ABUSE TRACKER

NEW YORK (NY)
Newsweek

March 4, 2019

Bt Christina Zhao

A priest from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland fled the country last month after he was accused of sexually abusing a male minor.

On January 31, the diocese placed father Alex Castillo on administrative leave upon receiving an allegation against him for inappropriate behavior from a child male victim.

Church officials were able to contact Castillo up until February 21, but after that date, several people were unsuccessful in their attempts to reach the embattled priest, diocese spokesperson Helen Osman told SFGate. The diocese then searched for Castillo in every jail and hospital in the area before they finally reported him missing to authorities two days later, on February 23.

Last Friday, Oakland police told church officials that Castillo had been “found,” although they did not reveal his current whereabouts, according to Osman.

“They would not provide us with information on his whereabouts, except that he has left the country,” she said. “They also informed us they have completed their criminal investigation.”

The investigation, handled by the Alameda County district attorney’s office, has not yet been made public. “It should be noted during this investigation so far, it has not been determined any crimes have been committed in the City of Oakland,” Johnna Watson, an Oakland Police spokeswoman, said.

Meanwhile, a diocesan review board is reevaluating whether Castillo is eligible to return to the church. The group, which includes mental health advocates, two diocese officials and criminal justice experts, will then present their evaluation to Bishop Michael Barber, who will make the final decision.

The Diocese of Oakland in February released a list of clergymen and religious brothers who were “credibly accused” of sexually abusing minors.

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.

VANCOUVER (CANADA)
CTV News

March 3, 2019

A Coquitlam woman has returned home from a trip to Vatican City, calling it intensely emotional.

Leona Huggins was there last month to meet fellow survivors of sexual abuse at the hands of the Catholic Church.

“It’s always empowering when we share our stories together and recognize that we are not alone,” Huggins said.

At the same time, bishops from around the world were called in by Pope Francis for a landmark summit on sexual abuse.

“The power of an organization versus the vulnerability of a little child; I’m here for the little children,” Huggins told CTV News while she was marching through the streets of Rome.

She and fellow advocates demanded a zero tolerance approach towards priests abusing children and church officials covering it up.

Huggins said she was abused in 1973 by a Catholic priest in New Westminster who was convicted decades later.

“He was a predator looking for prey and I fit the definition of prey,” she said. “I was 13 when he began.”

That priest served a jail term but continued working as a priest in Alberta and Ontario before his death last year.

Pope Francis ended the summit vowing to confront the problem head on – promising to change the culture within the Catholic Church.

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.

Patheos blog

March 4, 2019

By J. H. McKenna

Can a Pope sin?

Anyone with even a fragmentary knowledge of the history of the papacy is compelled to answer ‘yes.’ Vatican intrigues, illegitimate children, mistresses, murders—a few Popes went as far as all this.

Nowhere but in an official enunciation of Church dogma is a Pope considered infallible. It is assumed that any Pope is hobbled by the aboriginal injury of Eve’s choice, making a Pope susceptible to sinning.

And a Pope must participate in the sacraments, one of which is Reconciliation—again, thus presuming that a Pope has either sins of omission or sins commission on his conscience.

Every Pope has a Confessor, a priest to whom the Pope confesses sins.

The question on everyone’s mind is, Did the current Pope admit to his Confessor a sin of omission regarding priestly pedophiles?

Did the Pope acknowledge to his Confessor that he the Pope failed to alert secular authorities to the sexual criminality of Catholic priests?

Or did the Pope divulge to his Confessor a sin of commission in suppressing evidence of misconduct among Catholic priests?

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.

HONOLULU (HI)
Honolulu Civic Beat

March 5, 019

By Anita Hofschneider

Last summer, a Minnesota law firm published a 50-page booklet listing Hawaii priests accused of child sex abuse.

The alphabetical list started with Marc Alexander, who is currently serving as Honolulu’s housing director and has denied 2016 allegations by a minor in Kailua. It ended with Douglas Zlatis, who was accused by two students at Father Damien Memorial School and died in 2009.

Overall, the compilation names nearly 60 members of the clergy who have been accused of molesting children in the islands.

But advocates for survivors believe there may be a lot more. That’s why some are backing a Hawaii Senate resolution that calls on the attorney general’s office to investigate Hawaii’s Catholic clergy.

The Diocese of Honolulu opposes a resolution calling for the attorney general to investigate claims of child sexual abuse within the church in Hawaii.

The proposal comes in the wake of a Pennsylvania grand jury report that found at least 1,000 children were abused by more than 300 priests over several decades in that state. The Washington Post reported that the 1,400-page report prompted attorneys general in 14 states and Washington, D.C., to launch similar inquiries.

Hawaii wasn’t among them.

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

BOSTON (MA)
Boston Herald

March 4, 2019

By Jessica Heslam

When the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal broke, the pressing question was “how did this happen?”

There were so many signs missed. I got a similar feeling watching the latest, disturbing Michael Jackson documentary “Leaving Neverland,” which aired on HBO Sunday and Monday nights.

When the late King of Pop was parading around the world, always with a young boy by his side, it’s shocking to me why no one questioned what was going on. Looking back, and after watching this haunting footage, it’s even more shocking.

Just as the Catholic Church protected pedophile priests, it’s pretty clear that Jackson had a system in place to facilitate his relationships with young boys. His handlers made sure that Jackson had hotel suites to sexually abuse these young boys that were located far away from their families. There were protocols in place that made sure Jackson had a lot of time alone with these young boys at hotels and Neverland, his ranch north of Los Angeles.

The documentary focuses on two men who say Jackson befriended them when they were boys and molested them for years.

Wade Robson, 36, met Jackson when he was 5 years old, after winning a dance contest in Australia. Jackson, he claims, began molesting him two years later and the sexual abuse lasted for seven years.

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

KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

March 4, 2019

By Paul Collins

Tuesday, February 26, 2019, will go down as probably the worst day yet in the entire 231 year-long history of Australian Catholicism. We thought we’d seen it all during the four years of Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse, especially as terrible stories of mistreatment of children by clergy and in Catholic institutions were recounted. But George Pell’s conviction leaves that shame for dead. Australian Catholics are stunned, outraged and angry at the lack of accountability and betrayal as we are left utterly leaderless by bishops who seem to have run for deep cover from faithful Catholics and everyone else.

First, the facts of Pell’s conviction. There were two sets of charges. The first concerned two incidents in December 1996 and early 1997 in Melbourne’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral soon after Pell was appointed archbishop there. After a three-week trial, he was found guilty on December 11, 2018, of sexually penetrating a 13-year-old choirboy, as well as four charges of indecent acts with the same choirboy and another choirboy.

However, there was another set of charges of indecent assault of boys in a swimming pool in Pell’s hometown of Ballarat in the 1970s when he was a priest. These charges had not come to trial, so Judge Peter Kidd imposed a media gag order so that potential jurors would not know and be influenced by the cathedral convictions. But in the social media age, such gags are useless and when the Ballarat charges were dropped by prosecutors last Tuesday, the order was lifted and the firestorm began.

Pell strongly maintains his innocence and has appealed; it will probably be several months before the appeal is heard. Some Catholics, among them progressives, think the appeal is based on strong grounds and that Pell will be found innocent. They see him as a scapegoat for all of the failures and mistakes of Catholic leadership. Other Catholics accept the guilty verdict and feel the appeal is based on flimsy grounds.

There is seething anger within the wider Australian community, much of it fanned by social media, about sexual abuse and church cover-ups. Following Pell’s conviction this has exploded. “Catholicism” is now a dirty word in Australia, and as in most Anglophone countries there’s deep-seated sectarian bigotry against Catholics which surfaces in times like these.

Beyond anger and outrage, what is really going on here?

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.

VISALIA (CA)
Visalia Times-Delta

March 4, 2019

By James Ward

A Roman Catholic priest who once served in Visalia was put on leave after new allegations surfaced about a Kings County sexual assault he was acquited of in 2002.

Bishop Armando Ochoa announced the news Sunday to parishioners about the Rev. Miguel Flores of east Bakersfield’s St. Joseph Catholic Church.

“The current allegation relates to a previous allegation of sexual abuse of a minor that was litigated in 2002, at which time Fr. Flores was acquitted,” Diocese spokeswoman Teresa Dominguez wrote in a press release. “The current disclosure is considered credible which gave cause to reopen a diocesan investigation into the matter.”

In 2002, Flores was found not guilty of three counts of rape, two counts of witness intimidation and one charge of criminal threats for allegedly sexually assaulting a teenage girl in Hanford.

The girl, who was hired by Flores to do clerical work, told police the priest assaulted her Feb. 16, 2002 in his living quarters at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church.

Flores has been a Catholic priest since 1995.

He has been at St. Joseph Church since 2007. Before that, he had also worked at churches in Arvin, Fresno, Tranquility, Orange Cove and Squaw Valley.

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.

PITTSBURGH (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

March 4, 2019

By Peter Smith

Bishop David Zubik is pledging to provide additional support for victims of sexual abuse by priests, to put more eyes on how the Diocese of Pittsburgh handles abuse allegations and to provide a full accounting of how much it has paid to victims, lawyers and accused priests.

Those are some of the highlights of a pastoral letter released Monday by Bishop Zubik in response to “listening sessions” held late last year at various Roman Catholic parishes in response to a 2018 grand jury report into the history of sexual abuse in the diocese.

“Our wounds are still open,” Bishop Zubik said in the letter, dated March 6 for Ash Wednesday, the start of penitential season of Lent. “It is impossible to undo the heinous actions committed in the past. So we must turn to God and, with His divine love and guidance, do everything possible to foster healing and to restore trust.”

In his letter, Bishop Zubik is pledging that by July, the diocese will publish the total sum of payments made to victims of sexual abuse since 1991, without naming the recipients. Bishop Zubik said that’s the earliest date of such a settlement.

He also pledged to account for legal fees related to abuse as well as the subsistence salaries and other compensation the diocese has paid, as dictated by church law, to priests removed from ministry due to abuse.

By 2020, the diocese will also account for a current, ongoing round of compensation payments.

Bishop Zubik, who held four listening sessions around the diocese, acknowledged the anguished and angry statements by many, which included some calls for his resignation and others for him to stay and “continue to lead with a pastoral heart”. While he did not directly respond to such calls in the letter, Bishop Zubik said in an interview he has prayed about the matter and is staying on the job.

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

ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

March 4, 2019

A bill has been introduced in the California Assembly that would help protect children and support survivors by amending the state’s statutes of limitations on felony child sex crimes.

AB-218, introduced by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, is a great step forward for survivors and advocates in California. Among others, the most critical reforms in AB-218 will allow survivors of sexual violence to bring their cases forward until they are 40 years old, a massive increase from the current age of 26 and a serious help to survivors who have been suffering silence. The bill will also open a three-year “window” that would allow claims that have been previously barred by statutes of limitation to be heard.

These are major steps forward that reflect the realities of sexual violence. Survivors often take decades to come forward about their abuse – the average age of a survivor coming forward is 52 – and are often barred from seeking justice by statutes like those that AB 218 seeks to amend.

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.

Legal Reader blog

March 4, 2019

By Ryan Farrick

Petitioning lawmakers last week, the Diocese of Providence admitted to hundreds of sex abuse claims for tens of millions of dollars.

Trying to ward off Rhode Island lawmakers, officials from the Catholic Diocese of Providence have acknowledged settling more than $21 million in clergy sex abuse claims.

The total amount, writes the Providence Journal, includes $21 million set aside for “legal settlements” and another $2.3 million reserved for counseling. In total, the archdiocese has attempted to resolve some 130 claims of abuse in its church-run schools and parishes.

The Journal notes that the diocese reported the payouts in written testimony submitted to the Rhode Island Catholic Conference and filed with the House Judiciary Committee for presentation at last Tuesday’s hearing on impending legislation.

Survivors also shared their stories, some in graphic detail.

Ann Hagan Webb, a 66-year old psychologist and sister of the Rhode Island lawmaker who introduced the legislation, identified the late Monsignor Anthony DeAngelis as a prolific and brutal predator.

“Usually we save ourselves, and you, the pain by using generalities like ‘child abuse’ or ‘molestation’ and leave it at that,” Webb said. “It’s time to rip the scab off.”

Crosses. Some states are contemplating changes to their statute of limitations for child sex abuse as a consequence of church scandals. Image via PxHere. Public domain.
Her testimony included claims of DeAngelis raping her with a crucifix and forcing her to perform oral sex. She says the abuse took place repeatedly and over a seven-year period, beginning when she was kindergarten.

Sponsored by Webb’s sister and co-sponsored by most of the state’s House representatives, the bill extends the time victims of child sex abuse have to file lawsuits against predators and perpetrators’ employers. Previously granted seven years of leniency, the proposal would boost the cap to thirty-five.

Despite the church’s attempts at transparency, the Providence Journal notes its reports’ shortcomings. While the Conference acknowledged its settlements, it didn’t specify when or within which time period the alleged abuse occurred. Neither did it indicate the extent of victimization or name the priests accused.

Nevertheless, the archdiocese has taken aim at the legislation, recommending amendments and extensive rewrites. Among the “serious” flaws identified by the group and reported by the Providence Journal are a lack of distinction between “actual perpetrators” and “non-perpetrators who are alleged to have committed unintentional negligence”; an “unconstitutional” look-back period for the filing of claims; and an inappropriate emphasis on extracting financial settlements from the Church rather than abusers or abuse in the abstract.

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.

TORONTO (CANADA)
National Post

March 4, 2019

By Philip Mathias

The governance of the Catholic Church has to change — that’s the real lesson arising from the priest pedophile scandal. For a thousand years, the Church has been run like a medieval monarchy with a “king” at the top — the Pope — who is surrounded by princes (the Cardinals and bishops), all of whom are guided by God. The pedophile scandal deflates that model, making it more wishful thinking than reality, by revealing the Church’s leaders as very ordinary men, who have buried harm to children by priests to cover the Church’s failures. A new model must be developed, one that makes the oh-so-fallible rulers of the Church accountable to the faithful, as much as to their monarch, the Pope.

The heart of the scandal is not that perhaps as many as 10 per cent of Catholic priests have molested children. There are pedophiles in other churches, other institutions, and in all walks of life. The scandal is that bishops all over the world have left the wicked priests in ministry, and moved them to new parishes where they could commit their crimes all over again, and then tried to browbeat their little victims into silence. This vile conduct appears to have been universal and may have been secretly ordered by the Vatican to avoid scandal. If that is the case, the “Bride of Christ” has promoted an evil practice. If not, that evil practice was endemic in a Church that teaches others the highest morality.

Now, civil authorities in the United States (and elsewhere) are trying to identify more pedophile priests. Clearly, this scandal will continue, perhaps for decades. Meanwhile, the recent Vatican conference to address child abuse produced little in the way of concrete, enforceable measures. Pope Francis tried to take pressure off the Church by saying that child abuse is widespread in society, with 69 per cent of it within families, according to one study. He said the Church must confront this evil throughout society, as well as within the Church, which will employ unspecified “disciplinary … processes.” But he condemned those who constantly attack the Church (presumably the unrequited victims) as friends of “the Devil.”

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.

[Priests say key witness against Francisco Cox is feeling pressured by Ezzati and others]

CHILE
BioBioChile

March 3, 2019

By Manuel Stuardo and Estefanía Bustamante

Curas cercanos al sacerdote Manuel Hervia, acusan presiones de altos cargos de la Iglesia Católica por ser testigo clave de abusos sexuales a menores cometidos por sacerdotes como Francisco José Cox, exarzobispo de La Serena, actualmente investigado por la justicia.

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.

[Expert on new abuse case: “It’s time for some to leave the Chilean Catholic Church and Ezzati is one”]

SANTIAGO (CHILE)
Emol

March 4, 2019

By Fernanda Villalobos D.

Marcial Sánchez se refirió al caso de violación al que está acusado Tito Rivera, ex rector de la Iglesia Las Agustinas y nombrado por el cardenal de Santiago, quien se enteró de los hechos.

Un nuevo caso de abuso en la Iglesia Católica se reveló este domingo: Tito Rivera, ex rector de la Iglesia Las Agustinas y nombrado por el cardenal Ricardo Ezzati, fue acusado de drogar y violar a un hombre de 40 años que fue a pedir ayuda porque tenía a su hija enferma en 2015. Según informó Radio Bío Bío, la Fiscalía de Rancagua está investigando una demanda por indemnización de perjuicios por $350 millones en contra del Arzobispado de Santiago, dado que Ezzati conoció el hecho de boca de la víctima y, según la acción judicial, sólo lo abrazó, lo conminó a rezar por su victimario y le entregó $30.000.

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.

[Rape in the cathedral: The dark sexual plot of the priest Tito Rivera implicates Ricardo Ezzati]

CHILE
BioBioChile

March 4, 2019

By Jorge Molina Sanhueza

Una investigación de la Fiscalía de Rancagua reveló uno de los secretos mejor guardados del Arzobispado de Santiago desde 2015: habitaciones en el principal templo religioso de Chile, donde se se cometió una violación y abusos con jóvenes de clase media baja que fungían como acólitos. El autor es el presbítero Tito Rivera, exrector de la iglesia Las Agustinas, nombrado por el cardenal Ricardo Ezzati. Este último conoció los hechos de boca de una de las víctimas, cuando el caso estaba plenamente aclarado por la “investigación previa” que otorgó verosimilitud a los relatos y solo un año y medio después -en noviembre de 2016- inició el proceso canónico penal, sin enviar los antecedentes al Ministerio Público ni darlos a conocer a la ciudadanía. Al afectado que le relató cómo fue violado, Ezzati solo lo abrazó, lo conminó a rezar por su victimario y le entregó 30 mil pesos.

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.

[Laity and abuse survivors call for Ezzati’s removal after case of rape in the cathedral]

CHILE
BioBioChile

March 4, 2019

By María José Villarroel and Nicole Martínez

Un reportaje de La Radio reveló uno de los casos que hasta ahora se mantenía en reserva: una violación a un mayor de edad dentro de la Catedral Metropolitana, cometida por el presbítero Tito Rivera. El denunciante, que llevó el caso a la justicia, dijo haberle contado sobre el caso al cardenal Ricardo Ezzati, quien según su testimonio pidió rezar por el sacerdote y le dio $30 mil en efectivo. Sobrevivientes de abusos y laicos consideran que esto amerita sacar lo antes posible a Ezzati como arzobispo de Santiago.

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.

VICE News

March 4, 2019

By Hind Hassan and Sean Stephens

The Catholic Church’s recent summit on protecting children was supposed to be a significant event for an institution that’s long grappled with its much criticized response to a litany of clerical sex abuse scandals.

But from the outset, the Vatican stressed that there wasn’t going to be any magic solution to the problem. And many young Catholics are afraid for the future of the Church.

Almost 200 cardinals and bishops traveled from around the globe to the Vatican for the four-day event, designed to show the world the Church was committed to tackling the decades-long, systemic abuse of children.

Pope Francis was keen to play down expectations ahead of the event but spoke passionately to delegates. “I make a heartfelt appeal for an all-out battle against the abuse of minors, for we are dealing with abominable crimes that must be erased from the face of the earth,” he said.

During the summit, a list of 21 guidelines for bishops was distributed, but as a response to the crisis, it seemed surprisingly basic. Suggestions included creating a handbook for members of the clergy on what to do when a sex abuse case emerges, and instructing all clergy to tell law enforcement about accusations.

Church leaders insisted the point of the meeting wasn’t to do damage control on their brand.

“I do believe that we cannot make decision solely based on self-interest, in terms of increasing the numbers of people coming to church,” one of the key organizers of the summit, Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago , told VICE News. “The pathway forward is not to do things simply to make us more palatable to people, but our first job is to make sure that children are safe. I believe that if we get that right, things will fall into place.”

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

DENVER (CO)
Crux

March 4, 2019

By Christopher White

A new report by one of the nation’s leading organizations promoting best practices in leadership within the Catholic Church chronicles the “twin crises” within the Catholic Church, that of sexual abuse and its cover-up.

The report, released on Friday by Leadership Roundtable, comes just days after Pope Francis’s historic meeting with the heads of bishops’ conferences around the world in which he pledged an all out war on sexual abuse.

The forty-page report serves as a compilation of recommendations that emerged from the organization’s Catholic Partnership Summit, which took place in February in the nation’s capital, and brought together a mix of clergy and lay Catholic leaders, and seeks to promote a way forward with a “preferential option for abuse victims and families.”

Participants in the Catholic Partnership Summit included Cardinals Blase Cupich of Chicago, Sean O’Malley of Boston, Joseph Tobin of Newark; Father Hans Zollner of the Center for Child Protection in Rome; Kathleen McChesney, a retired FBI agent who established the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Office of Child Protection; John Carr, the USCCB’s former point man on Capitol Hill and current director of the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University; and a range of academics, theologians, and leaders from 43 dioceses in the United States.

Since the clergy sexual abuse crisis reemerged in the summer of June 2018, Leadership Roundtable notes that more than 50 dioceses throughout the country have sought their assistance in responding to the crisis.

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.

WAUSAU (WI)
Wausau Daily Herald

March 4, 2019

By Laura Schulte

A former Wisconsin priest accused of molesting several boys in the 1980s has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

According to online court records, Thomas Ericksen entered pleas of not guilty in the four open cases against him in Sawyer County. He is facing two charges of second-degree sexual assault of an unconscious victim, one count of first-degree sexual assault of a child and one count of second-degree sexual assault of a child.

Ryan Reid, Ericksen’s defense attorney, did not return a phone call from USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin on Friday, requesting comment on the pleas.

Ericksen, 71, is being held in the Sawyer County Jail in Hayward on a combined $510,000 bond in all four cases. The charges stem from his time at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in the town of Winter, Wisconsin, where he served as a priest from 1982 until 1983. Victims went to investigators in 2010 and 2011, alleging that they were abused by the former priest. Charges were filed against him in November 2018, two weeks after USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin filed open records requests with the Sawyer County district attorney seeking investigative documents.

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.

BINGHAMTON (NY)
WSKG TV

March 4, 2019

By Gabe Altieri

A priest who served at Ithaca College and Cornell University has been accused of sexual abuse of a minor. That’s according to the Ithaca Journal.

Reverend Carsten Martensen has served in campus ministry at both schools since 2007.

The abuse allegedly occurred in the 1970’s. Martensen has stepped down from all current assignments and public ministry until an investigation by the USA Northeast Province of Jesuits wraps up.

He was not on a list of Jesuit priests with credible accusations released by that group in January.

Full disclosure: Cornell University is a WSKG Underwriter.

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.

LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Tablet

March 4, 2019

By Patrick McCafferty

Along with Fr Joe McDonald, I am also a survivor of clerical sexual abuse and a priest.

Fr McDonald argues that sexual offenders should not be dismissed from the priesthood and he cites “practical”, “theological” and “pastoral” reasons.

I reject those reasons given by Fr McDonald. The penalty of dismissal from the priesthood is entirely fitting and appropriate, for those who are guilty of these egregious crimes.

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.

BAKERSFIELD (CA)
The Bakersfield Californian

March 4, 2019

The Rev. Miguel Flores of east Bakersfield’s St. Joseph Catholic Church has been placed on administrative leave while senior officials take another look at 17-year-old sexual misconduct allegations involving him and a then-16-year-old girl, the Fresno Diocese told The Californian Monday.

During Mass Sunday afternoon, Bishop Armando Ochoa, from the affiliated Fresno archdiocese, informed parishioners that Flores had been placed on leave while officials reopen an investigation into the accusation — for which Flores was tried and acquitted.

“There has been ongoing communication with law enforcement since the third party report was received,” Diocese spokeswoman Teresa Dominguez told The Californian in an email.

“The current allegation relates to a previous allegation of sexual abuse of a minor that was litigated in 2002, at which time Fr. Flores was acquitted. The current disclosure is considered credible which gave cause to reopen a diocesan investigation into the matter.”

Flores was cleared of three counts of forcible rape, three counts of sex with a minor and single charges of making threats and intimidating a witness in 2002, after it was alleged that he raped a San Joaquin girl who worked as his office assistant at churches in Tranquillity and Hanford. He was found not guilty of all charges.

Flores’ suspension is presumably part of a review of possible sexual transgressions involving clergy that the Fresno Diocese announced last month it would undertake. Ochoa made that announcement at diocese headquarters in Fresno on Feb. 2.

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.

PITTSBURGH (PA)
KDKA TV

March 4, 2019

Bishop David Zubik has released his “Pastoral Letter of Response” following several listening sessions about the church sexual abuse scandal.

“The Church Healing” was expected prior to the church’s observance of Ash Wednesday.

Bishop Zubik said, with the report, he wants those who attended listening sessions to know he heard their concerns, and is responding with actions.

The letter lays out a five-point plan, including:

Healing and Enhanced Support for Victims/Survivors, Their Families and Loved Ones
Greater Financial Transparency
Increased Accountability
Ongoing Spiritual and Human Formation for Clergy and Seminarians
Continued Listening to Seek Truth and Reconciliation

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.

ANNAPOLIS (MD)
Maryland Matters

March 4, 2019

By Bruce DePuyt

Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D) should be doing much more to publicize his investigation of the Baltimore Archdiocese, a leading advocate for clergy sex abuse victims said on Sunday.

And a legislator who has questioned the way Frosh has tackled the investigation has raised new concerns about the resources the state has marshaled to locate victims and prosecute both the priests who committed the abuse and the bishops who covered it up.

Frosh has consistently refused to confirm that he launched an investigation in the wake of a damning report by Pennsylvania’s attorney general in 2018 on sexual abuse by priests, though he did concede in an interview on Thursday the gist of a recent Maryland Matters report about his office’s work.

“It’s not a secret. You know all of this stuff,” Frosh said. “I think the word is out.”

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.

TUCSON (AZ)
KOLD News 13

March 3, 2019

By Heather Janssen

As he held a photo of his 12-year-old self on Sunday afternoon, Tim Lennon, recounted the memories of violent rape and abuse by his priest in Iowa.

The Tucson man is a survivor.

“The priest that abused me used to take me to baseball games, to the park, to a movie, and molestation was always a part of that,” he explained.

Lennon repressed the memories for decades. The alleged abuse happened when he was 12-years-old. But one day the memories of trauma came flooding back.

“I basically froze. I didn’t say anything, didn’t do anything, and the memories were buried for 30 years,” he said. “When at twelve … I couldn’t fight back. Now I can.”

He’s turned the anger he felt over the abuse into a passion for helping survivors everywhere.

He now leads the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

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.

CHICAGO ( IL)
The DePaulia

March 4, 2019

By Brian O’Connell

Pope Francis and some of the world’s most influential leaders in the church gathered at the Vatican Feb. 21-24 for an unprecedented summit on counteracting clerical sexual abuse of minors.

Pope Francis convened the historic summit to further address the same issue that has dampened the church’s reputation for decades.

The church has been facing immense pressure because of the lack of concrete solutions it has put into place to address the problem, as well as the slow pace of reforms.

Judy Jones, the Midwest regional leader at Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said victims are not pleased with the actions that took place at the summit.

“Victims are very disappointed with Pope Francis and the papal summit; it ended with just more words and not decisive actions,” she said.

At the summit, the pope encouraged bishops to take stern action against abusive clergy members and to embrace accountability in protecting faithful Catholics in their respective dioceses.

But Jones believes that abuse should be immediately reported to law enforcement instead of being dealt with internally by the church.

“SNAP calls for the pope to compel bishops around the world to turn their files over to law enforcement for independent investigations into their handling of clergy sex abuse cases,” she said.

While victims and their advocates generally remained dissatisfied with the outcome of the event, some say momentous strides were made last weekend in Vatican City. William Cavanaugh, a professor of Catholic studies at DePaul, said the summit proved that the problem of clergy sex abuse needs to be dealt with on a global stage.

“There are parts of the world where people in the church are denying that it is a problem. The summit showed that this is something that needs to be dealt with in a worldwide manner,” he said.

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

ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

March 4, 2019

An Oakland Diocese priest, Alexander Castillo, fled the United States after Oakland, California police opened a criminal investigation into allegations that he sexually abused at least one minor male.

Castillo was a “rising star” within the diocese. He last job was as a lead outreach coordinator for the Hispanic community diocese-wide. He operated at the right hand of Bishop Barber for much of the past five years. Among his duties was to evangelize among Spanish speaking populations in the Bay Area and in his native Costa Rica.

We hope that Bishop Barber cooperates with law enforcement to locate Castillo so that a full reckoning of what he did can be discerned.

Bishop Barber published a woefully inadequate list of “credibly accused” priests on February 18th, 2019. Despite the active criminal investigation focused on Castillo, Castillo was left off the list. Now that he has fled, Bishop Barber should, at a bare minimum, do the following:

• Add Castillo to the list, delineate his work assignments and overview his personal relationship with Castillo; SNAP has heard that Barber has mentored Castillo since Castillo’s time in seminary at St. Patrick’s, Menlo Park.

• Personally visit each parish Castillo served (Our Lady Guadalupe in Fremont, St. Anthony’s in Oakley) and beg all witnesses or other victims of this priest to come forward to law enforcement.

• Freeze Castillo’s paycheck and use the money to buy full page ads in major Bay Area newspapers asking victims and witnesses to come forward. The ads should be in Spanish and English and should emphasize that if victims are undocumented, they can obtain “U Visas” in connection with reporting any crimes committed against them.

At least 132 priests credibly accused of abusing minors have ties to the Oakland Diocese, including about half a dozen who still are working at the diocese despite’s the bishop’s “zero tolerance” pledge. SNAP provided that list of 132 to Barber on February 23rd. To make kids safer and to help survivors heal, we believe Bishop Barber should prominently display that list on the diocese website and provide law enforcement phone numbers for reporting abuse. In addition, SNAP believes Bishop Barber should publish the Attorney General’s website for reporting clergy abuse and beg witnesses and victims to register their concerns with the Attorney General.

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

ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

March 4, 2019

Over the weekend, HBO aired the first part of a powerful documentary on the topic of child sexual abuse, renowned abusers, and the reactions that victims experience when they come forward.

In Leaving Neverland, Wade Robson and James Safechuck discuss the grooming and abuse they say they experienced at the hand of international superstar Michael Jackson. While these allegations have bubbled up and simmered back down over the past several decades, one thing has stayed constant: the disbelief that survivors experience.

Whenever allegations are made against powerful and beloved men, those allegations are instantly disbelieved by their followers. Whether it was Barbara Blaine in 1985 or Anita Hill in 1991, survivors who bring forward allegations do so bravely and in the face of fierce opposition. Whether it was Fr. Chester John “Chet” Warren in 1985, or Michael Jackson in 1993 or Michael Jackson in 2019, there are usually those who cannot believe that the person who stood behind the pulpit or whose music they loved could also be the cause of so much pain to someone else.

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.

MASSACHUSETTS
CNN

March 4, 2019

By Eliott C. McLaughlin

Kevin Spacey’s sex abuse case returns to a Massachusetts court Monday, as his defense team works to obtain cell phone records and other evidence from the actor’s accuser.

A judge previously ruled that Spacey, who has pleaded not guilty to battery and indecent assault, does not have to attend the pretrial hearing, but he must be reachable by phone.

Charges against the 59-year-old stem from a July 2016 night at The Club Car, a restaurant and bar on the island of Nantucket, during which a busboy alleges Spacey bought him drinks and groped him.

The busboy, 18 at the time of the alleged assault, came forward to report Spacey more than a year later, telling police he did not want Spacey to victimize others, according to a criminal complaint. CNN does not identify alleged victims of sexual assault.

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.

ROME (ITALY)
National Catholic Reporter

March 1, 2019

By NCR Editorial Staff

Just inside St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, to the right, is Michelangelo’s arresting sculpture, the Pietà. Layers upon layers present themselves for pondering. The wonder, initially, is that a piece of Carrara marble could yield such a luminous rendering of maternal agony. The young woman is resolute. She appears utterly exhausted in this moment of dismal uncertainty. The bloodied head of a son whose unpredictable, itinerant life ended on a hill of horrors, droops beyond her right arm. Her worry and anxiety are spent. Her burden now is death, a moment of emptiness.

It is from this raw instant of humiliation, of futility and apparent abandonment — the joke in the legend proclaiming “King of the Jews” — that our hope springs. No Resurrection occurs without it.

Throughout the church in the United States, in varying degrees, people are wondering some version of: “What do we do next? What can we do?”

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.

KOCHI (INDIA)
National Catholic Reporter

February 28, 2019

By Saji Thomas

As the Vatican grapples to devise stronger protocols and responses following a historic summit focused on clergy sex abuse of minors, five nuns in India complain of church repression for their support of a former superior general who was allegedly raped by a bishop.

“The Catholic Church leadership has been treating us as outcasts after we went public against Bishop Franco Mulakkal [of Jalandhar]. Even the Vatican has not bothered to acknowledge our complaints,” says Sr. Anupama Kelamangalathuveli, the spokesperson for five Missionaries of Jesus nuns who in September last year staged a sit-in for the bishop’s arrest.

The sisters seek attention from the Vatican to the plight of women religious abused by clergy, with clearer protocols and more protection. For now, the five sisters are living with the victim in a convent in Kerala, refusing orders to return to their own communities while the case is ongoing. They are caught in a wrangle between a bishop who supports their refusal and their congregational leadership. Meanwhile, they endure the rancor of sisters in their community who ridicule them and discount the victim’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
National Catholic Register

March 1, 2019

By Father Raymond J. de Souza

Cardinal George Pell was exactly where he should have been Wednesday night in Melbourne: in jail.

Let Henry David Thoreau explain: “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison” (Civil Disobedience).

Now that the peculiar “suppression order” in Australia has been lifted, we are free to state what has been evident for several years now. The prosecution of Cardinal Pell has been a monstrous miscarriage of justice, a religious persecution carried out by prosecutorial means.

Cardinal Pell was convicted last December for sexually assaulting two 13-year-old boys in 1996. The process that led to the convictions was, from the start, a sustained and calculated strategy to corrupt the criminal-justice system toward politically motivated ends.

And now Cardinal Pell is in jail, awaiting his sentencing next month. There is no shame that Cardinal Pell is in jail; the shame is sufficiently abundant to be worn by all those who put him there

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 Guardian

March 4, 2019

By Melissa Davey

Counsellors say defence of cardinal in the media has been distressing for people affected by child sexual abuse

A specialist counselling service that supports victims of childhood sexual abuse has been inundated with calls since the conviction of Cardinal George Pell, with many survivors saying they have been traumatised by high-profile support for the disgraced prelate.

The president of the Blue Knot Foundation, Cathy Kezelman, said demand for the childhood trauma service spiked when a suppression order lifted on 26 February, revealing Pell was guilty of five charges, including sexually penetrating a 13-year-old choirboy.

“It’s been so challenging, as we’ve had double the normal amount of calls since then,” Kezelman said. “Some people are acutely distressed. The story is playing out in public in such a way that it’s impossible, almost, to avoid it.”

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.

MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
Wall Street Journal

February 27, 2019

By Robb M. Stewart

Vatican’s former finance chief was found guilty of sexually abusing two choirboys in Australia decades ago

Prosecutors sought a lengthy prison term for the Vatican’s former finance chief, Cardinal George Pell, who was taken into custody Wednesday to await sentencing after he was found guilty of sexually abusing two choirboys in Australia decades ago.

Later in the day, the Vatican announced the start of a process that could lead to the cardinal’s dismissal from the priesthood.

At a Melbourne hearing, Chief Judge Peter Kidd revoked Cardinal Pell’s bail following a conviction in December on five counts of sex abuse and said sentencing would take place in two weeks. After bowing to the judge, Cardinal Pell was escorted from the courtroom to be taken to Melbourne Assessment Prison.

Each of the charges carries a maximum sentence of a decade in prison. Prosecutors have argued against each sentence being served concurrently, despite Cardinal Pell’s advanced age of 77 years. Cardinal Pell, the most senior Vatican official ever to stand trial on sex-abuse charges, continues to maintain his innocence and is appealing the conviction.

On Wednesday, defense attorney Robert Richter urged the judge to take Cardinal Pell’s age into account, along with his history of cardiac problems. He also said Cardinal Pell’s position as Australia’s highest-ranking Catholic in a church enveloped in years of abuse scandals would make him a target in prison.

Judge Kidd rejected a defense argument that Cardinal Pell’s offenses amounted to lesser examples of sexual abuse. “I see this as callous, brazen offending…[involving] a degree of impunity,” he said.

A jury of 12 men and women in December found Cardinal Pell guilty of four counts of an indecent act with or in front of a child under 16 and one count of sexual penetration of a minor. His accuser said the attack occurred in late 1996, just months after the priest became Archbishop of Melbourne, in the city’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

On Wednesday, the Vatican spokesman said the Vatican’s doctrinal office, which has responsibility for disciplining clergy guilty of sex abuse, would “now handle the case following the procedure and within the time established by canonical norm.”

According to church law, reports of sex abuse trigger a preliminary investigation to determine if a church trial is warranted. Cardinal Pell could eventually be punished by dismissal from the priesthood, commonly known as defrocking.

Earlier this month, former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington became the first U.S. cardinal in history—and possibly the first cardinal globally—to be defrocked, after a church trial found him guilty of sexual abuse of minors and sexual misconduct with adults.

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
Daily Beast

March 4, 2019

One of the alleged victims in a clerical sex-abuse case that was thrown out against Australian Cardinal George Pell has filed a civil lawsuit against the former Vatican No. 3. The 50-year-old man says Pell and a nun abused him when he lived at the St. Joseph’s School for Boys in Ballarat, Australia, in the 1970s. Pell was convicted in December 2108 in a separate case involving abuse that was allegedly carried out in a cathedral. The second trial, in which the alleged abuse was carried out in a swimming pool, was dismissed by the prosecutor in the case. Lawyers for the plaintiff say they are now seeking damages against the cardinal for psychiatric injury, loss of wages, and medical expenses. “David [not his real name], was one of the four complainants dubbed the ‘swimmers,’ and alleges he was sexually assaulted by Pell in a swimming pool in Ballarat,” the lawsuit states. “He was devastated when the prosecution decided not to proceed with his case.

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 4, 2019

A man will sue George Pell in the Supreme Court of Victoria, saying the disgraced cardinal abused him in Ballarat in the 1970s.

A man who says he was molested by George Pell when he was a boy in the 1970s will file a lawsuit against the disgraced cardinal in Victoria’s Supreme Court.

The suit, expected to be lodged this week, names Pell, the trustees of the Sisters of Nazareth (formerly St Joseph’s), the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne and the State of Victoria.

The complainant alleges he was a victim of physical and sexual abuse while in care at Ballarat’s St Joseph’s Boys Home between February 1974 and 1978.

The 50-year-old was a complainant against Pell in a criminal trial over allegations the cardinal indecently assaulted boys in Ballarat in the 1970s.

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
Daily Mail Australia

March 1, 2019

By Hannah Moore

* Cardinal George Pell, 77, was found guilty of child sex offences from 1996
* He was due to face a second trial, focused on allegations from the 1970s
* It was thrown out due to issues with evidence, but accuser’s family are not upset
* Sister of accuser Lyndon Monument says family thinks justice has been served
* Senior legal counsel have suggested if Pell testified he may have walked free

The sister of a man who claims Cardinal George Pell sexually assaulted him in a public pool in the 1970s has released a statement on behalf of her family following his conviction.

Karen Monument, sister of Lyndon Monument, told The Age the four years since her brother came forward publicly with allegations against Pell had been dark and difficult.

In her family’s first statement since Pell’s conviction for sexually assaulting two 13- year-old choirboys in a separate case, Ms Monument slammed those who had come out in defence of Australia’s top Catholic in the wake of his conviction, saying it was ‘her turn to speak’.

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.

DUBLIN (IRELAND)
The Journal

March 4, 2019

By Shane Dunphy

The summit heard that the canon law protection of ‘pontifical secret’ had been applied to numerous clerical abuse cases. Bizarrely, it was suggested that this practice should not continue – indicating that it is ongoing, writes Shane Dunphy.

FOR A WHILE, I thought Pope Francis was a good man.

I was quite moved when he comforted a child who had been told one of his parents was going to hell due to his atheism, telling him a loving God would never do such a thing.

He spoke openly about reforming the monolith the Roman Church has become, and I was delighted. Here, I thought, was the kind of leader the church needed in the 21st century.

But alas, the mask quickly began to slip.

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.

ROCHESTER (NY)
Rochester Democrat & Chronicle

February 28, 2019

By Steve Orr and Sean Lahman

A new wave of allegations against Roman Catholic clergy will emerge in New York as a result of the new Child Victims Act.

After decades of anguish and argument over sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, a final reckoning may be coming for New York parishioners.

Over the last quarter century, sexual abuse allegations, some of them horrendous, have been lodged in fits and starts against more than 400 priests and others associated with the church in New York state. The church hierarchy has been accused of concealing the truth about sexual misconduct as well.

But the number of past accusations and admissions pale in comparison to what’s happening today, and what will happen in the months ahead. The Democrat and Chronicle has found this confluence of events:

* More than 1,260 sexual abuse claims have been resolved and at least $228 million paid in compensation over the last two years under a systematic reconciliation program adopted by New York’s eight Catholic dioceses. Rochester is lagging, however, and has resolved about a half-dozen claims. By contrast, Ogdensburg, in less-populous St. Lawrence County, has already settled 39.

* A wave of lawsuits alleging child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy will begin arriving soon in New York courtrooms and peak starting this summer. Big law firms are flocking to New York to take advantage of a new state law that eases stringent limits on who can file such suits.
The cases, which will number in the many hundreds at least, will lay bare new details of past horrors and could push some of New York’s diocese to the brink of bankruptcy. What may be the first suit brought under the new law, filed Friday in Buffalo, is seeking $300 million for a single victim.

*The state Attorney General’s investigation of church sexual abuse has given investigators access to private diocesan records that will document still more instances of sexual misconduct and could well reveal past efforts by church officials to shield abusive clergy from discovery.

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.

ROCHESTER (NY)
Rochester Democrat & Chronicle

March 4, 2019

Court documents reveal that 430 people have claimed they were abused by members of the Irish Christian Brothers order.

Despite bankruptcy, victims may still sue dioceses where specific schools are located

A well-known figure in the science education world is among several Irish Christian Brothers accused of sexually abusing students at Irish Christian Brothers schools in New Rochelle in the 1960s and 1970s, lawyers for former students alleged.

Two men alleged that Brother Robert Pavlica of Iona Prep and Brother Michael John of the Blessed Sacrament High School abused them when they were students, said lawyer Mike Reck, attorney at Jeff Anderson and Associates of New York City.

Pavlica, who died in 2007, created the Authentic Science Research Program, which would later become the model for science research programs in New York and around the country.

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.

ROME (ITALY)
Crux

March 4, 2019

By Inés San Martín

Everyone within the Catholic Church, from the bishops to the laity, are called to work together to stop clerical sexual abuse, according to one of Mexico’s top bishops.

Mexican Archbishop Rogelio Cabrera Lopez of Monterrey, the president of Mexico’s bishops’ conference, spoke to Crux about the Feb. 21-24 Vatican summit on the protection of minors.

“I would highlight three themes [from the meeting]: The responsibility we have as bishops, but also that of the Church in general, to fight against the abuse of minors; the importance of accountability to God, the Church, civil justice and society; and the importance of good communication, so that people know what is happening,” Cabrera Lopez said. “This way, they can help us find a solution to these criminal acts that are always reprehensible: Harming boys and girls.”

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

NEW YORK (NY)
Crux

March 4, 2019

By Christopher White

A new report by one of the nation’s leading organizations promoting best practices in leadership within the Catholic Church chronicles the “twin crises” within the Catholic Church, that of sexual abuse and its cover-up.

The report, released on Friday by Leadership Roundtable, comes just days after Pope Francis’s historic meeting with the heads of bishops’ conferences around the world in which he pledged an all out war on sexual abuse.

The forty-page report serves as a compilation of recommendations that emerged from the organization’s Catholic Partnership Summit, which took place in February in the nation’s capital, and brought together a mix of clergy and lay Catholic leaders, and seeks to promote a way forward with a “preferential option for abuse victims and families.”

Participants in the Catholic Partnership Summit included Cardinals Blase Cupich of Chicago, Sean O’Malley of Boston, Joseph Tobin of Newark; Father Hans Zollner of the Center for Child Protection in Rome; Kathleen McChesney, a retired FBI agent who established the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Office of Child Protection; John Carr, the USCCB’s former point man on Capitol Hill and current director of the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown University; and a range of academics, theologians, and leaders from 43 dioceses in the United States.

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

ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

March 4, 2019

Over the weekend, HBO aired the first part of a powerful documentary on the topic of child sexual abuse, renowned abusers, and the reactions that victims experience when they come forward.

In Leaving Neverland, Wade Robson and James Safechuck discuss the grooming and abuse they say they experienced at the hand of international superstar Michael Jackson. While these allegations have bubbled up and simmered back down over the past several decades, one thing has stayed constant: the disbelief that survivors experience.

Whenever allegations are made against powerful and beloved men, those allegations are instantly disbelieved by their followers. Whether it was Barbara Blaine in 1985 or Anita Hill in 1991, survivors who bring forward allegations do so bravely and in the face of fierce opposition. Whether it was Fr. Chester John “Chet” Warren in 1985, or Michael Jackson in 1993 or Michael Jackson in 2019, there are usually those who cannot believe that the person who stood behind the pulpit or whose music they loved could also be the cause of so much pain to someone else.

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.

GREEN BAY (WI)
Associated Press

March 3, 2019

A Roman Catholic diocese in Wisconsin, says it’s removing the name of a former bishop from a center at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral in downtown Green Bay.

According to the Green Bay diocese’s newspaper, The Compass, Bishop David Ricken wrote a letter to parishioners saying Bishop Aloysius Wycislo failed to adequately address claims of clergy abuse while he was bishop from 1968 to 1983. The letter said Wycislo has not been accused of sexual misconduct.

The facility will be renamed Cathedral Center.

Ricken wrote that he hopes removing Wycislo’s name will help victims in their healing as the diocese tries to be more accountable for the issue of clergy abuse. The diocese in January released the names of 46 clergy members with substantiated allegations they sexually abused a minor.

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.

LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times

March 3, 2019

By Ruben Martinez

To write that now seems to beg an explanation. How can I continue to profess the faith within the bounds of an institution so thoroughly corrupted by the gravest of sins? How can I accept the host from the hands of men who themselves may have abused, or covered up for those who did?

I owe my faith to my grandmother and the Virgen de Guadalupe. In her American life, my Mexican grandmother rarely set foot in a church, but she hung a huge, sepia-toned print of the virgin in her living room, a votive always aflame before it. It was the heart of the house, the image of a mother who would never waver in protecting her child. I am struggling to hold on to that image amid the nightmare of predator priests betraying the Mother Church.

Roman Catholics who lapsed long ago — and certainly many survivors of sexual abuse — may ask why it took me so long to reach this moment of reckoning.

The answer is I don’t know what my faith would be without my church. I don’t know what my life would be like without my faith. And despite the onslaught of scandal after scandal, I’ve held on to the hope that the crisis would somehow open up the possibility of a profound conversation about the church’s identity — including priestly celibacy, gender and sexual orientation. Indeed, there were hints at the beginning of Francis’ papacy that such a dialogue could take place. But the conversation — such a complicated one, among more than a billion faithful on every continent — never seems to gain momentum before another scandal hits.

When the pope and cardinals speak, they never seem to address the laity’s confusion and deep spiritual turbulence.

As I came of age and ran up against the moral conservatism of the church, I was still able to find a community among kindred spirits in the faith who fought the good fight — many of them members of the Jesuit order, which was at the forefront of social movements in the United States and Latin America in the 1970s and ’80s. There were plenty of moralizing homophobes in the church, but so too were there figures who followed the radical spirit of the Gospels, like Father Gregory Boyle, the famous “gang priest” of Boyle Heights, or Father Michael Kennedy, who was instrumental in establishing a sanctuary for refugees from Central America in the 1980s.

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

NEW YORK (NY)
Newsday

March 3, 2019

By Pat McDonough

Sixteen years of Catholic education. A family life infused with the rich traditions of Catholicism. A Lynbrook parish where we worshipped and witnessed the Sisters of Mercy serve unselfishly alongside a faith-filled laity and dedicated clergy. Grace was laced through all of it and the desire to devote my life to ministry led to a 35-year career in the Diocese of Rockville Centre.

I’ve worked in our schools, parishes and diocesan offices as an educator, psychologist and director of youth ministry, always with talented teams of priests, religious and lay men and women dedicated to the mission of the Gospel. I married a high school religion teacher and our kids went to Catholic schools. I wrote a syndicated column for the Long Island Catholic newspaper, served on dozens of diocesan committees, gave retreats and parish missions, and took Long Island teens on service trips to meet impoverished people, those whom Jesus loved.

I was all in, until I wasn’t.

In 1995, a vulnerable, anxious adolescent struggling with his sexuality told me things about our parish priest that no one wants to hear. He asked me to help him because his parents wouldn’t, couldn’t or didn’t know how. I brought the boy’s story to the diocese, naively assuming that appropriate actions would be taken to help the priest and protect the boy. That didn’t happen.

I was devastated to discover that the priest’s abuse of a minor came without consequences. I grew despondent while the priest grew more brazen. He took his young victim to a gay bar where, at age 14, he was served a martini and molested by men unknown to him. The priest continued to sexually abuse the boy in his rectory and at his lake house.

The torment continued until a suicide attempt brought the boy and his horrific history to a hospital where a psychiatrist listened. The Suffolk County district attorney listened, too, and that led to a grand jury investigation of sexual abuse and corruption within our diocesan clerical system. Its findings, published in 2003 on the heels of shocking revelations of similar episodes in Boston, showed an established pattern of abuse and cover-up in the Diocese of Rockville Centre. The notoriously inadequate statute of limitations that existed then prevented criminal prosecution of abusers and their protectors.

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.

DUNDEE (SCOTLAND)
The Sunday Post

March 3, 2019

By Janet Boyle & Marion Scott

A Catholic priest accused of abuse in Scotland and California has faced allegations from five separate children, we can reveal.

The number of allegations against Joseph Dunne has increased calls for a full explanation from the Catholic Church as to when concerns were first raised.

He was told to leave Scotland but later got a berth at a church in California where similar allegations of inappropriate behaviour towards young girls.

A woman, now in her 50s, is the latest alleged victim to come forward to voice concern about Dunne’s behaviour when she was a 15-year-old girl attending his Glasgow church.

She says the priest, who denies all allegations of wrongdoing, encouraged her to wear a short skirt at tennis matches he organised, and once offered her money to go with him to the seaside.

Dunne was sacked by the Archdiocese of Glasgow in 1988 after complaints about his behaviour by two other schoolgirls.

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.

ITHACA (NY)
WSYR-TV

March 3, 2019

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester notified Cornell and Ithaca College of an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor against Reverend Carsten Martensen.

Father Martensen has served in campus ministry at Cornell University and Ithaca College since 2007.

“To our knowledge the allegation dates from the 1970s and does not correlate with Cornell, past or present. Father Martensen is not an employee of Cornell University, so the investigation is being led by the Jesuits USA Northeast Province,” said John Carberry, Senior Director of Media Relations and News at Cornell.

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.

BALTIMORE (MD)
WTOP News

March 3, 2019

By Keara Dowd

Maryland’s House of Delegates is considering a bill that would eliminate the statute of limitations in civil claims of child sex abuse.

The House Judiciary Committee heard testimony on the bill on Thursday from survivors and advocates. Among them were the bill’s sponsor, Del. C.T. Wilson, who was sexually abused as a child himself.

“There are people here, who probably won’t be here next year,” Wilson said in his opening statement to the committee. “And some of them are going to take their own lives, or their lives will end early because of what they went through.”

“If I don’t make it to next year, I’m going to give you guys one hell of a fight this year,” Wilson tearfully concluded.

In addition to firsthand accounts of abuse, the committee heard from various survivor organizations, as well as those who deal with legally pursuing sex abuse cases.

No one at the hearing spoke in opposition to the bill.

Susan Kerin of Catholics for Action, an organization allied with the Survivor Network for those Abused by Priests, says the legal process is an important one for survivors.

“It’s a healing process to have their day in court,” Kerin said.

While the bill only applies to civil claims and not criminal cases, Kerin said that the legislation can end up having an impact on those criminal prosecutions.

“Civil cases are an avenue for survivors to collect evidence that can be used in criminal cases,” said Kerin. “Prosecutors are not going to take a case unless they have really strong evidence, and this is a way for them to collect that and really control the process.”

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

KANSAS CITY (MO)
Kansas City Star

March 3, 2019

By Ian Cummings nd Judy Thomas

An Overland Park priest announced at Mass this weekend that abuse allegations had once again been raised against him and that he denied the allegations.

The Rev. William Bruning made the announcement at the Queen of the Holy Rosary Church, saying that a woman in her early 30s had accused Bruning of abusing her when she was a minor attending the Most Pure Heart of Mary School in Topeka. Bruning insisted the allegation was false.

In a written statement, the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas said the woman had raised the allegations twice before, in 2015 and in 2018. Each time, a review board at the archdiocese found the allegations could not be substantiated.

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.

LONDON (ENGLAND)
BBC News

March 3, 2019

A former pupil of St Aloysius’ College in Glasgow has said he was sexually abused at the school in the 1960s.

The man, now aged 66, made allegations against two Jesuit priests, one of whom was a teacher at the college.

Police Scotland confirmed inquiries were carried out in 2017, but there was insufficient evidence to pursue the matter further.

The college said it has “clear and robust safeguarding ­procedures” in place.

Patrick McGuire, a partner with Thompsons Solicitors, told BBC Scotland: “My client has spent the last 50 years in hell.

“Only now has he felt strong enough to come forward.

“He has taken that brave step and we want to do everything we can to obtain the justice he is looking for.”

Mr McGuire also urged anyone with similar experiences to come forward.

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.

BERKSHIRE (MA)
Berkshire Eagle

March 3, 2019

By Ruth Bass

For too long, the world has either pretended that sexual assault wasn’t there or treated it as something that could be taken care of in a quiet corner and with no records kept. So, colleges — landlords to thousands of our vulnerable offspring — didn’t call the police when one of their citizens attacked another. They might have had a meeting of the student disciplinary committee, they might have told the parents, they might have conducted a meeting in a dean’s office. But as often as not, nothing much happened. The victim might still find him or herself in the library next to the person who had committed what would be a felony if it had happened on North Street. It was as if colleges were like Native American reservations with their own courts and laws.

Colleges do better, much better, on these things now, although Education Secretary Betsy DeVos is trying to make life easier for the attacker and thus much less easy for the victim. Today it’s a police matter when boy assaults girl (or girl assaults boy, in fact). It’s seen as a felony. But the Catholic Church has a long way to go when it comes to sexual assault. And the church is not dealing with college dorm, boy-girl assault. It’s faced with adult priests molesting children.

Still, despite the fact that the church’s ruler, Pope Francis, keeps waffling, things are happening. American bishops who did not move criminal priests around as if they were just pieces on a chess board have asked for more action. And most recently, in this state where The Boston Globe put its spotlight on the priest/boy scandal, several district attorneys have put their oar in.

In offices in Hampden, Berkshire, Franklin and Hampshire, the district attorneys announced that they would now be in the front line to help families affected by clerical sexual abuse. The DAs have started by setting up a telephone hotline that will allow victims of abuse to report directly to law enforcement, bypassing the need to complain to church officials or just suffer in silence. The hotline, the DAs said, would be staffed by state police detectives who are trained to deal with sexual abuse.

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.

ITHACA (NY)
Ithaca Journal

March 3, 2019

By Katie Sullivan Borrelli

A priest who served at Ithaca College and Cornell University has been accused of sexual abuse of a minor.

In an Intercom message sent out to the campus community, Hierald Osorto, Ithaca College’s director of the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life, said the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester alerted the school it had received notice of an allegation against Rev. Carsten Martensen, who has served in campus ministry for both schools since 2007, for abuse that allegedly occurred in the 1970s.

Martensen has stepped down from all current assignments and public ministry, the diocese said, pending completion of an investigation by the USA Northeast Province of the Jesuits and future recommendations by its independent review board.

According to Cornell’s Catholic community website, Martensen was ordained a priest in 1977. He has taught at a summer day camp in the South Bronx and at Fordham Prep School, where he has also served as chaplain.

“I know that those within our Catholic community as well as the wider Ithaca College community will find this news upsetting and difficult to process,” Osorto said. “While the Diocese stated that it has never received an accusation against Father Carsten from his time in the Diocese of Rochester and that a full investigation is pending, this allegation is nonetheless deeply troubling to me, to President Collado, and to the college’s senior leaders, and we want to make sure above all else that our community receives the support that it needs.”

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.

TOPEKA (KS)
Topeka Capital-Journal

March 3,2019

By Katie Moore

A Catholic priest is denying an allegation of sexual abuse made by a woman who contends she was abused as a minor while attending Most Pure Heart of Mary School in Topeka.

Rev. William Bruning announced at Mass services over the weekend at Queen of the Holy Rosary Church in Overland Park that a woman in her 30s has accused Bruning of abusing her.

“Father Bruning emphatically denies the allegation and intends to fully defend his reputation against what he insists is a false allegation,” the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas said in a statement.

Bruning is a priest in good standing, according to the archdiocese, who first learned of the allegation in June 2015 when Bruning was at Blessed Sacrament Parish in Kansas City, Kan.

The archdiocese said the allegation was based on recovered memories. They reported it to law enforcement, and Bruning was asked to refrain from public ministry pending the outcome of an investigation. The archdiocese’s report investigator interviewed Bruning, the alleged victim and others.

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

[When the abuse report is not created: the case file of a deaf child]

MADRID (SPAIN)
El País

By Íñigo Domínguez

March 1, 2019

La historia de un presunto caso en un colegio de Salamanca, sobreseído de forma provisional en 2015, muestra la complejidad de estas acusaciones. El menor dice que acudirá a los tribunales a los 18 años

El problema de los abusos de menores para salir a la luz no es solo que no se denuncian, sino que las denuncias de presuntos casos muchas veces no prosperan. El reciente proceso del colegio del Opus Dei en Gaztelueta (Bizkaia) es emblemático. Los padres del menor denunciaron, la causa fue archivada y desistieron por consejo médico por el desgaste que sufría su hijo, pero cinco años después el chico, al llegar a la mayoría de edad, lo denunció él mismo. Fue entonces, el pasado mes de noviembre, cuando los tribunales le dieron la razón. Condenaron a 11 años a un profesor, aunque el colegio sigue diciendo que es mentira.

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.

POCATELLO (ID)
Idaho State Journal

March 3, 2019

By Leonard Hitchcock

Last week, over a hundred Catholic bishops gathered in Rome for a conference that addressed the problem of child sexual abuse by priests.

The church, and the general public, have known about this problem since the 1980s, when complaints began to surface in the United States. The Vatican chose, at first, to regard it as a localized phenomenon.

Then, over the ensuing decades, thousands of reports of abuse came in from Canada, Ireland and Australia, then from the continental European countries, and finally from Asia, Africa and South America. The church has finally been forced to acknowledge that the problem is a global one.

The Vatican has made some efforts to address the problem, but its reluctance to take measures to punish the higher-ranking church officials who have participated in the cover-up of the crimes of the priesthood has been conspicuous. It has acted, it seems, only when public outrage has left it no choice.

No doubt the conference was a positive step, though critics of the church pointed to a problematic, age-old conviction of the Vatican, viz. that it, and it alone, has the responsibility of disciplining priests, even when they commit civil crimes that the secular justice system is willing, and able, to deal with.

After four days of discussion, the Pope closed the event with a proposal for a new set of corrective measures. Most observers were disappointed at his failure to suggest concrete and decisive steps to solve the problem.

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.

BALTIMORE (MD)
Baltimore Sun

March 3, 2019

By Patricia M. Dwyer

Last month, Pope Francis met with bishops and cardinals from around the world to address the child abuse scandal that has devastated countless victims, rocked the faith of practicing Catholics and drawn outrage and disbelief from the global community. Several weeks earlier, we learned that for years clergy had been sexually abusing nuns. And recently, headlines revealed that gay priests, faithful to their vows, are being stigmatized as child abusers and that secret housing exists for infants and children from clergy’s illicit or consensual sexual relationships.

Something has got to change.

In addressing the nun’s abuse scandal, Pope Francis dismissed the notion that the abuse represented “temptations of the flesh,” but instead pointed to “clericalization,” clergy’s abuse of power due to their privileged status. I would wager we could expand that analysis and see power’s influence in all the sordid details shaking the church at its core.

As a Catholic nun from 1969 to 1991, I knew firsthand the ecclesial pecking order, with nuns playing back-up to the featured act: clergy forgave sins, developed and imposed doctrine, changed bread into the body of Christ. At one point of my career, I served as leader of a community of 13 sisters. Post Vatican Council, a sister who formerly had been deemed a “mother superior” was now called a “local coordinator,” a term meant to emphasize the collaborative nature of governance. We had monthly “house meetings” to make decisions together about the mundane (upkeep of the house, cooking and other responsibilities) and the visionary (our local community goals, our outreach in the parish or justice issues we would commit to). As the local coordinator, I was one of many voices; my role was to tap the energy and talents of the sisters with whom I shared a home and community life. Together we came to important decisions. This took time and dialogue, but the outcome was always worth it, as we discovered common ground to build on. It wasn’t perfect. It sometimes got messy. But that approach reflected who we were as a community.

That model was mirrored at the macro level of decision making as well. When major congregational issues were discussed, groups of sisters across geographic regions where we served would gather to share insights and discern possible paths forward. Results of these meetings were collected and reviewed by our president and council, and decisions were based on input from us as well as the leadership team.

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.

ROCHESTER (NY)
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

March 2, 2019

By David Andreatta

Christina Grana can’t forget the principal she and her classmates at St. Margaret Mary School in Irondequoit called “Hawk.”

“She was the monster in my dreams,” Grana recalled the other day. “She was the monster in my closet. She was the monster under my bed.”

She was Sister Janice Nadeau, a nun described by those who worked and lived with her as a “harsh,” “stern,” “aggressive,” and “heavy-handed” school administrator who was known to “pick on” children.

To Grana, she was a “predator” who forever altered the trajectory of Grana’s life with an outburst that culminated in a violent sexual assault in February 1977, when Grana was 12 years old and in the seventh grade.

“That single incident defined who I am as a person,” said Grana, now 54 and a mother of two living in Webster.

The alleged assault could not be corroborated by an investigator commissioned by the Diocese of Rochester, whose 33-page report on the matter Grana provided to the Democrat and Chronicle.

Even those who worked closely with Nadeau and described her in unflattering terms expressed astonishment at the allegation against her, according to the report.

But the administrator of the diocese’s abuse victims’ reconciliation program found Grana’s description of the events “completely credible,” and offered her a five-figure settlement intended to compensate for “pain and suffering” by which the diocese has agreed to abide.

The payout would be the first in the diocese known to involve an allegation of sexual abuse against a nun.

Nadeau arrived at St. Margaret Mary School in 1976. In her forties at the time, she had held a previous teaching post at McQuaid Jesuit High School, and set out to make an impression on her new students.

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.

MANKATO (MN)
Mankato Free Press.

March 2, 2019

The Vatican summoned bishops from around the world for four days of prayer and debate last week over the Roman Catholic Church’s continuing crisis over clerical sex abuse.

While Pope Francis called for “all-out battle” against “abominable crimes that must be erased from the face of the earth,” the prelates departed a week ago today without any concrete action. Nothing about abusive parish priests, nothing about the bishops who look the other way.

This is particularly disappointing considering that last November the Vatican blocked the U.S. Conference of Bishops from voting on proposals that would have sharpened policing of bishops in large part by involving lay experts.

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.

BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

March 2, 2019

It has been one year since Michael Whalen went public with accusations of abuse by Rev. Norbert F. Orsolits, and Orsolits admitted to Buffalo News reporter Jay Tokasz that he had molested “probably dozens” of young boys. That began the uncovering of decades of abuse involving more than 100 priests in the Diocese of Buffalo, a harrowing story that is still unfolding.

As victims of rape or other abuse have come forward, a common thread is the awful toll the crimes took on their lives. Depression, anxiety, alcohol and drug addiction, eating disorders, thoughts of suicide and troubled relationships were common. For innocent lives to be shattered like that is unconscionable.

The misdeeds among some in the Catholic Church have metastasized into a worldwide crisis. Cardinal George Pell of Australia, once an adviser to Pope Francis, in December was convicted of molesting two choirboys in 1996. Pell will be sentenced this week, just a few days after the pope concluded a four-day global summit in Rome on clerical sex abuse.

Some 190 bishops, priests and monks heard Francis use strong language in his closing speech at the summit; tough policies from the Vatican need to follow.

One phrase that victims’ advocates were hoping to hear from the pontiff was “zero tolerance.” Activists called for him to declare a universal “one strike and you’re out” rule, but no such announcement came.

The summit was still a big step forward in the Vatican’s acknowledgment of the horrors inflicted upon children who were raped by clergymen. The pope referred to men of God who “let themselves be dominated by their human frailty or sickness and thus become tools of Satan.”

The church leaders in attendance listened to stirring testimony from sexual abuse survivors, including four women. One, a canon lawyer and under-secretary in the Vatican’s laity office named Linda Ghisoni, had observers in tears as she described her own abuse, five years of rape by a priest.

“Engraved in my eyes, ears, nose, body and soul, are all the times he immobilized me, the child, with superhuman strength,” Ghisoni said.

We can only hope that the moving words of the four women might inspire the church to revisit its patriarchal structure that keeps females in subservient roles.

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.

DUBLIN (IRELAND)
Irish Times

March 2, 2019

“There are about 20 of us in my seminary. Seven are clearly gay. About six others have, we might say, tendencies. That agrees more or less with the usual percentage: between 60 and 70 per cent of seminarians are gay. Sometimes I think it’s as many as 75 per cent,” Axel tells me.

The young man would like to join the Rota, one of the three tribunals in the Holy See, and the initial reason for him attending the seminary.

Ydier wants to become a teacher. He wears a white cross on his shirt, and has dazzling blond hair. I mention this. “Fake blond! It’s fake! I have brown hair,” he tells me.

The seminarian goes on: ‘The atmosphere at my seminary is also very homosexual. But there are important nuances. There are students who really live out their homosexuality; others who don’t, or not yet.

“There are homosexuals who are really chaste; there are also heterosexuals who are practising for want of women, out of substitution, one might say. And there are others who only live it out secretly. It’s a very unique atmosphere.”

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.

LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Guardian

March 2, 2019

George Pell is arguing his child sexual abuse convictions should be overturned or he should receive a retrial, because of a “fundamental irregularity” that prevented him from entering a not-guilty plea in front of his jury.

The Victorian court of appeal has released Pell’s grounds for appeal against his December conviction for sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne in December 1996 and early 1997, when he was the archbishop.

“There was a fundamental irregularity in the trial process, because the accused was not arraigned in the presence of the jury panel as required,” the appeal, filed by Pell’s barrister, Robert Richter QC, reads.

It is one of three grounds for his appeal that were filed on 21 February.

Pell also takes aim at the reliance of the jury on only one victim’s evidence.

“The verdicts are unreasonable and cannot be supported, having regard to the evidence, because on the whole of the evidence, including unchallenged exculpatory evidence from more than 20 crown witnesses, it was not open to the jury to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt on the word of the complainant alone,” his first appeal ground says.

If the court of appeal accepts that, it could dismiss the case.

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.

LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Guardian

March 2, 2019

By Christos Tsiolkas

I have been angry with Cardinal George Pell for a long time. That anger was first stirred by his absolute disdain for extending compassion to people living with Aids, and also by his refusal to accept queer people into Catholic fellowship.

I was also made furious by his perverting of the teachings of the Gospels, most clearly visible in his prioritising of political alliances with the rich and the powerful rather than offering ministry and care to those most in need.

So I understand the righteousness that many people are feeling and expressing, now that he has been convicted of the sexual abuse of two young boys. A hypocrite has been caught out and is being punished. Of course we are going to exalt in that.

Except, on seeing him being led out of the courthouse and into the media scrum, my anger fell away and all I felt was an immense sadness.

The ugly story of sexual and physical abuse in the Catholic church is one of the defining stories of our age. As we all do, I know many people who were raised in that church who now find it impossible to remain loyal to the faith. The betrayal, especially for those who have suffered the abuse, is too great.

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.

OWENSBORO (KY)
WLKY TV

March 2, 2019

A Catholic priest who was often seen on the bench alongside Rick Pitino’s Kentucky and Louisville basketball teams has been suspended on allegations he sexually abused a minor in the 1980s.

Father Joseph Edward Bradley was “temporarily suspended” by the Diocese of Owensboro, according to a statement Friday. The diocese received a report that he had sexually abused a minor “in the 1980s while he was principal at Owensboro Catholic High School.”

The Lexington Herald-Leader reports Bradley was a fixture on the University of Kentucky bench during the Pitino coaching era in the 1990s. Bradley also served as an unofficial chaplain to Pitino’s University of Louisville teams.

Bradley, 75, retired from ministry in 2011 but has been the volunteer chaplain at Owensboro Catholic High School since then, the diocese said.

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

JERSEY CITY (NJ)
Jersey Journal

March 3, 2019

By Rev. Alexander Santora

Late last month, Pope Francis convened an unprecedented meeting of the heads of national conferences of bishops throughout the world and achieved his goal.

“The church has now become increasingly aware of the need not only to curb the gravest cases of abuse by disciplinary measures and civil and canonical processes, but also to decisively confront the phenomenon both inside and outside the church,” Francis said at the summit’s opening. He rejected criticism that identifying abuse more widely is minimizing the church’s culpability.

But some victims of abuse by clergy and other critics of the church’s plan call it insufficient. And the lack of church reform undercuts the church’s determination to move forward.

The pope offered 21 points for consideration by the bishops, curia officials and heads of religious orders, including a small group of nuns. Among the points were to remove perpetrators, prepare a practical handbook, establish protocols to handle accusations against bishops, and establish pastoral care for those injured by abuse so they can move toward recovery.

“To decide that priests and bishops guilty of sexual abuse of minors leave the public ministry” was one of the more urgent points Francis shared.

This is what people wanted to hear. What they did not see is a change in church law to back it up.

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.

CASPER (WY)
Caspar Start Tribune

March 3, 2019

By Seth Klamann

Catholic leaders in Wyoming continue to compile a full list of credibly accused clergymen stretching back to 1950, more than five months after the work began and three months after the diocese announced the effort to its parishioners.

The internal investigation was announced in early December, three months after the Star-Tribune first inquired about the records and the vicar general of the Diocese of Cheyenne said the work would begin. Since that September request, the diocese has repeatedly told the newspaper that its records inquiry was underway and that no timeline existed for the completion of the work.

Diocese vicar general Rev. Carl Gallinger and Bishop Steve Biegler reiterated that position last week in answer to questions sent by the newspaper. The list will include all living or dead clergymen who faced credible accusations going to back to 1950, the officials said.

Gallinger told the Star-Tribune previously that the diocese’s “commitment” to the review predated September, though the work had not begun until the Star-Tribune requested the records that same month.

Biegler said the church had posted signage in every Catholic church in the state, encouraging victims to come forward.

“We have no other way of finding victims,” he wrote.

He said that no other victims have been identified by the diocese since an August announcement that a third alleged victim of former Bishop Joseph Hart was identified by the church. He noted, though, that he did not have access to any information law enforcement may have.

Through an attorney, Hart has denied any wrongdoing.

The scrutiny and work by the diocese here arose after church officials in Cheyenne announced that sexual misconduct allegations against Hart were credible and that 2002 investigations by Cheyenne Police and the Natrona County District Attorney’s Office were flawed. Both agencies recommended the case be closed, citing a lack of evidence, according to documents obtained by the Star-Tribune.

But Gallinger has said that the presence of the 2002 victim who sparked that investigation provided enough evidence to indicate the claims were credible.

Biegler said that no other law enforcement agencies in the state have been contacted as a part of the diocese’s investigation.

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.

JEFFERSON CITY (MO)
News Tribune

March 3, 2019

By Joe Gamm

Admittedly, he’s been impatient — waiting on the Vatican for actions dealing with clergy sexual abuse — said Bishop W. Shawn McKnight, of the Catholic Diocese of Jefferson City.

And because of the size of Pope Francis’ summit on child sex abuse, gathering the church’s world leaders in Rome over four days last week, McKnight feared the simple bureaucracy surrounding such a large, short event would prevent much from being accomplished.

But the results surprised McKnight.

“I’m hopeful because I see a green light coming from the Vatican for what we were trying to do as (U.S.) bishops back in November,” he said. “We were asked to cease and desist until this summit were to take place. The indication I’m getting is that we are moving full speed ahead.”

That’s a reversal from the feeling U.S. bishops had late in 2018.

Last November in Baltimore, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops held its annual meeting — to promote the greater good the church can do for humankind, according to the conference website — with a priority of adopting a strategy to deal with the growing clergy sexual abuse scandal. However, as the event began, the Vatican asked the conference to delay a vote until after last week’s worldwide meeting of the presidents of bishops.

U.S. bishops were disappointed by the delay, they said. They’ve been dealing with the crisis for decades.

On his own, McKnight had already voluntarily included the local diocese in a statewide investigation of clergy abuse and implemented a protocol for dealing with clergy abuse in his diocese. Within that protocol, any allegation of sexual abuse made against a bishop would be referred to an independent investigator who would make an initial determination of whether there is any truth to it. If so, the bishop would request a leave of absence from the pope until a preliminary investigation could be completed and a report submitted to the Review Board of the Archdiocese of St. Louis. That board would then make a recommendation to the apostolic nuncio (the pope’s representative in the United States).

Knowing the church has not done a good job of policing itself, McKnight and other bishops hoped to rely on the laity to provide external investigative services into accusations of abuse. They worried after being asked to not implement a U.S. strategy in November that the Vatican was blocking their plans.

The conclusion of the Rome meeting has given U.S. bishops confidence, McKnight said.

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

LONDON (ENGLAND)
Daily Mail

March 3, 2019

Sydney’s top Catholic urged parishioners to be patient as Cardinal George Pell’s case heads for an appeal, at the first mass since the conviction became public.

Archbishop of Sydney Anthony Fisher said the process was in God’s hands and people should not be ‘too quick to judge’ either way.

‘If we are too quick to judge we can end up joining the demonisers or the apologists, those baying for blood or those in denial,’ he said on Sunday morning.

‘Our readings remind us that things are not always what they seem, that we must look beneath the surface and allow truth and justice to unfold in God’s good time.’

Pell was on Wednesday remanded in custody two months after he was found guilty of raping a choirboy and molesting another in Melbourne in 1996.

Archbishop Fisher told worshipers at St Mary’s Cathedral that unlike others he would not comment on the substance of the case, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

He said final conclusions shouldn’t be drawn until the Court of Appeals judges reviewed the case and decided whether to quash his conviction.

‘Amidst the heated emotions of the present I also pray for public calm and civility,’ he said.

Archbishop Fisher, who replaced Pell in his role when the 77-year-old was promoted to cardinal, admitted the case would shake the faith of many Catholics.

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.

AUSTIN (TX)
Spectrum News

March 1, 2019

By Reena Diamante Austin

While the Vatican summit on clergy abuse marked a major turning point for the Catholic Church, many survivors felt the meeting of 200 religious superiors from around the world did not meet expectations. Pope Francis vowed to confront abusers with the “wrath of God.”

“They have the information they need to truly take action for zero tolerance. The Pope talked about zero tolerance, but talking about it is not enough,” said Carol Midboe, the Austin support group leader, for the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.

Midboe is back in town after attending the historic four-day summit with other survivors of sexual abuse. To describe how she felt leaving the summit in one word, Midboe said she was “disappointed.”

“We were hopeful that this time that we would see concrete actions taken and action provided with a timeline at the end of the summit and that didn’t happen,” Midboe said. “We’ve heard this rhetoric before from the Church.”

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.

SCOTTSBLUFF (NE)
Scottsbluff Star Herald

March 3, 2019

By Terry Mattingly

At the end of the movie “Spotlight,” the screen went black before a message appeared noting that in 2002 alone, The Boston Globe’s investigative reporting team published nearly 600 stories about sexual abuse by Catholic clergy.

The next screen noted, “249 priests and brothers were publicly accused of sexual abuse within the Boston Archdiocese.”

But there was more. The first time Sister Veronica Openibo of Nigeria saw this film — which won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2016 — she was stunned to see four screens packed with the names of 223 American dioceses and nations in which major abuse scandals had been uncovered.

“Tears of sorrow flowed,” she said, speaking at the Vatican’s global summit on clergy sexual abuse. “How could the clerical church have kept silent, covering these atrocities? The silence, the carrying of the secrets in the hearts of the perpetrators, the length of the abuses and the constant transfers of perpetrators are unimaginable.”

Didn’t any of these priests and bishops, she asked, go to confession? Didn’t they wrestle with their sins while talking with the spiritual directors who guide their lives? Later, she went further, asking why these clergy were allowed to remain in ministry after committing these atrocities. Why weren’t they defrocked?

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.

ROME (ITALY)
Crux

March 3, 2019

By John L. Allen Jr.

Whenever there’s a big Vatican shindig, it’s never just one experience. It’s almost always a tale of multiple events, depending on one’s angle.

To offer just a partial list, there’s the event as it’s experienced by those actually taking part; the public face that the Vatican’s PR machinery tries to apply; the way the event is covered by the media; and the circus that unfolds around the event in protests, parallel meetings, news conferences, snarky tweets, polemical essays, and so on.

Analyzing how these differing perspectives coincide, and where they diverge, usually reveals a good deal about where things stand in terms of the politics of the Catholic Church at any given moment.

Such was again the case with the Feb. 21-24 summit on clerical sexual abuse convened by Pope Francis, and perhaps nowhere is that clearer than discussions of homosexuality, gay clergy, and whether a supposed “gay lobby” within the Church’s power structure has anything to do with the abuse scandals.

Beginning with the statistical fact that a 2004 John Jay report in the United States found that 81 percent of abuse cases involved interaction between priests and minor males, there’s long been an active discussion as to whether homosexuality has anything to do with the crisis.

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.

SAN JOSE (CA)
Mercury News

March 2, 2019

By Erin Baldassari

An Oakland priest who was suspended from his duties following allegations of child sexual abuse, is believed to have fled the country, officials with the Oakland diocese said Saturday.

Rev. Alexander Castillo, who served at Saint Anthony Parish in Oakley and Our Lady of Guadalupe in Fremont, was placed on administrative leave Jan. 30 and stripped of his authority to function publicly as a priest.

He had been living at Our Lady of Lourdes rectory in Oakland, the diocese’s chancellor, Steve Wilcox, said during a February interview with this news organization. At the time, Wilcox said the church was not aware of Castillo’s whereabouts but believed he was living in the area.

He said he knew that Castillo was at Our Lady of Lourdes immediately after his leave of absence, but that he was also looking for “groups of friends to live with for a few days until things calm down.”

“I don’t know whether he found someone to live with, whether it was in San Francisco or some other place,” Wilcox said. He added, “But he didn’t move. He wasn’t officially asked to move.”

Diocese officials last spoke to Castillo on Feb. 20, said Helen Osman, a spokeswoman for the church. But, attempts to reach him the next day, on Feb. 21, were unsuccessful, she said. Diocesan staff attempted to file a missing persons report on Feb. 22, she said, but were told to first contact “every jail and hospital in the area” before the police would accept the report. They did, she said, and filed the missing persons report the next day, on Feb. 23.

Oakland police informed diocesan officials on Friday that Castillo, a native of Costa Rica, had been located, though Osman said officers would not tell them where he had been found, except that he had left the country.

Multiple calls to Oakland police were not returned, and a spokeswoman for the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office said she was not able to provide any information about the case on Saturday.

Melanie Sakoda, a leader in the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, blasted the church’s handling of the case. Officials waited three days after a victim reported the abuse to church officials before Castillo was removed from his duties, Wilcox said in February. The diocese sent out a press release the day following Castillo’s suspension, but didn’t report it to police until five hours later.

Wilcox also said in February that he was in contact with Oakland police regarding both the evidence surrounding Castillo’s case and the timeline for reporting the allegations to police.

“This is what we were concerned about with their delay in reporting,” Sakoda said, “that he would flee the country.”

She said she hoped it would not be a repeat of what happened in the case of Francisco Xavier Ochoa. The Sonoma ex-priest fled to Mexico in 2006, several days after meeting with the bishop of the Santa Rosa diocese and other church officials and admitting to offering a boy $100 to strip dance in front of him. He also confessed to kissing other boys on the lips, the Press Democrat reported. He died quietly of lung cancer in Mexico three years later.

His victims, Sakoda said, never had a chance to confront him in court.

“He was never able to be brought back for justice,” she said. “It feels like another betrayal.”

Castillo came to the U.S. in 2008 and was ordained in 2011. Fluent in Spanish and English, he organized and directed missionaries in Costa Rica, and, beginning in 2010, taught at the Serra Catechetical Institute for parents and instructors in the faith. He directed the reopening of the Escuela de Ministerios Pastorales in 2013, where he was an academic dean and taught several courses. In 2014, he was appointed as Secretary to the Bishop and Episcopal Master of Ceremonies, in which capacity he assisted Bishop Michael Barber in public sermons.

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
news.com.au

March 3, 2019

By Rebecca Franks

Marco Fabbro was sadistically raped by a twisted paedophile priest at Melbourne’s prestigious Xavier College aged just 11 years old. The violent and horrific experience left him humiliated, disgusted, ashamed and really, really angry.

“At school, I turned to the Church because there was a sense of belonging and love that I wasn’t getting in my family. I became a choirboy, I looked up to the divinity and Christianity and the belief system very avidly,” Marco tells news.com.au.

That was until the day his innocence was stripped away from him in a brutal and sadistic attack in 1971 on the grounds of Xavier College’s preparatory school Burke Hall in a small room behind the Jesuit priest Father John Byrne’s office.

Marco has tried to block details of the attack from his memory; of being whipped and sexually assaulted on a leather couch by Father Byrne during school hours while the 59-year-old priest mumbled Latin behind him.

“I became very rebellious, very angry,” Marco says. “At school I was what you would call the class clown or the ‘village idiot’ because I didn’t want to be taken seriously, due to the seriousness of what happened.”

Soon after, Marco was sent to St Ignatius College Riverview, an exclusive Catholic boarding school on Sydney’s lower North Shore which includes former prime minister Tony Abbott and former deputy PM Barnaby Joyce as alumni.

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.

READING (PA)
Readiing Eagle

March 1, 2019

By Carol Balinski:

One of the recent reports from a state’s Roman Catholic dioceses listing names of priests credibly accused of sexual abuse of children hit close to home for me.

When I saw news reports last month that New Jersey’s dioceses had released the names of 188 priests and deacons, I felt compelled to go online to see if any of those priests had served at my childhood parish in the Camden Diocese. At the same time, I felt a sense of foreboding. There was one priest in particular whose name I dreaded seeing on the list. He was a priest whom my late mother had held in high regard and who presided at my wedding ceremony. Finding out he had been accused of sexual abuse would feel like a betrayal of my mother’s trust in him.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I did not find that priest’s name on the list. There was only one priest on the list who served my home parish, but his tenure came after I had left home for college and converted to Protestantism. I did not know him.

But, for a moment, I understood more fully what many Catholics and former Catholics in Berks County went through last August when the groundbreaking Pennsylvania grand jury report identified priests who had been accused of sexual abuse. Some, like me, may have felt relief at not finding names of beloved priests on the list. But, for others who saw names they recognized, feelings of disbelief, sadness, betrayal or anger must have been overwhelming.

The New Jersey list was the result of an internal review spurred by a law enforcement investigation announced last year after Pennsylvania led the way with its grand jury report.

According to www.vox.com, at least 13 other states and Washington, D.C., have launched investigations into allegations of sexual abuse or cover-ups involving the Catholic Church. In addition to New Jersey, those states are New Mexico, New York, Nebraska, Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, Vermont, Maryland, Florida, Virginia, Kentucky and Wyoming.

On Monday, the Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa, published a list of priests who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse involving minors.

The Diocese of Sioux City, Iowa, released the following statement Monday: “As you review the list, it is important to remember the accusations, while considered credible, are not the equivalent of conviction in a court of law. Many of the accused priests are deceased and cannot defend themselves.”

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.

SANTA FE (NM)
Santa Fe New Mexican

March 1, 2019

By Rebecca Moss

The New Mexico Attorney General’s Office this week searched a trove of records at the Archdiocese of Santa Fe on two former Albuquerque priests accused of repeatedly raping a child over several years in the 1980s.

Both were identified by the Catholic Church as “credibly accused” sexual abusers.

The accuser, now 44, told investigators that the abuse began at Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Church in Albuquerque. He alleges he was raped by then-Rev. Ronald Bruckner beginning in 1984, when he was 9.

According to a search warrant affidavit filed Thursday in state District Court in Albuquerque, the accuser said that within two years, the Rev. Robert Malloy also began raping him. The abuse extended for at least four years, the affidavit says, with the two men assaulting the boy not only on church property, but also in Albuquerque hotel rooms, at state parks and during church events.

Much of the abuse occurred during Boy Scouts trips throughout the New Mexico wilderness, the accuser told investigators, as both former priests had served as Scout leaders.

In addition to raping the boy, the affidavit says, the priests filmed him performing sexual acts.

The accuser spoke with the Attorney General’s Office investigators in a Feb. 15 interview, saying he had lived close to the church and that his family was deeply immersed in the church community.

Malloy, 61, denied the allegations Friday. “I can only say that I unequivocally deny all of it,” he said when reached by phone. “Nothing like that happened. It is very disturbing. That did not occur — at any time.”

He declined to comment on how he has spent his time since leaving the clergy in 1998, when he faced criminal charges of soliciting teen boys for prostitution.

Most of the counts were dismissed as part of a plea deal.

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.

Healing From Complex Trauma blog

I have been asked several times, how to identify if an adult is/has been groomed for sexual abuse, by an abuser.

I was ‘groomed’, by a narcissistic pastor. I was very vulnerable, and he used that for to his advantage. Seeking to get me alone, talking about highly inappropriate things – like telling me how many pastors have affairs, discussing sexual intimacy with me in detail, inappropriate touching and hugging, all whilst alone with him, in my home. He told me he had feelings for me, he should only have for his wife. So, clearly did not see me as a sister, which was how he termed his ‘feelings’, earlier on in the grooming process.

He broke every rule of pastoral counselling, didn’t keep any records, hadn’t told his senior pastor where he was, and then lied about it all.

This below is great info about adult grooming.

http://outofthefog.net/CommonBehaviors/Grooming.html

Definition: Grooming is the predatory act of maneuvering another individual into a position that makes them more isolated, dependent, likely to trust, and more vulnerable to abusive behavior.

Description: Grooming is a insidious predatory tactic, utilized by abusers. Grooming is practiced by Narcissists, Antisocial predators, con-artists and sexual aggressors, who target and manipulate vulnerable people for exploitation.

Child grooming is the deliberate act of establishing an emotional bond with a child, to lower the child’s resistance. Child grooming can result in the minor falling victim to physical, sexual and emotional abuse, or specifically, to manipulate children into participating in slave labor, prostitution, and/or the production of child pornography.

Adult grooming is correspondent to child grooming and applies to any situation where an adult is primed to allow him or herself to be exploited or abused. While it is a common assumption that grooming is only practiced on the very young, identical emotional and psychological processes are commonly used to abuse or exploit adults the elderly, and those with compromised mental facilities.

An predator will identify and engage a victim and work to gain the target’s trust, break down defenses, and manipulate the victim until they get whatever it is they are after. Overt attention, verbal seduction (flattery / ego stroking), recruitment, physical isolation, charm, gift-giving, normalizing, gaslighting, secrecy, and threats are all hallmarks of grooming.

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.

LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Guardian

March 2, 2019

By Harriet Sherwood

A woman who was sexually abused as a teenager by a Catholic priest has expressed anger and disappointment that the church’s leader in England and Wales declined to meet her before attending the Vatican’s abuse summit last month.

The woman, who does not want to be named, wrote to Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the archbishop of Westminster, several times in the run-up to the Rome summit asking him to hear about shortcomings in the way the church handled her disclosure. The cardinal’s private office replied to say his diary was too full to arrange a meeting.

“I feel incredibly frustrated, but in some ways not surprised,” she told the Observer. “I’ve not been listened to throughout the whole process. I’ve been made to feel like I’m the enemy. I’m just about clinging on as a member of the church, but I’m not sure for how much longer, to be honest.”

Pope Francis, who convened the high-profile sexual abuse summit at the Vatican, asked all cardinals, bishops and other senior church figures attending to meet abuse survivors in their own countries before travelling to Rome in order to get a better understanding of the issues.

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.

SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
Sydney Morning Herald

March 1, 2019

By Geoffrey Robertson

News of George Pell’s conviction was a fitting end to a papal summit on child abuse which achieved nothing and began with other cardinals attributing the problem to homosexuals in the priesthood.

The reality is that priests abuse small boys not because they are gay but because they have the opportunity. Most are not even paedophiles, but rather sexually maladjusted, immature and lonely individuals unable to resist the temptation to exploit their power over children who are taught to revere them as the agents of God.

A church that has tolerated the sexual abuse of tens of thousands of children – a crime against humanity in any definition – needs to face unpalatable truths and to make drastic reforms.

Cover-ups are no longer an option. The magnitude of the crimes is well-established and the evidence of how the Vatican and its bishops hushed them up in order to protect the reputation and finances of the Catholic Church is fully proved.

By insisting upon its right to deal with allegations under medieval canon law weighted in favour of the defendant and providing no effective punishment, the church itself became complicit.

It has allowed abusive priests to confess without fear of any report to police; it has encouraged bishops to withhold information from prosecuting authorities; it has refused to allow Vatican envoys (papal nuncios) to co-operate with government inquiries on the excuse that it is a state and hence they have diplomatic immunity.

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.

COLUMBUS (OH)
Columbus Dispatch

March 1, 2019

By Danae King

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Columbus released a list Friday of 34 clergy members who were “credibly accused” of sexually abusing children. The latest abuse case on the list occurred more than 25 years ago.

The diocese said that it reviewed files on almost 2,000 clergy members who served in the diocese since it was founded in 1868.

“I share with the faithful of our diocese sorrow, sadness, and anger over such behavior,” Columbus Bishop Frederick Campbell, said in a letter posted on the diocese website with the list. “I apologize to all victims for the abuse suffered, and hope that these disclosures will help bring healing to all victims and their families.”

The diocese’s list does not include when the accusations were made, when the alleged abuse occurred or where the clergy members served in the diocese. Of the 34 clergymen, 21 were listed as deceased.

None of the abuse cases involving clergy who are still living happened within Ohio’s statute of limitations for prosecution, Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien said in a statement.

In response to the list’s release, six victim advocates said it likely wasn’t comprehensive and pointed to media reports, which show at least two more recent cases.

“I’m aware of priests who have abused who aren’t on the list,” said Carol Zamonski, leader of the Central Ohio Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

Columbus is just the latest of 112 dioceses nationwide that have released similar lists, said Terry McKiernan, co-president of Bishop Accountability, an organization that works to track allegations of abuse by Catholic officials.

An increase in releases began soon after an August grand jury report released by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro detailed widespread child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in that state.

Ohio lawmakers have said in the past that the state’s home-rule laws put sexual-abuse investigations in the hands of county prosecutors. Joe Grace, Shapiro’s spokesman, said 15 other state attorneys general have publicly acknowledged investigations into clergy abuse and the U.S. Department of Justice is conducting a nationwide investigation.

“This is a matter of concern and discussion between me and my senior staff,” Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said of the fact that his office has no jurisdiction over clergy sexual-abuse cases. “Speaking as a voice for victims, the lack of information does nothing to bring closure to people who may have been abused by a trusted authority figure,” he said.

O’Brien said in a statement that the Columbus Diocese has regularly reported allegations to police, children services agencies and the prosecutor’s office since 2002.

George Jones, spokesman for the diocese, said the list had not been cross-checked with lists released by other Ohio dioceses, but the diocese plans to do so.

Campbell, who declined to speak with The Dispatch on Friday, said in the letter that he hoped the release of the information would “restore the confidence of all faithful in the church and in its clergy.”

Bishop Accountability co-president Anne Barrett Doyle said releasing lists of perpetrators is helpful to victims.

“Transparency is the ultimate act of compassion,” she said. “When you release a name of an accused priest, even if we already know the name, it provides instant validation to the victims and families.”

Still, the lists are almost never complete.

“Almost every time a bishop releases a list of those credibly accused there are omissions,” said Donna Doucette, executive director of Voice of the Faithful, a Boston-based organization that supports victims of priest sexual abuse. ”… It’s just been too many years with too many people to ever say it’s complete.”

SNAP Midwest Regional Leader Judy Jones said in a statement that the release is an important first step in protecting children, preventing future cases of abuse and healing survivors, but more information needs to be included.

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.

EVANSVILLE (IN)
Evansville Courier & Press

March 2, 2019

By Jon Webb

The rules were specific.

Last week, when the Evansville Diocese released the names of clergy who had been “credibly accused” of sexual misconduct against minors, it made it clear that each name had to meet narrow criteria.

The accusations must be deemed “credible”: a term defined by the Diocesan Review Board and Bishop Joseph Siegel. Either that or the accused had to admit to the crime.

The abuses had to be committed against minors or someone who “habitually has only the imperfect use of reason,” (i.e. the mentally handicapped).

The report didn’t state this outright, but apparently the accused had to be directly – not just closely – tied the diocese.

But any Google search of abusive priests in Evansville will turn up names that didn’t make the Feb. 22 release.

In 2003, the diocese itself said 15 priests had been accused of misconduct. Sixteen years later, that number had somehow winnowed to 12.

The list didn’t include two priests – David Fleck and the late Raymond Kuper – whose cases are still winding through the diocese. It also omitted multiple priests who were cleared only through diocesan review – not by law enforcement.

That includes a now-dead clergyman who, when he was still living, had two women level accusations against him in 2002. In the first case, a board selected by then-Bishop Gerald Gettelfinger believed the abuse did happen, but that it was committed by a different priest. That shadowy person’s identity was never revealed.

As for the second allegation, the board refused to consider it. The accuser was 18 at the time of the reported abuse. They only investigated claims involving minors, they said at the time.

Some cases weren’t as ambiguous. Here are two examples.

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.

OWENSBORO (KY)
KPR TV

March 2, 2019

By Lisa Autry

The Catholic Diocese of Owensboro has temporarily suspended a priest while he’s being investigated on child sexual abuse allegations.

Fr. Joseph Edward Bradley was suspended as the volunteer chaplain at Owensboro Catholic High School after a complaint was received on Tuesday. The allegation refers to sexual abuse by Fr. Bradley in the 1980s while he was principal at Owensboro Catholic High School.

A statement from the diocese says the allegation was immediately reported to the local Commonwealth Attorney’s Office and the Diocesan Review Board which removed Fr. Bradley from his volunteer role until the investigation is complete.

Fr. Bradley, who was ordained a priest of the diocese in 1975, became a staff member at Owensboro Catholic High School in 1976 and served as principal from 1980-1985. He pastored five parishes in the Diocese of Owensboro before retiring from public ministry in 2011. That’s when he began his role as volunteer chaplain at Owensboro Catholic High School.

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.

Brent Detwiler’s blog

February 28, 2019

I hope you will read the entire article in order to fully grasp why the action taken by Al Mohler in cutting all ties to C.J. Mahaney and Sovereign Grace Churches, Inc. was so necessary. It has taken me three weeks to write this documentary account. It preserves a historical record but more importantly it illustrates what I consider to be the greatest problem in the evangelical church. Elders, pastors, overseers are not held accountable to the qualifications of Scripture found in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9. The examples are endless and it has done extraordinary harm to the gospel.

Evangelical leaders must resolve to act without partiality and favoritism when dealing with fellow leaders who are not above reproach (1 Tim. 5:19-22). Witnesses must be heard, evidence examined, and corrective action taken. This has not been the case with C.J. Mahaney or the leaders of Sovereign Grace Churches over the past 8 years. Tragically, so many of our top Bible teachers, authors, bloggers, professors, seminary presidents, parachurch leaders, and church planting experts have shown no discernment and refused to study the evidence. The good ole’ boy network has covered up for one its own. And yet, no one is fessing up to it.

In the providence of God, Al Mohler was forced to reveal his severing of ties but there is much more for him to do. Here are some highlights from my article followed by the full length article. I hope you take the time to read it all.

##

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.

GREEN BAY (WI)
Press-Gazette

March 1, 2019

By Haley BeMiller

The Catholic Diocese of Green Bay has removed a former bishop’s name from a cathedral center because of the bishop’s reported mishandling of clergy complaints.

The Bishop Wycislo Center, an addition to the St. Francis Xavier Cathedral, will now be called the Cathedral Center.

In a Feb. 23 letter that the Press-Gazette obtained, Bishop David Ricken explained to parishioners of St. Francis why former Bishop Aloysius Wycislo’s name would no longer be on the cathedral center.

Ricken said Wycislo was never accused of sexual misconduct. Still, he said, removing Wycislo’s name allows community members with concerns about how he handled complaints to “move forward on a path to healing.”

“With the release of the disclosure list it is clear that a majority of the problems and challenges in the Diocese of Green Bay occurred during the 1960s and ’70s,” Ricken wrote.

Wycislo was bishop from 1968 to 1983.

The diocese last month released a list of 46 priests with substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of minors against them, 15 of whom are still alive. Ten of those priests were accused after they died.

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.

SPRINGFIELD (MA)
WGGB/WSHM TV

March 1, 2019

Just days after the Hampden County District Attorney’s office launched a hotline to make it easier for victims of clergy sex abuse to report, calls are coming in.

D.A. Anthony Gulluni said that he can’t elaborate on just how many calls they have been receiving since announcing the hotline on Tuesday, but that they are coming in and, as promised, are being handled by troopers with the state police.

Gulluni told Western Mass News that the hotline is operating indefinitely and for 24 hours a day, seven days a week. He wants to encourage everyone to continue to use it.

The reason it was launched was because of recent disclosures by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield.

There is a statue of limitation of 20 years of when the crime was allegedly committed, but Gulluni said that there is a nuance when it comes to these cases.

“We still have the capacity to work with vicitms, provide them with services, point them in right direction in terms of counseling and all the resources that might be there. Certainly, collaboratively with the diocese in making sure the victims are dealt with appropriately and given their opportunity to certainly be heard and respected,” Gulluni explained.

Gullini said that they have a responsibility to victims of all kinds, so although there is a focus on clergy sex abuse with this hotline, anyone can use it.

Meanwhile, Diocese spokesperson Mark Dupont said that they support this effort by the D.A.’s office, but “would advocate that it beJust days after the Hampden County District Attorney’s office launched a hotline to make it easier for victims of clergy sex abuse to report, calls are coming in.

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.

OAKLAND (CA)
The Catholic Voice

March 1, 2019

By Michele Jurich

Five representatives of SNAP — Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests — stood on the Harrison Street sidewalk, with the Cathedral of Christ the Light behind them, on Feb. 22 to present their response to the Diocese of Oakland’s release earlier that week of the names of 20 diocesan priests and 25 religious deacons and priests and priests from other dioceses who served here who, the diocese said, have been credibly accused of sexual abuse of a minor.

“It’s not 45; it’s 132,” said Dan McNevin, representative for SNAP, in introducing the list compiled by SNAP.

“The diocese put out a list of 45 names. It was surprising to us, and disappointing. What surprised us was that there were 13 new names to us, five of those names are brand new to the world. They were priests who served in Oakland and never been revealed.

“That troubles us because survivors need to know that the abuse they went through has been noticed,” McNevin said. “In the case of those five, they were kept hidden from view, which means those survivors didn’t have that advantage.”

Those priests, he said, were “under the cover of darkness” and could have abused others.

“We want priests who have been credibly accused to be stripped of their ministry,” said McNevin, who is a survivor of clergy sex abuse in Fremont.

SNAP leaders read a litany of priests’ names, many from religious orders, who remain in active ministry. They also named two diocesan priests; the diocese does not list them among the credibly accused. The SNAP list included lay teachers at Catholic high schools in the diocese.

SNAP’s list was held aloft at the press conference by Joey Piscitelli, who was awarded $600,000 by a civil court jury in Contra Costa County in 2006 for sexual abuse while he was a student at Salesian High School in Richmond, three decades earlier.

Piscitelli noted the sources on SNAP’s list include the bishopsaccountability.org website, a list provided at the press conference by Minneapolis attorney Jeff Anderson last October, newspaper articles and the Official Catholic Directory.

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

ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

March 1, 2019

Today, Bishop David Ricken of the Green Bay diocese announced he is removing the name of former Bishop Aloysius Wycislow from the cathedral center for “failure to adequately handle sex abuse cases”. In other words, covering up child sex crimes, not reporting predators to the police, transferring offenders to new parishes where they abused more children, and misleading Catholics.

While this gesture is welcome, it raises a lot of questions. What exactly did Bishop Wycislow do that his name is being removed? What specific cases did he cover up or mismanage? Where is the documentation and evidence? These facts can only come from the abuse files of the Green Bay diocese. But the diocese says they mostly destroyed these files under former Bishop David Zubik. That document destruction, admitted under oath in a civil case, has yet to be investigated by a single law enforcement official in Wisconsin.

Interestingly, if Ricken had a building named after him in his former diocese of Cheyenne, Wyoming, they would have to remove his name. He himself “mismanaged” the case of Cheyenne former bishop, Robert Hart. Several victims had come forward and filed lawsuits against Hart by 2005. One of their demands was that Hart’s name be removed from a building at St. Joseph’s Children’s Home in Torrington. Ricken said no name change would occur since “none of the accusations against Bishop Hart have been deemed credible.” Yet, the new bishop of Cheyenne, Stephen Biegler, last year removed Hart from ministry because the allegations against Hart were, in fact, credible–the same allegations that Ricken said were not. Along with removing Hart from ministry, Biegler removed his name from the building.

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 JERSEY
North Jersey Record

March 1, 2019

By Mike Kelly

When she talks about the Catholic church, you can hear the sound of Phyllis Hanratty’s breaking heart.

Hanratty’s son, Edward Jr., was abused by a Catholic priest for several years in the late 1980s when the family lived in Ridgefield Park and were loyal members of St. Francis of Assisi parish.

Edward Jr., now 42 and living in West Milford with his wife, kept his secret to himself until last summer. And when he finally told his parents — and the world, in an NBC news interview — Phyllis felt her faith crumble.

“My church lied to me,” she said in a recent interview at the apartment in Lyndhurst that she shares with her husband. “I’ve been robbed of my faith in the Catholic church.”

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.

ROME/VATICAN CITY
La Croix International

March 1, 2019

By Robert Mickens

Bishops make more promises to get it right this time as the Church continues to implode
Organizers of the recent Vatican “summit” on the protection of minors, and a number of the bishops who attended it, are trying to assure the world that the four-day meeting brought about a “change of heart” in the Church’s leaders, especially those who — up to now — have underestimated the clergy sex abuse crisis.

In fact, before the Feb. 21-24 meeting even got started its chief planners indicated that a main goal would be to convince all the bishops in the world that the abuse of minors was not just a “Western” problem.

When it was all done and over, one those organizers, Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, said the highly-publicized event marked a “quantitative and qualitative leap” in the global Church’s response to abuse. He called it an important new step on the slow and painful journey of “turning things around.

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.

UNIONTOWN (PA)
Christian Chronicle

March 1, 2019

By Bobby Ross Jr.

After a longtime youth minister’s recent conviction on corruption of minors and indecent exposure charges, a judge in this western Pennsylvania community did what the Uniontown Church of Christ’s elders refused to do.

The judge told Clyde E. Brothers Jr. to stay away from church services.

Brothers, 70, served for many years as the volunteer youth minister for the 100-member Uniontown congregation. Since at least the 1980s, he also interacted with hundreds of children as a founding board member for Camp Concern — a Bible camp directed and sponsored by members of Churches of Christ.

Generations of parents entrusted Brothers with instilling Christian faith and values in their children in this city of 10,000 that originally grew with the development of coal mines and the steel industry.

Victims’ relatives point to a problem that they say plagues not just the Roman Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention — both embroiled in major sex abuse scandals — but also the nation’s 12,000 autonomous Churches of Christ.

“It truly is an epidemic, such sickness,” said one victim’s mother, a former Uniontown church member whose name is being withheld to protect her son’s identity.

The allegations that Brothers used his volunteer church and camp positions to prey on young boys were traumatic enough, several current and former Uniontown church members told The Christian Chronicle.

But church leaders’ decision to allow Brothers to keep worshiping with the congregation made it worse, they said.

“I was told I had hatred in my heart, and I needed to forgive,” said member Debbie Williams, a former youth group sponsor who had traveled with Brothers and church teens to numerous Bible bowls and youth rallies.

Another longtime member said her son, now in his 30s, was one of four victims whom Brothers identified by name to the Pennsylvania State Police.

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.

SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
10 Daily

February 27, 2019

Monica Hingston, 78, is shortlisted in the Faith category at this Friday’s Australian LGBTI awards. She’s flying from Melbourne to Sydney for the ceremony, along with nine friends and family members.

Her story isn’t as well known as her cousin’s, because Monica is an intensely private person. She was a nun for 27 years. Humility has been a guiding principle of her life. But her story, which I persuaded her to tell me last year in a magazine feature, deserves to be known.

It deserves to be known because it’s one full of juxtaposition and irony and it’s the ultimate example of love winning, despite all obstacles.

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.

BALTIMORE (MD)

WBAL TV

February 28, 2019

Maryland delegates are mulling a bill concerning child sex abuse and the time limit for victims to file civil litigation.

The bill concerns civil cases, not criminal matters. Supporters said they have been trying to get the legislation passed for two decades.

Survivors of child sex abuse spoke out Thursday on Lawyer’s Mall, including David Lorenz, who held a photo of his 16-year-old self. He said he was abused by a priest at his parochial school.

“I always remembered it. I never forgot about it. (I) wrestled with it, had insomnia about it, had anxiety about it, never told anybody,” Lorenz said.

House Bill 687 would eliminate the statute of limitations for child sex abuse victims to file civil claims. The current cutoff is age 38.

“It takes years and years for victims of abuse to identify their experience,” said Pat Cronin, executive director of The Family Tree.

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.

ONEONTA (NY)
State Times

March 1, 2019

By Tara O’Leary

Trigger Warning: This Article Contains Sensitive Materials, Sexually Violent and Abusive in Nature

The Catholic Church has faced scandal in the past as reports of priests targeting children for sexual abuse have run rampant. More recently, it has come to the public’s attention that minors are not the only victims; nuns have been targeted over the years as well.

Pope Francis publicly acknowledged this for the first time within the past month. He admitted to the issue during a news conference while returning to Rome from the United Arab Emirates. “It is true,” said Francis. “It’s not that everyone does this, but there have been priests and bishops who have.” His response came just two weeks before hosting a gathering of bishops, intended to build a global response to the issues of priests targeting children. It also comes before Francis is expected to decide the fate of ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was accused of abuse. “I think it is still going on because something does not stop just because you have become aware of it,” the Pope stated. “Should we do something more? Yes. Is there the will? Yes. But it’s a path that we have already begun.”

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.

QUEENS (NY)
Queens Daily Eagle

March 1, 2019

By David Brand

With the Child Victims Act now law in New York State, advocates and attorneys for survivors of clergy sexual abuse are stepping up demands for accountability through court settlements and a statewide forum where survivors can face church leaders.

Starting in August, the new law will open a one-year window that enables survivors of sexual abuse to take civil action, even if the statute of limitations has expired. Days after the conclusion of a sexual abuse summit at the Vatican, survivors’ advocates have also called for New York Catholic church leaders to host their own summit and announce concrete policy actions here in the state.

“They miss the boat when they do not take into account and ignore the voices of survivors, and don’t make them the focus of change. That’s what the summit would be about,” said attorney Michelle Simpson-Tuegel, who has represented 70 survivors of clergy sexual abuse, as well as survivors of U.S. Gymnastics physician Larry Nasser. “There are so many survivors impacted in the state of New York and they can discuss it among themselves, but [a forum with the church] is where it’s really going to create change.”

Pope Francis told attendees at the Vatican conference that victims deserve “concrete and efficient” actions.

“Faced with the scourge of sexual abuse committed by men of the church against minors, I wanted to reach out to you,” he said.

The Vatican summit was criticized for not arriving at any tangible actions, however.

Simpson-Tuegel said dioceses in New York should enact a stronger zero tolerance policy and automatically dismiss anyone credibly accused of abusing a child. She said churches and Catholic schools should more proactively address abuse and educate parishioners.

Manhattan resident Rafael Mendoza, 37, grew up in Queens and said he was abused by a guidance counselor, who was also a priest, at his Catholic high school.

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.

FRESNO (CA)
Fresno Bee

March 1, 2019

By Andrew Fiala

We too easily accommodate evil and corruption. We adapt to it. We laugh it off. We shrug our shoulders and tell ourselves that there is nothing we can do. It is often easier to be flexible. And sometimes it is wise to ignore things over which we have no control.

But when evil is left alone it festers. If it is not confronted, it becomes habitual. If it is not extirpated, it metastasizes and weaves its way into everything.

This is the lesson of the events unfolding in Washington, Rome, Florida, and elsewhere. Michael Cohen has been testifying about corruption in the Trump organization, including the Stormy Daniels affair. The Vatican has been discussing the plague of priests who rape children. And billionaires have been busted in Florida for soliciting prostitution

It is the systematic nature of these problems that is outrageous. Religious folks might say that the second sin is worse than the first. In non-Biblical language, we say the cover-up is worse than the crime. The original sin might be explained as a violent, spontaneous, stupid, or ignorant act. But those who cover up know what’s going on. They make conscious choices that accommodate evil.

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.

ROCHIESTER (NY)
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle

March 1, 2019

David Andreatta

Christina Grana can’t forget the principal she and her classmates at St. Margaret Mary School in Irondequoit called “Hawk.”

“She was the monster in my dreams,” Grana recalled the other day. “She was the monster in my closet. She was monster under my bed.”

She was Sister Janice Nadeau, a nun described by those who worked and lived with her as a “harsh,” “stern,” “aggressive,” and “heavy-handed” school administrator who was known to “pick on” children.

To Grana, she was a “predator” who forever altered the trajectory of Grana’s life with an outburst that culminated in a violent sexual assault in February 1977, when Grana was 12 years old and in the seventh grade.

“That single incident defined who I am as a person,” said Grana, now 54 and a mother of two living in Webster.

The alleged assault could not be corroborated by an investigator commissioned by the Diocese of Rochester, whose 33-page report on the matter Grana provided to the Democrat and Chronicle.

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.

RICHMOND (VA)
WRIC

February 22, 2019

By Kerri O’Brien

A group that documents abuse in the Catholic Church says names are missing from a list of accused sex abusers recently released by the Diocese of Richmond.

8News has been combing over the Diocese of Richmond list and comparing it to an online group’s that has been tracking abuse allegations for years.

“It is really important not to let names fall through the cracks,” said Terence McKiernan, president of BishopAccountability.org.

McKiernan spoke to 8News over Skype from Massachusetts about BishopAccountability.org, a website which maintains a database of priests and nuns accused of abuse.

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.

NANTUCKET (MA)
USA TODAY

February 28, 2019

By Maria Puente

Ahead of a first preliminary hearing Monday in his sex-crime case, Kevin Spacey’s legal team filed a series of motions seeking access to documents and other potential evidence, including the cellphones of his accuser, a then-teenage busboy in a Nantucket Island restaurant bar.

The motions, filed Wednesday, are part of the discovery process in a criminal trial, in which defense lawyers and prosecutors exchange information and the defense seeks any evidence that might show the defendant as not guilty or aid in his defense.

Spacey has pleaded not guilty to a felony sexual-assault charge, denying that he groped anyone in a crowded island bar in the summer of 2016.

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

VATICAN CITY
CBS NEWS

February 25, 2019

Three clergy abuse survivors all want to know why the Catholic Church still has not laid out concrete steps to stop child sex abuse. “CBS This Morning” has followed their fight for justice since last year, all the way from the U.S. to Rome, where they attended a summit with church leaders and called for a zero-tolerance policy for abuse.

On Sunday Pope Francis addressed the crowd in St. Peter’s Square, promising to confront abusers with “the wrath of God,” end the cover-ups by church officials, and prioritize the victims of what he termed “brazen, aggressive and destructive evil.”

But the survivors told CBS News correspondent Nikki Battiste they all want to know why the Catholic Church still has not laid out concrete steps to stop child sex abuse.

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

VATICAN CITY
PBS

February 25, 2019

The unprecedented Vatican summit focused on clerical sexual abuse concluded over the weekend, with Pope Francis insisting the Catholic Church must end its long history of covering up child sexual abuse. The pope called for an “all-out battle” but didn’t offer many specifics, prompting criticism from survivors. Judy Woodruff talks to Becky Ianni of the victim support group SNAP for her reaction.

Read the Full Transcript

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

DENVER (CO)
FOX 31 Denver

February 19, 2019

By Joe St. George

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser announced Tuesday there will be a third-party review of Colorado’s Catholic Dioceses and their handling of child sex abuse.

Weiser’s actions are the latest move by attorneys general nationwide after a Pennsylvania grand jury investigation into the church’s handling of abuse.

The review will be led by former U.S. Attorney Bob Troyer.

“This is the process we will be going through to get to the bottom of the pain,” Weiser said.

Weiser made clear during a news conference on Tuesday that state law does not allow him to convene a grand jury under these circumstances.

However, any criminal negligence found will be open to possible criminal prosecution, he said.

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

BUFFALO (NY)
The Buffalo News

February 6, 2019

By Jay Tokasz

Retired Buffalo Bishop Edward U. Kmiec is being criticized for his handling of a clergy sex abuse allegation during his time as bishop of the Nashville Diocese.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests of Tennessee said that Kmiec allowed the Rev. James A. Rudisill to retire as a priest in good standing and remain in ministry, despite the priest’s alleged admission in 1994 that he had molested a 12-year-old girl in the 1950s.

Kmiec was Nashville bishop from 1992 to 2004, and Buffalo bishop from 2004 until his retirement in 2012. He is now bishop emeritus of Buffalo and resides in the area.

A call to his residence was referred to Buffalo Diocese spokeswoman Kathy Spangler, who did not comment on the criticism of Kmiec.

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.