ABUSE TRACKER

NEW ZEALAND
NZ Herald

July 25, 2018

By Mick Hall

An organisation that offers therapy to child sex abusers says more needs to be done by organisations referring clients to them to dismantle their own cultures of secrecy and silence.

Auckland-based Safe Network spokesman Shane Harris said his organisation did significant work treating offenders by carrying out assessments and then offering appropriate clinical interventions to help curb their predatory sexual behaviour.

But he said it was unethical for churches and other organisations not to involve the civil authorities when allegations or evidence of abuse first surfaced and that a bigger impact would be made if that wasn’t the case.

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INDIA
The Telegraph India

July 24, 2018

Kochi: Kerala High Court on Monday granted bail to a Christian priest, arrested on the charge of sexually exploiting a married woman for years with three other priests after blackmailing her with her confession secrets.

Johnson V. Mathew, a counsellor of the Malankara Orthodox Church, was arrested from Kozhencherry in Pathanamthitta district on July 13 and charged with “outraging the modesty of a woman”.

Mathew, the second priest to be arrested in the case, had applied to the high court after a magistrate in Thiruvalla rejected his bail plea.

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UNITED STATES
America Magazine

July 23, 2018

By John A. McCoy

Archbishop Raymond G. Hunthausen may have been the epitome of the Vatican II bishop—pastoral, ecumenical, inclusive and relevant. He loved telling a good story.

One he retold often was about the potluck picnic that the parishioners of a small-town parish hosted for him in the city park across the street from the church. Hunthausen took a paper plate, served himself some fried chicken, baked beans and fruit salad and looked for a place to sit. All the tables were occupied. So he found himself a spot on the lawn next to a youngster who was wolfing down the meal.

The boy, who had no idea who Archbishop Hunthausen was, chatted away about his school, his friends and his new bike. When he paused to eat some more, the archbishop asked him: “Where’d you get that tin plate? Everybody else has a paper one.”

The boy motioned at a house across the street. “At home,” he replied. “I saw there was a picnic going on, so I got my tin plate and came on over.”

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IRELAND
VICE

July 24, 2018

By Paulie Doyle

How Irish protesters plan to demonstrate against Pope Francis touching down in their country.

The general consensus about the Pope seems to be: he’s pretty woke. Francis doesn’t care for Trump, he auctioned his famous Harley Davidson to feed the poor and says that preventing environmental catastrophe is a moral imperative. He belongs to the fair-minded Jesuits, and has made some progressive-sounding comments about women and the LGBT community.

Although no changes to Catholic teaching regarding women or sexual minorities have been made, with the assistance of a very well-oiled PR machine, the Pontiff has nonetheless become a kind of media-darling, referenced as a benign moral authority, Dalai Llama-like, by ostensibly secular liberals. “On the issue of climate change, I agree with Pope Francis,” Senator Bernie Sanders would regularly say, during rallies throughout his presidential campaign.

From the moment we met him, the current Pope’s PR campaign has been in full swing: Francis stepped out into the world wearing humble white garments, a simple cross draped around his neck – the antithesis of the ostentatious papal regalia worn by Benedict XVI. The Church was sending a message: over are the days of opulence and intransigence at the Holy See; enter the era of Francis, and a new, more open Catholicism. In the past five years, this down-to-earth ethos has substantially improved Rome’s image.

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AUSTRALIA
The Newcastle Herald

July 24, 2018

By Joanne McCarthy

NSW Attorney General Mark Speakman has ordered the transcript of a controversial 2001 Newcastle trial against an Anglican priest after a Hunter child sexual abuse survivor described it as an “ambush”.

Steve Smith last week wrote to Mr Speakman seeking an apology from the State of NSW for a Newcastle District Court trial where three key people, including the judge, failed to disclose their associations with Newcastle Anglican Diocese.

The trial collapsed after the diocese belatedly produced a register that the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse would later note contained “a number of irregularities”.

But it was the late Judge Ralph Coolahan’s criticism of Mr Smith from the bench that shattered the man who the diocese now concedes was repeatedly sexually abused by priest George Parker in the early 1970s, from when he was just 10 years old.

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DENVER
The Associated Press

July 24, 2018

By Eddie Pells

The U.S. Olympic Committee is trying to remove itself as a defendant in lawsuits by gold medalists McKayla Maroney, Jordyn Wieber and Aly Raisman, three of the gymnasts who sued the federation and others for their roles in the Larry Nassar sex-abuse scandal.

In court papers filed last Friday, the USOC acknowledges it is “appropriately” part of “discussions concerning moral and social responsibility for sexual abuse, including legitimate questions about what could have been done to recognize and stop Nassar’s abuse.”

But, the motions say, there are no legal grounds to sue the USOC because Nassar never worked for the federation, nor were Nassar’s crimes foreseeable by the USOC.

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INDIA
Matters India

July 22, 2018

By Virginia Saldanha

The revelation that 110,333 cases of rape were registered in the country from 2014 to 2016, and 338,954 cases of crime against women were registered in 2016, by federal Minister Kiren Rijiju, does not come as a surprise. In fact, we should remember that these statistics are based only on reported cases and not on total incidents of rape and violence to women actually taking place.

The threat of rape and violence is a reality that Indian women live with. The threat becomes acuter in direct proportion to a woman’s social status and/or vulnerability, a poor Dalit girl/woman being the most vulnerable. Age has not been a bar for vulnerability to rape. Babies of a few months to an old woman in her 90s have been victims of rape in India.

Rape is forced sexual intercourse. Indian law amended in 2013 describes rape as penile and non-penile penetration of a woman’s orifices. So, it is clear that rape is not about anyone enjoying sex. Rape is not about sex! It is about power. Unless we address the issue of power, we will not be able to protect women/girls from rape.

Rape takes place when the perpetrator is sure of his power to force his victim to yield to him. Most rapists generally and literally ‘get away’ with their crime, because of their power to silence the victim.

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TENAFLY (NJ)
NorthJersey

July 20, 2018

By Rodrigo Torrejon

Amid tears and decades of buried trauma, a former Tenafly resident recalled 20 years of sexual abuse by a once-trusted priest and close family friend who became a dark, looming figure in his childhood in a recent New York Times report.

The 60-year-old man, who identified himself as James, detailed years of sexual abuse by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, 88, one of the most prominent faces in the Roman Catholic Church, in the Times report. McCarrick, a longtime family friend the family called “Uncle Ted,” had baptized James at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church.

“I was the first guy he baptized,” James told the Associated Press Friday. “I was his little boy. I was his special kid. I was the kid he always sought out.”

It was in James’ Tenafly home where the years of sexual abuse began, Patrick Noaker, James’ attorney told NorthJersey.com. When James was 11, as he was changing out of his bathing suit, McCarrick, then 39, walked into the room and took his own pants off.

“McCarrick came into the boy’s room and he was naked,” Noaker said. “McCarrick told him to turn around and said ‘See? we’re the same.'”

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AUSTRALIA
The Standard

July 20, 2018

By ​Andrew Thomson ​

EMMANUEL College ​is taking the groundbreaking step of erecting plaques recognising former Bishop of Ballarat Ronald Mulkearns ​failed to act to protect victims, some who attended the school.

​Principal Peter Morgan​ said there was a long tradition in Australian Catholic schools of inviting the local Bishop to officially open and bless new buildings and extensions.

​He said Bishop Mulkearns performed that duty on several occasions within the Warrnambool Catholic community.

“​Plaques were affixed to buildings leaving a permanent record of these important occasions​,” he said​

​”There are two plaques at Emmanuel College recording the opening of new buildings bearing the name of Bishop Mulkearns​.”

Mr Morgan said that it was now widely recognised that Bishop Mulkearns failed to act on information and complaints against adults who abused young people in the Ballarat Diocese.

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AUSTRALIA
Financial Review

July 19, 2018

by Phillip Coorey

The Australian government has been lobbying the Pope and other senior members of the Catholic Church for more than two weeks to sack disgraced Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson, but to no avail.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called on the Pope publicly on Thursday to sack Wilson, who has been convicted and sentenced for covering up paedophilia in the church in the 1970s.

He is refusing to step down because he intends to appeal against the conviction.

“As far as Philip Wilson is concerned, he should have resigned. He should have resigned and the time has come for the Pope to sack him,” Mr Turnbull said.

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NEW YORK (NY)
The Week

July 23, 2018

By Matthew Walther

More than a decade and a half after the septic holding tank was overturned in Boston, the unfathomable noxious waste of sexual abuse by Catholic priests in this country is still seeping out in fetid drips.

As a Catholic, I believe that the Church was founded by the apostle St. Peter at the behest of Christ Himself. I also believe that it was for many years and will for many more still remain a cesspool.

A month ago, Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, D.C., was removed from public ministry after credible allegations were made that he had abused a 16-year-old altar boy in 1971. Almost immediately after the announcement was made, it was revealed that at least two settlements had been made with victims — both of them adults at the time of the assaults — of McCarrick in the last decade. Now The New York Times reports that McCarrick began molesting a boy identified only as “James” when the latter was 11. This was a boy whom the future cardinal had himself baptized only two weeks after his ordination to the sacrificing priesthood. The abuse continued for 20 years. McCarrick allegedly referred to James as his “special boy” and insisted that the child and his siblings call him “Uncle Ted.” When James tried to tell his parents about the things his “uncle” forced him to do, he was told that he must be lying. (Through a spokesperson, McCarrick declined to respond to the Times’ request for comment. He has said elsewhere that he is cooperating with the Church’s investigation of the allegations.)

James was not the only one of Uncle Ted’s nephews. For decades it appears that McCarrick forced seminarians in his diocese to spend weekends with him at a beach house, where they were made to share his bed. There they were asked to rub his shoulders and to sit quietly while he groped their genitals. According to one file shared with the Times, McCarrick requested that a seminarian put on a striped sailor suit and a pair of shorts before joining him in bed. It was made clear to all of his victims that saying nothing was a necessary condition of their flourishing in his diocese and the wider Church.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
Fox News

July 23, 2018

By Lukas Mikelionis

Over 50 former and current University of Southern California students sued the school on Monday for allegedly mishandling complaints that a longtime gynecologist engaged in inappropriate behavior during pelvic exams.

The latest suit brings the number of people suing the university and Dr. George Tyndall to over a hundred of former and current students.

California’s state Department of Education said last month that was probing the university’s response the accusations against Tyndall, including him touching female students during campus office visits and improperly photographing or making comments about the women’s bodies.

Some complaints were made as early as 1990 but weren’t fully investigated up until 2016. There are over 400 students who also reported the former gynecologist through a university hotline.

“The University is conducting a thorough investigation into this matter,” USC said in a statement Monday. “We will be seeking a prompt and fair resolution that is respectful of our former students. We are committed to providing the women of USC with the best, most thorough and respectful health care services of any university.”

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SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Reuters

July 23, 2018

By Aislinn Laing and Cassandra Garrison

The Chilean civil authorities are investigating 36 accusations of sexual abuse against bishops, clerics and lay workers in the Roman Catholic Church, the national prosecutor’s office said on Monday.

The investigations are among 144 reports of sexual abuse implicating 158 Church workers made since 2000, it added in a statement.

The figures were released at a news conference in the capital Santiago by Luis Torres, the head of human rights and gender crime divisions for the Chilean national prosecutor’s office.

“We have met (with the Chilean Church) and sought to agree a coordinated approach that will help to advance these (live) cases,” he said.

The national prosecuting authority gathered the figures about complaints from around the country for the first time in a bid to take control of a persistent scandal over sexual abuse within the country’s Catholic.

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SEATTLE (WA)
Archdiocese of Seattle

July 23, 2018

Archbishop Raymond G. Hunthausen, who led the Archdiocese of Seattle from 1975 to his retirement in 1991, died July 22, at his home in Helena, Montana, surrounded by members of his family.

He was 96. Upon learning of his death, Archbishop J. Peter Sartain paid tribute to him: “Archbishop Hunthausen was a humble and loving servant of the Lord, and a man of peace. As his successors, Archbishops Murphy, Brunett, and I were the beneficiaries of his pastoral leadership and his development of lay leadership, many programs of outreach to the poor, and other pastoral programs that have made this such a vibrant archdiocese. Above all, he loved the Lord, and that stood out in every conversation I had with this loving and compassionate servant of God. May he rest in peace.”

Archbishop Hunthausen was the last living American bishop to have participated in all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). From 1962 to 1975, he served as bishop of Helena, Montana, and from 1975 to 1991, as archbishop of Seattle.

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ADELAIDE (AUSTRALIA)
The Advertiser

July 23, 2018

By Andrew Hough

https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/adelaide-catholic-archbishop-media-awards-cancelled-over-philip-wilsons-conviction-for-sex-abuse-cover-up/news-story/92b7811f93e5719e262dba3bc2c0afe4

A popular Catholic Church media awards has been cancelled for the first time in almost three decades after the disgraced Adelaide Archbishop’s conviction for covering up child sex abuse.

The Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide media citations was founded in 1990 to promote “professional excellence” as well as a “commitment to truth, balance, fairness and community service”.

But yesterday it emerged the gongs, which Advertiser journalists entered, have been cancelled in the wake of the jail term handed to Philip Edwards Wilson, 67.

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ADELAIDE (AUSTRALIA)
The Advertiser

July 20, 2018

By Elizabeth Henson

https://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/national-council-of-priests-of-australia-ask-pope-to-sack-philip-wilson-as-adelaide-archbishop/news-story/f627000dc2c90fe1a4d34d18ee5ffa52

The National Council of Priests of Australia has joined growing calls for disgraced Archbishop Philip Wilson to be sacked after he was convicted of covering up the sexual abuse of altar boys.

The council is appealing to Pope Francis to step in and fire Wilson, 67.

“For the good of the church in Australia and for the benefit of the people of God in the Archdiocese of Adelaide, the executive of the (council) requests that the Holy Father, Pope Francis, removes Archbishop Philip Wilson from his See,” the council said in a statement on Friday evening.

It came a day after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull also lobbied the Pope to fire Wilson, who was sentenced to 12 months’ jail over his silence about a paedophile priest’s sex offending.

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SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
9 News / A Current Affair

July 24, 2018

A retired Catholic priest convicted of indecently assaulting three boys is still being financially supported by the Church, which has even provided him with a new car.

Robert Francis Flaherty was five years ago convicted of the assaults, which took place in the ’70s and ’80s.

Speaking with remarkable candidness to A Current Affair, Flaherty openly made admissions about two of the attacks.

“Back in 1972 I was accused of touching a teenager. He consented to it, he was about 14 or 15,” he said.

That victim was an altar boy at Our Lady of the Rosary Church at St Mary’s.

“There may have been mutual touching, nothing else,” Flaherty said.

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NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

July 24, 2018

By Juliet Macur

Investigators working on behalf of Ohio State University are digging through decades of records to piece together what might have happened decades ago, when Dr. Richard H. Strauss was a team doctor and, according to recent accounts, engaged in some form of sexual misconduct with more than 100 former students.

That misconduct occurred from 1979 to 1997, those former students have said. But Ohio State’s sex abuse crisis and its apparent failure to provide abused athletes with an adequate support system may have extended to more-recent years.

Eszter Pryor, a former diver who trained with the Ohio State University Diving Club as a teenager, discussed in an interview on Monday an abusive relationship that she had in 2014, when she was 16, with a 28-year-old diving coach at the university, where the diving club trained. She said she felt stuck in the relationship because there was no athlete advocate she could call and no way to report the abuse without repercussions.

Ms. Pryor, 21, filed a federal class-action lawsuit earlier this month in which she claims that the assistant coach, Will Bohonyi, forced her to have sex with him starting in 2014. She is suing Mr. Bohonyi, U.S.A. Diving and the Ohio State University Diving Club over the sexual abuse she said she endured. A criminal investigation is also continuing.

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SEATTLE (WA)
Associated Press via KVEO

July 23, 2018

By Gene Johnson

Retired Seattle Archbishop Raymond G. Hunthausen, whose outspoken support for nuclear disarmament, gay rights and an expanded role for women in the church made him one of the most controversial U.S. bishops, has died at 96.

Hunthausen died Sunday at his home in Helena, Montana, the Seattle Archdiocese said.

Hunthausen, who was born in Montana, served as the bishop of Helena from 1962 to 1975 and as archbishop of Seattle from 1975 to 1991. He was the last living American bishop to have participated in all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council, called by the pope in the early 1960s to modernize the church, the archdiocese said.

* * *

Advocates for sex abuse victims say Hunthausen could have done more to protect young parishioners, but they also credit him with being more proactive than his predecessors or other bishops around the country. The archdiocese has paid out tens of millions of dollars to child sex abuse victims, including in many cases that stemmed from Hunthausen’s tenure.

In 2009, Hunthausen became one of the highest ranking Catholic officials in the U.S. to testify at a sex-abuse trial, one that pertained to a priest who had been transferred from Spokane to Seattle for deviancy treatment. Hunthausen granted the priest, Patrick G. O’Donnell, full powers of ministry without the documentation usually required for transferred priests.

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SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Associated Press via Tampa Bay Times

July 24, 2018

Chile has investigated 158 members of the country’s Roman Catholic Church for committing or covering up sexual abuse against minors and adults, the national prosecutor’s office said Monday.

The investigations include reports of abuse by bishops, clerics and lay workers filed since 2000. Some of the cases date as far back as 1960.

In all, the number of victims is 266. That includes 178 children and teenagers, and 31 adults. The age of victims was not established in 57 other cases.

The nationwide figures follow an avalanche of sex abuse and cover-up cases that have recently embattled Chile’s Catholic Church and prompted Pope Francis earlier this year to publicly denounce a “culture of abuse and cover-up.”

The pope also said he was ashamed that neither he nor Chilean church leaders truly ever listened to victims as the country’s abuse scandal spiraled.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

July 24, 2018

By Michelle Boorstein

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/07/24/catholic-church-officials-and-sex-abuse-survivor-advocates-battle-over-release-of-800-page-grand-jury-report-in-pa/?utm_term=.3e02b6baf4d7

Lawyers for Pennsylvania, the Catholic Church and victims of clergy sex abuse are battling behind closed court doors over an 800-page-plus grand jury report detailing allegations of clerical abuse in six of the state’s eight Catholic dioceses.

Catholics across Pennsylvania — which is believed to have done more investigations of institutional child sex abuse than any other state — were expecting to see results of the 18-month-long probe in June. But people who are named in the report, but not charged, then petitioned, saying that to name them violates their constitutional rights. For weeks court and state lawyers have been before the state Supreme Court, arguing about the redacting of names and entire sections and what can be released.

As of Monday, the high court’s June 20 stay remained in place, but some experts and clergy said the high-profile case could hold bishops and other high-ranking clergy accountable for endangering children.

Such a legal shift already occurred in the case of Monsignor William Lynn, secretary of clergy for the Philadelphia Archdiocese, who was convicted in 2012 in a ground-breaking case – the first in the nation to send a cleric to jail for not protecting children. Lynn’s conviction was later overturned on appeal and he has been granted a new trial.

However, the question of how wide the net of responsibility for children legally goes remains central in that case, said Marci Hamilton, an attorney with CHILD USA, a think tank aimed at preventing child abuse. The state Supreme Court said Lynn’s new trial should be governed by the theory that superiors can be responsible for endangering not only children specifically in their care but also those who could be potentially at risk as well. The new grand jury is another major chance to test whether high-ranking Catholic officials will be held accountable for children who were harmed, she said.

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BOSTON (MA)
UPI

July 23, 2018

[See the Reilly Report, referenced in this UPI feature and lying next to the demonstrator in the photo. In 2008, the Boston archdiocese counted 1,476 cases.]

On July 23, 2003, the Massachusetts attorney general said an investigation indicated nearly 1,000 cases of abuse by Roman Catholic priests and other church personnel in the Boston diocese over 60 years.

Photo Caption: A protester adds the name of a defrocked priest to the top of the “Cross of Shame” on July 30, 2003, outside the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston. On July 23, 2003, the Massachusetts attorney general said an investigation indicated nearly 1,000 cases of abuse by Roman Catholic priests and other church personnel in the Boston diocese over 60 years.

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NEW YORK (NY)
National Review

July 23, 2018

By Michael Brendan Dougherty

The idea that the Church’s sexual-abuse problem will dissipate as older generations of priests die off has always been an excuse to avoid reform.

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick visited my class at Sacred Heart Elementary in Bloomfield, N.J., once. The teachers reminded us before he arrived that by virtue of his office he was a successor to the Apostles. I remember mentally taking guesses as to which of the original twelve his office descended from. Thinking back on it, I’m relieved that he never got to know me, or know that I was the child of a single mother.

About a decade ago, my wife and I sat in the office of a young Catholic priest. He was a good priest, and gradually, as the conversation went on, both he and we dropped enough key phrases into the chat to signal that we were like-minded about what we saw as Catholicism’s moral, spiritual, and liturgical crisis. Everyone relaxed considerably. I ventured my low opinion of his bishop, a revered cardinal. He didn’t contradict me. I then offered that it was young priests like him who would restore the Church. He was part of a heroic generation that had entered the priesthood at the nadir of the priest-abuse crisis, inspired by John Paul II. He had a different mindset than those in the generations immediately before him, who were formed in the 50s, 60s, and 70s and believed that they had to implement the more experimental, accommodating spirit of Vatican II. “Once they die off . . .” I started. And the young priest chimed in. “Exactly. They will be gone.”

What we were talking about had a name in Catholic circles. It was called “the biological solution.” Roughly speaking, it meant that priests attached to the reforming visions and the theological fads of mid 20th century would, by the simple process of aging and dying, be replaced by the younger, more tradition-minded, and less morally lax generation. The heavy implication was that the problem of moral cronyism in the Church, in which sexually compromised priests cover and cover-up for one another, would mostly solve itself over time.

The biological solution has long since stopped being a kind of secret handshake among young traditionalists. It has become a cause of division and crisis within religious orders. And it is obviously on the mind of Pope Francis, who seems never to be short of anecdotes about “rigid” young priests and wise old liberals.

But the past decade has taught me something: We were wrong. There is no biological solution to a moral, spiritual, and liturgical crisis.

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CALCUTTA (INDIA)
The Telegraph

July 24, 2018

Kochi: Kerala High Court on Monday granted bail to a Christian priest, arrested on the charge of sexually exploiting a married woman for years with three other priests after blackmailing her with her confession secrets.

Johnson V. Mathew, a counsellor of the Malankara Orthodox Church, was arrested from Kozhencherry in Pathanamthitta district on July 13 and charged with “outraging the modesty of a woman”.

Mathew, the second priest to be arrested in the case, had applied to the high court after a magistrate in Thiruvalla rejected his bail plea.

Granting bail, Justice Rajavijayaraghavan directed the priest to surrender his passport, cooperate with the investigation and not enter the limits of the police station where the woman lives.

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MADISON (WI)
Wisconsin Public Radio

July 23, 2018

By Laurel White

Critics Accuse Democratic Gubernatorial Candidate of Covering Up Abuse

Democratic candidate for governor Matt Flynn continued to defend his work as a lawyer for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee on Monday, pushing back in particular on claims he was involved with the transfer of abusive priests between parishes.

Flynn represented the archdiocese from 1989 until 2004, during the priest sexual abuse scandal.

His campaign for governor has been peppered with criticism from both the right and left for that work. On Monday, his campaign released a letter from former Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland rebutting claims Flynn was involved in the transfer of abusive priests.

“The lawyers were not involved,” Weakland wrote.

According to Weakland, some priests who had undergone therapy were reassigned, but the process was overseen by a priest personnel board.

“Looking back, I would frankly have to admit that we were all extremely naïve,” Weakland wrote. “We did not understand the power of recidivism in such cases.”

A longtime Milwaukee priest, Domenic Roscioli, on Monday refuted Weakland’s claim.

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MECHANICSVILLE (PA)
PennLive

July 23, 2018

By Ivey DeJesus

As Catholic officials and the faithful across Pennsylvania await the release of a comprehensive statewide investigation report into clergy sex abuse, arguably the state’s most outspoken Catholic bishop reiterated a warning as to the severity of those findings.

“It certainly is going to be sobering,” said Bishop Lawrence Persico, the head of the Erie Diocese. “The report is rather graphic, and it will be very detailed on what has occurred.”

During a phone interview with PennLive this weekend from his diocese, Persico broached broad and specific issues regarding the 18-month-long investigation by the state Office of Attorney General. The grand jury report remains under a court seal amid challenges filed by at least two dozen priests and other individuals named in the report but not charged.

“I think in looking historically at it you may see bishops named who probably in view of the way we do things now as compared to 20 or 30 years ago, it would not be considered acceptable that type of action,” he said.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

July 23, 2018

By Harriet Sherwood

Prince Charles and Lord Carey among powerful backers of Peter Ball, abuse inquiry told

Members of the establishment, including the heir to the throne, the then archbishop of Canterbury and a senior member of the judiciary, rallied to the support of Peter Ball, a Church of England bishop accused of sexual abuse, an independent inquiry has heard.

“The story of Peter Ball is the story of the establishment at work in modern times,” said William Chapman, representing survivors. “It is the story of how the establishment minimised the nature of Peter Ball’s misdeeds … and silenced and harassed those who tried to complain.”

One survivor told the inquiry the C of E’s response to his disclosure of abuse amounted to “enduringly cruel and sadistic treatment”.

The independent inquiry into child sexual abuse is examining how the church handled allegations. A five-day hearing this week is scrutinising the church’s response to claims of sexual abuse against Ball, a former bishop of Lewes and then Gloucester, who was jailed in 2015.

Ball was able to call upon the “willing assistance of members of the establishment”, said Chapman. “It included the heir to the throne, the archbishop and a senior member of the judiciary, to name only the most prominent.”

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UNITED STATES
Inforum

July 20, 2018

By Jon Lindgren

The news story about Cardinal McCarrick was so devastating it is hard to fathom behavior this terrible. A Cardinal, of course, is among the highest ranking of Catholic clergy.

Now in his 80’s, he has finally been defrocked. But for 30 years the management of the Catholic Church has know, even acknowledged by secret payments to victims, this man is a pedophile. The church kept this secret and McCarrick retained his credentials.

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MADISON (WI)
Wisconsin State Journal

July 23, 2018

By Mathew DeFour

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Matt Flynn’s role in the Milwaukee Archdiocese priest abuse scandal received new attention Monday as a letter surfaced showing he met twice with a priest to discuss abuse allegations that weren’t referred to police until nine years later.

Flynn has maintained throughout the campaign that he didn’t represent abusive priests and was not part of what abuse victims say was a cover-up by the Archdiocese.

On Monday in a 45-minute conference call with reporters he confirmed the 1993 meeting with Marvin Knighton occurred and said he had similar meetings with “a handful of others.” But he disputed Knighton’s characterization that Flynn advised to wait and see if the alleged victim filed a complaint.

“What he says there is false,” Flynn said. “I insisted (the archdiocese) go to the police on any allegation.”

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INDIA
The Print

July 22, 2018

By Chitleen K. Sethi

Baba Amarpuri allegedly filmed the women he raped. In some cases, he used the footage to blackmail the victims for money.

Chandigarh: Amarpuri, a 60-year-old baba or religious preacher from Haryana who has been accused of allegedly raping 60 women, some of them more than once, was also blackmailing his victims for money, said sources in the Haryana Police Saturday.

Baba Amarpuri had not only allegedly raped his victims but also filmed them. In some cases, he was blackmailing the victims using the footage, forcing them to continue to have sexual relations with him. From his richer clients, he was allegedly extracting money to keep their video footage under wraps.

He was arrested from his house-cum-temple premises in Tohana in Haryana’s Fatehabad district Thursday on fresh charges of rape. This is the second case of rape registered against him. He was on bail for an earlier rape charge leveled against him October last year.

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UNITED STATES
National Review

July 23, 2018

By Michael Brendan Dougherty

The idea that the Church’s sexual-abuse problem will dissipate as older generations of priests die off has always been an excuse to avoid reform.

Cardinal Theodore McCarrick visited my class at Sacred Heart Elementary in Bloomfield, N.J., once. The teachers reminded us before he arrived that by virtue of his office he was a successor to the Apostles. I remember mentally taking guesses as to which of the original twelve his office descended from. Thinking back on it, I’m relieved that he never got to know me, or know that I was the child of a single mother.

About a decade ago, my wife and I sat in the office of a young Catholic priest. He was a good priest, and gradually, as the conversation went on, both he and we dropped enough key phrases into the chat to signal that we were like-minded about what we saw as Catholicism’s moral, spiritual, and liturgical crisis. Everyone relaxed considerably. I ventured my low opinion of his bishop, a revered cardinal. He didn’t contradict me. I then offered that it was young priests like him who would restore the Church. He was part of a heroic generation that had entered the priesthood at the nadir of the priest-abuse crisis, inspired by John Paul II. He had a different mindset than those in the generations immediately before him, who were formed in the 50s, 60s, and 70s and believed that they had to implement the more experimental, accommodating spirit of Vatican II. “Once they die off . . .” I started. And the young priest chimed in. “Exactly. They will be gone.”

What we were talking about had a name in Catholic circles. It was called “the biological solution.” Roughly speaking, it meant that priests attached to the reforming visions and the theological fads of mid 20th century would, by the simple process of aging and dying, be replaced by the younger, more tradition-minded, and less morally lax generation. The heavy implication was that the problem of moral cronyism in the Church, in which sexually compromised priests cover and cover-up for one another, would mostly solve itself over time.

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PANAJI (INDIA)
Indo-Asian News Service /NDTV

July 23, 2018

The court has granted him interim bail until the next hearing on Wednesday.

Goa’s Mangueshi temple priest who was charged for molesting two women, has claimed that one of them fabricated the charges against him after he refused to allow the unmarried woman into the sanctum sanctorum.
The court has granted him interim bail until the next hearing on Wednesday.

The accused, Dhanajay Bhave, told the Ponda additional district and sessions court on Saturday, that he “tried to explain to the complainant that as per the norms and the rules of the devasthan, unmarried daughters/unmarried girls cannot enter the gabhara (sanctum sanctorum) of the temple”.

Bhave, who has worked at the temple as a priest for 28 years, even told her to sit outside till her parents returned.

However, the complainant picked up a quarrel with Bhave and insisted on entering the gabhara, as according to her, there is no basis for refusal, he told the court in his petition.

Bhave has been charged under the Indian Penal Code (IPC) section 354 for outraging the modesty of a woman.

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INDIA
Gulf News

July 23, 2018

Last week a magisterial court in Thiruvalla had rejected his bail, following which he approached the high court

Kochi: The Kerala High Court on Monday granted bail to Father Johnson V. Mathew, one of the four priests accused in a rape case of a woman parishioner.

The court, however, asked the Malankara Orthodox Church priest to surrender his passport.

Mathew was arrested on July 13, from near Thiruvalla by the Crime Branch police probing the case. He has been holed up at the Pathanamthitta district jail since.
Last week a magisterial court in Thiruvalla had rejected his bail, following which he approached the high court.
In this case the Crime Branch has charged four Kerala priests, including Father Job Mathew who was the first to be nabbed and Father Johnson V. Mathew. Father Sony (Abraham) Varghese and Father Jaice K. George had moved the Supreme Court and managed to get a stay order till their petition is finally disposed.

While Mathew who got the bail on Monday, has been charged for outraging the modesty of a lady, the three others have been charged for rape.

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CHILE
La Tercera

July 23, 2018

By Claudia Soto

[Prosecutor’s office details cases of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church: Almost 140 priests investigated and more than 260 victims]

De acuerdo al reporte elaborado por el Ministerio Público, desde 1960, 158 personas relacionadas a esa institución han sido investigadas en 144 indagatorias. En el informe, se agrega además que el 66% de las víctimas son niñas, niños o adolescentes.

Este mediodía, el Ministerio Público dio a conocer un reporte con el detalle de los casos de abuso sexual cometidos por miembros de la Iglesia Católica de Chile en contra de niñas, niños y adolescentes principalmente, desde el año 1960 a la fecha. En el escrito, se indica que todas las regiones del país reportaron al menos un caso, pero la mayor concentración de estos se encuentran en la Metropolitana, Biobío y Valparaíso.

De acuerdo al documento, en total 158 personas han sido investigadas en 144 indagatorias distintas. De ellas, 74 corresponden a obispos, sacerdotes, diáconos que no pertenecen a una congregación, mientras que 65 sí pertenecen a una, donde 16 son salesianos y 15 son maristas. Lo que hace un total de 139 religiosos involucrados en casos de abuso sexual.

Además, se indica que 10 laicas o laicos a cargo de pastorales -de parroquias o colegios- han sido investigadas y otras otras nueve personas cercanas a alguna institución eclesiástica que están involucradas en algún caso, pero que no se ha podido determinar cuál es su función.

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CHILE
AFP

July 22, 2018

Bishops, priests and lay people are among 158 members of Chile’s Catholic Church under investigation for perpetrating or concealing the sexual abuse of children and adults, the public prosecutor revealed on Monday.

The cases relate to 144 separate investigations into incidents dating back as far as 1960 and involving 266 victims, including 178 children and adolescents, according to details given at a press conference by prosecutor Luis Torres.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philly.com

July 22, 2018

SR. MAUREEN A. TURLISH, SND de N

On July 18, 2018, beloved daughter of the late Paul and Mary (nee Dunn) Turlish; loving sister of Paul Turlish and his wife Janice; dear Aunt of James Paul Turlish, Jenine Steltz and her husband Brian, and Kelly Ann Turlish Lampe. A Mass of Christian Burial will be held on Tuesday, July 24th, at Villa Julie Chapel, 1531 Greenspring Valley Road, Stevenson, at 10:30 A.M., preceded by a Visitation at 9:30 A.M. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions in her memory may be made to the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, Development Office, P.O. Box 157, Stevenson, MD 21153.

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UNITED STATES
Catholic 4 Change

July 20, 2018

By Susan Mathews

You’re a bold and brazen article. Back in the day, an Irish nun might shame a defiant student with this derogatory phrase. Today, I honor a nun with it. Sister Maureen Paul Turlish was a bold and brazen article for all the right reasons. The Sister of Notre de Namur was a rebel with a cause. She tirelessly advocated for victims of clergy sex abuse and the misled faithful.

Sr. Maureen died on July 18th in Cincinnati, Ohio.

In remembering her today, Kathy and I couldn’t help but laugh. Sr. Maureen was hilarious. Not what one expects when dealing with the horrific and tragic. Her humor was dark, honest and clever. It honored the victims. She was a pistol aimed at clericalism.

Sr. Maureen helped found the National Survivor Advocates Coalition and served on the board of directors for the Delaware Association for Children of Alcoholics and on the steering committee for Philadelphia’s Voice of the Faithful and Catholic WhistleBlowers.

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LOS ANGELES (CA)
GMA

July 23, 2018

By Catherine Thorbecke

Dozens of women who accused a former University of Southern California gynecologist of sexual misconduct plan to file a lawsuit against the doctor and school Monday, arguing that USC knew about the alleged abuse and protected him for decades.

Dr. George Tyndall was the University of Southern California’s sole full-time gynecologist for nearly 30 years, and he treated thousands of students since the late 80s. Tyndall was forced to retire in 2017.

The campus doctor abused “generations of women” for “approximately 30 years,” according to Andy Rubenstein, the attorney representing the 51 women who Rubenstein says plan to file the lawsuit against Tyndall and USC.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Mirror

July 21, 2018

By Alan Selby and Amy Sharpe

They broke anonymity to get a change in the law that robs them of closure

All these women were sexually abused in their childhood homes by the very people they should have been able to trust.

They grew up with no safety or security, robbed of their innocence by those who should have loved and cared for them.

Today these fragile survivors waive their anonymity and stand together to fight for a change in the law that robs them of compensation and closure.

While the monsters responsible have mostly been brought to justice, these women say they are now being victimised all over again.

Under the absurd so-called Same Roof Rule, victims who lived with and were abused by their attacker up until 1979 are not entitled to compensation.

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UNITED KINGDOM
Sky News

July 19, 2018

The Prince of Wales exchanged letters with disgraced former bishop Peter Ball, who was jailed for abusing young men.

The Prince of Wales is to give evidence at a long-running inquiry into institutional child sexual abuse.

Prince Charles will provide a written statement to be read next Thursday at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, which is looking into the handling of allegations made against disgraced ex-bishop Peter Ball.

The former bishop of Gloucester – whose diocese covers the prince’s country home of Highgrove – was sentenced to 32 months in 2015 for sexually abusing young men in the 1970s.

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VATICAN CITY
La Croix International

July 20, 108

By Robert Mickens

There is an elephant in the sacristy no one is talking about, at least not in a healthy way

Just three days before the 2013 conclave began I wrote a few brief words about Scottish Cardinal Keith Patrick O’Brien’s decision not to attend the papal election.

A few weeks earlier he had been accused of having forced a number of seminarians and young priests into having sex (one that turned into a relationship) in the 1980s.

O’Brien, who died this past March, immediately resigned as Archbishop of St. Andrews and Edinburgh even though he was still months shy of his 75th birthday. He also announced, obviously under the Vatican pressure, that he would not attend the conclave.

“I do not wish media attention in Rome to be focused on me – but rather on Pope Benedict XVI and on his successor,” the cardinal said.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
The American Conservative

July 20, 2018

By Rod Dreher

One obvious next step in the Cardinal McCarrick story is uncovering more victims of his abuse. We now know of two. I would bet that there will surely be more. But that’s not the most interesting or important part of the story.

The key now is to uncover the networks within the clergy and episcopate. Some of you might have seen the shocking story that reader Mark Crawford told in the comments section here in recent days. I found that he told the same story in testimony before the New Jersey legislature in 2004. Here’s a portion of that testimony:

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NEW YORK (NY)
America Magazine

July 17, 2018

Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, retired archbishop of Washington, is pictured during a reception for new cardinals at the Vatican Feb. 22, 2014. Cardinal McCarrick said he will no longer exercise any public ministry “in obedience” to the Vatican after an allegation he abused a teenager 47 years ago was found credible. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)
The Catholic Church cannot pretend to be shocked about the pattern of sexual abuse of adult seminarians by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, recently detailed in a comprehensive story in The New York Times. As The Times made clear in its reporting, many church leaders had received multiple notices of the cardinal’s behavior. Local dioceses had been told; the papal nuncio in Washington, D.C., had been told; and, eventually, even Pope Benedict XVI had been told.

But none of these reports interrupted Cardinal McCarrick’s rise through the ranks nor his appointment as cardinal nor his eventual retirement in 2006 as a respected leader of the U.S. church. Nor did these reports lead to his removal last month from public ministry, which finally resulted from a credible allegation of abuse of a minor almost 50 years ago, recently revealed and acted on by the Archdiocese of New York.

It is true that none of the earlier reports of abuse alleged criminal behavior with minors, but they were serious enough that Cardinal McCarrick should have been called to account for the terrible misuse of his office and authority. The church and its leaders should be ashamed of their failure to do so. The slow and halting progress the church has made by way of reforms adopted in response to the sexual abuse of children, for example through the Dallas charter, has been called into question by the revelation of its ongoing failures to deal with other reports of abuse. Nor should the media, including us in Catholic media (Cardinal McCarrick was a longtime friend of this magazine and delivered the homily at our centennial celebration in 2009), be absolved of responsibility for any failure to take these and other rumors and reports as seriously as was required. To demand accountability only of the hierarchy is itself hypocrisy.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

July 23, 2018

By Phyllis Zagano

It’s time for the church worldwide to face up to abuse of power by bishops

Can we face the heartbreaking facts? It is time for #MeToo in the Catholic Church. There is too much abusive behavior by — or ignored by — Catholic bishops.

Washington, D.C.’s former archbishop, Cardinal Theodore (“Uncle Ted”) McCarrick, reportedly was overly fond of his seminarians, and was finally punished for abusing a minor 47 years ago. Everybody knew. Nobody did anything.

Bishop Franco Mulakkal of Jalandhar (near the border with Pakistan) is accused of rape. Accused by a woman religious. There seem to be 18 other sisters with similar stories about Mulakkal and a lawsuit against the cardinal who did not respond to the allegations. Why?

Moreover, who’s next?

It’s time for the church worldwide to face up to abuse of power by bishops, especially but not only the physical and emotional abuse whispered about in seminaries, chanceries and gay bars. In the U.S., the famous (infamous?) 2002 “Dallas Charter” is all about priests, deacons and minors. Bishops are not under the charter’s jurisdiction. Yet the root of this problem is at the top, not the bottom.

The problem is endemic, and the problem is real.

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VESTAL (NY)
WSKG

July 23, 2018

By Katie Meyer

Harrisburg – If a common pleas judge in Cambria County gets his way, more information may be released about a sweeping grand jury report on sexual abuse of children in six of Pennsylvania’s eight Catholic dioceses.

Norman Krumenacker, the Cambria County judge who presided over the investigation, said Friday a legal response from the state attorney general that includes some information from the report should be released.

The grand jury report was initially slated for release late last month.

But a number of current and former clergy members challenged it, arguing its release would violate their constitutional rights because they were named but not charged. So, the state Supreme Court stayed the report, allowing more time for appeals.

Attorney General Josh Shapiro recently filed an argument in favor of releasing the report, which includes some of the information in the report itself.

Shapiro’s brief hasn’t been made public yet.

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MECHANICSBURG (PA)
PennLive

July 23, 2018

By Charles Thompson

Many Pennsylvanians are waiting anxiously to see what’s in the 40th Statewide Investigating Grand Jury’s report on the Roman Catholic church’s handling of past abuse allegations against its priests.

Prosecutors hinted at a release in late June.

And then, court battles intervened.

But if you think this latest delay is a precursor to killing the report, however, think again.

Lawyers on all sides privately seem to expect the document will come out. Church officials have been openly preparing their latter-day congregants for it.

The fight now is down to the intersection of a pretty limited battle from a handful of people trying to protect their reputations from what they claim are investigative errors, and an abiding interest by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the state’s sometimes-controversial grand jury process.

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LA CROSSE (WI)
La Crosse Tribune

July 22, 2018

By Vince Hatt

On a snowy night in April 2018, Juan Carlos Cruz was at his home near Philadelphia watching Netflix and eating Honey Nut Cheerios. The phone rang. It was a Vatican official. The pope wanted to apologize to Cruz.

When I heard about this, I pumped my fist in the air and yelled “Yes!” The pope was about to start a game-changer in the long-running sexual abuse scandal in the church.

Here’s the story. In January 2018, Pope Francis visited Chile to heal a divided church. It did not happen. Rather, evidence was presented to him that one of his appointees, Bishop Juan Carlos Barros, was protecting one of his priests who had sexually abused young men. The pope not only criticized those speaking against the bishop, he charged them with slander.

The response of the National Catholic Reporter was immediate and harsh. A January 23 editorial stated: “The overwhelming consensus in the media is that Pope Francis has a blind spot when it comes to sexual abuse. … He just doesn’t get it when it comes to victims of abuse. The evidence for this assertion is the pope’s unwavering support for Juan Barros.”

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CONCEPCIÓN (CHILE)
Sabes

July 14, 2018

[#LetterToDirector: They accuse the priest of Concepción of rape]

Estimados y estimadas:

La presente es para dar a conocer el horrible acontecimiento que como familia hemos estado viviendo, contarle el gran dolor que desde hace muchos años estamos padeciendo. Jamás pensamos que como personas, como católicos y como padres llegaríamos a vivir. Siempre confiamos en la Iglesia, siempre nos sentimos orgullosos de pertenecer a ella.

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CHILE
CIPER (Centro de Investigación Periodística)

July 18, 2018

By Pedro Ramírez

[New testimony accuses Ezzati of concealing a priest accused of rape. Nun affirms that she alerted him in 2006 about a priest.]

Monja afirma que lo alertó en 2006 sobre el sacerdote

Apenas aterrizó en Concepción en 2006 como arzobispo, Ricardo Ezzati recibió a una monja, directora de un colegio, quien lo alertó sobre las relaciones de un grupo de sacerdotes homosexuales que tenían contacto con jóvenes. Uno de ellos era Hernán Enríquez. Le pidió que los apartara de los colegios. Nada sucedió. Tres años después, Ezzati recibió la denuncia de un padre que acusó a Enríquez de haber violado a su hijo en el Seminario Menor de esa ciudad. El arzobispo dijo haber investigado, pero Enríquez siguió de profesor y en 2012 Ezzati lo premió prologando un libro del sacerdote. La violación del menor y su encubrimiento recién se conocen en Concepción.

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CHILE
Cooperativa.cl

July 17, 2018

[Archbishop of Concepción confirmed suspension of priest accused of rape]

* El Arzobispado realiza una nueva investigación en contra del sacerdote Hernán Enríquez tras una denuncia conocida el fin de semana.

* Fernando Chomalí además pidió al denunciante anónimo que se acerque a la Iglesia.

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CHILE
soychile.cl

July 20, 2018

[Bishop Galo Fernandez said he felt “deeply deceived” by former chancellor of the archbishopric accused of abuse]

El sacerdote aseguró que no conocía ninguna acusación previa a los hechos que se hicieron públicos.

“De Óscar tenía muy buena impresión, de una persona muy dedicada y trabajadora, dedicada a las tareas. Jamás me habría imaginado la situación en la que estamos”, dijo a La Tercera el administrador apostólico de la Diócesis de Talca, Galo Fernández, refiriéndose al caso del ex canciller del arzobispado capitalino, Óscar Muñoz Toledo. El sacerdote, se encuentra detenido mientras es investigado por la fiscalía de O´Higgins, por cargos de estupro y abuso sexual.

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SANTIAGO (CHILE)
El Mercurio / Emol.com

July 22, 2018

[Bishop Goic questioned treatment that Archbishop Ezzati gave to cases of sexual abuse in the Church

“Sometimes I have the impression, perhaps very subjective, that you do not share the criteria of the National Commission on these sensitive issues,” he wrote in the middle of the investigation into the Karadima case in 2013.]

[See also the article in El Mercurio.]

“A veces tengo la impresión, quizás muy subjetiva, que no compartes los criterios de la Comisión Nacional en estos delicados temas”, le escribió en medio de la investigación por el caso Karadima en 2013.

En medio de la investigación que realiza el fiscal regional de O’Higgins, Emiliano Arias, sobre un eventual encubrimiento en casos de abuso sexual cometidos por sacerdotes, se descrubió una carta escrita por el actual obispo emérito Alejandro Goic dirigida al arzobispo Ricardo Ezzati.

El año 2013, cuando se reveló el caso Karadima, Goic oficiaba como obispo de Rancagua y presidente de la Comisión Nacional de Prevención de Abusos. Bajo ese cargo se dirigió al líder de la Iglesia chilena por escrito, en una carta que fue incautada ahora por el Ministerio Público desde el obispado de esa ciudad, y de la que se desconoce si finalmente fue enviada y conocida por Ezzati.

“A veces tengo la impresión, quizás muy subjetiva, que no compartes los criterios de la Comisión Nacional en estos delicados temas. A su vez, miembros de la Comisión manifiestan su disconformidad frente a algunas situaciones que te ha tocado asumir. A mí no me ha sido fácil. Mantener la comunión contigo y respetar y escuchar los juicios críticos de los integrantes requiere un equilibrio complejo. Quizás, es responsabilidad mía, ha faltado provocar un diálogo fraterno, en que, por el amor al Señor y a la Iglesia, conversemos sinceramente y aunemos criterios en materias que han marcado dolorosamente nuestra Iglesia”, dice la misiva revelada hoy por El Mercurio.

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DENVER (CO)
Crux

July 23, 2018

By Inés San Martín

Vatican City – Despite repeated attempts to distance himself from his country’s sexual abuse crisis, including recently asserting there’s a climate of “slander” against the Catholic Church, Chilean Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati of Santiago is facing mounting scrutiny for his role in the scandals both from outside the Church and in.

The latest headache for Ezzati, who heads the Archdiocese of Santiago, Chile’s capital, has come with the revelation of a letter by a brother archbishop, Alejandro Goic, who until recently led the Archdiocese of Rancagua.

Pope Francis accepted Goic’s resignation in June, after the bishop acknowledged he’d taken too long to respond to accusations that priests in his diocese were involved in a ring of abuses, including homosexuality and prostitution. A few days earlier, Goic had resigned his position as head of a national commission for abuse prevention.

On Sunday, a Chilean newspaper published a letter Goic had written as head of that commission on June 11, 2013, which was addressed to Ezzati.

“Sometimes I have the impression, perhaps subjective, that you don’t share the criteria of the national commission in these delicate issues,” he said, referring to the child abuse scandals.

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EASTON (PA)
The Express-Times

July 21, 2018

By Nick Falsone

A judge has ordered the release secret grand jury report on allegations of priest sex abuse dating back decades and involving six Pennsylvania dioceses, including the Diocese of Allentown.

Cambria County Judge Norman A. Krumenacker, who has jurisdiction over the grand jury report, gave the order on Friday in a move that could bring an end to a lengthy legal battle over whether the report should be made public.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro filed a brief arguing for the report’s release earlier this month after the state Supreme Court temporarily sealed it.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported Friday that the Supreme Court decision was based on objections from 14 lawyers representing individuals named in the report, but not charged criminally. Those names have since been redacted.

The judge wrote in his order that the redacted report does not violate grand jury secrecy and “may be filed and made public in its current form at the discretion of the Supreme Court.”

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

July 23, 2018

By Robert Mickens

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/07/23/the-catholic-churchs-sex-abuse-scandals-show-it-has-a-gay-priest-problem-theyre-trapped-in-the-closet/?utm_term=.aacf7b9adfe7

The Catholic Church is being rocked – again – by multiple high-level sexual abuse scandals, with allegations just in recent weeks surfacing in Chile, Honduras and D.C., home to Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, a once-super-popular cleric who is now facing accusations by five males of harassment or abuse.

And again, people say they are shocked and outraged, which shows how Catholics still refuse to see that there is an underlying issue to these cases. It is the fact that almost all of them concern males – whether they are adolescents, post-pubescent teens or young men.

And while no adult who is of sound psychosexual health habitually preys on those who are vulnerable, there is no denying that homosexuality is a key component to the clergy sex abuse (and now sexual harassment) crisis. With such a high percentage of priests with a homosexual orientation, this should not be surprising.

But let me be very clear: psychologically healthy gay men do not rape boys or force themselves on other men over whom they wield some measure of power or authority.

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WARRNAMBOOL (AUSTRALIA)
The Standard

July 22, 2018

By Rachael Houlihan

A south-west survivor of child sex abuse says a Warrnambool Street honouring a senior Catholic priest should be renamed.

The survivor, who cannot be named for legal reasons, says Fiscalini Drive in the Toohey Estate should be changed. She said she told Monsignor Leo Fiscalini she was being sexually abused in 1972 and he accused her of “telling lies” and left her in the care of her abuser.

“The County Court of Victoria has accepted my evidence as truthful, jailing my abuser last year,” she said.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuses acknowledged Fiscalini and Bishop Ronald Mulkearns knew of a complaint Gerald Ridsdale had sexually molested a boy in Mortlake, yet they permitted him to continue working in the area.

Fiscalini instigated the purchase of the land in 1973 where the street now runs.

The woman contacted The Standard after last week reading about Emmanuel College’s decision to erect a plaque acknowledging child sex abuse within the church and that it should never happen again.

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AUSTRALIA
The Canberra Times

July 21, 2018

Catholic bishops and community leaders were quick to issue dramatic and heart felt mea culpas over the church’s failures following the release of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse’s report in December, 2017.

The then president of the Australian Catholic Bishop’s Conference, Denis Hart, cut straight to the heart of the issue: “This is a shameful past, in which a prevailing culture of secrecy and self-protection led to unnecessary suffering for many victims and their families,” he said.

“Once again I reiterate my unconditional apology for this suffering and a commitment to ensuring justice for those affected.”

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AUSTRALIA
The Illawarra Mercury

July 22, 2018

By Joanne McCarthy

Australia’s Catholic priests have issued an extraordinary appeal to the Pope to remove Archbishop Philip Wilson, saying his refusal to resign is “galling” to priests and the community.

The executive of the National Council of Priests of Australia “wholeheartedly” endorsed calls for Wilson’s resignation only a day after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten backed Hunter abuse survivor Peter Gogarty’s call for the Pope to sack the Adelaide archbishop, formally a Wollongong bishop.

In a strongly worded statement described by Mr Gogarty as a “landmark” for the Australian Catholic Church, the NCP slammed the archbishop for refusing to resign after he was convicted of failing to report child sex allegations about Hunter priest Jim Fletcher to police.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

July 20, 2018

By Angela Couloumbis and Liz Navratil

Though a judge has cleared the way for the release of a key court document involving the grand jury report on Catholic clergy sexual abuse in Pennsylvania, the state’s highest court on Friday closed for the day without making it public and without explaining why.

The document was written by the state Attorney General’s Office, which led a nearly two-year grand jury investigation of abuse allegations by Catholic clergy in nearly every diocese in the state. It is expected to reveal new details of what is contained in the more than 800-page report the grand jury produced, portions of which lawyers for current and former clergy members are attempting to block on grounds that they are inaccurate or unfair.

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KOTTAYAM (INDIA)
The Indian Express

As Kerala Church, across denominations, fights the accusations, The Indian Express reports on what has brought it here and the debate within.

By Shaju Philip

On February 15, a 36-year-old employed in a private financial firm was collecting proofs to avoid paying excess tax. The management graduate, hailing from an Orthodox Syrian Christian family, wanted to submit his wife’s insurance policy. Sitting in his house at his native village, 20 km from Kottayam, he logged into his wife’s gmail account to get the statement.

As his wife sat beside him, he stumbled upon a bank statement which showed Rs 9,600 deducted from her account towards a bill from a five-star Kochi hotel in January. When he questioned her, she broke down claiming sexual exploitation going back 17 years by at least five priests of their Church, saying one of them had taken her to that hotel.

As evidence, she showed call details, chat history, social media accounts and bank statements. Since then, two of the priests have been arrested, while two have moved the Supreme Court for anticipatory bail.

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DUBLIN (IRELAND)
The Sunday Times

July 22, 2018

By Laoise Neylon

South Dublin councillors vote against flying standard in honour of visit by Pope Francis

South Dublin county council has voted not to fly the Vatican flag on County Hall in Tallaght during the papal visit next month.

A motion by Renua councillor Ronan McMahon to raise the flag in honour of Pope Francis was defeated by 11 votes to nine last week, with several abstentions.

The council’s protocols allow for the flag of a nation state to be flown in honour of a visiting dignitary, but only if councillors vote in favour.

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KOTTAYAM (INDIA)
Business Standard

July 22, 2018

The police have stepped up protection to a convent near here which is home to a nun who had alleged that she was sexually abused by a Catholic bishop.

“The increased police protection has been given after the police team probing her complaint asked for it,” said the official who did not wish to be identified.

Trouble began for Franco Mulakkal, the Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Jalandhar (Punjab) in June when the nun alleged that she was sexually abused by him several times between 2014 and 2016.

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WASILLA (ALASKA)
The Frontiersman

July 22, 2018

By Tim Rockey

Award-winning journalist and subject of the Academy Award winning 2015 film “Spotlight,” Walter ‘Robby’ Robinson, shared some insights and wisdom of a career spanning nearly five decades in journalism during an afternoon in Wasilla Thursday.

His work as part of the Spotlight team at the Boston Globe led to more than 600 stories detailing systemic abuse by the Catholic Church and subsequent cover-ups in Boston. Robinson, who was portrayed by actor Michael Keaton in the film, discussed journalism in the age of the Internet, principles of journalism, and growing fear for those doing investigative reporting, though not necessarily in the United States. Robinson answered questions for Frontiersman staff prior to a luncheon at Everett’s in Wasilla attended by public officials, teachers, dignitaries and others who wanted to hear what the award-winning journalist had to say.

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ERIE (PA)
The Herald (Sharon PA)

July 22, 2018

By Melissa Klaric

Victims like Daniel Bauer, who says he was sexually abused by a Catholic priest, have waited most of their lives for someone to listen and to validate their claims.

Bauer, 68, of Erie, did not testify in front of the 40th statewide grand jury that for two years investigated claims of child sex abuse by priests and allegations of a coverup by high-ranking church officials in six Pennsylvania Roman Catholic dioceses, including Erie.

“It’s been long enough,” Bauer said. “I’ve been trying to report abuse that happened to me for the past 30 years and each time I try, bishops don’t do anything about it. I feel victimized all over again.”

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General

July 20, 2018

Attorney General Josh Shapiro issued the following statement in response to Judge Norman A. Krumenacker’s Opinion and Order released this morning. The judge’s order and opinion are linked.

“Last week, as directed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Attorney General Shapiro filed a brief to combat efforts to prevent the release of the entire Grand Jury report into child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.”

“Today, Judge Krumenacker ruled in favor of the Commonwealth and victims that our brief should be made public.”

“Our office continues to fight to ensure this report is released and victims’ voices are heard by the people of Pennsylvania. This marks an important step in that process.”

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DUBLIN (IRELAND)
Irish Independent

July 22, 2018

By Jerome Reilly

‘The wounds of abuse are not historic but part of the present’

Pope Francis must address the “wounds” caused by clerical child sex abuse when he visits Ireland next month, Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said yesterday.

The Pope’s two-day visit takes place on August 25 and 26 and coincides with the World Meeting of Families.

Some 80,000 people are expected for the climax of the gathering at Croke Park, with attendees from 116 countries.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

July 22, 2018

By Dan Herbeck

Gary Astridge and Robert Swierat are two Buffalo area men in their early 60s who say they were repeatedly raped by Catholic priests decades ago.

The two have something else in common – they say the Diocese of Buffalo has so far refused to accept any responsibility for the incidents because the abuser priests were members of religious orders and not ordained by the diocese.

Astridge said he was molested as a young boy by the Rev. Edward Townsend, who belonged to a religious order based in California but who worked for the diocese as a teacher at the old Cardinal Dougherty High School in Buffalo.

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WASHINGTON D.C.
The Washington Post

July 22, 2018

By Michelle Boorstein and and Julie Zauzmer

A month after the Vatican suspended Cardinal Theodore McCarrick from ministry, saying the prominent former D.C. archbishop had been credibly accused of sexually abusing a teenager decades ago, four additional complaints about sexual misconduct by the cardinal have surfaced.

Once a globe-trotting representative of the Catholic Church worldwide and one of the architects of the church’s policy on sexual abuse, McCarrick’s precipitous fall over the past month has shocked Catholics, especially in Washington, where he was a popular archbishop from 2001 to 2006.

McCarrick’s future now rests with Pope Francis, who as pontiff oversees the cardinals. Many church-watchers think this is a make-or-break moment for Francis because of McCarrick’s stature and the fact that Catholic clerical sex abuse crises are exploding in Chile and Honduras.

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WKBW-TV
Buffalo NY

July 20, 2018

Says he was abused at Niagara Falls parish in ’70s

By Charlie Specht

A second man has stepped forward alleging child sexual abuse at the hands of former Catholic priest and Buffalo non-profit executive Ronald T. Silverio.

Daniel McKean, 51, of Niagara Falls, said in an interview with 7 Eyewitness News that Silverio abused him while he was between seven and nine years old.

McKean said he was an altar boy at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church in Niagara Falls when Silverio would abuse him, typically three times per week.

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ST. PAUL (MN)
Pioneer Press

July 20, 2018
By Rubén Rosario

Although he was a former altar boy at his Chicago-area church and spent 16 years in Catholic schools, Timothy O’Malley ‘fesses up that he’s hardly the Scripture-quoting, every-Sunday-church-going type.

“I was raised Catholic but I probably go to church about three times a year,” the 62-year-old father of two said during a chat this week. “Also, I married a Methodist.”

O’Malley was blunt in 2014 when then-embattled Twin Cities Archbishop John Nienstedt — reeling from a growing clergy-abuse scandal that he inherited and from his botched handling of a parish priest later convicted and sent to prison in a child-abuse case — selected the veteran Minnesota lawman to head and revamp the archdiocese’s Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment.

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PENNSYLVANIA
Reading Eagle

July 20, 2018

By Steven Henshaw

There are valid issues from those objecting to its release.

All through my junior/senior high school and college years, I enjoyed those classes taught by instructors who would deviate from the lesson plan to discuss a topic in the news.

Not everyone appreciates this. Those in that camp probably choose other lines of work and don’t go into journalism, law and politics.

It’s too bad law schools are on summer break. A grand jury’s much-anticipated report on clergy abuse in six Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania, including the Allentown Diocese covering Berks and Schuylkill counties, would serve as a fascinating topic to dissect. The issue encompasses such legal principles as privacy, defamation, due process and constitutionality.

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VATICAN CITY
Associated Press

July 21, 2018

By Nicole Winfield

Revelations that one of the most respected U.S. cardinals allegedly sexually abused both boys and adult seminarians have raised questions about who in the Catholic Church hierarchy knew — and what Pope Francis is going to do about it.

If the accusations against Cardinal Theodore McCarrick bear out — including a new case reported Friday involving an 11-year-old boy — will Francis revoke his title as cardinal? Sanction him to a lifetime of penance and prayer? Or even defrock him, the expected sanction if McCarrick were a mere priest?

And will Francis, who has already denounced a “culture of cover-up” in the church, take the investigation all the way to the top, where it will inevitably lead? McCarrick’s alleged sexual misdeeds with adults were reportedly brought to the Vatican’s attention years ago.

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PANAJI (INDIA)
The Siasat Daily

July 21, 2018

A court here on Saturday granted interim bail to a priest at the iconic Mangueshi temple who has been accused of allegedly molesting two women inside the temple premises.

District and Sessions Judge Bela Naik directed the police not to arrest the accused priest Dhananjay Bhave until the matter is heard again on Wednesday (July 25).

Bhave has been booked under section 354 (outraging modesty) of the Indian Penal Code for allegedly molesting two young women, including a student of medicine enrolled in a US college, who have accused him of allegedly hugging and kissing them inside the temple premise in June.

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ITALY
AFP via The Local

July 21, 2018

The Vatican dismissed a Chilean deacon over sexual abuse accusations in central Chile, the archdiocese of the city of Rancagua said Friday, amid a widespread abuse scandal gripping the country’s Catholic Church.

Luis Rubio was arrested for improper conduct and sexual abuse of minors when he was in charge of a Las Cabras school in 2013.

A year later, the archdiocese of Rancagua dismissed him from his duties while an investigation was underway, with the results sent to the Vatican, which has now expelled him.

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IRELAND
RTÉ

July 21, 2018

The Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, has said that Pope Francis will have to address the question of abuse in the Catholic Church’s history when he visits here next month.

Pope Francis will visit Ireland for two days on 25 and 26 August, coinciding with the conclusion of the World Meeting of Families event.

The Pontiff is scheduled to visit Knock in Co Mayo, as well as keeping a number of engagements in Dublin.

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IRELAND
The Irish Post

July 21, 2018

By Rebecca Keane

Archbishop Diarmuid Martin has said the Papal visit later this year will have to include a discussion on abuse committed by officials in the Catholic Church.

Pope Francis is to visit Ireland next month.

The Pontiff’s Irish tour takes place in August with three events open to the public: World Meeting of Families 2018 at Croke Park on August 25, a Knock shrine event in Co. Mayo on the morning of August 26, and a closing mass at Phoenix Park later that day.

Speaking to RTÉ, Archbishop Martin said it was necessary for Pope Francis to discuss it as part of the Church’s history but as part of the present because the wounds of survivors are there and new wounds are still emerging.

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ROME
America

July 20, 2018

By Michael J. O’Loughlin

One of the church’s experts on protecting children from abuse says that while today “there is much more awareness about the issue,” the church has to invest more resources and include more women, especially in places where the church is growing fastest.

“What is still lacking is an understanding that the protection of minors and the justice done to victims is a priority within the church,” Hans Zollner, S.J., who heads the Centre for Child Protection at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, told America on Thursday. He added that some bishops and other church leaders sometimes see combating sexual abuse as “one topic among others” and have not grasped that “this has to be a priority for the church.”

Father Zollner, a psychologist by training, launched the child protection initiative in 2012 in Germany and he moved to Rome in 2015 when Pope Francis requested that the center’s resources be used in the global church. He was then appointed to the Vatican’s Commission for the Protection of Minors, and he is a consultor for the Vatican office that deals with clergy.

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RICHMOND (VA)
Associated Press via Crux

July 21, 2018

By Sarah Rankin

A Virginia man said Friday he was sexually abused for about two decades by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, a prominent Catholic leader who was removed from public ministry last month over separate child abuse allegations.

The man, who agreed to be identified only by his first name, James, told The Associated Press he recently filed a police report detailing the abuse with the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office. James, who first spoke publicly with The New York Times for a story published Thursday, said the abuse began when he was a child and continued into adulthood.

McCarrick was a close family friend, James said. The 88-year-old retired archbishop of Washington, D.C., is one of the highest-ranking U.S. church officials accused in a sexual abuse scandal that has seen thousands of priests implicated.

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PENNSYLVANIA
PennLive.com

July 20, 2018

By Ivey DeJesus

Four men who were abused as children by their Catholic priests on Friday expressed warnings to individuals trying to block the release of an upcoming report on a grand jury investigation into clergy sex abuse.

The men have either testified before a grand jury or have provided information to investigators on predatory priests. They said that the significant pushback to revise or block what is expected to be a scathing report into church mishandling or cover-up of child sex abuse signals that the grand jury’s findings must be stunning.

“There was no backlash after Altoona-Johnstown. No Supreme Court stay,” said Shaun Dougherty, who was molested by his priest from the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese. “What and who is in this report that is so powerful? We already had Philadelphia and Altoona. What is in the report, it’s gotta be damning.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
The Herald (Sharon PA)

July 20, 2018

By Melissa Klaric

Victims are one step closer to vindication after a ruling today that made public the state attorney general’s argument to unseal a grand jury report detailing child sex abuse within the Catholic Church.

Just minutes ago, the brief filed last week by the Office of Attorney General Josh Shapiro was posted. The brief cites similar cases in which the court decided to make public the identities of people who are named in a grand jury report, but who have not been indicted.

Judge Norman A. Krumenacker, who oversaw the grand jury that for two years investigated child sex abuse allegations spanning several decades within the Erie, Pittsburgh, Greensburg, Scranton, Harrisburg and Allentown dioceses, issued the order to make the legal document public.

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PENNSYLVANIA
The Tribune-Democrat

July 20, 2018 [Updated July 21, 2018]

By Deb Erdley

The protracted battle over the release of a secret grand jury’s report into decades of allegations of sexual abuse in six Catholic dioceses, including the Greensburg and Pittsburgh dioceses, may be winding down.

A legal response from Pennsylvania’s attorney general to those challenging the report does not violate state grand jury secrecy laws, a Cambria County judge presiding over the matter ruled Thursday.

Common Pleas Judge Norman A. Krumenacker III, however, left it to the discretion of the state Supreme Court to publicly release the argument filed by Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s office. That document had yet to be released as of Friday.

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VATICAN CITY
The Associated Press

July 20, 2018

By Nicole Winfield

Pope Francis on Friday accepted the resignation of a Honduran bishop accused of sexual misconduct with seminarians, the latest in a series of high-ranking clergy implicated in sexual improprieties with adults under their authority.

Francis had ordered an investigation into the allegations against Tegulcigalpa Auxiliary Bishop Juan José Pineda Fasquelle last year. On Friday, the Vatican said Francis had accepted Pineda’s resignation.

No explanation was given. At 57, Pineda is well below the normal retirement age of 75 for bishops.

Pineda was the top deputy to Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga, one of Francis’ main cardinal advisers, and his downfall is a blow to the Honduran archbishop.

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NEW DELHI (INDIA)
The New York Times

July 18, 2018

By Kai Schultz and Suhasini Raj

For months, the police say, a group of men took turns raping an 11-year-old girl.

In the gated community in Chennai, India, where the girl lived with her parents, the men gave her soft drinks laced with drugs, the police said. They filmed themselves raping her, brandishing knives and threatening to release the videos if the girl told her family, the police said.

The men were not intruders in the gated community, but employees who greeted residents, operated the elevator or brought water coolers to apartments.

When news broke on Monday that the authorities in Chennai, a coastal city in the southeast, had arrested 17 men accused of raping or molesting the girl over a period of seven months, chaos erupted at the complex in an older part of the city. Residents dismissed the building’s remaining staff members. Women volunteered to guard the complex’s entrances, and some called for the suspects to be hanged.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Thomson Reuters Foundation

June 26, 2018

By Belinda Goldsmith and Meka Beresford

India is the world’s most dangerous country for women due to the high risk of sexual violence and being forced into slave labour, according to a poll of global experts released on Tuesday.

War-torn Afghanistan and Syria ranked second and third in the Thomson Reuters Foundation survey of about 550 experts on women’s issues, followed by Somalia and Saudi Arabia.

The only Western nation in the top 10 was the United States, which ranked joint third when respondents were asked where women were most at risk of sexual violence, harassment and being coerced into sex.

The poll was a repeat of a survey in 2011 that found experts saw Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, India, and Somalia as the most dangerous countries for women.

Experts said India moving to the top of poll showed not enough was being done to tackle the danger women faced, more than five years after the rape and murder of a student on a bus in Delhi made violence against women a national priority.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA)

July 18, 2018

By Sam Sokol

While Jews are no more likely to be sexually abused than other Americans, individuals who have left the Orthodox community are more than four times as likely to have been molested as children than the general population, a new study has found.

The study, by two Orthodox Jewish researchers, surveyed more than 300 participants over a three-year period. Its authors — Dr. David Rosmarin of Harvard and Dr. David Pelcovitz of Yeshiva University — said their report was an attempt to address a lack of research on the prevalence of sexual abuse in the Jewish community.

While the rate of abuse was higher among formerly Orthodox individuals, Rosmarin and Pelcovitz also found that abuse was “associated with significantly lower levels of intrinsic religiosity and lower levels of religious observance” among victims who chose to remain part of the Orthodox community.

“This report supports the anecdotal evidence I’ve seen that indicates a close link between abuse in a religious context and the subsequent rejection of that community, its practices, values and often everything it stands for,” said Manny Waks, the founder of Tzedek, an Australian advocacy group for victims of sexual abuse. “This is proof for what he already knew. I’ve met many people who were religious, especially within the ultra-Orthodox community, who left because of sexual abuse.”

Rosmarin is director of the Spirituality and Mental Health Program at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts and an assistant professor of psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. According to the study, formerly Orthodox individuals were substantially more likely to report abuse than those who remain part of the community — perhaps an obvious point given the inhibitions regarding speaking out in tight-knit communities. Various haredi Orthodox organizations have debated in recent years whether and how to report child abusers to law enforcement agencies.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

June 28, 2018

By Gaby Hinsliff

Child sexual abuse is frighteningly common and hugely damaging. But a new project is collecting survivors’ stories – and revealing what is needed to heal

The first thing Sabah Kaiser does after sitting down at the table when we meet, is to pick up a pen, and write her name on the nearest sheet of paper. She does it almost unthinkingly, and only later will it come to seem significant.

When she was a little girl, Kaiser wrote her name a lot. She scrawled it defiantly on the wall at home, balancing precariously on a banister four floors above the ground to reach the wallpaper: “Sabah is the best.” Later, she wrote it in foster homes: “I would find the hardest place that I could reach, or the most beautiful or lovely area, and write ‘Sabah is the best’.”

It was a coping mechanism she learned young, without really understanding why. But now, at 43, she recognises it as a way of fighting the feelings of worthlessness and shame so many child abuse survivors experience. “It was saying: ‘Look at me, I belong here; I can do the same as you, if not better.’”

The name she writes now is not, however, the same one she had then. Kaiser changed it by deed poll years ago, borrowing inspiration from Keyser Söze, the character in the film The Usual Suspects who has a double life. Kaiser, she explains, means king; above other men, but below God. It is a powerful name, and the one under which she approached the Truth Project.

Set up by the government’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, the project gives individual victims and survivors a chance to be heard; to share stories in confidence, helping inform the inquiry’s investigation into the widespread failure of institutions from churches to boarding schools to halt abuse. So far it has collected more than 1,000 stories (and remains keen to hear more), and while the details are often harrowing, they are striking in what they reveal about the lifelong consequences. As one survivor says in the report published this week by the Truth Project, it’s “like pebbles thrown into a pond; the ripples keep on getting bigger”.

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ULTIMO (AUSTRALIA)
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

July 20, 2018

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has called on the Pope to “sack” Adelaide’s Archbishop Philip Wilson.

Wilson was convicted of covering up abuse by priest Jim Fletcher in the NSW Hunter region in the 1970s, making him the most senior Catholic in the world to be convicted of concealing sexual abuse.

He was sentenced to 12 months’ detention, eligible for parole after six months, but has said he will lodge an appeal against his conviction.

The Archbishop has refused to quit his post, and Mr Turnbull has previously said Wilson should resign — a call echoed by Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and South Australian Premier Steven Marshall.

Today the Prime Minister intensified the pressure on the Catholic Church by saying “the time has come for the Pope to sack him”.

Key points:
– Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull calls on Pope Francis to sack Archbishop of Adelaide Philip Wilson
– Wilson is the most senior Catholic in the world to be convicted of concealing child sexual abuse
– Wilson has stepped aside from his duties, but will only resign if his appeal against his sentence is unsuccessful

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MOOSIC (PA)
WNEP 16 ABC

July 18, 2018

By Peggy Lee

Scranton, Pa. – At St. Ann’s Basilica in west Scranton, the faithful make their annual pilgrimage to participate in the weeklong novena.

This religious service comes as the state attorney general is attempting to release an 800-page grand jury report that details decades of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

But that’s currently being denied by a Pennsylvania Supreme Court order after a group of unnamed individuals petitioned to keep it under wraps.

People at the novena say the report needs to come out.

“It pains me as a Catholic, and I think that to be forthcoming about the abuses is going to help everyone in the end and the healing process,” said Kristen Lemoncelli from Peckville. “So I just hope for the best for all families and victims involved.”

“You want the truth to come out and what’s right, should be brought to the surface and justice should be done then to help the victims,” said Joanne Simmens from Moscow.

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

JOHNSTOWN (PA)
Tribune-Democrat

July 20, 2018

By Jocelyn Brumbaugh

Ebensburg – Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, several of his staff and attorneys representing clergy named in a still unreleased grand jury report regarding child sexual abuse across six Catholic dioceses attended a hearing behind closed doors in front of Cambria County President Judge Norman Krumenacker III on Thursday.

Shapiro, along with Senior Deputy Attorney General Daniel Dye, were in Krumenacker’s courtroom for approximately 90 minutes.

Krumenacker, who oversaw the 40th statewide investigating grand jury, confirmed the hearing involved the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s July 6 opinions detailing the deadlines for briefs to be submitted by attorneys representing those named in the report as well as representatives of the state attorney general’s office.

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

JOHNSTOWN (PA)
Tribune-Democrat

July 20, 2018

By Jocelyn Brumbaugh

Ebensburg – Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, several of his staff and attorneys representing clergy named in a still unreleased grand jury report regarding child sexual abuse across six Catholic dioceses attended a hearing behind closed doors in front of Cambria County President Judge Norman Krumenacker III on Thursday.

Shapiro, along with Senior Deputy Attorney General Daniel Dye, were in Krumenacker’s courtroom for approximately 90 minutes.

Krumenacker, who oversaw the 40th statewide investigating grand jury, confirmed the hearing involved the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s July 6 opinions detailing the deadlines for briefs to be submitted by attorneys representing those named in the report as well as representatives of the state attorney general’s office.

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

NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

July 19, 2018

By Isabella Kwai

Sydney, Australia – Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull of Australia said Thursday that Pope Francis should fire an Australian archbishop who is the highest-ranking Catholic official in the world to be found guilty of concealing sex crimes against children.

“He should have resigned, and the time has come for the pope to sack him,” Mr. Turnbull said of Philip Wilson, the archbishop of Adelaide.

Archbishop Wilson, 67, was sentenced this month to 12 months in detention after being found guilty in May of hiding abuse by a priest, Jim Fletcher, in the state of New South Wales in the 1970s.

Mr. Turnbull, who converted to Catholicism in 2002, said he and other political leaders had already called on Archbishop Wilson to resign.

“I think the time has come now for the ultimate authority in the church to take action and sack him,” he said.

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

NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

July 19, 2018

By Isabella Kwai

Sydney, Australia – Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull of Australia said Thursday that Pope Francis should fire an Australian archbishop who is the highest-ranking Catholic official in the world to be found guilty of concealing sex crimes against children.

“He should have resigned, and the time has come for the pope to sack him,” Mr. Turnbull said of Philip Wilson, the archbishop of Adelaide.

Archbishop Wilson, 67, was sentenced this month to 12 months in detention after being found guilty in May of hiding abuse by a priest, Jim Fletcher, in the state of New South Wales in the 1970s.

Mr. Turnbull, who converted to Catholicism in 2002, said he and other political leaders had already called on Archbishop Wilson to resign.

“I think the time has come now for the ultimate authority in the church to take action and sack him,” he said.

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

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

July 20, 2018

By Mary E. Hunt

The Academy Award-winning movie “Spotlight” offered a summary of the first part of what I predict will be a Catholic trifecta of disgrace. “Spotlight” showed priests abusing minors and clerical higher-ups covering for them, making for a grim, ongoing tale of betrayal and corruption.

The second aspect came into sharp focus in Laurie Goodstein and Sharon Otterman’s recent Pulitzer-worthy article, “He Preyed on Men Who Wanted to Be Priests. Then He Became a Cardinal” in which they spell out the dastardly deeds of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. The authors made clear that McCarrick’s sexual exploits were many, widely known, and just as widely ignored on his way to a red hat.

The third leg of this trifecta remains unexplored, but I predict/believe it will soon explode onto the scene: some priests’ use and abuse of women.

The first, we can call it the “Spotlight” phase, is now well documented. It cost several billion dollars, ruined many young lives, took other lives, and left a trail of destruction through generations of believers. The second moment, just opening in the public forum, is the chronicle of how priests preyed on (not prayed for) one another in a hierarchal system with few checks and balances against such abuse. Apparently getting ordained and promoted was not just a matter “who you know,” as it were …

The New York Times reporters detail the apparently well-known M.O. of McCarrick as a serial creep. He chose his bedmates out of groups of available seminarians, invited others to share his New York pied-à-terre in a hospital (now there’s a unique place for a tryst), and used a fishing cabin for similar purposes.

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

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

July 20, 2018

By Mary E. Hunt

The Academy Award-winning movie “Spotlight” offered a summary of the first part of what I predict will be a Catholic trifecta of disgrace. “Spotlight” showed priests abusing minors and clerical higher-ups covering for them, making for a grim, ongoing tale of betrayal and corruption.

The second aspect came into sharp focus in Laurie Goodstein and Sharon Otterman’s recent Pulitzer-worthy article, “He Preyed on Men Who Wanted to Be Priests. Then He Became a Cardinal” in which they spell out the dastardly deeds of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. The authors made clear that McCarrick’s sexual exploits were many, widely known, and just as widely ignored on his way to a red hat.

The third leg of this trifecta remains unexplored, but I predict/believe it will soon explode onto the scene: some priests’ use and abuse of women.

The first, we can call it the “Spotlight” phase, is now well documented. It cost several billion dollars, ruined many young lives, took other lives, and left a trail of destruction through generations of believers. The second moment, just opening in the public forum, is the chronicle of how priests preyed on (not prayed for) one another in a hierarchal system with few checks and balances against such abuse. Apparently getting ordained and promoted was not just a matter “who you know,” as it were …

The New York Times reporters detail the apparently well-known M.O. of McCarrick as a serial creep. He chose his bedmates out of groups of available seminarians, invited others to share his New York pied-à-terre in a hospital (now there’s a unique place for a tryst), and used a fishing cabin for similar purposes.

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

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Associated Press

The head of the Chilean Roman Catholic Church’s abuse prevention committee says he will not deliver a report on sex abuse committed by priests against minors to Chile’s attorney general.

The 2,300-page report was ordered by Pope Francis after he visited the South American country.

Bishop Juan Ignacio Gonzalez said Thursday that the information in the report could harm those who testified in secret if it became known. He said that “the pope is the only recipient of this report.”

Francis received the report earlier this year and then publicly denounced a “culture of abuse and cover-up” in Chile’s Catholic Church. He also said he was ashamed that neither he nor Chilean church leaders truly ever listened to victims as the country’s abuse scandal spiraled.

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

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Associated Press

The head of the Chilean Roman Catholic Church’s abuse prevention committee says he will not deliver a report on sex abuse committed by priests against minors to Chile’s attorney general.

The 2,300-page report was ordered by Pope Francis after he visited the South American country.

Bishop Juan Ignacio Gonzalez said Thursday that the information in the report could harm those who testified in secret if it became known. He said that “the pope is the only recipient of this report.”

Francis received the report earlier this year and then publicly denounced a “culture of abuse and cover-up” in Chile’s Catholic Church. He also said he was ashamed that neither he nor Chilean church leaders truly ever listened to victims as the country’s abuse scandal spiraled.

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

DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency / EWTN

July 19, 2018

Washington D.C. – A Virginia man filed a police report Monday, alleging that from the age of 11 he was sexually abused and assaulted serially by now-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was a priest of the Archdiocese of New York when the abuse was alleged to have begun.

The New York Times reported July 19 the man’s allegation, that McCarrick began sexually abusing him in 1969, when the priest was 39 and the man, “James,” whose full name has not been reported, was 11 years old. McCarrick was reportedly a friend to the alleged victim’s family.

The man says that he continued to be sexually abused by McCarrick for almost two decades, the Times reported.

The man claims that the abuse contributed to alcohol and drug habits that plagued him for years. He also says that he attempted to disclose the abuse to his father several years after it began, but was disbelieved, according to the Times.

In 1969, when the abuse is alleged to have begun, McCarrick ended a four-year term as president of the Catholic University of Puerto Rico, and became assistant secretary for education in the Archdiocese of New York. In 1977, he become auxiliary bishop of New York, and later became the Bishop of Metuchen, Archbishop of Newark, and, eventually, Archbishop of Washington.

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

DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency / EWTN

July 19, 2018

Washington D.C. – A Virginia man filed a police report Monday, alleging that from the age of 11 he was sexually abused and assaulted serially by now-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was a priest of the Archdiocese of New York when the abuse was alleged to have begun.

The New York Times reported July 19 the man’s allegation, that McCarrick began sexually abusing him in 1969, when the priest was 39 and the man, “James,” whose full name has not been reported, was 11 years old. McCarrick was reportedly a friend to the alleged victim’s family.

The man says that he continued to be sexually abused by McCarrick for almost two decades, the Times reported.

The man claims that the abuse contributed to alcohol and drug habits that plagued him for years. He also says that he attempted to disclose the abuse to his father several years after it began, but was disbelieved, according to the Times.

In 1969, when the abuse is alleged to have begun, McCarrick ended a four-year term as president of the Catholic University of Puerto Rico, and became assistant secretary for education in the Archdiocese of New York. In 1977, he become auxiliary bishop of New York, and later became the Bishop of Metuchen, Archbishop of Newark, and, eventually, Archbishop of Washington.

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