ABUSE TRACKER

A digest of links to media coverage of clergy abuse. For recent coverage listed in this blog, read the full article in the newspaper or other media source by clicking “Read original article.” For earlier coverage, click the title to read the original article.

January 13, 2018

El Nuncio en Chile “complicó y bloqueó” la renuncia de Juan Barros

MADRID (SPAIN)
Religión Digital

>>The Nuncio in Chile “complicated and blocked” the resignation of Juan Barros

January 12, 2018

By Jesus Pretty

El Papa Francisco quiso frenar el ‘caso Barros’… y no pudo. Esta es una de las conclusiones que pueden sacarse de una carta que Bergolio envió a la Conferencia Episcopal chilena el 31 de enero de 2015, y que acaba de desvelar la Associated Press.

En la misma, el Papa revela que intentó pedir la renuncia al actual obispo de Osorno, y a otros dos prelados vinculados al pederasta Fernando Karadima, y que habían sido acusados de encubrimiento. Sin embargo, algo falló. ¿Qué pasó realmente?

El Papa intenta explicarlo en la misiva: “Surgió luego, hacia fin de año (últimos días de diciembre de 2014), un problema serio. El Sr. Nuncio (Ivo Scapolo) le pide a Mons. Barros la renuncia y lo exhorta a tomar un período sabático (un año, por ejemplo) antes de asumir otra responsabilidad pastoral como Obispo diocesano. Y le comentó que el mismo proceder se tomará con los obispos de Talca y de Linares (también implicados en el caso Karadima), pero que no se los dijera a ellos”.

[Partial Google Translation: Everything seems to indicate that the Nuncio was ahead of the wishes of the Pope and that, by ‘exhorting’ Barros to resign, he prevented a dialogue between the controversial bishop and Francisco. Then, Barros would not submit his resignation voluntarily, but obliged by the papal representative, who should have been admonished by Cardinal Ouellet. However, the performance of the Nuncio “complicated and blocked” any solution to the Osorno theme.

According to Ap, the Vatican was concerned “about the collateral damage that would be caused by the worst pedophile cure in Chile and tried to implement a plan: request the resignation and give a sabbatical to three Chilean bishops accused of having covered up the abuses of that priest. ”

In the end, on January 10, 2015, Francisco named Barros bishop of the city of Osorno , about 930 kilometers south of the Chilean capital, provoking a cataract of protests that became visible on the day of his episcopal ordination, and that, three years later, they still continue. It is expected that during the imminent visit of the Pope to Chile, the “Osorno case” will return to the fore. In fact, some of Karadima’s victims have asked to meet with the Pope, without any meeting so far.]

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.

Revelan una carta del papa Francisco en la que expone el plan del Vaticano para lidiar con los abusos sexuales de un cura en Chile

BUENOS AIRES (ARGENTINA)
Infobae

January 12, 2018

>>Letter from Pope Francis revealed in which he exposes the Vatican plan to deal with the sexual abuse of a priest in Chile

[Note: See the AP report and the letter.]

La agencia de noticias Associated Press publicó una misiva confidencial del Sumo Pontífice, fechada el 31 de enero de 2015. Allí señala la intención de darle “un año sabático” a tres obispos acusados de encubrir los crímenes del cura Fernando Karadima y por qué se frustró la estrategia

El Vaticano estaba preocupado por los daños colaterales que provocaría el caso del mayor cura pederasta de Chile e intentó poner en marcha un plan: pedir la renuncia de Fernando Karadima y darles un año sabático a tres obispos chilenos acusados de haber encubierto los abusos de ese sacerdote.

The Associated Press obtuvo una carta confidencial del papa Francisco, fechada el 31 de enero de 2015, la cual revela parte de un plan del Vaticano sobre cómo lidiar con los obispos chilenos señalados de proteger los crímenes del cura.

[Partial Google Translation: This priest was for decades at the head of El Bosque church, in the elegant Providencia neighborhood of Santiago, Chile, and turned it into a hotbed of more than 50 priests, as well as training five bishops: Andrés Arteaga, Felipe Bacarezza, Horacio Valenzuela, Tomislav Koljatic and Juan Barros.

The Chilean Catholic Church ignored for years the complaints of acolytes that Karadima had sexually abused them, and only initiated some actions after the victims made their cases public in 2010.]

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.

Según Estudio, Chile es el país de América Latina que peor evalúa al Papa

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
La Tercera

>>According to study, Chile is the country in Latin America that rates the Pope lowest

[See the report El Papa Francisco y La Religión en Chile y América Latina.]

January 12, 2018

By Rodrigo Retamal

Un informe de Latinobarómetro señala, además, que nuestro país es el que cuenta con menos católicos y el que confía menos en la iglesia dentro de la zona geográfica analizada. Revisa el documento.

A tres días de la primera visita que el Papa Francisco realizará a Chile, Latinobarómetro -encuesta de opinión pública que representa la percepción de los mayores de edad en 18 países de América Latina- dio a conocer los resultados del estudio “El Papa Francisco y la Religión en Chile y América Latina Latinobarómetro 1995-2017”, los que evidencian cómo ha evolucionado la opinión que tienen los latinoamericanos respecto de la religión y de la figura del Pontífice en los últimos 22 años.

De los 18 países encuestados, Chile presenta una serie de particularidades que se han ido acentuando a través del tiempo: Si el promedio de los latinoamericanos evaluó en 2017 al Papa Mario Bergolio con nota 6,8 en un rango que va de 0 a 10, Chile le entregó la peor nota de la región con un 5,3. Perú, país al que asistirá el Papa una vez que finalice su visita por nuestro país, lo evalúa con un 6,8, mientras que su país de origen, Argentina, le otorga un 6,6.

[Partial Google Translation: In the particular case of Chile, the percentage of Catholics fell from 74% in 1995 to 45% in 2017. According to the study, this decrease was sustained since 2010, when it fell from 65 to 60% in one year, which coincides with the uncovering of the “Karadima Case”. “Only the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Uruguay, Chile and Honduras have less than 50% of Catholic inhabitants according to the survey.” says Lagos.

Along with diminishing the practice of Catholicism, Latinobarómetro also showed a surprising drop in confidence toward the church, especially in Chil e. If in 22 years confidence in this institution dropped from 76% to 65%, in Chile it experienced a sharp drop, going from 80% in 1995 to 36% in 2017.]

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.

Ezzati descarta participación en carta enviada por Papa a Conferencia Episcopal por obispo Barros

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
La Tercera

>>Ezzati rules out participation in letter sent by Pope to Episcopal Conference by Bishop Barros

January 12, 2018

[Note: Cardinal Ezzati was the president of the bishops conference and its permanent (standing) committee at the time that Pope Francis sent the letter to the committee. The announcement of his reelection to a three-year term was made on November 7, 2013.]

El Arzobispo de Santiago también se refirió a los templos incendiados durante las últimas horas.

Este viernes el Arzobispo de Santiago, Ricardo Ezzati, recorrió las iglesias afectadas por los ataques incendiarios durante las últimas horas en Peñalolén, Estación Central, Quinta Normal y Recoleta. Además se refirió a la carta enviada por el Papa a la Conferencia Episcopal en 2015 donde abordaba la situación de Barros.

“Nos duelen profundamente estos hechos contradicen el espíritu de paz que anima la visita del Papa al país”, sostuvo Ezatti.

Y llamó a “reflexionar sobre la necesidad de que exista respeto y tolerancia entre todos, para construir una patria de hermanos”.

[Partial Google Translation: “The letter is authentic, what it says there is what the Holy Father says. The content of what the letter says is not my competence, I do not know what may have been behind. The letter was received by the Episcopal Conference, it was not sent to me personally, it was addressed to the Standing Committee of the Episcopal Conference “said Ezzati when asked about this issue.

Consulted by the possibility that the Pope would have contemplated asking Barros to take a sabbatical year, the Archbishop said: “Abuses are always very serious. I have always said that even if there were only one case, that case would be serious. And in front of all the abuses I say that I have a very great clarity and I have acted with a lot of truth and a lot of conscience, in spite of what some deranged minds in the United States say “.

However, he insisted that he can not interpret the intentions of the letter. “Regarding the intentions I had, if it was Monsignor Barros in his dialogue with the nuncio or in his dialogue with the Pope, do not ask me because that is not my competence.]

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.

Carta del Papa de 2015 reabre polémica por obispo Barros

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
La Tercera

>>Pope’s letter of 2015 reopens controversy by Bishop Barros

January 12, 2018

By C. Reyes and P. Castillo

“La carta es auténtica, lo que dice allí es lo que dice el Santo Padre. El contenido no es de competencia mía, no sé lo que puede haber habido detrás. Fue recibida por la Conferencia Episcopal, no fue enviada a mí personalmente, fue dirigida al Comité Permanente de la Conferencia Episcopal”.

De esta forma, el arzobispo de Santiago, cardenal Ricardo Ezzati, se refirió y validó la misiva que data de 2015 y que la Agencia AP publicó hoy, en la cual el Papa Francisco se refería al nombramiento de Juan Barros como obispo de Osorno, a la aparente preocupación de los obispos chilenos y a la solicitud del nuncio apostólico, Ivo Scapolo, de pedirle un año sabático al prelado del sur.

“Muchas gracias por manifestar abiertamente la inquietud que en estos momentos tienen respecto del nombramiento de Mons. Juan Barros Madrid. Comprendo lo que me dicen y soy consciente de que la situación de la Iglesia de Chile es difícil debido a todas las pruebas que han tenido que soportar”, se lee en el documento, fechado el 31 de enero de 2015 y firmado por el Pontífice.

[Partial Google Translation: In addition, the document was known in a complex day for the Apostolic Nunciature, following two manifestations that took place in front of its offices in Providencia. The most relevant was carried out by a group of lay people from Osorno who opposed Barros. His spokesman, Juan Carlos Claret, said that “this letter comes to reaffirm suspicions that we have been enunciating for three years regarding the procedure of the nuncio Ivo Scapolo”.

In the Episcopal Conference it was also ratified that “the letter that the AP agency has made known is effective, it was received by the bishops of the Standing Committee (of the CECh) in February or March of the year 2015”.]

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

Ezzati y ataques a iglesias: “Quiere decir que la visita del Papa es tan valiosa que a algunos no les gusta”

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
24 Horas

[Ezzati and attacks on churches: “It means that the Pope’s visit is so valuable that some do not like it”]

January 12, 2018

[Note: Includes video of Cardinal Ezzati’s entire interview.]

El cardenal Ricado Ezzati visitó la Iglesia Santa Isabel de Hungría, en Estación Central, la que fue atacada con elementos incendiarios y panfletos contra la visita del Papa Francisco.

El arzobispo metropolitano señaló tras visitar los templos afectados que “gracias a Dios los daños materiales no son de gravedad. La gravedad es la intolerancia de quienes teniendo el derecho de disentir, disienten con formas que no son adecuadas”.

* * *

Respecto a la misiva revelada por AP en donde se exhibe la preocupación del Papa Francisco por la designación del obispo Juan Barros, el sacerdote manifestó que “la carta es auténtica, lo que dice ahí es lo que dice el Santo Padre, lo que dice no es de competencia mía, no sé qué habrá habido detrás, no la recibí personalmente”, aseveró.

“Los abusos siempre son muy graves, frente a todos los abusos puedo decir que siempre he tenido una claridad muy grande y he actuado con mucha verdad y conciencia, a pesar de lo que digan algunas mentes desquiciadas de Estados Unidos”, enfatizó.

[Partial Google Translation: Regarding the letter revealed by AP in which the concern of Pope Francis for the appointment of Bishop Juan Barros is exhibited, the priest said that “the letter is authentic, what it says there is what the Holy Father says, what it says It’s my competence, I do not know what was behind it, I did not receive it personally, “he said.

[4:53] The abuses are always very serious, in the face of all the abuses I can say that I have always had a very great clarity and I have acted with a lot of truth and conscience, in spite of what some deranged minds of the United States say,” he emphasized.]

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.

Carta del Papa Francisco / Letter of Pope Francis

VATICAN CITY
Religión Digital

The full Spanish text of the Pope’s letter regarding Bishop Barros with a Google translation.

Vatican, January 31, 2015

To the Bishops of the Permanent Committee of the Episcopal Conference of Chile

Dear brothers:

I received the email dated 23 of this month. Thank you very much for expressing openly the concern that you have at this moment regarding the appointment of Bishop Juan Barros Madrid. I understand what they tell me and I am aware that the situation of the Church of Chile is difficult due to all the tests that have had to endure.

I assure you, in addition to my fraternal understanding, my closeness as a brother and my prayer.

I remember well your visit in February of last year and also the various proposals, which I found prudent and constructive.

However, a serious problem arose later in the year. Señor Nuncio [Archbishop Ivo Scapolo ] asks Msgr. Barros to resign [from his position of Bishop of the Military Ordinariate of Chile] and urges him to take a sabbatical (one year, for example) before assuming another pastoral responsibility as a diocesan Bishop. And he says that the same procedure will be taken with the Bishops of Talca [Bishop Horacio del Carmen Valenzuela Abarca] and Linares [Bishop Tomislav Koljatic Maroevic], but not to tell them. Msgr. Barros sends the text of his resignation adding this comment from the Nuncio.

As you can understand, this comment by Señor Nuncio complicated and blocked any eventual further path in the sense of offering a sabbatical year. We discussed the matter with Cardinal Ouellet [President of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America and Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops] and I know that he spoke with Señor Nuncio.

In these moments, by express indication of the Congregation for Bishops, Bishop Barros is doing the month of Spiritual Exercises in Spain. I do not know if it will pass through Rome at the end, but I will warn Cardinal Ouellet and the suggestion that you make.

I thank you once again for your openness and frankness in expressing your opinion and feeling: it is the only way to work for the Church, whose care the Lord has entrusted to the Bishops.

I ask you, please, to pray for me, because I need it.

May Jesus bless you and the Holy Virgin take care of you.

Fraternally,
Francisco

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.

January 12, 2018

Las crónicas de un continuo despertar

MEXICO CITY (MEXICO)
La Voz del Sureste [Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas, Mexico]

January 12, 2018

By Arít León Rodríguez

Read original article

Tan sólo diez años después de ser acusado de pederastia y más de veinte de ser protegido por las autoridades eclesiásticas el sacerdote Carlos López Valdez fue detenido en el 2016, después de 22 años de impunidad

Tras someter a un menor de 11 años a 4 años de abusos y violaciones, el sacerdote estuvo errante por varias iglesias oficiando misa y realizando sus labores sacerdotales pese a estar separado de su cargo en el Estado de México y la Ciudad de México estaba protegido por otros sacerdotes en el estado de Morelos, donde fue detenido.

El joven victima de estos abusos, ahora ya siendo un adulto sostiene que existen otras denuncias de abuso por parte de este ser abyecto, algunas de las cuales no prosperaron por bloqueos eclesiásticos.

Que curioso es como consideran que el derecho de decidir no le pertenece a las mujeres en su cuerpo ni a los niños tampoco, pareciera que les pertenece a ellos, así como una clase de cosecha.

Si usted se pregunta de donde sacan a los niños que tanto violan, durante decenios la iglesia ha tenido una especie de granjas a disposición, donde huérfanos y niños con familias de escasísimos recursos son albergados, al cuidado de individuos de esta clase, por lo visto con poca supervisión de las autoridades.

Esperemos que en otros diez o veinte años, a las autoridades se les de por agilizar los asuntos pendientes de:

-Nicolás Aguilar, sacerdote de Tehuacán, Puebla: Se le acusa de haber abusado sexualmente de más de 120 niños en México y Estados Unidos.

-Juan Carlos Moreno Loza, párroco de Marín, Nuevo León: Embarazó a una menor y después fue trasladado a otras parroquias.

-Heladio Ávila Avelar, párroco de Tlaquepaque, Jalisco: Tras concluir tres años de condena en la cárcel al salir fue incorporado a una nueva parroquia.

-Vicente Serrano Aparicio, sacerdote español, párroco de Bahía Asunción, Baja California Sur: Presunto responsable de haber abusado sexualmente de unos niños, además del abuso sexual de Marvin Archuleta. motivo por el cual fue destinado a México, DF.

-El caso del sacerdote Legionario de Cristo, Eduardo Lucatero Álvarez: Condenado por encubrir a un subordinado que violó a unos 30 alumnos, pero no ingresó en la cárcel; el juez sustituyó su condena por una multa de ocho mil pesos, continúa siendo sacerdote.

-Juan Manzo Cárdenas, sacerdote saleciano que hacía correrías nocturnas por el dormitorio comunal del internado Ciudad del Niño don Bosco, en León, Guanajuato.

-Ángel Torres Estrada, párroco de “Nuestra Señora de la Luz”, México, DF.

Los sacerdotes, provenientes de diferentes países, fueron colocados en las Arquidiócesis de Guadalajara, San Luis Potosí, Xalapa, Tlalnepantla, Yucatán, México, Querétaro y Tijuana, así como en las diócesis de Colima, Aguascalientes, Ciudad Guzmán, Ciudad Obregón, Cuernavaca y Culiacán.

Quisiera saber donde están los lerdos marchando en pro de la seguridad de la familia, buscando que estos y mas de 40 sacerdotes que escaparon de EU y andan violando con impunidad en México sean castigados.

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

In Kansas City, Kansas priest trial, the child alleging abuse had these bikers on her side

KANSAS CITY (MO)
Kansas City Star

January 10, 2018

By Rick Montgomery

The girl stepped into the courtroom with her new biker friends.

They had provided a motorcade escort to her family — two motorcyclists ahead of a donated car (no identifying plates) and two behind. They cocooned the 13-year-old when she entered the Wyandotte County building.

The bikers, with prosecutors and counsel, surrounded her as she and her parents walked down the hallways and to their seats before a judge.

They stayed close to ensure the girl would have minimal eye contact with the priest she was accusing.

On one side of the courtroom during the December criminal hearing sat Catholic parishioners and clergy. They were shoulder to shoulder, many in formal black attire. Some prayed aloud with rosaries.

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.

Carta abierta de James Hamilton a Francisco

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
The Clinic Online

[Open letter from James Hamilton to Pope Francis]

January 8, 2018

Aún no comprendo cómo nosotros, los miles de víctimas de abuso, no hayamos sido protegidos por nuestros pastores y sacerdotes, quienes eran testigos mudos de lo que nos pasaba.

Hace pocos días un respetado sacerdote “progre” comentaba que no se sentía en condiciones de denunciar, ni siquiera ante su obispo, a otro sacerdote abusador o perverso. El argumento que esgrimía era que en la justicia civil el testimonio de un cónyuge, hermano o familiar directo, no se consideraba válido, y dado que para él el involucrado era más que un hermano de sangre, no podría elevar testimonio en su contra.

Por breves momento tuve un flashback de cuando Fernando Karadima les hablaba a “sus” sacerdotes y obispos acerca de la dignidad sacerdotal, que pasaban a ser hermanos de Jesucristo y que eso los hacía entrar en la comunidad de los elegidos.

[Partial Google Translation: I still do not understand how we, the thousands of victims of abuse, have not been protected by our pastors and priests, who were silent witnesses of what was happening to us.

A few days ago a respected priest “progre” commented that he did not feel able to denounce, even before his bishop, another abuser or perverse priest. The argument that he wielded was that in civil justice the testimony of a spouse, brother or immediate family member was not considered valid, and since for him the person involved was more than a blood brother, he could not raise testimony against him.

For a brief moment I had a flashback of when Fernando Karadima spoke to “his” priests and bishops about priestly dignity, who became brothers of Jesus Christ and that made them enter the community of the elect.

In that moment, I never imagined that those words were so prophetic. With time before me, a solid, unshakeable ecclesial structure was unveiled, forged in the infinite pacts of silence that they have to protect themselves, while spilling thousand-year-old blood in the bodies of defenseless, curious and kind children who are left to their care.

* * *

Why, faced with the loyal and trusting denunciation of victims already weakened by suffering and age, through the channels established by yourselves, the response has almost invariably been the same: denial, indifference, silence and coldness?

Why is it allowed for the silent transfer of these clerics to other parishes and even other countries or continents, where thousands of children and adolescents continue to be exposed to these predators?

How was it left to numerous priests already identified as pedophiles and abusers in charge of homes for minors?

How was it never explained to us that we were the real victims when the priests gave us an ear to each confession, where we blamed ourselves for having committed a very serious sin that finally induced them to sin against them?]

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

Vocero de laicos de Osorno: “Donde el Papa esté en Santiago vamos a estar nosotros”

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
24 Horas

[Spokesman for lay people in Osorno: “Where the Pope is in Santiago, we will be there”]

January 9, 2018

By Francesca Cassinelli

Juan Carlos Claret anunció las protestas que planea la organización para manifestar el disgusto por el nombramiento del Obispo Juan Barros, cercano a Karadima.

El próximo lunes aterrizará en Chile el Papa Francisco y entre los temas que rodean su visita hay algunos tópicos que podrían desencadenar manifestaciones en los lugares que visitará.

Uno de los temas es el caso del nombramiento del obispo Juan Barros Madrid en Osorno, sacerdote que ha sido ligado a Fernando Karadima y que diversas organizaciones ciudadanas apuntan como encubridor del ex párroco condenado por abusos sexuales.

[Partial Google Translation: The spokesman of the organization of laity and secular of Osorno, Juan Carlos Claret , anticipates that some representatives of the group will travel to Santiago next Sunday to express their displeasure with the appointment and request measures in this regard.

“Where the Pope is in Santiago, we will be there.” We discard the Araucanía because it has its own agenda, ” Claret says to 24Horas.cl , stating that they will carry banners and shout.

“We demand that the authority be consistent because we are generally prevented from demonstrating with placards or shouting at religious activities,” the spokesperson said, adding that if shouting and placards are allowed to the parishioners, the protesters should also be allowed.]

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Felipe Berríos: No entiendo por qué el papa no se reúne con las víctimas de Karadima

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Cooperativa

[Felipe Berríos: I do not understand why the Pope does not meet with the victims of Karadima]

January 11, 2018

El sacerdote jesuita Felipe Berríos dijo a Cooperativa que, durante su visita a Chile, el papa Francisco debería hacer a lo menos un “gesto” a las víctimas de abusos sexuales de Fernando Karadima, y recibirlas para escuchar “lo que tienen que decir”.

“Yo la verdad es que no entiendo por qué (no se hace). Se argumenta que el papa está solamente tres días, pero se podría haber hecho algún gesto pequeño, un encuentro del papa sobre todo con las víctimas del caso Karadima, que es tan emblemático, para que pueda oír lo que ellos tengan que decir”, dijo Berríos a El Diario de Cooperativa.

[Partial Google Translation: The Jesuit priest Felipe Berríos told Cooperativa that, during his visit to Chile, Pope Francisco should make at least one “gesture” to the victims of sexual abuse of Fernando Karadima , and receive them to listen to “what they have to say”.

“The truth is that I do not understand why (it is not done.) It is argued that the pope is only three days, but a small gesture could have been made, a meeting of the pope especially with the victims of the Karadima case, which is so emblematic , so that I can hear what they have to say.

* * *

Berríos stressed that the members of the Osorno lay movement ” are Catholics, they are people who belong to the Catholic community and who, out of affection for the Church, pronounce themselves in this way,” announcing demonstrations during the papal visit .

“They are not against the Church or against the Pope, they are against certain attitudes that the hierarchical church has had, that is what they are alleging and they have every reason to do it (…) I do not see as a bad thing all this is done with respect and without violence, “he said.]

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

Will the Pope Address Sexual Abuse in the Chilean Church?

NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

January 12, 2018

By Ariel Dorfman

Santiago, Chile — On Monday, Pope Francis begins a four-day visit to Chile. For his trip to be successful, he must confront the scandalous sexual crimes of a vile Chilean priest, Fernando Karadima. Newspapers and television broadcasts in Santiago are filled with reports about Father Karadima’s abuse of minors and his impunity.

The allegations against Father Karadima were brought to the attention of the Chilean church in 2004. No inquiry was opened until the victims — after being pressured into silence for years — finally went public.

On Thursday morning, a poll on a Santiago radio station claimed that 90 percent of Chileans want the pope to meet the victims, ask for forgiveness and condemn Father Karadima. On Monday, victims abused by priests from several countries are meeting the Chilean victims to denounce the Vatican’s inadequate response to sexual abuse. And there is talk of protests during the papal visit.

I was 16 when I first encountered Father Karadima in 1958. He was a spiritual guide to fervently religious friends who attended the wealthy parish of El Bosque, over which he presided, a short bike ride away from my home in Santiago.

Though I was an atheist myself, of Jewish origin and left-wing ideas, I was intrigued by the awe in which my buddies held this 27-year-old priest they called saintly, the wisdom and solace they said he offered them, troubled as they were by the doubts and confusion of puberty. So when I received, to my surprise, an invitation to talk with the holy man, I did not hesitate to accept.

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Former priest Peter Waters to stand trial on historic sex abuse charges

VICTORIA (BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA)
The Age

January 12, 2018

By Adam Cooper

A former Catholic priest will stand trial on charges he sexually assaulted six children across Victoria more than 30 years ago.

Peter Maurice Waters, 72, was this week committed to stand trial after a four-day hearing in Melbourne Magistrates Court that was closed to the public while the alleged victims gave evidence.

He has pleaded not guilty to 20 charges of sexual offending against children, including multiple counts of indecent assault, one of carnal knowledge of a girl aged between 10 and 16 and one of committing an act of gross indecency in the presence of a child.

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Pope letter details concern over Chile bishop

SANTIAGO (CHILE) AND VATICAN CITY
Associated Press via Washington Post

January 11, 2018

By Eva Vergara and Nicole Winfield

The Vatican was so concerned about the fallout from Chile’s most notorious pedophile priest that it planned to ask three Chilean bishops accused of knowing about his decades-long crimes to resign and take a year’s sabbatical — a revelation that comes just days before Pope Francis makes his first visit to Chile as pope.

A confidential 2015 letter from Francis, obtained by The Associated Press, details the behind-the-scenes maneuvering by the Vatican and Chile’s bishops to deal with the prelates connected to the disgraced Rev. Fernando Karadima. And it reveals the bishops’ concern about Francis naming a Karadima protege, Bishop Juan Barros, to the helm of the diocese of Osorno — an appointment that roiled the diocese, with hundreds of priests and lay Catholics staging protests against him.

Those protests are expected to greet Francis during his visit to Chile, which begins Monday.

Chile’s Catholic Church was thrown into crisis in 2010 when former parishioners publicly accused Karadima of sexually abusing them when they were minors, starting in the 1980s — accusations they had made years earlier to Chilean church leaders but that were ignored. The scandal grew as Chilean prosecutors and Vatican investigators took testimony from the victims, who accused Barros and other Karadima proteges of having witnessed the abuse and doing nothing about it.

In his Jan. 31, 2015, letter, written in response to Chilean church leaders’ complaints about the Barros appointment, Francis revealed for the first time that he knew that the issue was controversial and that his ambassador in Chile had tried to find a way to contain the damage well before the case made headlines.

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January 11, 2018

Apuron’s nephew says he was raped by the archbishop as a teen

GUAM
Pacific Daily News

January 11, 2018

By Haidee V Eugenio

Archbishop Anthony Apuron’s nephew, Mark M. Apuron, Wednesday filed a lawsuit in federal court, accusing the archbishop of raping him when he was a teen, in 1989 or 1990.

It’s the fifth lawsuit accusing Archbishop Apuron of sexually abusing or raping boys, and the first to accuse him of doing so after he had been elevated to the position of archbishop. The other four lawsuits allege Apuron abused Agat altar boys in the late 1970s, when he was parish priest in that village.

Apuron became Guam’s archbishop in 1986, and has been the subject of a Vatican canonical trial since 2016. The trial, which will determine whether Apuron remains a member of the clergy, started after the former Agat altar boys publicly accused him of assaulting them.

A decision in the canonical trial was reached in October 2017, according to new Archbishop Michael Byrnes, who this week said the Vatican has not yet stated the outcome. As coadjutor archbishop for Guam, Byrnes has the right to succeed Apuron.

Mark Apuron’s lawsuit states he was raped in the archbishop’s bathroom at the chancery during a religious event in 1989 or 1990, when he was around the age of 15 or 16.

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Divulgan sitio web con religiosos abusadores chilenos

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Associated Press via El Nuevo Herald in Miami

[They release web site on Chilean clerical abusers]

January 10, 2018

By Eva Vergara

Una organización estadounidense presentó el miércoles un sitio web que incluye un listado de 78 religiosos católicos de Chile que han sido acusados y/o condenados por abusar sexualmente de menores de edad.

Anne Barrett Doyle, codirectora de BishopAccountability.org, describió el sitio en rueda de prensa como “el mayor archivo público disponible, sólo comparable con los archivos privados de la Iglesia”. Barret explicó también que la divulgación de la lista se realiza a sólo cinco días de la visita del Papa Francisco a Chile con la esperanza de que algunos de sus asesores “le haga ver que no ha cumplido con su política de tolerancia cero en este tema”.

La lista incluye sacerdotes, monjas y hermanos y los datos fueron recabados a partir de denuncias, incidentes difundidos por medios de comunicación y antecedentes judiciales. El criterio para incorporar a los abusadores fue que según los documentos consultados, las supuestas víctimas hayan sido menores de edad y los presuntos responsables hayan sido clérigos. Los casos enlistados ocurrirían después del año 2000 para que no hayan prescrito ante la justicia civil. Sin embargo, según Barret, hay casos que aún no han sido reportados.

AP solicitó una reacción a la Conferencia Episcopal chilena, pero de momento no ha recibido respuesta.

[Partial Google Translation: A US organization presented a website on Wednesday that includes a list of 78 Catholic religious in Chile who have been accused and / or convicted of sexually abusing minors.

Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, described the site at a press conference as “the largest public archive available, only comparable to the private archives of the Church.” Barrett Doyle also explained that the disclosure of the list is made only five days after the visit of Pope Francis to Chile with the hope that some of his advisers “make him see that he has not complied with his zero tolerance policy on this issue” .

The list includes priests, nuns and brothers and the data was collected from complaints, incidents disseminated by the media and judicial records. The criterion for incorporating the abusers was that according to the documents consulted, the alleged victims were minors and the alleged perpetrators were clerics. The cases listed would occur after the year 2000 so that they have not been prescribed before the civil courts. However, according to Barrett Doyle, there are cases that have not yet been reported.

AP requested a reaction to the Chilean Episcopal Conference, but for now has not received a response.]

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Con crítica a Ezzati, ONG publicó lista de 80 religiosos acusados de abuso sexual en Chile

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Cooperativa

[With criticism of Ezzati, NGO published list of 80 religious accused of sexual abuse in Chile]

January 10, 2018

Destacando el rol del arzobispo Ricardo Ezzati en los casos de abuso sexual en la Iglesia Católica chilena, la organización internacional Bishop Accountability publicó una base con 80 sacerdotes, clérigos y una monja acusados de abuso sexual contra menores de edad en Chile.

Esta base de datos, que incluye casos desde el 2000, remarca que Ezzati es un líder incapaz de ponerle fin a los abusos y que, por el contrario, ha permitido que sacerdotes condenados vuelvan a sus funciones.

Respecto al arzobispo de Santiago, Anne Barrett-Doyle, fundadora de Bishop Accountability, manifestó que “su rol es clave (aunque) no puedo decir -porque no tengo toda la información- de que está activamente encubriendo los casos”.

“Lo que sí sabemos que está haciendo es que está devolviendo a sacerdotes acusados de abuso al ejercicio y eso es algo que va dejando una clara evidencia. Si en Estados Unidos esto ocurriera, sería un escándalo criminal de proporciones”, remarcó.

[Partial Google Translation: Highlighting the role of Archbishop Ricardo Ezzati in cases of sexual abuse in the Chilean Catholic Church, the international organization Bishop Accountability published a base with 80 priests, clerics and a nun accused of sexual abuse against minors in Chile.

This database, which includes cases since 2000, points out that Ezzati is a leader incapable of putting an end to abuses and, on the contrary, has allowed condemned priests to return to their functions.]

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Papa Francisco envía fuerte señal sobre abusos a menores

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
La Tercera

[Pope Francis sends strong signal about abuse of minors]

January 11, 2018

By A. Tapia and C. Mardones

El Vaticano anunció este miércoles la intervención del Sodalicio, un movimiento laico católico peruano que enfrenta una serie de denuncias de abusos.

En la recta final de la visita del Papa Francisco a Chile y Perú, el Vaticano dio este miércoles una contundente señal contra los abusos sexuales a menores en la Iglesia. En un mensaje que ha calado hondo en Perú, la Santa Sede comunicó que dispuso la intervención del grupo laico católico peruano Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana, cuyo fundador enfrenta denuncias por parte de la justicia limeña por una serie de casos de abusos contra menores.

El anuncio se conoció justo una semana antes del arribo del Pontífice a Perú (18 al 21 de enero) y a días de su llegada a Chile (15 al 18 de enero). El Sodalicio es una sociedad de vida apostólica que depende de la Congregación para los Institutos de Vida Consagrada y las Sociedades de Vida Apostólica del Vaticano. En su momento se convirtió en la primera sociedad de vida apostólica laica en ser reconocida por el derecho pontificio.

El Vaticano informó que el comisario apostólico será el obispo de Jericó (Colombia), Noel Antonio Londoño. Los principales cuestionamientos tienen que ver con el rol que tuvo al interior de la institución el fundador del Sodalicio, Luis Fernando Figari, de 70 años y quien actualmente vive confinado en Roma.

[Partial Google Translation: The scandal in Peru exploded thanks to the publication, in October 2015, of the book Half monks, half soldiers, of journalists Pedro Salinas and Paola Ugaz. This text, from the Planeta publishing house, gathers testimonies from 30 former Sodalicio members who denounced having been victims of physical, sexual and psychological abuse carried out by Figari and other leaders of the institution. “We started to investigate in December 2010 and now there are more than 500 cases,” Ugaz told La Tercera.

After the publication of the book, a success of sales in Peru, Sodalicio lamented “the actions and omissions committed by community members” and “we ask for forgiveness (to the victims) and we offer our willingness to listen and help.”

But Figari has never responded for what is incriminated. Already in the same 2015 the Vatican ordered an investigation on Sodalicio, that was in charge of the American cardinal Joseph Tobin. However, the intervention that was known today means, according to analysts, that the Holy See estimates that the movement has been unable to reform itself.]

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Comunicado

LIMA (PERU)
Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana

January 10, 2018

En referencia al nombramiento de un Comisario Apostólico para el Sodalicio comunicamos lo siguiente:

1) Este miércoles 10 de enero hemos recibido la noticia del nombramiento que la Santa Sede ha hecho de Mons. Noel Antonio Londoño Buitrago, C.Ss.R., Obispo de Jericó en el departamento de Antioquia (Colombia) como Comisario Apostólico de nuestra Sociedad.

2) Como Comisario Apostólico, Mons. Londoño podrá intervenir directamente en el gobierno de nuestra Sociedad, también en las cuestiones económicas y los demás asuntos de la marcha habitual del Sodalicio.

3) El Cardenal Joseph Tobin seguirá ejerciendo la función de Delegado ad nutum de la Congregación. Como hemos hecho hasta ahora con el Cardenal Joseph Tobin desde su nombramiento como Delegado para Sodalicio en mayo de 2016, colaboraremos en todo con Mons. Londoño para que pueda ejercer sus funciones según lo dispuesto por la Santa Sede.

4) Agradecemos al Papa Francisco y a la Congregación para los Institutos de Vida Consagrada y las Sociedades de Vida Apostólica que sigan con preocupación la vida de nuestra comunidad y reiteramos nuestra disposición para acoger todo lo que disponga para la mejor marcha de nuestra Sociedad. Reafirmamos una vez más nuestra absoluta obediencia al Santo Padre y a la Santa Madre Iglesia.

[Partial Google Translation: We thank Pope Francis and the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life for following the life of our community with concern and we reiterate our willingness to accept all that is available for the better progress of our Society. We reaffirm once again our absolute obedience to the Holy Father and the Holy Mother Church.]

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Pope Tabs Colombian Bishop to Oversee Lay Catholic Society Amid Ongoing Crisis

VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Agency via National Catholic Register

January 10, 2018

By Elise Harris

Colombian Bishop Noel Londoño Buitrago has been appointed papal commissioner for the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, while it deals with revelations that its founder was a serial abuser.

The Vatican announced Wednesday that Colombian Bishop Noel Londoño Buitrago has been appointed papal commissioner for the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, a Catholic society of apostolic life.

Bishop Londoño, of the Diocese of Jericó, will oversee the community as it continues a process of reform, following revelations that its founder, Luis Fernando Figari, committed serial acts of abuse while leading the community. Several former leaders of the community have also faced related allegations.

Bishop Londoño’s appointment was announced in a Jan. 10 communique from the Vatican, which stated that he would carry out his role alongside Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, who has served as papal delegate overseeing the SCV’s reform process since May 2016.

Cardinal Tobin will continue to be the group’s liaison with the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, and will focus primarily on reforming economic matters. In his role as Commissioner, Bishop Londoño will oversee the leadership of order as it continues to reform their governing policies and formation procedures.

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Papa Francisco ordena intervenir el Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana, institución controladora de la U. Gabriela Mistral

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
El Monstrador

[Pope Francis orders intervention in the Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana, the controlling institution of the Gabriela Mistral University in Santiago]

January 11, 2018

By Camila Bustamente

En diciembre, la persecutora María León Pizarro pidió nueve meses de prisión preventiva contra Luis Figari, investigado por los presuntos delitos de asociación ilícita para delinquir y lesiones graves, en relación con un caso de abusos sexuales.

A menos de una semana del viaje apostólico del Papa Francisco a Chile y Perú, el Vaticano ordenó intervenir el Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana (también conocido por su nombre en latín Sodalitium Christianae Vítae, SCV), luego de varios años de acusaciones de abuso sexual, maltrato físico y psicológico, contra su fundador, Luis Fernando Figari, y otros integrantes de la entidad religiosa.

Cabe recordar que en Chile dicha institución religiosa es dueña de la Universidad Gabriela Mistral, el Saint Joseph School en Huechuraba, una comunidad en el exclusivo sector de Los Trapenses y está a cargo de la Parroquia “Madre de los Apóstoles” en Maipú. Los sodalicios llegaron al país en 1999, invitados por el entonces arzobispo de Santiago, Francisco Javier Errázuriz.

La información se dio a conocer este miércoles 10 de enero, a través de un comunicado de la Oficina de Prensa del Vaticano. El decreto indica que la Congregación para los Institutos de Vida Consagrada y las Sociedades de Vida Apostólica, instancia formal de la que depende el SCV, nombró como comisario apostólico al obispo colombiano Noel Antonio Londoño Buitrago.

[Google Translation: Pope Francis orders to intervene the Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana, the controlling institution of the U. Gabriela Mistral

In December, the persecutor María León Pizarro requested nine months of preventive detention against Luis Figari, investigated for the alleged crimes of conspiracy to commit crimes and serious injuries, in relation to a case of sexual abuse.

Less than a week after Pope Francis’s apostolic trip to Chile and Peru, the Vatican ordered the intervention of the Sodality of Christian Life (also known by its Latin name Sodalitium Christianae Vítae, SCV), after several years of accusations of sexual abuse, physical and psychological abuse, against its founder, Luis Fernando Figari, and other members of the religious entity.

It is worth remembering that in Chile this religious institution owns the Gabriela Mistral University, the Saint Joseph School in Huechuraba, a community in the exclusive Los Trapenses sector and is in charge of the Parish “Mother of the Apostles” in Maipú. The sodalicios arrived in the country in 1999, invited by the then archbishop of Santiago, Francisco Javier Errázuriz.

The information was released on Wednesday, January 10, through a statement from the Vatican Press Office. The decree indicates that the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life, the formal instance on which the SCV depends, appointed as its apostolic commissioner the Colombian bishop Noel Antonio Londoño Buitrago.]

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Communiqué of the Press Office of the Holy See

VATICAN CITY
Vatican Press Office

January 10, 2018

La Congregación para los Institutos de Vida Consagrada y las Sociedades de Vida Apostólica ha promulgado hoy, miércoles 10 de enero de 2018, el Decreto en el que dispone el Comisariamento de la Sociedad de vida apostólica Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana) y nombra Comisario Apostólico de la citada Sociedad a Su Excelencia Mons. Noel Antonio Londoño Buitrago, C.Ss.R., Obispo de Jericó (Antioquía), Colombia.

El Cardenal Joseph William Tobin, C.Ss.R., continuará siendo referente de la Congregación para los Institutos de Vida Consagrada y las Sociedades de Vida Apostólica en cuanto Delegado ad nutum en relación con Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, particularmente para las cuestiones de índole económica.

El Santo Padre Francisco ha seguido con preocupación todas las informaciones que, desde hace varios años, han ido llegando a la Congregación para los Institutos de Vida Consagrada y las Sociedades de Vida Apostólica sobre la situación del Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana. El Papa se ha mostrado especialmente atento a la notable gravedad de las informaciones acerca del régimen interno, la formación y la gestión económica-financiera, motivo por el cual ha pedido con insistencia al Dicasterio una particular atención. A esto se han sumado últimamente las graves medidas adoptadas por la autoridad judicial peruana con respecto al Sr. Luis Fernando Figari. Después de un profundo análisis de toda la documentación, el Dicasterio ha promulgado el Decreto de Comisariamento.

[Google Translation: Communiqué of the Press Office of the Holy See, 10.01.2018

The Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life has promulgated today, Wednesday, January 10, 2018, the Decree in which the Commissariat of the Society of Apostolic Life Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (Sodality of Christian Life) and appoints Apostolic Commissioner of the aforementioned Society to His Excellency Mons. Noel Antonio Londoño Buitrago, C.Ss.R., Bishop of Jericó (Antioquia), Colombia.

Cardinal Joseph William Tobin, C.Ss.R., will continue to be a reference of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life as Delegate ad nutum in relation to Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, particularly for economic issues .

The Holy Father Francis has followed with concern all the information that, for several years, has been reaching the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies of Apostolic Life on the situation of the Sodality of Christian Life. The Pope has been especially attentive to the remarkable seriousness of the information about the internal regime, training and economic-financial management, which is why he has insistently asked the Dicastery for particular attention. To this have been added recently the serious measures adopted by the Peruvian judicial authority with respect to Mr. Luis Fernando Figari. After a thorough analysis of all the documentation, the Dicastery has promulgated the Comisariamento Decree.]

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Amid abuse allegations, Vatican names trustee to lead Sodalitium

VATICAN CITY
Catholic News Service via The Pilot

January 10, 2017

By Cindy Wooden

Saying Pope Francis is following the situation with concern, the Vatican named a Colombian bishop to be the trustee of the scandal-plagued Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, a Catholic movement based in Peru.

The Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life appointed Bishop Noel Londono Buitrago of Jerico, Colombia, trustee of the group, the Vatican press office announced Jan. 10.

Pope Francis, the statement said, “has followed with concern all the information that for years has arrived at the congregation” about the movement founded by Luis Fernando Figari. In 2017, Sodalitium leaders released a report acknowledging that Figari sexually, physically and psychologically abused minors, teen and young adult members of the movement.

Pope Francis “insistently requested” the congregation to act, the statement said, adding that he had been “particularly attentive to the gravity of the information regarding the (movement’s) internal regime, the formation” process members went through and the financial operations of the group.

Those concerns, along with a Peruvian court’s request that Figari be jailed pending a criminal investigation into allegations of sexual and psychological abuse, led to the congregation’s decision to name a trustee to assume control of the movement, the statement said. Figari apparently is living in Rome; in the first weeks of 2017, the Vatican informed Sodalitium leaders that Figari had been ordered to remain in Rome and not have any contact with the organization or give interviews to the media.

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Ahead of trip, pope orders takeover of Catholic group in Peru

VATICAN CITY
Reuters

January 10, 2018

By Philip Pullella

[Note: See also Report on Abuses and Response in the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, February 10, 2017).

Pope Francis has ordered the Vatican takeover of an elite Catholic society in Peru whose founder is accused of sexually and physically abusing children and former members of the group.

The move, announced by the Vatican on Wednesday, is the latest in a saga that has damaged the reputation of the Catholic Church in Peru and comes a week before Francis is set to make his first visit as pope to that country and Chile.

Victims of sexual abuse say he has not done enough to put a stop to it. The credibility of a commission he formed in 2014 has been severely damaged by the defections of senior members who accused the Vatican of dragging its feet.

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El Vaticano anunció la intervención del grupo católico en Perú

CARACAS (VENEZUELA)
El Universal

January 11, 2018

[Note: See also a recent report on SVC in English and Spanish.]

[Excerpt in corrected Google translation: The Vatican announced the intervention of the Catholic group in Peru

On the other hand, priests, deacons and a nun comprise a list of nearly 80 religious accused of sexually abusing minors in Chile since 2000, according to a database released Wednesday in Santiago by the American NGO Bishop Accountability.

One week before Pope Francis arrived in Peru, the Vatican announced on Wednesday that it will intervene in the Peruvian ultraconservative Catholic group Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana (SVC), whose leaders are accused of sexual abuse and of various kinds.]

Por otra parte, sacerdotes, diáconos y una monja completan una lista de casi 80 religiosos acusados de abusar sexualmente de menores en Chile desde el año 2000, según una base de datos difundida este miércoles en Santiago por la ONG estadounidense Bishop Accountability.

Vaticano/Lima. – A una semana de la llegada al Perú del papa Francisco, el Vaticano anunció el miércoles que intervendrá al grupo católico ultraconservador peruano Sodalicio de Vida Cristiana (SVC), a cuyos líderes se acusa de abusos sexuales y de diverso tipo.

“Francisco ha seguido con preocupación todas las informaciones que, desde hace varios años, han ido llegando sobre la situación”, afirma el comunicado mediante el cual el Vaticano anunció la intervención, que incluye la salida del actual jefe del SVC, Alessandro Morini, indicó DPA.

El académico peruano Wilfredo Ardito, experto en temas de la Iglesia, calificó el anuncio como “excelente noticia”, mientras que Paola Ugaz, coautora del libro que develó los secretos, afirmó que es “un buen día para las víctimas y el periodismo de investigación”.

El tema SVC es, en opinión de expertos, una piedra en el zapato para Francisco en la visita de cuatro días que hará al Perú, pues el Vaticano ha protegido al fundador del grupo, Luis Fernando Figari, en quien se concentran la mayoría de denuncias.

El periodista José Enrique Escardó, una de las víctimas que rompieron el silencio, no se mostró convencido con el anuncio: “(Francisco) hace la finta (teatro) para que nadie diga que no hizo nada”, señaló.

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Investigadora norteamericana destroza al clero católico chileno: “Tratan bien a abusadores, pero son muy duros con víctimas”

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
El Ciudadano

January 10, 2018

[Excerpt in corrected Google translate: During the morning of this Wednesday, Anne Barrett-Doyle, an American who has been investigating cases of abuses in the Catholic Church with the organization BishopAccountability.org for 15 years, offered a powerful press conference in our country. In the Foundation for Trust – created by James Hamilton, Juan Carlos Cruz and José Andrés Murillo, three of the young people sexually abused by priest Fernando Karadima – she released the first detailed public file on sexual abuse imputed to the clergy in Chile .

Specifically, the document provides extensive summaries and hundreds of electronic sources that detail the cases of about 80 priests, deacons, religious brothers and a nun, accused of sexual abuse.

* * *

Anne Barrett-Doyle took the time to go over each of the most important cases of authorities of the local Catholic Church who have turned a deaf ear to the allegations of sexual abuse inside the institution.

It is in this context that, among others, Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati appeared. He said that he has allowed several religious accused of sexual abuse to return to work, as happened for example with Cristián Precht. “The investigation into Precht yielded at least 20 victims, between 15 and 35 years old, who had been abused by this priest, however, Cardinal Ezzati believes that after 5 years he can return to say Masses and be a priest,” the North American researcher observed.]

“El Papa debería remover a estas personas de sus cargos”, demandó Anne Barrett-Doyle, co-directora de BishopAccountability.org, organización que este miércoles dio a conocer un archivo con los nombres de cerca de 80 religiosos acusados de abuso sexual.]

Durante la mañana de este miércoles, Anne Barrett-Doyle, estadounidense que lleva 15 años investigado junto a la organización BishopAccountability.org casos de abusos en la Iglesia Católica, ofreció una potente conferencia en nuestro país. En la Fundación para la Confianza –creada por James Hamilton, Juan Carlos Cruz y José Andrés Murillo, tres de los jóvenes abusados sexualmente por el sacerdote Fernando Karadima-, dio a conocer el primer archivo público detallado sobre los abusos sexuales imputados al clero en Chile.

Específicamente, el documento proporciona resúmenes extensos y cientos de fuentes electrónicas que detallan los casos de cerca de 80 sacerdotes, diáconos, hermanos religiosos y una monja, acusados de abuso sexual. Todas denuncias reportadas a la autoridad “en periodos absolutamente razonables”, según apuntó Barrett-Doyle, y que “demuestran qué tantas cosas se mantienen ocultas, escondidas”.

Una lista que, postula la investigadora, es solo una fracción de la que debiera ser “si los obispos y las autoridades eclesiásticas chilenas estuvieran obligadas a reportar los delitos que ocurren dentro de la Iglesia”. Algo que se suma a la necesidad de que el sistema legal le dé más tiempo y espacio a las víctimas para construir casos civiles y criminales, y que los líderes de la institución religiosa sean investigados por fiscales y autoridades de Estado.

Junto a ello sumó -refiriéndose al rol del Vaticano- que “la falta de presión externa le ha permitido a la Iglesia Católica chilena operar en la impunidad”.

Ezzati y los obispos

Anne Barrett-Doyle se dio el tiempo de ir detallando cada uno de los casos más importantes de autoridades de la Iglesia Católica local que han hecho oídos sordos a las denuncias de abusos sexuales al interior de la institución.

Es en ese contexto que, entre otros, apareció el Cardenal Ricardo Ezzati. Sobre él señaló que ha permitido que varios religiosos acusados de abuso sexual vuelvan a ejercer su labor, como lo ocurrido por ejemplo con Cristián Precht. “La investigación sobre Precht arrojó al menos 20 víctimas, entre 15 y 35 años, que habían sido abusados por este sacerdote, sin embargo, el Cardenal Ezzati opina que luego de 5 años puede volver a practicar misas y ser sacerdote”, criticó la investigadora norteamericana.

“Ezzati es el hombre más poderoso dentro de la Iglesia Católica chilena. Si él como líder no le da importancia a lo de ‘cero tolerancia’, ¿qué podemos esperar para los otros dentro de la Iglesia chilena?”, cuestionó Barrett-Doyle.

En ese mismo contexto, Anne relató que cuando realizaban la investigación que dieron a conocer esta jornada, estaban “atónitos” con el comportamiento de los obispos chilenos. “Tratan bien a los abusadores, pero son muy duros con las víctimas”, sostuvo. Junto a ello, señaló que éstos “se muestran muy orgullosos de su protocolo contra el abuso publicado en 2015, pero sus omisiones son notables: no hace mención a ‘cero tolerancia’ en ninguna parte”, así como tampoco -agregó- se habla de reparación, a diferencia de lo que ocurre en países como Estados Unidos.

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January 10, 2018

Pope Francis to face protests in Chile over bishop appointment

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Reuters

January 10, 2018

By Dave Sherwood

Chileans protesting Pope Francis’s 2015 appointment of a Roman Catholic bishop accused of protecting an alleged pedophile threaten to cast a shadow over the pontiff’s visit to South America next week.

Parishioners in Osorno, a small city 800 kilometers (497 miles) south of the Chilean capital, say Vatican representatives denied their requests to meet with Francis. They plan to protest every day of the Pope’s Jan. 15 – 18 stay in Chile.

Pope Francis, who hails from neighboring Argentina and once briefly lived in Chile, has defended Osorno Bishop Juan Barros and says allegations that he covered up abuses by one of Chile’s most notorious sexual predators were unfounded.

Planned demonstrations in Chile, a staunchly Catholic country, have rekindled accusations Francis has not done enough to root out sexual abuse in the Church, especially holding bishops accountable for covering up or mishandling sexual abuse.

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ONG de EEUU lanzó listado con más de 80 casos de clérigos involucrados en abusos en Chile

CONCEPCIÓN (CHILE)
Bio Bio Chile

January 10, 2018

By Guido Focacci and Aristeo Andrés

Con el objetivo de llamar al papa Francisco a cumplir su compromiso de “tolerancia cero” en casos de abuso sexual en acciones concretas contra sus autores, la agrupación Bishop Accountability lanzó un sitio con 80 religiosos chilenos involucrados, acusando especialmente al cardenal Ricardo Ezzati de encubrimiento.

La agrupación, liderada por Anne Barrett-Doyle, indicó que este encubrimiento en ninguna parte del mundo es tan potente como en Chile y apuntó a Ezzati, como principal autoridad católica del país, a tomar medidas en estos casos.

La investigadora recalcó los casos de los rel//rbb.cl/j16f Publicado por igiosos Christian Precht, Julio Dutilh y Juan Barros como hechos visibles, donde se ha permitido continuar con el sacerdocio pese a ser denunciados y hasta condenados por El Vaticano.

El director ejecutivo de la Fundación para la Confianza, José Murillo, aseguró que este mensaje de la agrupación es para que el Papa cumpla con su compromiso de tolerancia cero para no tener casos impunes.

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ONG estadounidense revela casos de abuso sexual por parte de sacerdotes chilenos

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Agence France Presse via 24 Horas

January 10, 2018

El sitio reveló que casi ochenta sacerdotes, diáconos y una monja de nacionalidad chilena abusaron de menores de edad.

Sacerdotes, diáconos y una monja chilenos completan una lista de casi ochenta religiosos acusados desde el año 2000 de abusar sexualmente de menores en Chile, según una base de datos difundida este miércoles en Santiago por la ONG estadounidense Bishop Accountability.

“Hoy estamos presentando una base de datos de casi 80 clérigos en Chile, sacerdotes, monjes y una monja que han sido acusados de abusar sexualmente de niños”, denunció Ann Barrett-Doyle, codirectora de la ONG que desde 2003 se dedica a publicar los archivos de abusadores dentro de la Iglesia católica, en una rueda de prensa en Santiago.

A cinco días de la llegada del papa Francisco a Chile, la organización denunció la falta de compromiso de los jerarcas católicos, en especial los chilenos, para erradicar la pederastia en la iglesia.

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Organización lanza sitio con casos de sacerdotes chilenos acusados de abuso sexual

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
El Dínamo

January 10, 2018

La organización Bishop Accountability, radicada en Estados Unidos, se encarga de proporcionar información a través de Internet acerca de los distintos casos de sacerdotes acusados y condenados por abuso sexual, así como también a religiosos que han actuado como encubridores del delito.

A menos de una semana de la llegada del Papa a Chile, la entidad lanzó en su sitio información sobre los casos chilenos. En total se registraron 70, que agrupa a sacerdotes, diáconos, hermanos religiosos y una monja. Cada nombre está acompañado de un resumen junto con información al lugar que pertenecen y enlaces de noticias al respecto.

Anne Barrett-Doyle, representante de Bishop Accountability, señaló que este lanzamiento se hizo previo a la visita de Francisco I “con la esperanza de que alguno de sus asistentes le haga ver que no ha cumplido con su promesa de tolerancia cero”.

La organización busca que el Papa remueva al cardenal Ricardo Ezatti y a otros obispos que -según acusa Bishop Accountability- habrían encubiertos otros casos como Horacio Valenzuela (Talca) y Cristian Contreras (San Felipe). “El Papa dice que llora por las víctimas. Queremos que transforme las lágrimas en acciones”, indicó.

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Ad Portas de Visita Papal: Lanzan Nómina de Religiosos Acusados de Abusos en Chile

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
La Nacion

January 10, 2018

By Giselle Saure

La nómina que incluye identidades, cargos, fotografías y la descripción de los actos cometidos contra sus víctimas fue elaborada por la organización internacional que se dedica a indagar este tema Bishop Accountability.

Fernando Karadima, Andrés Aguirre alias el cura “Tato”, Cristián Precht y John O´Reilly, son los rostros más conocidos en la lista de 78 religiosos que aparecen en el listado de miembros de la iglesia católica chilena denunciados por abusos sexuales en los últimos 15 años desde que se destaparon estos delitos y que han mermado el respeto y la credibilidad en la institución en el país.

La nómina elaborada por el grupo internacional Bishop Accountability, con sede en Estados Unidos, que se dedica a investigar estos delitos cometidos por integrantes de la iglesia católica, es el primer banco de datos donde aparecen con fotografías, nombres y congregaciones de los miembros de la institución que han sido denunciados por estos casos, incluidos cuatro obispos.

Este nuevo recurso electrónico fue presentado por Anne Barrett-Doyle, investigadora católica y fundadora de la entidad que fue clave para las indagatorias realizadas por el Boston Globe, sobre abusos sexuales en esa ciudad de Estados Unidos.

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Responde la Iglesia en Oaxaca a las acusaciones en contra del Arzobispo José Luis Chávez Botello

OAXACA DE JUáREZ (MEXICO)
Revista Vida Nueva [Madrid, España]

January 10, 2018

By Miroslava López

Read original article

Padre Wilfrido Mayrén: “Es un grupo de sacerdotes que se valen de la mentira para golpear a la Iglesia católica”.

“Jamás se pudo comprobar que el ex sacerdote Gerardo Silvestre Hernández violara ni siquiera a uno, menos a medio centenar de niños, y tampoco existen los supuestos 32 sacerdotes ancianos muertos por falta de atención de la Arquidiócesis de Antequera Oaxaca. Quienes acusan de esto al arzobispo José Luis Chávez Botello, simplemente hacen de la mentira compulsiva un comportamiento habitual”.

Categórico, el Apoderado Legal de esa Iglesia particular, el sacerdote Romualdo Francisco Wilfrido Mayrén Peláez, explica a Vida Nueva Digital que las acusaciones en contra del Arzobispo de Oaxaca por parte de un pequeño grupo de sacerdotes de la arquidiócesis, apoyados por algunos medios de comunicación, es parte de una “estrategia tramposa y falsa para atacar a la Iglesia, pues ya son asuntos investigados, juzgados y sentenciados por las instancias civiles y eclesiásticas”.

Ni cien, ni cincuenta, ni uno

De acuerdo con información de la Arquidiócesis de Antequera Oaxaca, en el año 2009 se recibió a un grupo de sacerdotes que denunciaban posibles actos delictivos en contra de niños y jóvenes de una parroquia, señalando como responsable al entonces sacerdote Gerardo Silvestre Hernández, por lo que el Arzobispo dio inicio a un proceso de investigación.

Sin embargo, tras las indagatorias eclesiales y ministeriales no se comprobó ninguna violación. Explica el padre Mayrén: “Este grupo de sacerdotes se dedicó a inducir a la gente de la comunidad parroquial para que denunciaran al sacerdote, pero no lo lograron. Sólo convencieron a la madre de un menor que acudió a las instancias civiles, pero tras el desahogo de pruebas no se acreditó violación; sin embargo, se le sentenció por corrupción de menores, condena de poco más de 16 años de cárcel, la cual aún está purgando en un reclusorio del estado”.

Asegura que, sin la menor oposición, a finales del 2013 el inculpado se entregó voluntariamente para ser detenido, recluido, y comenzar así el desahogo de su proceso penal. Posteriormente, él mismo solicitó a Roma la exoneración de sus responsabilidades clericales, la cual le fue concedida meses más tarde.

El padre Mayrén lamenta que pese a las conclusiones de las autoridades civiles, este grupo de sacerdotes continúe manejando que el ex sacerdote habría violado por lo menos a medio centenar de niños; incluso, –dice– cuando el Papa Francisco visitó México, dijeron que había cien víctimas. Han manejado distintas cifras, incluso las han elevado ya estando el ex sacerdote dentro del reclusorio, pero aún cuando se hace un manejo fantástico de las cifras, en ningún caso se ha acreditado violación.

“Para lograr su objetivo –añade–, también se hacen acompañar de grupos, organizaciones y sindicatos que buscan situaciones sensibles que puedan manejar y explotar en la aparente lucha por la justicia para beneficiarse económicamente a través de proyectos y financiamientos de instituciones internacionales”.

“No sé qué más quiere este grupo de sacerdotes. Lo único que podemos captar es una intención de denostar y dañar a la Iglesia católica, pues la Arquidiócesis jamás se opuso a que se investigara el caso; al contrario, coadyuvó en todas las investigaciones, el procedimiento y el proceso”, afirma.

La mayoría de los oaxaqueños conoce la verdad

Al Arzobispo José Luis Chávez Botello también se le ha acusado de “provocar” la muerte de más de treinta sacerdotes de avanzada edad. Al respecto, el Apoderado Legal de la Arquidiócesis precisa que estos dichos surgieron recientemente tras la muerte, en diciembre pasado, de un sacerdote que pertenecía a este grupo.

“Ahora dicen que el arzobispo también es el causante de su muerte, cuando este sacerdote padecía un cuadro de salud muy grave. Nosotros tenemos pruebas de haber buscado e intentado el cuidado médico y espiritual que por derecho le correspondía al padre y nos lo impidieron. Pero nosotros hemos sido respetuosos, no somos partidarios de la provocación y menos de la confrontación”.

El padre Mayrén afirma que en Oaxaca la mayor parte de las personas conoce la verdad, de tal forma que “los fieles siguen acudiendo ordinariamente a la iglesia y participando con fe, devoción y entusiasmo en sus parroquias, pero hacia fuera, en el resto del país y algunos lugares de fuera del país, se está haciendo mucho ruido porque aprovechan que es un tema sensible y la gente desconoce la verdad de los hechos”.

Agrega: “Los sacerdotes ancianos y enfermos son atendidos y apoyados por la arquidiócesis. La muerte es un paso natural en la vida humana; quienes mueren terminan su paso en este mundo. Pero es otra bandera que quieren utilizar en contra del Arzobispo y culparlo, sin pruebas ni fundamentos. Afortunadamente la sociedad oaxaqueña, y especialmente los fieles católicos, conocen la labor de la Iglesia y del Arzobispo, y también la de ellos”.

Buscan y anhelan el poder que en otro tiempo tuvieron

Por último, en torno a la acusación que también pesa sobre Chávez Botello en el sentido de que envía a estos templos sólo a los sacerdotes que llevan una buena relación con él, explica el padre Mayrén: “Ahora también lo acusan de favorecer a algunos sacerdotes, pero en el fondo de esa acusación está el deseo de este grupo de sacerdotes de buscar y mantener el poder que en otro tiempo tuvieron”.

“El Arzobispo –agrega– tiene el compromiso y la obligación de buscar de manera responsable, e inspirado por el Espíritu de Dios, el bien de los fieles. Y ellos han querido intervenir en la conducción de la arquidiócesis. Su gran problema es la disciplina y la obediencia. Lo sabemos porque algunos tuvieron en otro tiempo el privilegio de ser cercanos a otro Arzobispo y participar en espacios de decisiones; alguno quizá soñó ser obispo, un sueño frustrado que lamentablemente ahora se convierte en un ataque ciego y malévolo hacia la Iglesia”.

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Organización que investiga abusos sexuales en la Iglesia critica a Ezzati por minimizar denuncias

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
La Tercera

January 10, 2018

By Claudia Soto

Anne Barrett-Doyle, representante del grupo internacional Bishop Accountability, aseguró que sería un “gran gesto” del Papa Francisco que removiera al arzobispo de Santiago y a otros obispos como Cristián Contreras Molina y Horacio Valenzuela, por no haber intervenido adecuadamente en estos casos. En cuanto al Pontífice, señaló que “no ha cumplido con su promesa de tolerancia cero” contra los abusos.

La investigadora Anne Barrett-Doyle, mostrando una fotografía del cardenal Ezzati.
El grupo Bishop Accountability, con sede en Estados Unidos y representado por Anne Barrett-Doyle, lanzó este miércoles el primer banco de datos publicado en Internet sobre los clérigos chilenos que han sido denunciados por abuso sexual de menores. Este nuevo recurso electrónico proporciona detalles de los casos de 79 sacerdotes, diáconos, hermanos religiosos y una monja en nuestro país, que han sido condenados por la justicia. Sin embargo, se indica que de acuerdo a lo estudiado, deben hacer cientos de casos que aún se mantienen ocultos.

Barrett-Doyle explicó que este lanzamiento se hizo previo a la visita del Papa Francisco “con la esperanza de que alguno de sus asistentes le haga ver que no ha cumplido con su promesa de tolerancia cero” contra los abusos.

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Las 80 denuncias por abuso sexual que ha enfrentado la Iglesia en Chile

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
La Tercera

January 9, 2017

By Sebastián Labrín and Juan Pablo Sallaberry

[Note: Includes a table of accused, including priests accused of sexual misconduct with adults. See also BishopAccountability.org’s database, focused on clerics who are accused of offending against minors.]

En los últimos 15 años, desde el caso de Andrés Aguirre, el “cura Tato”, 80 sacerdotes y religiosos católicos han sido acusados de delitos de connotación sexual. De ese total, 45 fueron condenados por la justicia civil o canónica, y de ellos, 34 tienen como víctimas a menores de edad. La situación más reciente involucra a la congregación marista.

La investigación sobre abusos cometidos por miembros de la Congregación de los Hermanos Maristas en colegios chilenos sigue en escalada, luego de que ayer el diario catalán El Periódico llevara en su portada un reportaje sobre cómo la orden religiosa silenciaba las denuncias.

La Fiscalía Sur maneja antecedentes sobre los presuntos delitos sexuales cometidos por seis maristas -dos de ellos ya fallecidos-, investigación que se inició a partir de una denuncia contra Abel Pérez Ruiz, acusado de abusar de 14 menores, 10 del Instituto Alonso de Ercilla y otros cuatro del Colegio Marcelino Champagnat, en La Pintana.

¿Cuántos sacerdotes y religiosos católicos están vinculados a casos de abusos sexuales en Chile? La nómina es mantenida en privado por la Iglesia. El 2011, tras las denuncias de abusos sexuales contra el sacerdote Fernando Karadima, el episcopado decidió subir a su página web un listado con los condenados por este tipo de delitos, que entonces llegaba a 18 presbíteros sancionados por la justicia civil o la canónica. Sin embargo, el 2016 se retiró la lista de nombres cuando los casos sumaban 32.

La ONG norteamericana Bishop Accountability, entidad que recopila casos de abusos sexuales cometidos por sacerdotes en todo el mundo, ha estado trabajando en un listado de religiosos chilenos que han enfrentado denuncias de este tipo. Anne Barrett Doyle, directora de la organización, presentará el documento en una conferencia de prensa este miércoles.

Una investigación de La Tercera compiló toda la información oficial publicada por la Iglesia sobre denuncias presentadas desde 2002 (año en que se destapó el caso de Andrés Aguirre, el “cura Tato”); hizo una completa revisión de los archivos de prensa; consultó al Ministerio Público sobre el estado de las causas, y examinó medios regionales a lo largo de todo Chile para incluir casos locales que jamás fueron conocidos en Santiago.

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George Pell’s lawyers given ABC interviews in relation to child sexual abuse allegations

AUSTRALIA
Australian Associated Press

January 10, 2018

Cardinal’s lawyers tell court hard drive containing footage and transcripts was handed over in response to subpoena

Cardinal George Pell’s lawyers will examine interview footage from the ABC as Australia’s highest-ranking Catholic fights multiple historical sex offence charges in Victoria.

Pell, who denies the allegations, is the most senior Catholic cleric to be charged with sex offences.

His lawyers returned to Melbourne magistrates court on Wednesday for an administrative update about the subpoenas they sent to the ABC and investigative journalist Louise Milligan, who wrote the book Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell.

In December the ABC and Milligan agreed to hand over some of the material sought by Pell’s lawyers.

“There’s been production to the registry of a hard drive containing footage and transcripts,” defence barrister Ruth Shann told the court on Wednesday.

It is understood the footage contains unedited interviews between Milligan and some of the complainants who have accused Pell of historical sex offences.

Pell was not required to attend court on Wednesday.

The former Sydney and Melbourne archbishop and Ballarat priest has taken leave from his position as Vatican treasurer to defend himself.

He will face a four-week pretrial committal hearing in March to determine if he should stand trial.

Some of the hearing will be closed to the public when the complainants give evidence about the alleged sexual offences.

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Church: Guam archbishop faces new sexual assault allegation

HAGATNA (GUAM)
Associated Press

January 9, 2018

HAGATNA, Guam – Catholic church officials in Guam say they have notified the Vatican of a new sexual abuse allegation against Archbishop Anthony Apuron.

According to the Archdiocese of Agana, a relative of Apuron claimed to local media he was abused by the archbishop in 1990.

Apuron already faces multiple allegations of sexual abuse of altar boys in the 1970s.

He has denied those claims and has not been criminally charged. His lawyer Jacqueline Terlaje didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

The allegations against Apuron prompted a Vatican tribunal. Archbishop Michael Byrnes says he was informed by Vatican officials late last year that a verdict has been reached, but it has not yet been released.

The Vatican sent Byrnes to Guam to replace Apuron on an administrative basis.

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Vatican takes over Peru-based movement on eve of pope’s trip

VATICAN CITY
Tampa Bay Times

January 10, 2018

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican on Wednesday took over a Peru-based Catholic movement whose founder was accused of sexual and psychological abuse, just days before Pope Francis starts a trip to Chile and Peru where the sexual abuse scandal is expected to play out on the sidelines.

A Vatican statement said the congregation for religious orders had issued a decree naming a commissioner to take over the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, a conservative movement that has some 20,000 members and chapters throughout South America and the U.S.

The move came just weeks after Peruvian prosecutors announced they were seeking the arrest of Sodalitium’s founder, Luis Figari.

A journalist and former member of the society began publicly accusing Figari of abuse in 2010. While Figari had never been charged, many of the allegations were confirmed by a Vatican inquiry. Figari was ordered to cut contact with members of the society last year, and has been living in Rome.

He has never provided concrete responses to the accusations. His Peru-based lawyer, Armando Lengua, has said he hasn’t been in contact with Figari, saying he is unreachable in the Sodalitium prayer and retreat house in Rome.

Some of Sodalitium’s victims had denounced the Vatican’s handling of the case, saying in 2017 that the six-year delay in taking any action, and subsequently allowing Figari to live in retirement in Rome, was anything but satisfactory.

In the statement, the Vatican said Francis had followed the Sodalitium saga for years, had asked that the congregation pay particular attention to it and was “particularly concerned about the seriousness of information about the internal regime, the training and financial management.”

The Vatican said the congregation had decided on the “commissioning” of the society after the recent moves by Peruvian prosecutors to arrest Figari and a “profound analysis of all the documentation.”

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Vatican takes over scandal-hit Catholic society on eve of pope’s trip to Peru

VATICAN CITY
Associated Press

January 10, 2018

– Peruvian founder of Sodalitium Christianae Vitae accused of sexual abuse
– Victims denounce Vatican’s handling and protests likely during pontiff’s visit

The Vatican has taken over a Peru-based Catholic movement whose founder was accused of sexual and psychological abuse, just days before Pope Francis starts a trip to Chile and Peru where the sexual abuse scandal is expected to play out on the sidelines.

A Vatican statement said the congregation for religious orders had issued a decree naming a commissioner to take over the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, a conservative movement that has chapters and about 20,000 members throughout South America and the US.

The move came just weeks after Peruvian prosecutors announced they were seeking the arrest of Sodalitium’s founder, Luis Figari.

While Figari had never been charged, many of the allegations were confirmed by a Vatican inquiry. He was ordered to cut contact with members of the society, and has been living in Rome.

In the statement, the Vatican said Francis had followed the Sodalitium scandal for years, had asked that the congregation pay particular attention to it and was “particularly concerned about the seriousness of information about the internal regime, the training and financial management.”

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Top-Tier Gymnast Maggie Nichols Says Larry Nassar Sexually Abused Her, Too

UNITED STATES
The Huffington Post

January 9, 2018

By Alanna Vagianos

Nichols wrote in a statement that she was the first to alert USA Gymnastics of Nassar’s abuse in 2015.

Gymnast Maggie Nichols alleged Tuesday that she was among the young women sexually abused by former USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University doctor Larry Nassar.

In a statement released by Nichols’ attorney, the former elite gymnast alleged that Nassar sexually abused her “numerous times,” starting when she was 15 years old.

“Recently, three of my friends and former National Team members who medaled at the 2012 Olympics have bravely stepped forward to proclaim they were sexually assaulted by USA Gymnastics Team physician Dr. Larry Nassar,” Nichols said in the statement, obtained by Time magazine. “Today I join them.”

Nichols said she was the first victim to alert USA Gymnastics of Nassar’s abuse in 2015, which subsequently led to his arrest in 2016. She wrote that she was discussing Nassar’s treatment with a teammate during practice one day when a coach overheard.

“I had never told my coach about these treatments,” Nichols said. “After hearing our conversation she asked me more questions about it and said it doesn’t seem right … so she did the right thing and reported this abuse to the USA Gymnastics staff.”

Nassar has been accused of serial sexual abuse by over 125 young women, including elite gymnasts Aly Raisman, Gabby Douglas and McKayla Maroney. All of the victims claim that Nassar abused them during routine medical exams; some say they were as young as 12 at the time of the alleged abuse.

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Metro East priest facing more than 15 child pornography charges

MASCOUTAH (IL)
KMOV

January 8, 2018

An associate Catholic priest from a church in Mascoutah, Illinois is facing multiple charges of possessing and disseminating child pornography.

Belleville police arrested Rev. Gerald Hechenberger, the associate pastor at Holy Childhood Church and School, Monday after reportedly finding him in possession of multiple pornographic images and videos of children under the age of 13.

The officers were turned onto the 54-year-old Hechenberger from an anonymous tip from the Attorney General’s ICAC Task Force indicating he was distributing child pornography.

Detectives surveilled Hechenberger online and in person and were eventually granted a warrant to search the rectory at Holy Childhood Catholic Church Monday.

Officers reportedly found drug paraphernalia and methamphetamine along with the images and videos of children.

“There is a rotten apple in every bunch and that should not discredit the church of anyone else because of one person making a mistake,” said Andrea Sisson, a lifelong Mascoutah resident. “It doesn’t deter me from knowing anyone from there or them doing good in the community. Like I said, one man can’t ruin or bring a community down.”

Hechenberger faces eight counts of disseminating child pornography in which the victim is less than 13 years old, seven counts of possession of child pornography, one count of possessing child pornography on video and one count of possessing methamphetamine.

He had been at the parish for six years. Previously, he had let it be known he was suffering from depression. At this time there are no known complaints lodged against him in the past. None of the attendees at Tuesday night’s service agreed to speak about the situation.

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Clergy abuse victims haunted by sex harassment news

UNITED STATES
Associated Press

January 9, 2018

When stories of sexual misconduct by powerful men began to fill the news during the fall, Manny Vega immediately flashed back to his childhood.

He saw strong similarities between the recent allegations against producers and politicians and his own abuse as a child by his parish priest.

“The parallels are in the power dynamics,” said Vega, a former police officer and decorated Marine who lives in Oxnard, California. “Whether you’re the leader of a church or the leader of a film studio, you’re going to be someone people look up to and someone people go to for guidance. It puts the victim at a horrible disadvantage.”

While there are key differences, the sexual harassment detailed in today’s headlines shares the same well-worn themes that made it so hard for Vega and hundreds of other clergy abuse victims to come forward more than a decade ago: fear of retribution and disbelief, impossible power dynamics and confidential settlements that bury complaints.

Powerful Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein is under investigation for sexual assault in four cities, and has been accused of everything from unwanted come-ons to groping by dozens of women, including A-list actresses. He has apologized for his behavior with women but denied having nonconsensual sex. He has not been charged with a crime.

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Child care home abuse denial ‘should be made a crime’

SCOTLAND
The Evening Express

January 10, 2018

Denying the “orchestrated” abuse which took place in child care homes across Scotland should be a crime, an inquiry has heard.

A former resident of Smyllum Park in Lanark made the claim before the Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry in Edinburgh on Tuesday.

He described his time at the orphanage as a “Holocaust of developmental trauma” and said Scotland has to “face up” to its past.

The witness, who lived in the Catholic-run home between 1961 and 1965, said his head had been left “spinning” after reading an article suggesting abuse claims about such places were exaggerated.

He added: “What was happening there was a crime against humanity. It was orchestrated.

“It went on for years. I think it was a Holocaust of developmental trauma, inflicted upon thousands of children over decades.

“In Germany it’s a crime to deny the Holocaust and I would like it to be a crime for academics to deny these years and years of abuse.

“Scotland has to face up to this – if you don’t know your own country’s history, you don’t know anything.”

Now in his sixties, he said he still has a recurring nightmare about his time there and wakes up screaming.

According to him, the nuns were “quick to aggression” and “quick to anger”, describing constant physical and mental abuse.

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New Whistleblower Site FaithLeaks Releases Confidential Documents About Child Sexual Abuse in Jehovah’s Witnesses Community

UNITED STATES
Gizmodo

January 10, 2018

By Jennings Brown

The founders of MormonLeaks, a transparency organization that has released hundreds of controversial documents related to inner-workings of the Mormon Church, recently launched FaithLeaks, an ambitious and far-reaching project that aims to expose corruption and abuse across other religious organizations. Today, the new group has published dozens of pages of documents related to sexual assault allegations within the Jehovah’s Witness Church, documents which are presumably part of a database that church officials have refused to relinquish in an unrelated sexual molestation trial, resulting in a one and a half year legal battle and millions of dollars in fines.

The 69 pages of documents detail how Jehovah’s Witnesses authorities and church officials handled allegations of repeated sexual assault by one of its local leaders. The interviews and detailed notes compiled by church authorities about molestation and rape allegations are horrific. The 33 documents also provide a staggering play-by-play of how the Watchtower Tract and Bible Society—the parent corporation and governing body for the Jehovah’s Witnesses, often simply referred to as “the Watchtower”—handled the case internally over the course of nearly a decade—playing therapist, prosecutor, jury, and judge—and the lengths to which they went to keep these accusations away from the “worldly court of law.”

The documents show that in 1999, a committee of Jehovah’s Witnesses elders found allegations from two women that their father had sexually abused them to be credible, yet held off on forming an internal judicial committee to take their own form of judicial action against the alleged abuser because one of the daughters was not willing to face the father and formally make the accusations against him, as judicial committee policy requires. Once she went through with the process years later, a spiritually guided trial was held and he was disfellowshipped. However, a year later he was reinstated. The documents show that Jehovah’s Witnesses leaders cast shade on one accuser and her husband for trying to take this matter to secular law enforcement.

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Archdiocese alerts Vatican about new allegation against Apuron

GUAM
Pacific Daily News

January 10, 2018

By Haidee V. Eugenio

There still is no word on the results of the Vatican’s canonical trial of Guam Archbishop Anthony Apuron, according to Archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes, who issued a written statement Wednesday in response to the latest sexual abuse allegation against Apuron.

According to the Archdiocese of Agana, the Guam Daily Post reported that Mark Apuron, a nephew of Archbishop Apuron, alleges the archbishop sexually abused in him 1990.

No lawsuit has been filed in connection with that allegation, but Apuron currently faces four lawsuits that accuse him of abusing or raping four Agat altar boys in the late 1970s, when he was parish priest in that village.

“All subsequent information the archdiocese receives regarding this case will be forwarded expeditiously to Rome, adhering to our new, strengthened sexual abuse policy,” the archdiocese said in a statement.

“All allegations of sexual abuse brought to the attention of our archdiocese are important because of the grave, irreversible harm all victims of abuse suffer at the hands of persons they once trusted,” Byrnes stated. “We are committed to protecting all children and young people entrusted to our care and to not repeat the serious failings of the past.”

In October 2017, Byrnes said Vatican officials informed him that the Vatican tribunal had determined a verdict in Apuron’s case. The results still have not been disclosed, according to Byrnes, who was appointed as Apuron’s eventual replacement.

To date, 154 Guam clergy sex abuse lawsuits, including four alleging rape or sexual abuse by Apuron, have been filed in local and federal court.

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Archdiocese alerts Vatican

GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

January 10, 2018

By Mindy Aguon

The Vatican has been alerted about the newest allegation of abuse against Guam’s suspended archbishop, according to the Archdiocese of Agana.

Mark Mafnas Apuron, in an exclusive interview with The Guam Daily Post, accused his uncle, Anthony Apuron, of sexually abusing him in 1990 while at an event at the Archdiocese of Agana Chancery Office.

Mark Apuron said he was 16 when the alleged abuse occurred in his “Uncle Tony’s” bathroom at the chancery. He alleges he was raped by his uncle and the incident left him estranged from his immediate family members and feeling ashamed and petrified.

“I believed he was the powerful, untouchable uncle,” Mark Apuron said.

Coadjutor Archbishop Michael Byrnes acknowledged the allegation of sexual abuse and confirmed he alerted Vatican officials about the newest case.

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Pastor Andy Savage Apologizes For “Sexual Incident” With Teen Girl, But It’s Her Response You Need To Hear

MEMPHIS (TN)
Bustle

January 10, 2018

By Madhuri Sathish

It wasn’t just Hollywood that felt the full impact of the #MeToo movement. People around the world shared their experiences with sexual violence, and held those who had assaulted them accountable. Jules Woodson said a pastor, Andy Savage, sexually assaulted her almost 20 years ago in Woodlands, Texas, and she went public with her allegations last week. Savage publicly apologized to her in church Sunday and received a standing ovation from his Memphis congregation, but Woodson told Memphis’ Action News 5 that she found Savage’s apology sorely lacking.

“His apology isn’t enough because number one, he’s lying about how he handled it,” Woodson said. “He never came to me, the church told him he couldn’t talk to me and they told me I couldn’t talk to him,” she explained.

Before going public with her story, Woodson sent an email to Savage back in December — on the heels of the Harvey Weinstein scandal — with the subject line, “Do you remember?” In the email, Woodson reminded Savage of a night two decades prior, when Savage was supposed to drive Woodson home from church but instead allegedly sexually assaulted her on a deserted back road. It was only when Savage didn’t respond that Woodson spoke out, in a blog post detailing what had happened.

“It’s very hard to tell your story,” Woodson told Action News 5. “It’s very hard to speak up, especially when you feel pressured by the church to be silent.”

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Church in Scotland criticized for failure to meet with clergy abuse victim groups

SCOTLAND
Christian Daily

January 10, 2018

By Lorraine Caballero

The Catholic Church in Scotland has drawn criticism for its failure to meet with victims and survivors of clergy sexual abuse more than two years after the head of the Scottish bishops’ conference offered a public apology over the issue.

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland’s former moderator, Rev. Andrew McLellan, said he was “disappointed” by how long it was taking the bishops to meet with sex abuse victims and survivors. He said although the Archbishop of Glasgow, Philip Tartaglia, issued a very good apology, the intervention that came after that was not enough, Crux relayed.

“After Archbishop Tartaglia’s public apology, which he did so well, there was a long hard silence, and I was very disappointed in terms of the progress the bishops were making,” Rev. McLellan told Scottish newspaper Sunday Herald.

McLellan previously chaired a commission which examined the issue of child protection in the local Catholic Church. In the group’s report, which was published in 2015, he outlined eight policy recommendations that included prioritizing support for the abuse survivors and the revision of the “Awareness and Safety” manual on preventing abuse, which was introduced in 2007.

McLellan also highlighted the importance of serving justice to both the victim of abuse and the perpetrators. He added that there must be regular training on safeguarding against clerical abuse.

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Associate Pastor charged with possession of child pornography

BELLEVILLE (IL)
FOX2 Now

Janaury 9, 2018

By Chris Smith

BELLEVILLE, IL. – Tuesday the St. Clair State’s Attorney’s Office charged the Associate Pastor of Holy Childhood Catholic Church in Mascoutah with possession of child pornography. 54-year-old Gerald R. Hechenberger has been charged with 16 counts of Dissemination of Child Pornography with the Victim Under the age of 13 and 1 count of Possession of Methamphetamine.

Hechenberger was taken into custody Monday, after investigators from the Belleville Police Department and the Illinois Attorney General’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force obtained search warrants to search the rectory of the Holy Childhood Catholic Church located in Belleville.

Authorities had acted on a tip that indicated that Hechenberger was distributing child pornography.

Bond for Hechenberger has been set at $2,000,000.

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Prosecutor seeks 15 years in prison for Russian priest charged with pedophilia

ST. PETERSBURG (RUSSIA)
RAPSI

January 10, 2018

By Mikhail Telekhov

ST. PETERSBURG, January 10 (RAPSI, Mikhail Telekhov) – A prosecutor has demanded a 15-year prison sentence for Russian priest Gleb Grozovsky, who stands charged with sexual abuse of children, his sister Lyubov Grozovskaya has told RAPSI.

Moreover, the prosecutor asked a court to prohibit the defendant from practicing his profession for 2 years.

According to investigators, Grozovsky committed several sexual crimes against minors in 2011 and 2013.

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Catholic priest is charged with 16 counts of child porn and meth possession after police received an anonymous tip

MASCOUTAH (IL)
Daily Mail

January 10, 2018

By Keith Griffith

– Gerald R. Hechenberger, 54, charged with child porn on Tuesday near St. Louis
– Catholic priest is associate pastor at three parishes in southern Illinois
– Dawn raid on rectory recovered porn of kids under 13 and meth, cops say

A Catholic priest faces charges of child pornography and possession of methamphetamine after an anonymous tipster alerted police.

Gerald R. Hechenberger, 54, was arrested after a dawn police raid Monday morning on the rectory of the Holy Childhood of Jesus parish in Mascoutah, Illinois, a town 30 miles east of St. Louis.

He is charged with eight counts each of possession and dissemination of porn depicting a child under 13, and one count of possessing meth under five grams.

Hechenberger is an associate pastor at Holy Childhood, as well as at nearby parishes St. Pancratius Parish in Fayetteville and St. Liborius Parish in St. Libory.

Detectives in the Belleville Police Department initiated the investigation into Hechenbacher several weeks ago after receiving an online tip through the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force reporting line.

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‘Catastrophic institutional failure’ can be fixed

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

January 9, 2018

By Kieran Tapsell

The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse spent five years interviewing over 8,000 survivors, their abusers and personnel from institutions that had covered up the abuse. The Commission found that 61.8 percent of all survivors within religious institutions had been under the care of the Catholic Church.

The Commission’s 17 volume Final Report, released on Dec. 15, 2017, made hundreds of recommendations for change in structures, practices and internal laws of institutions. Many of the recommendations addressed to the church involved changes to canon law.

Two of these recommendations received massive media attention: that celibacy no longer be obligatory and that civil reporting laws should not provide an exemption in the case of confession. There has been some pushback against these recommendations because they involve overturning long traditions in the church.

But many other recommendations had more to do with church law and practice, and could be more easily implemented, if church leadership is willing to take up this challenge.

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LILLYBROOKE FAMILY JUSTICE CENTER OPENS

SANDPOINT (ID)
Priest River Times

January 10, 2018

By Keith Kinnaird

SANDPOINT — A new chapter is opening at one of Sandpoint’s most storied homes.

The McFarland House, the stately dwelling at the corner of South First Avenue and Superior Street, is now home to the LillyBrooke Family Justice Center.

The home will serve as an advocacy center for survivors of childhood sexual abuse, although you would not gather that from the home’s comfortable appearance.

“We’re setting it up to look like a house. We just want that feel — like you’re coming to grandma’s house,” said Peggy Frye, victim witness unit coordinator for the Bonner County Prosecutor’s Office.

LillyBrooke, which is patterned after the national child advocacy center model, will serve as something as a hub for abused children in Bonner and Boundary counties.

Children who disclose abuse will be able to do so in a setting that is closer to a home than the sterile confines and pale lighting of an office space. The home will eventually fitted with an audio/video system that will allow children to make their disclosures in one room while a multi-disciplinary team monitors the interview from a different room.

The home will also be used for forensic examinations.

The idea is to bring law enforcement investigators, prosecutors, doctors and Idaho Department of Health & Welfare officials together to take account of disclosures without sending children and their family to various locations where they have to continually restate their accounts.

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#MeToo campaign triggers horrid memories for Miami women

MIAMI (FL)
Miami Herald

January 10, 2018

By Brenda Medina

In an old warehouse-turned-office in northwestern Miami, a group of women is about to start a painful but empowering conversation.

Sitting on metal folding chairs around an improvised altar covered with a yellow sheet and a lit candle at its center, 16 women share intimate stories of sexual harassment and abuse.

They are not wealthy or famous celebrities like Angelina Jolie, Taylor Swift or Salma Hayek. Their accused abusers are not powerful men like Harvey Weinstein. Those present at this gathering are everyday Miami women, minorities, immigrants. They clean hotels and homes. They serve as nannies and waitresses. They help care for the sick and the elderly.

What brought them together was the national debate sparked by the #MeToo campaign. The millions of testimonies about sexual harassment and abuse that flooded social and mainstream media made them recall their own traumatic experiences, an issue that Golden Globe honoree Oprah Winfrey brought to the forefront again during a speech earlier this week.

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Cardinal Pell living at Sydney seminary ahead of historic sex abuse hearing

SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
CNN

January 10, 2018

An Australian seminary where Cardinal George Pell is living while he fights charges of historic sexual abuse says the top Vatican figure is “very much looking forward” to the start of a key court hearing, where dozens of witnesses will give evidence.

It had been unclear where Pell, the most senior cardinal in the history of the Catholic Church to face criminal charges, had been living since he was given a leave of absence from his role at the Holy See and returned to his native Australia.

The spokesman for the Seminary of the Good Shepherd in Homebush, Sydney confirmed to CNN the 76-year-old Cardinal was residing at the seminary, where 40 young trainee priests live and study as they prepare for their careers in parishes across the country.

“Cardinal Pell is now very much looking forward to the March hearing and his day in court,” a spokesman for the seminary said. “He has repeatedly said he is innocent of all allegations made against him.”s

In less than two months the Cardinal will face a four-week long committal hearing at Melbourne Magistrates Court where evidence will be heard from 50 witnesses.

At least two weeks of the hearing, which begins March 5, will be in closed court when complainants give evidence via video link. Once the hearing is completed, the magistrate will then decide if there is enough evidence to proceed to trial at a higher court.

At a news conference at the Vatican in June last year, Pell said he had been the victim of “relentless character assassination.”

“I’m innocent of these charges, they are false,” Pell said. “The whole idea of sexual abuse is abhorrent to me.”

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Polygamist leader Warren Jeffs is accused of horrific sex abuse — again — and people on the Utah-Arizona line may have to pay — again

SALT LAKE CITY (UT)
The Salt Lake Tribune

January 10, 2018

By Nate Carlisle

Land trust may be the only defendant able to pay woman known as “R.H.”

The newest lawsuit against Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints President Warren Jeffs, in which he is accused of repeatedly sexually assaulting a girl as young as 8 in a ritualistic fashion, lists 26 defendants.

Only one of them is sure to have money — the United Effort Plan (UEP). It’s the land trust that Jeffs used to control, but which the state of Utah seized in 2005. It has since been reorganized under the eye of a state judge and has been working to provide housing and other benefits to residents in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., collectively known as Short Creek.

The UEP may still have assets of $100 million.

Margaret Cooke assumes that’s the only reason the UEP is being sued.

“It just seems like it is a ploy to get money because nobody else has any,” said Cooke, a former member of the UEP board of trustees.

In interviews with The Salt Lake Tribune, former FLDS members recoiled at the latest sex abuse allegations against Jeffs. They also voiced bewilderment at why the land trust that has been trying to help those who consider themselves Jeffs’ victims, of one kind or another, is being asked to pay.

As Josie McDonald, 38, who was raised in Short Creek and left the polygamous sect 13 years ago, put it, the UEP is “paying for Warren’s mistakes, essentially, and not him.”

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Indonesia’s alleged paedophile scandal

INDONESIA
UCANews

January 10, 2018

A part-time Islam religion teacher is accused of molesting at least 41 boys aged between 6-15 years

A teacher in Indonesia has been arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing dozens of young boys, officials have said.

Wawan Sutiono, 49, was arrested on Jan. 6 in Tangerang, a town 35 kilometers west of the capital Jakarta.

The part-time Islam religion teacher is accused of molesting at least 41 boys aged between 6-15 years of age over a nine-month period, police said.

The alleged crimes were committed between April and December last year.

The arrest comes after police received a complaint by one of the alleged victims’ parents on Dec 20, 2017.

It was not clear why the police too three weeks to arrest the suspect.

If found guilty, Sutiono could face up to 15 years in prison and chemical castration under a recently introduced law to deal with convicted sex offenders.

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A pastor admitted a past ‘sexual incident’ with a teen. His congregation gave him a standing ovation.

MEMPHIS (TN)
The Washington Post

January 10, 2018

By Kyle Swenson

On Dec. 1, as headlines across the country blared with news about Matt Lauer’s surprise firing from the “Today” show for sexual misconduct, a woman named Jules Woodson tapped out a short email. It ran only about 80 words but was nearly 20 years in the making. “Do you remember?” the subject line read.

“Do you remember that night that you were supposed to drive me home from church and instead drove me to a deserted back road and sexually assaulted me?” Woodson wrote. “Do you remember how you acted like you loved me and cared about me in order for me to cooperate in such acts, only to run out of the vehicle later and fall to your knees begging for forgiveness and for me not to tell anyone what had just happened?”

She closed with three words and a hashtag. “Well I REMEMBER,” the email said. “#me-too.”

The message landed in the inbox of Andy Savage, a pastor at Highpoint Church, an evangelical Memphis mega-congregation that draws more than 2,000 Sunday worshipers. The 42-year-old checked all the right boxes for a rising minister: biblically trained, handsome and CrossFit-cut; an attractive wife and five young sons; social media savvy and unafraid of speaking on topics such as sex. Savage’s career had begun as a college student working at a church outside Houston, a congregation Woodson attended as a high school student.

When Savage failed to respond to Woodson’s December email, she took her allegations public on Jan. 5, posting a detailed account of the alleged sexual assault on a blog for abuse survivors. Evangelical circles started spinning with reports of a then-college student forcing a sexual encounter with a student.

Yet instead of following the course of so many recent sexual harassment scandals — reports that have toppled careers in Hollywood, media and politics — Savage’s public outing seems to have failed to upset his position. In a message on the church’s website, he admitted to a “sexual incident” with a high school student at the time. Highpoint’s main pastor, Chris Conlee, also released a statement supporting Savage. And last Sunday, the pastor addressed his congregation about the allegations, but provided little detail.

“In hindsight, I see more could have been done for Jules,” Savage said, according to video. “I am truly sorry more was not done. Until now I did not know there was unfinished business with Jules. So today, I say, Jules I am deeply sorry for my actions 20 years ago.”

As Savage finished his remarks, he was greeted with a 20-second standing ovation from Highpoint’s congregation.

“His apology isn’t enough because number one, he’s lying about how he handled it,” an unsatisfied Woodson told Memphis’s Action News 5. “He never came to me, the church told him he couldn’t talk to me and they told me I couldn’t talk to him,” she explained.

Savage did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

But Savage’s situation tracks with a larger tendency within the evangelical community, according to Christa Brown, an expert on church abuse scandals and coverups. “Religious leaders use forgiveness theology as a cover, and as an avoidance, of accountability,” Brown told The Washington Post. “And it’s a way of further shaming victims. ‘What a bad girl you are, you aren’t forgiving.’”

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Publicly Accused Priests, Brothers, Sisters, and Deacons in Chile

WALTHAM (MA)
BishopAccountability.org

January 10, 2018

[Note: The Chilean database is also available in Spanish.]

BishopAccountability.org has examined news and court archives and identified nearly 80 clergy in Chile publicly accused of sexually abusing minors.

The database reveals the distinctive aspects of the Catholic abuse crisis in Chile, and the degree to which much remains hidden. Most of the cases detailed below involve abuse that has occurred since 2000 and was reported to law enforcement quickly — within just a few years of occurrence. We know from Catholic abuse data published elsewhere that such cases comprise a small fraction of the total scope of the problem.

It is worth noting that the factors that have caused significant disclosure elsewhere of secret church files and abusive priests’ names – widespread litigation by victims, investigations of church entities by prosecutors, and inquiries by government commissions – have not so far occurred in Chile.

This list, then, is a fraction of the total number of accused clerics who would be known if Chile’s church leaders were required to report to law enforcement, if its legal system allowed victims more time to bring criminal and civil charges, or if dioceses and religious orders were investigated by prosecutors or state commissions. In Australia, which has half as many Catholics as Chile and a comparable number of active priests and brothers (around 5,000), a recently concluded government inquiry counted child sex abuse allegations against more than 1,100 male clergy.

The lack of external pressure allows Catholic church leaders in Chile to act with impunity. They openly reinstate, for instance, priests who have faced multiple allegations of abuse. Chile’s senior churchman, Santiago archbishop Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati, announced in December 2016 that Cristián Precht Bañados had fulfilled his canonical sentence of five years’ suspension from ministry. A church investigation had uncovered 20 victims of Precht, ranging from age 15 to 35. Yet Precht is now allowed again to say Mass publicly, Ezzati said; he has regained “his fundamental exercise of the rights he has as a presbyter.”

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January 9, 2018

CHÁVEZ BOTELLO EL ENCUBRIDOR

OAXACA DE JUáREZ (MEXICO)
Oaxaca Entre Lineas [Oaxaca de Juaréz, Mexico]

January 9, 2018

By Horacio Corro Espinosa

Read original article

Por Horacio Corro Espinosa
Para el 9 de enero de 2018

El domingo 27 de abril de 2014, fue canonizado Juan Pablo II, quien ha estado en medio de muchas discusiones porque se le acusa de encubridor de muchos abusos cometidos por la Iglesia Católica.

El actual Papa Francisco, dijo en ese año que se sentía obligado a pedir perdón por todos los sacerdotes que han abusado de los menores en todo el mundo.

Después de la canonización de Juan Pablo II, el poeta nicaragüense Ernesto Cardenal, dijo que la canonización de Juan Pablo, es “una monstruosidad”.

Oaxaca también ha tenido sus monstruos. Afortunadamente uno de ellos ya está en la cárcel. Se trata del cura Gerardo Silvestre Hernández, quien cometió casi medio centenar de violaciones a niños indígenas oaxaqueños. Fue sentenciado a 16 años y seis meses por encontrarlo culpable del delito doloso de corrupción de personas menores de 18 años en su modalidad de inducción a actos sexuales y exposición de filmes pornográficos.

El miércoles 3 de enero, un grupo de católicos de San Francisco Telixtlahuaca, exigían frente a la Catedral de Oaxaca, la renuncia del arzobispo José Luis Chávez Botello, por encubrir a los curas pederastas en la entidad.

El domingo, cuando este señor daba su conferencia de prensa semanal, y hablaba de la verdad, un hombre de nombre Pedro Mendoza, lo encaró al decirle: usted habla de la verdad y a eso vengo, que me hable con la verdad, cómo fueron las cosas, porque por su encubrimiento perdí a mi familia.

No es el momento, le dijo el arzobispo al hombre, porque estamos en una conferencia de prensa.

Pedro Mendoza dijo que las veces que le ha pedido audiencia, él le ha dicho que no da audiencias. Ante la insistencia de Pedro, el arzobispo se paró de la mesa y puso pies rumbo a otro salón.

En el 2015, después de que el Papa Francisco creó un Tribunal Especial para los protectores de curas pederastas, la revista Proceso puso en su portada unas fotografías, entre ellas, la del arzobispo de Oaxaca, José Luis Chávez Botello. Los reporteros le preguntaron su opinión al respecto. Esa pregunta le incomodó tanto, que respondió que se trataban de “chismes”, y aseguró que no existían pruebas de esos hechos.

Si recordamos, el arzobispo de Oaxaca, José Luis Chávez, solapó todo lo que hizo el sacerdote violador. Y el domingo, en su conferencia semanal, hablaba de la verdad. Más bien, de su verdad, que es la hipocresía, la doble vida de simulación que lleva y se olvida que el libro sagrado de esa iglesia, La Biblia, habla de pecados, no de problemas de la gente al cometer abusos.

En ese entonces, el cura José Luis, aseguraba a los medios de comunicación que Gerardo Silvestre, sacerdote hoy condenado, tenía un problema, por eso su actuar con los niños. Esa era la forma de Botello de defender y encubrir a su amigo pederasta.

Cada vez que al pederasta Silvestre Hernández se le denunciaba, Botello aseguraba que el cura violador ya estaba en el camino de la corrección porque se encontraba en una jornada de espiritualidad.

Para estos curas, la Palabra de Dios no existe porque hacen lo que ellos quieren, y cuando se ven en aprietos, ponen sus ojitos guadalupanos para engañar a cuanta persona se deje.

Jesús dijo que: Si se mantienen fieles a mis enseñanzas, serán realmente mis discípulos; y conocerán la verdad, y la verdad los hará libres.

Pero estos hombres, dizque representantes de Dios, ni con su actuar enseñan la palabra de Dios, sino la de Satanás, quien es el padre de las mentiras.

Twitter: @horaciocorro
Facebook: Horacio Corro
horaciocorro@yahoo.com.mx

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Cardinal Pell accuser dies before sexual abuse trial begins

SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
Catholic News Agency

January 8, 2018

The legal case against Cardinal George Pell of Australia has taken an unexpected turn, after the death of Damian Dignan, who accused Pell of committing acts of sexual abuse.

Dignan died of leukemia last week in the Australian town of Ballarat, which will likely impact a committal hearing scheduled for March 5 addressing the sexual abuse charges levelled against Pell.

In March 2016, Dignan and two former classmates from St. Alipius school in Ballarat who together accused Pell of inappropriate sexual behavior when they were minors. The cardinal had previously been accused of acts of child sexual abuse dating as far back as 1961.

Without the sworn testimony of Dignan in court, it is possible that prosecutors could drop the case altogether. However, Victorian Police did not confirm or deny the plausibility of this happening, especially because the prosecution could still use sworn statements or evidence given under oath made before Dignan’s death.

In addition, up to 50 witnesses are still expected to testify during the upcoming committal hearing.

Former Victorian magistrate Nicholas Papas did note that convicting Pell without Dignan is a “more difficult task,” according to the DailyMail UK.

Dignan’s lawyer Ingrid Irwin said that it was “ridiculous” that Dignan died “without any justice,” according to the Herald Sun.

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Retired teacher is jailed for indecent assaults

ENGLAND
Kingsbridge and Salcombe Gazette

January 8, 2018

By Roger Williams

Villagers have spoken of their shock after a retired teacher was jailed for four years for indecently assaulting boys in his charge at a school in West Sussex.

Peter Burr, 73, of The Square, Kingswear, admitted nine counts of indecent assault between 1969 and 1973 on young boys at Christ’s Hospital School, a boarding school in Horsham, West Sussex.

Burr was well-known in the area. He could often be found at the Ship Inn in Kingswear or the Windjammer in Dartmouth.

Jan Henshall, chairman of Kingswear Parish Council, said: “I believe he was a member of Royal Dart Yacht Club. In the past, he attended the senior citizens lunch at Christmas in the village. He had a social life here and was well-known. From what I can gather from his friends, they are in total shock.”

Jason Byrne, of Kingswear Post Office, said: “He was a good customer and a very nice man. I’m surprised and shocked like everyone else. He’s done wrong and will now have to pay for it.

“He always kept himself to himself. If he was going away, he would not give any details. He would just say I’m going to see some friends, whereas as other people might say where they are going or have been.

“Every Saturday evening, he went to church.”

Burr attended St John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church in Dartmouth.

Richard Rendle said: “I am disappointed because I thought he was a gentleman. I know he helped at the Regatta with classic craft and was a member of the Probus Club in Dartmouth.”

A physics teacher and deputy housemaster at the school, he was sentenced to four years in prison by judge Christine Henson QC, at Hove Crown Court on Friday, January 5, and was given concurrent sentences for each of the victims and a Sexual Harm Prevention Order.

DC Rebecca Wilde, of Sussex Police, said; “He clearly focused his sexual attentions on boys between and 11 and 13 in his house, leaving older boys alone.

“Some of the offences took place in his study during informal Wednesday and Sunday afternoon gatherings to watch TV, with tea, biscuits and cake on offer. To be invited was regarded as a great privilege and he took advantage of this, and his status, to systematically touch and molest three of the victims.

“The fourth victim was assaulted in the dormitory area and at the school swimming pool.

“The four boys kept these traumatic experiences largely to themselves for up to 48 years and moved on with their lives.

“We were first told about Burr in February last year, when one of the victims came forward, triggered by hearing a local radio debate in London on the recently publicised football sex abuse scandal, and believing that insufficient attention was given to cases in which offenders were not public celebrities.

“One of the others later came forward after the school advised ex-pupils of the ongoing investigation.

“This is an important reminder that such reports will always be taken seriously, however long ago they are said to have happened.”

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TENSIONS AHEAD OF PAPAL VISIT TO CHILE

LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Tablet

January 9, 2018

By Christopher Lamb

Opinion polls say that just 36 per cent of the Catholic majority population are looking forward to the papal visit

Pope Francis departs on Monday for a trip to Chile and Peru for what will be his sixth visit to Latin America, where issues of clerical sexual abuse and church renewal are likely to feature.

The question of abuse is likely to loom largest in Chile where the Pope has faced criticism for appointing Osorno’s Bishop Juan Barros, accused of covering up abuse by a prominent priest, Fr Fernando Karadima in the 1980s and 90s.

Peter Saunders, a British abuse survivor who recently resigned as a member of the Pope’s child protection commission, says he plans to be in Chile to try and highlight the case. Bishop Barros’ appointment has been a divisive one with 650 people turning up in protest during his ordination ceremony that saw the new bishop needing protection from ushers in order to enter the cathedral.

In impromptu remarks to a group of Chilean pilgrims following a Wednesday General Audience, the Pope criticised Osorno’s protesters saying leftist politicians were leading them “by the nose” and had been allowed to “fill people’s heads, judging a bishop without any evidence.” The Vatican judged Karadima to have abused children and sentenced him to a life of prayer and penitence. Bishop Barros, who was accused of protecting Karadima, has denied covering up.

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Catholic ex-priest refuses to speak at sexual abuse trial in Germany

GERMANY
Deutsche Welle

January 9, 2018

It’s the second court session in which the 53-year-old declined to speak. He faces sexual abuse and other charges. He was expelled from the priesthood in 2008 but continued to pose as a cleric.

A 53-year-old former priest is currently on trial in a district court in the Bavarian city of Deggendorf. Thomas Maria B., who was born in Wuppertal, is accused of having sexually abused five German boys under the age of 14 a total of 110 times between 1997 and 2016. The man is also accused of the attempted rape of an 18-year-old in Austria. The attorney defending the former Catholic priest has said that the man “feels incapable” of testifying before the court. He also refused to address the court in December.

Mentally disturbed defendant

Public prosecutors in Deggendorf have said that the defendant is mentally disturbed and thus cannot be held entirely responsible for his actions. Nevertheless, they see a threat that he could repeat such offenses again in the future. They are therefore calling for the man to be permanently committed to a psychiatric institution. He was previously imprisoned between 2003 and 2009 for the rape and abuse of two young girls.

Entered priesthood with fraudulent documents

After completing studies in theology, the man was ordained a priest in Poland in 1994. State prosecutors accuse the man of having used fake documents to fraudulently gain access to the priesthood. A church court in the German archdiocese of Freiburg removed the man from the priesthood in 2008, which officially forbade him from carrying out priestly work. That decision was upheld by another church court in Munich in 2012.

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Metro East priest accused of possessing child porn

MASCOUTAH (IL)
KMOV

January 8, 2018

A Catholic priest from a church in Mascoutah, Illinois is accused of possessing child pornography.

Belleville police say they got a tip leading them to Rev. Gerald Hechenberger, who is the associate pastor at Holy Childhood Church and School.

Investigators say he was distributing images of children under 13-years-old.

He has been arrested but has yet to be charged. Police say the investigation is ongoing.

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Trial set in Berkeley County on lawsuit claiming Mormon church covered up abuse

MARTINSBURG (WV)
Herald-Mail Media

January 8, 2018

By Matthew Umstead

MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — A jury trial is slated to begin next week in Berkeley County (W.Va.) Circuit Court on a lawsuit that claims Mormon church leaders covered up the sexual abuse of several children by a member who since has been excommunicated and imprisoned.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has adamantly denied the claims, which are connected to criminal prosecutions of Christopher Michael Jensen dating to 2004 in Berkeley County and Provo, Utah.

Jensen, now 26, is serving a 35- to 75-year prison sentence for his conviction in Berkeley County on two counts of sexual abuse and one count of sexual assault.

Jensen was convicted in February, 2013 of sexually abusing two boys while babysitting them in 2007, but the children didn’t report what occurred until 2012, attorneys said.

A pool of 100 people is expected to be summoned to possibly serve as jurors in the civil trial, which is set to begin Jan. 16.

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Abingdon vicar guilty of ‘spiritually abusing’ boy

ENGLAND
BBC News

January 8, 2018

A Church of England vicar has been convicted by a tribunal of spiritually abusing a teenage boy.

The Reverend Timothy Davis moved in with the boy’s family in 2013 and held two-hour private prayer sessions in the boy’s bedroom, the panel heard.

Mr Davis, of Christ Church, Abingdon, also tried to end the boy’s relationship with his girlfriend, describing her as a “bad seed”.

The Bishop’s Disciplinary Tribunal said it would fix a penalty in due course.

Church of England officials said it was thought to be the first time a tribunal had convicted a priest of spiritual abuse.

Mr Davis lived with the family, who were members of his congregation, for six months in 2013.

‘Unbecoming and inappropriate’

During the prayer sessions in the boy’s bedroom they laid hands on each other’s head, shoulders, chest and back, although the tribunal ruled there was no “sexual touching”.

The boy’s mother said she could not tell Mr Davis to stop because she was “frightened of the consequences to Tim and what God would do”.

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Church of England finds vicar guilty of spiritual abuse of 15-year-old boy

ENGLAND
The Guardian

January 8, 2018

By Harriet Sherwood

Tim Davis moved into boy’s Oxfordshire home and subjected him to intense prayer and Bible sessions in his bedroom

The Church of England has found a vicar guilty of spiritually abusing a teenage boy, after putting him under “unacceptable pressure” during intensive prayer and Bible-study sessions in the boy’s bedroom.

In the first judgment of its kind, a C of E tribunal found that the Revd Timothy Davis, the vicar of Christ Church, Abingdon, in Oxfordshire, was guilty of misconduct under clergy disciplinary measures.

The ruling was published on Monday as an online survey found that two-thirds of 1,591 respondents said they had personally experienced spiritual abuse.

The survey, carried out by Bournemouth University for the Churches’ Child Protection Advisory Service (CCPAS), a safeguarding charity, identified key characteristics of spiritual abuse as coercion and control, manipulation and pressuring of individuals, control through the misuse of religious texts and scripture, and providing a ‘divine’ rationale for behaviour”.

The bishops’ disciplinary tribunal for the diocese of Oxfordshire said that Davis was guilty of “conduct unbecoming to the office and work of a clerk of holy orders through the abuse of spiritual power and authority”. There was no suggestion of any sexual contact.

According to the 20-page judgment, Davis, who is in his 50s, became a mentor to a 15-year-old boy, named in the judgment as W1, in 2011. Over a period of 18 months, Davis “engaged in mentoring so intense that W1 was put under unacceptable pressure having regard to his age and maturity and was deprived of his freedom of choice as to whether to continue”.

It added: “Under the guise of his authority [Davis] sought to control by the use of admonition, scripture, prayer and revealed prophecy the life of W1 and/or his relationship with his girlfriend.”

During the 18 months, Davis moved into the family home, and engaged W1 in prayer and bible study for two-hour sessions in the boy’s bedroom. The vicar also went on holiday with the family.

W1 described being mentored by Davis as “awful” and all-consuming, but did not feel able to challenge the priest. He told the tribunal that Davis became angry if he did not ring him or respond to texts.

W1’s mother, who worked at the church, also felt unable to challenge Davis because he was her boss and had made it clear that God wanted his mentoring of W1 to continue. She told the tribunal she “was scared of going against God”.

Davis told the panel that he was “shocked and confused” about the allegations, and had “no idea of the effect I was apparently having”.

Clergy guidelines acknowledge the power that priests can have over others, and state such power must not be used to bully, manipulate or denigrate. Clergy should never seek to remove autonomy from a person, nor should power be exercised inappropriately, the guidelines say.

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Oxfordshire vicar found guilty of spiritual abuse

ENGLAND
Premier.

January 8, 2018

By Marcus Jones

An Anglican priest, who’s accused of spiritually abusing a teenager, has been found guilty of misconduct by a Church court.

Rev Timothy Davis, from Christ Church Abingdon, is said to have breached safeguarding procedures through an “intense” mentoring programme with the school boy who’s not been identified.

A tribunal, held at Southwark Cathedral, found that the frequency of contact between the vicar and the teenager had grown to inappropriate levels including contact via telephone.

It also heard how mentoring sessions were held in the teenager’s bedroom with the door closed – however no misconduct of a sexual nature was reported.

Davis was also found to have overused scripture in conversations with the teenager.

The guilty verdict on spiritual abuse is said to be the first of its kind.

A decision will now be made in regards to suitable punishment.

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Associate pastor of Mascoutah church taken into police custody

MASCOUTAH (IL)
Belleville News-Democrat

January 8, 2018

By Kaley Johnson

The associate pastor of Holy Childhood Church and school in Mascoutah was taken into police custody Monday morning, according to the state’s attorney.

The priest was identified as the Rev. Gerald R. Hechenberger.

“We have been working with Belleville (police) and the task force for several weeks and we anticipate they will be submitting evidence collected pursuant to a search warrant we issued within the next 48 hours to be reviewed for charges involving Gerald Hechenberger,” St. Clair County State’s Attorney Brendan Kelly said.

Earlier in the day, Belleville police issued a statement saying a Mascoutah resident was identified as being in possession of child pornography, but the police statement did not identify the resident. A police captain confirmed that Belleville police officers were at the church at 419 East Church St. around 7 a.m. Monday.

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Nephew accuses archbishop

GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

January 9, 2018

By Mindy Aguon

For the last 27 years, Mark Mafnas Apuron has held onto a secret, one that resulted in him being estranged from his immediate family members and left him ashamed and petrified.

“When my experience happened, I thought I was the only one,” Apuron said, as he sat in an office in Hagåtña yesterday, speaking with The Guam Daily Post.

But Apuron resolved to make this year different by coming forward and speaking of the past.

The 43-year-old will be filing a lawsuit this week alleging that he was sexually abused in the chancery in 1990 by his uncle, now-suspended Archbishop Anthony Apuron.

Mark Apuron was then 16 years old and had returned to Guam with his family after his dad retired from the military. He recalls going to his “Uncle Tony’s house” – the Archdiocese of Agana Chancery Office – frequently for various functions.

Anthony Apuron was installed as the archbishop of Agana on May 11, 1986, according to the Archdiocese of Agana. He was also elected president of the Catholic Episcopal Conference of the Pacific in 1990.

During social functions at the chancery, Mark Apuron remembers making alcoholic beverages for his family members at their request, and would occasionally take a sip.

On one occasion in 1990, Mark Apuron sneaked away from the crowd to smoke a cigarette in his uncle’s bathroom inside the chancery. While inside, sipping an alcohol mixed drink and puffing on a cigarette, the 16-year-old became distracted testing out the bottles of cologne displayed on his uncle’s bathroom vanity.

“I just wanted to enjoy myself and do it in private, where nobody could see me,” Mark Apuron said, explaining that he was a teen experimenting. “I just wanted to try it.”

The next thing he knew, his uncle, Archbishop Anthony Apuron, was staring at him angrily.

“He asked, ‘What are you doing?'” Mark Apuron said. He said he froze, afraid of what trouble he was in, when his uncle allegedly pulled down his pants and pushed him onto the vanity. The teen thought he was going to get a whipping for smoking and drinking but instead, he said, his uncle raped him. He managed to shove the older relative off and get away, and stayed with his parents until they were ready to leave.

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OPINION: The #TimesUp Anger the Golden Globes Black Dress Parade Can’t Hide

UNITED STATES
The Daily Beast

January 8, 2018

By Tim Teeman

The black attire of celebrities at the Golden Globes was supposed to make an implicit ‘Time’s Up’ political point. But the business of showbusiness was also brutally apparent.

When is a dress more than a dress? Can a dress make a political point?

On Sunday night, if anything was refreshing about the Golden Globes red carpet, it was what was said, not the widely-hyped what was worn.

The talk, as repetitive and halting as it was—and sometimes focused on E!’s own shortcomings as Debra Messing, Sarah Jessica Parker and Eva Longoria took aim at the network over the circumstances of the departure of Catt Sadler—was of the need for political and cultural change.

Actresses and actors were dressed in black to signify support, along with pins, of the “Time’s Up” movement, targeting sexual abuse, assault and harassment in the workplace. People said “Time’s Up” a lot. Sure, the viewer thought at home: we’re agreed on that, now what?

If you were expecting revolution, the sight of dresses still costing thousands of dollars and expensive diamonds draped around perfectly proportioned necks should have provided a cooling corrective.

This was, in many ways, a very traditional red carpet. There was nobody in black T shirts, sweaters and jeans. No-one came in Bermuda shorts. The fashion statement was of the most conservative kind: the celebrities attending were wearing exactly the same kind of expensive dresses and tuxes that actors and actresses wear to awards ceremonies. They just happened to be black.

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Rose McGowan Blasts ‘Hollywood Fakery’ Of Black-Dress Protest At Golden Globes

UNITED STATES
The Huffington Post

January 8, 2018

By Ron Dicker

The actress’ accusations against Harvey Weinstein helped bring attention to the issue of sexual misconduct in Hollywood.

Actress Rose McGowan said Sunday that it was “Hollywood fakery” for actors to wear black to the Golden Globes as a way to protest sexual misconduct.

McGowan, an actress and activist who has accused Harvey Weinstein of raping her, criticized the awards show in an impassioned Twitter exchange with Asia Argento, another alleged Weinstein victim.

When Argento pointed out that McGowan had spoken out about Weinstein and inspired others to step forward, the former “Charmed” star wrote in reply: “And not one of those fancy people wearing black to honor our rapes would have lifted a finger had it not been so. I have no time for Hollywood fakery, but you I love, @AsiaArgento #RoseArmy.”

When word spread in December that actresses planned to wear black dresses to the awards ceremony, McGowan zeroed in on Meryl Streep. She said the Oscar winner showed “hypocrisy” for having worked with Weinstein. Streep has insisted that she knew nothing of Weinstein’s alleged criminal behavior, and told HuffPost through a representative that she was hurt by McGowan’s comments.

Actress Amber Tamblyn said at the time that she was friends with McGowan but that those remarks had been beneath her.

“Rose McGowan is a friend and while I support her kind of movement, I do not support any woman (or man) shaming or taunting the movements of other women who are trying to create change,” Tamblyn tweeted.

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4 former Boy Scouts file sex abuse lawsuits

GUAM
The Guam Daily Post

January 8, 2018

By Mindy Aguon

Four new child sex abuse cases were filed last week in the Superior Court of Guam by former Boy Scouts against the Archdiocese of Agana, the Boy Scouts of America and retired priest Louis Brouillard.

Attorney Michael Berman represents four clients who allege they were sexually abused by Brouillard while they were Boy Scouts in their teens. The men filed the lawsuits using initials to protect their identities.

The archdiocese now faces more than 150 sex abuse lawsuits involving alleged child sex abuse decades ago, with combined claims for damages exceeding $500 million.

The accounts of abuse in these four complaints were similar as all four plaintiffs recalled alleged abuse during Boy Scout outings with Brouillard, who was a Guam priest and a scout master.

M.W.M., 53, alleges he was abused in the late 1970s during regular swimming and camping outings over the course of a year. Brouillard took the Boy Scouts swimming and would routinely instruct the boys to remove their clothes and swim naked, the lawsuit states.

The complaint also alleges Brouillard took photos of the boys while they were nude and swimming.

M.W.M. alleges he was fondled, and contends the priest enticed them with promises of merit badges and dinner.

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GuideStone summit to tackle cybersecurity, sexual abuse

DALLAS (TX)
Baptist Standard

January 8, 2018

By Ray Hayhurst

DALLAS (BP)—Cybersecurity and sexual abuse in the church will be among the topics addressed at GuideStone Financial Resources’ second annual Employee Benefits Summit.

The Southern Baptist Business Officers Conference and GuideStone Benefits Forum merged last year to create the summit for church business leaders. The conference, slated for March 26–28 at The Westin Galleria in Dallas, offers an expanded menu of networking and training opportunities.

Speakers include Holly Boullion from CapinCrouse, who will cover cybersecurity, and Kimberlee Norris from MinistrySafe to address the topic of sexual abuse in the church, along with Gayla Crain, an employment law attorney.

Up to 11 qualifying hours will be available for Continuing Professional Education credit.

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Texas church leader placed on leave in connection with Memphis pastor sex scandal

MEMPHIS (TN)
USA Today

January 8, 2018

By Ron Maxey

A Texas church has placed on leave a staff member who was on staff with Memphis pastor Andy Savage when Savage was involved in a sexual encounter with a 17-year-old.

The Austin Stone Community Church in Austin, Texas, placed Larry Cotton on leave in connection with allegations made by Jules Woodson against Savage, whose title is now teaching pastor at Highpoint Church in East Memphis.

Monday’s move by the Texas church is the latest twist in the story since the allegations against Savage came to light. Savage remains on staff at Highpoint, which has expressed support for him.

John Young, Austin Stone’s director of communications, confirmed the action against Cotton on Monday by email.

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More than 1,000 churchgoers complain of spiritual abuse

ENGLAND
The Telegraph

January 8, 2018

By Olivia Rudgard

Church-goers at mainstream churches have said they are being “spiritually abused” by leaders.

Research showed that more than 1,000 British Christians said they had experienced the abuse, which usually involves members invoking God’s will or religious texts in order to punish or control and coerce a worshipper.

Two thirds of respondents to the survey carried out by Dr Lisa Oakley of the National Centre for Post Qualifying Social Work at Bournemouth University said they had experienced spiritual abuse in the past.

Respondents said church leaders were also experiencing abuse from members of their own congregations.

Dr Oakley said: “There has been a focus in previous work in this area on leaders controlling and coercing those they lead, but a strong message in this research is that ministers and leaders also experience this form of abuse.

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January 8, 2018

El padrastro de un niño víctima de un cura pederasta le reclamó cara a cara a un obispo mexicano por su silencio

(MEXICO)
Infobae [Buenos Aires, Argentina]

January 8, 2018

By Unknown

Read original article

Tras la misa del domingo, el arzobispo de Antequera, en Oaxaca, José Luis Chávez Botello, fue interceptado por un padre: “¡Usted da discursos de que hay que mantener la familia!”

El padrastro de un menor víctima de pederastía clerical increpó al arzobispo José Luis Chávez Botello por encubrir los abusos de Gerardo Silvetre Hernández, quien fue sacerdote en la comunidad San Ildefonso Villa Alta, localizada en la Sierra Norte del estado de Oaxaca.

Durante la conferencia dominical, Pedro Mendoza se presentó ante el arzobispo de la Arquidiócesis de Antequera, Chávez Botello, para pedirle que hablara con la verdad. “Usted da discursos de familia, de que hay que mantener la familia”, dijo el comerciante, cuya familia se desintegró después del caso de abuso sexual.

El arzobispo lamentó la actitud del padre porque “entorpecía” la “búsqueda de la verdad” cuando no hay “diálogo ni voluntad”. Además refirió que el caso ya se ha investigado. “Ustedes saben, nosotros somos abiertos en esto”, dijo a los periodistas.

El sacerdote Gerardo Silvestre proyectaba películas pornográficas a menores de edad mientras consumían bebidas alcohólicas, bailaba con ellos y abusó sexualmente de dos niños, aunque el Foro Oaxaqueño de la Niñez (Foni) aseguró que el clérigo en realidad abusó de decenas de niños indígenas de entre 11 y 13 años.

Los hechos ocurrieron en los años 2009 y 2010, cuando Silvestre Hernández fue sacerdote de la iglesia de la comunidades de San Pablo Huitzo, Santiago Camotlán, Santa María Ozolotepec y Sal Idelfonso Villa Alta.

María del Carmen Santos Sandoval, madre de una de las víctimas, interpuso una demanda ante la Procuraduría General de Justicia de Oaxaca, en junio de 2012, por el abuso cometido por el cura. Un año después, el 30 de enero de 2013, las autoridades lo detuvieron.

El juez mixto de primera instancia de Villa Alta, Juan Raúl Anquino, lo encontró culpable y lo condenó a 16 años y seis meses de prisión.

Gerardo Silvestre se encuentra recluido en el Penal de Atlixco, donde se le permite oficiar misa. La PGJ de la entidad también investiga al sacerdote Carlos Franco Méndez por abusar sexualmente de un acólito.

Por los casos de abuso sexual, el director Santiago Mohar Volkow hizo el documental Silvestre, Pederastia clerical en Oaxaca, donde documentó el abuso de más de cien niños en la Sierra Norte de Oaxaca.

De acuerdo con Mohar Volkow, el arzobispo Chávez Botello sabía de los abusos desde 2009, porque siete sacerdotes y tres presbíteros le comentaron de los casos, pero no hizo nada por detenerlos.

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Chiesa cattolica: 250 casi di abusi sessuali segnalati in sette anni

BERN (SWITZERLAND)
TIO

January 7, 2018

[Google Translate: About 250 sexual abuses by the clergy have been reported to the Swiss Catholic Church since 2010. The accusations range from unsolicited contact to rape. The cases occurred between 1950 and today, as revealed by Le Matin Dimanche and SonntagsZeitung. More than 140 children and young people and 88 adults are involved.]

La Conferenza dei vescovi svizzeri: «Il 10% dei casi si è verificato negli ultimi otto anni»

BERNA – Circa 250 abusi sessuali da parte del clero sono stati segnalati alla Chiesa cattolica svizzera dal 2010. Le accuse vanno dal contatto non richiesto fino allo stupro. I casi si sono verificati tra il 1950 e oggi, come rivelano Le Matin Dimanche e SonntagsZeitung. Sono coinvolti più di 140 fra bambini e giovani e 88 adulti.

«Il 10% dei casi si è verificato negli ultimi otto anni, le vittime sono tutte persone adulte», ha dichiarato la Conferenza dei vescovi svizzeri.

Le aggressioni più gravi sono perseguite d’ufficio, dopo che le autorità religiose informano la giustizia, come è d’obbligo dal 2014. Alcune di queste indagini, però, sono svolte solo da persone della Chiesa, per il bene delle vittime che non vogliono sporgere denuncia.

A questo proposito, i magistrati sono scettici e mettono in guardia dal rischio che tali indagini non siano condotte correttamente. Il procuratore di San Gallo, Elmar Tremp, ha affermato attraverso le colonne del domenicale tedesco che «i casi gravi devono essere affrontati seriamente», spiegando che il personale ecclesiastico non può agire attraverso atti coercitivi come le perquisizioni o i sequestri, a volte necessari per prevenire ulteriori abusi.

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Pressuring harassers to quit can end up protecting them

WASHINGTON (D.C.)
The Washington Post

January 5, 2018

By Katherine Ku

Katherine Ku is a corporate and securities partner in the Los Angeles office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. She clerked for Kozinski from 2003 to 2004 and for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg from 2004 to 2005.

When I learned that Judge Alex Kozinski was retiring, after more than a dozen women accused him of inappropriate conduct and sexualized comments, part of me was relieved.

I clerked for Kozinski in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit 14 years ago and found his chambers to be a hostile, demeaning and persistently sexualized environment. I had anticipated an arduous apprenticeship with this brilliant jurist and writer. I did not expect how controlling he would be: wanting to approve the location of my apartment, complaining when his clerks wanted salad for lunch instead of whatever he was having. On one occasion, he crumpled up a printout of an email draft and threw it at me. He regularly diminished women and their accomplishments; when discussing newly selected Supreme Court clerks, he surmised, using a vulgar term, that one was lesbian. On another day, he gestured for me to come over to the computer in his office and asked me to look at a photo — unrelated to any case we were working on — of a nude man. For the rest of my year-long clerkship, I closed the door to my office and communicated with the judge as little as possible.

My experience was mild, though, compared with what other women have reported: how Kozinski showed them pornography on multiple occasions and wanted to know if it turned them on, asked them what people like them did for sex, encouraged them to exercise naked, propositioned them for sex and groped them even after they said no. In his resignation letter, Kozinski wrote that he has “always had a broad sense of humor” but apologized that he “may not have been mindful enough of the special challenges and pressures that women face in the workplace.” (His lawyer declined to comment on the characterizations in this essay.)

I’m glad to see him leave the bench. He should not be in a position to judge cases, including those involving sexual harassment.

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The Sexual Assault Epidemic No One Talks About

UNITED STATES
National Public Radio

January 8, 2018

By Joseph Shapiro

Editor’s note: This report includes graphic and disturbing descriptions of assault.

SPECIAL SERIES: abused and betrayed: people with intellectual disabilities and an epidemic of sexual assault

Pauline wants to tell her story — about that night in the basement, about the boys and about the abuse she wanted to stop.

But she’s nervous. “Take a deep breath,” she says out loud to herself. She takes a deep and audible breath. And then she tells the story of what happened on the night that turned her life upside down.

“The two boys took advantage of me,” she begins. “I didn’t like it at all.”

Pauline is a woman with an intellectual disability. At a time when more women are speaking up about sexual assault — and naming the men who assault or harass them — Pauline, too, wants her story told.

Her story, NPR found in a yearlong investigation, is a common one for people with intellectual disabilities.

NPR obtained unpublished Justice Department data on sex crimes. The results show that people with intellectual disabilities — women and men — are the victims of sexual assaults at rates more than seven times those for people without disabilities.

It’s one of the highest rates of sexual assault of any group in America, and it’s hardly talked about at all.

Pauline was part of that silent population. But she says she decided to speak publicly about what happened to her because she wants to “help other women.”

NPR’s investigation found that people with intellectual disabilities are at heightened risk during all parts of their day. They are more likely than others to be assaulted by someone they know. The assaults, often repeat assaults, happen in places where they are supposed to be protected and safe, often by a person they have been taught to trust and rely upon.

Pauline is 46, with a quick smile and an easy laugh. (NPR uses rape survivors’ first name, unless they prefer their full name be used.) She has red hair and stylish, coppery-orange glasses.

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Former Texas youth minister Andy Savage admits to sexual assault of teen girl

HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Chronicle

January 7, 2018

By Heather Leighton

A former youth minister at a church in The Woodlands is admitting to sexually assaulting a teen in his youth group in 1998.

Andy Savage, currently a teaching pastor at Highpoint Church in Memphis, has admitted to sexually assaulting Jules Woodson. The abuse occured when she was a 17-year-old youth member at Savage’s former employer, The Woodlands Parkway Baptist Church, which is now known as Stonebridge Church.

In an open letter published on the blog Watch Keep, Woodson shared her story.

According to the woman’s open letter, the incident occurred while Savage was giving her a ride back to her mom’s house following a meeting at the church.

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Memphis Megachurch Stands By Pastor Accused Of Sexually Assaulting Teenager

MEMPHIS (TN)
The Huffington Post

January 7, 2018

By Dominique Mosbergen

Andy Savage acknowledged the 1998 encounter and said he remains “very remorseful” for “the pain I caused.”

Responding to a recent report that one of their pastors had allegedly sexually assaulted a 17-year-old girl while serving as a youth minister at his previous church, leaders of a megachurch in Memphis, Tennessee, said they’d long known about the incident.

“This information is not new to me or to our leadership,” Chris Conlee, the lead pastor of Highpoint Church, said in a statement Friday. Earlier that day, The Wartburg Watch, a Christian blog, had published the account of a woman who’d accused Andy Savage, teaching pastor at Highpoint, of sexually abusing her in the late 1990s when she was a teenager.

“On behalf of the elders, pastors, staff, and Trustees of Highpoint, I want to affirm that we are 100% committed to Andy [Savage] … and his continued ministry at Highpoint Church,” Conlee said, stressing his “total confidence in the redemptive process Andy went through” after the sexual encounter.

Savage, an author and podcast host, acknowledged the “sexual incident” in a statement of his own.

“I was and remain very remorseful for the incident and deeply regret the pain I caused her and her family, as well as the pain I caused the church and God’s Kingdom,” he said.

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Tennessee megachurch pastor accused of sexual assault

MEMPHIS (TN)
Fox13Memphis

January 7, 2018

A pastor of a Memphis, Tennessee, megachurch has been accused of sexual assault.

Andy Savage, of Highpoint Church, released a response to the accusations on social media platforms. Savage said he “had a sexual incident with a female high school senior” 20 years ago when he was a college student on staff at a Texas church.

He said he apologized immediately and asked for forgiveness from the victim, who was 17 at the time. Savage is coming forward after the woman shared her story on a blog, which is graphically detailed.

In the blog, the alleged victim detailed what happened and said she felt manipulated and used. She claimed she took her accusations to the church’s leaders, but police were never called.

The blog also states she has recently filed a report with law enforcement, saying what happened to her was sexual assault.

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Retired Vic priest in court over sex abuse

AUSTRALIA
9News

January 8, 2018

Men and women who were allegedly abused as children more than 30 years ago have begun giving evidence against a former Catholic priest accused of multiple child sex offences.

Retired priest Peter Maurice Waters, 72, appeared before Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday charged with 20 child sex offences between 1974 and 1987.

He is accused of sexually abusing six children.

Several complainants began giving evidence on Monday during a committal hearing that will determine whether Waters should stand trial.

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Agencies work together to open Lenawee County Child Advocacy Center

ADRIAN (MI)
The Daily Telegram

January 7, 2018

By Lonnie Huhman

ADRIAN — Lenawee County finally has a service that it’s needed for a long time: a child advocacy center.

The Lenawee County Child Advocacy Center, a program of Catholic Charities of Jackson, Lenawee and Hillsdale Counties, announced Friday it will have a grand opening from 4 to 6 p.m. Jan. 26. The ribbon cutting is at 4:30 p.m. The center is at 122 S. Broad St. in downtown Adrian.

“We’re excited about this because the community needs this,” said Sue Lewis, executive director for Catholic Charities of Jackson, Lenawee and Hillsdale Counties.

Lewis said the LCCAC is there to provide solutions to the increasing problem of child sexual abuse and severe physical abuse in the Lenawee County community.

“I think the community needs to be aware these issues exist and why this center is needed,” Lewis said.

The center is a collaboration of the Lenawee County Prosecutor’s Office, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services’ Child Protective Services, Lenawee Community Mental Health Authority, all law enforcement agencies in Lenawee County, ProMedica, the University of Michigan Child Protection Team and Catholic Charities. Leaders from these organizations make up the LCCAC steering committee.

“This truly is a community collaboration,” Lewis said.

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Nichols probe: Loophole doesn’t require private schools to report sexual misconduct

BUFFALO (NY)
The Buffalo News

January 7, 2018

By Dan Herbeck

Three former administrators from Nichols School were criticized in an investigators’ report for failing to take action against teachers involved in sexual misconduct or inappropriate relationships with their students.

If the administrators worked in public school systems, New York state laws would have required them to report such allegations immediately to law enforcement.

But because of a loophole in state law, there is no such requirement for administrators at private schools like Nichols.

“For a public school administrator, it’s a crime not to report it. For a private school administrator, there’s no law against failing to report it,” said Stephen P. Forrester, director of government relations for the not-for-profit New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. “There is a huge loophole in state law, and it’s long overdue to fix it.”

Forrester and his organization are working with legislators on a proposed state law that would put the same requirements on private school administrators. One of the proposed law’s big supporters is Erie County District Attorney John J. Flynn.

Thousands of children who attend private schools throughout the state deserve the same protections as children in public schools, Flynn said.

“This is an issue that I have thought about since I first took office,” Flynn said. “It’s absolutely wrong, and I absolutely support changes in the law.”

Flynn’s comments came one day after Nichols released a report detailing its investigation into 10 teachers who had improper relationships with students over more than four decades. Nichols hired a Washington law firm to investigate last May after receiving a letter from Elizabeth Russ Mohr, a 1994 Nichols graduate who reported having a romantic and sexual relationship with her physics teacher at the school. Mohr was 17 at the time of the affair, and the teacher, Arthur Budington, was 48.

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George Pell accuser dies before cardinal faces child sexual abuse trial

AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

January 7, 2018

By Melissa Davey

Damian Dignan alleged Pell sexually assaulted him while he was a student in Ballarat East, which Pell denies

A man who publicly accused Australia’s most senior Catholic cardinal, George Pell, of child sexual abuse has died following a long illness.

Damian Dignan, who lived in the Victorian town of Ballarat, made allegations which were strenuously denied by Pell.

Dignan was one of a number of complainants who made allegations against Pell of historical sexual offences.

Dignan’s death was confirmed by his former partner, Sharon Rixon. “It is with great sadness that my best friend and the father of my children has passed away today,” she wrote on Facebook. “I will continue to love and guide and support our children through this difficult time.”

QC and former chief Victorian magistrate and crown prosecutor, Nicholas Papas, told Guardian Australia that Dignan’s death would affect the structure of Pell’s upcoming court case in Melbourne.

“The death of a witness if generally very serious and can affect whether the case proceeds or not,” he said. “But it’s not as simple as that, as there may be other evidence or witnesses. In a murder case, for example, the victim is obviously never there and yet a case can proceed. So it’s not that it’s unusual for witnesses to be dead, but in a case where an allegation involved historic sexual assault and there may be no other direct witnesses to that abuse, it can seriously affect the case.”

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Trust in clergy in US declines to historic low, Gallup poll finds

UNITED STATES
The Christian Times

January 8, 2018

By Jardine Malado

A recent Gallup poll has found that less than half of Americans believe that clergy members are honest and have high ethical standards.

The poll, titled “Americans’ Ratings of Honesty and Ethical Standards in Professions,” has revealed that trust in the clergy has declined from a high of 67 percent in 1985 to its lowest rating of 42 percent in 2017.

The number of people who have said that clergy has “very high” or “high” honesty standards have dropped precipitously in 2002 amid the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. The clergy’s ratings recovered slightly in the next few years, but it fell to 50 percent in 2009, and it has declined steadily since that time.

Clergy have been ranked behind judges (43 percent), day care providers (46 percent), police officers (56 percent), pharmacists (62 percent), medical doctors (65 percent), grade school teachers (66 percent), military officers (71 percent), and nurses (82 percent) as the most honest and ethical profession.

Religious breakdowns of the data provided to Christianity Today indicated that self-identified Christians are almost twice as likely to still have faith in religious leaders. Almost half of 776 Christian respondents said pastors had high ethical standards, but only a quarter of 236 non-Christian respondents agreed.

Non-Christians are more likely to trust grade school teachers, judges and newspaper reporters, while Christians are more likely to trust police officers, auto mechanics and business executives.

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National childcare register: Dodgy operators named and shamed online

QUEENSLAND (AUSTRALIA)
The Courier-Mail

January 5, 2018

By Matthew Killoran

A CHILDCARE centre operated by a Pentecostal church and linked to a child sex abuse case is one of the Queensland centres that will today be named and shamed by the Federal Government for dodgy practices.

For the first time, childcare providers barred or suspended from receiving government rebates after breaking the rules or ripping off taxpayers and parents will be named in an online register to be published today.

There have been 21 sanctions and payment cancellations slapped on Queensland childcare centres since July 2016, including penalties for fraudulent claims, not passing on subsidies or falsifying records.

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‘Their time is up’: Oprah’s inspiring Golden Globes speech

UNITED STATES
The Irish Times

January 8, 2018

‘A new day is on the horizon’: Oprah Winfrey thanks those who shared abuse stories

Oprah Winfrey became the first black woman to be awarded a Golden Globe for lifetime achievement on Sunday, delivering an impassioned speech in support of those who have exposed sexual misconduct in Hollywood and beyond.

Actor, movie and television producer, and chief executive of cable channel OWN, Winfrey (63) was celebrated as a role model for women and a person who has promoted strong female characters.

Her honour came in a year when the awards show, Hollywood’s first leading up to the Oscars, was dominated by a scandal that has seen the downfall of dozens of powerful men as women break years of silence.

Winfrey, who along with most of the show’s other attendees donned a black gown to show support for victims of sexual misconduct, was the first black woman to receive the annual Cecil B De Mille award, joining the likes of Meryl Streep, Steven Spielberg, Barbra Streisand and Sophia Loren.

Winfrey used her speech to praise women who have shared their stories of sexual harassment and abuse, and to declare that “a new day is on the horizon” for girls and women.

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Lawsuits: Brouillard abused boys in plain view of other victims

GUAM
Pacific Daily News

January 8, 2018

By Haidee V. Eugenio

Three more men have come forward to accuse former Guam priest Louis Brouillard of sexually abusing them when they were children, according to lawsuits filed Friday afternoon in the Superior Court of Guam. One man said he was abused weekly for a year.

A fourth accuser, who had sued Brouillard and the church in September, filed an amended lawsuit Friday in Superior Court, providing more details about the alleged sexual assault.

The three new lawsuits accuse Brouillard, who also was a scoutmaster with the Boy Scouts of America, of abusing the plaintiffs during Boy Scouts swimming trips. The plaintiffs also state they saw Brouillard abuse other boys during those trips and on church grounds.

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Opinion: It’s Time To Stop Singing Shlomo Carlebach’s Songs

NEW YORK (NY)
Forward

Originally Published on December 7, 2017

By Sharon Rose Goldtzvik

I can’t walk into any synagogue in America – and barely any synagogue in the world – without hearing songs written by the man who sexually assaulted my mother.

That’s because my mom is one of the many of girls and young women whom Shlomo Carlebach sexually harassed, assaulted or abused while he traveled the country performing his music.

In 1998, Lilith Magazine published a longform article about Carlebach’s history of sexual abuse, documenting testimonies from women he abused. I first read the article when I was around 16. That’s when I finally understood that my mom’s story was just one of many, and the problem was much bigger than I could have imagined.

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Ex vittima di un prete accusa il Papa:«Perchè ha fatto scadere la Commissione anti abusi?»

ITALY
Il Messaggero

January 5, 2018

di Franca Giansoldati

[Google Translate: A former victim of a priest accuses the Pope: “Why did he expel the anti-abuse commission?”]

CITTA’ DEL VATICANO – Marie Collins stavolta punta il dito contro Papa Francesco per avere fatto scadere la Pontificia Commissione per la Tutela dei Minori senza avere ancora provveduto a rinnovarla e a nominare nuovi membri. Collins è una mite signora irlandese, abusata da un prete quando aveva 13 anni, e da anni impegnata in una complicata battaglia perchè la Chiesa possa dotarsi al suo interno di una maggiore consapevolezza di questa piaga, a cominciare dai danni che subiscono per sempre i bambini abusati. Nel 2014 fu chiamata a fare parte della Pontificia Commissione (scaduta il 17 dicembre) ma poi da quell’incarico si è dimessa con una lunga scia di polemiche dopo avere misurato troppe omissioni da parte della struttura centrale della curia. Marie Collins chiedeva venisse istituito una specie di tribunale per i vescovi insabbiatori, coloro che avevano dato copertura ai preti pedofili per evitare scandali (un po’ quello che aveva fatto il cardinale Law a Boston).

«Al momento la Commissione è solo sulla carta, un nome vuoto, perchè di fatto non è stato ancora nominato nessun membro» dice attraverso Twitter. Il Papa alla fine di dicembre ha assicurato il cardinale O’Malley, presidente della Commissione, che la struttura avrebbe continuato a lavorare come prima. Padre Hans Zoellner, il gesuita della Gregoriana in prima linea sul tema degli abusi, ripete che le nomine sono ancora al vaglio e che la struttura continuerà il lavoro di sempre. Chi ne farà parte resta un mistero e padre Zollner non si vuole sbilanciare. Di fatto la Commissione voluta da Bergoglio come simbolo del cammino fatto in merito alla tolleranza zero comincia a fare riflettere. Prima dell’addio della Collins un’altra vittima, Peter Saunders aveva sbattuto la porta e se ne era andato polemicamente accusando persino Papa Francesco di avanzare lentamente e senza troppa convinzione.

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Sale of Yona seminary could help church’s considerable legal fees

GUAM
KUAM News

January 8, 2018

By Krystal Paco

Those pursuing priesthood will have to go elsewhere for their education. This after the seminary officially closed doors late last month. What comes next, hopefully, will help the church with paying down millions in clergy sexual abuse lawsuits.

A new year brings big changes to the Church.

“By January 1, Archbishop (Michael) Byrnes had in his hands officially the keys to the entire facility,” said Tony Diaz, the archdiocese’s director of communications, referring to the Redemptoris Mater Seminary. Mid-December marked their final semester after nearly two decades in existence. “It has officially ended as far as the formation and academics. No more seminarians down there are undergoing formation,” he said.

Up to 20 seminarians, all affiliated with the Neocatechumenal Way, will have to continue their studies elsewhere and on someone else’s dime. “The seminary has ceased formation and these young men are on their own with the help of their groups,” he said. “They’re moving on to other seminaries elsewhere, off-island. We pray for them. The archbishop, when he made the announcement; he said he was committed to helping these young men who would continue their studies elsewhere.”

Late last year, Archbishop Byrnes announced closure of the seminary and reported the model just wasn’t working for Guam. The Church, instead, will send those pursuing priesthood to seminaries off-island. Diaz confirms the Church is funding the education for three young men who are currently attending St. Patrick’s Seminary and University in Menlo Park, California.

With the seminary closed, the real work can begin on the property itself.

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Two-thirds say they have suffered ‘spiritual abuse’ in churches and Christian organisations

LONDON (ENGLAND)
Christian Today

January 8, 2018

By Harry Farley

Two-thirds of churchgoers have been spiritually abused, according to research on behalf of the Churches’ Child Protection Advisory Service (CCPAS).

Pointing to characteristics such as ‘coercion and control, manipulation and pressuring of individuals, control through the misuse of religious texts and scripture and providing a “divine” rationale for behaviour’, 1,002 out of 1,591 respondents to an online survey said they had suffered from ‘spiritual abuse’.

However caution was urged in response to the results which made up part of a report, Understanding Spiritual Abuse in Christian Communities, published by CCPAS on Sunday.

Although 74 per cent of respondents said they were confident they knew what ‘spiritual abuse’ meant, the report admits that work around the issue ‘is still in its infancy’ and ‘there is not currently universal agreement about this as a term’.

Co-author, Justin Humphreys, executive director of safeguarding at CCPAS, said: ‘Yes, the results are significant, as [being spiritually abused] was not a prerequisite for participation. Having said this, in some ways it is not surprising, as many will have taken this as an opportunity to share their story in anonymous form, possibly for the first time.’

Led by academics from Bournemouth University under Dr Lisa Oakley, the study called for an agreed-upon definition. ‘The results show that there is a need for a clear definition of spiritual abuse and that defining this term is complex,’ the report said.

While 64 per cent of participants were confident they could respond well to a disclosure of spiritual abuse, only 33 per cent said their church or Christian organisation had a policy that included spiritual abuse and only 24 per cent had received training on spiritual abuse.

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Four lawsuits filed citing church sex abuse

GUAM
KUAM News

January 8, 2018

By Krystal Paco

Four new clergy sexual abuse victims file lawsuits in the Superior Court of Guam.

Only identified by their initials to protect their privacy, M.W.M., G.C., M.M., and A.E.P. all allege they were molested and sexually abused by former Guam priest and boy scout master, Father Louis Brouillard.

Each complaint details abuse occurring on church grounds where the priest routinely exposed himself in front of the boys and exposed them to adult magazines such as Playboy and Penthouse.

During Boy Scout outings, plaintiffs report the priest would reward them with McDonalds or other dining experiences as well as merit badges if they swam naked.

He also reportedly took pictures of them nude and swimming without their consent.

The victims today range in age from 53 to 61 years old.

Each is suing for $5 million and is represented by Attorney Michael Berman.

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Church in Scotland criticized for not meeting abuse victim groups

SCOTLAND
Crux

January 8, 2018

The author of an independent review of the child protection policies of the Catholic Church in Scotland has said he is “disappointed” in the progress the bishops are making in meeting victims and survivors of clerical sexual abuse.

Rev. Andrew McLellan, the former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, was asked in 2013 to chair an interdenominational commission looking at the issue of child protection in Scotland’s Catholic Church.

The McLellan Report, presenting the findings of the commission, was published in 2015, and said, “Support for the survivors of abuse must be an absolute priority for the Catholic Church in Scotland in the field of safeguarding. The Bishops’ Conference of Scotland should make a public apology to all survivors of abuse within the Church.”

In August 2015, Archbishop Philip Tartaglia, Archbishop of Glasgow and president of the Scottish bishops’ conference, said the bishops were “shamed and pained” by clerical sexual abuse and offered a “profound apology” on behalf of the bishops.

“After Archbishop Tartaglia’s public apology, which he did so well, there was a long hard silence, and I was very disappointed in terms of the progress the bishops were making,” McLellan told the Sunday Herald, a Scottish newspaper.

McLellan, who once served as the Chief Inspector of Prisons for Scotland, said he was pleased with certain areas of progress, like the promised publication of a new safeguarding manual, but said meeting with victims is the priority.

“When our report was published there was a sense that there was a new mood in the Church and it was determined to turn its back on these unhappy practices. I’m astonished that it has taken so long to establish contact with survivor groups,” he told the newspaper.

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Pope Francis’ trip to Chile, Peru may help restore trust in church

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

January 8, 2018

By Joshua J. McElwee

This article appears in the Francis in Chile and Peru feature series. View the full series.

Pope Francis’ most recent foreign trips have seen him tackle some of the world’s most difficult geopolitical issues. In September, he traveled to Colombia to back an unpopular peace deal with guerilla militants. In November, he went to Myanmar to focus global attention on the government’s persecution of the Rohingya Muslim minority.

Now, the pope is preparing to embark on a trip to Chile and Peru that may shift the focus from politics to problems inside the church community.

Local observers and prominent expatriate voices say attention during the Jan. 15-21 visit may center on how Francis can help the Chilean church regain trustworthiness after a recent spate of cases of clergy sexual abuse.

Complicating that possibility, the observers say, is Francis’ own record on the abuse issue, especially his 2015 appointment of Bishop Juan Barros Madrid of Osorno, Chile. Barros has been accused of covering up abuse by a prominent priest in the 1980s and ’90s.

Mario Paredes, who has advised both the Vatican and the U.S. bishops on Latin American issues for decades, told NCR he hoped the pope could help Chile’s hierarchy “restore credibility that in recent years it has lost.”

“No matter how you look at it, those cases have been horrendous, scandalous, and the church has lost credibility,” said Paredes, a Chile native who is now CEO of Advocate Community Partners, a network of primary care physicians in New York City. “I expect that he will make a strong appeal for a church that is really transparent [and] truthful.”

But Jesuit Fr. Antonio Delfau, the former longtime editor of Chile’s Jesuit-run Mensaje magazine, said the Barros appointment undercuts what Francis might be able to achieve while in the country.

“One of the bishops appointed by this pope is a bishop that is questioned … not only by the people of the place but also by most of the other bishops,” said Delfau, now based in Rome as the assistant to the Jesuit curia’s general treasurer. “That’s a big problem.”

Barros, who served as the head of Chile’s military diocese until Francis moved him to the small southern city of Osorno in 2015, has been accused of protecting Fr. Fernando Karadima, who was sentenced by the Vatican to a life of prayer and penance in 2011.

Though Barros was not implicated in Karadima’s canonical trial, victims say the bishop destroyed incriminating correspondence from the priest. Other victims claim Barros was even a witness to some of the sexual abuse.

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January 7, 2018

Catholic church in Switzerland still dealing with abuse claims

BERN (SWITZERLAND)
SwissInfo

January 7, 2018

Some 250 cases of sexual harassment within the Catholic church in Switzerland have been reported since 2010, according to media reports. A sizeable number involve abuse cases against adults.

The information was first revealed on Wednesday on local radio station Rhône FM, and was reported again in several Sunday newspapers.

According to Le Matin Dimanche, which followed up on statistics released by the Conference of Swiss Bishops, some 10% of the 250 incidents have taken place since 2010; the rest date back as far as 1950.

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