ABUSE TRACKER

HUDSON (OH)
Beacon Journal/Ohio.com

September 7, 2019

By Amanda Garrett

Tom Randall — a former pastor at Christ Community Chapel who departed amid scandal — is trying to move on.

He and his wife put their ranch home in Stow on the market last month for $289,900 and sent a letter to their international following. In the letter, Randall said he was leaving behind his nonprofit — worth more than $3 million — with the Hudson megachurch and planned to launch a new nonprofit to independently continue his 43-year-old ministry.

But moving on may not be that simple for Randall, who was asked to resign from Christ Community Chapel (CCC) in June amid an internal review that concluded child abuse likely happened at an orphanage his ministry supported in the Philippines.

CCC — with a main campus in Hudson, and satellites in Akron’s Highland Square neighborhood and Aurora — has since told the Beacon Journal/Ohio.com that it turned over “information and documentation relevant to this situation” from its review to the FBI.

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.

TALUSTUSAN (PHILIPPINES)
Associated Press

September 9, 2019

By Tim Sullivan

The American priest’s voice echoed over the phone line, his sharp Midwestern accent softened over the decades by a gentle Filipino lilt. On the other end, recording the call, was a young man battered by shame but anxious to get the priest to describe exactly what had happened in this little island village.

“I should have known better than trying to just have a life,” the priest said in the November 2018 call. “Happy days are gone. It’s all over.”

But, the young man later told The Associated Press, those days were happy only for the priest. They were years of misery for him, he said, and for the other boys who investigators say were sexually assaulted by Father Pius Hendricks.

His accusations ignited a scandal that would shake the village and reveal much about how allegations of sex crimes by priests are handled in one of the world’s most Catholic countries.

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

TALUSTUSAN (PHILIPPINES)
Associated Press

September 9, 2019

By Tim Sullivan

The American priest’s voice echoed over the phone line, his sharp Midwestern accent softened over the decades by a gentle Filipino lilt. On the other end, recording the call, was a young man battered by shame but anxious to get the priest to describe exactly what had happened in this little island village.

“I should have known better than trying to just have a life,” the priest said in the November 2018 call. “Happy days are gone. It’s all over.”

But, the young man later told The Associated Press, those days were happy only for the priest. They were years of misery for him, he said, and for the other boys who investigators say were sexually assaulted by Father Pius Hendricks.

His accusations ignited a scandal that would shake the village and reveal much about how allegations of sex crimes by priests are handled in one of the world’s most Catholic countries.

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

AMAZON
The Tablet

September 4, 2019

By James Roberts

‘The Catholic Church has been present in the Amazon region since the seventeenth century, concerned with evangelisation and human development’

A Cameroonian man who worked with Wycliffe Bible Translators has been murdered in his home in Cameroon during an overnight attack. Angus Abraham Fung was one of seven people killed in the village of Wum on 25 August. His wife, Eveline, had a hand cut off and is recovering in a local hospital. Wum is in the Anglophone northwest of the country, a region that has been at the heart of the conflict between Cameroon’s government and separatist guerrillas. Fung had helped to translate the New Testament into the Aghem language, and was a Literacy Coordinator on the Aghem Bible translation project. The translation was completed in 2016 and more than 3,000 copies were printed. However, the conflict in the region has prevented the New Testaments being distributed.

Wum is among several localities where youth from the nomadic Fulani herding community are being encouraged by pro-government actors to carry out attacks against local farming communities that support the separatist rebels.

Meanwhile a Catholic priest was killed across the border in neighbouring Nigeria. Fr David Tanko was murdered by armed men in Taraba State on Thursday last week. He was on his way to the village of Takum to mediate a peace agreement between Tiv and Jukun populations.

An Argentinian priest accused of rape was found dead on 26 August after going missing from a monastery in Chile. The Diocese of Valparaiso, Chile, published a press release on behalf of the Benedictine Monastery of San Benito de Lliu Lliu, stating that Guillermo Jaime Cabalín had died. The press release also said that Cabalín, 57, was the subject of a canonical investigation after a woman came forward in 2018, accusing him of raping her in 1995.

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.

AMAZON
The Tablet

September 4, 2019

By James Roberts

‘The Catholic Church has been present in the Amazon region since the seventeenth century, concerned with evangelisation and human development’

A Cameroonian man who worked with Wycliffe Bible Translators has been murdered in his home in Cameroon during an overnight attack. Angus Abraham Fung was one of seven people killed in the village of Wum on 25 August. His wife, Eveline, had a hand cut off and is recovering in a local hospital. Wum is in the Anglophone northwest of the country, a region that has been at the heart of the conflict between Cameroon’s government and separatist guerrillas. Fung had helped to translate the New Testament into the Aghem language, and was a Literacy Coordinator on the Aghem Bible translation project. The translation was completed in 2016 and more than 3,000 copies were printed. However, the conflict in the region has prevented the New Testaments being distributed.

Wum is among several localities where youth from the nomadic Fulani herding community are being encouraged by pro-government actors to carry out attacks against local farming communities that support the separatist rebels.

Meanwhile a Catholic priest was killed across the border in neighbouring Nigeria. Fr David Tanko was murdered by armed men in Taraba State on Thursday last week. He was on his way to the village of Takum to mediate a peace agreement between Tiv and Jukun populations.

An Argentinian priest accused of rape was found dead on 26 August after going missing from a monastery in Chile. The Diocese of Valparaiso, Chile, published a press release on behalf of the Benedictine Monastery of San Benito de Lliu Lliu, stating that Guillermo Jaime Cabalín had died. The press release also said that Cabalín, 57, was the subject of a canonical investigation after a woman came forward in 2018, accusing him of raping her in 1995.

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.

LEVITTOWN (PA)
The Legal Herald

September 2019

By Brian Kent

Ex-Priest Frank Trauger Charged with Corruption of Minors, Indecent Assault for Alleged Abuse of Altar Boys

Defrocked Bucks County priest Francis “Frank” Trauger has been charged with sexually abusing at least two altar boys during the decade he spent as a priest at St. Michael the Archangel Church in Levittown. The 74-year-old priest was at the church in the 1990s and 2000s.

According to a criminal complaint, the Bucks County District Attorney’s office began investigating allegations against Trauger after receiving information from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in August of 2018.

Investigators spoke with the first victim earlier in 2019. He told them that Trauger sexually assaulted him multiple times while he was a middle school student around the year 2000. According to the victim, Trauger touched his genitals and buttocks during a robing process before Mass.

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.

LEVITTOWN (PA)
The Legal Herald

September 2019

By Brian Kent

Ex-Priest Frank Trauger Charged with Corruption of Minors, Indecent Assault for Alleged Abuse of Altar Boys

Defrocked Bucks County priest Francis “Frank” Trauger has been charged with sexually abusing at least two altar boys during the decade he spent as a priest at St. Michael the Archangel Church in Levittown. The 74-year-old priest was at the church in the 1990s and 2000s.

According to a criminal complaint, the Bucks County District Attorney’s office began investigating allegations against Trauger after receiving information from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in August of 2018.

Investigators spoke with the first victim earlier in 2019. He told them that Trauger sexually assaulted him multiple times while he was a middle school student around the year 2000. According to the victim, Trauger touched his genitals and buttocks during a robing process before Mass.

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)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

Sept. 9, 2019

He just posted new ‘accused clerics’ list
SNAP: ‘But it’s incomplete and misleading’
It names 9 publicly accused priests who are left off
And group names its “Dangerous Dozen KC Predator Priests”
“Catholics, please stop giving until the full truth is revealed,” victims beg
And in Wyandotte County KS, criminal trial against a priest starts on Monday

WHAT
Using sidewalk chalk, clergy sex abuse victims will write on a city sidewalk the names of
—their “most dangerous dozen” credibly accused KC MO child molesting clerics and
—several publicly accused clerics who’ve been left of the KC MO bishop’s new ‘accused’ list.

Holding signs and childhood photos, they will also urge
—those with information or suspicions about ANY other known or possible predator to a) call police, not church staff, and b) contact SNAP, and
—KC Catholics to “donate to institutions that expose predators, not protect them” and to “groups that prevent abuse, not conceal abuse.”

They’ll also discuss a rare criminal trial starting today against an alleged KC KS predator priest.

WHEN
Monday, Sept. 9 at 11:15 AM.

WHERE
Outside the Kansas City diocesan headquarters, 20 W. Ninth Street (at Baltimore) in KC MO

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)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests

Sept. 9, 2019

He just posted new ‘accused clerics’ list
SNAP: ‘But it’s incomplete and misleading’
It names 9 publicly accused priests who are left off
And group names its “Dangerous Dozen KC Predator Priests”
“Catholics, please stop giving until the full truth is revealed,” victims beg
And in Wyandotte County KS, criminal trial against a priest starts on Monday

WHAT
Using sidewalk chalk, clergy sex abuse victims will write on a city sidewalk the names of
—their “most dangerous dozen” credibly accused KC MO child molesting clerics and
—several publicly accused clerics who’ve been left of the KC MO bishop’s new ‘accused’ list.

Holding signs and childhood photos, they will also urge
—those with information or suspicions about ANY other known or possible predator to a) call police, not church staff, and b) contact SNAP, and
—KC Catholics to “donate to institutions that expose predators, not protect them” and to “groups that prevent abuse, not conceal abuse.”

They’ll also discuss a rare criminal trial starting today against an alleged KC KS predator priest.

WHEN
Monday, Sept. 9 at 11:15 AM.

WHERE
Outside the Kansas City diocesan headquarters, 20 W. Ninth Street (at Baltimore) in KC MO

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

Sept. 9, 2019

(NOTE: the first three clerics are NOT on the official KC MO accused list)

1–Fr. Deusdedit (a.k.a. ‘Fr. Deo’) Mulokozi, who was expelled from the Jefferson City diocese after having been credibly accused of ‘boundary violations’ with a 15 year old Sedalia girl. But Fr. Deo’s current supervisors, a Kansas City-based religious order called the Missionaries of the Precious Blood (816 781 4344, preciousbloodkc.org), quietly moved him, first to Liberty MO, then to Houston TX, then to Tanzania where he’s working now around even more vulnerable kids.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2018/11_12/2018_12_28_MartinezKeel_FormerSedalia.htm

Fr. Deusdedit worked at three parishes: St. John the Evangelist in Bahner, Sacred Heart in Sedalia and St. Patrick in Sedalia. He is on the Jefferson City diocese’s list of clerics ‘found by the diocesan bishop to be unsuitable for ministry out of concern for the safety of our youth.’

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/diocesan_lists/Jefferson_City/2018_11_08_Jefferson_City_Clergy_Religious_Removed.pdf

2–Fr. Martin Juarez, who attended UMKC in the 1970s. He was born in 1946 in Kansas City, KS and attended Colby Community College and seminaries in Denver and San Antonio.

https://prabook.com/web/martin.juarez/282315

In a 2017 lawsuit, he was accused of sexually abusing a nine year old at St. Matthew’s in Topeka for three years in the early 1980s. Fr. Juarez was defrocked in 2005. His name appears on the ‘credibly accused’ list put out by the Kansas City KS archdiocese a few months ago.

https://responseincrisis.archkck.org/list-substantiated-allegations/

3–Fr. Donald Redmond, who is on the Kansas City KS archdiocesan ‘credibly accused’ list and who was put on leave in 2002 after allegations surfaced that he abused at least one child in Iowa in 1960s. At least three more victims from a parish in the Kansas City KS archdiocese came forward after his suspension. Complaints involved inappropriate touching of elementary school children between 1961-1964. After the accusations, he was sent to live at St. Benedict’s Abbey in Atchison KS. But in 1964 and 1965, he worked in Kansas City MO at Bishop Lillis High School.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/ia-davenport/assignments/Redmond-Donald-Kansas-City.htm

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

Sept. 9, 2019

(NOTE: the first three clerics are NOT on the official KC MO accused list)

1–Fr. Deusdedit (a.k.a. ‘Fr. Deo’) Mulokozi, who was expelled from the Jefferson City diocese after having been credibly accused of ‘boundary violations’ with a 15 year old Sedalia girl. But Fr. Deo’s current supervisors, a Kansas City-based religious order called the Missionaries of the Precious Blood (816 781 4344, preciousbloodkc.org), quietly moved him, first to Liberty MO, then to Houston TX, then to Tanzania where he’s working now around even more vulnerable kids.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2018/11_12/2018_12_28_MartinezKeel_FormerSedalia.htm

Fr. Deusdedit worked at three parishes: St. John the Evangelist in Bahner, Sacred Heart in Sedalia and St. Patrick in Sedalia. He is on the Jefferson City diocese’s list of clerics ‘found by the diocesan bishop to be unsuitable for ministry out of concern for the safety of our youth.’

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/diocesan_lists/Jefferson_City/2018_11_08_Jefferson_City_Clergy_Religious_Removed.pdf

2–Fr. Martin Juarez, who attended UMKC in the 1970s. He was born in 1946 in Kansas City, KS and attended Colby Community College and seminaries in Denver and San Antonio.

https://prabook.com/web/martin.juarez/282315

In a 2017 lawsuit, he was accused of sexually abusing a nine year old at St. Matthew’s in Topeka for three years in the early 1980s. Fr. Juarez was defrocked in 2005. His name appears on the ‘credibly accused’ list put out by the Kansas City KS archdiocese a few months ago.

https://responseincrisis.archkck.org/list-substantiated-allegations/

3–Fr. Donald Redmond, who is on the Kansas City KS archdiocesan ‘credibly accused’ list and who was put on leave in 2002 after allegations surfaced that he abused at least one child in Iowa in 1960s. At least three more victims from a parish in the Kansas City KS archdiocese came forward after his suspension. Complaints involved inappropriate touching of elementary school children between 1961-1964. After the accusations, he was sent to live at St. Benedict’s Abbey in Atchison KS. But in 1964 and 1965, he worked in Kansas City MO at Bishop Lillis High School.

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/ia-davenport/assignments/Redmond-Donald-Kansas-City.htm

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)
KSHB TV

Sept. 6, 2019

By Tom Dempsey

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph released a list on Friday of 24 priests credibly accused of sexual abuse.

The report followed an investigation organized by the diocese earlier this year involving former FBI agents who were given access to church documents dating back to 1956.

Of the 24 priests listed in the report, 19 were official members of the diocese.

The majority of the priests have since died, with many of the cases dating back decades.

For David Biersmith, one of the names brought back memories of horrors his two sons allegedly experienced back in the 1970s.

“Physically, they were raped. I don’t know how else to say it,” he told 41 Action News. “It happened when they were 9, 10 and 11.”

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)
KSHB TV

Sept. 6, 2019

By Tom Dempsey

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph released a list on Friday of 24 priests credibly accused of sexual abuse.

The report followed an investigation organized by the diocese earlier this year involving former FBI agents who were given access to church documents dating back to 1956.

Of the 24 priests listed in the report, 19 were official members of the diocese.

The majority of the priests have since died, with many of the cases dating back decades.

For David Biersmith, one of the names brought back memories of horrors his two sons allegedly experienced back in the 1970s.

“Physically, they were raped. I don’t know how else to say it,” he told 41 Action News. “It happened when they were 9, 10 and 11.”

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.

TUAM (IRELAND)
CNN

Sept. 8, 2019

By Kara Fox

The day after Michael O’Flaherty was born, his mother tried to see him. But, she told him, she was stopped by a nun who told her, “Go mind your own business, your baby is gone.”

Like other women who gave birth at the Tuam mother and baby home in Ireland, the nuns didn’t forbid O’Flaherty’s mother from seeing her newborn son again, they just didn’t tell her who her baby was, or that he was in the same building. The very same home where she was required to stay for 12 months after giving birth.

“My mother could have picked me up, but she couldn’t have necessarily known,” O’Flaherty told CNN.

The boy would stay in the home for another five and a half years. He doesn’t remember his time inside; his first memory of it was from the day that he left.

Today, at 71, O’Flaherty retraces the steps he took that day with a group that’s become like family.

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.

TUAM (IRELAND)
CNN

Sept. 8, 2019

By Kara Fox

The day after Michael O’Flaherty was born, his mother tried to see him. But, she told him, she was stopped by a nun who told her, “Go mind your own business, your baby is gone.”

Like other women who gave birth at the Tuam mother and baby home in Ireland, the nuns didn’t forbid O’Flaherty’s mother from seeing her newborn son again, they just didn’t tell her who her baby was, or that he was in the same building. The very same home where she was required to stay for 12 months after giving birth.

“My mother could have picked me up, but she couldn’t have necessarily known,” O’Flaherty told CNN.

The boy would stay in the home for another five and a half years. He doesn’t remember his time inside; his first memory of it was from the day that he left.

Today, at 71, O’Flaherty retraces the steps he took that day with a group that’s become like family.

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.

TALUSTUSAN (PHILIPPINES)
Associated Press

Sept. 9, 2019

By Tim Sullivan

The American priest’s voice echoed over the phone line, his sharp Midwestern accent softened over the decades by a gentle Filipino lilt. On the other end, recording the call, was a young man battered by shame but anxious to get the priest to describe exactly what had happened in this little island village.

“I should have known better than trying to just have a life,” the priest said in the November 2018 call. “Happy days are gone. It’s all over.”

But, the young man later told the Associated Press, those days were happy only for the priest. They were years of misery for him, he said, and for the other boys who investigators say were sexually assaulted by Father Pius Hendricks.

His accusations ignited a scandal that would shake the village and reveal much about how allegations of sex crimes by priests are handled in one of the world’s most Catholic countries.

He was just 12 – a new altar boy from a family of tenant farmers anxious for the $1 or so he’d get for serving at Mass – when he says Hendricks first took him into the bathroom of Talustusan’s little rectory and sexually assaulted him.

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.

TALUSTUSAN (PHILIPPINES)
Associated Press

Sept. 9, 2019

By Tim Sullivan

The American priest’s voice echoed over the phone line, his sharp Midwestern accent softened over the decades by a gentle Filipino lilt. On the other end, recording the call, was a young man battered by shame but anxious to get the priest to describe exactly what had happened in this little island village.

“I should have known better than trying to just have a life,” the priest said in the November 2018 call. “Happy days are gone. It’s all over.”

But, the young man later told the Associated Press, those days were happy only for the priest. They were years of misery for him, he said, and for the other boys who investigators say were sexually assaulted by Father Pius Hendricks.

His accusations ignited a scandal that would shake the village and reveal much about how allegations of sex crimes by priests are handled in one of the world’s most Catholic countries.

He was just 12 – a new altar boy from a family of tenant farmers anxious for the $1 or so he’d get for serving at Mass – when he says Hendricks first took him into the bathroom of Talustusan’s little rectory and sexually assaulted him.

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.

HARRISBURG (PA)
Patriot News

Sept. 9, 2019

By Ivey DeJesus

Two priests have been convicted; one other awaits trial.

That’s about the sum total of legal action that has taken place in the wake of the Pennsylvania grand jury report on clergy sex abuse, which identified more than 300 predator priests statewide.

That narrative could be about to change.

Last week, federal prosecutors dealt the latest salvo in what is fast becoming a tide of aggressive new strategies to criminally prosecute child sex predators and their accomplices in the Catholic Church.

Federal prosecutors in Philadelphia last week filed charges against a former Archdiocese of Philadelphia priest, accusing him of lying to the FBI.

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.

MADISON (WI)
WKOW TV

Sept. 9, 2019

A former priest accused of sexual assault will head to trial on Monday. William Nolan is facing six counts of sexual assault.

One of charges is for allegedly assaulting a 12-year-old alter boy in 2006.

According to investigators, the former alter boy told them the assaults allegedly happened over five years, when Nolen was serving at the St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Fort Atkinson.

A Janesville man also accused Nolan of assualting him in 2009, but after police investigated, they didn’t find enough evidence to support that accusation.

Before being accused, Nolan served in Madison’s Queen of Peace parish

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

ENGLAND
Irish Times

September 4, 2019

By Catherine O’Flynn

Fr Penney’s decades of abuse were already known by the Archdiocese of Birmingham when it moved him into the lives of more children

After settling in England, my dad, like many immigrants before and since, became a shopkeeper. In 1961 he took over a newsagent business in a part of inner city Birmingham called Nechells. The former owner sold him shelves of ancient, worthless stock and then disappeared fast before the tide of first slum clearances and then factory closures swept away most of the customers.

Those who remained were a mix of Brummies, West Indians and Irish. Alongside the English papers we sold the Clare Champion, the Roscommon Herald, The Irish Times, and the Echo. Upstairs in the living room we listened to scratchy 45s of the Dubliners, the Clancy Brothers, and the Ludlows. Outside lay empty factories and wasteland.

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.

ENGLAND
Irish Times

September 4, 2019

By Catherine O’Flynn

Fr Penney’s decades of abuse were already known by the Archdiocese of Birmingham when it moved him into the lives of more children

After settling in England, my dad, like many immigrants before and since, became a shopkeeper. In 1961 he took over a newsagent business in a part of inner city Birmingham called Nechells. The former owner sold him shelves of ancient, worthless stock and then disappeared fast before the tide of first slum clearances and then factory closures swept away most of the customers.

Those who remained were a mix of Brummies, West Indians and Irish. Alongside the English papers we sold the Clare Champion, the Roscommon Herald, The Irish Times, and the Echo. Upstairs in the living room we listened to scratchy 45s of the Dubliners, the Clancy Brothers, and the Ludlows. Outside lay empty factories and wasteland.

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.

LIMOGES (FRANCE)
La Croix International

September 4, 2019

By Neuville Heloise

Bishop accused of ‘muzzling’ victim but he says she is ‘very fragile’ to give a reliable account

The testimony of a former nun who was due to tell the story of her sexual assault at the hands of a priest in the French city of Limoges has been cancelled.The Catholic Association of Women (ACF) and the victim refused to accept the presence of a member of the diocese to give the other side of the story, as had been demanded by Bishop Pierre-Antoine Bozo of Limoges.Can freedom of expression within the Church flourish in all contexts?The institution is working to give a rightful place to the words of victims of sexual abuse but the bishop was overcome by his concern for a just outcome when he learned that Caroline, a former nun allegedly assaulted by a priest from the Community of the Beatitudes, was about to give her testimony in public.

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.

LIMOGES (FRANCE)
La Croix International

September 4, 2019

By Neuville Heloise

Bishop accused of ‘muzzling’ victim but he says she is ‘very fragile’ to give a reliable account

The testimony of a former nun who was due to tell the story of her sexual assault at the hands of a priest in the French city of Limoges has been cancelled.The Catholic Association of Women (ACF) and the victim refused to accept the presence of a member of the diocese to give the other side of the story, as had been demanded by Bishop Pierre-Antoine Bozo of Limoges.Can freedom of expression within the Church flourish in all contexts?The institution is working to give a rightful place to the words of victims of sexual abuse but the bishop was overcome by his concern for a just outcome when he learned that Caroline, a former nun allegedly assaulted by a priest from the Community of the Beatitudes, was about to give her testimony in public.

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)
Crux

September 6, 2019

By Christopher White

The priest secretary to Bishop Richard Malone – who earlier this week released secret audio of the bishop expressing fears that a public relations crisis within the diocese of Buffalo would result in his resignation – has accused an auxiliary bishop of silencing him when he complained of sexual assault.

Father Ryszard Biernat arrived at the diocese of Buffalo as a seminarian in 2003. The Polish native alleges that a priest of the diocese, Father Art Smith, abused him at a Christmas party that same year.

In a new interview with WKBW, Biernat says that he reported the alleged abuse to auxiliary Bishop Edward M. Grosz. He maintains that Grosz faulted the seminarian for not locking the door to prevent drunken advances from Smith.

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)
Crux

September 6, 2019

By Christopher White

The priest secretary to Bishop Richard Malone – who earlier this week released secret audio of the bishop expressing fears that a public relations crisis within the diocese of Buffalo would result in his resignation – has accused an auxiliary bishop of silencing him when he complained of sexual assault.

Father Ryszard Biernat arrived at the diocese of Buffalo as a seminarian in 2003. The Polish native alleges that a priest of the diocese, Father Art Smith, abused him at a Christmas party that same year.

In a new interview with WKBW, Biernat says that he reported the alleged abuse to auxiliary Bishop Edward M. Grosz. He maintains that Grosz faulted the seminarian for not locking the door to prevent drunken advances from Smith.

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.

[The monk of Montserrat, Andreu Soler. was a “sexual predator and a pederast” who had impunity for years]

BARCELONA (SPAIN)
El Pais

September 6, 2019

By Jesús García and Oriol Güell

La comissió independent que ha investigat els abusos conclou que “hi havia rumorologia suficient” per actuar contra el monjo i destapa dos casos desconeguts

[The independent commission that investigated the abuses concludes that “there was enough rumorology” to act against the monk and uncover two unknown cases]

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.

[The monk of Montserrat, Andreu Soler. was a “sexual predator and a pederast” who had impunity for years]

BARCELONA (SPAIN)
El Pais

September 6, 2019

By Jesús García and Oriol Güell

La comissió independent que ha investigat els abusos conclou que “hi havia rumorologia suficient” per actuar contra el monjo i destapa dos casos desconeguts

[The independent commission that investigated the abuses concludes that “there was enough rumorology” to act against the monk and uncover two unknown cases]

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[The abbot of Montserrat admits that “controls failed” and apologizes for the abuses]

BARCELONA (SPAIN)
El Pais

September 8, 2019

By Jesús García

[Josep Maria Soler is committed to improving protocols to protect minors]

El abad de Montserrat, Josep Maria Soler, pidió ayer públicamente perdón por los abusos sexuales a menores cometidos por religiosos en el monasterio. En su primera homilía dominical después del informe de la comisión independiente que ha ratificado la existencia de abusos, Soler admitió que “los mecanismos de prevención y control” fallaron. Un monje de la abadía abusó durante casi tres décadas de un número indeterminado de menores con total impunidad y sin que el monasterio actuase contra él, concluye el informe.

[The abbot of Montserrat, Josep Maria Soler , yesterday publicly apologized for the sexual abuse of minors committed by religious in the monastery. In his first Sunday homily after the report of the independent commission that has ratified the existence of abuse, Soler admitted that “prevention and control mechanisms” failed. A monk from the abbey abused for almost three decades an undetermined number of minors with total impunity and without the monastery acting against him, the report concludes.]

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.

[The abbot of Montserrat admits that “controls failed” and apologizes for the abuses]

BARCELONA (SPAIN)
El Pais

September 8, 2019

By Jesús García

[Josep Maria Soler is committed to improving protocols to protect minors]

El abad de Montserrat, Josep Maria Soler, pidió ayer públicamente perdón por los abusos sexuales a menores cometidos por religiosos en el monasterio. En su primera homilía dominical después del informe de la comisión independiente que ha ratificado la existencia de abusos, Soler admitió que “los mecanismos de prevención y control” fallaron. Un monje de la abadía abusó durante casi tres décadas de un número indeterminado de menores con total impunidad y sin que el monasterio actuase contra él, concluye el informe.

[The abbot of Montserrat, Josep Maria Soler , yesterday publicly apologized for the sexual abuse of minors committed by religious in the monastery. In his first Sunday homily after the report of the independent commission that has ratified the existence of abuse, Soler admitted that “prevention and control mechanisms” failed. A monk from the abbey abused for almost three decades an undetermined number of minors with total impunity and without the monastery acting against him, the report concludes.]

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MACOMB (MI)
Macomb Daily

September 8, 2019

By Mitch Hotts

A state licensing board has revoked a counseling license from a former Macomb County priest accused of sexually assaulting a young boy.

The Michigan Board of Counseling on Friday stripped Lawrence Ventline of the educationally limited counselor’s license for three years and issued a $5,000 fine.

The board’s action follows the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA)’s summary suspension of Ventline’s license in May after an administrative complaint concerning the alleged sexual assault was filed by state Attorney General’s Office.

Ventline failed to respond to the complaint. Under the state’s Public Health Code, when a defendant does not respond to a complaint, the board is to consider the accusations to be “undisputed and true.”

“Unfortunately, the statute of limitations bars us from prosecuting Mr. Ventline for any crimes we believe he may have committed,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a news release.

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BUFFALO (NY)
The Buffalo News

September 8, 2019

By Jay Tokasz and Dan Herbeck

The Rev. Jeffrey Nowak has been accused of violating the Catholic church’s seal of confession, sexually harassing a seminarian and trying to blackmail a fellow priest.

But his lawyer said Friday that Nowak denies all of the allegations.

“I don’t think Father Jeff has gotten a fair shake on this,” said attorney James Granville. “They had him tried, convicted and sentenced in March and he wasn’t told of any allegations against him by anyone in the diocese until April or May.”

Granville said his client’s name was dragged through the mud in media reports before all of the facts were known.

“If you’re accused of doing that and you’re not the person they’re describing, it’s tortuous,” said Granville. “He denies all of the allegations, but we’re relying, for better or worse, I guess, on the canonical and the civil justice system.”

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BALLARAT (AUSTRALIA)
The Courier

September 7, 2019

By Jolyon Attwooll

The Catholic Diocese of Ballarat has admitted liability in a civil action brought by a victim of historical sexual abuse in a potentially landmark case.

The case may ultimately have far-reaching implications for survivors in Ballarat seeking to make civil claims against the Catholic Church.

Advocates and survivors in the city, meanwhile, urged the Catholic Church to drop aggressive legal tactics and be more active in helping with the healing process

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BALLARAT (AUSTRALIA)
The Courier

September 6, 2019

The compensation floodgates for clergy victims have opened with the Catholic Church admitting liability for the sexual abuse of a nine-year-old boy in a confessional box by Ballarat prolific paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale.

The defrocked priest is considered one of Australia’s worst paedophiles and he admitted to a family member his victims numbered in the hundreds.

Ridsdale was moved from parish to parish within the Ballarat Diocese, starting at St Alipius in Ballarat, before serving at Warrnambool, Inglewood, Apollo Bay, Edenhope and Mortlake.

A directions hearing in the Victorian Supreme Court on Friday scheduled a 10-day trial to start on January 29.

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BUFFALO (NY)
WGAZ-TV (Channel 2)

September 8, 2019

It is unclear at this time how many diocesan priests have signed the petition. However, any priest who signs it will be committing an act of disobedience.

Father Robert Zilliox of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Swormville told 2 On Your Side he is circulating a “No Confidence” petition to be delivered to the Diocese of Buffalo and Bishop Richard Malone.

Zilliox informed his parishioners about the petition on Sunday.

It is unclear at this time how many diocesan priests have signed the petition. However, any priest who signs it will be committing an act of disobedience. Diocesan priests are required to take an obedience oath to the bishop, and signing the petition would go against that.

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BROOKLYN (NY)
The Tablet (Newspaper of the Brooklyn Diocese)

September 8, 2019

By Andrew Pugliese

PARK SLOPE — Fourteen years after the Diocese of Brooklyn began to offer programs in parishes and schools to prevent sexual abuse of minors, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed “Erin’s Law” on Aug. 29, requiring public schools in New York state to have a similar program.

Public schools will be required to provide at least one hour of instruction every school year to children in kindergarten through eighth grade about what constitutes abuse and how to report it. The law, which was passed by both the New York state senate and assembly in June, is named after Erin Merryn, a sexual abuse survivor turned advocate.

The diocese has been offering such programs since 2005 through Child Lures Prevention for children and Virtus for adults. Nationally, the training has been taking place in Catholic schools and faith formation programs since after the country’s bishops adopted the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” in 2002.

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HAMILTON (ONTARIO, CANADA)
CBC News

September 8, 2019

William O’Sullivan has filed a lawsuit against the priest who assaulted him and others

Warning: This story contains details of sexual assault.

William O’Sullivan has protested in front of St. Kevin’s Parish in Welland every Sunday for a full year, and says he is determined to do so until the Diocese of St. Catharines apologizes to the region’s survivors of sexual abuse.

O’Sullivan is one of these survivors. He was sexually assaulted when he was nine years old by Donald Grecco, who was a priest at St. Kevin’s Catholic church.

The assault continued for three years.

Now 48, O’Sullivan stands in front of the church every Sunday morning holding protest signs. He arrives at 8 a.m. and leaves in the early afternoon.

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AUSTRALIA
CathNews (Service of the Australian Bishops’ Conference)

September 9, 2019

The Church has accepted legal responsibility for the sexual abuse of a child by paedophile Gerald Ridsdale in a significant case that could open the floodgates for survivors seeking compensation. Source: The Age.

After denying any knowledge of Ridsdale’s offending before the nine-year-old boy was raped in a confessional box at Mortlake, in western Victoria in 1982, lawyers for the Church on Friday accepted an amended statement of claim from the survivor in the Supreme Court – in effect admitting legal liability for his crimes.

A 10-day civil trial scheduled to begin on January 29 next year will now focus primarily on the amount of damages the Church will pay the survivor. A mediation hearing will be held on October 15.

The survivor, identified in court under the pseudonym JCB, is suing Ballarat Bishop Paul Bird for negligence on behalf of deceased former bishops James O’Collins and Ronald Mulkearns.

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TALUSTUSAN (PHILIPPINES)
Associated Press

Sept. 9, 2019

By Tim Sullivan

The American priest’s voice echoed over the phone line.

“Happy days are gone,” he said in the 2018 call, recorded by a young man whose accusations would shake this little island village and reveal how allegations of sex crimes by priests are still ignored, sometimes for decades, in one of the world’s most Catholic countries. “It’s all over.”

The young man later told The Associated Press he was 12 when Father Pius Hendricks first took him into the bathroom of the church’s little rectory and sexually assaulted him.

“‘It’s a natural thing,'” he says the priest told him, “‘It’s part of becoming an adult.'”

The abuse continued for years, he says. But he told no one until a village outsider began asking questions about the priest’s generosity with local boys, and he feared his brother would be the next victim.

In November, he went to the police.

Soon after, local authorities arrested Hendricks, 78, and charged him with child abuse.

Since then, investigators say, about 20 boys and men, one as young as 7, have reported that the priest sexually abused them. Investigators say the allegations go back well over a decade — though many believe the abuse goes back for generations — continuing until just months before the arrest.

Hendricks is from Cincinnati and regularly returned to the area, federal prosecutors said.

A spokesman for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati previously told The Enquirer he was a Franciscan Brother at the St. Anthony Friary in Mount Airy in the 1960s and would therefore have been supervised by his religious order, rather than the archdiocese. He left the Franciscans around 1986 and was soon ordained as a priest by the local diocese.

Hendrick’s arrest was a sudden fall for a priest who had presided over the community for nearly four decades, rebuilding its chapel, pressing local officials to pave the village road, paying school fees for poor children.

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CHAMPAIGN (IL)
News Gazette

Sept. 8, 2019

By Don Follis

In late July, I was just an hour from Hoxie, Kansas, (where I was born and spent my first 10 years) when I passed the exit on Interstate 70 for Victoria, Kan., home of “The Cathedral on the Plains.” For miles you can see the twin 141-foot limestone towers of the St. Fidelis Catholic Church.

The church and school dominate the town of 1,200 distinctly German and overwhelmingly catholic residents. St. Fidelis is the only church in Victoria. German immigrants moved to the area in the late 1800s. St. Fidelis was dedicated in 1911. The building features seating for 1,100, 44-foot ceilings and a 220-foot nave.

St. Fidelis is pretty much in the middle of nowhere out on the vast High Plains, and that’s how Victoria, Kan., and the church, came to be in the national news a year ago. As Ruth Graham writes in the Sept. 3 Slate magazine, “Last fall, God brought to Victoria an unexpected visitor: Theodore McCarrick, once the most powerful Catholic priests in America.” He was the archbishop of Washington D.C. from 2001-06. He was the priest “Meet the Press” relied on to talk about the abuse crisis. At the funerals of Ted Kennedy, Beau Biden, Tim Russert and William Rehnquist, McCarrick participated.

Just over a year ago, the jet-setting priest suddenly became the country’s most well-known accused perpetrator of clerical sexual abuse. The Vatican quickly removed McCarrick from public ministry, and McCarrick resigned his position as a cardinal, the first cardinal to ever resign over sexual-abuse allegations.

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BUFFALO (NY)
WKBW TV

Sept. 8, 2019

By Anthony Reyes

Petitions are circulating calling on Diocese of Buffalo Bishop Richard J. Malone to resign for his handling of the sex abuse scandal in the diocese.

The first petition, circulating among clergy of the diocese drafted by Rev. Robert Zilliox, of St. Mary’s Swormville, states;

“Most priests, deacons and the laity of the Diocese at Buffalo have lost trust and confidence in your ability to lead us forward. Therefore, we reiterate our demand that you resign effective immediately.”

A second petition circulating on change.org created by “The People of the Diocese of Buffalo, NY” states:

“We request the immediate resignation of Bishop Richard J. Malone as Bishop of the Diocese of Buffalo, NY. Just as clergy must resign when found guilty of sexual crimes and sins perpetrated under the guise of holiness and authority so must this Bishop resign for being a silent accomplice in these crimes and sins committed by clergy in the Diocese of Buffalo.”

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MEMPHIS (TN)
WREG TV

Sept. 8, 2019

By Nina Harrleson

Memphis’ first Catholic bishop has been replaced on a mural downtown months after he was included in a list of clergymen accused of molesting children.

The “Upstanders Mural” – on a wall across from the National Civil Rights Museum – is supposed to honor heroes, but after allegations of child sex abuse against the late Carroll Dozier surfaced earlier this year, the group that painted the mural decided he no longer belongs there.

“I would certainly say that that would be their right to change that. And I think as time changes with people, society changes, ideas change, beliefs change, and I think you have to go with that,” Bob Gray, who’s visiting Memphis from Door County, Wis., said. “If you don’t change, if you don’t continue, you’re never going to progress.”

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer

September 8, 2019 – 5:00 AM

By Maria Panaritis

The creepy smile. In photos of defrocked archdiocesan priest Francis Trauger last week outside a Bucks County police station, the alleged child sexual predator flashed an outsized grin. He was wearing a suit jacket that flitted as he moved an arm. The pose was more fashion-catalog preen than street candid of a 74-year-old being booked for molesting children.

Then again, Trauger had evaded justice since at least 1981. So that megawatt grin? Maybe it was just that of a septuagenarian who knew that he’d mostly dodged the system.

His arrest after so many decades was itself as startling as the images shot by an Inquirer photographer. But there soon was more to fuel a sense of unease.

Two days after Trauger’s arrest on assault charges out of Bristol, another disgraced priest’s face was blasted into the news, that of defrocked Archdiocese of Philadelphia cleric Robert L. Brennan. The feds snapped up the octogenarian in Maryland on charges that he lied to the FBI in Philadelphia about his relationship with the family of a young victim, Sean McIlmail. Sean died the last time Brennan faced charges. His death had made the case fall apart a few years ago.

No victim, no crime.

Trauger. Brennan. Names and faces I had never forgotten.

I’d spent many months 17 years ago trying to chase allegations that these then-active priests were abusers. Their arrests by state and federal prosecutors now, nearly two decades later, are a testament to the perseverance of prosecutors and victims. Even against long odds and a statute of limitations too short to allow most prosecutions, they have refused to dim the spotlight on these horrors that the church helped go undetected and, as a tragic result, unprosecuted.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

September 7, 2019

By News Editorial Board

Child-abuse lawsuits involving the Catholic Church dominated the initial headlines when the Child Victims Act opened a window for filings on Aug. 14, but it was always clear that the problem was much more widespread.

The accusations brought against a former social studies teacher in the Kenmore Tonawanda School District are not only especially loathsome, but hint at a possible wave of future suits against teachers in schools of every kind.

The case of Arthur F. Werner, a former social studies teacher at Herbert Hoover Elementary School, is particularly unusual. Rather than assaulting young boys in a secluded place, the victims — then fifth- and sixth-graders — accuse Werner of calling them up to the front of the classroom and groping or fondling them through their clothes, in view of the other students.

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NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph

September 8, 2019

A tribute to a bishop accused of mishandling the case around paedophile priest Malachy Finegan is to be removed from Newry Cathedral.

Head of the Catholic Church in Ireland Archbishop Eamon Martin has confirmed that the floor mosaic in honour of Bishop Francis Brooks will be removed.

The Irish News has reported that Archbishop Martin wrote to a solicitor for victims, Claire McKeegan of Phoenix Law, to confirm it would be removed at the request of victims.

In February 2018 it was revealed that Finegan had abused a number of boys for over 20 years at St Colman’s College, Newry.

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UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

September 8, 2019

By Kevin McKenna

Its errors run from toting a saint’s relics around Scotland to an invitation to a reactionary priest

Agrim little vaudeville act is currently touring some of Scotland’s Catholic parishes, featuring the remains of Thérèse of Lisieux, a long-dead French nun. Thérèse died of tuberculosis at the age of 24 in 1897 and was canonised in 1925, becoming Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. By all accounts, this young woman developed an exemplary devotion to her faith and was the author of some beautiful (if slightly ripe) spiritual tracts. I’m not sure she deserved the fate of having some of her remains bumped in and out of cars and through the hills of South Lanarkshire and Paisley for the devoted titillation of the faithful.

These relics of Saint Thérèse are considered to be “first class”, this being the ultimate seal of Vatican authentication. To be accorded this distinction, they must be parts of the bodies of the saints, such as fragments of bone, skin, blood, hair or ash. Apparently, poor dead Thérèse (or parts thereof) has been getting ferried like this throughout the Catholic world since 1994. Is there no one to call a halt to this unedifying distortion of faith? Can we not let this blameless lassie rest in peace?

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ROME (ITALY)
Crux

September 8, 2019

By John L. Allen Jr.

Notre Dame is basically the Texas of the American Catholic Church, meaning it tends to operate on the principle of “go big or go home.” They don’t do anything small under the Golden Dome, and that’s certainly true of a major series of events this academic year developed by Father John Jenkins, ND’s president, on the clerical sexual abuse crisis.

The series kicks off Wednesday, Sept. 25, with a panel titled “The Church Crisis: Where Are We Now?” to be held on the ND campus and livestreamed on the university web site as well as on Crux. The guiding idea is to pivot the conversation about the scandals away from rage and toward recovery.

To headline the event, Notre Dame easily could have relied on Peter Steinfels, a veteran Catholic journalist and thinker who’s covered the abuse crisis from the beginning and who penned a brilliant dissection in January of the bombshell Pennsylvania grand jury report.

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LOCKPORT (NY)
Lockport Union-Sun & Journal

September 8, 2019

In recent months, Richard Malone, the embattled bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo, continued to receive support from members of the Movement to Restore Trust, an advisory group of local Catholics that was formed in response to a recent rash of sexual abuse allegations facing members of the clergy.

On Thursday, that all changed.

The group of lay Catholics who had been working with Malone to develop reforms in hopes of moving the diocese forward joined a chorus of critics who have been calling on the bishop to resign. In a statement issued to the media this week, members of the Movement to Restore Trust members determined that Malone’s actions in response to the sex abuse scandal threaten to set the diocese “back several decades.” In the opinion of the group, Malone has failed to handle the situation in such a manner as to pose “substantial risk of harm to the diocese and the good works that the church does in this region.”

The Movement to Restore Trust’s position amounts to a vote of no confidence in Bishop Malone and it is one Catholics across Western New York should seriously consider as they form opinions on diocesan leadership.

This select group of Catholics was chosen to assist in the process of developing much-needed reforms within the diocese. For them to conclude Malone has mishandled diocesan affairs should be proof enough that new leadership is needed.

As has now been widely reported, Malone’s latest round of missteps were laid bare for the public to hear when a once-trusted secretary released secretly recorded audio tapes on which Malone can be heard talking about his fear of losing his position amid the crisis and his thoughts on potentially embarrassing matters, including a priest’s alleged sexual harassment of a seminarian.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

September 8, 2019

By Jay Tokasz and Dan Herbeck

Auxiliary Bishop Edward M. Grosz allegedly threatened to halt the Rev. Ryszard S. Biernat’s ordination as a priest and have him deported to Poland after Biernat complained in 2004 to Buffalo Diocese administrators that he was sexually assaulted by a priest.

“He said, ‘Ryszard, if you don’t stop talking about this, you will not be ordained. Do you hear me? Do you hear me?’ ” recalled Biernat.

Biernat said Grosz’s treatment of his complaint was “10 times worse” than the actual abuse he alleges the Rev. Arthur J. Smith inflicted on him inside the rectory of St. Thomas Aquinas Church.

“If you turn for help to the bishop of the diocese, they’re going to blame you and they’re going to say it was your fault,” said Biernat.

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TORONTO (CANADA)
Catholic Register

Sept. 6, 2019

By Gerry Turcotte

Recently I read a wonderful LinkedIn entry by Aron Laxton about the U.S. Navy’s efforts to study and reinforce aircraft based on planes that had been damaged from the front. Engineers studied and mapped the bullet holes that peppered the “wounded” planes and determined that additional armour needed to be added to the wingtips and to the central body of the aircraft.

The bullet holes were proof of where the aircraft was vulnerable. Or so they thought.

A statistician on staff, Abraham Wald, however, deeply disagreed. He proposed, instead, that additional armour be added to the nose, engines and mid-body. His colleagues thought he was crazy. None of the planes had showed any such evidence of damage.

As Laxton explained, though, “Wald realized what the others didn’t. The planes were getting shot there too, but they weren’t making it home. What the Navy thought it had done was analyze where aircraft were suffering the most damage. What they had actually done was analyze where aircraft could suffer the most damage without catastrophic failure. … They weren’t looking at the whole sample set, only the survivors.”

It’s a wonderful example of misperception — or of studying a question from the wrong point of view and missing the obvious. In one of the many comments to this post, a respondent connected this to customer service. “We get input from customers on where our products/services don’t meet their requirements and then use that input to improve our processes. Unfortunately this is biased information. It’s ‘survivor bias.’ What about getting input from the ones who left — the ones who gave up on doing business with us?”

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BLUE SPRINGS (MO)
The Examiner

Sept. 6, 2019

By Mike Genet

Twelve of the 19 priests on a new list of clerics who officials say have substantiated allegations of child sex abuse against them served churches in Eastern Jackson County at some point in their ministry.

The list, released Friday by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, included no current priests. With the exception of federal prison inmate Shawn Ratigan, all allegations are from before 1990. Thirteen of the 19 have died, two have been permanently removed from ministry, and four including Ratigan have been laicized, or removed from the clerical state.

The diocese also released the names of 11 clerics in other categories. Three had substantiated allegations while in the diocese but are now under the control of other dioceses, Two religious-order priests have been removed from ministry. Three former diocesan priests were found “unsuitable for ministry out of concern for the safety of our youth.” Three clergy are part of legal settlements but their cases have not been substantiated in court or by the church. One of the accused priests in another diocese and all three found unsuitable for ministry served in Eastern Jackson County.

Of the 12 accused priests who served in the area, four reportedly had allegations stemming from their local tenures, according to the website bishopaccountability.org – Francis McGlynn (St. Mary, Independence, 1970-74), Hugh Monahan (St. Robert Bellarmine, Blue Springs, 1983-87), Thomas O’Brien (Nativity of Mary, Independence, 1981-83) and Stephen Wise (Our Lady of Presentation, Lee’s Summit, 1981-85). Monahan and Wise have been laicized, and McGlynn and O’Brien died earlier in the decade. Also, Mark Honhart (Nativity, 1980-81) was serving in the Scranton, Pennsylvania Diocese when he was permanently removed from ministry. All had more than one allegation against them, according to the report.

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DETROIT (MI)
Channel 4

Sept. 6, 2019

By Jermont Terry & Kayla Clarke

A local woman is speaking out after she said a priest accused of sexual abuse is trying to silence her.

That priest was removed from public ministry as investigators look into allegations of sexual abuse involving a minor. A young Metro Detroit woman, Rose Maher, said she was abused by the priest, not sexually.

“I had this experience with Father Perrone where I drank underage in the rectory. It started at 12 and went past 18. At the time I didn’t know it was wrong. I thought it was a privilege,” Maher said.

As an adult, she recently started speaking publicly on podcasts and online about the abuse she said she endured along with male altar servers.

That priest was removed from public ministry as investigators look into allegations of sexual abuse involving a minor.

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Patheos blog

Sept. 7, 2019

By Mary Pezzulo

It’s now September. the time of year when I’ll start re-sharing my posts on the Satanic Panic and Halloween. And in the news we have the story of Father Reehill, the eccentric priest who banned Harry Potter because he thought the spells were real– and, of course, the news is now coming out that this is not the first time Father Reehill has acted irrationally. Concerned parents have met with the diocese about him on three separate occasions because he is allegedly emotionally abusive of students, and has driven several of them to need psychotherapy. This is in addition to the stunning corruption we’re seeing coming out of the Diocese of Buffalo, which I want to write about separately later, and in the Church in general.

It’s time to talk again about spiritual abuse.

I often talk about spiritual abuse on this blog. But it occurs to me that I’ve never taken an entire post just to describe the phenomenon, why it’s so damaging, and why it needs to be identified and condemned quickly and loudly whenever it occurs.

Some people, including some of my regular readers, think of all religious practice as inherently abusive. They often have good reason to think this way, based on what they’ve seen and experienced in practicing religion themselves and what they’ve witnessed happen to others. I respect those people, but I do disagree with their conclusion that all religion is abusive. I find my relationship with Christ to be a positive and healthy thing, even though my relationships with fellow Catholics have at times been abusive disasters and I do suffer from trauma because of that. I believe that non-toxic organized religion exists. That’s why spiritual abuse is so personally offensive to me. We can do better, and we must.

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O’FALLON (MO)
Post-Dispatch

Sept. 7, 2019

By Jesse Bogan, Erin Heffernan and Nassim Benchaabane

Athletico Physical Therapy, which has hundreds of storefronts across the Midwest, offers personalized treatment plans for anything from back pain to male pelvic health to gymnastics and cheerleading rehabilitation.

One of its locations in a strip mall off Highway K in O’Fallon buzzed with activity on a recent afternoon. A young woman in black tights and a Mizzou T-shirt stretched near a half dozen other clients trying to work through the pain of lingering injuries.

Dennis J. McClintock, 72, a rehabilitation aide, sat at the edge of the workout floor, sporting an orange Hawaiian shirt, a stark contrast to the white clerical collar he used to wear as a Roman Catholic priest.

On July 26, the Archdiocese of St. Louis made a long-awaited splash by releasing a list of former clergy with substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of a minor. Some names were already widely known; their abuse had been the subject of lawsuits and news stories. Others, including McClintock’s, were being made public for the first time.

Who these priests and deacons were and what they had done was largely hidden — and still is. More than a month after the list was released, neighbors, co-workers and victims are in the dark.

Unlike similar lists released by Catholic organizations from around the country, the archdiocese didn’t say where the men served. Nor did it include the number of alleged victims and what happened to them.

Decades after leaving the archdiocese, they have lived second lives. They’ve counseled high school students, owned appliance stores and helped young athletes rehabilitate their bodies. Two left their pasts in St. Louis and moved away.

Another has been working at a Baptist church. Contacted by the Post-Dispatch, he admitted abuse and prayed it hadn’t scarred the victims. Others said the archdiocese smeared them without a chance to defend themselves. One said he hadn’t even heard he was on the list until a reporter called.

Even though an archdiocesan spokesman said in July the church had “found nothing new that alarmed us,” those on the outside who have closely monitored allegations of clergy sex abuse have been startled by the latest revelations.

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

Sept. 6, 2019

Buffalo’s bishop will not resign, he says. However new tapes show that he is still trying to hide the truth, and church officials in New York and the Vatican are doing nothing.

To us, the remedy is simple:

First, Catholics must be more outspoken and critical, especially directly to Bishop Richard Malone himself, about how he continues to evade the truth and endanger the vulnerable. This has started with a call for the bishop’s resignation coming from the local Movement to Restore Trust. That call must be amplified by other local Catholics who have seen their diocese become the poster child for the continuing abuse crisis.

Second, more diocesan whistleblowers must step forward. If the bishop will not act to protect the vulnerable and tell the truth, then current and former church staffers and members must do so. No matter what you know or suspect – even if it is second hand or old or seemingly insignificant, now is the time to speak up. Last year, Siobhan O’Connor stepped out as a powerful voice for prevention and doing the right thing. We hope others will learn from her courage, follow in her footsteps and display similar courage in coming forward. If you need help to do so, you can contact our group for support.

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

Sept. 6, 2019

West Virginia’s attorney general is fighting to keep his creative lawsuit against church officials alive. We support his efforts and hope that his lawsuit will not be dismissed.

We applaud West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey who is fighting back against Catholic officials who want to continue concealing clergy sex crimes and cover ups. We hope his creative approach of using consumer protections in order to force church staff into greater transparency will encourage others in law enforcement to take similar steps and think outside the box for ways to get to the bottom of cases of clergy sex abuse and cover-ups.

There are far too many secrets within West Virginia that are still not being exposed. For example, church officials from the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston are still not turning over the results of their internal investigation into now-disgraced Bishop Michael Bransfield to the AG’s office, despite AG Morrisey’s request.

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)
WKBW TV

Sept. 6, 2019

By Charlie Specht

Where are all the “good priests” in the Diocese of Buffalo? And at a time of unprecedented crisis, why aren’t they speaking out against Bishop Richard J. Malone like so many of their parishioners wish they would?

Those are two questions at the front of Kevin Koscielniak’s mind. The Buffalo native is a survivor of child sexual abuse by a Buffalo priest.

“Is the right thing to do to be silent and protect those predators?” Koscielniak asked. “Or is the right thing to do, to stand up and do something about it?”

Koscielniak knows not all Catholic priests are bad. But he says the so-called “good priests” of the diocese must stand up to the bishop for his handling of sexual abuse.

“Every priest out there who doesn’t say a word, your credibility is zero,” Koscielniak said. “You can’t go out there every single week and talk about doing the right thing and then support this.”

Bishop Malone made it clear at his emergency news conference Wednesday that no matter how many people call for his resignation, it’s the opinion of his clergy that matters most.

“If I felt like a majority of my clergy felt like I could no longer lead the diocese with them — because a bishop does not lead by himself or he’s a poor leader — then I’d have to re-think my commitment,” Malone said.

The bishop insisted that “the ones who would like to see me move on are truly the minority,” but that’s not what a priest told 7 Eyewitness News earlier this week by phone. The priest said the majority of priests he talks to want the bishop to resign. But he wouldn’t speak publicly and he asked not to be identified, for fear of retribution by the bishop.

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.

CLARENCE (NY)
WIVB TV

Sept. 6, 2019

By Chris Horvatits

The pastor of a Catholic parish in Clarence is spear-heading a new effort to force Bishop Richard Malone to resign as the head of the Diocese of Buffalo.

Malone has resisted calls for his resignation over his handling of sexual abuse and harassment claims. Now, Rev. Bob Zilliox, pastor of St. Mary’s in the Clarence community of Swormville has drafted a “no confidence” letter for Malone. Zilliox plans to spend the next five days gathering as many signatures from priests and deacons in the diocese as he can. He intends to share it with Malone and the public on Wednesday.

“It’s time for my brothers in the clergy to step up,” Zilliox said, “to truly examine their conscious, make a decision, and make a choice that we can no longer allow this to continue.

“Malone doesn’t really care about the people of God. He cares about himself. He cares about his office.”

Zilliox first spoke about the issue last year, taking part in a 60 Minutes interview on the crisis.

“I gave (Malone) a year,” Zilliox said. “I gave him a year to show the Diocese of Buffalo and our local community that he was serious about restoring trust, reforming this, making a difference, and approach things in a whole new light. Obviously the events of the last few weeks and months indicate that’s not the case.”

Most recently, Malone has come under fire for his handling of a sexual harassment complaint by Matthew Bojanowski, a former Christ the King seminarian. Bojanowski accused Rev. Jeffrey Nowak, pastor of Our Lady Help of Christians in Cheektowaga, of violating the seal of his confession as well.

The official complaint against Nowak was filed in January. However Nowak wasn’t put on administrative leave until August, only after he refused to undergo a behavioral assessment, diocesan officials said.

The Nowak issue was also the last straw for the Movement to Restore Trust, a group of lay Catholics created in 2018 as the crisis was unfolding. On Thursday, the group joined in the chorus calling for Malone to resign.

“It was with a fair degree of sadness and humility that we came to that decision,” said Maureen Hurley, a co-founding member of the group.

“(The clergy needs) to stand up and we need to be the voice of reason, the voice of the Good Shepherd, shepherding our people in helping the diocese heal by joining the Movement to Restore Trust and all the laity of the diocese to demand Bishop Malone resign immediately,” Zilliox said.

Zilliox is not the first member of the clergy to call for Malone’s resignation. In October 2018, Rev. Paul Seil, pastor of St. Bernadette Church in Orchard Park, said the bishop should step down.

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

Sept. 6, 2019

Give this much to Bishop Richard J. Malone: The problems roiling Buffalo’s Catholic diocese long predated his arrival and permeate the church, not just here, but around the world. Yet it is obvious that Malone’s management of the crisis swirling around him is insufficient to the need.

For evidence, one need look no further than the fact that two of his closest aides have seen fit to leak information to the news media. Malone’s former administrative assistant, Siobhan O’Connor, provided pages of copied documents to WKBW-TV reporter Charlie Specht last year. Those documents opened the curtains on how Malone had handled — or mishandled — allegations of sexual misconduct and inappropriate behavior against two priests.

And last month, Malone’s secretary of six years, the Rev. Ryszard Biernat, provided a secretly recorded conversation with Malone to the same station. It dealt with what Malone described as a love triangle that, in a bizarre twist, involved Biernat.

Both impugn Malone’s leadership. We believed last year that he should resign. This new episode does nothing to change our view. Nor, unfortunately, has it changed that of Malone, who repeated Wednesday that he would not step down.

As to the episode itself, it’s a mess, but one whose roots are plain. It sprouts from the church’s culture of secrecy, its complicated and inconsistent ideas about homosexuality and its celibacy requirement. The bar against women in the priesthood also likely plays a role.

Was it a love triangle? A lawyer in the case rejects the notion, but it’s easy to see how Malone reached that conclusion. In brief, a seminarian, Matthew Bojanowski, had complained to the diocese about what he said was inappropriate conduct by the Rev. Jeffrey Nowak. Bojanowski claimed sexual harassment by Nowak and a violation of the seal of confession. Nowak was, at one time, both a mentor and friend of Bojanowski, according to Malone.

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

Sept. 6, 2019

By Dan Herbeck

The pressure is building on Bishop Richard J. Malone, leader of Buffalo’s Catholic Diocese.

Over the past 13 months, two of his most trusted confidants — people who worked side-by-side with him for years — have turned against Malone, publicly demanding that he resign from the job he has held since 2012 over his handling of sexual abuse allegations involving priests.

In recent months, some local priests and deacons took the extremely rare action of calling for him to leave office. So did a congressman, Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo.

Another painful blow to the bishop came Thursday afternoon, when a group of prominent, influential and wealthy Catholics — the Movement To Restore Trust — also abandoned its support.

Soon after that, the diocese announced that a Sept. 11 “listening session” at Niagara University has been canceled because the university no longer wants to host the event. Malone also canceled his annual appearance at a Catholic Charities dinner Friday night, saying he did not want protesters to tarnish an event meant to honor volunteers and donors.

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)
KMBC 9 News

Sept. 6, 2019

On Friday, the Diocese of Kansas City – St. Joseph published a list of area clerics who have been found to have substantiated allegations of sexual abuse against a minor.

“In releasing this list my first hope is that it will acknowledge the survivors of clergy sexual abuse and their wounds,” said Rev. James V. Johnson Jr., bishop of Kansas City – St. Joseph. “The release of these names cannot change the past. It is merely a step forward in hope, but a necessary step.”

The diocese said the list was compiled after a review of diocese files by a forensic research firm.

“Their findings confirmed there are no clerics in active ministry in the Diocese of Kansas City – St. Joseph with substantiated allegations of abusing minors,” Johnson said.

However, SNAP, or the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said this release was long overdue and incomplete.

The list released by the diocese names 19 area diocesan clergy with substantiated abuse allegations, as well as clerics not incardinated in the KCSJ diocese but who were within the area at the time of the abuse.

Officials with SNAP called the bishop’s release Friday “reckless and callous” and said the information the list contained was incomplete.

“It is reckless and callous for Bishop Johnston to have hidden these names for so long, releasing them when it’s convenient for him, instead of immediately when the allegations are made or deemed ‘credible’ by church officials,” a SNAP release said. “And it is notable to us that the list is missing several names and key details about others.”

SNAP identified six clerics the organization identified as having spent time with KCSJ: Fr. Deusdedit Mulokozi, Fr. James V. McCormick, Fr. Richard C. Colbert, Fr. Donald Redmond, Fr. Thomas A. Conway and Fr. Edgar Probstfield.

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

LANSING (MI)
Huron Daily Tribune

Sept. 6, 2019

By Bradley Massman

State officials, today, announced a counseling license was revoked from a former priest who now resides in the Port Austin area.

The state’s Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) revoked the educationally limited counselor’s license of Lawrence Ventline, a former priest with the Archdiocese of Detroit accused of sexually assaulting a young boy. However, he was never criminally charged or found guilty of sexual assault.

Also today, Ventline was fined $5,000.

The board’s action follows LARA’s summary suspension of Ventline’s license in May after an administrative complaint was filed by the Michigan Attorney General’s Office with LARA for allegations 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.

BUFFALO (NY)
WKBW TV

Sept. 5, 2019

By Keith Radford

As many Western New Yorkers know, on Wednesday the Buffalo Catholic Diocese selected the reporters it allowed to attend Bishop Richard Malone’s news conference. Our I-Team Chief Investigator Charlie Specht, whose investigative story led to that news conference, was not allowed in the building to ask a question on behalf of the public.

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NASHVILLE (TN)
Baptist News Global

Sept. 6, 2019

By Bob Allen

A lineup of speakers for the 2020 Together for the Gospel conference announced Sept. 3 excludes a number of familiar faces from past gatherings, suggesting possible rifts in the Neo-Calvinist preaching club sometimes called the young, restless and Reformed.

The conference, scheduled April 14-16 in Louisville, Kentucky, has been held every other year since 2006. According to the T4G website, it attracts pastors and church leaders from more than 25 denominations in all 50 states as well as 62 foreign nations.

It all began as a friendship between four pastors with differing opinions on matters such as baptism and charismatic gifts but in agreement that the gospel was being “misrepresented, misunderstood and marginalized” in many churches advertising themselves as Christian.

Photo of notable absences at the 2020 Together for the Gospel confab posted on Twitter by blogger Todd Wilhelm, former member of a 9Marks church and longtime critic of T4G co-founder C.J. Mahaney.

Next year’s roster does include mainstays like author John Piper; T4G co-founders Mark Dever, Ligon Duncan and Albert Mohler, and David Platt, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board.

But conspicuously missing are past speakers such as Thabiti Anyabwile, Matt Chandler and John MacArthur, all names that recently appeared in media coverage of controversies regarding sexual abuse, the Social Gospel and a social science concept known as Critical Race Theory.

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.

CHARLESTON (WV)
Weirton Daily Times

Sept. 6, 2019

By Steven Allen Adams

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey announced Thursday that his office filed a response to the Diocese of Wheeling Charleston’s motion to dismiss a civil case calling for more transparency regarding abuse of children.

The Attorney General’s Office filed their response to the diocese’s motion to dismiss in Wood County Circuit Court Wednesday. A hearing on the motion to dismiss was scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Tuesday.

“The diocese’s motion to dismiss is yet another attempt to duck our calls for transparency,” Morrisey said in a statement Thursday. “Our response proves the strength of our case and why it should be decided in court. The decades-long pattern of cover-up and abuse must end and public trust must be restored.”

The original lawsuit, filed in March in Wood County, accuses the diocese of violating the West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act by not disclosing incidents of sexual misconduct involving school and camp employees with minors to parents. The suit alleges that the diocese and former Bishop Michael J. Bransfield knowingly hired pedophiles and did not conduct background checks on employees for schools and camps operated by the diocese.

The diocese filed an amended motion to dismiss the civil suit in July, arguing that Morrisey has no authority to file a civil suit and accuses Morrisey of using the Consumer Credit and Protection Act to violate the separation of church and state.

In Wednesday’s filing, Assistant Attorney General Douglas Davis said the state is in no way trying to violate the diocese’s religious beliefs and practices but force it to comply with state consumer protection laws for the paid services the church provides, such as education.

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

Sept. 3, 2019

Church officials from the Diocese of Pittsburgh today announced the creation of a new system to handle “questions related to suspected wrongdoing in parishes, schools or diocesan offices.” Rather than create new systems for handling allegations, however, we believe that people should instead be encouraged to make reports to law enforcement.

In announcing the EthicsPoint system today, Church officials are touting the creation of yet another church-run structure to handle reports of wrongdoing. But this announcement comes at a time when parishioners and the public are demanding less church involvement in investigations, not more.

We recognize that in their announcement, church officials say that they route all allegations of abuse to police and will only internally investigate allegations “that would not be the purview of investigations by law enforcement or other civil authorities.” But we believe it should be police and prosecutors who determine what allegations will be in their purview, not a contractor hired by local church officials. And more to the point, when faced with an allegation known to be outside the criminal statute of limitations, will it be routed to police or deemed to “not be in their purview?”

The fact is, over the years, internal church systems and procedures have not been enough to stop either cases of abuse or to stop church officials from ignoring, minimizing, or covering-up cases of abuse. And this system, administered by a third-party or not, will still ultimately route allegations of wrongdoing by church officials to other church officials.

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

Sept. 5, 2019

Several weeks ago, we learned about potential charges being filed against a former Cheyenne, Wyoming bishop. Today, we are urging law enforcement officials to update the public and for church officials in Wyoming to take punitive action against their former leader.

In Mid-August, law enforcement officials recommended charges in a vague announcement that appeared to be referencing the former Bishop of Cheyenne, Joseph A. Hart, as well as one other person that was “seeking membership” in the clergy. Now we are calling on Cheyenne’s prosecutor to announce whether he will follow the recommendation of police and charge Bishop Hart with child molestation. While we are glad that charges were recommended against Bishop Hart, we know that children and vulnerable adults will be safer once those charges are acted on. We hope that law enforcement officials in Cheyenne will take action soon and update the public when they 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.

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

Sept. 3, 2019

Today, a child abusing former priest from Levittown, Francis Trauger, was arrested and charged with sexually assaulting two boys. The below statement is a personal statement from local Philadelphia SNAP leader Mike McDonnell who is also a survivor of Trauger:

“My phone rang early this morning from a trusted source who informed me that one of my abusers has been arrested and charged with sexual assault and corruption of minors. He is the now-defrocked Francis Trauger, 74 yrs old. My heart goes out first to the victims in this case and to their families, they have long held the liability. They are my heroes today, courageous warriors! Trauger’s last assignment was from 1993-2003 and falls within the timeframe of the charges announced today. Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub said the assaults happened while Trauger was a priest at St. Michael the Archangel in Levittown, Pa. between 1993 and 2003. Trauger was defrocked in 2005.

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia knew that Trauger was an abuser as early as September of 1981. Today is 26 years from the date he had abused me and Trauger has finally been arrested. What a range of emotions that have traveled in my head in what was supposed to be a ‘back-to-school’ preparation day. I have prayed for this day for a very long time and feared very much for the number of victims accumulated by this monster. I have wept tears of joy and tears of sadness. I can only think of what relief my 11-yearr-old self would have felt in 1981.

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

Sept. 5, 2019

A just-unearthed recording of Buffalo’s top Catholic official has confirmed that he knew about allegations of sexual harassment against a priest in his diocese and did nothing. This inaction combined with the months of scandal and lies from church officials in Buffalo should compel church officials in the Vatican to step in and discipline him.

In a recording obtained by WKBW in Buffalo, Bishop Richard Malone referred to an accused priest, Fr. Jeff Nowak as “a sick puppy” who he acknowledged was harassing a seminarian. Yet despite this determination, Bishop Robert Malone chose to do nothing for five months before sending Fr. Nowak to a church-run “treatment center.” And only last week, ten months after the first complaint was made, did Bishop Malone finally put Fr. Nowak on administrative leave.

This inaction is enough to cause dissension in Bishop Malone’s staff and should be enough for church officials in the Vatican to discipline Bishop Malone’s flaunting of the Dallas Charter and defiance of the church’s oft-touted “zero-tolerance policy.” This case represents the third time that Bishop Malone has left an accused abuser in ministry – in just the past year.

Bishop Malone’s record on abuse and transparency is abysmal and his credibility is near zero. His own words indict him as in these recordings he continues to show more concern for his career than he does for the safety of children and vulnerable adults. Catholics in Buffalo deserve a bishop who will do the right thing by them, not lie to them repeatedly.

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

Sept. 5, 2019

A priest who has been accused of abusing children since the 1980s was just arrested in Philadelphia on federal charges. We are grateful for this move and know that it will keep children safer.

Defrocked priest Robert L. Brennan was arrested for allegedly lying to federal investigators about his relationship with the family of one of his accusers. We hope that this arrest signals that law enforcement officials in the FBI are looking closely at cases of clergy abuse and finding opportunities to keep potentially dangerous men off the street.

Brennan may be old, but we know that there is no magic age at which a child abuser stops. In fact, when perpetrators are older, parents or youth-serving professionals may view them as less dangerous and be less vigilant. We believe that communities are safer as a result of this arrest.

“On behalf of many survivors in our area and fellow SNAP members, I’m grateful to the McIlmail family for always being there despite their loss,” said Philadelphia SNAP Leader Mike McDonnell.

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

Sept. 5, 2019

A priest accused of abuse in Connecticut has just been removed due to “credible allegations” of abuse which were first reported in the early 2000s. We call on church officials to explain the delay and to provide an explanation for their public silence on this situation.

Accusations against Fr. Stephen Gleeson were apparently first reported to the diocese in 2002. Bishop Frank J. Caggiano has evidently kept silent for almost two decades about these child sex abuse allegations. Such silence flies in the face of church officials’ promise to be “open and honest” in cases of clergy sex abuse. Parishioners and the public in the Bridgeport Diocese should demand an explanation for this secrecy.

The bishop acknowledged that his hand-picked abuse panel met several times to discuss the accusations against Fr. Gleeson. But we believe that Bishop Caggiano should have disclosed the abuse report as soon as it was made. Now that the allegations have finally been made public, he should also disclose why this panel previously found the allegations “not credible” and changed course on that finding today.

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.

SYRACUSE (NY)
WRVO TV

Sept. 6, 2019

By Ellen Abbott

A message of forgiveness is coming from two victims of the clergy sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. The two men want to propose an alternative to the anger and bitterness the scandal has wrought.

Both 42-year old Dan Paden, who was born and raised in Johnson City in the Southern Tier, and 58-year old Matt FitzGibbons of Fayetteville, remember being abused as a young child by a parish priest. And they say the way they have come to terms with the abuse is by forgiving their abusers. It’s a message not often heard from victims of clergy abuse, and FitzGibbons believes they are not alone.

“What needs to happen for evil to win is for good people to be silent,” he said. “And Dan and I decided we can’t be silent, and how do we get love out there in the conversation once again.”

Paden said the angry and bitter narrative surrounding the scandal didn’t help him heal. Forgiveness did.

“Being able to forgive my abuser doesn’t help victims,” said Paden. “I still want to help other victims. And one way that I want to help them is share the peace I found in moving to the point of forgiving my abuser and actively praying for him every day.”

FitzGibbons does say the church could do better helping victims of the abuse. He suggested the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse create an advisory board to oversee that.

“For people like me and Dan and our families, this is a life changing event, and it doesn’t go away once it’s out of the news,” he said. “And so how do we support victims and their families through the whole process, and be there for them.”

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ST. JOHNBURY (VT)
Caldonian Record

Sept. 6, 2019

In the ongoing fallout from the worldwide Catholic sex abuse scandals, the Vermont and New Hampshire Diocese recently published reports of “credibly accused” priests who preyed on victims in the two states.

In Vermont, 18 of the 40 accused predators roamed the Northeast Kingdom. North Country parishioners endured 29 of 71 accused pedophiles.

“This is meant as an act of ownership and accountability,” New Hampshire Bishop Peter Libasci said upon publication of the lists. “It is my hope that by making this information available, we are holding ourselves accountable to the evils of the past.”

To which we say… to hell with that.

We watched the Pope contextualize the abuse during this year’s Vatican conference and were quickly reminded that, had it not been for the Boston Globe, the church would willingly have maintained its rampant and seemingly timeless tradition of raping children and covering it up.

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BUFFALO (NY)
WBEN TV

Sept. 6, 2019

By Mike Baggerman

With the FBI reportedly investigating the Diocese of Buffalo in its role in the clergy sex abuse scandal over the last year, former FBI agent in Buffalo, Peter Ahearn, said it’s hard to say how long the investigation will take.

Channel 7 and The Buffalo News have both reported that agents spoke with victims of clergy sex abuse in Buffalo, who said they’re looking for proof of a cover-up in the diocesan ranks.

“If they are (doing an investigation), they’re going to be very thorough and follow the trail wherever it takes it,” Ahearn told WBEN by phone. “If it’s a one-allegation type of issue and it’s not anywhere else, the case could move quickly. If there’s an allegation that one person did something to another person -in this case a priest or something else- they’re going to look at it the same way.”

Ahearn said an FBI investigation into the Diocese is no different than any other type of investigation they do. They’ll deal with allegations and interview witnesses. The FBI will then work with the US Attorney’s Office to bring charges against the organization. The US Attorneys Office would not confirm or deny any investigations into the Diocese of Buffalo.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

Sept. 5, 2019

By Marc A. Thiessen

Disgraced ex-cardinal Theodore McCarrick was defrocked in February and ordered by Pope Francis to live a “life of prayer and penance.” It seems the message did not get through. McCarrick, it turns out, is unrepentant.

Slate reporter Ruth Graham recently visited the Capuchin friary in Victoria, Kansas, where McCarrick is living in solitude. The former prince of the church gave her a short, but shocking, interview. Asked about the accusations that he had sexually assaulted minors and seminarians under his authority, McCarrick denied the charges. “I’m not as bad as they paint me,” he said. “I do not believe that I did the things that they accused me of.”

Believe? An innocent man would never say “I do not believe I did it.” Asked if he was leaving open the possibility that he did in fact do the horrible things of which he has been accused, McCarrick said, “No.” Everyone is lying. He is an innocent man.

McCarrick specifically denied the accusation that finally turned Pope Francis against him – that he had molested a young boy during the sacrament of confession. Never mind that McCarrick was expelled from the priesthood after a canonical trial found him guilty of “solicitation in the Sacrament of Confession, and sins against the Sixth Commandment with minors and with adults, with the aggravating factor of the abuse of power.” Never mind that he appealed that decision and lost. “The thing about the confession, it’s a horrible thing,” he said. “I was a priest for 60 years, and I would never have done anything like that. . . . That was horrible, to take the holy sacrament and to make it a sinful thing.”

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

Sept. 6, 2019

By Dan Herbeck and Jay Tokasz

When he served at St. Amelia Church in the Town of Tonawanda, the Rev. Ryszard S. Biernat would sometimes stun parish members with his deeply emotional sermons.

The earnest young priest used to talk about growing up in Poland, where he said he hung around with the wrong people and got into serious trouble as a teenager. He talked about his battles with depression and self-destructive thoughts, and how his faith in Jesus Christ turned his life around.

“He was so open about his darkest fears and feelings. He would share things you’d never expect from any priest,” recalled Jeanne Phillips, a longtime parishioner and choir member at the Town of Tonawanda church. “It was surprising.”

Last year, Biernat surprised people again while preaching a sermon at another Town of Tonawanda church, when he spoke about a priest who had sexually abused him years earlier, when he was a seminary student.

Earlier this week came the biggest surprise of all: Biernat revealed to a local television reporter that he had been secretly tape-recording conversations with his boss, Bishop Richard J. Malone. The recordings were made while Biernat was serving as the bishop’s priest secretary, his closest aide. Serving in that role for six years, he spent more time with the bishop than any other person in the Diocese of Buffalo.

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BUFFALO (NY)
WKBW TV

Sept. 5, 2019

The Movement to Restore Trust (MRT), a group of powerful and influential Catholics formed in 2018 to assert the laity’s rightful role in the Church, contacted Bishop Malone Thursday asking that he resign immediately.

We make this request of Bishop Malone with a degree of humility and sadness. We had embarked upon our work with the hope that we could be a catalyst for reform and the restoration of trust of the faithful in the diocese. While we have made some progress toward that goal by working with Bishop Malone and the Joint Implementation Team, recent events and disclosures have led us to conclude that the diocese is at a critical point and that further progress is not possible. We believe that continuing to press forward under these circumstances jeopardizes MRT’s comprehensive reform agenda and compromises our ability to be agents for positive change.

The move is striking and potentially devastating for Bishop Malone’s future in Buffalo, as the MRT and Canisius College President John Hurley were seen as key allies in Malone’s efforts to remain in Buffalo. The bishop, in fact, cited the group multiple times in his news conference Wednesday where he said he would not resign.

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CINCINNATI (OH)
FOX19 TV

Sept. 5, 2019

A man who says he was a victim of Father Geoff Drew says wants others to speak out about what allegedly happened to them.

Drew is accused of raping an altar boy 30 years ago.

He pleaded not guilty to nine counts of rape during a bond hearing on Aug. 21.

Cincinnati police released a letter from the alleged victim on Thursday because he would like his words to be heard.

In the letter, the man says he wants to relay a message to other alleged victims that they are not alone and what happened was not their fault.

“Please know that it is okay for those around you to feel a righteous anger. Know that family will, and does, love you just the same. Know that you have a chance, an anonymous chance, to stand up and save others by your testimony. And in all this, you are loved and worthy.”

He goes on to say that he understands all of those feelings and he’s come to the realization that speaking out can provide others with a chance to not feel that same pain.

“Speaking up provides others the chance not to look in the mirror and wonder if they will be alright. Speaking up provides others the chance to live in a way that I, or you, did NOT get to.”

He goes on to say that speaking out solidifies the chance that this will never happen to someone again.

“I encourage you to do one of the hardest things possible and SPEAK OUT. Trust in knowing God has not abandoned you. This was not the act of a loving God. This was the act of an unloving man,” the letter said.

The man says just because Father Drew faces charges that carry a lot of jail time does not mean others should stay silent. He says the case becomes stronger when more people come forward.

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BUFFALO (NY)
WKBW TV

Sept. 5, 2019

By Charlie Specht

Ryszard Biernat was just 23 years old when he arrived in the Diocese of Buffalo in 2003.

The future secretary to the bishop — who has now become Whistleblower No. 2 in the diocese sex scandal — was only a seminarian when he was assigned to stay with Rev. Art Smith at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in South Buffalo.

“During that break, Art Smith assaulted me sexually,” Fr. Ryszard said in an interview with the 7 Eyewitness News I-Team. “And I wish somebody told me it was a crime.”

With hulking forearms and a muscular build, Fr. Ryszard is normally a tower of physical strength. But in recounting that moment from 15 years ago — when he could barely process what happened — he struggles now to hold back tears.

“At that time, I knew enough English to order (a) latte at Starbucks, not to report the sexual assault,” he said. “You know, they don’t teach you these words in English second language classes.”

The Polish immigrant would soon get an education in how the bishops of the Diocese of Buffalo handle sexual abuse.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post

August 20, 2019

By Emily Davies

When she saw him through the window of an Omaha hotel lobby, her eyes welled up with tears. There he was, a man with a silhouette just like her boyfriend’s decades ago. A minute later, Kathleen Chafin hugged her son, Tom Rouse, for the first time in her life.

“It made me alive again,” Chafin recalled in an interview with The Washington Post, crying as she remembered the meeting in August 2015. “He took my hand, held it firmly, and he never let go the whole time. Just seeing him, oh my.”

Chafin had spent decades searching for a son she says she never wanted to give up for adoption. When they finally did meet, her years of despair turned into anger at the Catholic Church and one of its priests, who she alleges manipulated her and then removed her son from a hospital room 50 years ago.

Chafin has filed a federal lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Omaha and the Wisconsin Province of the Society of Jesus, alleging on Wednesday that a Jesuit priest named Thomas Halley forced her to give her son up for adoption. She’s seeking $10 million for damages and relief.

Neither Catholic organization immediately responded to requests for comment late Monday. But when Chafin first raised concerns about the adoption in 2015, an investigation from the Wisconsin Province of the Society of Jesus concluded that Halley operated within the law and that his actions were “born of a desire to avoid scandal and find good homes for babies of unwed mothers,” the Omaha World-Herald reported.

Chafin contends the investigation was fraudulent, and she never received a copy of its findings.

“The process of the investigation was full of the same lies and manipulation I have experienced all my life,” she said. “I was furious.”

Chafin’s allegations aren’t unique. She became pregnant in 1968, during a time some academics call the “Baby Scoop Era.” From post-World War II until the Supreme Court legalized abortion in its 1973 landmark Roe v. Wade decision, many women were chastised and shunned for having children out of wedlock. Experts estimate more than 1.5 million unmarried women in the United States were forced to give up their babies for adoption during that period, according to Ann Fessler’s 2006 book, “The Girls Who Went Away.” Institutions such as the Catholic Church helped isolate single mothers and pressured them to sign away their children.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
Archdiocese of Baltimore

Sept. 5, 2019

Belschner, Ronald – In August 2019, the Archdiocese of Baltimore announced an allegation of child sexual abuse against Father Ronald Belschner. The alleged abuse occurred in the mid-1970s while Belschner was serving at St. Gregory the Great (Baltimore). Belschner denied the allegations. Belschner’s faculties to function as a priest had been permanently removed in 1991 when he went on a leave of absence. Belschner served at St. Mark (Catonsville) from 1965 to 1969, at St. Gregory the Great from 1969 to 1976, at All Saints from 1976 to 1981, at St. Joseph (Buckeystown) from 1981 to 1989, and at St. Mary (Cumberland) from 1989 to 1991. He also served as part-time chaplain at Mount St. Joseph High School from 1967 to 1969.

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PARIS (FRANCE)
LaCroix International

September 4, 2019

By Massimo Faggioli

In his novel “A Legacy of Spies” John Le Carré ponders the relationship between England and Europe.The most iconic character of his espionage tales, George Smiley, is an Englishman who has spent his life spying on the Soviets.

Now retired in a post-Cold War world, he says to his subordinate Peter Guillam:”So was it all for England, then? There was a time, of course there was. But whose England? Which England?”

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HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Chronicle

Sept. 5, 2019

By John Tedesco and Robert Downen

A day before the Southern Baptist Convention adopted reforms in response to an ongoing sexual abuse crisis, a Baptist leader warned the measures might make it easier for abuse victims to sue the organization — and gain access to the hundreds of millions of dollars it collects every year.

“I have some concerns about potential liabilities,” Joe Knott, a North Carolina lawyer, told fellow Baptists at an executive committee meeting in Birmingham, Ala., where the country’s largest coalition of Baptist churches was conducting its annual gathering in June.

The national spotlight was on the SBC as it debated how to protect its flock from sexual abusers. But Knott was also worried about a proposal for an SBC committee to conduct “inquiries” into how churches handle abuse allegations.

Such a proposal, he warned, could weaken the SBC’s argument that it has no control over its member churches — an assertion that leaders have said gives the SBC immunity in sexual abuse lawsuits.

“I don’t see how in the world we’re supposed to know how 50,000 churches are acting,” Knott said. “But if we’re telling the public, ‘We do know, we’ve given them credentials,’ that seems to be a big problem potentially.”

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PHILDELPHIA (PA)
Catholic Philly

Sept. 5, 2019

By Matthew Gambino

You may have noticed the space in church pews widening between you and your fellow Catholics attending Sunday Mass in recent years. It is not your imagination.

Mass attendance in parishes of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia has been dropping for years, and several factors have steepened the long-term pattern of decline to the point where today, half as many Catholics in the archdiocese attend Mass regularly as did a generation ago.

The findings of the latest October Count, an annual head count of people at all Masses in every parish for four consecutive weeks in October, show just under 200,000 people, precisely 199,101, attended Mass in the 214 parishes in October 2018.

The Mass census was begun in the archdiocese in 1990 and the first showed 416,137 attendees. That is a 52% decline in typical church attendance in 28 years.

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LOUISVILLE (KY)
Courier Journal

Sept. 5, 2019

By Matt Mencarini

Rachael Denhollander always wanted to keep it a secret.

The journal she tucked away in a hidden folder contained her most private thoughts, anguished conversations with herself detailing what her doctor, Larry Nassar, had done to her on his exam table.

The moments he penetrated her with his ungloved fingers, his hand hidden under a towel, while making small talk with her mother, just a few feet away.

“Am I hurting you, Rach?” he whispered close to her ear.

Beginning in 2004, Rachael’s cursive handwriting on each page detailed her vulnerability and her doubts that God cared. She feared she was somehow impure for her future husband.

“Save me O’ God,” she wrote on the first line of the first page.

No one was ever supposed to see that journal — certainly not the man who so horrifically violated her.

Nassar, once a famed sports medicine doctor, had stolen so much — her innocence, her trust, her relationship with her own body. It was the very same thing, the world would later learn, that he’d done to more than 300 other women and girls.

His abuse went on for decades. Olympians. College athletes. Young gymnasts. Women and girls who sought his help. And the 6-year-old daughter of family friends.

What Nassar couldn’t have were Rachael’s deepest thoughts. For 12 years, she locked them away in 31 loose-leaf pages, until the moment she knew they could stop him.

So, Rachael made a sacrifice.

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SOUTH ORANGE (NJ)
Catholic News Service

Sept. 5, 2019

A yearlong investigation by Seton Hall University confirmed that Theodore McCarrick, the laicized cardinal who had been archbishop of Newark from 1986 to 2000, had sexually harassed seminarians during his tenure as head of the archdiocese.

“McCarrick created a culture of fear and intimidation that supported his personal objectives. McCarrick used his position of power as then-archbishop of Newark to sexually harass seminarians,” said the 700-word “update,” dated Aug. 27. “No minors or other (Seton Hall) university students were determined to have been affected by McCarrick.”

The review was conducted by the law firm of Latham & Watkins, which may be best known for leading the investigation into the “Deflategate” scandal during a January 2015 NFL playoff game between New England and Indianapolis.

“The review found that the university’s Title IX policies are consistent with state and federal law,” Seton Hall said.

“These policies, however, were not always followed at Immaculate Conception Seminary and St. Andrew’s Seminary, which resulted in incidents of sexual harassment going unreported to the university. Immaculate Conception Seminary, St. Andrew’s Seminary and Seton Hall are currently fully compliant with all Title IX requirements.”

The update made little other mention of McCarrick, except to say: “Individuals, communities and parishes across the country have been affected by former archbishop McCarrick and others who have profoundly and forever negatively altered so many lives.”

McCarrick, as Newark archbishop, was president of the board of trustees at Seton Hall, which is sponsored by the archdiocese. The seminaries are located on the Seton Hall campus.

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PARIS (FRANCE)
Associated Press

Sept. 5, 2019

The chief Paris prosecutor and the French capital’s archbishop have struck an agreement allowing faster investigations into alleged sexual abuse by clergy.

Thursday’s accord came as more people in France are coming forward about past sexual wrongdoing by priests, and after repeated scandals pushed the French Catholic Church to step up efforts to address abuse.

Under the accord signed by Prosecutor Rémy Heitz and Archbishop Michel Aupetit, the diocese will now immediately report any accusations of wrongdoing to prosecutors. In the past, the church would conduct an internal investigation first.

Diocese spokeswoman Karine Dalle said the church has reported 13 accusations of priest sexual abuse to Paris prosecutors over the past three years, and that the number has grown in recent months. Many cases are too old to be prosecuted.

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Patheos blog

Sept. 5, 2019

By Hemant Mehta

One of the standard lines we hear from Catholic leaders dismissive of the sexual abuse scandal is that all the bad stuff happened a long time ago. Of course that’s not true. There are still abusive priests, there are still victims, and there are still bishops looking the other way.

But the 7 Eyewitness News I-Team in Buffalo recently got ahold of audio recordings showing just how the Church’s internal deliberations work… or, I should say, don’t.

The incident in question begins with seminarian Matthew Bojanowski. He was studying to become a priest, but he caught the eye of Rev. Jeffrey Nowak, pastor of Our Lady Help of Christians Church in Cheektowaga.

Nowak began pursuing Bojanowski in 2016, when the younger man was considering the priesthood. Using information Bojanowski said in confessional (!), Nowak began pushing for a relationship. At one point, Nowak even sent the young man a Facebook message saying — wait for it — “When you become a priest, you will be what we call clerical eye candy.”

It soon became clear to Nowak that Bojanowski wasn’t interested. And then things got worse. Bojanowski later referred to “many months of revenge and retaliation by Father Nowak.”

Last November, Bojanowski informed Bishop Richard J. Malone of the Diocese of Buffalo of the issue. He also offered a written complaint and plenty of documentation of what Nowak did. In other words, there was ample evidence for Malone to take action.

But nothing happened. Making matters worse, Nowak began to think there was something going on between Bojanowski and Rev. Ryszard Biernat, the secretary for the Diocese, which led him to retaliate even more.

And yet Malone just sat on this information for months.

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DENVER (CO)
Crux

Sept. 5, 2019

By Christopher White

In the midst of an ongoing crisis surrounding Bishop Richard Malone’s governance of the Diocese of Buffalo, newly revealed correspondence suggests a romantic relationship between the bishop’s priest secretary and a former diocesan seminarian who resigned last month.

In a press conference on Wednesday, Malone called the content of the letter “a bit concerning” and the entire situation “a very complex, convoluted matter.”

In the correspondence, obtained by Crux, priest secretary Father Ryszard Biernat appears to have had a longtime relationship with Matthew Bojanowski, who resigned from the seminary in a press conference on August 20.

That same week the diocese announced that Biernat had also taken a leave of absence at the bishop’s request, effective August 14.

Neither Bojanowski nor Biernat responded to Crux’s request for comment through Barry Covert, an attorney who represents both individuals.

“I write to you with a heavy heart worrying that you may feel entrapped in our relationship,” writes Biernat to Bojanowski in a three-page, handwritten letter.

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ALLENTOWN (PA)
The Morning Call

Sept. 5, 2019

By Peter Hall

A former Catholic priest who escaped charges that he molested an 11-year-old altar boy when the alleged victim died has been charged in federal court with making false statements to the FBI.

In an indictment unsealed in federal court Thursday, Robert Brennan, 81, of Perryville, Maryland, who served at Resurrection of Our Lord Parish in Philadelphia from 1993 to 2004, is charged with four counts of making materially false statements to federal investigators. He is accused of lying about whether he knew the alleged victim or his family.

Brennan was arrested Thursday morning in Maryland and is set to appear in federal court in Philadelphia at 1:30 p.m.

“Making false statements to the FBI is a serious crime, and given the circumstances, the alleged false statements here are particularly disturbing,” U.S. Attorney William McSwain said in a statement. “We will use all of the tools at our disposal to hold this defendant accountable for his alleged actions.”

It is the first indictment out of a federal grand jury investigation McSwain launched in the wake of last year’s statewide grand jury report, which identified more than 300 priests in dioceses across Pennsylvania as abusers, including 37 in Allentown.

The state investigation resulted in only two clergy members being charged because so many of the accusations were too old to be prosecuted under the statute of limitations.

Legal experts said the federal investigation could break down the barrier to prosecuting the older accusations if prosecutors can show church officials had systematically covered up for child abusing priests in the last five years. Such evidence would allow a racketeering case against the church.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service

Sept. 4, 2019

Bishop Richard J. Malone of Buffalo said the majority of priests and parishioners in the diocese supported him and he would not resign over his handling of a situation involving two priests’ relationship with a seminarian.

“I’m here because I feel an obligation as the one who was sent here to lead this diocese, to carry on, and once again, if I thought the majority of Catholic people in particular were calling for my resignation, that would be a different story,” Malone said during Sept. 4 news conference in Buffalo.

“But I don’t feel that. I go out to parishes and schools all the time for visits. I am always well received when I go … I do feel enough support, honestly to continue on,” he told reporters gathered at the rectory of St. Joseph’s Cathedral.

Malone called the news conference to discuss a letter from Fr. Ryszard Biernat to a seminarian, Matthew Bojanowski, and allegations by Bojanowski that another priest, Fr. Jeffrey Nowak, harassed him.

Fr. Biernat began a leave of absence from his position as the bishop’s priest secretary Aug. 14. He had been in his position since 2013.

In a recording obtained from Fr. Biernat by WKBW-TV, Malone is heard saying that he feared having to resign over what he called a “love triangle” involving priests and a seminarian.

Malone also expressed concern to Biernat that “this could be the end for me as bishop” if the news media learned about the situation involving the three men and called the situation he was facing “a true crisis.”

The television station posted a transcript of the recording on its website.

The beleaguered bishop has faced questions about how he has handled allegations of abuse against diocesan priests for more than a year.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
Post Examiner

Sept. 3, 2019

By Bill Hughes

Now, let’s shift over to another kind of evil. In this one, which recently came to public notice, children have been targeted as victims by members of the clergy. I’m referring to the horrific sexual scandal of the pedophile, children-abusing priests engulfing the Roman Catholic Church. It truly shocked the world. I have to wonder what Jung would have said about this kind of clerical sickness. We’re talking here about evil on a massive human scale. Law enforcement officials are working tirelessly to get to the bottom of it.

We already knew the RC Church in this county had a very poor record in opposing the endless, immoral wars that have engulfed this nation since WWII. From the horrific Vietnam conflict to the wars in Iraq, the most you could get out of the RC Church was some bland statement on the subject filled with pious nonsense.

Here are some hard statistics about the pedophile-priest scandal: as of June 1, 2018, the number of priests accused of sexually abusing children in the U.S. stands at 6,846, while the currently known victims total 19,001. The authority for these mind-blowing numbers is the BishopAccountability.org website. This site continues to be updated.

One of the states leading the way in bringing these evil-doing priests, and their disgusting protectors in the church hierarchy to justice, has been Pennsylvania. More than 1,000 young victims were identified in a sweeping Grand Jury Report, which was released on August 14, 2018, by its intrepid Attorney General, Josh Shapiro. (USA Today.) Kudos to Mr. Shapiro.

The report went on to state: “Church leaders…were more interested in safeguarding the church and the abusers than tending to their victims…Priests were raping little boys and girls and the so-called “men of God” who were responsible for them not only did nothing: They hid it all.” More than 300 predator priests were named in the damning report. It can be found at: https://www.inquirer.com/philly/news/catholic-church-clergy-sex-abuse-read-the-full-grand-jury-report-20180814.html

(I strongly recommend, if you have the stomach for it, to read this report in its entirety. It is beyond shocking.)

A tip of the hat to Maryland’s Attorney General, Brian Frosh, who soon followed the Pennsylvania precedent. He began opening a process on September 21, 2018, that allowed local victims of an abuser at a school or place of worship to contact his office.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore updated their list of Religious Brothers and Priests accused of child sex abuse on July 23, 2019. It can be found here. at The 23 names recently added bring the total to 126 accused child sex abusers.

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Get Religion blog

Sept. 5, 2019

By Richard Ostling

Countless books have landed on The Religion Guy’s desk over decades and rarely has he cited one as a “must read” or “book of the year.”

But such descriptions are appropriate for Rachael Denhollander’s candid memoir “What Is a Girl Worth?” about exposing the vast sexual-abuse scandal at USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University. The evangelical Tyndale House issues her book on Sept. 10 alongside a four-session study guide, and the author’s non-salacious “How Much Is a Little Girl Worth?” for young readers.

Attorney Denhollander, the first person to publicly lodge accusations against MSU athletics osteopath Larry Nassar, has a unique status. She is a heroine named among Time’s 100 Most Influential People, Glamour’s Women of the Year, recipients of ESPN’s Courage Award and Sports Illustrated’s Inspiration of the Year. At the same time, she’s the wife of a doctoral student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, while raising four young children and she uses her hard-won celebrity to present Christian truth.

An account of the worst sex-abuse case in its history is obviously a landmark for U.S. sports, but this is also a vitally important story for religion writers, and most certainly for Denhollander’s fellow evangelical Protestants, who are now following Catholicism in stumbling through #MeToo crises. (Along the way, journalists will relish the inside account of her byplay with investigative reporters and the media horde.

Denhollander alone bravely lodged public accusations against predator Nassar, a big shot in gymnastics. Eventually, he faced 332 accusers of all ages including Olympic superstars, the Feds unearthed his stash of 37,000 child pornography files and he was sent to prison for life. MSU was forced to pay $500 million in damages, but any USA Gymnastics payout is problematic because it was forced to file for bankruptcy protection.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
WHYY Radio

September 5, 2019

By Max Marin

Federal authorities in Philadelphia have arrested a defrocked Catholic priest who has been accused of sexually abusing boys in area parishes since the 1980s.

Fr. Robert L. Brennan, 81, sat at the center of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s largest-ever settlement in a sex abuse case six years ago, which came after one of Brennan’s accusers died of a drug overdose at 26.

Brennan was arrested again early Thursday. Authorities say the ex-priest will be arraigned on new federal charges this afternoon in Philadelphia for allegedly lying to the FBI about his relationship to an accuser’s family.

Brennan’s arrest is first to come since federal prosecutors embarked on a sweeping probe of clergy sex abuse and coverups at Pennsylvania archdioceses last year. The priest had been suspended from duties since 2005 and was formally defrocked by the Vatican in 2017.

He was first named in a 2005 grand jury report which accused him of sexual or inappropriate behavior with more than 20 boys since the late 1980s. Under Pennsylvania’s lax statute of limitations on sexual offenses against minors, many of the charges were too old to pursue in court.

In 2012, one of Brennan’s alleged victims, Sean McIlmail, agreed to press charges against the priest. The man claimed his pastor began sexually abusing him in 1993, at Brennan’s then-parish in Northeast Philadelphia, when he was just 11 years old. But McIlmail, then 26, died of a drug overdose in Kensington days before the preliminary hearing. The Philadelphia District Attorney’s office closed the case.

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YORK (PA)
York Daily Record

Sept. 4, 2019

By Candy Woodall

In mid-August last year, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro read a grand jury report that listed more than 300 abusive priests in Pennsylvania.

A month later, dioceses in Arkansas and San Diego released their own lists of priests and clergy members who were credibly accused of child sex abuse.

Since then, there have been hundreds of abusive clergy named every month by dioceses, religious orders and lawyers across the country. At least 20 attorneys general in other states have followed Shapiro’s lead and launched similar statewide investigations.

The following list shows everyone named, by states and dioceses, in the last year. It includes priests, deacons, bishops, monsignors, religious order brothers and nuns. If you click on the diocese name, you will be taken to their list or coverage from a local USA Today Network news organization.

Abuse survivors say every name on the list represents a cover-up that goes straight to the Vatican. Bishops say the names represent sins of the past and a church that’s moving forward in transparency.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Catholic Herald

Sept. 5, 2019

By Fr. Dominic Allain

The media is full of apocalyptic news of fires in the “lungs” of the world and discussion of the bleak future we face if this unprecedented crisis is not tackled. The Pope, governments and celebrities have all added their voices to the anxiety over what this means for the planet.

Despite the pictures posted by the seers and sages of Hollywood, the fires in the Amazon are not visible from the air as swathes of blazing trees. They are more insidious: they are fires at the level of the forest floor which can damage trees with thin bark and therefore kill them, without the canopy of the forest ever visibly burning.

They are started not by global warming so much as the activity of farmers who clear the forest to make land they can cultivate, stacking the timber they have felled till it becomes tinder dry and combusts in the dry season. It is said that Brazil’s leaders have failed to address the scale of the problem. It is those from outside who are stepping up the pressure for something to be done to deal with it because, in the end, the health of the whole world depends on the health of this region.

To me, this is an good analogy for what is happening in the Church. Devastating fires continue to blaze unabated. The canopy – what you see from above – may appear intact, but there are fires at ground level which threaten its survival in certain places.

What are these fires? A recently published survey found that about two thirds of US Catholics do not believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Most Holy Eucharist.

If Christ isn’t truly and substantially present in the Blessed Sacrament then in what sense does Christ minister the other sacraments? They became rituals whose efficacy depends on a subjective response. This is presumably why Sunday Mass congregations are shrinking and churches closing at a rate which makes deforestation look like inertia.

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NEW YORK (NY)
America Magazine

Sept. 4, 2019

By Colleen Duggan

Every summer, the Archdiocese of Baltimore, where I reside and attend church, offers a Quo Vadis (“Where are you going?” in Latin) discernment retreat. High school boys gather at a local Catholic college with seminarians, priests and others for fellowship, prayer and guided discussions to help young men explore God’s potential call to the priesthood. The four days are filled with opportunities for Mass, adoration, Liturgy of the Hours and confession. During recreational time, the boys along with the seminarians and priests play sports, hike, talk and eat good food.

I have six children, three of them boys, and after much prayer and discernment, my husband and I decided not to send our 15-year-old son, who has already said he would consider the beautiful vocation of priesthood, to Quo Vadis this year. My husband and I desire to support and encourage vocations. I come from a family that has produced several, including a Dominican Sister of St. Cecilia in Nashville and a diocesan priest. We daily pray for the good clergy who have served our family, and we ask God to send more workers into the vineyard. I recognize the great need in dioceses across the United States for an increase in vocations, especially within my own, where priests are retiring at a faster rate than men are being ordained.

My husband and I are saddened my son missed this unique experience for Catholic high school boys. But after last summer’s revelations of systemic sexual abuse and its cover-up within the highest levels of the church—the McCarrick scandal, followed by the Pennsylvania grand jury report and the resignation of Bishop Michael J. Bransfield in West Virginia—I do not feel confident that the bishops can answer the same question they want my son to consider: Quo vadis? Where are you going? And why should we, why should my son, follow you?

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.

LAS CRUCES (NM)
Las Cruces Sun-News

Sept. 5, 2019

By Bethany Freudenthal

One of two lawsuits filed Tuesday against the El Paso Diocese alleges a Las Cruces-area priest sexually abused a boy in the 1970s.

The first lawsuit alleges Father Marcos Rizzo-Rico, then a pastor of San Miguel Parish in La Mesa, abused a young boy from 1974 to 1976.

The second lawsuit alleges Father Juan Montoya sexually abused an 11-year-old girl while serving as pastor of St. John the Baptist Parish in Roswell in 2001.

The Albuquerque firm Hall & Monagle, which filed the suits, alleges there are at least nine abuse lawsuits pending against the Diocese of Las Cruces and/or the Diocese of El Paso.

In a news release announcing the two most recent lawsuits, the firm stated additional lawsuits are expected to be filed in the coming weeks.

In 1974, a 10-year old altar boy for San Miguel Parish was being physically abused by his stepfather, court documents state. When Father Marcos Rizzo-Rico, referred to as Father Marcos in court documents, found out about the abuse, he told the boy’s mother that the boy could live with him to be “protected from abuse.”

The lawsuit alleges Father Marcos begin sexually abusing the boy as soon as they lived together and that the alleged abuse occurred as as frequently three times per week.

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

Sept. 4, 2019

By Jay Tokasz

Bishop Richard J. Malone maintained Wednesday that he still had the support of the majority of Buffalo Diocese priests and parishioners and would not step down in the midst of another scandal — this one centered around his handling of a love letter from a priest to a seminarian and another priest’s alleged harassment of the same seminarian.

“I’m here because I feel an obligation as the one who was sent here to lead this diocese, to carry on, and once again, if I thought that the majority of Catholic people in particular were calling for my resignation, that would be a different story,” he said. “But I don’t feel that. I go out to parishes and schools all the time for visits. I am always well received when I go … I do feel enough support, honestly, to continue on.”

The diocese has been embroiled in a wider Catholic Church crisis involving allegations of clergy sexual abuse of children and adults, with several prominent Catholics calling on Malone to resign over his handling of the issue.

Passage of the Child Victims Act in New York, which allows victims a one-year look-back window to file lawsuits over abuse from decades ago, brought the scandal back into the headlines in August and renewed criticism of Malone.

The issue that led to Malone’s first news conference since last November centered on a love letter from the Rev. Ryszard Biernat to a seminarian, Matthew Bojanowski, and the Rev. Jeffrey Nowak’s alleged harassment of Bojanowski.

Malone can be heard in secretly recorded audio calling the crisis over a “love triangle” involving priests a “disaster” that could force him to resign.

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)
National Catholic Register

Sept. 4, 2019

By Lauretta Brown

In May, Pope Francis promulgated his motu proprio Vos Estis Lux Mundi, detailing a new set of norms on handling sex abuse that included procedures for handling accusations against bishops — and one instance where many are clamoring for a thorough investigation according to these new guidelines is in the case of Bishop Richard Malone of Buffalo, New York.

No allegation of sexual abuse has been made against Bishop Malone, but he has been accused of allowing multiple priests to remain in ministry despite credible abuse allegations against them.

Questions about the Buffalo bishop’s handling of abuse claims have intensified over the last month in the wake of reports about allegations that he failed to take action initially after he was informed of serious allegations of sexual misconduct by Father Jeffrey Nowak.

And on Sept. 4, WKBW investigative reporter Charlie Specht published another damaging report based on a leaked Aug. 2 conversation between Bishop Malone and other senior diocesan officials regarding the allegations against Father Nowak, in which the bishop reportedly commented that the diocese was in a “true crisis situation” because of the possibility that additional damaging information about the priest’s alleged misconduct might be published by local media.

“True crisis,” Bishop Malone continued, according to the WKBW report. “And everyone in the office is convinced this could be the end for me as bishop. It could force me to resign if in fact they make a story.”

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.

Get Religion blog

Sept. 4, 2019

By Julia Duin

Every so often, a piece of investigative journalism shows up that bears mention, which is why I wanted to draw attention to a three-part Crux series on the disgraced former Wyoming Bishop Joseph Hart and the tale of sex abuse allegations that have dogged him for years.

There’s more. This is also the story of the bishop who took his place and how he was determined to bring some just into the situation. Not all bishops are so minded.

The series, written by their national correspondent Christopher White, ran this past week and starts here with the story of one family.

KANSAS CITY, Missouri — As parishioners attended the Feast of the Assumption Mass inside Guardian Angels Catholic Church on August 15, members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) gathered outside on the sidewalk for a press conference marking an occasion that many believed would never come.

Less than 24 hours earlier, police in Cheyenne, Wyoming recommended to prosecutors that a one-time Guardian Angels priest, who would go on to become a beloved Catholic bishop, face criminal charges for the sexual abuse of minors.

Prior to being named a bishop, Joseph Hart had served in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph for the first two decades of his priesthood, following ordination in 1956. Although his ecclesial career has spanned over five decades, serving in two states where he was widely popular, he has been trailed by allegations of serial abuse — which he has consistently denied — dodging both civil and canonical adjudication for more than two decades.

Now, in the twilight of his life he not only faces criminal charges, where he could become the first U.S. bishop ever to face criminal prosecution for abuse, but also the possibility of being stripped of his title of bishop and removed from the clerical state as a church trial in the Vatican is also underway.

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.