ABUSE TRACKER

ROME (ITALY)
Crux

January 24, 2018

By Claire Giangravè

Pope Francis faced no small amount of blowback in Chile last week over a sexual abuse controversy that boils down to whom you chose to believe – victims of a pedophile priest accusing a bishop of knowing about the abuse and covering it up, or the bishop himself, who’s vigorously denied those charges.

The pope made it as clear as possible that he believes the bishop, which has, in turn, infuriated the accusers and sparked wide commentary around the world.

Now there’s another “Who do you believe?” dilemma waiting for him in his own back yard, in the Southern Italian region of Sicily, as another high-profile sexual abuse case heads to trial.

The drama pivots on the charismatic lay leader of the Catholic Culture and Environment Association (ACCA), Piero Alfio Capuana – called ‘Archangel’ by the group’s members – who was arrested in early August of last year for the sexual abuse of at least six underage girls and possibly more over the span of 25 years.

The group is listed as a ‘civil association’ and has up to 5,000 followers, who still meet in the little-known municipality of Aci Bonacorsi, located inside the Diocese of Acireale on the Italian island of Sicily.

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UNITED STATES
The Copper Era (Greenlee County AZ)

January 23, 2018

We’re big, big fans of Pope Francis.

We love the fact that the pope condemns those who would turn away the poor and those in need in order to bolster profits, saying such an act is not Christian.

He’s been critical of the actions of the church, saying the church, in recent years, wasn’t following the teachings of Christ, specifically Christ’s commandments to love one another without caveat (yes, that means having respect for the LGBTQ community).

He has eschewed much of the glitz that goes along with the job of pontiff, opting to live in plain, almost barren quarters.

In other words, he doesn’t just talk the talk, he walks the walk. And that’s why we like him.

He was on his home continent of South America last week and, once again, did something we really like — he apologized for the child abuse scandal that rocked the church in the ‘90s and 2000s.

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

January 26, 2018

By Rachel Denhollander

On Jan. 16, women and girls from across the country began congregating in a courtroom in Lansing, Mich. Some of us were athletes; some of us were not. Some of us were white; some of us were black. Some of us were married; some of us were still in high school. Many of us had never met.

But we shared one core, unifying experience: sexual assault at the hands of Larry Nassar. And we had one core, unifying goal: facing our abuser and confronting the culture that allowed him to prey on us without fear or punishment.

It felt surreal at first — finally putting names and faces to the numbered “Jane Doe” designations I had wanted for so long to protect. But the pain we shared knit us together instantly. We knew what to do when someone began to weep or shake in court, because each of us had cried those tears before. We knew what to say when a grieving survivor expressed guilt or doubt, because we had experienced that same shame.

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UNITED STATES
Newsday

January 27, 2018

By the Editorial Board

The voices of the women abused for two decades by Larry Nassar should force all of us to ask and answer: At what price success? At what cost silence?

The latest chapter in the nation’s overdue examination of the abusive power and control men exercise over women came to a conclusion in a Michigan courtroom last week when former U.S. women’s gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison.

The repudiation of his repulsive behavior followed harrowing accounts by more than 150 girls and women who were sexually abused by Nassar. But putting Nassar away for the rest of his life, however satisfying, does not solve this festering problem.

It’s not just Nassar, it’s not just gymnastics, and it’s not just sports.

Sexual abuse scandals have shaken the arts, the media, government, business, the Catholic Church and the Boy Scouts. But the problem in sports is particularly instructive.

Nearly 300 coaches and officials associated with the organizations that govern Olympic sports have been publicly accused of sex crimes since the early 1980s. More than 175 individuals have been convicted. More cases have likely gone unreported.

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VATICAN CITY
Crux

January 27, 2018

A writer for a Rome-based center with close Vatican ties said Saturday that Pope Francis’s “infelicitous” words on the Church’s sexual abuse scandals in Chile amounted to a “failure,” by “inflicting an unintended wound” on victims, and may raise the hard question, “Is there hope for real change in the Church?”

“As hard as it is to acknowledge, it seems inevitable that those from whom we expect more will sometimes fail us,” wrote Sara Boehk, a member of the research team at the Centre for Child Protection, located at Rome’s Jesuit-run Gregorian University.

“In the face of disheartening news, how can we move forward?” she asked in a brief post on the centre’s web site. “How can we work for institutional change?”

Her answer was that in failure lies opportunity.

“Failure is also an opportunity to reassess where we are in our safeguarding efforts, to re-focus our energies, and to recommit to our goals,” Boehk wrote. “The alternative is to abandon hope and give up.”

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UNITED STATES
HuffPost

January 27, 2018

By Neil J. Young

The congregation at Highpoint Church gave pastor Andy Savage a standing ovation after he confessed to a “sexual incident” with a member of the church where he worked in 1998.

On a Sunday morning earlier this month, Andy Savage, a pastor on staff at an evangelical megachurch in Memphis, confessed to the congregation that back in 1998, as a 21-year-old man, he had been involved in a “sexual incident” with a 17-year-old young woman. Savage had met the teenager when he was in college and serving as an intern at a Baptist church near Houston. After offering her a ride home from a youth group event at church one evening, Savage parked his car in the dark woods near her home and sexually assaulted her.

Given our current #MeToo moment and also the usually strong prohibitions evangelicals hold against unwed sexual activity, Savage might have feared harsh judgment for his admission that Sunday morning. Instead, the congregation at Highpoint Church gave their pastor a long standing ovation.

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CANADA
The Globe and Mail

January 27, 2018

By Michael Coren

Columnist and broadcaster Michael Coren’s most recent book is Epiphany: A Christian’s Change of Heart & Mind Over Same-Sex Marriage.

We are living in the age of the Teflon Pope. Francis has many positive qualities and has said and done wonderful things, but he also has caused pain and concern more times than we might think. Yet on each occasion, he seems to escape almost unscathed. Whereas media loathed Benedict, they positively adore his successor. But now, perhaps, he has gone too far.

Francis was in Chile last week, where the clergy sex-abuse crisis has – as in so many places – ripped through the nation’s religious sensibilities. It’s made worse, however, due to still-open wounds concerning the Pinochet dictatorship and the part played in those dark days by the extraordinarily powerful Roman Catholic Church. The general view is that the church didn’t do enough to oppose the dictatorship and that some clerics were positively supportive.

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BILLINGS (MT)
Billings Gazette

January 27, 2018

By Rob Rogers

[See also: Lawsuit: More of a Montana Catholic diocese’s assets should be on the table for abuse victims, Billings Gazette, December 20, 2017]

The attorneys representing the Montana victims of sex abuse by Catholic priests say more money exists for settlements after the Great Falls-Billings Diocese declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy last March.

In December, the victims group alleged that $70 million in Catholic real estate assets and an additional $16 million in funds transferred out of the Great Falls-Billings Diocese should be considered fair game for victims’ settlements.

In a move to streamline the complaints, the judge overseeing the case ordered the victims group to separate out the two claims. The judge will now make one ruling on the whether the $70 million is available and a separate ruling on whether the $16 million is also fair game.

In a recent supplemental filing, attorneys for the victims group made their argument for the $16 million.

In their claim, the attorneys argue the diocese transferred more than $16 million in assets from its deposit and loan fund to an entity known as the Capital Assets Support Corp. The attorneys alleged in their court filing that the funds transfer was an attempt by the diocese to “hinder, delay or defraud” its creditor

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DAKOTA COUNTY (MN)
KMSP-TV (Fox 9)

January 24, 2018

A Catholic priest has pleaded guilty to criminal sexual conduct for an incident involving a Mendota Heights woman in the summer of 2010.

According to the charges, the woman came forward in 2016 to report she had sexual contact with Jacob Andrew Bertrand during a private mass held at her home in Mendota Heights. After the act, he told her they had “fulfilled the second holiest sacrifice next to Jesus and Mary on Calvary.”

Bertrand is currently on leave from the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego, California.

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MINNESOTA
St. Paul Pioneer Press

January 24, 2018

By S. M. Chavey

A San Diego priest has admitted to sexual misconduct while celebrating a private Mass eight years ago in a woman’s Mendota Heights home.

He is an ordained Catholic priest currently on a leave of absence from the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego, according to the Dakota County attorney’s office.

Jacob Andrew Bertrand, 35, pleaded guilty Monday to one charge of third-degree criminal sexual conduct. The second count was dismissed as part of the plea agreement.

In the summer of 2010, Bertrand “wore his stole, and had candles burning,” and the victim “straddled Bertrand while he performed the Sacrifice of the Mass,” according to the revised criminal complaint.

The two had previously kissed and Bertrand had “mystically proposed” to her, according to the criminal complaint.

The woman reported the conduct to Catholic Church officials in 2012 and 2014, and Bertrand was charged in 2016.

Clergy members can be charged with third-degree criminal sexual conduct for having sex with persons they’re not married to while being asked for or providing religious spiritual advice, even if the sex is consensual, according to Minnesota law.

His sentencing has been set for May.

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ST. PAUL (MN)
Minneapolis Star Tribune

January 24, 2018

By Jean Hopfensperger

He is removed from ministry pending inquiry.

A Carver priest has been removed from ministry following allegations of misconduct, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis said Wednesday.

The Rev. Thomas Joseph, parochial administrator at the Church of St. Nicholas in Carver, will be removed from ministry pending the outcome of a police investigation.

The archdiocese said it was contacted by an adult who alleged that Joseph had engaged in inappropriate conduct. It reported the claim to law enforcement.

No details of the alleged victim or misconduct were provided.

Joseph issued a statement on the archdiocese’s website, expressing “surprise and dismay” at the allegations.

“While I am prepared to cooperate with this investigation to clear my good name and the name of the Church, I wish to emphasize my innocence,” he wrote.

The move comes a day after a Catholic priest pleaded guilty to criminal sexual conduct in Dakota County. The Rev. Jacob Andrew Bertrand, from California, pleaded guilty to criminal sexual contact with a young woman while saying mass in the basement of her parents’ home in 2010.

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ST. PAUL (MN)
Archdiocese of St. Paul & Minneapolis

January 23, 2018

From Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda

The Archdiocese’s Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment was contacted by an adult alleging inappropriate conduct on the part of Father Thomas Joseph, Parochial Administrator of the Church of Saint Nicholas in Carver. Following our protocols, that Office immediately contacted law enforcement. Director Tim O’Malley provided them with the information we received, offered our assistance and described our procedures for handling such matters, including our commitment to not taking any action that would interfere with their investigation. We indicated to them that it was our policy that clergy under criminal investigation are removed from ministry for the duration of the investigation.

Yesterday, the investigating law enforcement agency notified us that our removal of Father Joseph from ministry would not interfere with an investigation they have begun of an allegation against Father Joseph of criminal conduct involving an adult. With that clarification, Father Joseph was removed temporarily from ministry, pending the outcome of the criminal investigation.

Father’s removal from ministry should not be considered an indication or presumption of guilt.

Anyone with additional information regarding this matter is encouraged to contact their local law enforcement agency.

Father Thomas Joseph requested that, with this announcement, I include a statement that he has issued:

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I wish to express my surprise and dismay at these allegations. It is paramount that we as Catholics come together in God’s Light to seek the truth. I believe in our system of justice and I understand the need to fully investigate any accusations. While I am prepared to cooperate with this investigation to clear my good name and the name of the Church, I wish to emphasize my innocence. I ask all of you to pray for me and be assured of my prayers for you.

In Christ Jesus

Father Thomas Joseph

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BELLEVILLE(IL)
Belleville News-Democrat

January 26, 2018

By Dana Rieck

A Mascoutah priest accused of possessing child pornography remained in jail Friday afternoon, even after a St. Clair County judge significantly reduced the man’s $2 million bail.

The Rev. Gerald Hechenberger, associate pastor of Holy Childhood Church and school in Mascoutah, now could be released on bond if he posts $25,000.

Hechenberger was booked into jail Jan. 9 on 16 charges of child pornography and one charge of possession of methamphetamine.

He appeared before Judge Randall Kelley with his attorney, James A. Gomeric of Belleville, on Wednesday, where court records indicate his bail was lowered to $250,000. That means Hechenberger would need to post 10 percent in cash — $25,000 — to be released from jail.

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WINTHROP (MA)
Legacy.com

BUTLER, Rev. William L. Of West Palm Beach, Florida and Dennis, Mass., formerly of Winthrop, passed away unexpectedly and suddenly while on a vacation cruise in the Caribbean, December 17th, 2017.

Fr. Butler was born in Boston on October 29th, 1934 to his beloved Parents, Edward I. and Margaret (Peggie) Lindsey Butler. He was the oldest of four siblings, a late brother Edward F. (Buddy) of P.E. lsland, Canada two surviving Sisters, Helen E. Gibbs of Salem N.H. and Linda M. McGeorge and partner Richard Perrier of Winthrop.

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UNITED STATES
The Guardian

January 26, 2018

By Michael Dolce

Survivors reported Nassar’s abuse to coaches, trainers, parents, therapists, a training facility owner, and even law enforcement officials – but all in vain

It is tragically ironic that in the same month we applauded the courageous young survivors confronting Larry Nassar in court for his horrific abuse, we also celebrated the wisdom and legacy of the Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. One of King’s great lessons was that justice can be hindered by “the appalling silence of the good people”.

Indeed, so many survivors of Larry Nassar’s atrocious acts asked one question time and time again: why was he not stopped sooner by the good people who had reason to know of his crimes?

Gymnast Larissa Boyce, runner Christine Achenbach and softball player Tiffany Lopez all recounted their complaints to otherwise “good” people at Michigan State University about Nassar between 1997 and 2000, many years before his relentless abuse of children was stopped.

[Play Video 2:14: Judge tells Larry Nassar ‘I just signed your death warrant’]

They and many other survivors reported Nassar’s abuse for many years to coaches, trainers, parents, therapists, a training facility owner and even law enforcement officials – but all in vain. Common among the complaints of these survivors is that they were not believed and were silenced, while Nassar continued to attack child after child after child. These survivors’ stories are all too common – in cases that make the news and those that do not.

I have represented child sex abuse victims as a lawyer for many years and in virtually every case the survivor takes a huge risk in speaking up at all. I repeatedly see child sex abuse survivors, just like most adult sex crime victims, disbelieved by numerous people – especially those who were in positions of power to stop the abuse in the first place.

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CHILE
Agence France Presse

January 10, 2018

US-based organization Bishop Accountability published a database naming nearly 80 priests and clergymen on Wednesday who have been accused of sexually abusing minors.

[Link to video]

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WORCESTER (MA)
MassLive.com

January 26, 2018

By Phil Demers

At his own request, Peter J. Inzerillo, a Worcester priest accused of sex abuse, has been defrocked by the Vatican and Pope Francis, according to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Worcester.

“It is my fervent prayer that Christ may bring healing and hope to anyone who has been abused by a priest or by anyone in the Catholic Church,” Bishop Robert McManus, the leader of Worcester’s Roman Catholic diocese, said in a statement on the development released this week.

Added the statement, “As a result of the laicization, (Inzerillo) may not function in any capacity as a priest or be referred to as a priest or as “Father” in writing such as in event announcements or obituaries.”

Now 74 and ordained in 1970, Inzerillo formerly served as headmaster of St. Peter-Marian High School in Worcester from 1979 to 1985, also coaching hockey there and at St. Bernard’s Central Catholic High School in Fitchburg during the time.

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UNITED STATES
Seattle Times

January 26, 2018

By Mary Dispenza

It’s time, Pope Francis, to stand up for survivors, take their stories to heart and take the right action.

In scripture we find the lines, “If someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.” Survivors of clerical sex abuse are tired of turning the other cheek — tired of lies and promises, especially by popes, who through the ages have formed commission after commission, held conference after conference, issued report after report, and made promise after promise.

Church leadership has repeatedly sought forgiveness for what Pope Francis recently described as the “irreparable damage” caused by priests. In the midst of Francis’ tears and apologies, the systemic evil of clergy sex abuse remains alive and largely undercover within the ranks of the Catholic Church.

Pope Francis is no different from popes who came before him. When it comes to his brother priests, Francis protects them at the cost of heaping pain and shame upon victims as was the case last week when he visited Chile. Francis did not receive a completely warm welcome there. Nor did he deserve one.

In 2015, Pope Francis appointed Chilean Bishop Juan Barros to head the diocese of Osorno in southern Chile. The pope knew that Barros had been accused of covering up the crimes of Father Fernando Karadima, a former Santiago priest accused of raping and molesting children.

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UNITED STATES
America

January 22, 2018

By Gerard O’Connell

In an hour-long press conference on the plane from Lima to Rome, Jan. 21, Pope Francis asked pardon from the victims of sexual abuse by priests or religious for his use of words that offended them in his remarks about Bishop Juan Barros of Osorno, Chile. But he also reaffirmed his support for Bishop Barros, saying he has not received any evidence against him.

On Thursday Jan. 18, the pope told reporters on a plane flight in Chile, “The day they bring me proof against the bishop, then I will speak. There is not a single proof against him. This is calumny! Is that clear?” Francis stated.

Responding to a question from a Chilean journalist today, Pope Francis spoke of “what the abused feel” regarding his remark.

“I must ask pardon [from them] because the word ‘proof’ has hurt many of the abused, and [what] I meant to ask for was ‘evidence.’ I ask forgiveness. It’s a hurt [caused] without wishing it,” Pope Francis said.

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CARVER (MN)
Chaska Herald

January 24, 2018

By Alex Chhith

The Rev. Thomas Joseph has been removed from St. Nicholas Catholic Church amid an allegation by an adult of inappropriate conduct, according to a statement from the leader of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Joseph, who has served at the Carver church for nearly a decade, was due to leave the congregation on Feb. 1 to serve at the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis Tribunal Office. After that, the Rev. William Deziel, pastor of Guardian Angels Catholic Church in Chaska, and the Rev. Edison Galarza, new parochial vicar, will serve both Carver and Chaska churches, according to a letter from Archbishop Bernard Hebda.

The change prompted outcry from many parishioners at St. Nicholas, who asked the archdiocese to extend Joseph’s time to ensure a smooth transition. Many were upset with the lack of notice given to parishioners and questioned the hasty transition. The story ran in the Jan. 18 edition of the Chaska Herald and the archdiocese declined to comment on it.

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ST. PAUL (MN)
Pioneer Press

January 25, 2018

By Nick Woltman

A west metro priest is under criminal investigation after he was accused of “inappropriate conduct” with an adult, according to the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

The Rev. Thomas Joseph, parochial administrator of the Church of St. Nicholas in Carver, has been suspended by the archdiocese for the duration of the investigation, Archbishop Bernard Hebda wrote in a Tuesday news release.

Joseph is being investigated by the Carver County Sheriff’s Office following an allegation of criminal sexual misconduct. A woman alleges Joseph had sexual contact with her several times over the span of 2½ years, according to the sheriff’s office.

Hebda cautioned that Joseph’s removal from ministry does not indicate a presumption of guilt, and he urged anyone with additional information about the matter to contact law enforcement officials.

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CARVER (MN)
Associated Press via KAALtv.com

January 25, 2018

The Carver County Sheriff’s Office is investigating an allegation of criminal sexual misconduct against a priest in Carver.

Rev. Thomas Joseph said in a statement that he was surprised by the allegation and is prepared to fully cooperate with the investigation because he is innocent of the accusations.

The sheriff’s department says an adult female alleges Joseph had sexual contact with her several times over the course of 2½ years.

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis says Joseph has been removed from the ministry at Saint Nicholas while the allegation is investigated. The archdiocese says Joseph’s removal should not be considered an indication of guilt.

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UNITED STATES
Miami Herald

January 26, 2018

The most enduring image from the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta was gymnast Kerri Strug’s courageous second vault and perfect landing on a badly sprained ankle that sealed the all-around gold medal for Team USA.

As she was carried off the floor, she was turned over to the tender mercies of team doctor Larry Nassar, helping cement his fame as a healer. On Wednesday, Nassar, 54, was sentenced to up to 175 years in prison on multiple counts of sexual assault involving young women he treated.

During seven days of victim-impact hearings in a Lansing, Mich., courtroom, 156 women testified that Nassar had abused them under the guise of providing medical care either as a team doctor for USA Gymnastics or at Michigan State University, where he was a faculty member. He also faces a 60-year federal sentence on child pornography charges.

As inspiring as it was to see so many young women bravely tell their stories, it is deeply troubling that, once again, institutions charged with protecting young people failed them instead.

As with the Catholic church’s ongoing clerical abuse scandals and the 2011 Jerry Sandusky pedophilia scandal at Penn State University, institutions looked the other way when confronted with the awful truth. Too much money was at stake. Reputations had to be protected at all costs.

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UNITED STATES
The New York Times

January 25, 2018

By Mitch Smith and Anemona Hartocollis

Michigan State University was propelled on Thursday to the center of the sexual abuse scandal involving Dr. Lawrence G. Nassar, as state and federal agencies mounted investigations demanding to know what the college knew of his behavior and when.

Neither the sentencing of Dr. Nassar on Wednesday to 40 to 175 years in prison, nor the resignation of the university president a few hours later, quelled the furor. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said on Thursday that her department would investigate Michigan State’s role, while state legislators asked that the university provide unredacted records of its investigations of Dr. Nassar and threatened to issue subpoenas if the school did not swiftly comply.

At the same time, the state attorney general was preparing his own review of the university, a United States senator asked for congressional hearings, and the speaker of the Michigan House called for the resignations of the university’s trustees, who are elected by voters.

“This is one of the biggest scandals in the history of our state,” said the speaker, Tom Leonard, a Republican, who has asked House lawyers to review options for removing trustees if they did not quit. “We are dealing with a Big Ten university. We are dealing with a monster who was a serial child molester and rapist who may have violated more victims than any other rapist in the history of our state.”

The repercussions were not limited to Michigan State. The head of the United States Olympic Committee, Scott Blackmun, wrote an email to U.S.A. Gymnastics, threatening to decertify the federation if its entire board did not resign by next Wednesday. Several board members, including the chairman, Paul Parilla, have already resigned.

Responding to Mr. Blackmun late Thursday, U.S.A. Gymnastics, the sport’s governing body, said it “completely embraces the requirements” outlined in the letter. The organization’s unsigned reply said U.S.A. Gymnastics would “work with the U.S.O.C. to accomplish change for the betterment of our organization, our athletes and our clubs.”

At Michigan State, university officials are already facing the prospect of legal judgments and fees from lawsuits filed by dozens of victims. At Penn State, where a former football coach was found to be a serial child molester, those costs have reached nearly a quarter of a billion dollars.

The lawsuits and the legislative inquiries center on what Michigan State knew about Dr. Nassar’s behavior during the two decades he worked there. Several victims have alleged that they had told Michigan State employees, as far back as the late 1990s, about being molested under the guise of treatment.

In 2014, after a complaint from a patient, the university conducted an internal investigation that cleared him, after which he continued to prey on more patients. On Thursday, ESPN reported that Michigan State had neglected to tell federal authorities, who were investigating the college’s handling of other sexual misconduct complaints, about the 2014 case until the accusations against Dr. Nassar became widely known in 2016.

**

Some of his patients said they complained to Michigan State employees, including the women’s gymnastics coach at the time, Kathie Klages, in the late 1990s, according to court papers, but were met with disbelief. A lawyer for Ms. Klages has not commented on the allegations.

In 2014, a recent graduate filed a complaint against Dr. Nassar under Title IX, the federal law governing sexual harassment and assault on campus. She said that she had sought out Dr. Nassar for hip pain, and that he molested her and became sexually aroused until she removed his hands from her body, according to court papers in the civil cases filed against him.

But after consulting with other medical professionals, including Dr. Nassar’s colleagues, the university’s investigation concluded that his treatment had been “medically appropriate,” the court papers said.

The abuse continued until 2016, when Rachael Denhollander, a former gymnast, told her story to The Indianapolis Star, and a police investigation soon began.

On Thursday, ESPN reported that Michigan State had failed to turn over its file on Dr. Nassar in 2014, when the Education Department was investigating unrelated complaints about the way the university had handled sexual assault and harassment cases. The university began turning over records in late 2016, ESPN reported, saying that the failure had been an oversight.

On Thursday, the education secretary said her agency would review Michigan State’s handling of the complaints against Dr. Nassar. “What happened at Michigan State is abhorrent,” Ms. DeVos said. “Students must be safe and protected on our nation’s campuses. The department is investigating this matter and will hold M.S.U. accountable for any violations of federal law.”

But in a December letter to Mr. Schuette, the Michigan attorney general, the university’s lawyer, Patrick Fitzgerald, said he believed that evidence would show that no Michigan State official believed that Dr. Nassar committed sexual abuse before the newspaper reports in 2016. The university is also arguing that it cannot be held liable because of Michigan’s sovereign immunity law, which protects state agencies from lawsuits in most circumstances and “protects the state’s citizens by safeguarding its fiscal stability,” the school said in a court filing.

John Manly, a lawyer for some of the women in the civil cases, said the university’s response to the lawsuits reminded him of the way the Roman Catholic Church had responded to allegations of child sex abuse by priests. “It’s a page right out of the bishops’ playbooks,” he said.

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DALLAS (TX)
Dallas News

January 25, 2018

By Sara Coello, Contributing Writer

After nearly five years of praise from both Catholic and secular voices for championing causes from environmental responsibility to hospitality for refugees, Pope Francis has taken what some critics see as the first major misstep of his papacy.

After a recent visit to Chile, the pope criticized accusers of Chilean Bishop Juan Barros of committing “calumny” for claiming that Barros covered up years of sexual abuse committed by a superior. The pope’s comment came as a surprise to many who saw him as an advocate for increased attention to social justice, particularly in the global South.

Pope Francis apologized for his language, but maintained his position amid roars of criticism.

Two leading Catholic journalists took to the stage at Dallas’s Moody Performance Hall Wednesday evening and called the pope’s recent comments a departure from his pattern of emphasizing merciful interpretation of the Catholic canon.

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat and Crux contributing editor Austen Ivereigh have followed Francis throughout his papacy, reporting on his political impact and on more general shifts in Catholic culture.

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NEW YORK
The Journal News

January 26, 2018

New York private school administrators should follow the same reporting rules as public school administrators when it comes to reports of abuse. Shockingly, they are not mandated, under current state law, to alert authorities to reports of child abuse in the educational setting, nor to report a worker’s resignation after such accusations.

State legislators are poised to vote on a bill that would align private school reporting rules with what’s expected of public school leaders. Passage of this legislation should have happened years ago.

Public schools have been mandated since 2000 to report suspicions of sex abuse by any staff, faculty or volunteer in the school environment, whether in a classroom, on a field trip or bus, or during extra-curricular activities. But private school administrators don’t fall under such regulations. It was a mistake then, and it’s a mistake now.

The legislation (A5371/S4342) has gained wide support.The New York State Catholic Conference has said it supports the legislation, which aligns with changes the American bishops made years ago in the wake of abuse reports. Agudath Israel, an umbrella organization for Orthodox Jewry, has remained publicly mum on the bill.

[CHILD VICTIMS ACT: Senate blocks access for New Yorkers abused as kids]

This is a separate issue from the Child Victims Act, which would extend the statute of limitations for both civil and criminal charges in reporting child sex abuse. That bill has been sentenced to death-by-committee year after year in the Senate; advocates report that Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan continues to ignore their requests to meet and discuss the legislation. It’s time for compassion and justice to prevail. The legislation should finally be passed as part of the upcoming state budget process, at the very latest.

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.

WORCESTER (MA)
Worcester Telegram & Gazette

January 25, 2018

By Mark Sullivan

A Catholic priest named in one of the Worcester Diocese’s largest sex-abuse settlements has been laicized, or defrocked, the diocese announced Thursday.

Peter J. Inzerillo, at his own request, was “dispensed from the clerical state” by Pope Francis, the diocese said. As a result, Mr. Inzerillo “may not function in any capacity as a priest or be referred to as a priest or as ‘Father.’ ”

The former Rev. Inzerillo was headmaster at St. Peter-Marian High School in Worcester from 1979 to 1985 and coached hockey there and at St. Bernard’s in Fitchburg.

He was vocations director for the Worcester Diocese in 1985 when he allegedly sexually assaulted a 19-year-old from Spencer who was considering entering the seminary.

The younger man, Edward Gagne, said he disclosed during counseling sessions with the vocations director that he had been abused before, as a 13-year-old altar boy, by another priest – and he alleged that Rev. Inzerillo then abused him in turn.

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.

NORTHER IRELAND
The Irish Times

January 25, 2018

By Patsy McGarry

[See the website of the Inquiry into Historical Institutional Abuse and the Report of the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry, which was published January 20, 2017.]

No action on abuse inquiry recommendations for victims until new executive set up

The largest Catholic diocese in Northern Ireland has described it as “deeply regrettable” that stalemate at Stormont has prevented implementation of recommendations by the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIAI).

Following an investigation into the sexual, physical and emotional abuse, neglect and unacceptable practices imposed on children in 22 Catholic, Protestant and state run homes and institutions in Northern Ireland between 1922 and 1995, a 2,300-page 12-volume report was published a year ago this month.

It recommended that a public apology be made to those who had been in the homes and institutions as children and that they be paid compensation.

In a statement Down and Connor diocese said it “unequivocally accepts” the HIAI recommendations in respect of those care institutions that were under its sole and/or joint management but that, a year on from the report’s publication, it was “deeply regrettable” these “haven’t been implemented due to the vacuum created by the current political impasse in Northern Ireland.”

It said “the legacy of abuse is compounded by the lack of a solution and compromise at the level of politics” and that “sadly, over the past year, some former residents of these homes have died and others have continued to suffer as they await support.”

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service via National Catholic Reporter

January 25, 2018

By Thomas Reese

The overwhelming consensus in the media is that Pope Francis has a blind spot when it comes to sexual abuse.

He may be on the side of refugees, migrants, the sick, the poor, the indigenous and other marginalized peoples, but 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, whom he appointed bishop of Osorno, Chile, despite accusations from victims that he witnessed and covered up abuse by the Fr. Fernando Karadima, the charismatic priest who in 2011 was found guilty by the Vatican of abusing minors in his upscale Santiago parish.

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

VATICAN CITY
Associated Press via The Republic [Columbus IN]

January 25, 2018

By Nicole Winfield

The Vatican’s upcoming conference on families in Ireland will feature a seminar on child protection, after the church’s sex abuse scandal devastated the credibility of the Catholic Church in the country.

Pope Francis’ top adviser on protecting children from pedophiles, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, will head the seminar and survivors are expected to participate, said Cardinal Kevin Farrell, head of the Vatican’s laity and family office.

He told a Vatican press conference that details would be announced later this month.

Francis is widely expected to travel to Dublin to attend the final days of the Aug. 21-26 World Meeting of Families, where the sex abuse scandal is likely to play out given the scale of abuse and cover-up in the country.

The Vatican refused to cooperate with three Irish government-ordered investigations from 2005 to 2009 which documented the rapes, molestations and other abuse suffered by thousands of Irish children by priests in their parishes and by nuns and brothers in boarding schools and orphanages.

Irish bishops did not report a single case to police until 1996 after victims began to sue the church.

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UNITED STATES
National Public Radio

January 24, 2018

By Tom Gjelten

[Includes link to audio]

The #MeToo movement, having exposed alleged sexual misconduct from Hollywood to Capitol Hill and in board rooms and news rooms, has now reached into evangelical Christian circles, raising questions unique to that faith culture.

Christians focus deeply on a narrative of sin and redemption, but that theme can complicate how church leaders respond to sexual misconduct within their own ranks. Heartfelt confessions and a celebration of divine forgiveness may not be enough.

That challenge was made clear for some evangelicals earlier this month when a young Tennessee pastor, Andy Savage, stood before his congregation and emotionally confessed to what he called “a sexual incident” in 1998 with a 17-year-old girl, Jules Woodson.

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UNITED STATES
Bangor Daily News

January 24, 2018

By Matthew Gagnon

I’d like to think I’d be different, though I hope I never find out.

I think virtually everyone in this country likes to think they would be different, too.

Yet it seems, despite that desire and belief in our own good intentions, truly horrendous things continue to happen in this country that were made possible by the complicit silence or cover up of people. People who at one point in their life thought to themselves, “if I was in that situation, I never would have let that happen.”

We are quick to judge our own nobility. When we learn that a woman was the victim of domestic abuse, people often declare that they would never let themselves or their children stay in a situation like that. Others tell themselves that if they knew, or even suspected, that someone they knew was being abused, they would say something and ensure that the abuse stopped.

When many of us – particularly everyday Catholics like myself – learned of the systematic abuse of children by clergy in the Catholic Church, and the subsequent cover up that protected the sexual predators who perpetrated the abuse, we were horrified. Not only by the abuse, but by the adults who knew that children were being victimized and did nothing, instead remaining silent and shuffling abusers to new locations where they could prey on others.

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

ST. PAUL (MN)
Minnesota Public Radio

January 24, 2018

By Martin Moylan

A plan to try once again to resolve the bankruptcy of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis through mediation has hit a snag with the resignation of Arthur Boylan, the retired federal judge who was slated to lead mediation efforts.

Boylan stepped aside Tuesday, a day after scheduling a series of mediation sessions for early next month. His resignation letter did not provide an explanation for his decision and he did not respond to a request for comment.

Last month, U.S. District Court judge Robert Kressel ordered all parties into mediation after rejecting competing reorganization proposals.

The judge urged the archdiocese, abuse victims, parishes, insurance companies and their lawyers to “put aside their desire to win, and decide to put together a resolution that is fair to all of the people involved.”

Kressel said victims must forego any desire for retribution and the church must “put aside its desire to minimize pain, realizing that the personal pain its employees inflicted upon victims is inevitably going to result in financial pain being suffered by a new generation of parishioners and employees.”

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UNITED STATES
The Register (UK-based online publication)

January 24, 2018

By Shaun Nichols

Easy with those exclusives and unfortunate facts, hacks

Take it easy with those hard-hitting exclusives and investigations, said the Pope this week, lumping inconvenient quality journalism with fake news and clickbait.

We can’t think why the head of a church mired in decades of globe-spanning child abuse scandals would have a problem with hacks doing their job and getting straight to the point.

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BOSTON (MA)
WBZ-TV Boston (CBS)

January 25, 2018

By Jon Keller

Before the horrendous saga of the USA Gymnastics doctor who molested dozens of women and girls begins to fade from the public eye, let’s take a moment to consider an important lesson the sordid case of Larry Nassar teaches us – we need our institutions to protect us and to prioritize that protection over all other considerations.

In the Nassar case, multiple victims have charged that officials with Michigan State University, USA Gymnastics, and the U.S. Olympic Committee, which all had authority over Nassar, brushed off the victims and their families when they complained about this sexual predator.

And at Nassar’s sentencing Wednesday, the judge made it clear she hopes they will also have to face justice.

“There has to be a massive investigation as to why there was inaction, why there was violence. Justice requires more than what I can do on this bench,” said Judge Rosemarie Aquilina.

This brought back bad memories of the way our politicians so often fail us by hiding the truth from us, the way the Catholic Church blamed the victims and protected the perpetrators of the priest sex abuse scandal, the way government watchdogs are too often leashed, or turned into lapdogs for the abusers of power instead of warriors for their victims.

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UNITED STATES
HuffPost

January 23, 2018

By Carol Kuruvilla

But the pope didn’t waver in his support for a controversial Chilean bishop accused of covering up abuse.

Pope Francis partially apologized for last week’s brusque attack on victims of sex abuse by the clergy ― but he continued supporting a controversial Chilean bishop accused of protecting an abusive priest.

On board a papal flight from Peru to Rome late Sunday, the pontiff acknowledged to journalists that his demand to see “proof” that Bishop Juan Barros Madrid had been complicit in the abuse of minors could have hit victims like a “slap in the face.” He said he realized that his words on Thursday implied that victims’ accusations of sexual abuse are only credible with concrete evidence.

“To hear that the pope says to their face, ‘Bring me a letter with proof,’ is a slap in the face” that he didn’t intend, Francis said, according to The Associated Press.

Although he apologized for asking for “proof,” he suggested the testimony of victims against Barros is still not enough.

“I can’t condemn [Barros] because I don’t have evidence. But I’m also convinced that he’s innocent,” the pope said, according to AP.

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UNITED STATES
TIME magazine

January 25, 2018

By Alice Park

One of the many women sexually abused by disgraced USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar recalled feeling like a “shell of a child,” as three of Nassar’s victims took to the airwaves Thursday morning a day after he was sentenced to up to 175 years in prison.

“I was a shell of a child, I thought I had no way out,” elite gymnast Mattie Larson said on the Today show, appearing alongside Kyle Stephens and Rachel Denhollander, who were also sexually abused by Nassar.

More than 150 women delivered statements at Nassar’s sentencing hearing, detailing years of abuse that began for some when they were as young as six years old. Nassar’s victims spanned gymnasts in Michigan, where he was on the faculty at Michigan State University before he was fired in 2016, a family friend, as well as Olympians Aly Raisman and Jordyn Wieber. Raisman and Wieber’s Olympic teammates Gabby Douglas and McKayla Maroney also said they were abused by Nassar.

“To watch all of these women who are able to come forward and speak the truth about the abuse that happened to them, and are able to put the shame and blame back where it belongs, is an incredibly powerful thing to witness,” Denhollander, the first woman to publicly reveal she was a victim of sexual assault by Nassar, said Thursday on the Today show. But while she first reported Nassar’s conduct to the people he worked for including USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University in 2004, she noted that other people had also reported him starting in the late 1990s. “The vast majority [of abuse]… did not have to happen,” Denhollander said.

Larson described intentionally hurting herself in order to avoid the national training camp where she knew Nassar would be, hitting her head against a tub the night before she was scheduled to leave for the camp.

The women echoed criticisms heard all week against the institutions that continued to support Nassar — USA Gymnastics, Michigan State University, and Twistars Gymnastics, where Nassar also worked as doctor. But it wasn’t until the publicly aired statements by the survivors that in recent days, that the board leadership of USA Gymnastics resigned, and MSU’s president resigned.

While Nassar abused gymnasts and athletes under the guise of medical treatment, with Kyle Stephens, whose parents were friends with Nassar, it was simply abuse. Only six years old when Nassar began exposing himself, masturbating and abusing her in his basement, Stephens said she did not realize she was abused until several years later, when she saw coverage of the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church.

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UNITED STATES
PBS Newshour

January 23, 2018

[Includes video]

Pope Francis came under fire during a trip to Chile for defending a bishop accused of directly witnessing and covering up sexual abuse by another church figure, dating back to the 1980s. While the pope apologized for his wording, he stands by the bishop. Lisa Desjardins talks with Anne Barrett Doyle of BishopAccountability.org about what the pontiff’s words mean to victims and other Catholics.

Judy Woodruff:

The pope just concluded a trip to Chile this weekend, aimed at healing some of the after-effects of sexual abuse committed there.

But his remarks during that trip, and on his return from it, about the role of a bishop in a scandal there have raised questions.

Lisa Desjardins looks at the pope’s pledges to change the church’s actions and attitude.

Lisa Desjardins:

The cases in Chile date back to the 1980s and a well-connected priest found to be a pedophile, the Reverend Fernando Karadima.

Both the Vatican and a Chilean judge concluded those accusations were credible. The church defrocked him.

Why this matters now? Karadima was a longtime mentor to a current bishop, Juan Barros Madrid. He is accused of covering up and witnessing the abuse.

While in Chile to apologize for abuse by other priests, Pope Francis defended this bishop, saying there is not one shred of evidence against him.

That set off a firestorm. The pope apologized for his wording yesterday, but he also stood by the bishop.

Anne Barrett Doyle is the co-director of the watchdog group and web site BishopAccountability.org. And she joins me now.

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HONOLULU (HAWAII)
Hawaii News Now

January 25, 2018

By Lynn Kawano

Hawaii lawmakers want to give more abuse victims the chance to come forward and file civil lawsuits, no matter how much time has passed.

Bills introduced in both the House and Senate failed last session, but a national movement to expose abusers and the high profile case against Kamehameha Schools could add momentum for the legislation.

Representative Linda Ichiyama and Senator Maile Shimabukuro introduced companion bills which would extend the window for lawsuits despite the statute of limitations.

“What we’re learning from data and research about trauma and what happens to a person’s brain when they undergo trauma is that they’re not ready to bring suits until much later,” says Ichiyama, “I think we need to adjust policies to reflect that research now that we know.”

More than a hundred victims came forward between 2012 and 2016, a four-year window that was opened for old sex abuse cases. Most of the cases involved catholic church priests and a psychiatrist who molested boys while they attended Kamehameha Schools.

Shimabukuro says national movements like the “#MeToo” campaign have also highlighted the need for victims to stand up and expose abusers.

“Less and less people are having shame for something that happened to them that wasn’t their fault,” says Shimabukuro.

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AUSTRALIA
The Advertiser

January 25, 2018

By Miles Kemp

Some of the state’s worst paedophiles would be compensated for themselves being victims when they were children under a radical scheme proposed by the Victims of Crime Commissioner.

In his submission to legislation dealing with the fallout from the Royal Commission into child abuse in institutions, commissioner Michael O’Connell says their plight as abused children cannot be ignored.

“Redress is not about their crime (as an adult) but rather about their victimisation as children,’’ Mr O’Connell states in a submission he provided to The Advertiser.

“The redress scheme cannot be truly just, fair and equitable if some kinds of victims are ineligible.

“All (child) victims should count, including those who later became offenders.

“No child should ever experience that which inquiry after inquiry, victim story after victim story, have revealed happened”.

The controversial statements will reignite what the federal and state governments last year described as the “agonising” decision to exclude those victims who had gone on to abuse others.

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ROME (ITALY)
Crux

January 25, 2018

By John L. Allen Jr.

News Analysis

Pope Francis just concluded the 22nd international trip of his papacy, to Chile and Peru, and it says something about the media honeymoon he’s enjoyed up to now that it’s really the first such trip about which pundits and commentators could have a meaningful debate over whether it was a success or a failure.

It may also say something about the wisdom of Jesus’ saying, “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place, and among his own kin and in his own house,” that Francis’s first could-be flop came in South America. (I make the distinction here between South America and Latin America because the dynamics are often different in Central America.)

On the pope’s trip, controversy centered around Francis’s response to the clerical sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church, and specifically, his handling of the case of a bishop in Chile who’s been accused by victims of that country’s most notorious pedophile priest of knowing about their abuse and covering it up.

In a nutshell, Francis apologized to victims for the enormous wrongs they’ve suffered, and also reiterated his commitment to a “zero tolerance” policy. He met privately with victims, in order to hear their stories and to share their pain.

At the same time, he did not yield an inch on the case of Bishop Juan Barros, one of four Chilean prelates accused of being in on the cover-up. There’s been pressure on Francis to remove Barros ever since he named him to a small southern Chilean diocese in 2015, but the pope made crystal-clear that’s not going to happen.

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BOSTON (MA)
The Boston Globe

January 25, 2018

By Yvonne Abraham

Because nobody who currently runs the world of elite gymnastics can be trusted. Nobody in that world would protect Larry Nassar’s victims from his horrific sexual abuse. The days of testimony in a Michigan courtroom, which culminated in the doctor’s sentencing Wednesday, have laid bare the utter and cataclysmic failures of officials at USA Gymnastics, at Michigan State, and elsewhere, to keep the children in their care from harm.

Time and again, victims were doubted, their allegations ignored. Winning was everything.

“Your abuse started 30 years ago,” said Needham native and gold medalist Aly Raisman, testifying at the sentencing hearing on Friday. “If over these many years just one adult listened and had the courage and character to act . . . I and so many others would have never, ever met you.”

We have lived this story before. It has been 16 years since the Globe and others exposed the rampant, decades-long plague of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. And yet here we are, as if none of it — nor any of the ensuing sexual scandals in other hallowed institutions — ever happened.

For decades, with the help of officials who required gymnasts to submit to his treatment, Nassar preyed on defenseless girls made more vulnerable by their dreams of winning gold medals in a sport that demanded perfection, and absolute compliance. So far, 150 women have come forward to say he molested them.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

January 24, 2018

By Heidi Schlumpf and Maria Benevento

Despite repeated accusations by Pope Francis that survivors of clergy sex abuse in Chile are guilty of “slander” and “calumny,” Juan Carlos Cruz is still speaking out about the abuse he suffered at the hands of a Chilean priest — and about the cover-up by church leaders there.

During his visit to Chile last week and on the papal plane Jan. 21, Pope Francis defended Bishop Juan Barros Madrid of Osorno, Chile, insisting there is no evidence the prelate ignored or covered up sexual abuse by Fr. Fernando Karadima.

But Cruz told NCR Jan. 23 that he and other survivors testified — in criminal, civil and church proceedings — that while “the bigger abuse was behind closed doors,” Barros was in the room when Karadima touched the genitals and put his tongue in the mouth of Cruz and other victims.

“That’s what Barros saw,” said Cruz, who now lives in Wilmington, Delaware. “I don’t know if I should have taken a photograph for more evidence. What other evidence than our testimony, and that of so many others, do they need?”

He believes it is impossible that Barros and others did not see the abuse. “They were standing by me when things happened,” Cruz said. “If they want to say they saw nothing, that is an absolute lie.”

Cruz and other victims of Karadima have testified in court and in letters sent to church officials that Barros and other church officials — including bishops Andrés Arteaga, an auxiliary in Santiago, Tomislav Koljatic of Linares, Chile, and Horacio Valenzuela of Talca, Chile — knew of the abuse and covered it up.

The Chilean bishops have consistently denied witnessing any abuse by Karadima or participating in a cover up. Barros and Valenzuela denied the accusations most recently in an interview with Cruxnow.com, in a story published Jan. 17.

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VATICAN CITY (ITALY)
Catholic News Service via CatholicPhilly.com

January 24, 2018

[Includes link to related video]

Pope Francis said he told the bishops and priests of Chile to be uncompromising when it comes to protecting minors from sexual abuse and to trust that God will purify and renew his church during this time of trial.

Problems and conflicts must never be swept under the rug, he also said, because they can be resolved only through openness and dialogue.

At his weekly general audience Jan. 24 in St. Peter’s Square, the pope told an estimated 15,000 pilgrims and visitors about his Jan. 15-21 visit to Chile and Peru.

Thanking leaders, organizers and volunteers for all their hard work and generosity in contributing to a trip where “everything went well,” the pope also recognized the presence of protesters.

The protests made the theme of his visit to Chile, “I Give You My Peace,” even more relevant and timely, he said, as these words Jesus spoke to his disciples explain how he is the one and only source of peace for those who trust in him.

Some of the more “intense” moments of the trip, he said, were meetings with Chile’s priests, religious and bishops.

Those encounters were made “even more fruitful by the shared suffering over some of the wounds that afflict the church” there, he said. The pope had earlier asked forgiveness from those who were sexually abused by priests, but stood firm with his decision in 2015 to give a diocese to Bishop Juan Barros, who was accused of turning a blind eye to the abuse perpetrated by Father Fernando Karadima, his former mentor.

During his general audience at the Vatican, the pope said he emphasized to his brother bishops and priests that they must “reject every compromise with the sexual abuse of minors and, at the same time, trust in God, who through this difficult trial, purifies and renews his ministers.”

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ROME (ITALY)
The New York Times

January 24, 2018

By Jason Horowitz

The serpent in the Garden of Eden hissed the first fake news to Eve and it all went downhill from there, Pope Francis writes in a major document about the phenomenon of fake news released on Wednesday.

“We need to unmask what could be called the ‘snake-tactics’ used by those who disguise themselves in order to strike at any time and place,” the pope writes in a message ahead of what the church has designated as its World Day of Social Communications, in May.

Arguing that the “crafty” serpent’s effective disinformation campaign to get Eve to eat from the tree of knowledge “began the tragic history of human sin,” he adds, “I would like to contribute to our shared commitment to stemming the spread of fake news.”

Pope Francis has worn many hats since his election in 2013 — Vatican reformer; global advocate for refugees, the poor, and world peace; and, more recently, defender of bishops accused of covering up for pedophile priests.

But in a varyingly sophisticated, spiritual and questionable analysis of the fake news epidemic, the 81-year-old pontiff tried on the cap of contemporary media critic to address an issue that has wreaked havoc and undermined democracies from the United States to Europe and beyond.

In doing so, he offered a largely cleareyed assessment of the problem, its social impact, and the responsibility of social media giants and journalists. And he called on news consumers to break out of their comfortable echo chambers and cushy news feeds by seeking out different points of view.

But at times the pope also conflated fake news, which is politically or economically motivated disinformation, with an incremental and sensational style of journalism he dislikes — a muddying of the waters that many democracy advocates have worried is corrosive to a free press and to the ideal of an informed populace.

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EDINBURGH (SCOTLAND)
BBC News

January 24, 2018

A nun in charge of a Catholic order has offered her “deepest and most sincere apologies” to anyone who may have been abused at Smyllum Park orphanage.

Sister Ellen Flynn said “horrifying” accounts of abuse at the Lanark care home were “totally against” everything the order stood for.

She was giving evidence at the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry in Edinburgh.

The inquiry has already heard weeks of evidence about the institution, which was shut in 1981.

One former resident, who was a child at the orphanage in the 1960s, has told the inquiry there was a “culture of evil among religious orders” at that time.

Record keeping

Sister Flynn – who broke down in tears during her testimony – said that her heart was with the survivors, as she vowed the order would engage with them and the probe to “put right what wrongs are found”.

The pledge came as she and another witness admitted a variety of historical failures had taken place at the home, including “weak” governance and record-keeping.

Dozens of former residents have testified that they received beatings and were mistreated at the home, run by the Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul.

Sister Ellen, who is the current head of the order, said: “For those who are in distress, for those whom we have hurt in any way, our deepest and most sincere apologies.

“If we can do something about it, let us know.”

She and another nun, Sister Eileen Glancy – who also gave evidence – told the hearing that they wished to amend a previous apology because they now realised that there was “more than a possibility that some abuse had occurred” at Smyllum.

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EUROPE
Political Critique

January 24, 2018

By Agata Diduszko-Zyglewska

Interview with Peter Saunders, the chief of The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (Great Britain) and a suspended member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors and Vulnerable People that was created by Pope Francis.

Agata Diduszko-Zyglewska: You are a survivor of sexual abuse in childhood. Could you tell me what was your story?

Peter Saunders: Yes, I am from London. I was born in a place called Wimbledon in south-west London. I was the youngest of five children born into a good Catholic family, as we were called. The first time I was sexually assaulted it was at my Catholic primary school as a very small child by a head teacher. Many years later when I disclosed the abuse I found out that he had abused many children, but we hadn’t known about each other. Going back nearly 50 years, I remember how the head teacher suddenly disappeared from school. I found out, many years later, that some children had been able to tell to their parents what was happening. So the parents went to the bishop and that man… was sent to another school. A regular, normal pattern for Catholic institutions. Also very early in my life, at 7-8 years of age, I was sexually abused by a member of my family, which lasted until I was 14 years of age. When I went to my secondary school I was also sexually assaulted by two Jesuit priests. One of whom was a head teacher, who was a layman, and the other was a retired priest who lived on the school premises.

Concerning the head teacher’s involvement in the abuse in both schools, I suppose there must have been many more children harmed over the years.

Yes, when I got a lot of publicity three years ago, after meeting the Pope and after being appointed to the pontifical commission. People who I had not seen for a long time and some people I had never met, from my schools, emailed me to say that they had been abused by some of the same priests. Moreover, it turns out that one of my brothers who had been to the school six years before me had been abused by the retired priest too.

Didn’t any adult from your family know about it?

Nobody knew nobody said anything. I remained silent for the next 22-23 years.

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UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter

January 24, 2018

By Michael Sean Winters Vatican

Reading Pope Francis’ comments at the press conference on the flight back to Rome, regarding clergy sex abuse and the allegations against Bishop Juan Barros Madrid, and rereading them again and again, I confess I cannot make heads or tails out of them.

Pope Francis said at one point: “The word ‘proof’ was not the best, I would rather say ‘evidence.’ In Barros’ case, I have studied and restudied, there is no evidence to condemn him. And if I condemned without evidence or moral certainty, I would commit a crime of bad judgment.”

Related: Francis again cries ‘calumny’ defending bishop accused of abuse cover-up
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Later, in response to a follow-up question, the pope said, “I must apologize for what the abused feel. The word ‘proof’ has hurt many of them. They say: Do I have to go look for a certification? I apologize to them if I hurt them without realizing it, I didn’t mean to. And it causes me so much pain, because I meet them: in Chile two meetings are known to the public, the others have not been disclosed. In every trip, there is always a chance to meet the victims, the meeting of Philadelphia went public, but not the other cases. To hear that the Pope tells them: ‘bring me a letter with proof, is a slap’ I realize that my expression didn’t come out very well, and I understand, as Peter writes in one of his letters, that the fire has risen. That’s what I can honestly say.”

When asked about the remarkable statement from Cardinal Sean O’Malley, in which the cardinal bluntly spoke of the hurt caused by the pope’s earlier comments on this case, Francis said: “O’ Malley said that the Pope has always used ‘zero tolerance’… Then there is that ‘bad choice of words,’ I spoke of calumny, to say of someone who says something with pertinacity without having evidence. If I say: you stole, and you have not stolen, then I am libeling, because I have no evidence. It was an unfortunate expression. But I have not heard any victim of Barros. They did not come, they did not show themselves, they did not give evidence in court. It’s all in the air. It is true that Barros was in Karadima’s group of young people. But let us be clear: if you accuse someone without evidence with pertinacity, that is calumny. However, if a person arrives and gives me evidence, I will be the first to listen to them. O’ Malley’s statement was very right, and I have thanked him. He spoke about the pain of victims in general.”

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UNITED STATES
New York Review of Books

January 24, 2018

By Ariel Dorfman

There were certain words that Chileans were hoping that Pope Francis would say during his three-day visit to our country last week. They were hoping he would denounce the sexual abuse committed by members of the Catholic clergy, and particularly the offenses perpetrated by a corrupt and malevolent priest named Fernando Karadima. They were also waiting for Francis to condemn the hierarchs in the Catholic Church who had silenced and humiliated the victims and helped to cover up Karadima’s crimes. Above all, my compatriots wanted the pope to publicly chide Bishop Juan Barros, who had been Karadima’s protégé and, according to reports (denied by Barros), had witnessed his mentor’s pedophilia. The issue of Barros mattered symbolically because the pope himself, in 2015, had appointed this collaborator of Karadima’s as the bishop of Osorno, a city in southern Chile, in spite of angry complaints from the congregation.

In an op-ed I wrote for The New York Times that appeared just before the papal visit, I argued that, for Chileans, the way in which Francis handled this case would be a critical test of whether he could restore the prestige of the disgraced local Church, so wounded by these scandals, to the noble place it had held in public sympathy for decades because of its brave opposition to the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet (1973–1990). Pope Francis failed that test.

He did express “shame and pain” at the abuse of minors by members of the clergy, and he did hold a brief meeting with some of the victims—though not with any of those who had been mistreated by Karadima, or with anyone who has blamed Barros for his connivance. But Barros was flagrantly present at three ceremonies over which the pope officiated in Chile during the visit, and on one occasion, the pontiff embraced the bishop and kissed him on the cheek in a display of affection and support.

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ORLANDO (FL)
WKMG News 6

January 22, 2018

By Mike DeForest

Uncomfortable discussing a sensitive matter with her family, a teenage girl made an appointment with a priest to reveal a dark secret she had been carrying for years, according to prosecutors.

While taking part in the Catholic Church’s Sacrament of Reconciliation, commonly known as confession, prosecutors claim the girl disclosed to Rev. Vincenzo Ronchi that a relative had sexually abused her on several occasions beginning when she was 7 years old.

During that November 2014 confession, the girl reportedly urged the priest to keep their conversation private because she did not want her family or authorities to know about the molestation, court records state.

Two years later, however, the girl reported the sexual abuse to law enforcement officials.

As Loren Tim Burton now awaits trial on charges of sexual battery and child molestation, prosecutors say they need the priest’s testimony to put the defendant in prison for the rest of his life.

“As in the vast majority of child sexual abuses cases, there were no witnesses to the abuse,” prosecutors wrote in court papers. “The only evidence the State has to corroborate the victim’s testimony at trial is her ‘outcry’ statement (to Ronchi).”

The alleged victim, now an adult, has signed a waiver granting Ronchi permission to testify about their confidential conversation, court records show. But attorneys representing the clergy member are fighting to keep the priest off the witness stand, arguing that he is forbidden from disclosing anything discussed during confession.

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SANTIAGO (CHILE)
La Tercera

>>>The causes where Juan Barros appears

January 19, 2018

By S. Rodríguez y S. Vedoya

En las investigaciones civiles y canónica sobre el caso Karadima se menciona a l obispo de Osorno, pero no existe ninguna causa específica en su contra.

“Ni en el juicio civil ni en el canónico hubo ninguna prueba. Eso es lo mínimo que cualquier ciudadano puede esperar de la justicia. Si me van a condenar de algo, pruébenlo y que la justicia lo considere válido. Eso, hasta el día de hoy, no ha existido en el caso del obispo Barros. El Papa exigió para un hermano obispo lo que exigimos para todos”, señaló Héctor Vargas, jefe de la diócesis de Temuco.

La opinión del prelado apunta directamente al centro del llamado “tema Barros”: si más allá de declaraciones, rumores, aprensiones, trascendidos y opi- niones existe alguna prueba e investigación concreta respecto del cuestionado obispo y su eventual encubrimiento de las conductas de Karadima. Los denunciantes aseguran que sí hay, en los expedientes ya conocidos sobre Karadima.

Respecto del ex párroco, condenado canónicamente de por vida por abusos sexuales, existen tres investigaciones formales. Una es la eclesiástica, que concluyó con su sanción, en 2011.

Otra fue la indagatoria penal, a cargo de la ministra en visita Jéssica González, que en noviembre de 2011 acreditó la existencia de abusos, pero que estaban prescritos.

En aquel fallo se menciona a Barros dos veces. Una es en el testimonio del religioso Juan Debesa, quien dijo que el ahora obispo apoyó que lo apartaran de los sacerdotes de El Bosque. “Un sábado en la noche estaban Karadima y los entonces seminaristas Andrés Arteaga, Juan Barros y otro que no recuerda, y se le reprochó su conducta por reunirse con personas que ellos no aprobaban”, se indica en el fallo.

La segunda mención está relacionada con la intención y gestiones que hizo Juan Carlos Cruz para ingresar al seminario y que no habrían sido apoyadas por Karadima. “Tampoco supo (el ex párroco) que el actual obispo Barros hubiese enviado al seminario una carta sobre el tema”, se sostiene.

En la indagatoria civil, en tanto, cuyo fallo fue dado a conocer el 16 de marzo de 2017, el ministro de fuero Juan Muñoz Pardo rechazó la demanda presentada por las víctimas del ex párroco de El Bosque, Juan Carlos Cruz, José Andrés Murillo y James Hamilton, en contra del arzobispo de Santiago.

En este documento, fundamentalmente en las declaraciones de los denunciantes, se menciona en múltiples ocasiones al obispo Juan Barros. Y cuando se le pregunta a Karadima su vínculo con el prelado, el sacerdote dijo que “él era de la Acción Católica e iba a verme a la parroquia y yo fui a verlo a Iquique. Una amistad muy sincera; él me consiguió un viaje a Francia, con el obispo de Louvre, para mis 50 años de sacerdocio”.

A la inversa, cuando se le consulta a Barros sobre la conducta de Karadima, el obispo de Osorno respondió que “yo no presencié los hechos, pero sí la sentencia de la Congregación de la Doctrina de la Fe los tuvo por efectivos y adhiero a eso (…)”.

Respecto de la situación de Barros, la especialista en Derecho Canónico de la U. de los Andes, Anastasía Assimakópulos, explicó que “en el sacramento del orden sagrado en el grado de obispo, el único que puede nombrar, trasladar, remover o aceptar una renuncia es el Papa”.

[Google Translation: In civil and canonical investigations on the Karadima case the Bishop of Osorno is mentioned, but there is no specific cause against him.

“Neither in the civil nor in the canonical trial was there any proof. That is the minimum that any citizen can expect from justice. If you are going to condemn me, prove it and that justice considers it valid. That, to this day, has not existed in the case of Bishop Barros. The Pope demanded for a brother bishop what we demand for all, “said Hector Vargas, head of the Diocese of Temuco.

The prelate’s opinion points directly to the center of the so-called “Barros theme”: if beyond declarations, rumors, apprehensions, transcendence and opinions, there is some concrete evidence and investigation regarding the questioned bishop and his eventual concealment of Karadima’s behavior. The complainants assure that there are, in the already known files on Karadima.

Regarding the former parish priest, canonically sentenced for life for sexual abuse, there are three formal investigations. One is the ecclesiastical, which concluded with its sanction, in 2011.

Another one was the criminal investigation, in charge of the minister in visit Jéssica González, who in November of 2011 credited the existence of abuses, but that they were prescribed.

In that ruling, Barros is mentioned twice. One is in the testimony of the religious Juan Debesa, who said that the now bishop supported to be separated from the priests of El Bosque. “One Saturday night were Karadima and the then seminarians Andrés Arteaga, Juan Barros and another who does not remember, and he was reproached for his behavior for meeting people they did not approve,” the ruling says.

The second mention is related to the intention and efforts made by Juan Carlos Cruz to enter the seminar and that would not have been supported by Karadima. “Nor did he know (the former parish priest) that the current Bishop Barros had sent a letter to the seminary on the subject,” he maintains.

In the civil investigation, meanwhile, whose ruling was released on March 16, 2017, the minister of jurisdiction Juan Muñoz Pardo rejected the lawsuit filed by the victims of the former pastor of El Bosque, Juan Carlos Cruz, José Andrés Murillo and James Hamilton, against the archbishop of Santiago.

In this document, fundamentally in the statements of the complainants, Bishop Juan Barros is mentioned on multiple occasions. And when Karadima was asked about his link with the prelate, the priest said that “he was from Catholic Action and he was going to see me at the parish and I went to see him in Iquique. A very sincere friendship; he got me a trip to France, with the Bishop of Louvre, for my 50 years of priesthood. ”

Conversely, when Barros was consulted about Karadima’s behavior, the bishop of Osorno replied that “I did not witness the events, but the sentence of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith took them to be effective and I adhere to that (…) “.

Regarding the situation of Barros, the specialist in Canon Law of the U. de los Andes, Anastasia Assimakopoulos, explained that “in the sacrament of sacred order in the degree of bishop, the only one who can name, transfer, remove or accept a renunciation is the Pope.”]

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SANTIAGO (CHILE)
La Tercera

>>>Lack of resources prevented a lawsuit against Barros

January 23, 2018

By Paula Yévenes and Camila Mardones

Abogado de las víctimas de Karadima dijo que por esto optaron por demandar civilmente a la Iglesia.

Las últimas declaraciones del Papa Francisco en el avión de regreso al Vaticano provocaron diversas reacciones. En la instancia, acompañado por los medios de comunicación, el Pontífice pidió perdón por sus dichos en su último día en Chile, donde respaldó la permanencia del obispo Juan Barros en la diócesis de Osorno y aseguró en esa ocasión que no se ha presentado ninguna “prueba” en su contra (ver nota páginas 2-3).

Pese a que los cuestionamientos al obispo comenzaron en 2015, a la fecha no se ha presentado ninguna acción legal en su contra a partir de las acusaciones que lo vinculan con el ex párroco de El Bosque Fernando Karadima.

Respecto de esta situación, el abogado de las víctimas de Karadima, Juan Pablo Hermosilla, explicó que todos los antecedentes respecto de lo que ocurría en la parroquia de El Bosque están a disposición del Vaticano. “El solo hecho de que Barros haya sido tan cercano a Karadima es un antecedente que habla por sí solo”, expresó.

Además, dijo que no se tomaron acciones en contra de Barros, ni de otros sacerdotes cercanos al ex párroco, porque “no teníamos los recursos para querellarnos en contra de todos ellos. Por eso, preferimos englobar todo en una sola acción, que fue la demanda civil contra la Iglesia”.

Y señaló que para sus defendidos todo el proceso ha significado un gran desgaste emocional. “Se está poniendo el peso del Vaticano a tres víctimas que han hecho un esfuerzo gigantesco. Es una falta de respeto, es una hipocresía”.

Reacciones divididas

Para algunos, la acción del Pontífice representó un gran gesto de humildad. Mientras que para otros, está lejos de ser suficiente para reparar el daño.

En cuanto a la frase donde el Pontífice sostiene que no puede destituir al prelado, porque estaría faltando a la presunción de inocencia, Juan Carlos Claret, vocero de la agrupación de Laicos de Osorno, manifestó que “el Papa no ha comprendido que su labor no es ser un tribunal, sino que un líder espiritual”. Y añadió que “ahora sabemos que él termina asumiendo la exclusiva responsabilidad sobre el nombramiento y permanencia de Juan Barros (…). Eso demuestra un acto de irresponsabilidad inhumano y cruel, porque prefirió sacrificar toda una diócesis y someter al propio Juan Barros a una situación que atañe contra su dignidad”.

Sin embargo, para el mundo católico la acción de Francisco “es una expresión de cercanía hacia las víctimas de abuso y un signo de humildad de un pastor que no tiene dificultad en reconocer que unas palabras suyas han herido a personas que ya han sufrido”. Así lo definió Jaime Coiro, secretario general de la Conferencia Episcopal. Y destacó que los dichos del Pontífice dejan la puerta abierta para presentar más evidencias, “Lo ha dicho el mismo Papa: tiene abierto su corazón a recibir cualquier antecedente que pueda surgir”.

[Google Translation: Lawyer for the victims of Karadima said that this is why they opted to sue the Church civilly.

The latest statements by Pope Francis on the plane back to the Vatican provoked various reactions. In the instance, accompanied by the media, the Pontiff apologized for his remarks on his last day in Chile, where he supported the stay of Bishop Juan Barros in the diocese of Osorno and assured on that occasion that no has been presented. test “against you (see note pages 2-3).

Although the questioning of the bishop began in 2015, to date no legal action has been filed against him based on the accusations linking him to the former pastor of El Bosque, Fernando Karadima.

Regarding this situation, the lawyer of the victims of Karadima, Juan Pablo Hermosilla, explained that all the information regarding what happened in the parish of El Bosque are available to the Vatican. “The mere fact that Barros has been so close to Karadima is an antecedent that speaks for itself,” he said.

In addition, he said that no action was taken against Barros, or other priests close to the former pastor, because “we did not have the resources to complain against all of them. Therefore, we prefer to include everything in a single action, which was the civil suit against the Church. ”
And he pointed out that for his defendants the whole process has meant a great emotional strain. “The Vatican’s weight is being placed on three victims who have made a gigantic effort. It’s a lack of respect, it’s hypocrisy. ”

Split reactions

For some, the action of the Pontiff represented a great gesture of humility. While for others, it is far from enough to repair the damage.

Regarding the sentence where the Pontiff maintains that he can not dismiss the prelate, because he would be missing the presumption of innocence, Juan Carlos Claret, spokesman of the Lajos de Osorno group, said that “the Pope has not understood that his work is not is to be a court, but a spiritual leader. ” He added that “now we know that he ends up assuming the exclusive responsibility for the appointment and permanence of Juan Barros (…). This demonstrates an act of inhuman and cruel irresponsibility, because he preferred to sacrifice an entire diocese and subject Juan Barros himself to a situation that concerns his dignity.”

However, for the Catholic world, Francisco’s action “is an expression of closeness towards victims of abuse and a sign of humility of a pastor who has no difficulty in recognizing that some of his words have hurt people who have already suffered.” This was defined by Jaime Coiro, general secretary of the Episcopal Conference. And he stressed that the Pontiff’s sayings leave the door open to present more evidence, “The Pope himself has said: he has opened his heart to receive any antecedent that may arise.”]

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SANTIAGO (CHILE)
La Nación

>>>Jesuits Confirm Sentence Against Priest Who Would Have Abused Viñuela

January 23, 2018

En 2012 se comenzó una investigación en contra del sacerdote, donde se determinó su culpabilidad, sin embargo, esto no se hizo público por petición de uno de los denunciantes.

A raíz de la denuncia de acoso sexual efectuada por el animador de MEGA, José Miguel Viñuela, contra un sacerdote jesuita, la Compañía de Jesús emitió un comunicado asegurando que el agresor, identificado como Jaime Guzmán Astaburuaga, fue condenado por la orden religiosa en el año 2012.

En el texto, se indicó que el delegado provincial de la congregación, Arturo Vigneaux, se reunió con el rostro televisivo para que informara lo sucedido y se invitó a las personas a entregar antecedentes contra el sacerdote.

[Google Translation: In 2012 an investigation was started against the priest, where his guilt was determined, however, this was not made public at the request of one of the complainants.

Following the complaint of sexual harassment carried out by the MEGA animator, José Miguel Viñuela , against a Jesuit priest , the Society of Jesus issued a statement assuring that the aggressor, identified as Jaime Guzmán Astaburuaga, was condemned by the religious order in the year 2012.

In the text, it was indicated that the provincial delegate of the congregation, Arturo Vigneaux, met with the television face to report what happened and people were invited to give background against the priest.

In addition, the Jesuits reported that in 2012 an investigation was carried out that “determined the culpability of Guzmán , who, at present, is serving the sentence imposed. This includes the prohibition of contact with minors and the restriction to publicly exercise the priestly ministry , “adding that this situation” was not made public by express request of one of the complainants.”

“We reiterate our commitment to act with the utmost diligence, collaborating with the competent civil and ecclesiastical institutions, by virtue of the care and transparency with the victims of abuse,” they remarked.]

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DETROIT (MI)
ClickOnDetroit.com

January 23, 2018

Lansing, Mich. – The sentencing for former sports physician Larry Nassar will continue Tuesday morning in Lansing. Watch it live here.

View statements from previous days:

• Day 1

• Day 2

• Day 3

• Day 4

• Day 5

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SAN JOSE (CA)
Make Pres Safe

January 22, 2018

[Note: Includes a petition, a timeline, and links to sources.]

Help Stop Decades of Sexual Misconduct at Presentation High School

The decisions by past and present Presentation High School administrators to ignore the laws designed to protect students from predators have resulted in the molestation and abuse of young girls entrusted to their care. Throughout the years, numerous teachers quit the school in protest, and suspected predators seemed immune to consequences even though administrators knew they were the target of sexual abuse complaints. Even today, PHS administrators refuse to accept responsibility for their actions or apologize to victims.

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SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Cooperativa

>>>Bishop Barros must resign

January 23, 2018

By Sergio Bitar

Finalizada la visita del Papa en Chile ¿cuál es el diagnóstico que hará la iglesia chilena?, ¿qué conclusiones extraerá el Vaticano? Aunque no parece aconsejable intervenir en los temas internos de la iglesia, la visita del Papa la trasciende. Es un tema público.

Pensé y pienso que esta visita era una oportunidad para que los progresistas escucharan sus planteamientos sociales y políticos. Los pensamientos predicados por el Papa inspiran a muchas personas que comparten los valores de inclusión social y solidaridad, sustentabilidad ambiental, participación ciudadana y diversidad cultural.

Resultó decepcionante que esos planteamientos fueran casi silenciados por un manejo tan poco inteligente. Reapareció nuevamente una iglesia chilena que pone en primer plano los temas sexuales en lugar de los temas culturales, sociales y políticos.

[Google Translation: After the Pope’s visit to Chile, what is the diagnosis of the Chilean church? What conclusions will the Vatican draw? Although it does not seem advisable to intervene in the internal issues of the church, the Pope’s visit transcends it. It is a public issue.

I thought and I think that this visit was an opportunity for the progressives to listen to their social and political proposals. The thoughts preached by the Pope inspire many people who share the values ​​of social inclusion and solidarity, environmental sustainability, citizen participation and cultural diversity.

It was disappointing that these approaches were almost silenced by such an unintelligent management. A Chilean church reappeared that puts sexual issues in the foreground instead of cultural, social and political issues.

The behavior of Bishop Barros, questioned by members of the church, also receives the disapproval of the laity. Barros boasted of the support of the Curia and this hurt the feeling of thousands of Chileans.

Nor was the Pope’s stiff affirmation so supportive. One wonders who are the advisors that lead him to express himself in that way. The image of many brave priests and nuns, true shepherds, who deserve the respect of all, was damaged.

Undoubtedly there is a serious distancing of a part of the leadership of the Catholic Church and the feeling of Chilean citizenship. The same thing happens to political parties.

The difference is that, in the case of parties, it is spoken directly, sometimes the feeling of the majority is collected and the resignation of those who cause such damage is requested.

The Church is not immune to the obsolescence of certain ideas and behaviors, in a rapidly changing world, where people are more empowered, are more educated and aware, seek to be heard and establish a less vertical, closer relationship.

Pope Francis is making a great effort and has shown leadership to renew. His recognition of the error that meant asking for “proofs” is a gesture of humility.

But that is not enough if each national church is not updated and in our case, the Chilean Church.

If before there was a small group of questioners from Bishop Barros today there is a feeling of generalized disapproval, which will not leave him alone while he maintains that task. When performing public projection functions, it is not proceeded like a court of justice that fails after years, based on evidence. The general consequences are measured in society and in institutions. B ien har ed the bishop to resign to overcome this impasse.

I add to these words the strongest condemnation of criminals who burn churches. It is unacceptable and these facts can not go unnoticed, however intense the controversy that arose after the papal visit.]

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

January 23, 2018

By Rick Noack

It was supposed to be an apology tour, but Pope Francis’s Chile visit drew unexpected ire last week after the head of the Catholic Church came to the support of Juan Barros, a bishop accused of covering up sexual abuse committed by a priest named Fernando Karadima. The remarks came at the end of a visit that was intended to ease tensions between the church and Karadima’s victims.

On Monday, the pope apologized for previous remarks in which he had demanded evidence from Barros’s accusers, now saying that his words must have come across as a “slap in the face” of victims.

Despite his self-criticism, the pope stood by Barros and also warned accusers that they may be found guilty of slander if they continued to make public statements without being able to provide evidence.

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GLASGOW (SCOTLAND)
BBC

January 23, 2018

Leon Carberry spoke to BBC Scotland via Skype after giving evidence to the inquiry
A retired police officer has called for the Catholic Church to be held responsible for the sexual and physical abuse he suffered at a Lanarkshire orphanage during the 1950s.

Leon Carberry said he was regularly beaten and humiliated by a nun at the Smyllum Park home in Lanark.

He also claimed that a man who worked there made him perform a sex act.

Mr Carberrry said nuns lied to him about his brother’s death and he still does not know where he is buried.

The former policeman, who has waived his right to anonymity, was giving evidence to the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry via video link from Australia.

His brother David died aged four while living at Smyllum in 1955.

In an interview with BBC Scotland after giving evidence, Mr Carberry said physical abuse was administered either by using straps, a hairbrush or a stick during exercise periods.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Telegraph

January 22, 2018

Pope Francis apologised for comments he made about victims of paedophile clergy during his trip to South America, but repeated his defence of a bishop accused of protecting a predatory priest.

The Pope issued the partial mea culpa on board the plane that flew him back to Rome after a grueling week-long trip to Chile and Peru.

During his visit to Chile, he had insisted that there was no evidence that Bishop Juan Barros was complicit in keeping quiet about the sexual abuse carried out by a priest, the Rev. Fernando Karadima.

The Pope sharply told journalists: “The day I see proof against Bishop Barros, then I will talk. There is not a single piece of evidence against him. It is all slander. Is that clear?”

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BIRMINGHAM (AL)
AL.com

January 22, 2018

By Greg Garrison

A former EWTN priest and TV personality found not guilty of child sexual abuse in 2016 has been granted custody of his 9-year-old son.

David Stone, 57, hosted a talk show for youth from 2001-2007 on EWTN. While working at EWTN he fathered a child with an EWTN employee, Christina Presnell. The child was born in 2008.

Stone, formerly known as Father Francis Mary Stone when he hosted the TV show “Life on the Rock,” was suspended from his religious order and placed on long-term leave of absence at EWTN after it became known he had fathered the child. Presnell was fired from EWTN.

After the child spent a weekend visitation with Stone in 2012, the child complained to his mother that his father hurt him, according to testimony by Presnell. Presnell then refused to allow the next scheduled visitation.

Stone was arrested in 2013 and charged with sexual abuse of a minor under 12. Stone testified and his attorneys argued that false allegations were being used to gain advantage in a custody dispute between Stone and Presnell.

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NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

January 22, 2018

By Jason Horowitz

Rome – For years, victims of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church and their advocates have asked when Pope Francis would adjust his blind spot on an issue that has caused enormous damage to Catholics, the reputation of the church and the pontiffs who preceded him.

But the pope’s remarks overnight Sunday as he returned from a trip to Chile and Peru — apologizing for demanding proof of abuse from victims in Chile even as he continued to doubt them — prompted concerns that he just does not understand.

“There was great hope that this pope understood — he ‘got it’ — but if that were true we would not have his words today,” said Marie Collins, a survivor of abuse who last year resigned in frustration from the pope’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

“Anyone who was still clinging to the hope there would be real change in the church to the issue of abuse and this change would be led by Pope Francis will have lost that hope today,” Ms. Collins said.

At this point in his papacy, some supporters worry that the pope’s lackluster record on holding the church hierarchy accountable for its role in the abuse crisis could threaten to erode the moral authority and global popularity necessary for the pope to make progress on priorities in and out of the church.

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SAN JOSE (CA)
NBC Bay Area – KNTV

January 22, 2018

By Michael Bott and Vicky Nguyen

A website launched by graduates of Presentation High School, a San Jose Catholic school for girls, details a timeline of sexual harassment and abuse allegations going all the way back to 1984

Graduates of a prestigious San Jose Catholic school for girls who say they were victims of sexual misconduct have launched a website to tell their stories in their own words.

The “Make Pres Safe” website includes a timeline spanning three decades that details each allegation of misconduct at Presentation High School. The site, which includes the personal statements of many accusers, blames school administrators for failing to report many of the allegations to police or Child Protective Services when they were brought to the school’s attention.

The driving forces behind the website are Kathryn Leehane and Cheryl Hodgin Marshall, who graduated from the school nearly three decades ago and say school administrators failed to act when they came to them with separate stories of abuse. They worked with San Jose attorney Robert Allard and his team of investigators, who have not sued the school but are actively looking into multiple claims of sexual misconduct.

Leehane, whose essay in the Washington Post last year recounted how she was groped, kissed, and shown a pornographic photo by Spanish teacher John Fernandez in 1990, was the first Presentation graduate to go public with her story. Her essay, which she says was meant to bring personal closure, ended up sparking a social media firestorm and prompted other graduates to come forward with their own stories. Leehane said she told current Principal Mary Miller about what happened to her on separate occasions in 1993 and 1994, but police were never notified, and the teacher was allowed to teach at the school until he retired in 2004. Fernandez died of cancer in 2015.

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EN ROUTE TO VATICAN CITY
Reuters

January 22, 2018

By Philip Pullella

Pope Francis, in an extremely rare act of self-criticism, apologised to victims of clerical sex abuse on Sunday, acknowledging he had “wounded many” in comments defending a Chilean bishop who is under scrutiny.

But while the pope said he was sorry for his choice of words and tone of voice when he testily answered a reporter’s question last Thursday in Chile, he also said he was certain that the prelate, Juan Barros, was innocent.

“I have to apologise,” an unusually contrite pope told reporters aboard the plane returning to Rome from a week-long trip to Chile and Peru, saying he realised he had “wounded many people who were abused”.

“I apologise to them if I hurt them without realising it, but it was a wound that I inflicted without meaning to,” he said. “It pains me very much.”

In the latest twist to a saga that has gripped Chile, Francis said Barros, who is accused of protecting a notorious paedophile, would remain in his place in the diocese of Osorno because there currently was no credible evidence against him.

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EN ROUTE TO VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service

January 22, 2018

By Junno Arocho Esteves

Pope Francis apologized to victims of clergy sex abuse, saying he unknowingly wounded them by the way he defended a Chilean bishop accused of covering up abuse by his mentor.

Speaking with journalists on his flight to Rome from Lima, Peru, Jan. 21, the pope said he only realized later that his words erroneously implied that victims’ accusations are credible only with concrete proof.

“To hear that the pope says to their face, ‘Bring me a letter with proof,’ is a slap in the face,” the pope said.

Pope Francis was referring to a response he gave in Iquique, Chile, Jan. 18 when local reporters asked about his support for Bishop Juan Barros of Osorno, given accusations that the bishop may have been aware of abuse perpetrated by his former mentor, Father Fernando Karadima. The priest was sentenced to a life of prayer and penance by the Vatican after he was found guilty of sexually abusing boys.

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EN ROUTE TO VATICAN CITY
Crux

January 22, 2018

By Inés San Martín

Returning to Rome from a sometimes contentious six-day trip to Latin America, Pope Francis said he regretted the language he used along the way regarding sexual abuse victims who have accused a Chilean bishop of covering up their abuse, but did not back down from his support for that bishop.

Francis said he’s convinced of the innocence of Chilean Bishop Juan Barros, who has been accused by survivors of covering up cases of sexual abuse by infamous Chilean priest Fernando Karadima, who was found guilty by a church process in 2011.

Barros “will stay in his post, I cannot condemn him without evidence,” the pope said during the flight from Peru to Rome.

“I personally am convinced that he’s innocent,” Francis said.

The pope did, however, express regret for how he made that point in Chile.

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NEW YORK (NY)
America Magazine

January 22, 2018

By Gerard O’Connell

In an hour-long press conference on the plane from Lima to Rome, Jan. 21, Pope Francis asked pardon from the victims of sexual abuse by priests or religious for his use of words that offended them in his remarks about Bishop Juan Barros of Osorno, Chile. But he also reaffirmed his support for Bishop Barros, saying he has not received any evidence against him.

On Thursday Jan. 18, the pope told reporters on a plane flight in Chile, “The day they bring me proof against the bishop, then I will speak. There is not a single proof against him. This calumny! Is that clear?” Francis stated.

Responding to a question from a Chilean journalist today, Pope Francis spoke of “what the abused feel” regarding his remark.

“I must ask pardon [from them] because the word ‘proof’ has hurt many of the abused, and [what] I meant to ask for was ‘evidence.’ I ask forgiveness. It’s a hurt [caused] without wishing it,” Pope Francis said.

“I know that there are many abused people who cannot bring proof; they do not have it. Or they cannot [produce it], or at times they have it, but they are ashamed and that stops them, and they suffer in silence. The drama of abused persons is tremendous.”

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NEW YORK (NY)
America Magazine

January 20, 2018

By Michael J. O’Loughlin

Seán O’Malley, the top adviser to Pope Francis on issues of clerical sexual abuse, weighed in on remarks made by the pope this week defending a controversial Chilean bishop that caused outrage to victims of sexual abuse. The Boston archbishop expressed support for victims and warned against using language that casts doubt on their stories.

“It is understandable that Pope Francis’ statements yesterday in Santiago, Chile were a source of great pain for survivors of sexual abuse by clergy or any other perpetrator,” the Boston archbishop said in a statement released Saturday morning. “Words that convey the message ‘if you cannot prove your claims then you will not be believed’ abandon those who have suffered reprehensible criminal violations of their human dignity and relegate survivors to discredited exile.”

Cardinal O’Malley said his “prayers and concern will always be with the survivors and their loved ones.”

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LIMA (PERU)
Associated Press

En español: Unas polémicas declaraciones empañan la gira papal por Sudamérica

January 22, 2018

By Christine Armario

Pope Francis ventured into the Amazon to demand rights for indigenous groups, decried the scourge of corruption afflicting the region’s politics and denounced a culture of “machismo” in which violence against women is too often tolerated.

Yet his latest visit to South America is likely to be remembered most for 27 dismissive words that sparked outrage among Chileans already angry over a notorious clerical abuse scandal and haunted the rest of his trip.

“That is the enigma of Pope Francis,” Anne Barrett Doyle of the online abuse database BishopAccountability.org said Sunday. “He is so bold and compassionate on many issues but he is an old school defensive bishop when it comes to the sex abuse crisis.”

Even before Francis landed in Chile for the first leg of his two-country trip, the pontiff’s visit seemed ripe for contention. Vandals fire-bombed three churches in the capital of Santiago, warning in a leaflet that “the next bombs will be in your cassock,” and an angry group protesting the high cost of hosting him briefly occupied the Nunciature where he would sleep.

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HAGATNA (GUAM)
Catholic News Agency via Crux

January 21, 2018

An embattled archbishop in Guam has denied an allegation that he raped his nephew nearly 20 years ago, when his accuser was a teen.

Mark Apuron, nephew of Guam’s Archbishop Anthony Apuron, filed a lawsuit Jan. 10, claiming that his uncle raped him in a Church bathroom in 1989 or 1990. This is the fifth lawsuit to accuse the archbishop of sexual abuse of minors during his time as a pastor and bishop.

“God is my witness: I deny all allegations of sexual abuse made against me, including this last one,” wrote Apuron in a Jan. 18 statement, according to Guam Pacific Daily News.

“All of these allegations have been mentored and promoted by the same source and this one seems particularly timed to influence the verdict of the Vatican trial conducted by the Holy See, as a last resort out of fear that I may be exonerated,” he continued.

In addition to this claim, Apuron faces four other accusations from former altar boys, who charged the archbishop with abuse in the 1970s when he served as a parish priest in Agat. The first allegations against the archbishop were made public in May 2016. Mark’s attorney, David Lujan, said that his client was too ashamed and embarrassed to tell his family about the alleged abuse until recently.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald

January 21, 2018

By Brian Dowling

Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, a top adviser to Pope Francis, rebuked the pontiff’s disparaging remarks targeting Chilean abuse claims, saying the comments “abandon” survivors of the church’s sex abuse crisis to “discredited exile.”

In a strongly worded statement rebuking Francis’ comments, Boston’s archbishop said the remarks were clearly “a source of great pain for survivors of sexual abuse by clergy or any other perpetrator.”

“Words that convey the message ‘if you cannot prove your claims then you will not be believed’ abandon those who have suffered reprehensible criminal violations of their human dignity and relegate survivors to discredited exile,” O’Malley said in a statement.

Francis was leaving Chile Thursday when he accused victims of the country’s most notorious pedophile priest of having slandered another bishop, Juan Barros, by claiming Barros covered up the abuse from the Rev. Fernando Karadima.

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

January 20, 2018

By Evan Allen

Cardinal Sean O’Malley issued a strongly worded statement Saturday reproaching Pope Francis for the pontiff’s accusations in Chile last week that victims of a pedophile priest in that country were slandering a bishop they say covered up the case.

“Words that convey the message ‘if you cannot prove your claims then you will not be believed’ abandon those who have suffered reprehensible criminal violations of their human dignity and relegate survivors to discredited exile,” O’Malley said.

Local abuse victims and advocates, however, said that it is action, not talk, that is important, and the cardinal’s words did not go far enough.

“People in the survivor community are not looking for prayers and words of sympathy,” said Phil Saviano, an abuse victim who founded the New England chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. “We’re looking for them to actually do something.”

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LIMA (PERU)
Associated Press via Washington Post

January 20, 2018

By Nicole Winfield

Pope Francis’ top adviser on clerical sex abuse implicitly rebuked the pontiff for having accused Chilean victims of slander, saying Saturday that his words were “a source of great pain for survivors of sexual abuse.”

Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston, said he couldn’t explain why Francis “chose the particular words he used.” He said such expressions had the effect of abandoning victims and relegating them to “discredited exile.”

In an extraordinary effort at damage control, O’Malley insisted in a statement that Francis “fully recognizes the egregious failures of the church and its clergy who abused children and the devastating impact those crimes have had on survivors and their loved ones.”

Francis set off a national uproar upon leaving Chile on Thursday when he accused victims of the country’s most notorious pedophile priest of having slandered another bishop, Juan Barros. The victims say Barros knew of the abuse by the Rev. Fernando Karadima but did nothing to stop it — a charge Barros denies.

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NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

January 21, 2018

By Marcelo Rochabrún and Andrea Zarate

On the last day of his visit here, Pope Francis told Peruvians that they lived in a “sainted land” and commended young people for keeping their faith in the church.

But he did not address the elephant in the room: a scandal involving a powerful Roman Catholic group here, where dozens of former members say they were physically and sexually abused after dedicating their lives to prayer and worship.

The issue of sexual abuse in the church has loomed large over Francis’ weeklong visit to Chile and Peru, where he discussed the plights of indigenous populations in the jungle and of those recovering from catastrophic flooding in Peru’s sandy desert coast.

Francis did confront the issue of abuse last week in Chile, where accusations against the Rev. Fernando Karadima, a pedophile priest, have damaged the church. But after first issuing an apology for the abuse, Francis called accusations of a cover-up by a bishop “all slander.” Those remarks prompted a rare rebuke from Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, who is charged with working to improve the church’s handling of child abuse cases.

In Peru, Francis was mute on the subject.

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NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times (en español)

>>>Pope Francis in no man’s land

January 21, 2018

By Rafael Gumucio

Santiago – Este es un país muy desconfiado. La presidenta Michelle Bachelet se lo advirtió al papa Francisco no bien pisó Chile el 15 de enero. Cuatro días de visita por el centro, sur y extremo norte del país no bastaron para disipar esa desconfianza. En Chile, Francisco se convirtió en la prueba viva de que no hay nada más estrecho que el ancho camino del medio: en su breve pontificado ha logrado defraudar las esperanzas de conservadores y progresistas.

En cinco años, el papa ha visitado países de mayoría musulmana, judía, protestante, y ateos, todos ellos con razonable público y sin demasiados escándalos. En Chile enfrentaba quizás un reto mayor. Los chilenos, como muchas sociedades que han prosperado bruscamente, no solo han perdido la fe, sino que la han remplazado por un cada vez más activo anticlericalismo. Los 80 casos conocidos de abuso sexual perpetrados por miembros del clero en Chile le han dado alas a un sentimiento antirreligioso que tiene su manifestación más extrema en la quema de iglesias en el sur de Chile, presuntamente a manos de grupos mapuches.

La Iglesia chilena necesitaba un milagro de Francisco. El primer discurso del papa en el Palacio de la Moneda parecía una señal astuta y equilibrada de que había comprendido la dimensión del desafío. Francisco empezó su visita citando a Gabriela Mistral para alabar los logros de la democracia chilena. Sin demorarse ni un minuto pidió perdón a las víctimas de los abusos sexuales, usando sin eufemismo la palabra “vergüenza” para calificar lo que la Iglesia debía sentir ante la reiteración de esos casos.

[Google Translation: This is a very distrustful country. President Michelle Bachelet warned Pope Francis as soon as he stepped on Chile on January 15. Four days of visits to the center, south and far north of the country were not enough to dispel this distrust. In Chile, Francisco became the living proof that there is nothing narrower than the broad middle way: in his brief pontificate he managed to defraud the hopes of conservatives and progressives.

In five years, the pope has visited countries of Muslim, Jewish, Protestant, and atheist majority, all of them with reasonable public and without too many scandals. In Chile he faced perhaps a greater challenge. Chileans, like many societies that have prospered abruptly, not only have lost faith , but have replaced it with an increasingly active anticlericalism. The 80 known cases of sexual abuse perpetrated by members of the clergy in Chile have given wings to an anti-religious sentiment that has its most extreme manifestation in the burning of churches in southern Chile , presumably at the hands of Mapuche groups.

The Chilean Church needed a miracle from Francisco. The pope’s first speech at the Palacio de la Moneda seemed a clever and balanced sign that he had understood the dimension of the challenge. Francisco began his visit by quoting Gabriela Mistral to praise the achievements of Chilean democracy. Without waiting for a minute, he apologized to the victims of the sexual abuse, using without euphemism the word “shame” to describe what the Church should feel about the repetition of those cases.

In an equally astute way, Francisco began his visit just where the one of Juan Pablo II, 31 years ago, had failed in the most resounding way. In the O’Higgins Park, the Polish Pope saw from the altar how his parishioners faced with the police of the dictatorship. His attempts to calm the crowd were useless. More than 600 people were injured in the fray. Francisco, in the same place, greeted a calm and happy crowd of more than 400,000 people. Right there, however, he finished his honeymoon with the Chileans. The television cameras caught Bishop Juan Barros Madrid among the participants of the mass , indicated by the victims of Father Karadima as a cover-up for sexual abuse.

[Display Type: Pope Francis has been unable to connect with the heart of either of the two churches that divide the heritage of St. Peter and St. Paul, the progressive and the conservative.]

The resisted bishop of Osorno suddenly took away any visibility from the pope, who confirmed again his confidence in the innocence of the prelate and his anger against anyone who doubted him. The tears that he would have shed in a private encounter with anonymous victims of the clergy’s sexual abuse failed to calm the uncomfortable questions and the uncomfortable emplacements that followed him in every place where his slow walk and tired smile tried to reach him. The pope, who was supposed to come to give us his peace, ended up trying to slander anyone who dares to question Barros. An abrupt “Is that clear?” left the question settled. The Pope of simplicity was once again the authoritarian and determined Cardinal Bergoglio who so feared his Argentine Jesuit brothers.

Neither Temuco nor Iquique nor Maipú managed to fill the immense esplanades that awaited him. His use of Argentine lunfardo or his attempts to introduce juvenile jargon – he spoke of “vocational selfie ” – or popular to his speeches failed to seduce more than those who were already convinced in advance. The Pope of all was, in the end, nobody’s pope; the shame that he expressed feeling for sexual abuse ended up infecting his entire visit, considered by the most varied vaticanistas the most disastrous of which he has undertaken.

In Chile, the tragedy that has marked the entire papacy of Francisco, its inability to reconcile what remains of the Church of John XXIII with the still almighty Church of John Paul II, was staged with special cruelty. In the seventies and eighties the theology of liberation sowed and harvested bishops, priests, thinkers and martyrs throughout Chile. John Paul II punished with special zeal this Church of the poor organized into very active grassroots communities. Since then, the Chilean Church spent all the prestige gained in the dictatorship in trying to prevent the law of divorce, equal marriage or any type of abortion. During his visit, Francisco ignored any of these topics. The conservative hierarchy left by the Polish pope did not fail to note that signal.

For the conservatives, Francisco will always be a Jesuit more concerned with the life of women in prison than with the rights of unborn fetuses. For the progressives, however, Francisco has not ceased to be the pope who defends Bishop Barros, representative of everything that has led the people away from the churches: not only sexual abuse but a distant and courtly style that prefers to remain well with the hierarchy that calm the anxieties of their parishioners. The pope, who wants shepherds with the smell of sheep, ended up defending one that smells of expensive Vatican perfume. Francisco ended up being the face of a Church that imposes from above appointments resisted by the faithful.

The humility of the customs of this Pope does not fit his impatient and derogatory character that does not bite his tongue to condemn and that is rather more cautious when it comes to celebrating. Unable to connect with the heart of one of the two churches that divide the heritage of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, the progressive and the conservative, he has achieved what is supposed to be his land, Latin America, to be a perfect stranger.

Rafael Gumucio is a Chilean writer and directs the Institute of Humor Studies of the Diego Portales University in Santiago. His most recent novel is “The imperfect heartthrob”.]

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BUENOS AIRES (ARGENTINA)
Clarin

>>>The Pope’s tour in Chile becomes the worst of his five years of pontificate

January 18, 2018

By Sergio Rubin

La visita tuvo menos presencia de fieles en los actos de lo que se esperaba. Los casos de pedofilia fueron gravitantes en el desánimo.

Todos los indicios preanunciaban un viaje complicado. Acaso el más complicado de todos los que Francisco realizó hasta ahora en sus casi cinco años de pontificado. Porque, a diferencia de otras visitas donde la situación política de cada país desafiaba su capacidad de maniobra, el paso por Chile implicaba críticas o, al menos, indiferencia hacia él mismo y, ante todo, hacia la propia Iglesia chilena. Y efectivamente no la tuvo fácil aquí, el país de América Latina donde menos se valora a Francisco y a la Iglesia católica, y que más fieles perdió: el acompañamiento de la gente fue claramente menor del que se esperaba, sus palabras no tuvieron el habitual impacto y tampoco se acallaron las críticas.

El contraste más evidente fue con el viaje a Colombia, en setiembre pasado: Francisco había jugado fuerte a favor de los acuerdos de paz con la guerrilla de las FARC, un asunto que divide profundamente a los colombianos (hace poco más de un año ganó por poco el rechazo a ellos) y todo llevaba a pensar que la mitad de los colombianos en cierta forma le daría la espalda. Pero su visita –más allá de la suerte de esos acuerdos- fue todo un éxito en cuanto a la respuesta popular y la atención con que se siguió sus prédica por la reconciliación. Dicho sea de paso, más de un observador la tomó como una suerte de anticipo de su mensaje a favor del cierre de la grieta en una eventual visita a su país.

[Google Translation: The visit had less presence of faithful in the acts of what was expected. The cases of pedophilia were gravitating in discouragement.

All the signs forewarned a complicated journey. Perhaps the most complicated of all that Francisco did so far in his almost five years of pontificate. Because, unlike other visits where the political situation of each country challenged its ability to maneuver, the passage through Chile implied criticism or, at least, indifference towards himself and, above all, towards the Chilean Church itself. And indeed it was not easy here, the country of Latin America where Francisco and the Catholic Church are least valued, and which most lost: the accompaniment of the people was clearly lower than expected, his words did not have the usual impact and criticisms were not silenced either.

The most obvious contrast was the trip to Colombia, last September: Francisco had played hard in favor of peace agreements with the FARC guerrillas, an issue that deeply divides Colombians (a little over a year ago he won by little the rejection to them) and everything led to think that half of the Colombians would somehow turn their backs on him. But his visit – beyond the fate of these agreements – was a success in terms of the popular response and the attention with which he followed his preaching for reconciliation. Incidentally, more than one observer took it as a sort of foretaste of his message in favor of closing the crack in an eventual visit to his country.

Now: There is not a single factor that explains why Francisco was not like in other countries. It is true that the case of abuses committed by clerics wreaked havoc especially in the image of the Chilean Church, but also in that of Francisco himself for having named in 2015 bishop of Osorno a prelate accused of covering up the abuses committed by the father Fernando Karadima – the main exponent of these crimes within the Chilean Church – given that for years he was his collaborator in a church in Santiago. But Francisco always defended with emphasis his innocence like yesterday in Iquique before the journalists: “There is not a single test against him, everything is a slander,” he said.

To this we must add the blurring of the once great commitment with the poor that the Chilean Church had, in addition to having been an emblem of the struggle for human rights during the last military dictatorship.

There is no shortage of those who believe that the powerful secretary of state of the Vatican in the second half of the pontificate of John Paul II, the controversial Cardinal Angelo Sodano, was delineating a very conservative Church – and lack of leadership – since his previous visit to the country as Nuncio . And, of course, also the criticisms of the original peoples against the Catholic Church for their role in the conquest.

Finally, there is a fundamental factor: the loss of the religiosity of Chilean society, a drastic phenomenon of the last decades, which did not take place – at least with that intensity – when John Paul II was here almost 31 years ago. Contrary to Central America or Brazil, where the Catholic Church loses the faithful at the expense of evangelical churches, in Chile -although there is a certain evangelical advance- its main challenge is atheism and agnosticism. And, in this sense, it begins to “compete” with Uruguay, the least religious country in the region.

The cultural change in Chile – a country with a Catholic trajectory, unlike Uruguay – is, then, the great underlying problem of the Catholic Church and, of course, of other religions. Is it a process that will be confined to Chileans or that will encompass other peoples as young people -the less religious- reach adults and there is some economic improvement as in the trans-Andean country?

However, it should not be disregarded that Francisco gathered 400 thousand faithful in the O’Higgins park in Santiago, which captivated the most committed faithful, who had very nice gestures like marrying two crew members in mid-flight to Iquique. Perhaps the balance of the trip now requires a look in greater perspective.]

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TRUJILLO (PERU)
Reuters

January 20, 2018

By Philip Pullella and Caroline Stauffer

A key U.S. cardinal distanced himself on Saturday from comments by Pope Francis on sexual abuse, saying they had caused “great pain,” a remarkable move pointing to divisions in the Roman Catholic Church over how to treat accusers.

The implicit public rebuke of the pope by one of his top advisers came after two days of pointed attacks from victims and their advocates, and was another setback for Francis’ attempts to come to grips with sexual abuse in the Church.

Cardinal Sean O‘Malley of Boston said in an unusually blunt statement that “it is understandable” that the pope’s comments in Chile on Thursday were “a source of great pain for survivors of sexual abuse by clergy or any other perpetrator.”

* * *

O‘Malley’s statement on the pope’s choice of language said: “Words that convey the message ‘if you cannot prove your claims, then you will not be believed’ abandon those who have suffered reprehensible criminal violations of their human dignity and relegate survivors to discredited exile.”

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DENVER (CO)
Crux

January 21, 2018

By Inés San Martín

Lima, Peru – It’s not every day that a close ally and adviser to a pope, not to mention a cardinal of the Catholic Church, distances himself from that pope. So when Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston said Saturday night it was “understandable” that Francis’s language in Chile about abuse victims accusing a bishop of a cover-up had caused “great pain,” it was bound to stir reaction.

Peter Saunders, a survivor of clerical sexual abuse and a former member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors – an advisory body created by Pope Francis in 2014, with O’Malley as its head – offered perhaps the boldest response: He wants O’Malley, not Francis, to be pope.

“Deep down I think O’Malley would like to take action, and if he were pope I think we would be seeing a different world,” he said in comments to Crux.

“But first and foremost, he is an obedient servant – to his boss the pope, not to those he serves,” Saunders said.

In an email sent to several parties on Sunday, Saunders emphasized how disappointed he is in the pope.

“Pope Francis’s attack on the victims of Karadima has lost him more friends than he can begin to imagine,” Saunders wrote, referring to the name of a Chile’s most notorious pedophile priest. “He is certainly not the man I thought he was.”

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Guardian

January 21, 2018

By Owen Bowcott

Environment secretary’s alleged interest in inquiry into priest suspected of abuse surfaced last month

The child sex abuse inquiry is to write to Michael Gove to ask whether he attempted to find out about the release of an investigation into a priest suspected of abuse at a prominent Catholic boarding school.

The alleged interest of the former secretary of state for education in a police and local authority inquiry into the priest surfaced during evidence given to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) last month.

Gove, now the environment secretary, denies making any phone calls to the local authority in relation to the investigation. A search of education department telephone records, his office has said, can find no trace of any such contacts.

In a statement to the Guardian, IICSA said: “The Roman Catholic Church hearings are ongoing and there are a number of matters that require further investigation, including the evidence heard on 13 December 2017 in relation to the former secretary of state for education. The inquiry will be making requests for further information on this issue.”

The priest, only identified by the reference number F65, is alleged to have had “connections to some quite senior figures”. In evidence given to the inquiry on 13 December, F65 was said to have been the subject of an allegation of oral sex with a 16-year-old boy.

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BOSTON (MA)
Associated Press via Boston Herald

January 21, 2018

Photo caption: A protest banner that shows images of Pope Francis and Cardinal Sean O’Malley with a message that reads in Spanish: “Francisco, here we do have proof”, hangs from a building located outside the Shrine of Our Lord of the Miracles where Francis led a mid-morning prayer, in Lima, Peru, Sunday, Jan. 21, 2018. Francis stirred outrage when he accused victims of Chile’s most notorious pedophile priest of slander when he departed Chile on Thursday. O’Malley, Francis’ top adviser on clerical sex abuse, implicitly rebuked the pontiff for having accused Chilean victims of slander, saying that his words were “a source of great pain for survivors of sexual abuse.” (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

9:45 a.m.

The controversy over Pope Francis’ accusations of slander against victims of Chile’s most notorious pedophile priest has followed him to Peru.

A banner hanging from a building near the Lima church where Francis prayed on Sunday read “Francis, here there is proof” and featured a photo of the disgraced founder of a Peru-based Catholic lay movement, Sodalitium Christianae Vitae.

The Vatican last week took over the movement after Peruvian prosecutors announced they wanted to arrest the founder, Luis Figari. An independent investigation found Figari sodomized recruits and forced them to fondle him and one another, liked to watch them “experience pain, discomfort and fear,” and humiliated them in front of others.

In Chile, Francis accused victims of the country’s most notorious sexual abuser, the Rev. Fernando Karadima, of slandering another bishop by saying he knew of Karadima’s abuse but did nothing. Francis said there was “not one shred of proof” implicating the bishop and that the accusations against him were “calumny.”

The comments caused such an outcry that Francis’ top sexual abuse adviser issued a highly unusual public rebuke of the pope.

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LIMA (PERU)
Associated Press via NBC-TV Dallas-Fort Worth

January 21, 2018

By Nicole Winfield and Christine Armario

During his seven-day trip in Chile and Peru Francis personally apologized to survivors of priests who sexually abused them

Pope Francis wrapped up his visit to Peru on Sunday by meeting with bishops and nuns, but controversy over his accusations that Chilean sex abuse victims slandered a bishop cast a shadow over what has become the most contested and violent trip of his papacy.

A day after his top adviser on sex abuse publicly rebuked him for his Chile remarks, Francis was reminded that the Vatican has faced years of criticism for its inaction over a similar sex abuse scandal in neighboring Peru.

“Francis, here there IS proof,” read a banner hanging from a Lima building along his motorcade route Sunday.

The message was a reference to Francis’ Jan. 18 comments in Iquique, Chile, that there was not “one shred of proof” that a protege of Chile’s most notorious pedophile priest, the Rev. Fernando Karadima, knew of Karadima’s abuse and did nothing to stop it. Karadima’s victims have accused the bishop, Juan Barros, of complicity in the cover-up. Barros has denied the accusations, and Francis backed him by saying the victims’ claims were “all calumny.”

His comments sparked such an outcry that both the Chilean government and his own top adviser on abuse stepped in to publicly rebuke him — an extraordinary correction of a pope from both church and state. The criticisms were all the more remarkable because they came on the Argentina-born pontiff’s home turf in Latin America.

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LIMA (PERU)
Publimetro

>>>Activists in Peru ask for jail for priests who commit sexual abuse

January 18, 2018

“La Iglesia Católica está muy implicada en la violación de menores, en encubrir esos actos y lo único que hace cuando hay denuncias es cambiar al culpable de zona”, dijo el británico Peter Saunders.

Activistas de varios países dijeron este miércoles en Perú, en la víspera de la llegada del Papa Francisco, que no basta con pedir perdón a las víctimas de abusos sexuales cometidos por sacerdotes, sino que los responsables deben ir a prisión.

“No basta que el Papa Francisco pida perdón por los abusos a los niños cometidos por los padres pederastas, sino a decir la verdad, para contribuir a hacer justicia, que los culpables vayan a la cárcel”, dijo el exsacerdote mexicano Alberto Athié, quien descubrió uno de los primeros casos de abuso del fundador de los Legionarios de Cristo, Marcial Maciel.

“Esperamos que el abusador sea sancionado, ahora que el Vaticano ha intervenido en el caso”, declaró la estadounidense Anne Barret-Doyle, quien afirmó que ha habido encubrimiento en los casos de abusos sexuales perpetrados por líderes del grupo laico católico peruano Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana, intervenido por la Santa Sede hace una semana.

[Google Translation: “The Catholic Church is very involved in the rape of minors, in covering up those acts and the only thing it does when there are complaints is to change the area’s guilty party,” said Briton Peter Saunders.

Activists from several countries said Wednesday in Peru, on the eve of the arrival of Pope Francis , that it is not enough to apologize to victims of sexual abuse committed by priests, but that those responsible should go to prison.

“It is not enough for Pope Francis to apologize for the abuse of children committed by pedophile parents, but to tell the truth, to contribute to justice, that the guilty go to jail,” said former Mexican priest Alberto Athié, who discovered one of the first cases of abuse of the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, Marcial Maciel.

“We hope that the abuser will be punished, now that the Vatican has intervened in the case,” said the American Anne Barret-Doyle, who affirmed that there has been a cover-up in the cases of sexual abuse perpetrated by leaders of the Peruvian Catholic lay group Sodalicio de Vida. Christian, intervened by the Holy See a week ago.

The activists, who led a crusade similar to Chile, the first stop of the papal tour, lamented in a press conference that Pope Francis asked for forgiveness of the victims of pedophilia and then participated in a mass concelebrated by the Chilean bishop Juan Barros, accused to cover up the sexual abuse of priests.

“The Catholic Church is very involved in the rape of minors, in covering up those acts and the only thing it does when there are complaints is to change the guilty party,” said Briton Peter Saunders, who was a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

In the meeting with the press there was also the American lawyer Tim Law, specialized in the subject; his compatriot Denise Buchanan, author of the book Sins of the Fathers; the German Matthias Katsch, who runs an association of victims of child abuse; and the Ecuadorian Sara Oviedo.

The Ecuadorian activist said that a few months ago they sent a document to the pope asking him to separate the religious who have abused children, but “so far” have not received a response.

“That worries us all,” said Oviedo.

A week ago, the Vatican intervened the Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana , founded in Peru in 1971 and extended to other countries, in the midst of a scandal over accusations of sexual abuse against four of its leaders, including its founder, the Peruvian layman Luis Fernando Figari, 70 years old.

In December, the Peruvian prosecutor’s office requested preventive detention for Figari, a refugee in Rome under the protection of the Vatican, and the other three leaders.

The Pope Francisco will serve a three – day visit to Peru.]

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LIMA (PERU)
Diario Correa

>>>Pope Francis is asked to investigate accused clerics in Peru

January 18, 2018

Además, que la iglesia debería encontrar mecanismos que permitan denunciar estos delitos

Activistas y víctimas de abusos sexuales afirmaron hoy en Lima que el papa Francisco debe “remitir a la justicia común, para que sean sancionados como corresponde”, a los clérigos católicos denunciados por casos de este tipo.

“La Iglesia no puede ser responsable por personas que, en cualquier tipo de circunstancias, son unos abusadores”, afirmó la ecuatoriana Sara Oviedo, exvicepresidenta del Comité de Derechos Humanos de las Naciones Unidas (ONU).

Oviedo participó en una exposición ante la prensa realizada por integrantes del grupo TAP o The Accountability Proyect (Proyecto de rendición de cuentas), un día antes del inicio de una visita oficial y apostólica del papa Francisco a Perú.

[Google Translation: In addition, that the church should find mechanisms to report these crimes

Activists and victims of sexual abuse said today in Lima that Pope Francis must “refer to common justice, to be punished as appropriate,” to Catholic clerics reported by cases of this type.

“The Church can not be responsible for people who, in any type of circumstances, are abusers,” said Ecuadorian Sara Oviedo , former vice president of the United Nations Human Rights Committee ( UN ).

Oviedo participated in an exhibition before the press made by members of the TAP group or The Accountability Project , a day before the beginning of an official and apostolic visit of Pope Francis to Peru .

In the presentation were the Mexican Alberto Athié , the British Peter Saunders , the German Matthias Katsch and the North Americans Tim Law , Denisse Buchanan and Anne Barrett Doyle .

The ex- UN official said that the victims of abuse also ask to “separate from their positions clerics who are known, or suspect, to have committed some type of abuse.”

He also considered that the canon law should be modified so that these cases can no longer be considered “only as a moral violation” and that the church should find mechanisms to denounce these crimes, as well as address them in the formation of priests and education of children in reporting mechanisms.

Athié, a former priest who discovered one of the first cases of abuse perpetrated in Mexico by the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, Marcial Maciel , said that the victims’ denunciations “have met with a wall” in the Catholic Church.

“You have to confront the sayings, the facts and the gestures,” he said before emphasizing that “forgiveness is not enough, that is a very important value, but first there is the truth.”

Saunders, who joined the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors until December , reported that he was abused by two Jesuit priests 50 years ago and has not yet “been able to overcome that”, although now he no longer feels “any resentment”.

“It is not a matter of simply accusing the church, it is a matter of humanity that must be attacked,” said the founder of the National Association for Children Abused in Children ( NAPAC ) in the United Kingdom.

Matthias Katsch , co-founder of an association of victims of child abuse, said he participates in these activities “as a survivor”, since he was abused in a Jesuit school.

“We have the opportunity to show people that they have been victims in the past that we have opportunities today,” he said before emphasizing that the Catholic Church has a “responsibility” as a “global institution that trains children.”

Denisse Buchanan , author of “Sins of the Fathers” , said she was raped at 17 by a priest in Jamaica, who became pregnant and then miscarried, so he emphasized that “the clerical abuse has to stop”, and that leaves “a scar for a lifetime”.

Barret Doyle added, meanwhile, that in Peru they have to deepen investigations of cases such as those of the Catholic organization Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana, which came to light after the publication in 2015 of the book “Mitad monjes, mitad soldados” , of the Peruvian journalists Pedro Salinas and Paola Ugaz .

He considered that, in addition to the intervention of Sodalicio announced by the Pope last week, he could ask that the founder of that group, Luis Figari, who is currently staying in Rome, be extradited to Peru.

The activist remarked that the denunciations about the Legionaries of Christ, in Mexico; Karadima, in Chile, or Sodalicio , in Peru, “these are cases of victims with economic means” .

“We have not yet heard of cases of poor victims, and the poor are especially vulnerable,” he concluded.]

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

January 20, 2018

By Josh McElwee

Trujillo, Peru – Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, one of Pope Francis’ key advisors on clergy sexual abuse, acknowledged Jan. 20 that the pontiff’s defense of a Chilean bishop accused of covering up abuse was “a source of great pain” for survivors.

In an unusually blunt statement from a church prelate in response to a controversial action of a pope, the cardinal also said that expressions of doubt about survivors’ testimony “abandon those who have suffered reprehensible criminal violations of their human dignity.”

O’Malley is responding to Francis’ defense of Osorno, Chile Bishop Juan Barros Madrid, who is accused of not reporting abuse perpetrated by a fellow priest in the 1980s and ’90s.

Questioned Jan. 18 by reporters about Barros during a visit to Chile, the pontiff called the charges “calumny” and said: “There is not one piece of evidence against him.”

Francis’ words enraged the abuse survivor community and many Chilean Catholics, as three survivors have testified that Barros witnessed Fr. Fernando Karadima abusing them. Abuse tracking website BishopAccountability.org said the pope had “turned back the clock to the darkest days of this crisis.”

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DENVER (CO)
Crux

January 20, 2018

In a remarkably candid statement from the man named in 2014 to head Pope Francis’s own Vatican commission dedicated to fighting clerical sexual abuse, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston on Saturday said it’s “understandable” that the pontiff’s language on the crisis the day before had caused “great pain.”

Those comments, O’Malley said, may create the impression that the pope would “abandon those who have suffered reprehensible criminal violations of their human dignity, and relegate survivors to discredited exile.”

In general, it’s unusual for a cardinal to distance himself from a papal statement in such a fashion, especially someone perceived as being close to Francis such as O’Malley.

At the same time, O’Malley, President of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors and also a member of the pope’s “C9” council of cardinal advisers from around the world, affirmed Francis’s sincerity in coming to grips with the abuse scandals.

“Pope Francis fully recognizes the egregious failures of the Church and its clergy who abused children, and the devastating impact those crimes have had on survivors and their loved ones,” he said.

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BONN (GERMANY)
Deutsche Welle

January 21, 2018

Pope Francis said during his trip to Chile that allegations a bishop there had known about sexual abuse were “slander.” Boston’s archbishop says those words were “a great source of pain for survivors of sexual abuse.”

The Roman Catholic Church’s chief adviser on clerical sexual abuse broke ranks with Pope Francis on Saturday after the pontiff accused Chilean abuse victims of slander.

In a rare public rebuke, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston said Pope Francis’s comments during a visit to Chile were “a source of great pain for survivors of sexual abuse by clergy or any other perpetrator.”

O’Malley, appearing to engage in damage control after strong reactions in Chile, said Pope Francis “fully recognizes the egregious failures of the church and its clergy who abused children and the devastating impact those crimes have had on survivors and their loved ones.”

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WORCESTER (MA)
Worcester Telegram & Gazette

January 20, 2018

I had to look up the word “calumny” while reading about Pope Francis’ disastrous trip to Chile, where he angered victims of clergy sexual abuse by defending a bishop accused of covering up the crimes of a fellow priest.

“There is not one shred of proof against him,” the pope told a reporter who asked about Bishop Juan Barros last week. “It’s all calumny. Is that clear?”

Crystal, Your Eminence. For the record, the word “calumny” means “the making of false and defamatory statements in order to damage someone’s reputation; slander.” According to the Oxford English Dictionary, synonyms include “character assassination” and “evil-speaking.”

Calumny. Let that word sink it. That’s how the pope described the credible claims of victims who insist that Juan Barros did nothing to stop the Rev. Fernando Karadima from abusing dozens of minors over a decades-long period starting in the 1980s. Karadima is a notorious disgraced priest who served in the Chilean city of Osorno until he was dismissed in 2011.

His victims say Barros, Karadima’s protégé, knew about the priest’s abuse, with one man even claiming that Barros was present when Karadima groped him and another boy. Yet Barros remained silent and never reported it.

With what we know about the clergy sex scandal, is that really so hard to believe? Even here in Worcester, and in Boston and elsewhere, there was a clear pattern that bishops and clergy were aware that children were being abused by priests, yet they did nothing. But even now, rather than speak for the victims of abuse whom the pope has long purported to defend, he instead accused them of slander.

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UNITED STATES
Open Tabernacle

January 19, 2018

By Betty Clermont

In just the latter half of 2017, over a dozen scandals – with hints of more to come – drew close to the pope but were mostly ignored by the U.S. media.

July 3 – Archbishop Luis Ladaria Ferrer accused of sex abuse cover-up.

Pope Francis appointed Ladaria as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican department that addresses cases of clergy sexual abuse, on June 30. Ladaria had previously served as secretary, the second highest official.

Three days later, Ladaria was accused of covering up for Fr. Gianni Trotta. “The congregation received complaints against Trotta in 2009 and three years later found him guilty of sexually abusing minors, demoting him from the priesthood but failing to inform the Italian authorities …. Ladaria wrote to the bishop of Foggia in 2012 instructing him not to divulge the reasons why Trotta had been stripped of his priesthood “so as to avoid scandal.”

Trotta continued to dress as a priest and became the coach of a youth soccer team.

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BOSTON (MA)
Catholic News Agency

January 20, 2018

The chairman of the Vatican’s commission on sexual abuse has said that recent comments from Pope Francis were painful and alienating to survivors of clerical sexual abuse.

“It is understandable that Pope Francis’ statements yesterday in Santiago, Chile were a source of great pain for survivors of sexual abuse by clergy or any other perpetrator,” said Cardinal Sean O’Malley, Archbishop of Boston, in a Jan. 20 statement.

The statement refers to a comment made by Pope Francis to a Chilean reporter Jan. 18. The Pope was asked about Bishop Juan Barros, a Chilean accused by four victims of clerical sexual abuse of colluding with their abuser to cover up his crimes. Barros, who has maintained his innocence, has been a subject of controversy since his 2015 appointment to lead the Diocese of Osorno.

“The day they bring me proof against Bishop Barros, I’ll speak,” Pope Francis told the reporter. “There is not one shred of proof against him. It’s all calumny. Is that clear?”

O’Malley said that “not having been personally involved in the cases that were the subject of yesterday’s interview I cannot address why the Holy Father chose the particular words he used at that time.”

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BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

January 20, 2018

Statement by Cardinal Sean O’Malley

Cardinal O’Malley in Boston released a statement in response to comments by Pope Francis in Chile.

It is understandable that Pope Francis’ statements yesterday in Santiago, Chile were a source of great pain for survivors of sexual abuse by clergy or any other perpetrator. Words that convey the message “if you cannot prove your claims then you will not be believed” abandon those who have suffered reprehensible criminal violations of their human dignity and relegate survivors to discredited exile.

Not having been personally involved in the cases that were the subject of yesterday’s interview I cannot address why the Holy Father chose the particular words he used at that time. What I do know, however, is that Pope Francis fully recognizes the egregious failures of the Church and it’s clergy who abused children and the devastating impact those crimes have had on survivors and their loved ones.

Accompanying the Holy Father at numerous meetings with survivors I have witnessed his pain of knowing the depth and breadth of the wounds inflicted on those who were abused and that the process of recovery can take a lifetime. The Pope’s statements that there is no place in the life of the Church for those who would abuse children and that we must adhere to zero tolerance for these crimes are genuine and they are his commitment.

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EDINBURGH (SCOTLAND)
The Scotsman

January 20, 2018

By Chris Marshall

A former priest convicted of sexually abusing boys in his care has expressed regret for his “abhorrent” crimes.

Bernard Traynor, 64, was convicted of six charges of indecent assault in 1995 for abuse carried out against four boys in the 1970s while he was a trainee priest helping out at a children’s home in Newcastle.

The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry heard that the care of the children had been arranged in Scotland.

Traynor said it had been “totally wrong” that he had been allowed to be a house parent at the St Vincent’s home without training or proper supervision.

Asked about the abuse, Traynor said: “Its abhorrent to me now that I could do that. I don’t in any way feel proud for what I’ve done.”

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NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

January 19, 2018

By Pascale Bonnefoy and Austin Ramzy

Leer en español: El papa llama ‘calumnia’ a las críticas de que un obispo encubre abusos

Iago, Chile – A number of Chilean Catholics reacted with disappointment and anger on Friday, a day after Pope Francis spoke in defense of a bishop who they say protected a pedophile priest. The remarks, made on Thursday just before Francis left Chile for Peru, upended his efforts to rehabilitate the Catholic Church’s reputation while visiting South America.

Francis told reporters Thursday there was not a shred of evidence against Bishop Juan Barros Madrid, who victims of the Rev. Fernando Karadima, Chile’s most notorious priest, have accused of being complicit in his crimes.

“The day someone brings me proof against Bishop Barros, then I will talk,” Francis said before celebrating Mass outside the northern Chilean city of Iquique. “But there is not one single piece of evidence. It is all slander. Is that clear?”

The pope’s comments set off a storm in Chile, raising questions about his commitment to repairing the damage from sexual abuse scandals and improving the decline in the church’s image and following in the traditionally devout country.

Benito Baranda, coordinator of the pope’s visit to Chile, told a radio station in Santiago that Bishop Barros “should have ceased to be bishop a long time ago.” He added: “The damage he is inflicting on the church is big.”

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NEW YORK (NY)
Huffington Post

January 19, 2018

By Carol Kuruvilla

When Joelle Casteix heard Pope Francis accuse sex abuse victims in Chile of slander, the pontiff’s words hit close to home.

Francis told reporters Thursday that he hasn’t seen any convincing evidence against Chile’s Bishop Juan Barros Madrid, whom victims claim protected a pedophile priest.

“The day someone brings me proof against Bishop Barros, then I will talk,” Francis said during a papal trip to Chile, according to The New York Times. “But there is not one single piece of evidence. It is all slander. Is that clear?”

Casteix, a California native and advocate for abuse victims, knows what it’s like to share a vulnerable story of sexual abuse and to have that story questioned. She is herself a survivor of abuse within the Roman Catholic Church. From 1986 to 1988, she was abused by a choir director at Santa Ana’s Mater Dei High School, in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange. By the time the abuse ended, she said, the teacher had left her pregnant and with a sexually transmitted disease. She was only 17.

It wasn’t until 2005 that Casteix and other survivors in her area finally had access to documents the diocese had kept about sexual abusers in its midst. The documents, obtained as part of a $100 million settlement between the diocese and 90 alleged abuse victims, showed how officials had protected priests and teachers who molested children.

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EXCELSIOR SPRINGS (MO)
Excelsior Springs Standard

January 19, 2018

A December notice from The Catholic Key, a newspaper published by the Diocese of Kansas City—St. Joseph, announced that sexual abuse allegations against Father Sylvester James Hoppe have been confirmed by the Diocese.

According to the Diocese, this allegation marks the seventh confirmed claim against Hoppe by the Roman Catholic Church, and two additional lawsuits claiming childhood sexual abuse against Hoppe were settled by the Diocese in 2008. The most recent claim dates to abuse that occurred from 1953-1956.

Hoppe was ordained in 1946 at the age of 35 and he retired in June 1991 after serving in numerous communities across the Kansas City—St. Joseph Diocese. Diocesan records note Hoppe was a priest at St. Ann’s Catholic Church in Excelsior Springs from 1971-1982.

To date, all substantiated allegations against Hoppe date back to the 1950s, when he was Chaplain at St. Mary’s Orphanage and State Hospital in St. Joseph, Mo. From 1951-1958, Hoppe lived on campus at the orphanage, which housed boys girls and boys. Hoppe also worked closely with the Boy Scouts of America throughout his entire career with the Church.

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NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

January 19, 2018

By Scott Cacciola and Christine Hauser

[With video. In the print edition, the headline reads: ‘Powerful Army of Survivors’ Confronts Abuser.

Lansing – Armed with pieces of paper etched with their memories of sexual abuse, they stepped forward, one by one — nearly 100 of them, with more to come.

For four full days this week, in a fluorescent-lighted courtroom here, women and girls — some of them the best gymnasts in the country, others with dreams prematurely crushed, they said, by a man who now sat in handcuffs 10 feet away — leaned into a microphone to address him, sometimes through sobs, sometimes with screams, but always with determination.

Aly Raisman, 23, who won gold medals at the past two Summer Olympics, told of late-night knocks on her hotel door while she was competing overseas, as the man, Dr. Lawrence G. Nassar, then the team doctor, arrived to abuse her.

A teammate at the 2012 London Games, Jordyn Wieber, who until Friday had not identified herself as a victim of Dr. Nassar’s, recalled the torment of the Games, where she was a part of the American team that won a gold medal but, she said, had to submit to his care under the auspices of the sport’s governing body, U.S.A. Gymnastics.

“Our bodies were all hanging by a thread in London,” she said. “Who was the doctor that U.S.A.G. sent? The doctor who was our abuser.”

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LIMA (PERU)
Associated Press via Washington Post

January 20, 2018

By Nicole Winfield

The honeymoon, as it were, is apparently over.

A day after Pope Francis grabbed headlines by pronouncing two flight attendants man and wife while flying 36,000 feet over Chile, the conservative Catholic commentariat on Friday questioned the legitimacy of the impromptu sacrament and warned it could cheapen the church’s marriage preparation down the line.

“Do you know what’s a ‘marriage’ ripe for annulment?” tweeted the traditionalist blog Rorate Caeli. “One celebrated apparently on a whim in an airplane whose celebrant cannot even be sure if parties are validly baptized.”

For those who missed the news, Francis on Thursday presided over what the Vatican said was the doctrinally and canonically legitimate wedding of Paula Podest and Carlos Ciuffardi, two flight attendants from LATAM flight 1250 that brought the pope, his delegation and travelling press from Santiago to the northern city of Iquique.

* * *

The surreal scene had the effect — at least temporarily — of giving Francis a bit of a reprieve after his visit to Chile was dominated by a church sex abuse scandal.

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BURLINGTON (VT)
Associated Press via U.S. News and World Report

January 19, 2018

A Vermont-based religious order is among several Roman Catholic groups that agreed to a $900,000 settlement in an alleged priest sex-abuse case in Connecticut dating to the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The Burlington Free Press reports the Society of St. Edmund and several Roman Catholic entities in Connecticut recently agreed to split the settlement paid to 50-year-old Andrew Aspinwall, of New London.

Aspinwall, who agreed to be identified publicly, alleged he was abused by now-defrocked priest Charles Many, a Vermont native and member of the society, while he was serving as an altar boy at Sacred Heart Church in Groton.

The settlement, reached last month ahead of a trial scheduled for this month, contained no admission of wrongdoing. Aspinwall’s attorney, Kelly Reardon, says Many vehemently denied any impropriety. The case was withdrawn Wednesday.

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BENNINGTON (VT)
Bennington Banner

January 19, 2018

By Jim Therrien

A former priest with a history of sexually abusing boys and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, N.Y., are being sued over alleged abuse of an unnamed victim during incidents in Bennington County.

The suit was filed this week in Bennington Superior Court Civil Division by attorney Christopher Flint, of Cooper Erving & Savage, of Albany, on behalf of a victim referred to as John Doe. It seeks damages for the alleged long-term effects of incidents occurring an unspecified number of years ago when the plaintiff was a boy.

The former priest, Mark Haight, was one of several in the Albany Diocese involved in complaints of sexual abuse of minors, over which confidential settlement payments were made to victims by the diocese over a 25-year period, according to a New York Times report in 2002. At the time, the diocese had recently acknowledged that a number of settlements had been concluded.

Haight was involved in at least two settlement agreements involving complaints of sexual abuse of a minor. One settlement amount that was later made public involved a payment of $997,500, given in 1997 to an unnamed man who said he was abused by Haight over several years, beginning at age 12.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
NPR

January 19, 2018

By Bill Chappell

Pope Francis has accused victims of sexual abuse in Chile of slander, saying their attacks on a bishop who’s accused of covering up the abuse amount to “calumny.” The remarks triggered anger and demonstrations in Chile, where several churches have been firebombed in the past week.

On the last day of his visit to Chile, Francis set the simmering resentment some hold against the Catholic Church to a full boil with his defense of Bishop Juan Barros. The bishop has been hotly criticized ever since the pope appointed him in 2015. Barros was the protégé of Rev. Fernando Karadima, a notorious disgraced priest who served in the southern city of Osorno and who was found guilty and dismissed in 2011 for abusing dozens of minors over a decades-long period beginning in the 1980s.

Karadima became the face of the church’s sexual abuse scandal in Chile. And his victims say they believe Barros knew about the priest’s abuse but did nothing to stop it or report it. As recently as this week, Barros has denied witnessing any abuse.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

By Editorial Board

On a recent trip to Chile, Pope Francis apologized, once again, for clerical sex abuse, expressing the “pain and shame, shame I feel over the irreparable harm caused to children by church ministers.” He then proceeded to compound that shame by dismissing credible accusations that a Chilean bishop was complicit in hiding abuse committed by a priest who was once his mentor.

The episode was emblematic of the pope’s apparent inability to come to terms with revelations about pedophile priests and the bishops and cardinals who cover for them. “Is it fair to ask for forgiveness?” he wondered, on arriving in Chile.

Well, no, it’s not fair — not when the church has failed to fully uproot the moral rot that the abuse scandal has planted at its core.

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