ABUSE TRACKER

WASHINGTON (DC)
The Hoya

March 15, 2019

by Will Cassou

Fr. Daniel C. O’Connell, S.J., once a popular professor in the Missouri Province of the Society of Jesus, was removed from his position as president of St. Louis University in 1978 after an allegation of sexual abuse. His work at Jesuit universities, however, continued for another 20 years, bringing him to Loyola University Chicago and Georgetown University, which only began the process of revoking his title of professor emeritus of psychology this week.

Though notified of credible allegations against O’Connell in 2009, Georgetown University did not decide to rescind O’Connell’s professor emeritus title until Wednesday, eight days after receiving questions from The Hoya for this story.

Fr. Daniel C. O’Connell, S.J., worked at Georgetown University as a professor, chaplain-in-residence and department chair. He was a professor emeritus at Georgetown until Wednesday.

Now 90, O’Connell served as a chaplain-in-residence in Harbin Hall and taught undergraduate psychology courses at Georgetown between 1989 and 1998, serving as chair of the psychology department for six of those years, according to university archival material. After leaving the university in 1998, he was granted professor emeritus status, a title he held for 16 years after his first legal settlement with a survivor of his abuse.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
The Hoya

March 15, 2019

By Sana Rahman

In between two periods of abusing minors as an administrator and a teacher at Gonzaga College High School in the 1960s and 1970s, former Jesuit priest H. Cornell Bradley worked as a campus minister at Georgetown University. Neither the university nor the Maryland Province of the Jesuit order, which has deemed allegations against Bradley credible, have acknowledged his time at Georgetown since his abuse was made public in 2006.

One year after his ordination, Bradley, who left the Jesuits in 2007 shortly after being removed from ministry, came to Georgetown in 1970, according to the Official Catholic Directory and contemporaneous records catalogued by the Maryland Province.

Bradley, now 80, lived two blocks from the university’s front gates at Holy Trinity Church from 1972 until 1976, according to a December 2018 report issued by the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus.

The Province did not include Georgetown on Bradley’s assignment record for the report, but later acknowledged his work on campus in a March 13 statement to The Hoya. Georgetown has not publicly acknowledged the allegations against Bradley, of which it was first notified by a March 1 email from The Hoya.

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NEW YORK (NY)
America Magazine

March 11, 2019

By David Clohessy and Rev. Dr. Serene Jones

[Includes 30-minute audio interview.]

Religious people need to face reality. The Rev. Dr. Serene Jones is the president of the Union Theological Seminary and the author of Trauma and Grace: Theology in a Ruptured World. As Dr. Jones tells it, “we need to get out of our sweet little worlds…and not be afraid of the horror of what’s happening around us.” We need to listen.

For the next two weeks, “Deliver Us” will feature four episodes where sex abuse survivors have a chance to tell their stories, in their own words.

Listening to the survivors of sexual abuse can be difficult, but it is an essential part of the process of healing, says Dr. Jones. Bearing witness is a crucial component of the Christian life and Dr. Jones noted that “giving testimony and bearing witness is the absolute, most essential part of the process of healing. Until the stories and the reality of what’s happened can come out into voice and can be heard by another person received by them, you can’t start the healing process.”

Each survivor’s story illustrates a unique journey through the shattering trauma of sexual abuse. We spoke with some people who found healing in breaking the silence and telling their stories. Another survivor committed herself to justice, fighting to prevent abuse from happening in the future. One survivor made his way back to his home parish and his spirituality after years away. There are many others who are just beginning these journeys.

As we prepared these episodes, Dr. Jones reminded us that when the stories become too much, we have to be able to admit that to ourselves and to find places, communities and people where we can also share our responses and “work through in [our] own heart what happened.”

In our first survivor stories episode, we will hear from Dr. Jones and sex abuse survivor and former national director of SNAP, David Clohessy.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Post-Dispatch

March 10, 2019

By Nassim Benchaabane

Seven more Jesuit priests who worked in St. Louis have been identified as being credibly accused of sexual abuse, according to a list posted months ago by a Jesuit province but not publicized here until a survivors group outed the names on Friday.

Four of the priests were assigned to St. Louis University as recently as the 1970s, according to the Midwest Jesuit Province. One priest worked at Washington University in the late 1960s. Two, including one assigned to SLU, worked at St. Stanislaus Seminary in the 1940s. One of the priests, and a second convicted of abuse in Michigan, were patients at a Catholic treatment center in Dittmer as recently as 2012.

David Clohessy, spokesman for the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, which pointed out the new information on Friday, said the Midwest Province should have published the information earlier.

“They tried to pull a fast one,” Clohessy said at a press conference SNAP called on Friday in front of St. Francis Xavier “College” Church on Lindell Boulevard on the SLU campus.

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SAN DIEGO (CA)
Insurance Journal

March 15, 2019

By Dave Kolpack

North Dakota’s Roman Catholic dioceses are mulling whether and when to release information about priests accused of sexual abuse, even as critics say they are moving too slowly following explosive revelations in Pennsylvania last year.

The Bismarck Diocese, the state’s second-largest, says it plans to release the names of priests with “substantiated claims” against them of sexual misconduct with minors after it finishes reviewing its files. But the Fargo Diocese hasn’t yet decided whether to release names.

The dioceses responded to questions from The Associated Press following revelations in Pennsylvania last summer that more than 300 priests had been credibly accused of molesting more than 1,000 children, and as Pope Francis last month convened a summit of Catholic leaders from around the world on the issue.

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CORPUS CHRISTI (TX)
Caller-Times

March 12, 2019

By Tim Acosta

Two priests whose names were released by the Diocese of Corpus Christi in a list of priests who had been “credibly accused” of sexual misconduct have filed lawsuits against the diocese and Bishop Michael Mulvey.

Attorneys for Fr. John Feminelli and Msgr. Michael Heras filed lawsuits on behalf of both men Thursday in Nueces County. The men both claim Mulvey and the diocese made “false” statements by including them in the list and claiming they had been credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor.

“Defendants knew the statement was false and acted with reckless disregard for the truth,” both lawsuits state. “The publication of the statement was made with malice.”

Both Feminelli and Heras are seeking up to $11 million each in damages, according to the filings. They claim that there “was, and is, no evidence” that they were credibly accused “of the crime of sexual abuse of a minor.”

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WARSAW (POLAND)
Konferencja Episkopatu Polski (Polish Bishops Conference)

March 14, 2019

[See also the report (in Polish): Sexual abuse of minors by some clerics and some religious.]

382 reported cases of sexual abuse of minors, including 198 cases concerning minors under the age of 15, and 184 above the age of 15; the reported cases cover the time from January 1, 1990, to June 30, 2018 – according to the data received by the Secretariat of the Polish Bishops’ Conference from all dioceses and religious orders. They were elaborated by the Institute for Catholic Church Statistics and the Child Protection Centre.

The total number of victims in all (also unconfirmed) cases under the age of 15 accounted for 345. Whereas, above the age of 15 – 280. Among the victims, in all reported cases, male minors accounted for 58.4%, while the female minors – 41.6%.

Among all the cases, in which the status of the canonical process was identified (94.8% of all reported cases), 74.6% of cases were already completed, and 25.4% of them were still in progress.

The cases completed with dismissal from the clerical state represented 25.2%. Other penalties (suspense, canonical admonition, prohibition on work with minors, removal from office, restriction of ministry or prohibition on public appearances) represented 40.3%.

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NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

March 14, 2019

By Joanna Berendt

Warsaw – The Roman Catholic Church in Poland released long-awaited statistics on Thursday that shed light on the sexual abuse of children by priests over the past 28 years.

The study, commissioned by the Episcopal Conference of Poland and pulling together data from over 10,000 local parishes, found that from 1990 to mid-2018, church officials received abuse reports concerning 382 priests.

During that time, the statistics said, 625 children, most of them aged 15 or younger, were sexually abused by members of the Catholic clergy.

Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki, the president of the conference, said it was “particularly painful, even tragic” that priests betrayed public trust by “hurting those who are most vulnerable.”

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NEW YORK (NY)
Associated Press via New York Times

March 7, 2019

By Aurelien Breeden

Paris – A Catholic cardinal offered his resignation on Thursday after being found guilty by a French court of covering up decades-old sexual abuse by a priest in his diocese, a surprise victory for the priest’s accusers, who had forced the case to trial after it was dropped by prosecutors.

The conviction of Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, the archbishop of Lyon, was the first in France against such a high-profile clergyman, adding to a long list of sexual abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church just weeks after a landmark meeting at the Vatican ended without a concrete plan to tackle the issue.

Cardinal Barbarin, 68, was found guilty of failing to report child abuse by the Rev. Bernard Preynat to the authorities from 2014 to 2015, after parishioners accused the priest of sexually abusing dozens of Boy Scouts in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The court handed down a six-month suspended prison sentence to Cardinal Barbarin, who had faced up to three years in prison and a fine of 45,000 euros, nearly $51,000. His lawyers said they would appeal.

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GRAND RAPIDS (MI)
M Live Media

March 14, 2019

By Emily Monacelli

Kalamazoo – A support group for men and women abused by members of the Roman Catholic Church has called on the Diocese of Kalamazoo to publicly list the former Kalamazoo-area priests who have credible allegations against them.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests on Thursday, March 14, called for Diocese of Kalamazoo Bishop Paul Bradley to post the names of all church staff accused of molesting children on the websites of Kalamazoo churches. The post should include photos and work histories, SNAP said.

David Clohessy, director of SNAP Network’s St. Louis chapter, said he has found six priests who have worked in the Kalamazoo area and have been publicly accused of sex abuse.

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HARTFORD (CT)
Hartford Courant

March 12, 2019

By Dave Altimari

The Norwich Diocese has agreed to pay a former altar boy at a Pomfret church $900,000 to settle a claim that a priest sexually abused him “hundreds of times” over a six-year period in the 1990s.

The lawsuit was originally filed in 2016 by Jonathan Roy against the diocese and now-deceased priest Paul Hebert, who was the pastor at The Most Holy Trinity Church in Pomfret when the alleged abuse took place between 1990-1996, the lawsuit said.

The case was settled rather than going to trial. The two sides were supposed to pick a jury in January but it was postponed while further mediation took place. The case was settled recently.

“We hope that the recent settlement reached in the case of allegations concerning late Father Paul Hebert brings closure to the parties involved,” Norwich Diocese spokesman Wayne Gignac said in a statement Tuesday.

New London attorney Kelly Reardon, who represented Roy, said Tuesday that Roy “is relieved that this ordeal is over and happy to get this behind him.” The lawsuit initially sought $2 million.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Fox News

March 14, 2019

By Ryan Gaydos

A defrocked Roman Catholic priest who was among nearly 200 New Jersey priests facing accusations of sexual abuse was shot and killed in a Las Vegas suburb, officials said Tuesday.

John Capparelli, 70, was found dead Saturday inside the kitchen of his Henderson home with a gunshot wound to his neck, said Nicole Charlton, the Clark County Coroner’s Office medical examiner. Capparelli had moved into the $319,000 home in August 2016, according to property records.

Police believe Capparelli died amid “suspicious circumstances,” but authorities haven’t divulged details as to whether there’s a suspect in his death or if the killing had anything to do with the abuse allegations.

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ROCHESTER (NY)
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

March 14, 2019

By Steve Orr

A new wave of allegations against Roman Catholic clergy will emerge in New York as a result of the new Child Victims Act. Matthew Leonard, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

The Diocese of Rochester ended its voluntary program to compensate victims of child sexual abuse Thursday, a move that could invite a greater number of lawsuits being filed by victims.

The diocese’s reconciliation and compensation program, formed at the direction of the church hierarchy, aimed to settle claims from people who said they had been sexually abused as children by priests or other church figures.

The purpose was to offer a non-confrontational way to resolve claims without costly litigation.

About 30 people have entered into the settlement process, the diocese said, and compensation has been awarded in at least a half-dozen cases.

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NEW YORK (NY)
New York Times

March 12, 2019

By Rick Rojas and Liam Stack

Allegations of sexual abuse trailed John Capparelli, a former priest, for decades, resurfacing in the years after the Archdiocese of Newark removed him from ministry. There were the lawsuits from accusers, and last month his name was included on a list published by the Roman Catholic Church in New Jersey that identified priests who had been credibly accused of sexual abuse.

On Saturday, Mr. Capparelli was found fatally shot in his home in Nevada, and the authorities there said that his death was being investigated as a homicide.

The police said that officers found Mr. Capparelli’s body in his kitchen after being sent to do a wellness check at his home in Henderson, Nev., a city of 300,000 people just outside Las Vegas, where he has lived for the past few years.

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NEWARK (NJ)
NJ.com

March 13, 2019

By Rebecca Everett

It’s not unusual for victims of clergy sex abuse to wait decades to report what happened to them. But a lawsuit filed Friday claims a boy abused by a Vineland priest in 1962 was in a car within minutes of the abuse, being driven in the middle of the night to report it to the then-bishop of the Diocese of Camden.

“Never speak of this again,” was the response he received from the late bishop Celestine Damiano, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit filed by a 73-year-old Ocean County man describes abuse at age 16 by Father Richard Gerbino, then a priest at the St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Vineland. He is among the credibly-accused priests the New Jersey dioceses released publicly in February.

And in a twist, the priest the boy immediately reported the abuse to — and who drove him to meet with the bishop — also ended up being outed as a child abuser decades later.

The driver, John P. “Jack” Connor was named in the Pennsylvania clergy abuse grand jury investigation report. The report alleged bishops in Camden, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh shuffled him from diocese to diocese, even after he admitted to abusing a boy in 1984, until he was removed from ministry in 2002.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
The Hoya

March 15, 2019

By Adam Shaham, Will Simon and Will Cassou

Since 1937, Georgetown University students have learned from, lived with and sought the guidance of religious leaders on campus. Of those leaders, 14 have been credibly or plausibly accused of sexual abuse, according to an investigation by The Hoya.

Their names are Fr. Engelbert M. Axer, S.J.; Fr. Michael L. Barber, S.J.; H. Cornell Bradley; Fr. Neil Carr, S.J.; Fr. Martin J. Casey, S.J.; Fr. Augustine J. Ferretti, S.J.; Fr. Thomas M. Gannon, S.J.; Fr. Jack Kennington; Bernard Knoth; Fr. Anthony McGinley; Fr. Neil P. McLaughlin, S.J.; Fr. Daniel C. O’Connell, S.J.; Fr. William J. Walsh, S.J.; and Sr. Lisa Zuccarelli.

The credibility of accusations against each priest is based on settled lawsuits, the review of Catholic Church authorities or admissions of guilt. Each priest’s affiliation with Georgetown was verified through media reporting, public church statements or university archival material.

Georgetown confirmed all 14 priests were at some point affiliated with the university in a March 13 statement to The Hoya. Yet the university has publicly recognized abuse allegations against only four. One retained the title of professor emeritus at Georgetown until this week.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

March 15, 2019

NCR readers had a myriad of reactions to the Feb. 21-24 summit of bishops at the Vatican to discuss the clerical sex abuse crisis. You can find all of NCR’s coverage here. A sampling of letters from NCR readers reacting to the summit are below. They have been edited for length and clarity.

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FERNDALE (MI)
Church Militant

March 14, 2019

Lansing – An abuse survivor has issued a public letter to Michigan Bp. Earl Boyea urging that he resign over his mishandling of clerical abuse cases.

“You must inform the public about your relationship with Egan and Inglot,” the letter begins, “why you permitted both to be in charge of or near athletic men whom they would find attractive, and why the diocese attacked and discredited men who came forward.”

The young man, who has asked to remain anonymous, was a victim of Fr. Pat Egan, who was stripped of his faculties in Sept. 2018 after a credible allegation of “inappropriate sexual behavior with an adult male,” according to the diocese’s statement.

The diocese left out the significant fact that Boyea had first learned of the allegation in 2014 but had taken no action to remove the priest from ministry for four years.

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DETROIT (MI)
Associated Press via CBS 62 Detroit

March 15, 2019

Saginaw – Church leaders in the Saginaw Diocese say a priest who was a local school principal in the 1980s is on a list of priests with credible allegations of sexual abuse.

Francis Landwermeyer died in September in Texas. The Saginaw Diocese says it learned Wednesday that he was accused of sexually abusing minors elsewhere, although his name was publicly disclosed by the Jesuit order in December.

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ST. PAUL (MN)
Religion News Service via Crux

March 12, 2019

By Maria Wiering

Father Kevin Finnegan said he didn’t know what to expect when he arrived at St. Peter in Mendota.

The pastor of Our Lady of Grace in Edina was responding to an invitation Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda had extended to priests of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis: to join him for an evening to reflect on the clergy sexual abuse crisis.

But Finnegan was grateful he went.

With about 80 other priests, he listened to presentations from a clergy abuse survivor and his mother. Both shared how the experience affected their Catholic faith and suggested ways priests can better help other survivors.

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TOPEKA (KS)
Lawrence Journal-World

March 13, 2019

By Dylan Lysen

A bill that would require clergy to be mandatory reporters of suspected sexual assault received broad support during its first hearing in the Kansas Legislature.

Several people who identified themselves as victims or related to victims of sexual violence spoke Wednesday in support of Senate Bill 218 before the Kansas Senate’s state and federal affairs committee. Baldwin City Democrat Sen. Tom Holland introduced the bill in January.

The bill would add religious leaders, regardless of religion, to already existing laws that require teachers, social workers, firefighters, police, psychologists, therapists and other professionals to relay information of possible sexual assaults and other abuse to law enforcement.

“This, to me, is a no-brainer,” Holland said. “This is an issue across all religions and denominations.”

Janet Patterson, a Wichita woman who said she has fought for years to shed light on sexual violence committed by Kansas priests, shared the story of her son Eric, who killed himself at the age of 29. Patterson said that shortly before Eric’s death, she learned that Eric said he had been sexually assaulted by Robert Larson, a Catholic priest in Wichita. Larson pleaded guilty in 2001 to abusing three altar boys and another man, and he served several years in prison before his death in 2014, according to the Wichita Eagle.

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NEW JERSEY/NEVADA
NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

March 14, 2019

By Kim Chatelain

A former New Jersey priest who was credibly accused of groping young boys was shot to death in his Nevada home, NJ.com reported.

The body of John Capparelli, 70, was found in the kitchen of his home in Henderson, Nevada, by police who were conducting a welfare check on Saturday (March 9). He had been shot once in the neck, the website reported.

Capparelli’s name was included in a list of 188 clergymen in New Jersey who had been “credibly accused” of sex crimes against children. The state’s five Catholic dioceses released the names while under mounting pressure to identify clergy accused of sexual misconduct, according to NJ.com.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Jezebel

March 14, 2019

By Maria Sherman

There’s been a major update in the ongoing criminal trials surrounding NXIVM, the self-help organization and alleged “sex cult” that reportedly branded women with the initials of their leader Keith Raniere and forced them to offer up life-destroying collateral should they ever speak out publicly against the group. Nancy Salzman, the registered nurse who co-founded the group with Raniere, has plead guilty to conspiracy during a hearing in federal court in Brooklyn on Wednesday, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Her sentencing is set for July 10.

Salzman teamed up with Raniere to form what she assumed was going to be a totally legitimate self-help organization, but quickly became involved in criminal activities to protect it. She admitted to stealking the identities of people looking to expose the group, hacking into their emails from 2003-2008, and tried to edit videos illuminating her criminal activities before they were surrender to plaintiffs in New Jersey. Salzman told the courtroom:

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NEW YORK (NY)
The Associated Press

March 13, 2019

Nancy Salzman, a registered nurse who was known as “Prefect” within the embattled upstate New York self-help organization, was involved in stealing identities of the group’s critics and hacking into their email accounts from 2003 to 2008, prosecutors said.

A co-founder of an embattled upstate New York self-help organization pleaded guilty on Wednesday in a case featuring sensational claims that some followers became branded sex slaves.

An emotional Nancy Salzman told a judge in federal court in Brooklyn that she teamed up with Keith Raniere, the NXIVM group’s self-styled spiritual leader, because she wanted to help people improve their lives. But Salzman admitted that she later lost her way when she joined efforts to spy on perceived enemies seeking to expose the Albany-based group as a cross between a pyramid scheme and a cult.

“It has taken some time and soul searching to come to this place,” said Salzman, choking back tears. “I accept that some of what I did was not just wrong, but criminal. If I could go back and do it all over again, I would. But I can’t.”

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NEW YORK (NY)
BuzzFeed News

March 13, 2019

By Brianna Sacks

Keith Raniere, a self-help guru who allegedly recruited women into his group and forced them to be sex slaves, also victimized teenage girls, according to new court filings.

The co-founder of NXIVM, the self-help group that was allegedly used as a front of a secret sex cult, now faces child pornography charges.

Federal prosecutors, who announced the charges Wednesday, allege Keith Raniere took photos of two underage girls, one of whom he made a “slave.”

Authorities in New York arrested Raniere last year, busting open the bizarre operation of the self-help group that prosecutors say recruited women into a type of pyramid scheme, then brainwashing and manipulating them into becoming sex slaves while following strict diets and performing manual labor.

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DETROIT (MI)
WWMT

The Associated Press

March 13, 2019

The Archdiocese of Detroit says it will re-examine names on a list it put together of clergy credibly accused of abuse.

The Detroit News reports that the announcement Wednesday follows allegations by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests that the list is incomplete.

Members of the support group say more than two dozen clerics accused of child molestation are not on the list even though they are or were in the Detroit area.

The archdiocese says it also will look at information provided by religious orders and that oversights on the list will be corrected.

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DETROIT (MI)
Click on Detroit

March 13, 2019

By Rod Meloni and Amber Ainsworth

Man says list of accused clergy members is incomplete

An activist claims the Archdiocese of Detroit is not being fully honest in how it is handling clergy members accused of sexual abuse.

“We believe that the Detroit archbishop is being less than honest with his list of credibly accused priests,” David Clohessey said.

Clohessey is the former national president of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. He says that Archbishop Allen Vigneron’s handling of the priest abuse scandal is insufficient.

For instance, the archdiocese put out a list of more than five dozen clerics who have Detroit ties, but a former priest who is in prison for criminal sexual conduct isn’t on the list. James Francis Rapp, who was a priest at the Lumen Christi High School in Jackson, is serving 40 years at the Bellamy Creek Correctional Facility.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
CBS 21

March 14, 2019

By Alexandra Simon

A former priest in the Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg was arrested Thursday morning on accusations that he molested two altar boys between 1997 and 2002.

John G. Allen was arrested on four counts of indecent assault and two counts of corruption of minors.

According to the Dauphin County District Attorney’s Office, an investigation into Allen, now 75, began in October 2018 after the Diocese of Harrisburg notified the DA’s office of allegations made against the former priest.

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WARSAW (POLAND)
The Associated Press

March 14, 2019

Poland’s Catholic Church leaders revealed Thursday they have recorded cases of 382 priests abusing minors since 1990.

The figure includes 198 priests who abused minors under 15 years old and 184 priests who abused others, aged between 15 and 18, according to Wojciech Sadlon, the head of the church’s Institute of Statistics.

The crimes occurred from 1990 through the middle of last year, he told a news conference.

Archbishop Wojciech Polak, the primate of Poland, expressed “pain, shame and the sense of guilt that such situations happened.”

The figures were released following a three-day session of Poland’s Episcopate in Warsaw that discussed abuse and ways of protecting children.

The release came just weeks after Pope Francis convened church leaders from around the world to the Vatican, where they discussed the issue of sex abuse of minors by the clergy.

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ALTOONA (PA)
Altoona Mirror

March 14, 2019

A priest at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament has been put on leave, a move the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese indicated is because of an investigation into allegations involving a minor.

“This comes as part of an ongoing investigation into alleged misconduct involving a minor, which occurred years ago,” diocese spokesman Tony DeGol said in a statement about Monsignor Robert C. Mazur that was sent out to news media late Wednesday afternoon.

“This matter is reported to law enforcement,” DeGol added, although what law enforcement agency DeGol is referring to remains unknown at this time.

The 68-year-old Mazur served as the rector of the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament since 1995 and was also administrator of Our Lady of Fatima Parish in Altoona since 2015.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Penn Live

March 13, 2019

By Travis Kellar

A former priest with the Catholic Diocese of Harrisburg has been arrested on child molestation charges, according to the Dauphin County District Attorney’s Office.

John G. Allen, 75, of York was arrested Thursday by detectives from the District Attorney’s Criminal Investigation Division. Allen is charged with four counts of indecent assault and two counts of corruption of minors.

Allen is accused of molesting two boys between 1997 and 2002 while they served as altar boys for St. Margaret Mary’s Alacoque Church in Harrisburg, police say.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
ChurchMilitant

March 13, 2019

By Christine Niles, M.St. (Oxon.), J.D

Permitted McCarrick’s living arrangements at IVE Seminary

Cardinal Donald Wuerl allowed Theodore McCarrick to move onto seminary property, in spite of knowing about allegations of homosexual predation, giving McCarrick free access to seminarians, some who lived and traveled with him.

In 2009, McCarrick was ordered by Pope Benedict to move out of Redemptoris Mater Archdiocesan Seminary in Washington, D.C. McCarrick then moved into a parish, but shortly afterwards left to live on the grounds of another seminary: the Institute of the Incarnate Word (Instituto del Verbo Encarnado, IVE), with Wuerl’s full knowledge and permission.

As Church Militant has reported, McCarrick had close ties to the IVE, frequently flying down to Argentina to stay at the community’s headquarters in San Rafael, where he visited with its founder, Fr. Miguel Buela, and ordained priests.

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SAGINAW (MI)
WNEM

March 13, 2019

By Brianna Owczarzak and Jamie Sherrod

Victims of sexual abuse from priests are speaking out against the Catholic church in Saginaw, calling for more transparency from church leaders.

It comes on the same day the church’s most senior cleric ever to be convicted of child sexual abuse is heading to prison.

“Our mission is to protect the vulnerable and heal the wounded. And that’s essentially what we’re doing here today,” said David Clohessy, leader of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) in St. Louis.

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SANTA FE (NM)
Santa Fe New Mexican

March 13, 2019

By Rebecca Moss

Former Roman Catholic priest Sabine Griego was arrested Tuesday at his home in Las Vegas, N.M., accused of raping an 8-year-old Albuquerque girl nearly three decades ago.

Griego, 81, has been charged by the state Attorney General’s Office with one count of sexual penetration of a minor and coercion resulting in great bodily harm and mental anguish. He is being held without bond at the San Miguel County Detention Center in Las Vegas.

Documents filed by the Attorney General’s Office this week suggest the Archdiocese of Santa Fe knew of the rape allegations made by “Jane Doe A” for at least 15 years and likely much longer.

According to the arrest warrant, a 2004 letter marked “confidential” and signed by then-Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan provides “direct evidence” that the rape occurred and that the archdiocese had appeared to have conducted an investigation.

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SAGINAW (MI)
MLive

March 13, 2019

By Bob Johnson

The Catholic Diocese of Saginaw said it has learned of new allegations against a deceased former priest accused of sexually abusing minors.

According to a statement released by the diocese on Wednesday, March 13, Francis M. Landwermeyer, a former Jesuit priest who served as principal of Nouvel Catholic Central High School from 1985-88, was “credibly accused of multiple allegations” of sexual abuse.

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ALBUQUERQUE (NM)
U.S. News & World Report/The Associated Press

March 14, 2019

Santa Fe Archbishop John Wester says people shouldn’t write off the Roman Catholic Church because of former priests who are facing child rape and sexual abuse charges.

Santa Fe Archbishop John Wester says people shouldn’t write off the Roman Catholic Church because of former priests facing child rape charges.

Wester told The Associated Press on Wednesday he understands the hurt and anger surrounding news of former Catholic priests being accused of sexual misconduct. But Wester says the church shouldn’t be judged by the actions of a few and those actions don’t represent the more than a billion Catholics around the world.

This week, the New Mexico Attorney General’s office announced it had filed charges against a former priest who prosecutors say brutally raped a young girl at an Albuquerque Catholic school 30 years ago.

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SAGINAW (MI)
MLIve

March 13, 2019

By Cole Waterman

The sexual assault trials of a Roman Catholic priest charged in Saginaw County could occur elsewhere if a judge agrees with defense counsel’s argument that media reports have made it impossible to seat a fair jury.

Attorney Alan A. Crawford, representing the Rev. Robert J. “Father Bob” DeLand Jr., on March 11 filed a motion seeking a change of venue in his client’s matters. Crawford said heavy media coverage of DeLand has prejudiced potential jurors.

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IQUALUIT, NUNAVUT(CANADA)
Nunatsiaq News

March 13, 2019

By Jane George

“The alleged crimes of Fr. Rivoire have created a devastating legacy in Nunavut”

Nunavut Premier Joe Savikataaq has written to the federal government to complain that Canada has backed away from extraditing Father Joannis Rivoire, a fugitive priest accused of sexually abusing Inuit children in the 1960s.

“The alleged crimes of Fr. Rivoire have created a devastating legacy in Nunavut, one that continues to impact our families and cultivate lingering trauma,” Savikataaq said in a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that was tabled on March 6 in the legislature.

Savikataaq made the commitment to write the letter to Trudeau in the legislature last month after facing questions from Aggu MLA Paul Quassa on the subject.

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GERMANY
evangelisch.de

March 13, 2019

[Google translate: Study: extent of sexual abuse in churches much higher]

Das Ausmaß sexuellen Missbrauchs in beiden großen Kirchen in Deutschland ist einer neuen Studie zufolge wahrscheinlich deutlich höher als bislang angenommen.

Es sei von etwa 114.000 Betroffenen sexuellen Missbrauchs durch katholische Priester und noch einmal so vielen durch Pfarrer und Mitarbeiter in evangelischen Kirchen auszugehen, heißt es in der Untersuchung der Universität Ulm, die dem Evangelischen Pressedienst (epd) vorliegt. Zuerst hatte die Tageszeitung “Die Welt” (Dienstag) über die Studie berichtet.

Wissenschaftler um den Direktor der Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie der Universität Ulm, Jörg Fegert, rechneten 2018 eine repräsentative Umfrage auf die Gesamtbevölkerung in Deutschland hoch. Dabei kamen sie auf bis zu 30 Mal so hohe Zahlen wie die Missbrauchsstudie der deutschen katholischen Bischöfe.

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WARSAW (POLAND)
Reuters

March 14, 2019

By Marcin Goclowski

As many as 382 children were sexually abused by clergy in Poland between 1990 and 2018, according to findings presented on Thursday by the Polish Catholic Church in one of the most devout countries in Europe.

The report follows investigations into widespread abuse of minors by clergy in other countries – notably in Chile, the United States, Australia and Ireland – that have shaken the Roman Catholic Church to its foundations.

“This is an especially painful, tragic issue as it is connected with consecrated people, who devoted themselves to serving the church, other human beings. They have social trust and this social trust was so tragically violated,” Archbishop Marek Jedraszewski said at a news conference.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
National Catholic Register

March 12, 2019

By Peter Jesserer Smith

Throughout the Church’s history, the laity have proved essential to the reform of the clergy, and the present crisis is no exception.

Peter Isley, a sex-abuse survivor, has seen the sex-abuse crisis erupt in the Church three times. But this last time is different: The scope of the crisis emerging is global, the responsibility of the bishops for the cover-up of abuse is laid bare, and the laity are now taking the reform of the Church into their own hands.

“I’ve not seen this level of laypeople angry,” he said. “They’re just not tolerating this anymore.”

For Isley, a U.S. spokesman for the Ending Clergy Abuse coalition, this moment in the Church’s history comes after decades of a via dolorosa, where he and other victims suffered enormous persecution as they tried to wake up the lay faithful to the sex-abuse crisis and the cover-up by bishops and their chanceries.

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CHICAGO (IL)
The Chicago Tribune

March 12, 2019

By George Will

“Horseplay,” a term used to denote child rape, is, says Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, part of a sinister glossary of euphemisms by which the Catholic Church’s bureaucracy obfuscates in documents the church’s “pattern of abuse” and conspiracy of silence “that goes all the way to the Vatican.” “Benevolent bishops” are those who allow predatory priests, shuffled from other dioceses, to continue as priests.

The fuse for the national explosion of fury about sexual abuse by Catholic clergy was lit in Boston — the excellent 2015 movie “Spotlight” recounts The Boston Globe’s victory over the stonewalling Catholic hierarchy in 2001-2002. But the still-reverberating detonation occurred last August in a Pittsburgh grand jury’s report on the sexual abuse by approximately 300 priests of at least 1,000 victims in six Pennsylvania dioceses.

Seven months later, the nationwide stonewalling and cover-up continue by the church that, Shapiro says, has resisted discovery “every step of the way.” And “bishops are still involved.” The church fought his office’s jurisdiction, and fought the release of the report with its sickening details of, for example, giggling priests photographing and fondling boys, and “whips, violence and sadism.”

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UNITED STATES
National Public Radio

March 10, 2019

By Michel Martin

Lent is meant to be a time of reflection for Christians around the world. But once again this year, it comes at a time of deep disquiet within the faith. Sexual abuse and misconduct scandals have continued to rock the Catholic Church, leading many to question their religious institutions, or even their faith itself.

Just this past week, a French Catholic Cardinal was found guilty of covering up dozens of incidents of sexual abuse by a priest in his diocese.

NPR’s Michel Martin spoke with Sister Joan Chittister, a Benedictine nun from Erie, Penn. and author of numerous books, about the turmoil caused by these scandals — and how she believes that Lent can help people get their faith back on track.

Length: 6:01

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SAGINAW (MI)
WSGW News Radio 790

March 13, 2019

Clergy sex abuse victims have come forward to demand information on more priests that have been accused of sexual misconduct.

The Saginaw catholic diocese has come under fire for priests who have been involved in sexual abuse cases during or prior to their time in Saginaw. During an informational picket session, SNAP ( Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) made a point to reveal the newly accused priests as Fathers Roy Drake, Francis Landwermeyer, and Austin Schlaefer for their alleged involvement.

Schlaefer and Drake have since passed away, but SNAP still wants to bring attention to the issue of sexual abuse in the diocese to prevent any future acts or history from getting swept under the rug.

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UNITED STATES
Religion News Service

March 13, 2019

By Jack Jenkins

A new survey reveals that more U.S. Catholics are questioning whether they should remain in the church today than when news of the “Spotlight” child sex abuse scandal broke in the Boston Archdiocese in 2002.

According to a poll released Wednesday (March 13) by Gallup, more than a third of U.S. Catholics — 37 percent — surveyed in January and February said they have questioned whether they should remain in the church. That’s up from 22 percent in 2002, when The Boston Globe published its report detailing widespread child sex abuse by priests in the city.

Frequent churchgoers were less likely than other Catholics to say they are rethinking their affiliation with the faith this year. Only 22 percent of Catholics who attend church weekly today said they have considered leaving the faith, compared with 37 percent of those who attend nearly weekly or monthly and 46 percent of those who seldom or never attend.

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DETROIT (MI)
The Detroit News

March 13, 2019

By Sarah Rahal

The Archdiocese of Detroit said Wednesday that it will re-examine its list of religious order priests accused of abuse that some victims allege is incomplete.

The announcement came after members of a support group called SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) claimed city’s Catholic officials are being “reckless and secretive” by withholding details of all accused priests.

“As a result of these concerns, the archdiocese will carefully re-examine each name on our current list as well as the source information provided by the religious orders. If we discover any oversight on our part, it will be corrected immediately,” the diocese said in a statement to The Detroit News.

SNAP members shared a list of 28 publicly accused clerics with allegations of child molestation who are or were in Detroit area but are not on the Detroit’s archdiocese’s list of credibly accused clerics.

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BOSTON (MA)
The Patriot Ledger

March 13, 2019

To the editor:

I have represented 153 clergy sexual abuse victims of the late John J. Geoghan, who was convicted of child molestation in Massachusetts before he was murdered in prison.

Today, many clergy sexual abuse victims of Geoghan feel as though they have not been forgotten even though the ruling of the court (“Aaron Hernandez’s murder conviction reinstated,” March 13) does not apply retroactively to his conviction.

MITCHELL GARABEDIAN
Boston

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FRESNO (CA)
KFSN – Fresno

March 13, 2019

He was accused of groping and brutalizing teenage boys, but still worked as a teacher and home tutor for high school and college students.

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FRANCE
AFP

March 7, 2019

[Google Translate: In Lyon, Cardinal Barbarin suspended on the verdict of men’s justice]

Silence coupable ou “erreur d’appréciation”? Le cardinal Philippe Barbarin va savoir ce jeudi si le tribunal de Lyon le condamne pour ne pas avoir dénoncé les agressions pédophiles d’un prêtre de son diocèse.

L’audience de début janvier avait marqué les esprits, tant le prélat incarne depuis trois ans en France la crise de l’Église face à la pédophilie, qui vient de faire l’objet d’un sommet inédit de la hiérarchie catholique au Vatican.

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UNITED STATES
Yahoo Lifestyle

March 14, 2019

By Kristine Solomon

About four dozen high school students have been disciplined after authorities uncovered a sexting scandal in which the classmates, aged 14 to 17, sent explicit photos to one another.

Last month, a parent informed the principal of Georgia’s Union County High School of the illegal photo exchange, which led to a larger investigation, according to WSB-TV. Police determined athat t least 46 students were involved in the incident, but Union County Schools superintendent John Hill says that number could be closer to 50 — accounting for 6% of the school’s population of 850 students.

Hill realizes the situation is more than mere misconduct — but he’s not convinced the students do. “In Georgia, if you’re under the age of 18, [sexting nude photos is] actually manufacturing and distribution of child pornography,” he said. “Most of the kids do not have a clue that they are committing a crime.”

That’s why the district chose not to press felony charges, though they could have.

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ROME
DW

March 13, 2019

Pope Francis once made George Pell one of the Vatican’s most powerful men. Now, the cardinal is headed to prison for sexual abuse. It is time for the Catholic Church to reform itself, says DW’s Christoph Strack.

Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s third-highest ranking official who once served as the pope’s finance chief, was sentenced to six years behind bars on Wednesday for child sex abuse. The Australian is the most senior Catholic to ever be convicted of such crimes. Pell’s lawyers have appealed the decision but for now Pell will go straight to jail, giving him time to think about his deeds — just like his victims are forced to come to terms with what Pell once did to them. Indeed, for a very long time the Catholic Church refused to acknowledge cases of sexual abuse even existed.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

March 2019

Now that George Pell has been found guilty of child sexual abuse, we can ask ourselves: what does his story tell us about the Catholic church? The rise of Pell, from a country diocese in Australia to the highest ranks of the Vatican, shows us what attitudes and actions find swift promotion in this ancient organisation

Length: 27:22

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ROME
The Globe and Mail

March 13, 2019

By Michael W. Higgins

Michael W. Higgins is distinguished professor of Catholic thought at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Conn.

It is a strange and disturbing business to see several cardinals lined up for indictment, censure, canonical sanction, jail sentences and public humiliation. It is not the customary way cardinals deport themselves.

But times have changed. Hans Hermann Groer of Vienna may be deceased, but he ushered in the legacy of shame back in the 1980s when he abused seminarians. As did Keith O’Brien of St. Andrews and Edinburgh, who also retired in disgrace and died before having to return his red hat. Theodore Edgar McCarrick plunged the U.S Catholic Church into a crisis that is still roiling, and when he was judged to have abused a minor, in addition to seminarians, he paid the heaviest price yet: compelled to resign from the College of Cardinals and stripped of his priesthood. And now, Philippe Barbarin – Archbishop of Lyon and Primate of France – is paying a visit to Pope Francis to submit his resignation following a court trial that found him guilty of a clerical sex-abuse cover-up, while George Pell, a senior adviser to the Pope on economic matters and the most powerful Catholic prelate in Australia, has been sentenced to six years in jail for the abuse of two choir boys.

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ROME
Religion News Service

March 13, 2019

By Thomas Reese

Six years ago, on March 13, the College of Cardinals surprised the world with the election of the Argentine Jesuit Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio as pope. Taking the name Francis, he won the admiration and respect of Catholics and non-Catholics alike with his simplicity and concern for the poor and marginalized.

With each passing year, however, criticism of the pope has become more vocal, especially from the Catholic right, who think he is breaking with traditional church teaching, and the political right, who don’t like his views on global warming, immigration and social justice. Francis has also been unable to satisfy those who say the Catholic hierarchy’s response to the clergy sex abuse crisis has been inadequate.

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ROME
Medium

March 11, 2019

By Antonio Spadaro, SJ

As much as the calendar marks the anniversary of the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio to the pontificate, you can’t stop time and take a snapshot. In short: it is not time for assessments. Reality is in motion. However, it is possible to reflect on these years highlighting some basic characteristics of Francis’ action.

First of all, the Pontiff has given the Church a synodal “rhythm” through which in six years three synods (on family and on youth) were celebrated, a synodal encounter (on the protection of minors) was held and the Synod on the Amazon is in preparation. The latter will have — as is already well understood now — a universal value, certainly not just regional. Reform is not the gesture of an isolated Don Quixote, but is the fruit of a long process of involvement for the Church.

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ROME
National Catholic Reporter

March 13, 2019

By Michael Sean Winters

It was the early afternoon Eastern time when the smoke started to billow from the chimney atop the Sistine Chapel. At first, it was hard to tell if it was white or not, but as the camera stayed trained on it, and the TV anchors debated its color, the smoke grew whiter and whiter, and then the bells of St. Peter’s Basilica began to ring. Habemus papam.

It has been six years to the day since the cardinals elected Jorge Mario Bergoglio as pope, and Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, the senior cardinal deacon, announced: Qui sibi nomen imposuit Franciscum.

The new pope emerged on the loggia wearing a simple white cassock and greeted the people gathered in the square below with the simple words of greeting: “Buona sera.” The choice of name indicated a concern for the poor, and the simplicity of his manner suggested a less exalted or, at any rate, a less fancy papacy.

Unlike his concern for the poor and a more simple papal style that were immediately apparent, something not discernible that first night turned out to be foundational: Pope Francis has retrieved a sense of synodality that had been obscured, but never eliminated, after almost two centuries of Ultramontanist ecclesiology. As Jesuit Fr. Antonio Spadaro, one of the Holy Father’s closest confidants, wrote earlier this week:

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ROME
Crux

March 13, 2019

By John L. Allen Jr.

In early June, Cardinal George Pell of Australia will have a hearing before the Supreme Court of Victoria regarding his appeal of a conviction for sexually abusing two minor altar boys in the 1990s, for which he was sentenced Wednesday morning local time to 6 years in prison with the possibility of parole after half that time is served.

While many uncertainties remain about the Pell case, at the level of public perceptions perhaps the greatest is this: Is the 77-year-old prelate destined to become the Adolf Eichmann, the Count of Monte Cristo, or the Rosenbergs of the clerical abuse scandals?

Respectively, those figures have passed into history as leading symbols of the following possibilities vis-à-vis criminal justice:

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BOSTON (MA)
The Boston Globe

March 13, 2019

By John R. Ellement

Aaron J. Hernandez’s first-degree murder conviction must follow him to his grave, the state’s highest court ruled Wednesday as it jettisoned a murky 44-year-old legal principle that would have erased his conviction.

The former New England Patriots star was convicted in Bristol Superior Court in 2015 of murdering Odin L. Lloyd in June 2013 in North Attleborough, but he committed suicide in his maximum security prison cell in 2017 before the appeal of his murder trial could be heard.

A lower court judge had thrown out the conviction, relying on a legal principle known as “abatement ab initio” that became part of Massachusetts case law via a 1975 ruling by the state Supreme Judicial Court.

In its 6-0 ruling Wednesday, the high court said it could not find a “reasoned analysis” to have ever used the concept in the first place.

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AUSTRALIA
The Atlantic

By Rachel Donadio

March 14, 2019

The conviction of a high-ranking cardinal for sexually abusing two boys shows that civil authorities, and not Church officials, will bring abusers to justice.

This week marked a major turning point in the Catholic Church’s sexual-abuse crisis. An Australian court sentenced Cardinal George Pell to six years in prison for sexually abusing minors, a decision that not only makes him the highest-ranking Church official to face civil justice, but also underscores a central animating tension in the issue: the one between civil and Church authorities.

After years in which victims saw Church officials as lax and unresponsive, more protective of the abusers than of the abused, civil justice has moved in and filled the gap. Pell isn’t the only cardinal who’s been on trial. A French court last month convicted Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, the archbishop of Lyon, on charges of covering up for an abusive priest in his diocese in a case brought by a vocal group of victims, La Parole Libérée. Their effort is now the subject of a feature film in France. In the United States, a grand-jury report in Pennsylvania released last summer found evidence of the abuse of 1,000 children—and since then, other states have begun exploring their own grand-jury investigations.

Until Pell went back to Australia two years ago to face trial, he was seen as a reformer inside the Vatican. An adviser to Pope Francis, who named him the prefect for the Secretariat of the Economy and a member of the pope’s nine-person advisory council, Pell was known in Vatican City as a straight-talking Anglophone in an opaque Italian-run bureaucracy, a man who garnered enemies by poking under the rocks in the Vatican’s finances. In Australia, though, he has become the emblem of the Church’s abuse of power: Delivering his sentence, a judge spoke of Pell’s “staggering arrogance,” The New York Times reported.

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AUSTRALIA
The Guardian

March 12, 2019

By David Marr

Pell’s sentencing showed he was accountable to the law – and the bravery of his accuser must be acknowledged

In the squalor of this moment there is little to celebrate. Few are jumping for joy that George Pell may spend at least three years and eight months in prison. His fall is too appalling for celebration.

But by jailing a cardinal for these sordid crimes Australia has demonstrated once again that the rule of law runs in this country. Getting here hasn’t been easy but no other country stares down the Catholic church as we do now. This is a day to be proud of that record.

In their rage and confusion, Pell’s supporters have declared their man a martyr to the mob, a victim of press vendettas, a great priest whose reputation has been sullied beyond repair by the left. But that’s not what his fall is about. Somewhere in the past few years, Rome lost the power to protect men like him.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
AAP via The Guardian

March 12, 2019

[VIDEO]

Chief judge Peter Kidd sentences Cardinal George Pell to six years in prison, with a non-parole period of three years and eight months, for the sexual abuse of two boys at St Patrick’s cathedral in the 1990s. Pell was convicted last month on five charges of child sexual assault, following a committal hearing, a mistrial and a trial. He has lodged an appeal, which will be heard in June.

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ROME (ITALY)
Crux

March 13, 2019

By Inés San Martín

Though Pope Francis has faced questions and even criticism for his overall handling of the clerical sexual abuse scandals in Catholicism, few cases touch the pontiff quite as directly as that of Argentine Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta, who was brought to Rome at the pope’s personal initiative and who now stands accused of abuse.

Appointed by Francis to the northern Argentine diocese of Oran, when the bishop resigned at the age of 53 in 2017 he said the move was for “health reasons.” A few months later, Francis named him Assessor to the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See (APSA), which administers the Vatican’s financial portfolio.

Last year, it became public that Zanchetta has been accused both of sexual misconduct and of financial wrongdoing, although a Vatican spokesman insisted there were no abuse allegations at the time Zanchetta was brought to Rome.

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ATLANTA (GA)
Crux

March 14, 2019

By Elise Harris

There’s no doubt that the conviction of Australian Cardinal George Pell for “historical sexual offenses,” meaning the abuse of two altar boys in the 1990s, and his subsequent 6-year prison sentence have been among the biggest blockbuster moments in recent Catholic news.

However, the day after Pell was sentenced – he maintains his innocence, and an appeal hearing is set for June 5-6 – voices from all quarters spoke out, some hailing the sentence as an important step forward in the fight against clerical abuse, others complaining it was too light, and still others insisting they just can’t buy a guilty verdict given the evidence presented.

Pell, the former archbishop of Melbourne and the former head of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy, was sentenced Wednesday to six years in prison after he was found guilty in December of sexually abusing two 13-year-old boys in the 1990s. That verdict was only announced in late February, after an Australian judge lifted a strict suppression order.

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ATLANTA (GA)
Crux

March 14, 2019

By Elise Harris

There’s no doubt that the conviction of Australian Cardinal George Pell for “historical sexual offenses,” meaning the abuse of two altar boys in the 1990s, and his subsequent 6-year prison sentence have been among the biggest blockbuster moments in recent Catholic news.

However, the day after Pell was sentenced – he maintains his innocence, and an appeal hearing is set for June 5-6 – voices from all quarters spoke out, some hailing the sentence as an important step forward in the fight against clerical abuse, others complaining it was too light, and still others insisting they just can’t buy a guilty verdict given the evidence presented.

Pell, the former archbishop of Melbourne and the former head of the Vatican’s Secretariat for the Economy, was sentenced Wednesday to six years in prison after he was found guilty in December of sexually abusing two 13-year-old boys in the 1990s. That verdict was only announced in late February, after an Australian judge lifted a strict suppression order.

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PROVIDENCE (RI)
Providence Journal

March 14, 2019

By Katherine Gregg

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence on Wednesday acknowledged having received a complaint in 2012 from former Lesley University President Margaret McKenna about a priest who had touched her under her clothing multiple times when she was growing up in Central Falls.

McKenna, who also served as a deputy White House counsel in the Carter administration, later told the state police that Bishop Thomas Tobin treated her “as if she were a suspect, rather than a victim.”

Names and dates are blacked out in the heavily redacted copy of a letter the diocese provided The Journal, to show that it had notified then-state police Detective Commander Michael J. Winquist of the unnamed woman’s allegations.

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.

PROVIDENCE (RI)
Providence Journal

March 14, 2019

By Katherine Gregg

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence on Wednesday acknowledged having received a complaint in 2012 from former Lesley University President Margaret McKenna about a priest who had touched her under her clothing multiple times when she was growing up in Central Falls.

McKenna, who also served as a deputy White House counsel in the Carter administration, later told the state police that Bishop Thomas Tobin treated her “as if she were a suspect, rather than a victim.”

Names and dates are blacked out in the heavily redacted copy of a letter the diocese provided The Journal, to show that it had notified then-state police Detective Commander Michael J. Winquist of the unnamed woman’s allegations.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Conversation

March 12, 2019

The crisis of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, and the institutional denial and cover up, has left many people of faith shocked by the lack of appropriate response toward survivors.

Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane, the president of the Australian bishops’ conference, has called for a Copernican revolution on sexual abuse in the church and a shift in Catholic culture so that abuse survivors, not clergy, shape the church response.

In an interview with Crux, published during the recent Vatican summit on sexual abuse, he also compared victims of clergy abuse to Christ crucified.

Unless you see that what’s happened to the abused has happened to Christ and that therefore, they’re Christ crucified in their needs, all the external commands in the world won’t do it.

In our work, Rocio Figueroa Alvear and I have interviewed sexual abuse survivors and show that recognising Jesus as an abuse victim can help them, and help the church to change.

Jesus as victim of sexual abuse

There are good theological grounds for recognising a connection between Christ and those who have been subjected to abuse. The words of Jesus in Matthew 25:31-46 say that what is done to others is also done to Christ, and this has been explored in the work of Beth Crisp.

In Matthew 25, and presumably in the words of Archbishop Coleridge, this connection is at a theological or metaphorical level. But recent work has offered a strong argument to go beyond the theological connection and to see a more literal historical connection. In my own work, and writings by Elaine Heath, Rev Wil Gafney and Australian theologian Rev Michael Trainor, it is argued that Jesus does not just share theologically in the abuse, but that he himself experienced sexual abuse during the crucifixion.

This may seem outlandish at first. When Katie Edwards and I wrote on stripping as sexual abuse, many comments showed readers were perplexed that we could be seriously suggesting this. For many people, the initial reaction is to be startled and shocked. Some ask whether it is meant to be a serious suggestion, or say it is just jumping on a #MeToo bandwagon. However, as Linda Woodhead points out, if you look at it more closely you may start to think differently.

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

AUSTRALIA
The Conversation

March 12, 2019

The crisis of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church, and the institutional denial and cover up, has left many people of faith shocked by the lack of appropriate response toward survivors.

Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane, the president of the Australian bishops’ conference, has called for a Copernican revolution on sexual abuse in the church and a shift in Catholic culture so that abuse survivors, not clergy, shape the church response.

In an interview with Crux, published during the recent Vatican summit on sexual abuse, he also compared victims of clergy abuse to Christ crucified.

Unless you see that what’s happened to the abused has happened to Christ and that therefore, they’re Christ crucified in their needs, all the external commands in the world won’t do it.

In our work, Rocio Figueroa Alvear and I have interviewed sexual abuse survivors and show that recognising Jesus as an abuse victim can help them, and help the church to change.

Jesus as victim of sexual abuse

There are good theological grounds for recognising a connection between Christ and those who have been subjected to abuse. The words of Jesus in Matthew 25:31-46 say that what is done to others is also done to Christ, and this has been explored in the work of Beth Crisp.

In Matthew 25, and presumably in the words of Archbishop Coleridge, this connection is at a theological or metaphorical level. But recent work has offered a strong argument to go beyond the theological connection and to see a more literal historical connection. In my own work, and writings by Elaine Heath, Rev Wil Gafney and Australian theologian Rev Michael Trainor, it is argued that Jesus does not just share theologically in the abuse, but that he himself experienced sexual abuse during the crucifixion.

This may seem outlandish at first. When Katie Edwards and I wrote on stripping as sexual abuse, many comments showed readers were perplexed that we could be seriously suggesting this. For many people, the initial reaction is to be startled and shocked. Some ask whether it is meant to be a serious suggestion, or say it is just jumping on a #MeToo bandwagon. However, as Linda Woodhead points out, if you look at it more closely you may start to think differently.

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

UNITED STATES
USA Today

March 13, 2019

By Doug Stanglin

Amid the latest spate of allegations of sexual abuse of young people by priests, an increasing percentage of Catholics are re-examining their commitment to the religion, according to a poll released Wednesday.

The Gallup poll found that 37 percent of respondents said “recent news about sexual abuse of young people by priests” has them personally questioning whether to remain Catholic — a 15 point increase since 2002.

The polling, conduct in January and February, came as Pope Francis met at the Vatican with Catholic leaders from around the world to respond to a new wave of sex abuse allegations in numerous countries.

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

UNITED STATES
USA Today

March 13, 2019

By Doug Stanglin

Amid the latest spate of allegations of sexual abuse of young people by priests, an increasing percentage of Catholics are re-examining their commitment to the religion, according to a poll released Wednesday.

The Gallup poll found that 37 percent of respondents said “recent news about sexual abuse of young people by priests” has them personally questioning whether to remain Catholic — a 15 point increase since 2002.

The polling, conduct in January and February, came as Pope Francis met at the Vatican with Catholic leaders from around the world to respond to a new wave of sex abuse allegations in numerous countries.

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

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Washington Post

March 13, 2019

By George F. Will

“Horseplay,” a term used to denote child rape, is, says Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, part of a sinister glossary of euphemisms by which the Catholic Church’s bureaucracy obfuscates in documents the church’s “pattern of abuse” and conspiracy of silence “that goes all the way to the Vatican.” “Benevolent bishops” are those who allow predatory priests, shuffled from other dioceses, to continue as priests.

The fuse for the national explosion of fury about sexual abuse by Catholic clergy was lit in Boston — the excellent 2015 movie “Spotlight” recounts the Boston Globe’s victory over the stonewalling Catholic hierarchy in 2001 and 2002. But the still-reverberating detonation occurred last August in a Pennsylvania grand jury’s report on the sexual abuse by approximately 300 priests of at least 1,000 victims in six dioceses in the state.

Seven months later, the nationwide stonewalling and coverup continue by the church that, Shapiro says, has resisted discovery “every step of the way.” And “bishops are still involved.” The church fought his office’s jurisdiction and fought the release of the report with its sickening details of, for example, giggling priests photographing and fondling boys, and “whips, violence and sadism.”

Shapiro says his being Jewish has not adversely affected public perceptions of his office’s scrutiny of the church. This might be because of credible reports about a boy being raped and then forced into a confessional to confess his sin. Or a boy having his mouth washed out with holy water after oral sex.

The church’s crime wave is global. A French cardinal is convicted of concealing decades of sexual abuse by a priest in his jurisdiction; The Post reports how clerical pedophiles “preyed on the most isolated and submissive children” at an institute for the deaf in Argentina. Scrutiny of Latin America, from which today’s pope came, will be interesting.

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

PHILADELPHIA (PA)
The Washington Post

March 13, 2019

By George F. Will

“Horseplay,” a term used to denote child rape, is, says Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, part of a sinister glossary of euphemisms by which the Catholic Church’s bureaucracy obfuscates in documents the church’s “pattern of abuse” and conspiracy of silence “that goes all the way to the Vatican.” “Benevolent bishops” are those who allow predatory priests, shuffled from other dioceses, to continue as priests.

The fuse for the national explosion of fury about sexual abuse by Catholic clergy was lit in Boston — the excellent 2015 movie “Spotlight” recounts the Boston Globe’s victory over the stonewalling Catholic hierarchy in 2001 and 2002. But the still-reverberating detonation occurred last August in a Pennsylvania grand jury’s report on the sexual abuse by approximately 300 priests of at least 1,000 victims in six dioceses in the state.

Seven months later, the nationwide stonewalling and coverup continue by the church that, Shapiro says, has resisted discovery “every step of the way.” And “bishops are still involved.” The church fought his office’s jurisdiction and fought the release of the report with its sickening details of, for example, giggling priests photographing and fondling boys, and “whips, violence and sadism.”

Shapiro says his being Jewish has not adversely affected public perceptions of his office’s scrutiny of the church. This might be because of credible reports about a boy being raped and then forced into a confessional to confess his sin. Or a boy having his mouth washed out with holy water after oral sex.

The church’s crime wave is global. A French cardinal is convicted of concealing decades of sexual abuse by a priest in his jurisdiction; The Post reports how clerical pedophiles “preyed on the most isolated and submissive children” at an institute for the deaf in Argentina. Scrutiny of Latin America, from which today’s pope came, will be interesting.

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.

LANSING (MI)
The Detroit News

March 13, 2019

By Beth LeBlanc

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has asked the state Legislature to approve a $2 million supplemental allocation for a state investigation into clergy sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.

The $2 million is expected to pay for the entirety of the investigation and would be funded by state settlement money, said Kelly Rossman-McKinney, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Dana Nessel.

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.

LANSING (MI)
The Detroit News

March 13, 2019

By Beth LeBlanc

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has asked the state Legislature to approve a $2 million supplemental allocation for a state investigation into clergy sexual abuse within the Catholic Church.

The $2 million is expected to pay for the entirety of the investigation and would be funded by state settlement money, said Kelly Rossman-McKinney, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Dana Nessel.

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.

KALAMAZOO (MI)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

March 13

Six more accused Kalamazoo priests are ‘outed’

Most have attracted no attention in Michigan

They allegedly hurt children in other states

But each is or was in the Kalamazoo diocese

SNAP: “Bishop should post names of all the accused”

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will disclose that six publicly ‘outed’ and accused priests spent time in Kalamazoo. Most have escaped scrutiny here but were ousted or charged in other states.

They will also push Kalamazoo’s bishop to
–post his own list of those accused,
–include nuns, priests, brothers, bishops, seminarians & lay staff on that list, &
–provide photos, whereabouts and full work histories of all the accused.

WHEN
Thursday, March 14 at 10:30 a.m.

WHERE
On the sidewalk outside the Kalamazoo Catholic diocesan headquarters 215 N. Westnedge Ave, (corner of Eleanor St.) in Kalamazoo

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.

DETROIT (MI)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

March 13, 2019

–Fr. Arthur Cooney, who was identified in 2013 in a Capuchin report as a current friar with confirmed reports of sexual abuse of minors. Cooney’s name is included on this list without any additional information on claims against him except that he was removed from public ministry and living under supervision.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/reports/2013_06_18_Burnett_Doyle_and_Freiburger_Capuchin_Report.pdf

–Fr. Leopold Gleissner, who was identified in 2013 in a Capuchin report as a current friar with confirmed reports of sexual abuse of minors. Gleissner’s name is included on this list without any additional information on claims against him except that he was removed from public ministry and was placed under supervision.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/reports/2013_06_18_Burnett_Doyle_and_Freiburger_Capuchin_Report.pdf

–Fr. Leonard R. Foisy, a New Hampshire native who also spent time in New York, Montreal, Washington DC and Maryland. He held leadership positions in thee Sulpician religious order. In 1994, he was accused in a lawsuit of abusing a boy for four years in the 1960s in Michigan, when he was at St. John’s Seminary in Plymouth. He died in 2016.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/priest/

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news13/1994_05_24_Trent_Sexual_Assault.htm

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news13/1994_05_25_UPI_Diocese_Denies.htm

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GARY (IN)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

Seven names should be added to their “accused” list, group says

SNAP ‘outed’ four in January but has since found three more

One, from Chicago, was deemed a ‘sexually violent predator’

Another one was nicknamed by police “Chester the molester”

Victims, witnesses & whistle blowers are urged to call law enforcement

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, two clergy sex abuse victims will disclose names and information about seven publicly accused child molesting clerics who spent time in the Gary area but who have attracted virtually no public attention in the area.

They will also
–prod Gary’s Catholic bishop to add more names to his “credibly accused” clergy list,
–urge victims to “step forward, get help, protect kids and expose perpetrators,” and
–beg anyone who saw, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes or cover ups in Indiana to contact the attorney general, who is conducting a statewide investigation into clergy abuse.

WHEN
Thursday, March 14 at 2:45 p.m.

WHERE
On the sidewalk outside the Holy Angels Cathedral, 640 Tyler St. in Gary (219 882 6079)

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.

NEWARK (NJ)
NJ.com

March 12, 2019

By Kelly Heyboer

Rich Fitter wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel when his phone started lighting up late Monday night with the news that the former priest he said sexually abused him and other young boys for years was dead — shot to death in Nevada.

But Fitter said he knows one thing: John Capparelli, the former New Jersey priest and teacher who was dogged by abuse allegations for years but never prosecuted, will never be able to hurt anyone again.

“The world is a safer place without him,” said Fitter, of Sparta. “The guy had a 40-year record of abuse. Whatever lead to his death, it’s a certain amount of karma.”

Capparelli, 70, was found shot to death in his house in Henderson, Nevada, Saturday morning after police were asked to conduct a welfare check, local law enforcement officials said.

“Preliminary investigation indicates the victim died of suspicious circumstances, and the incident is being investigated as a homicide,” local police said in the statement. “A suspect has not been identified at this time and police are following up on developed leads.”

Capparelli was one of 188 priests and deacons in the state who had been “credibly accused” of child sexual abuse, according to a list released by New Jersey’s five Catholic dioceses last month. But the allegations against him were well known.

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FORT WAYNE (IN)
Journal Gazette

March 13, 2019

By Rosa Salter Rodriguez

Survivors organization adds 10 men with local ties

The Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests has released the names of 10 men accused of sexually abusing minors who served or spent time in the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend but are not on its list of credibly accused clerics.

The organization, also known as SNAP, released the names during a news conference Tuesday in front of the diocese’s former chancery at 1103 S. Calhoun St.

All the men were credibly accused of acts outside the local diocese but spent time here, said David Clohessy, a SNAP organizer who released the list.

Five are deceased, he said. Some alleged abuse dates to the 1950s, while the most recent case came to light about three months ago, he said.

Clohessy said the list was compiled with a few hours of online research of publicly available internet postings. Many names came from www.bishop-accountability.org, a comprehensive abuse tracker.

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.

LANSING (MI)
WILX

March 13, 2019

By Kylie Khan

An advocacy group called the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, is planning to stand outside the Catholic Diocese of Lansing Wednesday.

They want Bishop Earl Boyea to release the names of the priests accused of sexually abusing children.

The group wants the names of the accused posted online on the diocese’s website.

They want things like work history, photos, and where those priests currently are.

The group says that’s all in addition to pushing the State of Michigan for legislative reform so survivors can “expose child molesters in court.”

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

AUSTRALIA
SBS News

March 13, 2019

By Maani Truu

In sentencing, Chief Justice Peter Kidd said George Pell should not be considered a “scapegoat” for broader failings of the Catholic Church.

Australian Cardinal George Pell has been sentenced to six years in jail with a non-parole period of three years and eight months for sexually abusing two teenage boys in 1996.

In Melbourne’s County court on Wednesday, Chief Judge Peter Kidd handed down the sentence, taking into account Pell’s age and health, the severity of the crimes, the relationship of trust between Pell and the victims and the widespread publicity of the case.

Due to Pell’s age, Judge Kidd said he imposed a shorter non-parole period than usual “to increase the prospect of you living out the last part of your life in the community.”

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
CNN

March 13, 2019

By Hilary Whiteman

Cardinal George Pell, the most senior Vatican official to be convicted of sex abuse to date, has been sentenced to six years in prison for the “callous” assault of two choirboys in the late 1990s.

A former senior adviser to Pope Francis, Pell showed no reaction when Chief Judge Peter Kidd handed down his sentence in a hearing broadcast live worldwide on Wednesday from Victoria’s County Court in central Melbourne.

Pell, 77, was found guilty of one count of sexual penetration of a child and four counts of committing an indecent act with a child last December after a secret five-week trial.

Reporting of the trial and verdict was suppressed by the court to avoid prejudicing a second trial, which crown prosecutors abandoned in February after the judge ruled some prosecution evidence couldn’t be submitted.

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SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
The New York Times

March 12, 2019

By Damien Cave and Livia Albeck-Ripka

Despite a series of sexual abuse scandals stretching back decades, Australia’s Roman Catholic Church displays a veneer of strength.

Across Australia, more Catholic parishes have stayed open than in other countries that have weathered abuse scandals, and Catholic schools are still filled with children — owing largely to the financial and legal savvy of Australia’s most prominent cleric, Cardinal George Pell.

But it’s not the bank accounts that are empty in the Australian church; it’s the pews.

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AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail Australia

March 12, 2019

By Charlie Moore

…- as judge says highest-ranking Catholic official ever convicted of abuse ‘showed no remorse’ for ‘breathtakingly arrogant’ crimes

– Cardinal George Pell was until last month the third most senior Catholic in world
– In December he was found guilty of molesting two choirboys in the 1990s
– On Wednesday the cardinal was jailed for six years by Judge Peter Kidd
– The 77-year-old maintains innocence and is appealing the conviction in June
Cardinal George Pell has been jailed for six years for sexually abusing two teenage choirboys in the 1990s.

The former Vatican treasurer, 77, and top adviser to Pope Francis is the most senior Catholic figure ever to be found guilty of sex offences against children.

Cardinal Pell was found guilty last December of sexually abusing 13-year-old choir boys 22 years ago in the priests’ sacristy of St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne.

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WHEELING (WV)
Metro News

March 11, 2019

By Jake Flatley

The retired bishop of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston can no longer exercise any priestly or episcopal ministry within the diocese.

Archbishop William E. Lori, the Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese, made that announcement Monday about retired Bishop Michael J. Bransfield in a release stating the preliminary investigation into allegations of sexual harassment of adults and financial improprieties by Bransfield has been completed.

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

AUSTRALIA
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

March 13, 2019

Cardinal George Pell has been sentenced to six years’ jail for sexually abusing two choirboys when he was Catholic archbishop of Melbourne in the 1990s.

Pell, 77, was found guilty by a jury last December of sexually abusing the choirboys after a Sunday mass in December 1996 and then assaulting one of them a second time two months later.

The man who was once Australia’s most powerful Catholic sat in the dock dressed in a black shirt and a grey blazer, without a clerical collar, as County Court Chief Judge Peter Kidd delivered his sentence.

The chief judge described Pell’s abuse of two choirboys in the sacristy at St Patrick’s Cathedral as “a brazen and forcible sexual attack on the victims”.

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SOUTH KOREA
Soompi

March 13, 2019

By D. S.kim

On March 12, Kang Kyung Yoon, the reporter who released the initial reports on Kakaotalk chatrooms including Seungri and Jung Joon Young, participated in an interview to explain more in detail about the ongoing controversy.

Kang Kyung Yoon started the interview by explaining the steps she has taken so far. The reporter said, “I brought up the allegations of Seungri lobbying to investors by offering sexual favors as bribes last month. Since then, I reported on how the original text messages [that contained the evidence] were procured by the Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission and a chatroom including Seungri and other male celebrities that involved the sharing of hidden camera videos and photos.”

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
The New York Times

March 12, 2019

By Livia Albeck-Ripka

The sentencing of Cardinal George Pell for molesting boys more than two decades ago comes just weeks after a Vatican summit in which Pope Francis called for “all-out battle against the abuse of minors.”

Cardinal Pell is the most senior cleric in the Roman Catholic Church ever to receive jail time for child sexual abuse. But for decades, it has been victims, journalists and civil authorities who have forced abusers into the open and called them to account when church leaders failed to do so.

Law enforcement officials in some countries have become more willing in recent years to prosecute priest perpetrators, according to observers of the scandals.

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[Former student of deacon Hugo Montes Brunet details questionable situations]

CHILE
BioBioChile

March 11, 2019

By María José Villarroel

La Fiscalía se encuentra indagando la tramitación canónica contra el diácono Hugo Montes Brunet -quien fue premio nacional de Educación en 1995- en la arista de encubrimiento de abusos sexuales. Según consignó El Mercurio, la primera denuncia contra Montes se dio a conocer en 2010 cuando una víctima lo acusó de abuso cuando era alumno del colegio San Esteban Diácono de Vitacura.

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

[New information in case of deacon Hugo Montes Brunet]

CHILE
BioBioChile

March 12, 2019

By María José Villarroel

La Fiscalía indaga la tramitación canónica contra Hugo Montes Brunet -diácono y premio nacional de Educación en 1995- en la arista de encubrimiento de abusos sexuales. Según consignó El Mercurio, el exministro Enrique Correa denunció parte de las conductas del diácono en el colegio San Esteban Diácono, lo cual se dio a conocer en un correo que envió Raúl Hasbún -quien era el promotor de justicia de la Iglesia- al cardenal Francisco Javier Errázuriz en 2011.

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[He wants more time: at defense request, court suspends hearing about dismissing Ezzati charges]

CHILE
El Mostrador

March 13, 2019

“Creo que a esta altura discutir sobre el sobreseimiento definitivo de Ezzati, frente a la cantidad abrumadora de antecedentes que hay contra él es extraño, pero ellos tienen el derecho de pedirlo y nosotros estaremos acá para oponernos”, dijo el abogado de las víctimas, Juan Pablo Hermosilla.

A solicitud de la defensa del cardenal Ricardo Ezzati, la Corte de Apelaciones de Santiago decidió suspender la audiencia de sobreseimiento de las acusaciones de encubrimiento de abusos sexuales en el clero que lo tiene imputado por la Fiscalía.

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

[Church faces serious “turbulence” in Costa Rica for pedophilia investigations]

SAN JOSE (COSTA RICA)
El País (Spain)

March 12, 2019

En el único país confesional de América, la institución intenta atender el llamado del Papa al tiempo que trata de contener las acusaciones por abusos y encubrimiento

Hace un año, los obispos católicos de Costa Rica estaban bajo el foco por haber impulsado una ola ultraconservadora que amenazaba con arrebatar el Gobierno al centroizquierda; después, el catolicismo resultó vital en la derrota del predicador evangélico Fabricio Alvarado y, meses después, en septiembre, los prelados hacían de intermediarios entre el Gobierno y los sindicatos del sector público ante una la polémica reforma fiscal que provocó la huelga más larga del siglo. En este país centroamericano —el único Estado del continente en el que el catolicismo es la religión oficial, explícita en su Constitución— la Iglesia suele estar en la primera plana y casi nunca en las páginas de noticias policiales. Pero ya lo está.

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[Parade of bishops begin testifying at Rancagua prosecutor’s office]

CHILE
La Tercera

March 12, 2019

By M.J. Navarrete and S. Rodríguez

Este martes fue el turno de Galo Fernández (Talca). Este miércoles declarará Fernando Ramos (Rancagua). El Jueves lo harán Fernando Chomali (Concepción) y Moisés Atisha (Arica).

Más de seis horas estuvo en la Fiscalía Regional de O’Higgins el obispo auxiliar de Santiago y administrador apostólico de Talca, Galo Fernández. El prelado, de 58 años, fue citado en calidad de testigo y respondió a las consultas del fiscal Emiliano Arias, quien indaga presuntos delitos relacionados con abusos a menores cometidos por miembros del clero. Además, dentro de las aristas, se investiga el eventual encubrimiento de algunos de estos hechos por parte de obispos, entre ellos el cardenal Ricardo Ezzati.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
The Guardian

March 12, 2019

By Melissa Davey

Chief judge calls Pell’s crimes ‘breathtakingly arrogant’ as he sentences Pell to six years in jail, with non-parole period of three years and eight months

[Cardinal George Pell sentenced to six years in prison – video]

Cardinal George Pell has been sentenced to six years in jail after being convicted of sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys in 1996.

The former Vatican treasurer, 77, was handed a non-parole period of three years and eight months by the judge, who described his offending as “brazen and forceful” and “breathtakingly arrogant” because he believed the victims would never complain.

The sentence means he may spend at least three years and eight months in jail.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
Associated Press

March 13, 2019

By Rod McGuirk

The most senior Catholic convicted of child sex abuse was sentenced Wednesday to six years in prison for molesting two choirboys in an Australian cathedral in a crime the judge said showed “staggering arrogance.”

Cardinal George Pell must serve a minimum of 3 years and 8 months before he is eligible for parole, according to the judge’s order. The five convictions against Pell carried a maximum possible sentence of 10 years each.

“In my view, your conduct was permeated by staggering arrogance,” Victoria state County Court Chief Judge Peter Kidd said in handing down the sentence.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
The Wall Street Journal

March 12, 2019

By Robb M. Stewart

Sentence took into account severity of the crimes, but was mitigated by the cardinal’s age, health and otherwise good character, judge said

Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican’s former finance chief, was sentenced to six years in prison Wednesday for sexually abusing two choirboys inside a Melbourne cathedral in the 1990s.

Cardinal Pell is the most senior Vatican official ever to stand trial on child sex-abuse charges, and the sentence imposed by County Court Chief Judge Peter Kidd will see him eligible to seek parole after three years and eight months. In a hearing that lasted about an hour and was broadcast live, Judge Kidd said the sentence took into account the severity of the crimes and the brazen nature of the attacks, but was mitigated by the cardinal’s advanced age, poor health and otherwise good character.

The 77-year-old cleric was found guilty by a jury in December of one count of sexual penetration of a child under 16 and four counts of an indecent act with or in the presence of a child. Each count carried a maximum sentence of 10 years, though his lawyers had argued the severity should be mitigated by Cardinal Pell’s age, a history of heart problems and the likelihood he wouldn’t reoffend.

The Cardinal has maintained his innocence, and his lawyers will argue for the right to appeal the convictions at a hearing in the Supreme Court scheduled for early June.

Cardinal Pell’s sentencing deepens a crisis that is roiling the Catholic Church. Last week, French Cardinal Philippe Barbarin was found guilty of failing to report child sex abuse, the first conviction of such a high-ranking Roman Catholic official for covering up instances of criminal practice. In December, an Australian judge overturned a conviction and sentence of home detention against former Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson, who had earlier been found guilty of concealing child sex abuse.

Cardinal Pell has been held at a prison in Melbourne since his bail was revoked by Judge Kidd two weeks ago, and he has been added to a sex offenders’ registry in the state of Victoria as a serious offender.

In mid-December, a jury of eight men and four women unanimously accepted the testimony of a man who said that in late 1996 he and a fellow 13-year-old choir soprano were confronted and sexually abused in one of the sacristy rooms at St. Patrick’s Cathedral by Cardinal Pell, who had only recently taken over as Archbishop of Melbourne. About a month later, again following Sunday Mass, the same boy was in a corridor headed to a choir rehearsal room when the Archbishop squeezed his genitals, according to testimony read in court.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
The Washington Post

March 12, 2019

By A. Odysseus Patrick

Cardinal George Pell was sentenced to six years in prison by an Australian judge Wednesday for sexually assaulting two boys in the 1990s, making him the most senior Catholic official to be imprisoned in the worldwide wave of abuse that has blighted the church for the past several decades.

Dressed in an open black shirt, gray jacket and black trousers, Pell blinked but otherwise didn’t react as the judge told him that he would probably spend a substantial portion of the rest of his life in prison.

Pell will be eligible for parole in three years and eight months, and he will be placed on a register of sexual offenders for the rest of his life.

His five convictions carried a maximum possible penalty of 10 years each. Chief Judge Peter Kidd said Pell’s age — he is 77 — was a major factor in the sentence.

He also took into account Pell’s great power over the two boys, who were required to sing at Pell’s cathedral as part of their scholarship to a private Catholic school, and the prelate’s lack of remorse. Pell pleaded not guilty, did not give evidence at his trial and is appealing the verdict.

Some church victims complained Kidd was far too lenient.

“To give out such a light sentence is just insulting to the victims and no deterrence to future pedophiles,” said Michael Advocate, a 52-year-old who said he was abused at his Catholic boarding school in the late 1970s.

Pell’s conviction for fondling one 13-year-old boy and forcing another 13-year-old to perform oral sex on him at St. Patrick’s, Melbourne’s grandest cathedral, in 1996 shocked Catholics in Australia and worldwide.

Pell behaved with “staggering arrogance” when he caught the boys who had sneaked into a change room after Mass to drink sacramental wine, the judge said. “It was a brazen and forcible sexual attack upon the two victims,” he said.

During the sentencing, Kidd emphasized that he was not holding Pell responsible for the church’s broader problems.

“It is vital the community understands that you are not to be made a scapegoat for any failings, or perceived failings, of the Catholic Church,” he said to Pell, who showed no emotion and did not look at the judge. “To other victims who may be present, this sentence is not, and cannot be, a vindication of your trauma.”

One of the victims is now dead. The other, who cannot be legally identified, said he appreciates that the court recognized that he was assaulted but was waiting to see whether Pell’s appeal would succeed.

“It is hard for me to allow myself to feel the gravity of this moment,” he said in a statement. “It is hard for me, for the time being, to take comfort from this outcome. I appreciate the court has acknowledged what was inflicted upon me as a child. However, there is no rest for me.”

The lawyer who represented the dead victim’s father, Lisa Flynn, said he regarded the sentence as inadequate and would continue to fight for justice.

“Today is the start or a part of a long journey for many victims of abuse around the country,” the lawyer said. “For many, the battle against the Catholic Church has just begun.”

Kidd allowed the sentencing to be broadcast live on television. Courtroom broadcasts are rare in Australia, and the decision might have been an effort by the court to dispel a perception that Pell, 77, received special protection when the court imposed an Internet-wide gag order on his trial and guilty verdict. That order was defied by The Washington Post and other news outlets.

At the end of the sentencing, Kidd said: “If Cardinal Pell could be taken away, please.”

Pell bowed his head to the judge, then walked slowly out of the packed courtroom, with the help of a wooden cane and escorted by five police officers.

Pell, who oversaw the Vatican’s finances, is one of the most senior Australian religious figures in history. Since the conviction, a powerful network of allies and supporters has emerged to suggest that he may have been a victim of a miscarriage of justice.

“Should the appeal fail, I hope and pray Pell, heading for prison, is not the unwitting victim of a nation in search of a scapegoat,” Frank Brennan, a prominent Jesuit priest and human rights lawyer, wrote in the newspaper the Australian.

Victims and victims’ advocates expressed disappointment that the integrity of the legal system was being questioned after Pell was found guilty in a unanimous verdict by a 12-member jury overseen by a senior judge.

While one of Pell’s victims died several years ago of a heroin overdose, the other said he had experienced shame, loneliness and depression.

The choirboys’ abuse was first exposed by journalist Louise Milligan, who had spoken to one of the victims and briefly mentioned the abuse in a longer television report in July 2016. She later published a book, “The Cardinal,” that detailed Pell’s rise through the church hierarchy and the allegations against him.

Milligan, who was criticized by some Catholics for her reporting, sat in the front row of the courtroom on Wednesday, facing the judge.

“That’s the thing about these cases,” she said in an interview afterward. “He has to live with this for the rest of his life, and it’s a horrible crime and no sentence will ever make up for that.”

After Pell was found guilty, Robert Richter, his lead attorney, told the judge that the assault was “no more than a plain vanilla sexual penetration case.”

The comment by Richter, one of Melbourne’s leading criminal defenders, was regarded by many victims of sexual abuse as trivializing the psychological harm they suffered at the hands of priests.

Richter had to be shielded by police guards when he left the courthouse on Wednesday, surrounded by a mob of journalists and victim advocates, some of whom yelled abuse.

A government-ordered inquiry into sexual abuse in Australia last year calculated that 4,444 people reported allegations of child sexual abuse to Catholic authorities between 1980 and 2015, and that 7 percent of Catholic priests over sixty years were accused of abuse.

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LANSING (MI)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

Even now, the clerics are “under the radar” in the state

Group blasts central Michigan Catholic officials on abuse

SNAP wants bishop to post ALL alleged offenders’ names online

“More details are also needed to better protect the vulnerable,” it says

“The real solution,” group insists, “is criminal prosecution & legislative reform”

WHAT
Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will disclose that three publicly accused priests were or are in the Lansing diocese. Each spent time in central Michigan but have attracted little or no media or public attention before in the state.

The victims will also call on local Catholic officials to
–post the names of ALL accused priests on their diocesan website,
–include details like their work histories, whereabouts and photos, and
–join with victims in pushing for real legislative reform, like repealing Michigan’s “archaic, predator-friendly statute of limitations” so survivors can do what bishops will not do: expose child molesters in court.

WHEN
Wednesday, March 13 at 3:15 p.m.

WHERE
On the sidewalk outside the Lansing Catholic diocesan headquarters, 228 N. Walnut St, (corner of W. Ottawa St.) in Lansing, Michigan

WHO
Two – three victims and advocates who belong to a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, including a Missouri man who was the group’s former long time executive director

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TOLEDO (OH)
Toledo Blade

March 12, 2019

By Nicki Gorny

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests is questioning why the Roman Catholic Diocese of Toledo has not publicly acknowledged four priests who spent time at local schools and parishes before or after they allegedly sexually abused minors in other jurisdictions.

“The bishop’s silence is the voice of complicity,” Claudia Vercellotti, a local leader for SNAP, said. “It is the reason that these types of crimes continue and it is the coverup that keeps these crimes going. The only way to stop that is to expose them and to demand accountability.”

Ms. Vercellotti and David Clohessy, a former national director and current St. Louis director of SNAP, held a news conference outside the Toledo Diocese, 1933 Spielbusch Ave., on Tuesday to call attention to four priests identified by the USA Midwest Province of the Society of Jesus in December in relation to “one or more established allegations of sexual abuse of a minor.”

The Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, are the largest male religious order in the Catholic Church. They have a presence around the world.

While each allegation faced by the four priests took place outside the Toledo diocese, each at some point served here. The Jesuit Midwest Province identified more than 50 total clerics, many of whom are dead. The earliest allegation is dated to 1944.

SNAP called on diocesan officials to add the names of the four clerics who served locally to a list of clergymen against whom credible allegations have been made within the Diocese of Toledo. The diocese identifies some of the 46 clerics accused in incidents between 1950 and 2012 on its website, notably excluding 13 who have died and who “can neither defend themselves against the accusation nor possibly be a future threat to anyone if the allegation were true.”

SNAP also called on diocesan officials to “aggressively reach out to anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered any wrongdoing by” the four Jesuit priests.

“It’s important that even the dead predators are publicly acknowledged because it’s incredibly healing for a victim when he or she sees a priest or a brother or a nun or a seminarian who molested them – when that victim sees that their name is finally out in the public,” Mr. Clohessy said.

Diocesan spokesman Kelly Donaghy said in a statement that the diocese only identifies priests against whom they have received substantiated allegations related to an assignment within the Toledo Diocese. They have not received any accusations against the four priests whom the Jesuits identified as having spent time locally.

Mr. Clohessy criticized such an approach by bishops as “incredible hair-splitting.”

“They say things like, ‘he wasn’t ordained here.’ … ‘he wasn’t suspended here.’ ‘We don’t have an allegation against him.’ Or in this case, ‘well, he belonged to a religious order, so I never signed his paycheck,’” he said. “We believe all of those are flimsy excuses to maintain secrecy.”

Ms. Donaghy also said the local diocese is “currently in the process of updating our website to include the assignment history of any priest who has a substantiated allegation of sexual abuse of a minor while serving in the Toledo Diocese.”

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