ABUSE TRACKER

BUFFALO (NY)
WKBW-TV

November 11, 2019

By Charlie Specht

[VIDEO]

Buffalo Bishop Richard J. Malone is on his way to Rome for a face-to-face meeting with Pope Francis.

It’s part of a regular visit to the Vatican by New York State’s Catholic bishops, but this time the visit comes on the heels of a massive sexual abuse scandal exposed in part by the 7 Eyewitness News I-Team over the last two years.

Now, a state judge is taking the rare step of speaking out against a sitting bishop.

“He goes on and it’s like an actor on the stage,” retired State Supreme Court Justice Timothy Drury said in a recent interview, speaking about Bishop Malone. “He’s got his crook. He’s got his mitre. And there he is, on the stage again, thinking he can do this.”

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.

ARLINGTON (VA)
USA Today

Nov. 12, 2019

By Lindsay Schnell and Sam Ruland

John Dagwell said he’s earned the right to live in peace as he tries to put his past behind him.

The former Roman Catholic brother, 75, pleaded guilty in a New Jersey criminal case in 1988 to molesting a student when he taught at a parochial school. His religious order, the Xaverian Brothers, transferred him to the Boston area, where he went to work in a homeless shelter and soon faced new abuse accusations that were never reported to police. Four years later, personnel files from the Boston Archdiocese revealed Dagwell as a clergyman accused of sexual abuse. His name was also included in a list released by the Xaverian Brothers.

Despite his past, Dagwell was never required to register as a sex offender. He moved on to a new life in a new community, a place where children fill the local pool during school vacations and where his history remained a secret from neighbors. He began teaching again, this time at Keiser University, a 16,000-student school based in Fort Lauderdale.

“I’ve stayed away from adolescents. I’ve been trying hard not to put myself in a situation where I was going to be tempted,” Dagwell said recently while sitting in an apartment he shares with his sister. As he spoke, three teddy bears sat on his television and a half-dozen stuffed Disney dolls – Mickey Mouse, Goofy, Jiminy Cricket – were carefully arranged on a China cabinet.

Dagwell is one of more than 1,200 former priests, Catholic brothers and Catholic school officials identified in a USA TODAY Network investigation who were accused of sexual abuse but were able to move on with little or no oversight or accountability. Most never faced criminal charges.

As thousands of abuse victims across the U.S. continue to search for justice and closure decades after being molested by some of the most trusted people in their lives, these men have become the priest next door. They live near schools and playgrounds, close to families and children unaware of their backgrounds or the crimes they’ve been accused of. In some cases, they’ve taken on leadership roles in new communities, becoming professors, counselors, friends and mentors to children. Their movements are unchecked by both the government and the Catholic Church in part because laws in many states make it nearly impossible for victims to pursue criminal charges decades after alleged abuse.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
The Tablet

November 11, 2019

By Christopher White

In his final remarks as president of the U.S. bishops, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo encouraged the U.S. Church to continue to press ahead in the fight against clergy abuse and in defense of migrants and unborn human life.

DiNardo began his remarks on Monday at the start of the general assembly of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) by recalling several highlights of his time as president of the conference over the past three years.

Among the stories he recounted were those of visiting a border detention center and seeing the hand drawn pictures of Jesus and Mary made by children separated from their families, the work of crisis pregnancy centers across the country, and meeting with clergy abuse survivors.

“When too many within the Church sought to keep them in the darkness, they refused to be relegated to the shadows,” DiNardo said.

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WORCHESTER (MA)
Holy Cross College

Nov. 11, 2019

It’s been months since the New York Child Victims Act was signed into law allowing adult survivors of child sexual abuse to sue an abuser or a negligent institution regardless of when the abuse took place, and hundreds of new cases are still flooding the courts, many of them targeting members of the Jehovah’s Witness organization.

In a recent VICE article, Mathew Schmalz, professor of religious studies at Holy Cross, comments on the unique challenges faced by sexual abuse survivors within the Jehovah’s Witnesses faith, especially given its controversial “two-witness rule.”

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

Nov 11, 2019

By Michael Sean Winters

It was the best of our church. It was the worst of our church. It was a time for evangelization and a time for churlish retrenchment. It was a time for looking out. It was a time for looking in. It was the spirit of the Gospel and it was the demon of self-pity. It was the age of Francis. It was the age of Pio Nono.

It was last Thursday.

About midday, I was pleased that NCR published the text of a speech given by San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio. Asked to address how the church in this country should move forward after the bitter return of the sexual abuse issue, McElroy began by recalling his participation in the synod of the Amazon last month. Turning to the situation of the church in this country, he said, “My suggestion would be to embrace the type of synodal pathway that the church in the Amazon has been undergoing — one filled with deep and broad consultation, the willingness to accept arduous choices, the search for renewal and reform at every level, and unswerving faith in the constancy of God’s presence in the community.”

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

Nov. 11, 2019

By Jay Tokasz

While most of the U.S. Catholic bishops are gathered in Baltimore this week for the 2019 Fall General Assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Buffalo Diocese Bishop Richard J. Malone and other bishops from New York State traveled to Rome to meet with Pope Francis.

The “ad limina” visit to the Vatican, today through Friday, comes as New York bishops grapple with hundreds of new child sex abuse lawsuits allowed under the state’s Child Victims Act.

Malone and the heads of the seven other dioceses and archdioceses in New York prior to the visit each prepared quinquennial reports giving a detailed overview of the life of the Catholic Church in their diocese. Various departments of the Vatican reviewed the information and will meet with the bishops to discuss the material.

It’s not clear if Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of the Brooklyn Diocese, who was tapped by the Vatican to conduct an investigation into Malone and the Buffalo Diocese over a clergy sex abuse scandal, will deliver a report on his findings to the pope.

DiMarzio made three trips to Western New York and spent seven days interviewing area clergy and lay people before wrapping up the Vatican-ordered apostolic visitation at the end of October.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
WJZ TV

Nov. 11, 2019

By Rachel Menitoff

Survivors of clergy sex abuse and their supporters are outlining their requests for Catholic Church leaders ahead of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which began Monday in Baltimore.

Among the changes victims want to see are archdioceses nationwide releasing the names of clergy and anyone in the church who has been accused of abuse.

Leaders of the Survivors Network of Those Abused By Priests (SNAP) group said that list can be validating for victims.

“When survivors see the names of their abusers listed, they feel a sense of validation and that they are not alone. I know I felt this way when I saw my priests name listed in the Arlington Arch Diocese,” said Becky Ianni with SNAP.

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

Nov. 11, 2019

KBI should issue ‘preliminary report,’ SNAP says
Group also wants more outreach and funding for it
KS attorney general asked for investigation one year ago
Bishops must update & expand their ‘accused’ lists, SNAP pleads
Victims to prelates: “Warn your flock about clerics who prey on adults too”

WHAT
Clergy sex abuse victims will hand out fliers door-to-door near churches listing recently-disclosed predator priests who are or were in eastern Kansas. Holding signs and childhood photos at sidewalk news conference, they will urge the Kansas Bureau of Investigation to
–issue an update on its statewide probe of clergy sex crimes and cover ups,
–do more outreach so that “every victim, witness and whistleblower can be heard.”

They will also urge lawmakers to
–increase funding for the on-going investigation, and
–reform archaic, predator-friendly Kansas child safety laws.

And they’ll urge all four Kansas bishops to
–expand their recently but ‘inadequate’ lists of accused clerics, and
–add clerics who sexually exploited adults.

Finally, they’ll urge “every current and ex-church staffer and member who has seen, suspected or suffered abuse to call the KBI immediately so kids are safer, wrongdoers are exposed and cover ups are deterred.”

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

Nov. 11, 2019

We applaud the court’s decision to extradite Fr. Denis Alexander for the harm he has caused. Too often priests abuse and then flee to other countries to avoid justice. The worldwide shuffling of abusive priests will not end until secular authorities step in using the full power of their offices – arrests, subpoenas and the like, to stamp out this problem.

The excuse that the abuser is “old” is disingenuous. Pedophiles are dangerous whenever they are in society at whatever age. In California, a 90 year old ex-priest, Hernan Toro, is in jail after he sexually molested two minors when he was 87.

Just as important, the victims of Fr. Alexander deserve justice and the acknowledgement that this extradition represents. Too often, victims of sexual violence are denied their day in court. We are grateful that this will not happen in this case.

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ST. LOUIS (MO)
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests
Nov. 11, 2019

We applaud Fr. Hans Zollner for his skill in articulating a major problem that exists within the Catholic church today: the referral of allegations of sex abuse by clerics to Catholic church lawyers, canonists and psychiatrists who then crush the victim and obscure the truth.

Fr. Zollner points out excuses that are often bandied about by defenders of the Church’s record on sexual abuse, highlighting the myths and catch-phrases succinctly,:
“…I fear for the church…”
“…. other institutions are just as bad…”
“….I can’t deal with it anymore…”
“….it’s the media’ fault…”

And Fr. Zollner rightfully debunks these as the excuses they are. He even speaks the dreaded truth by saying the cover-up continues. Indeed, there are media stories nearly every day about contemporary sex abuse by priests and nuns against children and vulnerable adults. As often as not, these are also stories about cover-up and the priority of the church’s financial assets over its most precious human asset, the children. Just read the recent Colorado AG report for the latest version of the cover-up story.

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SAULT STE. MARIE (CANADA)
Sault Star

Nov. 11, 2019

By Brian Kelly

The morning after Rev. William Hodgson Marshall molested Patrick McMahon, he celebrated mass in the same residence for priests where the assault happened.

McMahon served as an altar boy.

“It was like the darkness of the night just covered the whole memory too,” said McMahon. “It wasn’t like I got up in the morning and thought about what he did. I never thought about it, until I’d hear the door open the next night.”

McMahon estimates he was assaulted by Marshall, a close friend of his parents, over about a two-year span in the early 1980s. Some of those assaults happened during March breaks in 1982 and 1983 at Crawley Hall, the residence at St. Mary’s College in Sault Ste. Marie for members of the Basilian Fathers. Marshall was principal of the Catholic high school for boys. The McMahons travelled from Windsor to ski at hills including Searchmont Resort and Boyne Highlands in Michigan.

McMahon’s father and brothers were put up in the hall’s second floor. Marshall directed McMahon to “the bishop’s suite” on the floor below. He’d come in at night and abuse him.

“I don’t generally talk about it in great detail,” McMahon told The Sault Star in a telephone interview from his Windsor home. “For me, he always came in darkness.”

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BALTIMORE (MD)
WBFF TV

Nov.10, 2019

By Maxine Streicher

Survivors of clergy abuse and their supporters gathered in downtown Baltimore ahead of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops meeting that begins Monday.

They came together to announce which candidate they are supporting for the next President of the U.S.C.C.B.

Becky Ianni remembers when she became a victim of clergy abuse.

“He abused me over a period of four years. He became a friend of the family so he would come and have dinner. He went on vacation with us. He bought us our first color television so it was a very grooming process,” she said.

Ianni says she wasn’t his only victim, there were many including her own brother.

“I felt like it was my fault and that I was a bad dirty little girl so I didn’t think about it, and I came across a picture of myself with my perpetrator when I was 48 in 2006 and everything came rushing back,” she said.

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Patheos blog

Nov. 10, 2019

By Barry Duke

FOR years, former Catholic monk Fr Denis “Chrysostom” Alexander, 83, has been fighting attempts by the Scottish authorities to have him extradited from Australia to face charges of sexually abusing six children aged between 11 and 15. He was arrested in Sydney at the beginning of 2017.

The Crown Office launched extradition proceedings against Alexander, who taught at the Fort Augustus Abbey school in December 2016 but since then he has contested the move on health grounds.

But the federal court has finally ruled that he must be sent back for trial.

The 13-page federal court ruling includes a summary of the charges the ex-monk faces.

It is alleged that between 1970 and 1976 he “engaged in acts of physical and sexual abuse” against six complainants, aged between 11 and 15.

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

LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Tablet

Nov. 11, 2019

By Tom Heneghan

The community announced in 2013 that Fr Marie-Dominique, who died in 2006, had sexually abused several women

The Brothers of Saint John, a Catholic movement launched in France in 1975, have officially renounced their sexually abusive founder Fr Marie-Dominique Philippe and pledged to revise their rules without reference to him.

A general chapter held near Lyon concluded the community could no longer recognise the Dominican priest as its inspiration.

The community also decided to take down his photographs in their houses and stop selling his books and promoting their study.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
Baltimore Sun

November 11, 2019

By Alison Knezevich

https://www.baltimoresun.com/maryland/baltimore-county/bs-md-brett-connecticut-report-20191111-4utipcm7ivgnznhikktsdidvzq-story.html

The case of a notorious Baltimore-area Catholic priest is cited in a recent report as a key example of how church officials shuffled clergy accused of sexual abuse, leaving more children at risk.

Church leaders in Bridgeport, Connecticut knew about allegations against Laurence Brett in the 1960s, according to an independent review of how the diocese there handled abuse cases. Brett later went on to teach at Calvert Hall College, a Towson high school where more than a dozen students eventually accused him of abuse.

The Bridgeport diocese has paid more than $2.7 million in settlements to people who accused Brett of abuse — representing 5% of all its abuse payouts, according to the report released last month. The report does not specify the number of people who received settlements related to Brett.

In Baltimore, the archdiocese has reached voluntary settlements totaling $326,000 with six people who accused Brett of abuse, spokesman Sean Caine said in response to an inquiry from The Baltimore Sun.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
National Catholic Reporter

Nov. 11, 2019

By Heidi Schlumpf

After last week’s announcement that retired West Virginia Bishop Michael Bransfield had been formally disinvited from the Nov. 11-13 meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, representatives of dioceses where other bishops have resigned or been removed for sexual misconduct or cover-up say they are unlikely to initiate similar action.

Visit EarthBeat, NCR’s new reporting project that explores the ways Catholics and other faith groups are taking action on the climate crisis.

Three dioceses and archdioceses contacted by NCR — Milwaukee, Cheyenne and St. Paul-Minneapolis — indicated that the prelates in question already do not attend the bishops’ twice-yearly meetings.

The only bishop convicted of the crime of failure to report a priest suspected of abuse to civil authorities, however, continues to show up.

Kansas City-St. Joseph Bishop Robert Finn reportedly was in the room this past June when the bishops passed the new “Protocol Regarding Available Non-Penal Restrictions on Bishops,” under which Bransfield was disinvited.

Section 12 of that protocol allows the bishops’ conference president, in consultation with the administrative committee, to disinvite any retired bishop “who resigned or was removed from his office due to sexual abuse of minors, sexual misconduct with adults, or grave negligence in office, or who subsequent to his resignation was found to have so acted or failed to act.”

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UNITED KINGDOM
Independent Catholic News

November 11, 2019

Source: IICSA

During the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) last week, Cardinal Vincent Nichols said he had failed to support a survivor of abuse.

Cardinal Nichols was questioned on Wednesday by the lead counsel for the inquiry, Brian Altman QC. Mr Altman asked the Cardinal about the treatment of one survivor who had approached him for help two years ago. Identified as A711, she was abused as a teenager by a priest in the Servite Order, and raped when she was 24. She was not pursuing a criminal case or seeking compensation. In May 2017, she went to Cardinal Nichols in his capacity as Archbishop of the Westminster Diocese, to complain.

Altman said: “She wrote to him again repeatedly. She was directed by Cardinal Nichols’ private secretary to the National Catholic Safeguarding Commission, but the NCSC told her it had no jurisdiction over individual dioceses, effectively leaving her with nowhere to go.”

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AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald

November 11, 2019

A decision on whether disgraced cardinal George Pell can appeal his child sexual abuse conviction in the High Court will be made this week.

The court will announce its decision at 9.30am on Wednesday in Canberra.

Pell, 78, was found guilty by a jury of the rape of a 13-year-old choirboy and sexual assault of another at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne in 1996 but Australia’s most senior Catholic has always denied any wrongdoing.

If the leave is granted, the jailed cardinal’s lawyers will need to lodge a formal appeal.

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BUFFALO (NY)
The Tablet

November 6, 2019

By Christopher White

Buffalo’s embattled bishop, Richard Malone, will be in Rome next week as part of the New York region’s scheduled meetings with Vatican officials.

Kathy Spangler, a spokesperson for the diocese, confirmed on Wednesday that Malone will be in attendance.

The meetings, known as the ad limina visits, are part of the regularly scheduled meetings between bishops and officials from the Roman Curia which normally occur every five years, however the last time the U.S. bishops traveled to Rome for their ad limina was eight years ago in 2011 and 2012.

Among the regularly scheduled meetings is a session with the pope, which will bring together face to face, Francis – who has pledged an “all-out battle” on sex abuse – and Malone, the most senior U.S. bishop currently being investigated for his handling of abuse cases.

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WHEELING (WV)
WBOY-TV (Channel 12)

November 8, 2019

Brand new details now on the ongoing lawsuit against the Wheeling-Charleston Diocese.

A Wood County judge has dismissed the case and sent it to the state Supreme Court for guidance.

The case alleges that the diocese and its former bishop knowingly employed pedophiles.

Attorney General Patrick Morrisey filed the case in March.

Officials are waiting on the Supreme Court to rule whether the case violates rules about the separation of church and state.

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AUSTRALIA
Patheos (blog)

November 10, 2019

By Barry Duke

FOR years, former Catholic monk Fr Denis “Chrysostom” Alexander, 83, has been fighting attempts by the Scottish authorities to have him extradited from Australia to face charges of sexually abusing six children aged between 11 and 15. He was arrested in Sydney at the beginning of 2017.

The Crown Office launched extradition proceedings against Alexander, who taught at the Fort Augustus Abbey school in December 2016 but since then he has contested the move on health grounds.

But the federal court has finally ruled that he must be sent back for trial.

The 13-page federal court ruling includes a summary of the charges the ex-monk faces.

It is alleged that between 1970 and 1976 he “engaged in acts of physical and sexual abuse” against six complainants, aged between 11 and 15.

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

UNITED STATES
Associated Press

November 10, 2019

By David Crary

Clergy sex abuse is once again on the agenda as U.S. Catholic bishops meet this week — but so is a potentially historic milestone: Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez, an immigrant from Mexico, is widely expected to win election as the first Hispanic president of the bishops’ national conference.

Gomez, 67, is currently the conference’s vice president — a post that by tradition serves as springboard to the presidency. In terms of doctrine, Gomez is considered a practical-minded conservative, but he is an outspoken advocate of a welcoming immigration policy that would include a path to citizenship for many immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.

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BALTIMORE (MD)
Baltimore Sun

November 10, 2019

By Phil Davis

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests [SNAP] endorsed a Texas bishop to become the new president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, saying several other candidates are tainted by the church’s history of sexual abuse in the clergy.

At a news conference Sunday, the day before the annual meeting of the conference, members of the group said they endorse Bishop Daniel E. Flores from Brownsville, Texas.

Becky Ianni, the director of SNAP, said the group is recommending Flores because the conference “should be looking to younger bishops like Flores” to combat the church’s problems with child sex abuse.

“We need someone who’s willing to step outside the box and take the necessary steps to protect children,” Ianni said.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Georgetown Hoya

Nov. 8, 2019

By Caroline Hecht

Including leaders from diverse backgrounds is critical to reestablishing the Catholic Church’s credibility as it works to address the clergy sexual abuse crisis, panelists said at a Nov. 4 event.

The panel included Juan Carlos Cruz, a Chilean survivor of clergy sexual abuse who challenged Pope Francis to take decisive action on the crisis; Bishop Steven Biegler, the bishop of Cheyenne, Wyo., who reopened an investigation into one of his predecessors for child sexual abuse; Christopher White, a journalist who reports on the crisis; and Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity Washington University, who is vocal about the lasting costs of the crisis.

The Gaston Hall event, “Where Are We Now? Where Do We Need To Go?”, was moderated by John Carr, director of Georgetown University’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life, and Kim Daniels, associate director of the initiative and an adviser to the Vatican.

At the event, Daniels shared the results of the report from the June 2019 “National Convening on Lay Leadership for a Wounded Church and Divided Nation,” which gathered over 50 invited Catholic leaders, survivors, journalists and others. The National Convening was organized by the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life and focused on strategizing responses to the clergy sexual abuse crisis.

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WHEELING (WV)
News-Regsiter

Nov. 10, 2019

By Mike Myer

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey’s lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, filed in Wood County, is an interesting attempt to hold the diocese accountable for years of failure to crack down on predator priests. He filed it under the Consumer Credit and Protection Act, accusing diocesan officials in the past of knowingly hiring sexual predators to work at schools and summer camps for children.

Parents who trusted the church — and paid tuition and camp fees — did so in the belief they could trust diocesan officials but found they could not. In effect, the church misrepresented itself in selling the parents a product — education and summer recreation.

But last week, Wood County Judge J.D. Beane ruled against Morrisey — tentatively. He put the lawsuit on hold and asked the state Supreme Court to answer two questions. Both involve the doctrine of separation of church and state that is central to religious freedom.

Beane wrote that the lawsuit is “an excessive entanglement of government and religion which is prohibited under federal and state constitutions.” He suggested dismissing the suit is necessary “to remain vigilant in protecting religious freedom and in protecting religious institutions from substantial government intrusion.”

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TRENTON (NJ)
WKXW Radio

Sergio Bichaon

Nov. 9, 2019

A teacher accused of sexually assaulting a former student she adopted after he was kicked out of his family’s home has lost her teaching credentials while she defends herself in court.

The State Board of Examiners, the governing body that regulates teaching certificates, voted in September to suspend Rayna Culver’s Grades K-8 certificates and principal and supervisor certificates beginning this month until the criminal charges against her are resolved.

Culver has been on leave from her middle school job in Trenton since she was arrested in May 2017.

She was indicted in July 2018 on two counts of first-degree aggravated sexual assault, four counts of second-degree sexual assault and two counts of second-degree child endangerment.

Culver first met the boy when he was a student at Rivera Middle School. She became his guardian when he was 15 in 2016.

Her attorney has said that the troubled boy fabricated the allegations.

Even though she has not been found guilty, the State Board of Examiners this month said that “Culver’s potential disqualification from service in the public schools of this State because of her indictment for such serious offenses provides just cause to take action against her certificates.”

It was one of many actions the board took against suspected and convicted perv teachers this month.

The board revoked the Russian teaching certificate of Eric Komar, of Hillsborough, who pleaded guilty in February 2018 to distributing images of child sexual abuse. Prosecutors said Komar had more than 600 such images of minors younger than 12. Komar told authorities that he had “thousands of images and videos,” and that he “masturbates to images of child pornography on a daily basis.”

He was sentenced October 2018 to 82 months in federal prison and supervised release for 10 years with computer monitoring, restricted contact with minors and treatment for sex offenders.

The board also revoked the principal certificate of James Kuntz, a priest who was head of St. Peter’s Prep in Jersey City in the 1980s. He was working at St. Peter’s College as a vice president when he was arrested in 2008. He was sentenced in 2009 to 40 months’ imprisonment followed by five years of supervised released.

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BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News

November 10, 2019

By Jay Tokasz

About two dozen Catholic Diocese of Buffalo priests removed from ministry due to child sex abuse complaints continue to collect a salary or pension from the diocese.

Three of those suspended priests remain on the diocese’s payroll even though they haven’t functioned as clergy in more than 25 years, and six priests removed at least 15 years ago continue to get monetary support from the diocese, according to a Buffalo News analysis.

If each priest were to receive $25,000 annually, an amount that’s at the low end of the priest pay scale, the diocese would pay $600,000 per year in “sustenance” to the 24 suspended priests.

In the three cases dating back decades, diocese officials have yet to send legal paperwork to Rome asking the Vatican to rule on whether the priests should be defrocked.

Since 2002, the church has required that bishops send child molestation claims against priests to the Vatican for adjudication, a process that can result in priests being “dismissed from the clerical state” or “laicization” – Catholic phrasing for defrocking.

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MEAWW News

Nov. 10, 2019

By Smita M

An Italian priest has been arrested after an 11-year-old girl recorded herself being sexually abused on her mobile phone. Father Michele Mottola, the accused priest, began grooming the girl in 2017, soon after he took up his post as parish priest of Trentola Ducenta located in Campania, near Naples, according to the Church Militant report. The abuse began when the girl was 10 and lasted till February 2018. The girl, too ashamed to talk about the abuse with her parents, first approached two parishioners who refused to believe her. This is when she made the recording on her mobile phone as evidence.

In the recording, the priest is heard saying: “Do you want a kiss?” While the girl protests, he said: “There is no one here. Are you afraid? Kiss me, hug me.” In a second recording, after the sound of heavy breathing and sounds of the girl protesting, he is heard saying: “Take this to dry yourself.” After the girl told the priest she had reported the matter to other parishioners, he said: “You didn’t have to do it, because now they will understand other things. Things will get very bad. I will come to your home to talk to your parents.”

He also told her: “You can tell lies. Did you understand you can lie? You’re like Islamic suicide bombers, throwing a bomb, killing people and leaving. The mud ends up also on your family and on you.” The parishioners intervened and spoke to the girl’s family and the girl’s mother finally reported the crime to the bishop.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service

Nov. 10, 2019

By Mark Zimmermann

Four Catholic priests who serve in various ministries and are on the front lines facing the aftershocks of the abuse crisis in the Catholic Church gave their perspective on helping the church address the problem.

They participated in an Oct. 29 panel discussion sponsored by the Catholic Project, an initiative of The Catholic University of America. The event was held at the university’s Heritage Hall.

“These men have felt the same anger and betrayal in recent months as the rest of us, but they have also borne the sins of their brothers,” said Stephen White, executive director of the Catholic Project, who moderated the discussion on “Shepherds to a Wounded Flock: How our Priests See the Crisis.”

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PARIS (FRANCE)
International Business Times

By Thomas Kika

November 9, 2019

A group of French bishops this weekend voted to offer payments to known victims of sexual abuse by the Catholic Church. The bishops now intend to reach out to victims and offer them a lump sum. The movement was approved by the 120 attendees of the biannual meeting of the Conference of French Bishops in Lourdes, France.

Acknowledging that neither the Church nor the French government has made such payments a requirement, the bishops said that they are intended to recognize the transgressions of the Church and not to act as any sort of reparations. The set amount for these payouts has yet to be decided, as the fund has yet to be established.

“It aims to recognize that the victims’ suffering hangs on various failings within the Church,” the group said in an official statement.

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CLEVELAND (OH)
Cleveland Plain Dealer

November 10, 2019

The Catholic catechism says a bishop is to act “as Christ’s vicar.” But circumstances force some, including the late Richard G. Lennon, emeritus Catholic bishop of Cleveland, to be crisis managers, too.

Bishop Lennon, born into a family of suburban Boston firefighters, died Oct. 29 at age 72, apparently from complications of vascular dementia. The condition had forced him to retire in 2016 after ten years as Cleveland’s bishop.

As bishop of a diocese serving eight Northeast Ohio counties, Bishop Lennon faced heavy challenges. Population is one. The number of Catholics is dropping nationwide, the Pew Research Center reports, adding that Catholicism has had “a greater net loss due to religious switching than [any] other [U.S.] religious tradition.” American Catholicism’s geographic center also is moving South and West. And, as recognized in the choice of Lennon’s successor, Nelson J. Perez, a growing proportion of adult Catholics claims Hispanic heritage.

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BILLINGS (MT)
Billings Gazette

November 10, 2019

A room at RiverStone Health has become a safe place to break the silence on crimes against children. The Yellowstone Valley Children’s Advocacy Center exists to start the healing process for children who have been sexually abused.

The CAC team includes two deputy county attorneys, two professional therapists and representatives of Billings Clinic, Billings Police Department, Laurel Police Department, Yellowstone County Sheriff’s Office, Child Protective Services and Youth Court.

The CAC team strives to avoid re-traumatizing children with repeated interviews about their abuse. Instead, one specially trained interviewer will talk to the child. The goal is to get the truth when the child is ready to talk. The interviewer doesn’t ask leading or unnecessary questions.

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PARIS (FRANCE)
Associated Press

November 10, 2019

By Claire Parker

French bishops on Saturday approved plans to financially compensate people abused sexually within the Roman Catholic Church.

Any person recognized by their bishop as a victim will be eligible to receive money, they said, and the church will appeal for donations to foot the bill. Bishops also voted to allocate 5 million euros ($5.5 million) to an independent commission examining church sex abuse in France and to support prevention efforts.

Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, the archbishop of Reims and president of the Conference of French Bishops, said payments to victims will recognize both their suffering and “the silence, negligence, indifference, lack of reaction or bad decisions or dysfunction within the Church.”

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NEW YORK ( NY)
TIME Magazine

Nov. 9, 2019

By Rachel Bunyan

The Roman Catholic Church says it would reject any recommendation from a U.K. inquiry that would require priests to break confession to report child sexual abuse.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, told the Independent Inquiry into Sexual Abuse in the U.K. on Thursday that he views confession as “a nexus between my sinful humanity and the mercy of God.”

“The history of the Catholic Church has a number of people who have been put to death in [defense] of the seal of the confession. It might come to that,” he said.

The public inquiry was set up following serious concerns that institutions in the country—including churches—had failed to protect children from sexual abuse, and continue to do so. The inquiry, which covers England and Wales, is expected to make recommendations in 2020.

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DENVER (CO)
Channel 7 News

Nov. 9, 2019

By Tony Kovaleski

Three sisters of the Catholic Church are breaking their silence, accusing a Colorado priest of violating their childhood, in the hope their confession will inspire others to come forward.

Their message doesn’t stop there. A significant part of their motivation is holding the Archdiocese of Denver accountable for what they say was an overt cover-up that last more than five decades.

Cate Stover, Carol Clear and Marcia Stover decided to speak about the painful memories they’ve kept inside since they were little girls, following a special investigation into Colorado’s Catholic Church that found at least 166 children were sexually abused by 43 priests since the 1950s.

Their report cards and grade school picture show memories of their days of Catholic school at St. John’s in Loveland. But behind those faces, the sisters kept secret the abuse they endured by someone they thought they could trust.

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SOUTH BEND (IN)
Crux

Nov 9, 2019

By Jack Lyons

For much of the American public, the narrative of clergy sex abuse is told by the media.

However, the issue hasn’t been at the forefront of academic study, and to break the “academic silence” surrounding clergy sex abuse, one religious studies professor is shedding light on the stories told by survivors.

“Historians, in particular in my subfields of American religious history and Catholic studies, were not talking about the abuse crisis,” Dr. Brian Clites, of Case Western Reserve University, told Crux.

To address this lack of research, Clites is writing a book focused on the historical origins of clerical sex abuse in America. The manuscript, currently titled Surviving Soul Murder, is an ethnography of clergy sex abuse survivors, collected in communities hit hard by abuse in the Church – such as Chicago, Boston and Erie, Pennsylvania.

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ALBANY (NY)
Spectrum News

Nov. 8, 2019

Child Victims Act advocates called for more action by the diocese Friday following the latest lawsuit filed against Bishop Howard Hubbard.

The lawsuit details allegations from a then-16 year old boy who claims that while he was working at a Jesuit retreat house in Glenmont back in 1956, he was sexually abused by Father Edward Leroux. The plaintiff accused Hubbard of knowing about the abuse, and doing nothing about it.

Bishop Hubbard has responded with this statement, saying “I was just graduating from high school in June 1956. I did not even enter the seminary until the following fall, and I was not ordained as a priest until 1963. No one ever came to report an allegation of clergy sexual abuse to me during those years.”

This all comes as the bishops of New York State prepare to meet with Pope Francis next week in Rome.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
WTAE TV

Nov 8, 2019

By Bob Mayo

A judge has reached a split verdict in the trial of an 88-year-old retired Catholic priest accused of sexually abusing a then-11-year-old boy in the basement of a Munhall church in 2001.

The Rev. Hugh Lang was found guilty of one felony and five misdemeanor counts, and not guilty of two felony counts. Allegheny County Judge Mark Tranquilli reached the verdict Friday after a non-jury trial that saw the victim, now 30, return from Southeast Asia to testify against Lang.

Lang was on the witness stand for nearly an hour Friday, testifying in his own defense. The retired priest insisted he does not know the victim and never abused him.

Lang remains free on bond. Sentencing will occur at a later date.

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

Nov. 8, 2019

A New York judge has ruled that alleged survivors of childhood sexual trauma can take legal action anonymously, like victims of other sex crimes have been able to do for decades. Jesuit officials in New York had hoped to force victims to disclose their identities when suing those who committed abuse against them or concealed that abuse.

That effort was an obvious intimidation tactic that we believe would have only endangered children by scaring survivors into staying silent. We are glad that this maneuver was struck down and hope that it encourages other victims, witnesses, and whistleblowers to come forward and make a report to law enforcement.

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

Nov. 8, 2019

A former priest from the Diocese of Pittsburgh has been found guilty of sexually abusing a child in the early 2000s. We are grateful for the outcome of this case and hope it encourages other survivors to come forward and seek help and healing.

Rev. Hugh Lang was found guilty today on 6 of 8 counts related to charges that he abused a then-11-year-old boy in 2001. We applaud this brave victim who had to travel from the other side of the world to testify against this abuser. We hope that his courageous example will inspire other victims, whether of Rev. Lang or any other priest, nun, deacon, or church staffer – to come forward and make a report to law enforcement professionals.

We are especially glad that this verdict was reached after Rev. Lang’s defense team tried to impugn the integrity of the victim for filing a civil lawsuit. Now that this tactic of attacking victims failed so spectacularly, we hope that other defense attorneys around the country will try to defend their clients in the future on the merits of the case as opposed to ad hominem attacks on survivors.”>Former Priest Found Guilty of Sexual Abuse in Pittsburgh, SNAP Responds

A former priest from the Diocese of Pittsburgh has been found guilty of sexually abusing a child in the early 2000s. We are grateful for the outcome of this case and hope it encourages other survivors to come forward and seek help and healing.

Rev. Hugh Lang was found guilty today on 6 of 8 counts related to charges that he abused a then-11-year-old boy in 2001. We applaud this brave victim who had to travel from the other side of the world to testify against this abuser. We hope that his courageous example will inspire other victims, whether of Rev. Lang or any other priest, nun, deacon, or church staffer – to come forward and make a report to law enforcement professionals.

We are especially glad that this verdict was reached after Rev. Lang’s defense team tried to impugn the integrity of the victim for filing a civil lawsuit. Now that this tactic of attacking victims failed so spectacularly, we hope that other defense attorneys around the country will try to defend their clients in the future on the merits of the case as opposed to ad hominem attacks on survivors.

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REYKJAVIK (ICELAND) 
Reykhjavik Grapevine

Nov. 8, 2019

By Sam O’Donnell

The number of Icelanders who trust the National Church has decreased by half since the turn of the century. Only one third of the nation now trusts the Church, according to a Gallup poll published on October 28. In a nation without a separation of Church and State, it’s hard to read those numbers as anything but a crisis for the National Church.

There are many reasons for the decline in trust in the institution. The simplest is that immigrants to Iceland are largely from countries with strong Catholic beliefs. People born in Iceland are registered with the church automatically, so long as their parents are also in the church. However, immigrants have to go through the process of registering themselves if they want to join the National Church. Since the largest percentage of immigrants to Iceland are Polish, the majority of them choose to register instead with with the Catholic Church. The Icelandic National Church is Lutheran.

Additionally, Icelanders are leaving the National Church in droves because of the church’s notoriously tone-deaf method of handling social issues. For example, in 2006, Guðrún Ögmundsdóttir submitted a bill to Parliament on various legal benefits for homosexuals, which, among other things, allowed them to get married and adopt children. Former Bishop Karl Sigurbjörnsson of the National Church objected strongly to the proposal.

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UNITED STATES
NPR

November 5, 2019

By Yuki Noguchi

Dina Lee Almeida says that three years ago, the CEO of a TV distribution firm for which she produced shows grabbed her and propositioned her for sex. As he became more aggressive, she complained to the company’s lawyer. Nothing happened. Later, she says, the CEO pressured her to sign what amounted to a confidentiality agreement.

“I absolutely refused; I would never, ever sign that,” Almeida says.

After that, the West Palm Beach, Fla., company, Olympusat, terminated her contract.

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RICHMOND (VA)
The New York Times

November 4, 2019

By Jason Zinoman

On his first tour since admitting misconduct, the comedian’s theme was the cathartic release of transgression as he delivered bits about his mother’s death and religion.

On Saturday, under a candy-colored proscenium arch, Louis C.K. told a story about the day he learned “all the bad words.” He was 7 when an elderly stranger with one dark tooth approached him and listed obscenities like a fairy-tale version of George Carlin.

Louis C.K. described vibrating with excitement. Then he went to school and put this information to work, cursing at his teacher. She cried and the students laughed. “I liked both,” he said, with a half-embarrassed shrug.

In the context of the return of Louis C.K., this anecdote has the feel of a twisted origin story. And this defiantly perverse new set, whose jokes come with so much baggage they threaten to obscure the performer, will inspire heated, divisive reactions.

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LONDON (UK)
Express

November 6, 2019

By Charlie Bradley

POPE FRANCIS has issued a damning warning to his growing critics, stating that Catholic Church must change and “evangelise” as conservative opponents within Christendom circle on their leader.

In an excerpt from a new book-length interview, published on November 4 by Fides, the Pope said his “church on the move” philosophy is not a “fashionable expression” but a summary of his mission. His comments appear to be a reiteration of his desire to revolutionise the Catholic Church. He added: “The Church is either on the move or she is not (the) Church. Either she evangelises or she is not (the) Church. If the Church is not on the move, she decays, she becomes something else.

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CLARKSVILLE (TN)
USA TODAY/Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle

November 6, 2019

By Jennifer Babich

Corrections & clarifications: Megan Frey and JoAnna Hendrickson are from Indiana. A previous headline for this story misidentified their state of residence.

CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. — The first time the two women came forward to disclose allegations of pastoral abuse, they were 18. They were told to keep quiet and that speaking up would be bad for their reputations.

Recently, they tried again to speak up, and once again, they were urged to stay silent.

Their accusation: The top candidate for lead pastor at First Baptist Clarksville in Tennessee manipulated them both into secret relationships – one of them sexual – while he was serving as their youth group leader in 2002.

The two women say their calls for action by the church have gone unheeded, not just when the abuse happened 17 years ago, but again today, with the chairman of the FBC pastoral search committee continuing the cover-up.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service

Nov. 8, 2019

By Greg Erlandson

It has been a rough 18 months for the U.S. bishops. Much as they would like it to be over, some observers, including a fellow bishop, think they still have a long way to go.

The cascade of bad news started in June 2018 with the revelation that credible accusations of sexual abuse had been leveled against then-Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick. The flood of bad news continued, first with reports, investigations and scandals, then with the steady drip of dioceses opening their archives and detailing their own histories of dead, defrocked and, more rarely, active priests who had been accused of abuse.

Both the Vatican and the U.S. bishops have instituted major reforms to hold bishops accountable when accused of abuse or the cover-up of abuse, including a toll-free number that will allow allegations of abuse by bishops to be collected and investigated.

This is why there is an almost palpable hope among many church leaders that the worst is behind them and a bit of normalcy can be restored.

Not so fast, seems to be the conclusion of panelists at Georgetown University convened to discuss the crisis and its impact on the church. The Nov. 4 gathering was the official unveiling of a 50-page report titled “Lay Leadership for a Wounded Church and Divided Nation: Lessons, Directions and Paths Forward.”

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NEW YORK (NY)
Crux

Nov. 8, 2019

By Christopher White

As U.S. Catholic bishops gather in Baltimore next week for their general assembly, they will continue their efforts to turn a page on the clergy sex abuse scandals, navigating a tightrope act of returning to the regularly scheduled business affairs of the conference while duly acknowledging the Church’s damaged public credibility.

Most notably, the bishops will face the two-pronged challenge of electing new leadership for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) as they seek to improve a strained relationship with the Vatican and also prepare to engage in the public square at home ahead of a national presidential election.

Among the most closely watched business items will be a vote on the new USCCB president to replace outgoing president Cardinal Daniel DiNardo.

DiNardo, who will give his final presidential address on Monday, is widely expected to be succeeded by Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, who has served as his vice-president for the past three years.

If elected, Gomez – who leads the nation’s largest Catholic diocese – would become the first ever-Hispanic leader to head the conference at a time when Catholic leaders have openly clashed with President Donald Trump over his treatment of migrants.

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

Nov. 8, 2019

Survivors of Clergy Abuse Gather Outside USCCB Meeting
“It is time for new leadership to take clergy abuse more seriously”
SNAP backs Texas prelate for USCCB President
Group “vigorously opposes” likely winner from California
Election will be held at USCCB meeting in Baltimore on November 11

WHAT:
At a press conference and vigil in advance of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Fall Meeting, clergy sex abuse survivors and their supporters will
–Announce which candidate they are supporting for the next President of the USCCB,
–Explain their reasons for their choices, and
–Hold a vigil for the survivors and leaders who have helped build and guide the survivor movement

WHEN:
Sunday, November 10 at 4:30 PM

WHERE:
Outside the meeting of the USCCB at 700 Aliceanna St, in Baltimore, MD

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LAGOS (NIGERIA)
The Nation

Nov. 7, 2019

Catholic church has commenced an investigation to uncover how two nuns who were on a missionary trip to Africa returned pregnant.

The report indicated that the two nuns returned to Italy expecting babies even after taking a vow to chastity.

In Catholic morality, chastity is placed opposite the deadly sin of lust and is classified as one of seven virtues.

According to New York Post, the two nuns who belonged to different orders in Sicily had both traveled to Africa for a mission.

It is reported that one of the nuns who is 34 years learned of her pregnancy after going for check-ups when she developed stomach pain.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Times of London

Nov. 8, 2019

By Sean O’Neill

The Roman Catholic Church will oppose calls for priests to break the seal of the confessional to report admissions of child abuse, a public inquiry was told yesterday.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, said the church could not accept any recommendation from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse to require priests to disclose matters admitted to them during the sacrament.

Cardinal Nichols said that maintaining the confidentiality of the confessional was “an essential part of the exercise of priesthood”.

He added: “The history of the Catholic Church has a number of people who have been put to death in defence of the seal of confession. It might not come to that.

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Patheos blog

Nov. 8, 2019

By Barry Duke

The Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols – leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales – has spoken of the ’embodiment of evil’ among church members.

Giving evidence for the second time to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), Nichols, above, said:

The experience in the Catholic community in this country over the last 20 years has been one of struggling to cope with the presence of evil embodied in its members, which has shocked it to the core.

Richard Scorer, specialist abuse lawyer at Slater and Gordon, who acts for 27 abuse victims in the inquiry, responded to Nichols’ latest claim that he was still struggling to get his head around the extent of clerical abuse by saying:

Cardinal Nichols’s evidence will cut little ice with victims. The Catholic Church has spent the last two decades promising to get safeguarding right, but the evidence in this inquiry has exposed these promises as so much hot air.

Scorer said improvements had been “lamentably slow”, treatment of survivors was “consistently poor” and the Catholic Church’s structure and culture meant it was:

Incapable of delivering the changes survivors need.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Huff Post UK

Nov. 8, 2019

By Nadine White

A pioneering church that has been hailed by politicians as a beacon of hope for ex-gang members has created the conditions for fraudsters to flourish within its ranks and is failing to act on pastors financially exploiting the young people it claims to help, we can reveal.

Ex-congregation members have spoken out to reveal shocking cases at the church, SPAC Nation, of pastors targeting young black people from impoverished areas and “broken homes” and isolating them from their families – before exploiting them for money.

A HuffPost UK investigation has found evidence that some pastors at the church – whose leader was pictured in the second row for Boris Johnson’s speech at this year’s Conservative Party conference – have pressured the young people they supposedly help into taking out substantial loans of up to £5,000.

Once these loans arrive in their bank accounts, the congregation member is asked to transfer the money to the SPAC Nation pastor, sometimes on the basis that the clergymen will set them up as “crypto-traders”.

While young people are left in debt, SPAC Nation’s pastors put on an extravagant show of wealth – flashing rolls of £50 notes, buying Rolex watches, driving Lamborghinis and other sports cars, buying Louboutin shoes and hosting cash giveaways to tempt more youngsters in.

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HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Chronicle

Nov. 7, 2019

By Robert Downen

A Texas church led by a pastor accused of sexually abusing and impregnating a teenager has left the Southern Baptist Convention, a spokesman confirmed Thursday.

Bolivar Baptist Church in Sanger, Texas, north of Denton, is the latest to end its affiliation with the convention after being named in a Houston Chronicle investigation into widespread sex abuses within the faith group.

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DENVER (CO)
Crux

Nov. 8, 2019

By John L. Allen Jr.

In his 1850s classic The Idea of a University, now-Saint John Henry Newman offered his view of the aim of higher education.

“A university training is the great ordinary means to a great but ordinary end; it aims at raising the intellectual tone of society,” Newman wrote. “It is the education which gives a man a clear conscious view of his own opinions and judgments, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them and a force in urging them.”

With allowances for the sexist language of the day, Newman’s point was that education should aim to equip a person to contribute more intelligently to the society to which he or she belongs.

America’s flagship Catholic universities this year seem to be channeling their inner Newman with regard to the society of the Church, launching major research initiatives, internal dialogues and public forums on the clerical sexual abuse crisis.

Notre Dame, for instance, has devoted $1 million to research related to the abuse scandals, including a first-ever survey of Catholic seminaries on the issue of sexual harassment by the university’s McGrath Institute for Church Life. Results were released Sept. 25, in conjunction with a major event on the ND campus featuring veteran Catholic journalist Peter Steinfels, longtime lay leader Kathleen McChesney, Chilean abuse survivor Juan Carlos Cruz, and Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Post Gazette

Nov. 8, 2019

By Peter Smith

In the second day of the trial of a Catholic priest charged with sexually abusing an 11-year-old boy in 2001, some witness testimony Thursday corroborated the previous day’s account of the accuser, and some conflicted with it.

A friend of the accuser confirmed that the latter confided in him about the abuse on two highly emotionally occasions years before he ever went to the police.

But two lay leaders at St. Therese of Lisieux Parish in Munhall, who helped organize the summer program where the alleged assault took place, contradicted his testimony on who was doing what and where. They said the priest didn’t show up for the program and said the church basement area would have been filled at lunchtime with children and supervisors, not an isolated area where an assault could take place undetected.

Father Hugh Lang, 88, a former superintendent of schools for the Diocese of Pittsburgh, is on trial at Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas on eight counts related to the alleged assault at St. Therese, where he had been pastor in 2001. He has pleaded not guilty and, like the previous day, was supported by numerous former parishioners and others attending on his behalf.

Testimony is expected to wrap up Friday with Father Lang taking the stand in his own defense. Judge Mark Tranquilli, who is presiding at the bench trial, would then decide on a verdict.

The accuser, now 30 and living abroad, testified Wednesday that when he was 11, he made a derogatory joke about Father Lang during a summer training program for altar servers at St. Therese.

He testified that later that day, a visibly flushed Father Lang took him to a room in the church basement, ostensibly for discipline. Instead, he alleged the priest forced him to strip, took a photo of him, fondled his body, used the boy’s hand to masturbate himself, ejaculated on the boy’s body. He testified the priest later reminded him he had the photo and warned him never to tell anyone what happened.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Daily Mail

Nov. 8, 2019

A retired Sydney priest accused of sexually abusing six children in the United Kingdom in the 1970s has lost a legal bid against extradition.

Denis Alexander, 83, was arrested in Australia in January 2017 after the UK requested his extradition over allegations he’d physically and sexually abused children at a Catholic boarding school in Scotland between 1970 and 1976.

The children were aged between 11 and 15 at the time.

More than two years after his arrest, federal Attorney-General Christian Porter made a decision to surrender Alexander to the UK in March 2019.

Alexander then filed an application in the Federal Court to have the decision reviewed.

Alexander’s barrister, Greg Smith SC, argued the advice given to the attorney-general paid ‘insufficient attention’ to the priest’s age and the risk to his health if he was forced to travel to the UK.

The court was told Alexander suffers from several chronic and ongoing health problems and has been diagnosed with cognitive impairment. He has a preliminary assessment of early dementia.

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DENVER (CO)
Nov. 7, 2019

Channel 9 News

By Anusha Roy

It was August 2018, the phone calls and e-mails started flooding the Attorney General’s Office asking if Colorado would investigate allegations of sexual abuse.

A report last month named 43 Catholic priests in Colorado who are accused of sexually abusing juveniles.

The report said these priests were credibly accused of sexually abusing at least 166 children between the 1950s and now, with a majority of the cases occurring in the 1960s and 1970s.

Since the report was announced, the public has heard from three main players: Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, independent investigator Bob Troyer and Archbishop Samuel Aquila — all men who had prominent roles in this investigation.

However, it was three women who are responsible for launching the investigation in the first place.

Former Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman and her former senior staff sat down with 9NEWS’ Anusha Roy to discuss the investigation, the collaboration with the church and the still unanswered questions.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Irish Post

Nov. 8, 2019

By Jack Beresford

THE ROMAN Catholic Church is vehemently opposed to calls for priests to break the seal of the confessional to report admissions of child abuse.

That’s according to a leading figure in the Roman Catholic Church who told a public inquiry they would rather die than violate “an essential part of the exercise of priesthood”.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, made the comments during an Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).

The Cardinal said the church would rebuff any recommendation from the IICSA calling on priests to disclose matters admitted to them during the sacrament.

Cardinal Nichols, who is President of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, added that throughout history priests have fought and died to defend their role in confession and that “it might come to that” again.

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DENVER (CO)
Denver Post

November 8, 2019

By Megan Schrader

What did Colorado’s archbishops know and when?

That question is left unanswered by the Special Master’s Report into “Roman Catholic Clergy Sexual Abuse of Children in Colorado from 1950 to 2019.”

In sharp contrast, the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report released in 2018 began with a proclamation that because so much of the abuse had exceeded the statute of limitations or the abusers were dead the only recourse was to “name their names, and describe what they did — both the sex offenders and those who concealed them.”

Colorado’s report got the first half right but punted on holding the enablers of these rapists accountable. Not a single name of any church leader is included in the report, which was produced through the Attorney General’s office by special investigator Bob Troyer.

Yes, each individual is responsible for his own actions. But when five priests are allowed to abuse 100 children in the course of several decades, I believe the responsibility also falls on those who knew and did nothing. From 1950 to 2009, only one case was voluntarily reported to law enforcement although the church received dozens of reports of abuse, Troyer wrote in his report. (It must be noted that since then — under the leadership of Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila who took over in 2012 — every single report of abuse has been given to law enforcement, even in cases where it might not have been required by law.)

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

Nov. 8, 2019

A Baptist minister from the Twin Cities has been accused of sexually abusing at least one teenager and has been suspended from his teaching job. We hope his former supervisors, colleagues and church members will call police with any suspicions or information about his behavior immediately. We also hope Baptist officials will immediately publicize this information, warn parents and parishioners, and encourage victims, witnesses and whistle-blowers to step forward.

Rev. Wesley Leon Feltner is lead pastor of preaching and vision at Berean Baptist in Burnsville, Minnesota. Until this week, Rev. Feltner was also on the faculty of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville and a pastoral candidate for First Baptist Church in Clarksville, kenticky. However, on Nov. 5, it came out that two women had accused Rev. Feltner “of manipulating them into secret relationships while he was their youth pastor at First Southern Baptist Church in Evansville, Indiana,” according to Baptist News Global.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Catholic Herald

Nov. 7, 2019

By Christopher Altieri

When the Vatican announced the new law Vos estis lux mundi, reforming the way the Holy See investigates claims of abuse cover-up, veteran Church-watcher Rocco Palmo summed up the thoughts of observers everywhere in a single tweet: “For all the ink [spilt] and reaction around [the world] over the Pope’s new norms,” he said, “US Catholicism’s litmus test on Vos estis boils down to three words: ‘Buffalo or Bust’.”

As the Catholic Herald has noted, the Diocese of Buffalo is not only among the most highly publicised trouble spots in the US, but is also a microcosm of a global leadership crisis. In Buffalo, an abusive clerical party was deeply entrenched and operated with a degree of cover, if not outright impunity. The embattled bishop of Buffalo, Richard J Malone, has acknowledged that he “inherited a decades-old horrific problem” when he took the reins in 2012.

He has faced allegations that he mishandled abuse cases, and has admitted failure to take proper action on some of those that emerged on his watch. He has been accused of treating victims callously and of opaque record-keeping practices that allowed him to claim the abuse problem was far smaller than it really is. He was slow to sanction at least one priest he suspected of serious wrongdoing and believed to be dangerous.

Bishop Malone and his auxiliary, Bishop Edward Grosz, have also both been accused of applying pressure on priests and seminarians to stay quiet about abuse, though Bishop Malone stands by his record of leadership generally. Bishop Grosz has denied accusations that he threatened to block a whistleblower’s ordination to the priesthood.

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CHARLESTON (WV)
Gazette Mail

Nov. 7, 2019

By Jake Zuckerman

A judge asked the West Virginia Supreme Court on Wednesday to consider the viability of Attorney General Patrick Morrisey’s lawsuit alleging that the Wheeling Charleston-Diocese knowingly hired employees at its camp and schools who had been credibly accused of sexually abusing children.

Wood County Circuit Judge J.D. Beane ruled against Morrisey, but he put the case on hold and asked the high court to weigh in on whether the lawsuit is even viable under the state’s consumer protection laws.

He specifically sent up two questions:

Does the Consumer Credit and Protection Act, as it pertains to unfair methods of competition and or deceptive practices, apply to religious institutions?
Would applying the law as Morrisey requested be “an excessive entanglement of Church and State,” which is prohibited by the state and federal constitutions?
Beane ruled against Morrisey on both counts. He said, if the law is “to remain vigilant in protecting religious freedom and in protecting religious institutions from substantial government intrusion,” it must refrain from mingling between church and state.

“A panoramic view of the entire relationship between Church and State arising from application of the Consumer Credit and Protection Act to religious schools reveals, not dimly but clearly, an excessive entanglement of government and religion which is prohibited under federal and state constitutions,” he wrote in a 40-page ruling.

However, Beane put the case on hold and sent the issue to the Supreme Court, which would weigh in on those two questions.

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DENVER (CO)
Catholic News Agency

Nov. 7, 2019

The U.S. bishops’ conference issued Thursday a statement responding to a recent book which the conference says perpetuates a myth that it is resistant to Pope Francis.

Austen Ivereigh’s “Wounded Shepherd” was published Nov. 5 by Henry Holt and Co.

The book “perpetuates an unfortunate and inaccurate myth that the Holy Father finds resistance among the leadership and staff of the U.S. Bishops Conference,” James Rogers, chief communications officer for the conference, said Nov. 7.

Ivereigh claims that Msgr. Brian Bransfield, general secretary of the conference, and Msgr. Ronny Jenkins, dean of canon law at the Catholic University of America and a consultant to the conference, drafted proposals for a bishops’ code of conduct and lay commissions in the wake of the McCarrick scandal that were subsequently rejected by Rome. Ivereigh said the proposals were meant to bypass Roman input.

Rogers called the claim disparaging of Bransfield and Jenkins, and said Ivereigh’s account “is false and misleading.”

According to the conference, its president, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, began in August 2018 to consult bishops on measures that would strengthen the Dallas Charter. Draft proposals were written by the next month “under the direction of the Executive Committee” and with the help of the committees on clergy, consecrated life, canonical affairs, and child protection, as well as the doctrinal secretariat and the general counsel’s office.

“It was intended that the proposals stop short of where the authority of the Holy See began,” Rogers wrote.

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Patheos blog

Nov. 7, 2019

By Sarahbeth Caplin

Apparently, a registered sex offender in Florida used his profile to befriend underage girls, join their Bible groups, and chat with them outside the purview of authorities.

Douglas Kersey (whose username was a not-so-cryptic “Doug K”) was only caught when a member of the girls’ congregation saw that “he friend requested several teenage girls in their youth group.”

The tipster learned Kersey was a registered sex offender after looking up his name. She told investigators Kersey’s list of friends consisted mostly of young females. The girls in her church group who accepted his friend request are all minors and “that was concerning to her.

According to the court documents, Kersey did not disclose to [Hillsborough Conty Sheriff’s Office] any email addresses, websites, and profiles to social media accounts he was using, including the Bible App. Failure to report the information is a third degree felony.

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Post Gazette

Nov. 7, 2019

By Peter Smith

Driving his friend home after a night of drug use back in 2010, David Hamilton said his passenger directed him through unfamiliar streets and had him stop outside St. Therese Catholic Church in Munhall.

“He started flipping out and breathing heavily and said he was going to kill the priest who molested him,” Mr. Hamilton testified Thursday in the second day of the trial of the Rev. Hugh Lang, who faces charges of sexually abusing an 11-year-old boy in 2001.

Mr. Hamilton, an active-duty U.S. Marine corporal attired in dress uniform, said he quickly drove off before his friend could act on his threat.

Mr. Hamilton testified that this was the second time that the alleged victim spoke to him of the assault, in both cases years before the accuser brought the case to the police. In neither instance did Mr. Hamilton testify that his friend identify the priest by name, although St. Therese is where the alleged victim says he was abused and where Father Lang had been assigned.

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

Nov. 7, 2019

The creative angle taken by West Virginia’s attorney general in order to force more transparency in his state’s Catholic leaders has been dismissed by a circuit court judge. We hope that A.G. Patrick Morrissey will appeal this ruling soon and that he prevails before another judge.

We continue to be disappointed that West Virginia’s new bishop is exploiting legal technicalities to evade responsibility for the crimes and cover ups of his predecessors. It would be better if Church officials at the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston would cooperate with external probes by secular law enforcement in order to prove to the public that their record is as clean as they claim. Absent such proof, we can only assume that the scandals that have repeatedly been demonstrated by investigation after investigation are also occurring in West Virginia.

We are not attorneys, but believe that the issue raised by A.G. Morrisey in his suit is fundamentally about the safety of children. It is terribly disingenuous for Catholic officials to take advantage of church-state separation when it is advantageous for them – such as when it enables them to keep hidden information about clergy sex crimes – while simultaneously trying to erode that separation when it is disadvantageous, such as when lobbying against state and federal laws.

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CLARKSVILLE (TN)
Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle

Nov. 7, 2019

By Jennifer Babich

Wes Feltner, the top candidate for lead pastor at First Baptist Clarksville, is feeling the fallout of the pastoral abuse charges leveled against him.

In a statement released late Wednesday, the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary announced they’ve suspended the teaching responsibilities of Feltner, who served as an adjunct professor.

The statement by seminary President Albert Mohler Jr. said that knowledge of the allegations first came to him Monday via social media. It went on to say: “Immediately, I sent the information received to our response team, and within an hour it was determined that credible accusations of misconduct had been presented. Accordingly, all teaching responsibilities for this individual were suspended and classes reassigned to other instructors.”

The statement went on to say they’d reviewed Feltner’s dissertation, titled “Pastoral Influence Tactics,” and determined it was acceptable for continued public circulation.

Feltner, who is lead pastor of preaching and vision at Berean Baptist in Burnsville, Minnesota, has been accused by two women of manipulating them into secret relationships — one of them sexual — while he was their youth pastor 17 years ago at First Southern Baptist Church in Evansville, Indiana.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Tablet

Nov. 7, 2019

By Liz Dodd

The Catholic Church in England and Wales will reject any attempt to compel priests to break the seal of confession, Cardinal Vincent Nichols said today.

On his second day giving evidence to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse Cardinal Nichols said that priests would rather die than disclose details of a confession.

He agreed that there was a tension between the importance of mandatory reporting in abuse cases and confidentiality in confession.

Asked how this could be resolved he said: “The history of the Catholic Church has a number of people who have been put to death in defence of the seal of confession. It might come to that.”

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NASHVILLE (TN)
Baptist News Global

Nov. 7, 2019

By Bob Allen

News reports that a pastoral candidate for a Southern Baptist church in Kentucky is accused of misusing his authority to sexually abuse two teenagers 17 years ago prompted a review of his doctoral dissertation at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Seminary President Albert Mohler said Wednesday afternoon on social media he became aware two days earlier of allegations made against Wesley Leon Feltner, who has taught at Southern Seminary as an adjunct professor in fields of pastoral and organizational leadership.

Within an hour, he said, Mohler’s leadership team determined that accusations of misconduct were credible and suspended Feltner from all teaching responsibilities.

Mohler said he asked that Feltner’s 2009 doctoral dissertation – which is titled “The Relationship Between Pastoral Influence Tactics, Follower Outcome Levels, and Types of Congregational Change” – be withdrawn from public circulation pending review. The review “found nothing that would prevent public access,” Mohler said, and by Thursday morning the paper was accessible online.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
National Catholic Register

Nov. 7, 2019

By Peter Jesserer Smith

When the sex-abuse scandals hit the Church afresh in 2018, the Catholic students at Nicholls State University (NSU) in Thibodaux, Louisiana, decided with their priests to take direct action. They wanted to build a perpetual adoration chapel on their campus as a permanent place of intercession for the sanctification and protection of their university, their families and Catholic priests.

So the “Colonel Catholics” of NSU turned to the #iGiveCatholic campaign to raise the funds on Giving Tuesday, a global day of philanthropy on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales events.

They raised $230,000 on Giving Tuesday, and nearly one year later, on Oct. 13, 2019, the Two Hearts Perpetual Adoration Chapel at NSU opened its doors..

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CHARLESTON (WV)
West Virginia Record

Nov. 7, 2019

By Chris Dickerson

A circuit judge has dismissed one claim filed by Attorney General Patrick Morrisey’s office against the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston and certified two questions to the state Supreme Court.

Wood Circuit Judge J.D. Beane’s Nov. 6 order granted the Diocese’s motion to dismiss claims by the AG’s office under the state Consumer Credit and Protection Act. It also stayed the litigation until the certified questions are answered.

“A panoramic view of the entire relationship between church and state arising from application of the Consumer Credit and Protection Act to religious schools reveals, not dimly but clearly, an excessive entanglement of government and religion, which is prohibited under federal and state constitutions,” Beane wrote.

Morrisey’s office had claimed the Diocese violated the act by failing to disclose sexual misconduct by school and camp employees with minors to parents, the diocese knowingly hired pedophiles and did not conduct background checks on employees.

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CASPER (WY)
Casper Star-Tribune

Nov. 7, 2019

By Seth Klamann

The two bishops who succeeded retired Wyoming bishop Joseph Hart say investigations into the disgraced cleric, who’s been accused of sexual abuse by at least 16 men, were hamstrung by a lack of cooperation by at least one of Hart’s alleged victims years ago.

Bishop David Ricken took over for Hart when the latter cleric retired as the head of the Catholic flock in Wyoming in 2001. The two also lived together briefly. Ricken is now the bishop in Green Bay, Wisconsin. His successor, Paul Etienne, served in Wyoming until 2016. He was recently appointed archbishop of the diocese in Seattle.

Ricken’s tenure was quickly marked by the first Wyoming allegation against Hart, made initially in 2002 by a “second-party family member,” said Justine Lodl, a spokeswoman for the Green Bay diocese. Cheyenne Police later spoke with the victim who now lives out of state, records show. Lodl said that Ricken “turned this allegation against Bishop Hart over to the police department and district attorney, who did their own independent investigation.”

“The investigation concluded with the police and district attorney dropping the case because of a lack of cooperation of the alleged victim,” Lodl wrote in an email in response to a list of questions sent by the Star-Tribune last month.

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MINNEAPOLIS (MN)
Associated Press

Nov. 6, 2019

By Steve Karnowski

A Minnesota bishop who’s the subject of a Vatican-ordered investigation said in sworn testimony released Tuesday that he was trying to protect the confidentiality of a man who said he was sexually abused by a popular priest when he certified to other church officials that the priest was fit for ministry and to work with children.

Bishop Michael Hoeppner of the Diocese of Crookston in northwestern Minnesota acknowledged in the videotaped deposition last year that he stated in writing to the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis in 2012 that Monsignor Roger Grundhaus was “a person of good moral character and reputation” and that he was unaware of anything in the priest’s background that would “render him unsuitable to work with minor children.”

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PARIS (FRANCE)
France 24 TV

Nov. 7, 2019

French bishops are considering a plan to provide financial compensation to victims of church sex abuse.

The 120 bishops convening for their biannual assembly in Lourdes will spend Thursday and Friday discussing the plan for a “financial gesture” toward victims. They pledged in principle to create such a fund last year.

Conference of French Bishops spokesman Thierry Magnin told France Info radio the church could begin disbursing money to victims in 2020.

He called the proposed fund “an allowance in recognition of suffering” in an interview with Europe 1 ahead of the gathering.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Tablet

Nov. 7, 2019

By Christopher Lamb

Church officials in the United States drew up a secret plan to judge bishops on abuse which they hoped Pope Francis and the Vatican would accept as a “fait accompli”, a new book reveals.

Mgr Brian Bransfield, the General Secretary of the US Bishops’ Conference, and Mgr Ronny Jenkins, the Dean of Canon Law at the Catholic University of America drew up proposals for a code of conduct for bishops and lay-led commissions to judge them.

The proposals were designed as badly-needed reforms to rebuild the Church’s battered credibility. However, when studied in Rome, it was decided they breached long-standing Catholic laws and traditions stating bishops can be judged only by the Pope.

In “Wounded Shepherd”, a new book on the Francis pontificate, Austen Ivereigh argues the more troubling feature of the Bransfield-Jennings plan was the attempt to carry out an ecclesiastical power play against the Pope in what was a quick-fix solution attempting to shore up the US bishops’ reputations.

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HARRISBURG (PA)
Patriot News

Nov. 6, 2019

Attorney General Josh Shapiro boasts about taking on the big fights, and in the three years since he’s been in office, his fights indeed have been doozies.

He’s taken on pharmaceutical companies to hold them responsible for practices that addicted thousands of people to opioids.

He’s taken on the Catholic Church to hold pedophile priests responsible for the life-long trauma they brought to thousands of children trusted into their care.

He’s taken on the National Rifle Association and gun rights advocates who want no compromise on second amendment rights.

And he’s even taken on President Donald Trump, battling his policy of forced separation of immigrant children from their parents at the U.S. southern border; his violations of the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act and his efforts to deny women access to no-cost contraception.

“I’ve taken the president to court 29 times, Shapiro told PennLive’s Editorial Board last week. “Seventeen have come to fruition.”

One of those 17 was a big win for Pennsylvania’s women. The Trump Administration tried to advance a policy to limit access to no-cost birth control. Shapiro sued, and a federal judge sided with Pennsylvania, slapping a hold on the Trump administration’s rule, not only here but nationwide.

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PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Catholic Philly

Nov. 6, 2019

By Gina Christian

As the Catholic Church in the United States celebrates National Vocation Awareness Week (Nov. 3-9), Father Steven DeLacy looks forward to the day when “religious vocations will come so naturally” that he’ll be out of a job.

“I’m actively trying to eliminate my position,” joked Father DeLacy, who serves as vocation director for the diocesan priesthood in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Since 1976, the U.S. bishops have annually dedicated a week to promoting vocations to the priesthood, diaconate and consecrated life. According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), vocations have declined significantly in the U.S. over the past 50 years, with the total number of priests (both diocesan and religious) down by some 38% and the number of religious sisters down 73%.

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NEW DELHI (INDIA)
Catholic News Service

Nov. 6, 2019

A Catholic bishop in southern India has dismissed allegations of being a womanizer and fathering two children; he says the claims are a retaliatory response from priests opposed to his administrative reforms.

Ucanews.org reported that Bishop Kinnikadass William of Mysore told a news conference Nov. 5: “There is no truth in the allegations. A group (of priests) are behind it because of administrative reforms I introduced.”

The 54-year-old bishop spoke to the media after 37 of the 100 odd priests in the diocese wrote to the Vatican and its papal representative in India, plus other heads of church bodies in India.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
BBC News

Nov. 6, 2019

The leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales has told an inquiry the Church was “shocked to the core” by child sexual abuse perpetrated by members of the clergy.

The Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, said the community had struggled to cope with “the presence of evil embodied in its members”.

He said the Church’s culture had improved “radically” in recent years, but there was still “more to achieve”.

Victims said changes had been “slow”.

Giving evidence for the second time to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), Archbishop Nichols said he had learned lessons about tackling abuse at a summit called by the Pope at the Vatican for senior bishops.

A letter the cardinal wrote to bishops in England and Wales following the meeting was shown to the inquiry.

He wrote that, during the meeting, “in me, something deeper changed”.

“A change of perspective. I began to see everything from the perspective of the victim/survivor,” he added. “That is a sobering perspective for us to take.”

Archbishop Nichols told the inquiry the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales had already implemented some of the measures discussed at the summit.

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MEXICO CITY (MEXICO)
Crux

Nov. 7, 2019

By Inés San Martín

A Mexican archbishop has said it’s time for prelates to own up to the mistakes they’ve made handling clerical sexual abuse cases, including what he euphemistically called the “geographical solution” of simply moving predators from one assignment to another without addressing their behavor.

“We bishops need to acknowledge the mistakes of the past: we weren’t conscious of the seriousness of the issue, and the solutions we gave weren’t the right ones,” said Archbishop Rogelio Cabrera, of Monterrey, president of the Mexican bishops’ conference and treasurer of the Latin American Conference of Bishops (CELAM).

“The geographic solution of thinking that the [problem] is solved by moving the criminal from one place to another made everything worse, because the problem spread,” Cabrera said.

Every bishop who’s been a bishop for more than 10 years, he said, “has to confess that our solutions were not the best.”

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Nov. 6, 2019

By Peter Smith

The trial for a retired Catholic priest on sexual abuse charges began with dramatic testimony and a contentious cross-examination Wednesday after the priest refused a prosecutor’s plea-bargain offer and his defense attorney suggested a different, now-deceased priest is to blame.

The Rev. Hugh Lang, 88, a former superintendent of schools for the Diocese of Pittsburgh, faces eight counts related to an alleged assault on an 11-year-old boy in 2001 at St. Therese Parish in Munhall, where Father Lang was a priest at the time.

Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Mark Tranquilli is presiding at the bench trial, which will resume Thursday after a full day of attorneys bringing motions and calling witnesses.

The accuser, now 30 and living abroad, testified in graphic detail about the alleged sexual assault.

“I would like Father Lang to be held accountable for what he did to me,” he said. “I want justice.”

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WINDSOR (CANADA)
Windsor Star

Nov. 7, 2019

By Dave Waddell’

It was more than just another night out at the movies at the 15th annual Windsor International Film Festival when Bishop Ronald Fabbro of the London Diocese accepted an invitation from sexual abuse survivor Patrick McMahon to view the documentary Prey at the Capital Theatre on Wednesday night.

Fabbro brought along three priests from London and there was another local group of Basilian priests in attendance to see Windsor-born director Matt Gallagher’s film on the journey of survivors of pedophile priest William Hodgson Marshall.

“It’s important for me because of the survivors,” Fabbro said of his attendance.

“One of whom was in touch with me and I know how much it would mean to him and I was pleased to come and show my support for the survivors.”

Fabbro was invited by McMahon, the first victim to file a successful criminal complaint against Marshall. McMahon also appears in the documentary.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Tablet

Nov. 7, 2019

By Jonathan Luxmoore

Father Jerzy Popieluszko was killed in 1984 after opposing his homeland’s authoritarian government.

Prominent Polish Catholics have condemned a Warsaw court decision to drop charges against a group of former secret police agents, who were accused of planting weapons and explosives on the Solidarity martyr, Fr Jerzy Popieluszko, a year before his murder in 1984.

“It’s scandalous and a great source of shame that the guilty are again avoiding punishment”, Piotr Dmitrowicz, a director of Warsaw’s newly opened John Paul II Museum, told Poland’s Catholic Information Agency (KAI).

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PITTSBURGH (PA)
WTAE TV

Nov. 6, 2019

By Bob Mayo

On the first day of the child sex assault trial of retired priest Hugh Lang, his now 30-year-old alleged victim who traveled from southeast Asia testified to how he alleges Lang abused him when he was an 11-year-old boy.

The alleged victim testified for nearly 1 1/2 hours for the prosecution about the alleged sex assault in the basement of St. Therese parish church in Munhall in 2001.

He told Judge Mark Tranquilli in the non-jury trial that at an altar servers summer camp at the church, Lang led him to the church basement, ordered him to undress, took a photo of him naked, and performed sex acts on him.

The alleged victim testified that Lang threatened to show the photos to others if he told.

The courtroom was packed with about 40 observers, including several priests. Also present was a victim’s advocate who says the alleged victim contacted him after the Pennsylvania grand jury report about cases of sex abuse by priests.

“He was a mess. He was ashamed. He felt like he’d be blamed. He didn’t want anyone to know who he was. He’s still in that position but i have watched him become stronger and through education and a little bit of understanding of what took place, he now realizes that this wasn’t his fault,” James VanSickle, of the Courage2Heal, told Pittsburgh’s Action News 4.

The defense began cross-examining the alleged victim late Monday afternoon. The initial questions from Lang’s defense attorney, J. Kerrington Lewis, focused on when the witness contacted authorities and what he told them.

During brief opening statements, Lewis told the judge he will present witnesses and evidence to show that the alleged victim’s claims are “absolutely false” and that the alleged victim is dishonest and unreliable. Lewis also noted a civil suit for $1 million has been filed in the case. The defense attorney alleged that the alleged victim has “a motive other than the truth.”

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

Nov. 7, 2019

A California judge has ruled that the Diocese of Fresno must release documents related to allegations of abuse by one of their priests. We are grateful for this development and hope it will bring healing to survivors of abuse and encourage others with information to come forward and make reports to law enforcement.

We applaud Judge Eric Bradshaw for opting towards transparency in regards to complaints made against Msgr. Craig Harrison. Msgr. Harrison faces several allegations of child sexual abuse reports and is currently suing a Catholic activist who has been investigating the reports.

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HAYWARD (CA)
Bay Area News Group

Nov. 7, 2019

By Angela Ruggiero

A man now in his 50s has filed lawsuit alleging that the Catholic church should have known about two clergymen who abused him as a high school student at Moreau Catholic High School in Hayward.

George Houle publicly stepped forward Wednesday and is alleging that two men during his time at Moreau in Hayward sexually abused him — Brother John Moriarty and the Rev. Gordon Wilcox, who was a priest and the principal at Moreau. Both men have since died: Moriarty in 2013 and Wilcox in 1984.

Houle, now 58, was 15 when the abuse started with Moriarty, a brother who would come to Moreau to recruit students for spiritual retreats in St. Helena or elsewhere, according to the lawsuit. It was there that Moriarty became Houle’s spiritual counselor, and would provide him alcohol and question his sexual activity, the lawsuit says.

Moriarty allegedly abused Houle on multiple occasions at a retreat house in St. Helena, other retreat locations and in hot tubs, according to the lawsuit. The abuse allegedly continued for two years.

A year later in 1976, Houle had academic difficulties at school and was told Wilcox would tutor him at his private residence. It was during these tutoring sessions that Wilcox allegedly gave Houle, who was around 16 years old, alcohol and sexually abused him.

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KANSAS CITY (MO)
National Catholic Reporter

Nov. 7, 2019

As the recent Synod of Bishops for the Amazon amply demonstrated, the discussion quickly becomes thick and complex, as well as challenging to the status quo, when genuine dialogue is the order of the gathering. What Pope Francis has introduced in the synod process is literally unscripted territory for a church that, in recent decades, has merely pretended at dialogue about important issues.

What will finally issue from a synod considering the plight of both Earth and church in one of the ecologically most important and most imperiled spots on the planet is ultimately in the hands of the pope. If his approach to the synodal process in the past is any indication, however, the apostolic exhortation he produces, probably yet several months in the future, will reflect both the discussion as well as the decisions of those in attendance.

Collegiality was an idea that gained a foothold during the four years of deliberations at the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and was institutionalized in the form of a synod by Pope Paul VI. But the meetings became largely meaningless showcases under St. Pope John Paul II, with tight boundaries around permitted discussion and with the presumption that the final document would reflect the pope’s pre-synod views, regardless of the discussion.

On the other hand, Francis has used the Synod of Bishops as “a signature feature of this pontificate and … as a means of advancing his program of reform,” according to ecclesiologist Richard Gaillardetz.

The model is closer to that envisioned by bishops at Vatican II, who saw a standing synod as a way for bishops to exercise more authority more consistently in the governance of the church. Bishops were in a better position than Vatican bureaucrats to understand the needs of local people in a global church where cultures such as those in the Amazon, tucked away from wide scrutiny, might be misunderstood at best or completely ignored.

The outspoken resistance to this and previous Francis-inspired synods is largely a product of conservative Catholics in America, as papal biographer Austen Ivereigh points out elsewhere. In this case, the objections were largely to the possibility of ordination of older, married men; the possibility of women deacons; and variously to the primary substance of the synod, which had to do with limiting exploitation of resources and continued destruction of portions of the rainforest for such pursuits as mining and cattle production.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
National Catholic Reporter

Nov. 6, 2019

By Jesse Remedios

In order to best address the twin crises of clergy sexual abuse and leadership failure, a report released Nov. 4 by Georgetown University recommends placing victim-survivors at the center of the response and confronting clericalism.

The report titled, “Lay Leadership for a Wounded Church and Divided Nation: Lessons, Directions, and Paths Forward,” was created by Georgetown’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life. It reflects and summarizes key ideas and proposals from a June 14-15 national convening here of more than 50 mostly lay Catholic leaders from across the United States.

According to the report, participants engaged in candid and strategic discussions on four linked goals: sharing lessons learned from the clergy sex abuse crisis, strategizing on directions for reform and renewal; examining neglected costs of the crisis, and exploring how principles of Catholic social thought can help advance protection and accountability.

The report outlines 10 strategic directions that emerged from discussions at the national convening:

In explaining its first strategic direction, the report writes that the “failure to listen and believe victim-survivors” were the “original sins of the sexual abuse crisis.”

“As the church seeks repentance, justice, reform, and renewal, we must listen to victim-survivors, their families, and all those affected by clergy sexual abuse. There are still not enough victim-survivors in the rooms when decisions are made,” the report states.

The report also states that the clergy sexual abuse crisis “cannot be discussed honestly without recognizing the toxic culture of clericalism.” Clericalism, the report argues, can lead to abuses of power and contributes to institutional cover-ups.

“We need a new culture of candor that calls on laypeople inside and outside of ecclesial structures to challenge the insular and self-reinforcing culture of some chanceries and ecclesial institutions,” it states.

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ROME (ITALY)
Crux

Nov 7, 2019

By Elise Harris

According to one expert in Church law, carrying out the recent suppression of an Argentine religious institute is a complicated, messy and time-consuming process that no churchman looks forward to. Yet for victims thirsting for justice, explanations aren’t enough, but they want action.

“Suppression is what we call the ‘nuclear option.’ That’s the very last straw,” Father Francis Morrisey, a Canadian canonist, told Crux.

Usually an order is given a warning and offered a specific timeframe to clean up its act. If this doesn’t happen within the allotted time, then the Vatican pulls the plug, he said, noting that this is a last resort.

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TROY (MICHIGAN)
Oakland Press

Nov. 6, 2019

By Aileen Wingblad

The trial date for the pastor of a Waterford church charged with raping a young boy 15 years ago has been rescheduled.

Jury selection will begin Feb. 10, 2020 for the case against Father Joseph “Jack” Baker, pushed back from the Dec. 9 trial date that had been scheduled in Wayne County Circuit Court. According to court records, the change came “at the request of the court.”

Baker, 57, is charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct – sexual penetration with a person less than 13 years old. The crime allegedly occurred sometime between February 2004 and June 2004 at a storage room in St. Mary Catholic Church in Wayne, involving a boy who was a second-grader at the time.

Baker is currently suspended from his duties as pastor of St. Perpetua Parish in Waterford and all public ministry, as ordered by the Archdiocese of Detroit.

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BAKERSFIELD (CA)
The Californian

Nov. 2, 2019

By Stacey Shepard

Two men being sued by Monsignor Craig Harrison for defamation said in a legal filing last week they are being harassed and intimidated by the priest’s family and supporters, possibly in an effort to silence them.

The allegations were made in an anti-SLAPP motion filed by the defense that seeks to have the lawsuit dismissed on grounds that it targets legitimate free speech about issues of public significance. (SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation.)

Defendant Stephen Brady of Roman Catholic Faithful, an Illinois-based Catholic watchdog group, said in the filing he received “a series of bizarre emails” from Harrison’s brother, Rick Harrison, in August and September, “apparently intended to harass and intimidate me.”

The same filing contains a statement from Ryan Dixon, a former mentee of Harrison’s who is now a Catholic monk known as Brother Justin Gilligan, that says his mother has been the subject of harassment. It says she has moved out of state because she feared what might happen to her.

Craig A. Edmonston, Harrison’s attorney in the case, said he is unaware of such harassment.

“The case is simply about defamation, lies and restoring Monsignor’s reputation and clearing his name,” Edmonston said, adding that he will file an opposition to the motion in the coming weeks.

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LONDON (ENGLAND)
Daily Star

Nov. 5, 2019

By Michael Moran

Two nuns have been found to be pregnant after returning from missionary work in Africa.

A major investigation is now underway after the two pregnancies, which are not thought to be related, were discovered.

One of the nuns, reportedly based at a convent in Sicily’s Nebrodi mountains, didn’t realise she was pregnant until she consulted a doctor about a stomach pain.

The nun, who is aged 34, has been moved to Palermo where she is expected to give birth to the child.

In the second case the mother superior of an institute for the elderly at Ragusa – also in Sicily – was discovered to be several weeks pregnant after visiting her home country of Madagascar.

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MINNEAPOLIS (MN)
Star Tribune

Nov. 5, 2019

By Mary Lynn Smith

Twin Cities attorney Jeff Anderson on Tuesday appealed directly to Pope Francis, demanding the leader of the Catholic Church immediately remove the bishop of the Crookston Diocese for interfering in clergy abuse cases and allowing accused priests to continue their ministries.

While calling for Bishop Michael Hoeppner’s immediate removal, Anderson also urged the pope to remove Bishop Richard Malone of the Buffalo Diocese in New York for the way he has handled a sex abuse crisis there.

Both men are among the first sitting U.S. bishops to be scrutinized under new Vatican protocols for reviewing and disciplining bishops. Archbishop Bernard Hebda of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis oversaw the investigation into Hoeppner and submitted his report last week to the Congregation for Bishops in Rome.

“That report includes all investigative information gathered, as well as summaries, analysis, findings of fact and recommendations,” Hebda said Tuesday in a written statement. “Final resolution of this matter will be determined in Rome.” The Congregation for Bishops will determine what actions, if any, are necessary, he added.

Anderson, however, urged the pope to take immediate action.

“The peril is present and real,” Anderson said. In an hourlong news conference, Anderson reviewed transcripts and played video from a deposition in which he questioned Hoeppner about allowing priests who were accused of sexual abuse to remain on the job. He charged that Hoeppner, as well as Malone, have concealed predators and protected themselves.

“Both have engaged and are engaging in the dangerous practice of deceit, deception and concealment of crimes by predators and crimes in which they both are complicit,” Anderson said. “No excuses. No more time. Remove Hoeppner and Malone and remove them now.”

Anderson made his direct appeal while abuse survivors Ron Vasek and Pat Matuseski stood alongside him. The two are among 15 abuse survivors who reached a $5 million settlement with the Crookston Diocese in July. As part of that settlement, the personnel files of 19 offenders along with investigative documents, deposition videos and other files related to the Crookston case are being made public.

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ONTARIO (CANADA)
Guelph Today

Nov. 4, 2019

By Anam Khan

After much healing, a recovered alcoholic and survivor of clerical sexual abuse is trying to provide support to victims of trauma in Guelph.

Following his trial, which officially ended in May 2019, Robert McCabe began his charity, Recovery Speaking to provide support to help those with limited means recover from the trauma they experienced, whether it is from abuse, addiction or other incidents in their lives.

“I always knew once the trial was over that I wanted to do this for trauma victims,” said McCabe.

On Nov. 16 McCabe is sponsoring a free viewing of the 2019 Hot Docs winner PREY, a documentary that tells the story of survivor Rod Macleod as he pursues justice through a public trial hoping to bring attention to the hidden stories of clergy sexual abuse.

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TALUSTUSAN (PHILIPPINES)
Associated Press

Nov. 6, 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.

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Times Picayune

Nov. 5, 2019

By Ramon Antonio Vargas

When the Archdiocese of New Orleans published a list one year ago of priests and deacons who had been credibly accused of molesting children, it started a one-year clock for lawsuits by people claiming that seeing the list had rekindled memories of their abuse at the hands of Catholic clergymen.

The looming arrival of that deadline on Monday of this week prompted the filing of several clergy-abuse lawsuits in recent days at Orleans Parish Civil District Court, where the list of such cases has been steadily growing since the church’s decades-old molestation crisis reignited more than a year ago.

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ROME (ITALY)
Vatican News

Nov. 5, 2019

By Devin Watkins

As the first group of US Bishops begin their “ad limina Apostolorum” to Rome, Bishop Mark O’Connell explores how the Archdiocese of Boston is working for the protection of minors.

The Archdiocese of Boston was at the epicenter of controversy in 2002 when the clerical sex abuse scandal first broke in the United States.

A report that year by the Boston Globe brought the issue of the sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy into the national spotlight, and 5 priests from the Archdiocese of Boston were sentenced to prison.

Now, 17 years later, the Archdiocese is working to be a model of transparency when dealing with whatever allegations of sexual abuse may emerge.

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CASPER (WY)
Associated Press

Nov. 6, 2019

Two Catholic Church officials who succeeded a Wyoming bishop accused of sexual abuse say a lack of victim cooperation hampered the investigations.

The Casper Star-Tribune reports at least 16 men said they were abused by former Bishop Joseph Hart, who retired in 2001.

Bishop David Ricken took over for Hart in Wyoming before transferring to Wisconsin in 2008. He was followed by Bishop Paul Etienne, who headed the Cheyenne diocese until 2016.

The diocese says a 2002 allegation against Hart was forwarded by Ricken to police but was dropped due to a lack of alleged victim cooperation.

The church says Etienne requested a Vatican investigation into Hart in 2010, but did not initiate his own investigation because alleged victims “were not willing to speak.”

Last week, the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph in Missouri said three people who accused Hart of sexual abuse are credible.

The three had raised allegations against the bishop over the past year.

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ROME (ITALY)
Catholic News Agency

Nov. 5, 2019

By Courtney Mares

Every American diocesan bishop will travel to Rome over the next four months for meetings with Pope Francis assessing the state of the Church in the U.S.

The U.S. ad limina visit will be not only the first with Pope Francis, but the first since the Church in the US was shaken by a crisis of mistrust in episcopal leadership due to mishandling of sexual abuse allegations against Theodore McCarrick and others.

An “ad limina apostolorum” visit is a papal meeting required for every diocesan bishop in the world to provide an update on the state of one’s diocese. The trip to Rome, usually made together with all the bishops from a country or region, also serves as a pilgrimage to “the threshold of the apostles,” giving the bishops, who are the successors of the apostles, the opportunity to pray at the tomb of St. Peter and St. Paul.

Ad limina visits typically take place every five years, as the world’s more than 5,300 bishops rotate through Rome. However, some countries have gone 10 years without an ad limina visit, as was the case with Taiwan. During Benedict XVI’s pontificate, bishops from nearly every diocese in the world visited within seven years.

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WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service

Nov. 5, 2019

By Dennis Sadowski

A Chilean survivor of clergy sexual abuse pleaded for Catholic Church leaders to follow the example of a Wyoming bishop who continues to seek justice and answers for other survivors.

Juan Carlos Cruz expressed support for the work of Bishop Steven R. Biegler of Cheyenne, Wyoming, during a panel discussion at Georgetown University Nov. 4, saying the prelate’s efforts to resolve questions surrounding a retired predecessor’s alleged abuse demonstrates that someone within the church cares enough to raise up the needs of survivors.

“For so long, we have seen nobody doing anything,” Cruz said during the program sponsored by the university’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life.

Cruz and other survivors have led a decade-long effort to hold Chilean bishops and cardinals accountable for committing abuse or covering up reports of abuse. He and two other survivors were invited to the Vatican by Pope Francis in 2018 to discuss their experience.

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