responded to sexual misconduct by faculty members,” the report states, in the name of protecting the school’s reputation.

The victims include 16 students, some of whom endured years of abuse. The scope of it is shocking.

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COLUMBUS (OH)
For the Win

August 23, 2018

By Chris Korman

What happened at Ohio State Wednesday, with Urban Meyer receiving a piddling three-game suspension for clearly and deliberately trying to cover for an assistant coach intent on committing violence against his wife, was disgusting. Even if you’re someone who pays close attention to how sordid college sports can be, it felt like a previously undiscovered and particularly excrement-loaded layer of muck.

There’s not much need for me to tell you how ridiculous this whole thing is. USA TODAY’s Christine Brennan did that already. As did George Schroeder (and there’s a video of Dan Wolken in there, too.) So did Yahoo’s Pat Forde. And ESPN’s Heather Dinich. And this piece — This Is How You Erase A Woman From Her Own Story — from Deadspin’s Diana Moskovitz, is essential. Please read it.

But also know that all of this — and all of its corollaries, like what happened at Baylor and Penn State and all the other places where the misdeeds are spread apart just enough so that the pattern goes unnoticed — is born from a system of college sports that has been rotting from the inside for decades. When you build a multi-billion dollar empire on the backs of unpaid labor and then market it all as not just an extension of what your schools stand for but what your schools actually stand for you end up twisting and twirling the way Ohio State’s leadership did yesterday, and you claim to the public that one of the most ruthlessly efficient coaches in the history of sports is actually a guy who quivers in difficult moments and can be more than a bit forgetful.

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BUFFALO (NY)
The Buffalo News

August 22, 2018

By Dan Herbeck and Jay Tokasz

New York’s next attorney general could determine whether six Catholic dioceses and one archdiocese in this state face a sweeping investigation into clergy sexual abuse similar to one that exposed a massive cover-up of abuses in Pennsylvania.

Five candidates are vying to be elected in November to the state’s highest-ranking law enforcement post.

The Buffalo News this week asked each of the candidates how they will proceed on the issue of clergy sexual abuse if elected to the state’s highest-ranking law enforcement post. Two of the candidates said they would investigate, while the other three said they would collaborate with local district attorneys on any investigation.

The News also asked if the candidates supported passage of the Child Victims Act – which would extend the time that civil lawsuits and criminal charges could be brought in cases of child sexual abuse – and all but one said yes. Democrat Leecia Eve of Buffalo said she had yet to take a position on the legislation.

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BUFFALO (NY)
WKBW

August 22, 2018

By Charlie Specht

Editor’s Note: In March 2018, the Diocese of Buffalo released a list of 42 priests accused of abuse. 7 Eyewitness News has learned that two priests who were in ministry at that time were originally considered for inclusion on that list, but were removed before the list was made public.

This is the first part of a two-part investigative series on Bishop Richard J. Malone’s handling of those priests. Part two will be released on-air and online on Thursday.

The last six months have been perhaps the most turbulent in the 171-year history of the Diocese of Buffalo.

After years of suffering and silence, victims have come forward with horrific accounts of sexual abuse or misconduct at the hands of 82 priests and nuns, and the 7 Eyewitness News I-Team has exposed a pattern of how the Catholic Church in Buffalo treated allegations of sexual abuse.

Bishop Richard J. Malone has described the problem as one he inherited, stressing that there’s nothing being hidden in Buffalo anymore.

But a 7 Eyewitness News Investigation based on hundreds of internal church documents shows that in the case of one accused priest, Bishop Malone, between 2012 and this year:

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HALIFAX (CANADA)
The Canadian Press

August 23, 2018

New allegations have surfaced against the spiritual leader of one of the largest Buddhist organizations in the western world, including fresh claims of sexual misconduct and financial coercion.

A report by Buddhist Project Sunshine released Thursday details new accusations against Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, leader of the Halifax-based Shambhala International community.

He stepped back from his duties last month pending the outcome of a third-party investigation into an alleged pattern of sexual misconduct highlighted in previous reports by former Shambhala community member Andrea Winn.

Winn says the third report brings to light more complainants and new claims that are “more serious in nature,” which may be brought to police.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
The Associated Press

August 22, 2018

By David Mcfadden

A Roman Catholic brother accused of sexually abusing a youngster decades ago in Maryland has been barred from his religious order’s ministry and placed on administrative leave from a teaching job in Massachusetts while authorities investigate, officials said Wednesday.

The Xaverian Brothers, a lay religious order headquartered in Baltimore that sponsors about a dozen schools across the United States, has identified the accused man as Brother Robert Flaherty. They say Baltimore police recently informed them that Flaherty is being investigated for an allegation of sex abuse from the mid-1980s, a time that coincides with his tenure teaching at an all-boys Catholic school in Baltimore.

Flaherty worked at Baltimore’s Mount St. Joseph preparatory high school from 1980 to 1993, and again from 2008 to 2010, according to the religious order.

Brother Edward Driscoll, general superior of the religious order, said the Xaverian Brothers were cooperating fully with investigators from the State’s Attorney’s Office in Baltimore. He said they have removed Flaherty from ministry pending the investigation’s outcome.

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SCRANTON (NJ)/WILLKES-BARRE (PA)
NPR

August 22, 2018

By Bobby Allyn

Officials at the University of Scranton and King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. have announced that buildings once honoring now-disgraced bishops will be renamed and that the bishops’ honorary degrees will be revoked.

The move is part of the continuing fallout in the state and across the country from last week’s massive report on clergy sex abuse. As the full effect of the sweeping grand jury report comes into view, many Catholic schools and universities feel as if they are in the eye of the storm and are taking steps to separate themselves from the havoc that the report has spread.

Two other Pennsylvania schools are also considering renaming campus sites dedicated to bishops accused of systemically concealing decades of abuse.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
The Associated Press

August 22, 2018

The Latest on the Roman Catholic Church child sex abuse scandal in Pennsylvania (all times local):

2:55 p.m.

The Roman Catholic pastor of a southwestern Pennsylvania parish has been removed from ministry after the local diocese received what it calls a credible allegation of the sexual abuse of a minor.

Wednesday’s revelation by the Greensburg Diocese comes amid growing fallout from a state grand jury report that accused a succession of church leaders of covering up abuse by 300 Catholic priests in Pennsylvania since the 1940s.

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UNITED STATES
Fatherly

August 22, 2018

By Patrick A. Coleman

In light of a Pittsburgh grand jury report which shined a light on hundreds of Catholic predator priests, involved Catholic dads may help protect kids and hold the church accountable.

The Catholic community, in America and abroad, has spent the last week grappling with the horrific details put forth in a Pittsburgh grand jury report detailing the sexual abuse of thousands of children by hundreds of Pennsylvanian priests. The report identifies over 1,000 victims of rape and sexual predation, all of whom were ignored or silenced by church leaders, many of whom sheltered the perpetrators of awful crimes. While the grand jury report is devastating in its details, it is not shocking. The Catholic clergy has a history of raping kids and the church has a history of covering it up.

The practical question the report forces Catholic parents of young children to answer is one parents in the church have faced before: Does my family’s participation in church life jeopardize the safety of my kids? Given that the report out of Pittsburgh follows revelations of a similar nature in Boston, Ireland, Kenya, the Philippines, and Croatia, we must entertain the notion that the answer is “yes.”

As such, many Catholic parents like myself are reconsidering how they engage with churches and religious institutions. Some will walk away. I will not. Instead, I will double down on my involvement in church matters because I’m aware that the presence of a father tremendously diminishes the likelihood of harm befalling a children. Pedophiles disproportionately targeted children with absent fathers. This seems to be particularly true of priests. As such, I see my consistent presence as a prerequisite for my children’s involvement in church life.

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SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
Deseret News

August 22, 2018

By Annie Knox

Utah Valley University has asked a judge to toss a whistleblower lawsuit from its former Title IX director.

Attorneys for the school argue in Tuesday court filings that Melissa Frost could not have been fired for alleging potential violations of federal antidiscrimination law, because administrators didn’t know she was gathering information about them at the time.

The university also claims that Utah law protecting whistleblowers doesn’t apply to Frost because the actions she took against her employer fell under the scope of her job responsibilities. As a Title IX coordinator, she was charged with investigating sexual assault and harassment, and making sure the university complies with federal law against gender discrimination.

Frost, who was hired to head UVU’s new Title IX office in 2014 and fired in June 2017, sued the school in 3rd District Court in May. She alleged school officials were slow to refer students the Title IX office and that a sexual assault case involving athletes dragged on for more than a year. In addition, she claimed campus police took gay male students’ sexual assault complaints less seriously and said administrators were reluctant to hold trainings to make clear that sexual orientation and gender identity are protected from discrimination.

A week after her firing, Frost filed a complaint against the university with the U.S. Department Education’s Office for Civil Rights, alleging Title IX violations and retaliation for her voicing her concerns about compliance. A federal civil rights probe is pending.

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COLUMBUS (OH)
CNN

August 22, 2018

By Madison Park

University has been mired in multiple scandals

As it faces several scandals and a federal investigation, Ohio State University announced Tuesday that it will create a new office to respond to sexual and gender harassment, violence and other forms of discrimination.

The new centralized office will help people at the university who’ve experienced, witnessed or have become aware of sexual misconduct — or those who are seeking resources and other reporting options, it said in a statement. The university has yet to finalize a name for the new office.

The university had dissolved its former Sexual Civility and Empowerment unit earlier this year, CNN affiliate WBNS reported.

“The immediate focus will be on enhancing the university’s Title IX resources for intake and assessment,” according to the university statement. Coordinators will help students, faculty and staff understand their rights, options, services, and to help them report concerns and file required reports to police other others, the school said.

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COLUMBUS (OH)
The Columbus Dispatch

August 21, 2018

By Jim Woods

Ohio State University announced Tuesday the creation of a new centralized office to address issues involving sexual misconduct and gender harassment.

The school promised in June that it would create a new office by the start of fall semester, after closing its troubled Sexual Civility and Empowerment Center and eliminating four positions. The closure followed an independent review that found the center had failed to properly report and handle some students’ sexual-assault complaints.

Ohio State says the new centralized office — which has yet to be given a formal name — will respond to sexual and gender-based harassment, violence and other forms of discrimination and harassment.

“The university will continue to focus on advancing our efforts in this vital area,” President Michael V. Drake said in a prepared statement.

Ohio State has been under scrutiny for its practices concerning compliance with federal Title IX, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender and also deals with issues concerning sexual harassment and sexual assault. A university that receives federal funds could be held legally responsible when it knows about or ignores such complaints.

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ELLENSBURG (WA)
Fox News

August 23, 2018

By Kaitlyn Schallhorn

A Washington state lawmaker was fired from his job as a university professor last week amid allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior directed at female students.

State Rep. Matt Manweller, a Republican, was terminated from his position as a political science professor at Central Washington University on August 14.

A report from an investigator hired by the public university said it found a “preponderance of the evidence supported a finding that Manweller engaged in a pattern of unprofessional and inappropriate behavior with gender-based and sexual overtones with female students and former students from 2004 to 2017.” The report was published by The Seattle Times.

Manweller is accused in the report of asking inappropriate and personal questions, physical touching, communicating with students with “sexual or romantic overtones” and “offering an educational benefit in exchange for sex.”

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BRADFORD (PA)
WESB

August 21, 2018

By Anne Holliday

Bradford native and priest abuse survivor Jim VanSickle was in Bradford today to meet with Father Ray Gramata, pastor of St. Bernard Church. After that, he held a joint news conference with another survivor from Bradford.

Ed Rodgers’ alleged abuser, Rev. Desmond McGee, was not named in the grand jury report but, after speaking with attorney general Josh Shapiro and other investigators in Shapiro’s office, Rodgers and VanSickle believe his name will eventually be made public again.

Rodgers’ did accuse McGee more than 20 years ago but, for all intents and purposes, no one believed him. Although that was painful, he says he came forward this time and the last time because he was concerned that there may be other victims.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
CBS Cleveland/KDKA

August 23, 2018

Cardinal Donald Wuerl’s name will be removed from North Catholic High School; KDKA’s Andy Sheehan reports.

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KNOCK (IRELAND)
Reuters

August 22, 2018

By Clodagh Kilcoyne

Bernie and Tom Byrne can barely conceal their excitement as they prepare for a visit to Ireland by Pope Francis that they hope will bring back the young believers that have deserted the Catholic church after decades of scandal.

Their grandfather Dominic was one of at least twenty-two people that claimed to see Mary, Joseph and John the Evangelist hovering near the gable end of the local church in the western Irish village of Knock on a rainy evening in August 1879.

Francis will pray at the Knock shrine as part of his two-day visit to Ireland this week, the first by a Pope in almost 40 years that have transformed the once staunchly Catholic country into a far more secular and liberal society. tmsnrt.rs/2N95yFI

“Houses are being painted and streets are being scrubbed… trying to get everything ready for him, even though it’s only a short visit,” said Bernie, 74, who like his brother Tom, runs a small shop selling religious goods to the 1.5 million pilgrims that come to Knock each year.

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BLESSINGTON (IRELAND)
The Associated Press

August 23, 2018

By Nicole Winfield and Pietro de Cristofaro

When St. John Paul II visited Ireland in 1979, the Catholic Church wielded such power that homosexuality, divorce, abortion and contraception were barely spoken of, much less condoned. Catholic bishops had advised the authors of Ireland’s constitution, and still held sway.

Today, as Pope Francis prepares to visit, the Catholic Church enjoys no such influence.

As once-isolated Ireland experienced a tide of secularism and economic boom that opened it to the world, the church largely lost its centrality in Irish life.

Then the church — while still maintaining a stronghold on education and health care in Ireland — lost its moral credibility following revelations of the widespread sexual abuse of children in its churches, the physical torture of youngsters in its schools and the humiliation of women in its workhouses.

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ST. LOUIS (MI)
The Associated Press

August 22, 2018

By Jim Salter

Victims of clergy sexual abuse are calling for a wide-scale investigation of sex crime allegations against Catholic priests in Missouri, and whether the church participated in a cover-up.

One victim, a woman whose son killed himself after being abused as a teenager, and an attorney for abuse victims spoke Wednesday outside the St. Louis office of Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley. They urged a statewide investigation similar to one in Pennsylvania that uncovered more than 1,000 cases of abuse.

David Clohessy, 61, of St. Louis is a longtime victims’ rights advocate who was abused as a child. He said more than 170 priests in Missouri have been accused in recent decades, but few have been convicted. He blamed prosecutors who aren’t “assertive or creative enough in exposing and pursuing these wrongdoers.”

Hawley’s office has said it can help local prosecutors, but it doesn’t have jurisdiction to launch its own investigation.

But St. Louis attorney Nicole Gorovsky, who represents sexual abuse survivors in civil cases, said Hawley, a Republican, could take steps such as a civil lawsuit or coordinating with federal and local prosecutors.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
FOX4KC

August 20, 2018

By Stephanie Graflage

Local attorney, Rebecca Randles, hosted a news conference Monday afternoon at her office to announce launch a statewide grand jury-style investigation into clergy sex crimes and cover ups.

Randles touts that she is Missouri’s most experienced attorney representing victims of sexual abuse.

According to Randles, 228 Catholic priests across Missouri and the Archdiocese of Kansas in Kansas City have been accused of molesting kids.

Randles said last week’s grand jury report regarding sex abuse at Catholic Churches in Pennsylvania prompted Monday’s call to action.

“So it details that there is an even greater issue in the Kansas City, St. Louis, Missouri and the Archdiocese of Kansas than what we’re seeing out of the grand jury report out of Pennsylvania,” Randles said.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

August 22, 2018

By Adam Smeltz

The Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh has fielded about 50 allegations of abuse over the past week, after a grand jury report drew international attention to child sexual abuse by Pennsylvania priests, the diocese said Tuesday.

The claims appear to be new and came “from people who had not previously contacted us,” delivered through an abuse hotline established by the church and via email, said the Rev. Nicholas S. Vaskov, a diocese spokesman.

“All of the allegations are from prior to 1990 and go back as far as the 1940s,” Father Vaskov said in a statement. “We are taking all of them seriously and following our regular process for responding to them.”

That protocol includes pulling accused clergy from ministry if they’re still on the job. The diocese didn’t immediately say whether the new reports involve active clergy, but each allegation will be turned over to prosecutors in the county where the abuse is alleged, Father Vaskov said.

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BALLARAT (AUSTRALIA)
The Courier

August 21, 2018

By Leanne Younes

A Ballarat clergy abuse survivor agrees that Tuesday’s unprecedented letter of apology from Pope Francis is too little too late.

In a letter to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics, Pope Francis said no effort must be spared to prevent child abuse and the possibility of the crimes being covered up.

Pope Francis has vowed there will be no more cover-ups of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church but church abuse victims’ advocacy group Broken Rites president Chris MacIsaac described the letter as “all too little, too late”.

“Words are nothing without action,” Mr Sculley said. “The facts of the matter are that it changes nothing.”

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HARRISBURG (PA)
The Associated Press

August 22, 2018

By Marc Levy

A Roman Catholic high school will shed the name of Washington’s archbishop, who was cited in a sweeping grand jury report as having allowed priests accused of sexually abusing children to be reassigned or reinstated while he was Pittsburgh’s bishop.

The Diocese of Pittsburgh said Wednesday that Washington Cardinal Donald Wuerl made the request to remove his name from Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic High School and that school and diocese officials accepted it.

The sign in front of the suburban Pittsburgh school was discovered vandalized Monday, with red spray paint obscuring Wuerl’s name, as some Catholics called for his resignation or ouster and a petition circulated to remove his name from the school.

The 77-year-old Wuerl has defended himself, saying he acted to protect children, promptly investigate allegations and strengthen policies as understanding of child abuse evolved. He has said he will not resign.

Dropping his name from the school is part of the growing fallout from a grand jury report that accused a succession of church leaders of covering up the abuse of more than 1,000 children or teenagers by about 300 Catholic priests in Pennsylvania since the 1940s.

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CHINA
DW

August 23, 2018

Police in China are investigating one of the country’s most prominent monks over allegations he sexually assaulted nuns at his monastery in Beijing. The case has galvanized China’s fledgling #MeToo movement.

Chinese police have opened a criminal probe into sexual misconduct claims against high-profile Buddhist monk Xuecheng, China’s top religious authority said Thursday.

A statement from the State Religious Affairs Administration said he is also facing censure from the official government-run Buddhist Association on suspicion of “violating Buddhist precepts.”

The 51-year-old stepped down as head of the association earlier this month after fellow monks accused him of sending explicit text messages and demanding sexual favors from nuns at his monastery in Beijing’s northwestern suburbs. They also said he had embezzled funds. Xuecheng denies the charges.

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BEIJING (CHINA)
The Associated Press

August 23, 2018

Chinese police have opened an investigation into sexual misconduct allegations against one of the country’s best-known Buddhist monks whose case has highlighted the growth of the #MeToo movement in China.

A statement issued by the State Religious Affairs Administration on Thursday said police were investigating claims of sexual assault by Xuecheng. It said he also faces censure from the official government-backed Buddhist Association on suspicion of “violating Buddhist precepts.”

Xuecheng has denied the claims but earlier this month resigned as head of the Buddhist Association.

Fellow monks accused him of harassing and demanding sexual favors from nuns at his monastery in the outskirts of northwestern Beijing, as well as embezzling funds. Their accusations, including testimony from alleged victims, were posted online, prompting a public outcry and unusual coverage by state media.

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YORK (PA)
York Daily Record

August 22, 2018

By Candy Woodall

The Rev. Francis Bach had several warning signs in his past, but that didn’t stop a diocese from assigning him to multiple churches in central Pennsylvania.

In 1967, he was “relieved of his duties” with a young adult ministry in Harrisburg.

That was a few years after he served at St. Patrick Catholic Church in York, a city of about 45,000 residents 80 miles west of Philadelphia where a man in 2016 said Bach abused him as an altar boy in 1960 when Bach was a seminarian.

Ten years later, Bach had more blemishes on his employment history. He’s one of several examples in central Pennsylvania of the diocese shuffling predator priests, called “passing the trash,” according to a state grand jury report released last week on priest sex abuse.

The Harrisburg Diocese, which covers 15 counties in southcentral Pennsylvania, knew that Bach broke his priestly celibacy vows in the mid-1970s: “Inappropriate behavior with adult at seminary.” Diocese officials moved him a month later.

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ALLEGHENY (PA)
Trib Live

August 22, 2018

By Deb Erdley

Pittsburgh Bishop David Zubik was stunned when a group of abuse survivors demanded he resign over his handling of child sexual abuse complaints as detailed in a recent grand jury report.

“I was surprised that people would ask me to resign. First of all, resignations are something that are decided by the pope,” Zubik said. “But since becoming bishop of Pittsburgh since 2007, I’ve been very responsive. … And I want to still continue to lead the people to help with their healing.”

A recent flurry of complaints to diocesan officials in Greensburg and Pittsburgh as well 544 calls to a sexual abuse hotline run by the state Attorney General’s office in the week since the public release of a stunning grand jury report on clergy abusing minors across Pennsylvania suggests that it could take some time as the Catholic church attempts to deal with an international plague of complaints and allegations of cover-ups that triggered recent high-profile resignations.

Among those to resign as Pope Francis bemoaned the scandal that has ripped the church across several continents are Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, D.C., an archbishop in Australia, and five bishops in Chile.

Judy Jones, the Midwestern director of SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) last week called on Zubik and his predecessor Cardinal Donald Wuerl, archbishop of Washington, D.C., to resign, saying the report suggested they were more interested in protecting priests than children.

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UNITED STATES
Refinery29

August 21, 2018

By Ludmila Leiva

On Sunday night, the New York Times dropped a bombshell report that Asia Argento, — the Italian actress, director, and activist who lead the charge against Harvey Weinstein and became a leading voice for #MeToo movement — quietly settled claims that she had sexually assaulted a then 17-year-old boy. On Tuesday morning, Argento made a public statement denying the allegations and saying that her then-boyfriend Anthony Bourdain had paid off Bennett, who she said had harassed the couple.

These unsettling allegations are already creating rifts among supporters over the purpose of #MeToo and the future of the movement. With Harvey Weinstein’s trials looming in the near future, the claims have prompted speculation about the veracity of Argento’s allegations against him. And, with prominent #MeToo voices, including Tarana Burke, already distancing themselves from Argento, many question whether these developments undermine the movement as a whole.

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CONCORD (NH)
Concord Monitor

August 22, 2018

By Alyssa Dandrea

Former St. Paul’s School students interviewed as part of an independent investigation into faculty sexual abuse remembered ex-humanities teacher David Pook for the wet willies he gave girls and his frequent, unannounced visits to girls’ dorms.

One student recalled how Pook put his tongue close to her face and ear to demonstrate a “moral dilemma” in a religious studies class.

Another remembered how Pook recommended a novel about a literature professor who becomes “sexually involved” with a 12-year-old girl and a book about a high school student who marries her teacher.

The allegations are detailed in a supplemental report released by the Boston-based law firm Casner & Edwards, which St. Paul’s commissioned in 2016 to look into claims of faculty-student abuse. The most recent interviews with former students took place at the same time the New Hampshire attorney general’s office continues its criminal investigation into the school’s handling of sexual abuse and misconduct allegations.

Deputy Attorney General Jane Young told the Monitor that the school notified the office Tuesday that Casner & Edwards was going to release a 42-page supplemental report that night, but did not provide an advanced copy. The latest report substantiates claims against 10 former St. Paul’s faculty and staff, three of whom are named for the first time, including Pook.

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HOUSTON (TX)
The Associated Press

August 20, 2018

Here are selections from recent editorials in Texas newspapers:

Houston Chronicle. Aug. 20, 2018.

An international search for a Dallas priest accused of molesting three teenage boys is a stark reminder that Texas should be as concerned as other states about the child sexual abuse allegations that have shaken faith in the Catholic Church.

Father Edmundo Paredes, pastor for 27 years of St. Cecilia Catholic Church, was reported missing Sunday and suspected of fleeing to the Philippines, his native country. The Diocese of Dallas reportedly notified police in February that Paredes was suspected of abusing children, but did not let his parishioners know until Saturday.

Such delays have led to widespread condemnation of the Catholic Church’s handling of child sexual abuse allegations. A Pennsylvania grand jury report last week documented abuse by 300 priests of more than 1,000 victims over a period of 70 years in that state. Most of the abusers were allowed to remain in the ministry as priests.

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ALLENTOWN (PA)
Lehigh Valley Live

August 21, 2018

By Steve Novak

A 30-year-old priest is accused of sending nude photos of himself to a 17-year-old girl he met through his work at an Allentown parish.

The criminal charges come one week after the Pennsylvania attorney general released an 884-page grand jury report detailing decades of sexual abuse and coverups across six dioceses, including the Diocese of Allentown.

In a crowded news conference, Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin said the latest charges levied Tuesday are not related to the grand jury investigation.

Kevin Lonergan, of Pottsville, is charged with one count each of corruption of minors and indecent assault. He could face a maximum of nine years in prison if convicted of both counts.

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SCRANTON (PA)
CNN

August 21, 2018

The University of Scranton, a Jesuit university in Pennsylvania, is removing the names of three bishops from school buildings in response to an ongoing sexual abuse investigation involving several Catholic leadership figures from the state.

They are scrubbing the names of Bishops Jerome D. Hannan, J. Carroll McCormick, and James C. Timlin from campus buildings, and will also be rescinding the bishops’ honorary degrees.

Hannan, McCormick and Timlin were named in a stunning grand jury report detailing the coverup of credible sexual abuse accusations against more than 300 state priests and encompassing more than 1,000 child victims. According to the University, “these Bishops covered up the crimes and misdeeds of men who were under their jurisdiction and placed children in harm’s way.”

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HARTFORD (CT)
The Associated Press

August 22, 2018

By Dave Collins

The leader of the world’s largest Roman Catholic fraternal group is condemning clergy sex abuse and calling for reforms in the church, including a renewed commitment to celibacy by priests.

Carl Anderson, supreme knight of the New Haven, Connecticut-based Knights of Columbus, made the comments in what appeared to be an unusual letter to the group’s nearly 2 million members on Tuesday.

“These sins of commission and omission have sent the Church we love, the Church we serve and the Church that Jesus Christ established into convulsions,” Anderson wrote. “Sadly, the disgrace not only is borne by the perpetrators, it hurts us all, as does the silence of shepherds who have ignored the cries of their flocks.”

To be sure, the Knights of Columbus hasn’t been inoculated from the sex abuse scandal that’s rocked the global Catholic Church in recent years.

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NEW YORK (NY)
The Associated Press

August 23, 2018

By David Crary

Advocates of ordaining women as Roman Catholic priests cite the church’s unfolding sex abuse scandals as powerful arguments for their cause, while acknowledging the high unlikelihood of achieving their goal anytime soon.

Even with extensive grassroots support for letting women become priests, Pope Francis and the Vatican’s male-dominated hierarchy have stressed repeatedly that a men-only priesthood is a divine mandate that cannot be changed.

“I don’t see any movement to ordain women on the horizon, although I wish I did,” said Margaret McGuinness, a religion professor at La Salle University in Philadelphia. “The people in power aren’t going to look at this as a solution.”

In the United States, an organized campaign advocating for female priests dates to the 1970s, and its leaders have seized on the new sex abuse scandals — in which the alleged perpetrators are male clergy — to help make their case.

The most notable scandals: allegations that ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick molested at least two minors, as well as adult seminarians, and a Pennsylvania grand jury report alleging that about 300 priests sexually abused at least 1,000 children in six dioceses since the 1940s.

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UNITED STATES
Yahoo Celebrity

August 22, 2018

By Taryn Ryder

A new sexual assault case involving Kevin Spacey has been turned over to the Los Angeles district attorney’s office, Yahoo Entertainment has confirmed. It’s the second case in L.A. that will be reviewed involving the actor, although over a dozen men have come forward accusing Spacey of inappropriate behavior.

Specifics of the case that the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department presented to the D.A.’s office Tuesday have not been made available.

In April, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department turned over a sexual assault case involving the actor to the D.A. that was ultimately rejected as the statute of limitations had expired. The incident between Spacey and an unknown adult male allegedly occurred in October 1992. Spacey is currently under investigation in the U.K. for similar alleged crimes as six men have come forward accusing him of sexual assault.

The two-time Oscar winner has disappeared from the spotlight since last year’s allegations — and it doesn’t seem like audiences are ready to embrace him anytime soon.

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UNITED STATES
SFGate

August 22, 2018

By Ann Killion

Did you witness that beautiful story of strength and surviving? A tale that came wrapped in one of the tiniest packages in sports?

After Simone Biles’ tour-de-force performance at the 2016 Rio Olympics, where she won four gold medals and established herself as the greatest gymnast in the world, she took almost two years off.

Last weekend, the 4-foot-8 powerhouse returned to the spotlight, sweeping all four individual events at nationals.

But in those two years, her entire world was rocked. USA Gymnastics was embroiled in a horrifying sexual-abuse scandal. Earlier this year, Biles, 21, came forward to say that she, too, had been sexually abused by team doctor Larry Nassar.

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MEDFORD (OR)
The Associated Press

August 22, 2018

A former youth pastor was attacked in federal court during his sentencing Wednesday on a sex abuse charge by an unknown man who lunged over the railing from the gallery.

Donald Courtney Biggs was being sentenced in U.S. District Court in Medford after admitting earlier this year to taking a 14-year-old girl on a church trip to Southern California with the intent to film her exiting the shower. Authorities previously said an investigation revealed he had hidden camera recordings involving dozens of victims.

The Mail Tribune, which was covering the hearing, said police Lt. Justin Ivens told reporters outside the courthouse that Biggs was transported to a local hospital to be checked for injuries after being punched once in the face.

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ST. LOUIS (MI)
The Associated Press

August 22, 2018

By Jim Salter

Victims of clergy sexual abuse are calling for a wide-scale investigation of sex crime allegations against Catholic priests in Missouri, and whether the church participated in a cover-up.

One victim, a woman whose son killed himself after being abused as a teenager, and an attorney for other abuse victims spoke Wednesday outside the St. Louis office of Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley. They urged a statewide investigation similar to one in Pennsylvania that uncovered more than 1,000 cases of abuse.

David Clohessy, 61, of St. Louis, a longtime victims’ rights advocate who was abused as a child, said more than 170 priests in Missouri have been accused in recent decades, but few have been convicted. He blamed prosecutors who aren’t “assertive or creative enough in exposing and pursuing these wrongdoers.”

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CAMDEN (NJ)
Press of Atlantic City

August 22, 2018

By John DeRosier

The Diocese of Camden has offered a settlement to the daughter of a man who claimed he was sexually abused by the Rev. Richard Gerbino, who in 1961 was the first pastor assigned to St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Vineland.

The settlement, which was offered in April, is for $20,000 between the diocese and Annette Nestler, 54, of the Villas section of Lower Township. Nestler’s father, Mike Kissell, said he was repeatedly sexually abused by Gerbino in the 1960s and died by suicide Dec. 31, 1970.

Mike Walsh, a spokesman for the diocese, confirmed the proposed deal and said settlements in general are offered by the diocese after they are vetted for credibility.

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VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

August 22, 2018

By Junno Arocho Esteves

The scandal of clergy abusing minors and vulnerable adults has overwhelmed the Catholic Church and its mission to preach the Gospel, said the Vatican secretary of state.

“It is not easy to say, because this scandal of clerical sexual abuse has really affected and continues to affect us — everybody — and it has a devastating effect on the life and on the witness the church is going to give to the world,” said Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

In an interview Aug. 22 with the English edition of Vatican News, Parolin said the pope’s visit to Ireland is a journey of hope to help the church and families in the country build a society in which children and the vulnerable are safe and secure.

During his trip to Ireland Aug. 25-26 for the World Meeting of Families, Pope Francis will meet with survivors of sexual abuse, the Vatican confirmed Aug. 21, but without disclosing the date, time or location.

The pope, Parolin said, has consistently reminded the church that “our first duty is to take care of the people who have been affected — the victims of this tragic phenomenon,” and he believes “the church in Ireland has continued its efforts to address and prevent sexual abuse.”

“I believe that the church in Ireland has recognized its shortcomings, its mistakes, its sins and at the same has also provided measures that can prevent these atrocities, these horrors from being repeated,” the cardinal said in a separate interview with the Italian edition of Vatican News.

The church, he added, remains close to those who suffered abuse by the clergy and is committed “to help them so they can rebuild their lives.”

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CHEYENNE (WY)
News Release/KNEP

August 21, 2018

New information has prompted Cheyenne police to reopen an investigation into allegations of abuse by a Catholic Church official in Cheyenne in the 1970’s through the late 1990’s.

By Wyoming statute, law enforcement can’t name a suspect in the case, however, they did cite an internal investigation by the Wyoming Catholic Diocese as the reason for a new examination of the facts.

That investigation by an outside investigator found credible evidence that Bishop Emeritus Joseph Hart sexually abused two boys while in Wyoming. He served as Auxiliary Bishop of Cheyenne from 1976 through 2001.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

August 21, 2018

By Pat Perriello

Despite my obsession with President Trump, the Pennsylvania grand jury report cries out for comment. The report conservatively tells us that 300 priests were involved in the sexual abuse of at least 1000 kids. Of course, we are not surprised — we’ve seen this movie before. We know about Boston. We know a bit about Ireland. We need to acknowledge that if an in-depth investigation has uncovered such activity in Pennsylvania, there is no reason to believe that the same kind of data would not be uncovered in Chicago, Los Angeles, Atlanta or any other area of the country. There is some talk that Attorney General Brian Frosh in Maryland is being asked to conduct such an investigation.

The first thing the church must do is accept the reality that there is a problem. Yet bishops and clergy are still attempting to say that the problem was in the past and everything is OK now. Greg Burke, Vatican spokesman, notes that most incidents occurred prior to 2002. Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh says: “The Diocese of Pittsburgh today is not the church that is described in the grand jury report … we have learned from the past.”

We all hope the church has learned from the past, and they do appear to be doing more to hold bishops accountable for being complicit in the scandal. What is needed, however, is a level of humility that is yet to be seen. Something is wrong at a fundamental level and the church cannot continue to conduct business as usual.

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PITTSTON (PA)
Times Leader

August 19, 2018

By Geri Gibbons

Former Luzerne County judge Joe Musto issued many rulings during his career, but when it comes to the recent scandal regarding Catholic clergy, he is reluctant to judge.

And, he is adamant that details of abuse alleged in the grand jury report released Tuesday will not shake his faith in God or the church.

“I believe priests are human, and we all have to keep them in our prayers,” he said as he made his way out of St. John the Evangelist Church following Sunday Mass. “We are a people that believe in forgiveness.”

Musto’s wife, Fortunata Musto, shares her husband’s deep faith, but she’s angry that the Catholic Church would allow children to be abused, while defending priests charged to protect them.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
KMBC

August 20, 2018

Her clients are calling for an investigation

More people are calling for a high-ranking Cardinal in the Catholic Church to resign.

A grand jury report accuses Cardinal Donald Wuerl of protecting priests who abused children while he was Bishop of Pittsburgh.

He’s accused of allowing accused priests to be reassigned or reinstated.

In a statement, Wuerl denies any wrongdoing and says he has no plans to step down.

In a public letter, Pope Francis says the church must acknowledge and condemn abuse adding, “We showed no care for little ones…we abandoned them.”

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald

August 21, 2018

By Jules Crittenden

Sean Cardinal O’Malley, facing accusations of ignoring a priest’s letter that warned him three years ago about an allegedly predatory fellow cardinal, yesterday issued a statement saying it was an oversight by his secretary.

Ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, 88, was stripped of his title in June after the Vatican found sex abuse allegations against him to be credible.

“In June of 2015 Rev. Boniface Ramsey sent a letter that was received at my office at the Archdiocese of Boston’s Pastoral Center. Rev. Robert Kickham, my Priest Secretary, received the letter on my behalf, as he does much of the correspondence that comes to my office at the Pastoral Center,” O’Malley wrote in a statement released by the Archdiocese of Boston yesterday.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Philadelphia Inquirer

August 20, 2018

By Maria Panaritis

Thank God for church records. For they shall guide us all toward truth.

Thank God for the criminal investigators and prosecutors.

Thank God for the grand jury subpoenas. For they extracted – like rotting teeth – clergy-abuse personnel files in unreachable corners of six Pennsylvania Roman Catholic dioceses serving 1.7 million people.

Thank God for the courage of the victims. For without them, Attorney General Josh Shapiro and his team would have had no real cause to root out and unveil decades of depravity and systemic abuse by clergy, overseen by complicit superiors.

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MADISON (WI)
The Cap Times

August 21, 2018

By Andrew L. Seidel

Blame the gays. That appears to be the strategy of Bishop Robert Morlino of the Diocese of Madison, who penned a letter to his flock. “Until recently, the problems of the church have been painted purely as problems of pedophilia, this despite clear evidence to the contrary,” wrote Morlino, essentially arguing that homosexuality, not priests preying on children, was the problem: “There is a homosexual subculture within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church that is wreaking great devastation in the vineyard of the Lord.”

This is a disgusting attempt to paint LGBTQ Americans, who have made great strides toward acceptance and equality despite the best efforts of the Catholic Church, as “disordered,” “deviant,” and “ in violation of the natural moral law.” As the tidal wave of this scandal again crashes down on his church, Morlino is trying to shift the blame.

Morlino is wrong. There is not now, nor has there ever been, a link between homosexuality and pedophilia. This myth, bred of ignorance, has been debunked countless times. For those of us who dwell in the world of facts and reality, the research is clear: Most sexual abuse is committed by heterosexual males.

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MUMBAI (INDIA)
La Croix

August 22, 2018

By Virginia Saldanha

Pope’s letter on sexual abuse is welcome but victims deserve stern measures to stop this evil

While the People of God across the globe thank Pope Francis for finally expressing himself in his Aug. 20 letter on the issue of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, many feel it brings little comfort.

Many pious platitudes have already been expressed toward survivors of abuse, but it has not brought about any change in their reality because many abusers continue to be clerics. Sadly, the pope’s letter does not say anything concrete about actions to make bishops accountable.

We have heard of commitments to put policies in place, but to date nothing seems to have worked.

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MISHAWAKA (IN)
South Bend Tribune

August 22, 2018

By Caleb Bauer

When Bishop Kevin Rhoades announced his plan to release names of priests in the Fort Wayne-South Bend Diocese accused of abuse, he said the revelations of rampant abuse in Pennsylvania weren’t the only factor in his decision.

He also credited a woman who had reported sexual abuse to the diocese — and had urged him to release the name of her abuser.

“I was so conflicted,” Rhoades said at a news conference Friday. “She was asking me to release the name. So to be honest, this whole issue of releasing names is something that even before the Pennsylvania grand jury report I’ve been considering.”

Carolyn Andrzejewski-Wilson watched the live broadcast of the news conference on her computer at her North Carolina home. She knew Rhoades was talking about her.

Almost two years ago, the former Mishawaka resident met with Rhoades to relay her story about abuse at the hands of the Rev. Elden Miller, a former priest at St. Joseph Church and Queen of Peace Church in Mishawaka.

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UNITED STATES
NPR

August 18, 2018

By Jennifer Ludden

Length: 7:22

TRANSCRIPT

How does the Catholic Church prepare its seminarians to deal with questions of sexual abuse and celibacy? NPR’s Jennifer Ludden talks to Paul Blaschko, who attended seminary from 2008 until 2011.

JENNIFER LUDDEN, HOST:

This week, a grand jury report found hundreds of Catholic priests in Pennsylvania abused more than 1,000 children over a period of 70 years. The Vatican released a strongly worded statement condemning the behavior of the clergymen and the system that enabled them to act with impunity. But this is just the latest episode in a scandal that stretches across the U.S. and around the world. We wondered. How does the Roman Catholic Church prepare its men in seminary to deal with such cases of abuse? And what training does it provide on issues of celibacy, sexuality and ethics? Paul Blaschko attended the St. John Vianney College Seminary at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota from 2008 to 2011. He wrote about his experience there for the magazine Commonweal. I asked him about his first exposure to this type of training.

PAUL BLASCHKO: One of the workshops that was put on during my first year there was a workshop that was called the Freedom And Victory Workshop. It was put on by an outside organization. You know, we started off by having kind of an open mic, where seminarians were encouraged to get up in front of like a hundred of their peers and kind of detail past indiscretions and their sexual history or things that they currently struggled with sexually. And that sort of gave me the wrong vibe from the outset. But I became even more concerned when I attended one particular session. It was called Discerning Psycho-Spiritual Dynamics In Sexual Compulsion. And at the outset, we were given a list of the names of particular demons and the ways in which they were supposed to try to influence priests, in particular, to behave in sexually immoral ways. And things really got weird when we participated in this – what they called a group psycho-drama. And each of us were assigned the names of one of these demons. And we were supposed to, like, act out this role and tempt, like, one of the other role-playing seminarians into, you know, sexual immorality. And it was just very bizarre and kind of disturbing.

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WICHITA (KS)
KWCH

August 21, 2018

A Wichita priest issued his congregation a message of hope following recent abuse allegations against Catholic church leaders around the country.

“I ask for your forgiveness on behalf of the church to know my own sorrow and how I am sorry this has happened,” said Fr. Drew Heiman Sunday morning.

The priest at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church addressed a topic that many in the faith have shied away from.

“It is a great sadness because there have been priests, there have been bishops who have prevented people from coming to Jesus through these very abuses,” said Fr. Drew during his homily.

The church taped the sermon and posted it on its Facebook page.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
CNN

August 20, 2018

By Dakin Andone, Sarah Jorgensen and Polo Sandoval

St. Paul’s Cathedral in Pittsburgh was about half-full at 8 a.m. mass on Sunday morning when Rev. Kris Stubna stepped up to the altar to deliver his homily.

“These have been very painful and difficult days for all of us in the church,” Stubna said.
Stubna was addressing the elephant in the room: a grand jury report released earlier this week that accused more than 300 Catholic “predator priests” of abusing more than 1,000 children over the past 70 years in six Pennsylvania dioceses. The report’s findings contributed to a growing international scandal over sexual abuse in the church, with incidents reported in the United States, Ireland, Australia and Chile, among others.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Examiner

August 21, 2018

By Pete Kasperowicz

Former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., ripped the Catholic church on Tuesday for what he said was its weak response to a report that found priests in Pennsylvania were involved in the sexual abuse of at least 1,000 children.

“It is beyond disgusting, and the church’s response to it is deplorable on every level,” Santorum said on CNN.

“The fact that there has to be an outside probe like this from a grand jury to expose what the church should have exposed itself…” he said. “You talk about failing children … that it takes a government agency to do the job that the church should be doing from the very beginning, which is protecting its flock, and weeding itself out.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
NBC Philadelphia

August 20, 2018

By Alicia Victoria Lozano

For many Roman Catholics, separating their religious faith from the governing organization has been a daily practice long before a Pennsylvania grand jury documented decades of sexual abuse by hundreds of clergy members

A new generation of Catholics is stepping outside the church’s tainted shadow and creating a modern community that, they say, better reflects the world today.

This new generation of believers worship outside the confines of an antiquated and draconian institution that is out to protect itself, they say. This has been a daily practice for many long before a Pennsylvania grand jury report exposed decades of sexual abuse by hundreds of clergy members throughout the state.

“We’ve always had an antagonistic or non-relationship with the bishops,” Michael Rocks, president of Dignity Philadelphia, said. “We don’t trust them to police themselves.”

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BATON ROUGE (LA)
The Advocate

August 19, 2018

By Lea Skene

Less than a week after news of the latest Catholic Church sex abuse scandal, leaders of the Baton Rouge Diocese addressed what they described as “a spiritual crisis in our church.”

A Pennsylvania grand jury report released Tuesday — referencing more than 300 “predator priests” and more than 1,000 child victims within that state alone — found that church leaders covered up several decades of sexual abuse, often adhering to a series of common practices that reads “like a playbook for concealing the truth.”

“Our shame is intensified by the sometimes failure of church leadership to hold abusers accountable,” Bishop Emeritus Robert Muench said during Sunday morning Mass at St. Joseph Cathedral in downtown Baton Rouge. “These recent news reports have revealed a mishandling of reported allegations (and) a covering up of sinful actions. … Understandably there are concerns about how prolific such abuses have been throughout the (Catholic) Church throughout the years.”

Muench quoted Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, who pointed to “the failure of episcopal leadership” that left “scores of beloved children of God … to face an abuse of power alone.”

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UNITED STATES
The Associated Press

August 17, 2018

By David Crary

As the Catholic Church struggles with a new wave of clergy abuse cases, several prominent evangelical institutions have been rocked in recent weeks by their own sexual misconduct allegations against pastors and church leaders who exploited the trust they had gained from faithful churchgoers.

In many ways, the phenomenon at evangelical denominations is an offshoot of the #MeToo movement, as evidenced by the #ChurchToo hashtag accompanying accounts of church-related abuse that have been shared on Twitter.

The victims are coming forward to expose abuse in the Protestant evangelical world where some say the misdeeds have been just as pervasive, though less publicized, as the acts committed by Catholic clergy.

“I really believe churches need to enter into a season of lament, acknowledging decades of failure to understand, address and confront these horrors,” said Boz Tchividjian, a grandson of evangelist Billy Graham who heads GRACE, a ministry working to combat sexual abuse in churches.

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DUBLIN (IRELAND)
CRUX

August 21, 2018

By Inés San Martín

Swimming against the tide of promises to crack down on abuse and cover-up led by Pope Francis, a newly created Mexican cardinal said that some accusers should be “ashamed” to point their finger at clerics because many of them have skeletons in their own closets.

The victims of pedophilia who “accuse men of the Church should [be careful] because they have long tails that are easily stepped on,” said Cardinal Sergio Obeso Rivera.

The cardinal, emeritus Archbishop of Xalapa, in Veracruz, Mexico, spoke to journalists before a celebration he led in his former diocese.

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CHINA
South China Morning Post

August 20, 2018

By Robert Delaney

Robert Delaney says such a move wouldn’t excuse Beijing from its own human rights transgressions, but it might pressure the US to confront the culture of abuse and cover-up in its Catholic churches and most devout religious communities

The Chinese government is regularly subjected to charges of human rights abuses. The latest came earlier this month in the form of accusations by a UN human rights panel that 1 million ethnic Uygurs in China were being held in what resembles a “massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy”.

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China rejected the report’s findings last week, insisting that freedom of religion in Xinjiang is protected. The issue will not end here, though. Scrutiny of the way China treats Uygurs will continue, as it should, as will similar inquiries into the rights of Tibetans and other groups in the country that have challenged the central government.

But, last week, Beijing got a new counterargument against the US, if the foreign ministry chooses to use it against critics there, in the form of a 900-page report by a grand jury in Pennsylvania. The report unveiled the systematic abuse of more than 1,000 children by “predator priests” in the state over a period of 70 years.

At first glance, you might point out that judicial bodies in the US are publicising the abuse, and therefore conclude that America is doing the right thing.

But that conclusion would overlook several facts.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
The Baltimore Sun

August 22, 2018

By Yvonne Wenger and Christina Tkacik

A former longtime teacher at a Baltimore Catholic school is under investigation for the alleged sexual abuse of a minor in the mid-1980s, according to the Xaverian Brothers.

The lay order of brothers has removed Brother Robert Flaherty from ministry while an investigation by the State’s Attorney’s Office is ongoing, according to a statement by Brother Edward Driscoll, the congregation’s general superior. Flaherty was a teacher at Mount St. Joseph from 1972 to 1993 and from 2008 to 2010.

Flaherty was suspended last week from his teaching job at St. John’s Preparatory School in Danvers, Mass., where he worked from 1999 to 2007 and again beginning in 2010.

Xaverian Brothers sponsor both the Southwest Baltimore and Massachusetts school.

Detectives from the Baltimore police’s special investigation section opened an investigation in April into an allegation of abuse, according to police spokesman Detective Jeremy Silbert.

A spokeswoman for the Baltimore State’s Attorney’s Office did not immediately provide comment.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

August 22, 2018

Clerical sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church have led some to feel they can no longer trust the church’s message, Archbishop Eamon Martin has said.

Mr Martin said the church faced a challenge in finding new ways of communicating “sincerely held perspectives” about the family.

The Archbishop of Armagh made the comments at the World Meeting of Families event in Dublin on Wednesday.

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IRELAND
Irish Examiner

August 22, 2018

Latest: The Archbishop of Dublin has said the number of children abused by priests in Ireland is “immense” and called for an easier judicial system for victims giving evidence in court.

Speaking on the second day of the World Meeting of Families (WMOF), Diarmuid Martin said the number of prosecutions of clerical abuse is “very low”.

It comes days after Pope Francis condemned the “atrocities” of child sex abuse and cover-ups by the clergy in an open letter.

The pontiff arrives in Ireland on Saturday as part of the WMOF event in Dublin, and will meet victims of clerical sex abuse during his visit.

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SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
Deseret News

August 20, 2018

By Kelsey Dallas

Amid ongoing fallout from a new report on sexual abuse by clergy, an embattled Catholic leader has cancelled plans to come to Utah next month.

Cardinal Roger Mahony, who led the Archdiocese of Los Angeles from 1985 to 2011, was previously accused of covering up sexual abuse allegations against more than 45 priests. He was supposed to appear at an annual fundraiser for the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City on Sept. 6.

“Please note, Cardinal (Mahony) will not be attending the annual Bishop’s Dinner for the Cathedral of the Madeleine,” the diocese announced Monday night on Twitter.

Catholics around the world are reeling from a grand jury report on clergy sexual abuse in Pennsylvania, which was released last week. It highlighted allegations by more than 1,000 victims, implicating around 300 priests and condemning others for being more interested in protecting the church’s reputation than children.

“With shame and repentance, we acknowledge as an ecclesial community that we were not where we should have been, that we did not act in a timely manner, realizing the magnitude and the gravity of the damage done to so many lives. We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them,” Pope Francis said in a statement released Monday.

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ALLENTOWN (PA)
WHYY

August 19, 2018

By Shai Ben-Yaacov

Several hundred parishioners filled the bright and colorful sanctuary at the Cathedral Church of St. Catharine of Siena in Allentown, Pennsylvania, for Sunday morning mass. It was a worship service like any other, until Monsignor Francis Schoenauer produced a small red folder, opened it, and started reading from a letter. The congregation was expecting this moment, and all eyes were on Schoenauer as he spoke the words of his superior, Allentown Bishop Alfred Schlert.

It was a scene that played out in churches across the Diocese of Allentown this weekend. Schlert’s letter, addressed directly to parishioners, is a response to the Pennsylvania grand jury report released Tuesday detailing years of alleged sexual abuse of children by hundreds of priests across six of the state’s eight dioceses, including Allentown.

The long-awaited report named 37 “predator priests” in the diocese, which put out its own list the same day including 15 additional names of priests “credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor.”

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

August 21, 2018

By Mary E. Hunt

Clericalism is key issue, but problem lies within Catholicism’s foundation

Theodore McCarrick’s alleged flagrant and repeated abuse of power over those in his employ (not forgetting his abuse of a minor, but focusing on the workplace cases for the moment) raises the specter of clericalism and begs change.

Theologian Fr. Bryan Massingale agrees with Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich that a sense of entitlement prevailing among some ordained men could be conducive of exploitative behavior. Both agree that the issue is not whether the men are gay or straight (or, I would add, something beyond that binary), but that they have, by reason of their clerical status, access to privilege and power within the ecclesial community that can insulate them from accountability.

Massingale and Cupich cite clericalism as the problem. I concur to an extent, but I think the problem is deeper, indeed foundational, rooted in the very bifurcation of clergy and laity that grounds the Roman Catholic institution.

This clergy/lay, top-down structure conditions relationships and functions in the church. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says ordination “confers an indelible spiritual character” on a priest that “cannot be “repeated or conferred temporarily” and “mark[s] him permanently” (1583). A priest is seen as ontologically different from a layperson. His place in the hierarchical structure reflects this difference. His roles as a sacramental presider and as a decision-maker are contingent on it.

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IRELAND
The Irish Times

August 21, 2018

By Jack Power

Vatican should adopt ‘best practice’ on abuse reporting to authorities, Taoiseach says

The Catholic Church should introduce mandatory reporting for clerical sex abuse, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said.

Speaking on Tuesday, Mr Varadkar said Pope Francis’ letter on Monday apologising to the victims of clerical abuse needed to “be followed up by actions”.

“Among the things that we have done in Ireland is to bring in mandatory reporting. As of last year it is mandatory for people to report child sex abuse, or sex abuse if they are aware of that,” he said.

“Perhaps that is something the church and other institutions might consider implementing? Just because it is not the law in every country does not mean it is not the right thing to do,” Mr Varadkar said.

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FORT WAYNE (IN)
Indianapolis Star

August 17, 2018

A Catholic bishop in Indiana announced Friday that he will release a list of names of priests in his territory who’ve been credibly accused of sex abuse following this week’s Pennsylvania report accusing more than 300 clergy of similar acts against 1,000 children.

The Rev. Kevin Rhoades, bishop of the Fort Wayne-South Bend Diocese, made the announcement in a news conference and called the decision a response to a Pennsylvania grand jury report released Tuesday.

“As we’ve seen in Pennsylvania, this report and the listing of abusers has prompted new victims to come forward,” according a transcript of Rhoades’ announcement Friday. “Whether it’s now or following the posting of our list, I want the people of Fort Wayne and South Bend to know this.”

The Pennsylvania report describes Rhoades, who was bishop of the Harrisburg, Pa., Diocese from 2004-2010, as resisting disclosure of abuse-allegation details against two now-deceased priests, though he alerted prosecutors and church officials to sexual abuse complaints against the pair.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

August 22, 2018

To the editor: The hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church expressing “shame and sorrow” over sexual abuse by priests is similar to the expression of “thoughts and prayers” in response to mass killings. Significant actions are necessary, even if they will not erase the stain of the abuses that have occurred.

The church, like many other religious denominations, has a history of male privilege. It is past time for the church to demonstrate that males and females are viewed as equal and allow women to fulfill leadership positions at every level of the denomination, including the papacy.

This tangible action, while not diminishing the pain suffered by victims, would announce to the world that the Catholic hierarchy is willing to end a serious problem. Significant actions are necessary for progress.

Karl Strandberg, Long Beach

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PALMETTO (FL)
Miami Herald

August 21, 2018

By Jessica De Leon

Six of the more than 300 priests who a Pennsylvania grand jury said sexually abused more than 1,000 children had ties to the Diocese of Venice, according to the diocese. They include a priest who fathered a child with an underage girl, before working for six years at a parish in Palmetto.

The revelations came last week, following the release of a grand jury report concluding that more than 1,000 children, mostly boys, had been abused by priests in six Pennsylvania dioceses and that there was a systematic cover-up by church officials in efforts to avoid bad publicity and financial liability.

One of the priests with local ties, Rev. Robert Brague, was the assistant pastor at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Palmetto from 1991 to 1997. He had moved to Florida after impregnating a teenage girl in Pennsylvania, according to the grand jury report.

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PORTLAND (OR)
The Oregonian/OregonLive

August 21, 2018

By Elliot Njus

The leader of the Archdiocese of Portland on Monday said he was shocked and discouraged over recent revelations of child sex abuse by priests and the subsequent cover-ups by church leaders.

In his first public comments since a Pennsylvania grand jury report detailed decades of abuse at the hands of 300 Roman Catholic priests in that state, Archbishop Alexander K. Sample apologized for harm done to the victims of abuse and called the latest allegations evidence of an “institutional and spiritual” failure.

His written statement also addressed the July resignation of prominent former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who served as archbishop of Washington, D.C. McCarrick faces allegations of sexually abusing a child nearly five decades ago as a New York priest. McCarrick, the first cardinal in history to step down in connection with the unfolding sexual abuse scandal, denies the allegations.

Portland’s archdiocese was driven to bankruptcy in 2004 after settling more than 100 claims of abuse at the hands of clergy and facing dozens more. It was the first Catholic diocese to file for bankruptcy over child sex abuse claims.

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CONCORD (NH)
Concord Monitor

August 22, 2018

By Alyssa Dandrea

St. Paul’s School released Tuesday details of sexual misconduct allegations against 10 former faculty and staff – three who were previously unnamed – and interviews with 21 additional victims who have come forward in the past nine months.

The 42-page report released Tuesday evening is the second supplement to a larger report released by the Concord prep school since May 2017. The initial report substantiated claims against at least 13 former faculty members between 1948 and 1988, while the two supplemental reports include new names and additional allegations as recent as a decade ago.

The release of the new supplement comes just days after ex-St. Paul’s teacher David Pook was sentenced to four months in jail for conspiring with a former student to lie to a grand jury about their relationship. Pook, who taught at St. Paul’s from 2000-08, is one of the four former St. Paul’s employees not previously identified in the prior reports from Boston-based law firm Casner & Edwards.

Also identified is late Massachusetts congressman Gerry Studds, who is front and center in a civil lawsuit brought by two alumni against the school in May. Studds – who taught history, politics and government at St. Paul’s from 1965-69 – was censured in 1983 for sexual misconduct with a 17-year-old congressional page a decade earlier. Alumni have questioned since the May 2017 report why Studds was not named from the outset.

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VATICAN CITY
The Associated Press

August 22, 2018

By Nicole Winfield

Recent revelations of sexual misconduct and cover-up within the highest ranks of the U.S. Catholic Church have revived the sense of betrayal that devastated the American church’s credibility after the first wave of scandal hit in 2002.

But the United States is by no means alone: Cases of Catholic priests raping and molesting children, and of bishops covering up for them, have erupted on nearly every continent in recent years, with Pope Francis’ native Latin America the latest to explode.

Francis is expected to address the issue head-on this weekend when he visits Ireland, the first country to come to grips with the problem in the 1990s.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Radio Sputnik

August 22, 2018

Sex abuse in the church was long ignored, kept quiet or silenced.

This is what Pope Francis wrote in a letter to all Catholics.

In the letter, the Pope admitted that the church failed to recognize the scale of the damage.

His statement came in response to fresh reports of large-scale clerical sexual abuse of minors in Pennsylvania.

Radio Sputnik discussed this with David Clohessy, former executive director of SNAP – the Survivors Network of Those Abused By Priests.

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SPRINGFIELD (MO)
The Associated Press

August 20, 2018

A couple claims in a lawsuit that a former top lay official in the Springfield-Cape Girardeau Catholic diocese emotionally and sexually abused the woman, and the diocese did not intervene.

The lawsuit was filed last week against the diocese and Troy Casteel, the diocese’s former director of family ministry.

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ST. CLOUD (FL)
Orlando Sentinel

August 21, 2018

By David Harris

An employee at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in St. Cloud was arrested Tuesday after he admitted to using the church’s WiFi to download child pornography, the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office said.

Mark Dewayne Cook was fired from his position as operations manager for the church and school, the Diocese of Orlando said in a statement. Cook responsible for the business administration of the church did not work directly with “vulnerable populations,” the statement said.

Church officials are cooperating with the investigation, said Carol Brinati, chief operating officer and chancellor for the diocese.

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BLUE SPRINGS (MO)
The Associated Press

August 21, 2018

The Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph says a longtime employee at a Blue Springs church embezzled $446,000 during the past several years.

The diocese said Tuesday the woman worked at St. Robert Bellarmine Catholic Church for decades but the embezzlement occurred over the last seven years. Diocese spokesman Jack Smith says the woman agreed to repay the money within 60 days after she was confronted last week. The diocese didn’t name the employee.

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MERRILLVILLE (IN)
The Associated Press

August 21, 2018

Police in northwest Indiana say an attack on a Catholic priest has been forwarded to the FBI as a possible hate crime because the assailant referred to reports of clergy sex abuse involving children.

Merrillville Detective Cmdr. Jeff Rice says the Rev. Basil John Hutsko was assaulted Monday morning at St. Michael Byzantine Catholic Church. Rice says the 64-year-old priest was taken to a hospital for treatment. His condition was unknown Tuesday.

Pope Francis issued a letter Monday condemning priestly sexual abuse and its cover-up. Also, a Pennsylvania grand jury last week reported about 300 priests abused at least 1,000 children over the past 70 years.

Hutsko isn’t named in the report.

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MERRILLVILLE (IN)
The Charlotte Observer

August 22, 2018

By Lisa Gutierrez

A Catholic priest in Indiana was attacked in his church Monday morning by a man he heard yelling, “This is for all the kids!” church officials said.

The Rev. Basil Hutsko was left unconscious for about 15 minutes after the attack at St. Michael Byzantine Church in Merrillville, Indiana, the Rev. Thomas Loya told WGN in Chicago.

Hutsko said “the attacker grabbed him, choked him and threw him to the ground and knocked him unconscious,” Loya told WGN. “He was wearing gloves. Father Basil does not know who it was, but while he was attacking him, he heard the attacker say, ‘This is for all the kids!’”

Loya said Hutsko believes that was a reference to the recently revealed findings of a two-year grand jury investigation that found Roman Catholic Church leaders in Pennsylvania covered up cases of child sex abuse by priests over several decades.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
The Washington Post

August 22, 2018

By Hugh Hewitt

The demands that Cardinal Donald Wuerl be dismissed as archbishop of Washington and resign from the Catholic Church’s College of Cardinals are proportionate in their degree of outrage with their degree of disappointment with the failed priest.

Thanks to a Pennsylvania grand jury, we now know of the evil that took place during his time as bishop of Pittsburgh. Wuerl’s diocese included the coverup of an alleged priest-run child porn ring, including priests who would reportedly mark victims for other predators via a gold cross. If that isn’t satanic, then the word defines nothing.

And Wuerl covered up that ring. And dozens of other cases. And he allowed predators to feel free to move around the country provided they didn’t endanger his career. Did Cardinal Theodore McCarrick support Wuerl as his successor in Washington confident of the latter’s ability to keep the ugliest sins under the carpet? It would not surprise.

Indeed, nothing surprises anymore. Those of us in the Catholic community who gave the church a second and even a third chance are disgusted. There was a 2002 “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” put out by U.S. bishops. There was “A Report on the Crisis in the Catholic Church in the United States” put out in February 2004. Upon its release, the church-appointed lay review board that wrote the report held a big event at the National Press Club. I went. I wanted to hear in person that change had come.

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IRELAND
Washington Post

August 21, 2018

By Siobhan O’Gracy

No pope has visited Ireland since 1979, when millions of faithful Catholics came out to see Pope John Paul II. Around a million people turned out for a public papal Mass during that trip, and a 116-foot-tall steel cross was erected in Dublin’s Phoenix Park for the occasion.

Now, with Pope Francis scheduled to visit Ireland this weekend, some pranksters have built a different kind of massive structure to welcome him: a drive-through confessional close to the same park, where Francis will celebrate Mass this weekend.

Confession, or penance, is one of Catholicism’s most important acts, in which Catholics confidentially admit their sins to a priest to seek forgiveness. Paddy Power, an Irish bookmaker known for staging elaborate and sometimes controversial stunts, is trying to speed up the process of escaping eternal damnation with the drive-through confessions.

“Ireland has changed a lot since the last Pope’s visit – gay marriage is legal, we’ve repealed the Eighth Amendment, and even secretly cheered for England in the World Cup,” a spokesperson for Paddy Power told The Sun. “With decades worth of sins clocked up since then, we’re providing a convenient means to complete your contrition with your keys still in the ignition.”

A promotional video for the gaudy confession booth describes it as the “ultimate drive-in confession booth before the big man gets here.”

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AMPLEFORTH and DOWNSIDE (UK)
Independent Inquiry Child Sexual Abuse

August 2018

A report of the Inquiry Panel: Professor Alexis Jay OBE, Professor Sir Malcolm Evans KCMG OBE, Ivor Frank, and Drusilla Sharpling CBE

English Benedictine Congregation case study.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

August 21, 2018

By Bill Mitchell

Public act of penance and sorrow is necessary for healing and reform to begin, petitioners say

During a listening session after the 6 p.m. Mass on Sunday, our pastor, Paulist Fr. Michael McGarry, offered what seemed like a pretty radical suggestion.

Listing several possible reactions that Catholics might have to the latest outrages in the clergy sexual abuse scandal, he said he’d be especially heartbroken if people became so repulsed by the institution that they’d lose their focus on the teachings of Jesus.

“Follow your conscience,” he urged us. If you feel like you no longer want anything to do with the Catholic Church, he said, please find some way of staying connected to a gathering of followers of Jesus.

If that means joining the ranks of an Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, Evangelical or other Christian church, he urged us to go for it. “We’d miss you around here,” he added, “but just don’t give up following Jesus.”

He raised this idea not in “love it or leave it” fashion, but as a genuine alternative for disaffected Catholics tempted to walk away from participation in a church of any sort.

The thought has crossed my mind, and I appreciate Mike’s focus on what really matters.

But I find myself aligned, instead, with the conclusion that my wife, Carol, articulated as we made our way home from the hour-long listening session.

“I’m too stubborn to leave,” she said. “I’m just not going to let them take my church away from me.”

By “them,” of course, she was referring to the leaders of the Catholic Church in the United States, the 456 active and retired bishops who have so utterly failed to hold themselves accountable for the scandal that has brought the church to its knees.

We showed up at the listening session the day after signing the statement* hosted by Daily Theology calling on all U.S. bishops to submit their resignations to Pope Francis, just as all of Chile’s 34 bishops have done.

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BOSTON (MA)
WBUR

August 21, 2018

By Maria Garcia, Eve Zuckoff, and Paris Alston

Length: 21:24

Cardinal Sean O’Malley is apologizing for how his office handled a 2015 letter that raised concerns about sexual abuse by another American cardinal.

This follows Pope Francis’ letter Monday condemning sexual misconduct and coverups of abuse by clergy, in light of a scathing grand jury report detailing decades of abuse of more than 1,000 children by hundreds of priests in Pennsylvania.

But some Catholic theologians, educators, parishoners and leaders in the U.S. are going a step further: They’ve written a letter calling on all Catholic bishops in the U.S. to resign, which they plan to submit to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) tomorrow at midnight. So far, the letter has garnered more than 3,500 signatures.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic Life Ministries

Originally published February 19, 2017

By Robert Fontana

David Clohessy, the executive director of the Survivors Network of People Abused by Priests (SNAP), resigned from his position in December. He is pictured here presenting an award to me as the SNAP Lay Person of the Year, 2012. In January, David was named in a lawsuit which claims that, in exchange for “kickbacks,” he provided names of potential clients to attorneys who were suing the Catholic Church. David acknowledges accepting donations for SNAP from lawyers who have sued the Catholic Church, but he denies ever accepting any money for exchange of client information. Lori and I believe David.

We are sad to see David leave SNAP. Catholic leaders have NEVER VOLUNTARILY TOLD THE TRUTH about sex abuse in the church. The truth was pulled, pushed, and prodded out of them by survivors of sex abuse through public rallies, lawsuits, and media exposure.

David and the survivors community have been like the little shepherd boy with a slingshot and a stone, fighting the giant Goliath Catholic hierarchy, with its deep financial pockets, and a worldwide network of sympathetic government and civic leaders. In truth, David is one of the best friends the Catholic Church has because his work is calling the Church back to its foundational principles: to live by truth which sets one free, and to protect the weak and the vulnerable, especially children.

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UNITED STATES
Commercial Appeal

August 21, 2018

By Jennie Davidson Latta,

Editor’s Note: Jennie Davidson Latta, a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge and Catholic parishioner in Memphis, sent this letter to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. It is republished here with her permission.

Dear Bishops,

While I am encouraged by the plan announced by Cardinal DiNardo and the other bishops of the United States to address the latest scandals and crimes of the clergy of the United States, I believe that one key component is missing. What is needed is a public act of penance on the part of our bishops.

I have not joined the numerous theologians, teachers, and parents who have called for mass resignations. I fear that would be meaningless. Instead, I think that what is needed is a public penance service at which the bishops of the United States appear without miters, or croziers, or other symbols of office.

We have a rite for that purpose. We lay people are encouraged to use it at least twice each year. I think that it would do us all good to see our bishops kneeling, in sackcloth and ashes or their modern equivalent, beating their breasts, and loudly proclaiming, “Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.”

This should be a corporate action to acknowledge the corporate and systemic nature of the sinfulness that allowed predators to be protected rather than children. I do not assume that every living bishop has individually participated in such a cover-up. But every living bishop has inherited the system of clericalism and cronyism that permitted it to happen.

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OGDEN (UT)
Standard-Examiner

August 22, 2018

By Mark Shields

I can testify from a lifetime of personal experience that practice does not really make perfect. Since the presidency of Harry Truman, during which I had the honor of being the youngest altar boy in St. Francis Xavier Parish to serve the standing-room-only midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, I have been a practicing and manifestly imperfect Catholic.

After the recent Pennsylvania grand jury report on sexual abuse, which tells of more than 1,000 victims enduring criminal cruelty at the hands of some 300 Catholic priests, I am consumed with anger toward my church. Of course, I am also sad, but I remain even more furious toward my church’s hierarchy and its rush not to console the anguish of and heal the wounds of the vulnerable victims but rather to lead a systematic cover-up of priests’ crimes against defenseless children to protect the institutional church from legal liability and deserved public outrage.

Mostly missing from the church’s reaction was human sympathy. Absent was any trace of Pope Francis’ call for the Roman Catholic Church to become a “field hospital after battle” to first take care of those suffering. The clerical leadership’s reaction was instead to turn the crimes and the crisis over to the lawyers and the public relations people, to retreat to a circle of silence. I am angry.

Such bad and indefensible decisions have repeatedly been made in secret rooms where the counsel and wisdom of parents, especially mothers, is neither sought nor welcome. By repeating this pattern of behavior first seen in the Boston Archdiocese in 2002, the hierarchy has provided persuasive ammunition to the church’s opponents and critics, neglected the hurting, and failed the faithful.

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HARRISBURG(PA)
The Associated Press

August 21, 2018

By Marc Levy

A Roman Catholic priest was charged on Tuesday with groping a 17-year-old girl and sending her nude images of himself, just a week after a grand jury reported the church had covered up decades of child molestation by priests across the state.

The charges of felony corruption of minors and misdemeanor indecent assault against 30-year-old Kevin Lonergan were not a result of the landmark grand jury investigation but stemmed from a complaint filed in June, after the grand jury had finished its work, authorities said.

This is at least the second case of possible priest abuse being investigated in the Allentown Diocese since the grand jury finished its report, which identified 301 “predator priests” in a half-dozen Pennsylvania dioceses, including 37 in Allentown, going back to the 1940s.

Authorities have charged just two priests as a result of the grand jury investigation, including a priest who has since pleaded guilty.

But because of time limits in state law on the prosecution of old cases, Attorney General Josh Shapiro said those two were the only priests named in the report that his office could charge. Some of those named were prosecuted years ago, and more than 100 are dead.

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UNITED STATES
TIME

August 20, 2018

By Gerard Mannion

Mannion is Amaturo Professor of Catholic Studies at Georgetown University and a senior research fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs.

For some time, many members of the Catholic Church may have believed that the worst of the clerical abuse crisis was in the past. This certainly has been the Church’s intent, at least in word. But now the spotlight has returned, with the grand jury report from six Pennsylvania dioceses, which found from 70 years of documents that over 300 priests abused more than 1,000 victims — in addition to scandals involving the former Cardinal Archbishop of Washington, D.C., in the U.K., Australia, Peru and Chile, and on the verge of papal visit to Ireland, which suffered some of the worst of the worldwide priestly abuse. The head of the United States’ bishops conference has appealed to the Vatican for external assistance in conducting a blanket investigation into the continued blight of the clerical abuse crisis across the U.S.

“We already know that one root cause is the failure of episcopal leadership,” Cardinal Daniel DiNardo stated. “The result was that scores of beloved children of God were abandoned to face an abuse of power alone. This is a moral catastrophe.” While DiNardo is right about the catastrophe, his solution does not go far enough.

Pope Francis set out to make tackling he abuse crisis one of his foremost priorities upon election in 2013, significantly breaking with his two immediate predecessors. Having previously advocated a policy of zero-tolerance to clerical abuse as archbishop in Buenos Aries, he continued with the same resolve as the Bishop of Rome and Supreme Pontiff across the world’s Catholics. He quickly established a papal commission in 2014 to explore the whole range of factors and issues pertaining to the abuse crisis and to establish policies to ensure it is a stain of social sin that is removed from the church as far as possible once and for all.

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CHADDS FORD (PA)
Media Patch

August 20, 2018

By Max Bennett

A longtime priest who served in Delco, the Main Line, and Philadelphia was deemed unfit for ministry after facing drug and theft charges.

A priest who ministered Delaware County has been found unsuitable for ministry after being accused of having drugs delivered to a Chadds Ford parish, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced Sunday.

Reverend Monsignor Gregory J. Parlante, 61, who most recently served at Saint Cornelius Parish in Chadds Ford and previously served in Radnor and Philadelphia, was placed on administrative leave in June 2017 after charges were filed in connection with the alleged drugs.

Parlante was charged in January 2017 with possession of a controlled substance; possession of drug paraphernalia; and felony theft by unlawful taking, according to court records.

The first two charges were dismissed after Parlante was accepted into the Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition program for the theft charge in July this year, according to court records.

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VATICAN CITY
Reuters

August 21, 2018

By Philip Pullella

Pope Francis will meet victims of clergy sexual abuse during his trip to Ireland this weekend, the Vatican said on Tuesday, as scandals in several countries mire the Catholic Church in its worst credibility crisis in more than 15 years.

Last week a grand jury in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania released the findings of the largest-ever investigation of sex abuse in the U.S. Church, finding that 301 priests in the state had sexually abused minors over the past 70 years.

The damning U.S. report, combined with scandals in Australia and Chile, have coalesced to form what one Vatican official called “a perfect storm” not seen since the first abuse crisis erupted in Boston in 2002.

On Monday, Francis wrote an unprecedented letter to all Catholics, asking each one of them to help root out “this culture of death” and vowing there would be no more cover-ups.

Spokesman Greg Burke told reporters at a briefing on the Aug. 25-26 trip that details of the meeting would not be announced until after it was over and it would be up to the victims if they wanted to speak afterwards.

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HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Chronicle

August 20, 2018

An international search for a Dallas priest accused of molesting three teenage boys is a stark reminder that Texas should be as concerned as other states about the child sexual abuse allegations that have shaken faith in the Catholic Church.

Father Edmundo Paredes, pastor for 27 years of St. Cecilia Catholic Church, was reported missing Sunday and suspected of fleeing to the Philippines, his native country. The Diocese of Dallas reportedly notified police in February that Paredes was suspected of abusing children, but did not let his parishioners know until Saturday.

Such delays have led to widespread condemnation of the Catholic Church’s handling of child sexual abuse allegations. A Pennsylvania grand jury report last week documented abuse by 300 priests of more than 1,000 victims over a period of 70 years in that state. Most of the abusers were allowed to remain in the ministry as priests.

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UNITED STATES
The Federalist

August 22, 2018

By Melissa Langsam Braunstein

Forgiveness is a powerful force. But without real change, it’s also meaningless, which is why standards are crucial.

Does everyone deserve a second chance? It’s a timely question. Jews worldwide have begun repenting in the run-up to the High Holidays. Catholics are grappling with another massive abuse scandal among the church’s leadership, and some powerful men dethroned by the Me Too movement have already begun working on their own comebacks.

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OAKLAND (CA)
Bloomberg

August 21, 2018

By Peter Blumberg

– Deal will also pay workers $11,000 for alleged pay disparities
– No one covered by accord objects to it, plaintiff lawyers say

The cost of Uber Technologies Inc.’s sexual harassment scandal is now itemized: 56 current and former employees who filed claims stand to collect an average of $33,928.57.

In addition, those workers and 431 other female and minority engineers covered by a 2017 class-action lawsuit will receive an average of just under $11,000 for alleged pay disparities, according to a final accounting in the settlement of the case that was submitted Monday to a federal judge in Oakland, California.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Market Business Insider

August 22, 2018

By Isobel Asher Hamilton

– Uber will pay an average settlement of just under $34,000 each to 56 current and former employees claiming sexual harassment.
– It will also pay 485 female and minority engineers as part of a class-action claiming discrimination for pay disparity an average of $11,000 each.
– This gives a total payout of roughly $7.2 million.

Uber will have to pay out huge sums of money in settling a sexual harassment case with 56 current and former employees, as well as to 485 female and minority engineers claiming discrimination.

Each of the 56 claimants will receive $33,928.57 on average , which works out to just under $1.9 million overall. In addition, the 56 are part of a wider class action consisting of 485 female and minority engineers claiming discrimination for pay disparity. Each of these claimants will receive an average of $11,000 each, giving a back-of-the-envelope estimate of just over $5.3 million. Totted up, this gives a total payout of roughly $7.2 million.

The average settlement figures were first reported by Bloomberg citing documents submitted to a federal judge in Oakland, California on Monday.

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ALLENTOWN (PA)
CNN

August 21, 2018

By Hollie Silverman and Chuck Johnston

District Attorney Jim Martin to announce charges

A Catholic priest in Pennsylvania has been charged with indecent assault and corruption of a minor involving a 17-year-old girl, Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin said Tuesday.

Father Kevin Lonergan, who served at the Cathedral of St. Catharine of Siena in Allentown, started sending sexual messages to the victim via Snapchat after meeting her at St. Francis of Assisi in Allentown, Martin said in a press conference.

Martin said Lonergan also hugged the girl while he was aroused and grabbed her buttocks, pulling her closer when she tried to pull away.

The victim told an adult at Central High School who contacted the diocese, Martin said. The diocese then told the district attorney’s office of the accusation.

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DETROIT (MI)
ChurchMilitant.com

August 19, 2018

By Stephen Wynne

More than 1,300 sign open letter urging bishops to resign over “conspiracy of silence” on sex abuse

Catholics from the University of Oxford, Cambridge, Notre Dame, Boston College, Fordham and a number of institutions are demanding the “collective resignation” of every bishop in the United States.

On August 15 — the Feast of the Assumption — Catholic theologians, educators, parishioners and lay leaders issued an open letter calling on the bishops to step down after decades of covering up clerical sex abuse.

Since Wednesday, the “Statement of Catholic Theologians, Educators, Parishioners, and Lay Leaders On Clergy Sexual Abuse in the United States” has collected more than 1,300 signatures, with representatives from major universities and institutions as well as hundreds of parishes and ministries across the United States.

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UNITED STATES
(DT) Daily Theology

August 17, 2018

This guest post is a prayer and letter written by Dr. Susan Reynolds, Assistant Professor of Catholic Studies at Emory University Candler School of Theology.

To add your signature to the 4400+ signatures below, visit:/Para agregar su firma, visite: https://goo.gl/forms/0LXLPMpzTo56M8G12. The opinions of the undersigned do not represent those of their institutions. Las opiniones del abajo firmante no representan las de sus instituciones.

Lea la carta en es español aquí.

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ALLENTOWN (PA)
FoxNews.com

August 21, 2018

By Elizabeth Zwirz

Pennsylvania authorities on Tuesday announced charges against a Roman Catholic priest who allegedly had “inappropriate sexual contact” with a teenage girl.

Kevin Lonergan, 30, was charged with one count each of corruption of minors and indecent assault, Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin announced.

The charges filed against Lonergan are not related to a grand jury’s report released last week, in which several hundred Roman Catholic priests in the state were accused of sexually abusing more than a thousand children.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
The Associated Press

August 21, 2018

A Roman Catholic university in Pennsylvania plans to remove the names of three bishops from campus buildings, saying it is acting in solidarity with victims of child sexual abuse following the release of a grand jury report accusing church leaders of helping cover up decades of abuse by priests.

The University of Scranton said late Monday that three bishops — Jerome D. Hannan, J. Carroll McCormick, and James C. Timlin — in the local diocese were found in last week’s Pennsylvania grand jury report to have covered up crimes by priests and put children in harm’s way.

Hannan served from 1954 until his death in 1965. McCormick served from 1966 until 1983 and died in 1996. Timlin served from 1984 until 2003 and is 91 years old.

A Scranton Diocese spokesman has said Timlin would not do interviews, but pointed to the diocese’s response to the report noting that Timlin instituted a uniform response policy for allegations of abuse and established an internal review board.

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